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Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory PDF
Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory PDF
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SAGE Publications
London Thousand Oaks New Delhi
Editorial arrangement and Introduction # Chapter 19 # John Armitage 2001
Anthony Elliott and Bryan S. Turner 2001 Chapter 20 # Rob Shields 2001
Chapter 1 # Richard Polt 2001 Chapter 21 # Kathleen Blamey 2001
Chapter 2 # Michael Richardson 2001 Chapter 22 # Jakob Arnoldi 2001
Chapter 3 # Nick Crossley 2001 Chapter 23 # Marcos Ancelovici and
Chapter 4 # Douglas Kellner 2001 Francis Dupuis-Deri 2001
Chapter 5 # Andrew Bowie 2001 Chapter 24 # Bryan S. Turner 2001
Chapter 6 # Graeme Gilloch 2001 Chapter 25 # Geoffrey Gershenson and
Chapter 7 # Patrick Baert 2001 Michelle Williams 2001
Chapter 8 # Ann Branaman 2001 Chapter 26 # Anthony Elliott 2001
Chapter 9 # Bryan S. Turner 2001 Chapter 27 # Nick Stevenson 2001
Chapter 10 # Stephen Katz 2001 Chapter 28 # Bridget Fowler 2001
Chapter 11 # Victor J. Seidler 2001 Chapter 29 # Barry Smart 2001
Chapter 12 # Anthony Elliott 2001 Chapter 30 # Patricia Ticineto Clough and
Chapter 13 # Christina Howells 2001 Joseph Schneider 2001
Chapter 14 # Chris Rojek 2001 Chapter 31 # Sean Homer 2001
Chapter 15 # Kelly Oliver 2001 Chapter 32 # Chris Rojek 2001
Chapter 16 # Caroline Bainbridge 2001 Chapter 33 # Sarah Wright 2001
Chapter 17 # Mike Gane 2001 Chapter 34 # Bryan S. Turner 2001
Chapter 18 # Paul Patton 2001
Acknowledgments ix
Contributors xi
Editors' Introduction 1
Anthony Elliott and Bryan S. Turner
1 Martin Heidegger 9
Richard Polt
2 Georges Bataille 20
Michael Richardson
3 Maurice Merleau-Ponty 30
Nick Crossley
4 Herbert Marcuse 43
Douglas Kellner
5 Theodor Adorno 59
Andrew Bowie
6 Walter Benjamin 70
Graeme Gilloch
7 JuÈrgen Habermas 84
Patrick Baert
8 Erving Goffman 94
Ann Branaman
Index 395
# $%
Discussions regarding the scope of this book took place over a lengthy
period of time and in various contexts: we carried out the initial planning
at cafeÂs in Lygon Street, Carlton; negotiations commenced at the 1998 ASA
meetings in San Francisco; and the bulk of editorial work was conducted
through daily emails between Melbourne and Cambridge. Many people
have helped us in the preparation of the book. Anthony Moran deserves
special mention for assisting us with initial editing of the contributions. We
are grateful to Chris Rojek and to Jackie Grif®n at Sage. We would also like
to thank the contributors for their commitment to this project, and for
responding to our various queries about earlier drafts. Others who con-
tributed to the book, and whom we would like to thank, are Nicola
Geraghty, Caoimhe Elliott, and Eileen Richardson.
Anthony Elliott
Bryan S. Turner
&
Contemporary Social Theory (editor, 1999), and Psychoanalysis at its Limits (co-
editor, 2000).
Graeme Gilloch is author of Myth and Metropolis: Walter Benjamin and the
City (1996) and Walter Benjamin (forthcoming).
P
ro®les in Contemporary Social Theory critique, dismantling and reconstruction.
provides a comprehensive guide Structuralist and post-structuralist theory
to the leading intellectuals and has been energetically deconstructed and
theorists in social theory today. The appraised, with new constellations of
volume comprises critical discussion of a knowledge, including deconstruction,
variety of thinkers that have dominated postmodernism, and postfeminism, evol-
social and political debate in recent dec- ving. Traditions of thought that pre-
ades. In disciplinary sweep, these ®g- viously had been marginal or ignored,
ures include sociologists, historians, such as psychoanalysis and hermeneutics,
philosophers, psychoanalysts, and politi- have come to exert a powerful in¯uence
cal theorists. Yet the contributions of across the social sciences. There has also
these individual ®gures to contemporary been a proliferation of new discourses
social theory consistently illuminate the and social theories, including structura-
dangers to knowledge and freedom of tion theory, postcolonialism, Queer
limiting re¯ection on society and the theory, postfeminism, as well as sugges-
social to any particular discipline. The tive research programmes such as the
leading ®gures in contemporary intel- theory of world risk society associated in
lectual life ± JuÈrgen Habermas, particular with Ulrich Beck (see Seidman,
Jacques Derrida, Julia Kristeva, Fredric 1998; Delanty, 1999; Elliott, 1999a; Turner,
Jameson, Richard Rorty, Luce Irigaray, 2000).
and Michel Foucault ± propose interdis- Undoubtedly these developments in
ciplinary studies on the self, society, and social thought have been for many people
history. at once daunting and exhilarating: daunt-
The motivation leading us to put ing, since the major traditions of classical
together this book has been a growing social theory appear profoundly strained
awareness of crucial conceptual and insti- in the face of core institutional transitions
tutional transformations taking place in now sweeping the globe; exhilarating,
recent years. During the last two decades since their implications and consequences
in particular, many dominant perspectives are not only intellectually important, but
in Anglo-American philosophy and social point to new possibilities for radical social
theory have been subjected to sustained and political change. Of key signi®cance
! "#$
$%&'( '# )$(
here are dramatic changes to the contem-
porary global order. Among these
changes are to be counted the intensi-
®cation of globalization; transnational Amid the proliferating topics that pre-
corporations advancing economic inter- occupy social theorists today, one ques-
dependence by communication technol- tion stands out as of core importance:
ogy; the techno-industrialization of war; that is, the question of the constitution of
the rapid explosion of new information the human subject. The issues at stake in
technologies; the proliferation of identity- the contemporary deconstruction and
politics; and the rise of issues relating reconstruction of subjectivity are pro-
to lifestyle, intimacy, sexuality and the found. Some of the key concerns that
body. have crystallized in recent years include
In view of these intellectual and institu- the following: the psychological, social,
tional changes, there is a pressing need and cultural forms through which indivi-
for sustained critical discussion of both duals are constructed as subjects; the
the coherence and dispersion of contem- complex, contradictory ways in which
porary social theory in the hands of its individuals de®ne themselves as autono-
leading practitioners. Pro®les in Contem- mous, self-legislating, and rational; the
porary Social Theory represents an attempt emotional investments that individuals
to meet this need. The authors contribut- come to have in their identities and
ing to this volume are highly distin- communities; and the impact that self-
guished international social theorists, constitution carries for understanding the
sociologists, and philosophers; all of the reproduction, disruption, and transforma-
Pro®les are published here for the ®rst tion of society and culture.
time. To facilitate the reader-friendly It was not until the 1970s, among social
design of the book, each chapter provides scientists of various persuasions, that
a biographical overview and situates the human subjectivity fell within a space of
work of social thinkers in relation to var- more considered re¯ection and critical
ious schools of thought; and each presents practice. While the project of the decen-
both a detailed exposition and critique tring of the subject had been at the heart
of the individual ®gures. Each chapter of structuralist theory for several decades,
concludes with a comprehensive biblio- the emergence of new discursive orienta-
graphy of the thinker's major works, tions concerned with the process of sub-
along with details of secondary references. jectivization began where structuralists
As a result, Pro®les in Contemporary Social left off. Following in the wake of Freud,
Theory is a state-of-the-art account of the Nietzsche, and Heidegger, a number of
®eld. leading ®gures in contemporary intellec-
In this introduction we shall sketch a tual life reconsidered afresh the inter-
backcloth for the critical discussion of section of psyche and culture. Here the
individual thinkers that follow. Our aim post-structuralist positions of Lacan,
is limited. In summarizing some of the Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, Guattari, and
major trends in contemporary social the- Lyotard are central. These theorists, in
ory, we shall chart key themes and tradi- various ways, promote interest in the
tions that animate the work of leading character of human subjectivity, in the
theorists, of intellectual movements, and crisis of representation, in the relational
of interpretative approaches. We shall nature of human experience, and in the
divide our commentary around three unconscious pattern of oppositions
areas, or sets of debates, in contemporary (norm/pathology, masculine/feminine,
theory: subjectivity, psychoanalysis, and majority/minority) that fuse to connect
feminism; modernity, postmodernization, an identity of reason and reality.
globalism; and Marxism, neo-Marxism, Psychoanalytic theory, and especially
and post-Marxism. Lacan's `return to Freud', has been central
,
core distinctions operate from within the A similar ambiguity is traceable at the
languages of the modern and the post- level of postmodern theory itself. On the
modern. Postmodernism is distinguished one hand, a wide range of social theorists
from modernism, above all, as an aesthetic from Foucault to Baudrillard to Derrida
style or cultural movement ± principally came to be designated as `postmodern',
in the plastic arts and architecture, but in as having broken with the oppressive
painting, literature and cinema also. In hierarchies of classical social theory, as
this reading, postmodernism represents having inaugurated new theoretical con-
an aesthetic re¯ection upon modernism, structs designed to assault elitist culture.
its ambitions and limits. On the other hand, many of these same
Postmodernity, by contrast, designates theorists came to reject the postmodern
a change of mood at the level of interper- label as relevant to their own conceptual
sonal relationships, social practices, and and political endeavours. Pro®les in
modern institutions (see Kellner, 1988). Contemporary Social Theory provides new
A baf¯ing variety of critical terms ± sources of insight into both the distinctive-
`postmodern condition', `postindustrial ness of, and interconnections between,
society', `global age', `consumer society', postmodern social theorists. While it is
`postmodern scene' ± have been deployed indeed clear that there is no one approach
to denote a break with modernity, to to postmodern theory, there are neverthe-
announce the end of history and the less a number of core themes that run
social, and to welcome the collapse of through the writings of radical analysts
European or Western global hegemony. of the postmodern cultural condition.
Various authors in this book sketch out The interrogation of traditional concep-
the complex, contradictory ways in tions of reality, truth, and justice; the
which the postmodern impulse has been ongoing decentring and deconstruction
distinguished from social and cultural of human subjectivity; the re¯exive sub-
forms characteristic of modernism. For version of epistemological closure; the
some, an inadequate level of speci®cation levelling of low and high culture; the rais-
has dogged the deployment of these ing of passion, affect, desire, sensation,
terms, while for others the discourse of bodies, erotic ¯ow, difference, and power
modernity and postmodernism has pro- as sites for radical critique: these themes
duced illumination. What is of interest are central to the postmodernist political
for us in the present context are the lines project. The distinctive in¯ections these
of intersection between modern and post- themes are given in the work of authors
modern social theory; there are, as including Jean-FrancËois Lyotard, Donna
Bauman (1990, 1997) has argued, high Haraway, Luce Irigaray, Paul Virilio,
levels of envelopment, containment, Fredric Jameson, Zygmunt Bauman, and
translation, and incorporation in the inter- Richard Rorty are discussed in the contri-
acting forms of the modern and the post- butions that follow.
modern. The organizing frame for this The conditions of this widening of post-
debate is, following Bauman's formula- modernization are primarily historical,
tion, postmodernity as modernity without and relate principally to globalization. It
illusions. The postmodern order recog- has often been argued that globalization
nizes the fragile and contested nature of does not mark a critical break between
modern living, and directly embraces the epochs of modernity and post-
plurality, ambiguity, contingency, and modernity; this line of commentary
ambivalence. Yet the postmodern does tends to stress that global interconnections
not eclipse the modern. Modern and had their origins centuries ago in the
postmodern orders cross and tangle ± expansion of the world economy and the
sometimes across different forms of rise of the modern state (see Wallerstein,
life, and often within identities and 1974). However there are now strong
communities. indications that there has been a sudden
0
Martin Heidegger
RICHARD POLT
M
artin Heidegger, one of the rectorship in April 1934 after admini-
most signi®cant philosophers strative con¯icts with faculty and students,
of the twentieth century, lived but maintained his party membership.
the life of a provincial German academic, Refusing an invitation to teach in
interrupted by an unsuccessful foray into Berlin (Heidegger, 1981), he remained
political action at the beginning of the in Freiburg. After the Second World War,
Nazi regime. Heidegger was born on 26 a `denazi®cation' programme forced
September 1889 to a modest family in him to retire; however, in 1950 he re-
the Swabian town of Messkirch (his father gained the right to teach as an emeritus,
was the sexton of St Martin's Catholic and he delivered some lecture courses
Church). After brief experiences as a during the subsequent decade. Heidegger
Jesuit seminarian in 1909 and a student died on 26 May 1976 in Freiburg and
of theology, he devoted himself to philo- was buried in the family plot in
sophy, ®nishing his graduate studies at Messkirch.
the University of Freiburg in 1915. He Despite the great volume and range of
was married in 1917, and served in the Heidegger's work, it is best understood as
military as a noncombatant in 1918. a response to a single question, the ques-
From 1919 to 1923 he was the primary tion of `Being' (das Sein, not to be confused
assistant to Edmund Husserl, the leader with das Seiende ± `that which is', `entities',
of the phenomenological movement, at or `beings'). The question of Being has two
the University of Freiburg. Heidegger dimensions. First, what does it mean (for
taught philosophy at the University of any entity) to be? Although this is a classic
Marburg from 1923 to 1928, and at metaphysical question, Heidegger argues
Freiburg from 1928 to 1945. His ®rst and that metaphysics and all its scienti®c off-
greatest book, Being and Time, appeared in shoots have long taken the answer to the
1927 and quickly made him famous. question for granted: Being is assumed to
Under the National Socialist regime, be equivalent to presence. (Interpreters of
Heidegger rose to the position of rector Heidegger thus often use the expression
10 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
Buddhist notions, as well as Heidegger's temporality as the horizon for our under-
talk of `the nothing' (`What is Meta- standing of Being. Nevertheless, at least
physics?' in Heidegger, 1993a), have led ®ve aspects of Dasein as presented in
to speculation that he borrowed exten- Being and Time have important implica-
sively from East Asian traditions (Parkes, tions for understanding society.
1987; May, 1996). However, his relation The ®rst aspect is the priority of engaged
toward the East is perhaps better charac- involvement over theory and assertion. One of
terized as one of respect and curiosity. Heidegger's main goals in Being and Time
Heidegger's late thought does not pre- is to show that we are primarily in the
sent a systematic doctrine, but circles world by means of doing things, in a
around several topics of enduring con- broad sense, rather than by means of
cern. He explores many facets of the beliefs, theories, concepts, or propositions.
`history of Being', or the story of its (He shows this by way of a detailed inter-
manifestations and concealments in the pretation of the everyday `environment' in
West; he understands Being itself as hap- which we make and use `equipment'.)
pening historically, in a dynamic of grant- Our relation to other entities is one of `con-
ing and withdrawal. He names our cern' (Besorgen), and our whole way of
contemporary understanding of Being Being can be called `care' (Sorge); these
Technik (`technology' or `technicity'), and words are meant to indicate that we relate
tries to show that this understanding is to things and people primarily by letting
only one, limited historical `sending' of them matter to us in engaged involve-
Being (Heidegger, 1977). His search for ment, and only secondarily by forming
an alternative relation to beings leads propositional beliefs about them.
him to investigate the work of art as a Theoretical assertions thus always depend
locus of the strife between `world and on a pretheoretical dwelling in the world;
earth' ± roughly, a culture's interpretation the truths of theory presuppose a primor-
of beings and the obscure precultural dial truth, in the sense of `unconcealment',
ground of this interpretation (`The that always accompanies our Being-in-
Origin of the Work of Art' in Heidegger, the-world. For social theory, this would
1993a). He also explores language as the imply that interpersonal relations and
`house of Being' (`Letter on Humanism' in social structures should primarily be
Heidegger, 1993a). Many of his late essays understood not in terms of our opinions,
and lectures are devoted to poetry values, or other `mental' contents, but in
(Heidegger, 1971), especially that of the terms of how we reveal ourselves to each
Romantic poet Friedrich HoÈlderlin, other in and through practical dealings.
whom he came to see as a prophet of The second aspect concerns `Being-with'
German destiny (Heidegger, 1996b). (Mitsein). When Heidegger turns to the
question of `who' is engaged in the
world, he tries to show that Dasein's
SOCIAL THEORY AND Being is `Being-with'; in other words, we
CONTRIBUTIONS are essentially social beings (Being and
Time, sec. 26). Phenomena such as loneli-
Heidegger claims that he is not interested ness, withdrawal, and hostility do not
in human beings in general, but only inso- show that Dasein is fundamentally an
far as they are Dasein ± that is, only insofar atomic individual; instead, they are
as they are open to Being. This accounts merely `de®cient modes' of Being-with.
for a certain sketchiness in Being and Heidegger shows this initially by demon-
Time's interpretation of some aspects of strating that even when an individual
our existence: he does not intend to pro- Dasein is alone, its everyday environment
duce a complete anthropology, but only intrinsically involves `references' to other
a description of our existence that is Dasein who are fellow users and produ-
suf®ciently rich to make manifest our cers of `equipment'. Thus each Dasein
12 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
necessarily interprets itself in relation options grow from one's community and
to others, and constantly has a sense of heritage. Authenticity is a responsible and
`distantiality' ± that is, its status in relation lucid appropriation of one's sociality,
to other Dasein. Here Heidegger's analysis rather than a solitary withdrawal from
undercuts the solitary, ®rst-person per- sociality in which one would try to create
spective of much modern philosophy, as oneself anew. Heidegger also brie¯y
inaugurated by Descartes's `I think, there- sketches the difference between some
fore I am'. authentic and some inauthentic ways of
The third aspect relates to the `they' (das relating to others. For example, inauthen-
Man). As essentially social beings, we tic `leaping in' for someone relieves the
share a basic repertoire of practices and other of the need to do something,
self-interpretations with the other mem- whereas authentic `leaping ahead' opens
bers of our community. Since this reper- up new possibilities for the other.
toire is fundamentally anonymous rather Heidegger claims that this is not a moral
than individualized, I am not primarily `I distinction, but simply an indication of
myself', but rather anyone or `they' two different modes of Being-in-the-
(sec. 27). With this expression, Heidegger world.
points to the interchangeability of every- The ®nal aspect of Dasein is historicality.
day roles: my practices could, in principle, Heidegger's most dramatic descriptions
be performed by anyone else. of authenticity and of Dasein's temporality
The fourth aspect concerns the ideas are reserved for his account of `histori-
of authenticity and inauthenticity. The cality' (sec. 74). An entire community or
anonymity of the `they' both enables and `people' (Volk) has a shared past (a `heri-
encourages an `inauthentic' mode of exis- tage') and a shared range of future possi-
tence, in which one exists as a `they-self'. bilities (a `destiny'); a people `happens'
Instead of making our own choices, we historically by stretching from a heritage
usually simply allow ourselves to act into a destiny. Heidegger proposes that
and judge as `one' does ± even when we each generation is faced with the task of
take ourselves to be individual or original authentically appropriating its heritage
(we all shrink back from `the great mass'). and discovering its destiny, through a pro-
We are normally `falling' into the present cess of `communication and struggle'. A
world, and we ignore the task of choosing heritage can serve as a source of heroes ±
explicitly what we are to make of our- role models whose existence can be
selves. Authenticity, in contrast, is a `retrieved' creatively and adapted to the
mode of existing in which one truly unique exigencies of the present situation.
behaves as a self: one makes `resolute' There are no ahistorical standards for
choices and takes responsibility for them. human existence ± only past examples
One can be awakened to the need for that can be resurrected and transformed
authenticity by disturbing experiences, into future possibilities.
such as the mood of anxiety (Angst) and Around the time of his own abortive
the call of conscience, that force one to con- attempt at authentically historical action,
front one's own `Being-towards-death' Heidegger draws some connections
(the constant possibility of the impossibil- between the very general analyses of
ity of existing) and `guilt' (indebtedness to Being and Time and the particular situation
the past plus responsibility for the future). of Germany. He asserts that `historicity'
One can then recognize that existence is and `care' imply the desirability of a cer-
not completely anonymous and inter- tain social structure, a regime dedicated to
changeable: no one but I can do the job of preserving the destiny of the Volk through
choosing who I am to be, in the face of my a strong state (Heidegger, 1993b, 1998;
own mortality. However, authenticity does LoÈwith, 1994). This is clearly how he
not simply disengage one from the `they'; interprets National Socialism during this
this would be impossible, since all one's period.
Martin Heidegger 13
In the later 1930s, however, Heidegger going critique of this phenomenon (`Letter
became increasingly discontented with on Humanism,' in Heidegger, 1993a).
the Nazi regime. Nazi political measures Humanism, in the Heideggerian sense, is
may have some justi®cation, he thought, any way of thinking that glori®es human
but they fail to address the basic issue: the beings yet fails to ask about Being itself.
status of the German people's relation to Humanism represents all beings in terms
Being. As the people at the centre of the of some concept of their Being and gives
West, the Germans are entrusted with the humanity a central position among beings
destiny of reawakening the question of as a whole; however, humanism takes the
Being (Heidegger, 2000). It is in these meaning of Being for granted and does
terms, and not on the basis of race, that not grasp the human being as the one
national identity is to be understood who is called to engage in a respectful,
(Heidegger, 1999). The Being of a Volk is creative response to Being. Thus, human-
essentially contested and questionable, ism inappropriately raises humanity
rather than de®nable like the Being of an above Being; at the same time, humanism
object (`Who are we?', Heidegger likes to misses the real dignity of humans by fail-
ask). By the end of the decade, he was ing to understand our true calling. On the
looking not to Hitler, but to the poet political level, Heidegger's antihumanism
HoÈlderlin as the spokesman for national translates into a sweeping rejection of all
destiny. He was thoroughly disillusioned existing regimes. All modern political
with Nazi propaganda and its quasi- alternatives are surface phenomena, var-
Nietzschean metaphysics. However, he iants of the same underlying humanism.
condemns liberalism and Communism They all celebrate the human subject (as an
as equally nihilistic manifestations of the individual, a nation, a class or a species) at
modern worldview (Zimmerman, 1990; the expense of Being.
Polt, 1997; Fried, 2000). Technology (or technicity) is a closely
Heidegger's readings of Nietzsche related sign of the `oblivion of Being'. By
(Heidegger, 1979±87) parallel this shift in Technik, Heidegger means not just sophis-
his politics. His lectures on Nietzsche from ticated machinery, but a way of dealing
the mid-1930s are sympathetic explora- with and conceiving of beings in general.
tions of Nietzsche's attempts to escape The technological world view experiences
the constraints of traditional metaphysics, beings as `standing reserve', or sources
particularly through a revaluation of art. of energy that can be represented and
By the 1940s, however, Heidegger has manipulated by subjects (Heidegger,
developed an almost dismissive reading 1977). Modern natural science is essen-
of Nietzsche as `the last metaphysician'. tially `technological', quite apart from
According to this interpretation, its application to the construction of
Nietzsche understands the Being of machinery, because it proceeds by forcing
beings as the eternally recurring will to a mathematical means of representation
power ± but like all metaphysicians, upon beings; when approached in this
Nietzsche fails to ask how it is that we way, beings are reduced to a supply of
are able to understand Being in the ®rst manageable information.
place. Nietzsche's attempt to combat Heidegger sees technicity at work in the
nihilism falls prey to the deepest sort of political realm as well as in all other
nihilism ± the oblivion of Being. In the spheres of the modern world. For
end, he offers nothing but an exaltation instance, in one of the most controversial
of the subject as pure will, or a `will to of his rare postwar references to Nazism,
will' that imposes representations and he declares, `Agriculture is now a
values on objects. motorized food industry, essentially the
The Nietzschean overman is only the same as the manufacture of corpses in
®nal form of `humanism'; Heidegger's gas chambers and extermination camps,
postwar thought continues his thorough- the same as the blockade and starvation
14 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
of countries, the same as the manufacture they have also affected disciplines such
of hydrogen bombs' (`Das Ge-Stell' in as theology and literary theory. Here we
Heidegger, 1994). In other words, all can do no more than sketch some of the
these phenomena are manifestations of a most important appropriations of
manipulative, exploitative relation to Heidegger's thought, particularly as they
beings ± including human beings. For relate to social theory.
some readers, this thought offers a deep Being and Time, along with some essays
insight into the roots of fascism; for others, such as `What is Metaphysics?', had an
it is a reductive view that tries to minimize impact on existentialists during the 1940s
the distinctive evil of Nazism. ± notably on Jean-Paul Sartre, who drew
The most original aspect of Heidegger's on Heidegger's vocabulary in his pheno-
account of technology is his understand- menology of freedom and consciousness
ing of it in relation to the `history of Being'. (Sartre, 1966). Like `existential' thinkers
Technicity is not simply a mistake or a such as Kierkegaard, Karl Jaspers, and
careless interpretation of the world; it is Sartre, the early Heidegger attempts to
our destiny. The technological relation to understand the dynamics of human exis-
beings is the way in which a meaning of tence in terms of decision and individual-
Being has been `sent' to us. We must learn ity, and stresses that human beings cannot
to experience this meaning of Being as a be understood as if they were objects.
gift, and realize that it stems from a mys- However, he differs from highly indivi-
terious historical granting that cannot dualistic existentialists in that he rejects
itself be understood in technological the notion of absolute freedom and stres-
terms. ses that human identity is possible only
For these reasons, Heidegger offers no within a group and a tradition. For the
sweeping plan of action to combat later Heidegger, Sartre's position falls
humanism and technology. He limits him- prey to all the problems of humanism.
self to suggesting that we may be able to For these reasons, Heidegger himself
make small changes in our practices; per- rejected the label `existentialist'.
haps we can use technical devices without The 1950s saw the ¯ourishing of the
succumbing completely to a technological thought of Hannah Arendt, who had
understanding of the world (Heidegger, been Heidegger's student in the 1920s.
1966). Such changes may hold open the The in¯uence of Heidegger's earlier
possibility of a future `poetic dwelling' thought is clear in Arendt's emphasis on
that would gather us into a new proximity action over contemplation and in her
to Being. To suppose that we can solve all opposition to notions of the subject as
our problems through reason and will is an internal, private realm (Arendt, 1959;
merely to continue along the path of tech- Villa, 1996). Arendt develops these in-
nicity ± thus there is little we can do but sights into a philosophy centred on the
wait attentively for a new destiny. To put it practice of political debate within a delib-
most dramatically, `only a god can save erative democracy, whereas Heidegger
us' (Heidegger, 1990). never seemed to appreciate politics as a
deliberative sphere, and in his later years
withdrew completely from the political
APPRAISAL OF KEY ADVANCES AND world.
CONTROVERSIES Another pupil of Heidegger, Hans-
Influence Georg Gadamer, has developed
Heidegger's account of the appropriation
Heidegger's in¯uence on contemporary of tradition as a fundamental mode of
thought is multiform. His writings have understanding (Gadamer, 1997). This
become almost inevitable points of refer- ontology of understanding makes
ence for Continental philosophers and Heidegger a major ®gure in hermeneutics,
cultural theorists, especially in France; the theory of interpretation. His in¯uence
Martin Heidegger 15
Dreyfus this implies, among other things, example, that Heidegger's account of
that arti®cial intelligence is impossible as Dasein parallels the language of many
it is currently conceived, and that ethical of his antiliberal contemporaries, who
insight should be understood as a kind of criticized atomized `society' (Gesellschaft)
practical expertise. According to Richard in the name of a deeper `community'
Rorty, Heidegger (along with Dewey and (Gemeinschaft) (cf. Sluga, 1993). For
Wittgenstein) de¯ates the traditional Fritsche, the account of historicity in
ambition of philosophy to serve as the Being and Time is nothing short of a call
`mirror of nature'. Rorty's appropriation for a National Socialist revolution.
of Heidegger is not unlike Derrida's, in On the other extreme, one can argue
that he seeks to undermine the claims to that despite Heidegger's personal failings,
absoluteness of any system of representa- his philosophical thought rises above
tion. Rorty holds that the role of philoso- them completely. The ontology of Dasein
phers is not to construct dominant provided in Being and Time is in part too
theories, but to foster conversation in general to be associated exclusively with a
their culture; this translates into a politics fascist politics, and in part actually in-
of liberal tolerance (Rorty, 1991). consistent with fascism. Fascism treats
human beings as objects to be manipu-
Points of Controversy lated and used, but Being and Time implies
that such behaviour is a misunderstand-
The debates concerning Heidegger's ing of Dasein's way of Being. A strong
social thinking are inevitably coloured by example of this type of argument is pro-
the highly controversial topic of his af®lia- vided by Young (1997).
tion with the Nazi regime. There is a wide Perhaps the most interesting readings
variety of opinion on whether his philoso- of Heidegger's Nazi connection are those
phical thought has fascist political impli- that fall between these two extremes (e.g.
cations. (For a range of views, see Neske Derrida, 1989; Lacoue-Labarthe, 1990;
and Kettering, 1990; Rockmore and Caputo, 1993; Thiele, 1995; de Beistegui,
Margolis, 1992; Wolin, 1993; Harries and 1998). These interpretations neither use
Jamme, 1994.) Heidegger's politics to reject his philoso-
At one extreme, we ®nd total condem- phy, nor dismiss his politics as irrelevant;
nation: Heidegger's thinking is simply the they seek to ®nd food for independent
philosophical codi®cation of a reactionary thought both in Heidegger's philosophy
political position (Adorno, 1986; Bourdieu, and in the implications of his Nazi sym-
1991). Bourdieu provides a rhetorical ana- pathies. One common suggestion is that
lysis of Heidegger's texts as covert, these sympathies demonstrate the continu-
euphemistic political statements. His ing, insidious power of the metaphysics
intent is not only to expose Heidegger, of presence; Heidegger's attraction to fas-
but to challenge the supposed autonomy cism shows that it was dif®cult for him to
of philosophical discourse; the philoso- escape the metaphysical thinking that his
phical `®eld' must be reintegrated into own thought renders unworkable. This
the social ®eld at large. Even the most view is essentially in agreement with
exalted ontology is a manoeuvre con- Heidegger's own ®nal interpretation of
ducted within an established `game', a Nazism as a form of `humanism'. A more
set of possible social stances. For instance, original interpretation is that of Gregory
Bourdieu reads the distinction between Fried (2000), who argues that, regardless
authenticity and inauthenticity as a way of the depth or length of Heidegger's com-
of obscuring `objective' differences of mitment to National Socialism, his thought
class. involves an enduring commitment to a
A similar, more detailed reading of `polemical' understanding of Dasein and
Being and Time is provided by Johannes Being. For Heidegger, genuine unconceal-
Fritsche (1999). Fritsche points out, for ment demands an ongoing confrontation
Martin Heidegger 17
with the limits of one's understanding At the same time, however, at least in
of Being; this vision presents a serious Being and Time, Heidegger satis®es certain
challenge to conventional understandings aspirations of modernity. He makes room
of politics as a means to ensure peace, for the modern demand for individual
rights, and equality. autonomy and the modern view of
Heidegger's social thinking is equally humanity as free and self-interpreting,
controversial on the level of his analysis rather than constrained by a ®xed essence.
of person-to-person relationships. In the His concept of authenticity manages to
in¯uential reading of Emmanuel Levinas combine sociality with responsibility by
(1969), Heidegger's preoccupation with developing an account of situated, ®nite
the question of Being crowds out the ques- freedom.
tion of `the other', leaving no room for a For these reasons, Heidegger's early
genuine understanding of the face-to-face work holds promise for our understanding
encounter and of the ethical demand of society. His provocative descriptions of
for justice. (Here one should consider everydayness and authenticity have
Heidegger's argument in a 1929 lecture the potential to enrich and transform the
course: the `I±thou' relationship is not pri- standard concepts of sociology ± just as
mary, but is only one particular mode of they transformed psychological concepts
Dasein's Being, Heidegger, 1984.) when they were adopted by the existential
In contrast, others (Olafson, 1998; psychotherapy movement in the 1950s.
Hatab, 2000) hold that Heidegger's early When Heidegger turns away from
work actually makes it possible to con- everydayness in the 1930s, he stops
ceive of interpersonal relations in a way describing actual social life and instead
that is freed from many traditional preju- focuses on its supposed deep causes ±
dices; he thus suggests the ontological the historically unfolding understanding
groundwork for an ethics, even if he of Being, including the presumed domi-
does not provide an ethics in his own writ- nance of the `metaphysics of presence' in
ings. Hatab makes a strong case that Western thought. This analysis is more
Heidegger's interpretation of Dasein as useful as a reading of the history of philo-
situated and ®nite can alert us both to sophy than as a guide to history at large.
the need for ethical responsibility and to Heidegger never tries to support his view
the dif®cult, questionable character of that all human history is grounded in the
ethical decisions. history of Being by carrying out detailed
cultural and historical analyses. His late
Assessment opinions on social life are too abstract
and reductive to provide genuine insight
One way of considering Heidegger's sig- into how society works and into the
ni®cance for philosophy in general is to varieties of possible human regimes and
view him as dealing the death blow to cultures. It can be argued that cultural the-
the typical modern picture of the human orists such as Foucault have gone some
condition, according to which human distance towards applying Heideggerian
beings are fundamentally private minds, ideas to actual history. However, like stan-
atomic subjects who relate to external dard Marxist and Freudian theories,
objects by means of representations and Heidegger's late thought tends to function
judgments. Heidegger describes us, as an unfalsi®able framework rather than
instead, as social beings who interpret as a hypothesis that can be con®rmed or
themselves and their surroundings pri- countered by empirical studies. As such, it
marily through engaged action. This should be treated as a suggestive tool for
could be read as a return to Aristotle's social interpretation, but not as the last
insights into the human being as a `political word.
animal' and into the irreducibility of prac- The disturbing political overtones of
tical knowledge to theoretical knowledge. some of Heidegger's thought should not
18 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
be forgotten, but one must beware of read- Heidegger, M. (1979±87) Nietzsche. New York: Harper
ings such as those of Bourdieu and & Row.
Heidegger, M. (1981) `Why do I stay in the pro-
Fritsche, which are sophisticated versions
vinces?', in T. Sheehan (ed.), Heidegger: The Man
of what is traditionally called an ad homi- and the Thinker. Chicago: Precedent.
nem argument. They locate Heidegger's Heidegger, M. (1982) The Basic Problems of
discourse in its contemporary milieu; Phenomenology. Bloomington: Indiana University
this in itself is unobjectionable, and is Press.
even quite consistent with Heidegger's Heidegger, M. (1984) The Metaphysical Foundations of
own view that human beings are situated Logic. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Heidegger, M. (1985) History of the Concept of Time:
and historical. Such efforts are also helpful
Prolegomena. Bloomington: Indiana University
in alerting us to possible blind spots in Press.
Heidegger's thinking. However, when a Heidegger, M. (1990) `Only a god can save us', in G.
rhetorical and political analysis is pre- Neske and E. Kettering (eds), Martin Heidegger and
sented as the ®nal analysis, it becomes National Socialism: Questions and Answers. New
reductive; it rules out the possibility that York: Paragon House.
Heidegger's thoughts, situated though Heidegger, M. (1993a) Basic Writings, 2nd edn. San
Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco.
they are, may also have relevance and Heidegger, M. (1993b) `The self-assertion of
truth for us. For example, it is possible the German university', in R. Wolin (ed.),
that his view of human existence as essen- The Heidegger Controversy: A Critical Reader.
tially `Being-with' simply is truer than the Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
concept of society as a collection of wholly Heidegger, M. (1994) Bremer und Freiburger VortraÈge.
independent individuals. Even if this Gesamtausgabe, vol. 79. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio
Klostermann.
insight has sometimes been invoked in
Heidegger, M. (1995) The Fundamental Concepts
support of fascism, there is certainly of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude.
more than one way to try to convert it Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
into a political programme; the concept Heidegger, M. (1996a) Being and Time. (Trans. J.
of community has often been used by non- Stambaugh.) Albany: State University of New
fascist thinkers, including contemporary York Press.
democratic `communitarians' (e.g. Heidegger, M. (1996b) HoÈlderlin's Hymn `The Ister'.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Walzer, 1983; Taylor, 1989; Sandel, 1998). Heidegger, M. (1998a) Logik als die Frage nach dem
We should also recognize that socio- Wesen der Sprache. Gesamtausgabe, vol. 38.
logical, political, and rhetorical interpreta- Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann.
tions presuppose an understanding of the Heidegger, M. (1998b) Pathmarks. Cambridge:
`Being' of society, polity, language, and Cambridge University Press.
human beings in general. Whether or not Heidegger, M. (1999) Contributions to Philosophy
one agrees with Heidegger's account of (From Enowning). Bloomington: Indiana
University Press.
Dasein, it deserves to be taken seriously Heidegger, M. (2000) Introduction to Metaphysics. New
as an attempt to enrich our understanding Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
of ourselves.
SECONDARY WORKS
HEIDEGGER'S MAJOR WORKS
Adorno, T. (1986) The Jargon of Authenticity. London:
Heidegger, M. (1962) Being and Time. (Trans. J. Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Macquarrie and E. Robinson.) New York: Harper Arendt, H. (1959) The Human Condition. Garden City,
& Row. NY: Doubleday.
Heidegger, M. (1966) Discourse on Thinking. New Bernstein, R.J. (1992) The New Constellation: The
York: Harper & Row. Ethical-Political Horizons of Modernity/
Heidegger, M. (1971) Poetry, Language, Thought. New Postmodernity. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
York: Harper & Row. Bourdieu, P. (1991) The Political Ontology of Martin
Heidegger, M. (1977) The Question Concerning Heidegger. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Technology and Other Essays. New York: Harper & Caputo, J.D. (1993) Demythologizing Heidegger.
Row. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Martin Heidegger 19
de Beistegui, M. (1998) Heidegger and the Political: Okrent, M. (1988) Heidegger's Pragmatism:
Dystopias. London: Routledge. Understanding, Being, and the Critique of
Derrida, J. (1982) Margins of Philosophy. Chicago: Metaphysics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
University of Chicago Press. Olafson, F. (1998) Heidegger and the Ground of Ethics: A
Derrida, J. (1989) Of Spirit: Heidegger and the Question. Study of Mitsein. Cambridge: Cambridge
Chicago: University of Chicago Press. University Press.
Derrida, J. (1992) `Force of Law: The ``Mystical Ott, H. (1993) Heidegger: A Political Life. New York:
Foundation of Authority'' '. In D. Cornell et al. Basic Books.
(eds), Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice. Parkes, G. (ed.) (1987) Heidegger and Asian Thought.
New York: Routledge. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Dreyfus, H.L. (1991) Being-in-the-World: A Polt, R. (1997) `Metaphysical Liberalism in
Commentary on Heidegger's Being and Time, Heidegger's BeitraÈge zur Philosophie', Political
Division I. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Theory, 25: 5.
Ferry, L. and Renaut, A. (1990a) French Philosophy of Polt, R. (1999) Heidegger: An Introduction. London:
the Sixties: An Essay on Anti-Humanism. Amherst: UCL Press.
University of Massachusetts Press. Ricoeur, P. (1974) The Con¯ict of Interpretations: Essays
Ferry, L. and Renaut, A. (1990b) Heidegger and Modern in Hermeneutics. Evanston, IL: Northwestern
Philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. University Press.
Foucault, M. (1970) The Order of Things: An Rockmore, T. and Margolis, J. (eds) (1992) The
Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Heidegger Case: On Philosophy and Politics.
Vintage. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Fried, G. (2000) Heidegger's Polemos: From Being to Rorty, R. (1991) Essays on Heidegger and Others.
Politics. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fried, G. and Polt, R. (eds) (2000) A Companion to Safranski, R. (1998) Martin Heidegger: Between Good
Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics. New and Evil. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Press.
Fritsche, J. (1999) Historical Destiny and National Sandel, M. (1998) Liberalism and the Limits of Justice.
Socialism in Heidegger's Being and Time. Berkeley: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
University of California Press. Sartre, J.-P. (1966) Being and Nothingness. New York:
Gadamer, H.-G. (1997) Truth and Method. New York: Washington Square Press.
Continuum. Sheehan, T. (ed.) (1981) Heidegger: the Man and the
Guignon, C.B. (ed.) (1993) The Cambridge Companion Thinker. Chicago: Precedent.
to Heidegger. Cambridge: Cambridge University Sluga, H. (1993) Heidegger's Crisis: Philosophy and
Press. Politics in Nazi Germany. Cambridge, MA:
Harries, K. and Jamme, C. (eds) (1994) Martin Harvard University Press.
Heidegger: Politics, Art, and Technology. New York/ Taylor, C. (1989) Sources of the Self: The Making of the
London: Holmes & Meier. Modern Identity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
Hatab, L. (2000) Ethics and Finitude: Heideggerian University Press.
Contributions to Moral Philosophy. Lanham, MD: Thiele, L. (1995) Timely Meditations: Martin Heidegger
Rowman & Little®eld. and Postmodern Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
Lacoue-Labarthe, P. (1990) Heidegger, Art and Politics. University Press.
Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Villa, D.R. (1996) Heidegger and Arendt: The Fate of the
Levinas, E. (1969) Totality and In®nity: An Essay on Political. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Exteriority. Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Walzer, M. (1983) Spheres of Justice: A Defense of
Press. Pluralism and Equality. New York: Basic Books.
LoÈwith, K. (1994) My Life in Germany Before and Wolin, R. (ed.) (1993) The Heidegger Controversy: A
After 1933: A Report. Urbana: University of Critical Reader. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Illinois Press. Young, J. (1997) Heidegger, Philosophy, Nazism.
Marcuse, H. (1969) `Contribution to a phenomenol- Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ogy of historical materialism', Telos, 4. Zimmerman, M.E. (1986) Eclipse of the Self: The
May, R. (1996) Heidegger's Hidden Sources: East Asian Development of Heidegger's Concept of Authenticity,
In¯uences on his Work. London: Routledge. 2nd edn. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press.
Neske, G. and Kettering, E. (eds) (1990) Martin Zimmerman, M.E. (1990) Heidegger's Confrontation
Heidegger and National Socialism: Questions and with Modernity: Technology, Politics and Art.
Answers. New York: Paragon House. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
2
Georges Bataille
MICHAEL RICHARDSON
A
s a writer whose identity was Manuelo Granero. This was to have a
partly created through his writ- powerful impact on him, uniting eroti-
ing, the facts of Bataille's life cism and death in his mind and making
should be treated with caution. Born on a link that would fascinate him for the rest
10 September 1897 at Billom, Puy-de- of his life.
DoÃme, Bataille later regarded his child- Upon return to Paris, he obtained work
hood in traumatic terms. His father was at the BibliotheÁque Nationale, a position
blind and syphilitic and suffered a general he held for the next 20 years (he was
paralysis when Bataille was three. Having a librarian for most of his life). At the
been brought up by atheist parents who same time, he began serious study of
had no interest in religion, in adolescence philosophy. As a student of the exiled
he became a Catholic. Even though he Russian philosopher Leon Chestov, he
was soon to reject Christianity (having gained a deep understanding of
enrolled for the priesthood, by 1920 he Nietzsche, who was to be the great in¯u-
had lost his faith), the impulse that drew ence on his social thinking. Chestov's
him towards it still provided a focus for an teaching offered a powerful lesson to
essential underlying aspect of his work: Bataille: it showed him that thought was
what moral necessity justi®es our exis- valuable only when related to experience,
tence in the modern world? His conver- and that cultivation of sensory perception
sion to Catholicism coincided with was as important as cultivation of the
declaration of war in 1914, two events mind. In this, Nietzsche's rehabilitation
that seem linked in the evolution of his of the body was crucial. A period of
thinking. Even though he did not see great instability in Bataille's personal life
combat (he was called up but soon followed, in which he lived a dissolute
demobilized after a bout of tuberculosis), night life and came into contact with the
Bataille's personality was still marked by surrealists, whose sensibility he shared,
the experience of the war. Having studied even if he found the atmosphere around
to become a medievalist at the Ecole des the Surrealist Group sti¯ing.
Georges Bataille 21
He started to write seriously in about The Dead Man. Having been forced by
1927 and his experience of extreme states sickness to leave the BibliotheÁque
of mind is apparent in his early work, as Nationale, he retired to the French coun-
can be seen in such articles as `The solar tryside and, in 1943, published his ®rst
anus' and `The pineal eye', and in the clan- substantial work of social theory,
destinely published novel, The Story of the L'ExpeÂrience inteÂrieure, which explored
Eye. In the same year he was asked to the existential problems of existing in the
assist in the production of the journal modern world. During the next few years
Documents, which was published regu- he immersed himself in a range of pro-
larly until 1931, and for which he wrote jects. He published various works, includ-
numerous articles and soon became its ing the volume of poems L'ArchangeÂlique
de-facto co-editor. (1944), the re¯ective philosophical texts
During the next few years, Bataille's Sur Nietzsche (1945) and MeÂthode de meÂdita-
interests expanded into the ®elds of tion (1947), the theoretical work, TheÂorie de
anthropology and sociology and he religion (1948) and the economic analysis
attended the lectures of Marcel Mauss. of La Part maudite (1949). In 1946 he
He also became politically involved, par- founded Critique, a journal devoted to
ticipating in Boris Souvarine's Cercle substantial reviews of recently published
Communiste DeÂmocratique and contribut- books in a wide range of subjects. He was
ing key essays to its journal La Critique to be its editor until his death and pub-
sociale, in which he explored for the ®rst lished numerous articles in it. In 1947 he
time in extended form his ideas about gave some lectures at the ColleÁge philoso-
expenditure and loss and on the dangers phique, but had no regular employment
represented by the emergence of fascism. and experienced severe ®nancial dif®cul-
He also took part in an abortive attempt to ties until 1949, when he became a librarian
create a `popular university' and in 1935 in Charpentras.
founded, with Andre Breton, the anti- During the 1950s, he struggled with ill-
Popular Front group Contre-Attaque. ness but was still productive. He pub-
In 1934, he began attending Alexandre lished the novels L'Abbe C. (1950) and Le
KojeÁve's lectures on Hegel's phenomeno- Bleu du ciel (1957), a collection of essays on
logy, which were crucial in giving him a literature, La LiteÂrature et le mal (1957),
new perspective on the possibilities of three books on art (on Manet and pre-
Hegel's philosophy. Further turmoil in historic art, both in 1955, and Les Larmes
his personal life led to the break-up of his d'Eros, on eroticism in art, 1961), as well as
®rst marriage and the start of an intense his most important study, L'Erotisme
relationship with Colette Peignot, whose (1957). He died in Paris in 1962.
death in 1938 was to have a devastating Bataille had wide-ranging interests and
effect on him. published books in the realms of philoso-
In 1936, he created the College of phy, economic theory, art history, litera-
Sociology, an attempt at an `activist sociol- ture, and ®ction. All of this work is
ogy', as well as AceÂphale, a secret society dominated by a concern with social
intent on a `voyage out of this world', themes. It has to be seen against the back-
which also had the practical purpose of ground of his times. Traumatized as
rescuing Nietzsche from the distortions Bataille was by childhood experiences
promulgated about him by the Nazis. and the impact of the First World War,
A decade of intense public activity came his work is an attempt to engage with
to an end with the coming of a new war the moral issue of whether it is possible
which caused Bataille to withdraw into to exist in society or whether the modern
himself. He began writing his most consciousness has reached such a state of
introspective books, Le Coupable and in®rmity that social being is impossible. In
L'ExpeÂrience inteÂrieure, as well as the this sense he is ®rmly within the frame-
intense erotic tales Madame Edwarda and work of surrealist revolt and was repelled
22 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
by a civilization that had been responsible outwards. It is for this reason that philo-
for the horrors of the trenches. He felt that sophical re¯ection, novels, and poetic
the tradition of French rationalist thought texts all become the means to explore
was implicated in this deÂbaÃcle and, again the nature of what he called `inner
like the surrealists, he was ready to `hold experience'.
out a hand to the enemy', looking to the In using his own experience as the basis
German tradition, precisely to Nietzsche of his social theory, however, Bataille was
and later Hegel, as thinkers who had a not succumbing to subjectivism. There is
depth that was able to address the moral nothing narcissistic about his method. He
crisis of contemporary consciousness. explored his inner experience only in
order to grasp the relation of his being
with that of others. The data of his own
SOCIAL THEORY AND life was of value only to the extent that it
CONTRIBUTIONS was the most reliable available source
open to him.
At the core of Bataille's preoccupations is Bataille's understanding of what consti-
the nature of humanity's collective exis- tuted a social fact emerged from
tence and how we respond to it as indivi- Durkheim's sociology. He agreed with
duals. How do we live in society and in Durkheim that societies are organic
the world? How do we co-exist with our wholes whose essential characteristics dif-
fellow beings? These were the questions fer from the sum of their parts. At the
that haunted him. He had little interest same time, though, social and personal
in being itself, nor was he concerned being are not to be seen as different things.
about the nature of individual identity. Collective consciousness is not abstract
Existence was only of interest to him but has a concrete reality as distinctive
in its social dimension. In this respect, as that of a particular individual existing
humanist ideas were alien to his way of within it. The individual is related to the
thinking, for human beings exist only in collective in the same way as cells in a
relation with others. Human life is unable body to an individual. In order to under-
to tolerate isolated being: we are formed stand the social body, therefore, we also
as humans only through social interaction. need to understand the relation an indivi-
Equally, we can exist only within the dual has to it.
frame established by social limits and Bataille's debt to Durkheim is most
this de®nes our reality. It means that any clearly seen in his analysis of the sacred.
idea of transcendence is a delusion. Accepting the distinction Durkheim made
Bataille considered that it is essential to between sacred and profane, Bataille con-
face social and existential reality as sidered that the balance between them
squarely as one can and not strive to had been broken in modern society, in
elude the inevitability of one's fate. which the sacred struggles to survive in
Looking for the reasons for existence has a world dominated by the profane.
little meaning. The most important focus The sacred is communication and
for social investigation is to understand Bataille saw the possibilities of communi-
how we are able to live within the limits cation today being broken down by the
that life imposes on us. dominance of exchange values. This has
Yet, unlike most thinkers interested in an impact at every level of society. The
understanding social existence, Bataille existence of the sacred implies an inherent
had little interest in taking the observed contract between human society and
world as an object of study. Rather, the cosmos. This is given expression in
he began with his own life. He did not such practices as ritual sacri®ce. Sacri®ce
analyse given data with a view to drawing maintained the balance between sacred
a theory from it. His social theory emerges and profane by allowing an outlet to the
from within himself and projected surplus effusion generated by human
Georges Bataille 23
activity. It was a transgressive act serving itself but of the fact that we have indivi-
to maintain the taboo that protected the dualized it. We have convinced ourselves
world of work from contagious violence. that wealth is something we can own, that
As societies develop, though, this com- accrues to us as individuals rather than
plex interrelation is ruptured and the belonging to humanity in its generality.
homogeneity of modern societies is This is the lie that irrevokably ruptures
instituted by means of a fundamental any sense of harmony we can achieve
profanation. with the cosmos and which, in the past,
The nature of this profanation can be was encapsulated by the idea of the
explored through what Bataille calls the sacred.
`restricted economy'. This is characteristic The consequence is that distinction
of modern societies and is based on the becomes the only measure of social pres-
need to reduce scarcity. It encourages the tige. And servility in turn is established as
accumulation of wealth at the expense of the gauge against which distinction gains
the social communication that is the basic its value. Class distinction is institutional-
quality of the sacred. Bataille saw this as a ized and so status comes to determine
delusion. He regarded life in its essentials being. This results in servility pervading
as being energy striving to expend itself each aspect of society, so that even power
uselessly. Humanity has increasingly itself comes to be applied in servility
tried to regulate this basic effusion by instead of in sovereignty.
means of work, to the extent that, in mod- Sovereignty is a principle of life that
ern society, work provides the parameter takes a moral shape in human interaction.
by which all activity is judged. It is this Sovereignty is simultaneously present in
that represents the triumph of the profane the consecration of the immediate and
and establishes the frame within which the human will to realize itself. It repre-
the restricted economy is able to dominate sents the essence of becoming: acceptance
all activity. Against this process, Bataille of the immediacy offered by life, rather
posits the idea of the `general economy', than a striving to transcend its limits, com-
which would restore the principle of bined with a refusal to accept a debased
generosity into human relations. existence. But this is paradoxical, because
The general economy, as Bataille under- the very ¯ow of human life works against
stands it, is determined not by the accu- the possibility of a sovereign existence. In
mulation of wealth through work but by order to survive in society we are forced to
expenditure: the joyful consumption of make an accommodation both with our
excess wealth by means of the festival, fellow beings and with the world. This
laughter, and play. In modern societies establishes a fundamental breach which
the latter activities are accursed, being can never be entirely surmounted. The
given to us only as recompense for our fact of this gap means that we are incom-
devotion to the principle of work. As plete beings whose existence is discontin-
such it is no longer possible to experience uous, that is, separated from all other
pure effusion. Transgression, as the secret beings.
of the sacred, is tamed and reduced to a It is the existence of death that reveals
means of social control. It can be mani- this gap. Knowing we shall die, we recog-
fested only in regulated pleasure (perhaps nize that we are limited beings. The prin-
symbolized most clearly by the package ciple of work and building for the future
holiday), or in destructive activities such are attempts to deny this, to try to con-
as war. vince ourselves that we shall not die.
For Bataille, then, the essential social However, we are also marked with a long-
problem facing humankind is not, as gen- ing for the continuity we have lost by the
erally assumed, poverty. On the contrary, fact of being born. This is at the basis of
we are, as he says, `sick with wealth'. And what Freud called the death instinct.
this sickness is the result not of wealth Death perpetrates violence against us but
24 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
in knowledge itself but in the margins period, making ®rm friends with writers
between knowledge and nonknowledge. and artists of the surrealist circles, such
This idea also affects the practice of as Michel Leiris, Roger Caillois, ReneÂ
writing. Bataille had no wish to convince. Char, and Andre Masson. Friendship,
He wanted a to establish a relation of inti- indeed, was a crucial element in
macy and complicity with the reader. At Bataille's make-up, which meant far more
times his writing is provocative, it seeks to to him that any impersonal `in¯uence',
jolt the reader out of complacency. Rather whether with his contemporaries or with
than providing an argument, he lays ancestors ± most notably Nietzsche and
down a challenge. Hegel ± as he was drawn by the com-
The condition of life, as Bataille saw it, munity founded in a fundamental refusal
is paradoxical, based on an impossible of the poison of servility. This was the
combination of different states of being. `journey to the end of the night' of which
This paradox lies at the heart of our nature he spoke at the time of AceÂphale.
as human beings. Living with the aware- The community of which Bataille
ness that we are impermanent beings who dreamed in the 1930s was continued in
will one day die, we recoil from this the friendships he later formed, especially
awareness in terror. And yet, just as we with Maurice Blanchot and Michel
¯ee this realization and build for a future Fardoulis-Lagrange, who responded
that will never come, we also have an urge most ®rmly to what Blanchot would call
to shatter the works by which we strive to the `unconfessable community'. In no
achieve a transcendence of death. This is sense were they his `disciples'. Rather
the basis of the transgression that is cen- they engaged in a conversation in which
tral to the very structure of human society. Bataille is ± as interlocutor or con®dant ±
The tension between the will towards ever present. Blanchot was the more expli-
order and the pull of disorder is the reality cit in making clear the nature of this
that Bataille sought to explore through an friendship that had, by its very nature, to
examination of how awareness of death be unacknowledged. It was founded, as
affects human experience. Blanchot put it, in `thought's profound
It was from this point of view that he grief'. The idea of this community is ulti-
denied the very possibility of ultimate mately transgressive, which is why it can-
knowledge. We can never fully under- not be `confessed'.
stand the world because life's condition Blanchot's relation with Bataille has
is necessarily incomplete. In this respect, been widely recognized. It lies in a con-
the labyrinth provides a metaphor for cern with social being, the problem of
human existence: we are led inexorably the consciousness of death, and the
along a path by a mystery we can never moral responsibility that transgression
fully unravel but which we are destined to entails. A similar interest in human exis-
pursue to the end. tence as resulting from an act that is essen-
tially transgressive is central to the less
well-known work of Fardoulis-Lagrange,
APPRAISAL OF KEY ADVANCES AND who is similarly intrigued by the limits of
CONTROVERSIES existence and the pull of death.
Friendship is often also marked by the
During his life, Bataille was a marginal quality of one's enemies and Bataille did
®gure whose in¯uence on French intel- not lack for the latter. An early tiff
lectual life was discreet but signi®cant. between him and Andre Breton is well
Through editing the journals Documents known, re¯ecting an ambivalent relation
and Critique and as the motivating ®gure between the two men which was the
in the groups AceÂphale and College of result of a clash of different temperaments
Sociology, he came into contact with rather than any substantial differences of
many of the leading ®gures of the interwar opinion.
26 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
stable is any tone of intimacy or discretion. Volume X: L'Erotisme, Le ProceÁs de Gilles de Rais, Les
Most of these texts are raucous; they bring Larmes d'Eros.
Volume XI: Articles, 1944±49.
attention to themselves and proclaim their
Volume XII: Articles, 1950±61.
transgressions in a way that Bataille In addition, his letters to Roger Caillois are available
would without much doubt have found in:
vulgar. Bataille, G. (1987) Lettres aÁ Roger Caillois. Rennes:
In many ways, Bataille is a modest Editions Folle Avoine.
thinker. He made no claim to be able to He is the subject of an excellent biography: Michel
explain the world, or even the small part Surya (1987) Georges Bataille: la mort aÁ l'oeuvre Paris:
Garamont. Jean-Paul Sartre's essay, `Un nouveau
of it of which he had experience. This
mystique' is to be found in the journal Cahiers du
makes him dif®cult to place as a social Sud (1943) and is reprinted in Situations 1 Paris:
theorist. Yet even if, by bringing attention Gallimard, 1947.
to the idea of nonknowledge, he under-
mined the path of pure knowledge that English Translations
Western thought has tended to see as the
Bataille, G. (1955a) Manet (Trans. Austryn Wainhouse
route to enlightenment, he still upheld the & James Emmons). Geneva: Skira; London:
signi®cance of the quest for understand- Macmillan.
ing in the widest sense. In this respect, his Bataille, G. (1955b) Prehistoric Painting: Lascaux or the
method has a good deal in common with Birth of Art. (Trans Austryn Wainhouse). Geneva:
Adorno's call for a negative dialectic. Skira; London: Macmillan.
In bringing attention to the way that all Bataille, G. (1956) The Beast At Heaven's Gate
(Madame Edwarda) (Trans. Austryn Wainhouse).
knowledge is, in the end, delusory,
Paris: Olympia Press.
Bataille shows how it is ultimately impos- Bataille, G. (1962) Eroticism. (Trans Mary Dalwood).
sible to grasp the essence of any person's London: Calder & Boyars; (1986) San Fransisco:
thought. Any account that aims to reduce City Lights; (1987) London: Marion Boyars.
someone's life to a few words is therefore Bataille, G. (1972) My Mother. (Trans. Austryn
to be treated with caution. Including, no Wainhouse). London: Jonathan Cape.
doubt, this one. Bataille, G. (1973) Literature and Evil (Trans. Alastair
Hamilton). London: Calder & Boyars.
Bataille, G. (1977) The Story of the Eye. (Trans. Joachim
Neugroschel). New York: Urizen Books; (1979)
BATAILLE'S MAJOR WORKS London: Marion Boyars; (1982) Harmondsworth:
Penguin.
Bataille's writings are available in the 12 volumes of Bataille, G. (1979) Blue of Noon (Trans. Harry
his Oeuvres CompleÁtes (1971±88) Paris: Gallimard. Matthews). London: Marion Boyars.
The contents are as follows: Bataille, G. (1983) L'Abbe C. (Trans. Philip A. Facey).
Volume I: Early Writings, 1922±40, Histoire de l'oeil, London: Marion Boyars.
L'Anus solaire, Sacri®ces, Articles. Bataille, G. (1985) Visions of Excess: Selected Writings
Volume II: Posthumously Published Writings, 1922±40. 1927±1939. (Trans. Allan Stoekl). Manchester:
Volume III: Literary Works, Madame Edwarda, Le Petit, Manchester University Press.
L'ArchangeÂlique, L'Impossible, La ScissipariteÂ, L'Abbe Bataille, G. (1986) `Writings on laughter, sacri®ce,
C, L'Etre indiffeÂrencie n'est rien, Le Bleu du ciel. Nietzsche, un-knowing. (Trans. Annette
Volume IV: Posthumously Published Literary Works, Michelson), October, 36, Spring.
Poems, Le Mort, Julie, La Maison bruÃleÂe, La Tombe de Bataille, G. (1988a) Inner Experience (Trans. Leslie
Louis XXX, Divinus Deus, Ebauches. Anne Boldt). Albany: State University of New York.
Volume V: La Somme AtheÂologique 1, L'ExpeÂrience inteÂr- Bataille, G. (1988b) Guilty. (Trans Bruce Boone).
ieure, MeÂthode de MeÂditation, Le Coupable, L'Alleluiah. Venice, CA: Lapis Press.
Volume VI: La Somme AtheÂologique 2, Sur Nietzsche, Bataille, G. (1988c) The Accursed Share. (Trans Robert
MeÂmorandum. Hurley). New York: Zone Books.
Volume VII: L'EÂconomie aÁ la mesure de l'univers, La Part Bataille, G. (1988d) Theory of Religion. (Trans Robert
maudite, La Limite de l'utile, TheÂorie de la religion, Hurley). New York: Zone Books.
ConfeÂrences 1947±48. Bataille, G. (1989b). The Tears of Eros. (Trans. John
Volume VIII: L'Histoire de l'eÂrotisme, Le SurreÂalisme au Connor). San Fransisco, CA: City Lights.
jour le jour, ConfeÂrences 1951±53, La SouveraineteÂ. Bataille, G. (1989b) My Mother, Madame Edwarda, The
Volume IX: Lascaux ou la naissance de l'art, Manet, La Dead Man. (Trans. Austryn Wainhouse). London:
LitteÂrature et le Mal. Marion Boyars.
Georges Bataille 29
Bataille, G. (1991a) The Impossible. (Trans. Robert Gill, Carolyn Bailey (ed.) (1995) Bataille: Writing the
Hurley). San Fransisco, CA: City Lights. Sacred. London: Routledge.
Bataille, G. (1991b) The Trial of Gilles de Rais. (Trans Hollier, Denis (1990) Beyond Architecture. (Trans.
Robert Robinson). Los Angeles, CA: Amok. Betsy Wing). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Bataille, G. (1992) On Nietzsche (Trans. Bruce Boone). Habermas, JuÈrgen (1987) `Between eroticism and
London: The Athlone Press. general economics: Georges Bataille,' in The
Bataille, G. (1994) The Absence of Myth. (Trans. Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. (Trans.
Michael Richardson). London: Verso. Frederick Lawrence). Oxford: Polity Press.
Bataille, G. (1997) The Bataille Reader (ed. Fred Botting Hollier, D. (ed.) (1988) The ColleÁge de Sociologie (1937±
and Scott Wilson). Oxford: Blackwell. 39). (Trans. Betsy Wing). Minneapolis: University
Bataille, G. (1998) Georges Bataille: Essential Writings of Minnesota Press.
(ed. Michael Richardson). London: Sage. Laure (1995) The Collected Writings (Trans. Jeanine
Herman). San Fransisco, CA: City Lights.
Leiris, Michel (1989) `From the impossible Bataille to
SECONDARY REFERENCES the impossible Documents', in BriseÂes: Broken
Branches (Trans. Lydia Davis). San Fransisco, CA:
Blanchot, Maurice (1997) `Friendship', in Friendship. North Point Press.
(Trans. Elizabeth Rottenberg). Stanford, CA: Libertson Joseph (1982) Proximity: Levinas, Blanchot,
Stanford University Press. Bataille and Communication. The Hague: Martinus
Bois, Yve-Alain and Krauss, Rosalind (1997) Formless: Nihoff.
A User's Guide. New York: Zone Books. Michelson, Annette (1986) `Heterology and the cri-
Boldt-Irons, Leslie Anne (ed.) (1995) On Bataille: tique of instrumental reason', October, 36: 111±28.
Critical Essays. Albany, NY: SUNY. Pefanis, Julian (1991) Heterology and the Postmodern:
Botting, Fred and Wilson Scott (eds) (1998) Bataille: A Bataille, Baudrillard, Lyotard. Durham, NC &
Critical Reader. Oxford: Blackwell. London: Duke University Press.
Brotchie, A. (ed) (1995) Encyclopaedia AceÂphalica. Richardson, Michael (1994) Georges Bataille. London:
(Trans. Iain White). London: The Atlas Press. Routledge.
Brown, Norman O. (1991) `Dionysus in 1990' in Richman, MicheÁle (1982) Beyond the Gift: Reading
Apocalypse And/Or Metamorphosis. Berkeley, CA: Georges Bataille. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins
University of California Press. University Press.
Buck, P. (ed,) (1984) Violent Silence. London. Shaviro, Steven (1990) Passion and Excess: Blanchot,
Calas, Nicolas (1945) `Acephalic mysticism', Hemi- Bataille, and Literary Theory. Tallahassee: Florida
spheres II, 6. Reprinted in (1985) Trans®gurations: State University Press.
Art Critical Essays in the Modern Period. Ann Sollers, Philippe (1983) `The roof', in Writing and the
Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press. Experience of Limits. New York: Columbia
Dean, Carolyn J. (1992) The Self and its Pleasures: University Press.
Bataille, Lacan and the History of the Decentered Sontag, Susan (1967) `The pornographic imagination',
Subject. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. in Styles of Radical Will. London: Secker & Warburg.
Derrida, Jacques (1978) `From restricted to general Stoekl, Allan (ed.) (1990) On Bataille, Special issue of
economy: a Hegelianism without reserve', in Yale French Studies, 78.
Writing and Difference. (Trans. Alan Bass). Suleiman, Susan Rubin (1986) `Pornography, trans-
Chicago: University of Chicago Press. gression and the avant-garde: Bataille's Story of
Foucault, Michel (1977) `Preface to transgression', in the Eye', in Nancy K. Miller (ed.) The Poetics of
his Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Gender. New York: Columbia University Press.
Essays and Interviews. (ed. and trans. Donald Weiss, Allen S. (1986) `Impossible sovereignty:
Bouchard and Sherry Simon). Ithaca, NY: Cornell Between the will to power and the will to chance',
Univerisity Press. October, 36: 129±46.
3
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
NICK CROSSLEY
T
hough overshadowed in the public May 1961.
eye by his colleague and intel- If his work is to be pigeon-holed then
lectual sparring partner, Sartre, `existential phenomenology' is the most
Merleau-Ponty was very much at the cen- appropriate slot. The Phenomenology of
tre of French intellectual life in the 1940s Perception, which is his most famous and
and 1950s. Eribon (1991), for example, arguably his best work, is a study in exis-
writes of the great enthusiasm for his tential phenomenology par excellence. As
work amongst Parisian students, includ- I show in this chapter, however, his work
ing a young Foucault and other ¯edgling draws upon a much wider range of
intellectuals. Furthermore, it is notable sources than this label might suggest,
that central structuralist writers, who con- addressing issues and contributing to
demned the work of Sartre, exempted debates far removed from the conventional
Merleau-Ponty from their critiques and phenomenological paradigm. Moreover,
even spoke of what they had learned even at his most technical, philosophical
from him. Althusser (1994) is one example moments, Merleau-Ponty was always
and LeÂvi-Strauss, who dedicated The alive to the events in his own historical
Savage Mind to Merleau-Ponty, is another. milieu, and always keen to bring his philo-
Born in 1908, Merleau-Ponty graduated sophy to bear upon these events. In parti-
from the Ecole Normale SupeÂrieure in cular he, like many of the French
1930, subsequently taking a lecturing post existentialists, was profoundly in¯uenced
there, before moving on to the Sorbonne by the impact of the Nazi occupation of
and, later, the ColleÁge de France. He was, France during the Second World War, and
for a short time, the political editor of the related problem of collaboration which
Les Temps Modernes and, like many of the the French public began to address in the
key French thinkers of his day, attended immediate aftermath of the liberation.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty 31
Along with many other intellectuals whom would remain central reference
Merleau-Ponty had actively resisted occu- points in all of his writing, but the in¯u-
pation. His postwar re¯ections on the issue ence of the gestalt psychologists is even
and on the role of the collaborators are more evident. Though problematic in
notably less bold than those of many some respects, in his view, their theories
others, however. What the French learned and ®ndings, not least their commitment
from collaboration was `history', he to a structural-holistic position, have
argued. That is, they learned of the inter- important philosophical implications.
connectedness of their own lives with The key achievement of The Structure of
those of others and the ways in which Behaviour is to posit a strong critique of
this shapes both their ways of making mechanistic and reductionist accounts of
sense of the world, their opportunities, human behaviour and to develop a clear
and the constraints they must circumnavi- conception of `the human order' as a dis-
gate. They learned that the meaning and tinct and irreducible level of reality.
morality of their actions are derived not Next came The Phenomenology of
from the action itself but from the place it Perception. This text is more obviously
assumes in a constantly shifting and some- `phenomenological' and picks up on the
times unpredictable social whole. It is this three central themes that had emerged in
sense of `history' which he attempts to con- the later writings of Husserl: habitus,
vey in so many of his best philosophical embodiment, and history. In The Crisis of
works. the European Sciences, Husserl (1970) had
Sociological interest in Merleau-Ponty's argued that we need to examine the
work has grown recently, largely as a con- world of immediate experience, the
sequence of a developing concern with world as we experience it prior to scienti-
issues of embodiment and the body ± ®c objecti®cation. This is what Merleau-
issues about which Merleau-Ponty says a Ponty does, establishing in particular the
great deal. There is clear evidence of a corporeal nature of that experience.
Merleau-Ponty in¯uence within sociology Science encourages us to think of `the
and social theory before this time, how- body' as an object, he argues, but we dis-
ever, speci®cally in the broadly `phenom- cover a very different body in our experi-
enological' traditions. Much of the early ence. Our bodies are not given to us as
reception of Merleau-Ponty's work in the objects. Rather, we are our bodies. They
English speaking world was shaped by are our very way of being-in-the-world
the seminal contributions of the sociolo- and they thereby `give' us a world.
gist and social theorist John O'Neill. Reinterpreting the Husserlian conception
O'Neill both translated a number of of intentionality, he then considers the
Merleau-Ponty's texts and offered his multiple ways in which the world appears
own critical exegesis and development for us by way of our corporeal disposi-
of them in many central works, including tions and activities. Moreover, he argues
Perception, Expression and History, Sociology that this same embodied experience
as a Skin Trade, and The Communicative underlies and makes possible the work
Body (O'Neill, 1970, 1972, 1989). of the scientist, whatever they might say
about `the body' as a physical object.
Even as he does this, however, Merleau-
SOCIAL THEORY AND Ponty adds a curious twist to the
CONTRIBUTIONS Husserlian project, by incorporating the
®ndings of the human sciences, particu-
Merleau-Ponty's ®rst major work, The larly psychology, in his discussion.
Structure of Behaviour, is best regarded as Husserl had warned against any such in-
a contribution to the philosophy of bio- corporation, arguing that it would reduce
logy and psychology. It is informed by knowledge claims to their alleged psycho-
the work of Hegel and Husserl, both of logical `causes', displacing questions of
32 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
their validity and, at the same time, is not the objective world of the scientist. It
undermining its own claim to truth. The is preobjective and prere¯ective; a practi-
practice of the human sciences for Husserl cal world which we have a grasp upon,
raises epistemological questions whose literally as well as metaphorically, but
answers must be resolved without which we do not, in the ®rst instance,
recourse to the claims of those sciences if `know' in a conceptual or intellectual
circularity is to be avoided. In addition, he manner. The `space' that we live in and
claims that the human sciences cannot through is not that described by geometry,
®nd solutions to these epistemological for example. It is an oriented and practical
questions as they reduce human subjects space centred around our own corporeal
to the status of empirical objects. Merleau- agency, with its capacities and projects; a
Ponty takes a different view, however. He space of `ups', `downs', `highs', and `lows'
believed that `modern' psychology, which which we `know' in the form of a feel we
for him meant gestalt psychology, was have for it and a capacity to move within
arriving at many of the same conclusions it. Following Husserl's Crisis, Merleau-
as phenomenology and, in essence, Ponty identi®es this `lifeworld' as funda-
accorded a similar degree of respect to mental, suggesting that the objective world
the structure of (embodied) `conscious- of science rests upon it. Geometrical space,
ness'. This paved the way, in his view, for for example, is an idealization erected
a dialogue between the two. Moreover, upon the foundation of lived space. Like
he argued that one could not ignore the Husserl, however, Merleau-Ponty also
®ndings of science, as more abstract and believes that we live in a logocentric era
intellectualist philosophies tended to do. (not a word he actually uses) in which the
Experiments, he believed, were no less derivative idealizations of science are
valuable sources for philosophical re¯ec- taken to be more real than the fuzzy reali-
tion than introspection and could, in fact, ties of the lifeworld. Thus, his investiga-
teach us things that we could not discover tions of the lived world are not simply
by way of introspection. descriptions of a primordial level of
Substantively, Merleau-Ponty's investi- experience but equally critiques of logo-
gation of embodiment stresses two key centrism and the excesses of scienti®c
points. On the one hand, he seeks to objectivism. From a sociological point of
emphasize that our body is our `point of view this clearly anticipates Bourdieu's
view on the world'. All experience is (1977, 1992) notion of the `fuzzy logic' of
necessarily perspectival, he maintains, practice, offering a somewhat more exten-
and our bodies are our perspective. The sive exploration of the matter than one
other side of this claim is that our embodi- ®nds in Bourdieu.
ment necessarily entails worldliness; our
bodies involve us in the world and we are Habit, Freedom, and Structuration
always already engaged in it, so much so
that body and world should be deemed The Phenomenology of Perception also
elements of a single system. Secondly, builds upon and takes issue with the
following on from this, Merleau-Ponty's work of Sartre (1969), whose Being and
conception of the body is profoundly Nothingness blended Husserlian and
holistic. Whether discussing sexuality, Hegelian phenomenologies in a very dis-
perception, or motor behaviour, he is tinctive way. Sartre had posited a pecu-
always concerned to reveal their inter- liarly radical conception of freedom in
relatedness within the body±world whole. his work, which effectively suggested
that everything human beings are and
Logocentrism and the Lived World do, qua humans, can be explained in
these terms. Merleau-Ponty ®nds this pro-
For Merleau-Ponty, the world as it is blematic. It renders the notion of freedom
revealed through lived bodily experience unintelligible, he argues. In the ®rst
Maurice Merleau-Ponty 33
instance, any meaningful conception of more traditional sense of habit (see Camic,
freedom necessitates a notion of choice, 1986) and at the same time anticipating
but choice presupposes a prior engage- Bourdieu (1977, 1992), Merleau-Ponty
ment with and belongingness to the views habitual action as purposive, mean-
world. To choose we must always already ingful, and `competent'. And he applies it
experience our position within the world to a range of higher intellectual and moral
as a meaningful site of predelineated pos- activities. Our disposition to talk and
sible actions, we must have preferences think in the language of our society is
upon which to base our choice, and we one clear example of habit for Merleau-
must have taken-for-granted means of Ponty, for example. Notwithstanding
deliberation and decision making at our this, however, habit implies a certain pre-
disposal. None of these preconditions re¯ective and even prepersonal disposi-
can themselves be chosen, however, at tion towards predictable but at the same
least not in the ®nal instance, precisely time arbitrary patterns of actions. It is the
because they are prerequisites. They realm of the taken-for-granted. The pro-
must be pregiven and our choices are cess by which our thoughts take shape in
therefore necessarily rooted in and shaped language is not one to which we are privy,
by them. Secondly, our choices must not for example. Our thoughts just occur to
simply be rooted in the world; they must us in linguistic form. Furthermore, as the
take root in the world if we are to speak language example also illustrates, many
meaningfully of freedom. An individual of our habits are collective constructions,
who approaches each day or each hour passed on through generations, which
anew has no freedom as none of their pro- function to reproduce both a shared social
jects would ever come to fruition. Each world and, of necessity, the agents who
momentary burst of free will would embody that world. The agent, for
undo the achievements of the one preced- Merleau-Ponty as for Husserl (1991), is a
ing it. True freedom entails that by acting product of habit; and habituation is an
we commit ourselves, transforming both incorporation of social practices into the
ourselves and our circumstances in rela- subject's `bodily schema', where they
tively durable ways which cannot be effectively become structures of subjective
simply erased or undone. being.
The Husserlian notion of habitus None of this seeks to challenge the
(Husserl, 1972, 1989, 1991), which notion that human beings are, in a sense,
Merleau-Ponty renders as `habit', is used free. But it suggests a `situated' rather than
to add weight to both of these arguments, an absolute freedom. Human beings
at the same time building in a third argu- transcend the given by way of their pro-
ment, that human subjects necessarily jects, for Merleau-Ponty. They are capable
belong to a social-historical world which of both creative action and choice. But
they share in with others and which they are always situated within the
shapes their ways of perceiving, thinking, world, anchored by their habits, and are
and acting. Habits, which in their collec- never `suspended in nothingness'. This
tive form we know as culture or custom, renders their actions predictable and
root us in the world, providing the neces- more or less probable and, as such, is far
sary background of meaning and prefer- truer to our sense of history than Sartre's
ence which makes choice possible. model. Sartre's philosophy points to an
Furthermore, it is our tendency towards absurd situation, in Merleau-Ponty's
habituation which makes choices mean- view, in which any event is equally likely
ingful by affording them durability. This at any time and we have no reason to sup-
does not imply, as in many psychological pose that states of affairs might not be
renderings of `habit', a conditioned re¯ex; transformed into their opposite at any
nor is it necessarily restricted to simple moment; dictators might become demo-
behaviours or `bad habits'. Restoring the crats and stable social orders might
34 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
at the same time, it is these relations and the world is not, in the ®rst instance, that
the orientations they rest upon that are of a subject to an object. It consists, as we
reproduced by way of our habits. have said, in practical and embodied
The key social relations identi®ed in engagement. We have a practical `grasp'
The Phenomenology of Perception are class upon the world, an embodied know-
relations and, in his brief discussion of how, before we have explicit discursive
them, Merleau-Ponty again emphasizes knowledge of it and the latter, insofar as
the sense in which they are embodied in it does arise, necessarily forms upon the
habitual ways of being. Such ways of basis of the former. Furthermore, the intel-
being are formed in the context of con¯ic- lectualist view is ¯awed insofar as it fails
tual class relations which they then help to to properly consider our aforementioned
perpetuate. Merleau-Ponty writes: `situatedness': we are situated in a body
which is vulnerable to the physical
What makes me a proletarian is not the economic
forces which may act upon it, a world of
system or society considered as systems of imper-
sonal forces but these institutions as I carry them habit and cultural institutions which
within me and experience them [as habits -NC]; structure our perceptions, thoughts, and
nor is it an intellectual operation devoid of motive, actions; and we are always bound up in
but my way of being in the world within this insti- various relations of interconnectedness
tutional framework. with others, subject to the dynamics of
Let us suppose that I have a certain style of liv- intersubjective life and social relations.
ing, being at the mercy of booms and slumps, not
being free to do as I like, receiving a weekly wage,
Finally, intellectualism is ¯awed insofar as
having no control over either the conditions or the it focuses exclusively upon the re¯ective
products of my work, and consequently feeling a level of consciousness. Following Sartre's
stranger in my factory, my nation and my life. I (1957) argument in The Transcendence of the
have acquired the habit of reckoning with a fatum, Ego, Merleau-Ponty argues that con-
or appointed order, which I do not respect but sciousness does not necessarily entail
which I have to humour. (Merleau-Ponty, 1962:
self-consciousness and that, for much of
443-4)
the time, we are absorbed in what we are
doing and have no real sense of ourselves
Empiricism and Intellectualism at the re¯ective level.
any other than what it was. He thus con- essay on LeÂvi-Strauss, for example, he
demned it. writes:
For the philosopher, the presence of structure out-
Structuralism side us in natural and social systems and within
us as a symbolic function points to a way beyond
The Adventures of the Dialectic and some the subject±object correlation which has domi-
related essays appear to identify the work nated philosophy from Descartes to Hegel. By
of Weber as a possible starting point for showing us that man is eccentric to himself and
Merleau-Ponty's post-Marxist reconstruc- that the social ®nds its centre only in man, struc-
tion of social theory. What comes through ture particularly enables us to understand how we
are in a sort of circuit with the socio-historical
more strongly, however, is his move in world. (Merleau-Ponty, 1964: 123)
a more structuralist and even post-
structuralist direction. As Foucault (1998b: This passage concedes that the meaning of
21) recalled, Merleau-Ponty was the ®rst of human action lies outside of the sphere of
the French philosophers to lecture on the agents themselves; `man', Merleau-Ponty
work of Saussure and to re¯ect upon its writes, is `eccentric to himself'. One
philosophical signi®cance. Indeed, in his obvious example of this would be that
inaugural lecture at the ColleÁge de the human speaker must conform to the
France, in 1953, Merleau-Ponty went as law of their language if they are to make
far as to suggest that the philosophy of sense either to themselves or to others.
history might be reconstructed using Sense depends upon the structure of lan-
Saussure's framework. This tendency was guage. But the structure of language is not
doubtless reinforced by his friendship external to human beings for Merleau-
with both LeÂvi-Strauss and Lacan and his Ponty. It is an intersubjective structure; an
interest in their work. He wrote an essay on interworld rooted in shared habits or con-
LeÂvi-Strauss, and he explored Lacan's ventions and modi®ed across time by way
early formulation of `the mirror stage', of `coherent deformations'. In this sense, as
tying it back to some of the notions from he says, `the social ®nds its centre only in
gestalt psychology upon which it is based, man'. It is for this reason that Merleau-
in his lectures on child development. Ponty resists the notion that structures
There can be no doubt that Merleau- `dissolve man' and maintains, instead,
Ponty's engagement with these ideas that they reveal us to be `in a sort of circuit
was enthusiastic and this should perhaps with the socio-historical world'.
be less surprising than it sounds with Integral to this is a reservation about
hindsight. Not only had he been fasci- both the theoreticism of structuralism
nated with the concept of structure from and its totalizing aspirations. In
his very earliest exploration of it in The Adventures of the Dialectic Merleau-Ponty
Structure of Behaviour, but the dividing criticized the totalizing aspirations of
line between structuralism and phenom- Marxism as both a theoretical and a politi-
enology was by no means as sharply cal project. Totalizing projects often
drawn in the Parisian philosophical circles become terrorizing projects in the view of
of the 1950s as they subsequently became the later Merleau-Ponty. In his discussion
in structuralist social theory. Notwith- of LeÂvi-Strauss and more particularly
standing this, however, Merleau-Ponty's Saussure, these reservations re-emerge in
appropriation of structuralist ideas was a different, more philosophical form.
both critical and idiosyncratic. He identi- Saussure's `langue' is a theoretical model,
®ed an equal role for langue/parole or struc- he notes, based upon abstraction from
ture/action, for example, and certainly linguistic praxis. There is a danger within
refused to `dissolve man'. I noted earlier structuralism that this becomes forgotten,
that he anticipated the structurationist however, such that the model is taken to
move in social theory and this is evident be more real than the praxis and is
in his reading of structuralism. In his afforded primacy over it. It is assumed
38 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
that structure somehow `determines' prac- of human embodiment and the notions of
tice, which is clearly absurd given that the habit and the lived world which emerge
only reality the structure has is its partial out of it. This analysis has received much
realization in practice. Or alternatively, it is praise but it has equally been subject to a
assumed that linguistic agents in some range of criticisms. On the one hand, for
sense follow the `rules' of language, example, Habermas (1987: 317) dismisses
which is again absurd as the rules are Merleau-Ponty in a sentence, with the
quite insuf®cient to specify action and, in claim that he reduces rationality to the
any case, could not be followed as they are body. On the other, the phenomenology
not known. What Merleau-Ponty appears of the body has been juxtaposed to post-
to be arriving at here is a critique of struc- structuralist accounts which, ®rstly, focus
turalism similar to that of Bourdieu (1977, upon the effects of power on the body
1992). It is interesting, however, that he and, secondly, emphasize change and
also anticipates one of Derrida's central instability in relation to the body.
critiques of Saussure, albeit taking it in a Merleau-Ponty's `body' is deemed too
different direction. In a diacritical system stable and rational. I have criticized both
of the sort posited by the structuralists, he of these critiques elsewhere (Crossley,
notes, the meaning of every word is depen- 1996b, 1997). Habermas misinterprets
dent upon every other and thus ultimately Merleau-Ponty, in my view. His own inter-
upon the totality. This is problematic from subjective conception of rationality
two points of view. First, languages are (Habermas, 1991) was actually pre®gured
historical structures, constantly changing, in phenomenology. Husserl's (1991) con-
and are thus never totalized. If meaning cern to account for intersubjectivity was
was dependent upon the totality then we precisely based on a recognition that
could literally never make sense. rationality presupposes intersubjectivity
Secondly, the notion of totality is proble- (see Crossley, 1996a) and Merleau-Ponty
matic if we consider the users of language. takes this notion on board even more
How could they ever learn to make and strongly. Rationality emerges in the inter-
understand meaning in language if mean- subjective interworld for Merleau-Ponty,
ing is dependent upon the totality of lan- and is in no way reducible to individual
guage? One learns ®rst to use a few bodies. Furthermore, Habermas is too
words, with no sense of the whole, and quick to dismiss the body. Intersubjective
yet one can make and communicate encounters are necessarily embodied and
sense. Furthermore, one never acquires if they are to be rational too, this necessi-
the `whole' of language, not least for the tates that our embodied state lends itself
aforementioned reason that the whole is to `communicative rationality'. If what
in a constant ¯ux and cannot ever be Merleau-Ponty establishes is that our
said to be bounded. Merleau-Ponty's bodies do lend themselves in this way,
solution to these problems, seemingly, is and to some extent I believe this is so,
to call for a focus on linguistic praxis, the then Merleau-Ponty may be required
uses of language. It is in use that the sense reading for any critical theorist who
of language is determined and it is there- wishes to rescue the theory of communi-
fore to use that we, as philosophers and cative action from the overly abstract and
social scientists, must look for an under- disembodied clutches of the universal
standing of language and meaning. pragmatist.
