Do individuals construct their own identities in contemporary consumer culture? In this volume, one of the world’s leading sociologists questions the idea that individualism is a defining feature of modernity. The Time of Tribes presents a new, truly sociological theory of modern identity. Author Michel Maffesoli contends that the insistence on the end of collective ideals conceals a complex state of affairs. He brilliantly demonstrates that while the old determinants of identity such as class have indeed faded, there are new tribal determinants. He shows how contemporary identities are now composed of a multiplicity of experiences, representations, and everyday emotions. Sexual, political, or professional identities are being replaced by processes of identification with groups, with sentiments, and with fashions. He shows how tribal groupings–musical, sporting, or touristic–emerge in the midst of mass society and goes on to explore the possible reasons for this new social dynamic from the rise of new communication technologies to the resurgence of older values such as religious identification. This unique book is essential reading for advanced students in social theory, culture studies, and sociology.
Customer Reviews
Is French untranslatable?:
This is the second book I’ve read this month that’s been “translated” from French. I couldn’t get more than 20-30 pages into either, so it is a little misleading to say that I READ either of them. (The other, by the way, was Bourdieu’s The Field of Cultural Production.)
So, here’s my complaint: A proper sentence in one language should be translated into a proper sentence in another, if translated correctly. With both Bourdieu and Maffesoli, however, a great many sentences are impossible to read. Chosen, pretty randomly we find (page 6): “It is a function of this double hypothesis (shift and tension)that, true to form, I will incorporate various theoretical readings…” “Function” cannot be the right word here. The “hypothesis” (which is a rediscovery of the old mechanical v organic solidarity distinction, and not really a hypothesis in any recognizable sense) cannot dictate a certain writing style. His writing style is a way of approaching a “hypothesis,” certainly not a FUNCTION of that “hypothesis,” regardless of whether or not it is “true to his form.”
The alleged decline of individualism is a potentially interesting topic. I know most of the literature to which he refers, and yet I found this book unreadably obscure. And this leads me to a fairly serious question: Is French somehow incompatible with English? Or, are French intellectuals deliberately blurring their arguments in clouds of bad grammar and parenthetical remarks?
