- Boston, Massachusetts, United States
- Research Methodology, Epistemology, Medical Sociology, Infectious Diseases, Frankfurt School, Critical Theory, and 14 morePolitical Sociology, Populism, Philosophy of Social Science, Mental Health, Populismo, Biopower and Biopolitics, Film and Media Studies, Michel Foucault, Global and Comparative Sociology, Postcolonial Studies, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Media Studies, and Critical Discourse Analysisedit
In this article, we argue that critique and emancipation are two unavoidable horizons for popular education and social movements. As epistemological foundations of social theory, critique and emancipation shed light on the theoretical and... more
In this article, we argue that critique and emancipation are two unavoidable horizons for popular education and social movements. As epistemological foundations of social theory, critique and emancipation shed light on the theoretical and practical tasks of progressive social struggles in contemporary society. We reconstruct the historical and political roots of critical philosophical frameworks embedding the denunciation of the current distress, as well as the prospects to overcome it, in order to establish a normative conceptual scheme for social movements with an emphasis on popular education.
In this article, we analyze the role of conspiracy theories, especially the spread of QAnon during the COVID-19 pandemics, in the legitimation crisis and epistemic crisis in contemporary democracies. We discuss Habermas’ theory of... more
In this article, we analyze the role of conspiracy theories, especially the spread of QAnon during the COVID-19 pandemics, in the legitimation crisis and epistemic crisis in contemporary democracies. We discuss Habermas’ theory of legitimation crisis and the potential for reactionary movements in times of such crisis, as well as Hofstadter’s description of the paranoid style in political culture. We explain the notion of ‘epistemic crisis’ as theorized by Larry Laudan and discussed recently in relation to social media. We discuss anti-intellectualism in Hofstadter’s terms, and explain its connection with populism. Finally, we explain how all of this comes to bear on the contemporary proliferation of conspiracy theory, using QAnon and the COVID crisis as our point of reference, and examples from the United States and Brazil to illustrate our points. QAnon fueled COVID-19 conspiracy theories, and COVID-19 conspiracy theories rocketed QAnon to a place of major influence.
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This chapter portrays dialectically intertwined issues of alienation (in the Frommian sense of estrangement from self and others), abnormality, anxiety, and authenticity. Giddens theorizes that modern society is undergoing a... more
This chapter portrays dialectically intertwined issues of alienation (in the Frommian sense of estrangement from self and others), abnormality, anxiety, and authenticity. Giddens theorizes that modern society is undergoing a ‘transformation of intimacy’, where love and sex are freed from patriarchal traditions, and people increasingly value ‘pure relationships’ where authentic connection is the only motive and can be fully realised. We claim that this desire for authenticity extends beyond this in the society of the selfie, the persistent unrequited thirst for it directly clashes with the alienated status quo. ‘Authenticity strain’ haunts the social terrain with loneliness, anomie, and the threat of volatility and transgression of personal boundaries. The desire for authenticity, and the moral sense that surrounds it, dovetail with the frustrated voyeurism of life under the spectacle in the age of Web 2.0. Fromm says that the inability to genuinely connect with other people can insp...
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This introduction highlights the meaning of the digital in contemporary capitalism with the pervasive presence of digital interactions and the collapse of the dualism between ‘the real’ and ‘the virtual’. The chapter also discusses the... more
This introduction highlights the meaning of the digital in contemporary capitalism with the pervasive presence of digital interactions and the collapse of the dualism between ‘the real’ and ‘the virtual’. The chapter also discusses the methodological guidelines and the book’s commitment with a critical theory of the society of the selfie.
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We tie together and explicate the political implications of the trends discussed in previous chapters. For Fromm, sadomasochistic desires are bred from modern alienation, and these desires can fuel authoritarian social movements. For... more
We tie together and explicate the political implications of the trends discussed in previous chapters. For Fromm, sadomasochistic desires are bred from modern alienation, and these desires can fuel authoritarian social movements. For Foucault, modern authoritarianism (and genocide) is fed by the idea that the state needs to protect the normal majority from the abnormal minority (biopolitics). Giddens says in ‘late modernity’ people distrust experts, long for authenticity, lose concern with morality and fixate on avoiding risk. With the rise of global social networks, there is also a lot of reaction against globalisation. Facing porous national boundaries, many people push back against multiculturalism, seeing it as a threat to their social order. Providing examples from different countries, we describe how in other, more direct ways, social media plays into authoritarian populist ends that subvert liberal democracy. We suggest that when political leaders use Twitter and Facebook the...
