The Concept of Society in the 21st Century

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Preface

This book is not a work of futurology,¹ and in particular it is not about the prospect that human beings might cease to live in a social way. Such a prospect is inconceivable. The question is rather about the nature of our social relations, and whether these relations continue and will continue to be shaped by processes and ideas centered on what people came to call society or societies. This use of the term “society” dates from around the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe; it has a beginning, and therefore might also have an end.

Since around the last third of the twentieth century there has been a growing sense that the concept of society is in danger of obsolescence;

some would say it is already obsolete. It has always been a problematic term, and in the late twentieth and early twentyﬁrst centuries it has been exposed to a new wave of critical attacks. Neo-liberals have polemically denie d its existence: Margaret Thatcher famously claimed in 1987 that “There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.”²

Postmodern theorists, notably Jean Baudrillard, have announced the dissolution of society into vaguer notions of “the masses,”³ and theorists of globalization such as John Urry have argued the concept of society cannot survive the eclipse of the nation-state which was its implicit basis.⁴ Evolutionary psychology and evolutionary sociology have suggested the replacement of the human model of society with conceptions more continuous with the social patterns of other animal species. Finally, more judicious commentators have traced the rise and fall of “society” as a concept in the social sciences (Peter Wagner) or its “forgetting” (Michel Freitag), and others have explored ways of avoiding it (Thomas Schwinn) or reformulating it (François Dubet and Danilo Martuccelli).⁵ The concept of so ciety, and perhaps society itself, are, to borrow the title of Zygmunt Bauman’s recent book (2002), “under siege.”⁶ Paradoxically, however, we have seen at the same time a revival of uncritical notions of “the” economy, community, the polity, governance, democracy, and so on.

This book traces some of these controversies, arguing that, as Mark Twain said of newspaper reports of his death, reports of the death of society have been greatly exaggerated. We still live, I shall argue, in something that can

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usefully be called society, and we participate in interlocked societies at various levels. Our societies are different from animal societies in very many ways, but one important difference is that we have come to have relatively explicit representations of our societies which help to sustain them.⁷ Society in the singular, conceived as a particular form of association or sociation, I shall argue, is not just an idea, a collective representation in Emile Durkheim’s sense, but it is also that, as well, and the representation forms an important part of its reality and its causal powers.

We have not always thought about society in this rather abstract way, and t he ﬁrst chapter of this book explores the emergence of the concept of society. I then move on to examine various overlapping critiques of the concept of society, before considering ways in which we can construct a defensible concept of society (and civil society) and apply them to aspects of contemporary reality, notably the ongoing process of European integration.

Acknowledgements

I have presented versions of this argument at the University of Sussex, including the 2001 meeting of the International Consortium of Social Theory Programs, at the Universities of Brighton and Kent, at University College, Dublin, and the European University Institute in Florence. My thanks to all those who contributed at these sessions; John Holmwood and Peter Wagner, in particular, have heard this more often than is reasonable. Thanks also to Daniel Chernilo for some exceptionally helpful comments on a draft of this manuscript, and to the anonymous readers for Blackwell. Also to Laura Marcus, whose conversation with my old friend Andrew McNeillie led to the proposal for this book, and to Ken Provencher of Blackwell, for whom this is my third book.

Preface

This book is not a work of futurology,⁸ and in particular it is not about the prospect that human beings might cease to live in a social way. Such a prospect is inconceivable. The question is rather about the nature of our social relations, and whether these relations continue and will continue to be shaped by processes and ideas centered on what people came to call society or societies. This use of the term “society” dates from around the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe; it has a beginning, and therefore might also have an end.

