Andreas Reckwitz - Society of Singularities

Parallel to and interwoven with the rise of this new, authenticity-oriented middle class, a structural transformation of the capitalist economy has also been taking place since the 1970s. Essentially, the latter has transformed from an industrial economy into a knowledge and culture economy – an economy of singularities with the creative economy at its center. At the same time, the related technological revolution of digitalization has also taken place. This has given rise to a historically unprecedented infrastructure for the systematic and expansive fabrication of singularities and culture. Together, the economy and technology have formed a global cultural-creative complex . Whereas the economy and technology of classical modernity were elementary engines of rationalization and standardization, the tides have now turned: the practices of production, observation, and evaluation have become engines for manufacturing cultural singularities. Cultural capitalism and computer networks are the driving force behind the expansive culturalization of the economy and technology. They have created an institutional structure that actively fulfills the formerly Romantic but now middle-class desire for the singularization and culturalization of the world. It goes without saying that this new structure has not left subjects and lifestyles unchanged.

Although the three factors that brought about the transition from industrial modernity to late modernity are each characterized by their own dynamics and relative autonomy, they have also influenced and enhanced one another. The genesis of the new middle class and its shift in values can be traced back to the unique educational dynamics of the twentieth century, as well as to the intrinsic logic of the cultural movements and lifestyles that have been going on since bourgeois modernity and Romanticism. At first, the rise of the post-industrial and post-Fordistic economy also followed an internal economic logic and can be understood as a reaction to the market saturation of standardized goods at the beginning of the 1970s, as well as a reaction to the automation of industrial production and the fundamental crisis of the Fordistic logic of acquisition and accumulation. 21The digital revolution ultimately began along the inherently technical (and military-sponsored) path toward developing the computer and digital networks. 22

All three factors, however, are interlocked with one another. The new middle class has found professional employment in the knowledge and culture economy and, to satisfy its desire for authenticity, has acquired the broadest variety of cultural singularity goods. Cultural capitalism has not only responded to this demand but has further intensified it, thereby expanding the pool of singular goods and discourses of valorization (which now concern such things as education, cities, and religion). Finally, digitalization has been used and further developed in a specific way to satisfy the desires for communication, presentation, and consumption that characterize the late-modern subject and cultural capitalism. These new technological means simultaneously promote the singularization and culturalization of subjects and goods alike.

By mutually supporting each other in this way, the three factors in question have also changed their shape. The economy of singularities, the digital culture machine, and the new middle class (with its lifestyle of successful self-actualization) have each acquired their characteristic form from this constellation. Their coincidence is thus not without historical irony. After all, the Romantic image of culture and its singularities had implied that the latter could only exist outside of and in opposition to the economy and technology, which were regarded as large-scale equalizers and agents of utility. In late modernity, the Romantic orientation toward singularization may have become socially dominant for the first time, but this was only able to happen on account of the development of expansive economic and media-technological structures. Over the course of this process, however, post-materialism was also transformed.

Together, cultural capitalism and digital computer networks have institutionalized singularities within a highly specific constellation – namely, as cultural singularity markets . On these markets, objects, subjects, places, events, and (at least in part) collectives compete to be recognized and acknowledged as goods of unique cultural value. Singularities are thus divided into a structure of competitive singularities . This is a matter of markets that do not operate according to the criteria of industrial society and its standard markets. Now, performances seek attention and visibility; they aspire to affect their audience and to be evaluated as singular in processes of valor­iz­ation. At their heart, these are thus markets of attention , visibility , and affect . They encourage a fundamental and genuine cultural economization of the social , in which not only commercial enterprise and the digital network participate but also most social spheres (media, education, cities, religion, relationships, etc.). As we will see in greater detail, these are attractiveness markets on which a specific form of singularity capital is accumulated. Here, both objects and subjects – but also cities, schools, religious communities, etc. – strive to create their unique profile , which has become one of the central forms of culture in late modernity.

Cultural singularity markets are not the only version of the social in which singularities operate in late modernity. As I will discuss later on, two other – and differently constructed – forms of the social have likewise developed a singularistic structure: heterogeneous collaborations and neo-communities . Heterogeneous collaborations do not arrange singularities in the form of public markets but rather as a plurality of singular participants (mostly subjects, but occasionally objects as well), whose diversity allows them to forge productive alliances and collaborations. Such is the case, for instance, in the many projects and networks that represent genuinely late-modern versions of the social. In neo-communities, on the contrary, the collective as a whole becomes a singularity – it is formed, that is, into a relatively homogeneous and unique entity. Such is the case in religious, political, or ethnic communities. Singularity markets, heterogeneous collaborations, and neo-communities all derive from historically traditional forms of the social – standard markets, communities, and also networks – but they have further developed these forms in such a way that they now represent three genuinely singularistic forms of the social populated by late-modern subjects. They can conflict with one another, but they can also combine and work together in surprising ways.

As I have already mentioned, the singularistic lifestyle, which is so dominant in late-modern culture, is primarily sustained by the new middle class. Its basic formula, by which it distinguished itself from the seemingly conformist and leveled middle-class society of organized modernity, is that of successful self-actualization . Here, the post-materialistic value of the actualized self is tied to the motive of social success and prestige. The resulting comprehensive singularization and culturalization of all aspects of life – living, eating, traveling, fitness, education, etc. – thus goes hand in hand with investing in one’s own singularity capital for the sake of status, and with representing one’s own unique life to others. To some extent, the model here is the “norm of deviance” or, in more positive terms, the norm of performative authenticity – of socially performing one’s own uninterchangeable uniqueness. 23