Robert Wuthnow-Meaning and Moral Order - Explorations in Cultural Analysis-University of California Press (1989)

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Contents
Preface ix
1. Cultural Analysis 1
Conceptual and Theoretical Problems 6
Scope of the Book 10
2. Beyond the Problem of Meaning 18
Classical Approaches 23
Neoclassical Approaches 36
Poststructural Approaches 50
Rediscovering the Classics 57
Beyond Meaning? 60
3. The Structure of Moral Codes 66
The Question of Moral Authority 66
A Structural Approach 69
Application: Moral Commitment: in
the Market 79
Conclusion 95
4. Ritual and Moral Order 97
The Nature of Ritual 98
The Social Contexts of Ritual 109
An Empirical Case: "Holocaust" as
Moral Ritual 123
The Problem of Meaning (Again) 140
vii
viii Contents
5. Moral Order and Ideology 145

The Social Production of Ideology 151
Ideologies and Selective Processes 161
The Institutionalization of Ideology 169
6. Social Selection Among Ideological Forms 186
Folk Piety and Fundamentalism 187
Individualism 194
Rationality 203
An Analogy 211
Conclusion 212
7. The Moral Basis of Cultural Change 215
Theoretical Considerations 217
Some General Patterns: Overview 223
Varieties of Ideological Movements 230
The Period Since World War II 247
8. The Institutionalization of Science 265
Mertonian and Marxist Explanations 267
Scientific Autonomy 275
Patronage 279
Legitimation 288
Communication and Organization 290
Differences Between Core and Periphery 294
Implications for Contemporary Science 296
9. State Structures and Cultural Reform 299
Religion and Regime 301
The Reformation in France and England 311
State Structures and Ideology 325
10. Conclusion 331
Levels of Analysis: Uses and Limitations 331
Meaning and Moral Order 348
Notes 351
Bibliography 379
Name Index 417
Subject Index 425
Preface
In a previous volume (Cultural Analysis, 1984), several colleagues and I

argued that some promising new directions in social scientific approaches
to the study of culture were becoming evident. In surveying the work of
four prominent theorists representing four quite different approaches—
the American phenomenological sociology of Peter L. Berger, the Brit-
ish cultural anthropology of Mary Douglas, the French historical neo-
structuralism of Michel Foucault, and the German philosophical critical
theory of Jiirgen Habermas—we suggested that several potentially con-
verging tendencies could be identified in current theories of culture.
Among these were tendencies away from subjectivist conceptions of cul-
ture, toward more objectivist conceptions, toward innovative resolutions
of the problem of sociological reductionism,, and toward analyses of the
internal relations and patterns among components of culture. These, we
suggested, provided some hopeful signs for the analysis of culture to be
placed on a more systematic empirical footing.
Reviewers of that volume took various stances toward our sugges-
tions. Some agreed with us; others thought we had been overly pessimis-
tic in suggesting a need for new directions in the study of culture; still
others saw us as being overly optimistic and argued that the differences
in the traditions we had surveyed were still far more interesting than any
of the potential convergences we had sought to identify.
Some of these criticisms seemed more plausible than others. What we
ourselves saw as the major limitation of that project was the need to put
into practice some of the ideas that had been distilled. That is, only by at-
ix
x Preface
tempting to work with some of the general theoretical orientations that

had been outlined did it seem possible to extend, clarify, modify, and as-
sess the utility of these ideas.
The present volume represents a modest effort to move in that direc-
tion. It is not a sequel to the earlier volume in that it does not in any
way attempt to create a full-blown synthesis from the four theoretical
traditions previously examined (that possibility still seems less useful
than drawing eclectically from each tradition). Nor is this volume an ef-
fort to "make good" on the claim that an emerging framework with
which to orient research on culture might be evident. The present aim
is considerably less ambitious than that. It is to contribute to the ad-
vancement of cultural analysis by addressing several of the theoretical
and conceptual issues that seem particularly important to the study of
culture and by wrestling with various methodological approaches in
some empirical investigations.
The general guidelines for these "explorations" are consistent with
the orientations identified in the conclusion of the previous volume: spe-
cifically, an effort to steer away from subjectivism, to identify observ-
able elements of culture suitable for investigation, to examine some of
the patterns and relationships giving order to those components, and to
look at culture in relation to social structure without engaging in socio-
logical reductionism. In a very general way, these represent the distin-
guishing hallmarks of cultural analysis as the term is used here. Others
obviously prefer to approach culture in different ways. The strengths
and weaknesses of the present approach are presented toward the end of
the volume in as candid a manner as possible.
Beyond these general guidelines, no attempt has been made to impose
a single theoretical or methodological framework on the analyses. The
term "explorations" is used quite explicitly. Different concepts and dif-
ferent levels of analysis have been deliberately explored in an effort to
see how far they can be taken. Their strengths and weaknesses have be-
come evident mainly in attempting to utilize them.
Pursuing these explorations has necessitated critical examination of
some of the "sacred cows" of the study of culture. In Chapter 2, for exam-
ple, an argument is presented that cultural analysis might be better served
if its historic interest in the problem of meaning were simply abandoned;
in Chapter 4, a concept of ritual is developed that denies that ritual is de-
cidedly different from many other types of social behavior; in Chapters 5
and 6, an approach to ideology is outlined that to many may seem overly
Preface xi
formalistic or even reductionistic. These ideas are not expected to be re-