In reply to the post-structuralist critics it
is important to point out, ®rst, that
APPRAISAL OF KEY ADVANCES AND Merleau-Ponty quite clearly appreciated
CONTROVERSIES that our bodies are `targets' of power,
even if his understanding of power and
In terms of social theory, Merleau-Ponty is of the ways in which it regulates the
perhaps best remembered for his analysis body was insuf®cient:
Maurice Merleau-Ponty 39
. . . consciousness can do nothing without its body subject and of power is very much focused
and can only act upon others by acting upon upon a notion of class (and, to a lesser
their bodies. It can only reduce them to slavery
extent imperialism), to the detriment of
by making nature an appendix of its body, by
appropriating nature to itself and establishing in
any other forms of social differentiation
nature its instruments of power. (Merleau-Ponty, and inequality. Even in his fascinating dis-
1969: 102) cussion of sexuality in The Phenomenology
of Perception, for example, issues pertain-
Moreover, if we want to go beyond the ing to gender and sexual identity are not
basic claim that our bodies are targets of discussed. This is not to say that these
power, to suggest that our bodies are issues could not be developed from his
indeed `disciplined' by power, that is, to perspective. In her essay, `Throwing Like
suggest that power is effective to a Girl', for example, Young (1980) uses
some degree, then the `stable' body that Merleau-Ponty's framework, combined
Merleau-Ponty posits is necessary on with elements of Beauvoir, to develop a
three counts. First, the application of tech- preliminary investigation of female sub-
niques of power in real contexts of strug- jectivity and its subjection. Similarly, the
gle presupposes competent agents who work of Fanon (1986), with its consider-
are suf®ciently `stable' and co-ordinated able debt to Sartre, might be taken as a
to manage the task. Secondly, discipline possible starting point for a phenomeno-
could only get a foothold on the body if logical investigation of racialized subjec-
the actions of the body were regular in tivity and subjection. These are not
some way. A truly unstable body would issues which Merleau-Ponty himself pur-
be beyond the bounds of discipline or, sued, however, and they clearly transcend
indeed, social life. Thirdly, a body that is his framework as he himself developed it.
disciplined is stable; discipline implies In addition, it has been argued by Kruks
stability. If we add to this that `body- (1981) that Merleau-Ponty's later social
power' can only really be an issue of theory ran aground. While his early re¯ec-
serious moral concern if we assume that tions on Marxism were both cogent and
`bodies', in some respects, embody agents instructive, she argues, his later critique
who might act differently were they not of Marxism was weak and he was able to
`invested' by power, then Merleau- develop no realistic alternative. Further-
Ponty's phenomenology of the embodied more, she suggests that the drafts he was
subject seems to have a strong reply to working on at the time of his death, pub-
post-structuralism. It should be added lished posthumously as The Visible and the
that Merleau-Ponty's commitment to a Invisible, suggest no way out of this. Other
conception of stable bodily habits which commentators, particularly those who
root our being-in-the-world does not pre- believe that Merleau-Ponty anticipated
clude the possibility that bodily ways of many key themes of postmodern and
being vary across historical epochs or cul- post-structuralist thought, tend to take a
tures. Indeed, Merleau-Ponty very much different view (see Dillon, 1988, 1991;
believes in such variation and, as such, Busch and Gallagher, 1992; Johnson and
would doubtless agree with much of Smith, 1990). His un®nished notes have
what has been argued with respect to his- become a central focus for them. I am
torical variation within post-structuralist more in agreement with Kruks, however.
circles. The stability which he identi®es The Visible and the Invisible presents a vague
in the body is very much that of short- outline of ideas that could have been devel-
term, day-to-day continuity. oped into a convincing position, but were
Notwithstanding this, however, issues not, and which are as problematic exegeti-
of difference which have been raised cally as they are incomplete. They may
within post-structuralist theories of em- well have been models which Merleau-
bodiment do pose more of a problem. Ponty, in his predictable dialectical style,
His understanding of the situation of the was going to knock down in any case.
40 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
Furthermore, though I am more persuaded There can be no doubt that Bourdieu's con-
than Kruks is by Merleau-Ponty's critique cepts of power, capital, and ®eld could
of Marxism, I agree that it is not clear lend considerable sophistication to
where it leads him. Combined with the Merleau-Ponty's attempts to make sense
fact that Merleau-Ponty's social and poli- of the social world qua `interworld', pro-
tical writings were very much a re¯ection viding a possible escape route from the
upon his own time, this considerably lim- impasse of his later work; or that his
its the direct value that his broader social account of the social shaping of the habitus
and political writings may have for today. develops Merleau-Ponty's own re¯ections
Notwithstanding this, however, we can on that matter in an important and sub-
abstract important philosophical points stantial fashion. Merleau-Ponty's own
from his work which have a contemporary work still retains an important phenom-
salience. Kruks (1990) herself, for example, enological aspect that is neither contained,
in a different work, argues that the theory critiqued, nor contradicted by these devel-
of `situated subjectivity' provides a clear opments, however, and which remains of
and viable path for social and political considerable importance. He argued him-
theory, between the equally problematic self, for example, that:
treatments of subjectivity that one ®nds in . . . the social, like man himself, has two poles or
the work of liberals, such as Rawls (1971), facets: it is signi®cant, capable of being under-
and the post-structuralists (see also stood from within, and at the same time personal
Whiteside, 1988). While Rawls ab-stracts intentions within it are generalized, toned down,
subjects from their situations, she argues, and tend towards processes, being (as the famous
creating a hopelessly unrealistic model of [Marxist] expression has it) mediated by things.
(Merleau-Ponty, 1964: 114)
the moral agent, the post-structuralists
dissolve subjects into their situations to a What his work has to offer structuration
point where moral and political discourse theory, even today, is a range of insights
becomes redundant. Merleau-Ponty, by from `within' and an account of the
contrast, maintains a sense of the genuine `within' which recognizes and embraces
tension of a being who is, to cite an earlier the notion that there is equally a `without'
quotation, `in a sort of circuit with the and that, as Bourdieu (1992) argues, sub-
socio-historical world'. jectivity can and should be `objecti®ed' if a
The sociological value of this notion, as I full picture of our being-in-the world is to
have suggested in this chapter, is an be striven for. Like Bourdieu, Merleau-
anticipation and exploration of the themes Ponty identi®es our habitual ways of
of `structuration' theories, particularly being, our habitus, as a hinge between
that of Bourdieu. Bourdieu (1986) himself subjectivity and an objective social
acknowledges the importance of Merleau- world. If Bourdieu advances our under-
Ponty's work for the transcendence of standing of the `outside' of that hinge,
sociological dualisms and his indebted- then Merleau-Ponty can still advance our
ness to Merleau-Ponty is spelled out in grasp of the inside, and in a way which
some detail by Bourdieu and Wacquant complements, rather than contradicts,
in Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992). Bourdieu. It goes without saying that his
Though I do not agree entirely with thesis of embodiment is central to this
Wacquant's account of Merleau-Ponty, I potential.
do agree that much of Bourdieu's work
has a Merleau-Pontyan feel and that the
sophistication of Bourdieu's own position MERLEAU-PONTY'S MAJOR WORKS
is only fully appreciated when this is
recognized. I do not agree with the appar- Main English Translations of
ent implication of Wacquant's view, how- Merleau-Ponty's Work
ever, which is that all that is useful in Merleau-Ponty, M. ([1945] 1962) The Phenomenology of
Merleau-Ponty is absorbed into Bourdieu. Perception. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty 41
O'Neill, J. (1989) The Communicative Body. Evanston, Schmidt, J. (1985) Maurice Merleau-Ponty: Between
IL: Northwestern University Press. Phenomenology and Structuralism. London:
Rawls, J. (1971) A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Macmillan.
MIT. Spurling, L. (1977) Phenomenology and the Social
Rosenthal, S. and Bourgeois, P. (1991) Mead and World; the Philosophy of Merleau-Ponty and its
Merleau-Ponty: Towards a Common Vision. New Relation to the Social Sciences. London: RKP.
York: SUNY. Whiteside, K. (1988) Merleau-Ponty and the
Sallis, J. (ed.) (1981) Merleau-Ponty: Perception, Foundations of an Existential Politics. Princeton:
Structure, Language. New Jersey: Humanities Press. Princeton University Press.
Sartre, J-P. (1957) The Transcendence of the Ego. New Young, I. (1980) `Throwing like a girl: A phe-
York: Noonday Press. nomenology of feminine bodily comportment,
Sartre, J-P. (1969) Being and Nothingness. London: motility and spatiality', Human Studies, 3:
Routledge. 137±56.
4
Herbert Marcuse
DOUGLAS KELLNER
H
erbert Marcuse was born 19 July a project which decades later would be
1898 in Berlin, Germany. The carried out by various `existential' and
son of Carl Marcuse, a pros- `phenomenological' Marxists, such as
perous Jewish merchant and Gertrud Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-
Kreslawsky, daughter of a wealthy Ponty, as well as others in Eastern
German factory owner, Marcuse had a Europe and the United States in the post-
typical upper-middle class Jewish life war period. Marcuse contended that
during the ®rst two decades of the twen- Marxist thought had deteriorated into a
tieth century, in which Anti-semitism was rigid orthodoxy and needed concrete
not overt in Germany. Marcuse studied in `phenomenological' experience of con-
the Mommsen Gymnasium in Berlin prior temporary social conditions to update
to the Second World War and served with and enliven the Marxian theory, which
the German army in the war. Transferred had neglected social, cultural, and psy-
to Berlin early in 1918, he participated in chological analysis in favour of focus on
the German Revolution that drove Kaiser economic and political conditions. He
Wilhelm II out of Germany and estab- also believed that Marxism neglected the
lished a Social Democratic government. problem of the individual, and through-
After demobilization, Marcuse went to out his life was concerned with personal
Freiburg to pursue his studies and liberation and happiness, in addition to
received a PhD in literature in 1922 for a social transformation.
dissertation on The German Artist-Novel. Marcuse published the ®rst major
After a short career as a bookseller in review in 1932 of Marx's recently printed
Berlin, Marcuse returned to Freiburg and Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of
in 1928 began studying philosophy with 1844, anticipating the later tendency to
Martin Heidegger, then one of the most revise interpretations of Marxism from
signi®cant thinkers in Germany. the standpoint of the works of the early
In his ®rst published articles, written Marx. Marcuse was thus one of the ®rst
from 1928±33 when he was studying to see the importance of the philosophical
44 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
perspectives of the early Marx on labour, the Research and Analysis Division of the
human nature, and alienation which he Central European Branch. Marcuse and
thought were necessary to give concrete his colleagues wrote reports attempting
substance to Marxism. At the same time to identify Nazi and anti-Nazi groups
that he was writing essays synthesizing and individuals in Germany and drafted
Marxism and phenomenology, Marcuse a `Civil Affairs Handbook' that dealt with
completed a study of Hegel's Ontology denazi®cation (see the texts collected in
and Theory of Historicity (1932), which he Marcuse, 1998). In September 1945, he
intended as a Habilitation dissertation that moved over to the State Department
would gain him university employment. after the dissolution of the OSS, becoming
The text stressed the importance of the head of the Central European bureau, and
categories of life and history in Hegel remained until 1951 when he left
and contributed to the revival of interest Government service, following the death
in Hegel that was taking place in Europe. of his ®rst wife Sophie Wertheim Marcuse;
In 1933, Marcuse joined the Institut they had married in 1923 and had one
fuÈr Sozialforschung (Institute for Social child, Peter Marcuse.
Research) in Frankfurt and became one After working for the US government
of the most active participants in their for almost 10 years, Marcuse returned to
interdisciplinary projects (see Kellner, university life. He received a Rockefeller
1989; Wiggershaus, 1994). Marcuse deeply Foundation grant to study Soviet
identi®ed with the work of the Institute, Marxism, lecturing on the topic at
and throughout his life was close to Columbia during 1952±53 and Harvard
Max Horkheimer, T.W. Adorno, Leo from 1954±55. At the same time, he was
Lowenthal, Franz Neumann, and its intensely studying Freud and published
other members. In 1934, Marcuse ± a Jew in 1955 Eros and Civilization, a philo-
and radical ± ¯ed from Nazism and emi- sophical synthesis of Marx and Freud
grated to the United States where he lived which used Freud's categories to provide
for the rest of his life. The Institute was a critique of bourgeois society and to
granted of®ces and an academic af®liation sketch the outlines of a nonrepressive
with Columbia University, where society. The book was well-received and
Marcuse worked during the 1930s and anticipated many of the values of the
early 1940s. His ®rst major work in 1960s counterculture, helping to make
English, Reason and Revolution (1941), Marcuse a major intellectual and political
introduced the ideas of Hegel, Marx, force during that turbulent decade.
and German social theory to an English- In 1955, Marcuse married his second
speaking audience. Marcuse demon- wife, Inge Werner Marcuse, the widow
strated the similarities between Hegel of his friend Franz Neumann who had
and Marx, and argued for discontinuities died in a car crash the year before. In
between Hegel's philosophy of the state 1958, Marcuse received a tenured position
and German Fascism, placing Hegel at Brandeis University, and the same year
instead in a liberal constitutional tradition published a critical study of the Soviet
political and theoretically as a precursor of Union (Soviet Marxism) which broke the
critical social theory. taboo in his circles against speaking criti-
In December 1942, Marcuse joined the cally of the USSR and Soviet communism.
Of®ce of War Information as a senior Stressing the differences between the
analyst in the Bureau of Intelligence. Marxian theory and the Soviet version
He prepared a report that proposed of Marxism, Marcuse provided a sharp
ways that the mass media of the allied critique of Soviet bureaucracy, culture,
countries could present images of German values, and system. Yet he also distanced
Fascism. In March 1943, Marcuse trans- himself from those who believed Soviet
ferred to the Of®ce of Strategic Services communism to be incapable of reform
(OSS), working until the end of the war in and democratization, and pointed to
Herbert Marcuse 45
®rst critical theorists of the new forms of documenting in detail the ways that tech-
technological and political domination in nology and technological rationality pro-
the advanced industrial societies. Marcuse mote conformity and erode individuality,
published a series of studies of German Marcuse concludes his study with a vision
Fascism which argued that it was charac- of how technics might produce abun-
terized by tensions between lawlessness dance for all, eliminate the necessity for
and disorder contrasted with extreme excessive toil and alienated labour, and
rationalization and order, thus seeing it increase the realm of freedom. Building
both as an anarchic gangster state that vio- on Marx's sketch on automation in the
lated systematically both internal and Grundrisse, Marcuse writes:
international law and a highly rationa-
Technics hampers individual development only
lized system of social organization and
insofar as they are tied to a social apparatus
domination. Marcuse also saw National which perpetuates scarcity, and this same appara-
Socialism as a new kind of state in which tus has released forces which may shatter the spe-
it was dif®cult to say whether economic or cial historical form in which technics is utilized.
political factors were primary, combining For this reason, all programs of an antitechnologi-
economic, political, and technological cal character, all propaganda for an anti-industrial
domination (see Marcuse, 1998). revolution serve only those who regard human
needs as a by-product of the utilization of tech-
In a 1941 article, `Some Social Impli- nics. The enemies of technics readily join forces
cations of Modern Technology' (published with a terroristic technocracy. (Marcuse, 1998: 63)
in Marcuse, 1998) Marcuse distinguishes
between `technology' (de®ned `as a The latter reference is to those German
mode of production, as the totality of theorists like Heidegger (1977) who shar-
instruments, devices and contrivances ply criticized technology, yet embraced
which characterize the machine age') National Socialism, which in Marcuse's
and `technics' (taken as the instruments vision combined a terrorist technocracy
and practices `of industry, transportation, with irrationalist ideology. Unlike the
communication'). This distinction de- wholly negative critics of technology,
marcates the system of technological with whom he is sometimes identi®ed,
domination from speci®c technical devices Marcuse sketches out a dialectical theory
and their uses (see Marcuse, 1998: 41). that avoids both its technocratic celebra-
Marcuse thus contrasts technology as an tion as inherently an instrument of libera-
entire `mode of organizing and perpetuat- tion and progress, as well as its
ing (or changing) social relationships, a technophobic denunciation as solely an
manifestation of prevalent thought and instrument of domination. In the conclud-
behavior patterns, an instrument for con- ing pages, he points to the `possible demo-
trol and domination', to technics which cratization of functions which technics
refer to techniques of production and may promote and which may facilitate
such instruments as aeroplanes or compu- complete human development in all
ters. Whereas the former constitutes branches of work and administration'. In
for Marcuse a system of technological addition, `mechanization and standardi-
domination, he claims that the latter can zation may one day help to shift the center
themselves `promote authoritarianism of gravity from the necessities of material
as well as liberty, scarcity as well as production to the arena of free human
abundance, the extension as well as the realization' (1998: 63).
abolition of toil' (1998: 41). This dialectical model is important for
Marcuse's critique focuses on technol- studying speci®c technologies and the
ogy as a system of domination and he pre- technological society of the present era
sents National Socialism as an example in since contemporary discourses on technol-
which technology and a rationalized ogy tend to dichotomize into either techno-
society and economy can serve as instru- philic celebrations of the arrival of new
ments of totalitarian domination. But after technologies upon which they predicate a
Herbert Marcuse 47
This book theorized the decline of revo- altered form. Marcuse constantly cited
lutionary potential in capitalist societies the unity of production and destruction,
and the development of new forms of the ways that creation of wealth produced
social control. Marcuse claimed that systematic poverty, war, and violence.
`advanced industrial society' created Hence, for Marcuse there was an `objective
false needs which integrated individuals ambiguity' to even the seeming achieve-
into the existing system of production and ments of advanced industrial society
consumption. Mass media and culture, which had the wealth, science, technology,
advertising, industrial management, and and industry to alleviate poverty and
contemporary modes of thought all repro- suffering, but used the instruments of
duced the existing system and attempted production to enhance domination, vio-
to eliminate negativity, critique, and oppo- lence, aggression, and injustice.
sition. The result was a `one-dimensional' In contrast to his Institute colleagues,
universe of thought and behaviour in however, Marcuse constantly attempted
which the very aptitude and ability to politicize critical theory and to detect
for critical thinking and oppositional forces of resistance and transformation to
behaviour was withering away. counterpose to forces of domination and
Not only had capitalism integrated the repression. After a period of pessimism
working class, the source of potential during the period of One-Dimensional
revolutionary opposition, but they had Man, Marcuse was encouraged by the
developed new techniques of stabilization global forces of revolt, centred around
through state policies and the develop- the student and antiwar movement, the
ment of new forms of social control. counterculture, national liberation move-
Thus Marcuse questioned two of the ments, and what became known as `new
fundamental postulates of orthodox social movements'. Marcuse sought in
Marxism: the revolutionary proletariat these forces the instruments of radical
and inevitability of capitalist crisis. In social change that classical Marxism
contrast with the more extravagant found in the proletariat.
demands of orthodox Marxism, Marcuse But just as radical working class move-
championed nonintegrated forces of ments were defeated in the course of the
minorities, outsiders, and radical in- twentieth century and the working class,
telligentsia and attempted to nourish in Marcuse's view, was integrated into
oppositional thought and behaviour contemporary capitalism, so too were the
through promoting radical thinking and radical movements of the 1960s defeated
opposition. or integrated into the triumphant system
For Marcuse, domination combined of global capitalism. Up until his death,
economics, politics, technology and social however, Marcuse continued to seek
organization. While for orthodox Marxists agents of social change in new social
domination is inscribed in capitalist movements and in currents of art and
relations of production and the logic of philosophy. As in previous times of
commodi®cation, for Heideggerians, political quiescence during his life,
Weberians, and others it is technology, Marcuse turned to aesthetics for consola-
technological rationality, and/or political tion, publishing a series of studies that
institutions that are the major force of resulted in his last published work, The
societal domination. Marcuse, by contrast, Aesthetic Dimension (1978). His defence
has a multicausal analysis that ferrets out of `authentic art' was accompanied by cri-
aspects of domination and resistance ticisms of both Marxist aesthetics that
throughout the social order. Moreover, celebrated `proletarian culture', and con-
Marcuse insisted that contradictions of temporary advocacy of `antiart' which
the system, theorized by classical renounced the exigencies of aesthetic
Marxism as the antagonism of capital form. For decades, Marcuse had held that
and labour, continued to exist, albeit in there was a critical tradition of bourgeois
Herbert Marcuse 49
and democratic subjectivity and social the necessary conditions for social trans-
relations are not cultivated in Marcuse's formation (Marcuse, 1970: 67). Radical
writings, Habermas's analyses provide subjectivity for Marcuse practices the
a necessary complement. Habermas's `great refusal' valorized in both Eros and
primary focus on the ego±alter relation Civilization (hereafter E&C) and ODM. In
and his subsequent treatises on morals E&C (pp. 149ff), the `Great Refusal is the
and moral development, democracy and protest against unnecessary repression,
law, and the social obligations and con- the struggle for the ultimate form of free-
straints on subjectivity offer an important dom ± ``to live without anxiety'' '. In ODM
correction to Marcuse's analyses. Hence, (pp. 256ff), however, the Great Refusal is
both perspectives on subjectivity by them- fundamentally political, a refusal of
selves are one-sided and require supple- repression and injustice, a saying no, an
mentation by the other. elemental oppositional to a system of
oppression, a noncompliance with the
The New Sensibility and Radical rules of a rigged game, a form of radical
Subjectivity resistance and struggle. In both cases, the
Great Refusal is based on a subjectivity
Marcuse's conception of radical subjectiv- that is not able to tolerate injustice and
ity involves developing a synthesis of that engages in resistance and opposition
what he calls `the new sensibility' and to all forms of domination, instinctual and
the `new rationality'. Throughout his political.
later writings, Marcuse was vitally con- In the late 1960s, Marcuse argued that
cerned to discover and theorize a `new emancipatory needs and a `new sensi-
sensibility', with needs, values, and bility' were developing within con-
aspirations that would be qualitatively temporary society. He believed that in
different from subjectivity in one-dimen- the New Left and counterculture there
sional society. To create a new subjectivity, were the beginnings of `a political prac-
there must be `the emergence and educa- tice of methodical disengagement and the
tion of a new type of human being free refusal of the Establishment aiming at a
from the aggressive and repressive needs radical transvaluation of values' (1969a:
and aspirations and attitudes of class 6) that was generating a new type of
society, human beings created, in solid- human being and subject. The new sensi-
arity and on their own initiative, their bility `expresses the ascent of the life
own environment, their own Lebenswelt, instincts over aggressiveness and guilt'
their own ``property'' ' (Marcuse, 1969b: (1969a: 23) and contains a `negation of
24). Such a revolution in needs and values the needs that sustain the present system
would help overcome a central dilemma of domination and the negation of the
in Marcuse's theory ± sharply formulated values on which they are based' (1970:
in One-Dimensional Man (hereafter ODM) 67). Underlying the theory of the new sen-
± that continued to haunt him: `How can sibility is a concept of the active role of the
the administered individuals ± who have senses in the constitution of experience
made their mutilation into their own lib- which rejects the Kantian and other philo-
erties and satisfactions. . . liberate them- sophical devaluation of the senses as
selves from themselves as well as from passive, merely receptive. For Marcuse,
their masters? How is it even thinkable our senses are shaped and moulded by
that the vicious circle be broken?' (1964: society, yet constitute in turn our primary
250±1). experience of the world and provide both
In order to break through this vicious imagination and reason with its material.
circle, individuals must transform their He believes that the senses are currently
present needs, sensibility, consciousness, socially constrained and mutilated and
values, and behaviour while developing argues that only an emancipation of the
a new radical subjectivity, so as to create senses and a new sensibility can produce
52 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
liberating social change (1969a: 24ff, 1972: truth value lies in the speci®c function
62ff; in Marcuse, 1972: 63ff., he connects of memory to preserve promises and
his notion of the new sensibility with potentialities which are betrayed and
the analysis of the early Marx on the even outlawed by the mature, civilized
liberation of the senses; his conception is individual, but which had once been ful-
also in¯uenced by Schiller's conception of ®lled in the dim past and which are never
aesthetic education.) entirely forgotten' (E&C: 18±19). In his
Instead of the need for repressive per- reconstruction of Freud, Marcuse suggests
formance and competition, the new sen- that remembrance of past experiences
sibility posits the need for meaningful of freedom and happiness could put
work, grati®cation and community; into question the painful perform-
instead of the need for aggression and ances of alienated labour and manifold
destructive productivity, it af®rms love oppressions of everyday life.
and the preservation of the environment; Memory for Marcuse remembers,
and against the demands of industrializa- reconstructs, experience, going to the
tion, it af®rms the need for beauty, sensu- past to construct future images of freedom
ousness, and play, af®rming the aesthetic and happiness. Whereas romanticism is
and erotic components of experience. The past-oriented, remembering the joys of
`new sensibility' translates these values nature and the past in the face of the
and needs into `a practice that involves a onslaught of industrialization, Marcuse
break with the familiar, the routine ways is future-oriented, looking to the past to
of seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding construct a better future. (This conception
things so that the organism may become might be contrasted with Walter Benjamin
receptive to the potential forms of a non- who in his `Theses on the Philosophy of
aggressive, nonexploitative world' (1969a: History' claims that `images of enslaved
6). This total refusal of the dominant ancestors rather than that of liberated
societal needs, values, and institutions grandchildren' drive the oppressed to
represents a radical break with the struggle against their oppressors (1969:
entirety of the society's institutions, cul- 260). Benjamin's conception is similar to
ture and lifestyle, and supplies pre®gura- Freud's who holds that past traumas
tions of a new culture and society. enslave individuals, and argues, in a dif-
The new sensibility required aesthetic ferent register to Benjamin's, that working
education, which cultivated the senses, through the source of trauma can free
with a `new rationality' that reconstructed individuals from past blockages and
reason and sought a harmony between suffering. A dialectical conception of
mind and body, humans and nature, memory merging Marcuse and Benjamin
man and woman. Art and the aesthetic might argue that both remembrances of
dimension thus played a crucial role in past joys and suffering, happiness and
the Marcusean conception of a new sensi- oppression, can motivate construction
bility, since art cultivates the senses and of a better future if oriented toward
provides reason with images of a better changing rather than just remembering
world, remembrances of past grati®cation, the world.) Marcuse's analysis implies
and projection of future freedom and that society trains the individual for the
happiness. Both art and eros contained systematic repression of those emancipa-
a `promise of happiness', both were unify- tory memories, and devalues experiences
ing, overcoming oppositions between guided solely by the pleasure principle.
mind and body, self and other. Both Following Nietzsche in the Genealogy of
refuse repression and are thus potentially Morals, Marcuse criticizes `the one-sided-
oppositional. ness of memory-training in civilization: the
For Marcuse, memory contains images faculty was chie¯y directed towards
of grati®cation and can play a cognitive remembering duties rather than pleasures;
and therapeutic role in mental life: `Its memory was linked with bad conscience,
Herbert Marcuse 53
guilt and sin. Unhappiness and the threat embodied in the liberation movements
of punishment, not happiness and the of the day, the counterculture, and revolu-
promise of freedom, linger in the memory' tionary movements (see Marcuse, 1969a).
(E&C: 232). Of course, he was disappointed that the
Along with memory, Marcuse suggests new sensibility did not become the agent
that fantasy generates images of a better of revolution that he sought to replace the
life by speaking the language of the proletariat; he was also dismayed that
pleasure principle and its demands for the New Left and counterculture fell
grati®cation. He stresses the importance prey to the seductions of the consumer
of great art for liberation because it em- society or were repressed and disinte-
bodies the emancipatory contents of grated. In the 1970s, however, he sought
fantasy and the imagination through pro- precisely the same values and subjec-
ducing images of happiness and a life tivity in new social movements, in parti-
without anxiety. In Marcuse's view, the cular feminism, the environmental
fantasies in our daydreams and hopes movement, peace movement, and various
anticipate a better life and embody the forms of grass-roots activism which were
eruption of desires for increased freedom eventually described as `new social move-
and grati®cation. The unconscious on this ments'. In a 1974 lecture on `Marxism and
account contains the memory of integral Feminism', Marcuse notes for the ®rst
grati®cation experienced in the womb, time the constitutive role of gender, and
in childhood, and in peak experiences theorizes the differences between men
during one's life. Marcuse holds that the and women in terms of his categories in
`psychoanalytic liberation of memory' Eros and Civilization in which the concep-
and `restoration of phantasy' provide tion of the feminine is associated with the
access to experiences of happiness and traits he ascribes to the new sensibility
freedom which are subversive of the pre- while the masculine is associated with
sent life. He suggests that Freud's theory the traits of the Western ego and rational-
of human nature, far from refuting the ity of domination which Marcuse long
possibility of a nonrepressive civilization, criticized, thus anticipating `difference
indicates that there are aspects of human feminism', which would also valorize the
nature that are striving for happiness and feminine and maternal against the mascu-
freedom. line. (For an argument parallel to mine
Aesthetic education would thus culti- developed through an engagement with
vate imagination, fantasy, the senses, and French feminism and post-structuralism,
memory to construct a new sensibility. see Kelly Oliver (1998). Oliver provides
The new sensibility would combine the an extended argument that we can talk
senses and reason, producing a `new about subjectivity (and agency) without
rationality' in which reason would be presupposing or needing a subject, claim-
bodily, erotic, and political. Far from ing that subjectivity does not necessarily
being an irrationalist, Marcuse always imply a `subject' and that we are better
argued that the senses and reason needed off without such a concept. She develops
to be mediated, that reason needed to notions of subjectivity as relational
be reconstructed, and that critical and dia- and intersubjective at its `centre' and
lectical thinking were an important core of contrasts varying discourses and forms
the new sensibility. Marcuse always of masculine and feminine subjectivity.
argued that aesthetic education con- This project is parallel, I suggest,
stituted a cultivation of the senses and to Marcuse and the Frankfurt School,
that theory and education were essential disclosing a surprising af®nity between
components of transformative social critical theory, French feminism, and
change. post-structuralism.)
In the writings of the late 1960s, Marcuse In this article, which generated sig-
believed that the new sensibility was ni®cant debate, Marcuse argues that
54 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
`feminine' values and qualities represent so too was such oppositional conscious-
a determinate negation of the values of ness developing in the advanced capitalist
capitalism, patriarchy, and the perfor- countries. The argument is that:
mance principle. In his view, `socialism,
through the increasing mechanization and intel-
as a qualitatively different society, must
lectualization of labour, [there] accumulates an
embody the antithesis, the de®nite nega- increasing quantity of general ability, skills,
tion of aggressive and repressive needs knowledge, a human potential which cannot be
and values of capitalism as a form of developed within the established apparatus of
male-dominated culture' (1974: 285). production, because it would con¯ict with the
Furthermore: need for full-time de-humanized labour. A large
part of it is channelled into unnecessary work,
Formulated as the antithesis of the dominating unnecessary in that it is not required for the con-
masculine qualities, such feminine qualities struction and preservation of a better society but is
would be receptivity, sensitivity, nonviolence, ten- necessitated only by the requirements of a capital-
derness and so on. These characteristics appear ist production.
indeed as opposite of domination and exploita- Under these circumstances, a `counterconscious-
tion. On the primary psychological level, they ness' emerges among the dependent population
would pertain to the domain of Eros, they would (today about 90% of the total?), an awareness of
express the energy of the life instincts, against the the ever more blatant obsolescence of the estab-
death instinct and destructive energy. (Marcuse, lished social division and organization of work.
1974: 285±286) Rudolf Bahro, the militant East German dissident
(he was immediately jailed after the publication,
Marcuse was, however, criticized by in West Germany, of his book The Alternative) uses
women within the feminist movement the term surplus-consciousness to designate this
and others for essentializing gender dif- (still largely vague and diffused) awareness. He
ference, although he insisted the distinc- de®nes it as `the growing quantity of free mental
energy which is no longer tied up in necessary
tion was a historical product of Western
labor and hierarchical knowledge'. (Marcuse,
society and not an essential gender differ- 1979: 21; see also Marcuse, 1980)
ence. Women, he argued, possess a `femi-
nine' nature qualitatively different from `Surplus consciousness' in the Bahro±
men because they have been frequently Marcuse conception is a product of
freed from repression in the workplace, expanding education, scienti®c and tech-
brutality in the military, and competition nical development, and re®nement of the
in the public sphere. Hence, they devel- forces of production and labour process
oped characteristics that for Marcuse are that at once produce a higher form of con-
the marks of an emancipated humanity. sciousness and yet do not satisfy in the
He summarizes the difference between labour process or everyday life the needs
aggressive masculine and capitalist and ideals produced by contemporary
values as against feminist values society itself. In effect, Bahro and
as the contrast between `repressive pro- Marcuse are arguing that critical con-
ductivity' and `creative receptivity', sug- sciousness is produced by the very social
gesting that increased emancipation of processes of the technological society and
feminine qualities in the established that this subjectivity comes into con¯ict
society will subvert the dominant mascu- with existing hierarchy, waste, repression,
line values and the capitalist performance and domination, generating the need for
principle. social change. This position maintains
During the same decade, Marcuse also that existing social processes themselves
worked with Rudolf Bahro's conception of are helping to produce a subjectivity
`surplus consciousness', maintaining that that demands participation and ful®l-
just as Bahro argued that in the socialist ment in the labour process and socio-
countries a new consciousness was devel- political life, as well as increased
oping which could see the discrepancy freedom, equality, opportunities for
between `what is' and `what could be' advancement and development. If these
and was not satis®ed with its way of life, needs are not satis®ed, Bahro and
Herbert Marcuse 55
Marcuse suggest, rebellion and social attempts to get at the Big Picture, to theo-
transformation will be generated. rize the fundamental changes, develop-
ments, contradictions, and struggles of
Marcuse's Legacy the day are more necessary than ever in
an era of globalization in which the
While there are problems with aspects of restructuring of capital and technological
Marcuse's theory of revolution (see revolution are changing all aspects of life.
Kellner, 1984), he is to be lauded for his Marcuse's thought thus continues to be
many provocative critiques of the relevant because he provides a mode of
Marxian theory and for his sustained global theoretical analysis and addresses
attempts to develop new revolutionary issues that continue to be of relevance to
perspectives adequate to the social condi- contemporary theory and politics. His
tions of contemporary capitalism. Of all unpublished manuscripts contain much
the Marxists of his generation, Marcuse material pertinent to contemporary con-
perhaps went furthest in trying to dis- cerns which could provide the basis for a
cover and theorize the subjective condi- rebirth of interest in Marcuse's thought
tions of revolution and to develop a (for examples of the contemporary rele-
theory of radical subjectivity, while seek- vance of Marcuse, see the studies in
ing new forces of radical change in the Bokina and Lukes, 1994).
contemporary situation. In so doing, Secondly, Marcuse provides compre-
he developed a powerful critique of the hensive philosophical perspectives on
philosophical concept of the subject and domination and liberation, a powerful
an alternative conception of subjectivity. method and framework for analysing
While some of his formulations were too contemporary society, and a vision of
closely interwoven with Freud's instinct liberation that is richer than classical
theory and the Marxian problematic of Marxism, other versions of critical theory,
the revolutionary subject, I have argued and current versions of postmodern
that there are other aspects of Marcuse's theory. Indeed, Marcuse presents critical
thought that avoid such formulations and philosophical perspectives on human
that he provides many important con- beings and their relationship to nature
tributions to our understanding of subjec- and society, as well as substantive social
tivity and agency while challenging us to theory and radical politics. In retrospect,
further rethink the problematics of subjec- Marcuse's vision of liberation ± of the full
tivity in relation to the socioeconomic development of the individual in a non-
developments and political struggles of repressive society ± distinguishes his
our own turbulent period. In this way, work, along with sharp critique of existing
the contemporary critiques of the subject forms of domination and oppression, and
challenge us to come up with better con- he emerges in this narrative as a theorist of
ceptions and to develop new resources for forces of domination and liberation.
critical theory and practice. Deeply rooted in philosophy and the con-
Although much of the controversy ception of social theory developed by the
around Marcuse involved his critiques of Institute for Social Research, Marcuse's
contemporary capitalist societies and work lacked the sustained empirical ana-
defence of radical social change, in retro- lysis of some versions of Marxist theory
spect, Marcuse left behind a complex and and the detailed conceptual analysis
many-sided body of work comparable to found in many versions of political theory.
the legacies of Ernst Bloch, Georg LukaÂcs, Yet he constantly showed how science,
T.W. Adorno, and Walter Benjamin. His technology, and theory itself had a politi-
social theory is characterized by broad cal dimension and produced a solid body
critical perspectives that attempt to cap- of ideological and political analysis of
ture the major sociohistorical, political, many of the dominant forms of society,
and cultural features of the day. Such culture, and thought during the turbulent
56 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
era in which he lived and struggled for a the capitalist system has been undergoing
better world. disorganization and reorganization.
Thus, I believe that Marcuse overcomes Marcuse's loyalty to Marxism always led
the limitations of many current varieties him to analyse new conditions within cap-
of philosophy and social theory and that italist societies that had emerged since
his writings provide a viable starting- Marx. Social theory today can thus build
point for theoretical and political concerns on this Marcusean tradition in developing
of the present age. In particular, his articu- critical theories of contemporary society
lations of philosophy with social theory, grounded in analyses of the transforma-
cultural criticism, and radical politics tions of capitalism and emergence of a
constitute an enduring legacy. While new global economic world system.
mainstream academic divisions of labour For Marcuse, social theory was integrally
isolate social theory from philosophy historical and must conceptualize the sali-
and other disciplines, Marcuse provides ent phenomena of the present age and
a robust philosophical dimension and cul- changes from previous social formations.
tural criticism to social theory, while While the postmodern theories of
developing his theoretical perspectives in Baudrillard and Lyotard claim to postulate
interaction with concrete analyses of a rupture in history, they fail to analyse the
society, politics, and culture in the present key constituents of the changes going on,
age. This dialectical approach thus assigns with Baudrillard even declaring the `end of
philosophy an important role within political economy'. Marcuse, by contrast,
social theory, providing critical theory always attempted to analyse the changing
with strong normative and philosophical con®gurations of capitalism and to relate
perspectives. social and cultural changes to trans-
In addition, Marcuse emerges as a formations in the economy.
sharp, even prescient, social analyst. He Moreover, Marcuse always paid special
was one of the ®rst on the left who both attention to the important role of techno-
developed a sharp critique of Soviet logy in organizing contemporary societies
Marxism and yet foresaw the liberalizing and with the emergence of new technolo-
trends in the Soviet Union (see Marcuse, gies in our time the Marcusean emphasis
1958). After the uprisings in Poland on the relationship between technology,
and Hungary in 1956 were ruthlessly the economy, culture, and everyday life
suppressed, many speculated that is especially important. Marcuse also
Khrushchev would have to roll back paid attention to new forms of culture
his programme of de-Stalinization and and the ways that culture provided both
crack down further. Marcuse, however, instruments of manipulation and libera-
differed: tion. The proliferation of new media tech-
nologies and cultural forms in recent
The Eastern European events were likely to slow years also demands a Marcusean perspec-
down and perhaps even reverse de-Stalinization
in some ®elds; particularly in international strat-
tive to capture both their potentialities for
egy, a considerable 'hardening' has been apparent. progressive social change and the possibi-
However, if our analysis is correct, the fundamen- lities of more streamlined forms of social
tal trend will continue and reassert itself through- domination. While postmodern theories
out such reversals. With respect to internal Soviet also describe new technologies, Marcuse
developments, this means at present continuation always related the economy to culture
of 'collective leadership', decline in the power of
and technology, seeing both emancipatory
the secret police, decentralization, legal reforms,
relaxation in censorship, liberalization in cultural and dominating potentials, while theorists
life. (Marcuse, 1958: 174) like Baudrillard are one-dimensional,
often falling prey to technological deter-
In part as a response to the collapse of minism and views of society and culture
communism and in part as a result of new that fail to see positive and emancipatory
technological and economic conditions, potentials.
Herbert Marcuse 57
Finally, while versions of postmodern Marcuse, H. (1968) Negations. Boston: Beacon Press.
theory, like Baudrillard's, have renounced Marcuse, H. (1969a) An Essay on Liberation. Boston:
Beacon Press.
radical politics, Marcuse always
Marcuse, H. (1969b) `The realm of freedom and the
attempted to link his critical theory with realm of necessity: A reconsideration', Praxis, 5(1):
the most radical political movements of 20±5.
the day, and thus to politicize his philoso- Marcuse, H. (1970) Five Lectures. Boston: Beacon
phy and social theory. Thus, I am suggest- Press.
ing that Marcuse's thought continues to Marcuse, H. (1972) Counterrevolution and Revolt.
provide important resources and stimulus Boston: Beacon Press.
Marcuse, H. (1973) Studies in Critical Philosophy.
for critical theory and radical politics in Boston: Beacon Press.
the present age. Marcuse himself was Marcuse, H. (1974) `Marxism and feminism',
open to new theoretical and political cur- Women's Studies, 2(3): 279±88.
rents, yet remained loyal to those theories Marcuse, H. (1978) The Aesthetic Dimension. Boston:
which he believed provided inspiration Beacon Press.
and substance for the tasks of the present Marcuse, H. (1979) `The rei®cation of the proletariat',
Canadian Journal of Philosophy and Social Theory, 3(1):
age. Consequently, as we confront the
24±28.
theoretical and political problems of the Marcuse, H. (1980) `Protosocialism and late capital-
day, I believe that the works of Herbert ism: Toward a theoretical synthesis based on
Marcuse provide important resources for Bahre's analysis', in O Wolter (ed.) Rudolf
our current situation and that a Bahro: Critical Responses. White Plains, NY: M.E.
Marcusean renaissance could help inspire Sharpe.
new theories and politics for the contem- Marcuse, H. (1998) Technology, War and Fascism. (ed.
Douglas Kellner.) London and New York:
porary era, providing critical social theory Routledge.
with new impulses and tasks.
SECONDARY REFERENCES
MARCUSE'S MAJOR WORKS
Alford, C. Fred (1985) Science and the Revenge of
Marcuse's unpublished papers are Nature: Marcuse and Habermas. Gainesville:
collected in the Stadtsbibliothek in University of Florida Press.
Frankfurt Germany. Suhrkamp published Bokina, John and Lukes, Timothy J. (eds) (1994)
Marcuse: New Perspectives. Lawrence: University
a 10-volume German-language edition
of Kansas Press.
Schriften in the 1980s. Routledge has Benjamin, W. (1969) Illuminations. New York:
begun publishing in 1997 six volumes of Schocken Press.
unpublished material under the general Fromm, Erich (1955) `The political implications of
editorship of Douglas Kellner, and a instinctual radicalism', Dissent, II(4): 342±9.
German edition of the unpublished Habermas, Jurgen (1984, 1987) Theory of
material is being published under the Communicative Action, Vols. 1 and 2. Boston:
Beacon Press.
editorship of Peter-Erwin Jansen for zu Heidegger, Martin (1977) The Question Concerning
Klampen Verlag. Marcuse's major works Technology. New York: Harper and Row.
in English include: Institut fuÈr Sozialforschung (1992): Kritik und
Utopie im Werk von Herbert Marcuse. Frankfurt:
Marcuse, H. (1941) Reason and Revolution. New York: Suhrkamp.
Oxford University Press; reprinted Boston: Beacon Kellner, Douglas (1984) Herbert Marcuse and the Crisis
Press, 1960. of Marxism. London and Berkeley: Macmillan and
Marcuse, H. (1955) Eros and Civilization. Boston: University of California Press.
Beacon Press. Kellner, Douglas (1989) Critical Theory, Marxism, and
Marcuse, H. (1958) Soviet Marxism. New York: Modernity. Cambridge and Baltimore, MD: Polity
Columbia University Press; 2nd edn. 1988). and John Hopkins University Press.
Marcuse, H. (1964) One-Dimensional Man. Boston: LukaÁcs, Georg (1971) History and Class Consciousness.
Beacon Press; 2nd edn. 1991. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Marcuse, H. (1965) `Repressive tolerance', in A Marx, Karl (1973) Grundrisse. London: Penguin
Critique of Pure Tolerance. Boston: Beacon Press. Books.
58 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
Oliver, Kelly (1998) Subjectivity without Subjects. New Schoolman, Morton (1980) The Imaginary Witness.
York: Rowman and Little®eld. New York: Free Press.
Pippin, Robert, Feenberg, A. and Webel, C. (1988) Wiggershaus, Rolf (1994) The Frankfurt School.
Marcuse. Critical Theory and the Promise of Utopia. Cambridge: Polity Press.
South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey.
5
Theodor Adorno
ANDREW BOWIE
T
heodor Wiesengrund Adorno was tion of the Aesthetic', which bears many
born in Frankfurt am Main in 1903. of the traits of his mature work and is
After showing early talent as a in¯uenced, like his other work at this
musician he began lessons in composition time, by Benjamin.
at the age of 16, and by the age of 18 was Adorno initially regarded the seizure of
studying philosophy, music, and psychol- power by the Nazis as a merely passing
ogy at university, and publishing music phenomenon, and continued to visit
criticism. Having completed a largely Germany until 1937, while working as an
derivative PhD on the phenomenology `advanced student' at Merton College,
of Edmund Husserl in 1924 under the Oxford. In 1938 he moved to the United
supervision of Hans Cornelius, he States to work with Max Horkheimer as a
moved to Vienna in 1925 to study compo- member of the Institute for Social
sition with Alban Berg. After returning to Research, living in New York until he
Frankfurt he withdrew, on the advice of moved to Los Angeles for the years 1941±
Cornelius, a Habilitation dissertation on 9. During this time he wrote Dialectic of
`The Concept of the Unconscious in the Enlightenment with Horkheimer, com-
Transcendental Doctrine of the Soul', the pleted Minima Moralia, a collection of
last part of which manifests a new Marx- short pieces which bears the subtitle
in¯uenced concern, of the kind that he `Re¯ections from Damaged Life', and
would retain throughout his career, with Philosophy of New Music, which deals
the relationship between the emergence mainly with the work of SchoÈnberg and
and adoption of philosophical theories Stravinsky and which in¯uenced Thomas
and socioeconomic developments. At Mann's novel Doktor Faustus, and he was a
the end of the 1920s, while editing the member of the group that wrote The
musical journal `Anbruch' (`Dawn'), Authoritarian Personality as part of the
Adorno encountered Georg LukaÂcs's Berkeley `Project on the Nature and
History and Class-Consciousness and devel- Extent of Anti-Semitism'. Adorno
oped a more intensive contact with Walter returned to Frankfurt in 1949, where he
60 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
®nally gained his ®rst (and only) tenured `transcendental' conditions of possibility
professorship, at the re-established of knowledge ± is no longer viable in the
Institute for Social Research, in 1956. In modern world. This means that philoso-
the early 1960s he was involved, along phy and sociology move into a new rela-
with, among others, his academic assis- tionship, in which `the absolute division
tant JuÈrgen Habermas, in the `Positivism between the question of the social origin,
Dispute in German Sociology', in which the social history of [philosophical]
his main opponents were Karl Popper thought, and its truth content' (Adorno,
and Hans Albert. Throughout the 1960s 1998b: 73) can no longer be sustained. At
he was engaged in writing major works, the same time Adorno rejected a relativis-
such as Negative Dialectics, Aesthetic Theory, tic sociology of knowledge of the kind
and a host of other projects, some of which developed by Karl Mannheim. By the
remained incomplete. He died on holiday beginning of the 1930s he was, then,
in Switzerland in 1969, at the time of dis- already convinced that a farewell to the
turbances associated with the student idea of philosophical principles which
Movement. transcend those in any other discipline
Even such a brief biographical sum- should result in the eventual abolition of
mary suggests the remarkable diversity philosophy as a foundational discipline,
of Adorno's work, which has to be consid- and in a relocation of philosophy in rela-
ered in the contexts of aesthetics, cultural tion to social theory.
studies, musicology, philosophy, psychol- This leaves open the precise nature of
ogy, sociology, and social theory. His work the role of both philosophy and social the-
is perhaps best understood as a series of ory, and Adorno tried throughout his
critical approaches to the major questions career to negotiate a course between the
of a post-theological modernity. However, adoption of a Hegel- and Marx-in¯uenced
®nding a common denominator in these contextualization and historicization of
approaches and locating Adorno in rela- philosophy, and attention to ideas about
tion to the issues of contemporary social language and philosophy informed by
theory is made dif®cult by the fact that his Jewish mysticism which were developed
work derives from traditions of thought in the pre-Marxist work of his friend
which remain too little known in the Walter Benjamin. In doing so he addresses
English-speaking world. His early philo- issues concerning the potentially repres-
sophical work is, for example, concerned sive nature of totalizing forms of thinking
with questions deriving from Kant's that have come to play a role in the
philosophy, which are seen through the debates around the nature of `postmeta-
®lter of the neo-Kantianism and phenom- physical thinking' (Habermas) in the
enology that dominate German philoso- work of, for example, Foucault, Derrida,
phy in the ®rst quarter of the twentieth and Lyotard, and in various forms of
century. The main question in that philo- recent cultural theory. The advantage of
sophy is how to establish a basis for claims Adorno's work over some of these
to truth about the natural and social world approaches lies both in its concern to
in the wake of Kant's claim that one can no anchor theoretical re¯ections in a critical
longer assume that the world has an awareness of the speci®city of modern
inherent `ready-made' structure which social life, and in its refusal to abandon
exists independently of the ways in the notion of rationality, even as it ana-
which it is apprehended. In common lyses the destructive effects of certain
with other in¯uential thinkers in the aspects of `Enlightenment' thinking on
1920s, like Martin Heidegger, Adorno modern societies. This brings Adorno
came to believe that a philosophy con- close at times ± even though he himself
cerned with establishing timeless prin- did not see it in these terms, because he
ciples ± even principles of the kind mistakenly equated pragmatism with
proposed by Kant in his account of the positivism ± to the tradition of American
Theodor Adorno 61
pragmatism derived from John Dewey, The essential conviction of the early
which is represented today by Hilary Romantics is, much as it is for Adorno,
Putnam, Richard Rorty and others. that the project of grounding a complete
Adorno's concern that truth should be philosophical system which could encom-
seen in terms of `giving a voice to suffer- pass thought's relation to reality is
ing' (Adorno, 1975: 29), rather than of ade- doomed to failure. Novalis and Schlegel
quacy of thought to a `ready-made' reality, are led by this conviction to a concern
is echoed, for instance, in Rorty's convic- with fragmentariness and incomplete-
tion that philosophy should now be inter- ness, and to the idea, which becomes
ested in helping to avoid the in¯iction of central to Adorno's thought, that art
pain and in augmenting the sources of may in some respects tell us more about
post-theological hope, rather than in the nature of modern existence than phi-
grounding epistemology. losophy. For the Romantics this is because
art's resistance to de®nitive interpretation
reminds us of the inherently temporal nat-
SOCIAL THEORY AND ure of our capacity to grasp the world, and
CONTRIBUTIONS they are led by such ideas, as Adorno will
be, to a new evaluation of the signi®cance
Despite its still disputed status in relation of music. Works of art are also signi®cant
to mainstream social theory, Adorno's for Adorno because they are irreducibly
work can be approached as part of the particular and cannot be reduced to gen-
debate concerning the relationship eral explanatory concepts, though they
between scienti®c explanation and the may, for that very reason, give access to
understanding of human action and cul- insights into society not available to
ture which develops towards the end of approaches based on general concepts.
the nineteenth century via the work of Adorno developed the implications of
Wilhelm Dilthey, Max Weber, and others. such ideas throughout his career.
Adorno attempts to elaborate ways of Adorno does not offer a social theory in
thinking which come to terms with the the sense that his pupil Habermas does in
massive advances in the explanatory the Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns
power of the natural sciences and yet (Theory of Communicative Action) (1981),
also take account of the fact that these which attempts to map out a methodolo-
advances take place within sociohistorical gical framework for understanding the
contexts which often render them a threat workings of modern societies. Adorno's
both to human well-being and to non- relation to social theory is more indirect
human nature. He questions the idea and must be established in relation to
that the methods of the natural sciences works as diverse as, for instance, his
are appropriate to social inquiry, highlight- book on Richard Wagner, the study of
ing the resistance of social existence to the `authoritarian personality', his texts
analysis in terms of de®nitive method- on the sociology of music, the critiques
ological principles. The main conceptual of positivism in sociology, or his more
resources for his ideas are, like those of immediately philosophical works, like
many critical social theorists, drawn from Against Epistemology, Dialectic of Enlighten-
the work of Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, ment, Negative Dialectics, and Aesthetic
Weber, and Freud, but Adorno often Theory. Adorno's earlier work on music,
understands these resources in the light for example, such as the essay `On the
of the work of Benjamin, which relies Social Situation of Music' of 1932, is a
both on Jewish theology and on early rather clumsy attempt to use aspects of
German Romantic thought from the end Marx's theory of the commodity to show
of the eighteenth century, particularly how the commodity world has deprived
that of Novalis and Friedrich Schlegel all but the most radical and dif®cult music
(see Bowie, 1997). ± that of SchoÈnberg and his followers,
62 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
form across the globe. Rather than assum- of language and things becomes radically
ing that the true is the whole, Adorno problematic' (Adorno, 1973c: 366) in the
argues that these processes obscure the modern era, he does not adopt all of
underlying truth about modern societies, Benjamin's position, which he later criti-
rendering judgments about the whole cally characterizes as `metaphysical' in
inappropriate, whence his inversion of Negative Dialectics.
Hegel in Negative Dialectics in 1966: `The Signi®cant parts of Adorno's work are,
whole is the untrue'. However, this leaves though, devoted to the idea of a concep-
Adorno with a paradoxical position, in tion of language which would be ade-
which he both renounces totalizing claims quate to the situation where there no
and yet relies as the basis of his renuncia- longer seems to be a way of de®nitively
tion upon a totalizing characterization of grounding the truth. Many of Adorno's
the `universal context of delusion' that key ideas about literature and about the
results from the dominance of the com- importance of music for understanding
modity principle. This problematic dialec- modernity derive from his interpretation
tic between totalization and the critique of of this situation. He claims in 1957, for
totalization recurs throughout his mature example, that `As language, music
work. moves towards the pure name, the abso-
Adorno is already concerned from the lute unity of thing and sign, which is lost
end of the 1920s onwards, and will remain in its immediacy to all human knowledge'
so throughout his life, with how it is pos- (Adorno, 1984: 154). Ideas like this about
sible to articulate truth in modernity if language are also the source of his notion
thought must renounce claims to grasp of the `constellation', in which a unique
the totality of the processes which deter- con®guration of words is intended to
mine social phenomena. This concern is articulate a particular issue without claim-
the source of his interest in Benjamin's ing to found a methodology with a uni-
theory of language. Benjamin claims versal application, something he also
modernity is characterized by an arbitrari- sees in terms of creating `thought-models'
ness of signi®cation which he illustrates which are adequate to the speci®city of
by the role of allegory in early modern their object. The notions of the constella-
German baroque drama, where `Every tion and of the thought-model can be used
person, every thing, every relationship to explain ± if not always to justify ± the
can arbitrarily mean something else' often dense, exploratory nature of
(Benjamin, 1980: 350). In his later, Marx- Adorno's own writing, which prevents it
in¯uenced work on Baudelaire, Benjamin being easily reduced to a series of essential
suggests how the conception of allegory precepts.
can apply to ideas like those of Adorno, Adorno initially employed notions of
thereby revealing the reasons for the kind just outlined in a framework
Adorno's link between Benjamin's con- which associates the critical intent of his
ception of language and the critique of thinking with the idea of proletarian revo-
commodity form: `The speci®c devalua- lution as the means of breaking the
tion of the world of things which is pre- socially destructive dominance of the
sent in the commodity is the foundation of exchange principle. However, in light of
the allegorical intention in Baudelaire' events in the Soviet Union and Germany
(Benjamin, 1980: 1151). Benjamin's in the mid-1930s, he ceases to believe in
response to the idea of the devaluation the possibility of radical social transfor-
of the particular is to propose the idea of mation by revolutionary means. This
a language of `names', which would have does not mean that he becomes uncritical
an essential, rather than an arbitrary rela- of the repressive manifestations of modern
tion to what they designate. Although capitalism, or that his essential conception
Adorno, much like Benjamin, thinks `the changes ± the ideas outlined above remain
contingency of the signi®cative attribution remarkably constant in most of his work ±
64 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
but he focuses more on what makes of the self-discipline required for self-
rationality in modern societies often preservation. However, this obviates the
incapable of eliminating suffering and point of existing as an individual subject,
injustice, even when the means for doing because of the violence done by the sub-
so are already in existence. ject to its own nature. The process of
The most extreme manifestation of `primal history' is seen as the source
Adorno's questioning of modern rational- even of the inhumanity of the system of
ity is Dialectic of Enlightenment (hereafter the ful®lment of needs in `late capitalism',
DoE), which, although written in the which distorts the subject's needs into
1940s, only began to have a signi®cant destructive forms which are appropriate
in¯uence on social theory some 20 years for the functioning of the system but
later, in relation to the breakdown of the not for those within it. The only way
illusory revolutionary hopes of the stu- beyond such a situation involves an
dent movement and to the emergence of appeal to the idea of a `reconciliation' of
ecological concerns. The bleak tone of the the subject with the nature of which it is
book is hardly surprising, given the time a part: how this could take place is,
of its genesis, but the degree of negativity though, left open. Adorno suggests else-
it evinces with regard to modern forms where that a `mimetic' relation to
of rationality is greater than in Adorno's nature, which exempli®es such a recon-
previous ± and much of his subsequent ± ciliation, is somehow present in the way
work. DoE relies on a Nietzschean con- signi®cant works of modern art have a
ception of knowledge as power over the `nonconceptual af®nity' to what they
`other', be it nature or other people, and present.
this has been the source of its appeal to Perhaps the most in¯uential part of DoE
other Nietzsche-in¯uenced directions in is its critique of the `culture industry', in
modern thought, such as post-structural- which the commodity form, like the
ism. Horkheimer and Adorno present other forms of `Enlightenment', is seen
`Enlightenment' as the `mythical fear' of as making culture, which was formerly
nature which `has become radical'. in some measure the expression of
Reason in modernity is therefore charac- human freedom and individuality, into a
terized almost exclusively as mathemati- mere schematic repetition of pregiven
cally based `instrumental' reason ± which forms. This repetition is epitomized by
takes the systematic form described above Hollywood ®lm and jazz, which suppo-
in relation to Spinoza, Hegel and Marx ± sedly accord with what market research
whose aim is to subdue the threat posed to shows people want who have been
self-preservation by external nature. The subjected to the consciousness-forming
authors regard even premodern myth as effects of the commodity world ± the argu-
a form of reason, because it is an attempt ment now seems more relevant to much
to subordinate nature to forms which will that goes on in the rock music industry
control and manipulate it, by reducing the than to its original target, especially in
inherent difference of things to restrictive the case of jazz. Although Horkheimer
forms of identity. The basis of their argu- and Adorno's aim in DoE is to provide
ment is a conception of subjectivity resources for establishing models of
derived from Nietzsche and Freud, reason which avoid the results of the `dia-
which they connect directly to their lectic of enlightenment', it is not clear
conception of instrumental reason. What whether the theoretical model they
happens in capitalism is `already percep- employ can lead to anything but the con-
tible in the primal history of subjectivity' sequence that reason is inherently based
(Horkheimer and Adorno, 1971: 51, my on repression, rather than also being
translation). In this history the stable potentially enabling and emancipatory.
identity of the self is established via the Adorno's approaches in the rest of his
internal repression of drives, in the name work to the dilemmas evident in DoE are
Theodor Adorno 65
postempiricist methodology in the social the second sense of identity, which can
(and in some cases the natural) sciences. include the aim of doing justice to things
However, Adorno also adheres to the that is one of Adorno's main goals, cannot
much more problematic holism we have be used for critical purposes, for instance
already encountered, which regards when the particular way something is
modernity as dominated and constituted identi®ed precludes the realization of its
by the forms of identity produced by the most signi®cant possibilities.
exchange principle. Adorno's suggestion, both in the dispute
During the dispute with Popper and with Popper and Albert and elsewhere,
Albert concerning the methodology of that `positivism' involves a necessary link
the social sciences in the early 1960s, between identifying social facts and legit-
Adorno claims that `The abstractness of imating the existence of those facts is evi-
exchange-value is connected a priori dently implausible. Furthermore, much of
with the domination of the general over the so-called `positivism dispute' was
the particular, of society over its compul- itself actually based on a series of mis-
sory members' (Adorno, 1972: 21), and understandings and misinterpretations
this domination seems sometimes to by both sides. One of Adorno's essential
include any sort of identi®cation in such targets is, for example, scientism, but
a society, from the simple predicative Popper is equally concerned to attack
sentence which subsumes a particular what he sees as the scientism of some of
phenomenon under a general term, to the members of the Vienna Circle, which
empirical claims about social phenomena. only allows knowledge claims on the basis
There is, though, a vital ambiguity in of observation sentences and inductive
Adorno's conception of identity. The idea generalizations (see Dahms, 1994; Bowie,
that there is a source of repressive identi- 2000). Adorno's linking of identi®cation
®cation common to the sphere of com- and legitimation could only be sustained
modity exchange and to conceptual if the very gathering of facts about society
thinking relies on two different senses of were, as he seems to suggest, itself sub-
identity, which Adorno sometimes (but jected to the logic of identity inherent in
not always) con¯ates. The identi®cation the commodity structure which produces
of any commodity with all other commod- the consciousness of the people in that
ities, as an exchange-value independent of society, and therefore precluded the adop-
its use-value, does involve the danger of tion of a critical perspective. However,
devaluing the particular thing (whilst also this situation would render the position
facilitating the ± unjustly distributed ± of the critical theorist who makes such
availability of otherwise inaccessible claims about the effects of commodi®ca-
goods). However, things in the social tion itself problematic, because of their
world, including those bought as com- lack of a location from which to judge
modities, can also be identi®ed as a those effects without also being subjected
whole (potentially unlimited) number of to them.
things, which may be completely particu- Valid as they may be, criticisms of this
lar and which can only be assessed in kind can unfairly obscure the fact that
particular terms in particular contexts. If Adorno's primary aim in his postwar
the two senses of identity are indeed work is not methodological, but practical.
different, then the inherent link of the He wishes to make what he sees as the
commodity structure to all forms of iden- new `categorical imperative' forced upon
tity and their possibly damaging con- us by Hitler into the focus of re¯ection on
sequences cannot be upheld, and the human thought and action. This is the
totalizing aspect of Adorno's conception imperative that Auschwitz could never
is no longer defensible in this respect be repeated, an aim recently echoed in
(on this see SchnaÈdelbach, 1987; Thyen, Zygmunt Bauman's demand to make
1989). This does not mean, though, that the lessons of the Holocaust the centre of
Theodor Adorno 67
Positivismus, dem amerikanischen Pragmatismus, und Jameson, F. (1990) Late Marxism. Adorno, or the
dem kritischen Rationalismus. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Persistence of the Dialectic. London: Verso.
Dews, P. (1995) The Limits of Disenchantment. London: Jarvis, S. (1998) Adorno. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Verso. Jay, M. (1984) Adorno. London: Fontana.
Frank, Manfred (1991) Selbstbewuûtsein und Paddison, M. (1993) Adorno's Aesthetics of Music.
Selbsterkenntnis. Stuttgart: Reclam. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Geuss, R. (1981) The Idea of a Critical Theory. Rose, G. (1978) The Melancholy Science. London:
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Macmillan.
Habermas, J. (1981) Theorie des kommunikativen SchnaÈdelbach, Herbert (1987) Vernunft und Geschichte.
Handelns. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Habermas, J. (1987) The Philosophical Discourse of Thyen, Anke (1989) Negative Dialektik und Erfahrung.
Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Zur RationalitaÈt des Nichtidentischen bei Adorno.
Habermas, J. (1988) Nachmetaphysisches Denken. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Wellmer, A. (1991) The Persistence of Modernity.
Held, D. (1980) Introduction to Critical Theory. From Cambridge: Polity Press.
Horkheimer to Habermas. London: Hutchinson. Wiggershaus, R. (1993) The Frankfurt School.
Henrich, D. (1987) Konzepte. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Jameson, F. (1970) Marxism and Form. Princeton, NJ: Zuidervaart, L. (1991) Adorno's Aesthetic Theory.
Princeton University Press. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
6
Walter Benjamin
GRAEME GILLOCH
A
fter a substantial period of totalitarianism.
neglect, Walter Benjamin (1892± In stark contrast to such traumas,
1940) is now widely recognized Benjamin's childhood was a time of mater-
as one of the most original and insightful ial comfort and tedious tranquility. Born
thinkers of his generation and as perhaps on 15 July 1892, the son of an auctioneer
the most important German literary the- and eldest of three children, Walter
orist of the twentieth century. Like several Benedix SchoÈn¯ies Benjamin grew up in
of the other ®gures pro®led in this book, the desirable west end districts of Berlin
Benjamin would not have thought of him- in an af¯uent, assimilated German-Jewish
self as a social theorist as such. Neverthe- family. As has often been observed, his
less, his idiosyncratic and frequently 1932 semiautobiographical re¯ections on
enigmatic writings on literature, aes- his formative years, `A Berlin Childhood
thetics, philosophy, and historiography Around 1900' (in Benjamin, 1991, Vol. VI)
are increasingly seen to have a special and `Berlin Chronicle' (in Benjamin,
resonance with, and relevance for, con- 1985b), are more disquisitions on the pro-
temporary social and cultural analysis. A mises, possibilities, and prohibitions
close friend of the Judaic scholar Gershom attending a middle-class, urban childhood
Scholem, the Marxist playwright Bertolt in general than an intimate portrait of the
Brecht, and the philosopher Theodor intellectual as a young man. His reminis-
Adorno, Benjamin became an associate cences speak of a solitary and sickly child-
of the Frankfurt Institute for Social hood cloistered in the desperately `cosy',
Research and his ideas exist in an intricate cluttered, bourgeois interior of the time, of
interplay with the critical theory of the so- the dull round of visits to ageing relations,
called `Frankfurt School'. Although and of the strictures of school life. They
Benjamin's texts often differ radically in tell of a child whose primary consolations
terms of their evaluation of phenomena, for this dry, disciplined existence were in
they also frequently pre®gure key con- the daydreams stimulated by reading, by
cerns and concepts for critical theory and visits to the enchanting Tiergarten and
Walter Benjamin 71
Berlin zoo, and, on one memorable occa- of experience, cognition, and knowledge
sion, by a wholly unexpected and unsanc- exempli®ed by Kant, and towards an
tioned foray into an alluring and understanding of the linguistic grounding
thoroughly disreputable quarter of the of truth in revelation. In his enigmatic
city. fragments from 1916-17 Benjamin identi-
On health grounds Benjamin spent two ®es the task of philosophy, to call things
years of his schooling (1905±6) at a rela- by their proper name, as the recovery of
tively progressive boarding school at the perfect language with which Adam
Haubinda in Thuringia, studying there named Creation at God's behest.
under Gustav Wyneken, a key advocate Deemed un®t for military service on
of the radical wing of the youth move- account of his poor eyesight, Benjamin
ment and its mission of German cultural moved to study in Munich in the autumn
regeneration. Benjamin returned to com- of 1915. He managed to avoid subsequent
plete his school studies in Berlin but call-ups by feigning sciatica and, in 1917,
remained in regular contact with relocated to neutral Switzerland and
Wyneken. After enrolling to study philo- Berne University with Dora Kellner,
sophy at Freiburg University in 1912, whom he had married in April 1917.
Benjamin's commitment to the cultural Benjamin spent the remaining war years
and educational politics of youth intensi- in self-imposed Swiss exile and ®nally
®ed and he published a number of poetic completed his doctorate on `The Concept
and idealistic polemics espousing radical of Criticism in German Romanticism' in
reform in Wyneken's journal Der Anfang 1919. This study sought to develop a
(`The Beginning') around 1913. Benjamin notion of immanent criticism which
returned to Berlin to pursue his university unfolded the inherent tendencies of the
studies in 1913 and was elected to the work of art, its `truth-content', through
committee, and then to the chair, of the the activity of critical re¯ection. Back in
Free Students Movement there. The days Germany, Benjamin subsequently under-
of his involvement with the Youth took to provide an exemplary instance of
Movement and student politics were such an approach in an extended essay
numbered, however. The outbreak of the on Goethe's famous novella `Elective
Great War in August 1914 split the move- Af®nities'. Eschewing conventional read-
ment into those who, like Wyneken, ings of the story as a cautionary moral tale
viewed the con¯ict as the very defence of tragic, illicit love, Benjamin fore-
and renewal of German culture, and grounds the contrast between human sub-
those who saw only catastrophe ahead. jection to fate and characterful, decisive
Two of Benjamin's closest friends, Fritz action, a comparison which serves as an
Heinle and Rika Seligson, committed instructive lesson in the need to contest
suicide as a desperate protest against the mythic forces. Above all, for Benjamin,
hostilities. Deeply moved, Benjamin broke the protracted death of one of the mis-
completely with Wyneken in March 1915. creant lovers, Ottilie, presents the demise
Three months later Benjamin met an of beauty, its morti®cation, for a higher
18-year-old student of mathematics, purpose, truth, and thus serves as an alle-
Gershom Scholem, an acquaintance who gory of the task of criticism itself.
would prove a lifelong friend and a ®gure In the early 1920s Benjamin hoped to
who would profoundly and enduringly make his mark in literary criticism
in¯uence Benjamin's work in the direction through editing his own journal, Angelus
of Judaic thought, mysticism, and the Novus, the `New Angel'. In Judaic
Kabbala. Benjamin's concern with the cri- thought, the Angelus Novus appears ¯eet-
tical and redemptive task of youth gave ingly before God to sing his praises before
way to a preoccupation with redirecting vanishing once more. Benjamin's angel
philosophical enquiry away from the never made even this brief appearance:
impoverished Enlightenment conception uneasy that the erudite material would
72 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
prove ®nancially unviable, the publisher stipend, but, as his correspondence conti-
pulled out before the ®rst edition was nually indicates, his was an insecure and
even ®nalized. This disappointment impecunious condition. As an intellectual
prompted Benjamin's return to the aca- outsider, Benjamin was able to lambast
demic sphere and he embarked upon his and lampoon scholarly conventions and
Habilitationsschrift (a piece of research the `fat books' spawned by the over-
above and beyond the doctoral disserta- fed and underachieving bourgeois
tion which, once completed, would entitle academy; at the same time, he was
him to an academic post). Benjamin utterly dependent on the good of®ces
studied at the University of Frankfurt, of publishers, the press, commission-
taking as his theme the seventeenth- ing editors and others who, like
century German play of mourning, the Ernst Schoen at SuÈdwestdeutsche
Trauerspiel. Dismissed as bastardized Rundfunk and Siegfried Kracauer at the
tragedies, these baroque dramas with Frankfurter Zeitung, offered what work
their preposterous plots and lurid lan- and remuneration they could. It is
guage had long been consigned to the this work of necessity which gives
dusty attic of literary failures. Benjamin's Benjamin's oeuvre its distinctive sense of
immanent critique of these scorned and fragmentation and astonishing diversity.
neglected works fundamentally distin- Benjamin translated and wrote on Marcel
guished them from the classical tragic Proust; he produced eloquent essays on
form and reinterpreted and redeemed such key literary ®gures as Franz Kafka,
them as the quintessential expression of Bertolt Brecht, Karl Kraus, the Surrealists,
the frailties and vanities of God-forsaken and Charles Baudelaire; and also penned
human existence and the `natural history' a radio piece entitled `True Stories of
of the human physis as decay. In so doing, Dogs', a set of re¯ections on Russian
Benjamin argued for the importance of peasant toys, and a review of Charlie
allegory as a trope which precisely Chaplin. Only this can be said of such
renders and represents the world as enforced eclecticism: whatever attracted
fragmentation, ruination, and morti®ca- his attention, Benjamin always discovered
tion. Now justly celebrated as a critical the most telling insights in the least likely
masterpiece, Benjamin's (1985c) Origin of and most trivial of things.
German Tragic Drama (Ursprung des Benjamin was never to write another
deutschen Trauerspiels), with its arcane sub- book in the, for him compromised, `scho-
ject matter and esoteric methodological larly' style of his Trauerspiel book, which
preamble, baf¯ed and bemused its inept was eventually published in 1928. Instead,
examiners and Benjamin was advised and the aphorism, the illuminating aside, the
obliged to withdraw his study rather than quotation, the imagistic fragment became
face the ultimate humiliation of an out- his preferred, indeed essential, mode of
right rejection. By late summer 1925, expression. In presenting and represent-
Benjamin's ambitions for an academic ing the everyday in a new light, observing
career lay in ruins. it from an unexpected angle, such minia-
Benjamin was thus to spend the rest of tures were intended to catch the reader
his life eking out a precarious living as a off-guard (like a series of blows decisively
freelance writer earning money through dealt, Benjamin once observed, left-
contributions to newspapers, literary handed). Starting with his pen-portraits
reviews, magazines, journals, and even, of cities he visited (`Naples', `Marseilles',
in the early 1930s, through writing and `Moscow') and his 1926 montage of
presenting a series of radio broadcasts urban images One-Way Street (1985b),
for children. Benjamin's growing associa- Benjamin's writings began to take on a
tion with Adorno, whom he met while in new, contemporary in¯ection and radical
Frankfurt in 1923, and with the Institute political colouring. While working on the
for Social Research also led to a small Trauerspiel study on Capri in the summer
Walter Benjamin 73
of 1924, Benjamin had read Georg pages of notes, quotations, sketches and
LukaÂcs's History and Class Consciousness drafts, and today remains as an un®n-
and been introduced to a Latvian theatre ished, indeed never written, `prehistory'
director, Asja Lacis. His enthusiasm for of nineteenth-century Paris as the original
the former, and his troubled love affair site of modern consumer capitalism, as a
with the latter, drew Benjamin to Marxist plethora of fragments providing for a
ideas. In the winter of 1926±7 Benjamin panoramic and kaleidoscopic exploration
visited Moscow to see the new Soviet of the city's fashions and phantasmagoria,
system for himself. Benjamin's initial architecture and boulevards, literature
enthusiasm was tempered by the indiffer- and politics.
ence of the Soviet authorities, the It was to Paris, rather than Moscow or
impossibility of the language, and, above Palestine (where Scholem had emigrated),
all, by his unease at the incipient artistic that Benjamin ¯ed in 1933 to escape the
impoverishment and intellectual compro- Nazi tyranny and terror. There he pursued
mises already discernible. Benjamin his researches for the `Arcades Project' in
returned to Berlin where, through Lacis, the BibliotheÁque Nationale, work which
he met and became friends with the led to a proposed book on Baudelaire
playwright Bertolt Brecht. Much to the and a series of historiographical re¯ec-
dismay of Adorno and Scholem, who tions and principles intended to form a
saw Benjamin's always unorthodox and methodological introduction. Like the
unconvincing espousal of Marxist ideas wider Passagenarbeit, these too were
as a foolhardy ¯irtation, he became an never to be completed. Despite the advice
advocate of Brecht's `epic theatre' and and efforts of Adorno and Horkheimer,
the bald political messages of these di- now in exile in New York, Benjamin lin-
dactic dramas. While Benjamin himself gered too long in Paris and was trapped in
refrained from `crude thinking', its traces 1940 by the German invasion. He ¯ed to
and imperatives are evident in many of the south of the country, was temporarily
his key writings in the 1930s on the situa- interned and, once released, desperately
tion and task of the contemporary artist sought an escape route. It was not to be.
(`The Author as Producer', [1934] 1983b), Benjamin attempted to cross into the rela-
and the character and consequences of tive safety of Spain but was turned back at
new media forms for the work of art and the border because of inadequate docu-
aesthetic discourse (especially `The Work mentation resulting from last-minute
of Art in the Age of Mechanical changes to visa regulations. Wearied by
Reproduction', [1935] 1973). his exertions, facing certain arrest on his
Benjamin's concern with the fate of art return to France, Benjamin committed sui-
within capitalist modernity, with the cide on 26 September 1940. He is buried at
Marxist critique of commodity culture, Port Bou.
and with the character and experience of
the urban environment were to combine
in a project which was to preoccupy him SOCIAL THEORY AND
for the rest of his life. Inspired by the CONTRIBUTIONS
Parisian perambulations of the Surrealist
writer Louis Aragon ([1926] 1987), Benjamin's fragmentary oeuvre presents
Benjamin embarked in 1927 upon a a highly eclectic and provocative combi-
study of the then ruinous and derelict nation of concepts, themes, and motifs
Parisian shopping arcades built in the drawn from a distinctive and diverse set
®rst half of the nineteenth century. of sources: Judaic mysticism and mes-
Initially modest in scope, Benjamin's sianism; early German Romanticism; mod-
Passagenarbeit or Passagen-Werk (The ernism, and in particular Surrealism; and a
Arcades Project, Benjamin, 1999b) was distinctive, highly unorthodox Marxism.
eventually to comprise over a thousand Moreover, Benjamin was particularly
74 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
attentive to, and appreciative of, objects and allegory, in 1985b); and, secondly,
and ideas that had been neglected, dis- that of the `Arcades Project' ± including
regarded, and passed by. He had a keen his urban Denkbilder, One-Way Street,
eye for the manner in which the minutiae the essays on Proust ([1929] 1973),
of mundane life, the inconspicuous Surrealism ([1929] 1985b) and Baudelaire
instances of everyday experiences, could ([1937±8 and 1939] 1983a), the texts on
possess and provide the most profound Brecht ([1930 and 1931] 1983b), photo-
insights and profane illumination of mod- graphy ([1931] 1985b) and ®lm ([1935]
ern existence. Long-forgotten dramas, 1973), his childhood reminiscences
obsolete objects and outmoded fashions, ([1932] 1991) and historiographical theses
children's books and toys, postage stamps ([1940] 1973).
± from such curios and collectibles Benjamin's dense and enigmatic early
Benjamin sought to unfold, critique and texts on language, truth, and history ±
redeem the innermost tendencies and `On Language as Such and the Language
potentialities of contemporary cultural of Man ([1916] 1985b), `The Task of
forms and practices. the Coming Philosophy' ([1918] 1996±9,
How can one do justice to such an intri- Vol. 1), `The Task of the Translator'
guing ®gure and rich body of work within ([1921] 1973) and the `Theologico-
the necessary limits of an overview such Political Fragment' ([1920±1] 1985b) ±
as this? Benjamin's own playful attempts combine to articulate what is, at ®rst
to map out his life and work on paper sight, an obtuse and obscure set of ideas.
produced only that ultimate ®gure of They are of key signi®cance, however.
complexity and confusion: the labyrinth. Indeed, though there have been recent
Attempts to conceptualize Benjamin's views to the contrary (Caygill, 1997), an
work by distinguishing between his understanding of Benjamin's linguistic
early and late writings, dividing his texts theory is essential for his work as a
into an initial messianic phase in¯uenced whole (see Menninghaus, 1980). These
by Judaic motifs and themes, and a subse- texts elaborate a fragmentary critique of
quent materialist period characterized by Enlightenment and rationalist thought as
Brechtian elements and Marxist orienta- involving an impoverished and mechan-
tions, have been rightly criticized for istic conception of human experience; as a
their failure to perceive the complex con- vain privileging of `progress' based on
tinuity of his thought. From mysticism to the rabid pursuit and accumulation of
Marxism ± such a simpli®cation obscures scienti®c knowledge; as the development
more than it illuminates and suggests of a cold, calculating instrumentality in
a linearity of development which is thor- human relations with nature; and as the
oughly alien to Benjamin's own work. I source of a debased understanding of
wish to suggest another way of mapping human language. Benjamin's critique is
Benjamin's work, one which draws on not an articulation of or invitation to irra-
another of his key ®gures: not the laby- tionalism, but rather seeks to foster an
rinth, but the constellation, a ®gure con- alternative understanding grounded not
stituted by a plethora of points which in the mediocrity of scienti®c knowledge
together compose an intelligible, legible, but in the theological truth of the Judaic
though contingent, pattern. Benjamin's tradition. This should be understood less
work might usefully be seen in terms of as a set of dogmatic principles than as a
two textual constellations: ®rst, that of the mode of gaining critical purchase on the
Trauerspiel study (comprising his re¯ec- contemporary human condition.
tions on language and translation, his For Benjamin, the starting point is lan-
doctoral dissertation and the essay on guage. According to scripture, language
Goethe (both in 1996±9, Vol. 1), his plans in the form of the divine word of God is
for Angelus Novus (ibid.), various frag- the origin of things. Adam is called by
ments on fate, history, tragedy, Trauerspiel God to name Creation, to give things
Walter Benjamin 75
their proper names, that is, to translate the constituted anew through the work of cri-
divine and creative word of God into tique until, recognizing its relationship
human language. The blissful, paradisia- with other works of art, the artwork
cal language of Adamic naming comes to takes its rightful place within the
an end with the Fall and shatters into pantheon of art, dissolves into the Idea
the multiplicity of historical human lan- of art. The self-disclosure of the meaning
guages. Unlike Adam's perfect language, and the self-discovery of truth of the
these are arbitrary in terms of the relation work of art occur during its `afterlife', con-
between word and thing and, in their ceived as on-going criticism and ®nal dis-
plethora of terms for the same phenom- solution.
enon, overname nature. Human history Like the essay on the `Elective
is this continuing life amidst a Babel of Af®nities', Benjamin's Trauerspiel study
prattling languages which reduce nature sought to provide an exemplary instance
to a state of mournful silence. Benjamin of immanent critique in which the work of
thus counterpoises a history of suffering art was subjected not so much to a process
and catastrophe against the idea of contin- of re¯ection, as one of ruination or morti-
ual progress; a mystical vision of a sor- ®cation for the sake of its truth content.
rowful nature burdened by human folly Benjamin's intention was to correct two
against a view of nature as inert material fundamental misunderstandings of the
for human exploitation; an understanding Trauerspiel form. First, it should be distin-
of the arbitrariness of language as an guished from tragedy. The baroque
index of its fallen condition rather than plays were not failed attempts to produce
as its essential characteristic, as Saussure classical dramas, but had a completely dif-
(1966) famously contends. For Benjamin, ferent grounding and purpose: instead of
the task of philosophy as the love of a concern with myth and the fate of the
truth is a redemptive one: to call things tragic hero, the Trauerspiel presented the
once more by their proper name, to recall dismal events of history as they conspired
the perfect language of Adamic naming. to ruin the sorrowful sovereign. It is not
Two activities become important here: ennobling heroic action but human in-
translation and criticism. In the work of decision which leads to catastrophe and
translating one language into another, melancholy. The Trauerspiel involves the
one discovers a pointer to the shared articulation and illumination of a mourn-
origin of language. It is, however, the ful and utterly profane realm of creaturely
task of the critic which becomes compulsion and human misery in a God-
Benjamin's central focus. In his 1919 forsaken world. This ®nds expression in
doctoral dissertation, Benjamin draws allegory. In recovering the Trauerspiel as a
upon the writings of Schlegel and distinctive and legitimate aesthetic form,
Novalis, themselves no strangers to the Benjamin also redeems allegory. Benjamin
mystical tradition, to articulate a notion rejects the usual privileging of the symbol
of immanent critique which emphasizes as the aesthetic ®gure par excellence, and
the unfolding of truth from within the instead argues for the importance of the
work of art itself. Fichte's idea of much derided allegorical form. The dra-
the human individual coming to self- matists of the baroque relied on this
consciousness and self-understanding trope and, drawing on medieval emble-
through a never-ending process of self- matics, extended the range of allegorical
re¯ection is transposed onto the work of referents such that dramatic objects came
art. For the Romantics, criticism provides to take on manifold signi®cance. In this
the successive mirrors for the work of art, overdetermination, objects and words,
through which it comes to re¯ect upon because they can refer to so many contra-
itself and thereby disclose its meaning dictory things, lose any precise sense.
and truth. Truth does not reside in the Allegory hollows out meaning, ruins it,
intentions of the author, but is perpetually reduces language to verbose prattle.
76 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
patterns: fashion, advertising, and dis- 1995). The ¯aneur has been transformed
play; architecture, design, and lighting; from the snobbish spectator into an
notions of progress and technological ideal, intellectual exponent of the city-
change; and, fantasy, fetishism, and sexu- scape, the utopian urbanite (Morawski,
ality. Indeed, the Parisian arcades, with in Tester, 1994).
their phantasmagorical construction and The ¯aneur has a particular relevance
inversion of space, are readily recogniz- for postmodern theory beyond such iden-
able as the precursors of contemporary ti®cations and debates. He is the ultimate
shopping malls with their street simula- ®gure of fragmentation and limitation. As
tions and themed interiors. Benjamin's a wanderer in the city, it is the ¯aneur who
work is a necessary starting point for lacks an overview of the metropolitan
scholars concerned with the proliferation whole, who is afforded no panoramic or
of the commodity form and the spec- bird's-eye perspective. The ¯aneur is not a
tacular superabundance of images, signs, privileged spectator in this sense, but,
and things in the contemporary city. granted only an ant's eye-view, a limited
Importantly Benjamin's physiognomy of witness of a complexity which eludes his
the cityscape is concerned with decipher- vision and understanding, a melancholy,
ing urban objects and structures, with `heroic' actor buffeted by forces but dimly
making them legible as signs and rebuses. perceived. Indeed, the ¯aneur is a part of
Under his gaze, the city is transformed that which he observes ± he watches
into a `semiotic universe', a text to be the crowd and is a member (however
read. In so doing, Benjamin not only pre- reluctantly) of that crowd. Spectator and
®gures concerns with the legibility of spectacle are one and the same. As a
urban space (Lynch, 1960; de Certeau, result, the ¯aneur is a ®gure in perpetual
1984), but also introduces one of the motion ± there is no safe and stable van-
most suggestive and frequently invoked tage point from which to behold events,
®gures in discussions of urban culture but only a series of brie¯y held positions
and experience, the ¯aneur (Tester, 1994; offering glimpses of a world itself in ¯ux.
Gilloch, 1999). Collapsing subject and object, partial in
The dawdling dandy has been recon®- scope, situated yet shifting, the vision of
gured (and regendered) as a trope to elu- the ¯aneur provocatively pre®gures that
cidate and explore a plethora of urban of the postmodern social theorist.
