Page 45 - The ISA Handbook in Contemporary Sociology

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16 THE ISA HANDBOOK IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY

domains voice hope for change but cannot David concludes that these fields serve
clearly confirm that change is possible. They to valorize essentialist understandings of
show that domination is integrated into the humans as machines, albeit complex, multi-
modes of operation of political, economic, functional machines. Based on an implicit
social, and cultural apparatuses – including determinism, they lead to reductionist scien-
the sciences and the realm of high, as well as tific conceptions that normalize alienation
mass culture. One major consequence of var- in mechanistic and fragmented accounts
ious institutional arrangements is the mystifi- of humanity. Contemporary theoretical
cation of the way they impact consciousness, approaches to these developments at the
especially of language, perception, and frontiers of natural science actually con-
understanding to mystify their operations tribute to the spread of alienation, the locus
and foster ‘willing assent’ to structures and of which is the colonization of the life-world.
processes that foster alienation. The body is subjected to systematically
Harry Dahms (2002), for example, argues repressive aspects of rationality, and instru-
that contemporary theorists tend to ignore mental reason is implemented to distort dis-
Marx’s insight into the totality of alienation’s tinctively human communicative interaction.
influence. Thus, they are likely to disregard People are conceived of as disembodied,
the fact that the very tools they employ insensitive to free and open communication,
in studying how alienation characterizes and impervious to either personal or social
modern society may be determined by the creativity.
alienation they are supposed to illuminate. Building on the neo-Marxian Ideologiekritik
Calling for an invigorated, interdisciplinary, of the Frankfurt School with its reliance on
critical theory of society, Dahms explains Freudian theory, David N. Smith (1996)
that in his view, it is highly likely that what explains the compulsivity of the ‘authoritar-
is defined as the work of social scientists ian character’ that disposed the German
imposes at once both alienation and an illu- working class to support Hitler rather than
sion that the pitfalls of alienation can be socialist or communist parties. From their
evaded. Striving to uncover the inner mean- studies of authority within the family, the
ings of social phenomena, sociologists them- psyche, the political economy, and the interi-
selves, in his view, embracing empiricism, orization of ideologies that shape how people
as the logic of ‘rationality,’ often become think, Horkheimer and Adorno (1976),
victims of an illusion of objectivity; indeed Adorno et al. (1950), and Fromm (1965) con-
reification based on the choices of such cluded that certain kinds of character struc-
methods is almost inevitable under the condi- tures, alienated from either power or
tions of late modernity. Much as Lukacs communities, were likely to gravitate
showed how using the very categories of to conservative, if not reactionary, political
bourgeois thought thwarted the proletariat parties when faced with social crises.
from seeing their own ‘standpoint,’ the Extending their theorization, Smith finds that
embrace of various ‘rationalist’ empirical the constructs of projection, aggression, and
research strategies to study alienation fosters the personalization of abstract social forces
the very alienation that would be studied. explain the world of alienated labor, as well
Such research, by ‘disavowing’ a normative as how and why the alienated classes, when
stance, cannot inform the transcendence of made fearful or anxious by larger social
alienation. crises and contradictions, become enthralled
Similar concerns underlie Matthew David’s with the appeals of charismatic leaders.
(2005) discussion of how contemporary Elaborating on what he calls ‘authority
scientific projects contribute to alienation. fetishism,’ Smith claims that deference to a
Reviewing recent developments in technolo- person in authority does not stem, as is usu-
gies of cloning, genetics, and computing, ally supposed, from an admiration of his/her