Andreas Reckwitz on the COVID-19 Pandemic and Its Effect on Late Modern Societies

This is 55 Voices for Democracy, a production of the Thomas Mannhaus and the Los Angeles Review of Books. I'm Eida Baronejant, and today we're talking to Dr. Andreas Reichwitz. Andreas Reichwitz is one of Germany's most eminent contemporary scholars and the author of eight sociological monographs, most recently 2017's Society of Singularities and the End of Illusions from 9/2019. His research emphasis is on the theory of late modernity, cultural theory and cultural sociology. He is currently a professor of sociology at the Humboldt University of Berlin and will be a fellow at the Thomas Mannhaus in Los Angeles next year. Welcome Dr. Reichwitz. Thank you very much for the invitation. It's great to have you here, especially during these times because I want to start with your most recent book, so recent that we haven't yet had the chance to read it, pandemic and start, pandemic and state in English, a conversation between you and Christian Krel. You discuss how society and state can reinvent themselves after the COVID-19 pandemic whenever that after will be. Can you outline some of the most important changes we have to establish in our political and social systems once we finally can start thinking straight again? Yeah. Well, of course, that's a very difficult question to answer. And I know that you can answer them because you're the master of difficult questions. Yes. Thank you. In fact, pandemic and state, well, that's a long interview, and there was part of a series of interviews which took place at the Fülle-Evecht-Tiftung by the civil democratic knee in Germany and they asked a series of scholars to expose their view on the pandemic and on the possible consequences of the corona pandemic. And I was one of them, and of course, also, I asked the question from the sociological point of view, what does the corona pandemic mean for late modern society and how far could it change late modern society in which way not? And if we look back when the pandemic began one year ago, I don't know what it was like in the United States, but in Germany at least there was a huge discussion about what should it change after it, after the crisis. There were also a lot of wishful thinking underway, wishful thinking about what could, which glorious transformations could follow and people could become more reflective on the problems of late modern society and so on. So there were also a lot of hopes at the beginning. Namaste, I was rather, or has been rather cautious concerning these hopes. And I rather had the impression that in the corona pandemic a lot of the structural difficulties and structural problems, first of all, off late modern society, have become evident. And this is, I think, the most important point to see that. So there was no transformation taking place that rather you put a light on the structural problems or the pandemic put a light on the structural problems of late modern society and to just stress one is of course the huge structure of inequality in late modern society. The inequality between, well, a professional class on the one hand, which could switch into their zoom conferences as we do it now. And on the other hand, the new service class, which is also very characteristic of late modern economy, a service class in, for example, in the hospitality industry and in other, other branches of the economy, which of course has been put in a very disastrous position through the pandemic. So we had this, where it was parallel universes of professional class on the one hand and service class on the other hand, and we had these parallel universes already before as they are very characteristic of late modern social structure, or it's not only an equality of income and wealth, but also an equality of culture and cultural capital between these two groups. And so I think people, or the publics, we are wasn't so aware of this distinction between these two classes one could say and they became aware through the pandemic. And now we know what the zoom conferences are on the one hand on the other hand, we'll know what the, what people in the service industries and which work they do. So I would say that this is one important lesson, maybe, of the pandemic, with this social structure of late modern society, at least social structure in the Western countries, has become more evident, and a second aspect, which are also pointed out in that interview, is where what could change after the crisis, and I'm not so sure whether the economic structure or the cultural structure still could change so quickly, whether this is so realistic. But what of course now could change is the structure of the state, and I think this is also a second aspect, which has become now very evident in the corona crisis. Now the state, the state apparatus has become a key of social transformation, a transformation again as before, and we're in the long era of neoliberalism since the 1980s and so on. Also in the United States, or even in the United States, the state has become very active again, and also in Germany, in Britain, in France, and so on. And of course, one could ask the question whether this could be a transformation which lasts, that also after the corona crisis, maybe people have become more aware that a sort of, where I could say, infrastructure by the state, for example, in the field of health and prevention of catastrophes and so on, that this sort of infrastructure should be guaranteed by the state, but it has to be built up again. So what rather say, when there are certain transformations, probably in the future as a consequence of the corona crisis, then this could concern around for all the structure of the state and the politics of states. So we could see, we turn to social democracy and the Social Marked Wirtschaft, as the Germans call it, a social way of doing capitalism, basically. This is seductive to think that now there is a way back, way back to the 50s or 60s. But I think this would not be realistic. I think the history does not repeat itself. And we might say that