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105-466: Active Defunct Publications Works Murray Bookchin (January 14, 1921 – July 30, 2006) was an American social theorist , author, orator, historian, and political philosopher. Influenced by G. W. F. Hegel , Karl Marx , and Peter Kropotkin , he was a pioneer in the environmental movement . Bookchin formulated and developed the theory of social ecology and urban planning within anarchist , libertarian socialist , and ecological thought. He

210-565: A metadiscourse ... making an explicit appeal to some grand narrative, such as the dialectics of Spirit the hermeneutics of meaning, the emancipation of the rational or working subject, or the creation of wealth." Other theories include: Some known French social thinkers are Claude Henri Saint-Simon , Auguste Comte, Émile Durkheim , and Michel Foucault . British social thought, with thinkers such as Herbert Spencer , addressed questions and ideas relating to political economy and social evolution . The political ideals of John Ruskin were

315-549: A pseudonym . The man credited with being the Movement's leading theoretician was Josef Weber, a German former member of a Trotskyist group, the IKD (Internationale Kommunisten Deutschlands). Weber - also known as Ernst Zander, William Lunen and Erik Erikson - remained one of the most frequent contributors to Contemporary Issues until his death in 1959. The most prominent members of the Movement in its early years tended to be German émigrés -

420-594: A Democracy of Content The Movement for a Democracy of Content was a revolutionary political organisation active in the US from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. With groups in the UK , the United States , West Germany and South Africa , the Movement is best known for publishing the influential political magazine Contemporary Issues - A Magazine for a Democracy of Content . Its German sister publication Dinge der Zeit , with much of

525-623: A Democratic Society (in vain) against an impending takeover by a Marxist group. "Once again the dead are walking in our midst," he wrote, "ironically, draped in the name of Marx , the man who tried to bury the dead of the nineteenth century. So the revolution of our own day can do nothing better than parody, in turn, the October Revolution of 1917 and the civil war of 1918–1920, with its 'class line,' its Bolshevik Party, its ' proletarian dictatorship ,' its puritanical morality, and even its slogan, 'Soviet power'". In 1969–1970, he taught at

630-529: A concept in radical politics. In 1968, he founded another group that published the influential Anarchos magazine, which published that and other innovative essays on post-scarcity and on sustainable technologies such as solar and wind energy, and on decentralization and miniaturization. Lecturing throughout the United States, he helped popularize the concept of ecology to the counterculture . His widely republished 1969 essay "Listen, Marxist!" warned Students for

735-495: A cumulative form up to the present day—not merely as capitalism but as the vast history of hierarchical society from its inception. Bookchin's book about humanity's collision course with the natural world, Our Synthetic Environment , was published six months before Rachel Carson 's Silent Spring . Bookchin rejected Barry Commoner 's belief that the environmental crisis could be traced to technological choices, Paul Ehrlich 's views that it could be traced to overpopulation, or

840-548: A developmental philosophy of change and growth, seemed to him to lend themselves to an organic, environmentalist approach. Although Hegel "exercised a considerable influence" on Bookchin, he was not, in any sense, a Hegelian. His philosophical writings emphasize humanism , rationality , and the ideals of the Enlightenment . Bookchin was critical of class-centered analysis of Marxism and simplistic anti-state forms of libertarianism and liberalism and wished to present what he saw as

945-437: A distinction between politics and society. The concept of society did not come until the Enlightenment period . The term, société , was probably first used as key concept by Rousseau in discussion of social relations. Prior to the enlightenment, social theory took largely narrative and normative form. It was expressed as stories and fables, and it may be assumed the pre-Socratic philosophers and religious teachers were

1050-557: A drive to establish direct democracy , followed a Marxian deprioritization of ecology, and was a “'centralist' who narrowly focused on economic growth." Bookchin and his social ecologist colleagues in the Burlington Greens, which he co-founded with his former wife Bea Bookchin, criticized the Sanders administration for pushing for a luxury condo waterfront redevelopment, which was eventually rejected by Burlington voters. They advocated for

1155-623: A forum for the belief that previous attempts to create utopia had foundered on the necessity of toil and drudgery; but now modern technology had obviated the need for human toil, a liberatory development. To achieve this "post-scarcity" society, Bookchin developed a theory of ecological decentralism. The magazine published Bookchin's first articles, including the pathbreaking "The Problem of Chemicals in Food" (1952). In 1958, Bookchin defined himself as an anarchist, seeing parallels between anarchism and environmentalism. His first book, Our Synthetic Environment ,

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1260-754: A just society that went beyond his contemporary society of the Warring States . Later on, also in China, Mozi ( circa 470 – circa 390 BCE) recommended a more pragmatic sociology, but ethical at base. In the West, Saint Augustine (354–430) was concerned exclusively with the idea of the just society . St. Augustine describes late Ancient Roman society through a lens of hatred and contempt for what he saw as false Gods , and in reaction theorized City of God . Ancient Greek philosophers, including Aristotle (384–322 BC) and Plato (428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC), did not see

