WT WP-26 Herrmann Exaugural Reinventing

William Thompson Working Papers, 26ISSN: 1649-9743i

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Dr. Peter Herrmann, The Jasnaja Poljana, Aghabullogue, Clonmoyle, Co. CorkPh. +353.(0)87.2303335, Secretariat: +353.(0)86.3454589, e-mail: [email protected], skype: peteresosc URL:

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College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences

Applied Social Studieshttp://william-thompson.ucc.ie;

Ph. +353.(0)21.490.3398; FAX: +353.(0)21.4903443

Peter Herrmann: REINVENTING THE WHEEL OR SQUARING THE CIRCLE – SUSTAINABLE SOCIAL QUALITY VS SOCIAL POLICY

2013

http://www.esosc.eu/

Peter Herrmann1

Reinventing the Wheel or Squaring the Circle – Sustainable Social Quality vs. Social Policy2

1 Dr. phil (Bremen, Germany). Studies in Sociology (Bielefeld, Germany), Economics (Hamburg, Germany), Political

Science (Leipzig, Germany) and Social Policy and Philosophy (Bremen, Germany). Had been teaching at several Third

Level Institutions across the EU; currently correspondent to the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Social

Law (Munich, Germany). He holds position as for instance that of a senior advisor to the European Foundation on Social

Quality (The Hague, Netherlands), member of the Advisory Board of EURISPES – Instituto di Studi Politici, Economici e

Sociali, Rome, member of the Scientific Board and its coordination committee of ATTAC – Association pour la taxation

des transactions financières pour l’aide aux citoyens, Associate Member of the Eurasian Center for Big History and System

Forecasting, Lomonosow Moscow State University, Russia. He is currently adjunct professor at the University of Eastern

Finland (UEF), Department of Social Sciences (Kuopio, Finland). He held various positions as visiting professor and is

currently in this position at the Corvinus University in Budapest (Faculty of Economics, Department of World Economy;

there since 2012 appointed as ass. prof.). He also had been research fellow at National Taiwan University, Taipei; The

Cairns Institute, James Cook University, Australia; Visiting Scholar at Orta Dogu Teknik Üniversitesi (ODTU), Ankara,

Turkey; Visiting Scholar at the Max-Planck-Institute für Sozialrecht und Sozialpolitik, Munich, Germany

He started his work in researching European Social Policy and in particular the role of NGOs. His main interest shifted

over the last years towards developing the Social Quality Approach further, looking in particular into the meaning of

economic questions and questions of law. He linked this with questions on the development of state analysis and the

question of social services. On both topics he published widely.

Member of several editorial and advisory boards; editor of the book series Applied Social Studies – Recent Developments,

International and Comparative Perspectives (New York, USA) and Studies in Comparative Pedagogies and International

Social Work and Social Policy (Bremen, Germany); peer-reviewing for several journals in the social area and book series.2 Presentation on Occasion of Retiring from University College Cork, School of Applied Social Studies

Herrmann: Reinventing the Wheel or Squaring the Circle – Sustainable Social Quality vs. Social Policy

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Abstract:

Social policy arrives frequently at junctures, being a non-discipline, bordering

and combining elements from various other disciplines. The presentation will

look at two major challenges:

(1) Academic work frequently overlooks that division of labour, i.e. the

establishment of subjects in research and teaching is also about

disciplining. But is the notion of Spinoza's time, suggesting that Omne ens

habet aliquod esse proprium – every entity has a singular essence is true?

Who and what is setting the references?

(2) Part of the process of (self-)disciplining is about defining points of

references. The ongoing challenge is not least about balancing politics and

policies. Sustainable Social Quality is an attempt to integrate these

dimensions.

(3) To arrive at the trinity, that we have to look for a definite point of

reference in societal practice not (only) as matter of analysis but also by

way of taking the role of "organic intellectuals" (Gramsci)

It is another attempt - after many predecessors, and competing with other

paradigms. So are we then just reinventing the wheel or squaring the circle?

