Trying Sociology

As Featured in Belonging Again (Part II). A Tragic Metatheory, Sacred Violence, and Magic Tricks

Photo by Gonzalo Facello

There is an odd notion lurking in Belonging Again, which is basically that there is a sense in which Sociology is yet to happen. In other words, beyond spurts and “glimmers” here and there, Sociology—like the Christian for G.K. Chesterton and human for Samuel Loncar—is yet to be really attempted. Sociology is still untried, for when it was “glimpsed” in the 19^th century, Capital distracted us, and so in a way Sociology ended up missed. Sociology as a field began to develop in the 19^th Century with “The Great Enrichment” and Industrialization, but then I would argue Capital and markets “raced in” to “solve/hide” the problems which began arising, which are fundamentally problems of Otherness, which arise both in regard to a subject alienated to itself (as Other) and between people who are very different under Pluralism (“The Other”). Of course, throughout history, people who were diverse interacted, but it was often in the context of economics and trade, which functioned as a way to deal with difference through meditation. If Hindus and Christians interacted, they might not understand one another, but they both knew they wanted spices, and so that could provide a “common language” that allowed interaction without full, intimate, or interpersonal understanding. Given this, it was reasonable for economics and Capital to be the way we looked to deal with Pluralism and otherness starting around the 19^th Century and up through this very day. Capital through reductionism and “flattening” helps us deal with Otherness—but it does so by a means which causes Nihilism and the Meta-Crisis. We must look for a different method, which ultimately means we must “go back” and do Sociology as if for the first time.

Now, to be clear, I am not saying that there are no great Sociologists, that Sociology as we know it is entirely wrong, or something like that—these are not my claims, no more than I would claim that there are no Christians because I think we have failed “to fully try Christianity.” Rather, as I think Philosophy has reached a point where it has begun undergoing pathology and self-effacement because it didn’t fully absorb Hegel’s Science of Logic (a negation/sublation of Aristotle), so I think something similar has happened with Sociology because it didn’t fully absorb its “tragic” function (as was perhaps missed due to Capital, so this is not to blame Sociology). This is what I mean when I say, “Sociology is yet tried,” as Christianity and Philosophy are similarly “yet tried,” but that doesn’t mean we’ve made a mistake to end up where we have. Indeed, such is contingent and depends on what we “Absolute Choose” today.

Sociology generally studies everything from day-to-day interactions of people to the interactions of entire civilizations. Why people act, how people act, how subjectivity is formulated—all of these are the subjects of the Sociologist. Alright, but haven’t these topics always existed? Yes, and though the word “Sociology” traces back to the 1780s with Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès (though some say Comte coined the term), it’s true that the start of a word is not the start of a reality. But why did the word arise when it did (which, following Hegel, would suggest a “historic development”)? Furthermore, why are we suggesting that “Sociology really got going in the 19^th century” with the likes of people like Comte, Marx, and others? Indeed, the concerns of Sociology have been with us for a long time, but our concern about those subjects are relatively new, because (as I will argue) the concerns of Sociology did not become “vivid” to us until “A Sense of Otherness” and Global Pluralism developed in a manner that motivated our concern (we saw and couldn’t “unsee,” alluding to Nabokov). This correlated with radical social change via industrialization, forces of trade, etc., so the developments of Pluralism and “The Great Enrichment” which McCloskey discusses are interweaved. For good and for bad, with “alienating” markets (Marx), “unembedding” rationality of the Enlightenment, science and “objective-ification,” growing equality and Democracy (Tocqueville), and the like, we developed a sense of “Otherness” inside ourselves in feeling “Othered” by our settings and environments, and at the same time we increasingly encountered “The Other” who was different from us and began living around us (the Catholic became neighbors with the Protestant, per se). “A Sense of Otherness” developed and spread in many forms and ways, and with this development then became “vivid” the always present concerns of Sociology (“Otherness” and the “vividness” of Sociology coemerge).

Pluralism and Sociology are profoundly linked, which means so are Economics, Globalization, and Sociology. And what happens in the 19^th century? Rapid Modernization, which also means anxiety. “Existentialism” begins brewing. Marx writes. Forms of psychoanalysis follow. The 19^th century is when the social conditions of anxiety really began to develop and spread, and in this way, we can say that Sociology has something to do with the conditions of anxiety (which are yet to be addressed, meaning a “historic contradiction” has been ignored that movements like the Liminal Web have “emerged” in light of). And something that creates anxiety is “seeing” (and being unable to “unsee”) the structures of society themselves, as described throughout Belonging Again (Part I). This in mind, Sociology seems unlikely where anxiety isn’t a risk.

Sociology is possible where the structures of society are questionable, and that means the structures have become “visible,” which suggests that something broke or stopped working as it once did (as a doorknob is “invisible” until it breaks, alluding to Heidegger). As such, the structures become less “given” and unable to stabilize us, which leads to pathologies, and yet what according to Part I caused this “visibility” and tension? Values. Equality, wealth, freedom, justice—all good things—are what ultimately make the structures of society “visible” to us with the Global Pluralism which equality, wealth, freedom, justice…can make possible (not that exploitation doesn’t still occur). Morality generates anxiety. Our values have made our world. Nihilism spreads for good reason, and this is what we must think and is so challenging to think. How do we address what “good values” have caused without losing those very “goods?” Not easily, but certainly not if we don’t address what we have explained.

I

Sociology today is often an analysis of power and oppression, and there is a lot of truth to this, but Sociology is best a study of good and bad power, not just a general power that is mostly seen as oppressive and controlling. Yes, “givens” can oppress, but we learn in Rieff that Sociology cannot simply be the erasing of sociological power, because without power people go mad. We will elaborate on this through Tocqueville and Dumont and others, but the point is that socialized “power” is “socialization,” and without that social intelligibility is impossible. It will not work to simply “erase all restraint” or “power,” because that gives us an anxiety against which people can react with a return to fascism, meaning we might erase power to stop fascism and thus contribute to its return. And yet at the same time Sociology is invaluable and necessary, so what is its role? Here, I will offer a “meta-theory” to suggest that I think we need a “Tragic Sociology” which is a tradeoff of competing goods, mainly between “socialization” and “individual freedom,” and I will call it “A Tragic Metatheory” for it argues that we should “refer to Sociology” differently, as well as argue that we should rethink how we are “between” one another. We must negotiate those competing forces in a paradox that, if we cannot imagine, we will continue to prove pathological, and ultimately “the technological essence” (represented by Nick Land in our work) will likely prevail. A claim here is that Sociology and Technology are in a way opposites, at least regarding their role in Political-Economy.

