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Cylons
In the ‘original’ (1978) and ‘reimagined’ (2003) versions of the science fiction film and TV program Battlestar Galactica, the Cylons are a mechanical race of beings created by mankind but which have turned on their creator.
Image via Tumblr
In the reimagined TV series, the Cylons may look exactly like human beings. Not unlike the Hal 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Borg and The Matrix, Cylons symbolize the possibility of mankind becoming endangered by machines. And on the sociological level, Cylons could be taken to represent the very real issues of depersonalization, alienation and, as sociologist Max Weber put it, the bureaucratization and rationalization of human beings in contemporary society. Not only that. As the above poster suggests, Cylons could represent hostile spies in otherwise healthy societies.
The background story to the Cylons is pretty complicated. It’s actually quite amazing how thoroughly the Battlestar Galactica writers fleshed out – maybe not the best metaphor in this instance – their identity.¹
The word Cylon, itself, stems from an actual Athenian nobleman.
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¹ Especially in the reimagined series: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cylon_%28reimagining%29
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Cults (and Religions)
Image via Z_D_ at Tumblr
Cults and Religions – What’s the difference?
Many debate the differences between religion and cults. Some say there’s no difference. In other words, religions are cults and cults are religions. But this kind of thinking arguably doesn’t do justice to the complexities of faith and the supernatural.
One difference seems to be that, in a cult, a charismatic leader is undeservedly glorified. Some say that this would make Abraham, Jesus Christ, Mohammad, Buddha and Mahavira cult leaders. But cults also display a relatively short longevity (after the leader dies, the cult dwindles away). This didn’t happen in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism or Jainism. So they can’t be called cults by that standard.
Another difference is that cults typically isolate new members from their families and unbelievers. Religions tend to be less drastic, with most (not all, mind you) accepting interfaith relationships.
Steven Hassan, an expert on cults, says
Since all destructive cults believe that the ends justify the means, they believe themselves to be above the law. As long as they believe that what they are doing is “right” and “just,” many of them think nothing of lying, stealing, cheating, or unethically using mind control to accomplish their ends. They violate, in the most profound and fundamental way, the civil liberties of the people they recruit. They turn unsuspecting people into slaves. ¹
Others say the difference between religions and cults is a matter of degree, especially with those religions and cults that attract, institutionally legitimize and reproduce authoritarian personality types and the legalistic beliefs and structured practices that these individuals participate in.
In these instances, religious or cultic affiliation apparently provides a convenient means for the psychologically immature to overlook unresolved emotional issues. Accordingly, some critics of religion maintain that religious affiliation provides a safe but essentially cowardly means for unleashing centuries of culturally and perhaps genetically inherited anger onto those who don’t wish to sacrifice their free will to the dictates of an institution. These critics say that most religious institutions must incorporate (or reject) new developments within the context of their limiting teachings and traditions.
This too, seems somewhat simplistic. For religious believers will often say they are fully choosing to cooperate with God’s will as progressively revealed to them within their particular religious organization. Apparently there’s a richness in their spiritual life that the secular critics just don’t get. And individuals belonging to orgqanizations seen by outsiders as cults often say the same thing. “You don’t understand…”
This can make it difficult to tell the difference between a religion and a cult. Meanwhile, many new religions are cropping up. And some say they’re nothing more than cheap covers created by creepy masterminds aiming to get tax breaks on donations made by gullible believers.
When in doubt, draw a chart
One of the definitions for “cult” in Merriam-Websters dictionary is: “a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious; also : its body of adherents.”
The following chart compares some of the main beliefs and practices found within religions and cults. This is not the final word. The items in each column don’t universally apply and many of the distinctions made in this chart are debatable. In keeping with the classical sociologist Max Weber, however, this chart offers ideal types.
Ideal types are generalized constructs. They don’t provide precise definitions and they’re not comprehensive. But they are thought-provoking. And that’s their main purpose.
|
Belief |
Religions
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Cults
|
|
Liturgy |
|
|
|
Practice |
|
|
|
Ideal Attitude |
|
|
|
Other |
|
|
Above chart elaborates on many sources, including Gregg Stebben’s Everything You Need to Know About Religion (The Pocket Professor, Denis Boyles ed., New York: Pocket Books, 1999: 25-26).
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¹ Steven Hassan, Combatting Cult Mind Control, Rochester: Park Street Press, 1988, p. 36.
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Class
A segment of a social network (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Class is a sociological concept describing a hierarchical social order based on money, property, commercial goods or quality of character, occupation, lifestyle, and in some instances, physical appearance.
Interesting tidbits from Wikipedia:
The term “class” is etymologically derived from the Latin classis, which was used by census takers to categorize citizens by wealth, in order to determine military service obligations.
