In this book, one of the world's leading social theorists presents a
critical, alarmed, but also nuanced understanding of the
post-traditional world we inhabit today. Jeffrey Alexander writes about
modernity as historical time and social condition, but also as ideology
and utopia. The idea of modernity embodies the Enlightenment's noble
hopes for progress and rationality, but its reality brings great
suffering and exposes the destructive impulses that continue to motivate
humankind.
Alexander examines how twentieth-century theorists struggled to
comprehend the Janus-faced character of modernity, which looks backward
and forward at the same time. Weber linked the triumph of worldly
asceticism to liberating autonomy but also ruthless domination,
describing flights from rationalization as systemic and dangerous.
Simmel pointed to the otherness haunting modernity, even as he
normalized the stranger. Eisenstadt celebrated Axial Age transcendence,
but acknowledged its increasing capacity for barbarity. Parsons heralded
American community, but ignored modernity's fragmentations.
Rather than seeking to resolve modernity's contradictions, Alexander
argues that social theory should accept its Janus-faced character. It is
a dangerous delusion to think that modernity can eliminate evil. Civil
inclusion and anti-civil exclusion are intertwined. Alexander enumerates
dangerous frictions endemic to modernity, but he also suggests new lines
of social amelioration and emotional repair.