We speak often in O.G. Rose of The Fragility of Goodness by Martha Nussbaum and the idea that we live in a “tragic world,” and basically what Sociology should be in the business of (or so I think) is a study of tragedy not removing power. We must live with power, which means we must live with risk, and Sociology is a study of how best to live with power and not be destroyed (both because we are destroyed by the removal of “givens,” and we see in history a story of people turning to “power” and authority to make sense of their lives, suggesting that simply “removing givens” will not work — unless perhaps we “design” ourselves out of the need, which could be Transhumanism somehow). This case must be elaborated on, but the point is that Sociology has mostly been in a business that I think is counter to what we see humans doing historically, which I would say means Sociology is yet to be itself. An odd claim, yes, but it’s also the case that I agree with Carl Hayden Smith that “the human is yet to be the human’s self.” Many things which seem finished have just started.

Anyway, Sociology is a study of “problem management,” while my claim is that Technology (which I capitalize here to suggest the sociological sense by which I mean it) is “problem solving.” Sociology is to understand reality as ultimately only manageable, while Technology suggests “in its essence” that reality is ultimately solvable. Sociology entails a fundamental Conservativism (which is odd given that Sociology is considered radically Liberal by most today), while Technology entails a fundamental Neoliberalism. But part of the problem might be that we speak of Socio-logy, emphasizing “society” when we might instead want to speak of something like “commons” or “community.” “The Commons” is a topic I speak with Michel Bauwens about often, and in a way to speak of “Sociology” is to speak of “Commonology,” though that is not a term which exists. “Sociology” will do, but it’s hard to use where the word “society” can easily mean “city” and so “the economy”—none of that follows, of course, but “society” does not necessarily metaphorically associate in our Modern minds with “a tragic study of how to maintain common spaces” (outside the market, State, etc.). It could, but not easily, and furthermore it’s hard to speak of “Sociology” in a world that associates the field so much with “Social Justice.” These are part of the picture, yes, but the tragic process of socialization should be central to us, which Technology suggests we no longer have to worry about (with Capital, entertainment, etc.).

“The Process of Socialization” is essentially tragic, for it must limit the individual in making “collective intelligence” possible in making “social intelligibility” possible. If we cannot relate, we cannot engage in “collective intelligence” or “network effects,” and so we will prove to radically limit intellectual and creative possibility in ways that AI might seem like it won’t, meaning “the evolution of intelligence” might head off in the direction of AI and continue through AI without us. If we are to avoid that, we must lean to socialize, which means we have to learn to relate, and we must do it in a way that is non-reductionist. This is the rub of our challenge, for humans have learned to interact with one another across diversity mainly through economics and markets; we are yet to learn how to Pluralistically interact through other forms of non-reductionist meditation. It’s just too hard, but now we face a Causer of AI that forces us to take on that challenge or undergo self-effacement. The Absolute Choice is ours. (If lack is nothing, so are we.)

As discussed throughout The Absolute Choice and much of O.G. Rose, David Hume understood that a society which wasn’t based on “common life” but instead on a noncontingent, “abstract” ground could be used in service of power and ultimately make possible a “totalization” that could lead to Modern War. A.J. Conyers and Livingston also discuss how “modern totalization” became possible through abstract notions like “tolerance,” “freedom,” and/or “justice,” making it possible for a force of Unified Power in the Capital-Nation-State the likes of which the world has never seen before. Is this not a good thing? That’s up to us based on how we choose to respond to the Causer of AI/Capital; in Hegel, there is only “The Now” to consider. If we might learn Commonology, perhaps the vast Unity of the Capital-Nation-State might be negated/sublated into Something More. Time will tell, but the point is that the “bad/false philosophy” admonished about by David Hume makes possible a “fungibility” of reality like Capital does according to Marx (the logics are on the same gradient). Both “unembed,” as Karl Polanyi discusses, and in this way both can lead to Technology as described by Land and Heidegger. Sure, but what of it? It’s to say that Technology is the process of us trying to “problem solve” the world versus tragically “problem manage.” It is the denial of a need for Sociology and disregard of Tragic Sociology to a function of “fighting power,” which ultimately means it fights “givens” and so ironically can contribute to Technology (and so “cheap Deleuzianism”). This suggests further reason why I oddly claim that “Sociology is yet to happen,” for the Sociology around today is simply Technology in the clothing of its opponent. The fight is yet to begin. Sociology is yet with us while taught by some of Technology’s greatest critics (perhaps another crowning achievement of the Capital-Nation-State).

Tragic Sociology for me is a study of how “a commons” might be possible, which to be maintained must be a space where subjects learn to handle difference (versus run to Technology), which means we must learn to handle negativity and “The Real.” Sociology is a study of how such a commons is needed for us to avoid self-effacement, and it is to convince us both that “tragedy is necessary” (so that we stop arguing this and instead engage in the work of managing that tragedy) and that “a human element” must always be part of the process (or else we are alienated). We have thought of ethics mostly in terms of Utilitarianism, which means Technology wins; we must return in First World Nations to something like “Value Ethics” and keep Technological Ethics like Utilitarianism in its “proper bounds” of dealing with poverty, etc. (we must keep Utilitarianism from being “overfit,” as Technology would have of us, as it goes with technology in general). Most nations have “doctrines of humans rights,” but define all these in terms of goods and services which Technology can provide, meaning most governments are in the business not of Sociology but Technology—we need to think of “dwelling” as a human right, not merely food and shelter (as Illich understood), or else we will only be further “disabled.” (Land waits.)

