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The Dark Side of Modernity
... A közösség nem gyakorolhat terrort az egyéni identitás-meghatározás fölött. E sorok írója tisztában van a Modernitás "sötét oldalával" (Alexander 2013), amely sok bizonytalanságot és feszültséget "öntött a nyakunkba" a közösséghez kötődés szálainak meggyengülése és az egyéni szabadság határainak kitolódása okán, 14 és sokak szerint ennek a feszültségnek a csökkentését szolgálja a "Más" megteremtése, amelybe bele lehet vetíteni a szorongást (Alexander 2013). A "Más" bizonyos csoportok azonosítására utal, amelyek fenyegetést jelentenek a nemzetre nézve, oly módon, hogy a társadalmi szerződésből (azaz az állam garanciáiból és védelméből) való kizárásuk legitimált. ...
... A közösség nem gyakorolhat terrort az egyéni identitás-meghatározás fölött. E sorok írója tisztában van a Modernitás "sötét oldalával" (Alexander 2013), amely sok bizonytalanságot és feszültséget "öntött a nyakunkba" a közösséghez kötődés szálainak meggyengülése és az egyéni szabadság határainak kitolódása okán, 14 és sokak szerint ennek a feszültségnek a csökkentését szolgálja a "Más" megteremtése, amelybe bele lehet vetíteni a szorongást (Alexander 2013). A "Más" bizonyos csoportok azonosítására utal, amelyek fenyegetést jelentenek a nemzetre nézve, oly módon, hogy a társadalmi szerződésből (azaz az állam garanciáiból és védelméből) való kizárásuk legitimált. ...
... Az egyéni tudat válsága(Alexander 2013;Giddens 1990) és szervezeti válság(Foucault 2008, Agamben 2005) következett a modernizáció "sötét" oldalából. ...
The III/1-2 issue of the Social Policy Mirror is dedicated to the final showdown with “gender ideology”, the topicality of which is the adoption of Act LXXIX “On stricter action against pedophile offenders and amending certain laws to protect children”. In the spirit of this law, the slogan “gender ideology” was warmed up, feminism was repeatedly stricken, and all was set in the context of dangerous offenses-- herding gender, feminism, and sexual minority rights under the same canopy with pedophile crimes and offenders. And all this, of course, is presented as being in the interest of “protecting the interests of children”. The article analyzes the issue's editorial and two related papers, confronting a communication strategy that uncritically serves the reigning political forces and seeks aggressively eliminating any interpretation of reality that does not fit the political/ideological predilections.
A Szociálpolitikai Tükör III. évfolyam 1-2. számát a „genderideológiával” való végleges leszámolásnak dedikálták, melynek aktualitást a 2021 évi LXXIX. törvény „a pedofil bűnelkövetőkkel szembeni szigorúbb fellépésről, valamint a gyermekek védelme érdekében egyes törvények módosításáról” elfogadása adott. Ennek a törvénynek a szellemében tehát felmelegítésre került a „genderideológia” szlogen, ismételt csapást kellett mérni a feminizmusra és mindezt a veszélyes bűnelkövetőkkel való összefüggésben kellett megtenni, egy kalap alá boronálva a gendert, a feminizmust, a szexuális kisebbségi jogokat a pedofil bűncselekményekkel és a pedofil bűnelkövetők iránti szigorúbb fellépéssel. S mindezt természetesen a „gyermekek érdekeinek védelmében”. A tanulmány a folyóirat vezércikkét és a témához kapcsolódó két tanulmányát elemzi és szembesít azzal a regnáló politikát kritikátlanul kiszolgáló kommunikációs stratégiával, amely agresszív módon kívánja eltüntetni és felszámolni a valóságnak minden olyan értelmezését, amely nem illik bele ebbe a politikai – ideológiai mezőbe.
... However, enchantment does not just rely on such sociality but anomie, alienation, and societal disenchantment. Enchantment, for Weber, deeply and intricately permeated many premodern societies (Alexander 2013). This enchantment can be understood as a teleological-cosmological structure, linking all activities, social structures, art, etc., to the divine. ...
... For Durkheim (1995), this can be understood as a unified or mechanical community in which the collective effervescence, collective consciousness, and collective representations are relatively encompassing, structuring the morals, norms, values, and general meanings of society. However, the fragmentation of society, the division of labour, and, for Weber, the cultural, along with the technological and organisational rationalisation of society, greatly disrupted teleological-cosmological enchantment and the collective consciousness (Alexander 2013). Meštrović (1997) states that we desire a return to a community and the emotions associated with that. ...
This is the accompanying bridge to my PhD research, which discusses the justifications, methods, and aim of my project. This text also includes some general descriptions of each paper included in my thesis, and how it relates to the other papers and the thesis' goals.
... A transition from other-worldly to inner-worldly changes the social and cultural organization of religion: While other-worldly religions centre religious duties within religious classes, orders, and so forth, inner-worldly religions focus duties and responsibilities upon or within wider society, and divine work goes from being the area of the clergy, monks, etc., to being the work of everyday life (Alexander 2013;Weber 2001: xiv, 40-43). Weber (2001: 124-125) argues that the development of Protestantism, Puritanism, Calvinism, and so on, can be attributed to the transitions of the mystical to the ascetic, and the other-worldly to the inner-worldly. ...
