Читать книгу Society of Singularities - Andreas Reckwitz - Страница 33

In various constellations, processes of culturalization and singularization have thus existed throughout all of social history. In late modernity, however, they have acquired a new quantity and quality. To visualize this proliferation of the particular, look no further than NASA’s satellite images of Earth’s city lights, which show the continents at night and thus underscore the bright illumination of the world’s large cities. In a similar way, it is possible to imagine all of today’s acknowledged singularities – all of the unique objects, subjects, places, events, and collectives, which are spread across the globe in a sea of social practices and which stand out, on account of their affective heat, like brightly shining points and paths. If one were to look at similar pictures taken from the years 0, 1200, 1800, 1900, 1950, 1980, and 2000, there would certainly be a few bright points and paths to see – the old rites and magi, the churches and courtly societies, the Romantic communities and bourgeois theaters, the cinemas and the stars – but as of 1980 one would notice an explosion of brightness. Of course, not everything has been illuminated, because the logic of the general still exists in the background. But what was once the exception is now the rule: ours is a society of singularities.

In late modernity, the social logic of singularization, which is also the logic of culturalization and the intensification of affect, has become structurally formational for all of society. Since the 1970s or 1980s, the culture of the particular, which has been present since the beginning of modernity but was subordinate to the logic of the general, has itself become structurally formational on a large scale. Both the status and form of formal rationalization and its logic of the general have accordingly changed. As I have already said on several occasions, they have increasingly become a background structure – a general infrastructure for singularities. Especially in the propagation of global markets and technologies, the phenomenon of “doing generality” in globalized late modernity is obvious, but upon closer inspection it functions in many respects as a condition of possibility for the processes and arenas of singularization.

What are the causes that have led to the primacy of the logic of singularities? The transformation from organized modernity to late modernity has been due to a historical coincidence of three factors, each of which has been gaining strength since the 1970s. The three factors are the following: the socio-cultural revolution of authenticity, sustained by the lifestyle of the new middle class; the transformation of the economy into a post-industrial economy of singularities; and the technical revolution of digitalization. Their context warrants a more detailed examination.

Since the 1970s, a fundamental structural transformation has taken place in formerly industrial societies, and this has been a transformation of culture and values as well. At its heart stands the new middle class, which owes its existence to the expansion of educational opportunities and is characterized by its high cultural capital.¹⁹ In this sense, the new middle class is an educated middle class that has been active primarily in the knowledge and culture economy of post-industrial society and has been the latter’s most important standard bearer. This socio-structural transformation was accompanied by a transformation of values, over the course of which the values of materialism, duty, and acceptance, which were characteristic of industrial modernity, were replaced by a post-materialistic orientation toward self-development and actualization.²⁰ The leading measures by which people orient their lifestyles have thus changed from those of the general and functional to those of culture and the particular. The old, rationalistic measure of one’s standard of living has been superseded by the measure of one’s quality of life. The authenticity of the self has thus gained an enormous amount of significance. One’s self should now develop into its uniqueness, and the pursuit of correspondingly authentic experiences (at work, at leisure, and in one’s private life) has become a leitmotif. All of this has added up to an authenticity revolution. This transformation of values is linked to modernity’s tradition of cultural and aesthetic counter-movements, which began with Romanticism and has ranged from the life-reform movement to the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s. The counterculture, which is rather superficially understood with the label “1968,” represents a historical link between the cultural counter-movement of Romanticism and the new middle class. Romanticism’s comprehensive program of culturalization and singularization, which was historically no more than a subcultural phenomenon, became for the first time the central force behind the lifestyle of society’s most influential population.

Parallel to and interwoven with the rise of this new, authenticity-oriented middle class, a structural transformation of the capitalist economy has also been taking place since the 1970s. Essentially, the latter has transformed from an industrial economy into a knowledge and culture economy – an economy of singularities with the creative economy at its center. At the same time, the related technological revolution of digitalization has also taken place. This has given rise to a historically unprecedented infrastructure for the systematic and expansive fabrication of singularities and culture. Together, the economy and technology have formed a global cultural-creative complex. Whereas the economy and technology of classical modernity were elementary engines of rationalization and standardization, the tides have now turned: the practices of production, observation, and evaluation have become engines for manufacturing cultural singularities. Cultural capitalism and computer networks are the driving force behind the expansive culturalization of the economy and technology. They have created an institutional structure that actively fulfills the formerly Romantic but now middle-class desire for the singularization and culturalization of the world. It goes without saying that this new structure has not left subjects and lifestyles unchanged.

