▇    Careers of Ideas

Although we understand that people have careers, it is not so obvious that ideas about the nature of society do also. As you will see, ideas have careers insofar as they are used over an extended period to help us comprehend major social trends. Ideas are formulated, elaborated, refined, and revised by particular individuals, but the ideas nonetheless manage to take on lives of their own. Thus, they need to be understood on their own terms.

The individuals who developed these ideas inhabited particular times and places. Thus, ideas developed in partial response to the immediate intellectual and social concerns and interests of those individuals. This book traces the careers of the four ideas identified previously as they have been articulated by several eminent thinkers. I have not attempted to include everyone who has ever written anything of importance about industrial society, democracy, individualism, or modernity. Nor am I suggesting that the work of any particular person discussed in this book can be reduced simply to one of the four ideas. In fact, it is fair to say that for Karl Max, Max Weber, Émile Durkheim, Georg Simmel, and their intellectual heirs, all four master ideas are woven in one way or another into the overall fabric of their work(Becker 1971; Giddens 1971; Hawthorn 1976; Aron 1985; Mazlish 1989; Wallerstein 1991). This should not be surprising because, as noted previously, these ideas are indeed interconnected.

To demonstrate the enduring significance and relevance of these ideas, I will frequently discuss the circumstances in which they were formulated. The focus on particular thinkers’ lives is not intended to provide comprehensive biographies of these individuals but rather to highlight some of the events that may have affected the meaning and significance attached to particular ideas over time. In other words, the ways ideas are modified, transformed, and reappropriated is a matter of central concern when we decide to investigate their careers (Hughes 1961, 1975; Williams 1976; Kivisto 1989; Sica 1989; Bourdieu 1993).

▇    Key Ideas and the Field of Sociology

conjuring up notions of personal autonomy and self-reliance. Individualism, however, also has a darker side.

Individualism recasts the way people define their ties to community and to other people outside of the orbit of family and friends. This has broad implications. An example of this is seen in a letter that Robert Bellah, one of the sociologists discussed in Chapter 4, sent to President Clinton, criticizing him for signing a new welfare bill into law. The bill was designed to prevent people from remaining on welfare for extended periods of time. According to its proponents, the rationale for this legislation was that poor people need to take responsibility for their own lives. In this letter, Bellach (1996:65) contended, “We know that this punitive legislation is popular because it resonates with the radical individualism that has long been part of our culture.” Why did he believe this legislation was punitive and in what ways did he see individualism as a culprit? Chapter 4, by providing an overview of the history of individualism, will provide a clearer sense of what Bellah is claiming and will help you to judge whether or not you agree with him.

Modernity

In Chapter 5, we build on the preceding chapters and return to the big picture, this time focusing on culture. It is not always easy to define what is means to be modern, but at the outset of the chapter, we will work through a provisional understanding of the central features of modern culture. As you will see, modern culture cannot be understood without appreciating the way it has been shaped by industrialization, democracy, and individualism. As you will also see, however, modern culture is more than the result of these influences, and it has a reciprocal impact on them.

The topic of modernity will be approached from several angles, including money, fashion, urban life, the mass media, and mass entertainment. Moreover, by entering into the controversial debates about postmodernism, you will get a sense of how modernity has evolved and how contemporary social theorists are attempting to make sense of the cultural transformations we are living through.

By the end of these four chapters, you will not only appreciate the importance of these key ideas in their own right but also have a better understanding of how they are interconnected. Moreover, you will realize that these ideas not only were useful in understand the past but also have contemporary relevance.

is a wasteful and destructive side to industrial society. The purpose of Chapter 2 is to explore the dual-edged nature of industrial society in the context of how the thinking about it has evolved during the past two centuries.

