A new paradigm for understanding today's world

paradigm a new

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for understanding today s world ^~

Alain Tour aine

A New Paradigm for Understanding Today's World

Alain Touraine

Translated by Gregory Elliott

polity

First published in French as Un Nouveau Paradigme pour comprendre le inonde d'aujourd'hui by Alain Touraine © Librairie Arthème Fayard, 2005. This English translation © Polity Press, 2007 Ouvrage publié avec le concours du Ministère français chargé de la culture Centre National du Livre. Published with the assistance of the French Ministry of Culture - National Centre for the Book. Polity Press 65 Bridge Street Cambridge CB2 1UR, U K Polity Press 350 Main Street Maiden, M A 02148, USA All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. ISBN-10: ISBN-13: ISBN-10: ISBN-13:

0-7456-3671-3 978-07456-3671-9 0-7456-3672-1 (pb) 978-07456-3672-6 (pb)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Typeset in 10 on 12 pt Times by SNP Best-set Typesetter Ltd, Hong Kong Printed and bound in India by Replika Press PVT Ltd, Kundli, India For further information on Polity, visit our website: www.polity.co.uk

A New Paradigm for Understanding Today's World

To Jacqueline Blayac, for all the work we have done together

Contents

Introduction: A New Paradigm

PART ONE When We Referred to Ourselves in Social Terms 1

The Break 9/11 • Fear • A world in decline • Where is meaning to be found?

2

Globalization From the post-war states to the globalization of the economy • A n extreme capitalism • The rupturing o f societies • Alter-globalism • From society to war ° A globalized world

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Europe: A State without a Nation Decline of the national state? Is European unity possible? • European Union and United States of America • The European state • European powerlessness • The absence o f European consciousness 8

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The End of Societies The social representation of society - The European mode o f modernization • Society and modernity ° The crisis o f representation - The three deaths of European society • Irruption o f democracy ° The return o f the political • Farewell to society • The war above us • When system and actors separate off ° The rupturing of the social bond • Are we witnessing the end o f social movements? ° Conclusion

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Contents

Revisiting the Self What is modernity? • The victory of modernity • The end of social thought • Emancipatory individualism • Forms of social determinism • From focusing on the world to focusing on the self • The awakening of the subject

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PART TWO Now that We Refer to Ourselves in Cultural Terms 6

The Subject The subject and identity • The sources of the subject • Defence of sociology • The individual subject • Rights • Are we all subjects? • The negation of the subject • A related note • The subject, social movements and the unconscious ° Proximity • The subject and religion • The subject and the school • The experience of being a subject ° The anti-subject • Between gods and societies

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Cultural Rights 144 Political rights and cultural rights • Minorities, multiculturalism, communitarianism • Redistribution and recognition • The new social movements ° Modernizations - Entry into the post-social world • Sexual rights • The limits of cultural mixing • About the 'veil' • Communities and communitarianisms ° Liberals and communitarians • Secularism • Intercultural communication • Return to new ideas

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A Society of Women A n altered situation • Equality and difference • Sexuality and gender • The woman-subject • The role of men • Post-feminism

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Argument: By Way of Conclusion

208

Bibliography Index

211 216

Introduction: A New Paradigm

I For a long time we described and analysed social reality in political terms: order and disorder, war and peace, government and state, king and nation, the republic, the people, revolution. Then the industrial revolution and capitalism freed themselves from political power and emerged as the 'basis' of social organization. We then replaced the political paradigm by an economic and social paradigm: social classes and wealth, bourgeoisie and proletariat, trade unions and strikes, stratification and social mobility, inequalities and redistribution - such became our customary analytical categories. Today, two centuries after the triumph of economics over politics, these 'social' categories have become confused and exclude much o f our lived experience. We therefore need a new paradigm, for we cannot revert to the political paradigm, above all because cultural problems have assumed such importance that social thinking must be organized around them. We must position ourselves within this new paradigm in order to be able to name the new actors and new conflicts, representations of the ego and collectivities, disclosed by a fresh look that reveals a new landscape before our very eyes. The search for the central point in this new landscape immediately leads us to the theme o f information, which refers to a technological revolution whose social and cultural effects are visible all around us. But the most important thing is the point Manuel Castells has rightly stressed: the absence o f any technological determinism in this information society. This clearly separates us from industrial society, in which the technical division of labour was inseparable from the social relations o f production. A new

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situation has been created on account of the great social flexibility of information systems. Such a claim contradicts the all too frequent discourses on the invasion o f society by technologies, but it is acceptable to those who define globalization primarily by the dissociation between a globalized economy and institutions which, only existing at lower levels - national, local or regional - are unable to control economies that operate on a much vaster scale. Perception of violence, wars and repressive systems leads to the same conclusion: this world of organized political violence is no longer a social world. Modern states were created through wars; today's conflicts have no political or social function. A war is no longer the other side of a social conflict. A l l these remarks converge on the same point: the collapse and disappearance of the world we called 'social'. This judgement should not be a cause for surprise, since millions of people deplore the rupturing of social bonds and the triumph of a disruptive individualism. We must take as our analytical starting-point this destruction of all the 'social' categories, from social classes and social movements to institutions or 'agencies of socialization' - the term given to the school and the family when defining education as socialization. The non-centrality of 'social' categories is so radically new that we find it difficult to abandon the sociological analyses we are used to. It is not easy to speak of a 'non-social' analysis of social reality. However, this expression is no more strange than that of political societies, which was applied both to the Absolutist monarchies and national states when reference to God and the social expression of religious beliefs lost the central place it had occupied. We can even outline a process of development leading from collectivities based on external principles of legitimacy - especially religious ones - to others whose legitimacy was political, then to collectivities that conceived themselves as economic and social systems, and finally to our kind of social existence, which is invested on the one hand by the non-social forces of interests, violence and fear, and on the other by actors whose objectives are personal freedom or membership of an inherited community - objectives that are themselves not specifically 'social'.

II Briefly set out as above, does this hypothesis put an end to any sociological analysis? This question will become increasingly urgent as we approach the end of Part One of this book, which is devoted to the 'end of the social' - a phenomenon at once fascinating and disturbing.

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The disappearance o f societies as integrated systems and vectors of general meaning simultaneously defined in terms o f production, signification and interpretation, confronts us with an objective world of which, as Jean Baudrillard has rightly said, the virtual world is an extreme expression. A n absolute realism o f this kind expels from the social field anything foreign to it: war and all forms o f violence, upsurges in irrationalism, the crisis o f individuals overburdened with problems for whose solution they no longer find aid in civic or legal or religious institutions. The anxiety, even dread, generated by the loss o f our customary reference-points are further exacerbated by the omnipresence of economic criteria o f judgement, which in no way respond to intensity of demand, but create it through the choices made by economic decision-makers to keep the prices o f most products high or, alternatively, low. The traditional idea that the price o f a product depends on supply and demand is ever less applicable. A n d among the products created by advertising, propaganda or the politics of war are images o f ourselves and our subjectivity. As a result, we feel we have lost all distance, all independence from constructs - ideological in fact - that determine both our attention and the objects we attend to. But I am going to suggest some ways of escaping this image o f a world that imprisons us. Part Two of this book will endeavour to construct the image o f a society that has become 'non-social', where cultural categories replace social categories, and where each person's relations with herself are as important as mastering the world used to be. Each time our view o f ourselves, our environment and our history changes, we have the impression that the old world has collapsed in ruins and that nothing is emerging to replace it. This is our sense today, but as in the past I am going to try to construct a new representation o f social life and thereby avoid the agonizing impression o f a loss of all meaning. I hope that these initial sentences will not read as i f they were heralding a catastrophe. The end of a world is not the end o f the world. The upheaval we are living through is no more profound than those humanity experienced i n recent centuries; and it is no more alarming to evoke the end o f the social - in particular, the undermining o f social categories of analysis and action - than it was in the past to evoke the end of specifically political societies and, earlier still, religious societies.

Ill But just as we should not believe in the inevitability o f catastrophes, so it must be admitted that the changes which are occurring cannot be reduced to the emergence o f new technologies, to an expansion of the market, or

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Introduction: A New Paradigm

to altered attitudes towards sexuality. The idea this book wishes to defend is that we are changing paradigms in our representation o f collective and personal life. We are emerging from the era when everything was expressed and explained in social terms; and we must define the terms in which this new paradigm is constructed - one whose novelty makes itself felt in all aspects o f collective and personal life. I t is high time we knew where we stand and which discourse on the world and on ourselves can render them intelligible to us. Let us therefore start by registering the break that is rapidly separating us from a still recent past, before we seek to define the character o f this paradigm switch. The aim of this book is to present the transition from one paradigm to another, from a social language about collective life to a cultural language. This transition is accompanied by a mutation caused by the rapid development o f a direct relationship o f the subject to itself, without passing through the meta-social intermediaries that pertain to a philosophy o f history. This mutation, which is o f great importance in its own right, has a still broader significance: collectivities turned outwards and to the conquest of the world are replaced by different ones, turned towards the interior o f themselves and of each of those who live in them. The last chapter of this book will describe this major reversal, whose principal actors are women. To start off with at least, the approach pursued here may seem surprising or difficult to understand. But any inconvenience is easy to avoid: readers should allow themselves to be carried along by the text. As you read on, things will become easier and your critical reactions will be easier to express because you will have understood that all the themes o f this book are closely inter-related, without an unduly strict discipline being imposed on the line of argument. A paradigm is not a puzzle. As the contents page indicates, the book is divided into two parts. The first analyses the end o f the social and the phenomena o f social decomposition and de-socialization. I t is entitled 'When We Referred to Ourselves in Social Terms'. The second part is called 'Now that We Refer to Ourselves in Cultural Terms' and in it are to be found the two notions at the centre o f the new paradigm: the subject and cultural rights.

IV This introduction is limited to defining the transition from one mode o f social analysis and action to another, in order to avoid endless questions about the relationship between the truth and the various ways o f constructing it. We can understand ever more clearly the impatience with which Michel Foucault wished to distance himself from the very general

Introduction: A New Paradigm

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categories that have partially paralysed political philosophy. He immersed himself in concrete acts of creating and maintaining an order. He constructed the notion of discourse as the main object of his own work - and with such success that in the United States one spoke of nothing but narratives. A discourse is a mode of domination that incorporates speech, rules and classifications in a system o f domination or a 'microphysics o f power'. Discourse is the tool o f an ever more tightly knit domination. Already for Marx, economic categories were the discourse o f the capitalist class in power. I f I have not put discourse in the title o f this book, but paradigm, it is so as to indicate straight away that my aim is to bring to light historical entities that can never be reduced to forms o f domination, but where protest, conflict and reform loom as large as the constraints of govemability and census (and even larger). A paradigm is not only an instrument in the hands o f the dominant order, but equally a construction of defences, critiques and liberation movements. A l l these forms o f resistance are based on non-social principles of legitimation. Any paradigm is a particular form of appeal to some version or another o f what I call the subject, which is the assertion, whose forms vary, of human beings' freedom and capacity to create themselves and to transform themselves individually and collectively. Subjectification - that is, the creation of the subject - can never be confused with the subjection o f individuals and social categories. We are not imprisoned; we are never reduced to saying that there is nothing we can do. The idea o f paradigm makes room for the light as well as the shade. While a discourse can be wholly devoted to surveillance and punishment, a paradigm highlights freedom as well as alienation, human rights as well as an obsession with money, power and identity. Paris - lie d' Yeu-Sassello

PART ONE When We Referred to Ourselves in Social Terms

he Break

9/11 On 11 September 2001 the United States of America received a body blow. The symbols of the country's economic and military power - the twin towers o f the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington - were attacked by suicide-planes. The towers were completely destroyed and the deaths ran into the thousands. The population and authorities o f New York reacted calmly, but this first attack on American soil triggered a shock that convulsed the whole of American society. President Bush quickly decided to pursue Osama bin Laden and the alQaeda network in Afghanistan, where the terrorists were hiding among the Taliban who had subjected the country to an extremist conception o f Islamism and to their military power. World public opinion accepted this retaliatory war, even i f it did not achieve its goals and got bogged down in the ambiguities o f Pakistani politics. This brief summary o f events that are still on everyone's mind should not feature in an analysis of the deep changes in contemporary societies. A n d yet it was rapidly evident, in particular for someone who found himself at the New School University in the heart of Manhattan in February and March 2003, that this shock brought about such profound ruptures throughout American society and in the whole world that it was impossible not to take this dramatic event as the starting-point in an analysis whose objective is different. I t signalled a long-term change. Mention of 11 September above all prompts some scrutiny o f American policy. How should we define its transformation, long in the making but now dramatically evident? Since the collapse o f the Soviet Union in 1989, the United States had dominated the global political stage so completely

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that it did not have to develop a geo-politics. A l l the talk in the United States and throughout the world was o f economic globalization, new technologies, the situation o f women, and so on. Bill Clinton was the master of this formidable economic power and conducted a multilateralist policy. Then all o f a sudden, the day after 11 September 2001, the official language - that of the government and the establishment - changed completely. Economic problems disappeared from the front of the stage, mastering new technologies seemed less gripping, and the public space was entirely taken up with a bellicose language that was more geo-political than patriotic. A wounded America examined itself: 'Why don't they like us?' asked Norman Mailer. But this soul-searching soon vanished before the imperative o f capturing Osama bin Laden. Before long, condemnation focused on Saddam Hussein, who in fact had no special relationship with alQaeda; and very soon, in front o f a U N Security Council hostile to war, President Bush and Tony Blair were seeking to prove the need for intervention. President Bush explained that the United States was threatened in the short term by chemical and biological - perhaps even nuclear - warfare, obliging it to resort to a pre-emptive war. In the weeks preceding the military attack on Iraq, the American political stage was almost entirely occupied by the President and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The Democratic Party did not intervene. Over and above their technical prowess, the major T V stations were mere appendices of military HQ. The BBC World Service alone provided information. I n the print media only the New York Times, the sole genuinely national newspaper, adopted a certain independence o f stance after a long silence and began to discuss the government's declarations and intentions. In short, this country, where public opinion disposes of numerous, diverse media, fell silent. For months the only voices heard were those o f President Bush and his Defense Secretary; and, still more, the voice of God, which the President often heard and to whom the Cabinet prayed. This country, which had been the first secular modern state, became obsessed with its divine mission: the defence o f Good against Evil. These words are to be taken in their most literal sense. I t is because America considered itself the leader o f the camp of the Good that it was able to convince itself, through lies, falsehoods and intensive propaganda, that Iraq headed the camp of Evil. I f we recall the actual weakness o f Iraq, already conquered once without difficulty and which succumbed again almost without a fight, we can get the measure of the unpredictable character of the mutation of a country which, a few months earlier and following President Bush's election in conditions verging on illegality, seemed wholly

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preoccupied with managing its own power and taking great strides on the road of new technologies, outstripping Europeans incapable of taking decisions and Japanese bogged down in an interminable banking crisis. One further remark, which is perhaps the most important for those who are not Americans. The United States, which had created the system of the United Nations (particularly the Security Council), rejected any intervention by the international organization in its conflict with Iraq, while seeking to obtain a majority in the Security Council by charging Secretary of State Colin Powell with the humiliating task o f defending the official position with arguments that carried no conviction. For two years the United States went on justifying unilateralism. I t was responsible for defending Good against Evil, it claimed, and would i f necessary conduct several wars at once. I t expressed its contempt for 'old Europe' in brutal terms and at the same time successfully sought to fracture the European Union, whose member states were incapable o f agreeing an international policy. Some people think that the present period is merely an episode and that the return of the Democrats to the Presidency will sooner or later put an end to this ideological policy. But the latter was developed more than ten years ago. Not since Wilson have we seen in the United States so significant a group o f ideologues - and of high intellectual calibre - elaborate a new conception of the role of the United States i n the world by committing their country to a series o f conflicts that might one day lead it to a confrontation with others. Eighteen months after 11 September, the break with the past took even more brutal forms. Iraq, liberated from Saddam Hussein, rejected its liberators but without descending into civil war or forming a united resistance front. Harassed by the guerrillas, the American army resorted to torture, like most armies that feel surrounded by a hostile population. A n d as i f to render the identification o f its country with Good even more scandalous, it increased its use of the most humiliating sexual abuses. Is not the change of historical period and, behind that, o f societal type becoming so dramatic as to force us to question ourselves on breaks that go far beyond the political and military initiatives of the sole superpower? In recalling facts that are familiar to everyone, my aim is not to give my opinion on the policy developed by Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and a whole host of others i n the service o f President Bush, but to register at the very outset o f this book a mutation which, over and above the international policy o f the United States, affects the whole world. August 1914 was experienced as a mortal break in Europe; September 2001 marks the end not only of an era, but above all o f a certain conception and a certain modus operandi o f American society and o f the whole world.

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This sense of a break has been felt throughout the world. I t was further reinforced with the re-election o f President Bush.

Fear After the fall of the Communist state and empire, the talk was exclusively of civil society and the relaxation of norms in all spheres - and hence o f the liberation of individuals. None o f these themes was superficial and none can be ignored when we undertake a general analysis o f social life. But what we have experienced and understood in the last three years is that the life of societies, even the wealthiest, most complex and best protected among them, remains dominated by fear, violence and war. Many draw the conclusion that it is still necessary to prioritize weapons over technologies, mistrust over trust - a notion that played such a central role in the formation o f capitalism. The grip o f fear, this sense of a mortal threat that is coming closer, this determination to conduct war against Evil in the name o f a protective God, are not inventions, are not American nightmares. September 11 is the date of a particular attack committed in New York and Washington. But it had been preceded by others and foreshadowed others. In various points of a very diverse Arab-Muslim world, we have seen the proliferation of 'volunteers' for a death that strikes them as well as their enemies. Those who are called 'terrorists' on one side, and 'heroic fighters' against the enemies of God and Nation on the other, are also warriors. I n a vast swathe of the world, attempts at modernization have failed; and attempts to create Islamic states, having secured major victories (especially in Iran), have been exhausted and seem in retreat. A n d in France, as in the United States, over and above all social realities, there emerges the idea of a holy war that must be conducted in the name o f Good against Evil. A t a lower level of violence, in many countries, even in a France armourplated in its republican consciousness, we see society fragmenting into communities. A t the end o f the European nineteenth century, the transition from communities to society, from collective identities to the rule of law, had emerged as a major advance. Are we living through a converse movement - a return to communities imprisoned in themselves, led by an authoritarian government, and rejecting other communities as enemies? Many will say that these threats and conflicts are indeed dangerous, but that it is artificial to reduce the West to the war policy o f George W. Bush and that the authors of the attacks form only a tiny minority in the Islamic world. Once, the whole of Latin America seemed to be in flames. But the fires were extinguished and the military dictatorships, which presented themselves as the only agencies capable of putting an end to the

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guerrillas and unleashed a much more bloody violence, fell in their turn. N o one is satisfied with the current situation, but no one reduces the life of the continent to a dependency endured by countries deprived o f any possibility of acting. Even Africa, where there is such a mass o f misery and poverty, cannot not be reduced to ethnic struggles and bloody dictatorships. Indeed, let us not conclude, before even having begun our reflection, that war and communitarian violence will destroy everything in their path. But let us not be satisfied either with considering these struggles to the death as so many accidents or exceptional cases. For, i f we look around us, we shall see societies that have been destroyed, turned upside down, and manipulated. We have always known that public life was more often dominated by the passions than the interests. But increasingly in today's world, the passions aim to negate the other rather than struggle with it.

A world in decline Forced to leave their countries on account of poverty, social violence and wars, hundreds o f millions of human beings are thrown onto the roads and into refugee camps. Some o f them, particularly in China, find a way of surviving in the cities - or even of embarking on a new type o f social life. But these 'ex-peasant peasants' (as Farhad Khosrokhavar calls them), all these unemployed youth attracted by the reflections o f urban consumption but who cannot integrate into middle classes protected by redistributive states, and, with them, so many others belonging to various categories from top to bottom of the social scale o f all continents, experience geographical and socio-cultural changes that destroy them, rather than ushering them into modernity. We have acquired the habit in our part o f the world of observing that advances in living standards and policies o f social solidarity abolish or reduce the great poverty characteristic of industrialization at the outset. Yet we no longer believe, even in the richest countries, that it is enough to endure half o f a century o f hard work in order to arrive at a better way of life. I n the richest countries, whose citizens are the best protected, the balance sheet o f recent decades is negative. Social inequalities are increasing; social scales are becoming too compressed; the 'golden boys' are not at the top o f society, but beyond it, and the insecure and excluded are not at the bottom, but below the scale, suspended in a void. The conquests o f the working-class movement and the power o f trade unions had made it possible for the welfare state to create remarkable systems of social protection in the industrialized countries. But today they are losing their power and everywhere fall-back strategies must be

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organized to safeguard an acceptable level of cover for illness, the payment of pensions, care for dependants, and recourse to ever more costly medical treatment and examination. These delaying actions are not conducted by the poorest categories, but on the contrary by those with the greatest capacity for exerting direct pressure on the state: by threatened middle classes rather than by the poor and weak. The latter, the most disadvantaged, fade into obscurity, sink into marginality or illegality. Must we conclude from these pessimistic observations that our societies, which experienced immense social innovations in the past, are now reduced to silence, as i f everywhere the din o f war and crusades was stifling activity, all social, internal conflict - especially in the Western countries? I t is true that the new social movements which emerged after 1968 were rapidly exhausted and that the hopes placed in them by different categories o f intellectual - and first o f all by myself - have been disappointed. The small groups of the extreme left, while they afford political expression to those who no longer recognize themselves in the traditional parties, can offer neither a long-term strategy nor objectives o f struggle. So it is not to the old left and the very old extreme left that we must look for new ideas. Even i f the influence of the working-class movement remains considerable i n our institutions and our ideas, and even i f the post-1968 anti-authoritarian movements have had a real influence on the situation of patients i n hospitals, immigrant workers, homosexuals or defenders of local cultures, 'social problems' have not led to the creation of major 'social movements'. The close link that once joined the economic demands and political struggles o f wage-earners has been broken and it is the parties of the left that have suffered most from this separation. France has witnessed the virtual disappearance of the Communist Party; and the unforeseen electoral defeat of Lionel Jospin in A p r i l 2002 requires o f the French left, as o f that in many countries, an almost complete redefinition of itself. Outside of the United States, the parties o f the right are defined exclusively by their submission to the superpower. ;

Where is meaning to be found? A l l these negative observations pertain to the much larger theme o f the decomposition o f society, o f de-socialization, which will take up much space in subsequent chapters. But to these two images which force themselves on our observation - de-socialization (i.e. the decline o f the social) and the permeation everywhere o f myriad forms o f violence, rejecting all 'social' norms and values - we must add a third, which is as obvious as the first two: a rise in cultural demands, both in neo-communitarian form and in that of an appeal to a personal subject; and the demand for cul-

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tural rights. Once we spoke of 'social actors' and social movements. I n the world we have already moved into, we shall invariably have to speak o f personal subjects and 'cultural movements'. We no longer believe in progress. We are acutely anxious about the decomposition o f cities and rural zones, about social violence and holy wars alike. This does not condemn us to a pessimism all too easy to live with for most members of the world's middle classes. But it does prompt us to pose the question: where is the movement, the force, that will stop war to come from? This book would like to offer an answer to that question by exploring the deepest changes that have occurred in our societies. It takes the risk o f setting itself an objective that is very difficult to achieve, because it is impossible to live without searching for answers to the threats that hang over us and the transformations that have already led us to make the transition from one type o f society to another. I have opted in this first chapter to give more space to events than analysis or the formulation of a general view within which particular points would assume their place. This reportage, which remains removed from theoretical issues, is intended to help us to situate the main actors in a concrete historical situation. The principal actor is obviously the United States. But the immensity and diversity o f the social space in which it develops make it difficult not to succumb both to the demonization of its government and the fascination exercised by a country that governs the whole world's mass consumption and communications, and which enjoys an overwhelming scientific and technological lead over other countries. How to proceed? We must, I believe, regard the United States as the quintessential refugee country and, at the same time, as a country o f conquest, discovery and conflict that rendered its internal life at once fascinating and disturbing. Today, despite the massive arrival o f Hispanics, the United States is less concerned with its internal problems than with its international role. From the Vietnam War to the occupation of Iraq, this prompted a rise in debates, divisions and even confrontations that render today's United States a country closer to the United Kingdom in 1904 than the United States of 1954. This country, turned inwards and proud of its success, is now confronted with popular movements and state policies that attack its hegemony and its military ventures. The 'Western world', a vague but real entity, has dissolved and we have seen an abrupt decline in the role o f Great Britain. A n all-powerful America is much less interested than it used to be in Europe and Latin America. Between the United States and China there exist only some very secondary decision-making centres, of which the European Union is the most visible, and a confused mass that is called the Islamic world, torn

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between attempts at modernization that have already failed and attempts at fundamentalist regression and bellicose ventures. This rapid geopolitical sketch is first o f all intended to indicate that we should not look to the strictly political level for an explanation of contemporary developments but to the global level, and a purely political analysis is insufficient for these purposes. As I have already indicated, my starting-point is that we are witnessing the decomposition o f the 'social'. The analysis of social reality in specifically social terms succeeded the 'political' world that had dominated us for a long time, and which began with Machiavelli and, passing via Hobbes and Rousseau, lasted until Tocqueville. The crisis and decomposition of the social paradigm of social life have created a chaos into which have rushed violence, war and the domination of markets that elude any social regulation - but also the obsession with identity of the various communitarianisms. Social organization, threatened from 'above' by what we call globalization, can no longer find resources for its recovery within itself. I t is 'below', in an increasingly radical and passionate appeal to the individual, and no longer to society, that we seek the force capable o f resisting violence o f all kinds. I t is in this highly diverse, individualistic universe that many seek and discover a 'meaning' no longer to be found in social and political institutions - and which alone can generate the demands and hopes capable of creating a different conception of political life. Are not the three themes that I have just mentioned - (1) the decomposition o f the social; (2) the rise of forces situated above society: war, markets, communitarianism, personal and interpersonal violence; and finally (3) the appeal to individualism as the principle o f a 'morality' interlinked? Is it not the decline of the social that provokes both a rise in violence and recourse to the personal subject? In my view, the central proposition on which a positive social analysis can be reconstructed is that the invasion of the social field by impersonal forces (which can be called non-social) can no longer be contested by social reforms won by a social movement. I t can only be done by appealing to principles o f action that are themselves non-social, since they directly involve human rights. When everything is a matter of life and death, public interventions are insufficient to resolve problems. Life is not only that which is; it is also the movement whereby actors, rather than identifying with an external value or goal, discover in themselves, in the defence of their own freedom, their capacity for acting in a self-referential way, as did 'society' previously. I n this way a meaning is created that resists the logic of power and markets, and equally that of communitarian integration. But it must be added, even before presenting these hypotheses in greater depth,

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that this self-conscious subject is in no way reducible to an attitude of internal meditation, of a quest for the self by eliminating the influences exerted on the ego by the external world. It asserts itself above all by struggling against what alienates it and prevents it from acting in accordance with its self-construction. The personal subject struggles against the forms of social life that tend to destroy it, but equally against the type of individualism that is manipulated by the stimulation of markets and programmes. A t the same time, in countries and categories that define themselves primarily by the domination they suffer, communitarian demands develop in negative fashion. They offer powerful support to selfassertion as a subject, but also constantly tend to destroy it. Rather than being an emancipatory word, the subject is action and consciousness that invariably assert themselves only in their fight against the organized forces which, while imparting concrete existence to the subject, risk overturning it, in accordance with the familiar model of religious, political and social movements which, in the name of a god, the people, or liberty and equality, seized power and suppressed personal freedoms, like Lenin at the end of 1917. The subject is neither a 'dash of spirit', nor a tool in the hands of the founders of public or private administrative apparatuses. We shall only be in a position to formulate a definition of the new paradigm at the end of Part One. But we can already see that it is defined neither as a stage in progress nor as an ideology or representation of the world. The decomposition of social and cultural entities enclosed in themselves, in the manner of the holistic systems analysed by Louis Dumont, releases increasingly uncontrolled forces of change - as is the case with globalized capitalism. It also releases various types of crisis, rupture and violence, which also express the general process of de-socialization (i.e. the dissolution of mechanisms of affiliation to groups and institutions capable of perpetuating their integration and managing their transformation). However, it likewise liberates a relationship to oneself, a consciousness of freedom and responsibility that was imprisoned by institutional mechanisms whose role was to impose values, norms, forms of authority and a set of social representations on everyone. This dual separation can just as easily result in the undermining (even disappearance) of the specifically social space, as in the emergence of different institutions. The analysis I am undertaking is normative: it is based on the idea that in today's society there exist forces destructive of social actors, which operate by invoking natural necessity, and, facing them, forms of the subject (religious, political, social or moral), which resist whatever threatens freedom. Between the two, institutions persist (or are even reinforced) that strive to impart form to the autonomy of the social. For, today as yesterday, it is not inevitable that good will prevail or evil triumph; nor is it

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certain that the social world is sufficiently strong to resist the power of the elements it has itself unleashed. While my analysis is normative, it is not apologetic. As a sociologist, obviously I am not seeking to destroy sociology. But it must be clearly understood that there is no convincing reason to identify sociology with the analysis of an exclusive path (or step) o f modernization. Let us not forget that i f 'social' categories are disintegrating today, they replaced 'political' categories less than two centuries ago. Moreover, sociological analysis does not take shape in isolation from the observable facts. I would not speak o f the crisis of the social, o f the rise of non-social violence, and o f the personal subject i f all these phenomena were not already observable around us and within us. I appeal here neither to a past golden age nor to a new conception of progress. I t is of our experience that I speak, and in the first instance of the historical situation in which the paradigm change that this book seeks to account for occurs.

Globalization

From the post-war states to the globalization of the economy After the Second World War, both in the new countries founded on the ruins of the colonial system and in the Communist countries and the majority of Western countries, voluntaristic states emerged that sought to create a new nation, to restore an economy destroyed by war, or to rapidly improve workers' living conditions. The welfare state, established in Britain in 1943 by the Beveridge Plan, was certainly very different from the French system of social security created in 1945. But in both cases, as in others, the key figure in economic and social life was clearly the state, both because it alone possessed sufficient resources to give impetus to an economic policy, and because immediately after the war social and national upheavals dictated a profound transformation of the laws and very definition of political life. Accordingly, the state intervened in all domains (economic, social and cultural), often in authoritarian fashion, but, in the case of most Western countries, with the intention of combining profound social reforms and a transformation in national consciousness with economic reconstruction. In Europe hopes of achieving a form of economic development more attuned to social problems than the American model persisted for a long time. Thus, Michel Albert has contrasted Rhenish capitalism (i.e. of a German variety), in which co-management and unions play an important role, with Anglo-Saxon capitalism, whose objectives are exclusively economic. A n d it was only at the end of the twentieth century that Rhenish capitalism came to seem more of a handicap than a driving force, amid

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the triumph of international markets and the rapidity with which liberal decision-makers could act. In fact, all the economic aspects of this state interventionism more or less rapidly fell into decay, especially in countries that no longer possessed efficient public administration and where there was corruption. However, until the beginning o f the twenty-first century the idea that the nationalization o f economic activities was vital for the country's progress persisted in some countries. I n France, in particular, a quasi-religious conception of nationalization was created; and during the great strike of 1995 one could still hear rail workers and their friends extol the state as the bearer of universal values in the face of a bourgeoisie that only defended particular interests. Despite this resistance, the new mode of modernization, based on free enterprise and the central role of the market in allocating resources, was rapidly established everywhere. Thus, control and regulation of the economy were less and less based on objectives or norms foreign to economics. Throughout the last quarter o f the twentieth century, the interventionist state was virtually universally (and completely) replaced both by a state that primarily sought to attract foreign investment and facilitate national exports, and by firms that increasingly formed part of transnational entities and were combined with financial networks which, relying on new mathematical techniques, can derive significant profits from the circulation of information in real time. These rapid changes are the direct result o f an internationalization o f production and exchange that was to result in the globalization o f the economy. M y intention is not to describe this globalization of the economy in detail. But we must situate it in historical terms in order to be able to understand its impact on the break-up of contemporary societies. Let us therefore return to the period that began in the mid-1970s up until the fall o f the Berlin Wall, and ended with the attack that destroyed the towers of the World Trade Center in New York. This period began with the oil crisis - in other words, a massive transfer of resources from Japan and Western Europe to the oil-producing countries, which placed their reserves i n New York banks so as to generate interest - something that already indicated a form of globalization of the economy. For at least thirty years, despite the aggressiveness of the Soviet camp at the beginning of the period, the Western world had taken a considerable lead in virtually all sectors o f industrial and economic life, where the United States assumed an increasingly dominant position. A n economic view of history became established, according ever more importance to economic and technological factors in social change. The globalization of markets; the growth of transnational firms; the formation of networks whose crucial importance has been clearly highlighted by Manuel Castells; the new effec-

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tiveness o f a financial system capable o f transmitting information in real time; the diffusion by the mass media, advertising, and firms themselves of mass cultural goods that were invariably American - all these phenomena, by now familiar to everyone, have created a globalization characterized, according to many analysts, both by a rapid expansion o f participation in international trade and by the ascendancy o f a capitalism whose decision-making centres are invariably American. A n d indeed the world now seems controlled by a virtually limitless expansion of the American model. However, from the outset ecologists stressed the impossibility o f a generalization o f this model; and protesters were soon demonstrating in all parts o f the world, while uprisings against the United States multiplied. More recently, the serious consequences o f the stock-market crisis, triggered by strong speculation on technological stocks and shares, have increased distrust o f large firms, which appear less as the vanguard o f modernization than as agents of rampant speculation, or as sources o f direct enrichment for their directors. A t the turn of the century, anticapitalist movements came to dominate an important section o f public opinion, resulting in a capacity for massive mobilization of discontented wage-earners and consumers. Thus, we are witnessing the formation of an important movement o f opposition to globalization - a movement which soon chose to change its name, in order to make it clearer that its aim was to construct a different kind o f global organization (alter-globalization).

An extreme capitalism I f the theme of globalization has assumed central political importance, it is for a reason that is not so much economic as ideological: those who sung the praises of globalization most loudly in fact wanted to impose the idea that no mode of social or political regulation o f a globalized economy was any longer possible or desirable, since the economy was situated at a global level and no authority capable o f imposing limits on economic activity at this level existed. The very idea of globalization in effect contained the desire to construct an extreme capitalism, released from any external influence, exercising power over the whole o f society. I t is this ideology of a capitalism without limits that has provoked so much enthusiasm and so much protest. The long history o f national capitalisms is profoundly bound up with the general history of each country. This is no longer the case today, for the only powerful institutions at a global level - banks and especially the International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization - seek to impose an economic logic on states, rather than social and political

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objectives on economic actors. For many years, this enthusiasm for globalization was contested above all by the defenders of local or national interests and of products requiring national protection in order to ensure their survival in global competition - European and N o r t h American farmers, for example. Despite everything, the World Trade Organization was decisively strengthened when China became a member of it. A n d local resistance has largely fused into a planetary movement of opposition both to global capitalism and to American power, which is its main support. The Porto Alegre World Social Forum has been its Mecca. Some think that the undermining or decomposition of national societies and states constitutes a step towards the creation of a political and cultural life at a global level as well as an economic one. Does not this idea conform to what we have long observed - namely, the constitution of increasingly large social entities? I n this respect, the formation of national states, imposing their power on local lords or collectivities, towns or monasteries, was sufficiently protracted and tumultuous for us to be prepared for the development o f a global society being slow and difficult, but also inevitable. Such a hypothesis cannot be excluded. But when we seek to identify a more limited period, we feel ourselves being pointed in the opposite direction: not towards the formation of a global society, but towards a growing separation between economic mechanisms, which operate at a global level, and political, social and cultural organizations, which only act at a more limited level, losing all capacity for interaction with the global level. As a result, what is called society is breaking up, since a society is defined by the interdependence in the same territorial entity of the most diverse sectors of collective activity. Accordingly, does not the globalization of the economy necessarily entail the decline of the national state and, consequently, an ever more massive deregulation of the economy? These rapid indications enable us to bring out the main cultural and social implications of globalization. The most obvious is the creation of a mass society in which the same material and cultural products circulate in countries with very different living standards and cultural traditions. This by no means signifies a general standardization of consumption and the 'Americanization' of the whole world. On the contrary, we see diverse, conflicting currents combining. The first is the cultural influence exerted by the major firms of consumption and leisure: Hollywood is indeed the dream factory of the whole world. But it will also be observed that it does not thereby bring about the disappearance of local products. For we are witnessing a diversification of consumption in the richest countries. In New York, London or Paris, there are more foreign restaurants than before and one can see more films from other parts of the world. Finally, we are also witnessing a resurgence of forms of social and cultural life that are

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traditional or nourished by a desire to protect a regional or national culture which is under threat. But everywhere, as a result o f these conflicting tendencies, the decline of traditional forms o f social and political life and o f national management of industrialization is accelerating. The clearest case is that o f the trade unions. I n France, for example, unionization of the private sector has become very weak, above all in small and medium-sized firms. English trade unionism, dominated by the mine workers' union and the left, was defeated by Margaret Thatcher and has not recovered from this defeat. In the United States, where the rate o f unionization is higher, unions have little influence and the era o f Walter Reuther and the large autoworkers' union is very distant. In the 1980s and 1990s, when the Soviet empire was fracturing, the theme of the information and communications society, based on the development o f the Internet and financial networks, became established in world public opinion. This was a fairly brief but decisive period, during which war and imperialisms seemed to be stripped o f meaning by the end of the struggle between the two blocs and the undermining o f what used to be called the Third World. Social thought assigned key importance to the analysis of a new type o f society, with broader contours than industrial or post-industrial society, and even than the information society, which had been defined by technologies that created what Georges Friedmann had called a new industrial revolution. This type o f thinking was also different from that which had governed analyses focused on the confrontation between capitalism and socialism, or on the problems o f many countries' dependence on an external decision-making power. The information society was created by entrepreneurs o f a new kind, enthusiastic and swept along by a new conception o f society. This was true of the Linux group, created in California by veritable knights (or monks!) of computer science, who developed an ethic of enjoyment opposed to the Puritanism so well described by Max Weber, and which at a different level plays the role once performed by the Saint-Simonians in France at the beginning o f industrialization. This information society is built on a new mode of knowledge, new investments, and a changed representation o f the objectives o f work and social organization.

The rupturing of societies But are we really dealing with a new society? I n previous types o f society, the technical mode o f production was inseparable from a social mode o f production. I n industrial society, the organization o f work as defined by Taylor and then Ford consisted in transforming manual work so as to obtain the greatest possible profit; and payment by productivity, which was

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so widespread, was above all an extreme form o f class domination. I n contrast, the world of information is purely technological - that is, its techniques are socially neutral and do not in themselves have inevitable social consequences. Does this mean that it no longer contains any relations of domination? Obviously not. But class conflicts, i f they can be called that, are now situated at the level of overall and especially financial management, rather than at the level o f work and the organization o f production. Industrial society was based on the factory or the workshop; and it was at this level too that trade unions emerged, with their demands, their strikes and their collective bargaining. The image suggested by globalization is that of networks o f information and exchange which might possess practically no material existence; and the transformation of firms over the last twenty years has often consisted in outsourcing sectors of production, in fragmenting, and thus considerably reducing, the size o f firms. The now classic image o f a central core o f the firm made up o f 'symbol manipulators', as Reich calls them, captures the decline in importance o f 'productive' workers well. Major conflicts now take shape around the orientation o f historical change, of modernization. To adopt an important distinction, the social movements formed in one type o f society are replaced by historical movements that respond to a type of management of historical change. Globalization, it must be repeated, is an extreme form of capitalism that no longer has any counterweight. The class struggle thus disappears not because relations between employers and wage-earners have become pacific, but because conflicts have been displaced from internal problems of production to the global strategies of transnational firms and financial networks. The movements opposed to globalization devote most o f their time to criticizing the policy o f the United States and the richest countries, while seeking to impart form to the very many grass-roots movements constituted in various countries. But they have not hitherto been able to propose a general analysis o f the conflicts that are taking shape at the global level. The ecological movement finds itself in a similar situation. I t defends nature, the Earth; it attacks those who destroy the environment and defends the idea o f sustainable development - that is, the interests o f those who are too remote in space or time to make themselves heard. But it comes up against the resistance of states and has obtained only limited results. The notion of social classes became established in an age when the various categories of wage-earners, starting with manual workers, were predominantly defined by social relations experienced in work. When we refer to globalization, it is necessary to use general categories; and the category of classes is insufficiently general. Moreover, what is most often

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referred to today is humanity, future generations, or poor nations, rather than a socially defined category. The definition o f the historical actor is no longer given in social terms but in a different kind of vocabulary, more directly implicating the dignity o f certain individuals, the conditions for the planet's survival, or the diversity o f cultures. Specifically social notions, like that o f social class, lose their explanatory power and mobilizing force. The dominant role o f the market, competition and coalitions o f interests, not to mention corruption, is nothing new. A n d i f we refer to 'neo-liberalism', it is precisely because the late nineteenth century was dominated by liberalism, before trade unionism and the 'working-class' parties introduced new modes of regulation o f the economy by the state, and elements of universal social protection, as well as a redistribution o f income. What is new is the fact that competition no longer pits comparable countries against one another, as was the case when Great Britain, Germany, the United States or Fiance entered into competition and at the same time signed economic and political agreements to open up markets. It sets the rich, more or less 'social-democratic' countries against countries where wages are lower and unions non-existent (and where there sometimes exists a vast sector of forced labour). It has hitherto been impossible to co-ordinate social and fiscal policies inside the European Union. This new situation must be accepted. I t would be futile to think that barriers could be erected around a national economy. Such a policy would have - in the past has had - very negative results. State intervention must no longer serve to keep non-competitive firms in existence or to offer guarantees to certain social categories, for political reasons and in defiance of all economic rationality. The resistance of the European countries to this transformation is considerable, but it is increasingly in retreat. No political problem is more important for these countries, and for those that have adopted a comparable social model, than the search for a new mode of political intervention which does not damage competitiveness but nevertheless protects the population against the brutality o f a liberal economy over which most countries can exert no influence. The specifically political difficulty of this problem is demonstrated by the number of governments, in numerous countries, that have come a cropper over it. Even greater is the difficulty o f developing a set of interventions in favour o f those whose personality is shattered or exhausted in the face of repeated aggression, and of those who can no longer find a j o b that suits them. A n d as social protection must be strengthened at the same time as the struggle against inequality, it is difficult to fix in abstracto the extent of the budgetary shift acceptable to a population that aspires to measure the progress made. Those who find these tasks too difficult to accomplish, and want the state to make do with offering aid to those who already demand the most,

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lead their country to ruin. There will always be an acute tension between the race for creativity and competitiveness and the endeavour to enable the maximum number o f inhabitants o f each country to construct their lives and have an influence on their environment. European firms have made great progress and have internationalized themselves. But the European effort i n terms o f the production, diffusion and application o f knowledge remains insufficient; and to varying degrees there is a pervasive failure to equip each person with the possibility o f being a well prepared, well protected, well informed and clearly oriented actor in social life. N o solution is to be found either in the preservation of the current welfare state, or in the acceptance of an unrestricted liberalism. Only a renewal of our ideas about society and its transformation can enable us to conceive the social policies that will allow us to supersede the welfare state, by altering its objectives and especially the modalities of public intervention.

Alter-globalism Let us sum up. Globalization does not define a stage of modernity, a new industrial revolution. I t occurs at the level of ways of managing historical change. I t corresponds to an extreme capitalist mode of modernization a category that should not be confused with a type of society, such as feudal society or industrial society. A n d war, be it hot or cold, belongs to this world of competition, confrontation and empire, not to that o f societies and their internal problems, including their class struggles. A very diverse range of demands has gathered around the general theme of anti-globalization, seeking to converge in the project of an alternative globalization. The success of the Porto Alegre forum derives from the fact that it has attempted to assemble social movements and currents o f opinion which aim to give a positive meaning to the demonstrations in Seattle, Gothenburg, Genoa, and many others elsewhere, which had a predominantly critical function. A movement has thus been organized, as powerful as it is diverse, that challenges the most important leaders o f the global economy. A wave of sympathy has accompanied these Davids defying the Goliaths of international finance. A n d the state o f the economy, so often presented as a step in progress, now seems to many to be a construct that serves the privileged and harms the poorest. I f the anti-global movement has rebaptized itself alter-globalist, it is (as we have said) in order clearly to indicate that it is not against the global opening up of production and trade and that it is fighting for a different globalization - one which would not ride roughshod over the weak, local interests, minorities, and the environ-

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the exclusive benefit of those who already possess wealth, power .itluence. i'he alter-globalist movement occupies as important a place today as socialism did in the early decades o f industrial society. Both struggle above all against the capitalist direction of the economy and society. Consequently, both have attacked and do attack a mode of development, rather than a type of society defined by forms of production, organization and authority. The alter-globalist movement calls for democratic management of major historical changes. This role is, and will remain, different from that o f trade unionism in industrial society, which was a social movement of central importance in a given type o f society. But the weakness of alterglobalism, which is as manifest as its success, derives from the fact that it has not succeeded in clearly defining in whose name, on behalf o f what interests or what conception of society, it is fighting. As a result, a certain confusion has set in between the defence o f certain established interests and demands actually being pressed in the name of the most directly dominated categories. Conversely, it would be an error to regard this movement simply as a loose coalition o f minority groups. The same error was made in connection with the initial movement to defend the Larzac plateau, which wasn't backward-looking, but on the contrary undertaken by innovative farmers fighting against the unproductive extension of a military camp. The alter-globalist movement is a key component o f our age, because it is directly opposed to globalization as the ambition to eliminate all forms o f social and political regulation of economic activity. I n conclusion to this evocation of globalization, what are we to say o f the period in which it has dominated economic reality and social thought? That we have made the transition from a period dominated by the structural problems generated by a socio-economic system to an age in which it is the triumph of capitalism - hence o f a certain way of managing historical change, o f modernization - which occupies the central position. This is the principal meaning of globalization. We must now examine what followed the great turning-point o f 11 September.

From society to war It is more difficult, but even more necessary, to define what sets this short period, which I have defined in a figurative way as one symbolically extending from the fall o f the Berlin Wall to the destruction of the towers o f the World Trade Center, apart from the great break that put an end to it and saw the spirit o f war triumph. Contrary to what is often said, the period of globalization remained characterized by the accelerated circulation of goods and services, but also of cultural works and practices - and even of

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social and political representations. I t was no longer the logic o f a type o f society that was being imposed, but it was not yet that o f a crusade or an empire. The period primarily defined by globalization was dominated by finance capital more than by industrial capital, which led to the bursting of the technological bubble. But it saw a mode o f transformation o f the world that remained multilateral. The United States did not yet consider itself exclusively invested with the duty of saving the world. A n d those who were opposed to globalization, while formulating just criticisms o f it, did not realize that it was precisely during this period that a multicultural sensibility asserted itself. I n the current phase of American policy, multiculturalism has been abandoned. I t is no longer a question o f understanding the other and recognizing the differences between the Western cultural model and the Islamic model, for example, but o f combating Islam - or rather those who wage war in its name. The wave of antiAmericanism, which has continued to grow, especially since the beginning of the Second Intifada and the Iraq war, too often intimates that there is no change in a world completely dominated by American power. On the contrary, the changes are profound and rapid: a civil vision has been replaced by a military vision. In the years prior to 2001, the United States - and consequently most o f the world - which lived in a society dominated by economic and technological problems, and by the rise o f new social movements - in particular, feminism and political ecology - still had a sense of living through a comprehensive transformation o f the world that was not entirely in the hands of governments. Globalization was releasing the economy from all the other sectors o f society, and society was dominated by the economy; the new warriors were not yet in power. The transition from a logic o f society - or, more precisely, of social change - to that o f war can also be seen among the Islamists. Major projects to refound Islamic republics, in the spirit of Khomeini, failed and were abandoned. Those who prepared and carried out the attack of 11 September were combatants with a different objective: to destroy and terrorize the enemy, like the Palestinian fighters, in a logic which has been (and still is) that of activists in a national cause ready to die for the liberation of their country. Even i f we cannot see the transition from one logic to another with sufficient clarity, we have a strong sense that our categories for analysing social life are rapidly disintegrating, are no longer o f use to us. Our internal problems are now governed by events that happen at a global or continental level. We are gradually stopping defining ourselves as social beings. Well before the idea o f a holy war became established, we already spoke less frequently of the problems of work and professional life. They were masked by the problems of employment - that is, unemployment and job insecurity. A n d when the wage-earners of a factory closed by its

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owners for reasons o f relocation, even though it was profitable, went on strike, occupied the factory, blocked the roads, or threatened to blow everything up, television viewers were moved by their misfortune, but did not associate themselves with any protest. We have gradually discovered that the events, the political conflicts, the social crises that occur in our vicinity are governed by distant events. Local circumstances do not really contain the meaning of the events that unfold there, even though the local situation adds a secondary meaning to events that are predominantly explicable at a global level. Since the Second World War we have known that it is necessary to look to the world stage for an explanation o f local news - notably with the Cold War and the extension of the Communist regime to a vast China. Further still, in the course of recent years it has become clear that the centre-point of global conflicts is the strip o f land shared by Israelis and Palestinians.

A globalized world France, more so than other countries, is experiencing the indirect consequences o f this confrontation, because Jews and Arabs form large communities there. They have long lived side by side in relative calm, but since the second Intifada, which has transformed the guerrilla movements into fights to the death, we have seen the construction of 'communities' in neighbourhoods and secondary schools; insults and abuse have been exchanged between Jews and Arabs. Anti-Semitic acts have increased markedly in quantity and gravity, and a vigorous publicity campaign has been launched in America to denounce the anti-Semitism that is supposedly resurgent in France, raising the spectre o f the campaigns formerly waged against Captain Dreyfus and recalling the anti-Jewish laws o f Vichy. However, the attacks are of a different kind: racist references have become rare; on the other hand, attacks on Israel predominate and Jews are accused o f using the Shoah they suffered to repress the Palestinian national movement with the utmost violence. A t the same time, small neoNazi groups have been desecrating Jewish and Arab graves. How can we fail to see that the explanation for anti-Semitism in France, inseparable from anti-Arab racism, is to be found in Jerusalem as much as Paris? We must turn to the war to the death tearing Palestine apart for the reasons for an anti-Israelism containing an anti-Semitism reinforced by themes derived from French reality - in particular, the unequal way in which France treats Jews and Arabs. A n d it is almost uniquely against Arabs that we see the development of a racism tempered by the fact that anti-Islamism is primarily cultural.

