Review: [untitled]

Author(s): Beryl Langer

Source: Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Jan., 1988), pp. 122-124
Published by: American Sociological Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2069486 .
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REVIEWS

politicaleconomy. In her analysisof Marxshe

argues that there are three distinct levels of
critique, but doesn't examine them in the
contextof Marx'slaterwritings.HereI can only
assumethat, like Habermas,she thinksthatthe
theoryof value, and possiblypoliticaleconomy
itself, are not as relevant to the study of
advanced industrialsociety. I too think that
Habermas'works have broughtabout a major
advancein socialtheory,butthereis a dangerin
seeing his work as a "replacement"for rather
than a complementto a very rich intellectual
tradition.Forthose interestedin Marxisttheory,
CriticalTheory,or Continentalsocial theoryin
general,this is an importantwork.
Interpretationand Social Criticism, by MICHAELWALZER.Cambridge, MA: Harvard
UniversityPress, 1987. 96 pp. $12.50 cloth.
DAVIDZARET
IndianaUniversity
In the threechaptersof this slendervolume,
MichaelWalzerdescribesthe practiceof social
criticism (from Old Testament prophets to
Rawls and Habermas)and defines its three
principalmodes, one of which he prescribesto
us. The empirical descriptions and moral
prescriptionsare trenchant,wide-ranging,and
provocative.
Walzerdistinguishesamongdiscovery,invenas threetypes of critical
tion, and interpretation
practice. Social criticism has often proceeded
fromthe discoveryof moralpreceptsthatare at
odds with an existingmorality.The discovered
moralpreceptsderivefroma providentialwill or
body of naturallaws whose revelationcan take
the formof science(e.g., orthodoxMarxism)or
religion.
In academiccircles, discoverybecomes less
viableas a modeof socialcriticism.WhereGod
is dead and natureheld to be meaningless,the
social criticrenouncesthe pretensionof discovery andturnsforthrightly
to the taskof inventing
standardsthat can be the moralmeasureof all
things, e.g., the Rawlsiantheoryof justice and
Habermas'ideal speechsituation.
Both discoveryand inventionplace the critic
apart from the world that is criticized; they
implicatemarginalityand a radicaldetachment
as essentialfeaturesof the criticalenterprise.In
contrast,the thirdtype of criticism, interpretation, proceedsfrom "connected"critics, whose
criticalprinciplesderive from traditionsof the
world they would change. Their criticism is
radicallyimmanent.
Walzerobservesthat thoughthe social critic
is a rare social type, the practice of social
criticismis quite common, as it is part of the

moral texture of everyday life. The mode of

criticismthatWalzercommendsto us, interpretation,drawsuponthis quotidianmoralitywhich
endows it with much of its normativeforce.
Social criticism in this mode "is less the
practicaloffspringof scientificknowledgethan
the educatedcousin of commoncomplaint"(p.
65).
Walzerattacksthoseconceptionsof the social
critic that emphasize, as the sine qua non of
criticism, a radicaldetachmentfrom everyday
life anda commitmentto universalpreceptsthat
have no grounding in the traditions of the
societies that they are used to criticize. Important political consequences follow from a
contemptuousattitudetowardeverydaymorality
that Walzer detects in those social critics who
follow the paths of discovery or invention.
Intolerance, opportunism, and violence are
some of these consequencesthatWalzerassociates with critics who reject (as wholly corrupt)
the moraltraditionsof theirsocieties, and adopt
in their place transcendent standards that
become the criticalmeasureof all things. "The
problemwith disconnectedcriticism, and thus
with criticismthat derives from newly discovered or invented moral standards,is that it
pressesits practitioners
towardmanipulation
and
compulsion"(p. 64). Thus the cardinalsin of
many critics, and of those who philosophizeor
proselytize on their behalf, is the refusal to
acknowledgethe transformative
capacityof the
moralcodes andsymbolsthatexist in admittedly
unjustsocieties.
Centralto this argumentis the assumption
that nearly all moral codes (certainlythose in
advancedindustrialsocieties)containinherently
critical componentsout of which critics can
fashiontheircriticism.A second assumptionis
that this is the most efficient and acceptable
means to the goal of a just society. These
assertions will receive more support from a
forthcomingbook by Walzer, for which Interpretation and Social Criticism constitutes a
theoreticalpreamble.It shouldbe good.
The Practice of EverydayLife, by MICHEL DE
CERTEAU. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1985. 229 pp. $24.95 cloth.
BERYL LANGER

La TrobeUniversity
Michel de Certeau's The Practice of Everyday
Life is an attempt to theorize the tactics and
practices by which "ordinary people" subvert
the dominant economic order from within. It
rejects the assumption of total domination
implicit in both the term "consumer" and the
Foucauldian notion of discipline, drawing on