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Digital networks have unified contemporary geoculture around market expansion and the spectacle. The society of the selfie, as a sociotechnical complex that has emerged from the capitalist transformations since the 1980s, is the... more
Digital networks have unified contemporary geoculture around market expansion and the spectacle. The society of the selfie, as a sociotechnical complex that has emerged from the capitalist transformations since the 1980s, is the quintessence of a new structure for human relatedness. The introduction of new communication technologies always works in two directions at once—we become more connected in some ways, more alienated in others. The story of Web 2.0 and the discontents of the society of the selfie are, in this sense, a different genre of the same basic tendency. The society of the selfie is not the cause of this widespread immiseration, but it is historically inseparable from it, and in some significant ways contributes to the social changes and dislocations that authoritarian movements react against with their militant retrotopic visions. Yet the desire for progressive change to a more inclusive, egalitarian form of society is influenced by the same dislocations and crises th...
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Developing a theory for the remote audiences of digital networks, we dialogue with social psychology and social theory to describe a novel form of communication that is delivered to everyone and no one at the same time. This is the... more
Developing a theory for the remote audiences of digital networks, we dialogue with social psychology and social theory to describe a novel form of communication that is delivered to everyone and no one at the same time. This is the invisible audience. At the same time as people express themselves to a generalized, invisible audience over social media, the ‘everyone’ of this invisible audience is often narrowed in a very specific way: echo chamber effects. The invisible audience and echo chamber effects both reinforce a solipsistic horizon for every person, and these individual horizons come partially together under echo chamber effects, constituting a multiplicity of separate ‘homophilic assemblages’ characterized by normative and political alignment, one-dimensional communication, and black-and-white thinking. We call this a ‘splitting public sphere’. On the whole, rational debate is curtailed, under the reign of soundbites, memes, and angry venting. The lack of exposure to reasone...
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This book explores how the Internet is connected to the global crisis of liberal democracy. Today, self-promotion is at the heart of many human relationships. The selfie is not just a social media gesture people love to hate. It is also a... more
This book explores how the Internet is connected to the global crisis of liberal democracy. Today, self-promotion is at the heart of many human relationships. The selfie is not just a social media gesture people love to hate. It is also a symbol of social reality in the age of the Internet. Through social media people have new ways of rating and judging themselves and one another, via metrics such as likes, shares, followers and friends. There are new thirsts for authenticity, outlets for verbal aggression, and social problems. Social media culture and neoliberalism dovetail and amplify one another, feeding social estrangement. With neoliberalism, psychosocial wounds are agitated and authoritarianism is provoked. Yet this new sociality also inspires resistance and political mobilisation. Illustrating ideas and trends with examples from news and popular culture, the book outlines and applies theories from Debord, Foucault, Fromm, Goffman, and Giddens, among others. Topics covered inc...
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A vida adulta é geralmente associada ao trabalho duro, em contraste com a infância e a velhice, associadas à brincadeira e ao lazer. Argumentamos que as normas dessa ideia de vida adulta bloqueiam a eudaimonia. Winnicott considerou a... more
A vida adulta é geralmente associada ao trabalho duro, em contraste com a infância e a velhice, associadas à brincadeira e ao lazer. Argumentamos que as normas dessa ideia de vida adulta bloqueiam a eudaimonia. Winnicott considerou a habilidade de brincar não apenas um critério da saúde mental (com sua falta indicando a doença), mas uma necessidade essencial de vida. Fromm considerou a realização conectada de relacionamento autêntico, trabalho produtivo, criatividade e espontaneidade como o caminho para a satisfação das necessidades psíquicas. Quando contrariadas, essas necessidades se manifestam em várias tendências neuróticas. Analisamos a capacidade de o trabalho burocraticamente padronizado facilitar o desenvolvimento do trabalhador à luz dessas considerações. Em algumas empresas, abordagens pós-fordistas de gestão têm sido usadas para navegar na tensão entre funcionamento autônomo e controle gerencial na criação de um ambiente propício à criatividade. Embora essa nova tendência...
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In this article, we offer a critical social analysis of crisis in light of capitalist development and, above all, in the post-2008 world. We discuss five approaches in the social sciences that deal with the problem of crisis and develop... more
In this article, we offer a critical social analysis of crisis in light of capitalist development and, above all, in the post-2008 world. We discuss five approaches in the social sciences that deal with the problem of crisis and develop some theoretical lines for a critical approach to the theme. We argue that precarity can be an important topic for grasping the current crises via critical approaches. The text also presents the six articles that are part of the issue we edited for Praktyka Teoretyczna entitled “Latency of the crisis.”