The presentation will, of course, not provide the answers - but it may be able to

put forward some questions that need attention and demand us as collective to

thoroughly think about.


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Language matters – and it is also important to look at from where language

actually comes – easily seen by Norbert, being asked for a power point

presentation. Well, yes, here it is …

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In general and for the purpose of this presentation we should not establish too

high expectations: take things as they are said – and be aware of the fact that

they are stated in a very specific socio-historical context. In order to understand

this, the presentation will occasionally make some inspiring detours – hopefully

allowing also enjoying some beauties of life that carry historical messages about

structure and change – be aware: exploring the beauty of history and the

meaning of society takes time, requires patience …

Although we may say that it goes without saying, we are frequently forgetting the

deep meaning of exactly this fact: In any scientific work we are dealing with both,

structure and process.

*****

We may usefully start from Aristotle’s zoon politicon, the human being seen as

social being. This does not simply look at the interaction between human beings

– surely an important factor. There are already difficulties as it is not clear in

which way the politicon has to be interpreted. There is both, the reference to the

state, to politics and to a very general understanding of togetherness, interaction.

3 from xyz


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Importantly it is clear that with all this we are not least acting beings – only our

own action, i.e. societal practice actually defines our very existence. Thus

includes the ability not to act. Now, we may think of Friedrich Schiller who sees

the highest form of existence, as

man only plays when in the full meaning of the word he is a man,

and he is only completely a man when he plays.

(Schiller, letters, XV/9)

Here we surely find a complex understanding dealing with regaining power over

the will not only by way of control, i.e. oppression, but by way of developed

forms of free play.

– What do we commonly think when it comes to these terms: play, freedom …?

Children, unhindered in their naïveté is in may cases likely the first connotation.

And the second connotation may be the artful play of … – for instance the

reasonably uncontested beauty of a harmonious dance.

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It is the beauty of clarity, order and balance. It seems to be a self-explanatory

approach, allowing us to accept without asking, looking at something that has its

own order, being independent. Probably this is part of our tendency to

perversely celebrate power: the monuments of past and present oppression –

yes, I had been in the German Reichstag not only due to business, and part of the

study trips I did with the students here from Cork had always been the

4 Swan Lake http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/Pictures/2009/3/26/1238081417847/Swan-Lake-by-American-

Bal-001.jpg - 27/02/2013


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admiration of some of these ‘monuments’, the last one the most impressive town

hall in Paris.

It is the admiration of something able to stand without support. Supposedly in

sculpturing Michelangelo’s statue David is a very early example for such order:

the first free-standing statue, the young man standing on his own. As such,

standing upright, the statue had been sending a strong – and actually hugely

contested – message.

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As the Florentine chronicler Luca Landucci noted in his diary,

stones were thrown at the collossal sculpture even if it was being

transported from the Office of Works, so that a guard had to be

mounted to protect it.

Importantly

The stone-throwing youth’s came from pro-Medici families for

whom the prospect of a figure with republican connotations being

installed in front of the seat of the Florentine government must

have been thorougly unpalatable.

5 http://www.arte.it/foto/orig/6e/2897-David_Miguel_Angel.jpg - 27/02/2013


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(Zoellner, Frank/Thoenes, Christoph, 2007: Michelangelo. 1475-

1564. Life and Work; Koeln:Taschen, 2007/2010: 46)

Giorgio Vasari chronicled in this context a little story that has some metaphorical

meaning.

