The Dark Side of Modernity (PDF)

In this book, one of the world's leading social theorists
presents a critical, alarmed, but also nuanced understanding of the
post-traditional world we inhabit today. Jeffrey Alexander writes
about modernity as historical time and social condition, but also
as ideology and utopia. The idea of modernity embodies the
Enlightenment's noble hopes for progress and rationality, but
its reality brings great suffering and exposes the destructive
impulses that continue to motivate humankind.

Alexander examines how twentieth-century theorists struggled to
comprehend the Janus-faced character of modernity, which looks
backward and forward at the same time. Weber linked the triumph of
worldly asceticism to liberating autonomy but also ruthless
domination, describing flights from rationalization as systemic and
dangerous. Simmel pointed to the otherness haunting modernity, even
as he normalized the stranger. Eisenstadt celebrated Axial Age
transcendence, but acknowledged its increasing capacity for
barbarity. Parsons heralded American community, but ignored
modernity's fragmentations.

Rather than seeking to resolve modernity's contradictions,
Alexander argues that social theory should accept its Janus-faced
character. It is a dangerous delusion to think that modernity can
eliminate evil. Civil inclusion and anti-civil exclusion are
intertwined. Alexander enumerates dangerous frictions endemic to
modernity, but he also suggests new lines of social amelioration
and emotional repair.