The Blackwell Companion to Sociology (102 page)

Many sociologists have concentrated on how societal movements mobilize

resources. This approach is useful insofar as a movement's orientations can be

reduced to the collective pursuit of individual interests. But why does the pursuit of individual interests spawn collective action? This question is especially pertinent given the strong temptation to be a free-rider, as Olson (1965) pointed out in his now classical analysis. This we might consider to be a sociology of resource mobilization, and involves actors and their objectives. Also, by focusing on

societal movements, I am also not considering rebellions, namely actions taken

against suffering, poverty, or slavery. Rebellions are defined by what they reject ±

by what they designate as unbearable ± whereas societal movements have a

positive orientation and accompany political, cultural, or social objectives. A

rebellion is centered on its own suffering, whereas, in a societal movement, we

find both conflict and hope.

In considering the role of hope, idealism, and an altered conscience, which are

the seeds of societal movements, I can refer to some concrete examples. These

would include: the popular movements that put an end to apartheid in South

Africa; the Polish and Czech solidarity movements that prepared the fall of the

Soviet system; the Tiananmen uprising; ongoing student actions in Korea, Tai-

wan, and Iran; and, also, as I indicated, the French student movement of May

1968. Societal movements are the real place where liberation and liberty join

The Subject and Societal Movements

439

together. Although the public (sometimes with the help of the media) have

recognized the importance of these movements, sociology has usually resisted

interpreting them, except in the most reductionist of ways. A main emphasis in

sociology since Olson's (1965) earlier work has been to state that such move-

ments involve the rational pursuit of ends. This implies that many or most stay

out of the conflict so they can benefit from those who take risks without taking risks themselves. But how can we explain that so many men and women have

taken risks ± have fought and made sacrifices in the hope of achieving goals, a

hope in which they themselves could not believe?

As I have defined societal movements as those that are transformative, and

infused by shared energy, they involve subjective elements. Although it must

be recognized that societal movements, such as the ones I have mentioned,

accompany anti-social and sometimes destructive behaviors, it is important

not to attach too much importance to such behaviors. The active Subject

that lies within the societal movement and its concrete expressions has

helped to erode the state's logic of power and the reproduction of inequality

within the state, and, thereby, societal movements have further global con-

sequences.

Two ways of thinking have obscured the very idea of a social movement. The

first, which has always prevailed in France, only considers anything having to do with the state's power as important. Accordingly, only political actions have a

broad scope, whereas social actions are always confined in narrow bounds. This,

I believe, stems from historical features in France, and the fact that the French demanded, early on, a political democracy but have lagged behind in building a

social democracy. The preference of the people in France, and in other Latin

countries, for revolutionary radicalism stems from the strong bonds that, in these lands, united the state with the traditional oligarchy and, even more, with the

Catholic Church. This has set the revolutionary tone of politics, a tone that has often had (and can still have) ringing effects. As a consequence, so many

observers enthusiastically saluted the long workers' strike in May 1968

but scorned the students' cultural movement, which they qualified as petit

bourgeois.

The second way of thinking that has obscured the nature of social movements

seems the opposite of the foregoing. It is based on completely splitting the social apart from the political system. It is then easy to show how, in order to attain its objectives or grow, a political action must mobilize social resources but without a connection with the objectives or conceptions of social actors. This way of

thinking is just as political as the first, but it endows politics with a different meaning. From this vantage point, social action is subordinate to political

action, which aims specifically at acquiring or maintaining power. Such thinkers see social movements nearly everywhere, since, constantly (especially in democracies), politicians strengthen their hand by presenting themselves as the only actors capable of responding to social pressure. The extreme form of this is

Leninism, which, by assigning the political vanguard the central role, places

directly under its control movements or organizations, which are soon reduced

to being relay mechanisms for the party.

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The idea of a societal movement is different from these two conceptions.

Above all else, it asserts that, under certain circumstances at least, social actors can define a central social cause and oppose opponents in the name of dominant

cultural values, while also defending their particular interests. To talk about a societal movement is to affirm that social actors have pre-eminence over political authorities. This entails the idea of representative democracy and, in particular, of social democracy, wherein the party is the union's political muscle. To detect societal movements means inquiring into the conditions under which, at the level of conflicting social relations, actions emerge that have a general scope and are capable of commanding political actors and resources instead of being used by

them.

In contrast with political conceptions of a revolutionary or a strategic sort, for which only political action can broaden the scope of demands that are always

particularistic, the idea of a societal movement is based on the idea that there exists a central conflict. This is particularly the case in the contemporary world, which we could describe as postindustrial, computerized, and information-based. As I analyze the current situation, social conflicts in our society pit the Subject against the triumph of the marketplace and technology and also against

authoritarian communitarian (exclusive) powers. For me, this cultural conflict

seems as central as the economic conflict was in industrial society or the political conflict was during the first centuries of the modern era. If we reject the idea of a social movement from the start or use this phrase to refer only to demands or to reactions in a political crisis, we keep ourselves from corroborating, or even

understanding, it.