this, the situation of the 1950s and 60s and 70s, these so-called as for us, here called it Tront-Anne Glorious, these three glorious decades with economic prosperity and a strong welfare state, and so on. This was an exception. It was a certain episode in the history of the Western societies, but it will not come back. And as the frame, the framework in which the lateman society situated is not the framework in which this industrial society of the 50s, 60s and 70s was situated just to take two points which has changed. Of course, in those days, the states were relatively strong nation states. And now we have, since the 80s, opposed of globalization and also of economic globalization. So there is a real economic competition on the global level, which was not the case in the 50s, 60s and 70s. So we have a global structure in which nation states are situated and they are not as strong as they used to be. And I don't think that this will come back. This is the idea that the nation states as strong as they used to be. I think this would not be realistic in a globalized world. And the second point is, of course, also on the level of culture and of life forms, of course, lateman society are not culturally so homogeneous anymore as they used to be in the 50s, 60s and 70s. And this homogeneity in those days had also, of course, as a flip side, a certain repression of minority groups, of minority cultures and so on. And this is, when lateman societies have become much more heterogeneous, heterogeneous also on the level of lifestyles through the process of migration and so on. So there is no way back simply to the 50s, 60s and 70s. I would even say that this is at least partly this vision of populism, for example, of right-wing populism in Europe, that there is a way back to the 50s. I think this is when there are nostalgic visions in some way, that there is a way back to this homogeneous nation states of those days, which is rather, which may be in that way never existed, but it's also a nostalgic vision. So I wouldn't say that we can go back to that era, but rather now the task to go into a new era where in some ways revitalized state functions, but they won't be revitalized in the same way as they used to be in the classical welfare state. This may be the exception that proves the rule, but the pandemic disruption brought a great deal of angst here in the United States over the 2020 elections. The fears that our voting apparatus would be disrupted, that turnout would be depressed. And yet, you saw record turnouts, even amidst quite difficult conditions, set up in some cases to ensure vote repression, and we saw the specter of people lined up, both in primaries in the general election, to cast their vote. Is this a case of the pandemic actually having a beneficiary effect on democracy? Well, this was the responsibility of the pandemic, but rather this very heated constellation of the supporters and the opponents of Donald Trump, that this was above all a result of this very fierce and intense debate between opponents and supporters of Trump. Won't you say that? Yes. Certainly, it was an electric election, and many of us here in the United States who opposed Trump were dreading the terrible coincidence of the pandemic, perhaps leading us even deeper into a kind of an authoritarian state, and, you know, I think we had a somewhat of a vindication actually on election day. I think the emergence of Trump may have been assigned for something you wrote a whole volume about, the society of singularities, where you discuss a paradigm shift in modernity from standardization towards uniqueness as a central goal or even expectation for societies. And while reading, I was sometimes thinking maybe a figure like Trump would be an example for that. How has this shift, this paradigm shift you describe impacted democracy, would you say? The society of singularities, which I try to analyze, and the book is a very complicated matter, and it has, without doubt, it has political consequences, but sometimes rather indirect political consequences, and I think perhaps one should try to figure out what the singularization is about first, where this can't be done in five minutes, but just to put it shortly. One could say that singularization is a radicalization of individualization, or is a radical transformation used to call individualization. And this is, of course, a very classic diagnosis of modern societies from georeximal to Ulrich Beck to say that in modern societies, the process of individualization is taking place. But I would say that this term of individualization is still too, in some ways it is too narrow, and in other ways it is too broad, and so I used this neologism in some ways singularization in my book. And what I meant was, is a society which is more and more and more shapes entities which try to be unique, or one expects from society, what expects from objects, from individuals, from places, from events, and also even from collectivities, uniqueness, particularity, particular attractiveness. So it's not sufficient that all these entities are standardized, but they are all the same, but there is this thrill of uniqueness which is spreading through late modern society. And you can observe this, of course, when you could ask why is that the case? There are several forces, several social forces, which promote this process of singularization, which I would say has been taken place in a very radical way since the 1970s and 80s. And one, of course, important part is capitalism, as the is late modern economy, as capitalism has now transformed more and more into a sort of, I could say, cultural capitalism or cognitive cultural capitalism, and which the unique selling points of goods has become the most important currency in this kind of economy. And the question is not whether goods are really unique, or whether only people think they are unique, but the important point is that the consumers expect from the goods uniqueness, and this, where uniqueness, economy in the fields of objects, in the fields of services, in the fields of events, of media, formats, and