La modernité tardive en crise. Qu'apporte la théorie de la société ? - Hartmut Rosa

I believe that today, in the early 21st century, we are dealing with a superimposition of at least three crises that are interrelated but not identical. On the one hand, of course, we have the ecological crisis, which can no longer be overlooked and has actually become tangible in all parts of the world. Particularly in climate change, but also in species extinction, for example. We are aware of all these diagnoses that say we may be approaching dangerous tipping points, beyond which it is no longer possible to say how the climate will develop. The second thing is: I believe we have a political crisis or a social crisis in the way people treat each other. And this can also be seen on two levels: one in the democracies themselves and, one in the established democracies. In the USA, President Trump has just been elected for the second time and many people think that this is somehow not the right form of democracy as it was intended. And above all, we are seeing enormous aggression in the way people treat each other, to the point where politicians are being shot at. That also happened in Germany during the last round of elections. And we see a kind of essential dissatisfaction with the existing political system. There are studies on political culture that make it clear that the problem lies in the fact that people no longer see each other as human beings, as citizens with different political views. Instead, they see each other as enemies of humanity on the other side, who even arouse disgust and massive rejection. And that means you can see that there is a crisis in the way social exchange and democracy are handled. And this has its continuation, so to speak, in the area of military conflicts, which have also returned to Europe on a massive scale. You can say that there have always been wars. That's true, even in modern times, even in Europe, if you think of the war in Yugoslavia. And there's no need to mention Afghanistan and Iraq. But the difference really is, as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz put it very clearly, Zeitenwende, that up to and including the war in Yugoslavia, we thought that unfortunately there were still wars. We need to improve the security architecture, that of the UN, that of Europe, in order to overcome this in the future. We have seen wars in the past as remnants of a fatal age. And the concept of a new era says, no, that's what lies ahead of us. We have to become fit for war. That's a huge difference in cultural perception. We are now entering the age of epidemics with Covid, the age of war with Olaf Scholz and the others and the age of ecological catastrophe. And we also have a crisis, what I would call a psychological crisis. This means that burnout rates are extremely high worldwide, with the exception of a few African countries, by the way. But in all other parts of the world, people have the feeling that they can't go on like this, they can't go on, they're running out of energy. And I interpret this as the result of an aggressive relationship with the world. In our entire state of mind, we are in a state of aggression towards the world, towards nature, which we abuse extractively and then poison, so to speak. To other people, who we always encounter as obstacles or enemies. And also towards ourselves. We are never enough for ourselves. We have to change our body, improve our psyche, optimise ourselves. And this relationship of aggression is a consequence of permanent growth and the compulsion to accelerate, and I interpret it as a crisis at the root of the crisis, of modernity. Yes, I really do insist that we can't just be content with describing crises, but that we can actually propose how things could go on from the analysis, so to speak, from the interpretation and what we can understand. But I think you have to see social theory as embedded in what a society is. It is part of society, it is not simply outside of society, it emerges from it. I strongly follow Charles Taylor's approach, and I also tried to explain this in the book, which takes the best-account principle. He says that every science actually has the task of finding the best possible explanation from its field of research or for its field. And now it is the case that people are fundamentally self-interpreting beings. A society is not simply given and then we analyse it, but what this society is, what we are as human beings, is also the result of how we understand ourselves, how we interpret ourselves, understand our age, understand our problems. But also what concepts we have. So the question of who we are also depends on or is linked to the question of who we want to be, where we want to go. So what a society is depends on how it understands itself and where it wants to go. And that is a process, a business, if you like, of self-interpretation. And I think that today, of course, the social sciences have an essential role to play in this process of self-interpretation. I mean, that's what we get paid for. I actually agree with Andreas Reckwitz on that. We are paid not to decide this process of self-interpretation as experts, but to make suggestions. To give an interpretation of our situation on the basis of all available knowledge, a best account. Where do we stand right now? And this is linked to the question of where do we want to go. Where can we go? And I believe we have tried to show in this book that we can contribute something to this. To shed light on our situation, so to speak, and to derive from it where we could possibly go. There is a second approach that connects Andreas Reckwitz and my thinking on the one hand and separates them on the other. I believe that what unites us is that we both take the emotional, the affective side very seriously in our sociological concepts. In order to understand society and its development and change, as well as its dynamics, both I and Reckwitz believe it is important to take our experiences seriously. What drives us? In my own interpretation, every form of society actually requires emotional energy, because it is not institutions that act, for example, to grow, accelerate and innovate. It is the subjects who have to do it. So we have to look at what exactly are the drives, what are the fears, what are the hopes. My own approach follows a phenomenological method, as we can see. Which we find very strongly in France, for example with Merleau-Ponty. I actually came to it via Charles Taylor, the Canadian social philosopher who plays an essential role in my thinking. But of course, the phenomenological tradition goes from Husserl via Heidegger to Alfred Schütz, for example. And Andreas Reckwitz follows a different line of thought that operates more genealogically or