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some would say it is already obsolete. It has always been a problematic term, and in the late twentieth and early twentyﬁrst centuries it has been exposed to a new wave of critical attacks. Neo-liberals have polemically denie d its existence: Margaret Thatcher famously claimed in 1987 that “There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.”⁹

Postmodern theorists, notably Jean Baudrillard, have announced the dissolution of society into vaguer notions of “the masses,”¹⁰ and theorists of globalization such as John Urry have argued the concept of society cannot survive the eclipse of the nation-state which was its implicit basis.¹¹ Evolutionary psychology and evolutionary sociology have suggested the replacement of the human model of society with conceptions more continuous with the social patterns of other animal species. Finally, more judicious commentators have traced the rise and fall of “society” as a concept in the social sciences (Peter Wagner) or its “forgetting” (Michel Freitag), and others have explored ways of avoiding it (Thomas Schwinn) or reformulating it (François Dubet and Danilo Martuccelli).¹² The concept of society, and perhaps society itself, are, to borrow the title of Zygmunt Bauman’s recent book (2002), “under siege.”¹³ Paradoxically, however, we have seen at the same time a revival of uncritical notions of “the” economy, community, the polity, governance, democracy, and so on.

This book traces some of these controversies, arguing that, as Mark Twain said of newspaper reports of his death, reports of the death of society have been greatly exaggerated. We still live, I shall argue, in something that can usefully be called society, and we participate in interlocked societies at various levels. Our societies are different from animal societies in very many ways, but one important difference is that we have come to have relatively explicit representations of our societies which help to sustain them.¹⁴ Society in the singular, conceived as a particular form of association or sociation, I shall argue, is not just an idea, a collective representation in Emile Durkheim’s sense, but it is also that, as well, and the representation forms an important part of its reality and its causal powers.

We have not always thought about society in this rather abstract way, and t he ﬁrst chapter of this book explores the emergence of the concept of society. I then move on to examine various overlapping critiques of the

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concept of society, before considering ways in which we can construct a defensible concept of society (and civil society) and apply them to aspects of contemporary reality, notably the ongoing process of European integration.

Acknowledgements

Preface

This book is not a work of futurology,¹⁵ and in particular it is not about the prospect that human beings might cease to live in a social way. Such a prospect is inconceivable. The question is rather about the nature of our social relations, and whether these relations continue and will continue to be shaped by processes and ideas centered on what people came to call society or societies. This use of the term “society” dates from around the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe; it has a beginning, and therefore might also have an end.

some would say it is already obsolete. It has always been a problematic term, and in the late twentieth and early twentyﬁrst centuries it has been exposed to a new wave of critical attacks. Neo-liberals have polemically denie d its existence: Margaret Thatcher famously claimed in 1987 that “There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.”¹⁶

Postmodern theorists, notably Jean Baudrillard, have announced the dissolution of society into vaguer notions of “the masses,”¹⁷ and theorists of globalization such as John Urry have argued the concept of society cannot

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survive the eclipse of the nation-state which was its implicit basis.¹⁸ Evolutionary psychology and evolutionary sociology have suggested the replacement of the human model of society with conceptions more continuous with the social patterns of other animal species. Finally, more judicious commentators have traced the rise and fall of “society” as a concept in the social sciences (Peter Wagner) or its “forgetting” (Michel Freitag), and others have explored ways of avoiding it (Thomas Schwinn) or reformulating it (François Dubet and Danilo Martuccelli).¹⁹ The concept of society, and perhaps society itself, are, to borrow the title of Zygmunt Bauman’s recent book (2002), “under siege.”²⁰ Paradoxically, however, we have seen at the same time a revival of uncritical notions of “the” economy, community, the polity, governance, democracy, and so on.

This book traces some of these controversies, arguing that, as Mark Twain said of newspaper reports of his death, reports of the death of society have been greatly exaggerated. We still live, I shall argue, in something that can usefully be called society, and we participate in interlocked societies at various levels. Our societies are different from animal societies in very many ways, but one important difference is that we have come to have relatively explicit representations of our societies which help to sustain them.²¹ Society in the singular, conceived as a particular form of association or sociation, I shall argue, is not just an idea, a collective representation in Emile Durkheim’s sense, but it is also that, as well, and the representation forms an important part of its reality and its causal powers.

Acknowledgements

I have presented versions of this argument at the University of Sussex, including the 2001 meeting of the International Consortium of Social Theory Programs, at the Universities of Brighton and Kent, at University College, Dublin, and the European University Institute in Florence. My thanks to all those who contributed at these sessions; John Holmwood and Peter Wagner,

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in particular, have heard this more often than is reasonable. Thanks also to Daniel Chernilo for some exceptionally helpful comments on a draft of this manuscript, and to the anonymous readers for Blackwell. Also to Laura Marcus, whose conversation with my old friend Andrew McNeillie led to the proposal for this book, and to Ken Provencher of Blackwell, for whom this is my third book.

