Richard Sennett
Richard Sennett (born January 1, 1943 in Chicago , Illinois ) is an American - British sociologist .
The son of Russian immigrants teaches sociology and history at New York University and the London School of Economics and Political Science . His main areas of research are cities , work and cultural sociology . Sennett is married to the urban sociologist Saskia Sassen .
Richard Sennett was known as a theorist and historian of urban life. His main themes are the isolation, disorientation and powerlessness of modern individuals, the superficiality and instability of interpersonal relationships and - against this background - the exercise of domination. In his early works in particular, he remains Chicago, the city of his childhood, and the experiences he made in it. The high topicality of his topics and his catchy, essayistic style made his books bestsellers .
Sennett became known with his book Decay and End of Public Life (1977). In his work Handwerk (2008) he calls for the restoration of the intrinsic value of practical work , as opposed to the working conditions of financial capitalism , and for people to work in such a way that they strive to do their job as well as possible. Handwerk is the first book in a trilogy in a Sennett project called Homo faber . It is about people as "makers" of things. The second volume was the book Cooperation: What Holds Our Society Together . His theses are always related to the history of religion and art. The Christian term agape as a common meal is symbolic of common action.
Life
Richard Sennett grew up in Cabrini Green, a poor neighborhood in Chicago . Both parents were staunch communists. The father, whom he never met because he fled after Richard was born, fought in the Spanish Civil War and later made a name for himself as a translator of Spanish and Catalan poems. His mother, Dorothy, made a living as a social worker.
Sennett tried to get out of this world, which he later described as narrow and threatening, initially through music. At a young age he learned the cello, composed and had success in public appearances. He had to give up studying musicology and the violoncello in New York in 1962 due to a failed operation on his left hand. He then studied sociology and later history with David Riesman and Erik Erikson in Chicago, then with Talcott Parsons at Harvard University . a. with Hannah Arendt .
After receiving his doctorate in 1969, he researched and taught at Harvard, Yale , Rome and Washington, among others . Since 1971 he has been professor of history and sociology at New York University , where he headed the newly founded New York Institute for the Humanities from 1977–1984 . In 1999 he started teaching as a Centennial Professor of Social and Cultural Theory at the London School of Economics.
Since his main residence is now London, he became a British citizen in 2016.
plant
The flexible person
In his work Der flexible Mensch (The Corrosion of Character) , 1998, Sennett describes the effects of the new flexible capitalism on character. As the world of work becomes more flexible , values and virtues are becoming less important. B. loyalty, a sense of responsibility and work ethic as well as the ability to forego immediate satisfaction of wishes and to pursue long-term goals. For Sennett, the reasons for this development are the acceleration of work organization, the steadily growing performance requirements, the increasing insecurity of working relationships ( precariousness ) and the need to change residence at any time for professional reasons.
Sennett also notes a profound change at the macro level. He studied after he has dealt with the history of industrial work, the transition from trained industrial capitalism , the Fordism , to a system of flexible specialization . In the automotive industry, for example, assembly line production in a factory has been replaced by specialized production and supply companies that are constantly adapting their location and their work processes to the needs of the globalized economy . Strict hierarchies have partly been replaced by small, self-responsible groups with high risk. The pressure on the individual, which is also reflected in a changed understanding of the concept of time, increases immensely. In addition, there is close monitoring of the entire production process - including the workers - through the use of modern means of communication. Sennett also describes a conflict between values that parents want to pass on to their children and those that determine their professional lives.
In everyday life - here follows Sennett Mark Granovetter's network theory - weak ties, i.e. fleeting forms of commonality, gain in importance. These become more useful to people than long-term strong connections that have lost their meaning.
All of this contributes to an atmosphere of fear, helplessness, instability and insecurity in large parts of society. According to Sennett, this instability and insecurity create a society of elbows. The gap between rich and poor is growing. The middle layers are thinned out. There is a polarization between a smaller group of profiteers and a large number of losers of the new system to be observed.
The culture of the new capitalism
The culture of the new capitalism (The Culture of the New Capitalism) , 2005 is the sequel to his bestseller The flexible man . Sennett is once again interested in showing how the new culture that emerged from the New Economy of the 1990s led to profound changes on a social, organizational and individual level. Since then, Sennett said, a global economic elite has exercised moral and normative influence on the rest of the economy as well as on politics and society as a whole.
His analysis focuses on the effects of "New Capitalism" on the structure of large companies and on the demands on workers. He notes that consumer behavior and political action are increasingly similar.
