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Five Moral regulation: rituals, symbols and the collective conscience

Abstract

This chapter argues that the Third Way’s adoption of self-actualisation and self-responsibility as its model of moral regulation meant that it greatly underestimated the importance of emotional, aesthetic, symbolic, and ritual elements in the creation of the social order, and above all it discounted collective influences on social relations. By buying into the notion that ‘reflexive individualisation’ was a wholly new, post-traditional feature of late modern culture, it mistook a culturally produced dominant myth for a new liberation, in which individuals met as ‘real’, ‘reflexive’, and ‘authentic’.

Abstract

This chapter argues that the Third Way’s adoption of self-actualisation and self-responsibility as its model of moral regulation meant that it greatly underestimated the importance of emotional, aesthetic, symbolic, and ritual elements in the creation of the social order, and above all it discounted collective influences on social relations. By buying into the notion that ‘reflexive individualisation’ was a wholly new, post-traditional feature of late modern culture, it mistook a culturally produced dominant myth for a new liberation, in which individuals met as ‘real’, ‘reflexive’, and ‘authentic’.

Chapters in this book

  1. Front Matter i
  2. Contents iii
  3. Acknowledgements iv
  4. Introduction 1
  5. A moral order?
  6. Value, virtue and justice 23
  7. Snap judgements and rational choices 43
  8. Nature, science and cosmology 63
  9. Regulation and relationship
  10. What is economics good for? 87
  11. Moral regulation: rituals, symbols and the collective conscience 109
  12. In search of a moral compass 129
  13. The policy response
  14. Sharing wealth, income and work 151
  15. Sustaining quality of life 171
  16. Conclusions 191
  17. References 205
  18. Index 223
Why the Third Way failed
This chapter is in the book Why the Third Way failed
https://doi.org/10.56687/9781847426581-007

Chapters in this book

  1. Front Matter i
  2. Contents iii
  3. Acknowledgements iv
  4. Introduction 1
  5. A moral order?
  6. Value, virtue and justice 23
  7. Snap judgements and rational choices 43
  8. Nature, science and cosmology 63
  9. Regulation and relationship
  10. What is economics good for? 87
  11. Moral regulation: rituals, symbols and the collective conscience 109
  12. In search of a moral compass 129
  13. The policy response
  14. Sharing wealth, income and work 151
  15. Sustaining quality of life 171
  16. Conclusions 191
  17. References 205
  18. Index 223
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