Abstract
This is not an introductory text in cosmopolitan sociology, but a next step into a cosmopolitan sociology, which preserves modernity, trying to construct taboos. It is a matter, therefore, of taboos and of which taboos can and should be justified, when it’s a question of not abandoning the basic principles of modernity to erosion. An almost ebullient cultural criticism, which declares the concepts human being, humanity, freedom, individuality to be Western mechanisms of repression, argues and criticizes within the horizon of a stable economic-technical civilization and society whose existence was never called into question. But is that still the case? In the face of the new world risks will not the reflexivity of a modernity vehemently calling itself into question necessarily also become aware of its own limits? At issue is the problem of a self-limitation of modernity: How are post-traditional, reflexive taboos made possible? Modernity must become aware of its own threatened modernity, of its own sacredness, which also involves the question of a transcendental horizon.
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Notes
This project has been undertaken for the last years within the framework of a large research project (SFB) located at Munich University.
On the concept of the break in civilization, see especially the work of Dan Diner (2000).
Thus, so-called classical sociological theory was pre-occupied with the transitions to modern society or what happens “after.” This was the main concern of Marx, Durkheim, and Weber.
For a sociologically informed critique of relativism, see Boudon 2005. Boudon distinguishes between two forms of relativism, cognitive and cultural. Even though we do agree with his analysis we want to challenge his claim that a clear distinction must be drawn between scientific and non-scientific arguments based on his cognitive-cultural divide. We argue that realist and sociological cosmopolitanism is valid for scientists as well as for global citizens.
Clearly, one can also look at the recent politics of climate change as a form of religious enterprise.
From no one less than the 1958 Nobel Prize winner J. Lederberg comes the famous definition of a human being: “Genotypically at least he consists of a 72 inch long molecular sequence of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and phosphorus atoms—that is the length of the DNA in the core of the original series and in the core of each mature cell, wound in a tight spiral which is the length of five billion paired nucleotides” (in G. Wolstenholme 1963, p. 292). Jacques Testart, a human geneticist and a critic of his profession also says: “I only had strange feelings at the beginning…. Today I no longer have them. The eggs, which start to live, to divide, always look the same” (1988 p. 65).
For an English account of this defense strategy see the excellent study of Devin Pendas (2006), esp. pp. 214ff.
The complete text of the Himmler speech can be looked at in the original German and English translation at the following site: http://www.holocaust-history.org/himmler-poznan/speech-text.shtml. The speech was also part of the Nuremberg Trials document. See: Internationaler Militärgerichtshof Nürnberg (IMT): Der Nürnberger Prozess gegen die Hauptkriegsverbrecher. Delphin Verlag, Nachdruck München 1989, Band 29: Urkunden und anderes Beweismaterial
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Beck, U., Sznaider, N. Self-limitation of modernity? The theory of reflexive taboos. Theor Soc 40, 417–436 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-011-9145-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-011-9145-5