This work arises from the hypothesis of proposing a reading of present societies which travels through the understanding of that which occurred during their evolution in a modern form. The topic of modernity has been one of the most debated and discussed objects of investigation in all the social sciences, taken on from various perspectives and by various authors for the purpose of deciphering “their own period of time”. The idea of the modern as continuous change, break up, transformation, rebirth clearly emerges reading the numerous writings bequeathed by classic authors of sociological thought: this is also the so-called “Western” view on modernity and which reads the world thus generated as radically different from that one of the past. Over time, this dynamism which is capable of producing new and different languages, cultures and institutional models as well, is defined by way of a new cognitive approach, multiplicity¹: there is not only one history of modernity rather the constitution of various forms of society which produce phenomena that, even though coeval, are intensely contradictory among themselves. Progress and destruction, civilisation and barbarism, riches and poverty, secularism and religious fundamentalism. One of the most brilliant and illuminating analyses in this sense is that which Zygmunt Bauman undertook, truly efficiently outlining the reasons why the Holocaust is absolutely and totally a typically modern phenomenon, inextricably linked to the emerging of certain factors, even common- and ordinary-sounding ones, tied in with the development of the West. Taking this reasoning as point of departure, and banishing the temptation to go over the historical and cultural roots of anti-Semitism and totalitarian forms again, the following notes wish to raise the question of the contradictory nature of the so-called modern phenomena, in order thus to raise attention on the risk of the acting of discriminatory and prevaricatory mechanisms within structures of societies we define as democratic, progressive, civilised.

In particular, I am interested in the use as interpretative categories of some contemporary phenomena and trends of two concepts which only apparently are far apart and unconnected to one another, that one of difference and that of inequality; terms with a conflictual relationship and which, only recently, have become central in sociological research in order to put into a framework and to define certain forms of social exclusion and marginalisation.

For the first thing, I need to provide, briefly, some elements to specify the concept of difference, from where it is opportune to begin to be able to understand the bond it has with inequality.

Interpreting society, the difference has taken on a meaning which is ever more dependent on the cultural dimension of living, as well as on the communicative and relational one, in line with the mechanisms generated by geographic mobility, ever more of a transnational order, and with the historical events which have taken place from the Nineties onwards.

For this reason, some scholars have spoken of the need for a sort of revision of the original concept of difference in such a light as to formulate one with a much more extended meaning, appropriate for indicating a plurality of knowledge and cultures which today are all-the-more difficult to include within homogenous and fixed collective identities². Not by chance, the ever more frequent use which scholars of social sciences make of the term transnationalism, to which I, myself, have referred here, indicates a set reading, which must be given by now, of global movements, that is to say, of existential paths where the identities are “redesigned” and where the bonds and capital go beyond various borders via a journey which does not envisage closed boundaries³. This clearly contrasts with the politicisation of migration phenomena realised in certain European countries through the use of tools of a restrictive nature as regards the movement of people.

Going back to the specific question of the theme of the difference, in my opinion the most effective description of how this category has become important in social thought, was provided by the sociologist Bianca Beccalli⁴. According to the scholar, it is since the beginning of the Sixties that, in the wake of the movements, the extolling of the difference as a tool for self-affirmation starts, and in particular it is from the Eighties that such a topic impacts the human sciences, thus connecting tightly with the concept of identity⁵ for which the differences of gender, ethnicity, religion become fundamental in order to interpret the new historical events. In particular, the theory of difference, linked with the feminist movement, highlights the falsehood of certain forms of universalism and the use of a single model for interpreting reality⁶.

Within the implications which evolution of such a concept has had in the sociological discipline, I believe that the most interesting is that aiming at recognising the close link between difference and inequality, for the use of this prospective, in searching for forms of social discrimination and exclusion within current societies, here the focus of our attention. The proposal elaborated in this sense, of greater range, is that one of the scholar Nancy Fraser, in particular for the exalting that she makes of the performance, of that dimension, that is to say, that places difference as a condition which is socially constructed and which has, therefore, to do with power and the dominant structures. The so-called politics of difference may thus represent a tool for discovering the construction of inequalities, both on the basis of the action of certain historical and social situations and for the development of continuous differentiations in society. Some words written by Fraser seem to me truly efficacious to understand, in an immediate way, how contemporary societies structured themselves:

Today’s culture brings all the signs of modernity with it. Hybrid, diversified, pluralistic and contested, it is pervaded with principles of anti-hierarchy. Today’s order of status does not resemble, therefore, that of society governed by family bonds. If that society were characterized by a fixed, uncontested and all-comprehensive status hierarchy, ours is characterized by an area variable of intersecting differences of status. In this area, the social actors do not occupy any pre-established “position”, rather they actively take part in a dynamic regime of continual struggles for recognition. However, not all participate in these struggles equally⁷.