(and virtual) experiences and activities:
the prototypical sociologist (see Frisby, The Image
1981, and in Tester, 1994); the privileged
male gaze and the absence/presence of Benjamin's interest in the political
woman in the nineteenth-century city potential of new media and his positive
(Wolff, 1990; Wilson, 1991; Walkowitz, evaluation of ®lm, radio, and photo-
1992); shoppers, tourists, and travellers; graphy provide a welcome counterpoint
streetwise radicals and subversives (see and corrective to the indiscriminate and
Jenks, 1995; de Certeau, 1984); channel- undifferentiated tirade against the `cul-
hoppers and samplers; and internet brow- ture industry' produced by Horkheimer
sers and cybersurfers (see Hartmann, and Adorno. For example, Benjamin's
forthcoming). On the one hand, the ¯a- rejection of contemplation as a mode of
neur is understood as the quintessential aesthetic appreciation in favour of the
postmodern pedestrian: the banal seeker `distraction' experienced by the cinema-
of distraction amid the malls, theme-parks goer radically contests critical theory's
and other pseudo-public spaces of the vision of the stulti®ed, infantalized,
postmodern city (Bauman, in Tester, media audience. Indeed, only Kracauer
1994). On the other, the ¯aneur returns and Benjamin among the `Frankfurt
as an intrepid expert in the knowing and School' writers genuinely recognize and
nonchalant use of public space (Jenks, explore the complexities of new visual
80 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
cultural forms. Benjamin's understanding History is made in the image and interests
of the photographic image as containing of those who have been victorious in the
a `spark of contingency', an unexpected past and are powerful in the present.
element captured by the photographer Benjamin demands that the critical histor-
which disturbs the intended meaning of ian `brush history against the grain' to
the picture and which produces a shock reveal those who have been unsuccessful,
of recognition in its reader, pre®gures silenced and silent, the past of those who
Barthes's (1993) attempt to comprehend are powerless in the present. To remember
the power of certain photographs through the sufferings of the forgotten dead and
the concept of the punctum (see Krauss, redeem their traces for the sake of the liv-
1998; Price, 1994). ing ± this call for a counterhistory of mod-
Most important, perhaps, is Benjamin's ernity is an inspiration to those engaged in
prescient recognition of the fundamental the struggle to rethink the past so as to
transformation of the work of art occa- refashion the present and future: the
sioned by the advent of new technologies poor, the oppressed, the downtrodden.
of reproducibility and the move from the And, of course, Benjamin's writings
dichotomy of original/fake to an endless themselves are objects to be redeemed,
series of identical items without an origi- recon®gured, and reinterpreted as part
nal. For Baudrillard (1994), Benjamin here of a vital critical tradition. To read,
identi®es a key stage in the history of recognize and remember Benjamin as a
representation, one which has now given key ®gure for contemporary social theory
way to an era characterized by the pre- is the undertaking to which this pro®le
cession of simulacra, of the model, the has sought to contribute, however mod-
`fake'. Benjamin's arguments in the `Work estly, however imperfectly. If the present
of Art' essay are radicalized by Baudrillard reader is encouraged to pursue such an
in his vision of the pre-eminence of the enterprise, this text will have ful®lled its
simulation and the constitution of the purpose.
more real than real, the hyperreal.
Benjamin is not only important for the Benjamin, W. (1991) Gesammelte Schriften, Vols I-VII.
history of the image, but also for the (Eds. Rolf Tiedemann and Herman Schweppen-
image of history. His historiographic haÈuser, with the collaboration of Theodor Adorno
`Theses' present a perceptive and timely and Gershom Scholem.) Frankfurt am Main:
Suhrkamp Verlag; Taschenbuch Ausgabe.
critique of scienti®c and social `progress'
Benjamin, W. (1995±9) Gesammelte Briefe, Vols I-V.
as the human domination of nature and (Eds. The Theodor W. Adorno Archive).
continuing barbarism. Writing against Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag.
both Enlightenment and orthodox
Marxist thinking, Benjamin's argument
that human emancipation does not reside English Language Translations of Benjamin's
in the mere overcoming of scarcity Works
through the instrumental exploitation of Benjamin, W. (1973) Illuminations. (Ed. and
nature but rather only in the development `Introduction' by Hannah Arendt. Trans. Harry
of a harmonious relationship with nature Zohn). London: Fontana.
pre®gures one of the principal themes of Benjamin, W. (1978) Re¯ections: Aphorisms, Essays and
subsequent critical theory (Adorno and Autobiographical Writings. (Ed. Peter Demetz.
Horkheimer, 1986; Horkheimer, 1974a, Trans. Edmund Jephcott). New York: Harcourt,
Brace, Jovanovitch.
1974b; Marcuse, 1964) and contemporary Benjamin, W. (1980) Aesthetics and Politics: Debates
ecological thought. between Bloch, LukaÂcs, Brecht, Benjamin, Adorno.
In addition, the `Theses' point to the (Trans. and ed. Ronald Taylor. `Afterword' by
construction and fabrication of history. Frederic Jameson). London: Verso.
Walter Benjamin 81
Benjamin, W. (1983a) Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet Baudrillard, Jean (1997) Fragments. Cool Memories III,
in the Era of High Capitalism. (Trans. Harry Zohn). 1991±5. London: Verso.
London: Verso. Baudrillard, Jean (1998) The Consumer Society: Myths
Benjamin, W. (1983b) Understanding Brecht. (Trans. and Structures. London: Sage.
Anna Bostock. `Introduction' by Stanley Benjamin, Andrew and Osborne, Peter (eds) (1994)
Mitchell). London: Verso. Walter Benjamin's Philosophy: Destruction and
Benjamin, W. (1985a) `Central Park'. (Trans. Lloyd Experience. London: Routledge.
Spencer), New German Critique, 34: 28±58. Bolz, Norbert and van Reijen, Willem (1996) Walter
Benjamin, W. (1985b) One-Way Street and Other Benjamin. New Jersey: Humanities Press.
Writings. (Trans. Edmund Jephcott and Kingsley Brodersen, Momme (1996) Walter Benjamin: A
Shorter. `Introduction' by Susan Sontag). London: Biography. London: Verso.
Verso. Buci-Glucksmann, Christine (1994) Baroque Reason:
Benjamin, W. (1985c) The Origin of German Tragic The Aesthetics of Modernity. London: Sage.
Drama. (Trans. John Osbourne, `Introduction' by Buck-Morss, Susan (1977) The Origin of Negative
George Steiner). London: Verso. Dialectics: Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin and the
Benjamin, W. (1986) Moscow Diary. (Ed. Gary Smith. Frankfurt Institute. Hassocks, Sussex: Harvester
Trans. Richard Sieburth. `Preface' by Gershom Press.
Scholem). Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard Buck-Morss, Susan (1983) `Benjamin's Passagenwerk:
University Press. Redeeming mass culture for the revolution', New
Benjamin, W. (1989) `N. (Re the theory of knowledge, German Critique, 29: 211±40.
theory of progress' (Trans. Leigh Hafrey and Buck-Morss, Susan (1989) The Dialectics of Seeing:
Richard Sieburth), in Gary Smith (ed.) Benjamin: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project.
Philosophy, Aesthetics, History. Chicago: University Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
of Chicago Press. Caygill, Howard (1997) Walter Benjamin: The Colour of
Benjamin, W. (1994) The Correspondence of Walter Experience. London: Routledge.
Benjamin. (Ed. and annotated by Gershom Cohen, Margaret (1993) Profane Illumination: Walter
Scholem and Theodor Adorno. Trans. Manfred Benjamin and the Paris of Surrealist Revolution.
Jacobson and Evelyn Jacobson, `Foreword' by Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of
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7
Ju«rgen Habermas
PATRICK BAERT
B
orn in 1929, JuÈrgen Habermas ject of the early Frankfurt School.
grew up in Gummersbach, Furthermore, like the interdisciplinary
Germany. Between 1949 and 1954, nature of the early Frankfurt School,
he studied at the Universities of Habermas draws upon a wide range of
GoÈttingen, Zurich, and Bonn. After a disciplines which include linguistics,
short spell as a journalist, he became sociology, philosophy, and psychology.
Theodor Adorno's assistant at the Finally, like Adorno and Horkheimer,
Institute for Social Research at Frankfurt. Habermas pays attention to the proble-
The early Frankfurt School clearly in¯u- matic nature of the project of modernity,
enced the young Habermas but he soon in particular the spread of means±ends
developed his own research programme. rationality.
He initially taught at the University of But this is only part of the story.
Heidelberg and at the Max Planck Although some of Habermas's views are
Institute; for the latter part of his teaching indebted to his old mentor, to treat his
career he was at the Johann Wolfgang oeuvre simply as the extension of
Goethe University in Frankfurt. Since the Adorno or Horkheimer's concerns would
early 1970s Habermas has become one of be a gross misrepresentation. First,
the leading critical theorists in the world. Habermas's writings are indicative of a
The term `critical theory' may need (post-1945) generation of German social
some explanation. Critical theorists do theorists who clearly transcend their
not simply describe or explain the social; national roots. Whereas Adorno and
they aim at evaluating it. In particular, cri- Horkheimer draw extensively upon
tical theorists attempt to demonstrate the German authors like Marx, Nietzsche,
potential and de®ciencies of contempor- Weber, and Freud, Habermas's work
ary society. The early Frankfurt School appears far less embedded in the
aimed to develop such a critical theory as German intellectual tradition. Habermas
opposed to what Adorno and Horkheimer is in¯uenced by a wide variety of intellec-
dismissively coined as `traditional theory'. tual traditions that include, for instance,
Ju«rgen Habermas 85
Parsons's system theory (obviously what they decide but how they come to
American), pragmatic philosophy (also those decisions. Habermas's The Theory of
a truly American project), `ordinary Communicative Action, probably his most
language philosophy' (initiated by well-known work to date, elaborates
Wittgenstein and developed by Oxford further on this idea, and locates com-
philosophers), and ethnomethodology municative rationality in linguistically
(initially a Californian product). Second, mediated interaction. This highly abstract
whereas Adorno and Horkheimer deplore work, originally published in 1981, aims at
the increasing means±ends rationality de®ning the concept of rationality whilst
in the West, Habermas's appraisal of avoiding a Cartesian philosophy of con-
modernity is more subtle. For him ration- sciousness. The very same notion of
alization is a twofold and selective pro- open unconstrained debate underscores
cess: it not only entails the spread of his recent work on law and ethics, Moral
instrumental rationality but also commu- Consciousness and Communicative Action
nicative rationality. As communicative and Justi®cation and Application: Remarks
rationality refers to procedures of open on Discourse Ethics.
discussion and criticism, rationalization Another of Habermas's chief concerns
is not to be rejected in toto. As a matter is the epistemological foundation of the
of fact, communicative rationality social sciences. Theory and Practice,
becomes the base for Habermas's critical Knowledge and Human Interests, and On
theory. By contrast with Adorno, for the Logic of the Social Sciences (all ®rst
whom the aesthetic domain provides a published between the late 1960s and
defence against instrumental rationality, early 1970s) deal with this issue.
Habermas's solution resides in the dia- Habermas attempts to de®ne critical
logical notion of reason. Finally, whereas theory in relationship to two rival tra-
the early Frankfurt School provides a ditions in the philosophy of the social
comprehensive critique of bourgeois sciences: hermeneutics and positivism. He
society, Habermas argues that liberal also re¯ects upon the de®ciencies and
democracy presupposes his notion of fruitfulness of structural-functionalism
communicative rationality. As such, it is and system theory ± then prominent
possible to develop a critique of bourgeois sociological theories. Here again,
society from within. Habermas's position is moderate com-
This brings me to the core of pared to say Adorno's. Whereas Adorno
Habermas's thinking. Habermas's leit- unambiguously rejects positivist episte-
motif, one may say, is the notion of uncon- mology and traditional theory, Habermas
strained, open debate amongst equals. His is careful not to pour the baby out with the
1962 Habilitationschrift (advanced doctoral bathwater and is willing to take on board
dissertation) `Structural Transformation in some empiricist, functionalist, and system-
the Public Sphere' already expressed this theoretic notions.
idea. With the advent of bourgeois society, Habermas's writings often re¯ect upon
so Habermas contends, there was some real changes in society, and engage with
potential for realizing the ideal of a `dis- contemporary intellectual debates. For
cursive will-formation'. Unfortunately example, Towards a Rational Society:
our society today is far from such an Student Protest, Science and Politics (a
`open' society, not in the least because collection of articles from the 1960s)
the media have contributed to the triviali- re¯ects upon the student uprisings in
zation of politics. But the ideal of a `public Germany and the then current political
sphere' is still worth pursuing. Society climate in the Western world.
ought to be organized such that pro- Habermas's concern is mainly with the
cedures are in place that allow for open loss of `substantive rationality'; politics
discussion and criticism. The social philo- is no longer directed towards obtaining
sopher ought to instruct people not upon ultimate values, but towards avoiding
86 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
and values by taking on board other per- upon rational discourse. Discursive
spectives. As for societal development, democracy is especially relevant today.
Habermas argues that mythical world After all, a multicultural society cannot
views con¯ated nature, culture, and the be founded any longer on universal
external world. Only gradually did people values or a social contract. For
manage to distinguish the different realms Habermas, contemporary society should
and, mutatis mutandis, to develop the be based on universal procedures of dis-
ability for a rational LebensfuÈhrung. cursively achieved understanding.
Habermas has spent the last two dec-
ades expanding on the theory of commu-
nicative action, re®ning some of its central APPRAISAL OF KEY ADVANCES AND
notions, and applying it to various realms. CONTROVERSIES
In particular, Habermas elaborates on
ethics, and on issues regarding law and There is no doubt that Habermas is one of
the state. Take Habermas and Apel's dis- the most in¯uential social theorists of his
course ethic, which is a direct application generation although his writings have
of the theory of universal pragmatics to been controversial and provoked many
the realm of ethics. The notion of an criticisms. In what follows I will ®rst
open discussion, aimed at agreement, discuss the legacy of Habermas, and
does not simply relate to matters of fact, then discuss some of its de®ciencies.
but also to moral issues. Their discourse-
based ethical theory starts from two The Legacy
assumptions. First, discourse ethics treats
normative validity claims like truth Habermas's writings are signi®cant for
claims; they are regarded as having a cog- many reasons. Two are especially worth
nitive meaning. Second, Habermas and mentioning: his relationship to the
Apel believe that the grounding of Enlightenment and to critical theory.
norms and prescriptions requires a dia- Habermas is one of the most coherent
logue. As such, discourse ethics attempts and persuasive defenders of the project
to transcend the opposition between `for- of Enlightenment. Enlightenment think-
mal' and `communitarian' perspectives on ing has come under severe attack in the
ethics. Moral judgments are not simply latter part of the twentieth century, espe-
the conclusions reached by isolated indi- cially in the writings of post-structuralist
viduals, nor do they simply re¯ect social and postmodern authors like Foucault,
codes. Derrida, and Lyotard. Of course, the ®rst
The same discourse-based approach is assaults on the project of modernity pre-
applied to law and the state. Habermas ceded the work of these French intel-
rejects Luhmann's view that legal and lectuals, but the critical comments of,
political decisions are so complex that say, Nietzsche, Adorno, and Horkheimer
they should be left in the hands of experts. became in¯uential only when the post-
For Habermas, these issues ought to be modern bandwagon was well on its way.
subject to public discussion, and attempts Whilst the Enlightenment project was gra-
should be made to inform as many people dually regarded as vieux jeu, Habermas has
as possible and to include them in remained one of its staunch defenders,
the debate. More generally, Habermas's and a very persuasive one. In the midst
appeal for `discursive democracy' of these assaults on the Enlightenment,
attempts to conceive of law in terms of Habermas has consistently tried to under-
`discursively achieved understanding'. In score and promote its dialogical nature ±
a discursive democracy, norms are valid not an entirely original idea, but one
when they are accepted by the individuals easily overlooked by its French critics.
who are potentially affected by these The solution, Habermas argues, is to
norms, and if this acceptance is based divorce Enlightenment thinking from a
90 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
For example, although Kohlberg's theory Second, his notion of the `force of the
might be applicable to men, women's better argument' is problematic. Under-
development appears to be very different lying Habermas's communicative notion
(e.g. Gilligan, 1982). Habermas also of reason is the belief that there is a neutral
draws upon LeÂvi-Strauss's studies of algorithm that will enable individuals to
primitive societies ± again a highly con- decide between competing perspectives.
tentious set of analyses. Although these Habermas's algorithm can be found in
criticisms are justi®ed, they actually the vision of an open, unconstrained
indicate a deeper lacuna in Habermas's debate between equals. In this ideal-type,
writings. That is, Habermas tends to only the force of the better argument
implicate the work of other theoreticians counts. The problem with this
to support his case. Whether he Habermasian position is that it stands or
elaborates on, say, the theory of com- falls with the assumption that people
municative action or his theory of necessarily agree on what counts as a
societal evolution, Habermas shows how superior or inferior argument. One does
other theoreticians have adumbrated not have to be a sophisticated sociological
his own theory. This may serve well to observer to realize that there are remark-
illustrate the theory but it is not ably few cases in which people disagree
particularly persuasive as a proof of its about signi®cant topics whilst agreeing
validity. on what counts as a proper way of arguing
I will now move on to what I personally about these issues. This quali®cation ser-
see as the main weaknesses of his theory. iously limits the scope of Habermas's
For the sake of brevity, I will focus on his research programme. Moreover, there is
theory of communicative action, which is often a lack of disagreement about how
after all his most important contribution to argue properly if the participants in
to social theory. the debate occupy different cultures,
First, the notion of VerstaÈndigung has a `forms of life', or paradigms: for instance,
double meaning. Note that Habermas whether people consider it legitimate to
asserts that communicative rationality is refer to religious texts, scienti®c ®ndings,
directed towards VerstaÈndigung. But or popular myths will depend on a num-
VerstaÈndigung means both understanding ber of culturally embedded assumptions.
and consensus. It may well be the case that It could of course be counterargued that
an unconstrained, open debate between what counts as the force of a better argu-
equals leads to a situation in which each ment can be decided by another open
has a better grasp of the other's position, debate and so on. But this is only to post-
but to understand better somebody's pone and highlight the severity of the pro-
viewpoint is by no means to acquiesce. I blem as one enters a regression ad
agree that the debate might be an oppor- in®nitum.
tunity for each participant to learn about Lastly, the problem with the ideal
the exact nature of the others' position. speech situation is not that it is unreal in
Each may clarify under which adjust- itself (it is after all a yardstick that allows
ments the other's position is acceptable. one to judge real settings), but that it is
Each may clarify what he or she means devoid of real people. Remember that
by the concepts involved, and so on. Habermas's ideal speech situation not
There is indeed a lot to be said for clarify- only excludes external constraints such
ing these ambiguities. But it is also true as power; it also rules out internal con-
that there are few cases in which indivi- straints. An internal constraint is any psy-
duals, who had very different opinions to chological feature that may inhibit people
start off with, end up converging. This from openly criticizing others and defend-
shows that both his theory of communica- ing themselves. For instance, being
tive action and its attendant discourse impressed by authority ®gures or to be
ethics have a limited range. embarrassed about expressing oneself in
92 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
public are examples of how internal con- Habermas, J. and Luhmann, N. (1971) Theorie der
straints may interfere with unconstrained Gesellschaft oder Sozialtechnologie. Frankfurt:
Suhrkamp.
communication. The problem for
Habermas is that these psychological
characteristics are so tied in with our
everyday notion of what it is to be an indi- SECONDARY REFERENCES
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8
Erving Goffman
ANN BRANAMAN
E
rving Goffman was born in Goffman joined the sociology faculty at
Canada in 1922. He completed a the University of California at Berkeley
BA in sociology and anthropology in 1957. Quickly rising to the status of
at the University of Toronto in 1945 and a full professor in 1962, Goffman remained
PhD in sociology at the University of at Berkeley until 1968. During his years in
Chicago in 1953. For his doctoral thesis California, he conducted ®eldwork in Las
(`Communication Conduct in an Island Vegas casinos. Though never fully devel-
Community'), Goffman spent a year liv- oped and reported, this work contributed
ing and observing social interaction on a to his formulation of a game perspective
small island community off the coast of in social life. Implicit in much of his work,
Scotland. Goffman wrote his doctoral dis- the game metaphor is explicitly utilized in
sertation in Paris where he became famil- Encounters (1961b), `Where the Action Is'
iar with existentialism. Drawing on his (Published in Goffman, 1967), and Strategic
research in the Shetland Isles, Goffman Interaction (1970). In 1968, Goffman took a
published his ®rst major work The position at the University of Pennsylvania
Presentation of Self in Everyday Life in where he remained until his death. Here,
1956. The reissued version of this book Goffman became involved with the
in 1959 would become Goffman's most university's prominent sociolinguistics
popular and widely read work. From school. His encounter with sociolinguis-
1954 to 1957, Goffman studied the tics, begun during his years of doctoral
behaviour of staff and patients in psy- study but intensi®ed in his years at
chiatric hospitals ± ®rst, in the National Pennsylvania, formed the basis for much
Institutes of Health Clinical Center in of his later work, particularly Forms of
Bethesda, Maryland and then at St Talk (1981) and `Felicity's Condition'
Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C. (1983a). Prior to his death in 1982,
His research in these two settings formed Goffman was President of the American
the basis of his book Asylums (1961a), a Sociological Association. His ASA presi-
collection of essays that examined the dential address `The Interaction Order'
Erving Goffman 95
(1983b), undelivered due to his fatal ill- this tradition. Though ultimately critical
ness, articulates the guiding premise of of phenomenology and ethnomethod-
more than two decades of his work: that ology, Goffman credits Schutz's paper
there is an order to face-to-face interaction `On Multiple Realities' as a source of in¯u-
that is worthy of sociological study in its ence on Frame Analysis (1974).
own right. Goffman also considered himself a
Goffman cannot easily be placed into structural-functionalist of sorts. Like the
any particular theoretical school, nor has functionalists Talcott Parsons and Robert
his own work generated a `Goffman Merton and unlike social constructionists,
School'. Goffman's graduate training at Goffman believed that individuals come
Chicago, one of the two leading schools into a world largely premade and do
of sociology in the United States at the very little of the constructing themselves.
time, was probably the greatest in¯uence Goffman's basic concern with the question
on his approach. At Chicago, Goffman of what makes sustained social interaction
was supervised by both sociologists and possible, furthermore, parallels the central
social anthropologists, including Lloyd question of the functionalist tradition,
Warner, Robert Park, Ernest Burgess, and namely, `what makes society possible?'
Everett Hughes. The Chicago School at (Lo¯and, 1980: 37±8). Goffman included
the time drew no clear boundary between Emile Durkheim as one of the most in¯u-
social anthropology and sociology, ential ®gures in his intellectual develop-
emphasizing `participant observation' as ment. The `interaction rituals' that
the favoured method of empirical Goffman describes, rituals focused espe-
research. cially on af®rming the dignity and worth
Goffman rejected the label `symbolic of the self, parallel the religious rituals in
interactionism', a term coined by Herbert Durkheim's analysis whereby social soli-
Blumer and derived from George Herbert darity is produced. In The Division of Labor
Mead's social psychology, because he in Society and in the short essay
believed it was too vague to be useful. `Individualism and the Intellectuals',
Although Goffman found Mead's and Durkheim had argued that individualism
Blumer's ideas congenial, he was com- is the only common morality of modern
mitted in his own work to empirical society and that regard for the dignity,
study and attention to the structure of freedom, and worth of the individual
the social world that he believed was must therefore replace traditional forms
missing in Mead's and Blumer's work. of religious worship. Goffman's analysis
Including Georg Simmel as a foundational portrays a social world in which such
®gure in the development of symbolic reverence for the self has indeed become
interactionism, Goffman's work could the basis of social order. Compatible with
even more comfortably be included in Durkheim's view that society rests on a
this tradition. Goffman learned Simmel's basis of morality, the social world
ideas in graduate school at Chicago and described by Goffman is one in which
took Simmel's charge for sociologists to moral norms, sentiments, emotions, and
study the otherwise unnoticed and seem- feelings ± much more than thoughts and
ingly trivial actions and interactions in interests ± drive human behaviour.
everyday life as a basis for his own socio- Though Goffman was in¯uenced by
logical approach. Furthermore, if sym- diverse and prominent ®gures in the
bolic interactionism is de®ned loosely as history of sociological thought, he vehe-
a sociological approach that focuses on mently opposed canons and the studying
understanding the meaning rather than of social theorists as an end in itself.
the causation of social behaviour ± an Goffman's approach was to take whatever
approach advocated by Max Weber and insight can be gained from sociological
by the social phenomenologist Alfred forerunners and get on with the business
Schutz ± Goffman ®ts squarely within of studying social life. Was Goffman a
96 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
social theorist? He would say not, though life was earlier developed by George
he might also say that he was as much of a Herbert Mead, Goffman's idea is less
social theorist as anyone else. He did not abstract and more radical than Mead's.
believe sociology had advanced to the Mead's idea was that the self arises in
stage of constructing theories and hypo- social experience, that development of
theses and thus did not think there was the ability to view oneself from the
such a thing as a social theory at all. perspective of the `generalized other'
Furthermore, no sharp distinctions can precedes the development of self.
be made in his work between the empiri- Goffman's idea is that the self does not
cal and the theoretical. Reported observa- merely arise in social experience, but it is
tions (his own and others') make up the a product of the social scene or a dramatic
majority of his written work. Yet, these effect of performances in social life.
observations are interwoven into concep- In The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life,
tual frameworks insightfully crafted by Goffman distinguishes between the self-
Goffman. And this is how Goffman as-performer and the self-as-character.
de®ned the current task of sociology: The self-as-performer refers to the
`We are just trying to get reasonable human being as a psychobiological organ-
classi®cations, one or two useful concepts, ism with impulses, moods, energies, and
ways of touching on and describing pro- feelings who is driven to be regarded
cesses and practices . . .' (Verhoeven, 1993: favourably by others. The self-as-perfor-
340. Verhoeven (1993), Burns (1992), and mer, according to Goffman, is `universal
Manning (1992) are primary sources of human nature' and is an essential basis
biographical information on Goffman. In of motivation for social participation and
particular, I relied heavily on Verhoeven's conformity to the rules of social life.
interview with Goffman for information Though the self-as-performer could accu-
on Goffman's intellectual background. rately be thought of as something `inner',
Goffman argues that it is not the self-as-
performer but rather the self-as-character,
SOCIAL THEORY AND or the character performed, that most in
CONTRIBUTIONS our society have in mind when they
speak of the self. The self-as-character is
Certainly, it is Goffman's conceptual a product of performances in social life.
frameworks much more than any particu- Goffman quotes Park, who says that the
lar observations of social life that have `mask is the truer self' (Goffman, [1956]
drawn enduring attention. In addition to 1959: 19). Goffman admits that we have
Goffman's extraordinary gift for `touching a sense of self as separate from the per-
on and describing processes and practices' formance, but that this sense of self is a
(Verhoeven, 1993: 340) of everyday life, an product of the performance and not the
important contribution to social theory in cause of it (Goffman [1956] 1959: 252±3.)
its own right, Goffman's analyses develop Essential to any performance is the sup-
a number of core social theoretical themes port and reception it receives from others,
± including the social production of and this is why the self cannot be under-
self, the ritual basis of social life, the inter- stood to be a property of the individual to
action order, and the organization of whom it is attributed.
experience. Perhaps the greatest part of Goffman's
work can be viewed as an analysis of the
The Social Production of Self contingencies involved in sustaining a
self. The Presentation of Self is an analysis
One of the most central themes in of the techniques used in everyday life to
Goffman's work is his analysis of the build and sustain images of self. Noting
social production of the self. Although that we do distinguish between theatre
the idea that the self is a product of social and real life, Goffman uses drama as a
Erving Goffman 97
metaphor for analysing the performances Interaction Ritual (1967), Behavior in Public
of everyday life to demonstrate that both Places (1963a), and Relations in Public
`real' and `contrived' images of self and (1971) ± is a ®ne-grained analysis of the
reality require successful staging for seemingly trivial rules of conduct of social
their realization in social life. In Asylums life and of the mechanisms that lend
(1961a), Goffman looks at what happens stability to social order. `On Face-
to the self when the usual supports for Work' ([1955] 1967) is an analysis of the
staging a self ± such as autonomy, privacy, face-saving practices that social actors
control of material resources, an occupa- routinely employ in social interaction
tional identity ± are lacking. By analysing and of how these practices enhance social
how the self is morti®ed in `total institu- order. `The Nature of Deference and
tions', institutions such as prisons and Demeanor' ([1956] 1967) analyses the
psychiatric hospitals which control every deferential behaviours individuals are
aspect of the inmate's life, Goffman's aim expected to use to build the images of
is to `help us to see the arrangements that others and the proper demeanour that
ordinary establishments must guarantee if individuals must exhibit to maintain
members are to preserve their civilian their own images. Both, he argues, are
selves' (1961a: 14). Stigma (1963b) deals essential not only to the individual's
with another source of dif®culty in the image of self but also to the social order.
staging of the self: the potential discredit- `Embarassment and Social Organization'
ing to which selves are subject. `Normal' ([1956] 1967) examines embarrassment as
identity, Goffman says, is de®ned in terms an aspect of orderly behaviour. When an
of culturally-valued attributes which individual projects an image of self that
few of us fully possess or achieve. Stigma cannot be sustained in social interaction,
analyses the variety of ways in which dis- a show of embarrassment demonstrates
creditable persons manage discrediting recognition of this fact and thereby com-
information in order to maintain a municates regard for the obligations
semblance of normality, as well as the that were breached. `Alienation from
ways in which discredited persons, that Interaction' ([1957] 1967) examines the
is, persons known to possess a stigmatiz- obligations of individuals to be ready for
ing attribute, manage the implications of spoken interaction and how such readi-
their stigma. Though Goffman outlines a ness is necessary `if society's work is to
number of strategies stigmatized persons be done' (1967: 135±6). In Behavior in
have for dealing with stigma, he suggests Public Places (1963a), Goffman outlines
that `normal' society calls for the stigma- the `situational proprieties' of social inter-
tized to minimize any interactional dis- action and argues that, though seemingly
ruption that might result from the stigma trivial, these `give body to the joint social
and to accept treatment as `not quite life' (1963: 196). Similarly, Relations in
human'. Public (1971) examines a variety of social
routines and practices that are used to
The Ritual Basis of Social Life af®rm social relationships, social rank,
and social order.
Although Goffman uses the metaphors of According to Goffman, face-saving and
drama and the game, the predominant the traf®c rules of social interaction go
image of social life that runs through his hand in hand. The primary motivation
work is that of a ritual order. The central of individuals, Goffman assumes, is to
focus of his work, particularly his work of be regarded favourably by others. This
the 1950s and 1960s, is an examination of motivation draws them to social life and
how the social routines, the face-saving motivates them to demonstrate approved
practices, and the traf®c rules of everyday attributes and abide by rules of conduct in
social interaction are used to maintain social interaction. Face-saving (of self and
social order. Much of his work ± especially others) is the most fundamental traf®c
98 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
rule of social interaction and is essential to rarely was Goffman concerned to specify
the maintenance of social order ([1955] the relative primacy of interaction and
1967: 12). Drawing on Durkheim's analysis social structure. In the introduction to
of ritual as a basis of social solidarity, Frame Analysis he did state offhandedly
Goffman argues that the self has become that he considered social organization
a sacred object in modern life. `Many gods and social structure to be primary relative
have been done away with, but the indi- to the organization of experience in social
vidual himself stubbornly remains as a encounters (1974: 13). Only in `The
deity of considerable importance' (1956: Interaction Order' (1983b), however, did
55). According to Durkheim's theory, Goffman explicitly address the relation-
such respect for the individual would be ship between social interaction and social
essential to the social solidarity of modern structure. Here he argues that the inter-
society. As the increasing complexity of action order should be considered `a sub-
society dissolved the common beliefs, stantive domain in its own right' (1983b:
norms, and shared ways of living charac- 2). Though he emphasizes that consider-
teristic of earlier societal forms, Durkheim ing the interaction order a substantive
believed that individualism could be the domain in its own right does not imply
only common basis of morality and was the viewpoint that interaction is prior to
therefore essential as a basis of social soli- or constitutive of society and macro-level
darity. According to Goffman, the obliga- social organization, it does imply that
tion that members of social life feel to there is an order to social interaction that
cooperate in af®rming the dignity of self does not entirely derive from larger social
and others in everyday social interaction structures. In some respects, he argues,
attests to the supreme value of the indivi- the interaction order is autonomous rela-
dual in modern society. Also as Durkheim tive to social structure. Although he
had suggested, Goffman argues that this admits differences in resources and
felt obligation to provide such supportive advantages within the interaction order
worship is a primary basis of social order. that derive from structures of inequality
Unlike Durkheim, who promoted indivi- in the larger society, he argues that the
dualism in the context of defending the forms and processes of the interaction
right of intellectuals to think freely and order are independent of these inequalities
criticize existing social institutions, ± `the central theme remains of a traf®c of
Goffman implies that the accommodative use, and of arrangements which allow a
approach that individuals take towards great diversity of projects and intents to
one another's faces is a somewhat be realized through unthinking recourse
more conservative dynamic. As Goffman to procedural forms' (1983b: 6).
says in Interaction Ritual: `Approved Not only is the interaction order rela-
attributes and their relation to face tively autonomous from society and social
make of every man his own jailer; this organization, but Goffman suggests that
is a fundamental social constraint even the interaction order can have a direct
though each man may like his cell' impact on larger social structures. An
([1955] 1967: 10). implicit theme throughout Goffman's
work is that the norms of social interaction
The Interaction Order ± for example, deference and demeanour,
distribution of personal territories accord-
Typically, Goffman was not one to enter ing to social rank, protective and defen-
into meta-theoretical debates about such sive facework ± contribute signi®cantly
issues as the relationship between inter- to consolidating social hierarchies that
action and social structure. Implicitly, otherwise might be quite tenuous.
social class was apparent in many of Organizational life, Goffman points out,
Goffman's works as a variable affecting depends on `people-processing encoun-
the dynamics of social interaction. But ters. . . . It is in these processing encounters
Erving Goffman 99
. . . that the quiet sorting can occur which, reality' to the frames that govern our
as Bourdieu might have it, reproduces the experience, in the sense that frames are
social structure' (1983b: 8). Though the usually anchored in layers of other frames
interaction order typically plays a con- and in societal and situational structures
servative role, Goffman suggests that the that we as individuals do not control.
processing that occurs in social interaction In the sense that he believed there was a
`may consolidate or loosen structural reality to the social world to be dis-
arrangements' (1983b: 8). covered, Goffman considered himself a
positivist. But, as positivists go, he heavily
The Social Construction of Experience emphasized that the `objective reality' of
the social world was built out of a myriad
A central theme that runs through of framing devices and interactional tech-
Goffman's work ± from The Presentation niques by which human beings give
of Self in Everyday Life (1956) to Frame meaning to their experience. That there is
Analysis (1974) ± is that human experience no `original' beneath the layers of frames
is socially constructed. Goffman dis- and no `real self' beneath the performances
agreed with the hyperrelativism of social of social life is a common theme that con-
constructionism, a perspective that he nects The Presentation of Self with Frame
believed accorded an undue amount of Analysis.
power to individual actors to de®ne situa-
tions that are constructed prior to their
arrival in particular situations. Adopting APPRAISAL OF KEY ADVANCES AND
a Durkheimian line, Goffman argues CONTROVERSIES
that society is external to and prior to the
individual, that social situations have Goffman's work has held wide appeal and
a structure to them, and that individual has generated a variety of interpretations,
participants usually arrive at rather often contradictory ones, by social
than construct de®nitions of situations theorists. Due at least in part to
(Collins, 1988: 58). As Goffman puts it in Goffman's evasion of placement within
the introduction to Frame Analysis, W.I. any theoretical school, it could almost be
Thomas's statement that de®nitions of said that Goffman has been everything to
situations are real in their consequences everybody! Goffman is considered a sym-
is `true as it reads but false as it is taken' bolic interactionist and a critic of symbolic
(1974: 1). Arguably, a major portion of interactionism. His theory of the self
Goffman's work could be accurately is applauded by postmodernist social
understood as an elaboration on theorists, while others interpret his view
Thomas's statement. of the self as a counter to postmodernism.
To answer such basic questions of social Goffman's work has been criticized by
life as `what is going on here?' or `who some existentialists for its portrayal of
is this person really?', Goffman suggests the inauthenticity of human actors and
that we must discern the frames ± or applauded by others for its portrayal of
principles of interpretation ± that provide the human struggle to maintain authenti-
meaning to any spate of activity. In other city in the face of attack. Goffman has been
words, a person or an event rarely `speaks criticized for presenting a cynical view
for itself'. An act of caring for a child, of social life, while others see him as a
for instance, could be understood as moralist of sorts who is concerned with
`parenting', `babysitting', or `kidnapping'. the maintenance of trust, morality, and
Though the physical motion involved in order in social life. Goffman has been
the act might be identical in each instance, interpreted as a conservative function-
the meaning of the act varies according alist and a radical social critic. In this
to the frame that governs it. Goffman section, I shall elaborate on each of
suggests that there is a certain `objective these interpretations.
100 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
Goffman and Symbolic Interactionism who emphasizes that social situations are
socially structured prior to any indivi-
Goffman's analytic focus on the self, social dual's arrival at them (Collins, 1988;
interaction, and the interpretive frames Gonos, 1980; Katovich and Reese, 1993).
that give meaning to human experience As Randall Collins (1988) puts it:
has earned him inclusion in the symbolic `Symbolic interactionists focus on the
interactionist camp, and he has accord- ability of individuals to transform mean-
ingly received criticism commonly direc- ing in social situations; Goffman stresses
ted at symbolic interactionists for that situations have a structure to them
inattention to social structure, social that is external and prior to the individual'
inequality, and social-historical context (Collins, 1988: 58). Similarly, George
and for failure to formulate ways in Gonos (1980) argues that Goffman
which larger social processes constrain `inverts' symbolic interactionism by elimi-
microsocial interaction. In The Coming nating the view of the `self' as a free sub-
Crisis in Western Sociology, Alvin ject and creator of the world and replacing
Gouldner argued that Goffman's this view with an institutional view of the
is a sociology of co-presence, of what happens self (Gonos, 1980: 158). Katovich and
when people are in one another's presence. It is Reese (1993) include Goffman among
a social theory that dwells upon the episodic and late modern interactionists who went
sees life only as it is lived in a narrow interper- beyond the early interactionists concep-
sonal circumference, ahistorical and noninstitu- tion of a natural harmony between the
tional, an existence beyond history and society
. . . . Goffman's image of social life is not of ®rm,
self and society to a conception of selves
well-bounded social structures, but rather of a `pitted against an obdurate reality which
loosely stranded, criss-crossing, swaying catwalk included overpowering and often hostile
along which men dart precariously. In this view, societal responses' (Katovich and Reese,
people are acrobatic actors and gamesmen who 1993: 404).
have, somehow, become disengaged from social
structures and are growing detached even from
culturally standardized roles. (Gouldner, 1970: Existentialist and Postmodern
379) Interpretations of Goffman's Analysis of Self
Similarly, Allan Dawe argues that Goffman has been criticized by existenti-
Goffman's work portrays a social world alists and humanists for portraying the
lacking in power, class con¯ict, and poli- inauthenticity of the human self and
tical domination (Dawe, 1973: 247±8). endowing inauthenticity with an equal
Countering the view of Goffman as claim to reality as `authentic' experience
neglectful of structural inequalities of (MacIntyre, 1969; Gouldner, 1970; Dawe,
power, Rogers (1977, 1980) argues that 1973). Gouldner argues that Goffman
Goffman offers insight into the nature of `declares a moratorium on the conven-
power as a pervasive fact of people's tional distinction between make-believe
everyday lives (1977: 88). According to and reality, or between cynical and the
Rogers, Goffman is `clearly sensitive to sincere' (Gouldner, 1970: 380). MacIntyre
the unequal distribution of opportunities (1969) argues that Goffman `dissolves the
for face-maintenance as well as the ways individual into his role-playing perfor-
in which social-structural factors render mances', losing from view human agency
problematic the sense of self-determina- and morality (MacIntyre, 1969: 447). Dawe
tion through pressures toward conformity' argues that personal identity, if there is
(Rogers, 1980: 115). even such a thing in Goffman's analysis,
Though Goffman's inclusion in the can survive only by concealment (Dawe,
interactionist camp is merited by his 1973: 248).
micro-analytical focus, he is also accu- In contradiction to this interpretation,
rately understood as a critic of symbolic other existentialists and humanists have
interactionism ± a structuralist of sorts read Goffman's work as a depiction of
Erving Goffman 101
tradition and warrants viewing him as a Gornick), and London: Macmillan (Introduction
functionalist of sorts. At the same time, his by Richard Hoggart).
Goffman, E. (1981). Forms of Talk. Philadelphia:
dissection of the conservative nature of
University of Pennsylvania, and Oxford: Basil
interactional norms, of the divergence Blackwell.
between social placement and merit, of Goffman, E. (1983a) `Felicity's condition', American
the exclusiveness and arbitrariness of the Journal of Sociology, 89 (1): 1±53.
standards of `normality', and his analysis Goffman, E. (1983b) `The interaction order', American
of the unequal distribution of the props Sociological Review, 48: 1±17.
and social support necessary to generate
positive regard in social life certainly pro-
vides material for social critics.
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9
Peter Berger
BRYAN S. TURNER
B
orn in Vienna in 1929, Peter (1961b), The Sacred Canopy (1967; pub-
Ludwig Berger has lived in the lished in England as The Social Reality of
United States since 1946. After Religion in 1969) and The Heretical
completing his BA in philosophy at Imperative (1979). He has made controver-
Wagner College, he went on to take his sial contributions to the study of the
MA and PhD in sociology at the New family in The War Over the Family (Berger
School for Social Research. From 1954 and Berger, 1983). Throughout his career
to 1955 he was a lecturer at the he has been a close student of modernity
University of Georgia. He was an associ- and modernization processes, which he
ate professor in 1963 and then Professor of has considered with Brigitte Berger and
Sociology in 1966 in the Graduate Faculty Hansfried Kellner in The Homeless Mind
of the New School for Social Research. An (1973), Pyramids of Sacri®ce (1975), Facing
editor of the quarterly Social Research and up to Modernity (1977) and The Capitalist
president of the Society for the Scienti®c Revolution (1987). More recently his work
Study of Religion, he is University has addressed issues relating to human
Professor and Director of the Institute for rights and political participation in To
the Study of Economic Culture at Boston Empower People (Berger and Neuhaus,
University. 1977) and Movement and Revolution
Peter Berger has made a number of (Berger and Neuhaus, 1970). Finally, he
important and in¯uential contributions has addressed the humanistic and eman-
to various branches of twentieth-century cipatory aspects of humour in Redeeming
sociology. He has, for example, written Laughter (1997).
one of the most elegant and witty Although he has covered a wide range
introductions to sociology in his of institutions in his sociological research,
Invitation to Sociology (1963). The notion his perspective is remarkably consistent
of sociology as a vocation was further and its central focus has been the sociol-
explored with Hansfried Kellner in ogy of knowledge. In this discussion of
Sociology Reinterpreted (1981). He has Berger, it should be recognized that his
108 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
work is closley connected with the sociol- need to study his introduction to
ogy of Thomas Luckmann with whom he Gehlen's Man in the Age of Technology
wrote his most in¯uential and important (Gehlen, 1980). Berger has been com-
study, namely The Social Construction of pletely explicit about the importance of
Reality (Berger and Luckmann, 1966). Gehlen's philosophical anthropology in
Although this pro®le is exclusively about the development of his own work
Berger, it is in reality dif®cult to identify (Berger and Kellner, 1965). In various
discretely the separate contributions of interpretations of Berger's sociology of
Berger and Luckmann. Both sociologists knowledge (Ainlay and Hunter, 1986) his
have signi®cantly developed the sociol- dependence on Gehlen has been either
ogy of knowledge and the sociology of ignored or neglected. In particular,
religion, where for instance Luckmann's Gehlen's conservatism with respect to
The Invisible Religion (1967) has been the role of institutionalization was carried
highly regarded. over into Berger's work; it is the tension
between the conservative impulse of
Gehlen and the radical agenda of the
SOCIAL THEORY AND early (Mannheimian) sociology of knowl-
CONTRIBUTIONS edge that makes Berger's sociology both
interesting and problematic. Berger's
This discussion of Berger's general sociol- sociology, especially in the Invitation to
ogy demonstrates that he has had a major Sociology, has a critical dimension that
in¯uence over twentieth-century sociol- deconstructs everyday reality by uncover-
ogy in both Europe and North America. ing its taken-for-granted assumptions.
It is surprising, therefore, that, apart This humanistic sociology promises to
from speci®c studies of his sociology of expose the disguises that cloak our social
knowledge (Abercrombie, 1980), his worlds (O'Neill, 1972: 17), but paradoxi-
sociology of religion (Milbank, 1990), and cally he also demonstrates that we need
his contribution to cultural analysis these disguises to make our world orderly.
(Wuthnow et al., 1984), there have not In general terms Gehlen argued, follow-
been more comprehensive and critical ing Nietzsche, that human beings are not
evaluations of his work as a whole yet ®nished animals. By this notion,
(Ainlay and Hunter, 1986). Gehlen meant that human beings are bio-
logically ill equipped to deal with the
Sociology of Knowledge: Meaning and world into which they are involuntarily
Order inserted; they have no ®nite instinctual
basis that is speci®c to a given environ-
Berger's sociology of knowledge is overtly ment, and depend upon a long period of
and self-consciously based on the tradi- socialization in order to adapt themselves
tions of classical sociology, especially to the world. Gehlen argued that in order
Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Emile to cope with this world openness, human
Durkheim. This classical tradition is seen beings have to create a cultural world to
through the framework of European phe- replace or to supplement their instinctual
nomenology. The work of Alfred Schutz world. It is this ontological incom-
has, for example, been important in pleteness that provides an anthropologi-
understanding the everyday world for cal explanation for the origins of human
both Berger and Luckmann (Thomason, social instititutions. Berger and Luckmann
1982: 29±61). However, the principal inter- adopted this position to argue that, since
pretative claim of this pro®le is that human beings are biologically underde-
Berger's general sociology has been domi- veloped, they have to construct a social
nated by the philosophical anthropology canopy around themselves in order to
of Arnold Gehlen. To achieve clarity in our complete or supplement their biology.
understanding of Berger's sociology, we This argument by extension suggested
Peter Berger 109
and meaning in response to the need for a by the masses (Strauss, 1952). Berger is
sacred canopy. These social realities are all certainly not a conservative in the tradi-
valid insofar as they satisfy the necessities tion of Strauss, but his sociology cannot
of meaning and protect the individual easily escape from the conclusion that
from despair. It is dif®cult then to make people need a sacred canopy, because
value judgments across cultures, given a deinstitutionalized social existence,
their speci®city. The problem of relativism based on continuous re¯exivity, would
has been a speci®c issue for Berger, espe- be a psychological nightmare or a home-
cially in his sociology of religion, and he is less mind. His sociology struggles with
perfectly aware of the intellectual damage a dialectic of critical re¯ection and anthro-
the sociology of knowledge can cause for pological nostalgia.
Christian theology. For example, he rejects Such a negative position towards values
one solution to relativism that has been in a pluralistic world is troublesome,
developed in Christian theology between as Berger recognizes. Although Berger
`profane history' and `sacred history'. cannot present a general answer to the
While the former charts the secular his- relativistic dif®culties created by the
tory of the church over time, salvational sociology of knowledge, he attempts to
history is the record of divine intervention sketch out the conditions for a response
in the world. Sacred history is a record of in A Rumor of Angels. First, theology can
human faith; profane history, a narrative perhaps start more productively with
of the church in the world. Berger rejects anthropology than with sociology, since
this explanation as meaningless on the the anthropological tradition is not unlike
grounds that `faith' is just another mani- theology ± it is an attempt to spell out the
festation of `religion' (Berger, 1969a: 51). human condition in all its messy detail.
There are no neat theological answers to An anthropology of man ± Berger's lan-
the relativistic problems raised by history guage follows Gehlen's by employing
and sociology. `man' as a generic term for `humanity' ±
Berger's sociology of religion has to can produce what he calls an `indicative
confront a basic and dif®cult problem. faith', that is a vision of man's anthropo-
The problem of a meaningful order is logical condition that is derived from
solved in Berger's sociology of knowledge experience rather than deductively from
by claiming that religion is a necessary abstract principles. Secondly, he argues
condition of social existence. Without a that through this methodology we can
sacred canopy, social life would be impos- inductively identify some signs of trans-
sible. But would any sacred canopy cendence in the everyday world. Berger
(religion) do? His position reminds one identi®es ®ve arguments (from order,
of the arguments embraced by Leo play, hope, damnation, and humour).
Strauss, for whom liberal and secular These arguments point to a realm of
society had led to nihilism and meaning- experience and value that stand beyond
lessness. A vibrant social order requires or outside the everyday. Let us take the
a social world that is legitimized by argument from damnation. Some acts
religion, and that is also hierarchical and and events in history are thought to go
unequal. Strauss believed that almost any beyond the realm of ordinary human
religion would be appropriate to give experience. Events like the Holocaust
society coherence and cohesiveness. and the trial of Eichmann appear to chal-
Religion is a noble lie, because, while its lenge the adequacy of our routine sense of
beliefs are not rational, it has a necessary justice. Such events `cry out to heaven.
function in society. Religion is fundamen- These deeds are not only an outrage to
tal to the deception that is required for our moral sense, they seem to violate a
devotion and loyalty to the state. The fundamental awareness of the constitu-
work of philosophers must be secretive, tion of our humanity' (Berger, 1969b: 82).
because their ideas can never be shared This sense of human outrage and moral
Peter Berger 113
of relativism have now taken a new direc- examined the constitution and mainte-
tion under the impact of postmodernism. nance of everyday understanding of the
To the traditional arguments of anthro- mundane world. Berger has also departed
pological relativism, postmodern theory from the Marxist and Frankfurt traditions,
has recognized the complex processes by because he makes no clear distinction
which `reality' is constructed by a consu- between knowledge and ideology. He
mer materialism that is dominated by has not been concerned with the truth or
information technologies, communication falsity of beliefs, but only with their role in
systems, and global cultures. With what constructing and sustaining a meaningful
Fredric Jameson calls the cultural logic world. Berger's notions of legitimacy and
age of late capitalism, we are living in `a plausibility have not been grounded in a
period in which, with the extinction of the critical notion of rationality or truth,
sacred and the ``spiritual'', the deep because his principal question is: what
underlying materiality of all things has passes for `knowledge' in social inter-
®nally risen dripping and convulsive action?
into the light of day' (Jameson, 1991: 67). Secondly, we should note Berger's
`Primitive cultures' are incorporated into interest in the centrality of religious
the global world of tourism as objects of institutions to human society. Generally
anthropological experience, and canni- speaking, from Weber's death in 1920 to
balism is elaborated and reinvented as the publication of The Sacred Canopy in
an exotic component of tourism in Fiji. 1967, the sociology of religion had become
The challenge to Berger's `rumour of marginal to mainstream sociology, and
angels' is to what extent naive anthropo- there had been no attempt to provide a
logical experiences are possible upon general or synthetic contribution to the
which an indicative faith could be success- sociological study of religious institutions.
fully created and preserved. In short, the Berger brought religious phenomena back
postmodern challenge to the plausibility to the centre of sociological attention by
structures of religion may be more pro- showing how religion was fundamental
found than traditional forms of relativism. to the processes of constructing symbolic
One can argue that Berger's notion of rela- worlds. In the 1950s and 1960s, industrial-
tivism has been more concerned with the ization and modernization theories paid
®rst two stages of the debate ± what we little attention to religion, which was seen
might call textual relativism and anthro- to be largely irrelevant to the problems of
pological relativism ± and less engaged society. Secularization was seen to be an
with postmodern relativism which takes inevitable consequence of modernization.
account of the mediation of reality by the The principal exception to this neglect of
cultural media. religion was to be found in the work of
Talcott Parsons who saw American indivi-
dualism and activism as a ful®lment rather
APPRAISAL OF KEY ADVANCES AND than a negation of Christianity. Pluralism
CONTROVERSIES and activism in American values were an
institutionalization of Protestant denomi-
Berger's social theory has achieved a nationalism (Robertson and Turner, 1991).
remarkable coherence in direction and Although the roots of the sociology of
a considerable range of applications as a religion in Parsons and Berger were very
comprehensive approach to sociology. different, their approach to religious insti-
First, the basis of his humanistic sociology tutions represented a synthesis of Weber
has been his approach to the sociology of and Durkheim (Milbank, 1990: 106). Both
knowledge. Whereas the tradition of sociologists have challenged conventional
Mannheim had been to examine articulate perspectives on secularization by suggest-
and literate systems of belief such as con- ing that all forms of institutionalization
servatism or Christianity, Berger has have a sacred dimension.
Peter Berger 115
Thirdly, it is possible to suggest there- Berger, P.L. (1963) Invitation to Sociology. Garden City,
fore that Berger brought about a (re)inte- NY: Doubleday.
Berger, P.L. (1966) `Identity as a problem in the sociol-
gration of sociology and theology. From
ogy of knowledge', European Journal of Sociology, 7
the perspective of the late twentieth cen- (1): 105±15.
tury, it is dif®cult to realize that classical Berger, P.L. (1967) The Sacred Canopy. Garden City,
sociology was grounded in a debate with, NY: Doubleday.
and adaptations from, theology. Classical Berger, P.L. (1969a) The Social Reality of Religion.
sociology was critically concerned with London: Faber and Faber.
the possible demise of Christianity in the Berger, P.L. (1969b) A Rumor of Angels. New York:
Doubleday.
face of capitalist industrialization. Weber's Berger, P.L. (1970) `On the obsolescence of the con-
views on charisma, the Protestant ethic, cept of honour', European Journal of Sociology, 11:
and social change were profoundly in¯u- 339±47.
enced by the theologian and historian Berger, P.L. (1979) The Heretical Imperative.
Ernst Troeltsch (Drescher, 1992). Emile Contemporary Possibilities of Religious Af®rmation.
Durkheim's understanding on the ritualis- Garden City, NY: Anchor Press.
Berger, P.L. (1980) 'Foreword', in Gehlen, A. Man in
tic roots of social solidarity would not
an Age of Technology. New York: Columbia
have developed without the contributions University Press.
of the Protestant theologian William Berger, P.L. (1987) The Capitalist Revolution. Fifty
Robertson Smith (Turner, 1997). Berger's Propositions about Prosperty, Equality and Liberty.
analysis of transcendence in everyday Aldershot: Wildwood House.
life represents an effort to understand Berger, P.L. (1997) Redeeming Laughter. The Comic
the roots of religious experience through Dimension of Human Experience. Berlin and New
York: Walter de Gruyter.
the lens of the sociology of knowledge. Berger, P.L. (1975) Pyramids of Sacri®ce: Political Ethics
Finally, Berger's work is a synthesis of and Social Change. New York: Basic Books.
sociology and theology in the sense that Berger, P.L. (1977) Facing up to Modernity Excursions in
he has been committed to understanding Society, Politics and Religous. New York: Basic Books.
the relevance of sociology to the human Berger, P.L. and Berger, B. (1983) The War Over the
condition and the dilemmas of modern Family: Capturing the Middle Ground. Garden City,
NY: Doubleday.
society. Within this synthesis of ethical
Berger, P.L., Berger, B. and Kellner, H. (1973) The
and sociological perspectives, the concept Homeless Mind. New York: Random House.
of theodicy has played a central role. Berger, P.L. and Kellner, H. (1964) 'Marriage and the
Within theological discourse, it is con- construction of reality', Diogenes, 46: 1±21.
cerned with the problem of explaining Berger, P.L. and Kellner, H. (1965) `Arnold Gehlen
the contradiction between the existence and the theory of institutions', Social Research, 32
of evil and the nature of divinity. If God (1): 110±13.
Berger, P.L. and Kellner, H. (1981) Sociology
is all powerful and merciful, how can evil Reinterpreted. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Books.
exist? Berger has transformed this theolo- Berger, P.L. and Luckmann, T. (1966) The Social
gical question into a powerful sociology of Construction of Reality. A Treatise in the Sociology of
knowledge that is concerned with how the Knowledge. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
social world can be justi®ed or legiti- Berger, P.L. and Neuhaus, R.J. (1970) Movement and
mated. The discussion of plausibility Revolution. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
Berger, P.L. and Neuhaus, R.J. (1977) To Empower
structures is one facet of this larger pro-
People. The Role of Mediating Structures in Public
ject, which is to understand how the social Policy. Washington, DC: American Enterprise
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ural and comprehensible.
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NY: Doubleday. Modern Times. Peter L. Berger and the Vision of
116 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
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10
Michel Foucault
STEPHEN KATZ
The key thing, as Nietzsche said, is that thinkers are always, so to speak, shoot-
ing arrows into the air, and other thinkers pick them up and shoot them in
another direction. That's what happens with Foucault.
(Gilles Deleuze)
M
ichel Foucault was born on 15 Third, Foucault challenged the major
October 1926 in Poitiers, critical traditions, such as structuralism,
France and died on 25 June Marxism and humanism, and provided
1984 from complications resulting from vital critiques of their limitations. Finally,
AIDS. He is regarded as one of the most Foucault became a public intellectual
important and popular thinkers of the who de®ed dominant culture through
twentieth century. While his ascetic, his political af®liations, lectures, inter-
shaven-headed image has become an views, and gay activism.
icon of postmodern theory, Foucault These accomplishments create a chal-
should most appropriately be remem- lenge for those seeking to chart his career,
bered for his imaginative pursuit of as David Macey reveals in his 1993 bio-
thought outside the given truths and graphy, The Lives of Michel Foucault, and
resigned scepticism of our time, and for in his depiction of Foucault's creative
his distinctive accomplishments in four juggling of his intellectual, political, and
areas. First, he mapped out the material public personae. Further complicating
practices and power relations that under- the task is the fact that Foucault's pro-
lie the rise of Western philosophy, history, digious writings display no uni®ed
politics, and literary studies. Second, his theoretical model or political orientation,
work has renewed professional ®elds and no single text tidily represents his
such as urban planning, medicine, crimin- scholarship. James Miller, another bio-
ology, mental health, education, manage- grapher, states that `Foucault left behind
rial studies, architecture, public policy, no synoptic critique of society, no system
118 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
Szasz, Ronald D. Laing, Ivan Illich, and of books and essays on art, literature and
David Cooper. As Robert Castel points philosophy, such as Death and the Labyrinth:
out, Foucault's ®rst major work thus had The World of Raymond Roussel ([1963] 1986),
a dual importance: in the early 1960s it and on the work of George Bataille,
emerged as a key contribution to the `epis- Maurice Blanchot, and Rene Margritte.
temology of the human sciences' (Castel, Since Foucault did not return to these
1990: 27); and in the late 1960s it became areas after the 1960s, nor have these
an analytic tool for `political activism and works been in¯uential in literary studies,
a generalized anti-repressive sensibility' they are not considered part of his major
(Castel, 1990: 29). corpus. See Foucault, 1998 for some of
Foucault's second major work, these writings.) In The Archaeology of
Naissance de la clinique: une archeÂologie du knowledge, Foucault sharpened his archae-
regard meÂdical (1963), translated as The ological methodology and outlined the
Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of formalities underlying the discursive for-
Medical Perception (1973), marked two mations in the human sciences he sought
developments in his career. First, it indi- to understand. But The Archaeology of
cated his experimentation with (though Knowledge has remained obscure for
not adherence to) structuralism and semi- many readers compared to The Order of
ology, through its focus on linguistic Things, which became a best-seller, with
systems of signi®cation and spatialized wide popular as well as scholarly appeal.
discourses of perception. In this, Foucault In it, Foucault traces the discontinuities in
was joining an intellectual vogue shared the human sciences from their emergence
by fellow French thinkers Claude LeÂvi- in the Renaissance through the develop-
Strauss, Roland Barthes, Jacques Lacan, ment of their core ®elds ± economics, biol-
and Louis Althusser. Second, The Birth of ogy and linguistics ± in the nineteenth
the Clinic advanced `archaeology' as a century. The book's controversial explora-
new historical methodology. In¯uenced tion of the `death' of the ®gure of `man' in
by Gaston Bachelard and Georges contemporary thought triggered a critical
Canguilhem's ideas on historical discon- reaction by Jean-Paul Sartre (1971),
tinuity and critiques of progressivism amongst others, that was symptomatic of
and presentism in the history of science the growing humanist and Marxist oppo-
(see Gutting, 1989), `archaeology', as sition to Foucault's ideas. Foucault was
Foucault applies it in The Birth of the away from France teaching in Tunisia
Clinic, is a way of rendering visible the during the critical period between 1966
discursive strata embedded within mod- to 1968, however. Upon returning to
ern formations of medical authority. On Paris, he distanced himself from his
the surface the book is about the changes popular image as a structuralist. `In
in medical practices in France from the France, certain half-witted ``commenta-
late eighteenth century to the early nine- tors'' persist in labelling me a ``structural-
teenth century. Beneath its canonical trap- ist''. I have been unable to get it into
pings, Foucault reveals layered within their tiny minds that I have used none of
modern medicine the new linguistic, tech- the methods, concepts, or key terms that
nological, epistemological and political characterize structural analysis', wrote
constituents of human life. Foucault in his Foreword to the English
Foucault expanded his archaeological edition of The Order of Things (1971: xiv).
approach in two subsequent texts, Les Foucault's appointment as professor of
Mots et les choses: une archeÂologie des sciences philosophy at the new experimental
humaines (The Order of Things: An University of Vincennes in 1968 marked
Archaeology of the Human Sciences) in 1966 the different intellectual direction he was
and L'ArcheÂologie du savoir (The to pursue during the 1970s. While
Archaeology of Knowledge) in 1969. (During his radical character ®t well in the alter-
this period Foucault also wrote a number native interdisciplinary environment of
120 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
Foucault, M. (1986) Death and the Labyrinth: The World Foucault, M. (1981) `Omnes et singulatim: Towards a
of Raymond Roussel. Garden City, NJ: Doubleday. criticism of ``Political Reason'', in S. McMurrin
Foucault, M. ([1961] 1965) Madness and Civilization: A (ed.), The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, vol. 2.
History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. New York: Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
Pantheon Books. Foucault, M. (1983a) `The subject and power', in H.L.
Foucault, M. ([1963] 1973) The Birth of the Clinic: An Dreyfus and P. Rabinow (eds), Michel Foucault:
Archaeology of Medical Perception. New York: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. Chicago:
Pantheon Books. University of Chicago Press.
Foucault. M. ([1966] 1971) The Order of Things: An Foucault, M. (1983b) `On the genealogy of ethics: an
Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New York: overview of work in progress', in H.L. Dreyfus and
Pantheon Books. P. Rabinow (eds), Michel Foucault: Beyond
Foucault, M. ([1969] 1972) The Archaeology of Structuralism and Hermeneutics. Chicago:
Knowledge. New York: Pantheon Books. University of Chicago Press.
Foucault, M. ([1975] 1977a) Discipline and Punish: The Foucault, M. (1988a) `The political technology of indi-
Birth of the Prison. New York: Pantheon Books. viduals', in L.H. Martin, H. Gutman and P.H.
Foucault, M. ([1976] 1978) The History of Sexuality Hutton (eds), Technologies of the Self: A Seminar
Volume I: An Introduction. New York: Pantheon with Michel Foucault. London: Tavistock.
Books. Foucault, M. (1988b) `The ethic of care for the self as a
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History of Sexuality Volume Two. New York: Foucault on January 20, 1984', In J. Bernauer and
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Routledge. Szakolczai, A. (1998) Max Weber and Michel Foucault:
Kelly, M. (ed.) (1994) Critique and Power: Recasting the Parallel Life-Works. London: Routledge.
Foucault/Habermas Debate. Cambridge, MA: MIT Terry, J. and Urla, J. (eds) (1995) Deviant Bodies.
Press. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana
Macey, D. (1993) The Lives of Michel Foucault. London: University Press.
Hutchinson. Turner, B. S. (1992) Regulating Bodies: Essays in Medical
Mahon, M. (1992) Foucault's Nietzschean Genealogy: Sociology. London and New York: Routledge.
Truth, Power, and the Subject. Albany: State Veyne, P. (1993) `The ®nal Foucault and his ethics',
University of New York Press. Critical Inquiry, 20 (1): 1±9.
Martin, L. H, Gutman, H. and Hutton, P. H. (eds) Weeks, J. (1987) `Questions of identity', in P. Caplan
(1988) Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with (ed.), The Cultural Construction of Sexuality. London:
Michel Foucault. London: Tavistock. Tavistock.
11
VICTOR J. SEIDLER
T
hough Jean-FrancËois Lyotard the ways the world had changed since the
(1924±98) is known within the 1960s. He makes this clear in his own
terms of social theory for his writing re¯ections on his early political writings
The Postmodern Condition: A Report on on Algeria and his intense involvement
Knowledge, which helped de®ne the over many years from the 1950s with the
terms for the discussion around post- journal Socialism or Barbarism. Writing in
modernity, this was a text which he was June 1989, less than a decade before his
to feel very ambivalent about. In different death in a piece `The Name of Algeria',
ways he felt estranged from the manner in he pays homage to the education he
which the contrast between modernity received from the group and the support
and postmodernity was being drawn. He they gave to his writings. He also remem-
was much less concerned with making a bers how he lived in Constantine in
temporal distinction and in different ways Algeria between 1950 and 1952 when he
distanced himself in his later writings arrived from the Sorbonne to teach in its
which had much to do with aesthetics, high school. `But with what colours
from the discussion that he helped open should I paint what astonished me, that
up around the postmodern. He was still is the immensity of the injustice? An entire
concerned to question the grand narra- people, from a great civilisation, wronged,
tives of history, freedom, and progress humiliated, denied their identity'
which had shaped classical forms of social (Lyotard, 1993b: 170).
theory. In different ways he was critical of As a young teacher coming from France
Marxism as well as liberalism as grand he owed a debt to Constantine. `The
narratives which were at least partly French Republic contrived to burden a
trapped within the terms of an few young Algerians with a borrowed
Enlightenment vision of modernity. culture while their own culture, that of
But Lyotard's questioning of grand nar- their people ± it language, its space, its
ratives and the forms of social theory time ± had been and continued to be deva-
which would ¯ow from them should not stated by a century of French occupation'
Jean-Franc° ois Lyotard 129
(Lyotard, 1993b: 170) When the group The inventiveness which he saw in
Socialism or Barbarism gave Lyotard workers' struggles is already emancipa-
responsibility for the Algerian section in tion. It was not a matter of providing a
1955, it allowed him to honour a debt. `correct' analysis, rather: `Such a descrip-
tion perpetuates the forgetting of what
I owed and I owe my awakening, tout court, to
was actually at stake (this is a common
Constantine. The differend showed itself with
such a sharpness that the consolations then com- idiocy of historical and sociological
mon among my peers (vague reformism, pious studies)' (Lyotard, 1993b: 166).
Stalinism, futile leftism) were denied to me. This Re¯ecting back, long after the in¯uence
humiliated people, once risen up, would not com- of The Postmodern Condition, Lyotard was
promise. But at the same time, they did not have concerned not to forget
the means of achieving what is called liberty.
(Lyotard, 1993b: 170) what is and remains absolutely true about what
was at stake. True even today, when the principle
It was through lending practical `sup- of a radical alternative to capitalist domination
port' to the militants of the FLN (workers power) must be abandoned (something
(National Liberation Front), whilst at the that allows many people, innocent or guilty, to
same time making theoretical criticisms of relinquish all resistance and surrender uncondi-
the organization in the journal, that tionally to the state of things). This stake, which
Lyotard learnt his politics. It was in- motivates the carrying on of resistance by other
means, on other terrains, and perhaps without
dispensable to criticize the class nature
goals that can be clearly de®ned, has always
of the independent society that their been, and remains, the intractable [intraitable].
struggle was preparing to bring about. (Lyotard, 1993b: 166)
There could be no easy reconciliation. As
far as he was concerned `This intimate dif- We might think for a moment of the road
ferend should remain unresolved, unless protesters in Britain and the recent move-
we wish to lend credence to the false ments against the export of livestock and
and dangerous idea that history marches GM crops that had not been anticipated.
at the same pace everywhere . . .' (Lyotard, Lyotard still thinks that the ideas that
1993b: 168). guided Socialism or Barbarism, even if it
Socialism or Barbarism had broken with was expressed in other terms, is `the idea
the Fourth International founded by that there is something within that
Trotsky in 1937, which had been unable system that it cannot, in principle, deal
to de®ne the class nature of `communist' with [traitor]. Something that a system
societies and the formation of a new must, by virtue of its nature, overlook'
exploitative ruling class. Trapped by an (Lyotard, 1993b: 166). By helping to show
economism, Trotskyism had failed to pro- the motive of their resistance in capitalist
foundly rethink the desire for autonomy ± as well as in `postcapitalist' societies
or disalienation ± which animates work- which can remain `inexpressible' to those
ers' struggles in developed capitalist who resist you can support them in their
societies. In contrast to democratic central- resistance and so prevent them from being
ism, Socialism or Barbarism was concerned `robbed of it under the pretext that it is
to learn from forms of organization that necessary to organize oneself in order to
workers spontaneously invent in their resist.' (p. 167) Lyotard still appreciated
struggles and daily resistance. Drawing the value of this work and its continuing
on a variety of sources ± including relevance especially when it `was directed
Pannekoek's Workers Council movement by an open attention, a free-¯oating atten-
± they were concerned to also analyse tion, to living contemporary struggle, in
changes which capitalism undergoes by which the intractable continued to show
virtue of its own development. This itself.' (p. 167) For a long time the group
remained crucial to Lyotard who was con- practised self-effacement in order to give
stantly attempting to engage with the the workers the opportunity to speak. It
transformations in capitalist societies. was only much later in 1968 that the
130 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
group appeared on what is called the poli- activities of such as young people, immi-
tical stage when the student movement grants, women, homosexuals, prisoners,
took up its vision. or the people of the Third World, as far
as Lyotard concludes `thought must
yield to the evidence that the grand
SOCIAL THEORY AND narratives of emancipation, beginning (or
CONTRIBUTIONS
ending) with ``ours'', that of radical
Grand Narratives and the `Postmodern' Marxism, have lost their intelligibility
and their substance' (Lyotard, 1993b: 169).
Writing in 1989, recalling the education he Re¯ecting back to the days of political
had received in Socialism or Barbarism and activity with the bene®t of hindsight,
by placing their work under the sign of the Lyotard seeks a more general conclusion
intractable, Lyotard was concerned about the place of grand narratives. The
that the `work' we did can and must be continued, relationship between the anxieties of
even when everything indicates that Marxism is the present and the hopes of the past
®nished with as a revolutionary perspective (and allows him to make his point about
doubtless every truly revolutionary perspective is grand narratives in a focused way, even
®nished with), when the intractable voice or the
if it is overgeneralized. As he explains it
voice of the intractable is no longer heard in
Western societies on the social and political wave-
in 1989:
lengths. (Lyotard, 1993b: 168)
The presumption of the moderns, of Christianity,
Lyotard recognizes as a reality we have to Enlightenment, Marxism, has always been that
face that another voice is sti¯ed in the discourse of `reality'
and that it is a question of putting a true hero (the
the intractable has fallen silent in the realm in creature of God, the reasonable citizen, or the
which it has spoken for over a century, that is in enfranchised proletarian) back in his position as
the realm of social and political struggles. I am not subject, wrongfully usurped by the impostor.
claiming that one should cease to take an interest What we called `depoliticization' twenty-®ve
in that realm. Rather, those struggles no longer years ago was in fact the announcement of the
demand `work,' this work of spirit, of body and erasure of this great ®gure of the alternative, and
soul, that was required in order to hear them and at the same time, that of the great founding legit-
take part in them only thirty years ago. It seems to imacies. That is more or less what I have tried to
me that they do not demand anything more than designate, clumsily, by the term `postmodern'.
intellectual, ethical and civic probity. (Lyotard, (Lyotard, 1992b: 169)
1993b: 169)
of social theory, but Lyotard seems con®- and they thereby cease to be philosophers . . . They
dent that we should still be concerned become what one calls intellectuals, that is, per-
sons who legitimate a claimed competence . . .
with giving voice to the intractable. As
their own, but persons who above all legitimate
he expresses it: `Certainly, something of the very idea that there ought to be competence in
the intractable persists in the present sys- everything. (Lyotard, 1993b: 95)
tem, but it is not possible to locate and
support its expressions or signs in the Lyotard wanted to be part of the small
same area of the community and with minority of philosophers since Plato who
the same means as those of half a century does not succumb to this temptation. This
ago' (Lyotard, 1993b: 169). is something we have to keep in mind if
As Lyotard makes clear in The Differend we are to do justice to him in a collection
which he wrote in 1982, society is inhab- of social theorists.
ited by differends. This crucial notion was When Lyotard is thinking about the
explained by Lyotard in this piece. `I postmodern in his piece on `A Svelte
would say that there is a differend Appendix to the Postmodern Question'
between two parties when the ``settle- (1982: 27), he thinks that our role `as thin-
ment'' of the con¯ict that opposes them kers is to deepen what language there is,
appears in the idiom of one of them to critique the shallow notion of informa-
while the tort from which the other suffers tion, to reveal an irremediable opacity
cannot signify itself in this idiom' (Lyotard, within language itself'. It is through the
1993b: 9). The wage contract does not pre- notion of irreconcilability in language
vent but in fact presupposes that workers that he seems to be developing his notion
or their trade union representatives will of the differend. He thinks that when
have to speak of their labour as if it were Habermas gives lessons in progressive
a commodity of which they were the thought to Derrida and Foucault and
owners. Marxism refuses to do so. As when he speaks of the neoirrationalism
Lyotard continues to insist: of French thought in the name of the pro-
ject of modernity, he is seriously mistaken
With the logic of capital, the aspect of Marxism that about what is at issue in modernity. As
remains alive is, at least, this sense of differend,
Lyotard seeks to explain it:
which forbids any reconciliation of the parties in
the idiom of either one of them. Something like this The issue was not and is not (for modernity has
occurred in 1968, and has occurred in the women's not come to an end), the Enlightenment pure and
movement for ten years, and the differend under- simple, it was an is the insinuation of will into
lies the question of the immigrant workers. There reason. Kant spoke of a drive of reason to go
are other cases. (Lyotard, 1993b: 10) beyond experience, and he understood philoso-
In insisting on the differend, Lyotard is phy anthropologically as a Drang, an impulse to
®ght, to create differends (Streiten). (p. 26)
refusing the authority which would seek
a reconciliation between different voices Even if we are left unclear about this clos-
at the expense of silencing them. He ing terse phrase, it gives us some feeling
would question philosophers and social for Lyotard's turn towards Kant and his
theorists who present themselves as notion of the sublime.
authorities and who would encourage Lyotard confronts Habermas when he
people to believe that there can be compe- draws upon his particular reading of
tence and authority in matters of justice, in Wittgenstein and his notion of language
matters of beauty, of happiness, and per- games to say that `Language is not an
haps even of truth. As Lyotard argued in a ``instrument of communication'', it is a
piece on television entitled `A Podium highly complex archipelago formed of
without a Podium' domains of phrases, phrases from such
If philosophers agree to help their fellow citizens
different regimes that one cannot translate
to believe in authority in matters where there isn't a phrase from one regime (a descriptive,
any, to legitimate this authority, then they cease to for example) into a phrase from another
ponder in the sense in which I spoke of thinking, (an evaluation, a prescriptive)' (p. 28). It
132 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
themselves, rather than evaluate their wrote in Derive a Partir de Marx et Freud
lives according to criteria provided by a (1973: 10), his writing is `an effort to
dominant masculinity. They could not raise theory to the same degree of inten-
say in advance `what they wanted' for sity as had been attained by practice in
they had to explore who they could May 68'.
become as women. They rejected the In his work Libidinal Economy, Lyotard
idea that this meant they were `irrational' is concerned to announce a desire-
because they refused to say, but insisted revolution. He is concerned to escape
on taking time and space for themselves. from the deceptive authority of meaning
This resonates with Lyotard's vision of and as he makes clear at this time:
politics as an uncertain process of indeter-
minate judgment. But it was dif®cult for What is important in a text is not its meaning,
men to learn how to listen if they already what it is trying to say, but what it does and causes
to be done. What it does: the affective charge it
assumed a reason which could legislate
contains and communicates; what it causes to be
for others. Rather we needed a different done: the transformation of these potential ener-
vision of justice which did not seek to be gies into something else ± other texts, but also
justi®ed once and for all. Ready to listen paintings, photos, ®lm sequences, political
to others, justice would no longer seek to actions, inspirations to love, refusals to obey, eco-
be authoritative but would involve listen- nomic initiatives. (Derive a Partir de Marx and
ing to different voices. Rather than Freud, 1973: 6)
attempting to determine the identity of
the political, Lyotard insists on a politics This emphasis on the energies and inten-
of difference. sities produced by a text, rather than its
These are ideas which Lyotard learnt meaning remain a crucial theme for
through the events of May 1968 and the Deleuze. For Lyotard at this time it has
politics of refusal which students voiced. to do with his suspicion of a reason
They refused to understand their intellec- which is so closely allied with power. As
tual activity as a process of training that he has it: `Reason is already in power in
would assign them to pregiven positions capital. And it is not because it is not
within the State. They insisted that learn- rational that we want to destroy capital,
ing was an open process of exploration but because it is. Reason and power are
and that they did not know what kind one and the same' (pp. 12±13).
of people they may become through Lyotard wants to break with a tradition
critically engaging with the culture they of critique because he thinks of it is as
inherited. They insisted upon questioning merely a negative activity. Insofar as it is
traditions handed down to them as they rational, he thinks it is basically depen-
learnt to think and desire for themselves, dent upon the system it is criticizing. It
refusing what authorities had prepared is the exercise of another form of authority
for them. They readily questioned the which claims to know best. As far as he is
representational claims of democracy, concerned,
that society can re¯ect itself to itself.
The critic remains within the sphere of what is
Rather students felt they had to speak
criticized . . . And [this activity] is profoundly hier-
for themselves as they questioned the archical: from where does the critic derive his
right of traditional authorities to legislate power over the object of his criticism ? Does he
for them. Through this eruption know better ? Is he the teacher, the educator ? Is he
which people could not have anticipated, then universality, the university, the State . . . The
theory and action seemed to have become confessor and God helping the sinner to save him-
one. May 1968 was to remain a potent self ? This staying-within-the-same-sphere refor-
mism sits very well with the maintenance of
memory for Lyotard, a moment of authoritarian structures . . . one must drift beyond
boundless intensity which seemed to criticism. But more than this, drifting is itself the
allow the sudden transformation of poli- end of criticism. (Rudiments Paiens, Paris UGE,
tical into libidinal economy. As Lyotard 1977, pp. 14±15)
134 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
disappearance of the subject and inter- which proclaims the capacity of rational
action, become critical terms. thought to make `man' the master of his
Changes in the sphere of production, world and so realize `mankind's' essential
which are working to transform our freedom. He takes a distance from the
ideas of human beings and work as well Enlightenment model of politics whether
as our forms of perception, help Lyotard in its liberal or Marxist forms as the site of
think of the present as indeed a post- a secular redemption. Postmodernism
modern period of transition. In his text marks a loss of faith in the modernist
of the period Le Differend, he introduces idea of emancipation that believes that
an epoch of philosophizing which is to history will save us through political
supersede that of the grand metanarra- action by producing a transcendent, liber-
tives. What seems to be crucial is the ated, and empowered subject.
ways different areas of art have become The loss of faith in traditional political
re¯exive. But as Burger (1992: 85) notes, resistance is linked to the rise of the
`it is quite evident that in the aesthetic modern bureaucratic state as an essen-
®eld Lyotard is clearly concerned pre- tially unipolar society, as Bill Readings has
cisely not to de®ne the postmodern in characterized it. As he puts it:
opposition to the modern, but to connect
it to it. It is only thus that he can bring his the unipolar Western state, by presuming the
own aesthetic position into play'. intertranslatability of political forces, turns almost
all resistance into a source of energy. All dissi-
According to Lyotard, it is the shift in
dence can be expressed, provided that it allows
the reception of art from sense perception itself to be represented. Politics ends once the
to re¯ection that characterizes the post- state becomes the sole site where the political is
modern. managed, an end in itself. (Lyotard, 1993b: xx)
Since theorists of art and architecture
have turned postmodernism into a battle- So it is that as capitalism becomes a global
cry of a thoroughly aggressive anti- system, power appears as administration
modernism, Lyotard has felt that he had rather than as coercion, managerial rather
to distance himself from the aesthetic than as directly oppressive. Managerial
postmodern. He is more interested in discourses present themselves as neutral,
exploring whether modern art can be bringing `ef®ciency' into every sphere.
explicated in the terms of Kant's analytic The transformation in the public sphere,
of the sublime. To do this he draws less on including the universities, has proved
Kant's argumentation and more on indi- dif®cult to resist. Lyotard's work is consis-
vidual concepts like formlessness and tently engaged in an attempt to rethink the
nonrepresentability. But as Burger points terms of resistance, to ®nd ways `to think
out, Kant's theory is formulated from the against a state that has no outside, that
perspective of the experiencing subject seeks always to realise itself as the state
whereas Lyotard, by contrast, discusses of things.' (Lyotard, 1993b: xx)
the problem of nonrepresentability from Lyotard argues against the pretensions
the perspective of the producer. Lyotard to speak in the name of others. He identi-
is describing an artistic project. ®es this as a crucial injustice, be it liberal
For Lyotard, his loss of faith in a politics or totalitarian. To pretend to speak for the
of redemption and his turn to aesthetics oppressed is to objectify them once more.
have to do with his resistance to the kind He sees this as part of a general complicity
of modernist universalism that could be of radical organizations with the systems
associated with Habermas. He no longer they claim to oppose. They simply re-
understood politics as the ordering of inforce the political structures of repre-
the political through an impartial and uni- sentation, as do trade unions when they
versal conception of reason. When he talks treat workers they claim to represent as
about `depoliticization' or `antipolitics' he nothing but the mute references of their
is breaking with an Enlightenment project own discourse. But Lyotard's attack on
Jean-Franc° ois Lyotard 137
the politics of representation is more than which human beings explore the meanings
a plea for autonomy, for letting people of their lives, so as Readings has it `politics
speak for themselves. Bill Readings ceases to be the search for an identity, a
appreciates that it is more radically an redemptive signi®cance that might lie
argument against discursive legitimation behind or beyond the activities of every-
as such, as against the kind of modernist day life. Rather, politics is the attempt to
politics defended by Habermas. As handle con¯icts that admit to no resolu-
Lyotard points out in `The Grip' tion, to think justice in relation to con¯ict
(Mainmise), the dream of discursive auto- and difference' (Lyotard, 1993b: xxiv). In
nomy is itself founded on a forgetting of his argument with Habermas Lyotard is
debt and obligation to the other. It raises thinking against attempts to render the
for Lyotard the crucial question of the pre- predicament of modernity as the locus of
sumption of authority. As Readings a determinate historical project for the rea-
frames it: `To presume that all people lization of a universal subject. Testifying
can in principle speak for themselves is a to difference does not mean overcoming
double victimization: it assumes the speak- it by achieving communication between
er's access to discourse and it assumes them, but rather a respectful acknowl-
that the speaker is inherently a potential edgement as Readings puts it `of the
modern subject' (Lyotard, 1993b: xxi). impossibility and necessity of exchange,
Lyotard's early appeal to spontaneous around a differend that is sensed but can-
popular resistance comes to be replaced not be expressed in a shared idiom, over
by a focus on judgment and witness. In which no ®nal agreement can be reached'
the writings on May 1968, it seems that (Lyotard, 1993b: xxvi).
desire can still breach the dominant Lyotard insists that these differences are
mode of discursive representation, erupt not accidentally but structurally repressed
in a way that cannot be controlled by the by an Enlightenment vision of modernity
state. Resistance becomes a form of atten- which seeks transparency in representa-
tion which can listen for intractable differ- tion, communication, and accounting. A
end with representation, `which forbids minoritarian politics does not seek to take
any reconciliation of the parties in the its place in `big politics', to gain represen-
idiom of either one of them' (`The tation. They do not want to include every-
Differend'). The turn to the differend is one in a larger consensus but rather testify
connected with a turn to Judaism and a to their differend with the Western
decisive rejection of an alternative ground discourse of a universal humanity.
for political critique. As Readings puts it Paradoxically it is Lyotard's sense of
`Politics becomes a matter of justice, of debt and obligation to tradition that
handling differences, rather than of estab- works to undermine the Enlightenment
lishing truth or even countertruth.' claim to freedom through knowledge.
(Lyotard, 1993b: xxiv) As Lyotard explores This sense of a debt which cannot be
in Just Gaming there is a clear philosophi- repaid underpins Lyotard's writings on
cal rejection of models of the perfect Judaism and `the jews'. Judaism clings to
society which have haunted the West. a tradition founded on respect for the
His discussions on the postmodern unrepresentable learning that they cannot
which are often pulled in different direc- make images of the divine. Auschwitz
tions, share a sense that the time of `big names a debt from which European
politics' is over, the idea of the political humanity cannot be freed, an obligation
as the site where humanity struggles to towards atonement that must not be his-
de®ne its destiny and realize its meanings, torically rationalized as one event among
may well have passed. others. It names the injustice of under-
Paradoxically this means a refusal to standing history as a project of liberating
think that politics will ever come to an humanity from the past, from tradition,
end. As politics ceases to be the sphere in from obligation to the other, as Levinas
138 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
has it. Social theories have failed to come forgotten, not only in each individual mind, but
to terms with Auschwitz because it shows in the very thought of the West. And it refers to
all those who assume this anamnesis and this wit-
the horrors that waited unrecognized
nessing as an obligation, a responsibility, or a debt,
within modernity. not only toward thought, but towards justice.
In 1990, in the shadow of the profana- (Lyotard, 1993b: p. 141)
tion of the Jewish cemetery of Carpentras
in France, where Jews had lived for more
than a millennium, Lyotard wrote a piece LYOTARD'S MAJOR WORKS
on `Europe, the Jews and the Book', where
he makes the claim Lyotard, J.-F. (1984a) The Postmodern Condition.
that the Jews represent `something that Europe Manchester: Manchester University Press.
does not want to or cannot know anything Lyotard, J.-F. (1984b) Driftworks. New York:
about'. Even when they are dead, it abolishes Semiotext(e).
their memory and refuses them burial in its Lyotard, J.-F. (1985) Just Gaming. Manchester:
land. All this takes place in the unconscious and Manchester University Press.
has no right to speak. When the deed is done in Lyotard, J.-F. (1988a) Peregrinations: Law, Form, Event.
full daylight, Europe is seized for an instant by the New York: Columbia University Press.
horror and the terror of `confronting its own Lyotard, J.-F. (1988b) The Differend. Minneapolis:
desire'. (Lyotard, 1993b: 159) University of Minnesota Press.
Lyotard, J.-F. (1990) Heidegger and `the jews'.
As Lyotard understands it, in the West Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
since the French Revolution extended the Lyotard, J.-F. (1991a) The Inhuman. Cambridge: Polity
Christian motif of fraternity, `We are Press.
brothers, not as sons of God but as free Lyotard, J.-F. (1991b) Phenomenology. New York: State
University of New York Press.
and equal citizens. It is not an Other who Lyotard, J.-F. (1992) The Postmodern Explained to
gives us the law. It is our civic community Children. London: Turnaround.
that does, that obliges, prohibits, permits. Lyotard, J.-F. (1993a) Libidinal Economy. London:
That is called emancipation from the Athlone Press.
Other, and autonomy.' (p. 163) Integra- Lyotard, J.-F. (1993b) Jean-FrancËois Lyotard: Political
tion or extermination were the options Writings (Ed. B. Readings.) London: UCL Press.
