Sociology- Chapter 11

Simple Supernaturalism

- A belief in supernatural entails the notion of mana, a diffuse, impersonal, supernatural force that exists in nature for good or evil. - Mana is usually employed to reach relatively immediate goals- control of the weather, assurance of a good crop, cure an illness, good performance on a test, success in love or victory in battle. - With mana, people do not entreat spritis or Gods to intervene on their behalf; they use rituals to compel superhuman power to behave as they wish. (ex. carrying a rabbits foot to bring good luck)

The Cult

- A cult is a religious movement that represents a new and independent religious tradition. The cult is alienated and viewed as deviant by the dominant society, but it tends to accept the legitimacy of other religious groups. Having no religious tradition, it is difficult for a cult to claim sole legitimacy. - Cults usually do not require their new members to pass strict doctoral tests, but instead invite all to join their ranks. However many cults are authoritarian and attempt to control the entire lives of their members. - Sects and cults often find themselves at odds with established social arrangements and practices. Cults differ from sects in that they are not rooted in existing religious traditions and tend to be more tolerant of other religious groups. In this respect, cults resemble denominations.

Completing Socialization

- According to the functionalists, the knowledge and skills required by contemporary living cannot be satisfied in a more or less automatic and "natural" way. Instead, a specialized educational agency is needed to transmit to young people the ways of thinking, feeling, and acting mandated by a rapidly changing urban and technologically based society.

Civil Religion

- Although most American deem an individual's religious beliefs and practices to be strictly private manner, there are nonetheless certain common elements of religious orientation that most Americans share. - These religious dimensions are expressed in a set of beliefs, symbols, and rituals that sociologist Robert Bellah called civil religion. Its basic tenet is that the American nation is not an ultimate end in itself but a nation under God with a divine mission. - Civil religion provides a supernatural legitimacy for nationalism. Although religious pluralism prevents any one denomination from supplying all Americans with a single source of meaning, civil religion compensates by providing an over-arching sacred canopy. - Civil religion finds expression in the statements and documents of the Founding Fathers, school children's Pledge of Allegiance, national holidays, historic shrines, mottos and patriotic expressions in times of crisis and peril. There a four references to God in the Declaration of Independence. Every president, but one, as mentioned God in his inaugural address. Significantly, both liberal and conservative actors employ civil religion to interpret and legitimate their places and agendas within national life.

Animism

- Animism is a pattern of religious behavior that involves a belief in spirits or otherworldly beings. -Additionally, in animism, as with mana, supernatural power is often harnesses through rituals that compel a spirit to act in a desired way.

Functionalism and Social Change

- Another function religion performs is as an impetus to social change. Social changes that are legitimated and justified in shared religious terms may be easier to accept and may proceed with less disruption than those that have a purely secular bias.

Control Devices

- Conflict theorists agree with functionalists theorists that schools agencies for drawing minorities and the disadvantages into the dominant culture. But they do not see the function in benign terms. - Schools, then, are viewed by conflict theorists as control devices employed by established elites.

Maintaining the Status Quo

- Conflict theorists see an inherently conservative aspect to religion. The sense of the scared links a person's present expereince with meanings derived from the group's traditional past. Practices handed down from previous generations, including institutional inequalities and inequities, become defined as God- approved ways and highly resistant to change. - Religious organizations themselves are frequently motivated to legitimate the status quo b/c they also have vested interests to protect, including power, land and wealth.

The Conflict Perspective

- Conflict theorists see schools as agencies that reproduced and legitimate the current social order through the functions they perform. By reproducing and legitimating the existing social order, the educational insitution is seen as benefiting some individuals and groups at the expense of others.

Religion and Morality

- Determining the place a religiously defined morality should hold in a pluralists society continues to generate controversy in the US. Abortion is a good example.

