Drawing on various developments in twentieth-century philosophy and social theory since Weber—the painstaking analysis of language, the culturalist turn of Western Marxism, systems theory—and reflecting on the course of postwar capitalist society, Habermas approaches the issue of social rationalization an.ew. His social theory culminates in a "dualistic" reconceptualization of contemporary society. As mentioned, in order to comprehend the dynamic of social life, society must be conceived as both a meaningful whole (from the standpoint of the participants) and as a self-maintaining system constituted of subsystems fulfilling various functions (an observer perspective). From the first viewpoint, society is a "lifeworld" in which participants are immersed and which they reproduce in a characteristic way. The coherence of the lifeworld depends on maintaining cultural continuities, sustaining social relations the legitimacy of which is grounded in background assumptions and tested by experience, and the socialization of succeeding generations in such a way that they can construct coherent life histories by participating in social. life. Reproduction of the lifeworld therefore revolves around the three structural. components of "culture," 'society" (a word Habermas uses in a specific as well as the more familiar general sense), and "personality."