In the late 18th century, the term “class” began to replace classifications such as estates, rank, and orders as the primary means of organizing society into hierarchical divisions. This corresponded to a general decrease in significance ascribed to hereditary characteristics, and increase in the significance of wealth and income as indicators of position in the social hierarchy.¹
Karl & his daughter Jenny Marx (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In classical sociological theory, Karl Marx emphasizes the ownership or non-ownership of the so-called ‘means of production’ as a prime indicator of class. This ownership of the means of production includes land, factories, machines, tools and knowledge about how to be an effective producer of commodities.
Meanwhile, Max Weber stresses the importance of social status, prestige, and political power in addition to Marx’s ideas about ownership of the means of production.
Fairly recent sociological terms relating to class and hierarchical inequality are stratification and disparity.
Although classical sociologists took great pains to delineate just what class is, not too many contemporary thinkers agree on its definition. And some say that class doesn’t really exist. After all, how can we accurately determine a person’s supposed class? By money? knowledge? prestige? power? beauty? goodness? ability? age?
Along these lines, the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu introduced the idea of cultural capital with Jean-Claude Passeron in “Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction” (1973). Again from Wikipedia:
Pierre Bourdieu (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The term cultural capital refers to non-financial social assets that promote social mobility beyond economic means. Examples can include education, intellect, style of speech, dress, and even physical appearance, et cetera.²
Instead of focusing on the idea of class as some kind of absolute truth in itself, postmoderns like Michel Foucault emphasize the role of social power in determining outcomes among competing discourses. For Foucault, the idea of discourse refers to relative social truths (generated by soft and/or hard power) as well as institutionalized social practices. For Foucault, society is in constant struggle, so individuals and groups are always in a competitive kind of ‘war,’ even in peacetime.
Most sociological analyses of class overlook the message of many religious traditions, a message that essentially inverts worldly thinking about rank and order:
The worldly rich may be poor in spirit whereas the worldly poor may be rich in spirit (Matthew 6:19-20, Mark 10:21).
However, it seems a common mistake and gross simplification to suppose that all materially wealthy people are spiritually poor and that all materially poor people are spiritually rich (1 Timothy 6:17).
Whether or not the notion of class eventually disappears from our collective vocabulary remains to be seen.
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¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_class
² http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_capital
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Charisma
Charisma (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Charisma is a term applied by the German sociologist Max Weber to refer to a special quality possessed by rare individuals that provides them with superior leadership skills and a seemingly legitimate basis for authority.
Charisma often applies to religion as a divinely given power or ability but not always. In Weber’s words, charisma is
a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities. These are such as are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as leader.¹
Examples would be Jesus, Mohatma Gandhi and Winston Churchill.
Weber outlines two other types of authority. Along with charismatic authority, Weber adds what he calls traditional authority and legal-rational authority. These terms might seem self-explanatory to those interested in the social sciences but a good outline is provided by Dana Williams. Williams points out that Weber is well aware that the three types of authority he presents often intermingle.
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¹ Economy and Society, 1922 cited in GORDON MARSHALL. “charisma.” A Dictionary of Sociology. 1998. Retrieved November 26, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O88-charisma.html
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Émile Durkheim
Emile Durkheim (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Émile Durkheim (1858-1917) was an innovative French sociologist who taught at the university of Bordeaux and the Sorbonne. He’s usually upheld in introductory Humanities courses as as one of great three “classical” sociologists, and one of the founders of sociology as a discipline in its own right. This academic honor also includes Karl Marx and Max Weber.
Among his many achievements and insights, Durkheim is seen as a pioneer in the use of scientific method. Durkheim focused on society instead of the individual. He believed that “collective representations” emerged from many minds that interact in a social environment. Depending on their character, these collective representations had variable but statistically demonstrable effects on society.
In addition, he tended to view society as a doctor would look at a patient. This is often called Durkheim’s “organic metaphor.” His outlook predates what would come to be called structural functionalism. As such, he believed that some social forms were healthier than others.
Durkheim sought to create one of the first rigorous scientific approaches to social phenomena. Along with Herbert Spencer, he was one of the first people to explain the existence and quality of different parts of a society by reference to what function they served in maintaining the quotidian (i.e. by how they make society “work”). He also agreed with his organic analogy, comparing society to a living organism.[9] Thus his work is sometimes seen as a precursor to functionalism.[6][29][30] Durkheim also insisted that society was more than the sum of its parts.[31]†
English: Cover of the French edition of The Rules of the Sociological Method (Les règles de la méthode sociologique) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Unlike his contemporaries Ferdinand Tönnies and Max Weber, he focused not on what motivates the actions of individuals (an approach associated with methodological individualism), but rather on the study of social facts. As a result, Durkheim contrasted mechanistic social types (where individuals cooperate less, relying on tradition and punitive authority) to organic solidarity (where individuals cooperate more, working together to satisfy mutual needs). And for Durkheim, the former is inferior to that latter.
