ABSTRACT
In this and the following chapters, I want to go over much of the same material again, from different points of view, and this time from a critical position. For the moment, it might be helpful to reiterate the four lines of criticism that I mentioned in the introduction: the lack of ontological depth in structuration theory, the necessity for theoretical pluralism (which will be the dominant theme in this chapter), the themes of fragmentation and modernity, and the need for a more thoroughgoing critical theory than he manages to develop. Towards the end, Giddens’s arguments in The Consequences of Modernity (1990) will become very important.