... Ritzer does hold to a general basis of Weber's thesis, that is, that societal-wide enchantment is lost and that society's disenchantment through rationalization is leading to an iron cage of bureaucratization and the loss of humanistic, fantastical, etc., traits. Though Ritzer does contend that some individuals and groups can make use of rationalization and disenchantment for their own purposes, or may even find it exciting and freeing (Ritzer 2019: 187), arguably a similar statement can be said for Weber and his understanding of how thorough disenchantment can be in its objectification of reality (Alexander 2013). However, and regardless, Ritzer presents enchantment, disenchantment, and re-enchantment basically in a similar manner as Schiller and especially as Weber, but with some key differentiations. ...
This chapter seeks to define and demonstrate the development of the concept of enchantment in semiotic and culture studies terms. Enchantment is examined in a literature review of prominent classical and contemporary views on the subject, especially in regards to rationalization, consumerism, and meaning-making. The concept is then viewed in relation to ritual and social dramaturgy in micro and macro levels. The paper concludes by noting that enchantment is both a product of ritual and social performances, as well as ingrained in these processes themselves. Furthermore, enchantment is also linked to obscenity and the loss of referents.
... Alongside this, there are number of other dark sides of modernity identified by sociologists and other social scientists (Alexander 2013;Conrad 2012;Eisenstadt 2003;Maxwell 2020;Tobera 2001). The technological development achieved in the military saw the dropping of atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II and the subsequent nuclear arms race in the post-war period are evidence of the danger human mismanagement of technologies pose. ...
... These and many other factors were collectively characterized as the "crisis of modernity". All of this resulted in new yet darker ways of understanding humanity where many started doubting the existence of progress and began thinking that reason and science does not necessarily lead to progress, prosperity, civility, and good life (Alexander 2013). ...
Modernity is a global condition of an ongoing socio-cultural, economic, and political transformation of human experience, with tradition or religion having no significant role to play. It is the gradual decline of the role of religion in modernity through the implementation of the principles of secularism which has, according to Islamic revivalists, plunged the world into crisis or jahiliyya (unGodliness). Revivalists and sociologists such as Anthony Giddens (1991) call it the “crisis of modernity”. In response, many Islamic revivalist movements have emerged to address this condition. The Iranian Revolution of 1978–1979 gave a boost to many existing Islamic revivalist movements and inspired many to appear anew. The phenomenon of contemporary Islamic revivalism is a religious transformative response to the crisis of modernity—i.e., the inability of secularism and the process of secularization to fulfill the promise of delivering a model of perfect global order. Contemporary Islamic revivalism is not anti-modernity but against secularism and is thus an attempt to steer modernity out of its crisis through a comprehensive and robust process of Islamization—the widespread introduction of Islamic rituals, practices, socio-cultural and economic processes, and institutional developments to the pattern of modern everyday living—and transforming modernity from dar al-harb (abode of war) to dar al-Islam (abode of peace). The paper argues that contemporary Islamic revivalism is a complex heterogeneous global phenomenon seeking to steer modernity out of its prevailing crisis through finding in Islam the universal blueprint of life. It further argues that Islamic revivalism is not anti-modernity but is a religious based reaction against the negative consequences of modernity, particularly against secularism, and carving out a space for itself in modernity.
... In his view, differentiation theory had failed to account for the ubiquity of the problem of evil, treating it as a pathology that can be cured or as something that will disappear in the future. For Alexander, on the contrary, a satisfactory theory of social solidarity and cultural generalization has to face evil as a structural, permanent feature of collective life (Alexander, 2013). He also considered differentiation theory to be marred by its exclusive identification with issues of structural integration, disregarding the significance of justice. ...
... For his part, Alexander ends this long discourse on the civil rights movement by contending that to address the problems of the Black community, particularly the underclass, will require the birth of a new social movement. But at this historical moment, in the wake of the administration of a white nationalist, the forces of the uncivil are a potent reminder of the dark side of the civil sphere (Alexander, 2013). ...
This article argues that Jeffrey Alexander’s The Civil Sphere constitutes the first sociological theory of civil society, a theory with its own developmental history. That history includes the trajectory of Alexander’s career prior to his simultaneous turn to cultural sociology and civil society. The former led him to develop what he calls a ‘strong program,’ while the use of the term ‘civil sphere’ serves to distinguish his approach to civil society from other articulations, past and present. This includes viewing the theory as offering a more realistic understanding of the prospects for and impediments to liberal democracy. Conceived at the outset as an ongoing project, rather than the last word on the topic, we review how that project has shifted from the work of one prominent theorist to a global network of scholars.
... When we consider contemporary consumer societies and Ritzer's work, then Weber's 'iron cage' and 'disenchanted world' do not appear to have come to absolute fruition. The world is still enchanted, although not with the teleological cosmologies which once dominated pre-modernity, as Jeffrey C. Alexander (2013) notes. Additionally, such enchantment is largely constructed for and by consumer means (Ritzer 2005(Ritzer , 2010. ...
In this article I develop sociologist George Ritzer's concept 'simulated animal' by focusing on rational systems, enchantment, and nonhuman animal corporeality and behaviour. I argue that simulated animals are nonhumans controlled, structured, or represented within consumer contexts. From this I develop what I am calling 'simulated umwelt'. Simulated umwelt, as a concept, is a synthesis of zoosemiotics with Ritzer's work and focuses on nonhuman animals' experiences and representations within rationalized settings and consumer representation. This is accomplished by applying umwelt theory and analysis to the subjective experiential aspect of simulated animals via umwelt construction, in the ongoing pursuit of descriptive and critical approaches to nonhuman animals closely connected to consumption. I conclude by emphasizing the utility of simulated umwelt reconstruction for facilitating "truly" intersubjective descriptions of nonhuman experience.
