Social Theory 2

WOMEN'S UNIVERSITY IN AFRICA
ADDRESSING GENDER DISPARITY AND FOSTERING EQUITY IN UNIVERSITY EDUCATION
FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND GENDER

DEVELOPMENT STUDIES
BSc. (HONOURS) SOCIOLOGY & GENDER STUDIES
(MODULE APPLICABLE TO ALL WUA PROGRAMMES)
SOCIAL THEORY 2
Module SS324
By Dr D.S. Chingarande
Published by: Women’s University in Africa
Education Service Centre
Mount Pleasant
Layout and Design: C.S. Nhari
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Year: 2011
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the Women’s University in Africa.
Author and Profile
Dr D. S. Chingarande
PhD in Sociology (University of Zimbabwe)
MSc in Sociology and Social Anthropology (University of Zimbabwe)
BSc Hons in Sociology (University of Zimbabwe)
Diploma in Christian Leadership and Biblical Studies
Certificate in Peace Research, Addis Ababa
Certificate in Social Research Methods
Certificate in Alternative Research Methodologies, Philippines
Lecturer: Faculty of Social Studies, University of Zimbabwe
Content Reviewer and Profile

Nelson Muparamoto
MSc in Sociology and Social Anthropology (UZ) 2006
BSc Hons in Sociology (UZ) 2004
Certificate in HIV and Most-at-Risk Populations (Oslo University and Muhimbili)
University of Health and Allied Sciences (Tanzania) 2010
Certificate of Participation in Proposal Development and Scientific Writing, 2010, OSSREA,
Harare, Zimbabwe
Certificate of attendance in Data Management and Analysis using Epi-info and SPSS, 2010,
Department of Statistics, (UZ)
Certificate of completion in Public Health and Health Systems, July, 2009
Measurement, Learning and Evaluation Project, Nairobi, Kenya
Executive Certificate in Strategic HIV/AIDS Project Management (UZ) 2006
Certificate in Information Technology Courses (African Virtual University Learning Centre,
2004)
Editor and Profile

Phoebe Kashora
PhD student Curriculum Evaluation (UNISA)
Med in Adult Educatioon (UZ)
BA General; History & English (Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone)
Certificate in Education (Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone)
FOREWORD TO THE STUDENT
The Women’s University in Africa, from its inception, planned to adopt a dual mode of learning
delivery in order to adequately realize its mission of reducing gender disparity by providing
gender sensitive and socially responsive educational training and research using state of the art
technology in Africa. The university believes that through Open and Distance Learning (ODL),
it will extend its influence to the Southern African region in particular and the continent of
Africa in general, as it seeks to be the best African University in the promotion of gender equity
and equal opportunities in tertiary education.
In developing a strategy for increasing opportunities for accessing tertiary education, the Women’s
University in Africa (WUA) has committed resources to creating a new learning environment
that incorporates the learning delivery strategy of open and distance learning.
The Women’s University in Africa’s vision for Open and Distance Learning is premised on the
need to engage a dual mode of learning delivery because of its Pan-African thrust of providing
education. Duality entails that the University is an institution that offers learning opportunities
in two modes: - traditional lecture based methods and distance methods and where the same
courses may be offered in both modes, with common examinations. The approach seeks to
enhance the scope and quality of teaching and learning. The process necessitates the adoption
of new elearning technologies as they become available in the production and delivery of course
materials.
WUA is the only university in Zimbabwe that has demonstrated the provision of gender sensitive
and socially responsive education and training as it addresses gender disparity utilizing a
recruitment policy that allows up to 80% women and 20% men until equity in accessing
university education is achieved. At the heart of the core values of the Women’s University in
Africa is the belief that the economic empowerment of women lies firstly in their hands and
secondly in equal participation of those who are able and capable to help them. This lack of
economic empowerment
over decades has witnessed an increase in the extent of poverty of women in Africa. Economic
development for WUA is, therefore, through tertiary education and the attendant cascading
effect of those benefits.
WUA is a private institution, the brainchild of a small group of leading women educationalists
in Zimbabwe. The group was led by two prominent women, Dr Fay King Chung, a former
Minister of Education and Culture in Zimbabwe and a retired Director of UNESCO Capacity
Building Project for Africa, now the Chairperson of the Board of Trustees and Dr Hope Cynthia
Sadza, a retired Public Service Commissioner, now the Vice Chancellor of the University.
Professor Lydia Makhubu of the University of Swaziland is the Chancellor. The University
Charter was signed by the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, His Excellency, Comrade
Robert Gabriel Mugabe in 2004.
To achieve the aims of ODL and assist you to enhance your acquisition, retention, retrieval and
application of knowledge, it was important to consider the peculiarities of the open and distance
learner. By adopting a course team approach in producing learning materials we remembered
that we are addressing your needs as an individual, not a group. As a result of engaging you in
an interactive teaching-learning process, we have tried to create an environment, which should
change your characteristics during and after the process of acquiring the knowledge that we
give you in the various courses.
The new learning environment that incorporates the pedagogy of open and distance learning
considers what you, the learners, think, need and want. Of particular focus is our active
promotion of positive images of women and their needs, interests and views. You are our most
valued participant in this educational process. As you study, be systematic in your approach,
purposeful and focused on what you want to achieve.
Your learning experiences and the evaluation thereof will assist us to improve the quality of the
learning materials.
I take this opportunity to wish you success in your studies.
___________________________________
Professor Hope Cynthia Sadza

Vice Chancellor
Contents
CONTENTS
Social Theory 2
MODULE OVERVIEW............................................................................................ 1
CRITICAL THEORY
1.0 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................. 3
1.1 OBJECTIVES ...................................................................................................................................... 3
1.2 HISTORY OF CRITICAL THEORY AND THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL ................................................. 4
1.2.1 Early influences on Critical Theory ............................................................................................. 4
ACTIVITY 1.1 ....................................................................................................................................... 8
1.3 WHAT IS CRITICAL ABOUT CRITICAL THEORY? .............................................................................. 8
ACTIVITY 1.2 ....................................................................................................................................... 9
1.4 MARXISM AND CRITICAL THEORY .................................................................................................... 9
1.5 WEBER AND CRITICAL THEORY ..................................................................................................... 12
ACTIVITY 1.3 ..................................................................................................................................... 12
1.6 CRITICAL THEORY IDEAS IN GENERAL ......................................................................................... 13
1.6.1 Totalizing Societies. ................................................................................................................. 13
1.6.2 Individual and Human Nature. ................................................................................................... 13
1.6.3 Dialectic of Enlightenment. ....................................................................................................... 15
1.6.4 Art and Culture. ........................................................................................................................ 17
ACTIVITY 1.4 ..................................................................................................................................... 18
1.7 HABERMAS AND COMMUNICATIVE RATIONALITY ........................................................................ 19
1.7.1 Background .............................................................................................................................. 19
1.7.2 Early Work of Habermas .......................................................................................................... 19
1.7.3 Communicative Action .............................................................................................................. 20
1.7.4 Habermas and the Legitimation Crisis ...................................................................................... 27
ACTIVITY 1.5 ..................................................................................................................................... 29
1.8 HERBERT MARCUSE ..................................................................................................................... 29
1.8.1 Background .............................................................................................................................. 29
1.8.2 Psychoanalytic Theory ............................................................................................................. 30
1.8.3 One-Dimensional Man .............................................................................................................. 31
1.8.4 Marcuse’s other ideas .............................................................................................................. 31
Women’s University in Africa i

Social Theory 2 SS324
SELF ASSESSMENT ACTIVITY ........................................................................................................ 36

1.9 SUMMARY ........................................................................................................................................ 36
References ........................................................................................................................................ 37
FEMINIST SOCIAL THEORY

2.0 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................... 39
2.1 OBJECTIVES .................................................................................................................................... 39
2.2 OVERVIEW OF FEMINIST SOCIAL THEORY .................................................................................. 40
2.2.1 Contemporary Feminist Theory: Theoretical Orientation ........................................................... 40
2.2.2 Varieties of Contemporary Feminist Theory .............................................................................. 40
2.3 WAVES OF FEMINISM ..................................................................................................................... 42
2.3.1 The First Wave: ........................................................................................................................ 42
2.3.2 The Second Wave: ................................................................................................................... 42
2.3.3 Rebecca Walker and the Origins of Third-Wave Feminism: ...................................................... 42
2.4. PROBLEMS WITH EARLIER SOCIAL THEORY ............................................................................... 43
2.4.1 Women Ignored ........................................................................................................................ 43
2.4.2 Definitions of Sociology and the Social World. ......................................................................... 44
ACTIVITY 2.1 ..................................................................................................................................... 46
2.5. FEMINIST APPROACHES ................................................................................................................ 46
2.5.1. Central Issues and Approaches of Feminist Theory ................................................................ 46
ACTIVITY 2.2 ..................................................................................................................................... 49
2.5.2 Feminism and Marxism ............................................................................................................ 50
2.5.3 Examples of some contemporary Marxist feminist approach ................................................... 54
2.5.4 Socialist feminism .................................................................................................................... 58
2.5.5 Radical Feminism ..................................................................................................................... 59
2.5.6 Liberal feminism ....................................................................................................................... 59
2.6 SUMMARY ........................................................................................................................................ 60
References ........................................................................................................................................ 60
POSTSTRUCTURALISM
3.0 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................ 61
3.1 OBJECTIVES .................................................................................................................................... 61
3.2 BRIEF HISTORY AND OVERVIEW ................................................................................................... 62
3.3 DERRIDAAND DECONSTRUCTION ................................................................................................. 63
ACTIVITY 3.1 ..................................................................................................................................... 66
3.4 JEAN FRANÇOIS LYOTARD ............................................................................................................. 66
ACTIVITY 3.2 ..................................................................................................................................... 67
3.5 JEAN BAUDRILLARD ........................................................................................................................ 67
3.5.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 67
ACTIVITY 3.3 ..................................................................................................................................... 69
ACTIVITY 3.4 ..................................................................................................................................... 73
3.6 FOUCAULT AND POST-STRUCTURALISM ....................................................................................... 73
3.6.1. Power/Knowledge .................................................................................................................... 73
3.6.2 His Vision of Society ................................................................................................................ 74
ACTIVITY 3.5 ..................................................................................................................................... 76
3.7 SUMMARY ........................................................................................................................................ 76
References ........................................................................................................................................ 77
ii Women’s University in Africa

Contents
POSTMODERN SOCIAL THEORY

4.0 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................ 79
4.1 OBJECTIVES .................................................................................................................................... 79
4.2 POSTMODERNISM AND POST-STRUCTURALISM-A BRIEF OVERVIEW ....................................... 80
4.3 POSTMODERNITY, POSTMODERNISM, AND POSTMODERN SOCIAL THEORY .......................... 81
ACTIVITY 4.1 ..................................................................................................................................... 81
4.4 SUMMARY OF PERSPECTIVES ..................................................................................................... 82
ACTIVITY 4.2 ..................................................................................................................................... 85
4.5. ORIGINS OF THE POSTMODERN TURN ......................................................................................... 85
4.6 POSTMODERNITY ............................................................................................................................ 86
4.6.1. Postmodern Era ...................................................................................................................... 86
4.6.2. Postmodern Conditions ........................................................................................................... 89
4.7 SUMMARY ........................................................................................................................................ 91
References ........................................................................................................................................ 92
AGENCY-STRUCTURE DEBATE
5.0 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................ 93
5.1 OBJECTIVES .................................................................................................................................... 93
5.2. ANTHONY GIDDENS’ STRUCTURATION THEORY .......................................................................... 94
ACTIVITY 5.1 ..................................................................................................................................... 95
5.2.1. Praxis ...................................................................................................................................... 95
5.2.2. Systems and Structures .......................................................................................................... 96
ACTIVITY 5.2 ..................................................................................................................................... 98
5.3 PIERRE BOURDIEU-HABITUS AND FIELD ...................................................................................... 98
ACTIVITY 5.3 ..................................................................................................................................... 99
5.4 ERVING GOFFMAN-DRAMATURGY AND FACE WORK ................................................................ 100
ACTIVITY 5.4 ................................................................................................................................... 103
5.5 SUMMARY ...................................................................................................................................... 103
References ...................................................................................................................................... 103
GLOBALISATION
6.0 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................. 105
6.1 OBJECTIVES .................................................................................................................................. 105
6.2 GLOBALISATION-BACKGROUND .................................................................................................. 106
6.3 GLOBALISATION AND SOCIOLOGY .............................................................................................. 106
ACTIVITY 6.1 ................................................................................................................................... 109
6.4 THE GLOBAL AND THE LOCAL ..................................................................................................... 109
6.4.1 Globalisation from above versus globalization from below ....................................................... 110
6.5 CONTRADICTIONS OF GLOBALIZATION ................................................................................. 110
SELF ASSESSMENT ACTIVITY ...................................................................................................... 111
6.6 SUMMARY ...................................................................................................................................... 111
References ...................................................................................................................................... 112
Women’s University in Africa iii

Module Overview
Module Overview
Social Theory 2
MODULE OVERVIEW
This module picks up from Social Theory 1 which considers in detail Classical Sociology. It
brings out the link between classical and contemporary sociology as it considers various devel-
opments that have attracted the attention of sociologists. The module centers on the following
topics: critical theory, feminist sociology, poststructuralism, postmodernism, agency-structure-
debate and globalization. Throughout the module, an attempt is made to show that classical and
contemporary sociology are interwoven.
MODULE AIMS
 2.
The aims of this module are to:
1. Introduce students to contemporary sociology
Expand and show linkages between classical and contemporary
sociology
3. Help students analyse ,explain and predict social processes using
sociological theories
Women’s University in Africa 1

2 Women’s University in Africa

Unit 1 Critical Theory
Unit 1
Critical Theory
1.0 INTRODUCTION
This Unit introduces you to Critical Theory. It starts by giving you a historical background to the
theory and its brief overview at the Frankfurt School before considering ideas by various theo-
rists who fall under Critical Theory.
1.1 OBJECTIVES
 By the end of this unit you should be able to:

1. Define and explain Critical Theory from the perspective of the
various theorists
2. Apply Critical Theory to practical life experiences
3. Show the linkages between Critical school and Marxism and other
schools of thought

1.2 HISTORY OF CRITICAL THEORY AND THE

FRANKFURT SCHOOL
When critical theory is mentioned in connection with social theory, it is usually associated with
what is called the “Frankfurt School.” Critical theory is therefore usually more closely associated
with a group of theorists called the Frankfurt school. In order to fill in the perceived omissions of
traditional Marxism, they sought to draw answers from other schools of thought, hence using the
insights of anti-positivist sociology, psychoanalysis, existential philosophy and other disciplines.
The school’s main figures sought to learn from and synthesize the works of such varied thinkers
as Kant, Hegel, Marx, Freud, Weber and Lukacs. Following Marx, they were concerned by the
conditions which allowed for social change and the establishment of rational institutions. Their
emphasis on the ‘critical’ component of theory was derived significantly from their attempt to
overcome the limits of positivism, materialism and determinism by returning to Kant’s critical
philosophy and its successors in German idealism, principally Hegel’s philosophy, with its em-
phasis on dialectic and contradiction as inherent properties of reality.
1.2.1 Early influences on Critical Theory

The intellectual influences on and theoretical focus of the first generation of Frankfurt School
critical theorists can be summarized as follows:
Historical context Transition from small-scale entrepreneurial capitalism to monopoly

capitalism and imperialism; socialist labor movement grows, turns
reformist; emergence of the welfare state; Russian revolution and
the rise of Communism; neotechnic period; emergence of mass media
and mass culture, “modern” art; rise of Nazism.
Weberian theory Comparative historical analysis of Western rationalism in capitalism,

the modern state, secular scientific rationality, culture, and religion;
analysis of the forms of domination in general and of modern rational-
legal bureaucratic domination in particular; articulation of the
distinctive, hermeneutic method of the social sciences.
Freudian theory Critique of the repressive structure of the “reality principle” of

advanced civilization and of the normal neurosis of everyday life;
discovery of the unconscious, primary-process thinking, and the
impact of the Oedipus complex and of anxiety on psychic life; analysis
of the psychic bases of authoritarianism and irrational social behavior.
Critique of Positivism Critique of positivism as a philosophy, as a scientific methodology,

as a political ideology and as everyday conformism; rehabilitation of
– negative – dialectic, return to Hegel; appropriation of critical
elements in phenomenology, historicism, existentialism, critique of

their ahistorical, idealist tendencies; critique of logical positivism and

pragmatism.
Aesthetic modernism Critique of “false” and reified experience by breaking through its
traditional forms and language; projection of alternative modes of
existence and experience; liberation of the unconscious;
consciousness of unique, modern situation; critique of the culture
industry and “affirmative” culture; aesthetic utopia.
Marxist theory Critique of bourgeois ideology; critique of alienated labor; historical

materialism; history as class struggle and exploitation of labor in
different modes of production; systems analysis of capitalism as
extraction of surplus labor through free labor in the free market;
unity of theory and practice; analysis for the sake of revolution,
socialist democracy, classless society.
Culture theory Critique of mass culture as suppression and absorption of negation,

as integration into status quo; critique of Western culture as a culture
of domination, both of an external and internal nature; dialectic
differentiation of emancipatory and repressive dimensions of elite
culture; Nietzsche’s transvaluation and Schiller’s aesthetic education.
Responding to the intensification of alienation and irrationality in an advanced capitalist society,

critical theory is a comprehensive, ideology-critical, historically self-reflective body of theory
aiming simultaneously to explain domination and point to the possibilities of bringing about a
rational, humane, and free society. Frankfurt School critical theorists developed numerous theo-
ries of the economic, political, cultural, and psychological domination structures of advanced
industrial civilization.
The term Frankfurt School “was launched in 1937 by Max Horkheimer, the Director of the
Frankfurt Institute for Social Research” (Turner, 1996, p. 56). The Institute had begun in 1923,
with a financial endowment from a wealthy German grain merchant, and was attached to Frank-
furt University in Germany. German universities had been quite conservative, but with the politi-
cal turmoil following World War I, new ideas developed and were influential within the universi-
ties. For a time, many Marxists thought that Germany would become socialist, following the
Russian revolution. When this proved unlikely to occur, some of the intellectuals attracted to
Marxism argued that Marxist-oriented research was necessary to re-examine Marxist theory in
light of the changes that had occurred in Europe. In particular, some of these Marxists consid-
ered that while the objective conditions for socialism existed, the subjective consciousness of
workers was not conducive to overthrowing capitalism and creating socialism. In particular,
“revolutionary consciousness, culture and organization and a clear notion of socialism seemed to
be lacking.” As a result, it was necessary to reconsider various aspects of Marxism and focus on
“consciousness, subjectivity, culture, ideology and the concept of socialism … in order to make
possible radical political change” (Kellner, 1989, p. 12).

Max Horkheimer (philosopher, sociologist and social psychologist) recruited many of the school’s
most talented theorists, including Theodore Adorno (philosopher, sociologist, musicologist), Erick
Fromm (psychoanalyst), Hebert Marcuse (philosopher) and, as a member of the institute’s “outer
circle”, Walter Benjamin (essayist and literary critic). However, the title of “school” can often be
a misleading one, as the Institute’s members did not always form a series of tightly woven,
complementary projects. Some scholars have therefore limited their view of the Frankfurt School
to Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, Lowenthal, Habermas and Pollock. This unit will pick on
some of these and dwell on their ideas.
Horkheimer envisaged the Institute as carrying out interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary studies

that cut across and combine various traditional academic disciplines. Kellner notes that Horkheimer
argued that social philosophy should examine and elucidate:
‘the fate of human beings, insofar as they are parts of a community, not mere
individuals. It concerns itself above all with the social life of the people: state, law,
economy, religion, in short, with the entire material and spiritual culture of
humanity’ (Kellner, 1990, p. 2).
That is, he looked on critical theory as an approach that would examine all aspects of social life,
not only the larger structural forces but also the individual, consciousness and the community. In
intellectual terms this meant working with ideas from philosophy, the social sciences, the arts, the
humanities, and other traditions. Rather than being interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary, the aim
was to assemble various writers and thinkers who could combine and synthesize ideas from
these various perspectives. By studying current social and political problems, the hope was that
a new synthesis of perspectives could be achieved, whereby the boundaries of the traditional
academic disciplines could be overcome – that is, a superdisciplinary approach to the study of
the social life of people.
Critical theory may be defined as a self-conscious social critique that is aimed at change and
emancipation through enlightenment, and does not cling dogmatically to its own doctrinal as-
sumptions. Horkheimer opposed it to “traditional theory”, which refers to theory in the positivist,
scientific or purely observational mode – that is, which derives generalizations or ‘laws’ about
different aspects of the world. Drawing upon Max Weber, Horkheimer argued that the social
sciences are different from the natural sciences, inasmuch as generalizations cannot be easily
made from so-called experiences, because the understanding of a “social” experience itself is
always fashioned by ideas that are in the researchers themselves. What the researcher does not
realize is that he is caught in a historical context in which ideologies shape the thinking; thus theory
would be conforming to the ideas in the mind of the researcher rather than the experience itself:
‘The facts which our senses present to us are socially performed in two ways:
through the historical character of the perceiving organ. Both are not simply
natural; they are shaped by human activity, and yet the individual perceives himself
(sic) as receptive and passive in the act of perception’
For Horkheimer, approaches to understanding in the social sciences cannot simply imitate those
in the natural sciences. Although various theoretical approaches would come close to breaking
out of the ideological constraints which restricted them, such as positivism, pragmatism, neo-

Kantism and phenomenology, Horkheimer would argue that they failed, because all were subject
to a “logico-mathematical” prejudice which separates theoretical activity from actual life. Ac-
cording to Horkheimer, the appropriate response to this dilemma is the development of a critical
theory.
The problem, Horkheimer argued, is epistemological: we should not merely reconsider the scien-
tist but the knowing individual in general. Unlike orthodox Marxism, which merely applies a
ready-made “template” to both critique and action, critical theory seeks to be self-critical and
rejects any pretensions to absolute truth. Critical theory defends the primacy of neither matter
(materialism) nor consciousness (idealism), arguing that both epistemologies distort reality to the
benefit, eventually, of some small group. What critical theory attempts to do is to place itself
outside of philosophical structures and the confines of existing structures. However, as a way of
thinking and “recovering” humanity’s self-knowledge, critical theory often looks to Marxism for
its methods and tools.
Horkheimer maintained that critical theory should be directed at the totality of society in its
historical specificity (i.e. how it came to be configured at a specific point in time), just as it should
improve understanding of society by integrating all the major social sciences, including geogra-
phy, economics, sociology, history, political science, anthropology, and psychology. While criti-
cal theory must at all times be self-critical, Horkheimer insisted that a theory is only critical if it is
explanatory. Critical theory must therefore combine practical and normative thinking in order to
“explain what is wrong with current social reality, identify actors to change it, and provide clear
norms for criticism and practical goals for the future.” Whereas traditional theory can only mirror
and explain reality as it presently is, critical theory’s purpose is to change it; in Horkheimer’s
words the goal of critical theory is “the emancipation of human beings from the circumstances
that enslave them”.
Horkheimer was critical of sociologists and other social scientists for eliminating philosophy from
their analysis and limiting themselves to the study of specific aspects of social life, without consid-
ering the structure and organization of society as a whole (Kellner, 1990, p. 3). At the same time,
he was critical of some branches of philosophy for limiting themselves to observable facts and the
“scientific method.” For Horkheimer, philosophy is essential to an overall social theory, but this
theory also has to be involved in concrete studies of the social world – there should be a “dialec-
tical penetration and development of philosophical theory and the praxis of the individual disci-
plines” (Horkheimer quoted in Kellner, 1990, p. 3).
As a result of these considerations, critical theorists are critical of Marxism when it is mechani-
cally materialist or too determinist. They were especially critical of branches of philosophy,
especially positivism and scientific methods associated with it. They are also critical of sociology
and other social sciences for being insufficiently critical and having only partial analyses. They
thus set very high standards for social science.
Given that the initial concern of these theorists was to understand the reason why class con-
sciousness had not developed among the working class, their first project was to conduct an
empirical study of the white-collar working class in Germany, to obtain information concerning

their psychological, social, and political attitudes and combine this with theoretical ideas from the
various social sciences (Kellner, 1989, p. 19). The findings of this study were that “the actual
revolutionary potential of the German working class was less than was usually assumed, and that,
while the workers might resist a fascist attempt to take over the government, it was unlikely that
they would undertake the sacrifices necessary for a socialist revolution” (Kellner, 1989, p. 20).
While this approach provided interesting results, it is not clear that in studies of this type, the
approach of these critical theorists differed all that much from some of the conventional social
science approaches.
ACTIVITY 1.1
1. What is the Frankfurt School and in what ways is it related to Critical
Theory?
..............................................................................................
2. What is Critical
Theory?........................................................................
3. What forces/factors led to the development of Critical
Theory?....................………………………………………
4. Who are the major contributors to Critical
Theory?........................................…………………………………
5. Explain the difference between Critical Theory and Traditional
Theory from Horkeimer’s
perspective…………………………………..
6. Briefly summarise Horkheimer’s contributions to critical
theory?..................…………………………………………
7. How valid are Horkheimer’s contributions to social
theory?...............
1.3 WHAT IS CRITICAL ABOUT CRITICAL THEORY?

Having considered the background and history of Critical Theory, it is important that we consider
in detail what Critical Theory is critical about. As critique Critical Theory is usually considered to
be a critique of modernity and the developments and institutions associated with modern society.
It can also be a critique of particular schools of thought within sociology, or of sociology and
social science as a whole. A large part of critical theory has been to critique art and culture, in
particular the consumer culture, advertising, the media, and other forms of popular culture. It is
in the sphere of culture that critical theory continues to be relevant and innovative.
Kellner notes, “Critical Theory has been deeply concerned with the fate of modernity, and has
offered systematic and comprehensive theories of the trajectory of modernity, combined with
critical diagnoses of some of the latter’s limitations, pathologies and destructive effects-while
providing defenses of some of its progressive elements.” (Kellner, 1989, p. 3)

In Kellner’s view, Critical Theory has generally been committed to the idea of modernity and
progress, while at the same time noting the ways that features of modernity can create problems
for individuals and society. In some ways, even Weber’s theory of rationalization of modern
society can be regarded as a critical theory. Weber argued that rationalization was a force that
increasingly dominated western and other societies, limiting creativity and the human spirit.
You should note that critical theory differs from post-modern approaches to social theory. Theo-
rists in the latter perspective tend to argue that modernity has ended, or that modernity must be
rejected in its totality. Post-modernists may even reject social theory and political practice whereas
critical theorists tend to theorize extensively and some argue that politics can be used to pursue
progress. Critical theorists generally tend to have a comprehensive and overall social theory and
an idea of progress and a better world, even if they are unable to find ways of getting there. In
contrast, a post-modern approach is more likely to be associated with rejection of comprehen-
sive, universal theory.
ACTIVITY 1.2
1. What is Critical Theory critical
about?..............................................................…………………….
2. In what ways does Critical Theory differ from Post-modern
approaches?
……………………………………………………………………………….
…………………………………………………………………………….
1.4 MARXISM AND CRITICAL THEORY

Marxism is a precursor of critical theory since Marxism provides a critique of capitalism and
modernism. Marxism embraces modernity and Marxists argue that one of the main problems is
that capitalism puts fetters on the progressive forces. The forces of capitalism are viewed as
progressive in sweeping away the traditional, religious, backward, and feudal forms of society,
spreading industrialization and urbanization across societies. The forces of capital, markets, and
commodities are the most powerful in history, able to break the hold of traditional forces that
constrain and limit people. Capitalism spurs the development of science, technology, trade, and
communication, creating a new world that has the potential to create a much better world for
everyone. Historically, capitalism is progressive in breaking the power of traditional social forces
and creates the possibility of socialism and communism – where all can share equitably in what
human creativity can produce. It is only through the stage of capitalism that an improved society
can emerge. In that sense, the modern is emancipatory.
At the same time, Marx developed a powerful and all-encompassing critique of capitalism and he
regarded it as exploitative of human labor and its potential and creativity. Marx’s critique of
capitalism was that while this system had incredible power and potential to transform human

society positively, in actual fact it resulted in exploitation and ultimately limited the possibility for
further improvement. Workers were emancipated from traditional limits but became slaves of
the new factory system, monopolization resulted in limits on trade and further progress, and the
state acted in the interests of the bourgeoisie rather than society as a whole. Accumulation
created unheard of social wealth, but ended up in the hands of a few, who prevented further
improvements in society. In this sense, capitalism was not only exploitative of the majority, but
limited social progress.
Some Marxists after Marx have adopted ambiguous approaches to modernity (Turner, 1996, p.
55). Some tended to become more social democratic, arguing that capitalism could be reformed
and improved. Others tended to adopt a more critical approach to capitalism as a system,
arguing that this system had to be overthrown in order to create socialism and a better society.
Some of these traditions around the world show how Marxism continued to contribute to the
critical tradition. Marxists have been influential in anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist struggles in
the colonial world, in trade unions in many countries, and in feminist and minority struggles to end
oppression, discrimination, and inequality. Marxists have generally taken a critical approach,
looking for inequality, domination, and illegitimate uses of power, and have tried to expose and
eliminate these. As such, Marxist approaches still have a critical edge to them.
In their early writings, critical theorists can be regarded as working primarily in the Marxian
perspective, but extending it by examining the new forms capitalism took, and developing it in
new directions, by examining culture and consciousness. Beginning from the commodity and
commodity production as the key feature of capitalist society, they argued that
capitalist market relations and values were penetrating ever more areas of life. …
Exchange as becoming the primary way in which people related to and interacted
with each other in a capitalist market society. Consequently reification, the turning
of humans, culture, nature and everything else into commodities whose
fundamental substance was exchange value, came to dominate relationships and
activity within capitalist society. (Kellner, 1989, p. 53).
That is, rather than human relationships between individuals, exchange relationships come to
dominate inter-personal relationships. Marx had noted this, but this line of thought was much
further developed by the critical theorists. They looked on capitalism in the twentieth century as
extending this to many aspects of society previously untouched or relatively unaffected by ex-
change relations. They saw aspects of personal life such as love, friendship, and the family being
reduced to such form of exchange. Consumption became organized by such forces as well, so
that there were increasingly “oppressive uniformities and identities” (Calhoun, p. 516). Calhoun
notes that they were concerned with “the increasing and increasingly enforced sameness of mod-
ern society – both a conformism among its members and a difficulty in bringing underlying ten-
sions, even contradictions, to public attention and action” (p. 517). They viewed such forces as
stifling individuality and particularity (Kellner, 1989, p. 54) and producing a certain sameness
among all members of society. This aspect of capitalism has developed much more than in the
1920s and 1930s, so that this part of their critique certainly has an important resonance in today’s
economy, media, and society. Consumer and media capitalism have vastly extended their reach

into all aspects of the consumer society and life in general, and a critical approach to contempo-
rary society can benefit from and use the ideas developed by these critical theorists.
Critical theory began by putting Marxian political economy at the centre of analysis, and early
critical theory was materialist and committed to socialism. One of the major features of this
perspective was that social theory could not take the familiar and observed as given and un-
changing. Rather, all of social life is a reflection of the economic system and the role of social
theory was to investigate the ways in which this changed and affected people. Horkheimer
argued that there needed to be a study of “how the categories of our consciousness were shaped
and how they in turn constituted both the world we saw and what we took to be possible”
(Calhoun, p. 515). However, this was not a crude materialism that might argue that conscious-
ness is a direct result of economic position. Neither was it idealism, arguing that consciousness
had no connection with material reality. Rather, critical theory “describes the complex set of
mediations that interconnect consciousness and society, culture and economy, state and citi-
zens” (Kellner, 1990, p. 3-4).
Friedrich Pollock, one of the economists associated with the Frankfurt School was also influ-
enced by these ideas. He developed a model of state capitalism, whereby “the state acquires
power over money and credit, and regulates production and prices. Furthermore, management
becomes separate from ownership” (Kellner, 1989, pp. 60-61). While Marx and some earlier
economists may have foreseen some aspects of this, they did not foresee the manner in which the
state would intervene in the economic sphere. While these critical theorists may have overesti-
mated the role of the state in economics, and underestimated the vibrancy of capitalism as an
economic system, theories of this sort have contributed to our understanding of capitalism and
how it evolves. There is a strong political aspect to the economic sphere and many aspects of the
economy are administered.
Marxists tended to argue that the state and political forces operate in the interest of the owners of
capital. Some of the arguments of the critical theorists questioned this, pointing out that the
political sphere sometimes was dominant, and the interests of the administered, totalitarian soci-
ety might dominate the economic in some aspects.
Critical theory developed an approach which incorporated both the economic and material, and
an analysis of individuals and their social psychology, attempting to deal with aspects of what we
might refer to as the agency-structure issues today. But neither the material nor consciousness
was primary in determining the other. Rather, these theorists paid much attention to culture, law,
ethics, fashion, public opinion, sport, life style, and leisure (Kellner, 1989, p. 18), topics which
had not previously been incorporated into Marxian analysis. Calhoun notes how “Marx shared
with the young Hegel an attempt to conceptualize the absolute creativity of the human being
through the example of art, but unlike Hegel he extended this into a more general analysis of
labor” (p. 516). The Frankfurt school theorists took up this challenge once again and made art
and aesthetics a central feature of their analysis.

