Social Theory in a Changing World

1
Social Theory in a Changing World
Örjan Widegren IBV - sociologi

• Central argument Modernity can be seen as a
  tension between autonomy and fragmentation
• 1) Modernity as a cultural project refers to the
  autonomy of the of the Subject,
• the self-assertion of the self, and the
  progressive expansion of the discourses of
  creativity, reflexivity and discursivity.
• 2) Modernity entails the experience of
  fragmentation,
• the sense that modernity as a social project
  destroys its own cultural foundations.

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Social Theory in a Changing World
Örjan Widegren IBV - sociologi

• The problem of mediation between agency and
  structure must be theorized in terms of a theory
  of culture.
• Culture is to be seen as a public system of
  communication.
• Culture is seen as a form of social knowledge
  an interpretative framework which is also a form
  of action.

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Social Theory in a Changing World
Örjan Widegren IBV - sociologi

• The modern social actor is an interpreter who
  is both shaped by the prevailing cultural model
  and at the same time is enabled by virtue of his
  or her interpreting capactiy to act in an
  autonomous manner.
• It is this autonomy, which we may also term the
  creativity of action, that gives social action
  a political dimension.

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Social Theory in a Changing World
Örjan Widegren IBV - sociologi

• Social reality is increasingly being defined
  less by the structures of economy, polity or
  cultural value systems than by the cognitive
  structures of communication.
• In so far as knowledge and culture are
  discursively mediated they are open to
  contestation.
• One of the hallmarks of the current situation is
  the contestability of knowledge and culture.

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Social Theory in a Changing World
Örjan Widegren IBV - sociologi

• Three central developmental logics of
  modernity pertain to three main communicative
  domains of autonomy
• The discourse of creativity
• The autonomy of the political Subject
• The discourse of reflexivity
• The autonomy of culture and knowledge
• The discourse of discursivity
• The autonomy of the social

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Social Theory in a Changing World
Örjan Widegren IBV - sociologi

• The autonomy of the political subject
• in the sense of creative agency
• The autonomy of culture and knowledge
• inherently reflexive in its cognitive structures
• The autonomy of the social
• especially discursively structured public
  communication

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Social Theory in a Changing World
Örjan Widegren IBV - sociologi

• Two poles of opposition in the construction of
  the modern project
• the domination of nature
• the critique of tradition
• The idea of the autonomy of the Subject was
  defined
• by reference to the objective world of nature as
  a relation of
• freedom versus determinism

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Social Theory in a Changing World
Örjan Widegren IBV - sociologi

• Modern society was a civil society,
• whose autonomy was defined against nature and
  the state.
• The distinctive feature of the social
• it was the mediating domain of
• social institutions, the regulated spheres of
  social relations,
• which lie between the objectivity and
  primordiality of nature, and
• an autonomous and self-legislating subjectivity

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Social Theory in a Changing World
Örjan Widegren IBV - sociologi

• The mediating function of institutions gave rise
  to the dichotomy of agency and structure and a
  tension between
• social action versus
• the institutional world of social structures

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Social Theory in a Changing World
Örjan Widegren IBV - sociologi

• The divide between agency and structure - i.e.
  
• the autonomy of the individual,
• and the demands of society, was overcome by
• the principle of discursivity -
• the quasi-institutionalization of
• flexibly structured public communication
• this was of particular importance for the
  regulation of power.

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Social Theory in a Changing World
Örjan Widegren IBV - sociologi

• Modernity located the unity of society in its
  political regulation.
• It was the polity - the political, juridical,
  administrative and military institutions of the
  state - that
• ultimately secured the unity of the social.
• It is impossible to conceive the modern project,
  without
• the homogenizing logic of the state.

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Social Theory in a Changing World
Örjan Widegren IBV - sociologi

• Delantys thesis
• Modern social relations, characterized by the
  culture of publicity and civil society, entail
  discursivity.
• The transformation of modernity - from the
  printing press to television and the internet -
  can be seen as the radicalization of the
  principle of discursivity and its progressive
  extension to all areas of society.

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The limits of modernity
Örjan Widegren IBV - sociologi

• From autonomy to fragmentation
• The first world war undermined the promise of
  the Enlightenment, and with totalitarianism the
  selfconfidence of modernity comes to a final end.
  
• Simmels concept tragedy of culture was the
  first major critique of modernity. - the loss of
  autonomy and creativity because of societal
  rationalization.

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The limits of modernity
Örjan Widegren IBV - sociologi

• In Dialectic of Enlightenment Adorno and
  Horkheimer sought to reconcile Marxism with the
  theories of Nietzsche, Weber, Mannheim, Freud.
• As socity gains more and more mastery over
  nature, it must exercise new forms of domination
  over the Self.
• Enlighenment is instrumental, binding knowledge
  to power.
• The ultimate expression of the history of
  civilization is totalitarianism.
• Popular culture, entertainment and the culture
  industry was the continuation of totalitariansim
  by other means.

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The limits of modernity
Örjan Widegren IBV - sociologi

• Modernitys notion of universalizable personhood
  has collapsed in celebration of
• difference,
• the Self as context-bound, and
• multiple identity projects
• The principle that modernity derives its
  legitimacy from itself, and not by reference to a
  transcendental principle,is questioned
• for the Self has collapsed into a variey of
  projects - such as those of
• creed, race and gender - which do not accept any
  terms of universal reference.

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The limits of modernity
Örjan Widegren IBV - sociologi

• The fragmentation of the polity
• The function of the state is shifting from being
  a providor of social goods to a regulator.
• The state organized on a national basis is
  increasingly unable to control financial markets,
  communiction systems, international crime, and
  threats to the environment.
• The state is in a situation of endemic
  deligitimation, which has penetrated into the
  heart of civic culture.