Abstract Ideals

- Finally some religions focus on a set of abstract ideals. Rather than centering on the worship of a god, they are dedicated to achieving moral and spiritual excellence. Many religion of Asia are this type, including Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism. - Buddhism is directed toward reaching an elevated state of consciousness, a method of purification that provides a release from suffering, ignorance and selfishness. - In the Western World, humanism is based on ethical principles. Its adherent discard all theological belief about God, heaven, hell, and immorality and substitute for God the pursuit of good in here and now.

Social Integration

- Functionalist say that the education system functions to inculcate the dominate values of a society and shape a common national mind. - Historically, the nation's schools have played a prominent part part in Americanizing the children of immigrants. - Likewise schools are geared to integrating the poor and disadvantaged into the fabric of dominant, mainstream institutions.

The Functionalist Perspective

- Functionalists theorists look to the contributions religion makes to society's survival. They reason that if every known society seems to have something called religion, its presence cannot be dismissed as a social accident. - Accordingly, functionalists ask what functional are performed by religion in social life.

Durkheim: Social Cohesion and Social Control

- In The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Émile Durkheim showed how religion serves the functions of social cohesion and social control in a study of the Arunta, an Austrialian aboriginal people. - The Arunta practice totemism, a religious system in which a clan (a kin group) takes the name of, claims descent from, and attributes sacred properties to a plant or animal. Durkheim contended that religion- the totem ancestor, God, or some other supernatural force- is the symbolization of society. By means of religious rituals, the group in effect worships itself. - For functionalists the primary functions of religion are the creation, reinforcement, and maintenance of social solidarity and social control. - Religious rituals operate in two ways: (1) They provide vehicles by which we reveal to one another that we share a common mental state and (2) they create among us a shared consciousness that contributes to a social bonding. - Durkheim concluded that when religion is imperiled and not replaced by a satisfying substitute, society itself is jeopardized: Individuals pursue their private interests without regard to the dictates of the larger social enterprise.

Did Protestantism Lead to Capitalism?

- In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber sought a link btw. the rise of Protestant view of life and the emergence of capitalistic social arrangements in Western society. He maintained that the development of capitalism depended upon the creation of a pool of individuals who had the attitudes and values necessary to function as entrepreneurs. Once capitalism is established, it carries on in a self-perpetuating fashion. - The critical issue, Weber said, is to uncover the origin of the motivating spirit of capitalism in precapitalist society. He believed that Protestantism, particularly in the form of Calvinism, was crucial to, but not the only factor in, the rise of this spirit. - Calvinism is based on the teachings of the French Protestant theologian and reformer John Calvin and found expression in a variety of religious movements including Puritanism, Pietism and Anabaptism. - Weber noted that Protestantism and modern capitalism appeared on the historical scene at roughly the same time, that capitalism initially attained its highest development in Protestant countries and regions, and that it was mostly Protestant, not Catholics, who became the early capitalist entrepreneurs. - Concluded that the Protestant ethic, particularly as it was embodied in Calvinist doctrine, instilled an "attitude which seeks profit rationally and systematically."

Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism

- In the U.S, fundamentalism is primarily a Protestant movement that opposes "modernist" theology and seeks to conserve the basic principles underlying traditional Christianity; it views the bible as the literal and unerring word of God and reaffirms traditional authority. - Evangelicalism is a "glad tidings" movement whose member profess a personal relationship with Jesus Christ; adherents believe that the Bible provides the only authoritative basis for faith, stress the importance of personal conversion, and emphasizing the importance of intense zeal for Christian living. - Although the public lumps them both together, Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism are every bit as different as those dividing Catholics, Episcopalian, Methodists, and Baptists. - The increase in the number of fundamentalists and evangelicals ( also referred to as conservative Christians) at least partially accounts for the high rate of church affiliation in the U.S.