Democracy

The American and French revolutions marked the beginning of a shift in the way people thought about government and its relation to the governed. The democratic era marked the end of the age of absolutism, in which monarchs identified themselves with the state, and in which the people were seen merely as subjects of the crown. Democracy changed this by investing ultimate authority in the citizenry, with government being redefined as an institution intended to reflect and represent its interests. Throughout the nineteenth century, democracy took root and expanded in the countries of western Europe andNorth America– precisely those countries that were also witnessing the emergence of capitalist industrial society. By the twentieth century, democratic ideals were sufficiently powerful so that even manifestly undemocratic political regimes such as the formerSoviet Unionclaimed to be democratic. Democracy, however, did not managed to take root in some places, and in nations where it did, it sometimes was undermined by antidemocratic forces, as in the case of Nazi Germany.

The political history of the past two centuries has prompted sociologists to attempt to ascertain the preconditions that make democracy possible as well as to discover the major threats to democratic systems. In trying to address these issues, they have also tackled a number of related questions: Are ordinary people actually fit to govern? What is their proper role in the political arena? What kinds of leaders are needed in a democracy? Can democracy survive contemporary challenges to it? Sociologist have been pondering these and related questions since the nineteenth century, and we examine the insights of some of the most prominent of these thinkers in Chapter 3.

Individualism

be seen as key ideas because they help to supply us with insights into major social trends and assist us in seeing how those trends influence all facets of our lives(Elias 1978; Williams 1976; Shils 1981; Seidman 1983; Wolfe 1995).

These ideas, of course, cannot stand alone. First, they are interconnected. Thus, for example, we cannot appreciate the nature of democracy in American society today without an awareness of the nature of individualism. Some versions of individualism, which encourage the single-minded pursuit of self-interest, can work against people acting collectively in political life to advance the common good. This, obviously, has significant implications for the way democracy will look and function.

Second, these four central ideas have been further refined and shaped by a variety of other consequential ideas. In each chapter, a number of ancillary ideas that are closely related to the four master ideas, and have added new dimensions of understanding, will also be discussed. Among the concepts that will be examined are alienation, technology, capitalism, socialism, social class, citizenship, bureaucracy, and community.

With an awareness of both the interconnection of the four key concepts and the role played by a number of other important ideas, we turn to a brief preview of Chapters 2 through 5.

Industrial Society

Chapter 2 will introduce the ways in which a number of important sociological thinkers from the nineteenth century to the present have attempted to make sense of industrial society, identifying both its promise and its problems. As you will see, the Industrial Revolution signaled the advent of a new type of economic system that proved to be extraordinarily innovative, dynamic, and productive. In its relatively short history, industrial society has transformed work, the class structure, communication and transportation systems, leisure, patterns of consumption, our homes, or, in short, all facets of our lives. Most of us would not want to return to a preindustrial world because we realize that our lives are far more comfortable because of industrialization.

       The End of History and the Last Man

       The Age of Discontinuity

       The Jobless Future

       The Twilight of Common Dreams

       TheNew WorldOrder

       The Coming Information Age

       The Closing of the American Mind

       Powershift

       Paths toParadiseon the Liberation From Work

       The coming Global Boom

       Jihad vs. McWorld

Do titles such as these make you feel curious, a little excited, or apprehensive? Realize that the authors intended to provoke such response, in part because they help to sell books. Realize, too, that you and your contemporaries are not the first to feel this way about trends in the social world. Approximately 150 years ago, the intellectual forerunners of contemporary sociology began looking at the rapid and far-ranging changes occurring in their world and wondered why those changes were happening and where they were heading. This was the beginning of a tradition of sociological searching for answers to questions about social change.

Each succeeding generation was stimulated by the ways their predecessors attempted to understand their own-particular historical situations. They borrowed ideas from those who came before them, adapting those ideas to the new circumstances that characterized their own times. In fact, the ideas expressed in the preceding titles are essentially variations and extensions of, and reactions to, not only contemporary social events but also a tradition of social thought. This book is about some of the major ideas that have developed out of that tradition. It examines their origins, their development, and their relevance at the drawn of the twenty-first century.

▇    Conceptualizing Contemporary Society