Modern Social Imaginaries

odern Social Imaginaries p

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Charles Taylor

DUKE UNNERSITY PRESS

Durham and London 2004

UNIVERSI

EK :.:E: ;3UO\TH rAr ·: ,.::: '.1 \1 _\d.: already mentioned one context, in a sense the origi­

nal hu lO of this modern idea of order, in the discursive prac­ Ii

theorists reacting to the destruction wrought by the religion. Their aim was to find a stable basis of legiti­

Jndn bt:yond confessional differences. But this whole attempt r u

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tl. t be placed in a still broader context: what one might

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II thf' taming or domestication of the feudal nobility, which

•

IU ry. I mean the transformation of the noble class from

nt

on

from the end of the fourteenth and into the sixteenth

!lu-independent warrior chieftains, often with extensive foI­

I iog,.. who in theory owed allegiance to the king but in prac­ Ii

the Crown/nation, who might often serve in a mili­ tapacity but were no longer capable of acting indepen-

111 ". \

quite capable of using their coercive power for all

of ends unsanctioned by royal power, to a nobility of ser­

w r..

Jr �

in this capacity.

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In England, the change came about essentially under the Tudors, who raised a new service nobility over the remnants of the old warrior caste that had laid waste the kingdom in the Wars of the Roses. In France, the process was longer and more conflictual, involving the creation of a new noblesse de robe alongside the older noblesse d'epee. This transformation altered the self-understanding of noble and gentry elites, their social imaginary not of the whole society, but of themselves as a class or order within it. It brought with it new models of sociability, new ideals, and new notions of the training required to fulfill their role. The ideal was no longer that of the semi-independent warrior, the preux chevalier, with the associated honor code, but rather that of the courtier, acting alongside others in advising and serving royal power. The new gentleman required not prin­ cipally a training in arms, but a humanistic education that would enable him to become a civil governor. The function was now advising and persuading, first colleagues and ulti­ mately the ruling power. It was necessary to cultivate the capacities of self-presentation, rhetoric, persuasion, winning friendships, looking formidable, accommodating, and pleas­ ing. Where the old nobles lived on their estates surrounded by retainers, who were their subordinates, the new top people had to operate in courts or cities, where the hierarchical rela­ tions were more complex, frequently ambiguous, and some­ times as yet indeterminate because adept maneuvering could bring you to the top in a trice (and mistakes could precipitate an abrupt fall).2 Hence the new importance of humanist training for elites. Instead of teaching your boy to joust, get him reading Eras­ mus or Castiglione, so that he knows how to speak properly, make a good impression, converse persuasively with others in a wide variety of situations. This training made sense in the new kind of social space, the new modes of sociability,

in which noble or gentry children would have to make their way. The paradigm defining the new sociability is not ritual­ ized combat, but conversation, talking, pleasing, being per­ suasive, in a context of quasi-equality. I mean by this term not an absence of hierarchy, because court society was full of this, but rather a context in which hierarchy has to be partly bracketed because of the complexity, ambiguity, and indeter­ minacy noted above. One learns to talk to people at a great ·range of levels within certain common constraints of polite­ ness, because this is what being pleasing and persuasive re­ quire. You can't get anywhere either if you're always pulling rank and ignoring those beneath you or so tongue-tied you can't talk to those above. These qualities were often packed into the term "cour­ tesy," whose etymology points to the space where they had to be displayed. The term was an old one, going back to the time of the troubadours and passing through the flour­ ishing Burgundian court of the fifteenth century. But its meaning changed. The older courts were places where semi­ independent warriors congregated from time to time for jousts and hierarchical displays around the royal household. But when Castiglione writes his best-selling Courtier, the con­ text is the city-court of the Duchess of Urbino, where the cour­ tier has his permanent abode and where his occupation is ad­ vising his ruler. Life is a continuous conversation. '[n its later meaning, courtesy comes to be associated with another term, "civility." This too invokes a dense back­ ground. A crucial strand in this story starts from the Renaissance notion of civility, the ancestor of our "civilization," and with much the same force. It is what we have and those others don't, those who lack the excellences, the refinements, the im­ purtant achievements that we value in our way of life. The thers were the "savages." As we can see from the terms, the

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underlying epitomizing contrast is between life in the forest

may

di�tur l

life at its best and highest. Aristotle had made clear thai

Lll d were all too aware that it was not only absent abroad, hu t aU \ ., imperfectly realized at home. The

equanimity, but we rapidly revert. In Henaissance times, the elites among whom this

The city, following the ancients, is seen as the site of human

humans reach the fullness of their nature only in the polis. Civility connects to the Latin word that translates polis

spoke of an

etat police as

something they had and the

margins (e.g.,

h Irh,h. the Russians), 4 still had a long way to go. Even lhr- tnl'mhers of ruling elites needed to be

sau­

subjected to firm

didn't. (Later, I discuss the importance of the ideal of

ii� Ipline in each new generation, as a Vene tian law of public d 11 a ' n in 1551 proposed.5 Civility was not

"polished" society.)

So part of what this term designated was the mode of gov­

cized their functions . Because of the projection onto them of the image of "natural man," savages were held to lack these

instrument of government in whose hands was concentrated

a great deal of power over the society, so that it was capabl�

, the English nobility and gentry before the Wars of the Ro�, . \�ith the way they lived under the Tudo rs, the differ-

i£ ·,triking: fighting is no longer part of the normal way lift f this class, unless it be for wars in the servi

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of remolding this society in important ways.3 As this state de­

ce of the Something like this process continues over four cen. ri.·�. nntil by 1800 a normal civilized country is one that can

row n.

police.

The mode of government required by civility also assured

diness, random and unauthorized violence, or public brawls.

either in young aristocratic bloods or among the people. Of course, in early modern times, there was lots of all this. And

this alerts us to an important difference between the plac­

civility had in Renaissance discourse and that which civiliza· tion holds in ours. As we read in our morning papers about

the massacres in Bosnia or Rwanda or the breakdown of gov­

ernment in Liberia, we tend to feel ourselves in tranquil pos­

session of what we call civilization, even though we may feel a

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veloped, so it came to be seen as a defining feature of an etal

some degree of domestic peace. It didn't consort with row­

.

