Theory and Praxis: What is action? What is political? Where is democracy?

SOC207: Lecture 10

Dr Jordan McKenzie

Lecture Overview

What is the public sphere? What is democracy?

Habermas on Theory and Praxis

The role of the public sphere as a place of both theory and practice

Debate, discourse, truth and coffee

Adorno: Negative Dialectics

Gadamer: Philosophical Hermeneutics, Horizons of Knowledge/Meaning

The Theory of Communicative Action

The Public Sphere

For Klaus Eder (2006),

“The public sphere is a space between state and society. It is neither a political institution nor a social institution, but an instance from which these institutions are observed and their meaning (especially their legitimacy) is communicated in either an affirmative or a critical way. The public space can thus be described as a third space between the state and society (Somers 1993, 1995, 2001). In this space some speakers turn to a public; media allow that these speakers are heard even beyond the presence of a public. The mass-media turn the public space into a functionally specific system of public communication which guarantees that communication in public will go on and address any issues that may be raised (Ferree et al. 2002). This idea contains two analytically separate elements: actions of a specific type which is public speaking, and a space where such talking is possible and communicable to other actors. These two elements provide the key for understanding the variation of empirical and theoretical notions of a public sphere.”

Habermas and the Public sphere

•For Habermas, the public sphere is a place for individuals to perform as citizens in the process of forming public opinion.

•Public opinion must be the result of active discourse from all members of society, and must come from the ‘grass roots’ rather than through social authorities (such as political leaders or the media)

•The public sphere is where ideas meet, are challenged, and developed into something new. Debate is both a source of motivation for political action, as well as a kind of political action.

Democracy…

•Requires that the people have access to open and transparent information,

•‘Only when the exercise of political control is effectively subordinated to the democratic demand that information be accessible to the public, does the political public sphere win an institutionalized influence over the government through the instrument of law-making bodies. (Habermas 1964: 49)

•Requires free and cooperative communication,

•‘Citizens behave as a public body when they confer in an unrestricted fashion–that is, with the guarantee of freedom of assembly and association and the freedom to express and publish their opinions-about matters of general interest’ (Habermas 1964: 49)

•Requires independence from economic pressures/manipulation, and exist for the common/public good,

•‘A portion of the public sphere comes into being in every conversation in which private individuals assemble to form a public body. They then behave neither like business or professional people transacting private affairs, nor like members of a constitutional order subject to the legal constraints of a state bureaucracy.’ (Habermas 1964: 49)

Habermas on Theory and Praxis

•Key texts,

•Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962)

•Theory and Practice (1963)

•Theory is a necessary condition for action/praxis, facts alone cannot motivate action/praxis.

•This perspective incorporates a definition of theory that is considerably more diverse than academic or disciplinary approaches.

•The communicative turn in social and critical theory.

Habermas and the English Coffee Houses

•For Habermas, the lack of a public sphere where individuals can create discourse for questions regarding politics, philosophy and economics is of great significance to modernity.

•Although these ‘public’ forums were only open to white, property-owning males, at the time, the lack of class status was radical.

Enlightenment debates

Kant, ‘What is Enlightenment?’ (1784)

•“Enlightenment is man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man’s inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere aude! [Dare to know!] “Have courage to use your own reason!” – that is the motto of enlightenment.”

•The key to enlightenment is not simply the use of reason, but the right to publicly use one’s own reason without fear of persecution.

Habermas, Knowledge and democracy

•For Habermas, the rational and open discourse of a public sphere is capable of producing ‘true knowledge’.

•If discourse is allowed to flourish as an ongoing project in the formation of, and the critical analysis of ideas, then it can result in identifying political, moral and ethical truths.

Adorno: Negative Dialectics (1966)

•For Adorno, the process of critique is never complete because our perception of the world will never fully match the world ‘as it really is’.

•Therefore, theorising about the world (based upon the knowledge that we have of the world) will inevitably result in mismatches – whether they be major or minor.

•Critique is a means for minimising these inconsistencies between theories of the world, and the ‘objective’ world.

Hans-Georg Gadamer

• Truth and Method (1989) [1960]

•Historical experiences form ‘prejudices’

•“The horizon is the range of vision that includes everything that can be seen from a particular vantage point” (1989: 302)

•Ricoeur, “History precedes me and my reflection; I belong to history before I belong to myself” (1990: 303)

Habermas: 
The Theory of Communicative Action (1984)[1981]

•All communication has intention, interests, purpose.

•The speaker wants a specific reaction (agreement, empathy, anger)

•How do their speech acts achieve these goals?

•Open, honest and informed discourse can solve virtually any problem, but our communication practices act against mutual understanding and recognition.

•For Habermas, truth is not that which is impervious to criticism, but that which has best survived criticism. Therefore, as active public sphere of debate and discourse can clarify the distortions of truth in culture and ideology.

•This is a project that is never complete, but does allow for a culturally mediated approach to knowledge that cannot be reduced to relativism.

•But, Habermas is not interested in reducing sociology to linguistics. We must study real things, not just linguistic representations of those things.

•“rationality has less to do with the possession of knowledge than with how speaking and acting subjects acquire and use knowledge” (1981: 8)

Truth, ethics, action?

Kant’s categorical imperative (practical ethics):

•My actions are ethical if I am willing for them to become universal rules that are followed by all. I.e theft.

Habermas’ Communicative Turn:

•Our actions are ethical if we, as a community, hold open and transparent debates about the action that lead to a consensus.

•Therefore, Habermas develops a socially based/derived notion of the categorical imperative.

•Therefore, ‘Truth’ is not found in individual rationality. It is found in the act of communication and exchange.

Therefore…

•For Habermas, the public sphere is where knowledge is developed, refined and/or deconstructed.

•Meanwhile action (which is dependant upon knowledge, theory and meaning) is inspired by the public sphere whilst influencing the public sphere in a reflexive form of interaction.

•Central to the project of autonomy, is the role of the individual as citizen rather than simply a consumer, worker etc.

References

•Adorno, T. (1966) Negative Dialectics. The Continuum Publishing Company: New York.

•Eder, K. (2006) ‘Making Sense of the Public Sphere’ in Delanty, G. Handbook of Contemporary European Social Theory. Routledge: Oxon.

•Gadamer, H. G. (1989)[1960] Truth and Method. Crossroad: New York.

•Habermas, J. (1973) [1963] Theory and Practice. Beacon Press: Boston.

•Habermas, J. (1989) [1962] The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. MIT Press: Cambridge

•Habermas, J. (1981) [1984] The Theory of Communicative Action: Volume one – Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Beacon Press: Boston.

•Hohendahl, P. (2011) ‘Critical Theory, Public Sphere and Culture. Jürgen Habermas and his Critics’ New German Critique, No.16 pp.89-118.

•Mannheim, K. (1936) Ideology and Utopia. Routledge: London.

•Ricoeur, P. (1990) ‘Critique of Ideology’ in The Hermeneutic Tradition: From Ast to Ricoeur. Ed. by Ormiston, G. & Schrift, A. SUNY Press: New York.

•Schutz, A, (1972)1932] The Phenomenology of the Social World. Northwester University Press: Illinois.

Essay Writing Guide

Argument:

• Make sure you have one!
• If the question has an agree/disagree or yes/no format, make sure that you take a side and make it clear from the very beginning.
• Make sure that your argument specifically addresses the question. Don’t just write about the topic in general.
• Write the question at the start of the essay and continually ask yourself ‘how does this paragraph help to answer the question?’. Then tell the reader your answer. Sometimes it will feel like you have to ‘spell it out’ for the reader.
• You may need to give the question some thinking time before you feel that you have a clear perspective or argument. Don’t leave this to the last minute.
• Avoid ‘I’ sentences. Remember that “I believe chocolate ice-cream is better than strawberry” is entirely different from saying “Chocolate ice-cream is better than strawberry”. The first is a sentence about the author, the second is about the topic. You should be doing the latter in a research essay.
• Avoid words like ‘Author A believes that’, instead be firm and confident about what you are saying. Try ‘argues’, ‘states’ or ‘insists’.
• Avoid words like ‘Proves’. Your findings might challenge, discredit, indicate or affirm. Saying proves suggests that your findings are going to end all other debates on the topic.

Structure:

Intro:

• Should be the last thing that you write, not the first.
• It needs to establish the argument in the first few sentences. “This essay will argue that…”.
• Avoid “The Oxford dictionary defines (blank) as (blank)” as an opener. Academic terms differ from general
• nes and the dictionary is not representative of the literature you have been asked to read.
• Do not open with a quote unless you plan to address it in detail. (This applies to all quotes. Quotes should never do the work for you. You need to unpack them and engage with them)

Body:

• Should be made up of 3-4 sections.
• Each sections contains and intro sentence and a concluding sentence (like a mini essay)
• Each section needs to cover a key claim that help to answer your question.
• Use linking sentences
• Every section needs to include a sentence that clearly links the point you are making back to the question. Ask yourself, does this help answer the question? How? If it doesn’t, then delete it.

Conclusion:

• Should have a similar format to the Intro.
• Avoid introducing new ideas, the point is to summarise what you have done.
• You can highlight the limitations of your essay, but avoid being too speculative or using open questions that you can’t possible answer within the scope of the essay.
• Be clear, concise and confident. “I have shown that”, “This essay has demonstrated that”. Not “This essay hopes to…” or “aims to…”

Referencing:

• Author-date Harvard in text referencing please. (Chicago is acceptable)
• Absolutely no footnote referencing
• Consistency is key
• When in doubt, too much information is better than not enough.
• Reference list should be in alphabetical order and on a separate page to the rest of the essay.

Sources:

• The quality of your sources will have a direct consequence on the quality of your argument, evidence and writing. Poor sources will result in a poor grade, no matter how good your writing/ideas are. You must have quality evidence.
• Journal articles, books and book chapters should be prioritised above all else.
• Media articles, blogs and websites can be used as examples, but not as sources. I.e. you could refer to a blog as an example of a discourse about the material. But you should not cite the blog for stats, facts or evidence.
• Do not cite the lecture slides. This is lazy and the person marking your work will notice this immediately. If there is something useful in the lecture notes, then try to find it in a published source.

General advice:

• Proof read your work. Get a friend to do it for you. Or, read your paper aloud to find errors.
• Talk about the argument with other students or friends and see if it makes sense.
• Write a plan and allocate a set number of words to each section. It is easier to write if you already know where the line of argument is going.
• When proof reading, read the intro and the conclusion back to back. Do they align? Do they sound like the same essay? Do you deliver all that you promised in the Intro? And, most importantly, have you answered the prescribed essay question? The answer should be YES to all of these questions.
• Don’t worry about what other people are doing. I am after your informed and well researched position, not someone else’s.

