Society of Singularities

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Andreas Reckwitz. Society of Singularities

Contents

Guide

Pages

The Society of Singularities

Copyright page

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Proliferation of the Particular

Notes

I Modernity Between the Social Logic of the General and the Social Logic of the Particular

1 The Social Logic of the General. Modernity and Generality

Typifications and Rationalizations

Standardization, Formalization, Generalization

Objects, Subjects, Spaces, Times, and Collectives in the Social Logic of the General

Industrial Modernity as a Prototype

Notes

2 The Social Logic of the Particular

The General-Particular, Idiosyncrasies, Singularities

Objects, Subjects, Spaces, Times, and Collectives in the Social Logic of Singularities

Practices of Singularization I: Observation and Evaluation

Practices of Singularization II: Production and Appropriation

Performativity as a Mode of Praxis and Automated Singularization

Notes

3 Culture and Culturalization

Culture as a Sphere of Valorization and De-valorization

Culturalization versus Rationalization

Qualities of Cultural Praxis: Between Sense and Sensibility

Notes

4 The Transformation of the Cultural Sphere

Premodern Societies: The Fixation and Repetition of the Singular

Bourgeois Modernity: The Romantic Revolution of the Unique

Organized Modernity: Mass Culture

Late Modernity: Competitive Singularities, Hyperculture, and Polarization

Notes

II The Post-Industrial Economy of Singularities. Beyond Industrial Society

Unleashing the Creative Economy

Notes

1 Unique Goods in Cultural Capitalism. The Culturalization of Goods

Singular Goods: Originality and Rarity

Things as Singular Goods

Services, Media Formats, and Events as Singular Goods

Features of Singular Goods I: The Performance of Authenticity

Features of Singular Goods II: Moment and Duration

Features of Singular Goods III: Circulation and Hyperculture

Notes

2 Cultural Singularity Markets. Attractiveness Markets as Markets of Attention and Valorization

The Cultural Economization of the Economy and Society

Overproduction and Winner-Take-All Competitions

Buzz Effects and the Struggle for Visibility

Valorization Techniques and Reputation

Singularity Capital

Quantifying the Unique

Notes

III The Singularization of the Working World. The Cultural Economization of Labor and Its Polarization

Notes

1 Practices of Labor and Organization in the Creative Economy. Cultural Production as Creative Labor

Projects as Heterogeneous Collaborations

Organizational Cultures and Networks

Notes

2 The Singularization and Self-Singularization of Working Subjects. Beyond the Formalization of Labor

The Profile Subject: Competencies and Talents

Labor as Performance

The Singularization Techniques of Labor

Fields of Tension in Highly Qualified Labor: Between the Artist’s Dilemma and the Superstar Economy

Notes

IV Digitalization as Singularization: The Rise of the Culture Machine. From Industrial Technics to Digital Technology

Notes

1 The Technology of Culturalization. Algorithms, Digitality, and the Internet as Infrastructures

The Digital Culture Machine and the Ubiquity of Culture

Culture Between Overproduction and Recombination

Notes

2 Cultural and Automated Processes of Singularization

The Digital Subject: Performative Authenticity and Visibility

Compositional Singularity and the Form of the Profile

Big Data and the Observation of Profiles

The Personalized Internet and Softwarization

Digital Neo-Communities and the Sociality of the Internet

Fields of Tension in Online Culture: From the Pressure to Create Profiles to Extreme Affect Culture

Notes

V The Singularistic Life: Lifestyles, Classes, Subject Forms. The Late-Modern Self Beyond the Leveled Middle-Class Society

The Cultural Class Divide and the “Paternoster-Elevator Effect”

Notes

1 The Lifestyle of the New Middle Class: Successful Self-Actualization

Romanticism and Bourgeois Culture: The New Symbiosis

Self-Actualization and the Valorization of Everyday Life

The Curated Life

Culture as a Resource and Cultural Cosmopolitanism

Status Investment and the Prestige of the Unique

Notes

2 Elements of the Singularistic Lifestyle

Food

Homes

Travel

Bodies

Parenting and Early Education

Work–Life Balance, Urbanity, Juvenilization, Degendering, and New Liberalism

Fields of Tension in the Lifestyle of the New Middle Class: The Inadequacy of Self-Actualization

Notes

3 The Culturalization of Inequality. The Underclass’s Way of Life: Muddling Through

Cultural Devaluations

Singularistic Counter-Strategies of the Underclass

The Tableau of Late-Modern Classes and Their Relations

Notes

VI Differential Liberalism and Cultural Essentialism: The Transformation of the Political. The Politics of the Particular

Note

1 Apertistic–Differential Liberalism and the Politics of the Local. From the Social-Democratic Consensus to New Liberalism

The Competition State and Diversity: The Two Sides of New Liberalism

The Politics of Cities I: New Urbanism and the Global Attractiveness Competition

The Politics of Cities II: Culturally Oriented Governmentality and Singularity Management

Notes

2 The Rise of Cultural Essentialism. Collective Identities and Particular Neo-Communities

Ethnic Communities Between Self-Culturalization and External Culturalization

Cultural Nationalism

Religious Fundamentalism

Right-Wing Populism

Cultural Conflicts Between Essentialism, Hyperculture, and Liberalism

The Politics of Violence: Terrorism and Mass Shootings as Celebrations of the Singular Act

Notes

Conclusion: The Crisis of the General?

Notes

Bibliography

Index

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Andreas Reckwitz

Translated by Valentine A. Pakis

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This book will take a step back from these frequently alarmist commentaries in order to make the more comprehensive panorama of modernity recognizable and, within this framework, to take a closer look at the specific structures of late modernity. And this is precisely what should be expected of sociology: that it should not fall prey to the ever-shifting trends of media debates, with their tug-of-war sort of emotional communication, but rather that it should analyze the longue durée of social development in terms of its structures and processes, which can be measured in decades (or even in centuries). With this perspective on (late) modernity in mind, it will be difficult to dismiss the idea that the opportunities and promises of today’s society have the same structural cause as its problems and dilemmas: they are both based on industrial society’s logic of the general losing its primacy to late-modern society’s logic of the particular.

Without a doubt, the society of singularities has led to considerable increases in autonomy and satisfaction, particularly within the new, highly qualified, and mobile middle class. It has a fundamentally libertarian streak, which tends to tear down social barriers to opportunity, and it enables the self-development of individuals to an extent unimaginable during classical modernity. At the same time, however, it has also become clear that the problems burdening late modernity stem from the erosion of classical modernity’s logic of the general and the rise of the structures of the society of singularities, and that it is only within the latter’s framework that they can be understood at all. Thus, first, the high value that late-modern culture places on uniqueness and self-development represents a systematic generator of disappointment that does much to explain today’s high levels of psychological disorder. Second, the post-industrial economy of singularities is responsible for the blatant divide between the forms of work that characterize the highly qualified knowledge and culture economies, on the one hand, and the deindustrialized service economy on the other, which has given rise to new social and cultural polarization, class inequality, and grossly divergent lifestyles. Third, and at the same time, it is the culturalization and singularization of collectives, with their current preference for particular identities, that has prompted the rise of late-modern nationalism, fundamentalism, and populism, with their aggressive antagonism between the valuable and valueless.

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