On tradition, communication and social reproduction

Abstract

In ‘Overcoming Resistance to Cultural Studies,’ Carey writes, how is it, through all sorts of change and diversity, through all sorts of conflicts and contradiction, that the miracle of social life is pulled off, that societies manage to produce and reproduce themselves? .... it is through communication, through the intergrated relations of symbols and social structure, that societies, or at least those with which we are most familiar, are created, maintained, and transformed. (Carey 2009, p.83-84) That social life, social order and a society’s self-reproduction takes place borders on the incredible given the differing – and often conflicting – interests between the various members of a society. The question of the relationship between social order and conflict is one that has drawn the attention and fascination of social theorists since Durkheim. It is an important question in that it is through the successful resolution of conflict that a society is ‘maintained and transformed’, i.e., what I am including under the term as social reproduction.