. Lh" lity .reflected the transition that Euro pean societies r g ing through from about 1400, which I described above Ih d�mestication of the nobility. The new (or newly recov­ r . J) fd..,a! reflected a new way of life. If we compare the life

code of law, according to which rulers and magistrates exer­

makings of what we think of as a modern state, a continuing

something you

·d -at a certain stage in history and then relaxed into, I II:h i thf' way we tend to think about civili zation

1I

ernment. One must be governed in orderly fashion, under a

things. But what they really did lack in most cases were th

ideal cir­

common people,

closely related sense: in the seventeenth century, the French

vages

or

lhl,uull nol on the level of savages in America and even being r al)C)W' tht' European savag e peoples of the

(civi­

tas); in fact, derivations of the Greek word were also used with

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mharrassed to say so out loud. A race riot at home

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and life in the city.

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ontinuing domestic peace and in which commerce

ha I rg Iy replaced war as the paramount activ ity with which ,hllcai society concerns itself- or at least

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with war.

shares preemi­

But 'this change didn't come about witho ut resistance.

nobles were capable of outbursts of mayh em, carniteetered on the thin line between mock and real violence un 3.10 QIl were rife, vagabonds could be dange rous, city riot al d p 'asant uprisings, provo ked by unbearable conditions of Iif, W Tl' recurrent. Civility had to be to some degree a fightUII r

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ther Ordered government was one facet of civility, but s. science and arts the of were others: a certain development our like what today we would call technology (here again,

ntrol; civilization); the development of rational moral self-co shori. n ent-i and also, crucially, taste, manners, refinem

sound education and polite manners.6 ment But these developments, no less than ordered govern and ine discipl of and domestic peace, were seen as the fruits the result training. A fundamental image was of civility as .7 Thi� nature raw wild, lly of nurture or taming of an origina of our ty is what underlies the, to us, striking ethnocentrici

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Amel" ancestors. They didn't see their difference from, say, today, say would we as indians as that between two cultures, disci· d, but as that between culture and nature.We are traine cooked. plined, formed, and they are not. The raw meet the lencl" ambiva an was It is important not to forget that there ener· in this contrast. Many were tempted to hold that civility iF l' vates us, renders us effete. Perhaps the height of virtue ther , course of And be found precisely in unspoilt nature .8 take, were honorable exceptions to this whole ethnocentric tho" of g tandin unders l genera such as Montaigne.9 But the er sid who did think within the contrast wild/tamed, whatev

t us from they came down on, cast the process that brough ine. Lip· discipl severe ng the first to the second as one involvi man sius defined it as "the rod of Circe which tameth both

one is and beast that are touched therewith, whereby each wer they before brought in awe and due obedience where literary all fierce and unruly."lo The "rod of Circe" is a great par second the but easy, sound image and makes discipline slog. hard a is n of the phrase indicates that this transformatio thing­ Civility requires working on yourself, not just leaving le j strugg a es involv It over. as they are but making them reshap e ourselves.

So the high Renaissance understanding of courtesy

bring$

it

the same age's understanding of civility.u This

'rge'O '- reflects the taming of the aristocracy and the

o�

;:;

I mtrnal pacification of society under the nascent mod­

II

nIl tate i-xternal war was a different matter}. Both virtues

the qualities one needs to bring about cohesion in

lite social space: "By courtesie and humanitie, all

I II . mong men are maintained and preserved" and "the

hi ·!, "igm of civilitie [are] quietness, concord, agreiment,

t n · hip and friendship." The virtues promoting social har­

' , and overall peace include, as well as civility, "Courtesie,

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�Sc,

Affabilitie, Clemencie, Humanitie."12

Til discussion of civility points us to a third facet of the III

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to a pacified elite. Civility was not a natural condi­

n

of human beings, nor was it easily attained. It required

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rts of discipline, the taming of raw nature. The child

mhodie" the 'natural" condition of lawlessness and has to

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ver.13

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need to understand the notion of civility not just in Itl of the taming of the nobility, but in relation to

th much more widespread and ambitious attempt to make r :ill I'lasses of society through new forms of discipline­ no

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military, religious, moral-which are a striking

European society from at least the seventeenth

nluf')'. This transformation was powered both by the as­

Plr3tlOll to a more complete religious reform, both Protes­

tal

m r m

an '

Catholic, and by the ambitions of states to achieve

military power and hence, as a necessary condition, a

Ir ptoductive economy. Indeed, these two programs were

I II mterwoven; reforming governments saw religion as a

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good source of discipline and churches as handy instru­

m nl� and many religious reformers saw ordered social life �

th ' "'ential expression of conversion.

Th Puritan notion of the good life, for instance, saw the

lOl

a pillar of a new social order. As against the indo-

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lence and disorder of monks, beggars, vagabonds, and idle gentlemen, he "betakes himself to some honest and seemly trade, and [does] not suffer his senses to be mortified with idleness."14 This means not just any activity, but one to which he has given himself as a lifetime's vocation . "He that hath no honest business about which ordinarily to be employed, no settled course to which he may betake himself, cannot please God." So said the Puritan preacher Samuel Hieron. 15 These men are industrious, disciplined, do useful work, and above all can be relied on. They have "settled courses" and are thus mutually predictable. You can build a solid, de­ 40

pendable social order on the covenants they make with each other. They are not tempted to mischief because idleness is the principal breeding ground of all sorts of evils: ''An idle man's brain becometh quickly the shop of the devil . . . Whereof rise mutinies and mutterings in cities against magistrates? You can give no greater cause thereof, than 1·dleness."16 With such men a safe, well-ordered society can be built. But of course, not everyone will be like them. However, the

Puritan project can cope with this difficulty: the godly were

to rule; the unregenerate were to be kept in check. The magis­ trate, as Baxter thought, must force all men "to learn the word of God and to walk orderly and quietly . . . till they are brought to a voluntary, personal profession of Christianity."l7 This was, of course, basically the same as the order Calvin erected in Geneva. Thus, while the Calvinist Reformation was defining the path to true Christian obedience, it also seemed to be offering the solution to the grave, even frightening social crises of the age. Spiritual recovery and the rescue of civil order seemed to go together. To put this another way, we can say that while late medieval elites clerical of course, but with a growing lay component, ' were developing ideals of more intense devotion and were

