contradiction

Originally a logical term which was taken up by G. W. F. Hegel in order to explain the nature of the dialectical movement in the history of thought, whereby a thesis necessarily begets its antithesis (opposite), and results in a synthesis that contains and advances upon the initially antagonistic (contradictory) ideas. As his own work developed, Karl Marx provided himself with the means to move on from this metaphorical mode of conceptualizing social development, with its evolutionary connotations. However, he appears not to have demurred when Friedrich Engels later made it central to his ‘dialectical materialism’. Its usage therein represents the principal justification for the term's subsequent canonical status within Marxist discourses of an orthodox kind.

The concept is now widely (and more loosely) used in sociological theory generally. For example, in The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1979), the American sociologist Daniel Bell identified a growing contradiction in advanced Western societies, rooted in a disjunction between the social structure (the economy, technology, occupational system) and the culture (the symbolic expression of meanings), each of which is governed by a different ‘axial principle’. The former calls for functional rationality, efficiency, self-control, deferred gratification, and dedication to a career, whereas the latter fosters attitudes of conspicuous display, prodigality, and hedonism.