It happened at this time that Piero Soderini, having seen it (the

statue, P.H.) in place, was well pleased with it, but said to

Michelangelo, at a moment when he was retouching it in certain

parts, that it seemed to him that the nose of the figure was too

thick. Michelangelo noticed that the Gonfalonier was beneath the

Giant, and that his point of view prevented him from seeing it

properly; but in order to satisfy him he climbed upon the staging,

which was against the shoulders, and quickly took up a chisel in

his left hand, with a little of the marble-dust that lay upon the

planks of the staging, and then, beginning to strike lightly with the

chisel, let fall the dust little by little, nor changed the nose a whit

from the what it was before. Then, looking down at the

Gonfalonier, who stood watching him, he said, ‘Look at it now.’ ‘I

like it better,’ said the Gonfalonier, ‘you have given it life.’ And so

Michelangelo came down, laughing to himself at having satisfied

that lord, for he had compassion on those, who, in order to appear

full of knowledge, talk about things of which they know nothing.

(Vasari, Giorgio, 1568: Lives of Painters, sculptors and architects.

Vol 2: translated by Gaston du C. de Vere. With an Introduction

and Notes by David Ekserdjian; New York et altera: Alfred Knopf,

1996: 654 f.)

From here it takes some steps to the question of the disciplining effects of which

I promised to talk. But with a little bit of common sense, putting away the

cultural bias it will actually be soon clear.

* One of the fundamental demands put forward in science is concerned with the

discovery of structures that are characterising any given reality.

Methodologically this is a complex process – and speaking of methods it seems


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to be a rather simple matter of the famous bean counting. And with the latter

we usually overlook that even the counting of beans isn’t as simple and

without presumptions as we like to see it. On the contrary – and I quote Joe

Finnerty

one of the most effective applications of indicators is not merely to

describe but also to analyse, thereby sometimes changing the

definition of a problem.

(Finnerty, Joseph, 2005: Social Indicators: Pitfalls ad Promise; in:

Herrmann, Peter (ed.): Utopia between Corrupted Public

Responsibility and Contested Modernisation. Globalisation and

Social Responsibility; New York: Nova Science Publ.; 61-76; here:

69)

* With this we arrive at the fact that paradoxically a second and simultaneous

fundamental rule of science is construction.

* The story of David and Michelangelo’s presentation captures both, the

determination of structure based on some form of de-construction and the

construction according to the interest that is standing behind research:

David stands in front of his colossal enemy, finding the small point of his

vulnerability: the gap through which he could throw the fatal stone

Michelangelo interpreted this: emphasising David’s beauty, virginity and

power: a firm independence. However, this translates into some inability to

move. It is correct to speak of structure; and it is equally correct to say that

this structure follows in some way a rule that is inherent in the person of

the David – later in history this is fully spelled out, the early modernity

suggesting

Omne ens habet aliquod esse proprium (every entity has a

singular essence)

(Johannes Duns Scotus, Opera Omina [1266 à Duns 1308] quoted

in: Suarez-Nani, Tiziana: Pietro Pomponazzi et Jenas Duns Scot

critiques de Thomas d'Aquin; in: Biard, Joel/Gontier, Thierry

(dir.): Pietro Pomponazzi entre traditions et innovations;


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Amsterdam/Philadelphia: B.R. Gruener Publishing, 2009: 29-67;

here: 33)

And finally, the supposedly neutral viewer – the Gonfalonier – is getting lost

in all of this: being deceived by falling dust and taking it for change. It is the

lack of ability to understand the rigidity caused by looking at isolated ‘facts’.

We may take it as metaphor, seeing it as confirmation of Michael Hardt’s

and Antonio Negri’s stance:

The triple imperative of the Empire is incorporate, differentiate,

manage.

(Hardt, Michael/Negri, Antonio, 2000: Empire; Cambridge,

Mass./London,Engl.: Harvadd University Presee: 201)

Now it is not a major step anymore – David can be seen as anticipated

manifestation of modern understanding of Anglo-American social policy as

academic discipline: it is a discipline that defines itself by de-contextualising

the subject matter; it is a discipline that looks at social administration of the

good and the evil, the deserving and the non-deserving … .