hermeneutically. But regardless of these methodological differences, we both take the affective side of society very seriously. We believe that we cannot understand society without analysing it. I think that both are true. We complement each other in many ways and we also agree. I have known Andreas Reckwitz for many years, now decades, and we have always been in dialogue, sometimes more closely, so to speak, in greater agreement and sometimes in greater difference. And we were both convinced that today we need a sociology that makes suggestions for social theory, that provides interpretation. Because if you look at the situation of sociology globally, you realise that this type of what we also call macro-sociological thinking, i.e. the observation of society, is actually disappearing. In favour of a sociology that only carries out individual empirical analyses, which can then, for example, statistically determine how many people get burnout or how many Catholics vote for conservative parties or something like that. And we believe that this is not enough, that it is part of the task of sociology and our discipline to provide social interpretations, interpretations of our situation. Because if we don't do it, others do it, which you can see is sometimes successful and interesting. Economists, historians or psychologists, but also some people who misuse it for manipulative purposes. And that's why we both believe, we agree, that sociology, that sociology also includes something like diagnoses of the times or at least diagnoses of society. Identifying and explaining crises from their context. And we don't proceed in quite the same way. Yes, my own approach is strongly influenced by critical theory. It's actually a mixture of critical theory and phenomenology. And I take from critical theory the idea that we must also have a normative approach. We really need to develop criticism for undesirable developments, pathologies in society and, from this, also suggestions as to how things could perhaps be different. And Andreas Reckwitz is clearly cautious on this point; he does not see sociology as a normative endeavour that criticises or even makes suggestions for the good. Instead, he points out the problem and simply makes it clear what is currently the case. He is clearly more post-structuralist in his approach. It's a different form of thinking with a big, I think, I think he also explained that in our joint book... For him, modernity is actually very much determined by two processes. One is this contingency, opening and closing. In other words, the opening of the horizon of options, so to speak, which creates many possibilities individually and collectively. But then it also closes again and again through regulations and institutions and it identifies this great process or also this alternating process of individualisation and generalisation. First of all, modernity is characterised by the fact that it generalises many things. For example, currency, language, the education system, all sorts of things. And then it also forces us to present ourselves as unique individuals, which was its central contribution to singularisation. We don't agree on all aspects of this. I think that behind this, due to this pressure to optimise and, above all, the permanent comparison, i.e. ratings and rankings and things like that, the tendency to generalise actually also underlies the singularisations. But that makes things exciting. He doesn't entirely agree with my strongly normative assumptions or my theory of alienation, which he considers quite problematic. And that's why we said let's do it together, let's see what comes out of the dialogue. That's the big question, so to speak because that was also the question of the book. What does social theory achieve? What can we really do? And I think that's where Reckwitz and I differ in some aspects. What I really want to say is that the social formation of modernity has become problematic overall. I would say that modernity can be understood as being at home in a cultural project, which we have often called the project of modernity. This then also leads to things like human rights, for example, and all the endeavours towards emancipation. Also this idea of a right to self-determination, that it is not the church that tells us how we have to live, or the king, or even natural constraints. But that we as human beings can live self-determined lives. I would largely hold on to that. However, I do believe that the strong emphasis on autonomy has sometimes led us to forget how much we are always connected to others and determined by others. Something may have been lost in the interpretation process. Because I am trying to show that there is a connection between a certain, perhaps one-sided view of self-determination or autonomy and acceleration and optimisation. But I also identify a process of modernisation, which I define using the concept of dynamic stabilisation. This means that modern societies can only maintain themselves by constantly growing, accelerating and innovating. And actually beyond all boundaries. Even though we have long had enough cars, houses, clothes, computers and smartphones, we still need to produce more. Even more air travel and more aeroplanes than we already have, just to maintain what we already have. And that's where I really see a fundamental flaw that I would have to insist on. It's not about making this society resilient. I'm actually not a fan of this idea of green growth that says, yes, we can continue to grow, it just has to be sustainable. I don't think that's only ecologically unfeasible, I would say that the history of late modernity shows that this is exactly what doesn't work. I don't think it's good for us humans either, because it doesn't eliminate the problem of alienation. It doesn't lead to a good life at all. And Andreas Reckwitz, I think, wouldn't go that far. He doesn't see a reason for it; his analyses are not about a fundamental critique of modernity as a whole. I think he would actually rather want to preserve this structure and look at resilience factors. So how can we preserve this fragile structure and make it better? So the question of how profound the change actually needs to be is an interesting one. And I think I understand that sociology doesn't produce definitive knowledge. Instead, it makes suggestions for interpretation that then have to be related to each other in dialogue. And the idea is that every reader can form their own opinion, so to speak. Neither of us, neither Reckwitz nor Rosa, has the complete answer. And we have not produced any ultimate knowledge either, but rather we have made suggestions for interpretation that need to be put into dialogue. And I am always happy to have the opportunity to continue this dialogue.