so on, has transformed not only economy, but the whole image of consumer capitalism, and so also the forms of life, of course, individuals who participate in this cultural capitalism. So this is one, it's important force, this tendency to goods of uniqueness in the economy, I think, for example, that also Luke Botansky in his reach recently broke on the enrichment economy, has brilliantly analyzed some aspects of this cultural capitalism and its economy of uniqueness. Well, second force is, of course, digitalization, also digitalization, digital technologies, that technologies, which unlike classical mass technologies, like the mass media, they singularize. The digital technologies, singularize, they personalize, for example, the internet, and they also produce an internet which is a huge attention economy in which only one could say difference and uniqueness and to be other, to be different from other's counts. And there is a third force, which is a social force, and also a cultural force, namely the significance of a new middle class, of a very well-educated new middle class, about all in the metropolitan areas, which in some way have a lifestyle or a form of life, which places much importance on individuality, on creativity, on authenticity, and so on. So they are, would say, the carrier also, the form of life, for which singularization is very important. So these are the economic and social and also cultural and technological developments. And they are not political in the narrow sense of the term, but they have, of course, immense political consequences. And one political consequence, namely one, is, for example, the erosion of the classical public sphere. We used to have until the 80s or so a classical public sphere, which was, and we have all structured it organized by mass media, because there were also differences and conflicts and so on in this classical public sphere. And the classical public sphere was, I could say, in the room of the general or space of the general for general public, in which everybody participated, so, and it would also conflicts could take place, but it was a shared, one could say shared public sphere. But now, for example, the society of singularity is also a consequence of the digital technologies. We have a kind of particularization of public sphere taking place. There isn't one public sphere anymore, but there are now several or a lot of, or even millions of public spheres on the one hand, of course, through the personalization of news feeds. So that my window to the world is another window than your window. And the second point is, of course, that now particular online communities and also particular media online communities as spreading, which have their very specific world view and have their specific world you're reinforced again and again. So this particularization of the public sphere, I would say, is one consequence, and of course, a politically very influential consequence of the singularization of society. When you described a new middle class, which I also agree with to a certain extent, I was thinking of my fellow culture workers who do have a lot of the privileges of the new culture class, the education and the cultural background, but it's combined with a certain economic precarity that is also prevalent in, for example, academia. What does that go together? I should elucidate a bit that in my, the theory of the theory of similarities, the question of social structure and the transformation of class structure plays an important role. And in this, and I developed a model of three classes, three plus one classes, namely new middle class, traditional middle class, and sort of new working class or precarious class, and then there is, of course, these very small upper class on top. And what is important for me in that analysis is the, the importance of the new middle class, as I already mentioned that 10 minutes ago, as this new middle class is a, is a new development since the 80s or 90s, and the new middle class has become a, I would say, culturally and also politically very influential class in the last decades, and that's the class of the well-educated people. And, but of course, this class is not so homogeneous as it seems to be, I mean, what everybody shares in this class is a high cultural capital, that's certainly because it's, what is characteristic of them, and this high cultural capital that is associated with, for example, high, high degrees in high, in the high education sector. And this, of course, also transformed into a certain, certain tastes or certain values, a certain, also certain political stances. And but this high cultural capital doesn't necessarily mean that there is also high economic or material capital. And then, in that respect, the new middle class is heterogeneous, and where there are wealthier parts of the new middle class, and there are less wealthy parts. And so this puts a certain tension, I would say, also into the, into the new middle class. But the interesting point is, as a cultural sociologist, I would say, the interesting point is that, in some respects, this, the question whether certain individuals or families or say we have more or less money, this has, of course, its effects on their form of life, but it doesn't have so many effects on their taste or their values. As this is quite similar, even between, let's say, in the creative sector, there are, of course, workers who own very little and others who, who earn quite a lot, but the tastes between them are quite similar, for example, their tastes concerning food or their tastes concerning traveling or concerning how they, how they decorate their apartments and so on. So, cultural capital seems to be that aspect which unites everybody in the new middle class, but of course, there is a huge heterogeneity concerning income and wealth in some. In reading your work, doctor, I'm reminded of the controversial Great Man Theory of History. That is to say that history is driven by certain, to use your term, unique individuals, and not an accretion of millions of individual experiences, and I'm wondering as