ceived without controversy. They derive from my having experienced
frustration with commonly accepted formulations. They are also pre-
sented with full awareness of the theoretical and methodological divi-
sions that currently characterize the study of culture.
This volume is directed primarily to sociologists who share an inter-
est in rigorously pursuing the study of culture. Many of the concepts to
which attention is given—meaning, ritual, moral order, ideology, cul-
ture—are of importance to practitioners in other disciplines as well
(e.g., anthropology, political science, religious studies, history). Some
benefit may accrue to these practitioners. It seemed better, however, to
target the discussion toward the narrower body of sociological scholar-
ship that is more familiar to the author. Even here, sufficiently different
interests and orientations are evident that some attention has had to be
given to specifying alternative approaches and levels of analysis.
Within sociology, one of the subfields in which considerable atten-
tion has been devoted to questions of meaning and moral order is the so-
ciology of religion. The present volume is not especially oriented toward
the study of religion as such, although some of the empirical material
does deal with religion. It is well to recognize, nevertheless, that many of
the issues and debates taken up here have been especially prominent in
the sociology of religion, and the manner in which they are addressed
here is undoubtedly in some ways a product of the author's having
worked in that field. A degree of forbearance may at times be required
of readers unfamiliar with some of the more general issues in this field.
One of the more amusing features of academic publishing that no
student of culture is likely to miss is the importance of legitimating
myths. Books, like people, have their histories, and these histories must
conform to certain norms. As someone has pointed out, an academic
book is scarcely a book unless it was written over a lengthy period of
time and was in some manner inspired while the author was still in
graduate school. It may be trite to say so, therefore, but in the present
case both are true.
The chapters of this volume were researched and written over a ten-
year period. Approximately the first third of that period was spent grap-
pling somewhat unsuccessfully with some of the ambiguities that
seemed to be frustrating work in the area of culture. Pursuit of both
theoretical and empirical investigations during this period began to clar-
ify some of the broad guidelines already mentioned. Subsequent efforts
xii Preface
were devoted to exploring these ideas down different paths and then to
evaluating and integrating the results. Several chapters contain material
that has been published in some version before, but all of the chapters
contain new material and new efforts at synthesis and evaluation. Col-
lectively, the product of course is neither a single monograph nor an inte-
grated treatise, but a series of explorations.
The initial inspiration for embarking on this venture came, in some re-
spects unwittingly, from having focused primarily on cultural topics,
such as religion, ideology, and prejudice, in graduate school. Charles Y.
Clock and Robert N. Bellah, each in quite different ways, contributed
much to this experience. As much as anything else, the fact of their offer-
ing two very distinct, yet to a degree complementary, perspectives on cul-
ture probably resulted in my having to think about the issues addressed
here. Neither would likely feel comfortable with the specific direction in
which many of these explorations have gone; yet there is clearly an in-
debtedness here that requires acknowledgment. Dedicating this volume
to them expresses a token of this indebtedness.
Some of the reading, reflection, and research for this volume was
made possible by funding from the William Paterson Foundation to
Princeton University in the form of an honorific preceptorship that the
author held from 1976 to 1979. This preceptorship provided a small re-
search stipend as well as a full year's leave from teaching responsibili-
ties. Grants and other funds were also received at various times from the
National Endowment for the Humanities, the Anti-Defamation League,
the Committee on Problems of the Discipline of the American Sociologi-
cal Association, and the Committee on Research in the Humanities and
Social Sciences of Princeton University.
Many students and colleagues have suffered through my attempts to
formulate ideas about culture in seminars, colloquia, and informal dis-
cussions. A few who have undoubtedly experienced these trials to a
greater extent than others are Albert Bergesen, Kevin Christiano, Rob-
ert Cox, James Davison Hunter, and Robert C. Liebman, all of whom
also read and commented on sections of the manuscript. Meng Chee
Lee, Andrew Flood, and Tim Miller worked at various points as re-
search assistants, and much of the typing of initial drafts was done by
Blanche Anderson. I am also grateful to Jay Demerath, Lester Kurtz,
Wendy Griswold, and Robert Scott for comments on the entire manu-
script and to Ron Aminzade, Barbara Laslett, John Meyer, and Theda
Skocpol for comments on several of the chapters.
Preface xiii
My deepest gratitude, as always, is to my wife and children, who, de-

spite busy lives of their own, find the serenity to put up with me. Al-
though an inveterate skeptic of psychology, I have over the years corne
to a.greater appreciation of the idea that the fulfillment of basic needs
for love and security takes precedence over many of the other needs that
seem to drive academics.
CHAPTER ONE
Cultural Analysis
The founders of sociology all recognized the importance of culture in so-