1.5 WEBER AND CRITICAL THEORY

Critical theorists also added Weber’s views concerning bureaucracy and rationality to these
ideas, and argued that the tendencies to rationalization could lead to a totally administered soci-
ety, where the new would be excluded. They feared that the individual would be submerged in
the administered totality. Weber had argued that forces of rationality and rationalization were
becoming increasingly dominant in western society. Rather than traditional or charismatic forces
being dominant in social organization, Weber argued that calculation, accounting, considered
decision-making, and guidance social action by careful examination of how means could be used
to accomplish particular ends were forms that had become more forceful in western society.
These forces are clearest in economics, business, and formal organizations, but Weber argued
that these same forces made their effects felt in politics, education, and even the arts.
Critical theorists added these ideas of Weber on bureaucracy, rationalization, and administration
to the Marxian ideas of exchange and commodification. While Marx was primarily concerned
with the economic sphere, the critical theorists extended their analysis to the political and social
sphere, combining the ideas of exchange and administered society. The result was a view that
capitalism and the society associated with it “was a totalizing system which attempted to pen-
etrate every area of life from self-constitution to interpersonal relations to education.” These
totalizing processes were leading to the destruction of “individuality and particularity” (Kellner,
1989, p. 54).
Critical Theory made major contributions in two areas relating to the possibility of human sub-
jects to be rational, i.e. individuals who could act rationally to take charge of their own society
and their own history. The first consisted of social phenomena previously considered in Marxism
as part of the “superstructure” or as ideology: personality, family and authority structures (one of
the earliest works published bore the title Studies of Authority and the Family), and the realm
of aesthetics and mass culture. Studies saw a common concern here in the ability of capitalism to
destroy the preconditions of critical, revolutionary political consciousness. This meant arriving at
a sophisticated awareness of the depth dimension in which social oppression sustains itself. It
also meant the beginning of critical theory’s recognition of ideology as part of the foundations of
social structure. The arguments of Marcuse on this issue are notable.
ACTIVITY 1.3
1. In what ways is Marxism a form of Critical
Theory?.............................................................................................
…….....................................................……………………………………
2. How did Marxian ideas influence Critical
Theory?..............................................................................................
……………………………………………………………………………..
3. How did Weberian ideas influence Critical
Theory?...............................................................................................

1.6 CRITICAL THEORY IDEAS IN GENERAL

1.6.1 Totalizing Societies.
An important part of critical theory is related to their critique of totality and totalizing forces.
They were always opposed to any form of totalitarianism, whether it was the totalitarian society
of fascism in Germany or the totalizing form of administered socialism in the Soviet Union (Calhoun,
p. 522). Their arguments here make sense given the systems that emerged in Nazi Germany and
in the Soviet Union, where the structures to “control more and more aspects of life” (Kellner,
1989, p. 54) were established and acquired great power. Totalitarian here could mean any
system which attempts to govern many or all aspects of social life.
Since the critical theorists came from, were living in, and were affected by the fascist form of
political and social organization (Calhoun, p. 523), it is no surprise that they developed a model
of this totalitarian system. Their intimate knowledge of this system and their later observation of
it from exile in the United States each provided them with useful insights concerning the nature of
totality. Critical theorists looked on fascism as a new form of monopoly or state capitalism,
whereby “the state assumed functions previously carried out by a market economy and thus
became the primary arbitrator of socio-economic development” (Kellner, 1989, p. 67). They
looked on this system as a result of political and economic disorder, a system that capitalism
developed to survive in the face of challenges from the working class and its own inability to
govern itself. This was then a new phase of capitalism, “a new synthesis of monopoly capitalism
and the totalitarian state which threatens to dominate the world and to eliminate its opponents
and all vestiges of the earlier forms of liberal economy and politics” (Kellner, 1989, p. 67).
Attractive as this analysis was, this prediction turned out to be incorrect and capitalism has taken
a different form, perhaps totalizing, but in a different manner. However, the experience of the
critical theorists with fascism and totalitarianism helped shape their later analysis. In particular,
they focus on the ways such a political-economic system achieves a rational, efficient form of
production, but eliminates alternatives and debate over them. The reading from Marcuse will
show how he interpreted and developed these ideas of totality and administered society as
applying to societies that are normally considered more democratic and liberal.
Another aspect of the analysis of such a system was the “socio-psychological analysis of the
cultural roots of fascism in attitudes toward the family and authority” (Kellner, 1989, p. 66). For
Marxists, this was a new direction for social analysis to take and Erich Fromm, one of the key
critical theorists, incorporated Freudian and other psychoanalytic theories into the social theory
of the Frankfurt School.
1.6.2 Individual and Human Nature.

For the Frankfurt theorists, human nature existed, but it was always related to the historical
conditions in which it emerged. Humans are creative, but capitalism creates certain conditions
that appear to be natural and unchanging – these dominate and limit human creativity. The critical
theorists argued with the model of the absolute individual consciousness and identity that charac-

terized much enlightenment, liberal thought and considered individuals to be social “constituted
by intersubjective relations with others” (Calhoun, p. 517). In addition to identity, non-identity
and multiple involvements of the individual meant that self-identity took many different forms. It
was in this that the individual can develop creativity and reach beyond an unchanging individual
identity. If society allowed the individual to explore and critique different ideas and situations, this
would allow the individual to be free. But more and more the increased sameness and uniformity
of society is forced on individuals and prevents this freedom from occurring.
Calhoun also notes that critical theorists looked on essential human characteristics as “the pursuit
of happiness, the need for solidarity with others, and natural sympathies” (Calhoun, p. 517).
These, of course, were developed in particular ways in each specific form of social organization,
since people are products of the historical conditions in which they live. But they connect a
critical form of reason to this, with Horkheimer arguing that “a form of reason implicitly critical of
civilization” is part of human nature. The problem is that administered and totalizing societies
attempt to stifle and constrain this and channel it in particular directions. Fromm argued that there
is an essential human nature that is “repressed and distorted by capitalist patterns of domination”
(Elliott, p. 138).
Erich Fromm’s contribution to critical theory involved an analysis of the individual, the family,
sexual repression, the economy, and the social context of the individual. His writings outline one
way in which the work of Freud and Marx can be integrated. Fromm argues that there are basic
instincts or motive forces for human behaviour, but that these are adapted, both actively and
passively, to social reality. For Fromm, “psychoanalysis … seeks to discover the hidden sources
of the obviously irrational behavior patterns in societal life – in religion, custom, politics, and
education” (Kellner, 1989, p. 37). In this way, he combined social psychological approaches
with the materialism of Marx – that is, synthesizing the instinctual, psychological forces in humans
with the effects of economic and material forces on human life.
For Fromm, the nuclear family as it exists in capitalist society is key to understanding the connec-
tions between these. That is, the individual is raised in a family, and the family stamps a specific
part of the social structure on the child. This is the manner in which “society reproduces its class
structure and imposes its ideologies and practices on individuals” (Kellner, 1989, p. 37). While
individuals growing up in a different society would develop differently, the particular effects of
modernity create forms of domination and inner struggles in each individual. Forms of social
behaviour such as being “submissive, self-effacing, and powerless” (Elliott, p. 138) become part
of the self in these circumstances.
One of the concerns of the Frankfurt school was to develop an idea of how authority emerges in
modern society, given that traditional forms of authority have been eclipsed. Fromm connected
the acceptance of authority with the family and with the larger society. The individual learns to
accept the authority of the father in patriarchal society and develops an inner censor which
internalizes commands and prohibitions. This plus fear of punishment are constantly reinforced
by other representatives of authority, so that people learn to submit to these authorities and
internalize this. Fromm looked on people as developing weak egos as a result and argued that
the ego has to be strengthened and that there should be “rebellion against irrational authority and

development of strong egos which do not derive pleasure from either subordination or domina-
tion, and which are independent of dominant authority, yet able to recognize rational authority”
(Kellner, 1989, p. 43).
The idea of authority was later taken up by Theodor Adorno in The Authoritarian Personality
(published in 1950). This was a quantitative study conducted in the United States in the late
1940s. The major concern of the study was to determine “the potentially fascistic individual,
one whose structure is such as to render him particularly susceptible to anti-democratic propa-
ganda” (Kellner, 1989, p. 115). Kellner argues that the questions associated with this study and
the findings can be useful in analyzing the new right conservatism that has emerged in recent
years.
In this study, Adorno argued that there was a particular character type that could be considered
authoritarian – individuals who “had a deep psychological need for an ‘imaginary foe’ on which
to project all forms of evil and aggression, a foe which would serve as a scapegoat for explaining
the world’s (and individual’s) major problems, fears and obsessions” (Kellner, 1989, p. 116).
Some of the characteristics of the authoritarian personality are adherence to conventional values,
authoritarian (uncritical) submission to idealized authorities, and aggression toward those who
violate conventional values. For Adorno,
Ignorance about the complex conditions of modern societies leads to a general
uncertainty and anxiety, while creating favorable conditions for the projection of
paranoid fears onto imaginary enemies. It also leads to … ‘ticket thinking’ and
‘personalization in politics’, whereby the confused, anxious authoritarian
personality buys into an entire political agenda and projects hostile and aggressive
tendencies on personalized enemies, while idealizing authoritarian leaders.
(Kellner, 1989, p. 117).
Kellner argues that Adorno’s findings are still useful and can be used to describe and analyze
contemporary attitudes and movements of the conservative right in the United States – their
characteristics today are essentially the same as in the late 1940s.
1.6.3 Dialectic of Enlightenment.

The most famous single work of the critical theorists was the book Dialectic of Enlightenment,
published in 1947 by Horkheimer and Adorno. This book “combined a novel critique of West-
ern civilization and rationality with a powerful critique of ‘the administered society’ … shift[ing]
the focus of Critical Theory to philosophy of history, philosophic anthropology and a philosophi-
cal critique of culture” (Kellner, 1989, p. 83). This book not only distanced these writers from
Marxism, emphasized philosophic concerns, and made the domination of nature the main focus
of their analysis. This book and the writings that follow it also represent the strong influence of
Adorno, who had a more philosophical approach than did Horkheimer and, until Habermas
emerged as a leading writer, Adorno was the leading figure in the Frankfurt School. The shift in
approach may have occurred because these theorists now viewed it as extremely unlikely that
the working class would be the agent for revolution and socialism. Being in exile in the United
States, where critical theorists had little connection to social movements, may also have contrib-

uted to this different approach. Whatever the reasons, the result was to focus their analysis on
the critique of instrumental reason, so that this dialectic of enlightenment replaced class struggle
as the central feature of their analysis.
The question Horkheimer and Adorno asked was “why humanity, instead of entering into a truly
human condition, is sinking into a new kind of barbarism” (Kellner, 1989, p. 85). They consid-
ered scientific thought to have become increasingly formalist, conformist, and instrumental, rather
than raising critical questions concerning society and being skeptical toward systems of thought.
They consider the enlightenment to have been a long development from the Greeks on, where
enlightened thought “emancipates human beings from the despotism of myth and helps them to
control and dominate nature” (Kellner, 1989, p. 87). Kellner argues that what Horkheimer and
Adorno were attempting to do is how the ways in which enlightened thought contained traces of
myth and irrationality, although being seemingly rational in content. Further Kellner looks on this
work as “a history and pre-history of the bourgeois subject and that subject’s project of the
domination of nature” (Kellner, 1989, p. 87).
While rationality and domination of nature to pursue human interests is usually considered the aim
of enlightenment, Horkheimer and Adorno note that “what men want to learn from nature is how
to use it in order to wholly dominate it and other men. This is the only aim” (Kellner, 1989, pp.
87-8). As a result, they consider enlightenment reason not to be liberating, but to be a form of
totalitarian thought – with reason serving the interests of domination by being part of existing
society. While Horkheimer and Adorno considered there to be a progressive element to enlight-
enment thought and reason, they regarded such reason as mostly instrumental and based on a
formal rationality, rather than being critical reason. As a result, truth becomes identified with
certain forms of science and technology, mathematics, logic, calculation, efficiency, quantification
– with these forms of rationality privileged over other forms. Horkheimer and Adorno provided
the first real critique of science and technology from a left or radical point of view; previously
Marxists had generally defended these as progressive. Science was seen as having resulted
questioning irrational systems that had maintained societal stability. But Horkheimer and Adorno
saw these as limiting forms of thought, where everything needed to be calculated and have formal
equivalence, thus creating a new form of totalitarian thought and limiting human creativity, indi-
viduality, and uniqueness. The influence of Weber is notable here, with Horkheimer and Adorno
taking his arguments much beyond Weber’s analysis.
Not only does enlightenment limit thought and reason, it leads logically to fascism, which applied
enlightenment principles of order, control, calculability, domination and system to the totalitarian
administration of society: ‘For the rulers, men become material, just as nature as a whole is
material for society. After the short intermezzo of liberalism, in which the bourgeois kept one
another in check, domination appears as an archaic terror in a fascistically rationalized form’
(Kellner, 1989, p. 97).
The idea here is that forms of pure reason developed by Kant and other philosophers were
applied by the bourgeoisie in the economic sphere to the problem of organizing production more
efficiently, then to more rational forms of prisons, and ultimately by the Nazis to the rational
organization of concentration camps.

Taken to this extreme, there are obvious deficiencies to the approach of Horkheimer and Adorno,
in that capitalism has not uniformly taken the route that developed in Nazi Germany. Horkheimer
and Adorno were undoubtedly overly impressed with what happened in Germany and viewed it
as the future of modernity everywhere. At the same time, the tendencies that Horkheimer and
Adorno describe do exist in capitalism and modernity, and it is worth considering their analysis in
order to focus on the positive and negative features of modernity.
1.6.4 Art and Culture.

In contrast to Marxian theories, critical theorists made analysis of art and culture a central focus
of their studies, and noted developments in culture that were not purely economic in origin.
Rather, the dialectic of enlightenment was used as critique of culture. Kellner notes that they
argued that
Culture, once a refuge of beauty and truth, was falling prey, they believed, to
tendencies toward rationalization, standardization and conformity, which they saw
as a consequence of the triumph of instrumental rationality that was coming to
pervade and structure ever more aspects of life. Thus while culture once
cultivated individuality, it was now promoting conformity and was a crucial part of
the ‘totally administered society’ that was producing ‘the end of the individual’.
(Kellner, 1989, p. 121).
For the most part, critical theorists developed critiques of mass or popular culture. For example,
Adorno “criticized popular music production for its commodification, rationalization, fetishism
and reification of musical materials” (Kellner, 1989, p. 124). In particular, Adorno attacked jazz
as being standardized and commercialized, arguing that “seeming spontaneity and improvisation
are themselves calculated in advance, and the range of what is permissible is as circumscribed as
in clothes or other realms of fashion” (Kellner, 1989, p. 126). While Adorno’s critique has some
truth to it, he is unable to explain innovation and new developments using this one-sided ap-
proach. Adorno tended to look on traditional forms of ‘high culture’ such as the art of art
galleries or the music of German composers as more authentic and creative than were forms of
popular culture. Adorno adopted a very elitist approach to culture, one that would lead to
limiting accessibility to and understanding of culture by large parts of the population.
Walter Benjamin, one of the individuals associated with the Institute, disagreed with Adorno and
argued that there were not such dramatic differences between high culture and popular culture.
Benjamin was interested in the copy, the mechanical reproduction of artistic images, a relatively
new development in the early part of the twentieth century. While Benjamin regarded the copy
as questioning the authenticity of the original work of art and the aura and aesthetic quality of the
work of art, he also argued that
For the first time in world history, mechanical reproduction emancipates the work
of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual. To an even greater degree the
work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility.
(Kellner, 1989, p.124).

Benjamin considered there to be progressive features of this new development, with the new
forms becoming more accessible to more people, becoming more politicized, and possibly lead-
ing the situation where many images could be brought to the masses could raise political con-
sciousness. This was particularly the case with film where Benjamin is somewhat reminiscent of
Simmel:
By close-ups of the things around us, by focusing on hidden details of familiar
objects, by exploring commonplace milieus under the ingenious guidance of the
camera, the film, on the one hand, extends our comprehension of the necessities
which rule our lives; on the other hand, it manages to assure us of an immense and
unexpected field of action. Our taverns and our metropolitan streets, our offices
and furnished room, our railroad stations and our factories appeared to have us
locked up hopelessly. Then came the film and burst this prison-world asunder by
the dynamite of the tenth of a second, so that now, in the midst of its far-flung
ruins and debris, we calmly and adventurously go traveling. (Kellner, 1989,
p.125).
The copy and mechanical reproduction have proceeded much further than in Benjamin’s day,
with digital images being endlessly reproducible, thus presenting many new possibilities.
ACTIVITY 1.4
1. Briefly explain the following contributions by Critical Theorists:
a) Totalizing societies………………………………………….
b) Individual and human
nature……………………………………………………………..
c) Dialectic of enlightenment………………………………………….
d) Art and culture…………………………………………………..
2. With reference to examples critically appraise the following
contributions by Critical Theorists:
a) Totalizing societies………………………………………………..
b) Individual and human nature
…………………………………………………
c) Dialectic of enlightenment……………………………………..
d) Art and
culture……………………………………………………..

1.7 HABERMAS AND COMMUNICATIVE RATIONALITY

1.7.1 Background
Jürgen Habermas’ writings are a contemporary approach to critical theory and these writings are
supradisciplinary in that they combine philosophy and sociology with other forms of social theory.
His analysis builds on the ideas of earlier social theorists and philosophers such as Kant, Hegel,
Marx, Weber, and the earlier critical theorists, and also uses some of the American theorists such
as Mead. His most important work may be The Theory of Communicative Action (1981),
where he presents the theories of “the theory of communicative rationality and the theory of
societal rationalization” (Braaten, p. 2).
The central concern of Habermas is similar to that of the earlier critical theorists – with modernity,
rationality, autonomy, freedom, and human happiness, and how these are connected as societies
change. He develops a comprehensive social theory with an analysis of the individual and
interaction, social institutions and structures, and forces of change and development in societies.
This provides a link between agency and structure, combining these within an overall theory of
historical change and evolution.
Like earlier critical theorists, Habermas combines ideas from the emancipatory side of Marx with
the more constraining forces of rationalization from Weber. However, unlike Horkheimer and
Adorno, he considers these forces to be possible and to operate in modern society. While the
forces of rationality, instrumental reason, and the administered society may appear to be most
powerful, Habermas considers it possible for democracy to maintain itself and develop in new
forms. As Calhoun shows, discussion, debate, and communication in the public sphere provide
a way to develop and extend democratic aspects of society. These can lead toward social
progress, addressing the problems of modern society, and can create the possibility of greater
reason, justice, and human freedom. As a result, the analysis of Habermas leads in a direction
that has more positive than that of Horkheimer, Adorno, and Marcuse, with increased public
discourse and new social movements possibly providing a way out of the trap of modern forms
of rationalization and administration, and leading toward a better society.
1.7.2 Early Work of Habermas

Habermas began by attempting to develop critical theory, but making it more politically con-
nected and significant. This early work may have been more in line with early critical theory than
with the pessimistic and one-dimensional vision that Horkheimer, Adorno and Marcuse had
developed by the 1950s and 1960s. In this work, Habermas connects theory and practice with
the aim of (i) developing a critical social science, and (ii) providing a critique of actual historical
institutions with a view to examining political aspects. This early work was concerned with
ideology and consciousness, with an analysis of how human consciousness became false con-
sciousness, and with “the development of a broader sense of political practice as the constitution
of ways of living together that enabled the full realization of human potential” (Calhoun, p. 516).

In terms of critical social science, Habermas argued that “his task was to locate the relationship
among the knowledge-forming interests that led to theoretical production, the historical condi-
tions within which the theory was set, and the epistemic content of the theory” (Calhoun, p. 527).
In particular, he used the approach of Freud and Marx, and compared critical theory to psycho-
analysis – helping society develop a more critical approach. This was necessary because “hu-
man capacities were repressed without recognition and could be liberated with movement to-
wards fuller and free communication” (Calhoun, p. 527). This form of analysis extended earlier
critical theory by arguing that social science and ideology were one-sided, constraining and
limiting the creative potential of humans. This could be viewed as an extension of earlier critical
theory approaches, and using ideas from Marx, Freud, Horkheimer and Adorno, and Marcuse.
At the same time, the latter quote notes the importance of communication, a major theme of the
later work of Habermas.
The second part of his early work, Habermas developed an historical critique of the institutions
of bourgeois, liberal and nominally democratic society. He argued that the public sphere had
traditionally been one of relatively free and open debate – although among elites, these were well
informed and each sector of society entered such debate. Calhoun argues that for Habermas this
“offered a model of public communication which could potentially realize the rational guidance of
society” (Calhoun, p. 527). The public sphere of civil society, with coffeehouses, meetings,
books, and the press, provided a forum within which real debate could occur so that rational-
critical discourse could take place. Habermas argues that this is the form of debate and discus-
sion that occurred in the early stages of modernity.
In the twentieth century, the situation changed, according to Habermas. While democracy was
extended to include more parts of the population, the new public was not always prepared for
such debate, the mass media distorted and debased the forms of discussion, and discourse
generally degenerated. In addition, the boundary between the state and civil society collapsed,
with the development of a larger state, intervening in areas of society such as the economic and
social welfare. Experts, representatives of interest groups, and bureaucrats took over and de-
veloped the discourse in line with the administered society that was emerging.
While there may have been considerable truth in this argument, it was generally elitist and ideal-
ized a traditional form of society and social discourses that prevented most people from partici-
pation. Women were certainly ignored in these earlier debates and many other parts of society
were unrepresented. While Habermas decided to change course in his analysis, this early analy-
sis demonstrates his concern with discussion and debate as an underlying aspect of democracy
and creativity.
1.7.3 Communicative Action

By the 1980s, the analysis of Habermas moved beyond that of earlier critical theory, while
maintaining some of the same aims as critical theory – to be critical of social theory and the
modern world, attempting to point toward human freedom and emancipation. Habermas devel-
oped a theory of communicative action, and this has made a major contribution to contemporary
social theory. While communication was an important part of George Herbert Mead’s ap-

proach, Habermas moves communicative action to a more central position in his theory of social
action. The basic idea of this approach is that “it is through the action of communicating … that
society actually operates and evolves; this process is encompassed and structured by the actors’
lifeworlds” (Wallace and Wolf, p. 175). That is, Habermas looks on communication among
people, interaction through communication, and the results of this as ways in which the social
world operates. Wallace and Wolf quote Habermas arguing that communicative action:
is not only a process of reaching understanding; … actors are at the same time
taking part in interactions through which they develop, confirm, and renew their
memberships in social groups and their own identities. Communicative actions
are not only processes of interpretation in which cultural knowledge is “tested
against the world”; they are at the same time processes of social integration and of
socialization. (Wallace and Wolf, p.175, from Habermas, Theory of
Communicative Action).
Whether or not the theory of communicative action ultimately provides the key to developing an
overall understanding of the social world is not clear. But there is no doubt that the approach
Habermas has developed has led social theorists to pay more attention to language and commu-
nication. In some ways this is reminiscent of Mead and symbolic interactionists, although Habermas
develops this in a different direction. There are several aspects to this approach, and some of its
features are discussed in this section of the unit.
i. Distorted Communication.
Habermas considers distorted communication to have developed as part of psychological re-
pression, social power, and ideological domination. In this analysis, Habermas uses some of the
ideas of Marx, Freud, and Marcuse.
“The development of social organization and productive economic forces has required a certain
amount of psychological repression” (Elliott, p. 141) but in the current era there is a possibility of
transforming or overcoming this. “Habermas argues for the possibility of emancipation through
the recovery of the repressed unconscious” (Elliott, p. 141) with the less conscious or uncon-
scious being recoverable and made conscious through speech. This is not limited to individual or
personal speech and the individual unconscious, but to the public sphere and public discussion.
He links “the overcoming of social repression to transformations in structures of public commu-
nication” (Elliott, p. 141).
Like Marcuse and earlier critical theorists, Habermas agrees that modernity and the forces of the
administered society have dominated society and social relations and even the inner self, limiting
imagination and options for people. Even “desire and passion are increasingly structured by the
social system itself” (Elliott, p. 141). Habermas refers to this process as excommunication, that
is, repressive forces take communication away from the individual, social processes, and public
life. Certain forms of communication are excluded or prohibited, thus intersubjective relations
are privatized and deformed. In order to overcome this “Habermas argues that emancipation
entails the elimination of unconscious distortions of communication in order to secure the
self-reflective movement toward political autonomy” (Elliott, p. 142).