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The attack o f 11 September 2001 in New York cannot be reduced to its local dimension either: it was a challenge, launched by al-Qaeda, to American power and the second Iraq war has bolstered this interpretation from one month to the next. The Islamic world and the United States are confronting each other and each camp can strike at any point on the globe. But this situation has also led to the emergence o f humanitarian action, conveyed in the theme o f the need to intervene in the affairs o f a state that massively violates the basic rights o f a section o f its population. A n d , despite the weakness o f their resources, it is from Amnesty International, the Red Cross, Médecins Sans Frontières and Médecins du Monde that we receive the most reliable information on the dramas and scandals troubling the world, whereas our governments seem to be bogged down in subaltern problems and Europe itself seems incapable of intervening beyond its own borders. How can we discuss the idea of globalization without referring to what contrasts most starkly with it, provoking such passion - the idea o f a clash of civilizations as expounded by Samuel R Huntington in his book o f that title? Whereas the idea o f globalization suggests a world dominated by firms or economic and financial networks, vectors o f goods, services, shares and interests, Huntington's thesis resorts to the notion o f civilization, the word being employed in the plural - that is, in a very different sense from the one given it in eighteenth-century France, and which corresponds more closely to the German idea o f Kultur. He does so in order to argue that the principal conflicts in the contemporary world involve much more than economics and politics: the opposition o f global complexes, predominantly cultural and especially religious, sustained by states that have a strong mobilizing capacity. In fact, this general idea is applied to two rather different kinds o f conflict. First, it is applied to confrontations that are simultaneously cultural, social and political, like those that tore Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia apart. Next, it is used o f conflicts for world domination, like that opposing the West to the Soviet bloc during the Cold War, the one opposing the United States to Islam today, and the one which will oppose it to China tomorrow - unless the latter decides not to wait before committing its power to the struggle for world domination. Between these two types o f extreme exist what are known as 'intermediate' cases - in particular, those where the struggle essentially aims at the conquest of political power and where cultures (in the first instance, religions) are simply 'resources' mobilized by the contending parties against one another. Samuel Huntington depicts a multi-polar world for us and stresses the decline of the West, which long believed that it enjoyed a monopoly on modernity and power and that it alone embodied the idea of universal-

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ism. His thesis would be weak i f it merely staged a very unequal struggle between a central empire and peripheral societies or states incapable of genuinely challenging it. On the contrary, however, Huntington shows us a West (i.e. the United States) losing its hegemony and threatened by the rise o f other civilizations. Conversely, those who put globalization at the centre o f their representation o f the world show that it is dominated by American hegemony, since global networks are to a very large extent in the hands o f the Americans. A n d it is against them that the alter-globalist movements have been created. The contrast between the two theses is so total because they are in part complementary. The reason for the massive approval enjoyed by Huntington's approach is that it highlights the increasingly central role o f cultural affiliations and beliefs - in particular, religious ones - in conflicts that several generations of analysts have sought to explain in purely economic or political terms. I n this respect, Huntington is surely right to speak o f Islam where so many other authors only want to hear talk of oil. But such cultural phenomena are implicated in policies and struggles that discount state boundaries. I n particular, as we know, al-Qaeda recruits activists who are often highly integrated into Western countries. I t is therefore neither economics nor civilizations that should be placed at the centre of analysis, but the forces for mobilizing the resources required for political action. We must go beyond this initial observation. The political world is dominated by the confrontation between the United States (and its most loyal allies) and Islam (or what is called such). Whether or not we accept it, Huntington's thesis today calls for a more positive statement about the relations between religion and politics in a world which is experiencing, and has just experienced, major conflicts whose actors refer to themselves as religious. Was it gratuitous i f I began this book with the thunder-clap of 11 September 2001 in New York and the world's entry into a state of war, which has since increasingly taken the form o f terrorist attacks and hostage executions that propel us into a state o f utter barbarism and are an obstacle to understanding the causes of these battles and to seeking solutions to them? To take the analysis forward, we must return to our starting-point of globalization, in as much as it signifies, over and above the globalization of exchanges, the separation between economy and society - a separation that contains within it the destruction o f the very idea o f society. We have seen a process o f separation between the objective power o f the United States and the subjective, national, religious, or whatever resistance of groups or nations that can now only defend themselves subjectively, by appealing to their ethnicity or history. It is when this subjectivity and this

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need for identity develop i n a political vacuum that the relations between nations can be reduced to a war between enemies defined by their forms of worship, their religions or their laws. In an already distant past, Khomeini's Iran attacked the United States. Similarly, in Afghanistan, Sudan and Algeria in particular we have seen Islamist political groups create or seek to found new Islamist republics. But after the triumphant years came the defeats - especially that of the Taliban in Afghanistan. A n d the great politico-religious enterprises have given way to forms of bellicose behaviour, to attacks on the American hegemonic power, in which al-Qaeda would appear to be the main agent. One hundred years ago, Lenin was to be heard defending the idea of the role o f the revolutionary vanguard, and then, sixty years later, we saw the birth of the idea o f the foco, fashioned in Latin America, to foreground the role o f a vanguard that was even smaller - and even more cut off from the 'masses'. Today, we are dealing with a guerrilla o f kamikazes carrying out armed actions whose impact on public opinion is enormous, but who do not refer to any religious project. Many of these self-sacrificial terrorists seem to be motivated by hatred of the enemy. I n the Palestinian case the religious component of the movement has been limited (even at the outset, when the role o f Christians influenced by Marxism was so important). Thus recent history has turned its back on Huntington's thesis. But is it not refuted by world history as a whole? I t was in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that we experienced wars of religion. Thereafter, competition between states, economic struggles, and totalitarian ambitions inspired wars i n which religion played only a secondary role, except with the entry onto the stage o f peoples or nations who were seeking to win their independence, as was long the case with Poland. I n short, Huntington's thesis, which is brilliant and clearly presented, emerged at the historical moment when it was least applicable.

Europe: A State without a Nation

Many analysts regard the decomposition of 'society' and the undermining of national states under the impact of globalization as a normal stage in the formation of ever larger entities. A n d their main argument rests on the creation of the European Union, where they today perceive a political will, a culture, and a shared awareness of citizenship being fashioned. The creation of an integrated Europe is in fact an extraordinary success. But I do not see a national state asserting itself at a European level. On the contrary, what is interesting about the construction of Europe is that it is born out of the separation between a global economy, continental economic management, and the renewal of local life and preservation of national identities. That is why the historical importance of this construct cannot be dissociated from the very restricted role it plays in the profound changes in social life I am seeking to expose.

Decline of the national state? Much has been said about the decline of the national state. In particular, Europeans, who increasingly feel that they belong to larger or smaller territorial entities than a state, define these entities in economic or cultural terms, and less and less in institutional or political terms. But we cannot make do with such vague claims. First of all, because many Europeans in modern history have felt that they belonged primarily to a city and its region: Amsterdam, but also Leiden and Hamburg, Florence and Sienna - so many city-states that for a time at least played a major role, before being incorporated into a national state.

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The national state had three main functions: creating a state bureaucracy capable o f intervening in economic development; exercising control over morals and sentiments, as Norbert Elias in particular has shown in his studies o f Absolutist monarchy and especially the Versailles court; and waging war, in order to construct a national territory or fend off attack by enemy states. How do things stand today with the national state? A n d , in the European case, can we speak of its decline or disappearance hypotheses that could be extended to Latin America or other parts o f the world? The administrative and economic activity o f the state has expanded, but at the same time it is outflanked by the consequences o f economic globalization and European construction itself. The state's role in training and education, but also in moral control and repression, has markedly decreased, in part as a result o f scientific advances, in part because o f the triumph of a consumerist, hedonistic individualism. In sum, the national state is much less of a general framework for collective identification than it used to be. Britons, Germans or the French no longer identify their national consciousness with the policy o f their state. I n contrast, it might be thought that European integration has strengthened national consciousness in Italy, because the whole country had to make great efforts to become a full member of monetary Europe. But this national consciousness was very weak, given the relative failure o f Italian unity in the nineteenth century. The citizens of other countries like to mock European nationalisms. However, this is to confuse the present with the past. The national flag floats over many more buildings - even private ones - in the United Sates or Sweden than in France or Italy. What persists is a feeling of superiority on the part of the 'old' countries, which succeeded in projecting their weapons, their languages and their products into vast territories. The primary objective behind the creation o f Europe, and in the first instance of the European Coal and Steel Community, was to make wars between European countries impossible. None o f them now dreams o f triggering a new conflict, which could spill as much blood and create as much horror as previous conflicts. The desire to render impossible wars that had in fact already become so, as a result of the humiliation at the moment of the final settlement after the fall o f Germany and Japan, was not artificial. I t engaged the six countries that had taken the initiative o f European construction in a new form of political existence, even though no one at the time spoke o f a federal Europe, while de Gaulle for his part referred to a Europe des patries. The success o f the Europe created by Schuman, de Gaulle, Adenauer, Monnet, De Gasperi, Spaak and others can be explained in the first instance by the absence o f theoretical and ideological debates throughout

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its history. Europe progressed step by step, accompanying the global dynamic o f liberalization, and was kept united by the existence o f the Soviet threat. The great achievement o f the European states was the creation o f what Jacques Delors has called the 'European social model', of which he was the finest artisan. A t the end o f the Second World War, Great Britain, and then France, created systems o f social security that differed from one another, but which embodied the idea of the welfare state - an idea that continues to characterize the European countries, and in the first place the Scandinavian ones, which are nevertheless very reticent about a political Europe. These countries, benefiting from the legacy o f working-class struggles and the strength o f socialist parties, have enabled their citizens to live in conditions which were but a distant hope for the generations of activists who paved the way for the great post-war social reforms. This makes it difficult to speak of the disappearance of the national state in countries where public expenditure reaches or exceeds half o f the national product. Countries o f social solidarity, the European countries have also become countries o f memory - or refusal o f memory - in so diverse a fashion that the endeavour has accentuated the differences in national consciousnesses, while attenuating their mutual hostility. Europe is the most convincing example of the creation of a supranational political and economic entity. But this achievement has been experienced by its population as the fruit o f an initiative taken by political leaders who were firmly committed to the American side during the Cold War. The movements from below that relied on a strong current o f anti-Americanism, and denounced European construction as a manoeuvre o f 'American global big capital', articulated the deep disappointment of many, over and above parties, at the retreat o f the reforms and hopes generated by the Liberation, which had been supported by Communist parties that wielded great influence at the time, especially in France and Italy. But these movements of opinion did not succeed in transforming themselves into political parties. European construction was thus seen as the work o f political leaders and high functionaries whose actions had no democratic legitimacy. This Europe, to which social democrats and Christian Democrats lent decisive support, was realized thanks to the personal links between certain French and German politicians: de Gaulle and Adenauer, Giscard d'Estaing and Schmidt, Mitterrand and Kohl, who were certainly all democrats, but were not responding to a clear popular will. The construction o f Europe was not carried out under the control of public opinion; it was a subject in which only polling organizations took an interest. The image o f Europe long remained intermediate between a project of continental unity and an instrument o f American domination. A raft o f

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When We Referred to Ourselves in Social Terms

measures for twinning towns, students or professional groups has done more to make people sensitive to the diversity o f the continent than to create enthusiasm for its unity. But it is true that the European idea has remained alive and has even come to be more and more accepted, allowing for reinforcement of the Commission's intervention in the economic and social life of the European countries and their citizens. A Europe without Europeans is being constructed. The extent of the achievement impresses the whole world; the nationalism of the major European powers has vanished; people everywhere say European, so as to avoid saying German or Italian. For their part, the Spanish feel more strongly European than the rest because this adjective symbolizes the success of their major project: to rejoin the leading group of countries o f the continent and put an end to two centuries in which they lagged behind their neighbours. Europe's advances are impressive, but they do not confer on the European Union any weight in international affairs. For their part, the inhabitants of the various European countries identify themselves as such only when they do not wish to be identified with their country. I f I reflect on my own development, I first of all register a reduction in my sense of being French. I loved this country, which was the only one I knew in my childhood, and whose language had given shape to my emotions and ideas. I was at once naturally and willingly French. The first wound that put an end to my total identification with France dates from June 1940: its capitulation had been humiliating. Later, after the Liberation, I discovered the mediocrity o f my country before and during the war; and I felt the need to distance myself both from my student milieu and French life. I sought to open myself up to other parts o f the world, without my attachment to my country ever dissolving. Professionally, I made numerous stays in the United States, Canada, Italy, Spain, and many other countries; and I attached myself to Latin America almost as i f to a second country, while remaining very French. In very different forms, I am convinced that most Europeans have undergone an evolution analogous to mine: an abandonment of any nationalism and openness to the diversity of the world, while remaining profoundly attached to the country that has shaped them, as much by its institutions, language and literature as by its history. It was only gradually, and above all with the preparation of the Maastricht Treaty, that the European Economic Community began to be transformed into the European Community and then the European Union. I t was now impossible to leave Europe to construct itself by itself. A specific policy had to be developed to achieve the successful creation, despite British abstention, of a single currency and a project of enlargement that has resulted in the incorporation of the centre and east o f the continent.

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The French accepted the treaty by the skin of their teeth. Other countries would have rejected it, had their citizens been consulted. The question now being posed by everyone, even i f most participants in European construction remain supporters of an empirical definition of it, can be formulated as follows: will Europe be a national state, as England and France have been? Will a European consciousness and identity soon exist? A n d will Europeans refer to themselves by this name, rather than as English, Germans, Italians, when they introduce themselves to Americans or Japanese?

Is European unity possible? A great step forward was taken when the idea o f a European Constitution emerged. Germans like Jurgen Habermas and Daniel Cohn-Bendit, motivated by their profound hostility to any German nationalism, took the lead in a campaign in favour of the creation of European citizenship. But the momentum was short-lived. The idea of a Constitution was re-launched, but in more pragmatic fashion, when it came to the incorporation o f new member states. The attempt is all the more imperative in that states defend their particularisms, their national interests. The success of this draft Constitution (which remains uncertain as I write) is paradoxically accompanied by a regression in European sentiment. Now, as a result, the only goal of the European Constitution is the survival o f the Union. Highly useful and deserving the support o f a large majority, this Constitution will not found the 'constitutional patriotism' to which Habermas refers. I n many countries there would not be a majority for such a document and important electoral successes have been achieved by opponents of the European idea - in Belgian Flanders or the Netherlands, following Austria and the Scandinavian world, which is still hesitant about Europe. In France, to the surprise of many, the Socialist Party, which has been a consistent supporter of the European idea, has split and one of its leaders is building his projected presidential candidacy on a victory of the ' N o ' campaign. As Europe expands, diversifies, and intervenes more in the life of its member states, it seems to be closing in on itself, on its internal problems, while not always playing a significant role in world affairs. What European can mention Europe's inability to prevent the massacres in Bosnia and impose a peace on the belligerents without a strong sense o f shame? What European can be content with Europe when the names of Sarajevo, Vukovar and Srebrenica are pronounced? Well before the invasion o f Iraq by the United States, with the support of numerous European countries - above all, the new members of the Union liberated from Soviet domination - doubt set in as to the

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possibility of creating a European society and a European national state. Today, the federal idea has receded; it is scarcely mentioned. Europeans have certainly received a 'European' passport that defines their new nationality, but for all that can we speak o f European citizenship, in the sense in which the French hailed each other by the name o f citizen during the revolutionary period?

European Union and United States of America Like many other inhabitants o f the globe, Europeans live in a multiplicity of times and spaces. They think of themselves as simultaneously situated at the local, regional, national, global and sometimes even European levels. They retain only a vague national memory, as they do not live in a present without a past or future. Are they united by shared consumer habits? That is not clear. Italians do not resemble the Dutch any more closely than they used to, even i f they can speak together o f the same Formula 1 stars or ecological disasters. I have already made the point: the attenuation o f national identities is not compensated for by the creation of a continental identity. It is true that the first generation o f new members o f the European Union has grown remarkably close to the starting group. Spain, Portugal, Greece and Ireland have genuinely entered Europe or rediscovered their place in it; and the same will probably be true, after initial turbulence, o f those great countries Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Even so, can we speak of a European society? That was possible to a certain extent when the 'European social model', contrasting with American liberalism and the Japanese model of the large firm, was a potent reality based on the redistribution o f income via taxation and the distribution of equal benefits to all or benefits which helped the weakest more. But are we not now obliged to refer to the problems and decline o f this model? How can we be unaware of the universal imposition o f the liberal conception o f economics, whose criteria o f macro-economic policy are the reverse o f the European social model, since balanced budgets appear as the key to economic progress, by contrast with Keynesian policies? The European model is certainly far from having disappeared: the gap between state levies on the national product in Europe and in the United States (and also the United Kingdom since Mrs Thatcher) remains great. As for France and Germany, they have been severely rebuked by the Commission, but are not reducing their budget deficits more rapidly.

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I n sum, by dint of its very caution Europe is an effective agent for the construction in Europe of the liberal model that is globally triumphant, rather than the creator o f a different model. Should we conclude that Europe has lost its original dynamism, that it is growing weaker as it expands, and that it ultimately weighs little in the process o f globalization? It is true that Europe is less and less interventionist, without being as liberal as the directors of the World Trade Organization would like it to be. I t retains some limited room for taking initiatives, defined in rather negative terms - that is, the abolition o f obstacles to the free circulation o f goods, capital, information and even people. This pessimistic conclusion has been reinforced i n a period when Europe has lagged significantly behind the United States in the use o f new information and communication technologies. Such inferiority is accompanied by a rise in unemployment. I n France, consciousness of decline has prompted acute anxiety and led to the outbreak o f the 1995 strike, which went far beyond demands for public services. This strike, which provoked a lively controversy between intellectuals and trade unionists, led some activists to demand massive state intervention in economic life - something that was impossible and primarily evinced absolute opposition to liberal policies. Some countries, especially France, find it very difficult to leave behind the dirigiste planning model that was for so long predominant on the left - and this despite the economic collapse o f the Soviet model. I n France, defence o f the public sector, augmented by the nationalizations o f 1981, remains the principal condition of social progress for many; and this approach is charged with anti-European sentiment. I n Europe as a whole, few aspire to a return to the managed economy, but growing doubt surrounds the efficiency of the European social model. The attack o f 11 September and the American war on Iraq have divided Europe: a large number o f countries supported the United States; others - France in the forefront - were opposed to the unilateral decisions o f the United States and were supported i n their rejection o f war by a large proportion o f public opinion. This further weakened the European Union.

The European state We must conclude from all this that i f the European countries have avoided turning i n on themselves, it is not because they now form a single nation, but because they are constructing a state. This state already exists i n fact, since a large part o f Europe possesses a single currency and much o f the business o f national parliaments is given over to adapting their countries'

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laws to European directives. But what prevents Europe from being a genuine state today is that it has no international policy. Even i f it intervenes economically in different regions o f the world, Europe has no political weight, in particular in the Middle East. One o f the most important points in the draft Constitution is the creation of the requisite conditions for pursuing a foreign policy, for a European geopolitics. This point is crucial. Faced with the policy of confrontation decided and pursued by the United States, above all since 11 September, we must hope that a European foreign policy endeavours to establish relations o f a different kind with the Islamic world, or at least some o f the countries from which it is made up. Europe has taken an important decision in accepting the principle o f Turkey's adhesion to the European Union, given that most of that country's territory lies in Asia and its (long) history is bound up with a victorious Islam, even though Atatiirk imposed a secularization on it that has had an enduring effect. Turkey, which has never been colonized and which has been growing closer to Europe for more than a century, has already taken important steps towards combining a liberal economy, political democracy and Islamic culture. A n d it does not seem impossible that we might see similar trends develop (and even prevail) in Iran. A space conducive to a European policy might thus open up which would be based on countries equipped with a state capable o f making decisions and that have experienced attempts at modernization. This is not true of much of the Arab world. The difficulty here consists less in the obstacles encountered by such a projected international policy than in Europe's fear of altering its relations with the United States. Europe has placed itself in a situation o f military dependence on the United States and the technological gap in this domain has greatly increased since the 1980s, so that the Europeans' room for manoeuvre is very restricted. The solution that was once evoked by many - the construction of two pillars o f N A T O and the Atlantic Alliance - has lost all credibility following the Europeans' confession o f powerlessness to resolve the problems of ex-Yugoslavia (and today Great Britain's own position suffices to render such a solution inconceivable). The Europeans would have to be in a position to take important diplomatic initiatives in certain Islamic countries or i n other parts o f the world so as to rediscover a certain capacity for autonomous action vis-a-vis the United States, while obviously avoiding a confrontation that they are not in a position to sustain. W i l l the Europeans prove incapable o f assuming any global mission? Or will they be increasingly absorbed by the internal problems o f their own continent? Here we re-encounter the opposition we have already signalled between public opinion and governments. In most of the European countries, public opinion aspires to a unified international policy and expresses a desire for greater independence from the United States. But none o f this translates to governmental level.

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European powerlessness European powerlessness not only manifests itself at the level o f international politics: the greater part of the global scientific and industrial elite is attracted by the United States on account o f the quality of its research centres and major universities. It is therefore time for Europe, overcoming the weaknesses and powerlessness o f each of the European countries, to create a network o f institutions and research centres of excellence capable of rivalling the United States - or o f collaborating with American universities and laboratories on an equal footing. But we are far from being able to attain such a goal; and i f European research policy has grown in scope, it is at the price o f an administrative cumbersomeness that discourages all those who do not participate in very large projects. Europe is thus still very far from constituting a genuine state, but it is nevertheless tending towards it. On the other hand, as I have said, it is impossible to speak of a European nation and still less of a European homeland or Heimat. The enlargement of the European Union is further exacerbating its weakness as a nation. The fact that all member countries belong to the same 'cultural' area, defined in very general terms, does not prevent nations and governments from being very different from one another. Can it be said that Waterloo and Aboukir are memories shared by the English and the French? Has the classical opposition between Protestant countries and Catholic countries disappeared, like the one dividing tea-drinkers from coffee-drinkers, and those who use oil for cooking from those who use butter? Many French, Italians or Germans feel less out o f place in New York than in many European cities. Great Britain likes to look towards the high seas - that is, the United States - whereas Italy feels itself Mediterranean. These differences, derived from a long history, are one of Europe's major attractions. Why wish for a European culture when we already possess more than twenty? Europeans remain convinced of the need to construct Europe; they accept the extension of the Union's competence; they recognize that the indisputably European countries which have just entered the Union have the right to do so. A l l that, they say, is reasonable, indicates good management, and forms part o f the logic of the great European project. But where in all this are the sense of belonging, collective memory and social projects that impart a concrete meaning to the national idea? A n d what is the basis for the idea that Europe should replace national states in the collective life o f the citizens o f European countries? On a political or practical level, such a debate does not have much importance, since the European Union itself has abandoned the idea o f

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completely replacing states and transforming itself into a United States o f Europe. But in order to understand the changes that are profoundly transforming our lives, it is important to recognize that the undermining o f national states and political systems is not compensated for by progress in European construction. A n d we must exclude the rather widespread idea that we are primarily living through a change of scale. I n fact, the traditional framework o f nation-states is not being reconstructed at the European level and does not compensate for the effects of globalization. Is this a cause for regret? Yes, for Europe does not have the international influence that its population and level o f development call for. Yes, also and above all, because Europe appears as a zone o f weak progress or even stagnation, in a world turned upside down by the accelerated growth o f China and by American hegemony. This does not preclude us from thinking that it is more agreeable to live in Europe. We must dispense with the illusions o f an extreme 'Europeanist' discourse and recognize that the reasons for the decline o f a certain vision o f social life are to be sought at a different, more fundamental level. Once this false response has been excluded, it is necessary to confront what I call the 'end o f the social' and draw the conclusions for our analyses. The weakening o f Europe derives from the fact that it does not believe in its future. I t is discontented with American hegemony, but insufficiently so to seek to play a geopolitical role equal to that o f the United States or China. This does not mean that it aspires to become neutral, for it is well aware that it belongs to the world o f the privileged. A n d i f public opinion is sometimes more disposed to taking action, governments fear provoking a conflict with the United States. From this point of view, the Americans are not wrong to pass severe judgement on the Europeans, who have 'neither the weapons, nor the ideas, nor the will'.

The absence of European consciousness It is indeed the weakness o f European society (or societies) that explains Europe's difficulty i n acting like a state. This observation should convince us that Europe's prospects depend on the capacity of those who govern it to respond to the interests and demands of its members and to be 'representative', like the democratic governments o f recent centuries. In the methods hitherto employed for constructing Europe, everything has created an obstacle to the European state being democratic. The idea of Europe did not emerge from the popular will or a large movement o f opinion, as I have already mentioned. The Commission has remained wellnigh independent o f a Parliament that is not regarded i n any country as a legislative centre. This accounts for the low participation in European

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elections. There exists, it is true, a strong current o f opinion in favour of strengthening the Parliament's powers and even its right to overturn the Commission. But this tendency, which has already made some significant changes possible, is counteracted by the enlargement o f Europe, which gives all countries the impression that it is increasingly difficult for them to influence the decisions taken in Brussels. I f the power o f the Commission has diminished in recent years, it is instead in favour o f the Council of heads o f state and government, as the European idea grows more distant from federalism. European construction nevertheless has so many advantages that only a small minority rejects it. But it is so unexciting that it transforms the European countries into critical observers o f world history. A n d this absence of motivation in a world where vast territories are modernizing by imposing major sacrifices on themselves heralds a decline, which is slow at first and accepted without difficulty, but which will become more rapid and provoke increasingly serious internal crises. Europe is no longer a continent o f fighters; it has become a continent of those in retreat. However, let us not push the critique too far. Are we principally responsible for the weakness o f European initiatives, in particular i n the international domain? No. One o f the main causes of the transformation of European politics is that the new unilateralism practised by the United States, flouting the United Nations system that it had itself established, has deprived the European countries o f virtually any influence and has left Latin America without a role. Phrases like 'the Western world' are virtually meaningless. The things that closely united Western Europe and N o r t h America at the time o f the Soviet danger have disappeared; and the United States alone is engaged in the global defence o f Good against Evil. From this we must conclude not only that Europe is a state without a nation, but that this state is weak, implementing a policy which is more managerial than political. A n d since Europe is not a nation, it is in the intellectual, scientific, artistic and cultural sphere that a set o f countries, cities, intellectual currents, schools and research centres is taking shape, which we must ask to be more creative and more independent o f the United States; more cosmopolitan and multicultural as well.

The End of Societies

The social representation of society To repeat the point, the idea behind this book is that over and above dramatic events and long-term economic changes, we are living through the end of a type o f society - most importantly, of a representation of society in which the Western world has lived for several centuries. This faltering paradigm was built on the idea that society has no other foundation than a social one. I t was not the first paradigm to become established, when the religious order o f the world disappeared. I t was in fact the political order that took the place of the latter - in the first instance, the state. The formation of modern states, o f Absolutist monarchies, but also of city-states, and later of national states, was the major product of this period, which can also be called the age of revolutions, from those that brought about the overthrow of Absolutist monarchy - in Holland, England, the United States, and most o f the Spanish colonies o f America - to the more recent revolutions that erupted all over Europe or developed outside it. It was the development o f industry which, much later, put the economy and the forms of organization bound up with it at the heart o f social life. It was then that a specifically 'social' representation of society took shape. But the succession of these two representations of social life clearly occurred within the same vast historical complex. For more than four centuries, uniting the two successive types of society, the idea obtained that social life was its own end, that the integration of society and the rationality of its functioning, as well as its capacity to adapt to change, were the main yardstick of good and evil. Deviance and crime were defined as a threat to social order; and family or institutional education was called

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socialization. These facts are well known, but they must be mentioned here, since our central claim is precisely that we are living through the end of the 'social' representation of our experience. This break is as significant as the one that put an end to the religious representation and organization of social life several centuries ago. This definition o f such a vast historical complex comes up against two objections. The first is that the countries which constituted themselves as states and societies also had two other main activities: foreign trade and war. The European was the man o f great expeditions to the east and the west; and he created huge empires charged with supplying wealth to the metropolis. However, the Portuguese and Spanish empires did not give rise to societies o f the type presented here, whereas, according to Fernand Braudel, the Netherlands and England very rapidly transformed expeditions and conquests into societies that knew how to transform gold and silver into machines, knowledge and laws. The other activity that played a central role in European countries was war, and even i f it was a factor in the rationalization of production, as was evident in the arsenals, it remains the case that struggles between the major states for hegemony in Europe, and the more or less long and destructive wars they entailed, mobilized a significant proportion of state resources. This objection must remain without a response, given how constant and costly European wars were. But we must follow Max Weber and the majority o f modern historians who reveal how, behind this military history, that of princes and soldiers, a different type o f society was formed - one of bourgeois and artisans, public and private administrators, and which was also a society o f the creation and massive diffusion of knowledge. Here we encounter the second, more important limitation o f the idea of society. I n the age o f Enlightenment, English and French domination provoked national reactions often inspired by a voluntaristic policy o f entering into a world that was too exclusively in the hands o f the English and French. Herder was its finest representative, pleading for the right o f the Germans, Baltic peoples, and inhabitants of the Balkan countries to have a place in the new type of society. But these reactions were still situated within the central model. This was not the case with the nationalisms which, in the name of the particular essence o f a culture, a history or even a biological origin, broke with the Franco-British model (or at least wished to). The violence of Fichte, especially in his attacks on the French language, and a long tradition o f defending a nation defined as creator o f a particular culture and imaginary, marked Germany, which at other times became the finest representative of industrial society with its workers, employees, civil servants and entrepreneurs. There is no need to underline the fact that in many countries secularization was limited, allowing what were often

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very strong bonds between state ideology and Christian morality to survive; while in other countries (like France) the opposite development prevailed, with secularism becoming more an instrument of struggle against the Catholic Church than a pure agent of rationalization. But all these factors of diversity did not destroy the unity of the 'social' vision of collective life. How are we to explain the existence of this purely 'social' vision and organization of collective life? I t cannot have been imposed solely by a government, when it was so often in the name of society and the nation that princes were overthrown. The purely 'social' character of society and self-foundation of society display a boundless belief in the capacity of such societies to transform themselves. Accordingly, they defined themselves as 'active' and were intent on situations that had been created prevailing over those that had been inherited, without fixing limits to the capacity for self-creation and self-transformation. In my early books I used the word historicity to refer to this capacity for self-production, showing the rise of this historicity in stages, from the sphere o f consumption to that of distribution and then those of organization and production in the strict sense. M y usage of this word was different from its habitual meaning, which refers to the position of a fact or an entity in an overall process of development. I wanted to show that society had a growing awareness of producing itself, rather than being defined solely by quasi-natural evolutionary processes. The use I made of the notion of historicity was not well received, but I am retaining it. For this is the key thing: our societies regarded themselves as being self-created, offspring of their own efforts, not only by employing material resources in the service of major projects, but in setting as their main objective the construction, consolidation and defence of societies whose interest, in the broadest sense of the word, including equal opportunities, is the most important principle for assessing forms of behaviour and defining good and evil. To speak of sociologism is beside the point, as i f it was a question of reinforcing an extreme or even reductionist kind of thinking. We are indeed dealing with a general conception, but one in which most sociological schools situate themselves and that long constituted the basis for our law and social organization.

The European mode of socialization A l l societies regard themselves as sacred. In the case of European societies, however, this sacred status came to them only from themselves. I t is not based either on a god or on the dynamic of history - and still less on a situation defined in natural terms. A n d the morality that it develops and

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teaches is purely civic. I have spoken elsewhere of human rights, but here it is the duties o f citizens that are in question. A n d even i f patriotic enthusiasm declined in European countries with the onset o f European construction and the globalization of the economy, this attachment of a religious type, but purely secular, to the homeland is to be found in many countries, large or small, and especially in the United States. This extreme, constant reference o f society to itself is characteristic o f a mode o f development - one that reduces the protection o f an inheritance or acquired interests to a minimum. A n d it is only in open societies, capable o f conquering markets and controlling their environment, that this entirely 'social' vision o f social life can develop and that the notion o f society can acquire the status o f a principle for assessing forms o f personal or collective behaviour in the social whole. I am referring here to a way of augmenting a society's capacity to act on itself. But this analysis would not be complete or sufficient i f it did not penetrate into the internal life o f societies so as to apprehend their dynamism and internal conflicts - but also their elements o f weakness. This type of society acquired its power by concentrating all resources in the hands of a ruling 'elite' that possessed knowledge, managed accumulation and production, and governed public life. These ruling elites were composed of adult males belonging to the Western world and the colonizing countries. Defined as inferior, by contrast, were manual labour, the body, emotion, immediate consumption, private life, the world o f women and o f children. I t is not enough to say that women or manual workers were regarded as inferior: it is inferiority that assumed different guises, among them women and workers. Such a polarization, o f which Claude Lévi-Strauss remarked that it evokes the steam engine, which opposes a hot pole to a cold pole in order to generate energy, creates tensions and conflicts between those above and those below, the haves and the havenots. Hence the consistent importance o f class struggles, revolutions and ideological debates in these societies. Western societies were thus defined by the accumulation of resources in the hands of a ruling elite and by the potency of social conflicts, which prevented the rulers transforming themselves into rentiers and privileged persons. Our societies were masterful. Thanks to the use o f force and reason, they dominated nature and made themselves its masters. Oriented outwards, constantly proclaiming their goals and strategies, they succeeded in putting the overwhelming majority to work i n order to fulfil the objectives fixed by firms and their directors. By contrast, they turned their gaze away from individuals themselves. They loved thought and science, but they distrusted consciousness, in which they saw the mark o f the religion which exerts such a negative influence, especially on women. State education syllabuses faithfully

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corresponded to the image that these societies wished to have o f themselves. The school was to transmit knowledge, educate the mind, impose discipline, and make the differences between individuals disappear behind the uniformity of the rule - that is, by everyone's submission to the forms of thought and life which ensure the success of production and reward the best. I n economic life the ideology of the ruling elite reduced workers to being humdrum or even lazy individuals, but who could be set in motion by giving them material gratifications. F. W. Taylor provided a classic formulation of this representation of workers and of the means o f making them work for the maximum profit o f the employers. Class society? Obviously, since the concentration o f resources in it is extreme and, as a result, so is the distance that separates the higher categories from the lower ones. But the expression would be misleading i f it led to the deepest root of these class relations being situated in the economy itself and, in particular, in property relations. Defined by modernization, our societies were class societies in a broader sense. Class struggles played an essential role in them, for the simple reason that this model rests entirely on society's action on itself. I t does not appeal to any principle above or below it. I t speaks of power, money, knowledge, and also of revolutions and institutions. I t is rationalist, secularized, and retains nothing of the old communities, whereas the Arab world or the Chinese world, to take two important cases, preserved forms o f organization, authority and belief inherited from the past for longer. By contrast, everything is 'social' in the European model o f modernization. That is why the general idea of society is only an abstract expression o f this European model. This is what Tonnies understood when, at the outset of modern sociology, he contrasted society with community. It should be stressed that the central position occupied by the idea of society, and the definition o f the latter as a social system endowed with mechanisms o f functioning and change, had as its counterpart a rejection of any analysis and any form o f social organization which considered the actor in terms other than those o f the place she occupied in society. Subjectivity was thus regarded as a raw datum to be transformed into objective analysis, so that nothing was able to oppose the general interest of society; and all egotism and resistance had to be overcome in the name of reason and progress.

Society and modernity The idea of modernity, to which the following chapter will also be devoted, is opposed to that of a society which is its own foundation, its own legitimacy. Instead, it asserts that it exists only because it recognizes the exis-

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tence of non-social foundations of social order and defends them. I t testifies to this by the importance attached to reason, which is universalistic and does not depend entirely on its role in the functioning o f society. This universalism, which contains the idea of human rights, is in no way inscribed in the notion o f society, as conceived by Western thinking. It is even intellectually preferable to emphasize the opposition between the discourse o f modernity, which subordinates social organization to non-social, universalistic principles, and the discourse o f society, which grounds social norms solely in the interest o f society. Mention o f this opposition seems even more necessary when we remember that the Western mode of development, based on the idea o f society and the importance given to its internal conflicts, is not the only one, even i f it acquired an exceptional importance bound up with its economic and political success. The Western model rested on an extreme choice. A l l the others associated past and present, combining universalistic references with the defence of particularisms. There even exist cases when development was rejected in order to preserve a certain degree of communal existence. We should take this argument to its conclusion and say that the various types o f modernization combined (1) references to modernity, (2) references to the Western model o f society, and (3) very different forms o f reference to a communitarian heritage or ideal. Western societies are constantly troubled by a conflict between a vision that is systemic and utilitarian and an appeal to universalistic principles. Other societies, even i f they do not appeal to either o f these two poles, are drawn to the past, from which they then cannot separate themselves, except in authoritarian fashion. But to achieve the requisite break, they can either appeal to the Western conception of society (and then run the risk o f nurturing sociologism), or defend renewed communitarian values. Many have been tempted to define this society by utilitarianism, and hence by the triumph of the interests over the passions that are instead supposedly unleashed in societies where charismatic authority prevails over legal rational authority, to adopt Weber's notions. However, this idea remains superficial, because it allots the central role to different forms of behaviour. But the principle of society - that is, the European model of modernization - is that it subordinated everything, passions and interests alike, to the functioning of society. Society is made up of struggles that are often dominated by interests, but also by the spirit o f conquest and modernization which brings the imaginary into play and transforms the figures of inferiority into subjectivity. The latter in turn develop emancipatory projects, that o f women like that of the colonized, at the origin of the unleashing of passions, to the point where the opposition between interest and passion, far from marking a clear dividing line between actors, appears quasi-artificial.

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The world o f the interests and that o f the passions are always linked. For example, Marx believed that human beings are guided by interests, but the historical events he analysed are charged with passion, as is the class struggle. Conversely, societies that approximate to the pole o f modernity always risk getting entangled in a double language - a communitarian language and a universalistic language - which will undermine their action. These considerations not only concern the so-called 'underdeveloped' countries; they also refer to concrete situations in 'developed' countries, for there is not one o f them that succeeds in creating something new solely out of new materials and dispensing with any communitarian reference. That is one o f the reasons why the entirely self-legitimated model o f society, which was the main instrument o f European and Western victories for so long, demands such attention. A model interposed itself between past and present that was bereft o f historical definition, since its particular character was to found society only on itself, and hence without any reference to evolutionistic or historicist conceptions. This European model of modernization wrested such a lead that it could identify itself with modernity and convince itself that no other path to modernization exists, so that this collection of countries, regions and cities would form a long caravan in which each animal places its hooves in the tracks o f the one preceding it. The Netherlands, then Great Britain and the United States were conscious of being, or having been, at the head o f the caravan, although at times Germany and then Japan believed themselves capable o f stripping them o f first place and the French regarded themselves as having best thought out this model. The pretensions o f the Soviet Union never amounted to anything more than militant propaganda. The European model o f modernization can be called male, in as much as here no opposition is more complete than that o f the conquering, innovative male and the female confined to reproduction. Here woman is not held in contempt; she might even be glorified on occasion, but without ever being released from her confinement. The distance separating women from key decisions seems to increase with the acceleration o f modernization, reaching its extreme point in France in 1848 with the creation o f universal suffrage for all men - and hence the elimination o f all women from public life. But the European model of modernization takes a different form in each of the countries where it is applied. I t was in Amsterdam, and then Holland and England, that economic activity first achieved its independence from political power. By contrast, France, along with Great Britain the first country to create a national state - the future political model that dominated the world - assigned this state a central role in implementing modernization in all its aspects. Later, from the eighteenth century, a not

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yet unified Germany asserted its claim to found a particular type of modernization, superior to the others, more profoundly rooted in the history and culture o f a Volk. Outside Europe, all modes of modernization have combined in a more or less conflictive manner entry into modernity with the defence, or even renaissance, of an older culture and society. Some of these countries had achieved a level o f knowledge and technology superior to that o f the Western countries. But only the latter were able to give impetus to the dynamic o f modernity by transforming science into techniques and innovations, by creating a national spirit - and by recognizing individual rights. Most modes of modernization were also undermined and distorted by the subordination o f the countries concerned to a colonial power which increased the distance between Westernized elites and peoples locked in tradition and social disorganization. This led to the failure of some attempts at development (and even induced dramatically negative tendencies to de-modernization). In short, no mode o f modernization in the world developed a comparable vision to that o f Western Europe: making society not a means but an end. I t is therefore reasonable to prioritize analysis o f this Western model, whose ascendancy over the whole world, once very great, seems to have declined in the period of the military and political success o f the Leninist-Maoist model, and then resumed its forward march after the defeat o f the Soviet empire, until its triumph with its concentration in the United States, while Europe lacked the will to act and Japan seemed paralysed.

The crisis of representation The European model o f modernization was created around a definition o f all the categories of organization and social thought in specifically social terms - that is, o f functions performed by actors and institutions to ensure the integration o f society and its capacity to adapt to necessary changes. This model, classical for more than a century, accords great importance to representation: political forces are thought to represent social actors in particular, social classes. I n a different sphere, the representation o f an individual consists in indicating her social function and social environment: clothing, postures, everything must define the social position o f the character; and her personal characteristics emerge all the more clearly in so far as the social contexts o f the one being represented are clearly indicated. Today, these socially defined portraits have faded. References to the social environment have become indirect. By contrast, individual characteristics are reinforced, to the extent of restoring vigour to a genre that

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was no longer o f interest to historians: biography. When the painter ceases to represent a notable or a dancer and seeks to paint her outlook on reality, rather than the reality itself, her works cease to be figurative. Individualism becomes established and detaches itself from any social environment, to the point where any form o f representation tends to disappear. A n example of less importance illustrates this crisis o f representation. Fashion used to highlight individual differences within established social models, as Georg Simmel stressed. When it attained autonomy vis-à-vis the social hierarchy, with the first great couturiers of the twentieth century, fashionable clothing no longer characterized a social class; it became an interpretation o f the body of the woman. A n d i f Yves Saint Laurent so clearly dominated the couturiers o f the last half-century, it is because he dared, to a greater extent than others, to dress a naked body. Those who did not follow his example did not return to representing some social type, but fabricated theatre decor, played with colours and forms - and took risks that qualified them as 'avant-garde'. These two examples are not isolated. Representation is no longer sought after anywhere: it even becomes a sign of mediocrity. I n these domains as in others, we have emerged from what, in a word that can now be more clearly understood, I call a social conception of society, where every actor, individual or collective, is defined by a social situation. Hence the impression we have today o f plunging into the 'abstract' and no longer possessing guides to help us when we tour society. A l l our categories for describing and analysing society have been completely disrupted by the end of social realism, from the novel to architecture. I n this long period, politics and economics yielded cultural and social creations of great value. We should not forget this, but we must also detach ourselves from this heritage. The social sciences have a particularly serious lag to make good. A l l too often, they still speak o f social reality in terms that no longer correspond to the cultural model in which we have been living since the end of the nineteenth century. This must be one o f our main concerns: to challenge the categories that formed the basis for the classical sociology that has come to the end of its road. The sociology of systems must give way to a sociology of actors and subjects. This is not easy, because the European model found one of its purest expressions in the social sciences, which are precisely defined by their ability to explain personal conduct in terms o f the functioning of the system. Many jurists and institutionalists, from Hauriou to Jean Carbonnier, specialist in private law, have represented the tendency that dominated sociology from the outset: that of Émile Dürkheim. Sociology has achieved its greatest success when denouncing the illusions of social actors, showing them that behind an appearance of freedom our behaviour was determined by concealed social mechanisms. Tell me what your

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social origin is, and I will tell you what your career in the education system will be. Indicate your profession and your income, and I will tell you what your rational political choice is (even i f you do not always make it). Each study published seemed to destroy an illusion and a wide public discovered the importance o f inequality, stratification, and increasing or decreasing social mobility, of which it had a spontaneous awareness that scholarly studies readily confirmed. As for economic studies, they were invariably identified with the investigation of rational choices, allowing them to exclude certain variables that were too complex and too vaguely defined those o f subjectivity - in order to devote themselves to the study of the relations between the elements o f the economic system. Obviously, this 'sociologistic' standpoint never completely triumphed in sociology. But it nearly always occupied a dominant position, from Durkheim to Parsons; and it has continued up until our day to reap success by bringing out social inequalities more clearly. But the domination o f 'classical' sociology has finally been destroyed, not so much under the impact of intellectual critique as on account o f the decomposition o f institutions and norms.

The three deaths of European society The Western model o f development was efficient and brutal in equal measure. It long benefited from its lead to conquer the world, adding the profits o f colonization to those o f an industrialization based on advances in knowledge of which the nineteenth-century German university was the best instrument. But this triumph, however impressive, could not last forever. The period which we are leaving behind is that not of its zenith, but of its decline and decomposition. In the multiplicity and complexity o f historical trajectories, we can distinguish three major processes of crisis: (1) loss of dynamic tensions; (2) subjection to a repressive dictatorship; (3) dissolution of voluntarism in the market economy. The diversity of these developments, the first of which was generally democratic in spirit, and the second clearly anti-democratic, while the third created mass society, must remind us, as we evoke these three major currents in contemporary history, of the complexity of society in the European sense: it was at once produced by its labour and discipline, shot through with radical social conflicts, and capable of strong self-regulation. (1) The least dramatic and often most positive form taken by this decline was the democratization o f a society where fundamental conflicts found institutional solutions or mediations. The history o f the working-class

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movement in industrial society is a perfect illustration o f this evolution. The exploitation of the proletariat led to a social movement often charged with a violence at once endured and invoked, but which ended up forcing recognition o f social rights - first in Great Britain and Germany, later in the United States and France - thanks to the arrival in power of 'left-wing' governments, that is, governments associated with the trade union movement or inspired by it. I n very different forms, colonial domination was overrun, and finally overthrown, by movements of national liberation that took the most varied forms - armed nationalism, Gandhian non-violence, an alliance between nationalists and Communists (a model that became established in much o f the world). ¥'m&\\y, feminism, born out o f the movement for women's right to vote in Great Britain and the United States, ended up securing abolition of the most extreme forms of dependence and inferiority inflicted on women by European male society, virtually without violence, but with very profound effects on the transformation o f morals. The European bow slackened. European societies and those that followed their example became less unjust, less violent and better controlled. The counterpart o f these achievements was a loss o f conquering dynamism and the growing weight of social intermediaries and protected categories. This development resulted in the creation of vast systems of social security, which brought workers effective protection against unemployment and accidents at work. Later, other policies of solidarity, cultural animation, and personal education developed, which attained consummate form in the Scandinavian countries. (2) A t the opposite end of the spectrum we find the authoritarian, dictatorial and even totalitarian state form whereby, in many countries, higher or middling categories fended off both working-class opposition and secularization, by conquering society in the name o f nationalism, itself supported by the repressive will of armed forces, based on an ideology that extolled the unity o f the nation or the people against the parties. There are huge differences between the reactionary Mediterranean dictatorships, Nazism or Japanese military imperialism, and the prolonged victories of Leninism-Maoism. But everywhere the model o f society was destroyed in favour o f an absolute state power and it took a long time to rediscover, under the earth scorched by state violence, the remains or new shoots of a 'civil' society. (3) Finally, very different from this second type but distinct in orientation from the first, a third process challenging the European model of society was the triumph of the market. During the major period o f liberalism's triumph, society exists less and less: it is the markets - particularly finan-

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cial networks - that govern an economic life in which mass consumption is making rapid progress. Communications technologies facilitate relations between firms, cities or individuals, rather than favouring the construction of a new type o f society. Television delivers a large quantity o f information on stock markets in Europe and America, but very little information is provided on the life o f firms, even when it involves a merger or serious strike that has significant consequences for employment. Moreover, it is expectations o f profits on shares that cause a rise in the stock market, a movement that can in its turn prime increased production. The latter is no longer the primary factor; it is merely the indirect result o f anticipated profits. A t a more immediate level, commentators constantly refer to the 'crisis o f confidence' behind falls in consumption and investment. Simultaneously, the reputation o f entrepreneurs, even o f some o f the greatest among them, is severely undermined by fraudulent manoeuvres. For its part, the power of the trade unions has diminished; it rested above all on the working class, which has fragmented in the literal sense. This third exit from European society led to the economic and social system that possessed most influence at the end of the twentieth century, and which has assumed its consummate expression in the United States: mass society. I t is what allowed that country to carve out a dominant position (which was held by the European system, and above all the British Empire, in the nineteenth century). The social democracy established in Europe and in the major Commonwealth countries certainly ensured the durability of the system o f social protection for the most part. But state interventions have increasingly been directed towards middle categories or the best integrated small wage-earners, without succeeding in checking the fall o f the most disadvantaged categories, further accelerated by international migration. Many o f the best works o f sociology in Europe are devoted to assessing the operation o f social policies in the domains o f education, health, urbanism, pensions and, more widely, social security. Some commentators have been inclined to interpret the attested failures, or proven renunciations, as the sign of the triumph of capitalism. They are right in part, since the operations o f the market increasingly often take precedence over social policies, but also because the well-off, educated population makes better use of certain services and knows how to secure important advantages, while the crisis in state education largely stems from a dated pedagogy more attuned to the needs of society than o f those being taught. However that may be, in these early years o f the new century, at a time when ex-Communist countries in which state management assumed highly

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inefficient forms are becoming members of the European Union, the European model, over and above the particular case o f the welfare state, is decomposing apace.

Irruption of democracy It was during the first phase of modernization that political categories were applied to all domains of social life. The overriding concern was to ensure order against disorder, internal peace against violence, and the integration of society against the arbitrariness of a prince or warlord. The national state - a phrase that sums up the most important political creation in the European model - warrants its renown, because it overran the Absolutist monarchies and founded a political entity - the nation which in turn established strong links with civil society. The notion of citizenship rests on the recognition of political rights. That o f national state does not contain any reference to democracy. Great Britain was the first to give civil - i.e. economic - society its independence and make it the basis of its legitimacy. The other country that invented the nation-state France - associated only the people with the state and the nation, a notion invented by the state which reduces society to its reflection, as it mirrors society. The historical memory of the French readily combines the Revolution and Napoleon in a central phase of its history which François Furet extended to the end of the nineteenth century - that is, up until the decline of peasant, bourgeois and patriotic France. In many other countries, the state was less strong or did not exist; and it was the will to form a nation that led nationalism to accord such strong legitimacy to the state that it merged completely into it and always looked more to it than it did to society. Accordingly, democracy is not always part of the European model o f society, while revolution is a significant component. This observation applies even more clearly to countries where the national state was not created and remained the prisoner of an empire, as in the case of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. But it existed only in limited fashion in the United States, since the main problem o f that country - the state o f the black population - led to a civil war and was resolved only in the last quarter of the twentieth century as the result of action that was simultaneously democratic, revolutionary and populist. In France, democracy was undermined by the long refusal to grant women the right to vote. I t invariably served to legitimate the power of oligarchies, rather than to construct a political system in which the majority controlled executive power through representation by means of parliaments or référendums.

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One would be tempted to say that democracy, even when tainted by oligarchy and class power, was more a British than a European reality. I n other words, it triumphed in a country that was more imperial than national, since it remained defined by the union o f several nations. This further reinforces the idea that the nation and democracy are notions which are more opposed than complementary. The French have recently demonstrated it. Enlightened public opinion, invited to choose between the notions o f republic and democracy, has moved increasingly sharply towards the republican ideal, while displaying limited interest in equality - the central value of democracy. Thus, the more revolutionary and national than democratic inspiration that put France back on its feet at the Liberation, under the joint leadership of de Gaulle and the Communist Party, was not replaced by an advance of social democracy when it became exhausted. By contrast, the national state, which has never been referred to as much since its imminent disappearance began to be announced on a daily basis, owed its enduring importance and resistance to globalization itself, because it was and remains the political expression o f society, in the strong sense given this word in the European model. We must speak o f social movements in almost identical terms. They too occupy a central position in the model o f society, since it rests on a great concentration o f resources, the formation of a dynamic ruling elite, and conflicts verging on rupture. A n d in the case of the social movements to an even greater extent than in that of the nation-state, the political space is better defined in terms of revolution than democracy. To the extent that the latter word could be used by the Communist movement, whose centre - the Soviet regime - was never seriously able to claim to be a democratic power. I t signified that the priority was ensuring the well-being of the people, which made it synonymous with revolution. This has nothing to do with the idea of a government formed and changed from the bottom up. A t the opposite end o f the spectrum was the formation, initially in Great Britain, o f an alliance between social movements and democracy. That between the trade union movement and democracy was sealed in Great Britain thanks to the Fabians and the idea of industrial democracy. From it emerged a social democracy that elsewhere evolved towards Communism, and elsewhere still ceased to be hand in glove with the working-class movement, whereas in some cases (especially Scandinavia) it ensured a lasting alliance between a powerful trade unionism and an egalitarian democracy. The French case is less satisfactory: the figure o f Jean Jaurès has remained the most elevated, even though he did not accede to the leadership o f the Socialist Party, because with identical vigour he was deputy

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for the Carmaux miners, defender o f great democratic causes, and an active Dreyfusard. Virtually unique, his case underlines the weakness o f the links between the working-class movement and democracy. National liberation movements offer a picture that is far from homogeneous: they have rarely been democratic in inspiration, even though they have been supported by currents o f democratic opinion (revolutionary, in fact) in the colonial metropolises. Only in the last chapter o f this book shall we deal with the issue of the women's movement, which was and remains profoundly democratic. But we must mention here that this case is very different from the others, since the women's movement developed in the main after the fall o f the European model.

The return of the political Critical analysis of the national state must not lead us to forget that it forms part of the model that I call society, whereas other types o f state not only do not pertain to it, but strive to make all aspects o f society submit to the construction o f their own power. Nationalism is the imposition o f the interests o f the state on the nation and the whole of society. Where does the boundary between the nation-state and nationalism lie? Above all, between the existence and the non-existence, the strength or the weakness, o f society - particularly its national component. Wherever there is great political, social or cultural heterogeneity, whenever a country is shot through with profound regional differences or insurmountable linguistic or religious barriers, the national state is transformed into a nationalist will, into the assertion o f the unity of a nation that does not in fact exist. Nationalism is a purely political project that seeks to 'invent' a nation by assigning a state uncontrolled powers to bring forth a nation and even a society. When it is devoured by nationalism, the national state ceases to be a component of society and the latter risks being destroyed. Nationalism is very far removed from modernity and it is doubly dangerous for democracy. This is so, firstly, because it functions from the top down, and hence in the opposite way from democracy; and secondly, because it replaces the complexity of social relations with sheer assertion of an affiliation that is then defined less by its content than by the nature of its opponents. Nationalisms have made a powerful contribution to destroying society by imposing a logic of war on it, a division of the world between friends and enemies, which blocks the functioning of society.

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It is the disintegration of society, a globalizing model, which has liberated a specifically political space, so that a return to political thinking and its growing autonomy (even its ascendancy over sociology) is among the most important aspects of the decline and fall of the European model of modernization, whose pivot was the notion of society. The return of the political is not a return to the political paradigm that preceded the social paradigm. It is the collapse of the latter that causes the political to be reborn, but this time as a subsystem. This resurgence of specific reflection on the political is such an important aspect of the crisis of the European type of society that we cannot present the latter without mentioning this change in social thinking, the main effect of which has been the development of analyses and theories focusing on democracy. It is in France that this transformation of social thinking, and the return of the concept of the political, has taken the most spectacular form, for France, unlike Italy, Great Britain and the United States, had not produced an important political thinker for a long time. Tocqueville and his contemporaries were the only important set of thinkers of the political in the intellectual history of France, at the beginning of the nineteenth century; and Élie Halévy found himself very isolated at the end of the same century when he ventured to undertake a specifically political analysis. The main reason for the absence of political thought in France is the importance accorded to the French Revolution and the Empire, but also the influence of the 'social' historians of the revolution - Albert Mathiez and Georges Lefebvre, in particular. The dominance of 'left' historiography, at once social and political, impelled the French to defend the notion of anti-fascism and oppose that of totalitarianism. For when it came to fascism, the Communists - an essential component of the left - were on the right side, whereas in the analysis of totalitarianism they found themselves on the side of Leninism and Stalinism - in other words, of bitter opponents of democracy. This is why the work which had the greatest influence in the return of the political was that of François Furet, who imposed on intellectually inferior opponents the need for a specifically political analysis of the French Revolution, enabling French thought to abandon its mistrust of Hannah Arendt. On the terrain of ideas, it was Raymond Aron who led the switch of direction in social thinking, both by his personal oeuvre and by his effective critiques of the intellectual weakness of the Althusserian current, which sought to rationalize a comprehensive analysis of society of a Marxist variety. His intellectual courage, demonstrated several times, enhanced the influence of his ideas. I n less spectacular fashion, but through a more developed reflection, Claude Lefort was the theorist of the democracy Fiance had never in fact had.