Lyotard, J.-F. (1995) Toward the Postmodern.
offered to `the jews' by the modern en-
Manchester: New Jersey Humanities Press.
lightened state. They are revealed in the
full horror by the event named
`Auschwitz'.
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Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
12
Jacques Lacan
ANTHONY ELLIOTT
J
acques Lacan was born in 1901 in choanalyst, Lacan wrote many papers on a
France, the year after Sigmund range of theoretical issues. As the in¯u-
Freud's foundational The Interpre- ence of his ideas spread, he travelled to
tation of Dreams was published. Lacan the United States to give lectures at John
was educated at the ColleÁge Stanislas, Hopkins University, Yale University, and
and, after completing his secondary edu- the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
cation, he studied medicine in Paris. He He died in Paris in 1981, at the age of 80.
went on to do his clinical training in psy- Believing himself to be following in
chiatry under the supervision of Gaetan Freud's footsteps, Lacan sought to revolu-
Gatian de CleÂrambault. He published his tionize the temperate Freudianism of his
®rst articles while he trained as a psychia- time, to rescue psychoanalysis from its
trist, and these were mostly on psychiatric institutionalized conservative and confor-
and neurological topics. In 1932, Lacan mist tendencies, and to reinscribe and
published his doctoral thesis `Paranoid resituate psychic meanings and processes
psychosis and its relation to the personal- within broader social systems and histor-
ity', a copy of which he sent to Freud. As a ical structures. Universally acclaimed for
psychoanalyst, Lacan was highly uncon- his philosophical interpretation of Freud,
ventional; his fascination with Freud and Lacan, along with his structuralist and
psychoanalysis was matched by his pas- post-structuralist contemporaries such as
sion for philosophy, literature, and the LeÂvi-Strauss, Foucault, Barthes, and
arts. His public seminars at the Hospital Derrida, was unquestionably one of the
Sainte-Anne were a mixture of psycho- major French theorists of the post-war
analytic theory, continental philosophy, era. His writings, principally his magis-
and surrealism; the seminars were terial 900 page Ecrits, which was pub-
increasingly well attended, mostly by an lished in France in 1966, as well as his
eclectic mix of students and professionals. published seminars, are notorious for
In the 1960s, Lacan moved his seminar to their complexity and dif®culty. Indeed
the Ecole Normale SupeÂrieure, as well as Lacan's style is often infuriatingly
Jacques Lacan 141
constraint. In contrast, Lacan showed little of the ego in terms of projection and
interest in issues of adaptation, nor in identi®cation. It is this second conception
debates about mental health. He instead of the ego that Lacan adopts, focusing on
challenged the defenders of adaptational the ego's structuring by means of repre-
psychoanalysis by translating Freud's sentations derived from the other. In his
sentence as `Where it was, there I must 1949 paper `The mirror stage as formative
be', thus granting primacy to the uncons- of the function of the I', Lacan advances
cious. The unconscious, Lacan argued, the thesis of the self-deception of the ego
precedes `I'. by considering the infant identifying with
Informing this reading of Freud was a mirror image of a complete uni®ed body.
Lacan's structural recasting of the psyche, Following closely Freud's proposition that
consisting of three terms or orders ± the the ego is fundamentally narcissistic in
imaginary, the symbolic, and the real. character, as well as his insight that a
Lacan included in the category of the ima- period of self-love precedes the object-
ginary the paradoxes, illusions, and love of the Oedipus complex, Lacan
deceptions of the optical image; narcis- notes that the infant is initially unable to
sism and its connection with doubles; as differentiate between its own body and
well as the death drive and anxieties of the outside world. The key moment of
fragmentation and disintegration. The this pre-Oedipal state of being is that of
category of the symbolic included all the fragmentation, of an endless array of
reworking of theory he had undertaken part objects, all of which collide with
through an engagement with structural multiplex drives and passions. The
linguistics, including language and its infant's drafting of a distinction between
founding of the unconscious, symbolic itself and the outside between the age of
spacing through difference, and the pri- six and 18 months, says Lacan, takes place
macy of the signi®er. The order of the within the paradoxes and illusions of
real was derived from Freud's discussion the visual ®eld, or what he calls the
of psychical reality, and, while rede®ned mirror stage. As a metaphorical and struc-
several times throughout Lacan's career, tural concept, the mirror provides the sub-
was equated with that which resists ject with relief from the experience of
mirror-play and all attempts at symboli- fragmentation, by granting an illusory
zation. Let us now turn to consider sense of bodily unity through its re¯ecting
Lacan's structural account of the psyche surface. As Lacan (1977: 1±2) develops this:
in more detail.
unable as yet to walk, or even to stand up, and
held tightly as he is by some support, human or
The mirror stage and misrecognition arti®cial . . . he nevertheless overcomes in a ¯utter
of jubilant activity, the obstruction of his support
There are two, essentially contrasting, and, ®xing his attitude in a slightly leaning-for-
conceptions of the genesis of the ego in ward position, in order to hold it in his gaze,
Freud's writings. The ®rst conception brings back an instantaneous aspect of the image.
equates the ego as a representative of
reality-testing, making it responsible for Note that Lacan stresses that the image is
the control of unconscious drives and cast within the ®eld of optics: it is in and
passion. Freud elaborated this conception through a re¯ecting surface that the subject
in the early part of his career, and in it the narcissistically invests its self-image. This
ego is understood as a product of the contrasts radically with other psychoana-
gradual differentiation of the uncon- lytic conceptions of mirroring, such as the
scious-preconscious-conscious system. work of D.W. Winnicott, who views early
The second conception, elaborated by interchanges between self and others as
Freud after his introduction of the con- crucial to the founding of a `true' self. It
cept of narcissism in the metapsycho- also contrasts with other social theorists of
logical papers of 1915, locates the genesis intersubjectivity, such as Cooley, who
Jacques Lacan 143
wrote of a `looking glass self' that exists in In setting out his idea that the human
relation to the gaze of others. subject, and hence by implication culture
Lacan situates the constitution of the and society, is dominated by the primacy
ego in a line of ®ction. The ego is created of language, Lacan drew from and refash-
as defensive armour to support the psyche ioned Saussure's theory of the arbitrary
against its otherwise terrifying experi- nature of the linguistic sign. The impor-
ences of fragmentation and dread. The tance that Saussure placed upon the status
capture of the self or `I' by the subject's of oppositions ± upon not things them-
re¯ection in the mirror is inseparable selves but on the relationship between
from what Lacan terms misrecognition of things ± appealed to Lacan's psycho-
its own truth (meconnaissance). The mirror analytic and structuralist sensibilities.
stage is profoundly imaginary in charac- Saussure, as well as the analysis of lan-
ter, argues Lacan, because the consoling guage developed by Roman Jacobson,
image of self-unity presented in the mirror provided Lacan with the means to bridge
is diametrically opposed to the multipli- his theoretical concerns with both sym-
city of drives and desires experienced by bolic production and the formal organiza-
the child. In a word, the mirror lies. This tion of desire. He argued in his seminar,
process of misrecognition, Lacan writes, following Saussure, that the linguistic sign
comprises two parts: the signi®er (the
situates the agency of the ego, before its social acoustic component or linguistic mark)
determination, in a ®ctional direction, which will
always remain irreducible for the individual
and the signi®ed (the conceptual ele-
alone, or rather, which will only rejoin the com- ment). In line with structuralist thought,
ing-into-being of the subject asymptotically, what- Lacan argued that the relationship
ever the success of the dialectical syntheses by between signi®ers and signi®eds is arbi-
which he must resolve his discordance with his trary. The meaning of signi®ers ± 'man',
own reality. (Lacan, 1977: 2) for example ± is de®ned by difference, in
this case by the signi®er 'woman'.
However, where Saussure placed the
Language, Symbolic Order and the signi®ed over the signi®er, Lacan inverts
Unconscious the formula, putting the signi®ed under
the signi®er, to which he ascribed primacy
Having argued that the ego is a paranoid in the life of the psyche, subject, and
structure, an agent of misconstruction and society. All is determined for Lacan by
misrecognition, Lacan set out to show that the movement of signi®ers. In fact, the
the subject is also divided through its position of each of us as individual sub-
insertion into a symbolic order of posi- jects is determined by our place in the
tions in relation to other subjects. system of signi®ers, our lives are nego-
Through an engagement with Ferdinand tiated through the plane of enunciation.
de Saussure's Course in General Linguistics The signi®er represents the subject for
and Claude LeÂvi-Strauss's The Elementary Lacan; the primacy of the signi®er in the
Structures of Kinship, Lacan arrived at a constitution of the subject indicates the
structuralist theory of the subject in rooting of the unconscious in language.
which the concepts of signi®er, system, The idea that language might be a pro-
otherness and difference ®gure prom- duct of the unconscious was widespread
inently. The central texts in which he ela- among many analysts, and indeed
borates this antihumanist or structural- Lacan continually af®rmed in his writings
scienti®c conception of psychoanalysis and seminars that the importance he
are `The ®eld and function of speech and placed upon language was in keeping
language in psychoanalysis' (1953) and with the spirit of Freud's corpus. How-
`The agency of the letter in the uncon- ever, Lacan's structuralist elaboration of
scious, or reason since Freud' (1957), both Saussure is, in fact, a radical conceptual
published in Ecrits (1977). departure from the Freudian conception
144 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
of the unconscious. Whereas Freud sees marriage ties superimposes the kingdom of cul-
connections between the psychic systems ture on that of a nature abandoned to the law of
mating. . . This law, then, is revealed clearly
of unconscious representation (fantasy)
enough as identical with an order of language.
and conscious thought (language), Lacan For without kinship nominations, no power is
views subjectivity itself as constituted to capable of instituting the order of preferences and
its roots in language. This linguisti®cation taboos that bind and weave the yarn of lineage
of the unconscious has important rami®- through succeeding generations. (Lacan, 1977: 66)
cations, making of this psychic strata not
This primordial Law to which Lacan
something which is internal to the subject
refers is the Freudian Oedipus complex,
(as with, say, a bodily heart or kidney), but
now rewritten in linguistic terms. What
rather an intersubjective space of commu-
Lacan terms nom-du-peÂre (name-of-the-
nication, with language constantly sinking
father) is the cornerstone of his structural
or fading into the gaps which separate
revision of the Oedipus complex. For
signi®er from signi®er. The unconscious,
Lacan, as for Freud, the father intrudes
writes Lacan, represents `the sum of the
into the imaginary, blissful union of the
effects of the parole on a subject, at the
child±mother dyad in a symbolic capacity,
level where the subject constitutes itself
as the representative of the wider cultural
from the effects of the signi®er' (Lacan
network and the social taboo on incest. It
quoted in Ragland-Sullivan, 1986: 106)
is, above all, the exteriority of this process
Or, in Lacan's infamous slogan: `The
which Lacan underlines. Broadly speak-
unconscious is structured like a language'.
ing, Lacan is not arguing that each indivi-
If the unconscious is structured like a
dual father forbids the mother±infant
language, as a chain of signi®ers, the
unity. Rather he suggests the `paternal
apparent stability of the mirror image of
metaphor' intrudes into the child's narcis-
the subject is alienated twice over. First,
sistically structured ego to refer the child
the subject is alienated through the
to what is outside, to what has the force of
mirrored deceptions of the imaginary
the law ± namely, language.
order, in which the ego is organized into
a paranoid structure; secondly, the person
is constituted as an I in the symbolic order,
an order or law indifferent to the desires APPRAISAL OF KEY ADVANCES AND
and emotions of individual subjects. CONTROVERSIES
Language is thus the vehicle of speech
for the subject and a function of the The political pessimism of Lacan's doc-
symbolic order, an order in which the trines ± the distorting traps of the imagin-
individual is subjected to received social ary, the symbolic determination of the
meanings, logic, and differentiation. It is subject, the lack or failure of desire ± has
this conception of the function of the sym- proved attractive to many social theorists
bol which paves the way for Lacan's and cultural analysts. His portrayal of the
incorporation of LeÂvi-Strauss's structural ego as a paranoid structure has served as a
anthropology. Drawing upon LeÂvi- balance against conservative and liberal
Strauss's conception of the unconscious theories that construct the self at the cen-
as a symbolic system of underlying rela- tre of rational psychological functioning.
tions which order social life, Lacan argues Lacan, by contrast, stresses that the self
that the rules of matrimonial exchange are is always alienated from its own history,
founded by a preferential order of kinship is constituted in and through otherness,
which is constitutive of the social system: and is inserted into a symbolic order as a
decentred subject. The theme of otherness
The marriage tie is governed by an order of pre-
ference whose law concerning the kinship names
in particular is something that runs deep
is, like language, imperative for the group in its in contemporary social thought, and
forms, but unconscious in its structure . . . The pri- Lacan's re¯ections on the strangeness
mordial Law is therefore that which in regulating that mediates subjectivity and culture
Jacques Lacan 145
has been highly in¯uential across the the imaginary, symbolic, and real orders,
social sciences and the humanities. Lacan presents the crime of the Papin sis-
However, Lacan's `return to Freud' has ters primarily in terms of an interweaving
also come under ®re by many social of language, symbolism, the unconscious
theorists and cultural commentators. In and paranoid alienation.
this section, I shall consider the case for Lacan, as his re¯ections on the case of
and against Lacan in social theory (see the Papin sisters illustrates, was pro-
also Macey, 1988; Elliott, 1994; Elliott and foundly interested in the links between
Spezzano, 2000). the individual and society. Yet however
deeply engaged by the connections
Lacanian and Post-Lacanian Social Theory between psychoanalysis, philosophy, and
contemporary theory, Lacan failed to
In the early 1930s, two maidservants of develop an account of the relevance of
humble origins viciously murdered their his theories to social life in any detailed
wealthy employers in the town of Le fashion. As a psychoanalyst, he was pre-
Mans in northwestern France. The cele- occupied by other (clinical and institu-
brated crime of the Papin sisters both tional) issues. On the other hand, he was
shocked and gripped the French public aware of (and followed with great inter-
and press: it was reported as a tale of est) the many attempts by others to bring
class hatred, of social tension, of hysteria Lacanian theory to bear upon issues of
and madness. On the day of the crime, a pressing social, cultural, and political
power failure had prevented Christine importance. The Marxist Louis Althusser,
Papin from carrying out her household a friend of Lacan's, was among the ®rst
duties, for which she was ®rmly rebuked social theorists to argue for the impor-
by her employer, Mme Lancelin. The sis- tance of Lacanian theory to the develop-
ters thereupon lashed out and attacked ment of a theory of ideology. By bridging
the Lancelins, gouging out their victims' Marxist and Lacanian theory, Althusser
eyes and cutting up their bodies. Jacques sought to challenge traditional concep-
Lacan, fascinated by the case of the Papin tions of ideology as a set of false beliefs
sisters, suggested that while the crime was or illusions. For Althusser, the view that
undertaken against a backdrop of rising social practices are real, while the ideas
social, economic, racial, and national and beliefs which sustain them are simply
hatreds, another ± more structural ± false illusions, mistakenly assumes that
psychic force was at work: that of para- ideology is imaginary in only a passive
noid delusion and alienation. Elizabeth sense, as a weak copy of the structures of
Roudinesco, in her biography of the our social practice. In breaking from the
French psychoanalyst, writes that Lacan imaginary/real opposition of traditional
set out to show that only paranoia could explain Marxism, where the former stands as a
the mystery of the sisters' act. The episode of sort of ethereal medium which veils real
insanity seemed to arise out of a seemingly every- political and economic structures,
day incident: a power failure. But this incident Althusser argues that the imaginary is
might well have had an unconscious signi®cance embodied in the relations to the real that
for the Papin sisters. Lacan suggested it stood for
are organized and sustained through
the silence that had long existed between the mis-
tresses and the maids: no current could ¯ow ideology. Ideology is the imaginary relation
between the employers and their servants because of individuals to their real conditions of
they didn't speak to one another. Thus the crime social existence. This imaginary dimension
triggered by the power failure was a violent acting of ideology, which Althusser develops
out of a non-dit: something unspoken, of whose from Lacan's Freud, is not understood as
meaning the chief actors in the drama were un- some kind of private space internal to indi-
aware. (Roudinesco, 1997: 63±4)
viduals. Rather, Althusser emphasizes that
Although many years prior to the forma- the imaginary dimensions of ideology
lization of his psychoanalytical account of exist on the `outside', but are continually
146 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
theory, it is associated too closely with the Secondly, there are major substantive
logic of the specular (see Elliott, 1992: and political problems with Lacan's con-
chapter 4); the idea that the imaginary is tention that the unconscious/conscious
only constituted when the self is re¯ected dualism should be conceptualized as a lin-
as an object fails to grasp the point that it is guistic relation. Many critics, including
the psyche which elaborates and invests Paul Ricoeur, Jean-FrancËois Lyotard, and
this specular image. How, after all, does Jean Laplanche, have argued the Freudian
the small infant come to (mis)recognize point against Lacan that the unconscious
itself in the mirror? How, exactly, is resistant to ordered syntax. Against this
does the individual subject cash in on linguisti®cation of the psyche, we need to
this conferring of an ideal self, however return to Freud's account of the uncon-
brittle or illusory? These dif®culties are scious, a realm of the psyche which, he
especially well illuminated in Cornelius notes,
Castoriadis's critique of Lacan. Rejecting
is not simply more careless, more irrational, more
the standpoint that the imaginary is born forgetful and more incomplete than waking
from a specular image which is somehow thought; it is completely different from it qualita-
`already there', Castoriadis rather con- tively and for that reason not immediately com-
tends that the production of images and parable with it. It [the unconscious] does not
forms actually is the work of the imagin- think, calculate or judge in any way at all; it
ary. In his words: restricts itself to giving things a new form.
(Freud, [1900] 1935±74: 507)
The imaginary does not come from the image in This `new form' of which Freud speaks,
the mirror or from the gaze of the other. Instead, and explicitly contrasts with waking
the `mirror' itself and its possibility, and the other thought and language, concerns represen-
as mirror, are the works of the imaginary, which is tation: the ¯ux of desires and fantasies in
creation ex nihilo. Those who speak of the `imagin-
ary', understanding by this the `specular', the
which things strange and unknown make
re¯ection of the `®ctive', do no more than repeat, themselves felt at the level of psychic
usually without realizing it, the af®rmation which functioning.
has for all time chained them to the underground Thirdly, the politics of Lacanianism has
of the famous cave: it is necessary that this world often been criticized for its determinism
be an image of something. (Castoriadis, 1987: 3) and pessimism (see Castoriadis, 1984;
Frosh, 1987; Elliott, 1994). Certainly,
For Castoriadis, the argument that the ego Lacan's structuralist leanings led him to
is constituted through a misrecognition of underscore the symbolic determination
its re¯ected image fundamentally ignores of the subject. `Symbols', he writes (1977:
the point that it is the psyche which invests 68), `envelop the life of man in a network
the `mirror' with desire. The problem with so total that they join together, before he
Lacan's position is that surely for an indi- comes into the world, those who are going
vidual to begin to recognize its re¯ected to engender him ``by ¯esh and blood''; so
image in the `mirror' it must already total that they will bring to his birth . . . the
possess the imaginary capacities for iden- shape of his destiny'. Lacan's view that
ti®cation and representation, or what the subject enters a symbolic order
Freud named psychical reality. In the which is prestructured linguistically, and
end, Castoriadis argues, Lacan's theory in which the law appears terroristic, cre-
palpably cannot account for the psychical ates immense dif®culties for theorizing
processes by which mirror images are human agency and the creative dimen-
created and formed. That is to say, Lacan's sions of subjective and intersubjective
account of specular identity fails to life. Whereas Freud, in his own decentring
address how it comes about that the of the ego, at least posits the subject's
other as mirror is perceived as real ± prospects for critical self-re¯ection and
how the re¯ected object is rendered autonomy, Lacan sees the self as a com-
intelligible to the subject. plete distortion, a defensive structure.
Jacques Lacan 149
According to Lacan, the structure of Lacan, J. (1988a) The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Vol. 1:
human knowledge is delusional through Freud's Papers on Technique 1953±54. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
and through, with the imaginary order
Lacan, J. (1988b) The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Vol. 2:
offering a misleading promise of self- The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of
unity on the one side, and the symbolic Psychoanalysis 1954±5. Cambridge: Cambridge
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MacCannell, J. F. (1986) Figuring Lacan: Criticism Function of Language in Psychoanalysis. Baltimore,
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Helm. Zizek, S. (1989) The Sublime Object of Ideology. London:
Macey, D. (1988) Lacan in Contexts. London: Verso. Verso.
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Elliott and S. Frosh (eds), Psychoanalysis in Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture. Cambridge,
Contexts. London: Routledge. MA: MIT Press.
13
Jacques Derrida
CHRISTINA HOWELLS
J
acques Derrida was born in Algeria in and enter the public domain, leaving
July 1930. His education was severely behind the intimacy of a colonial child-
disrupted in the early 1940s by the hood and a complicated and fragmented
draconian measures taken during the education. This is not the place to specu-
Second World War to exclude Jews from late on the role played by Derrida's early
schools dedicated to Aryans, but in 1949 years in his later political, ethical, and
he left Algeria for Paris, and studied at the philosophical choices, but his position
LyceÂe Louis le Grand until 1952, when he as part of both French colonial rule and a
entered the Ecole Normale SupeÂrieure racially persecuted minority cannot but
(ENS) of the rue d'Ulm as a philosophy have contributed to his radical questioning
student. There he met his future wife, of identity and, more recently, to his pas-
Marguerite Aucouturier, whom he mar- sionate concern for democracy and justice.
ried in 1957, and Louis Althusser, also In fact, Derrida's philosophical career
from Algiers, who was already a tutor at was to soar quickly to impressive heights.
the Ecole, and with whom he formed a Four years' teaching in the Sorbonne
life-long friendship. In the same year he (1960±4), trips to Prague, the Jean-
passed the AgreÂgation, and won a scholar- CavailleÂs 'epistemology' prize for his
ship to Harvard, to work on unpublished ®rst book ± the translation of and intro-
writings by Husserl. But his emergent duction to Husserl's Origin of Geometry,
philosophical career was to be further publications in Critique and Tel Quel, and
interrupted by two years military service in 1964 a teaching post at the ENS, all give
back in Algeria as a teacher of French and clear indications of Derrida's early suc-
English to children of the forces in KoleÂa. cess. And 1966 marked the start of his
His return to France in 1959, and most extraordinary celebrity, with the now
especially the now famous conference notorious conference on `The Ends of
paper on genesis and structure in Man' in Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, the
Husserl, delivered in Cerisy-la-Salle, paper on `La diffeÂrance' in the Sorbonne,
marks the moment at which the career of and the simultaneous publication in 1967
152 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
of three major texts: De la Grammatologie, text actually says. This gap between
L'Ecriture et la diffeÂrence, and La Voix et le authorial intention and textual meanings
PheÂnomeÁne. is a key focus of deconstruction, and gives
Derrida's philosophical approach is par- the lie most forcibly to those who try to
ticularly hard to categorize, for a variety of argue that Derrida is not interested in
reasons, not least because much of his best authorial intention. On the contrary, it is
work constitutes a critique of other texts, one of his prime fascinations, along with
philosophical, political, literary, or psy- all the tricks of language, logic, and meta-
choanalytic. The term most readily asso- physics that interfere with the expression
ciated with his writings, `deconstruction', of that intention, distort it and deviate it,
was, he explains (1987b: 388), chosen by and sometimes cause writers to say pre-
him from Littre to translate Heidegger's cisely the opposite of what they (thought
Destruktion and Abbau, both of which they) intended.
imply a dismantling but not a destruction Derrida's early work is, then, devoted
of the traditional organizing concepts of primarily to a reconsideration of phenom-
Western ontology and metaphysics. enology. This is closely followed by a cri-
When he chose the term he can have had tique of structuralism, especially through
little idea of the importance it would later LeÂvi-Strauss, and of structural linguistics
assume for his later thinking. Derrida's through Saussure. Other linguistic
early work was primarily concerned threads are followed with (and sometimes
with a critique of Husserl and phenomen- against) Jakobson, Benveniste, Ricoeur,
ology. Soon Heidegger, Hegel, Nietzsche, Austin, and Searle. Derrida's fascination
Plato, Freud, Levinas, Rousseau, Foucault, with language is probably at its most evi-
LeÂvi-Strauss, MallarmeÂ, amongst many dent, and perhaps its most playful, in the
others, were to become objects of his essays of the 1970s devoted to literary wri-
deconstructive analysis. Deconstruction ters who are themselves ludic rather than
has been described as a form of `close logical: Genet, Sollers, Artaud, Joyce, and
reading', and to an extent the description poet-wordsmiths such as MallarmeÂ,
is correct, if inadequate. Deconstruction Baudelaire, or Ponge. The latest phase of
does indeed read closely and minutely: it Derrida's development is his concern with
disentangles the knots and con¯ations of psychoanalysis, ethics, and politics, fore-
hasty or specious argumentation, it grounded since the 1980s, but in fact
uncovers what may have been concealed, already apparent in his earliest essays of
it focuses on marginalia and footnotes, the 1960s, such as those on Freud, Bataille,
in the expectation that what has been and Levinas. This is the aspect of
relegated to the margins may prove Derrida's thought which is of most
paradoxically central to a less parochial immediate relevance to social theory,
understanding of the text. Deconstruc- though his studies of phenomenology,
tion reads between the lines and against structuralism, language, and literature
the grain; it joins in the play in the linguis- are all part of the deconstructive enter-
tic mechanism, but not in the sense of the prise, and have an essential contribution
`free-play' sometimes attributed to decon- to make in the theoretical domain, in par-
struction by Derrida's opponents, or ticular in their problematization of iden-
indeed his less rigorous followers. It tity, expression, intention, and meaning.
involves especially the demonstration of
textual self-contradiction, again not
merely in the traditional philosophical SOCIAL THEORY AND
sense of ®nding ¯aws in the logic of an CONTRIBUTIONS
opponent's argument, but rather in the
sense of teasing out the underlying incom- Derrida is clearly a philosopher rather
patibility between what writers believe than a social theorist, but his philosophy,
themselves to be arguing and what the like any major epistemological shift, has
Jacques Derrida 153
geometry have their origin in human and the work may be seen in some
thought rather than in nature, but they respects as a generalization of the ideas
are not located in space or time and do previously explored in the domain of
not depend on any particular human sub- mathematics and geometry. Husserl's
ject. They emerge rather from a process of position as a phenomenologist is that in
idealization and imagination which marks the innermost self-presence of conscious-
a form of nonpersonalized intellectual ness language is inessential and, if present,
progress. It will already be clear that as for example in interior monologue, it
Husserl is on treacherous terrain, and will necessarily teach nothing to the sub-
Derrida focuses in particular on his con- ject who is engaged in it. Derrida dis-
ception of the role of language in the agrees and, as so often, uses Husserl's
understanding and transmission of the own ideas to refute him. The nature of
concepts of mathematics and science. For the sign, in Husserl's account of it, is to
Husserl, linguistic objectivation and be repeatable and representative. It is
mathematical symbolization are an occa- these very features that Derrida uses to
sion for alienation and degradation. In undermine the vital distinctions Husserl
other words, the language of mathematics needs to maintain between ideal and
to some extent masks its truth in its real, ®ctive and effective, exterior and
purest form; even apparently fundamen- interior. Husserl's argument is that con-
tal axioms are surrounded by a `sedimen- sciousness is deluded when it imagines
tation of meaning' that separates them it can communicate with itself. Derrida
from their `origin' (1962: 44). But of reverses this, as we have seen, to argue
course, Derrida argues, it is language that it is Husserl who is deluded when
and in particular writing, that creates he imagines that consciousness is pure,
an autonomous transcendental ®eld in unmediated self-presence and that it has
the ®rst place, an ideal objective meaning, no need of any kind of representation.
independent of any singular subject. The impossibility of pure self-presence
Husserl describes failure, misunderstand- and the problematization of attempts to
ing, and noncommunication as merely argue for uncontaminated originality in
contingent and dependent on empirical domains as apparently diverse as con-
weakness; for Derrida they constitute sciousness and geometry are probably
part of the very conditions of possibility amongst the best-known features of
of objectivity. What Husserl wants to rela- Derrida's thinking, especially in their rela-
tivize as nonessential is for Derrida funda- tionship to language, speech and writing.
mental to the nature of the historical Derrida's refutation, most famously in Of
transmission of ideas and may be radical. Grammatology, of the priority of speech
Failure is part of a ®nitude which can over writing has been widely publicized,
never be entirely overcome. and frequently dismissed and misunder-
This debate over the status of language stood, at least by those too impatient to
in mathematics is, like Derrida's critique read any more than second-hand accounts
of Husserl's conception of temporality, of his ideas. Derrida, of course, does not
highly technical. But its consequences are claim that humankind developed writing,
radical. If language is not extraneous to in the usual sense of the term, before it
the concepts it conveys, but rather an developed speech. Such a claim would
inalienable part of them, if it is not merely be particularly dif®cult to sustain, though
the husk of ideas which transcend it, then we might note, with Derrida, that the lin-
the view of language as a mere transmitter guist Hjelmslev himself reminds us that
of pre-existing thought becomes unten- the discovery of alphabetic language is
able. Husserl's conception of language is hidden in prehistory, citing a remark of
one of the major subjects of Derrida's Bertrand Russell, not noted for his contri-
attention in Speech and Phenomena, bution to deconstruction, to the effect that
devoted to Husserl's theory of the sign, it is impossible to know for certain
Jacques Derrida 155
whether the oldest form of human expres- self-transparency, not merely because of
sion was spoken or written (1967b). Be human weakness and failure to achieve
that as it may, Derrida's claim is rather the aims set in their purity, but because
that all the features most commonly asso- the `subjects' themselves do not corre-
ciated with writing, that is inscription, spond to their presumed identity. One con-
repeatability, conventionality, are equally clusion that could be drawn from this is
to be found in speech. Derrida's term deeply pessimistic: divided subjects,
`archi-eÂcriture' refers to all these features unable to know or understand the world
common to both speech and writing, fully, lacking even the possibility of achiev-
but which are denied and repressed in ing self-knowledge, will not, a fortiori, be
theories that have an investment in able to construct a better society. Such is,
maintaining the natural and unmediated indeed, the nihilistic position attributed to
nature of the spoken word. Moreover, Derrida, or allegedly derived from his
speech and writing are too different for thinking, by many of his self-styled
writing to be deemed a mere transcription humanist critics. However, it is the exact
of speech, as is more immediately evident antithesis of Derrida's own position.
when nonphonetic writing systems such On the contrary, in Derrida's view, it is
as ideograms and hieroglyphs are precisely our lack of self-identity as sub-
considered. jects that makes ethics, and consequently
Derrida argues, then, that the enshrined ethical politics, possible at all.
common-sense view that writing repre- Responsibility, for Derrida, and the taking
sents speech, and that speech represents of responsible decisions, would not be
thought; and its corollary, that such repre- possible, or even thinkable, for a self-iden-
sentation necessarily involves a degree of tical subject, for such self-identity would
alienation of the original thought, is mis- preclude substantial change and predeter-
taken. For Derrida, I never express exactly mine all outcomes (1994a: 45, 53). Much of
what I intend, not because language or Derrida's most explicit thinking on these
writing deviates my intention, but rather issues is to be found in his publications of
because there never was a pure, original the last dozen years such as De l'esprit:
intention, or thought, present to my con- Heidegger et la question (1987), Force de loi
sciousness, pre-existing its linguistic (1994a), Politiques de l'amitie (1994b),
expression, and progressively distorted Spectres de Marx (1993a), Adieu (1997a)
in its successive representations. On the and Cosmopolites de tous les pays, encore un
contrary, the apparent self-presence of effort! (1997b), but its foundations are laid
consciousness is not so much a mark of far earlier in texts such as the 1964 essay
self-identity, but rather of self-division, on Levinas, `Violence and metaphysics',
and even at its most archaic level thought or Of Grammatology (1967b). One of the
is `impure' and, to use Artaud's terms, key terms Derrida uses in this context is
`stolen' from me by others (Derrida, that of the `promise'. The promise has a
1967c). Such a view of consciousness, sub- very special structure, that of futurity,
jectivity, thought, and language clearly and also of commitment to the future.
has immense implications for any theory The promise will never come about as a
of communication and, necessarily, for future state, but that does not invalidate it;
any theory of the social. If we are not on the contrary, like nonself-identity, it is
self-identical, self-present subjects, and if what frees us from essence, hypostasis,
we do not ever fully communicate what and stagnation. The promise is what
we think we intend, then there is no way enables us to conceive, perhaps even to tol-
in which many of the great social aims erate, but also importantly to narrow, the
could ever be fully realized. Common pro- gap, for example, between law and justice.
jects will necessarily founder if they pre- Law aims at justice but is never identical
sume self-identical subjects working with it; nor could it be, given that law is
together with self-understanding and precisely the attempt to understand and
156 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
enshrine what is just, but its very enshrin- says. His writing is not generally dif®cult
ing necessarily comes between the ideal or obscure just for the sake of it. Like
and the real by subjecting the ideal to the Lacan, Derrida does not want to be read
laws of empirical cases. The promise is `en oblique', that is to say with a hasty
also, Derrida maintains, the structure of glance down the page, his writing
democracy, for democracy too is an ideal requires time for re¯ection, and it does
which, in all attempts to enact it, encoun- not always receive it. Hence the vast num-
ters perpetual internal contradictions and ber of misrepresentations of his ideas
con¯icts which will always impede its full which may seem bewildering to anyone
realization. The danger, Derrida argues, who has genuinely read his writings in
lies not in the recognition that full democ- their original, nonsimpli®ed form.
racy will never be achieved in any state, or A case in point is his skirmish with
perfect justice in any legal system, but Habermas. Habermas takes Searle's side
rather in the illusion that either is possible, in the disagreement over Austin and per-
or worse, already achieved. Such illusions formatives. The debate starts in 1971 when
are not merely mistaken, they encourage a Derrida gave a paper entitled Signature
counterproductive social and historical EveÂnement Contexte devoted to Austin's
complacency and a potentially pernicious speech-act theory. This has been discussed
misunderstanding of other political or many times elsewhere (see, for example,
juridical models. Howells, 1998: 64±71), and I will not give
the details again here. What matters in this
context is that Derrida discusses Austin's
APPRAISAL OF KEY ADVANCES AND way of dealing with apparent exceptions
CONTROVERSIES to the rules of his theory, and argues, as
we have seen him do for Husserl, and
Derrida's work is nothing if not controver- indeed as he will do on many other occa-
sial. The controversies include the well- sions, that it is paradoxically the excluded
known debate (which may appear more exceptions which provide a way in to a
like a dialogue de sourds) with Searle better understanding of the apparent
over Austin and his theory of performa- `rules', in this case of performatives. The
tives, the violent con¯ict surrounding the paper seems to have enraged one of
pro-Nazi sympathies of Heidegger and the best-known followers of Austin, the
the alleged anti-Semitism of Paul de philosopher John Searle, who retaliated
Man, but also less transparently political in 1977 in an article entitled `Reiterating
questions associated with some of the differences: A Reply to Derrida',
Derrida's more gnomic pronouncements which accuses Derrida of misrepresenting
such as `il n'y a pas de hors-texte' (`there Austin. Searle is direct and patronizing:
is nothing outside the text') or even his Derrida says things `that are obviously
theory of metaphor. We will look at some false'; Searle lists `his major misunder-
of these issues brie¯y, but a general point standings and mistakes' and claims that
needs to be made ®rst: in so far as decon- `Derrida's Austin is unrecognizable'
struction sets out to question prevailing (Searle, 1977: 83). But bizarrely, however
orthodoxy in philosophy, theories of lan- much right he may or may not have on his
guage, psychoanalysis, ethics, or politics it side over Austin, Searle is clearly deeply
will necessarily disturb and sometimes mistaken over Derrida, for he attributes to
distress. Derrida enjoys writing, he him, almost systematically, views which
relishes the stunning effect his more are the exact opposite of those he in fact
radical statements may have on his con- holds or argues. The most straightforward
servative critics, he takes visible pleasure and evident of these concerns the dis-
in the cut-and-thrust of debate, but, like tinction between speech and writing. As
the most solemn of his critics, he tries to we have seen, Derrida is concerned to
say what he means and he means what he problematize the simple speech±writing
Jacques Derrida 157
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PsycheÂ: inventions de l'autre. Paris: GalileÂe; `Letter York and London: Routledge, 1992.
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Cecile Linsay, Jonathan Culler, Eduardo Cadava Ryklin, M. (1995b) Moscou aller-retour. Paris:
and Peggy Kamuf.) New York: Columbia EÂditions de l'Aube.
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du sujet', Confrontations. ApreÁs le sujet QUI VIENT, Temps Modernes, 587: 91±114.
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14
Roland Barthes
CHRIS ROJEK
R
oland Barthes (1915±80) was the and conference proceedings. These brief
most celebrated post-structuralist essays were on subjects that scarcely
stylist of his generation. It was a ®gured in the academic core curriculum
status he attained only after a lengthy of the day: washing powder ads, wrestling,
association with structuralism. For a dec- striptease, the Tour de France, the AbbeÂ
ade and a half, Barthes was pivotal in the Pierre, Poujade, the face of Greta Garbo,
project of trying to situate literary and cul- Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront, the
tural criticism upon a quasi-scienti®c foot- Dominici affair (an unsolved murder in
ing. In works like Writing Degree Zero rural France), and the evangelist Billy
(1965), Mythologies (1957), Elements of Graham. Eventually, they formed the
Semiology (1965) and The Fashion System basis for his in¯uential book Mythologies
(1967) he laid out the formal principles of (1957). Barthes added a longer theoretical
semiology, the science of signs. Semiology essay, `Myth Today,' to the volume, partly
was, perhaps, the high-water mark of to `academize' a publication which might
structuralist rhetoric. It was an approach otherwise have seemed an amorphous
which promised nothing less than the concoction. Mythologies was not a dry
demysti®cation of culture and communi- academic text replete with references and
cation. It was a noble but, with hindsight, a detailed biography. Instead, Barthes
giddy, turn in the history of ideas. maintained a pithy, uncluttered style
From the ®rst, Barthes was wary of the which was, and remains, quite atypical
possibility of being con®ned by the project of orthodox academic writing. It contrib-
of academic system-building. Indeed, uted to the succeÁs de scandale of the book.
throughout his life he was more attracted Mythologies captured a wide audience
to the practice of writing and teaching, who saw in it a powerful representative
than academic life per se. As he observed of the Nouvelle Critique developing in
on several occasions, his academic career social and cultural study.
was, in fact, somewhat unusual. To begin Barthes was also unusual in devoting
with, his ®rst publications appeared as himself to semiology when the subject
Roland Barthes 163
sign®ed. Langue is the underlying system writer's personal experience and the
upon which communication is founded, matrix of the events which have shaped
and parole is articulation itself. Synchrony him or her. Crucial to the argument is
refers to the system of language at any the proposition that writers have no
given moment, and diachrony to changes choice in the style of their body of knowl-
in the development of the system. The edge and attitudes. These matters emerge
signi®er refers to the acoustic or graphic from the matrix of culture in which the
element of articulation, and the signi®ed, is writer is implicated by virtue of birth. In
the mental concept typically associated this sense it is correct to posit a fatalistic
with it. structure in writing, since no writer can
Structuralism posed a radical challenge choose the origins or circumstances of
to both common sense and analytic philo- his or her birth. However, Barthes refuses
sophy. It dismissed essentialist notions to allow what classical structuralism
of truth and reality. Indeed, Saussure would propose, which is that writers are
proposed that the individual units of devoid of choice, since they merely re¯ect
language are arbitrary in the sense that the values of the structural matrix in
they derive from custom. Meanings are which they are rooted. His notion of
to be understood as effects of the host writing emphasizes the `individuality'
sign system in which articulation occurs. and `commitment' of the writer.
Classical structuralism exhibits none of Yet at the same time, Barthes is con-
the concern with individuality and style cerned to deny the inference that writers
that marks all of Barthes's work. For are free spirits. He contends that they have
example, one of the most famous examples no power over the effects of their writing
of the application of structuralist method on society. There are traces here of a neo-
in the social sciences is the anthropological Durkheimian comprehension of society as
work of Claude LeÂvi-Strauss. LeÂvi-Strauss the ultimate `social fact', which possesses
(1966) dedicated himself to uncovering priority, externality, and constraint over
the generative grammar of mythical individual intentionality and behaviour.
thought. He believed that an underlying Barthes's discussion of writing appears
structure unites the myths, rituals, oral to reinforce the Leavisite argument that
traditions, kinship systems, and modes the writer occupies a heroic role in
of symbolic representation between out- challenging the conventions of language
wardly different cultures. His method and style. However, his insistence on the
therefore seeks to reveal the shallowness pre-eminence of the social structure
of form and the depth and unity of repudiates the inference. There is an
structure. undoubted tension here, which recurs
Interestingly, as early as Writing Degree throughout all of his writing.
Zero, Barthes advocated individuality as During his schooldays and terms of ill-
the de®ning mark of the author. He ness, Barthes's friends and fellow patients
comprehended this in somatic terms, as predicted that he would become a novelist.
deriving from the biological body of the His literary and cultural writing reveal
author, the unique corpus of opinions and him struggling to ®nd a voice through
attitudes. To consolidate the point, he dis- criticism. It is not a natural voice. He
tinguished between language, style, and showed no remorse for discarding it
writing. Language, he proposed, is simply after the poetic turn to post-structuralism
the natural order of meanings uni®ed by in the 1970s. Yet this most prima facie con-
habit. It is the `boundary' or the `horizon' ®dent of critics was ill at ease with the
which literature and criticism must trans- prospect of ®nally revealing himself
cend if it is to be `noticed'. Style, he through an imagined work of ®ction. A
continued, is the imagery and vocabulary Lover's Discourse (1977a) and Camera
which ultimately spring from the body. Lucida (1982) adopt ®ctional and poetic
They are the representations of the techniques yet remain anchored in the
166 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
An obsession with style is the domin- sis, and unleashed a ferment of dissolving
ant motif of both his structuralist and hierarchies and melting presuppositions.
post-structuralist thought. Eventually, he It was hugely, endlessly exciting.
distinguished between two kinds of writ- Yet all indeed was not as it seemed.
ing: the eÂcrivain, which is the instrumental, Barthes himself became distressed when
densely conditioned prose typical of his students in May 1968 taunted him
orthodox academic and research writing; with the slogan that `structures do not
and the eÂcrivant which is the more perso- take to the streets' (Calvet, 1968: 164±70).
nal, idiosyncratic prose associated with Barthes had not yet broken with his
the creative writer. From the early 1970s, structuralist moorings. The students'
the latter became Barthes's trademark. understanding of transcendent agency
Barthes died with an unwritten novel in fell foul of his somewhat prosaic belief
mind. Following the commercial success in the necessity of limits, imposed by
of A Lover's Discourse, and his oft-stated the priority, externality, and constraint
dislike of the conventions of academic of the social order. They wanted the
life, it is conceivable that, had he recov- world, and they wanted it now.
ered from his injuries, he would have Similarly, despite the implication that
turned to full time ®ction. At all events, meaning is simply a link in the great
Calvet's biography implies that in the chain of decoding, Barthes's left-wing sen-
months prior to his untimely death, timents pointed to bourgeois class rule
Barthes was oppressed with the thought as an ultimate limit in popular culture.
that his life of criticism had run its course For Barthes it was the bourgeois power
(Calvet, 1994: 242±7). This, and the volte structure that naturalized distortion in
face towards post-structuralism in the culture and everyday life. The purpose
1970s, has prompted some observers of distortion was to perpetuate bourgeois
to be sceptical about the depth of his domination. The roots of this standpoint
former attachment to structuralism. probably lie in his early reading of Marx.
Be that as it may, the attempt to fuse
Denotation and Connotation Marxist structuralism with Saussure's
structuralism was rather forced.
Barthes's status as a founding father of Mounin (1977) was one of the ®rst critics
cultural studies and cultural sociology to observe that Barthes's application of
resides in his application of the signi®er/ Saussure's dichotomy was idiosyncratic.
signi®ed dichotomy in the study of It will be remembered that Saussure
popular culture. Barthes took over this posited that meaning is arbitrary. For
tool from Saussure, but he massively him, the meaning of a word derives from
elaborated it by examining the nature of its position in the language chain of which
sign systems in advertising, cinema, it is a part. In contrast, Barthes attributed
television, sport, travel guides, agony symbolic meaning to elements in sign
columns, science ®ction, celebrity, race, systems. That is, he read signs as carrying
food, and many other elements of popular an ideological payload. The classical
culture. From Barthes came the dual example is the famous analysis in
message that nothing in culture was Mythologies of a Paris Match cover show-
what it seemed to be, and that all of ing a picture of a young Negro soldier in a
popular culture could be decoded. Not a French uniform saluting, presumably the
little of the appeal of this argument lay in French ¯ag. Barthes writes:
its re¯exivity. Barthes's method stood the
Whether naively or not, I see very well what it
test of being turned upon itself to reveal
signifes to me: that France is a great Empire, that
that even the author symptomizes all her sons, without colour discrimination, faith-
`naturalized' codes of communication. It fully serve under her ¯ag, and that there is no
was as if Barthes had dropped a spoon better answer to detractors of an alleged colonial-
of liver salts into social and cultural analy- ism then the zeal shown by this Negro in serving
Roland Barthes 169
his so-called oppressors. I am therefore faced with the bourgeoisie, intent on presenting
a greater semiological system: there is a signi®er, language as truth. There is a critical
itself already formed with a previous system
political economy implicit in this reading,
(a black soldier is giving the French salute); there is
a signi®ed (it is a purposeful mixture of French-
but it is unelaborated and untested.
ness and militariness); and ®nally there is a Barthes leaves it to the reader to infer the
presence of the signi®ed through the signi®er. necessary connections. The whole process
(Barthes, 1957: 126±7, emphasis in original) by which bourgeois class rule is posited to
naturalize distortion in popular culture is
A remarkable feature of this famous undertheorized.
example is the inexactitude which under- Today, many of Barthes's mythologies
pins its apparent precision. Barthes infers read like sophisticated, self-re¯exive
that the French soldier is saluting `with versions of the radical nineteenth century
eyes uplifted' to the fold of the tricolour feuilletons of the Latin Quartier broad-
(p. 126). It is an indispensable move in his sheets. They are designed to disaggregate
argument, because it supports his conten- what are taken to be the taken-for-granted
tion that the subconscious effect of the assumptions of bourgeois thought. They
photograph is to reinforce nationalism do not situate themselves into a general
and the merit of colonialism. Yet is it historical context, nor do they seek to
not also an additional example of his replace bourgeois categories. Their func-
eclecticism and intellectual ¯anerie for it tion is esentially critical.
is asserted and not demonstrated through Beyond all doubt, they ful®lled this
empirical research? function in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Leaving that aside, one reason why the Anglo-American readers encountered
example is frequently cited is that it neatly Barthes apparently slashing through
encapsulates the distinction between myths at a moment in which the homespun
denotation and connotation which is at platitudes of the Macmillan±Eisenhower
the heart of Barthes's analysis of myth. governments seemed increasingly indi-
The distinction was originally made by gestible. Barthes's method seemed to
the Danish linguist, Louis Hjelmslev promise liberation from the sanctimo-
(1961). Denotation refers to the factual nious cold moralism of the age.
articulation of an idea or graphic image. Revealingly, when Barthes attempted
Connotation refers to the chain of repre- to reprise the style of Mythologies in a
sentations that the idea or graphic image weekly newspaper column for Le Nouvel
signi®es. In the hands of Barthes, connota- Observateur in 1978±9, the exercise ran for
tion becomes the instrument of ideology. only three and a half months. Barthes's
The implicit meaning of the signi®ed criticism of consumer society in the
becomes the happy hunting ground of 1950s bene®ted from a clear target (the
the semiologist. values of petit bourgeois culture) and
Again, it is worth noting that Barthes's af®liation to a clear alternative (socialism).
understanding of the effect of ideology By the time that Barthes took up his
focuses upon style rather than content. pen again, the position of intellectuals
To refer back to the Paris Match cover of and society was less clear cut. In the time
the Negro soldier for a moment, what of Mythologies it was safe to assume
interests Barthes is the lighting of the that culture and character were orientated
shot, the `buttonholing' arrangement of to the models forged under war of
body and representation, the cropping of liberation from the Nazi threat. Hetero-
the picture and, of course, the ideological sexuality was posited as the dominant
function performed in the selection of the and `natural' form of sexual identity;
image as a feature cover for the magazine. nationalism was the dominant collective
As to the roles of the photographer, editor, ideology; people felt bound by their
and publisher, it is merely assumed that relation to class, ethnicity, subculture and
they are ideological labourers, salaried by so on.
170 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
By the late 1970s none of these assump- But his work is also open to basic objec-
tions was self-evident. Culture and tions. Two are of note here. First, Barthes
character were now recognized as poly- failed to counterbalance his advocacy of
valent and un®xed. In his later work, the plurality of the text with a tenable
Barthes (1977b) himself proposed that it epistemology. After S/Z, his thought
is inadmissible to read any single code progressively exhibited symptoms of
of identity, association or practice as solipsism. Because this became more
paramount. On the contrary, culture and pronounced in his post-structuralist
character are composed of a variety of phase, he grew increasingly divorced
codes which blend and clash in constant from conceptualizing categories in terms
interplay. of transpersonal experience. In his College
This seemed radical and liberating in de France inaugural lecture he surprised,
the 1950s and 1960s, when the governance and dismayed, many in his audience, by
of everyday life seemed to be dominated announcing bluntly that language is fascist
by uniform codes of behaviour. But by the (Merquior, 1986: 159; Calvet, 1994: 217).
late 1970s, the question of the theoretical Barthes meant that language is ideologi-
formations emerging from the attack on cally impregnated and therefore, at the
dominant codes was already rising to the subconscious level, compelled subjective
top of the agenda. By 1978, the empire capitulation. The implication was stark:
had already struck back, and the turn in communication could not be taken on
cultural criticism was leading to the trust. The very categories we use to
postcolonial, postfeminist, postsociety make sense of the world are shaped by
positions that gained ascendancy in the the suffocating hand of ideology.
1980s and 1990s. Compared with these The best that can be said about this is
developments, Barthes in the 1970s that it was a precipitate declaration. The
seemed to be beating a hollow drum. only pre-emptive measure Barthes identi-
®ed is to develop a writerly refusal to
accept boundaries. Transcendence is
APPRAISAL OF KEY ADVANCES AND therefore restricted to episodic interludes
CONTROVERSIES of `ecstacy' achieved by penetrating the
veil of received language. But this pre-
Barthes's application of Saussure's signif- judged that `belonging' and `co-operation'
ier/signi®ed dichotomy was immensely are exiled from the realm of human
in¯uential. Traces of it are apparent in achievement. It discounted the sociability
Derrida's method of deconstruction; of human nature, and concomitant rela-
Bhabha's (1994), Said's (1978, 1993), and tions of trust and respect that make social
Spivak's (1988, 1990) postcolonialism; the agency possible. Instead it fell back upon a
postmodernism of Baudrillard (1983, 1987) neo-Kantian view of the individual and
and Jameson (1991) and Stuart Hall's knowledge. History itself was reduced to
(1986, 1988) interest in hybridity and a text. Causal explanation, in the Weberian
diaspora. In addition, Barthes's applica- sense of the term, is invalidated.
tion of the signi®er/signi®ed dichotomy Although there are obvious analytical
established the principle that culture is advantages in treating history and culture
structured like a language. This has been in textual terms, it is not satisfactory to
an important foundational element in the treat readings as equivalent. Napoleon
development of cultural studies. Without may have believed that he defeated
doubt, Barthes is a seminal ®gure in Wellington and Blucher at the Battle of
modern semiology and cultural studies. Waterloo in 1815, but if he did, he was
His assured prose style, and work on deluded. Historical events are not merely
codes of signi®cation, became a role `referential illusions' as Barthes (1986: 148)
model for a widely practised form of alleges. They alter the course of common
cultural analysis. experience. Yet without an epistemological
Roland Barthes 171
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J
ulia Kristeva was born in 1941 in most in¯uential books, Revolution in Poetic
Bulgaria. She was educated by Language, she criticizes both Husserlian
French nuns, studied literature and Phenomenology and Saussurean linguis-
worked as a journalist before going to tics for formulating theories of the subject
Paris in 1966 to do graduate work with and language that cannot account for the
Lucien Goldmann and Roland Barthes. processes through which a subject speaks.
While in Paris she ®nished her doctorate There are two ways in which Kristeva
in French literature, became involved in brings the speaking body back into
the in¯uential journal Tel Quel, and began theories of language. First, she proposes
psychoanalytic training. In 1979 she ®n- that bodily drives are discharged through
ished her training as a psychoanalyst. language. Second, she maintains that the
Currently, Kristeva is a professor of lin- structure or logic of signi®cation is
guistics at the University of Paris VII and already operating in the material body.
a regular visiting professor at Columbia On Kristeva's analysis language is in the
University. In addition to her work as body and the body is in language.
a practising psychoanalyst and her theo- Kristeva's most in¯uential contribution
retical writings, Kristeva is a novelist. to philosophy of language has been her
Kristeva's work re¯ects her diverse distinction between the semiotic and the
background. Her writing is an intersection symbolic elements of signi®cation. All
between philosophy, psychoanalysis, signi®cation is made up of these two
linguistics, and cultural and literary elements in varying proportions. The
theory. She developed the science of semiotic element is the organization of
what she calls `semanalysis', which is a drives in signifying practices. It is asso-
combination of Freud's psychoanalysis ciated with rhythms and tones that are
and Saussure's and Peirce's semiology. meaningful parts of language and yet do
With this new science Kristeva challenges not represent or signify something.
traditional psychoanalytic theory, linguis- Rhythms and tones do not represent
tic theory, and philosophy. bodily drives; rather bodily drives are
to signi®cation is threats and the pain of development the maternal body poses
separation, then why would anyone make the greatest threat to the border of the
this move? Why not remain in the safe subject.
haven of the maternal body and refuse For Kristeva, before the mother can
the social and signi®cation with its become an object for the infant, she
threats? Kristeva suggests that if the becomes an abject. Through this process
accounts of Freud and Lacan were correct, of abjection the infant ®nds the maternal
then more people would be psychotic. She body disgusting, if still fascinating, and is
maintains that separation also must be able to leave it behind provided that it has
pleasurable and this explains the move support from a loving imaginary father. It
away from the maternal body and into is only by leaving the maternal body that
signi®cation. Just as the separations the infant can enter the realm of signi®ca-
inherent in the material of the body are tion through which they can subsequently
pleasurable, even if they are also some- take the mother as an object. Still within
times painful, so too the separations the phase of abjection, prior to the distinc-
that make signi®cation possible are tion between subject and object, the infant
pleasurable. The logic of signi®cation is struggles with separation. Abjection is the
already operating in the body and there- process through which the infant over-
fore the transition to language is not comes its identi®cation with the mother.
as dramatic and mysterious as traditional The male child can later eroticize the
psychoanalytic theory makes it out abject maternal body in order to love a
to be. woman by splitting the disgusting abject
body from the fascinating abject body.
The female child, on the other hand, too
closely identi®es with the maternal female
! body to split the object and instead splits
herself by identifying with the abject
Kristeva's alternative account of the maternal body. This is why in Black
infant's entrance into the social and Sun Kristeva calls feminine sexuality a
signi®cation complicates both the tradi- melancholy sexuality. Within heterosexist
tional psychoanalytic accounts of the culture a woman can neither eroticize the
paternal function and of the maternal abject maternal body nor leave it behind.
function. In addition to the Freudian Kristeva maintains that instead the
or Lacanian father of the law, Kristeva maternal body becomes a `Thing' locked
develops what she calls the `imaginary in the crypt of her psyche.
father'. The imaginary father provides Unlike Freud and Lacan, who attribute
the loving support necessary for the language acquisition and socialization to
child to leave behind the maternal body. the paternal function and ignore the func-
Kristeva argues that the paternal threats tion of the mother as anything other than
are not enough to encourage the infant the primary object or part object, Kristeva
to leave the maternal body. Moreover, emphasizes the importance of the
paternal threats cannot work as a counter- maternal function in the social develop-
balance or compensation for the abjection ment of individuals. She insists that
of the maternal body necessary in order to there is regulation and structure in the
enter the social. Kristeva maintains that maternal body and the child's relationship
individuation requires what she calls to that body. Before the paternal law is in
`abjection'. The most powerful location place the infant is subject to maternal reg-
of abjection in the development of any ulations, what Kristeva calls `the law
individual is the maternal body. In before the law'. While in the womb the
Powers of Horror, Kristeva describes foetus is engaged in processes of exchange
the abject as that which calls borders with the maternal body that are regulated
into questions; and in an individual's by that body. After birth, there are further
exchanges between the maternal body the operations of abjection through which
and the infant. The mother monitors we attempt to guarantee the separation of
and regulates what goes into, and what culture from nature is useful to cultural
comes out of, the infant's body. theorists interested in the dynamics of
Language acquisition and socialization, marginalization and exclusion, especially
insofar as they develop out of regulations insofar as Kristeva continually elaborates
and law, have their foundations in the various ways that the repressed abject
maternal function prior to the Law of the returns. The process of abjection is never
Father of traditional psychoanalysis. completed. Rather, like everything
In addition to revolutionizing the repressed, it is bound to return.
position and importance of the maternal Although Kristeva maintains that all
function in psychoanalytic theory, language and culture set up separations
Kristeva revolutionizes the paternal func- and order by repressing maternal
tion. In Tales of Love she suggests that the authority, she also insists that this
paternal function does not just include repressed maternal authority returns in
threats and law. The father is not merely religious rituals, literature, and art. In
the stern father of the law. Rather, she pro- fact, some of her work suggests that all
poses a loving father, `the imaginary art is the result of a sublimation of the
father'. The imaginary father provides repressed maternal relation, in other
the loving support that enables the child words a form of incest. While in Powers
to abject its mother and enter the social. of Horror Kristeva does not address sexual
Kristeva describes the imaginary father difference in relation to abjection, in inter-
as a mother±father conglomerate. In her views and later work, including Black Sun,
scenario the imaginary father performs Kristeva indicates some of the ways
the function of love. It is the child's feeling in which the process of abjection works
that it is loved that allows the child to differently for males and females. We
separate from both the safe haven of the could say that the incest taboo affects
maternal body and the abjected maternal men and women differently and therefore
body; threats and laws alone do not pro- the repressed maternal returns differently
vide this necessary support. in relation to men and women. Given that
In Powers of Horror, Kristeva argues that men can separate from the maternal body
collective identity formation is analogous and enter the social, they can also return
to individual identity formation. She to it through art and literature without
claims that abjection is co-extensive in threatening their position within the social
both individual and collective identity, order. Art and literature that expresses
which operate according to the same what Kristeva identi®es as the semiotic
logic of abjection. Whereas individuals maternal or abject element of signi®cation
marks their difference from the maternal is revolutionary insofar as it brings the
body through a process of abjection, repressed maternal back into signi®cation
society marks off its difference from and the social order. While the male
animals through a process of abjection. artist can access this repressed maternal
On her analysis, however, the animal semiotic and still maintain his position
realm has been associated with the mater- within the social order, the female artist's
nal, which ultimately represents the realm return to the maternal semiotic threatens
of nature from which human culture must her social position, which is always more
separate to assert its humanity. Kristeva's precarious because of her identi®cation
analysis of the process of abjecting the with the abjected maternal body. In other
maternal as inherent in social formation words, it is more dangerous for a woman
is an elaboration of Freud's thesis that to articulate the excluded or repressed
the social is founded on the murder of maternal body in her work because as a
the father and the incest taboo. Kristeva's woman within a patriarchal culture she is
provocative reading of the incest taboo as already marginal. If a woman identi®es
+ #$
% #%&'# ( #) *# (
with the semiotic in her work, she risks the pattern and logic of language is
not being taken seriously by the social already found within the body, the pattern
order. In terms of everyday experience, and logic of otherness is already found
this means that men can be more experi- within the subject. This is why the subject
mental than women can be in their work is never stable but always in process/on
and still be taken seriously. trail.
On the other hand, women can take up Kristeva suggests that if we can learn to
the law in revolutionary ways. Kristeva live with the return of the repressed other
suggests that from her marginal position within our own psyches, then we can learn
within the social order, a woman can to live with others. On the one hand, living
challenge the symbolic element of signi®- with others confronts us with our own
cation merely by embracing the law otherness, the stranger within our own
or reason as a woman. When a marginal identity. On the other hand, familiarizing
person inserts herself into the subject posi- ourselves with the stranger within helps
tion at the centre of culture, she changes us deal with the strangers in our midst.
the effect of that position. This is why in Otherness and strangeness are the pro-
`From One Identity to an Other' Kristeva ducts of repression and abjection, which
(1980a) claims that perhaps it takes a set up the border of our own proper
woman or another marginal ®gure to pro- identity both as individuals and as social
pel theoretical reason into in®nite analysis collectives. For Kristeva, there is an inti-
of its own subject position as always a mate connection between our relations
subject-in-process (1975: 146). Women to our own psychic economies and our
also have a privileged access to the relations to strangers or foreigners. In
maternal body through childbirth. In Strangers to Ourselves, she says `to worry
`Stabat Mater' in Kristeva, 1983) and or to smile, such is the choice when we are
`Motherhood According to Bellini' (in assailed by the strange; our decision
Kristeva, 1980a) Kristeva makes the depends on how familiar we are with
provocative claim that the desire to have our own ghosts' (p. 289). This is because
children is a sublimated incestuous desire being with others necessitates being with
for reunion with the maternal body. our own otherness.
While artists gain access to the repressed Xenophobia, then, is the collective ana-
maternal body through their work, the logue to individual phobia in which the
mother gains access to the repressed abject is excluded as threatening and dan-
maternal body through childbirth, which gerous in order to justify shutting it out or
is a type of reunion with her own mother. killing it. Just as individuals need some
The repressed maternal within culture counterbalance to support abjection so
is the luminal ®gure in Kristeva's analysis that it does not become phobia, collectiv-
of the foreigner in Strangers to Ourselves. ities also need some cultural counter-
Ultimately it is the maternal body that balance as a `rebirth with and against
exiles leave behind and the maternal abjection'. On the individual level the
body that as foreigners they conjure in counterbalance for abjection is the loving
the imagination of the new culture. On imaginary father; on the collective level
Kristeva's analysis, the body itself is the counterbalance seems to involve the
always a screen for the repressed maternal imagination engaged through interpreta-
body. So, any uncanniness associated with tion and self-re¯ective analysis. Kristeva
the body points to the return of the suggests that if we could acknowledge
repressed maternal, both familiar and the death drive, there would be fewer
unfamiliar to us. Just as she brings deaths.
the speaking body back into language by The acknowledgment of drives is
putting language into the body, she brings possible only through an elaborative inter-
the subject into the place of the other by pretation supported by imagination.
putting the other into the subject. Just as Kristeva argues throughout her work
-
that while religion, art, and literature than political revolutions we have moral
provide important counterbalances to revolutions, both of which rely on revolts
abjection through catharsis, only psycho- against authority that Kristeva associates
analysis or self-re¯ective analysis provide with imagination.
the elaboration necessary to address the
cause and not just abate the symptoms of
abjection or repression. Because analytic ,
discourse both discharges and interprets
semiotic forces, it can work not only as a
safety valve for repressed drives but also Kristeva's theory of abjection has had
a tool for altering the place of those a signi®cant impact on some social and
drives within the psychic structure. cultural theorists. The theory of abjection
Interpretation is crucial to changing our is promising in that it describes a relation-
relation to otherness and enabling an ship with what is not recognizable as
embrace of the return of the repressed. myself. It is limiting, however, in that
Interpretation is possible only through it describes that relationship as one of
imagination, which Kristeva believes has exclusion, which can be overcome only
suffered in the twentieth century. through a proper recognition and
In New Maladies of the Soul, Kristeva assimilation ± if always only tentative
suggests that contemporary Western cul- ± of abjection through psychoanalytic
ture is facing a ¯attening of the psyche, elaboration. At one extreme, the problem
which corresponds to a lack of imagina- with Kristeva's notion of abjection is that
tion. Our imaginations have been taken it can be interpreted to suggest that other-
over by two-dimensional media images ness is always assimilated or incorporated
or drugs (prescription and illicit). By into the subject or self-same. At the other
substituting surface images for psychic extreme, the problem with Kristeva's
depth, drugs and media images close notion of abjection is that it can be inter-
psychic space, which is the space between preted to suggest that exclusion and
the biological and the social, the space in antagonism are the only possible relations
which affects materialize between bodily to otherness.
organs and social customs. Meaning is For example, abjection is a central con-
constituted in this space between the cept in Judith Butler's Gender Trouble.
body and culture. The meaning of Judith Butler extends Kristeva's theory of
words (in the narrow sense of the sym- abjection when she analyses the dynamics
bolic element of language) is charged of exclusion inherent in identi®cation. In
with affective meaning (in the broader Gender Trouble, Butler maintains that:
sense of the semiotic element of language)
The `abject' designates that which has been
through the movement of drive energy expelled from the body, discharged as excrement,
within psychic space. literally rendered `Other'. This appears as an
In her latest work, the two volumes on expulsion of alien elements, but the alien is effec-
the powers and limits of psychoanalysis tively established through this expulsion. The con-
(1996b, 1997), and L'avenir d'une reÂvolte, struction of the `not-me' as abject establishes the
Kristeva develops a connection between boundaries of the body which are also the ®rst
contours of the subject. (Butler, 1990: 133)
imagination and revolt. Reminiscent
of her suggestion in Revolution in Poetic Like Kristeva's own use of abjection,
Language that poetic revolution is analo- Butler's use of abjection seems at times
gous to political revolution, in her recent to make violence and exclusion a neces-
work Kristeva relates the revolt necessary sary part of identi®cation and subjectivity.
for creativity and imagination to earlier If taken as standards for identi®cation,
notions of political revolution. She argues however, theories of abjection normalize
that revolutions take a different form in the most hateful and threatening kinds of
contemporary Western culture; rather discrimination, exclusion, and oppression.
+. #$
% #%&'# ( #) *# (
If our identities are necessarily formed by with each other in order to constitute
rejecting and excluding what is different, themselves as groups.
then discrimination is inherent in the Even with its problems, Kristeva's
process of identi®cation. On the level notion of abjection has been useful for
of individual identi®cation, if self-identity social and cultural theorists. Feminist the-
is formed by rejecting what is different, in orists in particular have used the notion of
the ®rst instance, the infant rejects its abjection to help explain the dynamics of
mother. If abjection of the mother or women's oppression. Although Kristeva
maternal body is described as a normal has an ambivalent, sometimes hostile,
or natural part of child development, relation to feminism and some aspects
then one consequence is that without of the feminist movement in France, her
some antidote to this abjection, all of our theories provide some innovative
images of mothers and maternal bodies approaches for feminist theory. One of
are at some level abject because we all her central contributions to feminist theory
necessarily rejected our own mothers in is her call for a new discourse of maternity.
order to become individuals. In addition, In `Stabat Mater' she criticizes some of the
as Kristeva says in Black Sun, matricide traditional discourses of maternity in
becomes our vital necessity. Western culture, speci®cally the myth of
Part of my own project has been to sug- the Virgin Mary, because they do not
gest alternatives to the traditional philoso- present the mother as primarily a speaking
phical and psychoanalytic views of being.
individuation and self-identity that are Without a new discourse of maternity
built around the exclusion of otherness we cannot begin to conceive of ethics. If
and difference. In particular, as an alter- ethics is the philosophy of our obligations
native to models of the mother±infant to each other, then in order to do ethics we
relationship that view the mother as an need to analyse the structure of our rela-
obstacle that must be overcome in order tions to each other. And if, as Freudian
for the infant to become a social subject, psychoanalytic theory maintains, our
I endorse a model of the mother±infant relation with our mothers is the model
relationship that views the mother as for all subsequent relations, then we
the ®rst co-operative partner in a social need to analyse our relation with our
relationship that makes subjectivity mothers. In Western culture, however,
possible. this relation has been ®gured as a relation
On the level of social identi®cation, if to nature, a relation that threatens the
group identity is formed by rejecting social and any possibility of ethical rela-
what is different, then war, hatred, and tions. On this view the relation with the
oppression are inevitable and unavoid- mother is not a social relation and there-
able parts of social development. If fore not a model for an ethical relation. In
overcoming oppression or living order to conceive of an ethical relation, we
together as persons is possible, we must need to conceive of a relation with the
reject normative notions of abjection. We mother as a social relation with a speaking
can endorse theories of abjection as social being. At this point Kristeva's
descriptions of the dynamics of oppres- theory is similar to Luce Irigaray's . But
sion and exclusion without accepting whereas Irigaray maintains that we need
that abjection is necessary to self-identity. a new discourse of maternity that allows
If, following Kristeva, we carry the us to imagine an identi®cation with the
analysis of identity on the individual maternal body as a social relation rather
level to the group level, we can suppose than an antisocial relation, Kristeva main-
that there are ways for groups to identify, tains that we need to complicate our
for people to come together, without notion of maternity in order to separate
necessarily excluding others as hostile out the maternal body ± which she insists
threats. Groups don't need to be at war must be abjected ± from the mother's
+
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Columbia University Press, 1992. Allen & Unwin.
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Kristeva, J. (1997) La reÂvolte intime: Pouvoirs et limites University Press.
de la psychanalyse II. Paris: Fayard. Oliver, Kelly (1993b) `Julia Kristeva's feminist revo-
Kristeva, J. (1998a) L'avenir d'une reÂvolte. Paris: lution', Hypatia: a Journal of Feminist Philosophy, 8
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tien avec Philippe Petit. Paris: Les eÂditions Textuel. in Julia Kristeva's Writings. New York: Routledge.
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, solution to the mind±body problem', in M.
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Daughter's Seduction. London: Macmillan.
L
uce Irigaray was born in Belgium Speculum de l'autre femme/Speculum of the
in 1930 and emigrated to Paris in Other Woman (1985a). Irigaray presented
the early 1960s. During her time this thesis at the Ecole Freudienne where
in Belgium, she gained a Masters degree she had been taught by Jacques Lacan.
in philosophy and literature from the Her critique of Western ideas incor-
University of Louvain (1955) and worked porated theoretical attacks on the key
as a high school teacher (1956±9). Sub- positions outlined in the work of Freud
sequently, she took up the post of assistant and Lacan and was consequently deemed
researcher at the Fondation Nationale de la heretical. Irigaray was immediately alien-
Recherche Scienti®que where she worked ated from Parisian intellectual circles
until she left for France. Once in Paris, and her university course proposal for
Irigaray completed a further Masters the subsequent year was rejected.
degree in psychology (1961) and also It was not until the 1980s that she began
gained a Diploma in Psychopathology to be recognized as an important theorist
from the Institut de Psychologie de Paris by her compatriots. In the meantime,
(1962). Her ®rst doctoral thesis in lin- Irigaray continued in her post as Director
guistics, entitled `The Language of the of Research at the Centre Nationale de la
Demented', was completed at the Recherche Scienti®que in Paris, working
University of Paris X at Nanterre in 1968 as part of a multidisciplinary team consti-
and subsequently published by Mouton tuted by linguists, neurologists, psychia-
(1973). trists, and philosophers. She continued
Between 1970 and 1974, Irigaray taught also to develop her psychoanalytic prac-
at the University of Paris VIII at Vincennes tice. In 1982, she was appointed to the
and studied psychoanalytic theory at Chaire Internationale de Philosophie at
the Ecole Freudienne. She completed her Erasmus University in Rotterdam.
second doctorate in philosophy at the During the mid- to late-1980s, she taught
University of Paris VIII in 1974. This at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences
was to become her ®rst major work and Sociales, the ColleÁge Internationale de
For Irigaray, symbolic patterns of repre- women (and men) that is rooted in the
sentation deny the relevance of sexual recognition of sexual difference. The
difference to the ways in which human developmental aspect of Irigaray's work
subjects relate to issues surrounding cor- makes it is impossible to read the recent,
poreality and (re)production. She claims apparently more accessible volumes of
that phallocentrism has a vested interest her oeuvre without referring back to read-
in subverting difference and denying its ings of her earliest work.
existence insofar as it maintains a logic Throughout her work, Irigaray avoids
that is rooted in an a priori of the same. prescriptive measures. Instead, she
Subjectivity and meaning are affected by attempts to evoke the feminine, to make
this denial of difference which accounts the gaps of what she is able to articulate
for the hierarchical nature of many social resonate with meaning for the readers
relations and for the privileging of the engaging with her thought. Despite the
masculine term in the binaries that struc- change of style in her more recent publica-
ture such hierarchies. tions, Irigaray's work remains highly
Irigaray's style is highly complex and complex and deeply inscribed with the
allusive. The extreme style of her writing processes of critique and disruption that
may be interpreted as an attempt to repre- characterize the earlier writings. Irigaray
sent the excess of the feminine that goes has stated that what she wants `is not to
beyond the boundaries of representation. create a theory of woman, but to secure
She makes few references to sources for a place for the feminine within sexual
her `citations' and she writes in a very difference' (1985b: 159). Throughout her
slippery manner. Many of her texts are work, sexual difference functions as the
richly poetic in style and depend upon a yardstick for the analysis of sociocultural
manipulation of typographical conven- relations. Irigaray gives no consideration
tions to disrupt the traditional ¯ow of to modes of difference based on class or
reading and engagement with the text. race, for example. For Irigaray, woman
This has led numerous commentators to is specularized and commodi®ed by
contextualize Irigaray's thought, along symbolic patterns of discourse and
with that of HeÂleÁne Cixous and Julia representation. In what follows, I shall
Kristeva, in terms of eÂcriture feÂminine. To outline Irigaray's critique of symbolic
align the work of these thinkers, however, practices before highlighting some of the
is to miss the very pertinent differences ways in which her more recent writings
between their ideas. Irigaray is not directly strive to offer more constructive theories
concerned with the question of writing the of what the feminine is and how it may be
body, as the scope of her engagement with articulated.
philosophical ideas reveals.
! "# $$"
"% &'
Irigaray's critique of the phallogocentric
symbolic order centres on the mechanisms
employed by psychoanalytic and philoso-
In her early work, such as Speculum Of The phical theories to exclude a notion of the
Other Woman and This Sex Which Is Not feminine. Speculum Of The Other Woman
One, Irigaray employs a disruptive and and This Sex Which Is Not One lay out a
highly critical style to engage with the resounding critique of the psychoanalytic
theories that structure symbolic notions of account of the acquisition of gender in
sex and gender. Latterly, her work takes which Irigaray shows how Western philo-
on a simpler style and has come to focus sophy has structured its account of the
more centrally on the need to implement subject in terms of the masculine alone.
mechanisms to ensure access to a pro- She uses the tools of deconstruction and
gramme of civil and legal rights for psychoanalysis to turn these monolithic
-
theories inside out and to demonstrate agents of exchange and are limited to act-
the ways in which the feminine is per- ing as objects of exchange. Under these
manently excluded from the symbolic terms there can be no exchange between
processes which are at play in traditional men and women because men make com-
systems of discourse and representation. merce of women not with them. Women
The main consequence of this exclusion are circulated as signs and serve to differ-
of the feminine from symbolic discourse entiate meaning without having any
is that the representation of feminine meaning of their own. The dominant
subjectivity becomes impossible. By set- `specular' economy is thus punningly
ting out to disrupt the symbolic prac- described by Irigaray as `hom(m)osexual':
tices employed within phallocentrism, it is homosexual because of the logic of the
Irigaray's linguistic play allows for a same that perpetuates it and Irigaray calls
perception of the feminine that goes it `hom(m)osexual' in order to make a pun
beyond its de®nition in relation to mascu- in French on the word homme (man).
line notions of subjectivity. Such an inter-
rogation of the gaps within dominant " %
,' % %
discourse opens up the possibility of
articulating something of the feminine Throughout the early texts, Irigaray uses
on its own terms. Let us now move on to playful linguistic mechanisms to show
consider some of the central ideas in how the feminine is constituted as excess
Irigaray's writing. and plurality. She uses the textuality of her
work as a mode of enactment of both the
($) *+ "% feminine and its impossibility. Her efforts
to recuperate the feminine from symbolic
Irigaray uses the term `specula(riza)tion' practices centre on her reworking of
to describe how the feminine is trapped notions of masquerade and mimesis.
in a mirroring function in phallocentrism. Arguing that femininity is de®ned as
Woman represents a re¯ection of the masquerade and is therefore little more
masculine to the masculine subject so than a construct of masculine desire,
that the feminine is de®ned, not in its Irigaray sets out to show that mimesis of
own terms, but in relation to speci®cally this position allows women to take the
masculine attributes such as the phallus. masquerade to its extreme. Mimesis
For Irigaray, a logic of sameness upholds reveals the ways in which masquerade
symbolic modes of discourse and ensures exploits women. In mimicry, woman
that masculinity remains dominant. deliberately takes on the feminine style
Irigaray draws a parallel between this and posture attributed to her within domi-
mirroring function and LeÂvi-Strauss's nant discourse in order to reveal the
formulation of woman as commodity mechanisms by which she is oppressed
(LeÂvi-Strauss, 1969: 36). Here, she draws and exploited. Mimesis disrupts dis-
on the idea that the masculine subject is cursive coherence by deliberately taking
constructed to produce and exchange on the role ascribed to the feminine in
while commodities and patterns of order to draw attention to the ¯imsiness
exchange con®rm the status of the of its construction, and thus to seduce
masculine within the symbolic order. As dominant discourse into revealing its
commodities, women function to main- repressed foundation.
tain systems of exchange by participating Mimesis, then, is a form of deliberate
unquestioningly in the processes involved. hysteria which offers women a form of
In this sense, the feminine, becomes a representation on their own terms.
`specular' other used to speculate, a kind Through mimesis, women constitute
of gold standard for the masculine subject. themselves in a way that is impossible in
The consequence of `specula(riza)tion' masquerade. Irigaray's use of (hysterical)
is that women are prohibited from being mimicry in her analysis of philosophy and
"# $& %
"% '(" " $ "
Julia Kristeva and HeÂleÁne Cixous) in the comments on women and writing in
context of eÂcriture feÂminine. Many of the This Sex Which Is Not One have been
critics who label Irigaray as a proponent made to represent more or less the
of eÂcriture feÂminine do so for two reasons. totality of her work' (Whitford, 1991b:
Firstly, they highlight the very complex 2±3).
stylistic processes at play in Irigaray's Recently, feminists engaging with
work as an example of `writing the Irigaray's work have shown that it
body'. Secondly, there is a tendency to consists of much more than an attempt
seize upon her focus on the question of to `write the body' or merely to inscribe
language and the way in which it feminine desire onto the discursive body.
pervades her work as a whole. The implication of this is that Irigaray's
It is clear from Irigaray's work that her insistence upon the need to formulate a
interest lies not so much in the logocentric means of speaking (as) woman, re¯ects a
or writing-focused elements of language, desire to rework traditional patterns of
but rather in the process of speech itself, of sexed subjectivity in order to facilitate
eÂnonciation in the sense elaborated by the production of the feminine in lan-
Emile Benveniste (1971). This emphasis guage and other symbolic systems.
on questions of eÂnonciation highlights Feminists have seized upon this and
the view that Irigaray does not set out have sought to demonstrate that
to elaborate a technique of female or Irigaray's thought can be used as a
feminine writing. Her project does not resource in relation to a number of dis-
attempt to address the question of fem- ciplines and arenas including feminist
inine desire through the written text, philosophy, textual practice and criticism,
but rather focuses on the importance of psychoanalytic practice, history, law,
seeking out ways of insinuating the ethics, gender studies, and sexual politics.
feminine into language as a speaking Current work on Irigaray's thought sets
subject-position. out to examine the roots of her ideas,
Despite Joy Simpson-Zinn's claim that tracing her debt to theorists such as
`past and present struggles in the social Derrida, Foucault, and Heidegger (Burke
sphere are not ignored by French femin- et al., 1994). This shift in the way that
ists, HeÂleÁne Cixous and Luce Irigaray, but feminists now choose to draw on
the ®rst step toward social change is, in Irigaray's thought marks the acknowl-
their opinion, a new language, a new edgement of her struggle to highlight
text, a new vision' (1985: 78), it seems `the necessity or inevitability of radical
rather more appropriate to highlight social or symbolic transformation'
the fact that, for Irigaray at least, written (Whitford, 1994: 29). Largely, this shift in
language traps the feminine in a system of perspective on Irigaray's work has been
phallogocentrism and prohibits the repre- facilitated by the widespread availability
sentation of the feminine as anything of her texts in translation, which has
other than virgin/mother/whore or enabled feminists to undertake a more
`the dark continent', the unseen and detailed reading of Irigaray's in¯uences
unspeakable buried aspect of symbolic and origins. The wealth of material
practice (Irigaray, 1985a, 1985b). As being produced in this context indicates
Margaret Whitford has pointed out, a depth of potential in this return to
aligning Irigaray with Cixous and Irigaray's work as text and the scene of
Kristeva as a proponent of eÂcriture feÂminine writing surrounding her work will inevi-
`blurs the differences, both theoretical tably shift and evolve. The extent of the
and political, between the three women. debate around Irigaray's thought is yet
But it also reduces the complexity of to be fully realized, yet it is undoubtedly
Irigaray's work to the simplicity of a the case that her work will continue to
formula ± ``writing the body'', and con- in¯uence the directions forged by feminist
veniently ignores that Irigaray's brief interrogations of culture.
49 "# $& %
"% '(" " $ "
Wiegman (eds) The Lesbian Postmodern. New York: Stockton, Kathryn Bond (1994) God Between their
Columbia University Press. Lips: Desire Between Women in Irigaray, BronteÈ
Plaza, Monique (1978) ```Phallomorphic power'' and and Eliot. Stanford, CA: Stanford University
the psychology of ``woman''', Ideology and Press.
Consciousness, 4: 4±36. Tavor Bannet, Eve (1993) `There have to be at least
Ragland-Sullivan, Ellie (1986) Jacques Lacan and the two', Diacritics, 23 (1): 84±98.
Philosophy of Psychoanalysis. London: Croom Helm. van Buren, Jane (1995) `Postmodernism ± feminism
Sayers, Janet (1982) Biological Politics: Feminist and and the deconstruction of the feminine: Kristeva
Anti-Feminist Perspectives. London and New York: and Irigaray', The American Journal of
Tavistock Publications. Psychoanalysis, 55 (3): 231±43.
Schwab, Gail (1991) `Irigarayan dialogism: play and Whitford, Margaret (1991a) Luce Irigaray: Philosophy
power play', in D. M. Bauer and McKinstrey (eds) in the Feminine. London: Routledge.
Feminism, Bakhtin and the Dialogic. New York: Whitford, Margaret (ed.) (1991b) The Irigaray Reader.
SUNY Press. Oxford: Blackwell.
Segal, Lynne (1987) Is The Future Female? Troubled Worsham, Lynn (1991) `Writing against writing: the
Thoughts on Contemporary Feminism. London: predicament of ecriture feÂminine in composition
Virago. studies', in Patricia Harkin and John Schilb (eds)
Shepherdson, Charles (1992) `Biology and history: Contending With Words: Composition and Rhetoric in
some psychoanalytical aspects of the writing of A Postmodern Age. New York: Modern Language
Luce Irigaray', Textual Politics, 6 (1): 47±86. Association of America.
Silverman, Kaja (1988) The Acoustic Mirror: the Female Wright, Elizabeth (ed.) (1992) Feminism and
Voice in Psychoanalysis and Cinema. Bloomington: Psychoanalysis: A Critical Dictionary. Oxford:
Indiana University Press. Blackwell.
Simpson-Zinn, Joy (1985) `The diffeÂrance of l'eÂcriture
feÂminine', Chimeress: A Journal of French and Italian
Literature, 18 (1): 77±93.
17
Jean Baudrillard
MIKE GANE
J
ean Baudrillard, born in July 1929, is ®rst of Henri Lefebvre and then the deci-
still very actively engaged in writing. sive in¯uence of Roland Barthes. From
His book L'Echange Impossible was 1967 Baudrillard was associated with the
published in September 1999, following journal Utopie which was close to, though
his book of photographs called Car without organizational ties with, the situa-
l'Illusion ne s'oppose pas aÁ la Realite which tionist movement. From 1969±73 he taught
was published at the end of 1998. He was sociology at Nanterre and was attached to
born in Reims but little in fact is known the Centre d'Etudes des Communications
about Baudrillard's early life other than de Masse, at this critical time of the con-
that he specialized in languages and frontation with McLuhan in media theory.
taught German at a lyceÂe for about 10 From 1975 he worked with Virilio for
years. His earlier academic career had about 15 years on the journal Traverses.
not been smooth; he has referred some- From the same year he began to teach reg-
what obscurely to his `Rimbaud period' ularly in America. The journals he edited
when he abandoned his studies for a were not associated with any political
time. He failed to get into the Ecole organization but were engaged in radical
Normale SupeÂrieur, and failed the impor- and critical cultural theory on the radical
tant gateway examination, the agreÂgation. left. Later he was to say that the years `at
In the 1966 he ®nally got into University Nanterre in the sixties and seventies were
teaching at the age of 37 `by an indirect some of the best years. Once these were
route' (1993a: 19). In the 1960s he became over we mourned' (1993a: 20). He pre-
known as a brilliant and proli®c translator, sented his doctoral habilitation at the
German to French, translating the major Sorbonne in February 1986. He retired
works of Peter Weiss, Brecht, Marx and from the University in 1987.
