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The Anxiety and the Ecstasy of Technical Vertigo: Psychological University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 8-2018 The Anxiety and the Ecstasy of Technical Vertigo: Psychological and Sociological Foundations of Critical Socioanalysis from the Italian Renaissance to the 21st Century Joel Michael Crombez University of Tennessee, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Recommended Citation Crombez, Joel Michael, "The Anxiety and the Ecstasy of Technical Vertigo: Psychological and Sociological Foundations of Critical Socioanalysis from the Italian Renaissance to the 21st Century. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2018. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/5044 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Joel Michael Crombez entitled "The Anxiety and the Ecstasy of Technical Vertigo: Psychological and Sociological Foundations of Critical Socioanalysis from the Italian Renaissance to the 21st Century." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Sociology. Harry F. Dahms, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Michelle S. Brown, R. Scott Frey, Lynne E. Parker Accepted for the Council: Dixie L. Thompson Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) The Anxiety and the Ecstasy of Technical Vertigo: Psychological and Sociological Foundations of Critical Socioanalysis from the Italian Renaissance to the 21 st Century A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Joel Michael Crombez August 2018 Copyright © 2018 by Joel Michael Crombez All rights reserved. ii Dedication For Sarah, my love iii Acknowledgements Throughout my years at the University of Tennessee I have benefited enormously from the support of Harry F. Dahms, my dissertation chair and advisor. He has kept the critical spirit alive in sociology and nurtured the light that threatens to be extinguished daily in these dark and turbulent times, not just for me and his other students, but for so many of his peers who he has inspired and who share his passion for critical theory. He was the first to introduce me to the term socioanalysis and it is thanks to him that this project became a reality. In addition to our discussions on theory, I also owe him a great amount of thanks and appreciation for our discussions on science fiction, film, music, and world events, all of which sharpened my abilities and enhanced the writing of the project. I look forward to our friendship and intellectual exchanges for years to come. I am also incredibly grateful for the support of my committee members, Michelle Brown, R. Scott Frey, and Lynne E. Parker, as they encouraged this project. The time that they have spent helping me as I pursue my academic aspirations is representative of their unparalleled intellectual spirit and dedication to their students. A big thanks to those who provided useful feedback on early drafts of this research and presentations on the model presented in chapter 6, especially, François Debrix, Daniel Krier, Michael J. Thompson, Mark P. Worrell, and Cindy Zeiher. And a special thanks to Lauren Langman for inviting me to present early versions of this research at the Psychodynamics of Self and Society ASA mini-conferences. And thanks to my intellectual mentors who helped me reach my goals along the way, notably, Allen Dunn, Mary Klages, Noel Lenski, and Ed Rivers. Finally, I must thank my family and friends who gave me endless emotional support as I worked on this project. Two deserve special mention. Steven Panageotou has been a friend to me every step of the way and it is hard to imagine having finished this journey without him. My plans to develop critical socioanalysis emerged over our years discussing theory and its impact on our lives as we and the world grew and changed. We endlessly pushed each other to think beyond traditional categories and concepts to better understand the insanity of our society and reaffirm our commitment to critical theory despite all institutional signals warning us from this path. There are insufficient words to describe the other person without whom my life would be all the poorer, Sarah Stacy. She entered my life when this dissertation was still a sapling and has given me her full support every step of the way. Her intelligence and kindness inspired me to persist whenever I felt the inevitable fatigues of this life. She has a smile that makes every day worth living. Of all the things I discovered while in graduate school, she was the best. iv Abstract Subjects of advanced modern societies are burdened by increased feelings of anxiety as their lives become functions of the totalizing logics that structure their minds as well as their social environments. Sociology has historically left the problem of anxiety to the field of psychology, which has predominantly treated it as a biological problem with a psychopharmaceutic solution. Building on the tradition of critical theory and its comparative historical approach, I trace how anxiety has shifted from a predominantly individualized affect to one with social roots, thus making it a problem that demands a sociological intervention. I proceed to explain how anxiety developed and transformed throughout the history of modern (and postmodern) societies, as well as how the critical method has historically adapted within these changed material circumstances, especially the shift to mass society, to diagnose the resulting psychosocial symptoms that effect the subjects of those societies. This requires a framing of the roles that political economy and technology play in the spread of anxiety as they shape social and identity structures by claiming to offer avenues to individual ecstasy. Building on these foundations, I propose a method to improve the diagnosis and treatment of anxiety. I call this method critical socioanalysis. It shares common elements with psychoanalysis, including a foundation in talk therapy which places the onus for defining the ailment on those who suffer from it, while creating a space and time for guided conversations with the self, designed to unblock anxiety by developing an individualized understanding its positive and negative effects in the given socio-historical nexus of modern society. Critical socioanalysis provides a format for its analysands to learn how to focus on the psychosocial structures that shape thoughts and actions throughout the life course as direct consequences of the logic of capital and the technologization of reality. It builds on the theories developed by Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Freud, the first-generation of the Frankfurt School, and French social and psychoanalytic theories, and provides a framework to begin work as a socioanalyst. v Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1 Part 1: From Traditional to Modern Society: The Critical Method of Early Modern Social Thought ........................................................................................................................................ 14 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 14 Chapter I - Scenic Landscape I ................................................................................................. 18 Traditional Life and the Totalizing Logic of Christianity .................................................... 18 A Revolution in Space and of the Mind................................................................................ 22 Enlightenment and the Birth of Modernity ........................................................................... 28 Chapter II - Critical Methods I.................................................................................................. 35 From Philosophy to Social Theory: (Hegel, Feuerbach and) Marx’s Critical Method and the Totalizing Logic of Capital ................................................................................................... 35 The Individual, the Social, and the Knot: Toward the Durkheimian Symptom of Anomie . 47 Totalizing the Mind and Spirit: Weber and the Unholy Union of Religion and Capital ...... 57 From Psychoanalysis to Socioanalysis: Anxiety, Repression, and Talk Therapy in Freud .. 69 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 86 Part 2: Technology, Modern Wars and the Rise of Consumer Culture: The Frankfurt School Revisits the Critical Method .......................................................................................... 90 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 90 Chapter III: Scenic Landscape II .............................................................................................
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