In line with Mead, Simmel, and symbolic interaction approaches, communication is key to inter-
action, and if overpowering social forces such limit the range and forms of interpersonal commu-
nication, this limits social interaction. Since the mind and self develop socially, this excommunica-
tion limits the development of the social self or turns it in certain directions. The reading from
Giddens, “Dilemmas of the Self” provides various examples of the forms and consequences of
this. Calhoun, deals with the distorting and limiting effects that modernity places on public dis-
cussion – the narrow range of debate on public issues, the constraints that the system places on
public discussion. As a result, this appears to be a useful way to interpret some of the psycho-
analytic analyses of social life.
ii. Language and Work. Ritzer ( p. 292) notes that Habermas developed a critique of Marx-
ian analysis in the early 1970s, noting that Marx identified human creativity with work and labor.
While Habermas does not entirely reject this, he argues that this analysis of Marx was one-sided
and misleading. Habermas argues that human creativity, or the essence of humanity or species-
being is two-fold: work or labor on the one hand, and social action on the other.
For Marx, an analysis of work and labor formed the basis for production, exploitation, social
class, and the forces of history. Humans were limited by nature, the forces of production, and the
relations of production, and these resulted in alienation and limits on human creativity. At the
same time, Marx looked on work and labor as potentially freeing humanity from nature. As the
productive forces developed, the working class would create the possibility of a freer and more
just society.
Habermas argues that this captures only one aspect of human potential and creativity. Perhaps
more basic is human social interaction, communication, and language, so that these rather than
work and labor, language and speech may form the basis for human creativity. For Habermas, it
is communication and communicative action that allow social interaction to take place. Just as
work and labor were limited and distorted for Marx, so communication and social interaction
became distorted by modernity for Habermas. The institutions and social structures that develop
in modernity constrain communicative action and thus limit social interaction. By analogy to
Marx, Habermas argues that these limits can be overcome, not just by ending private property,
alienation, and exploitation, but by ending the distortions of communication. Ritzer argues that
“whereas for Marx the goal was a communist society in which undistorted work (species-being)
would exist or the first time, for Habermas the political goal is a society of undistorted communi-
cation (communicative action)” whereby there would be the “elimination of barriers to free com-
munication” (Ritzer, p. 293).
This comparison shows that Habermas has attempted to develop an overall social theory that in
some ways is similar to that of Marx, but takes language and communication as the underlying
concepts on which the theory is to be built.
iii. Reason and Action. Closely connected to the analysis of work and language are the argu-
ments of Habermas concerning reason, action, and knowledge. Weber identified various types
of rationality, and earlier critical theorists argued that for the most part, modern rationality was
associated with instrumental forms of reason and purposive-rational action. That is, the modern

era was associated with great development of purposive, instrumental forms of reason and ac-
tion, whereby the administered society developed more efficient means of meeting specific ends.
Critical reason and value-rational aspects of reason generally were downgraded or eliminated,
according to earlier critical theorists.
Habermas develops much the same idea, by distinguishing instrumental reason or purposive-
rational action from communicative action or communicative forms of reason. The emphasis on
instrumental reason has led to a great development of productive forces, technology, bureau-
cracy, and administration, with theories of these being well developed by Marx, Weber, and their
followers. However, this is not the only form that rationality can take, so that earlier critiques of
rationality, even by critical theorists, were often partial. Ritzer notes that Habermas seeks a
rational society, but one with rationalization of communicative action, that is, communication free
from domination, so that it can be open and free communication (Ritzer, p. 294). Ideology and
legitimation of existing systems, perhaps from instrumental reason, interfere with this and limit the
development of communicative action. As a result, the pursuit of rationality in this more inclusive
sense would lead to “the removal of the barriers that distort communication, but more generally
it means a communication system in which ideas are openly presented and defended against
criticism” (Ritzer, p. 294).
Calhoun notes much the same argument suggesting that the universal pragmatics of Habermas
starts with a “primordial split between communicative and instrumental reason, and even within
communication between speech oriented to understanding itself and speech oriented to practical
effects” (Calhoun, p. 529). While the development of instrumental reason led to alienation and
social disasters (concentration camps, wars, ecological destruction), a further development of
communicative action could lead to development of a better society. In this sense, Habermas is
committed to modernity and the project of the Enlightenment, thus distinguishing him from earlier
critical theorists and postmodernists. That is, for Habermas there is still potential in modernity, by
developing communication and discourse in the public sphere.
Habermas thus develops a somewhat different version of rationality than what Weber, Marx, or
earlier critical theorists developed. Since communicative action is the action associated with
social interaction, Habermas is able to integrate some of the ideas from the symbolic interaction
perspective into this social theory. That is, he sees the forms of social interaction as another type
of rationality.
iv Ideal Speech. Habermas grounds his arguments in the concept of ideal speech and the ideal
speech situation – “a situation in which everyone would have an equal chance to argue and
question, without those who are more powerful, confident, or prestigious having and unequal say.
True positions would prevail under these circumstances because they are more rational” (Wallace
and Wolf, p. 178). The ideal speech situation is one in which the participants are oriented toward
developing a mutual understanding, and not just to achieving some specific purposive result
through the interaction. As a result, his model would seem to argue against rational choice theory
and even take a different direction than the more purposive models of Weber and Parsons.
Habermas notes:

the goal of coming to an understanding is to bring about an agreement that

terminates in the intersubjective mutuality of reciprocal understanding, shared
knowledge, mutual trust, and accord with one another. Agreement is based on
recognition of the corresponding validity claims of comprehensibility, truth,
truthfulness, and rightness. (Wallace and Wolf, p. 178, from Habermas “What is
Universal Pragmatics?”)
This ideal speech situation is thus oriented toward developing an understanding, and when agree-
ment is reached, this is the knowledge and truth of the situation.
Several principles of the ideal speech situation are as follows (adapted from Ritzer, p. 295). See
also Calhoun, p. 529.
 Mutual understanding. What the speaker says is understandable and comprehensible by
others. Same language, structures that are understandable, topics and claims that make
sense to others involved in conversation.
 Truthful. The speaker provides reliable knowledge in the sense that the propositions stated
by the speaker are true. When specific facts and statements concerning the natural or
social world are made, the speaker provides statements that he or she understands to be
correct. That is, there is not deliberate misrepresentation by the speaker.
 Sincere expression. The speaker is sincere or reliable in the sense that the speaker is
truthful and believable. When opinions, attitudes, views, and interpretations are being
provided, the speaker generally attempts to be sincere and not deliberately mislead.
 Right to speak. The speaker has the right and it is proper for the speaker to speak.
Individuals who have a statement to make should be allowed to do so, and their view
should be listened to and seriously considered.
 Social order. Speech acts take a position with respect to normative or legitimate social
order. This may be connected to the first point, that the speech acts relate in some way to
the social order of which one is part.
These are five validity claims that Habermas argues must be associated with conversation and
communication in order to develop and maintain communication and develop common under-
standings. For social interaction through communication to occur, each of these validity claims or
conditions must be met. If one of them breaks down or is violated, then that distorts or limits the
interactive process, and prevents consensus from emerging. This could be at the individual level,
where one or more parties to a conversation do not abide by these, or where there is an unequal
power situation. At the level of institutions and structures, many of these conditions may be
violated. Social organization developed on the basis of these ideal speech assumptions is likely
to be associated with a number of positive features – openness, fairness, democracy, and con-
sensus. It is often minority groups, women, and the disadvantaged or powerless who are left out
in discussion. The conditions of Habermas would require their inclusion in discussion and de-
bate.
Habermas argues that communicatively competent individuals are committed to reaching under-
standing and a consensus. “The theory of communicative competence holds that there is at least
one end (mutuality) to which we are committed in virtue of being capable of communication and

that this end is prior to personal ends” (Braaten, p. 64). That is, while we each may have
personal ends in mind, an encounter through communication is in some senses prior to this theo-
retically, in that we are committed to the communicative principles first. Habermas develops this
view partly from Mead and partly by analyzing the structure of speech and communication.
At one level, the conditions associated with ideal speech can be considered utopian. That is, if
each of these conditions is met, there could be true discussion or discourse among those in-
volved. There would not be power imbalances and this would provide a way of developing
consensus. At the same time, the ideal speech situation can be regarded as an ideal type of the
Weberian sort, and it is a useful analytical tool for considering how social interaction at the
individual, small group, and societal level takes place. Further, these conditions can be regarded
as the basic set of assumptions and concepts for the communicative action theory of Habermas,
perhaps in with the same sort of role that the commodity and exchange plays in Marxian theory
or the unit act in Parsonian theory. That is, from this basic concept of ideal speech, Habermas is
able to build a comprehensive theory of social interaction, life-world, system, and public dis-
course.
v. System and Life-World

Habermas has developed an elaborate theoretical social system, perhaps with Parsons as a
model. While much of this is complex, one part of this approach is that of system and life-world,
and colonization of the life-world by the system. This is analogous to the dominance of commod-
ity exchange of Marx or to Weber’s rationalization, but provides a new way of integrating agency
and structure. Ritzer notes that
the system is the domain of formal rationality, while the life-world is the site of
substantive rationality. The colonization of the life-world, therefore, involves a
restatement of the Weberian thesis that in the modern world, formal rationality is
triumphing over substantive rationality and coming to dominate areas that were
formally defined by substantive rationality. (Ritzer, p. 549).
The life-world is the area of communicative action, where active subjects are, and where social
interaction and communication take place. This site is where daily activities occur, in families, in
peer groups, and in informal discussions and meeting places. Here “speaker and hearer meet,
where they reciprocally raise claims that their utterances fit the world … and where they can
criticize and confirm those validity claims, settle their disagreements, and arrive at agreements”
(Habermas, quoted in Ritzer, p. 549). It is practical and substantive rationality – organized to
meet practical ends and being related to values that characterizes the actions of people in the
lifeworld. In this sphere, it is important for communication to be free and open, and rationality
here means listening and debating, so that “understanding, or a rational method of achieving
consensus, is based ultimately on the authority of the better argument” (Ritzer, p. 550).
The system is the set of institutions that exist that are based not so much on the viewpoint and
experiences of acting subjects, but on the perspective of others. These involve the growth of
institutions and structures, economy and exchange, and formal rationality. These are the realm of

power, whereby some are able to develop means of exercising power over others and dominat-
ing them. Educational institutions, workplaces, and political institutions are part of the system.
Initially, in traditional societies, life-world and system may be identical

in which the taken-for-granted lifeworld is highly encompassing. People mix only
with others who share the same lifeworld, so they are always able to
communicate with each other and have no reason to become self-conscious about
the structure of shared experience. (Wallace and Wolf, p. 175).
This is similar to Simmel’s traditional society or Durkheim’s society with mechanical solidarity.
For Habermas, two developments take place over time. First, the various parts of the life-world
become more differentiated, so that the culture, social, and personality patterns and relationships
become separated. Ritzer notes that “engaging in communicative action and achieving under-
standing in each of these themes leads to the reproduction of the life-world through the reinforce-
ment of culture, the integration of society, and the formation of personality” (Ritzer, p. 550). This
aspect of Habermas is very much like the theory of Parsons, with Habermas using much the same
systems as does Parsons.
Second, the system, or these systems increasingly become detached from the life-world as the
cultural and social structures become more distant from people. These structural patterns in-
creasingly come to dominate people and in the language of Habermas “they exercise more steer-
ing capacity over the life-world” (Ritzer, p. 550). Instead of consensus achieved through sub-
stantively rational communication and discussion, these structures develop a formal rationality
which may not be based on common understandings. This one-sided rationality develops a logic
of its own and the systems become increasingly separated from the life-world of people. Note
the similarities here to Weber’s view of rationalization, Durkheim’s anomie, or Marx’s alienation.
The result of this is that the system colonizes the life-world. While both life-world and system are
essential parts of society, the detachment of the two is associated with domination of the system
over the life-world. Language and communication is required to maintain social interaction, and
this becomes the primary basis on which consensus is reached in modern societies. The difficulty
is that it becomes difficult to carry this on in a complex and highly differentiated society. As a
result, economic and political systems emerge which provide a means of communication, but
through exchange and money in the case of the economy, and power in the case of politics. The
requirements associated with such systems tend to be those of formal rationality, and these come
to determine the dynamics of the system. The result is a deforming of the life-world as the system
increasingly colonizes more and more aspects of the life-world. “Communication becomes
increasingly rigidified, impoverished, and fragmented, and the life-world itself seems poised on
the brink of dissolution” (Ritzer, p. 553).
The solution to these problems is to end the colonization and the detachment of the two. This is
where communication, consensus, and social movements can play a role.

1.7.4 Habermas and the Legitimation Crisis

The term “legitimation” refers to the way a government or social system attempts to justify its
existence and power. All governments need to legitimize their rule, to justify their right to power,
to promote their authority as a means to gaining popular support, or at least, acquiescence,
without which they are likely to collapse. Traditional societies used myth, magic or the authority
of God to legitimize their rule; modern governments claim to represent the will of the people as
reflected in the results of elections and written constitutions. The term “crisis” refers to the situa-
tion whereby the strains within society have reached such a point that the whole social system
cannot cope and is in imminent danger of collapse. The aim of Habermas’ Legitimation Crisis
(1973) was to try and identify the crisis points within advanced capitalist societies and how the
modern state continues both to manage such crises and maintain the legitimacy of the capitalist
system. He sought to take account of contemporary developments, not the least of which was
the growth in state power and the decline of class conflict and class consciousness, especially
amongst the working class. He sought to explain that although advanced capitalism seems stron-
ger than ever, it is in fact undergoing constant crises that ultimately will threaten the legitimacy of
the system, and so cause its collapse. Habermas, by emphasizing cultural and ideological factors
as well, sought to update and reconstruct modern Marxism and critical theory.
Habermas’ study establishes a base for evaluating how legitimation occurs in a system of oppos-
ing classes, as in capitalism. This situation operates based on specific characteristics. One of
these characteristics is the role of normative concepts. One of the objectives of this role is to
permit the functioning of society within a foundation of competition, particularly between indi-
viduals and groups. This competition would be based on the belief that similar opportunities exist
for everyone and that only those who adapt well will succeed. This notion is reminiscent of the
positivist Social Darwinism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Habermas analyzes late capitalist societies in terms of three key sub-systems: the economic,
political and socio-cultural. For society to be stable all three sub-systems must be in balance and
closely interrelated. Advanced capitalism, for example, requires the state to manage the economy
as a way of overcoming the instabilities and conflicts of market forces and to alleviate the in-
equalities created by exploitation and the pursuit of profit. Hence the growth of state planning and
regulation of the economy and the expansion of the welfare state to combat poverty, health-care,
and industrial pollution.
However, the state in turn must maintain popular support and mass loyalty. Therefore it must tax
private enterprise and individuals to pay for educational and welfare services, and develop tech-
niques, including ideology, for securing mass conformity and control. The socio-cultural system
must create the correct ideological climate and social consensus to support capitalism and moti-
vate its members into the “enterprise culture”. If any one of these sub-systems fails to function
effectively in balancing the social system then a crisis will occur.
Habermas identified four possible crisis tendencies within the modern capitalist system, each of
which might trigger off a chain of crises elsewhere: economic crises and crises of rationality,
legitimation and motivation. The whole capitalist system is riddled with inherent contradictions
created by the very nature of it being an irrational system designed to promote inequality and

exploitation rather than a just distribution of wealth and power. It is in a permanent state of crisis
management and is only kept in balance by one sub-system compensating for the deficiencies of
another.
Legitimation in late capitalist societies is thus primarily based on ideological control, on the ability
of the state and cultural apparatus (including media) to convince the masses that the existing
system is just, fair, rational, and so, legitimate. Habermas sees the essence of modern legitimacies
as rationality, the logic of reason and debate. It is through reason that modern civilization with all
its benefits of mass education, mass democracy and mass prosperity has emerged.
Ideology presents a distorted vision of the facts, hiding inefficiencies and injustices of the system.
Inefficiency exists when access to employment is not available to every person, even when there
is economic growth. Injustice is found when equal opportunities are not accessible to all and
when elements of social, economic and cultural discrimination are in operation.
Another characteristic of legitimation which operates in capitalist nations is distortion within the
processes of communication. The social communication which exists does not expose particular
elements of the system, such as the aforementioned inefficiency and injustice. On the contrary,
these elements are concealed by the system of social communication.
The preceding is a summary of that which is considered to constitute the principal elements of the
theory of the crisis of legitimacy. This theoretical context assumes that societies are for the major-
ity in a situation of integration.

ACTIVITY 1.5
1. Explain the influence of the following on Habermas’ contributions to
Critical Theory:
a) Karl Marx…………………………………………………
b) Max Weber………………………………………………..
c) George H. Mead……………………………………………
d) Talcott Parsons…………………………………………..
2. How does Habermas depart from Mead on communication?
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
3. What are Habermas’ contributions to critical social science?
………………………………………………………………………………………….
4. How does Habermas critique historical institutions?
………………………………………………………………………..............................
5. Explain Habermas’ contributions towards human freedom and
emancipation………………………………………………..
6. Briefly explain the following:
a) Distorted communication
b) Language and work
c) Reason and action
d) Ideal speech
7. List the principles of ideal speech.
………………………………………………………………………………………….
8. How relevant are the principles of ideal speech for public
discourse?…………………………………………………..
1.8 HERBERT MARCUSE

1.8.1 Background
Marcuse’s writings provided a critical view of the capitalism and modernity that existed in the
mid-twentieth century, with an historical and social analysis. His focus was less philosophical and
cultural than Horkheimer and Adorno and more concerned with analysis of practical and political
developments as a theory of social change (Kellner, p. 9). At the same time, in his major writings
he did not provide a political or social guide to those who attempted to counteract the powerful
forms of control and limits on freedom that he described. But his critical analysis provided social
movement activists with a means of analyzing problems of modern society. Marcuse was gener-
ally sympathetic to the new social movements (student, anti-war, feminist, civil rights, gay rights).
Marcuse considered “the substratum of the outcasts and outsiders, the exploited of other races
and other colors, the unemployed and the unemployable” (Marcuse, 1964, p. 256) to possibly

have a revolutionary form of opposition to the totalizing society. While he recognized that it
would be difficult to change this system, with respect to these outsiders he argued “the fact that
they start refusing to play the game may be the fact which marks the beginning of the end of a
period” (Marcuse, 1964, p. 257). At the same time, he did not pin his hopes for revolutionary
change on university students (Calhoun, p. 525).
In addition to One-Dimensional Man (1964), the main writings of Marcuse were Reason and
Revolution (1941), Eros and Civilization (1955), Soviet Marxism (1958), and An Essay on
Liberation (1969). Marcuse did not just critique western society but also Soviet society and
the socialism of Eastern Europe. In general, his writings show a concern with issues of human
liberation in general.
1.8.2 Psychoanalytic Theory

Elliott (pp. 139-40) discusses the psychoanalytic theories of Marcuse, which Marcuse devel-
oped in Eros and Civilization. Marcuse rejected Fromm’s view that there was an essential and
unchanging aspect to human nature but examined how “capitalism and mass culture shape per-
sonal desires” and how these result in domination of “the inner world of the human subject”
(Elliott, p. 139). He used ideas, concepts, and analysis of Freud and connected psychological
repression with political repression, attempting to investigate how human emancipation might be
achieved.
From Freud, Marcuse emphasized the unconscious, desire, the sexual and erotic, and the search
for pleasure and libidinal enjoyment (Elliott, p. 135). For Marcuse, all societies require some
repression – what Marcuse termed basic repression – but capitalism leads to crippling repres-
sion, or what he termed “surplus repression” – combining ideas from Marx and Freud. He
argues that some repression of sexual and other desires is necessary for society to operate. But
capitalism represses inner desires more than other systems through asymmetrical power relation-
ships and the requirements put on individuals by a social system dominated by exchange values.
Changes in economy, technology, and culture have created an escalation in repression, resulting
in manipulation or destruction of the subject. The result is “an authority bound, easily manipu-
lable modern subject” who is “subject to decomposition and fragmentation” (p. 140), so that the
personal becomes merely a component of the system of domination. Marcuse argues that the
family is replaced by mass media and public education as the means of socialization of individuals
– “The experts of the mass media transmit the required values; they offer the perfect training in
efficiency, toughness, personality, dream, and romance. With this education, the family can no
longer compete” (Marcuse in Kellner, 1989, p. 137).
Elliott notes that for Marcuse, emancipation would be “reconciliation between culture, nature,
and unconscious pleasure … ‘libidinal rationality’” and by “overcoming the split between plea-
sure and reality … society can become re-eroticized” (p. 140). While Marcuse developed an
excellent analysis of these problems, it is not clear from his writings how this authority and surplus
repression can be ended.

1.8.3 One-Dimensional Man

In One-Dimensional Man, Marcuse addresses many of the same issues as other Frankfurt
school writers, but emphasizes forces associated with ideology, communication, public discourse,
and critical thought (or the lack of it). In this work Marcuse stresses the forces of technology and
rationality rather than the psychoanalytic, extending Weber’s analysis and that of earlier critical
theory. Marcuse argues that instrumentally rational forms have taken over from more substan-
tively rational forms. While Marcuse uses dialectical forms of analysis, he argues that modern,
capitalist society has become one-dimensional, a society without opposition, but dominated by
organized forces that limit opposition, choice, and critique. This society is not obviously totalitar-
ian, in that there appears to be democracy, liberty, and freedom, but true opposition and radical
change are foreclosed because of the ways this society is organized – the society appears open
and tolerant but is able to absorb dissent and opposition and make is socially useless or ineffec-
tive.
Marcuse considered the proletariat within modern society to be unable to form and exercise
critical judgments and power. The traditional Marxian agents of change are trapped within the
dominant discourse of one-dimensional thought. Calhoun argues that in this work, Marcuse
worked within the “Frankfurt paradigm that expected radical change to emerge from radical
negativity, from those most objectively disempowered by existing arrangements, those whose
existence was most opposed to the established order” (p. 525). As a result, Marcuse placed
some hope on groups that were outside of the dominant discourse of the society, groups such as
students, outcasts, and minority groups, and perhaps other new social movements (Marcuse,
1964, pp. 256-7). While he was not as pessimistic as Horkheimer and Adorno, Marcuse in
One-Dimensional Man does not lay out a political program or a clear vision of social progress.
1.8.4 Marcuse’s other ideas

i. Technological Order or Organization. Mechanization, concentration, regularization, cur-
tailment, and coordination characterize an ordered society or an organized form of individualism.
While this may appear to be democratic, free, and rational, in fact the society and individuals in it
are organized in a technical manner to suppress individuality.
ii. Democracy and Progress. Historically, freedom and democracy had a critical edge to
them, so that they were part of social progress. These ideas and forces helped to overcome
traditional limits, presumably the limited possibilities associated with technology and the forces of
production in the pre-industrial era, and the ideas and culture that formed part of these earlier
social forms. But these ideas of liberty and individual rights were so successful that they became
incorporated into the institutions and structures of society – thus cancelling their premises. Marcuse
argues dialectically here, noting how a set of progressive forces develops historically, turning into
its opposite – although an implication of one-dimensionality would seem to be that former con-
tradictory and dialectical forces have lost their edge.
iii. Freedom from Want. The basis for true human freedom for Marcuse is to have an eco-
nomic system which can provide sufficient goods and services to meet the needs (later in the

chapter the true needs) of members of the society. Increasingly, societies are capable of provid-
ing this, much more so than earlier societies with their limited productive potential. But the
associated effects of this include a blunting of the critical aspects of individuality, thought, and
political opposition. Rather, dissent, opposition, and non-conformity can be accommodated
within the system by limiting the range of alternatives that are presented. While such limits on
freedom may seem part of a totalitarian political and social structure, for Marcuse there may be
little difference between nominally free and democratic societies and those that are totalitarian.
iv. Goals of Civilization. The higher productivity of modern forms of economic production
could lead to the possibility of real freedom – so people would not be limited by the requirements
to produce the necessities of life. Rather, such productive potential could produce a new form of
human freedom, where the individual “would be free to exert autonomy over a life that would be
his own” and this would make true autonomy possible for the individual. Note the similarity to
the Marxian view of a communist society. Also note an emphasis on individualism so that the
individual can truly be himself or herself in these circumstances. This latter argument would seem
asocial and might deny some of the social aspects of individuality and the self.
Instead, a totalitarian system emerges where the “apparatus imposes it economic and political
requirements”. This is the totalitarian aspect of the administered society – that is, it is a total
system in that there is “manipulation of needs by vested interests” so that needs, or the manner in
which needs are met, are constrained within limits that prevent critique and opposition from
emerging. In such a system, there may be political parties, several news sources, pluralism, or
countervailing powers (a reference to a set of arguments concerning liberalism that was ex-
pressed in the 1960s), but this is not real critique or opposition, rather the boundaries of debate
are closely circumscribed within certain legitimate limits. Also note the functional and conspiracy
aspects of this argument in that vested interests manipulate things with specific purposes in mind.
v. Political Power, Technology, and Dialectic. Marcuse emphasizes machines, technology,

and science, coming close to a certain type of technological determinism associated with the
efficiency and productivity of these technologies. However, he maintains a dialectical approach
by noting that these technologies could form the basis for human freedom (again a technological
argument, although in the reverse direction), but instead become a political instrument for main-
taining order for the society as a whole. We are told about the need to work efficiently and
productively and to adopt the new technologies, and these organize the labor force and the
whole of society to maintain and extend the administered form of organization.
vi. Negations. Marcuse notes that freedom cannot be attained within the framework and limits
of the organized, total, administered society. Rather, freedom would be a rejection or a negation
(Hegel and Marx) of economics, politics, and public opinion. It is these latter forces that form the
administered society and limit and constrain freedom and individual autonomy. Marcuse notes
that this may sound unrealistic, and this in itself is evidence of the totalizing nature of thought
which forecloses even the imagination of alternatives.
vii. Needs. Marcuse differentiates true from false needs and the implications of this. He notes
that needs are always historically developed and also socially developed and constrained (critical

standards). That is, while there are biological aspects to needs (food and shelter), the manner in
which these are met is historically and socially constructed. The social aspect of needs and their
satisfaction is described when he discusses them as products of a repressive, dominant society
even though the individual may identify with them.
Marcuse argues that even though the individual may be euphoric, have fun, be able to relax, and
be comfortable, so long as these needs are associated with advertising, consumer culture, and
organized by the totalizing society, there are “false needs.” These are needs that perpetuate toil,
aggressiveness, misery, and injustice.
Not only are the needs false, they are repressive in that they repress some other needs and
alternatives. Exactly what these alternatives might be is not clear, although Marcuse gives some
indication that there are vital needs such as nourishment, clothing and lodging. He does admit
that these must be met at the prevailing standard, and that these lead to other needs.
At the same time, this is a critique of advanced, industrial, capitalist society, where artificial needs
are created and where some forms of consumption and uses of society’s productive resources
clearly are unnecessary. Further, the view that needs are historically and socially constructed is
an important one. It just seems that Marcuse feels able to judge what is true and what is false –
what are the standards for this? He argues that these could be determined by reason, but is this
the same reason which led to the problems in the first place?
He argues that it is the individuals themselves who must decide, but then argues that they do not
have the autonomy to do so. He notes that even though a tribunal could not do this, the question
remains.
viii. Suffocation of Liberating Needs. Marcuse appears to have a way out here – he argues
that needs which would lead to liberation are the ones that are suppressed. Instead, needs
associated with destructive and repressive functions, wasteful activities, and excess work are
maintained. Marcuse argues that some of these are relaxation to soothe problems [drugs, alco-
hol] and features such as seeming choice at excess price. He emphasizes the lack of true choice
here – free press with limited range of information and different consumer goods and services
that differ little in any true sense. Further, it is the presentation of choice that is itself an element of
domination, and a very effective means for those administering society to maintain this adminis-
tration.
Marcuse places great emphasis on consumption, needs, and choice, all elements associated with
the consumption and distribution, not the production, sector of society. His administered and
totalized society may have economic necessity behind it, or that is assumed, but the focus is
clearly not on this, but the need to maintain the social order and administer the alternatives so that
issues related to critique, true needs, liberty, and autonomy do not emerge. Some of these may
be economic, but more important appears to be an emphasis on politics, ideology, and con-
sciousness.
ix. Preconditioned. Marcuse argues that images, ideology, the media and social needs domi-
nate the individual. Each individual is preconditioned (remember Fromm and his arguments

concerning the family and administered society) to accept the range of options presented in the
media. So it is in the lifestyle and consumption sphere, not in production, that the administered
society finds it strength.
x. Rational Irrationality. While Marcuse may have abandoned the productivist economic
model of Marx, he does not abandon the dialectical aspect of Hegel and Marx. Waste is turned
into need (consumerism and throwaway society), destruction into construction (war, environ-
ment). Even alienation is questionable since the mind and body become extensions of the social,
and the self finds itself in objects – thus seeming to overcome alienation, at least in its traditional
Marxian meaning. Within this society, Marcuse argues that consumption ends up becoming the
means of finding self, so there is no separation of essence from humans, and “creativity” may be
found in consumption. This is a turning around of the aims of rationality, so that the seemingly
rational becomes irrational, and the individual becomes so tied to the society that the new needs
created by society become a means of social control, rather than needs being the source of
competition and debate, as in earlier societies.
xi. Technological Control. Technical control was traditionally associated with the use of force
but in modern society technology is associated with Reason which appears to benefit everyone.
How many times have we heard how the new technologies are more productive, efficient, and
the means of human betterment – medicine, genetic engineering, communications, electronic
technologies. Opposing these seems to be irrational, in that opposition appears to oppose tech-
nology that seems progressive. Those who oppose these new developments are often looked on
as being backward and narrow.
xii. Protest. The result of these new forms of technological control are to make protest useless
and neurotic. He argues that spiritual or lifestyle forms of opposition can do little to change
things. Rather, these become incorporated into the status quo. Marcuse argues that these forms
of protest are “no longer negative” thus aligning his views with critical theory that the sources of
change need to be a form of negativity toward the all-encompassing administered society.
xiii. Self. Marcuse addresses the concept of self, one that is reminiscent of psychoanalytic
approaches or of Mead. He notes that the self usually developed through “relatively spontane-
ous processes” whereby there is an inner and an outer, a conscious and an unconscious. This
leads to a sort of inner freedom where an individual can be himself or herself. This may have
been the case in earlier periods, but Marcuse argues that this has changed to a system of mimesis
(mimic, imitation of actions of others) so that there is “an immediate identification of the individual
with his society and, through it, with the society as a whole.” This is a destruction of the self, or
a new form of self, something like the evaporated self mentioned by Giddens. Note here that
Marcuse argues that this may have existed in earlier forms of society, with association or me-
chanical solidarity. What is different is its re-emergence in the modern, whereby there are forces
that organize this – scientific management (advertising, management of consumption, e.g. theme
parks, popular culture). Again Marcuse notes how the negative of critical thinking is denied
(dialectic).

xiv. Alienation. Marcuse argues that alienation has reached a new stage, whereby there is
alienation, but the subject does not recognize this. Alienation is the separation of human essence
from the individual, either in psychological or material form. But when reality is identification of
individuals with the organization imposed on them, and their selves are tied up in such identifica-
tion, this is no longer the alienation described by Marx. That is, the supposedly alien is no longer
outside and separated from the individual, but becomes part of the individual. As a result there is
no more false consciousness, whereby the objective interests of people differ from what they
perceive to be their interests. This produces a one-dimensionality.
xv. Ideological. Marcuse argues that the process he describes has become even more ideo-
logical in that it is not limited to the realm of ideas, justification, and politics. Rather, the ideas and
justification of the system have become part of the productive apparatus itself. The needs asso-
ciated with production become the needs of the members of society, and the two are bound
together in a way that is one-dimensional and “militates against qualitative change”. Marcuse
does not argue that this creates scarcity, inequality, or suffering – rather, this whole effect results
from a certain degree of plenty and it is in many ways a good way of life.
xvi. Critique of Science. Marcuse outlines a critique of operationalism, behaviorism, and

empiricism in the various sciences, thus restricting meaning and creativity. This mode of opera-
tion eliminates troublesome questions and accommodates different aspects that might initially
seem threatening.
xvii. Politics and Media. Here Marcuse critiques the supposedly free societies of the west,
and contrasts them with the supposedly totalitarian socialist societies. He is critical of the limited
forms of freedom which characterize the west.
xviii. Progress Marcuse notes that what counts as progress in contemporary society actually
limits rationality, so the nature of progress will have to change in a radical manner.
xix. Technological Rationality. Marcuse notes the importance of technological rationality and
the efforts to contain this within the institutions of society. He regards this rationality as irrational.
Here he returns to the Weberian distinction between rationality of means and ends. He notes
how technological rationality is concerned with domination and can become totalitarian.

SELF ASSESSMENT ACTIVITY

1. Write an essay outlining what you consider to be the main
sociological contributions of Critical Theorists, commenting on how
they attempt to integrate the different aspects of sociological thought.
…………………………………………………………………....................
2. How could Habermas’ system and lifeworld provide a means of
integrating agency and structure?
…………………………………………………………………......................
3. Explain what Critical Theorists mean by administered society.
…………………………………………………………………………………
4. Explain Critical Theory’s approach to modernity.
…………………………………………………………………………………
1.9 SUMMARY
Critical theorists came from diverse backgrounds and were concerned with organized, adminis-
tered society and its all-encompassing effects on society, individuals, the self, and communica-
tion. They covered a wide range of issues as they borrowed from various theorists like, Freud,
Weber, Marx and Mead among others. They therefore contributed to issues such as ideology,
communication, social movements and were generally critical about modernity but not in the
sense of postmodernism.

References
Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. http://
pixels.filmtv.ucla.edu/gallery/web/julian_scaff/benjamin/benjamin.html, March 8, 2000.
Braaten, Jane. 1991. Habermas’s Critical Theory of Society. Albany: State University of New
York Press.
Farganis, James. 1996. Readings in Social Theory: The Classic Tradition to Post-Modern-
ism. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Habermas, Jürgen. 1991. Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Kellner, Douglas. 1989. Critical Theory, Marxism and Modernity. Oxford: Polity Press.
Kellner, Douglas. 1990 Critical Theory and the Crisis of Social Theory. from Illuminations,
http://www.uta.edu/huma/illuminations/kell.htm
Kellner, Douglas. 1995. Media Culture: Cultural studies, identity and politics between the
modern and the postmodern. London and New York: Routledge.
Marcuse, Herbert. 1964. One-Dimensional Man. Boston, Beacon Press.
Ritzer, George. 1996. Sociological Theory, fourth edition. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Turner, Bryan S. 1996. The Blackwell Companion to Social Theory. Oxford, Blackwell
Publishers.
Wallace, Ruth A. and Alison Wolf. 1999. Contemporary Sociological Theory: Expanding the
Classical Tradition, fourth edition. Upper Saddle River, N. J.: Prentice Hall.