Micro-sociology: Interaction, symbolism and language

Dr Jordan McKenzie

SOC207: Lecture Three

Macro or Micro sociology?

• Micro approaches:

• Study society by analysing the interaction between individuals
• Develops theory out of observation
• Meaning, symbolism etc is understood by seeing it in practice.
• Seeks to connect micro phenomena with large scale events
• ‘Bottom up’ or grass roots style analysis.
• Pragmatic?

• Macro approaches:

• Look for patterns and trends in society.
• Place greater emphasis on structure than agency
• Seeks to make generalizable claims by studying the big picture.
• ‘Top down’ analysis.
• Values theory over pragmatism.

• e. historical materialism

1. These characteristics are very general. Views vary between theorists.
2. the task of sociologists…
3. explain/offer causal explanation (Erklären/Positivism).
4. understand/to interpret (Verstehen/Interpretation)

Positivists argue that the social sciences should be modelled on the natural sciences and thus should only explain. (Eg. Durkheim, Comte)

Interpretivists argue that as human subjects – whose actions are intentional, meaningful and symbolic – are different from natural objects and that interpretation is the appropriate method. (Weber, Simmel)

Erklären or Verstehen

• Interpretive approaches offer an insider’s rather than an outsider’s knowledge of the social world (Merton 1972).
• For Interpretivists, social action is:

•Intentional

•Meaningful

•Symbolic

•Conventional – i.e. framed in terms of local rules; a ‘form of life’ (Wittgenstein).

• Therefore, social action can be understood in terms of these local conventions/language games/forms of life.
• attempt to bridge understanding and explanation.

• The researcher is a part of the research. There is no ‘view from nowhere’.
• Therefore the principles of the natural sciences to not apply to human societies.

Interpretive sociology

• Hermeneutics:

•The art or science of interpreting text, knowledge, meaning.

•Originally aimed to uncover the ‘true meaning’ of sacred texts.

•Eventually discovered that the interpreter is inseparable from the interpretation, and therefore became the practice of enhancing subjective analysis.

• Phenomenology:

•The philosophy of perception.

•Aims to grasp the depth and limitations of human experience, awareness and knowledge.

•Challenges the notion that science is capable of capturing all that there is to know about people/societies.

Other Critiques of Positivism

Erving Goffman (1922-1982)

• Micro-sociologist, dramaturgical sociology, interactionist sociology.
• For Goffman, social life is made up of interactions that can be read as performances.

• Scripts, actors, audiences etc.

• learn to perform characters through positive and negative reinforcement.
• Society is made up of tiny rules (like Durkheim’s social facts) that govern our exchanges and reinforces norms, values, power structures and so on.

Key text: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959)

Goffman: impression management

• summarize, then, I assume that when an individual appears before others he will have many motives for trying to control the impression they receive of the situation. This report is concerned with some of the common techniques that interactants employ to sustain such impressions and with some of the common contingencies associated with the employment of these techniques. The specific content of any activity presented by the individual participant, or the role it plays in the interdependent activities of an on-going social system, will not be at issue ; I shall be concerned only with the participant’s dramaturgical problems of presenting the activity before others. The issues dealt with by stage-craft and stage-management are sometimes trivial but they are quite general; they seem to occur everywhere in social life, providing a clear-cut dimension for formal sociological analysis.” (Presentation of Self in Everyday Life 1959).

Goffman: To have, to be or to maintain face

“So far I have implicitly been using a double definition of self: the self as an image pieced together from the expressive implications of the full flow of events in an undertaking; and the self as a kind of player in a ritual game who copes honorably or dishonorably, diplomatically or undiplomatically, with the judgmental contingencies of the situation.” (Goffman p31)

“the public social image people want to project, which could be lost, maintained, or enhanced through social interaction” (Scott, S 2009)

Goffman:

Front and Backstage

“The backstage language consists of reciprocal first-naming, cooperative decision-making, profanity, open sexual remarks, elaborate griping, smoking, rough informal dress, ‘sloppy’ sitting and standing posture, use of dialect or sub-standard speech, mumbling and shouting, playful aggressivity and ‘kidding’, inconsiderateness for the other in minor but potentially symbolic acts, minor physical self-involvements such as humming, whistling, chewing, nibbling, belching, and flatulence. The frontstage behaviour and language can be taken as the absence (and in some sense the opposite) of this”

Interpretative Approaches In Sociology:
Symbolic Interactionism

• The term symbolic interactionism is usually attributed to the pragmatic philosopher and psychologist George Herbert Mead (1863-1931).
• But the term ’symbolic interactionism’ was coined by Mead’s student Herbert Blumer (1900-87) who set out its basic principles: social action is the creative act of interpretation and communicated through symbols (Blumer 1969).
• The term was also used by Georg Simmel in whose work it is central.

Mead: Symbolism

Mead was interested in the symbolic meaning associated with objects, words, ideas etc that play a vital role in all forms of interaction.

For example, a word can have a practical meaning, as well as several symbolic meanings that have further implications.

An object, such as clothing, can have a practical as well as symbolic meanings.

The ‘I’:

• Refers to our inner self.
• conscious and self-aware. It experiences emotions and feelings.

The ‘Me’:

• the version the self that is presented to others. It is a representation of an ideal self.
• Individuals create a ‘Me’ through knowledge of the generalized other.

The Generalized Other:

• the individual’s knowledge of a culture, society, community etc.
• is the perception of the preferences, values and ideals of a group.
• This perception can be accurate or inaccurate depending on the knowledge of the individual.

The ‘I’, the ‘me’, and the generalized other

Not according to Mead. It is only through our interaction with others that we can know anything about ourselves.

“The individual experiences himself as such, not directly, but only indirectly, from the particular standpoints of other individual members of the same social group, or from the generalized standpoint of the social group as a whole to which he belongs . . . and he becomes an object to himself only by taking the attitudes of other individuals toward himself.” (Mead 1934/1962:138)

It is language that makes all of this possible. In particular the symbolic implications of communication.

So is this all about acting?

Durkheim on the social self

“I fulfill obligations which are defined in law and custom and which are external to myself and my actions. Even when they conform to my own sentiments and when I feel their reality within me, that reality does not cease to be objective, for it is not I who have prescribed these duties; I have received them through my education” (2014 [1938]: 20)

Hochschild on Emotion and Performing Gendered Roles

• Symbolic interactionist approach
• Hochschild shows how we each have specific rules and roles that shape our interactions through emotion
• Emotional labour, management, regulation.

• Deep and surface acting

• Authenticity, Self, Identity
• Gender roles

Barbalet: Resentment and class structure

• What is the role of resentment in reinforcing class structure?

• “Resentment is a feeling experience by social actors when an external agency denies them opportunities or valued resources that otherwise would be available to them” (1992: 153)
• is experienced individually and incorporated into a sense of self, but it is also an embedded and collective dimension of social structure.

• is an emotion at the macroscopic level. Not reducible to an individual state, it structures our social relationships.
• Different classes have different emotion rules, systems and norms. These rules prevent movement between classes.

• g. Why is it rude to ask a colleague how much they make? How would workplaces be different if employees were told how much everybody else earned?

Critical Theory: Mass Culture, the destruction of reason, Ideology and deception

SOC207 Lecture Five

Dr Jordan Mckenzie

The world wars and the

great depression

•World War one (1914-1918)

•Approximately 16 million deaths (soldiers & civilians)

•France, UK, US, Russia, Germany, Japan (approx. 70 million people involved)

•Great Depression – USA and Europe (1929-1939)

•Global economic collapse beginning in USA and spreading around the world.

•Throughout Europe unemployment doubled or tripled.

•In the US it increased by over 600%

•Effected almost every corner of the economy; agriculture, manufacturing, white collar jobs etc.

•World war two (1939-1945)

•Over 100 million people involved.

•As many as 85 million fatalities (soldiers and civilians)

•Russia, China, US, UK, Germany, Italy, Japan

Post-war America and Europe

•From the end of WWII to early 1970s, North America and Europe experienced an incredible economic boom.

•Technological innovations (many of which came out of the war) resulted in dramatic growth in profits in manufacturing and agriculture.

•Suddenly, unemployment rates dropped dramatically. Living standards grew almost exponentially.

•Arguably the birth of the welfare state as we know it

•The new dominance of consumer culture

•The dramatic growth of the middleclass

•The ‘Space Race’

•For many theorists a new kind of modernity developed in the second half of the 20th century.

So where is the revolution that Marx predicted?

A Very brief history of the Frankfurt school

•Term coined by Horkheimer in early 1930s.

•Adorno became the prominent leader of the Frankfurt School in the 1940s.

•School moved to Geneva in 1933, then NY in 1935 and finally California in order to escape Nazi rule.

•The School returned to Frankfurt in the 1950s and is still operating

What is critical theory?

•If the task of theorists is to improve society, then this can only be done through a critical analysis

•The job is not to affirm the status quo, but to highlight the problems.

•Project in revisionist Marxism

•Critical theory is more of a methodology than a unified theory or perspective

•Critique as an entirely different kind of knowledge.

•Critical of Rationalisation, Critique of Enlightenment

Horkheimer, Instrumental Rationality and Reason

•The modern idea of reason is such that we consider the means to be more important than the ends. We seek to reason How/What more than Why.

•We have precise technical knowledge about how to do things, but lack the ability to understand the purpose or direction of action

•Rationality in modernity is irrational!

•Despite the perceived rationalization of reason, reason itself possess the ability to negotiate and navigate through information in order to avoid being misled.

•Rationalisation is an oppressive process (i.e. Weber’s Iron Cage)

•Reason is the ability to understand ideas without being manipulated by them (i.e. Kant)

•NB: this gets confusing as these terms are not always used consistently in this way.

•Subjective reason is “essentially concerned with means and ends, with the adequacy of procedures for purposes more or less taken for granted and supposedly self-explanatory. It attaches little importance to the question whether the purposes as such are reasonable” (Horkheimer 1947:3).

•Objective reason speaks to the relative value of the ends of action and thus provides a basis for determining what is ethical, right, and just.

Horkheimer cont.

“If by enlightenment and intellectual progress we mean the freeing of man from superstitious belief in evil forces, in demons and fairies, in blind fate – in short, the emancipation from fear – then denunciation of what is currently called reason, is the greatest service reason can render” (1947).

Horkheimer & Adorno:

The Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947)

•Horkheimer and Adorno argued that the Enlightenment is a myth.

•It appears to be real, and has real consequences, but it is fiction.

•Individuals are no more enlightened or rational, they simply worship different gods.

•New gods are celebrities, money, consumerism, fame, and capitalism itself.

•The exploitation that Marx identified is now voluntarily adopted in mass culture.

Adorno: The Culture Industry

•For Adorno, the manipulation of individuals occurs (voluntarily) through mass culture.

•While Nazi propaganda utilised film, music, art and celebrities to popularise fascism, capitalist ideology works in similar ways.