Engels, and the anthropologist Wilhelm Baudrillard's formation was therefore
Muhlmann. decisively in¯uenced by his wide reading
Baudrillard's ®rst published essays of German literature, philosophy, and
were written for Les Temps Modernes in social theory in a meeting of Marxist and
Jean Baudrillard 195
Nietzschean traditions. But clearly the the left-wing newspaper Liberation over
in¯uence of French themes can be the decade from 1987, including his pro-
seen in the importance of Rimbaud and vocative analysis of the Gulf War (1995).
the Situationists and structuralism Two theses dominate these political
(Durkheim and Mauss to Barthes). This analyses. The ®rst is that proletarian
marks out the distinctive character of revolutionary transition is no longer on
Baudrillard's engagement which in the the agenda in Western societies, and
1960s and early 1970s was essentially an secondly this new situation is one of
engagement from within Marxism, with involution within the boundaries of the
the radical emergence of the system of West with real `events' occurring only on
objects and the consumer society. He the fault line (e.g. Bosnia) of this culture
then made a radical shift towards an (see Cushman and Mestrovic, 1996).
anthropological position against modern- Baudrillard's work draws on a large
ism (including Marxism, psychoanalysis, number of sources. He himself has identi-
and structuralism). It was from this per- ®ed Nietzsche as the most important and
spective that he launched his famous con- long lasting. It is evident that there is a
frontations with writers such as Michel continuing engagement with and use of
Foucault (Baudrillard, 1987), and cultural modern literature, from Kafka to Ballard,
critiques such as his famous attack on the as well as those key theorists he identi®ed
architecture of the Pompidou Centre in texts of the 1970s: Marx, Mauss and
(`Beaubourg Effect', in 1994b), political Bataille, Saussure, Freud, Benjamin, and
critiques of the French Socialist and McLuhan. Because his work has entailed
Communist Parties (1985), and in the the development of a theory of mass com-
end an attack on the continued viability munications he is today often linked with
of the social sciences themselves with his the work of Paul Virilio with whom he
thesis of the `end of the social' (1983). worked closely for many years on the
Some of these essays made a considerable journal Traverses. However, Baudrillard's
impact when they became available in writings in the 1990s were no longer
English in the Foreign Accents series aimed at providing a `critical analysis' of
edited by Lotringer, who also published modern and postmodern culture.
a long interview with Baudrillard called Critiques such as Virilio's, like Marxism
`Forget Baudrillard' in 1987. His challenge itself, remained trapped, he argues, within
to modernism led him in this period to be enlightenment rationalist traditions.
identi®ed as the father of a theory of post- Baudrillard, in an ultimate challenge,
modernity and a new postmodernist tried in various ways to develop `fatal
style, and even baptized `pimp of post- theory': philosophers have always inter-
modernism' (Moore, 1988). Baudrillard's preted a disenchanted world, the point is
relation to postmodernism has, however, to make it even more enigmatic. Some of
always been critical and nuanced, and his interests here have led him to adopt
only in the 1990s has his position ®nally some of the paradoxical formulations of
become clear. But one further strand in recent science with the result that he
Baudrillard's work should be noted. has been identi®ed as one of the con-
From his earliest writings it has been evi- temporary `intellectual impostures' ± a
dent that he always had time and space to description he has, with usual wit,
write on politics and political ideas. The embraced enthusiastically.
collection entitled La Gauche Divine: Thus Baudrillard seems particularly
Chronique des AnneÂes 1977±1984 (1985) con- sensitive to alterations of the current
tains Baudrillard's analysis of the failure cultural and political conjuncture. His
of the Socialist and Communist Parties to writing is re¯exive to a high degree,
confront the problems of the post-1968 not only with respect to the changing
political conditions, and Ecran Total effectiveness of concepts and ideas, but
(1997b) collects Baudrillard's writing for also to the forms of the interventions
196 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
themselves. Facing the defeat of the May any symbolic referent to the challenge of
1968 revolutionary movement, his writing signs and to the challenge through signs . . .
has sought to rework radical theory in The object itself takes the initiative or
a way which comes to terms with the reversibility. . . Another succession is
cultural, technological, and political determinant' (1988b: 80). In the mid
forms of the `advanced' societies. For 1990s he was to move further in this
many radicals of the 1960s the option has trajectory to one based not on symbolic
been either to retrench into a funda- but impossible exchange.
mentalist Marxism, or to adopt the frame- One way of reading these positional
work of the consumer society with changes can be made by adopting the
quali®cations (to make it more demo- image used by Baudrillard in his habilita-
cratic, more ecologically aware, and to tion presentation, that of the double spiral
promote within it a postmodern form of of the symbol and the sign. His ®rst set
multicultural tolerance). In this context of writings on the object and consumer
Baudrillard provides an alternative cultures can be seen therefore as an analy-
which regards these variations as disas- sis of the semiotic cultures of Western
trously involuted forms of a ressentiment societies for which, in his writings in the
culture in which a secret strateÂgie du pire 1970s, he produced a famous genealogy of
holds sway. He is therefore an outsider their simulacral forms (1994b). Over the
whose ideas are profoundly at odds with last 15 years he has been working on
contemporary progressive opinion, be it a `fourth order' of this genealogy which
socialist, liberal, or feminist. corresponds to a theory of postmodernity.
There is, however, little if any direct
critical commentary on this phase of
SOCIAL THEORY AND Baudrillard's work, for most discussion
CONTRIBUTIONS has concerned the theory of the `third
order' concerning mass media, mass
Baudrillard is probably best known for his society, and hyperreal phenomena
association with postmodern consumer (mistaken as postmodernity). But
culture, and his theses on simulation and Baudrillard's writings in the period
hyperreality, yet these ideas have been 1975±90 were focused on the other side
widely misunderstood and misinter- of the spiral, that of the symbol, with
preted. A key document must therefore essays on symbolic exchange, seduction,
be Baudrillard's own summing up of fatal strategies, and evil. In the 1990s he
his work available in his Habilitation pre- has been writing on what he has termed
sentation called L'Autre par Lui-meÃme `the perfect crime', the vast transforma-
(published in English as The Ecstasy of tion of Western cultures under the impact
Communication, 1988b). This text is crucial of communication technology towards the
for a reading of Baudrillard's work up to virtualization of the world.
the mid-1980s although his thinking has Thus Baudrillard's writing is made
gone through further important develop- up of a number of projects which are
ments. In his own account he refers to his coherently articulated within the idea of
®rst major set of writings, on the object the double spiral (on one side the symbol,
and consumer society, as critical structur- the other the sign). This makes it possible
alism. By the mid-1970s and especially to identify four sets of theoretical writing.
with the book Symbolic Exchange and The ®rst concerns the quasi-Marxist
Death (1993b) he had worked through a analysis of the commodity-object, sign-
critique of structuralism and Marxism to exchange, and consumer society. The sec-
a position based on symbolic exchange ond concerns the theory of symbolic orders
theory. Yet by the early 1980s he had re- and symbolic exchange and has a strong
de®ned his position as one based on the anthropological character entailing a radi-
force of pure seduction: `there is no longer calization of the notion of the gift and
Jean Baudrillard 197
death. The third set comes back to focus since the narrative and the gift are both
on contemporary culture but is no longer fatal and reversible. Thirdly, other cul-
framed in a base-superstructure model. tures are not apprehended as belonging
The new analysis relies on the concepts to a homogeneous world system of differ-
of seduction, fate, and evil drawn from ences but in the order of radical otherness,
anthropological perspectives and employ- since the symbolic order (based on the
ing them, even methodologically, along- rule) is not parallel to the culture of
side a surprising survival from French human rights (based on law). Fourthly,
sociology, the concept of pathology the relation to the order of things is not
(1993c). The fourth set concerns the transi- possessive, the symbolic order is articu-
tion of cultures from third to fourth order lated on metamorphosis in ritual time
simulacral forms from a position identi®ed and space. What is new in Baudrillard's
as that of impossible exchange. There is a version of the symbolic order is that it
movement in Baudrillard's work from that is active, dynamic, strategic, based on
of critical structuralism and with Marxism challenge of radical illusion.
with its desire to expose the alienated It is clear that this view of `primitive
workings of the modern social system culture' reverses many of the assumptions
and its culture, to a theory of the object as found in the work of sociologists like Max
pure sign and to a mode of writing which is Weber who sometimes refer to these cul-
more poetic, `fatal', enigmatic, frag- tures as superstitious, passive, conser-
mented, embracing the paradoxes pro- vative, and traditional. It is one of the
duced in the advanced sciences. In many `banal' illusions of the semiotic cul-
Baudrillard's terms, then, the very evolu- tures that they are progressive, active,
tion of the sign in Western cultures through accumulative. Baudrillard gives Weber's
the genealogy of its various simulacral analysis of rationalization a radical
forms produces its own ironic self-destruc- Nietzschean reading through an analysis
tion. This situation provides new oppor- of simulacral forms. With the emergence
tunities and calls for a metamorphosis in of the idea of the real world, and the ideol-
the form of radical theory. ogy of the real (Majastre, 1996: 209), there
A key element of Baudrillard's work emerges the cultures of the sign (in the
has therefore been a crucial contribution Saussurean manner: signi®er/signi®ed/
to the theory of the symbolic order (with referent-real). This introduces a split in
notable studies of fate, evil, seduction, and the semiotic cultures between the repre-
death) which has required a refusal to sentation of the meaning, say of death
make a discipline boundary between and the idea of real biological death.
anthropology and social theory, indeed This split becomes a generalized premise
to confront sociology with radical anthro- of the existence of all phenomena subject
pology (Genosko, 1998). In Baudrillard's to objective and scienti®c investigation. It
early writing the simple ambivalence of introduces the dimension of the difference
the symbol was contrasted with the uni- between the true and the false, but
vocality of the sign. The radicalization of also disturbs illusion by introducing the
his theory became clear in his view that opposition between the real and the
the symbolic order is not simply pri- simulacrum. According to Baudrillard's
mordial, but is the superior form, even genealogy, a ®rst order of simulacra can
as it is destroyed by modern rationalities. be seen in the representations of the
It is characterized in Baudrillard's view by body and the world in the Renaissance
four signi®cant features. First, as opposed period: in the model of the human auto-
to the sign it does not organize itself on maton, in trompe l'oeil forms, and repre-
the reality principle, since the world is sented in media like stucco. With the
apprehended as fable and narrative. explosive Industrial Revolution and the
Secondly the apprehension of time is non- beginnings of mass production, a second
linear, nonaccumulative, nonprogressive, order of simulacral forms comes into
198 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
reply to this idea was to suggest that re- lamented Freud's and Lacan's universali-
inforcing the economic and political orga- zation of a particular form of the Oedipal
nization of the proletariat in the new complex, and LeÂvi-Strauss's failure to
conditions of mass consumerism actually develop a symbolic theory of the savage
facilitated the neutralization of the pro- mind (1993b). Lyotard retorted that
letariat as a class within late capitalist Baudrillard had produced yet another
forms, since the principal site of inte- myth of the primitive.
gration was then not confronted (1985). Baudrillard, however, did not stay
Baudrillard's second thematic, which within the ambit of the theory of symbolic
was a logical development of the theory exchange for very long, at least according
of the symbol, led to a radicalization of to the habilitation presentation. In the three
the notion of the symbolic order works of the next period, that is Seduction,
(Genosko, 1998). It seems that the prepara- Fatal Strategies, and The Transparency of
tion of this line of analysis was to some Evil, Baudrillard tried to demonstrate the
extent inspired by the work of Foucault power of fatal over critical theory. The
on madness. Baudrillard's genealogy of logic of this change of position seems
forms of relations to the dead parallel's determined by the very loss of revolu-
Foucault's analysis of the role of seques- tionary agency by social forces. No longer
tration and asylums in the genealogy aligned with the active alienated subject,
of madness. For Baudrillard, death is a Baudrillard concluded that power of
fundamental symbolic form. His analysis agency had passed to the side of the
follows closely its genealogy as revealed object. What was strikingly effective
in relation to the body. He charts carefully in Baudrillard's return to the analysis
the movement from early forms in which of current cultures in the 1980s was his
the dead body is retained in the group to general proposition that social checks
those in which there is a hierarchy of those and balances (the ideal of liberal contain-
who pass, under the control of priests, to ment of power) and the framework of dia-
heavenly immortality. His analysis of the lectical progressive development (the
cemeteries or the necropolis charts the ideal of revolutionary sublation) were out-
social distance between the living and moded logics, and as he himself expressed
the dead body. After this period of seques- it `our societies have passed beyond this
tration, the dead, like the mad, are subject limit point' (1988b: 82; see Bauman, 1992).
to the vicissitudes of civilization. The new situation, he claimed, was not
When Foucault published his famous principally one of unremitting mass
Discipline and Punish, with its theory of homogenization, though this was occur-
modern forms of power and surveillance, ring in the exemplary logic of cloning
Baudrillard regarded this as a major turn- and replication, and what he identi®ed
ing point in Foucault's work. He wrote a as the culture of indifference and
stunning review of it, published as Forget impatience (homogenization entailed the
Foucault, in which he argued that disappearance of the historical event:
Foucault's thought itself had been even war could no longer take place,
ensnared in the system of micro power 1995). The dominant logic was, however,
and control he seemed to be analysing exponential, a logic driven by the libera-
(1987). It became evident from this tion of energies. Baudrillard began to
moment on that Baudrillard was to regard identify the emergence of extreme
structuralism, post-structuralism, and phenomena against the background of
deconstructionism as complicit with the indifference. Two linked propositions
code of modern consumer culture and were developed at this point. First, the
unable to confront it. Baudrillard also fatal strategy of the object could be seen
lamented Saussure's own failure to as a form of intensi®cation: the world was
develop the opposition to the sign in an in the grip of the delirious passion of the
adequate theory of the symbol, just as he object. Hyperreal phenomena were just
Jean Baudrillard 201
one form of this ecstatic movement of a radically new space. Here Baudrillard
things ± more than sexual in the strateÂgie draws increasingly on the language of
du pire: pornography; more than fat: the advanced sciences, particularly
obesity. But secondly, with the libera- where the relation of subject and object
tion of energies and the deregulation have become problematic. The structures
of balances, Baudrillard also identi®ed of time and space are no longer Euclidean,
the disintegration of boundaries. This led subject and object no longer independent.
to the emergence of what he called trans- It is as if, he suggests, for a period in the
political phenomena. This process con- history of the sciences, the object was
cerned not the intensi®cation of logics, caught unawares by theory (1988b: 87).
but the intensi®cation of indistinctions. Today the object is no longer content to
Thus more than sexual: transsexual; remain passive in relation to the subject.
more than historical: transhistorical; From a world of rigorous structural deter-
more than aesthetic: transaesthetic; more minations, the current situation is one of
than genetic: transgenetic. Baudrillard radical indeterminacy of fundamental
had already noted that objects were no principles and knowledge. Baudrillard's
longer made from traditional materials most recent essay (1999) concerns the
but new homogenized media like plastics. aspect of exchange. In this new, `post-
At this juncture even the boundaries of modern' situation, exchange itself become
objects (including those of species) were increasingly dif®cult. In consequence he
in the process of dissolution. argues, analysis must be made from a
Some of Baudrillard's brilliant analyses position of `impossible exchange', recog-
of these transitions were picked up at the nizing the full force of the requirement for
time in a somewhat bizarre way. From at a new kind of theory appropriate to a
least three quite different points of view world in radical uncertainty beyond the
he became identi®ed as proposing a post- matrix, one which deals with unique
modern genre of theorizing about a post- objects, singularities.
modern condition. The ®rst interpretation It is now becoming clear that
was developed by Jameson whose work Baudrillard has been trying to analyse
was decisively in¯uenced by Baudrillard and theorize the fourth order since the
at this time. Jameson (1991) simply argued mid 1980s, while most commentaries
that by maintaining a Marxist framework, have remained stubbornly within his con-
Baudrillard's analysis could really be seen cept of hyperreality and the code. It is also
as accounting for the culture of late capit- becoming more evident that if Baudrillard
alism. Kellner also presented Baudrillard does have a concept of postmodernity it
as the theorist of postmodern culture and does not have the third order as its object.
suggested that Baudrillard was in com- Indeed it might well be that the break
plete complicity with this logic as revealed between third and fourth order phenom-
by the new fatal styles of analysis adopted ena is for Baudrillard the most signi®cant
(1989). Feminists such as Meagan Morris one and the one which marks the rupture
(1988) and Suzanne Moore (1988) saw with hypermodernity. Yet Baudrillard's
Baudrillard's analysis of the sexual object analysis suggests this most fundamental
as deeply conservative, patriarchal, and transition is not marked by any visible
reactionary. revolutionary event, and as it becomes
The ®nal theme in Baudrillard's work is accomplished it therefore becomes the
the theory of the fourth order simulacral `perfect crime'. Unlike Virilio, for example
forms. Central to this theory is the con- for whom the apocalypse in the real may
tinuation of the analysis of the fate of arrive with a `general accident', for
reality, objects, and exchange. If the Baudrillard in the `third' order the last
world has indeed escaped the frameworks judgment had already occurred but the
of regulating balances, then events and messiah (or the revolution), missed the
phenomena follow a delirious course in appointment (1987), but in the fourth
202 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
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18
PAUL PATTON
D
eleuze and Guattari belonged to metaphysics of difference which takes its
a generation of French intellec- point of departure from the manner in
tuals whose political conscious- which philosophy hitherto had conceived
ness was formed, as Guattari once said, of repetition. Deleuze argues that a con-
`in the enthusiasm and naivete of the cept of difference `in itself' must entail a
Liberation' (Deleuze and Guattari, 1972: concept of repetition as involving varia-
15). Deleuze was born in 1925. He studied tion and not simply repetition of the
philosophy in Paris at the LyceÂe Carnot same. Elements of this philosophy of
and the Sorbonne during the Second difference informed the social and politi-
World War. Trained in the history of phi- cal philosophy subsequently developed in
losophy by professors such as Ferdinand collaboration with Guattari.
AlquieÂ, Georges Canguilhem, and Jean Whereas Deleuze ®rst came into contact
Hippolyte, he passed the agreÂgation in with political movements and activists
1949. He later taught at the University of during the years after 1968, Guattari
Lyon. In 1969, at Foucault's invitation, he had a long career of activism in radical
took up a post at the experimental psychotherapy and communist organiza-
University of Paris 8 at Vincennes (later tions. Born in 1930, he studied pharmacy
St Denis), where he taught until his retire- and philosophy at university and was
ment in 1987. After a long period of active in the French Communist Party
respiratory illness, Deleuze committed during the 1950s. He left to work with
suicide in 1995. a dissident left newspaper La Voie
In addition to short studies of Proust, Communiste from 1958 to 1965, and with
Hume, Bergson, and Kant, Deleuze various extraparliamentary left groups
wrote in¯uential books on Nietzsche thereafter. He worked at an experi-
and Spinoza. Foucault acknowledged mental psychiatric hospital ± the
Deleuze's reconstruction of Nietzsche's Clinique de la Borde ± from 1953. He
theory of the will to power in terms of trained in Lacanian psychoanalysis from
active and reactive forces as an important 1962 to 1969 when he joined the Ecole
206 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
of mass communication, propels the entire formation with the essentially parasitic
world towards a society in which all the and reactive character of forms of capture.
signs of the past are detached from their It is not the control of state power which
origins and written over with new signs, interests them but rather the forms of
and the motley representatives of the pre- social change which take place alongside
sent appear as `paintings of all that has or beneath any given form of state, and the
ever been believed' (Deleuze and manner in which these changes react back
Guattari, 1977: 34). Capitalism constantly upon political institutions themselves. For
approaches this limit only to displace it this reason, they insist on the distinction
further ahead by reconstituting its own between macro-political and micro-
immanent relative limits. The capitalist political social analysis and point to the
axiomatic generates schizo-¯ows which micro-sociology of Gabriel Tarde as an
are the basis of its restless and cosmopoli- alternative to class analysis which
tan energy while at the same time setting addresses the molecular level of social
new limits on the socius. In this sense, the life. In these terms, for example, in respect
capitalist axiomatic is a machine which of the 1789 revolution `what one needs to
represses the very social forces and ¯ows know is which peasants, in which areas of
of matter and energy which it produces. the south of France, stopped greeting the
Deleuze comments in his interview with local landowners' (Deleuze and Guattari,
Negri that what he and Guattari found 1987: 216). The issue here is not simply a
most useful in Marx was `his analysis of difference in scale but a difference in
capitalism as an immanent system that's kind. On the one hand, politics is played
constantly overcoming its own limita- out in con¯icts between molar social
tions, and then coming up against them entities such as social classes, sexes, and
once more in broader form, because its nations. On the other hand, it is simultan-
fundamental limit is Capital itself' eously played out at the molecular
(Deleuze, 1995: 171). The lesson he and level in terms of social af®nities, sexual
Guattari draw from this is that, at orientations, and varieties of communal
the macro-social level of economic and belonging.
political institutions, there is a permanent Deleuze and Guattari advocate a minor-
possibility of piecemeal social change. itarian politics based upon a qualitative
While the capitalist economy may con- concept of minority. This is their version
stitute an axiomatic system inseparable of an identity politics based upon a rela-
from the fabric of modern social life, this tional understanding of difference, in
does not mean that particular axioms contrast to the widespread tendency to
cannot be removed or replaced by recognize and evaluate difference only
others. from the standpoint of an implicit stan-
In common with Foucault and other dard. They de®ne minority in opposition
post-structuralist political thinkers, to majority, but insist that the difference
Deleuze and Guattari do not envisage between them is not quantitative since
global revolutionary change but rather social minorities can be more numerous
a process of constant experimentation than the so-called majority. Both concepts
played out in between economic and poli- involve the relationship of a group to the
tical institutions and the subinstitutional larger collectivity of which it is a part.
movements of desire and affect. Deleuze Given any socially signi®cant distinction
and Guattari provide a conceptual between two groups, the majority is
language in which to describe the impact de®ned as the group which most closely
of social movements which impose new approximates the standard while the
political demands upon the qualitative minority is de®ned by the gap which
or cultural dimensions of social life. separates its members from that standard.
More generally, they contrast the Majority can take many simultaneous
dynamism of such forms of social trans- forms within society:
Gilles Deleuze and Fëlix Guattari 213
Let us suppose that the constant or standard is the including the bearers of minority status.
average adult-white-heterosexual-European-male They are advocates of the transformative
speaking a standard language . . . It is obvious
potential of becoming-minor, or becom-
that `man' holds the majority, even if he is less
numerous than mosquitoes, children, women,
ing-revolutionary, against the normalizing
blacks, peasants, homosexuals, etc. That is power of the majority. The importance of
because he appears twice, once in the constant minority therefore does not reside in the
and again in the variable from which the constant fact of its relative exclusion from the
is extracted. Majority assumes a state of power majority but in the political potential of
and domination, not the other way around.' its divergence from the norm. As they
(Deleuze and Guattari, 1987: 105, 291)
de®ne it, minority implies the capacity
A liberal politics of difference might to deterritorialize the dominant social
simply defend the right of the minorities codes. Conversely, it is the process of
to ®gure in the majority. In other words, deterritorialization which for them consti-
it would seek to broaden the standard so tutes the essence of revolutionary politics:
that it becomes male or female, European not the incorporation of minority
or non-European, hetero- or homosexual, demands by adjustment to the axioms of
and so on. Deleuze and Guattari do not the social machine, nor the reconstitution
deny the importance of such changes to of a code, but the process of becoming-
the nature of majority. At the end of minor and enlarging the gap between
Plateau 13 `7000 B.C.: Apparatus of minor and norm. What is important, in
Capture', they assert: their view, is a `revolutionary becoming'
which is in principle open to anyone
this is not to say that the struggle on the level of
the axioms is without importance: on the contrary, (Deleuze and Parnet, 1987: 147).
it is determining (at the most diverse levels:
women's struggle for the vote, for abortion, for
jobs; the struggle of the regions for autonomy;
the struggle of the Third World; the struggle of DELEUZE AND GUATTARI'S MAJOR
the oppressed masses and minorities in the East WORKS
or West . . . (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987: 470±1)
Deleuze, G. (1989) Cinema 2: The Time-Image. (Trans. Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1977) Anti-Oedipus:
Hugh Tomlinson and Robert Galeta.) London: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. (Trans. Robert
Athlone and Minneapolis: University of Hurley, Mark Seem and Helen R. Lane.) New
Minnesota Press. York: Viking Press.
Deleuze, G. (1990a) Expressionism in Philosophy: Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1986) Kafka: Towards a
Spinoza. (Trans. Martin Joughin.) New York: Zone Minor Literature. (Trans. Dana Polan.) Minneapolis:
Books. University of Minnesota Press.
Deleuze, G. (1990b) The Logic of Sense. (Trans. Mark Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1987) A Thousand
Lester with Charles Stivale; Ed. Constantin Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. (Trans.
Boundas.) New York: Columbia University Press Brian Massumi.) Minneapolis: University of
and London: Athlone. Minnesota Press.
Deleuze, G. (1991) Empiricism and Subjectivity: an Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1994) What is
Essay on Hume's Theory of Human Nature. (Trans. Philosophy?. (Trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Graham
Constantin V. Boundas.) New York: Columbia Burchell.) New York: Columbia University Press.
University Press.
Deleuze, G. (1993) The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque.
(Trans. Tom Conley.) Minneapolis and London:
University of Minnesota Press.
Deleuze, G. (1994) Difference and Repetition. (Trans. SECONDARY REFERENCES
Paul Patton.) London: Athlone Press and New
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Deleuze, G. (1995) Negotiations 1972±1990. (Trans. the Difference Engineer. London and New York:
Martin Joughin.) New York: Columbia University Routledge.
Press. Ansell-Pearson, K. (1999) Germinal Life: The Difference
Deleuze, G. (1998) `How do we recognize structural- and Repetition of Deleuze. London and New York:
ism?'. (Trans. Melissa McMahon and Charles J. Routledge.
Stivale) in C.J. Stivale, The Two-fold Thought of Bogue, R. (1989) Deleuze and Guattari. London and
Deleuze and Guattari. New York: Guilford Press. New York: Routledge.
Deleuze, G. and Parnet, C. (1987) Dialogues. (Trans. Boundas, C. and Olkowski, D. (eds) (1994) Deleuze
Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam.) and the Theater of Philosophy. New York: Routledge.
London: Athlone Press. Braidotti, R. (1994) Nomadic Subjects. New York:
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Dean, K. and Massumi, B. (1992) First and Last
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May, T. (1991) `The politics of life in the thought of Rethinking Marxism, 7: 9±27.
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Press.
B
orn in Paris in 1932, Paul Virilio Ponty. After participating in the eÂveÂne-
was evacuated in 1939 to the port ments of May 1968 in Paris, Virilio was
of Nantes, where he was trauma- nominated Professor by the students at
tized by the spectacle of the Blitzkrieg the eÂcole SpeÂciale d'Architecture, and
during the Second World War. After later helped to found the International
training at the Ecole des MeÂtiers d'Art in College of Philosophy. Being an untrained
Paris, Virilio became an artist in stained architect, Virilio has never felt compelled
glass. However, in 1950, he converted to restrict his concerns to the spatial arts.
to Christianity and, following military Indeed, like his philosopher friends, the
service in the colonial army during the late Gilles Deleuze and FeÂlix Guattari,
Algerian war of independence (1954±62), Virilio has written numerous texts on a
he studied phenomenology with Merleau- variety of topics; these include Speed &
Ponty at the Sorbonne. Fascinated by the Politics: An Essay on Dromology (1986),
military, spatial, and organizational The Aesthetics of Disappearance (1991a),
aspects of urban territory, Virilio's early War and Cinema: The Logistics of Perception
writings began to appear, while he was (1989), Politics of the Very Worst (1999a),
acting as a self-styled `urbanist', in and, most recently, Polar Inertia (1999b).
Architecture Principe, the group and review Even so, it is only in recent years that the
of the same name he established with the power of Virilio's social theory has begun
architect Claude Parent in 1963 (Virilio to be felt in the English-speaking world, a
and Parent, 1996). Virilio produced his situation that is probably due in no small
®rst major work, a photographic and part to the fact that he rarely leaves Paris
philosophical study of the architecture and seldom appears in public outside
of war, Bunker Archeology (1994a), in France. Virilio retired in 1998. He
1975. Virilio's phenomenologically currently devotes himself to writing and
grounded and controversial social theory, working with private organizations con-
including concepts such as `deterritoriali- cerned with housing the homeless in
zation', `dromology' (the logic of speed), Paris.
+,
on `the end of the vertical as an axis of `enemies' are invoked by the state in
elevation, the end of the horizontal as order to justify increased spending on
permanent plane, in favour of the oblique the `military weaponry' of new informa-
axis and the inclined plane' ± were pub- tion and communications technologies
lished in the mid 1960s in Architecture such as the Internet. Thus, for Virilio, it
Principe (Virilio and Parent, 1996: v). is the weapons of the military-industrial
Today, though, it is the fact that Virilio's complex that are responsible for integral
essays foreshadowed his military and accidents like the 1987 world stock market
political critiques of deterritorialization crash, brought about by the failure of
and the revolution in information trans- automated programme trading.
mission that surfaced in Bunker
Archeology (1994a), L'inseÂcurite du territoire The Aesthetics of Disappearance #* %
(1976), and Speed & Politics (1986) that --
. % )-$ '#-
#
makes them of interest to contemporary
postmodern social theorists. In The Aesthetics of Disappearance (1991a)
Virilio's scepticism concerning the and The Lost Dimension (1991b), Virilio,
political economy of wealth is sustained supporting Mandelbrot's (1977) geometry
by his dromocratic conception of power. of fractals, demonstrates that social theory
Decisively swayed by Sun Tzu's The Art must take account of interruptions in the
of War (1993), and his debate with himself rhythm of human consciousness and
about the `positive' (Fascist) and `nega- `morphological irruptions' in the physical
tive' (anti-Fascist) aspects of Marinetti's dimension. Utilizing the concept of
artistic theory of Futurism, Virilio argues `picnolepsy' (frequent interruption) and
that political economy cannot be sub- Einstein's General Relativity Theory, he
sumed under the political economy of argues that modern vision and the
wealth, with an understanding of the modern city are both the products of mili-
management of the economy of the state tary power and time-based cinematic
being its general aim. On the contrary, the technologies of disappearance. Further-
histories of sociopolitical institutions like more, although there are political and
the military and artistic movements such cinematic aspects to our visual conscious-
as Futurism demonstrate that war and the ness of the cityscape, what is indispensa-
need for speed, rather than commerce and ble to them is their ability to designate the
the urge for wealth, were the foundations technological disappearance of the grand
of society. It is important to state that aesthetic and spatial narratives and the
Virilio is not arguing that the political advent of micro-narratives. In Virilio's
economy of wealth has been superseded terms, Mandelbrot's geometry of fractals
by the political economy of speed; reveals the appearance of the `over-
rather, he suggests that in addition to the exposed' city ± as when the morphological
political economy of wealth, there has irruption between space and time
to be a political economy of speed. splinters into a countless number of visual
Consequently, in Popular Defense & interpretations, and `the crisis of whole
Ecological Struggles (1990) and Pure War dimensions' (Virilio, 1991b: 9±28). Signi®-
(1997a), Virilio developed his dromo- cant here is that Virilio's concerns about
logical inquiry to include considerations the aesthetics of disappearance and the
on pure power ± the enforcement of crisis of the physical dimension are not
surrender without engagement ± and exercised by the textual construction of
revolutionary resistance ± an imaginative totalizing intellectual `explanations', but
case against the militarization of urban with the strategic positioning of produc-
space. The `rationale' of pure war might tive interruptions and the creative
be encapsulated as the logic of militarized dynamics of what he calls the `ten-
technoscience in the era of `Infowar', dency' (Virilio, 1989: 80). As Virilio argues
an era in which unspeci®ed civilian in The Lost Dimension (1991b), the rule in
+
the overexposed city is the disappear- take place, Virilio's assertion that war and
ance of aesthetics and whole dimensions cinema are virtually indistinguishable is
into a militarized and cinematographic open to dispute. However, Virilio's stance
®eld of retinal persistence, interruption, on the appearance of Infowar is consistent
and `technological space-time'. with his view that the only way to match
social developments in the war machine is
1 & #'& #*
(-%$-
. to adopt a critical theoretical position with
$0%
# regard to the various parallels that exist
between war, cinema, and the logistics of
In War and Cinema (1989), Virilio applies perception; a view he developed in his
the concept of `substitution' when touch- vehement critique of The Vision Machine
ing on the different classes of reality that (1994b).
have unravelled since the origin of In Virilio's universe, then, people `no
time. Bearing a remarkable likeness to longer believe their eyes'. Indeed, `their
Baudrillard's (1983) concept of `simula- faith in perception' has become `slave to
tion', Virilio's primary concern is with the faith in the technical sightline', a situa-
the link between war, cinematic substitu- tion in which contemporary substitution
tion, and what he calls the logistics of per- has reduced the `visual ®eld' to the `line
ception ± the supplying of cinematic of a sighting device' (1994b: 13; original
images and information on ®lm to the emphases). Seen from this perspective,
front line. The idea of the logistics of The Vision Machine (1994b) is a survey of
perception arises because, in the context what I have called `pure perception'
of postmodern wars like the Persian Gulf (Armitage, 2000a: 10). For, today, the
War of 1991, not only do settled topo- military-industrial complex has devel-
graphical features disappear in the midst oped ominous technological substitutions
of battle but so too does the architecture of and potentialities such as virtual reality
war. For the military high command and the Internet. In Virilio's terms, `the
entombs itself in subterranean bunkers main aim' of pure perception is `to register
with the chief aim of evading what one the waning of reality' as an aesthetics of
of Coppola's helicopters in the ®lm disappearance arises `from the unprece-
Apocalypse Now announced as `Death dented limits imposed on subjective
from Above'. Consequently, Virilio (1989: vision by the instrumental splitting of
66) conceptualizes a logistics of perception modes of perception and representation'
where `the world disappears in war, and (1994b: 49, original emphasis). Hence,
war as a phenomenon disappears from Virilio conceives of vision machines as
the eyes of the world'. Thus, in L'eÂcran the accelerated products of a `sightless
du deÂsert: chroniques de guerre (1991c), vision' that `is itself merely the reproduc-
Virilio analyses the relationship between tion of an intense blindness that will
war, substitution, human and synthetic become the latest and last form of indus-
perception. Such interests are fuelled by trialization: the industrialization of the non-
Virilio's contention that military percep- gaze' (1994b: 73, original emphases).
tion in warfare is comparable to civilian Virilio further details the far-reaching
perception and, speci®cally, to the art of social relationships between vision and
®lm-making. According to Virilio, there- remote-controlled technologies in Polar
fore, cinematic substitution results in a Inertia (1999b).
`war of images', or, Infowar. Infowar is
not traditional war, where the images pro- Polar Inertia& % * 2
%
#&
duced are images of actual battles. Rather, ) .'#-'& #* $#
($
it is a war where the disparity between the "#*'#%-'
images of battles and the actual battles is
`derealized'. Like Baudrillard's (1995) In Polar Inertia (1999b), Virilio considers
infamous claim that the Gulf War did not pure perception, speed, and human stasis.
++3
.- #
#%'0
)
$
)
In `Indirect Light', for instance, Virilio 77, original emphasis). So, at the broadest
examines the difference between the new level, Virilio's writings on polar inertia
video screens adopted by the Paris Metro show that physical geographical spaces
system and `real' perceptual objects such no longer have signi®cant human content.
as mirrors from a theoretical standpoint Consequently, in The Art of the Motor
that broadly conforms to what Foucault (1995), Virilio turned his attention to the
(1977) labelled `surveillance societies' relationship between the human body and
and Deleuze (1995) called `control socie- technology.
ties'. In contrast, other articles note On the beginning of the twenty-®rst
the discrepancy between technologically century, then, Virilio's social theory is con-
generated inertia and biologically induced cerned with what he calls the third, or
human movement in the context of dis- the transplant, revolution ± the almost
cussions about the introduction of `wave total collapse of the distinction between
machines' in Japanese swimming pools, the human body and technology. Intim-
the effacement of a variety of `local ately linked to the technological enhance-
times' around the world and their gradual ment and substitution of body-parts
replacement by a single `global time', and through the miniaturization of techno-
the disparity between `classical optical logical objects, the third revolution is a
communication' and `electro-optical com- revolution conducted by militarized tech-
mutation'. In the era of pure perception, noscience against the human body
though, Virilio argues that it is not the through the promotion of what the
creation of acceleration and deceleration Virilio calls `neo-eugenics'. Such devel-
that becomes important but the creation opments are also the foundations of
of `Polar Inertia'. Here, Virilio proposes Virilio's (1995: 109±112) criticisms of the
that in the early modern era of mobility, work of Stelarc, the Australian cybernetic
in his terms the era of emancipation, performance artist. However, it should be
inertia did not exist. The concept of stressed that Virilio's criticisms are linked
polar inertia thus excludes what would to the development of his notion of endo-
have been alternate aspects of the speed colonization ± what takes place when a
equation ± simple acceleration or decel- political power like the state turns against
eration ± in the industrial age. But, as its own people, or, as in the case of
Virilio suggests, in the postindustrial technoscience, the human body.
age of the absolute speed of light, it is no For these reasons, in Open Sky (1997b),
longer necessary for anyone to make any La bombe informatique (1998), and Politics
journey since one has already arrived. of the Very Worst (1999a), Virilio has elabo-
In such circumstances, then, the geo- rated a critique of cyberfeminism that
graphical difference between `here' and Plant (1997), following Haraway's (1985)
`there' is obliterated by the speed of `manifesto for cyborgs', describes as a
light. Additionally, in its terminal mode, revolution on the part of cybernetic tech-
as exempli®ed by reclusive billionaires nology and feminists against the rule of
such as the late Howard Hughes, polar patriarchy. However, Virilio has little
inertia becomes a kind of Foucauldian time for cyberfeminism or `cybersex',
incarceration. Holed up in a single room notions that he criticizes, likening cyber-
in the Desert Inn hotel in Las Vegas for 15 sex, for instance, to the technological
years, endlessly watching Sturges' Ice replacement of the emotions. For Virilio,
Station Zebra, Hughes, Virilio's `techno- it is imperative to reject cybernetic sexual-
logical monk', was not only polar inertia ity, refocus theoretical attention on the
incarnate but, more importantly, the ®rst human subject, and resist the domination
inhabitant of an increasingly `mass situa- of both men and women by technology.
tion, the quest for the progress of speed In the world according to Virilio, then,
without the knowledge of the engine's cyberfeminism is merely one more form
exterminating character' (Virilio, 1997a: of technological fundamentalism ± the
++
religion of all those who believe in the increasingly sterile current debate over
absolute power of technology (Virilio the differentiation of modernism and
and Kittler, 1999). Having departed from postmodernism. It is, for instance, quite
the religious sensibility required in order wrong of critical social theorists such as
to understand the ubiquity, instantaneity, Harvey (1989: 351), Waite (1996: 116),
and immediacy of new information and positivist physicists like Sokal and
and communications technologies, cyber- Bricmont (1998: 159±66) to characterize
feminists, along with numerous other Virilio's thought as postmodern social
social groups, have thus capitulated to theory. Indeed, such characterizations are
the raptures of cyberspace. so far wide of the mark it is dif®cult to
know where to begin.
First, although the concept of post-
" 4 modernism, like Virilio, came to promi-
nence in architectural criticism in the
1960s, Virilio's thought is neither a
Appraising the key advances and contro- reaction against the International Style
versies of Virilio's thought is problematic nor a reaction against modernism.
not simply because it is only recently that Postmodernism, Virilio proposes, has
it has come to be appreciated by social been a `catastrophe' in architecture and
theorists but because there is very little has nothing to do with his phenomeno-
substantial secondary literature or inter- logically grounded writings (Armitage,
pretive commentary speci®cally on 2000a). For Virilio's work draws on the
Virilio (although see, for example, the modernist tradition in the arts and
small and often intermittent sections on sciences. In it, he references modernist
Virilio in Conley, 1997; Der Derian, 1992; writers and artists such as Kafka and
Wark, 1994). Nonetheless, Virilio's Marinetti. His philosophical reference
writings on military space and the social points are Husserl and Merleau-Ponty,
organization of society have, almost with- phenomenologists and modernists.
out exception, forecast rather than Furthermore, Virilio cites Einstein's
followed subsequent social and theoreti- writings on General Relativity Theory, an
cal developments. It is for this reason instance of his commitment to the theory
that contemporary postmodern social of scienti®c modernism established in
theorists like Bauman (1998: 12) are keenly 1915.
studying Virilio's work. However, Second, Virilio sees no connection
Virilio's thought remains much misunder- between his thought and that of de-
stood. Here, then, I shall evaluate the constructionist and post-structuralist
essential contribution of Virilio's writings theorists like Derrida. Virilio has, for
by suggesting that they exist beyond the example, never shown any interest in de
terms of postmodernism and that they Saussure's structural linguistics, prefer-
should be conceived of as a contribution ring the world of phenomenology and
to the emerging debate over `hyper- existentialism. As an anti-Marxist (and
modernism'. Lastly, I shall consider anti-Sartrean), committed anarchist,
some objections to Virilio's work before and thinker who has `absolutely no con-
concluding. ®dence in psychoanalysis', he has little in
common with the pioneers of structural-
"
'
* #-' %
)0 '
* #-' #* ism such as the semiologist Barthes, the
)
#* Marxist philosopher Althusser, the psy-
choanalyst Lacan, and the anthropologist
Virilio's exegesis of military space and the LeÂvi-Strauss (Virilio, 1997a: 39). Virilio's
social organization of territory is an theoretical connections with Foucault's
important contribution to critical social (1977) Discipline and Punish and Deleuze
theory because it diverges from the and Guattari's (1987) A Thousand Plateaus
+++
.- #
#%'0
)
$
)
also need to be treated with care. This is writings, for instance, Virilio's writings
because, unlike most post-structuralist remain true to the principle of hope with
theorists, Virilio is a humanist and a regard to making sense of history.
practising Christian. His work is opposed Actually, nearly the entirety of Virilio's
to the viewpoint of antihumanism and to work is a sustained attempt to make
the philosophy of Foucault's and Deleuze sense of his own history and, through it,
and Guattari's messiah, Nietzsche. ours too. Nor does Virilio accept the
Consequently, there are only indeter- demise of all the `metanarratives', insist-
minate and convergent relationships ing in interviews, for example, `that the
between Virilio's thought and Foucault narrative of justice is beyond deconstruc-
and Deleuze's post-structuralist theories, tion' (Armitage, 2000a: 39). Likewise,
something that Virilio has pointed out Virilio's hostility to Marxism, semiotics,
(Virilio, 1997a: 44±5). For Virilio, the and Nietzschean `nihilism' explains his
crucial pointers on all his social theory antagonism toward Baudrillard's concept
have been the Second World War, military of simulation. Again, unlike many post-
strategy, and spatial planning. modern social theorists, Virilio does not
Third, in contrast to many postmodern share Baudrillard's admiration for
social theorists, Virilio does not wholly McLuhan's (1994) `drooling' (Virilio,
condemn modernity. Rather, he views his 1995: 10) over new media technologies.
work as a `critical analysis of modernity, Similarly, Virilio's writings are less con-
but through a perception of technology cerned with Baudrillard's `hyperreality'
which is largely. . . catastrophic, not cata- and `irony' and more concerned with
strophist'. Arguing that `we are not out social reality and the celebration of the
of modernity yet, by far', it is, then, `the poor.
drama of total war' that lies at the core For these reasons, it is very dif®cult to
of Virilio's social theory (Armitage, 2000a: appraise the important advances of
26). Concentrating his thought on the Virilio's thought in terms of postmodern
varying speeds of modernity, Virilio's social theory. It is also why I believe it is
texts thus concern themselves with its preferable to interpret it as the work of a
key characteristics such as technoscience, social theorist whose thinking addresses
surveillance, urbanism, and alienation. what might be called the question of
Moreover, and despite his reputation as hypermodernism; a tentative term and
a Cassandra, Virilio often insists that his embryonic tendency in contemporary
conception of modernity, as distinct from social theory that seeks to move away
the theorists of postmodernism, is essen- from the polarized assumptions of mod-
tially optimistic (Armitage, 2000a). ernism and postmodernism and toward
Furthermore, Virilio is not wholly anti- an understanding of the `excessive' inten-
pathetic to reason, even if he is critical of sities and displacements inherent within
aspects of the `Enlightenment project'. social thought about the modern world
However, he certainly is inimical to and how it is represented (Armitage,
Hegelian and Marxist theories of knowl- 2000b).
edge and ideology. In this respect, Virilio
can be considered as a kind of `left %!
.
Baudrillard, J. (1995) The Gulf War Did Not Take Place. From Modernism to Hypermodernism and beyond.
Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University London: Sage.
Press. Kroker, A. (1992) `Paul Virilio: The postmodern body
Bauman, Z. (1998) Globalization: The Human as war machine', in The Possessed Individual: Techno-
Consequences. Cambridge: Polity Press. logy and Postmodernity. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Conley, V.A. (1997) Ecopolitics: The Environment in Kroker, A. and Kroker, M. (eds) (1997) Digital
Poststructuralist Thought. London: Routledge. Delirium. Montreal: New World Perspectives.
Crawford, T.H. (1999) `Conducting Technologies: Lyotard, J-F. (1984) The Postmodern Condition: A Report
Virilio's and Latour's Philosophies of the Present on Knowledge. Minneapolis and Manchester:
State', Angelaki, 4 (2): 171±81. Minnesota Press and Manchester University Press.
Crogan, P. (1999) `Theory of State: Deleuze, Guattari Mandelbrot, B. (1977) The Fractal Geometry of Nature.
and Virilio on the State, Technology, and Speed', New York: Freeman.
Angelaki, 4 (2): 137±48. McLuhan, M. (1994) Understanding Media: The
Deleuze, G. (1995) `Postscript on control societies', Extensions of Man. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Negotiations: 1972±1990. New York: Columbia Plant, S. (1997) Zeros Ones: Digital Women The
University Press. New Technoculture. London: Fourth Estate.
Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1987) A Thousand Sokal, A. and Bricmont, J. (1998) Intellectual
Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Impostures: Postmodern Philosophers' Abuse of
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Science. London: Pro®le Books.
Der Derian, J. (1992) Antidiplomacy: Spies, Terror, Speed Tzu, S. (1993) The Art of War. Ware: Wordsworth
and War. Oxford: Blackwell. Editions.
Der Derian, J. (ed.) (1998) The Virilio Reader. Oxford: Waite, G. (1996) Nietzshe's Corps/e: Aesthetics, Politics,
Blackwell. Prophecy, or the Spectacular Technoculture of Everyday
Foucault, M. (1977) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of Life. Durham, NC and London: Duke University
the Prison. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Press.
Haraway, D. (1985) `A manifesto for cyborgs: science, Wark, M. (1994) Virtual Geography: Living with Global
technology and socialist feminism in the 1980s', Media Events. Bloomington and Indianapolis:
Socialist Review, 80 (2): 65±108. Indiana University Press.
Harvey, D. (1989) The Condition of Postmodernity: An Zurbrugg, N. (1995) ```Apocalyptic!'' ``Negative!''
Enquiry Into the Origins of Cultural Change. Oxford: ``Pessimistic!'': Baudrillard, Virilio, and Techno-
Blackwell. culture' in S. Koop (ed.), Post: Photography: Post
Johnson, P. (ed.) (1996) The Function of the Oblique: The Photography. Fitzroy: Centre for Contemporary
Architecture of Claude Parent and Paul Virilio. Photography.
London: Architectural Association.
Kellner, D. (2000) `Virilio, war, and technology: some
critical re¯ections', in J. Armitage (ed.) Paul Virilio:
20
Henri Lefebvre
ROB SHIELDS
S
urveys of French intellectual life in in the ancient town Navarrenx in 1991.
the 1950s and 1960s remark that During that period, he witnessed the
Henri Lefebvre (1901±91) is a per- modernization of French everyday life,
manent outsider, yet one of the most in- the industrialization of the economy, and
¯uential forces in French left-wing suburbanization of its cities. In the pro-
humanism. Although an unorthodox cess, the rural way of life of the traditional
writer who was of®cially excluded from peasant was destroyed (Ross, 1996). Some
the Parti Communiste FrancËais long before of the most important elements in the con-
the work of thinkers such as Lyotard, text in which Lefebvre found himself can
Althusser, or Foucault on the French left be listed in chronological order. After his
caught the attention of most Anglophone initial schooling on the West coast of
theorists, Lefebvre ®gured as the most France at Brieuc and in Paris, he was pro-
translated of French writers during the foundly affected by not only the lack of
1950s and 1960s. Thanks to his 1939 paper- food and heat in occupied Paris but the
back on Dialectical Materialism (Lefebvre, widespread post-First World War malaise
1968c) translated into over two dozen of the French populace who felt alienated
languages and printed on a vast scale in from the new industrialized forms of
over a dozen editions) he ranked as `The work and bureaucratic institutions of
Father of the Dialectic' for at least two civil society in the early 1920s. This
generations of students world-wide. By spurred him to focus on alienation and
the 1980s he was idolized by American led him to the philosophies and social cri-
postmodernists and geographers as the ticism of Marx and Hegel, which in turn
pioneer of critiques of the city and the paved the route to joining the Parti
`spatial turn' in theory. Communiste FrancËais (PCF). Lefebvre's
Henri Lefebvre was a Marxist and exis- career was disrupted by the Second
tentialist philosopher (see Lefebvre, 1946), World War. His books and manuscripts
a sociologist of urban and rural life, and a were burnt by the Vichy regime during
theorist of the state, of international ¯ows the war and he was persecuted for his
Henri Lefebvre 227
not available to him, allowing LukaÁcs to evaluated in his later work (see Harvey,
develop a distinct concept, `rei®cation', 1991).
without the cognitive stress of Lefebvre Even before discovering the work of
and Guterman's theory of mysti®cation Hegel and Marx, Lefebvre was in¯uenced
which is closer to Marx and Engel's posit- by Schopenhauer to develop a romantic
ing of the existence of classes' `false con- humanism which glori®ed `adventure',
sciousness'. A further irony is that spontaneity, and self-expression. He is
Lefebvre's extension of alienation into called by one German biographer a
the key concept in an entire critique of `Romantische RevolutionaÈr' (Meyer, 1973;
modern life turns on an oversimpli®ed Lefebvre et al., 1958). In the mix of
reading of Marx and Engels' many differ- students and activists in mid-1920s Paris,
ent types of estrangement and disposses- Lefebvre was part of a group of Philosophes
sion. The range of ideas are replaced by (including also Nisan, Friedman, and
the French alieÂnation as if they were all Mandelbrot) who were loosely connected
synonyms of a social-psychological type with Gide, and in¯uenced by surrealists
alienation. By contrast with this cognitive such as Breton (who was the one who
state, Marx and Engels often give the idea introduced Lefebvre to Hegel and Marx)
the sense of forceful expropriation of and Dadaists such as Tzara. In turn, the
pro®t or value ± an active `taking away', philosophes' protoexistentialist rejection
which is lost in Guterman and Lefebvre's of metaphysical solutions in favour of
translation. action in¯uenced Sartre and his circle
Against `mysti®cation', against the (see Lefebvre, 1925; Short, 1966, 1979;
banality of the `metro-bulot-dodo' life of Trebitsch, 1987).
the suburban commuter, Lefebvre pro- Apart from his work on the young Marx
poses that we seize and act on all (with Guterman probably doing most of
`Moments' of revelation, emotional the translation), Lefebvre and Guterman
clarity, and self-presence as the basis for produced a well-timed Introduction' to
becoming more self-ful®lled (l'homme Hegel (1938) which coincided with
totale ± see 1959). This concept of KojeÂve's in¯uential lectures on his `anthro-
`Moments' reappears throughout his pological' interpretation of Hegelianism.
work as a theory of presence and the The ®rst interwar attempt at an anti-
foundation of a practice of emancipation. Fascist reading of Nietzsche (1939) and a
Experiences of revelation, deÂja-vu sensa- rigorous critique of National Socialism
tions, but especially love and committed and nationalism followed. But it was
struggle are examples of Moments. By Lefebvre's Marxist primer on the theory
de®nition Moments are instances of of Dialectical Materialism (1968c) which
disalienation. They have no duration but made him internationally famous as a
can be relived (see Hess, 1994). Lefebvre Marxist theorist, despite the disapproval
argues that these cannot easily be reap- and destruction of a more existentialist
propriated by consumer capitalism and manuscript on everyday life by the PCF
commodi®ed; they cannot be codi®ed. censor. By the end of the Second World
They are `escape-hatches' from the War, despite participating in the
alienated condition of everyday life Resistance and nearly starving in 1944±5,
which can be experienced unexpectedly, he had a more sociological critique of
anywhere and at any time. Perhaps ironi- everyday life ready for publication.
cally for someone lately stereotyped as a The spoils and fame from the inter-
theorist of space, Lefebvre can be said to national media interest in existential
have a form of temporal theory of authen- philosophy caused a long-running dis-
ticity based in the `timelessness' and pute between Lefebvre and Sartre through
instantaneity of Moments. Moments the 1940s up until a reconciliation in
become the measuring rod by which the which they both recognized each other's
quality of life in different societies is in¯uence on themselves. Lefebvre's
Henri Lefebvre 229
attacks on Sartre's Being and Nothingness social relations and economic factors
(1958) had been goaded-on by the under capitalism upon the quality of
PCF who feared the latter's in¯uence access and participation in the urban
(Lefebvre, 1950). When Lefebvre acknowl- milieu. This interaction should not degen-
edged Sartre's status, and Sartre acknowl- erate into commodi®ed spectacles or into
edged using Lefebvre's dialectical simply `shopping' but should be the social
method, Lefebvre himself was attacked form of self-presence in which individuals
and decisively excluded from the PCF enjoy the right of association into collec-
(Lefebvre, 1958, 1975b; Poster, 1975). tives and self-determination.
Perhaps most interesting is the exten- His important de®nition of the city
sion of this critique from the arena of was never properly absorbed by urban
everyday life and relations between the theorists. What is `the urban', he asked?
household and society at large into a The urban is not a certain population, a
full-blown analysis of urban life geographic size, or a collection of build-
(Trebitsch, 1991). Lefebvre does this by ings. Nor is it a node, a transhipment
drawing on his collaboration with the point or a centre of production. It is all
Situationniste International (SI) in the early of these together, and thus any de®nition
1960s. This took the form of reading group must search for the essential quality of all
discussions on the Paris Commune of of these aspects. Lefebvre understands the
1871 which Lefebvre published as La urban from this phenomenological basis
Proclamation de la Commune (1965b). The as a Hegelian form but this is not to say
Commune ± an uprising and direct that he is simply phenomenologist. Like
democracy of workers in inner Paris ± social space, the urban is a `concrete
involved the occupation of key symbolic abstraction'.
sites in Paris (Lefebvre, 1969). It took the It is concrete in having a given substance, and still
form of an extended festival, a Mardi concrete when it becomes part of our activity, by
Gras that over¯owed the bounds of social resisting or obeying it . . . It is abstract by virtue of
regulation to the extent that it became a its de®nite, measurable contours, and also because
`revolutionary festival' (Ross, 1988). it can enter into a social existence . . . and become
Lefebvre later examined the work of the bearer of a whole series of new relations . . .
(Lefebvre, 1968: 119 [1939b])
Bakhtin, but his approach is distinctive
in that he focuses on the revolutionary The urban is social centrality, where the
potential of play, in parallel with the many elements and aspects of capitalism
ideas of Lyotard (libidinal economy ± see intersect in space despite often merely
Kleinspehn, 1975) and of Deleuze and being part of the place for a short time,
Guattari (desire as a productive force) as is the case with goods or people in tran-
(Lefebvre and ReÂgulier, 1978; see sit. `Cityness' is the simultaneous gather-
Lefebvre, 1988). Lefebvre co-authored ing and dispersing of goods, information,
work and interviews with Kolakowski and people. Some cities achieve this more
on `Evolution or Revolution' (1974), fully than others ± and hence our own
which awaits comparison with the perceptions of some as `great cities' per se.
opposed work of Sorokin on the sociology After the ®rst set of works explicitly
of revolutions. This unique idea was later concerned with urban struggles and the
put into practice by Lefebvre's seminar experience of May 1968, The Production
students at Nanterre, who led the occupa- of Space (1991c, ®rst published 1974)
tion of the Sorbonne and much of Paris forms the keystone of the all-important
in May 1968. Every person has a `right `second phase' of Lefebvre's analysis of
to the city' (1968a) ± that is, to the city the urban which began around 1972 (see
understood as the pre-eminent site of Lefebvre, 1996; Kofman and Lebas, 1996).
social interaction and exchange, which (This may be seen as beginning with his
Lefebvre refers to as `social centrality'. 1972 contribution to the colloquium `The
Lefebvre analysed the impact of changing Institutions of the Post-Industrial Society',
230 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
thinking at this time about the semiotics of such as the Surrealists and Situationists.
metaphor and metonymy and the entire The three axes or aspects of space are the
mechanics of representation through a elements of a `triple dialectic' (dialectique de
sign system. The text is strewn with triplicite ± the details of which Lefebvre
the debris of near-forgotten theories of does not sketch). The shifting balance
linguistic and semiotics. It would seem between these forces de®nes what I have
more obvious to tie the problem of `lived referred to as the historical `spatialization'
space' to spatial practice, rather than the of an era (Shields, 1990, 1999).
social imaginary. However, referring to A triple dialectic short-circuits any
his Nietzschean ideal of the `total person', tendencies to reduce this along the
he is interested here in the `fully lived', lines of a base±superstructure dualism
preconscious and authentic shards of (or economy±culture, or production±con-
spatiality which animate people, provid- sumption, or action±thought), making
ing meaning to the entire assemblage of it dif®cult to think in terms other than
lives and spatializations. a dialectical juxtaposition. The multi-
Lefebvre dictated his books, and dimensional thesis is in direct contrast to
avoided editing, leaving inconsistencies the more customary reduction of space to
which are also clues to a troubling pro- part of the trinity: production, consump-
blem which continued to haunt Lefebvre tion, and exchange (as in Castells, 1977).
± the paradox of an almost impassable In addition to these three, common in poli-
gulf between the sign and any authentic tical economic analyses of space, Lefebvre
reality. This gulf left even the `total person' argues that space, or spatialization as I
either alienated from their nomothetic have suggested it is best translated, is a
world or in a state of inarticulate and inco- fourth and determining realm of social
herent union and bliss, which could not be relations in which the production and
represented, and thus could hardly be deployment of wealth and surplus value
expected to serve as a libidinal, mobilizing takes place. The spatial may be seen to be
force for social change, as he and others an abiding concept in cultural regimes of
had hoped might happen during the occu- socioeconomic hierarchies (implemented
pation of the Sorbonne in May 1968. This through physical spatial division), and
paradox would drive Lefebvre back to an indicator of socioeconomical con-
reassess the work of Nietzsche after the sistency, compatibility, or continuity of
completion of Production de l'espace privilege, class, and practice. Further-
(1991c, 1975a). more, Lefebvre's three-part dialectic is
Lefebvre's tripartitite division is one in which there seems to be little
Christian and originates in Catholic temporal progression from contradiction
mysticism ± a hint that Lefebvre preserved to synthesis. It appears to be more spatial,
his own `third' element in a dialectic along- with elements that coexist in a tension
side of Marxist theory and PCF praxis which is only broken occasionally by
(see Shields, 1999). The division of the pop- Lefebvre's `third' element which trans®g-
ular against the professional echoes ures, reinterprets, or recodes a historical
Lefebvre's contact with the Popular Front `settlement' of forces.
and grassroots Communist activism This idea of historical spatializations is
(often via his spouses, of whom there the basis for a `transcoding' of Marx's
were several) and the experience of Grundrisse into spatial terms (Jameson,
1960s and 1970s city planning battles as 1991). A history of `modes of production
neighbourhood communities faced `slum of space' emerges which completes
clearance' moves by planners and `rede- Marx's vision of successive historical
velopment', for others with the ability to modes of production in urban, environ-
pay, by speculators. The privilege granted mental, and attitudinal terms. A true
to art is consistent with his af®liations Communist revolution must not only
with artistic and political avant gardes change the relationship of labourers to
232 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
the means of production, but also create a physical arrangements of things, but
new spatialization ± shifting the balance spatial patterns of social action and rou-
away from the `conceived space' of tine as well as historical conceptions of
which private property, city lots, and the space and the world (such as a fear of fall-
surveyor's grid are artifacts. Embracing ing off the edge of a ¯at world). They add
the `lived space' of avant gardes is a up to an sociospatial imaginary and out-
device for harnessing its reinvigorating look which manifests itself in our every
potential and redirecting the `perceived action.
space' of everyday practice in a new This system of space operates at all
manner. This theory provides an early scales. At the most personal, we think of
bridge from Marxist thought to environ- ourselves in spatialized terms, imagining
mentalism. Lefebvre was particularly ourselves as an ego contained within an
in¯uential on the formative positions of objecti®ed body. People extend them-
the German Green Party. selves ± mentally and physically ± out
The work on the city and on other scales into space much as a spider extends its
of space is the reason Lefebvre's work limbs in the form of a web. We become
has remained important in the English- as much a part of these extensions as
speaking world ± not his once prominent they are of us. Arrangements of objects,
role as the Father of the Dialectic, nor the work teams, landscapes, and architecture
lost history of his contributions to passing are the concrete instances of this spatiali-
the idea of a personal, revolution of zation. Equally, ideas about regions,
everyday life from the Dadaist of the media images of cities and perceptions
1920s to the student countercultures of of `good neighbourhoods' are other
the 1960s and the 1980s British punks and aspects of this space which is necessarily
anarchists (Home, 1988; Plant, 1992). produced by each society as it makes its
`Rediscovered' by geographers such as mark on the Earth.
Ed Soja (1989, 1996) and Neil Smith What is the use of such an `unpacking'
(1984), sociologists such as Mark of the production of the spatial? Lefebvre
Gottdiener (1985), and cultural theorists uses the changing types of historical space
such as Frederic Jameson (1991), to explain why capitalistic accumulation
Lefebvre spent part of 1983 in California. did not occur earlier, even in those ancient
During this trip, an enduring connection economies which were commodity and
to contemporary social critics of all stripes money-based, which were committed to
was made and a ®nal relay was closed reason and science, and which were
in the extensive circuit of intellectual based in cities (see Merri®eld, 1993). One
transfers which Lefebvre effected. well-known explanation is that slavery
stunted the development of wage-labour.
He ®nds this unconvincing. No: it was a
APPRAISAL OF KEY ADVANCES AND secular space, itself commodi®ed as
CONTROVERSIES lots and private property, quanti®ed by
surveyors and stripped of the old local
Why is this work important? Lefebvre gods and spirits of place, that was neces-
goes beyond previous philosophical sary. `What exactly is the mode of existence
debates on the nature of space, and of social relationships?' asks Lefebvre in
beyond human geography, planning, and his typically dialectical style.
architecture, which considered people
and things merely `in' space, to present The study of space offers an answer according to
which the social relations of production have a
a coherent theory of the development of
social existence to the extent that they have
different systems of spatiality in different a spatial existence; they project themselves into
historical periods, or `historical spatializa- a space, becoming inscribed there, and in the pro-
tions' as we have referred to them cess producing that space itself. Failing this, these
above. These `spatializations' are not just relations would remain in the realm of `pure'
Henri Lefebvre 233
abstraction ± that is to say, in the realm of repre- questions which rise above even
sentations and hence of ideology: the realm of Lefebvre's answers.
verbalism, verbiage and empty words. (Lefebvre,
In Hegel's view, `af®rmation' is un-
1991c: 129)
differentiated in itself and thus a homoge-
As well as being a product of cultures, neous entity, unknowable because lacking
space is a medium ± and the changing in any difference. In this sense it is a
way we understand, practise, and live in purely spatial concept, similar in all
terms of our space provides clues to respects to an undifferentiated ®eld in
how our capitalist world of nation-states which no single point or element stands
is giving way to a unanticipated geo- out. Dialectical negation introduces time
politics ± a new sense of our relation to ± the negation of space ± in the form of
our bodies, world, and planets as a the punctum, the point or instant (the
changing space of distance and difference. most elementary of temporal concepts).
In this analysis, Lefebvre broadened Aufhebung, negation of this negation,
the concept of production to `social pro- must subsume both the spatial ®eld and
duction' (unaware of social constructivist the point which is pure difference in itself.
theories that had been developed by non- For Hegel, this takes place by means of the
Francophone writers such as Berger and spatialization of the point itself, drawing it
Luckman or by Gar®nkel). Contempora- into a line, trajectory, or ¯ow, movement
neously with Poulanzas in the mid 1970s and passage. In the Hegelian scheme, we
he later re®ned his analysis with an could say that the third term is analogous
assessment of the role of the state. This to historical `progress'. Even if this over-
included his interest in the changing simpli®es Hegel, it allows us to illustrate
historical geography of capitalism and the distinctiveness of Lefebvre's proposal
the globalization of socioeconomic rela- which introduces a third element ± `the
tions. It must not be forgotten, however, lived', Moments, jokes ± which allows
that this was also a turn to rhythm and the intrusion of a horizon or `outside', a
to space-time (Lefebvre and ReÂgulier- `beyond' or otherness. This element
Lefebvre, 1985). Beyond The Production of is always constitutively distinct from
Space stretched a decade and a half of the original binary of ®eld and point, or
further publishing, including his posthu- af®rmation and negation. In effect the
mous book Rhythmanalyse (Lefebvre and shift is from `(1) af®rmation (2) negation
ReÂgulier-Lefebvre, 1985, 1992). In addition (3) negation of the negation (synthesis)'
he attempted a rapprochement of Marx, to a new and little explored formula `af®r-
Hegel, Nietzsche (1975a) which would mation-negation-otherness-synthesis'.
extend Marxism to what he called a Soja for example envisions this as not
`metaphilosophy' (1965a). However, `an additive combination of its binary
Lefebvre's spatial dialectic is perhaps his antecedents but rather. . . a disordering,
most intriguing contribution. deconstruction, and tentative recon-
A theoretical spatialization of the stitution of their presumed totalization
dialectic is not, however, pursued by producing an open alternative that is
Lefebvre himself. He remains in the both similar and strikingly different'.
classical Hegelian mode. Nor is it fully What he derives from Lefebvre's `differen-
clari®ed in the secondary literature, for tialist' position (1971a, 1980, 1981b, 1991b)
example, Soja's work, which draws on as `Thirding', `decomposes the dialectic
some theorists of alterity (1996). through an intrusive disruption that expli-
Nonetheless, we can grasp through citly spatializes dialectical reasoning . . .
Lefebvre a legacy which lies beyond [it] produces what might best be called a
even his own accomplishments. We cumulative trialectics that is radically open
might attribute this to the dialectical to additional othernesses, to a continued
style of his texts ± to their excess ± to expansion of spatial knowledge' (Soja,
the way they continue to ask pertinent 1996: 61).
234 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
The dialectic thus emerges from time and actua- Gregory, 1994; Soja suggests links between
lizes itself, operating now, in an unforeseen man- bell hooks and Lefebvre). Except perhaps
ner, in space. The contradictions of space, without
for the work of Homi Bhabha, the idea of
abolishing the contradictions which arise from
historical time, leave history behind and transport
alterity has not been rigorously compared
these old contradictions, in a worldwide simulta- and contrasted against theories of
neity, onto a higher level. (Lefebvre, 1991c: 129) negation and contradiction such as the
dialectic.
Lefebvre seems to have produced a `both± Avoiding a simple base±superstructure
and' vision of the dialectic. `Both±and' dualism was Lefebvre's prime concern.
could be restated as more precisely After the failure of the student occu-
`both' (both af®rmation and negation) pations of May 1968, he was eclipsed
plus `and' (the third, otherness). He rein- by Louis Althusser's PCF-sponsored
tegrates within the structure of the dialec- `Scienti®c Marxism' in which the base±
tic Nietzsche's concept of an irreducible superstructure division was a privileged
tension, `Uberwinden', which is not simply element of a structural analysis of
superceded (an interest of Lefebvre's the repressive forces and institutions of
that dates back to the 1930s). This presents capitalist states (Zimmerman, 1975).
the possibility of ®xing the dialectic as a Ironically, Lefebvre ®rst became well
counterposed assemblage of three terms known to English-speaking theorists
which are mutually supporting and through the critiques of his work by
mutually parasitical for their status within Althusserians, such as Manuel Castells,
the dialectic. Only the synopsis, delivered who, in The Urban Question, criticized
out of the dialectical analysis ± and not Lefebvre's urban works for their vague-
a part of the dialectic proper - gives the ness and antistructuralist bias (Castells,
possibility of an overarching synchronic 1977; Martins, 1983: 166; Gottdiener,
synthesis. By opening a position for 1985; see Lefebvre, 1971b).
alterity, otherness is brought into the By contrast, Lefebvre's `Humanistic
dialectical schema without being reduced Marxism' emphasized the humanistic
to the logic of the `other' as merely a understanding of alienation as Marx's
straightforward `negation' of self, of thesis motivating concept, explored in the eco-
± of af®rmation. nomic sphere using the tools of historical
materialism and dialectics. By emphasiz-
Critique ing the importance of dialectical material-
ism, he became the quintessential Marxist
Lefebvre did not pursue the opportunity methodologist and logician (see Lefebvre,
to apply this reconceptualization to either 1947). He argued that Marxism was
the body or to identities such as national- incomplete as long as it remained applied
ism. In the case of the body, he remained primarily to the economic rather than to
within the patriarchal tradition dividing all aspects of social life, and the task of
bodies and spaces heterosexually into twentieth-century Marxism was to extend
male and female. These are conceived on this application of dialectical materialism
the basis of a simple negation (A/not-A; beyond the economic, and also re¯exively
that is, male/not-male) and Lefebvre, like onto Marxist theory and politics.
most French theorists, was untouched by It is therefore surprising that, given his
Commonwealth and American writers' interest in nationalism, in urbanism, in the
theories of gay and lesbian `third' alterna- closing ties of the global economy, and his
tive identities (A/not-A/neither) outside activism in French debates concerning the
of a heterosexual dualism (Blum and Nast, independence of French Morocco and of
1996). Late twentieth-century postcolonial Algeria, Lefebvre did not foresee the
writers developed alternative theories of emerging politics of multiculturalism and
ethnic and race identity without reading the problems of France's ethnic ghettos.
Lefebvre (with some exceptions, see Lefebvre has little to say on the question
Henri Lefebvre 235
of discrimination, or on `insiders and out- Lefebvre, H. (1937) Le nationalisme contre les nations.
siders' and the ethics of their relation- (`Preface' by Paul Nizan.) Paris: Editions Sociales
Internationales; reprinted Paris: MeÂridiens-
ships. He tends to conceive of the state
Klincksliek 1988.
as a once-authentic instrument of a single Lefebvre, H. (1939) Nietzsche. Paris: Editions Sociales
people which has been seized by the Internationales.
capitalist class for itself. Lefebvre, H. (1946) L'Existentialisme. Paris: Editions
There are important parallels between du Sagittaire.
the work of Lefebvre and LukaÁcs, Lefebvre, H. (1947) Logique formelle, logique dialectique
Adorno, and Marcuse which have not Vol. 1 of A la lumieÁre du mateÂrialisme dialectique.
Paris: Editions Sociales.
been extensively explored in the scholar- Lefebvre, H. (1950) `Knowledge and social criticism',
ship on twentieth-century neo-Marxisms. in Philosophic Thought in France and the USA.
If Lefebvre moved beyond the economic, Albany NY: State University of New York Press;
and broadened the notion of production 2nd ed. 1968.
and the dialectic, but Lefebvre remains Lefebvre, H. (1958) ProbleÂmes actuels du marxisme.
on the modernist terrain of problems Paris: Presses universitaires de France; 4th edition,
1970, Collection `Initiation philosophique'.
concerning state±society relations. In
Lefebvre, H. (1961) Critique de la vie quotidienne II,
Lefebvre's late work there is no horizon Fondements d'une sociologie de la quotidienneteÂ,
of ethnic, racial, and sexual Others, Paris: L'Arche.
relations of colonial domination, and no Lefebvre, H. (1963) La valleÂe de Campan ± Etude de
sustained engagement with the environ- sociologie rurale. Paris: Presses Universitaires de
mental movement. In part this is a result France.
of timing ± his active authorship Lefebvre, H. (1965a) MeÂtaphilosophie. (Envoi by Jean
Wahl.) Paris: Editions de Minuit, Collection
dwindled in the early 1980s. His contribu- `Arguments'.
tion was to provide a series of open texts, Lefebvre, H. (1965b) La Proclamation de la Commune.
studded with not only insights but unre- Paris: Gallimard, Collection `Trente JourneÂes qui
solved and probing questions, and ont fait la France'.
marked by a faith in peoples' intuition Lefebvre, H. (1968a) Le droit aÁ la ville. Paris:
and willingness to act. Lefebvre was a Anthropos; 2nd ed. Paris: Ed. du Seuil, Collection
`Points'.
`conducting wire' of ideas and accu-
Lefebvre, H. (1968b) La vie quotidienne dans le monde
mulated experience from generation to moderne. Paris: Gallimard, Collection `IdeÂes'.
generation of the European avant garde Lefebvre, H. (1968c) Dialectical Materialism. (Trans. J.
(Hess, 1988; Marcus, 1989). Those ideas Sturrock.) London: Cape.
electri®ed not one generation, but a Lefebvre, H. (1968d) Sociology of Marx. (Trans. N.
century on the Left, and made their Guterman.) New York: Pantheon.
mark far and wide outside of France. Lefebvre, H. (1969) The Explosion: From Nanterre to the
Summit. Paris: Monthly Review Press.
Even where he is not quoted directly, Lefebvre, H. (1970) La reÂvolution urbaine. Paris:
fading from memory, Henri Lefebvre Gallimard, Collection `IdeÂes'.
left a legacy of coherence and radicality Lefebvre, H. (1971a) Le manifeste diffeÂrentialiste. Paris:
to utopian humanism. Gallimard, Collection `IdeÂes'.
Lefebvre, H. (1971b) Au-dele du structuralisme. Paris:
Anthropos.
Lefebvre, H. (1975a) Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, ou le roy-
LEFEBVRE'S MAJOR WORKS aume des ombres. Paris: Tournai, Casterman.
Collection `SyntheÁses contemporaines'.
Lefebvre, H. (1975b) Le temps des meÂprises: Entretiens
A complete index of Lefebvre's major
avec Claude Glayman. Paris: Stock.
works is available in Shields' Lefebvre: Lefebvre, H. (1978) de l'EÂtat, Vol. 4, Les contradictions
Love and Struggle (1999) with annotations de l'Etat moderne, La dialectique de l'Etat. Paris: UGE,
regarding reprints and editions collecting Collection `10/18'.
separate parts of previous publications. Lefebvre, H. (1980) La preÂsence et l'absence. Paris:
Casterman.
Lefebvre, H. (1925) `Positions d'attaque et de Lefebvre, H. (1981a) Critique de la vie quotidienne, III.
deÂfense du nouveau mysticisme', Philosophies, 5- De la modernite au modernisme (Pour une meÂtaphilo-
6: 471±506. sophie du quotidien). Paris: L'Arche.
236 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
Soja, E. (1989) Postmodern Geographies, the Reassertion Trebitsch, Michel (1991) `Preface', in Henri Lefebvre,
of Space in Critical Social Theory. London: Verso. Critique of Everyday Life. (Trans. John Moore.)
Soja, E. (1996) Third Space. Oxford: Blackwell. London: Verso.
Trebitsch, Michel (1987) `Le groupe Philosophie, de Zimmerman, Marc (1975) `Polarities and con-
Max Jacob aux surreÂalistes', Les Cahiers de l'Institut traditions: theoretical bases of the Marxist-struc-
de l'Histoire du temps preÂsent, 6: 29±38. turalist encounter', New German Critique, 3 (1):
Trebitsch, Michel (1988) `PreÂsentation', in Henri 69±90.
Lefebvre, Le Nationalisme contre les Nations. Paris:
Meridiens Klincksieck.
21
Paul Ricoeur
KATHLEEN BLAMEY
P
aul Ricoeur was born in Valence, for the agreÂgation, which he passed in 1935,
France in 1913. He was taken in receiving second place. During this year
by his paternal grandparents at of study in Paris, Ricoeur made two
the age of two, having lost his mother as important encounters for the course of
an infant and his father in combat at his philosophical work: he discovered
the start of the First World War. Along the writings of Edmund Husserl, begin-
with his sister, Alice, Paul Ricoeur grew ning with the English translation of Ideas,
up in the sombre environment of an and he made the acquaintance of Gabriel
austere Protestant household in the pre- Marcel, attending the Friday evening
dominantly Catholic city of Rennes. His gatherings at the philosopher's home,
youth, characteristic of those orphaned where discussions addressed philosophi-
by the war and designated pupilles de la cal themes or problems and references to
Nation, was focused around his studies, authors were prohibited.
and holidays, with little in the way of In the summer of 1935 Paul Ricoeur
sports or games, were spent poring over married his childhood sweetheart,
the books assigned for the coming aca- Simone Lejas, from the Protestant com-
demic year. The ®nal year of secondary munity in Rennes. They would have ®ve
school brought Ricoeur into the classroom children. After a year in Colmar, Ricoeur
of Roland Dalbiez, his philosophy teacher, returned to Brittany, where he taught until
an anti-Cartesian realist, who was among he was conscripted into the army with
the ®rst to incorporate Freud in his philo- the outbreak of war in 1939. The defeat
sophical teaching. Ricoeur then attended of France in the spring of 1940 was the
the University of Rennes, receiving his beginning of a ®ve-year captivity for
undergraduate degree in philosophy in Ricoeur in an o¯ag in Pomerania. Among
1933. That same year he began teaching the more than three thousand prisoners
at a local high school, while writing his were a number of philosophers, who
master's thesis with LeÂon Brunschvicg shared books and gave lectures. With
on The Problem of God in Lachelier and Mikel Dufrenne, Ricoeur read Husserl,
Paul Ricoeur 239
distancing `what is said' from the `saying', social time, through which human deeds
making it autonomous in relation to the become institutions, is thought-provoking
intention of its author and the conditions but lacking in methodological de®nition.
of its production. This is what, in Ricoeur's The focus on language, even as the
view, allows the text to stand as a paradigm inscription of discourse in the text, leaves
for the object of the social sciences: in the shadows important aspects of social
action, such as the exercise of power in
In the same way that a text is detached from its
social institutions and the conditions of
author, an action is detached from its agent and
develops consequences of its own. This autonomi- dramatic social change.
zation of human action constitutes the social
dimension of action. An action is a social phenom- The Role of Explanation in the Social
enon not only because it is done by several agents
in such a way that the role of each of them cannot
Sciences
be distinguished from the role of the others, but In the development of his critical herme-
also because our deeds escape us and have effects
we did not intend. (Ricoeur, 1991: 153)
neutics, Ricoeur af®rms the need to join
explanation to understanding in the dia-
In writings published in From Text to lectic of interpretation. Ricoeur has shown
Action, Ricoeur works out the conse- himself to be a methodological pluralist in
quences of this analogy, con®ning the the Aristotelian sense, gauging the clarity
methodology of the social sciences to the and precision appropriate to different
same hermeneutical circle as the interpre- areas of investigation. The domain of the
tation of texts. Ricoeur is not unaware of Geisteswissenschaften ± whether designated
the problem this presents to the objectivity as human sciences, social sciences, or cri-
of the social sciences, but holds this circle tical social sciences ± requires, in
to be inherent in the knowledge of human Ricoeur's view, a twofold approach: ®rst,
affairs. the stage of objecti®cation, the process of
The model of the text, in which the units de®nition and formal organization that
are themselves meanings, displays short- provides the framework of intelligibility;
comings when applied to the ®eld of and second, the work of interpretation by
action. As John Thompson has shown, which the theoretical constructions are
the parallel between the ®xation of dis- appropriated as meanings and integrated
course in writing and the distancing of into a hermeneutic comprehension.
action from the event of its performance Ricoeur's analysis of the disciplines of
is unclear. `In opposition to Ricoeur, it psychoanalysis and ideology critique pro-
must be stressed that meaning is not vide examples of this twofold approach,
something inherent in an action . . . and have been the major areas of his
[rather] the meaning of an action is closely work to which criticism has been directed.
linked to its description, such that the When phenomenology was confronted
meaning may be speci®ed by the manner with psychoanalysis in Freud and
in which the action is described' Philosophy, Ricoeur acknowledged the
(Thompson, 1981: 126). Further, since defeat of immediate consciousness and
`the meaning of an action is linked to its the need to incorporate the empirical rea-
description . . . how one describes an lism of the unconscious in an economic
action is deeply affected by circumstantial model expressed in terms of force and
considerations. This point is particularly energy. The peculiar status of psycho-
important for the theory of interpretation, analysis in relation to the distinction
for it creates the possibility of reinterpret- between the natural and the human
ing action in the light of institutional sciences was expressed in its `mixed dis-
arrangements and structural conditions' course', a discourse of force coupled with
(Thompson, 1981: 127). the appropriation of experience in a dis-
Ricoeur's reference by means of this course of meaning. Returning some years
analogy to the sedimentation of action in later to this conjuncture of meaning and
246 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
the other members of the social group are autonomy from the tutelage of philosophy
subsumed' (1991: 263). (anthropology, demography, economics,
This would appear to deprive the criti- history, linguistics, psychology, sociology)
cal social sciences of their ambition to have re¯ected the increasing specializa-
uncover the mechanisms of ideology, tion of intellectual work, a diversi®cation
which are unrecognizable to the members that also attests to the development and
of any given community. In Knowledge application of new methods of empirical
and Human Interests (1972), Habermas investigation. The resulting construction
compared the work of critique, considered of separate spheres of activity ± each
the explanatory science of the systematic with its codi®cation of terms, methodo-
distortions of ideology, to psychoanalysis, logical procedures, and manner of proces-
considered the explanatory theory of the sing results ± has increased the internal
psyche's resistance to self-recognition. In coherence of each discipline while making
both instances, distortions occur within them less and less capable of communicat-
the process of communication, but ing with one another. The fragmentation
because these distortions are systematic of disciplines produces competition
and related to the repressive forces of an between them and aggravates the ten-
authority, they are not accessible to the dency for each to view issues from its
ordinary techniques of interpretation. own distinct viewpoint. Philosophers
They require instead the detour of a have responded to the dispossession of
theoretical model and antihermeneutical these spheres in a number of different
explanatory procedures. The interest in ways. Some have simply con®rmed that
emancipation corresponds to the ruin of the history of the rise of the human
ideology, not in Ricoeur's broad de®ni- sciences itself attests to the creation and
tion, but in the narrower sense of a system demise of the concept of `man'
of belief that objecti®es social reality as a (Foucault); others replace philosophy
natural process and mistakenly identi®es with critique, whose task is the analysis
the interests of one part of society with of the role of the social sciences in the tech-
those of society as a whole. Given this nologies of power (Adorno, Marcuse).
de®nition of ideology and its critique, Ricoeur's view of the relation between
one can indeed, in opposition to Ricoeur, philosophy and the social sciences is a
conceive of its outside (undistorted recognition of the inevitable con¯ict of
relations of communication) or its other interpretations. Philosophy, in the form
(social rationality). The independent of Ricoeur's critical hermeneutics, then
status of the critical social sciences is the serves the mediating role of examining
basis for Habermas's ideal speech situa- the theoretical structures upon which
tion, which permits the free passage each method of analysis has been con-
from discourse to action in practice and structed. The rigorousness of a given
serves as a theoretical tool for measuring method often depends upon the narrow-
situations of systematically distorted com- ness of its conceptual framework, but this,
munications. The goal of the critical social in turn, results in con¯icting viewpoints
sciences is then to cast aside the veil of across disciplines regarding claims of
ideology and to establish the basis for a objectivity and universality. If philosophy
society grounded in reason alone. enters into the fray,
Niklas Luhmann
JAKOB ARNOLDI
N
iklas Luhmann was born in 1927 established university in Bielefeld. His
in LuÈneburg, Germany, the son ®rst publications were on organizational
of the local brewer. Towards the theory and sociology of law. The 1971
end of the Second World War, still in his publication of Theorie der Gesellschaft
teens, Luhmann was enlisted and sent to oder Sozialtechnologie ± was leistet die
the front where he was soon captured by System-forschung? (co-authored by JuÈrgen
American troops and imprisoned. His Habermas) brought Luhmann to a wider
experience of the prison camp and later academic audience and marked the begin-
of life in postwar Germany left Luhmann ning of an ongoing critical debate between
with a wish to study law, which he saw as Luhmann's systems-theoretic approach
instrumental in restoring order to the and Habermas's reformulation of critical
chaotic postwar society. After graduating theory.
from the University of Freiburg, Luhmann Since the publication of his general
took a job as a civil servant in the ministry systems theory, Soziale Systeme, in 1984
of culture. He continued, however, to (Social Systems, 1995a), Luhmann's work
pursue his philosophical interests in his has enjoyed a broad readership both
spare time. His particular interests were within and outside Germany. Luhmann
in the works of Descartes, Kant, and published on a variety of subjects (func-
Husserl. Realizing that the job as a civil tion systems, ecological problems and
servant would bring with it more and risk, sociology of knowledge and much
more political involvement (Luhmann more) during his lifetime. Many of
was not, and did not wish to be, politically these themes and concepts are brought
active), Luhmann took up a scholarship to together in his main work, Die
Harvard where he studied for one year Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft, published
under Talcott Parsons. Upon returning to in 1997. Luhmann died in November
Germany in 1961, Luhmann resumed his 1998.
job in the civil service but was soon drawn The conception of society Luhmann
back to academia. He held posts in Speyer lays out is that of a society with no centre,
250 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
encounter is thus structured into meaning, must take place for communication to
into form, through each operational event happen. At the moment this happens,
(communication) of the social system. As the social system emerges as a third sys-
mentioned above, the operational event, tem. It is at this moment that communica-
the observation, is also what constitutes tion itself has processed meaning, an
an autopoietic system. The distinction operation that then forms the basis for
appears `twice' as a re-entry: as a distinc- further communication (operational
tion between the marked and the closure). The dislocating of communica-
unmarked, but also, at the same time, as tion and cognition does not mean, how-
the event that constitutes the system, thus ever, that one form of autopoiesis (for
creating a distinction between the system example communication) could take
and environment (Brown, 1979: 76; place without the other. Even though
Luhmann, 1996: 26, 1997: 45). they are different types of autopoietic
Any operational event (distinction) systems, the two types of systems
must furthermore be linked to a notion have co-evolved. The co-evolution is
of time, since any operation is temporal only rendered possible through a continu-
(Luhmann, 1995a: 47). The continuing ing exchange of energy between the two
autopoiesis demands a continuing pro- different types of systems, an exchange
duction of new operations. The `next' Luhmann calls interpenetration or, in
event, however, can rely on already- more recent terminology, structural
generated meaning. In general, any coupling (JoÈnhill, 1997: 35).
phenomenon observed through meaning,
for instance an object, can be given an Semantic Codification of Communication
identity; a table can be de®ned as a table
and this identi®cation, or symbolic general- Society, as the all-encompassing opera-
ization (Luhmann, 1995a: 92), can later be tionally closed communicative system,
used again for further communication is further differentiated into subsystems.
(see also Husserl, 1983: 41). Thus, the con- In other words, the system-environment
tinuing autopoietic operations build upon distinction is replicated inside the social
the system's previous operations, which system with new autopoietic distinctions
over time lead to operational closure, created out of environmental noise.
de®ned by Luhmann as recursive render- Luhmann divides the (development of)
ing possible own operations through the internal differentiation of the social
result of own operations (Luhmann, 1997: system into four historical stages:
94). Any meaning generating system is
1 The segmented society ± an archaic
thus `closed'. Such closure does not
society with a division between var-
mean indifference to the environment.
ious tribes or clans.
On the contrary, any observation, any
2 The core/periphery differentiated
event that creates information from the
society ± with differentiation between
noise of the environment, can only hap-
a central concentration of power and a
pen through the continuing reproduction
less privileged periphery.
of the (re-entering) distinction between
3 The strati®ed society ± differentiated
system and environment (Luhmann,
into socially immobile strata.