We apply Brown’s Foucauldian framework on neoliberalism to the COVID-19 crisis in the UK, and use qualitative content analysis to interpret the moral logics within 32 of Boris Johnson’s public statements on COVID-19. We present the... more
We apply Brown’s Foucauldian framework on neoliberalism to the COVID-19 crisis in the UK, and use qualitative content analysis to interpret the moral logics within 32 of Boris Johnson’s public statements on COVID-19. We present the content analysis in six parts. For the first four parts, we apply four elements of Brown’s framework: economization, governance, responsibilization, and sacrifice. Next, we explain two other moral logics—utilitarian and sympathetic. Johnson’s condensation of logics contains ideological connotations: neoliberal rationality serves the mass of people and the purpose of sympathy. Within Brown’s conceptual framework, the problem is not just the domination of the market, but the logic that grants the market legitimation as a human-centered logic. The adjustment we suggest is in recognizing the human-centered aspect as not a veneer for neoliberalism, but rather as a collection of disparate moral logics, combined with them smoothly on the surface, but messily und...
This chapter discusses the nexus between digital networks and neoliberal transformations since the 1980s. We describe how on social media, people orient around a variety of metrics in order to build and display their ‘human capital’,... more
This chapter discusses the nexus between digital networks and neoliberal transformations since the 1980s. We describe how on social media, people orient around a variety of metrics in order to build and display their ‘human capital’, projecting their preferred electronic doubles of themselves in order to gain desired recognition from others, and in many cases to network and showcase a ‘professional’ identity directly in the interests of career advancement. We discuss this in light of a theory of ‘neoliberal impression management’, which we introduce in reference to the ideas of Erich Fromm, Erving Goffman, and Michel Foucault. In our theory of neoliberal impression management, a person forges a spectacular self through which their actions and interactions are displayed in ‘public’ view. In doing this, they also amass publicly viewable metrics (likes, shares, followers, etc.) that suggest an ‘objective’ value. This cultural development moves toward self-centeredness, narcissism, and ...
The chapter presents a historical account and a first theoretical approach on the rise of the society of the selfie. Our historical exposition concerns the global spread of the material and cultural developments of capitalist society,... more
The chapter presents a historical account and a first theoretical approach on the rise of the society of the selfie. Our historical exposition concerns the global spread of the material and cultural developments of capitalist society, including the recent rise of the digital and Web 2.0. In Wallerstein’s concept of ‘geoculture’, the world-system is not just economic; the culture of modern capitalism is extended into regions when and where the global market extends. Using this framework, in chapter 1 we focus on the place of communication technologies in the global economic and cultural changes from the Industrial Revolution to the present. Describing these changes, we explore Guy Debord’s theory of ‘the spectacle.’ In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the rise of information technologies and the World Wide Web dovetailed with neoliberalism and spectacular capitalism, amplifying a cultural trend already well under way: the movement away from substance and depth, toward images, ...
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Adulthood is often associated with hard work, in contrast to childhood and later life, which are associated with play and leisure. We argue that the norms that frame adulthood narrowly in hard work hinder eudaimonia. Winnicott deemed the... more
Adulthood is often associated with hard work, in contrast to childhood and later life, which are associated with play and leisure. We argue that the norms that frame adulthood narrowly in hard work hinder eudaimonia. Winnicott deemed the ability to play a criterion of mental health and an essential need of living. Fromm associated authentic relatedness, productive work, creativity, and spontaneity with fulfilment of psychic needs, which when thwarted, manifest in various neuroses. In some workplaces, post-Fordist approaches of management are used to navigate between autonomous functioning and managerial control and facilitate creativity. While this trend is a step forward, the change is too circumscribed, and the emphasis on productivity hinders its benefits. Eudaimonia is best realized when treated as important in itself. Fromm and Winnicott argued for grasping what it means to live fully, rather than stopping our understanding at the absence of illness.
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In: Morelock, Jeremiah. How to Critique Authoritarian Populism. Leiden: Brill, 2021. (Studies in Critical Social Sciences Series, dir. David Fasenfest)
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Sociological theory has backed itself into a corner under both positivist and relativist dogmas. A metatheoretical lens that supports the selective and critical use of multiple perspectives might be helpful. Nietzsche’s perspectivalism... more
Sociological theory has backed itself into a corner under both positivist and relativist dogmas. A metatheoretical lens that supports the selective and critical use of multiple perspectives might be helpful. Nietzsche’s perspectivalism and Adorno’s negative dialectics both point in this direction. While both thinkers are well known for being critical and iconoclastic in their diagnoses of Enlightenment rationality, they also both offer positive depictions of how a liberated and liberating alternate kind of philosophy might operate. In this paper I bring together their epistemologies, centering on Nietzsche’s theories of error and perspectives, and Adorno’s theories of speculation and constellations. My exploration involves two areas of interpretive tweaking. For the first area, I suggest that their epistemologies can be interpreted less as ontological reflections on concrete objects and more as socially motivated metatheories about abstract objects pertaining to society. Second, I argue both theories have Heraclitean conceptions of becoming which include atemporal dimensions.