•And we love it!

•Artistic ventures have been commodified to the extent that they have no recognisable value beyond their ideological power and their ability to make money.

•“The customer is not king, as the culture industry would like to have us believe, not its subject but its object.” (1975: 12)

•“The culture industry not so much adapts to the reactions of its customers as it counterfeits them. It drills them in their attitudes by behaving as if it were itself a customer.” (1951: 200)

•“The phrase, the world wants to be deceived, has become truer than had ever been intended. (1975: 16)

•“They force their eyes shut and voice approval, in a kind of self-loathing, for what is meted out to them, knowing fully the purpose for which it is manufactured. Without admitting it they sense that their lives would be completely intolerable as soon as they no longer clung to satisfactions which are none at all.” (1975: 16)

Marcuse: One

Dimensional Man (1964)

•How do you convince the average American that capitalism is bad for them during an economic Golden age?

•The first world has become comfortable and lazy. Depoliticised. What appears as freedom is the opposite.

•Consumerism is a distraction from terror

•“Independence of thought, autonomy, and the right to political opposition are being deprived of their basic critical function in a society which seems increasingly capable of satisfying the needs of the Individuals through the way in which it is organized.” (1964)

•Repressive Desublimation: the substitute of meaningful and dangerous experiences with safe and controlled consumer experiences

Marcuse and the revival of Freud

•Marcuse used Freudian concepts like repression, the unconscious and the pleasure principle alongside Marxist ideas of exploitation

•During times when things seem to be at their best, we must be most cautious.

•“No matter how much such needs may have become the individual’s own, reproduced and fortified by the conditions of his existence; no matter how much he identifies himself with them and finds himself in their satisfaction, they continue to be what they were from the beginning – products of a society whose dominant interest demands repression.” (1964: 5)

Fromm: Fear of Freedom (1941)

•Modern freedom leads to isolation, loneliness and detachment.

•Freedom has been constructed as breaking free from social restrictions, but it is these restrictions that offer us security, predictability and comfort.

•We are desperate for freedom, but we don’t know what it is.

•For Fromm, the willingness to abandon freedom lead to the popularity of fascism/Nazism.

•So what does freedom mean when we are unable to know the extent of our own manipulation? How can a revolution take place if we are detached from ourselves?

Questions?

•What is the role of critique in social theory? Is all good theory inherently critical?

•Can Marxism be saved by reframing the place of revolution?

•Does Adorno reduce people to ‘dopes’ or are we able to engage with culture on our own terms?

The Self and Culture: Identity, reflexivity and intimacy

SOC207 Lecture four

Dr Jordan McKenzie

Lecture Outline

• Beck/Giddens: Reflexive modernisation
• Giddens: The transformation of intimacy

•Jamieson’s critique

• Bauman on Liquid Modernity and the loss of intimacy
• DuBois on Double Consciousness
• Honneth and Fraser on recognition

“Moreover, any inner experiencing, through which I become aware of my own disposition, can never by itself bring me to a consciousness of my own individuality. I experience the latter only through a comparison of myself with other people; at that point alone I become aware of what distinguishes me from other” (1972: 231)

Wilhelm Dilthey

Structure

Agency

“Structure refers, in social analysis, to the structuring properties allowing the ‘binding’ of time–space in social systems, the properties across varying spans of time and space and which lend them ‘systematic form’. To say that structure is a ‘virtual order’ of transformative relations means that social systems, as reproduced social practices, do not have ‘structures’ but rather exhibit ‘structural properties’” (Giddens 1984: 17)

Ulrich Beck Continued

“The ‘reflexivity’ in ‘reflexive modernization’ is often misunderstood. It is not simply a redundant way of emphasizing the self-referential quality that is a constitutive part of modernity. Instead, what ‘reflexive modernization’ refers to is a distinct second phase: the modernization of modern society. When modernization reaches a certain stage it radicalizes itself. It begins to transform, for a second time, not only the key institutions but also the very principles of society. But this time the principles and institutions being transformed are those of modern society.” (Beck 1994: 1)

Giddens: The Transformation

of Intimacy (1992)

• According to Giddens, this new reflexive era has made relationships more democratic.

•Passionate love – Universal

•Romantic love – Cultural

• Relationships no longer based on reproduction, income, or tradition.

• ‘Plastic Sexuality’

• Newfound freedoms of intimate self expression have led to new kinds of relationships.

• New negotiated roles, terms, and agreements.

Lynn Jamieson: Intimacy Transformed? (1999)

• Jamieson is not convinced, despite these changes she writes that “Much of personal life remains structured by inequalities” (1999: 477)
• Giddens is individualising intimacy, which ought to be based on connections.

•Furthermore, to say that there are no longer power dynamics in relationships is absurd.

• “While drawing on particular pieces of feminist work, there is no sustained discussion in The Transformation of Intimacy of the feminist scholarship that has subjected the interrelationships between ‘private’ and ‘public’, ‘personal’ and ‘political’ to intensive theorising and empirical exploration over the last decades” (1999: 481)
• is conclusively documented that the early sexual experiences of most young people involve neither the negotiation of mutual pleasure nor a fusion of sex and emotional intimacy” (1999: 484)

Bauman: Liquid Modernity (2000)

• Bauman is skeptical about all this new freedom.

•It seems to be making us unhappy

• are in a period of ‘Liquid Modernity’ where social structures are ‘melting’ and ‘resetting’, but this can make society a hollow and meaningless place.
• Individuals are seeking to consume relationships, rather than produce them.
• Love is irrational, not calculated or negotiated according to rules.

Simone deBeauvoir: 
The Second Sex [1949]

“Man is defined as a human being and woman as a female – whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male.”

“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”

“Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse with absolute truth.”

W.E.B. Du Bois:

Double Consciousness

“The Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second sight in this American world — a world which yields him no self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness — an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.” (270)

Du Bois: The Veil

The Veil represents the distance between the experiences of whites and blacks in the work of DuBois.

The Souls of Black Folks (1903) is an attempt to allow whites to see behind the veil and into the subjective experiences of being an Other.

Why is this important?

Because for Du Bois, White people have no idea what the subjective experience of being Black involves.

It would never have occurred to them to consider it.

The Souls of White folk (1920)

Building on the notion of double consciousness, Du Bois argues that White people have no sense of ‘Whiteness’. They do not know the extent of their own privilege and therefore, cannot grasp the depth of racism.

Yet, for Du Bois, Blacks are intimately aware of this process of ‘othering’. This leads Du Bois to claim that

• them I am singularly clairvoyant. I see in and through them. I view them from unusual points of vantage. Not as a foreigner do I come, for I am native, not foreign, bone of their thought and flesh of their language.” (285)
• know their thoughts and they know that I know. This knowledge makes them now embarrassed, now furious!” (285)

“They deny my right to live and be and call me misbirth! My word is to them mere bitterness and my soul, pessimism… [but] I see them ever stripped, – ugly, human.” (285)

Axel Honneth: The Struggle for Recognition (1992)

• Honneth argues that the self develops through experiencing recognition from others.

• Heavily influenced by Hegel – the self is intersubjective.
• calls this ‘Mutual self-realization’. This is a social process that we all experience. Not strictly individual.

• Recognition is a cultural phenomenon, but it is not ‘merely cultural’. To deny the self through a denial of recognition is a matter of civil rights.

• Therefore the symbolic denial of rights/self is an injustice on the same level as the loss of legal or political rights.

• Freedom’s Right (2014). A theory of rights based in the analysis of social life, not in universality, natural justice, subjective or objective epistemologies or ontologies.

Honneth: Disrespect (2007)

• Autonomy has become ‘decentered’ in modernity. This is largely the result of a distorted use of reason in social interaction.

• Therefore freedom is highly problematic.

• This leads to a problematic mode of self-understanding, and results in a damaging form of self limitation.
• ‘Decentered Autonomy’, is the notion that the individual can no longer be presumed to be “transparent to or in command of itself” (2007: 182)

Post Structuralism: Foucault, power, surveillance

Dr Jordan McKenzie

SOC207: Lecture 6

What is Structuralism?

• THE SOCIAL SYSTEM – Talcott Parsons (1951)

• With this work, Parsons moves away from social action to view society as a ‘system’ comprising:
• personality system (motivations and needs);
• cultural system (values and beliefs);
• social system (roles and norms).

• Social integration requires bringing these systems into alignment – e.g. individual need (for resources and rewards) must be met, but individuals must also be supplied with the right motivations and values (through socialization) to perform their roles.

Parsons: Functional Prerequisites Of All Societies And Social Systems (AGIP Model)

• Adaptation (use of resources, relation to external environment)
• Goal attainment (directed towards a collective goal)
• Integration (coordination of parts/subsystems)
• Pattern maintenance (which he also called latency) – society’s symbolic order

Foucault as a Poststructuralist

• For Foucault, societies are not logical or rational, they do not abide by rules or consistent phenomena

• Society can be unpredictable
• Lack of cause and effect

• can not assume that there are universal truths about societies or cultures.
• Cultures do not evolve like ecosystems.
• what should we study?

• Discourse, power, genealogies, taboo, oppression.

Foucault’s Method: the Chomsky debate

• Foucault is concerned with the meaning and use of terms to imply answers within social discourse.

• Power is not simply a matter of control over action, but also over ideas. Further, it determines who gets to decide whether a claim is legitimate or not, what words mean and how they can have ‘loaded meanings’.

• Rather than answering ‘What is human nature?’ Foucault asks ‘is there human nature’? And then ‘How has the concept of human nature functioned in our society?’
• See Rabinow (1984) The Foucault Reader and footage of the debate on Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wfNl2L0Gf8

Foucault (1982: 779)

‘Shall we investigate this kind of rationalism which seems to be specific to our modern culture and which originates in Aufkldrung [Enlightenment]? I think that was the approach of some of the members of the Frankfurt School. My purpose, however, is not to start a discussion of their works, although they are most important and valuable. Rather, I would suggest another way of investigating the links between rationalization and power’

Foucault (1982: 780)

“Rather than analyzing power from the point of view of its internal rationality, it consists of analyzing power relations through the antagonism of strategies.

For example, to find out what our society means by sanity, perhaps we should investigate what is happening in the field of insanity.

And what we mean by legality in the field of illegality. And, in order to understand what power relations are about, perhaps we should investigate the forms of resistance and attempts made to dissociate these relations.”

Foucault on Power

• Power is not a thing or an object.

• is something that happens in all forms of interaction

• Therefore, a study of power as a structural property (i.e. Marx) inevitably fails.
• For Foucault, power is an aspect of every relationship

• is embedded in language, sex, education, religion and health.