II

Sociology arises where we realize that intelligibility and interaction must be meditated through authorities, institutions, and powers, which though always the case, was not “vivid” until the 19th century via Industrialization, which made possible technologies by which everyday people become more familiar with Difference and Pluralism. Then what was “always” the case became visible to average people, and now that “vividness” is only further intensified. But awareness of Sociology happened at the same time of and with Capitalism, which then “raced in” and seemed to “solve” Sociology right when it emerged. To elaborate, Sociology arises when we live with Otherness, not merely see or acknowledge it; to put this another way, though the topics and interests of Sociology have always been with us (the study of “fetishes,” we might say, alluding to Marx and Žižek), it was not until my neighbor become Hindu (versus me just abstractly know about Hinduism) that the content and concerns of Sociology became “vivid” to me. Now, we live with Pluralism, and this is very different from a temporary encounter on a Silk Road which is meditated by a shared interest in an economic good. That though didn’t stop us from trying to deal with Otherness through the same tool of economics, which in a way worked, but it has also proved to “overfit” in that it has lead increasingly until now to alienation, reductionism, and ultimately “flattening.” Sure, Capital as a means of “social meditation” is better than nothing, but it also can’t prove to be a source of the negation/sublation into Absolute History from AI. “Something More” is needed.

Sociology was “glimpsed,” we might say, in the 19th century, but it was quickly “concealed” and “hidden” again by the commodity-form (for good and for bad). Having been glimpsed, Sociology was with us, but in its “tragic subject” being seemingly “solved away” by Capital, I think it was left with an unclear purpose that allowed it to be interpreted as primarily in the business of “challenging power” (in terms of “problem-solving” versus “problem-managing”). This contributed to Sociology contributing to “the triumph of the therapeutic” which concerned Philip Rieff, but today we have returned to a state in which we can recover “the subject of Sociology,” as if for the very first time (“Sociology Again,” per se). Sociology is best a study of how Pluralism deals with itself, how people respond to Otherness and learn (or don’t learn) to manage it. Capital is an example of a response with “creating markets,” following Polanyi, as is say “creating whiteness” or “creating status,” and so on. We are in need of a “new address” then these methods of “responding to Pluralism,” which have led to oppression and other problems, as we need a “new address” versus the response to “givens” which has typically been a deconstructing of them. We have rightly opposed “whiteness,” for example, to end racial hierarchy, which is a process of “unembedding people” from their racial and social identifications, but this in the same move “liberates people” into a realm of infinite (and so unclear) possibility that can overwhelm them with anxiety. Stopping power can be a process of “unembedding” very similar to the process Polanyi describes markets submit people to, which suggests that our “tool” for most of history by which we respond to oppression is a tool that can unintentionally lead us right back into the same problem.

“Unembedding” is risky, and rationality, in naturally being “toward” achieving “autonomous rationality,” proves to be a great source of risk in the same move by which it provides liberation. In the 19th century, this process of “unembedding” become “vivid” when for most of history it was “invisible” and subtle, and at the same time what also become “vivid” was the response to that “unembedding” which was the effort of reestablishing “authoritative categories” so that people might have “social intelligibility” and live together. Due to Pluralism and living with Otherness, the mechanisms of “unembedding” us from social categories and “givens” was witnessed, as was the process of new authoritative categories arising. All at once, it was realized both that “rationality unembedded” and “social categories are created,” which is a profoundly “traumatic realization” — but then Capital “raced in” and concealed this twin revelation. Still, from the 19th century on, “spurts” of these revelations would emerge here and there, say in Existentialism (which emphasized the “ultimate groundless of being” and our radical freedom) or various forms of Structuralism, but perhaps rarely have “the twin revelations” really been thought together, or what it would mean if both revelations were in different ways true. This “tragedy” and “tradeoff” is what Sociology should accept and think, and our argument is that once Sociology does so it will be itself.

Another way to think of Sociology is as “a study of fetishization” or “a study of how abstractions (like theology) emerge and gain authority.” For most of history, religions arose for various reasons, and these religions were accepted by the societies very emergently and naturally: it wasn’t really an intentional effort of powerful people to control others, but rather the religions spread through faith, sacrifice, and other things. There really wasn’t a conspiracy, for the priests who taught the people Christianity believed in it like the people. The religions and their “authoritative categories” spread very naturally, dealing with problems of Sociology in the realm of theology. This is central: for most of history, before Pluralism, we might say that Sociology was more so Religion or Theology (more so than Philosophy, please note, which seems more needed today, hence why much Philosophy today seems Sociological). The more Religion grew and incorporated diversity, the more I think it became Theological, because “abstractions” can make “space for Otherness” (at the risk of “reducing” and “unembedding” people, however), but that is another story for another time. Now, with Pluralism, a distinction arose between Theology and Sociology, precisely because this “Event of Pluralism” arose in a “twin revelation” alongside “unembedded reason.” The matter of “authoritative categorization” had to respond to the presence and critiques of reason, and this meant the process of socialization could not “unfold” as it had traditionally with and as Theology. It had to “unfold” differently, but as of the 19th century, it really didn’t seem to know how — and so there was a demand for (something like) Capital. And this point cannot be overstressed: though Polanyi seems right that “markets were made” (as does Marx), I’m not sure that people didn’t want Capitalism as such in a world where no “Proper Address of Tragic Sociology” was found ready. Thus, as Pluralism forced a need for the socialization-process of Theology in an age where “unembedding reason” would now allow Theology to do this, so was “glimpsed” a need for Sociology, but this “glimpse” was quickly “passed over” (Hegel) into Economics and Capital. The 19th and 20th centuries also saw a radical birth of mass, (more) secular, and modern Ideology, which arose in response to and/or with Capital to deal with Pluralism (via “compression”), and arguably is still with us in the form of conspiracies, cults, etc. — forms of “Pandora’s Rationality” (Ep #36). But Ideology failed as an “address” (for reasons that The True Isn’t the Rational trilogy explores), and to the degree it “works” it does so as a sociological strategy we will not follow in our work.

Ideology is like Capital and Theology in that it works to “give diverse people something in common” that is “abstract” and so not prone to limit or tribalize, but this of course works through a “reductionism” that risks alienations (we might say “alienation” and “tribalism” are opposite problems, and an address of one which leads to the other will not suffice). And all of this was relatively fine for a time, but now what we “passed over” is causing tensions as a Hegelian “contradiction” that we must return to and “address” — and this “address” is the work of Belonging Again (Part II). To depict the movement:

Religion and Theology
(Most of History)

to

Sociology
(Glimpsed)

with
Capital
(Conflicts of Ideology while Sociology Becomes “Conspiratorial”)

to

Technology or Tragic Sociology
(Hegelian Contradiction Forcing Sociology’s Acknowledgment as Absolute Choice or Nick Land Prevails)

René Girard has famously written on the “sacred violence” that Christ made visible at “the foundation of the world,” which overturned the scapegoat mechanism, which means that today we find ourselves possibly in a worse situation thanks precisely to “the grace of Christ.” Cleo Kearns writes incredibly on Girard, and here I will not claim expertise, but I will say that perhaps another “sacred violence” that has become visible to us is “the sacred violence of socialization,” which is “sacred” in that it has worked through a Theology which made it thus so that it was authoritative and worked. Throughout history, almost all “socialization” was a “sacred violence” committed on the subject so that the subject might be able to function socially, and now that we “see” clearly that “sacred violence,” it does not really work on us: “the socialization mechanism” has been unveiled. Yes, it was unveiled in the 19th century and then quickly covered again, like a crucified Christ quickly hidden behind a veil, but now that veil has worn, torn, and fallen away. We see “the socialization mechanisms” and reject its “sacred violence,” but what now? As we might be after Christ for Girard, if we cannot muster “a new address,” we might prove to be far worse off.