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Praktyka Teoretyczna, 2021. Call for papers available at: https://www.praktykateoretyczna.pl/call-for-papers/cfp-42021-latency-crisis-globalization-subjectivity-and-resistance/ Institutional website:... more
Praktyka Teoretyczna, 2021.
Call for papers available at:
https://www.praktykateoretyczna.pl/call-for-papers/cfp-42021-latency-crisis-globalization-subjectivity-and-resistance/
Institutional website:
https://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/prt/index
Call for papers available at:
https://www.praktykateoretyczna.pl/call-for-papers/cfp-42021-latency-crisis-globalization-subjectivity-and-resistance/
Institutional website:
https://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/prt/index
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Prefácio - Grigoris Markou Quarta capa - Luiz Ramiro Jr. Fruto de uma conferência conjunta proferida na Unesp em 2018, o livro de Jeremiah Morelock e Felipe Ziotti Narita enfrenta diretamente a questão do populismo, que voltou a ganhar... more
Prefácio - Grigoris Markou
Quarta capa - Luiz Ramiro Jr.
Fruto de uma conferência conjunta proferida na Unesp em 2018, o livro de Jeremiah Morelock e Felipe Ziotti Narita enfrenta diretamente a questão do populismo, que voltou a ganhar destaque nas ciências sociais e no debate público. Os autores propõem uma reflexão multidirecional que agrupa temas a respeito de identidade, polarização, mobilização, poder e autoritarismo. A obra, então, discute os problemas de representação nas democracias liberais contemporâneas e destaca como as figurações de "o povo" produzem legitimação na arena política. Por meio de uma análise não-determinista do populismo, o livro destaca a dinâmica variada do fenômeno e suas relações ambivalentes com a democracia, tendo em vista transformações e pressões culturais disseminadas no terreno social, ou seja, fora dos canais da política formal.
Quarta capa - Luiz Ramiro Jr.
Fruto de uma conferência conjunta proferida na Unesp em 2018, o livro de Jeremiah Morelock e Felipe Ziotti Narita enfrenta diretamente a questão do populismo, que voltou a ganhar destaque nas ciências sociais e no debate público. Os autores propõem uma reflexão multidirecional que agrupa temas a respeito de identidade, polarização, mobilização, poder e autoritarismo. A obra, então, discute os problemas de representação nas democracias liberais contemporâneas e destaca como as figurações de "o povo" produzem legitimação na arena política. Por meio de uma análise não-determinista do populismo, o livro destaca a dinâmica variada do fenômeno e suas relações ambivalentes com a democracia, tendo em vista transformações e pressões culturais disseminadas no terreno social, ou seja, fora dos canais da política formal.
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Jornal da USP / ISSN 2525-6009
08/01/2019
08/01/2019
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FREE DOWNLOAD of this chapter is available AT: https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/chapters/10.16997/book30.a/ One of the most famous messages from the Institute for Social Research is that liberal-democratic societies tend to move... more
FREE DOWNLOAD of this chapter is available AT:
https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/chapters/10.16997/book30.a/
One of the most famous messages from the Institute for Social Research is that liberal-democratic societies tend to move toward fascism. With the recent surge of far-Right populism throughout the West, this Frankfurt School warning reveals its prescience. Many other insights pertinent to authoritarian and populist trends are contained in their writings. The work of the early Frankfurt School demands concerted revisiting, and such is the purpose of the present volume, Critical Theory and Authoritarian Populism. Before providing an outline of its contents ‘Critical Theory and ‘authoritarian populism’ are defined as they are used in the chapter before providing a rough chronology of the early Frankfurt School, focusing on their writings about authoritarianism, prejudice and populism. Areas surveyed include early writings, theories of the Nazi state, working for the OSS in WWII, continuing potential for authoritarianism, empirical work in 1944-1951, Studies in Prejudice, Group Experiment, Marxism contra Stalinism, the university and the 1960s student movement.