The ‘Micro-Physics’ Of Power

‘Power must be analysed as something which circulates, or rather as something that functions in the form of a chain. It is never localized here or there, never in anyone’s hands, never appropriated a commodity or piece of wealth. Power is employed and exercised through a net-like organization. And not only do individuals circulate between its threads; they are always in the position of simultaneously undergoing and exercising this power […]: In other words, individuals are the vehicles of power, not its points of application.‘
(Michel Foucault 1980: 98)

Punishment and the Condemned Body:
Pre-Enlightenment

• Discipline and Punish opens with a vivid account of the torture and execution of Robert-François Damiens, who had attempted to kill Louis XV, on 2nd March 1757. Why?
• Foucault wants to trace the ‘disappearance of punishment as a spectacle’ (Foucault 1977: 8); a process in which punishment will ‘tend to become the most hidden part of the penal process.’ (ibid: 9).
• tend to view this as civilizing – cf. Durkheim’s ‘restorative justice’ with its Enlightenment faith in progress. It is just such a faith that Foucault seeks to relativize or subvert.
• not progress, then what? a different modality of power and control: ‘From being an art of unbearable sensation punishment has become an economy of suspended rights.’ (ibid: 11)

Pre-Modern Vs. Modern Punishment

• ‘For a long time, it has been regarded in an overall quantitative phenomena: less cruelty, less pain, more kindness, more respect, more ‘humanity’. In fact, these changes are accompanied by a displacement in the very object of the punitive operation. Is there diminution of intensity? Perhaps. There is certainly a change in objective.’ (ibid: 16)
• ‘Knowledge of the offence, knowledge of the offender, knowledge of the law: these three conditions made it possible to ground a judgement of truth. But now a quite different question of truth is inscribed in the course of the penal judgement. The question is no longer simply: “Has the act been established and is it punishable?” But also: “What is this act of violence or this murder?”’ (ibid: 19)

Modern Discipline: The Docile Body

• ‘The classical age discovered the body as object and target of power. It is easy enough to find signs of the attention then paid to the body – to the body that is manipulated, shaped, trained, which obeys, responds, becomes skilful and increases its forces.’ (Foucault 1977: 136)
• The body and bodily becomes not merely the object of discipline but also of new form of knowledge, of technique (think of the two meaning of the word ‘discipline’).
• The body is a liability, a site of punishment and control

The Panopticon

From Body To Soul:
Training, Self-Discipline And Care Of The Self

• The Panopticon is also a technique of teaching the internalization of discipline.
• was accompanied by the increasingly scientific understanding of the criminal, insane, etc. mind.
• That knowledge was grounded in a mix of subjectification, division and classification (e.g. into normal/ abnormal; sane/ insane; healthy/ unhealthy, etc.).
• The aim was to ‘normalize’ and ‘responsiblize’ the subject (see Nikolas Rose 1999).

Power As A Technology

• Foucault traces the emergence of modern social scientific disciplines – criminology, scientific management, medical hygiene psychology, sociology – back to the period (late 17th century) when knowledge-based techniques of bodily control were emerging.
• The social sciences emerged alongside, and in close association with, the two central, and intimately linked, institutions of modernity: the state and the market (e.g. as Cameralism and Polizeiwissenschaft):

• ‘These [techniques] were always meticulous, often minute, techniques, but they had their importance: because, they define a certain mode of detailed investment in of the body, a ‘new micro-physics’ of power; and because, since the seventeenth century, they had constantly reached out to ever broader domains, as if they tended to cover the entire social body.’ (Foucault 1977: 139)

While these techniques may have been perfected in institutions (prisons, mental hospitals, workhouses) they can be applied elsewhere: schools, factories, etc.

The Subject and Power

1. is not power but the subject which is the general theme of my research. (1982: 778)
2. sum up, the main objective of these struggles is to attack not so much “such or such” an institution of power, or group, or elite, or class but rather a technique, a form of power.

This form of power applies itself to immediate everyday life which categorizes the individual, marks him by his own individuality, attaches him to his own identity, imposes a law of truth on him which he must recognize and which others have to recognize in him.” (781)

“The conclusion would be that the political, ethical, social, philosophical problem of our days is not to try to liberate the individual from the state and from the state’s institutions but to liberate us both from the state and from the type of individualization which is linked to the state. We have to promote new forms of subjectivity through the refusal of this kind of individuality which has been imposed on us for several centuries.” (785)

“In effect, what defines a relationship of power is that it is a mode of action which does not act directly and immediately on others. Instead, it acts upon their actions: an action upon an action, on existing actions or on those which may arise in the present or the future. A relationship of violence acts upon a body or upon things; it forces, it bends, it breaks on the wheel, it destroys, or it closes the door on all possibilities. Its opposite pole can only be passivity, and if it comes up against any resistance, it has no other option but to try to minimize it.” (789)

Theorising Gender

SOC207 Lecture Seven

Dr Jordan McKenzie

A (very) brief history of Feminism: the First WAVE

•The First Wave can be understood through the campaign to permit women to vote.

•Australia 1908, Soviet Union 1917, Britain 1918, France 1944.

•Also about university access for women.

•In a broader sense, the first wave was concerned with citizenship.

Second wave feminism

•This era is typically associated with the 1960s women’s liberation movement and argued for reproductive rights, greater working/pay equality, the no fault divorce, and the prosecution of domestic violence and ‘rape in marriage’.

•The idea of gender as a socially constructed phenomenon is central to this movement.

Third Generation

•Involved radical and separatist movements, as well as more mainstream feminist figures.

• Anti-pornography campaigns.

•Continued pursuit of access to safe abortions, equal pay and political representation.

•Development of and disagreements with Queer theory

•Ongoing debates about sex work and prostitution. Sexuality as empowerment or oppression.

•Engaging with (either for or against) post-modern and post-structuralist theories.

Fourth Generation

•Greater emphasis on the pluralities of gender

•More recently, the debates about the existence of rape culture and ‘slut shaming’ have become central.

•Trans rights are more central in debates about feminism

•Increasingly common for men to identify as feminists

•Yet gender is still highly political

•NB. The existence of 4th wave remains somewhat contested.

Some Key Terms

•Sex: Biological characteristics (hormones, genitalia etc)

•Gender: Social/cultural representations of masculinity and Felinity.

•Both are traditionally understood as a Male/Female binary, though there is considerable evidence that neither Sex or Gender are limited to two options.

•i.e. Fausto-Sterling: The Five Sexes

•The influence of sex on gender is still contested

•There is a broad spectrum of approaches

Biological Essentialism

•An essentialist gender model would suggest that gender is just another word for sex differences.

•People are born with certain traits, they do not learn them.

•Therefore, someone might say that specific characteristics are ‘naturally feminine or masculine’

•Ie. Jordan Peterson: believes that men and women are fundamentally different…

Judith Butler: Gender as Performance

•Gender is performative is to argue that gender is “real only to the extent that it is performed” (Gender Trouble 1990).

•‘it is unclear that there can be an ‘I’ or a “we” who had not been submitted, subjected to gender, where gendering is, among other things, the differentiating relations by which speaking subjects come into being . . . the ‘I’ neither precedes nor follows the process of this gendering, but emerges only within the matrix of gender relations themselves” (Bodies that Matter).

•“Gender is an impersonation . . . becoming gendered involves impersonating an ideal that nobody actually inhabits” (interview with Liz Kotz in Artforum).

Video

“The question that preoccupies me in the light of recent global violence is, who counts as human? Whose lives count as lives? And, finally, what makes for a grievable life? Despite our differences in location and history, my guess is that it is possible to appeal to a “we,” for all of us have some notion of what it is to have lost somebody. Loss has made a tenuous “we” of us all. And if we have lost, then it follows that we have had, that we have desired and loved, that we have struggled to find the conditions for our desire.

This means that each of us is constituted politically in part by virtue of the social vulnerability of our bodies—as a site of desire and physical vulnerability, as a site of a publicity at once assertive and exposed. Loss and vulnerability seem to follow from our being socially constituted bodies, attached to others, at risk of losing those attachments, exposed to others, at risk of violence by virtue of that exposure.” (Butler 2003, 10)

Mary Holmes (2000) writes

“Definitions of what is personal associate it closely with the domestic or ‘private’ sphere and all that supposedly belongs within it. Women, bodies, sex, emotions and intimate relationships have been separated from the political world. Politics is defined as public, objective and rational – all qualities usually associated with masculinity. The public political sphere has traditionally been where men made decisions about what is ‘the common good’ (Benhabib 1987; Pateman 1988). Rejecting traditional definitions, feminists proclaimed that ‘the personal is political’.” (2000: 305-306)

“Crucially, if – as Judith Butler (1993) argues – power is not exercised from a single privileged location, but, rather, is practised and reworked in a diverse range of sites, then forms of power come to be seen as incomplete and potentially riven with gaps, slippages and inconsistencies. While Butler rightly sees a transformative political valence to this, one must be alert to the possibility that seemingly progressive modalities of gender politics will also be marked by points of unevenness, rendering them potentially open to unforeseen inegalitarian consequences and re-articulation within conservative forms of gender discourse. Taken together, these theoretical interventions foreground the unevenness and variability of constructions of gender hierarchy in different contexts.” (Dean 2012: 284)

Luce Irigaray:

Psychoanalytic Gender Theory

•Irigaray is an interdisciplinary thinker who works between philosophy, psychoanalysis, and linguistics.

•She writes to expose the hidden position of women or woman from philosophy, psychoanalytic theory and structural linguistics and uses these discourses as methodologies.

•Irigaray deconstructs the binaries of Western thinking by looking at how masculinity and femininity are present in these meaning making relations.

•Her conclusion is that woman is nature, matter and emotion giving a  subordinate position in relation to masculinity. Women can only have a subject position as a reflection of man.

•Her larger aim in this process is to instantiate an actual sexual difference.

Irigaray: difference and indifference

‘If we continue to speak the same language to each other, we will re-produce the same story. Begin the same stories all over again. Don’t you feel it? Listen: men and women around us all sound the same. Same arguments, same quarrels, same scenes. Same attractions and separations. Same difficulties, the impossibility of reaching each other. Same … same…. Always the same. If we continue to speak this sameness, if we speak to each other as men have spoken for centuries, as they taught us to speak, we will fail each other. Again. … Words will pass through our bodies, above our heads, disappear, make us disappear. Far. Above. Absent from our- selves, we become machines that are spoken, machines that speak. Clean skins envelop us, but they are not our own. We have fled into proper names, we have been violated by them. Not yours, not mine. We don’t have names. We change them as men exchange us, as they use us. It’s frivolous to be so changeable so long as we are a medium of exchange.’

•When Our Lips Speak Together’ Luce Irigaray And Carolyn Burke (Trans)  Signs, vol. 6, no. 1, women: sex and sexuality, part 2 (autumn, 1980), pp. 69-79

Key questions:

•How should gender be understood/applied/incorporated in contemporary social theory?