Durkheim also wrote on alleged “elementary” forms of religion, building his theories on the anthropological studies available at the time. And he did (secondary) statistical analyses of the sociological facts of crime and suicide, trying to link their frequency to particular social conditions and beliefs.
What makes Durkheim unique to most sociologists is his blending of theory, method and observation. In most cases Durkheim provides a detailed outline and defense of his scientific approach before engaging in a particular study. After completing his research, a theoretical analysis of his data follows. However, most of Durkheim’s observations are secondhand. He used the statistics and case studies available to him at the time, and rarely – if ever – went out in the field to do his own primary research.
While this kind of approach wouldn’t wash today in social psychology, many academic sociologists can still get away with armchair philosophy, making pretty obvious statements and distinctions that hard core philosophers have already covered in far greater detail. The only difference is that the sociologist applies conceptual distinctions to everyday life in ways that are more easily understandable and up-to date.‡
† http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89mile_Durkheim
‡ Forwarding simplified versions of existing philosophical distinctions is evident in the works of Peter Berger and Erving Goffman. However, Berger talked about the importance of data collection while Goffman usually went a step further, actually going out into the field and getting his own data.
Functionalism, Lévi-Strauss (Claude), Myth, Saint-Simon (Comte Henri de), Totem
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Ideal types
Max Weber, sociologist via Wikipedia
We often hear the term, ‘ideal types,’ but just what does it mean? Well, anyone who’s taken a course in classical sociology should, at least, have some inkling.
Strictly speaking, ideal types are conceptual tools developed by the sociologist Max Weber. They represent an exaggerated category designed to facilitate understanding and dialogue.
Ideal types do not represent statistical averages. Nor do they accurately describe every aspect of a given phenomenon. Rather, they are abstract generalizations.
Weber argues that science cannot avoid developing concepts that are, to some extent, abstract generalizations. This is pretty obvious to anyone who thinks about language and semiotics in general. But Weber isn’t so much offering a philosophical critique of signs. Rather, he’s talking more about getting what he sees as the right balance between the range and focus of a given study. He claims that the type is created through the use of reason, and lies somewhere between meaningless details (i.e. empirical studies devoid of a meaningful, interpretive theory) and overly obscure generalizations (i.e untenable ideas and opinions not carefully thought out with reason).
While ideal types may describe ethical ideals, Weber says that the types themselves do not advocate a particular ethical ideal.
From today’s standpoint, Weber’s reliance on reason to ‘get it right’ and his apparent ability to separate ethics from the pursuit of understanding both have been roundly critiqued from several angles. Nevertheless, an updated version of Weber’s ideal type arguably remains a useful theoretical approach to typology, providing it consciously embraces not only rational but also emotional, aesthetic, intuitive and ethical components.
A good example of Weber’s ideal types is found in his distinction between ‘exemplary’ and ‘instrumental’ religious prophets.
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Weber, Max
Weber, Max (1864-1920) Pioneering German sociologist who suffered a mental collapse and is said to have recovered through rationality.
Along with Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim, Weber is usually regarded as one of the ‘big three’ in classical sociological theory.
We don’t know if Weber was fully aware of Marx but his notions of status and party extend Marxist analysis, which focussed on the idea of class, ownership and the means of production.
For Weber, social position rests not only on economic class but also on status (i.e. social prestige, such as a priest or judge) and party (i.e. political power).
Unlike Marx, whose theory was geared toward social transformation, Weber sought only to understand.
In studying the major world religions Weber made important contributions to the sociology of religion, particularly with regard to his development of ideal types, his work on charisma and the distinction made between ethical vs. exemplary prophets.
Because of the vast scope of Weber’s work on religion, and due to his reliance on translations of original texts, some scholars argue that he constructs a ‘grand theory’ based on sometimes misunderstood scriptures.
Regardless, Weber produced a recognized classic, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, in which he argued that the Calvinist view of salvation fostered the development of Capitalism.
According to Weber, the Protestant ‘work ethic’ sanctioned hard worldly work and the reinvestment of profits as a fulfillment of religious duty.
The Protestant population could be simultaneously wealthy, religious and guiltless–an ethic already present among Jewish minorities throughout Europe.
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» Caste, Class, Comte (August), Cylons, Ethical Prophet, Marx (Karl), Exemplary Prophet, Language, Party, Protestantism, Relations of Production, Scholarship, Sociology, Status
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