Families And Intimacies

For many years, sociologists had used scientific methods to study institutions and the structure of society as a whole. However, the middle of the 20th century saw a shift in emphasis toward understanding the social actions of individuals—a study of reasons and meanings rather than quantities and correlations. This came to be known to sociologists as the interpretative approach.

From the 1950s, the scope of this interpretive method widened slightly to include the study of

families, which could perhaps be seen as a social unit somewhere between the individual and institutions. As such, it was possible to identify not only the relationships between individuals and their families, but also the connections between families and wider society. This area of study progressed to examine interpersonal relationships and how they are shaped by society.

Family roles

Among the first sociologists to examine the family in this way was US scholar Talcott Parsons, who combined the interpretive approach of German social theorist Max Weber with the concept of functionalism. For Parsons, the family is one of the “building blocks” of society, and has a specific function in the working of society as a whole. Its primary function, he argued, was to provide an environment in which children can be prepared for roles they will later play in society, by instilling in them its rules and social norms. Adults too benefit from another function of the family unit—to offer a framework in which they can develop stable relationships.

Others were more critical of the conventional notions of family. Traditionally, families reflected the norms of wider society—patriarchal in their structure, with a male breadwinner and a female childcarer and houseworker. But attitudes changed rapidly after World War II. The idea of the stayat- home mother was increasingly regarded as a form of oppression, and feminist sociologists such as Ann Oakley and Christine Delphy described the alienation that these women experienced.

Gender roles within the family and, by extension, within society as a whole, began to be challenged, as did the idea that there is such a thing as a “typical” or “norma family. As a result of the decline of the traditional patriarchal family model, the conflicting pressures of home and work now affect both partners in many couples, putting a strain on their relationship. The nature of families, according to Judith Stacey, is continually changing to meet the demands of the modern world and also responding to and shaping social norms, so that, for example, singleparent families and same-sex couples are no longer considered unusual in Western societies.

 

Interpersonal relationships

The more liberal attitude toward sexual relationships and sexuality in the West was, however, slow in coming. In the 1930s and 1940s, the anthropologist Margaret Mead helped to pave the way with her study of gender roles and sexuality in various cultures around the world, showing that ideas of sexual behavior are more a social construction than a biological fact. In the West, despite increasing secularization, religious morality continued to influence the social norms of heterosexual relationships within marriage.

Attitudes toward relationships changed greatly during the 1960s. An anti-establishment youth culture helped break taboos surrounding sex, advocating hedonistic free love and a relaxed view of homosexuality. This change in culture was echoed by the academic work of French scholar Michel Foucault and others.

Foucault believed that the new openness toward intimate relationships of all kinds was a way of challenging the sexual norms imposed by society, and his ideas paved the way for the sociological study of sexuality itself.

 

In the 1980s, Jeffrey Weeks applied the idea of sexual norms as a social construct to his study

of sexuality, and specifically homosexuality, while Christine Delphy described the experiences of lesbians in a predominantly heterosexual society. Perhaps the most influential sociologist in this field of study, however, is Judith Butler, who advocated challenging not only notions of sexuality, but the entire concept of gender and gender identity too, opening up a new, and radical, field of study now known as queer theory, which calls into question conventional ideas of what constitutes normal sexual behavior.

Diferences Between The Sexes Are Cultural Creations

Margaret Mead (1901-1978)

In early 20th-century US society, a man’s role was to provide for his family, while women were relegated to the private sphere and considered responsible for childcare and housework because they were thought to be naturally more inclined to such roles. Margaret Mead, however, believed that gender is not based on biological differences between the sexes, but rather reflects the cultural conditioning of different societies.

Mead’s investigations of the intimate lives of non-Western peoples in the 1930s and 1940s crystallized her criticisms of her own society: she claimed that the ways in which US society expressed gender and sexuality restricted possibilities for both men and women. Mead claims that men and women are punished and rewarded to encourage gender conformity, and what is viewed as masculine is also seen as superior.

Mead takes a comparative approach to gender in her studies of three tribes in New Guinea. Her findings challenge conventional Western ideas about how human behavior is determined. Arapesh men and women were “gentle, responsive, and cooperative” and both undertook childcare—traits the West would see as “feminine.”

Similarly, it was the norm for Mundugumor women to behave in a “masculine” way by being as violent and aggressive as the men. And in a further reversal of traditional Western roles, women in Tchambuli society were dominant, while men were seen as dependent.

The fact that behaviors coded as masculine in one society may be regarded as feminine in another, leads Mead to argue that temperamental attitudes can no longer be regarded as sex-linked.

Her theory that gender roles are not natural but are created by society established gender as a critical concept; it allows us to see the historical and cross-cultural ways in which masculinity, femininity, and sexuality are ideologically constructed.

Change can happen 

Mead’s work laid the foundations for the women’s liberation movement and informed the so-called “sexual revolution” of the 1960s onward. Her ideas posed a fundamental challenge to society’s rigid understandings of gender roles and sexuality.

Following on from Mead, feminists such as US cultural anthropologist Gayle Rubin argued that if gender, unlike sex, is a social construction, there is no reason why women should continue to be treated unequally. Viewing gender as culturally determined allows us to see, and therefore challenge, the ways in which social structures such as the law, marriage, and the media encourage stereotyped ways of conducting our intimate lives.