... common to these distinct approaches to different subjects is the notion that symbolic frameworks and social performances must, in order to be successful, reintegrate "fragmented meanings, actions and institu-tions," so as to provide "a new horizon of meaning for social actors who, having lost the sense of social and cultural circumstance, experience emotional anxiety and existential stress" (Alexander 2017:107;côté 2023:115). This is a familiar notion: integration in response to the kind of disintegration which generations of social scientists and intellectuals have worried about, and associated with the dark side of modernity (Alexander 2013). The interest in what unites us as opposed to what drives us apart is, i suggest, the indivisible structural-functionalist remainder in Alexander's work; this is what cannot be abandoned in Parsons after Parsons has been abandoned (cf. ...
... En los debates científicos, el tópico del lado oscuro sirve sobre todo para destacar los lados negativos y los peligros que forman parte de las características positivas de los objetos de investigación . Vemos el lado oscuro de la planificación, la digitalización, las organizaciones éticas, la modernidad o las ideas occidentales de progreso e Ilustración, todas las cuales proponen características inicialmente positivas de soluciones racionales y eficientes para los problemas sociales y de la sociedad (por ejemplo, Alexander, 2013;Flyvbjerg y Richardson, 2002;Mignolo, 2011) . ...
El proceso de proyectificación transforma las organizaciones económicas y las instituciones sociales al aumentar la importancia de la lógica y la estructura del proyecto. Este proceso afecta también a los individuos, con un fuerte énfasis en la autorresponsabilidad, la autoorganización, el cumplimiento de los plazos, la temporalidad y la eficiencia, y crea una nueva forma de subjetividad: los individuos se convierten y tienen que actuar como seres proyectados. La proyectificación transforma los diseños vitales y los patrones biográficos individuales para adaptarlos a la lógica de los proyectos. Para los individuos, los proyectos ofrecen una promesa normativa de eficiencia que va de la mano de la idea de controlabilidad y planificabilidad racionales mediante el uso de técnicas de gestión específicas. Sin embargo, la proyectificación es ambivalente. Sus promesas de autonomía, autorrealización
y autoeficacia esconden un lado oscuro, no necesariamente malo, pero potencialmente peligroso para los individuos. Este capítulo analiza las raíces de la proyectificación -flexibilización, responsabilización y racionalización- como efectos clave
de la gobernanza neoliberal. Para los yos proyectificados, estas raíces equivalen a una estructura biográfica que controla las nuevas libertades individuales y permite a los individuos justificar sus elecciones vitales siempre que aumenten el valor de sus
propios proyectos. La estructura biográfica proyectificada —por último— aumenta las vulnerabilidades que potencialmente conducen a vidas precarias y perturbadas.
... In scientific discussions, the trope of the dark side serves primarily to highlight the negative sides and dangers that are part of the positive features of research objects . We see the dark side of planning, digitalization, ethical organizations, modernity, and Western ideas of progress and enlightenment-all of which initially present their positive characteristics of rational and efficient solutions for social and societal problems (for example Alexander, 2013;Flyvbjerg & Richardson, 2002;Mignolo, 2011) . ...
The process of projectification transforms economic organizations and social institutions by increasing the importance of project logic and structure. This process
affects individuals as well, with a strong emphasis on self-responsibility, self-organization, time-keeping, temporariness, and efficiency, and it creates a new form
of subjectivity: individuals become and have to act as projectified selves. Projectification transforms individual life designs and biographical patterns to match the logic of projects. For individuals, projects offer a normative promise of efficiency
that goes hand in hand with the idea of rational controllability and plannability
by using specific management techniques. However, projectification is ambivalent.
Its promises of autonomy, self-actualization, and self-efficacy hide a dark side—not
one that is necessarily bad but that is potentially dangerous for individuals. This
essay discusses the roots of projectification —flexibilization, responsibilization, and
rationalization— as key effects of neoliberal governance. For projectified selves,
these roots amount to a biographical structure that controls new individual liberties
and allows individuals to justify their life choices as long as they increase the value
of their own projects. The projectified biographical structure —lastly— increase
vulnerabilities that potentially lead to precarious, disrupted lives.
... 30 When a state is politically and economically unstable, and the self-concept is conceived to be in danger, the Other becomes increasingly essentialized. 31 At this point, the process of Othering, which starts in the social imaginaire of the new elite, becomes physical and tangible. For the Self to be constructed, the Other has to be solidified. ...
The corpses] were laid in such a position as to expose their persons to the ridicule of passersby, and on the abdomen of each was cast a large stone. They had evidently been murdered there at the noon hour and then the brutal guards had stopped to leave behind them the signs not only of violence but of mockery and insult 1 (emphasis added).
... 30 When a state is politically and economically unstable, and the self-concept is conceived to be in danger, the Other becomes increasingly essentialized. 31 At this point, the process of Othering, which starts in the social imaginaire of the new elite, becomes physical and tangible. For the Self to be constructed, the Other has to be solidified. ...
... In scientific discussions, the trope of the dark side serves primarily to highlight the negative sides and dangers that are part of the positive features of research objects. We see the dark side of planning, digitalization, ethical organizations, modernity, and Western ideas of progress and enlightenment-all of which initially present their positive characteristics of rational and efficient solutions for social and societal problems (for example Alexander, 2013;Flyvbjerg & Richardson, 2002;Mignolo, 2011). ...