Every society has had to carry out a “magic trick” we might say through “sleight of hand” by which socialization could prove possible, but the greater the Pluralism the more difficult this “magic trick” proved to pull off. Now, we’ve all seen the magician try to do the trick and know it isn’t “magic” — it’s really just a trick. Of power. Of oppression. All arbitrary. All arguably deceptive. Society is now like a caught magician, and yet we find ourselves still in need of magic to function. After all, who wants to stay at the show if it all feels fake? (Should we all leave and return to our apartments, perhaps like the hikikomori in Japan?) But once we know the magic is simply trickery, how can we believe in it again? That seems impossible, as it seems impossible “to leave Plato’s Cave on our own.” This is where “lack matters.” This is where “lack” could be a grace.

III

‘We all conceive of ourselves as experts on society,’ Randall Collins and Michael Makowsky tell us, but really ‘the social world is a mystery — a mystery deepened by our lack of awareness of it. Society is our immediate, everyday reality, yet we understand no more of it merely by virtue of living it than we understand of physiology by virtue of our inescapable presence as living bodies.’¹ After the 19th Century though, we find ourselves “seeing” these realities, and yet we still don’t really understand them, meaning we cannot “unsee” what confuses and confronts — anxious, perhaps tormented. We become aware of ‘things we did not know existed,’ and now we cannot become un-aware of them, increasing freedom, which can be a burden.² ‘The social world [is in a sense] mostly illusion. Yet, if we were all completely deluded, there would be no point in trying to investigate.’³ To engage in Sociology, we must feel that our minds can make sense of the world thanks to social categories and orientations that are ultimately “arbitrary,” and yet at the same time believe that we are capable of learning. This is paradoxical and hardly makes sense, and yet this is what we have to accept (A/B). We rarely understand without ‘a name for it,’ and yet we learn in Sociology that names are just names: the mind requires the “mere.”⁴ And yet that “mere” cannot be just a “mere,” but something else — something like a “fetish,” as made possible thanks to society and “social relations.” This in mind, we could say that in the 19th Century we came to realize the primacy of society in shaping us as persons (versus say Theology) precisely at the same time we realized that this “shaping” seemed arbitrary, oppressive, manipulative, and the like. And then with Pluralism and Globalization we also felt to lose control over these forces…

Sociology is a study of “fetish,” religion, and/or theology production (through “plausibility structures” and narratives and more), which is to say the production of realities that work on us even if we don’t believe in them (for, indeed, we are Christian in the West even if we don’t believe in Christ; we are shaped by Capital even if we think it is nonsense; and so on, and yet these “social realities” are not concrete like a stone). Sociology is an art of how we might create fetishes we believe in without being oppressed, and after knowing the mechanisms of this “magic trick,” it makes sense that Theology would slide quickly into Economics, for that is a “theology” (as Marx understood) which we still seem capable of believing in (and not realize we believe in). Sociology seems like an impossible art, but we learn from Shestov and Fondane that we need “The Impossible.” Furthermore, ‘[w]e know now that we are all social creatures and [that] there is no turning back to the naive optimism of the nineteenth century that could see in the rational education of the individual the solution to all social ills’ (the hope shimmered as the correction rose), which is to say we must do “The Impossible.”⁵ “No exit.” (Grace?)

Belonging Again (Part II) has noted a difference between system and ideology, programming and negotiation, and argued that the glory of a system like Capital is that it works without people liking or understanding it, which is also its horror. Capital is like a system, as is Theology, as is Technology, and so to speak of “Sociology vs Technology” is to speak of “things which can causally work on our lives even if we don’t ascribe to them.” This is to risk oppression, but not taking this risk flirts with madness. But is this very consideration madness? For good and for bad, surely it is not possible for people to “experience the magic” once they know the mechanism of the trick, for people to see as “objectively authoritative” social technologies that they witnessed arise? It would seem that way, but this is where “lack” can play such a critical role…

David McKerracher noted that I was perhaps making a distinction between “Conspiracy Sociology” and “Contradiction Sociology,” which is to say between a sociology that is out looking for “conspiracies of power” which have lead to oppression and manipulation, versus a sociology of my interest which thinks about social organization, institutions, and systems as primarily in the business of “managing contradiction” and training subjects who can handle tension, tradeoffs, “becoming,” and the like, a need for which becomes increasingly “vivid” as Global Pluralism sets in, spreads, and becomes lived. Especially given the focus on conspiracy in The Map Is Indestructible, I really liked this framing, and “Contradiction Sociology” in a Hegelian sense aligns with the “Tragic Sociology” I often mention, and we might consider the “tragic” in light of the tension which arises between ‘applied sociology’ and ‘pure sociology.’⁶ ‘The attack on some of the older sociologists […] is a legitimate attack only on their applied work,’ Collins and Makowsky tell us; ‘ their pure sociology, on the other hand, must be judged by the standards of scholarly objectivity, comprehensiveness, and consistency […]’⁷ I don’t disagree, but right here we see in Sociology a tension between “coherence” and “correspondence” (as discussed throughout O.G. Rose), and to say we require Sociology today is to say that we require thinking which lives in and works with this tension. Tension is hard though, and so we (“naturally,” without perhaps realizing it…) turned to Capital to deal with these sociological problems (as intellectuals perhaps turned to “pure fields,” A/A). And Capital did, but the problems did not go away. They evolved.