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Farewell to society The European model o f development, identified with the notion of society and hence with the idea that the social has no foundation apart from itself, is therefore on the way to extinction, even though some o f its aspects reappear in other modes o f development. Some thought that Latin America and other parts o f the world were taking over from Europe and giving its mode o f development a new lease o f life. This might have happened, but most o f the continent opted either for integration into the American economy, or for adherence to the Cuban ideology - that is, the Communist model. Both these options were harmful: the former was particularly so in the case of Argentina, the latter in that of Venezuela and Guatemala. I n Brazil, meanwhile, following the failure of liberal ventures and then after the dictatorship of Vargas and the phase o f military dictatorship, a model o f development was established that resembles the European model in some respects, including intellectually. A n d Brazil is aware that its history depends above all on itself. But it is only in Chile that we can speak of the European model: strong organization o f the state and often extreme social struggles. The long dictatorship of Pinochet at first sight seems to constitute a complete break with the European model, but this is too summary a judgement: let us not forget the authoritarian dimension of the German Empire and the violent repression o f the Paris Commune in 1871. This particularity of Chile renders it an original country, but does not warrant talk of a new stage in the existence of the European model. Finally, this model is neither a version of modernity, nor a form of capitalism or socialism, which nevertheless emerged from its ranks. I t combined these two types of economic management to construct a type of society that was entirely self-created and self-legitimated. I n other words, the European model did not propose a third way between capitalism and socialism. On the contrary, these two types of economic management emerged as particular, contrasting forms of the European model.

The war above us It now remains for us to consider an essential aspect o f this ideal type, which I deliberately left to one side so as not to separate it from problems that occupy a predominant position in the current state of affairs. I refer to war, since all analyses of European history assign the utmost importance to the struggles for hegemony between the great European powers. The self-production o f European national societies prevented the formation of an integrated European system and furthered the establishment of

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a succession o f treaties based on the need to regulate competition between the main countries, treaties that did not all last as long as that o f Westphalia (1648). The idea o f society has been so strong that a famous formula could claim that war was the continuation of politics by other means. This 'civil' vision of war, which could be applied to the Napoleonic wars, at least in the initial phase when the first consul and then emperor transported with him into the conquered countries the ideas and institutions o f the French Revolution, is no longer applicable to the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century, constructed around notions o f war, conquest, dictatorship of the proletariat, and crusade. I f this book opened by evoking 11 September 2001 in the United States, it was so as to dramatically underscore the break which has transformed that powerful society, in the forefront in all domains, into a force of war combating the forces o f Evil in the name of a mission entrusted by God to the United States so that it can save the world he created. The status of war has therefore changed. It had played a central role in the formation of the rationalized, 'bureaucratic' states that became the central actors in a modernization which first of all consisted in imposing the king's authority and his civil and military administration on the nobility. It is the converse movement that we have been living through since the end of the First World War. Begun as an armed conflict between European states, it was transformed into a massacre in which the whole o f Europe was destroyed; and in several national societies it led to the victory of dictators for whom political violence was at once a means and an end. No political force has had as much influence in the twentieth century as Leninism-Maoism, which imposed on its societies the absolute power o f a state-party-army officially charged with eliminating class enemies. There was no Soviet society - only a set of mechanisms for subjecting the different elements of a potential society to a totalitarian power that would not have maintained itself i f it had not controlled a formidable military and police power. The only time the Soviet Union assumed the shape of a society was when it once again became a fatherland for which human beings, whether Russians or of some different nationality, died. Only on the battlefields of Stalingrad and in a besieged and famished Leningrad did Russian society re-emerge behind the Soviet regime, so that Russian society remained a society of the dead. War has ceased to be the continuation of politics and an extreme form of mobilizing resources that make possible the clash of arms and nations and the triumph o f the strong over the weak, of weapons over well-being. War is no longer at the heart of societies, as it was during the centuries of the modernization o f a Europe that benefited from it by dominating the world, at the same time that it created major states, each of which sought

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to destroy the others. War is now above societies; it signifies destruction, not combat; death, not victory. Who regards the Hiroshima bomb as the instrument o f the final victory of the United States over Japan? We all see in it the death, through the explosive blast and the fatal radiation it released, of thousands and thousands o f the city's inhabitants. A n d this image o f Hiroshima and Nagasaki is on our minds at a time when the United States, having fought Communism as it had fought Nazism for the freedom of much o f Europe and other countries, lets itself be carried away by a dishonest discourse towards the unilateral construction of a boundless empire. W i t h this there looms over the world a threat o f destruction and chaos that does not defend the interests o f a social group or nation, still less its needs in oil, but o f one politico-religious conception contending with another. The space that used to consist in the relations between 'societies' is today invaded by the forces o f war, money, fear and violence. Resisting them, however, with varying degrees o f success, is modernity as defined here, whose principles are embodied in institutions that are primarily instruments constructed for the defence o f liberties, like laws on the one hand and family and state education on the other. The public space is not a vacuum, but it is now virtually empty of representative politics. We are advancing in the opposite direction from the one we so recently envisaged. We have remained marked by the idea that modernized societies accorded ever increasing importance to 'civil society' and hence to social actors, so that politics was approximating ever more closely to social conflicts and movements. Half a century after the first major working-class strikes, social-democratic governments recognized the social rights o f workers. A little later, in much o f Europe and the major countries of the Commonwealth a welfare state was created whose budget in France, for example, is greater than that o f the national state. Struggles between states seemed to be marginal in our part o f the world and warlike conflict seemed confined to the Third World and totalitarian regimes. Wars between 'great powers' would entail such risks for humanity, it was argued, that an agreement had been arrived at to limit the use of nuclear weapons and prevent their spread. This schema, which accorded more importance to social and cultural problems than to specifically political battles, and above all to war, has been brutally contradicted by reality. What dominates the world today, less than fifteen years after the collapse o f the Soviet empire, is the clash between Islamist groups prepared for anything, including suicide, and the American empire, which possesses the most powerful weapons but has not succeeded in taking total control of Afghanistan, Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries. The centre of this world is today the very limited geographical zone where Israelis and Palestinians dispute the same land and prefer a war to

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the death to a compromise that would establish a Palestinian state. The bloody attack in Madrid in March 2004 heralds others in Western Europe, the United States, and the territories occupied by them. The whole world is holding its breath and waiting to find out whether the leaders o f alQaeda will be destroyed, or whether the list o f attacks that have already struck the West is going to be extended and create enduring traumas. I n the early years of the twenty-first century, the world has passed from the vocabulary of economics to that o f war, at the same time as it feels ever more immediately threatened by a direct clash. What was expected was the triumph of civil society; instead, we have a clash between politico-religious complexes that dominates the whole world. Even i f one does not share the views o f Samuel Huntington, it must be acknowledged that he has underlined the importance o f these global clashes between opposed civilizations better than anyone else. Let us not push this analysis too far. I t would be absurd to claim that social realities have dissolved in the cauldron o f war. Dozens of millions of human beings are killed by warlike violence. We must not confuse their extreme misfortune with the sense o f insecurity felt by many countries where life nevertheless remains very acceptable for the majority o f inhabitants. On the other hand, we must maintain the idea that the institutional self-regulation of societies has diminished - when it is not in the process of disappearing. The statue o f society, which was once erected in the heart of the public space, today lies in pieces. Faced with the forces of war and all forms of violence, we no longer believe in political and trade union action. Only forces that are based on a non-social legitimacy, like the defence o f human rights, can successfully oppose the forces o f war, which are likewise not based on specifically social principles, defined in terms o f the general interest o f society.

When system and actors separate off The decomposition of society in the most modernized societies attains its extreme forms when the link between system and actor is broken, when the meaning of a norm for the system no longer corresponds to the meaning it has for the actor. Everything then takes on a double meaning and the individual wishes to assert herself by her opposition to language and society. This rupture is less easy to perceive than material destruction or growing criminality, but we must appreciate it i f we wish to understand where the collapse of the idea o f society might lead and, consequently, how urgent it is for us to construct a different representation of collective life and our personal lives.

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The most significant and visible o f these crises is the place o f work in each person's life. The reduction in the working week, the increase in the number of holidays and, even more, the prolongation o f retirement have led many analysts to speak o f the end of work. Our life, which was for so long dominated by the problem of production and the need to survive, is now dominated by consumption and communications. The accelerated reduction in working hours is experienced by most people as a liberation and not as the loss o f a creative experience. This discourse, which is to be heard all around us and is favoured by intermediate categories, often prompts two kinds o f objection. The first derives from the highest categories. Can a hi-tech society function only with temporary and casual workers? How can it be forgotten that the number of technicians, specialists and professionals of all orders, o f 'symbol manipulators' (in Reich's words), has greatly increased? Certainly, these categories invariably find themselves protected on the labour market by their skills. But they are no longer interested in the success o f the firm, because they have learnt that the firm might be destroyed by competition, might relocate its activities, or might brutally divest itself o f its older workers. They think about their own success, their career, their ability to grasp situations and explore new domains. A n d this is also how researchers, innovators, and professionals in the public sector, academic or medical, behave, well aware as they are of the (probably incurable) weaknesses of their institutions. They embark on new European or global projects, or even emigrate to master new forms of knowledge. The other type of objection derives from below. How bitter it is to hear the end of work and expansion of free time being celebrated when one is unemployed or a casual worker, when one works in a declining sector or sees one's own qualification lose its value with the emergence o f new technologies! In fact, we have lived through such a profound alteration of situation and attitude that we cannot spontaneously perceive it. The main social conflicts used to have their source in work relations; now it is to be found at the level o f the globalized economy, whose consequences make themselves felt on local employment and stir up opposition combining defence of the local and critique of the global. One aspect of this change is that what affects us most directly is what once used to seem most remote something well conveyed by the idea of sustainable development, or, conversely, that o f a climate change which will drastically alter the life of the overwhelming majority, whereas our everyday experience is, in part at least, delivered from the constraints it used to impose on us. The share of skilled work permitting a certain autonomy has greatly expanded compared with unskilled work, despite the marked increase in casual work.

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Work more than ever traces the line demarcating the central, superior part o f society from its periphery. I t is true that many think of work solely as a way of ensuring holidays and a guarantee of resources at retirement. But for as many people, i f not more, work has a more important place, irreducible to the hours directly devoted to it. Thus, training, retraining, technological games, or information are at the heart o f free time. They should not simply be regarded as leisure activities. Formerly, the great divide separated those who lived from their labour and those who lived off their capital. Today, the separation lies between those whom we can call specialists (or professionals) and those who possess no qualification, that require genuine training and who are increasingly to be found in the service sector. A n d who spares a thought for the dirty jobs that exist the world over, where production is low, where the population lives on nothing but foreign aid, smuggling or other illegal activities, like the production, trafficking and sale of drugs? The economic world is no longer the vast entity in which everyone was guaranteed a job and a wage. The industrial wastelands are expanding, but the mobility of qualified professionals is also on the rise. Many lack work; for others it is their main reason for living. The separation between economy and workers, system and actors, is the best definition of the current crisis. Before our very eyes the logic of the markets, which governs firms, and the protection o f careers, which is what wageearners aspire to, are becoming separated. But globalization is going to oblige all countries, whether industrialized or not, to press their advantages and thereby make the best use o f their 'human resources', their skills, and to raise their level of production. Accordingly, the inhabitants of the industrialized, rich countries should not any longer rely on the quality of their inheritance. Relocations are already hitting them hard, but is it not foreseeable (even logical) that those who work a lot and earn little will win out over those who do not work much but have high incomes? But it is more easy for us to denounce the ills suffered by the Third World than to lower the barriers that we ourselves have raised in order to defend our agricultural or industrial produce. To summarize: work is losing none o f the importance it had in the life of the majority of people at the height of the industrial period. What is disappearing before our eyes is the civilization o f work. Jiirgen Habermas speaks in this regard o f the dissociation o f the historical content of civilization from its Utopian content. What has just been said about work can be generalized, or at least extended, to other important domains of social life. Everywhere we find the same separation between the meaning of an activity for society and its meaning for the person who performs it. But the meaning for society always tends to be weaker than the meaning for the actors themselves. We

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are therefore living in societies which are discontented with themselves, but where everyone forms more positive projects and expectations for themselves. This is the opposite o f the situation we experienced for so long, when individuals brooded in a society that was rather pleased with itself. In short, we are witnessing a transfer of values from society to individuals and we are moving, as and when we can, into a new form o f the economic world. Let us take the case o f schools. Ideas here are still confused and choices very difficult. In many countries, France among them, schools were assigned the mission of preparing, socializing, workers and citizens. Schools said that it was not for them to take account o f the differences between pupils; this (so the representatives o f state education thought) would result in them being more concerned with the most active pupils, from privileged backgrounds. Schools were not at the disposal o f pupils, but must aid them to acquire general knowledge, to respect the organization o f society and nation, and to acquire a sense o f discipline. Such was the spirit of the German and French secondary schools, classical or scientific, before (in the German case) the upheaval introduced by Nazism. This conception is clearly encapsulated in the definition o f education as a socializing factor and the complementary idea that successful socialization is what creates free, responsible individuals. This conception thrived for a long time on the de facto monopoly o f state secondary schools, on the high professional quality o f teachers, and in an economic situation that guaranteed a place in the adult world to the overwhelming majority o f pupils. Such a conception of school life is still alive, as is the discourse. But they are in disarray and complaints are to be heard on all sides. The French debate on secularism has only served to increase the confusion. How can one still consider the pupil simply as a future member o f society? Can one take blindness or bad faith so far as not to see that, by refusing to take account of the psychological, social and cultural situation of pupils, one increases the privileges o f those who belong to an educated milieu, who are better informed, and who are therefore in a position to construct projects for the future? Should we not have the courage to say that schools, which should encourage equality, tend to reinforce inequality by multiplying the obstacles in the way o f those who come from underprivileged backgrounds and cultural minorities, as is indicated in the French case by the low number of children from immigrant families who rise up the social scale? Teachers are upset by having to transmit knowledge to many pupils who show no interest in the syllabus and are bored at school - where they still sometimes find themselves at an adult age. But it must not be forgotten that many children and families know that their future largely depends on their scholarly success. Contrary to massively widespread stereotypes, many veiled Muslim girls share this conviction, want to do well in their

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studies, and do not see why they should have to choose between their religious beliefs and their professional future. Confronted with major problems, teachers frequently adopt defensive attitudes. I t is true that the personal behaviour o f teachers is often more open and innovative than their collective discourse. But the distress on both sides is considerable and will only increase with greater pressure for everyone's cultural rights to be respected - rights to beliefs, to lifestyles, and so on. The already dated idea of the school as a sanctuary o f public life, whereas religious forms o f behaviour are confined to the private sphere, will rapidly become unsustainable because it will be perceived by a growing number o f pupils and parents as repressive and unjust. A n important acknowledgement of the need to individualize teaching has been made in France by college teachers, who have had the courage to recommend retention o f the single college so as to avoid increasing the social segregation that exists in the lycées. This presupposes an individualization o f teaching, given the heterogeneity of the classes in colleges. The need for an apprenticeship in rational and even scientific thinking must be asserted with the same force; and here Nobel Prize winners like Georges Charpak in France have taken initiatives that have been crowned with success. General orientation o f teaching towards the pupil is still held up to ridicule by some; and the permissiveness o f some teachers, like the excesses of some educationalists, have led many parents and teachers to demand a return to a more traditional form o f teaching, based on knowledge acquisition. But the altered conception of the school is too profound to depend entirely on the vagaries o f the political conjuncture. We shall not return to a conception o f teaching as socialization, since the social system society - no longer exhibits the solidity of the past and the individualization o f learning, and hence in teaching today the support given to each pupil's initiatives is already producing results. Similar observations could be made of other sectors. What we are living through is not the collapse o f a sandcastle, but the exhaustion o f social policy focused on society, its functions and its integration. We are already all caught up in the transition from a society based on itself to selfproduction by individuals, with the help of transformed institutions. Such is the meaning o f the end of the social I am referring to here.

The rupturing of the social bond N o theme is more widespread today than the rupturing o f the social bond. Neighbourhood groups, the family, mates, the educational or professional milieu seem everywhere in crisis, leaving the individual - above all, when

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young or elderly, without a spouse or family, a foreigner or migrant condemned to a solitude that leads either to depression or to a search for artificial, dangerous relationships, as in the case of groups whose leaders base their influence on strength and aggression. But however important these themes and the seriousness of criminality, which is indeed on the rise, it is arbitrary to focus on only one side of the behaviour of individuals, who also know how to invent collective or individual activities - activities that afford them more satisfaction than integration into groups to whose norms they must submit. We should not imagine either a subject that is wholly creative, or an individual ruled from without by markets and media. The negative consequences o f this social vacuum above all hit the weakest, most dependent categories and, in the first instance, those expelled from the world o f work or to its margins: the long-term unemployed, permanent recipients o f state aid, temporary or part-time wageearners, and the working poor - these form considerable masses whom it is well-nigh impossible to conceive o f or even count, so hidden are they in the obscurity o f social classifications. For many years, Latin American sociologists have been debating whether underemployment conduces to the formation o f a reserve army that enables capitalism to exert pressure on wages, or, on the contrary, encourages the proliferation o f marginal individuals dispersed outside the organized labour market. The second hypothesis has proved to be the correct one: it captures urban marginality better and, consequently, better accounts for the populisms that have so often, and so fleetingly, mobilized wage-earners. What we know about migrants who have left their towns and villages to seek work in the richest countries - the United States, Germany, or even France - remains very vague, as i f these categories remained truly on the margins of society. We speak of 'suburbs', 'neighbourhoods', even of 'estates', composed of buildings constructed with public funds before and especially after the Second World War to house low-income families. So often invoked, these men and women are in fact invisible people. This situation takes an extreme form when one looks at the camps of refugees displaced by wars, in Africa, Lebanon and Jordan, where the majority of the Palestinian population lives without proper resources. Violence, fear and death are ubiquitous. The action that emerges in such situations also belongs to this world o f social vacuum, where action tends to become impossible, where the death with which one strikes the enemy as well as oneself is the most appropriate response to situations of social decomposition and exclusion. To an interviewer who asked him, 'Which social category do you most hate?', a young man without a stable j o b who had passed from one train-

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ing course to the next, gave this answer: 'First and foremost, the police.' This reply is so logical that it requires no comment. 'And next?', asked the interviewer. 'Teachers and social workers,' replied the young man. 'But why?', asked the astonished interviewer. 'Aren't they trying to help you, not to exploit you?' The young man replied: 'Because they lie to us, mislead us. They call on us to integrate into a disintegrated society.' This answer has a relevance beyond the specific case o f the population to which the young man belonged. For many the world has lost all meaning, and nonmeaning can only provoke acts o f pure hatred - self-hatred, and hatred of the environment - or an unrest without any objective, at the heart of a mass culture haunted by images o f violence. Among the workers and migrants from the poor countries, it is women who suffer this loss o f any sense of themselves most. They used to form a category defined by its inferiority, but which nevertheless had recognized functions. The decomposition o f the old system may well have prepared for the advent of new actors and new types of culture and society, but it also leads to an ever more complete submission to the domination of the market. Notwithstanding some exaggeration, the image o f the woman manipulated as a sexual object and subject to male violence contains much truth - and we can no longer reject feminist accusations about the frequency and gravity o f the violence suffered by women.

Are we witnessing the end of social movements? Must we go so far as to call into question the theme to which I have myself assigned so much importance - that o f social movements? First o f all, we must note the undermining o f this notion. It used to evoke the workingclass movement, national liberation movements and feminism. Today, I read in the metro station I am entering that a 'social movement having occurred among a certain category of the workforce, several metro stations will be closed until further notice'. How can we fail to be disturbed by the loss of substance in this great notion, now used to refer to any work stoppage, whereas the idea o f social movement was reserved for conflicts between organized social actors whose stake was the social mobilization of the main cultural resources of a society? Was not the working-class movement, for example, in conflict with the world of the employers for access to the resources created by an industrialization that both camps valued equally? Invoked for any old purpose, the notion o f social movement loses any content and becomes useless. As we leave behind the long phase dominated by the idea o f society, our first move is to abandon an analytical tool that has seemingly lost all its force. Some will add that it was high time to study more concrete

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problems more positively - collective negotiations, conflicts, or the development o f public social policies, for example. But many observers, o f whom I am one, while acknowledging the importance o f more restricted research, also seek to identify the new actors and new issues, and hence the new social movements o f today, which are doubtless more cultural than social. Such will be the aim o f Part Two of this book.

Conclusion The key thing today is not to describe the success or ruin of the model of society that was the instrument o f the West's triumph, but to reject both the optimism o f progress and the pessimism of sociological critique that has registered nothing but collapse. What matters is whether individualism, which is replacing social utility as the central focus of thought and action, will succumb to the sirens of marketing and television programmes; or whether it will prove at least as demanding and combative as the idea at the heart o f Western society was. I t is so easy to blame contemporary individuals for their egotism and lack o f a sense o f history! As easy as it was to blame society for its taste for norms and instrumental reason. Certainly, we must see how the individual is manipulated by propaganda and advertising. But we must also discover the social actor present in this individual and even the subject who lies within her and fights against mass society, the impersonality of markets and the violence o f war. For nearly half a century, social thinking, especially in France, sought to be r i d o f the subject, as i f the latter were betraying its idealist discourse and privileging the rich against the poor, because the rich speak better. This was a pathetic battle at a time when the world was dominated by totalitarianisms, wars and confrontations. Might the end o f society lead to the birth o f the subject! Many reject this optimistic hypothesis. I simply ask them to recognize that this is the main issue in our society: how are we to defend and enhance the creative freedom of the subject against the waves o f violence, unpredictability and arbitrariness that increasingly roll over the social space?

Revisiting the Self

A t first sight, the idea of modernity does not seem to add much to the analysis of what I have called the 'social' paradigm o f social life. Do we not call modern that which is created and constantly transformed? Does not the long classic opposition between community and society make the latter the synonym o f modernity? D o we not think that modernity casts out thrones and altars so as to allow society to manage itself, regarding its integration as a central need that must serve as a criterion for assessing behaviour? We are proud of regarding ourselves as citizen-members of a nation and as depositories of sovereignty, and hence able to make or change the law; and just as proud o f being workers whose activity is useful to the collectivity, to the society that recognizes it through various sorts of remunerations, particularly monetary ones. The triumph of the idea o f society was nowhere as complete as in the Western world, which took the lead over the rest o f the world precisely by identifying itself with modernity. Consequently, does referring to the 'end o f the social' mean anything more than that 'modernity is exhausted'? Many analysts are tempted to claim that modernity itself lies in ruins and to announce our entry into the postmodern. To speak thus means, in particular, asserting the disappearance of any central historical principle for defining the social whole. This is an intellectual stance with such general, radical consequences that it entails for those who adopt it a sense of virtually infinite possibilities o f conceptualization, which they grant themselves; and, by the same token, serious risks o f theoretical and practical disorganization, to which they are exposed. I have always kept my distance from this intellectual approach, however important and fertile.

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What is modernity? I first of all want to propose a definition o f modernity which counterposes thinking focused on society to thinking centred on modernity, and which is clearly encapsulated in an expression that will be employed several times here: modernity is defined by the fact that it imparts nonsocial foundations to social phenomena, that it subjects society to principles or values which, in themselves, are not social. This may be a cause for surprise. It is clear that such a definition of modernity leads us in a different direction from that heralded by the word 'society'. I have mentioned that selfproduced societies, defined by their instruments and their oeuvres, do not appeal to any non-social principle, whether in their analysis or their action. But this internal analysis, which must be retained, must also be completed by further characterization. How does an 'active' society, at once creative and conflictive, form itself in opposition to social systems organized for their reproduction, equilibrium and integration - what we call communities based on non-social principles, be they religious, traditional, or some combination o f the two? Is the transition from community to 'society' to be explained by the imposition on the totality o f social life o f the domination exercised by a ruling elite? This explanation seems weak, for violence can create power but not the capacity for self-transformation and rationalization. This leads us to define modernity by the intervention o f anti-communitarian principles. Only such principles can challenge the established order. But what are these principles? The most varied answers have been given to the question; and the list is long. We must reduce it as much as possible, in order to identify non-social principles for orienting action that are genuinely fundamental. Following an inventory of the components of modernity which are generally regarded as the most important, two seem to me to be indispensable to the existence of modernity. They are the conditions o f existence for freedom and creativity within social systems, which naturally tend to reinforce themselves rather than to form free actors. The first principle is belief in reason and rational action. Science and technology, calculation and accuracy, the application o f the results o f science to increasingly diverse areas o f our existence and society are necessary, quasi-obvious components o f modern civilization for us. The important thing is to stress that reason is not based on the defence o f collective or individual interests, but on itself and on a concept of truth that is not apprehended in economic or political terms. Reason is a non-social foundation of social life, whereas the religious or the customary were defined in social terms, even i f they referred to transcendent realities, since the sacred is a social reality.

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The second founding principle of modernity is recognition of the rights of the individual - that is, the assertion of a universalism that accords all individuals the same rights, whatever their economic, social or political attributes. Such a formula does not aim to close the debate on the place of communities in contemporary individualistic societies. But that does not mean that what since 1789 we have called human rights, which are inscribed in numerous constitutions and obviously in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, are not recognized by us as a force superseding all communities and all principles of order. Here then is the conclusion of this brief analysis of modernity. A modern society is based on two principles that are not social in kind: rational action and recognition of universal rights for all individuals. We should not be surprised by this conclusion, for full-scale modernity can only be the opposite of the communitarian model. As I have just defined it, modernity is no longer a form of social life, but a pair of opposed and complementary forces that give a society total control over itself: everything here is creation, action, work, on the one hand, and, on the other, unlimited freedom and the rejection of any 'moralization' of public life that would restrict the actor's freedom. Is not what we say about ourselves each day, as well as what we say about others and social organization itself, dominated by this desire for effective action and this desire to assert, in the face of all forms of domination, the inalienable rights of each and every one - and hence the principle of equality between human beings, which has no real meaning apart from this? These conjoint principles clearly define modernity, since they reject any social order that is not created by its own forces and which is subordinate, for example, to a divine revelation - an opposition so complete that it has provoked direct conflicts between religion and modernity, as was evident in the Catholic world under the papacy of Pius I X . The idea of secularism is inseparable from that of the rights of the individual, for i f religions proclaim beliefs and revelation that are universal in scope, they do not in any way define the rights of the individual as such, but, on the contrary, the equal submission of all individuals to a divine will or revealed truth. When a spiritual power controls the temporal power or is mixed with it, a community is created, defined by the adhesion of its members to the body of beliefs and practices of a religion, whose observance the temporal power must enforce. But what is the relationship between modernity and the Western mode of modernization? The Western social model, because it is organized around the idea of a self-created society, comes under the principles of modernity. It is movement, self-transformation, destruction and reconstruction of the self. More clearly still, it believes in the use of reason, respects verifiable, transmissible and applicable truth, and thinks that in

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this way it can improve not its degree of integration, but the life chances, action and satisfaction o f needs o f all members of society. Consequently, the link between the Western idea o f society and that o f modernity is strengthened as the self-production of society gives us greater confidence in our capacity to be modern. I t would be absurd to claim that Western society has the same relations with modernity as all the other types o f modernization; that all follow paths which make them progress towards modernity in the same way, passing through forms of organization and mobilization that often distance them from it. A n d it is this very kinship that obliges us to stress at greater length the separation - even opposition - between our ideas o f society and modernity, whereas what unites them is almost too visible, since we know that the idea of modernity was born within societies o f a Western type - and not within closed communities. The societies that have been called industrial or post-industrial do not isolate rationality from rationalization, a method of production that resorts to calculation, but whose main aim is to increase the control of capitalist profit over workers' labour. A t the same time, the universalistic affirmation o f the rights of each individual was likewise limited in industrial society, where the talk was also of social rights - that is, the rights of workers. This could lead to the interpretation o f those rights as being bound to result in the establishment of a society o f workers, a classless society - a notion that reintroduced a model o f society and was therefore poles apart from the individualism of human rights. Only modernity in itself militates against any confusion between the freedom of each person and social integration. The distance from full-scale modernity is even greater when we consider the societies o f early modernity (at least in the Western world), for reason was then bound up with the formation of the modern, 'bureaucratic' state, which was invariably an Absolutist monarchy or oligarchy. The freedom of the citizen was defined more by duties than by rights. But no society, not even the most advanced technologically, can be identified with modernity. What opposes the two notions is that society, completely contrary as it is to a communitarian logic, also tends to its own reinforcement. I t therefore gives preference to the 'general interest', and hence to everyone's duties, over individual rights. Instrumental rationality, which seeks efficiency in achieving results, cannot be confused with modernity either. A n d this distinction is so charged with meaning that it occupies a central place in sociological thought, thanks to the Frankfurt School and a whole line o f works that are among the most important in sociological thinking, from Horkheimer and Adorno, via Marcuse, to Habermas. Conversely, no modernization is a necessary and sufficient condition for attaining modernity. The march to modernity occurs by concentrating

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many elements derived from other societies. The completely new is never fashioned exclusively out o f what is new; it is equally constructed out of old materials. Modernity is a creation that exceeds all its fields o f application, for all have another side - that of the reinterpretation o f the pre¬ modern. The idea o f society is always centred on itself, both by those who deal with the functions and utility o f forms of behaviour and by those who everywhere perceive the instruments and effects o f a domination. I n contrast, the idea o f modernity contains an insurmountable tension between, on the one hand, reason and the rights o f individuals and, on the other, the collective interest. Citizenship and civil rights are also a political expression of rationality, but one that is opposed to the integration and reinforcement o f society, since rights are opposed to duties. Moreover, the two principles o f modernity do not form a single unit and can be set in competition with one another. Rational action is not always in accordance with individual rights and the latter are no less frequently exercised against rational thinking.

The victory of modernity The relations between the idea of society and that of modernity emerge more clearly still when we assess the evolution of societies linked to modernity: do they reinforce themselves to the extent that modernity becomes identified with the reign o f interests? By contrast, does social organization dissolve into a modernity that imposes constant change? Or - third solution - do the two orders o f reality increasingly separate in a dynamic that protects secularization and secularism? Let us successively examine - and exclude - these three responses. The first is the one that best satisfies the pessimism o f realists, who are persuaded that interest always prevails over rights and principles, and that the interdependence of the elements o f social life becomes so great that it no longer allows room for the openness represented by modernity: we must make do with avoiding excessively brutal infringements o f rational thinking and human rights, but we must also adapt to poorly defined, changing situations o f which we are not the masters. This empiricism enables us to avoid the most serious errors, even i f it does not lead to us behaving in accordance with the principle of any modernity. The second solution is attractive only to those who impart an elementary meaning to modernity - that of constant change - which is far removed from the one that it seemed to me necessary to confer on it. Above all, the idea that general, enduring problems are dissolved in a present that is itself fragmented by incessant change is very far removed from our lived experience, since we increasingly pose ourselves long-term,

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fundamental problems about democracy, the encounter between cultures, our right to intervene in human life, and so forth. The third solution, which is enjoying renewed popularity at the beginning o f the new century, refers simply to the separation between public life and private life. I t is defended by those who would like to restrict religion to the private sphere and who consider schools to be a sanctuary where the teacher must only recognize the rational individual and ignore the cultural, social and psychological situation o f each pupil. The selection of a different solution defines the raison d'être o f this book. What is most often announced, by optimists and pessimists alike, is the triumph of interest and calculation, accelerated change and the diversification o f consumption, such that the most developed societies are also the most modern. By contrast, I defend the idea not that the internal logic of societies is devouring modernity and transforming it into rationalization and instrumental individualism - an idea that was more valid in the past than the present - but that the model o f society is decomposing with increasing rapidity before our very eyes, whereas the principles of modernity are striving to impose themselves ever more directly. I n fact advancing onto the ruins o f society are, on the one hand, various uncontrolled forces - those o f the market, war and violence - and, on the other, modernity, whose rationalism and concern for universal human rights are central elements that make themselves heard ever more directly, without taking the form of an imaginary perfect society. Our world is increasingly dominated by force, but it is also increasingly concerned with moral choices that now occupy a central place in political life. For several decades, following the exhaustion of conservative sociology, which regarded society as a system capable of regulating its functions and adapting those who lived in it to systemic requirements, we have been besieged by thinking that reduces all aspects o f social life to the defence and reproduction of domination. This critical approach produced many works of high quality, but it inevitably plunged into a spiral of selfdestruction: is not critical thinking itself useful to the triumph of a domination whose formidable power it demonstrates, and which contrasts with the weakness o f its opponents? I n truth, since the beginning of the new century the success of this thinking has declined, but it remains very strong, basing itself on the denunciation o f violence and arbitrariness. Neo-liberal thinking, which takes the opposite view and wishes to be the study of 'rational choices', proposes an empirical hedonism that has the advantage of not contradicting our desires, but does not extend any guarantee of free choice to those influenced by marketing. This hedonism is likewise very far removed from what I call modernity. It is necessary to break completely with all forms of thinking bound up with the defence of the social system, at once capable of developing and

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imposing values, norms, and forms of authority, and defining statuses and roles. For modernity is the exact opposite of the self-creation o f society. What we are living through is the destruction of society - that is, the social vision of social life, the set of categories in which we have lived like a suit of armour for more than a century. We see crumbling around us societies o f production and social struggles, whose dynamism gave us a lead of several centuries over the rest of the world. It is only to be expected if many can see nothing but the ruins of such a grandiose construct. I myself constantly stress the return of violence and war; and I have emphasized the triumph of the market over work and creation. But in the face of the black clouds that loom so large in our sky, I also perceive the ever more brilliant presence of a modernity whose principles (belief in reason and recognition of universal human rights) are asserted over the ruins of social systems. Far from being plunged into a world where only interest and pleasure survive, we are ever more clearly confronted with our own responsibilities as free beings. I have already made the point: on the ruins o f the social systems there appear two increasingly obvious forces, neither o f which is social: the naturalized forces o f the market, violence and war, on the one hand; and the equally non-social, because absolute and universal, appeal to rights and reason, on the other. Our history is no longer defined by its meaning and ultimate destination, or by the spirit o f a time or people, but by the clash o f natural forces - markets, wars and catastrophes - with modernity, with the subject. Why speak of 'modernity'? Why not refer to 'values' or, more traditionally, to 'Enlightenment philosophy'? I avoid the idea of values, which sometimes refers to a religious conception and sometimes to the most classical sociology, for- which values are at the apex o f the system of norms and social organization and can therefore only refer to society itself, like all forms of the sacred. For its part, the idea of modernity refers, over and above society's action on itself, to the sources o f rights, the presence o f the universal in the social. It is good i f the content given to the idea of modernity here evokes the philosophy of the Enlightenment, for the latter, through its political as well as its intellectual expressions, is infused with the same confidence in the creation of self by self, thanks to transcendence of the forms of social closure that prevent recognition of the universalism of rights and reason. I f the notion o f society was creative for so long, it was (as I have said) because it appealed to modernity against the communities that it overthrew, and hence to universalistic principles like reason and the universal rights of each individual. But today, modernity is superseding society in its turn. Because sociological critique has accurately identified more domination than rationality in the functioning o f societies, and more duties than rights,

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it has become increasingly difficult for us to believe that the human being becomes a free, responsible individual by integrating into society, its norms and laws. On the contrary, we have an ever stronger sense o f what opposes the individual to society and, equally, society to modernity, because the modern individual is increasingly defined by her relationship to herself and modernity is the constant appeal, beyond social norms and duties, to a universalism o f rights that can certainly degenerate into a hedonism manipulated by commerce and media, but which can equally be the locus o f an appeal to the subject in its emancipatory universalism. Modernity was for a long time borne along by the idea o f society; it can only develop today by dispensing with it, combating it even, and by taking possession o f the subject - which is increasingly directly opposed to the idea o f society. The idea o f modernity appeals to no transcendent principle. On the contrary, it asserts that the creative freedom of each one - o f each individual or category o f individuals - is the highest good, that it does not presuppose any foundation other than itself. This explains why modernity is never identified with some particular society or government, or with some particular current o f ideas or type o f teaching. Just as modernity was reinforced by the transition from community to society, so it is strengthened - and to an even greater extent - by the supersession o f society. I t detaches itself from any social expression, like a religion separating itself from any Church or ritual practice. The ruin o f society certainly has as many negative aspects as positive ones. As I have said, de-socialization leads to the destruction o f social bonds, to solitude, to a crisis o f identity. A t the same time, however, it liberates people from imposed affiliations and rules. N o t only is modernity not undermined by it, but it becomes the sole force of resistance to all forms o f violence; and it is to modernity that responsibility falls for reconstructing institutions that will no longer serve society - re-baptized the 'general interest' or 'common good' - but the creative freedom o f each individual. This conception o f modernity and human rights typically comes up against two opponents. The first, which is more visible today, is embodied in Islamic or Asian milieus that refuse all universality to the Western model and claim that theirs, determined by a communitarian conception o f social life and by the preservation o f the traditional family, has proved more effective than ours, affected as it is by the many forms o f personal and collective decomposition. The writings o f Lee Kuan Yew, powerful, authoritarian master o f Singapore, are regarded as perfectly representative o f this tendency, which Michael Ignatieff opposes to that of Western Enlightenment philosophy. I n reality, this kind o f thinking does not propose a definition of modernity: it defends a different model o f modernization that it deems more effective - something which is not in itself unacceptable.

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The second opponent is stronger intellectually, and must be more closely attended to. It derives from the great tradition that goes back to JeanJacques Rousseau, and even beyond him to Hobbes, which defines democracy by the rule o f the general will - in other words, by the maximum possible respect for popular sovereignty. This conception has been attacked from its right by economic liberalism and from its left by the idea of class struggle, but remains predominant, especially in the United States. In this connection, Ignatieff appropriately evokes American exceptionalism as displayed on the occasion o f the creation of the permanent International Criminal Court, and hence American opposition to the idea of human rights as redefined in 1948 by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Here there is a conflict between two conceptions o f democracy, pertaining to two different analyses of the same historical situations. The American conception, approved by all those who put the idea o f nation first, is so optimistic and so far removed from the realities o f a great country, as Rousseau had already noted, that it ends up leaving society, with its centres o f power and zones of exclusion, its traditions, its ideologies, and (why not?) its state religion, to manage itself in the name of its own sovereignty, without it being possible for any major external principle to be opposed to it. This conception was that o f the revolutions and the ideal o f the first generations of political movements - above all, of the Utopias, since the most potent were invented during the phase when the political 'paradigm' held sway. But in the transition from one period to the next, in penetrating societies that were less and less controlled politically and more and more dominated by capitalist interests, bureaucracies, ruling elites, and international financial and economic networks, this sovereign conception lost its power and dissolved into the often opaque practices o f representative democracy. A t the same time the idea o f democratic individualism, which is also that of human rights, gained ground. It is based on a profound distrust of political power and all forms o f domination - a mistrust consistently justified throughout the twentieth century, which (as is well known) was dominated by totalitarianisms, authoritarian regimes, and crises o f the market. We have come so far on this road that we must reject any approach in terms of sovereignty, which is unquestionably foreign to totalitarianism, but whose dangers outweigh its advantages. It is the idea o f human rights, combined with that o f the subject, which offers the best defence against all forms of social domination.

The end of social thought The central position assigned modernity - that is, the creative freedom o f the actor, not the requirements and functions of social systems - results

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from the observation made at the end of the previous chapter: we are living the 'end o f the social'. For the break to be complete, it remains to exclude more firmly than I have hitherto done the forms of social thought that corresponded to the 'social' representation of collective life, which represented a very important part o f sociological analysis. We must recognize the impact of the transformation o f social reality on sociological thinking. They must both advance, in the domain of social ideas as in that of social behaviour, towards a new vision of collective life and also o f individual behaviour, to which the idea of modernity has introduced us. The theme o f the end of the social, of the need to eliminate the idea of society, completely changes (as we are well aware) our way o f thinking and talking. We can no longer think about social phenomena sociologically and should not do so. This is less difficult than it appears at first sight, since, in societies other than ours, the social has been conceived in political or religious terms. The potent and, all things considered, optimistic image o f a society that confers from above a meaning on everyone's social life has always been accompanied and contested by that of a society enclosed in itself and reduced to the language of internal domination. Today, this closure is no longer that of armies subject to an all-powerful head. I t is the domination that filters into all the parts o f society, and above all into actors themselves, as Michel Foucault showed so powerfully, whereas central power is undermined, for it is under attack from a capitalism that allows economics to dominate society. I n this connection, American radical feminists have convincingly shown that the words and notions that make it possible to describe women's situation and behaviour have as their principal function imposing an authoritarian reference on the model o f stable, asymmetrical heterosexual relations. The peculiarity of forms of domination is to pass themselves off as natural - and hence non-imposed. Sociology has largely drawn on these two conceptions o f social systems. During the years of post-war reconstruction, it was dominated by the oeuvre o f Talcott Parsons, who constructed, almost down to the last detail, the plan o f a society organizing its four main functions: selection of political ends, employment of economic resources, socialization o f actors, and punishment of deviance. A generation later, a critical sociology began to be diffused in virtually all Western countries, which discovered the effects of domination in the words, gestures and practices of each sector of social life. I n the United States the student movement, action in support o f black people's demands for civil rights, and also the struggle against the war in Vietnam shattered the intellectual good conscience o f post-war America. 'Critical functionalism', perhaps because it offered a universal key to social analysis by inviting us to discover mechanisms for constructing and transmitting generalized domination in all domains, had great success

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in intellectual circles and restored vigour to the critique of dominant ideologies and practices that had lost much o f its force with the decline of Marxism, increasingly reduced to the language of totalitarian regimes. But its utility is more apparent than real. For what is the domination in question and for whose benefit does it operate? I f it is not that o f a god or a king, whose power has been undermined to vanishing point in societies where science, public and private bureaucracies, but also all forms o f political participation have gone on gaining ground, it can only be that of society over itself, of social order - above all, when the latter seeks to allot itself scientific and rational foundations. The domination suffered has been associated with the search for a social order founded on itself. This corresponded to the social rationalism of the nineteenth century, but also to the totalitarian Utopias of the twentieth, which generally criticized the old social order either in the name of natural realities, or in the name of a struggle against forms of power like that of employers. Social order still imposes itself or seeks to, it is true; and we are forever seeing ethics o f the general interest, the common good, and social integration reborn. But what must be rejected is the idea that social order is imposed by itself and destroys, along with traditional social affiliations, individualistic or libertarian demands. The application of critical sociology to a knowledge of women's action clearly reveals its weakness. For just as it is easy to demonstrate the power and antiquity o f male domination, so it is necessary to recognize the victories won by women's movements in the political and economic order above all, in the process o f controlling reproduction. The idea o f the domination of sexuality by the social order - that is, by an image o f the family based on the heterosexual couple - is too vague and seems very weak compared with that which denounces male power and aspires to a specifically female liberation. This objective cannot be confused with the struggle against a society conceived as defending its own interests, which possesses less mobilizing force. But let us return to the key thing. As soon as we exclude the idea o f society as a principle for assessing social behaviour, we must abandon the tools of classical sociology. I n effect it becomes impossible, at least in principle, to speak o f institutions, to conceive of education as a process of socialization, or to define the actor by the network of her roles and role expectations. What, then, might social action signify? What sociological orientations might replace the functionalism and critical thinking which are declining with the worsening crisis of the idea of society? The first, very prominent in the United States in particular, and which I have already rapidly mentioned, consists in applying an economic type of thought to sociology, and endeavours to understand the choices of actors and hence the often very complex forms assumed by the rational pursuit of interests.

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A second type of research, which is rapidly spreading, is devoted to analysing the negative consequences of the disappearance of the 'social bond' and attempts to recreate it. The third domain of studies is devoted to actors rather than systems, and more broadly to the study of agency, as in the case of Anthony Giddens and his London group. The great oeuvre of Jürgen Habermas, which is devoted to rediscovering, via a study of communication (and no longer o f consciousness), a Kantian-type universalism, is a major and enduring influence in this domain of sociology, which is the largest, most active and most original. The present book is related to this kind of research. What all the schools o f living sociology share is that they start out from the social actor and reconstruct, beginning with her, her expectations and interactions, the social field in which she acts. This switch of standpoint occurred in the space of a few years and in spectacular fashion. Such ideas are ubiquitous today in our daily lives. Nevertheless, they remain the object of profound mistrust in intellectual circles. For thirty years at least, was it not the main aim of intellectuals to eliminate all reference to the subject? D i d some not go so far as to say that the totalitarian regimes had protected the philosophies of subjectivity? D i d not extreme critical thinking refuse to recognize the existence of social actors? I t spoke only of victims, so that the voice of the dominated did not even need to be taken heed of, since the meaning of their action could never penetrate the actor's consciousness. France played a major role in generating such ideas, which were diffused in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, and many other countries, particularly in Latin America. Its central line of influence was structuralism, which excluded the idea and the intentions of the actor, and regarded the text as an object that should be studied in itself, without reference to its conditions of production. Sociology let itself be dragged along in this current, based on a scientific approach to its works. I t thus created a growing gap between real social policies and the discourse of intellectuals defending their forms of knowledge, including against the demands of a growing number of youth and adults. Practical sociologists can no longer integrate this representation of society into their observations. How can they speak of society's total ascendancy, its dominance? On the contrary, the reality they observe is the decomposition of systems of classification and hierarchy, the proliferations of acts of incivility or defiance, the spread of forms of behaviour involving evasion, escape, or innovation. A decidedly strange blindness is required to go on defining our society predominantly as a system for reproducing inequalities and privileges. N o t that this idea is unfounded; on the contrary, it is supported by repeated observation, in particular in studies on the recruitment of elites. But how can we assign central importance to

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such control mechanisms when, in all domains from educational participation to museums, from the use of photography to geographical mobility, the most striking thing about this society where forms of participation have expanded is the diversification o f trajectories and innovations, openness to the international world and new communications technologies? Unquestionably, discourses on forms of social determinism, and on the increasingly elaborate control exercised by authorities over citizens become simple consumers, are ill-suited to fragmented societies, which are constantly changing and criss-crossed by the lightning flashes of war.

Emancipatory individualism Effective and brutal, the Western mode of modernization conquered the world in the name o f society. But its strength began to diminish when the dominated rebelled against their masters. The working-class movements first of all, then the national liberation movements, and now the feminist and ecological movements - closely linked to one another - have made inroads into the total domination exercised by the ruling elite, composed of European, adult, male property-owners. Workers, the colonized, women, and minorities of various types then created a subjectivity for themselves. A n d it has become impossible to do no more than deplore the exploitation of so many dominated categories, as i f the latter could only be victims; and no less impossible to call, like Zola, on the intelligence and generosity of educated youth to give a meaning to the rebellion of those who can only shatter the contradictions of the dominant system. A t a certain point, the victims cease to be nothing but victims; they become conscious of their situation, protest, speak out. This is a key moment, already witnessed when skilled workers, who more often than not were employed by workshops rather than factories, analysed their situation in terms o f class domination; and above all defined what they were - workers - what they were fighting against - profit - and in the name o f what they demanded their rights - progress and modernity. These workers were not completely alienated or crushed: bolstered by their skills and a craft that often put them in a favourable position in the labour market, they spoke in the name of universal rights - equality, freedom, justice. A n analogous history transformed the colonized from oppressed peoples into national liberation movements. A n d later I shall refer to women's achievement of self-awareness, which was essentially formed through the demand to dispose freely of their own bodies. This rise in subjectivities convulsed a mode o f reasoning that placed credence only in objectivity, impersonal reason, calculation and interest. It further anchored the Western model in modernity, since the assertion o f

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human rights, at once individual and universal, is one o f the fundamental components of modernity. This appeal to what might be called the right to subjectivity made itself heard with all the more force in that the European model o f modernization, based on the construction o f society, was entering into crisis and collectivism was assuming a sombre aspect. This renewal of subjectivities, like all the liberation movements that preceded it, invariably took positive forms. But it sometimes assumed negative forms, as when it issued, for example, in a new communitarianism, in the same way that the workers' liberation movement engendered Communism. In these cases, subjectivities are swallowed up by apparatuses of power which, while speaking in their name, transform them into thenopposite, since they define each individual by his adhesion to a community that recognizes no minority or opposition. This appeal to individual distinctiveness can also go so far that it is inverted, becoming anti-modern. Social life then seems no more than a direct clash between the freedom of the market, a degraded form o f reason, and identitarian proclamations, which are equally degraded forms of individualism. These two forces are opposed, but they combine to foreclose any space of free action on the part o f social and cultural actors whose subjectivity is now recognized only as a remnant from the past. In its liberal form, social life amounts to an unregulated market: each presses the other to appropriate a product, which she defines as a good bargain. This generalized competition nurtures interest groups and forms of corporatism that no longer refer to the general interest. The spring o f Western modernization then slackens, with the agreement and to the applause of the majority, since such relaxation restricts the omnipotence of the ruling elite - but at the price o f a growing powerlessness to accept the responsibilities, risks and hopes nurtured by investment, production and work. The uprising of the dominated reduced the level of tension in Western society, but this was accompanied by a fall in long-term investments and projects, in what sociologists call the 'model of deferred gratification', which is replaced by a desire for immediate, constantly growing participation. More or less rapidly, depending on the country concerned, we are approaching the point where the capacity for accumulation will have disappeared and where consumption will take precedence over production, to such an extent that future generations will be made to bear the weight of increased public debt. Our societies could then become markets, bazaars, where each group would strive to sell what it produces and to buy the goods and services it needs at the best price. Other countries will avoid this entropy by concentrating their resources and decision-making power in the hands of new elites, which operate by means of war rather than pro-

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duction, which possess arms rather than markets, and which also impose a new slavery by reducing workers' living standards as far' as possible. The undermining of our societies, which is explained by the exhaustion of their traditional model o f development, therefore leads on the one hand to increasing autonomy and domination of the world o f war and, on the other, to the triumph of short-term consumption over long-term developmental projects. This leads us to pose the fundamental question to which this book would like to respond: is a new model o f modernization possible? Can a new dynamic emerge in our relaxed societies? I t cannot be created by imposing new internal tensions, since our history has been dominated for a century and a half by the overthrow of forms of domination and the relaxation of tensions. We must therefore look in the opposite direction. What is the principle that might prevent our societies from sinking into a generalized exhausting competition, but without resorting to the spirit of power, conquest and crusade to re-galvanize society and impose new constraints and sacrifices on it? It is individualism. It is true that this word has a bad reputation. It has served to eulogize personal interests and indifference to the lot of the majority; and when it lauds the success of the affluent, casting the situation of the insecure and the excluded into obscurity, it is literally intolerable and justifiably becomes the target of attacks by those who defend solidarity, justice and equality. But we are looking for a different answer: does a form o f individualism exist that might replace the will to conquer and the creation o f high internal tension which account for the effectiveness o f the European model of modernization? While the whole of Part Two of this book is given over to seeking an answer to that question, is it possible to indicate in a few lines here what such an answer might consist in and, consequently, how our societies might escape the opposite and complementary dangers of submission to the rules o f the market and imprisonment in a communitarianism that inevitably leads to war? We have referred to the liberation movement whereby the dominated, rejecting their submission, conferred a subjectivity on themselves, asserted themselves as beings of right who rejected injustice, inequality and humiliation. Why not look at a theoretical level for an answer that would give the liberation movements - those of the working class, colonized nations, women, and various minorities - their full significance, by affirming that in a world which can no longer be constructed around conquest and managing extreme tension, it is the quest for the self, the resistance of the self to impersonal forces, that might enable us to preserve our freedom? This form o f resistance contains self-affirmation, not only as a social actor but as a personal subject. The destruction of the idea o f society can only save us from a catastrophe i f it leads to the construction of the idea

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of the subject, to the pursuit of an activity that seeks neither profit, nor power, nor glory, but which affirms the dignity o f all human beings and the respect they deserve. Let us now return to the reasons for the decline of the notion o f society. The key point in the debate is whether the individual is formed by becoming a citizen or, on the contrary, by detaching himself from the norms, statuses and roles which organs of authority and 'agencies o f socialization', like the school and the family, can no longer force him to accept. The first idea was at the very heart o f the construction of societies of a democratic type. Whereas authoritarian, populist or communitarian societies call for the transcendence of individual interests in favour o f maximum participation in a collective entity - a people, a race, a religious belief, a language or a territory - the greatness o f our liberal democracies is that they conceived institutions as milieus for the production o f free, responsible individuals, concerned to act in accordance with universalistic criteria. This is how we arrived at the idea o f the subject. Two contrasting phenomena then occurred: the disintegration o f the ego defined as a set of roles; and the rise o f a conscious, reflexive individualism defined as the demand for oneself, by an individual or a group, of a creative freedom that is its own end, which is not subordinate to any social or political objective. The individual then ceases to be an empirical unity, a character, an ego; in a converse dynamic, it becomes the supreme end that is substituted not only for God but for society itself. The individual was produced by society, in her most concrete behaviour, as well as in her thinking. Now the opposite is true. The creative affirmation at the heart of modernity resists social organization and, depending on whether its self-assertion is satisfied or not, assesses it in positive or negative terms. This language, which is neither difficult to understand nor more fragile than that which made the individual a social being, warrants careful attention, for it completely excludes various habitual representations of the relations between individual and society. Should such a conception be attacked and condemned as idealist? But why is it more idealist to say that the individual seeks to be recognized as free and responsible than to claim that he defines himself with reference to the values and norms o f society? On the contrary, I am very careful not to appeal to the notion of value because it always mixes up concrete forms o f social life with a definition of good and evil. The peculiarity o f modernity is that it does not appeal to any principle or value external to itself. I t is genuinely self-creative, in a way that suits agnostic minds but also certain forms of religious thought - those which stress the direct relationship between the believer and God, in abstraction from any social attribute. As a modern phenomenon, the individual therefore escapes social determinism, in as much as she is a self-creating subject. Conversely, the

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social individual is determined by her position in society. We have experience of both: I know that I think and eat like the members o f my social, national and cultural milieu; and I can easily identify the social determinants of my behaviour, since it resembles that o f those who resemble me socially. But with equal conviction I feel that I assert my freedom by repelling various pressures that cannot wholly resist my rejection. The experience o f my freedom has the same power as the experience o f our social determinations. I do not need to search on the periphery of forms of social determinism for zones o f indeterminacy. Why should we not perceive our freedom with the same vigour as the determinants that limit us? A n d how could we profess democratic ideas i f we no longer accepted the idea that we have a certain freedom to choose between good and evil? Analysts who see nothing but victims and the forces dominating them are at once short-sighted and arbitrary. Has not our history in recent centuries been largely dominated by social movements that have altered and transformed our life ever more profoundly?