* Of course, it is a long and winded road …, at the end of which structuralism

evolves. We may speak of Davidian social science and can easily see the fatal

development: ‘methodological individualism’. Social processes are dissolved,

deconstructed. And from here this social science – always being applied social

science – supports in real history the emergence of something new, namely the

modern individual, reflecting only him or herself. As we know from Descartes,

it is the individual that comes only with this reflection to its existence. It is this

reification of Narcissus that leads then Adam Smith to look for an invisible

hand – power and security standing outside, being seen as independent from

the dynamic processes.

* However, as much as we are dealing with ideal figures: imagined independent

structures, we should not forget that these constructions are not based on free

will. They are reflecting societal and eco-technical circumstances as they are

given in the social structures: the productive forces and the mode of

production – the pedestal on which Davidian thinking stands.


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So much on David and the meaning for social science: established had been a

figure that expressed

compassion on those, who, in order to appear full of knowledge,

talk about things of which they know nothing.

The Gonfalonier, Michelangelo is facing is manifest in today’s office worker:

senior officials and the administrator depending on their instructions, immersed

in seemingly neutral rules; rules themselves presenting themselves as technical

whereas their essence is substantially about socio-political power: law and

administration as presented by Max Weber, speaking of

[s]pecialists without spirit, sensualists without heart; this nullity

imagines that it has attained a level of civilization never before

achieved.

(Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

1905,Chapter V, Asceticism and the Spirit of

Capitalismhttp://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/weber/pr

otestant-ethic/ch05.htm)

Karl Marx refers to this in the famous statement from the 18th Brumaire.

Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they

please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by

themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given

and transmitted from the past.

(Marx, Karl, 1852: The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte; in: Karl

Marx/Frederick Engels: Collected Works; Colume 11: Marx and

Engels: 1851-53; London: Lawrence&Wishart, 1979: 99-197; here:

103)

The dream of freedom emerges turns into its opposite

The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on

the brain of the living.




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103)

And exactly this is Michelangelo’s paradox as much as it is the frequently re-

emerging paradox of history: the dwarf, the powerless gaining power and

establishing him/herself as giant. I am not talking about the tyrants, emerging for

usually brief periods in history. I am talking about the tyrannical systems for

which they are only mere backers.

Coming back then to Marx contending that

[m]en make their own history

we have to recognise that this claim stands fundamentally in opposition to

structuralism – be it as closed and disciplining scientific methodology or be it as

‘way of life’. It stands against the rigidity of oppression, against the abduction

and rape of the freedom of thought.

The most impressive statue I ever came across is Bernini’s Rato di Proserpina.


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6

For me it is an amazing, most powerful expression in sculpturing or even in art

expressing the victory of process over structure. Sure, the title still focuses on the

old hegemony: abduction and rape. Nevertheless, it also suggests a different

focus. At the centre we find Prosperpina: fighting, resisting. Her rejection and

aversion is expressing a new beauty: the beauty of action, the beauty of a

revolutionary process.

According to Simon Schama in a BBC-feature, this statue, Bernini’s great work, is

the first piece in the history of art that dynamises sculpturing in a serious way

(Schama: passim). Behind this we find in very broad terms two inventions:

* the invention of the now ‘civilised individual’, distanced from nature and

distanced from the social

* and the invention of the economic sphere as distinct area – a ‘de-socialised

sphere of social action’, organised by stratified-functional segmentation.7

Of course, this meant not least that the process had been a matter of dialectical

development: clearly positioning structures as independent of each other, the

escape of the individual from the oppression of the political power had been

simultaneously the establishment of new structures. In methodological terms it

is what Karl Marx develops, contending that

proletarian revolutions, like those of the nineteenth century,

constantly criticise themselves constantly, interrupt themselves

continually in their own course, come back to the apparently

accomplished in order to begin afresh, deride with unmerciful

thoroughness the inadequacies, weaknesses and paltrinesses of

their first attempts …



6 http://www.arte.it/foto/orig/fe/255-Bernini_Proserpina.jpg - 27/02/20137 We can leave the further consideration aside, including the fact that actually globalisation is to a large extent a kind of

replication of stratificatory differentiation; see in this context already Herrmann,Peter, 1994: Die Organisation. Eine