1994: 49).
4 The functionally differentiated society
Luhmann's notion of communication
± differentiated into function systems.
means that it cannot be regarded as
merely a transferring of information Luhmann's thesis is that in the seven-
from one subject to another. Instead, teenth and eighteenth centuries a
Luhmann views communication as a transition took place from strati®ed
threefold process consisting of utterance to functionally differentiated society.
or impartation (mitteilung), information, Functional differentiation is differentia-
and understanding. All three things tion into function-speci®c systems, each
Niklas Luhmann 253
times, the semantics of love mainly con- function systems are not in any way
sisted of idealizations of persons, where mutually coordinated. Luhmann's way
the gallantry of the manner of expression of theorizing is not through ascribing
of these feelings was more important than function to a system but instead by obser-
reciprocation of the feelings, not to men- ving how systems create distinctions
tion actual ful®lment. In the seventeenth (meaning) out of the complexity or noise
century, however, the semantics of love of the environment, thereby securing their
changed into passionate love where an autopoiesis. For all function systems, a
actual (and mutual) love relationship key feature of the evolution of the code
was sought. Instead of emphasizing the is the increase of the self-reference `within'
importance of gallantry, the new code of it. The code of love, for example, has
passionate love is built on a notion of free- developed into a state of self-reference
dom and plaisir; each person has the right where love is increasingly justi®ed as
to choose in affairs of the heart and can, being simply love (Luhmann, 1986a: 30,
when the plaisir ceases, choose to termi- 44). This increase in self-reference
nate the affair. These new semantics of strengthens the autopoiesis and also the
intimacy were in the beginning a strictly autonomy of the system. Yet the system
extramarital (and thus post-marital) of intimacy is still faced with `environ-
form of communication. Marriage was mental challenges' as are other systems.
still a core foundation for the reproduction Can a code of lifelong love, for instance,
of strati®ed differentiation. Still, this leave suf®cient space for Alter and Ego's
emerging media code of love had the demands for individual ful®lment in
ability to codify the individualized and contemporary culture?
contingent forms of interaction within
higher social strata in the period. Such
a codi®cation was only possible through
new media of dissemination, in this case APPRAISAL OF KEY ADVANCES AND
the printing press. Only when both Ego CONTROVERSIES
and Alter knew the code, for instance Ecological Problems and the Contingency of
through romantic novels, could the com- Steering
munication begin (Luhmann, 1986a: 31).
The codi®cation of passionate love The problems that occur in a centreless
changed decisively around 1800 when a and highly complex society where `the
new codi®cation of love ± romantic love whole is less than its parts' (Luhmann,
± began to unify marriage, love, and sexu- 1982: 238) is a key theme in Luhmann's
ality. One consequence of this develop- work. An example of this problem is eco-
ment of the semantic code is that it logical risks (risk, naturally, is not related
became a code of communication for only to ecology ± see next section).
everybody, not just nobility, leading to Luhmann's notion of social systems
the constitution of a function system. means that it is questionable to what
Love, as codi®ed symbolic medium that extent society is able to observe, let alone
leads to the autopoiesis of a function adapt to, ecological problems. Luhmann
system, is thus part of a theory of how sees the autopoiesis of society to be
contingency and complexity are `disturbed' by ecological problems but
absorbed through semantic codi®cation is rather pessimistic as to whether this irri-
of communication. This should not lead tation can generate resonance, that is,
the reader of Luhmann to assume that actually restructure the autopoietic opera-
function systems have the a priori func- tions. The question is in which function
tion of absorbing contingency. For what systems resonance can be generated and
or whom would this be a function? if so, how resulting responses can be coor-
All function systems operate through dinated with other function systems. The
references to themselves, and the various `autopoietic imperative' of the function
Niklas Luhmann 255
systems works against this. They must illegal. This leads, as in the case of
continue their operations and can only other media-codes, to self-referential
do so with reference to the structure of development where there is nothing
their past operations ± function systems `behind' legality. Can the law, for example,
thus proceed `backwards into the future' be illegal? The legal system's form is
(Luhmann, 1993: 35) ± just as they operate the ultimate border, outside of which
according to their own code, so that they (to repeat the paradox) there is no legal
tend to make sense of the environment in communication (Teubner, 1993: 2). The
accordance with this. The only possible evolved self-reference of the function
solution that Luhmann sees is an increase codes also has the effect that function
in each function system's ability to incor- systems become highly sensitive to the
porate its own distinction between system environment. As more environmental
and environment into its operations `noise' can be transformed into infor-
(Luhmann, 1990d: 257). A second obstacle mation through the code, anything can
is the `steering', or coordination of a dif- thus be traded or speculated in, or any-
ferentiated society. The `gain' of functional thing can, at least since Marcel
differentiation is that each function Duchamp, be an object of art. In similar
system is able to tolerate higher degrees fashion the range of possible political
of complexity, as long as other function issues increases, leaving the political
systems in the environment are sensitive system faced with a much wider range
to problems to which it is indifferent of political issues than before (Luhmann,
(Luhmann, 1982: 237, 1997: 761). 1990b: 36, 1997: 764).
However, as mentioned earlier, the differ-
entiation also creates unpredictability and Critique
contingency since each function system is
faced with an increasingly complex and One particular, and often voiced, criticism
unpredictable environment consisting of deals with Luhmann's relationship to
the output from other function systems. Parsonian structural functionalism. It
If, for instance, resonance is created should be made clear that Luhmann's
regarding ecological problems within the work differs signi®cantly from Parsonian
political system, this system is still con- structural functionalism. Luhmann shifts
fronted with the immense complexity of the emphasis from action to communica-
`steering' the environment, which consists tion; he starts out with a notion of differ-
of the operations of the other systems ence as opposed to a notion of integration;
(for other examples of such political 'con- and, most importantly, Luhmann, unlike
tingency' see Jessop, 1997; Luhmann, Parsons, does not see social change as a
1971, 1990d; Wilke, 1992). process of `modernization' moving
Luhmann again and again argues that towards a harmonious integration of
the codi®cation of communication evolves different function systems (Luhmann,
towards states of self-reference. Law thus 1997: 568). However, there is little doubt
becomes its own sole argument as does that there are similarities, not least of
love, economy, aesthetics in other self- which is the much criticized lack of a
referential systems. This paradoxical notion of social power or inequality.
state of society has perhaps been best Terms like class, gender, or race are either
demonstrated in relation to law. The toned down to the point of insigni®cance
semantic codi®cation of law leads to a or are simply nonexistent in most of
development from natural (God-given or Luhmann's work. The main reason for
religiously founded) law to positive law. this omission is Luhmann's emphasis on
Law, in other words, has changed from the transition from strati®ed differen-
merely re¯ecting general (often reli- tiation to functional differentiation. The
giously founded) values to de®ning by `tipping over' of social strata (as the main
itself, or through itself, what is legal or form of differentiation) into functional
256 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
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23
Charles Taylor
C
harles Taylor was born in 1931 in as his doctoral supervisor. According
Montreal. He grew up in a to Taylor (1997a: v), it was Maurice
French±English bilingual family Merleau-Ponty's PheÂnomeÂnologie de la
and in a divided society. He witnessed Perception that really showed him the
the French Canadians' struggle for recog- path he wanted to take, especially with
nition, in the Canadian province of regard to the critique of positivism. In
Quebec, at the time mainly controlled his ®rst book, The Explanation of
culturally and economically by English Behaviour (1964), Taylor already con-
Canadians and Americans. Issues of demned positivism and advocated an
identity, language, nationalism, and poli- understanding of a situated and self-
tics of recognition were part of Taylor's interpreting self.
everyday life. Taylor taught at several universities,
In the early 1950s, after completing his including Princeton University, UC-
BA in History at McGill University, Taylor Berkeley, and Universite de MontreÂal.
attended Oxford University as a Rhodes His passion for politics also led him to
Scholar to study philosophy. He found join the Canadian social-democratic New
Anglo-Saxon human sciences dominated Democratic Party (NDP) in 1961 and to
by copycats of natural scientists. As run as an NDP candidate in four federal
Taylor (1996: 209) explained: `I felt that elections between 1962 and 1968.
there was a huge discrepancy between However, Taylor never got elected, partly
the discourse of science and of political because at that time the Canadian federal
philosophy, on the one hand, and the political system was dominated by the
reality of life and of political passions, on Liberal and Conservative parties.
the other'. Taylor was particularly critical During the 1970s, Taylor focused
of positivism and methodological indivi- mainly on his academic work. While a
dualism. He felt more at home with the professor of philosophy and political
continental philosophical tradition. His science at McGill University, he published
intellectual guides were primarily Hegel (1975), a widely acclaimed work. He
Charles Taylor 261
then moved to Oxford University, where the development of the modern self
he was Chichele Professor of Social and through the works of great philosophers
Political Theory from 1976 to 1979. and writers. With this book and other
Nevertheless, Taylor left the prestigious shorter essays ± in particular `The
Chichele Chair for Canadian politics in Politics of Recognition' (1995a) ± Taylor
order to join the supporters of Canadian emerged as one of the leading `communi-
federalism during the 1980 referendum tarian' thinkers (along with Alasdair
campaign on the independence of McIntyre, Michael Sandel, and Michael
Quebec. Organized by the Parti Walzer) in opposition to `liberals' (such
QueÂbeÂcois (PQ), in power in Quebec as John Rawls and JuÈrgen Habermas).
since 1976, this referendum was to seal Nonetheless, Taylor rejects the communi-
the fate of Quebec as a Canadian province tarian label and tries to ®nd a middle
or as a sovereign state. A vast majority of ground. He does not praise nor criticize
Quebeckers (almost 60%) chose to remain modernity as a whole. He identi®es three
in the Canadian federation. Such a result major problems with modernity: indivi-
pleased Taylor, for he believes that dualism (atomization of society and a life
Canadian federalism can accommodate boiled down to little and silly pleasures);
cultural differences, and therefore ful®l hegemony of instrumental reason (tech-
Quebec's demands, if only English nology and quest for ef®ciency); and a
Canadians were ready to grant collective low political participation.
rights to French Canadians and Natives. Moreover, Taylor argues that we ought
In the 1980s and 1990s, however, several not to reduce modernity to rationality,
failures to amend the Canadian con- utilitarianism, and individual rights. It is
stitution by introducing a reference to important to also consider other sources
the `nation queÂbeÂcoise' or at least to or phenomena such as the Romantic
Quebec as a `distinct society' fuelled Movement. `Modern society', claims
Quebeckers' frustration with the federal Taylor (1979: 71), `is Romantic in its pri-
system. vate and imaginative life and utilitarian
During the 1990s, Charles Taylor partici- or instrumentalist in its public, effective
pated in several Quebec provincial com- life.' Thus, even if autonomy and proce-
missions trying to ®nd a way out of this dural justice matter a great deal for the
political deadlock. His of®cial report was modern self, identity, culture, morality,
published in Reconciling the Solitudes and transcendence are not archaic issues
(1993), a collection of essays on Canadian but constitutive elements of the modern
federalism. This work allowed Taylor to tradition. Another facet of modernity on
articulate his advocacy of federalism. which Taylor has been working recently
In 1995, a new referendum on Quebec's is the rise of secular civilization. A
independence was held and once again Catholic thinker, who has participated in
Taylor did not hesitate to appear on televi- seminars on contemporary thought with
sion and participate in public debates to Pope John Paul II, Taylor is convinced
defend the federalist option. The dramatic that many of the standard accounts of
results of the referendum revealed the the rise of secularism are distorted or
depth of the identity crisis that was affect- too simple, and is thus trying to develop
ing Quebec: 49.6 per cent in favour of an alternative view of this historical
Quebec's sovereignty and 50.4 per cent development.
against it.
Although he assumed the responsi-
bilities of a public intellectual, Taylor con- SOCIAL THEORY AND
tinued to teach political science and CONTRIBUTIONS
philosophy at McGill University. In 1989,
he published Sources of the Self: The Making Charles Taylor's consistent emphasis on
of the Modern Identity, in which he analysed the analysis of the self as situated ± what
262 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
conceived as a set of individual actions, but which (words, but also gestures, arts, love, etc.).
are essentially modes of social relation, of mutual These languages are learned through our
action.
relations with others, speci®cally these
`others' who matter to us (i.e., George
Moreover, intersubjective meanings are Herbert Mead's `signi®cant others'). And
partially constituted by self-de®nitions, even when our signi®cant others dis-
for according to Taylor human beings are appear from our lives, the dialogue with
self-interpreting animals. Therefore, what them ± and thereby their contribution
hermeneutical science aims to interpret is to our self ± continues. Since learning a
itself an interpretation (1985g: 26). Put dif- language always implies entering an
ferently, it aims to interpret a preinter- already started conversation, a self exists
preted world. Although Giddens (1993) only within `webs of interlocutions'
coined this expression with a different (Taylor, 1989: 36).
purpose in mind, one could say that Following Herder, Taylor argues that
there is a `double hermeneutics' at work. language is the embodiment of the collec-
Language is important for understand- tive experience of a community. It regis-
ing individuals' intentions and actions ters the sentiments and emotions of the
since it is through words that individuals community's history. It is `a pattern of
develop and express their intentions. activity by which we express/realize a
Moreover, action also happens through certain way of being in the world'
words. As Austin (1962) has argued, (Taylor, 1995b: 97). It is a singular resource
speaking is necessarily performative. without which we could not experience
Thus, one should not see words as a certain ways of being, feeling, and relating
purely neutral tool of communication. to each other. Moreover, it provides us
Taylor distinguishes two ways of under- with distinctions and categories that
standing the nature of language: designa- constitute the backbone of our moral
tive and expressive. The designative universe.
approach (Skinner, Quine, Davidson)
claims that words are neutral instruments Moral Frameworks
used to describe an object or an idea. On
the other hand, the expressive approach Our moral universe is organized around
claims that it is through language that moral frameworks. We relate to other
individuals are able to express not only human beings, conceive a `good life',
their authenticity, but also the authenticity develop an understanding of our own
of the world. Words do not simply desig- worth, build life plans, and give meaning
nate, they express things and feelings, to our lives, on the basis of moral frame-
they make things and ideas manifest by works. According to Taylor (1989: 19), a
making them appear to us. moral framework `incorporates a crucial
Language is also by its very nature a set of qualitative distinctions. To think,
common good shared by its users. It feel, judge within such a framework is to
is the property of a collectivity or a function with the sense that some action,
community. It cannot belong to a single or mode of life, or mode of feeling is
individual. Here, Taylor draws upon the incomparably higher that the others
Romantic philosophy of language devel- which are more readily available to us'.
oped by Hamann, Herder, and Humboldt, Moral frameworks enable us to draw
the social psychology of Mead, and distinctions and give priority to certain
Bakhtin's notion of dialogism to explain goods and thereby to certain goals. They
the formation of the self-interpretations are frameworks of `strong evaluations',
which constitute the individual. For that is, `discriminations of right or
Taylor, we become capable of understand- wrong, better or worse, higher or lower,
ing ourselves and of de®ning our identity which are not rendered valid by our own
through the acquisition of languages desires, inclinations, or choices, but rather
264 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
stand independent of these and offer stan- community) at the expense of MoralitaÈt
dards by which they can be judged' (that is, a universalistic moral point of
(Taylor, 1989: 4). These strong evaluations view). Thus, he emphasizes the embed-
themselves presuppose the existence of dedness of the self and relates it to
`hypergoods', that is, `goods which are Aristotle's concept of phronesis or practical
not only incomparably more important reason, which refers to the idea of being
than others but provide the standpoint reasonable in respect to a speci®c situation
from which these must be weighed, rather than being rational according to
judged, decided about' (Taylor, 1989: 63). universal standards.
We cannot pretend to live by seizing
whatever option presents itself to us. The Identity and Recognition
very act of choosing is meaningful only
insofar as it leans against a hierarchy of Taylor rules out the naturalist conception
goods. Therefore, moral frameworks are of the self as free from moral frameworks
inescapable, even if they are not always and endowed with the ability to recreate
articulated. A person lacking moral itself inde®nitely through rational
frameworks would be deeply disturbed, mastery and self-discipline. This is what
not able to distinguish trivial matters he calls Locke's `punctual self' (1989: 159±
from fundamental ones. Such a case 76). In contrast to Locke, Taylor claims that
would be seen as pathological (Taylor, the self cannot be studied objectively, that
1989: 31; Ancelovici and Dupuis-DeÂri, is, independently of its self-interpretations
1998: 255). Taylor goes even further: and of the other's gaze. We are living
moral frameworks are actually constitu- beings independently of our self-under-
tive of our identity, our sense of the good standing, but we are selves only insofar
being inseparable from our sense of self. as we evolve in a moral space and inter-
Taylor criticizes utilitarianism, post- pret our situation in that space through a
modernism, and liberal rationalism for language of articulation that we accept
being unable to provide the moral orienta- as valid. Put differently, de®ning one's
tion that individuals need to make sense identity requires `a de®nition of where I
of their life-narratives. To distinguish am speaking from and to whom' (Taylor,
between two goods, utilitarians would 1989: 36).
say that the best good is the one that offers Consequently, the less we know where
the greatest happiness to more people; we stand, the less we know who we are.
postmodernists would simply dismiss The result is an identity crisis, that is, `an
the question, claiming that all goods are acute form of disorientation' that people
equal or that it is a purely subjective experience when they lack a moral frame-
issue; and liberal rationalists or advocates work `within which things can take on a
of procedural justice (Kant, Rawls, stable signi®cance, within which some
Habermas) would argue that through life possibilities can be seen as good or
communication and reasonable delibera- meaningful, others as bad or trivial'
tion, autonomous individuals would be (Taylor, 1989: 27±8). According to Taylor,
able to rationally identify the best good. this is a modern problem. Although
In contrast, Taylor stresses the importance people always have had an identity,
of the context in order to identify the best the answer to the question `Who am
good. Moreover, individuals evaluate I?' became problematic with the collapse
different goods on the basis of what they of rigid social hierarchies and the
want their life to be and to mean. questioning of the honour system's
Similarly, people's individuality is con- inequality. As Peter Berger (1973: 92)
structed and makes sense only within a points out, there is a `built-in identity
relation to a past, a present, and a future. crisis' in modern societies because of the
Following Hegel, Taylor (1979) gives unstable social contexts and deep uncer-
priority to Sittlichkeit (that is, an ethical tainty that characterize them. Moreover,
Charles Taylor 265
modern identities are progressively need for recognition is thus one of the
de®ned in terms of categories (citizenship, factors explaining the rise of nationalism.
ethnicity, profession, age, etc.) rather Following Ernest Gellner and Benedict
than networks (family, locality, etc.). Anderson, Taylor presents nationalism as
Thus, one's sense of one's worth has a quintessentially modern phenomenon.
become dependent upon categorical But in addition to Gellner's functional
identities. account and to Anderson's emphasis on
The instability of modern identities the particular kind of social imaginary
makes our interactions with others even that characterizes the nation, Taylor stres-
more important. Not only because the ses the psychological foundations of
social dynamics underlying the construc- nationalism. He aims to grasp the sources
tion of identity has changed, but also of its moral thrust. Hence the importance
because human beings have become of his notion of recognition. The latter
more sensitive to the other's gaze. The bridges the gap between identity and
other is no longer a simple reference that dignity, and eventually between psycho-
allows us to develop a de®nition of what logical and political emancipation.
we are not and thereby to distinguish our-
selves. He or she now plays an explicit,
active role in the construction of our iden- APPRAISAL OF KEY ADVANCES AND
tity. For according to Taylor, in the modern CONTROVERSIES
world we need the other's recognition to
be con®dent of our identity: `Our identity Charles Taylor's thinking has received
is partly shaped by recognition or its signi®cant attention from American
absence, often by the misrecognition of sociologists in the last decade. In 1985,
others ( . . . ) Nonrecognition or misrecog- Robert Bellah and his colleagues noted
nition can in¯ict harm, can be a form of that Taylor had helped them `to see the
oppression, imprisoning someone in a illusions of a private expressiveness and
false, distorted, and reduced mode of the emptiness of formal freedom' (1985:
being' (Taylor, 1995a: 225). In this sense, 331 n.12). More recently, Alan Wolfe
recognition is not an issue of manners. It (1990: 627) argued that for sociologists,
is a vital human need and thereby argu- `there is no more important philosopher
ably a right. Drawing upon Herder's writing in the world today than Charles
romanticism, Taylor goes even further Taylor'. In the same vein, Craig Calhoun
and claims that both individual and wrote that `Taylor's work would enrich
collective authenticity must be cherished, enormously the scholarship of any sociol-
for both speci®c individuals and commu- ogist' (1991: 262). The importance of
nities have something unique to say about Taylor's work has also been acknowl-
themselves and about the world. edged by several of today's most
Recognition should not be treated as a respected scholars, such as Isaiah Berlin,
formal right. Although Taylor advocates Raymond Boudon, Jacques Bouveresse,
cultural rights for minorities, what he Clifford Geertz, JuÈrgen Habermas, Paul
has in mind is rather a moral claim de- Ricoeur, and Richard Rorty (see Tully,
manding society to truly recognize differ- 1994; Laforest and de Lara, 1998).
ence. The longing for such a recognition One of Taylor's most in¯uential con-
can be a powerful force in history, because cepts, particularly for contemporary
it is experienced existentially as a debates on multiculturalism and cultural
challenge and because its satisfaction is a rights, is perhaps the `politics of recogni-
condition of dignity. For example, accord- tion'. At ®rst glance, it seems that this con-
ing to Taylor (1997b: 45), `This is what cept is almost a natural outgrowth of
gives nationalism its emotive power. Taylor's re¯ection on the modern self.
This is what places it so frequently in the However, Taylor (1996: 214±15) stresses
register of pride and humiliation'. The that his conceptualization of the politics
266 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
of recognition was inspired by the French Allan Bloom (1987) is appalled by such a
Canadian nationalism that he witnessed situation, scholars like Charles Taylor,
in Quebec during his youth. According Amy Gutmann (1992), and Susan Wolf
to him, nationalist politics and identity (1992), among others, believe that it is
politics belong to the same species: necessary for the sake of members of
`national struggles are the site from `minority' cultures as well as of the
which the model comes to be applied to `majority' culture. For encountering new
feminism, to the struggles of cultural cultures results in the development of
minorities, to the gay movement, et cetera' new vocabularies that allow us to articu-
(Taylor, 1997: 46). Although movements late new contrasts. Drawing upon
making recognition-claims have been Gadamer's idea of `fusion of horizons',
active for a long time now, Taylor remarks Taylor contends that through this process,
that we lacked the appropriate philoso- `We learn to move in a broader horizon,
phical language to make sense of them. where what we once took for granted
Hence the `epistemic gain' (Taylor, 1989: as the background to valuation can be
57±8, 72) realized by the concept of situated as one possibility alongside the
recognition. Among other neo-Hegelian different background of the unfamiliar
scholars stressing the usefulness of that culture' (1995a: 252). Consequently,
concept, we should note the work of judgments, positions, or tastes are rela-
Axel Honneth. But while Taylor insists tivized and become, thereby, more
on cultural rights and focuses on multi- re¯exive.
culturalism, Honneth (1996) puts forward Taylor does not only offer a new meta-
a more encompassing framework that discourse based on the politics of recogni-
aims at making sense of the `moral tion. Writing in the context of the liberal±
grammar of social con¯icts'. communitarian debate, he also argues that
The concept of recognition is both an in spite of the Bill of Rights, liberalism has
analytical and a political tool. It can be failed to properly accommodate differ-
used to explain certain claims as well as ence: `the supposedly fair and difference-
to de®ne their content and justify them. In blind society is not only inhuman
fact, the politics of recognition seems to be (because suppressing identities) but also,
emerging as the meta-discourse of the in a subtle and unconscious way, itself
`postsocialist' condition (see Fraser, highly discriminatory' (1995a: 237).
1997). According to Taylor, social and poli- Taylor claims that liberalism is unable to
tical movements began to openly legitimize measures that should `ensure
acknowledge their need for recognition survival in inde®nite future generations.
only recently. Previously, they expressed For the populations concerned, however,
their claims in economic terms or asked that's what is at stake. We need only think
for formal equality. Thus, `What is new of the historical resonance of ``la survi-
. . . is that the demand for recognition is vance'' among French Canadians' (1995a:
now explicit. And it has been made expli- 306 n.16) Indeed, Native peoples and
cit . . . by the spread of the idea that we are French Canadians care about individual
formed by recognition' (Taylor, 1995a: rights but also want their respective
251). cultures to survive. That is the reason
Taylor's concept is also signi®cant in the why Taylor supports laws protecting the
light of contemporary debates regarding French language in Quebec. Such laws,
the curriculum in the education system. although articulated in terms of collective
There is a clear relationship between rights, are necessary for the self-realiza-
demands for multiculturalism in second- tion of individuals. Moreover, with-
ary schools and university humanities out them individuals belonging to
departments, on the one hand, and the minority cultures are condemned to face
emergence of struggles for a changed discrimination and thereby to being
self-image, on the other. While, say, marginalized.
Charles Taylor 267
of total liberation. Although recognition Taylor, C. (1985b) `Introduction', in Philosophy and the
undeniably plays a role in the construc- Human Sciences: Philosophical Papers 2. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
tion of identity and answers `a profound
Taylor, C. (1985c) `Atomism', in Philosophy and the
and universal craving for status and Human Sciences: Philosophical Papers 2. Cambridge:
understanding' (Berlin, 1969: 158), its Cambridge University Press, ®rst published in A.
relationship to freedom may be more Kontos (ed.), Powers, Possessions and Freedom.
problematic than Taylor generally sug- Toronto: Toronto University Press. 1979.
gests. As Isaiah Berlin (1969: 157) points Taylor, C. (1985d) `What's wrong with negative lib-
out, the outcome of recognition is not erty', in Philosophy and the Human Sciences:
Philosophical Papers 2. Cambridge: Cambridge
necessarily freedom: University Press; ®rst published in A. Ryan (ed.),
The Idea of Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University
I may, in my bitter longing for status, prefer to be
Press. 1979.
bullied and misgoverned by some member of my
Taylor, C. (1985e) `Language and human nature', in
own race or social class, by whom I am, neverthe-
Human Agency and Language: Philosophical Papers 1.
less, recognized as a man and rival ± that is as an
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; shorter
equal ± to being well and tolerantly treated by
version ®rst published as `Theories of Meaning',
someone from some higher and remote group,
Man and World 13 (3±4): 281±302, 1980.
who does not recognize me for what I wish to
Taylor, C. (1985f) `Understanding and ethnocentri-
feel myself to be.
city', in Philosophy and the Human Sciences:
Philosophical Papers 2. Cambridge: Cambridge
In this respect, Nancy Fraser's reconcep-
University Press; ®rst published in C. Taylor,
tualization of recognition as an issue of Social Theory as Practice. Oxford: Oxford
justice rather than self-realization opens University Press. 1983.
a promising theoretical path. Indeed, in Taylor, C. (1985g) `Interpretation and the sciences of
her effort to reconcile distribution with man', in Philosophy and the Human Sciences:
recognition, Fraser (1999) stresses the Philosophical Papers 2. Cambridge: Cambridge
necessity of granting to individuals and University Press; ®rst published in The Review of
Metaphysics Vol. 25 (1) 3±51, September 1971.
groups the status of full partners in social Taylor, C. (1989) Sources of the Self: The Making of the
interaction. The locus of recognition is not Modern Identity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
so much individual psychology (i.e., a University Press.
changed self-image) but social relations Taylor, C. (1991) The Malaise of Modernity. Concord,
(i.e., the transformation of social arrange- ON: Anansi; also published under the title The
ments impeding some people to fully Ethics of Authenticity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press. 1992.
participate in society). Such a change of
Taylor, C. (1993) Reconciling the Solitudes: Essays on
emphasis allows us to avoid the pitfall Canadian Federalism and Nationalism. Montreal:
of trying to restore an allegedly `pure', McGill-Queens University Press.
that is, not distorted, self-image that Taylor, C. (1995a) `The politics of recognition', in
would enable people to be `really' free. Philosophical Arguments. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press; ®rst published in A. Gutmann
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Philosophical Arguments. Cambridge, MA:
Taylor, C. (1964) The Explanation of Behaviour. London: Harvard University Press.
Routledge & Kegan Paul. Taylor, C. (1995c) `To follow a rule', in Philosophical
Taylor, C. (1975) Hegel. Cambridge: Cambridge Arguments. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
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in Human Agency and Language: Philosophical Papers Taylor, C. (1997a) `Avant-propos', in La Liberte des
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24
Richard Rorty
BRYAN S. TURNER
R
ichard Rorty was born in New cerned to establish the proper limitations
York in 1931 and was the Univer- of philosophical knowledge in a world
sity Professor of Humanities at which is unstable, changeable, and in-
the University of Virginia. Rorty is a secure, his philosophical critique has
controversial ®gure in (professional) much in common with postmodernism.
philosophy, mainly because in works like Whereas J.-F. Lyotard de®ned post-
The Linguistic Turn (1967) he has suggested modernism as `incredulity toward meta-
that the entire Western philosophical narratives' (1984: xxiv), Rorty in one of
tradition is on the defensive. Philosophy his most in¯uential essays (`Private irony
can no longer give an adequate account and liberal hope') de®nes an ironist as
of the grounds upon which its view of somebody who has `radical and con-
unitary Truth could be con®rmed, and tinuing doubts about the ®nal vocabulary
hence it is likely that we have moved she currently uses' (Rorty, 1989: 73).
into a `post-philosophical' world. The Elsewhere (Rorty, 1991b: 199) he has
role of philosophy, he argues in The defended the relevance of the oxymoronic
Consequences of Pragmatism (1982), is not title `postmodern bourgeois liberalism' as
to provide eternal foundations of Truth, a broad description of his own agenda
but rather to be a voice alongside litera- in contemporary philosophy. Rorty's
ture and art in the edi®cation of human- philosophy and social theory can be seen
kind. The measure of philosophical as an application of, and debate with, the
progress is not demonstrated by philo- legacy of John Dewey (1859±1952). Rorty's
sophy `becoming more rigorous but by postphilosophical philosophy attempts to
becoming more imaginative' (Rorty, reconcile the pragmatism of Dewey with
1998a: 9). Rorty as a result is just as likely the deconstructive intentions of continen-
to write `philosophical' commentaries tal philosophy (Diggins, 1994; Hickman,
on Nabokov, Orwell, or Proust in 1998). Rorty identi®es his pragmatic posi-
Contingency, Irony and Solidarity (1989) as tion with `polytheism' in the sense that a
he is to write `professional' pieces on John polytheist does not believe that there is an
Richard Rorty 271
The virtue of the essay form is its accessi- the justi®cation of a scienti®c claim
bility and its modesty, but the negative requires an audience and an audience is
aspect of this mode of communication is par excellence a sociological concept. Like
that Rorty's work is repetitious. Rorty's sociology, Rorty's pragmatism is seen to
basic argument is relatively simple and be relativistic , but he wants to reject the
therefore powerful. There can be no ®nal naive view that relativism means that one
and watertight veri®cation of Truth, and belief is as good as any other. He feels
therefore we must be suspicious of philo- somewhat disconcerted by accusations
sophers or politicians who claim to have that his type of relativism will result in a
found the Truth or attempt to run society corruption of youth, and in his recent
as if social policy could be based upon a work he has constantly returned to the
big Truth. Because life is contingent and problem of relativism (Rorty, 1999). His
essentially messy, we should pay attention understanding of relativism is, to my
to those poets or philosophers who can mind, well within mainstream sociology
provide modest but practical guides to of knowledge. For example, he argues
action. Reading Dickens may prove to that foundationalists insist that truths
be a better guide to action through the are found, where relativists argue that
sentiments than a large dose of Kant or they are made or invented (Rorty, 1999:
Hegel. What we need is edi®cation and xvii). In short, knowledge is socially
moral suasion, not a demonstration of constructed.
the unfolding of the Spirit in History. He has, however, attacked the notion of
The essay form rather than the Big Book incommensurability as irrational (Rorty,
perhaps better suits Rorty's philosophical 1980). Translation between languages is a
views on the contingent nature of truth practical problem, but its very existence
and the basically problematic and un- suggests that incommensurability is not
certain nature of society and politics. His tenable as an overarching view of human
work is also repetitious for the additional cultures. Rorty's interest in human
reason that his philosophical contribu- rights can be construed as a criticism of a
tions to social theory have been brought strong relativist programme. While Rorty
together in three volumes of essays: frequently appeals to anthropological and
Contingency, Irony and Solidarity (1989), occasionally sociological case studies to
Essays on Heidegger and Others (1991a), illustrate a philosophical point, generally
and Truth and Progress (1998a). Given the speaking, the study of human rights
necessary limitations of this pro®le of has been neglected by sociology and
Rorty, I shall concentrate primarily on anthropology. In more recent years, this
his contributions to social and political lack of interest has been reinforced by
theory, namely his essays on human the intervention of postmodern theories
rights, liberalism, and his critique of of difference, otherness, and justice.
political dogmatism. Critics of postmodern theory have typi-
cally claimed that, because of its radical
inclination towards relativism and its
lack of serious ethical vision, postmodern
SOCIAL THEORY AND theory cannot provide any genuine
CONTRIBUTIONS guidance for political belief or, more
Historicism and Relativism signi®cantly, for political action. Post-
modern theorists provide an ironic and
In this discussion, I shall be particularly paradoxical re¯ection upon the political
concerned to discuss the importance of reality of our times which leads to radical
Rorty's pragmatism for the analysis philosophical doubt and scepticism
of rights, tolerance, and justice. Rorty's towards political commitment rather
pragmatism is not unlike the sociology than any unidimensional political engage-
of knowledge in that for both positions ment. For some critics of the positivism in
Richard Rorty 273
the social sciences such as Leo Strauss values and morality in German culture
(1950), this relativism has of course a had been ®rst experienced in debates
much longer history and can be, for about the character of the authority of
example, located in the nineteenth- the texts of Christianity, which had
century debate over historicism. Max occurred through the evolution of biblical
Weber's philosophy of the social sciences criticism. Biblical scholarship had raised
with its cautious attempt to resolve the profound problems in con®dence in the
fact±value distinction is a direct product authority and authenticity of the biblical
of historicism. In this context it is interest- foundations of authority. The problem
ing to consider Rorty's essays on human for Protestant theology was that biblical
rights and politics, because on the one criticism through the eighteenth and nine-
hand he wants to reject any Grand teenth centuries had made the biblical text
Theory solution to politics and ethics, into a historical document. In short,
and on the other he is not wholly com- Protestantism, through its rational inquiry
fortable with ironic relativism if it pre- into the Bible, had exposed theological
cludes possibilities of solidarity and truth to historicism. Similar problems
commitment. about authenticity and authority are
It is worth dwelling brie¯y on the faced in the analysis of art and culture,
historical issue of relativism in German where claims about aesthetics may simply
sociology, because it can be claimed appear as opinions rather than truths
plausibly that many of the issues of prag- about cultural objects. For Antoni, these
matism, truth, and relativism in Rorty's speci®c debates in theology, history, poli-
philosophy were at least anticipated by tics, and sociology in fact constituted a
the famous debate over historicism in the general and profound crisis of authority
late nineteenth century. Carlo Antoni's and certainty, not only in Germany but
in¯uential From History to Sociology in Europe as a whole, a crisis which
(1998), which ®rst appeared in Italian in spanned the entire nineteenth and early
1940, remains the de®nitive discussion. twentieth centuries.
The problem about cultural relativism Within Antoni's account of historical
was experienced acutely with respect to relativism, one can detect three forms of
interpretation. From a sociological point historicism: naturalistic, metaphysical,
of view, the meaning of any social action and aesthetic. One solution to relativism
or cultural institution is deeply embedded attempted to develop the positivistic
in its social and historical context, and methods of the natural sciences as a
hence the meaning of actions are quite basis for certainty in social inquiry. This
simply particular to a given context. solution tended to collapse history into
How is any general knowledge of society positivistic sociology. By contrast, meta-
as such possible? In From History to physical historicism developed into
Sociology, Antoni referred to this issue in idealism, which attempted to ®nd some
terms of the problem of historicism, certainty outside time in the realm of
namely the view that the meaning and pure thought such as post-Kantian
importance of culture can only be idealism or pure faith such as German
understood historically within its speci®c theology. Aesthetic historicism concen-
setting, that is contextually. This historical trated on the experience of the historian
problem was particularly critical in the as a point of common agreement, namely
case of Western Christianity. If the faith the aesthetic experience of reality could
which has been inherited by the produce a form of certainty in the context
Christian churches is a speci®c historical of chaotic values.
phenomenon, how can Christian theology This historicist issue underpinned
claim any universal authority and rele- Weber's attempt to develop a speci®c
vance for the prophetic message of Jesus methodology for sociology, but it also
Christ? The crisis of the authority of coloured his substantive sociology of
274 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
capitalism. For Weber, industrial capital- and Rorty presenting arguments on the
ism through the application of rational question of human rights. Lyotard has
science technology has transformed the been particularly engaged with the issue
relationship between human beings and of otherness and the other with respect to
their environment; it has undermined the rights and obligations concerning the
authenticity of the life-world through the Jewish community in contemporary
commodi®cation of culture. For Weber, society (Boyne, 1990). As we have seen,
rational capitalism has demysti®ed the Rorty has become closely associated with
everyday world and incorporated the postmodern theory because he denies that
sphere of Erlebnis (direct personal experi- any philosophical or ideological position
ence) into the system of rational economic can have any ultimate authority or justi®-
exchange. In Weber's pessimistic view cation. We live in a contingent world of
of `the iron cage', there is no escape from competing stories where no particular
the process of rationalization which, narrative has general consent or legitimiz-
through the application of science, has ing force. For Rorty, belief in the validity
embraced all spheres of life including the of a position or the justi®cation of a
spiritual domain. It is the `fate' of the perspective is a matter of ongoing argu-
modern world to suffer the routinization mentation from different vantage points
of life through bureaucracy, science, and and perspectives. The result is that our
discipline in which the magical and beliefs about the world and social reality
charismatic aura of social existence is are necessarily ad hoc, contingent, provi-
slowly but surely effaced. sional, and local. Our beliefs about the
While Rorty perceives the current crisis world rather like scientists' claims about
in philosophy as a product of internal nature have to be prefaced by phrases
criticism (the linguistic turn and prag- such as `For the time being . . .' and
matism) and external changes (post- `From this vantage point. . .'. It is this
modernism), we can argue forcefully that persistent denial that there could be any
the contemporary crisis of the authority of permanent and unitary justi®cation for
values is in fact a long-term consequence belief which has given Rorty the title of a
of historicism. Rorty's plea that philoso- postmodern philosopher. The crucial
phy stops trying to `escape from history' essay in this regard is `Private Irony and
(that is, recognize the contextualization of Liberal Hope' (Rorty, 1989).
its claims) is pure historicism. Although Although Rorty feels relatively comfor-
there are few direct references to Weber table with the title `postmodern bourgeois
in Rorty's major essays, there is a close liberal', he derives his position, not from
proximity between them. The question mainstream postmodern thought such
facing Weber was how to reconcile as Baudrillard, Bauman, and Lyotard,
liberalism with political leadership. The but rather from the pragmatism of the
question for Rorty is how to reconcile American philosophers Dewey and
liberal hope with solidarity. The principal Peirce. Rorty's theories about democracy,
dif®culty for Rorty, who still wants edi- philosophy, and solidarity are taken from
®cation from philosophy, is how to avoid the work of American pragmatists rather
nihilism, that is how to avoid the iron than from European forms of postmodern
cage. theory. However, Rorty is clearly in¯u-
enced by the radical work of Nietzsche
Rorty, Rights and Relativism and Heidegger which is illustrated in his
article `Self-Creation and Af®liation'
While modernist critics have rejected (Rorty, 1989). On this broad basis, Rorty
postmodernism as a serious political posi- makes a profound distinction between
tion, Steven Shute's and Susan Hurley's metaphysicians who believe that an
On Human Rights (1993) is important ultimate or general justi®cation for belief
because it contains articles by Lyotard of a uni®ed form is possible and ironists
Richard Rorty 275
who believe that no such general justi®ca- Nietzsche, we may assume that he is
tion is either possible or desirable. Rorty is solidly within this anti-Kantian paradigm.
critical of the whole legacy of Kant with its What then does Rorty have to say about
emphasis on rationalism, individualism, rights? Rorty begins his philosophical
and certainty. account of rights by rejecting all founda-
Rorty combines this critical attitude tionalist attempts to argue that human
towards professional philosophy with a rights can be derived from some general
profound sympathy for contemporary or universal characteristic of human
feminist social thought. Rorty believes, beings as such, for example, their ration-
along with feminism theorists, that the ality or their humanity. This position is,
Western account of reason and rationality of course, completely in line with his
is signi®cantly dominated by a gender criticism in the philosophy of science of
perspective that is partial and biased the mirror metaphor in notions of corre-
rather than neutral and universal. spondence. For Rorty, any attempt to
Feminists have been particularly con- identify or discover some essential fea-
cerned with the role of emotions and ture of human beings is, philosophically
symbolism in analytical thought and speaking, a cul-de-sac. He is completely
Rorty draws upon this critical attitude in contemptuous of all such universalistic
developing his own theory of rights. In his approaches to rights from a foundation-
recent work on rights, Rorty identi®es alist standpoint, because it clashes with
himself with the empiricism of David his basic relativism. For Rorty, the recent
Hume against the rationalist and univer- horrors of ethnic cleansing in Kosova
salistic tradition of Kant and Hegel. The make any attempt to discover some
down-to-earth common sense tradition rational foundation to human behaviour
of Scottish philosophy appears to have totally pointless, indeed offensive.
some similarity with Rorty's often rather Similarly the Holocaust makes any
homespun approach to philosophizing. attempt to ®nd a moral or rational founda-
Certainly in his treatment of Hume, tion to human behaviour, whereby we
Rorty has been in¯uenced by the feminist could appeal to the reasonableness of
theories of Annette C. Baier, particularly human beings to live together in harmony
in her analysis of Hume's moral philo- and peace, a moral offence. Rorty argues
sophy in her A Progress of Sentiments: that we should stop asking why we differ
Re¯ections of Hume's treatise (1991). from animals and merely say that `we can
Whereas Kant attempted to treat moral feel for each other to a much greater extent
judgments as a branch of rational inquiry, than they can' (Rorty, 1998a: 176). It is
and interpreted aesthetic appreciation better to give up on transcendental cate-
of beauty as a disinterested neutral gories like God or Natural Law or History
judgment, Hume gave a central place to and start pinning our hopes on one
sentiment and affect in moral debate and another.
aesthetic inquiry. Critical social thought, Following from this rejection of founda-
following Nietzsche's rejection of the tionalism, there are two major features to
Kantian approach to aesthetics, has Rorty's account of rights. As we have
argued that aesthetic judgment is essen- already noticed, he starts by putting con-
tially bound up with an emotional siderable emphasis on the importance of
orientation to reality and cannot be sympathy and affective attachment to
divorced from sentiment. It is partly for other human beings. It is the sentimental
this reason that there has been in recent attachment of human beings through
years a particular interest in the notion emotion and everyday companionship
of the sublime and in Burke's analysis of that provides the possibility for an
the sublime in relation to judgments argument about rights rather than
about beauty. Insofar as Rorty derives con- some abstract claim about rationality.
siderable intellectual stimulation from Human beings are primarily sentimental
276 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
moral philosophers have developed the a society with precisely these Darwinistic
importance of concern and caring (Rorty, tendencies as the English Civil War was to
1991a). The question of human vulnera- illustrate dramatically. The disposition of
bility of course is particularly prominent the strong to support and protect the weak
in the area of debates about torture and must be based consequently upon some
political brutality, an issue dealt with collectively shared sympathy or empathy
supremely well in The Body in Pain for human beings in their collective frailty
(Scarry, 1985). and weakness. Following Rorty, we can
In addition to the human body being derive a theory of human rights from
fragile and frail, we live in a social envir- certain aspects of feminist theory, from a
onment which is essentially contingent critical view of the limitations of utili-
and precarious and this precariousness is tarian accounts of reason and from the
an inevitable consequence of the nature of notions of sympathy, sentiment, and
power and its investment in the state. This emotionality. Insofar as the strong pro-
argument is a variation on the theme in tect the weak, it is through a recognition
social contract theory derived from the of likeness which is itself a product of
work of Thomas Hobbes. Powerful insti- affective attachment and sentiment.
tutions such as the state, which are set up Rational human beings want their rights
according to social contract theory to pro- to be recognized because they see in the
tect the interests of rational actors, can of plight of others their own (potential)
course function to terrorize and dominate misery. If ageing is an inevitable process,
civil society. While strong states may pro- we can all anticipate our own frailty, and
tect society from civil wars, they can, for in this context sympathy is crucial in
that very reason, be a danger to the very deciding to whom our moral concern
existence of citizens. By precariousness I might be directed (Turner, 1994). From
also mean that institutions which are a sociological perspective, sympathy
rationally designed to serve certain derives from the fundamental experiences
speci®c purposes may evolve in ways of social reciprocity in everyday life,
which contradict these original charters. particularly from the relationship
Social life is essentially contingent and between mother and child.
risky; individuals, even when they collect If this argument is to be sustained, we
together for concerted action, cannot will require a more elaborate notion of
necessarily protect themselves against human frailty. For example, the argument
the uncertainties and vagaries of could be made more sophisticated by
social reality. Such a view of social reality developing a distinction between pain
would sit very easily with Rorty's and suffering. Human beings can suffer
own sense of the contingency of self- without an experience of pain and con-
hood and a liberal community (Rorty, versely they can have an experience
1989). of pain without suffering. Suffering is
While social theorists might grant that essentially a situation where the self is
social reality is precarious, the argument threatened or destroyed from outside,
that human beings are universally frail for example through humiliation. We can
may appear to be controversial and con- suffer the loss of a loved one without
tentious. There are a number of problems physical pain, whereas toothache may
here. If human beings are frail by de®- give us extreme physical pain without
nition, then frailty is variable and my a sense of loss of self or humiliation.
argument could easily be converted into While suffering is variable, pain might
a Darwinistic theory of the survival of be regarded as universal. This argument
the ®ttest. In a patriarchal regime, those is closely related to a position adopted by
that are least frail may combine to domi- Rorty in his essay on `Private Irony and
nate and subordinate the vulnerable and Liberal Hope' (Rorty, 1989) where he
fragile. Hobbes's Leviathan was written in argues that
278 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
the idea that we have an overriding obligation to and Derrida. This type of criticism can
diminish cruelty, to make human beings equal in often become a fruitless exercise in textual
respect of their liability to suffering, seems to take
exegesis. I am also not directly interested
for granted that there is something within human
beings which deserves respect and protection
in criticism of his philosophy of science.
quite independently of the language they speak. My principal concern is to examine the
It suggests that a non-linguistic ability, the ability value of Rorty's postmodern philosophy
to feel pain, is what is important, and the differ- for social and political theory.
ences in the vocabulary are much less important. Rorty's political theory as a platform
(Rorty, 1989: 88) for political action is minimalistic. He
This argument about human frailty, recommends that young people should
dependence, and suffering can provide be exposed to literature that will educate
an argument to support the notion of a them in sympathy so they may better
universalistic foundation for human understand the suffering of others. These
rights. In short, it is possible to argue recommendations may be perfectly
that frailty is a universal condition of the appropriate as a method of improving
human species because pain is a funda- the education of young rich Americans,
mental experience of all organic life. but it does nothing necessarily for the
While Rorty may be able to argue that suf- dispossessed and downtrodden of the
fering is local and variable, the concept of Third World. Rorty could be accused of
the frailty of the human body could be being a modern day Leibniz, namely,
defended through the concept of human believing that we live in the best of all
pain. It would as a consequence be possi- possible worlds and further more liberal
ble to adopt all of Rorty's philosophical capitalist democracy is about the best
arguments about irony, cultural variation, world that the working class could aspire
the absence of authoritative justi®cation to. Rorty's version of postmodernism cer-
and so forth, while also adhering to a tainly rules out what we might call Big
universalistic view of human nature and Picture Politics ± it rules out visionary
human embodiment as the underlying aspiration and a theology of hope. His
criterion of all humanity, and this is the interpretation of pragmatism may in
foundation of any theory of human rights. fact end up as political passivity. Critics
It would also be possible to accept that like Critchley have therefore accused
this foundationalist view of human Rorty of complacency, because his post-
rights is theory-dependent, and argue modern bourgeois ethic appears to be an
that ontological insecurity provides a unambiguous defence of modern
rights discourse that promotes rather America.
than precludes cross-cultural agreements Rorty has attempted to defend himself
about dignity. One could therefore from his critics in his Achieving Our
embrace postmodern irony while also Country (1998c). The book is a defence
advocating a universalistic notion of of his own political liberalism through a
human rights as a protective screen to criticism of the decline of the left. The
limit the contingencies of embodiment decline of socialist intellectuals in
and social relations. America is signalled by their growing
concern for culture and their lack of
interest in `real' politics. The cultural left
has assumed that the reform of the literary
APPRAISAL OF KEY ADVANCES AND canon is equivalent to a transformation of
CONTROVERSIES society. The cultural left is `a spectatorial,
disgusted, mocking Left rather than a
In this critical evaluation of Rorty, I shall Left which dreams of achieving our
ignore the question of whether Rorty has country' (Rorty, 1998c: 35). The basic
developed an adequate comprehension of argument of his recent study is that,
philosophers like Heidegger, Foucault, without an emotional attachment to
Richard Rorty 279
Malachowski, A.R. (ed.) (1990) Reading Rorty. Critical Smith, R.M. (1997) Civic Ideals. Con¯icting Visions of
Responses to Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (and Citizenship in U.S History New Haven, CT and
Beyond) Oxford: Basil Blackwell. London: Yale University Press.
Margolis, J. (1986) Pragmatism without Foundations. Strauss, L. (1950) Natural Right and History. Chicago:
Reconciling Realism and Relativism. Oxford: Basil University of Chicago Press.
Blackwell. Turner, B.S. (ed.) (1993) Citizenship and Social Theory.
Scarry, E. (1985) The Body in Pain: The making and London: Sage.
unmaking of the world. Oxford: Oxford University Turner, B.S. (1994) `Outline of theory of human
Press. rights', Sociology, 27 (3): 489±512.
Shute, S., and Hurley, S. (1993) On Human Rights: Woodiwiss, A. (1998) Globalisation, Human Rights and
The Oxford Amnesty Lectures. New York: Basic Labour Law in Paci®c Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge
Books. University Press.
25
Nancy Chodorow
B
orn in 1944, Nancy Julia Chodorow 1999a). The book was in¯uential from the
is of the generation that came of beginning, establishing Chodorow as a
age in the 1960s with the New prominent voice in feminism and psycho-
Left and the rise of feminism. As an analytic sociology. From 1985 to 1993,
undergraduate at Radcliffe College (BA while continuing as a professor of sociol-
in social anthropology, 1966), Chodorow ogy, Chodorow undertook training at the
was educated in a cross-disciplinary cur- San Francisco Psychoana-lytic Institute;
riculum in social relations and in¯uenced she is now a practising clinical psychoana-
by the anthropologists Beatrice and John lyst and psychotherapist as well as a
W.M. Whiting. She went on to graduate sociologist. Since The Reproduction of
studies at Brandeis University (PhD in Mothering, Chodorow has written numer-
sociology, 1974), where she attended ous articles and three books: Feminism and
Philip Slater's seminar on the sociology Psychoanalytic Theory (1989), Femininities,
of family interaction and participated in Masculinities, Sexualities: Freud and Beyond
an extracurricular, student-led `Mother± (1994), and The Power of Feelings: Personal
Daughter Group' inspired by Slater's Meaning in Psychoanalysis, Gender, and
work on mother±son relationships Culture (1999b). In each of these works
(Slater, [1968] 1992). As a graduate student Chodorow operates at the intersection of
at Brandeis and subsequently as a pro- psychoanalytic and social theory, focusing
fessor of sociology at the University of primarily on questions of feminism,
California, Santa Cruz (1974±86) and gender, and subjectivity.
the University of California, Berkeley Chodorow's work can be placed in the
(1986±present), Chodorow has worked in intertwining theoretical contexts of
intellectual environments particularly feminism and psychoanalysis. When she
hos-pitable to feminist scholarship, inter- began her sociological career, the culture
disciplinary research, and radical theory. of feminism was largely hostile to psycho-
In 1974 she published `Family Structure analysis. Prominent feminists were
and Feminine Personality', an essay that agreed in viewing the Freudian tradition
282 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
Oedipal phase with a more powerfully felt particularly severe act of repression.
pre-Oedipal bond to the mother, and, Girls, whose love for the father typically
unlike boys, they are required by norms is less intense (partly because he is experi-
of heterosexuality to move from primary enced as a more remote, secondary ®gure
love for the mother to eroticized love for and partly because love for him is tem-
the father. These differences, Chodorow pered by love for the mother), tend to
argues, result in a male love that tends to repress their Oedipal feelings in a milder,
be exclusive and dyadic in its orientation, less severe way. As such, while the typical
a female love that tends to be more diffuse boy must forcefully and rigidly detach
in orientation. The boy's primary concern himself from pre-Oedipal and Oedipal
in the Oedipal phase continues to be with feelings, the typical girl is less threatened
the mother, though the nature of his by those feelings and can afford to stay in
attachment to her shifts from pre- more continuous connection to them.
Oedipal symbiosis to eroticized feelings The outcome of these different develop-
for her as an other. The girl, by contrast, mental paths is the gendering of person-
balances the pre-Oedipal bond to the ality. Most importantly for Chodorow,
mother with an eroticized, Oedipal love family structures in which women are
for the father. In Freud's account, the girl's primary caregivers are likely to result in
Oedipal experience is conceived as sym- a female self that is fundamentally a self-
metrical to that of the boy; love for the in-relation and a male self that is funda-
father is taken to be exclusive and dyadic, mentally a self in denial of relation. Girls,
accompanied by rivalry with the mother. beginning with the greater intensity and
In Chodorow's revisionist account, while duration of their pre-Oedipal attach-
the girl partly experiences her mother as a ments, tend to acquire a stronger sense
rival, even more she remains attached to of being connected to others and to the
her. Love for the father supplements world; their Oedipal and post-Oedipal
rather than replaces love for the mother. experience is such that they do not sever
While boys learn to experience love as a this sense of connectedness. Girls are thus
dyadic experience that adds eroticized more likely, relative to boys, to go on to be
Oedipal love for the mother to the over- more attentive to relationships with
whelming power (both frightening and others; endowed with stronger capacities
attracting) of pre-Oedipal feelings toward for empathy, nurturance, and care-taking;
her, girls learn to experience love as a troubled by dif®culties with individuation
triadic experience that is typically less and the setting of boundaries between
overwhelming in its power but also self and others; and more open to the
more con¯ictual in nature, requiring emotional origins of their preferences
negotiation between the demands of and actions, as well as to the persuasion
two different attachments. Chodorow's and judgments of others. Boys, on the
in¯uential account of the Oedipal other hand, having typically been forced
experience thus suggests that the female out of pre-Oedipal unity at an earlier age,
self generated by a typical kind of patri- are likely to have a stronger sense of being
archal family structure tends to be individuated selves, detached and detach-
endowed with relatively greater `relational able from others and the world. The
complexity'. severe character of the typical boy's post-
The third and ®nal important moment Oedipal repression further requires of
in Chodorow's story of early childhood him a more substantial detachment from
development centres on the differential inner feelings. Relative to the typical
manner in which girls and boys resolve female personality, the male personality
the Oedipus complex, repressing erotic makes choices less on the basis of the emo-
attachments to mother and father. For tional origins of preferences and more on
boys, both the intensity and exclusivity the basis of rules, general categories, and
of the love for the mother requires a abstract principles. Finally, for boys, the
Nancy Chodorow 285
and Brown de®ne freedom as instinctual and places `limits on the possible' (1999b:
liberation; both then experience theoretical 63, 41). In The Power of Feelings Chodorow
dif®culties in getting from the radically places herself in a middle position
individualist self to the construction of between, on the one hand, psychoanalysts
community that each recognizes to be who tend to occlude the role of (`external')
essential to human freedom. Writing as a culture in the construction of personal
psychoanalytic feminist against the mas- meaning, and on the other hand, cultural
culinist biases in both of these left theorists and social scientists who tend to
Freudian interpretations of subjectivity, occlude the role of the (`internal') psyche
Chodorow urges theorists to put a rela- in the construction of personal meaning.
tional understanding of self and freedom She works to heal the split between a nar-
at `the core of . . . social and political vision' row psychologism and an equally narrow
(1989: 135). cultural determinism, ®rst in a section on
Leaving others to engage in the con- gender (writing against both psychoana-
struction of that vision, Chodorow's latest lytic conceptions that neglect culture and
book, The Power of Feelings, offers what is contemporary feminist conceptions that
undoubtedly her most ambitious and neglect the psyche) and then in a section
comprehensive statement to date on the on subjectivity in general (using the dis-
question of human subjectivity. Aligning cipline of cultural anthropology as her site
herself with 1950s theorists such as of exploration).
Erikson, Loewald, Winnicott, and
Schachtel who used psychoanalysis to
inquire into broader questions of personal APPRAISAL OF KEY ADVANCES AND
ful®lment and cultural life, Chodorow CONTROVERSIES
organizes her argument around the core
contention that personal meaning is In considering Chodorow's in¯uence on
constructed at the nexus of psyche and intellectual discourse and academic scho-
culture, `neither reducible to the other, larship, it is perhaps best to begin with the
both operating together as one inter- general point that her work has been
twined process' (1999b: 9). Throughout important in the larger effort to bring the
the text she attempts to enact a series of psyche into social and cultural analysis, a
theoretical reconciliations, synthesizing move that largely has been resisted by the
competing orientations toward questions social scienti®c mainstream of the
of the self and tending to opt for, as she American academy. The trajectory of her
puts it, `both±and' rather than `either±or' writings in the last two decades re¯ects
solutions to theoretical problems (1999b: the general intellectual shift from structur-
3). The starting point for Chodorow's alist metanarrative to poststructuralist
analysis is the notion that personal sensitivity to the local and the particular,
meaning is created through processes of Chodorow has remained consistent in
transference, introjection, projection, and opposing a point of commonality shared
fantasy. Conceived spatially, meaning ori- by most American social scientists across
ginates neither entirely from an `internal' the structuralist/post-structuralist divide:
nor entirely from an `external' reality, but a reluctance to draw on the richness of
rather from the intertwining of the two. Freud's thought and legacy. In
Conceived temporally, meaning origi- Chodorow's Freudian and feminist per-
nates neither wholly in the present nor spective, one cannot theorize about social
wholly from the past, but rather from the life without taking into account the way in
intertwining of both; while `psychological which society is constituted by (gendered)
agency is always in the present', one's psyches. Focusing on the object-relations
current transferences are typically strand of psychoanalysis and in particular
`imbued with the subjective past' ± a on the role of the pre-Oedipal mother, her
past that generates psychological patterns writings have helped to popularize a view
Nancy Chodorow 287
Martin, K. (1996) Puberty, Sexuality and the Self: Boys Rose, J. (1986) Sexuality in the Field of Vision. London:
and Girls at Adolescence. New York: Routledge. Verso.
Meyers, D. T. (ed.) (1997) Feminist Social Thought: A Seidman, S. (1994) Contested Knowledge: Social Theory
Reader. New York and London: Routledge. in the Postmodern Era. Oxford and Cambridge, MA:
Mitchell, S. and Black, M. (1995) Freud and Beyond: A Blackwell.
History of Modern Psychoanalytic Thought. New Slater, P. ([1968] 1992) Glory of Hera. Princeton, NJ:
York: Basic Books. Princeton University Press.
Moi, T. (1989) `Patriarchal thought and the drive for Sprengnether, M. (1990) The Spectral Mother. Ithaca,
knowledge', in T. Brennan (ed.), Between Feminism NY: Cornell University Press.
and Psychoanalysis. London: Routledge. Thorne, B. (1996) `Brandeis as a generative institu-
Person, E.S. (1995) `Book review of Feminities, tion: critical perspectives, marginality and femin-
Masculinities, Sexualities: Freud and Beyond by N. ism', Theory and Society, 25, special issue on Gender,
Chodorow, International Journal of Psychoanalysis, Agency, and the Development of Feminist Sociology.
76: 1276±9. Williams, C. (1989) Gender Differences at Work.
Pierce, J. (1995) Gender Trials: Emotional Lives in Berkeley: University of California Press.
Contemporary Law Firms. Berkeley: University of Winnicott, D.W. (1965) The Maturational Processes and
California Press. the Facilitating Environment. New York:
Pitkin, H. (1984) Fortune is a Woman: Gender and International Universities Press.
Politics in the Thought of NiccoloÁ Machiavelli. Winnicott, D.W. ([1971] 1993) Playing and Reality.
Berkeley: University of California Press. New York: Routledge.
Rose, J. (1982) `Introduction', in J. Mitchell and J. Rose Young, I.M. (1989) `Is male gender identity the cause
(eds). Feminine Sexuality: Jacques Lacan and the Ecole of male domination?' in J. Treibilcot (ed.),
Freudienne. London: MacMillan. Mothering. New Jersey: Rowman and Allanheld.
26
Anthony Giddens
ANTHONY ELLIOTT
A
nthony Giddens stands out as tural and political research, although the
one of the most signi®cant precise relationship between structuration
British social theorists of the theory and empirical sociological research
postwar era. His writings on the classical is contested (see Clark et al., 1990).
sociological tradition, as well as his inter- Certainly Giddens's own research con-
pretations of contemporary social theory, cerns, like his theoretical interests, are
have had a profound impact on concep- very wide-ranging ± stretching from his
tual debates in the social sciences over work on modernization and modernity
recent decades. Especially in social and to his analysis of sexuality and intimacy
political theory, Giddens has expanded to his more recent work on the develop-
the terrain of debate by interpreting, de- ment of a `Third Way' or `radical centre' as
constructing, and reconstructing such a means of managing global capitalism
traditions as structural-functionalism, with greater equity and freedom.
interpretative sociology, critical theory, Giddens was born on 18 January 1938 in
ethnomethodology, systems theory, Edmonton, north London. His father was
psychoanalysis, structuralism, and post- a clerical worker at London Transport,
structuralism. However, the contribution and his mother a housewife who raised
of Giddens to social theory rests on her son in a typically working-class com-
more than his capabilities as a ®rst-rate munity in the postwar era. Giddens
hermeneuticist. For, above all, he is a attended a local grammar school; the
`grand theorist', a sociologist whose con- ®rst in his family to pursue higher educa-
tributions rank in importance alongside tion, he subsequently gained admission to
the writings of theorists including the University of Hull, where he studied
Parsons, Habermas, and Foucault. psychology and sociology. After complet-
Giddens's structuration theory is a richly ing his BA at Hull, he commenced an MA
textured analysis of the late modern at the London School of Economics. The
world, with particular emphasis upon title of his Master's thesis was `Sport and
processes of social reproduction and Society in Contemporary England'. He
Anthony Giddens 293
higher education in Britain, but his writ- is focused on individuals and the
ings have also become more politically meanings attached to human action, of
focused. Before taking up the directorship, which the traditions of hermeneutics,
Giddens had tried, in his book Beyond Left phenomenology, and ordinary language
and Right (1994), to reconnect sociology philosophy are exemplary. Each of these
to public policy and to outline a radical contrasting approaches has their admirers
political agenda beyond orthodox divi- and critics. However, Giddens argues that
sions of left and right. He continued this it is not possible to resolve the question of
project in his bestseller The Third Way how the action of individual agents is
(1998). In 1999, Giddens gave the Reith related to the structural features of society
Lectures on globalization and its political by merely supplementing or augmenting
consequences, subsequently published as one approach through reference to the
Runaway World (1999). other. In an attempt to move beyond
My aim in this pro®le is to provide a such dualism, Giddens borrowed the
brief overview of Giddens's writings in term `structuration' from French. The
social and political theory. Given the starting point of his analysis is not society
broad sweep of his interests as well as as ®xed and given, but rather the active
his exceptional productivity, I have ¯ow of social life. In contrast to
decided to concentrate on speci®c aspects approaches that downgrade agency,
of Giddens's work, namely structuration Giddens argues that people are knowl-
theory, modernity and modernization, edgeable about the social structures they
and his critique of radical politics. After produce and reproduce in their conduct.
examining Giddens's more substantive Society, he argues, can be understood as a
contributions to social theory, I shall turn complex of recurrent practices which form
to consider some of the issues raised by institutions. For Giddens, the central task
his critics. of social theory is to grasp how action is
structured in everyday contexts of social
practices, while simultaneously recogniz-
ing that the structural elements of action
SOCIAL THEORY AND are reproduced by the performance of
CONTRIBUTIONS action. Giddens thus proposes that the
The Theory of Structuration dualism of agency and structure should
instead be understood as complementary
In a series of books, principally New Rules terms of a duality, the 'duality of struc-
of Sociological Method (1976), Central ture'. `By the duality of structure', writes
Problems in Social Theory (1979), and The Giddens, `I mean that social structures are
Constitution of Society (1984), Giddens both constituted by human agency, and
sets out a highly original conceptualiza- yet at the same time are the very medium
tion of the relation between action and of this constitution'.
structure, agent and system, individual Perhaps the most useful way to gain a
and society. The problem of the relation purchase on the radical aspects of
between action and social structure is Giddens's social theory is by contrasting
one that lies at the heart of social theory his conception of structure with the main-
and the philosophy of social science, and stream sociological literature. Sociologists
most social theorists have tended to stress have tended to conceptualize structure in
one term at the expense of the other. In terms of institutional constraint, often in a
deterministic approaches, for example, quasi-hydraulical or mechanical fashion,
social structure is accorded priority such that structure is likened to the biolo-
over action, as is evident in varieties of gical workings of the body or the girders
structuralism, post-structuralism, systems of a building. Giddens strongly rejects
theory, and structural sociology. In volun- functionalist, biological, and empiricist
taristic approaches, by contrast, attention analyses of structure. Following the
Anthony Giddens 295
`linguistic turn' in twentieth century social bureaucratic rules, traf®c rules, rules of
theory, Giddens critically draws upon football, rules of grammar, rules of social
structuralist and post-structuralist theory, etiquette: to know a rule does not neces-
speci®cally the relationship posited sarily mean that one is able explicitly to
between language and speech in linguis- formulate the principle, but it does mean
tics. He does this, not because society is that one can use the rule `to go on' in social
structured like a language (as struc- life. `The rules and resources of social
turalists have argued), but because he action', writes Giddens, `are at the same
believes that language can be taken as time the means of systems reproduction'
exemplifying core aspects of social life. (1984: 19). Systems reproduction, as
Language, according to Giddens, has a Giddens conceives it, is complex and con-
virtual existence; it `exists' outside of tradictory, involving structures, systems,
time and space, and is only present in its and institutions. Social systems, for
instantiations as speech or writing. By Giddens, are not equivalent with struc-
contrast, speech presupposes a subject tures. Social systems are regularized
and exists in time/space intersections. In patterns of interaction; such systems are
Giddens's reading of structural linguis- in turn structured by rules and resources.
tics, the subject draws from the rules of Institutions are understood by Giddens as
language in order to produce a phrase or involving different modalities in and
sentence, and in so doing contributes to through which structuration occurs.
the reproduction of that language as a Political institutions, for example, involve
whole. Giddens draws extensively from the generation of commands over people
such a conception of the structures of lan- in relation to issues of authorization, sig-
guage in order to account for structures of ni®cation, and legitimation; economic
action. His theorem is that agents draw institutions, by contrast, involve the allo-
from structures in order to perform and cation of resources through processes of
carry out social interactions, and in so signi®cation and legitimation.
doing contribute to the reproduction of To understand this recursive quality of
institutions and structures. This analysis social life it is necessary also to consider
leads to a very speci®c conception of Giddens's discussion of human agency
structure and social systems. `Structure', and individual subjectivity. Action,
writes Giddens (1984: 26), `has no according to Giddens, must be ana-
existence independent of the knowledge lytically distinguished from the 'acts' of
that agents have about what they do in an individual. Whereas acts are discrete
their day-to-day activity'. segments of individual doing, action
Giddens's theoretical approach empha- refers to the continuous ¯ow of people's
sizes that structures should be con- social practices. On a general plane,
ceptualized as `rules and resources': the Giddens advances a 'strati®cation
application of rules which comprise model' of the human subject comprising
structure may be regarded as generating three levels of knowledge or motivation:
differential access to social, economic, discursive consciousness, practical con-
cultural, and political resources. In The sciousness, and the unconscious.
Constitution of Society Giddens argues Discursive consciousness refers to what
that the sense of 'rule' most relevant to agents are able to say, both to themselves
understanding social life is that which and to others, about their own action; as
pertains to a mathematical formula ± Giddens repeatedly emphasizes, agents
for instance, if the sequence is 2,4,6,8, are knowledgeable about what they are
the formula is x n 2. Understanding doing, and this awareness often has a
a formula, says Giddens, enables an highly discursive component. Practical
agent to carry on in social life in a routine consciousness also refers to what actors
manner, to apply the rule in a range of know about their own actions, beliefs,
different contexts. The same is true of and motivations, but it is practical in the
296 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
sense that it cannot be expressed discur- to grasp his emphasis upon duality in
sively; what cannot be put into words, structuration theory. Agents, according
Giddens says following Wittgenstein, is to Giddens, draw on the rules and
what has to be done. Human beings resources of structures, and in so doing
know about their activities and the contribute to the systemic reproduction
world in a sense that cannot be readily of institutions, systems, and structures.
articulated; such practical stocks of In studying social life, says Giddens, it
knowledge are central, according to is important to recognize the role of
Giddens, to the project of social scienti®c `methodological bracketing'. Giddens
research. Finally, the unconscious, says argues that the social sciences simulta-
Giddens, is also a crucial feature of neously pursue institutional analysis, in
human motivation, and is differentiated which the structural features of society
from discursive and practical conscious- are analysed, and the analysis of strategic
ness by the barrier of repression. conduct, in which the manner in which
While Giddens accords the unconscious actors carry on social interaction is
a residual role in the reproduction of studied. These different levels of analysis
social life (as something that `erupts' at are central to social scienti®c research, and
moments of stress or crisis), he nonethe- both are crucial to structuration theory.
less makes considerable use of psycho- Connected to this, Giddens argues that
analytical theory in order to theorize the the subjects of study of the social sciences
routine patterning of social relations. are concept-using agents, individuals
Drawing from Freud, Lacan, and whose concepts enter into the manner in
Erikson, Giddens argues that the emo- which their actions are constituted. He
tional presence and absence of the pri- calls this intersection of the social world
mary caretaker (most usually, the as constituted by lay actors on the one
mother) provides the foundation for a hand, and the metalanguages created by
sense of what he terms `ontological social scientists on the other, the `double
security', as well as trust in the taken- hermeneutic'.
for-granted, routine nature of social life.
Indeed the routine is accorded a central Modernity and the Late Modern Age
place in Giddens's social theory, both
for grasping the production and main- In The Consequences of Modernity (1990)
tenance of ontological security, and com- and Modernity and Self-Identity (1991),
prehending the modes of socialization by Giddens develops a comprehensive ana-
which actors learn the implicit rules of lysis of the complex relation between self
how to go on in social life. To do this, and society in the late modern age.
Giddens draws from a vast array of Rejecting Marx's equation of modernity
sociological micro-theorists, including with capitalism, and wary of Weber's
Goffman and Gar®nkel. His debt to ethno- portrait of the iron cage of bureaucracy,
methodology and phenomenology is Giddens instead presents an image of
re¯ected in much of the language of modernity as a juggernaut. As with
structuration theory, as is evident from structuration theory, Giddens's approach
his references to `skilled performances', to modernity involves considerable termi-
`copresence', `seriality', `contextuality', nological innovation: `embedding and
`knowledgeability', and `mutual disembedding mechanisms', `symbolic
knowledge'. tokens', `expert systems', `the dialectic of
In the last few paragraphs I have noted trust and risk', and, crucially, `re¯exivity'.
how Giddens approaches issues of human Re¯exivity, according to Giddens, should
action, agency, and subjectivity. It is be conceived as a continuous ¯ow of indi-
important to link these more subjective vidual and collective `self-monitoring'.
aspects of his social theory back to issues `The re¯exivity of modern social life',
of social practices and structures in order writes Giddens, `consists in the fact that
Anthony Giddens 297
social practices are constantly examined expanded re¯exivity: there are no clear
and reformed in the light of incoming paths of individual or social development
information about those very practices, in the late modern age. On the contrary,
thus constitutively altering their charac- human attempts at control of the social
ter' (1990: 38). Elsewhere Giddens (1991: world are undertaken against a re¯exive
28) writes: `To live in the ``world'' pro- backdrop of a variety of other ways of
duced by high modernity has the feeling doing things. Giddens offers the following
of riding a juggernaut. It is not just that overview, for example, in relation to
more or less continuous and profound global warming:
processes of change occur; rather, change
Many experts consider that global warming is
does not consistently conform either to
occurring and they may be right. The hypothesis
human expectation or to human control'. is disputed by some, however, and it has even
The experiential character of contem- been suggested that the real trend, if there is one
porary daily life is well grasped by two at all, is in the opposite direction, towards the
of Giddens's key concepts: trust and risk cooling of the global climate. Probably the most
as interwoven with abstract systems. For that can be said with some surety is that we cannot
Giddens, the relation between individual be certain that global warming is not occurring.
Yet such a conditional conclusion will yield not a
subjectivity and social contexts of action is precise calculation of risks but rather an array of
a highly mobile one; and it is something `scenarios' ± whose plausibility will be in¯uenced,
that we make sense of and utilize through among other things, by how many people become
`abstract systems'. Abstract systems are convinced of the thesis of global warming and
institutional domains of technical and take action on that basis. In the social world,
social knowledge: they include systems where institutional re¯exivity has become a
central constituent, the complexity of `scenarios'
of expertise of all kinds, from local forms
is even more marked. (Giddens, 1994: 59)
of knowledge to science, technology, and
mass communications. Giddens is under- The complexity of `scenarios' is thus cen-
scoring much more than simply the tral to our engagement with the wider
impact of expertise on people's lives, social world. Re¯exivity, according to
far-reaching though that is. Rather, Giddens, in¯uences the way in which
Giddens extends the notion of expertise these scenarios are constructed, per-
to cover `trust relations' ± the personal ceived, coped with, and reacted to.
and collective investment of active trust In The Transformation of Intimacy (1992b),
in social life. The psychological invest- Giddens connects the notion of re¯exivity
ment of trust contributes to the power of to sexuality, gender, and intimate relation-
specialized, expert knowledge ± indeed it ships. With modernization and the decline
lies at the bedrock of our Age of Experts ± of tradition, says Giddens, the sexual life
and also plays a key role in the forging of a of the human subject becomes a `project'
sense of security in day-to-day social life. that has to be managed and de®ned
Trust and security are thus both a con- against the backdrop of new opportunities
dition and outcome of social re¯exivity. and risks ± including, for example, arti®-
Giddens sees the re¯exive appropriation cial insemination, experiments in ectogen-
of expert knowledge as fundamental in esis (the creation of human life without
a globalizing, culturally cosmopolitan pregnancy), AIDS, sexual harassment,
society. While a key aim may be the and the like. Linking gender to new tech-
regularization of stability and order in nologies, Giddens argues we live in an era
our identities and in society, re¯exive of `plastic sexuality'. `Plastic sexuality'
modernity is radically experimental (1992b: 2), writes Giddens, `is decentred
however, and is constantly producing sexuality, freed from the needs of repro-
new types of incalculable risk and in- duction . . . and from the rule of the phal-
security. This means that, whether we lus, from the overweening importance of
like it or not, we must recognize the male sexual experience'. Sexuality thus
ambivalence of a social universe of becomes open-ended, elaborated not
298 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
through pregiven roles, but through neither a lament nor celebration of the
re¯exively forged relationships. The self ambivalences of contemporary political
today, as the rise of therapy testi®es, is processes. Instead, Giddens asks: What
faced with profound dilemmas in respect happens when politics begins to re¯ect
of sexuality: Who am I?, What do I desire?, on itself? What happens when political
What satisfactions do I want from sexual activity, understanding its own successes
relations? ± these are core issues for the and excesses, begins to re¯ect on its own
self according to Giddens. This does not institutional conditions?
mean that sexual experience occurs with- At issue, says Giddens, are re¯exivity
out institutional constraint, however. and risk, both of which he isolates as cen-
Giddens contends that the development tral to transformations in society, culture,
of modern institutions produce a `seques- and politics. By re¯exivity, as noted,
tration of experience' ± sexual, existential, Giddens refers to that circularity of
and moral ± which squeeze to the side- knowledge and information promoted
lines core problems relating to sexuality, by mass communications in a globalizing,
intimacy, mortality and death (see Elliott, cosmopolitan world. Re¯exivity functions
1992). as a means of regularly reordering and
rede®ning what political activity is. Of
The Third Way central importance in this respect is
the impact of globalization. Globalizing
In Beyond Left and Right: The Future of processes, says Giddens, radically inten-
Radical Politics (1994), Giddens asserts sify our personal and social awareness
that we live today in a radically damaged of risk, transforming local contexts into
world, for which radical political remedies global consequences. Thus the panic
are required beyond the neoliberalism selling of shares on the Dow Jones has
offered by the right or reformist socialism implications for the entire global economy,
offered by the left. To this end, Giddens from local retail trade to the international
provides a detailed framework for the division of labour. At the beginning of the
rethinking of radical politics. This frame- twenty-®rst century, a world of intensi®ed
work touches on issues of tradition and re¯exivity is a world of people re¯ecting
social solidarity, of social movements, of upon the political consequences of human
the restructuring of democratic processes action, from the desolation of the rain
and the welfare state, and of the location forests to the widespread manufacture
of violence in world politics. Giddens's of weapons of mass destruction. In
interpretation of the rise of radical politics such social conditions, politics becomes
can perhaps best be grasped by con- radically experimental in character.
trasting dominant discussions in the ®elds People are increasingly aware of new
of critical theory and postmodernism. types of incalculable risk and insecurity,
Theorists of the self-endangerment of and must attempt to navigate the troubled
modern politics, from Daniel Bell to waters of modern political culture. This
JuÈrgen Habermas, characteristically focus means that, whether we like it or not,
upon the loss of community produced we are all engaged in a kind of continual
by the invasion of personal and cultural reinvention of identity and politics, with
life by the global capitalist system. no clear paths of development from one
Postmodernist social and political state of risk to another.
theorists, from Michel Foucault to Jean- It is against this backdrop of trans-
FrancËois Lyotard, alternatively focus on formations in risk, re¯exivity and glo-
the contemporary plurality of knowledge balization that Giddens develops a new
claims, and conclude that there are no framework for radical politics. The core
ordered paths to political development. dimensions of Giddens's blueprint for
Giddens's approach, by contrast, takes a the restructuring of radical political
radically different tack. He develops thought include the following claims:
Anthony Giddens 299
might undertake activities that threaten or clarity to his dialectical model of con-
transform the institution, but without sciousness, preconsciousness, and the
similarly transforming their structural unconscious; Giddens argues, for
conditions. `Every act of production and instance, that regressive psychic function-
reproduction', writes Thompson (1989: ing is generally initiated only in moments
70), `may also be a potential act of trans- of societal stress. The result is that
formation, as Giddens rightly insists; but Giddens's conception of the person lacks
the extent to which an action transforms complexity of desires, contradictions
an institution does not coincide with the of experience, and a sense of internal
extent to which social structure is thereby division. This argument is interesting,
transformed'. but it carries wider implications than
Other critics have likewise targeted Craib perhaps realizes. The issue is not
Giddens's conceptualization of subjec- how well or badly Giddens reads Freud;
tivity, agency and the agent. Bryan my point is that Giddens's circumscrip-
S. Turner, for example, ®nds Giddens's tion of the functioning of the unconscious
theory of the human agent lacking a suf®- carries substantive implications for his
cient account of embodiment (Turner, theorem of the duality of structure.
1992). Alan Sica has suggested that, not- Giddens adopts the novel view that
withstanding his commitment to macro- structural rules and resources have no
social theory, Giddens's borrowings from existence independent of the memory
Gar®nkel, Goffman, Erikson and others traces of subjects. If this argument is to
indicates an awareness that a theory of be sustained, what is required is a much
the subject and its complex darkness more detailed account of the unconscious
has been central to the project of contem- representations and affects that underpin
porary social theory. Sica writes: and condition practical and discursive
consciousness as these relate to, and
Giddens reinvolves himself with `the subjective'
draw from, structure (see Elliott, 1994,
because he knows that a general theory of action
will surely fail that does not come to terms with it. 1996).
But he fondly thinks, it seems, that by inventing a Giddens has sought to defend his
new vocabulary, by bringing in the ubiquitous writings from his critics in various places
'duality of structure' or `re¯exive rationalization (see Giddens in Held and Thompson,
of conduct', he can make good his escape 1989, in Clark et al., 1990, and in Bryant
from both the calci®ed Marxism with-out a and Jary, 1991). Giddens's con®dence in
subject (Althusser) or sloppy-hearted Parsonism,
which is all norms, values and wishes. (Sica, 1989:
his theoretical project, and the tone of his
48) authorial voice, is such that he rarely con-
cedes many points to his critics. However,
Sica, in short, questions Giddens's what his more recent writings make clear
emphasis upon the taken-for-granted is that structuration theory has much
rules of daily actions as a basis for expli- broader scope ± ranging from issues of
cating subjectivity, suggesting that in intimacy to politics, sexuality to public
the process he downgrades not only the policy ± than many working in the social
subterranean, unconscious forces of the sciences previously realized. Giddens's
subject but also the discomfort between work has undoubtedly provided a com-
self and society. prehensive social theory for the analysis
Extending these points, Ian Craib (1992: of social reproduction and political dom-
171) argues that Giddens's model of the ination, a powerful interpretation of the
subject is experientially and psycho- complex ways in which action and struc-
dynamically reductive, the core of which ture intersect, and a vision of modernity
he attributes to Giddens's `misuse or mis- and modernization that is richer and more
interpretation of psychoanalysis'. Craib detailed than other versions of critical
notes that Giddens limits the reach of social theory, especially versions of post-
Freud in an attempt to bring conceptual modernist theory.
302 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
Elliott, A. (1996) Subject To Ourselves. Cambridge: Thompson, J.B. (1989) `The theory of structuration',
Polity Press. in D. Held, and J.B. Thompson (eds) Social Theory
Held, D. and Thompson, J.B. (1989) Social Theory of Modern Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge
of Modern Societies: Giddens and his Critics. University Press.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tucker, K. (1998) Anthony Giddens and Modern Social
Mestrovic, S. (1998) Anthony Giddens: The Last Theory. London: Sage.
Modernist. London: Routledge. Turner, B.S. (1992) Regulating Bodies. London:
O'Brien, M. and Penna, S. (1998) Theorising Routledge.
Modernity: Re¯exivity, Environment and Identity in
Giddens's Social Theory. Longman and New York:
Longman.