cial life. Emile Durkheim spent nearly fifteen years at the peak of his ca-
reer investigating the beliefs and rituals of primitive religion in an effort
to grasp the symbolic bases of moral community. Max Weber was con-
cerned with problems of culture to an even greater extent. From the Prot-
estant ethic thesis to contributions on rationalization and comparative
religions, his work was prominently oriented toward the values and
norms that regulate and legitimate social institutions. From a quite dif-
ferent perspective, Karl Marx dealt extensively with ideology and class
consciousness, with religion and legitimation, and with the bases of so-
cial knowledge. Other contributors—Toennies, Troeltsch, Tocqueville,
Spencer, to name a few—were also deeply concerned with the role of cul-
ture in society.
The legacy of the classical period has been carried forward in the
work of more recent sociologists and social scientists whose interests
have also given special consideration to the patterning and functioning
of culture. In Talcott Parsons one finds a clear emphasis, deriving par-
ticularly from Durkheim and Weber, on the importance of values and
norms. Similar interests are prominent in the work of sociologists who
came under Parsons's influence: for example, in Neil Smelser's work on
collective behavior, in Robert Bellah's sociology of religion, and in Clif-
ford Geertz's essays on the interpretation of cultures. Durkheim's legacy
is evident in Kai Erikson's studies of ritual and deviance, in Guy E.
Swanson's investigations of the social bases of belief, and in Mary Doug-
1
2 Cultural Analysis
las's work on symbolic boundaries and moral order. All these examples
demonstrate the importance of culture as an object of sociological in-
quiry. Weber's legacy has included a number of significant extensions of
the Protestant ethic thesis, such as Robert Merton's work on Puritanism
and science, Bellah's monograph on Tokugawa religion, and studies of
English history such as those of David Little and Michael Walzer, as
well as broader applications such as Ernst Troeltsch's work on the vari-
eties of religion and Benjamin Nelson's study of usury. Marx's consider-
ations on culture have been greatly expanded in the work of writers
such as Georg Lukacs, Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, and Jiirgen
Habermas. In each instance the fundamental role of culture in society
has been recognized. To say this without qualification, however, is
clearly to misrepresent the field.
Although it is possible to point out specific studies in sociology that
have contributed greatly to the understanding of culture, the discipline as
a whole has not given particular prominence to the importance of culture.
In fact, culture often appears in empirical studies as a vague concept to
which relatively superficial attention is given or as an outmoded form of
explanation that must be superseded by factors of greater objectivity and
significance. Other studies ignore it entirely. These tendencies, of course,
are not nearly as pronounced in European sociology, where the linkages
between philosophy, social theory, and sociology remain stronger. In
American sociology, though, the general tendency toward de-emphasiz-
ing culture is well in evidence. Several indications of this tendency are par-
ticularly apparent. For example, the once flourishing subfield known as
culture and personality has largely receded as a legitimate area of concen-
tration. The personality component has shifted increasingly into the disci-
pline of psychology, while the idea of culture, especially national culture,
having a decisive impact on personality has become widely regarded as an
arcane concept. Or to take a different example, the sociology of reli-
gion—one area in which cultural factors are given much attention—
appears to have become increasingly removed from the rest of the disci-
pline. This separation js evident not only in the existence of separate jour-
nals and scholarly organizations but also in an obvious dissimilarity
between the major concepts and theories that guide research. Major con-
tributions in the sociology of religion dealing with dimensions of belief,
sources of conversion, the functioning of rituals and symbols, and modes
of religious organization appear to have had virtually no impact on the
discipline at large. Other examples could also be mentioned, from the
shifting of many of the more cultural aspects of social psychology such as
Cultural Analysis 3
cognition and attitude formation into psychology and away from sociol-
ogy, to the tendency evident in recent years in political sociology to de-em-
phasize the role of political culture.
It is perhaps arguable that political science as a discipline has contin-
ued to display greater interest in cultural phenomena than has the disci-
pline of sociology. It is far more apparent that anthropology has re-
tained culture as a more central concept than has sociology. History as
well, perhaps as a result of the influence of anthropology, has demon-
strated a continuing, if not increasing, interest in culture. Sociology, in
contrast, appears to have moved decisively in other directions. Topics
such as social stratification, social networks, labor markets, ecological
models of organizations, and structural theories of the state have ani-
mated the discipline in recent years far more than issues of ritual and
symbol, belief and ideology, or meaning and moral order.
To some extent, it has perhaps become an accepted tenet of the disci-
pline that the study of culture should be relegated to that of a rather mar-
ginal subspecialty (perhaps called sociology of culture) while the core of
the discipline should be concerned with topics that are more genuinely so
ciological, such as stratification and organizations. Nevertheless, it re-
mains surprising that the study of culture is so little emphasized in Ameri-
can sociology, for in virtually every discipline to which sociology is
related culture is regarded with considerable seriousness. Anthropology,
in which the study of ritual, symbolism, and even cognition and language
continue to have high priority, is again the most obvious example, but the
same is true in other related disciplines as well. Work on organizations
done outside of sociology has paid increasing attention to the importance
of corporate cultures; political science has incorporated a number of new
ideas about language and discourse as dramatizations of power; mean-
while, studies of language and discourse have moved in directions that
make them much more relevant to the social sciences.
It is of course possible to accentuate general tendencies in the disci-
pline to the point of overlooking major exceptions or underestimating
significant countertendencies. The purpose of accentuating these tenden-
cies is neither to disparage the discipline nor to devalue the contribu-
tions that have been made, but simply to permit raising the question of
what may be needed to advance the sociological study of culture. If all
that is acknowledged is that cultural analysis no longer occupies as
prominent a place in sociology as it did in the work of Weber or Durk-
heim, or even of Marx, then the possible reasons for this state of affairs
can be explored.
4 Cultural Analysis
One such possibility is that the changing place of cultural analysis in

sociology is simply a function of the growth and substantive specializa
tion of the field into separate subdisciplines. Thus one can trace a vari-
ety of specialties from the classical theorists—stratification from Marx,
complex organizations from Weber, deviance from Durkheim, and so
forth—of which culture is only one. As the discipline has become more
diverse, proportionately fewer of its members have been interested in
culture, and rightly so. Culture may well continue to draw the attention
of specialists in particular enclaves of the discipline but need not pene-
trate into many other areas of inquiry.
The reason for pointing out this possibility—which by all indications
seems an accurate appraisal of events—is, on the one hand, to sharpen
the issue on which attention needs to be focused and, on the other hand,
to raise a broader question about the study of culture. The sharpening
of focus comes from recognizing that the problem raised by many social
scientists with interests in culture is not why the topic fails to dominate
the field but why relative to other topics it seems to have made frustrat-
ingly little advancement. For example, the editors of a well-known col-
lection of essays on the sociology of religion concluded that, after more
than a half-century of research and thinking, little had been done to ad-
vance significantly beyond the classics (Clock and Hammond, 1973).
That assessment may have been overly pessimistic, but few would likely
have been willing to draw the same conclusion for fields 1such as social
networks, statistical methods, or complex organizations. The broader
question that needs to be raised, however, in view of the increasing dif-
ferentiation of the field, is whether the study of culture can be most effec-
tively advanced by treating it as a subfield or whether a broader focus
should be taken.
Here, clarity is required about a further distinction—that between
specialization on the basis of analytic strategy and specialization on the
basis of distinctive subject matter. As in scholarly inquiry generally, it
appears productive to specialize on the basis of analytic strategy. That
is, culture may be chosen as an aspect of social reality on which to focus
certain analytic perspectives. For example, a definition that will be used
repeatedly in this volume conceives of culture simply as the symbolic-
expressive aspect of social behavior. However, culture does not appear
usefully distinguished as an entirely discrete entity that can be examined
in isolation from other social phenomena. To put the issue more clearly,
culture cannot be identified as a distinct or well-bounded institution to
the same extent that, say, family or religion can be. Rather, it penetrates
Cultural Analysis 5
all aspects of social life and must, for this reason, be isolated strictly for
analytic purposes. This means of course that the study of culture may
reasonably be identified as a subfield of sociology, but it is likely to be
one whose boundaries spill over into a variety of other subfields, a fact
that may in itself be responsible for some of the problems that seem to
hinder the development of this area.
Another possibility that needs to be raised in considering the seem-
ingly neglected place of culture relative to other topics in sociology is
whether or not significant contributions have in fact been made in this
area in recent years. Assessments of this kind are exceedingly difficult to
make, but, based on criteria such as awards and citations, contributions
to the study of culture have by no means been absent. Geertz's The Inter-
pretation of Cultures, Bellah's The Broken Covenant, Erikson's Every-
thing in Its Path, and Paul Starr's The Social Transformation of Ameri-
can Medicine all treat aspects of culture in significant ways and have
been the recipients of major awards. Much-cited books such as Berger
and Luckmann's The Social Construction of Reality or Habermas's
Legitimation Crisis also deal primarily with culture. These examples sug-
gest that whatever frustrations the study of culture may have experi-
enced in the larger discipline cannot be attributed strictly to more numer-
ous or significant contributions in other areas. More likely causes are
two related problems that can only be mentioned in passing at this
point: the problem of institutionalizing major contributions so that they
become less "works of art" than guidebooks for more ordinary sorts of
investigation and the problem of orientations toward the study of cul-
ture that continue to separate it from orientations more prevalent in the
discipline at large. Both of these problems merit closer attention later in
the discussion here.
Related to these issues are also the discipline's quest to be more "scien-
tific" and its dependence on funding agencies. The directions in which so-
ciology has moved in recent years have partly been determined by both
these factors. Funding has been readily available from government agen-
cies for research in such areas as stratification, demography, and labor
markets; it has been less readily available for studies of culture, except on
occasion from private foundations for studies having practical applica-
tions. Related to this problem is the fact that, for historic reasons, culture
has been more closely identified with the branch of sociology that empha-
sizes its humanistic elements rather than its scientific aspirations. Culture
remains, by many indications, vaguely conceptualized, vaguely ap-
proached methodologically, and vaguely associated with value judg-
6 Cultural Analysis
ments and other sorts of observer bias. As a result, it is often tolerated as a