coming to demand church reform,

members of the same elit es -sometimes others, som etimes the same people -w ere de­ veloping/recovering the idea l of civility, with its demand s for a more ordered, less violent social existence. There was some tension between the two but also symbiosis. They cam e to in­ flect each other and, ind eed, to have an overlappin g agenda. Thus, in this context, the re is a com ple x causal story be­ . hind the fact that the idea l of civility develop s an acti ve, trans­ Jormatory agenda. As tim e goes on, it is undoubted ly powered by the escalating demand for military, and hence fisc al, power, and hence economic perform ance by industrious, edu cated disciplined populations. But it is also partly the resu lt of th symbiosis and mutual infl ection with the agenda of religious eform, whereby improveme nt came to be seen as a dut y for Itself, as we see with the ethic of neo-Stoicism. Ne atively, it is partly an attempt to fend off real dan gers to SOCIal order and partly a reaction to practices suc h as Car­ nival and feasts of misrule that had been accepted in the past but had become profoundl y disturbing to those stri ving for the new ideals. Here's whe re the symbiosis with reli gious re­ f r plays an obvious role again, because this kind of suscep­ tibIlity to be upset by the display of vice has been very much a feature of the stringe nt religious conscience. We see clear examples from the field of sexual moralit y. The Middle Ages in man y parts of Europe tolerate d pros­ titution, which seemed a sensible prophylactic aga inst adul­ tery and rape, with all the ir disruptive consequences. IS Even �t> Council of Konstanz org anized temporary brothe ls for the large number of partici pants who flooded into the town. But the new trends in dev otion tended to emphasize sexual purity and to turn the mai n focus away from sins of vio­ I :nct' and social division, and so the attitude to prostit ution changes. It becomes inconce ivable to countenance it, but it is also deeply disturbing. A sort of fascination-repulsi on arises

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continued efforts to in widespread and that expresses itself is go on; one has One cannot just let th redeem fallen women. to act.

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elites, under e early modern period, The upshot is that in th and more ore nm of these two ideals, tur the combined force e. Their tolerance tices along a wide rang against popular prac and uncontrolled disorder, rowdiness, for what they see as accepted as normal What previously was violence diminishes. ous. Already dur­ cceptable, even scandal is noW seen as una continuing after­ tury, and sometimes ing the sixteenth cen cribing lead to the otives I have been des ward, the complex m ypes of programs: launching of four t

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involve an im­ s are enacted. These New kinds of poor law before. In the rsal, from what went portant shift, even reve und poverty. an aura of sanctity aro Middle Ages, there was ous society did extremely rank-consci It was not that this and powerless empt for the destitute not have a healthy cont But precisely of the social ladder. at the absolute bottom asion of sanc­ r person offered an occ because of this, the poo hew 25, to help the discourse of Matt tification. Following of the things the to help Christ. One a person in need was e and their did to offset their prid powerful of that world poor. Kings did r distributions to the trespasses was to offe eois. Well­ and later also rich b ourg this, as did monasteries, that alms should vision in their wills off people left a pro at their funeral, number of paupers be given to a certain soul. Contrary pray for the deceased's who should in turn , h eard in heaven, the prayer of Lazarus to the Gospel story, Abraham's b osom.19 might hasten Dives to of a rise entury, partly as a result But in the fifteenth c sequent flow of p failures and a con in population and cro cal change in atti­ towns, there is a radi the destitute to the who se principle poor laws is adopted, tude. A new series of

is sharply to distinguish those who are capable of work from those who genuinely have no recourse but charity.

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The form r are expelled or put to work for very low pay . and oft n In st�Ingent conditions. The incapable poor are

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be glven relief, but again in highly controlled condi­ . tIOns, which often ends up involving confinement in insti­ tutions that in some ways resemble prisons. Efforts are also made to rehabilitate the children of beggars, to teach them a trade, to make them useful and industrious members of society.20

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All thes op rations-providing work, relief, training, . and rehabilitatIOn-could entail confinement, both as a

�easure of economy and as a measure of control. This be­

�ms the period of what has been called, following Michel

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Fo cault,

le grand renfermement (the great confinement),

which came to involve other classes of helpless people'

most famously the insane.21

2. � , ational government, city governments, church authori­

ties, or some combination of them, often came down hard

CI� certain elements of popular culture:

charivaris, Car­

mval, feasts of misrule, dancing in church. Here also we �ee a reversal. What had previously been seen as normal

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�hich everybody had been prepared to participate in, no

�eemed utterly condemnable and also, in one sense, pro­ toundly disturbing.

Erasmus condemned the Carnival he saw in Siena in

�509 as "unchristian" on two grounds: first, it contained �

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traces of a cie�t pa sm," and second, "the people . . ver-mdulge In hcence. 22 The Elizabethan Puritan Phili

�tu�bes attacked "the horrible vice of pestiferous dan:' . mg, whICh led to "filthy groping and unclean handling"

�d so became "an introduction to whoredom, a prepara­ �lVf' t� wantonnesse, a provocative of uncleanness, and an mtrmt to all kinds of lewdness."23

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been criticizing out, churchmen had As Burke p oints IS centun. es.24 What · popular culture for of these aspects of e caus intensified, be religious attack is new is (a) that the at sacred, and (b) th ut the place of the the new worries abo h, olis p ess, of orderlin ity, and its norms the ideal of civil leading classes from e have alien ated th nt, e nem refi and these practices. first two kinds of enth century, these 3. During the sevente the attempts by ed under a third: sum sub e om bec action giste absolutist or diri te structures of the developing sta rdi­ h to shape throug o and Central Europe, b ent in France itual, and material ic, educational, spir nom eco the es nan t erests of power bu subj ects, in the int well-being of their ei­ Poliz well- ordered . The ideal of the also of improvement e the fifteenth to th in Germany from ost rm uppe was staat ity this dirigiste acti y.25 The impetus to eighteenth centur , atlo the Reform ation in the wake of was given by the situ see the reorgaIll­ ch territory had to ea of r rule e th ch in whi rce territories) and enfo rch (in Protestant zation of the Chu ol t con e attempts at territories). But th conformity (in all ncompass econOmIC, next century and e are extended in the These covered some and moral goals. social, educational, explored: the regu­ ry we have already of the same territo e traditional fes­ the supression of som lation of relief and eenth century, they s.26 But in the sixt tivals and practice ng, increase produc­ to establish schooli try and out nch bra rd-working, indus­ a more rational, ha tivity, and inculcate in their subjects. ion- oriented outlook trious, and pro duct aim of inducing ciplined, but with the dis e to b was iety Soc . self- discipline.27 ideal some features of the osing imp eant m In short, this the population. Un­ and wider strata of r wide on ty civili of to create a popu­ nt motive here was doubtedly, an importa soldiers could b edient and effective lation from which ob

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drawn and the resources to pay and arm them. But man

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of thes o dinances posit improvement (as they see it) a an end