https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/chapters/10.16997/book30.a/
One of the most famous messages from the Institute for Social Research is that liberal-democratic societies tend to move toward fascism. With the recent surge of far-Right populism throughout the West, this Frankfurt School warning reveals its prescience. Many other insights pertinent to authoritarian and populist trends are contained in their writings. The work of the early Frankfurt School demands concerted revisiting, and such is the purpose of the present volume, Critical Theory and Authoritarian Populism. Before providing an outline of its contents ‘Critical Theory and ‘authoritarian populism’ are defined as they are used in the chapter before providing a rough chronology of the early Frankfurt School, focusing on their writings about authoritarianism, prejudice and populism. Areas surveyed include early writings, theories of the Nazi state, working for the OSS in WWII, continuing potential for authoritarianism, empirical work in 1944-1951, Studies in Prejudice, Group Experiment, Marxism contra Stalinism, the university and the 1960s student movement.
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Tribalism is at the forefront of public discussion across the political spectrum in America today. Zombie stories have also risen to unprecedented popularity. Amid present-day racial, political, and otherwise tribal tensions, the story I... more
Tribalism is at the forefront of public discussion across the political spectrum in America today. Zombie stories have also risen to unprecedented popularity. Amid present-day racial, political, and otherwise tribal tensions, the story I Am Legend has particular resonance. As the original inspiration behind the modern zombie trope, it was published as a novella in 1954 and has been remade as a film multiple times, in 1964, 1971, and 2007. Using grounded theory, I explore each film regarding what moral attitudes are portrayed concerning confrontation between rival milieus. My findings center on four themes: identification, compassion, ambivalence, and condemnation. Overall, in chronological order, the different renditions of the story exhibit decreasing compassion for the other and decreasing ambivalence about relations with the other. The most dramatic change is between the 1971 and 2007 remakes. Implications for what the changes in the morals presented in the story might reflect in terms of social changes in America are discussed.
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Jornal da USP / ISSN 2525-6009
13/07/2018
13/07/2018
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A synergistic movement is taking place in American society combining authoritarian populism, the neoliberal transformation of the university, and anti-intellectualism. In the first part of this paper, I pin my notion of intellectualism... more
A synergistic movement is taking place in American society combining authoritarian populism, the neoliberal transformation of the university, and anti-intellectualism. In the first part of this paper, I pin my notion of intellectualism (and hence anti-intellectualism) to a specific frame of reference, namely the German notion of Bildung as it is discussed in writings of Nietzsche and Adorno, which I associate loosely with the traditional American liberal arts model of higher education. In the second part of the paper, I outline the neoliberal assault on the liberal arts, rooting my analysis in Wendy Brown's work, which is influenced by Foucault. In the third part of the paper, I describe the relationship of this anti-intellectualism to the rise of populism and the threat of authoritarianism in the United States. In the final section I tie the discussion into the general analysis of Horkheimer and Adorno's analysis of fascist tendencies in liberal-democracies, emphasizing the continued relevance of their ideas to contemporary developments in education and beyond.
RESUMO: Um movimento sinérgico está ocorrendo na sociedade norte-americana combinando populismo autoritário, transformação neoliberal da universidade e anti-intelectualismo. Na primeira parte deste artigo, proponho minha noção de intelectualismo (e, portanto, de anti-intelectualismo) a partir de um quadro específico de referência, especialmente a noçã alemã de Bildung (tal como discutida nos escritos de Nietzsche e Adorno) que eu associo livremente com o tradicional modelo de artes liberais norte-americano de ensino superior. Na segunda parte deste texto, destaco o assalto neoliberal sobre as artes liberais, fundamentando minha análise no trabalho de Wendy Brown, que é influenciada por Foucault. Na terceira parte do texto, descrevo a relação do anti-intelectualismo com a ascensão do populismo e a ameaça do autoritarismo nos Estados Unidos. Na seção final, relaciono a discussão com a análise geral de Horkheimer e Adorno sobre as tendências fasicstas nas demorcacias liberais, enfatizando a contínua
RESUMO: Um movimento sinérgico está ocorrendo na sociedade norte-americana combinando populismo autoritário, transformação neoliberal da universidade e anti-intelectualismo. Na primeira parte deste artigo, proponho minha noção de intelectualismo (e, portanto, de anti-intelectualismo) a partir de um quadro específico de referência, especialmente a noçã alemã de Bildung (tal como discutida nos escritos de Nietzsche e Adorno) que eu associo livremente com o tradicional modelo de artes liberais norte-americano de ensino superior. Na segunda parte deste texto, destaco o assalto neoliberal sobre as artes liberais, fundamentando minha análise no trabalho de Wendy Brown, que é influenciada por Foucault. Na terceira parte do texto, descrevo a relação do anti-intelectualismo com a ascensão do populismo e a ameaça do autoritarismo nos Estados Unidos. Na seção final, relaciono a discussão com a análise geral de Horkheimer e Adorno sobre as tendências fasicstas nas demorcacias liberais, enfatizando a contínua
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In this paper we suggest that older adults undergo a misalignment between societal age norms and personal lived experience, and attempt reconciliation through discursive strategies: They rewrite how they frame chronological age as well as... more
In this paper we suggest that older adults undergo a misalignment between societal age norms and personal lived experience, and attempt reconciliation through discursive strategies: They rewrite how they frame chronological age as well as their subjective relations to it. Using a sample of 4041 midlife and older adults from the 2004–2006 wave of the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS II), we explore associations of age and gender with subjective age and at what age respondents felt people enter later life. Our results confirm that as men and women age, they push up the age at which they think people enter later life, and slow down subjective aging (there is a growing gap between subjective and chronological age). Relations between a person's age and at what age they think people enter later life were stronger for men than for women. For every year they get older get older, men push up when they think people enter later life by 0.24 years, women by 0.16 years. Age norms surrounding the transition to later life may be more prominent for men than for women, and the difference in their tendencies to push up when they mark entry into later life may be a reflection of this greater prominence.
