When we look one more time at the classic authors of sociology, we may now recognize a lot of overlap and interdependence. In fact, all the authors in this MOOC were studying long term processes. The invisible hand that Adam Smith wrote about now appears to be a slightly awkward way to formulate how a blind and unplanned process may produce unintended outcomes that nobody foresaw but that everybody can profit from. The rise of science, studied by Auguste Comte as the new common denominator in modern societies, pushing religion from its throne, can now be seen as an instance of a more general process that Max Weber described as the process of rationalization. The process of democratization and more generally of the equalization of living conditions between the members of the different strata of society, that famous topic of Tocqueville, can now be seen as a long-term figurational trend. A trend that nobody had planned beforehand but that nevertheless continued its unstoppable course. Karl Marx told us to understand contemporary Western capitalism by studying the very long-term trends that led to the present situation even if that means that you must study life in the Middle Ages or even in Ancient Egypt or in Ancient Greece. But with Marx we also see the beginning of a very dark analysis of modernity where alienation from your work and from your fellow workers undermines the human potential to realize yourself and your labor. From that moment on, sociology becomes very critical of modernity. We see it in the concept of anomie in Durkheim, and in the concept of disenchantment in Weber. Modern Western societies now are seen as having a kind of Janus face. Processes of industrialization and rationalization bring a higher standard of living and an explosion of innovations and inventions in the arts and sciences, but at the same time, many people in the modern metropolis feel lost and lonely and in search of meaning. And this is why Durkheim is looking out for new meaningful alternatives for religion for a new source of [FOREIGN]. This is why Weber writes about modern versions of charismatic leadership that may bring back an element of emotional energy in the social universe that is dominated by cold bureaucratic arrangements that give people the feeling that they are surrounded by an encasing made out of stainless steel. And many of those long-term trends are reworked and recombined into theory of Norbert Elias about the civilizing process. That process that forces its members, the members of modern Western societies, to constantly monitor the social situation they are in and to attentively observe and use and control their spontaneous impulses in such a way that they fit the social context. And then sociology took a different turn. So far I've only spoken about European sociologists, Scottish, French, and German thinkers, but from now on American sociology will become a dominating force in all the social sciences. After the second World War, sociology becomes an American science, and not only in the United States, but also in Europe, and in fact, all over the world. That results in an important change in style. Sociology now becomes more and more an empirical science relying on breakthroughs in the methods of data collection and in statistical techniques. Sociology also becomes a science that is focused on the present. The long-term developments that the classics sociologists, without exception, saw as their most important subject matter are now abandoned. The sociologists of the 50s and of the 60s believed that those long-term historical theories characterize the pre-professional phase of sociology, the era of the founding fathers. But even then, and even in America, some sociologists tried to continue the classic tradition. One of them, for example, is Charles Wright Mills who contrasted the sociology of his contemporaries with the beauty that lies in the classic theories. And in this way, classical sociological theory remained a source of inspiration for modern sociologists, even for those who had the tendency to turn their back to the classics. I hope to be able to tell you more about those modern theorists in a second MOOC that will be entirely dedicated to modern sociological theory.