In the first chapter, Sennett describes the phase of "social capitalism". During this phase, which lasted roughly from 1870 to 1970, companies were more or less like military organizations . The hierarchies and chains of instructions in these pyramid-shaped buildings were clear. The individual employee knew his place in this bureaucracy-like organization, but could hardly break out of this “steel-hard housing” (coined by Max Weber as “steel-hard housing of bondage”; incorrectly translated by Talcott Parsons as “iron cage”). By the time these ventures began to open to new management methods, borrowed capital and “impatient capital”, and to adopt novel production technologies, the steel-hard casing ceased to exist. He was replaced by international corporations with flat hierarchies that demand one thing above all from their employees: flexibility.
Sennett then speaks of the arrival of "mp3 capitalism", which has arbitrariness and speed as its maxim. It is no longer so important that a person learns a trade and ultimately masters it well. Rather, the New Capitalism requires the ability to constantly adjust to new circumstances.
Sennett believes that the educational system produces too many highly qualified potential workers. In fact, the economy could work with a small elite and increasing automation . About 30 percent of the total labor force in an industrialized country would be sufficient to maintain the economy. The remaining 70 percent therefore become aware of their uselessness. The unemployed and underemployed part of the population, which is marginalized in the culture of New Capitalism , should, according to Sennett, be made "useful" again through new types of employment, especially in the social field. “Talent and the specter of uselessness” are the subjects of the second chapter.
In the third chapter, Sennett shows how politics becomes a business, a commodity , both on the supply side and on the demand side . The politics business and its products (election programs, laws, decisions, etc.) are consequently permeated by the culture of New Capitalism . Again, it is more about quick decisions than information and extensive debates. The citizens become politics consumers. Like branded goods, parties give themselves an image and do marketing in order to conceal the principle of interchangeability among themselves.
Fonts (selection)
- An evening with Brahms , Benziger, Zurich 1985 ISBN 3-545-36396-1
- Authority , Fischer TB, Frankfurt, 1990, ISBN 3-596-10254-5 , English: Authority , 1980
- Decay and end of public life. Die Tyrannei der Intimität, Fischer TB, Frankfurt, 1986, ISBN 3-596-27353-6 , several editions, most recently BVT, Berlin 2008 ISBN 3-8333-0594-0
- Civitas. The big city and the culture of difference , Fischer, Frankfurt, 1991, ISBN 978-3-10-072504-2
- Fleisch und Stein , Berlin-Verlag, Berlin, 1995 ISBN 3-8270-0030-0 English: Flesh and Stone: The Body and the City 1994
- The flexible person. The culture of the new capitalism . Berlin-Verlag, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-442-75576-X - Review: Franz Schuh in Die Zeit, September 13, 2001.
- Respect in the Age of Inequality , Berliner Taschenbuch-Verlag BVT, Berlin, 2004, ISBN 3-8333-0074-4 , English: Respect in a World of Inequality , Penguin, 2003, ISBN 0-393-32537-7
- Die Kultur des neue Kapitalismus , Berlin-Verlag, Berlin 2005. 160 pp. ISBN 3-8270-0600-7 (The book is based on the author's lectures during the Castle Lectures in Ethics, Politics, and Economics at Yale University in the summer 2004.), English: The Culture of the New Capitalism , Yale University Press, 2006, ISBN 0-300-10782-X - Reviews: Wolfgang Engler in Die Zeit and Robert Misik in taz
- "Homo Faber Project"
- Handwerk , Berlin-Verlag, Berlin, 2008, ISBN 3-8270-0033-5 - Review: Thomas Macho in NZZ, January 24, 2008
- Cooperation: What holds our society together , Berlin, 2012, ISBN 3-446-24035-7 , English: Together: The Rituals, Pleasures, and Politics of Cooperation , Yale, 2012, ISBN 0-300-11633-0
- The open city. An ethic of building and living . Translation by Michael Bischoff , Hanser Berlin, Munich 2018, ISBN 978-3-446-25859-4 , English: Building and Dwelling: Ethics for the City , Allen Lane, London, 2018, ISBN 9780713998757
honors and awards
- 1996: Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
- 1996: Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- 1998: Premio Amalfi , European Amalfi Prize for Sociology and Social Sciences
- 1999: The Political Book , Friedrich Ebert Foundation Prize
- 2001: Member of the Academia Europaea
- 2006: Hegel Prize of the City of Stuttgart
- 2008: Gerda Henkel Prize
- 2008: European Craft Prize
- 2009: Heinrich Tessenow Medal
- 2011: Jeanette Schocken Prize of the City of Bremerhaven
- 2016: Prix européen de l'essai Charles Veillon for his work Cooperation - What holds our society together
- 2018: Officer of the Order of the British Empire
- 2018: Member of the British Academy
- 2018: Bruno Kreisky Prize for the political book - Prize for his entire journalistic work
See also
literature
- Sven Opitz: Richard Sennett . In: Stephan Moebius , Dirk Quadflieg (Ed.): Culture. Present theories . VS-Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2006, ISBN 3-531-14519-3
- Jürgen Raab: Richard Sennett . In: Bernd Lutz (Hrsg.): Philosophen-Lexikon. From the pre-Socratics to the new philosophers . Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2003, ISBN 3-476-01953-5 , pp. 667-669.