Thus do we arrive at analyzing more deeply that which the presence in society of diversified forms of social interaction, of more relationship models, of more levels of power, of functions and activities actually implies. It is classical sociology that singles out the taking place of this society differentiation along the process of modernization. In the Dizionario di sociologia (Dictionary of sociology), the scholar Luciano Gallino proposes a truly effective definition of the paradigm of differentiation: «A process through which the parts (anyhow defined) of a population or of a collectivity […] gradually acquire a distinct identity in terms of function, activity, structure, culture, authority, power or any other characteristic which is socially significant and important»⁸. In practice, Gallino explains that the processes of social differentiation intersect nearly always upon other pre-existing differences of a social or natural origin (those most noted are: sex, age, territory) and that the social bases of differentiation may be infinite in number (ideology, labour, custom, education), precisely because they give, in turn, origin to other distinctions or of doing or of being. The term ‘differentiation’, indeed, is identified as being the most appropriate to explain the continual increase in social complexity, both in the horizontal and vertical sense, in Western societies.

Such a theme, today, has become of great interest precisely for the implications it has with the reading of individual-society dualism; the 21^st century poses requests for explaining a present that has imposed globalisation and planetary movements as central element of social reality. We speak, therefore, of a society of multiple modernity, a conceptual category worked out by Eisenstadt and which briefly consists in the theorisation of other possible forms of modernity beyond the Western kind. As we have already had the opportunity to specify, modernity is manifold because it links up to history and it is full of contradictions; let us think of the fact that the Holocaust occurs at a time of history that various scholars define as being one of maximum development and progress. This transformation of perspective foresees the centrality of the cultural element to explain the development of current societies: «in assuming the existence of culturally specific forms of modernity shaped by distinct cultural heritages and socio-political conditions. These forms will continue to differ in their value systems, institutions and other factors»⁹.

The history of modernity which concerns us, therefore, is not unique and for this reason, some distinctions have been introduced by scholars to better understand the various stages that have characterized it: less effective, in my opinion, is the distinction between modernity and post-modernity, more useful instead, I believe, it is that one between the first modernity (breaking with feudal society and entrance into the industrial society) and the second modernity, with which we identify the period we live in today, which in certain cases, we have yet to understand and which, to use an able expression of Ulrick Beck, «it is projected way beyond its classic industrial characteristics»¹⁰.

Investigating modernity has allowed sociologists between the 19^th and the 20^th century to adopt an elevated level of analysis of reality, a real Zeitdiagnose (a diagnosis of one’s own time), a term which, precisely, indicates a theory which adopts critical thinking which goes well beyond the specificity of a determined phenomenon and which manifests itself in a given moment and context. The inheritance of such a level of knowledge in the field of sociology, somebody recognises being present, at least as intention, in the theoretical proposal of Ulrick Beck revealed in his book Risk society in which he attempts analyzing potentials and pathologies of contemporary society and which we will take up again further on. However, the attempt at providing the founding criteria of modernization by way of a Zeitdiagnose has given origin to certain sociological reflections which have become central for understanding the relationship between difference and inequality.

A differentiation that is particularly extended to all levels of society is, therefore, the predominant characteristic of modernization. And for this reason, I would say that such a paradigm has been adopted and used by many sociologists, starting with the classical authors themselves. The point of view which I believe to be the most interesting one within this debate on modernity – causes, developments, prospects – concerns, precisely, the understanding of the social order (especially of how it constructs itself) within societies that are ever more complex because they are richer in opportunity, in alternatives, in tasks and in roles, and it is within this new condition, it becomes ever more difficult to define a common culture made up of values, ideas and norms which are shared to a great degree.