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An edited version of this was published in Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine (2016).
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A review of Bhambra's book "Connected Sociologies."
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Published in: Social Theory & Health (2016) 14: 436. doi:10.1057/s41285-016-0015-0 Mental health treatment providers today are subject to insurance company regulation. Using grounded theory to analyze 33 interviews of treatment... more
Published in:
Social Theory & Health (2016) 14: 436. doi:10.1057/s41285-016-0015-0
Mental health treatment providers today are subject to insurance company regulation. Using grounded theory to analyze 33 interviews of treatment providers, I portray this regulation as a form of surveillance that operates through discourse, and ask how treatment providers communicate with and through this system. My findings reveal that mental health treatment providers are required to deliver information to insurers within a rationalized medical discourse that is supposed to represent treatment, but is inadequate for the task. I argue this bureaucratic system demands that providers communicate with insurers in a distorted way. These findings are theorized in dialogue with Habermas’ communication typology and his theory of lifeworld colonization. I argue that the case of managed mental health care presents an arena of communication and colonization which is best suited by building from the Habermasian framework. Colonization occurs, yet within a specific channel of communication, despite pretensions of thoroughgoing colonization. Systematically generated communicative distortions occur, but often without necessarily involving self-deceptions or strategic private agendas. This paper contributes to Habermasian theory by suggesting it could be further elaborated upon to account for forms of colonization and distorted communication that occur in varied social contexts.
Social Theory & Health (2016) 14: 436. doi:10.1057/s41285-016-0015-0
Mental health treatment providers today are subject to insurance company regulation. Using grounded theory to analyze 33 interviews of treatment providers, I portray this regulation as a form of surveillance that operates through discourse, and ask how treatment providers communicate with and through this system. My findings reveal that mental health treatment providers are required to deliver information to insurers within a rationalized medical discourse that is supposed to represent treatment, but is inadequate for the task. I argue this bureaucratic system demands that providers communicate with insurers in a distorted way. These findings are theorized in dialogue with Habermas’ communication typology and his theory of lifeworld colonization. I argue that the case of managed mental health care presents an arena of communication and colonization which is best suited by building from the Habermasian framework. Colonization occurs, yet within a specific channel of communication, despite pretensions of thoroughgoing colonization. Systematically generated communicative distortions occur, but often without necessarily involving self-deceptions or strategic private agendas. This paper contributes to Habermasian theory by suggesting it could be further elaborated upon to account for forms of colonization and distorted communication that occur in varied social contexts.
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FREE DOWNLOAD of the full book and individual chapters are available at: https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book30/ After President Trump’s election, BREXIT and the widespread rise of far-Right political parties,... more
FREE DOWNLOAD of the full book and individual chapters are available at: https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book30/
After President Trump’s election, BREXIT and the widespread rise of far-Right political parties, much public discussion has intensely focused on populism and authoritarianism. In the middle of the twentieth century, members of the early Frankfurt School prolifically studied and theorized fascism and anti-Semitism in Germany and the United States. In this volume, leading European and American scholars apply insights from the early Frankfurt School to present-day authoritarian populism, including the Trump phenomenon and related developments across the globe. Chapters are arranged into three sections exploring different aspects of the topic: theories, historical foundations, and manifestations via social media. Contributions examine the vital political, psychological and anthropological theories of early Frankfurt School thinkers, and how their insights could be applied now amidst the insecurities and confusions of twenty-first century life. The many theorists considered include Adorno, Fromm, Löwenthal and Marcuse, alongside analysis of Austrian Facebook pages and Trump’s tweets and operatic media drama. This book is a major contribution towards deeper understanding of populism’s resurgence in the age of digital capitalism.