- Markus Schroer: Richard Sennett . In: Dirk Kaesler (ed.): Current theories of sociology. From Shmuel N. Eisenstadt to postmodernism . CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-52822-8 , pp. 250-266.
- Dominik Skala: Urbanity as Humanity. Anthropology and Social Ethics in Urban Thinking Richard Sennett . Schöningh, Paderborn 2015, ISBN 978-3-506-78394-3 .
- Interviews
- "We are facing a new class system". Conversation with Jörn Jacob Rohwer . In: Die Welt , July 6, 1998.
- J. Czaplicka: Let's call it denational. Interview with the sociologist couple Saskia Sassen and Richard Sennett . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , September 28, 1998, p. 15.
- Characterless capitalism . Conversation with S. Gaschke. In: Die Zeit , No. 49/1998.
- Peter Kümmel: “In truth they are children” . In: Die Zeit , No. 38/2005.
- Ingar Solty : "On the threshold of decline" - US society in the crisis of passivity . In: Das Argument , 264, 1/2006, pp. 27–35.
- Susanne Lang, Jan Feddersen: “I'm just unfashionable. Unfortunately! ” In: taz , January 5th, 2008.
- Thomas Kielinger : "Obama alone cannot solve the ethnic conflicts" . In: Die Welt , April 4, 2008.
- Nikolaus Piper : "America is in decline" . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , September 13, 2008.
- 3sat conversation with Tina Mendelsohn: "Myth and Reality of Barack Obama". 3sat , November 10, 2008. (Video; 6:14 min.)
- Dorothee Krings: Making sparks out of the crisis . Interview with R. Sennett. In: Rheinische Post , November 11, 2008.
- Cordula Meyer: "The Stasi was an organization like Google" . Spiegel Online , January 15, 2010.
- Jenny Friedrich-Fraska, Karola Klatt: “The American way of working is deeply in crisis” . In: derstandard.at, January 22, 2010.
- Tim Caspar Boehme: "We have to avoid tribalism". Cooperation. No empathy for bankers. The sociologist Richard Sennett in conversation about his new book “Cooperation”. In: Taz, October 10, 2012, p. 15. Online: New book by Richard Sennett . taz.de, October 10, 2012.
- We have lost the balance between cooperation and competition , - LISA interview from July 11, 2013
- "I hope the system will collapse" , Interview, Stuttgarter Zeitung , April 7, 2015
- SRF Drama is the beginning of all operas, October 17, 2016, 00:56, 24 min., Accessed on November 20, 2016
- "The Americans do not know me, that the EU exists" , ZDF , June 8, 2018
- The Benefits of Public - On the benefit of the public , conversation with Gaby Hartel and Maja Ellmenreich, Deutschlandfunk, essay and discourse, March 31, 2019
Web links
- Literature by and about Richard Sennett in the catalog of the German National Library
- Works by and about Richard Sennett in the German Digital Library
- Short biography and reviews of works by Richard Sennett at perlentaucher.de
- Official website
- Homepage at the London School of Economics
- Theatrum Mundi - Richard Sennett's research group
- Video: Richard Sennet: The City as an Open System . Re: publica 2016, made available by the Technical Information Library (TIB), doi : 10.5446 / 20684 .
- Richard Sennett: The Struggle for the City - Democracy Lecture by the papers on November 8, 2018
Footnotes
- ^ David Runciman: Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Co-operation by Richard Sennett - review . In: The Guardian , February 3, 2012
- ↑ Richard Sennett: Respect in the Age of Inequality , Berlin, 2004, p. 20
- ↑ zdf.de
- ↑ Franz Schuh: Everything is a radiant surface . In: The time . No. 38 . Hamburg 2001 ( zeit.de ).
- ^ Membership directory: Richard Sennett. Academia Europaea, accessed January 7, 2018 .
- ^ "Cultural materialism" - Richard Sennett's acceptance speech on the occasion of the award of the Hegel Prize in Stuttgart, May 2007.
- ↑ Gerda Henkel Foundation as award winner
- ^ Richard Sennett, winner of the European Crafts Prize 2008. North Rhine-Westphalian Crafts Day e. V., March 5, 2012, accessed March 10, 2015 .
- ↑ Richard Sennett receives Heinrich Tessenow Medal (PDF; 62 kB)
- ↑ Bruno Kreisky Prize for the Political Book 2018 to Julian Nida-Rümelin and Nathalie Weidenfeld . OTS report from January 1, 2019, accessed on January 1, 2019.
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Sennett, Richard |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American sociologist |
DATE OF BIRTH | January 1, 1943 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Chicago |