Theism

- In theism religion is centered in a belief in gods who are thought to be powerful, to have an interest in human affairs, and to merit worship. -Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are forms of monotheism, or belief in one god. They have established religious organizations, religious leaders or priests, traditional rituals, and sacred writings. - Ancient Greek religion and Hinduism (practiced primarily in India) are forms of polytheism, or belief in many gods with equal or relatively similar power. Hindu gods are often tribal, village or caste deities associated with a particular place- a building, field or mountain- or a certain object such as an animal or tree

Other Origins of Capitalism

- Many scholars since Weber have raised serious questions regarding his hypothesis. They have looked to other factors in explaining the origins of capitalism, including a surge in commerce during the 15th and 16th centuries, technological innovations, the influx of capitalist resources from New World colonies, unrestrained markets, and the availability of a free labor force. - Further, sociologist Randall G. Stokes showed that the beliefs compromised in the Protestants ethic do not necessarily lead people to engage in entrepreneurial activities.

Religion and Secular Change: The Protestant Ethic

- People's religious beliefs and practices can promote socioeconomic change. - Max Weber studies several world religions in order to discern how a religious ethic- the perspective and values engendered by a religious way of thinking-can affect people's behavior. He suggested that their are periods in historical development when circumstances push a society toward a reaffirmation of old ways or toward new ways. At critical junctures, religion- by supplying sources of individual motivation and defining the relationship of individuals to their society- can be a source of historical breakthrough. - While a religious ethic does not necessarily lead to social action, it can give it impetus by shaping people's perceptions and definitions of their material and ideal interests.

Religion

- Religion has to do with those socially shared and organized ways of thinking, feeling and acting that concern ultimate meaning and assume the existence of the supernatural or "beyond" and that are centered in beliefs and practices related to sacred things. - Sociologists are interested in religious beliefs and commitments and in the effects religion has on health, education, the family, politics and other matters. - As Émile Durkheim pointed out, religion is centered in beliefs and practices that are related to sacred as opposed to profane things. He described the sacred as involving those aspects of social reality that are set apart and forbidden. In many religious systems, the sacred is seen as distinct from the profane- those aspects of social reality that are everyday and commonplace. B/c the sacred is caught up with strong feelings of reverence and awe, it can usually be approached only through rituals-social acts prescribed by rules that dictate how human beings should behave in the presence of the sacred.

A Global View: Varieties of Religious Behavior

- Religion importance varies significantly across the globe. - Research in the field of moral psychology supports the idea that religion evolved as a by-product of humans' ability to make moral judgements. - Religious behavior is so varied that we have difficulty thinking about it unless we devise some means for sorting it into relevant categories. Although no categories do justice to the diversity and richness of the humans religious experience, sociologists Reece McGee provided us with a scheme that is both insightful and manageable; simple supernaturalims, animism, theism, and a system of abstract ideals.

The Bureaucratic Structure of Schools

- Schools have had to standardize and routinize many of their operations and establish formal operating and administrative procedures. In brief schools are bureaucracies- social structures made up of a hierarchy of statuses and roles prescribed by explicit rules and procedures and based on a division function and authority. - At the very top of this organizational arrangement is the federal govt., which profoundly influences educational life through the Depart of Education, the federal court system, and other agencies. - The formal organization of American schools and colleges typically consists of four levels: (1) the board of education or trustees, (2) administrators, (3) teachers or professors, and (4) students. - The control of most schools and colleges is vested in an elected or appointed board of laypeople. The board generally appoints and assigns administrators ns teachers, decides on the nature of educational programs, determines building constructions, and approves operational budgets. - The administrators- superintendents, principles, presidents, chancellors, and deans- are responsible foe executing he policies of the board. Although n theory the board determines policy, in practice many policy questions are settled my administrators, - Teachers are the immediate day-to-day link btw. the larger system and individual students, the latter occupying the lowest position in the school bureaucracy. - In sum, the school system is characterized by a chain of command, a network of positions functionally interrelated for the purpose of accomplishing educational objectives.

Education

- Social scientist view learning as a relatively permanent change in behavior or capability that results from experience. B/c learning is so vital to social life, societies seldom leave it to chance. Most societies undertake to transmit particular attitudes, knowledge and skills to their members through formal, systematic training- what sociologists call the institution of education. - Education is one aspect of the process of socialization by which people acquire behaviors essential for effective participation in society. It entails an explicit process in whcih some individuals assume the status of student and carry out their associated roles. - The curricula of schools- such "core" subjects as mathematics, natural science, and social science- are remarkably similar throughout the world. Exactly how govt. interacts with education however, differs cross-culturally.

