Future Thinking Through Excavations of the Past: A Pragmatist Critique of the Dark Enlightenment

• In Event: History of Sociology and Social Thought Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Roundtable 3: Excavating Method in the Production of Sociological Thought

Abstract

Since the rise of modern industrial society, social disruption has accompanied new technologies and material realities. Sociologists have long grappled with such problems. Indeed, sociology’s origins are entangled with efforts to understand social change and the evolution of human societies. This paper argues for a future-oriented sociology, but paradoxically, develops a methodology of future thinking through excavations of the past. I examine the work of two Progressive era pragmatists: John Dewey and Jane Addams to develop a model of intelligent adaptation to social disruption, one that prioritizes democratic cooperation and pluralism. I offer an alternative to the authoritarianism and technocratic engineering recently en vogue among far right figures such as Curtis Yarvin and Nick Land. The “Dark Enlightenment” proposed by Land and popularized by Yarvin would jettison the liberal order for a state system guided by corporate elites, algorithms and artificial intelligence. This is a crude pragmatism that mistakes efficiency for intelligence and power for adaptability. The pragmatist tradition developed by John Dewey and Jane Addams offers an alternative response to accelerated social change and the disruption it entails. I reconstruct a pragmatist sociology that envisions the future as something to be created through experimentation and cooperation.

Author

• Amanda E. Maull, Susquehanna University