Page 47 - The ISA Handbook in Contemporary Sociology

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18 THE ISA HANDBOOK IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY

the production of porn in which the ‘action’ reflects a long standing dialectic in American
which most people want to see is most bla- society in which the alienation of communities
tantly evident. While such programs seem- takes different forms in particular historical
ingly provide people with opportunities to be moments. (See below)
media stars, if only temporarily, the ‘guests’ In American sociology, a number of recent
can only achieve ‘stardom’ by publicly dis- critiques demonstrate that the glorification of
closing their private lives, their foibles, fail- individualism has resulted in the fragmenta-
ures, transgressions, and/or weaknesses, by tion of the social and the demise of various
spelling out their tribulations to a two-headed kinds of group life. Bellah et al. (1985)
voyeuristic audience. The audience inside the lament the demise of genuine communities
studio is eager to perform well by applaud- and the retreat to ‘life style enclaves,’ gated
ing, booing at, shouting, and deriding the communities divorced from larger realities.
guest ‘performers;’ while the home viewers Putnam (2000) has made a similar argument on
are busily gaping. However unfortunate the the basis of evidence that various community
life conditions of the studio audience and/or groups from Shriners to bowling leagues are
the viewers, their lives are fine when com- shrinking in size. But the antidote to individ-
pared to those of the ‘stars’ on the shows. ualism suggested by people like Bellah is
They are mothers angry at hooker/stripper often a communitarianism that suppresses
daughters, wives angry at husbands’ infideli- the individual and denies certain minorities
ties with mothers-in-law, or people who have certain rights. For example, certain commu-
sexual relations with animals. The resentments nities might not grant recognition or rights to
that might be expected to weaken or destroy cohabitation or to gay marriage.
the ruling hegemony are commodified: dis- One possible result of this self-enclosure
played as ‘freaks,’ and sold as goods to the can be seen in the work of Smith-Lovin
very human beings who suffer most from the (1988), whose analysis of survey data shows
contradictions of capitalism. According to that, compared to 20 years earlier, people have
Prosono (2005), in junk TV, alienation suf- fewer confidantes. But Wellman et al. (2004)
fers the final indignity of becoming the raw have suggested that this may account for the
material of new commodities for exchange or fact that today many people maintain relation-
for entertainment. As the Frankfurt School ships, often quite intimate relationships,
argued, and as Prosono demonstrates, popu- through the Internet. While the term ‘commu-
lar culture is a commodity produced by the nity’ is often used to betoken cooperation as
‘culture industries’ for the market and in the human salvation (Etzioni, 1993; Toennies,
process, produces vast profits. In the final 1957/1887), in practice there has been long-
analysis, popular culture is a moment of standing ambivalence about community in the
hegemony that sustains global capital. 4 United States which was born of – and in turn
Many of these specific forms of alienation created – the subtle interplay of presumed
speak to a larger issue, the extent to which cooperation, obvious conflict, and the relent-
capitalist modernity is itself fundamentally less implementation of competition. The
alienated. There is no better place to follow uncertainty of social life and an enigmatic
up this possibility than in the ambiguities of social structure have characterized American
community living. It is generally agreed that communities since Puritan times. While the
community is a form of life to be desired, but structure of many contemporary communities
increasingly, it has been feared that commu- confirms the attenuation of social bonds under
nities can subvert freedom, independence, capitalism as both Marx and Durkheim main-
and even civil rights. The dialectic between tained, the supposition of unchallenged com-
the community as rigidly controlled, stifling, munal social bonds in pre-capitalist eras, as
and alienated, typically by Calvinist Churches, idealized by Toennies, does not hold up under
and the frontier where anything was permitted a detailed historical examination.