Transcript Vorlesung A Sociology of Modernity

Vorlesung
A Sociology of Modernity
Prof. Dr. Joost van Loon
Institut für Soziologie, LMU
Nottingham Trent University, U.K.
Details
• Sprechstunde: Di 10-12,
• Konradstraße 6, Zi. 205
• Email: [email protected]
• NB Students on the Excellence Programme will need to write an
essay (8-10 pages spaced 1.5) at the end of the lecture series. A
reading list will be distributed next week. A list of essay questions
(from which you need to choose one) will be made available before
the Christmas break
Outline of the lecture
1. What is (wrong with) Sociology?
2. The Problem of ‘the Social‘
3. Rationale and Overview of the Lecture
Series
The problem of sociology
• Sociology (a term coined by Auguste
Comte in the 19th Century) is a ‘discursive
space‘ within which certain sets of
statements, assumptions and perspectives
could be given a certain credibility (= the
nature of an institutionalised discipline).
Three questions
1. What are these statements (of sociology)
concerned with?
2. What is the nature of such statements?
3. What kind of credibility was sought and
why?
What are these statements
concerned with?
• socio-logy, the logos of the social, logos = the
word, law, reason, discourse (Greek); socialis =
allied, companiable, friendship (Latin).
• common use of the word:
– agreeable, companiable, taking account of the other
(as opposed to a-social)
– that which belongs to a collective of (human) beings
(e.g. social services)
– time/space outside that of ‘work’ (e.g. a ;’social life’)
The social
• interaction,
• connection/relation
• bonding
• Different ‘affective‘ charge (levels of intimacy)
• Sociation: Inclusion and Exclusion
• ‘Common‘, Common Sense, Communion,
Community, Communication
Durkheim versus Tarde
• Tarde: the social relates to all types of
connections between and among people,
artefacts, technologies, procedures etc.
• Durkheim: the social is a separate sphere
of action, a distinctive dimension of society
(distinct from economics, politics, law,
technology etc.)
Durkheim
• Social facts: human action is conditoned
and structured and can therefore be
studied ‘objectively‘
• Sociality becomes the establishment of
morality in everyday life.
• Example: Suicide as consequence of lack
of social bonding, social integration.
• Social = relationships + moral codes
What is the nature of such
statements?
•
•
•
•
The social as a distinctive field:
(Social) Needs
(Social) Power
(Social) Desire
• Sociology is rarely about ‘the pure social’. It has
a lot of dealings with economics, politics, law,
administration, science, literature, media,
communication, psychology and even medicine
and biology.
What kind of credibility was
sought and why?
• To belong to an institution: to be a science (need)
• To have autonomy over who can be called a sociologist
(power)
• Recognition (desire)
• To obtain credibililty, sociology had to adhere to the
Scientific Method
• The object of sociological research became ‘society‘
• Society and human action came to be treated as things
that can be observed and/or measured
The task of sociology
• (1) identify the patterns
• (2) determine the underlying structures
(causes) in its social dimensions.
The Problem of the Social
• Being social: to be open to interactions
with others, being friendly, communicative,
considerate to others.
• Being sociable: a specific attunement to
others, a skill, an ability to engage others,
facilitate friendships, set up relationships,
affect others so as to increase their
connectedness.
The opposite: anti-social?
• As a problem for society: (youths) hanging
around in public spaces, damaging
property, threatening others, engaged in
petty criminal activities, using drugs and
alcohol
Anti-social behaviour
• But ……their actions are in essence also
social: often geared towards establishing,
maintaining and enhancing social
relationships (within peer-groups).
Therefore….
• Rather than referring to the violation of
social relationships, the term anti-social is
used to designate the violation of specific
moral codes. That is, the meaning of the
concept of ‘the social’ shifts from the
concrete practices of interacting,
connecting, relating and bonding, to a
more abstract- symbolic evaluation of the
appropriateness of certain ways of
behaving.
The adverb ‘socially‘
• ‘acting socially’ could mean acting in
consideration of others, or acting
according to the dominant norms of a
group.
• Both notions have a descriptive and
evaluative component.
• Sociology has become a normative
discipline.
The social as a distinctive field
• Not
– Economics
– Politics
– Culture
• Also Not
–
–
–
–
Technology
Science
Law
The Military
Social versus Nature
• The social is everything the natural is not.
Social sciences versus natural sciences.
The social belongs to the realm of what
the human being produces (with the
exception of its biological functions).
• However, in this sense, the social means
exactly the same as the cultural, the
economic or the political.
Bruno Latour:
Re-assembling the Social
• Return to Tarde: a functional use of ‘social‘ as referring
to ‘associations‘;
• Sociology as an ‘empirical‘ enterprise: not general
observations but concrete studies of everyday practices
of association;
• Sociology as inclusive: associations between technoscience, political-economy, law, warfare, culture etc.
• Explicitation of normative evaluations, the source of
which is external to a sociology of associations (e.g.
morality, ethics, politics).
• Sociology as explicitation and clarification
Vorlesungsprogramme (1)
17.10.2007 Introduction: the Problem of Sociology
24.10.2007 Introduction: the Birth of Modern Thought
I Origins of Modernity
31.10.2007 The Protestant Revolution
07.11.2007 The Industrial Revolution
14.11.2007 The Birth of the Nation State
II Benevolent Modernizations
21.11.2007 Health
28.11.2007 Education
05.12.2007 Family
Vorlesungsprogramme (2)
III Decompositions of the Modern Order
12.12.2007 Globalization
19.12.2007 Individualization
IV Modernity in Crisis
09.01.2008 Environmental Crisis
16.01.2008 The Coming of the Plagues
23.01.2008 Crime and Urban Unrest
30.01.2008 War and Terrorism
V Epilogue
06.02.2008 Postmodernity versus the Cosmopolitan Condition I
13.02.2008 Postmodernity versus the Cosmopolitan Condition II
22.02.2008 Deadline Essay (for Excellence students only)