Detraditionalization

This collective volume contributes to a growing debate concerning the extent to which we are now living in a "post–traditional" world. One standard account – most forcefully maintained by post–modernists – is that time has moved on to a point where we are now beyond the injunctions of the past. Yet such claims are increasingly being subjected to scrutiny. Have traditions, and all they stand for, really been left behind? And if not, what is their role in contemporary society? While some contributors to Detraditionalization continue to state the case for the collapse of traditional certainties, somewhat surprisingly, most argue that the sustained voices of authority, which reinforce the pre–estabilshed order of things over the self, have by no means lost their significance. They argue that culture has not become lost in a disordered, contingent miasma of post–modernity. They argue for a coexistence thesis: detraditionalizing processes are operating, but so are those to do with retraditionalization, tradition–maintenance and tradition–construction. Finally, there are those contributors who argue that attempts to identify the "traditional" and the "detraditional" at all are mistaken. This exciting and dynamic collection of essays draws together some of the world′s leading commentators on these issues and provides valuable insights into the complexities of the role of the past and present during a time of considerable uncertainty.

Preface. 1. Introduction: Detraditionalization and its Rivals: Paul Heelas. Part I: Losing the Traditional: . 2. Individualization and ′Precarious Freedoms′: Perspectives and Controversies of a Subject–Oriented Sociology: Ulrick Beck and Elisabeth Beck–Gernsheim. 3. Morality in the Age of Contingency: Zygmunt Bauman. 4. Complexity, Structural Contingencies and Value Conflicts: Niklas Luhmann. 5. The Privatization of Religion and Morality: Thomas Luckmann. Part II: Detraditionalization and Traditions Today: . 6. Tradition and Self in a Mediated World: John B. Thompson. 7. Identity, Meaning and Globalization: Detraditionalization in Postmodern Space–Time Compression: Thomas W. Luke. 8. Detraditionalization and the Certainty of Uncertain Futures: Barbara Adam. 9. Detraditionalization, Character and the Limits to Agency: Colin Campbell. Part III: Detraditionalization, Human Values and Solidarity: . 10. The Foreigner: Richard Sennett. 11. On Things not Being Worse and the Ethic of Humanity: Paul Heelas. 12. Community Beyond Tradition: Paul Morris. 13. Tradition and the Limits of Difference: Scott Lash. Part IV: Dissolving Detraditionalization: . 14. Databases as Discourse, or Electronic Interpretations: Mark Poster. 15. Authority and Genealogy of Subjectivity: Nikolas Rose. Index.

Paul Heelas, Scott Lash and Paul Morris are the authors and editors of many books and have also worked within the Centre for the Study of Cultural Values at the University of Lancaster. This book is a sequel to Scott Lash and Jonathan Friedman′s influential reader, Modernity and Identity, published by Blackwell in 1992.

"Essential reading for any scholar interested in what it means to be modern today." David Ingram, Loyola University of Chicago