Structural Indifference and Seigneurial Democracy: Gabriel Cohn’s Critical Theory
Keywords:
structural indifference, seigneurial democracy, contemporary capitalism, critical theory, Gabriel CohnAbstract
This article discusses the critical theory developed by Brazilian sociologist Gabriel Cohn in the last two decades, based on his concepts of structural indifference and seigneurial democracy. Structural indifference signifies selective operations carried out by complex systems that define what or who is or is not relevant in contemporary capitalism at a global scale. Seigneurial democracy, in turn, refers to the possessive, predatory and punitive nature of orientations of perception and behavior in Brazilian society. This article reconstructs these two notions using different texts by the author. In so doing, it also seeks to highlight the dialogues established by Cohn with the first generation of Frankfurt critical theory – particularly with Theodor Adorno – as well as with Florestan Fernandes, the founder of Brazilian critical sociology. Cross-cutting these two sets of discussions, still in dialogue with Adorno and Fernandes, Cohn proposes an approach for how to assess the past in critical sociology.
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