Preface

This book is not a work of futurology,²² and in particular it is not about the prospect that human beings might cease to live in a social way. Such a prospect is inconceivable. The question is rather about the nature of our social relations, and whether these relations continue and will continue to be shaped by processes and ideas centered on what people came to call society or societies. This use of the term “society” dates from around the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe; it has a beginning, and therefore might also have an end.

some would say it is already obsolete. It has always been a problematic term, and in the late twentieth and early twentyﬁrst centuries it has been exposed to a new wave of critical attacks. Neo-liberals have polemically denie d its existence: Margaret Thatcher famously claimed in 1987 that “There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.”²³

Postmodern theorists, notably Jean Baudrillard, have announced the dissolution of society into vaguer notions of “the masses,”²⁴ and theorists of globalization such as John Urry have argued the concept of society cannot survive the eclipse of the nation-state which was its implicit basis.²⁵ Evolutionary psychology and evolutionary sociology have suggested the replacement of the human model of society with conceptions more continuous with the social patterns of other animal species. Finally, more judicious commentators have traced the rise and fall of “society” as a concept in the social sciences (Peter Wagner) or its “forgetting” (Michel Freitag), and others have explored ways of avoiding it (Thomas Schwinn) or reformulating it (François Dubet and Danilo Martuccelli).²⁶ The concept of society, and perhaps society itself, are, to borrow the title of Zygmunt

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Bauman’s recent book (2002), “under siege.”²⁷ Paradoxically, however, we have seen at the same time a revival of uncritical notions of “the” economy, community, the polity, governance, democracy, and so on.

This book traces some of these controversies, arguing that, as Mark Twain said of newspaper reports of his death, reports of the death of society have been greatly exaggerated. We still live, I shall argue, in something that can usefully be called society, and we participate in interlocked societies at various levels. Our societies are different from animal societies in very many ways, but one important difference is that we have come to have relatively explicit representations of our societies which help to sustain them.²⁸ Society in the singular, conceived as a particular form of association or sociation, I shall argue, is not just an idea, a collective representation in Emile Durkheim’s sense, but it is also that, as well, and the representation forms an important part of its reality and its causal powers.

Acknowledgements

Preface

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This book is not a work of futurology,²⁹ and in particular it is not about the prospect that human beings might cease to live in a social way. Such a prospect is inconceivable. The question is rather about the nature of our social relations, and whether these relations continue and will continue to be shaped by processes and ideas centered on what people came to call society or societies. This use of the term “society” dates from around the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe; it has a beginning, and therefore might also have an end.

some would say it is already obsolete. It has always been a problematic term, and in the late twentieth and early twentyﬁrst centuries it has been exposed to a new wave of critical attacks. Neo-liberals have polemically denie d its existence: Margaret Thatcher famously claimed in 1987 that “There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.”³⁰

Postmodern theorists, notably Jean Baudrillard, have announced the dissolution of society into vaguer notions of “the masses,”³¹ and theorists of globalization such as John Urry have argued the concept of society cannot survive the eclipse of the nation-state which was its implicit basis.³² Evolutionary psychology and evolutionary sociology have suggested the replacement of the human model of society with conceptions more continuous with the social patterns of other animal species. Finally, more judicious commentators have traced the rise and fall of “society” as a concept in the social sciences (Peter Wagner) or its “forgetting” (Michel Freitag), and others have explored ways of avoiding it (Thomas Schwinn) or reformulating it (François Dubet and Danilo Martuccelli).³³ The concept of society, and perhaps society itself, are, to borrow the title of Zygmunt Bauman’s recent book (2002), “under siege.”³⁴ Paradoxically, however, we have seen at the same time a revival of uncritical notions of “the” economy, community, the polity, governance, democracy, and so on.

