This chapter aims to discuss some possible substantive features of a ‘morphogenic society’, that is the qualities of social life that fall within the range of such a concept. Therefore, the present considerations revolve around the following questions: are there any qualitatively new structural (i.e. not purely contingent) features characterizing our society? What are the social qualities of the most striking emergent phenomena? And do they together amount to a wholly new societal formation? Further, how do these observable social entities emerge from the womb of social morphogenesis? Are they just a random-like bunch of ‘social innovations’, or are they mutually related and inherently connected with an ‘engine’ that produces a consistent societal formation? The chapter argues that the dynamic ‘core’ of the ‘morphogenic’ society lies precisely in the relationships between such a ‘motor’ and the qualitative features of the social order it engenders. The argument starts providing an overview of emergent social phenomena, and tracing them to the main generative mechanism assumed. I also claim that such a relationship is the most adequate way to account for those emergent entities. Based on such a picture, in sections 3 and 4 I develop a more articulated outline of a few social phenomena, which promise to be particularly relevant in characterizing the coming ‘morphogenic’ society. The examples chosen are those of human enhancement and social acceleration, which feature among the facts to be more consistently and systematically considered within social theory, highlighting their mutual relations and their connection with the generative mechanism of unbound morphogenesis and the related situational logic.

The Emergent Social Qualities of a ‘Morphogenic’ Society. Cultures, Structures, and Forms of Re-flexivity

MACCARINI, ANDREA MARIA
2014

Abstract

This chapter aims to discuss some possible substantive features of a ‘morphogenic society’, that is the qualities of social life that fall within the range of such a concept. Therefore, the present considerations revolve around the following questions: are there any qualitatively new structural (i.e. not purely contingent) features characterizing our society? What are the social qualities of the most striking emergent phenomena? And do they together amount to a wholly new societal formation? Further, how do these observable social entities emerge from the womb of social morphogenesis? Are they just a random-like bunch of ‘social innovations’, or are they mutually related and inherently connected with an ‘engine’ that produces a consistent societal formation? The chapter argues that the dynamic ‘core’ of the ‘morphogenic’ society lies precisely in the relationships between such a ‘motor’ and the qualitative features of the social order it engenders. The argument starts providing an overview of emergent social phenomena, and tracing them to the main generative mechanism assumed. I also claim that such a relationship is the most adequate way to account for those emergent entities. Based on such a picture, in sections 3 and 4 I develop a more articulated outline of a few social phenomena, which promise to be particularly relevant in characterizing the coming ‘morphogenic’ society. The examples chosen are those of human enhancement and social acceleration, which feature among the facts to be more consistently and systematically considered within social theory, highlighting their mutual relations and their connection with the generative mechanism of unbound morphogenesis and the related situational logic.
2014
Late Modernity. Trajectories towards morphogenic society
9783319032658
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11577/2823480
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