The aspect which has emerged in recent years is that, analyzing the initial sociological reflections around the concept of differentiation, we notice that the failure, particularly of the so-called integrationist perspective comes about precisely due to the incapacity which it has in present times to explain a society which continues to modernize itself by way of yet other forms of differentiation; no longer just functional ones, of course, but symbolical, psychological and it is impossible to imagine processes of stable integration if the same forms of identification become ever more occasional.

Among the authors who have always immediately sensed the importance of differentiation, I would like to remind you of George Simmel, a scholar known more as philosopher and historian of thought and less so as a sociologist, though who has dedicated a volume to this theme in the field of sociology¹¹. It is to him we owe the terms dyad and triad by which we define groups of two and of three members; he, indeed, identifies the origin of the process of differentiation in the gradual expansion of the social group both of its number of components and also of its number of social relations, with great precision. The social circles grow bigger, creating for the individual, new opportunities of aggregation on various levels as well as in various forms. To differentiate oneself, therefore, and this is a very important aspect, it is not just society, but also the individual who finally perceives the diversity, the heterogeneousness and thus is able to identify himself with new components that he recognizes as being homogeneous among themselves. The individual is freer, in that he is able to go out of the restricted area of the situations of his original life.

It is, instead, the scholar Talcott Parsons, the father of structural functionalism, who recognizes an operation of liberation of the individual from traditional pervasive and all-absorbing bonds – firstly, the parental bonds – at the basis of modern society in a vision of differentiation which in the Parson’s model, integrationist par excellence, cannot but be stable, projected towards progress. The act of the individual is always directed by law upon the basis of a moral binding which ties him to society and it is the process of socialization which contributes to build the link between the system of personality, of culture (in this way, the values become internalized) and the system of society (assumption of roles). This positive reading which Parsons gives of the individual–society relationship will often be criticized¹², particularly by Habermas. Later, Erving Goffman will specify the need for holding personal from social identity distinct, precisely to understand the capacity that the individual must have to keep the identity of one’s self, when facing the growing cultural and symbolical differentiation¹³.

In brief, classic sociology, tracing the coordinates of modern society – that of the first modernity, of course – recognizes the emergence of forms of differentiation, at first, only structural and then symbolical and cultural, and identifies a change in individual-society dynamics which leads to abandoning universal explanations coming from a single centre, producer of values and meanings, and to adopting a new way of belonging and recognizing based on multiplicity. This perspective, however and differently from how we would evaluate the increase in social complexity today, maintains the possibility that also continuous and new forms of integration and unification originate from differentiation. Let us not forget, indeed, that the comprehension of how social order is built remains of prime importance to these scholars: for some, like Emile Durkeim understanding how to preserve this order, and therefore the social set-up based on organic solidarity, is of fundamental importance, for others instead, who adopt a critical approach to the system, like Karl Marx, understanding how a certain social order may generate a conflict within society is central¹⁴.

This reading leads again to a theme which has always been central to sociological debate and which regards, precisely, the problematic link between the increase of social complexity, at system level (a macro analysis), and that at level of choice of the social-actor (a micro analysis). A dualism which, as well known, the sociologist, Nicklas Luhmann, has attempted overcoming by theorizing a system which is social, self-referential, autonomous yet also interdependent¹⁵. He faces the classic polarization between individual and collective by way of a systemic approach, that is to say, social and personal systems can be pointed out, and when we have a plurality of system interpenetrations we need to start from the concept of “sense”, which is an extra-systemic and self-referential category: at a macro level, there is no re-composition between individual and society since they remain as two self-referential systems, two “viewpoints of the world”, whereas, at a micro level, the process of social interaction with all its rules and shared rituals becomes central.

The category of multiplicity and of complexity, the latter being introduced in the Eighties by sociology to describe the evolution that took place in modern society both of the system and the individual, are today both indispensable for explaining a reality and a continually re-defining social order, and which may neither envisage stable integrations nor interpenetrations. Society nowadays, bears new characteristics that particularly regard the wealth of alternatives, the plurality of cultural orientations, of codes, of languages. A dynamism which goes on to weigh considerably upon individuals and their choices, it appears ever more complicated to find a clear behavioural strategy, based on a well-defined orientation. To be modern means the aptitude to live within a context of society, with a significant «social push towards individualization»¹⁶ which involves the objective difficulty of continually having to choose between the various options of identification, within differing social and cultural aggregates: one is more autonomous but less protected. As regards the concept of ‘individualization’ proposed by Beck, it is only right to remember that he also sees it as a release from social forms of the industrial society, like: class, rank, family and therefore big groups.