This book traces some of these controversies, arguing that, as Mark Twain said of newspaper reports of his death, reports of the death of society have been greatly exaggerated. We still live, I shall argue, in something that can usefully be called society, and we participate in interlocked societies at various levels. Our societies are different from animal societies in very many ways, but one important difference is that we have come to have relatively

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explicit representations of our societies which help to sustain them.³⁵ Society in the singular, conceived as a particular form of association or sociation, I shall argue, is not just an idea, a collective representation in Emile Durkheim’s sense, but it is also that, as well, and the representation forms an important part of its reality and its causal powers.

Acknowledgements

Preface

This book is not a work of futurology,³⁶ and in particular it is not about the prospect that human beings might cease to live in a social way. Such a prospect is inconceivable. The question is rather about the nature of our social relations, and whether these relations continue and will continue to be shaped by processes and ideas centered on what people came to call society or societies. This use of the term “society” dates from around the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe; it has a beginning, and therefore might also have an end.

some would say it is already obsolete. It has always been a problematic

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term, and in the late twentieth and early twentyﬁrst centuries it has been exposed to a new wave of critical attacks. Neo-liberals have polemically denie d its existence: Margaret Thatcher famously claimed in 1987 that “There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.”³⁷

Postmodern theorists, notably Jean Baudrillard, have announced the dissolution of society into vaguer notions of “the masses,”³⁸ and theorists of globalization such as John Urry have argued the concept of society cannot survive the eclipse of the nation-state which was its implicit basis.³⁹ Evolutionary psychology and evolutionary sociology have suggested the replacement of the human model of society with conceptions more continuous with the social patterns of other animal species. Finally, more judicious commentators have traced the rise and fall of “society” as a concept in the social sciences (Peter Wagner) or its “forgetting” (Michel Freitag), and others have explored ways of avoiding it (Thomas Schwinn) or reformulating it (François Dubet and Danilo Martuccelli).⁴⁰ The concept of society, and perhaps society itself, are, to borrow the title of Zygmunt Bauman’s recent book (2002), “under siege.”⁴¹ Paradoxically, however, we have seen at the same time a revival of uncritical notions of “the” economy, community, the polity, governance, democracy, and so on.

This book traces some of these controversies, arguing that, as Mark Twain said of newspaper reports of his death, reports of the death of society have been greatly exaggerated. We still live, I shall argue, in something that can usefully be called society, and we participate in interlocked societies at various levels. Our societies are different from animal societies in very many ways, but one important difference is that we have come to have relatively explicit representations of our societies which help to sustain them.⁴² Society in the singular, conceived as a particular form of association or sociation, I shall argue, is not just an idea, a collective representation in Emile Durkheim’s sense, but it is also that, as well, and the representation forms an important part of its reality and its causal powers.

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Acknowledgements

Preface

This book is not a work of futurology,⁴³ and in particular it is not about the prospect that human beings might cease to live in a social way. Such a prospect is inconceivable. The question is rather about the nature of our social relations, and whether these relations continue and will continue to be shaped by processes and ideas centered on what people came to call society or societies. This use of the term “society” dates from around the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe; it has a beginning, and therefore might also have an end.

some would say it is already obsolete. It has always been a problematic term, and in the late twentieth and early twentyﬁrst centuries it has been exposed to a new wave of critical attacks. Neo-liberals have polemically denie d its existence: Margaret Thatcher famously claimed in 1987 that “There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.”⁴⁴

Postmodern theorists, notably Jean Baudrillard, have announced the dissolution of society into vaguer notions of “the masses,”⁴⁵ and theorists of globalization such as John Urry have argued the concept of society cannot survive the eclipse of the nation-state which was its implicit basis.⁴⁶ Evolutionary psychology and evolutionary sociology have suggested the

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replacement of the human model of society with conceptions more continuous with the social patterns of other animal species. Finally, more judicious commentators have traced the rise and fall of “society” as a concept in the social sciences (Peter Wagner) or its “forgetting” (Michel Freitag), and others have explored ways of avoiding it (Thomas Schwinn) or reformulating it (François Dubet and Danilo Martuccelli).⁴⁷ The concept of society, and perhaps society itself, are, to borrow the title of Zygmunt Bauman’s recent book (2002), “under siege.”⁴⁸ Paradoxically, however, we have seen at the same time a revival of uncritical notions of “the” economy, community, the polity, governance, democracy, and so on.

