Secularization

The Genealogy of Secularization

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Jan Bremmer is an impressive figure. (–but do not confuse him with the political scientist Ian Bremmer, whom you should follow on Twitter.) I was first acquainted with Jan’s work as a ravenous undergrad taking courses on the classics, when a professor suggested a book of his along with Walter Burkert’s standard tome. He has quite a large list of publications under his belt (you can browse the Amazon.com selection), having written some of the standard secondary texts on ancient Greek (pagan) religion, and branching out into early Christianity and myths and ritual worship in general.

About fifteen years ago Dr. Bremmer took to writing a remarkably concise set of notes, in the form of a narrative, titled “Secularization: Notes Toward a Genealogy“, published in a collection of essays titled Religion: Beyond a Concept edited by Hent de Vries. (The article may be visible in Google Books, and this is great, because the pages of the Academia.edu upload didn’t scan well near the spine.) Continue reading →

Secularization — Is Christianity No Longer the Norm?

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Good summary of the article on secularization as it bears upon conscious affiliation (i.e., explicit commitment), and the benefits of this for everyone. Read the very short article he links to at the bottom, and do yourself a favor and scan the other posts by Ormerod at the top. Ormerod suggest that things, as they are, will remain so “for at least the next 100 years” or something. Optimistic? Perhaps. Christianity is, as one atheist put it, “the stone in the shoe that one cannot quite get rid of”; our present culture has deep roots, and most of us are not aware of the elements of our culture, or their provenance and sustaining springs; it is a live question for me as to whether we ever really become “post-Christian” in anything more than a superficial sense — though if we do, we certainly become post-Christian. To this end, read Blumenberg’s The Legitimacy of the Modern Age, Löwith’s Meaning in History, and Taylor’s A Secular Age to get a better sense of this relationship from multiple angles. Then, of course, there is Nietzsche, together with a host of other authors. One thing is clear, though: secularization is not irreligion or atheism. It is something else. More soon. (But give Imagining Sociology a follow: it’s a classroom resource for a UK teacher, so it’s not as regular as some blogs, but the posts are always brief enough that it’s inexcusable not to follow it, and it’s a quite-profitable read.)

EDIT: the ever-provocative Richard Dawkins tweeted about this phenomenon here (though it might be simply anti-Islam that lurks behind that); Nietzsche similarly thought that Christianity was a buffer for some things that he thought were worse, though I can’t remember where, and can’t find it on a quick look-through.

Sociology with LDV

Here are the key highlights from the article by Peter Ormerod (link below).

  • “Christianity as a default, as a norm, is gone, and probably gone for good,” Prof Stephen Bullivant
  • Ormerod argues that it’s a mistake to assume that under 30s have changed that drastically because there is a significant evidence that they are still willing to wholeheartedly embrace alternatives to religion.
  • Older generations are not completely embracing rationality either because new age movements such as astrology are enjoying a renaissance
  • Linda Woodhead points out that although lots of British teenagers identify that they have no religion, most don’t describe themselves as atheists.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/22/christianity-norm-underground-mystery?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Email

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…and to All a Good Night?

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First, some (contestable) definitions. Our habits become conventions when we negotiate and then share them with others, and become custom when they sink deeper to take on a regulative role within the life of our community; these customs have something like a self-perpetuating power, and outlive the contexts that gave them birth and made sense out of them, mutating in the transition from context to context, at least intermittently demanding verification or reaffirmation.

Here, I was originally going to explore, loosely, the curiosities associated with the secularization of Christmas — Christmas as a custom. I am forced to cut this short, however, with no guarantee that I shall be able to return to it soon, as the semester has begun in full swing. Here are the first two of the five sections of the original.

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The Monastic and Ecclesio-political Origins of Some Elements of our Modern Polities, Part 2a (Revision 1)

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Two important features of all modern polities are (1) an emphasis on proper procedure and (2) a systematic ensurance of popular consent. Contrary to common expectation, these do not come directly from ancient Greece, leapfrogging into the present, nor do they spring ex nihilo from later Enlightenment conceptions of political life. Rather, they first take on their later forms by way of Late Antique and Medieval monastic and ecclesiastical environments. While we should not wish to make history tidier than it is –the lines of influence are messy ones– this particular line is significant enough that, even if it is later joined by other tributaries, it deserves to be singled out.

In this set of posts we shall look at a trajectory from roughly Benedict of Nursia to Marsilius of Padua, looking over our shoulder, later on, at Aristotle and Cicero. At the end, we shall ask some questions about the meaning of the secular, secularism, and secularity, as illuminated by this history.

In the previous entry, we looked at the Rule of Benedict. Here, we look at the lead-up to a crucial stage in the secularization (i.e., an exportation into the saeculum) of features of the Rule in the writings and life of Gregory I, Roman Pope, also known as Gregory the Great, or (less fortunately) as Gregory the Dialogist.  

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The Monastic and Ecclesio-political Origins of Some Elements of our Modern Polities, Part 1 (Revision 4)

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Two important features of all modern polities are (1) an emphasis on proper procedure and (2) a systematic ensurance of popular consent. Contrary to common expectation, these do not come directly from ancient or Enlightenment conceptions of political life, but first take on their later forms by way of Late Antique and Medieval monastic and ecclesiastical environments. 

In this set of posts we shall look at a trajectory from roughly Benedict of Nursia to Marsilius of Padua, looking over our shoulder, later on, at Aristotle and Cicero. 

Continue reading →