kind of luxury, or perhaps even as a welcome balance of perspective, but
is excluded from the more hard-nosed approaches that run closer to the
centers of power and funding for the discipline.
These are all matters of considerable dispute, both as to their propri-
ety and as to how consequential they may be for the study of culture.
Scholars with different interests and different conceptions of what the
discipline should be necessarily differ over their assessments of the role
that cultural analysis should play. These disputes are not likely to be re-
solved, but making explicit some of the problems that currently face the
study of culture is a necessary starting point for the considerations that
follow. What seems undeniable is that the study of culture has in recent
years, despite notable contributions, been neither a highly valued enter-
prise in the discipline at large nor a field that has been free of internal
problems.
At present, some signs are evident that culture is again coming to be
recognized as a topic worthy of serious sociological attention. An enor-
mous amount of interest has emerged in the work of European theorists
such as Foucault, Habermas, Althusser, Barthes, Lacan, and Luhmann,
all of whom have written extensively on ideology, meaning, discourse,
and other aspects of culture. Although much of this interest has focused
on topics other than culture, the significance of these writers' contribu-
tions to the study of culture has not gone unrecognized. The impact of
the Durkheimian tradition has been significantly extended into new ar-
eas of cultural investigation by studies examining the ritual aspects of or-
ganizations, political events, and deviance, as well as inquiries dealing
with symbols of civic culture and societal integration. Much ferment has
been evident in the sociology of religion, especially in areas that bridge
out of institutional religion and make connections with broader dimen-
sions of culture. A number of participant-observer and depth-interview
studies have probed issues of meaning and personal worldviews, and
some attention has been given to the study of discourse and language.
All of these represent promising developments.
CONCEPTUAL AND THEORETICAL

PROBLEMS
The problems one encounters in investigating culture nevertheless re-

main immense. One of the most fundamental of these problems arises
from the fact that culture continues to have widely different connota-
Cultural Analysis 7
tions. For some, it consists chiefly of beliefs and attitudes; for others, it
represents an objectified ontological system; others take any of a num-
ber of positions in between these extremes. The most apparent result of
this ambiguity is that scholarly debates often fail to connect with one an-
other. Replications fail to replicate; refutations fail to refute; replies fail
to convince; and dismissals typically dismiss too much or too little.
More serious, however, is that different conceptions of culture affect
how culture is dealt with sociologically, particularly the ways in which
investigators go about relating it to social structure. Some define it so
narrowly that only social structure seems to matter; others see it as such
a constitutive element of social structure that little opportunity is left to
investigate systematic relations.
A second set of problems derives from ambiguities surrounding the
objectivity or subjectivity of culture and, correlatively, the degree to
which culture can or should be approached "scientifically." On the one
hand are arguments that stress the essentially interpretive character of
cultural analysis; on the other hand are perspectives that attempt to
place the study of culture on a more solid empirical footing as a research
enterprise. The two positions are by no means entirely incompatible
with each other. Nevertheless, they greatly exacerbate the difficulties
faced in attempting to reach agreement on the nature and purposes of
cultural investigations. Adherents of the interpretive model often wish
to draw a sharp distinction between cultural analysis and other socio-
logical inquiries. In their view, cultural analysis should give the investiga-
tor ample latitude in mixing his or her own values with those of the phe-
nomena observed, should disavow such canons of positivist science as
replicability, and should not worry about contributing generalizable or
cumulative knowledge. At the other extreme, scholars who may sub-
scribe in principle to some of these ideas nevertheless argue that cultural
analysis is all too often impeded by subjectivism, by a failure to employ
rigorous methods of data collection and validation, and by a lack of at-
tention to formalization of theories and concepts. Given these differ-
ences of orientation, substantive inquiries are frequently judged by
widely discrepant standards, and programmatic treatises fail to generate2
agreement about what constitutes legitimate contributions to the field.
A third, closely related problem is that much of the presumably socio-
logical literature on dimensions of culture in fact consists largely of
philosophical debate. Probably more so than in any other subfield in so-
ciology (with the possible exception of theory itself), cultural analysis
tends to be dominated by abstract discussions of the nature of culture,
8 Cultural Analysis
of the sources of knowledge, and of the humanistic purposes to which

