"social Capital" Is Exactly How The?

Social capital is a popular concept in current academic circles. Some schorlars praise this umbrella concept highly for its efficacy in intepretation; others denounce its confusion in logic. How do we sail in the sea with great waves where social capital is maken contradictory judgements on? Is social capital a delicious meal or a hot potato? On the one hand, the slogan of "give up social capital" appears frequently because of its puzzling implications of theory; on the other hand, the voice of deprecatory remarks rises one after another because of its negative influence on reality. What's on earth wrong with social capital? It is just this question that the article would try to answer according to dual dimensionalities of theory-reality and universalization-localisation.Firstly, the article explores the origin of the concept of social capital, reviews the development of its theory and shows the pedigree of its idea. So many misunderstandings about it may be clarified. Then under the theory-universalization dimensionality, the author makes use of deconstruction tactics of post-modernism and deconstructs the theoretical logic of social capital from three perspectives of paradigm, dual-thinking and rhetoric. It is clear that a growing number of sociologists,political scientists and economists have draw upon many kinds of metaphor to understand the soul of social capital in diffenrent levels such as macroscope-microscope, stracture-agent,society-individual and traditon-modern, which the epistemic crux of "what's on earth wrong with social capital?" lies in.Secondly, under the theory-localisation dimensionality, the author outlines the scene of research on social capital during recent ten years in China. The Chinese scholars follow the inherent theoretical logic of social capital, but their understandings are characterised by two distinct factions: relation networks and civil virtues. The former emphasize individual interests and are considered rich in China; the latter stress social benefits and are rather scarce in China. Thus, when talking about Chinese social capital, we are likely to get into a paradoxical dilemma: wealthy social capital without civil virtues or open relation networks without social capital. How is the reality going?Thirdly, under the reality-localisation dementionality, the author presents one representative part of the picture of Chinese social capital. By means of questionaire survey and interview, the author describes the situation of social capital in rural areas of ShanDong province which includes views about social ethos, social involvement, sophisticated arts, sense of trust and relation networks. The main findings are as follows: first, the rural residents of ShanDong province hold a pessimistic and anxious attitudetowards social atmosphere after reformation and opening. Second, the ratio of social involvements is low, but consciousness of involvement is high, which result from the scarcity of appropriate conditions and legitimate ways. Thus so-called nonparticipation should actually be called compulsory nonparticipation and so-called formal participation called compulsory claptrap participation. Third, the rural residents are still inclined to act on triditional ethic, but there has been much modern evidence in which dissimilation and aberrance of traditional morals are inevitable. Fourth, the pattern of trust is still gradual and the degree of social trust is rather high. The phenomenon of good-will aquaintance-swindling and ill-disposed aquaintance-swindling coexist in society. Fifth, the relation networks look close. Last, the studies show that social capital has great influence on individual earnings and satisfaction of life. Generally speaking, social capital offers more information to individuals for increasing income and strengthens confidence in work and life. From this research, the author finds many new problems and revised the above paradox in some extent.Finally, the author makes a simple conceptual construction for native social capital in terms of sociological imagination and indicates that "risk rationality" may work on the operation of Chinese social capital.It is to be regretted that the study of social capital falls through under reality-universalisation dimensionality because of limitations of the author's knowledge and ability.This article draws a circle which begins with deconstruction and ends with construction. The author wishes that it can contribute to a better understanding of social capital for many scholars. Certainly, there are many drawbacks in this article. And the author will work hard to advance the academic accomplishment. Here, the author only wants to throw out a minnow to catch a whale.