The spirit of discipline: Communitarianism in social policy and sociological theory.
Item
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Title
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The spirit of discipline: Communitarianism in social policy and sociological theory.
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Identifier
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AAI9997076
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identifier
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9997076
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Creator
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Brown, Bennie Ricardo.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Stanley Aronowitz
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Date
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2001
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Sociology, Theory and Methods | Anthropology, Cultural
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Abstract
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This study is focused upon the productions of knowledge, the techniques of discipline, and the various deployments of authority and desire referred to as "community". Community is always assumed to be both a normal condition of everyday life, and by its very nature moral, ethical, responsive, and evolving. We are told that community enters into sociological discourse because community is a call to something deep within us.;A more critical examination reveals a sociological discourse wherein community is allied with or subject to the inevitable pathologies of disorganization and degenerance. In the specific instance of communitarianism each time it is invoked, community appears doubly as a social problem and, as a social instinct for a polis. This doubly makes community an object of sociological investigation.;This dissertation describes a discursive formation that includes sociology as an essential component. This discursive formation determines both a specific domain of sociological knowledge production and also determines the field of a political intervention by academics. Communitarianism is sociology, Amitia Etzioni, Philip Selznick, and others maintain, and communitarianism harkens American sociology back to its origins as moral philosophy.;The movement of sociology towards communitarian political intervention is coincident with the tendency in sociology to recast community as an essential aspect of human existence---community as culture itself. Binding community to culture minimized the territorial aspects of community. Territoriality (nature) and blood (fate) were replaced by blood (biological descent) and culture (community) as the basis for social cohesion and social conflict. This bio-cultural community is portrayed as the result of nature and progress. The "moral anarchy" of our day, the communitarians tell us, forces us to transform biology and sociology into the great bio-social discourse of communitarianism. With communitarianism, sociology returns to its origins.;Chapter One presents a history of the largest communitarian organization, the Communitarian Network. Chapter Two discusses the central issues raised by communitarianism regarding community and authority. Chapter Three presents the regularities of communitarian discourse. Chapter Four and Chapter Five present a critical introduction to the sociological study of community. These chapters outline the discourse of community since c. 1920.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