REVIEWS
linguisticmodels to demonstratethat individual
actionis nevertotallyreducibleto the structures
in which it occurs. It conceptualizesconsumption as an active process, a secondaryform of
productionin which people use urban space,
televised images, or commoditiesin their own
way, not escapingthe dominantculturaleconomy, but adapting it to their own ends.
Similarly, it argues that discipline is continuously deflected and resistedby those who are
caughtin its "nets," and that their "dispersed,
tactical,andmakeshiftcreativity"constitutesan
"antidiscipline"which Foucault's analysis ignores. Accordingto de Certeau,the fact that
everyday life takes place within an imposed
systemdoes not meanthateverydayactorshave
no freedom.He sees themnot as automatonsbut
as artful "poachers,"using the productsprovided by the dominantculturaleconomy in the
service of projects and desires which elude
public definitionor control. Everydaylife, he
says, "invents" itself by poaching on the
propertyof others.
De Certeau'sinvestigationof everydaylife is
second-order,conductedthroughreflection on
language,narrative,and reading.The title may
evokeGoffman,butthe text is a denselylayered
explorationof theorieswhich left me impressed
by the eruditionbut skepticalas to the pointof it
all. Too often the abstruseexcursionslead to
ratherbanal conclusions. For example, do we
really need linguistic theory and talk of the
"modalitiesof pedestrianenunciation"(p. 99)
in orderto makethe ratherobviouspointthatthe
abstractionof "the city" embodadministrative
ied in a street map or the view from a tall
buildingcapturesneitherthe limitless diversity
of pedestrianbehaviornor the experientialmaps
of individualactors?Does the observationthat
the streetnames evoke personaland collective
meaning become more profound for being
expressedin such sentencesas "A rich indeterminationgives them, by means of a semantic
rarefaction, the function of articulating a
second, poetic geography on top of the
geographyof the literal,forbiddenor permitted
meaning"(p. 105)? This kind of prose obviously has its audience, but those whose
preferenceis for claritywill find the book heavy
going. There are certainly useful insights
(particularlythe analogy betweenconsumption
and reading), and moments of brilliance (the
chapteron Railway Navigationand Incarceration, for example),but it is not alwaysclearthat
it does morethanrestatewhatwe alreadyknow
in arcaneform.
De Certeau'sargumentthatthereare limits to
the extent to which actors are ever wholly
dominated by or integrated into centralized
systemsof controlis indisputable.However, it
is difficult to take much comfort from the

123

examplesof "resistance"that he provides:that

of colonizedpeople who remain"other"within
the systemthey have no choice butto accept(p.
32), or the TV viewer who says "It was stupid
andyet I sat thereall the same," captivatedby a
place which "was and yet was not that of the
image seen" (p. 174). This might be a healthy
correctiveto whathe sees as an "exclusiveand
obsessive" concernwith mechanismsof repression, but carriedto its own extreme, it simply
becomes a conservativedefense of things as
they are.
The book is also gender blind, defining
humanity as male (the ordinary "man" and
"his" resistanceto domination)or in genderneutral terms like "user" and "consumer,"
which gloss the relations of dominationand
subordinationwithin these categories. This is
not a trivialpoint, for in ignoringthe profoundly
genderednatureof everyday life, de Certeau
ignores the differentialconstraintsimposed on
users,andthe ways in whichdominantmodesof
representation
and spatialorganizationassist in
the continuing domination of some "users"
(women) by others (men). The point is best
illustrated in relation to the discussion of
"spatialpractices,"whichopposesthe "rhetoric
of walking" in which pedestrians execute
Denunciatoryoperations"of "unlimiteddiversity" (p. 99) to the "Concept-city"which
conceivesof space in termsof a "finitenumber
of stable, isolatableand interconnectedproperties" which allow for "panoptic administration." De Certeau's"walker"is alwaysa "he,"
free to "make a selection" from the range of
possibilitiesorganizedby the spatialorder.The
female walker confronts a different set of
tactical problems,her "possibilities"restricted
not just by the "panopticspatialorder"but by
some of the "tricky and stubbornprocedures
that elude discipline withoutbeing outside the
field in whichit is exercised"-i.e., some of the
"everydaypractices"of urbanmen.
Beyond a passing referenceto Erving Goffman, the book takes no accountof the sizable
Anglo-Americanliteratureon the ways in which
ordinarypeople subvert,evade, andredefinethe
dominantculture economy. This literatureis
theoretically and ideologically varied, and
includesthe SymbolicInteractionisttraditionin
Americansociology, the workof StuartHall and
his associates at the BirminghamCentre for
CulturalStudies, the "uses and gratifications"
research on the mass media, and its more
fashionablepoststructuralvariants.Readersfamiliar with this literature are likely to be
somewhatpuzzledby de Certeau'sassertionthat
usersare "commonlyassumedto be passiveand
guided by establishedrules." Just who makes
this assumptionis not specified, and one is left
with the sense that what is being opposed is a

