A Sociology of Modernity: Liberty and DisciplineRoutledge, 2002 M11 1 - 284 pages First Published in 2004. Confusion reigns in sociological accounts of the curent condition of modernity. The story-lines from the 'end of the subject' to 'a new individualism', from the 'dissolution of society' to the re-emergence of 'civil society', from the 'end of modernity' to an 'other modernoity' to 'neo-modernization'. This book offers a sociology of modernity in terms of a historical account of social transformations over the past two centuries, focusing on Western Europe but also looking at the USA and at Soviet socialism as distinct variants of modernity. A fundamental ambivalence of modernity is captured by the double notion of liberty and discipline in its three major dimensions: the relations between individual liberty and political community , betwen agency and structure, and between locally situated human lives and widely extended social institutions. Two major historical transformations of modernity are distinguished, the first one beginning in the late nineteenth century and leading to a social formation that can be called organized modernity, and the second being the one that dissolves organized modernity. It is this current transformation which revives some key concerns of the 'modern project', ideas of liberty, plurality and individual autonomy. But it imperils others, especially the creation of social identities as ties between human beings that allow meaningful and socially viable development of individual autonomy, and the possibility of politics as communicative interaction and collaborative deliberation about what human beings have in common. |
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action allocative practices American analysis andthe Anthony Giddens asthe atthe authoritative practices basic boundaries bourgeois bythe canbe changes Claude Lefort coherence collective concept construction context conventionalization conventions crisis critique culture debate democracy discourse disembedding economic elites emergence entailed European Frankfurt/M fromthe Habermas historical human idea imaginary signification individual autonomy industrial institutions intellectual interaction inthe issue Jürgen Habermas liberal modernity Luc Boltanski major mass Max Weber Michael Mann Michel Foucault mode modem modernist nationstate nineteenth century normative ofmodernity ofsocial ofsociety ofthe ofthis one’s onthe organized modernity parties perspective Peter Wagner phenomena political postmodernist postmodernity problematic production question realm recent relations representation restricted liberal Revolution rules Scott Lash self selfrealization social configuration social identities social practices social science society sociology structure substantive sucha Suhrkamp technologies thatthe thesocial tobe tothe transformations University Press Western workers WorldWar Zygmunt Bauman