The Web of Group Affiliations Revisited: Social Life, Postmodernism, and Sociology

We address current debates about the future of society and the future of sociology. From Simmel's distinction between social forms in premodern and modern society, we resurrect his original geometric analogy and recast it in current network terms. In this light, we consider various substantive and methodological claims of postmodernists and suggest that their contribution lies in capturing the spirit of rapid social change and the ambiguity that characterizes the present era. The basic problem with the postmodern critique, we argue, lies in its embrace of these characteristics as the new social form—mistaking transition for type. In response, we sketch out a third social form, a “spoke” structure, with accompanying “tensions” and “freedoms” that Simmel recognized as inevitable. Finally, we examine how approaches to two social problems—serious mental illnesses and homelessness—reflect and shape the contours of an era's network formation. In particular, we discuss how the emergent spoke structure presents challenges to current methodological approaches.