Unit 2 Feminist Social Theory
Unit 2
Feminist Social Theory
2.0 INTRODUCTION
Over the last 40 years, feminist analysis has made a major contribution to and has changed social
theory, making sociologists aware of issues that were previously ignored. Feminism is also
associated with changes in society in many parts of the world. Many aspects of what were
considered to be “private life,” associated with male/female relations in household, family, and
other social relationships have been transformed; many parts of society have experienced changes
as a result of increased involvement of women in public life. Feminists and others argue that there
is still a long road ahead before the goal of equality of males and females is achieved, but there
can be no doubts that major advances have occurred toward such equality – examples include
legislation, access to resources and employment.
2.1 OBJECTIVES
 By the end of this Unit, you should be able to:

1. Explain the origins of feminism as a movement
2. Differentiate various groups of feminists by their arguments
3. Identify the strides that have been made since the movement started
4. Identify the challenges the movement is facing

2.2 OVERVIEW OF FEMINIST SOCIAL THEORY

A section on feminist social theory would probably not have been included in a course in socio-
logical theory a generation ago. However, feminist social theory has made major contributions
not just to feminism but also to social theory in general. By focusing on the differences between
biological and social, on the meaning of the social, on how a person’s experience affects her
understanding of the social world, and on how males and females relate to each other, feminist
theory has forced sociologists to reexamine and revise their social theories. Among the issues
that have entered into sociological discussion are the sociology of bodies, understandings of
power, sexual violence, patriarchy, and sexuality. Each of these were ignored or were minor
sociological issues – now they are often key in discussions of contemporary sociology. Turner
notes that feminists have raised radical questions about “social roles, gender identities and bio-
logical sex characteristics” so that sociologists have developed new understandings and analysis
of “the relationship between society and culture, public and private, and between society and
nature”.
While it has been women and men, through their social actions and interaction that have changed
social relationships, feminist writers and theorists have contributed to these social changes and to
the development of attitudes and views more supportive of equality. As a demonstration of how
social theory can be socially engaged, feminist theory has often been exemplary and, at least
through the 1990s, never strayed far from practical social issues faced by women in their involve-
ment in the social world. The feminist writers of the 1960s were part of feminist groups and
political and social agitation. Currently, many feminist writers are involved in or closely associ-
ated with women’s groups or social reform activities.
2.2.1 Contemporary Feminist Theory: Theoretical Orientation

Feminist theory is distinct from other theoretical perspectives in that it is woman-centered and
interdisciplinary, and it actively promotes ways to achieve social justice. Three core questions
inform feminist theory: (1) “What about the women?” (2) “Why is the social world as it is?” and
(3) “How can we change and improve the social world so as to make it a more just place for
women and for all people?”
Feminist theorists have also started to question the differences between women, including how
race, class, ethnicity, and age intersect with gender. In sum, feminist theory is most concerned
with giving a voice to women and highlighting the various ways women have contributed to
society.
2.2.2 Varieties of Contemporary Feminist Theory

Four varieties of feminist theory attempt to answer the question “What about the women?” The
gender difference perspective tries to answer this question by examining how women’s location
in, and experience of, social situations differ from men’s. Cultural feminists look to the different
values associated with womanhood and femininity (e.g., caring, cooperation, and pacifism) as a
reason why men and women experience the social world differently. Other feminist theorists

believe that the different roles assigned to women and men within institutions better explain gen-
der difference, including the sexual division of labor in the household. Existential and phenom-
enological feminists focus on how women have been marginalized and defined as the Other in
patriarchal societies. Women are thus seen as objects and are denied the opportunity for self-
realization.
Gender-inequality theories look to answer the question “What about the women?” by recog-
nizing that women’s location in, and experience of, social situations are not only different but also
unequal to men’s. Liberal feminists argue that women have the same capacity as men for moral
reasoning and agency, but that patriarchy, particularly the sexist patterning of the division of labor,
has historically denied women the opportunity to express and practice this reasoning. Women
have been isolated to the private sphere of the household and, thus, left without a voice in the
public sphere. Even after women enter the public sphere, they are still expected to manage the
private sphere and take care of household duties and child rearing. Liberal feminists point out that
marriage is a site of gender inequality and that women do not benefit from being married as men
do. Indeed, married women have higher levels of stress than unmarried women and married men.
According to liberal feminists, the sexual division of labor in both the public and private spheres
needs to be altered in order for women to achieve equality.
Theories of gender oppression go further than theories of gender difference and gender in-
equality by arguing that not only are women different from or unequal to men, but that they are
actively oppressed, subordinated, and even abused by men. Power is the key variable in the two
main theories of gender oppression: psychoanalytic feminism and radical feminism. Psycho-
analytic feminists attempt to explain power relations between men and women by reformulating
Freud’s theories of the subconscious and unconscious, human emotions, and childhood develop-
ment. They feel that conscious calculation cannot fully explain the production and reproduction of
patriarchy. For example, the unconscious fear that men have towards their own mortality may
account for why men are driven to control women. Radical feminists argue that being a woman is
a positive thing in and of itself, but that this is not acknowledged in patriarchal societies where
women are oppressed. They identify physical violence as being at the base of patriarchy, but they
think that patriarchy can be defeated if women come recognize their own value and strength,
establish a sisterhood of trust with other women, confront oppression critically, and form female
separatist networks in the private and public spheres.
Structural oppression theories posit that women’s oppression and inequality are a result of
capitalism, patriarchy, and racism. Socialist feminism combines Marxian class analysis with
feminist social protest in an attempt to answer the question “What about the women?” They
agree with Marx and Engels that the working class is exploited as a consequence of the capitalist
mode of production, but they seek to extend this exploitation not just to class but also to gender.
Intersectionality theorists seek to explain oppression and inequality across a variety of vari-
ables, including class, gender, race, ethnicity, and age. They make the important insight that not all
women experience oppression in the same way. White women and black women, for example,
face different forms of discrimination in the workplace. Thus, different groups of women come to
view the world through a shared standpoint of “heterogeneous commonality.”

2.3 WAVES OF FEMINISM

2.3.1 The First Wave:
What historians refer to as “first-wave feminism” arguably began in the late 18th century with the
publication of Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), and ended
with the ratification of the Twentieth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protected a
woman’s right to vote. First-wave feminism was concerned primarily with establishing, as a point
of policy, that women are human beings and should not be treated like property.
2.3.2 The Second Wave:

The second wave of feminism emerged in the wake of World War II, during which many women
entered the workforce, and would have arguably ended with the ratification of the Equal Rights
Amendment (ERA), had it been ratified. The central focus of the second wave was on total
gender equality—women as a group having the same social, political, legal, and economic rights
that men have.
First- and second-wave feminism also tended to emphasize the rights and opportunities of middle-
class women over poor and working-class women. The debate over abortion rights, for ex-
ample, centers on laws that affect a woman’s right to choose an abortion—but economic circum-
stances, which generally play a more significant role in such decisions today, are not necessarily
taken into account. If a woman has the legal right to terminate her pregnancy, but “chooses” to
exercise that right because she can’t afford to carry a pregnancy to term, is this really a scenario
that protects reproductive rights?
Both first-wave and second-wave feminism represented movements that existed alongside, and
at times in tension with, civil rights movements for people of color—a slight majority of whom
happen to be women. But the struggle always seemed to be for the rights of white women, as
represented by the women’s liberation movement, and black men, as represented by the civil
rights movement. Both movements, at times, could have been legitimately accused of relegating
women of color to asterisk status.
2.3.3 Rebecca Walker and the Origins of Third-Wave Feminism:

Rebecca Walker, a 23-year-old, bisexual African-American woman born in Jackson, Missis-
sippi, coined the term “third-wave feminism” in a 1992 essay. Walker is in many ways a living
symbol of the way that second-wave feminism has historically failed to incorporate the voices of
many young women, non-heterosexual women, and women of color.
First- and second-wave feminism, as movements, were largely confined to industrialized nations.
But third-wave feminism takes a global perspective—not by merely attempting to colonize de-
veloping nations with Western practices, but by empowering women to actualize change, to gain
power and equality, within their own cultures and their own communities and with their own
voices.

Some second-wave feminist activists have questioned the need for a third wave. Others, both
inside and outside of the movement, disagree with respect to what the third wave represents.
It is important to realize that third-wave feminism is a generational term—it refers to how the
feminist struggle manifests itself in the world today. Just as second-wave feminism represented
the diverse and sometimes competing interests of feminists who struggled together under the
banner of women’s liberation, third-wave feminism represents a generation that has begun with
the achievements of the second wave.
2.4. PROBLEMS WITH EARLIER SOCIAL THEORY

The classical social theorists and twentieth century social theorists through the 1970s generally
ignored women or had misleading analysis of issues related to women. A detailed analysis of the
approach the classical social theorists took toward women and issues related to male/female
relations is contained in Natural Women, Cultured Men: A Feminist Perspective on Socio-
logical Theory by Rosalind Sydie of the University of Alberta. A short summary of a few of the
problem areas in earlier sociological perspectives is presented here.
2.4.1 Women Ignored

One general line of criticism of feminists is that women are absent from the social analyses and
social world of sociology. The language and analysis of classical sociologists is that of men, male
activities and experiences, and the parts of society dominated by males. Marx, Weber, and
Durkheim were typical of nineteenth century European writers who assumed that the social
world was primarily the public world of male activities – the labour force, city life, and politics.
One aspect of the long history of modern, urban, industrial society was the development of a
separation between the public and private spheres. These had not always been separated in
traditional societies, although there was usually a sex-based division of labour, often associated
with a patriarchal system of male dominance. With the development of capitalism, cities, and
industry, a public sphere dominated by men and male activities developed and expanded. Women
generally became restricted to the private sphere of household and family, and had limited in-
volvement in political, economic, or even public social life. While some women were involved in
more public activities, in the nineteenth century there were movements to restrict the participation
of women in public life – for example, factory legislation and the family wage.
In order to understand some of the difficulties women faced in this era, some of the details of the
situation of women should be considered. First, women were not recognized as individuals in
either the legal or the liberal theoretical sense. Men still held formal power over the rest of the
family, and women were mostly excluded from the public sphere. Mill and Taylor, along with
some early United States feminists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, ar-
gued that the equality of women required full citizenship for women. This would include giving
women enfranchisement. After 1865, when Mill was in the English Parliament, he fought for
women’s suffrage. He also fought “to amend the laws that gave husbands control over their
wives’ money and property.” He also supported the campaign for birth control information to be

available, and was active in other campaigns that were aimed at assisting women and children.
(Eisenstein, p. 128).
While there was feminist agitation in the nineteenth century, formal equality for women did not
come until much later. In Canada, women did not have the right to vote in federal elections until
1918, although the franchise was extended to women two years earlier in the Prairie provinces.
Quebec women did not receive the vote in provincial elections until 1940. Property ownership
also rested with men through most of the nineteenth century, with changes that allowed property
purchasers to become owner, regardless of sex, coming between 1872 and 1940. “By 1897 in
English Canada and 1931 in Quebec, a wife employed outside the home was allowed to retain
her wages” (Burt, p. 214). Also note that in Canada it was not until the 1969 amendments to the
Criminal Code that sales of contraceptives became legal, or that abortions became legal.
In Canada, there is now formal equality in most areas of social life, with women and men having
the same legal rights. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the 1982 Constitution
Act states that “every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to equal
protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimi-
nation based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical
disability” (Section 15). Section 28 states that “Notwithstanding anything in this Charter, the
rights and freedoms referred to in it are guaranteed equally to male and female persons.” Many
feminists would argue though that this is only formal equality, not true equality.
In terms of how sociology considered public and private, recall that the classical social theories
emerged in Europe as a way of explaining the society that emerged as part of the modern era.
This was primarily the public sphere of social life. Since sociologists were concerned with ex-
plaining its emergence, characteristics, and forms of development, little attention was paid to the
private sphere – the sphere more likely to be occupied by women. As a result, early sociological
theory paid little attention to this part of social life. While the sociological analysis of the classical
sociologists can be applied to both women and men, by ignoring a large part of the social world,
early sociologists had little or no theory of gender relations, sexuality, or male/female inequalities
– essential aspects of contemporary social theory. In addition, by not analyzing the private part
of the social world, early sociology may not have developed an adequate understanding of all
parts of the social world.
2.4.2 Definitions of Sociology and the Social World.

Each social theory has a definition of what is social or what is the scope of the social theory. For
Goffman this was the interaction order and for Mead it was the study of the relationship among
mind, self, and society. It was the classical sociologists who first defined the field of sociology.
Each of these writers developed a definition of the social world, even if only implicitly, and
proceeded to analyze it. For feminists and contemporary sociologists, a major problem is that
the classical definitions of the social world exclude large parts of human action and interaction.
Many of the excluded portions of the social world are those that were typically occupied by
women and children, with classical writers showing little interest in or analysis of institutions such
as the household, family, or community where women’s experiences have often been centred.

The emphasis on labour and the commodity for Marx, and the division of labour for Marx and
Durkheim, provide an example of this. The following is a short discussion of Durkheim and the
division of labour. Durkheim, concentrating on the division of labour, and its implications for
social development and social solidarity, develops a similar approach. That is, it is the division of
tasks in the public economy that characterizes the division of labour. Since women did not
generally participate in the labour force in Durkheim’s day, this eliminates women from the divi-
sion of labour. To the extent that the division of labour forms the basis for morality and organic
solidarity in modern society, it is primarily the activity of men that create this solidarity. It is
difficult to see how women’s activities contribute to organic solidarity. Since the proper study of
sociology is social facts, but women are absent from the creation of social facts, women are not
the proper subject of sociology.
Another way that classical sociologists define the social world is through their categories and
concepts. For Marx, class and class struggle, exploitation and surplus labour, and accumulation
and crises have little to do with what women experience or do, since they refer to activities in the
economy and the labour force. Durkheim’s social facts could include women, but they generally
do not. Similarly, Weber’s class, status, and party, domination, authority, bureaucracy, and
rationality are all part of a public sphere in which women play little part.
Classical sociologists recognized patriarchy as a social and political system that involved the
exercise of power by males over females, family, children, and household. But their conception
of patriarchy was somewhat different than that of feminist analyses of patriarchy. Feminists
emphasize rule by males over females but include issues such as violence, control of sexuality,
and other forms of domination by males and oppression of females. Classical sociologists,
especially Weber, considered it to be a part of political power and traditional authority involving
control by a senior male over other males as well as females. Classical sociologists also appear
to have considered it as emerging from natural differences between men and women, whereas
feminists consider it more socially constructed.
In summary, the social world of the classical sociologists generally excluded the actions of women.
As a result, sociology as a discipline did not have much to say about women. While each of
Marx, Weber, and Durkheim did have some comments on women and family, these were gener-
ally limited comments and their sociological models would be little different if women did not
exist.

ACTIVITY 2.1
1. Explain the following:
a) First Wave feminism…………………………………….
b) Second Wave Feminism……………………………………
c) Third Wave Feminism………………………………………
2. “The social world of classical sociologists generally excluded the
actions of women”. Explain this statement with reference to examples
…………………………………………………………………………………...
3. Briefly explain the varieties of feminist theory and their various
arguments…………..
…………………………………………………………………………………...
2.5. FEMINIST APPROACHES

2.5.1. Central Issues and Approaches of Feminist Theory
Central issues to feminist theory include women’s experience, equality, inequality, and difference,
patriarchy and domination, bodies and biological differences between men and women, sexual-
ity, and violence. Feminist theory examines women in the social world and addresses issues of
concern to women, focusing on these from the perspective, experiences, and viewpoint of women.
It cuts across conventional academic disciplines (e.g. feminist history, geography, literature, sci-
ence) and develops ideas and approaches that are useful in a wide variety of these disciplines.
Not only have feminists critiqued conventional methodological approaches, they have developed
new methods – placing more emphasis on the experiences of women and new forms of knowl-
edge. As noted earlier, feminism is closely engaged with the social world – feminist theorists tend
to be women who theorize about their own experiences and interaction, it is concerned with the
everyday lives and experiences of women and their social interactions, and it is often connected
to women’s groups, social reform, and broad social and political movements, organizations, and
institutions. As a method of conducting social analysis, social research, and social theorizing,
feminist theoretical perspectives provide worthwhile models and examples for sociology and
other academic endeavours.
a) Difference
Issues of difference and diversity make it difficult to speak of a common situation and set of
experiences for women. As a result “‘woman’ and ‘women’ … are not unitary categories”
(Lovell, p. 302). While the second wave of feminism often argued that there were common
experiences of women and similar social position of women with respect to men in society, Lovell
argues that there are a number of differences. Some of these are sexual and gender differences;
differences by race, ethnicity, and class; sexuality; and difference as a general concept (Lovell, p.

301). This makes it difficult to deal with issues of equality in a manner acceptable to all women,
feminists may not speak for all women, and generalizations concerning all women may be trivial
or false (Lovell, p. 305). For example, Lovell notes how feminism has sometimes been labeled
as bourgeois or middle class and has been attacked as representing privilege of women in these
groups (pp. 302-3).
While these attacks have sometimes been a smokescreen to discredit some feminists, these are
difficult issues that feminists must address. Lovell shows how more recent feminist approaches
have emphasized the importance of building alliances across difference, although this requires
“genuine dialogue and mutual exchange between those who are unlike” (Lovell, p. 304). Further,
some emphasize local and interpersonal issues, rather than focus exclusively on societal level
political issues such as equal rights. In considering these, Lovell argues that gender, class, and
race are not discrete and cumulative forms of oppression” (Lovell, p. 304) but are constructed in
relation to each other in particular ways.
Perhaps the first concern of feminist sociology is to recognize women as full-fledged social actors
in the social world. While women were always part of the social world, theoretical perspectives
often did not recognize them as such. In some cases, earlier theoretical perspectives can be
modified or extended so that women are recognized as such, in other cases it may not be pos-
sible to do so, thus requiring that these perspectives be rebuilt or that their limitations be recog-
nized. For example, it would seem possible to introduce feminist theory into symbolic interaction
perspectives in a way that would enrich these.
b) Sex and gender
A second overriding concern of feminist sociology is to recognize the difference between biology
and the social – the difference usually associated with sex (as biologically ascribed) and gender
(as socially constructed). Lovell notes that “the distinction between sex and gender initially
provided a firm plank for both Marxist and radical feminists … the social construction of femininity”
(p. 308). She also notes how “women’s biological functions have over and over again been used
to rationalize and legitimate” (p. 308) the social status of women. A large part of feminist theory
and research has been devoted to explaining how the status, role, and position of women in the
social world was socially constructed, and was not natural or unchangeable. This involved
studies of the different experiences of women in different times and places, showing the great
variety of ways that societies dealt with male/female relationships, resulting in the view that gender
differences were much more variable and malleable than biological differences. For feminists,
biological realities may be relatively unchangeable, but “what is constructed in social relations
and in culture is more readily reconstructed” (p. 308).
Such an approach is consistent with a sociological approach – where social construction is

always emphasized over biological explanations. It is also consistent with liberal or equal rights
approaches to feminism. Those approaches tended to argue that the mind/body split that ac-
corded rationality and mind to males and nature and body to females were incorrect. That is,
feminists argued that both males and females have bodies that differ, but similar minds and ca-
pabilities. They argued that is was a male view that women were more connected to nature and

the body, and male domination and power over females meant the relegation of females to the
private sphere. But these were socially constructed views of gender by powerful males who
perpetuated such differences through laws, exclusion of females, and domination of personal
relationships. Feminists thus argued that females were as capable and rational as males, and
there should be equality between males and females in all aspects of life, both in the public and
private spheres. That is, the social construction of gender was the problem, not some inherent
biological difference between men and women.
It has not been easy to completely ignore biological realities and radical feminism has reintro-
duced the body and biological characteristics. While these are in quite different ways than in
nineteenth century writings, it has become clear that the division between sex and gender is not
clear-cut, nor so useful for feminist analysis as once thought. Lovell argues that there are several
problems with this distinction.
First, Lovell notes that if feminists found oppression of women to be very widespread across
time and place, “biology must have something to do with it” (p. 309). Anthropological and
sociological evidence found great difference of experiences, role, and situation of women in
different societies, so this was strong evidence for the difference between sex and gender. But
feminists also made the argument that the situation of women tended to be inferior in most, if not
all societies. But what does this say about social construction of gender? Does such social
construction always lead to male domination and female subordination? If this is the case, then
it is difficult to argue that there is not some biological aspect to this power differential. Systems of
patriarchy may be a means of explaining this, but how do these systems of patriarchy emerge?
Second, while gender may be socially constructed, so are class, race, ethnicity, and sexuality, as
third world women, minority women, lesbians, and others have made clear. Differences between
sex and gender often did not make this apparent, and did not consider the diverse ways that
these may be interconnected. As a result, a simple sex/gender distinction may not capture the
variety of experiences and situations of women. Lovell notes how this meant that some women
were reluctant to become feminists, or were in outright opposition to feminism. Some of these
viewed feminism as an ideology of privileged, middle-class, white females.
Third, how are feminists to deal with biological realities? Lovell (pp. 309-310) argues that
radical feminists adopted a variety of responses. One approach was to argue for freeing women
from childbirth through “a revolution in the technology and social relations of reproduction, in
which the womb would be by-passed in favor of new technologies” (Lovell, p. 310). While this
may be in the realm of science fiction, it has been argued by feminists such as Shulamith Firestone.
A more conventional approach has been to argue that women should not be bound by biological
realities, but participate more fully in all activities. Where these require accommodations, such as
leave for childbirth, laws, policies, and organizations should restructure labour force and other
activities so that full participation for women can occur. While some of this has occurred, the
current structure of career and public life will require more change if this is to occur, and it may be
difficult to achieve full equality with just this approach.

Fourth, Lovell argues that Marxist analysis provided an explanation of social construction of
relations of reproduction, rooted in material reality. But she also notes that issues of violence
against women in their personal and family life was difficult to explain within the Marxian model
(p. 310). While capitalism might well use women in an oppressive manner, why should “the
sexual domination of women, and the extent of male violence against them” (p. 310) be so great
and so widespread – there appears to be no explanation for this within a strictly Marxian frame-
work of class relationships.
Finally, there is an emphasis by women and some feminists on the superior and positive charac-
teristics of women. The alleged expressive, caring, maternal, nurturing, and conflict resolving
characteristics of females are missing from instrumental, utilitarian, rational, and aggressive males.
But if there is to be equality, and women and men are the same, which of these characteristics is
to emerge. Would the equal female adopt the supposed male characteristics? Historically,
feminists often argued that women could bring their more positive expressive characteristics to
public life and social relationship, thus producing a more caring and human society. But if this is
so, which of these characteristics emerges from biological sex differences and which are socially
constructed gender differences?
While the distinctions between sex and gender has been extremely useful from a feminist and
sociological perspective, the above arguments show that it is not without its own difficulties and
contradictions. The aim of the above arguments is not to abandon this conceptual distinction as
to note how it may need to become more carefully used and modified in improving social theory.
In terms of several of these issues, there will be changes in the social construction of gender as
women participate more fully in all aspects of life, as men change their forms of participation, and
as social relationships change – social theory should attempt to understand and explain these.
ACTIVITY 2.2
1. Explain with examples the difference between sex and gender
……………………………………………………………………………….
2. Give arguments for and against the view that feminism is an ideology
of the privileged middle class white
females………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………
3. Explain what is meant by the social construction of
femininity……………….
………………………………………………………………………………….
4. Explain the concerns of feminist sociology with reference to:
a) Difference………………………………………………
b) Sex and gender…………………………………………..

2.5.2 Feminism and Marxism

Lovell (p. 306) argues that Marxism emerged as a major sociological paradigm at the same time
as feminism emerged. There were also strong parallels between Marxism and feminism – among
these were that both were concerned with inequality, domination, and oppression, both had an
emphasis on social change through group organization and political pressure, both had a method-
ology combining theory and practice, and both had an historical approach. Further, Marxism
seemed receptive to feminism, since some Marxists had been concerned with oppression of
women and both were attempting to change society.
At the same time, there were limits to these parallels and some aspects of feminism were poorly
dealt with by Marxists – issues of “human reproduction and sexuality … [were] outside the
sphere of the social” (p. 306), Marxists often argued that forms of difference other than eco-
nomic were secondary, and individually and collectively male Marxists were reluctant to change
their personal lives, give up male privilege, or become more equal in personal and work relation-
ships.
The following notes survey a number of issues connected to Marxism and feminism. First are
some of the reasons why the Marxist model has difficulty with feminist concepts and approaches,
and this is followed with a discussion of some attempts to introduce feminist concepts and per-
spectives into Marxian models.
a. Origin of the family.
As part of its analysis, Marxism provides an historical and materialist explanation of the emer-
gence of family, patriarchy, and the situation of women and men. The Origin of the Family,
Private Property and the State, published by Friedrich Engels in 1884, is the classic work
dealing with these issues. Engels argued that the establishment of private property in land, tools,
and livestock created the possibility for men to exercise control over the means of production. In
order to ensure legitimacy of heirs and control private property, men established a patrilineal and
patriarchal form of society – enforcing compulsory monogamy on women and devaluing their
work and value in society. This development, which occurred in distant history, at the time of the
development of agriculture, relegated women to an inferior position in society, dominated by
men. This system of patriarchy maintained itself over the centuries and when capitalism emerged,
capitalism found such a system useful for its new form of social organization, characterized by
exploitation of workers by employers as the source of capital accumulation.
The strong point of the Marxist approach is that it provided a material explanation for the emer-
gence and maintenance of a system of patriarchy. For many Marxists, this has made oppression
on the basis of sex derivative from the development of a social surplus and the institution of
private property, thus providing an economic explanation for this form of oppression. Unlike
liberal feminist approaches, equality of men and women cannot be achieved within capitalism, it
requires the abolition of private property and establishment of a socialist system.
The weak point of Engels’ argument is that it does not appear to be historically accurate and
assumes a natural division of labour between men and women. It has the implication that the

elimination of private property will end patriarchy, and some Marxists use this to argue that
struggles by women to achieve equality are secondary to struggles by the working class to change
society, and may even divert attention from the primary contradiction between capital and labour.
b. Marxian economics
Marx looks at human labour as potentially creative and this creative potential distinguishes hu-
mans from other animals. His critique of private property and capitalism is that this essence of
humanity and creativity is taken away from labourers in the production process because of the
existence of private property and exploitation. Marx’s political economic model begins with the
commodity and exchange, with the value of commodities being in direct proportion to the amount
of human labour embodied in producing them. While commodities exchange at their value,
surplus value emerges from extra or surplus labour, extracted from workers by employers. This
occurs because the commodity labour power (ability or capacity of humans to work) is a unique
commodity with the capability of producing more value than the value of labour power itself.
Employers purchase labour power at its value (wage paid to worker), but employ it to produce
extra value, beyond that sufficient to pay the wage. This surplus value extracted from workers is
ultimately turned into profits for capitalists and used to accumulate capital. This expansion of
monetary and physical capital also means the extension of the exploitative capital/labour social
relationships central to capitalism.
In this model, exploitation emerges as commodities are produced, and it is those workers who
are employed at jobs in the production process who are exploited if that surplus labour is ex-
tracted from them. As a result, labour exercised in society but not directly engaged in production
of commodities, and this includes the labour of many women and all household labour, is not
exploited. Only if workers are employed and work at jobs where surplus value is extracted are
exploited and become a source of capital accumulation. Since many women are not directly
employed in these situations, women’s labour might not be exploited or alienated in the same way
as that of men’s, since their labour is not subject to the forces that occur in the labour force.
Marx’s analysis of capitalism and the social relationships of capitalism is almost entirely that of the
public economy and the creation of products – goods and services – for purposes of exchange.
Commodities have value to the extent that they are exchanged, and it is only those goods and
services that are exchanged on the market that form part of Marx’s analysis of capitalism. From
this analysis of the commodity, exploitation, surplus value, and capital accumulation, Marx explains
aspects of capitalism such as class structures, cycles of expansion and contraction in the economy,
the tendency toward a falling rate of profit, and other contradictions of capitalism. The central,
contradictory social relationship of capitalism is the capital-labour relationship – it is this which
ultimately leads toward the creation of a class-conscious proletariat. This proletariat eliminates
the capitalist class and establishes socialism – common ownership of the means of production. It
is under this system that workers are able to begin realizing their human potential and, according
to Engels, the conditions for the creation of equality between males and females.
From a feminist perspective, there are a number of problems with this analysis. Among these are
(i) the emphasis on exchange value, (ii) the claim that all value and surplus value emerge from the

process of production, and (iii) the neglect of household, family, and reproduction (Lovell, pp.
306-7). These three interrelated issues are reviewed here.
(i) Ignores use-value. Marx spends little time analyzing use values, taking these for granted.
Commodities must have use value in order to have exchange value (price) and be exchanged,
otherwise no one would purchase them. But this does not mean that all use values are exchange
values. Goods and services produced in the household for personal and family use have use
value but are not ordinarily exchanged. In addition, volunteer work or work for organizations
that do not sell their goods or services (churches, political parties), has the same characteristic.
Given that these forms of work, and the useful goods and services that result from them do not
have exchange value, there is a tendency to undervalue them in society, and this is the case for
both Marxian and much conventional economic analysis. Official statistics of economic produc-
tion also ignore most of the goods and services not sold on markets.
Since men tend have tended to produce exchange values and women have tended to produce
goods and services with use values only, this means that much of women’s labour is not valued in
capitalism or in Marx’s model of capitalism. For purposes of explaining exploitation, surplus
value, the dynamics of capitalism, and social relationships in capitalism, it appears irrelevant. It
leads to the seemingly contradictory view that those whose work is not paid are not exploited,
but this is one of the implications of the Marxian model. While Marxists might consider women
oppressed in their relationship with men and in the household, technically speaking they are not
exploited and their work has little or nothing to do with production of surplus value.
(ii) Value from production only. A related issue is that work outside production is not recog-
nized as creating value. While Marx recognizes human labour as creative and Marxian analysis
purports to be an examination of work of humans, it is only an analysis of paid work. If it is
private property and exploitation that distorts human labour, then alienation and exploitation exist
only for paid labour. Most Marxian analyses of work begin with work in general but quickly
become analysis of paid work in jobs, where workers are hired to produce commodities for
exchange.
One issue of importance for women that emerges from this is unequal pay. In many jobs, women
have been paid less than men for equivalent work. In the Marxian model, the value of labour
power is the cost of production of this capacity to work. It seems difficult to argue that this cost
would differ for male and female labour power. That is, the cost of producing labour power is the
value of the commodities necessary for generational and daily subsistence. It is not clear why
women should be paid less than men for equivalent work – but this has often been the case and
the Marxian model would not appear to have an explanation for this differential.
(iii) Reproductive labour. Emerging from the last issue is a set of issues concerning the neglect
of reproductive labour in the Marxian model. As noted above, the Marxian analysis initially
appears to consider all human labour, but only labour exchanged for a wage as relevant to the
model. Family, household, reproduction, the supply of labour, and the survival of labourers
outside the formal labour market are generally taken for granted by Marx. While he devotes
some discussion to the value of labour power, Marx does not have much of a theory of popula-

tion or of the supply of labour. In Marx’s time, women played little role in the public economy,
and Marx develops no theory of how women, family, and household contribute to the value of
labour power as a commodity. In essence, then, Marx’s social world is the commodity, com-
modity exchange, the labour market, and accumulation.
Lovell notes that Marx placed “human reproduction and sexuality outside the sphere of the
social” (p. 306) and Marx argued that the reproduction of the labour force can be left to the
“labourer’s instincts of self-preservation and of propagation” (quoted in Lovell, p. 306). While
Marxist feminists have developed analysis of the economic aspect of household and family, Lovell
notes that the family is where sexual oppression, violence against women, control and regulation
of sexuality, and sexual domination are located (p. 307). Within the Marxian model itself, it is
difficult to see how these issues could all be reduced to economic factors, so how can they be
addressed.
A related implication is that aspects of the dominant and contradictory social relationship of
capital and labour may be inadequately explained. Family and household activities may affect
this relationship in ways that are outside the sphere of production itself. For example, class
consciousness has a group aspect to it. If the working class involved the families of male work-
ers, that is, women, children, disabled, retired, then the situation of these latter is also relevant to
the forms and strength of class consciousness. This becomes clear in the history of strikes and
other forms of class struggle, where having strong support of all is key to the success of workers.
Having noted the above, socialists and Marxists over the last one hundred years incorporated
various struggles by women into their political programs. Trade unionists who were closely
connected to socialist political movements often attempted to improve the situation of women
workers.
At the same time, Marxists did not make the struggles of women central to their approach, and
feminists often argue that Marxists downgraded the struggles of women, because these struggles
are considered a diversion from the more important class struggle. In any case, Marxists have
emphasized economic bases and solutions for women’s oppression. As a result, they have
generally regarded the class struggle as primary, and feminist issues as important primarily in how
or whether they contribute to the class struggle. Some Marxist feminists consider sex and gender
inequalities to be secondary in importance to class inequality and oppression, and contradictions
related to reproduction and gender relations play a secondary role in explaining social change.
Other Marxist feminists may look on class and gender inequalities as dual systems of oppression,
with both being very powerful and independent systems. Marxist feminists often argue that class
and gender inequalities reinforce each other and create groups that are doubly oppressed. In
addition, as Tong notes (p. 40), work shapes consciousness, and women’s work shapes her
status and self-image. Woman’s position within the family may help explain the problem of
developing working class consciousness. As with exchange relationships in general in capitalism,
underlying these seemingly equal exchange relationships are power relationships. Various rela-
tionships, such as those between males and females, relationships in the family, prostitution,
surrogate mother hood, etc. may appear to express equality, but because of the underlying un-
equal power relations conceal great inequalities.

