The Category of Religion in Alain Touraine's Critique of Modernity

Alain Touraine’s distinctive contributions to sociological theory include his theory of action, his approach to social movements and his critique of modernity which offers a ‘post-social’ approach to contemporary societies. In Critique of Modernity (1992) his vision of the transition to modern society is one of conflict between the technocratic vision of industrial society (system) and new movements to liberate the subject (actor). One of Touraine’s key aims is replace normative, integrationist notions of modernity and provide a sociology of the subject as a corrective to institutional sociology. He draws on evidence and examples from the forces of modernization at work in nationalism, markets, consumption and sexuality. In subsequent publications he develops the political and ethical aspects of his critique at greater length, with more frequent references to religion. The paper will explore this development which has puzzled some commentators and intrigued others. One of the arguments of his latest book La fin des sociétés (2013) opposes mainstream secularization theories, insisting that the liberation of the subject from alienating dogmas and sacralised institutions allows a new kind of subject to emerge, laden with meaning for the contemporary world. Touraine neither intends to reinstate a principle of transcendence nor to oppose the secularization of the social order. But subjectivation of religion is one way for subjects to apprehend human destiny and fill the void between instrumental action and cultural orientation. The paper will investigate a number of questions which arise from Touraine’s latest presentation of the problem of modernity including: the relationship of religion to the categories of individual, subject and actor; religion, culture and the principle of universalism; and the capacity of critical sociology to capture the self-transforming character of social relations in modernity.