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A� we move into the eighteenth century,

the ends ofleglslatIOn more and more incorporate the ideas of the Enlightenment, putting increasing emphasis on the productive, material aspects of human activity in the name

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of he benefits that would accrue to individuals and to SOCIety as a whole.28

4. �e see this whole development from another angle if we look at the proliferation of modes of discipline, of "meth­

ods," of procedures. Some of these arise in the individual sphere, as methods of self-control, of intellectual or spiri­ tual development; others are inculcated and imposed in a context of hierarchical control. Foucault notes how pro­ grams of training based on the close analysis of physical

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movem nt, breaking it down into parts and then drilling . 'people III a standardIzed form of it, multiply in the six­ teenth century. Their primary locus is, of course ' armies

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which inaugurate new modes of military training, but the

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s me of the principles come to be applied to schools, hos­ PItalS, and, later, factories.29 Among methodical programs aimed at the transforma­ . tIO of the self, one of the best known was the spiritual ex­

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erCIses of Loyola,

�editation directed to spiritual change.

�ut these two key Ideas, meditation directed by method, Iso crop up a century later in the program proposed by ,Descartes (who was, after all, educated by the Jesuits at Lafleche).

If

Wf:'

take these last two facets together, we see, on the

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on hand, the develo ment of a new model of elite sociability nne('te� to the notIOn of civility, in which the paradigm is

nv� rsatIon under conditions of quasi-equality; on the other

hand_ we see the project of extending this civility beyond the

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of the society. There ruling strata to much broader sections n of moral order. are affinities here with the modern notio model of society a st Sociability as conversation could sugge al order, whereas as mutual exchange rather than hierarchic gh iscipline can the project of transforming nonelites throu remam forever the mean that the features of civility will not to be spread wider. At property of a single class, but are meant people over suggests the same time, the very goal of making , in the semi-Platonic a break with the older notions of order and working for mode of an ideal Form underlying the real ver infringes it, whate st its own realization -or at least again at Macbeth's crime. It as the elements expressed their horror a formula to be real­ fits rather with the notion of order as what the modern ized in constructive artifice, which is just n agency through order offers; societies emerge from huma l we should follow. contract, but God has given us the mode time, there are These are possible affinities, but at the same n can give a new others. For instance, society as conversatio ule, as it did in Re­ relevance to the ideal of republican self-r ern Europe, particu­ naissance Italy and then later in north War.30 Or it can larly in England during and after the Civil l transforma­ socia of agent remain captured within that other tion the "absolute" monarchical state. iousness at seems to have pushed the elite social consc were na imagi social decisively into the ambit of the modern the m that occurred the developments of the new sociability n , where the� start eighteenth century, particularly in Engla enmg of the ehte so­ a little earlier. This period saw a broad or administering t e cial stratum, those involved in ruling tially with econ IDIc society, to include those occupied essen already dommant functions, either because members of the becoming improv­ class turned themselves to these functions, place was opened fOT ing landlords, for instance, or because a generally. merchants, bankers, and the propertied

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The conditions of quasi-equality have to bridge a wider gap. Without engendering the full-scale conte mporary notion of equality, the understanding of membersh ip in society was broadened and detached from specific gentry or noble fea­ tures, even while keeping the language of gentility. The ex­ tended understanding of civility, now called "politeness," re­ ma ed dir cted to the goal of producing harmony and easing s cIaI relatIOns, but now it had to hold toget her people from different classes and operate in a numb er of new venues, in­ cluding coffeehouses, theaters, and garde ns. 31 As in the earlier ide of civility entering polite society involv ed broadening � one s perspectIve and entering into a highe r mode of being than the merely private, but the emphasis now is on the virtue of benevolence and a mode of life less overtly competitive �han those fostered by earlier warrior or courtier codes. Eighteenth-century polite society even gave rise to an ethic of �sensibility. "

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This relative distancing from hierarchy and the new cen­ trality of benevolence brought the age closer to the modern model of order described above. At the same time, the inclu­ i n of economic functions in society intensified the affinity L� tween civility and this notion of order. This Eighteenth-century transition is in a sense a crucial

in the development of Western modernity. Polite society a new kind of self-consci ousness, which one could call " hi!'torical" in a new sense. It was not only unprecedentedly ,l\\ 1lrf' �f the importance of its economic underpinnings; it had a new understanding of its place in histor y, as a way Ilr life that belonged to commercial society, a stage of history , arrived at. n"t'entlv The Eighteenth century generated new: ,I jal theories of history, which saw human society develop III hrough a series of stages, defined by the form of their t onomy (e.g., hunter-gath erer, agricultural ), culminating in th ('nntemporary Commercial society.32 This made people see o ne

hart

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e obi tY. e called the taming of t the whole transition I hav eS, ification of modern SOCIeti as well as the internal pac d WItll owe end doux commerce, was . . ' -f new 1·Ight . Commerce le way u l values and the mllita rtia ma e gat rele to er this pow mance f , ending their age-old dom life to a subordinate role under­ be societies could no longer human culture.33 Political unt terms; one had to take acco stood simply in perennial an epoch happened. Modernity was the epoch in which things

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4

The Great Disembedding

without precedent .34

48

I

h '" £Ii red above one complex context that might help ex­ plain the growing force of the modern idea of order, its af­ Imit I

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with the developing understanding of civility, even­

lIall "ulminating in polite society. But we can also see it in I'pt>lr and longer-term context, that of the "disembedding"

IIltt. ..- iduals.

Om f the central features of Western modernity, on just

hl.ul an - view, is the progress of disenchantment, the eclipse Ihp

w

rId of magic forces and spirits. This was one of

th pn lu ts of the reform movement in Latin Christendom,

hll h I sued in the Protestant Reformation but also transtll! mrces of the attempt to discipline and reorder society,

-rill I in chapter 3, which aimed not only at the reform of

I r

lri.

1h

,(mduct but at reforming and remaking societies so

nder them more peaceful, more ordered, more indus­ ,I

wIy remade society was to embody unequivocally

drmands of the Gospel in a stable and, as it was increas­

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\ IIndforstood, a rational order. This society had no place

r I It> ambivalent complementarities of the older enchanted

world: between worldly life and monastic renunciation, be­

small-scale societies, even though much of the life of this

tween proper order and its periodic suspension in Carnival,

epoch can only be guessed at.

between the acknowledged power of spirits and forces and

A focus on what I call early religion (which partly covers

their relegation by divine power. The new order was coherent,

demonstrates III three crucial ways how profoundly these

uncompromising, all of a piece. Disenchantment brought a new uniformity of purpose and principle.

