Pseudo-Conflicts. A Comment on Thomas Meyer's Criticism of Lifestyle Research

As a reply to Meyer's article, this essay starts with the call for a general paradigm which will enable sociology to cover cultural change. Essentially, most theories of lifestyles & milieus are diagnostic theories. In addition to that, a more general genetic theory is needed. The central object of analysis should be "changes in the ratio of mixture" rather than punctual phenomena. That is the background of the author's response. He calls for more theoretical freedom in order to avoid pseudo-conflicts on the level of diagnosis & he criticises the restrictions & limits of sociological thinking. Where Meyer reproduces the idea of the "structurally determined man," whose imagined "own style" is nothing but an illusion, the author sees the possibility of choice & free will in affluent societies. 5 References. Adapted from the source document.