CONTENTS
Preface
Douglas Kellner
Introduction: The Frankfurt School and Authoritarian Populism – A Historical Outline
Jeremiah Morelock
Part 1: THEORIES OF AUTHORITARIANISM
1. Frankfurt School Critical Theory and the Persistence of Authoritarian Populism in the United States
John Abromeit
2. The Persistence of the Authoritarian Appeal: On Critical Theory as a Framework for Studying Populist Actors in European Democracies
Lars Rensmann
3. Understanding Right and Left Populism
Samir Gandesha
4. Donald Trump as Authoritarian Populist: A Frommian Analysis
Douglas Kellner
PART 2: FOUNDATIONS OF AUTHORITARIANISM
5. From Modernity to Bigotry
Stephen Eric Bronner
6. Opposing Authoritarian Populism: The Challenge and Necessity of a New World System
Charles Reitz
7. Public Sphere and World-System: Theorizing Populism at the Margins
Jeremiah Morelock and Felipe Ziotti Narita
Part 3: DIGITAL AUTHORITARIANISM
8. Racism, Nationalism and Right-Wing Extremism Online: The Austrian Presidential Election 2016 on Facebook
Christian Fuchs
9. Authoritarianism, Discourse and Social Media: Trump as the ‘American Agitator’
Panayota Gounari
10. Phantasmagoria and the Trump Opera
Forrest Muelrath
After President Trump’s election, BREXIT and the widespread rise of far-Right political parties, much public discussion has intensely focused on populism and authoritarianism. In the middle of the twentieth century, members of the early Frankfurt School prolifically studied and theorized fascism and anti-Semitism in Germany and the United States. In this volume, leading European and American scholars apply insights from the early Frankfurt School to present-day authoritarian populism, including the Trump phenomenon and related developments across the globe. Chapters are arranged into three sections exploring different aspects of the topic: theories, historical foundations, and manifestations via social media. Contributions examine the vital political, psychological and anthropological theories of early Frankfurt School thinkers, and how their insights could be applied now amidst the insecurities and confusions of twenty-first century life. The many theorists considered include Adorno, Fromm, Löwenthal and Marcuse, alongside analysis of Austrian Facebook pages and Trump’s tweets and operatic media drama. This book is a major contribution towards deeper understanding of populism’s resurgence in the age of digital capitalism.
CONTENTS
Preface
Douglas Kellner
Introduction: The Frankfurt School and Authoritarian Populism – A Historical Outline
Jeremiah Morelock
Part 1: THEORIES OF AUTHORITARIANISM
1. Frankfurt School Critical Theory and the Persistence of Authoritarian Populism in the United States
John Abromeit
2. The Persistence of the Authoritarian Appeal: On Critical Theory as a Framework for Studying Populist Actors in European Democracies
Lars Rensmann
3. Understanding Right and Left Populism
Samir Gandesha
4. Donald Trump as Authoritarian Populist: A Frommian Analysis
Douglas Kellner
PART 2: FOUNDATIONS OF AUTHORITARIANISM
5. From Modernity to Bigotry
Stephen Eric Bronner
6. Opposing Authoritarian Populism: The Challenge and Necessity of a New World System
Charles Reitz
7. Public Sphere and World-System: Theorizing Populism at the Margins
Jeremiah Morelock and Felipe Ziotti Narita
Part 3: DIGITAL AUTHORITARIANISM
8. Racism, Nationalism and Right-Wing Extremism Online: The Austrian Presidential Election 2016 on Facebook
Christian Fuchs
9. Authoritarianism, Discourse and Social Media: Trump as the ‘American Agitator’
Panayota Gounari
10. Phantasmagoria and the Trump Opera
Forrest Muelrath
Research Interests: Critical Theory, Critical Discourse Studies, Marxism, Frankfurt School (Philosophy), Herbert Marcuse, and 15 moreTheodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Fascism, Neo-Fascism, Political Extremism/Radicalism/Populism, Populism, Social Media, Critical Discourse Analysis, Media Discourse, Ideology and Discourse Analysis, Western Marxism, Frankfurt School, Authoritarianism, Political Discourse, and Extreme and Far Right
Research Interests:
Adulthood is often associated with hard work, in contrast to childhood and later life, which are associated with play and leisure. We argue that the norms that frame adulthood narrowly in hard work, instead of including play and leisure,... more
Adulthood is often associated with hard work, in contrast to childhood and later life, which are associated with play and leisure. We argue that the norms that frame adulthood narrowly in hard work, instead of including play and leisure, hinder eudaimonia. Winnicott famously deemed the ability to play not just a constituent criterion of mental health (with a lack being indicative of illness) but an essential need of living. Fromm deemed the connected realisation of authentic relatedness, productive work, creativity, and spontaneity as the road to fulfilment of psychic needs; when thwarted, these needs manifest in various neurotic tendencies. We take their ideas to examine the capacity of bureaucratically standardised work and workplaces to facilitate the worker’s flourishing. In some organisations, post-Fordist approaches of management have been used to navigate the tension between autonomous functioning and managerial control to create an environment conducive for creativity. While the new corporate trend is an important step forward, the change is thus far too circumscribed, and the dominant emphasis on “productivity” sours and hinders its benefits. Eudaimonia is best realized when it is treated as important in its own right, not just for enhancing worker output. Both Fromm and Winnicott wanted us to not stop at understanding what it means to be mentally healthy but rather grasp what it means to be truly and humanly alive.
