Moral Collectives: Theoretical Foundations and Empirical Insights 365840146X, 9783658401467

Table of contents :
Knowledge, Communication and Society
Contents
The Polymorphism of Morality: An Introduction
References
Society Without a Dream?
References
On the Competition of Moral Collectives
1 Morality in the Context of Social Differentiation
2 Challenges from the Perspective of the Sociology of Knowledge
3 The Programmatic Synthesis of Moral Collectives
References
Information Versus Fake News. On the Post-Normative Moralization of the Mass Media
1 Introduction: There´s Life in the Old Media Yet
2 Political Public Sphere and Normativity
3 Positioning, Not Just Informing: Political Deliberation in the Mass Media Constellation
4 Counterfactual Norms and Their Weakening Through Moralization
5 On the Way to a Post-Normative Political Culture?
References
Scandals and Morals
1 The Moral Explosive Power of Scandals
2 Moral Collectives in Scandals
2.1 Moral Collectives of Ideology and Religion
2.2 Moral Collectives of the Public
2.3 Moral Collectives of Privacy
2.4 Moral Collectives of Justice
2.5 Moral Collectives of Politics
3 Scandals and the Blind Spots of Moral Collectives
References
Convention Theory, Surveys and Moral Collectives
1 Introduction
2 Convention Theory
3 Measurement and Moral Collectives
4 Division of Labor, Surveys as Linked Situations and the Differentiation of the Survey Field
5 Saturation, Survey Climate and Big Data
References
On This Side of the Principle Solutions. Moral Responsibility of Social Science Researchers in the Context of Scientific Under...
1 Introduction from the Fiction of Everyday Research Life
2 Three Morals as a Problem of Action in the Reality of Everyday Research Life
2.1 Scientific Standards
2.2 Moral Characteristics of the Field
2.3 Societal Commitment
3 Moral Responsibility
References
Deception and Morality in Charismatic Pentecostal Churches in Kenya
1 Charismatic Pentecostal Churches in Kenya
2 Experiences and Rumours as Moral Communication About Genuine and Illusory Spiritual Rebirths
3 Scandals as Moral Communication About Pastors
4 The End of the Representation: Moral Communication and Sanction
References
The Middle as a Classless Place? How Young People Moralise and Justify Precarisation
1 Moral Classes: A Theoretical Framework
2 Moral Boundaries
2.1 Moral Boundaries Upwards: ``Keeping It Real´´
2.2 Moral Boundaries Downwards: ``The Typical Asocial Hartz IV Recipients´´ Are ``Fucking Themselves to Blame´´
2.3 The Refusal to Moralise: ``I Hate Such Stratified Thinking´´
2.4 The Refusal of Moralization as a Form of Class Consciousness
3 The Striving Towards and the Idealization of the Middle
3.1 ``Being Precarious Is Not So Bad´´: Trivialisation of Precariousness
3.2 ``It´s Just a Phase´´: Precariousness as a Transitional Phenomenon
3.3 ``Precarious Doesn´t Matter´´: Delimitation of Precariousness via Post-material Attitudes
4 Discussion
References
``They Totally Lied to Us About That´´. Morality as a Motif in the Memory and Visual Reception of the Holocaust
1 Introduction
2 Methodology
2.1 Theoretical Preliminary Considerations
2.2 Data Collection: Group Discussion on a Visual Conversation Stimulus
2.3 Interpretation: Sequence Analysis and Ideal-Typical Case Reconstruction
3 Second Generation West: The `Pelikan´ Group
3.1 Case Portrait
3.2 Case Categories
``And everything is running towards this, towards this picture there´´ - symbolic closing of the empty space
``they totally lied (to us)´´ - moral conclusions
3.3 Summary of the Case Structure: Type and Reception
4 Summary and Outlook
References
Good Pictures - Bad Pictures: Image Ethics of Moral Collectives
1 The Moralization of Everyday Life and the Everyday Life of Moralizing
2 Sociology of Morality
3 Image Judgements and Image Practices in Moral Collectives: A Case Study
4 An Extra-moral Conclusion
References

Citation preview

Stefan Joller · Marija Stanisavljević   Editors

Moral Collectives Theoretical Foundations and Empirical Insights

Moral Collectives

Stefan Joller • Marija Stanisavljević Editors

Moral Collectives Theoretical Foundations and Empirical Insights

Editors Stefan Joller HWZ University of Applied Sciences for Business Administration Zurich Zürich, Switzerland

Marija Stanisavljević FHNW University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland Solothurn, Switzerland

ISBN 978-3-658-40147-4 ISBN 978-3-658-40146-7 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-40147-4

(eBook)

This book is a translation of the original German edition „Moralische Kollektive“ by Joller, Stefan and Marija Stanisavljević, published by Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH in 2019. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com). A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content, so that the book will read stylistically differently from a conventional translation. Springer Nature works continuously to further the development of tools for the production of books and on the related technologies to support the authors. # The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature. The registered company address is: Abraham-Lincoln-Str. 46, 65189 Wiesbaden, Germany

Knowledge, Communication and Society

Writings on the Sociology of Knowledge Series published by Hans-Georg Soeffner, Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (KWI), Essen, Germany Ronald Hitzler, Institute of Sociology, Technical University of Dortmund (TU Dortmund), Dortmund, Germany Hubert Knoblauch, Institute of Sociology, Technical University of Berlin (TU Berlin), Berlin, Germany Jo Reichertz, Institute for Communication Studies, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany Reiner Keller, Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences, University of Augsburg, Augsburg, Germany Sociology of knowledge has always been concerned with the relationship between society(s), the knowledge used in them, its distribution and the communication of and about this knowledge. Thus, the communicative construction of scientific knowledge is also the object of sociological reflection on knowledge. The project of the sociology of knowledge consists in the clarification of knowledge through exemplary re- and deconstructions of social constructions of reality. The resulting programme functions as the framework idea of the series. In it, the various currents of sociological reflection on knowledge are to have their say: Conceptual considerations stand next to exemplary case studies and historical reconstructions next to contemporary diagnostic analyses. Other volumes in the series http://www.springer.com/series/12130

v

Contents

The Polymorphism of Morality: An Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stefan Joller and Marija Stanisavljević

1

Society Without a Dream? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hans-Georg Soeffner

11

On the Competition of Moral Collectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stefan Joller

17

Information Versus Fake News. On the Post-Normative Moralization of the Mass Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andreas Langenohl

45

Scandals and Morals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Steffen Burkhardt

65

Convention Theory, Surveys and Moral Collectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rainer Diaz-Bone

81

On This Side of the Principle Solutions. Moral Responsibility of Social Science Researchers in the Context of Scientific Understanding, Field Conditions and Societal Involvement . . . . . . . . . 103 Paul Eisewicht and Ronald Hitzler Deception and Morality in Charismatic Pentecostal Churches in Kenya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 Daniel Künzler The Middle as a Classless Place? How Young People Moralise and Justify Precarisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Alexandra Seehaus and Vera Trappmann vii

viii

Contents

“They Totally Lied to Us About That”. Morality as a Motif in the Memory and Visual Reception of the Holocaust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Sebastian Schönemann Good Pictures – Bad Pictures: Image Ethics of Moral Collectives . . . . . 183 Jürgen Raab

The Polymorphism of Morality: An Introduction Stefan Joller and Marija Stanisavljević

Terms such as fake news, alternative facts or ‘Lügenpresse’ (lying press) seem to have become socially acceptable – at least insofar as one’s gaze is directed towards the public stages of those who routinely use such terms against the establishment without clarifying their actual meaning. The broad dissemination and use of such terminology, however, leaves no doubt that it is no longer sufficient to seek the authorship of such speeches and texts among isolated eccentrics and/or conspiracy theorists. Such an attribution is at best able to reassure those who think in similar patterns and try to get to grips with complex phenomena by means of singular buzzwords. Talk of the post-factual age – whose patterns sometimes seem rather counterfactual – usually focuses on a perfectly understandable diagnosis: it is about the erosion of trust in factual knowledge, or at least about an establishing questioning of the authority of (supposedly) secured knowledge in general and of expert knowledge in particular. Academia adresses such observations as a ‘crisis of representation’ when researchers periodically ask about attractive and repulsive forces of social cohesion. And indeed, many examples seem to suggest that such an erosion is currently taking place. These examples range from the debate about the reliability of journalism depending on variying expectations and interests, to the competitive S. Joller (✉) HWZ University of Applied Sciences for Business Administration Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected] M. Stanisavljević FHNW University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland, Solothurn, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected] # The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 S. Joller, M. Stanisavljević (eds.), Moral Collectives, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-40147-4_1

1

2

S. Joller and M. Stanisavljević

relationship between medical diagnoses based on professional examinations and the variety of medical information available online, to the insinuation of politically motivated climate research that undermines scientific probity. Even the so-called exact sciences, which have rarely been caught in the crossfire, are not spared – not to mention political actors, who in any case have to prove themselves in the tense relationship between particularity and generality. But how can we describe or even explain such a development accurately? What are the causes and motives behind this systematic scepticism (towards systems), which is fundamentally different from scientific scepticism and often seems to virtually counteract it? Or has the ‘erosion thesis’ merely sought a new subject and the assertion of the erosion of a subject is ultimately based less on the subject just targeted than on the recurring need to see something eroding or at least to attest to this? If we look at politics, for example, hardly anyone will seriously claim that the warning of a spreading disenchantment with politics is to be sought elsewhere than in the canon of normative evergreens. With regard to a supposedly eroding authority of separate bodies of knowledge, it seems appropriate to ask whether such an erosion can be empirically proven, how it takes shape, which explanatory patterns of this development have been able to establish themselves so far, and in what relation these patterns stand to science itself. For the problematization of bodies of knowledge is inevitably a problematization of science, which must assert its supremacy when it comes to the articulation of true/ false statements. By way of introduction, however, we would merely like to point out that it is precisely the analysis of this development that reveals patterns that can hardly be described as new, and that the question of the (reflexive) social location of assured knowledge is in many respects one thing in particular: a question of morality. Probably the best-known explanation of the spread of symptomatic terms such as fake news etc. comes from the populism debate and sees the questioning of specific bodies of knowledge as merely one populist form of play among others. The key argument underlying this explanation can be summarized in a very abbreviated way as follows: The increasing complexity of modern societies, whose modes of operation can hardly be understood and explained without the aid of very specific bodies of knowledge, does not call for an all-encompassing knowledge on the part of the respective individuals (simply not possible), but rather for their willingness to believe in the fundamental knowability of the situationally unknown. It is this belief that Max Weber describes as the constitutive element of the “disenchantment of the world” (Weber 2002: 488; translated from German). However, since this willingness to believe in expertise also makes us aware that considerable areas of knowledge are and will remain unattainable for us, the disenchantment of the world is accompanied by an ambivalent feeling of power and powerlessness. On the one

The Polymorphism of Morality: An Introduction

3

hand, one sees what achievements have been made possible by specialist knowledge, and in the same breath one notices one’s own dependence on this very (hidden) knowledge. This feeling of powerlessness is exploited by populist rhetoric when it breaks down complex issues into simple answers and thus puts fate back into the hands of the (supposedly) powerless. In this sense, the need for specialist knowledge is discredited as a political strategy for disenfranchising and disempowering the masses. Increasing complexity is accompanied by an increasing desire for simple answers that promise control where it is not available in this form (cf. Soeffner in this volume). The populism argument, which ultimately refers to a desire for triviality and a competition between well-founded bodies of knowledge and simple assertions, does not stand alone, however, in the attempt to explain the problematization of society’s variety of bodies of knowledge. It has become apparent that the evasion of facts is not simply the result of the arbitrariness of individuals, but follows specific value orientations that are stabilized counterfactually (i.e.: normatively) (cf. Langenohl in this volume). In contrast to arbitrary assertions, value-oriented forms of critique are sensitive to intersubjective aspects, even though they are only capable of accepting contradiction in moderation. As a rule, contradiction follows contradiction and not adaptation. In some places – and the possibilities of the Internet seem to produce such places in considerable variety – value-oriented counter-publics unfold (cf. Burkhardt in this volume), which oppose established bodies of knowledge with a critique that is, depending on the perspective, enlightened or detached. Enlightened, because scientific methods are used for (counter-)proof to justify one’s own values. Detached, because the accusation of normative instrumentalization of scientific methods can always be directed in both directions. This is significant insofar as the critique and deconstruction of the facts of others cannot be readily understood as a contrast to science. Science is, after all, itself a child of deconstruction in the sense of self-criticism. But in what way do populist tendencies and normative counter-publics complement each other when people shout ‘fake news’, and to what extent can their enlightened/detached forms be distinguished from a science of which we have known at least since the positivism controversy (Adorno et al. 1972) that it too cannot do without values? And how does science behave when the socio-political precarization of secured bodies of knowledge threatens its authority? Sociology in particular, as the discipline that proclaimed its independence based on a normative critique of normative approaches, for example by accusing moral philosophy of not distinguishing the doctrine of moral from the science of morality (cf. Durkheim 1967: 132 ff.), seems once again to be grappling with the fundamental questions of its birth regarding this socio-political precarization of knowledge.

4

S. Joller and M. Stanisavljević

Just as Immanuel Kant asked how nature is possible (Kant 2013: 58), Simmel asked, “How is society possible?” (Simmel 1992: 42; translated from German). Today, however, the adversity of the hour seems to adapt the answers of these thought leaders in the programmatic search for resilient knowledge, seeking to reclaim authority through hard facts, particularly in the direction that Émile Durkheim already had in mind. For example, the Academy of Sociology (AS), founded in July 2017, in implicit demarcation from the German Sociological Association (DGS), strives to “declare and control, as far as possible, value judgments and other distortions, such as those arising from interests, trends, or political correctness” (AS 2017; translated from German). The accusation of normativity contained therein (which is quite understandable here and there), from which the necessity of the intra-disciplinary split is occasionally derived, picks up, however, with the denunciation of political correctness, a vocabulary that is itself heavily politically preloaded and seems to undermine the explicit intention to declare and control normativity. The separation of value judgements and the scientific description of reality, as we have known at the latest since Weber’s “Science as a Profession” (2002), is itself the result of a certain value proposition. In this sense, the public debate about value-oriented knowledge evokes a (here: intra-sociological) negotiation of scientific value orientation. Then, when the Academy of Sociology declares “Making the world a better place to live by strict analytical reasoning and solid empirical research” (AS 2017) as its guiding principle, it also follows Durkheim to a large extent, who stated: “What reconciles science with morality is the science of morality; for in teaching us to respect moral reality, it at the same time provides us with the means to improve that very reality.” (Durkheim 1998: 80; translated from German) In both cases, however, it remains to be noted that no statement about the good/bad(evil) distinction can be derived from the analysis of reality and the processing of true/false differences in terms of strict analytic reasoning – no ought derives from is, as David Hume (1973: 211) notes. At the same time – and this is the crux of the matter – science cannot be understood without value judgements from a reflexive point of view. Durkheim is therefore to be agreed with when he recognizes in the science of morality an extremely powerful instrument. In a strictly analytical manner, however, this is much less suitable for guaranteeing a better world than for a better understanding of science itself (cf. Diaz-Bone; Eisewicht and Hitzler; Raab in this volume). Is the erosion of trust in factual knowledge and the questioning of the authority of secured bodies of knowledge therefore to be understood as the disenchantment of the disenchantment thesis, especially since the belief in the principle of knowability is replaced by a fatalism that spotlights and problematizes the value-bound nature of any knowledge? And/or do such phenomena perhaps point to a new epoch of

The Polymorphism of Morality: An Introduction

5

ideology, which sees itself less and less committed to the rationality of purpose and acts more strongly in a value-rational manner? Neither perspective, whether considered individually or cumulatively, appears to be very accurate. For those who posit fake news as a striking argument or call for the end of political correctness can do so in very different ways. This is because neither the attestation of fake news nor the accusation of problematic political correctness must inevitably be based on a rejection of purposive motivations or even an anti-scientific positioning – the opposite may be the case. Both developments have in common that they highlight the points at which morality unfolds relevance even in highly functionally differentiated societies. For example, where scientific knowledge meets political strategies and heated debates easily cross the boundaries of different social spheres. Or equally, where the self-referentiality of individual experience is adjusted with regard to developments in society as a whole, at the interface between the individual and ‘his’ society (cf. Künzler; Seehaus and Trappmann; Schönemann in this volume). In other words, morality shapes society at those points where is and ought are linked and the manner of linkage determines whether respect and selfrespect appear justified under these conditions. Thus, although the morality of science cannot be derived from scientific knowledge, a science of morality can nevertheless contribute to a better understanding of the social location of science based on moral principles (cf. Joller in this volume). And vice versa; when moral principles take hold of the practice of science and begin to change it in terms of extrinsic factors. What is the goal of an anthology that focuses on moral collectives with reference to Durkheim’s foundation and Weber’s rationalization thesis? Programmatically, it is a matter of taking morality seriously as a social-theoretical variable. The resounding force of the progressive rationalization of the most diverse areas of society, which Weber observed with concern, as well as Durkheim’s assessment, which cannot be separated from it, that in modern societies “some kind of moral polymorphism” (Durkheim 1998: 18; translated from German) is spreading, which is less and less capable of producing moral orders with universal cohesive power, led to a stepmotherly treatment of what was originally such a prevalent subject of sociology while focussing on primarily functionally differentiated societies. This is not least due to the fact that the advancing social differentiation produced alternatives as to how strangers can deal with each other without having to pay respect to the other (on the basis of morality). The decoupling and increasing independence of religion, law and morality makes it possible to do business with both the unbeliever and the immoral, because trade and property are secured by the state qua law. The consequence of this social development and its theoretical representation are well known: Morality seems to be invoked by those who can afford it, or else by those who have

6

S. Joller and M. Stanisavljević

little to lose. This is because in most cases morality is ‘only’ one possibility among others. In any case, the invocation of morality is accompanied by risks that seem avoidable with the help of functional equivalents, such as money. Although morality in modern societies has powerful counterparts, we would like to emphasize, this does not mean that it is functionally irrelevant. It is the self-evidence with which morality is described here and there as a relic of the old days or as a marginal social phenomenon that at best develops situational meaning that hinders an adequate understanding of its social significance. In addition to the examples mentioned above, there is a whole range social challenges that cannot be solved by law alone, by science alone, or by the market alone. Morality does not offer any guarantees either, but it does hold out the prospect of solutions where other options already threaten to fail before they even take up the matter. If we want to understand the current social relevance of morality, we must clarify, on the one hand, what we are talking about when we speak of morality. On the other hand, it is necessary to shed light on how morality unfolds, establishes itself and becomes permanent. In other words, how it manifests itself communicatively, secures itself collectively, and asserts itself through moral collectives in competition with other moral collectives as well as in competition with amoral patterns of interpretation. For an analytical penetration of this dynamic, which wants to take on morality without unconsciously making use of it, it is also necessary to clarify the relationship between the morality of science and the science of morality – in the constant awareness that the morality of science is merely one morality among others and that the science of morality can help to better understand morality, but not to establish moral superiority. In order to advance this project, this volume brings together various contributions that aim to grasp the social and societal significance of moral collectives as well as to demonstrate the empirical diversity of this field of research. The volume is therefore divided into two parts. The first part raises questions about the theoretical and methodological foundations dealing with the characteristic elements of morality and moral collectives, the constitution and construction of collectives, the problem of their mediation through mass media, and the moralityrelated challenges of scientific theorizing and methodology. The contributions of the second, empirically oriented part focus on no less multifaceted phenomena, which are shaped in one way or another by moral collectives, that produce them, that make them symbolically permanent, or that call them into question. The empirical analysis captures moral collectives by means of structural analytical approaches and within the increasingly precise analytical perspective of interpretative contributions, questions of individual points of reference of socially constituted moral concepts finally take center stage.

The Polymorphism of Morality: An Introduction

7

Hans-Georg Soeffner provides the thematic introduction in his discussion of the complex interplay of political integration, the effort to create a communal ‘we’ and the individual experience of this very community. In his essay “Volk ohne Traum?” (People without a Dream?), Soeffner demystifies the myth of a people by means of illustrative examples of the formation of a so-called “new right” and its counterparts, and explicates the historical genesis of the development of this utopian idea of a nationally based unity that is able to defy all progressive diffusing social developments. The programmatic foundation of moral collectives is laid in the contribution by Stefan Joller, who, in negotiating the works of Émile Durkheim, Niklas Luhmann, Jörg Bergmann, and Thomas Luckmann, proposes what a relational analysis of morality might look like and how a look at the competition of moral collectives reveals a logic of order that has long been hidden (at least in scholarly discourse) in the shadow of functional differentiation. At the societal level, Andreas Langenohl asks about the deliberative challenges of a society whose symbolic coordination increasingly takes shape through normative validity claims mediated by (mass) media. In this context, it is particularly problematic that the moralization of mass media in the form of the allegation ‘Lügenpresse’ (lying press) or a no less moralizing ‘defense of truth’ by the mass media lead to a significant foreshortening that is no longer able to distinguish between information as truth, normative correctness, or subjective authenticity, as Jürgen Habermas, for example, had in mind. Through this moralizing reduction to the concept of information or the concept of truth, it is less the factual that is lost than the view of the normative. In Steffen Burkhardt’s contribution, too, the media formation and mediation of moral collectives is of particular importance. From the perspective of scandal theory, it becomes apparent that digital sub-publics in particular contribute to a considerable expansion of the fields of action of moral collectives, without this having to be directly perceived by a large public. Although this leads to a partial inivisibilization of the contingency of value orientations, scandals do not become less likely. The opposite is the case: precisely because moral collectives are less and less visible to everyone in the same way, (self-)reinforcement effects of blind spots occur, which ultimately pave the way for the most diverse moralizations and lead to an increase in scandals. From the perspective of the theory of science, Rainer Diaz-Bone then illuminates the relationship between morality and science, using the example of the économie des conventions (EC) to show how such a relationship can be dealt with immanently in theory via the concept of conventions. For conventions, as cultural patterns, begin even before empirical measurement and the category systems used for it, which is

8

S. Joller and M. Stanisavljević

why it is not sufficient merely to examine the results in terms of their normative and moral references. The approach of the économie des conventions reaches deeper in this sense when it states that any measurement techniques can only be adequately understood in light of their embedding in the respective scientific communities. Not least because the view of this embedding exposes the view of the conventions of the communities and thus (also) puts the scientific work in relation to the social relevance of moral collectives. Paul Eisewicht and Ronald Hitzler have a similar problem in mind, whereby their methodological proposal for handling the relationship between science and morality explicitly refers to ethnographic research. Thus, the ethnographer is fundamentally confronted with three moral challenges: the norms of the discipline, the norms of society, and those of the researched. In this tension, it can sometimes be necessary to ‘get one’s hands dirty’ in order to obtain an adequate internal perspective, even if this does not always seem to have unquestionable moral integrity. The question thus arises as to what researchers are allowed to do, or even what they should do, and at what point an ethics committee might seem appropriate. Daniel Künzler’s contribution on the developmental dynamics of charismatic Pentecostal churches in Kenya shows that moral collectives are a highly sensitive and delicate structure, even far from academia. Between rebirth as a good Christian and the accusation of deception through church hopping, Künzler illuminates the filigree interplay of front and back stage, which ultimately decides whether the performance can stand before the moral collective. Here, however, deception does not appear as an essential threat to the community, but more clearly as a necessity that makes the consolidation of the community as a moral collective possible in the first place. The interview analysis conducted by Alexandra Seehaus and Vera Trappmann uses the term “moral class” (ibid.) to highlight the evaluative patterns of selfperception, description and interpretation of biographical narratives of young people in precarious life situations. With reference to the current representatives of critical theory (Demirovic, Honneth), they elaborate a possible social function of moral value judgements with regard to autobiographical reconstruction of precarious life courses, whereby morality is responsible for the communicative production, stabilisation and reproduction of social classes. In his contribution, Sebastian Schönemann addresses the relevance of morality and moral collectives in view of the intersubjective visualization of the National Socialist era. In a fine-analytical interpretation of focused group discussions, it is shown how the discussion of the moral duty of remembering on the one hand and the moral framing of the remembered on the other intertwine and contribute

The Polymorphism of Morality: An Introduction

9

significantly to the group-dynamic actualization of the history shared by society as a whole as well as its classification. Finally, Jürgen Raab’s theoretically guided and empirically anchored reflections shift the focus of the volume to one of its central concerns: the tense relationship between morally based, individual value judgments and the avoidance of value judgments within scientific research. With reference to the classics of sociology (of knowledge), Raab asks about the necessity of analytical distance to the social phenomenon being researched and exemplifies precisely this attitude of scientific distance with the help of the interpretative method of constellation analysis as well as images of refugees, which are highly morally charged in public and scientific discourse. The anthology addresses the inherent tensions that are inevitably part of a moral polymorphism in terms of different sociological standpoints. Thus, it gathers similarly directed and complementary contributions as well as those that contrast with each other. The shared interest in the same complex of questions thus sets the stage for an exchange that is as controversial as it is productive, which does not particularly emphasize a single scientific paradigm or a specific ‘school’, but rather, precisely through the diversity of perspectives, contributes to seeing more and effectively securing knowledge. The spectrum gathered here then ranges from critical theory to the sociology of knowledge, from highly abstracting theoretical considerations to methodological perspectives to the finest units of meaning of material analysis, which in turn refer back to different theoretical and/or empirical standpoints. Those who rely all too naturally on their own perspective run the risk of eventually seeing only that – this applies to both science and morality.

References Adorno, Theodor W./Ralf Dahrendorf/Harald Pilot/Hans Albert/Jürgen Habermas und Karl R. Popper (1972): Der Positivismusstreit in der deutschen Soziologie. Berlin: Neuwied AS, Akademie für Soziologie (2017): Grundsätze empirisch-analytischer Soziologie, Version 02.08.2017, https://akademie-soziologie.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Grundsaetzeder-Akademie.pdf [12.08.2018]. Durkheim, Émile (1967 [1924]): Soziologie und Philosophie, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Durkheim, Émile (1998 [1950]): Physik der Sitten und des Rechts. Vorlesungen zur Soziologie der Moral, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Hume, David (1973): Ein Traktat über die menschliche Natur, Buch I-III, Hamburg: Felix Meiner.

10

S. Joller and M. Stanisavljević

Kant, Immanuel (2013 [1783]): Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik, 2. Auflage, Berlin: Holzinger. Simmel, Georg (1992 [1908]): Soziologie. Untersuchungen über die Formen der Vergesellschaftung, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Weber, Max (2002 [1919]): „Wissenschaft als Beruf“, in: Kaesler, Dirk (Hrsg.), Max Weber. Schriften 1894-1922, Stuttgart: Kröner, 474–511.

Society Without a Dream? Hans-Georg Soeffner

Shouting “We are the people” is part of the fixed ritual of the Pegida and AfD communities. But who is this ‘we’ that considers itself ‘the people’, and who or what is meant by ‘the people’? When the Leipzig demonstrators shouted “We are the people” in the autumn of 1989, and this shout became the motto of the Monday demonstrations in the former GDR, there was no doubt about the addressee. What was meant were the members of the Politburo and the government, who, waving from the stands, let ‘their’ people pass by on national holidays: a people that became increasingly amused when the old men of the Politburo sang along at the top of their lungs “We are the young guard”. This people of the People’s Republic, ‘unbreakably’ integrated into the circle of other ‘brother peoples’, was supposed to embody the permanent victory of the proletariat, the ‘fourth estate’: a body of the people synchronised by the single party, whose multiple heads – functionaries and party secretaries – could unabashedly flaunt their privileges in public. Both the protesters’ and the party’s concept of the people stood for the diffuse connection between the ‘state people’ of a single party on the one hand and the community of the ‘workers’ and peasants’ on the other. This people could dream and nightmare of a state-socialist utopia (“Neither ox nor ass can stop socialism in its tracks” – Erich Honegger). Thus, against bureaucratized inequality, restricted political freedom and the prescribed collective dream, the concept of the people was unmistakably articulated as a term of protest in the cry “We are the people”. This cry taps into a tradition in Germany that goes back over two hundred years. Faced with the threat posed to Prussia by Napoleonic France and the perception, perceived as painful by the cultural bourgeoisie, that the Germans as ‘Kulturvolk’ and H.-G. Soeffner (✉) Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (KWI), Essen, Germany e-mail: [email protected] # The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 S. Joller, M. Stanisavljević (eds.), Moral Collectives, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-40147-4_2

11

12

H.-G. Soeffner

‘Kulturnation’ might form an ideal unity, but that this Germany, as a multi-state people, did not exhibit a state unity, Johann Gottlieb Fichte developed a literally exclusive and exclusionary notion in his ‘Speeches to the German Nation’ (Fichte 1954) (1807/1808): The thesis that for the German people it was not an idea of the state or of a social contract that formed the foundation of the community, but rather its ethnicity. For it is a ‘Urvolk, not Latinized and therefore still in contact with its origin’. It is not far from the idea of a ‘primeval power’ of this people, which is characterized beyond all solidified civilization by its eternal spring and an ever possible new beginning, to the National Socialist ‘pride in an inner barbarism’ (Sombart) and to the exaltation of a völkisch race. What is sought is the community of the people, if possible the community of blood, not the constitutional state, the tribal comrade, not the German citizen, not the European. Karl Larenz, a prominent jurist and legal philosopher, put it this way in 1935: ‘Anyone who stands outside the Volksgemeinschaft is also not in the right’(Larenz 1935: 245; translated from German). Today’s ‘We are the people’ shouters only echo the demonstrators of 1989 in their protest – which has become extremely diffuse – against ‘those up there’. In everything else they follow the old mixture of self-aggrandisement and resentment against foreigners: They confront the globalising world with aggressive indigenous simplicity and the dream of a tribal reservation protected by palisades. Not only with the cry ‘We are the people’, but also in the claim ‘We can do it’, the ‘we’ is booming in public political discussion. The media, the central bank of symbolic public capital, ensure that we understand ourselves, whoever we are, as a collective singular. Unspoken, but implied, is the counterpart of this ‘we’: they, the others. The more insecure a collective is about itself, the more it needs, as ethnologists and sociologists have long known, either leaders and role models or a clearly delineated, preferably negatively painted image of the Other, against whose dubious otherness the value of one’s own community seems unmistakable: if we do not know exactly who we are, we at least recognize our value in the fact that we are not like the Others we have imagined as inferior. As easily recognizable as the interplay between these attributions of self and others is on the one hand, the diffuseness of the German ‘we’ and the longing for an equally nebulous ‘German Leitkultur’ remains in need of explanation on the other. Here, too, a look back at the history of the ‘old’ Federal Republic is helpful. – In the course of the arduous, protracted and historically unusually self-reflexive ‘coming to terms’ with German crimes and acts of violence under National Socialism, a maxim emerged – alongside the equally arduous work of building a democratic constitutional state – which became a central element of the founding myth of the Federal Republic: the maxim ‘Never again!’. Never again racism, Holocaust,

Society Without a Dream?

13

National Socialist dictatorship, war of aggression, persecution of minorities! This founding myth, articulated in negation, pushed itself in front of the old, positive founding myths of Germany: the projections of the ‘Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation’, the German cultural nation, the land of poets, thinkers, musicians, inventors. It is true that German remembrance policy has succeeded in highlighting the achievements of ‘historical reappraisal’, in documenting its results – including in school textbooks – and in symbolically and ritually consolidating remembrance through memorial days, ‘Stolpersteine’, memorials. But the attempt to gain a demanding position solely from a negative founding idea – from what ‘we’ do not want to be, from a self-negation – is remarkably without position. Yet both the ‘old’ and the unified Federal Republic of Germany seemed to have developed a social structure that was, if complex, consolidated. Politically constituted as a federal, parliamentary democracy, economically oriented towards a ‘free, social market economy’, integrated into the European Union and the North Atlantic Defence Community, the Federal Republic of Germany could offer the image of a robust state and a society stabilised in itself. For, as a result of the political and economic interdependencies and despite the worldwide migration movements and the recruitment of foreign labour, which have long since made Germany a country of immigration, German society as a whole has developed into a heterogeneous – above all externally accepted – plural, ‘open’ society. Even in its early days, in the times of the ‘economic miracle’, this society began to dream of lasting prosperity, social security and long lasting peace. The dream was largely fulfilled and remained intact even after the unification of the two German states. Now, however, as it seems to be threatened by the refugee crisis, it is becoming apparent that it contained an ideal void: Prosperity, security and the longing for peace alone do not create what is most sought after in uncertain times – community. And there it is again, the cry of “We are the people!”: The dream that the ‘imposed’ plural society could be replaced by a body of the people, by a ‘we’ that excludes everything foreign. However, a structurally plural society like that of the Federal Republic of Germany consists of diverse communities. In it, tribesmen of different tribes will inevitably shout “We are the people!” and thereby dissolve the one body of the people. In all the dissolution and parcelling of national and völkisch movements, nothing remains for the tribes but the dream of the Volk. It is as empty as the ‘we’ of the shouters. Equally empty is the ‘we’ of a plural society that gives itself the motto: “We can do it!” It, too, does not know who the ‘we’ is that is supposed to struggle with an indeterminate ‘that’. There is neither an identifiable collective subject, nor an

14

H.-G. Soeffner

elaborated plan, not even a dream of the goal of ‘creating’ or an idea of what ‘we’ and ‘our’ society might look like at the end of our creating. Even the cabaret of the early sixties of the last century recognized the unintentional comedy of self-conscious declarations of “we” by first ostensibly agreeing with the smug assertion “We are who again!” frequently heard at the time, but then following it up with the question: “But who are we?” The seemingly simple answer, “I am German,” leads into the dilemma described by Botho Strauß (2014: 66; translated from German): “I am German, raised on Grimm’s fairy tales and Elvis Presley, Karl May and General Eisenhower, Wagner and James Dean. Where do I get my realism?” It’s a fair question. But at the same time, the description of who Strauss is as a German is realistic. It names the problem that arises when one tries to define oneself as a member of a plural, open society primarily in terms of a national affiliation. For open societies, if only because of their historically grown structure imposed upon them, cannot rely on communality under the sign of a ‘believed community’ (Max Weber). They demand from their members a high degree of individual selfreflection, independence and decision-making power. That national pride and self-confident individuality do not go together was already seen particularly clearly by Schopenhauer – presumably precisely because of the steady rise of nationalism in the nineteenth century. “National pride”, Schopenhauer said, “betrays in those afflicted with it the lack of individual [highly personal] qualities of which he could be proud, in that otherwise he would not take hold of what he shares with so many millions” (Schopenhauer 1960; translated from German). There is a good reason why the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany, which argues in the spirit of the European Enlightenment, protects individual freedom so resolutely, especially after Germany’s experiences with nationalism and National Socialism, as do other modern democratic constitutions: these constitutions protect the weakest element of society, the individual, by seeking to strengthen him in his freedom and in the exercise of his possibilities. For it is only from the free citizen thus strengthened by them that the constitutions, for their part, can expect him to stand up resolutely for them. Already in the amendment to the first article of the draft constitution, which Jacob Grimm introduced in 1848 in the Frankfurt Paulskirche in the constituent assembly, it becomes clear that in it – as also in the Basic Law – a clear distinction is made between nationality and nationalism, national state affiliation and national sentiment. Jacob Grimm opposed the particularism of nationalism with the universalism of the freedom of every individual on German soil: “German soil does not

Society Without a Dream?

15

tolerate servitude. Strangers, unfree, who dwell on it, it makes free” (quoted from von Aretin 1986; translated from German). The Basic Law, the best constitution Germany has ever had, is therefore not based on a diffuse, national ‘we’, but on the free development of the personality (Article 2): on the strengthening of individual freedom with a simultaneous obligation not to violate the rights of other individuals. As a German, I have every reason to be proud of the Basic Law, precisely because it allows the old stereotypical thought patterns – ‘we’ declarations such as the demand for national pride and national Leitkultur – to rest in the dusty files of national history. The Federal Republic of Germany treats itself to a colourful bouquet of commemorative days. It is remarkable though that – unlike the USA or France, for example – it does not consider the coming into force of the realisation of its founding idea through the Basic Law worthy of a day of remembrance. The 17th of June (1953) and the Day of German Unity are ritually commemorated. To this day, the question of what happened on 23 May 1949, causes many Germans to ponder rather than find the right answer. Obviously, community fictions, the staging of collective ‘we’-manifestations and the fusion of one’s own thinking with a ‘leit’cultural belief in community fulfil the deep-seated desire for security rather than the maxims of the Basic Law. Where this demands of each individual – in the sense of Kant – that he and she ‘use his or her own reason without the guidance of another’ and that he or she ‘make public use of his or her own reason in all things’, community faith and community action protect the individual from the risk of having to think, decide and take responsibility for himself or herself. The fear of freedom replaces the possibility, opened up and secured by the Basic Law, of living as a free citizen in a liberal, social constitutional state and helping to shape it: a possibility for which many ‘refugees’ have searched in vain in their country of origin and which they hope to find on ‘German soil’. Germany needs citizens of this calibre. It can do without tribal, religious and ideological communities: They can hardly be integrated into the German constitutional state.

References Fichte, Johann Gottlieb (1954): Reden an die Deutsche Nation 1808, Hamburg: Meiner.

16

H.-G. Soeffner

Larenz, Karl (1935): Rechtsperson und subjektives Recht. Zur Wandlung der Rechtsgrundbegriffe. In: Georg Dahm et al. (eds.): Grundfragen der neuen Rechtswissenschaft. Berlin: Junker & Dünnhaupt, 225-260. Schopenhauer, Arthur (1960): Aphorismen zur Lebensweisheit, Augsburg: Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag. Strauß, Botho (2014): Herkunft. München: Carl Hanser Verlag. Aretin, Karl Otto Freiherr von (1986): Die Brüder Grimm und die Politik ihrer Zeit. In: Karl Stackmann (eds.): Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

On the Competition of Moral Collectives Stefan Joller

The history of morality, at least in its sociological reading, is a narrative of social differentiation.1 It is programmatic that the relationship between social structure and morality was already self-reflexive in the early stages of the discipline. Thus, for example, in the context of the emancipation of sociology as an independent discipline, Émile Durkheim, in his vote for a positive science of morality, already demands that sociology takes an empirical approach to its object without allowing itself to be taken in by it. In this way, he warns of a problem that he himself has not fully mastered, but which still characterizes a genuinely sociological view of morality. On the one hand, structurally shaped terminological preconceptions that are potentially normatively loaded should be systematically eliminated or at least reflexively identified and made visible (Durkheim 1976: 128), and on the other hand – distancing oneself from moral philosophy – the morality of science, which is merely one morality among others, should not be confused with the science of morality and the latter devalued by this confusion. Durkheim, then, is not concerned with denying a scientific morality – rather, his methodological claims are evidence of its existence. Instead of asking what values sustain science, he focuses primarily on the possibility of how these or other value concepts become analytically tangible and distinguishable. In his analysis, however, he uses a concept of morality that This contribution can also be found in slightly modified form in “Scandal and Morality” (Joller 2018), where the idea of competition between moral collectives is introduced in basic theoretical terms by a separate discussion of the different theoretical approaches to morality.

1

S. Joller (✉) HWZ University of Applied Sciences for Business Administration Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected] # The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 S. Joller, M. Stanisavljević (eds.), Moral Collectives, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-40147-4_3

17

18

S. Joller

anticipates morality as the social fact that is responsible for the fundamental cohesion of society. Consequently, it is hardly surprising that the socio-structural problems of modern society are inevitably interpreted as moral crises, from which Durkheim derives the duty to “form a new morality” (Durkheim 2012: 480, translated from German) at the end of his study of the social division of labour, thereby placing his science of morality under moral suspicion. Although this foundation of a sociology of morality may be marked by certain inconsistencies, there is no question that the self-reflexive view of the connection between social-structural differentiation and morality as well as the methodological problems of a normative science of morality can be traced back decisively to this very foundation. The theoretical-historical connection to Durkheim’s analysis can accordingly be understood as a continuation of an understanding of the problem that asks about the relationship between morality and social-structural differentiation, without, however, dogmatically handing down Durkheim’s definition of morality as an instance of inclusion that is not questioned further. The fact that it is still debated in which form and at which point morality unfolds its meaning in differentiating societies and how this happens in relation to the inquiring gaze should not be understood as a deficit of Durkheim, but rather as evidence of the significance of his description of the problem. This paper then focuses on the relationship between social-structural order and the intersubjective shaping of morality. From the perspective of the sociology of knowledge, the theoretical approaches of Émile Durkheim, Niklas Luhmann, Jörg Bergmann and Thomas Luckmann are discussed. Without disguising the incongruities of the theoretical self-understandings of these approaches, the attempt at a mutual enhancement of conceptual potentials is the main focus here. The strong connection of morality to social processes of differentiation (Sect. 1) then serves as a starting point for gaining an understanding of the problem that goes beyond the dogmas of different theoretical approaches. This conceptual comparison is followed by an accentuation in the sense of a sociological analysis of morality with reference to possible problems of theoretical consistency of such an appropriating perspective (Sect. 2), in order to finally move the analysis of morality via its probably most important structural element – the moral collectives – into the focus of a relational consideration of morality in differentiating societies (Sect. 3).

On the Competition of Moral Collectives

1

19

Morality in the Context of Social Differentiation

As an important pioneer of a description of society in terms of social differentiation, it is hardly surprising that Durkheim attests to an indissoluble relation between morality and the social division of labour. His famous description of the replacement of mechanical solidarity by organic solidarity can also be described as the transition from a segmentary to a functionally differentiated social structure. The interrelation of morality, solidarity and division of labour, however, is so strong that it is difficult to distinguish between them. His concept of morality is far-reaching and can be described as a pragmatic shaping of collective consciousness in the sense of an action-relevant set of rules, while solidarity turns on a formal level to the “connection between the structure and functioning of a society – its social organizations – and its system of rules and values – i.e. its morality” (Müller and Schmid 2012: 490, translated from German). Thus, when Durkheim speaks of social order, he speaks of morality, and he speaks of morality when he speaks of social order. This means that those changing or just emerging spaces of interaction of modern societies that are not or hardly limited by set law or valid norms become moral problems. As a regulating force of society, morality stands in a prominent position in Durkheim’s sociology, in that it accompanies the social division of labour as a co-evolutionary necessity (Durkheim 2012: 314 ff.) and in this way already foreshadows subsequent structural-functionalist connections. For in fact, it is not morality that produces society, but the structural peculiarities of socialization that call for a corresponding morality in order to be able to exist in the long run. In the form of sanctioned rules, morality then takes on a stabilizing function when it creates obligations where arbitrariness threatens to unfold. In contrast to technical rules, whose non-observance inevitably entails natural consequences, the moral rule describes a contingent connection between violation and sanction, which must be enforced by an associated community of sanction (Durkheim 1967: 93). Whether such a community can be found, however, and whether morality is capable of assuming a stabilizing function in Durkheim’s sense, depends not least on whether the moral rules under discussion are able to correspond to current structural patterns. In modern societies, this stabilizing function – according to Durkheim’s assessment – seems to be increasingly threatened. As a result of increasing material density, modern societies are becoming increasingly organized on the basis of the division of labor and are thus constantly producing new forms of interaction, the moral regulation of which is mutating into the characteristic problem of modern society. The multiplicity of new forms of interaction, in which the principle of equality of mechanical solidarity threatens to fail because it can no longer be

20

S. Joller

assumed that the counterpart represents the same labour code or even leads a similar life, requires a new, organic solidarity that knows how to deal with this differentiation of social life. For morality this inevitably becomes a problem, since the validity of moral rules can only endure where a (sanctioning) collective can be found to safeguard them. At the same time, because of the social division of labour, it can no longer be assumed without further ado that such collectives will develop universally. More likely than the enforcement of universal moral rules, therefore, appears the establishment of different particular morals, each of which regulates its own areas of society, competes here and there, and ultimately produces a new moral polymorphism (Durkheim 1998: 18) as the structural equivalent of the division of labor. However, if comprehensive sanctioning communities are increasingly called into question and their self-evidence dwindles, this inevitably threatens the idea of a morally integrated society – in Durkheim’s sense, that is, of society per se. In addition to structurally conditioned anomic crises, which are combated by the formation of new moral rules or by the adaptation of existing ones, modern societies also experience a competition between different particular morals, which is further fuelled by the particular processing of anomic crises. Durkheim, however, does not see this self-reinforcing and potentially self-destructive constellation as the inevitable downfall of the moral society. This is evidenced, for example, by his belief in the ability of science to “guide us [even in moral questions]” (Durkheim 1967: 116, translated from German), although it becomes apparent that Durkheim himself does not consistently succeed in the programmatically envisioned separation of morality and science. In his search for what holds society together in the face of the threatening dynamics of the social division of labour, he finally discovers the (supposed) main axiom of morality in modern societies: the cult of the individual (Durkheim 1973: 153 ff.). What unites the competing particular morals is the common sacralization of the individual, whereby the universal morality of society organized according to the division of labor seeks to produce unity through difference and thereby continually threatens itself. For whoever collectively honors the individual inevitably endangers the collective. As probably the most momentous realignment of moral sociology, the systemstheoretical approach by Niklas Luhmann ties in with the differentiation-theoretical problem of Durkheim’s approach. In contrast to structural-functionalist perspectives, which start from a comprehensive system structure in order to then relate the specific functions of individual structural elements, Luhmann advocates a functional-structural theory of social systems (Luhmann 1970: 113 ff.). For in this perspective, the question of the function of morality permits an analysis that (in contrast to Talcott Parsons) neither presupposes a fully developed system structure nor exclusively attributes individual structural elements to a specific

On the Competition of Moral Collectives

21

function. Through the question of function, then, the structure itself can be problematized (ibid.). Thus, the search for the function of morality is inevitably followed by the search for its current structural connection, which at the same time sensitizes the view for functional equivalents. With recourse to Durkheim, this means that social order cannot be equated with morality without further ado, especially since morality is not the only thing that comes into question for this function, nor does a change in the social structure inevitably entail a change in morality. Of course, however, function and structure remain closely linked. Their relationship to each other is changeable, but not resolvable. So what function can morality fulfill? And which structural constellations seem conducive to the respective function(s)? Luhmann finds an answer in the (interpenetrative) interplay of man and society, which reveals morality in the form of the communication of respect as historically changeable, but keeps the manner of its constitution constant. Morality succeeds [...] only if it is possible to couple both forms of interpenetration, that is, to tie the conditions under which one can personally and humanly engage with another back to the construction of a common social system (or even: To the alreadyliving in such a social system), and if, conversely, the continuation of the operations of such a system is not conceivable independently of what people personally think of each other and how they mutually incorporate the complexity and freedom of choice of the other into their own self-perception (Luhmann 2015: 323, translated from German).

In the manner of systems theory, the morality of society is thus closely linked to the concept of respect and encompasses all those conditions that take communicative form on a daily basis as criteria for the granting (or withdrawal) of respect – it describes the “totality of the factually practiced conditions of mutual respect and disrespect” (Luhmann 1978: 51, translated from German). Through this focus on the communicative formation of conditions of respect, it becomes apparent that morality in the form of the communication of respect is at least critically opposed to an equation of morality and social order. In contrast to Durkheim, for Luhmann the congruence of moral and social order is merely a special case of segmentarily differentiated societies and accordingly does not apply to stratified or functionally differentiated societies without further ado. Archaic, primarily segmentarily differentiated societies, whose jurisprudence and conventions (in the sense of Weber 1985: 15 f.) are communicated as conditions of respect, can be understood as morally integrated, since the boundaries of such a society simultaneously describe the boundaries of morality (Luhmann 1978: 78). The violation of applicable law is then indistinguishable from a violation of morality, which is why the

22

S. Joller

punishments imposed are correspondingly draconian. The institutional interplay of jurisdiction, norms and morality, however, breaks down in the course of stratificational and functional differentiation, since the structure of society can be mapped less and less comprehensively in the structure of interaction. In this sense, the interaction-specific primary function of morality (to enable ego/alter syntheses via conditions of respect) is visibly decoupling from its overall social integration function, which now finds alternatives at the level of functional systems. Thus, for example, the differentiation of law and morality leads to the fact that morality does not always take shape as a back-up, but suddenly also – at least from the point of view of jurisprudence – as a potentially dysfunctional adversary in situational terms. This change in the factually practiced conditions of respect is not difficult to discern: Not everyone who sits down in the train without a valid ticket is therefore considered a bad person, and likewise not everyone who strictly observes the law is assured the respect of his fellow human beings. Thus, although a functionally differentiated society can no longer be considered morally integrated, especially since it has functionally equivalent structures for regulating social life, it increases its potential for moral reflection because morality becomes manageable within society at all only as a consequence of functional differentiation. In this sense, disrespect no longer means exclusion, but must be endured by functionally differentiated societies. The establishment of functional equivalents of morality – Luhmann mentions, in addition to law, for example, love or rationality as a form of follow-up communication (Anschlussrationalität) (Luhmann 1978: 63 ff.) – and the primary structuring of modern society through its functional systems inevitably calls into question the social relevance of morality. Because of the breached inevitability of morality, the process of functional differentiation may imply a slipping of morality into situational insignificance, at least insofar as the interactionist entrenchment of its primary function opposes its autopoietic unfolding at the level of functional systems. On the one hand, this “decentering of morality” (Luhmann 2012a: 332, translated from German) in modern societies emphasizes the loss of morality’s function as a comprehensively integrating force, because functional systems cannot be morally integrated – it is not only science that would resist equating the true with the good on principle.2 On the other hand, the inclusion function of morality does not seem to be

2

The moral integration of functionally differentiated societies would mean, in a systemstheoretical sense, that the binary codings of the functional systems coincide with the coding of morality. That therefore the true of science would inevitably be handled as good and the false as bad (Luhmann 1990: 23–24). The same would apply to the observation of the economy,

On the Competition of Moral Collectives

23

affected by this, because interactions can still be structured on the basis of mutual respectfulness of ego and alter. However, I consider it a misunderstanding to assume that morality is now only relevant on the level of interaction and has lost any relevance for society as a whole. For as a “universalism without specification” (Luhmann 2012b: 192), morality is free to decide which concrete content is communicated as a condition of respect. Unlike functional systems, morality does not know any consensual criteria that stabilize its coding, and therein lies its relevance to society as a whole, its functional potential. In principle, it can take hold of any communication and moralize it by declaring the respective contents to be conditions of respect. Precisely because morality is able to seize even those problems that operationally elude different functional systems and that apparently cannot be satisfactorily solved by power or money, it can, in the sense of an alarm function, draw attention to (potential) social pathologies that would remain hidden without it (Luhmann 1998: 404).3 Thus, neither science knows how to solve the problem of purchased theses by judging them as true or false, because true or false have no causal relation to good or bad, nor does economy see an irregularity in view of the payment of a scientific service. To morality, on the other hand, this constellation offers a wide variety of connection options. Morality thus unfolds social relevance where the functional systems give morality a function (Luhmann 2012a: 334) – without always being able to control it. In functionally differentiated societies, morality oscillates between a primary inclusion/exclusion function at the interaction level, in that it situationally produces ego/alter syntheses, and a possible integration function at the societal level, which takes shape through the thematization of those problems that transcend individual functional systems. However, whether a problem is actually thematized, and if so, which one, is a question whose clarification is by no means always integrating due to the

whereby every payment would then have to be accepted as good, regardless of whether it was for the development of vegan food supplements or chemical warfare agents. 3 However, just because morality carries this potential structurally does not mean that it will inevitably be implemented. Moreover, it is a commonplace that morality can also be used strategically, for example when opposition forces attack the government morally or certain journalistic formats seek to achieve increased attention by moralizing. Precisely because the semantic forms of morality can be instrumentalized in different functional systems and are accordingly characterized by a “hyper-connectivity” (Stäheli 2004: 183; Stäheli 2005: 160), which can also be found in the popular (ibid. Stäheli 2005), morality itself is also threatened by moralization. Namely, whenever morality does not take communicative form for its own sake. This ultimately leads to the fact that the alarm function of morality in functionally differentiated societies must continually assert itself against a structural suspicion of strategy/ manipulation.

24

S. Joller

“contentiousness of morality” (Luhmann 1978: 55, translated from German). Even if morality has lost its supremacy with regard to social integration in the course of progressive differentiation, this does not mean that it is irrelevant in terms of social theory or social structure. The social constructivist perspective that Jörg Bergmann and Thomas Luckmann apply to their moral analysis paints a similar picture historically, at least in view of the social anchoring of morality. Morality as a force of order, institutionally secured and determining everyday life, has largely lost its binding character. The connection between religion, morality and law, which defined and regulated life in archaic societies, gained its social significance through institutions that structurally anchored this connection and made it visible. In this form, the moral justification of the applicable law referred to a religious order (Luckmann 1998: 27 ff.), through which every breach of the law inevitably exposed the bad person and, even more, possibly even branded him as a sacrilegious person. However, the religious justification of morality lost its institutional protection in the course of the Enlightenment, when “for the ‘children of the Enlightenment’ the attractiveness of religious institutions weakened” (Bergmann and Luckmann 1999: 20, translated from German). The historical process of the deinstitutionalization of morality is closely related to the loss of its ecclesiastical connection and was additionally promoted by the differentiation of state and church. For the decoupling of secular order and ecclesiastical order deprived morality of its structural uniqueness, whereupon different moral practices inevitably became established. Soon, due to the eroding centralization of moral authority, it became apparent that the same set of facts may well produce different moral judgments. Just as Luckmann (1991) attests to religion’s migration into the religious (Knoblauch 1991), the deinstitutionalization of morality can be interpreted as morality’s migration into the moral. The rules of everyday life lose their moral character, as a result of which morality becomes increasingly significant at those points that are only inadequately described by statutory law. The differentiation of society unfolds in a way that is too complex for a concrete set of rules to take full account of it. In this sense, Bergmann and Luckmann see the potential of morality precisely where Durkheim assumes its limit. In a social constructivist perspective, Durkheim’s idea of a jurisprudence that can be derived from morality becomes morality as a “necessary parallel institution to law” (Bergmann and Luckmann 1999: 20, translated from German), which here complements law and there counteracts it by permeating everyday life. This differentiation is analytically valuable because it makes clear that the characteristic of morality is not to be found in the rule, but in the way in which a rule is communicatively contextualized.