1365-500: A mix of former Trotskyists and social democrats such as Max Laufer, Ulrich Jacobs and Fritz Besser. There were also South Africans living in exile such as Pierre Watter, Richard McArthur and Stanley Trevor. The mathematicians Martin Davis , Jacob T. Schwartz and Harold S. Shapiro were also members. Another famous member is the anarchist Murray Bookchin . The Movement opposed having a rigid ideological programme, and its founders rejected

1470-532: A moratorium on growth, a moral economy, and social justice rooted in grassroots democracy. In 1988, Bookchin and Howie Hawkins founded the Left Green Network "as a radical alternative to U.S. Green liberals", based around the principles of social ecology and libertarian municipalism. In 1995, Bookchin lamented the decline of American anarchism into primitivism , anti-technologism, neo- Situationism , individual self-expression, and "ad hoc adventurism," at

1575-419: A more complex view of societies. In The Ecology of Freedom: The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy, he says that: My use of the word hierarchy in the subtitle of this work is meant to be provocative. There is a strong theoretical need to contrast hierarchy with the more widespread use of the words class and State; careless use of these terms can produce a dangerous simplification of social reality. To use

1680-419: A movement of ideas arising from, but also critical of elements of modernism . The wide range of uses of this term resulted in different elements of modernity are chosen as being continuous. Each of the different uses is rooted in some argument about the nature of knowledge, known in philosophy as epistemology . Individuals who use the term are arguing that either there is something fundamentally different about

1785-412: A new historical period . In the past few decades, in response to postmodern critiques, social theory has begun to stress free will, individual choice, subjective reasoning, and the importance of unpredictable events in place of deterministic necessity . Rational choice theory , symbolic interactionism , false necessity are examples of more recent developments. A view among contemporary sociologists

1890-852: A precursor of social economy ( Unto This Last had a very important impact on Gandhi 's philosophy). Important German philosophers and social thinkers included Immanuel Kant , Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel , Karl Marx , Max Weber , Georg Simmel , Theodor W. Adorno , Max Horkheimer , Herbert Marcuse and Niklas Luhmann . Important Chinese philosophers and social thinkers included Shang Yang , Lao Zi , Confucius , Mencius , Wang Chong, Wang Yangming , Li Zhi , Zhu Xi , Gu Yanwu , Gong Zizhen , Wei Yuan, Kang Youwei , Lu Xun, Mao Zedong , Zhu Ming. Important Italian social scientists include Antonio Gramsci , Gaetano Mosca , Vilfredo Pareto , Franco Ferrarotti. Important Thai social theorists include Jit Phumisak , Kukrit Pramoj , and Prawase Wasi Social theory seeks to question why humans inhabit

1995-416: A priori methods of tradition. Social thought provides general theories to explain actions and behavior of society as a whole, encompassing sociological , political , and philosophical ideas. Classical social theory has generally been presented from a perspective of Western philosophy , and often regarded as Eurocentric . Theory construction , according to The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology,

2100-479: A significant role in social theory. He revealed the origin of inequality , analyzed the social contract (and social compact) that forms social integration and defined the social sphere or civil society . Jean-Jacques Rousseau also emphasized that man has the liberty to change his world, an assertion that made it possible to program and change society. Adam Smith addressed the question of whether vast inequalities of wealth represented progress. He explained that

2205-561: A small number of possible types of social organization that coexisted or succeeded one another through inescapable developmental tendencies or deep-seated economic organization or psychological constraints. Marxism is the star example. Unger, calling his efforts "super-theory", has thus sought to develop a comprehensive view of history and society. Unger does so without subsuming deep structure analysis under an indivisible and repeatable type of social organization or with recourse to law-like constraints and tendencies. His articulation of such

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2310-711: A social structure, which Unger calls formative context . In order to explain how we move from one formative context to another without the conventional social theory constraints of historical necessity (e.g. feudalism to capitalism), and to do so while remaining true to the key insight of individual human empowerment and anti-necessitarian social thought , Unger recognized that there are an infinite number of ways of resisting social and institutional constraints, which can lead to an infinite number of outcomes. This variety of forms of resistance and empowerment make change possible. Unger calls this empowerment negative capability . However, Unger adds that these outcomes are always reliant on

2415-426: A theoretical orientation that sees the world in terms of power and control, one could create a theory about violent human behavior which includes specific causal statements (e.g. being the victim of physical abuse leads to psychological problems). This could lead to a hypothesis (prediction) about what one expects to see in a particular sample, e.g. "a battered child will grow up to be shy or violent". One can then test

2520-482: A theory is in False Necessity: anti-necessitarian social theory in the service of radical democracy, where he uses deep-logic practice to theorize human social activity through anti-necessitarian analysis. Unger begins by formulating the theory of false necessity, which claims that social worlds are the artifact of human endeavors. There is no pre-set institutional arrangement that societies must adhere to, and there

