Civilisation and Decivilisation, Civil Society and Violence

Abstract

In the written version of his inaugural lecture as Professor of Sociology at University College, Dublin, the author emphasises that despite the direct or indirect connection of most sociological concerns with questions intrinsic to civil society, contemporary ‘meliorist’ sociology in the West takes the existence of a relatively peaceful civil society for granted. This assumption is anything but justified. Ironically, the birth of sociology itself was intricately bound up with the relatively extraordinary circumstances which have led to the emergence of orderly civil societies in some parts of the world. The author explores crucial preconditions for and aspects of civil society - in particular, habitus and the problem of violence. He situates this dual problematic within that of the development of multi-layered forms of globalisation, demonstrating both the power and the fragility of civil society. The indispensability of the processes concerned, as well as their proneness to interruption, lead the author to conclude that deepening their understanding of civil society is a task of such urgency that sociologists can no longer afford to neglect it.