On the Competition of Moral Collectives

25

The deinstitutionalization and independence of morality then leads to the fact that the characteristics of morality in its communicative aggregate state are more clearly recognizable and at the same time more difficult to grasp. Its institutionally detached form urges sociological analysis to take an all the more precise view, which on the one hand takes the communicative unfolding of morality in everyday life seriously, and on the other hand does not confuse the negotiated phenomena with morality itself. The focus on the communicative unfolding of morality in particular situations attests to the new, fleeting aggregate state a very changeable form. Thus moralization knows a wide field of means of staging, ranging from the most subtle eye-rolling to openly formulated hostility.4 As a communicative shapeshifter, morality can vary both its form and its content, but it nevertheless resists moral relativism, especially since even in non-institutionalized form it is subject to the principles of social construction (Luckmann 2000: 117). Moreover, a communicative morality also knows how to deal with persistent structural problems, which are stabilized via communicative genres of morality and which, as proven answers to known problems, relieve everyday life (Luckmann 1986). Such moral genres, however, Bergmann sums up several empirical explorations, often seem antiquated and threaten to disappear little by little (Bergmann 1999: 45). Consequently, concerns about the ephemeral nature of the new aggregate state of morality do not seem entirely unfounded. The search for the constants of morality that prevent arbitrariness and thereby determine the relationship between morality and social structure undoubtedly poses a challenge. The attempt to counter a rash determination of the (supposed) function of morality with a precise subject- and contextspecific analysis is confronted with precisely this challenge. For the time being, however, a possible way out of the threatening arbitrariness of communicative morality is offered less by the precise contextualization of moralization than by the phenomenological analysis of its intersubjective constitution (Luckmann 2000). Luckmann finds the constant of morality in the proto-moral basic structure of its social construction, which links constitution and construction (Luckmann 2008) and further advances the demystification of morality as a product of human interaction, as Durkheim already had in mind. Regardless of the particular degree of social differentiation, proto-morality characterizes three necessary elements of morality that only in conjunction sufficiently explain how morality unfolds interactively. In

4

If we speak of staging here, this does not imply an intention to deceive, but rather a communicative necessity of the presentation of moral judgements. The fact that deception and/or strategic moralization are always possible does not change the inevitability of the communicative staging of morality – rather, these options are based precisely on this fact.

26

S. Joller

addition to an evaluative performance, a personal attribution in the sense of an actor’s reference to this evaluative performance is also necessary, which, in combination with an (assumed) possibility of choice on the part of the moralized, which makes him responsible as the author of the evaluated state of affairs, guides moral communication (Bergmann and Luckmann 1999: 24 ff.; Luckmann 2000). Central to this conception of morality is the linking of the evaluative performances of interactants via reciprocal mirroring processes that break through the pure selfreferentiality of subjective relevance systems. By perceiving and interpreting the evaluative performances of others, which as empirical values influence their own evaluative performances, interactants construct in this way the socially structuring variable that becomes visible in concrete situations as “lived morality” (Bergmann and Luckmann 1999: 18, translated from German). Consequently, the integration of a phenomenological constitutional analysis in no way undermines the genuinely social character of morality. Tracing a characteristically German understanding of the sociology of knowledge (Eberle 2016: 771 ff.), this ultimately ties the conditions of the possibility of morality and its social structural significance to the interpretive patterns of an everyman (Berger and Luckmann 2009: 26). Moral analysis in this understanding thus investigates a morality that is always historically and culturally situated, whose respective characteristic contents and forms can only be understood in a subject- and context-bound manner. In order to guide the researching gaze, the analysis uses a proto-moral determination of its constitutive elements. Without anticipating what lived morality may look like in concrete terms in each case, however, this definition implies the limits of morality, which come to rest where reciprocal mirroring processes fail and a reciprocity of perspectives is not (or no longer) assumed.

2

Challenges from the Perspective of the Sociology of Knowledge

Following Max Weber’s rationalization thesis and the accompanying “disenchantment of the world” (Weber 2002: 488, translated from German), the disenchantment of society can be understood as a fundamental program of sociology and morality as one of its most powerful spells. In a corresponding narrowing, the disenchantment of society can then be traced historically as a sociological-reflexive three-step process of the disenchantment of ethics and morality, as suggested by Andreas Reckwitz (2001: 206 ff.): Sociology’s self-understanding as an empirical science, which emancipated itself from philosophy via this founding consensus, also shapes

On the Competition of Moral Collectives

27

the sociological understanding of morality. This can be seen as a disenchantment step insofar as the analytical separation of being and ought produced an antinormative position that sought to neatly isolate and analyze its object. Thus, Durkheim also positioned his Physics of Morals and Law (Durkheim 1998) as an anti-normative, empirical description and thereby propagated an amoral approach to morality, separating ethics from his science of morality (Durkheim 2012: 76 f.). The second disenchantment step builds on this differentiation and pushes it even further, as morality and ethics now become “themselves the target of a social-scientific deconstruction” (Reckwitz 2001: 208, translated from German). In addition to Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, and other theorists Reckwitz has in mind, this view also seems to appeal to Durkheim, when he quite explicitly takes aim at the moral speculations of the philosophers. For the latter showed less interest in an exact description of moral reality than in their own role as “revolutionaries and iconoclasts” (Durkheim 1967: 132, translated from German). The third step in the demystification of morality is marked by the critique of scientism. On the basis of an understanding of reflection in the sociology of knowledge, in the pragmatist, phenomenological, hermeneutic or even critical tradition, the remaining magic of morality here becomes a theoretical as well as methodological problem (cf. Reckwitz 2001: 208 ff.). The researchers’ reflexive view of their own entrapment in the everyday world, which always suggests normative and moral selfunderstandings, problematizes the ideal of a pure, norm- and morality-free genesis of scientific bodies of knowledge. This programmatic perspective of the sociology of knowledge consequently disenchants in turn the two preceding disenchantment steps and places them under suspicion of morality – in Durkheim’s case perhaps not entirely unfounded, especially since he famously concludes his dissertation with a call for the formation of a new morality (Durkheim 2012: 480) and believes to recognize in the science of morality an instrument for ‘moral development aid’ (Durkheim 1967: 116). The approaches of Luhmann and Bergmann and Luckmann in particular, however, illustrate how central this insight is when the former advises using gloves that are as sterile as possible should one wish to take on this “highly infectious object” (Luhmann 2012a: 271, translated from German), while the latter preface their moral analysis with the words, “Morality is such an intimate part of our everyday lives, is so interwoven with our speech and actions, that it usually remains invisible” (Bergmann and Luckmann 1999: 13, translated from German). It would be hasty, however, to declare the project of an anti-normative and morality-free description of morality based on this insight a failure. For even if the rootedness of scientific problems and questions cannot be detached from the conceptual systems of everyday life, this does not inevitably result in moral corruption. However, the prevention of such requires that the concept of morality is indeed handled with care,

28

S. Joller

precisely identifying constituent elements of morality in the interplay between selfand other-description in order to allow for reflexive control of morality. The assumption, however, that all terminology is inevitably morally imbued seems rather to point to a fuzzy or at least very broad concept of morality, which must entail the question of what insight such a concept of morality is capable of granting – for instance, in difference to the semantics of power (cf. Srubar 2009). Just because every communication is morally codable, it is not always morally coded. Accordingly, it is worthwhile to find out exactly what is understood by morality in each case and why, in the following, talk of moral collectives is analytically valuable and not itself inevitably moral. In the combination of the moral sociological approaches outlined here there is at least as much potential as explosive power. Without going into detail about the to a certain extent necessary, partly quite understandable and in some places also fruitful disputes between different sociological currents, and without reviving traditional points of contention, a few remarks are permitted that appear to be significant in terms of moral sociology. On a very fundamental level, it is about the juxtaposition of theories of action and theories of communication. Whether the concept of action or that of communication is to be favoured is not to be discussed here. However, it is relevant to distinguish a communication-theoretical description of morality from an action-theoretical description of a communicative morality, because this is connected with a different idea of structural genesis. If, in terms of systems theory, morality is spoken of as the totality of communicated conditions of respect, then the concept of communication does not refer to a time-diagnostic assessment (such as the volatility) of morality, but to its social form par excellence. In contrast, Bergmann and Luckmann use communicative morality to mark its migration into the moral. ‘Communicative’ then denotes not primarily its social, but its largely deinstitutionalized form. Thus, if the communicative character of morality indicates, in terms of systems theory, that morality is an integral part of the social structure and clarifies its present relevance via its unfolding at the different levels of system formation, it already points, in a social constructivist perspective, to a structural marginal area whose stability is at risk. In this sense, an interactionist morality would possibly be a systems-theoretical concept of equivalence to the communicative morality of social constructivism. As is well known, the distinction between action theory and communication theory is not limited to the underlying question of the constitutive core of society. The canon of follow-up questions that follow on from this distinction is almost impossible to survey. One of the most central questions in this canon, however, is likely to be that of the social-structural relevance of the human being, or indeed, in appropriate terminology, that of the self-observation of mental systems as personal

On the Competition of Moral Collectives

29

systems (Luhmann 2015: 155) and its significance for the emergence of social systems. In light of the development of a sociological location of morality, however, this relationship has relevance even before the actual debates about constructivist primates. In the course of the disenchantment of the world, Durkheim, for example, like Friedrich Nietzsche before him, deprives morality of its reference to the beyond by placing – albeit often only suggestively – society in God’s place and thereby theorizing it as the creator of morality and its religious safeguarding. This whole argument can ultimately be reduced to a few very simple terms. It boils down to the assumption that morality in the eyes of the general public only begins with selflessness, with devotion. But selflessness is only meaningful if the subject to whom we submit has a higher value than we individuals. In the world of experience, however, I know of only one subject that possesses a richer, more complex moral reality than we do, and that is collectivity. But, there is another subject that could play this role: divinity. Between God and society, one must choose. I will not explore here the reasons that may argue for one or the other solution, they are both coherent. For me, I will only add that this choice leaves me quite indifferent, since I see in divinity only the transfigured and symbolically conceived society (Durkheim 1967: 105, translated from German).

With the deconstructive ambivalence of God and society, Durkheim formulates a principle of moral sociology that continues to shape the current debate on morality by identifying collectivization as an essential process of moral genesis and by making the question of the constitution of the collective central. Even if the coercive character of morality as a fait social leaves little doubt about the structural subjection of the individual, and Durkheim grounds the adaptive potential of morality less in individual achievements than in structural necessities, he nevertheless sees the argumentative gap between the mechanical and the organic constitution of the collective. This is supported not least by his attempt to fill this very gap by describing the historical development of corporations, as he did in the preface to the second edition of the social division of labour (Durkheim 2012: 41 ff.), without fully convincing his critics. Thus, while some miss the human being as a moral entrepreneur (Becker 1973: 133 ff.), others stressed that morality generally resists the individual and that only structural dynamics can explain its character. In this question, however, the otherwise quite contentious constructivist camps – apart from radical constructivist positions – show themselves to be surprisingly conciliatory. Both Luhmann’s systems theory, which is based on operational constructivism (Luhmann 1994: 8), and the social constructivist approach of Bergmann and Luckmann in its phenomenological character draw a similar picture of the moral relation of man and society using the concept of respect. In terms of systems theory,

30

S. Joller

morality does not describe an autopoietic system, but rather a functional equivalent of symbolically generalized communication media (Luhmann 1998: 317), whose specificity lies in the mutual coordination of person and interaction system. Personal systems interpenetrate interaction systems (and vice versa) via morality, if the unfolding of an interaction is bound to the mutual respect of personal systems, which is rather seldom the case in functionally differentiated societies – far more often, communication is stabilized via truth, money, power, etc., which manage quite well without mutual respect. The strong reference to addressing a person as a whole and not as a specific role bearer may be surprising from a systems theory perspective, but perhaps it owes less to systems theory than to morality. In any case, Bergmann and Luckmann not only tie in with the – this time less astonishing – central position of the human being in his totality, but even more fundamentally with the interpenetration thesis, which now finds its theoretical description as a special form of the phenomenologically founded interaction of constitution and construction. The intersubjective constitution of morality here outlines that performance (of the mental system) which, on the basis of the social construction of morality (in the interaction system), breaks through the self-referentiality of its own relevance system. Consequently, respect or disrespect are (in both perspectives) merely the result of moral communication, and moral communication denotes the social process that produces the intersubjective stabilization of evaluative performances as conditions of respect and generalizes them in the form of morality. However, the moral sociological perspectives listed here not only share a similar awareness of the problem, but also similar problems. In this sense, societal differentiation as a persistent point of reference in sociological moral research is at the centre of both analysis and critique. Durkheim’s description of an anomic society as a moral challenge is based on his observation of the social-structural change away from a society of equals towards a society that is organized according to the division of labor and thus threatens to break with the inclusive suggestion of equality. The challenge ultimately consists in the fact that the differentiation of society also requires a differentiation of morality, as a result of which these new, particular forms of morality, however, unfold universal authority less and less frequently. If, then, increasingly different moral rules apply to fewer and fewer people, the question of how such a society still holds together is justified. Durkheim finds the solution to this riddle in the cult of the individual, which grants unity over difference. Under the spell of the problematic interplay of mechanical and organic solidarity, however, it is lost sight of the fact that the observed society is indeed in a state of flux, and there is little to suggest that this does not also apply to the cult of the individual and its universal claim. Whether as a diagnosis of the times or as a socio-structural inevitability, empirical reality still does not seem to confirm that

On the Competition of Moral Collectives

31

such a cult has fully established itself or will do so comprehensively in the foreseeable future. Even if universal claims based on such a cult are made in many places, competing moral propositions that vehemently oppose such individualism cannot be ignored. The problem with Durkheim’s approach lies in the conceptual equation of social order and morality. Alternative forces of order are ignored or subordinated to morality, which is why an integrating universal morality must be found if society is to be described as a social order. The systems-theoretical description of morality tends to steer the view in the opposite direction. Where Durkheim, for example, describes law as a special form of social rules, i.e. morality, and largely neglects rivalries between law and morality, Luhmann emphasizes the autopoiesis of law while bracketing its moral genealogy. Functional differentiation as the primary form of organization of modern societies thus leads in some places to an abstracting description of social phenomena in (sole) reference to the characteristics of precisely this form of differentiation. The fact, however, that social phenomena often only become separably identifiable through their functional differentiation, for instance when the boundaries of morality begin to detach themselves from the boundaries of society, does not inevitably mean that the abstraction gained from this necessarily turns out to be historically contingent. Thus, the conception of morality via the notion of respect can certainly also analytically grasp archaic societies. Not by describing them as amoral and thus reinforcing the suspicion of a blind spot, but by recognizing their specificity precisely in the rigorous exclusion of the immoral. The danger of blind spots due to an overemphasis on the primary form of differentiation of society, however, remains fundamentally unaffected by this. Bergmann and Luckmann’s distinction between proto-morality and lived morality points to just such an awareness of the problem. While proto-morality describes the constituent elements of morality, the deinstitutionalization thesis (cf. Joller 2018: 87 ff.) applies to the historical derivation and justification of their present search for lived morality in the form of moral communication. Here, the historical dissolution of institutionalized forms of morality, both in terms of a dominant church morality and in terms of communicative genres, lays the foundation for the change in the aggregate state of morality and its migration into the moral as status quo. Whether this development is empirically tenable as a continuous process, however, seems to be negated not only by protest or lifestyle movements that stabilize moral communication via their symbols (Stanisavljevic 2016), but also by fundamentalist groups whose self-organization strives for moral integration and the accompanying dissolution of the distinctness of morality and social order, thus inevitably discovering an environment full of enemies. There is thus little lack of empirical examples suggesting a reinstitutionalization (albeit in places) of morality.

32

S. Joller

Perhaps, then, the deinstitutionalization of morality, like secularization, is not an iron law of differentiation, but a social structural possibility that must always assert itself against functional alternatives – insofar as it is empirically realized. The sociological analysis of morality is thus well advised to apply a set of instruments that not only takes care of the primary form of social differentiation, but at the same time remains sensitive to its alternatives. I would like to emphasize that both the systems-theoretical and the social-constructivist conceptualization of morality provide such a set of instruments. Nevertheless, the coexistence of different forms of morality, each pointing to different social-structural foundations, seems to receive rather little attention. In this sense, the description of society via its idealtypical forms of differentiation should also be taken seriously in terms of moral analysis, by conceptually taking into account that we are dealing with ideal types in their abstracted pure form, which do not represent reality, but serve to investigate it. Whether and how morality ultimately connects structurally is decided by itself as lived morality. Nevertheless, the focus can be sharpened if attention is paid to the central elements of the formation of morality, without anticipating the way in which these unfold.

3

The Programmatic Synthesis of Moral Collectives

Whether in polymorphic form (Durkheim 1998: 18), as a fluid and highly infectious object (Luhmann 2012a: 271), or as spectacles whose seat on the nose is readily forgotten (Bergmann and Luckmann 1999: 14), the sociological discussion of morality leaves little doubt that the everyday language singular hardly does justice to its object. Empirically, morality shows itself to be neither historically constant nor presently consistent, so that not only Luckmann feels compelled to form “a hitherto unstated plural of the word “morality” “(Luckmann 1998: 31, translated from German). Durkheim already speaks of “as many different morals as there are professions” (Durkheim 1998: 14, translated from German) and, like Luckmann, has in mind the question of morality in modern society. Ultimately, however, there is little reason to assume that the clash of different morals is a specifically modern problem, even though the intra-societal processing of moral competitive relations is a characteristic consequence of functional differentiation. For even the sequential adaptation of moral structures in archaic societies does not always proceed unnoticed: Thus, the confrontation of potentially obsolete moral concepts by those that want to prove this obsolescence can certainly turn out to be conflict-laden. Furthermore, it is probably unrealistic to describe the boundaries of a morally integrated

On the Competition of Moral Collectives

33

tribal society as resistant to irritation, and contacts – of whatever kind – with other moral collectives have always existed. Moral competitive relations may have changed in the way and especially in the frequency of their manifestation, but anthropologically speaking there is little to suggest that competition between moral collectives is an exclusive phenomenon of modernity. It is not sufficient for a powerful sociological analysis of morality to focus exclusively on the situationally realized value concepts that underlie moral communication. The same applies to the narrow view of its controversially discussed integrative function. Neither can the form or function of morality be directly inferred from concrete content, nor does an assumed (or denied) integrating function prove to be a good guide in the search for moral guiding principles and their institutional realization. A promising analysis must do justice to the respective relationship between the function of morality, its form and its realized content, by being able to penetrate not only the genesis, but also the variation, as well as the stabilization of morality. The proposal envisaged here, to tackle this through the analysis (of the competition) of moral collectives, draws its potential not least from its resistance to irritation with regard to the degree of institutionalization of morality as well as its embedding in specific forms of social differentiation. Regardless of whether as a mass-media mediated staging of a spontaneous protest procession or as an omnipresent community of sanctions in the sense of a tribal society, the view of the formation and enforcement of moral collectives enables an analytical access that does not carry any time-diagnostic presuppositions. It neither presupposes the necessity of a basally integrating universal morality, especially since it does not establish the social-theoretical function of morality. Nor does he favor a specific form, such as a set of rules or a fleeting ad hoc manifestation. Rather, the competition of moral collectives remains open to all shades of morality because competing collectives can take situational and ephemeral as well as institutionalized form. The description of the limit of morality thus mutates into a description of the enforcement potentials of moral collectives, which may well differ in their content, form, and function. But if we speak of moral collectives in such a broad sense, then it must be clarified what ultimately makes moral collectives out of moral collectives and to what extent the collective appears to make sense as a moral-analytical point of reference. Moral collectives arise from the communicative application of conditions of respect, generalize these in the course of their collective safeguarding and thus ensure the social-structural location of morality. Such an understanding is thus based (1) on a morality that does not necessarily take shape as a fixed set of rules, but always as a communication of respect, and (2) on a concept of the collective that describes the collective primarily as a communicative problem of staging and only

34

S. Joller

in the type of the totalitarian community of sanctions as spatiotemporally co-present. 1. As the lively debate on the Durkheimian approach shows, the conception of morality as a concrete set of rules, the sanctioning of which can be empirically investigated, is both too short and too far-reaching. On the one hand, this approach overlooks supererogatory performances (Luhmann 1978: 53), which, if implemented, attract moral appreciation but, if not implemented, do not entail sanctions. In the canon of moral rules, such duty-exempt additional performances are systematically omitted. On the other hand, the equation of moral and social order also draws normative or legal evaluations into the moral realm, although their moral character cannot always be assumed. Thus, not all normative or legal violations inevitably lead to moral condemnation. A peccadillo, for example, as everyday language labelling of amoral breaches of law, exemplarily point to this overstretching of morality. The possibility of a unifying manifestation of morality, norm and law is therefore no proof of their equivalence. In functionally differentiated societies, they can certainly also appear as opponents, in that morally reprehensible action is declared legally legitimate, or legal misconduct is declared morally imperative. This is sometimes possible because law secures its legitimacy primarily by means of procedures (cf. Luhmann 1983) and allows considerably less room for situational adaptations, whereas morality often lacks precisely such ‘hard procedures’, whereby the immediate collective safeguarding gains additional importance and morality gains adaptive potential. Finally, the possibility of morality to take hold of any state of affairs and charge it morally directs the analytical focus away from the concretely moralized state of affairs to the manner of moralization itself. What, then, distinguishes the moral, if the facts seized in each case seem so changeable? In recourse to the systems-theoretical understanding of morality as well as the proposal of Bergmann and Luckmann, the concept of respect is also conceptually central at this point. In order not to derive a moral world from the peculiarity that everything can be moralized, a precise differentiation of morality is unavoidable. For the ubiquitous possibility of moralization is not unconditional. It does not proceed arbitrarily, but is based on characteristic elements which, regardless of the degree of institutionalization and the form of social differentiation, make successful moralization possible in the first place. With the help of the determination of these elements, it can ultimately be decided to what extent moral communication is to be distinguished from other forms of communication. Whether a

On the Competition of Moral Collectives

35

phenomenological approach is used for this purpose, as Luckmann demonstrates, or the search for such elements begins with the systems-theoretical concept of communication, the elements identified in each case point in the same direction. If Luhmann’s systems theory unsurprisingly starts with the communicative becoming visible by focusing on the moral as a specific form of communication of conditions of respect via personally addressed expressions of respect and their subsequent communication, the phenomenological focus is on the constitution of a protomorality. The three elements of proto-morality – evaluative performance, actor reference, and imputed choice as attribution of responsibility – ultimately produce the moral as lived morality that permeates everyday life and affects the way we act. Moral communication accordingly addresses an evaluative performance by relating the evaluated state of affairs to a concrete person via the distinction between good/bad (or in terms of the ethics of conviction: good/evil). The special feature of this personal addressing lies in its reference to the person as a whole. It is explicitly not a matter of evaluating the performance of a role-player, such as the lap time of a racing driver, but of an evaluation that locates the addressee as a whole as a good or bad person. However, the argument against such an understanding of morality is that social structures can also be found to be good or bad beyond personal address (Neckel and Wolf 1988: 68). This is not to be disputed, but talk of social grievances, or likewise of morality itself, need not necessarily be moral. Social grievances can be discussed (ethically) without developing structural relevance for the respective order of interaction. Only when a social grievance is introduced and addressed as a condition of respect, i.e. when a person (co-)responsible for this grievance is identified, does ethical debate become moral communication. Ethics, as a “reflective theory of morality” (Luhmann 1990: 14, translated from German), differs from morality in that it reflects on the conditions of respect and does not inevitably bring them to bear as lived morality – even if, of course, this is always possible. The last proto-moral element, the imputed possibility of choice as attribution of responsibility, in combination with the addressing of evaluation, helps to further contour morality. For those orders between ego and alter that elude such attribution of responsibility ultimately elude morality in the sense understood here. Thus, the communication of (supposed) conditions of respect, which, for instance, are already decided qua birth, does not allow for contingency and therefore does not lead to respect or disrespect, but to contempt or irrelevance. Exemplarily, the National Socialist did not cultivate an immoral but an amoral relationship to the Jew, which was based on contempt and not on disrespect. Contempt knows no reciprocal mirroring, no reciprocity of perspectives, and sometimes therefore does not describe an ego/alter synthesis in the sense of a moral relationship, but an amoral order. Moral maxims, however, can nevertheless have an effect on such an order, if, for

36

S. Joller

instance, observing third parties and their moral relation to ego suggest a certain way of dealing with alter. Irrelevance as the counterpart of contempt merely refers to the irrelevance of this very distinction for those who do not conform to the conditions of contempt and, conversely, are assumed to be similar. Only for them, who are perceived as (fundamentally) similar, do ego/alter syntheses through moral communication come into question at all.5 Analytically, morality remains elusive as a polymorphic totality of the communication of conditions of respect. This is not only due to the seductive singular, which seems mostly inappropriate for the empirical description of competing conditions of respect, but equally due to the time-sensitive unfolding of moral communication as a process of moralization. Whether the combination of protomoral elements leads to a moral order in the sense of ego/alter syntheses cannot be deduced from the elements themselves. Only as a retrospective attribution can the successful communication of conditions of respect be distinguished from innumerable other attempts at moralization, whereby the follow-up communication decides whether attempts at moralization become lived morality, which also has an effect on the social structure. Which moralization attempts are communicatively successful in each case depends primarily on their collectivization potential. 2. Morality is a genuinely social entity. Although it refers to an inner reality, a subjective system of relevance (Bergmann and Luckmann 1999: 18; Schütz 1971), it differs significantly from the pure expression of subjective arbitrariness in that it arises exclusively through interaction. Consequently, it is intersubjectively founded in its basic form and thus always (at least) doubly secured anyway. Nevertheless, the concept of moral collectives is not exhausted in a tautology. For the transcending stabilization of morality beyond the here and now of two interactants depends on a generalization of morality via moral collectives. The interaction of those present can without question produce moral collectives, but often the establishment and enforcement of moral collectives eludes a pure logic of interaction, especially when, in addition, technical media of mediation considerably expand the communicative options. The corporations described by Durkheim (Durkheim 2012: 41 ff.) can thus be classified in this sense as a specific type of moral collective, although a different understanding of morality is applied here. As copresent sanctioning communities, they visibly detach moral authority from the authority of individual interactants and enforce their morality, if necessary (and possible), via sanctions. In

5

The assumed reciprocity has no determinant effect on the granting or withdrawal of respect, for only on the basis of the simultaneous possibility of respect or disrespect can a moral order unfold at all.

On the Competition of Moral Collectives

37

the course of socialisation, however, many conditions of respect are habitualised, so that a demonstration of the power of sanctions can often be omitted – in many cases a discreet reference to an appropriate collective is already sufficient. Accordingly, collectivization does not describe a purely quantitative argument, in that two guardians of specific conditions of respect become many. More important is its qualitative dimension: On the one hand, the collective secures the claim to validity of respective conditions of respect sequentially via the suggestion of their general validity in the course of socialisation, whereby corresponding conditions of respect are internalised. On the other hand, the communicative staging of moral collectives is also capable of prospectively endowing different claims to validity with authority and making them present, whereby the question of the constitution and construction of the collective character of the staged collective takes the place of the immediate threat of sanction. The extent to which such stagings endure is ultimately decided by follow-up communication. Accordingly, the success of the collectivization process is tied less to the corporation in the Durkheimian sense than to the communicative unfolding via the media options available in each case. Moral collectives are communicative phenomena whose manifestation decisively determines the successful enforcement and generalization of conditions of respect. In contrast to moral entrepreneurs, who as representatives or agents of specific conditions of respect are always suspected of enforcing subjective relevance, moral collectives always already suggest collectively legitimated conditions of respect, even though their communicative staging can of course also turn out to be a deception. Accordingly, moral communication also knows the representation paradox alluded to by Goffman (Goffman 1975: 39) – that the role of the representative is structurally undermined by their prominent social position, especially since the representative inevitably begins to differ from the represented through their role and the participatory expectations that accompany it, and the façade of commonality threatens to collapse at any time – in a particular way: In the context of moral communication, the manifestation of moral collectives remains linked to the moralizer who makes the claim to validity of the referenced conditions of respect and tries to substantiate it by referring to a corresponding moral collective. However, the personal representation of a moral collective cannot reliably replace the intersubjective constitution of morality, because in the course of representation the collective threatens to give way to the subjective establishment of relevance. In this sense, moral collectives can be conceived of as criterion collectives rather than judgment collectives. While the respective moral judgement inevitably addresses a concrete person and refers to the judge as a person, this does not apply equally to the

38

S. Joller

conditions of respect and their generalisation. In contrast to the deprivations of respect or deprivations, which always refer to personal achievements, moral collectives, as a structural variable, are based on the implemented conditions. They secure the validity of specific conditions of respect without, however, anticipating the result of their respective application. This in no way excludes judgments of the same kind made by representatives of the same moral collective. Indifference to individual judgments, however, enables moral collectives to deal with the individuality of their representatives. If, for example, a moral collective makes the rejection of performance-enhancing substances in sporting competition a condition of respect, this does not mean that the discovery of positive samples from an athlete inevitably leads to his collective disregard. It is entirely possible that individual agents may believe that the positive sample was due to unfortunate circumstances and therefore arrive at a different judgment based on the same conditions of respect. Nevertheless, moral collectives can in many cases be instrumentalized as a threat of sanction, but whether this threat can finally be realized in the form of concrete sanctioning and whether the moral collective at the same time reveals itself as a collective of judgment inevitably remains hidden from the purely theoretical view. Furthermore, the description of moral collectives as a central instance of the generalization of conditions of respect should not be hastily equated with their stabilizing function. On closer examination, the stabilizing function, which is to be discussed here for the time being as an option, reveals itself to be a double-edged sword. In view of the communicative unfolding of new, hitherto unknown or at least not lived conditions of respect, moral collectives secure the intersubjective constitution by relieving the two persons, who as ego/alter synthesis co-condition the (moral) social structure, via third parties. By generalizing new conditions of respect, moral collectives thus act as “norming instances” (Froschauer and Lueger 1999: 124, translated from German) of morality and ensure that the efforts of moral entrepreneurs do not evaporate as soon as they leave the stage. At the same time, and this is far more often the case, moral collectives protect already established moral orders as a consequence of normativization. Moralization via established normatives is often successful because (idealtypically) as normative moralization – in contrast to norming moralization – it can fall back on a significantly more extensive repertoire of traditional staging patterns. Instead of a credible staging of the collective safeguarding of new conditions of respect, in the case of normative moralization vague references to a supposed normality are often sufficient in order to actualize corresponding conditions of respect (initially as a threat of sanctions) communicatively. To what extent such threats, in the negative as well as in the positive sense of a sanction, are ultimately successful, remains here too a question of

On the Competition of Moral Collectives

39

lived morality in the form of the concrete communicative connection. The analytical distinction between these types does not conceal the fact that (supposedly) established norms also require continual updating in the sense of securing their current existence. However, the empirically trained eye may well be able to distinguish whether moral reference is made to norms as a continuance or to norming as a time-sensitive event (cf. Luhmann 1973: 10 ff.). Furthermore, the meaning of moral collectives also unfolds independently of the respective type of moralization. In both cases, moral collectives appear as legitimizing instances that generalize and stabilize the conditions of respect. However, when different moral claims clash, “the polemogenic side of morality” (Luhmann 2015: 318, translated from German) – its contentiousness – inevitably emerges. Normatively as well as norming, this closeness to dispute promotes moral conflicts and at the same time indicates a competitive advantage on the part of proven conditions of respect, especially since these have already proven their potential for communicative follow-up. To infer moral inertia from this, however, would be to misjudge the fact that the proximity of morality to controversy always implies movement. To make matters worse, in the case of a conflict between moral collectives, the fronts harden mutually due to differing conditions of respect, since the willingness to adapt morally is characteristically low, because each side imagines itself to be on the side of the good. The generalization and stabilization of new conditions of respect unfolds more easily if these are not in direct competition with traditional patterns, or if this is not thematized in the situation. To locate moral collectives as mere stabilizing instances of morality would then deprive them of their readiness for conflict and their proximity to controversy. That the one cannot be had without the other should be known anyway. But because moral communication is concerned with the integrity of persons as a whole, and morality finds special scope for development precisely where other regulatory mechanisms fail and the social order therefore appears to be endangered, the processes of demarcation via moral collectives rarely proceed calmly. Thus, if Durkheim’s anomie describes the absence of morality, morality as a communication of respect shows a similar predilection for precisely those anomic areas, but without necessarily ensuring order when it arrives. At the same time, however, it is not dependent on such precarious realms in the sense of a condition of existence. Alongside the politician, whose fortune is based on unscrupulous but legal entrepreneurship, the neighbour’s dog in his own garden is just as suitable for moralisation. The analytical benefit of a central position of moral collectives lies not only in the possibility of a precise reconstruction of generalization and stabilization processes of morality, but also in the complex description of the social construction of

40

S. Joller

moral boundaries. Neither are cultural spaces of any kind presupposed as moral boundaries, nor is the relevance of moral boundary drawing reduced to a purely situational order. Rather, the point is that moral collectives, as central instances of the communicative actualization of conditions of respect, do not know exclusive memberships. The acceptance and enforcement of the conditions of respect of one collective does not categorically exclude the (also simultaneous) unfolding of another moral collective, any more than it prevents the parallel subordination of the individual under different moral collectives. One might find fault with this vagueness in the demarcation of moral collectives, especially since it is not readily discernible at what point and to what extent moral collectives whose conditions of respect potentially complement each other form a new collective. Indeed, the communicative staging of the legitimacy of one’s own conditions of respect tends towards an inclusive location of other moral collectives that are not immediately perceived as a threat. Nevertheless, short-term alliances can be distinguished from the formation of broader collectives as the conditions of respect become more stable on the basis of characteristic staging patterns. However, the clarification of the differentiation of competition, alliance or reformation is ultimately up to empirical analysis. Theoretically, this supposed vagueness reflects a conceptual openness to a complex competition of the most diverse moral collectives, some of which make partial or universal claims, some of which are located in the here and now, or some of which communicatively transcend this very limitation. In this understanding, an analysis of morality thus means paying attention to the emergence and stabilization of conditions of respect via moral collectives, as well as to the concomitant competitive relations. These competitive relations unfold, on the one hand, in the competition between different moral collectives and, on the other hand, in relation to alternative – non-moral – structuring processes. We can speak of a structuring authority of moral collectives when they shape communication as an instance of morality, in that “their normative directives develop a liability that is higher than that of the other evaluations that control living together in society” (Keppler 2001: 872, translated from German). Accordingly, the generalization of conditions of respect via moral collectives is itself always a communicative problem of staging and connection, the analysis of which is to be proposed here as a desideratum of moral research. For it is through moral collectives that not only the way in which morality (even today) unfolds social and socio-theoretical relevance can be reconstructed, but also the moral penetration of science, which likes to lull itself into security in its functionally established distance. The analysis of the competition

On the Competition of Moral Collectives

41

of moral collectives is then always also an analysis of moral collectives in competition with amoral collectives as well as with those that at least claim to be amoral.

References Becker, Howard S. (1973): Außenseiter. Zur Soziologieabweichenden Verhaltens, Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer. Berger, Peter L./Luckmann, Thomas (2009): Die gesellschaftliche Konstruktion der Wirklichkeit, 22. Auflage. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer. Bergmann, Jörg (1999): Zur Analyse der Formen moralischer Kommunikation: Konzepte, Methoden, Daten, Transkriptionssymbole. In: Bergmann, Jörg/Luckmann, Thomas (Hrsg.): Kommunikative Konstruktion von Moral. Opladen/Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag GmbH, 39–57. Bergmann, Jörg/Luckmann, Thomas (1999): Moral und Kommunikation. In: Dies. (Hrsg.): Kommunikative Konstruktion von Moral. Opladen/Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag GmbH, 13–36. Durkheim, Émile (1967 [1924]): Soziologie und Philosophie. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Durkheim, Émile (1973): Erziehung, Moral und Gesellschaft. Neuwied/Darmstadt: Luchterhand. Durkheim, Émile (1976 [1895]): Die Regeln der soziologischen Methode. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Durkheim, Émile (1998 [1950]): Physik der Sitten und des Rechts. Vorlesungen zur Soziologie der Moral. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Durkheim, Émile (2012 [1893]): Über soziale Arbeitsteilung: Studie über die Organisation höherer Gesellschaften, 6. Auflage. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Eberle, Thomas (2016): Statement. In: Raab. Jürgen/Keller, Reiner (Hrsg.): Wissensforschung – Forschungswissen. Beiträge und Debatten zum 1. Sektionskongress der Wissenssoziologie. Weinheim: Beltz Juventa, 771–775. Froschauer, Ulrike/ Lueger, Manfred (1999): Unternehmensberatung: Die Moralisierung der Wirtschaft. In: Honer, Anne/Kurt, Ronald/Reichertz, Jo (Hrsg.): Diesseitsreligion. Konstanz: UVK, 119–134. Goffman, Erving (1975): Stigma. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Joller, Stefan (2018): Skandal und Moral. Eine moralsoziologische Begründung der Skandalforschung. Weinheim und Basel: Beltz Juventa. Keppler, Angela (2001): Formen der Moralisierung im Fernsehen. In: Allmedinger, Jutta (Hrsg.): Gute Gesellschaft?. Teil B. Opladen: Leske und Budrich, 862–875. Knoblauch, Hubert (1991): Die Verflüchtigung der Religion ins Religiöse. In: Luckmann, Thomas: Die unsichtbare Religion. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 7–41. Luckmann, Thomas (1986): Grundformen der gesellschaftlichen Vermittlung des Wissens: kommunikative Gattungen. In: Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 27, 191–211. Luckmann, Thomas (1991): Die unsichtbare Religion. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

42

S. Joller

Luckmann, Thomas (1998): Gesellschaftliche Bedingungen geistiger Orientierung. In: Ders. (Hrsg.): Moral im Alltag. Sinnvermittlung und moralische Kommunikation in intermediären Institutionen. Gütersloh: Verlag Bertelsmann Stiftung, 19–46. Luckmann, Thomas (2000): Die intersubjektive Konstitution von Moral. In: Endreß, Martin/ Roughley, Neil (Hrsg.): Anthropologie und Moral. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 115–138. Luckmann, Thomas (2008): Konstitution, Konstruktion: Phänomenologie, Sozialwissenschaft. In: Raab, Jürgen/Pfadenhauer, Michaela/Stegmaier, Peter/Dreher, Jochen/Schnettler, Bernt (Hrsg.): Phänomenologie und Soziologie. Theoretische Positionen, aktuelle Problemfelder und empirische Umsetzungen. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 33–40. Luhmann, Niklas (1970): Soziologie als Theorie sozialer Systeme. In: Ders. (Hrsg.): Soziologische Aufklärung 1. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 113–136. Luhmann, Niklas (1973 [1968]): Vertrauen. Ein Mechanismus zur Reduktion sozialer Komplexität. Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke Verlag. Luhmann, Niklas (1978): Soziologie der Moral. In: Luhmann, Niklas/Pfürtner, Stephan H. (Hrsg.): Theorietechnik und Moral. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 8–116. Luhmann, Niklas (1983): Legitimation durch Verfahren. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Luhmann, Niklas (1990): Paradigm Lost: Über die ethische Reflexion der Moral. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Luhmann, Niklas (1994): Der “Radikale Konstruktivismus” als Theorie der Massenmedien? Bemerkungen zu einer irreführenden Debatte. In: Communicatio Socialis, 27, 7–12. Luhmann, Niklas (1998): Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft, 1. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Luhmann, Niklas (2012a): Ethik als Reflexionstheorie der Moral. In: Ders.: Die Moral der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 270–347. Luhmann, Niklas (2012b): Politik, Demokratie, Moral. In: Ders.: Die Moral der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 175–195. Luhmann, Niklas (2015): Soziale Systeme. Grundriss einer allgemeinen Theorie. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Müller, Hans-Peter/Schmid, Michael (2012): Eine werkgeschichtliche und systematische Einführung in die “Arbeitsteilung” von Emile Durkheim. In: Durkheim, Emile: Uber soziale Arbeitsteilung: Studie uber die Organisation hoherer Gesellschaften. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 481–521. Neckel, Sighard/Wolf, Jürgen (1988): Die Faszination der Amoralität: zur Systemtheorie der Moral, mit Seitenblicken auf ihre Resonanzen. In: Prokla, 18 (1), 57–77. Reckwitz, Andreas (2001): Die Ethik des Guten und die Soziologie. In: Allmendinger, Jutta (Hrsg.): Gute Gesellschaft? Zur Konstruktion sozialer Ordnungen. Verhandlungen des 21. Kongresses der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie in Köln 2000. Band A. Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 204–224. Schütz, Alfred (1971): Das Problem der Relevanz. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Srubar, Ilja (2009): Wo liegt Macht? Zur Semantik- und Sinnbildung in der Politik. In: Ders.: Kultur und Semantik. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 201–220. Stäheli, Urs (2004): Das Populäre in der Systemtheorie. In: Burkart, Günter und Gunter Runkel (Hrsg.): Luhmann und die Kulturtheorie. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 169–188.

On the Competition of Moral Collectives

43

Stäheli, Urs (2005): Das Populäre als Unterscheidung – eine theoretische Skizze. In: Blaseio, Gereon; Pompe, Hedwig und Jens Ruchatz (Hrsg.): Popularisierung und Popularität. Köln: DuMont, 146–167. Stanisavljevic, Marija (2016): Widerständige Kommunikation. Protest im Spannungsfeld von Massenmedien und Ästhetik. In: Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 41(2), 123–148. Weber, Max (1985): Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr. Weber, Max (2002 [1919]): Wissenschaft als Beruf. In: Dirk Kaesler (Hrsg.): Max Weber. Schriften 1894-1922. Stuttgart: Kröner, 474–511.

Information Versus Fake News. On the Post-Normative Moralization of the Mass Media Andreas Langenohl

1

Introduction: There’s Life in the Old Media Yet

Somewhat unexpectedly, in many democratic societies we are currently facing a moralizing discussion about the classic modern mass media – press, radio, television.1 This is unexpected because with the emergence and strengthening of digital forms of communication, which no longer operate on a societal but rather a network understanding of the public sphere, the traditional mass media have often been sounded the death knell. They are not interactive, their organisational structures are oriented towards an obsolete sender-receiver model, and their discursive ethos is based on an equally obsolete and homogenising model of society as a ‘collective consciousness’ (cf. Haas 2004). Now, however, we see that beyond these diagnoses of dysfunctionality and loss of meaning, the mass media continue to be credited with a number of things: namely, keeping the public immature by systematically disseminating untruths (the accusation of ‘fake news, or ‘lying press’ [Lügenpresse] in the German context) or, conversely, initiating collective enlightenment as guardians of rational and reflected discourse and functioning as a reservoir of permanent criticism. This re-valorization of the mass media takes place in an explicitly moral idiom, i.e. in a way that refers to norms that claim collective

1

I would like to thank Jürgen Schraten and Doris Schweitzer for insightful comments and helpful suggestions on an earlier version of this essay.

A. Langenohl (✉) Justus-Liebig-University Gießen, Gießen, Germany North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] # The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 S. Joller, M. Stanisavljević (eds.), Moral Collectives, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-40147-4_4

45

46

A. Langenohl

generality for themselves, be it the generality of the German-national collective (as with Pegida) or the generality of comprehensive and universal enlightenment (as with the defense of the professional mass media). The article argues that the moralization of the mass media expressed in this antagonism can be traced back to the collapse of a constitutive tension that characterizes modern public political communication in the age of mass media: namely, the tension between a norm and an empirical practice of public communication that hardly ever fulfills this norm, but does not thereby already invalidate it, but articulates it as a norm, i.e. as a claim to validity. The historical crystallization point of this constitutive tension – at this point the essay refers to both Jürgen Habermas and Émile Durkheim – has been less the informational than the deliberative function of political public sphere, i.e. not the information of an audience, but the public dispute about political opinions and positions (Sect. 2). The current antagonism that gapes between the accusation of the lying press and the defence of mass media as guardians of truth, on the other hand, tends to foreground the informational function of public political communication. This can be seen in the ubiquitous ‘fake news’ accusations that pit traditional mass media and digital communication practices against each other. The tension between a discursive ideal of rationality and the empirical practice of deliberation, which can never reach this ideal but nevertheless remains normatively related to it (a tension that theories of political public sphere have stated with regard to both mass media and digital communication practices), turns into a confrontation between allegations and accusations of lies that can only be fought out in a moralizing way (Sect. 3). Inasmuch as morality, unlike normativity, is intolerant of deviation, this confrontation cannot give rise to a commitment to political norms of communication on the meta-level of political deliberation (Sect. 4). Instead, a style of post-normative political deliberation announces itself, in which individuals and their statements are measured against moralized expectations (or, in the case of powerful actors, set them) and thus become morally criticizable, and criticized, ultimate carriers of political positioning (Sect. 5).

2

Political Public Sphere and Normativity

The examples from the current debate about the meaning of mass media communication about politics, which were referred to in the last section, show that the mass media are confronted with normative understandings regarding the handling of information. This is, structurally speaking, independent of whether they formulate

Information Versus Fake News. On the Post-Normative Moralization of the Mass. . .

47

self-claims or are confronted with external claims. In other words, the ‘lying press’ accusation and the self-stylization as the guardian of true and professionally researched information refer to the same normative horizon, namely that of telling the ‘truth’. The discourse, however confrontational, thus displays a one-sidedness within a broader understanding of the communication function of mass media and their significance for contemporary society. Although that understanding always also focuses on the dissemination of knowledge about society – from Herbert Spencer (1885) to Robert Park (1924) to Niklas Luhmann (1996) – its conception of ‘communication’ goes beyond this: “The public sphere produced by mass media is the dominant communication space of modern societies. Modern media perpetuate public debates and discourses and make them accessible to citizens” (Lucht 2009: n. p., translated from German). This function of mass media refers to a line of social science tradition that interprets the society-representing function of the mass media public sphere more from a political-theoretical direction. Here, the significance of mass media communication is seen less in its informational function and more in its function as a platform for disputing opinions and positions. One can see this line of tradition in thinking about the democratic constitution of modern societies, which, at least since Alexis de Tocqueville’s studies (1835/Tocqueville 1999: 139–180) on Democracy in America, has repeatedly raised the question of the public representation of political views, attitudes and positions. Tocqueville, Emile Durkheim, and Hannah Arendt were united in their skepticism of a democratic arithmetic that would establish political programs solely on the basis of majority decisions. Tocqueville feared a ‘tyranny of the majority’ in this respect, which would ultimately lead to a self-censorship of dissenting voices. Durkheim criticized the direct derivation of political positions from their support by majority decisions for the abolition of spaces of reflection in which an informed ‘collective consciousness’ could be formed in the first place: In an implicit Rousseauian distinction between the general will and the will of all, he wrote that any political position formed by majority vote must necessarily be a particular one, whereas a general position could only emerge from political-public reflection (Durkheim 1999: 111–155). Hannah Arendt then made the motif of the political public sphere as the space of the appearance of the political as that which could claim generality for itself the core of her argument that political communication consists in the taking, the defence as well as the transformation of political views and positions (Arendt 2006: 207–273). In her view, political positioning, deliberation and decision-making cannot be separated from each other; they take place on the same stage. In the line of this tradition of thinking about the public character of the political in democratic societies also stands Jürgen Habermas, who has reconstructed the

48

A. Langenohl

ideal of a deliberating, and thus political, public sphere in validity theoretic terms, addressing those types of norms that make political statements in the public sphere assessable, negotiable and acceptable. At the same time, one can say that Habermas is a classic theorist of the political public sphere as a mass media public sphere. This is already attested to by his oeuvre, which, with his Habilitationsschrift (Habermas 1962), presents a history of the emergence of early modern mass-media political public spheres and then develops this further in the direction of a critical theory of the mass media of the 1970s and 1980s. While it would be an exaggeration to claim that Habermas himself placed mass media communication as a category at the centre of his investigations, it can be said that his reflections operate against the backdrop of a historical constellation spanning the beginning of the bourgeois public sphere in the form of ‘print capitalism’ (Anderson 1987) and advanced forms of decay in the form of the culture industry since the mid-twentieth century. Habermas can therefore be regarded as a theorist who reconstructs the (from his point of view: universal) norms of reasonable political deliberation in a historical constellation shaped by mass media political communication. Therefore, one can refer to him as a representative of a theory that develops the paradoxes of the structures of validity of political communication ‘with’ the mass media, as it were. This will be dealt with in the following Sect. 4), while the Theory of Communicative Action (Habermas 1984, 1987), on which Habermas’ theory of public political deliberation is also based, will only be presented here in brief. According to Habermas, the symbolic structure of language based communication has a normative basis, which ultimately rests on the conventionality, and therefore social normativity, of the meaning structure of the linguistic sign. As a system of symbols based on conventions, language is open to its own critical reflection, i.e. the conventions can be criticized insofar as they are ascriptions of meaning that could also have been realized differently. Language based communication is thus both normatively grounded and criticizable, and is therefore open to its own symbolic rationalization. Socially, however, this mode only begins to orient action and to form structures on a broad basis when lifeworld communication can externalize the constraints and forms of reification that prevail in it. According to Habermas’ evolutionary model of societal development, this is the case when instrumental orientations of action become differentiated through the interconnection of the consequences they produce, i.e. when institutions emerge whose general orientation is one of instrumental rationality. According to Habermas, these institutional complexes are represented by the institutions of the economy and political administration. Political deliberation, in turn, takes place outside the subsystem of political administration, namely in a communicating public sphere whose symbolic structures, in turn, rest on a communicatively rationalized lifeworld in which

Information Versus Fake News. On the Post-Normative Moralization of the Mass. . .

49

corresponding modes of action coordination can be practiced: “no reasonable political will formation without the accomodation of a rationalized lifeworld” (Habermas 1990: 208, translated from German). Criticism of Habermas has argued that the consensus principle of his theory – a decision can be considered communicatively rationalized if all those who potentially want to debate it can agree to it – represents an ideal-typical one-sidedness. Thus, it has been pointed out that the ideal political deliberation reconstructed by Habermas has never existed at any time or place because the ‘general’ political public sphere, even in democracies, not only always excluded certain groups but, moreover, marginalized alternative publics and communications not following the ideal of rationality by emphasizing a homogeneous sphere of the ‘public’ (Benhabib 1992: 88–95; Fraser 1992: 112–118; Gardiner 2004; Gilroy 1993: 40–59; Hirshkop 2004; McCarthy 1992; Roberts 2004). However, this critique in some ways misses the theoretical grounding of Habermas’s argument. For this grounding consists in the argument that the normative structures of political positioning, political exchange, and the modification of political positions are inherent in the fundamental normativity of social practice itself, that is, in the structure of normative validity as the core structure of social processes. And normative validity claims are peculiar in that their validity is not necessarily and immediately shaken by violations of these claims. As is well known, Luhmann distinguished normative expectations from cognitive expectations by pointing out that normative expectations could persist even if they are disappointed, because the disappointment is attributed to the other (Luhmann 1984: 436–443). To a certain extent, this results in a view of the norm of rational political deliberation as a principle that, under certain historical circumstances, can become the yardstick of all empirical political communication even if it can hardly ever be fully realized empirically. This is the case because even irreconcilably disputing adversaries must maintain the mechanism of the claim to validity if they perspectively strive for the collective validity of their position as a rational position. Statements and consensuses thus always remain open to criticism without automatically weakening the principle of argumentative rationality. The remarks made here do not claim to reconstruct (or comment on) those historical conditions under which normative validity manifested itself as an organizing principle of public-political communication. Instead, I would like to put forward for discussion the argument that mass-mediated political communication – including all the exclusions and marginalizations it produced – was institutionalized in many historically Western societies as a mode of communication based on a normative validity structure that can be relatively permissive towards concrete norm transgressions, and that draws precisely from this flexibility

50

A. Langenohl

a potential for maintaining the norm of political-deliberative rationality. This will be further elaborated in the following.

3

Positioning, Not Just Informing: Political Deliberation in the Mass Media Constellation

In this section, I discuss a consequence of this theoretical framework that is relevant for a classification of the current public emphasis on ‘truth’ or ‘lies’. Communicative rationality, as a normative principle of political deliberation, certainly operates in different registers. Habermas himself distinguishes between three such registers, which are accompanied by different registers of expectations regarding ‘rational’ communication: the principle of factual ‘truth’, the principle of normative ‘rightness’, and the principle of subjective ‘truthfulness’ (Habermas 1984: 329). ‘Information’, to which so much attention is paid in the present conflict over the political function of mass media, circumscribes here only one claim to validity among others, namely that of factual truth, as distinct from normative rightness and truthfulness or authenticity. (Political) positioning, on the other hand, represents a complex interconnection of the three validity claims. Therefore, positioning is also much more presuppositional in normative terms than the (assertion of the) dissemination of information, because in a positioning the three validity claims must be weighed against each other, and linked with each other, regarding their significance for any concrete case. This can be seen particularly clearly in the role of authenticity in the exchange between political positions. Volker Heins (1999) has noted that a certain polemic is often inherent in political communication, which he relates to Max Weber’s writings on the ‘profession’ of the politician. Accordingly, it may well be in the inherent logic of a political dispute that it turns into a heated debate in which the opponents take a passionate stand. However, this is by no means to be understood as a rejection of the other registers of communicative rationality; rather, a political argument can be transformed into a politically communicable stance or positioning precisely by making it clear (and be it polemically) that this stance or positioning possesses a high degree of subjective significance or makes a certain form of political subjectivation possible in the first place. Polemics thus have an extremely high potential for transforming political attitudes and positioning. The current public fixation on information, truth, and lies in mass-media political communication thus represents a discursive one-sidedness that persists as long as no justification is given as to why information – which is supposed to represent

Information Versus Fake News. On the Post-Normative Moralization of the Mass. . .

51

‘truth’ – is given such a central status vis-à-vis normative rightness or subjective authenticity – and especially polemics. Even more: one can see in this fixation a thorough (self-)misunderstanding of mass-media political deliberation, the characteristics of which I will turn to now. The mass media form of the institutionalization of political deliberation provides different stages on which different forms of deliberation with different weightings of the respective communication registers can take place. Communication and dispute in political talk shows, broadcasts of debates in the Bundestag, editorials in daily newspapers, investigative radio and TV documentaries, and television duels each feature different combinations and mix ratios of the registers of political deliberation – indeed, they often specialize in foregrounding certain registers, disregarding others, or even bringing different registers into confrontation with one another. Even ‘non-political’ formats such as reality TV shows can contribute to political deliberation, for example when they offer positions of reception that make societal problems accessible to so-called non-political groups in society (Göttlich 2017).2 One can assume that the plurality of registers of deliberative rationality is directly involved in the always counterfactual stabilization of the norm of democratic political deliberation, insofar as the mass media, in their different formats, exhibit the different registers in their own logic and thus at the same time raise the question of translatability between them. Indeed, in this way it becomes clear that a consistent political positioning cannot rely on one register alone, but is first formed in a dynamic between registers. Mass media, one might say, specialize in putting this dynamic on public display. Through the various formats, political positions can be tested, so to speak, for truth, rightness and authenticity and for their translatability between these different claims to validity. In this way, mass media not only make a decisive contribution to the ‘dialectic’ between the measurement of concrete acts of political communication against the various registers of deliberative rationality

2

Through his journalistic practice, Habermas himself gave an example of what is typical for the mass-media constellation of political deliberation, namely the parallel or also interlinked construction of different stages on which certain aspects and registers of political claims to validity can be brought to bear: The Habermas of the Kleine politische Schriften (‘Small Political Writings’) brings other things to (politically) bear than the Habermas of the Theory of Communicative Action (although both were published by the same publisher). This also makes him a theorist of political deliberation in times of mass media, who is aware that ‘communicative rationality’ comes in many varieties, each of which entails different registers of communicative rationality, including different norm violation dynamics, and which are publicly displayed in the mass media.