Reproducing the Social Relation of Production

- Some conflict theorists depict U.S. schools as reflecting the needs of capitalists production and as social instruments of convincing the population that private ownership and profit are just and in the best interests of the entire society. - The correspondence principle states that the social relations of work find expression in the social relations of the school - The authoritarian structure of many schools reproduces the bureaucratic hierarchy of the corporation, rewarding diligence, submissiveness, and compliance. - In short, the schools are seen as socializing a compliant labor force for the capitalist economy.

Conflict Theory and Social Change

- Some conflict theorists see religion as an active force shaping the contours of social life. Thus, it can play a critical part in the birth and consolidations of new social structures and arrangements. - While acknowledging that some aspects of religion inhibit change, like the functionalists, they point out that others challenge existing social arrangements and encourage change. Under some circumstances religion can be a profoundly revolutionary force that holds out a vision to people of how things might or ought to be. Religion is not invariably a functional or conservative factor in society, but often is one of the chief channels, and at times the only channel, for bringing about social revolution.

The Conflict Perspective

- Some of them depict religion as a weapon in the service of ruling elites who use it to hold in check the explosive tensions produced by social inequality and injustice. Others see religion as a source of social conflict and point to religious strife in the Middle East, India, and Northern Ireland. Still others, not so different from functionalist, see religious as a source of social change.

The Doctrine of Predestination

- The Calvinist ethos had other elements that fed capitalist motivation, particular its doctrine of predestination. - Calvin rejected the idea that a person's status in the afterlife is determined by the way he or she behaves here on earth. Instead, Calvin taught that at birth every soul is predestined for heaven or hell. - According to Weber, Calvin;s followers, in their search for reassurance, came to accept certain earthly signs of asceticism as proof of their salvation and genuine faith: hard work, sobriety, thrift, restraint, and the avoidance of fleshly pleasures. - The Calvinists preoccupied with their fate, subtly began to cultivate these very behaviors. Self-discipline and a willingness to delay gratification are qualities that lead people to amass capital and economic success. - Capitalists entrepreneurs could pursue profit and fulfill their Christian obligation; the Calvinists ethos took the spirit of Capitalism out of the realm of individual ambition and translated it into an ethical duty.

State- Church Issues

- The First Amendment, with its "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion," provided the foundation for the principle of the separation of church and state, by which organized religion and govt. have remained substantially independent of each other in the US. The US has maintained a remarkably hands-off attitude toward religion. Some sociologists believe that the absence of a coerced monopoly has compelled American religious insinuation to operate in a pluralistic environment comparable to a market economy. - Even so, in a number of cases, laws have been enacted, and upheld by the Supreme Court, that have impinged upon religious practices, including those against polygamy among Mormons and against snake-handling by charismatic Christians.

The Sect

- The Sect is a religious organization that stands apart from mainstream society, but is rooted in established religious traditions. - The sect considered itself uniquely legitimate but is at odds with the dominant society. It usually consists of a small, voluntary fellowship of converts, most of whom are drawn from disadvantaged groups. - The sect does not attempt to win the world over to its doctrines but instead practices exclusiveness. - The sect is often founded by individuals who break away from another religious body and claim that they represent the true, cleansed version of the faith from which they split. - Members who entertain heretical opinions or engage in immoral behavior are subject to expulsion. The sect thinks of itself as a religious elite. Sect members believe that other religious interpretations are in error, and they portray the larger society as decadent and evil. - Most sects are small and many of them fail to grow larger. Should they survive, gain adherents, and become dominant, they have a natural tendency to become church-like. If they become widely popular in a religiously diverse and competitive environment like the United States, they become more like denominations.