The process of projectification transforms economic organizations and social institutions by increasing the importance of project logic and structure. This process affects individuals as well, with a strong emphasis on self-responsibility, self-organization, time-keeping, temporariness, and efficiency, and it creates a new form of subjectivity: individuals become and have to act as projectified selves. Projectification transforms individual life designs and biographical patterns to match the logic of projects. For individuals, projects offer a normative promise of efficiency that goes hand in hand with the idea of rational controllability and plannability by using specific management techniques. However, projectification is ambivalent. Its promises of autonomy, self-actualization, and self-efficacy hide a dark side-not one that is necessarily bad but that is potentially dangerous for individuals. This essay discusses the roots of projectification-flexibilization, responsibilization, and rationalization-as key effects of neoliberal governance. For projectified selves, these roots amount to a biographical structure that controls new individual liberties and allows individuals to justify their life choices as long as they increase the value of their own projects. The projectified biographical structure-lastly-increase vulnerabilities that potentially lead to precarious, disrupted lives.
... The Shoah, then, was a real «cultural trauma», an event that profoundly shaped the identity and collective memory of contemporary society (Alexander 2016). In other words, modernity has shown a «dark side», an unexpected face capable of activating deep emotional and moral reactions (Alexander 2013). The dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki then represented a wound still not healed, a material and symbolic event capable of shaping the imagery of the decades following the explosion (Caramiello 1987). ...
At the start of 2020, with the emergence of Covid-19, risk turned from a state of virtuality into reality and the anticipated catastrophe became factual. Suddenly, we were confronted with the pervasiveness of multidimensional risks that spill over into different social domains partly escaping control of our perfected techno-scientific society. Public controversies over the pandemic made evident how risks result from a process of social construction which involves different social actors with their load of ideologies, strategies, and vested interests. To disentangle processes of social construction of risk is the common thread of the contributions collected in this book. They are a selection of the papers discussed during a conference organized by the ISA/ESA network on Sociology of Risk and Uncertainty in 2021, entitled «Multidimensional Risks in the XXI Century». Using different perspectives, the chapters examine global and cultural implications of risk and un-certainty across a range of contexts, including the pandemic, the workplace and the city. Beside the discussion on fears and contradictions of current risky times, the book offers a fresh perspective allowing to catch a glimpse of the new that at times springs from apparent disorder, making the possibility of emancipation toward a more sustainable and shared future at least thinkable.
... The Shoah, then, was a real «cultural trauma», an event that profoundly shaped the identity and collective memory of contemporary society (Alexander 2016). In other words, modernity has shown a «dark side», an unexpected face capable of activating deep emotional and moral reactions (Alexander 2013). The dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki then represented a wound still not healed, a material and symbolic event capable of shaping the imagery of the decades following the explosion (Caramiello 1987). ...
... The results of this analysis raise important questions of how expertise relates to individual assessments of a situation and how public framing of what expertise is impacts the way emotions are presented and understood in public debates. In public debates, expertise has been understood as a technically oriented knowledge, crafted through its opposition to individual experience and subjective assessments of a situation that might involve an array of emotions (see, e.g., Alexander, 2013). This opposition has consequences for what kind of professional opinions and choices are seen as relevant for governments and policy advisors. ...
Despite the abundant scholarship on sociopolitical embeddedness of expertise, its relation to emotions remains understudied. The paper fills this gap by discussing how public framings of expertise work against the inclusion of emotional contexts, affecting what kind of professional knowledge dominates in a public debate. The analysis of the Czech public debate on birth care shows that while midwives embrace emotional contexts of birthing and integrate them as an essential part of their professional expertise, obstetricians see these contexts as troubling their expertise. This professional difference is sustained by the public framing of expertise in the media, favoring obstetricians’ expertise over midwives’. The analysis shows that public framing of expertise outweighs evidential work done by midwives and legal advisors and impacts how emotional contexts are understood in the debate. Rather than referring to feelings and personal experience of the body, the “emotional” becomes a discursive label to delegitimize professional opinion. The results raise thus important questions about how the public framing of expertise impacts whether emotional context and experiences of bodily harm are seen as relevant in policy debates and policy regulations.
... The transition between these dimensions of temporality was poetically coded by the ancient Romans in the figure of the god Janus. And like this ancient deity, intellectuals of the 20th century have looked at opposite sides: barbarism and human progress, a golden age and an imminent apocalypse (Alexander 2013). The ethos of this dual and paradoxical understanding of the 20th century still sheds light on our present day. ...
https://ccs.yale.edu/news/new-book-ccs-faculty-fellow-javier-perez-jara
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) was a logician, a philosopher, and one of the twentieth century’s most visible public intellectuals. Science and Apocalypse in Bertrand Russell: A Cultural Sociology brings those three aspects together to trace Russell’s changing views on the role of science and technology in society throughout his long intellectual career.
Drawing from cultural sociology, history of science, and philosophy, Javier Pérez-Jara and Lino Camprubí provide a fresh multidimensional analysis of the general themes of science, technology, utopia, and apocalypse. The book critically examines Russell’s influential interpretations of the turn-of-the-century mathematical logic, World War I, the metaphysics and epistemology of mind and matter, World War II, nuclear holocaust, and the Vietnam War.
In Russell’s compelling narratives, humanity was a powder keg and the match was represented by different meta-adversaries, such as religion, communism, and American imperialism. And the only way to avoid a coming global Holocaust was to follow his own salvific recipes.
