Routledge The Roots of Postemotional Theory: Paths through Classical Sociology (Classical and Contemporary Social Theory)

This book presents the detail and origins of postemotional theory as an alternative to both modernist and postmodern theories of society. Beginning with Schopenhauer’s distinction between ‘will’ and ‘representation,’ the author examines how various classical social theorists interpreted Schopenhauer’s milieu, including Durkheim, Simmel, Freud, Darwin, Spencer, Wundt, Veblen, and Tönnies. Offering a re-reading of Durkheim’s Suicide, together with explorations of Schopenhauer’s and Durkheim’s concerns with knowledge, ethics and the character of religion, The Roots of Postemotional Theory presents not an intellectual history, but a postemotional examination of various trends in contemporary society: rising unhappiness dressed up with a cultural proclivity toward fake smiles and ‘customer satisfaction’; manufactured authenticity and fake sincerity; the paradox of forced spontaneity, curiosity and development rather than genuine learning and education; the mass production of ‘discovery’ and experience; brand loyalty and the modern totemism of mascots and national loyalties; and the capacity of consumer society to market and promote greed and inequality. A detailed study of modern life that draws on a range of sociological classics to show how these absorbed and developed key distinctions and concepts developed in the work of Durkheim and Schopenhauer, this book will appeal to scholars of sociology, cultural studies, social theory and philosophy.