2625-416: Is a philosophical theory associated with Bookchin, concerned with the relationship between ecological and social issues. It is not a movement but a theory primarily associated with his thought and elaborated over his body of work. He presents a utopian philosophy of human evolution that combines the nature of biology and society into a third "thinking nature" beyond biochemistry and physiology, which he argues

2730-403: Is a more complete, conscious, ethical, and rational nature. Humanity, by this line of thought, is the latest development from the long history of organic development on Earth. Bookchin's social ecology proposes ethical principles for replacing a society's propensity for hierarchy and domination with that of democracy and freedom. It emerged from a time in the mid-1960s, under the emergence of both

2835-530: Is an illusion of the ups and downs of the historical cycles. The classical approach has been criticized by many modern sociologists and theorists; among them Karl Popper , Robert Nisbet , Charles Tilly and Immanuel Wallerstein . The 19th century brought questions involving social order . The French Revolution freed French society of control by the monarchy, with no effective means of maintaining social order until Napoleon came to power. Three great classical theories of social and historical change emerged:

2940-402: Is an important skill for any researcher. Important distinctions: a theoretical orientation (or paradigm ) is a worldview, the lens through which one organizes experience (i.e. thinking of human interaction in terms of power or exchange). A theory is an attempt to explain and predict behavior in particular contexts. A theoretical orientation cannot be proven or disproven; a theory can. Having

3045-611: Is based on highly participatory , grassroots politics, in which municipal communities democratically plan and manage their affairs through popular assembly , a program he called communalism . This democratic deliberation purposefully promotes autonomy and self-reliance, as opposed to centralized state politics. While this program retains elements of anarchism, it emphasizes a higher degree of organization (community planning, voting, and institutions) than general anarchism. In Bookchin's Communalism, these autonomous municipal communities connect with each other via confederations . Starting in

3150-436: Is cited as one force which has decentralized modern life, creating a culturally pluralistic and interconnected global society, lacking any single dominant center of political power, communication, or intellectual production. The postmodern view is that inter-subjective knowledge, and not objective knowledge, is the dominant form of discourse . The ubiquity of copies and dissemination alters the relationship between reader and what

3255-414: Is instrumental: "Their goal is to promote accurate communication, rigorous testing, high accuracy, and broad applicability. They include the following: absence of contradictions, absence of ambivalence, abstractness, generality, precision, parsimony, and conditionality." Therefore, a social theory consists of well-defined terms, statements, arguments and scope conditions. Confucius (551–479 BCE) envisaged

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3360-407: Is no necessary historical mold of development that they will follow. We are free to choose and to create the forms and the paths that our societies will take. However, this does not give license to absolute contingency. Unger finds that there are groups of institutional arrangements that work together to bring about certain institutional forms—liberal democracy, for example. These forms are the basis of

3465-489: Is not a return to hunter-gatherer societies, which Bookchin characterized as xenophobic and warlike. Bookchin likewise opposed "a politics of mere protest, lacking programmatic content, a proposed alternative, and a movement to give people direction and continuity." He claims we need: ...a constant awareness that a given society's irrationality is deep-seated, that its serious pathologies are not isolated problems that can be cured piecemeal but must be solved by sweeping changes in

3570-420: Is read, between observer and the observed, between those who consume and those who produce. Not all people who use the term postmodern or postmodernism see these developments as positive. Users of the term argue that their ideals have arisen as the result of particular economic and social conditions, including " late capitalism ", the growth of broadcast media, and that such conditions have pushed society into

3675-484: Is that there are no great unifying 'laws of history', but rather smaller, more specific, and more complex laws that govern society. Philosopher and politician Roberto Mangabeira Unger recently attempted to revise classical social theory by exploring how things fit together, rather than to provide an all encompassing single explanation of a universal reality. He begins by recognizing the key insight of classical social theory of society as an artifact, and then by discarding

3780-478: Is the municipality—the city, town, and village—where we have an opportunity to create a face-to-face democracy. Libertarian municipalism intends to create a situation in which the two powers—the municipal confederations and the nation state cannot coexist. Bookchin posits that neither privatization nor nationalization can effectively pave the way toward an ecological society. He asserts that both models are deeply embedded in structures of domination, failing to address

3885-627: Is thus considered by many to be the forerunner of sociology. Khaldun's treatise described in Muqaddimah (Introduction to History) , published in 1377, two types of societies: (1) the city or town -dweller and (2) the mobile, nomadic societies. Modernity arose during the Enlightenment period, with the emergence of the world economy and exchange among diverse societies, bringing sweeping changes and new challenges for society. Many French and Scottish intellectuals and philosophers embraced

3990-404: Is used to make distinctions and generalizations among different types of societies, and to analyze modernity as it has emerged in the past few centuries. Social theory, as it is recognized today, emerged in the 20th century as a distinct discipline, and was largely equated with an attitude of critical thinking and the desire for knowledge through a posteriori methods of discovery, rather than

