• Jensen, J. D. (2018). Justice in reality: Overcoming moral relativism in luc boltanski's pragmatic sociology of critique. Distinktion (Aarhus), 19(3), 268-285. doi:10.1080/1600910X.2018.1472620

it's kind of interesting how B & T ask this question: how do we distinguish between illegitimate and legitimate uses of reason? how do we distinguish between conspiracy theories on the one hand and publicly acceptable reason on the other? after which of course we get the six cités, those were the themes to result from the analysis....those six

but then it's interesting how B & C take those results and then quite literally mobilize them in order to explain historical change:

The first and original spirit of capitalism reflected a compromise between bourgeois family values, the domestic city and the entrepreneurial competitive spirit of the market city. However, social critique emerged among workers of poor working conditions on the selfishness of capitalists. This critique from workers on a compromise between the domestic and market city meant that capitalists could no longer justify accumulation of capital from ideas of the common good built upon this compromise. Justifications of capitalism were not delivering on their promises, as the values they referred to did not promote the common good for a common humanity but only for a selected few – the capitalists. This compromise, with its tendency towards nepotism and free market reign, had according to its critics failed to deliver secure conditions for the proletariat, i.e. the workers and their families (Boltanski 2002, 6; Boltanski and Chiapello 2007, 88f, 92ff). This social critique fundamentally changed the spirit of capitalism, i.e. the ways it seeks to justify itself to those taking part in the accumulation of resources. A central point is exactly that capitalism is driven forward by critique and that for capitalists to counter critique they must assimilate it. Capitalism is recreated in accordance with critiques to circumvent it, and in implementing the values of those criticizing it, a second spirit of capitalism that combines the collectivist values of the civic city with efficient structures of the industrial city emerged (Boltanski and Chiapello 2007, 27–8).

I mean, I guess it's just a scale thing. It worked on one scale, let's see if it works on another...

This is not, in Boltanski’s view, a question of confronting structures and institutions that seek to avoid the challenge of justification once and for all. Rather, it must, according to Boltanski, be a work of Sisyphus, for sociologists and non-sociologists alike, to constantly seek out situations wherein the metaphysical capabilities of ordinary people are distorted by violence or displacement and seek to re-establish the capability to distinguish between what is and what ought to be (Boltanski and Chiapello 2007, 41, 202; Boltanski 2011, 158).