•Does the acknowledgement of gendered ‘othering’ require us to rethink all social theory?

•Or can we apply what we know now to classical ideas?

•If modernity has a history of dividing people into binaries, can we say that other binaries (race, sexuality, disability etc) are a result of the same theoretical problem?

•Are progressive views about gender inequality necessarily linked to deconstructing gender binaries?

Globalisation or Multiple Modernities: Reflexive Modernization and its alternatives

SOC207 Lecture 9

Dr Jordan McKenzie

What is Globalization?

While there is no single agreed upon definition, the different approaches can be distinguished over the matter of the When, What and Where of Globalization.

Today we will look at two specific approaches:

•Globalization from economics/capitalism (Wallerstein)

•Globalization from changes in culture, communication and the nation state. (Ritzer)

•In the first approach, globalization is a few centuries old, in the second it is a post-WW phenomenon.

But what do they have in common?

•Globalization can be defined as “the rapidly developing and ever-densening network of interconnections and interdependencies that characterize modern life” (Tomlinson 1999:2).

•A redefinition of time and space (what Giddens labels ‘Time-Space Distanciation 1981)

•A redefinition of the role of national borders/governments/economies.

•New forms of identity formation and community

•Macro theory and grand theory, but often contain micro elements

Immanuel Wallerstein (1930-)

The Modern World-System (1974, 1980, 1989)

“as a social system, one that has boundaries, structures, member groups, rules of legitimation, and coherence. Its life is made up of conflicting forces which hold it together by tension, and tear it apart as each group seeks eternally to re-mold it to its advantage. It has the characteristics of an organism, in that it has a life-span over which its characteristics change in some respects and remain stable in others.” (Wallerstein 1979: 229)

Img: http://i.ytimg.com/vi/qkud_IxTaHI/maxresdefault.jpg

Wallerstein

The Core:

•The developed world (United States, the wealthier European countries, Japan etc)

•These countries have highly levels of education and comparatively low levels of manufacturing.

•Control the majority of wealth

The Periphery:

•The developing world (Africa, parts of Asia)

•These nations produce the majority of natural resources, but the wealth is exported to foreign ownership.

•Poor working conditions, low levels of education.

The Semi-Periphery:

•The in-between countries (the less wealthy parts of Europe, South America)

George Ritzer (1940-)

The McDonaldization of Society (1993)

Globalization is not simply about capitalism and economics, but also Americanisation.

Glocalization: the merging of local and global culture.

Something (glocalizing) Vs Nothing (grobalizing)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/archive/8/80/20061027130331!Ritzer_001.jpg

Something and Nothing

Nothing: “a social form that is generally centrally conceived, controlled, and comparatively devoid of distinctive content”

•Homogenous

•Void of history, stable meaning etc

•Typically Americanised

Something: social forms that are “generally indigenously conceived, controlled, and comparatively rich in distinctive substantive content”

•Heterogeneous

•Values based on local, unique culture/tradition.

•New ways to value old things

Consumer Culture is the gradual substitution of something for nothing

Some key questions

Aside from Where, What and When:

•Does globalisation affect all places equally?

•Is globalization the same as westernization?

•Who benefits from globalization? Who are the winners and losers?

•Does globalization create homogeneity or heterogeneity?

For decades the debate focused on whether globalization was happening at all. This debate seems to be over, and the sceptics lost.

Civilization or Civilizations?

Modernity or Modernities?

“Civilizations refer to the cultural modes of interpretation that first arrive with the onset of writing and which interact with particular processes of state formation to produce distinct complexes that are more than national patterns but are also never contained within geopolitical units.” (Delanty 2010: 48).

“There is a further and crucial element to this. Civilizations develop not in isolation from each other but in interaction with others.” (Delanty 2010: 49)

Further reading, See: ‘The Many Americas’ (2010) Jeremy Smith & Japanese Civilization (1996) Eisenstadt

The Problem?

Arnason:

“a distinctive understanding of civilization in the singular can be reconstructed from classical sources: it centres on growing control over nature, the development of a broad spectrum of human abilities and ways of relating to the world, and the differentiation of socio-cultural frameworks for corresponding activities” (2006: 230)

Delanty:

“What we term globalization today is nothing more than a greatly accelerated scale and intensity of global interconnectivity that commenced with the emergence of the major civilizations. It may be the case, and it is Eisenstadt’s thesis, that this is leading to a new kind of civilization, which in his view is disproportionally influenced by western civilization and is global in that it is not rooted in any one civilization.” (2010: 50)

How can we think of the distinction between civilization in the singular vs the plural? What are the benefits?

Weber’s research can be seen as an early attempt at civilisational analysis.

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905)

To this day, capitalism has not developed the same way in all places.

Arnason: Civilisational analysis as a critique of evolutionary theories of modernity.

“The plurality of civilizational patterns, with their respective dynamics of internal differentiation and historical transformations, casts doubt on evolutionary conceptions of social change.” (2006: 232)

“The civilizational approach, as defined by Eisenstadt, takes a broader view of culture and its role in social life, but it is also designed to avoid cultural determinism: the interpretive dimension is an opening to indeterminacy. Eisenstadt goes on to argue that although this civilizational dimension is an integral aspect of human societies in general, it has throughout much of human history been ‘embedded in the concrete institutional organizations of collectivities without being the object of specific institutional formations or bearers thereof’ (ibid.: 35).” (2006: 232)

Johann Arnason

“But the cases that exemplify this privileged model also illustrates the difficulties faced by research programmes in this field: decisive progress could only be made through comparative inquiry on a scale that calls for extensive cooperation of historians, sociologists and area specialists. In other words, civilizational analysis needs interdisciplinary work of a hitherto unprecedented kind.” (233)

Antinomies: divergent and contradictory characteristics of modernity

Arnason, in reference to the antinomies as the cultural problematic of modernity,

“At its most radical, their mutual exclusion entails the negation or neutralization of the unrestrained reflexivity with which Eisenstadt equates the modern breakthrough: only thus can they achieve the closure needed to establish separate projects with ideological and institutional implications. Their antagonistic uses of shared cultural sources mark them as modern alternatives. But by the same token, the articulation and the interplay of antinomies define modernity as a new kind of civilizational formation.” (2006: 239)

Eisenstadt: Modernity as a New Civilisation

•Does late/post modernity mean the end of a shared concept of civilisation in the West?

•Can we get around the problems of labelling an era after modernity (such as ‘post’) by thinking of modernity as the formation of a new civilisation?

•What does this mean for the concept of civilization?

“the modern transformation can plausibly be described as a restructuring of the relationship between civilization in the singular and civilizations in the plural, but in such a way that the new openings to diversity have a more direct bearing on the common ground and are therefore more mutually contested than at comparable junctures in the past. This would seem to leave us with two possible interpretations. Modernity might represent a civilizational transition, with the structure of a new balance between unity and plurality still open to theoretical and practical dispute. But it could also – and this hypothesis seems more challenging – be seen as a civilizational paradox, in the sense that its cultural premises break through civilizational boundaries in a previously unknown fashion, yet remain too indeterminate and adaptable to conflicting interpretations for the idea of one distinctive civilization to be applicable. Modernity would thus be both more and less than a civilization.” (Arnason 2006: 240)

References

•Arnason, J. (2006) ‘Civilizational Analysis, Social Theory and Comparative History’ in Delanty, G. Handbook of Contemporary European Social Theory, Routledge, Oxon.

•Delanty, G. (2010) ‘Thesis Eleven: Civilizational Analysis and Critical Theory’ Thesis Eleven, 100:1 pp. 46-52.

•Eisenstadt, S. (2000) ‘The Civilizational Dimension of Sociological Analysis’ Thesis Eleven, 62:1 pp.1-21.

•Knöbl, W. (2011) ‘Contingency and Modernity in the thought of J.P. Arnason’ in European Journal of Social Theory, 14(1) pp.9-22.

•Weber, M (1905) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

What is Modernisation? Part 2: Capitalism, Labour, Reification and the end of tradition

Dr Jordan McKenzie

SOC207: lecture two

•The Enlightenment:

•1700s-1800s

•Philosophical, intellectual and scientific revolution to overthrow religion and tradition as the source of truth and knowledge.

•Darwin and the Origin of Species

•Secularization of government and law making

•Liberty, Fraternity and Equality!

The Industrial Revolution:

•Mid 1800s

•Major social shift from small farming communities to factory work in big cities

•Arguably the birth of the metropolis (money, government, bureaucracy, transport etc.)

•Restructuring of Public and Private Spheres.

•Shifts in divisions of labour

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htuj-fmfKcU

Capitalism and Modernity

•Capitalism is a process that demands change. Capitalism requires constant growth, development and renewal.

•It relies on the kinds of bureaucracy and rationality defined last week.

•It requires a state, a currency, and a legal system. But it can also be hostile toward these systems.

•For Marx and Engels, this inevitably results in exploitation.

•“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” Marx & Engels, The Manifesto of the Communist Party 1848

Capitalism: A Definition

•A system of production and exchange operating on a continual basis in which goods (commodities) are produced in order to be sold on a market with the aim of maximizing profit. Capitalism is founded on the private ownership of the “means of production” and work is organized via the labour contract in which wages are exchanged for work.

Capitalism: As Revolution and as Rationalization

•Capitalism is also revolutionary force against tradition which destroys the old (feudal) order of society.

•Capitalism is a continually revolutionary force which never rests and acknowledges no limits, whether geographical or normative, to its activities – what Josef Schumpeter referred to as “creative destruction” (1942).

•Capitalism is a force for secularization and for what Max Weber called the disenchantment (Entzauberung) of the world (our “sober senses”).

Capitalism, Efficiency and Specialisation

•“I have seen a small manufactory of this kind where ten men only were employed, and where some of them consequently performed two or three distinct operations. But though they were very poor, and therefore but indifferently accommodated with the necessary machinery, they could, when they exerted themselves, make among them about twelve pounds of pins in a day. There are in a pound upwards of four thousand pins of a middling size. Those ten persons, therefore, could make among them upwards of forty-eight thousand pins in a day. Each person, therefore, making a tenth part of forty-eight thousand pins, might be considered as making four thousand eight hundred pins in a day.” Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776).

http://cdn3.vox-cdn.com/entry_photo_images/8928325/motorolatexas-14_large_verge_super_wide.jpg

Durkheim: The Division Of Labour in Society (1893)

•For Durkheim, the division or specialisation of labour is not inherently bad. It is a part of modernisation.

•But we have shifted from a Mechanic to an Organic society.

•For Durkheim, modern life increasingly involves a forced division of labour where people are have no choice over the nature of their skill set.

Mechanic:

Small communities, people have a great deal in common (language, religion, education etc.), people possess a wide range of skills, and while community bonds are strong, people are not dependent upon one another for their basic needs.