Although the three factors that brought about the transition from industrial modernity to late modernity are each characterized by their own dynamics and relative autonomy, they have also influenced and enhanced one another. The genesis of the new middle class and its shift in values can be traced back to the unique educational dynamics of the twentieth century, as well as to the intrinsic logic of the cultural movements and lifestyles that have been going on since bourgeois modernity and Romanticism. At first, the rise of the post-industrial and post-Fordistic economy also followed an internal economic logic and can be understood as a reaction to the market saturation of standardized goods at the beginning of the 1970s, as well as a reaction to the automation of industrial production and the fundamental crisis of the Fordistic logic of acquisition and accumulation.²¹ The digital revolution ultimately began along the inherently technical (and military-sponsored) path toward developing the computer and digital networks.²²

All three factors, however, are interlocked with one another. The new middle class has found professional employment in the knowledge and culture economy and, to satisfy its desire for authenticity, has acquired the broadest variety of cultural singularity goods. Cultural capitalism has not only responded to this demand but has further intensified it, thereby expanding the pool of singular goods and discourses of valorization (which now concern such things as education, cities, and religion). Finally, digitalization has been used and further developed in a specific way to satisfy the desires for communication, presentation, and consumption that characterize the late-modern subject and cultural capitalism. These new technological means simultaneously promote the singularization and culturalization of subjects and goods alike.

By mutually supporting each other in this way, the three factors in question have also changed their shape. The economy of singularities, the digital culture machine, and the new middle class (with its lifestyle of successful self-actualization) have each acquired their characteristic form from this constellation. Their coincidence is thus not without historical irony. After all, the Romantic image of culture and its singularities had implied that the latter could only exist outside of and in opposition to the economy and technology, which were regarded as large-scale equalizers and agents of utility. In late modernity, the Romantic orientation toward singularization may have become socially dominant for the first time, but this was only able to happen on account of the development of expansive economic and media-technological structures. Over the course of this process, however, post-materialism was also transformed.

Together, cultural capitalism and digital computer networks have institutionalized singularities within a highly specific constellation – namely, as cultural singularity markets. On these markets, objects, subjects, places, events, and (at least in part) collectives compete to be recognized and acknowledged as goods of unique cultural value. Singularities are thus divided into a structure of competitive singularities. This is a matter of markets that do not operate according to the criteria of industrial society and its standard markets. Now, performances seek attention and visibility; they aspire to affect their audience and to be evaluated as singular in processes of valor­iz­ation. At their heart, these are thus markets of attention, visibility, and affect. They encourage a fundamental and genuine cultural economization of the social, in which not only commercial enterprise and the digital network participate but also most social spheres (media, education, cities, religion, relationships, etc.). As we will see in greater detail, these are attractiveness markets on which a specific form of singularity capital is accumulated. Here, both objects and subjects – but also cities, schools, religious communities, etc. – strive to create their unique profile, which has become one of the central forms of culture in late modernity.

Cultural singularity markets are not the only version of the social in which singularities operate in late modernity. As I will discuss later on, two other – and differently constructed – forms of the social have likewise developed a singularistic structure: heterogeneous collaborations and neo-communities. Heterogeneous collaborations do not arrange singularities in the form of public markets but rather as a plurality of singular participants (mostly subjects, but occasionally objects as well), whose diversity allows them to forge productive alliances and collaborations. Such is the case, for instance, in the many projects and networks that represent genuinely late-modern versions of the social. In neo-communities, on the contrary, the collective as a whole becomes a singularity – it is formed, that is, into a relatively homogeneous and unique entity. Such is the case in religious, political, or ethnic communities. Singularity markets, heterogeneous collaborations, and neo-communities all derive from historically traditional forms of the social – standard markets, communities, and also networks – but they have further developed these forms in such a way that they now represent three genuinely singularistic forms of the social populated by late-modern subjects. They can conflict with one another, but they can also combine and work together in surprising ways.