In comparison to the early 20th century, gender roles for both men and women in the 21st century have become far less restrictive, with women participating more in the public sphere.

Gender roles are cultural creations according to Mead. There is no evidence that women are naturally better than men at doing the housework or caring for children

Work and Consumerism

Sociology initially focused its attention on the changes to society that had been brought about by industrialization. A major aspect of modernity was the changing nature of people’s working lives: the dramatic shift from agriculture and crafts in rural communities to employment in the new manufacturing industries. Along with this came the growth of capitalism, bringing prosperity to at least some members of society

Among the first to study the implications of work in modern industrial society were Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who saw the emergence of two social classes: an affluent bourgeoisie, or middle class, and an oppressed proletariat, or working class. But as well as the exploitation of the working class, the pair recognized that the repetitive and soulless nature of the work itself alienated the workers, while the division of labor removed any feeling of connection with the finished product or pride in their work. Later, Max Weber pointed out how rationalization and the work ethic combined to force people to work for a specific economic end rather than for the good of the community as a whole. Traditional communal values had been eroded, and replaced with an emphasis on material worth.

Consumer society

For the working class, this  translated into a struggle to earn the means to support a family, and resignation to a life of work that was unrewarding in every sense. For the growing capitalist middle class, it meant increased prosperity and leisure. The value that was ascribed to material wealth meant that a person’s social status was judged by economic worth.

Toward the end of the 19th century, sociologist Thorstein Veblen pointed out that the bourgeoisie could assert its social status, whether real or not, by conspicuous consumption—

spending not on goods and services that were necessary, but luxuries and leisure pursuits that would be noticed. Colin Campbell was later to liken the rise of a “consumer society” in the 20th century to the Romanticism that flourished in reaction to 18th-century rationalism and industrialization. Daniel Miller saw the growth of material consumerism as a potential source of social cohesion—a means of identifying with a social group.

Industrialization continued to spread across the world in the 20th century, and technological advances led to an increase in automation—in agricultural and traditional crafts as well as in manufacturing industries. Societies, in the industrialized West at least, became more materially prosperous, and fostered the rapid growth of mass consumerism, but sociologists disagreed about the effects of automation on the workforce.

Robert Blauner forecast that automation would free people from mindless tasks and reduce their feelings of alienation. On the other hand, Harry Braverman argued that automation meant workers were no longer required to develop professional skills, had less control over their working lives, and felt yet more alienated. Somewhere between these two views, however, Michael Burawoy suggested that workers reconcile themselves to ultimately dull and oppressive work by recognizing its positive aspects.

 

Post-industrial work 

In the 1970s, around 200 years after the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the nature of work looked set to change yet again. Daniel Bell predicted that mechanization would take people out of manufacturing industries, and they would be employed predominantly in the information and service industries. To a large extent, in the affluent world at least, this has proved correct. Another change that became apparent in the latter part of the 20th century is that work was no longer seen as a male preserve; more women than ever before are in paid employment.

One effect of the shift into what is now known as the post-industrial world has been identified by Arlie Hochschild. Service industries are more emotionally demanding than manufacturing; in effect, they commercialize emotion, to the extent, she argues, that people can associate their feelings with their work rather than their home lives and leisure. The social effects of these recent changes to the nature of employment have yet to be fully studied; it is too early to tell whether work in the service economy will prove to be any more rewarding, or conducive to social solidarity, than manufacturing work—or if gender inequality will be reduced because more women are in the workforce.

Conspicuous Consumption Of To The Gentleman Of Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929) Valuable Goods Leisure Is A Means Of Reputability.

The work of US economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen focuses on the relationship between economy and society, and on how different class groups consume specific goods and services. He draws on the ideas of a number of key theorists, including Karl Marx, British sociologist Herbert Spencer, and British naturalist Charles Darwin. Veblen’s insights into capitalist society and the types of consumer behavior it gives rise to are outlined in his most celebrated work, The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions (1899).

Capitalism and class 

Veblen sees the transition from traditional to modern society as propelled by the development of technical knowledge and industrial production methods. Like Marx, Veblen argues that capitalist society is split into two competing social-class groups: the industrious class made up of workers; and the leisure class, also referred to as the pecuniary or business class (which also includes politicians, managers, lawyers, and so on), which owns the factories and workshops

The industrious class forms the vast majority of the population and engages in productive labor, such as manual craft and machine work. By contrast, the leisure class is a numerically far smaller, but nevertheless socially and economically privileged, group that is parasitic on the labor of the industrious class. For Veblen, members of this predatory leisure class do not produce anything of any real benefit to the wider good of society. The wealth and privilege they possess derive from driving competition and manipulating workers, with the sole aim of increasing their personal wealth. Worse still, the privileged class consistently impedes positive social advancement through its deliberate mismanagement of industry and society generally.

Social recognition 

Veblen’s concept of “conspicuous consumption” is his most renowned contribution to economic and sociological theory. Framed by the Darwinian notion that all life represents an ongoing struggle for resources in the pursuit of advancement of the species (or in the case of human societies, the groups to which individuals belong), Veblen argues that under capitalism the majority of human behavior is determined by struggles for social recognition, status, and power. This is most evident in relation to patterns of consumption and leisure.