Randall Collins and Michael Makowsky offer a tremendous overview of the development of Sociology in their book, The Discovery of Society, and they reflect on Auguste Comte as concerned with a question that similarly concerns us: ‘how to put a society ravaged by revolution and strife back into order’ (physically, psychologically, existentially, etc.).⁸ Comte understood that ‘[h]umans free themselves from theological and metaphysical notions first in those areas most remote from themselves — mathematics and astronomy; it is only after great advance that humans come to apply science to realms of their own being — biology and sociology.’⁹ There is indeed a radical freedom humans gain from “givens” in the 19th century, but what Comte might not have fully grasped is that this very freedom threatens society just like revolution and strife. A simple “triumph of the therapeutic” is not enough, as is not “a rise of quantity over quality” (alluding to Guenon), and though I have great sympathy toward Comte’s view that ‘progress occurs simultaneously in all spheres — intellectual, physical, moral, and political’ (for beliefs are “clustered” as “maps” and “visions,” alluding to Thomas Sowell), Comte associated our “intellectual move” from Theological to Metaphysical to Positive, and with “The Positive” believed our ‘Basic Moral Sentiment” would be ‘Benevolence.’¹⁰ Rather, it is “Anxious” and pathological before “The Real” of Lacan, suggesting why ‘[t]he cults of Comte and Saint-Simon, like the other utopian schemes of the nineteenth century, failed to save the world […] of even to have very much effect on it.’¹¹

Everything comes with everything: Sociology is a revelation of geometry over algebra (alluding to Leibniz). Alluding to Hegel, we can say that ‘humans create their world by the act of perceiving it. But this does not occur all at once; it takes all of history to fulfill.’¹² The development of us is indivisible from the whole, which is to say we cannot separate our “becoming” from ideas, as ideas cannot be divided from materiality. All is one, and yet this one is a diverse and tense harmony. Hegel’s “Absolute Idealism” is an “Absolute Situation.” We are a Situation, which suggests we need Sociology to think ourselves, and yet we seem to have forsaken “Tragic Sociology” (A/B) due to a “sleight of hand” of Capital. Does this suggest we need to be more like Tocqueville, who held a ‘classical idea of balance,’ that ‘excess in any direction leads to a corresponding reaction?’¹³ In a way, but the “A/B” of Hegel is not “a balanced state of is-ness”: it is much more dynamic, active, and an expression of “Costly Deleuzian.” It is more like the balance of a Nietzschean tightrope walker. And the rope moves with ‘the inevitable advance of equality,’ which made possible the “free labor” cherished by Marx and that helped generate radical wealth-creation — as it simultaneously threatens it.¹⁴

“Equality” (in the Tocqueville sense) advances through the spread of “philosophical consciousness” (alluding to Livingston and Hume), which is to say by releasing us from “givens” (which America as a “philosophical society” can be seen as an example of, as argued by Dr. James Vaughn, which we will explore later in Part II), which presents us with a key paradox: it is only through “releases from givens” that equality proves possible, which also means “free labor” (which is to say a society where people are free to work on what they want and value, alluding to McCloskey’s work and even McKerracher’s “timenergy”), but that very release from “givens” is what also creates the anxiety that makes us susceptible to Capital, “strong men,” and all the other problems described in Part I. And to keep Capital from “racing in” and eclipsing Equality (which I will capitalize to designate Tocqueville’s meaning), we require maintaining culture, a commons, and a “human element”—which is very difficult. ‘Tocqueville was careful to point out that the United States was not a land of unlimited freedom […] On the contrary, he declared, ‘more social obligations were imposed on [the individual] there than anywhere else.’ ’¹⁵ We will expand upon this later in Part II when we consider Sheldon Wolin’s work, but the point is that American Equality functioned through “social capital” and “common spaces,” and we will argue in Part II that something like this is needed if Equality is not to be replaced by Capital and/or Technology. For this reason, it’s critical we examine what happened in America to Equality that made Equality “hand itself over” to Capital. And please note this wasn’t necessarily bad (and even if it was, Hegel would have us think “The Now”); rather, at this point of the Causer, Capital seems to have “exhausted” itself, and hence a negation/sublation is needed (based on History, hence our investigation).

What does all this mean? As hopefully made clear through Part II, it means Equality enriched the world through a means that made everything “fungible” (for philosophy makes the material “less solid” and “more fungible,” per se), which created both an anxiety and a condition in which Capital was easily adapted. Collins and Makowsky reflect on Nietzsche as a social theorist, and Nietzsche believed that ‘all of Western civilization […] had become an extension of the Apollonian culture. The Dionysian side […] had been steadily buried.’¹⁶ But I would argue that Nietzsche wrote this precisely in the 19th century when the Dionysian side was being “unburied” and freed” again. To learn of a limit is to being crossing it in Hegel; likewise, for Sociology to release “givens” is precisely to move beyond them. In Nietzsche writing about a “buried Dionysian,” he wrote of “a lack of fungibility” and “fluidity,” which increasingly was what defined the 19th century. And so Nietzsche supported the “unfolding” of what was underway, but as hopefully we have made clear in O.G. Rose, Nietzsche was not naïve about what this meant. He understood the stakes, even if we are yet to understand them.

Equality with Rhetoric (as required for Equality’s spread, management and consideration, suggesting that Equality without Rhetoric can do little, hence the centrality of “the medium conditions”) makes possible “free labor” (labor freed from feudal power, “givens,” etc.), which makes possible “The Great Enrichment,” which at the same time creates the conditions in which Capital seems “fitting,” and so Rhetoric can easily “pass over” into Discourse—which then threatens Rhetoric with Discourse. And so the conditions which make possible the “free labor” which Marx sought can easily lead to the loss of “free labor,” and yet those conditions are required, which means the risk is required as well. In this way, we can accept the great gains and liberations of Capitalism and American, but at the same time note there is something about this enrichment that leads to its self-effacement. What is it? Why do the conditions for “free labor” and Rhetoric also prove to be the conditions which leads to Capital, “capture,” and Discourse? To put this another way, why does it seem so easy for “The Great Enrichment” of Rhetoric in McCloskey and “free labor” seem vulnerable to “pass over” into “the created and unembedded markets” of Karl Polanyi? Is either Polanyi or McCloskey wrong or is there some “ontological contradiction” at work here with which we must come to terms? We will have to find out.  