50

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what Robert

�ellah, for instance, calls "archaic religion")

forms of life embed the agent.1

The progressive imposition of this order meant t e end

First, socially: in paleolithic and even certain neolithic

of the unstable postaxial equilibrium. The compromIse be­

tribal societies, religious life is inseparably linked with social

tween the individuated religion of devotion, obedience, or

life. Of course, there is a sense in which this is true that is

rationally understood virtue, on the one hand, and the col­

not particular to early religion. This consists in the obvious

lective, often cosmos-related rituals of whole societies, on the

fact that the basic language, categories of the sacred forms of

�

other, was broken, and in favor of the former. Disenchant­

religious experience, and modes of ritual action av lable to

ment, reform, and personal religion went together. Just as the

agents in these societies are found in their socially established

church is at its most perfect when each of its members adhere

religious life. It is as though each such small-scale society has

� �d artic�lated some common human capacity in its

to it on their own individual responsibility-and in certain

shape

places, like Congregational Connecticut, this became an ex­

own ongmal fashIon. There have been dilfusions and borrow­

plicit requirement of membership -so society itself comes . to be reconceived as made up of individuals. The Great DIs­

i�s

What this common human religious capacity is, whether

embedding, as I propose to call it, implicit in the axial revo­ lution, reaches its logical conclusion. This involved the growth and entrenchment of a new self­ understanding of our social existence, one that gave an un­ precedented primacy to the individual. In talking of our self­

�

ut the differences of vocabulary and the gamut of pos­ : sibilitIes remain extraordinarily various. untically it is to be placed exclusively within the psyches of , um� beings or whether the psyche must be seen as respond­

�

lng differently to some human-transcending spiritual reality,

�e can leave unresolved. Whether something like this is an

understanding, I am particularly concerned with what I have

mescapable dimension of human life or humans can eventu­

been calling the social imaginary, that is, the way we collec­ tively imagine, even pretheoretically, our social life in the con­

allv put it behind them we can also leave open (although obvi-

temporary Western world.

issues). What stands out, however, is, first, the Ubiquity of

But first, I want to place the revolution in our imaginary of the past few centuries in the broader sweep of cultural­ religious development, as this has generally come to be under­ stood. The full scale of this millennial change becomes clearer if we focus first on some features of the religious life of earlier. smaller-scale societies, insofar as we can trace them. There must have been a phase in which all humans lived in such

usiy, the present writer has strong hunches on both these

omething like a relation to spirits or forces or powers, which

�e recognized as being in some sense higher, not the ordinary I- tees and animals of everyday life; and second, how differ­

polite conventions of the age; at a slightly higher level

perhaps, in the return of duelling in eighteenth-century En-

81

I ,

,

gland.ll But at the highest level, it promoted the ethic of civic humanism as a rival to the ethos of commercial society, or per­

�

haps as a compensation for the dangers -of enervation, c r­ ruption, loss of liberty-that this modern form brought WIth it. This was not a marginal concern; it occupied some of the most influential thinkers of the age, such as Adam Smith.12 These worries and tensions have remained a central part

6 The Public Sphere

of modern culture. In one form, they could lead to a trans­ formed redaction of the modern idea of order-to save civic virtue or freedom or nonalienated self-rule, as we find in the philosophies of Rousseau and Marx. In another, they were in­ B2

deed seen as a potential threat of degeneracy inherent in the order, but by people who in no way wanted to reject this order merely to find some prophylactic for its dangerous potentiali­ ties. Smith, and later Tocqueville, belong to this category. The concern about leveling, the end of heroism, of great­ ness, has also been turned into a fierce denunciation of the modern moral order and everything it stands for, as we see with Nietzsche. Attempts to build a polity around a rival notion of order in the very heart of modern civilization, most notably the various forms of fascism and related authoritari­ anism, have failed. But the continued popularity of Nietzsche shows that his devastating critique still speaks to many people today. The modern order, though entrenched, perhaps even because entrenched, still awakens much resistance.

T

he economic was perhap s the first dimension of civil society to achieve an identity independent fro m the polity. But it was followe d shortly afterward by the public sphere.

The public sphere is a com mon space in which the mem­ bers ofsociety are deeme d to meet through a var iety of media: print, electronic, and also face-to -face encounters ; to discuss matters of common inte rest; and thus to be abl e to form a common mind about the se. I say "a common spa ce" because although the media are multiple, as are the exc hanges that take place in them, they are deemed to be in pri nciple inter­ communicating. The disc ussion we 're having on television now takes account of what was said in the new spaper this m�rning, which in turn rep orts on the radio debate yesterday, and so on. That's why we usu ally speak of the public sphere in the singular. The public sphere is a cen tral feature of modern society,

o much so that even where it is in fact suppre ssed or ma­

nipulated it has to be fak ed. Modern despotic soc ieties have enerally felt compelled to go through the motions. Editorials in the party newspaper s, purporting to expres s the opinions - the writers, are offered for the consideration of their fellow

citizens; mass demonstrations are organized, purporting to give vent to the felt indignation of large numbers of people. All this takes place as though a genuine process were in train, forming a common mind through exchange, even though the result is carefully controlled from the beginning. In this discussion, I draw in particular on two very interest­ ing books. One was published almost thirty years ago but re­ cently translated into English, Jlirgen Habermas's The Struc­ tural Transformation ofthe Puhlic Sphere, which deals with the development of public opinion in eighteenth-century West­ ern Europe; the other is a recent publication by Michael 84

Warner,

The Letters ofthe Repuhlic, which describes the analo­

gous phenomenon in the British American colonies.1 A central theme of Habermas's book is the emergence in Western Europe in the eighteenth century of a new concept of public opinion. Dispersed publications and small group or local exchanges come to be construed as one big debate, from which the public opinion of a whole society emerges. In other words, it is understood that widely separated people sharing the same view have been linked in a kind of space of discussion, wherein they have been able to exchange ideas with others and reach this common end point. What is this common space? It's a rather strange

thing.

when one comes to think of it. The people involved here have. by hypothesis, never met but they are seen as linked in a com­ mon space of discussion through media-in the eighteenth century, print media. Books, pamphlets, and newspapers cir­ culated among the educated public, conveying theses, ana­

lyses, arguments, and counterarguments, referring to and re­ futing each other. These were widely read and often discussed in face-to-face gatherings, in drawing rooms, coffeehouses. salons, and in more (authoritatively) public places, like Par·

liament. The general view that resulted from all this, if any. counted as public opinion in this new sense.