52

A. Langenohl

and the valorization of deliberative rationality associated with that measurement, but also always exhibit the cross-connections between these registers. At the same time, mass media establish a paradoxical constellation. By exhibiting the principles of democratic political deliberation through mass media dissemination, they at the same time constitute a boundary between actors and audience, which in turn is the basis for criticisms of the inaccessibility of the mass media (see White 1950). This reveals a very deep-seated paradoxical structure of political deliberation in the mass media constellation. Mass media display the various registers of normative claims to validity of political deliberation in their genuine normative logics and, qua their unidirectional communication structure, at the same time violate the principle of universal inclusivity in deliberation. They thus constitute a tension that is irrevocable within the mass media constellation. This is precisely the source of the ‘digital promise’. Ultimately, it consists in eliminating the tension between discourse norms and their violations and in enabling an actual, complete, empirical discourse rationality: via digital communication, which eliminates the difference and hierarchy between senders and recipients, ‘everyone’ should ‘actually’ be able to participate in deliberation (see the summarizing critical discussion in Voss 2014: 15–19). What is interesting about the current situation, however, is that it is not the lack of permeability or openness to participation of the mass media that is emphasized, but rather the ‘lies’ that they allegedly spread – while, conversely, the self-defense of the mass media consists primarily in the demonstration of professionalism (as can be seen, for example, in the numerous lectures on how to detect ‘fake news’). In the following section, I further explore this bias and its consequences.

4

Counterfactual Norms and Their Weakening Through Moralization

A brief interim conclusion: So far, it has been argued that the normative structure of political deliberation draws an action-orienting distinction between normative claims to validity and empirical acts of communication. This structure allows the emergence of principles and evaluation criteria of political deliberation whose viability does not directly depend on their empirical vindication, but rather makes empirical acts of communication criticizable. It has also been shown that there are a certain number of such claims to validity, which form different registers in terms of content – for example, truth, accuracy, authenticity and pointedness, i.e. polemics. The mass media constellation puts these different registers on display by virtue of

Information Versus Fake News. On the Post-Normative Moralization of the Mass. . .

53

the different media formats and enables an insight into, and if necessary a critique of, their mutual consistency and translatability. Finally, it has been argued that the basic paradox of the mass media constellation of political deliberation consists in an irrevocable tension within this constellation between the display of normative principles and their structural violation through a necessarily hierarchized accessibility of mass media channels. This in turn constantly updates the distinction between normative claims to validity and empirical acts of communication. Habermas’s theory of political deliberation is therefore indeed tailored to the mass-media constellation, because in this constellation that tension between the articulation of political norms and the possibility of participating in the process of articulation is particularly evident. Conversely, it offers much less resonance space for theories that aim at the direct participation of all in political deliberation processes and thus promise the elimination of a tension between action-guiding communication norms and actual acts of communication (cf. Negt and Kluge 1972; Graeber 2014). However, it is suitable for specifically elaborating specific problems of the mass-media constellation, and is therefore a suitable starting point for the question I am concerned with here about the political-cultural significance of the fact that mass-media political communication is currently being so doggedly scrutinized for its truth claims and content. To continue this, in this section I suggest looking more closely into the structure of normative validity. This should serve to demonstrate that in the current fixation on the ‘truth’ of the mass media we are dealing with a moralization of validity claims that undermines and tends to replace the structure of normative validity. Clues to the deep structure of normative validity in social theory can be found more in Emile Durkheim than in Habermas. In the Theory of Communicative Action, Habermas refers to Durkheim primarily in order to show that, in the course of modernization processes, distinct spheres of validity emerge which in pre-modern societies were not yet differentiated into separate spheres of communication.3 However, Durkheim’s insight into the structure of normative validity, which is central to this essay, consists in the fact that the formative power of normative validity is conceived as conceptually independent of individual actions,

3 In particular, Habermas is concerned with demonstrating that societal modernization processes can be understood as forms of communicative rationalization reflecting on the symbolic structure of language, i.e. that the unity of normative claims to validity in the ‘sacred’ is broken down in the course of societal differentiation into different spheres of value, which increasingly expose the normative logic of linguistic communication in the lifeworld (Habermas 1987: 43–76).

54

A. Langenohl

including norm transgressions – an argument that has already been alluded to above, but which will now be deepened here. According to Durkheim’s conception of sociology as an independent science, it is necessary to direct sociological analysis towards ‘social facts’, because only such facts can justify a new, independent field of science (Durkheim 1981 [1937]: 3–75). On the one hand, he follows an ultimately natural-scientific view of science, which thinks of the possibility of scientific disciplines in terms of the distinctness of their objects of knowledge. The talk of the ‘physics’ of social facts – for example, the “physics of morals and law” (Durkheim 1999) – makes it clear that, for Durkheim, social facts obey certain laws that are thought of in analogy to natural laws. On the other hand, the ontology of these laws is of a fundamentally different kind than that of physical laws of nature, for social facts are embodied in norms addressed by society to the individual. Insofar as the individual experiences society as always already antecedent – through socialization, through confrontation with expectations, institutions, and sanctions – norms present themselves as supra-individual entities whose emergence and effect cannot, therefore, be explained by methodological individualist means. According to Durkheim, this is clearly demonstrated by codified and institutionalized legal norms, which impose barriers on individuals that they are not allowed to transgress under penalty of punishment (Durkheim 1964 [1893]). In this respect, according to Durkheim, the existence of a norm is always recognizable by the existence of a sanction of some kind against certain types of action (ibid.: 74–75). This does not mean, however, that norms can control or even determine the actions of individuals in every respect. Rather, the very existence of the sanction is unmistakable evidence that individuals are very much capable of violating norms: “Il n’en [societé] est pas où il n’existe une criminalité” (Durkheim 1981 [1937]: 65; see also 70). The social-theoretical significance of the sanction therefore lies only in a derived sense in the control of individual behaviour – primary, on the other hand, is its property of being able to be maintained even in the case of transgression. The sanction thus has a communicative function that goes so far as to bring norms to public view, to make them socially reflectable4 and, if necessary, to initiate their modification (ibid.: 160). Durkheim thus contradicts himself to a certain extent when he declares that society appears and is conceivable vis-à-vis the individual

“If, then, when it [crime] is committed, the consciences which it offends do not unite themselves give mutual evidence of their communion, and recognize that the case is anomalous, they would be permanently unsettled. They must re-inforce themselves by mutual assurances that they are always agreed.” (Durkheim 1964 [1893]: 103).

4

Information Versus Fake News. On the Post-Normative Moralization of the Mass. . .

55

solely as ‘coercion’ (Durkheim 1981 [1937]), for in fact it by no means follows from his social-theoretical ‘normativism’ (cf. Caillé 2008: 40–55, Adloff 2016) a determinism with regard to individual action. Quite the contrary: precisely because social facts – norms – are external to individuals and sanctions ensure their continued existence even if they transgress them, Durkheim’s theory can allow individuals to violate norms – which they would not be able to do if social facts were laws of nature. The structure of normative validity therefore has two faces, following Durkheim. First, it confronts individuals with (often) sanctioned expectations that are not based on the concrete expectations of other individuals, but on processes of societal institutionalization, such as the law. Secondly, however, individuals can decide against following normative claims to validity without this automatically leading to a crisis of these claims. A picture of fundamental normative flexibility thus emerges: norm deviations do not necessarily lead to societal-normative destabilization and are therefore also fundamentally open to negotiation (Langenohl 2014). These negotiation processes can be found, for example, in modern legal procedures, i.e. in processes of ‘claiming’ legal-normative validity against norm-deviant behaviour, for example when the severity of a punishment is reduced by ‘mitigating circumstances’ or the ‘culpability’ of the individual is questioned. In these cases, it is ultimately a matter of weakening the confrontation between the individual and society by referring to circumstances that make it possible to relativize the direct causal coupling of an individual will and a norm deviation attributable to the individual. This tendency to “de-individualize”5 norm deviations is even more pronounced in the case of non-legally codified norms, such as everyday manners, in which, as Erving Goffman (1967) found, interaction participants tend to relativize individual norm deviations (even if by ignoring them) and thus restore a viable situation. Following Durkheim, the validity structure of norms can thus be described as conceptually detached from individual behaviour and empirically detachable.6 Political deliberation – especially in the mass media constellation – constantly makes use of such relativizations of norm deviations from principles of rational

I take this term from David Scheller’s dissertation thesis on “Für ein Recht auf Stadt! Urban space and modes of association in urban social movements. A hegemony-theoretical case study on Berlin and New York City” (Justus Liebig University Giessen). 6 This applies explicitly also to the deviation from the norm, which is punished with severe penalties: the penalty “does not serve, or else only serves quite secondarily, in correcting the culpable or in intimidating possible followers. From this point of view, its efficacy is justly doubtful and, in any case, mediocre. Its true function is to maintain social cohesion intact, while maintaining all its vitality to the common conscience.” (Durkheim 1964 [1893]: 108). 5

56

A. Langenohl

deliberation. This can be seen in norm-deviant acts of communication (such as a public attack on the personal integrity or privacy of a political opponent) when these are collectively defused, so to speak, by the participants in the communication afterwards. A good example is the metaphor of ‘derailment’, which is often activated in response to such acts of communication. Its communicative function is not solely, and perhaps not even primarily, to defend against reproach or to discredit the speaker, but to restore a common platform of communication. The rebuke reintegrates the speaker into the collective of political deliberators as someone to whom the deviation from the norm has ‘happened’. This is a communicative mechanism of “face-work” (Goffman 1967: 5–45),7 whose social purpose is to (re)assert a certain situational norm without discrediting the speaker as an individual and excluding him or her from this norm. The accident metaphor partially extracts the responsibility for the speech act from the responsibility of the individual. When I contrast this structure of validity of normativity with that of morality in the following, it should be noted that Durkheim himself often speaks of ‘morality’ in order to underpin the specificity of normative validity as a social ‘law’ (e.g. Durkheim 1956: 94–95). Although Durkheim’s concept of morality has a wide range, encompassing “values, customs, traditions and conventions” (Müller 1991: 313, translated from German), by ‘morality’ Durkheim nevertheless frequently refers to norms to which he attests a particularly deep anchoring in the feelings of the members of society and thus justifies the harshly punitive sanction for a transgression of such norms (Durkheim 1964 [1893]: 80, 103–105).8 Unlike ‘restitutionary’ legal norms, which are primarily concerned with a reordering of relations between individuals (Durkheim 1964 [1893]: 122–129), the violation of ‘strong’ norms reinforced by criminal law provides for an “expiaton” (ibid.: 109) of the individual as transgressor of the norm (unless, as argued above, there are grounds for doubting the imputability of the act to the individual and his or her will). What might be called moralized norms thus juxtapose the individual and the collective consciousness by individualizing norm transgression through attribution.9 7

Goffman (1963: 169) points out that under certain circumstances (“small family-like groups”) even permanently deviant individuals are not excluded from the group. 8 Durkheim speaks of the difference between “organized repression” and “diffuse repression”, which corresponds to the difference between a strongly anchored collective consciousness” harmed by a strong in contrast to a weak expression of both (Durkheim 1964 [1893]: 103). 9 Penal norms “attach the particular conscience to the collective conscience directly and without mediation; that is, the individual to society.” (Durkheim 1964 [1893]: 115).

Information Versus Fake News. On the Post-Normative Moralization of the Mass. . .

57

In contrast to normative validity, moralized claims to validity are therefore based on a very unambiguous addressing of the individual or the institution as responsible for the violation of the norm.10 The processes by which such moralization is initiated have been explored in ethnomethodological studies of the moralization of communication. Harold Garfinkel (1967) made the observation in some of his breaching experiments that norm-breaking in everyday communication was sometimes attributed to the individual (as distinct, say, from the situation). Thus, while some subjects tended to attribute certain transgressions – for example, the literal interpretation of everyday questions such as ‘How are you?’ – to possible disease states of the experimenter, in the case of other transgressions or norm dissonances, moralizations could be detected that amounted to accusing the deviant individual of being a morally problematic, inchoate, or reprehensible person (Garfinkel 1967: 47–49). Following Garfinkel, it was possible to work out that moralising communication tends to fit the deviation from the norm into a rigorously dualistic scheme of interpretation, such as good vs. evil or even true vs. false, and to interpret and sanction it within this framework (Bergmann and Luckmann 1999: 29–31). One can assume that an overabundance of moralizing discourses in political communication – as can be seen in the current accusations of spreading ‘fake news’ as well as in the defense against this accusation – is an indication of a weakening of norms – or more correctly: of the normative mode of validity. This means that deviations from a standard – namely the standard of ‘truth’ (cf. Langenohl 2014) – are dramatized in a way that practically excludes interaction with the ‘deviant’, because the ‘deviant’ has morally discredited him- or herself as an overall person (or overall institution). This changes the mode of critique: while deviations from normative claims can be processed in various ways in deliberation – from ignoring (with the effect of saving face on the part of the ‘deviant’) to admonitions to demands and sanctions – in the case of deviations from moral claims the only option is to rigorously exclude the deviant and thus neutralize him or her for deliberation. A de-individualization of the perceived norm deviation cannot take place – the deviant or the institution he or she represents is, in the full sense, responsibilized for the deviation. From this perspective, there is a symmetry between the refusal of Pegida demonstrators to talk to ‘the mass media’ and political demands to deny representatives of right-wing populist movements and parties the mass media stage. However, this also effaces the function of normativity to

10

I refer in this section to Langenohl (2014), where this argument is unfolded in greater breadth.

58

A. Langenohl

(re)integrate individuals into society even when they behave deviantly: There is nothing to say to them. Public moralization thus has the potential to render society as society – i.e. as a structure of extremely diverse normative interdependencies – unrecognizable. The fixation on the accusation of ‘lying’ and on the defence against this accusation with reference to ‘truth’ carries this moralization: By breaking down public political deliberation to only one dimension of validity – factual truth – and by moralizing this dimension in addition, political positionings are forced into a deterministic corset, which has the effect that the ‘correct’ position (or a narrowly limited circle of positions) is to be inferred infallibly from ‘true’ information. The main problem, then, is not the question of which positions are problematic in terms of content – it is rather that ‘information’ becomes the virtually sole guarantor of positions that can be considered ‘communicable’ and ‘deliberable’. Normative validity, as shown above, has more than one register. Criticisms of political positions have mostly referred to more than one register in the mass media constellation – they have been concerned with the failing of translation or concordances between truth, rightness, truthfulness and dramatization (polemics). Through this, the relative flexibility of the norms of political communication has been sustained and enhanced. Just as political positionings cannot be translated without difficulty from one register to another, criticizing them does not automatically lead to denying the respective positioning as such the right to political participation. In this constellation, it is quite possible to appreciate a positioning in its situationally authentic or polemical power, even if there are doubts about its conformity to factual truth or normative rightness. Or positioning that is perceived as normatively correct can be welcomed, even if the gestures of authentication or the references to factual truth are not convincing. More generally, the plurality of dimensions of normativity increases the likelihood that political positionings will experience heterogeneous attributions. This in turn increases the binding force of normative validity in political deliberation, even if norms are violated in some or even all of their aspects by the concrete act of communication. In moralizing communication – which always tends to reject a positioning as a whole and thus to justify the exclusion of the norm violator from the circle of political deliberators – this heterogeneity is bulldozed. In this way, however, the basis of normative validity – which, as has been shown, requireds constant balancing between the assertion of norms and strategies of de-individualization of norm deviations – is massively shaken.

Information Versus Fake News. On the Post-Normative Moralization of the Mass. . .

5

59

On the Way to a Post-Normative Political Culture?

Arguably we do not need the Pegida demonstrators to remind us that mass media communication sometimes posits reality rather than depicts reality. It may sometimes be completely irrelevant whether intersubjectively ascertainable ‘factual’ equivalents exist for the information; the only decisive factor is that the news is accepted as ‘real’ by those who experience it. If this is the case, then the news is ‘reality’, or at least its consequences are (Schulz 1976: 28, translated from German).

It would be a misunderstanding, therefore, if one were to attest to the argumentation presented in this article that mass-media political deliberation is celebrated in the vehicle of nostalgia. There are still good reasons to consider mass media political deliberation problematic. Mass media broadcasting institutionally cements a distinction between senders and receivers and therefore undermines the counterfactual norm of at least potential participation of ‘all’ in deliberation (White 1950; Hunziker 1988). Moreover, mass media political deliberation is based on a hierarchization between different media supplies based on their ‘quality’. This became particularly evident after the pluralization of mass media supplies following the introduction of commercial television (cf. Lucht 2009), but was also known earlier, for instance through the juxtaposition of the quality daily press with the yellow press. In this respect, mass media political deliberation is mostly based on the emergence of ‘leading media’ (Leitmedien in German), which exacerbate the already existing gap between senders and receivers and map it onto social structures of inequality (Negt and Kluge 1972). Mass media tend to standardize their broadcast formats (Ruhland 1979: 67) and increasingly follow patterns of selection that owe to attentioneconomic, rather than political-deliberative rationalities (Imhof 2011). Finally, mass media cannot offer a forum to demands for a radical valorisation of individual (as opposed to ‘societal’, cf. Graeber 2014) participation simply because it is in their nature to represent certain socio-structural, political or educational milieus of society, as ‘whose voice’ they are then regarded. None of these criticisms is denied here. The argument instead is that the mass media constellation was characterized by a permanent confrontation of political norms of deliberation with their disenchantment and violation, which did not necessarily damage these norms in their fundamental validity. What today opponents of the mass media refer to as their ‘political correctness’ actually represents a complex discourse about the possibilities of including political positionings, even when these – such as ‘hate speech’ – violate norms of democratic deliberation. The denunciation of ‘political correctness’ is thus, in terms of

60

A. Langenohl

communication logic, a rejection of the tension between norms of political deliberation and their empirical manifestations that has been so seminal in the mass media constellation. In this respect, it seems to me, the self-proclaimed counter-models to massmedia political deliberation have so far largely failed their tests. Online communication beyond the mass media in particular apparently leads to crass moralizing individualizations of enemies while de-individualizing attackers to the greatest possible extent (not through normative flexibility, however, but through sheer anonymity or arrogant claims to unassailability, as can be seen from a considerable number of political actors in contemporary democracies). On the other hand, many proposals for implementing radical democratic procedures seem to rely on situational co-presence (Day 2005: 162–164; Graeber 2014) and thus have no answer to ‘online vitriol’ either. The problem with many online publics is thus a breakdown of the tension between deliberative norms and ‘deliberative’ behaviour – just as communications are absolutely rejected, they can be absolutely asserted. The only question then is who has the most acolytes (‘followers’). Without wanting to push this diagnosis too far, I would like to conclude by raising the question of whether democratically constituted societies, in times of online political vitriol, are currently moving towards a post-normative constellation of political communication. Norms were seen by Durkheim, as well as Habermas, as fundamental structures of society: While Durkheim made the norm the epitome of social fact as a genuine indication of social dynamics, Habermas saw in it the basic structure of the sociality of claims to validity in society. The question is, however, whether we must assume such a universal significance of the normative mode of validity in all social fields of practice to the same extent. As is well known, Habermas assumed, after all, that subsystemic fields of practice largely abolish normative validity as a mode of coordinating action (Habermas 1987: 153–197). And Durkheim also feared a normative emptying of social processes under conditions of ‘organic solidarity’ (Durkheim 1957). In the face of these diagnoses of post-normative collectivity, the question arises as to whether this is not also evident in current tendencies of public political communication. Something like an antagonistic cooperation between mass media and digital media can be discerned, in which both contribute to reducing political positionings to just one dimension of validity through mutual accusations of untruth, lies and ‘post-facticity’: namely that of ‘truth’. Perhaps, therefore, it is not postfacticity but postnormativity that is the real problem. One can specify this proposal of a diagnosis of the present in terms of some questions, even if they can only be raised, not answered, within the scope of this article. Are we moving toward a moral collectivity in which the tense distinction of norms from individual behavior

Information Versus Fake News. On the Post-Normative Moralization of the Mass. . .

61

collapses – with the effect that the social meaning of norms splits into a function as a proving ground of dramatized political autonomy (norm deviation from positions of power) and a function of meticulous social control (enforced norm conformity)? Might blatant political norm deviations at the highest political levels be the flip side of everyday digital responsilibizations of having the ‘right’ opinion? Is a democratic society in the Durkheimian sense approaching its end – a society that generates social norms and meaning from individual deviations, but without making the individual and his or her acts of communication the ultimate justification of political rationality?

References Adloff, Frank (2016): Gifts of Cooperation, Mauss and Pragmatism. London/New York: Routledge. Anderson, Benedict (1987): Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London et al.: Verso. Arendt, Hannah (2006 [1963]): On Revolution. New York: Penguin. Benhabib, Seyla (1992). Models of Public Space: Hannah Arendt, the Liberal Tradition, and Jürgen Habermas. In: Craig Calhoun (ed.): Habermas and the Public Sphere. Cambridge, Mass./London: MIT Press, 73–98. Bergmann, Jörg/Luckmann, Thomas (1999): Moral und Kommunikation. In: Bergmann, Jörg/Luckmann, Thomas (eds.): Kommunikative Konstruktion von Moral. Band 1: Struktur und Dynamik der Formen moralischer Kommunikation. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 13–36. Caillé, Alain (2008): Anthropologie der Gabe. Frankfurt a.M./New York: Campus. Day, Richard J.F. (2005): Gramsci is Dead: Anarchist Currents in the Newest Social Movements. London: Pluto Press. Durkheim, Émile (1957): Professional Ethics and Civic Morals. Translated by Cornelia Brookfield. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Durkheim, Émile (1981 [1937]): Les règles de la méthode sociologique. Paris: Quadrige / Presses Universitaires de France. Durkheim, Émile (1956): Education and Sociology. Glencoe: The Free Press. Durkheim, Émile (1964 [1893]): The Division of Labor in Society. Translated by Gearge Simpson. New York/London: The Free Press/Collier-Macmillan. Durkheim, Emile (1999 [1890]): Physik der Sitten und des Rechts. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Fraser, Nancy (1992): Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy. In: Craig Calhoun (ed.): Habermas and the Public Sphere. Cambridge, Mass./London: MIT Press, 109–142. Gardiner, Michael A. (2004): Wild Publics and Grotesque Symposiums: Habermas and Bakhtin on Dialogue, Everyday Life and the Public Sphere. In: Nick Crossley/John

62

A. Langenohl

M. Roberts (eds.): After Habermas: New Perspectives on the Public Sphere. Oxford/ Malden: Blackwell, 28–48. Garfinkel, Harold (1967): Studies of the Routine Grounds of Everyday Activities. In: Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 35–75. Gilroy, Paul (1993): The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Goffman, Erving (1967): Interaction Ritual: Essays in Face-to-Face Behavior. Chicago: Aldine. Goffman, Erving (1963): Stigma. London: Penguin. Göttlich, Udo (2017): Öffentlichkeit durch Unterhaltung. Krise der Öffentlichkeit oder Herausforderungen der Öffentlichkeitstheorie? In: Hahn, Kornelia/Langenohl, Andreas (eds.): Kritische Öffentlichkeiten – Öffentlichkeiten in der Kritik. Wiesbaden: VS, 115–132. Graeber, David (2014): The Democracy Project: A History. A Crisis. A Movement. New York: Penguin. Haas, Tanni (2004): The public sphere and the spheres of publics: Rethinking Habermas’s theory of the public sphere. Journal of Communication, 54(1), 178–184. Habermas, Jürgen (1962): Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit. Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft. Neuwied/Berlin: Luchterhand. Habermas, Jürgen (1984): The Theory of Communicative Action. Volume One: Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Translated by Thomas McCarthy. Boston: Beacon Press. Habermas, Jürgen (1987): The Theory of Communicative Action. Volume Two: The Critique of Functionalist Reason. Cambridge: Polity Press. Habermas, Jürgen (1990): Volkssouveränität als Verfahren. Ein normativer Begriff der Öffentlichkeit. In: Die Moderne – ein unvollendetes Projekt. Philosophisch-politische Aufsätze 1977–1992. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 180–212. Heins, Volker (1999): Demokratie als Nervensache. Zum Verhältnis von Politik und Emotion bei Max Weber. In: Klein, Ansgar/Nullmeier, Frank (eds.): Masse – Macht – Emotionen. Zu einer politischen Soziologie der Emotionen. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 89–101. Hirshkop, Ken (2004) Justice and Drama: On Bakhtin as a Complement to Habermas. In: Crossley, Nick/Roberts, John M. (eds.): After Habermas: New Perspectives on the Public Sphere. Oxford/Malden: Blackwell, 49–68. Hunziker, Peter (1988): Medien, Kommunikation und Gesellschaft. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Imhof, Kurt (2011): Die Krise der Öffentlichkeit. Kommunikation und Medien als Faktoren des sozialen Wandelns. Frankfurt a. M./New York: Campus. Langenohl, Andreas (2014): Norm und Wahrheit. Soziologische Merkmale von Wahrheitsszenen. Zeitschrift für Kulturphilosophie, 2, 235–245. Lucht, Jens (2009): Öffentlich-rechtlicher Rundfunk in der Demokratie. Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 9–10, 26–32. Luhmann, Niklas (1984): Soziale Systeme. Grundriß einer allgemeinen Theorie. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Luhmann, Niklas (1996): Die Realität der Massenmedien. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. McCarthy, Thomas (1992): Practical Discourse: On the Relation of Morality to Politics. In: Calhoun, Craig (eds.): Habermas and the Public Sphere. Cambridge, Mass./London: MIT Press, 51–72.

Information Versus Fake News. On the Post-Normative Moralization of the Mass. . .

63

Müller, Hans Peter (1991): Die Moralökonomie moderner Gesellschaften. Durkheims “Physik der Sitten und des Rechts”. In: Emile Durkheim: Physik der Sitten und des Rechts. Vorlesungen zur Soziologie der Moral. Herausgegeben von Hans-Peter Müller. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 30–341. Negt, Oskar / Kluge, Alexander (1972): Öffentlichkeit und Erfahrung. Zur Organisationsanalyse von bürgerlicher und proletarischer Öffentlichkeit. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Park, Robert (1924): Sociology and the Social Sciences. In: Park, Robert/Burgess, Ernest (eds.): Introduction to the Science of Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1–63. Roberts, John M. (2004): John Stuart Mill, Free Speech and the Public Sphere: A Bakhtinian Critique. In: Crossley, Nick/Roberts, John M. (eds.): After Habermas: New Perspectives on the Public Sphere. Oxford/Malden: Blackwell, 67–87. Ruhland, Walter (1979): Fernsehmagazine und Parteien. Die Darstellung der Parteien in den innenpolitischen Magazinen des deutschen Fernsehens im Bundestagswahljahr 1976. Berlin: Spiess. Schulz, Winfried (1976): Die Konstruktion von Realität in den Massenmedien. Freiburg/ München: Alber. Spencer, Herbert (1885): Social Growth/Social Structures. In: The Principles of Sociology, Vol. 1, Third edition. Edinburgh: Williams & Norgate, 451–472. Tocqueville, De Alexis (1999 [1835/1840]): Über die Demokratie in Amerika. Stuttgart: Reclam. Voss, Karin (2014): Internet & Partizipation – Einleitung. In: Voss, Karin (ed).: Internet und Partizipation. Bottom-up oder Top-down? Politische Beteiligungsmöglichkeiten im Internet. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 9–23. White, David Manning (1950): The Gate Keeper: A Case Study in the Selecting of News. Journalism Quarterly 27, 383–390.

Scandals and Morals Steffen Burkhardt

1

The Moral Explosive Power of Scandals

In her play Am Königsweg, which recently premiered at the Hamburger Schauspielhaus, Elfriede Jelinek asks what has made possible the politics of exclusion, restriction and limitation that we can observe in countless countries. She argues that politicians like Trump are only a symptom of a problem, but not the problem. She argues that societies have not succeeded in giving a voice to the “disconnected” and involving them in the public process of negotiating values and norms. Now, she concludes, someone has come along in the USA who has given the “losers of progress” a voice (but, as Jelinek warns, only one). This One scandalizes on all media channels with high frequency all those who previously shaped the media discourse. He attacks at breathtaking speed anything that does not conform to his notions of morality, thus identifying himself as a member of a moral collective that did not see itself represented in the public sphere previously dominated by alleged Fake News. Political leader Trump has thus taken public scandalization as a political leadership principle to a new level in the age of social media: by continuously denouncing his opponents in the arenas of the social web, he unites his followers. In doing so, he makes use of the morally explosive power of scandalization, which is nourished by the conflict of collectives over the sovereignty of discourse in the updating of the social guiding code. Scandals can destabilize exposed individuals as well as social, religious, political and economic groups. They form a separate category of communication practice that uses a specific, primarily journalistic narrative pattern in the interplay of news S. Burkhardt (✉) Department of Information and Mass Communication, HAW Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] # The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 S. Joller, M. Stanisavljević (eds.), Moral Collectives, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-40147-4_5

65

66

S. Burkhardt

and entertainment media to update the symbolic orders of social systems. Social networks have not yet established themselves as central narrative platforms, but merely as (powerful) distribution channels for moral collectives positioned in the scandal. Even if the dynamics of scandalization have changed, the basic pattern of its moral explosive power has always been the same: scandals can always be understood as communication processes that trigger public outrage through a postulated violation of the guiding code of the social reference system (cf. Lindblom 1921; Stählin 1930; Neckel 1989: 56; Käsler 1991: 69–85; Thompson 2000: 11–14; Burkhardt 2015). The alleged misconduct has often not been the cause of the scandal, but merely a pretext, sometimes historically relevant, for the exclusion of individuals and the demarcation of the many. Anyone who regularly follows the news can get the impression that scandalisation in the media has increased. With the increase in digital forms of communication since the turn of the millennium, there has also been an increase in the number of academic studies dealing with them, which attest to the flourishing of public outrage. In almost all Western countries – not only in the USA – an increase in scandal cases has been observed (cf. Allern et al. 2012; Allern and Pollack 2012; Imhof 2002; Kepplinger 1996; Kumlin and Esaiasson 2012; Downey and Stanyer 2013; Strömbäck 2008; Umbricht and Esser 2016). Different reasons for this development are given in the literature. Hallin and Mancini (2004) see the commercialization of the media system and its decoupling from political institutions as a key factor leading to more political scandals. Hondrich (2002) attributes the rise to the increase in complexity of modern societies, which is accompanied by conflicting attributions of functions to social subsystems. In this context, political correctness as the guiding code of a particularly conscientious moral collective becomes a scandalon that is an expression of changed norms and values (Imhof 2002). Jelinek’s protagonist, mentioned at the beginning of this article, finds in it the breeding ground for his micropublicistic incendiaries. Tumber and Waisbord (2004) name further political, cultural, technological and media changes as facilitating factors. An interplay of changing norms thus leads to more scandals in the media. In this context, Kalb (1998) cites scandalisation as a strategy for maximising the circulation and reach – and thus increasing the profits – of journalism. Journalists themselves also use their scandal reporting as difference management, career strategy and to pursue other personal interests (Kepplinger et al. 2002; Chalaby 2004; Kantola 2012). At the same time, the increased self-dramatization of social actors enables new forms of visibility and prominence (Thompson 2000; Haller 2013), which leads to a wider range of potential scandal cases. Explanatory

Scandals and Morals

67

approaches such as those mentioned here shed light on the complexity of scandals, which do not update social self-understanding as grand narratives without reason. But something else is emerging in recent scandals: in the fragmented public spheres of the digital age, the challenges of likes, selfies, retweets, and sexting, the possibilities of anonymous denunciation, the erosions of privacy and other normative protective spheres of interaction, data aggregations, and global, intercultural communication are giving rise to a previously unprecedented potential of public outrage, indignation, and outrage addiction. Moral collectives can operate in secret. This transformation of the scandal cannot be viewed in isolation from the fundamental changes in digital public spheres. The spread of networked information and communication technologies has not only changed media usage behaviour. In the media networks that shape the primary mode of organization and central structures of society, scandals can spread rapidly through the nodes of the network. Under the influence of digitalization, the millennia-old concept of public outrage has undergone further transformation processes to this end, characterized above all by an increased visibility of the scandalous and the personal expansion of those involved in the media discourse. New forms of social introspection and selfdescription in the field of tension between professional and private discutants form a heterogeneous field of interaction for the attention excesses of a digital community in a self-referential outrage frenzy (Mandell and Chen 2016). The virulence of uncontrollable mediatized scandals is a striking phenomenon of society at the beginning of the twenty-first century. They are inherent in a communication dynamic that defies all control. This becomes particularly clear in the communication practice of mediatized scandal through two different developments: first, the Internet is a topic pool full of digital communication content that scandalizers can siphon off at any time; and second, scandalizers can spread their outrage to a potentiated degree through the digital communication channels of the Internet. Digital communication therefore changes media scandalization both in terms of scandal content and its reach. Especially with the emergence of social media interaction, amateurs have gained influence over mass media interpretations of alleged norm violations. Although journalism still shapes perceptions of scandals, moral collectives are gaining influence. Without journalistic coverage on television and radio news, in newspapers, magazines and online news, however, outrage would be dispatched over the alleged abuses denounced on social media. What is the point of Twitter and Facebook outrage about sexual harassment by politicians (cf. Gamson 2016) or documents published online by WikiLeaks (Beckett and Ball 2012) if socio-political discourse about them is absent? Even the disclosure by whistleblowers such as Edward

68

S. Burkhardt

Snowden only attracts the attention of large parts of the population through the journalistic framing of the mediatized scandal. Journalism thus has the option in mediatized scandals to reinterpret the binary of good/evil, with which moral collectives differentiate, into responsible/irresponsible by means of difference management. In this sense, mediatized scandals are instruments of symbolic power, in that they select, structure and present the contingent interpretive struggles of discourses and stories in social systems as identity-creating narratives of society. With the narration of mediatized scandals, journalism makes a central contribution to the public construction of social autobiographies and to the distinction of socially acceptable and socially unacceptable patterns of behavior. In the act of scandalizing discourse of situations, actions, or processes that occurs in the producing system of journalism, narratives are constructed to distinguish social belonging or non-belonging of moral collectives. Mediatized scandals are thus always distinguishing narratives. The sense-generating mechanism of discourses becomes a distinction mechanism, in which the scandalizing system sets itself in relation to the scandalized person(s) in a judgment process and thus implicitly articulates an understanding of values. As a process of distinction, mediatized scandals make use of a central narrative strategy in which scandalization takes place in functional phases. The dynamics of this process of distinction follow the closed form of the drama, which can be observed in five phases. The course of the phases can be summarized in a functional phase model as the scandal clock (cf. Burkhardt 2015: 205). In chronological order, it indicates the phases that take place in the scandal: (1) the latency phase with key events, (2) the upswing phase, (3) the establishment phase with climax, (4) the downswing phase, and (5) the rehabilitation phase. In the latency phase, moral collectives in the sense of staged third parties (cf. Joller 2017: 243) still play a marginal role. The quantity of reports about the scandalized is very high compared to the time before the scandalization. The protagonists of the mediatized scandal are made known to the public or their notoriety is updated. The key events are publicized. The very large quantity of coverage starts seemingly abruptly with the latency phase and spreads virus-like fast, so that the scandal information gains a strong presence in the media public for a short time. Journalism contextualizes the key events and the protagonists of the narrated plot in the recovery phase. To this end, episodes and other thematic aspects are transferred into public discourse through journalistic reporting. In general, interest in the mediatized scandal increases in the upswing phase, with quantitative fluctuations in

Scandals and Morals

69

smaller units of time, as in the entire scandal. These fluctuations can be explained by the production processes of journalism. The function of the establishment phase of the mediatized scandal is the public hearing of the scandalized and the representatives of the subsystems of the social system affected by the alleged offense. In this qualification phase, the behavior of the scandalized is measured and evaluated against the ideas of the moral collectives. The establishment phase is a decision-making phase. Its function is to judge the guilt or even the innocence of the scandalized with the aim of correcting public misconduct. At the end of the establishment phase is the climax of the mediatized scandal. At the climax of the scandal, the individual scandal episodes in journalistic reporting and the public’s state of outrage also reach their peak. The decision is either against or for the scandalized: The moral conflict thematized in the scandal knows only the code of good and evil, winner and loser. If the scandalisation is successful, the scandalised person is symbolically excluded from the social system as an anti-hero through exclusion from the media public sphere. In the case of failed exclusion, no symbolic exclusion takes place on the scandal climax. This decision is retrospectively qualified by journalism in the downturn phase – through a similar but less elaborate public hearing procedure of the moral collectives. The downturn phase functions as a back up of the mediatized scandal: in retrospect, it offers the possibility of renewed social introspection with the aim of checking the regularity of all the discourse processes that have taken place before. In doing so, journalism also reviews its own functioning. Accordingly, in the downturn phase, an increase in articles of media journalism can be noted. An essential role in the qualification of the decision is played by the reaction of the scandalized person to his public evaluation. Only after his behaviour or scope for action that enabled his behaviour no longer poses a threat to the social system from the public’s perspective is the way paved for his rehabilitation. In the rehabilitation phase, the events of the mediatized scandal are marginalized or no longer thematized. The emotional state of emergency is transformed back into a normal state. However, the rehabilitation phase is only a secondary component of the mediatized scandal, because it takes on a unique position compared to the first phases, which are characterized by a relatively large variety of thematization strategies. The conflict negotiated in a mediatized scandal cannot be considered resolved until the sanctioning of the scandalized by the public has been removed. The final marginalization of the mediatized scandal and the normalization of the media state of exception constitute the central functions of the rehabilitation phase, in which the scandalized can again accumulate symbolic capital. The less society is satisfied with the reaction of the scandalized at the crucial climax of the scandal, the

70

S. Burkhardt

longer the marginalization of sanctions and the rehabilitation phase last. Compared to the topographies and phase trajectories of other thematic and narrative complexes of journalistic reporting, media scandalization exhibits great temporal dynamism and thus serves the audience interest in the mediatized scandal. Only through their great journalistic narrative density as a relation of much action dynamics in a short time can mediatized scandals effectively unfold their important function as an early warning system in the social system. To put it differently: Moral collectives generate maximum audience interest for their positions in the case of scandal through presence in professional media. This is precisely where the interest lies in the scandalization of many populist politicians who want to generate media attention.

2

Moral Collectives in Scandals

Differences in the comparison of scandals and media scandals result from the professional production mechanisms and the communication specifics of the media system and journalism as its self-description and self-observation system sui generis: The distinction between socially acceptable and unacceptable behaviors gains a very high dispersion effect in the complex public sphere of the mediatized scandal. This is because journalism, as its central scandalizer, operates with many communication tools and many technical dispositifs. Unlike non-mediatized scandals, which are products of everyday communication, mediatized scandals are primarily professionally produced and thus follow the standardized reporting pattern of journalism. The central narrative strategy of the mediatized scandal is thus a professional product and differs from the narrative modes of everyday communication. Of course, everyday communication in mediatized scandals also takes place in mass media (e.g. in social networks on the Internet) and non-mass media publics, which, however, have so far (still) had a subordinate, i.e. non-significant influence on the central narrative strategies of mediatized scandals. The journalistic construction of the mediatized scandal guarantees that scandals can fulfill their relevant functions for system preservation (from the perspective of the coalitions dominating the system) even in differentiated and highly complex social systems. In scandals there are three different groups of personnel: Journalists, the actors involved in the scandalized events and the audience. Journalists function as narrators in the media narrative ‘scandal’ and also thematize themselves as narrators. They position the actors in the narrative as heroes or anti-heroes. Mediatized scandals are produced for a spatially absent audience that has a

Scandals and Morals

71

relatively heterogeneous level of information. With the exception of occasional live broadcasts, they usually learn about the scandalization with a time delay, whereby the temporal differences are increasingly marginalized through reports on the Internet and, above all, publications in online social networks (such as on Facebook walls). The central narrative strategy is therefore constructed in a fundamentally different way in mediated processes of distinction than in non-mediated scandals, whose audience is spatially and temporally present at the narrative. Since the complex public of mediatized scandal is fundamentally different from the simple to intermediate publics of non-mediatized scandal, mediatized scandals aim at other aspects in their social management of difference and identity by determining norms: mediatized scandals actualize difference in distinction from a few other systems (e.g. other societies with other mores). Identity formation is achieved through the participation of relatively few actors. As a rule, the actors of a social system are not visible in the media public sphere, but act outside the media system. In the narrative reconstruction of events, actions or states of affairs that are positioned as mediatized scandals on the social screen of the media public sphere by journalists as scandalizers, a transformation process central to the understanding of the mediatized scandal takes place in which the social actors are reinterpreted as narrative personnel: the journalists or scandalizers become the narrators. Scandalizers become the narrators of the mediatized scandal; members of the social system are positioned as heroes, antiheroes, or other figures of the narrative; and the audience in the form of selected representatives of the audience (mostly prominent representatives of the public system) becomes helpers of the hero or antihero in the sense of moral collectives. Scandal producers, scandal recipients and scandal objects are thus not identical with the narrative personnel, but as actants they stand in a complex relationship of effects and repercussions between the social system and discourse about the social system. In scandal, the moral guiding code of the social reference system forms the ‘red thread’ of the plot: it is the basis of the process of distinction. Therefore, the actants in the social system who accumulate a particularly large amount of morality are especially suitable for integration as scandalized persons in the narrative discourse. The members of the system actively participate in the mediatized scandal for different individual and psychological reasons, some conscious, some unconscious. Their positions are taken up and interpreted by journalists in media reports. Thus, the audience is positioned as the narrative figure of the hero’s or anti-hero’s helper in the mediatized scandal. The recipients of the media narrative thus become producers in the discourse. This transformation process does not seem to be very unusual, but it is of central importance for the mediatized scandal: through it, the actors lose their public production sovereignty, because journalism describes them

72

S. Burkhardt

on the basis of observations – and also normative ideas. Through narrative framing, it can thereby exert considerable influence on the public perception of its narrative personnel. In scandalizing, journalism essentially uses the viewpoints of figures from moral collectives in the following five fields of action: (1) ideology and religion, (2) publicity, (3) privacy, (4) justice, and (5) politics.

2.1

Moral Collectives of Ideology and Religion

In media scandals, journalism makes use of the representation of different moral collectives, among which the field of action of religion occupies a special position in religiously shaped societies. Religion, with its institutions such as the various faith communities and their congregations, fulfils the core function of making moral patterns of action available to society. This system and its representatives thus assume a moral role model function. Accordingly, the social demand for adherence to the moral code that is placed on religion and its representatives is high. In non-religious countries (such as China), this supreme moral authority is filled by the respective social guiding ideology (e.g. communism). Where the attitude of entitlement is particularly high, on the one hand there are often disappointments and scandalizations of the morality-setting system itself. On the other hand, the representatives of religious morality are sought-after jurors in the public interpretative struggle of the media scandal – especially when the scandalizations concern representatives of the system itself. In media scandals that are tangential to the system of religion, the conflicts that are played out in this system itself are usually also revealed. Exemplary reconstructions of the representation of religious moral concepts in media scandals show that journalism fills spokesperson positions with different representatives of religious morality in its reporting. In doing so, it follows the effort of objectification through qualitative and quantitative diversity of statements on the conflict topic. In the selection process, journalism therefore takes care – at least in Western democracies – to fill the spokesperson positions heterogeneously in order to draw as differentiated a picture as possible for the moral qualification of the scandalized.

2.2

Moral Collectives of the Public

Another subsystem of society whose moral qualification of key events is caught up in the media scandal is the public sphere. In modern media society, moral judgement

Scandals and Morals

73

is incumbent on the representatives of the public sphere, i.e. above all celebrities as the elite of the public sphere system (cf. Peters 1993). Since the public of the media scandal is a media public, those responsible for the media public also express themselves in it. This is especially the case when the scandalized person of a media scandal is himself considered a professional member of the media system. Remarkably, on the one hand, special moral demands are placed on celebrities: Those who are publicly visible, that is, who have an exposed position in the social system, must behave in conformity with the rules, values and norms of the system. On the other hand, as informal-public representatives of other subsystems (e.g. the celebrity actress as a representative of the arts, the celebrity chef as a representative of the trades, the celebrity political pensioner as a representative of the system of politics, etc.), they are representatives of the morality of the subsystems with which they are associated. The morality of celebrity is thus a pluralistic morality, which, in contrast to religious morality, is supposed to reflect the pluralistic moral concepts of society. Accordingly, it is common to find spokesperson positions in media scandals occupied by celebrities who give their opinions on the key events on which the media scandal is based. Thus, for example, in the CDU party donation affair of 1999, the “popular actress” Uschi Glas and the “car rental queen” Regine Sixt jump into the breach for their former Federal Chancellor, who stubbornly refuses to help uncover a crime, although neither one nor the other argues in a particularly differentiated manner. That celebrities agitate as helpers of their fallen heroes, however, is not an invention of the twentieth century, even if they are used extensively by scandal management. At the latest since Émile Zola’s open letter J’accuse in the literary journal L’ Aurore on 13 January 1898, celebrities have been part of the permanent staff of helpers in media scandal. In the reconstruction of the representation of public morality, it becomes apparent that the positions presented primarily by celebrities implement few valid statements in the discourse. It seems rather as if in the media scandal the hearing of public morality has the functions of a ritual: By allowing every celebrity to say anything they want about the scandal, everyone is symbolically involved in the discourse. At the height of the scandal, public morality seems to have been sufficiently discussed that the legion of interpreters of the media scandal have grown weary of it. Few patterns can be discerned in the selection of representatives of public morality. Apart from other celebrities who have already been scandalized and thus belong to the circle of prominent veterans of media scandals, and prominent colleagues of the scandalized, the selection of celebrities appears arbitrary. But this apparent arbitrariness conceals the function of the staging of public morals in the media scandal: it seemingly (and sometimes apparently) follows the voice of the people.

74

2.3

S. Burkhardt

Moral Collectives of Privacy

In contrast to the representation of public morality, the representation of private morality in media scandals deals with the qualification of the private environment of the scandalized person. Thus, this narrative mechanism does not function as the publication of arbitrary private morals within the social system, but as the moral contextualization of the scandalized person. Accordingly, the central questions concerning the representation of private morality in the media scandal are: how does the private environment of the scandalized person evaluate his or her moral ideas? Is the scandalized person’s morally supposedly abnormal behavior an isolated case? Or is his environment also amorally contaminated? In addition, there are positions from the population: normal people on the street are also asked for the people’s vote in order to suggest balanced, i.e. non-arbitrary reporting.

2.4

Moral Collectives of Justice

Just as religious rules are manifestations of religious morality, legal texts can be understood as technical dispositives of legal morality. Legal morality is the product of an ethical discourse, which is, however, always located in the context of social morality. Therefore, the media scandal is not about the representation of legal ethics, but about the representation of justice. In media scandals, the representation of legal morality does not take place through professional legal interpretation, but through so-called expert statements that translate, comment on, and interpret legal findings for laypersons. The representatives of legal morality incorporate their own opinions into their statements, which are suitable for the media, and in this way more complex relationships are extrapolated from quickly recounted legal facts in the reporting, which lend additional moments of tension to a media scandal. In almost all media scandals, legal experts are consulted to give a qualification of the key events. Frequently, the lawyers of the scandalized assume an important spokesperson position in the scandal and try to influence the further course of the scandal favorably for their clients through their (more or less successful) crisis communication.

Scandals and Morals

2.5

75

Moral Collectives of Politics

Another field of action of society involved in media scandal is politics, which is the decision-making system of society and has the task of transmitting social morality to the legal system. Therefore, politics forms one of the most important subject pools of media scandals. Major media scandals are characterized by a strong representation of the political system in news coverage. Media scandals such as Watergate, which are present in the collective memory as scandals par excellence, deal almost exclusively with the political system, while scandals of lesser scope can hardly make explicit references to politics (which does not mean that they are therefore apolitical).

3

Scandals and the Blind Spots of Moral Collectives

Journalism, as a self-observation and self-description system of society, fulfils with the politicisation mechanisms above all an identification and indication function for conflict potential, i.e. to identify possible political fields of conflict and to narratively point them out to the social system. The systematization of events, actions, and conditions in society underlying a media scandal occurs through the personification of the moral binarization of the unity of the difference good/evil. Already at the beginning of the book section on The Mechanisms of Media Scandal (Burkhardt 2015: 165 ff.), I outlined how purposefully George W. Bush’s PR strategists have been using systematization strategies since 9/11 in a textbook fashion in order to realize the reduction of narrative complexity to a level of understanding appropriate to his constituents. But how exactly does this mechanism work? The media scandal is so successful precisely because it explains world events through journalistic systematization as a simple plot structure that follows the pattern of good and evil. Social systems need media scandals because the members of the social system receive information central to social communication through the scandalization in relatively simple stories (especially in the popular media). Media scandals are therefore elementary stories of the social system. Scandals as elementary narratives make use of the personification of the social guiding code by sharpening the complexity of the narrative to a binary of good and evil. This systematization strategy attributes evil to the scandalized by symbolically attributing it to the system environment and its code as a substitute code for the non-code of the social system. Conversely, the hero of the media scandal is systematized by attributing the leading code of a social system. Through this

76

S. Burkhardt

symbolic binarization of the actants, the blind spots of morality remain hidden and the media scandal unfolds its social function of actualizing the code of preference. In this sense, scandals are fairy tales for adults. This is not to say that media scandals are invented, but only to say that media scandals, like fairy tales, are moral stories for the members of the social system, which are easy to understand and actualize the guiding code of morality, values and norms in society. In this context, the elementary order of qualification of social relations is the difference of the unity of good and evil (cf. Schmidt 2003: 17). Similar to house fairy tales, the members of social systems experience what is evil in stories such as the scandals Watergate (abuse of power and cover-up, 1972–1974), Barschel (intrigues and damage to reputation 1987–1988) or Brent Spar (environmental pollution 1995). But to reduce the performance of media scandals to this visible narrative level of fairytale morality would mean ignoring the hidden mechanisms of the personification of the guiding code, which functions much more subtly than the “axis of evil”. The personnel structure of the media scandal works with heroes and anti-heroes, to each of whom specific characteristics and behaviors are attributed through the staging of a specific habitus, which are set in difference to each other. Hero and anti-hero stand pars pro toto for social groups that have different moral codes, or to whom different moral codes are ascribed in discourse. Through the binarity of stereotyping, competing frames of reference for evaluative certainties are negotiated in the media scandal, as which moral norms can be understood, such as Christian versus Islamic moral norms, liberal versus conservative moral norms, or ecological versus economic moral norms. This discourse is only possible because, firstly, unlike ethics, morality can assert everything and does not have to prove anything, and therefore, secondly, it is allowed to concretize itself in stories whose low degree of complexity, in contrast to ethics, hides decisive causal chains in favor of the emotional effect. Morality communicates itself primarily through negative emotionality. Effectively told mediatized scandals communicate stories that operate primarily on our fears, hatred, anger, or rage. Through the emotional images of the mediatized scandal linked to a cognitively decodable story, a reflexive reference of the actants in social relations to each other is created, which is also actualized as an evaluation of the relationship between social age and social ego. The mediatized scandal thus qualifies the difference between social ego and social age with good and evil. It reminds the actors of the social system of this reflexive mechanism of distinction, which they have internalized primarily through socialization, and makes them aware, in a case study, that everyone must reckon with the fact that all their actions can be subjected to this socially binding and constitutive system of evaluation of the dominant moral collective.

Scandals and Morals

77

This permanently updated process leads to the individual development of a relatively system-conforming sense of shame: whoever violates the adopted preference code of morality is ashamed, even if he is not observed. Morality as an invisibilization of the contingency of value orientations thus functions very inconspicuously and effectively. However, when, as in the mediatized scandal, there is a publicly constructed breach of morality by a member of the system and he fails to prove his moral integrity, he is expected to publicly shame himself. Accordingly, even more important than public apology rituals is the public demonstration of humility. In the mediatized scandal, the code of the system environment is attributed to the scandalized as a substitute for the non-code of the system. Put more simply: The scandalized is assumed not to behave according to the norms of society and to represent the norms of another system. For example, homosexual acts in communist countries (e.g. Cuba) are scandalized as outgrowths of liberal capitalism or the West, and conversely, in the United States, for example, homosexuals were defamed in McCarthy-era scandals as propagandists of a communist way of life. In particular, when the preferential code of morality is violated by members of the system who are endowed with great symbolic capital, this violation or the allegation of such a violation forms a precondition for the scandalization of the actant. Donald Trump’s Twitter accounts, for example, contain many such allegations – against others. Unlike ethics, which argues why something is justified or unjustified, morality asserts that the scandalized is evil and enacts it as a symbolic personification of the code of the system environment. Even more than in the attribution of the social system’s non-code (or its substitute), in mediatized scandal the imperative that moral action involves is revealed in the attribution of the code of preference. Moral principles are the patterns of action taken for granted in a social system, which develop their normative validity from their invisibility. The moral principles that are present in the scandalized situations, processes or actions through the staging of a hero therefore function like blind spots in the execution of action and can only unfold their effect because their recipients already know the code and they merely update it. In the symbolic binarizations of ‘hero and anti-hero’ as well as ‘good and evil’, a central function of the mediatized scandal becomes apparent: the actualization of the moral preference code of its social frame of reference. The mediatized scandal negotiates social belonging and non-belonging. The blind power of morality in this process of distinction can, however, be dissolved: “Moral discourses interrupt moral action and, through reflexivity, allow structure formation in the form of conscious difference management of good and

78

S. Burkhardt

evil, but not any absolute justifications”, writes Siegfried J. Schmidt (2003: 126; translated from German) and calls for the binary of ‘good and evil’ to be reinterpreted as ‘responsible and irresponsible’ through difference management and for the justification of evaluations to be publicly demanded. In particular, the self-observation and self-description function of media journalism has the potential to redeem this demand and replace the discourse of moral collectives with an ethical discourse. Its de-escalation strategy consists in thematizing the blind spots that act in discourses as invisibilization of the contingency of value orientations. This insight is of particular interest to the networked society at a time when heads of state have made scandalizing their opponents a government strategy via Twitter. In this way, the media system can reveal what needs to be revealed: It is not the scandal that is scandalous, but the blind spots of the moral collectives that enable it at the high road.

References Allern, Sigurd/Pollack, Ester (2012): The Marketplace of Scandals. In: Allern, Sigurd/Pollack, Ester (Hrsg.): Scandalous! The Mediated Construction of Political Scandals in Four Nordic Countries. Göteborg: Nordicom, 9–28. Allern, Sigurd/Kantola, Anu/Pollack, Ester/Blach-Ørsten, Mark (2012): Increased Scandalization. Nordic Political Scandals 1980–2010. In: Allern, Sigurd/Pollack, Ester (Hrsg.): Scandalous! The Mediated Construction of Political Scandals in Four Nordic Countries. Göteborg: Nordicom, 29–50. Beckett, Charlie/Ball, James (2012): Wikileaks. News in the Networked Era. Cambridge: Polity Press. Burkhardt, Steffen (2015): Medienskandale. Zur moralischen Sprengkraft öffentlicher Diskurse. Überarbeitete 2. Aufl. Köln: Halem. Chalaby, Jean (2004): Scandal and the Rise of Investigative Reporting in France. American Behavioral Scientist, 47(9), 194–207. Downey, John/Stanyer, James (2013): Exposing politicians’ peccadilloes in comparative context: explaining the frequency of political sex scandals in eight democracies using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis. Political Communication, 30(3), 495–509. Gamson, Joshua (2016): Scandal in the Age of Sexting. In: Mandell, Hinda/Chen, Gina Masullo (Hrsg.): Scandal in a Digital Age. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 77–95. Haller, André (2013): Dissens als kommunikatives Instrument Theorie der intendierten Selbstskandalisierung in der politischen Kommunikation. Bamberg: University of Bamberg Press. Hallin, Daniel C./Mancini, Paolo (2004): Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Hondrich, Karl Otto (2002): Enthüllung und Entrüstung: Eine Phänomenologie des politischen Skandals. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp.