As I have already mentioned, the singularistic lifestyle, which is so dominant in late-modern culture, is primarily sustained by the new middle class. Its basic formula, by which it distinguished itself from the seemingly conformist and leveled middle-class society of organized modernity, is that of successful self-actualization. Here, the post-materialistic value of the actualized self is tied to the motive of social success and prestige. The resulting comprehensive singularization and culturalization of all aspects of life – living, eating, traveling, fitness, education, etc. – thus goes hand in hand with investing in one’s own singularity capital for the sake of status, and with representing one’s own unique life to others. To some extent, the model here is the “norm of deviance” or, in more positive terms, the norm of performative authenticity – of socially performing one’s own uninterchangeable uniqueness.²³

For the new middle class, culture has come to acquire the form of hyperculture, which is altogether characteristic of late modernity. In the case of hyperculture, potentially everything past or present can flexibly be valorized as culture. Be it high or low culture, local or global, contemporary or historical – all potential elements of culture are essentially on equal footing and are regarded as potential sources for enriching one’s lifestyle. Hyperculture is distinguished by its cultural cosmopolitanism, within whose framework the elements of culture can be combined in seemingly endless ways. Uniqueness thus tends to derive from the model of compositional singularity: it is forever being arranged and curated from a diverse set of new and ever-changing elements. In fact, it is this compositional logic that enables late-modern culture to fabricate singularities on a mass scale.

The society of singularities has systematically created a series of new social and cultural polarizations, and these will be discussed at length in the following Part. It is important to keep in mind that these polarizations are not ancillary or accidental features but rather a direct consequence of the logic of singularization leaving behind social niches and becoming structurally formational for all of society. They are the result of society evaluating what counts as valuable and unique. It is here where processes of valorization and devaluation occur that are definitive of late-modernity. Five different levels can be distinguished:

The basic level is that of the polarization of goods on the markets of singularity, which is the precondition for all other polarizations. As markets of attention and valorization, singularity markets tend to form radically asymmetrical patterns. They are winner-take-all markets in which a few goods attract extreme amounts of attention, visibility, and value, while most goods achieve nothing of the sort. Cultural singularity markets are thus inclined to award things in excess and disregard other things entirely.

This is reflected on a second level: the polarization of working conditions, which has two aspects. Essentially, a dualism now exists between the highly qualified activities of the knowledge and culture economy on the one hand, and the simple or standardized activities of the service sector on the other. In late modernity, the professions that produce cultural singularity goods can claim legitimacy, status, and resources, whereas functional and “profane” labor cannot. What is more, tendencies toward polarization exist within the field of highly qualified professions. This field itself has adopted the features of a cultural singularity market on which performances, profiles, talent, and their recognition circulate, and this leads in its own way to the asymmetry of a winner-take-the-most market.

Third, all of this has given rise to a polarization of classes and lifestyles. The latter applies in particular to the relationship between the culturally ascendant new middle class on the one hand, and the culturally declining new underclass on the other. Whereas the new middle class can be understood as the cosmopolitan basis of culturalization and singularization processes, the new underclass has been socially and culturally devalued. Beyond the leveled middle-class society, this has thus resulted in more or less subtle cultural conflicts and tendencies toward segregation that affect such things as education, living conditions, and health.

Fourth, the polarization of goods, labor, and lifestyles has led to a polarization of social spaces. Regional, national, and global markets of spatial attractiveness have formed, and these have led to diverging developments in “attractive” places and regions that are said to have been “left behind.” Whereas the former house the creative economy and the new middle class, the latter face the threat of being devalued altogether.

Finally, a political polarization has taken place in late modernity that can be interpreted as a reaction to the other levels of polarization. On the one hand, there is an “apertistic” (opening) and differential (difference-promoting) liberalism that is based on a combination of competition and cultural diversity. On the other hand, there is a slew of anti-liberal, (sub)political forms of cultural essentialism and communitarianism (ethnicity, nationality, religious fundamentalism, right-wing populism) that have mobilized collective identities against the hyperculture and its markets. Of course, these identity movements operate within the logic of the society of singularities. They, too, are based on a culture of singularity; however, theirs does not function on global markets but is rather situated within particular collectives (religious, national, ethnic, etc.). As a result of this polarization, the society of singularities is characterized throughout by cultural conflicts.