SOCIAL THEORY · RESEARCH EDITION A · ENGLISH

Social Differentiation Network Theory

By Open Inquiry Research Group

An explicitly anti-communist work of social theory that rejects the class image as social ontology and traces how differentiating units enter real consequences through relational fields, nodes, relational chains, and write-back.

Editorial introduction

Chapter contents

1. Preface: Why Step Out of the Class Image
2. Introduction: What Social Differentiation Network Theory Aims to Explain
3. Chapter 01 Why Class Theory Has Power: How a High-Compression Model Captures Real Social Pressures
4. Chapter 02 The Formation of the Class Plane
5. Chapter 03 The Temptation of a Single Axis: How an Effective Concept Is Elevated into a Presupposed Main Line
6. Chapter 04 Society Is Not a Combination of a Few Grand Concepts: From a Platter of Concepts to Differentiating Units
7. Chapter 05 What Is a Differentiating Unit? How Social Differences Become Differentiating Units That Can Be Extracted, Assigned Weight, and Connected to Consequences
8. Chapter 6. Concepts Are Not What Society Fundamentally Is: How Concepts Compress Differentiating Units and Occlude Reality
9. Chapter 7. How Differences Produce Consequences for Action: Differentiating Units from Background Differences to Chains of Consequences
10. Chapter 8. Superposition, Occlusion, and Generation among Differentiating Units: How Differences Form Relational Structures
11. Chapter 9. Why Differences Carry Different Weights: How Weight Forms within Relations
12. Chapter 10. Relational Fields: How Social Objects Undergo Distinction Extraction, Weight Assignment, and Positioning Anew
13. Chapter 11. Differentiation Positions: How Multiple Weights Combine to Form a Person's Actual Position
14. Chapter 12. Latent Differentiation Space: How Differences Not Yet Extracted Are Preserved and Triggered, and How They Change Positions
15. Chapter 13. Nodes: How Differences Are Preserved, Given Definite Form, Extracted, and Passed On
16. Chapter 14. Relational Chains: How Differences Are Recast, Branch, Flow Back, and Produce Consequences between Nodes
17. Chapter 15. Networks: How Multiple Relational Chains Jointly Process Differences and Reorganize Positions
18. Chapter 16. Community: How Long-Running Differentiation Networks Form Boundaries, Recognition, and Social Memory
19. Chapter 17. Institutionalization: How Differences Are Formatted, Judged, and Connected to Consequences That Can Be Put into Effect
20. Chapter 18. Class-Image Formation: How High-Weight Differentiating Units Are Brutally Projected into Class Images
21. Chapter 19. National-Community Formation: How Partially Overlapping Networks Form Historical Communities
22. Chapter 20. State Incorporation of Differences: How Differences Are Formatted, Mutually Recognized, and Connected to Chains of Implementation
23. Chapter 21. Historicization: How Past Differences Become an Order of Differentiation Available for Future Extraction
24. Chapter 22. Why Theory Must Simplify
25. Chapter 23. Dangerous Compression
26. Chapter 24. Differentiation Bias: The Misalignment of Explanation and Reality
27. Chapter 25. Illusory Explanatory Construction: Internally Coherent but Distorting Reality
28. Chapter 26. Model C, Complexity-Based Conflation, and Explanatory Calibration
29. Chapter 27. Family: Preservation, Responsibility, and Historical Indices in Kinship Networks
30. Chapter 28. Local Society: Local Recognition, Relational Nodes, and the Generation of Positions
31. Chapter 29. Nation and Community: Long-Term Interaction, Shared Memory, and Boundary Generation
32. Chapter 30. The State: Identification, Registration, Certification, Implementation, and Write-Back
33. Chapter 31. The Market: Differentiation Networks in Prices, Debt, Credit, and Risk
34. Chapter 32. Schools and Education: Differentiation Networks of Student Registration, Evaluation, Qualifications, and Future Opportunities
35. Chapter 33. Platform Society: Differentiation Networks of Accounts, Records, Ranking, and Visibility
36. Chapter 34. Revolutions and Movements: Differences Gaining Weight Together, Rapid Connections between Nodes, and Action Write-Back
37. Chapter 35. Limited Distinction Extraction and Entry into Concrete Relational Fields
38. Chapter 36. Applied Analysis of Weight: Nodes, Transmission, Records, and Write-Back
39. Chapter 37. Calibrating Applications of Community: Types, Relations, and Boundaries
40. Chapter 38. Operational Calibration of Complexity Compression
41. Chapter 39. What This Theory Is Not: Society Is Not a Class Plane but a Differentiation Network

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