Scandals and Morals

79

Imhof, Kurt (2002): Medienskandale als Indikatoren sozialen Wandels. Skandalisierung in den Printmedien im 20. Jahrhundert. In: Hahn, Kornelia (Hrsg.): Öffentlichkeit und Offenbarung: Eine interdisziplinäre Mediendiskussion. Konstanz: UVK, 73–98. Joller, Stefan (2017): Skandal! Ruf ohne Imperativ? Von kommunikativen Referenzpunkten und moralischen Kollektiven. In: Burzan, Nicole und Ronald Hitzler (Hrsg.): Theoretische Einsichten. Im Kontext empirischer Arbeit. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 229–246. Kalb, Marvin (1998): The Rise of the New News. A Case Study of Two Root Causes of the Modern Scandal Coverage. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University. Kantola, Anu (2012): Warriors for Democracy. Scandal as a Strategic Ritual of Journalism. In: Allern, Sigurd/Pollack, Ester (Hrsg.): Scandalous! The Mediated Construction of Political Scandals in Four Nordic Countries. Göteborg: Nordicom, 73–85. Käsler, Dirk (Hrsg.) (1991): Der politische Skandal. Zur symbolischen und dramaturgischen Qualität von Politik. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Kepplinger, Hans Mathias (1996): Skandale und Politikverdrossenheit – ein Langzeitvergleich. In: Jarren, Otfried/Schatz, Heribert/Weßler, Hartmut (Hrsg.): Medien und politischer Prozeß. Politische Öffentlichkeit und massenmediale Politikvermittlung im Wandel. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 41–58. Kepplinger, Hans Mathias/Ehmig, Simone Christine/Hartung, Uwe (2002): Alltägliche Skandale. Eine repräsentative Analyse regionaler Fälle. Konstanz: UVK. Kumlin, Staffan/Esaiasson, Peter (2012): Scandal Fatigue? Scandal Elections and Satisfaction with Democracy in Western Europe, 1977–2007. British Journal of Political Science, 42(2), 263–282 Lindblom, Johannes (1921): Skandalon. Eine lexikalisch-exegetische Untersuchung. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell. Mandell, Hinda/Chen, Gina Masullo (2016): Introduction: Scandal in an Age of Likes, Selfies, Retweets, and Sexts. In: Mandell, Hinda/Chen, Gina Masullo (Hrsg.): Scandal in a Digital Age. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 3–14. Neckel, Sighard (1989): Das Stellhölzchen der Macht. Zur Soziologie des politischen Skandals. In: Ebbinghauen, Rold/Neckel, Sieghard (Hrsg.): Anatomie des politischen Skandals. Frankfurt a. M.: Edition Suhrkamp, 55–80. Peters, Birgit (1993): Prominenz in der Bundesrepublik. Bedingungen und Bedeutungen. Berlin: Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung, Forschungsschwerpunkt Sozialer Wandel, Institutionen und Vermittlungsprozesse, Abteilung Öffentlichkeit und soziale Bewegungen, 93–103. Schmidt, Siegfried J. (2003): Geschichten & Diskurse. Abschied vom Konstruktivismus. Reinbek: Rowohlt. Stählin, Gustav (1930): Skandalon. Die Geschichte eines biblischen Begriffs. GütersØloh: Bertelsmann. Strömbäck, Jesper (2008): Swedish election news coverage: Towards increasing mediatization. In: Strömbäck, Jesper/Kaid, Lynda Lee (Hrsg.): The Handbook of Election News Coverage around the World. New York: Routledge, 158–172. Thompson, John B. (2000): Political Scandal. Power and Visibility in the Media Age. Cambridge: Polity. Tumber, Howard/Waisbord, Silvio R. (2004): Introduction: Political Scandals and Media Across Democracies. Vol. II. In: American Behavioral Scientist, 47(9), 1143–52.

80

S. Burkhardt

Umbricht, Andrea/Esser, Frank (2016): The Push to Popularize Politics: Understanding the Audience-Friendly Packaging of Political News in Six Media Systems since the 1960s. Journalism Studies, 17(1), 100–121.

Convention Theory, Surveys and Moral Collectives Rainer Diaz-Bone

1

Introduction

John Dewey has influentially stated that empirical research methodology cannot be defined in advance as a form of universal scientific logic, but has to be conceived as the result of collective experience in scientific research (Dewey 1938). It is only one next step to argue that social research methods, as surveys, are embedded in social contexts and situations. The properties, qualities, correct usages and validities of methods and the outcomes of their application need to be evaluated. This evaluation can only be realized by relying on a normative basis which influences scientists and their work as moral collectives.1 In this article, the scientific movement of the so-called „économie des conventions” (English: economics of convention, in short EC) or convention theory and its perspective on surveys, quantification and knowledge production will be introduced. EC is part of the new French pragmatic social sciences which have developed since the 1980ies (Dosse 1998; Corcuff 2011). The new French pragmatic social sciences recombine the two megaparadigms in the social sciences, which are structuralism and pragmatism. After the dominance of Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology, EC reemphasizes the pragmatist orientation. Since the 1980ies EC has internationalized and has become a socioeconomic as well as sociological approach (Eymard-Duvernay 2006a, b; Favereau

1 Here, a classical position is Max Weber’s postulate of “freedom from value judgements”, which is a first value judgement and a basic norm for many modern scientists (Weber 1985).

R. Diaz-Bone (✉) Department of Sociology, University of Lucerne, Lucerne, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected] # The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 S. Joller, M. Stanisavljević (eds.), Moral Collectives, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-40147-4_6

81

82

R. Diaz-Bone

and Lazega 2002; Orléan 2004; Desrosières 2011a; Diaz-Bone 2011a, 2018; Batifoulier et al. 2016). Convention theory can be conceived as a complex pragmatist institutionalism which focusses on coordination processes in situations. Thereby, actors rely on conventions as logics of evaluation, valuation and interpretation. From a conventionalist perspective, conventions are also underlying social research methods and their applications. One of EC’s birth moments was the analysis of categories which were applied in official statistics and social surveys. Steps in the proceeding of surveys as the construction of indicators, the process of interviewing, the analysis and interpretation of data can be analyzed from an EC standpoint, thereby recognizing a plural constellation of conventions as structuring principles in the survey process. In difference to classical sociological studies of social research as Aaron Cicourel’s critique of survey research (Cicourel 1964), convention theory aims to study but not to undermine the possibility of quantification and surveys. Convention theory offers perspectives for a sociology of social research2 but also elements of a “political-economy” of quantification and categorization, which is the micropolitics of measurement and the interaction of social research with its societal contexts (Diaz-Bone 2016, 2017; Diaz-Bone and Didier 2016). In this contribution convention theory will be introduced first (Sect. 2). Then an EC perspective on measurement will be sketched (Sect. 3). Surveys as processes can be conceived as chains of situations including a complex internal division of labor and the perspective of convention theory offers a perspective to explain the different forms of surveys (Sect. 4). This contribution will end with a sketch of contemporary problems of survey research in the context of (western) societies (Sect. 5).

2

Convention Theory

Convention theory started as a socio-economic and transdisciplinary approach in the Parisian region. It cannot be defined as a paradigm (in the sense of Kuhn 1962), but should be conceived as a scientific movement with shared basic concepts, methodological strategies and collectively shared scientific engagements. One reason, not to conceive convention theory as strict paradigm is the fact that it has developed different (although related) models and was developed originally not

2

See for an early sketch Lazarsfeld (1962), Bourdieu (2004) and for a review Leahey (2008).

Convention Theory, Surveys and Moral Collectives

83

only in one field, but in parallel in many different fields (as labor markets, product markets, finance, health system, statistics, law).3 Here, the models of quality conventions and worlds of production will be introduced and applied to the topic of survey methods. One main hosting institution was the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies INSEE,4 where a group of researchers was engaged in the reform of the French occupational classificatory system, the history of statistics as a social science, the foundations of quantification (Desrosières 1998) and the practices of categorization (Boltanski and Thévenot 1983; Desrosières and Thévenot 2002; Desrosières 2011b).5 Alain Desrosières identified conventions to be the starting point for quantification. To quantify is to invent a convention and then to measure (Desrosières 2008: 10). The meaning of statistical numbers and figures is therefore (a) incomplete without the knowledge of the underlying conventions and (b) the meaning has to be related to these conventions. Alain Desrosières has argued that people are interested to get “realist” information about for example the unemployment rate, but that this statistical information is based on measurement procedures and organizational routines which are convention-based, and this way the production of statistical data has a “constructivist” start and foundation (Desrosières 2009).6 This argument points to the possibility of rearrangements of ontologies and meanings, which can be understood as dis-embedding (of numbers and categories) from the original constellation of conventions and as re-embedding into a new constellation of conventions. From the perspective of convention theory, the ontology, worth and quality of entities in situations are mobilized in processes which rely on (constellations and compromises of) conventions.7 This is the reason

3

This movement was founded in France in the 1980ies by Robert Salais, Laurent Thévenot, François Eymard-Duvernay, Olivier Favereau and André Orléan. In the last years the second generation started to establish itself in the French academic system with representatives as Christian Bessy, Emmanuelle Marchal, Guillemette de Larquier, Philippe Batifoulier, Claude Didry, Emmanuel Didier and others achieving positions as professors, directors etc. (see Favereau 2012 for a sketch of this movement in France). Nowadays, the third generation in France is finishing PhDs and habilitations. But also, in the last decade this scientific movement has become an internal approach and is fast growing especially in the German-speaking social sciences. 4 INSEE stands for „Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques” (www. insee.fr). INSEE was one of the foundational institutions of EC (Diaz-Bone et al. 2015; DiazBone 2018). 5 See also Centemeri (2012) and the contributions in Bruno et al. (2016) and in Diaz-Bone and Didier (2016). 6 This construction is transparent and known by the statisticians who have to invent a convention for measurement.

84

R. Diaz-Bone

why some conventions are regarded as “orders of justification” or as “quality conventions” (Diaz-Bone 2018).8 Convention theory has identified a set of culturally established conventions, as the industrial convention, the market convention, the domestic convention, the convention of fame, the civic convention and the convention of inspiration.9 Table 1 compares these six conventions in a systematic way.10 These (quality) conventions (which can be dominant as single conventions but are present in most situations as combinations and compromises) are cultural resources for the collective ascription of (a) value and worth and of (b) correctness and justice. The value of actions, objects, persons and processes is ascribed in processes of coordination relying on conventions.11 To answer the question whether actions, objects, persons and processes are qualified in a correct and just way, actors refer to these conventions as deeper logics not only of coordination but also of valuation and evaluation. (This way, EC keeps a structuralist element, because conventions can be regarded as principles structuring social processes). It is important to highlight the assumption of convention theorists that conventions as collective logics of coordination are addressing a common good. This way, convention theory conceives morality and normativity not as a philosophical exercise but as a necessary and everyday practice of actors in situations. What is right or wrong is to be judged by ordinary actors on the basis of conventions. And this judgement has to be applied not only to “moral issues”, problems or critical situations but also to everyday and “normal” topics. Adequacy, appropriateness, suitability (“justesse”) as well as justice (“justice”) are to be evaluated by actors in situations. It is important to highlight the EC’s perspective In French the word “qualifier” means to identify, to train, to classify and to ascribe value. Here, the difference between conventions without semantic content and internal semantic organization on one side and conventions with semantic content and internal semantic organization on the other side is implicitly addressed (see for a discussion Diaz-Bone 2016). 9 The conceptual network and methodological strategies of convention theory were developed in the main works of convention theory (Salais and Thévenot 1986; Storper and Salais 1997; Boltanski and Thévenot 2006; Eymard-Duvernay 2006a, 2006b; Boltanski and Chiapello 2007; Diaz-Bone and Salais 2011, 2012; Diaz-Bone et al. 2015; Orléan 2014) and are systematically presented in Diaz-Bone et al. (2015) and Batifoulier et al. (2016). 10 Later, two other conventions were identified: the green convention (see contribution in Lamont and Thévenot eds. 2000) and the network convention (Boltanski and Chiapello 2007). Also, the regional convention was discussed as a new form of convention (DiazBone et al. 2015). 11 “Value” is not seen as a given property but as the result of processes of valuation. Here, convention theory follows the theory of valuation developed by John Dewey (1939). 7 8

Exchange Instable, depending on demand

Functional link

Produced for mass consumption, scientifically controlled Professional competency, expertise Desire, purchase

Monetary

Market Price

Numerical measures, certificates

Industrial Productivity, efficiency

Source: Extract from Diaz-Bone (2017: 250)

Human qualification

Cognitive format of relevant information Elementary relation Product quality

Mode of evaluation

Table 1 Comparison of quality conventions

Prestigious

Specially produced for individual customer Authority

Celebrity

Recognition

Semiotic

Opinion Renown

Trust

Oral, exemplary, anecdotal

Domestic Esteem, reputation

Ingenuity

Innovative and unique

Passion

Inspiration Grace, creativeness, non-conformity Emotional

Equality

Produced while respecting claims and rights of third parties

Solidarity

Formal, official

Civic Collective interest

Convention Theory, Surveys and Moral Collectives 85

86

R. Diaz-Bone

on different social spheres: they are not differentiated and do not perform according to a proper (single) logic. Instead, every social sphere is structured by the empirical normative order which is based on conventions. The other important model provided by EC is the model of worlds of production (Storper and Salais 1997). It also centers worlds of production around the concept of convention as a cultural pattern, rule or institution which is pragmatically invented for the purpose of coordination. Conventions resemble ‘hypotheses’ formulated by persons with respect to the relationship between their actions and the actions of those on whom they must depend to realize a goal. When interactions are reproduced again and again in similar situations, and when particular courses of action have proved successful, they become incorporated in routines and we then tend to forget their initially hypothetical character. Conventions thus become an intimate part of the history incorporated in behaviors. [. . .] The word ‘convention’ is commonly understood to suggest at one and the same time: a rule which is taken for granted and to which everybody submits without reflection, the result of an agreement (a contract), or even a founding moment (such as the Constitutional Convention). [. . .]. In practice, it is only by initially assuming the existence of a common context and by formulating expectations with respect to the actions of others that it is possible to engage in coordinated collective action: these are the dimensions of inherited, longue durée conventions, some of which take the form of formal institutions and rules. But at any given moment, the context is evaluated and re-evaluated, reinterpreted, by the individual who must choose to practice or not practice according to a given convention (Storper and Salais 1997: 16 f., original emphasize).

The model or worlds of production were invented to analyze different coherent styles of production in a branch. Like Weber’s concept of “ideal type” (Weber 1978), Storper and Salais identified four possible worlds of production as pure types of (convention-based) coordination. We call certain worlds ‘possible’ because they are types of coherent action frameworks for the basic kinds of products found in a modern industrial economy. By ideal types, we mean that they express, in theoretical terms, the pragmatic coherence sought by actors themselves (Storper and Salais 1997: 27).

As in the case of quality conventions, a world of production can be understood as a deeper logic of coordination. Also, worlds of production define a specific kind of quality. Storper and Salais identified four possible worlds of production (Table 2). These worlds are differentiated on the basis of two oppositions. (a) Specialized/ standardized products: is production based on specific expertise and technologies or is production based on widely distributed technologies? (b) Dedicated/generic

Convention Theory, Surveys and Moral Collectives

87

Table 2 Four possible worlds

Dedicated products

Generic products

Specialized products The interpersonal world Evaluation of quality: Price Forms of uncertainty: Personal qualities of other producers and consumers Response to uncertainty: Comprehension among a community of persons Basis of competition: Quality The world of intellectual resources Evaluation of quality: Scientific methods Forms of uncertainty: The path of knowledge development Response to uncertainty: Confidence in others Basis of competition: Learning

Standardized products The market world Evaluation of quality: Industrial standards by demanders Forms of uncertainty: Shifting prices and quantities Response to uncertainty: Immediate availability Basis of competition: Prices and Rapidity The industrial world Evaluation of quality: General industrial standards Forms of uncertainty: Business cycle, demand fluctuations Response to uncertainty: Short and medium term forecast of events and behavior Basis of competition: Price

Source: Storper and Salais (1997: 33)

products: is production planned and realized for specific clients and consumers or not? Each (possible) world of production offers a cognitive and collective frame for actors to evaluate ways of adequate coordination and information to interpret product qualities. The model of quality conventions and the model of worlds of production have been applied in many studies to a great variety of fields, markets or branches for products and services. Both models are linked to a methodological situationalism. In difference to the Durkheimian and Bourdieuian tradition, convention theory does not focus on groups but on processes of coordination in situations.12 These situations are the unit of analysis and the interpretative perspective is the internal position of coordinating subjects in situations (Storper and Salais 1997). These situations should not be confused with face-to-face situations in interactionist sociology. Situations are the regional, historical totality of a constellation for coordination as it is perceived as relevant for coordinating actors (Diaz-Bone

12

Durkheim has related morality and rule to the existence of organized social groups such as professional groups (Durkheim 1950) and Bourdieu has related morality (ethics) to the concept of habitus (Bourdieu 1984).

88

R. Diaz-Bone

2018). The methodological situationalism is combined with a refusal of different levels and their implicit different ontologies (Thévenot 2001). Instead of applying a multilevel model, convention theory relies on the assumption of forms of situational coordination with different forms of (spatial and temporal) scope (Diaz-Bone 2018). Convention theory conceives situations as „equipped” with objects, cognitive forms and actors.13 Also, actors are regarded as capable to judge the appropriateness of conventions in situations and as capable to handle and to apply these conventions (Boltanski and Thévenot 2006). Routinely, actors just apply conventions but in situations of crises or critique, actors are able to refer to conventions as cultural frames for justification (Boltanski and Thévenot 2006). It is important to consider convention theory’s assumption that there is a plurality of conventions and worlds of production which are virtually present in situations as principles and logics of coordination. Although one or two worlds of production or quality conventions could be dominant in situations, every social sphere is structured by the empirical pluralism of conventions or worlds of production as possible ways of evaluation, valuation and interpretation (Storper and Salais 1997; Boltanski and Thévenot 2006).14 Actors mobilize some of them to form a stable compromise of conventions or worlds of production, but sometimes tensions and critique arise. Then, actors have to justify their actions and evaluations and to face tests, which proof the adequacy of conventions but also of qualities and worth of objects, actions, processes and actors. The consequence is that conventions are the basis for coordination in situations and they are also the context for everyday morality. From EC’s perspective it is not groups, individuals or societies, which are moral collectivities. Instead, in situations social processes of coordination are mobilized as moral collectives.15

Convention theory has introduced the notion of “investment in forms”, which grasps the necessity of a collective implementation of forms which frame the relevant information for coordination (Thévenot 1984). Cognitive forms and objects are dispositives to enhance the spatial and temporal stability and scope of coordination. 14 This pluralism is coined by the awareness of actors that there are possible other conventions as possible logics of coordination virtually present, even if they are not actualized (Boltanski and Thévenot 2006; Diaz-Bone et al. 2015). 15 Here, convention theory shows its similarity to actor-network-theory (which shares the methodological situationalism with convention theory). 13

Convention Theory, Surveys and Moral Collectives

3

89

Measurement and Moral Collectives

Still, surveys are the most important method of data collection in the social sciences. Remarkably, there is no substantial sociological theory of measurement for social phenomena. Instead, there is a measurement theory which is a theory of measurement errors and this measurement theory assumes the existence of “true scores” (Hansen et al. 1951).16 Both approaches apply the true score concept and study measurement error as deviation from the true score. Neither one analyzes the generation of measurements as social processes i.e. as co-constructions. Instead, convention theory offers an alternative perspective on measurements by seeing measurement processes (not only in the context of surveys) as convention-based social processes.17 Measurement has to rely on definitions (of concepts), correspondence rules (relating indicators and concepts), strategies of operationalization, on categories, classifications, scales and the metric system, on instruments, skills and scientific trainings.18 Measurement is mediated and organized by objects and theories. All these elements and practices can be regarded as being structured or influenced by conventions (Diaz-Bone 2016, 2017; see also the contributions in Diaz-Bone and Didier 2016). This measurement mobilizes of course empirical elements but it is in itself an empirical setting. The conclusion is that measurements do not reveal “true scores” but generate representations as co-constructions of a mobilized network. There is no pre-given “true score”, “waiting out there” for measurement. (This is still a metaphysical assumption in classical measurement theory, but classical measurement theory does not offer a substantial foundation for this assumption). Instead, there is a social reality which is mobilized in measure-

16 There are some approaches which conceptualize or analyze measurement error in the context of survey research. The total survey error approach (Weisberg 2005; Biemer et al. 2017) systematizes sources of errors in the course of survey processes. The cognitive approach in survey methodology (Tourangeau et al. 2000) focuses on cognitive processes in the course of interviewing respectively completing the questionnaire. 17 This was the starting point of a research project „Die Entstehung methodischer Probleme aus Koordinationssituationen in Surveys” (The emergence of methodological problems out of coordination situations in surveys) which was affiliated between 2014 and 2018 at the University of Lucerne and funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. 18 See for a modern position of philosophy of science (also discussing the problems of measurement) the introduction of Hacking (1983); see for a recent introduction into measurement theory for the social sciences Boumans (2015).

90

R. Diaz-Bone

ment processes and which contributes to measurement processes.19 Different ways to mobilize measurement processes result in different ways of co-constructing “scores” or “categorizations”. Seen this way, measurements result in representations not of true scores but of co-constructions, which are constrained by empirical reality, interact with reality, respond to reality, but which are – after all – an empirical process itself. This is the reason, why the outcome of measurements is not arbitrary, because these processes are empirically embedded in constellations of conventions as normative contexts and measurement processes mobilize moral collectives. In fact, this view was prepared by the pragmatists Charles Sanders Peirce and John Dewey who introduced the idea of a community of inquiry as the social context (for the acceptance) of measurements. The validity of measurement (i.e. its “truth”) is related to the acceptance of the adequacy of measurement processes and its results by a community of scientists (Peirce 1877; Dewey 1938).20 The neopragmatist Hilary Putnam has criticized the distinction between facts and values, arguing, that the fact/value dichotomy is one of the most important obstacles to contemporary empirical sciences. This dichotomy which refers back the position which is ascribed to David Hume (Hume 1978) “that one cannot infer an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’” (Putnam 2002: 14). Instead Putnam argues that sciences need standards as rules to judge what are “just”, “correct”, “proper”, “sufficient” practices when reporting facts, proceeding measurements or working out descriptions. For Putnam criteria as simplicity, coherence and others are “epistemic values”, needed for any empirical science, which cannot be “banned” as “subjective” and not “objective” in character (Putnam 2002: 31). Also facts, as result of measurement (“data”), are in need to be embedded into a context of relevant values. Putnam has pointed to the holistic interdependence of fact, theories and values: “(1) Knowledge of facts presupposes knowledge of theories. (2) Knowledge of theories presupposes knowledge of facts. (3) Knowledge of facts presupposes knowledge of values. (4) Knowledge of values presupposes knowledge of facts” (Putnam 1992: 23). Considerations concerning measurement theory are related to metric, ordinal and nominal scales. In most cases measurement is exemplified with metric representations. But in the social sciences classifications are important results of 19

This view on measurement is close to the one developed by Gaston Bachelard. Bachelard called this co-construction “phenomeno-technique”, i.e. the generation of empirical phenomena in the process of measurement (Bachelard 2002; Tiles 1984: 37 f.). 20 From a pragmatist point of view, the acceptance of measurement can be conceived as the “fixation of beliefs” i.e. to convene, which is the semantical root of the word “convention” (Salais 1989).

Convention Theory, Surveys and Moral Collectives

91

measurement. Classifications usually result in nominal scales and are in many cases based on interpretative processes of measurement without the application of scientific instruments. Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot exercised some “games” in the context of INSEE and they engaged actors in classifying persons into socioprofessional categories (Boltanski and Thévenot 1983).21 But Boltanski and Thévenot managed the actors to have insufficient information about the person to classify, so that quarrels between the classifying actors were expected to occur. An illustration is the following excerpt from a dispute between two actors: Martine and Renée – are disputing if the two professions “chambermaid” and “female factory worker” could be merged into one category. Martine: ‘I don’t agree . . . Chambermaid and female factory worker . . . It’s not the same background, it’s not the same way of life.’ Renée: ‘All right, but in the end it doesn’t make much difference.’ Martine: ‚I dunno . . . I’m trying to follow you . . . All the same, they’re two different life-styles, the factory girl gets dirty, she works much harder than a chambermaid working in someone’s house.’ Renée: ‘A domestic servant doesn’t sit around all day. I think they can go together.’ Martine: ‚I think it’s not the same sort of life at all. Working in a factory and working as somebody’s cleaning lady or chambermaid isn’t the same sort of thing at all. Now we put chambermaid with cleaning lady.’ Renée: ‘What they have in common, is neither of them needs any qualifications, that’s an important factor, after all’ (Boltanski and Thévenot 1983: 655; original emphasize).

The dispute revealed the implicitly applied conventions underlying the construction of categories, which had to be made explicit in the course of critique and justification. Thereby, the actors had to refer to conventions as deeper socio-cultural resources for the handling of categories. Also, the dispute demonstrated how actors learn to achieve consensus in the handling of categories. Desrosières and Thévenot have shown that social classifications which have been established in societies as cognitive infrastructures (as the socio-professional categories) not only relate to different dimensions (and are therefore complex in architecture) but are the result of „representational work” (Desrosières and Thévenot 1979) which social groups invest in the establishment of their category as a recognized social identity. Luc Boltanski studied the emergence of the category of the “cadres” in France, a group which did not exist in the first half of the twentieth century and is nowadays the biggest statistical group with many subgroups (Boltanski 1987). Boltanski

21

See for international applications of this methodological approach Penissat et al. (2016).

92

R. Diaz-Bone

discovered the historical process in which a group between the working class and the bourgeois was forged. Different organizations and actors were interested in the existence of such a new group (e.g. to change the fixed political landscape in France and to reduce class conflict) and invested in the mobilization of a new social identity. At the beginning, core identity was represented by engineers but step by step the identity was enlarged but finally, the new category was socially established and taken over by the official statistical bureau in France (the precursor of INSEE). Together with the fundamental social theory of Pierre Bourdieu (1984), convention theorists demonstrated the social link between statistical categories as social representations and the social reputation and worth of corresponding social groups. In difference to Durkheim, Bourdieu and convention theorists analyzed the process of the invention of these categories as a form of social micro-politics which not only supported the forming and representation of groups, but enabled also the value and worth of professions and persons. Statistical categories in France have become mass-mediated signs and signals for life style groups.22 Measurement, in this case proceeded by official statistics, is embedded this way in political, moral and esthetical engagements (and struggles) and exerts political, moral and esthetical influence.23 This later aspect is theorized under the notion of “performativity” (Diaz-Bone 2011b). In a similar vein, Mike Savage has studied the long-term impact of survey research in Britain. He discovered the influence of scientific categories which became social representations in the British society (Savage 2010). In sum, practices of measurement are embedded in (scientific) communities as normative communities, but measurement also performs social collectives.

4

Division of Labor, Surveys as Linked Situations and the Differentiation of the Survey Field

It was Paul F. Lazarsfeld who early pointed to the increasing division of labor in empirical social research in the post war period in the USA (Lazarsfeld 1962). It is especially this property of modern science, which makes measurement a social process. Standardization, professionalization and regular statistics as well as

22

It was Bourdieu (1984) who developed a general sociological theory which was able to analyze the close relation between one’s position in the social space, habitus, practices of categorization (which he called “distinction”), ethics and esthetics. 23 See also the classical study of Bowker and Star (1999) on the social consequences of categorization.

Convention Theory, Surveys and Moral Collectives

93

commercial demand for surveys promote the increase of division of labor in empirical social research. Also, there are contradictory trends in the field of survey research. Surveys are becoming more and more complex (for example because of different so-called survey modes) and high response rates are much more difficult to realize nowadays. Increasing complexities and difficulties are additional reasons for more specialized services in the fields of survey production and again for an increase in the division of labor. Survey management has to invent strategies to implement a coherent survey process and survey processes have to be conceived as a series of linked situations or as chain of situations. But along the chain of situations in surveys there are different constellations of conventions and communities prevailing. The situation of planning surveys is dominated by the industrial convention and the convention of inspiration, because scientific standards and creativity are needed to work out the questionnaire and to plan the whole process. In the situation of interviewing the industrial convention and the domestic convention are important, because the (contradictory) principles of standardization of conducting the interview and the recognition of an individual and familiar personal situation have to be balanced. In the situation of presenting and applying the results not only the industrial convention but also the market convention or the civic convention are influential, because the interpretation of survey results and the conclusions drawn depend on interests (of markets, public institutions and social movements). Also in different situations along the chain a different constellation of instruments and actors is present. Desrosières and Thévenot (1979, 2002); Desrosières et al. (1983) have invented the notion of the “statistical chain” to describe the cooperation between different actors in linked situations. They studied an INSEE-survey gathering data on professions. Here (a) persons had to interpret the question wording in a questionnaire and to apply it to their professional situation. Then (b) coders at INSEE had to code the information in the questionnaire and to identify the vocational category and here sometimes they developed strategies of coding which were not anticipated by the developers of the classification of professions. The next group were (c) representatives of the professional group, who were engaged in the definition and implementation of this category (as demonstrated by Boltanski 1987, see above) and finally there are the (d) developers of the classification, who were obliged to represent with their work the whole system of professions, not only single groups (see Desrosières et al. 1983: 54). Desrosières and Thévenot intended to demonstrate how the handling of statistical categories varied in different situations by these different actors. If surveys are regarded as processes organized in a series of linked situations, then convention theory’s question is how the measurement as representation of this process can be conceived as a result out of a quality chain, in which transformations of qualities are

94

R. Diaz-Bone

possible because of change in the prevailing constellation of conventions along the chain of linked situations.24 Tensions and contradictions in survey quality could be one incoherent consequence. The meaning of the measurement would be invalidated. The model of worlds of production can be applied to study surveys in a different way. Surveys are coordinated following different models of worlds of production as “blue print”. At first glance one could have the idea that surveys should be processed relying only on the world of intellectual resources. Scientific methods are applied by specialists for a general public of scientists and educated citizens. This is the case for most scientific research projects applying a unique survey. But there are also scientific survey programs which use trend designs for repeated surveys which collect data for a general scientific public.25 These surveys have to be standardized and realized in the same way so that the resulting data are comparable over time. The main purpose (seen from the user’s perspective) is to provide standardized survey data as quantitative information. These surveys are coordinated by main reference to the industrial world. In market research, many companies offer surveys as services and survey data as products to their clients – which are usually also companies, but in some cases also research institutes or national statistical institutes (like INSEE). Here, surveys are dedicated products as specialized surveys for individual clients and their private interests. The dominant logic of coordination is therefore the interpersonal world. These market research companies offer flexible and individual service, combined with counselling and advice. Also, market research companies offer standardized surveys for an international demand. The dominant logic of coordination is the market world. These market research companies are big players in this branch and they offer their surveys as (nationally and internationally) comparable products. To conclude, the model of worlds of production does not focus on the internal chains of single surveys (as the model of quality convention does) but on the different ways surveys as services and surveys as products are realized.

24 For a discussion of the notion of quality chain see Diaz-Bone et al. (2015). Convention theorists also apply the similar notion of (global) value chain to analyze the production of goods as coffee (see Daviron and Ponte 2005). 25 The European Social Survey (ESS) and the General Social Survey (GSS) are the most important international trend designs in sociology.

Convention Theory, Surveys and Moral Collectives

5

95

Saturation, Survey Climate and Big Data

Nowadays, new technologies, the Internet and the phenomenon of „big data” contribute to an increasing degree of labor division in processes of measurement in detail and in social research in general. What is at stake here is the increasing complexity of engaged conventions and moral communities. Also, measurement processes are more and more evaluated in public and by other actors outside the field of science as politicians, social movements, traders and entrepreneurs and many others. Another modern phenomenon is the saturation of (western) societies with surveys. This phenomenon is the result of the huge spread of social sciences in (western) societies, many institutes, enterprises, public administrations and statistical institutions are using surveys to gather data for their purposes. Therefore, the number of surveys has increased massively, surveys have become part of everyday experience especially for internet users. Ordinary actors nowadays are accustomed to surveys for any kind of topic and they are “trained” in filling out questionnaires efficiently or because of an upcoming feeling of being “oversurveyed”, they are more reluctant to participate in surveys. The diagnosis is simply that societies are saturated with surveys and this saturation causes negative rebounds. More and more persons refuse to participate at all. The consequence is that today nonresponse has become the most serious problem in survey methodology (Dillman et al. 2014). Don Dillman has made scholars in this field aware of the general problem of declining valuations of surveys. His theoretical and methodological response has been to introduce social exchange theory as a new approach to survey methodology. If respondents are asked to participate in a survey, this participation must be recognized by respondents as trustworthy, valuable and rewarding (Dillman et al. 2014). Seen this way, the participation in a survey needs to be conceived (by survey methodologists) as the mobilization of a collective, which shares the same view of this project as worthy and valuable. Applying this frame of social exchange theory, a survey project can be interpreted as the temporary mobilization of a moral collective, which supports a common good. But to mobilize this moral collective a lot of credibility and effort is needed. To achieve this effect successfully has been an exception. Instead, surveys have been criticized in mass media because of problems to make valid prognoses.26 And public opinion has become critical towards the precision, legitimacy and use of surveys. Nowadays, surveys are

26

This has been the case for the US elections in 2016 or the outcome of the so-called „Brexit”-decision also in 2016. In both cases, the majority on forecasts, based on opinion polls, were wrong (The Economist 2016, 2017).

96

R. Diaz-Bone

accused to be an instrument for marketing and for manipulating public opinion (by abusively launching surveys on sensible issues, thereby implementing tendentious question wordings).27 Alain Desrosières has identified moments of resistance against social science research. Citizens reacted in public situations against scientific observation and positioned themselves in a hostile way against measurement processes, arguing that these measurements are used as governmental and managerial dispositives, which were applied to control citizens. Desrosières named this critical reaction as “retroaction” (Desrosières 2015). All these phenomena point to “moral problems” related to the proceeding of surveys in times of survey-saturation and of public critique and resistance against social surveys. In fact, surveys are more and more questioned and this way problematized in public. One could conceptualize this new public awareness for surveys as social “survey climate”. This climate has changed for some years and some aspects are important. First, skepticism against scientific surveys, their adequacy and their objectivity has grown. Second, there has never been an era in which the demand for survey results has been bigger as nowadays. The saturation of societies with surveys is driven by mass media’s and market research’s demand for everyday “news”, which have become more and more news in the format of social data. These two aspects are contradictory in an interesting way, because undermining the expertise of science and the correctness of survey data on one side and the growing demand for social representation in the format of social survey data on the other side undermines the public as critical instance itself, which is losing its function as a sphere for moral debate and reflection. If statistical data as the modern cognitive form of the public sphere and mass media is questioned by these social institutions themselves, they initiate a process of self-intoxication.28 But it is another phenomenon, which is massively questioning survey research and the public sphere. This is the so-called “big data” phenomenon (MayerSchönberger and Cukier 2013).29 In the last years public discussion about the

Erwin K. Scheuch (2003) has criticized this abuse of “surveys” for marketing goals. The concept of self-intoxication as a social mechanism was introduced by André Orléan (2014) to describe mechanisms of financial markets, which released internal systemic crises. 29 Big data can be defined using one of the Vs-definition: big data is characterized by “volume” (amount of data”), “variety” (complexity of data format) and “velocity” (speed in which data is generated, 3 Vs-definition). Sometimes other defining aspects are added as variability (inconsistency of data) or veracity (trustworthiness of data, 5 Vs-definition). See for an overview Japec et al. (2015). 27 28

Convention Theory, Surveys and Moral Collectives

97

promises and perils of big data came up.30 Big companies as the Internet enterprises Google or Amazon, but also Internet providers, telephone companies, insurances, credit card companies or supermarket chains and others collect data about ongoing economic processes (as consumer behavior). Private companies can add their own data stock by buying additional data on data markets. The economy and economics have discovered data as a new form of highly valuable economic resource (Einav and Levin 2014; Ezrachi and Stucke 2016). There is an ongoing debate about big data-analytics to marginalize survey research. The core argument is the abundance of big data and the problems linked with survey research as non-response (see for the discussion Japec et al. 2015). The weakening of the public judgement is linked to the private character of big data-analytics which is run by these private companies. The algorithms used, the results produced and the conclusions drawn are invisible for the public and the application of results (of big data-analytics) as tailored advertising and campaigning (in the course of elections), unequal prices for products, unequal conditions for insurances are difficult or impossible to be recognized by consumers (see Fourcade and Healy 2013; Diaz-Bone 2016). This kind of data-analysis can hardly be legitimized as pursuing a common good. Again, two contradictory aspects occur. On one side, step by step, production of economic knowledge becomes invisible and self-interested and therefore “demoralized”: companies can avoid public legitimations and justifications. On the other side, public moralization is increasing, worrying about big data as a threat to public deliberation, democracy and freedom of consumer choice (see for example Hofstetter 2014; O’Neil 2016). This new constellation of private data analysis, which is becoming more and more influential, is described by Alain Desrosières (2011b, 2014) as linked to the neoliberal political economy, in which governance relies on indicators (benchmarking, rankings, open method of coordination etc.).31 Data is regarded as one of the most important resources not only for the economy, but also for governance. More than ever before, neoliberal political economy therefore became a political economy of quantification and categorization. The neoliberal menace is to cut the “moral link” – built out of transparent norms, shared values and the pursuing of a common good – between social research and its collectives.

30

But in fact, the analysis of huge amounts and complex sets of data is being done since decades (and is named “data mining”). For some years now the public awareness of “big data” has emerged (as documented in newspaper articles and series on digitalization). 31 See also the contributions in Diaz-Bone and Didier (eds.) (2016). For an analysis of neoliberalism see Davies (2014).

98

R. Diaz-Bone

References Bachelard, Gaston (2002): The formation of the scientific mind. A contribution to a psychoanalysis of objective knowledge. Manchester: Clinamen Press. Batifoulier, Philippe/Bessis, Franck/Ghirardello, Ariane/Larquier, Guillemette de/Remillion, Delphine (eds.) (2016): Dictionnaire des conventions. Autour des travaux d’Olivier Favereau. Villeneuve-d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion. Biemer, Paul P./de Leeuw, Edith/Eckman, Stephanie/Edwards, Brad/Kreuter, Frauke/Lyberg, Lars E. /Tucker, N. Clyde/West, Brady T. (eds.) (2017): Total survey error in practice. New York: Wiley. Boltanski, Luc (1987): The making of a class. Cadres in French society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Boltanski, Luc/Chiapello, Eve (2007): the new spirit of capitalism. London: Verso. Boltanski, Luc/Thévenot, Laurent (1983): Finding one’s way in social space. A study based on games. Social Science Information, 22(4/5), 631–680. Boltanski, Luc/Thévenot, Laurent (2006): On justification. Economies of worth. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Boumans, Marcel (2015): Science outside the laboratory. Measurement in field science and economics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bourdieu, Pierre (1984): Distinction. A social critique of the judgement of taste. Milton Park: Routledge. Bourdieu, Pierre (2004): Science of science and reflexivity. London: Polity Press. Bowker, Geoffrey/Star, Susan L. (1999): Sorting things out. Classification and its consequences. Cambridge: MIT Press. Bruno, Isabelle/Jany-Catrice, Florence/Touchelay, Béatrice (eds.) (2016): The social science of quantification. From politics of large numbers to target-driven policies. Heidelberg: Springer. Centemeri, Laura (2012): The contribution of the sociology of quantification to a discussion of objectivity in economics. In: Castro Caldas, José/Neves, Vítor (eds.): Facts, values and objectivity in economics. London: Routledge, 110–125. Cicourel, Aaron (1964): Method and measurement in sociology. New York: Free Press. Corcuff, Philippe (2011): Les nouvelles sociologies. 3rd ed. Paris: Armand Collin. Davies, William (2014): The limits of neoliberalism. Authority, sovereignty, and the logic of competition. London: Sage. Daviron, Benoit/Ponte, Stefano (2005): The coffee-paradox. Global markets, commodity trade and the elusive promise of development. London: Zed Books. Desrosières, Alain (1998): The politics of large numbers. A history of statistical reasoning. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Desrosières, Alain (2008): Pour une sociologie historique de la quantification. Paris: Presses des Mines. Desrosières, Alain (2009): How to be real and conventional. A discussion of the quality criteria of official statistics. Minerva, 47(3), 307–322. Desrosières, Alain (2011a): The economics of convention and statistics: The paradox of origins. Historical Social Research, 36(4), 64–81.

Convention Theory, Surveys and Moral Collectives

99

Desrosières, Alain (2011b): Words and numbers. For a sociology of the statistical argument. In: Saetnan, Ann R./Lomell, Heidi Mork/Hammer, Svein (eds.): The mutual construction of statistics and society. London: Routledge, 41–63. Desrosières, Alain (2014): Prouver et gouverner. Une analyse politique des statistiques publiques. Paris: La Découverte. Desrosières, Alain (2015): Retroaction. How indicators feed back onto quantified actors. In: Rottenburg, Richard/Merry Sally E./Park, Sung-Joan/Mugler Johanna (eds.): The world of indicators. The making of governmental knowledge through quantification. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 329–53. Desrosières, Alain/Thévenot, Laurent (1979): Les mots et les chiffres. Les nomenclatures socioprofessionnelles. Economie et statistique 110, 49–65. Desrosières, Alain/Thévenot, Laurent (2002): Les catégories socioprofessionnelles. 5th ed. Paris: La Découverte. Desrosières, Alain/Goy, Alain/Thévenot, Laurent (1983): L’identité sociale dans le travail statistique. La nouvelle nomenclature des professions et catégories socioprofessionnelles. Economie et statistique 152, 55–81. Dewey, John (1938): Logic. The theory of inquiry. New York: Holt. Dewey, John (1939): Theory of valuation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Diaz-Bone, Rainer (ed.) (2011a): Soziologie der Konventionen. Grundlagen einer pragmatischen Anthropologie. Frankfurt: Campus. Diaz-Bone, Rainer (2011b): Die Performativität der Sozialforschung – Sozialforschung als Sozio-Epistemologie. Historical Social Research, 36(1), 291–310. Diaz-Bone, Rainer (2016): Convention theory, classification and quantification. Historical Social Research, 41(2), 48–71. Diaz-Bone, Rainer (2017): Classifications, quantifications and quality conventions in markets – Perspectives of the economics of convention. Historical Social Research, 42(1), 238–262. Diaz-Bone, Rainer (2018): Die “Economie des conventions”. Grundlagen und Entwicklungen der neuen französischen Wirtschaftssoziologie. 2nd ed. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Diaz-Bone, Rainer/Salais, Robert (eds.) (2011): Conventions and institutions from a historical perspective. Historical Social Research 37(4), special issue. Diaz-Bone, Rainer/Salais, Robert (eds.) (2012): The Économie des Conventions – Transdisciplinary discussions and perspectives. Historical Social Research 37(4), focus. Diaz-Bone, Rainer/Didry, Claude/Salais, Robert (eds.) (2015): Law and conventions from a historical perspective. In: Historical Social Research 40(1), special issue. Dillman, Don/Smyth, Jolene D./Christian, Leah Melani (2014): Internet, phone, mail, and mixed-mode surveys. The tailored design method. 4th ed. New York: Wiley. Dosse, François (1998): The empire of meaning. Humanization of the social sciences. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Durkheim, Emile (1950): Leçons de sociologie, physique des moeurs et du droit. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Einav, Liran/Levin, Jonathan (2014): Economics on the age of big data. Science, 346 (6210), 715–721. Eymard-Duvernay, François (ed.) (2006a): L’économie des conventions. Méthodes et résultats. Vol. 1: Débats. Paris: La Découverte.

100

R. Diaz-Bone

Eymard-Duvernay, François (ed.) (2006b): L’économie des conventions. Méthodes et résultats. Vol. 2: Développements. Paris: La Découverte. Ezrachi, Ariel/Stucke, Maurice (2016): Virtual competition. The promise and perils of the algorithm-driven economy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Favereau, Olivier (2012): To move institutional analysis in the right direction. Olivier Favereau interviewed by Rainer Diaz-Bone. Economic Sociology. The European Electronic Newsletter, 14(1), 40–46. Favereau, Olivier/Lazega, Emmanuel (eds.) (2002): Conventions and structures in economic organization. Markets, networks and organizations. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Fourcade, Marion/Healy, Kieran (2013): Classification situations. Life-chances in the neoliberal era. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 38(8), 559–72. Hacking, Ian (1983): Representing and intervening. Introductory topics in the philosophy of natural science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hansen, Morris H./Hurwitz, William N./Marks, Eli S./Mauldin, W. Parker (1951): Response errors in surveys. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 46(254), 147–190. Hofstetter, Yvonne (2014): Denn sie wissen alles. Wie intelligente Maschinen in unser Leben eindringen und warum wir für unsere Freiheit kämpfen müssen. München: Bertelsmann. Hume, David (1978): A treatise of human nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Japec, Lilli/Kreuter, Frauke/Berg, Marcus/Biemer, Paul/Decker, Paul/Lampe, Cliff/Lane, Julia/O’Neil, Cathy/Usher, Abe (2015): Big data in survey research. AAPOR task force report. Public Opinion Quarterly, 79(4), 839–80. Kuhn, Thomas (1962): The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lamont, Michèle/Thévenot, Laurent (eds.) (2000): Rethinking comparative cultural sociology. Repertoires of evaluation in France and the United States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lazarsfeld, Paul F. (1962): The sociology of empirical social research. American Sociological Review, 27(6), 757–767. Leahey, Erin (2008): Methodological memes and mores. Toward a sociology of social research. Annual Review of Sociology 34, 33–53. Weber Max (1985): Die “Objektivität” sozialwissenschaftlicher und sozialpolitischer Erkenntnis. In: Weber, Max: Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 146–148. Mayer-Schönberger, Viktor/Cukier, Kenneth (2013): Big data. A revolution that will transform how we live, work, and think. London: John Murray Publishers. O’Neil, Cathy (2016): Weapons of math destruction. How big data increases inequality and threatens democracy. New York: Crown. Orléan, André (ed.) (2004): Analyse économique des conventions. 2nd ed. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Orléan, André (2014): The empire of value. Cambridge: MIT Press. Peirce, Charles S. (1877): The fixation of belief. Popular Science Monthly 12, 1–15. Penissat, Etienne/Brousse, Cécile/Deauvieau, Jérôme/Chevillard, Julien/Barozet, Emmanuelle/Mac-Clure, Oscar (2016): From statistical categorizations to ordinary categorizations of social space. History and legacy of an original study based on a card game. Historical Social Research, 41(2), 135–154.

Convention Theory, Surveys and Moral Collectives

101

Putnam, Hilary (1992): The permanence of William James. Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 46(3), 17–31. Putnam, Hilary (2002): The collapse of the fact/value dichotomy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Diaz-Bone, Rainer/Didier, Emmanuel (eds.) (2016): Conventions and quantification – Transdisciplinary perspectives on statistics and classifications. Historical Social Research 41(2), special issue. Salais, Robert (1989): L’analyse économique des conventions du travail. Revue économique, 40(2), 199–240. Salais, Robert/Thévenot, Laurent (eds.) (1986): Le travail. Marchés, règles, conventions. Paris: Economica. Savage, Mike (2010): Identities and social change in Britain since 1940. The politics of method. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Scheuch, Erwin K. (2003): Marketing oder Marktforschung? Anspruch und Ansprüche. Sozialwissenschaften und Berufspraxis, 26(4), 431–441. Storper, Michael/Salais, Robert (1997): Worlds of production. The action frameworks of the economy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. The Economist (2016): Who said Brexit was a surprise? In: The Economist 24th June 2016. The Economist (2017): Are British pollsters headed towards another miss? What do pollsters know? And how do they know it? In: The Economist 2nd July 2017. Thévenot, Laurent (1984): Rules and implements. Investment in forms. Social Science Information 23(1), 1–45. Thévenot, Laurent (2001): Organized complexity. Conventions of coordination and the composition of economic arrangement. European Journal of Social Theory, 4(4), 405–425. Tiles, Mary (1984): Bachelard: Science and objectivity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tourangeau, Roger/Rips, Lance J./Rasinski, Kenneth (2000): The psychology of survey response. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Weber, Max (1978): Economy and society. 2 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press. Weisberg, Herbert F. (2005): The total survey error approach. A guide to the new science of survey research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

On This Side of the Principle Solutions. Moral Responsibility of Social Science Researchers in the Context of Scientific Understanding, Field Conditions and Societal Involvement Paul Eisewicht and Ronald Hitzler

1

Introduction from the Fiction of Everyday Research Life

The 2017 Netflix series ‘Mindhunter’ follows FBI behavioral scientists Holden Ford and Bill Tench as they work with forensics professor Wendy Carr to interview imprisoned serial killers in the late 1970s to explore the motives and backgrounds of violent crimes.1 At the beginning of the ninth episode of the first season, Ford and Tench want to interview Richard Speck, who had used a knife to murder eight women in a sorority house in 1966. Urged by Carr to follow a standardized guide 1

The series is based on the groundbreaking work of John E. Douglas (who serves as the model for Holden in the series) and Robert Ressler (on whom Tench is based, as well as FBI agent Jack Crawford from the Hannibal novels/movies), who in the late 1970s/early 1980s interviewed 36 incarcerated men who had killed multiple people to explore connections between their social backgrounds and the motives behind their actions. They were advised in this by Ann Wolbert Burgess, trauma researcher at Boston College (on whom Carr is based in the series). Ressler is credited with coining, or at least popularizing, the term ‘serial killer’ and, with Douglas and Burgess, was instrumental in the development of psychological ‘profiling’. Their work resulted in a ‘Crime Classification Manual’ (Douglas et al. 1992; cf. Ressler et al. 1988). P. Eisewicht (✉) · R. Hitzler TU Dortmund University, Institute of Sociology, Dortmund, Germany e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] # The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 S. Joller, M. Stanisavljević (eds.), Moral Collectives, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-40147-4_7

103

104

P. Eisewicht and R. Hitzler

and procedure for the scientific merit of the work, Holden begins to introduce the interview: “Mr. Speck, we’re conducting interviews with people who’ve been convicted of violent crimes. We’ll be asking about family history, antededent behavior, and thought patterns surrounding the crimes. [. . .] Our goal is to publish a statistical analysis which will not include your name.” Speck makes it clear from the beginning, in his aggressively dismissive manner of speaking, that he is not prepared to be interviewed. “I’m not talking to no faggot feds” he clarifies as he’s led into the room, interrupting Holden’s introduction with “Fuck you, Hoover boys.” Speck first answers a few general questions and clarifies that he, unlike other interviewees, is not crazy, but then falls silent as Tench reads off the first questions of the guide from a sheet of paper in front of him. Holden then addresses Speck (to get him to talk) about a tattoo he claims to be wearing. Speck then talks to Holden briefly and is willing to show the tattoo, but then goes silent again as Tench continues with the description of the crime and questions about it. Holden interrupts his partner apologetically and turns to Speck again, “What gave you the right to take eight ripe cunts out of the world? Some of them looked pretty good. You ever think you were depriving the rest of us? Eight hot pieces of ass. You think that’s fair?” After a pause, Speck laughs and calls Holden crazy, but responds to the provocation and begins to tell of the crime and answer Holden’s questions. Holden’s questions seem less neutrally worded compared to Tench’s and clearly more interested in Speck in the tone of his voice (without taking sides with him). Holden also does not read off and engages in almost everyday conversation rather than formal questioning. Among other things, he ends Speck’s sentence when Speck calls a survivor a “sneaky bitch” by adding: “hid under a bed”. When Speck then elaborates on why this woman eluded him in the chaos of the crime, Holden reinforces that there was blood everywhere. Speck affirms this statement and says that is why everyone looked dead to him. Holden makes assumptions and points out Tate’s characteristics, which Speck confirms, corrects, and elaborates on, also admitting that the claim that he had only wanted to commit a robbery was a lie, since he had very much intended to kill the women. Holden’s unorthodox narrative impulse leads to significant problems as the episode progresses, with Speck complaining to the prison authorities afterwards that Holden was ‘fucking with his head’. Holden’s actions thus become the subject of an internal FBI investigation, in which the ‘sensitive’ narrative impulse is initially kept quiet. Holden’s behaviour, deemed inappropriate, also causes tension within the group of investigators. Holden justifies his behaviour to his team, “You want

On This Side of the Principle Solutions. Moral Responsibility of Social. . .

105

truffles, you gotta get in the dirt with the pigs.”2 Carr notes, that the questionnaire was worked out over a month and that Holdens behaviour jeopardizes the project. Holden’s supervisor therefor asks for clear guidelines and their adherence. He further elaborates on his disapproval: “I never want to listen to a tape where I can’t tell the difference between my agent and some incarcerated lowlife”.

2

Three Morals as a Problem of Action in the Reality of Everyday Research Life

This example is clearly a cinematic narrative about a research project, staged as an entertainment series rather than a documentary. This, of course, has implications for any attempt at analogy-building to real-world behaviors in the research field. However, what we are concerned with here does not only apply to the scenes described here, but also to very real, moral challenges of social science research (as they appear particularly pointedly in the cinematic staging in ‘Mindhunter’, but as they have also repeatedly encountered and continue to encounter us). What interests us in the context of this paper is not so much moral judgements as the object of research (i.e. the question of who, how and why develops which moral concepts and how these guide action and the evaluation of actions); it is rather the question of which moral concepts of which persons and groups of persons researchers encounter in their work and how they deal with them in their research practice. With the term ‘morality’ we refer to normative ideas that people have. Ethically reflected, different morals can be distinguished, evaluated and transformed into decision-making aids in research (cf. Hitzler 2016). As normative evaluations, moral decisions are not based on the criteria of true and untrue or right and wrong, but on those of good and bad or good and evil. They are personal attitudes and values, collectively stabilized and handed down only through individual acceptance of ‘superior legitimating instances’ in groups of various sizes (from small groups to global society). According to the tenor of social research that is decidedly free of value judgements, researchers should leave their own moral concepts at

In the German dub Carr refers directly to Holdens truffles by saying: “We don’t get the truffles by digging in the dirt with them, we get them by interviewing and doing background research” (own translation). 2

106

P. Eisewicht and R. Hitzler

home3 – or, at the latest, hand them in at the cloakroom, so to speak. This does not mean, however, that the people they meet in the course of their research do the same – and so they are inevitably confronted with their moral concepts. Researchers are confronted with moral norms firstly as scientists in the form of the respective current norms of their discipline (in the example through Carr’s objection), secondly as citizens in the form of the respective current norms of their society (in the example through the superior organisational units in the FBI) and thirdly in the encounter (qua questioning and observation) with researched persons and their normative ideas (in the example through Speck’s behavior and complaint), which can sometimes deviate greatly from the normative ideas of the researchers.