This space is a public sphere in . the sense I 'm USIn here. That a con g It clu SI'on "counts as " " public OpInIOn refl the fact that a pu ects . blic sph ere can . eXIst onl if It . ' IS . Ima med as such. Unle gss all the dispersed dISCussIOns are seen their participants by as linke d In ' one great exc hange, there can be no sense of th . elr upshot as pub . lic OpI"nIOn. This . doesn't . mean that imagIna . tIOn IS aU-powerful There . are obje conditions: intern ctive al tOr £ • Ins tan ce, that the fragmen . tary local dIscussions interre ' fer,- an d external . that IS, ' there must prmted materials, be circulating from a ' . . pluralIty of Ind epe n dent Sources, for there to be bases 0f wh at can be seen as a cornmon discussion. As is often sal'd, the m odern public sphere Ued on "print cap re. italism" t0 get OIng . But as Warner shows, printing itself, an . d even prInt capItal ism d'd I n't prOVIde a .ficient condition. suf' They had to be ta ken up In ' the rIg ' ht cultural Context, where the essentI'al common understandIng ' s could arise,2 The public sph ere was a mut ation of the so " I Cml magi_ nary, one crucial to the development of modern society. an importan It was t step on the long march. We are now in a slig ht!y better positio n to understand what kind of th'Ing a publi c sphere is, and wh . Y it was new In ' :lghteenth cent the urv J' It's a k'In d 0f common spa ce, I have been �aying, in which peopl e wh0 never meet understan d theml es to be �,v engaged In ' d"ISCUSSIOn and cap ahle 0f reac hing a mmon mind, Let me l'ntro duce some n ew termm ' oIogy. We ran speak of common space when p eopIe come together in a (I Xllmon act of focus lOr £ whatever purpos e, b " e It rItu al, the enjO,Yment of a pIay , conversatIOn, or the celebra t'IOn 0f a majo rl' nt. Th ' r eir focus is com on, as against mer ely convergent, b -cause it is part of what IS comm only un derstoo d that they Ittf' attending to , , the common object 0r p rpose, together, as 'ainst each person ' ust ha pem'ng, on hIS or her own, to I' n be rned WIt ' h the sa J me thIng, In th' IS sen se, the "opi nion of m,mkind " oIners a merely converge nt unity, whereas public .

.

!

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,

'

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85

opinion is supposedly generated out of a series of common actions. An intuitively understandable kind of common space is set up when people are assembled for some purpose, be it on an intimate level for conversation or on a larger, more public scale for a deliberative assembly, a ritual, a celebration, or the enjoyment of a football match or an opera. Common space arising from assembly in some locale is what I want to call "topical common space." But the public sphere is something different. It transcends such topical spaces. We might say that it knits together a plu­ 86

rality of such spaces into one larger space of nonassembly. The same public discussion is deemed to pass through our debate today, and someone else's earnest conversation tomor­ row, and the newspaper interview Thursday, and so on. I call this larger kind of nonlocal common space "metatopical." The public sphere that emerges in the eighteenth century is a metatopical common space. Such spaces are partly constituted by common understand­ ings; that is, they are not reducible to but cannot exist without such understandings. New, unprecedented kinds of spaces require new and unprecedented understandings. Such is the case for the public sphere. What is new is not metatopicality. The Church and the state were already existing metatopical spaces. But getting clear about the novelty brings us to the essential features of thl' public sphere as a step in the long march. I see it as a step in this march because this mutation in the social imaginary was inspired by the modern idea of order. Two features stand out in this regard. One has just been im­ plied: its independent identity from the political. The other is its force as a benchmark of legitimacy. Why these are im­ portant will be clear if we recur to the original idealization. say, with Grotius or Locke.

First, in the Grotius-Locke idealization political society is seen as an instrument for som ething prepolitical; there is a place to stand, mentally, outs ide of the polity, as it were, from which to judge its performanc e. This is what is reflected in the _new ways of imagining soci al life independent of the poli tical, namely, the economy and the public sphere. Second, freedom is central to the rights society exists to defend. Responding both to this and to the underlying notion of agency, the theory puts great importance on the req uire­ ment that political society be founded on the consent of thos e bound by it. Now contract theories of legi timate government had ex­ isted before. What is new in the theories of the seventee nth century is that they put the requirement of consent at a more fundamental level. It was not just that a people, conceived as already existing, had to give consent to those who would claim to rule it. Now the original cont ract brings us out of the stat e of nature and even founds the existence of a collectivity that has some claim on its mem ber individuals. This original demand for onc e-for-all historical consent as a ondition of legitimacy can easi ly develop into a requirem ent of current consent. Government must win the consent of the governed -not just original ly, but as an ongoing conditi on of 1f'gitimacy. This is what beg ins to surface in the legitim ation .function of public opinion. These features of the public sphere can be clarified by ar­ ticulating what is new about it on two levels: what the pub lic 'phere does; and what it is. First, what it does, or rather, what is done in it. The pub lic »phere is the locus of a disc ussion potentially engaging every­ , , or (although, in the eighteenth century, the claim was only t involve the educated or "enlightened" minority), in which th society can come to a common mind about important mat ­ ters. This common mind is a reflective view, emerging from

87

this arises what Warner, following Habermas, calls the "prin­

f whatever views .o not j ust s m critical debate, and as c nsequence, it h the p opu at o happen to be held in There ght to listen to it. go ernme� tus: sta ve mati : a nor n ground ch one tended to gai thIs, ° were tw:o reas0ns f this opin­ her. The first is that ow up t and ultImate1Y swa rnment would ce g enlighte�ed, �d hen ion is likely to be smen y Louis Seba follow It. ThIS state . be well- advised to 0 t Ion es clear express by Habermas,4 giv tien Mercier, quoted

�

; � ��� : : � :� �:� ��

ciple of supervision," which insists that the proceedings of governing bodies be public, open to the scrutiny of discern­

ing citizens.5 By going public, legislative deliberation informs

public opinion and allows it to be maximally rational, at the

same time exposing itself to its pressure and thus acknowl­

edging that legislation should ultimately bow to the clear mandates of this opinion.6

The public sphere is, then, a locus in which rational views

this idea:

88

s dans toutes le� endent des lumiere Les bons liVIes dep Ce sont euX qUI ils ornent la verite. classes du peuple; nt rent Ie gouverneme ,., t l'Europe' ils eclai d a u ret­ son veritable inte , sur sa fa te, sur . s s ces VIe: SUl uter et . ' lique qu'il doit eco . sur l' opimon pub e I attendent re maltres patients qUI bons liVIes sont des de Ieur' ' tats et Ie calme eurs des E veil des administrat

:� :: �:::::

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passions.