Conspicuous consumption refers to spending money on, and consumption of, nonessential luxury goods in order to display to other members of society one’s own economic and material wealth. An example of this is the modern business tycoon who buys an expensive yacht so that he can entertain friends and clients. It is not the utility value of the yacht (whether or not it is an effective means of transport) that matters to the tycoon; rather, its value is as a highly conspicuous signifier of the wealth at the tycoon’s disposal, for which he will receive both admiration and respect.

Leisure and waste

Closely bound to Veblen’s concept of conspicuous consumption is the notion of conspicuous leisure : the vast amount of time that members of the leisure class spend in pursuit of activities that are neither economically nor socially productive. Very simply, leisure implies an absence of work. For members of this privileged class who have sufficient distance from economic necessity (the need to work), the nonproductive use of time can be used to further their social prestige and class position. Going on exotic foreign vacations and learning about other countries are classic examples of conspicuous leisure, according to Veblen.

The inevitable consequence of conspicuous leisure and consumption is the production of unnecessary waste. Conspicuous waste, argues Veblen, derives from the amalgamation of conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure. The net result of these two activities is that socially valuable resources (the raw materials and human labor essential for the production of consumer goods and services) and time are wasted. A glaring example of this culture of waste is the depletion of natural resources such as oil and minerals in the manufacture of luxury. goods and commodities, which in turn gives rise to increased carbon emissions and climate change.

Veblen’s concepts of conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure are “political” ones because they contain within them a strong moral stance toward the actions and lifestyle of what he sees as the predatory and parasitic leisure class.

The concept of “Veblen goods,” or luxury goods that signal high status, appeared in economic theory in the 1970s. In a reversal of usual trends, the higher the price of these items, the more they are desired.

The carbon-copy lifestyle of some middle-class neighborhoods arises from pressure to emulate the consumption practices of residents in an attempt to gain status and prestige.

     

Culture And Identity

 From its beginnings in the early 19th century, sociology sought to examine not only the institutions and systems that created social order, but also the factors that maintained social cohesion.

Traditionally, this had come from the shared values, beliefs, and experiences of communities, but with the advent of “modernity” in the form of industrialization and secularization, the structure of society was radically transformed. Although it was recognized that modernity had changed the way people associated with one another, it was not until the 20th century that culture—the ways that people think and behave as a group, and how they identify themselves as members of a society—became an object of study in its own right.

The emergence of sociology—the systematic study of how society shapes human interaction and identity—had coincided with the establishment of anthropology and psychology, and there was a degree of overlap between the three disciplines. It is unsurprising, then, that one of the first cultural sociologists was also a pioneering social psychologist, G.H. Mead. He set the scene for a sociological study of culture by highlighting the connection between the individual and society, and especially the notion of a social identity. An individual, he argued, can only develop a true sense of identity in the context of a social group, through interaction with others.

The connections with social psychology continued throughout the 20th century, notably in the work of Erich Fromm in the 1950s, who argued that many psychological problems have social origins. In the process of connecting with wider society and identifying with a particular culture, individuals are expected to conform with society, and this stifles our individualism so that we lose a true sense of self. Around the same time, Erving Goffman began discussing the problems of establishing a sense of identity, and in the 1960s, he focused on the stigma attached to those who do not conform or are “different.”

Culture and social order

Norbert Elias, in the 1930s, had described the imposition of social norms and conventions as a “civilizing process,” directly regulating individual behavior. There is clearly a connection between the regulating power of culture and the maintenance of social order, and some saw it

as more than merely a process of socialization. Antonio Gramsci recognized the potential for culture to be used as a means of social control. Through subtle coercion, a dominant culture imposes a “cultural hegemony” in which social norms become so ingrained that anything else is unthinkable.

Michel Foucault developed this idea further in his study of power relations, and others, including Herbert Marcuse, examined the ways in which culture could be used to quell social unrest. Later, another French sociologist, Jean Baudrillard, argued that in the postmodern world, with its explosion of availability of information, culture had become so far removed from the society in which it exists that it bears little relation to reality.

Cultural identity

A distinct branch of culturally oriented sociology emerged in the UK from the latter part of the 20th century: cultural studies. The starting point was Raymond Williams’ extensive research into the idea of culture. His work transformed the concept, opening up entirely new areas of study to sociological investigation.

Williams explained that culture is expressed by material production and consumption, and by the creations and leisure pursuits of social groups of a specific time and place—their food, sports, fashion, languages, beliefs, ideas, and customs, as well as their literature, art, and music. Also at the forefront of this British school of cultural studies was Stuart Hall, who suggested that notions of cultural identity are no longer fixed. With significantly improved communications and increased mobility, traditional national, ethnic, class, and even gender identities have all but disappeared—and another British sociologist, Benedict Anderson, goes so far as to suggest that the concept of belonging to any community is illusory.

However, the US sociologist Jeffrey Alexander considered culture to be an independent variable in the structure of society. His cultural sociology examines how culture shapes society through the creation of shared meaning.