cultural knowledge might be put. These debates stem of course from the
ambiguities already mentioned concerning basic definitions and bound-
aries of the field. In a favorable sense these debates constitute serious ef-3
forts to arrive at some resolution of fundamental questions in the field.
More often, though, the literature appears to be dominated by second-
order and third-order disputes over the meaning of original texts—
debates over Marx's concept of ideology, or Gramsci's interpretation of
Marx's concept of ideology, or Althusser's interpretation of Gramsci's
interpretation, and so on. For good reasons, it appears, many sociolo-
gists have learned to steer clear of books and articles about ideology and
related concepts.
Also closely related to the foregoing is a fourth problem, namely, the
question of reductionism. Largely as a function of sociology's historical
evolution from philosophy and other forms of inquiry, the status of ideas,
values, and other cultural concepts remains in doubt. Are they to be re-
garded as realities sui generis, should they be understood as properties of
the individual, or should an effort be made to explain them with reference
to social factors? The ontological status of most other phenomena in soci-
ology has been, in practice although not in principle, resolved to a much
greater extent. It now seems ludicrous, for example, to question the real-
ity of suicide rates or state structures as objects worthy of sociological
investigation. The same certainty has not yet emerged with reference to
culture. As a result, investigators are typically beset with questions con-
cerning the degree of reduction appropriate in dealing with cultural vari-
ables and with criticisms for either explaining away these variables too
readily or attributing too much significance to them.
A fifth set of problems stems from the interrelations present in cultural
studies between methodological styles and theoretical or metatheoretical
assumptions. The use of survey research methods, for example, character-
istically implies different assumptions about the nature of culture than
does the use of participant-observation or archival methods. Nearly all
the methods available to sociologists generally have been employed in cul-
tural inquiries. Few efforts have been made, however, to determine
whether the assumptions implicit in one method are appropriate for dif-
ferent methods or levels of investigation. This shortcoming is particularly
problematic in the case of cultural variables because assumptions are gen
erally made about the psychological or social psychological status of
these variables. Considerable confusion may arise, for instance, in apply-
ing models of cultural change suitable to studies of individual conversion
Cultural Analysis 9
to questions of major cultural change in history. When different methods

are employed, debates over the nature of the methods themselves often
obscure deeper assumptions that need to be examined.
Finally, problems are also evident, as alluded to earlier, in the ten-
dency to encapsulate cultural inquiries in different substantive areas,
such as sociology of religion or sociology of science, rather than includ-
ing efforts to draw generalizations applicable to a number ot different
substantive areas. At present, ideas about culture in the sociology of reli-
gion, for example, are largely separate from those in sociology of sci-
ence or in studies of the state. Whatever cross-fertilization that might
derive from thinking about ritual or symbolism in a more general sense
has been extremely limited. Some progress has been made because of
general perspectival formulations, such as those of Berger and Luck-
mann (1966) or Geertz (1973), but much remains to be done on this
front in order to begin developing empirically grounded ideas about cul-
ture. This task is of course made all the more difficult by the other ambi-
guities that continue to prevail in cultural analysis.
Not only are there disagreements about the scope and purposes of cul-
tural analysis; more general issues about how best to advance scholar-
ship in a particular area are always present as well. Possibly the most
promising prospect for advancement lies in the contribution of seminal
and innovative studies themselves (cf. Mullins, 1973). Such studies not
only add substantively to knowledge but also illustrate methods of
analysis and encourage others who may aspire to make similar contribu-
tions. The problem is that such seminal works are likely to be rare in
any field and may in fact be difficult to emulate. As already noted, cul-
tural analysis has been the focus of a number of such works even in re-
cent years, and yet many of these studies have been less than successful
in inspiring second and third generations of quality research.
Another option for advancing work in a scholarly field is what Mul-
lins (1973) has called a "program statement," that is, a secondary com-
pilation or theoretical synthesis of the field that serves as a text and
guidebook for future research. What program statements sometimes
lack in innovativeness or in empirical content they make up for in clarity
and integration. These treatises, however, require that a considerable de-
gree of consensus has already been achieved in a field. Otherwise they
are likely to represent a single perspective within the field but go only
part way toward reconciling internal differences. Berger and Luck-
mann's The Social Construction of Reality has in some ways served as a
program statement for the study of culture. Its value has been consider-
10 Cultural Analysis
able in terms of identifying central problems and providing an orienting

framework. Its limitations lie in the fact that it is an orientation repre-
senting only one of several possible ways of approaching the study of
culture. A third alternative is to bring together empirical and conceptual
essays that combine substantive and programmatic concerns. The weak-
ness of this strategy is that it generally fails to provide the integration of
a program statement or the luster of a seminal study. Its strength is that
multiple concepts and methods can be explicitly compared. It can serve
usefully in fields that are genuinely divided over basic concepts and
assumptions.
SCOPE OF THE BOOK

The present volume is conceived of as an example of this third ap-
proach. It consists of a series of explorations that address some of the
core issues in cultural analysis: the problem of meaning, the nature of
moral order, the character and role of ritual in dramatizing moral order,
the origins of ideology, its relations to resource environments and moral
order, and the role of the state as a source of ideological production and
institutionalization. These issues are explored in several ways: by look-
ing at how they have been dealt with in the theoretical literature, by
drawing together bits and pieces of inferential evidence, by borrowing
approaches from other fields and attempting to determine how much
mileage can be gotten from them in the area of culture, and by develop-
ing in greater depth several empirical investigations. There is in these
explorations a deliberately self-reflective orientation because their in-
tended purpose is not simply that of probing a set of empirical topics
but also one of considering alternative approaches to the analysis of cul-
ture. There is no attempt here to work these explorations into a single
methodological or theoretical perspective. The strategy is instead one of
intentionally experimenting with several partially overlapping frame-
works in order to assess their strengths, weaknesses, similarities, and dif-
ferences at the end.
The explorations presented in this volume reflect four primary ap-
proaches that, although overlapping, nevertheless seem usefully identi-
fied as distinct alternatives. For brevity's sake they can be given the fol-
lowing labels: subjective, structural, dramaturgic, and institutional.
They are distinguished mainly by the manner in which culture is concep-
tualized, which in turn has an important bearing on the kinds of vari-
ables and relationships selected for analysis. The descriptions of each of
Cultural Analysis 11
these approaches will immediately show that they are not mutually ex-
clusive; indeed, one may argue that they should be regarded as comple-
mentary rather than as competing perspectives. Nevertheless, working
with these approaches also shows that particular writers have tended to
emphasize one approach or another to the exclusion of the others. Bring-
ing the various approaches together as explicit alternatives, therefore,
forces recognition of the similarities and differences.
The subjective approach focuses on beliefs and attitudes, opinions
and values. Culture is conceived of from the standpoint of the individ-
ual. Ideas, moods, motivations, and goals form its components. It is sub-
jective in a dual sense: the fundamental elements of culture are mental
constructions, made up or adopted by individuals; they also represent,
grow out of, express, or point to the individual's subjective states, such
as outlooks or anxieties. The problem of meaning is central in this ap-
proach: culture consists of meanings; it represents the individual's inter-
pretations of reality; and it supplies meaning to the individual in the
sense of an integrative or affirming worldview.
The subjective view of culture runs through a variety of commonly
employed methodological and theoretical perspectives. It is most obvi-
ous of course in social psychological studies dealing with attitude forma-
tion or with the relations among beliefs, cognition, deprivation, alien-
ation, and so on. Culture is typically conceptualized in subjective terms
in survey research studies of public opinion. Studies utilizing participant
observation and depth interviews, although differing markedly in theo-
retical assumptions from many survey research investigations, fre-
quently manifest an equally subjective view of culture. In these contexts
culture consists less of an independent layer of reality than of one that
has been internalized as part of the individual's worldview. Subjective
approaches, however, are often evident in the assumptions underlying
broader historical, comparative, or macrosocial investigations as well.
In these studies culture may be conceived of as a belief system that is me-
diated by individuals' experiences. The mechanism by which social struc-
ture affects culture, therefore, is the experience of the individual and his
or her subjective states.
The subjective approach, as manifested in several different theoreti-
cal traditions, appears to be one of the most commonly employed per-
spectives on culture in sociology, if not in the social sciences generally.
Its assumptions and historical roots are examined in some detail in the
next chapter. The manner in which this view of culture has been derived
in American sociology from the classical theoretical tradition will be
traced, as well as its roots in more recent "neoclassical" theories that

