Anthony Giddens: The Last Modernist

by Mestrovic,Stjepan

• ISBN13: 9780415095723
• ISBN10: 0415095727
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-03-11
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Anthony Giddens is arguably the world's leading sociologist. In this controversial contribution to the Giddens debate, Stjepan Mestrovic takes up and criticizes the major themes of his work - particularly the concept of 'high modernity' as opposed to 'postmodernity' and his attempted construction of a 'synthetic' tradition based on human agency and structure. Testing Giddens' theories against what is happening in the real world from genocide in Africa to near secession in Quebec, Mestrovic discerns in the construction of synthetic traditions not the promise of freedom held out by Giddens but rather the ominous potential for new forms of totalitarian control.

Table of Contents

Preface and acknowledgments	ix
1 INTRODUCTION	1	(11)
Why Giddens and not Habermas?	5	(3)
On the style and argumentation of this book	8	(3)
Parting thoughts	11	(1)
2 ANTHONY GIDDENS: THE LAST MODERNIST	12	(28)
Giddens and the end of sociology	16	(3)
Criticisms of Giddens	19	(9)
Giddens and postmodernism	28	(2)
An overview of Giddens's major critics	30	(7)
Summary, and the parameters of the present critique	37	(3)
3 THE NEW VERSUS THE OLD RULES OF SOCIOLOGICAL METHOD	40	(37)
Grounding bermeneutics	48	(7)
Schopenhauer's critique of Kant	55	(1)
Sociology as the science of discoveries	56	(8)
The normal versus the pathological	64	(4)
The one, well-designed experiment	68	(3)
Conclusions	71	(6)
4 THE ROLE OF DESIRE IN AGENCY AND STRUCTURE	77	(35)
Denaturing the human agent	80	(4)
Faith and trust	84	(1)
Searching for the heart of sociology	85	(5)
How Giddens attempts to account for emotion in human history	90	(4)
The paradox of agency leading to less agency	94	(2)
Durkheim's depiction of faith in relation to emotional life	96	(7)
The emotional components of social structure	103	(6)
Conclusions and implications	109	(3)
5 GIDDENS'S POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY	112	(36)
Giddens's critique of Marx	115	(6)
Elaborating Giddens's position on nationalism and the nation-state	121	(5)
Giddens on post-tradition	126	(5)
Giddens's version of the end of history	131	(6)
The meanings of Bosnia	137	(6)
From Bosnia to Russia	143	(2)
Conclusions	145	(3)
6 GIDDENS'S MODERNISM LITE	148	(31)
The mutual unawareness of Giddens and Baudrillard	162	(6)
Postmodernity transformed into modernity lite	168	(5)
The role of the information media	173	(3)
Conclusions	176	(3)
7 UNLIMITED AGENCY AS THE NEW ANOMIE	179	(28)
Partial agency	181	(2)
Mental illness as a problem with agency	183	(3)
Can excessive agency lead to anomie?	186	(6)
Laying the groundwork for a recontextualized reading of anomie	192	(4)
Anomie as Secular sin	196	(9)
Conclusions and implications	205	(2)
8 CONCLUSIONS	207	(15)
Mixing metaphors	213	(3)
Contemporary sociologists as the leisure class	216	(1)
Summary	217	(5)
Notes	222	(3)
References	225	(7)
Index	232