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Recovering a disillusioned modernism: The enlightened pessimism of classical sociology

Social Theories of History and Histories of Social Theory

ISBN: 978-1-78350-218-9, eISBN: 978-1-78350-219-6

Publication date: 2 December 2013

Abstract

Purpose

Contemporary sociologists implicitly assume or explicitly state that classical social theorists shared the Enlightenment’s optimistic vision that society would become more rational, free, ethical, and just overtime. I reexamine the primary works that laid the foundation for sociology and resituate them in their neo-Romantic origins.

Design/methodology/approach

Close readings of formative texts are provided to revisit modernist critiques of social progress in turn of the century sociology. The works of Ferdinand Tönnies, Thorstein Veblen, Emile Durkheim, Georg Simmel, and Max Weber exemplify this tradition.

Findings

Insights from social theory written during and around the neo-Romantic period mirrored the Zeitgeist, a time fascinated with irrationality, moral decay, unconsciousness, decadence, degeneration, cynicism, historical decline, and pessimism. However, classical sociology’s pessimism should not be interpreted as anti-modern. Rather, it contributed to the Enlightenment’s maturation.

Research limitations/implications

Contemporary sociologists should recover the spirit of classical sociology’s gloomy extension of the modern project and bring societal processes to consciousness through human reason, untainted by the fable of progress. Without rational grounds for optimism, the most honest and sincere way to preserve the hope for alternatives and emancipation is through the continuation and advancement of the pessimistic tradition. To formulate new disillusioned theories of society, sociology ought to draw from its ignored tragic legacy.

Originality/value

Rather than accept accounts of classical sociologists as believers in progress, the tradition reveals a world of increasing disenchantment, atomization, anomie, alienation, confusion, quarrel, rationalization devoid of value, and unhappiness. Providing society thoughtful, systematic accounts of its own estrangement advances the project of modernity.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Dr. Soma Chaudhuri, Jennifer Kelly, and Cameron Whitley for helpful comments and criticisms of an earlier draft of this essay and Dr. Richard Machalek for helpful conversations regarding Pareto, Spencer, and Veblen. Special thanks to Dr. David Ashley for his gloomy Nietzschean-Marxist lectures, which inspired and stirred countless students.

Citation

Gunderson, R. (2013), "Recovering a disillusioned modernism: The enlightened pessimism of classical sociology", Social Theories of History and Histories of Social Theory (Current Perspectives in Social Theory, Vol. 31), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 129-159. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0278-1204(2013)0000031003

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2013 Emerald Group Publishing Limited