2.1

Scientific Standards

The behaviour of the FBI agent Holden described at the beginning is problematised within the series from an internal scientific point of view because it runs counter to the standardised procedure and the value-neutral, withdrawn conversational style of a ‘conventional’ interviewer (presented in the person of the advising professor Carr). Carr’s position reflects the standard interview practice of quantitative studies (of the period in which the series is set): ‘The interviewer must see himself as, in principle, an interchangeable ‘instrument’. His survey activity should meet the scientific requirement for comparability of results. The survey instruments must be comparable with each other and must not change during the course of investigations” (Erbslöh 1972: 52; translated from German). With recourse to Erwin K. Scheuch, however, Eberhard Erbslöh also explains deviating variants of neutral interviewing with regard to their functional effects. Where the “soft” interview technique is intended to reduce inhibitions through an (apparently) understanding attitude (but runs the risk of generating socially desirable answers), a “hard”, aggressive interview technique with a “rapid succession of questions (rapid-fire-like) [.] is intended to override the interviewee’s presumed defence mechanisms and also to prevent attempts at denial from the outset” (ibid.: 54; translated from German) (here there is obviously the risk of evasive answer behaviour). With the danger, above all, of harsh interviewing, “that the limit of what is ethically acceptable, apart from questions of validity, is easily crossed”

3

In approaches that are explicitly normative themselves, researchers are more likely to bring (their) morals to the table. Whether this leads to better science depends on what one thinks science should strive for.

On This Side of the Principle Solutions. Moral Responsibility of Social. . .

107

(ibid.: 55; translated), Erbslöh prefers the “neutral interviewing technique” (ibid., translated from German), which aims at ‘comparable measurement’. This credo of neutral interviewing still applies today (cf. Deppermann 2013: 26). Researchers (whether they conduct observations or interviews) should, according to the advice, remain in the role of ‘professionally distanced’ observers (cf. Brewer 2000: 59 f.; Fetterman 2009: 37; Fine 1993: 280 f., 282) and ‘understanding valuejudgement-free’ listeners (cf. Cassell 1988: 95).4 Associated with a passive listening role is that researchers do not bring their own familiarity and experiential knowledge of the research subject into the situation. Either they have no knowledge and thus inquire in a genuinely naïve and uninformed way, or they merely present this uninformedness (thus encouraging people to narrate and explicate). In the second case, researchers methodically make use of an attitude of “künstliche Dummheit” (Hitzler 1991; ‘artificial stupidity), or attempt to view or inquire about the object as alien (kind of) (cf. Hirschauer and Amann 1997; Maso 2007: 137; O’Reilly 2009: 160). In this way, researchers remain at best ‘socially acceptable incompetents’ (cf. Lofland 1971: 100 f.) or even only ‘trustworthy outsiders’ (cf. Bucerius 2013) vis-à-vis the respondents/observed, but at least they do not ‘mess up’ their data in the survey. In certain situations, however, this (a) neutral and (b) staged uninformed attitude can also obstruct insights rather than enable them,5 because it presupposes that the interviewee shares the selfless interest and higher goal of scientific knowledge and thus openly shares his or her views with the researchers. Particularly in the case of sensitive or polarizing topics, or in the case of socially undesirable behavior, a neutral stance can also be (mis)understood as a low interest or rejection of what seems important and right to the researched. Since this often also involves fundamental questions that researchers ask as initially actually uninformed, later staging themselves as uninformed incompetents, the competence (i.e. the ability and willingness – cf. Pfadenhauer 2010) is thereby demanded of the interviewees to make the researchers, as the factually incompetent, understand specific facts and

4

This also applies to many ethnographic procedures, which, typically, always problematize ‘going native’, i.e. going too close to the field and object of study (cf. Best 2012: 128; Brewer 2000: 60; Bryman 2016: 439; Jong 2013: 169), but rarely criticize too great a distance from the object (which, however, can just as plausibly lead to ‘bad’ research). This emphasis on a necessary distancing can be found prominently in the formula of “alienating one’s own culture” (Hirschauer and Amann 1997; translated). 5 The pros and cons of distance and proximity are particularly clearly negotiated in ethnography (cf. Hitzler and Eisewicht 2016: 49 ff.; Jong 2013) – perhaps because ethnographers typically claim to be ‘closer’ to social phenomena than researchers with other approaches.

108

P. Eisewicht and R. Hitzler

terminology if necessary. This often concealed and often unpayed work of the researched is far too rarely addressed (cf. Horner 2000), but may very well be a reason for failed or poor access and data. In order to obtain data or ‘good’ data at all (e.g. in the case of difficult-to-access, so-called ‘hidden populations’ cf. Adler and Adler 1987; Weisheit 1998), it is therefore helpful, at least ‘under certain circumstances’, to appear less neutral and uninformed. Hence, there are various approaches, especially in ethnography, that prefer a more clearly affirmative stance and demonstration of one’s own involvement and connoisseurship (cf. Ferrell 1998). The proposal for a lifeworld-analytic ethnography developed by Anne Honer (cf. e.g. Honer 1989, 1993, 2011 and Honer and Hitzler 2015) and continued by us, for example, advocates an observational participation6 in the field (beyond ‘mere’ observation) and the conduct of ‘conversations at eye level’ (cf. Hitzler and Eisewicht 2016: 45 ff.). Existential engagement is (for us) about getting involved in as much as possible, or allowing oneself to be involved, slipping into different roles, participating in whatever is ‘usual’ to do, and observing not only others but also oneself – while participating as well as observing. Balancing participation and observation can be a research methodological challenge, but in research practice it constantly confronts ethnographers with the decision for observation (and secure recording) or participation (which must be remembered later and which always raises the question of whether it is typical for the field and, if so, to what extent).7 In addition, the ‘conversation at eye level’ (cf. Pfadenhauer 2007) is about acquiring a certain, trained ‘connoisseurship’ and demonstrating it in the interaction in the field, if necessary, in order to be accepted at least as interested newcomers. We thus

6

Observational participation differs from participant observation (1) with regard to the intention: it is about the production of observation data and experience data, (2) with regard to the technique: participation has – in case of decision – priority over observation, (3) with regard to the data quality: it is intended to obtain an existential inner view through subjective experience instead of a distanced outer view, and (4.) with regard to data quality: the aim is to obtain an existential internal view through subjective experience, instead of a distanced external view, and 4. finally, with regard to the problem of evaluation: the interpretation of subjective experience data requires – if one wants to avoid psychologizing or even moralizing ‘lyricism of concern’ – an analysis with recourse to techniques of eidetic description and typological reflection. 7 Through their own engagement in the field (including conversations, observations and experiences), researchers sometimes learn to understand why others do not report what is happening, or why they report it differently, e.g. because they are not seen as trustworthy or because they do not have the knowledge that the ‘natives’ believe is necessary to understand what they can observe.

On This Side of the Principle Solutions. Moral Responsibility of Social. . .

109

understand these conversations not only as opportunities to gather information and validate one’s own experiential data from participation, but also significantly as opportunities to acquire further access, i.e. further opportunities to (observationally) participate in what is happening (cf. Bucerius 2013: 691). The decision between a more observing, distanced or an engaged, involved stance, as well as the decision between presenting oneself as an incompetent outsider (and naïve inquirer) or an informed peer (and interlocutor) is primarily related to the relevant normative ideas about the activity of researchers.8 These decisions can be made differently in different research projects, but they can also be made differently within a research project and from situation to situation.9 However, in view of the literature, they cannot be decided ‘just like that’. Rather, they seem to be conditioned by different “sociological knowledge cultures” (Keller and Poferl 2017; translated from German), each with different scientific normative legitimations.

2.2

Moral Characteristics of the Field

Again and again, or to be more precise: every time anew, the question arises as to how we can, want and should deal with the fact that norms and values can apply to people to whom the research interest is directed, which not only appear strange and difficult to get used to for the researcher, but which can also be highly problematised Arnulf Deppermann, among others, has pointed out that there is actually “a lack of research on the actual course of interaction in social science interviews” (Deppermann 2013: 27; translated). He is even more explicit in the following: “Recommendations for conducting interviews, for the construction of questions and interview guidelines, as well as corresponding training courses are not substantiated by empirical studies – how which form of question has an effect, which problems arise in the situated implementation of a question agenda, how and with which consequences interviewers give feedback in which form and at which points, has so far been discussed almost exclusively on an intuitive basis and by recourse to field anecdotes and practitioners’ knowledge”. (ibid.: 28, translated). Decisions for one or another form of questioning and for a certain appearance are therefore to a certain extent also ‘questions of faith’. 9 The works of Kathleen Blee (2000) and Simi and Futrell (2010) are a good example of this, as both deal with radical right-wing groups from an ethnographic perspective. While Blee has no sympathy for her interviewees and, out of sincerity, also hints at them to hold contrary opinions (or strives for a neutral stance; cf. Blee 2000: 99), Simi, contrary to his personal attitude, behaves much more affirmatively (cf. Simi and Futrell 2010: 129), e.g. by laughing at racist jokes, agreeing with statements on the racial genocide of whites and presenting himself in principle as recruitable ‘for the cause’. 8

110

P. Eisewicht and R. Hitzler

in society or even illegalised in law (cf. Eisewicht 2015; Eisewicht et al. 2015). In principle, it is demanded, also from us, to respect the valid moral standards even (and perhaps even precisely) where they are in conflict not only with competing but also with the researcher’s own values. Adapting to the social ‘rules of the road’ and the morals or moralisms of the field, or at least coming closer to them, thus implies giving up or at least temporarily suspending one’s own self-evident standards. However, how far this acceptance, of those that are personally difficult to accept, can go is again a question of one’s own moral capacity to accept other morals (as “extra-methodological” requirements of fieldwork cf. Schmid and Eisewicht 2022). This ability to tolerate is not least connected to the form in which one is (methodically) confronted with the ‘other’ morality of the counterpart. Comparatively speaking, ‘other’ morality appears to be relatively easy to handle when it can be reconstructed from documents, e.g. when court proceedings on damage to property by graffiti writers are examined (cf. Jeremias 2010; Neubacher 2006). Corresponding information is typically more problematic when it is revealed in surveys, interviews and conversations. Robert S. Weiss (1994: 132), for example, describes how, in the context of an interview study, an HIV-positive interviewee reported that and how she had wanted to infect other men with HIV through unprotected sexual intercourse in order to take revenge for abuse she had suffered.10 The question of morality becomes even more acute when researchers are not only told about intentions and deeds, but when they witness them themselves. James Inciardi et al. (1993: 151 ff.) report in the context of their study of crack cocaineusing women that they met so-called “house girls” (ibid.: 154) in crack houses. This involved, among other things, an underage girl who was supplied with as much crack cocaine as she wanted by the owner of the house, and who in return made herself available to the crack customers for sexual services as often and in as many ways as they wanted. Finally, the question of moral responsibility becomes even more virulent or ‘sensitive’ when researchers themselves participate in or independently perform problematic acts. In the course of his work, Jeff Ferrell (1998) accompanied graffiti writers in illegalized actions and fled – albeit unsuccessfully – from police persecution with them.11 Peter B. Kraska (1998), on the other hand, has 10

Weiss writes that the woman refrained from this revenge idea during a later interview and that if she had not done so, he would have intervened. However, he also reports that he did not ask people with HIV infections who told him about sharing their syringe equipment (for injecting intoxicants) with other people to refrain from doing so. 11 Ferrell represents a perspective of radical engagement in and deep ‘immersion’ in the field (with everything that goes with it), also explicitly in the context of illegalized acts. In his

On This Side of the Principle Solutions. Moral Responsibility of Social. . .

111

taken part in illegalized weapons training as part of his work (and describes his personal dilemma of feeling fun while doing so; for explicit disgust towards his research subjects, see Hamm 1993). This outline shows that researchers are confronted with potentially challenging topics in many ways and that the challenges can be differentiated according to the degree of the researchers’ own involvement in their respective ‘field’. What is consistently emphasised in the relevant work is that what is perceived as morally challenging depends precisely to a significant extent on the moral beliefs of the researcher and that how this challenge is dealt with is always negotiated on an individual basis.12 In addition to tolerating the reported, observed and experienced actions, there is also discussion about whether it is advisable, required or ‘actually’ forbidden to make it clear to the research subjects that one does not accept their behaviour or even that researchers report potentially punishable behaviour to the relevant authorities. The decision between these options13 correlates highly with the researcher’s understanding of his or her role (as a scientist, a citizen, and as a person with whom other people come into contact, in whom he or she personally confides) and the relevance settings associated with this understanding of the role.14 Just as researchers are confronted with the moral concepts of those being researched, they themselves are usually the object of (moral) observation and judgement. Especially in times of easy online research and the visibility on the internet that favours it, researchers are also questioned and observed with regard to approach of ‘criminological Verstehen’, he is thus close to the approach of ‘radicalized’ lifeworld-analytical ethnography that we both protect in this respect. 12 Further differences lie in how the researched are involved in the presentation of results and whether/how far this problematic knowledge is disclosed at all. 13 With regard to the relationship of the researcher to science, there is also the fact that research work may well entail – serious – professional reputation problems. Disapproval due to divergent views of science is neither unlikely nor without consequences. In any case, it is by no means self-evident that such work does not ruin scientific careers (cf. Ferrell and Hamm 1998a, b: 8). It is therefor ‘humanly’ understandable that, in addition to external scientific censorship, it is not uncommon for self-censorship as well. 14 If and insofar as a behaviour considered problematic from any point of view seems to be typical or significant for what is the subject of one’s own research, and if researchers are concerned with the comprehensive, meaningful description of the internal perspective of the researched, they must, according to our attitude, follow this (supposedly) field-typical behaviour – and this sometimes means that they not only participate, but that they must (want to) ‘get their hands dirty’ in participating in a way that is by no means always predictable. This is by no means an endorsement of any kind of adventurism, but ‘merely’ of the willingness to take on a role as a participant that is adequate and appropriate to the respective ‘circumstances’.

112

P. Eisewicht and R. Hitzler

their motives and norms – with the consequence that this can have a considerable influence on people’s reaction to their research. Sometimes this requires the researcher not only to engage with the people who are the subject of their research interest, but also, as Amanda M. Gengler and Matthew B. Ezzell call for ethnography to do (Gengler and Ezzell 2017: 2), to engage in “methodological impression management”: “Methodological impression management is an important and ongoing ‘step’ in the research process that can help ethnographers [and other researchers; P.E./R.H.] think through a number of potentially thorny interactional dynamics throughout their fieldwork. We encourage ethnographers to develop a strategic plan for managing their presentations of themselves and their research [...] This includes meticulously thinking through the variety of ways one might present themselves and their research projects to participants and other gatekeepers in the field, considering how these presentations of self and project may be perceived by different sets of participants at one site, and reflecting on the possible ethical [moral; note P.E./R.H.] and methodological consequences of these perceptions.” Again, there is no principled solution to this, but only decisions made in each case, including morally oriented ones, by the researcher ‘with good reasons’ and ‘in good faith’.

2.3

Societal Commitment

In view of the idiosyncratic moral concepts that can be encountered in research, the work can not only be time-consuming, psychologically and physically stressful and dangerous for researchers (up to the point that he or she is robbed; cf. Jacobs 1998). Through their participation, researchers can also become a practical, reputational and criminal danger for the field (especially because they also function as ‘state agents’, so to speak). Either way, researchers usually face a tension between their research interest (whatever it is) and the problem of how to use that knowledge (in terms of someone wanting to know, for whatever reasons and with whatever intentions). With regard to the relationship between researchers and society, the problem lies, for example, in the fact that, on the one hand, researchers have, or think they have, a duty to provide information to authorities who subsidize, finance and/or impose legal sanctions on them, while, on the other hand, they themselves can become criminal subjects. That is to say, they obtain information that they can be forced to hand over, or they come under suspicion of being criminals themselves. Rik Scarce (1994), in the course of his work on radical environmental activists, was interrogated by FBI agents, summoned to court, and arrested because he refused to divulge information about crimes that were supposed to be related to the group he

On This Side of the Principle Solutions. Moral Responsibility of Social. . .

113

was investigating. Similarly, Richard Leo (1995) was summoned to court for police interrogation as part of his work, with the aim of forcing him to reveal the sources of his findings. In both cases, the researchers placed the protection of their informants higher than that of disclosing their information. It is not uncommon for researchers to conceal sensitive or illegal activities in their reports, either to protect the field from interference or for reasons of selfprotection. In the sense of loyalty to the field and to the people in the field, this procedure of protective silence can be called ‘protective silence’. In the sense of an authoritative ‘logic’ (e.g. corresponding to the relevance of law enforcement or social work), such actions are also explicitly reported in order to guide preventive or therapeutic measures. In the sense of the ‘logic’ of authoritative authorities, such a procedure could be described as ‘proactive harm’, i.e. as wilful ‘damage’ to the field. “True Confessions” (Ferrell and Hamm 1998b), on the other hand, stand for the disclosure of relevant events in the sense of a science free of value judgements, insofar as they are relevant to research. But, as before – and precisely because social scientists are not protected by professional and legal duties of confidentiality as in the medical and legal context – there is no ‘patent solution’ here. Rather, it is a matter of what the respective researcher considers (still) morally tolerable and where or when he or she feels morally obliged (or feels compelled) to pass on ‘sensitive’ information ‘from the field’ to third parties.

3

Moral Responsibility

It is therefore necessary to reflect on the nature of the researchers’ involvement in peculiar, idiosyncratic, problematic and sometimes even illegal field activities. Whether they act primarily as ‘normal’ citizens with a certain moral consciousness, as analytically rigorous scientists, as consistently committed field participants, or as a kind of ‘super-reporter’ (who wants to investigate – not only what is going on, but also what is behind it): researchers are always inevitably situated in a complex, conflict-laden ‘Bermuda Triangle’ of scientific, field-specific and social relevance (cf. Ferrell and Hamm 1998a, 1998b: 5 ff; Eisewicht 2015; Schmid and Eisewicht 2022). Moral dilemmas may arise from these relevancies, from which no ethics committee and no obtained informed consent can protect one. In the case of Leo mentioned above, the ethics committee of his university approved the research after months of discussion, without pointing out (or more precisely, without being able to point out) that he might face imprisonment by the authorities. Field research is always existentially risky in its openness to results (and in the ignorance of the

114

P. Eisewicht and R. Hitzler

delicate answers one finds or perhaps seeks) and unpredictable in its (moral) consequences for researchers and researched (cf. Murphy and Dingwall 2007: 340 f.). Specifying in advance, also and especially in consent declarations, what one morally tolerates and what one does not, merely conceals the problem of the indispensable or unavoidable confrontation with the respective situation and its contingent dynamics. If an interview produces evidence of a threat to the well-being of the respondent or others, the investigator would still be required to assess the threat’s credibility. If the investigator believes the threat to be genuine and yet unlikely to be implemented, should action to forestall it nevertheless be taken, to be on the safe side? Issues of judgement remain, no matter what’s in the consent form: Just how credible is the threat? Is useful action to forestall it possible? What would be the cost to the respondent and to the study of any action undertaken? What are the possible costs of inaction? Problems of this sort are, fortunately, rare, but when they arise they are likely to have no easy solution. Nor does there seem to be any general method for their resolution (Weiss 1994: 133).

Balancing the ‘logic’ and morality of the field, of the scientific discipline and of the financial and legal authorities, confronts researchers with questions that are sometimes decisive for the outcome when dealing with the relationship and trust work vis-à-vis the researched and the necessary description and interpretation of epistemologically relevant events. In this context, the morals outlined here cannot always, and in fact rarely, be brought together without contradiction. They can only be balanced or decided by the respective researchers on their own responsibility. Even when researchers are guided by abstract, i.e. religious, ideological, legal, professional or other norms and values that are available to them – whether approving or disapproving – they decide for or against these norms and values. In practice, even the decision to act with positive or negative reference to certain norms does not relieve them of the necessity of making individual concrete decisions in concrete situations, of choosing concretely between alternatives that are not pre-decided by such norms. In any case, researchers can only avoid the decision if they ignore or deny that (also) they themselves are inevitably (self-responsibly) responsible for what they do and do not do.

References Adler, Patricia A./Adler, Peter (1987): Membership Roles in Field Research. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

On This Side of the Principle Solutions. Moral Responsibility of Social. . .

115

Best, Shaun (2012): Understanding and Doing Successful Research. London: Routledge. Blee, Kathleen M. (2000): White on white: Interviewing Women in U.S. White Supremacist Groups. In: Winddance Twine, Francis/Warren, Jonathan W. (Hrsg.): Racing Research, Researching Race. New York: New York University Press, 93–109. Brewer, John D. (2000): Ethnography. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Bryman, Alan (2016): Social Research Methods. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bucerius, Sandra Meike (2013): Becoming a “Trusted Outsider”. Gender, Ethnicity, and Inequality in Ethnographic Research. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 42(6), 690–721. Cassell, Joan (1988): The Relationship of Observer to Observed when studying up. Burgess, Robert G. (Hrsg.): Studies in Qualitative Methodology. Conducting Qualitative Research. Greenwich: Jai Press, 89–108. Deppermann, Arnulf (2013): Interview als Text vs. Interview als Interaktion. In: Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung, 14(13), Art. 13. Douglas, John E./Burgess, Ann W./Burgess, Allen G./Ressler, Robert K. (1992): Crime Classification Manual. A Standard System for Investigating and Classifying Violent Crimes. Lexington: Lexington Books. Eisewicht, Paul (2015): “Follow the white rabbit” Forschungsperspektive und Zugang im Kontext von Illegalität. In: Poferl, Angelika/Reichertz, Jo (Hrsg.): Wege ins Feld. Methodologische Aspekte des Feldzugangs. Essen: Oldib, 217–233. Eisewicht, Paul/Emmling, David/Grenz, Tilo (2015): Auf feindlichem Terrain. Gewissheiten und Irritationen infolge existentieller Eingebundenheiten. In: Hitzler, Ronald/Gothe, Miriam (Hrsg.): Ethnographische Erkundungen. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 231–253. Erbslöh, Eberhard (1972): Techniken der Datensammlung 1: Das Interview. Stuttgart: B.G. Teubner. Ferrell, Jeff (1998): Criminological verstehen: Inside the Immediacy of Crime. In: ders./ Hamm, Mark S. (Hrsg.): Ethnography at the Edge. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 20–42. Ferrell, Jeff/ Hamm, Mark S. (Hrsg.) (1998a): Ethnography at the Edge. Boston: Northeastern University Press. Ferrell, Jeff/Hamm, Mark S. (1998b): True Confessions. Crime, Deviance, and Field Research. In: dies. (Hrsg.): Ethnography at the Edge. Boston: Northeastern University, 2–19. Fetterman, David M. (2009): Ethnography Step-by-Step. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Fine, Gary Alan (1993): Ten Lies of Ethnography. In: Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 22(3), 267–294. Gengler, Amanda M./Ezzell, Matthew B. (2017): Methodological Impression Management in Ethnographic Research. In: Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 2017(Online First), 1–27. Hamm, Mark S. (1993): American Skinheads: The Criminology and Control of Hate Crime. Westport: Praeger. Hirschauer, Stefan/Amann, Klaus (1997): Die Befremdung der eigenen Kultur. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Hitzler, Ronald (1991): Dummheit als Methode. In: Garz, Detlef/Kraimer, Klaus (Hrsg.): Qualitativ-empirische Sozialforschung. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 295–318.

116

P. Eisewicht and R. Hitzler

Hitzler, Ronald (2016): Eigenverantwortung? Ethische Aspekte sozialwissenschaftlicher Feldforschung. In: Soziologie, 4/2016, 441–447. Hitzler, Ronald/Eisewicht, Paul (2016): Lebensweltanalytische Ethnographie – im Anschluss an Anne Honer. Weinheim und Basel: Beltz Juventa. Honer, Anne (1989): Einige Probleme lebensweltlicher Ethnographie. Zur Methodologie und Methodik einer interpretativen Sozialforschung. In: Zeitschrift für Soziologie (ZfS), 18(4), 297–312. Honer, Anne (1993): Lebensweltliche Ethnographie. Ein explorativ-interpretativer Forschungsansatz am Beispiel von Heimwerker-Wissen. Wiesbaden: Deutscher Universitäts-Verlag. Honer, Anne (2011): Kleine Leiblichkeiten. Erkundungen in Lebenswelten. Wiesbaden: VS. Honer, Anne/Hitzler, Ronald (2015): Life-World-Analytical Ethnography. In: Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 44(5), 544–562. Horner, Bruce (2000): Critical Ethnography, Ethics, and Work. Rearticulating Labor. In: Journal of Rhetoric, Culture, & Politics, 22(3), 561–584. Inciardi, James A./Lockwood, Dorothy/Pottieger, Anne E. (1993): Women and CrackCocaine. New York: Macmillan. Jacobs, Bruce A. (1998): Researching Crack Dealers: Dilemmas and Contradictions. In: Ferrell Jeff/ Hamm, Mark S. (Hrsg.): Ethnography at the Edge. Boston: Northeastern University, 160–177. Jeremias, Xenia Valeska (2010): Jugenddelinquenz. Sozialwissenschaftliche Analyse von Graffitiverfahren in Berlin. Univ.-Verlag TU Berlin: Berlin. De Jong, Machteld/Kamsteeg, Frans/Ybema, Sierk (2013): Ethnographic Strategies for making the Familiar strange. Struggling with ‚Distance‘ and ‚Immersion‘ among Moroccan-Dutch Students. In: Journal of Business Anthropology, 2(2), 168–186. Keller, Reiner/Poferl, Angelika (2017): Soziologische Wissenskulturen zwischen individualisierter Inspiration und prozeduraler Legitimation. In: Historical Social Research, 42(4), 301–357. Kraska, Peter B. (1998): Enjoying militarism. Political/personal dilemmas in studying U.S. paramilitary units. In: Ferrell Jeff/ Hamm, Mark S. (Hrsg.): Ethnography at the Edge. Boston: Northeastern University, 88–110. Leo, Richard A. (1995): Trial and Tribulations: Courts, Ethnography, and the Need for an Evidentiary Privilege for Academic Researchers. In: American Sociologist, 26(1), 113–134. Lofland, John (1971): Analyzing Social Settings. Boston: Wadsworth. Maso, Ilja (2007): Phenomenology and Ethnography. In: Atkinson, Paul/Coffey, Amanda/ Delamont, Sara/Lofland, John/Lofland, Lyn (Hrsg.): Handbook of Ethnography. London: Sage, 136–144. Murphy, Elizabeth/Dingwall, Robert (2007): The Ethics of Ethnography. In: Atkinson, Paul/ Coffey, Amanda/Delamont, Sara/Lofland, John/Lofland, Lyn (Hrsg.): Handbook of Ethnography. London: Sage, 339–351. Neubacher, Frank (2006): An den Grenzen des Strafrechts. Stalking, Graffiti, Weisungsverstöße. In: Zeitschrift für die gesamte Strafwissenschaft, 118(4), 855–877. O’Reilly, Karen (2009): Key Concepts in Ethnography. London: Sage.

On This Side of the Principle Solutions. Moral Responsibility of Social. . .

117

Pfadenhauer, Michaela (2007): Das Experteninterview. Ein Gespräch auf gleicher Augenhöhe. In: Buber, Renate/Holzmüller, Hartmut (Hrsg.): Qualitative Marktforschung. Konzepte, Methoden, Analysen. Wiesbaden: Gabler, 449–461. Pfadenhauer, Michaela (2010): Kompetenz als Qualität sozialen Handelns. In: Kurtz, Thomas/Pfadenhauer, Michaela (Hrsg.): Soziologie der Kompetenz. Wiesbaden: VS, 149–172. Ressler, Robert K./Burgess, Ann W./Douglas, John E. (1988): Sexual Homicide. Patterns and Motives. New York: Free Press. Scarce, Rik (1994): (No) Trial (but) Tribulations: When Courts and Ethnography conflict. In: Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 23(1), 123–149. Schmid, Christian Johann/Eisewicht, Paul (2022): Check yourself before you wreck yourself! Are you cut out for ethnographic fieldwork? In: Pandeli, Jenna/Sutherland, Neil/Gaggiotti, Hugo (Eds.): Organizational Ethnography. London: Routledge, 15–33. Simi, Pete/Futrell, Robert (2010): American Swastika. New York: Rowman and Littlefield. Weisheit, Ralph A. (1998): Marijuana Subcultures. Studying Crime in Rural America. In: Ferrell Jeff/ Hamm, Mark S. (Hrsg.): Ethnography at the Edge. Boston: Northeastern University, 178––203. Weiss, Robert S. (1994): Learning from Strangers. The Art and Method of Qualitative Interview Studies. New York: Free Press.

Deception and Morality in Charismatic Pentecostal Churches in Kenya Daniel Künzler

On 8 August 2017, Gidion Mbuvi was elected governor of Nairobi in Kenya. He became known to a wider public in 2010 when the then 35-year-old was unexpectedly elected as the national MP for Makadara, a constituency in Nairobi, during a by-election. His lavish lifestyle earned him the nickname Mike Sonko or simply Sonko, which means rich and extravagant in the Sheng language.1 He formalized this nickname in 2012 and has since been officially called Mbuvi Gidion Kioko Mike Sonko. Where he got his money from is unclear and the subject of various rumours. According to some accounts, it came from his father’s real estate company on the Kenyan coast, which Sonko had joined. He then moved to Nairobi and invested in minibuses used as shared taxis (matatu) and other business activities. Less sympathetic accounts describe Sonko as an illiterate school dropout who spent his youth as a crook, drug dealer and jail escapee, later adding fraud to his activities and operating with various names, false education certificates and land ownership deeds. Various arrest warrants and trials against him have remained inconsequential until the time of writing (2019). The authority that investigated him even issued him the certificate of good conduct required for candidacy.

1

Sheng is a language that has developed mainly among young inhabitants of the slums of Nairobi and is constantly evolving. It is based on Swahili, but integrates loan words from English and various regional Kenyan languages.

D. Künzler (✉) Department of Social Work, Social Policy and Global Development, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected] # The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 S. Joller, M. Stanisavljević (eds.), Moral Collectives, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-40147-4_8

119

120

D. Künzler

Shortly after his election in 2010, Sonko declared himself born again at Hope International Ministries, the charismatic Pentecostal church of Brother Paul.2 He justified this move by saying that he wanted to be an example to unspecified other politicians and that he also expected them to seek God’s forgiveness for crimes that had taken place under their noses (Sunday Nation 2010). Also present was the former spiritual leader of the Mungiki movement, Maina Njenga, who had supported Sonko in the election campaign.3 A few months later, Sonko was expelled from a parliamentary session because his appearance (sunglasses, ear studs) “offended the dignity of the assembly” (BBC 2011). In 2013, Sonko ran for Senator for Nairobi, competing against Bishop Margaret Wanjiru.4 Handing out remarkable sums of money, his campaign combined his image as a wealth creator with development promises for his constituency (Deacon 2015a: 233 f., 2015b: 207). Sonko won the election with more than 800,000 votes, well ahead of Wanjiru, who came in at about 525,000 votes. Maina Njenga also wanted to run, but was not considered in the primaries. Even after his election, Sonko ostentatiously flaunts his wealth with an appearance that embodies the stereotype of the rapper in various ways: sports and other branded clothes, gold jewellery, extravagant haircuts, expensive cars escorted by

2

Brother Paul, under his original name Kamlesh Pattni, became infamous throughout Kenya as the director of Goldenberg International and the suspected mastermind behind Kenya’s biggest corruption scandal, in which at least EUR 500 million disappeared from state coffers. The 1994 indictment of Pattni continues to haunt the courts today. Pattni has so far gone unpunished in the matter but was jailed for murder. In the course of the Goldenberg scandal, Hindu Pattni “met Jesus” and was baptised Paul in 2001 by Bishop Arthur Kitonga of the Redeemed Gospel Church (Gifford 2009: 239). In 2007, Paul was ordained as a pastor. In addition to his charismatic Pentecostal church, Hope International Ministries, Pattni also runs a charity. His church is also attended by Maina Njenga, described in footnote 3. Pattni tried unsuccessfully several times to be elected to political office. In each case he responded to new investigations into the Goldenberg scandal with Christian rhetoric that God’s will would be done and that as a born-again man he had no fear of earthly prosecution. 3 Mungiki emerged in the late 1980s as a neo-traditional prophetic movement and developed into a powerful and sometimes anti-Christian and violent self-defence group, whose membership was at times estimated at 1.5 million. Spiritual leader Maina Njenga, along with other leading figures, briefly converted to Islam in September 2000 to seek protection from state repression. Several subsequent attempts to turn Mungiki into an independent political force failed, as did several attempts by Njenga to run for political office. Various circulating rumours agree that around the 2007 elections and his arrest, Njenga disbanded Mungiki and was born again as a Christian, according to some voices at Margaret Wanjiru’s Church. He later founded his own charismatic Pentecostal church. 4 Margaret Wanjiru is described in more detail beginning on page 130.

Deception and Morality in Charismatic Pentecostal Churches in Kenya

121

armed bodyguards and personalised number plates such as ‘Sonko 1’ or ‘Senator 1’. His publicly portrayed proximity to famous music stars such as Kenyan Jaguar and Tanzanian Diamond Platnumz further underline this image. Sonko enjoys great popularity especially among the young in Nairobi. He intervenes when informal traders are evicted or settlements cleared. His ‘rescue team’ includes various ambulances and fire engines offering free services. At the same time, he is in the headlines every now and then because of dubious stories. In order to be the official Jubilee Party candidate for the governorship of Nairobi, he had to win the party’s internal primary election in 2017. He received more than twice as many votes as the second-placed Peter Kenneth, who is being considered as a possible successor to President Uhuru Kenyatta and was already a presidential candidate in 2013. Bishop Margaret Wanjiru also contested but was left without a chance. Sonko was subsequently cleared for the election by the relevant electoral commission, despite repeated doubts about the authenticity of his education certificates. In his election campaign, he increasingly resorted to suit and tie, addressing the quality of social services and presenting himself as a supporter of small informal traders. He also resorted to Pentecostal rhetoric, presenting the election result as an expression of God’s will and stressing that his candidacy was not the result of individual ambition but of his connection with God and the people for whom he worked so hard (Standard 2017). The person of Sonko was presented in relative detail because his story contains some remarkable elements. Despite an obscure past, he is respected for his success. This popularity does not suffer from the fact that after being born again as a Christian, more scandals were added and in the midst of these events, he was born again again as a Christian in another charismatic Pentecostal church. His fluid religious affiliation did not preclude various deviations from the norm, cunning, and arguably fraud. An expression of his inventive changeability is not least his successful entry into politics, which is not only legitimized by past financial success at a young age, but is also presented as the will of God. Several of these elements also appear in other well-known figures in Kenya, such as the aforementioned Margaret Wanjiru. They point to two central questions, which will be explored below: How is morality communicatively produced in charismatic Pentecostal churches and how do these moral collectives deal with deception?

122

1

D. Künzler

Charismatic Pentecostal Churches in Kenya

Before the above questions can be examined, it is necessary to clarify what is meant by charismatic Pentecostal churches. This is not an easy task and cannot fully account for this heterogeneous subject matter. Charismatic Pentecostal churches are to be understood against the background that Christianity in Kenya is relatively new and initially had few followers and adherents. What is believed to be the first Christian church in Kenya was founded in Rabai, near the coastal town of Mombasa, in 1846 by Johann Ludwig Krapf, a Swiss-educated Protestant German. While parts of the local population certainly came to church to pray, almost no one converted to Christianity in the early years. A few years later, the first Catholic missionaries arrived in Kenya and began their mission along the sea coast as well (Gifford 2009: 56). Just before the turn of the twentieth century, they arrived in Nairobi convinced that the future of Christianity would be among the Kikuyu of the Central Highlands. Evangelical groups such as Baptists and Methodists were also active in the area (Deacon 2015a). In fact, Christianity was more popular in this area, not least because with Christian schooling came the possibility of comparatively privileged employment in the colonial administration. However, it was also Kikuyus who turned away from the European-dominated churches and founded independent African churches from the 1920s onwards. Other movements followed, including revivalist movements (Gifford 2009: 96; Gathogo 2011). Shortly before 1960, the first American preachers arrived in Kenya. In the first two decades after independence in 1964, new forms of protestant revivalism developed, especially in university settings, in response to the seductions of urban life. Urbanization, then, has led to a greater emphasis on religion in Kenya rather than its disintegration. Parts of the evangelical and independent African churches as well as the revivalist movements can be added to what in Kenya is often called ‘pentecostal churches’. However, most such churches emerged from the 1980s onwards, not least under the increased influence of American churches and their media products. Unlike many other Christian churches, charismatic Pentecostal churches also have women participating in leadership roles. Currently, it is estimated that around 20% of the Kenyan population adhere to charismatic Pentecostal churches (Deacon 2015a; McClendon and Riedl 2016: 126). However, the term is used in different ways, not least by the people belonging to such churches themselves, so that the categorisation and the corresponding figures should be treated with caution. There is no doubt that the charismatic Pentecostal churches have grown enormously in recent decades. In 2010 there were about 10,000 registered churches in

Deception and Morality in Charismatic Pentecostal Churches in Kenya

123

Kenya, a large part of which are likely to be charismatic Pentecostal churches (Gathogo 2011: 133). In ten field visits to Kenya since 2004, devoted to various questions, it became clear that in contrast to the “dissolution of the religious field” noted by Bourdieu (1992; translated from German) in Western Europe or the invisibility of religion described by Luckmann (1991), religion is very much present in the Kenyan public sphere, especially in the form of charismatic Pentecostal churches. This includes, for example, church buildings of all kinds, radio and television broadcasts, public missionary campaigns (crusades) in squares or in parks and stadiums, sermons on streets or in public transport, but also Pentecostal church symbolism and rhetoric in political debates, everyday conversations or advertising. The charismatic Pentecostal churches are not an entrenched institution that has had interpretive authority over central areas of society for centuries. The individual churches in Kenya are not integrated into a single hierarchical system that teaches an independent theology in formalized training courses and has the authority to award titles. This is the case, if at all, only in subgroups. While in what follows the designation is adopted for individuals that they use themselves, the generic term used for the governing figures will be pastor, as it is less misleading in a Western European perspective than other terms used, such as bishop, prophet, or apostle. Pastors derive their authority from the personal call of God that they have answered. “To call yourself a pastor nowadays, all you need is a Bible and a suit” is a saying that is common in Nairobi (Gez and Droz 2015: 23). On the one hand, the saying refers to the fact that the foundation of a charismatic Pentecostal church is indeed low-threshold; on the other hand, it also resonates with doubts about the motives behind such foundations. The latter are not entirely unfounded, as the examples of Pattni and Njenga have shown and will also become clear from page 130. The Kenyan state controls the charismatic Pentecostal churches through a little enforced compulsory registration and through isolated regulations such as the prohibition to perform blessings against payment in radio or television broadcasts. Although some churches and especially their schools were at times important for colonial or postcolonial advancement, there is no institutionalized monopoly church in Kenya that can successfully claim exclusive interpretive sovereignty and privileged access to salvation goods with sanctioning power, but is challenged by deviant or heterodox actors, as Weber (1985: 268 ff.), for example, described this for the Western European context. Thus, a central feature of Bourdieu’s (1971) religious field is also not present in Kenya. Moreover, the boundary between experts (pastors) and laymen is more fluid in Kenya, since the former do not have an “office charisma” (Weber 1985: 692; translated from German), but must distinguish themselves through outstanding personal charisma. In doing so, they are definitely in a

124

D. Künzler

competitive relationship with each other. In Kenya a situation thus prevails that corresponds to some extent to the equally popular and controversial market model of religion – and in this respect also to Bourdieu’s (1971) notion of a religious field – without central assumptions of this model (according to Pollack 2006 the strict separation between state and church and functional differentiation) being fulfilled.5 Therefore, it is not the totality of all charismatic Pentecostal churches that is seen as a moral collective, but each church congregation as an independent moral collective. The following descriptions are intended to illustrate the range of charismatic Pentecostal churches and are not exhaustive. Moreover, because of the author’s mostly urban research experience, they reflect urban experiences and make no claim to be valid for peri-urban and rural areas. As mentioned, charismatic Pentecostal churches are present in the public sphere in a variety of ways. The actual church building can take many forms. In Nairobi, charismatic Pentecostal churches range from small wooden shacks with corrugated iron roofs to tents to large buildings such as warehouses that can accommodate thousands of people. They contain what is later called a setting. The churchgoers sit on wooden boards or often on plastic chairs. The larger churches in particular offer a technical infrastructure (loudspeakers, handheld or wireless microphones, sometimes flat screens, film cameras and camera cranes), have a live band and are decorated with plants, cloths, plastic banners and more. Some have ceiling or standing fans in addition to an open design that allows air to circulate. Some are divided into different areas (pulpit, podium, honor row). Some churches also sell religious consumer goods such as books or audio and audio-visual media in the church building or even in their own bookstores. Some, for example internationally networked churches, also maintain platforms on social media. Most charismatic churches are limited to one church building, some establish offshoots in Kenya and abroad. While services on Sunday are common, there are also services during the week in the morning or over lunch, as well as events such as choir rehearsals, night prayers, women’s or children’s services or training for pastors. The services are often in Swahili or English, sometimes alternating between these two languages. Other local languages are rather rare, as many churches want to be attractive beyond individual ethnic groups and appeal to upwardly mobile people who prefer English. Worship services can be seen as productions of the moral collective, whose scripts contain several of the elements described below.

5 The 2017 election campaign is the latest example of the infusion of religious symbolism into Kenyan politics.

Deception and Morality in Charismatic Pentecostal Churches in Kenya

125

Central, of course, are sermons. In their analysis of sermons in a random sample of 90 charismatic Pentecostal churches in Nairobi, McClendon and Riedl (2016: 122) conclude that, for all their variation, they have a remarkably consistent basic message: They aim at a kind of psychological liberation of churchgoers through an individual transformation by which churchgoers are to gain more autonomy and self-confidence. It is therefore about the possibilities of action also of deprived individuals or about empowerment, to use a term that has become popular in the context of neoliberal ideas, which are broadly understood here. This clearly dominant individualist message goes beyond the achievement of purely material wellbeing. It is to be seen against the backdrop of a context that offers both growing opportunities and growing insecurities, and is attractive as a worldly salvation good both to those with educational and other capital and to those with aspirations for advancement. The gospel of prosperity, with its focus on quick wealth, was celebrated in just under one-fifth of the sermons studied. This puts into perspective the focus on the gospel of prosperity, which is central in Sect. 3 below as a moral communication about pastors and also in the Kenyan press. Along with this individualistic message comes the fact that charismatic Pentecostal churches generally offer little in the way of social and welfare services, and when they do, it is mainly in the form of one-off campaigns such as clothing collections or school scholarships (Deacon 2015b: 216; McClendon and Riedl 2016: 121). This approach, which focuses on individual mental transformation as opposed to charitable care or systemic reform, is found in both socio-economically homogeneous and heterogeneous charismatic Pentecostal churches. The sermons may deal with aspects of the afterlife, but they certainly deal with this world as well, offering support for living life and covering topics such as marriage issues, debt, and more. Some churchgoers take notes during the sermon. Many listen attentively, others seem absorbed or asleep. Sermons also include calland-response moments, in which many participants, following the pastor’s stimulus, shout ululations, affirmations such as ‘Amen’ or ‘Hallelujah’, or praises such as ‘Praise the Lord’. Another type of response is heterogeneous gestures of reception, some of which involve waving hands in the air. In some cases, selected people present are asked to come forward with an altar call to give testimony about their experiences. Such testimonials often concern turns in life such as suicidal thoughts overcome, extreme poverty alleviated, health or other problems solved or alleviated, and can be seen as a means of persuasion. These turnarounds are sometimes referred to by the term miracle and sometimes take place directly in worship, such as when people suddenly leave their wheelchairs and walk. An altar call may also be directed at those who want to accept the offer of salvation and be born again (see Sect. 2). Finally, in some worship services, many attendees come forward to bring money.

126

D. Künzler

The latter happens in the logic that the money thus sown will come back many times (panda mbegu or planting seed money) and is an important source of income for pastors. However, successful access to this salvation good depends not only on their expertise but also on the behavior of the interested person. Miraculous monetary gains, in turn, can be the subject of testimonies. Also important in the services are songs that, depending on the church, are performed by a band and singers or sung only by those present. These sometimes remain seated, many stand up or dance. Some are introverted, others are trance-like or speak in tongues (glossolalia), many sing along, although the intensity of the sing-along depends on the song. The instrumentation of the songs sung may include popular culture borrowings (e.g. rap music, Congolese rumba). In summary, then, it can be said that the services of charismatic Pentecostal churches are an interplay of relatively homogeneously presented elements (e.g. the responses to calls) and heterogeneous elements in which the type and intensity of participation varies more (e.g. during sermons or songs). Even though the aforementioned elements are often incorporated, the worship services of different pastors differ greatly from one another and do not follow a uniform script. Nevertheless, it is possible to acquire religious human capital relatively quickly and to participate actively in the services. This does not mean that Kenyans necessarily turn exclusively to a charismatic Pentecostal church. Although Pattni and Njenga are certainly extreme examples, religious mobility is relatively widespread in Kenya (Gez et al. 2017). It goes beyond the notion of conversion that is common in Western Europe, as conversion refers to a permanent conversion to another religious community that breaks with a religious identity that spans several generations. More important than such forms of diachronic mobility, conceived in terms of periods of exclusive religious affiliation, is a synchronous mobility between different religious practices. Often starting from one main affiliation, many Kenyans move in their lived religious practice in a religious territory that goes beyond this and that can vary in width (Gez et al. 2017: 148 f.). A particular church is central to this, but there is also participation in activities of other charismatic Pentecostal churches, more rarely other Christian churches, or even more rarely non-Christian religious communities. An individual may thus participate in multiple moral collectives. Can we speak of moral collectives at all in this context? This question will be explored in the next section.

Deception and Morality in Charismatic Pentecostal Churches in Kenya

2

127

Experiences and Rumours as Moral Communication About Genuine and Illusory Spiritual Rebirths

When this paper speaks of charismatic Pentecostal churches, a term is used that is not used by many of those who feel they belong to such churches. It is more common in Kenya to say one is ‘born again’ as a self-description (Gez and Droz 2015: 21), as Sonko, introduced in the introduction, did. Indeed, for many Pentecostal charismatic churches, the spiritual renewal of the person born again is central. This is also found to some extent in Christian congregations that do not belong to the charismatic Pentecostal churches (Gez and Droz 2015: 19). Being born again by no means conditions a change of religious affiliation; one is often born again in the community to which one belongs. Central to being born again is being filled with the Holy Spirit and accepting the offer of salvation (accepting salvation or getting saved). This can happen during a missionary campaign or a church service, but also in a private moment. After being born again, one’s life is to be fully dedicated to God. Not least for a redemption from one’s own past, it is expected that a morally upright life is led. However, it is actually relatively unclear and also disputed what this means exactly and what behaviour is morally acceptable (Gez and Droz 2015: 20). This is negotiated through moral communication, turning church communities into moral collectives. Bergmann and Luckmann (1999: 22; translated from German) speak of “moral communication when individual moments of respect or contempt, i.e. the social esteem of a person, are conveyed in the communication and, in addition, there is a situational reference to general notions of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ or of the ‘good life’.”6 Moral communication consists of direct or indirect “socially evaluative position statements” (Bergmann and Luckmann 1999: 23; translated from German) that concern actions or objects, but do not refer to them in isolation, but to a valueestimation of the person or group behind the action or object (Bergmann and Luckmann 1999: 26; see also Goffman 2004: 58). The evaluative stances are quasi “conjectures for other cases” (Luhmann 1978: 53; translated from German). Moral judgments only become possible when actors are “attributed the possibility and ability to choose between different projects of action” and thus also responsibility for their action (Bergmann and Luckmann 1999: 26; translated from German). In the following, practical experiences and rumours are discussed as two forms of moral communication. This follows Gez and Droz (2015: 26), whose third form, scandals, is then the focus of the next chapter. The moral collective is experienced in

6

All German quotations have been translated into English.

128

D. Künzler

practical terms primarily at religious services and other occasions. Here, on the one hand, moral communication takes place through exchanges about the behaviour and demeanour of those involved, for instance by commenting on references to inappropriate demeanour or behaviour as a deceptive superficial attention to the moral collective. On the other hand, and this goes beyond Bergmann and Luckmann (1999), anticipatory behaviour is also a moral act of communication. This can concern sensory aspects, for example, as this quote from a newspaper interview shows: “It depends on how hard I partied the previous night. If it is too much, I don’t go. Where I draw the line is going to church smelling of booze or still drunk” (Muchene and Korio 2014: 10). It is interesting not only that the interviewee is responsible for the sound in the church he is talking about, but also that he naturally distinguishes between what Goffman (2004: 100, 104) called the frontstage and the backstage. The frontstage is the spatially circumscribed region where a representation takes place that is intended to create a particular impression, that is, in our example, to represent a charismatic Pentecostal church. The main activity on the frontstage is the representation of a church service. The setting and script elements have already been described above. The participants play the role of the believer or the pastor. There may be other roles, for example the member of the church choir. Such an performance team is needed for a presentation: someone who preaches only becomes a pastor if people listen and react to the sermon in an adequate manner. One person plays a role in relation to the others of the team. In doing so, she or he perceives the others as bystanders, even though they are actually also playing a role in the performance team (Goffman 2004: 3). The standardized repertoire of expression of all, the personal front, includes elements such as clothing, but also posture, manner of speaking or facial expression (Goffman 2004: 25). The backstage is then the place belonging to this presentation, where the impression is naturally refuted. In our example, the backstage is relatively large and includes not only one’s own four walls, but also one’s working life and leisure activities outside the church. Back to the example of alcohol consumed in such a way that no one in the service notices. This is not an isolated case (Gez and Droz 2015: 25), although others might go further and not drink alcohol in public, that is, not even in bars. If others accept this frontstage display and do not denounce the backstage behaviour, an acceptable identity as a born-again Christian is established. If, on the other hand, the backstage behavior is publicly denounced and the turn to the charismatic Pentecostal church is criticized as superficial and thus deceptive, the reputation of the person involved is at stake. Luhmann (1978: 51) argues similarly: Morality “arises with implicit or explicit communication about respect.” In the loss of respectability – or in its enhancement – lies the sanctioning power of moral

Deception and Morality in Charismatic Pentecostal Churches in Kenya

129

communication (Bergmann and Luckmann 1999: 23; translated from German). Sanction belongs to moral communication as an “essential element of any moral rule” (Durkheim 1991: 11; translated from German). Non-verbal aspects of the personal front, such as the choice of clothing, are also part of communicative action, as are glances with which, for example, the clothing of others is assessed. Members of the moral collective usually dress in such a way that they do not become the topic of conversation for others. Many women wear long skirts that go at least below the knees and long-sleeved upper body clothing. They show little skin, do not wear flashy makeup, do not have dyed hair or long painted fingernails. For the men, neat trousers and also long-sleeved upper body clothing are common, as are closed shoes. The hair is either very short or coiffed and combed. Not only concrete experiences, discussed above using the example of other people’s behaviour on the front- and backstage, but also rumours and accusations can lead to sanctions. Rumours are also moral communication (Bergmann and Luckmann 1999: 23). They concern, for example, premarital or extramarital relationships of members of charismatic Pentecostal churches, especially with the involvement of pastors, who are particularly vulnerable to rumours. Premarital relationships are quite common in Kenya, even around charismatic Pentecostal churches (Ntarangwi 2016: 39, 122). Rumours of these often only become concrete experiences through pregnancies. Sanctioning power is greatest in neighbourhoodbased, small church congregations where members know each other despite the rather low social cohesion in the urban context. However, the power to sanction is relativized by the possibility of joining another charismatic Pentecostal church, which is quite common and is known as ‘church hopping’, or of starting a new one elsewhere as a pastor. Charismatic Pentecostal churches in which such moral communication takes place can certainly be described as moral collectives. Even if different charismatic Pentecostal churches communicate morally in similar ways in terms of content, it can be assumed that even within charismatic Pentecostal churches there is “a multiplicity of morals functioning in parallel” (Durkheim 1991: 15; translated from German).

3

Scandals as Moral Communication About Pastors

After the last chapter dealt with moral communication based on personal experience and rumours, this chapter focuses on a third form: scandals. These are often also partly based on rumours. However, insofar as they involve well-known pastors, they

130

D. Künzler

are much more subject to public discussion and investigation. The following focus on an extreme example presents a distorted picture in that many pastors are not the subject of scandals. However, the example is interesting in terms of how moral collectives deal with deception and what role moral communication plays in this. Margaret Wanjiru had to leave school because she became pregnant and subsequently had two more illegitimate children. She scraped by with various jobs and cleaned toilets in factories, for example. In retrospect, she explained several times that her poverty led her to witchcraft because she expected to benefit from it. By her own account, she then “graduated from Black Witchcraft to White Witchcraft to Red Witchcraft,” became richer and richer as she “went up the ranks of Satanism,” and “even started associating with masonics” (Gifford 2009: 116). In 1990, she got born again at a missionary campaign by Nigerian pastor Emmanuel Eni, an outed former Satanist. Wanjiru began preaching on the streets in Kenya and then started her own church, Jesus Is Alive Ministries, in 1993. She was ordained as a pastor in June 1997. Bishop Arthur Kitonga of Redeemed Gospel Church appointed her the first Kenyan woman bishop in October 2002, although it is unclear where he would get the authority to do so (Gifford 2009; Gez and Alvis 2014).7 Her church later moved to downtown Nairobi, where Wanjiru also runs a Bible school, recording studio, and shop.8 Wanjiru began producing television programs. She expanded her church to various African and Western countries and is a businesswoman in areas such as transportation, publishing, and microfinance. Kavulla (2008: 257) comments on the less than transparent story of her financial rise as follows: “There is a gap between who Wanjiru once was and who she has now become, and in between her story becomes murky”. Wanjiru herself sees no need to apologize for her wealth as it is God-given: “Why are you trying to explain to people how you got it? You were praying for it” (Gez and Alvis 2014: 107). Wanjiru uses her own biography as a source for her prosperity gospel, which is important in her sermons (see Kavulla 2008; Gifford 2009; Gathogo 2011; Gez and Alvis 2014 for examples), although they also include other themes. In November 2006, Wanjiru announced her candidacy for the national parliamentary seat of Starehe constituency in Nairobi and expressed ambitions to become president. Comparing herself to the biblical figures Samuel, Moses and David, she said: “I have not decided on the [political] party to join, but you can be sure I will be in the ruling party. I cannot spoil my image by joining a losing party”

7

It was Kitonga who had baptized Kamlesh Pattni a year earlier. The church is one of the larger ones in Nairobi. Housed in a rather run-down old industrial hall, it has a relatively elaborate setting (technical infrastructure, decoration).