Analyse der modernen Gesellschaft; Rheinfelden/Berlin: Schäuble


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106)

But importantly we find this as a process of a permanent restructuration and

reconstruction – this is only possible by way of fundamentally accepting the

‘blurring of boarders’. With this we arrive at a point not only of questioning given

border lines, but also as matter of establishing new points of reference.

Processes of change are of course again linked to real processes – at stake is not

an intellectual exercise of ‘reordering the world’. Instead we are dealing again

with the fact that processes and structures alike are reflecting societal and social

structures: the productive forces and the mode of production. Proserpina is, in

this interpretation, not just expressing her rejection but she is also expressing

part of another world, now being possible. And now also being necessary as

matter of developing independence.

The actual challenge for (social) science is to find a way that allows the

construction of an ongoing structured processualistion – in actual fact a rather

harsh process of open battles, reminding me of Pablo Picasso’s masterpiece.

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Such quest may replace at least to some extent the dominant discussion of social

science that juxtaposes function and structure. Critical realism – for instance

being brought forward by Roy Baskar and Margaret Archer – can be an

important inspiration for this process. The social quality approach makes

importantly reference to this work. At the same time it emerges from the

analysis of concrete policy processes, in particular in the area of EUrope – and

8 http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/academic/class/15463-f08/www/proj2/www/vramakri/images/artwork/

PicassoGuernica.jpg - 10/9/09 8:35 AM


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looking back to art we come at this stage really back to dance – earlier reference

had been made already earlier to its beauty.

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At the core this new approach in discussing social policy is about a more radical

version of dance, not limited top the disciplined form of an academic subject.

Even as somebody who had been not only teaching social policy but who had

been working for a quite a while in the lobbying industry for changes of social

policy I dare to say that the social quality approach is about rejecting the concept

of social policy at least in its mainstream understanding. This is not primarily

about a rejection by way of criticising certain measures or policy programs. Nor

is it about a rejection due to social policy being annexed to other areas of policy

making, in particular economics, captured as social investment, the productive

role of social policy, the increasing subordination under managerial, legal and

financial requirements and regulations. At the core of the critique stands

something else: the conceptual framework that is based in two fundamental

flaws – with this I come back to matters that had been mentioned already on

more general terms.

1)It is about the definition of social policy as something that is rooted in

processes and structures that are seemingly standing outside of society.

Although social policy is surely seen as something that deals with issued that

‘emerge from society’, social policy itself is considered to have somewhat

9 https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/541505_552791444755457_20375838_n.jpg - 28/02/2013


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different roots: it is about intervention, activities ‘on behalf’ or ‘in the interest’

of certain groups, pursuing certain moral ideas and … – and predominantly at

the end society comes into play and social policy strives for a better society.

– In short, the social is by and large something imagined, not something real. It

is a ‘distinct state’ in some ways similar to Benedict Anderson’s Imagined

Communities.

To put it on its feet, we would need a clear and explicit understanding of

what the social actually is – the proposal by the social quality approach is to

understand it as

outcome of the interaction between people (constituted as actors)

and their constructed and natural environment. Its subject matter

refers to people’s interrelated productive and reproductive

relationships. In other words, the constitutive interdependency

between processes of self-realisation and processes governing the

formation of collective identities is a condition for the social and

its progress or decline.

(van der Maesen, Laurent J.G./Walker, Alan, 2012: Social Quality

and Sustainability; in: van der Maesen, Laurent J.G./Walker, Alan

(Eds.): Social quality: From Theory to indicators; Basingstoke:

Macmillan: 250-274: 260)

Furthermore, the real ground has to be seen in the production and

reproduction of daily lives. David Harvey asserts that

[a]t Marx’s conception of the world lies the notion of an

appropriation of nature by human beings in order to satisfy their

wants and needs.