2.5.3 Examples of some contemporary Marxist feminist approach

Out of the Marxian and the feminist tradition, there are a number of approaches to the analysis of
women and of sex and gender inequalities. These are represented by various social and political
movements, organizations, and theorists.
i. Inequality
Class structures are primary in determining the main social classes, the main forms of struggle
within societies, and the life experiences of people in these classes. But secondary forms of
inequality and oppression occur within each class, and these may take the form of racial and
ethnic inequalities, or gender inequalities. These secondary forms could have an economic basis,
where women and other oppressed groups do not have an economic basis for equality. That is,
they may be prevented from owning property and do not have a means of producing a livelihood
apart from their husbands or fathers. But in the economic model of Marx, at least in Capital, it
is not clear why women would not have access to property – that is, the explanation of this
comes from outside the model of capitalism.
Marxist feminists argue that “within any class, women are less advantaged than men in their
access to material goods, power, status, and possibilities for self-actualization. The causes of this
inequality lie in the organization of capitalism itself.” (Ritzer, pp. 468-9) Bourgeois women may
be wealthy, but usually are secondary to their husbands in terms of power. These women “pro-
vide emotional, social, and sexual services for the men in their class.” They are well rewarded for
this, often are not able to develop an independent source of livelihood or power. Middle class
women may be well off, but often lack property or labour force experience, and if divorced,
could find themselves in poverty.
The position of working class women is likely to be mixed, depending on whether or not they
participate in the paid labour force, and then on their economic position within the labour force.
If the latter is adequate to support her and her children, she may be able to have some indepen-
dence. More likely though, the working class woman has little income, responsibility for house-
hold tasks, and is inferior socially and in terms of power and independence to her husband. This
may allow a male wage earner to exercise “personal power, compensation for his actual power-
lessness in society. She is in other words, ‘the slave of a slave.” (Ritzer, p. 469).
For women within the labour force, this work is often as alienating as that of men, or perhaps
more alienating. Women are often paid less, and tend to be in subordinate positions. There are
relatively few cases where women within the work force are managers or are in dominant posi-
tions within a hierarchy. For women who are not in the work force, alienation occurs in a
different form, that of powerlessness, with women being required to serve others.
ii. Family wage
Marxist feminists have attempted to develop explanations for the relatively lower pay of women
than men. (See notes above on the similar costs of the value of male and female labour power).
Throughout much of the twentieth century, the family responsibilities of women and their eco-

nomic dependency on the earnings of their husband meant that their wages were depressed
relative to wages of men. Many men, trade unions, and even employers argued that the wages
for males needed to be living wages or family wages – sufficient to support a family. That is, the
male wages should be sufficient to meet the daily and generational reproductive costs of the
family and labour force. The corollary of this is that women’s wages did not need to be so great,
because they were at least partially supported by their husbands. Single females were expected
to work only temporarily, until marriage, so did not need high wages either. As a result, the
dependency of women on men, and the attempt to pursue a high wage strategy for men, may
have led to relatively low wages for women. To some extent, this may have been a byproduct of
trade union approaches to male wages. (See Bryson, pp. 240-41).
iii. Reserve army of labour. Marx argued that the reserve army of unemployed workers was
always replenished by capitalism, thus exercising downward pressure on the wages of workers
in the labour force. It was the maintenance and reconstruction of this reserve army that pre-
vented workers from gaining wages exceeding the value of their labour power. If workers were
able to boost wages during a time of economic expansion, one of the effects of this was to slow
capital accumulation, thus causing an economic slowdown, unemployment, and replenishment of
the reserve army.
One part of the reserve army is women – for much of the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, most women were in the home and worked in the labour force only periodically. Of
course, poor women and women from disadvantaged groups had to work in the labour force to
provide a minimal level of income for themselves and their families. In wartime, or in other
periods or places of labour shortages, women could be drawn into the labour force as needed.
Since the primary attachment of these women was to the home and family, not paid labour, these
women did not need to be paid as much as men. In addition, having these women available
meant that they could be used to prevent male wages from rising too much.
While the reserve army of labour argument may have explained some of the operations of the
labour force through the 1950s, following that women entered the labour force in large numbers
and have not left the labour force. This was one of the great social changes of the latter part of
the twentieth century – altering the structure of the labour force, family, home, and male/female
relationships. One part of the reserve army of labour is the latent reserve – people who have not
yet been drawn into the paid labour force. One Marxist argument is that women formed a part
of the latent labour reserve, one that could be drawn into the labour force as needed. This may
help explain some of the inequality and lower pay of women in the labour force.
iv. Household and Family. Some Marxists view the household as an institution that functions
to support capitalism – permitting or even encouraging exploitation. That is, by creating and
recreating sexual inequalities, and keeping women in the home with responsibility for family sub-
sistence, emotional support and reproduction, the family is an institution used by capitalism to
assist in the exploitation of labour and maintenance of stability within a system of class oppres-
sion and inequality. As noted earlier, it can be argued that since women are concerned with
maintenance of household and family, they act as a conservative force on the development of
working class consciousness. Some other aspects of this are as follows.

Consumers. Households and families are good consuming units within modern capitalism. Each
household is a separate consuming unit, with separate needs. While these consuming units need
not be organized on a family basis, or with sexual inequalities, in order to perform this role in
society, in fact they are very well adapted to maintaining and expanding purchases.
In social and political terms, this role can also play a conservatizing force with respect to class
struggles. Women’s lower wages and the difficulty of supporting a family, can be used by em-
ployers as a means of undermining trade union struggles. Since the responsibility of women is to
maintain the household, this can have a conservatizing effect. Where there is a need for change,
women are often isolated by separation into private households, and organizing to create change
can be difficult.
Labour Force. So long as women have primary responsibility for reproduction (physical and
socialization) and household and family maintenance, women constitute a cheap form of labour,
a reserve army of labour. They have been a latent reserve over the last forty years, some are a
short term reserve over the economic cycle, and women are a labour reserve in a generational
sense. That is, the expectation that women will not be as committed to many jobs as men, with
time taken off for childbearing, child care, care of elderly parents, etc., allows employers to pay
women less than men. And this also presents both employers and men with an argument that
women should be paid somewhat less, or advance somewhat less quickly in their careers. The
lower status of women within society also allows women to be paid less, since some wages and
salaries are structured on status considerations.
Surplus Value. Household and family act to create cheap labour that can be used in the expansion
of surplus value. That is, much of the necessary labour required by society to maintain and
reproduce the population and labour force is carried out as unpaid labour by women working in
the home. Workers come to the labour force at no cost to employers, and if employers had to
pay the full cost of reproducing their work force, wages would be considerably greater than they
currently are. Where wages are family wages, so that the male wage is large enough to support
the whole family, there is still much unpaid work in the home, and if employers paid for this, there
would be a considerable redistribution of income from males to females. As a result, there is
indirect exploitation of female labour. The work of women in the household permits the extraction
of surplus value and while men are directly exploited, women are exploited in an indirect manner
by not being paid for the value of the labour that produces surplus value.
Unproductive Labour and Exploitation. The unpaid labour performed by women for men
can really be regarded as unpaid labour performed for capitalists. In the classical Marxian
framework, such labour is unproductive. Marxist feminists argue that reproductive and house-
hold labour is productive of surplus value, and should be compensated in some manner. This has
led some to argue that women should be paid wages for housework, rather than arguing that
male/female inequalities are overcome only through women entering the paid labour force.
Others have argued that men exploit women in an economic sense, and men extract surplus value
from women. Some Marxists (Tong, pp. 66-69) argue that the family must be abolished and that
paying wages for housework will just preserve the traditional inequalities. What is necessary is

more socialization of household work, with women being fully able to participate in the public
sphere. Potentially, under communism, the division between public and private would disappear,
and this could form the basis for sex and gender equalities.
iv. Women as Class. Another line of argument that some feminists have adopted is that women
are a class, or a sexual class as opposed to the common Marxist view of a social or economic
class. Eisenstein considers women as a sexual class because they “constitute the basic and
necessary activities of society: reproduction, child rearing, nurturing, consuming, domestic
labouring, and wage-earning. Women are a sexual class because what they do as women – the
activities they are responsible for in society, the labor that they perform – is essential and neces-
sary to the operation of society as it presently exists.” (Eisenstein, p. 146). This consideration of
women as a sexual class is based on a common position within the mode of production and
reproduction, and a common position with respect to another sexual class, that is, males. This
means a different set of interests, and also at least some opposed interests to those of males.
Eisenstein argues that patriarchy is somewhat different from capitalism as a system, where the
bourgeoisie is organized and must be opposed. Rather than struggling against men, the struggle
of women is against patriarchy, and its expressions. The latter may be found in the market, in the
state, in the family, etc. For Eisenstein, sexual class consciousness must be formed through social
movements like the suffrage movement or feminist movements. The manner in which feminist
struggles over the last thirty years have proceeded has developed this sexual class conscious-
ness.
This argument was paralled by French materialist feminism (see Lovell, p. 335) on women as
class. Christine Delphy, a French feminist, argues that women are a class relative to the relations
of production (and reproduction). “Because they perform unpaid housework all women share a
common economic position” and “as a category of human beings destined by birth to become a
member of this class, they constitute a caste” (Bryson, p. 199). Delphy argues that men exploit
women’s labour through the labour/marriage contract. This “domestic exploitation takes place
outside the capitalist mode of production … this is not simply derived from class struggle and
capitalism, but it has an independent material basis in women’s unpaid domestic labour” (Bryson,
p. 199). Lovell notes how this leads to men exploiting women, not just in economic terms, but
“also the sexual and reproductive bodies of women” (p. 335). It is the gender differentiated
system of power that produces this.
From this, some Marxist and other feminists have argued there are dual systems or a capitalist
patriarchy. Modern society is clearly characterized by capitalism as an economic and material
force; it is also characterized by patriarchy, a system of domination of women by men. While
some argue that one of these can be reduced to the other, a dual systems approach argues that
each of these are “dynamic forces at work in history, which must therefore be understood in
terms of both class and gender struggle” (Bryson, p. 243). Hartmann argues that the two may
build on each other but they may be in conflict with each other – for example, the past fifty years
where patriarchal privileges for males may have been undercut by the strong growth in demand
for women’s work in the paid labour force. Each of the two systems has a certain autonomy and
set of forces and structures that maintain the system. Marx outlined the forces that maintained

and expanded capitalism. Feminists have presented various arguments concerning the causes
and forces associated with patriarchy.
v. Solutions. Marxist and socialist feminist solutions embody a wide range of changes. Some
would argue that the end of capitalism is sufficient, but the record of the socialist countries was
not encouraging in this respect. More likely this approach would argue for an end of the nuclear
family, at least as it is currently structured. But really ending patriarchy and inequality may require
changes at all levels, in the economy, in attitudes, in institutions, etc.
2.5.4 Socialist feminism

Socialist feminism appears to adopt some of the same tenets of Marxism, but instead of focusing
on economic determinism as the primary source of oppression, the socialist feminist sees the
oppression as having psychological and social roots. They share a genuine concern for women
that transcends politics. Their focus is on people, not profits. The oppression of class in a mate-
rialistic society degrades people by categorizing them in a particular class and objectifying them
so that they are merely parts of a mechanism that can be replaced by other parts of the same
description.
Unlike Marxist feminists, socialist feminists hold that praxis has gender specific forms and ex-
tends to the private sphere of life. Praxis is a Marxist concept meaning the ability humans have to
consciously change the environment in order to meet their needs. The private sphere of life is that
of the home and the work that the woman (typically) does in giving birth to children, raising
children, and maintaining the household.
Socialist feminists agree with radical feminists in the idea that gender roles need to be abolished.
But they see gender and sexuality as social constructs both capable of transformation. While they
acknowledge that biology does play a role in determining personality, anatomy does not confine
or limit our capabilities as human beings on an emotional or a physical level.
Like Marxists, socialist feminists see capitalism as a major factor in women’s oppression, as well
as in the oppression of other minority groups. Unlike Marxist feminists, however, socialist femi-
nists believe that capitalism is only one of many intertwined factors that contribute to women’s
oppression. Other factors include male dominance, racism, and imperialism. However, because
women’s work (within and outside of the home) is not as valued as that of their male counter-
parts, women are forced to remain dependent upon males. Socialist feminism provides an an-
swer to the problem of women’s poverty: the destruction of class distinctions.
Unlike Marxist feminist theory, socialist feminists believe that the home is not just a place of
consumption, but of production as well. Women’s work within the home, having and raising
children, as well as supporting men by doing cooking, cleaning, and other forms of housework
which permit men to work outside the home, are all forms of production because they contribute
to society at large. Production, according to socialist feminists, should not be measured in eco-
nomic terms, but rather in social worth.

2.5.5 Radical Feminism

Radical feminism emerged in the 1970s. Radical feminist theorists stated that modern society and
its constructs (law, religion, politics, art, etc) are the product of males and therefore have a
patriarchal character. Radical feminism is a philosophy emphasizing the patriarchal roots of in-
equality between men and women, or, more specifically, social dominance of women by men.
Radical feminism views patriarchy as dividing rights, privileges and power primarily by gender,
and as a result oppressing women and privileging men.
Radical feminists tend to be more militant in their approach (radical as “getting to the root”).
Radical feminism opposes existing political and social organization in general because it is inher-
ently tied to patriarchy. Thus, radical feminists tend to be skeptical of political action within the
current system, and instead support cultural change that undermines patriarchy and associated
hierarchical structures.
Radical feminism opposes patriarchy, not men. To equate radical feminism to man-hating is to
assume that patriarchy and men are inseparable, philosophically and politically. According to
those who subscribe to this view, the best solution for women’s oppression would be to treat
patriarchy not as a subset of capitalism but as a problem in its own right. Thus eliminating women’s
oppression means eliminating male domination in all its forms.
2.5.6 Liberal feminism

Liberal Feminists seek equal rights with men and believe individuals should be treated in accor-
dance with their talents and effort as opposed to characteristics of their sex. They campaign to
remove any obstacle, be it political, social, legal or economical, that gets in the way of women
having the same opportunities as their male counterparts. The liberal feminist also believe that the
equality of men and women can only be achieved by changes being brought through political and
legal reform. They want the eradication of institutional bias and implementations of fairer laws
towards women. Thanks to this approach certain discriminatory practices have been uncovered
and legislation has been put in place successfully (for example, the Equal Pay Act 1975). Some
of the main issues of liberal feminism include reproductive and abortions rights, sexual harass-
ment, voting rights, education, affordable childcare and affordable health care.

1. Give parallels between Marxism and
feminism…………………………...
2. What problems do feminists find with
Marxism?.......................................
3. What is the relationship between capitalism and patriarchy in feminist
eyes?..................................................................…………………………
4. What are the arguments by Marxist feminists on gender inequality?
……………………………………………………………………………

2.6 SUMMARY
Classical sociology has ignored women’s issues. Feminists have therefore as a result brought to
these issues taking different forms and approaches. Radical feminism is a philosophy emphasizing
the patriarchal roots of inequality between men and women, or, more specifically, social domi-
nance of women by men. Radical feminism views patriarchy as dividing rights, privileges and
power primarily by gender, and as a result oppressing women and privileging men. Marxist
feminists focus on the dismantling of capitalism as a way to liberate women. Marxist feminists
state that private property, which gives rise to economic inequality, dependence, political confu-
sion and ultimately unhealthy social relations between men and women, is the root of women’s
oppression in the current social context. Marxist feminists see contemporary gender inequality as
determined ultimately by the capitalist mode of production. Gender oppression is class oppres-
sion and the relationship between man and woman in society is similar to the relations between
proletariat and bourgeoisie. Women’s subordination is seen as a form of class oppression, which
is maintained (like racism) because it serves the interests of capital and the ruling class. Marxist
feminists have extended traditional Marxist analysis by looking at domestic labour as well as
wage work.
References
Bryson, Valerie. 1992. Feminist Political Theory. Macmillan, London.
Burt, S., L. Code and L. Dorney. 1993. Changing Patterns: Women in Canada, second
edition. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.
Eisenstein, Zillah. 1986. The Radical Future of Liberal Feminism. Boston: Notheastern Uni-
versity Press.
Ritzer, George. 1992. Sociological Theory, third edition. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Sydie, Rosalind. 1987. Natural Women, Cultured Men: A Feminist Perspective on Socio-
logical Theory. Toronto: Methuen.
Tong, Rosemarie. 1989. Feminist Thought: A Comprehensive Introduction. Boulder: Westview
Press.

Unit 3 Poststructuralism
Unit 3
Poststructuralism
3.0 INTRODUCTION
Poststructuralism is the name for a movement in philosophy that began in the 1960s. It remains an
influence not only in philosophy, but also in a wider set of subjects, including literature, politics,
art, cultural criticisms, history and sociology. This influence is controversial because poststructuralism
is often seen as a dissenting position, for example, with respect to the sciences and to established
moral values. The movement is best summed up by its component thinkers. Therefore, the unit
seeks to explain it through a critical study of some of the most important works by the movement’s
most important thinkers (Derrida, Deleuze, Lyotard,Baudrillard, Foucault and Kristeva).
3.1 OBJECTIVES
 2.
By the conclusion of this Unit, you should be able to:
1. Define poststructuralism
Identify and explain the basic tenets of poststructuralism
3. Explain poststructuralism from the point of view of each of its
important thinkers

3.2 BRIEF HISTORY AND OVERVIEW

Almost all post-structuralists found their inspirations in the philosophy of Nietzsche. For ex-
ample, while Derrida took Nietzsche’s critics on ‘truth’ and ‘meaning’ and Foucault borrowed
Nietzsche’s concept of genealogy as the basis of his works.
Nietzsche is critical of philosophy. He says that we have separated two important aspects of
ourselves: The “Dionysian” (celebratory and unconscious) and the “Apollonian” (conscious and
rational). It is only when the creative individual expresses his will to power by synthesising these
elements that he can progress. Nietzsche is critical of any philosophy that claims to show us a
final “truth”. To him there is no single physical reality beyond our interpretations. There are only
perspectives. He wrote: “What, therefore, is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonymies,
anthromorphisms; truths are illusions of which one has forgotten that they are illusions… coins
which have their obverse effaced and now are no longer of account as coins but merely as metal”
(Sarup, 1993)
Also in Nietzsche’s philosophy the “will to power” is the most basic human drive. He thought that
this will to power is a creative force and that human beings will progress to a new level of being.
In short Nietzsche’s position can be thought as anti-scientific, anti-rationalist and critical against
the thoughts of western philosophy.
Before going into the details of postsructuralism, it is important to start by considering structural-
ism from where poststructuralism departs. Structuralism as a school of thought hit its stride during
the radical movements of the 1950s and 1960s, particularly in France, although it had its roots
back at the beginning of the 20th century. Structuralists look at the foundational structures implicit
in all productions of a culture, and undertake an analysis of the many parts that create something,
to get a better understanding of the creation. Linguistics was one of the first fields to use structur-
alism to its advantage, and its application quickly spread to other fields. The basic premise of
structuralism is that all things have a structure below the level of meaning, and that this structure
constitutes the reality of that thing.
Post-structuralism is a modern philosophical school of thought. It grew out of, and in response
to, the philosophy of structuralism, which many of the pivotal thinkers of post-structuralism were
extremely critical of. Post-structuralism is one of the major driving forces in philosophy today,
and is intricately connected with postmodernist thought.
Post-structuralism grew as a response to structuralism’s perceived assumption that its own sys-
tem of analysis was somehow essentialist. Post-structuralists hold that in fact even in an examina-
tion of underlying structures, a slew of biases introduce themselves, based on the conditioning of
the examiner. At the root of post-structuralism is the rejection of the idea that there is any truly
essential form to a cultural product, as all cultural products are by their very nature formed, and
therefore artificial.
This concept of non-essentialism was famously expanded upon by Foucault in his History of
Sexuality, in which he argues that even gender and sexual orientation are contrived formations,
and that our concept of essentialist notions of gender or sexuality is flawed. For example, he

argues that the entire class of homosexuality is in fact quite recent, built up by cultural norms and
an interplay between different groups in society, but with no more essential a quality than, for
example, the idea of beauty.
One of the pivotal moments in the history of post-structuralism occurred in 1966, when Derrida
delivered a talk at John Hopkins University. Derrida was respected as one of the great thinkers
of structuralism, and so was invited to speak on the subject at length, as it was just beginning to
receive a great deal of attention in the American intellectual community. Derrida’s lecture, “Struc-
ture, Sign, and Play in the Human Sciences,” was a sharp critique of structuralism, pointing out its
inherent limitations, and laying out some basic principles for a new language of discourse.
Post-structuralism is importantly different from postmodernism, although the two are often con-
sidered one and the same by the general subject. Although there are certain areas of overlap,
thinkers from one school almost never identify themselves with the other school of thought.
Postmodernism importantly seeks to identify a contemporary state of the world, the period that
is following the modernist period. Postmodernism seeks to identify a certain juncture, and to
work within the new period. Post-structuralism, on the other hand, can be seen as a more explic-
itly critical view, aiming to deconstruct ideas of essentialism in various disciplines to allow for a
more accurate discourse.
3.3 DERRIDA AND DECONSTRUCTION

For many analysts Jacques Derrida is the most influential thinker of post-structuralism. Derrida
developed deconstruction as a technique for uncovering the multiple interpretation of texts. He
mostly influenced by the thoughts of Heidegger and Nietzsche. (Sarup, 1993).
“Post-structuralism refers to the theory of knowledge associated with the work of Jacques
Derrida...This perspective suggests that language users do not pluck words out of thin air or
thesaurus when trying to convey meaning, fitting them to the objects or feelings being conveyed.
Instead, the meanings of words are largely imbedded in language use itself such that how we talk,
write, and read largely determines what we end up saying. ... Derrida argues that meaning is
forever elusive and incomplete in the sense that language can never perfectly convey what is
meant by the language user.” (Agger, 1998)
For Derrida, language or ‘texts’ are not a natural reflection of the world. Text structures our
interpretation of the world. Following Heidegger, Derrida thinks that language shapes us: texts
create a clearing that we understand as reality. Derrida sees the history of western thought as
based on opposition: good vs. evil ,mind vs. matter, man vs. woman, speech vs. writing. These
oppositions are defined hierarchically: the second term is seen as a corruption of the first, the
terms are not equal opposites.
He thought that all text contained a legacy of these assumptions, and as a result of this, these texts
could be re-interpreted with an awareness of the hierarchies implicit in language. Derrida does
not think that we can reach an end point of interpretation, a truth. For Derrida all texts exhibit
difference: they allow multiple interpretations. Meaning is diffuse, not settled. Textuality always

gives us a surplus of possibilities, yet we cannot stand outside of textuality in an attempt to find
objectivity.
In deconstruction certainty in textual analyses is impossible. There may be competing interpreta-

tions, but there is no uninterpreted way one could assess the validity of these competing interpre-
tations. (Jones, 1998)
The leading figure in deconstruction, Jacques Derrida, looks at philosophy (Western metaphys-
ics) to see that any system necessarily posits a CENTER, a point from which everything comes,
and to which everything refers or returns. Sometimes it’s God, sometimes it’s the human self, the
mind, sometimes it’s the unconscious, depending on what philosophical system (or set of beliefs)
one is talking about.
There are two key points to the idea of deconstruction. First is that we are still going to look at
systems or structures, rather than at individual concrete practices, and that all systems or struc-
tures have a CENTER, the point of origin, the thing that created the system in the first place.
Second is that all systems or structures are created of binary pairs or oppositions, of two terms
placed in some sort of relation to each other.
In his most famous work, Of Grammatology, Derrida looks particularly at the opposition speech/
writing, saying that speech is always seen as more important than writing. This may not be as self-
evident as the example of good/evil, but it is true in terms of linguistic theories, where speech is
posited as the first or primary form of language, and writing is just the transcription of speech.
Derrida says speech gets privileged because speech is associated with presence—for there to be
spoken language, somebody has to be there to be speaking.
Anyway, the idea is that the spoken word guarantees the existence of somebody doing the
speaking—thus it reinforces all those great humanist ideas, like that there is a real self that is the
origin of what is being said. Derrida calls this idea of the self that has to be there to speak part of
the metaphysics of PRESENCE; the idea of being, or presence, is central to all systems of
Western philosophy, from Plato through Descartes (up to Derrida himself). Presence is part of a
binary opposition presence/absence, in which presence is always favored over absence. Speech
gets associated with presence, and both are favored over writing and absence; this privileging of
speech and presence is what Derrida calls LOGOCENTRISM.
You might think here about the Biblical phrase “Let there be light” as an example. The statement
insures that there is a God (the thing doing the speaking), and that God is present (because
speech=presence); the present God is the origin of all things (because God creates the world by
speaking), and what God creates is binary oppositions (starting with light/dark). You might also
think about other binary oppositions or pairs, including being/nothingness, reason/madness, word/
silence, culture/nature, mind/body. Each term has meaning only in reference to the other (light is
what is not dark, and vice-versa). These binary pairs are the “structures,” or fundamental oppos-
ing ideas, that Derrida is concerned with in Western philosophy.

Because of the favoring of presence over absence, speech is favored over writing (and, as we’ll
see with Freud, masculine is favored over feminine because the penis is defined as a presence,
whereas the female genitals are defined as absence).
It is because of this favoring of presence over absence that every system posits a CENTER, a
place from which the whole system comes, and which guarantees its meaning—this center guar-
antees being as presence. Think of your entire self as a kind of system—everything you do, think,
feel, etc. is part of that system. At the core or center of your mental and physical life is a notion of
SELF, of an “I”, of an identity that is stable and unified and coherent, the part of you that knows
who you mean when you say “I”. This core self or “I” is thus the CENTER of the “system”, the
“langue” of your being, and every other part of you (each individual act) is part of the “parole”.
The “I” is the origin of all you say and do, and it guarantees the idea of your presence, your being.
Western thought has a whole bunch of terms that serve as centers to systems —being, essence,
substance, truth, form, consciousness, man, god, etc. What Derrida tells us is that each of these
terms designating the center of a system serves two purposes: it is the thing that created the
system, that originated it and guarantees that all the parts of the system interrelate, and it is also
something beyond the system, not governed by the rules of the system.
It is crucially important to note that LANGUAGE, as a system or structure, DOES NOT HAVE
A CENTER. There is no central term or idea that creates language and that holds it all together.
This is an extremely important idea, for Derrida and for poststructuralism. Without a center to
hold the elements of the system in place, there is no absolute or definitive “truth” or “meaning.”
Language is always shifting and moving, not fixed by a center— hence meaning is ALWAYS
ambiguous, multiple, and provisional.
Derrida looks at how a binary opposition—the fundamental unit of the structures or systems we
have been looking at, and of the philosophical systems he refers to—functions within a system.
He points out that a binary opposition is algebraic (a=~b, a equals not-b), and that two terms can
not exist without reference to the other—light (as presence) is defined as the absence of dark-
ness, goodness the absence of evil, etc. He does not seek to reverse the hierarchies implied in
binary pairs—to make evil favored over good, unconscious over consciousness, feminine over
masculine. Rather, deconstruction wants to erase the boundaries (the slash) between opposi-
tions, hence to show that the values and order implied by the opposition are also not rigid.
Here is the basic method of deconstruction: find a binary opposition. Show how each term,
rather than being polar opposite of its paired term, is actually part of it. Then the structure or
opposition which kept them apart collapses, as we see with the terms nature and culture in
Derrida’s essay. Ultimately, you can not tell which is which, and the idea of binary opposites loses
meaning, or is put into “play”. This method is called “Deconstruction” because it is a combination
of construction/destruction—the idea is that you do not simply construct new system of binaries,
with the previously subordinated term on top, nor do you destroy the old system—rather, you
deconstruct the old system by showing how its basic units of structuration (binary pairs and the
rules for their combination) contradict their own logic.

ACTIVITY 3.1
1. What differentiates structuralism from poststructuralism?
……………………………………………………………………………
2. What is
poststructuralism?.........................................................................
3. Give a brief summary of Derrida’s contributions to poststructuralism
………………………………………………………………………….
3.4 JEAN FRANÇOIS LYOTARD

Jean François Lyotard pursues the poststructuralist argument in books such as The Postmodern
Condition (1979) and The Different (1983). Lyotard argues that knowledge and discourse are
inseparable. The traditional stories or narratives about the world have been transformed in what
he calls the postmodern era. The classic narratives of the Enlightenment such as liberal humanism
and Marxism no longer provide a convincing or accurate account of the world. They have been
replaced by a proliferation of micro-narratives. In a world dominated by corporations, espe-
cially, what counts as true is increasingly determined by the financial and technical requirements
of those with economic power. Lyotard sees society as consisting of contending stories about the
world, no one of which is in itself more true than another. Each person or group must work
rhetorically to convince others of the truth of their own particular discourse. Social life is an
ongoing discussion in which people seek to make their perspective and their story dominant.
Totalitarianism consists of abolishing this free play of discussion by establishing a consensus that
silences further discussion.

