In his work "The Meanings of Social Life," one of the largest American sociologists, Jeffrey Alexander, offers a non-standard view of the place and significance of culture in the modern world, as well as a new program for its research, which he gives the name "Cultural Sociology." Challenging the widely held view that modernity is a world in which the principles of instrumental rationality, economic efficiency and technical utility reign supreme, it shows that behind the facade of an instrumentally manipulated society lies a whole world of myths, symbols, codes and rituals that do not fit into the generally accepted notions of "splitting the world."