THE “I” AND THE “ME”

George Herbert Mead was a social psychologist and a philosopher, and he looked to both disciplines in trying to work out what exactly we mean when we talk about the “self.” Traditional philosophers and sociologists saw societies as growing from the coming together of individual, autonomous selves, but Mead said the opposite was true—selves emerge from social interactions; they are formed within society.

This concept is prevalent now in psychology and psychotherapy, but when Mead first presented his ideas in 1913 in The Social Self, it was a revolutionary point of view. Mead disagreed with the idea that individual, experiencing selves exist in any recognizable way before they are part of the social process. The social process of experience or behavior is “logically prior to the individuals and their individual experiencing which are involved in it.”

By this, Mead is suggesting that an individual’s consciousness, with all its intentions, desires, and so on, is formed within the context of social relationships, one or more particular languages, and a set of cultural norms. From birth, babies begin to sense communication through gestures, which function as symbols and build “a universe of discourse.” Over time, they learn to mimic and “import” the practices, gestures, and eventually words of those around them, so that they can make their own response and receive further gestures and words from others.

Living In A Global World

In the late 19th century, societies began to coalesce around urban centers, and Western Europe entered a phase known as modernity, characterized by industrialization and capitalism. According to Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, societies have moved away from that first phase of modernity—which he termed “solid modernity”—and now occupy a period in human history called “liquid modernity.” This new period is, according to Bauman, one marked by unrelenting uncertainty and change that affects society at the global, systemic level, and also at the level of individual experience. Bauman’s use of the term “liquid” is a powerful metaphor for present-day life: it is mobile, fast-flowing, changeable, amorphous, without a center of gravity, and difficult to contain and predict. In essence, liquid modernity is a way of life that exists in the continuous, unceasing reshaping of the modern world in ways that are unpredictable, uncertain, and plagued by increasing levels of risk. Liquid modernity, for Bauman, is the current stage in the broader evolution of Western—and now also global—society. Like Karl Marx, Bauman believes that human society progresses in a way that means each “new” stage develops out of the stage before it. Thus it is necessary to define solid modernity before it is possible to understand liquid modernity.

Defining solid modernity

Bauman sees solid modernity as ordered, rational, predictable, and relatively stable. Its defining feature is the organization of human activity and institutions along bureaucratic lines, where practical reasoning can be employed to solve problems and create technical solutions. Bureaucracy persists because it is the most efficient way of organizing and ordering the actions and interactions of large numbers of people. While bureaucracy has its distinctly negative aspects (for example, that human life can become dehumanized and devoid of spontaneity and creativity), it is highly effective at accomplishing goal-oriented tasks.

Another key characteristic of solid modernity, according to Bauman, is a very high degree of equilibrium in social structures—meaning that people live with a relatively stable set of norms, traditions, and institutions. By this, Bauman is not suggesting

Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland was built and run by the Nazis. Bauman cites the Holocaust as a product of the highly rational, planned nature of solid modernity. that social, political, and economic changes do not occur in solid modernity, just that changes occur in ways that are relatively ordered and predictable. The economy provides a good example: in solid modernity, the majority of people — from members of the working class through to middle-class professionals—enjoyed relatively high levels of job security. As a consequence, they tended to remain in the same geographical area, grow up in the same neighborhood, and attend the same school as their parents and other family members.

Bauman regards solid modernity as one-directional and progressive — a realization of the Enlightenment view that reason leads to the emancipation of humankind. As scientific knowledge advances, so does society’s understanding of, and control over, the natural and social worlds. In solid modernism, according to Bauman, this supreme faith in scientific reasoning was embodied in the social and political institutions that addressed primarily national issues and problems. Enlightenment values were institutionally entrenched in the figurehead of the State—the primary point of reference from which emerged the development of social, political, and economic ideals.

At the level of the individual, claims Bauman, solid modernity gave rise to a stable repertoire of personal identities and possible versions of selfhood. Solid modern individuals have a unified, rational, and stable sense of personal identity, because it is informed by a number of stable categories, such as occupation, religious affiliation, nationality, gender, ethnicity, leisure pursuits, lifestyle, and so on. Social life under the conditions of solid modernity—like the individuals it created—was selfassured rational, bureaucratically organized, and relatively predictable and stable.

From solid to liquid

The transition from solid to liquid modernity, according to Bauman, has occurred as a result of a confluence of profound and connected economic, political, and social changes. The result is a global order propelled by what Bauman describes as a “compulsive, obsessive, and addictive reinventing of the world.”

Bauman identifies five distinct, but interrelated, developments that have brought about the transition from solid to liquid modernity. First, nation-states are no longer the “key load-bearing structures” of society; national governments today have considerably less power to determine events both at home and abroad. Second, global capitalism has risen and multiand transnational corporations have proliferated, resulting in a decentering of state authority. Third, electronic technologies and the Internet now allow for near-instant, supranational flows of communication. Fourth, societies have become ever more preoccupied by risk—dwelling on insecurities and potential hazards. And fifth, there has been huge growth in human migration across the globe.

