The Social

Definition

The social is Hannah Arendt's term for a hybrid realm that emerged in the modern age, neither properly private (household) nor public (polis). The social arose when household activities—concerned with biological necessity, production, and consumption—entered the public sphere. "Society is the form in which the fact of mutual dependence for the sake of life and nothing else assumes public significance." The social is characterized by conformism, behaviorism, and the administration of life processes rather than political action. It is the realm where "the life process itself" has been channeled into public view, transforming all members into a "society of laborers and jobholders."

Key Thinkers

• arendt-hannah — developed the concept in The Human Condition (1958); critiqued the social as the colonization of the political by household concerns
• marx-karl — analyzed the rise of society through political economy; Arendt credits him with recognizing the laboring society but critiques his reduction of politics to administration

Related Concepts

• everyday-life — the sphere of routine, habit, and necessity; the social is the public organization of everyday life
• consumerism — the social is a consumers' society where objects are consumed rather than used
• spectacle — the social parallels Debord's spectacle; both concern the colonization of the public by consumption/passivity
• animal-laborans — society is ruled by animal laborans; conformism replaces action
• (Public-realm, private-realm, conformism, biopolitics are mentioned in the source but not yet separate pages — see log.md.)

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss the social:

• arendt-1958-the-human-condition — "The emergence of society—the rise of housekeeping, its activities, problems, and organizational devices—from the shadowy interior of the household into the light of the public sphere, has not only blurred the old borderline between private and political, it has also changed almost beyond recognition the meaning of the two terms." (p. 38)
• Everyday life in the real world (Maycroft 2007) — empirically demonstrates the interpenetration of everyday and non-everyday lives: "one's everyday life is always someone else's non-everyday life."

Open Questions

• How does Arendt's "social" relate to contemporary platform capitalism and social media?
• Is the social necessarily negative, or can it be a site of resistance?
• What is the relationship between the social and gentrification—the transformation of household/neighborhood life into public spectacle?