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REVIEWS

positiontakenseriouslyonly by those who are

unable to distinguishbetween the conceptual
abstractions
of socialtheoryandthe lived reality
of social actors.It is surelyself-evidentthatthe
behavior of individualactors is considerably
morequirkyand indeterminate
thanmacrotheoretical models suggest, and its demonstration
hardlyrequiresweightyintertextualelaboration.
The book might thus be seen as a case of the
emperorwearingtoo many clothes, all of them
French!
The Social Fabric: Dimensions and Issues,

edited by JAMESF. SHORT, JR. Beverly Hills:

Sage, 1986. 366 pp. NPL paper.
RICHARDROBBINS

University of Massachusetts, Boston

Not everyyear, butfrequentlyduringthe past

decade successive presidentsof the American
SociologicalAssociationhave chosenfor publicationa selectionof paperspresentedat plenary
or thematicsessions duringthe annualnational
meeting. Here we have, then, eighteen such
contributionsfrom the ASA meeting of 1984,
edited and introducedby that year's president,
JamesF. Short,Jr. Thatyear's themewas "the
socialfabric";hencethe title. But let us be frank
aboutit: these "themes"mean very little. They
are simply conveniences,even contrivancesthe social order, framework, loom, mosaic,
territory,or foundationwould do as well. What
is common to all the essays is the age-old
questionof orderanddivision, andno metaphor
is required to see that some of them are
while othersare theoreticaltheoretical-general
substantivefocused on such issues as nuclear
war, utopias, and dystopias (and Orwell,
naturally,in 1984), the world resourcecrisis,
governmentand bureaucratic
organization,religion, the mass media. Sociologists will find
virtuallyall of the papers useful and perhaps
half of them provocativeand valuable. All a
reviewer can do, in brief compass, is to
concentrateon the better half, thus making a
selection of Short's selection on a considered
but admittedlysubjectivebasis.
Five of the essays fall underthe theoreticalgeneral heading (by Neil Smelser, William
Goode, MaryDouglas,PeterRossi and Richard
Berk, andMorrisZelditch).I profitedfromonly
two. William Goode makes a valianteffort to
apply principlesof individualcalculationand
normativesocial order to economic behavior.
He is rightto insist that "messier"sociological
theoryhas somethingvital to contributeto the
more austereand rigorouseconomicdiscipline.
Mary Douglas, on the same subject of social
order, draws on a differentdisciplinelinkage,

that of sociology and anthropology.Takingas

pointof departureMerton'sstimulatingworkon
scientific continuity and discontinuity, she
provides astute reflections on "socially structuredforgetting,"on "structuralamnesia."The
result is a distinctivecontributiontoward the
understandingof the relationof cognition and
attitudeto social constraints.
The ASA's homage to Orwell provides
anotherthreeessays. MorrisJanowitzis content
largely to summarizeOrwell's picture of the
emergent totalitarianstate, and Kai Erikson
outlineseloquentlyhow Orwell's Oceaniaas a
text beforeus can open up againthe studyof the
processof dehumanization
which enablesus to
wage war against an abstract"enemy." But
Gary Marx, in the most original paper in the
book, demonstratesin chilling detail why "the
new surveillance,"electronicand otherwise,in
our democraticsociety, carriesimplicationsfor
a domestic totalitarianismshould we become
less vigilant in protectingprivacy against the
state and the privatesector.
Underthe broadumbrella"Institutions,Systems, and Processes"and "Science, Scientists,
and the Social Fabric"(Short'scategories),are
found the remainingnine essays, by Richard
Schwartz, Thomas Moore and S. M. Miller,
EricLeiferandHarrisonWhite,CharlesMoskos,
Irving Tallman, Robert Wuthnow, Sandra J.
Ball-Rokeach,TheodoreCaplow, and Harriet
Zuckerman.(An informativebut entirely conventional essay on the ecological web by
WilliamCattonandothers,admonishingsociologists to pay more attentionto the "resource
base," gets a category all its own but really
belongs with the other nine.) Among these I
would single out four. Schwartzarguesthat if
there is ever to be an emergentworld orderof
law it must be drawn from worldwide great
cultures:imagine "the toleranceof the Chinese
tradition,the temperingof authorityand the
reverencefor life of India, the protectionof
human rights and opportunityin the West."
Leifer and White add an interestingdimension
to organizationaltheory: how "wheeling and
dealing, and annealing"need to be analyzed
more deeply as processes within the more
formal organizationalstructure.Wuthnowexploresthe shortcomingsof variousevolutionary
theorieswhenappliedto the matrixof American
religion, and Harriet Zuckermancontributes
fresh insights into an elusive problem: what
constraintsare laid upon scientific knowledge
owing to the necessity of supportand funding
fromoutsidethe scientificcommunity.
Thosewho have readthe previousvolumesin
the ASA PresidentialSerieswill know generally
what to expect from The Social Fabric: a
wide-rangingset of essays of varying merit.
This new collectionis squarelyin thattradition.