Defining liquid modernity 

As Bauman himself observes, attempting to define liquid modernity is something of a paradox, because the term refers to a global condition that is characterized by unrelenting change, flux, and uncertainty. However, having identified the traits of solid modernity, he claims it is possible to define the most prominent aspects of liquid modernity

At an ideological level, liquid modernity undermines the Enlightenment ideal that scientific knowledge can ameliorate natural and social problems. In liquid modernity, science, experts, university-based academics, and government officials—once the supreme figures of authority in solid modernity—occupy a highly ambiguous status as guardians of the truth. Scientists are increasingly perceived as being as much the cause of environmental and sociopolitical problems as they are the solution. This inevitably leads to increased skepticism and general apathy on the part of the general public

Liquid modernity has undermined the certainties of individuals regarding employment, education, and welfare. Today, many workers must either retrain or change occupation altogether, sometimes several times—the notion of a “job for life,” which was typical in the age of solid modernity, has been rendered unrealistic and unachievable

The practice of “re-engineering,” or the downsizing of firms—a term that Bauman borrows from the US sociologist, Richard Sennett—has become increasingly common, as it enables corporations to remain financially competitive in the global market by reducing labor costs significantly. As part of this process, stable, permanent work—which typified solid modernism—is being replaced by temporary employment contracts that are issued to a largely mobile workforce. Closely related to this occupational instability is the shifting role and nature of education. Individuals are now required to continue their education—often at their own expense—throughout their careers in order to remain up to date with developments in their respective professions, or as a means of ensuring they remain “marketable” in case of redundancy.

Concurrent with these changes to employment patterns is the retreat of the welfare state. What was once regarded historically as a reliable “safety net” guarding against personal misfortune such as ill-health and unemployment, state provision of welfare is rapidly being withdrawn, especially in the areas of social housing, statefunded higher education, and national health care.

 

Fluid identities

Where solid modernity was based on the industrial production of consumer goods in factories and industrial plants, liquid modernity is instead based on the rapid and relentless consumption of consumer goods and services.

This transition from production to consumption, says Bauman, is a result of the dissolution of the social structures, such as occupation and nationality, to which identity was anchored in solid modernity. But in liquid modernity selfhood is not so fixed: it is fragmented, unstable, often internally incoherent, and frequently no more than the sum of consumer choices out of which it is simultaneously constituted and represented. In liquid modernity, the boundary between the authentic self and the representation of the self through consumer choice breaks down : we are—according to Bauman— what we buy and no more. Depth and surface meaning have fused together, and it is impossible to separate them out.

 

Consumption and identity

The central importance of consumption in the construction of individual self-identity goes beyond the acquisition of consumer goods. Without the unchanging sources of identity provided by solid modernity, individuals in the modern world seek guidance, stability, and personal direction from an ever-broadening range of alternative sources, such as lifestyle coaches, psychoanalysts, sex therapists, holistic life-experts, health gurus, and so on. Self-identity has become problematic for the individual in ways that are historically unprecedented, and the consequence is a cycle of endless self-questioning and introspection that serves only to confound the individual even more. Ultimately, the result is that our experience of ourselves and everyday life is increasingly played out against a backdrop of ongoing anxiety, restlessness, and unease about who we are, our place in the world, and the rapidity of the changes taking place around us.

Liquid modernity thus principally refers to a global society that is plagued by uncertainty and instability. However, these destabilizing forces are not evenly distributed across global society. Bauman identifies and explains the importance of the variables of mobility, time, and space for understanding why. For Bauman, the capacity to remain mobile is an extremely valuable attribute in liquid modernity, because it facilitates the successful pursuit of wealth and personal fulfillment

Tourists and vagabonds

Bauman distinguishes between the winners and losers in liquid modernity. The people who benefit most from the fluidity of liquid modernity are the socially privileged individuals who are able to float freely around the world. These people, who Bauman refers to as “tourists,” exist in time rather than space. By this he means that through their easy access to Internet-based technologies and transnational flights, tourists are able—virtually and in reality—to span the entire globe and operate in locations where the economic conditions are the most favorable and standards of living the highest. By stark contrast, the “vagabonds,” as Bauman calls them, are people who are immobile, or subject to forced mobility, and excluded from consumer culture. Life for them involves either being mired in places where unemployment is

high and the standard of living is very poor, or being forced to leave their country of origin as economic or political refugees in search of employment, or in response to the threat of war or persecution. Anywhere they stay for too long soon becomes inhospitable.

For Bauman, mass migration and transnational flows of people around the globe are among the hallmarks of liquid modernity and are factors contributing to the unpredictable and constantly changing nature of everyday life: Bauman’s social categories of tourists and vagabonds occupy two extremes of this phenomenon

Applying Bauman’s theory

Zygmunt Bauman is considered one of the most influential and eminent sociologists of the modern age. He prefers not to align himself with any particular intellectual tradition—his writings are relevant to a vast range of disciplines, from ethics, media, and cultural studies to political theory and philosophy. Within sociology, his work on liquid modernity is regarded by the vast majority of thinkers as a unique contribution to the field.