a sociologist, if you have a kind of a position on this historic question? So, the sociologist, of course, and very skeptical towards these great main theories of history, as I would rather suspect that these are structural and there are structural transformations taking place. Of course, this is a, whether the sociological predouchment towards society, maybe in contrast with some classical historians, which value the unique personalities more. So I, generally, I would be, with this Captica in that regard, but on another level, of course, one could say that above all in late modern societies, now in something like charismatic personalities, which Max Weber, 100 years, called charismatic personalities, have become maybe an important force in the political sphere. Again, this, we could come back to Donald Trump again, and this was the, I think, one of the first questions that you asked, what Donald Trump says about the society of singularity. And of course, one could say, well, this is quite, well, Donald Trump, without doubt, was, or still is, and I know a singular figure. He singularized himself in extreme way through the digital media above all, and he was a very contested figure in this contestedness. He was also singular, so everybody talked about him, and so when I could rather say, well, that this figure of Trump, would he have been possible 30 years ago, or so, in the classical industrial society, maybe not, of course, you know, or some of our Europe, we have a history of, for example, fascist and charismatic leaders in the 1920s or 30s or so, which were also in a certain media context, the mass media had an important role there. But I had the impression that in, after that, in the classically organized industrial society, and there was rather a administrative type of politician, dominant. And now, in the last decade or so, maybe, I'm not so sure, this is rather a hypothesis, because these singular figures, personalities, also contested personalities, in the political sphere, play a more important role than before, and that would also be one aspect, of course, again, of a very ambivalent or even dangerous aspect of the society of singularities. In the end of illusions, you write that a traditional left-right scheme of politics, we are so used to, in front of, when it comes to explaining things, lost its explanatory power, while I agree with you, certainly, I'm also wondering which other way we can find, to speak about politics and political discourses, once this scheme that we are so used to, has died. I wouldn't say that this left-right distinction has lost its value altogether, but I think in some ways it's still quite useful, but what I meant is, one point is that I meant that, when you try to describe or to analyze the political history since 1945, up to the present, and the political paradigm has been taking place during these 70 years or so. Surprisingly enough, I would say it is not so much the left-right distinction, which helps you with understanding the political transformation of the last 70 years, but rather the transformation of overall paradigms has been taking place, and paradigms, which, in a way, share a left and right aspect, and there's rather a history of paradigms of ordering, of deregulating, which followed one to another in the political history. This is not so much a left-right distinction, to say to you all concretely, in the 50s and 60s and 70s, we had a paradigm, which was quite dominant in Germany, in France, in Britain, in the United States, which was focused very much on an economically active state, which tried also to steer the economy or to establish a welfare state, and so on. This model of the state was not only a model on the left, it was also a model on the right. It was the model of Franklin Durano Roosevelt, but it was also the political model of Eisenhower. It was the model of this Canadian Social Democrats, and it was also the model, for example, of the goals of Plan de Chicago. We had that, it was a consensus, whether it was a left-right consensus, that it was the task of the state to steer the economy. It was very interesting. People sometimes suggest that, and so there was a rather left-right consensus, and after that in the 70s and 80s, these consensus eroded, but then a new consensus came into place. That was the consensus to quote Nancy Fraser of progressive neoliberalism, and progressive neoliberalism, and a combination of a rather right-wing neoliberalism and a progressive neoliberalism. This combination was, now we have a new consensus, which again was shared both by the left and by the right. That is quite surprising. Of course, when we are in the heat of political conflict, we, and also myself, of course, we take the steps of being on the left or being on the right, but when you take a certain distance to political history, you see that the more profound changes crossed the left right, you see the left right division, and maybe this will also be the case in the future. When a new paradigm, a new political paradigm, comes into place, of course, it has left-wing versions, and it has right-wing versions, but with a certain distance, you see where there is a new kind of thinking about government taking place, and this new kind of thinking about government, then something which, secretly, the left and the right shares. This is what I wanted to put the emphasis on, well, I'm not one of those who says, well, the left and right. This is speaking of yesterday, and I would rather say when you do a analysis of political history, this left-right divisions is not so useful to understand. Well, lots to think about. This has been absolutely fantastic. Thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Reckwitz, and I wish you a lot of fun at the Thomas House next year. Thank you, Dr. Reckwitz. Yeah, thank you very much. This is a production of the Thomas Mann House in cooperation with Los Angeles Review of Books, along with our partners, Guilty Institute Boston, Wunderbar Together, Guilty Pop-Up Seattle, Guilty Pop-Up Houston, and Guilty Pop-Up Kansas City. Thank you for listening. [Music]