Barbarizations of social conflict: Struggles for recognition in the early 21st century

Authors

  • Axel Honneth PUCRS

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15448/1984-7289.2014.1.16941

Keywords:

Recognition. Social struggles. Exclusion. Social integration/desintegration.

Abstract

In several of his analyses, Talcott Parsons describes the establishment of modern societies as a differentiation process across spheres of mutual recognition. In this paper, I use Parsons’ social theory of recognition to examine features of recent social conflicts. I begin with Parsons’ description of the struggles for recognition that took place during his lifetime in the highly industrialized societies of the west (1). I then use Parsons’ view of normatively ordered recognition conflicts to point out societal trends that led, in the final third of the twentieth century, to a gradual undermining of the pacification structures postulated by Parsons (2). An initial outcome of this apparent disintegration I describe as a “barbarization” of social conflict. By this I mean a state of society where struggles for social recognition escalate and become anomic because resolution can no longer be found in the existing systemic spheres of negotiation (3). This paper shows the importance of the term recognition to social theory by following Parsons’ theory in analyzing structural transformations that are currently emerging in response to social conflicts. Editors abstract.

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Author Biography

Axel Honneth, PUCRS

Doutor e livre-docente em Filosofia, professor na Universidade de Frankfurt (Alemanha) e diretor do Instituto para Pesquisa Social. Principais publicações: Luta por reconhecimento (Editora 34), Verdinglichung (Suhrkamp), Sofrimento de indeterminação (Esfera Pública), Das Recht der Freiheit (Suhrkamp). Texto foi gentilmente cedido para publicação na Civitas pelo autor <[email protected]>. Palestra proferida no Max-Plank-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung, em Köln, em 13 de janeiro de 2011. Tradução do alemão: Luiz Gustavo da Cunha de Souza e Emil A. Sobottka.

Published

2014-04-11

How to Cite

Honneth, A. (2014). Barbarizations of social conflict: Struggles for recognition in the early 21st century. Civitas: Journal of Social Sciences, 14(1), 154–176. https://doi.org/10.15448/1984-7289.2014.1.16941