Inequalities in so-called ‘advanced’ societies still exist however, particularly between the ‘big’ groups and, therefore, Beck, who questions himself on this, says that they no longer anyway have that “class” character since individuals are more and more called to choose, in an autonomous fashion, life conduct, survival strategies, indeed, the biographies of class, according to him, have transformed into individual or “reflexive” biographies, in that they depend on the choices of the actors themselves. He, among other things, lists some questions that are connected, in the contemporary period, to the emergence of certain forms of inequality: religious conflicts, the rights of women, disparity of a generational nature. The stimulus to individualization has, indeed, generated a growing social mobility during the initial phase (an immediate result of raising school education) that, however, has in time demonstrated the generation of forms of social inequality, which are unbound from belonging to a class but which are indicative of the presence of mechanisms of exclusion: that between men and women, for example, is today all the more linked to a disparity in work and career possibilities even though they have the same academic qualifications and is generated, therefore, notwithstanding the strong female investment in education.

Beck speaks, referring to the situation in Germany in the Eighties, of an “individualization of social inequality”¹⁷: they are forms of malaise that strike the individual and that do not interest the ‘big’ group or the class, they enter and take root in certain phases of individual life regarding a destiny which is no longer a collective one, rather it is personal. Again, the place of traditional bonds is taken up by secondary agencies and institutions that mould the biography of the individual, making him dependent upon social relations, economic situations, markets, contrary to a vision of individual control which imposes itself onto the conscience. Academic qualifications have certainly broadened its class boundaries, but often it ends up not being of much use, if not tied in with an effective relational capacity and with healthy social capital. Beck, therefore, recognizes that social inequality may still yet increase and the real question is that it nests within new existential pathways, and it may stay there, hidden, precisely because it is no longer linked to a class identity.

Without any shadow of a doubt, therefore, ‘individualization’ is a fundamental concept in interpreting the process of modernization, and in particular, in its most recent phases: possible alternatives for subjects have been increased, the various cultural orientations which may be followed by them as well as the forms of identification appear not very stable, superable, temporary.

At this point, it may be of use to make a brief summary of what has been said till now.

Sociological thinking, since its very beginning, more or less unequivocally identifies modernity in certain changes of system, which will then concern individual acts at a cultural level (here we place rationalization, secularization) at an economic and social level (and here we insert industrialism and capitalism, the latter generating force of modernity) as well as at a political level (the structuring of the nation-state). Using this general scheme, characteristics of modernity, the “coordinates of the modern world”¹⁸, as defined by Nino Salomone in his work, may be summarized. This, then, does not mean that every society has developed in the same way and along the same lines and it is precisely such evidence that allowed the same sociology to reason on development of the Holocaust in the modern Age.

I do not wish to deal with the complex topic of the relationship between modernity and the Holocaust – the volume of Zygmund Bauman, anyway, perfectly outlines these dynamics – but I cannot but sketch out, at least, one consideration on the conflicts and on the diversities that developed due to this event. I agree with the idea of seeing the Holocaust as one of the many and possible failures of modernity, as a product thereof, and here I adopt the words of Bauman:

One posthumous service the Holocaust can render is to provide an insight into the otherwise unnoticed aspects of the social principles jealously kept by modern history. We propose that the experience of the Holocaust, now thoroughly analysed by the historians, should be looked upon as, so to speak, a sociological «laboratory». The Holocaust has exposed and allowed the examination of such attributes of our society that are not detectable, and hence are not empirically accessible, in «ordinary» conditions. In other words, we propose to treat the Holocaust as a rare, yet significant and reliable, test of the hidden possibilities of modern society¹⁹.

Following this stimulus and going back to the characteristics of modernity, I seem to be able to identify the most important principles on which to test possible negative developments of modernity within civilization, linked to the concept of culture, and within rationalization, or rather better say within technique. As for the strong growth of rationality, I would like to refer to a debate, which today is increasing, concerning the fundamental presence that this has, certainly, assumed in the development of Western societies, integrally transforming them by way of the use of technical apparatus to improve human situations, but it has also been discovered that the use of technique is not neutral. To use the words of the scholar, Salvador Giner, who, in his book entitled Sociología, attempts to outline the interdependent characteristics of modern society, «rationalization does not attempt to investigate the nature of phenomena rather only to effectively resolve practical problems without operating considerations of a moral nature […] both the gas chambers and great modern hospitals have been made possible by this same tendency»²⁰.

