The End of Illusions (eBook)

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

"This is a fascinating read, truly imaginative and remarkably wide-ranging. Andreas Reckwitz presents a compelling, novel outlook on the global challenges ahead."
Patrick Baert, University of Cambridge

"In The End of Illusions, Reckwitz conducts a 'socio-analysis' of a patient known as late modernity and reveals the contradictions, paradoxes, and anomalies that characterize contemporary society. The hard work involved in this sobering analysis pays off: while pathways toward a better society are neither obvious nor linear, embracing today's ambiguities opens up spaces to reimagine our shared futures."
Urs Gasser, Harvard University