IV

Most of human history has been shaped by Religion and Theology, but then there was a philosophical revolution in terms of Equality which arose with Rhetoric. This began to free the world from “common life,” but with that freedom came all the risks that Hume warned of (that we have mostly ignored, risks which are further described in Berger and Rieff), but with that risk came “The Great Enrichment” of McCloskey. Where a great “unembedding” occurs and “loss of givens,” great anxiety and wealth arises, and making social relations all the more difficult to manage, for now we are “free” from the means of identifying and understanding one that in the past were available, meaningful, and authoritative. In this anxiety, “Tragic Sociology” was glimpsed, but quickly we “passed over” from this glimpse to Capital and Discourse (a process which might have been accelerated by “the making of markets,” as described by Karl Polanyi, which was then “justified” and “legitimated” by a mythos of “free markets being natural”). Equality thus made possible wealth but also a “fungibility” which perhaps made people open to Capital, which also made life “fungible,” because Equality may have removed authority from “nonrational” sources like land, tradition, religion, blood, etc. to stop Capital from defining social and communal life; now, a “rational argument” was needed to stop Capital, not an appeal to nonrationality, and this could not be provided. Hence, Capital could not be “rationally” stopped, and in a world where people only think of rationality as an option (as rationality would have us think), that means Capital cannot be stopped (for good and for bad).

The “fungibility” of Marx and Capital is very similar to the “Equality” of Tocqueville and Philosophy, both of which ca lead to a “philosophical ascent” from out of particularity and “common life” that worried David Hume and made possible a “totalization” and universality which could lead to totalitarianism (for “Roanoke Virginia” is must more limited than “freedom” and “justice” as political anchors). And yet where we do not take that risk, no “Great Enrichment” would be possible, nor would we have a means to defend against “the banality of evil” — philosophy is a fire that keeps warm and burns. As Girard understood, we might say that Capital is a threat to Philosophy and Equality because they are so similar. Capital is like Equality in its “noncontingency,” which suggests that the conditions which liberate us could be conditions in which we suffer “reductionism” and “capture”; likewise, the conditions in which “free labor” become possible are also the conditions in which “The Great Stagnation” become a threat with AI (Land waits). This is the contradiction we must think that we have perhaps not even yet thought, eager to instead “blame the system” or something else that, however difficult, seems more changeable than say “human nature.”

On that point, though it will require much more expansion in Part II, a reason “free labor” might end up in Capital could be that otherwise “free labor” and Rhetoric could end up in “unmediated social relations” which lead to terrors and paranoias like China’s “Cultural Revolution,” which 1Dime compelling explains why we shouldn’t consider as a simple example of some “totalitarian movement” or failed “State Communism.” I’m not entirely sure, in need of studying the work of say Andrew Walder and Frank Dikotter, but there could have been a lot more “small government” and anarchism at work in Mao, which suggests that if we succeed at avoiding Capital but we are not ready for it, freedom might just devolve into something like Anarchy. Perhaps “Anarchy” is a third term we need to introduce alongside Rhetoric and Discourse, or maybe instead “Accusation,” but then again Discourse is often defined and maintained through means of accusation, and furthermore the term “Anarchy” might be a slight against projects of political anarchism I am not equipped at this moment to discuss. What we might see in the Cultural Revolution is not really Kafka but something more like Paranoia, and with all that I think I’ll tentatively use the term Anxiety (with a capital-A) to describe what might have happened.

What is possibly unique about the Cultural Revolution is that we see a society where Capital is denied, as are other sources for Discourse, and yet the Anxiety which makes Discourse appealing to people when they lose “givens” is not addressed. In other words, people find themselves denied Capital, thus faced with anxiety, yet then they are also denied Discourse and Rhetoric, leaving them in Anxiety. Though I might change the language later, Anxiety (again, here with a capital-A) means an anxiety resulting from “a loss of givens” that is denied Discourse but also not provided the skills, resources, and commons needed to sustain Rhetoric (that doesn’t slip into Capital). That’s what we might see under Mao, a China liberated from the Capital that can hinder enrichment but without what was needed in Rhetoric for enrichment — a very odd and unique circumstance that, for this reason, could prove useful for our investigation, though I will not here say more on Mao and the Cultural Revolution — I only wanted to acknowledge a fascinating possibility that 1Dime brought to my attention, which can be summarized with a question: Did Mao primarily force people to terrorize one another, or did the people under Mao, enabled and even “freed” by Mao, primarily terrorize themselves? Again, I’m not sure and must learn a lot more, but this question is important.

This all in mind, what can be done? How can we assure that “the conditions for free labor” (Equality, Rhetoric) don’t “pass over” into its loss (Capital, Discourse) (which is to stop the “unfolding” of/into a Nash Equilibria)? A/B. Culture. Commons. A “human element” that is very hard to maintain. Durkheim believed ‘that society [was] based on a common moral order rather than on rational self-interest,’ and something like “a common moral order” seems to be exactly what we need today that is distinct from Capital, for otherwise Capital comes in, replaces the “moral order” with itself (“the logic of Capital”), which means we then have a self-effacing A/A (Capital defines the market and the community; there is no distinct “B,” per se).¹⁷ Durkheim claimed that ‘moral feelings of solidarity underlie social order,’ and yet “moral feelings” can lead to oppression and “capture.”¹⁸ As “moral feelings” can provide, we learn from Weber that ‘there are two general ways in which people can stabilize their relationships: either by establishing strong personal ties or by setting up general rules.’¹⁹ In a Pluralistic and Globalized world, it is not possible for people to be connected by “strong personal ties,” so we have “set up general rules” via Capital, yet the conditions of “free labor” and Rhetoric are threatened by Capital, via “The Great Stagnation” and ultimately AI. What can be the new “abstract social norm” that might be able to provide the benefits of Capital without the negatives? Lack. Lack is can be our River-Hole.

Is that idealistic? Perhaps, but we know that abstractions can change the world: we’ve seen it in Theology, Equality, and Capital. ‘[T]hat unmistakable phenomenon called ‘modernization,’ which turned a world of peasants, lords, and priests into a buzzing hive of organization, machinery, and movements’ would not have been possible without abstractions (in Capital), and so it is thanks to abstraction (sometimes dismissed by Pragmatists) that we can speak of a “Great Enrichment.”²⁰ It is simply time for a negation/sublation into lack, and the question is only if we might Absolutely Choose this or if instead we must wait for a “historic forcing function.” And today is a day for choices.