8

Deception and Morality in Charismatic Pentecostal Churches in Kenya

131

(Gathogo 2011: 146). She then decided to run for the ODM party in the 2007 elections. Central figures of this party, including the presidential candidate Raila Odinga, visited her in her church. A visiting American pastor in a church service portrayed Wanjiru as God’s chosen one, to which she replied “when Jesus says yes, no man can say no” (Kavulla 2008: 254). Shortly before, she had announced her engagement to a South African pastor. When her political ambitions became known, a man appeared who claimed to be her husband and the father of her children (Kavulla 2008: 258; Gifford 2009: 163 f.). She reacted violently and condescendingly to this man, whereupon he filed a lawsuit and presented birth certificates. Wanjiru’s marriage was then halted by the courts. The story was in the national news for an extended period of time “unfolding like a soap-opera” (Gifford 2009: 164). It “threatened to derail Wanjiru’s political career before it had begun, and Wanjiru hastily reoriented herself, claiming instead that her opponent Maina Kamanda had sponsored the lawsuit for his political advantage” (Kavulla 2008: 258). Wanjiru’s election campaign bristled with Pentecostal symbolism and rhetoric, especially in church contexts. Outside, she presented herself more as an entrepreneur, but also addressed a wider audience with some specific campaign promises for the development of her constituency that appealed particularly to young people and women from the informal sector (Gez and Alvis 2014: 108). Flaunting her identity as a devout Christian, a single mother, a successful businesswoman and one of the rare Kikuyus who ran for the Luo-dominated ODM party, she meant “many things to many people” (Kavulla 2008: 256). Because she resonated broadly and across ethnic lines, she won the constituency and dethroned the well-known incumbent Maina Kamada. The latter, in turn, was also embroiled in various scandals as Minister of Youth, Gender and Sports.9 Portraying the election as a power struggle between good and evil, she emphasized the providential nature of her victory (Kavulla 2008: 259 f.), but also portrayed it as a sign of material reward for believers. She was indeed later materially rewarded: appointed Deputy Minister of Housing in 2008, she was later suspected of illegally appropriating houses in the name of her church and in her own name (Gez and Alvis 2014: 101). Nonetheless, her constituency seemed satisfied with her performance and she won the by-election, which was court-ordered in 2010 after a recount of votes raised doubts about the 2007 election results.

9

Kamanda contested for the Democratic Party (DP) in 1997, then for the coalition to which the DP belonged (NARC) in 2002, and finally won back the seat for the Jubilee coalition in 2013.

132

D. Künzler

In November 2012, she announced her intention to run for governor for the ODM party in the next elections. Once again, she was caught up in doubts about her biography. Her nomination as an ODM candidate stumbled when her bachelor’s degree in Christian Leadership from United Graduate College and her doctorate in theology from Vineyard Harvester Bible College were not recognized and she therefore could not produce the necessary educational certificates – a degree from a university recognized in Kenya – for the governorship (Ng’etich 2013).10 Doubts were fuelled not least by the legal and media campaigns of her political enemies, some of whom were also in her own party. Members of her own church as well as the general public also doubted that she could have studied abroad, given her frequent sermons in Nairobi (Gez and Alvis 2014: 101 f.). The ODM excluded her from the party nomination, but then offered her a direct nomination for the Senate election, even though a candidate had already been democratically nominated for it (Odongo 2013). This led to vehement and mostly negative reactions in conventional and social media. As a result, she went on to lose the election, as mentioned in the introduction, to Sonko. Compared to 2007, her campaign had focused less on her being God’s chosen one and much more on small business wealth creation (Gez and Alvis 2014: 97, 109). In 2014, Wanjiru then obtained a BA in Leadership and Management from a university in Limuru and announced her intention to run for the governorship of Nairobi in 2017. She grandly proclaimed: “The Nairobi governorship was mine and it remains mine” (Daily Nation 2014). She said she had been humiliated by the ODM party leadership, had therefore left the party long ago and was looking for a new party. She later believed she had found one in the form of the ruling Jubilee Party. However, during the party’s internal primaries in April 2017, she was arrested by the police and held for several days on charges of storming polling centres and destroying ballot boxes (Star 2017). She was accompanied by a few dozen faithful. Once again, the majority of reactions in conventional and social media were negative, partly because of her behaviour, more often because of her change of party. As mentioned, she had no chance against Sonko and also against Peter Kenneth. Her defeat was even more pronounced in 2017 than in 2013. Small business prosperity was also central to her campaign in 2017, in which she presented herself as #MamanaKazi (mother and work). Taking a look at her church in Nairobi in July 2017 showed little activity and empty services during the week. Similarly, her ambitious Glory Twin Towers real estate project – two downtown

10

In addition, she was admitted to college even though she did not have a high school diploma and received her doctoral certificate before completing her bachelor’s degree.

Deception and Morality in Charismatic Pentecostal Churches in Kenya

133

commercial towers connected by a bridge over a road – has made no visible progress since it was announced several years ago. Ten years later, little remains of her successful self-promotion and the broad support of 2007 among her moral collective and beyond in the broader population.

4

The End of the Representation: Moral Communication and Sanction

Scandals, one of three forms of moral communication discussed, often involve pastors or ministers. In dealing with deception, a remarkable loyalty of performance team members can sometimes be observed in the moral collectives involved. This was clearly demonstrated when a pastor of the charismatic Pentecostal church Fire Gospel Ministries in Nairobi was accused on television by prostitutes that he had paid them to give a testimonial about alleged miraculous healings (Gez and Droz 2015: 26). The footage even circulated in informal video stalls where it was in high demand. When a television crew confronted the pastor at his church with accusations of false testimonials, he turned to his congregation and asked them if they thought these accusations were true, to which they replied in unison in the negative (Ntarangwi 2016: 19). Gospel musician Juliani defends the community’s reaction: There is something they get from the church, and that which they get is so important that they are willing to set aside what may seem an obvious reason to question the credibility of the pastor. Granted, some will be upset and leave the church, but the majority will remain because they need the fuel from the church each Sunday to face the week, and the pastor gives them that fuel. All the congregants have their own sins as well. They cheat and do all kinds of things, so why would they find fault in the pastor even if he was in sin? (Ntarangwi 2016: 19)11

The members of the performance team are to some extent trapped with the others in an interdependence (Goffman 2004: 77). As Simmel (2004: 82; translated from German) writes: “That, contrary to all rational evidence, to all appearances to the contrary, no matter how emphatic, we cling to faith in a human being – that is one of the firmest bonds that hold human society together.”

11

Juliani is also successful as a gospel musician despite moral contradictions: he sings a song (Hela) about sexual abstinence with the singer LC, with whom he allegedly has an illegitimate child as well as with his girlfriend, a well-known actress.

134

D. Künzler

Not only Sonko, Pattni and Njenga, but also the extensively portrayed Bishop Wanjiru is involved in shady dealings. Wanjiru’s various scandals have certainly been addressed in moral communication by members of the Jesus is Alive Ministries moral collective, but not necessarily sanctioned. She portrays herself as a person with a murky past who, as a born-again Christian, managed to rise from difficult circumstances and turn away from satanic practices to become a successful entrepreneur and politician, thanks to God’s good pleasure. Similar conversion narratives based on a dubious past are found in Sonko, Pattni and Njenga’s cases. Wanjiru’s election as a senator has validated this self-dramatization despite various discords. The rumours that pointed to inconsistencies and fraudulent activities seem to have reinforced rather than fundamentally challenged the self-dramatisation. In Wanjiru’s case, as in Sonko’s, Pattni’s and in Kenyan politics in general (Haugerud 1995: 52), the boundary between truth and lies or between reality and fantasy has collapsed. This impossibility of “any distinction between the real and the imaginary” is captured by Baudrillard (1994: 2 f.) in the term ‘simulation’. The simulation of the bishop produces some of the symptoms (believers) (see Baudrillard 1994: 19). In this respect, there are parallels with Sonko, mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, whose tricky self-dramatization is also reinforced by rumors of inconsistencies, fraudulent activities, and previous legal impunity. Unlike Wanjiru, Sonko has no central role in a moral collective that might sanction him. Indeed, for all the loyalty of the members of the performance team, the moral collective does not condone everything. When Wanjiru wanted to become governor and senator, the doubts about her biography were interpreted against her by members of the collective more strongly than before, and her behaviour was increasingly interpreted as undemocratic, overambitious and not worthy of a female bishop (Gez and Alvis 2014: 101 f.). She was not elected, but came to a respectable number of votes. However, her non-election further undermined her selfdramatization. Without visible success, her base of support collapsed. This was compounded by the lack of progress on her heralded business towers and her non-nomination in 2017 after an opportunistic and highly criticized party switch. Her lack of success is no sign of God’s good pleasure and many members of the moral collective have left it. Moral communication did eventually lead to sanctions. Most charismatic Pentecostal churches are led by male or female pastors who are not the subject of such widely discussed scandals as Margaret Wanjiru. The moral collective of these charismatic Pentecostal churches is enacted primarily at church services and other occasions. Worship services and other activities of a charismatic Pentecostal church can be interpreted as performances on a frontstage. The performance team includes at least one pastor and churchgoers, some of whom act in special roles, e.g. in the church choir. On the one hand, morality is produced

Deception and Morality in Charismatic Pentecostal Churches in Kenya

135

communicatively, in that members of the performance team exchange views on the behaviour and demeanour of other members of the team, and indications of inappropriate demeanour or behaviour are interpreted as indicative of a superficial devotion to the moral collective. Moral communication can also take the form of rumors or accusations that are not based on concrete experience. Many churchgoers take care to portray respectable Christians when performing on the frontstage. The personal front includes appropriate dress and appearance. They are also quite careful to choose locations for backstage activities where no other team members are present. These forms of anticipatory behavior are also moral acts of communication. The performance team of a charismatic Pentecostal church needs moral communication to exist as a moral collective at all. Unlike sects, however, pastors often have little interest in using moral communication as a closure mechanism. On the one hand, this reduces their income; on the other hand, the power to sanction is limited in that the individuals involved can relatively easily change the performance team by joining another charismatic Pentecostal church. This does not rule out that in neighborhood-based, smaller church congregations, the loss of the affected person’s reputation is a powerful form of sanction that transcends the church context. Moral communication in charismatic Pentecostal churches is Janus-faced. On the one hand, it helps to establish trust by denouncing the superficial turn to the moral collective; on the other hand, it increases a general distrust of such moral collectives (Gez and Droz 2015: 27). In this respect, it destroys what it was supposed to preserve. Practical experience and rumor as forms of moral communication often address the deceptive superficial devotion to the moral collective. This helps to negotiate what it means to be born again and to live a godly life. When the behaviour of other members of the moral collective is discussed as transgression, the moral norm clarifies (see also Bataille 1987: 39). As Shipley (2009: 524) puts it, with reference to Derrida: “Fakery appears as the margin, the horizon against which a moral center is clarified.” In other words: In the discussed moral collectives, the discussion about the deceptive superficial devotion to these charismatic Pentecostal churches is needed so that there can be any talk of moral communication and thus of moral collectives. Writing about a different kind of moral collective, Mauss (1990: 2) introduces the importance of gift-giving for the integration of members of society by quoting at length a passage from the Norse myth Edda in which the deity Odin advises the troubadour Loddfafnir to give gifts to trusted friends and to deceive

136

D. Künzler

untrustworthy ones. Again, the moral norm cannot be separated from deception.12 This is possibly true of all moral collectives.

References Bataille, Georges (1987): Œuvres complètes. Volume 10. Paris: Gallimard. Baudrillard, Jean (1994): Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. BBC (2011): Kenya: MP Gidion Mbuvi’s ejected for earrings. In: BBC, 2. März. http://www. bbc.com/news/world-africa-12616890 (Accessed 17.07.2017). Bergmann, Jörg/Luckmann, Thomas (1999): Moral und Kommunikation. In: Bergmann, Jörg/Luckmann, Thomas (Hrsg.): Kommunikative Konstruktion von Moral. Band 1: Struktur und Dynamik der Formen moralischer Kommunikation. Opladen/Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, 13–36. Bourdieu, Pierre (1971): Genèse et structure du champ religieux. Revue française de sociologie, 12, 295–334. Bourdieu, Pierre (1992): Die Auflösung des Religiösen. In: Bourdieu, Pierre: Rede und Antwort. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 231–269. Daily Nation (2014): I quit ODM long time ago, says Bishop Margaret Wanjiru. In: Daily Nation, 10. Oktober. http://www.nation.co.ke/news/politics/I-quit-ODM-BishopMargaret-Wanjiru/1064-2481948-1092vg8/index.html (Accessed 17.07.2017). Deacon, Gregory (2015a): Kenya: A Nation Born Again. PentecoStudies, 14(2), 219–240. Deacon, Gregory (2015b): Bringing the Devil Out: Kenya’s Born-Again Election. Journal of Religion in Africa, 45, 200–220. Durkheim, Emile (1991): Physik der Sitten und des Rechts. Vorlesungen zur Soziologie der Moral. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Gathogo, Julius (2011): The challenge of money and wealth in some East African Pentecostal Churches. Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae, 37(2), 133–151. Gez, Yonatan/Alvis, Tanya (2014): Bishop Margaret Wanjiru and the 2013 Kenyan Elections: Between Politics of the Spirit and Expanding Entrepreneurship. In: Thibon, Christian/Ndeda, Mildred/Fouéré, Marie-Aude/Mwangi, Susan (Hrsg): Kenya’s Past as Prologue: Voters, Violence and the 2013 General Election. Nairobi: Twaweza, 96–115. Gez, Yonatan N./Droz, Yvan (2015): Negotiation and Erosion of Born Again Prestige in Nairobi. Nova Religio (The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions), 18(3), 18–37. Gez, Yonatan N./Droz, Yvan/Soares, Edio/Rey, Jeanne (2017): From Converts to Itinerants. Religious Butinage as Dynamic Identity. Current Anthropology, 58(2), 141–159. Gifford, Paul (2009): Christianity, Politics and Public Life in Kenya. London: Hurst & Company. Goffman, Erving (2004): Wir alle spielen Theater. Die Selbstdarstellung im Alltag (2. Auflage). München/Zürich: Piper.

However, this warning is conveyed to us through Loddfafnir, whose name means ‘one who obtains by deception’ (Ogino 2007: xi).

12

Deception and Morality in Charismatic Pentecostal Churches in Kenya

137

Haugerud, Angelique (1995): The Culture of Politics in Modern Kenya. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kavulla, Travis R. (2008): Our Enemies are God’s Enemies‘: The Religion and Politics of Bishop Margaret Wanjiru, MP. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 2(2), 254–263. Luckmann, Thomas (1991): Die unsichtbare Religion. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Luhmann, Niklas (1978): Soziologie der Moral. In: Luhmann, Niklas/Pfürtner, Stephan H. (Hrsg.): Theorietechnik und Moral. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 8–116. Mauss, Marcel (1990): The Gift. The form and reason for exchange in archaic societies. London: Routledge. McClendon, Gwyneth H./Riedl, Rachel Beatty (2016): Individualism and Empowerment in Pentecostal Sermons: New Evidence from Nairobi, Kenya. African Affairs, 115(458), 119–144. Muchene, Esther/Korio, Geoffrey (2014): Gospel gone rogue? Pulse, 10. Januar, 10–11. Ng’etich, Jacob (2013): Questions raised over Wanjiru’s papers. The Standard, 6. Januar, 9. Ntarangwi, Mwenda (2016): The Street is My Pulpit. Hip Hop and Christianity in Kenya. Urbana/Chicago/Springfield: University of Illinois Press. Odongo, Waga (2013): The glory of separation of Church and State is coming. Bishop, Doctor and Honorable; which designation comes first? In: Daily Nation, 28. Januar. http:// www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/DN2/Separation-of-Church-and-State/957860-1676586mumxit/index.html (Accessed 17.07.2017). Ogino, Masahiro (2007): Scams and Sweeteners. A Sociology of Fraud. Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press. Pollack, Detlef (2006): Explaining religious vitality: Theoretical considerations and empirical findings in Western and Eastern Europe. In: Franzmann, Manuel/Gärtner, Christel/Köck, Nicole (Hrsg.): Religiosität in der säkularisierten Welt. Theoretische und empirische Beiträge zur Säkularisierungsdebatte in der Religionssoziologie. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 83–103. Shipley, Jesse Weaver (2009): Comedians, Pastors, and the Miraculous Agency of Charisma in Ghana. Cultural Anthropology, 24(3), 523–552. Simmel, Georg (2004): Zur Soziologie der Religion. Auszug mit einer Einführung von HansRichard Reuter. In: Gabriel, Karl/Reuter, Hans-Richard (Hrsg.): Religion und Gesellschaft. Texte zur Religionssoziologie. Paderborn/München/Wien/Zürich: Ferdinand Schöningh, 71–91. Standard (2017): Pride before fall, Sonko warns NASA. In: The Standard, 17. Juli, 28. Star (2017): Bishop Wanjiru to be charged for destruction of voting material. In: The Star, 27. April. http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2017/04/27/bishop-wanjiru-to-be-charged-fordestruction-of-voting-material_c1550893 (Accessed 17.07.2017). Sunday Nation (2010): Sonko now ‚turns to the Lord‘. In: Sunday Nation, 7. November. http://www.nation.co.ke/News/Sonko%20now%20turns%20to%20the%20Lord/-/1056/ 1048966/-/p9ulnk/-/index.html (Accessed 17.07.2017). Weber, Max (1985): Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr.

The Middle as a Classless Place? How Young People Moralise and Justify Precarisation Alexandra Seehaus and Vera Trappmann

Following Adorno (1993), one of the elementary tasks of sociology is to examine class both as an objective position in the production process and to focus on class consciousness. In German sociology, however, it was no longer customary to speak of class since the second half of the 1980s. Rather, questions of individualization, differentiation and new inequalities (Beck 1992; Berger and Hradil 1990; Cyba 2000; Diezinger 1991; Geißler 1987; Glatzer and Ostner 1999; Herlyn 1980; Müller 1992; Schildt 1995; Wiehn and Mayer 1975; Zapf 1977) had eclipsed contributions from Marxist and Marxist-feminist circles (Thien 2014: 175). In social structural terms, the “leveled middle-class society” (Schelsky 1965/1953; translated from German) seemed to have largely contained economic conflicts. With the so-called “multiple crisis” (Demirović et al. 2011) of 2008, the class question is both perceptible again in the media and officially rehabilitated by the discipline: “Class structures as well as class antagonism – not to be confused with class struggle – (have) been made invisible and overlooked in everyday perceptions and discourses at great expense, but at no time have they disappeared” (Rehberg 2011: 9, ed.; translated from German). Questions about a new formation of classes (Dörre 2003), the role of a ruling class (Krais 2003: 51, Krysmanski 2004), a new global class (Dahrendorf 2000) or financial class (Hofstätter et al. 2016), global class relations (Arrighi 2010; Roth 2005) or a fundamental discussion on the concept of class (Peter 2010; Boris 2010) are now a central part of sociological discourse. The article presented here takes up this newly sparked debate and asks whether and how class structures are perceived by young adults in Germany. The objective situation of many young people, who are particularly affected by labour market A. Seehaus (✉) · V. Trappmann Leeds University Business School, Leeds, United Kingdom e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] # The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 S. Joller, M. Stanisavljević (eds.), Moral Collectives, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-40147-4_9

139

140

A. Seehaus and V. Trappmann

flexibilisation and precariousness, seems to us to be a good prerequisite for the search for forms of collective class consciousness. In addition to inequality of opportunity, they experience the solidification of social inequality within the education system as well as in the transition to the labour market. Following Edward P. Thompson’s (1987) idea and Alex Demirović’s succinct formula that classes are “nothing but the nature of their struggle” (2009: 80; translated from German), one might be inclined to conclude that classes simply no longer exist, given the apparent absence of struggles. What does exist in Germany, however, despite the absence of apparent struggles, is the notion of the existence of different social groups whose members differ from one another. Inspired by the work of Andrew Sayer (2005a, 2010) and Axel Honneth (1981) on the meaning of everyday morality and class consciousness, we investigate to what extent the moral dimension of social material inequality opens up (or blocks) critical perspectives but also collective possibilities for action. Specifically, this article asks what moral attributions and judgments are associated with the perception and interpretation of one’s situation and position within the structure of society, and to what extent these contribute to justifying or challenging one’s position. Such an examination of the moral dimension of class and moral collectives (Joller 2018) contributes to class analysis in that, while it does not look at the structures of social inequality themselves, it provides insight into the extent to which these are perceived and explained by individuals and groups, and thus are (or can be) stabilised, reproduced or questioned. Because material and symbolic attributes of social positions also need to be legitimated as ‘universally binding’, the question of moral classes is fundamentally also directed towards the question of explanations and justifications of existing inequality. An investigation of the processes of moral boundary drawing reveals how individuals perceive and judge themselves and their positions in relation to one another, and thus provides information about the breeding ground of a class consciousness or its absence.1 Class thus remains an analytical category, i.e. an instrument for recording and explaining objective inequalities. Thus, without leaving out the material basis of

1 Although the social and moral dimension of class relations is taken into account here (i.e. it is also about the linguistically mediated construction of affiliations and demarcations through moral evaluations), this is not intended to ignore the material level of social inequality. By no means do we want class to be understood as an exclusively moral or linguistic construction, nor do we assume that the analysis of the perception and interpretation of inequalities is devoid of a concrete definition of class (for a critique of purely discursive considerations, see Baron 2014). See also the WSI Focus July 2016 on the socio-political consciousness of dependent employees).

The Middle as a Classless Place? How Young People Moralise and Justify. . .

141

class relations, the question is asked why it is either not perceived, not perceived as unjust, or nevertheless endured and not fought against. The article is based on the analysis of 40 biographical interviews with young people in Germany between the ages of 18 and 35. The sampling includes precariously employed employees and solo self-employed persons, as well as students, trainees, young people in measures of the transition system, unemployed persons and women on maternity leave. Interviews were conducted with young people with and without a migration background in Berlin and two medium-sized cities in each of the new and old federal states. All interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed and anonymised and coded in the sense of Grounded Theory according to Anselm Strauss and Barney Corbin (1998). In the following, we will first outline Andrew Sayer’s and Axel Honneth’s ideas on moral classes, in order to then use our empirical material to show how young people in Germany construct moral collectives in the context of class relations. What is striking here is the strong idealization of the middle and the striving to be part of the middle oneself. Interestingly, young people manage to see themselves as part of the middle, even though their objective situation is precarious. The middle also appears to the young generation as a calm, safe haven that protects them from the waves of precarity. The perception or justification of social inequality and different social and economic situations results from an unbroken belief in meritocracy and the normalization of precarity. The de-structuring and individualisation of social inequality in the perception of young people makes them themselves responsible for individual failure and blocks the view of structural causes or situations. Questions about justice can thus hardly be asked any more, which exacerbates the effects of class. While Steffen Mau and Nadine Schöneck have formulated this impressively for the society of the middle, it is nevertheless astonishing that this is also the case among young people, apparently unbroken, “We are witnessing a certain surrender to fate . . . The striving for more equality has fallen behind and faded as a political goal” (Mau and Schöneck 2015: 12; translated from German).

1

Moral Classes: A Theoretical Framework

Our theoretical starting point defines actors as social, fundamentally relational beings who always interpret and evaluate themselves in relation to others. People, following Sayer’s assumption, are in their daily lives continuously engaged in evaluating whether behavior towards and from others is perceived as fair, right or unjust and whether it contributes to mutual well-being (Sayer 2010: 166, 2011:

142

A. Seehaus and V. Trappmann

142). Moral judgments in everyday life, so-called lay morality, can find expression in direct form or formalized as norms, but also more indirectly through expressed emotions (Sayer 2005b: 951). Following this understanding of morality and a concept of class that follows Pierre Bourdieu (1997), Sayer sees the connection between morality and class in processes of othering. This refers to processes in which groups construct a positive identity and self-esteem by distinguishing themselves from others, by projecting characteristics that they themselves reject or fear onto others, thus portraying them as bad and themselves as valuable. Such a reciprocal reference of evaluative performances initially constitutes the character of any form of moral communication. If we take Luhmann’s definition of morality as a basis, these evaluative performances refer to differences in esteem: esteem is acquired, assigned, diminished, etc. According to Luhmann, morality becomes effective as the “totality of the factually practiced conditions of mutual respect and disrespect” (Luhmann 1978: 51; translated from German). Sayer, in turn, emphasizes how everyday social inequalities such as class relations are expressed and reproduced through such moral communication and its production of differences in respect. Everyday morality thus reveals how boundaries are drawn along social classes via morality and how moral classes are thus constructed or reproduced. Feelings associated with class are thus evaluative responses to certain features of class relations and inequality, which are influenced but not predetermined by one’s position in the social field (Sayer 2005b: 950). Following Richard Sennet and Jonathan Cobb (1972), Sayer emphasizes that, precisely because individuals are judged in comparison with others, structures of social inequality such as classes open up competition for respect and esteem.2 The focus on morality and questions of recognition does not downplay or hide the role of economic inequality between social classes, rather it shows that ignoring classes on the one hand and drawing moral boundaries on the other exacerbates the effects of class by drawing moral boundaries as well. In particular, the belief in a just society based on a meritocratic principle plays a central role here. While upward mobility is sought in order to overcome disadvantages of the lower classes, the mere possibility of upward mobility is often regarded as proof that class no longer matters. It is assumed that what is possible for a few should be achievable for all.

2

This has been shown by Beverly Skeggs (1997) in her ethnographic study of white working class women in Britain, that middle class positions are not only a matter of economic advantage, but are also seen as morally superior, while members of the working class are portrayed as deficient and inadequate.

The Middle as a Classless Place? How Young People Moralise and Justify. . .

143

According to Sayer but also to Bourdieu (1982), as a judgmental distinction, moral questions in class society therefore tend to be directed downwards as long as there is no sense of injustice for the existence of classes themselves (Sayer 2010: 175). Differential position in the production process, the unequal distribution of material goods and also the unequal distribution of access to valued practices and goods as a source of recognition are thus obscured. Following Nancy Fraser and Nancy Naples (2004), it is assumed that recognition in its fullest sense can only be achieved through redistribution and not through identity issues alone (Sayer 2005a: 68). Similar to Sayer, Axel Honneth (1981) also sees a close connection between questions of morality and recognition and the social division between social classes. At the centre of his considerations are different abilities to articulate moral concepts, which leads from an unequal ability to articulate and thus to an unequal perception and inclusion of moral concepts of different classes in the discourse. While privileged groups and classes possess elaborate conceptions of justice, that is, an abstract and coherent system of norms and rules, oppressed groups and classes often possess an uncoordinated complex of reactive conceptions of justice – that is, a fragmented and experience-based awareness of norms and injustice, which is mostly expressed only negatively in the form of disapproval towards devaluations (Honneth 1981: 559). Following Barrington Moore (1978: 500 ff.), Honneth calls this “highly sensitive sensorium for violations of moral claims assumed to be justified” a consciousness of injustice, which, although it does not comprise a positive version of a system of norms valid for society as a whole, expresses situation-based expectations about what is just and unjust and thus includes demands regarding one’s own needs and ideas about happiness (a good life) (1981: 560; translated from German). Honneth understands this fragmented “inner morality” (ibid.; translated from German), which only represents the negative of an institutionalized moral order via “Lebensweltliche Betroffenheit”, as an expression of moral concepts and class consciousness. According to him, the class conflict could not be calmed down by the compensations accompanying state interventionism in late capitalism, because although the unequal distribution of material goods was compensated for, this was not the only dimension of the class conflict, as long as one does not want to take a highly simplified reduced class theory as a basis. Similar to Sayer, Honneth instead assumes that a class theory must also take into account the unequal distribution of immaterial goods and life chances. Sayer’s observation that power imbalances and inequality limit the agency of actors (cf. Sayer 2010: 196) can be supplemented with more concrete observations by Honneth. For example, he argues that members of oppressed classes are, on the one hand, not subject to any legitimation pressure and, on the other hand, their

144

A. Seehaus and V. Trappmann

normative convictions do not come under pressure to elaborate due to the cultural climate within their class (Honneth 1981: 561). The fact that oppressed classes are not trusted with a linguistic and cultural code for solving social moral problems prevents them from developing a more coherent design and a more consistent communication of their moral concepts. For these reasons, Honneth argues that the normative potential of social groups should not be determined by collective ideas of justice or moral consciousness, but also by the inner morality of the social consciousness of injustice. However, according to Honneth, this can only be read indirectly from “measures of moral disapproval of social events and processes”, since their value premises and ideas of justice are precisely not transparent (ibid.: 562; translated from German). Following Honneth, the admonition that the manner of articulation is strongly tied to social position, because abilities are institutionally and structurally limited, will find its way into the analysis of the interviews.

2

Moral Boundaries

The interviewed group of young adults between the ages of 18 and 35 places itself predominantly in the middle of the social structure. Moral evaluations and attributions are found especially when the interviewees are asked about the structuring of society, are asked to locate themselves, and are asked to describe what other positions beyond their own constitute.3 Our data shed light on the extent to which precarious working and living conditions influence newly emerging forms of social, political and class consciousness and thus have an impact on individual strategies for coping with life as well as collective forms of social engagement among young workers. Rarely is a coherent picture of society and class structures sketched out; instead, exciting contradictions emerge, some of which can only be explained in the overall context of the biographical narrative. Therefore, in the course of the analysis, we will illuminate the biographical context of certain positionings. Basically, the idea of a hierarchically structured society dominates. Most of the young people we interviewed assume that positioning in society is determined by

3

Following the biographical narrative, we asked specific questions about educational, training and work contexts and transitions in between. We also included explicit questions about political orientations, self-location within the social structure, and perceptions of social lines of conflict.

The Middle as a Classless Place? How Young People Moralise and Justify. . .

145

economic aspects, in which occupational status and income are intermingled. In many cases, education also plays a role, which is seen as a source of recognition and status, regardless of whether it can be translated into material resources. The various groups that are constituted in the process serve to locate oneself within the social hierarchy, i.e. they are designed in coordination with the image drawn of oneself and the position ascribed to oneself. If, for example, others have less and one has more, there must be an explanation for this, one’s own position must be justified. This usually happens through a moral demarcation from other individuals and groups upwards and downwards.

2.1

Moral Boundaries Upwards: “Keeping It Real”

Young adults seem to be largely in agreement with regard to upward demarcations. High social positions are defined primarily in economic terms, and only in a few cases through power and influence. Moral evaluations do not take place in relation to material wealth and the privileges that go with it per se, but refer to how one deals with one’s own wealth and one’s attitude towards others. Wealth is framed as affluence when it is flaunted, associated with distinction behaviour and ‘status conceit’. Status and possessions also become morally questionable when they are associated with devaluation or indifference towards those who are worse off, or seem to go hand in hand with a disconnection from society. Some express the idea that wealth is unjustified when it can no longer be put in relation to work done. But even then, what is primarily addressed and disapproved of is not how wealth comes about, but the habitus that goes with it. Marcel, for example, addresses the lack of empathy and solidarity and disapproves of the arrogance of people in privileged positions. So for me, the upper class is rather people who, I say, sit on the money bag and now also live their own lives and look down on you (. . .) people who then walk around with their noses up and say: Yes, I don’t care about anything, people should live their lives, I’m not interested in the suffering of other people, I’m happy that I have my life as it is, I have enough money, I don’t have to worry about my livelihood, about my life itself. That would belong to the upper class for me.4 (Marcel)

4

For the purpose of better readability, the transcript excerpts selected here are simplified. The original transcripts on which the analyses are based were prepared according to genreanalytical transcription conventions.

146

A. Seehaus and V. Trappmann

Although he emphasises that there are also people who have worked their way up and thus questions the justification of, for example, inherited wealth or privileges, it is not the sources of wealth or membership of the “high class” that concern him in the following, but their detachment from the rest of society. A similar perspective is expressed by Tom, who stresses that material wealth should not have a negative effect on one’s view of other people and one’s own lifestyle. I don’t want to drift away, even if I have the chance to earn a lot. I would certainly do something for my family, but because of that I would still not live snooty and buy me a big car and a fur. But I would still stay down to earth. (Tom)

A moral attribution that conflates material wealth with a lack of integrity and a growing distance from the rest of society is also found in Manuela. And above me, yes, these are, in my opinion, those who just have a lot and bosses, managers. My boss, for example, with whom I have hardly any contact and whose contact I also don’t appreciate or what do you mean don’t appreciate. There are certainly also good people, but first of all I don’t come into contact with them and secondly I appreciate people who are honest, who are loyal. Whom I can assess, and with bosses and managers I can not, and I do not want to. (Manuela)

In relation to privileged positions, Mark also tends to moralize about the excess of luxury and status symbols. Different sources of income and wealth are discussed, but not evaluated. Thus he first describes very impressively, using the example of his own thoroughly wealthy family, which he classifies in the upper middle class, where exactly he sees the difference to the upper class, namely in demonstrative consumption. So my family travels several times a year, we are my parents, my brother and I, four people have four cars, we have a condo, we have a garden, we have a second apartment that is being paid off. They are probably better off than the majority of people in Germany. In the world anyway, that’s clear. But it’s also not like my mother goes to get bread rolls in the Porsche Cayenne or so, in the KDW. (Markus)

A fundamentally critical perspective on material wealth is found in Beate, who assumes that even earned and saved wealth is not automatically just. She also moralizes the habitus and in particular the supposedly egalitarian and liberal but actually commercial, exclusionary lifestyle. And there is also something that is just different for people who somehow have a lot of money. The style of living, the style of dress is different. The style of living is

The Middle as a Classless Place? How Young People Moralise and Justify. . .

147

different. The problems are different. You don’t have, the language is different, often, you simply have such an invisible border to others. And you don’t necessarily look for them. (. . .) In my life I have had contact with people who grew up rich. And many of them were really rather left-wing, but then, in the course of time, one or the other thing revealed itself, where I noticed, that isn’t okay at all. So you just notice that money, property does something to people and it’s a different way of looking at life (. . .) The people are convinced that they really deserve it. And they are blind for, often for empathy. And then they also lose a form of humanity. (Beate)

Higher social positions are defined by the young people in our sample primarily in terms of material and financial resources. However, people in these positions are not judged by their possessions themselves. Rather, they question how the available wealth has come about and how it is dealt with. Respect is denied, on the one hand, if a fortune has not been earned through work and achievement. Even if this were the case, on the other hand, the display of wealth is also moralized. Likewise, people lose respect if they turn away from the rest of society with reference to their possessions or even devalue other groups. Thus, according to our young interviewees, humane treatment and a down-to-earth way of life must be observed. Furthermore, social positions that are hardly distinguished by more money, possessions or power are judged morally.

2.2

Moral Boundaries Downwards: “The Typical Asocial Hartz IV Recipients” Are “Fucking Themselves to Blame”

In the eyes of our interview partners, people below their own social position are similar in their consumption patterns, suffer from a lack of necessities, a lack of education and limited opportunities. Here, explanations are not necessarily provided by all. Rather, the position is only “described”, no sense of injustice is shown for the perceived inequality, nor are the criteria for the distribution of resources, privileges and positions questioned. Mark, for example, who developed his idea of the upper class in distinction to his own family, also approaches the description of people in lower positions by this time simply subtracting what in his mind makes him and his family part of the middle class. Ahm and downwards the demarcation would practically be there, if we didn’t have these material goodies anymore, so, if we didn’t have four cars anymore, but somehow had to share one among four, if we didn’t travel two to eight times a year somehow, so with such short trips, then that would probably be the lower class. (Markus)

148

A. Seehaus and V. Trappmann

A critical distance as to how great the gap between him and the “lower class” really is,is absent here, as is the question of whether this gap could somehow be socially justified. Rather, explanations are attached that point to individual behaviour, a lack of ambition and effort that distinguishes those in the lower positions from others and, above all, from the respective interviewees themselves. I think because the majority of people have already made life choices that have led to these situations, so I think at least in Germany it is so that no one is born into it or perhaps already born into precarious situations but he is not denied the ascent ahm. And therefore I think in my eyes it is always to a certain extent self-inflicted. (Markus)

Similar remarks can also be found among other young adults in our sample, some of whom, like Johanna in this case, refer to the fact that certain stereotypes are shaped by media constructions. So under my position I would see the typical asocial Hartz IV recipients. Like you know them from TV I would say. Those who live on Hartz IV but also do not want to change. (Johanna) Mh. I hope that does not sound mean, but maybe, there are some who receive Hartz IV, and have simply given up on themselves a bit. I would classify them as below us. (Emily)

A particularly direct description can be found with Nora, who herself was only 20 years old at the time of the interview and who, after a phase in which regular smoking pot was part of her everyday life, has now picked herself up to catch up on her high school graduation. Everyone can decide who goes to the underclass. If someone has the choice between Netflix and work and then actually in the end decides for Netflix, he is fucking himself to blame, in my opinion. (Nora)

The assumption that some people want less than others and do not have the ambition to change their situation explains their lower social position. To want to improve oneself and to fight through, to take responsibility for it, to integrate oneself in the middle of society, is expressed here as a norm. Breaking or deviating from it is seen as self-inflicted and does not trigger a sense of injustice, but only a moralization of low ambitions. This perspective, which we find both among those who classify themselves further down and among those who feel they belong to the middle, obscures the view of structural causes of social inequality. Criticism is only voiced here when one’s own advancement fails to materialize despite all ambitions. Then a

The Middle as a Classless Place? How Young People Moralise and Justify. . .

149

further downward moralization takes place, which expresses itself in the form of social envy. Here, as we show elsewhere, we find the seeds of right-wing nationalist populism (cf. Trappmann et al. 2018).

2.3

The Refusal to Moralise: “I Hate Such Stratified Thinking”

There is also a tendency among our interviewees not to make any distinction between people within society, or despite a distinction between themselves and other groups, to consciously avoid or even reject moral attributions. This negation of both hierarchy and moralization occurs out of an apparent political correctness that is aware of the stigmatizations of the lower class and seeks to avoid them. For example, while Sophie explicitly opposes any form of categorization, Anna rejects conceptualizations because of their normative connotations. I think I hate such layered thinking. I find it super sad that we always try to put everything into boxes and everything has to be clearly defined. (Sophia) Well, nope, no, to be honest, I do not really have anopinionon that. . . Well I find the term layers nicer somehow, classes sounds so, I don’t know, well, a bit pejorative. (Anna)

We find here a refusal to place socio-economic differences or inequality in a larger picture, in an understanding of social structure, and a tendency to point to something that tends to make individuals seem equal, qualities or values. Both Anna and Tom make it clear that, for them,qualities, values and interpersonal behaviour are more important criteria for judging people than their financial situation. Well, for me, it isactually important, what people are like, how they vibe. So it is not about-, so, I value people much more, who simply are humane and reasonable, than people who earn a lot. So that’s why, from my own point of view, I would actually place these people in a much higher strata than people who millionaires. (Anna) Sure someone with twenty million can love his wife just as much as someone who’s homeless. Of course. Money has nothing to do with the heart. (Tom)

Although both assume that material prosperity is an important criterion by which individual position within society is currently determined, they do not make any moral judgement in relation to it. By leaving a blank space here and referring to alternative criteria, no fundamental evaluation of such an order is made. The

150

A. Seehaus and V. Trappmann

reference to one’s own standards makes it possible here to distance oneself from the found order and to avoid a justification for this order. The avoidance of providing the different positions within society with moral attributions or explaining them neutralizes diversity on the one hand, but at the same time also makes it impossible to look at its cause and meaning. At most, there is talk of misfortune, winning the lottery, or strokes of fate. In this way, social situations are further mystified and structural explanations are rendered impossible. This (artificial) blindness to social differences contributes to the de-structuring of social inequalities. The refusal to acknowledge the differences in objective situations basically only masks the conviction that those who want to change their lives could do so. By disappearing from view, social inequalities are all the more declared to be an individual matter and can no longer be questioned at all, let alone criticized or fought against. Such a retreat, which fundamentally avoids dealing with the complexity of social situations, leaves the field to those with over-simplified interpretations, and allows one to continue one’s own belief in meritocracy.

2.4

The Refusal of Moralization as a Form of Class Consciousness

Among a few of the young people we find only the moralization of privileged groups, but neither a moralization downwards nor a (supposedly neutrally distanced) description of the lower positions. While Marcel primarily emphasizes the disconnection of wealthier groups and addresses their disinterest in the rest of society or their pejorative perspective, Beate criticizes a behavior of distinction that is blind to social differences despite clear demarcation. That people slip more into poverty and the rich are just all among themselves and uh that there are only a few who say e, there are people who really need help both financially and at home, let’s say, and uh and there are still people, who say you can’t cope with your life just because you don’t have much money and I find it strange that such people make such statements, just because it could happen to them that all of a sudden they lose all their assets, all their valuables and what not. And then I just really rather see it with people who are financially better off,who then just throw money at any situation. Then they simply buy the organic food. And then they do yoga, with a yoga instructor. And then people want to lead you to believethat you can do-, so there, in this spiritual area, people often try to tell you: You can do it too. Because people don’t see that many of these approaches are also connected to money. And they don’t even see that they have often gone a very capitalistic way in their spiritual path, which for many isn’t accessible at all. (Beate)

The Middle as a Classless Place? How Young People Moralise and Justify. . .

151

On the contrary, structural conditions of different positions and situations are named and criticized. Problems found in one’s own life are not attributed to one’s own actions and individual abilities and ambitions. Instead, the system of capitalism is seen as the cause of the different class positions. These young adults position themselves within the lower class, but do not see this as self-inflicted, but as the result of a precarious situation inherent in the system. Consistently, they feel no shame for their situation. A justification of prosperity and a devaluation of poverty, which is oriented towards achievement and education, is questioned by Beate, for example, because it does not seem very plausible to her before the reconstruction of her own family background. What I’ve also more or less experienced is that men or people who are now higher up in the class system firmly believe that they deserve what they do. And I remember my friend, he used to explain to me that - because it was about setting cars on fire - and then he said his father had worked so hard as a lawyer for his Mercedes. And I was like, and that’s why he has the right to drive that car and have that status? And I was like, I think my mother worked harder and she has to sputter to pay off her little Opel. So where is the value in that, why should his father-, yeah, but he has studied!”. So I was like,, yes, my mother was taken out of school in the eighth grade to start working so she could help pay for the family. So, what are you trying to tell me? (Beate)

Marcel also reflects on his social background and growing up in poverty. He describes the experience of having to get by with the bare necessities and explains that he is not ashamed of his situation. By addressing this strongly moral emotion, but dismissing it, he makes it clear that a personal justification of his poverty aimed at him as an individual is not to be expected. So for me specifically, I come from the lower class, I grew up on an estate, as they say, in one of these high rise buildings. Just with the most necessary things you have. With the clothes you had you first had to get by and then, once you had saved up some money, you could go for a little stroll, but that was it. (. . .) So I can put myself in the lower class but I’m not ashamed of it. (. . .) We are actually relatively satisfied with what we get from the food bank, we are not ashamed to go there. Because I don’t think you should be ashamed of going to the food bank just because you have a little less money at your disposal. (Marcel)

A perspective on the social order based purely on individual achievement and ambition is also rejected by Robert. Against the background of his own experiences, he complains that one’s own life is shaped by obstacles and limits that lie outside one’s sphere of influence.

152

A. Seehaus and V. Trappmann

It’s this- yes, it is the possibility that what you really want to do is practically impossible unless you grow up in a well-off family with money. If you grow up in poor circumstances, the possibility of self-realization is zero. And that is cruel ((laughs)) for me. To accept it like that. (Robert)

When looking at the system-critical perspectives, the influence of educational level and general language competence quickly becomes apparent. Although some have the language to name phenomena concretely, and others work with vague paraphrases, or avoid abstract questions and topics if possible, critical perspectives are sometimes found even or especially among those whose point of view is not directly and explicitly expressed. These descriptions can be understood as an expression of an inner morality, a consciousness of injustice. Emotions such as “sad” make it clear that devaluations due to the economic situation are perceived as unjust. The self-confident expression of not being ashamed of one’s own situation also refers to the dissociation from the prevailing normative discourse. In none of these cases are moral, normative ideas formulated in a positive way, but they are expressed in negative rejection of an exclusionary lifestyle, an emotion such as shame, or a devaluation of others. The certainty that one is not responsible for one’s own situation and that one is unfairly less privileged, endowed with fewer opportunities, helps on the one hand to be proud of one’s achievements and on the other hand to distance oneself from experienced devaluations and from the lifestyle of others and common values. Reflection on one’s own biography and thus on how the current situation came about, but also on one’s own possibilities for action, is decisive for the perspective on the social order and the evaluation of the different positions.

3

The Striving Towards and the Idealization of the Middle

The social middle has been strongly anchored in the political mentalities of Germans at least since the Bonn Republic (Münkler 2010). The middle is considered the safest and morally most viable existence (ibid.: 8). The middle embodies the right measure between too much and too little, it lies economically and morally between the extremes and balances (ibid.). For a long time, it offered members of the lower classes realistic opportunities for advancement. Now, however, not only these are threatened, but also the social middle itself is in apparent danger, according to much-heard contemporary diagnosis (Bude 2011, 2014, 2016; Heinze

The Middle as a Classless Place? How Young People Moralise and Justify. . .

153

2012; Vogel 2009; Mau and Schöneck 2015). Members of the middle class in particular see themselves as affected by precarisation tendencies, although this does not objectively seem to be the case. Perceived insecurity is increasing not only in absolute terms, but also in comparison to other class segments. This “spill-over” effect (Lengefeld and Hirschle 2010: 189), i.e. above all the fear of social decline, is well documented (Dörre 2016, 2017; Schumann 2016). In our interviews with members of the younger generation, the middle is still a desirable social place in society. However, this place remains surprisingly underdetermined morally. The middle is the “good” or “right” and does not need to be positively defined in more detail; rather, it is defined in distinction to above and below. It also remains diffuse why the middle is good. Morally, the middle of the young Germans appears to be empty. I am, as always in my life, middle. Middle class and that’s where I want to stay. So, I don’t want to lose things to somehow slip or damage my body to somehow slip. And I don’t want to drift, even if I have the chance to earn a lot. I would certainly do that for my family, but that doesn’t mean I would still live a snooty life and buy a big car and a fur coat. I’d still be down to earth. And the bottom line is middle class. Is handling money and still cleaning up. The way I know it from home. (Tom)

Since our interviewees are often still in the middle of the process of detachment from the family of origin and are just in the process of establishing their own position, the positioning within the social order takes place in consideration of the status of the parental household, their own current situation and future expectations. Of our young respondents, hardly anyone perceives themselves as precarious. The uncertainty of one’s own situation – low income, fixed-term contracts and uncertainty about future developments – is put into perspective. Three different mechanisms are used to hide or weaken the significance of one’s own current insecure situation for one’s position in the social order. Young people continue to place themselves directly in the middle by (1) playing down their own precariousness, (2) framing it as a transitional phenomenon and part of the youth phase, or (3) finding it irrelevant because of their alternative life plans and values.

3.1

“Being Precarious Is Not So Bad”: Trivialisation of Precariousness

Marlen is currently working in a half-time position at a welfare organisation for 2 years. After a long period of searching, during which it proved difficult to find a job profile that matched her Master’s degree in Public Management, she managed to

154

A. Seehaus and V. Trappmann

enter the job market by moving from Berlin to a smaller city. Although she is sure that she does not want to work in the public sector, but for an association or a non-profit organisation, Marlen sees her current job as an entry point and the first stage in her search for a job that matches both her skills and her needs. Depending on her perspective, she would describe her employment as more or less insecure, but she does not feel precarious about her situation. When the interview was conducted, Marlen was 29 years old. It depends on what you compare it to. So compared to someone who has a permanent contract and it is clear that he will never be dismissed, I would say: Yes, I definitely have a totally insecure employment relationship, a precarious employment relationship, but for example compared to an unemployment benefit recipient I feel totally secure and think: Well, I have my job here. Um, and I also know that if I were to be laid off here, it would really only be because there is no money. (. . .) I only have a two-year contract anyway and that’s also good, I don’t even know yet if I want to do this exact thing, andfor so long, and by now I actually know that I don’t want to do it for too long. (Marlen)

Anna, who was 30 at the time of the interview and has been employed for about one and a half years on still short-term fixed-term honorary contracts in the university administrative sector, also considers herself to be in search of a job that suits her. Despite her high qualifications, with two Master’s degrees in the social sciences and international educational investments and work experience, she is having difficulty finding a longer-term position that is compatible with her interests and skills. Although she has suffered greatly from the long period of searching, and her husband, who is currently working abroad, is an important source of security for her, she does not feel precarious either. Rather, she points out the disadvantages and pitfalls of secure employment. So maybe it wouldn’t have been so good to get a permanent contract right after graduating from high school or after an apprenticeship, and then to be in this one situation forever. I think that also simply just has certain disadvantages. Mh what did I want to say now? So I think, evenif it somehow is a permanent contract,also it isn’t necessarily satisfying . I see that with my colleagues, mainly with older colleagues, who don’t have so much fun to go to work, and actually get angry about everything and find everything stupid butstill keep doing it. Because they don’t really have any other big alternative. And say, well I have my permanent job now and that’s it. And I’m not there yet, so I don’t want to have a permanent job at any price. Yes. So that you feel good there, I think that’s really important to lead a good life or a happy one. Yes. (Anna)

The Middle as a Classless Place? How Young People Moralise and Justify. . .

155

A trivialisation of precarious working and living conditions is found among those young people who fundamentally see flexibility as something desirable or who accept it as the price of freedom, e.g. for self-discovery or self-realisation through a job or profession. Precarity is not perceived and named as such here, but rather trivialized, because demands and requirements of constantly changing work contexts and conditions as well as the absence of planning security with regard to a steady income are actively integrated into the life plan. Central here are moments of comparison with, for example, groups and individuals in much worse situations or in much more secure but less fulfilling jobs, which prematurely determine the course of life and limit the possibilities of personal development and especially of change in an alternative direction. It is against the background of such contrasts that the acceptance or satisfaction with uncertain factors in one’s life is plausibilized. The negative connotation of security (for example, as a restriction) makes it possible to fade out precariousness or to frame it as a fair price for more freedom either in the sense of self-realization or as not having to commit oneself. Assignment to the centre of society is still possible, or precisely because the negative meaning of precariousness, which could devalue or endanger one’s own position, is relativised and understood as a normal, in a sense contemporary phenomenon. Marlen’s case even shows that being at the mercy of external influences on one’s own job situation can be trivialised above all when one’s own competences do not become the decisive criterion. It seems to be precisely cases that attach a particularly high value to their education and qualifications that rely on the effectiveness of themselves despite the perception of external conditions.

3.2

“It’s Just a Phase”: Precariousness as a Transitional Phenomenon

A different framing, which makes it possible to locate oneself in the middle of the social structure despite precarious working and living conditions, is found in the case of Tom and Mesut. 21-year-old Tom, who is currently working for a delivery service and completing various internships in the medical field, sees himself in a transitional phase. When he couldn’t get an apprenticeship as a surgical technician straight after completing his specialist baccalaureate, he initially trained to become a paramedic. While he secures his income through wage work, he tries not to lose touch with the medical sector, in which he desperately wants to work, and considers starting a degree course if he does not get the training place in the next year either. He vehemently rejects the idea of being precarious and looks forward to what will come in the future if he continues to work hard.

156

A. Seehaus and V. Trappmann

Well, it doesn’t really bother me. Well, it’s a stupid phase in my life, but I know that it will pass. And that if I just stay on the ball and don’t give up and say I’m not going to do healthcare anymore, because no one answers, now I’m going to do technology. Then I know that I’ll have to wait another two years and won’t get anything done. So I just stay on the ball, keep in touch with every hospital, with universities and at some point a door will open again. (Tom)

Similar to Tom, 21-year-old Mesut also describes insecurity in the context of training as a temporary phenomenon that will pass on its own and need not be a problem with a little effort. Mesut is currently training to become an electrical technician in industrial engineering and has already had numerous jobs and parttime jobs in the catering and security industry, where he earned well but was dissatisfied with the working hours and conditions. Although he is aware that his position might be judged differently from the outside, he is very happy with what he has and would rank himself socially higher up than lower down. He also does not find the training phase precarious because he receives both child benefit and additional support from his mother. He expects to be able to stand on his own 2 feet afterwards. And I wouldn’t consider it precarious at all, so maybe the training itself, because you earn a little less and afterwards you don’t have the security of being taken on directly somehow. But I think that is also really up to the person himself, how he is committed to finding something after the training. (Mesut)

The framing of precarity as a transitional phenomenon serves as a strategy here. By understanding experiences of lack and insecurity as a temporary problem or a normal part of adolescence, one’s situation is not only deindividualized, but can also be decoupled from one’s identity as a whole through the temporal limitation. With the end of the moratorium as a protective space for self-discovery, but also as a phase of special vulnerability and the transition to adulthood – i.e. the assertion as a full member of society – precarious working conditions, financial insecurity, and thus possibly existing fears about the future and doubts about identity are also overcome. Here, the present situation is less generally played down than in the case of the first strategy, but can be endured with a view to the future and later status. Here, too, the belief in one’s own self-efficacy seems to be central, as well as an adherence to the achievement paradigm.

The Middle as a Classless Place? How Young People Moralise and Justify. . .

3.3

157

“Precarious Doesn’t Matter”: Delimitation of Precariousness via Post-material Attitudes

Another framing, which helps to normalize one’s own situation and to be able to locate oneself in the social center without any problems, is expressed especially by Katerina and Robert. Katerina, who is 26 years old at the time of the interview, works at the theatre on a six-month fixed-term contract. After very stressful periods in her career as a dancer, both professionally and personally, she is proud to have overcome past problems and, in the process, to have had a variety of enriching experiences from which she has grown both personally and professionally. In addition to her employment, she is building a second leg as a dance teacher with an eye on the future. She sees that she is not sufficiently economically and socially secured in her current situation and therefore feels herself to be partly precarious. With a view to her horizon of experience and her possibilities for developing her personality, she nevertheless considers herself rich and locates herself in the middle of society. In terms of the money I make, I’m definitely poor. So I’m definitely bottom of the class. So definitely. But I would position myself in the middle because, I don’t know, that’s an interesting question. Why would I position myself in the middle? I mean, I consider myself a rich person. Because of my experience and my situation, that I stand firm at the end of the day. And, that I, you know, keep things going. (Katerina)

22-year-old Robert, who has been taking part in a job preparation scheme run by the Job Centre for 2 years, does not put work at the centre of his life. Although on the one hand he has high ambitions and would like to complete his vocational baccalaureate at night school as soon as he gets an admission to then start studying psychology, he could just as well imagine a more physical job in metal construction. Robert continually stresses the importance of reciprocity and selflessness and rejects any form of materialistic orientation. The fact that he belongs economically to the lower class therefore does not bother him. He does not find himself precarious and, because he is also critical and politically enlightened, he does not position himself overall at the margins or lower end of society. Money has no meaning for me, it’s a piece of paper. I might as well destroy a tree, press paper out of it and then write a number on it. If I were to go back to the beginning of time and let people believe that the piece of wood with the ten engraved on it has a value, then they would still believe that today. Just as people now have a firm belief that a piece of paper has value. Oh, I’m sorry ((laughs)) the tree that had to suffer for it has more value, in my opinion. (Robert)

158

A. Seehaus and V. Trappmann

Precarious working and living conditions are relativised here with reference to alternative values. Since material prosperity and the planning security necessary for traditional life plans are not internalised values at all, their absence cannot become a problem. Instead of income and stability through wage employment, it is above all attitude to life and personal aspirations that are important criteria for social status. Through this strategy of orientation towards post-material values and a life beyond classical gainful employment, the lack of security and economic resources does not contradict the positioning in a social centre defined by its value orientations and cultural capital.