Church

- The church is a religious organization that considers itself uniquely legitimate and typically enjoys a positive relationship with mainstream society. It usually operates with a bureaucratic structure and claims to include most member of society - Sociologists use the familiar term "church" to refer to a form of religious organization that has never existed in the United States, but has been common in history and still exists in parts of the world. - Religion organized along church lines either are integrated into a society's govt. or operate with explicit govt. sanction and support. - Members are born into the church if their parents are affiliated with it; they do not have to join the church. - The aim of the church is to be universal; in principle, all members of society belong to it. Its response to competing groups is to suppress, ignore or co-opt them. - The church strives to dominate all aspects of social life- to teach and guide the members of society and dispense saving grace.

The Denomination

- The denomination accepts the legitimacy claims of other religions and enjoys a positive relationships with the dominant society. - In many cases it is a sect in an advanced stage of development and adjustment to the secular world. - The membership of the denomination comes largely from the middle class. - The moral rigor and religious fervor of the sect are relaxed. It usually has an established clergy who have undergone specialized training at a theological seminary. - The denomination is content to be one organization among many, all of which are deemed acceptable in the sight of God. - Examples of denominations include most of the major religious groups in the United States: Presbyterians, Baptists, Congregationalists, Methodists, Unitarians, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, and Reform and Conservative Jews.

Screening and Selecting

- The educational institution commonly performs this function, serving as an agency for screening and selecting individuals for different types of jobs.

Marx: Religion as the Opium of the People

- The stimulus for many of the contributions made by conflict theorists comes from the work of Karl Marx. Marx portrayed religion as a painkiller for the frustration, deprivation, and subjugation experienced by oppressed peoples: "the opium of the people." He said that it soothes their distress but any relief it may provide is illusory. - Marx saw religion as producing an otherworldly focus that diverts the oppressed from seeking social change in this world. More particularly, religion engenders a false consciousness among the working that interferes with its attainment of true class consciousness. - The focus on the supernatural and the afterlife also alienates people from themselves by directing their attention away from themselves by directing their attention away from the material conditions of their own existence and their potential for controlling their own lives. This process of alienation is one of the primary mechanisms enabling the ruling class to dominate the working class and to exploit them for their labor power.

Religion in Contemporary U.S. Life

- The transformation of human societies from simple to complex forms is accompanied by industrialization, urbanization, bureaucratization, and rationalization. The secularization thesis adds the idea that as societies evolve, profane, or nonreligious, consideration will gain ascendancy over scared or religious considerations. - There is very little sociological evidence that secularization is occurring. On the contrary, the United States remains of the world's most religious countries. - Religion remains a powerful force in the United States, and survey respondents believe it has the potential to do even more. If more American were deeply religious, a strong majority of respondents said, crime would decrease, volunteer and charity work would increase, and parents would do a better job of raising children. - In the 1990's, a new set of ideas in the sociology of religion, referred to by some as the "New Paradigm", reformulated the idea of secularization to make sense of the continuing significance and vitality of religion in American Life. According to the new paradigm, since religion is the only institution that can answer the ultimate questions of the meaning and purpose of life for most people, it is an inevitable feature of human society. - Secularization in the new paradigm is a process in which religions become increasingly worldly and less focused on the supernatural. But instead of resulting in people turning to science for ultimate answers, secularization weakens old religious groups that are becoming less focused on the supernatural and creates opportunities for new ones.

Religious Organizations

- Thousands of new religious groups have sprung to life all over the globe in recent years, and the Internet has made it easier for new groups to advertise themselves and to find adherents. - Norms, beliefs and rituals provide the cultural fabric of religion, but there is more to the religious institutions than its cultural heritage. As with other institutions, there is also the structural mosaic of social organizations whereby people are bound together within networks of relatively stable relationships. - Four types of religious organization: churches, denominations, sects, and cults.

The Functional Perspective

- Viewed from the functionalists perspective, schools make a number of vital contributions to the survival and perpetuation of modern societies. - Functionalists see schools as serving to complete socialization, socially integrate a diverse population, screen and select individuals, and develop new knowledge.