The experience society - rise, fall or transformation? A quantitative-empirical study in Germany and Europe

最新的社会学理论为当代德国社会描绘了一幅相当黯淡的图景，比如“前方的逃亡”。《当代成功文化》(Neckel 2008)、《恐惧社会》(Bude 2017)或《德国隐藏的危机》。欧洲中心的社会衰落“(Nachtwey 2018)，仅举三例。这与20世纪80年代和90年代的情况形成了鲜明对比。前一种乐观主义的典范是格哈德·舒尔茨(Gerhard Schulze)的“体验社会”(Experience Social)命题：从他的观点来看，鉴于广大阶层享有的物质丰富，现代化已从表面向内转向，从追求地位和物质成功转向近乎玩耍的“美好生活计划”。因此，社会不平等在日常生活中也变得很大程度上无关紧要，舒尔茨称之为主观去分层。面对最近的社会学诊断，以及那里解决的日益严重的经济不平等和不安全感，在这方面出现了重要的问题：经验社会已经再次成为历史吗？或者，我们仍然--甚至可能比以往任何时候都更--生活在一个体验社会中？还是社会最近在面对新的社会生态危机和挑战时朝着完全不同的方向发展(关键词：可持续性和伟大的转型辩论)？在这种背景下，拟议的项目旨在澄清德国社会的立场，背离2022年将庆祝其30周年的体验社会的理论。我们的主要目标是调查通向体验式社会的道路是仍然完好无损(情景“体验社会的崛起”)还是已经逆转(情景“体验社会的衰落”)。面对新的生存问题的可持续性，社会发展也有可能走向舒尔茨理论中无法设想的新方向(情景《体验社会的转型》)。为了实现其目标，该项目聚焦于舒尔茨理论的两个基本假设：向内引导的现代化向主观体验和幸福的现代化和社会主观去分层的假设。随着时间的推移，我们检验了德国的这些基本假设(从大约1980年到今天)，此外，我们还使用当前的横截面数据(从大约2000年到今天)进行了国际-特别是欧洲-国家的比较。本研究项目主要基于二次数据分析；仅针对“转型”这一主题，我们计划进行一次探索性的一次数据收集。我们的项目不仅与理解当今社会高度相关，而且填补了宏观社会学长期存在的研究空白。

More recent sociological theories paint a rather gloomy picture of contemporary German society, such as „Escape ahead. The contemporary culture of success” (Neckel 2008), „Society of Fear“ (Bude 2017) or „Germany's Hidden Crisis. Social Decline in the Heart of Europe” (Nachtwey 2018), to name but three. The contrast to the 1980s and 1990s is remarkable. Paradigmatic for the former optimism was the thesis of the “experience society” by Gerhard Schulze (1992): from his perspective, in view of the material abundance broad strata enjoy, modernization had turned from the outside inwards, away from an orientation towards status and material success towards the almost playful "project of the beautiful life". As a result, social inequalities have also become largely irrelevant in everyday-life, which Schulze calls subjective de-stratification.Confronted with the most recent sociological diagnoses and the increasing economic inequality and insecurity addressed there, important questions arise in this regard: Is the experience society already history again? Or are we still - and perhaps even more than ever - living in an experience society? Or has society recently developed in a completely different direction in the face of new socio-ecological crises and challenges (keywords: sustainability and the great transition debate)?Against this background, the proposed project is intended to clarify the position of German society, departing from the theory of the experience society which celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2022. Our primary goal is to investigate whether the path towards an experiential society is still intact (scenario "Rise of the Experience Society") or has reversed itself (scenario "Fall of the Experience Society"). The project is also open to the possibility that in the face of the new existential problem of sustainability, societal development has taken a new direction which could not have been conceived in Schulze's theory (scenario "Transformation of the Experience Society").To achieve its goal, the project focuses on two basic assumptions of Schulze's theory: that of an in-ward-directed modernization towards subjective experiences and well-being and that of a subjective de-stratification of society. We examine these basic assumptions for Germany over time (from about 1980 until today), and additionally in an international - especially European - country comparisons using current cross-sectional data (from about 2000 until today). The research project is largely based on secondary data analysis; only for the topic of “transformation” we plan an explorative primary data collection. Our project is not only highly relevant to understand present-day society, but fills a long-standing research gap in macro-sociology.