The End of Illusions

Andreas Reckwitz is Professor of Social Theory and Cultural Sociology at Humboldt University, Berlin.

List of Figures


Introduction: The Disillusioned Present

Progress, Dystopia, Nostalgia

Disillusionment as an Opportunity

From Industrial Modernity to the Society of Singularities


1.    Cultural Conflict as a Struggle over Culture:
Hyperculture and Cultural Essentialism


The Culturalization of the Social

Culturalization I: Hyperculture

Culturalization II: Cultural Essentialism

Hyperculture and Cultural Essentialism: Between Coexistence and Conflict

“Doing Universality” – The Culture of the General as an Alternative?


2.    From the Leveled Middle-Class Society to the Three-Class Society:
The New Middle Class, the Old Middle Class, and the Precarious Class


The Global and Historical Context

Underlying Conditions: Post-Industrialization, the Expansion of Education, a Shift in Values

In the Paternoster Elevator of the Three-Class Society

The New Middle Class: Successful Self-Actualization and Urban Cosmopolitanism

The Old Middle Class: Sedentariness, Order, and Cultural Defensiveness

The Precarious Class: Muddling Through and Losing Status

The Upper Class: Distance due to Assets

Cross-Sectional Characteristics: Gender, Migration, Regions, Milieus

A Trend toward Political Polarization and Future Social Scenarios


3.    Beyond Industrial Society:
Polarized Post-Industrialism and Cognitive-Cultural Capitalism


The Rise and Fall of Industrial Fordism

The Saturation Crisis

The Production Crisis and Polarized Post-Industrialism

Globalization, Neoliberalism, Financialization

Cognitive Capitalism and Immaterial Capital

Cultural Goods and Cultural Capitalism

Winner-Take-All Markets:

The Scalability and Attractiveness of Cognitive and Cultural Goods

Extreme Capitalism: The Economization of the Social


4.    The Weariness of Self-Actualization:
The Late-Modern Individual and the Paradoxes of Emotional Culture


From Self-Discipline to Self-Actualization

Successful Self-Actualization: An Ambitious Dual Structure

The Culture of Self-Actualization as a Generator of Negative Emotions

Ways Out of the Spiral of Disappointment?

5.    The Crisis of Liberalism and the Search for the New Political Paradigm:
From Apertistic to Regulatory Liberalism


Political Paradigms and Political Paradoxes

Problems and Solutions: Between the Paradigms of Regulation and Dynamization

The Rise of the Social-Corporatist Paradigm

The Crisis of Overregulation

The Rise of the Paradigm of Apertistic Liberalism

The Threefold Crisis of Apertistic Liberalism

Populism as a Symptom

“Regulatory Liberalism” as the Paradigm of the Future?

Challenges Facing Regulatory Liberalism


Bibliography

Notes

Index