have emphasized hermeneutic and phenomenological interpretations.
Occasion will also arise to discuss it in Chapters 8 and 9 in the context
of considering approaches to the relations between state structures and
ideology. Because of its familiarity in sociology, the subjective approach
provides a natural starting point. For the same reason, however, it also
requires less attention than some of the other approaches that have been
less commonly employed. In the context of examining it in the next
chapter, we will also consider some of its limitations. These will again
be addressed in the concluding chapter in comparing the strengths and
weaknesses of all the approaches.
The structural approach focuses on patterns and relationships among
cultural elements themselves. Its task is conceived of as identifying or-
derly relations and rules—structures—that give culture coherence and
identity. This approach, as the name suggests, is evident primarily in the
work of structuralists and poststructuralists. It is, in this sense, a rela-
tively recent addition to sociology, although strong precedent for it can
be found among the classical theorists. Its emphasis is on the symbolic
boundaries or distinctions evident among cultural elements, the catego-
ries of discourse defined by these boundaries, the mechanisms by which
these boundaries are maintained or modified, and the underlying rules
evident in their construction.
The structural approach differs from the subjective approach in sev-
eral significant respects. Culture is treated as a more objectified entity.
This does not mean that culture is simply "out there," like an object that
can be approached positivistically without any need for interpretation. It
does mean, however, that culture is separated analytically from the inter-
nal, subjective states of the individual believer. Rather than being associ-
ated with the individual, its elements are regarded as relatively autono-
mous entities. For this reason, different terms are generally employed
when discussing culture. Rather than it consisting of attitudes, beliefs,
and values, it is characterized by boundaries, categories, and elements. In
the structural approach, culture is portrayed as an object amenable to ob-
servation. It consists of discourse that can be heard or read or other kinds
of gestures, objects, acts, and events that can be seen, recorded, classified,
and so forth. It does not consist of or ultimately reflect subjective states of
the individual. If information is obtained from individuals, say, in inter-
views, this material is treated as evidence in its own right—as discourse—
instead of being taken as an indicator of deeper feelings or predisposi-
tions. The structural approach is also distinguished by its relative lack of
attention to the relations between culture and other factors, whether indi-
vidual meanings and experiences or broader social conditions. Instead,
culture is examined internally, as it were, to determine the nature of its
own organization.
Some of the theoretical underpinnings of the structural approach are
examined in the next chapter, where "poststructuralist" assumptions (us-
ing the term in a nontechnical sense) will be shown to be evident in the
work of a variety of recent theorists of culture. Rejecting the strict assump-
tions of earlier "structuralist" contributions, these writers have laid
much of the groundwork for an approach to culture that is distinct from
the subjective approach. In Chapter 3 these underpinnings are then ex-
tended by applying them to an analysis of the structure of moral codes.
The concern of this chapter is with the symbolic boundaries that maintain
essential distinctions within moral codes generally and with some of the
problems that may arise from ambiguities in these boundaries. Although
some relationships with social conditions are implied, the primary focus
of this chapter is on culture itself as manifested in the symbolic structure
of moral codes. Some empirical examples are considered in this chapter
as a basis from which to infer generalizations about moral codes. In the
last part of the chapter, an extended example is developed by considering
the moral code underlying commitment to behavior in the marketplace.
The structural approach is also drawn on to a degree in Chapters 5 and 6
in order to suggest contrasts among ideological systems. Here, however,
the structural approach provides only a starting point for broader consid-
erations of the role of resource environments.
The dramaturgic approach focuses on the expressive or communica-
tive properties of culture. Rather than being conceived of as a purely (or
largely) autonomous entity, culture is now approached in interaction
with social structure. Unlike in the subjective approach, culture is said
to interact with social structure not as a feature of individual feelings
and experience but as an expressive dimension of social relations. Ideol-
ogy, for example, is pictured as a set of symbols that articulates how
social relations should be arranged. More generally, culture becomes
identifiable as the symbolic-expressive dimension of social structure. It
communicates information about morally binding obligations and is in
turn influenced by the structure of these obligations.
This approach is like the structural approach in that culture is
defined in a way that makes it more observable than in the subjective ap-
proach. Rather than consisting of subjective beliefs and attitudes, it con-
sists of utterances, acts, objects, and events—all of which are observ-
able, even behavioral in a sense. The relations or patterns among these