4095-469: The 1956 Hungarian Uprising , while also causing a stir with Murray Bookchin 's articles about synthetic chemicals in food. The Johannesburg group, founded by Afrikaans poet and activist Vincent Swart and his wife Lillian, experienced particular success campaigning against the Apartheid government on several local issues. The most notable was the organisation and leadership shown by Dan Mokonyane during

4200-704: The Bronx with his mother, uncle Daniel, and maternal grandmother, Zeitel, a Socialist Revolutionary who imbued him with Russian populist ideas. After his grandmother's death in 1930, he joined the Young Pioneers of America , the Communist youth organization (for children 9 to 14) and the Young Communist League (for youths) in 1935. He attended the Workers School near Union Square, where he studied Marxism . In

4305-567: The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) since 2005, Öcalan's project represents a major ideological shift away from their previous goal of establishing a Marxist–Leninist state. In addition to the PKK, Öcalan's internationalist project was also well received by its Syrian counterpart, the Party of Democratic Union (PYD), which would become the first organization in the world to actually found a society based on

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4410-534: The University of Bordeaux in 1895, he published Rules of the Sociological Method . In 1896, he established the journal L'Année Sociologique . Durkheim's seminal monograph, Suicide (1897), a case study of suicide rates amongst Catholic and Protestant populations, distinguished sociological analysis from psychology or philosophy . The term "postmodernism" was brought into social theory in 1971 by

4515-763: The anarchist movement in the United States. At its first meeting in October 1980, 175 anarchists from the northeastern US and Quebec attended. By the second conference in January 1981 in Somerville, Massachusetts , the NEAC devolved into sectarianism , which moved Bookchin to lose faith in a socialist revolution happening in the US. During the 1980s, Bookchin engaged in occasional critiques of Bernie Sanders ' mayorship in Burlington. Bookchin criticized Sanders' politics, claiming he lacked

4620-526: The global environmental and the American civil rights movements, and played a much more visible role from the upward movement against nuclear power by the late 1970s. It presents ecological problems as arising mainly from social problems, in particular from different forms of hierarchy and domination beginning with gerontocracy and patriarchy and extending through various forms of oppression including gender, race, and class status. It seeks to resolve them through

4725-491: The revolution of 1936 . During this period, Bookchin briefly forged some ties with the nascent libertarian movement, speaking at a Libertarian Party convention and contributing to a newsletter edited by Karl Hess . Nevertheless, Bookchin rejected the types of libertarianism that advocated unconstrained individualism. In 1980, Bookchin co-established the New England Anarchist Conference (NEAC) to organize

4830-500: The social evolutionism theory (of which Social Darwinism forms a part), the social cycle theory , and the Marxist historical materialism theory. 19th-century classical social theory has been expanded upon to create newer, contemporary social theories such as multilineal theories of evolution ( neoevolutionism , sociobiology , theory of modernization , theory of post-industrial society ) and various strains of Neo-Marxism . In

4935-405: The "father of sociology" and regarded by some as the first philosopher of science, laid the groundwork for positivism – as well as structural functionalism and social evolutionism . Karl Marx rejected Comtean positivism but nevertheless aimed to establish a science of society based on historical materialism , becoming recognised as a founding figure of sociology posthumously. At the turn of

5040-540: The 1960s, including the New Left , the anti-nuclear movement , the anti-globalization movement , Occupy Wall Street , and more recently, the democratic confederalism of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria . He was a central figure in the American green movement . An autodidact who never attended college, he is considered one of the last public intellectuals and most important left theorists of

5145-527: The 1970s, Bookchin argued that the arena for libertarian social change should be the municipal level. In 1980 Bookchin used the term "libertarian municipalism" to describe a libertarian socialist system in which institutions of directly democratic assemblies would oppose and replace the state with a confederation of free municipalities. In The Next Revolution , Bookchin stresses the link that libertarian municipalism has with his earlier philosophy of social ecology. He writes: Libertarian Municipalism constitutes

5250-409: The 20th century", and vowed to put his theory into practice. " Democratic confederalism ", the variation on Communalism developed by Öcalan in his writings and adopted by the PKK, does not outwardly seek Kurdish rights within the context of the formation of an independent state separate from Turkey. The PKK claims that this project is not envisioned as being only for Kurds, but rather for all peoples of

5355-495: The 20th century, the first of German sociologists, including Max Weber and Georg Simmel , developed sociological antipositivism . The field may be broadly recognized as an amalgam of three modes of social scientific thought in particular; Durkheimian sociological positivism and structural functionalism , Marxist historical materialism and conflict theory , and Weberian antipositivism and verstehen critique. Another early modern theorist, Herbert Spencer (1820–1903), coined

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5460-603: The 20th century. Bookchin was born in New York City to Nathan Bookchin (born Nacham Wisotsky) and his first wife, Rose (Kalusky) Bookchin, Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire. His father was from Mazyr (now Belarus) and his mother from Vilnius (Lithuania). He was embarrassed by his given name Mortimore and went by his childhood nickname, Murray. His father adopted the name of a relative, Bukczin, and anglicized it to Bookchin. His parents divorced in 1934. He grew up in