We are not arguing here that the 19th century was a mistake — Hegel does not make such judgments, only tells us to understand the past so that we might understand what choices we need to make today to negate/sublate our “exhausted” moment into what might come next. There is a sense in which it is a mistake to speak of “the mistakes of history” (though I have done it), for those mistakes are not mistakes if we make the right decisions today (a “flip moment”). ‘[B]oth nature and society [could] be treated in a stabler way’ thanks to science, helping us understand reality, but with this stability also arose the possibility for industry and thus Capital.²¹ Everything is mixed, and a better approach (in my view) for thinking our “now” is given to us by Dr. Vaughn, who stresses that Marx was interested in how the conditions which generated “free labor” and prosperity also generated the Industrial Capitalism in which labor was alienated again. Marx studied a tragedy, but we do not, and so we struggle to understand. We generate melodramas and shed tears.

It is obvious that it would be nonsense to expect Computer Science as a field to exist in the 1820s, for computers were not invented or even considered, and yet there is something about Sociology that feels like it could be ancient and timeless. In a way, this is true, for society has always been with us to some degree, but Sociology as a field of study and “tragic tradeoff” doesn’t readily exist until the conditions of Pluralism and Globalization are “invented,” per se, which happens with modernization in the 19^th century. There is nothing “on the face of it” that makes it obviously ridiculous to think that “Sociology is transhistorical” (while such is the case with considering “Computer Science as timeless”), but this is a reason why I think we have missed understanding and studying “Tragic Sociology” as opposed to “Conspiratorial Sociology,” for we fail to appreciate that Sociology arises at a particular time in history for a very particular, historically contingent reason (mainly Modernity). This isn’t to say there aren’t Sociologists who don’t realize this, but rather I am simply trying to emphasize how bound Sociology is to the historic moment of “unembedding” and “the loss of givens” that defined the 19^th century. This is when the “invisible” structure of society became visible to us; this is when we couldn’t “unsee” what we had seen, and yet we could still deny the “glimpse” of the tension between Equality and Capital. And indeed, we did deny it.  

V

I don’t think it is by chance there seems to be something Sociological about most philosophy and theology today, which can be seen in their concerns about “social justice” and “daily life,” for both fields are increasingly concerned with the problem of “living with Pluralism.” This is a good orientation, but there has also been something missing about it, mainly that philosophy and theology have hence become more political, when instead I think both should bring Pluralism to the ontological. Paradoxically, the fullness of Sociology is not realized in an emphasis on politics, but in a reconsideration of metaphysics. Sociology is deep, but in only considering Sociology politically, we can tend toward Conspiracy Sociology, and thus miss the fuller implications of the field. As intensified by the degree of Pluralism and discussed across “The Liminal Web,” Sociology is what follows from a universe where relations are real and ontological; in a universe where “relations are not ontological,” we ascribed to “deepest reality as individual,” and so Sociology has been in service of an individual. There’s good to this, but then it makes sense that Sociology would end up too far on the side of “releases” and “freeing individuals from socialization,” which is to say participate in an overly-general deconstruction of “givens” and “power.” Thus, Conspiracy Sociology makes sense to have arisen in a world where “things are real” versus “relations are real,” but in a universe where “relations are real” (more Hegelian), Sociology is about managing those relations, and if the relation is lost, Sociology has failed. Well, for people to handle relations, there must be a “tragic tradeoff” between “givens and releases,” and thus it will not suffice for Sociology to simply be in the business of “erasing givens.” It must become more artful, but under Capital until this “Pluralistic Now” there seemed to be little need for this art, and it is not productive for us to ask if we made a mistake to not rightly “unfold” what was “glimpsed” in the 19th Century. Now is all and now, and now we need an artful Sociology, a Tragic and Contradictory Sociology that is arguably “Sociology for the first time.” Capital and Technology cannot stop the Nash Equilibria of “unembedded and autonomous rationality”; we are, at this moment, approaching Nick Land’s Singularity, like the mouse in Kafka’s “A Little Fable.” Sociology is our hope for learning to “change our direction” before hearing it from a hungry cat.

David Hume warned that “philosophical ascent” from “common life” would lead to a “philosophical melancholia” which could make tyranny appealing and misery likely, and yet in “givens” we find ourselves incapable of “free labor” and vulnerable to “the banality of evil.” Hume supported America in different ways, but if America was such a critical example of “a philosophical society” (as Dr. Vaughn argues), shouldn’t Hume had opposed it? Hume died in 1776, so he did not see America develop, but we can imagine America could represent to Hume an example of using philosophy for self-defense and breaking away from tyranny, which is a very risky weapon to use, and yet the future was open on if America could learn to use this (necessary) “unembedding tool” and not be destroyed by it, which is to say somehow “return to common life” without being overcome by melancholia and the like. So far, we can say that America has failed, which is to say that we saw an emergence of “free labor”—a real socioeconomic gain of liberty for everyday people—but that “free labor” then passed over into “capture” under Capital. Rhetoric was real, as was “The Great Enrichment,” but Rhetoric has led to Discourse, which has led to “The Meaning Crisis,” “The Meta-Crisis,” and so on. What now? Well, we figure out how to regain Rhetoric and keep it. How’s that possible? Perhaps by regaining something we “glimpses” over... 

A “glimpse” of a need for “Contradiction Sociology” arose in the 19^th Century that was then quickly “covered over,” as if there was “nothing to see there.” But Sociology had already been “glimpsed,” but so cut off from a sense of its “origin” as a “tragic tradeoffs” necessary due to Otherness, it can become “Conspiracy Sociology” (paradoxically benefiting “The Capital-Nation-State”), which in our day and moment has seemingly reached its “point of exhaustion,” forcing upon us an opportunity to recover “Tragic/Contradictory Sociology” (“for the very first time,” alluding to T.S. Eliot), or else otherwise Technology will prevail at “The (End) of True History.” Similar in structure to Philosophy and Equality, Capital (with Discourse) easily “moved in” (people being “cultured” to such “fungibility”), which could then lead to a removal of the Rhetoric which as philosophical accompanied Equality and was fundamentally required for the Great Enrichment. To keep Equality from becoming Capital/Technology, we require Sociology, but Sociology requires that we face “The Real” and somehow “try being human” (Loncar, Carl Hayden Smith…), which is incredibly difficult. But we must try.