This book traces some of these controversies, arguing that, as Mark Twain said of newspaper reports of his death, reports of the death of society have been greatly exaggerated. We still live, I shall argue, in something that can usefully be called society, and we participate in interlocked societies at various levels. Our societies are different from animal societies in very many ways, but one important difference is that we have come to have relatively explicit representations of our societies which help to sustain them.⁴⁹ Society in the singular, conceived as a particular form of association or sociation, I shall argue, is not just an idea, a collective representation in Emile Durkheim’s sense, but it is also that, as well, and the representation forms an important part of its reality and its causal powers.

Acknowledgements

I have presented versions of this argument at the University of Sussex, including the 2001 meeting of the International Consortium of Social Theory Programs, at the Universities of Brighton and Kent, at University College, Dublin, and the European University Institute in Florence. My thanks to all those who contributed at these sessions; John Holmwood and Peter Wagner, in particular, have heard this more often than is reasonable. Thanks also to Daniel Chernilo for some exceptionally helpful comments on a draft of this manuscript, and to the anonymous readers for Blackwell. Also to Laura

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Marcus, whose conversation with my old friend Andrew McNeillie led to the proposal for this book, and to Ken Provencher of Blackwell, for whom this is my third book.

Preface

This book is not a work of futurology,⁵⁰ and in particular it is not about the prospect that human beings might cease to live in a social way. Such a prospect is inconceivable. The question is rather about the nature of our social relations, and whether these relations continue and will continue to be shaped by processes and ideas centered on what people came to call society or societies. This use of the term “society” dates from around the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe; it has a beginning, and therefore might also have an end.

some would say it is already obsolete. It has always been a problematic term, and in the late twentieth and early twentyﬁrst centuries it has been exposed to a new wave of critical attacks. Neo-liberals have polemically denie d its existence: Margaret Thatcher famously claimed in 1987 that “There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.”⁵¹

Postmodern theorists, notably Jean Baudrillard, have announced the dissolution of society into vaguer notions of “the masses,”⁵² and theorists of globalization such as John Urry have argued the concept of society cannot survive the eclipse of the nation-state which was its implicit basis.⁵³ Evolutionary psychology and evolutionary sociology have suggested the replacement of the human model of society with conceptions more continuous with the social patterns of other animal species. Finally, more judicious commentators have traced the rise and fall of “society” as a concept in the social sciences (Peter Wagner) or its “forgetting” (Michel Freitag), and others have explored ways of avoiding it (Thomas Schwinn) or reformulating it (François Dubet and Danilo Martuccelli).⁵⁴ The concept of society, and perhaps society itself, are, to borrow the title of Zygmunt Bauman’s recent book (2002), “under siege.”⁵⁵ Paradoxically, however, we have seen at the same time a revival of uncritical notions of “the” economy, community, the polity, governance, democracy, and so on.

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This book traces some of these controversies, arguing that, as Mark Twain said of newspaper reports of his death, reports of the death of society have been greatly exaggerated. We still live, I shall argue, in something that can usefully be called society, and we participate in interlocked societies at various levels. Our societies are different from animal societies in very many ways, but one important difference is that we have come to have relatively explicit representations of our societies which help to sustain them.⁵⁶ Society in the singular, conceived as a particular form of association or sociation, I shall argue, is not just an idea, a collective representation in Emile Durkheim’s sense, but it is also that, as well, and the representation forms an important part of its reality and its causal powers.

