Suchergebnisse

This paper examines a series of changes experienced within sport as it undergoes a process of commodification. It is argued that this process constitutes a degradation of athletic activity. The interpretations of such changes are examined in light of the debate over mass culture and the popular arts. This controversy has centered on whether the nature of modern sport has become debauched as it is subsumed to the logic of the marketplace. It is suggested that puerility has come to dominate sport as modern culture becomes standardised and administered as a commodity. Sport is thus viewed in terms of the tensions between its emancipatory potential and its function as a commodity for social consumption.

Alvin Gouldner's oeuvre is examined in terms of its confrontation with and critical appropriation of both empirical social research and Marxism. Traversing an enormous range of diverse topics‐the sociology of knowledge; industrial sociology; problems of bureaucracy and democracy; studies in leadership; the role of intellectuals and ideologies; sociolinguistics; functionalism, Marxism, Stalinism, and anarchism; and studies of Plato, Saint‐Simon, Marx, Weber, Durkheim, and Parsons‐Gouldner's work retains a basic thematic focus. This work is neither a harmonious synthesis of these various topics nor does it remain totally consistent with any topic taken individually. Nonetheless there is a thematic continuity underlying the creative tensions and contradictions in his work. This continuity is identified as the classical political and historical mission of social theory; namely, the Enlightenment quest for rational discourse and the establishment of the social conditions for a truly humane society.