In working around Russell’s role in the cultural perception of the final destiny of humanity, Science and Apocalypse in Bertrand Russell invites the reader to think about the place of the techno-scientific sphere in human progress and decadence in both our current epoch and the distant future.
... While AI pathways invite deeper scholarly contemplation about post-human public policy as an emergent epistemic in the liminal state, this section invites contemplation about the persistent dominance of instrumental rationalism in the liminal state and its potential to shape an emerging epistemic that reproduces the current tensions between mainstream public policy and other knowledges as previously discussed. Adorno andHorkheimer's (2002 [1945]) Dialectic of Enlightenment describes Enlightenment rationalism as an effort to liberate knowledge from the clutches of myth, fantasy, and traditionwhich the authors frame in more poetic terms as a modernist disenchantment with the enchanted world (ideas that had been used previously by Weber (1978Weber ( [1921); further discussion in Alexander, 2013). To overcome the alienation of disenchantment and modernity's 'dark side,' the Frankfurt School proposed critical theory as the path toward a re-enchanting liberation. ...
This Element explores the uncertain future of public policy practice and scholarship in an age of radical disruption. Building on foundational ideas in policy sciences, we argue that an anachronistic instrumental rationalism underlies contemporary policy logic and limits efforts to understand new policy challenges. We consider whether the policy sciences framework can be reframed to facilitate deeper understandings of this anachronistic epistemic, in anticipation of a research agenda about epistemic destabilization and contestation. The Element applies this theoretical provocation to environmental policy and sustainability, issues about which policymaking proceeds amid unpredictable contexts and rising sociopolitical turbulence that portend a liminal state in the transition from one way of thinking to another. The Element concludes by contemplating the fate of policy's epistemic instability, anticipating what policy understandings will emerge in a new system, and questioning the degree to which either presages a seismic shift in the relationship between policy and society.
... Las narrativas sobre la pandemia ofrecen alternativas de salvación, así como un esquema de lo "profano" y lo "sagrado" -en términos de Durkheim-que proporcionan los puntos de referencia de esta salvación (Alexander, 2006: 569). Como veremos, las narrativas que se analizan en el siguiente apartado plantean, o bien la tensión entre este mundo imperfecto y uno por venir, para el cual hay que seguir un plan divino de salvación -como se plantea en las teodiceas judeocristianas; o bien una moral derivada de un compromiso activo para el logro de la salvación enfocado en un cambio en la actividad económica -como lo plantean las teodiceas protestantes (Alexander, 2013). ...
Analizamos las interpretaciones de diferentes intelectuales como disputas por el sentido de la pandemia. Siguiendo la propuesta teórico metodológica de la sociología cultural, nos proponemos entender cuáles son las disputas que se generan sobre “lo sagrado” y “lo profano” en medio de este dramático evento de escala global. La pandemia tomó la forma de una mediación simbólica que fue interpretada por —y puso en evidencia— diferentes narrativas sobre las esferas sociales, económicas y políticas.
... Las narrativas sobre la pandemia ofrecen alternativas de salvación, así como un esquema de lo "profano" y lo "sagrado" -en términos de Durkheim-que proporcionan los puntos de referencia de esta salvación (Alexander, 2006: 569). Como veremos, las narrativas que se analizan en el siguiente apartado plantean, o bien la tensión entre este mundo imperfecto y uno por venir, para el cual hay que seguir un plan divino de salvación -como se plantea en las teodiceas judeocristianas; o bien una moral derivada de un compromiso activo para el logro de la salvación enfocado en un cambio en la actividad económica -como lo plantean las teodiceas protestantes (Alexander, 2013). ...
Desde la perspectiva de las ciencias sociales, 17 especialista analizan los impactos de la pandemia de COVID-19 y de las medidas adoptadas por las autoridades como para combatirla. Se analiza la profunda esa recesión que dichas medidas provocaron que, sin duda, conducirá al aumento de la pobreza y la aparición de problemas de salud mental asociados con la cuarentena prolongada, las pérdidas de seres queridos y de empleos, la violencia doméstica y el estrés.
... Only recently have cultural anthropologists actively started to study violent human behavior in a modern context (e.g., Leyton 2005). In Annihilating Difference: The Anthropology of Genocide, Laban Hinton (2002) observes that "Although anthropologists have long been at the forefront of advocating for the rights of indigenous people and have conducted rich analyses of violence, conflict, and warfare in substate and prestate societies, they have only recently (since the 1980s) begun to focus their attention intensively on political violence in complex state societies." Forensic anthropologists, despite for decades being actively engaged in death-scene investigations, grave search, and excavation and skeletal analysis, have seldom explored beyond the realm of basic archaeological search and recovery techniques and osteological observations related to biological profile and trauma. ...
... For "a very specific form" of authority, this is no small thing. Arendt's ruminations on authority play variations on the time-honored theme of modernity as loss, specifically as loss of foundations, a theme that is coeval with modernity itself (Alexander, 2013;Foucault, 1984;Rosen, 1989). In contrast to Arendt, I do not believe this crisis of authority to be constant or static, but intermittent and dynamic: a potential for crisis inherent in the dynamics of authority in modernity, actualized under certain conditions that I shall attempt to summarize and exemplify with an eye to our current situation. ...
