Roger Patulny and Rebecca E. Olson
Introduction
Over the past four decades, sociologists have argued the myriad of ways in which emotions are relational and socially constructed. Socialisation, varying across cultures, teaches us how to attribute names to feelings and how to âcalibrateâ our expressions accordingly (Burkitt 2012; Robinson 2014; Smith & Schneider 2009; von Scheve 2012). In recognising this, sociologists (see Lupton 1998; Thoits 1989) have pushed for more expansive conceptualisations of emotions. To individual-centric definitions of emotion â centred on (i) bodily feelings, (ii) expressions, (iii) physiological changes and (iv) motivations to act (Fridja 2000) â sociologists add socially and culturally shaped factors. These include (v) situational cues, (vi) social labels (e.g., happy, sad, envious, jealous or lonely), (vii) rules about which emotions should be felt and displayed in which social/relational situations and (viii) the work required to manage oneâs own and othersâ emotions to meet socio-cultural and organisational expectations (Hochschild 1983). These additions imply that social relations in any given historical era have a powerful impact upon emotions. For example, most professional (middle-class, white-collar) and service jobs now require a basic mastery of the âsoftâ skills of emotional awareness and management, and the regular exercise of emotional intelligence (Nickson et al. 2011) â skills that were rarely recognised by (let alone demanded of) their industrial, factory-working predecessors.
The purpose of this chapter is to identify the unique characteristics of emotional experiences in the present, contemporary period, which has been described by Anthony Giddens (1991) as the late modern era. This is an imperfect label; it captures a time period with multiple alternative titles (liquid modernity, post-modernity, post-industrial society etc.), potentially porous boundaries and no definitive date separating it from the previous, modern period. We acknowledge that the flow of history is often divided artificially and retrospectively into any number of schisms. However, we also recognise that history can cohere into identifiably stable periods, characterised not just by unique social, economic and cultural conditions, but also by observably different codes of emotional conduct and expectation. Compare âcheerfully informal yet professionalâ twenty-first-century office workers with angry, striking, nineteenth-century industrial factory workers and fourteenth-century medieval peasants shamelessly relieving themselves in the street. Historian William Reddy (2001) would describe such phenomena as indicative of emotional regimes: social codes for allowable emotional expressions and repression in a particular historical space. We argue that the late modern era is characterised by a unique emotional regime, with emotional dynamics that differ substantially from prior periods.
We acknowledge that the geographical scope of this collection does not extend much beyond the Western-centric Global North (within which we include culturally similar countries such as Australia), and that the alternative âmultiple modernitiesâ thesis (Eisenstadt 2000) characterises many parts of the Global South. Despite this, several chapters here deal with diversity within OECD nations, and immigration (for humanitarian or economic reasons) cannot be understood without taking into account the broader forces of globalisation that are not entirely one-directional or Eurocentric. Moreover, this collection is global in its approaches to studying emotions and affect, applying the work of scholars who are working in vastly different social and cultural contexts. We hope that this can lead to more comparative and collaborative work between sociology of emotions researchers in the Global North and the Global South.
Our focus on late modernity reflects core concerns within sociology. Following Giddens (1991) and numerous other key authors (Bauman 1990; Archer 2012), we identify how contemporary social conditions have changed in critical ways in the late modern era, beginning with the decline in industrial production and institutions in the 1970s, and accelerating with the rise of a flexible service economy and the Digital Age into the new millennium. Collectively, scholars characterise late modern life on the basis of continuous and increasingly rapid social, cultural and technological change; de-traditionalisation; individualisation; mediated interaction; and rampant consumerism. We argue that such phenomena also permeate how feelings are experienced today.
To identify the emotional characteristics of late modernity, it is necessary to distinguish it from previous times. Although there are several candidates for potential analysis â Classical Greek, Roman, medieval Christian, Renaissance and modern industrial times (see Lynch, this volume, Chapter 11 and Stephens, this volume, Chapter 12) â we argue that it is particularly important to distinguish and understand the Modern Industrial period out of which late modernity (and, for that matter, sociology) flowed. Many of the changed conditions in late modernity represent accelerations (or digital extensions) of distinctly modern phenomenon, such as the individualisation and commodification of feelings, and the scientific civilising of bodies and emotions. To properly render the modern era, we need (in turn) to distinguish it from prior periods, but the scope of the present study allows for only a brief look at a few important phenomena across a large and diverse time period. We use the term âclassical/pre-industrialâ as shorthand for these prior eras, and make no claim to definitively analysing or capturing all the rich and complex dynamics that characterise them.
We therefore examine three broad time periods with notably different emotional regimes that can be discerned in Western history:1 i) the pre-industrial/modern classical era; ii) (industrial) modernity; and â picking up sociologically from where historical research on emotion often leaves off â iii) late modernity. We examine key aspects of the emotional regimes of these three broad historical eras to reveal how the conditions of late modernity have led to five key emotional changes related to the i) complexity, ii) individualisation, iii) commodification, iv) mediation and v) reflexive management of social emotions in late modernity.
Emotions across history
Classical emotions
By âthe classical eraâ, we mean the time before industrial capitalism, characterised bytwo particularly noteworthy emotional features: i) dualistic conceptualisations of mind and body, reason and emotion; and ii) the internalisation of socio-emotional norms, initiated by etiquette manuals.
The idea of dualism, or the separation of mind from body/emotion, has its origins in Ancient Greek thinking. The Greeks respected the influence of emotions in their veneration of the body (soma), but had schools of thought ranging from materialist beliefs in the power and importance of emotions and bodies in human action (e.g., Hippocrates, Hedonists, Epicureans, Aristotle) to ascetic beliefs in the supremacy of mind over body and feeling (e.g., Socrates, Plato, Orphists; see Synnott 1993). It was Platoâs philosophy â famously characterised by his suggestion that âThe body is the tomb of the soulâ (Plato 1963, p. 437) âthat largely persuaded classical scholars that the body and its discordant emotions were an âimperfection, constantly interrupting, disturbing, distracting and preventing us from getting a glimpse of the truthâ (Plato 1963, p. 66).
This dualistic hierarchy was affirmed in Roman society through Stoic philosophy (Synnott 1993, pp. 83â4), and amongst medieval Christians who engaged in âreligious denunciation of the slimy desires of the fleshâ (Williams 1998, p. 753), and sought to position the soul (mind) above body (temptation) (Reddy 2001). This duality continued into the Renaissance times (Williams 1998), and was most famously reified...
