A Network-Location Theory of Culture.

The article comments on the importance of Stephan Fuchs' 'Against Essentialism' for general theory in sociology. Stephan Fuchs's Against Essentialism is the most important work of general theory that has appeared in the last 10 years or more. It is grand theory on the level with Luhmann, Habermas, and Giddens, encompassing society, culture, knowledge, and philosophy, it is general theory both in the sense of giving a framework for all of sociology and in the sense that the word "theory" is now used in humanistic and especially literary fields, the orienting perspective on what cultural knowledge consists in. On issues of culture, Fuchs neatly uncovers essentialist assumptions that vitiate Habermas, Bourdieu, and others. Fuchs marshals the evidence of conversational analysis to show how arguments, business meetings, and casual talk actually take place, and how consensus is constructed as a statement to outsiders rather than an accurate description of what actually happened in the social encounter. Fuchs defends a version of sociological realism against both absolutists and postmodernists. Firm realities are neither impossible nor everywhere; it is a mistake on the postmodernist/deconstructionist side to make the distinction between essences and lack of essences into an absolute contrast, forcing one to make a choice. it is a continuum, and again social networks determine where and when these kinds of realities or relativisms exist. Monopoly and hegemony, too, are not absolutes; these too are historically varying constructions.