This article is a critique of the notion of post-truth. Drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt, I argue that the epistemological crisis suggested by the notion of post-truth is epiphenomenal to a more general crisis of authority, a crisis that is poorly understood in the literature. I also argue that revisiting Arendt’s account of authority can help us elucidate the vexed dynamics of authority in modern society, as well as the dynamics behind its current crisis. The post-truth situation is a loss of authority that is political before it presents as epistemological. Effectively addressing this situation, I conclude, is a much more challenging and complex proposition than what is suggested in the literature on post-truth.
The COVID-19 pandemic led to a marked increase in the number of online courses in adult education. However, such courses are viewed ambivalently because, on one hand, they are associated with digitalisation processes and an increased accessibility, reach, and flexibility of learning opportunities, whereas, on the other hand, there are concerns about acceptance issues and participation barriers. Given this context, the present study examines whether new online courses for adults have supplemented or replaced existing on-site courses by conducting a program analysis of online courses at public adult education centres (Volkshochschulen, VHS) in Germany. VHS are the largest providers of adult education in the country. A comparison of programs from the years 2018, 2019 (pre-pandemic), and 2024 (post-pandemic) shows that most online courses supplement the existing program, and that the content of approximately every second online course can also be learned on-site at the educational centre. In contrast, 29 per cent of online courses have replaced an earlier on-site course. Hybrid courses, which enable both online and offline learning, are rare. Results are discussed along with their implications for adult education centres and adult learners.
A new orientation appeared in cultural studies at the turn of the twenty-first century. As it centers around the concept, “decoloniality,” it has been called the “decolonial turn” by some scholars. Since the decolonial turn addresses “decoloniality,” one would think it signals a new orientation in postcolonial studies. Proponents of “decoloniality,” however, have denied it as a concept of postcolonialism and even regretted its conflation with postcolonialism and decolonization. This article critically examines major ideas in the decoloniality program in relation to issues of postcolonialism and argues for its placement in the context of postcolonialism so as to enrich postcolonial studies and advance the project of decoloniality.
p>El artículo se propone analizar los sentidos que la prensa digital de nota roja construye alrededor de la desaparición de mujeres en Puebla. Dado que el estudio de la desaparición se enfrenta a las cifras negras y la imprecisión de los datos oficiales, se optó por realizar un estudio hemerográfico basado en un análisis sociológico del contenido, centrado en el análisis e interpretación del texto y los marcos que dan sentido a este discurso. Los resultados muestran que la prensa revisada construye el problema de la desaparición de mujeres a partir de tratamientos inadecuados, basados en estereotipos de género y evaluaciones morales que estigmatizan a las víctimas. El abordaje de la prensa contribuye a la invisibilización de la desaparición y los crímenes asociados a ella, así como a la deshumanización y estereotipación de sus víctimas. Todo esto incide en la forma en que se entiende la desaparición de mujeres, el reconocimiento social de su estatus de víctimas y, en última instancia, en su posibilidad de acceder a la justicia.</p
This qualitative analysis of the Social Studies curriculum for Grades 3 to 6 for the province of Ontario, Canada examines binary framing in curriculum as a mechanism of cognitive imperialism that compartmentalizes Indigenous knowledge(s). The following binaries are discussed: Positive/Negative; Conflict/Cooperation; and Us/Them in terms of the ways that they compartmentalize Indigenous knowledge(s) and reinforce cognitive imperialism . Themes for further research are noted including presumptions of neutrality that divorce power analysis from perspective-taking, the prioritizing of peaceful relations over redressing power imbalances and adding Indigenous-themed content to the curriculum is not enough. Recommendations for curriculum reform are indicated and decolonial justice education (DJE) is conceptualized for actionable steps towards answering the Calls to Action in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (2015a, 2015b, 2015c).
The article discusses to what extent sociological theories produced in the Brazilian academic field dialogue with a global intellectual movement criticizing coloniality and the Eurocentric foundations of the social sciences. Initially, we analyze the challenges regarding the attempts to define two theoretical approaches, Brazilian sociology, and Postcolonial Thought, without overlooking their internal heterogeneities. Then, we address the tensions between these approaches as conditions for research agendas that bring both contributions into proximity. Finally, we explore the epistemological potential of one of these agendas, which corresponds to a rereading of Brazilian sociological theory in light of postcolonial criticism. This exercise in rereading the canon is based on the methodological program of sociological reduction of Guerreiro Ramos, which indicates a reciprocal interrogation between Brazilian sociology and postcolonial thought, i.e., a decentered look at our sociological tradition that also reveals contributions from this tradition for the future of postcolonial epistemologies.
Resumo O artigo discute em que medida teorias sociológicas produzidas no campo acadêmico brasileiro dialogam com um movimento global de crítica à colonialidade e aos fundamentos eurocêntricos das ciências sociais. De início, tratamos dos desafios subjacentes às tentativas de definir os dois enquadramentos, sociologia brasileira e pensamento pós-colonial, sem ignorar suas heterogeneidades internas. Em seguida, analisamos as convergências e tensões entre esses campos como condições de possibilidade para agendas de pesquisa que aproximem ambos os aportes. Por fim, exploramos o potencial epistemológico de uma dessas agendas, que corresponde a uma releitura da tradição sociológica brasileira à luz da crítica pós-colonial. Esse exercício é feito a partir do projeto da “redução sociológica”, de Guerreiro Ramos, que indica uma via de mão dupla na interlocução entre sociologia brasileira e pensamento pós-colonial: um olhar descentrado sobre nossa tradição sociológica que revela contribuições dessa tradição para o futuro das epistemologias pós-coloniais.
