Introduction to Contemporary Social Theory Anthony Elliott and Charles Lemert UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AUSTR.ALlA LIBRARY I~ ~~o~~~:n~~~up NEW YORK AND LONDON
First published 2014 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 And by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX144RN Routledge is an imprint ofthe Taylor ci( Francis Group, an informa business 2013 Anthony Elliott and Charles Lemerl The right of Anthony Elliott and Charles Lemerlto be identified as authors of this workhas been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 ofthe Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No pari of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in anyform or by anyelectronic, mechanical, or other means, nowknown or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in anyinformation storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names maybe trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used onlyfor identification and explanation without intentto infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this bookhas been requested ISBN: 978-0-4'5-52572-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-4'5-52573-2 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-10186-5 (ebk) Typeset in Scala Sans by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk J;j FSC -- MIX PaP'f1rom r&liponllbl. loureel FSC- C013056 Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall
Contents, The Textures ofsociety What is society? Society and social theory 3 6 Coping withclimate change: Anthony Giddens 8 Key themes in contemporary social theory 11 15 16 Preface and Acknowledgments xii 2 The Contemporary Relevance ofthe Classics '7 The contradictions of modernity: Marx 19 Modernity as iron cage: Weber 23 Modernity as moral bonds: Durkheim 27 Trauma, tragedy and Thanatos: Freud 32 36 38 38 3 The Frankfurt School 4 Horkheimer and Adorno: Dialectic ofenlightenment 43 Freudian revolution: the uses ofpsychoanalysis 45 Fromm: fear offreedom 47 Adorno: The Authoritarian Personality, anti-semitism and the psychodynamics of modernity 52 Written in the stars: Adorno on astrology 56 vii
Marcuse: Eros, or one-dimensional futures? Criticisms of Marcuse 68 4 American Pragmatisms William James: experience and the social self 71 Pragmatism and Darwin's The Origin of the Species 75 The foundations of pragmatist social theory today 76 Charles Sanders Peirce: semiotics and the unity of ego 76 80 The Progressive Era: John Dewey and Jane Addams George Herbert Mead: mind, self and society 84 89 Herbert Blumer: Symbolic interactionism Pragmatism's limits and prospects: Habermas and Rorty 9 93 94 95 97 5 Structuralism Saussure and structural linguistics 99 104 Criticisms of Saussure The Raw and The Cooked: Levi-Strauss and structural 107 anthropology Roland Barthes: structuralist semiology and popular culture 108 Foucault: knowledge, social order and power 114 117 Society and disciplined bodies The limits of structuralism: Foucault's History of Sexuality 119 125 Governmentality 127 Criticisms of Foucault 13 131 131 6 Structures, Functions and Culture Talcott Parsons: The Structure of Social Action 133 The Social System: Parsons and the AGiL paradigm 137 Robert K. Merton: social theory and social structures 14 Jeffery c.alexander: theoretical logic of cultural sociology 145 15 151 152 57 61 65 66 66 133 viii
7 Post-structuralism 153 Lacan: the mirror stage and imaginary 157 Lacan's reformulation of structuralism: language, symbolic order and the unconscious 160 ~fter Lacan: Althusser and society as interpellation 162 Zitek: beyondinterpellation 164 Appraisal of Lacan 166 Derrida: difference and deconstruction 170 Rereading psychoanalysis: Dernda's critique oflacon 174 Appraisal of Derrida 176 Post-structuralism and post-colonial theory: Bhobha's The Location of Culture 177 179 180 180 8 The Interaction Order 182 David Riesman: conformity and the American character Erving Goffman: impression management and the 184 interaction order 188 Ethnomethodologies: Aaron Cicourel and Harold Garfinkel 196 201 202 203 9 Theories ofstructuration Anthony Giddens: structuration and the practical 204 routines of social life 206 Giddens on modernity and the self 21 3 Criticisms of Giddens 218 Pierre Bourdieu: habitus and practical social life 221 Questions oftaste: Bourdieu's Distinction 225 Criticisms of Bourdieu 226 229 23 23 10 Variations on the Theory ofpower and Knowledge 232 C. Wright Mills: power as knowledge of structures 234 Alvin W. Gouldner: the culture of critical discourse Dorothy Smith: power and knowledgefrom the feminist 239 standpoint 244 ix
Donna Haraway and Patricia Hill Collins: the fractured matrix of power 247 25 ' 25 2 25 2 11 Contemporary Critical Theory 254 Habermas: the democratization of society 25 6 The early Habermas: development and decline of the public sphere 25 8 Habermas on capitalism, communication and colonization 262 Emotional imperialism:feminist criticism ofhabermas Habermas on globalization and post-national societies 2 6 7 26 9 Towards deliberative democracy 272 Criticisms of Habermas 273 Honneth: the struggle for recognition 27 6 281 282 28 3 12 Feminism and Post-feminist Theory 28 4 Theorizing patriarchy: '970S feminisms 286 Juliet Mitchell on femininity and sexual difference 28 9 Dinnerstein: societal nurturingarrangements 29 2 Chodorow: The Reproduction of Mothering 294 Benjamin: the analysis of love 299 Julia Kristeva: semiotic subversions 3 01 Kristeva on motherhood and maternal ethics 3 06 Appraisal of Kristeva 3 08 Irigaray: thefeminine imaginary 310 Judith Butler: scripts of gender performance 3 12 Appraisal of Butler Queer theory 3 16 3 18 3 24 3 25 3 26 13 Postmodernity 3 27 Deleuze and Guatarri: postmodernity as schizoid desire 3 29 The postmodern condition: Lyotard 333 Baudrillard: postmodernity as simulated media culture 337 Baudrillard's non-event: 'The GulfWar did not take place' 34 2 Jameson: postmodernity as global capitalist transformations 344 x
Bauman: postmodernity as modernity subtract illusions 348 Beyond the postmodern: Bauman'stheory ofliquid modernity 353 Criticisms of postmodernism 357 360 361 362 '4 Social Movements, States and the Modern World-system 363 Charies Tilly: contentious social movements 366 Theda Skocpol: States and Social Revolutions 370 Immanuel Wallerstein and analysis ofworld-systems 375 380 381 3 81 '5 Globalization 382 The globalization debate 385 Manuel Castells: The Network Society 392 Criticisms ofcastelis 397 Globalization since 9/11 399 Ulrich Beck: organized lives in a world of risk 4 3 Criticisms of Beck 406 Criticisms ofthe globalization debate 408 Globalization, work and the new economy 408 Globalization, communication and culture 412 Globalization and the new individualism 414 Life on the move: Elliott and Vrry 417 420 421 422 Afterword: Social Theory Today and Towards 2025 423 432 References 433 Index 446 xi