Organic:

Large cities, people are highly dependent upon one another, but are individualistic, have specialised skills, little in common with one another (aside form having to obey the same laws & rules)

Durkheim: On Suicide (1897)

•Arguably the first ever empirical sociological study

•Do suicide rates vary according to religion/nationality?

•Yes. Therefore there are social (not just individual) factors.

Marx: Exploitation of the Worker

•“The worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his production increases in power and size. The worker becomes an ever cheaper commodity the more commodities he creates. The devaluation of the world of men is in direct proportion to the increasing value of the world of things. Labor produces not only commodities; it produces itself and the worker as a commodity – and this at the same rate at which it produces commodities in general.” [1844]

Four Kinds Of Alienation: Marx

•From Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts (1844): Alienation of of the worker from

•The product of labour

•The act of production within the labour process

•Man’s species being

•Estrangement of man from man

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935): Women and Economics (1898)

“The labor of women in the house, certainly, enables men to produce more than they otherwise could; and in this way women are economic factors in society. But so are horses.” (1898/1998:7)

“The horse, in his free natural condition, is economically independent. He gets his living by his own exertions irrespective of any other creature. The horse, in his present condition of slavery, is economically dependent. He gets his living at the hands of his master; and his exertions, though strenuous, bear no direct relation to his living. . . . The horse works, it is true; but what he gets to eat depends on the power and will of his master. His living comes through another. He is economically dependent.”

The Corset and False Consciousness

“Put a corset, even a loose one, on a vigorous man or woman who never wore one, and there is intense discomfort, and a vivid consciousness thereof. The healthy muscles of the trunk resent the pressure, the action of the whole body is checked in the middle, the stomach is choked, the process of digestion is interfered with; and the victim says, “how can you bear such a thing?” (1898: 216)

“But the person habitually wearing a corset does not feel these evils. They exist, assuredly, the facts are there, the body is not deceived; but the nerves have become accustomed to these disagreeable sensations, and no longer respond to them. The person “does not feel it.” In fact, the wearer becomes so used to the sensations that when they are removed,— with the corset,—there is a distinct sense of loss and discomfort.” (ibid.)

Capitalism And Rationalization
The ‘Old’ And The ‘New’ Economy

•The ‘old economic order’ asked “How can I give, on this piece of land, work and sustenance to the greatest possible number of men?”

•The new capitalist economy asks: “From this given piece of land how can I produce as many crops as possible for the market with as few men as possible?” (Max Weber 1948 [1906]: 367).

•The rent/profit distinction. With the latter the maximization of profit becomes and end in itself (Weber); from ‘use’ to ‘exchange’ value (Marx).

Weber: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905)

•For Weber (in contrast to Marx), rather than make everything conform uniformly to its inner logic, capitalism must take different forms, and thus has different effects, in distinct contexts.

•In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber asks ‘Why were the Protestants ‘better’ at capitalism’?

•Individualism

• Less guilt regarding wealth inequality

•The importance of following a personal ‘calling’

•BUT, wealth should not lead to idleness, luxury or greed. Rather welath ought to be gathered for its own sake as proof of hard work and success.

Due Date June 1

Here you will find all the lecture notes:

PERESTROIKA, GLASNOST, AND GORBACHEV

What I want you to know: Mikhail Gorbachev is remembered in Soviet history as the man that nailed the first nail in the coffin of Soviet Socialism. His ideas for reform of the Soviet Union’s economy and society were radical in the mid-’80s. He felt that he could somehow improve the Soviet Union and revive its ailing economy. He had no idea that what he started would end the Soviet Union instead of saving it.

I. Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev

Born March 2, 1931, in Privolnye in Southern Russia

Became a Party Boss in the Stavropol krai and by 1985 had become General Secretary of the CPSU

1986, influenced by Yuri Andropov’s attempts at reform, Gorbachev began his period of political openness (Glasnost’) and economic “Perestroika” (restructuring) intended to modernize the USSR and “democratization” the Soviet Government

1990: Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his reform efforts.

1991: Removed from office in the August Coup and replaced by Boris Yeltsin.

Today, Gorbachev gives many speeches worldwide and is very busy with humanitarian groups. He founded the Green Cross an international organization that is concerned about preserving the Earth’s environment. He still lives in Moscow.

II. GLASNOST’

1986 Gorbachev un-cuffed the press and no longer censored & punished journalists for openly criticizing the government, economy, and political officials.

Dissidents were released from prison. Andrei Sakharov, a prominent Physicist who was arrested on the streets of Moscow and deported to Gorky for protesting the Soviet’s involvement in Afghanistan, was released in 1986.

Banned literature, art, and music were legalized again. Solzhenitsen’s “A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”, Akhamatova, Pasternak. Now the Soviets could again enjoy the fruits of their famous artists.

Peaceful protests were allowed in the streets. (Tatars in Red Square).

Religion became tolerated again and believers were no longer persecuted.

History, crimes, and mistakes of the Government were revealed. (Stalin, nuclear testing, accidents) So much was being revealed that in 1988, the school history exams were canceled because the Soviet people were only then learning the “real” history.

Chernobyl accident became a watershed. Four days went by before the Soviets admitted to their neighbors that there had been an accident. After that, the Soviets came clean and kept the rest of the world informed about it.

The facts were coming out and the Soviets were demanding more and more. The press began openly printing, with names, negative information re: Govt. etc.

III. PERESTROIKA= “RESTRUCTURING” Gorbachev wanted to revive the sagging Soviet rate of industrial and agricultural output with a two-pronged approach:

1. Psychological: needed to improve worker discipline.

Number one problem: Alcoholism Began a major crackdown on alcohol. The sale of alcohol was banned before 2. The number of outlets sharply curtailed.

Personally visited towns/factories urging people to work harder, warning that if they did not do better their country would suffer. Gorbachev appeared in remote areas that no Soviet leader or Tsar had ever visited.

2. Economic Reform: Goal diminished role of administrative decision making.

a. Sharply curtailed role of GOSPLAN

b. Transferred economic decision making to the enterprise

-had to self-finance & make a profit a failure=bankruptcy

-could choose what they would produce

-could independently import/export without the Ministry of Foreign Trade.

-For greater loyalty in the workplace, workers could now elect managers and foremen by secret ballot.

-Small private business was allowed again.

-Joint ventures with the right to have foreign ownership (49% max.). President and CEO had to be Soviet citizens.

Results:

Cooperatives, kiosks, and open markets boomed, and services and foreign consumer goods appeared.

Ex: JV’s McDonalds & Pizza Hut

Problems:

Stigma on the financially successful

If industries sell a product at “market price”, who could afford it?

Pensioners

Housing

IV. DEMOKRATIZATION

*The immediate cause for the fall of the Soviet Union.

A. 1989: Congress of Peoples’ Deputies (a new representative organ) was created and filled by competitive elections. 2/3 via local elections in territorial constituencies. 1/3 Reps of “public organizations”. Allowed representatives from the CPSU but also high-caliber deputies from creative & scientific unions. Example: Academy of Sciences (Andrei Sakharov)

1. Inner body-smaller “Supreme Soviet” met constantly.

*Surprise! The real debate took place and political leaders could be called to account for actions. BIG!!!!

*Beginnings of new political coalitions and parties. Although, 87.8% of first deputies were members of the CPSU.

B. 1990-Each republic was allowed to elect and set up its own parliaments.

C. Gorbachev became the first elected president in 1990. Elected by Congress of People’s deputies. The next election was to be nationwide and open.

D. Boris N. Yeltsin became the first directly elected President of Russia in June 1991

*Ended badly for Gorbachev. While on holiday in Crimea, the hardline Soviet leaders barricaded themselves in the White House and attempted to take over the Soviet Union again and turn back all reforms in August 1991. Yeltsin eventually overthrew them, and Gorbachev resigned.

YELTSIN AND THE COUP

THE PLAYERS IN THE COUP

I. THE DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY:

Mikhail Gorbachev: President of USSR/General Secretary of CPS Under house arrest in Foros.

Boris Yeltsin: President of the Russian Federation/Leader of the Defenders of Democracy. In Moscow

The President’s Men:

Alexander Rutskoi: V.P. Russia

Konstantin Kobets: Defense Minister of Russia

Alexander Korzhakov: Yeltsin’s chief bodyguard

Sergei Kovalyov: Deputy

Boris Nemtsov: Deputy

Sergei Yevdikimov: Commander of tanks in Tamansky

100,000+ Moscow patriots

II. THE PLOTTERS/MEMBERS OF THE STATE COMMITTEE FOR THE EMERGENCY:

Gennadi Kryuchkov: KGB Chairman/Leader

Dmitri Yazov: Defense Minister USSR

Oleg Shenin: Communist Party Secretary

Oleg Baklanov: Politburo Member; defense industry chief

Valentin Pavlov: Prime Minister

Victor Boldin: Gorbachev’s Chief of Staff

Gennadi Yanaev: Soviet V.P.

Boris Pugo: Interior Minstry

Anatoli Lukyanov: Chairman of Supreme Soviet; Gorbachev’s best friend.

BORIS YELTSIN CHRONOLOGY

December 1985 Yeltsin was elected the first secretary of the Moscow city party committee.

February 1986 Yeltsin elected a candidate member of the politburo.

October 1987 Yeltsin criticizes perestroika and Gorbachev’s rule at a central committee plenum and falls from favor.

November 1987 Yeltsin was severely censured and removed as the first secretary of Moscow.

February 1988 Yeltsin was removed from the politburo and appointed first deputy chairman of State Construction Trust. Member of Central Committee of the Party

March 1989 Yeltsin was elected by Moscow to the USSR Congress of People’s Deputies, the Soviet legislature.

March 1990 Yeltsin was elected by Sverdlovsk as deputy to the Russian Congress of People’s Deputies, the national legislature of the Republic of Russia.

May 1990 Yeltsin was elected chairman (speaker) of the Russian Supreme Soviet (standing parliament).

June 1990 Russian Congress adopts a Declaration on the Sovereignty of Russia.

July 1990 Yeltsin quits the Communist party at its 28th Congress.

August 1990 500-Day Program for economic reform is drafted but later rejected by Gorbachev.

January 1991 Soviet troops seize the Vilnius television station, killing fourteen. Yeltsin flies to Tallinn and signs a Treaty of cooperation with Baltic republics.

February 1991 Yeltsin calls on television for Gorbachev’s resignation.

March 1991 Popular referendum shows majority support for the preservation of a renewed Soviet Union but also for the popular election of a Russian president.

April 1991 Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and heads of eight other Union republics sign the Novo-Ogaryova Agrova, which initiates negotiations to replace the Soviet Union with a loose confederation.

June 1991 Yeltsin was elected president (and Alexander Rutskoi VP) of Russia in a landslide.