5565-691: The Alternate U, a counter-cultural radical school based on 14th Street in Manhattan. In 1971, he moved to Burlington, Vermont, with a group of friends, to put into practice his ideas of decentralization. In the fall of 1973, he was hired by Goddard College to lecture on technology; his lectures led to a teaching position and to the creation of the Social Ecology Studies program in 1974 and the Institute for Social Ecology (ISE) soon thereafter, of which he became

5670-491: The Arab American Theorist Ihab Hassan in his book: The Dismemberment of Orpheus: Toward a Postmodern Literature . In 1979 Jean-François Lyotard wrote a short but influential work The Postmodern Condition: A report on knowledge . Jean Baudrillard , Michel Foucault , and Roland Barthes were influential in the 1970s in developing postmodern theory. Scholars most commonly hold postmodernism to be

5775-610: The Democratic Society Congress (DTK), which coordinates political and social activities within Turkey, and the Koma Civakên Kurdistan (KCK), which does so across all countries where Kurds live. Social theory Social theories are analytical frameworks, or paradigms , that are used to study and interpret social phenomena . A tool used by social scientists , social theories relate to historical debates over

5880-568: The Issue 53, December 1988 of Dinge der Zeit , Paul Brass took a look back to 40 years of history of the Movement for a Democracy of Content . The Movement's influence on mainstream politics was marginal, and its leaders prone to feuding. However, it dedicated its energies to a number of important struggles in the 1950s. The German group was particularly active in opposing West German remilitarization. The New York City group campaigned hard in support of

5985-586: The US against ISIS . Though founded on a rigid Marxist–Leninist ideology, the PKK has seen a shift in its thought and aims since the capture and imprisonment of its leader, Abdullah Öcalan , in 1999. Öcalan began reading a variety of post-Marxist political theory while in prison, and found particular interest in Bookchin's works. Öcalan attempted in early 2004 to arrange a meeting with Bookchin through his lawyers, describing himself as Bookchin's "student" eager to adapt his thought to Middle Eastern society. Bookchin

6090-435: The concerns of social theory into the domain of culture and thus anthropology . A chair and undergraduate program in social theory was established at the University of Melbourne . Social theory at present seems to be gaining acceptance as a classical academic discipline. Adam Ferguson , Montesquieu , and John Millar , among others, were the first to study society as distinct from political institutions and processes. In

6195-431: The contemporary anarchist movement, stopped referring to himself as an anarchist, and founded his own libertarian socialist ideology called "communalism", which seeks to reconcile and expand Marxist , syndicalist , and anarchist thought. Bookchin was a prominent anti-capitalist , anti-fascist and advocate of social decentralization along ecological and democratic lines. His ideas have influenced social movements since

6300-411: The cooperation and solidarity needed to build a fair and sustainable society. Nationalization, often positioned as a remedy to capitalism's excesses, is also seen by Bookchin as inadequate. He contends that nationalization typically shifts control from private companies to centralized bureaucratic entities, merely replacing one form of dominance with another. In this state-centered model, the apparatus of

6405-644: The director. In 1974, he was hired by Ramapo College in Mahwah, New Jersey , where he quickly became a full professor. The ISE was a hub for experimentation and study of appropriate technology in the 1970s. In 1977–78 he was a member of the Spruce Mountain Affinity Group of the Clamshell Alliance . Also in 1977, he published The Spanish Anarchists , a history of the Spanish anarchist movement up to

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6510-423: The effects of urbanization on human life in the early 1960s during his participation in the civil rights and related social movements. He then began to pursue the connection between ecological and social issues, culminating with his best-known book, The Ecology of Freedom , which he had developed over a decade. His argument, that human domination and destruction of nature follows from social domination between humans,

6615-452: The even more pessimistic view that traces this crisis to human nature. Rather, Bookchin felt that our environmental predicament is the result of the cancerous logic of capitalism, a system aimed at maximizing profit instead of enriching human lives: "By the very logic of its grow-or-die imperative, capitalism may well be producing ecological crises that gravely imperil the integrity of life on this planet." The solution to this crisis, he said,

6720-618: The expense of forming a social movement. He formally broke with anarchism in 1999, describing himself in 2002 as a "Communalist" in a major essay elaborating his late-life views, called "The Communalist Project". He continued to teach at the ISE until 2004. Bookchin died of congestive heart failure on July 30, 2006, at his home in Burlington, at the age of 85. In addition to his political writings, Bookchin wrote extensively on philosophy, calling his ideas dialectical naturalism. The dialectical writings of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel , which articulate

6825-710: The forms from which they spring. The new world is built upon the existing one. The Chicago school developed in the 1920s, through the work of Albion Woodbury Small , W. I. Thomas , Ernest W. Burgess , Robert E. Park , Ellsworth Faris , George Herbert Mead , and other sociologists at the University of Chicago . The Chicago school focused on patterns and arrangement of social phenomenon across time and place , and within context of other social variables. Critical theorists focus on reflective assessment and critique of society and culture in order to reveal and challenge power structures and their relations and influences on social groups. Karl Marx wrote and theorized about