To review, thanks to Capital, which we “passed over” from Theology then Sociology into, everyone and everything became “fungible” and “exchangeable” (a great “=” was added to everything which couldn’t be found in nature), and thus Difference all gained “something in common.” And so the entire world became like the Silk Road, and so we seemed to find a way to deal with Pluralism. There was no need for Tragic Sociology; Sociology arose in response to a need that suddenly vanished, and yet Sociology was already on the scene, so what to do with it? Well, it become a study of Power and oppression, for now we understood and saw how “givens” and categories could oppress; furthermore, people under Capital experienced “alienation” and became “other to themselves,” and Sociology came to focus on that (for Sociology seemingly always has something to do with Otherness, at least in that its contents are “visible”). And so Sociology came to focus on liberation from alienation and oppression, which is indeed a part of Tragic and True Sociology, but not only that, for if Sociology thinks thus it becomes a study of “problems and solutions” versus “problem management,” which means it comes to share in the Essence of Technology, which is its opposite. And so Sociology has come to serve what it should critique in the name of a liberation which benefits the Capital-Nation-State—an incredible irony.

Sociology arose and become “vivid” exactly when it was made to in a sense “vanish again” under and with Capital, and so we have not addressed the world which emerged to Sociology. This is a world that faces and realizes “The Conflict of Society” and “Value Circle,” which is to say we realize and learn to live with (not avoid) the “ultimate groundlessness” of society, but not in a manner that leads to self-effacement but instead Hegelian “Absolute Knowing” and Childhood. Instead though, until now, we simply “reduced” and “flattened” the world, making it seem as if Tragic Sociology had no place or need. But in Hegel we learn that “contradictions,” tensions, and problems we have not addressed will eventually come out as history unfolds and reaches “limits” and “saturation points” (as Alex Ebert speaks on), and that would be now. And so we are saying here that “Sociology was found too hard and left untried,” but “The Now” forces us to try, as Belonging Again seeks. We seek an alternative to Technology, a Hyperhumanism as Carl Hayden Smith discusses. Tragedy is a blessing. It is what we can all have in common. Lack can negentropically gift if only (as Thomas Winn discusses) we might “let it be.” Then, Sociology might prove an art of meditation and shared intelligibility that does not “reduce” us into what we are not—an art needed desperately today.

Justice, freedom, equality, Capital — our “good” philosophical premises caused “the spread of philosophical consciousness,” alluding to Donald Livingston; we are all existential now, “for good reason” (alluding to Peter Berger). These are the premises which have made our world “good,” but this has come at a price we have tried to avoid paying, and as a result we seem to be paying a higher price. The cost is that we must do the work of Sociology; the higher cost is that, in ignoring this work, we might end up in catastrophe. Again, alluding to Part I, markets can distract us from “The Conflict of Society” and “Problem of Pluralism,” which is to say markets can distract us from Sociology. And it has, but we have functioned in Pluralism then without addressing Pluralism socially, and that is a Hegelian “contradiction” which history cannot hide anymore. It is arising, and it is becoming dire via “The Causer” of AI, for without AI we could simply continue ignoring Sociology with Capital. But Capital leads to AI, and the irony is that we deal with Pluralism by ignoring it: we engaged in Capital to deal with Pluralism, and Capital is why Pluralism could be effaced by AI. The Causer presents us with an Absolute Choice, and the Theme, “the command,” is that Absolute Choice — which is “alignment with lack” and hence actuality (as I spoke with Thomas Jockin at the end of “Net (95)”). Sociology then is again the opposite of the Technology needed for an Absolute History alternative to AI — and it is very hard, hence why the Absolute Choice could be courageous and noble. The human is yet to be tried. We can try it now, and Sociology is a study of how we might so try without falling into a self-effacing egotism or individualism. Sociology is the study of trying to be human with others, for there are no humans without others. We are I/Other. Social and unstable, found hard and left untried, but thanks to Capital we have not had to admit that we didn’t try, because Capital concealed what we avoided. We are yet to be a magician in a world where everyone knows the trick, and yet the magician still makes the people feel the magic. Impossibility must be attempted. Sociology is what Absolute History requires.

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Notes

¹Collins, Randall and Michael Makowsky. The Discovery of Society. Boston, Mass: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1998: 1.

²Collins, Randall and Michael Makowsky. The Discovery of Society. Boston, Mass: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1998: 1.

³Collins, Randall and Michael Makowsky. The Discovery of Society. Boston, Mass: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1998: 1.

⁴Collins, Randall and Michael Makowsky. The Discovery of Society. Boston, Mass: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1998: 3.

⁵Collins, Randall and Michael Makowsky. The Discovery of Society. Boston, Mass: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1998: 9.

⁶Collins, Randall and Michael Makowsky. The Discovery of Society. Boston, Mass: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1998: 6.

⁷Collins, Randall and Michael Makowsky. The Discovery of Society. Boston, Mass: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1998: 6.

⁸Collins, Randall and Michael Makowsky. The Discovery of Society. Boston, Mass: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1998: 27.

⁹Collins, Randall and Michael Makowsky. The Discovery of Society. Boston, Mass: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1998: 26.

¹⁰Collins, Randall and Michael Makowsky. The Discovery of Society. Boston, Mass: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1998: 28.

¹¹Collins, Randall and Michael Makowsky. The Discovery of Society. Boston, Mass: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1998: 29.

¹²Collins, Randall and Michael Makowsky. The Discovery of Society. Boston, Mass: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1998: 44.

¹³Collins, Randall and Michael Makowsky. The Discovery of Society. Boston, Mass: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1998: 53.

¹⁴Collins, Randall and Michael Makowsky. The Discovery of Society. Boston, Mass: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1998: 55.

¹⁵Collins, Randall and Michael Makowsky. The Discovery of Society. Boston, Mass: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1998: 59.

¹⁶Collins, Randall and Michael Makowsky. The Discovery of Society. Boston, Mass: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1998: 71.

¹⁷Collins, Randall and Michael Makowsky. The Discovery of Society. Boston, Mass: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1998: 104.

¹⁸Collins, Randall and Michael Makowsky. The Discovery of Society. Boston, Mass: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1998: 107.

¹⁹Collins, Randall and Michael Makowsky. The Discovery of Society. Boston, Mass: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1998: 126.

²⁰Collins, Randall and Michael Makowsky. The Discovery of Society. Boston, Mass: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1998: 131.

²¹Collins, Randall and Michael Makowsky. The Discovery of Society. Boston, Mass: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1998: 133.

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