Acknowledgements

Preface

This book is not a work of futurology,⁵⁷ and in particular it is not about the prospect that human beings might cease to live in a social way. Such a prospect is inconceivable. The question is rather about the nature of our social relations, and whether these relations continue and will continue to be shaped by processes and ideas centered on what people came to call society

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or societies. This use of the term “society” dates from around the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe; it has a beginning, and therefore might also have an end.

some would say it is already obsolete. It has always been a problematic term, and in the late twentieth and early twentyﬁrst centuries it has been exposed to a new wave of critical attacks. Neo-liberals have polemically denie d its existence: Margaret Thatcher famously claimed in 1987 that “There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.”⁵⁸

Postmodern theorists, notably Jean Baudrillard, have announced the dissolution of society into vaguer notions of “the masses,”⁵⁹ and theorists of globalization such as John Urry have argued the concept of society cannot survive the eclipse of the nation-state which was its implicit basis.⁶⁰ Evolutionary psychology and evolutionary sociology have suggested the replacement of the human model of society with conceptions more continuous with the social patterns of other animal species. Finally, more judicious commentators have traced the rise and fall of “society” as a concept in the social sciences (Peter Wagner) or its “forgetting” (Michel Freitag), and others have explored ways of avoiding it (Thomas Schwinn) or reformulating it (François Dubet and Danilo Martuccelli).⁶¹ The concept of society, and perhaps society itself, are, to borrow the title of Zygmunt Bauman’s recent book (2002), “under siege.”⁶² Paradoxically, however, we have seen at the same time a revival of uncritical notions of “the” economy, community, the polity, governance, democracy, and so on.

This book traces some of these controversies, arguing that, as Mark Twain said of newspaper reports of his death, reports of the death of society have been greatly exaggerated. We still live, I shall argue, in something that can usefully be called society, and we participate in interlocked societies at various levels. Our societies are different from animal societies in very many ways, but one important difference is that we have come to have relatively explicit representations of our societies which help to sustain them.⁶³ Society in the singular, conceived as a particular form of association or sociation, I shall argue, is not just an idea, a collective representation in Emile Durkheim’s sense, but it is also that, as well, and the representation forms an important part of its reality and its causal powers.

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Acknowledgements

Preface

This book is not a work of futurology,⁶⁴ and in particular it is not about the prospect that human beings might cease to live in a social way. Such a prospect is inconceivable. The question is rather about the nature of our social relations, and whether these relations continue and will continue to be shaped by processes and ideas centered on what people came to call society or societies. This use of the term “society” dates from around the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe; it has a beginning, and therefore might also have an end.

some would say it is already obsolete. It has always been a problematic term, and in the late twentieth and early twentyﬁrst centuries it has been exposed to a new wave of critical attacks. Neo-liberals have polemically denie d its existence: Margaret Thatcher famously claimed in 1987 that “There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.”⁶⁵

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Postmodern theorists, notably Jean Baudrillard, have announced the dissolution of society into vaguer notions of “the masses,”⁶⁶ and theorists of globalization such as John Urry have argued the concept of society cannot survive the eclipse of the nation-state which was its implicit basis.⁶⁷ Evolutionary psychology and evolutionary sociology have suggested the replacement of the human model of society with conceptions more continuous with the social patterns of other animal species. Finally, more judicious commentators have traced the rise and fall of “society” as a concept in the social sciences (Peter Wagner) or its “forgetting” (Michel Freitag), and others have explored ways of avoiding it (Thomas Schwinn) or reformulating it (François Dubet and Danilo Martuccelli).⁶⁸ The concept of society, and perhaps society itself, are, to borrow the title of Zygmunt Bauman’s recent book (2002), “under siege.”⁶⁹ Paradoxically, however, we have seen at the same time a revival of uncritical notions of “the” economy, community, the polity, governance, democracy, and so on.

This book traces some of these controversies, arguing that, as Mark Twain said of newspaper reports of his death, reports of the death of society have been greatly exaggerated. We still live, I shall argue, in something that can usefully be called society, and we participate in interlocked societies at various levels. Our societies are different from animal societies in very many ways, but one important difference is that we have come to have relatively explicit representations of our societies which help to sustain them.⁷⁰ Society in the singular, conceived as a particular form of association or sociation, I shall argue, is not just an idea, a collective representation in Emile Durkheim’s sense, but it is also that, as well, and the representation forms an important part of its reality and its causal powers.