August 1991 Reactionary security ministers and their colleagues attempt to depose Gorbachev and take power. Yeltsin leads the resistance to the coup from the Russian White House.

October 1991 Yeltsin becomes prime minister of the new Russian government and delegated economic reform. Gennady Burbulis and Yegor Gaidar. Supreme Soviet grants Yeltsin extraordinary powers of Rule by decree.

November 1991 Yeltsin issues a decree banning the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

December 1991 Yeltsin and the leaders of Belarus and Ukraine sign the Beloverzshy Agreement, effectively dissolving the Soviet Union and creating the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in its place.

December 1991 Gorbachev resigns and hands over the “nuclear button” and the general secretary’s secret archives to Yeltsin. At the Kremlin, the Soviet flag is replaced by the Russian flag.

March 1993 Yeltsin drafted a decree on the emergency rule, but the constitutional court declares it unconstitutional.

March 1993 A parliamentary motion to impeach Yeltsin narrowly fails to receive the necessary majority.

April 1993 Yeltsin receives a clear vote of confidence for himself and his reform policies in a national referendum.

September 1993 Yeltsin decrees the dissolution of the Russian parliament, but rebel deputies led by Rutskoi and Speaker Khasbulatov refuse to leave the White House.

October 1993 Yeltsin orders security ministries to suppress the rebellion of the parliament and its supporters. The official death toll after the storming of the White House is more than a hundred.

December 1993 Elections are held for the new parliament, called the Federal Assembly, consisting of the State Duma and Council of Federation, Gaidar’s party, Russia’s Choice, does poorly, and extremist Vladimir Zhirinovsky gains a quarter of the vote. A new Russian Constitution is approved.

BORIS YELTSIN 1991-1999

What I want you to know: A man with a strong personality but no experience with democracy is good to lead a revolution but dangerous as a builder of democratic institutions.

I. Post-Coup

A. Vacuum at the Political Center

1. KGB: 5 Generals-including Kryuchkov in prison, 29 to-ranking officers fired, and 13 officially admonished.

2. Military: Defense Minister Dimitry Yazov & top General Valantin Varreninikov=prison. 8 deputy Defense Ministers, 7 Commanders of Military Districts of the Army and Navy are sacked.

3. CPSU: Deeply compromised by supporting the coup. The majority of Secretariat, Central Committee, 2/3 of regional party organizations, and 70% of local Soviets supported the State Committee of the State of Emergency.

*Since the leadership of the S.U. had been decapitated. The former Soviet Republics turned to their own governments for leadership and the S.U. broke apart within 4 months.

-All Republics declared independence.

-All Government bodies of SU suspended

-Former power of SU ended up in the Russian Republic.

B. Gorbachev & Yeltsin: The Final Act

1. Gorbachev finally accepted defeat on Dec 25, 1991.

2. Y & G met 8 times in the meanwhile.

a. Yeltsin insisted that G not make any decisions without his consent.

*G just could not change his ways. He did not understand that everything was different now.

3. A transitional Government was created giving the powers of the USSR Congress of People’s Deputies to a Council of Heads of State. A body made up of the President of the USSR and the leaders of the Union Republics.

4. Yeltsin recognized that the Union of Sovereign States would never come together as planned and began working on an alternative plan. The Beloveshky Agreement of December 1991 created the CIS and effectively removed Gorbachev from power.

5. Recognizing defeat, G submitted his compensation package that included a healthy pension indexed to inflation, a presidential apartment, dacha, car and driver, and a foundation (A large, fully equipped building) in the center of Moscow. Yeltsin met all his demands.

*Dec 24, 1991, Gorbachev passed the “Nuclear Button” to Yeltsin, and it was over: the Soviet Union was dead.

II. The First Russian Republic

. A. Bad Choices from the Beginning

1. Yeltsin wanted to have continuity in his new government.

*He believed that though new, young, bold people were needed, he felt it was possible to use some of the work-experienced executives, organizers, and leaders to stay in the Gov’t.

2. His focus was on improving the economy quickly; not restructuring the government.

3. He decided to keep the parliamentary system that Gorbachev had chosen. Reelections for the legislature would wait. (Fatal mistake!)

4. He also kept the state structure of the Soviet Union in place. Said in his memoirs: “It would have been disastrous to destroy the Government administration of such a large state.”

B. Dyarchy or Dual-Power

1. Gorbachev had chosen not to revise the Soviet Constitution of 1978 and simply grafted the strong executive presidency onto the two-tiered parliamentary system.

a. This led to a constant and ongoing power struggle between the executive and legislative branches.

*Big Problem: Parliament enjoyed extensive powers under the existing Constitution and was dominated by conservative groups, was able to block the executive’s ideas about constitutional reform, and undermined the government’s economic reform program.

2. Yeltsin and the Russian Federation adapted this same system and it led to civil war by 1993.

C. Congress out of Control

1. By 1993, the Congress of People’s Deputies, using its power to amend the Constitution, had introduced 320 changes to the country’s Basic Law aimed at strengthening the Congress and weakening the Presidency.

2. Inexperienced with Democracy, the need to form coalitions, cooperate with other gov’t branches, and the need to be responsible to the people they represent, Yeltsin and Parliament (under the leadership of Ruslan Khasbulatov) began a bitter battle to the end.

3. Nov/Dec 1991: Yeltsin tried to ban the Communist party, but it was overturned by the Constitutional Court. Because of this, a deputy called on the Constitutional Court to remove Yeltsin for numerous infringements on the Constitution.

a. Motion failed but the idea kept coming up.

4. To try to appease Congress, Yeltsin replaced Egor Gaidar (a strong economic reformer and acting Prime Minister) with a centrist candidate, Victor Chernomyrdin.

5. March ’93-Congress stripped Yeltsin of his right of emergency powers that allowed him to issue decrees having equal force with laws adopted by Parliament (given in Nov 1991).

6. April ’93: Yeltsin (fed-up with Congress) decided to appeal to the Russian public for a vote of confidence.

*58% expressed confidence in Y

*53% expressed confidence in the gov’t social-economic policies.

*2/3 in favor of holding early elections for a new Parliament.

D. October Civil War 1993

1. On September 21st, Yeltsin decided that the Parliament needed to be dissolved, so he could start fresh. New elections Dec 12

2. Predictably, the Constitutional Court announced Yeltsin’s decree unconstitutional and offered grounds for removal

3. Sept 22, Supreme Soviet made V.P. Rutskoi acting President of Russia.

a. Rutskoi names acting defense minister and acting security minister.

4. Oct 3-Rutskoi assembled at the White House a force consisting of:

-3 battalions of Moscow reservists

-100 Spetsnaz soldiers (special forces)

-former police operatives

-volunteer detachment of Cossaks

-representatives of the ultra-left communist youth group.

-a well-trained neo-Nazi unit of storm-troopers.

*Mass rallies were organized by 3 pm 5-10,000 people swarmed the White House.

5. Oct 4-Yeltsin forces assaulted the White House and crushed the rebellion.

-145 people killed

-733 wounded

E. Results

1. Elections are held for the new Parliament in December.

2. Yeltsin becomes an increasingly paranoid, harsher, and more brutal leader. He begins to distance himself from the “Democrats”.

*Surrounds himself with trusted confidants “The Family”

*Lives under special “mini-KGB” protection.

III. The Second Russian Republic

A. Parliamentary Elections Dec ‘93

1. Voters approved a new draft Constitution that embodied a strong presidency.

2. New Duma disappointing for Yeltsin. Dominated by leftists=anti-reformers.

B. Invasion of Chechnya

1. Dec 1994-Russia invaded Chechnya to intimidate former Soviet Republics in the Caspian region and to warn off the west and its oil companies from working there.

*Prompted by Sept ’94 agreement. Azerbaijan signed 3 landmark offshore oil deals worth $8 billion with western oil companies.

2. At first, the invasion was popular with elite Russians who were becoming increasingly imperialist about the “near abroad”. Soon, the war and the human loss for Russians made it increasingly unpopular. It still is a big problem for Putin today.

C. Corruption

1. Tycoons like Boris Berezovskii and other Oligarchs began manipulating Yeltsin via his daughter, Tatiana Diachenko.

=Wealthy became wealthier, and all become above the law.

2. Rule of law could not or would not be established under Yeltsin.

*Rule of Law: Based on the praise of rules. What we in the West live by. Rules, rather than being seen as prisons, or impediments to developing rich and supportive communities, are seen as the conditions for freedom and diversity because they limit, with the force of law, those that seek to limit others.

3. Yeltsin gets involved in various corrupt practices.

a. Eliminate the economic enemy of “Family Members”:

*Vladimir Gusinskii, media mogul and banking magnate is picked for a “hit” by Yeltsin’s “Presidential Security Service”. Dec. 2, 1994, narrowly escaping death, Gusinskii flees abroad for safety.

b. Restoration of Chechnya

*Secret Decree No 86: Earmarked $6.6 billion from the federal budget to reconstruct Chechnya. It never made it there. According to the Russian press, it ended up lining the pockets of Yeltsin and his friends.

4. June ’96: Presidential Elections. Yeltsin is elected for a second term by narrowly defeating Communist Party leader Gennadi Zhuganov.

D. Soft State

1. Absence of rule of law and legal culture.

Thomas Remington, a Political Scientist described Yeltsin’s Russia as:

“Yeltsin’s Russia today displays all the pathologies of a soft state: the government cannot ensure the policy is carried out, or even guarantee the timely payment of wages to employees; announcements about new state agencies and progress are made and soon forgotten, and a crisis in law enforcement is manifested by the enormous rise in organized crime, deep government corruption, and lax fiscal control.”

2. The Russian citizens saw Yeltsin’s soft state as failing to provide basic protection according to a poll conducted in early 1999.

3. In a nationwide poll in 1999. Answer to the question: Is the country heading in the right direction?

*6% said yes

*71% said the wrong direction

*13% said not moving at all

IV. What went Right?

A. Glasnost continued

B. Democratic Elections: state and local dumas, regional Governors=healthy decentralization of control

C. Rise in strong, pro-democracy reform parties. Ex: Yabloko, United Russia

*Against this background, Vladimir Putin became Yeltsin’s candidate for June 2000 elections. Yeltsin resigned early (Dec 1999) and Putin won the election in March 2000.

Some information about political parties in the early Russian Regime appears below.

Excerpt from: The Russian Way; Zita Dabars and Lillia Vokhmina, 2nd Edition. Pp 60-64.

POLITICS & PARTIES

It was in 1989 that the first contested elections in the Soviet Union in over 70 years took place. Gorbachev decided that the seats for the Congress of People’s Deputies of the Soviet Union should have competing candidates. For the first time, ordinary citizens became politically involved. In the process, many challenged the Communist Party officials. The physicist Andrei Sakharov was one of the deputies elected; he played a significant role when the Congress convened in May 1989. A political transformation took place as factions mushroomed.