Forms of social determinism When individualism seems to be reduced to consumer choices, the idea reappears that behaviour is subject to forms of social determinism - to such an extent that the main problem becomes to preserve a small margin of indeterminacy in order to take account of factors independent o f the collective situation. We have long been taught that the rich voters tend to cast a right-wing vote, the poor a left-wing one. But the most interesting question ultimately is why not all wage-earners vote for the left (far from it!) in a country where wage-earners form the great majority o f the workforce but where their diversity is on the increase and where many hard jobs are done by foreigners. Determination only obtains i f behaviour, which expresses itself in terms o f preferences and tastes, is strongly correlated with the place occupied by the actor in the social hierarchy. Yet such observations have much weaker explanatory power than those that consider actors in their real social relations. We must therefore adopt a balanced conception of modernity. I t is neither the destruction o f the established order in the name o f the most powerful economic interests, nor the triumph of rational thinking, as nineteenth-century rationalists had it. We cannot separate the conquests o f modernity from the dangers it contains and against which it must arm itself. Modernity shatters communities, the established order, and its defensive stability. But rational thought and the idea that human rights exist are not merely abstract principles. Conceptions and ideas o f rights are much more than forces of supersession and critique; they give rise to what can

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be called social life - that is, to the world o f the acquired as opposed to the world of the transmitted. Consequently, we must keep a constant watch over the modalities of the reinforcement o f society, sometimes in the name o f modernity itself, for it can lead to the self-destruction o f this modernity. The threat is permanent. Rationalism, like the rationalization of industrial labour, can also serve to destroy actors' consciousness. More complex, at least in appearance, is the inversion that can lead to respect for rights being transformed into an instrument of oppression. How can we be unaware that the defence o f cultural rights can also turn into an obsession with the identity, homogeneity and purity of the group, the rejection of minorities and differences? I n the name of cultural rights, communities are constructed that impose their laws, which they disguise as rights. In the name o f an identity and a tradition, authoritarian rulers seek to impose principles, and even practices, that negate freedom of conscience and free cultural choices. The rationalized universe and communitarian regimes can also act in concert to deprive us of the exercise of cultural rights and, more broadly, modernity itself, of space. A t each stage of modernity the same dangers have emerged. Thus, during the French Revolution it was in the name of liberty and the nation that regions and social categories were destroyed. A century later, the working-class movement forced respect for social rights. But it was in the name o f the working-class movement that the dictatorship of the proletariat was imposed and that the social rights which were beginning to be recognized were destroyed. The universe of social actors could only be formed by fighting on two fronts simultaneously: against the reproduction of traditional values and forms of authority and, at the same time, against an authoritarianism that was technocratic as well as communitarian. How can modernity safeguard itself against the danger of self-destruction that dominated much of the twentieth century, via all the forms of rationalized organization in the service of new communitarianisms which in the case of Nazism went as far as genocide? Only by recognizing that modernity can be realized solely through rational thinking and respect for universal human rights, and hence by making its main goal the creation of actors whose freedom and responsibility are precisely based on the two principal components o f modernity. When the biologist Axel K.ahn adopts for his own purposes his father's invitation to be 'reasonable and human', he expresses this idea in the most direct manner. 'Reasonable' is inseparable from 'rational'; and 'human' above all signifies respect for the rights of others. Modernity does not manifest itself in the creation of the 'best of all possible worlds', but on the contrary in the subordination of all forms of social organization to a central goal: producing individuals capable of inventing and defending their own capacity to combine

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rational thinking and basic human rights in social institutions that are concerned with both efficiency and liber ty. This conclusion is valid for every part of the world. Where the communitarian threat is enhanced by the experience o f dependency, it is the appeal to reason that plays the most emancipatory role. I n contrast, in the richest or most 'developed' countries it is the appeal to human rights that offers the best protection against the regime o f interest, of money as a caricature of rationalization. Here we finally return to our starting-point. Talk o f social determinism entails that the logic of society impose itself on the intentions and interests of actors. Yet on the contrary, the decline o f the notion of society entails the decline of the idea that behaviour is subject to forms of social determinism. Numerous sociologists and historians have observed the undermining of transmitted statuses, of familial, social, national, etc. affiliations; and, consequently, the replacement o f external explanations of actors' behaviour by different ones, which are increasingly proximate to actors' relations to themselves. To illustrate the point, it will suffice to refer to studies of education. Schools, it has long been argued, transmit social inequalities (this, let it be said in passing, represents progress compared with the naive ideological assertion that schools are a powerful levelling factor). This leads to them being regarded as a black box and to the claim that educational outcomes are determined by the preceding social situation. This was a decisive move, whose success was so great that it abounds in sociology manuals. But now analyses of the 'institutional effect' conducted by François Dubet have demonstrated that educational outcomes are more dependent on the nature o f communication between teachers and the taught in schools - which refers directly to the standpoint of actors and their interactions. Today, the theme of forms o f social determinism, which was once illuminating, is primarily an obstacle to understanding the social actor. Modernity - that is, the central orientation of modern actors to the assertion of their own freedom - is primarily inflected by a logic of the actor who seeks to assert herself as such. Were a majority of sociologists to continue to support the old representation o f social life and the complementary theme of social determinism, sociology itself would lose its vigour and perhaps its life, for what must be undertaken as a matter o f urgency is the study of actors, their relations, conflicts and negotiations. Were sociology to put off its indispensable modernization, it would condemn itself to being nothing more than a closed chapter in the history o f ideas. But this transformation is already well underway. The success of 'Cultural Studies' proves it. Initiated in Great Britain by Stuart Hall, the discipline was developed by Margaret Archer and soon conquered a major position in American academia and beyond. What does this research

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programme involve, i f not the study o f actors who are invariably in a minority position or subject to domination? Studies o f ethnic minorities, women's behaviour, or sexual minorities are subjects that have prompted a large number of important works. The development of Jeffrey Alexander's work clarifies this transformation in sociology. Having achieved great authority thanks to his set of books on the history of sociological theory, and in particular on the work o f Talcott Parsons, he has become the leading author in a cultural sociology that breathes fresh life into Durkheim, at the same time as it reinvigorates this vast domain, above all by calling for a study of the performative character o f actors.

From focusing on the world to focusing on the self We must now examine the location that should be assigned to the types of society and culture that are arising before our very eyes. Two main questions stand out. (1) Can we give a historical expression to the transformations described? Are we dealing with a new stage of modernity, a form of postmodernism, the birth of a post-industrial society, or a communication society? (2) D o the other modes of modernization undergo mutations comparable to those of the Western world or, on the contrary, are we witnessing the collapse of a part o f the world which is losing control and self-consciousness? First o f all, then: in what terms should we conceive the changes that have just been analysed? I t is highly unlikely that it is in the economic terms of stages of growth, changes in capitalism - or even o f relations between market economy and public intervention. For at the outset we recognized that globalization, economic phenomenon par excellence, was detaching itself from the national or local societies it overarches, provoking in these societies significant reactions of defence or rejection, but which for the most part remain separated from specifically social movements. A n approach in terms of modes o f work and forms o f production is attractive to many more sociologists. I t is no accident i f the renaissance o f sociology in Europe, following the Second World War, was the internationally recognized initiative of Georges Friedmann. I n the first instance, this sociology studied the transition from a craft society to a production society dominated by the manufacture of mass materials by workers subject to a strict division of labour and often to imposed work rates. Then it became interested in the communication society, organized into networks and transmitting information (more and more often in real time). The more that human societies have increased their ability to transform their environment - at the increasingly great risk o f destroying it - the more those who live in these societies have regarded themselves as the

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masters and creators o f nature itself, and have sought the meaning o f their action in the use o f reason and new organizational methods. During a period that corresponds above all to the great success o f industrial society, our focus was directed outwards, towards the conquest o f space and time, towards the creation of new materials and new apparatuses. Reason seemed everywhere triumphant, both within us and in the world; and scientists (so people thought) were soon going to occupy the place which had once been that o f representatives o f forms o f spirituality. Perhaps even the accelerated development of techniques helped separate the world of production from the lived experience of human beings. But today we must recognize the naivety o f those who believed in progress, whether they belonged to the capitalist system or the Communist world. It would be superfluous to state here, following so many others, that the negative aspects o f progress have become more evident than its positive features. M y conclusion is very different. We have been so transformed in all the aspects o f our existence, both positively and negatively, that we have returned towards ourselves, towards our ability to act, invent, react, in such a way that we have ceased to define ourselves as the masters o f nature and regard ourselves as responsible for ourselves, as subjects. To speak o f self-consciousness here is problematic, for this term seems to refer us to a human nature, collective or personal, which we can observe in the same way we do stars through a telescope. I n fact, the subject is not consciousness o f the ego or the self, but the pursuit of a self-creation beyond all situations, all functions, all identities. We want to exist as individuals amid techniques, rules, forms o f production, power and authority, but also amid assertions o f identity and war-like drives. We live in a world that is less and less 'natural', which we know is o f our own creation, so that our action is carried out on the effects o f our action rather than on an environment. Ecologists, who study the impact of our action on the environment rather than the characteristics o f the 'natural milieu' (as it was still called half a century ago), are well aware o f this. Our morality no longer consists in adapting to the laws of the universe or adhering to the word o f a god, even among those who have such beliefs. It is no longer based on the pride of creation and the generosity that it can contain. It is the anxious quest for the subject, the being for itself, as the sole principle o f self-grounded evaluation, while all social moralities, in particular national or republican ones, have long since demonstrated their powerlessness or harmfulness. We are leaving - we have already left - behind the era when the nature o f the machines or techniques employed defined a society. A n d notwithstanding the importance of communications in contemporary societies, it is in terms of relations with the self, rather than o f communication with others, that the new type o f social life is defined.

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This new analytical orientation not only leads to understanding and respecting different cultures, as long as they recognize general principles like the practice o f rational thinking and respect for individual rights without which intercultural communication is impossible. I t must lead us further - towards an alteration o f the ways in which we approach such problems. I t is a question not only o f clarifying what enables two cultures to communicate, but o f examining whether an awareness o f the differences between cultures can be transformed into an evaluation, by the actor himself, of his own forms o f behaviour. This is a radical alteration o f standpoint: it no longer involves knowing whether two or more cultures are compatible, but observing how actors create themselves or disintegrate during the transition from one culture and society to another, and above all the role played in this by beliefs, attitudes and prohibitions. D o they facilitate or, on the contrary, complicate the transition from one culture to a different one, taking care to avoid defining cultures as so many fortresses that all foreigners have difficulty in penetrating? Such an intention decentres and re-centres the actor's behaviour in a new way. First o f all, it involves grasping and analysing the difficulties encountered by 'immigrants' in making the transition from one culture to another. I t is not a question of defining the relations between different cultures, but the nature of the behaviour that enables actors not to be defeated by the difficulties they encounter. Various pieces o f research, in particular that o f Nikola Tietze who has studied the experience o f immigrant Turks and Algerians in Germany and France, have shown that the presence of strong convictions facilitates the transition from one culture and society to another. What is being measured here is the ability of actors to behave as subjects - that is, to create and follow their own path - and not the nature o f the relations that obtain between two or more cultures. I t is no longer the compatibility between different cultures that is in question, but the ability o f individuals to transform a series of lived situations and incidents into a personal history and project. We can venture the hypothesis that those who have succeeded in managing their personal history have more consciously - that is, in a way less determined by the obstacles they encounter - selected their forms of behaviour and have attained a higher level o f self-judgement. This approach makes it possible for us to know the personal and collective field that gives meaning to what is called their history. Ahmed Boubeker is right to introduce here the notion of ethnicity, detaching it from any communitarian dimension, but equally, of course, from purely economic or social categories. Ethnicity is the capacity of an individual or group to act in accordance with its ethnic situation and origins. It is intimately bound up with the orientation o f action. Can sociology do without such general considerations? Should it devote itself to more useful work, which would consist in describing, for example,

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particular aspects o f observable social reality? Would it not be better to distance ourselves from imposing machinery which, behind an appearance of intellectual rigour, is too often incapable of illuminating the observable facts? I admit that this preference presents itself, but it is impossible to accept such a complete renunciation of any general explanation. We urgently need monographs and field work that bring out facts, types of situation and forms o f behaviour. But we have an even greater need for a general conception o f social life. Observations that are not integrated into a general interpretative framework lose much o f their interest. Conversely, a general view that does not help us decipher the available evidence quickly succumbs to arbitrariness and, when no longer subject to verification, loses its utility. Let us therefore set aide these overly general remarks and confront real problems. The most important of them is that sociological explanation is no longer to be found in references to technological, economic or even political developments. This does not mean that sociology must construct entities wanting historical definition. But there is a world of difference between an evolutionistic approach and the effort we must make in order to understand our society. The idea that imposes itself on us, from the fall o f the Berlin Wall to the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York, is the break-up o f societies: wars, revolutions, accelerated technological change, conquests, migrations, but also rapid enrichment and impoverishment; globalization of exchanges, but also poverty and misery. The society described by classical sociology resembled a stone castle: ours resembles fluid landscapes. The most common reaction to the disintegration of the social order has been to assert the all-powerful role of the rational pursuit o f interest. Our societies now supposedly function in accordance with economic, not social, goals; and economic analysis should therefore replace sociological reflection. But this hypothesis confines study to decision-makers and, even in this domain, proves insufficient. A different vision of the world, which tends to replace a rapidly declining classical sociology, is one that everywhere discovers communities obsessed with their identity. But where are these communities that are camped in front o f one another? Can we forget, when analysing the clash between post-Khomeini Iran and the West, that the internet offers information whose distribution is prohibited by the government? That technologies, customs, songs and clothes spread everywhere despite their proscription by regimes? The Orient is not merely an invention of the West: they permeate one another, even i f the first is subject to the second. Only an analysis organized around the ideas of the subject and subjectification can get up close to observable behaviour. More directly still, we must remember that our societies have acquired an increasing capacity to act on themselves, in particular through social policies that aimed to bring

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about a certain redistribution o f wealth and to guarantee everyone a decent level of social protection. They have also done so by giving rise to new actors and by transforming the representation we have of ourselves, others, and a world in which its elements are increasingly interdependent; and above all, by making the defence o f the subject the main objective o f democratic institutions that seek to resist the pressure of money and the forces o f war. A final reflection is required, one that is possibly too weighty for the shoulders of a sociologist. If, ultimately, we must return to the subject, it is also necessary to pronounce the most potent name of the anti-subject: evil. This word seems to imprison us in a religious vision, or a different conception of the universe, from which the idea of the subject is excluded. The answer to this objection is that there is no more evil than there is good, God or devil. There are those who discover the subject in themselves and in others; they are the ones who do good. A n d there are those who seek to kill the subject in others and in themselves; they are the ones who do evil. The latter is not an essence, but the result of human action. Horrors, massacres, human sacrifices, genocides, torture, killings do not merely form an overwhelming sum of violence and destruction, which are literally unspeakable, as concentration camp survivors - in particular, Jorge Semprun - have put it so well. Among those who do evil there is an extreme volition, a passion for humiliation and degradation that far exceeds the desire to kill. For a very long time, we were unable to approach God except through the intermediary of a Church. Today, moral philosophies no longer go through the intermediary of Churches, which lie in ruins or abandoned. A n d it is through a consciousness o f evil that we hear, whether or not we are believers, the appeal to the subject. A t the beginning o f the twentieth century, we believed that the human, inseparable from the social, was going to abolish dangers and illusions, gods and demons. As we enter the twenty-first century, we understand that the world of the human has finally been invaded by both the inhuman and the superhuman. The social no longer represents the exclusive expression of the human. The subject o f this book is this decline o f the social and the human, and hence the advance o f the inhuman in the unbounded space of totalitarianism and terrorism, and still more in the human life that I call the subject, which takes many forms.

The awakening of the subject It is when globalization on the one hand, and neo-communitarianism on the other, seek to seize hold o f our attitudes and our roles that we are impelled to search within ourselves for our unity as subjects - that is,

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as beings capable of acquiring and displaying a self-grounded selfconsciousness, which is what distinguishes the subject from the ego, and even from the self, which is formed by internalizing the images that others have of us. The individual or the group are not subjects when they lord it over forms of practical behaviour. The subject is stronger and more conscious of itself when it defends itself against attacks that threaten its autonomy and capacity to grasp itself as an integrated subject, or at least struggling to be one, to recognize itself, and be recognized as such. When I say, for example, that women struggle to be recognized as subjects - and even conceive themselves as subjects more than men do - I not only mean that they demand equal rights - in particular, a wage equal to that of men when they do the same work. The assertion of the specific rights o f women has long been added to such demands for equality, and is encapsulated in the activist formula: 'A child i f I want one, when I want one.' I t is an awareness both of the domination they have suffered and of a particular existence, and hence o f particular rights, that makes a woman a subject, which directs her main action towards herself, to the assertion of her specificity as well as her humanity. For a long time man asserted himself as man by his ability to work and fight. These male, 'virile' qualities seem to us today to be so many expressions of the model o f man's domination of woman - a model rejected by men themselves. But we must go further, beyond contemporary images o f the subject, to the general movement that causes the subject to re-emerge. We might refer here to the liberation o f slaves. I n the modernizing, European model, and a fortiori in communitarian societies, objectivity rules; it identifies the king with the kingdom like the landowner with his land. Subjectivity, in contrast, is the expression of the dominated, be she slave, woman, or worker. As the social movements undermined forms o f domination, the dominated discovered a subjectivity liberated from its inferiority. Today, this subjectivity is no longer merely lived; it is claimed, demanded as a right. Liberation movements, from peasant movements and popular revolutions to workers' strikes and the new social movements that already demanded cultural rights, not only undermined or abolished forms of social domination. Those who were treated as objects, sometimes even as the property of their master, emerged from the shadows and silence, became subjects. The subject is the one who not only says I , but is conscious of his right to say I . That is why social history is dominated by the demand for rights: civil rights, social rights, cultural rights, whose recognition is so urgently demanded today that they constitute the most hotly debated topic in the world in which we live. But let us not forget that there exist many false paths where the subject in formation can get lost. A l l forms o f nationalism that have communitarian roots and refuse to accept the social or cultural heterogeneity of

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their nation operate as active processes of de-subjectification. Closer to us, the old Western cultural model, following the successes achieved by social movements, is most often reduced to nothing but a set o f markets in which subjects are sometimes sold like slaves of a new type - female prostitutes, exploited sans-papiers, foreigners who are the victims of ethnic or racial riots. These few observations are offered simply in order to indicate the immensity o f the field to be explored and the necessity o f guarding against naively progressivist discourses according to which freedom is the only outcome of slavery. The greatest present danger is the one I have already mentioned namely, that the idea of the subject is corrupted by an obsession with identity. I t is false, in the name of the idea of the subject, to defend a right to difference. This notion, which contains some positive aspects, is also full of dangerous consequences, since for many it involves a right to closure, to homogeneity, and hence to the ethnic and religious cleansing whose destructive effects have been experienced in many parts of the world. The right to be a subject is the right for each and everyone to combine her participation in economic activity with the exercise of her cultural rights, in the framework of recognition of others as subjects. Those who refuse this expanded conception o f human rights and, consequently, the very idea of the subject, imprison themselves in a repressive attitude, based for some on the necessary unity of an open world, and for others on the urgent need to protect or restore endangered cultures. Authoritarianism, ignorance, and isolation are obstacles to the production of the self as a subject, which affect some people more than others. A t the same time, these obstacles are reinforced by education and the dominant values, which tend to assign each person his place and integrate him into a social system over which he can exercise no influence. To adopt Amartya Sen's idea, what counts over and above well-being is the freedom to be an actor (agency). A n d i f we have already largely entered into this new universe dominated by the search for the self, it is still all too often reduced to the pursuit o f individual well-being that seriously impoverishes what constituted the grandeur of the idea of the welfare state. The subject is not synonymous with the ego. The ego is the changing, always fragmented entity with which we identify even though we know that it has no enduring unity. As Pirandello says in Six Characters in Search of an Author, 'the drama lies all in this - in the conscience that I have, that each one of us has. We believe this conscience to be a single thing, but it is many-sided.' This theme is widespread in contemporary experience and must be taken to the limit, for it is only on the ruins of a fractured ego that the idea of the subject can be established. For the latter is the opposite of an identification with oneself, of a self-regard that would make us lay claim to each

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of our thoughts and each of our acts as i f they belonged to us as subjects, whereas we can only grasp ourselves as subjects by creating a vacuum in ourselves that expels everything pertaining to the ego. Nearly all religions have attributed the utmost importance to this detachment from the ego, whether it takes the form of meditation or prayer, but not always in order to liberate the subject. The latter is formed in the will to escape the forces, rules and powers that prevent us from being ourselves, which aim to reduce us to the condition o f components o f their ascendancy over activity, and in the interactions of each with all. These struggles against what deprives us of the meaning o f our existence are always unequal struggles against a power, against an order. The only type o f subject is the rebel subject, divided between anger at what she suffers and hopes for a free existence, for self-construction - which is her constant preoccupation. The words employed here should not mislead readers. They do not seek to foreground heroic acts, exemplary behaviour, but what most o f us live through in a more or less vague way, yet with a level of awareness that grows rapidly as soon as the ideas presented here are diffused in common language, in the popular press and on television, which in turn transform most people's expectations. This cultural alteration is enacted above all by women, for it is inseparable from the collapse o f male domination and the emergence of a new culture liberated from male dependency. A n d by the same token it liberates men and women from the obsession with production and conquest, enabling them to enter into a culture o f consciousness and communication together.

PART TWO Now that We Refer to Ourselves in Cultural Terms

D The Subject

The subject and identity The decomposition of social frameworks leads to the triumph of the individual, de-socialized but capable of fighting both the dominant social order and the forces of death. Individualism rapidly shattered into multiple realities. One of its fragments has disclosed to us an ego that has become fragile, changing, subject to all the forms of advertising, to all the propaganda and images o f mass culture. Here the individual is merely a screen onto which the desires, needs and imaginary worlds manufactured by the new communications industries are projected. This image of the individual who is no longer defined by the groups he belongs to, who is increasingly undermined, and who no longer finds the guarantee of his identity in himself, since he is no longer a principle of unity and is obscurely ruled by what escapes his consciousness, has often served to define modernity. The subject is formed in the will to escape the forces, rules and powers that prevent us from being ourselves, that seek to reduce us to the condition of a component of their system and their sway over everyone's activity, intentions and interactions. These struggles against what strips us o f the meaning of our existence are always unequal struggles against a power, against an order. The only kind o f subject is a rebel one, divided between anger and hope. The distance that separates the self from the subject, however, is not reducible to these definitions. A n d I readily acknowledge that the idea o f self has taken on such a considerable extension that it no longer seems to leave much space for the idea of the subject as I have employed it. We are increasingly drawn into the search for self-identity, which Anthony

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Giddens analysed earlier and more fully than most o f those who have referred to it since the 1980s. I t is the idea o f reflexivity, applied to this analysis, that has taken his analysis in a direction I feel I am moving in myself, even though the representations of the individual which are presented to us on all sides feel alien to me. Self-presence, self-reflection, authenticity and also intimacy, love and commitment - all these words refer us to a self-presence that begins with a presence to the body, to breathing or movement. This individualism oriented towards self-presence is eminently modern, as Anthony Giddens convincingly argues, for it involves as complete a detachment from social roles as possible. I belong to the vast current o f ideas that stresses the transition from the world of society to that of the individual, the actor oriented towards herself. But when I refer to the subject, I nevertheless refer to a reality which is very far removed from that presented by Anthony Giddens and so many others. Two differences strike me immediately: the first is that I define the subject in its resistance to the impersonal world o f consumption, or that of violence and war. We are continually disintegrated, fragmented and seduced, passing from one situation to the next, from one set of stimuli to others. We lose ourselves in the crowd of our situations, reactions, emotions and thoughts. The subject is a summons to self, a will to return to the self, against the flow o f ordinary existence. For me the idea o f the subject evokes a social struggle like that of class consciousness or national consciousness in earlier societies, but with a different content, without any externalization, entirely directed towards itself - while remaining profoundly confiictive. That is why the first images to spring to mind to illustrate the idea of the subject were those o f resisters, o f freedom fighters. The second difference is the one I have just indirectly mentioned. The subject never identifies completely with himself and remains located in the order o f rights and duties, in the order of morality and not that of experience. It is for these two reasons that I resist the idea o f love as the quest for intimacy, however powerful the idea. Duties towards oneself and the rights that mark the presence of the subject in each individual exceed all relations. The love relationship itself, which rises above sexual relations, seems to me to be more like the encounter and mutual attraction of two bearers of subjecthood than an intense quest for interiority, which impoverishes more than it enriches. I do not situate my reflection in the universe of identity; and this word frightens more than it attracts me. The subject is the opposite of identity and is lost in intimacy, even when it traverses these realities and is traversed by them. Conversely, I am led to say that the subject is the conviction that inspires a social movement and the reference to institutions which protect liberties.

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In many places solid institutional guarantees have been created that protect individuals and collectivities against the forces generated by the decomposition o f the social space which seek to impose arbitrariness and violence everywhere. For want of a better vocabulary, we might speak o f the replacement of one type o f institution by another. Those that imposed rules and norms are replaced by those whose goal is to protect and reinforce the individuals and collectivities that seek to constitute themselves as subjects. The defence of the citizen against the state is primarily a defence of the subject; and the family or school, models of old-style institutions, are widely engaged in an effort to transform themselves. This development comes up against the fear o f introducing disorder behind the noble ideal of the child's personal autonomy, but both are propelled by the failure of traditional methods and by the increasingly urgent demands of those who will not tolerate being regarded as human resources amenable to efficient employment in the service of the state or firm. It is always possible to confer on the individual a more solid basis than the immediate experience o f herself. The individual is not only never reducible to herself, but is accompanied in ideas by her double, who is situated in the order o f right, whereas she develops in the order o f experience, perception and desire. The less strong a society's capacity to transform itself is - the less strong what I call its historicity - the further removed from the concrete individual is the double who grants her rights, just as the groups she feels she belongs to impose duties on her. These rights do not belong to a social being, defined by an activity and a rank; they are simultaneously individual and universal, as are the rights accorded all human beings as God's creatures, or as beings o f reason who participate in the great adventure of progress. The individual long sought her right to exist in a universe that was the vector of meaning by obeying a divine message or by advancing towards universal progress - even i f this affirmative consciousness was never separated from a critical, combative consciousness, seeking to destroy the obstacles that separate the individual from the source o f her right.

The sources of the subject Historians and sociologists of modern societies have most often defined the subject as the product o f historicity, o f our ability to know and transform the world — an evolution rendering recourse to the higher world from which we received our rights increasingly unnecessary. The heavens become transparent and the image o f the gods (or God) dissolves; we no longer believe in progress, but in development policies. We have long been dominated by this view o f modernity defined as rationalization, as

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secularization, to the point o f identifying secularism with political modernity. But our struggles against prohibitions rapidly diminished; good receded at the same time as evil. Passions calmed and our lives, formerly dominated by the world of need, appeared increasingly exposed to numerous, unforeseeable catastrophes: wars between societies and cultures, economic crises, the brutal growth of the illegal economy, climate change rendering survival on the part of the planet impossible, and so forth. The individual was undermined at the same time as the collectivities he belonged to; and the old struggle between pleasure and authority, so resonant in Freud's time, dissolved into a tolerant conformism. Some respond to this pessimistic vision by asserting that citizenship, or membership of a class or nation whose mission it is to liberate humanity, are the motor forces; that it is they that give individuals a consciousness of being masters o f themselves. They forget that only collective action, political and social, can protect us against the forms o f power and domination which, i f they are not halted in their tracks, destroy individuation when the latter forgets the conditions that make it possible. We long sought the meaning o f our life in an order o f the universe or a divine destiny, in an ideal city or a society o f equals, in endless progress or absolute transparency. But these endeavours (which are still present) have been exhausted, because such ideal worlds have come to seem increasingly remote and even imaginary, as our capacity for acting, and hence for producing change, increased and as recourse to a supreme end froze the present. As a result, the heavens are emptied of their divinities; guardians of the temple, dictators, secret police agents and even, in some hidden recesses, advertising executives have replaced them. As these new powers have triumphed, we have returned to ourselves, discovering ourselves in our most concrete reality: citizens, first o f all; then workers, to liberate ourselves from the power o f the 'bourgeoisie'; and now cultural beings, in order to resist the commercialization o f all aspects o f existence, beings of gender and sexuality plunging into our innermost depths to escape ideologies o f the soil, the people, or the community. The more our life has depended on ourselves, the more we have become aware of all aspects of our experience. A n d every time we had to retreat as social actors, we strengthened ourselves as personal subjects. We only fully become subjects when we reach our ideal of recognizing ourselves and having ourselves recognized - as individuals, as individuated beings, defending and constructing our singularity, and, through our acts of resistance, conferring meaning on our existence. Does this mean that we are living in a world of subjects? To believe that would be as absurd as to see only saints, heroes or militants in past societies. But our age leaves no more room for indifference or total ambivalence than did others. We know there are circumstances where it is

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necessary to choose, to recognize or deny oneself as a subject. We are attracted, ruled, manipulated by the forces that dominate society, even more than we are by the ruling elites of society itself. A n d we seek to employ our freedom as subjects as rarely as possible, for its price is high. But today as in every past culture, there is no figure of the subject without sacrifice and without joy.

Defence of sociology Are the lines that I have just written foreign to sociology - that is, the positive, verifiable knowledge o f social situations and social actors? Not in the least: I would even say that no other sociology is possible today. Just as it is impossible to describe a society while neglecting the religious phenomenon - something that does not render criticism of those who appropriate the divine, and transform it into a sacred phenomenon whose management they assume, any less necessary - so it is impossible today not to recognize the presence o f the subject, when criticism and struggles against imperialisms, nationalisms and populisms - but also against the reign of money and growing inequality - are accumulating. It is impossible not to refer to human rights, and hence not to recognize that the number o f human beings who assess their acts and their situation in terms of the ability to create themselves and live as free, responsible beings is on the increase. Those who see around them only victims and machines o f domination and death are half-blind. They do not see, alongside the injustice and death, the assertion o f the will to struggle against it; they ignore the successes achieved in these struggles. The gods have not only made way for warriors and jurists. We always need a double of ourselves: she it is who affords us rights and, consequently, a moral sense - the sense o f good and evil. A n d this double, by dint o f coming closer to us, o f being ever less objectified in a superior, distant world, enters into each of us. A n d we then act in the name of higher principles, at the same time as we punish ourselves for our inability to live up to them. I n an initial phase, this moral consciousness still bears a close resemblance to a religious creation. Natural law is simultaneously nourished by old traditions and a vector of individualism. Thus we came to place our faith in economic progress and the triumph of reason, in the fatherland, in revolution - and even in a project o f perpetual peace. But we have now left behind the long period when we believed that we could satisfy ourselves with temporal objectives - the power, wealth, glory and immortality promised to great men. Today, our morality is less and less social. I t is increasingly distrustful of the laws o f society, of government lectures, of the prejudices with which

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each group protects its superiority or its difference. A m i d the events in which we are immersed, what each person seeks to do is to construct her individual life, with her difference from all the rest, and her capacity to give a general meaning to each particular event. This search cannot be for an identity, since we are increasingly composed o f fragments o f different identities. I t can only be the quest for the right to be the author, the subject of one's own existence and one's capacity to resist everything that deprives us o f it, rendering our life incoherent. This image o f the individual is increasingly presented to us as the human being who asserts herself as a being o f rights, above all the right to be an individual - that is, not M a n in abstraction from all attributes, but the human being endowed with her civil rights and social rights, her rights as a citizen and a worker, and also (and especially) today her cultural rights, those of choosing one's language, one's beliefs, one's way of life - but also one's sexuality, which is not reducible to a gender constructed by the dominant institutions.

The individual subject Faced with representations o f history that see instrumental reason, utility and pleasure supplanting a consciousness or soul lodged in human beings by a creator; faced with the idea that modernity is the secularization and 'disenchantment' of the world (in Max Weber's famous term), I am persuaded by the idea that the subject, for so long having been projected by human beings outside themselves - into a paradise, a free city, or a just society - has entered into each individual, to become self-affirmation as a bearer of the right to be an individual capable o f asserting himself against all the impersonal forces that destroy him. The death of God has not led to the triumph of reason and calculation or, conversely, to the liberation of desires. I t has also led each individual to assert himself as the creator of himself, as being the end o f his own action, dominating the kaleidoscopic movement in which all the fragments o f the ego clash, blend and are destroyed. Such is the path that has been pursued up to this point and it leads to a more in-depth analysis o f the meaning assumed by the idea o f the subject here. But is it not arbitrary to resort to this idea, when everything seems to draw us towards the disappearance o f religions or moralities that tend to repress the drives, without forgetting that others - those who appreciate the dispersion o f the subject, this disposition that protects us from authoritarian powers and beliefs - might find this notion of the subject inhibiting?

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For the sociologist, the subject is not only a notion constructed through a general intellectual initiative; it must be observable - that is, present itself to the consciousness o f social actors, at the same time as it is located by the analyst in a social situation that corresponds to the maximum number of its characteristics. Now, it is precisely at the point when the cultural image o f society becomes established, when we observe the major switch in action and representation from the external world to the internal world, from the social system to the personal or collective actor, that the idea emerges of the subject as the ideal o f the actor, o f the individual who wishes to be an actor. Here I hope readers will allow me to cite a name one constantly on my mind as I was elaborating the notion o f subject: the name o f Germaine Tillion. A n ethnologist from the first generation o f Marcel Mauss's pupils, at the start o f the war she joined the Resistance, founding a network to which she gave the name o f Musée de l'Homme. Deported to Ravensbrûck, she survived through an astonishing combination o f circumstances and after the war became the president of the former deportees to this camp, while continuing her ethnological work in Algeria. During the Algerian War, having declared in favour o f independence for this French territory, she took a public stand against torture, but also against bomb attacks. The interviews she conducted with Yacef Saadi, F L N head in Algiers and thus the person with principal responsibility for the bloody attacks that succeeded one another there, brought home to me that this woman represents an almost perfect example of what I call the subject. For she took a stand, assumed all the risks, but without ever giving up saving lives - and she discovered in her interlocutor internal debates similar to her own. Engaged in numerous struggles, she never abandoned saving individuals. Full o f passion, wisdom and respect for every human being, this woman is almost one hundred years old as I write her name. Her life is largely unknown to the general public, even i f she is respected and loved by many people who have known her or know o f her activities. What fills me with admiration for her is that she has served great causes, but without ever identifying completely with any o f them, because she put human rights and the struggle against violence above everything else. But i f the most luminous figures play an indispensable guiding role, their action would have no impact i f it was not relayed by organizations and decisions whose content in terms o f subjectification is certainly much weaker, but which ensure the creation and reinforcement o f the subject's institutional defences. It is thanks to this collective action, and in particular to representative democracy, that guarantees are afforded to everyone - individually and collectively. On the other side, by contrast, we find the figures of evil, with their henchmen, their hired co-conspirators, and all those individuals who seek to derive some minor personal advantage from

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the adventure o f Evil. This constant tension justifies political action as an instrument for defending the freedoms and interests o f the greatest number.

Rights During the period when forms of behaviour were defined and assessed in social terms, norms and values privileged the submission of actors to the needs of society. Conversely, the notion of the subject becomes established at the end o f a long history o f impoverishment of these ideals, constituting an essential aspect of what is called secularization. The subject is not the actor bereft of any 'objective' external principle for guiding her behaviour. On the contrary, the subject is the one who has transformed herself into the principle for guiding her behaviour. 'Be yourself - such is the highest value. Consequently, the only norms that are imposed on her are negative: they instruct her not always to obey the authorities, not to believe in the necessity o f all forms of social organization - in particular, as regards everything involving personal life. This explains, for example, the strength of the resistance on the part o f so many Catholics to the present Pope's decisions in matters o f private morality. Even i f we rarely have the strength to defend the rights of the individual against those of the community, we feel the liveliest distrust o f institutions that are charged with punishing deviants and criminals, or even with taking care o f minorities and the disabled. We are always afraid that what is called the interest of society ignores the right of each person to be treated as a subject, respecting what we call basic human rights. This attachment to human rights is accompanied by a loss of confidence in, and of respect for, institutions and collective actors, especially political ones, which were for so long vectors of popular sovereignty, and whose legitimacy was for a time superior to that of all other institutions. I f we are still attached to them, it is because their presence protects us from the arbitrariness o f dictatorships and violence, whose most immediate effect is to destroy any reference to the subject. I f one allows oneself to be carried away by dreams that reveal the reality o f our lived experience better than the discourses constructed by the authorities, we can imagine forms o f social life that would be increasingly deprived of institutions. Political decisions would be taken at the end o f an unusual contest between characters that were more symbolic than real. Schools would no longer have buildings or syllabuses; and their teachers would no longer form a particular social body. Extremely varied techniques - in particular, encouragement of the imaginary and reasoning - would be put in the service o f each individual. I t is in the domain of justice that changes would

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be most necessary: have we not long been searching, albeit with little success, to counterpose liberty, equality and fraternity to all the forces destructive of the subject that are ill-concealed behind the terrible obligation to defend society? This evocation of the subject via imaginary representations could lead to a misinterpretation i f we did not immediately recall that the notion of the subject is closely bound up with that of rights. The subject, such as we conceive it and defend it today, is not a secularized version of the soul, the presence of a supra-human reality, divine or communitarian, in each individual. On the contrary, the history of the subject is that of the demand for increasingly concrete rights, which protect cultural particularities that are ever less generated by voluntary collective action and by institutions producing affiliation and duty. It is this transition, from the most abstract rights to the most concrete, that leads to the reality of the subject. The more that universal rights are linked to membership of the human race, the less they have real consequences - aside from the abolition of the death penalty. Political rights are more real, although they are exercised within a given collectivity - a city or nation, in particular. Social rights are the more effective in that they apply to specific situations, like collective agreements. The main objective of the long struggles of the working-class movement was to add to political rights, which are potent in their universalism but too remote from everyday lived experience, social rights invariably defined as the rights of particular professional categories. Establishing a link between the universalism of political rights and the specificity of social rights is so difficult that the working-class movement split amid the violence of the debates. Part of the Second International, which was to identify itself as social democratic, kept social rights within the democratic framework; the other part, initially in a majority, counterposed social rights - workers' rights - to bourgeois liberties, leading to Leninism-Maoism, whose power dominated half the world for fifty years. I shall analyse more precisely the way in which history is repeating itself as new cultural rights lead some of their defenders in the direction of communitarianism, while others seek to assimilate particular cultural rights and general political rights, without forgetting those who, in the name of a narrow conception of the Republic, are opposed to the idea of cultural rights. Today, the rise of communitarianisms that are authoritarian and determined to keep women in a situation of dependence and inferiority explains the reluctance of some countries, like France, to recognize cultural rights, in the name of republican universalism. However, over and above the debates conducted in a particular conjuncture, it is impossible not to recognize the importance of cultural rights - that is, the power of demands based on a culture or gender within the population itself. A n d political

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parties will have to end up recognizing that cultural rights are inseparable from political rights and social rights. The subject does not assert itself outside o f the social and cultural characteristics o f those who regard themselves, and wish to be recognized, as subjects.

Are we all subjects? Do all o f us consider ourselves subjects? I f by that is meant a clear, shared awareness o f being subjects, the answer is no. But we can discover the mark of the subject in all individuals, in the same way that others have recognized the presence of a 'soul' or the right to be a citizen in each individual. A n d our work precisely consists in discovering i n us all a reference to oneself as a subject, while detaching it from contrasting representations, such as those imposed by the social order or by the ideologies that dominate intellectual life. For the role o f the sociologist is also to create situations in which each individual is encouraged to develop his deep demands, beyond meaningless formulas. This role was performed previously, and differently, by 'committed intellectuals', who did not belong to any political or other form of organization, but who wanted to highlight basic demands. Without such committed intellectuals - who are not organic intellectuals - no democracy could exist, so strong are the pressures that operate to subordinate the demands o f individual and collective subjects to the interests of what is termed society. But it is also these intellectuals who screen the presence of the subject. Too many o f them accepted the idea that social reality is in itself domination, so that there is freedom only in the liberation o f desires, of the will to power, or - an older idea - o f the hopes embodied in the revolutionary spirit. This ideology never corresponded to what could be observed, but for a long time it appeared untouchable, because it seemed to protect against the most brutal forms o f the exercise o f power and repression. A n d indeed, the critical utility o f this social thinking, for which there are no actors but only victims, was considerable and is still. But it is increasingly impossible to confine ourselves to a purely critical approach, when the new forms o f social movement that have developed inhabit our everyday life. Let us take an example. The dominant discourse on women casts them as victims. But ask women, especially those who participate in feminist activities, and you will find that the sense of victimhood is much less strong than the conviction that women have won many victories and are today creating a new cultural universe. Women's discourse on themselves is more suffused with hope and initiative than men's, for the latter reject unduly rhetorical discourses on virility and masculinity.

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Similarly, formerly colonized peoples, new immigrants, and believers in Islam are too often defined by what they suffer - as i f they were incapable of being the agents o f their history. I n the name of liberating the dominated, people proceed as i f they were not capable of fashioning their own liberation and transforming themselves into agents o f the transformation of their situation. Nothing is more disturbing than the ease with which those who wish to be actors in the struggle against forms o f domination deny the possibility o f creative, emancipatory action. This is a strange view of the world, which constantly speaks of the domination people endure, but ignores emancipatory thinking and action. For the consciousness of the subject to take shape, three components must emerge and combine. First o f all, a relationship to the self, to the individual being, as the bearer o f basic rights. This marks a break with the reference to universalistic principles, or even to a divine law. The subject is its own end. Secondly, today as yesterday, the subject only takes shape if it consciously enters into conflict with the dominant forces that deny it the right and possibility to act as a subject. Finally, each person, as a subject, proposes a certain general conception of the individual. The subject is not a pure exercise of consciousness: it requires conflict for collective action to take shape. Nevertheless, it is always individual. Even when it plunges into collective action, it feels itself to be the defender of a universal right. This was obviously the case at the time of the Declaration o f the Rights o f M a n and the Citizen, but not in the age of nationalisms and communitarian beliefs. It is perhaps again the case today, when so much importance is assigned to humanitarian problems and eliminating forms of inhuman treatment. The abolition of the death penalty in many countries marks a retreat in arguments motivated by the 'protection of society' and the victory o f the idea that human life is above the law. Many countries or regions are torn apart by civil wars and other forms of violence. Others are retreating into communitarian, ethnic or religious affinities. The idea o f the subject seems to be being diluted there. However, the exhaustion o f political ideologies and o f regimes that identified defence of the subject with the triumph of a party, a leader, or a form o f social organization, while it has created a vacuum that can lead to chaos, can also lead to a return to the self, to the consciousness o f the subject. It is impossible to describe a priori, and in general terms, the conditions conducive to the emergence, in an individual or a group, o f the consciousness o f being a subject. The models offered by education - that is, the expectations evinced by those who encourage or fail to encourage a young person to take herself as the goal of her action, to search for herself - are o f great importance. Often, it is an adult friend or relative who has a decisive influence on a younger person. Relations o f friendship between the young are a common way for them to gain access to themselves, but

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attention to the other can also distract from the self. We must be rather distrustful o f intimacy, as of silence, for it is always liable to stifle selfconsciousness. I t is always better to combine engagement in active life with the move to return to the self. We have for so long been judged by what we did, and not by the conditions in which we lived, that we find it difficult to combine a more reflexive vision with an active conception o f human beings. Certainly, we have no desire whatsoever to be once again defined by our situation at birth, for that would seem to us to mark a serious regression. But we find it increasingly difficult to accept being defined exclusively by our actions that is, being judged by categories that are those o f employers, private or public, whose respect for the personality of the wage-earners they employ is not always their main concern. A n d even those o f us who continue to accord very great significance to working life feel the need to take some distance from their activities, to return from time to time to themselves, and to pose questions that would once have seemed incongruous: am I happy? A m I doing what I really want to do? A m I capable o f understanding X? A m I certain that at this moment intolerable things are not happening, that a serious injustice is not being committed? These questions that I ask myself, these judgements which I make on myself and the world, are the equivalent o f the observations that I as subject make on myself as a social actor. This explains why the appearance o f the subject can occur in any situation. It is just as imperative to protect the idea o f the subject against interpretations that are at once moralizing and psychologizing. The subject is not the person who 'realizes' themselves, as they say, or who performs the functions entrusted to them well - the good worker, good citizen, good father or mother. The emergence o f the subject is not bound up with the end o f meta-narratives referred to by Jean-François Lyotard, for personal meta-narratives are worth just as much as the collective meta-narratives whose disappearance he noted. The life of the personal subject is as dramatic as the history of the world. The subject is no more at ease in the society of money and violence than in the Communist perversion of the hopes and struggles of the working-class movement. The reality of the subject runs through all the scenes of history. The subject is no more present in our civilization than in others. However, because it is no longer embedded in the construction o f a sacred world in modernity, it is in our society that it is most frequently confronted with itself. Liberated and fragile, it can now finally appear as such following the dissolution of its distant projections. We are all tempted to attribute to the subject an image that is clearly discrepant with lived experience. Adventurer, generous, victorious over all intrigues, at once moving and ridiculous: is D o n Quixote an image of the

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subject? I f he was not, an entire nation would not recognize itself in him. For the French chivalry he seeks to imitate also represents nostalgia for a Spain that was falling into bourgeois mediocrity, which would soon distance itself from its European neighbours by lagging far behind them, which would forget what accounted for its grandeur as well as its ruin. But we must not succumb to the attraction of insane dreams. The subject does not protect itself from the present by leaping towards the future or fleeing into the past. We lose sight o f it when we believe we have unearthed it in one of our imaginary lives. The subject is in us, here and now - a living, anxious quest for the meaning of each of our gestures and each o f our thoughts. That is why it is never more present in us than when we are in love, for one of the principal meanings of such relationships is the discovery of two subjects by one another, at the heart o f their mutual desire. The subject is borne along by the efforts we make to liberate ourselves from the place assigned us. The most extreme attempt to attain oneself as a subject is to descend into the self, to break all the ties that bind us to what is called reality and spend a Season in Hell, so as to arrive at 'Morning' (penultimate text): 'Quand irons-nous, par-delà les grèves et les monts, saluer la naissance du travail nouveau, la sagesse nouvelle, la fuite des tyrans et des démons, la fin de la superstition, adorer - les premiers! - Noël sur la terre!' 'Le chant des cieux, la marche des peuples! Esclaves, ne maudissons pas la vie.' ('When shall we go beyond the shores and the mountains to acclaim the birth of the new work, the new wisdom, the flight of tyrants and of demons, the end of superstition to adore - the first worshippers! - Christmas on earth!' 'The song of the heavens, the procession o f peoples! Slaves, let us not blaspheme life.') Different images might be superimposed on those of Rimbaud: that of meditation or a dialogue with death. What most troubles those who seek to impart concrete historical content to the idea o f the subject is that this word in itself summons up images of mastery in the first instance. Is not the subject the one who imposes his will on the world, who transforms it in his own image, or who establishes order and laws where chaos and violence obtained? We are still haunted by this image o f the conquering subject, full o f virtii, inherited from the Italian Renaissance. The figure we imagine as the subject o f history is the direct opposite o f the subject of the prince, who is dependent on a master. But these images, which are still present in our collective memory, no longer inspire us with confidence. For two centuries it has not been the triumphant prince who held our attention, but the slave who rebels in the name o f her labour, her people, her gender - to the extent that we recognize the presence o f the subject more where there is lack than where there is abundance. D o not dependency and solitude protect those who endure them against the illusions o f greatness and power? We instinctively look

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for what seems to us most human on the part of the exploited, the scorned, the forgotten. But in this altered situation a representation persists which must likewise be excluded. According to it, the subject is grasped only in real-life situations, with reference to power possessed or endured, in relation to the other, whether friend or enemy, who is always capable o f dictating a vision of the world, be it triumphant or despairing. But it is also by extricating ourselves from all representations o f the subject as agent o f history, as bearer of a society, that we can see the true figure o f the subject emerging - that is, the individual or collective subject who is no longer guided by the values, norms and interests o f society, or by privation, frustration and revolution. But how can those who look outside of themselves, towards power or enemies, succeed in returning to themselves and attaching themselves to a consciousness o f their existence, to the discovery and production o f themselves as the ultimate goal o f their action? We are emerging from an age when history was the subject, sometimes even a piece o f history arbitrarily sliced up in historical time. Thus, we spoke o f industrial society, o f the Soviet revolution or regime, as real characters. A n d in a transitional phase I myself referred to the historical subject, whereas now I only want to speak of the personal subject (which in no way reduces it to individual cases). We were incapable of talking o f the personal subject, and understanding our culture's return to the search for the self, when we were imprisoned in this anthropomorphic or even theomorphic approach to history; and classical sociology placed a further obstacle in our path by treating society as a character, of the same kind as the jurists are fond of calling the legislator. This personalization o f historical epochs had a predominant influence until the First World War. Thereafter, the scale o f the destruction and death caused by wars and dictatorships, the presence on every continent of concentration and extermination camps, and mass killings - all this makes it difficult, in fact impossible, to discern a human face amid the ruins. During the second half of the twentieth century, above all in the rich West, we have sometimes had the impression of once again being thrust into historical complexes similar to those of the years before 1914. But globalization renders attempts to isolate a type o f society (or even civil society), and to describe it as the fruit o f rational debates and choices made by virtue o f the procedures established by a constitution, illusory. A t a time when war to the death is raging between Israelis and Palestinians, when the United States has suffered the terrorist attack of 11 September 2001 and then invaded Iraq, and when Africa is breaking up under the blows o f poverty and internal wars, can we conceive the new century in terms of a step towards a type o f society? I n fact, since the beginning of the First World War we have ceased to be defined by history.