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t in all cla ses nd on enlightenmen (Go od books depe they wh0 a rea n the truth. It is . the p eopIe; they ador ernment about Its gov the . ten ligh n govern Europe, th ey e . public 0Pinion its real mterest, the dut·les, its errors, b. good books ar to and follow: thes � that it should listen W os£' h t of awakemn� . asters who await the P atient m assIons.) i calm ng of theIr p the d ' an tes sta ter . admlllls '0

a similar vie,:' Kant famously had p view that the peo emerges wIth the . The second reason II . t on1Y Wise t0 rLO vernmen s h are sover�i�n. Go nl ou, ts . Governmen t bou I II opinion ; It IS morally. reasoning public. e m the midst of a rul and slate legi to . , court ought 'I ho . . , Parliament or the makmg ItS deClSlOns . has alreadY lwen her and enactmg what concentrating toget ong the people. From nlightened debate am emergmg out of e

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.

: �: ::

are elaborated that should guide government. This comes to

be seen as an essential feature of a free society. As Burke put

it. "In a free country, every man thinks he has a concern in

all public matters" .7 There is, of course, something very new about this in the eighteenth century compared to the immedi-

te past of Europe. But one might ask, is this new in history?

I o't this a feature of all free societies?

No, there is a subtle but important difference. Let's com­

pare the modern society with a public sphere with an ancient

public or polis. In the latter, we can imagine that debate on

r

Imhlic affairs may be carried on in a host of settings: among friends at a symposium, between those who meet in the agora,

nd then of course in the ekklesia, where the thing is finally

II c.ided. The debate swirls around and ultimately reaches its

'Illldusion in the competent decision-making body. The dif­

� r nce is that the discussions outside this body prepare for III artion ultimately taken by the same people within it. The

�unofficial" discussions are not separated off, given a status of

II. iT own, and seen to constitute a kind of metatopical space.

Hut that is what happens with the modern public sphere. It

I d -pace of discussion that is self-consciously seen as being

" ubidt- power. It is supposed to he listened to hy power, hut it •

/lilt itself an exercise of power. Its in this sense extrapoliti­

I t.ltuS is crucial. As we shall see below, it links the public

plwfe with other facets of modern society that are also seen

89

"

I

as essentially extrapolitical. The extrapolitical status i -

n�1

just defined negatively, as a lack of power. It is also seen po-.­ . tively: because public opinion is not an exerCIse of .·r. I

I'liv legitimate. The old unity will be gone for ever, but tlnity is to be substit ute d. For the ever-c ontinuing con­ tI kr � i., not meant to be an exercis e in po wer, a quasi -civil r .lrJi d on by dia lecticiu means. Its po tentially divisive Jt· I ntctive consequen ces are offset by the fac t that it is I at utside of power, a rational debate, str iving without I prj- to define the co mmon goo d. "The lang uage of rer l .:ontroversy art iculates a norm for controversy. It ! h t ransforms the ide al ofa social order fre e from conflicdl,h le :into an ideal of debate free from soc ial conflict."lo what the public sphere does is enable the soc iety to come mmon :mind, withou t the mediation of the political , n, In- it discou rse of reason outside power, which never1 -� i nurmative for po wer. Now let's try to see what, in r i r "I this, it has to be. I II

p�

can be ideally disengaged from partisan spirit and ratIl'nal

It

In other words, with the modern public sphere com

idea that political power must b e supervised and checked I, something outside. What was new, of course, was

,' . lh.11

there was an outside check, but rather the nature of tl- , Ill· n

stance. It is not defined as the will of God or the law of ulur (although it could be thought to articulate these), 'bu

kind of discourse, emanating from reason and not from 90

or traditional authority. As Habermas puts it, power .

o

at"

��

"

be tamed by reason: "veritas non auctoritas facit legem. .

In this way, the public sphere was different from everylru

preceding it. An unofficial discussion,

�hich neverthel

l' n

. th, come to a verdict of great importance, IS defined outsld",

sphere of power. It borrows some of t e images from anr tPII . . assemblies (this was especially promment ill the n , case) to project the whole public as one sp ce of d�t, U ;; 1011

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But, as Warner shows, it innovates in relatIOn to this moo, . Those who intervene are like speakers before an as mh,

But unlike their models in real ancient assemblies. the, lrl for a certain impersonality, a certain impartiality, an - h,

�P

ing of party spirit. They strive to negate their o

-

,II

larity and thus to rise above "any private or partIal \'1 . . ,. " This is what Warner calls "the principle of negatlVlt). can see it not only as suiting with the print, as against 5

medium but also as giving expression to this crucial

;

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1.

tI r

of the n w public sphere as extrapolitical, as a discollfe. it helped by its Wirkungsgeschichte [effect on subqu n , .history] to alter the sense.) Tlu .iit between new theory and tra ditional p ractices was ronal to the outcome. Popular sovereignty could be invoked If Ih . \merican case because it could find a generally agreed Upon 1 .;titutional meaning. All colonist s agreed that the way I lou nd a new constitution was through some kind of assem­ I . perhaps slightly larger than the normal one, such as in I , . husetts in 1779. The force of the old representative in­ lil llio118 helped to "interpret" in prac tical terms the new

Rt'�

lit

p .

I 'I

say that the American Revolution started on the

nf' legitimacy idea and finished by engendering

I llh'r. 'Very different one, while somehow avoiding a radi1 1m' k. Thf' colonists started by asserting

the traditional

ri h i of Englishmen" against an arrog ant and insensitive IInr . nul government. Once the break w ith

III

1 \\lJ- co�su mmated

King in Parlia. and the governors were no longer to oLI'\, d, the leadership of the resistan ce passed naturally I lh e " , ting elected legislatures, associa ted in a ContinenJ ..n teo s. The analogy with the Civil War of the 1640s was �" Ill. It

r I

war

has always been a Source of radicalization. The

h itself was made through a Declaration that affirmed r. J human rights, no longe r simply those

of English­ ertain states adopted new constitutions based on the PI I' 'Jar w :ill. Ultimately, the whole movement culminates in In,Lttution that places the new republic squarely within Ii nil t1f" m moral order: as the will of a people that had no

111

need of some preexisting law to act as a people but could see itself as the source of law.