4

Discussion

The analysis of the biographical interviews clearly showed that socio-economic differences are perceived by the young adults. However, in most cases the existing structures of social inequality and the associated power differences are not criticized, but legitimized. In our cases, this is often done by invoking the achievement paradigm or a Protestant work ethic (Weber 1904), through which moralizing statements and evaluations stabilize the perceived social structure. Above all, the people who are devalued are those who are below oneself, those who apparently do not perform well enough and are poor or in a marginalised position, more or less through their own fault. Those who are above oneself are not moralized per se, but only when wealth is ostentatiously displayed do we find devaluation and disrespect. According to Sayer, it is typical that moral issues tend to be directed downward in class societies. He explains this by the lack of awareness of injustice for the existence of classes (Sayer 2010: 175). Ironically, it is those from the lower class and lower middle class with de facto dwindling opportunities for advancement (cf. Nachtwey 2015) who are most moralized. However, this very fact could also be read as an articulation of one’s own fear of relegation. For, in the tradition of studies on working-class consciousness, 50 years later we must still largely agree with Helmut Schelsky’s diagnosis (1965/1953) that the majority in our case of German young people see themselves as part of the social middle. Hardly anyone locates themselves – as Heinrich Popitz et al. (1972) found for the German working class in the 1970s – “at the bottom”, despite their own often precarious socioeconomic situation. Young adults subscribe to a discourse of merit that rewards the efforts of the willing and industrious, the rich generally receive the reward for their efforts, and the poor were unwilling to change their situation. Such a belief in meritocracy individualizes the social structure of society, it de-structures class

The Middle as a Classless Place? How Young People Moralise and Justify. . .

159

positions. But the belief has become fragile; the larger the number of precarious people becomes, the more urgent it seems to protect oneself against possible precariousness of one’s own or even social descent. The fear of social relegation once again makes more of an effort to moralise the social structure. There must be reasons that lie in the individuals who have caused the social descent. The individualization or de-structuring of classes via the discourse of achievement thus takes place primarily on the moral level, through the individual attributions. Depending on whether and how much is achieved or how much willingness to perform can be made credible, respect is assigned or denied. The attractiveness of the centre is also reflected in the political landscape. The diversity in the political spectrum is no longer given by extremes, but by different expectations of the middle (Münkler 2010: 228), the constant change of the party landscape forms from the middle. The middle is overrepresented in elections, social fringes are hardly represented politically anymore, especially due to the decline in voter turnout the self-exclusion of the lower classes increases (Merkel 2015: 188). It is therefore not surprising that the electorate of the right-wing nationalist party Alternative for Germany in the 2017 federal election comes to a large extent from the rather well-off middle. The refusal of some of our interviewees to moralise, with the intention of not making individual attributions, must critically be assessed as a failed attempt to behave in a politically correct manner. The supposedly neutral descriptions take note of social inequality, but regard it as the result of external shocks, strokes of fate, etc., thus releasing individuals from responsibility, but again not problematizing structural causes. The criteria for the unequal distribution of resources are not questioned, with the result that the emergence of social differences remains, in a sense, a mystery. The only group, albeit a small one, that potentially expresses criticism of the system are members of the lower class. Few of our interviewees consider themselves to be lower class, but when they do, it is interestingly as a result of external factors: a failed marriage, illness, experiences of violence, or due to structural disadvantages. Their social situation is not self-inflicted and consequently they do not feel ashamed, although they are often shown little respect in their everyday experiences. On the contrary, moral boundaries are drawn here, which, following Honneth (1981), can be understood as the expression of an inner morality, a consciousness of injustice. They are not expressed in a positive sense as rules and principles, but as disapproval of what is observed in everyday life or constructed by the media. In addition, a few also express resolute criticism of the capitalist system, which seems to be the main cause of social inequality. Here we are most likely to find the beginnings of an explicit class consciousness.

160

A. Seehaus and V. Trappmann

Precarity is not seen as a structural problem by most of our young adults, but as a normal phenomenon due to the youth phase, which one has to come to terms with and which can be overcome through more educational engagement. The question, as posed for example by Guy Standing (2011), whether precarity can form the basis for a new class consciousness, has to be answered in the negative at least for the German reality at present. Interestingly, the critical voices are not to be found among the students in our sample. Although they are just as clearly affected by precarisation – albeit to a different extent – as those with less cultural and social capital, clear criticism is more likely to be found among a small precarious group of those who have been left behind. Those who no longer have anything to lose and who have experienced that the promise of benefits has been broken, have the courage to take a close look at the conditions. Here, system criticism is used as a tried and tested means of dealing with one’s own precariousness. For the mass of young people, however, not only criticism of the system, but any form of political perspective and commitment is a disruptive factor in the process of maintaining their supposed position in the middle. The question “classes or not?”, is thus still crucial for the assessment of contemporary society almost 80 years after Adorno’s admonition. As we have been able to show from our data, it is precisely the fading out of structural dimensions and conditions that leaves few alternatives for explaining social inequalities. If no other causes for social differences can be identified besides fate and misfortune that lie outside the individual, what remains to make the social order seem plausible is an evaluation of individual characteristics and choices. If, in addition, moralizations are primarily oriented towards the performance paradigm and the idea of a neutral middle, there are few points of contact for a consciousness, let alone a collective consciousness, that fundamentally criticizes social inequality and precariousness.

References Adorno, Theodor Wiesengrund (1993): Einleitung in die Soziologie. Nachgelassene Schriften Bd. 15. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Arrighi, Giovanni (2010) The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times. London: Verso. Baron, Christian (2014): Klasse und Klassismus. Prokla 175 44(2), 225–236. Beck, Ulrich (1992): Risikogesellschaft: auf dem Weg in eine andere Moderne. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Berger, Peter Anton/Hradil, Stefan (1990): Lebenslagen, Lebensläufe, Lebensstile. In: Soziale Welt (Sonderband 7). Göttingen: Schwartz.

The Middle as a Classless Place? How Young People Moralise and Justify. . .

161

Boris, Dieter (2010): Was machen wir mit dem Klassenbegriff?. Replik auf Lothar Peter. Zeitschrift Marxistische Erneuerung, 82, 146–150. Bourdieu, Pierre (1982): Die feinen Unterschiede. Kritik der gesellschaftlichen Urteilskraft. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Bourdieu, Pierre (2011 [1997]): Soziale Klassen – Soziale Situationen. In: Margareta Steinbrücke (Hrsg.) Der Tote packt den Lebenden. Neuauflage der Schriften zu Politik und Kultur 2. Hamburg: VSA Verlag. Bude, Heinz (2011): Bildungspanik: was unsere Gesellschaft spaltet. Lizenzausgabe. Bonn: Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung. Bude, Heinz (2014): Das Unbehagen in der burgerlichen Mitte. In: Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 64. Jg. 49. Bude, Heinz (2016): Das Gefühl der Welt. Über die Macht von Stimmungen. München: Carl Hanser Verlag. Cyba, Eva (2000): Geschlecht und soziale Ungleichheit. Konstellationen der Frauenbenachteiligung. Opladen: Leske + Budrich. Dahrendorf, Ralf (2000): Die globale Klasse und die neue Ungleichheit. Merkur, 54, 1057–1068. Demirović, Alex (2009): Staatliche Herrschaft und die politische Konstruktion von Klassen. In: Bescherer, Peter/Schierhorn, Karen (Hrsg.): Hello Marx. Zwischen “Arbeiterfrage” und sozialer Bewegung heute. Hamburg: VSA, 62–88. Demirović, Alex/Dück, Julia/Becker, Florian/Bader, Pauline (Hrsg.) (2011): Vielfachkrise im finanzdominierten Kapitalismus. Hamburg: VSA. Diezinger, Angelika (1991): Frauen: Arbeit und Individualisierung. Chancen und Risiken. Eine empirische Untersuchung anhand von Fallgeschichten. Opladen: Leske + Budrich. Dörre, Klaus (2003): Neubildung von gesellschaftlichen Klassen. Zur Aktualität des Klassenbegriffs. In: Bischoff, Joachim/Boccara, Paul/Castel, Robert/Dörre, Klaus (Hrsg.): Klassen und soziale Bewegungen. Strukturen im modernen Kapitalismus. Hamburg: VSA, 18–32. Dörre, Klaus (2016): Furcht vor Veränderung. Abstiegsängste und exklusive Solidarität. In: Klose, Joachim/Schmitz, Walter (Hrsg.) (2016): Freiheit, Angst und Provokation. Zum gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt in der postdiktatorischen Gesellschaft. Dresden: Thelem, S. 333–339. Dörre, Klaus (2017): Tief unten: Klassenbildung durch Abwertung. In: Misselhorn, Catrin/ Behrend, Hauke (Hrsg.) (2017): Arbeit, Gerechtigkeit und Inklusion - Wege zu gleichberechtigter gesellschaftlicher Teilhabe. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, S. 77–97. Fraser, Nancy/Naples, Nancy (2004): To interpret the world and change it: an interview with Nancy Fraser. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 29 (4), 1102–1124. Geißler, Rainer (1987): Soziale Schichtung und Lebenschancen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Stuttgart: Enke. Glatzer, Wolfgang/Ostner, Illona (1999): Deutschland im Wandel. Sozialstrukturelle Analysen. Opladen: Leske + Budrich. Heinze, Rolf G. (2012) Die Erschöpfte Mitte. Zwischen marktbestimmten Soziallagen, politischer Stagnation und der Chance auf Gestaltung. Weinheim: Juventa Vertag Herlyn, Ulfert (1980): Großstadtstrukturen und ungleiche Lebensbedingungen in der Bundesrepublik. Verteilung und Nutzung sozialer Infrastruktur. Frankfurt/Main: Campus.

162

A. Seehaus and V. Trappmann

Hofstätter, Lukas/Hohmann, Marco/Neckel, Sieghard/Petzold, Conny (2016): Researching the Global Financial Class: findings from Frankfurt and Sydney. Paper presented to the Third ISA Forum of Sociology, Vienna (Austria), July 12, 2016. Honneth, Axel (1981): Moralbewusstsein und soziale Klassenherrschaft. Einige Schwierigkeiten in der Analyse von Handlungspotenzialen. Leviathan, 9(3/4), 556–570. Joller, Stefan (2018): Skandal und Moral. Eine moralsoziologische Begründung der Skandalforschung. Weinheim/Basel: Beltz Juventa. Krais, Beate (2003): Begriffliche und theoretische Zugänge zu den “oberen” Rängen der Gesellschaft. In: Stefan Hradil/Imbusch, Peter (Hrsg.): Oberschichten – Eliten – Herrschende Klasse. Opladen: Leske + Budrich. S. 35–54. Krysmanski, Hans-Jürgen (2004): Herrschende Klasse Revisited. Zeitschrift Marxistische Erneuerung, 57, 8–20. Lengefeld, Holger und Hirschle, Jochen (2010): Die Angst der Mittelschicht vor dem sozialen Abstieg. Eine Längsschnittanalyse 1984–2007. In: Burzan, Nicole/Berger, Peter A. (Hrsg.): Dynamiken (in) der gesellschaftlichen Mitte. Springer VS Verlag, S. 181–200. Luhmann, Niklas (1978): Soziologie der Moral. In: Luhmann, Niklas/Pfürtner, Stephan H. (Hrsg.): Theorietechnik und Moral. Frankfurt am Main, S. 8–116. Mau, Steffen/Schönebeck, Nadine M. (2015): (Un-)gerechte (Un)-Gleichheiten. Berlin: Edition Suhrkamp. Merkel, Wolfgang (2015): Ungleichheit als Krankheit der Demokratie. In: Steffen Mau und Nadine M. Schöneck (Hrsg.): (Un-)Gerechte (Un-)Gleichheiten. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Moore, Barrington (1978): Injustice: The Social Bases of Obedience and Revolt. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Müller, Hans-Peter (1992): Sozialstruktur und Lebensstile. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Münkler, Herfried (2010): Mitte und Maß: der Kampf um die richtige Ordnung. Berlin: Rowohlt. Nachtwey, Oliver (2015): Die Abstiegsgesellschaft. Über das Aufbegehren in der regressiven Moderne. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Peter, Lothar (2010): Was machen wir mit dem Klassenbegriff?. Zeitschrift Marxistische Erneuerung, 81, 133–148. Popitz, Heinrich, Bahrdt, Hans P., Jüres, Ernst A. und Kesting, Hanno (1972) Das Gesellschaftsbild des Arbeiters: Soziologische Untersuchungen in der Hüttenindustrie. Tübingen: Mohr (Paul Siebeck). Rehberg, Karl-Siegbert (2011): “Klassengesellschaftlichkeit” nach dem Ende der Klassengesellschaft?. Berlin Journal für Soziologie, 21, 7–21. Roth, Karl-Heinz (2005): Der Zustand der Welt. Gegen-Perspektiven. Hamburg: VSA. Sayer, Andrew (2005a): The Moral Significance of Class. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sayer, Andrew (2005b): Class, Moral Worth and Recognition. Sociology, 39(5), 947–963. Sayer, Andrew (2010): Class and Morality, In: S. Hitlin/S. Vaisey (Hrsg.): Handbook of the Sociology of Morality, New York: Springer, 163–178. Sayer, A. (2011): Why Things Matter to People: Social Science, Values and Ethical Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schelsky, Helmut (1965/1953): Die Bedeutung des Schichtungsbegriffes für die Analyse der gegenwärtigen deutschen Gesellschaft. In: Schelsky, Helmut (Hrsg.): Auf der Suche nach Wirklichkeit. Gesammelte Aufsätze. Düsseldorf: Diederichs, 331–336.

The Middle as a Classless Place? How Young People Moralise and Justify. . .

163

Schildt, Axel (1995): Moderne Zeiten. Freizeit, Massenmedien und “Zeitgeist” in der Bundesrepublik der 50er Jahre. Hamburg: Christians. Schumann, Michael (2016): Arbeitsbewusstsein und Gesellschaftsbild revisited. In: WSI-Mitteilungen 7/2016, Schwerpunktheft “Gerechtigkeitsansprüche und Arbeitnehmerbewusstsein heute – neue Ansätze, neue Befunde”, S. 555–558. Sennett, R., & Cobb, J. (1972): The hidden injuries of class. Cambridge: Cambridge University. Press Skeggs, B. (1997): Formations of class and gender: Becoming respectable. London: Sage. Standing, Guy (2011): The Precariat. The New Dangerous Class. Bloomsbury Academics. Strauss, Anselm L./Corbin, Juliet M. (1998): Basics of qualitative research: Procedures and techniques for developing grounded theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Thien, Hans-Günther (2014): Klassentheorien – Die letzten 50 Jahre. Prokla 175, 44 (2), 163–191. Thompson, Edward Palmer (1987): The Making of the English Working Class. London: Penguin. Trappmann, Vera and Seehaus, Alexandra and Neumann, Denis, Right-Wing Populism in Germany: Is the Precarious Youth Voting for AfD? Insight from Biographies and CATI Survey (March 20, 2018). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3144358. Vogel, Berthold (2009): Wohlstandskonflikte. Soziale Fragen, die aus der Mitte kommen. Hamburger Edition. Weber, Max (1904): Protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus. In: Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik. 20, 1904, S. 1–54 und 21, 1905, S. 1–110, überarbeitet in GARS I 1–206. Wiehn, Erhard R./Mayer, Karl Ulrich (1975): Soziale Schichtung und Mobilität. Eine kritische Einführung. München: Beck. Zapf, Wilhelm (1977): Lebensbedingungen in der Bundesrepublik. Sozialer Wandel und Wohlfahrtsentwicklung. Frankfurt a. M.: Campus.

“They Totally Lied to Us About That”. Morality as a Motif in the Memory and Visual Reception of the Holocaust Sebastian Schönemann

1

Introduction

In the collective memory of the Holocaust, a set of typical icons, symbols, and subjects has solidified that has largely detached itself from historical tradition and, through its symbolic charge, evokes moral feelings of outrage, horror, and consternation. Although a vast number of more than two million photographs have been preserved, the pictorial memory of the Holocaust is limited to a limited number of visualizations with which the past is given an image and meaning (Milton 1986: 307): the images of lined-up deportations and prisoners’ roll calls, symbols such as the ‘yellow star’ and camp fence, or the often reproduced icons of the gatehouse of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Anne Frank. While the history of pictorial memory of the Holocaust has been extensively researched through a variety of works (including Amishai-Maisels 1993; Brink 1998; Zelizer 1998; Knoch 2001; Hamann 2007; Paul and Schoßig 2010), the question still remains1 what meaning this visual canon has in everyday social life and how it influences the individual as well as the collective knowledge of the past. In a qualitative reception study, an attempt was made to find empirical answers to this question. To this end, group discussions were conducted on a visual conversational stimulus and the constructions of the past and styles of reception expressed in these discussions were analysed sequentially. Because the

1

This desideratum has been pointed out by various authors (Leggewie 2009: 14; Welzer 2010: 8; Treml 1997: 291).

S. Schönemann (✉) Hadamar Memorial Museum, Hadamar, Germany e-mail: [email protected] # The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 S. Joller, M. Stanisavljević (eds.), Moral Collectives, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-40147-4_10

165

166

S. Schönemann

memory of National Socialism and the Holocaust differs above all between the generations, generational discussion groups were formed accordingly, whose contrastive comparison allows the reconstruction of similarities and differences in reception behavior. Thus, representatives of the so-called ‘second’, ‘third’ and now ‘youngest’ generation after the historical events were interviewed. Due to the socio-historical differences in socialization, the discussion groups of the ‘second’ and ‘third’ generations were also taken into account and correlated with each other in terms of their respective background experiences in the GDR and the FRG. The focus of my contribution is the case analysis of a group discussion in which a moral understanding of remembering the Holocaust generated meaning. Maurice Halbwachs (1985a, b) already pointed out the collective, i.e. social and therefore also (binding) significance of traditional memories, whose orientation-guiding “connective semantics”, on the other hand, has been emphasized more strongly by Jan Assmann (1997: 24). The “normative past” (Assmann 1995: 60) preserved in cultural memory establishes feelings of belonging, not least in the form of instructions on how to think about the past. In the analysis sample of my study, the connection between normative reference to the past and moral memory is most succinctly revealed in the interview of group ‘Pelikan’, who, due to their age and socialisation, correspond to the ‘second’, West German generation. For the group, the moral assumption of responsibility for historical crimes is fundamental. From this they derive the rule of action of admonishing remembrance against forgetting, which they justify in the interview and at the same time carry out themselves. After a brief outline of the theoretical and methodological approaches of the study, I discuss the results of the case analysis and present them along the reconstructed case categories. Finally, the type of meaning and reception formed is presented. Because the interpretative procedure is necessarily abbreviated, the explanations of the reconstructed categories are supplemented by the transcripts of the conversation sequences on which the analyses were based.

2

Methodology

2.1

Theoretical Preliminary Considerations

In its basic concept, the empirical study is oriented towards the open research style of grounded theory (Strauss 1991), which does not exclude selective recourse to theoretical concepts, but calls for their explication (Breuer 2010: 26 ff.). For the methodological approach, the understanding of the phenomenon of visual

“They Totally Lied to Us About That”. Morality as a Motif in the. . .

167

remembering as a form of visual knowledge has been crucial (Schnettler and Pötzsch 2007). Using the conceptual tools of the documentary method, the notion of visual knowledge can be concretized in more depth. With Karl Mannheim, the documentary method distinguishes between theoretically explicit and pre-reflexively implicit knowledge (Bohnsack 2011: 15 f.). In this sense, everyday understanding is based on an “entanglement of two modes of behaviour and experience towards things” (Mannheim 1980: 296; translated from German). In addition to theoretical everyday knowledge, actors equally possess atheoretical knowledge from experience. The theoretical knowledge is reflexive and explicable, whereas the deeper experiential knowledge habitually guides thinking, acting and feeling. Experiential knowledge is collectively shaped but pre-reflexive – an implicit and ‘silent’ tacit knowledge (Michael Polanyi) of social practice. Because it derives from the shared experiential space (including generation, gender, social class) and the experiential stratification of groups based on it, it is called conjunctive knowledge (Bohnsack 2011: 17 ff.). From their conjunctive experiential base, groups draw their habitus-specific, non-verbal practices, with which they approach the cultural objectivations in everyday life receptively. In accordance with the open research approach, both the explicit and the implicit dimension of visual knowledge are the focus of the investigation. The documentary method is particularly recommended for the reconstruction of the habitus-specific practices of the actors. However, it would only capture explicit visual knowledge and the situational formation of knowledge and experience to a limited extent.2 This manifest form of visual memory should also be reconstructed in its variety of meanings in order to take into account situationally performed and potentially experience-changing acts of interpretation in the same way as the habitualized modes of reception of the actors. The aim of the analytical procedure has therefore been to analytically pursue the ‘entanglement of two modes of behaviour and experience of things’ emphasised by Mannheim and to reconstruct their interrelationship on the basis of collective, i.e. interactively produced, sensemaking. The research instrument used was the group discussion method, which was modified in accordance with the research objective and extended to include a visual stimulus for

2

As already mentioned, the documentary method distinguishes between communicativegeneralized and conjunctive-implicit knowledge. I emphasize this aspect because the documentary method assigns visual perception – and thus also visual memory – significantly to the implicit realm of knowledge. Accordingly, visual perception is largely a pre-linguistic and pre-conscious mode of cognition and therefore implicit knowledge (Bohnsack 2011: 29 f.). The explicit stock of knowledge is thereby pushed into the background by this a priori determination.

168

S. Schönemann

conversation. It allows the methodically controlled collection of data that promises access to the collective production of meaning by the actors and the experiential knowledge behind it.

2.2

Data Collection: Group Discussion on a Visual Conversation Stimulus

The group discussion was adapted for the analytical reconstruction of the phenomenon of visual memory. Following praxeological reception research (Michel 2006, 2013), the setting of the discussion was supplemented by a visual conversational stimulus, which is intended to stimulate a discourse about the images presented. Following the postulate of the self-progression of the group discussion procedure (Bohnsack 2010: 207 ff.), the visual stimulus is openly structured. It is intended to initiate conversations in which the participants in the conversation express their subjective as well as collective relevancies in relation to the initial topic: ‘the visuality of the past’. On the one hand, the visual stimulus is intended to evoke memories that provide an insight into the collective-biographically shaped experiences of the discussants with the visual representations of image memory. From the articulated experiential knowledge, as it were, conclusions can be drawn about the group’s pre-reflexive-habitualized styles of reception “beyond consciousness and discursive thought” (Bourdieu 1987: 730; translated from German). On the other hand, the visual stimulus should be designed in such a way that it stimulates sensations and interpretations that can only be explained to a limited extent from the actors’ wealth of experience. It must therefore be sufficiently openly structured and presented. A picture catalogue with a total of six historical photographs was compiled as a visual stimulus for conversation. Images were chosen that are considered icons of pictorial memory or that display symbolic signs and motifs. The image catalogue consists of the photo of the gatehouse of Auschwitz-Birkenau (Fig. 1), the one of the boy from the Warsaw Ghetto, the photo of a farewell scene in the Lodz Ghetto, a photo of the deportation of the Krakow Jews, the photo of the liberated prisoners of Buchenwald as well as the photo of the belongings of the Jewish prisoners seized in Birkenau by the Allies (Fig. 2).3 To ensure the openness of the group discussion, the

3

Instead of the entire sample of images, only the two photographs that were of great importance for the senses of the ‘Pelikan’ group and that played an essential role in the passages of conversation reproduced below are shown.

“They Totally Lied to Us About That”. Morality as a Motif in the. . .

169

Fig. 1 Auschwitz-Birkenau gatehouse, photo B of the picture catalogue. (# Panstwowe Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau)

Fig. 2 Collected shoes of the murdered, photo C of the picture catalogue. (# Panstwowe Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau)

photographs were presented without the accompanying caption, but with the temporal classification that they were photographs from “the period of World War II and National Socialism.” On the one hand, the limited decontextualization was intended to present the images as typical of their public circulation, without source reference and only loosely anchored in the overall historical event. On the other hand, the aim was to create a basis for discussion that was as open as possible, yet structured enough to stimulate an exchange between the participants in the discussion. Letters were used as a communicative aid to mark and identify the photographs. The discussion participants were informed that the order of the letters did not follow any historical or otherwise meaningful, but only this pragmatic intention and order.

170

S. Schönemann

2.3

Interpretation: Sequence Analysis and Ideal-Typical Case Reconstruction

The text was interpreted by means of sequential analysis, which reconstructs the unfolding of the meaning of an action in its sequence (e.g. Oevermann 2000; Soeffner and Hitzler 1994; Wernet 2000). From the step-by-step constitution of meaning of the case, it infers its explicit as well as implicit case structure and the rules underlying it. The “(Sprech-)Handlungen” (Wernet 2000: 58) of the interviewees, which are recorded in the transcripts, serve as the data and are subjected to an extensive fine analysis. Beginning with the prelude, the interview opening, the sequence analysis follows the further course of meaning and action, which it first reproduces in the form of interpretive hypotheses and finally – as the reconstruction progresses – summarises in condensed form in analytical case categories. After the explication of the case categories, their specific relationship is described in the structural hypothesis, thus exposing the dynamics of the constitution of meaning, including its meaning-generating rules (Oevermann 2000: 119). The structural hypothesis captures is the unifying concept of the case-specific constitution of meaning. At the same time, it goes beyond the individual case to the generality that is reflected in the patterns and structures of its course of action and meaning. For in the sequential-analytical procedure, the case is always also considered and understood as an individually broken expression in the processing and overcoming of an intersubjectively valid problem of action (Wernet 2000: 19 f.). With Max Weber, the interpretation of social action is directed towards the interpretative understanding of its subjective meaningfulness, which is to be explained ‘causally’ in its socio-historically conditioned and therefore ‘objective’ structure (Weber 1980: 1). Understanding the meaning of action is thus indispensable for the analytical uncovering of its ‘objective’ causal structure, because social reality is rooted in the subjective sense of action. The reconstruction of the cultural meaning of social action and the underlying “general rules of action” (Weber 1980: 9, editor’s note; translated from German) is carried out on the individual case, which is to be explained in its historical “So-undnicht-anders-Gewordensei(n)” (Weber 1988: 171). But in order to be able to infer the ‘general rules of action’, an additional abstraction is required that reaches beyond the sequence-analytically reconstructed constitution of meaning of the individual case and is achieved via the ideal type. With it, the action-generating “Sinnzusammenhang” (Weber 1980: 4), i.e. the ‘objective’ motivations underlying the action, is determined, thereby transferring interpretation from interpretive understanding to causal explanation (Weber 1980; Soeffner 2004: 72; Raab 2008: 155).

“They Totally Lied to Us About That”. Morality as a Motif in the. . .

171

The ideal type grasps an empirical phenomenon by its distinctive features and, on the basis of these, sketches an abstract “Gedankenbild” (Weber 1988: 190). With Weber, the ideal type is “formed by the one-sided accentuation of one or more points of view and by the synthesis of a great many diffuse, discrete, more or less present and occasionally absent concrete individual phenomena, which are arranged according to those one-sidedly emphasized viewpoints into a unified analytical construct.” (Weber 1949: 90; translated from German) Thus the ideal type is an exaggerated, because idealizing, depiction of social reality, which is characterized by an analytical consistency and conceptual coherence that does not exist empirically in this form. On the one hand, the ideal type as a logically ideal ‘Gedankenbild’ is the product of abstraction in the course of analytical engagement with empiricism. On the other hand, the “increased unambiguity” (Weber 1980: 10, ed.; translated from German) gained through conceptualization does not relieve the ideal type of its object. The ideal type represents a heuristic hinge between material empiricism and abstracting theory (Przyborski and Wohlrab-Sahr 2010: 376 ff.; Kelle and Kluge 2010: 83 f.), which is supposed to ‘explain’ the socially as well as historically conditioned and thus objective action structures of the individual case, with which the empirically anchored, but as it were theorizing generalization of the empirical individual cases – so also of this investigation – is implemented.

3

Second Generation West: The ‘Pelikan’ Group

3.1

Case Portrait

Social memory of the Holocaust differs primarily between generations (Assmann 2014a; Bude 1992; Frieden 2014; Kohlstruk 1997). The sampling of the study was based on this insight and surveyed interview groups structured according to age. The ‘Pelikan’ group are representatives of the second generation after the historical events (Bude 1992: 88 ff.; Assmann 2014a: 62 f.), who were born in the 1950s and socialised in West Germany. In the interview, they describe themselves as descendants of the contemporaries. At the time of the interview, their average age was 62. Specifically, the birth years were as follows: Af was born in 1951 and was 64 years old at the time of the interview. Bf was born in 1957 and is the youngest participant in the group at the age of 58, while Cf was born in 1950 and her age is 65, making her the oldest in the group. The interview participants live in a smaller West German city and are friends with each other. Although they work in different professional fields, all three pursue an educational orientation in their profession.

172

S. Schönemann

3.2

Case Categories

“is incomprehensible to me, unbelievable” (Af) – the Holocaust as a blank space of meaning

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

I: Af:

Bf: Af: Cf: Af: Cf: Af: Cf:

Die Frage, die jetzt dadrüber steht, ist eigentlich nur, was denkt ihr, wenn ihr die Bilder seht. (34) (Bilder werden angeschaut) Gut, dann fang ich jetzt einfach mal an. Ich finde die alle ganz gruselig, obergruselig. Ich brauche da nur drauf zu gucken, das war jetzt Bild D (Überlebende), war das Erste, was mir das- was am nächsten an mir dran war, huha (Schaudern). Ne, das ist genau das, was ich überhaupt nicht sehen will, also. Wo ich einfach denke, dass Menschen so etwas gemacht haben, ist für mich nicht nachvollziehbar, unglaublich, es ist passiert, es ist verbrieft. Aber oft geht mir das so, dass ich nicht mehr dran erinnert werden will. Weil es einfach (3), das sind einzelne Menschenschicksale, ne, huha (Schaudern),ne. Und alles läuft ja da drauf zu, auf dieses Bild da als, das hier. └ Das Tor. C (Effekten), das kann ich nicht erkennen. Kann ich es mir in die Hand nehmen? Das ist- Obwohl keine Menschen drauf sind. └ Ich wollt grad sagen, ist das ein Kleiderhaufen, oder was? └ Ach, es ist eines der grausel- grauseligsten, also. Ja, das ist ein Kleid. Huha (Schaudern). └ Erinnert mich halt. Ich habe eine Dokumentation gesehen, im Fernsehen vor vielen Jahren. Und da waren halt diese Bilder mit dabei. Wenn man sich das vorstellt, grad bei C (Effekten), sind ja alles Schuhe, ne? (3) Und das jedes Paar Schuhe einen Menschen gehört hat. (3) Und dann ist es einfach nur grauenhaft.(8)

For the ‘Pelikan’ group, the Holocaust raises a fundamental gap in understanding that arises from its inconceivability. It is along this void of meaning that the group discourse unfolds. After Af opens the conversation about the inconceivability of the crimes, she, speaking for the group, concretizes the void by interpreting it anthropologically. The inconceivability consists in the rupture of human equality and the accompanying fundamental universal question of how people can inflict murderous violence on other people at all, and on such an incomprehensible scale (“is incomprehensible to me, unbelievable”, line 7). Af thus directs attention to the perpetration (“that people did such a thing”, line 6 f.) and suffering of violence (“human fates”, line 9), but not to the specific perpetrators and victims of the crime, who threaten to disappear in the abstraction from the historical event. In this sense, Af does not ask why the Germans could inflict such crimes on the Jews, but how this was humanly, ethically, and morally possible in the first place. Thus, it does not follow a historical, but a universalizing interpretation of the past that pushes for the generalization of history (Diner 1999: 70 ff., 2007: 14 ff.). In contrast to the historical concretion, Af, on

“They Totally Lied to Us About That”. Morality as a Motif in the. . .

173

the other hand, emphasizes in being human its or rather the general connectedness of human beings to each other. The anthropological figure of interpretation immediately sparks the indignation with which the inconceivability of the void is emphasized. In addition to the sheer scale of the crimes and the mass deaths, the openly displayed disbelief is based on the violation of the principle of equality of all human beings. The indignant, as well as shaken, basic tone results from the historical denial of human equality, which Af makes clear to herself and the other interview participants right at the beginning of the group discussion.

“And everything is running towards this, towards this picture there” – symbolic closing of the empty space The significance of the Holocaust as a blank space for the group ‘Pelikan’ is expressively underlined. At the beginning of the interview there is an extremely long pause in speech, which Af demonstratively breaks off. Through her reference to the horror of the images and the unimaginability of the crimes, the pause in speech appears as silence and stillness that must prevail before the unimaginable. As the conversation continues, expressivity continues as a form of expression of the unimaginable. A conglomerate of strong emotional expressions, such as shuddering or being depressed, as well as the halting and occasionally intermittent flow of speech emphasize the subjective significance of the Holocaust void and the shock it causes. At the same time, the display of affect, the interruptions of speech as well as the repeated evasion into speech sounds can be interpreted as demonstrations of the inadequacy of language in the description of the crimes. The blank space of the unimaginable ‘horror’, however, is not only generated emotively, but is also produced through discursive omissions – in this respect, too, unimaginability applies in the form of unspeakability. At the core of the unimaginable is death, which the group does not express, but only discursively, emotionally and ritually suggests and refers to. The symbol takes its place. By referring to the photographs of the gatehouse of Auschwitz-Birkenau and the heaped-up shoes of the victims, the group ‘Pelikan’ symbolically closes the void of the Holocaust and of mass death (Figs. 1 and 2). The emptiness of the photographs serves as a symbol of the absence of the dead and the unimaginability of the crimes themselves (Schönemann 2016a). The photo of the gatehouse stands for the end of life and annihilation (“And everything is running towards it, towards this picture there, this one”, line 10), whereas the photograph of the shoes concretizes the unimaginable horror (“If you imagine it” (. . .), line 19 f.). In the case of photograph C, the horror increases in significance, as it were, because the depiction of masses of shoes imaginatively suggests the unimaginability of the crimes. The mass of shoes depicted in the photograph, and the death that is displayed with them, are unimaginable because uncountable. Both photographs also fit – this as a final note – into the anthropological

174

S. Schönemann

interpretation of the past of the group ‘Pelikan’, because they represent extermination beyond concrete perpetrators and victims. They foreground the universal, human dimension of the crimes, which is the quintessence of the discussion of the photographs during the opening of the conversation and which leads to questions about the morality of the perpetrators.

“they totally lied (to us)” – moral conclusions 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

Bf: Das ist eins der wenigen Fotos, A (Deportation), die ich aus der Zeit kenne, wo nicht viel Bevölkerung rundum steht. Da haben sie uns ja auch total einen mit in die Tasche gelogen, dass diese ganzen Deportationen alle, äh, ohne die Bevölkerung stattgefunden haben. Cf: └ Kann ja gar nicht sein, ne? Bf: Die haben an, also die meisten Berichte, die ich kenne von diesen Deportationen sind, dass Menschen an der Straße gestanden haben und äh sich das angeguckt und auch noch mit Worten vor allen Dingen die Leute so, äh, malträtiert haben auch noch, ne. Und die sind irgendwie alle schlagartig April, Mai ’45 verschwunden. Und das ist so wasCf: └ Du meinst die Leute, die jetzt, die quasi jetzt nicht nur zugeguckt haben, sondern die aktiv, und wenn es nur mit Worten war, die das Ganze unterstützt haben? Die sind ja nicht in dem Sinne verschwunden, die leben ja noch unter uns. Die sind ja, wenn man in unsere Justiz guckt, ne. Das sind doch die ganzen Nazigrößen, die sind doch einfach in unserer Justiz wieder untergetaucht. Wir hatten ja auch einen Präsidenten, einen Bundespräsidenten, er war in derBf: └ Kiesinger Cf: └ Kiesinger war ein alter Nazi. Und gerade in der Justiz, die sind da ja alle untergeschlüpft. Mit Wissen, das kommt ja jetzt erst so richtig raus, mit Wissen von unseren Geheimdiensten. In unserem Geheimdienst sind da ja immer noch drin. Da hocken immer noch die alten Nazis drin. Af: Ja, gut, aber ich meine, die werden aussterben. Die Frage ist nur, kommt was Neues nach. Cf: └ Na ja, guckt dir doch nur mal den Gm an. Bf: └ Na ja, das ist doch was Neues. Cf: Das ist das Grauen in Fortsetzung. Und wenn da irgendeiner sich hinstellt und sagt, äh, ach dass sind ja nicht alles äh Rechte, dann sind es ja keine Nazis, aber es sind Rassisten, die da stehen. Und die rufen, raus mit den Leuten, ja, die nur ihren Egoismus pflegen. Ich will nicht mit denen in den Dialog treten. Ich will denen überhaupt kein Forum geben, ihre rassistischen Sachen in die Öffentlichkeit bringen. Besser, glaube ich, bei den Bildern bleiben, gell. Aber es ist, glaube ich, zwangsläufig, dass da einfach, wenn du die Bilder siehst, sagst du, es ist nicht vorbei und wir haben es auch noch nicht wirklich aufgearbeitet, dass ganze Problem ist nicht aufgearbeitet und ähm, ja. Es wird, es hat sich eingebrannt.

The group ‘Pelikan’ opened the discourse on the historical void of crimes and their anthropological interpretation. The fundamental question of how people could inflict such violence and suffering on other people gives rise to immanent followup questions about the victim and perpetrator sides, which the group negotiates in its

“They Totally Lied to Us About That”. Morality as a Motif in the. . .

175

discourse and which shape its collective sense-making. She closes the ‘inconceivability’ of mass death via the symbolic reference to the photographs of the gatehouse of Auschwitz-Birkenau and the shoes collected there, as well as the ritual display of emotions such as shuddering, grief and shock. In the sequence quoted above, the group ‘Pelikan’ turns to the responsibility that the German population bears in the crimes. They are not primarily concerned with specific perpetrators, but with the accomplices and followers, the sympathizers and supporters of National Socialism. Starting with the deportations, a discursive movement of generalization begins: from past events to the present, from individual forms of participation in the deportations to political support for National Socialism, from the event to society. In short, the group ‘Pelikan’ deals with the questions of historical guilt for the crimes, the denials of the contemporaries after 1945 and the moral acceptance of responsibility for the past, which it grasps in the sequence conclusion via the concept of coming to terms with the past. For the reconstruction of this background theme of the sequence, the conceptual differentiation of guilt established by Karl Jaspers (2012) proves helpful. From criminal and political guilt to National Socialism and its crimes, he separates the superordinate forms of moral and metaphysical guilt. While criminal guilt is justiciable and the politically guilty can be held liable for his actions, the conscience or his faith take hold for moral and metaphysical guilt (Jaspers 2012: 25 f.). It is on the first three forms of guilt that the discourse unfolds. At the beginning of the sequence are the various forms of civil participation in the deportations, which are on the borderline to criminal guilt and are discussed along this very borderline. This focus already suggests the main motif of the sequence: No delimitable and foreseeable acts are mentioned, but the discussion first concentrates on complicity (“They totally lied (. . .)”, line 2 f.), then on the open consent towards the deportations (“that people stood on the street and uh looked at it and also maltreated the people with words, uh,”, line 7 f.) and finally on the political support of National Socialism (“people (. . .) who supported the whole thing”, line 11 f.; “all the Nazi bigwigs”, line 14). The group ‘Pelikan’ outlines the moral culpability of the generation of the event in order to then turn to their behaviour in the Federal Republic, their deceptions about the Nazi past and careers up to the highest offices. In it, the group ‘Pelikan’ negotiates the absence of a moral sense of guilt among the contemporaries and laments their “abstinence from responsibility” (Giordano 1990: 15; translated from German) towards their actions in the ‘Third Reich’ after 1945. The peculiar topicality that Cf ascribes to the “old Nazis” (line 18) even today dissolves with reference to the Gm known to all and the still strong right (“That is the horror in continuation.”, line 26). From the past derives the moral obligation to

176

S. Schönemann

remember it and to come to terms with it, especially with regard to the present racist attitudes – so the summary. The discourse of the group ‘Pelikan’ can be understood with Bergmann and Luckmann as a moral communication in which the (dis)respect of one or more persons is negotiated on the basis of values of good and evil (Bergmann and Luckmann 1999: 22). Constitutive elements of moral communication are the personalisation of an actor and the generalisation of individual acts of that actor. In the case of the group ‘Pelikan’, the identity of the actor is still diffuse at the beginning and is only gradually established through personalization in the further course of discourse. He is the collective subject of those members of the contemporaries who were sympathetic to National Socialism, supported it politically and ultimately continued to make a career in the Federal Republic, prominently exemplified by Kurt Georg Kiesinger. Moral responsibility serves as a bracket against which the actions of those former sympathizers of National Socialism are generalized. They bore a share of responsibility for the National Socialist crimes, but they evaded this responsibility in the Federal Republic. The moral dubiousness that already opened them up to National Socialism is reflected in the very forms that their negation of responsibility took. They deliberately deceived others, and above all their descendants – they, the ‘Pelikan’ group – about their past, and also demonstrated their particular thirst for power with their careers. The background experience of the ‘Pelikan’ group can be readily discerned in the sequence. The contemporaries of National Socialism were their contemporaries, too, or, as Bf put it, “they (have) totally lied to us (. . .)” (line 2 f.). The confrontation with them, the unmasking of their deceptions belong to the experiences of group ‘Pelikan’, of which they report retrospectively, but which they also extend temporally – as through Cf – initially into the present. Only the talk of the “horror in continuation” (line 26) and the exhorted reappraisal connect the earlier world of experience with the present. In this sense, coming to terms with the past means accepting historical guilt and responsibility for the past in order to act against rightwing and nationalist tones in the present. The moral communication that the group ‘Pelikan’ conducts about the failure of the event generation to come to terms with its past thus leads to the explication of the supporting norm of collective memory: the past must be remembered so that it does not fall into oblivion and is not repeated. To remember is the moral (action) consequence that results from history. It is a “lived morality” that “exists in people’s actions and decisions, precisely in their communicative acts” (Bergmann and Luckmann 1999: 18, ed.; translated from German) and it is precisely in this respect that the interview takes place.

“They Totally Lied to Us About That”. Morality as a Motif in the. . .

3.3

177

Summary of the Case Structure: Type and Reception

The presented case categories of the void of meaning, its symbolic closure and the moral conclusion from the past build on each other and in their interrelation form the meaning-generating case type of memory (Table 1). In the opening of the conversation, the blank space of the ‘unimaginable horror’ and its anthropological interpretation formulate the starting point for the subsequent sense-making. Inherent follow-up questions arise from this, because with the focus on the human dimension of the crimes, both the perpetrator and victim sides, the perpetration and suffering of violence, move to the foreground of the discourse. During the opening of the discussion, the group ‘Pelikan’ closes the thematization of mass death via symbolic reference to the photographs of the gatehouse and the collected effects, as well as the ritual display of emotions such as shuddering, grief and shock. In the second sequence presented, the group first engages with the moral culpability of the contemporaries and their ‘abdication of responsibility’ after 1945, and then, in a second step, draws the morally universal conclusion of accepting and remembering historical responsibility from the void of crimes and the misconduct of contemporaries. The negotiation of the question of guilt and responsibility thus concludes with the explication of the imperative to remember, which proves to be the generating type of meaning of the case precisely by looking back to one’s own, earlier experiences. Remembering is derived as a task from the experience of the public silence of the contemporaries in the Federal Republic and its deceptions. It represents the negative counterpart of the type of meaning, its contrasting foil, from which the group ‘Pelikan’ formulates its imperative for action. The case type of group ‘Pelikan’ moves within the horizon of meaning of collective memory (Assmann 2014b). The past of the Holocaust and how to deal with it are habitually familiar to the group. From their experience with the previous generation, the critical questioning of their role in National Socialism and their narratives, they know, so to speak, what they are talking about. Not only the early Table 1 Case type “memory” Categories Dimensions

Visual reception

Blank space in history The unimaginable “horror”: the Holocaust as a limit to understanding and meaning Symbolization

Symbolic closure Reception of the photographs as symbols of (unimaginable) death

Moral conclusions Remembering as a task: accepting historical guilt and remembering against forgetting

178

S. Schönemann

interpretation of the past as unimaginable ‘horror’ and the associated adherence to implicit rules of sayability, but also the emotions and arousal shown refer to internalised behaviour patterns. The group follows a collective interpretation of the past that they know, orient themselves to, and that binds them together. With the formulation of an appeal to memory, the group explicates a normative point of reference that is highly significant for itself, which – in addition to all the commonalities of experience, age and professional orientation – brings them together and unites them. From it speaks a deeply anchored basic humanistic conviction. The anthropological interpretation of the crimes and the morally, as well as ultimately politically justified validity of remembering testify to a universal, humanistic world view, which is essential for the past constructions of the group ‘Pelikan’.

4

Summary and Outlook

Within the analytical sample of my empirical study, the group ‘Pelikan’ is an exception in its explicit memoralization. No other group approaches the past in this way and expresses a moral understanding of remembering with comparable intensity. While the oldest group of ‘war and post-war children’ adopts a discourse strongly influenced by family biography (Schönemann 2016b) and the age-related, East German comparison group of ‘Pelikan’ revives their memories of their historical socialisation, the youngest group presents the past as a history, which they know on the one hand, but which they also rediscover for themselves on the other. The construction of meaning by group ‘Pelikan’, on the other hand, follows the social discourse of collective memory of the Holocaust. Its interpretation as an anthropological as well as historical void of meaning, as an absolute negation of the human and the imaginable, corresponds to a typical figure of interpretation of history (Diner 1999, 2007). Similarly, the group is well aware of the practice of remembering, its implicit knowing how. Their knowledgeable as well as skillful approach points to the actualization of an internalized form of remembering the Holocaust that is normatively saturated. Group ‘Pelikan’ is able to choose a symbolic communication and language that only hints, indirectly points, but is also visibly touched by the affects that arise in the course of conversation. Moreover, in ‘coming to terms with the past’ the group formulates the collective mode of remembering. In other words, the consolidating, normative binding power of collective memory is expressed in particular in the group’s firm knowledge and receptive repertoire of action, which distinguishes their secure handling of the history of the Holocaust and sets them apart from the other groups in the analysis sample.

“They Totally Lied to Us About That”. Morality as a Motif in the. . .

179

References Amishai-Maisels, Ziva (1993): Depiction and Interpretation. The Influence of the Holocaust on the Visual Arts. Oxford/New York/Seoul/Tokyo: Pergamon Press. Assmann, Jan (1995): Erinnern, um dazuzugehören. Kulturelles Gedächtnis, Zugehörigkeitsstruktur und normative Vergangenheit. In: Platt, Kristin/ Dabag, Mihran (Hrsg.): Generation und Gedächtnis. Erinnerungen und kollektive Identitäten. Opladen: Leske und Budrich, 51–75. Assmann, Jan (1997): Re-Membering. Konnektives Gedächtnis und jüdisches Erinnerungsgebot. In: Wermke, Michael (Hrsg.): Die Gegenwart des Holocaust. ‘Erinnerung’ als religionspädagogische Herausforderung. Münster: Lit, 23–46. Assmann, Aleida (2014a): Geschichte im Gedächtnis. Von der individuellen Erfahrung zur öffentlichen Inszenierung. 2. Aufl. München: Beck. Assmann, Aleida (2014b): Der lange Schatten der Vergangenheit. Erinnerungskultur und Geschichtspolitik. 2. Aufl. München: Beck. Bergmann, Jörg/Luckmann, Thomas (1999): Moral und Kommunikation. In: Ders. (Hrsg.): Kommunikative Konstruktion von Moral. Bd. 1. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 13–38. Bohnsack, Ralf (2010): Rekonstruktive Sozialforschung. Einführung in qualitative Methoden. 8. Aufl. Opladen: Budrich. Bohnsack, Ralf (2011): Qualitative Bild- und Videointerpretation. Die dokumentarische Methode. 2. Aufl. Stuttgart: UTB. Bourdieu, Pierre (1987): Die feinen Unterschiede. Kritik der gesellschaftlichen Urteilskraft. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Breuer, Franz (2010): Reflexive Grounded Theory. Eine Einführung für die Forschungspraxis. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Brink, Cornelia (1998): Ikonen der Vernichtung. Öffentlicher Gebrauch von Fotografien aus nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslagern nach 1945. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Bude, Heinz (1992): Bilanz der Nachfolge. Die Bundesrepublik und der Nationalsozialismus. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Diner, Dan (1999): Über Schulddiskurse und andere Narrative. Epistemologisches zum Holocaust. In: Koch, Gertrud (Hrsg.): Bruchlinien. Tendenzen der Holocaustforschung. Köln/Weimar/Wien: Böhlau, 61–84. Diner, Dan (2007): Gegenläufige Gedächtnisse. Über Geltung und Wirkung des Holocaust. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Frieden, Kristin (2014): Neuverhandlungen des Holocaust, Mediale Transformationen des Gedächtnisparadigmas. Bielefeld: Transcript. Giordano, Ralph (1990): Die zweite Schuld. Oder von der Last ein Deutscher zu sein. München: Droemer Knaur. Halbwachs, Maurice (1985a): Das kollektive Gedächtnis. Frankfurt/M.: Fischer. Halbwachs, Maurice (1985b): Das Gedächtnis und seine sozialen Bedingungen. Frankfurt/ M.: Suhrkamp. Hamann, Christoph (2007): Visual history und Geschichtsdidaktik. Bildkompetenz in der historisch-politischen Bildung. Herbolzheim: Centaurus-Verlag. Jaspers, Karl (2012): Die Schuldfrage. Von der politischen Haftung Deutschlands. München/ Zürich: Piper.

180

S. Schönemann

Kelle, Udo/Kluge, Susann (2010): Vom Einzelfall zum Typus. Fallvergleich und Fallkontrastierung in der qualitativen Sozialforschung. 2. Aufl. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Knoch, Habbo (2001): Die Tat als Bild. Fotografien des Holocaust in der deutschen Erinnerungskultur. Hamburg: Hamburger Ed. Kohlstruk, Michael (1997): Zwischen Erinnerung und Geschichte. Der Nationalsozialismus und die jungen Deutschen. Berlin: Metropol. Leggewie, Claus (2009): Zur Einleitung. Von der Visualisierung zur Virtualisierung des Erinnerns. In: Mayer, Erik (Hrsg.): Erinnerungskultur 2.0. Kommemorative Kommunikation in digitalen Medien. Frankfurt a.M./New York: Campus, 9–29. Mannheim, Karl (1980): Eine soziologische Theorie der Kultur und ihrer Erkennbarkeit. In: Ders.: Strukturen des Denkens. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 155–303. Michel, Burkard (2006): Bild und Habitus. Sinnbildungsprozesse bei der Rezeption von Fotografien. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Michel, Burkard (2013): Fotografien und ihre Lesarten. Dokumentarische Analyse von Bildrezeptionsprozessen. In: Bohnsack, Ralf/Nentwig-Gesemann, Iris/Nohl, ArndMichael (Hrsg.): Die dokumentarische Methode und ihre Forschungspraxis. Grundlagen qualitativer Forschung. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 99–131. Milton, Sybil (1986): Photographs of the Warsaw Ghetto. Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual, 3, 307–315. Oevermann, Ulrich (2000): Die Methode der Fallrekonstruktion in der Grundlagenforschung sowie der klinischen und pädagogischen Praxis. In: Kraimer, Klaus (Hrsg.): Die Fallrekonstruktion. Sinnverstehen in der sozialwissenschaftlichen Forschung. Frankfurt/ M.: Suhrkamp, 23–57. Paul, Gerhard/Schoßig, Bernhard (2010): Öffentliche Erinnerung und Medialisierung des Nationalsozialismus. Eine Bilanz der letzten dreißig Jahre. Göttingen: Wallstein. Przyborski, Aglaja/Wohlrab-Sahr, Monika (2010): Qualitative Sozialforschung. Ein Arbeitsbuch. 3. Aufl. München: Oldenburg Verlag. Raab, Jürgen (2008): Visuelle Soziologie. Theoretische Konzeption und materiale Analysen. Konstanz: UVK. Schnettler, Bernt/Pötzsch, Frederik S. (2007): Visuelles Wissen. In: Schützeichel, Rainer (Hrsg.): Handbuch Wissenssoziologie und Wissensforschung. Konstanz: UVK, 472–484. Schönemann, Sebastian (2016a): Repräsentation der Abwesenheit. Visualisierungen des Holocaust im sozialen Gedächtnis am Beispiel des Fotos vom Torhaus AuschwitzBirkenau. In: Zeitschrift für Qualitative Forschung, Heft 1/2, 41–57. Schönemann, Sebastian (2016b): Visualisierte Geschichte und Alltagsgedächtnis. Empirische Befunde über die Bedeutung der Geschichtssozialisation bei der Rezeption von Fotografien des Holocaust. In: Raab, Jürgen / Keller, Reiner (Hrsg.): Wissensforschung – Forschungswissen. Beiträge und Debatten zum 1. Sektionskongress der Wissenssoziologie. Weinheim/Basel: Beltz, 728–739. Soeffner, Hans-Georg (2004): Anmerkungen zu gemeinsamen Standards standardisierter und nicht-standardisierter Verfahren in der Sozialforschung. In: Ders.: Soeffner, Hans-Georg: Auslegung des Alltags. Der Alltag der Auslegung. 2. Aufl. Konstanz: UVK, 61–77. Soeffner, Hans-Georg/Hitzler, Ronald (1994): Qualitatives Vorgehen – ‚Interpretation’. In: Herrmann, Theo/Hack, Werner T. (Hrsg.): Enzyklopädie der Psychologie. Methodologische Grundlagen der Psychologie. Göttingen: Hogrefe, 98–136.

“They Totally Lied to Us About That”. Morality as a Motif in the. . .