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The negation of the subject During this phase of decomposition o f our historicity, o f our place in history and our ability to define ourselves with categories derived from society, political life or economics, critical functionalism, impregnated with Marxism, which everywhere detected the operation o f a form o f domination behind the values o f society, enjoyed its moment o f glory. A n d in fact, during the long decades of the Cold War, and again after 11 September 2001, there seemed to be no free space between submission to American interests and total solidarity with their enemies. Categories like liberalism, socialism, democracy, social movement, and reform have been eliminated or construed in a sense contrary to that given them by their inventors. A n d in fact the most rejected, scorned and distorted idea was that of the subject. I n the name of the (incontestable) observation that scientific knowledge had progressed from Copernicus to Darwin, and from Marx to Freud, by discovering laws that are those o f systems, and which contradict consciousness and subjectivity, a determinist ideology became established wherein behaviour is simply the reflection of a lived situation and a domination endured. We thus had imposed on us the image o f a world without actors, since the latter could now only intervene by aggravating the contradictions of the system o f domination. History was abolished in a quasi-religious sacrificial approach - the only possible expression o f the dominated, the exploited and the manipulated. In these long years, when war, terrorism and radical critique seemed the only possible forms of historical action, few individuals and groups sought to defend the idea that the political system remained open and that democracy and respect for rights were real issues. Then, gradually, the hunting down o f the subject subsided, so crying was the intellectual and political impotence o f the hunters. But it was not so much some people's reflection as self-assertion by new social movements that restored life to the idea of the subject. In the 1960s, above all in the United States and France, culture invaded politics. The production of the self was identified less with work and more with sexuality and interpersonal relations. Since 1968 I have myself placed the personal subject more firmly at the heart of my thinking and analysis. A n d during the early years o f the new century, I have focused my efforts on the recognition o f women as the main agents of the return o f the subject - and hence o f the alteration in our culture, which has made a transition from the conquest of the world to the quest for the self. This historical sketch would be perilous i f it suggested that the ideas presented here correspond to a precise moment in history. Likewise, the break with functionalism and with a purely critical vision of society, and, more broadly, with all philosophies of history, could lead us in directions

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other than the one I have chosen to take - in particular, to a consumerist individualism or to an ego nourished by biology and psychotherapy, in short, an ego far removed from what I call the subject. Individualism is triumphing over collective engagements on all sides, but what distinguishes the theme of the subject from other approaches to contemporary individualism is similar to what separates the study of social movements from economic interpretations of collective action. Much obscurity and misunderstanding seems to surround the notion of the subject as I conceive it. This always surprises me when I meet with it. Are we not used to observing that individuals or interests bear within them, on a long- or short-term basis, a higher act, word and meaning? A n d do we not from time to time learn that obscure individuals, who might be unknowns, all of a sudden find themselves illuminated by the light projected onto them by the higher cause of which they become the witnesses or defenders? Someone who has run great risks in the service of a moral, political or social cause is a figure of the subject, but a simple witness can be as well. A n d it little matters that these individuals, once the moment of illumination has passed, fade into the shadows. On the other hand, someone who is the bearer of a higher sense o f action cannot be totally unaware of the fact. He knows his exemplary nature, even i f he seeks to escape it. How do we recognize the presence of the subject in an individual or collectivity? By the engagement of the individual or the group in the service of the image of what seems to be their raison d'être, their duty, their hope. Their raison d'être, for the idea of creation or self-creation is ever present. Their duty, because the figure of the subject establishes its pre-eminence over all the other aspects of personal or collective life. Their hope, because the latter is the counterpart o f creation. He who becomes a subject reascends towards himself, towards what gives meaning to his life, what creates his freedom, his responsibility and his hope. These terms might certainly be replaced by others, but there cannot be great differences between one figure of the subject and another. Is it artificial to look everywhere for such figures, defined here in terms so elevated that they might appear idealized? A n d why should forms of behaviour regarded as the most positive, or those that inspire respect, be more rare or less robust than other types of behaviour? For the analysis to remain balanced, the best thing is to adopt the clear distinction made by François Dubet between three components of experience - pursuit of interest, adherence to a group and its norms, and the behaviour o f the subject - while specifying that each of these categories has a negative equivalent. Corresponding to the pursuit of interest is the destruction o f the interests of others. Opposed to adherence to a group is rejection of the other, whether an individual or a group. Contrasting with the behaviour

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of the subject is the refusal of the subject, which is expressed in particular in racism - and which can extend to the actor herself. Those who see in social life nothing but instruments of a form of domination, and perceive only victims where I see actors, reject in principle the type of analysis I am conducting in this chapter. But such a position is, in reality, extreme and scarcely tenable. Conversely, is it necessary to remind ourselves that virtues do not surmount all obstacles and do not possess the same effectiveness in all situations? Having defined the general characteristics o f the subject, we must obviously take account o f the specificity of each historical situation, for the idea of progress, or of universal peace, or o f the individual who wins her freedom and her responsibility, corresponds to a specific social type and historical situation. But let us not lose sight of the essential point: in each type o f society there exists a non-social foundation of social order and, as a result, forms of behaviour that aim at an objective which is likewise defined in nonsocial terms and which I have often called meta-social. This proposition is simply the logical continuation of the 'end o f the social' noted in Part One o f this book. This behaviour lakes different forms depending on whether it involves the actor herself, her interpersonal relations, or her commitment to a collective goal or against an opponent. They may or may not be determined by behaviour of other kinds; and they can also be combined with very different feelings and attitudes. However that may be, the general features of the kinds o f behaviour that reveal the subject are to be found everywhere, at all levels and in all situations. Do they involve heroic conduct, forms o f sainthood or self-sacrifice? The error induced by such images is not so much that they lead to an exclusive focus on exceptional cases, which invariably approximate to selfsacrifice. What is arbitrary is to forget that the highest forms o f behaviour are always combined with others, of a lower level, but whose presence is more obvious. N o individual or group is entirely a subject. It is always more accurate to say: 'There is something of the subject in such behaviour or such an individual.' But it is only by bringing out the different figures of the subject and forms o f subjectification that we can achieve an accurate knowledge of social relations, whereas too often the only things highlighted are the constraints people endure, destructive failures, the powerlessness imposed in the name of force or the general interest. A sociology of actors cannot exist i f the world is populated by victims trapped in false consciousness. I can already hear the objection. I am elaborating a 'liberal' concept, well attuned to our age, whereas the stress on economic structures and forms of domination corresponded more closely to a society still inflamed by the major class conflicts specific to industrial society. This observation

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cannot be ignored, even i f it barely conceals a social determinism of ideas that actually reduces them all to nothing but ideologies. I n fact, in the era of the welfare state and social democracy, alongside apparatus ideologies (socialist or Communist), certain social movements, currents of ideas, community efforts already contained a figure of the subject. Today, when the neo-liberal model is everywhere triumphant, we do indeed witness the flourishing of an ideology that I have always contested, which would have the market be the master of everything. But a new figure o f the subject is also taking shape, which, more than the preceding one, is defined in terms of consciousness and projects. I n every epoch we encounter both figures of the subject and forces or organizations that destroy it.

A related note In our contemporary societies, it is the world o f the media that most persistently distorts and manipulates the subject present in each individual. I have already made the point: it does so by separating the image from the lived, the face from the body. This world o f images detached from bodies, objects, even landscapes is quite different from the world o f ideologies and myths, as conceived by nineteenth- and twentieth-century intellectuals. What their words referred to was constructs, functioning to conceal a form of power and exploitation, to impose a discourse whose continuity masked ruptures and conflicts. Most often, this involved them rendering a form of economic domination invisible. A n d various superstructures or elements of everyday life were indeed in the service o f the ruling class and the institutions that protected it. Today's world of images does not appeal to any hidden power. I t does not seek to open up what must not be known or understood. Indeed, it can only develop because the old world o f myths has been emptied of its 'objective' content, to the point where it is reduced to interpretations produced by intellectuals who make do with referring to a form o f domination or exploitation that is so ill-defined as to be as readily detectable as the rainbow behind the rain. I f this debate is important, it is precisely because it involves the issue o f ideology and therefore cannot help to clarify what opposes two ways o f seeing things. On the one side, forms o f behaviour are explained by the ruses of power, which transfers explanation towards an economic and political order that is very remote from actors, who for their part are imprisoned in false consciousness. On the other, counterposed to the world of images manipulated by the media is the living, concrete individual, who feels deprived of the meaning of his experience and projects. One side ascends to the economic system and its structure; the other descends

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to the intensely present subject, where he feels stripped o f a sense o f himself. This critique of the media has often been formulated, but it is rarer for examples to be given o f the media construction of images that are in open contradiction with what can be observed. It is not that opportunities are wanting. Have not the media created an image of youth in the suburbs? From such problem areas there supposedly emanates a hatred o f society and an ever more fanatical Islamism - at all events, a fundamental hostility towards Israel. The studies recently carried out under the direction o f Michel Wieviorka in different disadvantaged towns or neighbourhoods have shown how far removed from reality this view o f things actually is. The subject, as it emerges in many parts of the world, is reducible neither to embodying hope in a redemptive progress, nor to representing a desire for help to be given to all those affected by the logic o f domination. I t finally achieves freedom and transparency through the most direct relationship o f self to self, which is made possible, even dictated, by modernity, and which takes shape i n sexuality in particular. This movement o f reversion to the self that constructs the subject in fact begins in the most intimate dimension o f the individual, in his relationship to his own body and, more precisely, to his sexual body. This is because the sexual organs, unlike other parts o f the body (aside from the brain), contain life, the capacity for reproduction, which means that they are never a pure means. I n this connection, let us recall that the formation of the subject becomes impossible i f sex is consigned to an empty space bereft of meaning, as is the case with pornography, which can certainly answer to a curiosity but very rapidly becomes destructive by effacing the person. The subject is equally destroyed by passion when it sweeps the individual away, like a tornado destroying dwellings. It remains to follow the often long and winding road that leads from the sexual organs, via affective relations, to sexuality. I f the latter does not sink into passion, sexual relations and shared desire make it possible for the return to occur. But it is always through the transformation o f sex into sexuality, of life into creation, and into discovery of the other that the subject is constituted. The subject does not have to pass through sexuality in order to emerge. But it is invariably, and ever more noticeably, by this route that the return to the self occurs. This approach is as remote from the idealism that would have human beings directed by higher forces and ideals superior to human volition, as it is from the materialism o f the id, the libido, which identifies in the clash between the id and the law, or in the invasion o f psychic life by desire, the primary force creating the personality. The development of ideas and practices has been so rapid that it is easy today for each person to fill these general formulas with lived experiences,

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with already formulated demands - and even with techniques for searching for the self that are often borrowed from spiritual traditions. But the meaning of this reflection will only become altogether clear in the following chapter, when the idea will be presented that it is in struggles for cultural rights that the return o f the self to the self, from which the figure of the subject emerges, occurs most successfully.

The subject, social movements and the unconscious The notion o f social movement has been so frequently abused, and even prostituted itself so many times, parading on the military front or feasting in the caches o f the secret services, that it seems impossible to attach a precise meaning to it. However that may be, the central role occupied by social movements in the specifically 'social' model of development leads us today to recognize their decline and, above all, their betrayal prior to their death, lamented more by the powerful and the rich than by the exploited and excluded. But how can we stop at this righteous anger against so many activists turned policemen, particularly in the Communist countries? I f the dark side of the social movements is that of society, the bright side is that o f modernity. They stand in fact on the side of reason against the arbitrariness o f power, but above all on the side o f the universal rights of the individual. I n any conflict and social movement, we can hear an appeal to equality, freedom, justice and respect for all. These words are not the dazzling cover that masks intrigues, interest groups and betrayals. They emerge from the conflict as lava flows from a volcano, amid the black stones that attest to earlier eruptions. Those who have not forgotten the meaning of words employ 'social movement' only when it refers to a break at the same time as the assertion of one's dignity and the will to reappropriate the products of industrialization. We have identified these breaks and outpourings in the great working-class insurrections - in particular, in the strikes o f 1913, 1936, and 1947 and 1948, to cite only France. We felt its presence in May 1968 in Paris, in the 1970s at the heart of the movement for black civil rights and against the Vietnam War in the United States. We have also felt its presence in more remote places - in Salvador Allende's struggle in Chile, in the action of the Zapatistas in Chiapas in Mexico, and above all in the Poland of Solidarity. This exigency, present in social movements and exceeding any strategy and tactics, is also to be found in strikes, protests, rebellions and Utopias that briefly cause a land seemingly so tightly controlled by the forces of order to tremble. There is no subject who does not suffer from the misfortune of others, who does not recognize the social movement when it exists, even when it

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is concealed by strategies of power or competition. I n this respect modernity employs strong, appropriate words - those engraved on marble or granite in cemeteries and heritage sites, for often the cry o f rebellion launched on 2 May is only heard on 3 May, execution day for the maquis. Often the cry of men and women full o f hope and covered in wounds is not heard by anyone in prisons, any more than it is in the concentration or extermination camps. In as much as it carries the subject on its shoulders, so that it can see further than the crowd, a social movement is never visible in the pure state. It is like a soldier in the trenches or a kid singing on a barricade. Likewise, the subject borne by a social movement is encountered more readily at twilight, at dusk, than in the midday sun; more readily in hospitals and cemeteries than in the salons o f the government or opposition. For social movements do not seek to be integrated into society, but to preserve the distance that separates the subject and its rights from the social machinery and its mechanisms of self-control. The subject, whether or not borne along by a social movement, manifests itself in the consciousness of the actor. We can no more speak of unconscious adherence to a social movement than o f unconscious religious beliefs. But this manifestation in consciousness does not signify that the subject or social movement is wholly in the consciousness of the actor. In the first instance, this is because the presence of the subject is always covered, and even hidden, by other levels of reading o f forms o f behaviour and attitudes. I t is easier to defend a wage or to demand an improvement in working hours than to be conscious of the presence of a struggle of wider import. Even i f the latter exists in the minds of the people concerned, it will have to be detached from other types of expression and demand in order to be clearly perceived. In general, it is historical events that reveal the existence o f a conflict, of actors, and what is at stake in the contest. Thus, tensions with the Islamic world have led some women to adopt extreme anti-Islamic feminist positions, which were certainly latent but which they had not had occasion to formulate so sharply. But we must go further: contemporary wealthy societies bathe in an ideology o f ever more intensive and diversified consumption. A n d just as repressive thinking suppresses the pursuit of pleasure, our society represses or hides the presence o f the subject. The desire to be a subject must be tracked in the unconscious. A n d it is not arbitrary to believe that human beings, because they can reflect on themselves and express their thoughts with words, need to give an explanation of their consciousness o f themselves. This explanation has often taken a religious form. It has sometimes borrowed the language o f a philosophy of history. But it is also a more direct summons o f self to self, which leads to a splitting in two: when I

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say me, I posit the existence o f an I that recognizes the I , which can only be done by combining the conscious and the unconscious. I t is what seeks to find the subject who can become one of the Fs and thus enable the individual or group concerned to conceive themselves consciously as an I , as a subject. The latter is not positioned above the individual, like a sign o f the presence o f God or the spirit. On the contrary, the subject is below social being, not above it. I t is the recognition o f the singularity of each individual who wishes to be treated as a being o f right. There is no discovering the subject without a 'self-examination' that descends below consciousness. A sociology o f the subject therefore cannot simply run through history from one summit to the next. Quite the reverse, it seeks to bring out in each person their capacity to impart meaning to their own behaviour. Should we simply say that the subject, when it is not conscious, is to be found in the pre-conscious and, in particular, that it is potentially present and conscious in an individual or group, or even a social category? Certainly not. The subject withdraws into the unconscious. Should we say that it is repressed there? No, because it is not a super-ego that bars the route but the opposite - everydayness, the norms of public life, the urgency o f practical decisions, the intensity o f emotions, and the pursuit o f interest or o f the solution to a difficult problem. The subject seems covered up by the banality o f the ego and its situations, as a book is covered by the sand of a dune and can no longer be found, because it has no communication with the sand covering it, perhaps with a very fine layer but one that reveals nothing o f the buried object. This would explain why in our lives the subject is mostly absent, as i f it were unknown. But the real situation is very different. The absence o f the subject in the conscious world definitely leaves a trace. I n a simple case, this might be a guilty conscience or vague anxiety about not having behaved as one should have done, o f having closed one's eyes to suffering, or o f having closed one's ears so as not to hear a complaint or appeal. Here the subject is confined to the poorly marked boundary between the unconscious and the preconscious. But when the subject is plunged into the unconscious, it cannot re-ascend to consciousness by itself. Its bearer must be hailed, blamed; a consciousness must be counterposed to its unconsciousness. I t is invariably the situation itself that shatters the routine of consciousness and the slumber o f the pre-conscious. For example, the repression o f a dream or of a demonstration and the blood spilt all o f a sudden reveal that interests and passions were in play which go far beyond the consciousness of lived experience. In fact, we often have the impression o f walking on the ice of a frozen lake, of being in danger o f falling into the cold water because at some unforeseeable point the less thick ice will crack.

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The fragility of experience is felt by many as a form o f religious sentiment, on the part o f the one who feels that she is not what she lives and even feels the presence and absence of faith in her. This same fragility is felt by civil or military combatants who know that their life is i n danger and look for support to what seems to them to be most solid: themselves. Can the analyst bring out the subject buried in the actor? I can answer in the affirmative, for I have had the experience. The method o f sociological intervention, developed and practised for thirty years, which was first set out in The Voice and the Eye (1978), is in fact precisely defined by this wish to discover the subject at the base o f individuals or groups through the researcher's active intervention. The latter, once she is familiar with the group being studied and has assembled actors engaged in a collective action as a group, develops what she regards as the most favourable hypothesis about the actors - that is, what seems to her to approximate most closely to the subject. A t a certain point, which represents the heart of the research, she presents her hypothesis to the group, while stressing her conviction that this collective action is much more important than the actors themselves think. The hypothesis is willingly taken over by the group since it accords them great importance. For as long as possible, the researcher (or researchers) accompany the group's reflective efforts. I f the hypothesis is correct, the reflection and action o f the group emerge from it strengthened; i f it is false, it introduces illusions, false consciousness, contradictions in the statements of the actors, and the researcher will have to recognize her error. This work must be carried out for as long as possible, which is only justified i f the noblest hypothesis is well founded and i f it provokes i n the actors a 'realization', constantly encouraged by researchers who will multiply the interpretations that seem to them most liable to connect the real actors placed in concrete situations with the subject and its issues. The diversity o f techniques of sociological investigation, and possibly a growing interest in research that studies present or future concrete forms of behaviour, have probably prevented many from realizing that sociological intervention is very different from other types o f investigation. It seeks above all to isolate and define precise opinions, attitudes, forms o f behaviour - in other words, corresponding to the observable acts o f the people questioned. The closer the investigation to the ego, the greater its chances of furnishing useful information. Intervention, as its name suggests, assigns the central role to the researcher. Underlying the complexity o f forms o f behaviour and situations, she seeks and finds the highest signification that could be identified thanks to the intervention itself. Without pretending to introduce a comparison that would be crushing for her, the role of the researcher who 'intervenes' is closer to that o f the psychoanalyst than o f the investigator, even i f the two approaches - that

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of the psychoanalyst in the intervention and that o f the researcher - are different, even opposed. Such a contrast must, moreover, be regarded as positive, since it corresponds to that between two problematics. There is no cause to speak of the subject in the exploration o f the personality. Just as the super-ego and the id are clearly sketched in Freudian thought, so the ego itself remains vague. We meet with this in all definitions of the ego, and psychoanalytic explanation consists in understanding forms o f behaviour and symptoms, and hence in going back to the history of the personality, to its deviations, and to what it represses. There is no more cause to summon the subject when it is a question of explaining social behaviour: here too forms o f behaviour are construed as symptoms of membership o f some particular group or social category, or the desire to belong to it, and hence to conceptions o f the integration and transformation of society. However, it is unnecessary to refer to an approach that occupies such a dominant position in the sociology treatises and manuals. I refer to the 'subject' only because I situate before the social order, and outside the dynamic of personality, the representation by human beings themselves of their own capacity for creation, reflection and evaluation. I accept that forms o f behaviour are considered to be social when they can be regarded as so many responses to a social position. But forms o f behaviour defined by their orientation towards a figure of the subject - that is, of freedom, equality and creation - are of a different kind. I t is here that we encounter religions, social movements, political and cultural, and in particular in the domain of arts everything that evokes the relation o f human beings to themselves through which they form value judgements. The approach I am adopting here is therefore remote only from one part of sociology, whose importance decreases as the architectural image o f society blurs. I hope that this approach will contribute to renewing the interest o f sociologists in religious phenomena, social movements and the artistic world. For there are increasingly few who believe that modernity consists solely in bringing about the triumph o f rationalization and secularization; and, consequently, in causing movements, hopes and creations that supposedly only really existed in the night o f old societies to wane like old moons.

Proximity Much more positive and important is the relationship between the sociology of the subject that I am proposing and the school o f those who, setting out from the same starting-point, have posed a very different question

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from mine: how can we reconstruct the social bond, the Bindung (to use the German word that best corresponds to this line o f inquiry and which, for this reason, is most often used)? N o one seriously intends to reject the individualism that is at the heart of contemporary culture, apart from those who desire an authoritarian regime. But many sociologists seek to understand it. The subtitle of François de Singly's book Les uns avec les autres attests to the fact: 'Quand l'individualisme crée du lien'. Refusing both an extreme individualism and a communitarianism that is even more dangerous than the evil it wishes to fight, this school intent upon reconstructing the social bond has discovered and defended the idea that individualism and the social bond, far from being opposed, are complementary, indispensable to one another. To summarize the argument in a few words: the individual is constructed as such, acquires self-esteem, only to the extent that he receives favourable images o f himself from members o f the local community to which he belongs. This line o f thinking is inspired by George Herbert Mead's theory of the self, which sees the self as the internalization o f the images that others have of it, images which are positive i f they all create and defend positive social bonds, a sense o f shared belonging, and belief in everyone's responsibility in the individuation o f each person. This idea, which is very far removed from the communitarianism that is a response to a feeling of social exclusion, is nourished by the defence of the individuation of each person as the end of social exchanges and methods of management. The role of the Catholic Church, which is more active in Italy than other European countries, might explain the sensitivity o f Italian thinkers Franco Crespi in particular - to this search for the construction of social bonds based on respect for everyone's individuality. I t is an idea that leads to the even more central theme of recognition, which Axel Honneth in Germany has made the focus of his thinking. It is the recognition o f the other as such that makes communication and even integration possible. This is opposed to the classical but empty image of the transcendence of individual interests required to ensure a collective bond. We can easily see why German thinkers are so actively engaged in an intellectual movement that expels the monsters which have convulsed Germany and the world. This kind o f thinking, which is spreading in Great Britain as much as in Germany and Italy, and has representatives of the highest calibre everywhere, defends the idea that the individual, in order to be a subject, needs to be recognized by others. This presupposes the attachment of them all to social and political organization, because the main goal of the latter is the recognition o f each person as a subject by the rest. This is a great image of democracy, which does not boil down to the protection o f liberties and the pursuit of equality, or even to a will to justice, but assigns priority to the freedom, the responsibility and hence the singularity of each person.

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For such sociologists, as for me, what is involved is prioritizing an individualism that is opposed to democracy defined by the participation of all in the society created by the will o f all, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau conceived it, and which historically has more often yielded the worst outcomes rather than the best. The contrast between the two ways o f thinking consists in the fact that I do not believe in the reciprocity between individual and collective. On the contrary, I stress the force o f the subject who is predominantly oriented towards herself, even in the case o f the amorous relationship, because the relation to the other can never be completely freed from a social content - that is, a definition of actors i n terms that distance them from the quest for the subject. We can wish for a community o f free individuals, but faced with a social organization invaded by the market, war and violence, it is necessary to preserve the independence of the subject even i f entails a certain solitude: the solitude of resistance fighters being pursued; of the lover always uncertain o f the response that awaits her; o f the inventor and researcher who must step off the beaten track; o f the adolescent who learns to leave behind the place that has been prepared for her and recreate the environment she opts for. The prudent thing is not to choose between these two approaches, but to recognize the need to create, against a bureaucratic, authoritarian organization, relations o f reciprocity and mutual recognition, and to feel with the same strength the need for the subject to construct itself, to give priority to discovering itself. This can never be fully combined with a process o f social integration, but demands communication with 'neighbours'. The theme of self-esteem prompts an ambivalent reaction in me. For the recognition of the other is indispensable to the creation of a space of freedom. A t the same time, however, power and violence can never be completely kept on the margins o f our experience o f life. Accordingly, in order to survive, the subject must always attack or eliminate the domination it suffers. I have distanced myself from purely critical, denunciatory sociologies. But my reservations about all theories o f integration and participation are just as great.

The subject and religion I f the subject is an increasingly direct relationship o f self to self in the most modern societies, it derives from the internalization of a creative, meaning-endowing principle. This had hitherto been external to human experience, projected into a transcendent realm separate from the human world or already established in it, where the subject does not yet appear directly, but is only embodied in the Utopian image o f the perfect city, in the appeal to an ideal society, delivered from sin and competing interests.

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This subject projected outside o f itself, converted into a religious principle, speaks before us, outside of us, and pronounces the meaning o f our lived existence. But the 'objectification' of the subject, because it occurs in societies that still have little sense of their own creativity, their 'historicity', is separated from human experience by the density of the institutions that give it a form - a form which is not that o f our everyday life, but not that of the subject either. These two opposed and complementary realities are still melded with one another in the world o f the community. It is when modernity announces itself that a separation occurs, which will go on widening: a separation between the world of the subject, on the one hand, projected and externalized in an image o f the divine, but which tends towards internalization in the human subject; and the universe of the sacred, on the other, controlled by Churches and clerics through institutions and practices. This contrast between the divine and the sacred, between the subject projected outside itself into a figure of transcendence and the creation of a world protected by prohibitions and by its monopoly on the human world's communication with the divine world, is at the heart of the religious phenomenon. The divine is remote from the human world but gives it its meaning, whereas the sacred creates a barrier that allows clerics to speak in the name of the divine and to regulate communication between the faithful and the divine. The closer one gets to modernity, the more the sacred enters into the temporal world, to the point o f becoming confused with a power that thereby receives a higher legitimacy. There is a constant risk of confusing the subject with the ideological and institutional construction o f a figure of the sacred, lodged at the heart o f a religion and, more concretely, o f a Church. The opposition between them is that o f the two contrasting faces of the religious phenomenon. The distance of the subject from itself means that it is nearly always projected, outside the reach of individuals, into a transcendence that takes various historical forms. It needs to be made clear at once that this involves what are called modern societies, in contrast to non-modern communities (which are sometimes to be found embedded in modern societies), defined (as Louis Dumont puts it) by their holism - that is, the interdependence o f all their elements, each o f them being the manifestation of a higher subjectivity, a god or founding myth, a future project, a return to origins or the more general presence o f a sacredness that demands sacrifices. I t is when communitarian sacredness breaks up that the transcendence o f a subject is asserted. But at the same time a social sacred is formed - the creation of a power and resources of a socially clearly defined space and time, but which are above all identified as sacred. The divine does not always involve the presence of a personal god - far from it. The most evident fact even is that the more the subject is projected

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by weak, powerless human beings into a remote divine dimension, the more the spaces and institutions of the sacred are reinforced and strengthened. I n contrast, the divine approaches the human world through the voice o f the prophets. When Jesus appears and the Christian religion is constituted, the cultural whole is turned upside down. God becomes man, which prepares for and partially realizes the internalization o f the subject in the individual, whereas the sacred space is roughly handled by the direct encounter between God and human beings realized by the existence of Christ. A n omnipotent God can then become a God o f love. But the world of the sacred and the religious institutions that administered it are rapidly reinforced, to the point where they establish a threatening politico-religious power, but one which is no less o f an obstacle to the creation o f a theocracy. N o t only does it not destroy faith, but the latter remains, through prayer, mystical rapture and miracles, in direct communication with God. Marcel Gauchet was correct to consider that Christianity marked the end o f the religious universe. Modernity therefore does not introduce the replacement o f religious thinking by instrumental rationality and secularization. It is always two-sided: rationalization and the creation o f moral individualism. Neither o f them has the capacity to put an end to the world of the sacred, notwithstanding the efforts of some religious reformers. But nor is the subject destroyed by utilitarianism or by the authoritarianism of the Churches. I t is transformed, in particular, through the idea o f natural law, into an increasingly self-creative movement of the subject, which was embodied above all in Christianity before increasing its capacity for integration and diversification. A different reading o f this duality of the divine and the sacred might be suggested which perceives the subject in the attempt to reappropriate the divine that constitutes the sacred on which collectivities can act. This creates a link between the social and the divine, wherein we recognize religion, which is the domain o f communication between the human world and the beyond. But this is the discourse o f the religious institution, for it is Churches that administer - and this is their raison d'être - communications between the social world and the sacred world, which is at once at its heart and above it. I t is therefore appropriate to stick with the original formulation, with the idea that the subject discloses itself in its projection outside of society, in frequent rupture with the administration of the sacred, which is always associated with that of a power. This is an operation that dominates (and above all has dominated) much o f the current world and, in the Christian West for example, created what Jean Delumeau called Christendom - that is, a community and a complex defined by a way of administering the sacred, when Christianity itself is defined by a rupturing of religion, since the texts of the Gospels, whatever the histor-

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ical conditions of their composition, mark a shattering break between the social and the divine, and equally between religious institutions and the figure of Jesus. God, become Man-God, is transformed into an instance of appeal, more moral than sacred, against the social order and against the institutions that put him to death. The sacralization of power, imperial or royal in particular, did not long prevent secularization - that is, the separation of the social and the sacred. It liberated a space of transcendence where the divine shone and was lived as an inner, intimate light, permitting a direct, prophetic mystical communication or possession between the divine and an individual as socially undefined as possible. The more secularization progresses, the more the world of the sacred contracts and becomes specialized and the closer the divine comes to us, to the point of being redefined historically without thereby renouncing the transcendence without which it would be lost in an ideology in the service of power (refusing, where necessary, to define itself in religious terms). This is a process that has dominated our modernity through the deification of the Absolutist monarchy, and then the overthrow of the latter by the nation in arms, the progress of industry and the dictatorship of the proletariat, or nationalist ideologies. The subject is ever less divine, but it increasingly risks becoming lost in secularization - and even becoming an ideological weapon in the service of an extreme nationalism. Conversely, great has been the temptation in some periods to conceive a purely materialist world - that is, one ruled by interest and pleasure. Each of the great breakthroughs of capitalism - that is, actions carried out to abolish all controls on and regulation of economic activity by social, political, religious or patrimonial decision-makers whose ends are foreign to economic rationality - has issued in a strengthening of materialism. The latter, moreover, is not wanting in attractions in so far as the defence of pure rationality, of what Nietzsche called 'English thinking', is readily combined with a comprehensive critique of the arbitrariness of princes or a protest against privileges and superfluous luxury. Materialist thought flourished most in eighteenth-century Europe and again during the second half of the twentieth century, when economic activity, freed from the constraints imposed by totalitarian regimes or the reformist voluntarism of social democrats, sought to extend to the whole of social life forms of reasoning that were useful for a knowledge of economic activity. But this materialist current, however imposing, has never been able genuinely to appear as the terminus of a historical evolution that would have done once and for all, albeit gradually, with the choice of values. N o society is ever completely defined as a society of merchants where, to adopt the classical opposition proposed by Albert Hirschman, the interests would have abolished the passions. Still less have the latter succeeded in getting shot o f the

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former. A n d the twentieth century seems to have ended with the exhaustion o f commercial thinking. To refer to secularization and the disenchantment of the world, as i f we were witnessing with modernity the triumph o f instrumental reason, calculation and interest, is inadequate. I t would be more accurate to talk o f an internalization o f the subject that allows the transcendent world to enter into historical time and institutional space. Such is the main ambiguity of modernity. I t has encouraged moral individualism and the idea o f human rights, relayed by Enlightenment philosophy. But it has also been used by those who aspired to the sacralization of political power and society. The conflict that opposes these two interpretations to society has often been masked by the fact that the formation of the national and republican state occurred under the auspices o f human rights and a civic religion that ended up in the anti-religious persecutions of the Terror. I n the same way, the construction of Communist dictatorships was effected in the name o f the rights and dignity of the workers - a process that irresistibly evokes the accumulation of wealth and privilege by the Catholic Church or by others in the name o f the evangelical model. Today, we are witnessing the undermining o f religious institutions and the assertion o f less institutionalized expressions o f religious sentiment. Faith and belief in a party, a Church, a nation and so forth are quitting the scene, and membership of society loses its communitarian force. I t is communitarianism itself that attracts the crowds. Society is no longer sacralized; the sacred therefore once again clings to communities. We thus find facing each other emotions o f a religious type, open to the outside world, approaching symbols o f universalisai, and sacralized communities, above all when they define themselves by natural roots: ethnicity, language, and so forth. Such a separation between appeals to the divine subject and management o f the economy and institutions results in individualizing the relation of the subject to itself and rendering it more intimate, more passionate. Meanwhile, the world o f the sacred is reduced to the instruments of power and draws from them neither the capacity to generate affective reactions, nor the requisite strength to inspire a debate in which ideas would have a major mobilizing force.

The subject and the school In order to avoid any moralistic representation of the subject, it is high time we observed it in concrete social situations, seeking its way amid other logics o f action, often rejected for contradictory reasons, but finally imposing its presence. I t is to the school that we must first of all turn, because it involves a sector o f social life where not only ideas but choices made by

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teachers themselves, and above all by the parents of pupils who are convinced that choice of school has profound and lasting effects on their children's whole life, confront one another. But i f this theme can be broached with a certain serenity in some quarters, that has certainly not been the case in France, where two or more school systems have been in confrontation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The French case is of especial interest, in as much as the clash of ideologies has resulted in a veritable war between the secular school and the Catholic school. Following a century of confrontation, a law incorporated most private teaching into a major public service of national education, while recognizing private schools' freedom to organize. I n order to understand the issue clearly, we must first of all turn our attention to the notion of secularism. Secularism was and is an essential component of what can be called the republican spirit - that is, the discovery of criteria for evaluating individuals and institutions in terms of the common good, the public interest, patriotism, dominant social norms, and also of the rationality of knowledge. N o t all its defenders have conceived secularism in these terms, but this republican conception has had - and retains - considerable influence. This redefinition of good and evil by social usefulness or harmfulness, by awareness or indifference with respect to the duties of each citizen towards his local or national collectivity, was counterposed to a conception of society founded on traditional authorities and religious beliefs. The debate had concrete stakes: who was going to form the ruling elites - the Catholic Church or the republican school? Here we encounter the preoccupations of Jules Ferry and the main founders of the secular school. Is there any need to recall that in France this ideological conflict took an extreme turn with the Dreyfus Affair, launched by a combination of Catholicism and a nationalism extending to anti-Semitism, which led the army to forge evidence and have one of its officers unjustly deported, provoking an impassioned and ultimately victorious reaction on the part of the Dreyfusards? The separation of Church and state issued in France in the sacralization of the political field. But i f the principle of secularism must be entirely accepted, this does not oblige us to accept the 'republican' spirit - that is, the limitation of the school's remit to preparing pupils for social, professional and national life. A modern society drastically reduces much of its creativity, but also its realism, i f it does not combine a rational spirit with knowledge of the personal, psychological and social history of each individual, and with openness to the personal subject who nurtures herself on a collective history and memory, on the origins of religious thought as well as on struggles to overthrow social, national and sexual forms of domination. Just as rationalism must be accepted in a society for it to be modern, so, far from residing over and above the other components of collective

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and individual life, it must be involved in all aspects of human experience, including those most resistant to it. Thus, schools should not put the child in the service of society and should not be a pure place of learning either. On the contrary, they should be a place for forming social actors and, more profoundly still, personal subjects. Schools cannot expel religion, sexuality, political commitments and cultural traditions to the sphere o f private life. But it is true that they must at the same time instil respect for the superiority o f citizenship over forms o f communitarianism. Because the boundary between this openness and the enforced limits is never easy to establish, mechanisms for reflecting, deliberating and arriving at decisions must be established within school and university establishments. The difficulties o f the task do not render it any less indispensable. The important thing is that in each instance one should seek the optimal compromise between the diversity of cultures and personalities and the institutional guarantees o f the two foundations o f modernity: rationalism and the defence o f personal rights. France today has opted primarily to assert its refusal o f communitarianism; that is its right and it seems to be the correct choice. But it must now open itself up much more to the public expression of the most varied beliefs and cultures, as well as to the unique characteristics of each individual. I f the political order has the power to define the rules of social life and enforce respect for them, it often allots the direction of private life to the vanquished religious spirit. I f religious references have thus disappeared from public life, in general there survives a tolerance whereby, in nonexplicit fashion, republican morality restricts itself to what concerns public life. Such is the compromise: to the law, public life; to religion, traditions and individual freedom, private life. But such a compromise is not acceptable for any religion or any spiritual or moral force. I f secularism is defined by its silence on religious or moral forms of thinking, the domain of republican morality is greatly restricted, limited to rendering the cohabitation o f individuals and groups with different practices and beliefs possible. Freedom o f conscience then degenerates into pure tolerance. We must on the contrary introduce the stronger notion of cultural rights. The latter are not respected wherever a state ideology or religion is dominant. But they are equally restricted whenever society regards itself as the source of good and evil and imposes a republican form of thought and morality. Hence the astonishing ignorance in which the pupils o f many countries are kept regarding the history and beliefs of religions, even o f the dominant one among them, and a fortiori of the religious, philosophical and theological positions that have a major influence in remote regions. These ideas are distant enough from those professed by the French secularism inherited from the nineteenth century. But they are no closer to those that impart an awareness o f belonging to a religiously inspired

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society and morality to everyone. The difference between what can be called the American conception and the French conception of education is profound. The American conception is more integrative, since it teaches values and norms at the same time as forms o f knowledge; the French conception tends, on the contrary, to a more intellectualistic model o f teaching, which does not take account o f pupils' personality and their social and cultural situation, in the name o f the wish to treat all pupils in the same way. This conception can be defended on the grounds that it helps the formation o f the subject in the individual, by defining it in abstraction from its concrete social situation - something that can encourage a dynamic o f personal creativity. But this happy outcome predominantly ensues in the case of pupils endowed, for personal or social reasons, with a large capacity for receiving new cultural messages. I t therefore involves an elitist notion, whereas the American conception encourages everyone's integration into a vast middle class. Neither conception really takes account o f those who must switch culture, confront family conflicts, and who submit with difficulty to the rules of educational life. Neither o f them is oriented to the subjectification of children and young people. We must reject the principle, so central in the republican school, according to which schools exist to provide children with a combination o f rational thinking and socialization, excluding what pertains to private life. It is not the intentions o f this educational thinking that must be challenged, but its actual results. The egalitarian distance between teachers and pupils, combined with a definition by the former of their work in terms o f disciplines (mathematics, history, chemistry and so on), in effect favours pupils from the most educated backgrounds and better-off families. Those who come from poor, disadvantaged backgrounds - in particular, as regards mastery o f the national language - find it difficult to overcome the obstacles placed in their way by the educational system, whereas the others are aided by their family and their milieu to find their bearings in the professional world, to make choices, to conceive their future. The choice between intervening or not intervening in such a situation must not be guided by the assertion o f the separation between public life and private life. For it is imperative for the school to take into consideration the conditions in which a child creates an image o f herself and her future. I f the word 'subject' seems too weighty to some people here, they do not have to use it. But let us agree that we are dealing with something other than 'private life' - with the personality, in fact. Sociological research has demonstrated that schools obtain better results when teachers define themselves by their role as 'communicators' with the pupils and with the administrative directors o f the school, and not simply by their professional role as 'teachers' o f biology or history.

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When teachers shelter behind their discipline to confront pupils with whom communication has broken down or who are hostile, the results are bad. The importance of factors in educational success that are internal to the school has been demonstrated by François Dubet, who has thus distanced himself from a long tradition representing the school as a black box whose outcomes were entirely determined by the origin o f pupils, prior to their entry into the school. Schools must examine themselves as to their own role, in particular in educational failure. What must above all be stressed are the obstacles encountered by children from immigrant families who possess no cultural capital. These children have few possibilities of social advance, especially now that the 'social ladder' is broken.

The experience of being a subject What does the personal experience o f the subject consist in? Does it involve an intimate experience, like the awareness of having a soul or o f being located in a place or time when human freedom is waging a great fight, is exposed to great risks, and requires courage and sacrifice? I n history the subject has manifested itself in experiences whose importance was clearly felt. Today, respect for the human person and freedom has often been engaged in struggles where good confronted evil. I deliberately use this expression, which can nevertheless give rise to all sorts of possibilities. Those who died fighting an enemy who was not only a foreign invader but a torturer and a racist, especially those who volunteered to fight, knew that they represented more than themselves and that they were sacrificing or risking their lives for more than themselves and their community. I t is too easy to refute these words, to present soldiers and the dead as mere victims, Verdun and Stalingrad as slaughterhouses. Concealed in this pseudo-realism is an intolerable lack o f respect. There are far fewer pure victims enveloped in the meaninglessness o f history or the hidden effects o f wars for oil than the hard-headed claim. A n d many more men and women than are acknowledged have died fighting evil, aware that they were sacrificing themselves, protesting, hoping. I n the most dramatic of situations, it is not easy to prove assertions o f this kind. However, it cannot be said today that the Jews of Warsaw, the living-dead o f Auschwitz, the deportees o f Kolyma, and so many others who have been annihilated, had lost all humanity before being cast into death. To say this is not to succumb to an infantile heroization, but to feel, through the oral or written testimony which has come down to us, that those who have been held in contempt, insulted, reduced to the worst physical and moral misery, retained something of their dignity, of their will to remain human, o f the

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spirit o f solidarity. How can it be thought that those who died in such large numbers at Stalingrad fighting the Wehrmacht had no sense o f the tragic and glorious role that history had accorded them in taking their lives, while making them agents of a liberation much more precious than themselves - these soldiers who fought in the uniform o f a totalitarian regime? Who would dare to reduce the peasant-soldiers o f Stalingrad to the combatants of Stalin's army? A n d who can say that none of them knew anything o f the historical mission they were performing? It is natural that what first comes to mind is the great struggles, for it is in such situations that we can perceive on the grandest scale what separates the struggle against an enemy from the fight for human dignity. But when we approach more personal experiences, and hence less spectacular ones, other difficulties arise: how are we to distinguish between awareness of the meaning of the lived experience and all the psychological mechanisms whereby we flee ourselves - or, on the contrary, are suffocated by self-regard? The experience o f being a subject manifests itself above all in the consciousness not o f an obligation to an institution or value, but of the right o f each person to live and be recognized in her dignity, in what cannot be abandoned without stripping life of all meaning. A sense o f duty, a sense of obligation - these expressions are used by everyone. But it must be added that only those who feel responsible for the humanity o f another human being feel that they are subjects. I t is in recognizing the human rights o f the other that I recognize myself as a human being, that I recognize that I have obligations to myself. Is this a question of exceptional, heroic conduct? On the contrary, it is mostly a question of personal experiences lived in a banal context - that of the family, the amorous relationship, or the immediate circle o f neighbours. But whether individual or collective, these experiences are counterposed in full awareness o f the fact to obedience to the laws, customs and commands o f leaders. We are not forever deprived of the distance from ourselves that enables us to look at ourselves as subjects. A n d let us stop playing at being hardheaded and insensitive to what constitutes for each o f us, intellectuals and non-intellectuals alike, the most vital part of our life, the most pressing interrogation o f our experience and the meaning o f our choices and our hopes. It is at an intermediate level between 'historic' events and our relationship to ourselves - that is, in the relationship with the other (which can take the form of a relationship to others) - that the experience of the subject seem most frequent and most alive. Many of us have had the experience of recognizing in the other a presence that goes beyond the person concerned. We are then attracted by the illuminating presence o f a higher human value that an individual carries within him.

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A l l these remarks seek to make it clear that the relations between individuals or groups are not exclusively, or entirely, social relations. N o r are they purely inter-individual relations. Interposed between the two is what imparts meaning to the struggles o f those who want to be actors and who also want others to be able to be. The idea o f the subject discloses in me and i n the other what we might have in common. It is in a gaze, in a meeting of gazes, in the force o f the presence and intensity o f revelation or possession that the presence o f the subject, and of the relation between subjects, is revealed. Our lived existence can be sufficiently controlled, subjugated or corrupted to deprive us o f any presence of the subject and imprison us in money, hierarchy, repression. But this poverty, this vacuum, are not inevitable. Whether we experience the emotion that demands solidarity, or are touched by love or hopes o f liberation, we do not confine ourselves to a network o f statuses and roles, of gratifications and punishments, o f acceptance or refusal o f the social order. Our life is ceasing to be wholly social. There is no social movement that does not cause us to leave the social order, in the name o f freedom, equality, justice, or any expression of the presence o f the subject in us and between us. One immediate consequence of the distance which exists between the subject and social organization is that the presence or absence of the subject does not depend on the social categories considered. Neither the young nor the old, the rich nor the poor, are closer to being subjects than others. This contradicts the idea so often expressed in the eighteenth century that the people does not think, except at the elementary level o f hunger, fear, or enjoyment. Such extreme class consciousness no longer corresponds to our ideas, even among the most conservative o f us. We have instead been accustomed by the Christian tradition and revolutionary history to believe that the poor, those who suffer and those who are enslaved, are better representatives of the spirit o f liberation (and hence subjectification) than the rich, imprisoned as they are by their wealth and often guilty o f causing others to suffer. The first shall be last. However important the message, it cannot be completely respected, for we cannot link the destiny o f the subject to social organization, even at the price of inverting the hierarchy. Good and evil can appear anywhere, even i f it is true that the nature of good and evil cannot be defined without direct reference to freedom, equality and justice. The subject does not spread its wings above society. N o r is it trapped in its rules and hierarchies. I t is present in society and history, in collective and interpersonal relations, but it also develops in them as an exigency, a protest, a hope. The subject lives in the world, but does not belong to the world. That is why the idea of the subject is such a powerful weapon against racism. I f a social or national group identifies itself with absolute good, with a

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god, with the future or progress, it must invent the opposite of itself. Belief in a god induces belief in a devil or in some other principle of evil. Thus it was that the West, identifying itself with reason, progress and Enlightenment, invented the Orient, which is, according to Edward Said's classic analysis, the site o f unreason, turned to the past rather than the future, and to particularism rather than universalism. Christendom first o f all rejected the Jews, from whom Christians had separated themselves even though Jesus himself was a Jew, accusing the Jews o f deicide. Then the expanding West, capable o f conquering the world, perceived the colonies as the opposite o f what had enabled it to triumph. The colonized world, especially the Arab world, became the locus of Evil, o f what threatens the Good Empire, as President Bush proclaims. The elimination o f this dangerous pair - God and Devil, pure and impure - renders impossible any racism, which always presupposes that all meaning attaches to one side, while the other embodies meaninglessness. The more religious the definition of the self, the stronger the rejection o f the other defined as other. Hence the extreme form o f anti-Semitism in a world where segregation is imposed (shtetl, ghetto). The more social and political the opposition, the less strong the racism. Hence the transformation o f anti-Arab currents. A remote (except for colonists) and, above all, social relationship, it is transformed into a relationship o f proximity. Having been political, it becomes religious; and the religious attentat is now the source o f the strongest reactions o f rejection. The converse development has occurred in the case of the Jews: religious hostility has been transformed into a social conflict, to the point where the Israeli-Palestinian conflict foregrounds political conflict. Over and above recognition o f the other - an expression that can remain vague - the important thing is that the appeal to the subject is everywhere present; in other words, that everyone acknowledges the general conditions of modernity. The Jews have overwhelmingly entered into modernity; for the most part, the Arabs have remained outside it. This has created an insurmountable distance which Israelis and the diaspora interpret as their superiority, while others deem it the expression o f a form of domination and exploitation. We must always remember that intercultural communication presupposes recognition by the relevant parties of universal attributes in both camps, for the contrasts between them are then limited by the recognition of elements that allow for both debate and negotiation.

The anti-subject Those who study the conditions of social peace or social advance have often identified the main adversary of these processes as the violence that destroys what has been built, destroying society. That is why the theme has

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been so important for sociology. The twenty-first century opened with a wave of alarm about sexuality, with growing demands for protection against deviants o f all kinds, against behaviour that was decidedly moderate following a century - the twentieth - which saw violence triumph everywhere, from battlefields to extermination camps. But there is no reason to consider all the horrors committed by violence as so many attacks on the subject. On the other hand, there does indeed exist a central core o f violence that escapes social determination. Michel Wieviorka has understood this so clearly that in a recent book {La Violence, 2004), where he presents work (including his own) devoted to violence, he feels it necessary to abandon the kind o f explanation he himself helped to disseminate. This is because violence sometimes reaches an extreme level, betrays a will to destroy and humiliate, to expel populations from the body o f humanity, which cannot adequately be explained by a crisis in society. Without hesitation, Wieviorka names this core o f violence that exceeds all its social significations cruelty. It is everywhere. I t strikes at Auschwitz, reveals itself in the murder o f the Tutsis and o f some Hutus by other Hutus armed with machetes, or in the murder of two million of Cambodia's seven million inhabitants. A n d this cruelty can also be observed in prisons, psychiatric hospitals, old people's homes, reception centres for the disabled or street children, and so on. Here we are no longer in the dimension o f the social order: the victims of cruelty are not rejected by society, they are eliminated from humanity because it is identified with a nation, an army, a party, or a religion. Cruelty is not required to destroy opponents - or even enemies; it is unleashed to dehumanize the human being, to crush its face, and reduce it to a bleeding mass of flesh and bone that no longer has anything human about it. Michel Wieviorka has advanced sociology by identifying in cruelty the anti-subject, just as others had detected in violence the anti-society. The emotional shock cruelty causes us, rooted in an agonizing awareness that we cannot explain it, comes from the sensation o f finding ourselves on the edge o f a precipice. A t the bottom o f it we perceive not a social crisis, but a human nature that we only designate thus in order to signify that it is irreducible to the psychological effects o f social organization. Hence the decisive importance o f a reflection on cruelty, since it refers us directly, over and above social mediations, to the idea o f the subject. But next we must descend again towards the less extreme forms of destruction o f the subject. Appeals to forces or imperatives higher than the social system always tend to take a negative form, with dangerous consequences, when these orientations are identified with institutions

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equipped with a power for decision-making and repression. I n fact, a Church, a party, a trade union, a university can never be identified with a subject - and all the less in that the latter is defined by transcendence and critique o f the norms and rules whose goal is to reinforce the institution or organization. Even so, we cannot confine ourselves to the habitual and necessary - discourses o f an 'anti-bureaucratic' type against means that take themselves for ends. For the Church that organizes belief in a God, the party that prepares for the revolution, or the research centre that effects a discovery in fact always plays a dual role: it imparts social form to types of behaviour directed towards a God, a transformation o f society, or the progress of science; but at the same time, it erects a screen between the participants and their values by substituting for transcendence a utilitarianism that strengthens and even legitimates it. These observations are too well known for us to be in a position to reject them; and also too well known for us to be satisfied with them. For there are few important social movements without an organization or even without a supporting party and, in the same way, religious beliefs and mystical enthusiasms are themselves intimately connected to religious institutions - Churches, cults, or sects. That is why a serious question arises here: why do we feel ourselves obliged to furnish a non-sociological explanation of religion, without thereby succumbing to the intellectual facility that consists in sheltering behind the objective existence o f a divine message or the interventions o f supra-human forces in human life? Likewise: why are we dissatisfied with explanations o f social movements in strictly social terms, such as those supplied, for example, by people who explain them by an imbalance between what everyone contributes and what everyone receives? Many sociologists study social movements simply by analysing the way in which they mobilize resources - members, financial resources, alliances, means of communication. It is easy to counterpose to such approaches one that accords a central place to the idea o f the subject. But can we explain why we adopt this way of thinking, why we refer to the subject rather than society or a god? The question is so delicate that I am obviously not going to reply to it by advancing the pseudo-historical argument that more and more people think in this way; and are in quest of a religious faith or a social movement that can be explained neither by an objective historical reality, nor by the 'functions' o f the institutions wherein such religious forms of behaviour or such social movements manifest themselves. Neither of these answers, which are the most common, is satisfying. I f religion is a way of sacralizing society, why not make do with referring to society? A n d i f religion rests on a revelation, why is the latter transformed into a Church? If, on the contrary, I perceive religion as the projection of a weak, almost powerless human subject into a remote beyond, I posit

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both this externalization of the subject and its link to a collective social experience - i n other words, to historically locatable forms o f organization and practice. That is the main reason I speak of subjects as a principle that escapes the level of social organization and as a force mobilizing beliefs, resources, solidarity and sacrifices. Between the world o f the gods and that of societies, there is the world o f the subject - that is, the universe o f the reflection o f human beings on creative human beings. The subject is a prisoner, but also a liberator. The subject can be destroyed not only by power, organizations, or money; it can also be destroyed by itself. For the more the meta-social, transcendent guarantees o f the subject disappear, the more the subject must directly assume, without institutional mediation, the task o f distancing itself from its social environment. The subject thus risks becoming overburdened with tasks and suffocating itself. From classical sociology we have inherited the idea of anomie - that is, those crises o f social organization which provoke a personality crisis. Today, it is no longer in society but in the subject itself and its self-consciousness that we seek the cause of personality problems. Alain Ehrenberg has explored this immense field, where a new analysis o f mental illnesses is being developed This analysis returns to the expressions whereby we recognize our inability to make a clean separation between what pertains to the strbject and what pertains to the self or the ego. I n the same way, a believer must separate what pertains to her faith from what pertains to religious practices, just as a working-class activist must register the difference between demands that concern union rights and those that proceed from class consciousness. I t is frequently ambiguous efforts, rather than wholly bad ones, that help to destroy what should be protected and retrieved. It is often easier to understand what the subject is by describing the effects of its absence, than by saluting its projects and discourses. For the march towards an ideal cannot be accomplished without mobilizing a power, an authority, a strategy. When sociological analysis was organized around the idea of society or social system, the idea o f anomie and, more generally, of crises o f social organization gave us a clear understanding o f the nature of what was destroyed. The absence of the subject, or rather the loss of the subject, is the loss o f oneself, o f the complex o f forms o f behaviour that do not refer to any meaning. In one o f the most beautiful films in Krzysztof Kieslowski's Decalogue, a young, invariably silent man kills a taxi driver and then, condemned to death, is executed, having simply entrusted to his lawyer a photograph of his sister, killed some years earlier in an accident. This only serves to increase our ignorance o f what makes him a killer and victim of the death penalty. Such an absence of 'psychology' touches on the main thing: what is involved is indeed the human subject and its disappearance, not social organization and its crises; and

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the tragic presence of the non-subject helps us to understand more clearly that the sole expression o f the subject is the progress towards it, towards itself - a detachment from social bonds of the kind religions have so often invited us to undertake.