During Yemenite Jews’ stay in Israeli transit camps during 1948–1950, many of their children disappeared in the so‐called “Yemenite Children Affair,” undermining the immigrants’ faith in the redemptive ethos of Zionism. To better understand this collective trauma, we return to the original Freudian conceptualization of melancholia as “failed mourning,” locating it within the ethnographic context of the Yemenite Children Affair and integrating its private/individual and public/collective aspects. Moreover, we provide a novel historical reading that integrates the individual loss of children and the collective lack of civic recognition. We use the term “civil melancholia” to reflect on the lingering, hurtful group experience of being overlooked (as refugees and parents) and the continuing collective predicament as “second‐rate citizens.” By conceptualizing this civil melancholia and its cultural nuances, the analysis enhances the discussion of cultural traumas and their intergenerational transmission among contemporary ethnic immigrant groups.
This chapter addresses sustainability of South Korean democracy in this age of global economic crisis and populist movements and asks whether populism adds resilience to, or threatens, democracy. The first part of the chapter examines the relationship between populism and democracy from a historical perspective, and the second part investigates how populists seek to reaffirm the primacy of the people over elites, which in their view restores political legitimacy. The chapter also explores populists’ distrust of elites. More specifically, the chapter examines two diverging populist movements in South Korea of 2016–2017: the candlelight vigil and the national flag movement, and shows the analysis of the survey data collected in 2014 and 2018. Regression analysis demonstrates that the candlelight vigil is internally associated with the primacy of the people, while the national flag movement is associated with distrust of elites. Originating from this difference, the national flag movement embodied a belief in autocracy and thus was arguably a threat to democracy, whereas the candlelight vigil functioned to protect democracy from regressing. Furthermore, our empirical analysis demonstrates that populism does not represent a serious threat to democracy in South Korea. The paper argues that the threat to democracy does not come from citizens with populist inclinations but rather from more privileged neo-liberal citizens.KeywordsPopulismBureaucratic-authoritarian stateMinjung movementDemocratic resilienceCandlelight vigilNational-flag populismPolitically satisfied neo-liberalPolitically frustrated egalitarian populist
The enchantment and re-enchantment of formal rationalized systems has been an important study in sociology and the social sciences since its first discussion by Max Weber. However, it has received relatively little attention in animal studies, ecology, or environmental studies. This article attempts to fill this gap in the research by focusing on a multiscale perspective that considers the relationship between nonhuman animal umwelt and human perception within the confines of enchantment, re-enchantment, and McDonaldized systems. This is done through a theoretical synthesis of George Ritzer’s work on rationalization, spectacles, extravaganzas, and simulations with Jakob von Uexküll’s concept of umwelt, and zoosemiotic and ecosemiotic perspectives on multispecies environments. It is concluded that enchantment and re-enchantment make use of nonhuman animals and environments to enchant formal rationalized systems, which consequently presents and uses nonhuman animals in situations injurious to their umwelt, while also making use of affect, intersubjectivity, and simulations to influence human perspectives.
This article engages the BBC televisions series Doctor Who to investigate popular conceptions of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). R2P provides guidelines for how the international community should treat to war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and ethnic cleansing. However, there are disconnects between the rhetoric used in elite forums which discuss R2P and public understandings of the concept. This article finds that Doctor Who reflects popular understandings of R2P, which remain limited but evolving. Atrocity crimes are increasingly seen as anathema but focus still remains on reacting to atrocity crimes rather than preventing them or rebuilding communities afterwards.
The article is devoted to analyzing a new sociological paradigm proposed by Nikolai Genov, a European sociologist of Bulgarian origin, known for his work in the history and theory of sociology, social transformation in Eastern Europe and globalization. His new monograph is characterized by his desire to offer the sociological community an original outlook on the theoretical trends in the development of the discipline over the past few decades, as well as to construct a new paradigm of social interaction as a way to overcome the current theoretical crisis. It presents a rational analysis of the current state of theoretical sociology while substantiating and describing the heuristic possibilities of sociology, revealed by means of paradigmatic synthesis based on the concept of social interaction as rethought by the author. Social interactions are the prerogative of key actors operating in networks of social relations and within social processes. The new paradigm can provide sociologists with explanatory models that can serve as the basis for creating mid-level theories that would incorporate previously accumulated sociological knowledge. According to Genov, this synthesis can open up new ways for advancing sociological comprehension of controversial social problems at different levels of their consideration (macro-, meso- and micro-) and while considering modern global development trends.
The crisis of meaning, as one of the characteristics of modern world, was investigated mainly from a philosophical perspective considering necessary and sufficient conditions of the meaning of life, without regard to crucial social transformations of modern era, which led to this crisis. Focusing on the process of changes in knowledge and consciousness, here I show that in modern world as a result of developments in science, for the first time the natural or scientific consciousness seriously confronts supernatural or religious consciousness. The argument is that as a result of this plurality of consciousness, the basic characteristics of man, i.e., identity, self and rationality have changed. The main idea of this article is that based on such an explanation of the crisis of meaning in which consciousness and knowledge are pivotal, the solution resides in reconsidering modern rationality in order for these two consciousness to be united and the crisis to be cured.