The Irish sociologist Donncha Marron has applied Bauman’s concept of liquid modernity to a critical rethinking of consumer credit within the US. Following Bauman’s suggestion that consumption of goods and brands is a key feature of how individuals construct personal identity, Marron notes that the credit card is an important tool in this process because it is ideally suited for enabling people to adapt to the kind of fluid ways of living Bauman depicts. The credit card can, for example, be used to fund shopping trips to satisfy consumer desire. It makes paying for things easier, quicker, and considerably more manageable. The credit card of course also serves the function, says Marron, of meeting day-to-day bills and expenses, as people move between jobs or make significant career moves. And the physical card itself can often be co-branded with things the owner is interested in, such as football teams, charities, or stores. These co-branded cards represent a small but revealing means whereby a person is able to select and present a sense of who they are to the outside world

   

Modern Living

As prehistory’s primitive human groups began to settle down in one place, the foundations of civilization were laid. From these early beginnings, humans increasingly lived together in larger and larger groups, and civilization grew further with the establishment of villages, towns, and cities. But for the greater part of human history, most people lived in rural communities. Large-scale urbanization came about only with the Industrial Revolution, which was accompanied by a huge expansion of towns and cities, and massive numbers of people migrating to work in the factories and mills  that were located there

Living in an urban environment became as much an aspect of“modernity” as industrialization and the growth of capitalism, and sociologists from Adam Ferguson to Ferdinand Tönnies recognized that there was a major difference between traditional rural communities and modern urban ones. This alteration of social order was ascribed to a variety of factors by an assortment of thinkers: to capitalism by Karl Marx; to the division of labor in industry by Émile Durkheim; to rationalization and secularization by Max Weber. It was Georg Simmel who suggested that urbanization itself had affected the ways in which people interact socially—and one of the fundamental characteristics of modern living is life in the city.

Community in the city

Simmel examined not only the new forms of social order that had arisen in the modern cities, but also the effects upon the individual of living in large groups, often separated from traditional community ties and family. Building upon his work, the so-called Chicago School of sociology, spearheaded by Robert E. Park, helped to establish a distinct field of urban sociology. Soon, however, sociologists changed the emphasis of their research from what it is like to live in a city, to what kind of city we want to live in.

Having evolved to meet the needs of industrialization, the city—and urban life, with all its benefits and disadvantages—was felt by many sociologists to have been imposed on people. The Marxist sociologist Henri Lefebvre believed that the demands of capitalism had shaped modern urban society, but that ordinary people could take control of their urban environment, what he called their “social space.” Similarly (but from a different political standpoint), Jane Jacobs advocated that people should resist the plans of urban developers and create environments that encouraged the formation of communities within the city.

In the late 20th century, several sociologists took up this idea of the loss of community in our increasingly individualized Western society. A communitarian movement emerged, led by US sociologist Amitai Etzioni, suggesting new ways to restore community spirit in what had become an impersonal society. Robert D. Putnam also gave prominence to the idea of community in his explanation of “social capital,” and the valuem and benefits of social interaction.

Not everyone agreed, however, that the answer to the social problems of urban life was a return to traditional community values. Niklas Luhmann pointed out that the problem today is one of communication between social systems that have become increasingly fragmented and differentiated. In the post-industrial age, with all its new methods of communication, new strategies for social cohesion need to be found.

 

Post-industrial cities

The nature of cities began to change in the late 20th century, as the manufacturing industries moved out or disappeared. While some cities became ghost towns, others became centers of the service industries. As working class areas were gentrified, and industrial buildings became desirable postmodern living spaces, the concept of modern metropolitan life became associated with prosperity rather than gritty industrialization.

This manifested itself not only in the transformation of urban living spaces, as described by Sharon Zukin in the 1980s, but throughout the postmodern social order. George Ritzer likened the efficiency and rationalization of the service industries to the business model pioneered by fast-food chain McDonalds, and Alan Bryman has noted how a US entertainment culture created by Disney has influenced modern consumerism. Modern urban society, having been created by industrialization, is now being shaped by the new demands of post-industrial commerce. 

STRANGERS ARE NOT REALLY CONCEIVED AS INDIVIDUALS BUT AS STRANGERS OF A PARTICULAR TYPE GEORG SIMMEL (1858–1918)

The Industrial Revolution was accompanied in Europe and the US by urbanization from the 19th century onward. For many people, this resulted in increased freedom as they experienced liberation from the constraints of traditional social structures. But in tandem with these developments came growing demands from capitalist employers for the functional specialization of people and their work, which meant new restrictions and curtailments of individual liberty.

German sociologist Georg Simmel wanted to understand the struggle faced by the city dweller in preserving autonomy and individuality in the face of these overwhelming social forces. He discovered that the increase in human interaction that was brought about by living and working in an urban environment profoundly affected relationships between people. He set out his findings in The Metropolis and Mental Life. Whereas in pre-modern society people would be intimately familiar with those around them, in the modern urban environmentm individuals are largely unknown to those who surround them. Simmel believed that the increase in social activity and anonymity brought about a change in consciousness.

The rapid tempo of life in a city was such that people needed a “protective organ” to insulate them from the external and internal stimuli. According to Simmel, the metropolitan “reacts with his head instead of his heart”; he erects a rational barrier of cultivated indifference—a “blasé attitude.” The change in consciousness also leads to people becoming reserved and aloof. This estrangement from traditional and accepted norms of  behavior is further undermined by the money culture of cities, which reduces everything in the metropolis to a financial exchange. Simmel says that the attitude of the metropolitan can be understood as a social-survival technique to cope with the mental disturbance created by immersion in city life— an approach that enables people to focus their energies on those who  matter to them. It also results in them becoming more tolerant of difference and more sophisticated.