Between gods and societies Between the idealism o f religious visions and then the great modern Utopias (the egalitarian Republic, the classless society, unlimited progress), on the one hand, and the non-normative, descriptive analysis of hierarchies, forms o f domination, crises, and forms o f collective consciousness on the other - in a word, between gods and societies - there lies the vast domain o f the subject, which penetrates deeply into the world o f gods and human beings, but which enjoys a unity o f its own and cannot be reduced to either an Olympus or the functioning o f a society. The domain o f the subject is that in which humanity reflects more on itself and places itself in the position o f creator of itself, often at the price of a division whereby conscious woman creates creative woman. The distance between the two is increasingly reduced as human beings become more capable o f transforming their environment and especially themselves. But even i f the distance is abolished, the separation o f the creator from the created does not disappear. On the contrary, it is then that the human being becomes subject without any disguise and feels itself engaged in the invention and defence o f itself as a creator. We have long had a clearer view of the subject's disguises than o f the subject itself, o f its incarnations than its 'soul'. However, as the heavens have emptied and the soul, stripped of any external origin, has become nothing but self-consciousness, the image of the subject, o f the human being for itself, has become ever sharper. As religions declined, the space of the subject was filled and morality replaced what had been the gods' domain. The error of materialist rationalism was to believe that once superstition had disappeared, reason would triumph and, like the rest o f our activities, morality would be governed by the imperatives of reason and the laws of science. We are far enough advanced in our development - that is, in modernity - to know that reason has not been the only beneficiary of modernity and that the idea o f individual rights, always present in Western thought, has been asserted with increasing force under the influence o f Enlightenment philosophy. We even see moral judgements regaining ground in the face o f technological and scientific thinking. The ecological movement has taught us to recognize our duties to nature - something that has not led us to dissolve culture into nature, but on the contrary to introduce moral judgement into the domain of nature.

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We are more accustomed to hearing the contrary discourse, to discovering in ourselves forces that escape our will, whether we call them drive and libido, Eros and Thanatos, or the will to power which Nietzsche wanted to liberate from the morality of the weak established by Christianity. These thoughts, which have nurtured and dominated the twentieth century, are not opposed at every point to the ideas I am defending. When the law and paternal authority exercise their power of repression, we might certainly think that it is the id which is repressed. But I believe that it is equally (and even more so) the subject, which lives in a constant struggle with the norms and powers of society. A n d i n the will to power itself, I might see the summons to the creation of the self by the self and the rejection of any submission to external commands, particularly divine ones. Where the world o f gods dominates human beings, there is no place for the subject. Religious spirits who seek to fuse with the universe, to identify with the great A l l , are as far removed from the idea o f the subject as it is possible to be; and they know it. Likewise, all those who identify with a technical activity or with servicing one o f the functions of the social system live in a world foreign to that of the subject. Most often, they deny the existence o f the subject. When we compare industrial society with religious powers, it is clear that the subject occupies a much greater place in our societies than in others. This observation is reinforced by one that has already been made - namely, that the social system is decomposing and that, faced with the impersonal forces of the market and war, the subject is the only actor capable o f opposing them. But there is no kingdom o f the subject. The consciousness it has of itself cannot be complete, for the two faces of the subject - the creator and the created - would then be confused. The subject is always a return to, a reflection on, itself. A n d it needs to preserve a certain distance from these practices in order to approach the world o f the gods - without entering into it, however. Human beings do not become a Man-God. On the contrary, they maintain a dual distance from the divine world and the social world. But it is indeed they who occupy the central place. They are never reduced to the ego, and above all perform a constant labour o f subjectification - that is, of discovery of the subject in all its forms of behaviour and in all the situations i n which it intervenes. Is there still a risk of misinterpreting the word 'subject'? I t was used by Michel Foucault and others in the sense of the subjection endured by the king's subject. In contrast, by a process o f subjectification I understand the construction by the individual or the group of itself as subject. The old French word institution, used in the sense o f education for example by Calvin, corresponds to the same idea of self-creation. N o t every subject is a propagandist o f itself. On the contrary, any subject oscil-

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lates between reconstructing its environment and a relationship to the self. This indicates that it is never imprisoned in itself and never identified with the work of transforming its environment either. The dual activity of the subject lies here. Narcissism leads to its disappearance. Contrarily, seeing its own image can send it back to its work or its meditation, without it being threatened with reduction to itself and dispersion in its work. The recognition o f the human being as a subject leads to the following question: what is a human being who is not a subject? There is nothing to be said about the human being who takes himself for a god: he disappears into a cloud. But what are we to say o f those who lose themselves in everydayness, under the stress o f constant solicitation, in the pursuit o f petty pleasures that seem to us to be the only possible compensation for the absence o f true happiness? Must such a mediocre life be accepted? Yes, and all the more so in that our lives are not as mediocre as we believe them to be. They are not composed only o f failures. Why would we refer to failures if there was not first o f all a project, an exigency, a sacrifice through which we grasp our attempt at subjectification? The human world is not a desert. It is replete with ruins, battlefields, hospitals full o f dead bodies, and also of absurd orders and arbitrary positions. But it is also full o f the desire to live and liberate oneself and, even more perhaps, o f constant reflection on what gives life and what gives death. What are the themes that most concern us today? Abortion, cloning, gay marriage, euthanasia. Should an individual who feels her humanity disappearing be able to ask for help in terminating her life? I f we concede that intolerable suffering justifies such an attitude, how can I not accept a man or a woman refusing to be dragged into dehumanization - no longer being able to regard themselves as free beings capable o f projects and choices? Yes, euthanasia should be recognized as a right; and all necessary precautions must be taken to ensure that nothing interferes with the will of the one who feels she is becoming incapable o f volition. A n d these 'private' themes are essentially o f the same kind as the problems that perturb 'public' life: war, conquest, violence and exile - but also liberation.

Cultural Rights

Political rights and cultural rights The decomposition of society, regarded as an organism whose elements each perform a function, which sets its goals and the means required to attain them, which socializes its new members and punishes those who do not respect its norms, leads in our type o f society to an individualism that resists the application o f the rules of collective life and substitutes for them the laws of the market, where multiple, changing preferences influenced by commercial advertising, as well as public policies, are expressed. However, a different type of change is emerging and this is the one that will hold our attention here: the demand for cultural rights which, in the first instance, concerns collectivities.

Minorities, multiculturalism, communitarianisrn Let us first of all refer to the case of multinational states - that is, the case of national minorities who demand certain attributes of independence. The countries of ex-Soviet Europe invariably belong in this category. I n particular, outside Hungary itself Hungarians form significant minorities in Slovakia and Romania. A n extreme case is that of the Kurds, who are present in several states. But it is true that not all Kurdish minorities demand the creation of a Greater Kurdistan - an idea defended above all by the Kurds o f Turkey, whereas those of Iraq have succeeded in securing advantages from the government in Baghdad. We can also place in this vast category Catalonia and Quebec, which are quasi-states within a state that retains certain prerogatives - especially on the international level.

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These minorities always defend their cultural rights - in particular, the use of their own language in schools and in administrative affairs. They are sometimes identified with a religious denomination and the head of the Church in question then often plays a political role in defending the community. A l l these problems are lived with passion and have been the underlying cause of many bloody conflicts, which are even more bloody when a national structure is lacking, as in the region of the Great Lakes in Africa or, for different reasons, in Yugoslavia when the Serbian mini-empire collapsed. These problems have existed for a long time and have played a role of the utmost importance in the greatest international crises - in particular, in triggering the First World War. But when we discuss today what is called multiculturalism, we are not thinking of this type of situation in the first instance. N o r are we thinking of a conflict like that pitting Israelis and Palestinians against one another, since the Palestinians who live in Israel and possess Israeli nationality do not have a great weight, whereas those who fight for the creation of a Palestinian state (or even for the elimination of the state of Israel) have great influence. We are primarily thinking of less institutional situations, of the creation or the development of 'communities' and minorities formed following migration, expulsion or exile. What is new is that nationally, ethnically or religiously defined groups, which only existed in the private sphere, now acquire a public existence that is sometimes sufficiently strong to call into question their membership of a particular national society. The more adamantly the states concerned refuse to recognize the existence of these minorities, the more visible the phenomenon is. This is true of the French Republic, which has always offered immigrants the opportunity to merge with the national community, regarded as the bearer of universal values. I n even more extreme fashion, the Constitution of the United States is reputed to be ethnically blind, which in part explains the strength of secessionist movements among Afro-Americans throughout history. We are now living through the undermining of national communities and the strengthening of ethnic communities. Even in a France that is highly vigilant about anti-Semitism, and where the social ascent of Jews was spectacular for several generations, we have seen the re-emergence of a certain Jewish communitarianism. This phenomenon is the most general, the least directly political, and, seemingly at any rate, fosters relatively moderate positions. We should not confuse this major trend, which is bound up with the growing importance of international migrations and the formation of new nations, with communitarianism, defined in the strict sense by the power of the community's leaders to impose practices and prohibitions on their

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members. This is something that restricts the civil rights of the men and women concerned and creates, in W i l l Kymlicka's apt phrase, 'internal restrictions'. I n principle, communitarianism is defined by contrast with citizenship and so sharply that in so far as citizenship is itself defined by the exercise of political rights in a democratic country, communitarianism inflicts obvious harm on individual liberties. Accordingly, in this respect liberals are right to combat communitarianism unreservedly. But the error would be to believe that such a defence of citizenship against communities resolves the problem of minorities. That is why, in order to avoid such misunderstandings, I believe it more appropriate to refer to 'cultural rights' in their connection, obliging the democracies to reflect on themselves and to transform themselves so as to recognize those rights, just as they were transformed - not without major conflicts - to recognize the social rights of all citizens. Cultural rights are in fact positively linked to the political rights, and hence citizenship, which communitarianism contradicts. A t the start of our analysis, reading Kymlicka, who is a recognized authority on the study of minorities, helps us to make an important choice: are we going to study minorities, the defence of their rights, and the way in which it is inscribed in the political rights of all? Or will our theme instead be cultural rights? I opt for the second formulation, given that the first places us in the framework of a sociology of the social system, of the relations between majority and minorities, of the conditions of social justice, whereas the second is centred on the subject. This choice between the standpoint of the social system and that of the subject governs the development of my analysis. Since mass production has penetrated, after the domain of industrial manufacturing, the spheres of consumption and communication, and since borders and traditions have been overrun by the distribution of the same goods and services the world over, vast areas of our behaviour, which we believed to be protected by their inscription in the private sphere, are exposed to mass culture and correspondingly threatened. I t is in the cultural field that the main conflicts and demands occur, the ones with the weightiest stakes. This category - culture - seems at first sight rather heterogeneous: cultural dependency in the first instance concerns the most dependent countries, but also ethnic, religious or sexual minorities. I t is even more visible in large cities, where serious threats hang over the environment. Finally, and especially perhaps, it is most visible in the demands of women, who want their dual demand for equality and difference recognized, in that it is the vector of a more profound change than those to which industrial society has accustomed us. The most important thing is to understand that we cannot consider cultural rights as an extension of political rights, in so far as the latter must

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be granted to all citizens, whereas cultural rights by definition protect particular populations. This is the case of Muslims, who demand the right to observe Ramadan; it is also the case for gays and lesbians, who demand the right to marry. Here we are indeed no longer dealing with the right to be like the others, but to be other. Cultural rights do not only bear on the protection o f an inheritance or the diversity o f social practices; they oblige us to recognize, contrary to the abstract universalism o f the Enlightenment and political democracy, that everyone, individually and collectively, can construct conditions o f life and transform social life in accordance with their way o f combining the general principles of modernization and particular 'identities'. In this regard, people often refer to the right to difference. But this phrase is so incomplete that it becomes dangerous. What is in fact involved is the right to combine a cultural difference with participation in an increasingly globalized economic system. This excludes the idea o f modernity lording it over social actors, and equally the idea that a single culture could answer to the requirements o f modernity. I f cultural rights mobilize people more powerfully than the others, it is because they are more concrete and always concern a particular population, which is nearly always a minority. As a result, however, demands for them also expose us to great dangers - those created by all particularisms. In short, they threaten the very principle o f 'living together'. The idea of cultural rights seems, in addition, to be directly opposed to that of citizenship. This reflection is not new: it has already been made in connection with the recognition of social rights, for the latter likewise refer to particular categories. The latter are sometimes very broad, like the set of wage-workers, but sometimes much narrower - for example, coalminers, dock workers, or bakery workers. A n d very often, in fact, the appeal to social rights has nurtured corporatism and the defence o f professional interests. More generally and more dramatically, this appeal to social rights has often been launched by class organizations many of which have gone so far as to argue that the fullest democracy was the dictatorship of the proletariat and that political rights could only be granted to those who lived from their labour, not from capital - that is, off the labour of others. This intellectual and practical logic dominated much o f the working-class movement for a century, whereas the search for a compromise between the universalism of rights and the particularism o f interests only slowly progressed towards social-democratic solutions. But reference to cultural rights appeals to concrete totalities that are more solidly and profoundly defined than citizenship - or even membership o f a class. That is why in women's movements we find much more than the demand for political rights or even economic equality. Similarly, immigrant populations do not protest only against economic exploitation and arbitrary police power.

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The continuity of struggles for rights, like the transformation and expansion o f the character o f the latter, can be understood as the internalization in stages of norms that must be respected and of the punishments to be suffered by those who do not respect them. As so well analysed by Michel Foucault, the spectacular vision o f torture is replaced by imprisonment and isolation. In the same spirit, Foucault saw in the liberation of the 'mad' their subjection to physical and then chemical or even psychological forms of treatment. What must be added to this set of studies, which have profoundly marked the human sciences and the thinking of social reformers, is that the destruction o f each mode o f imprisonment and constraints is equally connected with the internalization of constraints, with the assertion o f the right to freedom or justice which, by the same token, is extended and assumes increasingly concrete form. The conquest of political rights was associated with the creation of republics where the people had sovereignty. This can turn into a personal or collective authoritarianism; nevertheless, it has been the reference point for all democratic struggles. The transition from political to social and then cultural rights has extended democratic demands to all aspects of social life, and consequently to the whole of individual existence and consciousness. The more constraints are imposed on individuals in all aspects o f their lives, the more the idea becomes established of an individual who is subject o f right and whose resistance or struggles are conducted in the name of this individuality, this right to be oneself. It is here that we discover the link between the first theme - the extension and transformation of the constraints exercised by the values, norms and forms o f organization - and the second - the unification and individualization o f the person, who not only resists external constraints, but above all replaces any transcendent principle and asserts herself as being at once the goal of her struggle and what gives it its power. We do not observe a displacement o f areas of conflict, but their integration to the point where it is in the name of the 1 itself, not of particular struggles, that the various social movements combine and integrate, consciously engaging i n a crucial struggle between, on the one hand, social and cultural demands, and, on the other, forces that can be called natural - that is, non-social - such as violence, war, market dynamics, and so forth. The penetration into the individual, her categories of action, the consciousness of her body, and so on, of a multifaceted domination corresponds to the assertion of the subject. The two tendencies are interlinked while being opposed to one another. When we separate the idea o f the subject from constant reference to social and political conflicts, the subject weakens and runs the risk of becoming moralizing. The approach proposed by Michel Foucault in Discipline and Punish must be complemented

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by the idea of resistance, which can only be based on the consciousness of self as subject and must never forget the existence of these conflicts. I n the same way, we cannot speak of capitalist domination without making the working-class movement heard and we cannot refer to male domination without encountering the importance of feminism. Let us use everyday language here. What each of us, especially the most dominated and deprived among us, demands is to be respected, not to be humiliated, and even - a bolder demand - to be listened to and understood. This reference to the most simple vocabulary is indispensable in order to differentiate the idea of cultural rights from a communalist conception. The right to a religious life is not only the right of a group to practise its religion. It is equally the right of each individual to change religions - and to express an opinion deemed heretical by whichever Church. Certainly, there can only be collective rights there. A n d the right to be protected by a collective agreement in one's job or to found a group of a religious type, for example, is obviously a collective right. But it applies to each individual, who thus finds himself protected before the courts and opinion when he decides to withdraw from a trade union, a Church, or an association. Without the existence of this individual character of any right, we could not transform tolerance of certain groups into cultural rights. Thus, the law must only recognize the freedom of exercise of forms of worship i f it is in a position to protect those who do not wish to be a member of a particular Church, want to withdraw from it, or perhaps j o i n a different one.

Redistribution and recognition These initial remarks on cultural rights aim only to situate them vis-á-vis political rights and social rights - in particular, the rights of workers who occupied the central position in the movements and conflicts of modern societies, pre-industrial and then industrial. We must now enter the debate, of great significance, that contrasts recognition and redistribution - in other words, cultural or moral demands and economic demands. This debate has involved many authors, but in particular Nancy Fraser, Professor at the New School University in New York, and Axel Honneth, who is Jürgen Habermas's successor in the chair of philosophy at Frankfurt University. Such a definition of the problem is certainly not ideal and is more appropriate for philosophers than sociologists, for it rapidly emerges that these two orders of demands are at once distinct and inseparable, above all when they are both defined in terms of justice (in contrast to the conception o f 'recognition' as a condition of self-realization, which is Charles

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Taylor's and also mine). A n individual or group reckons itself to be the victim o f an injustice when it is not accorded the place, the rank that corresponds to the degree to which it has realized its worth as recognized by society. Thus, an economic injustice is experienced as contempt for the merits of the person concerned. But i f the notion o f justice combines the two kinds o f demand, they are nevertheless distinct, as are the notions o f class and status {Stand) in Max Weber. To exclude any other type o f analysis, Honneth completely rejects the idea o f new social movements - and hence the idea of social movements itself - for the latter seem to him to be political constructs artificially separated from the complex of complaints, suffering and protests against injustice that emerge from the most varied categories of the population, as Pierre Bourdieu demonstrated in The Weight of the World (1993). Conscious of the existence o f this debate, but keeping my distance from it, I intend to show at the beginning o f this chapter: 1 that social movements are a very particular category within the vast complex of actions that involve demands; 2 that these movements are defined by the wish to secure new rights; 3 that the 'new social movements', which are certainly highly diverse, all demand recognition of a new type of rights - cultural rights; 4 that these demands are new and are not to be found in industrial society or in pre-industrial societies; 5 that cultural rights, like social rights before them, can become anti-democratic, authoritarian or even totalitarian instruments, if they are not closely linked to political rights, which are universalistic, and i f they do not find a place inside the social organization - in particular, in the system for allocating social resources. (1) Demands can occur at two levels: either to alter the relationship between the contribution and the remuneration o f a group in a favourable direction - for example, by obtaining a wage increase or a reduction in working hours; or - something that is a higher goal - to enhance a group's decision-making capacity or influence - for example, by securing recognition of a trade union and its capacity to conduct collective negotiations. There does not in fact exist any general principle o f unity between demands. A social movement, whatever its strength and its form, is situated at a higher level. I t is the actor in a conflict, acting together with other organized actors, whose stake is the social use o f the cultural and material resources to which the contending camps both attribute key importance. These two dimensions - social conflict and unity o f the field of cultural references - combine to constitute movements whose prominence is often

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striking, but which might also be in statu nascendi. I n industrial society the actors in conflict, employers and wage-earners, refer to the same values: work, savings, technology, progress. But they don't agree on how to make use of the wealth created. We still feel close to the working-class movement, and even to the movement that marked the first phase of the modern era, whose demands were political, opposing the emerging nation to a monarchical or aristocratic power that was destroyed. (2) When we speak o f cultural rights, we venture the hypothesis that movements exist which can be called cultural, and which oppose the productions of mass culture, but also the general logic of profit, either to minorities or to categories that feel betrayed by the image projected of them. This conflict is inscribed in a social field where the production o f images and representations o f human beings occupies a major place, expanding as word and image penetrate more deeply into the private or collective life of increasingly precise groups and, finally, of individuals themselves. In this case, as in others, the main goal of the social movement is selfrealization as an actor, capable o f transforming one's situation and environment - that is, o f being recognized as a subject, every time the actor recognizes that her capacity to be a free actor, rather than the product of social constructs she does not control, depends on the outcome o f a conflict she is engaged in. I n industrial societies (and others), no one doubts the importance of the women's movement, which struggles not only for an equality of rights and situations, but above all for women's freedom. I n this respect their main opponents are the producers of images of woman, either in mass culture, or in the texts that discuss them, and which seem to women to 'alienate' them and negate their real behaviour and their initiatives. When they are organized, social movements seek to press demands successfully (for example, equal pay for equal work in the case of women). But they are defined above all by a relationship of the individuals involved to themselves. Here I recall some words used by Axel Honneth: they want to be respected, not treated with contempt as actors defined by a certain activity or a certain origin. However, we must clarify the meaning o f these phrases that are on everyone's lips: recognition and self-realization. Honneth thinks they refer to the existence o f positive interactions - that is, referring to the same type of values as the surrounding milieu. This is the most widespread conception for those many people who employ the notion o f self-esteem. Honneth seeks to define the conditions for the good life, which rest on this principle o f self-respect. This leads him to reject the idea o f social movement and to take an interest in all the forms of pain, all the discontents, and all the resentments that haunt us. Crushed in this way, the notion o f

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social movement submits to any interpretation. But i f one is convinced, as I am, that social movements are something other than accumulated pain, even i f they feed off it, we must impart a different meaning to the words 'recognition' and 'self-realization'. The recognition of the other is neither mutual comprehension, nor amorous relationship. I t consists in seeing the construction of the subject at work in the other, such as one senses it at work in oneself. This construction occurs by elaborating the universal starting from a particular social or cultural experience. N o t always but invariably, our affiliations and our beliefs contain an element of the creation of the self by the self, of the transformation of the actor into a subject. The worker on strike or the soldier in a war of independence can identify with justice or with liberation from social or national oppression. They then feel themselves to be bearers of a universal mission. I t is even possible for the affiliations most shot through with exclusion - religious affiliations - to give rise in them to the universalistic consciousness of a divine message. A n d someone who 'recognizes' the other as subject is more capable of fighting what is opposed to the subjectification of himself or others. Without the recognition of the other combatant, the battle regresses to the level of a more limited confrontation, economic or political. A n d self-realization is not the social integration that makes it possible to attract approving glances from members of the community. It can happen that social movements degenerate to the point where they are transformed into their opposite - communitarian assertion, rejection of those who are foreign or different, violence against minorities or against what is called heresy or schism. This happens when collective action is defined by the particular identity or assets it defends, not by reference to a universal value; and for this reference to emerge, the first condition is that the actor or combatant recognizes in another the ascent to the universal that he senses in himself. When the national liberation movement becomes nationalism, when the class struggle is reduced to corporatism, when feminism confines itself to abolishing inequalities between men and women, they stop being social movements and succumb to the obsession with identity. Actions that aim at the redistribution of national income or a firm's profits can rise to the highest level - that of social movements - just as much as those which possess a cultural content: those demanding, for example, to be recognized by a majority. The theme of the relations of recognition or refusal of recognition between majority and minority assumes especial importance today, given the growing mix of populations. The majority recognizes the minority only i f the latter recognizes the rights of the majority. I f that is not the case, the situation is simply defined by a balance of forces.

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Need we stress that this analysis takes its distance from the confused idea o f multiculturalism? For the hypothesis o f a coexistence between different cultures is meaningless: either the relations between them are managed by the market or violence; or, as in the present discussion, we recognize elements o f transition from one culture to another, and above all the presence o f universalistic elements in several cultures. The absolute multiculturalist hypothesis is as absurd as that of the cultural homogeneity of a city or country. Intercultural relations are the only reality - and they are what need to be studied, from trampling over the Other to cultural mixing.

The new social movements (3) Axel Honneth and many others deny the existence of new social movements (born after the 1960s). According to them, they are merely arbitrarily isolated elements in a complex o f attitudes or demands mixing all kinds of objectives: economic, cultural, national, generational, sexual. This assertion, which also corresponds to the thinking of other sociologists or philosophers, involves me personally, since I have used this expression since 1968 and made it the guiding line o f my book on May 1968 in France, and then the theme of a series o f studies conducted in France with François Dubet, Michel Wieviorka and Zsuzsa Hegedus {Lutte étudiante in 1978, La Prophétie anti-nucléaire in 1980, and Le Pays contre l'Etat in 1981) , and then with Dubet, Wieviorka and Jan Strzelecki {Solidarité in 1982) . In addition to these books, which present case studies, there are The Voice and the Eye (1978), which analyses social movements and sets out the method I developed to study them; and Le Retour de l'acteur (1984), which presents critical conclusions on various new social movements at the end o f the 1970s: the 'Occitanian' struggles against the French state, the Solidarity movement in Poland, and trade unionism in France. (Since then, the same method has been used in numerous cases in France and other countries.) The general conclusion of these studies is that a number of movements are predominantly cultural movements, very different from the ones whose socio-economic orientations had taken root in industrial societies; but that the 'new wine' had been missed because it had been put in 'old goatskins', as the Gospel puts it - that is, more concretely, in an ideology and forms of action inherited from the working-class movement, especially its revolutionary tendencies. I n the case of the feminist movement, it could even be regarded at one point as a 'front' in a more general anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist action. The failure o f the long student strike in 1976 in

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France stems from the same error: the distance between a workerist discourse and students' real problems. I n 1968 I offered an analogous interpretation of the May movement in France: its main inspiration, which derived from students and youth, was quite new; and with it culture had entered into the political field. But this new experience was stifled, especially in the universities, in a revolutionary Marxist verbiage that gave preference to dead words over living action. What does the novelty of these movements consist in? The same thing as what later inspired the creation of an alter-globalist movement in numerous countries, but also many movements o f political ecology. Both foreground the contradiction between uncontrolled technological and economic forces and the diversity of species and cultures, local activities and languages, that helps form the subjectivity o f each o f us; and, more generally, both revolt against the negation of the actor's subjectivity and selfrespect. Thus, for example, women rebel against being treated as sexual objects without any limit other than the laws of the market. Another theme, linked to the first, is the recognition of cultural diversity and hence of minorities in the face o f the evolutionistic progressivism which announces that all roads lead to New York (rather than Rome). I t might be said that the central conflict in which they are involved opposes globalization to subjectivities and, at the heart of the latter, the will to be a subject - that is, to take as one's main objective integrating the most diverse experiences into the unity of a self-consciousness that resists external pressure and seduction. (4) Is it wrong to claim that such objectives are new, that they are different from workers' struggles for autonomy in work? I f I make this comparison, it is because it was at the centre of the research I conducted at the beginning of my professional life, which focused on working-class consciousness. The latter did not reach its maximum extent in the most difficult economic situations, amid crises, wage reductions and j o b losses. N o : class consciousness is not an effect of the crises and contradictions o f capitalism, but o f an awareness o f the conflict between employers and wageearners for the appropriation of the wealth created by production. I t was strongest among skilled workers, whose crafts were broken up by the introduction of 'scientific' methods of work organization (Taylorism and Fordism, particularly in the metal industries). The high point was reached in general in the early years o f the twentieth century. I n France we can precisely situate this moment in the 1913 Renault factories strike. This result, as we can see, corresponds neither to analyses that reduce everything to interests, nor to those which adopt a moral vocabulary. We are dealing with a conflict whose stakes involve economics but above all class - a conflict between two opposed classes as it finds expression in daily

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work, for example around productivity based wages. While few or no social movements exist that do not have economic objectives, only in industrial societies, defined in the broad sense, are economic objectives the expression both o f a class conflict and o f the wage-earners' wish to be respected. New social movements for their part do not have the transformation of economic situations and relations as their guiding principle; they defend the freedom and responsibility o f each individual, alone or collectively, against the impersonal logic of profit and competition - and also against an established order that decides what is normal or abnormal, permitted or prohibited. Is it true, as Craig Calhoun maintains, that such movements have existed in every age? The arguments advanced in support of this idea are scarcely convincing. People sometimes take their inspiration from E. P. Thompson, recalling that the working-class movement defended statuses {Stände) as much as classes. Certainly, but that involved a working class in the process of being made, in which professional and local identities had great weight. Enlarging the controversy, some signal that the 'nationalities' movement in Europe in the first half o f the nineteenth century was guided more by a sense o f cultural belonging and a desire for independence than a calculation o f interest. The formation o f new nations is indeed a complex process where very different factors intersect. But it is the idea, based on a collective consciousness, o f a nation freed from foreign domination that informs national movements. A n d the latter belong in the category of political movements, predominant in pre-industrial societies when the major problems were posed in political terms, not social or cultural ones, in terms o f order or disorder, peace or war, hierarchy or confusion, and so on. Such movements are therefore very far removed from what have been called the new social movements. Religious movements are even more remote. (5) The final point is one that concerns us every day. The appeal to identity, it is said, can serve liberal or democratic orientations, but also an authoritarian communitarianism or even a search for ethnic purity, racial or religious, that constitutes a real threat. A n d in fact, the notion o f identity is itself so confused and so dangerous that we should avoid employing it whenever possible. For it refers to the nation or some religion, notions that are completely foreign to social movements, in as much as the latter are centred not on the self-assertion o f a collectivity, but on awareness o f a conflict and the wish to control the use society makes of its cultural and material resources. In order to avoid such deviations, the cultural movement must be closely connected with the defence of universal political rights and social rights, which often take the form of economic objectives. Already, when the great

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struggles were being waged to secure social rights, one tendency, which for a long time was majoritarian, separated itself off and identified defending workers with a dictatorship o f the proletariat, which (it rapidly became clear) would be a dictatorship over the proletariat. Another, which at first was virtually marginal and mainly present in Great Britain, secured great victories after 1945 with the creation o f systems o f social protection, and even earlier, when it was a question of fighting social inequalities by voting for progressive income tax and establishing free use of certain essential services, such as education and health. This current, which was initially called industrial democracy, and then social democracy, asserted the need to link everyday defence of workers in their work situation to appeals to expand citizenship. The same is true today. I n many cases, the assertion o f identity rejects any principle o f alterity. But it is only by combining cultural movements with the defence o f political rights for all that it is possible to act in defence of minorities, while respecting the democratic principle o f the law o f the majority. Such is the most general problem facing all movements, whether political or national, social or cultural: to assimilate the principle o f universal citizenship successfully, but concretely, by embodying it in power relations and cultural conflicts. It is on this condition that cultural movements are protected against their opposites: self-enclosed communitarianisms that do not recognize any alterity. As regards the debate between Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth, we must conclude that their respective constructions are in fact rather similar to one another, because both place the idea o f justice at the heart of their analysis. That, as readers will have realized, is a position I do not share, since any analysis of justice bears on the organization o f society, whereas social movements are always 'figures of right' that must be established in all situations, not all of which are social. Those who wrote the first declarations of the rights of man on the basis of natural law theory, its Christian sources as well as what linked them to the politics o f the Enlightenment, knew this full well.

Modernizations The constant reference to modernity makes it possible to distinguish more easily between a large number of paths to modernization. For there no more exists a single route to modernization than there does 'one best way' (the only good way o f working, as Frederick Taylor believed). Modernization relied on economic rationality and juridical developments in the Netherlands and Great Britain, in very different fashion from French-style voluntaristic modernization, which was directed by a state, and still more

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from the German model, based on invoking the cultural history o f the nation. But the most important thing today is to recognize the diversity o f the combinations between modernity and cultural heritage or political system that exist throughout the world. For nothing justifies dividing the world into two camps, as Soviet propaganda used to and as influential circles in all the countries regarded as modern still do. Those who are blind to the diversity o f modernizations do not see that on the one hand a mass society establishes its power in all spheres of production, consumption and communication; while on the other, cultures imprisoned in themselves in particular, in their religious beliefs - have as their main goal not modernization, but war against the hegemonic power, political and cultural, of other countries. This extreme situation seems often to dominate the global landscape, imparting considerable cogency to Samuel Huntington's thesis on the clash of civilizations and the central role o f religious and ethnic conflicts, even i f closer examination leads (as I have said) to a more nuanced conclusion. It is in fact possible to elude this self-fulfilling prophecy. Modernity has defenders nearly everywhere and above all enjoys support from those who want to combine past and future, beliefs and progress. I t would be false and dangerous in equal measure to regard the enormous Islamized part of the world as an anti-modernist bloc, willingly imprisoned in the reproduction o f a culture by constant reference to sacred texts founding an immutable order. The same error was committed by those who thought in Europe that only Protestant countries could modernize, while countries marked by Catholicism were imprisoned in their clerical communitarianism. The element of truth in such assertions ultimately dissolves in the enormous quotient o f error they contain. Let us return for a moment to the debate agitating France in 2004. I t is false to say that all the girls who wished to retain the veil at school were proclaiming their attachment to Islamic culture against rationalist, secular Western culture. A significant percentage of them stated their desire to combine their family and personal background with the world o f knowledge and professional life for which school prepares pupils. I t is true that the French, at the point when parliament adopted a restrictive law against signs of religious affiliation at school, prioritized fear of Islamist fundamentalism and disruption of the educational or hospital system. But now that the necessary brake, desired by the great majority o f the population, has been applied, we must once again listen to the voices o f veiled girls who are modernist. For those of us who do not belong to the Islamic world, this involves bringing a critical judgement to bear on our perception of the other and our frequent inability to recognize in the other the same endeavour to combine the modern spirit with attachment to

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traditions and beliefs that we carry in ourselves through forms of nationalism or religious life. What can be called progress is measured at the level o f the recognition and possible combination of the centre and the periphery, invention and tradition, modernity and heritages embarked on a road of modernization. The lowest level of this recognition is mutual rejection, which has no other outcome than war, and even holy war, jihad against crusade, such as we see unleashed today. A t the same time as it is necessary to acknowledge elements o f modernity and attempts at modernization in 'underdeveloped' regions, we must identify the non-modern (and even non-modernizing) components o f what are called the 'developed' countries. The most interesting cases are those where it is via appeals to the past and safeguarding the national interest that the impetus needed to construct a modern world has been acquired. The case of Japan is the best known, but it is not the only one. The most effective ruling elites are not those that speak an exclusively futuristic language, but on the contrary those which consciously seek to enhance modernity's compatibility with different social and cultural elements, so as to reinforce modernizing factors. Finally, we have learnt to distrust dishonest modernities. We are indebted to Georges Friedmann for having been the first person, at least in France, to denounce the false claims of a Taylorist management whose sole connection with science was its claim to be scientific. A n d we shall discover ever more frequently, behind the facade of firms and banks that claim to be the highest symbols o f modernity, lies and illegal conduct. Accordingly, it is the clear separation between modernity and modernizations that makes it possible to escape both the pretension of the most powerful to identify themselves with modernity and that of the weakest to defend an artificial cultural relativism. We find ourselves in a similar situation today to that of the working class in industrial society. But it is in the cultural order - not the social order - that the great rifts are emerging. Imprisonment in a proletarian revolution that rapidly became a ferocious opponent of democracy has given way to a communitarianism, an identitarian passion, which spills a lot o f blood and rejects the very idea of democracy. War is setting one identity against another, one ethnic or religious group against another, one class or clientele against its neighbour-enemy. What affects us most is that immigrants settled in a rich, democratic country feel rejected by the population or imprisoned in a ghetto. They then respond to the contempt with which they are treated by a communitarian introversion full of aggression, which sometimes finds a scapegoat, but which also seeks to define itself against the country that has failed to welcome them. When the breach is deepest, as in the case of the United States, black movements on the

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extreme left (Malcom X ) or the extreme right (Farakhan) have pressed their claims as far as independence, disclaiming any desire for integration. Against this extreme position, South Africa was saved from civil war by Nelson Mandela. Tendencies to rupture and introversion have developed rapidly under the impact of the second Intifada and the struggle to the death between Palestinians and Israelis, but equally as a result of the rapid creation of ghettos where a communitarian introversion occurs that increases the pressure on individuals. The latter in turn demand the freedom to practise their form of worship, helping to strengthen the defence of an identity that is predominantly religious. Might such developments, which can lead to a culture war analogous to the class struggle, and to states claiming to speak in the name of a class or a religion, take a different turn and bring about a situation in which cultural rights gradually achieve better recognition? I t is difficult to reply in the affirmative to this question, even though the future of our societies will largely depend on their capacity to recognize and encourage cultural rights. For this involves more than recognizing private forms of behaviour, tolerated by a state that retains control of the public sphere, thereby depriving of any real meaning the recognition of cultures which are condemned to losing their vitality i f they are not authorized to enter the public sphere and express themselves in it. This means reducing the role of norms and institutions in fashioning 'living together', in favour of rules and institutions that allow people to be different. I n most instances it is the authoritarian state that rejects cultural minorities or reduces the space allowed women as much as possible. But rejection of cultural diversity equally occurs in democratic countries, as France indicates. In France, rejection of cultural differences is based on a form of republicanism, itself derived from progressive struggles waged against the Catholic Church in the past. For at least two centuries France has been divided between a Catholic clan (most often based on the traditional sectors of society) and a secular clan (nurtured by Enlightenment philosophy and recruiting predominantly from the middle classes linked to the state and attached to the defence of national consciousness). This prolonged confrontation gradually gave way to an armed peace that in turn led to the consensus on the 1905 law implementing separation of Church and state, which was drafted in a spirit of tolerance. In return for the disappearance of anti-religious and anti-clerical campaigns, the Republic was accepted by all Churches. But the upsurge in Islamism has led to the rebirth of a militantly anti-religious spirit, fuelled by defenders of modern rationalism. Those who wave the flag of the Republic against the expression of religious beliefs in schools - in particular, against the Islamic veil - do not take as their main argument the upsurge in fundamentalism that

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really does challenge important aspects of the school syllabus, and which must indeed be repulsed. They call for the separation of the private sphere from the public sphere, and assert that the state and the polity have been - and remain - the only institutions capable of founding a social order that serves freedom, whereas religious powers, often associated with traditional interest groups, defend everyone's freedom badly or not at all. This position is in fact untenable, for citizenship - a basic value that must not be sacrificed to any model o f class society or a religiously homogeneous society - is undermined i f it is not extended to the sphere where most personal or collective experience unfolds. However, we must once again stress the gravity o f the problems posed by such an extension. I n the nineteenth century, many politicians opposed the recognition o f social rights for fear of breaking with the universalism of political democracy, which some referred to as formal or bourgeois. A n d , as I have mentioned, those who called for social democracy in order to break with bourgeois democracy went on to establish the dictatorship of the party that declared itself the representative o f the proletariat.

Entry into the post-social world The problem o f extending political rights, and hence citizenship, to the vast domain o f cultural conflicts is posed in the same terms. To confine religious life to the private sphere boils down to imposing an anti-religious conception on the whole of public life. However, public life must be enriched by the diversity of cultures. But how is that to be done, when schools are obliged to teach that which unites - above all, rational forms o f knowledge - rather than what distinguishes and separates, and pertains to subjectivity? We may exclude the commonest solution: in many countries a privileged link exists between political authority and a particular language, a religion, or a moral system that holds sway in society. It is difficult, for example, not to see the particular importance of Catholicism in Italy. New solutions can only be found in the recognition o f several cultures, whether this involves religion, language, or clothing. Cultural pluralism is an imperative in a world in fast motion. Nothing can halt the nomadism associated with the rapid increase in international exchanges. I n industrial society the combination o f social democracy with a previously constructed political democracy occurred through ideas like the struggle against inequality. In our countries, where production, consumption and communication have equally entered into mass society, it is more difficult to ensure cultural pluralism. A n d it is pointless to speak of tolerance, especially when beliefs about the world and representations of it coexist, each of

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which proclaims its universal value. Attempts at ecumenicism can at best reduce tensions; they cannot put an end to them. The only realistic response is to establish a link between different cultures and what we call modernity, since the latter is defined by universal values. Concretely, we can only recognize cultural rights on condition that what we recognize as our basic principles - that is, belief in rational thought and the assertion that personal rights exist which no society and no state has the right to infringe - are accepted. The principle o f secularism extends the recognition of personal rights by positing the autonomy of political society vis-à-vis the principles and practices of religions. This does indeed involve the basis of democracy in modern society. Positing the existence of a central core o f modernity does not involve eliminating other cultures, whether they assert themselves within our society or outside it, but simply knowing on what conditions the basic principles o f modernity might be compatible with the diversity of cultures and their forms of intervention in personal and collective life. These beliefs often have a specifically religious basis - hence one not open to discussion for believers. However, they are also concrete expressions which are perfectly open to alteration (and have constantly been altered). It is a question not of placing two or more cultures face to face, but of assessing the prospects for recognizing the free exercise of a religion, a belief or an ideology in a society that vigorously affirms its conception o f modernity. Naturally, this line of argument applies to our own schémas o f belief and practice, which are not necessarily in accordance with the principles to which we supposedly adhere. How far removed we are here from vague ideas that make do with fine declarations about the need to know one another! Must we 'understand' the stoning of unfaithful women, arranged marriages, or excision? No, obviously not, despite the protests of some defenders o f a radical cultural relativism. What is to be understood by the plurality of modes of modernization - an expression far preferable to that of multiculturalism - is the recognition o f the multiplicity of the paths by which a population can enter into modernity, but always via a mixture o f universal principles and very different historical experiences. We must not in any event identify modernity and its general principles with our own experience and institutions. We must not regard a population that is progressing towards modernity as necessarily advancing towards us. Even i f all roads lead to Rome, this Rome is composed of districts that are very different from one another: it is not only the capital o f the old Roman Empire or the seat o f the Papacy. The most powerful countries have in the past tended (or tend today) to offer themselves as an example to the world. Their influence should on the contrary make them aware o f their particularity, which is as always a

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conjunctural, variable mixture of many elements, some of them conforming to the idea of modernity, while others recall historical moments or enduring trends that have no direct relationship with modernity. N o situation is pure; none is exemplary. Just as the arrival of new members in the European Union changes its content and orientations, without thereby harming the principle of European construction, so the arrival in France of millions of Maghrébins - even i f a majority of them possess French nationality and now use French as their everyday language - necessarily alters the concrete forms of the modernity of France. I n other words, we should not believe that only one mode of modernization capable of bringing a country into modernity exists; there is not even a single model French, Japanese, or American - of modernity. A l l countries and all individuals have complex relations with modernity, with movements of modernization or forces of anti-modernization, without this changing anything in the nature of modernity. I f the cultural rights of all, individual or collective, must be recognized, it is because it is necessary to protect all forms and trajectories of modernization. But each of us must struggle in ourselves and in our society against what is opposed to the general principles of modernity. We must discover among foreigners new forms of modernization - and hence the presence of certain elements of modernity. But they must bring a critical judgement to bear on their historical experience and cultural practices. What is involved here is not some pure reciprocal relationship to the other, recognition of one another, but judgement of the self and the other from the standpoint of a modernity that some are closer to than others, but which does not belong to anyone and is not to be confused with any particular historical reality. Since modernity is defined by principles that are universal in scope rational thinking and the rights of the individual; since any modernization introduces the idea of the particularity and even the singularity of each society undergoing change; and since the two notions can neither be confused with, nor separated from, one another, it is as impossible to define a society as purely universalistic as it is to define it by its sheer singularity. I t is more useful to clarify the complementary character of the two notions, once we have eliminated extreme solutions, liberal and communitarian, which only retain one of the two dimensions of the analysis. The following argument is indicated: the other must be recognized as such, as different, but only i f this other, like myself, accepts the universal principles that define modernity. That is the condition on which we can speak of recognition in the sense given it by Charles Taylor, in a text that has become a classic. The recognition of the other as different, but also as adhering to the universal principles of modernity, can take very different forms: it can enable communication between close cultures; or it can

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denounce the pride of the most powerful civilization, which refuses to recognize that which is different from it. One society can recognize another one, even i f it perceives it as dominant or colonialist. More important are the differences between societies which accord priority to their particular orientations and their own goals and those, on the contrary, which privilege assertion of the rights of the individual. I t is impossible to choose between these two positions; they both risk lapsing into unilateralism i f they forget one of the aspects of their existence. We might speak here, once again, of the necessity for ambivalence that characterizes those who defend the universalism of individual rights and, at the same time, the singularity of the path which a society opts to follow - without being satisfied with either of these positions, but knowing that to combine them and arrange their complementarity is the least bad solution. The more globalization and international exchanges - especially migration - develop, the more possible and necessary it becomes to combine recognition of the other with an attachment to rationalism and the assertion of individual rights. The meeting and mixing of cultures does not occur in general on an equal footing. Haiti offers striking proof of the fact. Mulattos there are regarded as superior to the black population in whose name Duvalier took power, making clear reference to the relations of inequality and domination existing between categories defined by their skin colour. Black people commonly avenge themselves, whether as the result of an opening of the public space, or - more frequently - of the overthrow of the government by those who in the colonial situation were subjected to extreme forms of domination. Finally, this revenge can be religious, as is indicated by the rapid development of cults that are often called Protestant (let us avoid the word 'sect' used by the traditional Churches to underscore their superiority). They attest to both a reappropriation of remote cultural origins and to an assertion of their moral superiority by those who have failed in their attempts at social advance or who have suffered downward mobility. In all cases, whose diversity can only be summarily evoked here, it is imprecise to speak of the defence or destruction of cultural rights. The invocation of rights is never reducible to identitarian references. We can only speak of cultural rights, I repeat, when cultural and social forms of behaviour demand to be recognized in the name of universalistic principles that is, in the name of the right of all to practise their culture, language, religion, kinship relations, alimentary customs, and so on. A n d it is only when opposition to a central culture defined as universalistic emanates from minority cultures (or cultures with inferior status), condemned by those who identify themselves with universalism, that conflict becomes inevitable.

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Let us take the example of Turkey, which has already been referred to in this book, starting in particular from the works o f Nilüfer Gole. She has very clearly demonstrated the political and national ambition o f rulers who aspired to found a new type o f society as far removed from postKhomeini Iran as from the countries that had been Sovietized or those that were drawn into an accelerated Americanization (like Puerto Rico). It is here that the theme o f cultural rights has reached a peak, for it was not a question o f erasing boundaries in favour o f hybridization, but o f combining some national elements with others, derived from richer countries, which threatened to overrun everything i f care was not taken. The defence of cultural rights emerges as a direct expression o f the action o f the subject. A very different example merits particular attention: that of the Zapatista movement which emerged in Chiapas in Mexico from 1 January 1994. I t has often been inaccurately interpreted, especially by its European admirers. We remember that the guerrilla movements which dominated the life o f Latin America led urban youth brought up on the idea of the foco - that is, the revolutionary vanguard - to support peasant struggles whose main objective was not recognition o f the Indians, but the fall o f the regime of domination supported by the United States and international finance authorities. The general failure o f the guerrilla movements is explained in the first instance by the fact that they did not take account of local realities. This assumed an extreme form in the Bolivian expedition of Che Guevara, who had rejected all contact with Bolivian parties and trade unions and entered a Guarani-speaking peasant zone where land reform had been carried out. Aware o f the reasons for this failure, Marcos wanted to link the defence o f the Maya communities in the Selva Lacandona with a programme for the democratization of Mexico, his idea being to create a major movement that was simultaneously social and political. The agreements signed by the two camps envisaged complex ways of combining Mexican law and that of the indigenous communities. The march on Mexico was to be the starting-point for broader action. The failure o f this endeavour in no way detracts from its importance, which consists in the attempt to combine the defence o f communities with a political transformation o f the national state.

Sexual rights We have seen the development of demands for the recognition o f diverse forms o f sexuality, for men and for women, and even extending beyond the distinction between them. The recognition o f homosexuality, which is still not complete, affects men and women equally, since it involves sepa-

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rating sexual and emotional life from the reproduction and construction of a family. Can we speak of the creation o f a cultural category that has finally been recognized? I do not think so. In the first place, because there is no more homogeneity among gays than straights, especially since some homosexual behaviour represents a protest against prohibitions and a transgression. As the prohibitions fall away, the search for lasting relations assumes ever more importance, while the demand for the rights to marriage and parenthood is being consolidated. There is no reason on this last point to assign too much importance to the differences between women and men: when it comes to filiation, the main thing is the question of the blood tie that is to link generations with one another. This is a crucial issue, but should not provoke great debate today, since we have opted for a very favourable attitude towards adoption - when it is not corrupted by financial transactions. The success o f full adoption, the growing importance of reconstituted families, advances in artificial insemination - everything conduces to making it the case that bonds of filiation are no longer all blood ties (far from it). Why should homosexuals be the only ones prohibited from filiation? Why should they be forbidden to marry? The problems become more delicate when we examine not various types of lasting relationship, but brief or occasional relationships facilitated by contraception (especially male), and still more relationships detached from any project of a life in common. N o one will deny that such behaviour is unlikely to strengthen the subject! But they are not to be judged in this fashion. I f we accept the idea that the subject creates itself starting from sexual experience, through the relationship with the other and then with the self, we must concede the existence of multiple sexual relationships, one o f whose basic roles is to affirm the autonomy of sexual activity. A n d i f this line of argument does not convince everyone, let us all agree to contest as a matter o f priority any regressive conception of sexual life such as still prevails in many families and schools - especially religious ones. Domination and liberation are words that form part o f the same general view of sexuality - that o f the victim - and hence o f the same refusal to take the actor into consideration. In addition, the theme of liberation is rapidly mired in confusion, since it refers to a starting-point - domination - from which it is a question o f liberating oneself, but not to any destination, since sexual freedom can just as easily authorize the transgression of social and moral norms as conduce to the elimination o f a prohibition founding a repressive morality. Analysis should not foreground the various constraints or forms of liberation that guide sexuality. On the other hand, we must follow the radical feminists when they denounce the subjugation of all forms of sexuality to the single model o f the heterosexual

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relationship dominated by the man. As soon as they are no longer judged from the standpoint of a certain conception of the family, the diversity o f forms o f sexual behaviour can have no other limits than non-respect for the dignity o f each individual. A n d I am not unaware of the dangers involved in any judgement in this matter. Let us therefore follow the different sexual minorities and the struggles they wage against the images of 'morality' which imprison them in marginality and inferiority. I f it is not certain that we can speak of a new gay and lesbian culture, it is clear that we are dealing with a liberation movement intent on the elimination of all forms o f prohibition and discrimination. This liberation might also lead gays and lesbians to abandon practices of transgression, provocation and festive demonstration, which has created great fascination with them and made drag queens, for example, one o f the most remarkable creations o f the culture o f provocation. It might be thought that the highest point in the demand for cultural rights in matters of sexual conduct is the demand for recognition o f bisexuality or, above all, o f the queer vision - that is, indifference as regards the nature o f the partner - because such a demand seeks completely to separate sexuality from family roles and an institutional definition o f genders. I t would be desirable for all movements defending the cultural rights o f minorities to be as visible as those successfully launched by gays and lesbians, and now by transsexuals and transvestites whose importance has long been ignored. In other domains, how can we fail to be indignant about the lack o f respect shown the disabled? Who is not scandalized by the often insurmountable difficulties they encounter in some countries taking the metro, following university courses, or simply finding a street? The success achieved by the deaf, whose language was invented in France by the Abbé de l'Épée, but whose disciples met with a much better reception in the United States - in particular, around Gallodet College - finally extended to the European countries, including France. Some of them even allot significant space to sign language in television programmes. The defence of the rights o f each disabled category should assume as much importance in our society as the defence o f victims of work accidents and occupational illnesses in industrial societies.

The limits of cultural mixing The recognition of cultural rights becomes increasingly difficult to achieve as cultural diversity increases and tolerance comes up against obstacles that are more and more difficult to overcome. That explains the attraction

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of cultural mixing - a solution more readily resorted to when central government is weak. Thus, in many countries, Brazil foremost among them, the mixing o f ethnic groups has avoided the creation of cultural boundaries, like those to be found in the United States and other countries. Cultural exchanges can go still further and combine, for example, the appropriation o f religious elements of Catholic origin in indigenous practices with the penetration o f elements o f indigenous origin into Hispanic and Christian culture. Roger Bastide and, more recently, Serge Gruzinski and Carmen Bernand have studied this reciprocal borrowing. In the contemporary world, the penetration of American mass culture into all countries is so profound that it can produce a spontaneous mixing of cultures. Is this not the case with pizza, whose origin has been forgotten? Cultural mixing is even more visible in populations where many writers and thinkers, like Edouard Glissant in the West Indies, stress the richness o f the hybrid culture and its capacity to make the most o f the encounter between two traditions. A n extreme form o f cultural mixing is the 'border culture' - a concept proposed by certain Mexican researchers who believe that the many Mexicans who officially or clandestinely settle between the border and the major cities of the country are not in the process of being Americanized, even i f they are increasingly differentiated from the Mexicans of their native region. They thus create a 'border culture', which apparently stabilizes and is not a stage in the socialization that several generations ago led Chicanos finally to melt into the American population. Examples of this kind could be multiplied and it would not be incorrect to say that we are all more or less culturally mixed, since American mass culture is mixing more and more with the local or national ways o f life. But the advantages of cultural mixing do not release us from the need to defend cultural rights. For there is often a very great imbalance between majority beliefs and social or sexual minorities, as well as ethnic, national or religious ones. Societies and forms of worship always mark out boundaries, which impose prohibitions and rejections - especially when the majority culture is openly defined by its break with tradition. Confrontation between cultures, like that between social classes, is never resolved by an ultimate melding o f the adversaries.