27
Ulrich Beck
NICK STEVENSON
U
lrich Beck was born in Pomern ence of Ulrich Beck. The publication in the
(which was to become a part of former West Germany of his book Risk
the German Republic in 1944) Society; Towards a New Modernity in 1986
although he grew up in Hanover in what quickly became a best-selling work. Its
was then West Germany. He began his appearance in the wake of the nuclear
academic career in Munich, eventually accident at Chernobyl brought Beck to
becoming a sociology professor in the national, and now to international, pro-
mid-1980s in the small provincial town minence amongst sociologists as well as
of Bamberg. Beck is currently Professor political activists and lay communities.
of Sociology at the University of Munich This all too rare event in social theory
and the British Journal of Sociology gives us an initial clue as to Beck's parti-
Professor at the London School of cular genius. What Beck did that was so
Economics and Political Science. Pre- exciting was to take a seeming discon-
viously, Beck served on the Future nected set of social phenomena including
Commission for the German Government the ecological crisis, AIDs, feminism, the
(1995±7), received an honorary degree in development of the media of mass com-
social science from Jyvaskyla University, munication, consumerism, the ethic of
and was Distinguished Research self-development and the decline of
Professor at the University of Cardiff overt forms of class antagonism in the
(1995±8). He is also a fellow of several context of welfare democracies and bring
scienti®c institutions, including the them under the umbrella of the `risk
Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin society'. In the space between varieties of
(1990±1). Marxism that predicted new phases of
Ulrich Beck 305
unbridled exploitation, the rebirth of lib- capitalism will not lead to global ®nancial
eralism promised by the `end of history' collapse? These features, Beck argues,
thesis and postmodernism's concentra- can not, as they have been traditionally,
tion on the fragmentation of the subject be perceived as minority interests for social
came a fresh new voice. More recently, theory, but have come resolutely centre
with the end of the Cold War and the stage.
demise of state socialism, Beck's call to
rethink established social and political
categories has found a wide audience. SOCIAL THEORY AND
Beck provides a comprehensive assault CONTRIBUTIONS
on many of the existing paradigms within
social theory, while pointing to a number Ulrich Beck (1992, 1995) has most force-
of neglected connections and concerns, fully brought notions of risk to bear
the most prominent of these being the through a discussion of the hazards that
reconnection of society and nature have become associated with the develop-
ushered in by the ecological crisis of ment of industrial society. Beck argues
industrial modernity. that the development of scienti®c ration-
While Beck has constantly revised his ality and economic progress have pro-
notion of a risk society it has not changed duced a range of ecological risks from
greatly since its initial appearance. Why the pollution of the seas to the poisoning
then does Beck think that notions of risk of the population. These risks can no
are so important in the modern age? Beck longer be dismissed as the side effects of
makes an initial distinction between ideas industrialism. Instead they have become
of risk assessment that came along with central to the de®nition of society at the
modernity and preindustrial notions of end of the twentieth century. The risk
fate. Risks that are de®ned as fate place society evolves through two phases: the
them beyond human control. The plagues, ®rst is where the evident dangers of self-
famines, and natural disasters that charac- destruction are dealt with through the
terized the preindustrial world were under legal and political institutions of indus-
this rubric to be endured by humanity. trial society. These might include reliance
Conversely, along with industrial society, upon scienti®c experts, the belief that new
come notions of risk in that they were laws and political policies can effectively
explicitly based upon calculable decisions deal with pollution, and the idea that eco-
made within the context of a technological logical questions are secondary to notions
civilization. This set up a calculus of risks of economic distribution. In the contem-
involving legal de®nitions, insurance com- porary risk society none of these features
panies, and protection against the hazards and claims can be sustained. The emer-
of the industrial society. The welfare state gence of a post-traditional society has
was a way of insuring against the risks of seen the axis of the family, gender, occu-
industrialism associated with illness, old pation, and belief in science and economic
age, and unemployment. However, since progress become radically undermined.
the middle of the twentieth century, indus- The `second modernity' therefore involves
trial society has been confronted with an increasingly re¯exive questioning of
questions of uninsurable risk. The poten- areas of social experience that the en-
tial destruction of the planet in a nuclear lightenment failed to problematize. We
and chemical age has meant that humans become ever aware of the fallibility of
are now living with risks they can not be expert opinion, the `invisible' destruction
insured against. Who is to say how safe our of nature and the incalculability of en-
food is after BSE? How do we know there vironmental hazards.
will not be another Chernobyl? What are Beck brings these questions together
the long-term consequences of global through what he calls `re¯exive' moderni-
warming? Can we be sure that networked zation, which he contrasts with the idea
306 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
that modernity has become more re¯ec- the seas, and the dangers of nuclear
tive. Simple re¯ection theory holds that power all call into question the mechan-
the modernization of society leads to the isms of national governance and our
increasing capacity of subjects to ask ques- relations of trust with societies' central
tions about the society they are living institutions.
within. Such optimism can be traced In Beck's terms, then, what are the
back to the enlightenment (more science, consequences of these arguments for
public-sphere and experts equals more questions of ecological politics and citi-
self-criticism), and contrasted with the zenship? First, the risks produced by
pessimist's view that such developments industrial society are global rather than
only result in more domination and con- national in character. That is, they point
trol. Instead, `re¯exive' modernization can towards a new kind of politics beyond
lead to re¯ection on the forces that are the relatively stable antipathies of the
threatening to plunge modernity into Cold War. This both introduces the possi-
self-dissolution, but this is not necessarily bilities of the emergence of `mobile
the case. Hence Beck is clear that this is not enemies' and of new forms of consensus
a theory of progress or decline, but where states have no permanent enemies
one that takes up the ambivalence of mod- or `others' (Beck, 1998). Secondly, princi-
ernity by focusing upon `deep-seated ples like `the polluter pays' or `individual
institutional crises in late industrial culpability' actually allow pollution levels
society' (Beck, 1994: 178). Re¯exive to rise. This is because it is often dif®cult
modernization is about unintended self- to attribute pollution to any one source, as
confrontation rather than re¯ection. such a causal relation may evade scienti®c
What makes Beck's claims so novel within demonstration and there is often a struggle
traditions of sociological and cultural over who is actually to blame. The conse-
theory is that the unintended conse- quence of `de®nition struggles' which seek
quences and side-effects of industrialism a primary `cause' often end up hiding the
rather than the class struggle or instru- pervasive ways in which modern society
mental reason is the motor of history. has become a scienti®c laboratory. Beck
Living in the contemporary world writes on the escalating risks of the
means learning to live with the possibility modern era:
of large-scale hazards that throw into
The more pollutants are put in circulation, the
question attempts at bureaucratic normal- more acceptable levels related to individual sub-
ization, the imperatives of the economic stances are set, the more liberally this occurs, the
system, and the assurances of scienti®c more insane the entire hocus-pocus becomes,
experts. Not only are we learning to live because the overall toxic threat to the population
in a post-traditional society, but one which grows ± presuming the simple equation that the
is haunted by the possibility of large-scale total volume of various toxic substances means a
higher degree of overall toxicity. (Beck, 1992: 66)
hazards like Chernobyl. We are, despite
the end of the Cold War, currently living The risk society is predicated on the
within the shadow of our own annihi- ambivalence that science has both pro-
lation. No one really knows what the duced and legitimized these risks, while
long-term consequences of the ecological being the primary force, other than popu-
destruction of nature will be and what lar protest, through which these dimen-
level of risk in connection with the en- sions can be made visible. In this respect,
vironment is sustainable. Politics and the ecological movement can not afford to
economics in such a society can no longer be antiscienti®c, but rather has to turn
be conceptualized as a struggle over science back upon itself. Scienti®c ration-
resources, and environmental degrada- ality and judgment need to be open to the
tion is not easily dismissed as a partial community as a whole as modernity is
side-effect. The international production revealed to be a more uncertain and fra-
of harmful substances, the pollution of gile construction than was previously
Ulrich Beck 307
assumed to be the case. Further, the per- Beck (1995: 179) argues `caution would be
vasive power of technical reason has given the mother in the kitchen of toxins'. Such a
birth to a new form of politics that Beck move would break the cycle whereby state
(1996) calls `subpolitics'. The humanity- bureaucracies seek to legalize and legiti-
wide project of saving the environment mate public risks, circumventing open
has actually been brought about through forms of democratic dialogue.
the destruction of nature as well as the Beck (1992) then arguably outlines a
accompanying culture of risk and uncer- more ambivalent relation between poli-
tainty that have become wrapped around tics, culture, and questions of social
human conceptions of well being. The exclusion than is available in an account
politicization of science and technology that simply stresses the ways in which
is rapidly introducing a re¯exive culture consumer culture undermines our shared
whereby politics and morality is gaining capacity to seek just solutions to social
the upper hand over scienti®c experts. problems. For example, Beck is clear that
Thus a shared environment of global risk ecological consciousness is most likely to
enables the formation of an ecological pol- make itself felt within prosperous classes,
itics that seeks to recover democratic given their investments in health and life-
exchange. Whereas struggles for citizen- style more generally. Indeed, Beck argues
ship have historically been organized in that many ecological risks contain a social
material settings like the workplace, boomerang effect in that everything that
subpolitics is much more likely to be threatens life on earth ultimately threatens
symbolically shaped through the to destroy those who pro®t from the com-
domains of consumption, television modi®cation of nature. However, Beck
media and the repoliticization of science. does not seek to deny that risk politics
If the ecological movement asks us to and class politics may indeed overlap,
attend to the obligations we have to the with hazardous industries being trans-
earth, it also raises the question of the ferred to the Third World and the poor
regeneration of public spaces and demo- being those most likely to be affected by
cratic dialogue. Beck (1995) exhibits an environmental pollution. The logic of risk
awareness of these dimensions through society is such that it is capable of turning
the possible emergence of an `authoritar- `capital against capital' and `workers
ian technocracy'. Here he argues that against workers' as there are no ®xed
industrial society (as we have seen) boundaries to `winners' and `losers' in
responded to the problem of ecological the risk society.
risk through the formal development of Again, however, Beck (1997) has consis-
certain laws, belief in `cleaner' technology, tently sought to argue that the `age of side
and more informed experts. What is effects' or the `break up of industrial
required is a placing of the burden of society' does not necessarily lead in one
proof on the agents of money and power direction rather than another. Giving up
that new products and ways of generating faith in industrial progress does not guar-
electricity are `nonhazardous'. Democratic antee that we will ask the `right' questions
dialogue needs to introduce into its and that modernity will not continue to
repertoires the principles of doubt and propagate a `dark side'. Eighteenth and
uncertainty. Only when we become nineteenth century Europe and America
aware of the limitations and dangers of saw the development of democracy and
technological reason and proceed from universal principles as well as the persis-
worst case scenarios can we begin to tence and development of the oppression
have an `informed' debate. The demo- of women, nationalism, racism, and
cratic imperative behind such recommen- other features which culminated in the
dations is that we need to have such a concentration camps. That is, `re¯exive'
conversation before the introduction of modernization may not lead to a
new hazards into the community. As re¯ection upon modernization and its
308 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
processes have no necessary political criticism. The risk society thesis, as it has
trajectory. For example, counterforms of been developed by Beck, suggests that the
modernity can respond to a more chaotic canons of social and political theory are
world emerging within interpersonal rela- currently ill equipped to deal with
tions between the sexes by renaturalizing the key questions asked by the `second
the roles and identities of men and modernity'. From the founding works of
women. Indeed this is a key instance of Marx and Weber to the later contributions
subpolitics in that `the political constella- of Habermas and Foucault, Beck suggests
tion of industrial society is becoming that all are in need of substantial revision.
unpolitical, while what was unpolitical in Here I will only be able to deal with some
industrialism is becoming political' (Beck of the questions Beck's writing raises in
1997: 99). Such a dynamic means that we the context of contemporary currents
often look for politics in the wrong place. within social and political theory. In
In this respect then, Beck represents the what follows, I want to look at four key
key antagonism within `re¯exive' moder- controversies in respect of Beck's views
nity between a politics that builds upon before going on to suggest what a poten-
individualized forms of re¯exivity and tial reply might look like. These issues
the re-inscription of fundamentalist certi- have been left as open as possible so that
tude. Such a politics asks us to think again readers might make up their own minds.
about widespread assumptions in respect
of the colonization of economic reason, the Capitalist Modernity
decline of values or postmodern forms of
fragmentation. That is modernity has A number of Marxist-inspired critics have
given birth to both `freedom's children' argued that capitalism rather than `side
who have learnt that fun, mobile phones, effects' remains the main driving force
and opposition to mainstream politics can behind modernity. In such a view it is
be a force for change, and `ugly citizens' commodi®cation rather than the un-
and moralizers who seek to reaf®rm intended consequences of industrialism
modernity's perceived loss of security which is transforming the world. The
(Beck, 1998). The main political dividing privatization of public utilities, the con-
line in the struggles that mark the future centration of economic and political
will be between those who seek to remake power into the hands of a few multi-
civil society and community out of free- nationals, and the imperative of capital
dom and those who seek to introduce accumulation all point towards a social
new forms of discipline and compulsion. theory with capitalism rather than in-
Indeed it is the ethic of individualization dustrialism at its centre. The risks of
when joined with globalization that is unemployment, poverty, social exclusion,
most likely to lead politics in a cosmo- and ill health are all ultimately tied into
politan direction. The decline of national the relations of production and distri-
industrialism is increasingly giving rise bution of wealth in society (McGuigan,
to a global cosmopolitan ethic, which 1999; Rustin, 1994; Soper, 1995). What
realizes that the key problems raised by these critics are arguing is that we are
common citizenship can no longer be witnessing the intensi®cation of moder-
thought and experienced in national nity rather than the arrival of a post-
terms (Beck 1999). modern or a risk society. For example,
Alex Callinicos (1999) charges that Beck
considerably overstates the democratizing
PRAISAL OF KEY ADVANCES AND force of modernity. That is, while Beck
CONTROVERSIES points to the considerable opportunities
to be had in the diminishing power of
Beck's critical assessment of mainstream experts, the unpredictable ¯ow of public
sociology has brought its fair share of opinion, and more democratic households,
310 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
many of the inegalitarian features of the that deserves our political attentions,
capitalist economy remain triumphant rather than a narrower focus on capital-
due to the collapse of state socialism, ism. Whereas his critics remain trapped
the weakening of the nation-state, and in the binaries of Cold War thinking (com-
globalization. These developments have munism vs. capitalism) the more uncer-
led to the redistribution of economic and tain features of globalized risk opens
political power away from the people (in many new features.
particular nation-states) and into the
hands of large-scale multinationals. This The Project of Modernity
more traditional political economy
approach would argue that the traditional Beck has also attracted a sceptical
social sciences continue to serve us response from those who argue that he is
well despite Beck's arguments to the overoptimistic in respect of the rational
contrary. inheritance of the enlightenment. In this
Beck could respond to these charges by his arguments come close (although
arguing that he is well aware of the nega- there are substantial differences) to those
tive potential of modernity. The dialectic of Jurgen Habermas (1985) who reminds
he opens in his writing is fully apprecia- us of the continued relevance of the moral
tive of the destructive effects of unbridled and ethical resources of the enlighten-
capitalism. In particular he emphasizes ment. Both Habermas and Beck argue
the growing gaps between rich and poor, that there needs to be a redemptive and
global poverty, the mobility of capital, and critical attempt to recover the public
the shrinking supply of work in capitalist signi®cance of reasoned discussion. He
economies. However, these features need differs from Habermas in the view that
to be connected more forcibly to the everyday life is being reshaped by `side
ecologically destructive power of indus- effects' rather than instrumental reason,
trialism. In Beck's view we have moved and that modernity is currently a more
beyond the binary politics of left and contested domain (given the contra-
right into a more uncertain and risky dictory imperatives of subpolitics) than
world than many of his critics seem to be Habermas's arguments in respect of the
aware. The impetus for social change is no colonization of the life-world.
longer to be found within the political While these questions deserve a more
establishment, but increasingly new detailed analysis, both Bauman (1993)
ideas like ecological security, gender and Smart (1999) have argued that the
equality, and campaigns to end Third `revival of reason' offered by re¯exive
World debt which have built upon the modernization will do little to offer a
new individualism and are global in future more riven by doubt and ethical
orientation. Further, Beck's analysis in complexity. That is, as Beck de®nes it in
this and in other respects, comes close to his early work, the recovery of reason is
that of Anthony Giddens (1990), in that just as likely to foster rather than under-
capitalism is just one feature of modernity mine what Bauman (1993: 204) calls `the
that includes industrialism, surveillance, suicidal tendency of technological rule'.
and the control of the means of violence. Beck's analysis remains dependent upon
More precisely, Beck would need to argue the continued domination of scienti®c
that capitalism is now itself embedded reason, rather than engaging in a more
within the frameworks of the risk society ethical politics. Bauman expands this
rather than the other way round. That is, point by arguing that the most likely
it is the production of risk through the response to public expressions of risk
changing relations between men and is the systematic privatization of risk,
women, global nuclear threats, ecological not the remoralization of public space.
hazards, and so on ± all of which are the For Bauman, Beck seems to presume
unintended product of industrialism ± that `more not less modernity' would
Ulrich Beck 311
that these knowledges (or manufactured Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern
uncertainties) might help de®ne new Social Order. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Beck. U. (1996) `World risk society as cosmopolitan
risks of which we were previously un-
society?', Theory, Culture and Society, 13 (4): 1±32.
aware, and that the de®nition of risk can
be said to have a double reference.
However, the complexity of risk cultures
and struggles over the de®nition of risk
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Douglas, M. (1992) Risk and Blame: Essays in Cultural
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28
Pierre Bourdieu
BRIDGET FOWLER
B
ourdieu has taught us to beware tialism became a key issue for the new
the false impression of continuity generation at the EÂcole, Althusser,
implicit in the `biographical Foucault and Bourdieu, all of whom
illusion' (1994: 81±8), so that it is with were trained in philosophy. One ENS
some trepidation that I offer a view of professor was particularly in¯uential:
his life. He was born in 1930, in a small Canguilhem, who extended Bachelard's
market town in the BeÂarn agricultural `applied rationalism' ([1949] 1986), with
region of the Pyrenees, where his father its concept of coupures (ruptures), into a
was a postman: a man who would have new `genetic structuralism' (Bourdieu,
moved between two worlds, part of a 1998b).
modern communication system within a From Canguilhem, Bourdieu dis-
traditional agricultural area. covered a historical epistemology applied
Pierre Bourdieu owed his subsequent to science, marked by ruptures and
`belle carrieÁre acadeÂmique' (as he has shaped by its social context
entitled others' achievements) to the (Canguilhem, 1988). In this epistemology
local lyceÂe, where he was taught classics. science appeared as the arena for intel-
From there, as a promising pupil, he was lectual discourses, some of which had a
moved to the famous Parisian lyceÂe of `doxic' or taken-for-granted power, as
Louis-le-Grand. He then entered the in the Greek account of humours or
route he describes so vividly in The State the early germ theory of disease.
Nobility, the arduous preparatory classes Canguilhem further outlined a struggle
for the examination to the grandes eÂcoles between science (itself sometimes `doxic',
and, in his case, acceptance by the EÂcole hence later to be shown to be mistaken)
Normale SupeÂrieure (ENS). Once there, and scienti®c ideology ± examples of
Bourdieu was confronted with the strong which were the works of Herbert
postwar in¯uence of Sartre, who had Spencer and Mendel. Such ideas were to
responded to the repressive form of have a profound impact on the whole ENS
French Stalinist Marxism by initiating a generation, leading in Bourdieu's case to a
316 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
®eld of power and speak outside the structuralism and with an objectivating
scienti®c city (1975), they often provoke anthropological form of the `sovereign
a purely political assessment of their gaze', which disregards actors' subjective
entire works. The time for a leisurely meanings. For example, Bourdieu notes
and serious scienti®c analysis of his that only 3 per cent of marriages are in
theory may be passing. accordance with the rules demanding
that the choice be of parallel-cousins
(1990a, 1998a: 141±2). Thus agents are not
SOCIAL THEORY AND LeÂvi-Straussian bearers of structures but
CONTRIBUTIONS rather pay lip-service to them, often acting
differently. If their interests lie in con-
When Bourdieu lived amongst the Berber formity to the rules, all well and good,
Kabylians, an ancient form of life was otherwise Bourdieu sees transgressive
being gripped by a form of `social vivi- tactics as common. He uses an image
section', imposed simultaneously by the that later becomes a symbol of
proximity of capitalism and the war. people's `practical logic' more generally:
Nevertheless, in their household living Kabyleans improvise like jazz trumpeters.
and agriculture, he was able to outline Kabyle society is based on a subsistence
an entirely different form of experience, economy, which is collectively structured
marked by a cyclical sense of time. around gifts: gifts of labour-services at
Kabylians, in turn, highlighted the harvest-time, presents and meals at
historical nature of the forms of Western wedding-feasts, women for marriages.
society since for them calculative Here Bourdieu follows Mauss in his
economic activity was largely the preserve basic view of gift-giving as acting to bind
of women (`For the Kabyle, the economic actors in solidarity within precapitalist
economy as we practise it is a women's societies, so that they may have not just
economy', 1998a: 99). The economistic their material needs satis®ed but also
ethos of the West's `harried leisure classes' any collective needs met, such as military
was replaced in Kabylian practices by a defences. Gift-exchange should not be
pleasure in sociability (1977: 195) and by opposed to Western economic rationality
the `peasant ethos' of painstaking trouble in idealized terms. Gift-exchange is
with nature, often where this would bring neither pro®t-dominated, nor is it totally
no direct material advantage. Bourdieu disinterested. Each agent possesses an
stressed that the whole inheritance of the interest in his or her gift being returned
peasant required that they attend to the after an unde®ned period. However,
long-term needs of the soil: the property Bourdieu argues further, following Lacan,
`inherits' the owner (1990a: 152). Kabylian that `misrecognition' of interest due to the
practices were further orchestrated time gap is crucial, as is the misrecognition
through certain `primitive' classi®cations that the greatest symbolic capital, or
of thought and perception: male/female, prestige, goes to those who can afford to
honourable/dishonourable, dry/wet and give most. Both these patterns of giving
so forth (1990a: 97). Contemporary non- tend to reproduce great families, in what
scienti®c Western classi®cations sub- he will later call the paternalistic `illusio'.
stituted alternative binary oppositions Thus the social order is perpetuated
for such divisions of perception, through `practical euphemisms' and
especially those between noble/common `collective repression' (1998a: 96±99).
and re®ned/popular. Both classi®catory Gift-giving favours dominant families,
patterns served to provide a practical but it is still founded on a logic of
sense for coping with everyday dilemmas reciprocity. Gift-giving is not, therefore,
of action. the primordial form of economic competi-
Here there are two important points tion. The rough equality in gift-exchange
to make. The ®rst is the break with is also facilitated by the absence in
318 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
Kabylia, of any exclusive literary culture, building blocks to academic high culture.
and its accompanying degradation of Given the symbolic violence to other
popular language (1961, 1991; Guillory, groups implicit in educational selections
1993). Kabyleans, like the laity of feudal of a speci®c cultural arbitrary, Bourdieu
societies, possess a common culture. regards the postwar meritocratic ideology
Common up to a point: for Bourdieu as a new mode of legitimating power.
has turned recently to the nature of This is a powerful blend of Marx and
masculine domination and the origins of Weber but it has, in my mind, certain
phallocratic doxa with Kabylean society problems. It fails to explain why the
as his case-study (1990b, 1998d). Such `natives' (the subordinate class, with
doxa operate beyond the sphere of their distinctive culture) do not become
ideology, by using an appeal to restless: the answer, I think has to do
paternalism, viz., women's need of pro- with full employment and with the
tection from men. Bourdieu analyses the mission of salvation for all held by a
resilience of such gender inequalities, not minority of `prophetic' teachers, a group
least in more differentiated societies that Bourdieu and Passeron themselves
(1998d: 97±115). But whereas in Kabylia, describe but without close study. Such
opposition by women was at the most teachers see their work as channelling
individual and con®ned to magical bright working-class children to realize
solutions, in our own period there has themselves through the school. Indeed,
emerged, from the ranks of the excluded, the occasional `miraculous survivor'
a lucid but alienated view of the mas- testi®es to their good faith. Widespread
culine game of power. A transformation collusion with such cultural hopes on the
of oppression is most likely to occur part of the respectable working-class
when cultural capital can be mustered pupils is a response to the alluring images
against it, as in the case of modern femi- of an open bourgeoisie, evoked daily
nism and gay rights (Bourdieu, 1990b, through acts of cultural goodwill on the
1998d: 96, 129±34). part of exemplary teachers (Snyders,
1976: 165, 181).
Education The State Nobility develops Bourdieu's
arguments about social class reproduction
Bourdieu's ®rst books on education, co- through education. Bourdieu dissects the
authored with J-C. Passeron, revealed the peculiarly French institution of the
contradictions within French society, such `grandes eÂcoles' which cater for the best
that the Republican School, which should national candidates. In virtuoso manner,
have been `L'eÂcole eÂmancipatrice' became he deploys a battery of probing instru-
`L'eÂcole conservatrice'. The consequence ments to lay bare their underlying
was the low level of entry of the children relational signi®cance. He is thus able to
of peasants and workers into higher construct and tests a theoretical homology
education: only 6 per cent in the early between the hierarchies of academic
1960s at the time of Bourdieu's research. `space' and those of the ®eld of power,
The reason lay in the nature of the showing how the `independent culture'
teachers or pedagogic authority itself: the of those from the dominant classes are
`symbolic arbitrary' (the culture trans- converted into intellectual `brilliance'.
mitted within the school) in fact This research reveals that the most
resembled very closely the home culture academically-prestigious (grande porte)
of the haute bourgeoisie and was remote schools acquire 60 per cent of their intake
from that of the subordinate class. Hence from the dominant class. Bourdieu
the principles for academic knowledge proceeds to apply an anthropological
were instilled as part of domestic culture, model of power, contending that the
not least through the museum visits student body of each grande eÂcole (such
of family leisure, which provided the as HEC, Polytechnique, ENA, and ENS) is
Pierre Bourdieu 319
the literary/artistic ®eld or cultural in- knowledge of the game into economical
stitution itself, especially the struggles gestures.
between rival movements within modern- Practice tends ± but never invariably ±
ity. In 1850s' France a massive redirection to lead to the reproduction of structures
was taking place as artists and writers and interests, for two main reasons.
created a direct response to the market First, due to the nature of social recog-
ideology that the most important works nition, the accumulation of material and
were those that sold the most. They cultural capital usually enhances ambition
founded the `realist bohemia' within and liberates self-con®dence (1996a: 410).
which Flaubert's, Baudelaire's, and Second, dominants tend to be members of
Manet's modernism had its roots. In great families. They can complement their
so doing, they indirectly initiated individual competencies within a specia-
mechanisms that culturally dispossessed lized ®eld by well-placed family members
the people. in other key ®elds (1998a: 70).
The ®rst `objectivist' task of the socio- This theory, which is all too often
logist is to bring to light the political reduced to a `Holy Trinity' of habitus,
doctrines of different avant-gardes and capital, and ®eld, is developed through-
their assumptions about style. By asses- out Bourdieu's studies. In my view, this
sing the writer's text, and his or her total is a crucial development in historical
life project into the context of all other materialism, and one that has powerfully
authors writing at the time, the sociologist blended a theory of socialization from
will be able to show the distinctiveness of ethnography with a Marxist/Weberian
the author. But the writer's work is theory of social domination. While it
reduced neither to a mechanical expres- is not without problematic elements, it
sion of an artistic group nor to class effectively outranks the claims of any
experience. For the sociological task is serious living contenders as the most
not complete until it reveals the subjective mature and sustained synthesis of our
understanding of the artists themselves, period.
for example, Flaubert's break with both In the critical fallout from Bourdieu's
the bourgeoisie and the people. The efforts, we can see a certain clustering of
complete sociological act juxtaposes an divergent concerns. These approach his
objective, historical account of the author `realist constructivism' (see 1993b: 915) in
with an interpretative account of their terms of the problem of his concept of
subjective views. It provides a `piquant capital, the artistic status of popular
sauce' for literature, intensifying literary culture, the alleged overdeterminist, over-
experience (1996b: xvii). socialized character of his theory of
practice, and ®nally the connection of his
sociology with postmodernism.
APPRAISAL OF KEY ADVANCES AND
CONTROVERSIES
Theory of Cultural Capital
Bourdieu's major stake in his claim to Bourdieu has attempted to explain the
have advanced social science is his `theory position of the liberal professions,
of practice'. This view of action is a subtle politicians and bureaucrats in terms of a
blend of experience and cultural un- highly controversial theory of cultural
conscious. Aiming to do justice both to capital. This has extended Marxism by
the coercive power of social structures regarding the dominated fraction of the
and to human rationality, Bourdieu's dominant class as using their educational
model is of a strategic agent who resembles assets in a competitive game of power. In
well-trained player of American football or the process, Bourdieu risks losing the
a mature painter. As is the case for them, speci®city of economic capital (Calhoun,
practice requires incorporating a deep 1993: 68±9). While this is true, however,
322 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
it would not be dif®cult for Bourdieu to only acquire dignity if they read and
supplement his account of economic write like intellectuals. But his response
capital. He could elaborate on his view overall is not entirely convincing.
of the regulated body and time in connec- Admittedly, such defences of rap or
tion with labour, spelling out the other forms of popular music are insuf®-
distinctive instrumental rationality ciently aware of why Bourdieu proposes
occurring when those richest in material his view. Shusterman, for example, argues
capital attempt to rule for themselves ± that the Brooklyn-based hip hop group
indeed La MiseÁre du monde and Acts of Stetsasonic encompasses many of the
Resistance are vital steps towards such a de®ning characteristics of art in its con-
goal. secrated modernist form, not least the
Cultural capital is analytically more self-conscious awareness of being artistic
complex than Bourdieu's earliest formula- (see his analysis of their rap `Talking all
tions (but see 1996a: 373±89). It is like that Jazz' in Shusterman, 1992: 212±35).
economic capital in the sense that its Frith argues that fans make a complex dis-
accumulation is at the cost of a tinction as to whether or not the music
competition with others, in a zero-sum possesses value on aesthetic grounds and
game. Its scarcity means cultural capital that these critical rationales are elaborated
can easily be converted into high in detail in the specialized music press
economic rewards. But it still lacks the (1996: 66±7). A similar view is put by
precise dependence on surplus-extraction Grignon and Passeron (1989). They argue
required for economic capital. For this that the use of Bourdieu's theory has
reason, those `theoretical classes' high in become over-routinized or formulaic,
cultural capital may not have such a especially with regard to the concepts of
strong potential for con¯ict, despite `capital, ®eld, and habitus'. In particular,
coming from different regions of social popular culture encodes some recognition
space from the subordinate classes of the hegemonic character of dominant
(1998a: 10±11). Conceptual models such culture but also develops in a more auto-
as cultural capital are simultaneously nomous manner than Bourdieu's depic-
metaphors and may lead to confusion. tions of it would suggest: a view which I
Bourdieu has also noted more recently share. A more nuanced view than that of
that those with cultural capital are often Frith concerning the struggles in opening
found in autonomous universes (art, up the canon are provided by Guillory
science, social work). Such universes are (1993). This poses admirably the sig-
committed to disinterestedness in pro®t- ni®cance of the canon as cultural capital
seeking terms (1998a: 75±123) although but interprets the present canon wars in
this is no guarantee against aristocratic terms of the challenge from fractions of
elitism. the dominants (for example, in manage-
ment schools) who no longer need that
Is There Popular Art? baggage (Guillory, 1993: 46±7).
Shusterman and Frith have applied
Various critics have noted the clash something like a Kantian judgment
between Bourdieu's sympathies with about aesthetic value to the rock music
working-class people and his failure to which Bourdieu would regard as
accept that there is such a thing as popular irredeemably part of the commercial
art (Shusterman, 1992: 172; Alexander, ®eld. But Bourdieu would regard this as
1995: 178; Fowler, 1997; Frith, 1996: 9, neither here nor there. His thesis is part of
251). Bourdieu is adamant that his the institutional theory of art in which
earlier work suffered from illusions of cul- certain critics are `socially mandated' to
tural communism (1993a: 2). Indeed, he state what is and is not art. Their
has justi®ably identi®ed a form of judgments are the only ones that
populism in which the working class matter. The Shusterman/Frith stance is
Pierre Bourdieu 323
established in the name of the rights of of these are sham claims to universal
citizens (1998c). Bourdieu has recently openness:
identi®ed publicly with new movements
There is no contradiction, despite appearances, of
that have taken their rational kernel (and
struggling at the same time against the mystifying
legitimacy) from the old forms of re- hypocrisy of abstract universalism and for univer-
publicanism ± the EÂtats GeÂneÂraux, for sal access to conditions of access to the universal,
example ± which recalls the 1789 popular the primordial objective of every real humanism
revolutionary movement for democratic which both universalist preaching and the nihilist
representation and an antimonarchical pseudo-subversion forget. (Bourdieu, 2000: 71
form of executive power. But Bourdieu's author's emphasis)
politics are not limited to a narrow
national republicanism. For he has
publicly backed the emergence of a BOURDIEU'S MAJOR WORKS
European Trade Union Federation and
the European Works Council in a move Bourdieu, P. (1961) The Algerians. New York: Beacon
Press.
decisively beyond the old French tradi-
Bourdieu, P. (1975) `The Speci®city of the scienti®c
tion, towards a `new internationalism'. ®eld and the social conditions for the progress of
This movement ± unlike ouvrieÂrism ± is reason', Social Science Information, XIV: 19±47.
not simply to be drawn from those who Bourdieu, P. (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice.
suffer most: working-class, migrants, Cambridge: Cambridge University press.
unemployed. It is also to be drawn from Bourdieu, P. (1984) Distinction. London: Routledge.
artists and intellectuals ± all those with Bourdieu, P. (1987) `Legitimation and structured
interests in Weber's sociology of religion, in S.
cultural but little economic capital ± Lash and S. Whimster (eds) Max Weber,
whose past progressive actions permit a Rationality and Modernity. Allen and Unwin.
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There is justi®able contention about Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales, 84: 2±31.
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should remember what has often been Cambridge: Polity Press.
missed, especially in accounts of its Bourdieu, P. (1993a) Sociology in Question. London:
allegedly ultra-determinist and egoistic Sage.
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Bourdieu, P. (1997a) Sur la teÂleÂvision. Paris: Liber.
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universes of science and art (see 1996b) Seuil.
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threat to civilization (1993b; 1998c). Polity (a partial translation of Bourdieu).
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pious nod towards re¯exivity. On the obituary notice', Economy and Society, 27 (2-3):
190±2.
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29
Zygmunt Bauman
BARRY SMART
T
he task of providing a pro®le of a fact that we cannot avoid making choices,
major social theorist is always such is the price of our `freedom', as well
challenging, but it is even more as the complex consequences that follow
daunting when the work is still in process, from the same, both the anticipated or
when it manages to remain analytically intended consequences, those that ®t
sensitive and acutely responsive to a or come close to the designs socially
diverse range of complex local and global engineered, but more importantly those
processes of transformation to which unanticipated outcomes that Bauman has
contemporary social life and human suggested testify to `the non-®nality of
experience continues, inevitably under any ordering project' (1991: 230).
modern conditions, to be subject. The Amongst contemporary social theorists
works of Zygmunt Bauman are wide- Zygmunt Bauman has few, if any, peers
ranging and include meta-theoretical and his work is widely recognized as pro-
texts that address important issues central viding a key reference point for anyone
to the practice of social science, and socio- seeking to achieve a better appreciation
logy in particular, as well as a series and understanding of the complexity of
of signi®cant studies that lay bare the contemporary social life. While Bauman
complex anatomy of late modern social is unable, for good reason, to offer a
existence, studies which attempt to pro- detailed answer or resolution to the pro-
vide us with a critical understanding of blematic question of `how to go on', his
the dilemmas we confront as we attempt work does present a convincing case
to come to terms with the turbulence of for our capacity to live with, if not make
a social world in perpetual motion and the most of, the forms of ambivalence
to be better equipped to face up to increasingly acknowledged to be a
our moral responsibilities. Bauman, corollary of modernity, and as such his
particularly in an impressive series of work is justi®ably regarded as providing
critical analytical explorations of the a realistic outline of `the chances of saving
transformation of modernity, consistently human dignity' (Morawski, 1998: 36).
328 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
In thinking about the task of providing disclosure that enhances the chances of
details of biography and the theoretical a ```moralization'' of social life', one
context in which Bauman's works might indeed that presents an opportunity for a
be situated or be said to belong, it would `renaissance of morality' (1993: 3).
be remiss of me not to brie¯y acknowl- What then are we to make of Bauman's
edge the contentious issue of the `author work and what is the appropriate context
function' addressed by Michel Foucault in which to situate it? Such questions are
(1971) and clearly central to the current not easy to answer. Signi®cant relevant
exercise. The ®gure of the author, as details of biography are already relatively
Foucault cautioned, continues to be well known (Kilminster and Varcoe, 1996,
employed in literature, the humanities, 1998; Morawski, 1998; Beilharz, 1998).
and the social sciences as `the unifying Born in 1925 in Poznan, Poland, of
principle' through which particular writ- Jewish descent, Bauman was forced by
ings and texts are selected for analysis and the rise of Nazism to leave his homeland
accorded a `unity'. Foucault's re¯ections in 1939. He subsequently received a uni-
on the authorial ®gure alert us to the versity education in Soviet Russia where
dif®cult issue of the sources or texts (to he embraced `the Marxist worldview in
be) selected for analysis, and by implica- the light of the utopian belief and hope
tion those texts excluded or marginalized that the Soviet Union was genuinely a
in the process; it is important to be aware country of justice, equality, freedom; that
of the selective character of the `unity' an ethnic pedigree really did not matter'
accorded to the writings of a particular (Morawski, 1998: 30). Bauman returned to
author, of the individual works identi®ed Poland after the Second World War and
as constitutive of the author's oeuvre his early career was spent at the
(Smart, 2000a). In the case of the work of University of Warsaw. However, he was
Zygmunt Bauman there are numerous forced to leave Poland for a second time
texts from which to select and on which in 1968 after he and a number of other,
to re¯ect (Kilminster and Varcoe, 1996); mainly Jewish, colleagues were victi-
however it is a particular later set of mized (Kilminster and Varcoe, 1998) for
texts dealing with the transformation of their increasingly critical exposure of a
modernity (Bauman, 1987, 1989, 1991, regime that had become despotic.
1993) which increasingly have been iden- Bauman moved via the University of Tel
ti®ed as representative of an important Aviv to the University of Leeds in 1971
form of `unity' in his work, indeed as where he was awarded the Chair of
exemplifying the very best of his work. Sociology. He currently holds the position
While each of his earlier books might of Emeritus Professor at Leeds and in the
seem `to be on a different topic' (Varcoe wake of the collapse of communism in
and Kilminster, 1996: 215), with the emer- Eastern Europe he has been `reinstated
gence of the series of works sharing an in his chair of sociology at the University
explicit analytic focus on modernity and of Warsaw' (Kilminster and Varcoe, 1998:
the emergence of a condition of post- 24).
modernity Bauman has demonstrated As far as the general question of the
the relevance and importance of critical broad theoretical context in which
sociological thought for achieving a more Bauman's work might be situated is con-
effective practical understanding of con- cerned, a number of issues and in¯uences
temporary social life. As I will show have already been identi®ed by analysts
below, the greater effectiveness of such (Kilminster and Varcoe, 1998; Smith,
an analysis derives from its disclosure of 1998). One important formative intel-
`sources of moral power' that Bauman lectual in¯uence is that of Marxism. As
argues have tended to be concealed, if in the case of the works of a number of
not discredited, within modern ethical leading European critical social theorists,
philosophy and political practice: it is a in particular other prominent Jewish
Zygmunt Bauman 329
intellectuals who were also forced into Emmanuel Levinas (1989), a key in¯u-
exile, Max Horkheimer, Theodor ence in the moral turn taken in
Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse come to Bauman's (1993, 1995, 1997) exploration
mind (Jay, 1973: 253±280), Marxism clearly of the discontents and dilemmas of
assumed an important place in the forma- postmodernity.
tion of Bauman's early work. However, Identifying intellectual in¯uences on
the most signi®cant insights appear to the work of a major social theorist only
have emerged with a leave-taking from clari®es part of the theoretical setting in
the paradigm, with the recognition that it which the work might be held to belong.
is through a critical analysis of the There is also a question of the idiosyn-
Enlightenment tradition as a whole, and cratic features of biography, the twists
the associated project of modernity and and turns of life-history that may affect
its consequences, that a more effective the perspective(s) employed, and account
understanding of the problems and possi- for the key concerns which have moti-
bilities encountered in contemporary vated a life's work, which have provided
social life will emerge (Bauman, 1987). In the stimulus for thinking critically about
any event Marxism constitutes only one of the modern condition. In respect of
the intellectual in¯uences that have Bauman's work the issues of Jewish
helped to shape Bauman's thinking and descent, the experiences of exile, of being
it would be misleading to overstate the an eÂmigreÂ, of living as a stranger, have
paradigm's importance, although it been identi®ed as providing the vantage
might well be argued that what Derrida point of `outsider' from which to make
has described as a certain `spirit of sense of different ways of life. Re¯ecting
Marxism' ± `radical critique . . . the critical on Bauman's work, and in particular the
idea or the questioning stance' (1994: 88±9), place of hermeneutic analysis within it,
if not an emancipatory element, continues Dennis Smith argues that it is precisely
to inform his work (Kilminster and Varcoe, the experience of being an outsider that
1996: 241; Beilharz, 1998: 27-8). Many leads to the development of a `privileged
other notable intellectual in¯uences on insight into the de®ning boundaries of our
Bauman's work have been identi®ed. world and can help shape a discourse
These are too numerous to list in full but which allows communication across
include the formative in¯uence of two key those boundaries' (1998: 41). The experi-
intellectual ®gures, Stanislaw Ossowski ence and perspective of `outsiderness' has
and Julian Hochfeld, teachers who stimu- enabled Bauman to produce acute ana-
lated Bauman (1972b) to re¯ect on the lyses and perceptive understandings of
dif®culties of reconciling `the demands culture and social life and, as a number
of reason' and `the demands of ethics', of analysts have recognized, this quality
and to respond to the philosophical has contributed signi®cantly to his
underpinnings of the Polish sociological development of a distinctive style of social
tradition, which it is argued turned theorizing (Beilharz, 2000a).
in his hands `into a kind of Marxist
hermeneutics in the 1970s and early
1980s' (Morawski, 1998: 31); the work SOCIAL THEORY AND
of Antonio Gramsci, which Bauman CONTRIBUTIONS
describes as `the turning point in
my intellectual life' (Kilminster and Bauman's early and perhaps less well-
Varcoe, 1992: 208); an af®nity with the known works, certainly to English speak-
work of Georg Simmel (Morawski, 1998: ing readers, are in Polish and their
35); and last but by no means least a themes seem to re¯ect the key concerns
sociological adaptation of the notion of of Eastern European intellectuals of the
`ethics as ®rst philosophy' derived from time ± questions of socialism, democracy,
the writings of the French philosopher and centralized planning ± as well as
330 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
directed analytic attention to the impact of been an analytic focus on the articulation
the culture industry, mass culture and of culture and power (Kilminster and
mass consumption on social and political Varcoe, 1996; Morawski, 1998) and the
life, acknowledged the absence of any generation of a critical and emancipatory
potential agency of radical social transfor- form of sociology (Smith, 1998). From his
mation, and argued that rationality was study of the working class and the labour
unable to provide guidance for political movement in Britain published in Between
strategy and action (Horkheimer, 1974). Class and Elite (1972a), his identi®cation of
However, there are also interesting and the `critical capacity' of culture in Culture
important differences that need to be as Praxis (1973), and his re¯ections on
noted. For example, whereas Adorno both the modern socialist utopia in
and Horkheimer conceived modern Socialism ± The Active Utopia (1976b) and
industrial capitalist society to be an the prospects for a critical sociology based
increasingly administered and repressive on emancipatory reason outlined in
society, one in which there appeared to Towards a Critical Sociology (1976a),
be little prospect of overcoming socio- through to his later writings on the post-
economic contradictions or ®nally realiz- modern discontents of modernity, an
ing human potential, a diagnosis which interrelated analytic interest in the articu-
ultimately led them to resign themselves lation of culture and power and a strong
to theory as `the only form of praxis still commitment to a critical and emancipa-
open to honest men' (Jay, 1973: 280) and to tory form of sociology has remained a
distance themselves from the political consistent feature of his work. Faced
objectives they had inherited from a with questions about coherence and con-
Marxist paradigm that exercised a sig- tinuity in his work Bauman has readily
ni®cant in¯uence over their thinking, acknowledged the importance of the
Bauman argues that it is primarily topic of culture to his work and has
through processes of seduction rather remarked that the other main concern
than forces of repression that contem- running through his writings has been
porary society is constituted. In short, `the working class, standing for the down-
the individual in late-modern or post- trodden or the underdog, for suffering in
modern society is considered to be rather general' (Kilminster and Varcoe, 1992: 206;
more subject to the seductive forces of see also Bauman, 1999). In a comparable
the market and somewhat less to the manner Smith has suggested that two
surveillance practices and administrative intellectual projects may be found in
orders of the state (1992b: 17, 51-2, 101), Bauman's works in the 1970s and 1980s,
and by placing emphasis on the degrees `one was to make sense of culture and
of `freedom' that are a corollary of the sociology; the other was to explain social-
ambivalence of modernity Bauman ulti- ism, capitalism and class' (1998: 40±1).
mately provides a signi®cantly different, These two projects lead on to the body of
and in many respects potentially more work for which Bauman has been
optimistic, analysis of the prospects most widely acclaimed and to which I
and possibilities confronting late modern intend to direct most of my attention,
subjects. notably the series of studies of modernity
and the advent of a condition of post-
T(eorizing Modernity and Postmodernity: modernity.
Ambivalence and the Disorder of Things It is in Legislators and Interpreters that
Bauman introduces his distinctive analy-
A number of prominent intellectual sis of the `kind of experience which was
themes and signi®cant social and political articulated in the particular world-view
concerns run through Bauman's work and and associated intellectual strategies to
various continuities have been identi®ed, be given the name of ``modernity'''(1987:
perhaps the most notable of which have 2). In a wide-ranging analysis of modern
332 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
been pursued in a consumer society such pattern of life' (1982: 179). It is in these
as ours. Seduction is appropriate and earlier critical re¯ections on the increasing
effective for those subjects, a growing signs of exhaustion of industrial society
number, if not the majority, in Western and the need to rid ourselves of outmoded
capitalist societies and beyond, for notions and to equip ourselves with cate-
whom market-dependency is not simply gories that help us to better understand
a fact of life but is eagerly embraced as prevailing conditions, that Bauman identi-
consumption becomes not simply a ®es `new contradictions and new victims'
means to an end but increasingly the that are bound up with the development of
end itself towards which all existence is consumer society, a thematic thread that is
directed. In Bauman's view repression present to varying degrees in subsequent
is `indispensable to reach the areas seduc- texts but which only receives a more
tion cannot, and is not meant to, reach' detailed consideration in a later discussion
(1992b: 98), notably the marginalized sub- of the `new poor' (1998b).
jects, the excluded, those who are not Bauman argues that consumption and
entirely `absorbed by market dependency', consumer choice are simultaneously the
nonconsumers, or those described as `focus and the playground' (1988: 61)
`¯awed consumers' (1988: 84±6, 1997: 41). for the expression of particular forms of
The issue of consumption and the individual freedom, and that it is pre-
conception of our society as a `consumer dominantly through the cultivation of
society' are important features of the freedom of the consumer rather than
Bauman's analysis of prevailing condi- the suppression of individual freedom
tions and experiences. Bauman argues that the reproduction of contemporary
that whereas in modern industrial capital- capitalism is realized, although repression
ist society production, work and the work remains `the paramount tool of sub-
ethic ± `that normative pressure to seek ordination of the considerable margin of
the meaning of life, and the identity of society' (1992b: 98). Elaborating on the
the self, in the role one plays in pro- new mechanisms of systemic reproduction
duction, and in the excellence of such and social integration Bauman remarks
role-playing as documented by a success- that the market and consumer freedom
ful career' (1988: 75) ± are central, in our thrive on variety and that contrary to the
contemporary society consumption, con- thinking of ```mass culture'' critics', a
sumer choice, and a consumer ethic, veiled reference perhaps to the kind of ana-
have become pivotal to identity, to our lysis associated with the Frankfurt School,
sense of self, and our relationships with increasing uniformity has not been the out-
others, as well as to the maintenance and come of the development of consumer
reproduction of institutions, groups, and capitalism, such a view merely represents
structures. In such a society, `a society orga- `the lament of expropriated gamekeepers'
nized around consumer freedom, every- (1992b: 51±2, 101).
body is de®ned by his or her consum-
ption. Insiders are wholesome persons
because they exercise their market free- APPRAISAL OF KEY ADVANCES AND
dom. Outsiders are nothing else but ¯awed CONTROVERSIES
consumers' (Bauman, 1988: 93). Evident
here is a development of a set of concerns If there is one of Bauman's analyses that
outlined in an earlier work, Memories might be argued to exemplify the distinc-
of Class, in terms of power struggles in tiveness and the signi®cance of his work it
industrial society over distribution and is his study Modernity and the Holocaust
consumption and the emergence of a (1989). This widely acclaimed study is
`new consumer discipline', a consumer important on a number of counts. It offers
orientation which has been `transformed a critical sociological analysis of the events
into a self-sustained and self-perpetuating of the Holocaust that took place in
334 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
Germany during the Second World War, and moral matters to the discourse of
placing particular emphasis on key fea- philosophy needs to be remedied.
tures of modern civilization, especially Sociological reasoning, following
the modern bureaucratic mode of admin- Durkheim's work, has tended to consider
istration and its consequences for social morality in relation to a societal require-
life and individual conduct. At the heart ment for social integration (Smart, 2000b).
of Bauman's analysis is a critical exposure Re¯ecting on the limitations of such a
of the ways in which modern forms of sociological approach, Bauman argues
social life routinely produce both moral that in so far as the `will of society' is
indifference and moral invisibility, a key regarded as the foundation of morality
objective being to draw attention to the and its sole function is considered to be
too-frequently neglected `destructive the maintenance of society, then `substan-
potential of the civilizing process' by tive evaluation of speci®c moral systems is
demonstrating that it is `among other effectively removed from the sociological
things, a process of divesting the use and agenda' (1989: 172). Taking issue with the
deployment of violence from moral calcu- notion that `each society has in the main a
lus, and of emancipating the desiderata of morality suited to it' and challenging the
rationality from interference of ethical assumption that `society. . . is the source
norms or moral inhibitions' (1989: 28). In and the end of morality' (Durkheim,
this way Bauman offers an account of the 1974: 56, 59), Bauman outlines an alterna-
Holocaust that places emphasis on the tive to the conception of society as `essen-
social production of immorality and tially an actively moralizing force' (1989:
moral indifference; it is an account which 172), an alternative that places emphasis
suggests that most people when con- on the existence of `presocietal' sources of
fronted with a `situation that does not con- morality, on the condition of being with
tain a good choice, or renders such a good other human beings as the intersubjective
choice very costly, argue themselves away root of morality. Drawing on the work of
from the issue of moral duty. . . adopting Emmanuel Levinas and his notion of
instead the precepts of rational interest `ethics as ®rst philosophy' in particular,
and self-preservation' (1989: 206). In con- Bauman places emphasis on responsi-
sequence the Holocaust is transformed in bility as the `primary and irremovable
Bauman's account from a purely German attribute of human existence' (1989: 182),
problem to serve as an exempli®cation of an attribute that is deemed from the
the way in which modern rationality and beginning to be synonymous with sub-
ethics may lead us in opposing directions jectivity rather than an effect of societal
(Joas, 1998). processes (Smart, 1999).
If the primary aim of the study is to The analytic turn made by Bauman
offer a critical sociological analysis of the towards a sociological theory of morality
Holocaust it is also evident that discussion in the concluding chapters of the
of the events and processes involved Holocaust study is sustained and ela-
allows Bauman to take up and develop a borated in a series of subsequent texts in
radical line of criticism of modernity and which questions of moral responsibility
its consequences begun by members of the and ethics are placed in the foreground
Frankfurt School, most notably Adorno of an analysis of the postmodern dilem-
and Horkheimer (1973), but more impor- mas encountered under late-modern
tantly it provides a suitable context in conditions.
which to alert us to the neglect of ethical
and moral matters in science in general Sociology and the Re(dis)covery
and sociology in particular. What of Ethical Life
Bauman terms the `self-imposed moral
silence of science' needs to be disturbed, Another way in which the development of
and the sociological relegation of ethical Bauman's work might be described is in
Zygmunt Bauman 335
the discipline is able to provide serves not Bauman, Z. (1982) Memories of Class ± The Prehistory
to reassure, for it cannot provide the `com- and After-life of Class. London: Routledge.
Bauman, Z. (1987) Legislators and Interpreters ± On
fort of certainty', but to make us more
Modernity, Post-modernity and Intellectuals.
aware of where we stand, how we came Cambridge: Polity Press.
to be where we are, and what choices are Bauman, Z. (1988) Freedom. Milton Keynes: Open
open to us, `disclosing the consequences University Press.
and connections of our habitual daily con- Bauman, Z. (1989) Modernity and the Holocaust.
duct which are all but invisible within the Cambridge: Polity Press.
narrow perspective of our ``private'' indi- Bauman, Z. (1990) Thinking Sociologically. Oxford:
Blackwell.
vidual experience' (Bauman, 1988: 90). Bauman, Z. (1991) Modernity and Ambivalence.
Such a sociology is not only temporally Cambridge: Polity Press.
located after a recognition of the inescap- Bauman, Z. (1992a) Mortality, Immortality & Other Life
able uncertainty of contemporary social Strategies. Cambridge: Polity Press.
life, it is in an ethical and political sense Bauman, Z. (1992b) Intimations of Postmodernity.
after uncertainty, pursuing it, identifying, London: Routledge.
Bauman, Z. (1993) Postmodern Ethics. Oxford:
cultivating, and nurturing open-ended-
Blackwell.
ness as a necessary condition of the Bauman, Z. (1995) Life in Fragments ± Essays in
freedom to choose what to do, or how Postmodern Morality. Oxford: Blackwell.
to act. Such a sociology is emancipatory Bauman, Z. (1997) Postmodernity and its Discontents.
in the sense that it allows us to recog- New York: New York University Press.
nize that there are other possibilities to Bauman, Z. (1998a) `What prospects of morality in
prevailing forms of life, that we can be times of uncertainty?', Theory, Culture & Society,
15 (1): 11±22.
other than we are, for `the self is not given Bauman, Z. (1998b) Work, Consumerism and the New
to us' as Foucault (1986: 351) remarks, and Poor. Buckingham: Open University Press.
that there are `alternatives to our custom- Bauman, Z. (1998c) Globalization ± The Human
ary way of life' as Bauman (1988: 90) Consequences. Cambridge: Polity Press.
emphasizes. Such a sociology, one to Bauman, Z. (1999) `Introduction' to new edition of
which Bauman's work makes a major con- Culture as Praxis. London: Sage.
tribution, does not provide quiet comfort,
security, or certainty, but it does offer us the
possibility of acting with a greater under-
standing of the conditions in which we ®nd SECONDARY REFERENCES
ourselves, and most importantly this
includes a more acute appreciation of our Adorno, M. and Horkheimer, M. (1973) The Dialectic
moral responsibilities towards others. of Enlightenment. London: Allen Lane.
Beilharz, P. (1998) `Reading Zygmunt Bauman: look-
ing for clues', Thesis Eleven, 54: 25±36.
Beilharz, P. (2000a) Zygmunt Bauman ± Modernity as
Ambivalence. London: Sage.
BAUMAN'S MAJOR WORKS Beilharz, P. (2000b) The Bauman Reader. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Bauman, Z. (1972a) Between Class and Elite. Derrida, J. (1994) Specters of Marx ± The State of the
Manchester: Manchester University Press. Debt, the Work of Mourning, & the New
Bauman, Z. (1972b) `Culture, values and science of International. London: Routledge.
society', The University of Leeds Review, 15 (2): 185± Durkheim, E. (1974) Sociology and Philosophy. New
203. York: The Free Press.
Bauman, Z. (1973) Culture as Praxis. London: Foucault, M. (1971) `Orders of discourse', Social
Routledge & Kegan Paul. Science Information, 10 (2): 7±30.
Bauman, Z. (1976a) Towards a Critical Sociology ± An Foucault, M. (1986) The Foucault Reader. (Ed. by Paul
Essay on Commonsense and Emancipation. London: Rabinow.) Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Routledge. Horkheimer, M. (1974) The Eclipse of Reason. New
Bauman, Z. (1976b) Socialism ± The Active Utopia. York: Seabury Press.
London: Allen & Unwin. Jay, M. (1973) The Dialectical Imagination ± A History of
Bauman, Z. (1978) Hermeneutics and Social Science ± the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social
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Joas, H. (1998) `Bauman in Germany ± modern Nijhoff, P. (1998) `The right to inconsistency', Theory,
violence and the problems of German self- Culture & Society, 15 (1): 87±112.
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Kellner, D. (1998) `Zygmunt Bauman's postmodern Smart, B. (1999) Facing Modernity ± Ambivalence,
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30
Donna J. Haraway
S
ince 1980 Donna J. Haraway has Turning away from initial plans to
been a de®ning ®gure in the Pro- pursue experimental work, and under
gram in the History of Conscious- the supervision of G. Evelyn Hutchinson,
ness at the University of California, Haraway became interested in the his-
Santa Cruz. Haraway's academic path to torical and philosophical study of biology
Santa Cruz and the `Hist Con' pro- as a practice of knowledge and as a set of
gramme, which she credits as having rich metaphors through which to see and
been an extraordinarily enabling and pro- critically examine myriad forms of social
vocative place for her work, began in life, some of which were human. Her
familiar disciplinary spaces at the small, dissertation took up Thomas Kuhn's
liberal arts Colorado College not far from (1970) famous notion of paradigm and
her home town of Denver, where she was how it might help understand the devel-
born in 1944. opment of organicism in late nineteenth-
Haraway early on had begun to mix and twentieth-century biology. Clearly,
things that academic convention sepa- Haraway's shift away from doing biology
rates: she took a triple undergraduate to studying it as a way of knowing and
major in zoology, philosophy, and seeing the world would be profoundly
English. After graduating in 1966, she important for the shape and content of
spent the next year (and what a year it her future study, work, and life.
must have been, given French politics of Finishing her course work in biology
the time) on a Fulbright at the Faculte des at Yale in 1972, Haraway and Jaye Miller
Sciences, Universite de Paris, and Fondation ± a historian, fellow graduate student,
Teilhard de Chardin. Drawing on and and political activist ± moved to the
expanding a growing sense of political University of Hawaii, where Haraway
activism that was fuelled in Paris but completed her dissertation and taught
that had its roots in her Irish Catholic general science and women's studies
background and family, Haraway joined courses. Two years and a ®nished thesis
the anti-Vietnam war and civil rights later, she was hired in the Department of
Donna J. Haraway 339
the History of Science at Johns Hopkins Museum of Natural History in New York.
University. Her revised dissertation was Next came an essay that was to de®ne
published in 1976 as Crystals, Fabrics, and and anchor a new ®eld of study: `Mani-
Fields: Metaphors of Organicism in 20th festo for Cyborgs: Science, Technology,
Century Developmental Biology. During and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s',
this time at Hopkins, Haraway and published in 1985, that again boldly dis-
Miller separated as husband and wife as respected carefully policed boundaries of
Miller became increasingly involved in thought and knowledge dealing with
gay activist politics, although it would be science, technology, and gender. Three
wrong to say that he and Haraway years later Haraway published an equally
became estranged. At about this same profound commentary on a series of
time, Haraway met Rusten Hogness, a disputes that had electri®ed the inter-
graduate student in the history of science, section of feminism and the study of
and began a relationship that continues science: `Situated Knowledges: The
today. Science Question in Feminism as a Site
After six years at Johns Hopkins, of Discourse on the Privilege of Partial
Haraway's life and career took what was Perspective'. Engaging feminist col-
to become another consequential turn. She leagues and philosophers of science
was hired in 1979 for a position in feminist alike, Haraway critically deconstructed
studies and science studies by Hayden scienti®c objectivity but proposed what
White and James Clifford, who were she saw as a better version. The next
building the new Program in the History year, 1989, she published `The Biopolitics
of Consciousness at Santa Cruz. This turn of Postmodern Bodies: Determinations of
westward was perhaps foreshadowed in Self in Immune System Discourse', in
1977 when Haraway, Hogness, and which she uses the human immune
Miller bought a piece of property with a system as a metaphor for postmodernity;
restorable house on it north of San and her second book, the acclaimed
Francisco. The particular mix of things in Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature
Haraway's life in northern California in the World of Modern Science also came
proved to be rich and intellectually out. Three years later in 1991 Simians,
productive. Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of
After arriving in Santa Cruz, Haraway Nature was published. These two books
began and continued work on a series collected revisions of these and other
of papers that would become signature previously published essays along with
pieces of a distinctive style and voice other material written during the 1980s.
that cuts across the disciplinary bound- During her two decades at Santa Cruz,
aries of biology, primate studies, femin- Haraway has regularly taught graduate
ism, the history of science, postmodern courses in science and politics, feminist
criticism, and cultural studies (to name a theory, science ®ction, and, more
few) that are used to de®ne her work, or, recently, in theories of race, colonialism,
perhaps equally often, to say what her identity, and technology. She has main-
work is not. Haraway authored two tained an active community presence on
major papers that appeared in 1978 in the UCSC campus, serving on and
Signs, the then still new journal of feminist chairing various important committees.
studies, in which she began her critical In 1997 Haraway continued her bold
examination of primatology. A series of and creative thought with publication
other papers published in the early 1980s of Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium.
set the stage for the widely-cited 1984 FemaleMan#_Meets_Oncomouse.TM Femi-
`Teddy Bear Patriarchy: Taxidermy in the nism and Technoscience. In this same year
Garden of Eden, New York City, 1908±36', she was named winner of the Excellence
which offered a stunning deconstructive in Teaching Award at UCSC. Her most
reading of the Ackley African Hall in the recent book, an extended set of interviews
340 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
with former graduate student Thyrza the familiar epistemologies and ontologies
Nichols Goodeve, has been published as on which most social theory rests.
How Like A Leaf (1999), a phrase she
uses quite seriously therein to characterize
her body/self and its connections to
`nature'. SOCIAL THEORY AND
As a biologist and cultural critic of CONTRIBUTIONS
science, Haraway has produced a widely Epistemological Revisions from Primatology
read body of work aimed at recon®guring to Cybertechnologies
the relationship of nature, culture, and
technology. While her criticism of pri- Like a number of cultural critics of the late
matology set forth in Primate Visions twentieth-century, Haraway focused her
deconstructs the opposition of nature early criticism on the epistemological
and culture, human and animal, a critical assumptions that ground, and are
engagement with cybertechnologies taken for granted in, various disciplinary
found in her later work deconstructs the discourses established at the end of the
opposition of nature and technology, nineteenth century. Her aim is to rethink
human and machine. Taken together, disciplinarity by showing how certain
Haraway's writings historically and rhetorics function to create boundaries,
socially situate recent developments in making an inside and outside of the dis-
biotechnology and technoscience while cipline and only authorizing what is
suggesting some of their future implica- inside. Haraway is especially concerned
tions, even their promise. to highlight rhetorics that install and
Haraway's work reminds social theor- sustain oppositions within categories of
ists that there are `actants' and `agencies' race, class, gender, sexuality, and nation.
other than human. For her, human and She aims to show how these oppositions
nonhuman agencies are mixed in depend on the more inclusive oppositions
`material-semiotic entities'; these are of culture and nature, nature and
technoscienti®c knowledge objects, such technology.
as the gene, the database, the chip, the In her essay `Teddy Bear Patriarchy',
foetus, the immune system, the neural Haraway subjects the discipline of prima-
net, the ecosystem. Given their dyna- tology to cultural criticism. While her
mism, material-semiotic entities are social intention is to raise the larger question of
processes, embedded in or productive of what counts as `nature' in primate studies,
social contexts that traditionally have not she does this through particular strategies
been the subject of social theorizing. of cultural criticism that have come to
Haraway's work urges sociologists to characterize her work: they are feminist,
rethink social theory in terms of a consid- antiracist, and multicultural, all moving
erably more complex sociality, that is, to together in a Marxism revised for the
address sociality on different scales, from new millennium. In that essay she dis-
the microphysical to the macrophysical. cusses Carl Akeley, the man who designed
She urges us to imagine ways to jump, the dioramas of African Hall in the
even skip, from one scale of sociality to Museum of Natural History in New York
another. Haraway thus promotes a `risky City. She retraces Akeley's career from big
interdisciplinarity' in order critically to game hunting in Africa to photographing
engage the dynamism of various contexts the animals of Africa, to developing the
at various scales of sociality and to pursue craft of taxidermy in order that he might
in each and every context a criticism of turn into scienti®c method what he had
domination within categories of sex, gen- learned from stuf®ng Jumbo for P.T.
der, race, class, ethnicity, and nation. In Barnum. Haraway points to the ways the
her recon®gured relationship of nature, methods of gun, camera, and taxidermy
culture, and technology, she challenges became interimplicated technologies of
Donna J. Haraway 341
of ruling', where abstract knowledge is what Haraway calls the `god trick' ± that is,
central and highly valued. She argues seeing everything, everywhere, from no-
that, usually, women free men to engage where ± nonetheless, partial perspectives
in abstract knowledge production, so that are not themselves innocent. They are
it is women's work as mothers, wives, and ideological, and they are historically
daughters that is exploited. Translating speci®c, but they are recognized as such
Marx's treatment of working-class con- in their practice. Partial perspectives have,
sciousness to women's consciousness, therefore ± and provocatively so ± a
Smith argues that women can have a `strong objectivity`; they are not reducible
more objective perspective of the way to the truth about the world through a
the relations of ruling are produced and truer self-knowing; the self-presence
reproduced; women's position thus implied in that familiar move is what
offers a standpoint in relationship to Haraway calls a `bad visual system'.
their erased and devalued contribution Instead, she argues, all vision is always
to the production of abstract knowledge. mediated by techniques or technologies;
Haraway's contribution to debates over vision is never `naked' or direct. Situated
standpoint epistemology comes in what knowledges make their technological
she calls `the partial perspectives of mediation explicit and thus are shown to
situated knowledges'. In her much anth- be `techno-scienti®c'. In this sense, every
ologized essay `Situated Knowledges', object of study should be seen as an event,
Haraway would surprise readers who a technoscienti®c production. The object
had found in her earlier work a strong of study becomes then inextricable from
resistance to realism and to the technol- the apparatus or the technology of both
ogies of vision central to enlightenment its production and further elaboration.
positivist, empirical science. Haraway For example, when light is made to be
insists that a deployment of visual tech- seen as either a particle or a wave, each
nologies cannot be avoided by feminist instance of `light' unfolds as such through
researchers unless they plan to give up a particular inscription device and
on science altogether. Unwilling to do becomes then part of differing appli-
that, Haraway insists that along with cations in the world. For Haraway,
exposing the historical and ideological knowledge objects such as the gene, the
speci®city of scienti®c practices ± thereby computer program, the chip, the foetus,
deconstructing their absolute authority ± the immune system, and the neural net
feminists must also aim to give a better are more productively seen as events
account of the world. This better account, than as objects. As such, they are dynamic
however, comes with the recognition of and generative. Each object/event is like a
the irreducible difference and radical mul- temporary knot in a ®eld of moving
tiplicity of local knowledges. Haraway forces.
thus accepts a version of realism, but one Material-semiotic entities require a
that is to be expressed in partial visions or form of criticism that is different from a
partial perspectives. The familiar scienti®c scientist's self-re¯ection or re¯exivity.
term `objectivity' is rescued but with a Grasped as event, including human and
profoundly and consequentially altered nonhuman agencies, material-semiotic
meaning. entities require a criticism that engages
the social contexts or social processes
Partial Perspectives and Material-Semiotic that these entities bring into being as
Entities: The Ontological Implications they themselves unfold. Haraway argues
that to engage these social processes or
Partial perspectives are epistemologically contexts, to intervene in them, more than
demanding. While it is understood that a practice of human self-re¯exivity is
the marginalized, the oppressed, and the needed. Instead, Haraway promotes criti-
exploited might not easily be taken in by cism by `diffraction'. While retaining a
Donna J. Haraway 343
place for vision, diffraction is more about and organism, the living and the inert. It
registering movement (as when light demands a criticism which is not merely
passes through the slits of a prism and for or against late twentieth century tech-
the diffracted rays are registered on some- nology but is instead more nuanced. This
thing like a screen). Diffraction is about is when criticism by diffraction becomes
registering histories of movement in a more desirable, if not necessary; when
®eld of moving forces such that the move- intervention becomes essential, some-
ment or dynamism of forces (contexts and times to stop, but more often to interrupt,
processes) can be reoriented or redirected, redirect, or reorient the process of techno-
that is, disturbed and changed. logical elaboration. Indeed, Haraway's
Diffraction implies a collapse of the most sustained treatment of diffraction
opposition of epistemology and ontology appears in Modest Witness in relationship
and is thus more characteristic of the non- to `Oncomouse'.
humanistic poststructural criticism of the Oncomouse is a patented research
late twentieth century. Yet, Haraway does organism, grown to the speci®cations of
not draw on the nonhumanism of post- biomedical research, such as that on
structuralism; and it is perhaps surprising cancer or AIDS. As a transgenic organism,
that she makes no connections to Jacques standing at the doorway of cross-species
Derrida's treatment of writing as tech- cloning, Oncomouse opens up to an
nology or to Gilles Deleuze's elaboration understanding of biology as biotechnol-
of biophilosophy. Her work, nonetheless, ogy, as `biology always already rewriting
is ontologically bold; and like most itself' as Vicki Kirby (1991: 91) puts it. For
post-structuralist critics, Haraway refuses Haraway, Oncomouse also is a narrative
to accept the negativity of either ®gure, for which she wants to compose a
Heidegger's treatment of modern tech- counternarrative, a ®ction to live by in the
nology (ge-stell) or the many Marxist age of genetic engineering. Since one of
reductions of teletechnology to a mere the central issues of genetic engineering
effect of transnational capital. For is the patenting process that makes the
Haraway, technology, theory, science, genome a commodity from which surplus
and rationality cannot be separated; a value can be extracted, Oncomouse is a
revised ontology of technology is ®gure in a story about the changes
needed. From her early `Manifesto for realized in late twentieth-century
Cyborgs' essay to her decade-later capitalism.
book, Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium, In her treatment of Oncomouse,
Haraway has rethought the border Haraway's focus on the intermix of trans-
between human and nonhuman, between national capital and knowledge objects is,
human and machine, in the ®gure of the however, in no way remarkable. In all her
cyborg. work, Haraway traces the transformation
The cyborg is a historically speci®c of capitalism ± from when the extraction
material-semiotic entity, organism, and of surplus value from human labour is
communication technology, a post- central to production to when techno-
Second World War knowledge object science becomes central to production
which, as Haraway sees it, belongs to the and to the extraction of surplus value.
`telos of the West's escalating domination', In all her work, Haraway is always
offering the possibility of a `®nal imposi- concerned with the effects of the trans-
tion of a grid of control over the planet' formation of capitalist production on
(Haraway, 1991: 154). But the cyborg also bodies, women's bodies but also on what
promises future freedoms and attracts she calls `postmodern bodies' ± from the
Haraway because it evokes partiality, labouring bodies of women working in
perversity, and necessitates the reworking the integrated circuit of transnational
of the oppositions of private and capital, which Haraway treats in
public, nature and culture, machine `Manifesto', to the technoscienti®cally
344 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
produced bodies discussed in `The and that this knowledge, like all cultural
Biopolitics of Postmodern Bodies'. practice, is thoroughly ideological.
Haraway has focused on the contentious Michael Lynch and Steve Woolgar
relationship between labour and the own- (1990) have suggested that while post-
ership of the means of production in a structuralism is to be counted as an in-
global context; she has raised questions ¯uence on the new sociology of science,
such as: who should own genetic material perhaps even more important, at least at
extracted from local areas? What labour ®rst, were philosophers and historians of
counts, and do local labourers have a science, such as Thomas Kuhn, Ludwig
claim to surplus value or to determining Fleck, Michael Polanyi, Imre Lakatos,
further applications of genetic material? and Paul Feyerabend. Their work opened
Who should have access to information up the possibility of treating scienti®c
technologies and how shall the capacity knowledge as itself socially produced.
to use them, itself, be communicated? With the development of the Edinburgh
Finally, questions are raised about race, `strong programme' of science studies,
gender, ethnicity, age, sexuality, and science no longer would be studied only
nation in order to guard against practices in terms of its `truth'-fulness or its
of technoscience and genetic engineering mimetic relationship to `reality' or `nature'.
guided only by commercial gains. Instead, scienti®c knowledge was to be
treated in terms of the local processes of
its production. The contents of scienti®c
APPRAISAL OF KEY ADVANCES AND knowledge would be treated as an accom-
CONTROVERSIES plishment, as a doing. Researchers were to
question how scientists actually produce
Donna Haraway's cultural criticism of models or do experiments or even `dis-
science presumes that technoscience is cover' facts; how various technologies
a primary agent of power relations in are central to the production of scienti®c
contemporary societies around the globe, knowledge, and how scientists use and
albeit with varying local effects. As such, then recreate the authority of scienti®c
she points to the inextricability of science knowledge.
and relations of power. In this under- In the context of these changes in
standing, she is one of a number of critics science studies, no one has been more
of science, including sociologists, who in¯uential than Donna Haraway in devel-
have insisted that relations of power are oping a cultural criticism of science and
internal to science rather than external to scienti®c knowledge that interrogates
it. In the 1970s, these sociologists began to dominations of class, race, gender,
rethink the sociology of science estab- sexuality, age, and nation (although
lished beginning in the mid-1940s by many sociologists who study science
Robert K. Merton and continued by his interrogate the production of scienti®c
students. Merton had proposed to study knowledge in terms of differences of
science in terms of the patterned social race, class, gender and/or sexuality; see,
relationships between knowledge practi- for example, Aronowitz, 1988; Clarke and
tioners, the effects of science on society, Olesen, 1999; and Star, 1991; other socio-
and the institutional development of logists of science, perhaps most famously,
science, including the political dynamics Latour, 1987, 1993, rarely do). No other
of funding. The next generation of sociol- cultural critic has had more in¯uence
ogists doing science studies, however, than Haraway in bringing forward dif®-
shifted their focus to the content of cult questions that point to the ways
science, that is, to the social production scienti®c work and knowledge are inter-
of scienti®c knowledge itself. They pro- implicated with a wide range of global and
posed that relations of power are part of local practices of exploitation and domina-
the production of scienti®c knowledge tion. In this work she has established links
Donna J. Haraway 345
Haraway, D.J. (1994): `A game of cat's cradle: science Gordon, Avery (1997) Ghostly Matters: Haunting
studies, feminist theory, cultural studies', and the Sociological Imagination. Minneapolis:
Con®gurations: A Journal of Literature and Science, University of Minnesota Press.
1: 59±71. Harding, Sandra (1986) The Science Question in
Haraway, D.J. (1995a): `Cyborgs and symbionts: liv- Feminism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
ing together in the new world order', in Chris Kirby, Vicki (1991) `Corpus delicti: the body at the
Hables Gray, Heidi J. Figueroa-Sarriera, and scene of writing', in R. Diprose and R. Ferrell
Steven Mentor (ed.) The Cyborg Handbook. New (eds) Cartographies: Poststructuralism and the
York: Routledge. Mapping of Bodies and Spaces. Sydney: Allen and
Haraway, D.J. (1995b) `Writing, literacy and technol- Unwin.
ogy: toward a cyborg writing', in Gary Olson and Kuhn, Thomas (1970) The Structure of Scienti®c
Elizabeth Hirsh (eds) Women Writing Culture. Revolutions, 2nd ed. Chicago: University of
Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Chicago Press.
Haraway, D.J. (1996): `Modest witness: feminists dif- Latour, Bruno (1987) Science in Action. Cambridge,
fractions in science studies', in Peter Galison and MA: Harvard University Press.
David Stump (eds), The Disunity of Sciences: Latour, Bruno (1993) We Have Never Been Modern.
Boundaries, Contexts, and Power. Stanford, CA: Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Stanford University Press. Lynch, Michael and Woolgar, Steve (1990)
Haraway, D.J. (1997b) `enlightenment@science_- `Introduction: sociological orientations to repre-
wars.com: a personal re¯ection of love and war', sentational practice in science', in Michael Lynch
Social Text, 50: 123±29. and Steve Woolgar (eds) Representation in Scienti®c
Haraway, D.J. (1999b) `Virtual speculum in the new Practice. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
world order', Adele E. Clarke and Virginia L. Orr, Jackie (1999) `Performing methods: history, hys-
Olesen (eds) Revisioning Women, Health and teria, and the new science of psychiatry', in
Healing: Feminist, Cultural, and Technoscience Pathology and the Postmodern: Mental Illness as
Perspectives. New York: Routledge. Discourse and Experience. London: Sage.
Pfohl, Stephen (1992) Death at the Parasite Cafe: Social
Science (Fictions) & the Postmodern. New York: St.
SECONDARY REFERENCES Martin's.
Richardson, Laurel (1997) Fields of Play: Constructing
Aronowitz, Stanley (1988) Science as Power, Discourse, an Academic Life. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
and Ideology in Modern Society. Minneapolis: University Press.
University of Minnesota Press. Schneider, Joseph W. and Wang, Laihua (2000) Giving
Butler, Judith (1993) Bodies that Matter: On the Care, Writing Self: A `New' Ethnography. New York:
Discursive Limits of `Sex'. New York: Routledge. Peter Lang.
Clarke, Adele E. and Olesen, Virginia L. (eds) (1999) Smith, Dorothy (1987) The Everyday World as
Revisioning Women, Health and Healing: Feminist, Problematic: A Feminist Sociology. Boston:
Cultural, and Technoscience Perspectives. New York: Northeastern University Press.
Routledge. Sokal, Alan (1996a) `Transgressing the boundaries:
Clough, Patricia Ticineto (1998) The End(s) of toward a transformative hermeneutics of quantum
Ethnography: From Realism to Social Criticism. New gravity', Social Text, 46/47: 217±52.
York: Peter Lang. Sokal, Alan (1996b) `A physicist experiments with
Clough, Particia Ticineto (2000) Autoaffection: cultural studies', Lingua Franca, May/June: 64.
Unconscious Thought in the Age of Teletechnology. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (1999) A Critique of
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Postcolonial Reason: Toward A History of the
Denzin, Norman (1997) Interpretive Ethnography: Vanishing Present. Cambridge, MA: Harvard.
Ethnographic Practices for the 21st Century. Star, Susan Leigh (1991) `Power, technology, and the
Newbury Park, CA: Sage. phenomenology of conventions: on being allergic
Ellis, Carolyn (1995) Final Negotiations: A Story of to onions,' in John Law (ed.) A Sociology of
Love, Loss, and Chronic Illness. Philadelphia, PA: Monsters: Power, Technology and the Modern World.
Temple University Press. Oxford: Blackwell.
31
Fredric Jameson
SEAN HOMER
F
redric Jameson was born in 1992: ix) and he is widely acknowledged
Cleveland, Ohio in 1934. He com- as the foremost proponent for that tradi-
pleted his BA at Haverford tion of critical theory variously identi®ed
College in 1954 and went on to complete as Hegelian or Western Marxism. Indeed,
an MA (1956) and PhD (1959) at Yale Perry Anderson has gone so far as to
University. Jameson's doctoral thesis was suggest that Jameson's work at once
subsequently published as Sartre: The marks the culmination of Western
Origins of a Style (1961). While under- Marxism while, at the same time, sig-
taking his doctoral studies, Jameson ni®cantly exceeding its traditional geo-
was awarded a number of research graphical and cultural limits (1998: 71±4).
fellowships and studied at the University Through his early critical surveys of the
of Aix-Marseille (1954±5) and the Frankfurt School and the Hegelian tradi-
Universities of Munich and Berlin (1956± tion of dialectical criticism in Marxism and
7). Jameson taught at Harvard University Form (1971) to Russian formalism and
from 1959 to 1967, and moved to the French structuralism in The Prison House
University of California at San Diego in of Language (1972), Jameson has contribu-
1967 where he was appointed Professor ted more than any other ®gure to the
of French in 1971. From 1976 to 1983 renaissance of Marxist literary and cul-
Jameson taught at Yale University and tural criticism in the USA since the early
from 1983 to 1985 was Professor of 1970s. These two early books represent
Literature and History of Consciousness key texts in the dissemination of what
at the University of California at Santa were at the time the still relatively
Cruz. He moved to Duke University in unknown traditions of continental theory
1986 where he is currently Distinguished and Western Marxism within the North
Professor of Comparative Literature and American academy.
director of the Graduate Program in With the publication of The Political
Literature and the Center for Cultural Unconscious (1981), and his ®rst sustained
Theory. engagement with post-structuralism and
350 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
same time divorced from the dogmatism contemporary social theory rests pri-
and orthodoxy of the communist party marily on the extraordinary defence of
and the Soviet Union, has always strongly Marxism's emancipatory narrative and
informed Jameson's own view of critique of post-structuralism in The
Marxism. Political Unconscious (1981) and, above
In the `Preface' to Marxism and Form all, through his theorization of post-
Jameson articulated the speci®c dilemmas modernity as the cultural logic of late
faced by the Marxist critic in North capitalism. The publication of The
America in the late 1960s. When North Political Unconscious established Jameson,
American students thought of Marxism, in the words of Terry Eagleton, `as without
he wrote, they only had recourse to the question the foremost American Marxist
struggles and polemics of the 1930s, critic, and one of the leading literary
which bore little relation to their contem- theorists of the Anglophone world'
porary needs and aspirations. The few (1986). In the United States The Political
familiar Marxist critics still readily acces- Unconscious was extremely in¯uential
sible, Christopher Caudwell or Ernst and generated enormous interest, with
Fischer, no longer seemed adequate or special issues of Diacritics (1982), Critical
applicable to current critical require- Exchange (1983) and New Orleans Review
ments, particularly with the shift of (1984) all devoted to Jameson's work. In
critical emphasis since the 1930s from the UK and Continental Europe, however,
content-based criticisms to more formally its reception was rather more muted.
based methods. What was required, he Robert Young (1990) identi®ed three
suggested, was a form of Marxism speci®c principal reasons for the extreme variance
to the demands of postindustrial mono- in the North American and British recep-
poly capitalism, with its intensi®cation of tions of the text. First, The Political
commodi®cation, the occultation of social Unconscious appeared at a time when the
class, and increasing fragmentation of tide of deconstruction seemed virtually
existential experience. In other words, unstoppable, yet Jameson's Marxism
Marxism is not a rigid system one applies seemed at once able to appropriate
to any given state of affairs but a situated Derrida's insights and at the same time
discourse, an open and ¯exible body of supersede deconstruction itself. Secondly,
thought that develops according to the Jameson's Marxism seemed to offer a
speci®c historical circumstances. It is per- return to a kind of ethical criticism which
fectly consistent, writes Jameson, `with the structuralism and deconstruction had
spirit of Marxism ± with the principle that effectively ruled out of debate. As Young
thought re¯ects its concrete social situation writes, `this appealed to a traditional
± that there should exist several different understanding of criticism's value, as
Marxisms in the world today, each answer- well as to male critics who felt increas-
ing the speci®c needs and problems of its ingly upstaged by the forceful politics
own socio-economic system' (1971: xviii). that feminism had made available to
For Jameson, the unique questions raised women' (1990: 91). Finally, and perhaps
by monopoly capitalism could only be most signi®cantly for the text's reception
adequately addressed by that tradition of in Britain and Europe, The Political
Hegelian Marxism from LukaÂcs through Unconscious was seen to herald what
to Sartre and Adorno. Jameson called the `Althusserian
Revolution', and yet the text was appear-
ing in Britain in a post-Althusserian con-
SOCIAL THEORY AND text. Jameson's British readership was
CONTRIBUTIONS already familiar with Althusser's work,
and more speci®cally the Althusserian
Jameson is ®rst and foremost a cultural in¯uence on literary theory through the
theorist and critic. His relevance for work of Eagleton and Macherey. Jameson
352 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
teleological historical narrative of human just `one damn thing after another' and
emancipation. If in the early 1980s, there- reductive forms of allegorical interpreta-
fore, Jameson was to reassert an essen- tion which seek to rewrite given
tially Hegelian conception of History, sequences or periods in terms of a hidden
then an encounter with Althusserianism master-narrative. If, on the other hand,
was unavoidable. we understand allegory not as the reduc-
In brief, Althusser argued that the in- tion of the heterogeneity of historical
evitable outcome of reading Marxism as sequences to a predetermined narrative
a historicism is that it con¯ates the various but as an opening up of multiple horizons,
distinct levels of society (the economic, the in the sense outlined above, then the con-
political, the ideological etc.), reducing cept of a historical narrative can be reha-
and ¯attening the social totality into a ver- bilitated. History, writes Jameson, `is not a
sion of the Hegelian conception of totality, text, not a narrative, master or otherwise,
thus eliding their real differences. The full but that, as an absent cause, it is inacces-
weight of Althusser's critique of histori- sible to us except in textual form, and that
cism is directed against the notion of our approach to it and to the Real itself
`expressive causality', which he identi®es necessarily passes through its prior
with the Hegelian conception of history. textualization, its narrativization in the
The two essential characteristics, or errors, political unconscious' (1981: 35). As
of Hegel's conception of history, argued with the Althusserian conception of
Althusser, are its positing of a homogenous structure, History is not immediately
continuity of time and its contemporaneity. present, not knowable in-itself but is
In other words, history is reduced to the something we know through its effects
mere succession of one event, or period, or textualizations.
after another which always co-exist in one
and the same time. The most serious mis- Utopia and Ideology
conception deriving from Hegel's view of
history, observes Althusser, is its formula- Seeing History as an inaccessible absent
tion of the social whole, or totality, as an cause facilitates one of Jameson's most
expressive whole, in the sense that `it pre- provocative and polemical rhetorical
supposes in principle that the whole in gestures, that is, his insistence on the
question be reducible to an inner essence, necessity of utopian thought. Marxism's
of which the elements of the whole are conception of ideology as `false conscious-
then no more than phenomenal forms of ness' or as `structural limitation', argues
expression, the inner principle of the Jameson, represents the historic original-
essence being present at each point in ity of its negative dialectic, or, its negative
the whole' (Althusser and Balibar, 1970: demystifying hermeneutic. Marxism,
186). This reduces the heterogeneity of however, also has a tradition of a positive
historical time to an homogeneous conti- or redemptive hermeneutic and it is
nuum and the speci®city and relative within this arena that `some noninstru-
autonomy of the distinct levels of the mental conception of culture may be
social totality to a contemporaneous or tested' (1981: 286). Following Ernst
homogeneous present. Bloch, Jameson argues that all ideology
Jameson concedes that on its own must be grasped at one and the same
terms the Althusserian critique is `quite time as utopian in the sense that it pro-
unanswerable' (1981: 27), but in a charac- jects a `collective' representation. At its
teristic rhetorical gesture suggests that simplest this collective dialectic operates
this is to miss Althusser's point. as a form of `compensatory exchange'.
Althusser is not attacking historicism as For example, theories of the manipulatory
such but rather the notion of periodization aspects of the media, and of `mass'
and the question of the representation of culture in general, must account for the
History, that is, the notion that history is addressee's acquiescence if they are not
354 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
problematic concept in itself, as a homo- that there has been a radical transforma-
genous entity in which the Other is tion of our experience of time and space in
constituted as the same. In Jameson's the postmodern era. Postmodernism
text the Third World is de®ned solely in marks the ascendance of the category of
terms of its experience of colonialism and space over time and hence our experience
simply reduplicates the history of of history, narrative and memory have all
European colonialism. `History itself', waned in the postmodern world. As a cor-
therefore, appears to be nothing less than relative to this our subjective experience
the history of the West, that is, of moder- has also undergone a signi®cant transfor-
nization and the rise of capitalism, and the mation, whereby traditional notions of a
question of other histories has been ruled centred autonomous subject have been
out of account. Jameson would not appear replaced by decentred, fragmented sub-
to have accommodated the Althusserian jects. Following Baudrillard (1968),
notion of structural causality within his Jameson argued that the realm of human
own conception of structural historicism needs had now been transcended in the
so much as to have annulled the former pervasive culture of the image, cybernetic
through a revamped Hegelianism in the space, and schizoid intensity. Second,
shape of the latter (see Homer, 1998: 62±9). the cultural logic essay dramatically
expanded the term postmodernism
beyond the narrow con®nes of the archi-
APPRAISAL OF KEY ADVANCES AND tectural and literary debates it was then
CONTROVERSIES largely concerned with to cover virtually
the whole ®eld of contemporary arts and
Until the early 1980s Jameson's work theoretical discourse. In short, Jameson
centred on literary modernism, and the transformed the debate from one of archi-
call that he had made in the opening tectural or literary styles to address much
pages of Marxism and Form (1971) for an broader issues of social and cultural
analysis of the contemporary conjuncture change. Third, he insisted that post-
had yet to emerge. This situation was to modernism did not represent an epochal
change radically with a series of studies of break with capitalism, as theorists such
postmodernism culminating in Jameson's as Jean-FrancËois Lyotard (1984) argued,
seminal 1984 article `Postmodernism, or, but rather that it represented a restruc-
The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism', turation of capitalism itself. Drawing on
which, in the words of Perry Anderson, the work of the economist Ernest
`redrew the whole map of the postmodern Mandel, Jameson argued that Mandel's
at one stroke ± a prodigious inaugural identi®cation of `late capitalism' provided
gesture that has commanded the ®eld the social base for the emergence of post-
ever since' (1998: 54). The signi®cance of modern culture. Fourth, Jameson refused
Jameson's work on postmodernism to resort to moral judgments on whether
remains his attempt to ground this most or not postmodernism was good or bad,
¯uid and slippery of concepts in concrete progressive or reactionary, insisting on the
transformations in the social and eco- need to historically situate and analyse the
nomic ®eld. Above all he has sought phenomenon of postmodernism itself.
to theorize the relations between the Finally, in opposition to notions of a cul-
transformations taking place at the level ture of hyperreality and virtuality pro-
of culture and everyday experience and posed by Baudrillard, Jameson sought to
the consolidation of a global economic anchor postmodern culture within the
system. objective alterations of the economic
Jameson's work hinges on the question order of capital, arguing that the realm
of whether or not a transition and/or of culture has expanded to such an extent
break from modernity to postmodernity that it is now virtually co-extensive with
has taken place. First, Jameson contends the economy. The commodity form, he
356 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
argued, has now penetrated cultural arte- highly persuasive account of the isolated
facts to such a degree that any aspiration subject's experience within the disorien-
to resist commodi®cation through art, a tating world of globalized capitalism,
quintessentially modernist gesture in while, on the other, a very generalized
Adorno's aesthetic theory, is simply futile. theory of the structural transformations
All culture today is always-already com- of capital itself. What this work lacked
modi®ed, or, if it attempts to resist its and the monumental Postmodernism, or,
status as a commodity it is rapidly and The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism
effortlessly recuperated. At the same (1991) conspicuously failed to deliver
time, the dialectical contrary of the com- was any systematic account of the media-
modi®cation of culture has been the tions between individual subjects and the
acculturation of the commodity and the world system itself. The key categories of
aestheticization of politics. In short, we mediation employed here, as with
are now faced with an entirely new Jameson's previous work, were commodi-
mode of living the quotidian, or what ®cation and rei®cation. Postmodernity
Jameson has called an `acculturation of was seen to mark a further intensi®cation
everyday life'. of rei®cation whereby the commodity
form had now penetrated the last enclaves
The Aporias of Postmodernity of resistance to capital, that is to say, the
aesthetic, the Third World and the Psyche.