ACTIVITY 3.2
1. “The classic narratives of the Enlightenment such as liberal humanism
and Marxism no longer provide a convincing or accurate account of
the world. They have been replaced by a proliferation of micro-
narratives.” With reference to examples:
a) Explain the weaknesses of classic narratives of the Enlightenment in
contemporary
world........................................................................................................................
b) Explain the weaknesses of Marxism in today’s
world?...........................................
c) Give examples of micro-narratives that have proliferated an
explanation of the current
world……………………………………………………..
d) How valid is the above
quotation?................................................................................
3.5 JEAN BAUDRILLARD

3.5.1 Introduction
Jean Baudrillard has developed what he considered a more radical approach – a society of
simulations, simulacra, implosions and hyperreality, where it is increasingly difficult to distinguish
image from reality and where signs and simulations become or are society. Following this ap-
proach from the 1970s, Baudrillard develops the view that we are at the end of history and
history may be reversing itself, so we live in a “post-orgy state of things” (Baudrillard in Best and
Kellner, 1991, p. 137). This leads him to a cynical conclusion that all we can do is “reach a point
where one can live with what is left. It is more a survival among the ruins than anything else”
(Baudrillard in Best and Kellner, 1997, p. 117), although survival in the ruins usually means that
people begin to rebuild. In spite of his conclusions, many of the ideas of Baudrillard are insightful
and provide a useful way of considering the contemporary era.
a. Early Writings
In his early work, Baudrillard began by examining modernity, the consumer society, and Marx-
ism in a fairly conventional manner. Like the critical theorists, he examined the development of
“the new system of mass consumption bound up with the explosive proliferation of consumer
goods and services” which creates a “‘new technical order’, ‘new environment’, ‘new field of
everyday life’, ‘new morality’, and new form of ‘hyper-civilization’” (Best and Kellner, 1991, p.
112-3). The mass commodification and expansion of exchange values has vastly expanded in
contemporary capitalism, so that objects, signs, and exchange value dominate society and the

people in society. Like other analysts of modernity, Baudrillard takes a look back to the premodern
and notes that while exchange occurred in these societies, it was symbolic exchange – gifts and
reciprocity associated with various rituals, spirituality, or other forms of social obligation. These
systems tended to reinforce tradition, rather than separating people from it as is the case with
commodity exchange.
With capitalism, exchange value comes to dominate the exchange of goods, so that markets,
quantitative calculation of exchange values, and money become the dominant form. Political
economy, especially Marxian analysis, developed as a mode of analysing this, and production
and the needs of production come to dominate society. For Baudrillard, even Marxian political
economy may be part of the system of rationalization and reproduction of the capitalist order.
That is, Marxian political economy argues that capitalism is exploitative and inefficient in produc-
tion, and in arguing for socialism and communism posits a better form of organization of produc-
tion and exchange. Baudrillard argues that Marxism does not challenge the logic of the primacy
of production in directing society and creating progress and in challenging the central role of
production and productivity. It is a critique of productivist modes of analysis that leads Baudrillard
in a different analytical direction.
Baudrillard begins his argument by arguing that in addition to use and exchange value, there is
also “sign value, whereby commodities are valued by the way that they confer prestige and
signify social status and power” (Best and Kellner, 1991, p. 114). While Marx argues that use
values are given, and exchange value implies the existence of use value, Baudrillard notes that use
values themselves are problematic, in that they are constructed through exchange value and “a
rationalized system of needs and objects that integrate individuals into the capitalist social order”
(Best and Kellner 1991, p. 114). In making this argument, he does not move beyond critical
theorists, who made much the same type of argument.
Where Baudrillard begins to develop his ideas in a different direction is to emphasize symbols
and symbolic exchange. In his writings in the early and mid 1970s, he argued for a return to
symbolic exchange as a means of breaking the logic and demands of production, commodity
exchange, and political economy. Symbolic exchange could be revolutionary in that it “provides
a mode of activity that is more radically subversive of the values and logic of capitalism than the
sort of practices advocated by Marxists which he claims are but a reflex of the ‘mirror of produc-
tion’” (Best and Kellner, 1991, p. 116). Baurdillard states “the mirror of production in which all
Western metaphysics is reflected, must be broken” (in Smart, pp. 461-1). Baudrillard calls his
perspective a political economy of the sign.
At this time, Baudrillard was impressed with marginal groups such as blacks, women, and gays,
what sociologists have termed the new social movements, which “subvert the code of racial or
sexual difference, and thus are more radical and subversive than socialists who operate within the
code of political economy” (Best and Kellner, 1991, p. 116). These arguments were developed
in the aftermath of the 1968 events in France, where radical change initially seemed possible, but
was thwarted by traditional forces, including some of the established socialist and communist
parties and groupings. Out of this grew various ultraleft and new types of groups which argued
for a radical break with the dominant economic and political forms.

ACTIVITY 3.3
1. From Baudrillard’s early writings, in what ways is he influenced by:
a) Marxism…………………………………………………….
b) Critical Theory……………………………………………...
b. Simulations, Implosion, and Hyperreality
Smart (pp. 461-62) notes how Baudrillard regards Marxist thought as part of the Enlightenment
and western culture, part of a universalist approach that misconceives what has happened in
western and other societies. In the later 1970s and during the 1980s, Baudrillard’s analysis
broke with the Marxist approach and expanded on the view that symbols, signs, and simulations
had become so all-encompassing, that it is not longer possible to distinguish the real and the
symbol. Baudrillard thus argues that we have entered a new era that is beyond the modern, and
this constitutes a break with an earlier era – much like the break between the premodern and the
modern.
In the modern era, the problems of industry, production, use of labour, exploitation, and accumu-
lation dominated the organization of the economy and society. In the current period there is “a
new era of simulation in which computerization, information processing, media, cybernetic con-
trol systems, and the organization of society according to simulation codes and models replace
production as the organizing principle of society” (Best and Kellner, 1991, p. 118). This is a
passage “‘from a metallurgic into a semiurgic society’ … in which signs take on a life of their
own and constitute a new social order structured by models, codes, and signs” (Best and Kellner,
1991, p. 118).
Semiotics refers to the theory of signs – types, meaning, relationships among signs. A sign is any
information carrying entity from language to road signs. An example of how Baudrillard ap-
proaches this is contained in his short article “Requiem for the Twin Towers” where he asks the
question “Were the Twin Towers destroyed, or did they collapse?” (p. 47). He proceeds to
argue
The architectural object was destroyed, but it was the symbolic object which was
targeted and which it was intended to demolish. One might think the physical
destruction brought about the symbolic collapse. But in fact no one, not even the
terrorists, had reckoned on the total destruction of the towers. It was, in fact,
their symbolic collapse that brought about their physical collapse, not the other
way around. (p. 48).
What Baudrillard is arguing is that the signs, simulations, and codes that characterize the current
era have developed to a point that it is these that structure society and make it difficult to distin-
guish these signs and symbols from social reality – or the social reality becomes the signs and
simulations and these structure the social world. In developing this analysis, Baudrillard develops
several new concepts.

Simulation or Simulacra. Simulations are processes whereby events or situations in the past
are replaced with virtual, electronic, or digitized images and signs. While a drama may simulate
real life, we generally think of this as representation of some part of the social world – institutions,
relationships, and interactions that idealize or characterize aspects of the social world. Television
has carried this much further, so that the images simulate many different and hypothetical aspects
of social life. Simulacra denote representations of the real but where the essence of the real may
be missing. What Baudrillard argues is that these simulacra “are so omnipresent that it is hence-
forth impossible to distinguish the real from simulacra’ (Best and Kellner, 1997, p. 101). That is,
we live in a society of simulacra so that it no long makes sense to distinguish some underlying
reality from the simulacra.
Hyperreality. This is hyperreality – “the blurring of distinctions between the real in the unreal in
which the prefix ‘hyper’ signifies more real than real whereby the real is producted according to
a model” (Best and Kellner, 1991, p. 119). This hyperreal is the “end result of a historical
simulation process in which the natural world and all its referents have been gradually replaced
with technology and self-referential signs” (Best and Kellner, 1997, p. 101). No longer is there
an underlying reality which has an existence apart from the simulations and simulacra. Rather,
what we consider to be social reality is indefinitely reproducible and extendable, with the copy
indistinguishable from the original, or perhaps seeming more real than the original. Video games
become more real than other forms of interaction, theme parks which are simulacra become
more desirable than the originals (Las Vegas, Disneyworld), and even nature becomes better
viewed through national parks and reconstructions.
Implosion. Baudrillard uses this term to refer to the process whereby the image or simulation
and reality collapse on each other and become the same, so that there is no longer any distinction
between the two. This is
a process of social entropy leading to a collapse of boundaries, including the
implosion of meaning in the media and the implosion of media messages and the
social in the masses. … The dissemination of media messages and semiurgy
saturates the social field, and meaning and messages flatten each other out in a
neutralized flow of information, entertainment, advertising, and politics (Best and
Kellner, 1991, p. 121).
All the different parts of the social world implode, leaving no separation between formerly dis-
tinctive parts of society – politics and sports become entertainment, or the latter become the
former. With the O. J. Simpson case, it was difficult to separate entertainment, legal issues,
private, public, and the social reality – all imploded together to create a grand spectacle.
If Baudrillard is correct, then earlier forms of social theory may be inadequate to analyse this
postmodern society. Earlier analysis focused on signs, symbols, and meaning (Mead and sym-
bolic interaction), fashion (Simmel), and power of the media (critical theory), but generally ar-
gued that these were means by which people communicated based on some underlying social
reality. That is, there were subjects or individuals who developed a sense of self through commu-
nication, and used this interact with others, thus developing the patterns, institutions, and struc-
tures of the social world. Implicit in this form of analysis is that there is a subject and object

(Mead’s other, interaction among individuals in symbolic interaction, etc). Meaning is associ-
ated with knowledge and consciousness of others, symbols, and relationships.
Baudrillard argues that the subject-object distinction disappears in the contemporary setting so
that signs and symbols do not have meaning in the conventional sense. In fact, meaning itself
becomes questionable in these circumstances and he argues that there has been a destruction of
meaning in the contemporary era. While there may be meaning associated with earlier forms of
social reality, these are “dead meaning and frozen forms mutating into new combinations and
permutations of the same” (Best and Kellner, 1991, p. 127).
While Baudrillard carries through an analysis of hyperreality further than other theorists, and
shows some of its implications, he does not appear to have developed an analysis of a way out of
this era or even a means of analyzing it sociologically. That is, a sociological analysis provides a
means of understanding and critiquing the social world. Baudrillard’s analysis argues that it is not
really possible to do this in the conventional manner. Instead, he proposes various strategies and
perspectives that people might adopt, but in postmodern fashion does not provide directives or
modes of analysis.
c. Fatal Strategies.
Given that the postmodern world lacks meaning and is “where theories float in a void, unanchored
in any secure harbour” (Best and Kellner, 1991, p. 127) how are people to respond? Baudrillard
appears to have a number of responses. At one level, he argues that this produces little hope for
the future and “melancholy is the quality inherent in the mode of disappearance of meaning, in the
mode of volitilisation of meaning in operational systems” (Baudrillard in Best and Kellner, 1991,
p. 127). Despair, sadness, and nostalgia is thus one form of response that people have in the
current era, and one response is to attempt to bring back those parts of the past that have been
destroyed. This may be associated with a revival or earlier forms of spirituality (new age, funda-
mentalism, aboriginal), or a recycling of earlier cultural forms (earlier popular music), or out-
moded institutional forms (earlier models of family values). At another level, Baudrillard says that
the response is a happy one, with playfulness, laughter, hallucinations, ecstacy, seduction, and
giddiness, and he talks about orgy and celebration, although he also comments on what is to
occur after the orgy (Smart, p. 466).
For Baudrillard, the current era is one where the ideas of progress and production have passed,
and where the modern movements of liberation have taken place and the results of these may be
reversed. As a result, there is (or at least appears to be) nothing new so there is “indefinite
reproduction of ideals, of phantasms, or images, of dreams” (from Smart, p. 463). This failure of
modernity to be unable to go further results in a replay of earlier ideas and a recycling of old
ideals. While life goes on, the great ideas of progress and production have disappeared.
Baudrillard’s fatal strategies may be considered more inevitable and fatalistic, rather than fatal as
deadly, although both are implied by the French (and English) words. His view is that processes
have a certain inevitability to them, that things go beyond themselves in an inevitable manner. The
result is that they produce a disappearance, end, or finality to the process – not a negation in the

dialectic sense, but a loss or erasure of meaning. Baudrillard counterposes this to contradiction,
arguing the “the universe is not dialectical: it moves toward the extremes, and not towards equi-
librium; it is devoted to a radical antagonisms and not to reconciliation or to synthesis” (Selected
Writings, p. 185). The example Smart gives is that of production, where there is more and more
production, with faster and faster circulation of production and distribution, but producing an end
of the idea of production, that we have passed beyond production. He may have in mind
postindustrial society, where production and the ideals of production have been so successful,
that a new stage is reached. He argues that this produces a certain banality (triviality, ordinary)
here the ideal disappears and becomes so commonplace that it does not have meaning associ-
ated with it – “such is the banal destiny of all great ideals in what could be called postmodernity”
(Smart, p. 463).
While Baudrillard may not offer a way out, his analysis does provide a certain apt description of
contemporary trends that seem quite disparate. Unlike others, such as the critical theorists,
Baudrillard does not consider this with regret, but argues that we accept this and adopt strategies
in the face of this. Since Baudrillard himself does not have a grand plan to change or create
progress, his writings since the early 1980s are more fragmented, ironic, and fantastical. In fact,
his writings may be considered to parallel media and society and their unexpected turns, and
science fiction of the cyberpunk sort.
One strategy suggested by Baudrillard in Fatal Strategies (1983) is that “individuals should thus
surrender to the world of objects, learning their ruses and strategies, and should give up the
project of sovereignty and control” (Best and Kellner, 1991, p. 129). He appears to base this
strategy on two considerations. One is that there is nothing new, everything has been done, all
philosophic and social theoretical issues have been addressed, and all that is left is to recycle,
recombine, and play with these in new ways. A second aspect is that the subject has shown it
cannot dominate the object. Progress was associated with the domination of nature and direct-
ing the natural and social world in a positive direction. But this has all imploded and become
impossible in the current era where subject cannot be distinguished from object, where reality
and image cannot be separated, and society takes on a new dynamic.
Baudrillard associates this new society with the victory of the object and “he proposes that we
become more like things, like objects, and divest ourselves of the illusion and hubris of subjectiv-
ity. Likewise, he proposes that it is useless to change or control the world and that we should
give up such subjective strategies and adopt the ‘fatal strategies’ of objects” (BK, 1991, p. 131).
This may have some parallels with those who advocate a similar strategy in environmental or
ecological issues, but Baudrillard takes this in a different direction. That is, he argues for taking
things to their extreme and, by doing, this surpass the limits and subvert the tendencies. Even in
consumption he noted that we could consume ever more, even useless and absurd types of
consumption. In some sense we have done this, but it has not subverted the consumer society,
but likely has entrenched it even more. Best and Kellner note that Fatal Strategies is original,
but bizarre, and an approach that Baudrillard appears to have abandoned.

ACTIVITY 3.4
1. Explain the following terms and phrases:
a) Hyperreality…………………………………………………
b) Signs take on a life of their own……………………………
c) Simulation…………………………………………………...
d) Implosion…………………………………………………
2. Baudrillard argues that in contemporary hyperreality, there has been
an implosion of social reality and simulation. Explain what this
means.
3. With reference to examples show the validity of Baudrillard’s
arguments……………
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
3.6 FOUCAULT AND POST-STRUCTURALISM

Despite his structuralist label some commentators saw Michel Foucault as one of the most im-
portant representative of the post-structuralist movement. Foucault was not a social theorist. He
was not concerned with creating a social theory that would “explain” or “interpret” the history of
the West in terms of “power.” He was not a historian of ideas. He presented himself as an
“archaeologist,” who must be content with describing the invisible cultural formations that, he
believed, produced the visible social and literary evidence he examined. He sought the conditions
of possibility of discourse, the rules which governed the putting together of statements, and the
ruptures in formations where novelty could appear. He wrote: “Archaeology tries to define not
the thoughts, representations, images, themes, preoccupations that are concealed or revealed in
discourses; but those discourses themselves, those discourses as practices obeying certain rules.”
(Horus Publications, 1998)
As Sarup points out that Foucault is against the any form of global theorizing. He has great
rejection on the systematic approaches. But instead he used archeology and genealogy in his
works. Foucault borrowed genealogy, that is an effort to delegitimize the present by separating it
from the past, from Nietzsche and he described his conception of history as genealogy. There-
fore he detached past from the present and tried to prove us the objectiveness of the present
indicating the foreignness of the past. (Sarup, 1993)
3.6.1. Power/Knowledge
Foucault’s idea on Power/Knowledge is discussed in The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969).
His concept of this aspect of archaeology displaced the human subject from the central role it
played in the humanism dominant in our culture since Kant. Consequently, the withdrawal of the

central role of the human was illustrated as ‘objects of disciplinary knowledge’ in Discipline and
Punish (1975)
He asserted that power produced and controlled the epistemology, theoretic structure, and tax-
onomy of formal knowledge, the cultural codes by which groups acted out their roles, and the
voluble social discourses between diverse ethnic groups and classes of modern society (hetero-
geneity). Foucault’s radical project focused to the complete historicizing of scientific knowledge
and of human cultures.
Foucault said that by “power” he did not refer to the pressure based on police power with which
a ruling class suppresses other classes. Power had to be positive as well as negative. Power had
to create new forms of behavior, new modes of self-understanding, and new codes of meaning,
as well as restrain behaviors opposed to a ruling class. He said that power is like war, and power
is like language. To D. Lacombe, “Foucault’s notion of power is better understood as a ‘mecha-
nism for life’ that includes strategies of self-development that both constrain and enable agency.”
(Lacombe, 1996)
3.6.2 His Vision of Society

Foucault established his analyses around three social constructs, as if he believed these societies
shared some unity: class or caste, command economics, and the state. Using the three concepts
of class, command, and state, Foucault characterized different Western societies in similar terms.
These features were present all periods, but they became stronger in the seventeenth and eigh-
teenth centuries. All societies have classes All societies were hierarchically organized. All states
were administrative. All had administrative collective institutions (army, hospitals, etc.) that com-
pleted the will of the state. Social behaviors were produced in institutional settings in which
behavior was regulated by “systems of power”, and in which persons were brought to see them-
selves as “subjects” of the regulation. The major problem of government was power and the
organization of power. He saw the “state” as co- extensive with “society.”
Foucault rejected all of the major Western traditions of social and economic interpretation of the
West of the past three hundred years. Foucault believed that seeing Western society as the
product of “power” made it impossible to see the West in terms of freedom. Since all Western
social theory has been based on assumptions of the real meaningfulness of freedom, Foucault
could not use them. Therefore his story of the West is not the story of freedom.
The shift of the possession of power from the state to the society was described by Foucault on
human science (such as psychology, sociology, economics, linguistics and medicine) which is
closely connected to the society. He states:
“The goal of my work during the last twenty years has not been to analyze the
phenomena of power, nor to elaborate the foundations of such an analysis. My
objective, instead, has been to create a history of the different modes by which, in
our culture, human beings are made subjects” (Dreyfus 1982)

Therefore, Foucault’s interest in the subject causes him to investigate ‘forms which are the dis-
tinctive feature of modern practices of control over the transformation of subjects’ through ‘the
systematic linking of the categories of power and knowledge to form a hybrid, power-knowl-
edge.’ (Hirst, 1992)
For the test of the hybrid of power-knowledge, Foucault introduced ‘disciplinary power’ of
prisons, hospitals, schools or asylums. Disciplinary power, he maintains, relies on surveillance to
transform the subjects. In Discipline and Punish, Foucault reinterprets the transformation of
crime and punishment, shifting the explanation away from humanistic concerns and towards the
need to rationalize the functions of discipline and punishment. Foucault attempts to highlight the
multivalent, multidimensional nature of this transformation by acknowledging the relationship be-
tween the new techniques of punishment and discipline with the encroachment of power through-
out society. These “micro-physics of power” were based on hierarchical observation, normaliz-
ing judgments, and examination, and they were originally taken from the military. These find their
ultimate expression in the Panopticon, a structure designed by Jeremy Bentham(1748-1832)
for observing criminals. The characteristics of the panopticon are important, because it allows for
the shift in regulatory power to the individual, as they now self-monitor their behavior. Foucault is
also interested in the relationship between sex and power. Here again he reinterprets history to
show the ways in which medicine is more concerned with morality than with sexuality.
Foucault’s work also ranged from investigating medical discourses and the construction of nor-
mative understanding of people (normal versus pathological) and ultimately into the problematic
surrounding the emergence of people as both subject and object of knowledge.
In addition, Foucault’s later, less structuralist work sought to create a genealogy of power, a type
of historical analysis that does not seek invariable laws of social change, but rather recognizes the
contingency of history. Substantively, Foucault’s genealogy questioned the ways in which knowl-
edge and power interpenetrate in certain types of practices, such as the regulation of the body,
governing bodies, and the formation of the self. Thus, it asks how people govern themselves and
others through the production of knowledge. Foucault pays particular attention to the techniques
that are developed from knowledge and to how they are used to control people. For Foucault,
history is punctuated with changing forms of domination.

ACTIVITY 3.5
1. ‘Foucault is against the any form of global theorizing.’ How far has
Foucault managed to achieve
this?...............................................................................................
2. How has Foucault defined
power?...............................................................................
3. In what ways can Foucault’s ideas be regarded as having Marxian
origin?
……………………………………………………………………………………….
4. Do you think the hybrid power-knowledge best explains the
relationship between the two? Use examples to illustrate your
answer…………..............................................
…………………………………………………………………………………………
3.7 SUMMARY
Poststructuralism loosened the moorings underlying systems of signs. Rather than seeing stable
relationships of signs, they saw chaotic and highly variable context-dependent systems. In their
view, such structures could not have the coercive power over individuals that the structuralists
attributed to them. Jacques Derrida, perhaps the originator of poststructuralism, has argued
against the notion of logocentrism. By logocentrism Derrida meant the coercive, limiting effects
of the search for universal systems of thought that would reveal “truth.” Instead, Derrida attempts
to deconstruct, or uncover, hidden differences that underlie logocentrism. At the heart of the
notion of logocentrism is the silencing of voices by intellectual elites in the creation of the domi-
nant discourse. Derrida argues for a decentering, so that previously excluded or silenced voices
may contribute. While the ultimate result of this is unclear, Derrida privileges a movement away
from any sort of silencing, a movement away from the fallacy of universal truth, and movement
towards a society characterized by participation, play, and difference.

1. Write brief notes on contributions of each of the following to
poststructuralism:
a) Derrida…………………………………………………….
b) Lyotard……………………………………………………..
c) Baudrillard…………………………………………………..
d) Foucault…………………………………………………….
2. How convincing are the above theorists’ arguments?
……………………………………………………………………………………….

References
Baudrillard, Jean. 1988. Selected Writings. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Baudrillard, Jean. 1999. Revenge of the Crystal. London: Pluto Press.
Baudrillard, Jean. 2002. The Spirit of Terrorism and Requiem for the Twin Towers. London,
Verso, 2002.
Best, Steven and Douglas Kellner. 1991. Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations, New
York, The Guilford Press.
Best, Steven and Douglas Kellner. 1997. The Postmodern Turn, New York, The Guilford
Press.
Rosenau, Pauline Marie. 1992. Post-Modernism and the Social Sciences: Insights, Inroads
and Intrusions, Princeton, Princeton University Press.


Unit 4 Postmodern Social Theory
Unit 4
Postmodern Social Theory
4.0 INTRODUCTION
Postmodern social theory has received a tremendous level of attention and has diversified to such
an extent that it is difficult to make easy, overarching generalizations, particularly since there are
substantial points of disagreements between various postmodern thinkers. Indeed, it is still de-
bated whether postmodernism represents a distinct phase in history or a new society of sorts, or
whether it simply extends modernism. Still another perspective sees modernism and
postmodernism less as competing periods of history and more as sets of principles that critically
engage one another. This unit covers various issues pertaining to postmodernism, starting by
distinguishing it from poststructuralism then narrowing down to what postmodernism is all about.
A distinction will also be made between postmodernity, postmodernism, and postmodern social
theory.
4.1 OBJECTIVES
 By the end of this unit, you should be able to:

1. Distinguish postmodernism from poststructuralism
2. Explain postmodernity, postmodernism and postmodern social theory
showing the distinctions
3. Give a summary of arguments by each of the contributors

4.2 POSTMODERNISM AND POST-STRUCTURALISM-A

BRIEF OVERVIEW
The postmodern perspective spans many disciplines – literature, linguistics, politics, architecture,
and artistic fields such as music, visual art, film, and theatre – as well as philosophy, sociology,
and even science. Regardless of how one views postmodernism, there is no doubt that it has
affected a wide range of theoretical and applied parts of the social sciences. Whether or not one
agrees with these postmodern perspectives, many aspects of their analysis appear to be socio-
logically useful and their critique of contemporary society and social theory must be integrated
into social theory – whether by accommodation or critique.
Some of the major postmodernists are Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Jean-François Lyotard,
Jean Baudrillard and Paul Virilio, all French writers and theorists. Other European postmodernists
include Gianni Vattimo and Zygmunt Bauman. North American postmodernists include United
States writers Richard Rorty and Frederic Jameson and Canadian political theorist Arthur Kroker.
Among the more understandable analyses of postmodern approaches are those by the United
States writers David Harvey (a geographer), Douglas Kellner, Stephen Best, and Charles Lemert.
We will deal with only a few of these and a few of the ideas associated with postmodern per-
spectives.
Post-structuralism and deconstruction can be seen as the theoretical formulations of the post-
modern condition. (Jones, 1998) As suggested by Bertens, postmodernism rises from literary-
critical origins in the 1950s to a level of global conceptualization in the 1980s. For this reason,
although many associate postmodernism with the French post-structuralists (or deconstructionists)
such as Derrida, some insist on the distinction between postmodernism and post-structuralism
(or deconstructionism) due to the fact that postmodernism has its origin in America in 1950s. The
merge of originally American postmodernism with French post-structuralism took place in 1970s.
Some suggests that this merge was marked by Lyotard’s La Condition postmoderne published in
1979 because he as a French post-structuralist adopted the term postmodern in his book. Bertens
suggests that two moments within the post-structuralist postmodernism can be distinguished. In
late 1970s, Barthes and Derrida, two French prominent figures from the linguistic circle, at-
tacked on foundationalist notions of language and representation. Barthes’s ‘The death of the
author’ and Derrida’s attack on representation in itself as political act characterize the first mo-
ment. (Tribe, 1993)
In 1980s, Foucault spawned the second moment which assumes a reality of textuality and signs,
of representation that do not represent. The emphasis is on working of powers because it ac-
cepts that knowledge, and languages simply, have become inseparable from power. While the
first moment declares the collapse of representation but ignores the question of authorship, the
second moment goes further by addressing the question of subjectivity and authorship, interro-
gating the institutions that support the discourses, and working against the hegemony of any
system. This second moment has a far-reaching democratizing influence within cultural institu-
tions and in the humanities at large.

In sum, the postmodern worldview includes many post-structuralist positions. But Barthes,
Derrida, Foucault and other post-structuralists have not defined themselves as theorists of
postmodernism. In fact, many of them have rarely used the term ‘postmodern’ in their theories.
Perhaps, one exception is Lyotard, the only post-structuralist who has played a major role in
theorizing the postmodern.
However, the impact of these post-structuralists on the redefinition of postmodernism is signifi-

cant. On the theoretical level, the post-structuralist practices appeared in all humanities in late
1970s, first in the field of literary criticism and then in the course of 1980s, have filtered into and
affected a large number of disciplines, in which their intellectual premises are usually simply called
postmodern or postmodernist. Therefore, to some critics there is no need to distinguish between
post-structuralism and postmodernism. (Kwok, 1998)
4.3 POSTMODERNITY, POSTMODERNISM, AND

POSTMODERN SOCIAL THEORY
Postmodernity refers to that which comes after modernity, conceptualized as another epoch of
history. Postmodernism refers to cultural products, while postmodern social theory refers to a
way of questioning the world different from modern social theory. Understood in this way, the
postmodern represents a new historical epoch, new cultural products, and a new type of theoriz-
ing the social world, one that emerged from the acknowledgment of modernity’s failures some-
time between the Kennedy/Johnson administrations and the Reagan administration. Postmodern
social theory rejects the ambitions and techniques of modern social theory, moving away from
grand narratives and universalistic, rational theorizing and towards a deconstruction of universal
truths, a decentering that is attuned to difference and locality.
ACTIVITY 4.1
1. What is the relationship between poststructuralism and
postmodernism?...........
………………………………………………………………………………….
2. Define the following terms:
a) Postmodernity……………………………………………..
b) Postmodernism…………………………………………….
c) Postmodern social theory………………………………….