elements remain important, as in the structural approach. But these rela-
tions are no longer examined strictly by themselves; they are now exam-
ined in conjunction with ideas about the ordering of social life. Of par-
ticular importance is the idea that social life requires a dimension of
moral order, that is, a set of definitions about what is proper to do and
what is reasonable to expect.
The term "dramaturgic" is used to describe this approach because of
its emphasis on the capacity of rituals, ideologies, and other symbolic
acts to dramatize the nature of social relations. It is in these
4
dramatiza-
tions that definitions of the situation are communicated. In saying that
culture is symbolic-expressive, therefore, this approach tends to focus
less on information that is simply and straightforwardly transmitted
than on messages that may be implicit in the ways in which social life is
arranged, in rituals, and in the choice of words in discourse. Put simply,
what is "given off" may be as important as what is "given."
The dramaturgic approach can be traced historically to Durkheim's
work on primitive ritual. Various interpretations have of course been
imposed on this work. In a sense, the presence of structuralist and
poststructuralist theories has contributed to a revival of interest in the
dramaturgic aspects of Durkheim. Some—Erving Goffman, most nota-
bly—have taken this approach in directions dealing more with social in-
teraction itself, but the relevance of dramaturgy for an understanding of
culture has also come to be recognized. The symbolic-expressive aspects
of ritual in particular have attracted renewed interest among sociolo-
gists, as has the idea of moral order.
Some of the theoretical considerations in the next chapter provide a
background for subsequent explorations that utilize the dramaturgic ap-
proach. In Chapter 4 explicit attention is directed toward the nature and
functioning of ritual. The communicative aspects of ritual are empha-
sized, and an effort is made to demonstrate the "ritual" character of so-
cial arrangements more generally. This chapter, building on the discus-
sion of moral codes in Chapter 3, also considers the relations between
ritual and moral order and presents an empirical case study that illus-
trates some of the central aspects of these relations. The case study pre-
sented draws on surveys of television viewers' reactions to the program
"Holocaust," which is examined as a kind of "morality play" with char-
acteristics similar to those observed by Durkheim in his work on ritual.
Although the relations between ritual and culture have been dealt with
in other ways, the conclusions drawn in Chapter 4 suggest that ritual
may in some ways serve as a prototype of other symbol systems, such as

ideology, that also dramatize features of the moral order. In Chapter 5
this implication is carried through in considering the moral basis of ide-
ology. The importance of moral order is again emphasized, and ideol-
ogy is conceptualized as a set of symbols that communicate something
about moral obligations. These considerations are then extended to sug-
gest some of the ways in which uncertainties in moral order may lead to
a growth of ideological movements. As an example of this process, spe-
cial consideration is given to the growth of millenarian movements.
Some of these ideas are also applied to the discussion of ideological
themes and ideological movements in Chapters 6, 7, and 8. Themes
such as folk piety, fundamentalism, individualism, and rationality are
considered in relation to different kinds of moral order, as are the ori-
gins of revitalization movements, ideological reforms, sects, and other
kinds of movements.
The institutional approach adds further elements beyond those em-
phasized in the dramaturgic approach. Here culture is regarded not only
as a patterned set of elements (as in the structural approach) that ex-
presses something about moral order (as in the dramaturgic approach),
but also as consisting of actors and organizations that require resources
and, in turn, influence the distribution of resources. Although culture in
the dramaturgic approach is, as some writers are fond of asserting, "con-
stitutive" of social life, it is much more so in the institutional approach.
Greater attention is given to the fact that culture is not produced or sus-
tained simply by dramatizing moral obligations; instead, it is produced
by actors who have special competencies and is perpetuated by organiza-
tions that in a sense process resources for the purpose of ritualizing, codi-
fying, and transmitting cultural products. These organizations in turn
are likely to develop relations with the state arid other sources of power
and may also be challenged by movements with access to other pools of
social resources.
The contrasts between the institutional and the other three ap-
proaches can be illustrated by considering the element of culture that we
call science. Were our attention focused primarily on scientific values or
on how individuals' worldviews are influenced by beliefs about science,
our research would probably exemplify the subjective approach. Were
we interested in the patterns of discourse among scientists that maintain
disciplinary boundaries or that deal with anomalous findings, 5
our re-
search would probably exemplify the structural approach. Or, if the
ways in which academies of science dramatize rationality or modernity
as a mode of organizing the moral order were of principal interest, it

would likely fit most clearly the description given for the dramaturgic
approach. In contrast, the institutional approach would conceive of sci-
ence still as culture, but in terms including not only the ideas produced
but also the fact that these ideas are intertwined inextricably with an en-
tire constellation of scientists, scientific organizations, funding sources,
and communication networks involved in producing these ideas.
The discussion in Chapter 5 of the moral basis of ideology serves as a
transition from the dramaturgic to the institutional approach. Starting
with the relations between moral order and ideology, the model devel-
oped there suggests, on the one hand, the importance of social resources
as factors influencing the character of moral order and, on the other
hand, the importance of the tendency for ideological movements to be-
come institutionalized. Chapters 6 and 7 utilize this framework but fo-
cus chiefly on the first of these two effects. Chapters 8 and 9 then draw
attention explicitly to the production of ideological institutions, in the
first case by examining the early development of science and in the sec-
ond case by examining the processes by which Protestantism became in-
stitutionalized. In both cases the institutional approach is contrasted
with previous explanations that have relied heavily on the subjectivist
approach, and in both cases the role of the state is emphasized.
As indicated by this brief overview, the four approaches—particu-
larly the last three—are explicated in the chapters that follow not as ab-
stract frameworks but by employing them in conceptual and empirical
analyses. In the concluding chapter the results of these explorations will
be assessed. Points of similarity, difference, overlap, and complementar-
ity will be suggested. Some of the conceptual weaknesses that by then
will have become evident will be discussed, and the advantages of the dif-
ferent approaches will be summarized.
A cautionary word about the general epistemological stance from
which the following explorations are presented also needs to be added. In
much of what follows, emphasis will be given to the problem of rendering
culture amenable to empirical investigation. Theories that conceptualize
culture in radically subjectivist terms will be criticized, and other perspec-
tives will be explored because of their intent on conceiving of culture as
observable behavior. Attention will also be devoted to questions of
method, to the marshaling of systematic evidence, and to canons of disclo-
sure and replicability. None of this, however, means that sociologists are
being called to return to a naive form of empirical positivism in the study
of culture. Nothing could be further from the intent of this volume.
Throughout, the epistemological stance taken in this volume is that