(Harvey, David, 2006: Limits to Capital; London/Brooklyn, Verso

5)

This brings us immediately to the point Marx himself emphasises. Point of

departure is a simple relationality:

[i]ndividuals producing in a society


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(Marx, Karl: Introduction (to the Economic Manuscripts of 1857-

1858 [First Version of Capital]); in: Karl Marx. Frederick Engels.

Collected Works; volume 28: Karl Marx: 1857-61; London:

Lawrence & Wishart, 1986: 17-48; here: 17)

And he ascertains:

The further back we go in history, the more does the individual,

and accordingly also the producing individual, appear to be

dependent and belonging to a larger whole. At first, he is still in a

quite natural manner part of the family, and of the family

expanded into the tribe; later he is part of a community, of one of

the different forms of community which arise from the conflict and

the merging of tribes.

(ibid.: 18)

Now it is important to emphasise that

[a]ll production is appropriation of nature by the individual

within and by means of a definite form of society. In this sense it is

a tautology to say that property (appropriation) is a condition of

production.

(ibid.: 25)

However, social policy in its mainstream thinking – including approaches

claiming radical changes – are lacking a proper reference in this respect.

Instead, arguments are brought forward from idealist perspectives. A

confirmation is that social policy, at least in its mainstream and especially in its

Anglo-American perspective, does look at the exclusion and oppression of the

working class – but it hardly recognises that it had been the working class and

the relevant movements that led to what we see as social policy today.

2)The other reason for rejecting mainstream views on social policy is a variation

of the first: although the dominance of economic interests is frequently

highlighted and criticised – and although it is even recognised as matter of

power relationships – the concept of economy is de-socialised. This could be


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further elaborated; and it could also be elaborated by way of extending the

analytical alienation by showing a similar process of de-socialisation in

political thinking. In the same way in which Alfred Marshall deprived political

economy from the political dimension it can be said that Hobbes (to name just

one) the state from the political. The Leviathan is an anonymous institution,

bar of a political dimension, reduced on its instrumental and thus technical

character of controlling individuals. – And paradoxically we find in both cases

the emergence of superpowers that exist as a kind of cloud-castle.

Society is dissolved into three spheres: market, state and communities – and

politicians as well as academics fit easily into the role of secular priests,

celebrating the economy as father, confirming the state in the role of the

obedient son, and hoping for the community and family as emerging holy

spirit.

Of course, law plays a role too – presenting itself as a kind of Holy Scripture: a

skeleton, keeping things together by way of a seemingly neutral, formal

framework – claiming universalism, pertaining particularistic class interests.

On the one hand

[a]n understanding of law’s nature is hard to attain because, on

the face of things, law seems to possess characteristics that cannot

be combined within a single entity: law is an established social

institution, but also a guiding ideal for such institutions; an

apparatus of organized force, but also the antithesis of force; a

product of authority, but also the source of any such authority. It

is in this quality that has some theorists to conclude that

traditional ideas of law embody a belief in the ‘incarnation’ of the

ideal within the realm of the actual, or a belief that law is

‘brooding omnipresence in the sky’.

(Simmonds, Nigel, 2007: Law as a Moral Idea; Oxford: Oxford

University Press: 21)

On the other hand


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[m]en and women create their moral identities and values as by-

product of interaction and mutual acknowledgement, just as they

create culture, language and the structures of thought. The

relationships in which we associate together can embody values

that structure our choices and decisions.

(ibid.: 7)

And in a society in which power is not distributed equally, the meaning is

clear: it is about the moral identities and values of the ruling classes.

3)And to produce then myself such trinity, I come to the next point of rejecting

the stance of mainstream social policy: the externalisation of nature – actually

we are still dealing with more or less a variation or even the accumulation of

the first point, namely the dissociation and idealisation of individual action.