4.4 SUMMARY OF PERSPECTIVES

a. Introduction. A short summary of a few of the ideas of postmodernism is provided in this
section. Smart notes that social theory is a part of modernity; that it was the separation of society
from nature that led to the social theories that analyzed this process. The social theorists from the
Enlightenment to the structuralists were generally committed to the idea that the modern repre-
sented progress, that reason could be used to develop knowledge and understand society, that
social theory could be used to improve society, and that knowledge and theory were universal –
able to contribute to an understanding of human societies around the globe and through history.
Many of these theorists were critical of modernity, but even those with a critical approach were
strongly committed to progress, even when it is difficult or impossible to achieve. They were also
committed to a sociological study of society, often through “scientific” approaches, considering
these as contributing to social change and social progress.
In contrast, postmodern writers argue that there are “limits and limitations of modern reason” (p.
448) that are inherent in the forms and types of reasoning and social analysis that have character-
ized society and the modern. Further, these writers question whether this form of reason and
rationality can be equated with “progress in respect of ‘justice, virtue, equality, freedom, and
happiness’” (p. 448). As a result “the practical consequences of modernity seem to have been
persistently at odds with its programmatic promise” (p. 449). The problems of the contempo-
rary social world, the rapid change, and the new forms of media and culture are all reference
points for the postmodern critique and analysis.
Some of the differences in approach are illustrated in the following table (based on quote from
Bauman, p. 449).
Modern Postmodern
Necessity (natural and social laws) Contingency or chance
Universality (across time and Locality and the particular (can

space) only know own experience)
Certainty and predictability Uncertainty and provisionality
Truth and reality Critique of tradition-bound

analysis
Transparency or understandability Undecidability
Order of nature and structures Ambivalence of human design
While sorting ideas into these dualisms may itself be contrary to a postmodern approach, this
illustrates a way of contrasting the postmodern with the modern.

b. Identity. In postmodern approaches, individual (or even group) identity is not clearly and
unambiguously defined, rather it shifts over time and is generally considered unstable. In addi-
tion, it is primarily local circumstances and experiences of individuals, rather than larger structural
conditions or positions and locations, that are important in shaping these identities. This means
that social classes, ethnic groups, or status groups may not exist in the manner described in social
theory, and analysis of these does not provide a useful way of understanding the contemporary
social world. That is, the shared circumstances or common situations of class, race, or ethnicity
may not exist, and may be purely a theoretical construct that theorists attempt to impose of the
social world. Shared and common identities give way to shifting and localized identities that may
or may not be shaped by the individual. These identities are continually being formed, changed,
and particular individuals shift in and out of these experiences and situations, thus changing their
identities.
c. Politics. The political implication of this is that it may be difficult to imagine collective action,
social movements, and social change toward some specific goal. For extreme postmodernists,
there may be no goals or plans that people can or should attempt to strive for or achieve. Some
postmodernists argue that identities and localized situations are all that we should be concerned
with; others argue that political action can still be a useful means of improving society. Some may
not take a particular point of view on important social questions, arguing that all identities, state-
ments, and texts are equally valid, and while these can be interpreted or read, no judgments on
the validity or invalidity of these is possible or desirable.
d. Meta-narratives. A feature that is common among postmodernists is to reject grand theo-

retical approaches or “metanarratives” entirely. Smart quotes C. Wright Mills as arguing that the
grand narratives of liberalism and socialism have collapsed “as adequate explanations of the
world and ourselves” (Smart, p. 449).
e. Difference. A related aspect of the rejection of grand narratives is that rather than searching
for a theoretical approach that explains all aspects of society, postmodernists examine experi-
ences of individuals and groups and emphasizes difference over similarities and common experi-
ences. In the view of many postmodernists, the modern world is “fragmented, disrupted, disor-
dered, interrupted” and unstable – and may not be understandable on a large scale (Rosenau, p.
170). Some of this involves examination of language and texts – this approach points to “the
analytic centrality of language, discourse, and texts” (Smart, p. 450). This requires the reader to
interpret texts, but not impose on others the reader’s interpretation of texts (Rosenau, p. 170).
f. Reflexive. Smart (pp. 465-73) argues that modern theory was very reflexive – composed of
reflection, thought, and consideration of the world around us, with a view to understanding and
changing the social world. Further, such reflection “includes reflection upon the nature of reflec-
tion itself” (Giddens, in Smart, p. 472) – consideration of the nature of social thought through
subjects such as philosophy and the applied social science. In the modern view, this created the
possibility of knowledge or even truth, constructed through reflection, with this knowledge de-
scribing the social world around us. This has led some theorists to the view that they have models
that represent the natural and social world.

g. Reality. Smart argues it is increasingly difficult to understand what are representations of

social knowledge and what are the contexts or social realities (p. 464). This can occur for a
number of different reasons.
 First, as Smart’s discussion of Giddens notes, social knowledge is used to construct social
reality – e.g. attitudes (social reality) are formed through public discourse, which is guided
by various theoretical and practical aspects that are developed through social knowledge
(Smart, p. 472). Or the more tangible aspects of social reality such as urban structures,
tax policy and its effects on income inequality, or media images and constructions are all
products of social or economic policy or conscious intervention by those who attempt to
influence social organization, and these are in turn guided by social knowledge. The latter
is developed by studies of the seemingly real, but where the real is a social product, where
does knowledge end and social reality begin? Perhaps the two are so intertwined that they
cannot be separated.
 A second interpretation is that of Baudrillard, whereby it becomes difficult to separate the
social reality from its representations. Disneyworld or the new Las Vegas may be repre-
sentations or what Baudrillard calls simulacra (an image – a material or mental representation
of a person or thing; something having merely the form or appearance of a certain thing,
without possessing its substance or proper qualities, but since more are familiar with the
representations than with the originals, and since these representations become part of the
experiences and knowledge of people, which is the social reality and which is the
representation? Similarly, media images become the social reality, and social reality is
constructed with the media images in mind.
 A third example comes from recordings of music. Originally it was clear what was the
original and what was the copy. The musicians made music and it was recorded on a
cylinder, record, tape, or compact disk. As new methods of manipulating the recordings
developed, and as electronic sources of sounds developed, it became common to splice,
mix, sample, overlay, and generally reorganize the original sounds. This developed to the
point where the recorded sound sometimes became the reality, with the record or compact
disk being the song or piece of music. These recordings were widely available, so what
began as the representation became the original or the reality. This led to bizarre
developments such as lip-synching in live performances or audiences judging live
performances by how well they repeated the recorded songs and order of selections. In
some cases, there was no reality apart from the recording – it would be impossible for live
performances to reproduce the recording. Finally, with digital technology, it is now possible
that what is real may be pure image – that is, a composer of a piece of music could write
out a string of 0s and 1s of computer code (the real as image), and the representation
(formerly the real) is the sound waves that are produced and heard by the human ear when
these computer codes are processed through the proper equipment.
As a result of the above considerations, the distinction between knowledge, representation, and
social reality becomes blurred. Smart notes that reflection itself becomes uncertain in these
circumstances and this leads “to the problematic character of Western metaphysics” or philoso-
phy, so that some argue that “we are encountering its closure or end; an understanding which is
experienced, or lived, as contingency” (p. 473).

The next section of the notes examines some of the origins of postmodernism, followed by a
description of the postmodern period.
ACTIVITY 4.2
1. Briefly explain the differences between the modern and the
postmodern as shown by Bauman……………………………….
2. Write brief notes on the following key aspects of postmodern theory:
a) Identity…………………………………………………
b) Politics……………………………………………………..
c) Metanarratives…………………………………………….
d) Difference…………………………………………………
3. Give arguments for and against the view that ‘grandnarratives have
collapsed as adequate explanations of the world and
ourselves’…………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………………
4.5. ORIGINS OF THE POSTMODERN TURN

The philosophic origins of the postmodern approach are usually traced to Friedrich Nietzsche
and Martin Heidegger. Best and Kellner (1991, p. 22) argue that Nietzsche “attacked philo-
sophical conceptions of the subject, representation, causality, truth, value, and system, replacing
… [them] with a perspectivist orientation for which there are no facts, only interpretations, and
no objective truths, only the constructs of various individuals or groups.” For Nietzsche “all
language was metaphorical and … the subject was only a product of language and thought”
(Best and Kellner, 1991, p. 22). Nietzsche favoured art over reason and theory. Forerunners of
postmodern perspectives also include Weber, Simmel, and some critical theorists.
Many of the French writers who developed the postmodern perspectives in the 1960s through
the 1980s began writing when the structuralist approach was influential. Within, or as a result of
societal structures, individual identities are determined, or at least strongly affected, by economic
factors, or by political and ideological forces. The norms, collective representations, social class,
ideology, or social status position and determine individual consciousness and action. In this
approach, these structures are internalized by individuals, affect how these individuals think, play
a major role in how individuals act and interact and tend to be relatively fixed and unchangeable
over time.
The poststructuralist writers who began to develop a new approach “attacked the scientific
pretensions of structuralism” and argued “that structuralist theories did not fully break with hu-
manism since they reproduced the humanist notion of an unchanging human nature.” Instead of
seeing structures as determinant, they looked on consciousness, identity, signs “as historically
produced and therefore varying in different historical periods.” Both structuralists and
poststructuralists argued that there is no autonomous subject, but the poststructuralists empha-

sized the “dimensions of history, politics, and everyday life in the contemporary world.” (Best
and Kellner, 1991, p. 20).
These writers emphasized and developed new theories of language and texts and attacked many
philosophical assumptions associated with modernity. They questioned whether solid forms of
knowledge and truth could be developed and attacked the binary oppositions (subject and ob-
ject, appearance and reality, knowledge and social reality) that formed the basis for dominant
philosophical and social scientific thought. “This binary metaphysics thus works to positively
position reality over appearance, speech over writing, men over women, or reason over nature,
thus positioning negatively the supposedly inferior term” (Best and Kellner, 1991, p. 21).
The political upheavals in France in 1968 contributed to the success of these ideas. Best and
Kellner (1991, p. 23) note that “it was through such struggles as waged by students and workers
that Foucault and others began to theorize the intimate connection between power and knowl-
edge and to see that power operates … [to] saturate social and personal existence” (Best and
Kellner, 1991, p. 23).
From these beginnings in the 1960s and 1970s, postmodernists continued their attack on con-
ventional philosophic and social scientific approaches, developing a wide range of views that
challenged the notion of progress, truth, reality, and values. Among the writers who are often
classified as postmodernist are Michel Foucault, Jean Baudrillard, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Roland
Barthes, Frederic Jameson, Jacques Derrida, Felix Guattari, Gilles Deleuze, Paul Virilio, and
Arthur Kroker. Part of the appeal of postmodern approaches is that they attempt to break down
barriers among disciplines, times, and traditions and attempt to analyze each of these. This can
lead to valuable interdisciplinary and cross-cultural approaches. At the same time, these ap-
proaches question the notion of human progress and constitute a thoroughgoing attack on the
legacy of the Enlightenment, on positive sociology, historical progress, science and the scientific
method and political struggles and social movements.
The postmodern approach originally came from the humanities where “subjectivity and specula-
tion” (Rosenau, p. 168) are interesting and insightful. The postmodern approach may consider
all forms of culture to be of equal validity, and this can sometimes be a useful corrective to the
exclusivity and elevation of certain types of culture. On the other hand, it can lead to trivializing
culture and making it difficult to make positive statements about cultural developments. For the
social sciences, the applications may be more limited.
4.6 POSTMODERNITY
4.6.1. Postmodern Era
In Europe, the premodern period generally refers to the period through the end of the middle
ages, with the modern period beginning with the development of capitalist industrialism and the
Enlightenment. In the contemporary world, some developing nations are only now emerging
from the premodern period and attempting to modernize, at the same time that the richer coun-
tries are entering a postmodern phase. As a result, a strict time dimension with a progression

from one stage to the next may not be a proper way of imaging history, and postmodern ap-
proaches themselves would argue against such an interpretation. That is, premodernity and
postmodernity could coexist – for example, with television and contemporary musical forms
introduced into poor, indigenous groups in parts of the third world. Further, within modernity
there are many examples of postmodern ideas – Nietzsche, Weber, Simmel, Adorno (see Smart,
p. 448) – and if we are in a postmodern era, there are many traces of the modern. Some, like
Lyotard argue that the postmodern is part of the modern (p. 448) and the postmodern is not
necessarily sequential after the modern.
The modern period is characterized by the development of science, human progress, the devel-
opment and expansion of industry, improvements in conditions of life and health, urbanization,
continued improvements (?) in technology, the establishment of the nation state, liberal forms of
democracy, bureaucracy, and social reforms – all of these stand out as accomplishments of
modern forms of social, economic and political organization. In terms of modernist theories,
liberalism, rationality, individualism, science, classic and more recent sociological theories, egali-
tarianism and tolerance, humanism, socialism, and communism all stand out as major perspec-
tives that lead to a method of understanding, interpreting and improving society.
Postmodern theorists question how much the above have occurred, or they argue that the nature
of the social world and the manner in which development is taking place has changed. Some
writers have argued that we are in a postindustrial world. Industrialization has been so successful
that the problems of production have all been solved and agriculture and industry are now ca-
pable of producing as much or more than humans will ever need . Such a society shifts its
emphasis away from the production of goods to the production of services, and away from dull,
repetitive, manual labour to mental labour. For writers such as Daniel Bell, associated with this is
a shift in the nature of work, with more meaningful and creative jobs, and perhaps the end of the
division of labour into mental and manual tasks. Accompanying this have been new forms of
technology: automated production, robots, and computerization. In addition, there may be new
forms of organization of the economy, with scientific management, cooperation between labour
and management and “people’s capitalism” through widespread ownership of corporate stock
by individuals and pension plans. Some proponents of such developments may argue that class
structures are irrelevant, that there is no conflict between capital and labour and that by adapting
to these new global developments, we will be better off. In terms of rejection of Marxian class
analysis as the central driving force of modern, capitalist society, postmodernism has some par-
allels with critical theory.
The last few years have seen an emphasis on computerization, information technologies, virtual
reality and new forms of extremely rapid and extensive communication. The latter create more
flexible forms of production, instant communication around the world, a greater degree of global-
ization of the economy, and more rapid change. Other features to be noted are the effects of
these features in parts of the world that were regarded as third world – skipping over the modern
period, uneven development in different areas of the world (stagnation or backward movement
in Africa and parts of Eastern Europe and rapid industrialization in some Asian countries), popu-
lation movements, and new forms of identity politics. In North America and Europe, the struc-

tures of populations have changed, with more immigrants who are visible minorities, leading to
changes in structures of culture, politics, and population.
The end of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe also means that there is no counter to
capitalism, as there was for most of the century. Some characterize the current era as one with a
global economic system that adopts much the same approach everywhere. This is taken by
postmodernists as an indication that the nature of the world has changed dramatically.
At the same time there are those who consider these recent developments are not really new, but
just different forms that have become apparent in late capitalism. For these analysts, the same
forms of social and class structure and class struggle that characterized early and modern capital-
ism still exist or are even exacerbated by these new developments. In this view, work has
become more contingent and less meaningful, uncertainty about the future has become greater
and the division between the haves and the have-nots has widened on a national and international
scale. Others note the increasingly serious environmental problems created by modernism, with
global sustainability and even the existence of human life being threatened.
Regardless of which approach is taken, it is clear that new forms of technology and communica-
tion have increasingly affected the contemporary social world, that the forces of globalization
have changed, that the quality and certainties of life have are being threatened and that the pace
of change has quickened. Whether these changes call for a new set of theories is also debated.
Those who are adherents of the theories that can be traced back to the Enlightenment may argue
that these theories need revision, but that the models developed earlier are still applicable.
Postmodern theorists argue that to understand the nature of these developments, it is necessary
to critique and abandon some of the grand theoretical schemes that were developed over the last
two hundred years, and develop new modes of thought and understanding. Rosenau notes that:
Modernity entered history as a progressive force promising to liberate humankind
from ignorance and irrationality, but one can readily wonder whether that promise
has been sustained. As we in the West approach the end of the twentieth century,
the “modern” record – world wars, the rise of Nazism, concentration camps (in
both East and West), genocide, worldwide depression, Hiroshima, Vietnam,
Cambodia, the Persian Gulf, and a widening gap between rich and poor ... makes
any belief in the idea of progress or faith in the future seem questionable. ... The
post-modernists conclude that there is reason to distrust modernity’s moral
claims, traditional institutions and “deep interpretations.” They argue that
modernity is no longer a force for liberation; it is rather a source of subjugation,
oppression, and repression. (Rosenau, pp. 5-6).
There seems to be little doubt that there are aspects of society that have changed, and some of
the new forces of capitalism, technology, and communication are having an effect on politics and
society, and affect the lives of people. Whether these constitute a break in the sense that earlier
theoretical perspectives are no longer useful is questionable. There seems to be no doubt though
that earlier perspectives need revision, and some of the ideas of postmodern writers should
certainly be considered and integrated into sociological analysis.

4.6.2. Postmodern Conditions

Smart discusses postmodern conditions with respect to knowledge and social theory (pp. 450-
1). As societies have entered a postmodern or postindustrial era, many argue that there is no
single or knowable truth and there is an “absence of secure foundations for knowledge” (Smart,
p. 450). One aspect of this is the decline of the all-encompassing, universal, enlightenment
approaches of liberalism and socialism. These were alternative theories that emerged in the
nineteenth century, using rationality and reason and promising human emancipation. While some
may argue that neither were given a chance to succeed, in practice neither lived up to its promise.
The twentieth century was associated with war, inequality, extremism, division, and environmen-
tal degradation. The century ended with confusion, disarray, war and conflict, continuing pov-
erty, the collapse of socialism, and continued crisis in capitalism. The grand narratives of eman-
cipation, progress, and human freedom on which modernity was based turned out to be inad-
equate, misleading, incapable of explaining society, unable to predict the direction of the social
world, and did not provide a sense of security and freedom. At least that is what some
postmodernists argue.
One of the writers who describes this change is Jean-François Lyotard (1924-1998, French),
born in Versailles. He became professor at Vincennes University, and was active in the move-
ment to stop the French war in Algeria, the May, 1968 events, and other left French political
groups. Lyotard’s book The Postmodern Condition (1979) provides a critique of modern
knowledge, more than modernity as an historical process (Best and Kellner, 1991, p. 165). For
Lyotard, the grand narrative of modern knowledge has lost its credibility, “regardless of whether
it is a speculative narrative or a narrative of emancipation” (Lyotard in Smart, p. 456). He argues
that the decline in this narrative has been accelerating since World War II, partly as a result of the
shift of “emphasis from the ends of action to its means” (Lyotard in Smart, p. 456), and to
problems associated with and inherent in science and modern reason itself. Some of these ideas
are reminiscent of critical theory, Weber, and philosophers such as Nietzsche.
For Lyotard, postmodern knowledge is opposed to metanarratives, “grand schemes of legitima-

tion” and “metaphysical philosopy, philosophies of history, and any form of totalizing thought”
(Best and Kellner, 1991, p. 165). As a result, Lyotard would consider liberalism, Marxism, the
rational forces of Weber, and structural functional approaches to be inadequate or misleading
explanations of the social world, and unable to develop true knowledge of this world. These
large scale theories or metanarratives tend to argue that they are universally applicable, with
prescriptions for progress regardless of context. Further, these theories tend to exclude, rather
than include, favour consensus over dissent, and similarity over diversity and difference. For
example, liberalism appears inclusive, but traditionally excluded many parts of society, excluded
those not part of the nation state, and adopts a specific view of citizenship that not all may accept.
Theories such as those of Durkheim exclude and treat as deviant those who do not adopt the
conventional norms. Marxism excludes by focusing on commodities, exchange, and political
activity. Science excludes magic, superstition, revelation, and the spiritual in the name of certain
knowledge and understanding.

In contrast, postmodern knowledge “is for heterogeneity, plurality, constant innovation, and
pragmatic construction of local rules and prescriptives agreed up by participants, and is thus for
micropolitics” (Best and Kellner, 1991, p. 165). This not only argues for a new form of experi-
ence and politics, but for a new form of knowledge – this new form corresponding to the new
conditions of the postmodern era. Lyotard argues that “there has also been an associated freeing
of ‘thought and life from totalizing obsessions’” (Lyotard in Smart, p. 458).
Like many other recent theorists, he emphasizes the diversity and heterogeneity associated with
language and discourse – noting new words, slogans, forms, rules, and perspectives within lan-
guage. These aspects are intimately connected with diversity and what we sometimes call iden-
tity (note language of youth, bureaucracy, minority groups). For Lyotard, there are many lan-
guage games in fields such as politics, philosophy, and art, with no single privileged or universal
system. Rather, struggles over justice and fairness are associated with these language games and
“one must agree that disagreement, as well as putting in questions and challenging, always be
allowed or else there is terror and no justice” (Best and Kellner, 1991, p. 163). In this, Lyotard
demonstrates some similarities to the theory of communicative action of Habermas.
Postmodern knowledge comes by “putting into question existing paradigms, by inventing new
ones, rather than assenting to universal truth or in agreeing to a consensus” (Best and Kellner,
1991, p. 166).
Consensus does violence to the heterogeneity of language games. And invention
is always born of dissension. Postmodern knowledge is not simply a tool of the
authorities; it refines our sensitivity to differences and reinforces our ability to
tolerate the incommensurable. (Lyotard in Best and Kellner, 1991, p. 166).
While the focus of Lyotard is on language and knowledge, he argues that these new forms of
knowledge emerge in the postindustrial era – the postmodern society associated with informa-
tion, computerization, technology, rapid change, and new cultural forms.
Parts of Lyotard’s analysis are reminiscent of multicultural discussions and debates on immigra-
tion where it is associated with greater cultural diversity – resulting in a shift in the social and
cultural structure of the host country. Some have argued that this diversity makes it difficult to
know what it means to be a Zambian for example – Smart discussing and quoting Lyotard states
“the growing fragmentation of community … leads, within the modern polity, to an increasing
‘uncertainty about the identity of the we’” (Smart, p. 460). Smart notes that “there is neverthe-
less a strong implication that the desirability of a universal tolerance of ‘incommensurable vo-
cabularies and forms of life’ is a necessary corollary” (Smart, p. 460).
While Lyotard’s argument that there is no grand narrative may itself be a grand narrative, he
provides an example of how postmodern writers emphasize the decline in such narratives and an
emergence of different forms of knowledge. These new forms of knowledge are often associ-
ated with formerly excluded groups (women, aboriginal people, gay people, immigrants), from
traditions that were lost, forgotten, or ignored, or from new forms of communication and technol-
ogy themselves. These new forms are often localized, associated with particular experiences,
and may not have universal applicability. For example, none of us would want to be without

modern science, drugs, and medicine. Yet these have their limits, and may themselves cause
problems of their own in some cases or be unable to deal with other situations. In this context,
alternative forms of medicine based on forgotten traditions or from other cultures have become
more widely used and appear to have made a place even within the established health care
system.

1. What are the main contributions of postmodernists to social theory?
…………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………
2. What are three main differences between postmodern and modern
sociological perspectives?
…………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………
3. What is the difference between postmodernism, postmodern
condition, and postmodernity? Explain and provide
examples………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………..
4.7 SUMMARY
In many ways, postmodern thought is simply not commensurate with sociological theory. Its
aversion to grand narratives refutes much of what sociology has been and tries to do. However,
some authors have attempted to apply postmodern concepts to provide fruitful sociological analy-
ses. Postmodern society has been associated with four elements: (1) superficiality and lack of
depth; (2) the waning of emotion or affect; (3) a loss of historicity; and (4) new technologies. A
consequence of this is that people are unable to make sense of an increasingly complex society.

References
Best, Steven and Douglas Kellner, Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations, New York,
The Guilford Press, 1991.
Best, Steven and Douglas Kellner, The Postmodern Turn, New York, The Guilford Press,
1997.
Giddens, Anthony, “Structuralism, Post-structuralism and the Production of Culture,” in Anthony
Giddens and Jonathan H. Turner, editors, Social Theory Today, Stanford, Stanford
University Press, 1987.
Harvey, David, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural
Change, Cambridge, Mass., Blackwell, 1989.
Hollinger, Robert, Postmodernism and the Social Sciences: A Thematic Approach, Thou-
sand Oaks, Ca., Sage Publications, 1994.
Kroker, Arthur, Technology and the Canadian Mind: Innis/McLuhan/Grant, Montreal, New
World Perspectives, 1984. CB 478 K76 1984.
Kroker, Arthur, Marilouise Kroker and David Cook, Panic Encyclopedia: the Definitive Guide
to the Postmodern Scene, Montreal, New World Perspectives, 1989. E 169.12 K72
1989b
Kroker, Arthur and Michael A. Weinstein, Data Trash: the Theory of the Virtual Class,
Montreal, New World Perspectives, 1994. HM 21 K735
Larrain, Jorge, Ideology and Cultural Identity: Modernity and the Third World Presence,
Cambridge, Polity Press, 1994.
Lemert, Charles. 1997. Postmodernism is Not What You Think. Oxford: Blackwell.
Rosenau, Pauline Marie, Post-Modernism and the Social Sciences: Insights, Inroads and
Intrusions, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1992.

Unit 5 Agency-Structure Debate
Unit 5
Agency-Structure Debate
5.0 INTRODUCTION
The agency-structure perspective is the European alternative to the micro-macro perspective in
America. Agency generally refers to micro-level, individual human actors, but it can also refer to
collectivities of that act. Structure usually refers to large-scale social structures, but it can also
refer to micro structures, such as those involved in human interaction. This unit considers in detail
the agency-structure debate in sociology with specific reference to theories.
5.1 OBJECTIVES
 2.
By the end of this unit, you should be able to:
1. Explain the agency-structure debate
Explain Goffman, Bourdieu and Giddens’ contributions to the debate
3. Apply the debates to real life situations

5.2. ANTHONY GIDDENS’ STRUCTURATION THEORY

The question of agency/structure is not an explanatory one but an ideological one. It is an argu-
ment to show that human beings control their own destinies; it is a defense of freewill. Giddens
tries to combine agency and structure with micro and macro. Giddens proposes that human
actors as they become aware of general patterns in social processes, can reflectively use this
knowledge to change the structure while they operate in the context of the structure.
Structuration theory attempts to explain the subject-object dualism as well as explain and inte-
grate human agency with social structure. For Giddens, human agency and social structure are
not two separate concepts or constructs, but are two ways that social action can be studied and
understood sociologically. There is a duality of structures in society – on one side there are
situated actors who undertake social action and interaction, and enter into knowledgeable activi-
ties in various situations. At the same time, social systems and structures form the rules, re-
sources, and social relationships that actors produce and reproduce through social interaction.
Structuration means studying the ways in which social systems are produced and reproduced in
social interaction (see Giddens, Constitution, pp. 25-6). Giddens defines structuration as “the
structuring of social relations across time and space, in virtue of the duality of structure” (Consti-
tution, p. 376)
Cohen argues that Giddens provides a theoretical approach addressing the major topics of: the
division between (i) the conscious subject and social collectivities (the subject/object problem),
and (ii) agency or praxis and collective forms of social life (the agency/structure problem).
Structuration theory focuses on the mutual constitution of structure and agency. Anthony Giddens
argues that structure and agency are a duality that cannot be conceived of apart from one an-
other. Human practices are recursive-that is, through their activities, individuals create both their
consciousness and the structural conditions that make their activities possible. Because social
actors are reflexive and monitor the ongoing flow of activities and structural conditions, they
adapt their actions to their evolving understandings. As a result, social scientific knowledge of
society will actually change human activities. Giddens calls this dialectical relationship between
social scientific knowledge and human practices the double hermeneutic.
Actors continually develop routines that give them a sense of security and that enable them to
deal efficiently with their social lives. While their motives provide the overall plan of action, it is
these routine practices that determine what shape the action will take. Giddens emphasizes that
actors have power to shape their own actions but that the consequences of actions are often
unintended. Structure is the rules and resources that give similar social practices a systemic form.
Only through the activities of human actors can structure exist. While Giddens acknowledges that
structure can be constraining to actors, he thinks that sociologists have exaggerated the impor-
tance of structural constraints. Structures can also enable actors to do things they would not
otherwise be able to do. For Giddens, a social system is a set of reproduced social practices and
relations between actors.

The concept of structuration underscores the duality of structure and agency. There can be no
agency without structures that shape motives into practices, but there can be no structures inde-
pendent of the routine practices that create them.
While time and space have often been ignored in sociological theory, although with occasional
offhand or incidental reference, they are central aspects to social life and Giddens incorporates
into structuration. Giddens notes that “Everyone still continues to live a local life, and the con-
straints of the body ensure that all individuals, at every moment, are contextually situated in time
and space.”
ACTIVITY 5.1
1. Explain with examples the concept
structuration....................……………………………
2. Define structure………………………………………………….
3. How can structure be enabling to
actors?……………………………………….
4. How does structure constrain
actors?..................................................................
5.2.1. Praxis
As Cohen argues, social action for Giddens is enacted conduct, social practices, local produc-
tion of praxis, and reproduction of practices. This includes material conditions, in which social
actors interact, and the social and material environment that both enable and constrain social
action. He emphasizes space – proximity or distance and how these are mediated by technology
and social structures – and time – continuity and discontinuity and the organization of activities
across time. While praxis is situated locally, since that is where actors are located, and where
social interaction occurs, this action is connected to social life both locally and over broader
geographic regions, potentially, globally. These connections work in both directions – local
conditions and situations are affected by ideas and structural features, and social praxis is the
means that institutions and social structures are produced and reproduced. While he generally
adopts a praxis approach to social action, he differs from ethnomethodological, symbolic
interactionist, and microsociological perspectives in connecting these social practices to systems
and structures.
Giddens argues that practices are continued and enduring, so that social reproduction of familiar
systems and structures occurs. Social action and interaction as “tacitly enacted practices” be-
come “institutions or routines” and “reproduce familiar forms of social life” (p. 94). Giddens
states:

The basic domain of study of the social sciences, according to the theory of
structuration, is neither the experience of the individual actor, nor the existence of
any form of social totality, but social practices ordered across space and time.
Human social activities, like some self-reproducing items in nature, are recursive.
That is to say, they are not brought into being by social actors but continually
recreated by them via the very means whereby they express themselves as actors.
In and through their activities agents reproduce the conditions that make these
activities possible. (Constitution, p. 2).
This argument provides Giddens with a means of integrating human social action with the larger
systems, structures, and institutions of which we are a part. It is the continual repetition of social
action and interaction in regular and habitual forms that constitute what sociologists consider as
the larger social forms. This structuration perspective differs from the external and coercive
social facts of Durkheim in that structure is not outside social action, but exists only because of
social action. While a structuration perspective implies constraints on social action, it provides
for flexibility in individual and group action and a means of explaining social change.
Structuration means changes in practices as well as regularities and continuation in these. Cohen
argues that the approach of Giddens places emphasis on enduring practices, routines, and habits,
as well as possibilities for reflection and alteration on such practices, so that there is individual
and social change. If there is a disruption in what is taken for granted, either because of changes
in external conditions, or thought and reflection on part of the actor, then there are possibilities for
changes in these forms of action. Where these are associated with more than a single actor, on a
larger scale or broader basis, such changes can be connected to social change.
Giddens sometimes refers to these as “fateful moments, [that] require reflection and imagination
in order to cope and change” (Cohen, p. 94). Giddens argues that “fateful moments are times
when events come together in such a way that an individual stands, as it were, at a crossroads in
his existence; or where a person learns of information with fateful consequences” (Giddens,
1991, p. 113). While one might hope for a better explanation than “fate,” humans may have little
control over future events, or at least individuals may have little control. While there is a certain
contingency associated with such events and moments, for an individual, there is also a history,
set of experiences, abilities, and knowledge that can be used as a guide through such situations.
In “Dilemmas,” Giddens notes how individuals “react creatively and interpretatively to processes
of commodification which impinge on their lives” (pp. 7-8), that is, these situations creating
change are not just moments of blind fate and pure contingency.
In summary, Giddens’s approach to social action is that of praxis, regular patterns of enacted
conduct by active actors who interact with each other in situations in habitual, reflexive, reflec-
tive, and more conscious ways.
5.2.2. Systems and Structures

Systems and structures are closely related concepts in the theory of structuration, but Giddens
distinguishes them. In his model, systems appear to be more dynamic than structures, with the
latter being relatively fixed and forming a framework for the social activity that proceeds in

systems. Analogies might be heating or cooling systems or city transit systems – both require a
material structure and a transit system requires humans as workers and procedures – but they
each have a dynamic character, change, flow, and a certain regularity. A city or metropolitan area
as a whole can be regarded as a system in having a life, entities that move in it, and social
relationships among those in it, with both equilibrium and change occurring. A city also has a
structure, something fixed and established (physical structures and procedures), and one that
allows the system to operate.
For Giddens, systems are “patterns of relations in groupings of all kinds, from small, intimate
groups, to social networks, to large organizations”. That is, it is the patterns of enacted conduct,
the repeated forms of social action and interaction, or the “enduring cycles of reproduced rela-
tions” that form social systems. These could be systems such as families, peer groups, commu-
nities, or cities, either at a face-to-face level or existing via networks over space and time. While
a social system may not have the completeness or closure of a biological or ecological system,
“system reproduction generally proceeds via enduring cycles of reproduced relations in which
recurrent practices constitute links and nodes” (Cohen, p. 94). It is the patterns of relationships
and repeated forms of interaction themselves that form the systems for Giddens.
For Giddens, structure is more specific and detailed, referring to structured practices. Rules and
resources are the two primary features of structures such as market exchange, class structures,
political organizations and processes, and educational institutions.
 Procedural rules – how the practice is performed. Ethnomethodology analyzes these.
Give and take of encounters, language rules, walking in a crowd.
 Moral rules – appropriate forms of enactment of social action. Laws, what is permissible
and what is not. Not ultimate values, but appropriate ways of carrying out social action
and interaction. Durkheim emphasized the importance of these.
 Material resources – allocation of resources among activities and members of society.
Means of production, commodities, income, consumer and capital goods. Marxian analysis
demonstrates the inequalities associated with allocation.
 Resources of authority. Formal organizations, how time and space are organized, production
and reproduction, social mobility, legitimacy and authority. Weber analyzed the latter
issues in the context of power and its exercise
Structures such as all have these aspects to them. These structures are formed by structured
practices – that is, they do not just exist in and of themselves and they cannot exist without
enacted conduct. While we may abstract from these practices and refer to these as structures
that frame and affect society, Giddens is interested in how they are reproduced. It is enacted
human conduct in the form of structured practices that maintains and reproduces these struc-
tures. But if these enacted forms of conduct change, either because individuals make conscious
decisions to change, because of fateful moments, or through less conscious forms of adjustment,
adaptation, and practice, then this can produce structural change. Social movements, collective
action, or parallel changes by many individuals could have this result. Giddens notes that there
are sometimes “critical suspensions of routine and occasions on which actors mobilize their ef-
forts and focus their thoughts on responses to problems which will diminish their anxiety.