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The limits of modernity
Örjan Widegren IBV - sociologi

• The fragmentation of the economy
• Postfordist production entails a shift away from
  economies of scale to smaller and more flexible
  firms.
• A blurring of the divide between domestic work
  and waged work.
• The end of life-long and full employment
• The interpenetration of economy and culture -
  production of signs rather than just objects.
• Culture itself has been commodified.

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The limits of modernity
Örjan Widegren IBV - sociologi

• The fragmentation of culture
• Webers concept of disenchantment - the gradual
  loss of magic because of
• rationalization, secularization and
  intellectualization of cultural discourses
• is now rivalled by enchantment, as in -
• nationalism
• neo-fascism
• the fantasy world of cyber space
• religious revivalism
• identity projects by many social movements

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The limits of modernity
Örjan Widegren IBV - sociologi

• The functional separation of culture from
  economy, polity and social relations has been
  blurred
• Also, the three spheres of culture
• the cognitive,
• the moral-practical (normative)
• the aesthetic-evaluative (expressivist)
• are being de-differentiated.
• Notable example the aesthetic has been extended
  over the normative dimension.
• The autonomy of the cognitive dimension -
  knowledge as a end in itself - has vanished.
• It has been instrumentalized as a result of the
  new production of knowledge.

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Beyond the Classical Tradition
Örjan Widegren IBV - sociologi

• Delanty emphasizes
• Culture as a mediatory category
• between structure and agency.
• Action is exercised throgh culture.
• The creativity of action
• aims to overcome the dualism of agency and
  structure.
• needs a broader articulation of cognitive
  transformation.
• Collective learning
• Evolution refers to the capacity of society to
  undergo social or collective learning.
• This suggests a constructivist theory of social
  change.
• Cognitive practice
• The social world is constructed by knowledge.
• The discursive nature of knowledge is stressed.

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Beyond the Classical Tradition
Örjan Widegren IBV - sociologi

• Social theory must see the role of culture as
  mediating between structure and agency
• social actors - discursive agents, i.e. Cultural
  producers and agents of change
• Agency embodies a creative dimension
• epistemic changes - reflexivity in cultural
  production
• network - neither differentiation nor integration
• evolution through growth in discursive capacity
• society cannot be reduced to a particular
  structure
• society no longer defined by a dominant social
  actor or institution.
• Instead the projects of social actors are
  refracted through public discourse.

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Discourse and democracy
Örjan Widegren IBV - sociologi

• Habermas discursive democracy
• separation of politics from morality
• Democracy is not rooted in
• the civic community, or
• in popular sovereignty, but in
• structures of communication

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Discourse and democracy
Örjan Widegren IBV - sociologi

• Habermas idea that the system colonizes the
  life-world
• ignores the extent of mediation between
• communicative and instrumental rationality.
• If discourse is located exclusively in the
  life-world, and not in the system,
• it cannot bring abourt change in the system.

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Discourse and democracy
Örjan Widegren IBV - sociologi

• Discursive democracy is conceptualized in terms
  of a relationship between
• The public sphere rooted in the non-institutional
  structure of civil society,
• and the institutional processes of the
  political system.

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Discourse and democracy
Örjan Widegren IBV - sociologi

• Habermas takes for granted a culturally
  integrated life-world,
• for which all problems are external.
• The multicultural value systems in modern
  societies implies that
• there can be no consensus based on cultural
  traditions.
• The cultural turn opens up the possibility of
  understanding social change,
• which Habermas tends to ignore.

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Creativity and postmodernism
Örjan Widegren IBV - sociologi

• Discourse in post-structuralist thought becomes
  constitutive of a reality which
• has no existence, except in the system of signs
  of which it is composed.
• This amounts to the disappearance of
  the actor, and
• the absorption of the social into the text.
• That is society becomes a text.
• Intertextuality refers to the thought that
• everything in the text refers to some other
  part of the text not to an objective reality.

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Creativity and postmodernism
Örjan Widegren IBV - sociologi

• Foucaults archaeology of knowledge or
  genealogical method refers to
• the investigation into the genesis of discourses
  in order to demonstrate the contingency of the
  discourse.

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Creativity and postmodernism
Örjan Widegren IBV - sociologi

• Bauman introduces a moral dimension to
  postmodern thought
• Morality as responsibility for the other
  constitutes an existential condition.
• Morality is more fundamental to human life than
  the category of the social itself.

29
The return of agency
Örjan Widegren IBV - sociologi

• While postmodernism was a response to the
  collapse of the social movements of modernity
  (folkrörelserna),
• Touraine and Melucci can be seen as responding to
  the new social moevements (NSM) of the late
  1960s and 1970s.
• Both Touraine and Melucci address the question of
  collective actors
• in a way that links reflexivity to a stronger
  notion of agency,
• bringing social and cultural processes together.

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The return of agency
Örjan Widegren IBV - sociologi

• Touraine society must be seen as a field of
  social action.
• Society doesnt simply reproduce itself, but
  acts upon itself.
• Historicity capacity for self-reflective
  social action.
• Post-industrial socity has increased capacity for
  historicity

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The return of agency
Örjan Widegren IBV - sociologi

• Touraine is increasingly pessimistic about
  the ability of social movements to bring
  about social change.
• The reason is the collapse of the social , as a
  consequence of
• the growing separation of the spheres oif
  culture, personality, politics and economy.
• It was the integration of these subsystems
  that made industrial society into a whole an
  existence sui generis.