ABSTRACT
Social theory is a basic survival skill. In fact, professional social theory has been around only for the past several hundred years, roughly since the beginning of modern times. Social theory is about the mundane and the concealed—those hidden aspects of social life we sometimes encounter in the ordinary course of daily life. The new social theories are no longer beholden to the West’s ideology of human history. At the beginning, the classic social theorists accepted with modest reluctance the idea that European culture was the future for humankind. Responsible practical members of society presumably would live better—with more power, perhaps more pleasure—if they could produce more social theories, that is, if they could use their already considerable practical sociologies to greater advantage. Everyone, from the politician to the common man or woman, is aware that there seems to be something different in the world, something that can reasonably be called a new world order.
