Toward Critical Theory of Social Movements:

• In Event: Theory Section Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 9

Abstract

In late medieval Europe, an ascendant merchant classes, created a new basis for collective identities to differentiate themselves from either peasants or nobles. The discoveries of Islamic translations of Greco-Roman arts, philosophy and science, culminated in the Renaissance which would lead to a variety of cultural movements and challenges to the hegemony of the Church. Jan Huss’ critiques of the wealth and sexuality of clergy were eventually realized with the Reformation. There was a rebirth of science, e.g Galileo, Copernicus. Then came humanism, think Pico della Mirandola and the Dignity of Man. Finally, Utopia by Thomas More, envisioned an egalitarian society-anticipating Marx by 300 years. These various moments/movements, initiated by changes in both material conditions (including printing), ideologies and consciousness would presage the Reformation and culminate in the Enlightenment extolled by Kant and Hegel.
The rediscovery of Athenian democracy as well as the Roman Republic (“democracies” of male landowners) in the Renaissance, along with emerging elements of “rational modernity,” extolled by Enlightenment philosophers, informed the emergent “public spheres” of civil society, provided ideological justifications for legitimating bourgeois claims to govern, as they became a political force via “public opinion,” prompting movements, culminating in 1776 and 1789 (see Habermas, 1975). To be sure, there were movements to overthrow dynastic rule in 1848-but most failed. Nevertheless, by the end of the century, most European countries had parliamentary governments. The 20th and 21st centuries have seen a variety of progressive as well as reactionary movements. But how were these social movements understood?

Authors

• Lauren Langman

• Judith A. Richman