ACTIVITY 5.2
1. Explain Giddens’ praxis approach to social
action……………………….........................................
……………………………………………………………………………..
2. Using examples, explain the difference between system and
structure………........................................................
…………………………………………..............................................
3. Which are the two primary features of
structures……………………………...........................................
………………………………………………………………………………
4. Critically appraise Giddens’ contributions to the agency- structure
debate
……………………………………………………………………………..
5.3 PIERRE BOURDIEU-HABITUS AND FIELD

Another major approach to the agency-structure linkage is Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of habitus
and field. Bourdieu sought to bridge subjectivism (the individual) and objectivism (society) with a
perspective called constructivist structuralism. Structuralism focuses on the objective struc-
tures of language and culture that give shape to human action. Constructivism looks at the social
genesis of schemes of perception, thought, and action. Bourdieu wants to examine the social
construction of objective structures with an emphasis on how people perceive and construct their
own social world, but without neglecting how perception and construction are constrained by
structures. An important dynamic in this relationship is the ability of individual actors to invent and
improvise within the structure of their routines.
The habitus is the mental structure through which people deal with the social world. It can be
thought of as a set of internalized schemes through which the world is perceived, understood,
appreciated, and evaluated. A habitus is acquired as the result of the long-term occupation of a
position in the social world. Depending on the position occupied, people will have a different
habitus. The habitus operates as a structure, but people do not simply respond to it mechanically.
When people change positions, sometimes their habitus is no longer appropriate, a condition
called hysteresis. Bourdieu argues that the habitus both produces and is produced by the social
world. People internalize external structures, and they externalize things they have internalized
through practices.
The concept of field is the objective complement to the idea of habitus. A field is a network of
social relations among the objective positions within it. It is not a set of interactions or intersubjective
ties among individuals. The social world has a great variety of semi-autonomous fields, such as
art, religion, and higher education. The field is a type of competitive marketplace in which eco-
nomic, cultural, social, and symbolic power are used. The preeminent field is the field of politics,
from which a hierarchy of power relationships serves to structure all other fields. To analyze a

field, one must first understand its relationship to the political field. The next step is to map the
objective positions within a field and, finally, the nature of the habitus of the agents who occupy
particular positions can be understood. These agents act strategically, depending on their habitus,
in order to enhance their capital. Bourdieu is particularly concerned with how powerful positions
within a field can perpetrate symbolic violence on less powerful actors. Cultural mechanisms
such as education impose a dominant perspective on the rest of the population in order to legiti-
mate their power.
Bourdieu’s analysis of the aesthetic preferences of different groups can be found in Distinction.
The cultural preferences of the various groups within society constitute coherent systems that
serve to unify those with similar tastes and differentiate them from others with divergent tastes.
Through the practical application of preferences, people classify objects and, in the process,
classify themselves. Bourdieu thinks the field of taste involves the intersection of social-class
relationships and cultural relationships. He argues that taste represents an opportunity to both
experience and assert one’s position in the class hierarchy. These tastes are engendered in the
deep-rooted dispositions of the habitus. Changes in tastes result from struggles for dominance
within both cultural and social-class fields as different factions struggle to define high culture and
taste.
Bourdieu also applies his concepts to French academia in Homo Academicus. This work is
concerned with the relationship between the objective positions of different academic fields, their
corresponding habitus, and the struggle between them. Bourdieu also wants to link the academic
field to a larger field of power. He finds that French academia is divided into dominant fields of
law and medicine and lesser fields of science and the arts. He suggests that faculty members
within each field use their social and cultural capital to compete for esteem. As a result, aspiring
academics attach themselves to established professors who control their intellectual production.
Bourdieu is critical of this system because it encourages conformity rather than innovation.
ACTIVITY 5.3
a) Constructivism…………………………………………….
b) Structuralism………………………………………………..
c) Habitus…………………………………………………….
d) Field……………………………………………………….
2. Explain Bourdieu’s constructivist-
structuralism………………………………….
………………………………………………………………………………….
3. Write brief notes on Bourdieu’s contributions to the agency-structure
debate
……………………………………………………………………………………

5.4 ERVING GOFFMAN-DRAMATURGY AND FACE

WORK
One of the sociologists who contributed to agency-structure debate is Erving Goffman. He used
the symbolic interaction approach to examine human interaction in social settings. Goffman did
not develop a theoretical approach that would explain all parts of the social world, but he devel-
oped an analysis of the interaction order – social situations or “environments in which two or
more individuals are physically in one another’s presence” (Goffman Reader, p. 235). These
are the situations where we spend much or most of our life – in face-to-face activities involving
others, whether these be everyday social situations, situations within organized structures (jobs,
school), or unusual social situations (accidents, weddings, funerals). Goffman excels at observa-
tion, description, and insight, analyzing how people interpret and act in ordinary situations, and he
provides guidelines concerning how to examine social situations.
Goffman’s best known work is The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life (1959). In
addition to the ordinary situations of everyday life, Goffman also examined unusual situations
such as prisons and asylums, total institutions, using these to show how individuals used various
means (many unauthorized) to maintain their sense of selfhood. He also used these settings to
illustrate aspects of everyday life, and the unexamined assumptions that we all make in the vari-
ous situations and encounters in which we find ourselves.
Goffman is best known for the dramaturgical approach – using the theatre as metaphor for
analysis of the interaction order. A social actor presents and portrays an image to others, and this
is the front part of social interaction, the self that is presented to others in social interactions. The
actor also has a hidden, or back stage, where the self prepares, rehearses, and develops his or
her self. Ordinarily the front and back stage are separated and the self undoubtedly is more
integrated when there is a consistency of front and back stage. Goffman develops other con-
cepts that might be regarded as building blocks for a comprehensive theoretical approach, con-
cepts such as role distance, face, ritual, and line. In The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life,
Goffman employs the model of the theatre or theatrical performance as a means of analyzing
how we develop and present ourselves to others. This approach is sometimes called dramaturgy
and focuses on the techniques people use to convey impressions and create their self. In that
book and in “On Face-Work” Goffman examines processes and procedures that are associated
with social interactions. It is these that build and maintain the social world.
Face. This is the image of the self that is presented. Goffman here connects it to approved social
attributes, although later he notes how it may not always be the approved or expected attributes
that are portrayed. Face is what others assume and it is the image that others see or consider to
have been expressed by the actor so that it is what is portrayed, not necessarily what was
intended, that is, it is the image of self portrayed.
Commitment . By entering into encounters, the actor has a commitment to his or her own face
and to the face of others. All of these are social constructs, spontaneous and part of the situation,
not some predetermined set of unchangeable personal attributes. At the same time, the “rules of

the group and the definition of the situation” that are important in how face and images of self are
viewed, so that norms and institutions are important considerations here.
Maintaining face. An internally consistent face is one whereby the actor is in face or maintains
face. But the internal consistency involves not just the actor and “is something that is not lodged
in or on his body”, rather the internal consistency involves judgements and evidence from others.
That is, it is both the actions of the actor, but also the perception and view of others, through “the
flow of events in the encounter” that establishes whether or not face is maintained. This is a
strong praxis orientation, involving process and flow, where social interaction is necessary and is
the means by which consistency is established.
Institutional. Goffman notes that these encounters are generally within certain legitimized insti-
tutional contexts, so that there may be a limited range of possible forms of action. The actor does
have choice concerning the lines and faces, but within a particular order. While there is freedom
for individuality, Goffman considers there to be sets of rules which govern the range of possibili-
ties.
The line and face also connect the self to a larger world. Any single activity or encounter pro-
duces a certain line and face, and these have implications beyond this encounter. It may be by
“discrediting” possession of certain attributes that the individual makes this connection. For
example, a bureaucrat may present a particular face that is expected, but may show himself or
herself to be flexible and understanding, thus showing in a negative manner the wider attributes
usually associated with the position. In later works, Goffman extends this idea into role distance
– how individual actors fill certain roles but also are able to distance themselves from the role.
This connection to a wider world may be to the past or the future, showing a continuity of lines
and faces, or to events and situations outside the immediate interaction order. These networks
and connections are reminiscent of Weber’s note of how social action need not be direct en-
counters with others, but could be unknown individuals, and these could be in the past, present,
or future.
Wrong face. Information that discredits the actor’s face or is inconsistent with the face of the
actor may come forward from external sources or from inadvertent slips by the actor. Alterna-
tively, the actor may be out of face if he or she has no line to present – taken by surprise,
unprepared, or unfamiliar with the situation or encounter. While the actor may express “confi-
dence and assurance” when in face, when in wrong face or out of face, the actor may feel
dissonance within himself or herself, or may feel shame, inferiority, or may have other bad feel-
ings.
Poise. In contrast to feeling shame, the actor may always present an impression of confidence,
in situations when in or out of face. Note Goffman’s emphasis on presentation of the self.
Social face. In this section, Goffman discusses some of the meaning of the social self – the
impressions and images that the individual actor is expected to live up to, and how this is regu-
lated internally and externally to the individual. He refers to the “social code of any social circle”
– a self-image that the actor has presented and which he or she is expected to live up to. Note

Goffman’s argument here that the self is not only self-development and self-realization or freeing,
but is also constraining – each self is expected to maintain and live up to the image of self the
individual has portrayed in the past and will continue to portray.
In the interaction order the actor sustains these images through expression (expressive order), to
be consistent with the actor’s face. Various possible emotional responses occur: pride (if duty to
self), honour (duty to wider social units), or dignity (if handled with poise). For Goffman, the self
is the individual’s personal possession, in that it defines the individual and provides the individual
with “security and pleasure.” But he also notes that it is social, it is given to the individual by
others, and can be withdrawn by them. That is, if the self is the images of self that are perceived
by others as the face of the individual, then this can be maintained or destroyed. In any case, it is
a social self – connecting the individual to social interaction and the wider society. There is no self
without social interaction, so the self is flexible but also constrained.
Considerateness. Here Goffman moves in a somewhat different direction, beginning to exam-

ine how social interaction is played out in practice. For the most part, people attempt to save the
face of others and perhaps identify with these in encounters. That is, relationships are reciprocal
and self-supporting. For the most part, such interactions do not humiliate actors, but attempt to
provide a way “to maintain both his own face and the face of the other participants”. It is this
“mutual acceptance” of lines and faces that maintains social interaction, preserves the feelings
and faces of each of the participants, and allows the interaction order to continue. The faces
presented are maintained and built upon, so this provides continuity in social interaction. This is
one way that institutions become established and maintained in society. While some may be cold
and heartless, and sometimes face is discredited, Goffman focuses on the ways in which face
tends to be maintained.
Rules. Following Goffman’s observation that there is a certain order and continuity to social
interaction, he begins to examine the ways that such interaction proceeds, considering the proce-
dures associated with the interaction order. Goffman notes that maintenance of face is not the
objective of social action. There are various goals that the actor has – gaining an income, achiev-
ing friendship, pursuing spiritual values, or pursuing various personal emotional goals – and face-
saving is not the objective, but rather part of the code or rules that actors use in social interaction.
Face-Work is the general designation for the actors social praxis. That is, the individual must
work at presenting images of self, saving face, adjusting to possible loss of face, or being poised
when face is threatened. By studying the rules and codes of face-work, the sociologist can
understand how social interaction proceeds. Goffman discusses various social skills and stan-
dard practices. These are partly individual but are also associated with the individual but part of
the social culture of which the person is a part. These are social in that they must be learned, and
they are social in the sense that they protect one’s own face and also the face of the other
participants in social encounters.
Face-work is an active process, one where the agent is an active individual. But the actor is not
just an individual – face necessarily involves others and social interaction, so the focus for the
social actor and his or her social self is always on the nature of the interaction. These also

provide an idea of Goffman’s approach to agency and structure – actors exist within these struc-
tures and institutions, but are active agents dealing with situations and encounters.
ACTIVITY 5.4
1. Explain the following terms as they are used by Goffman:
a) Face .……………………………………………………..
b) Face work………………………………………………….
c) Maintaining face…………………………………………..
d) Wrong face……………………………………………….
e) Social face………………………………………………...
2. Summarise Goffman’s dramaturgy approach showing how it
contributes to the agency structure
debate………………………………………………………..
3. Summarise Goffman’s work on face work and how it contributes to
the agency-structure debate.
5.5 SUMMARY
The agency structure debate remains a long standing debate in sociology. This unit has consid-
ered key authors that have contributed to this debate by arguing for the both how social struc-
tures limit individual freedom and how the individual also shapes the structure. To this end the unit
has considered Giddens’ structuration theory, Bourdieu’s field and habitus and Goffman’s dra-
maturgy approach together with his face work.
References
Goffman, Erving, Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Bahavior, Garden City, New
York, Anchor Books, 1967.
Goffman, Erving, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Garden City, New York, Doubleday
Anchor Books, 1959.
Lemert, Charles and Ann Branaman, editors, The Goffman Reader, Malden, Massachusetts,
Blackwell Publishers, 1997.


Unit 6 Globalisation
Unit 6
Globalisation
6.0 INTRODUCTION
This unit considers globalization, a phenomenon that is closely connected to postmodernism.
Globalization appears to be the buzzword of the 1990s, the primary attractor of books, articles,
and heated debate, just as postmodernism was the most fashionable and debated topic of the
1980s. Due to the nature of globalization, it has attracted sociologists to explain it from various
angles. This unit will therefore take you through the various sociological ideas related to global-
ization.
6.1 OBJECTIVES
 2.
By the end of this unit, you should be able to:
1. Define globalisation and separate it from postmodernism
Identify key features of globalisation
3. Explain globalisation from various perspectives
4. Relate globalisation to localisation

6.2 GLOBALISATION-BACKGROUND
‘Globalisation refers to both the compression of the world and the intensification of the con-
sciousness of the world as a whole’ (Robertson, 1992:8). Robertson is referring to both an
increase in global interdependence and the awareness of that interdependence. The very notion
of compression refers to diminished distance among parts. Giddens (1990:64) defines global-
ization as ‘the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a
way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa’.
The timing of globalization is not clear, there are various propositions made by various authors
under their various themes as the following table shows.
Timing of globalisation
Author Start Theme
Marx 1500s Modern capitalism
Wallerstein 1500s Modern world system
Robertson 1500s, 1870-1920s Multidimensional
Giddens 1800s Modernity
Tomlison 1960s Cultural planetarisation
6.3 GLOBALISATION AND SOCIOLOGY

A wide and diverse range of social theorists are arguing that today’s world is organized by
accelerating globalisation, which is strengthening the dominance of a world capitalist economic
system, supplanting the primacy of the nation-state by transnational corporations and organiza-
tions, and eroding local cultures and traditions through a global culture. Marxists, world systems
theorists, functionalists, Weberians, and other contemporary theorists are converging on the po-
sition that globalisation is a distinguishing trend of the present moment.
Moreover, advocates of a postmodern break in history argue that developments in transnational

capitalism are producing a new global historical configuration of post-Fordism, or postmodernism
as an emergent cultural logic of capitalism (Harvey 1989; Soja 1989; Jameson 1991; and
Gottdiener 1995). Others define the emergent global economy and culture as a “network soci-
ety” grounded in new communications and information technology (Castells 1996, 1997, and
1998). For others, globalisation marks the triumph of capitalism and its market economy (see
apologists such as Fukuyama 1992 and Friedman 1999 who perceive this process as positive,
while others portray it as negative, such as Mander and Goldsmith 1996; Eisenstein 1998; and
Robins and Webster 1999). Some theorists see the emergence of a new transnational ruling elite
and the universalization of consumerism (Sklair 2001), while others stress global fragmentation

of “the clash of civilizations” (Huntington 1996). Driving “post” discourses into novel realms of
theory and politics, Hardt and Negri (2000) present the emergence of “Empire” as producing
emergent forms of sovereignty, economy, culture, and political struggle that open the new millen-
nium to an unforeseeable and unpredictable flow of novelties, surprises, and upheavals.
Globalization can be analyzed culturally, economically, politically, and institutionally. In each case,
a key difference is whether one sees increasing homogeneity or heterogeneity on the world
scene. At the extremes, the globalization of culture can be seen as the diffusion of common codes
and practices or as a process in which cultural inputs interact to create hybrid blends. Theorists
who focus on economic factors tend to emphasize the homogenizing effect of the expanding
market economy. Some political/institutional thinkers focus on the worldwide spread of standard
models of governance, while others suggest that local social structures make more of a difference
in people’s lives than ever.
Douglas Kellner states that the key to understanding globalization is theorizing it as, at once, a
product of technological revolution and the global restructuring of capital. While the capitalistic
economy remains central to understanding globalization, technoscience provides its infrastruc-
ture.
Giddens emphasizes the role of the West and the United States in globalization. He recognizes
that globalization has both undermined local cultures and served to revive them. He also suggests
that a clash is taking place today between fundamentalism and cosmopolitanism.
Beck defines globalism as the view that the world is dominated by economics and that we are
witnessing the emergence of the hegemony of the capitalist world market and the neo-liberal
ideology that underpins it. Beck is critical of this conception as being oversimplified and linear.
Beck sees greater merit in the idea of globality, in which closed spaces like nation-states are
becoming increasingly illusory because of the growing influence of transnational actors. Beck
refers to the rise of globality as a second modernity characterized by denationalization.
Bauman sees mobility as the most powerful aspect of globalization. He argues that the winners in
the “space war” are those who are able to move freely around the globe. The losers not only lack
mobility but are also confined to territories denuded of meaning.
Ritzer argues that there is an elective affinity between globalization and nothing. He defines “noth-
ing” as centrally conceived and controlled forms devoid of most distinctive content. It is easier to
export empty forms throughout the globe than it is to export forms that are loaded with content.
We are witnessing the global proliferation of generic, dehumanized, and disenchanted forms.
Arjun Appadurai discusses global flows and the disjunctures among them. He uses the suffix -
scape to connote the idea that these processes have fluid, irregular, variable shapes. For ex-
ample, ethnoscapes are mobile groups and individuals that play an important role in shifting the
world.
For critical social theory, globalization involves both capitalist markets and sets of social relations
and flows of commodities, capital, technology, ideas, forms of culture, and people across na-

tional boundaries via a global networked society (see Castells 1996, 1997, and 1998 and Held,
et al 1999). The transmutations of technology and capital work together to create a new global-
ized and interconnected world. A technological revolution involving the creation of a computer-
ized network of communication, transportation, and exchange is the presupposition of a global-
ized economy, along with the extension of a world capitalist market system that is absorbing ever
more areas of the world and spheres of production, exchange, and consumption into its orbit.
The technological revolution presupposes global computerized networks and the free movement
of goods, information, and peoples across national boundaries. Hence, the Internet and global
computer networks make possible globalization by producing a technological infrastructure for
the global economy. Computerized networks, satellite-communication systems, and the software
and hardware that link together and facilitate the global economy depend on breakthroughs in
microphysics. Technoscience has generated transistors, increasingly powerful and sophisticated
computer chips, integrated circuits, high-tech communication systems, and a technological revo-
lution that provides an infrastructure for the global economy and society (see Gilder 1989 and
2000; Kaku 1997; and Best and Kellner 2001).
From this perspective, globalization cannot be understood without comprehending the scientific
and technological revolutions and global restructuring of capital that are the motor and matrix of
globalization.
In addition to technologically determinist and reductive postindustrial accounts of globalization,

there are economic determinist discourses that view it primarily as the continuation of capitalism
rather than its restructuring through technological revolution. A large number of theorists conceive
globalization simply as a process of the imposition of the logic of capital and neo-liberalism on
various parts of the world rather than seeing the restructuring process and the enormous changes
and transformations that scientific and technological revolution are producing in the networked
economy and society. Capital logic theorists, for instance, portray globalization primarily as the
imposition of the logic of capital on the world economy, polity, and culture, often engaging in
economic determinism, rather than seeing the complex new configurations of economy, technol-
ogy, polity, and culture, and attendant forces of domination and resistance. In the same vein,
some critical theorists depict globalization as the triumph of a globalized hegemony of market
capitalism, where capital creates a homogeneous world culture of commercialization,
commodification, administration, surveillance, and domination (Robins and Webster 1999).
From these economistic perspectives, globalization is merely a continuation of previous social

tendencies; i.e. the logic of capital and domination by corporate and commercial interests of the
world economy and culture.
Globalization involves both a disorganization and reorganization of capitalism, a tremendous

restructuring process, which creates openings for progressive social change and intervention.

ACTIVITY 6.1
a) Globalization………………………………………………
b) Globalism………………………………………………….
c) Globality……………………………………………………
2. What are the characteristics of
globalization?........................................
…………………………………………………………………………
3. Do you think globalization has undermined local
culture?..........................
……………………………………………………………………..
4. How have various sociologists explained globalization?...................
………………………………………………………………………….
6.4 THE GLOBAL AND THE LOCAL

In numerous accounts, globalization trends are regarded as in tension with local assertions of
identity and culture. Like many others, Barber (1992:54) defines globalization as the opposite of
localization. He argues that ‘four imperatives make up the dynamic of McWorld: a market im-
perative, a resource imperative, an information technology imperative and an ecological impera-
tive.’ Each of these contributes to the shrinking of the world and the diminishing of the salience of
national borders and together they have achieved a considerable victory over factiousness and
particularism.
The relationships between the global and the local can be seen by observing how global forces
influence and even structure an increasing number of local situations. This requires analysis as
well of how local forces mediate the global, inflecting global forces to diverse ends and condi-
tions, and producing unique configurations of the local and the global as the matrix for thought
and action in the contemporary world (see Luke and Luke 2000). Globalization is thus necessar-
ily complex and challenging to both critical theories and radical democratic politics. But many
people these days operate with binary concepts of the global and the local, and promote one or
the other side of the equation as the solution to the world’s problems. For globalists, globalization
is the solution and underdevelopment, backwardness, and provincialism are the problem. For
localists, globalization is the problem and localization is the solution. But, less simplistically, it is
the mix that matters and whether global or local solutions are most fitting depends on the condi-
tions in the distinctive context that one is addressing and the specific solutions and policies being
proposed.
Due to the link between the global and the local, Robertson has proposed what he terms
glocalisation. Glocalisation is formed by telescoping global and local to make a blend. This is
because the local is essentially included within the global.

6.4.1 Globalisation from above versus globalization from below

Related to the debate on the relationship between the global and the local is the distinction
between “globalization from below” and the “globalization from above”. This is a distinction
made of corporate capitalism and the capitalist state, a distinction that should help us to get a
better sense of how globalization does or does not promote democratization. “Globalization
from below” refers to the ways in which marginalized individuals and social movements resist
globalization and/or use its institutions and instruments to further democratization and social jus-
tice. While on one level, globalization significantly increases the supremacy of big corporations
and big government, it can also give power to groups and individuals that were previously left out
of the democratic dialogue and terrain of political struggle. Such potentially positive effects of
globalization include increased access to education for individuals excluded from entry to culture
and knowledge and the possibility of oppositional individuals and groups to participate in global
culture and politics through gaining access to global communication and media networks and to
circulate local struggles and oppositional ideas through these media. The role of new technolo-
gies in social movements, political struggle, and everyday life forces social movements to recon-
sider their political strategies and goals and democratic theory to appraise how new technologies
do and do not promote democratization (Kellner 1997 and 1999b).
6.5 CONTRADICTIONS OF GLOBALIZATION

Within the world economy, globalization involves the proliferation of the logic of capital, but also
the spread of democracy in information, finance, investing, and the diffusion of technology (see
Friedman 1999 and Hardt and Negri 2000). Globalization is thus a contradictory amalgam of
capitalism and democracy, in which the logic of capital and the market system enter ever more
arenas of global life, even as democracy spreads and more political regions and spaces of every-
day life are being contested by democratic demands and forces. But the overall process is con-
tradictory. Sometimes globalizing forces promote democracy and sometimes inhibit it, thus either
equating capitalism and democracy, or simply opposing them, are problematical. These tensions
are especially evident, in the domain of the internet and the expansion of new realms of techno-
logically-mediated communication, information, and politics.
The processes of globalization are highly turbulent and have generated new conflicts throughout
the world. Benjamin Barber (1998) describes the strife between McWorld and Jihad, contrast-
ing the homogenizing, commercialized, Americanized tendencies of the global economy and cul-
ture with traditional cultures which are often resistant to globalization. Thomas Friedman (1999)
makes a more benign distinction between what he calls the “Lexus” and the “Olive Tree.” The
former is a symbol of modernization, of affluence and luxury, and of Westernized consumption,
contrasted with the Olive Tree that is a symbol of roots, tradition, place, and stable community.
However, it is important to present globalization as a strange amalgam of both homogenizing
forces of sameness and uniformity, and heterogeneity, difference, and hybridity, as well as a
contradictory mixture of democratizing and anti-democratizing tendencies. On one hand, global-
ization unfolds a process of standardization in which a globalized mass culture circulates the
globe creating sameness and homogeneity everywhere. But globalized culture makes possible
unique appropriations and developments all over the world, thus proliferating hybridity, differ-

ence, and heterogeneity. Every local context involves its own appropriation and reworking of
global products and signifiers, thus proliferating difference, otherness, diversity, and variety (Luke
and Luke 2000). Grasping that globalization embodies these contradictory tendencies at once,
that it can be both a force of homogenization and heterogeneity, is crucial to articulating the
contradictions of globalization and avoiding one-sided and reductive conceptions.

1. Explain with examples the homogenizing tendencies of
globalization……….
……………………………………………………………………………….
2. Explain with examples the heterogenising tendencies of
globalization……..
……………………………………………………………………………….
3. Explain with examples the differences between globalization from
below and globalization from
above……………………………………………………..
………………………………………………………………………………
4. Explain the relationship between the global and the
local..................................
………………………………………………………………………………..
5. Is the term glocalisation proper to explain the relationship between
the global and the
local?.......................................................................................................
………………………………………………………………………………
6. Briefly state the contradictions of
globalization………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………..
6.6 SUMMARY
Globalization is constituted by a complex interconnection between capitalism and democracy,
which involves positive and negative features, that both empowers and disempowers individuals
and groups, undermining and yet creating potential for fresh types of democracy. Yet most theo-
ries of globalization are either primarily negative, presenting it as a disaster for the human species,
or as positive, bringing a wealth of products, ideas, and economic opportunities to a global
arena. Hence, Kellner advocated for the development of a critical theory of globalization that
would dialectically appraise its positive and negative features. A critical theory is sharply critical
of globalization’s oppressive effects, skeptical of legitimating ideological discourse, but also rec-
ognizes the centrality of the phenomenon in the present age. And it affirms and promotes
globalization’s progressive features.

References
Kellner, Douglas and Best, Steven (June 2001). The Postmodern Adventure: Science, Tech-
nology, and Cultural Studies at the Third Millennium. Guilford Press
Kellner, Douglas and Best, Steven (1997). The Postmodern Turn. The Guilford Press.
Kahn, Richard and Kellner, Douglas (2007). “Resisting Globalization.” In The Blackwell Com-
panion to Globalization, George Ritzer (ed.), Blackwell.
Ritzer, G and Goodman, D.J 2004 Sociological Theory McGraw Hill

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WOMEN'S UNIVERSITY IN AFRICA

ADDRESSING GENDER DISPARITY AND FOSTERING EQUITY IN UNIVERSITY EDUCATION

FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND GENDER

BSc. (HONOURS) SOCIOLOGY & GENDER STUDIES

(MODULE APPLICABLE TO ALL WUA PROGRAMMES)

Layout and Design: C.S. Nhari

© Women’s University in Africa. All rights reserved. No part of this

Content Reviewer and Profile

Editor and Profile

I take this opportunity to wish you success in your studies.

Professor Hope Cynthia Sadza

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SELF ASSESSMENT ACTIVITY ........................................................................................................ 36

FEMINIST SOCIAL THEORY

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POSTMODERN SOCIAL THEORY

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 By the end of this unit you should be able to:

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1.2 HISTORY OF CRITICAL THEORY AND THE

1.2.1 Early influences on Critical Theory

Historical context Transition from small-scale entrepreneurial capitalism to monopoly

Weberian theory Comparative historical analysis of Western rationalism in capitalism,

Freudian theory Critique of the repressive structure of the “reality principle” of

Critique of Positivism Critique of positivism as a philosophy, as a scientific methodology,

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their ahistorical, idealist tendencies; critique of logical positivism and

Marxist theory Critique of bourgeois ideology; critique of alienated labor; historical

Culture theory Critique of mass culture as suppression and absorption of negation,

Responding to the intensification of alienation and irrationality in an advanced capitalist society,

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Horkheimer envisaged the Institute as carrying out interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary studies

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1.3 WHAT IS CRITICAL ABOUT CRITICAL THEORY?

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1.4 MARXISM AND CRITICAL THEORY

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1.5 WEBER AND CRITICAL THEORY

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1.6 CRITICAL THEORY IDEAS IN GENERAL

1.6.2 Individual and Human Nature.

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1.6.3 Dialectic of Enlightenment.

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1.6.4 Art and Culture.

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1.7 HABERMAS AND COMMUNICATIVE RATIONALITY

1.7.2 Early Work of Habermas

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1.7.3 Communicative Action

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