Space in the metropolis

Degrees of proximity and distance among individuals and groups were central to Simmel’s understanding of living in a metropolis, and ideas about social space influenced one of his best-known concepts: the social role of “the stranger,” which is set out in an essay in Sociology. In the past, he says, strangers were encountered only rarely and fleetingly; but urbanite strangers are not drifters—they are “potential wanderers.” Simmel says that the stranger (such as a trader), or the stranger group (his example is “European Jews”), is connected to the community spatially but not socially; he or she is characterized by both “nearness and remoteness”—in the community but not of it.

The stranger was one of many social types described by Simmel, each becoming what they are through their relations with others; an idea that has influenced many sociologists, including Zygmunt Bauman. Erving Goffman’s concept of “civil inattention,” whereby people minimize social interaction in public—by avoiding eye contact, for instance—is also informed by one of Simmel’s insights: his notion of the “blasé attitude

 

Georg Simmel

Born in Berlin in 1858 to a prosperous Jewish family, Georg Simmel is one of the lesser-known founders of sociology. He studied philosophy and history at the University of Berlin and received his doctorate in 1881. Despite the popularity of his work with the German intellectual elite, notably Ferdinand Tonnies and Max Weber, he remained an outsider and only gained his professorship at Strasbourg in 1914.

He developed what is known as formal sociology, which derives from his belief that we can understand distinct human phenomena by concentrating not on the content of interactions but on the forms that underlie behavior. But it is his study of life in a metropolis that remains his most influential work, as it was the precursor to the development of urban sociology by the so-called Chicago School in the 1920s.

THE FREEDOM TO REMAKE OUR CITIES AND OURSELVES HENRI LEFEBVRE (1901–1991)

The city need not be seen as a concrete jungle— grimy, unpleasant, and threatening. For French sociologist and philosopher Henri Lefebvre, who dedicated most of his life to the study of urban society, it is an exciting and complex combination of power relationships, diverse identities, and ways of being.

Writing in the 1960s and 1970s, Lefebvre maintained that one of the most fascinating aspects of the city is not simply the people in it, but the fact that it is an environment that both reflects and creates society. Applying a Marxist perspective to his analysis, Lefebvre also says that urban spaces are shaped by the state and serve the interests of powerful corporations and capitalism. Parts of the city mirror the class relations contained within it: the opulence of some areas reveals the power and wealth of elites, while rundown inner-city areas and ghettos

outside the center indicate the displacement and marginalization of the poor, the working class, and other excluded groups.

Public and private

Many modern cities, for example, have become dominated by private spaces, such as shopping malls and office complexes, built in the service of capitalism. The loss of public space has severely restricted the arenas in which people can meet on an equal footing with others, so eroding their personal freedoms and stifling their means to satisfy their social and psychological needs. This can lead to serious social problems, such as crime, depression, homelessness, social exclusion, and poverty.

Considerable power is wielded by those who own and control urban spaces—architects, planners, “the merchant bourgeoisie, the intellectuals, and politicians,” according to Lefebvre. But he believes that decisions about the exact nature of the urban environment—what takes place in it, how social space is built and used—should be open to all. Ordinary people should participate in creating a space that reflects their needs and interests—only by claiming this “right to the city” can major social issues be addressed.

Lefebvre’s vision is of cities that pulse with life and are vibrant expressions of human freedom and creativity, where people can play, explore their creative and artistic needs, and achieve some form of self-realization. City streets should, he says, be designed to encourage this type of existence—they may be raw, exciting, and untamed but precisely because of this they will remind people that they are alive

Lefebvre’s demand for the right to the city is not simply a call for a series of reforms but for a wholesale transformation of social relations within the city, if not wider society— it is, in essence, a proposal for a radical form of democracy, whereby control is wrested from elites and turned over to the masses. This, he says, is only achievable by groups and class factions “capable of revolutionary initiative.”

Henri Lefebvre

Marxist sociologist and philosopher Henri Lefebvre was born in Hagetmau, France, in 1901. He studied philosophy at the Sorbonne, Paris, graduating in 1920. He joined the French Communist Party in 1928 and became one of the most prominent Marxist intellectuals in France. He was, however, later expelled by the Communist Party and became one of its fiercest critics. In 1961 he was appointed professor of sociologyat the University of Strasbourg, before moving to Nanterre in 1965. Lefebvre was a prolific writer on a wide range of subjects. His work challenged the dominant capitalist authorities and as such was not

always well received, but has gone on to influence several disciplines, including geography, philosophy, sociology, political science, and architecture.

THERE MUST BE EYES ON THE STREET

Jane Jacobs spent her working life advancing a distinct vision of the city—in particular focusing on what makes a successful urban community. Her ideas were formed from her observations of urban life in the neighborhood of West Greenwich Village, New York, where she lived for more than 30 years. Jacobs was opposed to the large-scale changes to city life that were occurring in New York during the 1960s, led by city planner and her archrival Howard Moses; these included slum-clearance projects and the building of high-rise developments. At the heart of her vision is the idea that urban life should be a vibrant and rich affair, where by people are able to interact with one another in dense and exciting urban environments. She prefers chaos to order, walking to driving, and diversity to uniformity.

