206 JEFFREY ALEXANDER
Sociologists have tended to regard culture
as of secondary importance.Alexander emphasizes the role of
culture for determining social life.Material factors—such as economic
wealth and social class—have been seen
as more influential.Without culture, no communication, event,
or human interaction is intelligible.Within sociology, culture
has been doggedly pushing
itself center stage.IN CONTEXT
FOCUS
Cultural sociologyKEY DATES
1912 In The Elementary
Forms of the Religious Life,
Émile Durkheim discusses
how culture and meaning
are interrelated.1937 US sociologist Talcott
Parsons emphasizes the
autonomy of culture in The
Structure of Social Action.1973 US anthropologist
Clifford Geertz stresses the
importance of meaning for
human social life in The
Interpretation of Cultures.1995 In Fin de Siècle Social
Theory, Alexander criticizes
Pierre Bourdieu, the world’s
leading sociologist of culture.
2014 British sociologist
Christopher Thorpe applies
Alexander’s ideas in
his examination of how
the British experience Italy.M
any of us live our lives
without examining why
we habitually do what
we do and think what we think.
Why do we spend so much of each
day working? Why do we save up
our money? Why are we interested
in gossip about people we don’t
know? If pressed to answer such
questions, we may respond by
saying “because that’s what people
like us do.” But there is nothing
natural, necessary, or inevitable
about any of these things; instead,
we behave like this because the
culture we belong to compels us to.
The culture that we inhabit shapes
how we think, feel, and act in the
most existentially pervasive ways.
It is not in spite of our culture that
we are who we are, but precisely
because of it.
US sociologist Jeffrey Alexander
argues that culture—the collectively
produced ideas, beliefs, and values
of a group—is integral to an
understanding of human life. Only
through culture can humans pry
themselves apart from a primordial
state to reflect upon, and intervene
in, the world around them. In
spite of its central role, Alexandermaintains that sociologists have
historically seen culture as being
of secondary importance. As one of
the most influential social theorists
in the world, Alexander has sought
to ensure that the subject of culture
takes center stage in the analysis
of late-modern society.Sociology and culture
While early sociological theorists
recognized the central importance
of culture, they failed—according
to Alexander—to take seriously
the idea that culture is essential
to understanding why people think