Face-to-Face With Social Theory
For me, venturing into Anthony Elliott’s Contemporary Social Theory: An Introduction was like going to London for my first face-to-face with my LGP4 cohort. I had heard the names of Marcuse, Adorno, Bathes, Foucault and Derrida for years and read about them in hundreds of books and articles. But they were merely names attached to vague schools of thought and not much more. Elliott’s book was a wonderful opportunity to meet these brilliant thinkers face-to-face, to put some substance behind the names of some of the greatest minds of the 20th century. However, I must admit, meeting my cohort in London was tremendously more delightful, as I found these social theorist to be a pretty pessimistic lot.
No other field of study has had a greater influence on the thinking over the 20th century than that of Social Theory. Elliott’s book brings together the ideas and criticisms of some of the more influential thinkers in the field, providing a general outline of their major contributions to the discipline. Social Theory is a fairly new school of thought, “begin(ning) with the German School of Frankfurt…(with) a powerful attempt to understand the pain of those who suffered under Hitler—as well as the wider society living under conditions of the ‘administered society’ –in both emotional and historical terms.”[i] Thinkers, confronted by the failed promises of the Enlightenment and the theories of progress, evidenced by two horrific world wars and the rise of totalitarian regimes, knew that scholars had missed something very important. To begin to better understand what was going on (or what had happened), they brought together a number of disciplines (including the social sciences and the humanities) to began an “urgent critique of ideological thought and the discourses of reason, freedom, truth, subjectivity, culture and politics….” [ii] The focus was to move away from national terms to look at the “nature of society” that contribute to the larger issues that the world faces. Society was seen as “an indispensable medium for the production of social relations, emphasizing the benefits of interpersonal relationships and the potential gains for intercultural communication.” [iii] The implications of this thinking was not just for academic debate, but “for everyday life.”[iv] This focus on the effects of social structures on individual lives paved the way for Social Theory to “vitally engaged with the repression, oppression and indignity of unequal social relations; it is deeply political, sometimes melancholic, but profoundly humane critique of the structural forces which underlay the self-destructive pathologies of contemporary societies.”[v] Born out of a very dark time in history, Social Theory was willing to look unflinchingly at the harsh realities of the world close-up.
Several important insights came from reading these critics of modern society. First, social theorists tend to have a very pessimistic (or melancholic) view of the human situation, society and the world. What a startling contrast to the writers of the 19th century who viewed humanity and the world as steadily progressing. Their view of the world is filled with suffering and oppression; where people are isolated or alienated. As Elliott states, “so serious is the damage done to human life today that much social theory insists it is only by confronting the worst and most painful aspects of current global realities that we may hope to develop plausible alternative social and institutional possibilities.”[vi] And they do just this, stare into the darkness, offering a strong critic but, sadly, offering little hope. For many theorist, their critic was “perhaps…another way of saying we may be facing the end of the world as we know it…”[vii] Not a very happy or hopeful scenario, but an honest one.
Second, these writers tend to be frustratingly esoteric. I want so much to understand and dialogue with these thinkers. But, even in reading the summaries of their thoughts, I still find myself only grasping about 10% of what I read. Granted, these people are all very smart. However, it seems necessary to have higher degrees in about ten different disciplines—including Freudian psychoanalysis and social theory, sociology, Marxism, feminism, political theory, science, philosophy, art, media and law—to understand these theorist and their ideas. Elliott himself suggests that these thinkers are “maddeningly abstract”[viii] due to their highly technical terminology and specialized focus, making it frustrating and challenging for armatures like me.
Finally, let me explain why I so want to understand these particular scholars. I believe that Social Theory has its pulse on the very questions the world is asking, from the alienated individual to the global corporation. And these are questions that theology is called to wrestle with. Nowhere else in academia, politics or society has there been such a brutal, honest and devastating critic of our modern situation. It seems as if Social Theory has been able to pull the mask off the philosophies of positivism and progress, to show that indeed the emperor was naked. The dark human condition and state of society that they witness is the very condition that theology also sees: a world marked by human sin; a fallen world of suffering and alienation from self, others, creation and, most importantly, God. Social Theory seems to be doing a great service for the church by asking those hard questions that people are indeed hungering to find answers. Though Social Theory provides an honest and devastation critic of the world and social structures, it is not equipped to provide a way forward. It is good at showing a spotlight on the situation, but has no real direction on how to bring lasting and positive change. Here, I believe, the church alone has the answers and tools. In fact, the kingdom Jesus came to established is neither oppressive nor deterministic. Rather, it is a kingdom based on love, hope, redemption, justice, community and peace. It provides the answers to the very issues that Social Theory brings to the table. Here, I believe is where theology needs to be listening.
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