6930-570: The globe. Among these are the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and closely aligned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Turkey, which have fought the Turkish state since the 1980s to try to secure greater political and cultural rights for the country's Kurds . The PKK is designated as a terrorist organization by the Turkish and United States governments, while the YPG has been considered an ally of

7035-480: The human collective and individual psyche : The objective history of the social structure becomes internalized as a subjective history of the psychic structure. Heinous as my view may be to modern Freudians , it is not the discipline of work but the discipline of rule that demands the repression of internal nature. This repression then extends outward to external nature as a mere object of rule and later of exploitation. This mentality permeates our individual psyches in

7140-721: The hypothesis by looking to see if it is consistent with data . One might, for instance, review hospital records to find children who were abused, then track them down and administer a personality test to see if they show signs of being violent or shy. The selection of an appropriate (i.e. useful) theoretical orientation within which to develop a potentially helpful theory is the bedrock of social science. Philosophical questions addressed by social thinkers often centered around modernity , including: Other issues relating to modernity that were addressed by social thinkers include social atomization , alienation , loneliness , social disorganization , and secularization . Movement for

7245-466: The idea of giving "solemn assurances of promises". The nearest thing it had to a programme of ideals was Weber's contribution to Contemporary Issues in 1950, entitled "The Great Utopia". Ideologically, it opposed Western notions of parliamentary democracy and Soviet communism , seeing both "ideologies" as reinforcing one another. Yet the Movement for a Democracy of Content was not a political party in any conventional sense. Its followers also rejected

7350-426: The idea of progress and ideas of modernity. The Enlightenment period was marked by the idea that with new discoveries challenging the traditional way of thinking, scientists were required to find new normativity. This process allowed scientific knowledge and society to progress . French thought during this period focused on moral critique and criticisms of the monarchy . These ideas did not draw on ideas of

7455-429: The importance of political economy on society, and focused on the "material conditions" of life. His theories centered around capitalism and its effect on class-struggle between the proletariat and bourgeoisie . Postmodernism was defined by Jean-François Lyotard as "incredulity towards metanarratives " and contrasted that with modern which he described as "any science that legitimates itself with reference to

7560-490: The late 1920s and early 1930s. The Frankfurt Institute for Social Research is a historical example. The Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago followed in the 1940s. In the 1970s, programs in Social and Political Thought were established at Sussex and York . Others followed, with emphases and structures, such as Social Theory and History ( University of California, Davis ). Cultural Studies programs extended

7665-684: The late 1930s he broke with Stalinism and gravitated toward Trotskyism , joining the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). In the early 1940s, he worked in a foundry in Bayonne, New Jersey , where he was a trade union organizer and shop steward for the United Electrical Workers as well as a recruiter for the SWP. Within the SWP, he adhered to the Goldman- Morrow faction, which broke away after

7770-420: The late 19th and early 20th centuries, social theory became closely related to academic sociology , and other related studies such as anthropology , philosophy , and social work branched out into their own disciplines. Subjects like " philosophy of history " and other multi-disciplinary subject matter became part of social theory as taught under sociology. A revival of discussion free of disciplines began in

7875-409: The law-like characteristics forcibly attached to it. Unger argues that classical social theory was born proclaiming that society is made and imagined, and not the expression of an underlying natural order, but at the same time its capacity was checked by the equally prevalent ambition to create law-like explanations of history and social development. The human sciences that developed claimed to identify

7980-442: The model of a non-hierarchical ecological society based on self-determination at the local level, which opposes the current capitalist system of production and consumption . It aims to set up a moral, decentralized, united society, guided by reason. While Bookchin distanced himself from anarchism later in his life, the philosophical theory of social ecology is often considered to be a form of eco-anarchism. Bookchin wrote about

8085-505: The nation state and the need to rethink activism. Bookchin's reflections on social ecology and libertarian municipalism also inspired Abdullah Öcalan , the historical leader of the Kurdish movement, to create the concept of democratic confederalism , which aims to bring together the peoples of the Middle East in a confederation of democratic, multicultural and ecological communes. Adopted by

8190-647: The nineteenth century, the scientific method was introduced into study of society, which was a significant advance leading to development of sociology as a discipline . In the 18th century, the pre-classical period of social theories developed a new form that provides the basic ideas for social theory, such as evolution , philosophy of history , social life and social contract , public and general will , competition in social space, organismic pattern for social description. Montesquieu , in The Spirit of Laws , which established that social elements influence human nature,

8295-616: The often hidden sources of crisis and suffering—that awareness alone is what can hold a movement together, give it continuity, preserve its message and organization beyond a given generation, and expand its ability to deal with new issues and developments. The answer then lies in Communalism, a system encompassing a directly democratic political organization anchored in loosely confederated popular assemblies, decentralization of power, absence of domination of any kind, and replacing capitalism with human-centered forms of production. Social ecology