About the 'veil' Cultural rights pertain more to rights to difference than rights to equal treatment. But i f demands for difference are not to evolve in the direction of communitarianism and intolerance, the movements making them must

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not contradict the practices and ideologies o f difference. Such is the first condition for complementarity between the rights o f minorities and the democratic system. Conversely, a Constitution that ignores ethnic differences, as is the case i n the United States and France, represents an obstacle to protesting against communitarian excesses. This is the case above all because the inequality o f opportunities between the various ethnic groups, observed in schools as in employment, indicates that some of these groups are regarded as inferior and treated as such. I n the case o f France, many statistics indicate that schools themselves act as a selection grid to the detriment o f the children of immigrants, in particular Maghrébins, a low proportion o f whom progress to higher education. Whereas there exist three decidedly hierarchical types o f lycée (general, technological and professional), it is frequently the case that the classes o f professional lycées are almost completely composed o f the children of immigrants. Ordinary racism, which represented the colonized as inferior beings needing only an elementary education, is replaced in our more mobile societies by selection mechanisms that are unofficial but easily detectable. Thus, feminists have been able to show that even in the absence o f selection procedures the proportion of women drops the further up the professional hierarchy one goes. Campaigns against inequality of opportunity are waged in the name o f classical liberalism. But we know that these campaigns fail, for they have no purchase on the causes o f inequality. The difficult problem o f positive discrimination ('affirmative action') is then posed. Its principle is incontestable: it is similar to that o f progressive income tax - which is our best weapon for reducing inequality. I t has secured some notable results in large firms, but it is ultimately largely ineffective. I t is true that in the United States, in the large universities that had adopted this policy in favour of particular ethnic groups, the abolition o f such measures has led to the disappearance o f Afro-American students from the higher levels of studies, which they had penetrated. But it is also true that the introduction of a few individuals at this level does not fundamentally reduce the inequality of which Afro-Americans are the victims. I n order to defend this policy, we must resort to a different kind of argument, which sits well with the general position that I am putting forward here. Positive discrimination makes little difference to the actual situation, but it attracts public attention to inequalities, as has been shown by the impassioned debates that have taken place in the United States - and today in France, where the Institut d'Études Politiques in Paris, an elitist establishment protected by an entrance exam, has decided to recruit directly a certain number o f students from lycées in disadvantaged areas. This case is all the more interesting in that the director of Sciences Po has raised students' enrolment fees so as to grant free places to those who are due to

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enter by the new channel. Major American studies - in particular, Ronald Dworkin's - and Supreme Court decisions have rendered more visible the inadequacies of a democracy which, in the name of equal rights, allows the development of de facto inequality. But this awareness only becomes effective when those who are victims of inequality organize in order to protest against it. Let us now return to France and the question of the 'veil' or foulard. Faced with supporters of secularism, there are two orders of discourse. On one side, 'veiled' girls demand the right to display their faith in schools, which had hitherto wished to remain free of any expression of beliefs especially religious ones. A n d their defenders seek to show that secularism is not neutral, but on the contrary relies on a separation between the public world and the private world - something that is, as I have indicated, untenable. On the other side, some Islamic movements, those dubbed fundamentalist, are inspired by a general refusal of the cultural rights of those who do not belong to their denomination. The debate therefore brings together two opposed conceptions of cultural rights. The complexity and importance of the debate over these problems, and above all the recent appearance of veiled young women in the lycées and public colleges, justifies the presentation here of an analysis that grasps the overall historical situation in which these battles and the debates they have provoked are located. For a long time, immigration in France, as in other West European countries, was based on demands for manpower. It translated into an integration based on employment and learning the national language. But this integration allowed for the survival, through several generations, of family and social customs and forms of organization derived from the country of origin. The surrounding population had happily accepted foreign workers who were taking on so many hard jobs, while keeping out of political life. But the situation changed with the end of growth and also under the impact of accelerating cultural changes in the population of the host country. These changes were more cultural than social, as is indicated by the formation of groups of youth without work in the French suburbs, mixing individuals from very different backgrounds. How, in such a confused situation, was it possible to create or maintain an anti-Arab racism on the one hand, and a sense of community and religious identity, on the other, so strong that current vocabulary designates as 'Muslims' all those who come from an Arab country, but also from Turkey, sub-Saharan Africa, or other territories, when they are not all practising Muslims? The original French population strongly resented this changed situation, in particular with the rise of casual employment. The one who feels threatened attributes the causes of her fear to the foreigner, to the one who comes from without, and whose status is even lower than her own -

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something that threatens the 'poor whites' with marginality, where once they hoped for upward social mobility for their children. Muslim activism, and especially the war between Israel and Palestine, has transformed the social awareness o f exclusion among workers o f Arab, Turkish or other origin into an ethnic and religious consciousness that has reinforced reactions of rejection in the older native French population. Over a longer period, this reaction has above all had the effect o f isolating the poorest and weakest categories when other categories left the world of council housing to accede to dwellings answering to a higher social status. Whereas a blending o f the poor from different origins had long been the rule, ghettos now formed, especially on the periphery o f large cities. And whereas France, and in particular those who influence its public opinion, defend republican integration against the communalist danger supposedly threatening republican citizenship, France at the base is widely permeated by this communitarianism, to the point where secondaryschool students often define themselves by their religion or that o f their group of origin rather than by their social situation, their political affiliation, or their sporting preferences. Between Arabs and Jews, especially the most radical on both sides, there is a high degree o f aggression. Numerous attacks on synagogues have occurred and a new anti-Semitism, born out o f an extreme anti-Zionism, has developed. The more that exclusion and the ghettos expand, the more defensive community reactions refer to religious affiliation. The first veiled lycée pupils appeared in Creil in 1989. Despite the proposals o f the Conseil d'État in favour of negotiations in each establishment, the conflicts multiplied and religious activists soon challenged school syllabuses deemed to contradict the Koran, and sometimes also hospital organization, which was accused o f not ensuring separation between men and women when it came to treatment and care. As Parliament assembled a commission and the President of the Republic created the Stasi Commission, after the name of its head, to reflect on the appropriateness of a law that would prohibit so-called conspicuous signs of religious affiliation, public opinion was engaged in an impassioned debate. I n it two problems were conflated that were in fact distinct: on the one hand, respect for the cultural rights of veiled schoolgirls; on the other, defence o f the so-called republican spirit and, above all, o f citizenship against communitarianisms, especially Muslim ones. This duality of problems is expressed in a clear separation between two categories of veiled girls: those who wish to combine modern studies with their religious affiliations; and those who, o f their own free will or succumbing to pressure, play the card o f Islamist attacks on French 'secularism'. Is the Islamist threat genuine? We have mentioned the refusal o f some veiled girls to attend biology or history courses, the attitude of some

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Muslims who reject male doctors touching their wives, but we do not know the frequency of such incidents. In the present world situation, however, it would be unrealistic to deny the existence of an upsurge in fundamentalism. This must not stop us from recognizing the fact that the global fear of Islamic-inspired terrorism confers a probably exaggerated importance on certain local incidents. I n the French case, a sense of this danger was sufficiently widespread and strong for a law restricting or prohibiting religious signs in schools ultimately to be massively approved by public opinion. But recognition o f the danger must not lead us to forget the existence of young Muslim women who wish at all costs to participate in modern social life - which presupposes their graduation from school. Most abandon any voluntary sign o f affiliation to a non-Western culture and dress and live in Western fashion. But since 1989 a number o f them have wanted to be free, at school and elsewhere, to display obvious signs o f their religious affiliation. A t the beginning o f the movement, a study conducted by F. Gaspar and Farhad Khosrokhavar showed that a majority of these veiled secondary-school pupils were modern, wanted to pursue their studies and gave them a scientific orientation. Similar studies have yielded analogous results in the case of Turkey: veiled pupils were not distinct from the rest as regards their future projects, even when negative pressures were exerted on them. Since then, there is no doubt that the sway o f the family, local and religious background over some young pupils has increased with the exacerbation of exclusion and the growing isolation o f the ghettos. But the category o f modern veiled girls who want to combine their native culture with their present and future social milieus has certainly not disappeared. The report o f the Stasi Commission wanted to see acknowledgement of the profound differences that exist between the various categories o f veiled secondary-school girls. Ally or adversary of this secularism, depending on the circumstances, a new form of opposition to religious fundamentalisms, particularly o f the Islamic variety, has asserted itself. I t derives from feminist movements, which is logical, since religions - in particular, monotheistic ones - have imprisoned women, often violently so, in dependence on men and excluded them from public life. Thus, feminists comprehensively attack an Islam which they accuse o f imprisoning women in an inferiority and dependence of which the chador is the most visible symbol - at the risk, obviously, o f impeding any evolution. The meaning o f these battles between two camps, each o f which is divided in two by an internal opposition of great significance, is not that the past resists the future and custom resists reason. What fuels the confrontation between cultures is the fact that for much o f the global population Western culture, while attractive, is inseparable from a military,

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economic and political domination that has not diminished, but only changed its form from the initial modern colonial expeditions to today's globalization, which is ever more clearly in the service of the American empire. Another interpretation, opposed to the preceding one, leads to conclusions that are even more dangerous. This is cultural relativism which, by eliminating any universalistic reference, in fact precludes communication. I f this thinking was applied, the poorest countries would also be those with the fewest prospects of achieving their liberation. It is good to discover, through the study of a particular historical case, the general nature of the solution that allows for communication between cultures, while remaining as far removed from extreme multiculturalism as from cultural imperialism. I f French society, feeling itself threatened militarily and culturally, rejects anything that comes from without - that is, assigns itself a monopoly of the universal and identifies itself with the latter - it will increasingly be compelled to embark on a crusade, the one already being conducted by George Bush's United States. Conversely, i f it inclined to cultural relativism - but this is much less likely than the other hypothesis - it would imperil its social and political unity. The objective that imposes itself on us all is to recognize (and have recognized) a core of universal principles - those constitutive of modernity - and the multiplicity of historical modes of modernization, so as to render the greatest possible number of modes of modernization compatible with the universal principles of modernity. The separation and the complementary character of modernity and modernizations is not only conducive to understanding and respecting different cultures, on condition that they recognize general principles like the practice of rational thinking and respect for individual rights, without which intercultural communication is impossible. I t must lead us further, towards a transformation in the way we approach these problems. I t is no longer exclusively a question of understanding what enables cultures to communicate; what is at stake is whether an awareness of the differences between cultures can be transformed into an evaluation, by the actor herself, of her own forms of behaviour. This involves a radical switch of perspective: the issue is no longer whether two or more cultures are compatible, but to observe how actors handle the transition from one culture and society to others, and above all the role played by beliefs, attitudes, and prohibitions in facilitating or, on the contrary, complicating the transition. Such an approach analyses the actor's behaviour in a new way. Initially, the goal is simply to grasp and analyse the difficulties encountered by immigrants or others in their transition from one culture to a different one. It is no longer a question of defining the relations between different cul-

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tures, but the kind o f behaviour that enables actors not to be defeated by the difficulties they encounter. Various pieces o f research have shown that the presence o f strong convictions facilitates the transition from one culture and society to others. What is measured here is the ability o f the actors to behave as subjects - that is, to conceive and create their own route. I t is no longer the compatibility between different cultures that is at issue, but the capacity of individuals to transform a series o f lived situations and incidents into a personal history and project. We can therefore advance the hypothesis that those who have been able to manage their personal history have more consciously chosen it, in a way less determined by shocks to, and loss, of the self. Their behaviour has resulted in them raising the level o f the judgements they work out about themselves. This approach enables us to achieve knowledge of the personal and collective field that confers meaning on what is called history. We can expand on this remark. Too often, studies of intercultural relations present them to us as so many roads leading from one city to another, as i f cultures were comparable to cities, as i f a culture exercised total control over some particular population. Such situations certainly exist in particular, in colonial or quasi-colonial situations like those experienced by the Indians o f Latin America. But the population o f cultural minorities is attracted by regions whose living standards and labour markets offer them better chances o f survival or social advance. This is not a question of communication between two or more cultures, but o f the relations of attraction exercised by central or privileged categories on the more dominated. In the industrialized Western countries, minorities are often composed of a group o f individuals who do not necessarily constitute a community and, above all, handle among themselves relations of domination, blending and cultural mixing that render analysis in terms o f the juxtaposition or separation of two cultures impossible. Each culture is profoundly influenced by its neighbours, especially by those who represent a pole o f attraction. Such is the case with young Arabs from the Maghreb, among whom there has developed a consciousness o f religious identity but also of de facto membership, subjectively experienced, of French society, which far from corresponds to the stereotypes often presented. Thus, reference is frequently made to 'young immigrants', even though the young people concerned were born in France, invariably possess French citizenship and speak French. Very different is the case of the immigrants who arrived in large numbers in the United States prior to the First World War, and again in recent years, who rapidly identified with their host country. A n extreme case is Argentina which, very rapidly and thanks above all to a French-style education system, transformed Italian, German, Swiss and French people into Argentinian citizens swiftly detached from their native society and culture.

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Communities and communitarianisms We use 'communitarianism' to refer to very different phenomena. Belgium and the Netherlands recognize the political and administrative importance of the cultural 'pillars' of society; and in Belgium the percentage of public affairs jointly treated by the two principal communities has greatly diminished. When the French state, having under Napoleon recognized the Catholic, Protestant Lutheran and Jewish communities, undertook to organize the representation of Muslims in France and entrust it to an elected body, it recognized the existence of a Muslim community, without this implying a communitarian administration of society. We can only employ that expression in connection with movements which demand, for a culturally or ethnically defined community, a monopoly on handling the relations between members of this community and of it as a whole with the national state or even with international institutions. This conception of social organization can extend as far as the complete identification of individuals with a community, be it ethnic, national or religious - an identification that defines all aspects of their way of life, including the definition of their rights. I f a government accepted that certain women could wear an Islamic veil or chador on national identity cards, that would be tantamount to the state no longer having relations with citizens, but with members of communities. This is an extreme situation, which would indicate a general undermining and quasi-disappearance of the national state. The communitarianism that disturbs us today is indeed the one which places itself above citizenship - that is, recognizes cultural affiliation as superior to national identity. I t is the relative undermining of national states that has led to the inflation of this communitarianism, especially when the latter has found itself confronted with a multinational empire in which each population felt itself to be in a condition of inferiority, dependency and sometimes slavery. Between the two types of communitarianism that we have referred to one very limited, the other extreme - there exists a third mode of identification with a community: communitarian introversion, which responds to the forms of rejection suffered by the members of some minority community at the hands of the majority or an important section of the population. Those who are excluded or held in contempt seek, in effect, to situate themselves elsewhere than the social ladder on which they are so badly placed and to oppose a qualitative definition of themselves to their opponents. That is how the transition is effected from an economic and social definition of a category of poor people to a cultural, ethnic, or even directly religious definition of the same population. Such a switch in definitions of the social field is one of the essential elements in the transition from a socio-economic vision of society to a cultural definition that

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corresponds to what I have called post-social situations. The same thing has occurred as regards the situation of women. Initially defined by an inequality of opportunity and economic situation compared with men which led some to say that woman was man's proletarian - women have made the transition to more qualitative demands, based on a demand for freedom and the recognition of differences, combined with equality and not hierarchy of sexual categories. When a principal observes the pupils in the courtyard of his lycée grouping by nationality and religion, and no longer by social level, political opinion, or sporting preference; or when a university witnesses a confrontation between two student societies, one of which is pro-Palestinian while the other is Jewish and pro-Israeli, then we are dealing with a 'reactive' communitarianism. A n d we must acknowledge that it is much more implanted in present-day France than people thought. Such processes of exclusion go far beyond inequality, and even marginality. They articulate the rejection of a culture and a nationality. This explains why the definition of a community in terms of identity is so dangerous. Identity is, in fact, an ideological construct that leads to the rejection of the category concerned, by defining it more in terms of its 'nature' than by the domination that it suffers. The ultimate point in this transition from a socioeconomic definition of a population to a cultural one is supersession of the community itself and the assertion of an individual religious identity, of a faith that has its basis in the religious universe, not social life. Those who assert that membership of a political culture is superior to affiliation to a cultural community defend one of the basic principles of modernity; and this is not the perspective from which those who are called 'republicans' in France are to be criticized. I t is because they are opposed to 'democrats' - that is, to those who attach as much importance to social and cultural rights as to political rights. With their refusal, they assume that political modernity is created and maintained by itself, by its own force and through its rejection of any compromise with foreigners. We are definitely drawn towards this conclusion: communitarianism and abstract universalism are opposed and yet complementary. Above all, we do not need to choose between them; it is necessary to do everything to recombine them. This can be done, as I hope to have shown, through processes of modernization, which combine modernity and cultural legacies and projects, personal or collective, in very different ways. From this standpoint, any assertion of an insurmountable opposition between two categories of situation - for example, between developed countries and traditional cultures - would wreck our attempts to establish communication, and even a certain integration, between poles that seem to be completely opposed. Thus, it is highly dangerous to oppose the globalized economy and cultures defined ahistorically, thereby imprisoning

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them in an obsession with their identity. Accepting that the world is dominated by an open conflict between American power and militant Islamism amounts to engaging in a logic o f rupture that will result in all o f us, individually and collectively, losing our capacity for acting.

Liberals and communitarians The social sciences have been taken up for at least two decades, in particular in the United States, with the debate between liberals and communitarians. The debate remains confused, because one calls liberals those who claim that economic rationality prevails over any other cultural model in all societies and all social groups, but also those who defend the idea that universal rights exist, over and above social differences, which are embodied in the citizenship whose institutions serve each individual in as much as she is a bearer o f universal rights. The first aspect o f liberalism is not readily defensible. I t is true that many forms of behaviour, o f political project, and o f what are called social movements are guided by the collective pursuit of the satisfaction o f individual interests, as in the case of trade unionists who combine to obtain a wage increase from which each o f them will benefit. But there is a big difference between an assertion o f this kind, whose utility is limited, and the mass of individual and collective forms o f behaviour that are guided by ends other than interest. A n d it is always dangerous to reduce major international or national conflicts to struggles between interests, just as it is unacceptable to detect in the action of religious militants nothing but economic or even political motives. As for the reference to universal rights, it must take the form o f citizenship. That is what makes human beings equal in abstraction from their social attributes. But it is precisely here that the other viewpoint is introduced, for social rights, and even more cultural rights, are not reducible to political rights - and do not equally apply to everyone. Social laws protect miners, seafarers, or bakery workers. A n d in a much more radical way, cultural rights protect differences, whether the categories concerned are in a majority or minority. To seek to reduce everything to political citizenship or the republican spirit, as do a number o f politicians and intellectuals, is strictly reactionary. Certainly, i f the defence of economic and cultural rights is isolated from the assertion o f political rights, it risks becoming anti-democratic. A t the same time, however, we must refuse any definition of rights that takes account neither of social rights nor o f cultural rights, and hence neither o f struggles against employers nor the defence o f cultural minorities. Political rights on the one hand, and social and cultural rights on the other, are complementary. To depart from this

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open conception o f rights is to fuel an artificial, dangerous opposition between a liberalism that is a vector o f inequality and a communitarianism that is obsessed with the pursuit of identity and homogeneity. On the side o f the communitarians we find an analogous duality. The girls o f Arab or Turkish origin who demand to wear the veil at school are sometimes seeking, as I have mentioned, to express the resistance o f their religious culture to the rationalist culture that they encounter in the lycées and French society as a whole or elsewhere. But they just as often have a deep desire to enter into the modern world by acquiring the knowledge dispensed in the lycée, without breaking with their family and cultural heritage. To expel these girls would risk creating a clash o f civilizations, which would be bound to have negative consequences at a time when the 'West' no longer has a monopoly on power and modernity.

Secularism The thinking that has been articulated in this chapter leads to conclusions distant from what is called the French conception o f secularism. But can I formulate such a conclusion after having asserted that secularism is one of the main components o f modernity? I have defended the principle of secularism with so much conviction that I cannot now call it into question: separating Church and state, breaking up the holistic constitution o f society, allotting a central, independent place to political power defined as the invention of society by itself - these formulations correspond perfectly to my idea of modernity and to my mind, as in the view of a very large number o f citizens, constitute an indispensable condition for the realization of democracy. A n d what is involved here is clearly an active conception o f secularism, for suppressing theocracy and the influence of Churches over government has always been difficult; and the task is never complete. In France, after a period of intense religious and political conflict, calm gradually descended, to the satisfaction of the great majority. This approach to secularism obviously has nothing to do with the antireligious and anti-clerical secularism, which often rests on an elementary rationalism that would like to extend the requirements of scientific thinking to domains other than its own. Some speak in this connection o f secular religion; but this is merely a remnant from an already distant past. What is much more important, and enjoys much more support - and more active support at that - is the idea that schools should above all be schools o f the Republic. Initially, we are inclined to support this conception, whose objective is more noble than the nationalism that dominates schools in many countries. The French citizen and republican formed in

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French primary and secondary schools does not learn to defend his country and his flag in all circumstances. Teachers have taught him to defend political freedom, social justice and a critical spirit in the public arena. A n d those who condemn republicanism in the name of a religiously inspired morality obviously have no right to reject or scorn the French conception of secularism. The school intent on being both republican and secular, and which is at the same time completely tolerant as regards religious opinions and options, merits more respect, it seems to me, than one where religious education is obligatory - and still more than one where this teaching is based on a state religion, even when the latter amounts to a morality that is ultimately less dangerous than the totalitarian political ideologies imposed in so many countries during the twentieth century. However, once we have acknowledged the qualities o f the secular school, and even those elements that are indispensable to the defence o f democracy, we must reintroduce themes that have forced themselves on us throughout this chapter. Schools must not ignore the religious phenomenon in general and different religious beliefs and practices in particular. Furthermore, their teaching is truncated and creates inequality when it maintains that it does not have to concern itself with pupils' social situation or life history. Knowledge of the religious phenomenon is indispensable. First of all, because the history o f religions helps us to understand our history and the present. But the question then arises: must schools teach that there is something beyond the social and the political which, in successive centuries and in the various continents, has assumed particular forms - at one point God, at some other time the universe or nature, and elsewhere again reason or revolution, or even M a n and natural law, which is religious in origin but which the declarations o f human rights, from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, issued from? Or should they make religious facts known without interpreting them? It is predominantly a question today of recognizing that most societies rest on non-social principles, on values defined and respected as situated above laws and political decisions. We often find a trace o f this in constitutions or what are regarded as founding texts, as is the case in Great Britain, the United States and France. We are witnessing a renaissance in moral thinking, the assertion of basic human rights which, as the theologians of natural law argued, must be defended by all means, including the refusal to obey political authorities guilty of not respecting these rights. This formulation clearly indicates the principles of resistance to the sacralization of the political. But it is even more important because of the conclusions that can be drawn from it in a global situation strongly marked by the rise of movements which are at once religious and political, and irreducible either to terrorism or to a purely spiritual phenomenon.

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This brings us back to the central theme of this chapter - namely, that a large number of contemporary routes to modernization combine religious components with often old forms of social organization and cultural life. This is how individuals and groups in which religious and nonreligious forms of behaviour mix, combine, or contradict one another are often actively led to modernity. I t would therefore be arbitrary, and certainly false, to declare the modernity to which schools refer and some particular cultural heritage that does not regard itself as anti-modern incompatible. The pursuit of continuity is as common as the quest for rupture. What concerns those who are not content with the French 'republican model' is that it pushes a number of individuals towards other cultures which are indeed completely opposed to modernity. Openness, in contrast, must help the majority national group (religious or ideological) to adopt a more critical self-awareness, whereas the 'republican' spirit, especially when it is on the defensive, tends to defend a culture and civilization en bloc, while forgetting their heterogeneity and the presence in them of cultural elements that are foreign to modernity, even in contradiction with it. It is certainly not easy to mark out the boundary between what is opposed to modernity in minority cultures and societies and what must be criticized (or, on the contrary, accepted) in the majority culture. But it is this complexity that can confer on schools their educational value and, above all, enhance their capacity to advance the maximum number of pupils in the direction of this core of modernity - without compelling them to follow the path taken by the majority culture, which (as I have repeatedly said) cannot be identified with modernity. Moreover, establishing a clear boundary between public life and private life amounts to inflicting damage on religious - but also political - thinking and action, since all religions have public activities and visibility. Secularism therefore does not consist in constantly reinforcing the separation between the private world and the public world, for this division would increasingly lead, as is already often the case, to schools being on the margins of the innovations and debates that are emerging, especially among the young. I n other words, i f the idea of secularism must evolve, and i f schools must accord ever greater importance to intercultural communication, at the same time as they reinforce the principles of modernity, it is not in order to allow themselves to be hacked into by religious associations that are often linked to political, ethnic or religious parties. On the contrary, it is so as to facilitate the access of all, and hence of all minorities, to modernity itself, by facilitating its combination with individual and collective experiences whose contours meld historically situated cultures and universal principles.

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Citizenship must be firmly defended against communitarianism. But it remains a choice between a narrow citizenship that rejects cultural pluralism and another, more open citizenship which seeks to render the unity of modernity compatible with the diversity o f cultural histories. A n d needless to say, I invite readers to opt for the open conception.

Intercultural communication The more populations mix with each other in a world that is becoming nomadic, the more numerous are the encounters that might result in the absorption of one group by another, or in war between them, but also in intercultural communication. A n d this is facilitated not so much by everyone participating in a largely globalized civilization, as by common acceptance o f modernity and its basic principles. What must never be forgotten is that an encounter between societies and cultures always contains an asymmetry of power: one o f them is majoritarian, the other is minoritarian; on the one hand, the colonizer, on the other, the colonized. This power relationship is always recognized by the dominated party; it must also be acknowledged by the dominant one, which in this way will distance itself somewhat from the established order (which is favourable to it). The encounter even presupposes that the dominant recognizes the superiority of the dominated in some domains, which are often at the heart o f its cultural identity: a knowledge o f particular sacred texts or of some literary or musical tradition. But these remarks must not mask the underlying intention of discourses on intercultural communication and even on multiculturalism: refusal o f a monopoly on culture by the most modernist Western countries. This refusal remains domineering as long as other cultures are described in terms of exoticism, specificity, or as being inspired by passions regarded as inferior by superior cultures. But it becomes a positive, even redemptive force when it replaces the spirit of war, which pits the strongest against the weakest. It is in the countries that have most strongly identified themselves with the universal, with reason, with good governance that this aspiration to intercultural communication is expressed with the most difficulty. Ernst Curtius brilliantly demonstrated that i f in the nineteenth century France defended the idea of civilization against Germany (which separated the Volk from culture, regarded as access to higher values and knowledge), it is because it regarded itself as a totality completely permeated by the universal, whereas the Germans, whose national integration was recent and weak, still felt the great distance that separated the higher values of culture from their collective experience. This French sense of being the bearers o f

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the universal, which was even more intense than that which inspired the English, even though they were more powerful, is explained both by the Catholic tradition and by the revolutionary break. However that may be, the radicalism o f French thinking and action found it hard to accommodate a pragmatic or purely utilitarian vision. Hence the self-consciousness that renders perception o f others so difficult. A t the end o f the twentieth century, no European country can any longerclaim to embody the universal. Moreover, it is in the United States that this sense is developing today, based on that country's incontestable dominance in the sciences as in military power or technological innovation. As a result, the richness o f the anthropological work conducted i n the United States does not prevent that country from appearing to the rest o f the world to be incapable of understanding others and convinced of the inherent superiority of all aspects o f its civilization. I n short, what in the nineteenth century was the illusion o f the French and the English is today that of the Americans. It is true that the largest empires or states, and also those that are geared to seeking internal balance rather than an encounter with other civilizations, are the worst prepared to develop intercultural communication, whose necessity they sometimes deny. Conversely, small countries, situated at the crossroads o f economic and cultural flows, often experience the need to understand those around them and are thus more predisposed to recognizing the other.

Return to new ideas Communication is not established between cultures, but between historical entities that must be defined on the one hand by their relationship to modernity, and on the other by the specificity o f their road to modernization. To recall that we - concrete human beings, placed in clearly defined social situations and historical conjunctures - do not only encounter around us religious cultures and messages, but also life experiences and projects o f change, individual or collective, is not to deny the interest of a philosophical and theological comparison between Christianity and Islam. A n understanding o f the other is only possible i f we replace a comprehensive definition o f each culture by articulating its situation vis-à-vis modernity with the nature o f the modernization it is engaged in. It is within the first standpoint - the relationship to modernity - that we find references to the need for a knowledge and use of complex technologies. But it is within the viewpoints involving modes o f development that we must place analysis o f relations o f domination. More broadly still, the theme o f changes in modes of development, and hence o f modernization, can comprise knowledge o f forms of decomposition of the

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classical European model of modernization, o f the effects of this decomposition, and of the possibilities o f reconstructing other forms of modernization through the transition to the information society and, more widely, to what I have called post-social society. Intercultural communication is therefore not only an attempt at mutual understanding: it involves an act o f knowledge that seeks to situate self and other in historical complexes and in the definition o f processes o f change and relations to power. Ultimately, what is being proposed here therefore consists in defining the relations between actors by the relative position they occupy in the complex set of dimensions that I encapsulate in the intersection of modernity and modernizations. Intercultural communication is dialogue between individuals and collectivities that dispose of the same principles and different historical experiences, in order to situate themselves with respect to one another. One dimension is still lacking in this analysis. We can only understand and respect ourselves i f the overarching themes o f modernity and modernization are set in motion and transformed, but in the awareness of a shared history. We often feel ourselves dominated by obscure forces. Today, we are more aware that it is we who threaten our own survival, that of our descendants, that of many plant and animal species, and of the climatic conditions that allow us to exist. Obviously, it is not a question of replacing the security that sheltering gods conferred on us by anxieties about self-destruction, but of deriving from globalization and the growing interdependence of all aspects o f life on Earth an awareness of our responsibility. I t is therefore equally our capacity for creating, for transforming, and for destroying our life and our environment that obliges us to turn our gaze, so long fixed on nature and the instruments that enabled us to conquer it, on ourselves. This self-awareness can only be a consciousness of our shared existence, of our interdependence, and hence o f the need to recognize in the other not only someone who is in a relationship with the same modernity as me, but someone whose history is not completely separated from my own history. We are not all citizens of the same world, for the latter is not an institutional and political unit defining the rights and duties o f each person. On the other hand, we all have the same cultural rights, which basically derive from our relationship to ourselves and to others. We have lived through a historical situation where it was society, with its institutions, its norms, its modes of domination and supervision, that gave rise to actors - who were then defined as social. I n the course of recent decades, we have felt with increasing intensity that we were plunging into the opposite situation. Here it is the creation o f ourselves that determines our capacity to resist the forces of death and overcome them, whereas the social space is reduced to a site of encounters, conflicts, or truces between forces that are

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opposed, but which are equally alien to social life: on the one hand, those that derive from the market, war and the destruction of all aspects o f life; on the other, those that appeal not to the social order or surging desire, but to the assertion o f the self and o f ourselves as subjects o f our existence and agents of our freedom. As a result, the principal object of analysis is no longer society, but actors who are already more than social, since they are defined not only by their social affiliations and relations, but also by cultural rights, so that they are indeed complete individuals and not abstractions, as the citizen or even the worker remained. Awareness of this switch also enables us to understand the exhaustion o f the political forms of thinking and action we have inherited from the past.

8 A Society of Women

An altered situation Modern society in the West was created by a subject that had now entered into each individual and thus left the divine world behind. However, like all the major resources in this type of society, the subject was concentrated in the ruling elite, primarily embodied in men. The 'society o f men' both generated much energy and created tensions that reached breaking-point. The dominant pole was conquest, production and war - that of men whereas the female was the principal figure of inferiority and dependence. Absent from the ruling pole, woman was as much part o f the subject as man, but endured domination. There is certainly only one subject, but it is not equally present in each of the two poles, female and male. The creative subject is also present in the procreating woman, just as the subject embodied in the amorous body of woman is also present in the brutal power of man. The subject, defined as the transformation o f the socially determined individual into self-creator, is as present in man and woman, but in a different way. There are also forces o f negation of the subject on both sides: the break with 'life' on the side of man; submission to the biological rules o f this life in the case of woman. Modern society, in which man dominates woman, does not, however, reduce the latter to her subjugation. She is also the mother, the body, love. When the Western model o f modernization decomposes, when its springs slacken, this is what enables woman potentially to occupy a dominant position in a new type of society, where man, while losing his power, will not be reduced to a dependence analogous to woman's in male society. The neutral formulas I have just employed seem insufficient to many women today. They would like to condemn the idea (still expressed) that

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women have no soul, are not subjects, more violently. Indeed, this idea has not completely disappeared, even when it is dressed up in a more elegant discourse, which extols the beauty o f women while implying that beauty pertains to women just as mind and consciousness pertain to men - as is proved by the fact that the majority o f intellectual and artistic oeuvres have been produced by men . . . A n even more developed discourse likewise concludes that women must be referred to in 'objective' terms, i n terms of the domination they suffer. Does not saying that women are merely victims of male, heterosexual domination amount to claiming that they have no consciousness and are incapable of rising above general emotional reactions? The advantage of simple formulas is that they betray the anti-feminism that inspires them. For there are ways o f fighting male domination which are replete with anti-feminism. The sensible thing is to recognize the profound differences that distinguish contemporary culture from the culture of an already distant past. The subject then, and until recently, was still not sufficiently oriented towards itself and conscious self-assertion. On the one hand, it only attained itself through its projection into a suprahuman world: that of the sacred and the divine. On the other, it defended itself more easily through mutiny and rebellion than by a complex process of self-awareness. Such a difference is important, but it is insufficient to establish a marked difference between men and women. It remains the case that the ideology in which this past culture was situated is that o f an extremely hierarchical opposition between men and women. What we are living through is the transformation o f the classical model of modernity, which is so strongly polarized. The dominated categories the people, the workers, the colonized, women - have transformed themselves into social movements that have severed the tie of dependency that made them the slaves of a master. A t the end of the period of the major conflicts inspired by these social movements, modernization as the West experienced it - that is, in complete rupture with the old worlds - has lost its energy and dissolved into the universe of consumption and pleasure, which is no longer capable of generating genuinely creative ideas or provoking new conflicts. Because they always retained the idea that the new is not constructed exclusively with the new but also out of the old, other roads to modernization can avoid this exhaustion, which predominantly affects the West, in that it pushed the accumulation, polarization and confrontation of opposite extremes to the limit. The only cultural model that might impart new life to a West now spread over much o f the globe is one which counterposes to the polarization of one type o f modernization, today in decline, the converse dynamic: the reconstitution and recombination o f elements which had been separated so that one dominated the other. This is a model which also advances the

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idea that the new is created and managed by those - women - who had represented the main figure o f dependence, but who are now endeavouring to supersede the men/women opposition rather than to replace male domination by female domination. This alteration would be impossible i f the situation of woman in the classical model o f modernity, dominated by man, could be defined in the wholly negative terms of the dependence or violence they suffered. But that is precisely how it is most often defined, above all by extreme critiques which deem male domination so complete that there is no room for resistance, still less for a counter-offensive. Before clarifying how women can become the main agents o f the creation of a new culture, we must therefore critically examine the purely negative definition of the female condition. The commonest image is that the dependence imposed by the old cultural model, when undermined by the general transformation o f a society that is more 'active' and less given to describing itself in absolute terms, is transformed into an even worse dependency than the old one, even though it apparently contains elements of liberation. With the whole of society being transformed into a set of markets and tradable goods, and social actors predominantly pursuing their own economic advantage or pleasure, women find liberation from the constraints of the old model in the market. However, they also experience more intense pressure, which ends up transforming them into sexual objects capable of being bought, sold or exchanged. This new dependency renders difficult (even impossible) the transformation o f women into the main actors in the construction of a new cultural model. Yet the market economy is often accompanied by the construction of a space that is at once private and open, and at the same time women achieve genuine economic and general autonomy through wage-labour. Women's social inferiority declines (or disappears) more quickly in some countries, like Great Britain or the Scandinavian countries, and more slowly in the Latin countries and even France, where women were only granted the right to vote almost a century after men. The feminist movement then increases in strength and imposes significant reforms, making possible a balanced view o f the situation o f women, who still suffer inequality but who have conquered rights and the means freely to run many aspects of their lives, in particular what they do with their bodies. The conjunction o f feminism and the advantages derived from the market economy set in train a transformation in the female condition that is moderately positive, but sufficiently so for women, conscious o f these improvements, not to seek to take on a role of fundamental cultural transformation. As I have indicated my intention to explain why they play this role, I must now justify this hypothesis and, above all, identify the obstacles they encounter - obstacles that can lead them into forms of behaviour involving rupture.

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The general hypothesis of this book is a transition from a society that perceived itself and acted in socio-economic terms, to a societal type that I have called post-social because the categories organizing our representation and action are no longer strictly social but cultural. The reason for this is that our experience is no longer turned upside down by mass society in the realm o f production alone, but also in that of consumption and communication. Nothing in us escapes the accumulated complex o f techniques and knowledge; and we respond to them by concerning ourselves with all aspects of our lives, in order to defend our singular unity, body and mind. Our relations with authority, like the forms of our imagination, our sexual experience, like our musical tastes - these change. The general idea o f the transition from a culture turned outwards to another, turned inwards and towards self-consciousness, leads directly to the idea of a culture defined and experienced more intensely by women than by men. The rhythms and constraints of biological life, and especially o f the reproductive organs, which had been regarded as obstacles to women's role in public life, now turn to their advantage, first o f all thanks to medical techniques, but above all because the ties between self and self appear stronger in woman than man, without this difference authorizing us to erect an insuperable barrier between the two sexes. Sexual life does not occupy a more important place i n women than men, but concern with the links between sexuality and personality is greater in women than men, because men, born in the old, declining cultural model, remain more strongly situated by their public roles - in particular, their professional roles. Above all, the relationship to children, even in families where the father actively cares for them, always remains more intense for the woman than the man. Even i f some women prefer to avoid pregnancy, others - more numerous - consider inestimable this unique experience of the gestation of a new living being, which also gives them an awareness o f their role in reproducing the species. The relationship to the body occupies as central a place in today's society as work did in industrial society or the political status o f freedom or slavery in political societies. Sexuality is present in every aspect of the personality and plays a major part in our construction of ourselves. But in order to understand the feminist movement itself, is it not better to locate women's action in the broader set o f struggles for equality, for respect for political and social rights? Many women explain that i f they struggle, it is in order that all sorts of discrimination and injustice should be abolished. They want to establish complete equality between men and women, and thus eliminate all reference to gender in the domain o f employment and wages. But others above all wish to have their differences from men recognized at the same time as their equality with them. This constant debate creates passionate struggles. The women who predominantly stress equality do so, they say, because any reference to difference

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reintroduces inequality and, more seriously still, ends up denning woman by reference to man. But this reproach is ill-founded, for the rejection of any gender difference refers not to a male model but to a universal Man, defined by rights as opposed to particular attributes. I t is precisely this formulation that demands the most radical critique. Who is this Man? The French text o f 1789 tells us that it is he who enjoys the rights of the citizen, and hence political rights. But half a century after it was drafted, new demands based on social rights arose, formulated primarily by wageearners, beginning with the right to work, which was the major objective o f those whose supported the working-class movement. Next came struggles for cultural rights - the right to speak one's own language, to participate in the defence of a collective memory. How can such cultural demands not be extended to the right to assert one's 'gender', one's sexual identity? A man 'without qualities', socially and culturally non-situated, is conceived at such a remove from any real situation that the assertion o f his rights amounts to a meaningless declaration which cannot answer to any specific objective. But this argument, which reduces women's struggles to general themes, offends the class of women as much as it does many men. In the vast domain of work and employment, the slogan o f equality extending to the elimination of any reference to gender has great cogency, and did indeed contribute to reducing the number of jobs classified as male or female. In the domain of sexuality and reproduction, however, neutral solutions do not exist, for it is precisely here that male domination (which has been defined as control o f reproduction, woman being treated above all as reproductive and thus dominated by male power) was rooted. Hence feminism's strongest demand - for a woman's right to decide freely whether or not to have a child: A child if I want one, when I want one.' I t is an extreme formula, but one whose effectiveness derives precisely from the fact that women thereby reverse the traditional relationship with the man, who 'made' a baby for her or to whom she 'gave' a child. We are thus led to the hypothesis that sums up this analysis: women's self-assertion and will to creation are located in the order of sexuality. In other words, it is by demanding a sexuality independent of the functions o f reproduction and maternity that women truly constitute themselves as a social movement and advance furthest - further than by struggling for equality and against discrimination.

Equality and difference But this no longer involves a right to difference. Male domination is attacked both by the freedom to decide whether or not to have a child and by the demand for sexuality as a central element in the construction of the

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female personality. This construction is based less on mistrust of men, so frequent in the United States, than on the will to self-construction. It is impossible here to avoid the debate on the equality of women and their differences launched by feminists, which has become as classic as the debate between liberals and communitarians. Celebrated anthropologists like Louis Dumont and Clifford Geertz have maintained that combining equality and difference is as impossible to achieve as squaring the circle. This judgement might appear to be good sense, but it is unacceptable. Different objects are readily arranged in a hierarchy, either according to their price or durability, or by virtue o f the number o f those who buy one or other o f them. But it is not difference that is at stake here, but economic or psycho-sociological attributes. It is difficult to establish a hierarchy between green and blue, tea and coffee, Churchill and Clemenceau. In contrast, it is logical to look behind a palpable, readily identifiable difference not only for other differences, but above all different configurations. We shall accept without hesitation the fact of the traditional domination of women by men. Yet it is not explained by their respective characteristics, but by a cultural pattern that accords a central role to men as conquerors and hunters. It is not production that prevails over reproduction; it is not even control of the exchange of women by men. I n my opinion what is at issue here is a view o f society dominated, in various forms, by an elite controlling resources and responsible for transforming it and its environment - an elite to which other categories, like women, are subordinate. It is therefore not a question of restricting ourselves to a difference that is in itself hierarchically neutral, but on the contrary of bringing out social and cultural complexes that construct hierarchical relations of inequality. And I am precisely seeking in this chapter to bring out the change of cultural model that has seen women accede to the central role - which does not mean that women have become professionally or intellectually superior to men, but that they occupy a more central position in the new culture. In short, the requisite analysis must not be conducted in psychological terms. To put the point differently: rather than taking the measure of the differences between the actors and their relative level, it is important to identify the complex in which they intervene and the importance o f the position they occupy in it. This will clarify why women today believe themselves to be superior to men and indeed are.

Sexuality and gender What are we to understand by sexuality? Certainly not merely libido, desire. Here the word sex is insufficient. Sexuality is the construction o f

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the personality through sexed affective relations and various forms o f erotic pleasure. I n order to clarify this distinction, we must clearly distinguish between sex and gender - a distinction that has played such a key role in the development of feminist thinking, especially in the United States. Gender, say commentators, is a social construction of sexual life. That definition is well-nigh devoid of interest, since virtually everything in a culture is constructed, whether food, kinship systems, or the definition of the sacred. The idea of gender became productive after it had been enriched by a variety o f post-Marxism that introduced the idea of the imposition of a domination, the creation of a being dominated by male power. That is why the most important feminists, Judith Butler at their head, have denounced the idea of gender and sought to rehabilitate queer forms o f sexual life. In so doing, they have profoundly transformed feminist thinking. The notion of gender is set to be destroyed, to be deconstructed, they say, because the categories used to describe women are so many instruments for imposing on them the monopoly o f the heterosexual relationship, whose pre-eminence stems from the central position occupied by men in the social function of reproduction and filiation. This feminist thinking, primarily articulated by American radical lesbians who are among the most influential intellectuals in their country, but also outside it, has had many positive effects. Its principal aspect is that it goes beyond denunciations of the social condition of woman. Obviously, this does not mean being uninterested in the forms o f injustice, violence and inequality suffered by women. But it is necessary to go further and criticize the categories in which these practices are grounded. Many women are not merely victims, content to denounce what they endure; they also challenge the social structures that sustain their dependency. For my part, I want to push the argument in a different direction. I t is women who are causing our society to make the transition from a masterful vision of the world to a vision of the self as creator o f new, free orientations. This corresponds to the great transformation that has led the classical European cultural model to evolve in the direction I describe in this book. The sex/gender couplet, constructed and then deconstructed by radical feminists, must be excluded from our reflection and replaced by the sex/sexuality couplet, where by sexuality we mean not a force that shoots through us (like the Greeks' Eros with his arrow), but the construction o f a relationship to oneself, as a being of desire, a being o f relations and selfconsciousness, as the actor in the integration of oneself and the world. Sexuality occupies a central place in the formation o f subject, for it refers to an individual experience, to the engagement of the personality around this experience, which is at once a personal lived experience, a relationship to the other and, more profoundly, a self-consciousness oriented

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towards the relationship to life and death. What is being said here has a consequence that must be mentioned straight away. Sexuality is the construction of forms of sexual behaviour. I t is therefore necessary to recognize the existence of forms of sexual behaviour that do not contribute to the construction of a complex sexuality, but which nevertheless attest to the autonomy of sex, which alone renders the construction of sexuality possible. This sexual behaviour detached from sexuality as a cultural construct is what we call eroticism. Its ambiguity and importance derive from the fact that it remains sex in the first instance, but also colours a relationship to the self and to others. I f entirely detached from everything that is sexuality, it degenerates into pornography. But we must clearly understand that our sexual culture cannot be constructed simply out of social or cultural models. A n d eroticism is a condition of sexuality because it precisely refers to what must be constructed. Having reached this point, we encounter the fiercely debated question of the presence of so-called erotic or pornographic programmes on television. We should be troubled by this, because the main objective of television is to produce televisual objects - in other words, to transform real, diverse beings into objects constructed by and for television. This is all the easier in that the characters considered are devoid of relational, emotional or intellectual reality. Thus television, so adept at decontextualization, readily accommodates itself to pornography, but finds it more difficult to bring out the erotic dimension of sexuality; and is completely useless when it comes to analysing the most constructed sexualities, such as are to be found, for example, in works of art, whether literary or pictorial. How can we avoid saying something about prostitution here, since it is the subject of interminable debate and repeated condemnation? I t is certainly necessary to protest against the exploitation by pimps of women forced to leave their country for economic reasons and to offer up their bodies to men, who are themselves invariably imprisoned in a frustrated need for sexual satisfaction. Many prostituted women, together with the men who resort to using them, share the same misery and help to enrich the pimps. The very mention of prostitution provokes indignation. But against whom should it be directed? Against prostitution itself or against misery? Do women in search of significant profit (or who only aim to be part-time ladies of the night), those who give men a sexual massage, belong to the same category as the prostitutes who live in slavery and are compelled to give themselves to anyone? We should beware lest passionate condemnation of prostitution result only in controlling and punishing the prostitution of the poor without touching that of the rich. Certainly, what is no longer possible is to regard the brothel as a pure place of liberation, in accordance with the image made popular by literature and painting, from Maupassant to Toulouse-

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Lautrec. But why choose between the defence o f 'sex workers', the condemnation o f pimps and the social regularization o f an activity that would be sufficiently controlled to yield taxes to the state? I t would be hypocritical not to recognize that prostitution always involves a failure and prevents the women who engage in it from living a free, responsible life. But we should mistrust condemnations that are intended not to liberate women, but to increase society's control over men, o f whom it is quite illegitimate to say that they always want to dominate, even destroy, these women. The very spirited campaigns waged by some feminists against pornography and prostitution can also conceal a will to extend control over habits, already strong in the case of women, to men. Almost by definition, prostitution is an activity with a low level o f emotional exchange, since it primarily involves a woman or man trading their body - which is the precise opposite o f the construction of the self as a subject. But this is not a reason for projecting an image o f prostitution that corresponds only to the most degrading situations, even though it is true that the latter are very common. As I have said, not only do the miserable men who resort to the poor, most exploited prostitutes live as destructively as those prostitutes. But 'chic prostitution', which is probably more easy to bear since it is more agreeable to be rich than poor, can allow a little room for affective speech and demands. Finally, the prostitutes, male and female, for whom this option has been the only way they could meet their desire to change sex, must be considered separately. Brazil is probably the country that has explored the melding of sexual identities furthest and the United States was right to help transsexuals, who most often live in a state of rejection. I t would be good if, in a country like France, opinion was not so defensive that it ultimately locks those, male and female, whom it pretends to want to 'save', into prostitution. The rejection of transsexuals in France leaves them with virtually no escape other than prostitution; and it is urgent for the defence front L G B T (Lesbians, Gays, Bi, Trans) to be strengthened. Too often, the theme o f sexual liberation, however positive, is used as a pretext for developing and imposing new norms that are not only hygienic in kind, but which compound the rejection that affects people in a situation o f failure, emotional deprivation, dependency, or even petty criminality. 'Society' is here more demanding and less charitable than the Churches, which issue condemnations but do not demand positive repression. A n d in countries where there is great poverty and crushing unemployment, how can we fail to understand the women who have formed trade unions for 'sex workers', hostile to repressive measures, and who, in a situation that is impossible to transform completely, at least try to offer prostitutes a minimum o f protection both from the public authorities and the clients themselves?

