From Nature to Modernism: The Concept and Discourse of Culture in Its Development from the Nineteenth into the Twentieth Century

Summary

Culture and Society

THE CONCEPT OF culture has undergone such a highly complex process of development that it would be impossible in a short essay to highlight all its different facets. However, it is possible to gain some impression of this development during the course of the nineteenth century by looking at certain distinctions and definitions that are familiar from today's academic discourse. One such definition is that of culture as an independent part of a three-fold social order, an idea that has become established over the last twenty or thirty years in a large number of social theories. Although the terms used may vary, there is considerable agreement on the basic idea. For instance, Jürgen Habermas speaks of a society that consists of three subsystems: socio-cultural, political-administrative, and economic (1973). The sociologist Daniel Bell, from the more conservative camp, makes a similar differentiation (1976). Others have linked this three-fold system to further concepts, such as Johann Arnason's concept of practice (1988) or Nicolas Perlas's concept of globalization (2000). Moreover, it is worth noting that this division into three is also used outside professional sociology, for instance in the artistic and social theory of Josef Beuys.

In all these definitions, the cultural sphere is regarded as distinct from the political and economic spheres. This means that society is not viewed as a homogeneous entity characterized by a unified structure and organized according to universal principles.