… work in progress in social theory and cultural sociology

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When talking about consumerism in the context of religion and critiques of capitalism, the standard approach is to portray it as some sort of adoration of a golden calf. Both theologians and critical social scientists are quick to liken consumerism to religion – and they are equally quick to point out that it is a ...

Seen the Lego movie – fascinating! What at first side comes across like a full endorsement of Adorno’s critique of the culture industry (produced by the culture industry itself) and paints an image of a totalitarian capitalism that has lost its creative edge (represented by the evil Lord Business) ends in a hug between the ...

random association: Marxism: ‘While individual consumption consumes use-values as the means of subsistence of the living individual, productive consumption consumes as “the means whereby labour, the labour-power of the living individual, is enabled to act”. In order to maintain the products of past labour in their objective existence as use-values, it is necessary for them ...

playing with the allusions to Dickens’ Christmas Carol when writing on the ghosts of capitalism – I found this interesting: http://roarmag.org/2013/12/everyday-communism-christmas-dickens/   ...

The unacknowledged but pervasive tension and dishonest mingling of ultra-determinist historical materialism and hyperactive voluntarism/subjectivism has been shown to be a hallmark of the totalitarian turn in Leninism, Stalinism. According to Leo Kofler this particularly shows when things don’t go to plan ‚Das Hinüberschieben der Schuld für das Mißlingen der bürokratischen Pläne auf die Schulter ...

Not really – but his Calvinist background clearly shows – as for example in his seemingly square and unromantic condemnation of unproductivity he deploys in his prize-winning rant against the arts and sciences that  kick-started his career as a writer « Si nos sciences sont vaines dans l’objet qu’elles se proposent, elles sont encore plus dangereuses ...

This passage from Horkheimer and Adorno’s 1944 Dialektik der Aufklärung sounds very much as if written as a comment on the views of the of the world’s financial centre’s mayor. ‚Hierzulande gibt es keinen Unterschied zwischen dem wirtschaftlichen Schicksal und den Menschen selbst. Keiner ist etwas anderes als sein Vermögen, sein Einkommen, seine Stellung, seine ...

Max Weber has, again and again, been built up as main example for how modern sociology is rationalistic and works on a strict Cartesian mind/body dualism. And of course – if you seek to demonstrate how your new theory goes beyond the sociological tradition which from the start has ignored the body, non-human agency, emotions ...

… not sure we’re following this maxim enough in contemporary social science teaching… ‘The primary task of a useful teacher is to teach his students to recognize “inconvenient” facts – I mean facts that are inconvenient for their party opinions. And for every party opinion there are facts that are extremely inconvenient, for my opinion ...