The Time of the Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in Mass Society

by Michel Maffesoli

In this exciting book Michel Maffesoli argues that the conventional approaches to understanding solidarity and society are deeply flawed. He contends that mass culture has disintegrated and that today social existence is conducted through fragmented tribal groupings, organized around the catchwords, brand-names and sound-bites of consumer culture. The book provides a rich backcloth against which to consider the rise of `identity politics′ and the `proliferation of lifestyle cultures′.

Genres: Sociology, Nonfiction, Social Science

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Michel Maffesoli is a French sociologist of Italian origin.

Reviews

[Ola Podgórna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bardziej topornie się nie dało tego napisać???

[Kurtzprzezce · Rating 1 out of 5]

Jaskrawy przykład na to jak NIE POWINNO się pisać książek. Za fasadą trudnego do odcyfrowania tekstu próbujące być trochę socjologicznym żargonem a trochę "intelektualną" nowomową rodem z krytyki literackiej kryje się wielkie NIC. Polecam co najwyżej jak studium choroby toczącej francuskie salony intelektualne.

A vivid example of how one SHOUD NOT write books. Indecipherable gibberish trying to show as sociological jargon or maybe sophisticated language of literary criticism. Behind this facade there's NOTHING. I can recommend this only as a case study of an disease that is goin on in the french intellectual salons.

[Magdalena · Rating 2 out of 5]

The main theme is very... useful. And interesting. But to find this theme - oh, it is not easy, though quite enjoyable. At times. I recommend this book to all those who enjoy long sentences full of inclusions in several modern and ancient languages and quotations from some very important people you maybe heard about, but decided to forget immediately. Sigh.

[Czarek Węgliński · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even if many the book's claims can now be easily proven wrong, the general idea remains interesting indeed. The author highlights the complex nature of living in society as a network where the neighborhood, locality, affectiveness and non-reasonability counterbalance the reason as the key logic of modernity. The book extrapolates many humanistic topoi and theories to social sciences what I find really interesting. The language is extremely erudite and sometimes gives an impression of repeating the same but it's a good reading though.

[Jake ... · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maffesoli traça uma análise a fim de estabelecer que o avanço das TICS estaria a retomar o antigo tribalismo já conhecido pelas sociedades humanas, agora com novos contornos.

[Oliver Terrones · Rating 5 out of 5]

A partir de la ciudad, se pregunta Maffesoli: ¿cuáles van a ser las estructuras socioantropológicas del 'orden pasional'?

[Regis · Rating 1 out of 5]

I gave up on this one after months of struggling.

I bought the translated English version, as I do not master the original French language well enough. It should have had a disclaimer that you need to memorize a dictionary first, or have a Certificate of Proficiency in English or the like.
It's completely unreadable. It does not even seem to be the jargon of psychology or social science, which I was afraid of initially. It just seems written by someone who wanted to show off his vocabulary skills so badly he didn't care about the content anymore.

Which unfortunately brings me to this: I have no idea what the content is. I was expecting, as the title implies, a dissection of modern-day subconscious group behaviour of humans in our society, but the elements discussed were too abstract. The book does not define a 'group' or an 'individual' but discusses it from a, for me, alien perspective. It does try to define them but fails at it.

Never, ever buy this out of curiosity. It's wasted money. If you must for studies, or you understand French well enough, perhaps. After all, maybe it was the translation, although I don't think so.