The End of Illusions: Politics, Economy, and Culture in Late Modernity

We live in a time of great uncertainty about the future.  Those heady days of the late twentieth century, when the end of the Cold War seemed to be ushering in a new and more optimistic age, now seem like a distant memory. During the last couple of decades, we’ve been battered by one crisis after another and the idea that humanity is on a progressive path to a better future seems like an illusion. It is only now that we can see clearly the real scope and structure of the profound shifts that Western societies have undergone over the last 30 years.  Classical industrial society has been transformed into a late-modern society that is molded by polarization and paradoxes. The pervasive singularization of the social, the orientation toward the unique and exceptional, generates systematic asymmetries and disparities, and hence progress and unease go hand in hand. Reckwitz examines this dual structure of singularization and polarization as it plays itself out in the different sectors of our societies and, in so doing, he outlines the central structural features of the present: the new class society, the characteristics of a postindustrial economy, the conflict about culture and identity, the exhaustion of the self resulting from the imperative to seek authentic fulfillment, and the political crisis of liberalism. Building on his path-breaking work The Society of Singularities, this new book will be of great interest to students and scholars in sociology, politics, and the social sciences generally, and to anyone concerned with the great social and political issues of our time.

Table of Contents:
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

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

Review :
“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