At the Twenty-Eighth Communist Party Congress in July 1990, Gorbachev tried to maneuver between the right and left factions and satisfied neither. Toward the end of the Congress, Boris Yeltsin publicly announced his resignation from the Communist Party. This action was repeated the following day by St. Peterburg’s Mayor Anatoly Sobchak and Moscow’s Mayor Gavriil Popov. Other important leaders soon followed suit.

The failed coup of August 1991 against Gorbachev by the hardliners signaled the end of the Communist Party as it had existed for over 75 years. The party split up into opposition factions which became separate parties. In December 1991 the Soviet Union was officially dissolved. Power passed to Boris Yeltsin. In June 1991, he was the first person to run in nationwide elections for President of Russia. He won with 60% of the popular vote. The dramatic events of September-October 1993, when Yeltsin’s forces overwhelmed his opponents at the Communist-dominated Parliament, led to a proliferation of political parties.

In 1994 there were over 60 political parties registered with the Ministry of Justice in Russia; in 199 they numbered over 100. Parties, which some in the West would not call parties but voter blocs or political movements, are constantly changing; they mature, merge, split, or dissolve. Having no previous experience with a multiparty system, Russia is just learning how to deal with them. At this point, the parties are small and weak, and their allegiance is centered on a political leader more than a philosophy.

The parties can be divided into three groups and various subgroups. The three main groups may be called “democrats”, “communists”, and “nationalists”. The latter groups have similar philosophies and are joined in a Union of Patriotic Strength. The communist-oriented parties want to see Russia become a superpower with a state-run, planned economy, following Marxist principles. Some desire the restoration of the Soviet Union, at least of its Slavic part. Some denounce the Bolshevik heritage. They invoke “socialism with a human face” and an economy that is largely state-dominated but with some small allowance for private enterprise.

Nationalist parties share a common view of Russia as a superpower, with Russians as the dominant ethnic group. They believe that Russia has its own unique destiny apart from the Western world. Their economic platforms, however, differ. Some advocate political pluralism and a mixed market economy, while others want to bring back the monarchy, orthodoxy, and a state-run economy. Nationalist parties are often backed by paramilitary structures led by former “black berets” and Afghan war veterans. In the parliamentary elections of December 1993, the misnamed Liberal Democratic Party, with Vladimir Zhirinovsky at its head, received 23 percent of the vote. Zhirinovsky has proclaimed his desire to see Russia become a colonial power and to regain the former territories of the Russian tsarist empire, including Poland, Finland and the three Baltic States, and even Alaska. At the end of the 1990s, Zhirinovsky’s popularity fell to one-fourth of its former level. In the 2000 elections, his party received only with difficulty the 5 percent vote essential for a party’s deputies to enter the Duma.

There are about 30 democratically oriented parties. The most important of them, as represented in the Duma, are “Yabloko”, Fatherland-All Russia, and the Union of Right-Wing Forces. These parties are pro-Western in favor of a free-market economy and represent young, progressively minded professionals, small business owners, and entrepreneurs.

The resurgence of the communist and nationalist parties and the votes that they received in the December 1993 parliamentary elections came as a shocking surprise to many who had expected the reformist parties to win. This resurgence may have been a response to economic difficulties: as inflation skyrocketed, many Russians lost faith in the reformers who were pushing for a free-market economy. National pride was also a factor, as the country lost its international clout and superpower status. The military became dissatisfied; it no longer enjoyed its preeminent position and was forced to absorb units from Eastern Europe and the former republics into already crowded quarters. The rural population of Russia’s vast countryside, traditionally conservative, saw no reason to switch and vote for the new reformist groups.

For the December 1999 parliamentary elections, the Kremlin created in the fall of 1999 a pro-government party referred to as the Unity Party. It became the party to support the candidacy of Vladimir Putin for president; every prime minister before him had a similar power base. This party was formed not for ideological reasons, but to create a pro-government, pro-presidential bloc in the Duma. By supporting President Putin, the party would benefit.

One of the most important steps taken by this group was the reorganization of the upper house of parliament, the Federation Council. Putin wanted to deprive regional governors of their seas, saying they should attend to their duties in their regions. In the Yeltsin era, these governors ran their regions as personal fiefdoms and often flouted federal laws. In place federal of the democratically elected governors, the country is divided into seven federal districts, which are controlled by district governors appointed by the president. They are less powerful than the elected regional governors were, and they are responsible to the president. The central government has been strengthened, and the seats in the Federation Council are now filled by members elected by regional legislatures.

Russians hope that the new president can improve conditions in Russia, but many are wary of him, assigning him the “dark” or “black” horse. The fact that he was a KGB operative in Dresden in then-Communist East Germany from 1984-1990 and in 1998-1999 headed this agency worries many. “Once you have been a KGB agent you continue to think like a KGB agent”, they say. Most people felt that in 2000 there was no viable alternative for president. Almost all political parties support Putin in the early 2000s, some primarily because he is not like his predecessor, Yeltsin, who had squandered the goodwill that the Russian people felt toward him when he emerged as the hero of the new Russia in August 1991. Tired of and disenchanted with Yeltsin toward the end of his presidency, they are hoping that Putin, with his youth, decisiveness, pragmatism, and reputation for being well-organized and not scarred by corruption, will bring about a better future for the people and their will be progress and a lessening of smothering bureaucracy and corruption. Above all, Russians hope Putin will bring the war in Chechnya to an end. Some worry about his lack of support of free media, as evidenced in his battles with the gutsy Vladimir Gusinsky. Gusinsky was jailed at one point for embezzlement, but many believe that his sin, in the government’s view, was a heading an independent media group that served as a center of resistance to Putin’s political machine. In April 2001, NTV was taken over by Gazprom, the magazine’s entire staff was fired, and the newspaper was shut down.

It is important to emphasize that Russia has a presidential form of government with virtually all authority vested in the president, who sits above the three branches of power: Executive (the government headed by the Prime Minister at the pleasure of the president), Legislative (the Duma, which can be disbanded by the president, and the Federation Council, which can be overruled by the Duma), and Judicial (which has no tradition of being fair and independent). With the introduction of the Federal Districts, the presidential control over the provinces got stronger, and there is speculation that the regional governors, though popularly elected, could become vulnerable to firing by the president.

Study Guide Questions

General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev

1. Who is Mikhail Gorbachev?

2. What is Perestroika?

3. What is Glasnost?

4. What is Demokratizatsia?

5. When was the first contested election in the Soviet Union?

6. What were the psychological incentives (two) that Gorbachev used to boost Soviet production?

7. What was Gorbachev’s main priority for Perestroika when launched in June 1987?

8. Name three features of Perestroika.

9. What results must Gorbachev produce to succeed? (4)

The Coup

1. Why wasn’t Gorbachev surprised there was a coup? Give 3 reasons.

2. Why was the Army upset with the reforms?

3. Why do you think the Communist party hindered Gorbachev’s reforms? Why do you think he did not get rid of the party?

4. How did Gorbachev punish Yeltsin for criticizing his reforms?

5. In the end, what caused Gorbachev and Yeltsin to resolve their differences?

6. What is the Union of Sovereign States?

7. What happened to Gorbachev during the coup?

8. What did Yeltsin do during the coup? (3)

9. How did the people of Moscow show support for Yeltsin during the coup?

10. What happened to the plotters after the coup?

Yeltsin

1. After the coup, why was there a vacuum at the political center? What did the republic do?

2. What finally removed Gorbachev from power?

3. Which of Yeltsin’s initial decisions about his new government became fatal to the 1st Russian Republic?

4. What is a Dyarchy? Why did it cause so much trouble between Yeltsin and Parliament?

5. Why was there another civil war in October 1993?

6. Why wasn’t Yeltsin happy with his new parliament in December 1993?

7. Why did Russia go into Chechnya?

8. Why do people say that Yeltsin was corrupt?

9. What is the Rule of Law?

10. Who did Yeltsin compete within the ’96 Presidential Elections? Why is that a worry for reform-minded democrats?

11. Name two indicators of Russia’s soft state.

12. How do Russians view the Yeltsin era today?

 

Discussion:

Watch the attached video about the collapse 
the Soviet Union  and read the lecture notes provided in this unit.  Do some personal research on the topic.  Answer the question: What are your impressions of the August Coup and the collapse of the Soviet Union?   Report on your impressions on what you learned and include your source website strings and pictures. Provide valid links for all of your sources. 

5 sentence: 

“Is It Ethical to Alter Digital Photos?”

Essay format below: (All Essay questions must be completed in a Word document and uploaded in ecampus.  Your Essay questions must also contain at least 400 words to be acceptable)

Your name: (bold and left margin)

Article Title (bold  and centered)

Summary of article: (bold and left margin)

Summarize the article under the above title.

Question #1 (write each question then answer the questions, bold and left margin)

Answer the questions under the above title.  Continue this format until you have answered all questions.

 

Ethics and Issues #2 – In the Discovering Computers Textbook

Read Ethics and Issues 2-2. “Is it Ethical to Use a Fake Name or ID on a Website?”  

Summarize the article and answer the questions below the article. Please complete this assignment using 400 words and at least 4 paragraphs. 

3

Name: Sadikshya Shrestha

Is it Ethical to Use a Fake Name or ID on a Website?

People tend to use fake names on internet or when signing up on website all the time to protect their anonymity. However, it is not ethical to create a fake profile, which misleads others or leaving a malicious comment on the websites, which might harm or hurt others. There are various types of terms used to describe these faking actions such as catfishing, which is creating a fake online account and develop relationship with users that are unsuspected and troll, which is online users who post negative comments to incite others.

Well, it is technically legal to use fake names on websites, but due to high misuse of fake profile, the law enforcements have raised concerns. Some social media apps such as Facebook requires an individual to use their real name but others such as Twitter have no policy on using fake names but it has a verification process, which helps identify a celebrity or public figure official account. Well, most of twitter fake accounts are harmless but others tend to create fake account with an intention of harming others and can be consider as ethics violation.

Question 1)Is it ever acceptable to use a fake name online? Why or why not?

Using a fake name online, is technically accepted because some people always want to be anonymous even though it does not make it illegal. But it is not worth using a fake name online, because it can get one arrested, thus it is not acceptable. It is important to use your real name, when creating an account.

Question 2)Is it unethical to create fake personas for others to use? Why or why not?

It is unethical to create a fake persona for other individuals to use because the credential of the original individual are misused. In addition, it is also misleading.

Question 3)Should websites require you to use a real name, or have a verification process? Why or why not?

It is important for website to require individual to use their real name and also include a verification process to reduce the raise of fake online names and other unethical activities such as trolls and catfishing. In addition, having real name policies important for security purpose and reduction of hate spreading and hatred incitement.