Societal Movements and the Subject

A societal movement exists only if it combines a social conflict with a cultural cause defined with reference to a Subject. The Subject has assumed religious and political forms, and even taken on the form of a class or nation. I would like to argue that the Subject can emergè`finally as it is in itself' ± as the personal

Subject ± only in our type of society. In all societies, however, the Subject reveals itself through moral values that oppose the social order. A societal movement

defends a way of putting moral values to use that is different from the one its

social opponent defends and tries to impose. Moral references and the conscious-

ness of direct conflict with a social opponent who is defined by its way of

appropriating common values and cultural resources are two inseparable aspects

of a societal movement. This reference to morals should not be confused with

claims based on needs or working conditions. Such claims back up demands for

modifying the ratio of costs to benefits, whereas the moral discourse of a societal movement refers to freedom, a cause, fairness, justice, and the respect for

fundamental rights.

Specifically, as we pass from the depiction of the working-class movement as a

reaction to capitalism's contradictions to the image of a working-class move-

ment with a cause that is both defensive and offensive, we see the growing

The Subject and Societal Movements

441

importance of freedom, justice, and social rights. But we must go much further

to detect and then understand contemporary societal movements during this

transition period involving the postindustrial society. We must give up defining the social actor objectively as a socioeconomic category, because a societal

movement does not aim at changing the relative positions of individuals on a

scale of revenue or power. It seeks, instead, to rally a dominated, alienated,

``fragmented'' Subject. In this sense, the word ``consciousness'' must be used not to refer to the consciousness that a class or nation develops of its own situation but to emphasize the emergence of the actor.

But how does the actor constitute its own self? This question lies at the heart

of a sociology that has stopped analyzing systems in order to understand the

Subject. For some sociologists, reflection of the Subject upon itself leads it to seek a principle of order and control over the prevailing disorder and arbitrari-ness. For others, the Subject can assert itself only by referring to common values, a general interest. Sociologists of the first sort are often called ``liberals''; those of the second, ``communitarians.'' The first try to discover rules, procedures, and laws; the second, the contents, or substantial definition, of the Good. But the

two are not so clearly or fully opposed as it seems, since laws transcribe a

conception of the Good, and procedures never stay neutral whenever social

interests come into play. The opposition between liberals and communitarians

is played out within an objectivist conception of society, even though this

conception is more traditional among communitarians (who may be tradition-

alists or even Tocquevillians). Quite different are those sociologists, such as

Habermas (1989) or Taylor (1989), who, in contrast with both liberals and

communitarians, assign a central place to the construction of the Subject.

What must be added to their different approaches is the idea that the

Subject constitutes itself only through social conflict.

Every societal movement has two sides: the one, utopian; the other, ideolo-

gical. As utopian, the actor identifies the self in terms of the Subject's rights. As ideological, the actor concentrates on the struggle with a social opponent. Without a doubt, the class struggle is ideological. It emphasizes social conflict more than shared issues. On the other hand, the student movements of 1964 and 1968

in France were so utopian that they defined their opponent in excessively vague

terms. Even though every societal movement is lopsided, stressing utopian or

ideological aspects at the expense of the other, a societal movement requires

both.

In contemporary social thought, we see two conceptions of individualism

opposing each other. The one defends the multiplicity of choices offered to the

large majority of individuals by our society of consumption and mass commun-

ications. For it, the market is the place of freedom, since it takes the place of the power of faith, doctrine, or established hierarchies. Opposite this conception,

the second argues for the idea of a personal and collective Subject capable of

endowing its situations and experiences with a general meaning. The first con-

ception refers to freedom of choice; the second to autonomy and meaningful life

experiences. These two conceptions form the grounds for social movements that,

though opposite, both defend the individual.

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Nothing sheds a brighter light on the Subject than the analysis of societal

movements, because both the Subject and movements involve a moral principle

about social relations. A societal movement cannot be reduced to moral protest;

nor can the Subject be reduced to the pursuit of individual interests or pleasure.

The Subject cannot be separated from a societal movement. They form two sides

of a single reality. We thus see how much the idea of the Subject differs from that of conscience, especially when the latter, as classically formulated, means self-control or skeptical self-detachment (as in the case of Montaigne). The Subject is neither a being, nor a place, nor an autonomous space and time. It is a call to

protest and to self-assertion.

A societal movement only exists if it succeeds in defining a conflictual social

relation and the broad, societal issues underlying this conflict. It thus links

together the assertion of an identity, a definition of the opponent, and an understanding of the issues that underlie contention. Can we draw the conclusion that a societal movement is more thoughtful, better controlled, and more responsible

than protest or crisis behavior? Not at all. The degree of violence of a collective action has nothing to do with its nature. The violence depends on whether or not there is room for negotiations. A societal movement may assume a revolutionary

form; but it stops being a movement only if it loses its autonomy and becomes a

social resource in the hands of political leaders whose objectives are quite

different from those of the original movement.

At this point, a historical question crops up: can societal movements still exist in societies under the sway of the market economy? Or does the marketplace

tend to eliminate what I have called the system of historical action and, conse-

quently, replace societal movements with simple demands or occasional political