Research Interests:
The early Frankfurt School were pioneers of interdisciplinary social science, bringing together ideas from philosophy, sociology, and psychoanalysis to examine the woes of capitalist society in an expansive and integrated way that bridged... more
The early Frankfurt School were pioneers of interdisciplinary social science, bringing together ideas from philosophy, sociology, and psychoanalysis to examine the woes of capitalist society in an expansive and integrated way that bridged micro and macro levels of analysis. In the same broad theories, they addressed capital accumulation, dialectics, epistemology, alienation, the social psychology of fascism, popular culture, and the liberatory potentials of aesthetic experience, among other things. Prolific and innovative, the Frankfurt School continues to inspire many among the political Left, and they remain well worth consulting even 90 years later. Yet in the contemporary period, Leftist theory must at least dialogue meaningfully with issues of sex, gender, and feminism. The Frankfurt School are not known for doing this, and in this respect, they tend to fall out of favor with thinkers who are specifically concerned about questions of sex, gender, sexuality, and feminist thought. For this reason, scholars of the Frankfurt School and scholars of feminist theory tend to be different scholars, and their academic clusters of affiliation are typically alienated from one another. In the interests of building genuine and productive academic dialogue, as well as in the interests of building a more informed, comprehensive, unified Left, this divide is very problematic. It is also unnecessary. While the Frankfurt School did not focus much on issues of sex, gender and feminism, they did write on these issues, and when they did, their allegiances were clearly in alliance with feminist precepts. In other of their theories, the extension beyond their focus to issues of feminist concern is a very small, very easy stretch. In other cases, their ideas, insightful as they were, would benefit from the insights of feminist theorists. Reciprocally, the power of the early Frankfurt School could be an enormous intellectual asset to understanding sex and gender relations and serving movements for women's empowerment-if they could be productively and critically synthesized with current feminist theories and insights. We are interested in articles for the volume that do one of more of the following: a) Articulate and explore ideas from the early Frankfurt School that were explicitly focused on sex, gender, sexuality, or feminism b) Apply ideas from the early Frankfurt School to a new focus on sex, gender, sexuality, or feminism c) Bring ideas from the early Frankfurt School into productive dialogue with feminist theory
Research Interests:
In this article, we analyze the role of conspiracy theories, especially the spread of QAnon during the COVID-19 pandemics, in the legitimation crisis and epistemic crisis in contemporary democracies. We discuss Habermas' theory of... more
In this article, we analyze the role of conspiracy theories, especially the spread of QAnon during the COVID-19 pandemics, in the legitimation crisis and epistemic crisis in contemporary democracies. We discuss Habermas' theory of legitimation crisis and the potential for reactionary movements in times of such crisis, as well as Hofstadter's description of the paranoid style in political culture. We explain the notion of 'epistemic crisis' as theorized by Larry Laudan and discussed recently in relation to social media. We discuss anti-intellectualism in Hofstadter's terms, and explain its connection with populism. Finally, we explain how all of this comes to bear on the contemporary proliferation of conspiracy theory, using QAnon and the COVID crisis as our point of reference, and examples from the United States and Brazil to illustrate our points. QAnon fueled COVID-19 conspiracy theories, and COVID-19 conspiracy theories rocketed QAnon to a place of major influence.