8400-466: The past and the future. In May 2016, the first "International Social Ecology Meetings" were organized in Lyon, France , which brought together a hundred radical environmentalists, decreasing figures and libertarians, most of whom came from France, Belgium , Spain and Switzerland , but also from the United States, Guatemala and Canada. At the center of the debates: libertarian municipalism as an alternative to

8505-511: The past from classical thinkers, nor involved following religious teachings and authority of the monarch . A common factor among the classical theories was the agreement that the history of humanity is pursuing a fixed path. They differed on where that path would lead: social progress , technological progress, decline or even fall. Social cycle theorists were skeptical of the Western achievements and technological progress, but argued that progress

8610-431: The politics of social ecology, a revolutionary effort in which freedom is given institutional form in public assemblies that become decision-making bodies. Bookchin proposes that these institutional forms must take place within differently scaled local areas. In a 2001 interview he summarized his views this way: The overriding problem is to change the structure of society so that people gain power. The best arena to do that

8715-508: The precursors to social theory proper. There is evidence of early Muslim sociology from the 14th century: in Ibn Khaldun 's Muqaddimah (later translated as Prolegomena in Latin ), the introduction to a seven volume analysis of universal history , was the first to advance social philosophy and social science in formulating theories of social cohesion and social conflict . Ibn Khaldun

8820-479: The principles of democratic confederalism. On January 6, 2014, the cantons of Rojava , in Syrian Kurdistan , federated into autonomous municipalities, adopting a social contract which established a decentralized non-hierarchy society, based on principles of direct democracy , feminism , ecology, cultural pluralism , participatory politics and economic cooperativism . Bookchin's vision of an ecological society

8925-423: The region, regardless of their ethnic, national, or religious background. Rather, it promulgates the formation of assemblies and organizations beginning at the grassroots level to enact its ideals in a non-state framework beginning at the local level. It also places a particular emphasis on securing and promoting women's rights . The PKK has had some success in implementing its programme, through organizations such as

9030-508: The root causes of environmental crises. In contrast, Bookchin advocates for municipalization as a core principle in his libertarian municipalist framework Bookchin critiques private property as a central driver of both social and ecological harm, associating it with exploitation, domination, and the prioritization of profit over community and environmental well-being. According to Bookchin, systems based on private ownership promote competition and individualism, which he argues are incompatible with

9135-683: The same content in German, published its last issue in August 1997 (exactly 50 years after their first issue). It is also known for its involvement in the 1957 Alexandra bus boycott in Johannesburg . The genesis of the Movement lay in the June 1947 publication of a magazine called Dinge der Zeit - Zeitschrift für inhaltliche Demokratie ( Contemporary Issues ). The first few issues of this magazine were shrouded in mystery, as nearly every contributor chose to write under

9240-448: The state, rather than the market, assumes authority over economic activities. This can lead to what Bookchin describes as a "privatized economy in a collectivized form," where workers remain detached from their labor and ecological exploitation persists. Though Bookchin, by his own recognition, failed to win over a substantial body of supporters during his own lifetime, his ideas have nonetheless influenced movements and thinkers across

9345-404: The subject in the 1960s, has continuously evolved. Towards the end of the 1990s, he increasingly integrated the principle of communalism, with aspirations more inclined towards institutionalized municipal democracy, which distanced him from certain evolutions of anarchism . Bookchin's work draws inspiration from, and expands up, anarchism (mainly Kropotkin ), Syndicalism , and Marxism (including

9450-710: The term " survival of the fittest ". Vilfredo Pareto (1848–1923) and Pitirim A. Sorokin argued that "history goes in cycles," and presented the social cycle theory to illustrate their point. Ferdinand Tönnies (1855–1936) made community and society ( Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft , 1887) the special topics of the new science of "sociology", both of them based on different modes of will of social actors . The 19th century pioneers of social theory and sociology, like Saint-Simon, Comte, Marx, John Stuart Mill or Spencer, never held university posts and they were broadly regarded as philosophers. Emile Durkheim endeavoured to formally established academic sociology, and did so at

9555-640: The traditionally leftist notion of " class struggle ", instead believing that a "majority revolution" was possible. They hoped to undermine existing power structures by providing answers to a wide range of important, and frequently neglected, topics through the pages of Contemporary Issues . Essays on topics such as the Aboriginal experience in Australia would often appear alongside articles discussing Diderot; while other writers would discuss everything from nuclear power and urban development to food biology . In

9660-547: The transmission of meaning, or that modernism has fundamental flaws in its system of knowledge. The argument for the necessity of the term states that economic and technological conditions of our age have given rise to a decentralized, media-dominated society. These ideas are simulacra , and only inter-referential representations and copies of each other, with no real original, stable or objective source for communication and meaning. Globalization , brought on by innovations in communication, manufacturing and transportation ,

