Abstract
Solidarity is a central dimension of social order and social conflict, yet it has largely been absent from influential theories of modern society. Most of the big thinkers, classical, modern, and contemporary, have conceived prototypically modern relationships as either vertical or atomized. Modernization is thought to have smashed affectual and moral fellow-feeling: because of commodification and capitalist hierarchy (Marx 1978; 2004), because of bureaucracy and individualistic asceticism (Weber 1947; 2002), because of the growing abstraction and impersonality of the collective consciousness that allows egoism and anomie (Durkheim 1984; 2002). Postmodernity is typically seen as liquefying social ties and intensifying narcissistic individualism (Bauman 2000); or as creating new forms of verticality, for example, the disciplinary cage (Foucault 1977).
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2006. The Civil Sphere. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2011. Performative Revolution in Egypt: An Essay in Cultural Power. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2013a. The Dark Side of Modernity. Maiden, MA: Polity Press.
Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2013b. “Struggling over the Mode of Incorporation: Backlash against Multiculturalism in Europe.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 36(4):531–556.
Anderson, Elijah. 1999. Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City. New York: W. W. Norton.
Anderson, Elijah. 2003. A Place on the Corner: A Study of Black Street Corner Men. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Anderson, Elijah. 2011. The Cosmopolitan Canopy: Race and Civility in Everyday Life. W. W. Norton and Company.
Bauman, Zygmunt. 2000. Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Cooley, Charles. 1915. Social Organization: A Study of the Larger Mind .Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Durkheim, Emile. 1984. The Division of Labor in Society, with introduction by Lewis Coser. New York: The Free Press.
Durkheim, Emile. 1995. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. New York: The Free Press.
Durkheim, Emile. 2002. Suicide: A Study in Sociology. New York: Psychology Press.
Filloux, J. -C. 1977. Durkheim et la Socialisme. Droz: Geneva.
Fine, Gary Alan. 1983. Shared Fantasy: Role Playing Games as Social Worlds. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Fine, Gary Alan. 1987. With the Boys: Little League Baseball and Preadolescent Culture. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Foucault, Michel. 1977. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage.
Huntington, Samuel P. 1996. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order .Simon & Schuster.
Jeffries, Vincent, Barry V. Johnston, Lawrence T. Nichols, Samuel P. Oliner, Edward Tiryakian, and Jay Weinstein. 2006. “Altruism and Social Solidarity: Envisioning a Field of Specialization.” The American Sociologist 37(3):67–83.
Kant, Immanuel. 1960. Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime. Berkeley and Los Angeles: The University of California Press.
Khosrokhavar, F. 2012. The New Arab Revolutions That Shook the World. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.
Marx, Karl. 1978. “The German Ideology.” The Marx-Engels Reader. 2nd ed. Edited by Robert C. Tucker. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.
Marx, Karl. 2004. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy .Digireads.com.
McCurry, Stephanie. 1992. “The Two Faces of Republicanism: Gender and Proslavery Politics in Antebellum South Carolina.” The Journal of American History 78(4):1245–1264.
Norval, Aletta J. Deconstructing Apartheid Discourse. London: Verso, 1996.
Park, Robert. 1937. “Introduction.” Pp. vii–xiv in Interracial Marriage in Hawaii, edited by Romanzo Adams. New York: Macmillan.
Parsons, Talcott. 1968. The Structure of Social Action. New York: Free Press.
Parsons, Talcott. 1970. The Social System. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd.
Rawls, John. 1999. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
Weber, Max. 1947. “Bureaucracy.” Pp. 196–244 in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, translated, edited, and with an introduction by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills. London: Kegan Paul.
Weber, Max. 2002. The Protestant Ethic and the “Spirit” of Capitalism. London: Penguin Classics 2002.
Whyte, William Foote. 1993. Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum. 4th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Young, Iris Marion. 2002. Inclusion and Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Young, Iris Marion. 2011. Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2014 Vincent Jeffries
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Alexander, J.C. (2014). Morality as a Cultural System: On Solidarity Civil and Uncivil. In: Jeffries, V. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Altruism, Morality, and Social Solidarity. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137391865_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137391865_13
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-48311-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-39186-5
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social Sciences CollectionSocial Sciences (R0)