The new social imaginary comes essentially through a

retrospective reinterpretation. The revolutionary force� were

mobilized largely on the basis of the old, backward-looking

legitimacy idea. This will later be seen as the exercise of a power inherent in a sovereign people. The proof of its exis­

tence and legitimacy lies in the new polity it has erected. But

popular sovereignty would have been incapable of doing this job if it had entered the scene too soon. The predecessor idea,

invoking the traditional rights of a people defined by their

112

ancient constitution, had to do the original heavy lifting, mo-

bilizing the colonists for the struggle, before being relegated

to oblivion with the pitiless ingratitude toward the past that defines modern revolutions .

Of course, this didn't mean that nothing changed in the

practices, only the legitimating discourse. On the contrary,

certain important new steps were taken, which only the new

discourse could justify. I've already mentioned the new state constitutions, such as that of Massachusetts in

1779. But the

federal Constitution itself is the most striking example. In the Federalist view, it was imperative to create a new central

power that wasn't simply a creature of the states; this had

been the principal fault of the confederal regime they were

trying to replace. There had to be something more than the "peoples " of the different states creating a common instru­

ment. The new union government had to have its own base of

legitimacy in a "people of the United States." This was inte­ gral to the whole Federalist project .

At the same time, this projection backward of the action of

a sovereign people wouldn't have been possible without the continuity in institutions and practices that allowed for the

reinterpretation of past actions as the fruit of the new prin­

ciples. The essence of this continuity resided in the virtually

universal acceptance among the colon ists of elected assem­ blies as legitimate forms of power. This was the more heart­ felt in that their elected legislatur es had long been the main bulwark of their local liberties again st the encroachments of an executive under royal or imperial control. At most, come a crucial turning point like the adop tion of a new state con­ stitution, they had recourse to spec ial enlarged assemblies. Popular sovereignty could be emb raced because it had a clear and uncontested institutional mean ing. This was the basis of the new order.2 Quite different was the case in the french Revolution, with fateful effects. The impossibility rema rked by all historians of "bringing the Revolution to an end" 3 came partly from this, that any particular expression of popu lar sovereignty could be challenged by some other, with substantial support . Part of the terrifying instability of the first years of the Revolution stemmed from this negative fact, that the shift from the legitimacy of dynastic rule to that of the nation had no agreed meaning in a broadly based social imaginary. This is not to be understood as the global explanation of this instability, but as telling us some thing about the way the different factors we cite to explain it worked together to pro­ duce the result we know. Of course, the fact that substantial parts of the king's entourage, the army and the nobility, did not accept the new principles creat ed a tremendous obstacle to stabilization. Even those who were for the new legitimacy were divided among themselves. But what made these latter divisions so deadly was the absence of any agreed understand­ ing on the institutional meaning of the sovereignty of the na­ tion.

Burke's advice to the revolutionaries was to stick to their traditional Constitution and amend it piecemeal. But this was already beyond their powers It was . not just that the repre-

113

sentative institutions of this Constitution, the Estate- • II­ eral had been in abeyance for 175 years. They were al ,.ro· fou dly out of synch with the aspiration to equal citizdJ IUf' that had developed among the educated classes, the bourg , ­ sie and a good part of the aristocracy, which found expr sion in a number of ways: negatively through the atta"k on aristocratic privilege, and positively in the enthusiasm for r"· publican Rome and its ideals.4 That is why virtually th ' lr�1 . th pa­ demand of the Third Estate in 1789 was to abolish rate chambers and bring all the delegates together in a :;ingl National Assembly. Even more gravely, outside of these educated elit . Ih� • was very little sense of what a representative constitutltm might mean. True, masses of people responded to th (. l ­ ing of the Estates General, with their cahiers de dolearwe. hUI this whole procedure supposed the continuance of ro, '0 ereignty; it wasn't at all suited to serve as a channel ' r Lh popular will. . al ll" II, ' What the moderates hoped for was something lines of Burke's prescription: an evolution of the traditlun.. constitution to fashion the kind of representative instit linn that would precisely be understood by all as the expre 1011 ' the nation's will through the votes of the citizens. Thi i wI! t the House of Commons had become in the eighteentb l ' n­ tury, even though the "people" here was a small elit�. d f m' to speak for the whole through various modes of vrrtual rt t­ resentation. The evolution that had brought this about in Britain h ,j created a sense of the forms of self-rule that was part of th. cial imaginary of the broader society. That's why t e d nlWI for broader popular participation took the form m Eru!!I I of proposals to extend the franchise. The pe�ple wantt·d I to the established representative structure, as IS most n ,.1U in the Chartist agitation of the 1830s and 1840s. Th1: Alii

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was a stage ahead on this same evolution; their rep. nlativf' assemblies were generally elected on the basis of 1I1.111 hl)ud suffrage. T"t'� forms of selfrule through elected asse mbly were p.:ul of th generally available repertory in the Anglo-Saxon /I'li ' , l�ot only were they absent in that . of the popular - r. In France, but the se had developed their ow n forms of fml81' protest that were structured by a quite diff erent logic. But hefar turning to examine these, there is a gene ral point I }, ad.. about modern revolutionary transitions carried I lin the basis of novel theories. Th ransition can onl y come off, in anything like the de­ r I . I'JlSe, if the "people, " or at least imp orta nt minorities ',(hi ts, understan d and internalize the the ory . But for hll ill actors, underst anding a theory is being able to put II Inlo l)�actice in their world. They understa nd it through Ill' proc tlCes that put it into effect. These pra ctices have to m k. • DS to the m, the kind of sense the theory prescribes. BUI , h,1 , makes s�nse of our practices is our social imagi­ n r \ ..d 30 wha t IS crucial to this kind of transition is that Ih IIl'u ;:;1- (or its acti ve segments) share a soci al imaginary Ih ali fill this req uirement, that is, that inclu des ways of IlUJF the new theory. \ I "i t t� of the social imaginary of a peop le at a given 11m ' d kind of repertory, as I suggested in cha pter 2, in­ I ,lln - th-. ensemble of practices they can make sens e of. To I -for m society acc ording to a new principle ofle gitimacy, JI ' t� have � repert ory that includes ways of meeting III J n �lple. This requirem ent can be broken down int o two ! : ( l) thf' actors have to know what to do, have to have r c Il-e- in the ir repertory that put the new or der into effect ,. d