From here anthropocentrism is nearly unavoidable

Leaving detailed discussion aside, we find human beings loosing the ability to

act – or more precise: they are able to act but there is no space left for

developing practice.

For social policy it means that it is fundamentally characterised by especially two

flaws:

) α It is highly individualistic, even to such an extent that so-called social rights

are only conceptualised as rights of individuals;

β) furthermore social policy is systematically limited by being detached from the

socio-ecological causal and contextual foundation, i.e. the (re-)productive

existence.

Consequently – and wrongly – social policy as theory and practice – avoids

economy (and economics) like the plague. The celebration of noble ambitions,

the striving for values that are proclaimed as universal is not simply a quirk of

academic thinking – it is in actual fact a dangerous des-empowerment.

– It may be worth a nota bene that it is also undermining academic work: values

are stated, remain unquestionable and opposing them is similar to opposing god.


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A new Alighieri may tell us if Benedict has to go through similar pain, as we know

from Pope St. Celestine V, left to ‘gran rifiuto’ – the great refusal (see Alighieri,

Dante, 1308-21: La Divina Commedia. Inferno; illustrata da Gustavo Doré, con

commenti di Eugenio Camerini; Roma: Fratelli Spada Editori, without date: 36).

And furthermore somebody else may show us how this kind of academic

dislocation will be end in vein – if we won’t see it already with our own eyes.

I do not want to delve into details of social quality as alternative approach.

Shortly, however, one point. I had been asked last week during a debate in Rome

as seemingly question: Why don’t you call it socialism?

* The initial answer had been straightforward: Personally I call it a socialist

strategy.

* Nevertheless, there is a more complex answer: we have to look for ways to

adapt socialism and the search for socialist policies to the changed conditions.

I.e. we have to find sound answers to the questions of the development of the

productive forces, the meaning of such development also in a global, not only a

national or regional perspective. Only from here we can understand the

meaning of these changes for needs and also for governance. Though this

surely means claiming socialist orientation it goes also further. It is a matter of

analysing contemporary conditions, it is a matter of social practice in a

conscious way. Taking the Marxist tradition, it means to use a permanently

critical approach.

Critique is the practice of exposing the social basis underlying an

argument. Marxist critique is generally immanent critique, that is,

critique springing from inside. …

… critique implicitly recognises that the argument it opposes is

right, but right in the context of a specific form of social practice

which may not be declared.

(Marxists Internet Archive: Encyclopedia. Critique;

http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/c/r.htm#critique -

25/02/2013 15:56)


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– Another nota bene: It is exactly this approach that is applied in some work by

the Centro de Investigaciones de Política Internatioal (CIPI) in Cuba in which I

am involved. It is also something that has important repercussions in countries

like Bolivia, Venezuela etc. I make this remark as it highlights that we can

expect in particular from peripheral countries and regions inspiring

theoretical challenges in this context.

Furthermore, the approach of Social Quality Policies instead of social policy is

also not simply socialist as it is an approach that still ask for small measures,

traditional policies and reforms that may be departure for further and more

radical developments.

* But having said this, at the end of the day it is a socialist approach to the extent

to which it focuses on the social as complex structure of power-based

interactions. Here we can briefly look at Antonio Gramsci’s discussion of

hegemony and the role of the organic intellectual. Important is to recognise

first of all that the core of Gramsci’s work is concerned with the structural

conflict in society and the need for addressing it as question of clashing class

interests – for those who don’t like the term: just refer to fundamental and

antagonist conflicts between different interests. Second, Antonio Gramsci

speaks of different forms of power – much later Michel Foucault comes up with

this as well, transposing it from the Gramscian view on class struggles into a

more generic context of different forms of power imbalances on the one side,

power struggles on the other side – culminating in the view on the indivisible

relationship between power and knowledge. The important point is that for

Gramsci power is only real when it is intermingled with knowledge – deep

knowledge leading to organic power reflected in and by the organic

intellectuals. Briefly quoting the Quaderni

The criterion on which we should base our analysis is this: that the

supremacy of a social group manifests itself in two ways, as

‘domination’ and as ‘intellectual and moral leadership’. A societal

group is dominant over opposing groups which it tends to


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‘liquidate’ or which it even aims to subdue by armed force and it is