9765-580: The validity and reliability of different methodologies (e.g. positivism and antipositivism ), the primacy of either structure or agency , as well as the relationship between contingency and necessity. Social theory in an informal nature, or authorship based outside of academic social and political science, may be referred to as " social criticism " or " social commentary ", or "cultural criticism" and may be associated both with formal cultural and literary scholarship, as well as other non-academic or journalistic forms of writing. Social theory by definition

9870-469: The war ended. He was an auto worker and UAW member at the time of the great General Motors strike of 1945–46 . In 1949, while speaking to a Zionist youth organization at City College , Bookchin met a mathematics student, Beatrice Appelstein, whom he married in 1951. They were married for 12 years and lived together for 35, remaining close friends and political allies for the rest of his life. They had two children, Debbie and Joseph. On religious views, Bookchin

9975-518: The wealthy often demand convenience , employing numerous others to carry out labor to meet their demands. Smith argued that this allows wealth to be redistributed among inhabitants, and for all to share in progress of society. Smith explained that social forces could regulate the market economy with social objectivity and without need for government intervention. Smith regarded the division of labor as an important factor for economic progress. John Millar suggested that improved status of women

10080-556: The words hierarchy, class, and State interchangeably, as many social theorists do, is insidious and obscurantist. This practice, in the name of a "classless" or "libertarian" society, could easily conceal the existence of hierarchical relationships and a hierarchical sensibility, both of which—even in the absence of economic exploitation or political coercion—would serve to perpetuate unfreedom. Bookchin also points to an accumulation of hierarchical systems throughout history that has occurred up to contemporary societies which tends to determine

10185-777: The world the way they do, and how that came to be by looking at power relations, social structures, and social norms, while also examining how humans relate to each other and the society they find themselves in, how this has changed over time and in different cultures, and the tools used to measure those things. Social theory looks to interdisciplinarity , combining knowledge from multiple academic disciplines in order to enlighten these complex issues, and can draw on ideas from fields as diverse as anthropology and media studies . Social theory guides scientific inquiry by promoting scientists to think about which topics are suitable for investigation and how they should measure them. Selecting or creating appropriate theory for use in examining an issue

10290-458: The writings of Marx and Engels ). Social ecology refuses the pitfalls of a Neo-Malthusian ecology which erases social relationships by replacing them with "natural forces", but also of a technocratic ecology which considers that environmental progress must rely on technological breakthroughs and that the state will play an integral role in this technological development. According to Bookchin, these two currents depoliticize ecology and mythologize

10395-603: Was a breakthrough position in the growing field of ecology. He writes that life develops from self-organization and evolutionary cooperation ( symbiosis ). Bookchin wrote of preliterate societies organized around mutual need but ultimately overrun by institutions of hierarchy and domination, such as city-states and capitalist economies, which he attributes uniquely to societies of humans and not communities of animals. He proposes confederation between communities of humans run through democracy rather than through administrative logistics. Bookchin's work, beginning with anarchist writings on

10500-487: Was an atheist, but was considered to be tolerant of religious views. From 1947, Bookchin collaborated with a fellow lapsed Trotskyist, the German expatriate Josef Weber, in New York in the Movement for a Democracy of Content , a group of 20 or so post-Trotskyists who collectively edited the periodical Contemporary Issues – A Magazine for a Democracy of Content . Contemporary Issues embraced utopianism. The periodical provided

10605-420: Was important for progress of society. Millar also advocated for abolition of slavery , suggesting that personal liberty makes people more industrious, ambitious, and productive . The first "modern" social theories (known as classical theories) that begin to resemble the analytic social theory of today developed simultaneously with the birth of the science of sociology. Auguste Comte (1798–1857), known as

10710-442: Was possibly the first to suggest a universal explanation for history . Montesquieu included changes in mores and manners as part of his explanation of political and historic events. Philosophers, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau , Voltaire , and Denis Diderot , developed new social ideas during the Enlightenment period that were based on reason and methods of scientific inquiry. Jean-Jacques Rousseau in this time played

10815-623: Was published under the pseudonym Lewis Herber, in 1962, a few months before Rachel Carson 's famous Silent Spring . In 1964, Bookchin joined the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and protested racism at the 1964 World's Fair . During 1964–1967, while living on Manhattan's Lower East Side , he cofounded and was the principal figure in the New York Federation of Anarchists. His groundbreaking essay "Ecology and Revolutionary Thought" introduced environmentalism and, more specifically, ecology as

10920-405: Was the author of two dozen books covering topics in politics, philosophy, history, urban affairs, and social ecology. Among the most important were Our Synthetic Environment (1962), Post-Scarcity Anarchism (1971), The Ecology of Freedom (1982), and Urbanization Without Cities (1987). In the late 1990s, he became disenchanted with what he saw as an increasingly apolitical " lifestylism " of

11025-472: Was too ill to accept the request. In May 2004 Bookchin conveyed this message "My hope is that the Kurdish people will one day be able to establish a free, rational society that will allow their brilliance once again to flourish. They are fortunate indeed to have a leader of Mr. Öcalan's talents to guide them". When Bookchin died in 2006, the PKK hailed the American thinker as "one of the greatest social scientists of

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