The concept of civilization, instead, requires a more in-depth explanation. It is, indeed, obvious that among the founding principles of modern civilization we find technology, the rational criteria of choice, but there is a just analysis which is made by several scholars regarding the favourable climate, for the birth of national socialism, which results directly from the refusal of civilization as expression of Western modernity: intellect, democracy, socialism, political rationalization. In the name, instead, of an authentic German culture, of the manifestation of the true and sole “spirit of a people”, the Hitler regime comes to a conceptual synthesis where only the technical and organisational apparatus of civilisation – let us think of the role played by bureaucracy in the Germany of Hitler, which was underlined by Max Weber too – and the joining to this of the “culture of the people” remain. The antithesis between culture and civilisation²¹ becomes determinant in the affirmation of national socialism, a thought which developed in pre-Nazi Germany and which gives flight to the work of demolition of Western modernity, carrier of an Enlightenment concept of society and, for this reason, enemy of the true and authentic German culture, which is the only one that may place itself at the head of a civilization in Europe which is not only based on utilitarianism values but which also looks towards the spirit, the community, the person. The road that leads from this conception of modernity to the birth of national socialism, is well-understandable – in my view – if we read that which is proposed by the scholar, Giovanna Sarti:

By way of the analysis of two key concepts of German thinking, have we therefore isolated certain recurring themes which will contribute to creating a favourable cultural climate to originating national socialism. On the one hand, the traditional refusal of civilisation in the name of culture, that is the German culture, in as much as it is a depot of heroic and war-like virtues of the Germanic Volk, and on the other – even though it is strongly intertwined with it – nationalistic transfiguration, later to be a racist one, of some elements of civilisation itself in view of the construction of «steel romanticism», that is the transformation of a reactionary and conservative attitude into a revolutionary principle²².

The reflections which I have wanted to bring to my work here, and which regard the authors and thinkers who, in various ways and at various times, dealt with modernity and its possible negative developments sketch some, in my mind the more important ones, alarm bells with reference to the generating of phenomena and tendencies in the society system which all combined, and radicalizing themselves into certain contexts, may cut down some base principles of the modern, democratic and egalitarian state. Among these principles, looking at the complex and multiple reality of today, certainly it is that of political, cultural and social pluralism which has to be, in all forms, maintained as basis of the system.

Societies always run the risk of stimulating ethnocentric tendencies, and on these, later, of generating tools for social exclusion, but those societies of cultural pluralism have the advantage of creating historical and social situations where various models of life intertwine, as do styles of thought, generating an open and dynamic mixture which, for every culture referring to various nations, makes it more and more difficult to present itself as dominant. The same procedure of categorization of the social reality by individuals should proceed avoiding, as an easy option, the closure within its own socio-cultural confines in opposition to the external multiplicity.

Conscious that my contribution did not want to touch a level of Zeitdiagnose in any way, a level of analysis which today is barely reached by sociology, I wish to end these notes proposing, instead, the most-used level of analysis, that is by specific theme areas upon defined phenomena. From many investigations with the aim of defining the scholastic disadvantage in Italy, it results clearer and clearer that some personal characteristics of an ascribed nature condition and more and more decide school destinies of the individual: the gender, the ethnic group, the place of residence strongly mould both the outcomes in education and future educational paths. Moreover, it is well known how there is a close connection between parental cultural levels (therefore, gained academic record) and the choices of study direction of children. The evaluation of such a close correlation between family background and scholastic fate can only be negative, in that it signals the presence of disparities of education which block mechanisms of ascending social mobility with a strong risk for all young people who cumulate various conditions of disadvantage from the beginning.

Our societies have become together, places of difference and inequalities: the presence and living together with a plurality of knowledge and cultures has not, automatically, eliminated the acting of discriminatory mechanisms. Differences, like that of ethnic group, gender give form and meaning to the contexts we live in and together indicate the possible construction of divisions within society. In complex societies, are therefore articulated forms of inequality which may originate in many differences and, therefore, not only from that one concerning class which has been the most important manifestation of inequality throughout the early modern world.