leading the allied groups and immediate allies.10

With this I am coming to the end by highlighting four points that are in my

opinion central for the development for taking responsibility in teaching

sustainable social quality.

First, I said in the beginning language matters. It does so in a twofold way: it is

about clarity of language and at the very same time about use of language to

substantially engage with what is going on around us. Engagement may be about

going with the stream of beauty; and it may also require taking up fundamental

challenges of disputes.

Second, it is also about the clarity of analysis: only posing an exact question will

allow us to find exactly the causalities – and of course the casualities of wrong

politics and policies. This is conditio sine qua non for finding therapies: answers

to the burning questions.

Third, it requires looking at the realities – not as they appear but as they are. If

we then say social policy – to use this term, though not the concept – is

predominantly about Social Justice (Equity), Solidarity, Equal Valuation, Human

Dignity (the four normative factors elaborated by the Social Quality Theory) and

if we see that these values are decomposing, it is because the reality that had

been behind them is decomposing. And without falling into relativism, we should

not forget that our understanding of Social Justice (Equity), Solidarity, Equal

Valuation, Human Dignity is always a historical one. Without this recognition –

and without taking firm responsibility for a clear analysis and open dispute, we

arrive indeed at reinventing the wheel or squaring the circle.

10 Il criterio su cui occorre fondare il proprio esame è questo: che la supremazia di un gruppo sociale si manifesta in due

modi, come ‘domino’ e come ‘direzione intellettuale e morale’. Un gruppo sociale è dominante dei gruppi avversari che

tende a ‘liquidare’ o a sottomettere anche con la forza armata ed è dirigente dei gruppi affini e alleati.

Gramsci, Antonio, 1934-35: Quaderni del Carcere. Vol 3: Quaderni 12-29; Edizione Critica dell’Istituto Gramsci. A Cura

di Valentino Gerratana; Torino: Giulio Einaudi editore, 1977: 2010


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11

– Of course fourth: Have look, the little boy, stepping out.

If you ant, this kind of enlightenment is then leading to paradise – referring to

another time to Dante

Like sudden lightning scattering the spirits

of sight so that the eye is then too weak

to act on other things it would perceive,

such was the living light encircling me,

leaving me so enveloped by its veil

of radiance that I could see no thing.

The Love that calms this heaven always welcomes

into Itself with such a salutation,

to make the candle ready for its flame.12

11 "Seven Ages of Man" William Mulready, 1838 –

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/Seven_ages_of_man.jpg. 27/02/201312 Dante Alighieri: Paradiso, Canto XXX, lines 46–54, Mandelbaum translation.

http://www.worldofdante.org/comedy/dante/paradise.xml/3.30 – 27/02/2013


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i The William-Thompson-Working-Paper-Series is edited by the European Social Organisational and Science Consultancy for University of Cork, Department of Applied Social Studies and meant to offer a space for publications of occasional documents. One aim amongst others is to offer a space for publication of work by colleagues of the Department of Applied Social Studies at University of Cork.The work is edited and supervised for publication by Peter Herrmann, ESOSC.The papers will only be published as PDF- or word-file on the website http://william-thompson.ucc.ie.Requests for publication can be sent to ESOSC at herrmann[at]esosc.eu and will be accepted for publication after collective assessment.The copyright is still with the authors so that the documents are free to further publication.

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WT WP-26 Herrmann Exaugural Reinventing

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karl marx frederick engels

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