For Jacobs, urban communities are organic entities—complex, integrated ecosystems—that should be left to grow and to change by themselves and not be subject to the grand plans of so-called experts and technocrats. The best judges of how a city should be—and how it should

Jane Jacobs’ vision of what a city street should be like is exemplified by this New York scene of vibrant urban life, with residential apartments, streetlevel businesses, and sidewalk bustle. evolve—are the local residents themselves. Jacobs argues that urban communities are best placed to understand how their city functions, because city life is created and sustained through their various interactions.

Ballet of the sidewalk

Jacobs notes that the built form of a city is crucial to the life of an urban community. Of prime importance are the sidewalks. The streets in which people live should be a tight pattern of intersecting sidewalks, which allow people to meet, bump into each other, converse, and get to know one another. She calls this the “ballet of the sidewalk,” a complex but ultimately enriching set of encounters that help individuals become acquainted with their neighbors and neighborhood.

Diversity and mixed-use of space are also, for Jacobs, key elements of this urban form. The commercial, business, and residential elements of a city should not be separated out but instead be side by side, to allow for greater integration of people. There should also be a diversity of old and new buildings, and people’s interactions should determine how buildings get used and reused.

Finally, urban communities flourish better in places where a critical mass of people live, work, and interact. Such high-density— but not overcrowded—spaces are, she feels, engines of creativity and vibrancy. They are also safe places to be, because the higher density means that there are more “eyes on the street”: shopkeepers and locals who know their area and provide a natural form of surveillance.

Jane Jacobs was a passionate writer and urbanist. She left Scranton, Pennsylvania for New York in 1935, during the Great Depression. After seeing the Greenwich Village area for the first time, she relocated there from Brooklyn—her interest in urban communities had begun. In 1944 she married, and moved into a house on Hudson Street.

It was when Jacobs was working as a writer for the magazine Architectural Forum that she first began to be critical of large top-down urban regeneration schemes. Throughout her life she was an activist and campaigner for her communitybased vision of the city. In 2007 the Rockefeller Foundation created the Jane Jacobs Medal in her honor to celebrate urban visionaries whose actions in New York City affirm her principles.

ONLY COMMUNICATION CAN COMMUNICATE

Modernity’s defining feature, according to German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, is advanced capitalist society’s differentiation into separate social systems— nthe economic, educational, scientific, legal, political, religious, and so on. Luhmann argues that the term “society” refers to the system that encompasses all the other systems: society is, he says, the system of systems.

Individuals, Luhmann insists, are socially meaningless. Society’s base element is not the human actor but “communication”—a term that he defines as the “synthesis of information, utterance, and understanding” arising out of the activities and interactions, verbal and nonverbal, within a system. Luhmann argues that just as a plant reproduces its own cells in a circular, biological process of self-production, so a social system is similarly self-sustaining and develops out of an operation that possesses connectivity—emerging when “communication develops from communication.” He likens communication to the structural equivalent of a chemical.

Structural couplings

Luhmann uses George Spencer- Brown’s ideas on the mathematical laws of form to help define a system, arguing that something arises out of difference: a system is, according to this theory, a “distinction” from its environment. And, says Luhmann, a system’s environment is constituted by other systems. For example, the environment of a family system includes other families, the political system, the medical system, and so on. Crucially, each individual system can only make sense of the events—the activities and ways of communicating—peculiar to itself; it is relatively indifferent to what takes place in the other systems (and the wider society). So, for example, the economic system is functionally dedicated to its own interests and is uninterested in moral issues, except where these might have an impact on the profitability of economic activities and transactions—whereas moral concerns are of great consequence in, say, the religious system.

Luhmann identifies this lack of systems integration as one of the major problems confrontingadvanced capitalist societies. He identifies what he calls “structural couplings”—certain forms and institutions that help to connect separated systems by translating the communications produced by one system into terms that the other can understand. Examplesinclude a constitution, which couples the legal and political systems, and a university, which couples the educational and, among others, economic systems.

“Structural coupling” is a concept that helps to account for the relationship between people (as conscious systems) and social systems (as communications).

Despite its extreme complexity, Luhmann’s theory is used worldwide as an analytical tool for social systems. His critics say that the theory passes academic scrutiny, but operationally it fails to show how communication can take place without human activity.

 

Niklas Luhmann

Niklas Luhmann studied law at the University of Freiburg, Germany, from 1946 to 1949, before becoming a civil servant in 1956. He spent 1960 to 1961 on sabbatical at Harvard University, studying sociology and administrative science, where he was taught by Talcott Parsons.

In 1966 Luhmann received his doctorate in sociology from the University of Munster and in 1968 he became professor of sociology at the University of Bielefeld, where he remained. Luhmann was the recipient of several honorary degrees, and in 1988 he was the winner of the prestigious Hegel Prize, awarded to prominent thinkers by the city of Stuttgart. He was a prolific writer, with some 377 publications to his name.