Vincenzo Cesareo

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V. CESAREO - I. VACCARINI, The proposal of humanist constructionism Sociological theory in the twentieth century polarized between collectivist doctrines which asserted social determinism and individualist ones which asserted the autonomous action of atomistically conceived individuals. The late 1900s also saw the advent of a kind of radical individualism which can be labelled «sociological minimalism». «Social constructionism» is the contemporary approach which seeks to reconcile the above polarizations, and it is within its theoretical domain that lies the proposal for a «humanist constructionism» put forward in this article. Humanist constructionism sets value on subjectivity and historicity. On this base it thematizes the person understood as a sociological category, and it crucially refers to the sociology of Max Weber in so far as it is qualified by the existential and historicist dimensions. The distinctive feature of humanist constructionism is its axiological profile founded upon the concept of citizenship. Within contemporary sociology, «humanist constructionism» has a particular elective affinity with the morphogenetic approach of M. Archer. Key words: humanism, constructionism, person, citizenship.

The article questions the increasing subjectiveness of the concept of health in contemporary globalised societies, wondering whether it can actually be considered the outcome of a new centrality of the person or it must be regarded as a particular aspect of the wider process of individualisation typical of the late modernity. Particularly, the changing concept of health is analysed by applying the theoretical tri-dimensional model of individualisation proposed by Beck on the background of the so-called «risk society» or «uncertainty society» in order to highlight the intrinsic ambivalence of the subjectiveness of health between an healthism-oriented hedonist narcissism typical of our performative and medicalised societies (Parsons) and an actual new autonomy of the person as part of a more general «accountable freedom».

This paper shows the main features of a survey promoted by the Department of Sociology of Catholic University of Milan and other 10 Italian universities during the 2001-2003 biennium. This survey, lead at national level, was aimed to find how contemporary self manages to deal with social complexity and fragmentation. The purpose of the survey was to find out if, in the biographies of young-aged adults (25-39 years old people), a renewed pursuit of stability is emerging in opposition to postmodernist subject’s crisis and longing for ludic and narcissistic experimentation with self. The survey, lead on a sample of 3500 people, shows that contemporary social actors do search for stability and that their attempt to reach for it finds in the building of a family and the conquest of a secure job its fundamental strategies. That leads to a prevailing privatistic lifestyle, characterized by the lack of interest in public life, as showed, for example, by the negative attitude of young-aged adults towards politics.