Acknowledgements

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Preface

This book is not a work of futurology,⁷¹ and in particular it is not about the prospect that human beings might cease to live in a social way. Such a prospect is inconceivable. The question is rather about the nature of our social relations, and whether these relations continue and will continue to be shaped by processes and ideas centered on what people came to call society or societies. This use of the term “society” dates from around the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe; it has a beginning, and therefore might also have an end.

some would say it is already obsolete. It has always been a problematic term, and in the late twentieth and early twentyﬁrst centuries it has been exposed to a new wave of critical attacks. Neo-liberals have polemically denie d its existence: Margaret Thatcher famously claimed in 1987 that “There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.”⁷²

Postmodern theorists, notably Jean Baudrillard, have announced the dissolution of society into vaguer notions of “the masses,”⁷³ and theorists of globalization such as John Urry have argued the concept of society cannot survive the eclipse of the nation-state which was its implicit basis.⁷⁴ Evolutionary psychology and evolutionary sociology have suggested the replacement of the human model of society with conceptions more continuous with the social patterns of other animal species. Finally, more judicious commentators have traced the rise and fall of “society” as a concept in the social sciences (Peter Wagner) or its “forgetting” (Michel Freitag), and others have explored ways of avoiding it (Thomas Schwinn) or

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reformulating it (François Dubet and Danilo Martuccelli).⁷⁵ The concept of society, and perhaps society itself, are, to borrow the title of Zygmunt Bauman’s recent book (2002), “under siege.”⁷⁶ Paradoxically, however, we have seen at the same time a revival of uncritical notions of “the” economy, community, the polity, governance, democracy, and so on.

This book traces some of these controversies, arguing that, as Mark Twain said of newspaper reports of his death, reports of the death of society have been greatly exaggerated. We still live, I shall argue, in something that can usefully be called society, and we participate in interlocked societies at various levels. Our societies are different from animal societies in very many ways, but one important difference is that we have come to have relatively explicit representations of our societies which help to sustain them.⁷⁷ Society in the singular, conceived as a particular form of association or sociation, I shall argue, is not just an idea, a collective representation in Emile Durkheim’s sense, but it is also that, as well, and the representation forms an important part of its reality and its causal powers.

Acknowledgements

Preface

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This book is not a work of futurology,⁷⁸ and in particular it is not about the prospect that human beings might cease to live in a social way. Such a prospect is inconceivable. The question is rather about the nature of our social relations, and whether these relations continue and will continue to be shaped by processes and ideas centered on what people came to call society or societies. This use of the term “society” dates from around the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe; it has a beginning, and therefore might also have an end.

some would say it is already obsolete. It has always been a problematic term, and in the late twentieth and early twentyﬁrst centuries it has been exposed to a new wave of critical attacks. Neo-liberals have polemically denie d its existence: Margaret Thatcher famously claimed in 1987 that “There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.”⁷⁹

Postmodern theorists, notably Jean Baudrillard, have announced the dissolution of society into vaguer notions of “the masses,”⁸⁰ and theorists of globalization such as John Urry have argued the concept of society cannot survive the eclipse of the nation-state which was its implicit basis.⁸¹ Evolutionary psychology and evolutionary sociology have suggested the replacement of the human model of society with conceptions more continuous with the social patterns of other animal species. Finally, more judicious commentators have traced the rise and fall of “society” as a concept in the social sciences (Peter Wagner) or its “forgetting” (Michel Freitag), and others have explored ways of avoiding it (Thomas Schwinn) or reformulating it (François Dubet and Danilo Martuccelli).⁸² The concept of society, and perhaps society itself, are, to borrow the title of Zygmunt Bauman’s recent book (2002), “under siege.”⁸³ Paradoxically, however, we have seen at the same time a revival of uncritical notions of “the” economy, community, the polity, governance, democracy, and so on.

This book traces some of these controversies, arguing that, as Mark Twain said of newspaper reports of his death, reports of the death of society have been greatly exaggerated. We still live, I shall argue, in something that can usefully be called society, and we participate in interlocked societies at various levels. Our societies are different from animal societies in very many

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ways, but one important difference is that we have come to have relatively explicit representations of our societies which help to sustain them.⁸⁴ Society in the singular, conceived as a particular form of association or sociation, I shall argue, is not just an idea, a collective representation in Emile Durkheim’s sense, but it is also that, as well, and the representation forms an important part of its reality and its causal powers.