At the time Jameson's achievement If this is the case, however, it would
was breathtaking: in a characteristically appear to rule out the possibility for any
bravura performance he confronted post- form of resistance to the new global mar-
modernism on its own terms, acknowled- ket and hence the possibility of historical
ging and granting many of its insights into change. This dilemma was starkly pre-
contemporary experience, whilst simulta- sented in Jameson's notion of a new post-
neously subsuming it within the very modern political aesthetic of `cognitive
historical paradigm, Marxism, that it had mapping'. Developing the notion from
so ostentatiously discredited. The cultural the urban studies of Kevin Lynch in the
logic essay, however, raised a number of 1960s, Jameson deployed it to account
critical issues that it failed to adequately for a subject's inability to mentally repre-
address ± economically, culturally, histori- sent or locate themselves in the trans-
cally, and above all politically. Utilizing national, globalized world of late
Raymond Williams' distinction between capitalism. What this dialectic of immedi-
`dominant, residual and emergent' cul- ate perception and inconceivable totality
tures (1977: 121±7) Jameson argued that lacked was any indication or analysis of
postmodernism represented the ®rst the intermediate forms of mediation
truly global cultural dominant. Fred between individuals and the global econ-
Pfeil, on the other hand, has pointed omy ± that is to say, forms of mediation, be
out that postmodernism appears to be a they group, institutional, regional, or
great deal more culturally speci®c national, that at once shape our identity
than Jameson suggests, that is to say, the or subjectivity and, at the same time, pro-
cultural expression of the North American vide the space for political resistance
`Professional Managerial Class' (1990: to the otherwise relentless logic of rei®ca-
97±125). Postcolonial and feminist tion. There was always a sense, therefore,
critics have also pointed to the geo- in which Jameson's perception of post-
graphical, racial, and gender speci®city modern culture represents a speci®cally
of much postmodern theory and North American perspective on global
culture. change, a situation that is hardly sur-
The cultural logic thesis was arguably prising when for many globalization
achieved at too great a level of abstraction. has itself become synonymous with
Jameson presents, on the one hand, a `Americanization'.
Fredric Jameson 357
Finance Capital and Cultural Abstraction provides us with one of the keys to under-
standing the recent transformations in
Jameson's work on postmodernism culture. Essentially Arrighi offers us an
exhibits a remarkable consistency since account of the abstraction inherent in capi-
his initial surveys of the debate in 1982. tal from its status as money through
There is one key area, however, in which investment capital to ®nance capital. In
his work has undergone a signi®cant other words, it provides us with a theory
revision. In his more recent writings on of abstraction that closely follows
postmodernity Jameson has sought to Jameson's own earlier odyssey of the
substantiate the economic basis of post- image or sign from realism (where the
modernity through an analysis of the pre- image is still tied to its referent and can
eminent role of ®nance capital in the be said to be self-validating, the image
global economy. In the 1984 essay quite simply is what is represented) ± to
Jameson drew upon Mandel's theory of modernism (when the image becomes
`long waves' of capital expansion to severed from its referent and achieves a
account for the restructuration of capital- degree of semiautonomy) ± to postmod-
ist relations in the era of postmodernity. ernism (where rei®cation penetrates the
Adopting Mandel's ternary schema of image itself and rends signi®er and signif-
market, monopoly, and late capitalism, ied asunder, the image appears to be free-
Jameson correlated this with his own aes- ¯oating). As this process of abstraction is
thetic schema of realism, modernism, and both internal to capital itself and can be
postmodernism. What was always left rendered at a systemic level in terms of
unclear was precisely how one mapped successive modes of production, or the
onto the other or what the nature of the operation of particular ®nancial markets,
relationship between the two might be. Jameson is able to deploy this notion of
There also appeared to be a marked abstraction at a systemic level ± as with
discrepancy between Jameson's own his dialectic of realism, modernism, post-
periodization of postmodernism and modernism ± and within speci®c cultural
Mandel's periodization of late capitalism. forms, that is to say, in the analysis of rock
Turning to Giovanni Arrighi's (1994) The music or speci®c ®lm and literary genres.
Long Twentieth Century, Jameson ®nds the Jameson's conceptualization of aes-
answer to this in the structural role played thetic abstraction derived from the logic
by speculative ®nance in the global econ- of speculative ®nance provides his most
omy. Arrighi's elaboration of the nature sustained attempt to date to de®ne the
and operation of ®nance capital, contends nature of the relationship between the
Jameson, serves to crystallize all the pro- new cultural forms and practices of post-
blems and questions that have arisen from modernism and the economic transforma-
the early 1980s onwards and especially in tions of postmodernity or globalization.
the relationship between economics and There are a number of problems with
culture. The advantage of Arrighi's work Jameson's account, however, not least his
is that it forestalls the unfortunate tele- continuing desire to elaborate ternary dia-
ological implications of the market, mono- lectical schema which always fall just a
poly, and late capitalism model whilst little bit too neatly into place and appear
retaining a conception of capitalist devel- to elide fundamental differences and dis-
opment as discontinuous and expansive. crepancies. At a systemic level, there is
Furthermore, Arrighi's dialectic of money, also a question mark over just how `seam-
capital, and speculative ®nance is a pro- less' and co-extensive the relations
cess that is `internal' to capital, a spiralling between the economy and culture are. To
process of decline and renewal at every quote Jameson:
`higher' stage of capitalism. This account any comprehensive new theory of ®nance capital-
of the internal logic of capital and its free- ism will need to reach out into the expanded
¯oating status within the world economy realm of cultural production to map its effects:
358 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
indeed mass cultural production and consump- and class consciousness, social totality
tion themselves ± at one with globalization and and mode of production, for any adequate
the new information technology ± are as pro-
understanding of the contemporary his-
foundly economic as the other productive areas
of late capitalism, and as fully integrated into the
torical moment. The acceptance of
latter's generalized commodity system. (Jameson, Marxism's analysis of history and society
1998a: 142±3) as fundamentally correct, as given, pre-
sents both the challenge of Jameson's
Mass cultural production is at `one' with work and its problematic nature, as it is
globalization and is `fully' integrated in to precisely the `self-evident' nature of
the commodity system; but is this the many of Marxism's `truths' that have
case? Globalization is surely a more differ- been thrown into doubt today. Jameson's
entiated, contradictory and con¯ictual response to this is what is often referred to
process than this. Arrighi's work has as his eclecticism, that is, his method of
also been criticized for operating at too subsuming other theoretical perspectives
high a level of abstraction to provide any- within an overarching Marxian frame-
thing other than a most general guide to work. This at once allows him to appro-
current concerns over ®nance capital priate the insights of post-structuralist
(Pollin, 1996). Finally, Arrighi's theoriza- and postmodernist theory and at the
tion of the role of ®nance capital was for- same time neutralize their critique of
mulated against Mandel's thesis of long Marxism through historicizing those
waves and it remains unclear where this speci®c discourses. Thus, Jameson
leaves Jameson's periodization of post- appears to present the best of both worlds,
modernity and the status of Mandel's at once traditional Marxist with the cer-
ideas within his overall account. tainties of history on his side and at the
same time radical contemporary theorist
Conclusion sensitive to the critique of orthodoxy.
For many Marxist critics of Jameson's
Jameson has produced a body of work work the overriding dif®culty remains
that is remarkable for its breadth, insight, the question of the political. As
and intellectual integrity, as well as its Anderson observes, the one name that is
political commitment. In an ostensibly conspicuously missing from Jameson's
postindustrial, postideological age extensive appropriation of Western
Jameson's unremitting commitment to Marxism is Gramsci:
restating the central tenents of Marxism
Gramsci's work, the product of a communist
has provided a welcome antidote to
leader in prison, re¯ecting on the defeat of one
some of the more excessive claims of revolution and the ways to possible victory of
post-structuralism and postmodernism. another, does not ®t the bifurcation of the aesthetic
Perhaps more than any other ®gure in and economic. It was eminently political, as a
contemporary cultural theory, he has theory of the state and civil society, and a strategy
articulated an open, nondoctrinaire, for their qualitative transformation. This body of
Marxism to meet the challenges of the thought is by-passed in Jameson's extraordinary
resumption of Western Marxism. (Anderson,
philosophically sophisticated and esoteric 1998: 130±1)
languages of formalism, structuralism,
post-structuralism, and postmodernism. Jameson's theorization is often achieved
He has steered a dif®cult path through at such a high level of abstraction that
the contemporary critique of Marxism the undeniably political impulse behind
whilst seeking to retain its central tenets his work is itself occluded or erased.
of political emancipation. He has rigor- Without a clear elaboration of the different
ously and persuasively argued for the forms of mediation between subjective
theoretical and political necessity of such experience and a globalized economy,
`traditional' categories as commodi®ca- be they group, institutional, regional,
tion, rei®cation, class struggle, ideology, national, or transnational, it remains
Fredric Jameson 359
Stuart Hall
CHRIS ROJEK
W
hat are the chief theoretical the Caribbean as a Rhodes student in the
achievements of Stuart Hall? early 1950s, Hall symbolized the poverty
He manoeuvred `culture' to of white culture. His interest in social
the head of the agenda in the academic exclusion and the character of class rule
study of society; he brokered a synthesis are the tangible result of his expatriate
between the Gramscian and Althusserian experience. Similarly, the fascination, in
traditions which has been immensely his recent work, with diasporic culture
in¯uential in cultural studies and cultural and hybrid formations, reveal an abiding
sociology; he cultivated and re®ned interest in the politics of difference and
Gramsci's concept of the `organic intel- the shifting balance of power between
lectual' and provided an important established and outsiders. Hall's outsider
role-model for public intellectuals; and status has been carefully preserved,
he persuaded the left to reassess its rela- despite enjoying a successful career in
tionship with the history and politics of the British academic system and occupy-
class by declaring `new times' and the ing a prominent position in public life.
rise of `the politics of difference'.
The verbs `to manoeuvre', `to cultivate',
`to broker' and `to persuade', suggest SOCIAL THEORY AND
a political creature. No assessment of CONTRIBUTIONS
Hall will suf®ce unless it mentions his
Revisionist Marxism
quality as a charismatic leader. Between
1964, when Richard Hoggart brought Hall's work is best understood as an
him to the newly formed Centre for exercise in revisionist Marxism. How-
Contemporary Cultural Studies in ever, his relationship to the Marxist tradi-
Birmingham, and 1997, when he retired tion is not simple. He (1996: 499) describes
as Professor of Sociology at the Open himself as `formed in critical relation to
University, Hall was not simply a spokes- Marxist traditions'. The ambivalence has
man for left-wing cultural criticism in been lifelong, culminating in his `new
Stuart Hall 361
times' thesis which many on the left saw traditional intellectual, who is presented
as a betrayal of Marxist principles. Hall as cultivating detached, objectivist stan-
is perhaps most accurately seen as a dards of scholarship. Hall (1996: 501)
reluctant Marxist. He understood class cites personal worries that the `hothouse'
oppression and resistance but was never academic environment at the Birmingham
fully persuaded by the logic of class revo- Centre was separating him from `ordinary
lution. His postgraduate work at Oxford people', as one factor behind his decision
was on the theme of America versus to accept the Chair of Sociology at the
Europe in the novels of Henry James. Open University. He was attracted to the
It is revealing that Hall was interested in nonelitist environment in which student
literature before social science. A common access for study is maximized. He saw it
criticism of his later academic work is that as the perfect setting to operationalize
it is overreliant on the method of reading Gramsci's notion of the organic intellec-
culture as a text. I shall return to take up tual. As he (reprinted in 1996: 268) puts it:
these points in more detail later.
In 1957 Hall moved to London where he It is the job of the organic intellectual to know
more than traditional intellectuals do: really
worked as a supply teacher in secondary
know, not just pretend to know, not just have the
schools and joined the New Left Review, facility of knowledge, but to know deeply and
which he eventually edited between 1959 profoundly. . . If you are in the game of hegemony
and 1961. Long before encountering you have to be smarter than `them'.
Gramsci's notion of the `organic intellec-
tual', Hall recognized the dissemination of The passage con®rms the earlier interpre-
advanced ideas and political commentary tation of Hall as someone who sees him-
as the per diem duty of serious intellectual self as an outsider. It also perhaps, reveals
labour. This had both good and bad con- Hall's prejudices. In fact, set against the
sequences for the development of his broad canvas of social theory there is a
theoretical work. Throughout there is a surprising narrowness of perspective in
tension between a gregarious, and his work. For example, given Hall's
enormously generous, attitude to other entreaty that organic intellectuals should
traditions of thought and a priggish ten- be fully conversant with their ®eld, and
dency to proselytize. Morley and Chen that Hall's ®eld is the culture of everyday
(1996) provide abundant evidence of life, it is astonishing that phenomenologi-
Hall's intellectual and personal gene- cal traditions hardly ®gure at all in his
rosity. In contrast, Brundson (1996) writes writings. The body is almost an absent
ruefully of his strained relationship with category in his social theory.
feminism at the Birmingham Centre. More It is also remarkable that Hall never
generally, his stereotyping of the model of situates the concept of culture against
`traditional intellectuals' as inferior to that of civilization. The exercise would
that of `organic intellectuals' is terribly have corrected the parochial overconcen-
glib. In fact much of Hall's writing, and tration on English culture and English
the cultural studies tradition which he questions in his publications. Other con-
represents, contains the blase presump- current traditions, notably the ®gurational
tion of moral superiority. sociology associated with the work of
One cause of this is the concept of Norbert Elias and his circle, developed a
the `organic intellectual' which Hall sophisticated analysis of the dynamics
borrowed from Gramsci. Hall believes between culture and civilization. A read-
that the function of the organic intellectual ing of Elias's (1978: 3±50) discussion of the
is to be, at one and the same time, at the differences between kultur and ziviliza-
vanguard of intellectual theoretical work tion in the German tradition, and the
and to act as a conduit for ideas to those meaning of the homme civilise in French
who do not belong professionally to the thought, sharply exposes the paucity of
intelligentsia. This contrasts with the Hall's neo-Gramscian perspective which
362 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
fatalistic images like the `one dimensional his name. The conclusion is inescapable:
society' and the `totally administered race and ethnicity were supplanting class
society' to underline the putative helpless- at the forefront of his intellectual interests.
ness of audiences in the face of calculated The emergence of postcolonialism in
media indoctrination. Hall and his asso- academic life was surely a catalyst. Hall
ciates wanted to reverse this fatalism was attracted to the postcolonial debate,
by reclaiming the active, interpretive not only because concepts like hybridity
capacity of the audience. The intellectual and diaspora destabilized white power,
in¯uences behind this move were the but because the methods of postcolonial
semiotic turn in continental cultural analysis recast the concept of ethnicity.
theory lead by Eco (1987, 1990) and Between the 1950s and 70s the civil rights
Barthes (1973, 1979). The revival of and black power movements stereotyped
interest in Volosinov's (1929) theory of `white power' as being ascendant, and
the multiaccentuality of the sign was also urged black people to ®nd unity in their
important. Hall was again straining for an colour. Hall acknowledges that this
understanding of cultural life which released a tremendous amount of creative
acknowledged the structured character energy which exposed the limitations of
of choice without negating the concept of white hegemony. But it also exaggerated
agency. The humanist emphasis on the the shared historical and cultural experi-
open possibility of change was in con- ence of the nonwhite diaspora. Afro-
siderable tension with the Althusserian Caribbeans, Indians, Pakistanis, and
emphasis on structuralist in¯uences in other black ethnic minorities have differ-
cultural practice. ent self-images and cultural af®liations.
Policing the Crisis (Hall et al., 1978), a New ethnicities, argues Hall (1988) are
collaborative project produced by a based ®rst in the recognition of difference,
Birmingham team headed by Hall, was and second in an acceptance of the
published on the eve of the ®rst Thatcher signifying system as arbitrary. To some
government. It is an impressive book. It extent Hall is here launching yet another
also constitutes the high-water mark of sally against reductionism. By drawing
the project to apply Althusserian attention to the arbitrary character of
Marxism to the study of culture. Even racial coding, he is denying the essen-
then, the book was strongest on discuss- tialist nature of race. In effect, race is
ing the multiple fronts of the British crisis, analysed as a matter of cultural construc-
and the variety of hegemonic strategies tion. Hall is also concerned to demon-
for managing consent. In contrast, few strate that racial identity is an unstable
commentators judged that a tenable category and that questions of race always
analysis of cultural determination, and intersect with issues of gender, class, and
the role of the ideological state apparatus sexuality. Volosinov's (1929) work had
as a generative structure in cultural life, already inured Hall to the multiaccented
had been accomplished (Sparks, 1996: character of signifying practices. Now, in
88). The loosening of Marxist categories his (1988) work on new ethnicities, he
and the interest in ¯uidity and ambiguity, appropriated Derrida's ([1975] 1992) con-
which had always been features of Hall's cept of diffeÂrance to capture the movement
thinking on culture, were becoming more of signi®ers and the play of difference in
pronounced. culture and communication.
The postcolonialist concept of hybridity
New Ethnicities and New Times accentuates this by obliging analysis to
consider the mixed character of social
Between 1958 and 1978 Hall produced and cultural formations and providing
only three publications which took race a counterpoint to notions of cultural iden-
and ethnicity as their lead subject; in the tity and racial purity. Similarly, the idea of
next 20 years over 30 were printed under ethnic diaspora suggests the porous
Stuart Hall 367
character of culture and the permeability Hall signals that classical Marxist political
of national formations. Hall, is in fact, economy is incapable of accurately
positing a processual, contingent, rela- surveying the expanded cultural and
tively open reading of power. subjective ground of contemporary global
But Hall's interest in postcolonialism capitalism.
was always guarded. He (1986) rejected Characteristically, he is not interested in
what he called its `upward reductionism' discarding Marxism. He is conscious of
which treated power as equivalent to too many debts and remains determined
discourse. There is enough of an old to fasten cultural analysis onto a material-
fashioned political strategist left in him ist understanding of life with others.
to insist that progressive change requires Again characteristically, his solution is to
political organization, struggle, and the wrap sticking plaster around components
determination of rational goals. How- of theory which seem, on the face of it, to
ever, the politics which Hall now espouses be incompatible. Thus, he remains faithful
is very different from his New Left Review to the Marxist spirit of radical critique and
days, or even the moment of Policing the social transcendence, while at the same
Crisis. time noting that a Marxist analysis per se,
In his account of the meaning of `new can no longer sustain a convincing picture
times' (Hall and Jacques, 1989) Hall seeks of the dynamics of present-day society.
to emphasize continuity with Gramscian The conundrum of his position is that
analysis. He argues that the twin charac- the recognition of a ¯ourishing politics
teristics of new times are ®rst, the recog- of difference seems to pre-empt the possi-
nition that subjects of power must be bility of Marxist collectivist transfor-
conceptualized in pluralist forms and mation. For it points to fragmentation in
second, the pronounced cultural layering human subjectivity, and the differentia-
of social, political, and economic strug- tion of interests in social movements.
gles. In Hall's mind the new times thesis The recognition of common interests and
simply perpetuates the duty of the organic identity, which Marxist class analysis pre-
intellectual to be at the vanguard of sents as the indispensable condition of
knowledge and generate debate regarding progressive change, appears to be absent.
shifts in the social, cultural, and economic
formation of power. However, in its denial Appraisal of Key Advances and
of the struggle between capital and labour Controversies
as the engine of social change, and its
espousal of `the politics of difference' Rendering the incompatible into a popu-
Hall's thesis effectively abandons the lar front of analysis has been Hall's forte
central tenets of classical Marxism. Now, as a public intellectual. It is also his main
in these new times, transformative action weakness as a social theorist. For much of
is to be studied along a variety of fronts. the 1970s and early 1980s he struggled to
For example, the struggles of new ethni- combine Althusser's structuralist deter-
cities, feminisms, the gay and lesbian minism with Gramsci's more pluralist,
movement, ecological protest groups, action-based approach. Policing the Crisis
animal rights groups occupy the fulcrum (1978) shows the strain that the project
of the new identity politics. Underlying entailed. On an analytical level, it is a
this is the recognition that consumption book which ultimately works only by
and style have closed the gap with pro- falsifying the theoretical premises which
duction and standardization in the inform it. Althusserianism could not be
organization of personality and everyday made to ®t with Gramscianism. Hall's
life. Early in his career Hall argued against recognition of the tensions between the
traditional Marxists that working class two traditions was made transparent in
af¯uence would change the meaning of 1983. In that year he published a paper
class identity. With the `new times' thesis advocating what he called, `the open
368 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
horizon' as a principle of theoretical work. istically, the nature of the identity in the
He de®ned this as positing `determinacy new political subject capable of articulat-
without guaranteed closures', but he also ing the new principle of unity, was sub-
used the phrase `marxism without guar- stantially undertheorized.
antees' to describe the change in his out- In part, the continued insistence on
look. This signals the end of the attempt to difference beyond differaÂnce is a tribute to
solder Althusserianism onto the body of Hall's sentimentality. I do not mean this as
Gramscianism. It is a de®ning moment a pejorative comment. Hall's adult intel-
in Hall's intellectual development. After lect was formed in the extraordinary
it, the attempt to produce a quasi-scienti®c heat of the left-wing renaissance of the
analysis of culture, which distinguished 1960s. The revival of Western Marxism,
the Birmingham work in the semiotic/ especially the English publication of
Althusserian period, was unfussily aban- Gramsci's writings, galvanized Hall, and
doned. left an indelible mark on his theoretical
Henceforward, Hall gravitated to an outlook. From this point on, he took it
essayistic style of address which, in the for granted that the responsibility of the
Marxism Today period, adopted the serious, intellectual was to foment socialist
journalistic style which, perhaps, is Hall's change. He learned to regard intellectual
most effective metier. The switch demon- work which fails to align itself with the
strates how deeply Hall was in¯uenced by struggle of the working class and later,
post-structuralism. The ideas of Derrida, marginal identity groups, as evasive.
Eco, and to some extent, Foucault, marked Politics, and more particularly socialist
Hall's writing in the 1980s and 1990s. transformation, became central in Hall's
Post-structuralism eased Hall out of the theoretical outlook.
Marxist strait-jacket of class-bound It has become the last redoubt in his
analysis. Race, ethnicity, and the fragmen- later voyage into post-structuralism, post-
ted subject, emerged as recurring themes modernism and postcolonialism. Unlike
in the later work. The new times his contemporary, Andre Gorz (1982),
thesis even celebrated some aspects of Hall has never been able to `bid farewell
postmodernism, notably the emphasis to the working class'. He (1986, reprinted
on contingency, dedifferentiation and 1996: 146±7) accepts that a linguistic turn
globalization. has occurred in his later work, but reas-
Yet if Hall is a reluctant Marxist, he is a serts the materialist verity that inequality
remorseful post-structuralist/postmoder- is the basis for unity. It is like King Lear
nist. The new times/new ethnicities thesis refusing to accept that Cordelia is dead.
is clearly indebted to Derrida's subversive Marx never made recourse to a linguis-
presentation of the play of differaÂnce. Hall tic model of social and economic practice
clearly admired Derrida's iconoclasm. because the type of analysis he practised
DifferaÂnce destablized the metaphysics of was rooted in a comparative and historical
presence by acknowledging that the perspective. Hall has eschewed develop-
meaning of a positive sign presupposes ing such a perspective in any substantial
the suppression of a metonymic chain of way. Instead he has chosen to theorize in a
negatives. For Derrida the argument mobile fashion as events unfold. This has
exposed the logocentrism of Western given his work topicality. Never more
thought. Hall took over the argument, so than in the 1980s when his analysis of
but only to suit his own ends. In Hall's authoritarian populism, through the
hands, somewhere over the rainbow of magazine Marxism Today, reached a very
differaÂnce, a viable politics of difference wide audience. However, topicality is
can still be found. The divisions and frag- not the same as relevance. With the
mentations which cross-cut politics and wisdom of hindsight, it is odd that Hall
culture today can be resolved in a new spent most of the 1980s ponti®cating
unifying principle of action. Character- on the signi®cance of authoritarian
Stuart Hall 369
populism, without once writing seriously that he did not work alone. Indeed,
about Bill Gates or the rise of network throughout Hall's years working in
society (Castells, 1996). Throughout this Birmingham the collaborative ethos of
period Hall's analysis was predicated the labour was a distinctive feature of the
upon transforming the nation-state, research output from the Centre. Even so,
when in fact the nation-state was losing no amount of false modesty can disguise
its claim to be the prime unit of socio- that Hall is the pre-eminent intellectual
logical analysis. Similarly, it is astonishing force in the Birmingham tradition.
that a theoretical approach which set such Yet in opposing reductionism so fero-
store by `really knowing, not just pretend- ciously he has diluted the force of cultural
ing to know', utterly failed to predict the and social analysis. The new times/new
collapse of the Berlin wall and, in its wake, ethnicities thesis presents so many new
the disintegration of Eastern European actors on the stage that it is impossible to
communism. The lack of historical and judge which one will change history. The
comparative detail in Hall's work means cohesion of these groups is also unclear.
that his analysis is forced back into a dis- Hall drifts towards regarding socialist
cursive mode, in which ever new re®ne- change in terms of the mobilization of
ments of essentially abstract categories the marginalized. But this glosses over
are proferred as a substitute for concrete the profound differences within and
analysis. between Asian, Afro-Caribbean, working
In the end we are left with an enor- class, gay and lesbian cultural formations,
mouosly sympathetic ®gure, but an and `hyphenated-identities' in general.
ambivalent legacy for social and cultural Hall's social and cultural analysis has, in
theory. Within the Anglo-American tradi- fact, become progressively eclectic to the
tion, Hall has been one of the foremost point where much of it ceases to carry
public intellectuals of the last 30 years. water. What is one to make of a theorist
His interventions have frequently been who believes in `determinacy without
inspiring. Policing the Crisis (1978) is guaranteed closures' and `diversity with-
a tour de force, crystallizing a decade of out homogeneity'? In producing such a
collaborative work at the Centre and, nuanced, multiaccented reading of social
unintentionally, exposing the limits of totality, Hall has dissolved social and
the Althusserian tradition of cultural economic problems in a sea of cultural
analysis. To be fair, Hall seems to have relativism. It is the same impasse in which
recognized these limits. After 1978, he cultural studies is now trapped.
showed adroitness in moving the locus
of left-wing critical analysis from class to
the politics of difference. He has also been HALL'S MAJOR WORKS
courageous in facing post-structuralism
and postmodernism squarely. The new Hall, S. (1980) `Encoding, decoding', in S. Hall, D.
times thesis is a quali®ed acceptance that Hobson, A. Lowe and P. Willis (eds), Culture,
the world has changed fundamentally. Yet Media, Language. London: Hutchinson.
Hall, S. (1983) `The problem of ideology: marxism
no other ®gure of equivalent signi®cance
without guarantees', B. (ed.) Marx: 100 Years On.
on the left made the admission so rapidly London: Lawrence & Wishart.
and so candidly. Hall, S. (1986) `Postmodernism and articulation: an
All of this is a tribute to Hall's genuinely interview with Stuart Hall', Journal of
questing and re¯exive consciousness. Communication Inquiry, 10 (2): 45±60.
After reading Hall, it is impossible for Hall, S. (1988 `New ethnicities' in K. Mercer (ed.)
social and cultural analysis to ignore Black Film, British Cinema. London: BFI/ICA.
Hall, S. (1992) `Cultural studies and its theoretical
marginal identities, peripheral cultures, legacies', in L. C. Nelson and P. Treichler (eds)
and the antinomies of cultural articula- Cultural Studies. London: Routledge.
tion. This cannot have been easy to accom- Hall, S. (1996) `The formation of a diasporic intellec-
plish. Hall would be the ®rst to point out tual, an interview with Stuart Hall' in D. Morley
370 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
and H.K. Cheng (eds) Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues Eco, U. (1987) Travels in Hyperreality. London:
in Cultural Studies. London: Routledge. Picador.
Hall, S. (1998) `The great moving nowhere show', Eco, U. (1990) The Limits of Interpretation.
Marxism Today, Nov/Dec: 9±15. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Hall, S. and Jacques, M. (1989) New Times. London: Eco, U. (1994) Apocalypse Postponed. Bloomington:
Lawrence and Wishart. Indiana University Press.
Hall, S. and Whannel, P. (1964) The Popular Arts. Elias, N. (1978) The Civilizing Process, Volume 1: The
London: Hutchinson. History of Manners. Oxford: Blackwell.
Hall, S., Critcher, C., Jefferson, T., Clarke, J. and Gorz, A. (1982) Farewell to the Working Class. London:
Roberts, B. (1978) Policing The Crisis: `Mugging', Pluto.
the State, and Law and Order. London: Macmillan. Gramsci, A. (1971) Selections From Prison Notebooks.
(Eds G. Nowell Smith and Q. Hoare.) New York:
International Publications.
Gramsci, A. (1985) Selections from Cultural Writings.
SECONDARY REFERENCES
(Eds D. Forgcas and G. Nowell Smith.) Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Adorno, T. and Horkheimer, M. (1944) Dialectic of Jacques, M. (1989) Politics in the 1990s. London:
Enightenment. London: Verso. Lawrence & Wishart.
Barthes, R. (1973) Mythologies. St Albans: Paladin. Marcuse, H. (1964) One Dimensional Man. London:
Barthes, R. (1979) The Eiffel Tower & Other Essays. New Abacus.
York: Hill and Wang. Morley, D. and Chen, H.K. (eds) (1996) Stuart Hall:
Brundson, C. (1996) `A thief in the night: stories of Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies. London:
feminism in the 1970s at CCCS', in D. Morley and Routledge.
H.K. Chen (eds) Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Sparks, C. (1996) `Stuart Hall, cultural studies and
Cultural Studies. London: Routledge. Marxism', in D. Morley and H.K. Chen (eds)
Castells, M. (1996) The Rise of Network Society. Oxford: Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies.
Blackwell. London: Routledge.
Derrida, J. ([1975] 1992) `DifferaÂnce', in A. Easthope Volosinov, V. (1929) Marxism and the Philosophy of
and K. McGowan (eds) A Critical and Cultural Language. New York, Seminar Press.
Theory Reader. Buckingham: Open University Press. Williams, R. (1963) Culture and Society 1780±1950.
Eco, U. (1981) The Role of the Reader. London: London: Penguin.
Hutchinson.
33
Juliet Mitchell
SARAH WRIGHT
J
uliet Mitchell was born in and New Left Review's Perry Anderson
Christchurch, New Zealand in 1940. concerning Althusserian accounts of
In 1944 she left New Zealand on a `history'. As Julia Swindells and Lisa
wartime convoy of ships bound for Jardine have noted (1990: 70), Mitchell's
England. She received a progressive, co- article can be `traced back to that
educational schooling at the King Alfred crucial period of confrontation between
School in London. She was an undergrad- ``history'', ``culture'' and ``Marxism''. To
uate of St Anne's College, Oxford, from which Mitchell added ``feminism'' '.
1958±61 where she also began postgradu- Second wave feminism would not com-
ate studies. Mitchell began her teaching mence until 1968. Mitchell's article was
career as assistant lecturer in English at thus a pioneering account of socialist-
the University of Leeds (1962±3) and feminist materialism. The article pro-
from 1965±71 she was full lecturer in the voked an insubstantial, yet `intemperate
department of English at the University of and disparaging rebuttal' (Swindells and
Reading. It was whilst at Leeds that Juliet Jardine, 1990: 71) from New Left Review's
Mitchell began to work and write for New managing editor, Quintin Hoare (Hoare,
Left Review, the journal of the British New 1967), but quickly established Mitchell as
Left, becoming the only female member of one of the ®rst proponents of the women's
its editorial board in 1963, and it was here liberation movement.
that her seminal article, `Women: The Throughout this period Juliet Mitchell
Longest Revolution' was published in was connected with the antipsychiatry
1966. The article, which acknowledges movement and was one of the originators
the in¯ections of both Raymond Williams of the Anti-University of London. Here
and Louis Althusser, is a deft, incisive Mitchell established what was one of the
examination of the problems involved in ®rst seminar workshops on Women's
Marxist interpretation of the status of Studies, and which would later unite
women. It was written in the context of a with other similar groups to produce the
growing questioning of orthodox Marxism London Women's Liberation Workshop of
372 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
which Mitchell was a founder and Rose, and entitled, Feminine Sexuality:
remained a prominent member. In 1971 Jacques Lacan and the `Ecole Freudienne'.
she gave up her university lecturing post After Psychoanalysis and Feminism,
to lecture freelance, in the UK and abroad, Mitchell trained as a psychoanalyst, so as
on literature and the politics of feminism. to ground her interests in the appropriate
In 1972 she published Women's Estate, a ®eld of research. (Pallares-Burke, 2000)
text which departs from the traditional From 1974±8 she was a candidate at the
Marxist-feminist stance which sees Institute of Psychoanalysis in London
woman's position as a function of her and in 1978 she became an associate mem-
relation to capital, to posit a theory ber of the British Psychoanalytical Society
which attempts to integrate both status and the International Association of
and function, seeing them conjointly Psychoanalysts, gaining full membership
determined by women's role in produc- in 1988. During the period 1975±8 Mitchell
tion and reproduction, sexuality, and the worked as a psychotherapist for the
socialization of children. Chapter 8 of that Paddington Centre for Psychotherapy in
book is entitled, `The Ideology of the London and at Camden Council for
Family' and draws on Althusser for an Social Services. Since 1978 she has worked
account of ideology in¯uenced partly by as a psychoanalyst in her own private
Freud and Lacan. Chapter 9 is entitled, practice in London.
`Psychoanalysis and the Family'. Thus Juliet Mitchell's work has enjoyed a
Althusserian ideology may have been large international dimension. Her writing
`one strand that led [Juliet Mitchell] to has been translated throughout the world
[her] subsequent interest in psycho- into 20 languages, including Chinese. As
analysis' (Mitchell, 1984: 18). Olwen Hufton notes (in an unpublished
Anglo-American feminism of the 1970s interview), Psychoanalysis and Feminism
was hostile to psychoanalysis, seeing it as `spoke, as it were, to the situation of
an instrument of patriarchy, and accusing women multiculturally in a way perhaps
Freud of a biologism which functioned to not fully known in many countries even in
limit women's social possibilities. Juliet the West'. Besides participating in radio
Mitchell's ground-breaking Psychoanalysis and television discussion programmes in
and Feminism (1974a) takes up Freud the UK, USA, Australia, Canada, South
through Lacan and with LeÂvi-Strauss to Africa, and New Zealand, Mitchell has
advocate the implementation of psycho- scripted, reported, and presented docu-
analysis as an instrument for the theoreti- mentary ®lms, and designed and chaired
cal critique of patriarchal society. Mitchell a UK ®lm and discussion series. She
had elucidated the political and social has also delivered numerous inaugural
applicability of psychoanalysis, `its use- lectures in both the university and clinical
fulness as interpretative model rather environments, and has held visiting pro-
than simply as therapeutic technique' fessorships and participated in con-
(Grosz, 1990: 20). The mid to late 1970s ferences throughout the world. In 1994
were to see the passage from structuralism a conference, organized by the Freud
to post-structuralism. Mitchell's book was Institute in London, entitled, `Psycho-
hugely in¯uential, inspiring a `vast indus- analysis: Twenty Years On', celebrated
try of psychoanalytically inspired texts' the wide-reaching implications Mitchell's
(Grosz, 1990: 21) with rami®cations for 1974 text has enjoyed over time. The cen-
cultural theories at large in an inter- tre was overwhelmed by the number
national arena. As Gallop (1989: 27) writes, of applicants. Since 1996 Mitchell has
this book is `probably the most widely been lecturer in Gender and Society at
read book in English' that mentions the University of Cambridge, whilst
Lacan. Mitchell's interest in Lacan was also occupying the post of A.D.
consolidated in a 1982 book, edited and White Distinguished Professor-at-large at
introduced by Mitchell with Jacqueline Cornell University (1994±9) and Visiting
Juliet Mitchell 373
done with our biological needs and insti- abandoned in favour of the vagina as the
tutions' (Mitchell, 1974a: 401). Freud's source of sexual satisfaction, and in this
account of the difference between the way the little girl achieves the `normal',
sexes therefore centres on the psycho- or normative, path to femininity.
logical characteristics of sexual difference. As a science which describes patriarchal
Using Lacan, Mitchell stresses the sym- society, psychoanalysis reveals the ways
bolic nature of the phallus as the `trans- in which `the little girl has to acquire,
cendental signi®er'. As `the very mark of and quickly too, her cultural destiny',
human desire', the phallus represents which is made to appear `misleadingly
`the very notion of exchange itself' coincident with a biological one'
(Mitchell, 1974a: 395). It is patriarchy (Mitchell, 1974a: 416). This premise posits
which de®nes and designates the penis± males and females within unequal gender
phallus equation, not biology, hence relations. Woman is positioned on the side
revealing the propensity for a transforma- of the sexual object, the lacking Other in
tion of the structures of gender and power. deference to man's autonomous agency.
Gendered subjectivity is constituted Female masochism, penis envy, and
through loss: that of the primary, dyadic women's weak superego are understood
relationship (mother±child): `the original as a consequence of the imposition of
lack of the object (the mother's breast) patriarchal law (the `Law of the Father')
evokes the desire for unity and this is the upon women. Crucially, however,
structure upon which identi®cations will although the phallus stands for entry to
build' (Mitchell, 1974a: 387). the symbolic order, in this (Lacanian and
The identi®cations the child will make signi®catory) reading of Freud, Mitchell
are therefore based on recognition of stresses that it is an imaginary object that
absence or discovery of difference. The neither sex can `have'. Although the phal-
child of either sex initially wishes to be lus is the signi®er of sexual difference,
the phallus for the mother, but the sym- Mitchell maintains that it is not necessa-
bolic father intervenes, effectively taking rily tied to patriarchal social relations.
over the signi®cation of the phallus, with Therefore the phallus as transcendental
a symbolic threat of castration. The castra- signi®er contains within it the potential
tion complex is understood by the child for change and, in a nonpatriarchal
when the child perceives the anatomical society, `some other expression of the
differences in the sexes: assimilated as entry into culture than the implication
presence versus castration. The effect of for the unconscious exchange of women
this castration complex is different in the will have to be found' (Mitchell, 1974a:
case of each sex. Accordingly, within the 415).
Oedipus complex (a premise in¯ected
with anthropological notions of the taboo
on incest), the little boy assumes a position APPRAISAL OF KEY ADVANCES AND
as heir to the law of the father (with the CONTROVERSIES
mother as love object but with the threat of
castration from the father), and the little Juliet Mitchell's Psychoanalysis and
girl learns her place within that law. The Feminism (1974) was a de®ning moment
little girl comes to acknowledge her lack, in the history of feminism, signalling a
`recognition of her ``castration'' is the sudden and extreme departure from all
female infant's entry to girlhood, just as that had gone before, a point illustrated
acceptance of the threat and deference by Elizabeth Grosz (1990):
to the father in exchange for later possi-
arguably, feminist theory has undergone a
bilities is the boy's debt to future man- dramatic turn-about in attitude towards psycho-
hood' (Mitchell, 1974a: 96). The girl then analysis. If we survey feminist literature on
shifts from her mother-attachment to a psychoanalysis even super®cially over the past
sexual desire for the father, the clitoris is twenty years, the re-evaluation of positions ± the
Juliet Mitchell 377
from realizing that the whole historical develop- Mitchell reaches `an optimistic, ``revolu-
ment of women has been within the family; that tionary'' conclusion' (Wilson, 1981: 70)
women have worked and lived within its space
from Psychoanalysis and Feminism, by
and time. (Hoare, 1967: 70).
arguing that, in the conditions of modern
Hoare's comments reveal his own mis- production, the family and its associated
understanding of Mitchell's application sexual division of labour was redundant,
of Althusserian ideology; it is the process some critics saw that this Freudian
of differentiation of the separate struc- account could do nothing but doom `as
tures of the family, through time, which logically impossible the struggles of
is Mitchell's innovation. Hoare's article, women to achieve autonomy over men'
while lacking in substance, highlights (Grosz, 1990).
the radical nature of Mitchell's project: to Elizabeth Wilson (1981) rejects the
create a space for the analysis of women's radical potential of Mitchell's project.
position within left-wing thought. According to Wilson, Juliet Mitchell,
More serious accusations are levelled using Lacan, stresses the arbitrary nature
against Mitchell's theoretical framework of the terms `masculinity' and `femini-
as developed in Psychoanalysis and nity', which `only exist by virtue of their
Feminism. Some have argued that there difference to one another' (Mitchell, 1980),
are theoretical and political dif®culties and `the differences between men and
with Mitchell's analysis of gender. women completely ¯oat away from
Mitchell is accused of universalizing the biology and become purely social con-
category of subject, as well as of patri- structs' (Wilson, 1981: 69). Wilson accuses
archal ideology itself: `these seem univer- Mitchell of psychic determinism. She cites
sal, cultural categories, in her account, Cora Kaplan's (1979) charge that Freudian
governed by cross-cultural and trans- theory emphasizes, `the unalterable dis-
historical laws' (Grosz, 1990). The law of tance between gender positions', to claim
the father, the prohibition of incest, and that Mitchell's paradigm reproduces
the signi®cation of the phallus (and thus gender relations within a structure which
women's castration) `are all, for her, uni- is universalizing, `tyrannical' and inescap-
versal a priori conditions'. Elizabeth able: `the logic of this locks us as securely
Grosz (1990) charges Mitchell with accept- within the structures of phallic power as
ing Freud wholesale, with regarding does ``biologism''' (Wilson, 1981: 69).
Freudian theory as compatible with fem- Reading Mitchell `with a cognizance
inist principles, without any need for of the problems faced by a more thorough
modi®cation: `she remains entirely uncri- consideration of Lacanian theory' (Gallop,
tical of the psychoanalytic tools she uses 1982: xiii), Gallop implies that Mitchell's
to develop her account of the construction Freud is not suf®ciently Lacanian to be of
of femininity' (Grosz, 1990: 197, n.7). use to feminists. Mitchell privileges the
Mitchell's position is thus problematic in anthropological and sociological dimen-
that it seems to assume that the social sions of the phallic order (the law of the
reproduction of sexuality and gender is a Father in patriarchy) whilst neglecting
®xed term, without giving recourse to the Lacan's emphasis on the importance of
contradictions inherent in the acquisition language. Feminism, writes Gallop,
of gendered subjectivity which in turn has `must embrace a psychoanalysis that has
political implications. This presumption been returned to its original audacity
of what Grosz refers to as `a pregiven through an exchange with linguistic
structural grid' which privileges masculi- theory' (Gallop, 1982: 14). Mitchell, for
nity at the expense of femininity, ®xes Gallop, initiates this project, but at the
women symbolically as the lacking end of the book, with the proposals for
Other. Consequently it is unclear why psychoanalysis in the overthrow of
women would ever feel compelled to patriarchy, Mitchell takes over the posi-
subvert the gender system. And while tion of the writers she has criticized. In
Juliet Mitchell 379
seeing it as a human possibility which a Mitchell, J. (1984) Women: The Longest Revolution:
social ordering, not a psychic complex, Essays on Feminism, Literature and Psychoanalysis,
London: Virago and New York: Pantheon Books.
renders `feminine'. Crucially, in her latest
Mitchell, J. (1986) The Selected Melanie Klein.
work, Mitchell questions the prominence Harmondsworth: Penguin and New York:
of the Oedipus complex as understood by Pantheon.
Freud and the castration complex Mitchell, J. (1990) `Whatever happened to Don Juan?:
`returned to' by Lacan, for psychoanalytic Don Juan and male hysteria', Mitos, 3: 77±84.
accounts of hysteria, and presents siblings Mitchell, J. (1995) `Psychoanalysis and feminism:
or more generally, laterality, as an alterna- twenty years on', British Journal of Psychotherapy,
12 (1): 73±77.
tive model to the exclusive theory and Mitchell, J. (1996a) `Sexuality and psychoanalysis:
practice of intergenerational con¯ict hysteria', British Journal of Psychotherapy 12 (4):
within the Oedipal dynamic. Mitchell 473±9.
criticizes psychoanalysis for ignoring Mitchell, J. (1996b) `Role of recreation in women's
what it observes: the importance of lateral oppression', in N.R. Keddie (ed.), Debating
relations for which siblings are exemplary. Gender, Debating Sexuality. New York: New York
University Press.
She argues that it is from lateral relations ±
Mitchell, J. (1996c) `Preface', to J. Raphael-Leff and R.
so widely acknowledged as critical in Jozef Perelberg. Female Experience: Three Generations
anthropological theories of af®nity ± that of British Women Psychoanalysts on Work with
the human subject is thrust back onto the Women. London: Routledge.
parents who thus become the mother and Mitchell, J. (1997) `Sexuality, psychoanalysis and
father of the Oedipus and castration com- social changes', International Psychoanalysis 6 (1):
plexes. In a new edition of Psychoanalysis 28±9.
Mitchell, J. (1998a) `Memory and psychoanalysis', in
and Feminism (2000), she traces how P. Fara and K. Patterson (eds), Memory (Darwin
feminism's subsequent use of Lacanian Lectures). Cambridge: Cambridge University
and post-Lacanian psychoanalysis depoli- Press.
ticized the project. Mitchell, J. (1998b) `Thinking about emptiness',
Bulletin of the Society for Marital Studies, 5: 22±28.
Mitchell, J. (1998c) `Introduction' in J. Philips and L.
Stonebridge (eds) Reading Melanie Klein. London:
Routledge.
MITCHELL'S MAJOR WORKS Mitchell, J. (1998d) `Questioning the Oedipus com-
plex', Replika, 113±24. (Replika: Hungarian Social
Mitchell, J. (1962) `Concepts and techniques in the Science Quarterly. `Central European Mysteric'
novels of William Golding', New Left Review, 15: special issue, 1998.)
63±71. Mitchell, J. (1999a) `Feminism and psychoanalysis at
Mitchell, J. (1966) `Women: the longest revolution', the millennium', Women: A Cultural Review, 10 (2):
New Left Review, 40: 10±30. 185±91.
Mitchell, J. (1972a) `What Maisie Knew: portrait of Mitchell, J. (1999b) `Dora and her doctors', in S. de
the artist as a young girl', in J. Goode (ed.) Air of Mijolla (ed.), Women in the History of Psychoanalysis.
Reality: New Essays on Henry James. London: London: Karnac Books.
Methuen; reprinted in Women: The Longest Mitchell, J. (1999d) `Hysteria and the body', in F.
Revolution (1984). Mol®no and C. Zanardi (eds), Symptoms, Body,
Mitchell, J. (1972b) `The Ordeal of Richard Feverel: a Femininity: From Hysteria to Bulimia. Bologna:
sentimental education', in I. Fletcher (ed.) Meredith Clueb Press.
Now. London: Routledge; reprinted in Women: The Mitchell, J. (1999e) `Family or familiarity?', in M.
Longest Revolution (1984). Richards and S. Day Slater (eds), What is a
Mitchell, J. (1972c) Women's Estate. London: Penguin Parent? London: Rupert Hart.
and New York: Pantheon Books. Mitchell, J. (2000) `Psychoanalysis and feminism
Mitchell, J. (1974a) Psychoanalysis and Feminism. revisited', in M. Kavna (ed.), Feminism and Psycho-
London: Allen Lane and Penguin Books. analysis at the Millennium. London: Routledge.
Mitchell, J. (1974b) `On femininity and the difference Mitchell, J. (2000a) Mad Men and Medusas: Reclaiming
between the sexes', in J. Strouse (ed.), Women and Hysteria and the Effects of Siblings on the Human
Analysis: Dialogues on Psychoanalytic Views of Condition. London: Hamish Hamilton and
Femininity. New York: Dell. Penguin Books.
Mitchell, J. (ed.) (1977) `Introduction', Defoe's Moll Mitchell, J. (2000b) `The vortex beneath the story', in
Flanders. London: Penguin Classics. P. Brooks and A. Woloch (eds), Whose Freud? The
Juliet Mitchell 381
Edward W. Said
BRYAN S. TURNER
The man who ®nds his homeland sweet is still a tender beginner.
(Auerbach)
E
dward W. Said is the Parr Amman and Beirut, renewing contacts
University Professor of English with relatives like Kamal Nasser, poet
and Comparative Literature at and spokesperson for the PLO until 1973.
Columbia University. He was born in In 1974 Said was Visiting Professor of
Jerusalem in 1935, but his family became Comparative Literature at Harvard and
refugees from Palestine in 1948. His early during 1975-6 was a fellow at the Center
years have been recorded in his recent for Advanced Study in the Behavioral
autobiography Out of Place (Said, 1999a). Sciences at Stanford, where much of his
He grew up in Egypt (where he spent his research on Orientalism was completed.
youth in British schools), Lebanon, Jordan, In 1976 his book Beginnings won the ®rst
and the United States. The theme of exile annual Lionel Trilling Award and
has remained a signi®cant motif of both his Orientalism (1978) was nominated for the
literary and political theory. Broadly National Book Critics Circle Award. In
speaking, anybody who takes the calling 1977, Said was elected to the Palestine
of an intellectual life seriously cannot be at National Council as an independent intel-
home in their home. He received his BA lectual and, following the outbreak of the
from Princeton and his MA and PhD from Palestinian Intifada in 1987, Said contrib-
Harvard where he won the Bowdoin uted to the translation into English of the
Prize. His doctoral thesis was on Joseph Arabic text of the Palestinian Declaration
Conrad, a ®gure who has remained in¯u- of Independence in 1988. Throughout the
ential in Said's later work on literature 1990s, Said has remained a critic of
and colonialism. At Princeton he came American foreign policy, especially the
under the in¯uence of Richard Blackmur, Gulf War, but he has also been a critic of
one of the leading New Critics. From the Palestinian corruption and ineptitude. A
Edward W. Said 383
collection of essays on Edward Said has critical analyses of the politics of the
been edited by Michael Sprinker (1992). Middle East in, for example, The Question
Given Said's career as an engaged, cosmo- of Palestine (Said, 1980), After the Last Sky
politan, and public intellectual, it was (Said, 1986), Blaming the Victim (Said,
only ®tting that he should give the 1993 1988), The Politics of Dispossession (Said,
Reith Lectures on `Representations of the 1994b) and Peace and its Discontents (Said,
Intellectual' (Said, 1994a). 1995). Finally, he has made major contri-
Said has made a number of important butions to the Orientalist debate in
contributions to social and literary theory. Orientalism (Said, 1978), Covering Islam
My argument is that his apparently sepa- (Said, 1981), and Culture and Imperialism
rate contributions (to literary theory, the (Said, 1993a). His work as a whole has
history of intellectuals, and to political given rise to much controversy, but the
analysis) converge around a sustained cri- debate around his views on Orientalism
tique of Western assumptions about other has been particularly robust (Mani and
cultures, namely around the critique of Frankenberg, 1985; Yenenoglu, 1998). His
Orientalism. This pro®le therefore largely work presupposes a particular engage-
concentrates on his Orientalism, the study ment between the intellectual, the text,
by which Said's international academic and society. I shall brie¯y discuss his lit-
reputation was originally launched. I erary theory and analysis of the intellec-
conclude by suggesting that a major tual before developing a full exposition of
component of Said's discussion of intellec- his views on Orientalism.
tuals and Orientalism has been neglected,
namely his tentative moves towards what Intellectuals and Power
one may call `an ethic of cosmopolitan
care', which, by a series of examples, In contemporary Western societies, the
attempts to chart a way out of state no longer assumes direct responsibil-
Orientalism. ity for the protection and promotion of
high culture and instead relies upon
the market to determine what constitutes
SOCIAL THEORY AND cultural taste and distinction. Intellectuals
CONTRIBUTIONS no longer have the authority of the state
and the elite institutions behind them
Said's social theory has broadly three when they come to pronounce on culture.
principal components. First, he has made They have as a result stopped being
major contributions to contemporary lit- cultural legislators and are now merely
erary studies, especially to the analysis cultural interpreters (Bauman, 1987). With
of literature and colonialism. His principal the growth of an information economy,
contributions have been Joseph Conrad and public intellectuals have become increas-
the Fiction of Autobiography (Said, 1966), ingly uncoupled from the state. In the
Beginnings: Intention and Method (Said, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
1975), The World, The Text and the Critic with the rise of nationalism, intellectuals
(Said, 1984a), and Culture and Imperialism had been important in de®ning national
(Said, 1993a). These works have been cultures ± hence for example the impor-
critically received, but they are neverthe- tance of ethnographic studies in de®ning
less an in¯uential aspect of the debate on and shaping core values and standards.
colonial and postcolonial literature The commercialization of culture, the
(Fraiman, 1995). Secondly, he has devel- growth of mass culture, the integration
oped a view of the committed and oppo- of high and low culture in postmodernity,
sitional role of the intellectual in and the transformation of universities by
Representations of the Intellectual (Said, economic rationalism has undermined the
1994a). This view of the critical intellectual traditional role of the public intellectual.
is thoroughly illustrated in a series of The great popularity of cultural studies
384 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
and the decline of traditional departments (through for example the defence of
of English literature in many British and national languages) and on the other that
Commonwealth universities are in- to be critical they have to be, like Said,
dicative of these changes in the modern to some extent homeless. As a result,
university. Intellectuals no longer have nostalgia is the main vice of intellectuals.
the authority and state support that The role of intellectuals is therefore
characterized the intellectuals of the late bound up inevitably with the creation
nineteenth century in the heyday of and the critique of boundaries and borders
classical Orientalism. ± physical, national and spiritual. Third
Said acknowledges some of these World intellectuals like Fanon have been
changes in intellectual climate in his in¯uential ®gures in struggles for national
analysis of Matthew Arnold's Culture and liberation, but then they must become
Anarchy in The World, the Text and the Critic critics of the decolonized new nations.
(1984a). Writing of culture as the best that The critical intellectual must go beyond
can be thought in a society, Arnold was the suffering and restoration of particular
able to assume the moral authority of nations and cultures to assert and to
English high culture and the role of intel- explore the universal aspects of suffering
lectual as its defender. Arnold could also and oppression, that is `to universalize the
assume that a strong national culture crisis, to give greater scope to what a par-
required a powerful state to impose its ticular race or nation suffered, to associate
hegemonic force at home and abroad. that experience with the suffering of
The fragmentation of modern cultures others' (Said, 1994a: 33). Often this critical
and the growing hybridity of national stance will look like (national) disloyalty,
traditions have reinforced the feeling but it means ultimately that the radical
among public intellectuals, not only that intellectual is always an exilic intellectual.
there are no ®nal vocabularies, but that Said could be criticized because his
multiculturalism imposes a certain view of the intellectual as an outsider pre-
detachment from one's own culture. The cludes the possibility that the intellectual
intellectual context of contemporary could be either a conservative or close to
Orientalism has thus changed radically the seat of power. Said rejects the possibi-
since the publication of Culture and lity of the philosopher-king as a combina-
Anarchy in 1869. tion of power and wisdom. Because it
However, these changes in culture and rules out the possibility that intellectuals
intellectual authority in North America could ever exercise power and in¯uence
and Europe have not had the same impact from within the administration or govern-
on Said, given his close cultural, as ment, it could be regarded as a romantic
opposed to political, connections with view of intellectual activity whose roots
Palestinian national culture. The issue of lie inside the Russian nineteenth-century
his involvement in attempting to shape view of the intellectual as anarchist. Said
Palestinian politics from a cultural stand- avoids this outcome by recognizing the
point probably explains many of the institutional constraints on intellectuals
tensions and ambiguities in Represen- in the modern world and by bringing a
tations of the Intellectual. The Reith lectures sociological perspective on the ambigu-
were concerned partly to chart the dis- ities of intellectual life.
tance between contemporary intellectuals This view of the intellectual as outsider
and the world of Julien Benda's La trahison is, as Said recognizes, a somewhat
des clercs, a cultural distance reinforced by romantic image. In contemporary univer-
global communication systems and the sities, the academic intellectual is quite
challenges to national sovereignty. The likely to be funded by large corporations
tension for Said is that on the one hand with little concern for critical public
he recognizes that historically intellectuals debate. Said takes note of the pressures
have been central to nation-building on contemporary academic intellectuals
Edward W. Said 385
to become more specialized, more pro- porary assumption that any adequate
fessional and, by implication, more knowledge of social reality must take into
responsive to corporate goals. Said's some- account the ®eld of power which constitu-
what modest solution to these dif®culties tes and makes possible such knowledge.
is both to criticize the slide toward subjec- The self-referencing of texts can only be
tivity in which all patterns of behaviour understood as an interplay of power, and
must be regarded as equally important thus all interpretations of culture are an
and to defend international or universalis- effect of power relations and power strug-
tic standards of behaviour as enshrined gles. This principle of power/knowledge,
in human rights legislation. Although cer- which was central to the philosophy of
tainty about objective moral standards is Michel Foucault (1970), is clearly illu-
problematic in the relativistic climate of strated by the history of Western under-
the world of the modern intellectual, we standing of the Orient. While the
are not `completely adrift in self-indulgent modern debate about Western views of
subjectivity' (Said, 1994a: 72). The tension the Orient was (re)established by Said's
for exilic intellectuals is to remain loyal Orientalism (1978), the anthropological
and effective within their own national controversy about the character of `other
cultures, especially where those national cultures' can be traced back through the
cultures are under threat, and to remain European encounter between Christianity
loyal to international conventions on and its antagonists. Said's controversial
morality and human rights (Said, 1993a). paradigm had the effect of establishing
This defence of human rights legis- the notion of `Orientalism' as a distinctive
lation, which for many Third World intel- and pervasive ideology about Islamic
lectuals is in fact Western human rights Otherness. His critique has laid the con-
legislation, may look problematic, given temporary foundation for an extensive
Said's apparent commitment to the episte- inquiry into the problematic relationships
mology of deconstruction in Orientalism. between political power, sexual desire,
More speci®cally, Said overtly adopts the religious identity, and intellectual
critical epistemology of Michel Foucault dominance.
in Orientalism to question the notion of In the social science literature, Said's
`objective reality' in Orientalist criticism criticisms of the Orientalist tradition are
of Eastern cultures. Said has been typically associated with the critical social
challenged by various critics who want theory of Foucault. The representations of
to argue that Said cannot be a deconstruc- the Orient are seen to be manifestations of
tionist in Orientalism and adopt a realist enduring discursive paradigms that con-
view of epistemology in his challenge to stantly reproduce the Orient as an object
American foreign policy (Clifford, 1988; of knowledge. This emphasis on the
Turner, 1978; Young, 1990). In this pro®le legacy of Foucault is mistaken, because it
of Said, I want to argue that Foucault is fails to recognize the obvious fact that Said
not the main in¯uence on Orientalism is a professor of comparative literature
and that Said's epistemology is consistent and not a professor of comparative
across his work. If there is any critical eva- sociology. One signi®cant in¯uence on
luation here, it is that Foucault's work is Said's approach has been Erich
somewhat decorative in Said's writing Auerbach's Mimesis. The Representation of
rather than fundamental, and as a result Reality in Western Literature (1953). Written
Said does not embrace a critical post- in Istanbul between 1942 and 1945, the
modern or Rortian epistemology. work was published in German in 1946,
and is a study of the literary conventions
Said and Orientalism and their transformations whereby the
truth of reality is represented by de®nite
The recent philosophical preoccupation conventions of style. The importance
with texts is a testimony to the contem- of Auerbach, both as literary critic and
386 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
mental practice divided the world into ideal context for representing the struggles
friends and strangers whose endless between European reason and its colonial
struggles de®ne `the political'. The subjects as a confrontation between magic
Orient has been the negative Other and anarchy on the one hand and reason
which de®nes the contested edges and and statecraft on the other.
boundaries of the civilized world, and
thus regulates the transgressive possibili-
ties of culture. The Occident was part of
the ethical cartography of the West which APPRAISAL OF KEY ADVANCES AND
celebrated the puritanical interior of moral CONTROVERSIES
responsibility and probity. The Critical Debate with Said
It is this geographic Otherness which
de®nes our subjective inwardness; our Having brie¯y described the principal
being is articulated in a terrain of nega- features of Said's argument in
tivities which are oppositional and, Orientalism, I can now indicate some of
according to Said, permanent and ineluct- the major criticisms of Said's perspective
able. In Culture and Imperialism Said (Turner, 1994). He exaggerates the degree
(1993a) claims that the modern identity of coherence in the Western academic
of the West has been de®ned by its discourse on Islam and he also neglects
colonies, but these colonies are not merely the range of heterogeneous views which
physical places in a political geography; characterized different disciplines within
they also organize the boundaries and the Oriental sciences. In the twentieth
borders of our consciousness by de®ning century, it is dif®cult to classify neatly
our attitudes towards, for example, sexu- and unambiguously such diverse ®gures
ality and race. Within the paradigm of as Gustave von Grunebaum, Louis
Weber's Protestant Ethic, the aboriginal Massignon, Wilfred Cantwell Smith,
is de®ned as somebody who is not only Maxime Rodinson, Montgomery Watt,
poor and traditional, but licentious and and Marshall G.S. Hodgson in Said's
lazy. Colonial policy and ideology pro- paradigm as occupying the same location
duced a wide range of national types within the Orientalist ®eld. In any case,
based on the myth of the lazy native. For Said concentrates primarily on literary
example, in the evolution of Orientalism ®gures (Conrad and Flaubert) and not
the plays of Shakespeare present a valu- on historians and social scientists
able insight into the characterology of (Wellhausen, Becker, and Brockelman).
such Oriental ®gures. The Tempest, written Employing the Orient as a mirror of the
in 1611, was based on naval records Occident, many radical writers have
describing shipwrecks from the period. often used either `Asia' or `Islam' as a
Caliban, who is probably modelled on device to attack or to question Western
early encounters with the indigenous culture.
peoples of the West Indies and North Both Nietzsche and Foucault, who are
America, is treacherous and dangerous, obviously crucial in Said's own theoretical
contrasting as a negative mirror image of evolution, looked towards Islam as
Miranda, who is perfect, naive, and beau- means of critically attacking aspects of
tiful. Caliban's sexual desire for `admir'd Western culture of which they dis-
Miranda' forms part of the moral struggle approved. Nietzsche's attitude was itself
of the play under the careful scrutiny of Orientalist, but nevertheless he praised
the island's patriarch. It is Prospero's Islam in The Anti-Christ as a strong
rational interventions which master both heroic or manly religion in contrast to
storms and characters. It is in this Christianity, which he treated as a
respect the foundation of the literary ana- form of sickness and weakness. Islam is
lysis of modern colonialism, because the `noble' because it `owed its origins to
magical island offered Shakespeare an manly instincts, because it said Yes to
388 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
life' (Nietzsche, 1968: 183). He argued European power through the eighteenth
that `In Christianity neither morality nor and nineteenth centuries;. One can distin-
religion come into contact with reality at guish between classical Orientalism
any point' (Nietzsche, 1968: 125). All of its which was dominant in academic circles
main theological concepts are imaginary. until the 1930s, and weaker, less strident,
By contrast, Nietzsche praised Buddhism and more uncertain forms of Orientalism
for its realism, its philosophical objec- since 1945. It is important to recognize that
tivity, and rationalism; Buddhism had there have been signi®cant changes in
already dispensed with the concept of Orientalism in the second half of the
God long before Christianity appeared century which re¯ect changes in state
on the historical horizon. Nietzsche's relations with globalization, the changing
studies in comparative religions are ironic status of intellectuals in modern society
comments on the problems of religious and political changes following the col-
truth in an epoch of relativism and lapse of Soviet communism. In short,
perspectivism. Nietzsche's comparative globalization has brought about a sense
critique of religion as sickness provided a of confusion in the world map, a sense
foundational ethic for the analysis of the of disorientation in contemporary scholar-
moral value of modern cultures. In ship.
Weber's sociology, this critique was redir- Said's original theory did not consider
ected towards an analysis of the religious the responses to these colonial changes,
bases of utilitarian economics. In a similar namely the growth of fundamentalism in
fashion, Foucault in his journalistic writing many of the `world religions' as a defen-
on Iran in Corriere della Sera treated the sive protest against incorporation and
Iranian revolution as a signi®cant dilution into Western consumerism and
`spiritual revolution'. The Iranian revolu- Western lifestyles. With the failure of com-
tion provided Foucault with an occasion to munism, Islamic fundamentalism is one
express his emotional commitment to the of the few remaining political options
idea of a spiritual revolution as a way of in the Third World as a protest against
life, which contrasted with the mundane secularization and consumerism. One
and routine reality of the everyday world. could also see the movement for the
The religious revolution was a triumph Islamization of science in the same light,
of values over the profane world of namely as an attempt to check seculariza-
materialist activity. tion and incorporation into a Western
If Orientalism expresses a particular model of scienti®c knowledge (Stenberg,
combination of power and knowledge, 1996). Islamic fundamentalism challenges
then it must vary and change over time the universalistic claims of Western
and between different national con®gura- natural and social sciences, and offers an
tions and traditions. Because Said concen- alternative model of understanding and
trated primarily on French Orientalism, he signi®cance. In the context of globaliza-
neglected important variations between, tion, many cultural movements have
for example, English or German branches also questioned the dominance of
of Orientalism. Furthermore, while there Western literature and arts resulting in a
is good reason to believe that classical widespread debate on decolonization,
Orientalism created `Islam' for example subaltern studies, and hybridity.
as a changeless essence, Oriental discourse Because Said has associated
itself changes over time. In the early Orientalism very closely with Zionism,
seventeenth century, Muslim culture there is a fundamental political and
(`the Turk') was threatening and dominant, cultural problem about the relationship
because the Ottoman Empire exercised between anti-Semitism and Orientalism.
extensive commercial and military control If Caliban represents one formative ®gure
over the Mediterranean. These attitudes in the evolution of European colonial
changed profoundly with the growth of literature, Shylock presents another. The
Edward W. Said 389
Merchant of Venice, which was written in their social and geographical migrations
1596, has some parallel with Marlowe's were seen to be politically dangerous.
Jew of Malta and expresses the anti- Throughout the medieval and modern
Semitism of Elizabethan England. There periods, Jews disturbed the consciousness
is a general anti-Semitism in Europe, in of the Christian West because they were
which antagonism to Jews has often cosmopolitan and strange. The notion of
accompanied hostility to Muslims. the `wandering Jew' pinpoints the idea
Generally speaking, the critique of that their commitment to the national
Orientalism has not noticed the ironic con- polity could not be taken for granted.
nection between two forms of racism, Hitler's hatred of Viennese Jews arose
namely against Arabs and against Jews. from his experience of a seething mass
In his Introduction to Orientalism Said of unfriendly and strange faces. While
writes that: Jews were strange, they were also guilty
of religious treachery. Now rejection of
In addition, and by an almost inescapable logic, I
these two stereotypes was crucial, if
have found myself writing the history of a strange,
secret sharer of Western anti-Semitism. That anti- Christianity as the foundation of Western
Semitism and, as I have discussed it in its Islamic values was to maintain its difference from
branch, Orientalism resemble each other very other Abrahamic faiths. Precisely because
closely is a historical, cultural and political truth Judaism and Islam shared so much in
that needs only be mentioned to an Arab common (monotheism, prophetic and
Palestinian for its irony to be perfectly under- charismatic revelation, the religion of the
stood. (Said, 1978: 27±8)
Book, and a radical eschatology), they had
In a reply to his critics, Said also noted the to be separated culturally by a discourse
parallels between what he calls of ethnic and moral difference. Jewish
`Islamophobia' and anti-Semitism. There separate identity raised signi®cant ques-
are thus two discourses of Orientalism tions about the character of civilization
for Semites, one relating to Islam and the processes in Europe.
other to Judaism. Within Orientalism, We can now summarize this discussion
there are two related discourses for by showing that Orientalism can be
Semites, namely `the Islamic discourse of described in terms of two dimensions.
gaps and the Judaic discourse of contra- First there is internal and external
dictions' (Turner, 1983: 29). While Islam Orientalism in which attention is focused
had been de®ned by its absences (of inwards on ethnic subcommunities or out-
rationality, cities, asceticism and so wards towards an externalized Otherness.
forth), Judaism had been de®ned by the Secondly there is a dimension which is
contradictory nature of its religious divided into positive and negative eva-
injunctions where, for example, its dietary luations. Classical Orientalism involved a
laws transferred the quest for personal negative/external framework of critical
salvation into a set of ritualistic prescrip- rejection of the Other as alien and danger-
tions which inhibited the full expression ous. The stereotypes of the `lazy Arab'
of its monotheistic rationalism according and the `wandering Jew' perfectly express
to Weber's analysis in Ancient Judaism this interpretative option. In the opposite
(Weber, 1952). For Weber, the rationality direction, positive/internal Occidentalism
of Jewish monotheistic prophecy was identi®ed some communities within the
undermined by a ritualistic dietary nation-state as a positive expression of
scheme. The West oriented its identity identity and consciousness. For example,
between two poles ± the lazy sensual in Victorian England there was a romantic
Arab and the untrustworthy Jew. Weber view of Scottishness in which the heroic
criticized the Islamic paradise as merely Scotsman could safely enter the English
a sensual reward for warriors; Jewish consciousness. Queen Victoria did much
communities have suffered from the to legitimize this image of the brave
label of a `pariah status group', because Scottish soldier as the cornerstone of
390 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
British colonial power. This position con- religious experience in Iraq in May 1908,
trasts with internal/negative Occident- converted to Islam, although in his later
alism that treated the Irish as a dangerous, life he also practised as a Melkite priest.
but ultimately pathetic, adversary within A withdrawn scholar, Massignon became
the evolving British polity. Finally, there publicly involved in the protests against
is positive/external Orientalism that con- the Algerian War and in 1961 struggled
verted the native peoples of North with friends to drag the bodies of
America into `the Noble Savage'. This murdered Algerians from the Seine. In
typology helps us to understand that Massignon's theology of mysticism, the
Orientalism also produced Occident- religious experiences of the divine pre-
alism, and that racial stereotypes can be sence in different traditions provides a
both positive and negative. For Islam, common experience of humanity aliena-
there was a positive view of the manly tion and need for reconciliation.
ethic of Arabic nomadism which was Raymond Schwab plays an equally
embraced by writers like T.E. Lawrence. important role in Said's vision of intellec-
There was a strong movement of tual responsibility towards other cultures.
Orientalism that assumed a positive While Schwab's intellectual world was
view of the East as a land of promise, sen- quite remote from the Catholicism of
suality, and difference which contrasted Massignon's work, Schwab's task was to
with the pale grey reality of bourgeois understand the impact of the Orient on
Europe. the West in the period 1770±1850, roughly
that is from the French Revolution to the
Towards a Re-evaluation high tide of Western imperialism in the
Middle East. In this period, Orientalism
The history of Orientalism is in large became a great adventure of human con-
measure the depressing history of inter- sciousness in which the polarities between
civilizational misunderstanding, antagon- East and West generated a new range of
ism, and racial bigotry. However, Said humanistic possibilities, namely a renais-
(1984a) has also been concerned to identify sance. This movement is opened up
a number of scholars whose work by translation for example in the work of
attempted to transcend the narrow limita- Abraham Anquetil-Duperron, about
tions of the Orientalist tradition of which whom Schwab (1934) wrote an engaging
they were members. In this respect his intellectual biography. While the ®rst
observations on Ernest Renan, Louis Renaissance asserted the similarities and
Massignon, and Raymond Schwab are commonalities of European cultures, the
instructive, because they provide us second Renaissance constructed a culture
with a model of what we might call of differences through its comparative
cosmopolitan scholarship. Massignon's philology, historical studies, and sociol-
principal work was The Passion of al- ogy. Orientalism expressed the European
Hallaj (Massignon, 1994), which provides need to assimilate and absorb the Other
a theological and historical analysis of the through a set of linguistic strategies, but
religious signi®cance of the mystic Schwab's own position was driven by an
Mansur al-Hallaj who became a martyr implicit notion of `integral humanism', of
for peace in Baghdad in 922. For the need for a dynamic humanism which
Massignon, al-Hallaj provides a religious could transcend these differences.
®gure through whom one can apprehend My contention is that Schwab's monu-
the mystical truths of both Christianity mental history of the ®rst stages of
and Islam. It is through suffering that Orientalism, especially the growth of
one can learn compassion, and through Sanskrit studies, provides the model for
compassion a scholar might sympatheti- Said's own Orientalism. Said's apprecia-
cally approach and value other cultures. tive introduction to the English translation
Massignon was, following a shattering of Schwab is reprinted as Chapter 11 in
Edward W. Said 391
The World, the Text and the Critic. His dis- political opportunities for Palestinians
cussion of Schwab recognized the scale and Israelis in which he asks Jews and
and importance of Schwab's achievement Israelis to cross the `rhetorical barricades'
which was to document the rise of in the 1990s is directly compatible with the
Orientalism as a `second Renaissance' essays in The World, the Text and the Critic
and its interconnections with romanti- and with Orientalism. The core of this posi-
cism. If the ®rst Renaissance recognized tion is not to divide the world into neat
and addressed the internal diversities dichotomies and to exercise responsibility
and divisions of European culture(s), between the tensions of loyalty to one's
then the second Renaissance recognized culture(s) and to cosmopolitanism. Repre-
the existence of a dense and external sentations of the Intellectual expresses it
world to which Europe had to establish perfectly ± `cultures are too intermingled,
an orientation. Schwab's account impli- their contents and histories too inter-
citly looks at the problem of intellectual dependent and hybrid, for surgical
responsibility towards other cultures separation into large and mostly ideo-
through a detailed analysis of the rise of logical oppositions like Orient and
translation and interpretation. In my view Occident' (Said, 1994a: xi).
Schwab rather than Foucault set the
agenda for Said, which was ®rst to under- Conclusion: Intellectuals and
stand Europe's appropriation of Islam and Cosmopolitanism
the Middle East alongside the second
Renaissance research on India and In conclusion, I want to suggest that
China, and secondly to begin to probe we could regard Said's moral vision of
the problem of intellectual responsibility intellectuality as a defence of cosmopoli-
for and with other cultures. tanism, which can be de®ned as the ethical
Said's analysis of writers like Renan, world view of scholars in a global context
Anquetil-Duperron, Massignon, and where cultural hybridity and multi-
Schwab prepared the groundwork for his culturalism are beginning to rewrite the
subsequent re¯ections on the relationship traditional Orientalist agenda. Said's
between intellectuals and borders. In sympathetic analysis of the work of
Orientalism, the academic Orientalists are Erich Auerbach in The World, the Text and
condemned, often implicitly, because their the Critic provides a model of the cosmo-
relationship to the East±West border was politan intellectual and for the concept of
unambiguous. They were committed intellectual irony which I now wish to
to the superiority of Western values and sketch in this concluding comment. For a
religion, but this relationship to other cul- discussion of cosmopolitanism, Auerbach
tures was far more ambiguous in is important for two reasons. First, he
Massignon and Schwab. Even Renan, argued that the proper topic of philology
who criticized traditional Islam for its was human culture as a whole, and
hostility to rationalism and science, had secondly that it is not until we have left
of course employed textual criticism to our (national and metaphorical) home
write a secular history of Jesus. Said's that we can appreciate its true value in
views on nationalism and human rights the context of a simultaneous appreciation
can in this light be seen to be consistent of other cultures. Perhaps it is not too
with his views on intercivilizational dia- fanciful therefore to believe that, precisely
logue as illustrated by his commentaries because of their exposure to global con-
on Massignon and Renan, and by his read- cerns and global issues, the cosmopolitan
ing of Schwab. Said, in his own political intellectual might, in recognizing the
writing on the Palestinian movement and ubiquity of hybridization, reject all claims
the Middle East, has maintained his to cultural superiorty and cultural domi-
borderland moral position. Said's con- nance. This is the central message of
troversial writing (Said, 1999b) on the Representations of the Intellectual that in
392 Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory
reality the world is too intermingled to be Said, E.W. (1978) Orientalism. New York: Pantheon
(mis)represented as divided between Books.
Said, E.W. (1980) The Question of Palestine. London
Orient and Occident. Precisely because
and New York: Routledge.
we are exposed to the global forces Said, E.W. (1981) Covering Islam. How the Media and
of postmodernization, the cosmopolitan the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the
ironist should welcome a stance which World. New York: Pantheon Books.
supports the diverse value of postcolonial Said, E.W. (1984a) The World, the Text and the Critic.
cultures and celebrates the teaming diver- London: Faber & Faber.
sity of human cultures. With an awareness Said, E.W. (1984b) `Foreword', in Raymond Schwab
(1984) The Oriental Renaissance. Europe's Discovery of
for the tensions between local cultures India and the East 1680±1880. New York: Columbia
and global processes, cosmopolitan virtue University Press.
might come to recognize a stewardship Said, E.W. (1985) `Orientalism Reconsidered', Race
over and for cultures which are fragile and Class, 27(2): 1±15.
and precarious. Said, E.W. (1986) After The Last Sky: Palestinian Lives.
Cosmopolitanism can be defended New York: Pantheon.
Said, E.W. (1988) Blaming the Victims. London: Verso.
morally, because exclusive national loyal-
Said, E. W. (1993a) Culture and Imperialism. New York:
ties and ethnic solidarities are more Alfred A. Knopf.
likely to be points of con¯ict and violence Said, E.W. (1993b) `Nationalism, human rights and
in culturally diverse societies. We need an interpretation' in B. Johnson (ed.) Freedom and
analysis of cultural membership therefore Interpretation. The Oxford Amnesty Lectures 1992.
which will celebrate the uncertainty of New York: Basic Books.
belonging, where our `®nal vocabularies' Said, E.W. (1994a) Representations of the Intellectual.
London: Vintage.
(Rorty, 1989) are never ®nal. One can Said, E.W. (1994b) The Politics of Dispossession. The
suggest that the components of cosmopo- Struggle for Palestinian Self-Determination 1969±
litan virtue are as follows: irony both as a 1994. London: Chatto & Windus.
method and as a mentality in order to Said, E.W. (1995) Peace and its Discontents. Gaza-Jericho
achieve some emotional distance from 1993±1995. London:Vintage.
our own culture; and re¯exivity with Said, E.W. (1999a) Out of Place: A Memoir. London:
Granta Books.
respect to other cultural values; scepticism
Said, E.W. (1999b) `Unoccupied territory', London
towards the grand narratives of modern Review of Books, 7 January: 35±7.
ideologies; care for other cultures, espe-
cially aboriginal cultures arising from an
awareness of their precarious condition
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Index
Lyotard, Jean-FrancËois, cont. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, cont. oblique order 217±18, 222±3
on Marxism 128, 130, 131 on embodiment 31±2, 34±5, Occidentalism 389±90
on minority af®rmations 134±5 38±9 open dialogue 85, 86, 88, 91±2
on political representation 132±3, on freedom 32±5 operational closure 252, 253, 256
136±7 in¯uences on 31±2, 33, 36 Orientalism 383, 385±91
on postmodernity 135±6 on Marxism 35±7, 39±40 otherness 178, 190, 233±4
on textual meaning 133 on phenomenology 30, 31±2 see also Orientalism
on situatedness 33, 34, 35, 40
majorities see minoritarian politics on structuralism 37±8 Palestine 382±3, 384, 391
male hysteria see hysteria on structuration 37, 40 Paris, students' revolt (1968) 132,
Marcuse, Herbert metanarratives see grand 133, 167, 168
on aesthetics 48±9, 52, 53 narratives parler-femme 188
biography 43±5 middle classes 101±2 Passagenarbeit (Benjamin) 76±7,
on capitalism 48, 56 militarization 217, 218, 219, 223 78±9
critique 49±57 mimesis 187±8 phallocentrism 186±7
on domination 47±8, 55 minoritarian politics 212±13 phallus, as signi®er 376
on feminism 53±4 minority af®rmations 134±5 phenomenology 30, 31±2, 153,
in¯uences on 15, 47, 50, 54 mirror stage, in development 240±1
on liberation 47±8, 51±2, 53, 55 142±3, 148 philosophical anthropology 261±2
on Marxism 43±5, 46±7, 48, 56 misrecognition 143, 148, 317 philosophy 16, 60, 61, 75, 206,
on National Socialism 46 see also recognition 247±8, 270±1
on subjectivity 49±55 Mitchell, Juliet philosophy of desire 206, 207±8
on surplus consciousness 54±5 biography 371±3 plastic sexuality 297±8
on technology 46±7, 56 critique 376±80 polar inertia 219±21
Marxism 5±7 on the family 374, 377±8 political representation 132±3,
Baudrillard's views 198, 199±200 on hysteria 379±80 136±7
Bauman's views 328±9 in¯uences on 147, 372, 377 see also democracy; minoritarian
and Being 15 on Marxism 371, 372, 373, 374 politics
Benjamin's views 73 on psychoanalysis 372±3, 374±7, politics of difference 366, 367
Deleuze's views 210, 212 378±80 popular art 322±3
Guattari's views 212 on women's liberation 371±2, popular culture 146, 168±70, 171
Hall's views 360±1, 362, 363, 367 373±4 popularism see authoritarian
Jameson's views 349±51, 352, 358 modernism 221 popularism
Lefebvre's views 231±2, 234 see also hypermodernism; population, as subject 123
Lyotard's views 128, 130, 131 postmodernism positivism 86±7, 110
Marcuse's views 43±5, 46±7, 48, modernity 3±4 post-Marxism 6, 36±7
56 Adorno's views 66, 67 post-scarcity order 299
Merleau-Ponty's views 35±7, Bauman's views 331±2, 333±4, post-structuralism 26±8, 166±8,
39±40 335 172, 221±2, 351±2, 368
Mitchell's views 371, 372, 373, Beck's views 305±6, 307±8, postcolonialism 366±7
374 309±12 postmodernism 4, 221, 222, 274±5,
Sartre's views 36 Giddens's views 296±8 278, 279, 323±5
on women 373, 374 and rationalization 311±12 see also hypermodernism;
see also capitalism; Taylor's views 261 modernism
post±Marxism Virilio's views 222 postmodernity 3±5
material-semiotic entities 340, see also postmodernity Bauman's views 332±3, 335
342±3 moments, concept of 228, 233 and capitalism 355, 357±8
the maternal 176±8, 180±1, 189, morality 102, 263±4, 334 Jameson's work on 350, 355±8
283±4 see also ethics Lyotard's views 135±6
see also the feminine music see aesthetics; culture see also grand narratives;
meaning 99, 262±3 industry modernity
see also textual meaning myth 162, 163, 168±70, 171 power 133, 331, 332±3, 344±5, 384,
media 385
and communication 253±4, 256 National Socialism 9, 12±14, 16±17, see also class distinction;
and construction of reality 113, 46, 158 domination
114, 157±8, 198, 219 nationalism 261, 265±6 power relationships 26, 27, 125
mediation 189 new sensibility 51±5 pragmatism 60±1
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice new times 367, 368, 369 universal 87, 89, 90
biography 30±1 Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm 13, presence 9±10, 15, 16, 17
critique 38±40 15, 20, 120, 135, 387±8 promises 155±6
Index 399
structural-functionalism 95, 250, systems theory 250±4 the unconscious 141±2, 143±4, 148,
255±6 296, 301
structuralism 6 Taylor, Charles universal pragmatics 87, 89, 90
Barthes's use of 164±6, 172 on behaviourism 262 urban development 217, 218±19
Bourdieu's views 317 biography 260±1 see also city
Hall's work in 363, 364 critique 265±8 urban life 229±30
and language 37±8, 143 and hermeneutics 262±3 see also social space
Merleau-Ponty's views 37±8 on identity 264±5, 267±8
Saussure's work 164±5, 244 on intersubjective meaning
and subjectivity 146 Virilio, Paul
262±3
Virilio's views 221±2 biography 216
on language 263
see also semiology critique 217, 221±4
on modernity 261
structuration 34, 37, 40, 292, 294±6, on cyberfeminism 220±1
on moral frameworks 263±4
300±1 on Infowar 218, 219
on nationalism 261, 265±6
style 165, 167±8, 169 methodologies 221±2, 223, 224
and philosophical anthropology
subjecti®cation 121±4 on militarization 217, 218, 219,
261±2
subjectivity 2±3 223
technicity 11, 13±14
and action 295±6, 297, 301 on the oblique order 217±18,
technology 46±7, 56, 220±1
Adorno's views 64, 67±8 222±3
see also cyborgs
Chodorow's work 285±6, 287±9, on polar inertia 219±21
technoscience 343±4
290 on political economy 218
text, concept of 157
®elds of 122±4 on speed 217, 219±20, 223
textual meaning 78, 133, 166, 167,
and gender 146±7, 187, 376, 378 on technology and the body
243±5, 352, 354±5, 365±6
Habermas's views 50 220±1
see also deconstruction; discourse
Jameson's views 355, 356 on urban development 217,
analysis
and language 143±4, 188, 191 218±19
Third Way 298±9
Marcuse's views 49±55 visual images see images
Third World literature, as allegory
and new sensibility 51±5 354±5
structuralist approach 146 war see militarization
traditions, and globalization 299
see also phenomenology war model, of urban development
transgression 25, 26±7
surplus consciousness 54±5 217
Trauerspiel study (Benjamin) 72,
the symbolic 142, 148±9, 174±5 welfare state 299
75±6, 77±8
symbolic generalized media 253±4, women's liberation 371±2, 373±4
truth 24±5, 271, 272
256 see also feminism
see also relativism
symbolic interactionism 95, 100 writing 24, 25, 154±5, 156±7, 165±6
symbolic representation 185±7, see also style; textual meaning
191, 196±9, 200 uncertainty 335±6
see also images see also ambivalence xenophobia 178