Professor Chris Rojek to Deliver Keynote at the Social Pathologies of Contemporary Civilization Annual Conference 2018

On the 2^nd of November, Professor Chris Rojek will deliver a keynote at the Social Pathologies of Contemporary Civilization Annual Conference 2018. His talk is entitled: “Living Without a Moral Centre: Kolakowski’s Account of the Moral Lacuna in Western Liberal Democracy”. More information about this keynote, as well as Chris, can be found below.

Abstract:

Although he spent over thirty years in All Soul’s College, Oxford and was awarded the prestigious Kluge Prize for the Study of Humanity, Kolakowski is probably best known in the Anglophone world for his monumental, ‘Main Currents of Marxism’. This crotchety, often highly tendentious study, concludes that Marxism was a human catastrophe.  It has often been assumed that, ipso facto, Kolakowski must belong to the neo-liberal camp in social theory.  Certainly, his proposition that Marxism leads to ‘slavery’ is reminiscent of Hayek’s views in ‘The Road To Serfdom’.  But anyone who reads ‘Main Currents’ with an open mind, will be struck by Kolakowski’s formidable learning and his humanism.  In other works, he clearly absents himself from the implication that he sees capitalism as defect-free.  On the contrary, he is fully aware of the problems of inequality, injustice, racism, sexism and environmental pollution caused by the capitalist way of going about things.

In his own writing, Kolakowski turned toward an outright proposal that the bible and Roman Catholicism are a solution to the ills of modern society.  Indeed, he became a noted confidante of Pope Jean Paul II.  One need not agree with Kolakowski’s conclusion, to acknowledge that his argument that the main ills in socialist and capitalist social forms arise from an absence of a credible moral centre.  Kolakowski sees this problem as stemming from the exaggerated hopes of the Enlightenment in the sovereign and abiding power of Reason.  For him, original sin is a fact, just as the devil’s work in our time is a fact.  In making this case he doubtless leaves many readers of an atheist/agnostic inclination by the wayside.  However, to persist with him opens one up to the question of the lack of effective oral integration in modern society and the reality of the need for spiritual and transcendent forms of consciousness.  Nativism, populism and doctrines of racial superiority are currently absorbing this need, bringing an unwelcome sense of an emerging ‘destruction horizon’ in the lives of those in the West. Some of what Kolakowski has to say may not pass muster.  But if one reads him closely, the conclusion that he is a major, neglected figure in making sense of social pathology in our times is inescapable.

Bio

Chris Rojek is Professor of Sociology at City, University of London.  He has held Professorial posts since 1992, at consecutively, Staffordshire University, Nottingham Trent University and Brunel University, West London.  In addition to his academic work he ran the Sociology list of books and journals in Routledge for 8 years, and Sage for 21 years. He has published 34 books (15 as a solo author), and over 50 refereed articles.  His most recent book is ‘Presumed Intimacy’ (Polity, 2016). In 2019 his co-authored book (with Stephanie Baker), ‘Lifestyle Guru’s: Social media and Emotional Management’ will be published by Polity Press. His current research interests are ‘Low Trust Society’ and ‘Secular Idolatry’.  At City University he is part of a research group investigating knife crime in North London.