Based on more than 280,000 newspaper articles published in North America, this study proposes an integrative machine learning framework to explore heterogeneous social sentiments over time. After retrieving and preprocessing articles containing the term “Chinese” from six mainstream newspapers, we identified major discussion topics and assigned articles to their corresponding topics via posterior probabilities estimated by using a novel Bayesian nonparametric model, the hierarchical Dirichlet process. We also employed a groundbreaking deep learning technique, bidirectional encoder representations from transformers, to assign a negative or positive sentiment score to each newspaper article, which was trained on binary-labeled movie reviews from the Internet Movie Database (IMDb). By combining state-of-the-art tools for topic modeling and sentiment analysis, we found an overall lack of consensus on whether sentiments in North America since 1978 were pro- or anti-Chinese. Moreover, the images of Chinese are highly topic specific: (1) sentiments across different topics show distinct trajectories over the period of study; (2) discussion topics explain much more of the variation in sentiments than do the publisher, year of publication, or country of publisher; (3) less positive sentiments appear to be more relevant to material concerns than to ethnic considerations, whereas more positive sentiments are associated with an appreciation of culture; and (4) sentiments on the same or similar topic might exhibit different temporal patterns in the United States and Canada. These new findings not only suggest a multifaceted and dynamic view of social sentiments in a transnational context but also call for a paradigm shift in understanding intertwined sociodiscursive interactions over time.
This paper is an attempt to explore whether and to what extent the Australian newspapers; The Age and The Australian, produced the “solidarity discourse” regarding Islam and Muslims during the time period January 01, 2016 to March 31, 2017. Edward Said’s Orientalism and many other research findings suggest that there is clear evidence of positive in-group (Us/the West/the Occident) and negative out-group (Them/the Islam and Muslims/the East/the Orient) discourse in the representation of Islam and Muslims by global media. However, Jeffery C. Alexander asserts that the media being “communicative institution” of a society plays an important role of “civil repair” by producing a “solidarity discourse”. His civil sphere theory proposes that the media as a “vital centre” highlight and generates common understanding of the solidarity which can resist “non-civil” polarization and radical actions in civil societies. The researcher has employed “Lexicalization” and “Ideological Square” approaches from Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) paradigm proposed by van Dijk. The findings of this study show that The Age produced the “solidarity discourse” overwhelmingly by emphasizing on “understanding”, “cohesion”, and “we-ness”. On the contrary, the “solidarity discourse” is entirely absent in the editorials of The Australian.
This paper explores the role anger plays in charismatic movements. Although scholars have long recognized the importance of emotions to the etiology of charisma, they tend to focus on mutual affection among leaders and followers, paying less attention to how anger—and particularly its subspecies, ressentiment—patterns charismatic power. Drawing on literature from political science, populism research, and the cultural sociology of charisma, we argue that ressentiment, which is associated with self-disvalue and an invidious need to blame outsiders, is key to theorizing the emotional energy that charisma delivers to revolutionary upheaval. The Weberian source for the intervention is his lesser known concept of ‘berserk-charisma’. Reorienting the focus of charisma research to account for its aggressive, ‘outward’ dimension has the benefit of drawing us closer to the vision Weber had for its social-historical relevance. We demonstrate our insights using the case of charismatic/populist support for Trump.
The article consists of two parts. In the first part, the author returns to the classic text by C.P. Snow entitled Two Cultures 1959, and justifies its obsolescence by claiming that in recent decades, the natural sciences have become closer to the traditional humanities and have undergone a kind of 'philosophizing', while knowledge accumulated in the humanities and social sciences is increasingly organized by seeking answers to questions of a practical nature. The author's comment boils down to a statement that this is a very unfortunate course of events because, among other things, before we start answering questions about how to achieve these or other goals, it is good to know that it is worthwhile to achieve them. In short, it is not out of the question that the gradual elimination of classical questions about meanings and values from the humanities and social sciences contributes to highly ambivalent assessments of 'modernity'. In the second part, the author does not ask about the rationale behind the objection to various discriminatory practices, but he does ask how - within the framework of the "Potentials..." project - these mechanisms were tried to be dealt with, using the key elements of the so-called "behavioral economics", and he describes the experiences connected with it.
The premise upon which this chapter is based is that civil life can never be entirely obliterated but that remnants of civil life always survive. Accordingly, communicative peacebuilding in post-civil war settings needs to identify and develop these remnants to encourage citizens’ memories of a previous civil life and the imagination of a peaceful future one. It equally needs to identify the civil potential of the non-civil ties (primordial, platoon and ideological) of former combatants and build on it through the provision of opportunities for civil engagement across the communicative spectrum of civil society. Such civil engagement between the different groups that constitute civil society is necessary to encourage the reimagining of former enemies as co-citizens.
The burden social theorists must be willing to accept, respond to and act upon pertains to the difficulties that predictably accompany all efforts to convey to non-theorists the unwelcome fact of heteronomy-that as actors, we are not as autonomous as we were told and prefer to assume-and to spell out what heteronomy in the form in which it has been shaping the developmental trajectory of modern societies means for professional theorists. I introduce the concept of "vitacide," designed to capture that termination of life is a potential vanishing point of the heteronomous processes that have been shaping modern societies continuing to accelerate and intensify in ways that prefigure our future, but not on our human or social terms. Heteronomy pointing toward vitacide should compel us as social theorists to consider critically both the constructive and destructive trajectory that social change appears to have been following for more than two centuries, irrespective of whether the resulting prospect is to our liking or not. In this context, the classical critical theorists of the early Frankfurt School, especially Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, pursued what turned out to be an evolving interest in rackets, the authoritarian personality, and the administered world--concepts that served as a foil for delineating the kind the theoretical stance that is becoming more and more important, as we are moving into an increasingly uncertain future.
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