Following the trail of alienation in contemporary sociological theory. A reading of A. Giddens's, J. Habermas's and N. Luhmann's diagnoses of modernity

Abstract

This paper intends to review the concept of alienation in the "mature" works of A. Giddens, J. Habermas and N. Luhmann. In the context of recent contributions to the mentioned concept, it becomes necessary to rethink its place in these theorizations. In order to do so, we will first examine the different perspectives and background of the current blooming of alienation, to arrive at a global definition of it that will avoid its "essencialist" character. This outline will connect us to various fundamental dimensions of its analysis: the study of social totality, torn and alienated because of a "lack of relation"; the question of community confronted to this notion of alienation; and the link between this process of alienation and the individual, specially in its experience assumed as “authentic” of the self and of the social membership. In second place, we will make a reading of these dimensions in the theories of A. Giddens's, J. Habermas's and N. Luhmann's diagnoses of late modernity. This will allow a reinterpretation of their critiques towards the concept of alienation. This is how we will conduct an unexplored analysis of their works, pointing out decisive tensions in their theories, sometimes unresolved. In this way, we will study alienation specially in connection to: the problem of social order and anchorage of time and space in "reflexive communities" and "pure relationships" (A. Giddens); modernity's pathologies in communicative action and the possibility of a "community of communication" (J. Habermas); and religious communication, the exclusion of functional differentiation, and the modern codification of intimacy in love (N. Luhmann).