181

Strauss, Anselm L. (1991): Grundlagen qualitativer Forschung. Datenanalyse und Theoriebildung in der empirischen soziologischen Forschung. München: Fink. Treml, Manfred (1997): ‘Schreckensbilder’ – Überlegungen zur Historischen Bildkunde. Die Präsentation von Bildern an Gedächtnisorten des Terrors. In: Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht. Heft 5/6, 279–294. Weber, M. ([1904] 1949): “Objectivity in Social Science and Social Policy” in Shils, E.A and Finch, H.A. (Eds. and trans.), The Methodology of the Social Sciences, New York, Free Press. Weber, Max (1980): Soziologische Grundbegriffe. In: Ders.: Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Grundriss der verstehenden Soziologie. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1–30. Weber, Max (1988): Die ‘Objektivität’ sozialwissenschaftlicher und sozialpolitischer Erkenntnis. In: Ders.: Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre. Tübingen: Mohr, 146–214. Welzer, Harald (2010): Erinnerung und Gedächtnis. Desiderate und Perspektiven. In: Ders./ Gudehus, Christian/ Eichenberg, Arianne (Hrsg.): Gedächtnis und Erinnerung. Ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch. Stuttgart/Weimar: Metzler, 1–10. Wernet, Andreas (2000): Einführung in die Interpretationstechnik der Objektiven Hermeneutik. Opladen: Leske & Budrich. Zelizer, Barbie (1998): Remembering to Forget. Holocaust Memory through the Camera’s Eye. Chicago/London: Univ. of Chicago Press.

Good Pictures – Bad Pictures: Image Ethics of Moral Collectives Jürgen Raab

To make an image in spite of all – this confronts us with the difficult task of an ethics of the image. (Georges Didi-Hubermann: Images Despite of All, 2008: 56)

Preliminary Note Morality is currently receiving new attention in sociology. This sheds light on its renewed social significance. One reason for the renaissance lies in the developments of technical communication media and the changed possibilities for individual expression of opinion and social participation that go hand in hand with them. These circumstances can also and not least be seen in the way society deals with images, in everyday social life as well as in the social sciences. In the following, the interest therefore lies in those moral collectives that take ‘good’ and ‘bad’ images as communicative references in order to form themselves. The focus of social science research is thus on those communicative processes of understanding and negotiation about jointly accepted or rejected image judgements and about intersubjectively shared or condemned image practices through which a moral collective is constituted. The occasions on which they are socially consolidated and when, where, by whom and, above all, how moral collectives position themselves in social discourses with their image ethics are among the most current questions and most urgent tasks of a sociology of

J. Raab (✉) University of Kaiserslautern-Landau (RPTU), Department of Sociology, Landau, Germany e-mail: [email protected] # The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 S. Joller, M. Stanisavljević (eds.), Moral Collectives, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-40147-4_11

183

184

J. Raab

morality and will be exemplarily examined on the basis of the case study of an ‘icon’ of the so-called refugee crisis of 2015.

1

The Moralization of Everyday Life and the Everyday Life of Moralizing

In their still groundbreaking study of the structures and forms of the communicative construction of morality in the everyday life of modern societies, the group of researchers led by Thomas Luckmann and Jörg Bergmann developed the thesis of the “defusing of moral communication” (Bergmann and Luckmann 1999: 35, translated from German). After its epochal loss of function as the social integrative force par excellence, morality is by no means dissolving. Contrary to the vision of morally neutralized societies, it is rather to be assumed that morality will take over other social functions in the course of modernization. It is true that no binding statement can yet be made about its future areas of responsibility. But a central condition for the change of social responsibilities is “that moral communication [. . .] must be cooled down and can no longer appear with the decisiveness and unconditionality of earlier times. One can assume that moral communication becomes more indirect, more oblique in style, and that moralizing itself becomes less absolute and less zealous” (ibid.). A good two decades after the publication of the study, it can be stated that the assumption has not come true. Rather the opposite seems to be the case. Morality, which is still deeply and firmly anchored in the finest ramifications of everyday life, has emerged from its “invisible omnipresence” (Bergmann and Luckmann 1999: 13; translated from German) and moved prominently into the limelight of everyday perception and public discussion. It is no longer only sexuality, which has long been spearheaded in the moral discussion, but increasingly other phenomena, aspects and areas of the human-all-too-human – food, clothing, gender, communication, consumption, environment, mobility, etc. – that make it seem necessary to look not only at sexuality but also at other aspects of the human-all-too-human. – make it seem necessary not only to acquire social knowledge about them, to form a personal opinion and possibly to articulate it, but also to confront them in a moral stance that is, at best, additionally theoretically elevated and legitimated by ethical reflection, and which can, if necessary, be massively and offensively positioned and enforced against competing third parties (cf. Stanisavljević 2016). The recently once again increasing need for morality and growing pressure to moralize can be seen in the way we deal with smoking and plastic, as well as in standing up for ‘fairly’

Good Pictures – Bad Pictures: Image Ethics of Moral Collectives

185

produced goods, in veganism and in the discussions about animal rights, about politically correct children’s books or about discrimination-free poetry on house walls, but also in the demands for gender-appropriate or gender-neutral language, and not least in the resurgence of religious and political fundamentalisms. There is also no shortage of current examples of the interest in “moral collectives” (Joller 2017), which take ‘good’ and ‘evil’ images as “communicative reference points” (ibid.) to form themselves, that is central here. For instance, when Jürgen Kaube in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung takes the painting Hylas and the Nymphs, created by the English painter John William Waterhouse in 1896 and recently banned from the Manchester Art Gallery because of its way of depicting gender, as an opportunity to counter the “community of moralistic art executioners” with “a radius of thought of diameter zero” with more than a double page of, in addition to the painting moved out of the field of vision, “viewed from the eyes of the latest morality, evil images” whose range extends from Paleolithic cave art via Caravaggio and Picasso to the pop art of Mel Ramos (Kaube 2018; translated from German). All these developments reflect two insights that are fundamental to the sociology of morality. Firstly, the insight formulated by Niklas Luhmann following Émile Durkheim, according to which every social subject area can be opened up morally and every social functional system – economy, politics, religion, science, law, education, medicine and even art – can be morally charged. For Luhmann, this universal applicability gives rise to the theoretically justified necessity of an ethics that, while by no means preventing moralizing, does contain its expansion through “operative differentiation”1 and reserves it for enclaves. It is incumbent on “ethics as a reflective theory of morality” (Luhmann 2008: 270–361; ranslated from German) to work out those criteria that give “an inclusion value or an exclusion value, the use of which decides whether a subject should be moralized or not” (ibid.: 186). Whether the ethical operations that are increasingly necessary in differentiating societies, which help to draw in, defend or tear down such ‘simple’ boundaries of distinction, can process entirely morality-free and which socially institutionalized second-order observers make the decisions on distinction, Luhmann leaves open, however.

“Thus, what applies to all autopoietic systems also applies here: observation (operative differentiation) is only possible at the level of the elements, and this only in such a way that the observer has a description at his disposal that comprehends the self-reference of the elements and thereby makes their belonging to the system recognizable in difference to the environment. Self-observation is also bound to this precondition” (Luhmann 1984: 548; ranslated from German).

1

186

J. Raab

On the other hand, the developments thus merely named already easily reveal the structural features of any morality described by Thomas Luckmann as part of the human condition, the so-called proto-morality. Namely, first, an evaluation that treats objects or actions with preference because it assigns them a prominent value in comparison to others, even possible ones. Secondly, the reference and effect on personal identity, more precisely on the prestige, image, honour or reputation of those persons to whom the action or object is directly attributed. Finally, thirdly, the attribution of responsibility, with which the acting persons are assumed to have the possibility and ability to choose between alternative action projects, action designs and courses of action and to be able to justify the action decisions taken (cf. Luckmann 2000). For Luckmann, these three constitutive features of protomorality form that universal, anthropological matrix that underlies all social science analyses of empirical manifestations of “lived morality” in the everyday reality of modern societies (Bergmann and Luckmann 1999: 18; translated from German). In modern societies, however, the transcendences that are communicatively managed through morality are shifting “from the large to the medium and especially the small” (Luckmann 2002: 292; translated from German), which is why their everyday life is more and more deeply and subtly permeated by morality. Irrespective of all the differences in social theory that arise between Luhmann and Luckmann, both provisions formulate elementary insights for the sociology of morality. For in functionally differentiated, individualizing and modernizing societies, the quality of morally occupied communication changes along with the expansion of its thematic field. For this reason, the social occasions not only accumulate, but also change, in which those acting cannot take themselves out and pretend to be unaffected, but must – with all the consequences that relieve them, but also thoroughly endanger them – bring themselves into moralizing positions of attack or defense. If, therefore, it is suggested that morality fulfils the function of socially balancing dependencies among individuals and subgroups, that is, between potentially conflicting interests, in order to ensure the cohesion and existence of the group (cf. Müller 2012), whereby precisely the rigorism of moral judgment makes moral principles appear particularly suitable for constructing a comprehensive commonality (cf. Giessen 2014), then morality still appears entirely as the basis of socially binding and unifying judgments and decisions on action. Morality has by no means completely lost the task and function already ascribed to it by Durkheim. But where those who act must reckon with the fact that their moral frame of reference is constantly revealed under changing conditions and thus run the risk of tending to become deviants and thus at the same time the target of moral addresses even within a sphere that they have just assumed to be a ‘comprehensive common ground’, a socially uniformly consolidated morality can hardly simply be

Good Pictures – Bad Pictures: Image Ethics of Moral Collectives

187

taken for granted. For in modern societies it is by no means clear who is a member of any particular moral community and who is not. For contemporary people, the result is a complex, multifaceted sense of morality in which different social norms often conflict (cf. Tomasello 2016). The individualization of moral judgments that accompanies the proliferation of morality in everyday life becomes a problem for the actors above all because they are increasingly expected and demanded – in a radicalization, as it were, of the characteristics of proto-morality described above – to disclose the criteria of their respective preferences and evaluations extensively, only to assume responsibility for their justification and legitimation themselves, knowing full well that their confessions and proclamations will have immediate repercussions on their image and thus on their personal identity. This makes it understandable why moral questions are increasingly regarded as questions with which individuals become serious in an existential sense. For seriousness breaks through with its binding nature the ordinary life in which one is always justifiable and in which everything could always be different. When it becomes serious, one is challenged as oneself, one cannot evade, and one must give the answer existentially (cf. Böhme 1997). Because more and more self-evident facts and constructions of normality of one’s own everyday order come under moral scrutiny, modern individuals with their selfimages and worldviews are almost constantly involved in moral facts and questions. Then, in a way that is as irritating as it is risky, they themselves are increasingly at stake, because the thing that is ‘suddenly’ at stake in the current situation cannot and must not be dismissed as just any thing, but is apparently also their thing, and with its now necessary evaluation they at once give an evaluation of themselves, as well as an image of the society in which they think they live or wish to live – and thus in a very fundamental and far-reaching respect (co-)decide what they may be regarded as and who they are. If, in addition, the duty of moral existence, as strange as it may sound, combines with the Greek idea of areté, according to which to be good means to be different, to be better than the many, to break out of what is happening (cf. ibid), the special, competitive zeal, the lowered inhibition thresholds and the doggedness and irreconcilability of moral actors and their communication, not infrequently reaching the sting of targeted provocation, become understandable. And it explains why there can hardly be any talk today of the “detoxified moralizing distance” predicted 20 years ago for everyday communication (Bergmann and Luckmann 1999: 35; translated from German). The structural change in communication that was not yet foreseeable at the time, in which the interactive media and social networks have taken away the status of television with its one-way communication as a “moralizing medium of the first rank” (ibid.: 34), has undoubtedly made a decisive contribution to this.

188

J. Raab

Whether with these tendencies the morally autonomous subject has already become reality and with it the final stage of moral evolution has been reached, may, however, be left open. For moral attitudes can indeed be represented and claimed by individuals. But they are not constituted in a social vacuum, and their communication encounters sympathetic or rival positions almost instantaneously. Depending on the issue being negotiated, and depending on who sees their selfimage and worldview either seriously attacked or fully vindicated by the ‘issue’, positions can situationally and temporarily, but quite scandalously, form into moral collectives (cf. Joller 2018). On what occasions and how moral collectives form socially, and when, where, and above all how they position themselves socially, are thus among the current and urgent questions of a sociology of morality.

2

Sociology of Morality

For the sociology of morality, Max Weber and Emile Durkheim are considered the classic positions. However, as opposed and for some even incompatible the two approaches may appear (cf. Abend 2008), in essence they do not contradict each other. Rather, it is precisely their synopsis and conflation that forms the basis of a theoretically sound and empirically based (knowledge) sociology of morality. The reassurance by going back to the classics seems all the more necessary, as the current public debates with their moral and moralizing thematic conjunctures certainly have direct repercussions on sociological analyses and commentaries. For as everyday actors, social scientists are inevitably bound up with the moral discourses of their everyday social life. As such, they are constantly exposed to the danger of being swept along by the discourses and joining in the chorus of moral imperatives and prohibitions, possibly even making themselves the academically legitimized mouthpiece of praise and condemnation. Because Durkheim, not unlike Weber and, incidentally, also Simmel, sees the task of the social sciences precisely in freeing themselves from the entanglements of everyday life and in gaining distance, also and above all, from the evaluations and ethics of everyday morals (cf. Hettlage and Bellebaum 2016), both form, without prejudice to their own nuances, the social-theoretical and methodological justification background for an attitude that recognizes morality as a social phenomenon like any other and thus puts itself in a position to examine the moralization processes of everyday life without bias, namely in a non-ordinary and thus non-moralizing attitude. For Durkheim, morality is neither a normative nor a time-diagnostic concept, but the basic social-scientific category par excellence: “Everything which is a source of

Good Pictures – Bad Pictures: Image Ethics of Moral Collectives

189

solidarity is moral, everything which forces man to take account of the other men is moral, everythin which forces him to regulate his conduct through something other than the striving of his ego is moral” (Durkheim 1960: 398). Moral life, therefore, does not spring from the self-motives and self-interests of individuals, but, as a condition and effect of society, “begins with membership of a group, however small the group may be” (Durkheim 2010: 26). It is only because people live in moral worlds, which they create for themselves as mental-social environments in the form of values and norms, institutions and social structures, ideas and ideologies, that they are moral beings and can choose between good and bad alternatives, know socially binding obligations and are capable of sinning. Since Durkheim sees “in the Divinity only society transfigured and symbolically expressed” (ibid.), it is hardly surprising that he immediately turns the moral sociological on religion and sets out to emphasize its sacral character, which explains for him the salient social significance of morality. The fact that every moral attitude and action knows the good and duty as a leitmotif and touchstone is proof and reason enough for him to “compare them to the idea of sacredness, which has the same duality” (ibid.: 17). However, no matter how useful the structural comparison proves to be in terms of moral theory, the close relationship between morality and the sacred has as its consequence a “repugnance shown to any attempt to apply to morality the ordinary methods of science. It would seem that in presuming to think of it and study it with the procedures of profane science we are profaning morality itself and threatening its dignity“ (Durkheim 2010: 24). When Durkheim speaks of ordinary methods of profane science, he has in mind the rules of sociological method he himself developed, guided by the methodological ideal of the natural sciences. Of utmost relevance to any empirical-analytical sociology – regardless of whether it proceeds in a standardized or interpretative manner – is “the first and most basic rule” with its requirement “to consider sociological facts as things” (Durkheim 1982: 60). Where “to treat facts of a certain order as things” means “to observe towards them a certain attitude of mind. It is to embark upon the study of them by adopting the principle that one is entirely ignorant of what they are” (ibid.: 90).2 The controlled variation of the normal distance to everyday life in society and to its knowledge household with its socially binding and socially obligatory answers to which things are to be judged how and how they should ideally be structured, which is methodologically required in a very special way for the “observation of the moral facts” and thus for

2

Hermeneutic procedures of interpretative social research solve this basic rule with the principle of freedom of context, which must be strictly observed at the beginning of any material analysis (cf. fundamentally Oevermann et al. 1979; Soeffner 2004).

190

J. Raab

the investigation of the “ethics as practiced”, does not, however, make the researchers “indifferent or resigned spectators of reality” (Durkheim 1960: 35). Compared to and in contrast to the clearly more distanced, because in the question of morality quite ‘renouncing’ and ‘indifferent’ Max Weber, Durkheim thus reveals himself to be a sociologist and moralist who is both sensitive and sensible (cf. König 2013), whereby he gets caught in a fundamental contradiction. For on the one hand, “the science of ethics (. . .) teaches us to respect the moral reality”, which means that it cannot be the task of sociology to “to make an ethic comletey different from the prevailing one” (Durkheim 1960: 35 f.). But because, on the other hand, the morality of modern societies “is irretrievably shattered, and that which is nessecary to us is only in process of formation”, it is – and this is precisely the tipping point of our argument – “our first duty to make a moral code for ourselves” (ibid.: 409). Durkheim becomes almost emphatic when he emphasizes sociology’s moral duty to the good and the better, postulating that „first of all, there is a state of moral health which science alone is able to determine completely” (ibid.: 34). The task of sociology, he argues, is therefore to furnish us with “the means of judging“ moral opinion and – set „the suspicion, man wishes to live” – to “correct or partially to improve it” if necessary (Durkheim 2010: 30, 1960: 34, 36, italics in original). “We can even in certain cases feel ourselves justified in rebelling against it” because we “feel it our duty to combat moral ideas that we know to be out of date and nothing more than survivals. The best way of doing this may appear to be the denial of these ideas, not only theoretically but also in action” (Durkheim 2010: 30). Remarkably, Weber, unlike Durkheim, keeps his line of argumentation free of any fluctuations or even contradictions, and significantly, the concept of morality does not play an explicit role in his work comparable to Durkheimian sociology. Rather, morality is closely intertwined with the conceptual triad of culture, meaning, and value characteristic of understanding sociology. With this triad, Weber delineates the anthropology that has remained unexplained in his work, but which, according to his understanding, underlies all cultural and social sciences as a “transcendental presupposition” (Weber 1949a: 81). According to this anthropology, man is considered a cultural being, “endowed with the capacity and the will to take a deliberate attitide towards the world and to lend it significane”; whereby “culture“ becomes tangible as “a finite segment of the infinity of the world process. A segment on which human beings confer meaning and significance” (ibid., italics in the original). These ‘world excerpts’ as socio-historically specific statements of people about ‘their’ realities guide human interpretations of reality and form the basis of all those assessments, valuations and relevancies that motivate and legitimize social action. Values and evaluative statements, including all unspoken moral ones, are thus regarded by Weber as “facts of social life” (ibid.: 50) and become the

Good Pictures – Bad Pictures: Image Ethics of Moral Collectives

191

very task of research for the social and cultural sciences, which structurally and systematically raise “self-evident truths“ into a problem (ibid.). For “the type of social science in which we are interested is an empirical science of concrete reality (Wirklichkeitswissenschaft) . Our aim is the understanding of the characteristic uniqueness of the reality in which we move. We wish to understand on the one hand the relationships and the cultural significance of individual events in their contemporary manifestations and on the other the causes of their being historically so and not otherwise.” (ibid.: 72, italics in the original). The choice of research topics and concrete cases of investigation is inevitably co-determined by the researchers’ value ideas. For this reason, they must be reflected upon and accounted for to third parties as far as possible. Once the topic and case have been determined, however, the analysis of reality science is devoted to the value interpretations documented in the data, refraining from any value ideas and value judgments of its own. The methodological instrument for achieving the distance and objectivity necessary for this is the ideal type. For “an ‘ideal type’ in our sense is, to repeat once more, has no connection at alle with value-judgments, and it has nothing to do with any type of perfection other than a purely logical one. There are ideal types of brothels as well as of religions; there are also ideal of those kind of brothels which are technically ‘expedient’ from the point of view of police ethics as well as those of which the exact opposite is the case” (Weber 1949a: 99, italics in original). Not unlike Durkheim, the sensitivity to values sharpened by sociological value interpretation and moral analysis contributes to the value reflection of the researcher, for it provides “‘knowledge‘ for him in the sense that it, as we say, extends his ‘inner life‘, and his ‘mental and spiritual (geistigen) horizon‘, and makes him capable of comprehending and thinking through the possibilities and nuances of life-patterns as such and to develop his own self intellectually, aesthetically, and ethically (in the widest sense) in a differentiated way – or in other words, to make his ‘psyche‘, so to speak, more ‚sensitive to values‘ (Weber 1949b: 144). However, Weber sees the limits of the science of reality not only reached but already exceeded where sociology undermines the necessary “distinction between ‘experiential knowledge‘ and ‘normative knowledge‘” (Weber 1949a: 51), and – be it also on the basis of its insights gained from the investigations – introduces moralizations and values into its ‘object of investigation’, social reality, by setting standards, formulating ideas or even designing world views. Precisely because ‘the highest ideals which move us most powerfully are for all time effective only in the struggle with other ideals which are as sacred to others as our own are to us’, standards, ideas and worldviews ‘can never be the product of progressive experiential knowledge’ (ibid.: 154). However, if the moral positions in the struggle of ideals and values are

192

J. Raab

to be presented with the greatest possible clarity and with the utmost acuity, freedom from value judgement is required. As Wilhelm Hennis notes, with the emphasis on free, with open sights, unprotected by the reassuring certainties of tradition or the optimisms of modern ideas, intent on keeping a distance from all the illusions and desirabilities of the time (Hennis 1996). Only those who are committed to this ideal of ‘good’ science can – according to the attitude and hope of interpretative sociology, “which there is no intention of attempting to impose on anyone else” (Weber 1978: 13) – retain their impartiality and keep a clear head in the social struggle of values, ideals and morals. Irrespective of their own nuances and regardless of all contradictions and incompatibilities, Durkheim and Weber agree on a point that subsequently marks the starting point of every theoretically founded and empirically proceeding social science, when they understand sociology in its core as a science that builds up a methodically controlled distance to its ‘object’ and – in Durkheim’s case already less, but in Weber’s with unchanged intensity – maintains this distance. The bon mot commonly attributed to Robert E. Park, the founding father of the Chicago School of Sociology, “a moral man cannot be a sociologist” (cf. Lindner 2003: 217; translated from German) is by no means to be understood as sociologists elevating themselves to something they can never be for anthropological reasons: moral beings who exempt themselves from any moral judgment. Rather, the sentence means no more, but also no less than the bracketing of all one’s own claims to validity as long as science is practiced as a profession and as soon as the professional research role is assumed. Then it is necessary to temporarily suspend one’s own morality and to sharply separate passionate participation from dispassionate analysis (cf. Hitzler 2016). Only in this attitude can sociology become the playful-aesthetic discipline that the Kantian Simmel understood it to be. Play and aesthetics set counterpoints to everyday life, create distance to the moral dimension and promote critique.3 They are expressions of that autonomy, freedom, and objectivity that characterize the observer and mediator, for Georg Simmel the social type of the stranger as a whole. At the same time, however, Simmel also recognized: “This freedom, which allows the stranger to experience and handle even the close relationship as from a bird’s eye view, admittedly entails all manner of dangerous possibilities” (Simmel 2009: 602). 3

Hermeneutic methods of image interpretation in the sociology of knowledge, such as constellation analysis (Raab 2017, 2018) or aesthetic re|construction analysis (Hoggenmüller 2022), then, also make use of the break provoked by the ‘pure’ look at the form of a pictorial representation with everyday ways of seeing that are primarily directed at the content of an image.

Good Pictures – Bad Pictures: Image Ethics of Moral Collectives

193

For his aloofness can certainly have a challenging and provocative, arrogant and hurtful effect on those who are established in a social reality. Therefore, when Charles Darwin is said to have frightened, enraged, or terrified his children in order to explore the expression of emotions (Darwin 1872), or when Erving Goffman observes and interprets his mentally ill wife (Goffman 1969) then social researchers balance on a fine line between the “insatiable, endless, shameless interest in the doings of men” as the structural openness and irrepressible curiosity indispensable for all social research on the one hand, and the unconditional reverence for the dignity of the person which dictates that subjective desire be set aside, voyeurism restrained and cynicism renounced on the other (Berger 1963: 18). The negotiations and understandings of commonly accepted views and intersubjectively shared claims necessary for survival in the moral tightrope walk reveal the social sciences themselves as a moral collective fanned out in itself.

3

Image Judgements and Image Practices in Moral Collectives: A Case Study

In her famous essay on war photography, Susan Sonntag wonders whether the shocks emanating from certain images inevitably create unity between “people of good will” (Sontag 2003: 6): “Not to be pained by these pictures, not to recoil from them, not to strive to abolish what causes this havoc, this carnage – these [. . .] would be the reactions of a moral monster” (ibid.: 8). On the other hand, however, “there are many uses of the inumberable opportunities a modern life supplies for reading – at a distance, through the medium of photography – other people’s pain. Photographs of an atrocity may give rise to opposing responses. A call for peace. A cry for revenge. Or simply the bemused awareness, continually restocked by photographic information, that terrible things happen” (ibid.:13). Thus, when Sonntag sums up, “No ‘we’ should be taken for granted when the subject is looking at other people’s pain” (ibid.: 7), morality is to be reckoned with not only in the plural, but also in discussions and disputes among moral positions. Thus, those communicative processes of understanding and negotiation about commonly accepted or rejected views and about collectively shared or condemnable claims, through which moral collectives are constituted, move into the focus of social scientific cognitive interest. Like all human use of signs and symbols, image communication aims at intersubjective attribution of meaning and collective sense-making. In their communicative emphasis and social exaltation to ‘icons’, images can therefore function as

194

J. Raab

temporally and spatially highly condensed “communicative reference points” (Joller 2017) and advance to morally charged, almost sacralized collective symbols. In theoretical terms, the cultural significance of collective symbols arises from their influence on individual experience as well as on shared experience and on the consequent social reactions they evoke. In individual contemplation and contemplative engagement, collective symbols raised to the status of cult images are capable of triggering the same states of consciousness and experiences again and again. In social perception, they generate tones of experience and feeling that are perceived as shared and that endow a ‘felt unity’ for the community united in the common reaction (cf. Soeffner 2010). In terms of the sociology of knowledge, collective symbolism thus proves to be “a reaction of society to concrete, historical crisis situations that appear to be insoluble, for the ‘solution’ of which elements from the stocks of experience, the symbol repertoires, and the receptive knowledge of traditions are mostly invoked or impose themselves. The symbolic actions and interpretations responding to the crisis still contain – albeit now concealed – the problems and contradictions of the crisis situation. In contrast, the harmonization and the ‘exaltation’ of the solutions: of the collective convictions that are being established, come to the fore in the symbolic work” (ibid.: 47 f.). The image that gave rise to the following case study was quickly and unanimously given the label ‘iconic’ in public communication. It has also already been taken up several times by social and cultural studies treatises, which likewise unanimously and without exception elevate it to the status of ‘icon’, regardless of whether they use it merely as a ‘hook’ for publication (cf. Friese 2017; Kanter 2017; Vowinkel 2016) or take it as the genuine ‘object’ of an investigation (Vis and Goriunova 2015). We are talking about the photograph of the three-year-old Syrian Aylan Kurdi, who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea at the height of the so-called refugee crisis in September 2015 and whose body washed up on a beach near the Turkish city of Bodrum was documented by the photojournalist Nilüfer Demir for the news agency DHA. The photo, published on 02 September 2015, reached close to 20 million people within 12 hours via the social media ‘Facebook’ and ‘Twitter’, was printed by many daily newspapers worldwide and spread via online media (cf. D’Orazio 2015). Like hardly any other image of recent years, the photograph triggers quite considerable reactions in politics, the media and social networks. In some countries, for example, it is causing a more liberal attitude towards refugees, at least temporarily. At the same time, it leads to sometimes very bitter debates about the question of whether images such as those of Aylan Kurdi should be disseminated in the media at all, because they violate the human dignity of the person depicted, arouse base desires to look in the viewers, or the communicators exploit and abuse them in pursuit of their very own goals and purposes.

Good Pictures – Bad Pictures: Image Ethics of Moral Collectives

195

The most prominent case in the image controversy in this country is represented by Germany’s highest-circulation daily newspaper, BILD. While many newspapers either do not print the picture of the stranded Aylan Kurdi at all or only pixelate it and provide reasons for their respective decisions, BILD presents the photograph on September 3, 2015 on the last page of its print and online edition, which is designed like an obituary. On September 8, 2015, the paper defiantly responds to the sometimes vehement outrage and criticism with an issue completely devoid of images in the editorial section, showing only gray areas, including a comparatively detailed letter of justification for the organ. With its reference to well-known press photographs, in particular to The Terror of War/ Napalm Girl, June 8, 1972 by Nick Ut, it is at the same time exemplary for a legitimation strategy often adopted by the media in the case of the image of the drowned Aylan Kurdi: “We want to show how important photos are in journalism. And that it’s worth fighting for the best photo every day! Because photos can prove what the powerful want to hide. They awaken emotions in us. They show beautiful moments, but also cruel ones. They make us empathize with other people. Think of the black and white photo of a Vietnamese girl. She runs screaming towards the photographer. In the background, US soldiers and an ominous black cloud. To this day, that photo shapes our abhorrence of war more than any politician’s speech, more than any written word. The photo of the drowned Aylan (3) on the beach also went around the world. It caused consternation and sympathy, shook millions of people awake. That’s why BILD always stands up for the publication of controversial photos – often against tough opposition. The world needs to see the truth in order to change it” (BILD-Zeitung, 08.09.2015, p. 1). The social and cultural studies treatises mentioned above, which address the image of the dead child in quite different respects and ways, also all avoid or curtail photography. Unlike, for example, Kevin Carter’s 1994 Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph The Vulture and the Little Girl (cf. Poferl and Keller 2017), the ‘icon’ Aylan Kurdi can apparently not be brought out again, reproduced and visually cited, despite its disproportionately higher degree of recognition, but may at best be named and described, can only be presented alienated and ‘defused’, or must immediately bypass and replace it with other, imitative, modulating or associative images referring to it. But aren’t ‘icons’, especially in their modern manifestation, characterized precisely by the fact that they can be repeatedly shown and seen, because they provide for social connection communication and for personal and collective sense-making? Is their avoidance and abandonment perhaps intended to prevent or suppress the intrusion or emergence of horrific, horrifying, or even traumatizing impressions into individual consciousness? But don’t the descriptions and substitutions placed in the empty spaces, together with their references to stocks of knowledge about the

196

J. Raab

history of motifs that can be called up in cultural pictorial memory, trigger immediate presentations and imaginings that possibly only catch up with, fill in and complete what has been repressed and denied, what has been suppressed and repressed, all the more impressively and lastingly? – What, then, is the basis of the ambivalent character of this picture in particular? What causes its equally high “exhibition value” and “cult value” (Benjamin 1968), i.e. its enormous dissemination, visibility and reception on the one hand, and the no less high sensitivity and reserve shown towards it on the other? A first hint at answers to these questions can be found in Georges DidiHubermann’s work, when he distinguishes between two ways of ‘not paying attention’ to pictures, “if one can put it that way: The first possibility is to overload them excessively, to want to see everything in them, in short, to make them icons of horror. [. . .] The second possibility of not paying attention consists in reducing the images, drying them out, as it were, and seeing nothing in them but documents of horror” (2008: 34 f., italics in the original). So when images are either overloaded with meaning ‘with good intentions’ or, conversely, thinned out in their meaning content and thus both times made presentable through ‘disregard’, it is a matter of confronting them with due respect in a distanced attitude and “examining the characterization of a pictorial work on the work itself” – for, according to Wolfgang Sofsky (2011: 20; ranslated from German): “Whoever wants to understand pictures can only look at them”, must therefore expose himself to them and contemplate them (Fig. 1). The child’s head is pointing towards the water and the framing of the picture has been chosen in such a way that the body as a whole, slightly lowered, is pointing closer towards the sea than towards the interior of the country (cf. Figure 2a).4 Moreover, the boy is not lying on dry but on wet ground, and moreover the water of the wave that last reached the beach is still at the level of the head and the averted face. Above the child, taking up the entire width of the picture space, the next wave is already approaching and its extension suggests that it will wash over the head and at least parts of the upper body within the next few seconds. Meanwhile, the head, arm and leg posture do not indicate that the child will immediately jump up and run away. Even if the boy is playing, sleeping, or ‘merely’ fainting – as his relaxed, wholly dislocation-free prone position, and complete, unsoiled, and properly fitting 4

Just like the photographs in Figs. 3, 4 and 5, this image was also prepared in very different ways by various media, i.e. above all cropped. The variants used here for these illustrations are the most frequent ‘hits’ in Google image searches at the time of retrieval (16.10.2015) under the entry “Aylan Kurdi”. The variant used for Fig. 5 comes from the print and online edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung of 31.10.2015.

Good Pictures – Bad Pictures: Image Ethics of Moral Collectives

197

Fig. 1 The dead Aylan Kurdi on the beach of Bodrum, 2015. (Source: BILD newspaper 03.09.2015; # Nilüfer Demir, DHA Agency)

clothing might indicate, as might the absence of any signs of bruising, abrasions, or injury – he is in danger, and someone – in the last instance, the person taking the picture – would have to show responsibility and intervene to save him from unpleasant consequences or even greater harm. While play, powerlessness and sleep can only claim limited validity as interpretations of the situation, a fourth reading suggests itself. Supported by the composition of the picture, it gains plausibility and finally becomes certainty: the boy is dead. After all, his body is located completely below the center line that already appears in the picture as a wavy line and divides it in such a way that the water completely filling the upper half of the picture appears even more threatening, powerful, even overpowering (cf. Figure 2b). The presence of death, and of a child at that, which can hardly be glossed over or denied, makes it understandable why the photograph of Nilüfer Demir was either not distributed at all or only in a distorted form, and why it gave rise to such far-reaching discussions and protests. The picture, which was often perceived as unbearable and unreasonable, was replaced by the majority of international press and media organs by another, apparently bearable and quite reasonable photograph. It shows a Turkish policeman who has just picked up Aylan Kurdi and is preparing to carry the body away from the beach (see Fig. 3a).

198

J. Raab

Fig. 2 (a) Vertical, bisecting. (b) Horizontal, bisecting. (Source: BILD newspaper 03.09.2015; # Nilüfer Demir, DHA Agency)

Fig. 3 (a) Turkish policeman with dead Aylan Kurdi. (Source: ZEIT-Online 03.09.2015; # AP/dpa). (b) Modulations of the photograph in different print media

There is hardly a commentary and interpretation of this photograph that does not point out its proximity to the Pietà motif. The Christian archetype and basic motif, in which the sacrificed and lamented Son of Man over his mother merges with the idea of the victory of faith over death to form a symbolic figure of salvation history, is “a record of a basic human act” that “carries a huge potential charge as it connects to a heritage in Western life and culture”, and which therefore is able “to impose a more familiar moral universe that undoes the moral inversions of war” (Aulich 2015: 50). Compared to the photograph of Aylan Kurdi lying dead on the beach, which is unacceptable to many, the water in this shot has lost its repulsion and menace not only because a coastline can now be seen at a greater distance, whose arched shape seems to contain the waves and in which the water masses appear less massive. But also because the policeman with the picked-up child has just crossed the line of the danger zone towards the safe inland. As in the depictions of Mary

Good Pictures – Bad Pictures: Image Ethics of Moral Collectives

199

Fig. 4 Vertical and horizontal centerline. (Source: ZEIT-Online 03.09.2015; # AP/dpa)

mourning for her son, he is in a bent posture, holding the dead boy in his arms at the level of his lap, and has applied his head and gaze from his face. But not only the posture of the persons, also the composition of the picture shows remarkable similarities, if, like some well-known representations of the Pietà from the fifteenth century. In this way, the vertical is able to assert itself against the horizontal basic arrangement and directional tendency of the rectangular frame, gaining in importance to such an extent that it dominates over the horizontal, and in this way life symbolically prevails over death (cf. Figure 4). But from the image that not everyone wants to show and not everyone wants to see, to the image that can be shown almost without reservation and, thanks to its obviously easily identifiable Judeo-Christian signature, can also be received relatively unrestrictedly, the social work on the image has by no means come to an end. For almost 2 months after the publication of Nilüfer Demir’s photograph, a third image takes the place in public communication of the morally, if not outrageous, then at least questionable photo of the dead child and its morally already ‘defused’ substitute image with its associative references to the Pietá motif, when Katja Petrowskaja publishes a photo of the dead child that was already published on 01.10.2015 on the front page of the New York Times on 31.10.2015 in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, supported by the following commentary, chooses it as the “image of the week” (Fig. 5): “A woman rises from the sea, wrapped in a golden robe. The ‘Venus’ by Botticelli? No, it is a young Syrian woman on the run. And with her, European myths rise from the Mediterranean. [. . .] Perhaps I also chose this photograph for comfort, because it took me away from Damascus and the images of destruction, away from the refugee camps stretching to the horizon, which no longer found a place not only in my gaze but also in my mind. Away from the people behind the fences, from burning tents, from garbage in

200

J. Raab

Fig. 5 Santi Palacios, Lesvos, Greece, 30.09.2015. (Source: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, 31.10.2015; # AP)

cornfields in Hungary, from blocked borders and their own powerlessness. Some of these images, like the photo of the drowned child, have forced many of us to understand exactly what we are fleeing from, in general and in this specific case” (Petrowskaja 2015). Just as the people flee from Syria to a better, because safer world, so the viewer of the picture flees from the images of flight, especially from the “photo with the drowned child” into an associative imagery that comforts her. At the center of the imaginative pictorial order is Sandro Botticelli’s famous painting, the subject of which is not a Judeo-Christian legend but an ancient myth, which for Petrovskaya, however, extends into the present and even becomes for her the very core of the “European myths”. Botticelli’s Birth of Venus draws on one of the oldest sources of Greek mythology and shows the coming into the world of something new and special, valuable and pure, resulting from an extremely brutal act of retribution and violence among the gods. Aphrodite, always surrounded by attendants – often her son Eros – and worshipped by the Roman under the name of Venus, becomes for the ancient Greeks the reflection of the divine par excellence and the actual, no longer improvable symbol of perfection and immortality, which they then also elevate to the goddess of beauty, sensual pleasure and above all love. What is shown and happens in the picture, as Ernst Gombrich thinks, is easy to understand: “Venus has emerged from the sea on a shell which is driven to the shore by flying wind-gods

Good Pictures – Bad Pictures: Image Ethics of Moral Collectives

201

Fig. 6 Sandro Botticelli, Birth of Venus. (Source: en. wikipedia.org; # Public domain)

amidst a shower of roses. As she is about to step on to the land, one of the Hours or Nymphs receives her with a purple cloak” (Gombrich 1950: 199, cf. Figure 6). The historically deep, cultural-historical roots, together with the catchiness of the content of the pictorial representation, may have contributed to Botticelli’s Venus becoming an icon, at the latest since Aby Warburg, and becoming such a frequently quoted, adapted and modulated model in public communication that nowadays it can be completely decontextualized thematically and used for morally entirely innocuous intentions: From the beach as a place of violence and death, but also of rebirth and new beginnings, to the beach as a bucolic paradisiacal place of dreams and longing, as in the poster advertising for the 13th season of Heidi Klum’s Germany’s next Topmodel, which aired in 2018.5 Just as in Botticelli’s Venus and in its adaptation for the product advertisement just mentioned, but differing from the two photographs by Aylan Kurdi (cf. Figures 1 and 3), Santi Palaciosʼ photograph presents the sky and an open horizon that continues beyond the right and left edges of the picture. To be sure, the sea is churning in this image as well. But solid ground surrounds the happily landed, centrally placed subjects, whose signs of relationship reveal them to be intimate confidants, possibly relatives or lovers. Finally, in the case of the woman positioned in the foreground as well as in the centre of the picture, the luminous purple mantle given in Botticelli’s painting of Venus has given way to an aluminium cover gleaming in silver and gold. Finally, both persons have their gazes averted from the viewer of the picture and, if they do not keep their eyes closed, directed in the same direction downwards, towards the ground. In maximum contrast to this doubly marked, downward directional tendency, an upward impulse indicated by the two

5

For legal reasons, it is not possible to reprint the poster motif. For your own view see: https:// www.presseportal.de/pm/25171/3837544, last call on 04.10.2018.

202

J. Raab

Fig. 7 Reconstruction of the field line system. (Source: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung 31.10.2015; # AP)

course lines above the woman’s head, opening in a pointed shape, and further supported by the clearly raised horizon line, directs the viewer’s eye movements beyond the upper edge of the picture (see the field lines drawn in red in addition to the horizontal and vertical center line in Fig. 7). The vertical tension, the transgression of the pictorial boundary in the direction of the sublime, and the rescue film elevated to an aureole, taken together, indicate why the photograph, in contrast to the shocking images of the dead refugee child, represents, at least for the readership of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and the New York Times, a thematicallycontentually as well as formally-aesthetically perfect image of desire and consolation. If the reconstruction of the field line system – as a sociological “second-order construction” (Schutz 2010) – reveals an order of visibility and cultural knowledge to which Christian iconography serves as a thematic, formal and ultimately moral frame of reference and resonance, the ‘natural’ sequence – as a “first-order construction” (ibid.) – of the photograph of the dead Ayan Kurdi on the Turkish beach, which opens the image sequence and with it the image discourse, of the photograph of the child’s recovery, which responds directly to it, and of the photograph by Santi Palacios, which finally responds to both precursors, the Judeo-Christian symbolic

Good Pictures – Bad Pictures: Image Ethics of Moral Collectives

203

Fig. 8 Image sequence as image discourse (From left to right Source: BILD-Zeitung 03.09.2015, # Nilüfer Demir, DHA Agency; Source: ZEIT-Online 03.09.2015, # AP/dpa; Source: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung 31.10.2015; # AP)

structure of death, resurrection and redemption (cf. the image sequence in Fig. 8). The sequence of images thus spans an arc from the atopia of a perverse, inverted, ‘godless’ world to the eutopia of a pacified, perfected place at rest in itself, in an image that now actually invites contemplation and devotion like an icon. In the face of a humanitarian catastrophe that includes the death of children, which as the most condemnable and evil thing appeals to moral judgement and awakens feelings of responsibility and guilt, the socio-historical foundations of morality prove themselves, since with the symbolism and imagery of the JudeoChristian tradition an elementary section of cultural pictorial memory is retrieved and updated. Yet a second pictorial discourse surrounding the so-called refugee crisis accompanies and overlaps, indeed ultimately dominates by its sheer quantity over that triggered by the photograph of the dead child (see the exemplary selection of press photographs from 2015 in Fig. 9). Its subject, with the child translating to the saving shore as the central figure, singled out in the image’s plot and composition, and its mass, mass-media adaptation and reproduction, delimits the catastrophe and suggests its successful processing and overcoming. For the déjà vu of the consolation image fed as a “monoform” into the media “endless loop” (Chéroux 2011: 45; translated from German) is able to absorb the singularity of the individual fate and erase the jamais vu of the shock photograph. And by promising to absorb and dull the pain of all interpretations thrown back on themselves, the moral collective consolidating or reconsolidating itself on the ‘case’, with its image ethics, relieves individuals of the problem of the incomprehensibility and inconclusiveness of events.

204

J. Raab

Fig. 9 Monoform in endless loop. (Sources and copyrights from top left to bottom right: 9.1: Source: www.spiegel.de, # AFP; 9.2: Source: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 20.10.2015, #: AFP; 9.3: Source: The European. The Debate Magazine 26.6.2017, # shutterstock, Nicolas Economou, Image ID: 367744034; 9.4: Source: ZEIT-Online 22.04.2016, # Angelos Tzortzinis/Agence France-Presse/2016 Sony World Photography Awards; 9.5: Source: N-TV 04.10.2015, # Reuters; 9.6: Source: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 18.08.2015, # Reuters; 9.7: Source: Rheinische Post Online 04.10.2015, # dpa fs sh; 9.8: Source: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 13.10.2015, # Antonio Masiello/Imago; 9.9: Source: ZEIT-Online 02.06.2015, # Yannis Behrakis/Reuters)

4

An Extra-moral Conclusion

The study of social morals is part of the core business of sociology. In order to be able to grasp the phenomena of morality in a sociological way, sociologists – and Park’s principle “a moral man cannot be a sociologist” applies here – must distance themselves from their own moral convictions, especially in cases of personal emotion, which makes them walk a fine line. Crossing, sounding out, and transgressing boundaries are thus in the nature of the profession. For even if it knows no fundamental taboos, reservations or fears of contact, sociology is repeatedly confronted with the problem of having to decide how far it can go in the choice and use of empirical case studies for presentations and publications. Particularly in the case of images of violence that are socially disseminated and attract attention, and in view of which moral voices are also repeatedly raised in the

Good Pictures – Bad Pictures: Image Ethics of Moral Collectives

205

social sciences, which not infrequently pretend to be self-evident and universally valid, it is important to take a sociological look at the conditions of perception and interpretation that are constitutive of these attitudes. With their image judgments and image practices, which order, regulate and justify the fading in and out, the addition and repetition of images, moral collectives then come before our eyes as “communities of vision” (Raab 2008). Their image ethics provide information about which images are considered ‘good’ and which are considered ‘evil’, i.e. what can, may, should or must be shown in and with them, as well as about what remains hidden, what is deleted and what exceptions there are. Thus, the social sciences are by no means exempt or immune from the fact that moral collectives are repeatedly formed within them, which bring themselves into the discourse on images and establish, maintain and defend for themselves and vis-à-vis others supposedly ultimately valid views, generalizable perceptions and normative claims. The visual sociology of knowledge represented here also knows two general principles for working on the “difficult task of an ethics of the image” (DidiHuberman 2008: 56) for its research, which is ideally completely relieved of its own and general moral concepts. Firstly, the condition that images should always be selected only in accordance with a theoretical epistemological interest and thus in relation to a specific problem or question, in order to then raise them in their entire manifestation, i.e. taking into account as many details of action and representation contained in the visual datum as possible, to the object of a value-free, sober, coolly detached empirical analysis and interpretation. Secondly, the requirement to use images, together with all the analytical cuts and steps performed on them, not only as evidence, but as arguments for the interpretation and for its results, which limits voyeurism just as much as the use of images for the mere attraction of attention or for trivial and ultimately dispensable illustration, because textual arguments merely duplicate them, as, finally, does their use for the mere illustration of the mode of operation of methodological procedures for image interpretation.

References Abend, Gabriel (2008): Two main problems in the sociology of morality. Theory and Society, 37(2), 87–125. Aulich, Jim (2015): The Life of Images: The Iconography of the Photograph of Aylan Kurdi’s Body and the Turkish Policeman, in: Vis, Farida/Goriunova, Olga (Eds.): The Iconic Image on Social Media: A Rapid Research Response to the Death of Aylan Kurdi. Sheffield: The Visual Social Media Lab, 50–52. Benjamin, Walter (1968/1935): The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. In: Illuminations: Essays and Reflections. New York: Schocken Books, 214–251.

206

J. Raab

Berger, Peter L. (1963): Invitation to Sociology. A Humanistic Perspective. New York: Anchor Books, Doubley & Company, Inc. Bergmann, Jörg/Luckmann, Thomas (1999): Moral und Kommunikation. In: Bergmann, Jörg/Luckmann, Thomas (Hrsg.): Kommunikative Konstruktion von Moral. Band 1: Struktur und Dynamik der Formen moralischer Kommunikation. Opladen/Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, 13–36. Böhme, Gernot (1997): Ethik im Kontext. Über den Umgang mit ernsten Fragen. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Chéroux, Clément (2011): Diplopie. Bildpolitik des 11. September. Konstanz: University Press. D’Orazio, Francesco (2015): Journey of an Image: From a Beach in Bodrum to Tqwenty Million Screens Across the World, in: Vis, Farida/Goriunova, Olga (Eds.): The Iconic Image on Social Media: A Rapid Research Response to the Death of Aylan Kurdi. Sheffield: The Visual Social Media Lab, 11–18. Darwin, Charles (1872): The Expression of Emotions im Men and Animals. London: John Murray. Didi-Huberman, Georges (2008): Images inspite of All. Four Photographs from Auschwitz. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Durkheim, Émile (1960/1930): The Division of Labor in Society. Illinois: The Free Press of Glencoe. Durkheim, Émile (1982/1895): The Rules of Sociological Method. New York/London: The Free Press. Durkheim, Émile (2010/1924): Sociology and Philosophy. Abindon/New York: Routledge. Friese, Heidrun (2017): Flüchtlinge: Opfer – Bedrohung – Helden. Zur politischen Imagination des Fremden. Bielefeld: Transcript. Giessen, Bernhard (2014): Moral und kollektive Emotionen. Diskurse auf mittlerer Distanz. In: Giessen, Bernhard/Binder, Werner/Gerster, Marco/Meyer, Kim-Claude (Hrsg.): Ungefähres. Gewalt, Mythos, Moral. Weilerswist: Velbrück, 107–119. Goffman, Erving (1969): The Insanity of Place. Psychiatry 32, 357-387. Gombrich, Ernst H. (1950): The Story of Art. London: Phiadon Press. Hennis, Wilhelm (1996): Max Webers Wissenschaft vom Menschen. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Hettlage, Robert/Bellebaum, Alfred (2016): Alltagsmoralen. Die kulturelle Beeinflussung der fünf Sinne. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Hitzler, Ronald (2016): Eigenverantwortung? Ethische Aspekte sozialwissenschaftlicher Feldforschung. In: Soziologie. Forum der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie 45, 3, 441–447. Hoggenmüller, Sebastian (2022): Globalität sehen. Zur visuellen Konstruktion von ‘Welt’. München: Campus. Joller, Stefan (2017): Skandal! Ruf ohne Imperativ? Von kommunikativen Referenzpunkten und moralischen Kollektiven. In: Burzan, Nicole/Hitzler, Ronald (Hrsg.): Theoretische Einsichten. Im Kontext empirischer Arbeit. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 229–246. Joller, Stefan (2018): Skandal und Moral. Eine moralsoziologische Begründung der Skandalforschung. Weinheim/Basel: Beltz Juventa. Kanter, Heike (2017): Soziologische Blindheit? Was Bilder zum Erforschen von Gesellschaft beitragen können, in: Soziopolis. Gesellschaft beobachten.

Good Pictures – Bad Pictures: Image Ethics of Moral Collectives

207

Kaube, Jürgen (2018): Ist das Kunst oder muss das weg? In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 02. Februar, 9–11. König, René (2013/1976): Émile Durkheim. Der Soziologe als Moralist. In: Albrecht, Clemens (Hrsg.): Émile Durkheim. Zur Bestimmung der französischen Soziologie in Deutschland. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 215–286. Lindner, Rolf (2003): Robert E. Park. In: Kaesler, Dirk (Hrsg.): Klassiker der Soziologie, Band I: Von Auguste Comte bis Alfred Schütz. München: Beck, 213–229. Luckmann, Thomas (2000): Die intersubjektive Konstitution der Moral. In: Endreß, Martin/ Roughley, Neil (Hrsg.): Anthropologie und Moral. Philosophische und soziologische Perspektiven. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 115–138. Luckmann, Thomas (2002): Veränderungen von Religion und Moral im modernen Europa. Berliner Journal für Soziologie, 12(3), 285–293. Luhmann, Niklas (1984): Soziale Systeme. Grundriss einer allgemeinen Theorie, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Luhmann, Niklas (2008): Die Moral der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Müller, Klaus E. (2012): Die Grundlagen der Moral und das Gorgonantlitz der Globalisierung. Konstanz: UVK. Oevermann, Ulrich/Allert, Tilmann/Konau Elisabeth/Krambeck, Jürgen (1979): Die Methodologie einer ‚objektiven Hermeneutik‘ und ihre allgemeine forschungslogische Bedeutung in den Sozialwissenschaften. In: Soeffner, Hans-Georg (Hrsg.): Interpretative Verfahren in den Sozial- und Textwissenschaften. Stuttgart: Metzler, 352–434. Petrowskaja, Katja (2015): Venus ist wieder da. Kolumne ‚Bild der Woche’. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, 31. Oktober. Poferl, Angelika/Keller, Rainer (2017): Die Wahrheit der Bilder, in: Eberle, Thomas S. (Hrsg.): Fotografie und Gesellschaft. Phänomenologische und wissenssoziologische Perspektiven. Bielefeld: Transcript, 305–315. Raab, Jürgen (2008): Visuelle Wissenssoziologie. Theoretische Konzeption und materiale Analysen. Konstanz: UVK. Raab, Jürgen (2017): Fotografie und Phänomenologie. Zur Methodologie einer wissenssoziologischen Konstellationsanalyse. In: Eberle, Thomas S. (Hrsg.): Fotografie und Gesellschaft. Phänomenologische und wissenssoziologische Perspektiven. Bielefeld: Transcript, 381–393. Raab, Jürgen (2018): Visuelle Sinnkonstellationen. Zur Methodologie der sozialwissenschaftlichen Interpretation von Fotografien, in: Müller, Michael R./Soeffner, Hans-Georg (Hrsg.): Das Bild als soziologisches Problem. Herausforderungen einer Theorie visueller Sozialkommunikation. Weinheim/Basel: Beltz Juventa, 210–231. Schutz, Alfred (2010/1953): Wissenschaftliche Interpretation und Alltagsverständnis menschlichen Handels. In: Zur Methodologie der Sozialwissenschaften. Alfred Schütz Werkausgabe Band IV. Konstanz: UVK, 331–379. Simmel, Georg (2009/1908): Sociology. Inquiries into the Construction of Social Forms. Volume 2. Leiden/Boston: Brill. Soeffner, Hans-Georg (2004): Auslegung des Alltags – Der Alltag der Auslegung. Zur wissenssoziologischen Konzeption einer sozialwissenschaftlichen Hermeneutik. Konstanz: UVK. Soeffner, Hans-Georg (2010): Symbolische Formung. Eine Soziologie des Symbols und des Rituals. Weilerswist: Velbrück.

208

J. Raab

Sofsky, Wolfgang (2011): Todesarten. Über Bilder der Gewalt. Berlin: Matthes & Seitz. Sontag, Susan (2003): Regarding the Pain of the Others. New York: Picador. Stanisavljević, Marija (2016): Widerständige Kommunikation. Protest im Spannungsfeld von Massenmedien und Ästhetik. In: Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 41(2), Schwerpunkt: Bildhandeln und visuelle Politik, 123–148. Tomasello, Michael (2016): A Natural History of Human Morality. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press. Vis, Farida/Goriunova, Olga (Eds.) (2015): The Iconic Image on Social Media: A Rapid Research Response to the Death of Aylan Kurdi. Sheffield: The Visual Social Media Lab. Vowinkel, Annette (2016): Agenten der Bilder. Fotografisches Handeln im 20. und 21. Jahrhundert. Göttingen: Wallstein. Weber, Max (1949a/1904): ‚Objektivity’in Social Science and Social Policy. In: The Methodology oft he Social Sciences. Illinois: The Free Press of Glencoe, 50–112. Weber, Max (1949b/1922): Critical Studies in the Logic of the Cultural Sciences. In: The Methodology oft he Social Sciences. Illinois: The Free Press of Glencoe, 113–133. Weber, Max (1978/1921): Economy and Society. An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Berkeley: University of California Press.