Sociological diagnoses of our times

Ulrich Beck once claimed that sociology has three main tasks: 1. Theoretical work with the basic concepts of the discipline. 2. Examination of theories with the help of methodical empirical research. 3. Interpretations of the current situation and diagnoses of the times.

This course is about the last task. This task should not simply be understood as a description of the society that we live in. It is rather about diagnosing transformations of the social conditions of our times. It is a narrative of social change, that is, the way our times are different from previous times and in what direction we are heading (tendencies). Such diagnosis is comprehensive in the sense that it aims to grasp social change on both macro, meso and micro level and the relations between those levels. Further, sociological diagnosis of the times is different from the discipline of history in two senses. First, it is limited to changes of modern societies; second, it is focused on the structural changes, i.e. changes that concern the basic institutions of modern societies (e.g. intimate relations, economy, working life, and politics). Thus, the field of study of this course can be defined as structural transformations of modernity. In the first part of the course, this meaning of diagnosis of the times will be discussed.

In the second part of the course, we will look at different understandings of structural transformation. Classical sociology understood it as the transition from tradition to modernity. Conceptions of differentiation, rationalization, individualization, secularization are examples of that. After WW II, sociologists started to make distinctions within modernity; e.g. liberal and organized capitalism (Habermas), early and late modernity (Giddens), modern and postmodern conditions (Lyotard), first and second modernity (Beck), solid and liquid modernity (Bauman). Today some important contemporary sociologists distinguish between three epochs of the times within modernity; e.g. restricted liberal, organized and extended liberal modernity (Wagner), the three spirits of capitalism (Boltanski and Chiapello), bourgeois, organized and late modernity (Reckwitz). Our focus in this part will be on such a tripartite conception. It will allows us to study the most recent structural transformations.

The term diagnosis indicates a relationship to medicine. Some sociologist claim that not only persons, but also societies can be understood as sick. Already Durkheim used the term pathology in a sociological context. Critical theorists like Habermas and especially Honneth see the analysis of “social pathologies” as a crucial part of their diagnoses of the times. Thus, a diagnosis can be used normatively in order to problematize and criticize structural change. This kind of normative use of social diagnosis will comprise the last part of the course.