Andrew Simon Gilbert

Daniel Bell’s The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism lies at the intersection of the three main theoretical currents of sociological thought, those of Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim and Max Weber. His ‘three realms’ methodology moves away from deterministic accounts that subordinate the political and cultural to the economic realm. By granting each realm an autonomy and principles of their own, Bell locates the contradictions of capitalism in the friction between them. With constant innovation, individual expressiveness and libertarian social values becoming forces in-and-of-themselves, prevailing social structures and the roles within them are left looking increasingly incoherent, illegitimate and meaningless. Likewise, the shift from Protestant asceticism to modernist hedonism creates a sharp tension between the demand for a disciplined and responsible workforce and the demand for economic growth through unrestrained and instantly gratifying consumerism. The result is a complex of crisis scenarios which were manifest with the end of the post-war boom. However, as other commentators have pointed out, Bell’s prophetic theses often seem to fail under the light of subsequent history

Recent scholarship has drawn on Koselleck’s methods of conceptual history and his diagnosis of ‘crisis’ in modernity to make sense of 21st-century developments in political, social and economic life and thought. This review essay looks at two texts that, in different ways, test Koselleck’s ideas in challenging and innovative ways. Lara’s use of conceptual history to shed light on the debates over secularization demonstrates how concepts become central to struggles over the definition of politics – definitions which thereafter disclose the possibilities and set the agenda for future political action. Roitman continues Koselleck’s interest in the concept of crisis and shows how conceptual history can be used to sharpen our awareness of undisclosed content and theoretical blind spots. Both show how conceptual history serves as a ‘semantic check’ on political concepts, demanding greater reflexivity and the setting of realistic political goals.

This book examines how 20th century theorists have used a discourse of “crisis” to frame their conceptualizations of modernity. Through an investigation of four key thinkers (Georg Lukács, Hannah Arendt, Reinhart Koselleck and Jürgen Habermas), Gilbert argues that scholars in the social sciences and humanities should be cautious of treating crises as explananda for research. Instead, the book calls for sociological analysis of the role of “crisis” within social scientific discourse, and examines how “crisis” has been used as a conceptual frame for legitimating theoretical agendas. Gilbert’s “sociology of concepts” approach presents crisis as a paradigm of modern thought, and, more generally, reflects on how concepts can become the carriers of diverse intellectual traditions and debates. The Crisis Paradigm will be of interest to students and scholars of social and critical theory, politics, sociology and history, as well as those working in the fields of media studies, communication and discourse analysis.

This article explores some of the concerns which are being raised about algorithms with recourse to Habermas’s theory of communicative action. The intention is not to undertake an empirical examination of ‘algorithms’ or their consequences but to connect critical theory to some contemporary concerns regarding digital cultures. Habermas’s ‘colonization of life-worlds’ thesis gives theoretical expression to two different trends which underlie many current criticisms of the insidious influence of digital algorithms: the privatization of communication, and the particularization of knowledge and experience. Habermas’s social theory therefore offers a useful framework for exploring some of the normative and political problems that are attributed to ‘algorithmic culture’ and ‘big data’.