Tag: modernity

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  August 14, 2026

  Reading Camus as a Sociologist

  I recently read Albert Camus’s The Myth of Sisyphus. I had somehow managed to avoid it until now, despite its reputation as one of the most accessible texts associated with existentialist philosophy. What caught my attention almost immediately was its opening question: suicide. It is a striking way of entering philosophy, because Camus does not…

• May 13, 2026

  Daniel Bell and the Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism

  Capitalism is often understood as an economic system based on markets, private property, competition, productivity, and growth. However, for the sociologist Daniel Bell, capitalism was not only an economic structure. It was also a cultural system, and this cultural dimension created one of its deepest contradictions. In his influential book The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism,…

• November 23, 2016

  “I, Daniel Blake”, a film to reflect on modernity and the disappearance of middle-class jobs

  Brexit, Trump victory, both are fuelled by economic changes, but also the decline of once-cherished institutions, including family, church and labour unions, all contributing to a fear that the world is changing in ways that workers, or else their children, cannot keep up with. “There used to be a lot more middle-class jobs,” said Clyde…

• June 5, 2016

  Science and politics in Ulrich Beck (in Spanish)

  Por último, Beck se ocupa del lugar que la ciencia y la política ocupan en la sociedad del riesgo. En ambos casos Beck observa transformaciones institucionales y cognitivas. Bien puede decirse que con el advenimiento de la modernidad, la ciencia suplantó a la religión como la instancia generadora de certidumbres. Sin embargo, y como se mencionó en la primera…