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On account o f the prolonged situation o f dependence and inferiority they were plunged into, women above all seek the integration o f their affective world. Feelings o f love, erotic pleasure, living as a couple, maternal role, assimilation o f the family - these are so many affective roles which, it is implicitly understood, must be integrated with one another. This objective is so difficult to achieve that no one is surprised when it cannot be. Such a representation contrasts with that o f men, based on separation of roles (father, husband or equivalent, lover, and so on) - so many microcosms whose separation is more often accepted in their case than in women's. This difference in representations is by no means traditional. On the contrary, woman was formerly subject to the distinct role conferred on her by social organization; and it was man who was expected to integrate different ways o f behaving under one name, that o f 'father'. The change in images and expectations is so obvious that nearly all reflections on the sexuality o f women focus on their ability to combine various roles, however different from one another. This underscores the central vocation of women in the new society: to render forms o f behaviour and attitudes that are separated and even opposed to one another in modernity compatible. Much less is expected from men, and the efforts they make to integrate public life and private life, calculations and emotions, and so on are viewed with a certain scepticism. I t is certainly not a question here o f opposing male and female psychologies (nothing is further from my intention), but o f defining two cultures - the one constructed around the polarization of resources and the other centred on an attempt to reconstitute the set o f cultural changes. The first cultural model fashions a contrast between a man adjudged superior and a woman deemed inferior, whereas the second assumes that the action o f women will succeed in reconstructing a plural culture for everyone's benefit. There is an obvious convergence between this evocation o f the creative new role o f women and the desire of radical feminists to have done with every 'ideal' image o f woman, a desire that registers what feminism has long asserted - namely, that everything which defines woman is a form o f domination. I n fact, it is only possible to envisage this new figure o f woman i f we abandon any real representation o f the 'ideal woman'. Thus, on the contrary, we observe women detaching themselves from the definitions given of them which seek to construct a woman-subject to which they never correspond, any more than real men have corresponded to a society's male ideal. The most difficult thing fully to come to terms with is the priority that women give to the construction of themselves. Their relationship to a man or woman, like their relationship to their profession or even their children, cannot be combined in the name of a higher principle situated above social activities. The only possible principle of action is pursuit of the maximum

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capacity for production of oneself, which signifies giving preference to those relations that are most demanding and leaving correspondingly less room for others. The important thing here is not to reason about moral categories, but about the meaning that each piece o f behaviour has for each actor. The opposition between what are commonly regarded as two types o f feminism can be presented in many ways. But the significance o f the contrast must be clearly stated. For the first type it is a question, over and above even the struggle for equality, of asserting a difference: there are two sexes, as Antoinette Fouque vigorously puts it. Woman must be defined by reference to herself, not by reference to her social roles and her relations with man. What is written in this book, particularly in this chapter, clearly pertains to this point of view, as is indicated by the expressions I deliberately use: male culture, female culture, liberation o f women, and so on. The second tendency i n feminism is more radical. As I have already indicated, it challenges the category of 'woman' itself. W i t h queer-theory feminists, it believes that women must be liberated from the heterosexual model that dominates them and sets them in a subordinate position. I t is necessary to have done with the opposition between man and woman and, to that end, to fracture the category 'women', which has been constructed on the basis o f male domination in a normatively imposed heterosexual relationship. This radical position provokes hostile reactions, such is the difficulty in denying the man/woman opposition. I t is immediately perceived not only in heterosexual relationships, but also in transsexual experience and is not challenged in the homosexual relationship. For it is not true to say that in a lesbian couple one o f the partners plays the role o f the man. The 'butch' type is not defined as a male type. The most 'desocialized' expression o f male and female identities is bisexuality, but it often involves a relationship with a clearly identified man and woman, rather than superseding the nature of the partner. I n truth, nothing authorizes us to affirm that woman is a category defined by a series of attributes; and the same is true o f man. There is a great diversity of male and female types, and identification of man with authority is not only a cultural construct, but far from always corresponding to reality. I f this construct has indeed had great influence, it does not absolutely impose itself on all members o f a society, except when the latter is a highly integrated, isolated community. The conclusion this analysis leads to is that an individual does not have the same cognitive, affective or sexual forms of behaviour forever; and that most hetero- or homosexual relations can put only a limited part of the psychic life o f each partner in a state of communication and complementarity. However that may be, the queer theme of the fragmentation of the

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personality - in particular, in the sexual domain - is far removed from that of the subject, which would like to supersede this fragmentation through the power o f the amorous relation wherein sexual desire, the intersubjective relationship, and proximity are combined and together acquire sufficient force to bring together the other components o f the two personalities. What is common to the two themes is the refusal of an integrated vision of the personality, which would correspond to the integrated vision o f society I have already contested. Let us go further: we can accept not only that men and women create these constructs differently, but that each individual constructs the failures and successes of their gender. This means that the central element is the individual, not the gender, and that the latter is not a general category to which the others are subject, but a factor in the action which an individual herself performs. Let us note in fact that the 'gender' factor has only two values - women and men - and that there are other factors, other variables which enter into the more or less successful (and more or less complex) construction of the subject. I n short, being an inflexible variable, since it has only two possible states, gender is not the main definition of the actor. A n d the story that is being told here is not that of men and women, but that of the subject that constructs itself starting from a fragmented sexuality o f relations to others and, occasionally, by the man/woman duality. We must renounce our fondness for any comparative psychology o f men and women, which should not be difficult given that with Freudian thought we possess a much more developed analytical instrument focusing on the formation o f the personality during childhood. Once the road has been cleared, we must choose between the feminist deconstructionist approach and my own attempt to define not a female psychology (as I have made clear), but the cultural changes thanks to which women occupy a central role. Such a choice does not make attempts to decompose the female pointless (it remains indispensable in order to separate sexuality from family roles). But it assumes that we go beyond the critique of the notion o f the female as constructed by male domination. In this domain as in many others, such a choice signifies that it is indispensable to supersede descriptions of what is suffered and accept the idea that the main actors are not only victims. That is why, while citing the critical works of Judith Butler and many other radical feminists with admiration, I predominantly stress the alteration in the culture following the exhaustion of the voluntaristic classical model and the central role o f women in this cultural mutation. The female assumption of responsibility for sexuality is different in kind from the destruction or the creation o f new prohibitions. It first o f all involves women rejecting the confusion of their roles in reproduction and family life with sexuality as such. This is a theme that has been at the heart

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of feminist demands. But we must go further: women demand their right to pleasure and the recognition of their specific sexuality by asserting that it is not reducible to a response to the demands of male sexuality. Such an assertion already has consequences that turn the relations between men and women upside down. But one can also defend the idea that women speak in the name of a liberation of sexuality and not only of their sexuality. Criticism has thus been directed at the extreme positions of Monique Wittig, who did not accept being defined as a 'woman' and who wished to be defined only as a lesbian. For she touched a very raw nerve when, in terms similar to those of Judith Butler, she said that the category 'women' has been constructed within male domination and in order to reinforce it, so that woman can only liberate herself from this domination by ceasing to define herself as woman. I f we agree to set aside the immediate objections prompted by such statements, we must acknowledge the importance of the idea that women seek to have problems of sexuality - in particular, those most bound up with the creation of the subject - recognized independently of the gender of the individuals concerned. Women would then act in order to transform one of the most important aspects of our society - sexuality - so as to liberate it from the inferior role it has in the heterosexual relationship, which is regarded as the only 'normal' sexuality. But there is reason to have doubts about the oft-proclaimed liberation. Many television clips, generally American in origin, suffused with sexuality clearly indicate that man still reigns over women subject to his will. Many women think, in more modern fashion, that it is the direct encounter of men and women that introduces such a strong erotic dimension. I n any event, woman appears subject to her sex. Such a conclusion naturally leads us to say a word on the debate that opposes defenders and opponents of seduction. To those, male and female alike, who defend this weapon, regarded as female, for conquering men, there are many who reply that this conquest is in fact a subjugation, since the woman is only defined by reference to the desire of the man and thereby abandons her own personality. This critique is readily admissible and, moreover, widely shared by women today. But condemnation of seduction leaves us in a vacuum that can only be accepted with difficulty. Stripped of seduction, what do affective relations become? The simplest response that springs to mind is that women and men should seduce each other mutually. However, this solution of reciprocity is very vague and what has been said hitherto makes it difficult to accept such a formulation. But if it falls to women to reconstitute the different dimensions of experience, it is indeed to them too that it falls to handle, to generate, the relationship of seduction - which would thus be at once reciprocal and yet predominantly female. A n d this is what is probably being established. The

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image of the seductive man making women succumb to his desire provokes ever more numerous negative reactions, even i f some women might aspire to be conquered, without thereby alienating their freedom. I t is now more commonly accepted that seduction, while remaining exercised by the two partners, is in the main handled by the woman: the intersection o f seductions works better when this is the case. This signifies that the construction of the woman by herself through her sexuality governs the symmetrical construction o f the man. We have definitely moved into a period of female supremacy. A n d the world o f seduction precisely helps to give women the main role in cultural innovation. How far removed we are from the female victim! This in no way means that the weight o f inequality and violence does not crush many women, but simply that over and above this suffering and injustice they are the bearers, in the name o f the whole population, o f a new cultural model: a phrase that is to be understood in the broadest sense and which leads us to expand on the reflections presented hitherto. Women can only assert their existence as subjects by refusing to define themselves exclusively by their heterosexual relationship to man and by the social functions that this relationship leads them to perform. Certainly, such 'liberation' can take the form o f the proclamation o f a female identity in itself, and even of the superiority o f women to men. But these assertions are more fragile than they seem at first sight. For in playing the game of a 'female psychology', one quickly lapses back into representations o f woman that are so conducive to male domination because it might be thought that they have been created by it. Women who take this seemingly easy path soon identify with gentleness, the sense of others, sensitivity in short, all qualities alien to man the hunter, soldier and conqueror. Very different, opposed even, is the motion that invites women in the name of their freedom to reject, by suppressing the relationship of domination they suffer at the hands o f men, all polarizations - o f which that between male and female is the most general form - and to reconstruct a human experience that has been split into two unequal parts by the European mode of modernization. This general enterprise o f reconstruction is evident in many sectors o f everyday life. Thus, ecologists wish to transcend the opposition between economic modernity and the equilibria that render life on Earth possible. A l l forms of psychotherapy offer programmes for re-establishing the bond between body and mind; and psychoanalysis has oriented its thinking in this direction for even longer. More immediately still, every day we see not only male domination being challenged, but also its effects, the most indirect and the most direct alike. A l l these tendencies, whose list could be extended, not only contest forms of domination. They also defend against the pseudo-individualism

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of a consumer society in which each individual is invited to behave according to her personal, social, cultural or gender characteristics. Here woman plays the most important role, for it is she whom commodification most violently reduces to being an object of sexual consumption and, to a lesser extent, an indicator of social status. The struggles in which women play a central role do not aim to replace male domination by female domination. Nor do they seek the triumph o f a spirit of consumerism in which all relations of domination would dissolve. Although weakened by their situation o f dependence, women are the agents o f the dynamic o f reconstruction of experience because they, collectively and individually, are what is in question. Criticizing 'straight' thought, Monique Wittig ponders the possibility o f each woman, over and above a general social critique, asserting herself as a personal subject and replies 'that a new definition of the person and the subject for the whole of humanity can only be found beyond the categories o f sex (women and men) and that the advent of individual subjects first o f all requires the destruction o f the categories of sex, an end to their use'. As I have said, for her it is lesbians who most radically destroy the category o f 'women'. This is an assertion which cannot be proven or refuted, but which attests to the remarkable role played by lesbians in the great transformation in thought and action presented here. From Antoinette Fouque, whose thinking appeared isolated for a while because it was in advance o f that of purely critical feminists, to the American queer theorists, who represented the best in feminism on the cusp o f the twenty-first century, the role o f lesbians has been a pioneering one, probably because from the start they are situated outside the obsessive question of dependency on man. But we are dealing with the majority of women here, and hence with heterosexual women. I t is above all for them that the three dimensions o f sexuality - the autonomy o f sex, the relationship to the other, and the birth of selfconsciousness as subject - must be interconnected, while making it clear that it is the last component, whose existence largely depends on the presence o f the other two, which is the highest meaning of sexuality. Starting from this central point, it is easier to perceive the cultural changes that are converging in all domains to create a culture as clearly defined by the role of women as classical European culture was by the central role o f men. This conclusion must be formulated in all its radicalism: we are not advancing towards a society of equality between men and women, or to an androgynous society; we have already moved into a culture (and therefore a social life) oriented (and, as a result, dominated) by women - we have already entered into a society of women. Such an assertion immediately prompts various objections and sarcasms by way of response: how can we speak o f female domination when men still possess the essentials o f power, wealth and weapons, when female wages are infe-

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rior to those of men, and when the signs of male authority and the submission of women to the image that men create o f them are ubiquitous? This reminder of obvious realities, which no one disputes, in no way undermines the conclusion that I am presenting here: yes, men have power and money, but women already posses the meaning of lived situations and the ability to formulate it. I t is already much easier to make women speak about women than it is men about men. The latter are embarrassed by the images conveyed by the themes o f masculinity and virility. Many want to be more like women, sometimes even to feminize themselves; and in sexual relations the images o f penetration, possession and insemination are being undermined as women more clearly recognize the localization o f their pleasure and, above all, as men learn to replace the old position o f mastery by an ability to turn towards the self, as women do. The success of many techniques recommended by psychologist-sexologists derives above all from the fact that they are progressively getting rid o f the images o f male domination, both in life in general and in sexual relations. The main weakness o f these analyses stems from the fact that they convey the impression that we are dealing with women liberating themselves or already liberated, receiving new representations and new practices, and capable o f conceiving and achieving by themselves changes that accord them an innovative, more independent role - but one that does not meet with resistance from other women. Yet there has been resistance; and there still is. Such profound changes cannot be accomplished without encountering opposition and even provoking reactions o f rejection. I want to signal two o f them here, which correspond to very different situations. The first context in which women meet with negative reactions is that of immigrant populations (as indicated by all the cases studied in France), where very strong control is exercised by brothers over sisters, whether or not the latter are veiled. The most surprising thing is that before 1990 girls of immigrant origin were not subject to such strong pressure in these neighbourhoods. Boys and girls could walk together. Then, rather rapidly, fathers and especially brothers began to exercise increasingly tight control over girls. The group turned in on itself, while the great majority o f marriages conformed to the old moral order: arranged unions based on a certificate of virginity - something that contributed to the development o f minor surgery to reconstruct the hymen and, among many girls, persistent recourse to relations involving anal sex. Some girls manage to have a sex life locally; others have the opportunity to quit the neighbourhood; yet others lead a double life. The goal o f many men in such neighbourhoods is to prevent young women having a sex life. Anyone who wears a skirt will thus be stigmatized as a prostitute. She will be suspected o f consenting when she is raped in a 'tournante' ('take your turn' style), while this practice seems to be developing, under the leadership of the strongest boys

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in the group who, as in a herd of game, wrest a monopoly on the females. Here there is not only resistance, but regression. Such a situation can be analysed from a moral standpoint or in an urban perspective. Either way, it attests to a rejection o f female sexuality - above all, that of unmarried women. This once again demonstrates that it is indeed sexuality, more than access to education and employment, which is at the heart o f women's equality. Another context in which women encounter much resistance is this. I n many schools and social milieus, we observe an increasing sexual permissiveness. The consumption of porn videos has become general; girls wear clothing that exposes their bodies. Everywhere people watch M T V or M C M clips that have become increasingly crude, despite an American prohibition on displaying nudity. This culture, composed above all o f images, is not (it seems to me) in contradiction with the traditional cultural model: the girl must please the boy, seduce him and prepare for a marriage that will take maximum account o f the boy's social background and professional and economic prospects. For their part, boys are approximating to female forms o f behaviour, frequenting hairdressers and beauty salons, even cosmetic surgery clinics. This generation lives poles apart from the feminist movement, which had to wage hard battles to bring about changes in customs. There would certainly seem to be nothing in common between extreme repression and extreme laisser-faire. Yet both are an obstacle to the formation o f the personality (in particular, o f young women) through sexuality - an obstacle that can be as difficult to overcome in the context o f a permissive morality as in that o f a repressive morality. Thus, women can construct themselves by seduction as they can by work, but the creative 'liberation' of women is rendered impossible by the reduction o f sex to a commodity.

The woman-subject I maintain that after the break-up and disappearance o f the model o f initial modernization - that o f an extreme polarization which creates extreme tensions and conflicts - the only cultural dynamic capable o f inspiring our society with a new creativity is pursuit of the reconstitution of social life and personal experience: we are seeking to reunite what was separated by the first modernization. We are seeking, as the ecologists vigorously express it, to bring together nature and culture, and also body and mind, private life and public life. A n d how can it be denied that women, constituted and defined by their inferiority, are seeking not to reverse the balance o f power, but to 'transcend' it, in such a way as to abolish the logic that determined their reduction to inferiority?

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This general idea is confirmed by the documents - interviews and group meetings - that we have assembled, but it must be rounded off. Today's women think less and less in historical terms, especially since the victory of feminism. The supersession o f the old polarization leads them not to reject, but to reinterpret, their confinement to the 'private'. Certainly, they work and, except in particular cases like recourse to maternity leave, they retain and want to retain the superiority conferred on them by the capacity to bear children. They continue to say: 'A child i f I want one, when I want one.' For them, children are a source o f power, and it is very rare for the father to have as strong a relationship with them. More broadly still, women, while rejecting the old definitions of their gender, accord more importance to their body and their sexuality than men. However, the opposition between old and new models, between polarization and reconstitution, cannot completely account for the orientation of women, since they think more in terms of superseding than o f inverting or compensating for inequalities. Our analysis therefore is missing an understanding o f what leads women to seek above all supersession of the men/women relationship, in which they occupy an inferior position. This moment of the analysis, which seems so difficult to embark on, is illuminated by the observations made in research. While wishing to preserve relations of seduction with men (although transforming them), women vehemently reject the images o f themselves relayed by the media - especially advertising. This rejection has been clearly formulated by one of the groups of women we worked with: the women displayed in advertising, they told us, are not real. Our legs or our hands are not like theirs. Advertising has invented an image of women and we are deprived o f our image. I f we look at ourselves in a mirror, we only see the face and the image that advertising has passed on to us, making our real bodies disappear. In other words, it is not by reference to the old model that women develop a desire for the reconstitution of experience: it is by opposing the media, which has taken possession o f them. A n d it is once they have understood that the media destroys both their old image and their new image that they move on from the theme of their liberation to the reconstitution of the culture and their personal experience. The end-point o f the process remains the same, but the path it has taken now seems to me to be longer and more complex than my initial reading suggested. In addition, we now have an answer the question that was posed at the outset: what is the relationship between women's two struggles - the one they wage against traditional male domination and the one whereby they reject their manipulation as a sexual object by the media? Successive uprisings by dominated categories have always been more inspired by a general, concrete image o f the subject. The women's

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movement presses this development to its conclusion: over and above their national, social and cultural affiliations, women define themselves by their gender, as sexed beings and, more important still, as beings subject to a domination exercised over them in their entirety - in particular, over their bodies. With this a switch in conflicts is effected: from the social conflict conducted in the name o f control over the economy, we have made the transition to a struggle by women whose stake is control o f themselves and the defence o f rights involving all spheres o f their behaviour. What does 'whose stake is control of themselves' mean? I t means: whose stake is a direct, conscious reference to oneself, in contrast to a definition of the self by reference to man, male power and the functions o f reproduction. But i f woman is not to be defined by her dependence, she must redefine her relationship with man. There is no unisex society in which men and women would become increasingly similar and where the differences between individuals (or even between types of sexual relations) would be more important than those that distinguish men from women. The construction of the female subject will increase the distance between men and women, because the former cannot live the same corporeal experience. I t is necessary to assign a central place to the woman-subject and recognize that sexuality is becoming detached from all social roles - in particular, from the male construct that is gender. Those who think that woman is gradually being reduced to nothing but a sexual object in the process o f the eroticization of society as a whole are therefore completely mistaken: the liberation o f sexuality affirms the construction o f self as subject. I t helps to destroy the image o f the woman submitted to male power - to the power that granted him a monopoly on the heterosexual relationship in which she was dominated. It is appropriate, and even necessary, to speak o f the birth of a society of women. But we must avoid referring to a feminization o f society, for that would reintroduce the false (and dangerous) idea that women are endowed with a permanent, general character. The fact that cultural categories are taking precedence over social categories does not mean that gentleness is being substituted for force or pleasure for duty. What I am writing here does not appeal to psychology, but only to the history o f culture. But it is indeed women who are the bearers o f current cultural changes. As the dominant actors in the old system (which can be called male), men established a system o f thought and action which defines, and constantly dictates, choices. Either it is this or it is that: either it is capitalism, or it is the people, which is in power; it is necessary to choose between nature and culture. This is a system o f analysis that makes knowledge o f individuals, who are rarely cut from one cloth, impossible. In contrast, at the moment when they are becoming dominant, women themselves assert their superiority by their complexity, their capacity to pursue

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several tasks at once. They think and act in ambivalent terms - terms that make it possible to combine things and which do not dictate a choice. A n d it is indeed in a world o f ambivalence (no longer in a bipolar world) that we live. Schools that receive the children of immigrant families can neither fully integrate them into the majority culture, nor maintain them i n their native culture. The least bad choice is to combine the two, which generates dissatisfaction, but avoids the negative consequences of simple solutions. I n work on young men and women in Italy, S. Tabboni was the first to show that women refused to choose between personal life and professional life; that in so doing they were conscious o f losing something o f both, but not completely; and that any other solution would be intolerable for the great majority o f them. For their part, men have the sense of being imprisoned in the world o f work. This ambivalence increasingly necessary to individual life (as to international politics) is an attribute o f the subject, and here of the woman as subject, since she detaches herself from the logic o f situations and gives priority to constructing an action directed towards the assertion o f the free, responsible actor.

The role of men I delayed mentioning the relationship to the other for as long as possible, since the danger o f being precipitately reduced to the worn-out image o f the woman-for-man is ever present. But we do not therefore have to let ourselves be diverted from understanding an element indispensable to the construction o f the woman-subject. For i f the subject is indeed directed towards itself, and i f its formation imposes a break with the duality o f female and male roles, it remains the case that the relationship to the other, at once different and similar, is the central moment i n the construction o f woman as subject. The other might just as easily be a woman as a man, but it would be artificial not to define it primarily as a man. The relationship to this man can be described in social terms, since affective relations are generally only established within a restricted social horizon. But what gives rise to an amorous relationship is not the proximity or distance between the partners: it is the encounter, which is never a necessary bond, between desires, the mutual recognition o f the other as being in the process o f constructing itself, and finally the project o f living together. A relationship is not only an encounter, a chance; it is the invention of relations and exchanges, an invitation to spontaneous reactions. This relationship to the other is the opposite o f submission to a social image o f the woman and the couple subjected to the man. It invents a non-social link to a space and a time

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which are outside social time and space. The subject, whether male or female, cannot exist i f it does not possess a specific time, space and language. A n d it is indeed the addition of these three dimensions - desire, recognition of the other and the wish to live with the other - that founds the amorous relationship. But we must go beyond this initial remark and examine the place of men in the new culture, in the reconstitution of the complexes that had shattered within the male model, knowing that this operation is performed by women. I t is impossible to reduce the position of women in the culture of recent centuries to their dependence, their inferiorization, and their exclusion from public life. Their role in private life, in the family and in the education of children suggests different approaches. Now we face the same exigency in the case of men: i f my hypothesis that it is women who have responsibility for the great project of reconstituting the world and superseding the old polarities is accepted, what will men's role be? I t cannot be restricted to the realization of the loss of domination. Witness the violence that accompanies this loss of domination, whether direct physical violence (that suffered by battered women) or psychological violence (by breaking social affiliations). There is no question here of asserting that men, stripped of running the world they used to dominate, have no recourse but to violence and are drawn towards this kind of behaviour. M a n is drawn towards everything that is located beyond the limits of the social, either in order to destroy it or, on the contrary, to keep open a social universe whose reconstitution is now the main agenda. The discovery of new worlds, research programmes in all areas of knowledge, remain (or become) just as strongly male, but are no longer regarded as the achievements of which the collectivity can be most proud. Science is as much feared as admired: it can, as we know, provoke catastrophes, just as it can reveal new sources of energy. Atomic energy was the first to testify to this ambiguity in the population. The general meaning of social life increasingly eludes men; they seek in themselves for a meaning they no longer find elsewhere and in institutions they no longer control. Perhaps they are attempting to ensure themselves social spaces that would belong exclusively to them, which would be purely male, whether homosexual or otherwise. But most often they are seeking to bring to a society obsessed with the quest for its own equilibrium and survival the openness towards the outside, the technical mastery of the environment, so indispensable to societies of reconstruction and reintegration, which are always threatened with suffocating under the protection they have established. Such male behaviour is nevertheless increasingly minoritarian. Indeed, the majority of men seek to integrate into the new society of women,

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because it liberates them from the increasingly crushing responsibility for conquering nature and transforming the world. A n d the whole o f society - women, men and children - feels this 'absence' o f men - that is, their more frequent presence outside social life than within it - to be positive. Man is a voyager, an explorer of the elsewhere and the future. But he is also rendered vulnerable because he no longer has the support o f institutions that women now run, seeking to inspire behaviour which accords with the new functional exigencies of institutions. Men become less concerned about order and the 'correspondence' between actors and systems than women. Even so, this does not involve the claim that we are witnessing a new polarization, with woman occupying the new position and man finding himself marginalized. Such a formulation would run counter to the idea I have developed here - namely, that this society o f women aims to reconstruct the unity o f a world that has been torn between a male universe, defined as superior, and a female universe, constructed as a figure o f inferiority. I n this society, whose main actors are women, human beings become blends of masculinity and femininity (or, i f one prefers, more or less solid and enduring montages o f male fragments and female fragments). A n d this blend, this combination of the male and the female, attests to the construction o f a new type o f society. I f we must refer to a new male type, it is because the blending o f the male and the female is more significant among women, whereas a greater proportion o f male behaviour escapes the mixed society, since men do not dominate it. Just as male existence tended to be identified with everyone's existence, so today the new society is described in female terms, which entails the formation of a male microcosm that is at once highly visible and deprived o f the central position it used to occupy in the life o f women and men. M a n becomes more vulnerable, less integrated; and this is the counterpart o f women's success in reconstituting the world. M a n is more shaken by outbursts o f violence, unrealistic passions, struck by a new taste for solitude, in which he finds it difficult to communicate, whereas in the past he dominated action and speech alike. Thus, i f they are not on the point o f abandoning the public sphere, men devote more of their activity to the private sphere. These reflections will strike many as a provocation, a challenge to common sense. But we must get used to confronting the profound changes that have occurred in the relations between men and women. Those that strengthen the position o f women are more easily detectable than those that are occurring on the side of men. For we have more difficulty observing men as characters, given that we used to see them only as markers o f the law and o f the name of the father.

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Post-feminism Post-feminism has thus set in train rapid changes and has already secured results that (far) exceed in importance the objectives and achievements o f feminism itself. For it is primarily post-feminism that has brought about the cultural alteration of major importance which has seen us pass from a society o f men to a society of women. These changes do not occur through the prism o f political life; they permeate the subjectivity o f each person, because they tend to make each individual a subject. Moreover, it is on the basis o f due awareness o f what post-feminism is and o f what it has achieved that we can understand the social scene as a whole and its new problems. On all sides, people rightly signal the decline of social and political actors, of parties, trade unions and their ideologies. The legacy of the working-class movement, which was so powerful (and creative for so long), is exhausted, just as, a century earlier, the legacy o f the French Revolution and movements for citizenship was exhausted. But these social and political actors have made way for other voices and other figures: those o f the personal subject, which is predominantly woman, but just as present in cultural minorities - to the point where today we more readily define democracy as respect for minorities than as the rule o f the majority. A n d on another side, but in line with this first set o f social actors, we find organized movements that are ranged against globalization not because they reject it, but because they have detected in it the extreme form of a capitalism opposed to any control and any regulation, and which consequently destroys identities, particularities, memories, forms o f savoir faire and o f speciality. The inheritors o f the social democrats (and even o f the Communists) no doubt have a long career ahead of them. But it is clear today that it is outside this legacy and its representation o f the world that the ideas and emotions which are transforming society and its authority relations, its forms o f communication, its relations between individuals and between groups, are being invented. Politicians must understand the changes that are underway, even i f they should abstain from seeking to direct them. Such openness is even more necessary in the case o f intellectuals and ideologues - especially those who for half a century laid down the idea that no action is possible, because everything in social and cultural life is imprisoned in a system o f domination. This general thesis was applied as radically to the question of women as to the situation o f dependent countries - and with the same errors. The sway o f the ideologies born at the end of the twentieth century is still strong, and will long remain so, because it is relayed by numerous teachers and lecturers to a public that has rapidly expanded. Against this ideological heritage, I would like everyone to understand that the analysis

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I am advancing here in connection with the situation of women, their personal behaviour and collective action, governs our conception o f society and culture. We have already moved into a society o f women. That is why research on women is the best entry-point into society in general.

Argument: By Way of Conclusion

The main themes of this argument are closely interrelated; the sequence of chapters discloses their interdependence in the construction of a new paradigm. But it seemed to me useful, for those who want to read this book as well as those who have just read it, to outline more directly and more briefly the path that led me from an awareness of historical changes to an analysis o f the principal notions that enable us to understand this mutation. 1 The starting-point is globalization, conceived not simply as a globalization o f production and exchange, but above all as an extreme form o f capitalism, as a complete separation o f the economy from other institutions - in particular, social and political - which can no longer control it. 2 This dissolution of boundaries of all sorts entails the fragmentation of what used to be called society. 3 The consecutive collapse o f social categories of analysis and action is not an unprecedented event. I n the early stages o f our modernization, we conceived social phenomena in political terms - order, disorder, sovereignty, authority, nation, revolution - and it was only after the industrial revolution that we replaced political categories by economic and social categories (classes, profit, competition, investment, collective bargaining). Current changes are so profound that they lead us to assert that a new paradigm is in the process of replacing the social paradigm, just as the latter took the place o f the political paradigm. 4 The individualism that triumphs on the ruins of the social representation of our existence reveals the fragility of an ego constantly altered by the influence o f the stimulation it is subject to. A more developed interpretation of this reality underscores the role o f the media in forming this individual ego, whose unity and independence seem to be threatened.

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5 But this individualism also has a quite different dimension: in a society where we depend not only on techniques of production, but also on techniques o f consumption and communication, we seek to rescue our singular, individual existence. This is a creative duplication, because it gives rise alongside the empirical being to a being of rights, who seeks to constitute herself as a free actor by struggling for her rights. 6 We have always had an image o f our creativity, but for a long time it was projected beyond our own experience. It took successive forms: God, the nation, progress, the classless society. Today, without any intermediate discourse, we directly confer crucial importance on the quest for ourselves. This volition on the part o f the individual to be the actor o f his own existence is what I call the subject. 7 The subject exists as a principle of analysis only on condition that its nature is universal. Like modernity, which is its historical expression, it rests on two basic principles: adherence to rational thinking and respect for universal individual rights - in other words, rights that go beyond all particular social categories. Historically, the modern subject was first embodied in the idea o f citizenship, which established respect for universal political rights over and above all communitarian affiliations. A n important expression of this separation of citizenship from communities is secularism, which separates Church and state. 8 During the period dominated by the social paradigm, the struggle for social rights (and, in particular, for workers' rights) was at the heart o f social and political life. 9 Today, the establishment o f the cultural paradigm foregrounds the demand for cultural rights. Such rights are always expressed by the defence of particular attributes, but they confer a universal meaning on this defence. 10 On the ruins o f the society shaken and destroyed by globalization, a central conflict emerges between, on one side, non-social forces strengthened by globalization (market dynamics, potential catastrophes, wars) and, on the other, the subject, deprived o f the support of the social values that have been destroyed. I f needs be, the subject can even be repressed into the unconscious by the domination of these material forces. 11 But this battle is not lost in advance, for the subject strives to create institutions and rules of right that will defend its freedom and creativity. The family and the school are at stake in these battles. 12 Is not this individual, transformed by herself into a subject, condemned to isolation, to remain deprived of communication with 'the others'? The answer to this question is, in the first instance, that there cannot be communication without a shared language. That is modernity. But nor is any communication possible without recognition o f the differences between real actors. Such complementarity is secured when we

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clearly separate modernity, which is a common reference-point for all those who wish to communicate, from modernizations, which always combine modernity with cultural and social fields that are different from one another. N o society has the right to identify its modernization with modernity. Something new is only built out of both new and old materials. In particular, the Western countries, which advanced more rapidly towards modernity than the rest, must recognize both that they do not have a monopoly on it and that it is present in other modes o f modernization, with the exception o f those completely opposed to it. 13 A return to history: the Western model of modernization consisted in polarizing society by concentrating resources of all kinds in the hands of an elite and by negatively defining the opposite categories, which were constructed as inferior. Such was the effectiveness o f this model that it conquered much o f the world. But by its very nature, it was constantly full of tension and conflict that pitted the two poles against one another. 14 I n the course o f the last two centuries, the categories constructed as inferior - in particular, workers, then the colonized and, virtually at the same time, women - created social movements in order to liberate themselves. They succeeded in large part, which had the initial effect o f attenuating the tensions inherent in the Western model, but also its dynamism. A great danger threatens this part o f the world: that o f no longer being in a position to conceive objectives and no longer being capable o f confronting new conflicts. 15 A new dynamism is likely to emerge only on the basis o f action that succeeds in reconstituting what the Western model separated, by superseding all polarizations. This action is already in evidence - for example, in ecological movements and in those that struggle against globalization. But it is women who are and will be its main actors, because they have been constructed as an inferior category by male domination and, over and above their own liberation, they engage in a more general form of action to reconstitute the totality o f individual and collective experience.

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Index

actors (social) link with system 63-7 social determinism 89-90 sociological research 82, 92 see also agency advertising 201 affirmative action 168-9 Afghanistan 9, 32 Africa 13, 68, 145, 159 agency 82, 96 Albert, Michel 19 Alexander, Jeffrey 90 Algeria 107 al-Qaeda 9, 10, 30, 31, 32, 63 alter-globalization 21, 26-7, 31 anomie 140 anti-Arab racism 29, 137 anti-globalization movements 21, 24, 26 see also alter-globalization anti-Semitism 29, 131, 137, 170 anti-subject 137—41 Arabs 29, 137 Archer, Margaret 89 Arendt, Hannah 59 Argentina 60, 173 Aron, Raymond 59 Asian modernity 78 Austria 37

authoritarianism 54, 60, 88, 96, 150, 155-6 Baudrillard, Jean 3 Belgium 37, 174 bin Laden, Osama 9, 10 Bindung 125 see also social bonds black movements 158-9 Blair, Tony 10 body, the 119,201,202 Bolivia 164 border culture 167 Boubeker, Ahmed 92 Bourdieu, Pierre 150 Braudel, Fernand 45 Brazil 60, 167, 192 Britain see United Kingdom (UK) Bush, George W. 9, 10-11, 12 Butler, Judith 190, 195 Calhoun, Craig 155 capitalism death of society and 55, 60 globalization and 19-20, 21-3, 24, 26-7 materialism 129 modernity 74 underemployment 68

Index

Castells, Manuel 1 Catholic Church 125, 131, 159 change, modernity 75-6 Che Guevara 164 Chile 60 China 15 Christianity 125, 128-9, 137, 159 citizenship 146, 147, 160, 170-1, 174, 176, 180 civilizations, clash of 30-1, 32, 157 class democratization of society 53-4 emancipatory individualism 83 European mode of socialization 47, 48 fashion and 52 globalization 24-5 new social movements 154-5 social inequalities 13-14 the subject and 117-18, 136 Cohn-Bendit, Daniel 37 colonial domination 54 communication, intercultural 92, 172-3, 180-3 communications society see information and communications society communism 57, 60 communitarianism cultural movements 156 cultural rights 145-6, 158-9, 167-8, 170-1, 174-7 definition 145-6 education 132 liberals and 176-7 modernity 72, 73, 78 religion 130 renewal of subjectivities 84 rise of 12-13, 16-17 social determinism 88, 89 the subject and 95-6, 109-10 Western model of society and 49, 50 consumption death of society 55 defining the subject 102 emancipatory individualism 84-5

217

globalization 22-3 individualism 209 a society of women 187, 198 Crespi, Franco 125 critical functionalism 80-1, 115-16 critical sociology 80-1, 82 cruelty 138 cultural demands, rise in 14-15 cultural globalization 22-3, 30-1 cultural language 4 cultural mixing 166-7, 173 cultural pluralism 160-1 cultural relativism 172 cultural rights 144-83, 209 communitarianism 145-6, 158-9, 167-8, 170-1, 174-7 economic demands 149-53 liberals 176-7 minorities 144-7, 154, 156, 164-6, 179 modernity and modernizations 156-60, 161-3, 172, 179 multiculturalism 145, 153, 180 and political rights 144, 146-7, 148, 149, 155-6, 176-7 post-social world 160-4 religion 132, 149, 157-8, 159-60, 161, 163, 169-71 secularism 161, 169, 170-1, 177-80 sexual 164-6 social determinism 88 the subject and 96, 109-10 cultural studies 89-90 cultures, communication between 92, 172-3, 180-3 Curtius, Ernst 180 deaf people's rights 166 death penalty 111 Delors, Jacques 35 Delumeau, Jean 128 democracy cultural rights 160-1, 168 death of European society 53^4 irruption of 56-8 nationalism and 58 popular sovereignty 79

218

Index

democracy (cont.) return of the political 59 subject-social bond relation 125-6 de-socialization 14, 15, 16-17, 78 see also society, decline of dictatorships 12-13, 53, 54, 88, 156 difference right to 96, 147, 167-8 a society of women 188-9 disabled people's rights 166 discourse, definition 5 divine, the 127-9, 142 domination see social domination Dreyfus Affair 131 Dubet, François 89, 116, 134, 153 Dumont, Louis 127, 189 Dürkheim, Émile 52 Dworkin, Ronald 169 ecological movements 24, 83 economic globalization 19-23, 24, 25-7, 28, 31-2, 39 system-actor link 64, 65 economic life cultural rights 149-53 European mode of socialization 47, 48 a society of women 186 system-actor link 64-6 economic paradigm 1 education crisis of 55 cultural rights 157-8, 159-60, 168-71, 177-8 European mode of socialization 47-8 modernity 157-8 secularism 66, 131, 132-3, 169, 170-1, 177-9 social determinism 89 the subject and 130—4 system-actor link 66-7 see also schools ego, the 96-7, 122, 124, 142 Ehrenberg, Alain 140 11 September 2001 see September 11, 2001

Elias, Norbert 34 elites emancipatory individualism 83, 84-5 European mode of socialization 47, 48 secularism 131 a society of women 189 see also social domination emancipatory individualism 83-7 emigrants see migrants employment see work Enlightenment philosophy 77, 78 eroticism 191 eroticization of society 202 ethnicity 31-2, 92, 168 Europe 33-43 globalization and 25, 26 integration see European Union (EU) minorities 144, 145 mode of socialization 46-8 model of modernization 49-51, 53, 60, 73-4, 83^1, 85, 210 return of the political 59 role of war in 60-1 social representation of society 45-6 three deaths of society 53-6 see also specific countries European social model 35, 38-9 European Union (EU) European consciousness 42-3 foreign policy 40 globalization 25, 33, 39 international role 15, 37, 39-40, 42 as a national state 37-8, 41-2 the national state and 33-7 powerlessness 40, 41-2, 43 USA and 35-6, 38-9, 40, 41, 42, 43 euthanasia 143 evil defending good against 10-11,12, 61 the subject and 94, 107-8, 134, 136-7 extreme capitalism 21-3, 24

Index

failed lives 143 fascism 59 fashion 52 fear 12-13 feminism birth of 54 emancipatory individualism 83 the end of social thought 80 notion of gender 190 religious fundamentalism and 171 sexual rights 165-6 a society of women 186,187-8, 189, 190, 192, 193-6, 198, 206-7 feminization of society 202 Ferry, Jules 131 Fichte, J. G. 45 filial bonds 165 Foucault, Michel 4-5, 80, 142, 148-9 Fouque, Antoinette 194, 198 France Algerian War 107 anti-Semitism 29, 131, 170 communitarianism 175 cultural rights 157-8, 159-60, 162, 168- 73, 174, 177-8 democracy 56, 57-8, 59 European integration 35, 36, 37, 41 European model of modernization 50 European social model 35, 38, 39 intercultural communication 180-1 migrants 68, 92, 145, 168-71 political parties 14 racism 29 republicanism 159-60, 170-1, 177-8 return of the political 59 role of the state 19, 20, 35, 39 schools 66, 131, 132-3, 157-8, 159-60, 168-71, 177-8 social movements 153-5 social representation of society 45 a society of women 186 structuralism 82 trade unions 23 transsexuals 192 veiled pupils 157-8,159-60, 169- 73, 177

219

working-class insurrections 120 Fraser, Nancy 149, 156 freedom 83-7 Friedmann, Georges 90, 158 functionalism 80-1, 115-16 fundamentalism 159-60, 169, 171 Furet, François 56, 59 Gaspar, F. 171 Gauchet, Marcel 128 gay men see homosexuality Geertz, Clifford 189 gender 190 Germany European integration 34, 35, 37, 41 European model of modernization 50, 51 European social model 38 intercultural communication 180-1 migrants 68, 92 schools 66 social bonds 125 social representation of society 45 Giddens, Anthony 82, 102 globalization 2, 19-32, 208 European Union 25, 33, 39 system-actor link 64, 65 God 106, 128-9, 139 Gole, Nilüfer 164 good defending against evil 10-11,12, 61 the subject 94, 134, 136-7 Great Britain see United Kingdom (UK) Greece 38 guerrilla movements 12-13,32,164 Habermas, Jürgen 37, 65, 82 Haiti 163 Halévy, Elie 59 Hall, Stuart 89 hedonism 76, 78 Hegedus, Zsuzsa 153 Hirschman, Albert 129 historical movements 24 historicity 46, 103

220

Index

history, the subject and 112-14, 115-16, 117 homosexuality 164-5, 166, 194-5, 198 Honneth, Axel 125, 149, 150, 151-2, 153, 156 human rights see rights humanitarianism 30 Hungary, minorities 144 Huntington, Samuel P. 30-1, 32, 63, 157 Hussein, Saddam 10 identity cultural rights 88, 152, 155-6, 174, 175-6 European integration 36, 37, 38 globalization 31-2 the subject 96, 101-3 ideologies 118-19,206-7 Ignatieff, Michael 78, 79 immigrants see migrants individual subject 101-2, 106-8, 111 individualism 16, 70, 208-9 emancipatory 83-7 modernity 74, 75, 76, 78, 79, 101 social bonds 125-6 the subject and 116, 125-6 industrial society cultural rights 150, 154-5 globalization 23^1 modernity 74 the subject 142 information and communications society death of society 55 European Union 39 globalization 23-4 a new paradigm 1-2 institutions religious 127, 128-9, 130, 131, 139, 159 the subject and 102-3, 108-9, 138-9 instrumental rationality 74 intercultural communication 92, 172-3, 180-3

interests passions and 49-50 rights and principles and 75 International Monetary Fund 21-2 Iraq Kurds 144 US post-9/11 policy 10-11, 28, 30, 39 Ireland 38 Islamic world 12 cultural rights 157-8, 159-60, 169-71 end of societies and 62-3 European Union foreign policy 40 fundamentalism 159-60, 169, 171 globalization and 28, 30, 31, 32 international role 15-16 modernity 78, 157-8 veils 157-8, 159-60, 169-73, 177 Israel 29, 62-3, 119, 137, 159 Italy 34, 35, 38, 41, 125 Jaurès, Jean 57-8 Jews 29, 131, 137, 145, 170 justice, cultural rights 150,156 Kahn, Axel 88 Khosrokhavar, Farhad 171 Kieslowski, Krzysztof 140 Kurdish minorities 144 Kymlicka, Will 146 Laden, Osama bin 9, 10 Latin America 12-13 cultural mixing 167, 173 cultural rights 164 model of development 60 sexual identities 192 social movements 120 Lee Kuan Yew 78 Lefebvre, Georges 59 Lefort, Claude 59 Lenin, Vladimir 32 Leninism 61, 109 lesbians see homosexuality Lévi-Strauss, Claude 47

Index

liberals, communitarians and 176-7 liberation movements see social movements love 102, 113 Lyotard, Jean-François 112 Maastricht Treaty 36-7 Maoism 61, 109 markets domination of 16-17, 54-5 emancipatory individualism 84-5 globalization 20-1, 25 modernity 76, 77, 79 a society of women 186 the subject 142 system-actor link 65 Marx, Karl 50 mass culture 167 mass society 22, 53, 55, 187 materialism 129-30 Mathiez, Albert 59 Mead, George Herbert 125 media images 118-20,201 mediocre lives 143 men domination of sexuality 81 European model of modernization 50 role 193,203-5 sexual rights 164-5, 166 a society of women 184-5, 186, 187-9, 192-200, 201-2, 203-5 as subjects 95, 110 mental illness 140 meta-narratives 112 meta-social behaviour 117 Mexico 164, 167 migrants cultural rights 145, 158-9, 168-73 education 133, 134, 168-71 female sexuality 199-200 the self 92 the social bond 68, 69 minorities cultural rights 144-7, 154, 156, 164-6, 179 education 66

221

sexual 164-6 see also migrants modernity 71, 209-10 cultural rights 157-8, 161-3, 172, 179 definition 72-3 religion 73, 76, 127, 128, 130, 137, 157-8 social determinism 86-9 social movements 120-1 society and 48-51, 59, 60, 62, 71, 72, 73-9 modernization(s) 210 cultural rights 156-60,161-2, 172 intercultural communication 181-3 new model of 85 a society of women 185-6 Western model 49-51, 53, 60, 73-4, 83^, 85, 210 morality education 132-3, 178 sexual rights 166 the subject and 102, 105-6, 141 multiculturalism 145, 153, 180 national liberation movements 54, 58, 83, 155 national minorities see minorities national states communitarianism and 174 cultural rights 164 European Union and 33-8, 39^40, 41-2 formation 45 globalization 21-2, 31-2, 33 irruption of democracy 56, 57 religion 130 return of the political 58 nationalism(s) awakening of the subject 95-6 disappearance of European 34, 36, 37 the end of societies 45, 54, 56, 58 nationalization 20, 39 neo-liberalism 25, 76 Netherlands 37, 38, 45, 50

222

Index

New York, World Trade Center 9, 27, 30, 31 9/11 see September 11, 2001 non-social society 3, 16-17 oil crisis 20 other, the experience of the subject 135 recognition of 125, 126, 152, 162-3, 181-2 a society of women 203-4 Palestinian conflict 29, 32, 62-3, 68, 137, 159 paradigm switching to a new 1-5, 16-18 use of term 5 Parsons, Talcott 80, 90 passions, interests and 49-50 personal subject 114, 115 personality problems 140 political globalization 22, 30-2 political paradigm 1,16, 59 political parties 14, 35 political rights 109 cultural rights and 144, 146-7, 148, 149, 155-6, 176-7 political, the, return of 58-9 politics, war as continuation of 61-3 pornography 191,192,200 Portugal 38,45 positive discrimination 168-9 post-feminism 206-7 post-social world 160-4,187 poverty 13-14 Powell, Colin 11 power see social domination private sphere 76, 133, 160, 169 production 23-4, 84-5 prostitution 191-2 psychoanalysis 123-4 public space 62 public sphere 76, 133, 160, 169 queer-theory feminism 190, 194-5, 198

racism 29, 136-7 reason modernity 72, 73-5, 76, 77, 87-9 secularization 130 the subject and 141 recognition cultural rights 149-53, 162-3 of the other 125, 126, 152, 162-3, 181-2 redistribution 149-53 refugees 68 religion(s) cultural rights 132, 149, 157-8, 159-60, 161, 163, 169-71 education 66, 67, 131, 132-3, 157-8, 159-60, 169-71 end of societies 63 in a globalized world 30, 31-2 modernity 73, 76, 127, 130, 137, 157-8 social bonds 125 social representation of society 46 the subject 94, 97, 105, 106, 123, 124, 125, 126-30, 137, 139-43 see also secularism representation, crisis of 51-3 reproduction 187, 188, 201 republican thought 131, 132, 133 republicanism, France 159-60, 170-1, 177-8 research policy, Europe 41 resistance, defining the subject 102 revolution 44, 57, 59 revolutionary vanguard 164 rights cultural see cultural rights modernity 73, 74, 75, 76, 77-8, 79, 87-9, 209 sexual 164-6 the subject and 95, 96, 103, 106, 107, 108-10, 111, 135, 141 Rimbaud, Arthur 113 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 79, 126 ruling elites 47, 48, 83, 84-5, 131 see also social domination Rumsfeld, Donald 10

Index

Saadi, Yacef 107 sacred, the 127-9, 130 Said, Edward 137 Scandinavia 37, 186 schools cultural rights 157-8,159-60, 168-71, 177-8 modernity 76, 157-8 secularism 66, 131, 132-3, 169, 170-1, 177-9 sexual permissiveness 200 social determinism 89 the subject 130-4 system-actor link 66-7 see also education scientific research, Europe 41 Second World War developments after 19, 35 the subject and 134—5 secularism cultural rights 161, 169, 170-1, 177-80 modernity and 73 schools 66, 131, 132-3, 169, 170-1, 177-9 secularization 45-6, 129-30 seduction 196-7 self, the emancipatory individualism 85-7 modernity 77, 78 social bond 125 a society of women 187, 202 sociological focus on 90-4 the subject 91, 92, 93-5, 96-7, 101-2, 111-13, 115, 119-20, 121-2, 142-3 self-consciousness 91, 95 self-esteem 126 self-realization 151-2 Semprun, Jorge 94 Sen, Amartya 96 September 11, 2001 globalization and 27-9, 30, 31 US policy after 9-12, 28, 30, 39, 43, 61, 62 sex workers 191-2

223

sexuality domination of 81 self-subject relation 119, 190-1 sexual rights 164-6 a society of women 187, 188-200, 202 use of term 189-90 Simmel, Georg 52 Singly, François de 125 slavery 95, 96 social, decline of the 14, 15, 16-17, 78 see also society, decline of social actors 63-7, 82, 89-90, 92 see also agency social analysis categories for 52, 208 a new paradigm 1-5, 16-18, 208 see also sociology social bonds rupturing of 67-9, 82 the subject and 124-6 social class see class social determinism 86-90 social domination emancipatory individualism 83, 87 end of social thought 80-1, 82-3 intercultural communication 180, 181-2 modernity 76, 77-8, 79 a society of women 188-9, 196, 197- 200, 201-2, 204 the subject 95, 97, 111, 113-14, 117-18 social inequalities 13-14 positive discrimination 168-9 social determinism 89 a society of women 187-8, 189, 198-200 social life, globalization 22-3 social model, Europe 35, 38-9 social movements 13-14,210 cultural rights 147, 148, 150-6, 158-9 death of European society .53—4 emancipatory individualism 83, 85, 87 end of 69-70

224

Index

social movements (cont.) globalization 24, 26-7, 31 irruption of democracy 57-8 rights 109 social determinism 88 a society of women 185, 186 the subject and 95, 120-1, 139 see also feminism social paradigm 1, 16-18, 59, 71 social representation of society 44-6 social rights 109 cultural rights and 147, 155-6, 176-7 social security 13-14, 19, 25-6 cultural rights 156 death of European society 55 democratization of society 54 European social model 35, 38-9 the self and 96 war and 62 social thought, end of 79-83 socialism, death of society and 60 socialization 46-8, 67, 86 society, decline of birth of the subject 70 crisis of representation 51-3 emancipatory individualism 86 the end of social movements 69-70 the end of social thought 80-1, 82-3 European 38-9,41-2 European mode of socialization 46-8 globalization 22-9, 31-2 and modernity 48-51, 59, 60, 62, 71, 72, 73-9 non-social 3, 16-17 the political and 58-9 the social bond 67-9 social determinism 89 social representation of 44-6 system-actor link 63-7 three deaths of European 53-6 war and 60-3 sociology 'classical' 52-3, 81, 93 critical 80-1, 82

defence of 105-6 the end of social thought 80-3 focus on the self 90^1 intervention method 123-4 social determinism 89-90 sovereignty, popular 79 Soviet Union, society 61 Spain 36, 38, 45, 63, 144 state education see education state, the authoritarian 54 and the Church in France 159 decline of national 33-7 globalization 19-20, 25-6, 30 irruption of democracy 56 religion 130 secularism 131 the subject and 103 structuralism 82 Strzelecki, Jan 153 subject, the 101-43, 209 anti-subject 137-41 awakening of 94-7 between gods and societies 141-3 consciousness of 110-14, 135, 142 see also subject, the, the unconscious creation of see subjectification defence of sociology 105-6 definition 5 emancipatory individualism 85-7 end of society 70 identity 96, 101-3 individual 101-2, 106-8, 111 location of meaning 16-17 media images 118-20 men 203-4 negation of 115-18 personal experience of 134-7 recognizing the presence of 116-17 religion 94, 97, 105, 106, 123, 124, 125, 126-30, 137, 139-43 rights 95, 96, 103, 106, 107, 108-10, 111, 135 school 130-4

Index

the self 91, 92, 93-5, 96-7, 101-2, 111-13, 115, 119-20, 121-2, 142-3 sexuality 119, 190-1 social bonds 124-6 social movements 95, 120-1, 139 sources 103-5 the unconscious 121-4 women 95, 97, 110, 115, 200-4 subjectification 5, 93-4, 142 subjectivities 83-4 system-actor link 63-7 Tabboni, S. 203 Taylor, Charles 162 Taylor, F. W. 48, 156, 158 teaching 67, 133-4, 177-8 see also schools technological determinism 1-2 terrorism 9 cultural rights 171 end of societies 63 fear 12 globalization 27-9, 30, 31, 32 US post-9/11 policy 9-12, 28, 30, 39, 43 Thatcher, Margaret 23 Thompson, E. P. 155 Tietze, Nikola 92 Tillion, Germaine 107 totalitarianisms 54, 59, 79, 81 trade 45 see also economic globalization; markets trade unions 13-14, 23, 54, 57 transsexuals 192, 194 Turkey 40, 144, 164, 171 unconscious, the 121-4 underemployment 68 unemployment see work United Kingdom (UK) cultural rights 156 European integration 34, 41 European model of modernization 50 international role 15

225

irruption of democracy 56, 57 role of the state 19, 35, 38 social representation of society 45 a society of women 186 United Nations (UN) 11,43 United States of America (USA) communitarians 176 cultural mixing 167 cultural rights 158-9, 168, 176-7 democracy 56, 79 education 133, 168 end of social thought 80 EU and 35-6, 38-9, 40, 41, 42, 43 globalization 20-1, 22, 23, 24, 30-2 intercultural communication 181 international role 15, 28, 30-1 liberalism 176 mass society 55 migrants 68 popular sovereignty 79 post-9/11 policy 9-12, 28, 30, 39, 43, 61, 62 social movements 120 status of war 61, 62 universalism communitarianism 175, 176 cultural rights 162-4, 175 modernity 73, 74, 76, 77-8, 162-3, 209 the subject 109 Western societies 49 utilitarianism 49 veils 157-8, 159-60, 169-73, 177 violence modernity 76, 77, 78 permeation of 12-13, 14, 16 the social bond and 68, 69 a society of women 204 the subject and 102, 103, 107, 111, 137-8 see also terrorism; war war cultural rights 158-9 emancipatory individualism 84-5 end of societies and 60-3

226

Index

war (cont.) European integration 34 globalization 27-9, 30, 31-2 modernity 76, 77, 158 national minorities 145 permeation of violence 12-13, 16 post-Second World War developments 19, 35 social innovation 13, 14 social representation of society 45 the subject 102, 111, 134-5, 142 US post-9/11 policy 10-11, 28, 30, 31, 39, 43, 61, 62 Weber, Max 45 welfare state 13-14 cultural rights 156 death of European society 55 democratization of society 54 establishment 19, 35 European social model 35, 38-9 globalization 26 the self and 96 war and 62 Wieviorka, Michel 119, 138, 153 will to power 142 Wittig, Monique 196, 198 women 184-207 democratization of society 54, 56, 58 emancipatory individualism 83 European mode of socialization 47 European model of modernization 50 role of men and 203-5 roles 193

self-construction 193-4 sexual rights 164-6 sexuality 81, 187, 188-200, 202 the social bond 69 as subjects 95, 97, 110, 115, 200-4 women's movements 151, 153, 154 see also feminism work migrants 169-70 place in people's lives 64-5 the social bond and 68-9 a society of women 188, 201, 203 workers emancipatory individualism 83 European mode of socialization 47, 48 modernity 74 see also social security; workingclass movement working-class movement 13-14 democratization of society 53-4 emancipatory individualism 83 end of 69 irruption of democracy 57-8 new social movements and 154-5 rights 109, 147 social determinism 88 the subject 120 World Trade Center 9, 27 World Trade Organization 21-2 Yugoslavia 145 Zapatista movement 164