of interpretive sociology. The very business of sociology is assumed to
be one of interpretation, not one of discovering objective facts from
some Procrustean bed of empirical reality or of adducing lawful general-
izations about the causal ordering of these facts. The hermeneutic circle,
and all that it implies about the limitations of positivistic knowledge, is
taken for granted. Cultural analysis, like any other branch of sociologi-
cal inquiry, not only should be but inevitably is, whether we like it or
not, essentially an act of interpretation. Whether the subject of investiga-
tion is "culture," the "state," the "means of production," or anything
else, that object is itself a cultural construction, subject to the meanings
we give it and interpretable in different ways. It could not be otherwise.
The goal of the present volume, therefore, is not to challenge the inter-
pretive perspective but to enhance it. To say that culture must be ap-
proached interpretively certainly should not preclude a call to conceive
of it in ways that render it more observable or to ask that investigators
be more candid in disclosing their methods and assumptions. Cultural
analysis remains a matter of interpretation whether we conceive of cul-
ture as subjective beliefs or as symbolic acts. But there may be strategic
advantages to thinking of it in one way rather than another. As a com-
munity of scholars, our goal must always be to promote discourse about
our interpretations, not to advance them simply as authoritative pro-
nouncements. Too often, however, interpretive sociology has served as
a masquerade for shoddy research and pious opinions. If cultural analy-
sis is to advance not as a departure but as a fulfillment of interpretive so-
ciology at its best, greater attention must be paid to how concepts are
conceptualized, operationalized, examined empirically, and interpreted
Advancing this process is the aim of the present discussion.
CHAPTER TWO
Beyond the Problem

of Meaning
Like any other academic discipline, sociology has its own distinctive tra-
ditions. Members of the discipline share certain experiences that come
from having read the same books and discussed the same ideas. Every-
one knows something about Max Weber or Talcott Parsons and has
heard of Street Corner Society and path analysis. It is not that these tra-
ditions are necessarily important in any cosmic sense, only that they are
part of the shared subculture of the discipline. In a field divided into nu-
merous subspecialties, as sociology currently is, these common experi-
ences may be relatively few. They may consist only of having read some
of the more influential works of the discipline's founders, of having
been exposed to some of its more influential theorists, and of having
learned to differentiate among the discipline's major methodological ap-
proaches. Nevertheless, even these relatively few common experiences
provide the basis of a shared vocabulary. It is this vocabulary that is ritu-
ally reenacted each year at the discipline's annual convention. This is
also the vocabulary that is used to classify different kinds of work—to
pigeonhole people as "symbolic interactionists" or as "population ecolo-
gists"—and to legitimate what one chooses to investigate as well as the
approach one chooses to follow.
To an even greater extent than in the discipline at large, shared vocabu-
laries provide an essential backdrop to the work that goes on in any spe-
cific subarea of the discipline. Understandings of classical figures, of ma-
jor theoretical terms, and of methodological styles serve as guideposts for
many of the discussions, including those characterized by intense dis-
18
Beyond the Problem of Meaning 19
agreement, that preoccupy scholars who share these traditions. Often

these guideposts remain implicit simply because they are readily taken for
granted as acceptable elements of discourse.
Among sociologists who share an interest in culture, a general famili-
arity can probably be assumed with regard to the works of such classical
figures as Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, and Karl Marx. The work of a
few contemporary theorists—Peter Berger, for example—may also have
achieved a kind of totemic significance for debates in the field. In addi-
tion, work is likely to be guided by and evaluated in relation to certain
understandings of the main methods of data collection currently avail-
able (participant observation, survey research, etc.). Consensus on the
exact significance of these theoretical and methodological orientations
may be relatively low, but their very existence gives a field some estab-
lished landmarks with which to orient itself.
At the present juncture, sociological work on culture appears to be
not only divided over the significance of many of its more familiar land-
marks but also frequently uncertain, in a genuine sense, of the position
of these landmarks in relation to one another. It is therefore difficult to
gain very much simply by referring to a piece of work as an example of,
say, "Durkheimian sociology" or "structuralism." Furthermore, it is
probably too much to expect that even general characterizations of the
orientations of, say, Weber or Marx are likely to evoke much agree-
ment. Theoretical traditions have apparently become the focus of eso-
teric disputes or, at worst, arcane one-upmanship, rather than providing
a starting point for serious work.
Unless this diagnosis of the current situation is overly cynical, it may
be more profitable simply to ignore the available landmarks of the field
either by inventing new ones or by launching headfirst into empirical in-
quiries. Indeed, both of these strategies can be seen in prominent contri-
butions to the field. Nevertheless, there does seem to be some merit in
taking stock, at least in passing, of the received wisdom before attempt-
ing to push forward. Several distinct orientations appear evident in the
study of culture at the present time. Outlining the differences among
these orientations should at least clarify some of the present disputes in
the field—and perhaps illuminate the assumptions underlying these dis-
putes. Beyond this, the field also appears to have been moving away
from some of these orientations and toward others. It may be naive to
think that various investigators will agree on any simple depiction of
these differences or of current problem shifts. But such an attempt will
help establish some common landmarks within the terrain of the present
20 Beyond the Problem of Meaning
volume for the more focused forays that are to follow in subsequent
chapters.
In the previous chapter it was suggested that present work on culture
in sociology could be classified into four general approaches: subjective,
structural, dramaturgic, and institutional. That mode of classification,
however, refers to present work, not to the historical development of
the field. Indeed, it was suggested that the last three of these approaches
are relatively recent, at least as clearly identifiable approaches, and that
much of the discussion in later chapters would be concerned with expli-
cating these approaches and examining their strengths and weaknesses.
For tracing the historical development of the field, therefore, we must
temporarily adopt a different scheme, one that identifies three main
theoretical traditions. The three traditions are distinct in historical
prominence, but each has contributed to the present state of cultural
analysis. The first two of these traditions, it will be argued, have contrib-
uted mainly to the development of the subjective approach to culture,
the third, most clearly to the structural approach and in turn to the
dramaturgic and institutional approaches.
The first tradition is best illustrated by writers such as Marx, Weber,
and Durkheim, who wrote during the latter half of the nineteenth cen-
tury and early decades of the twentieth century and who established the
initial framework that was to guide the development of sociological
work on the topic of culture. This orientation might be termed "classi-
cal." Second is a body of literature, perhaps appropriately termed "neo-
classical," that borrowed heavily from the classical writers but also re-
jected some of their assumptions, drew in ideas from other traditions,
and significantly redirected the approach taken to culture. Writers exem-
plifying this tradition include Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, Clif-
ford Geertz, and Robert Bellah. Finally, there is a body of work that has
developed mainly in Europe and has only in the past decade or so be-
come of interest to American scholars. Drawing more heavily on struc-
turalism than most of the work indigenous to the American context, this
literature has abandoned most of the more extreme assumptions of
structuralism but has managed to retain some of the structuralists' em-
phasis on the internal patterning or structure of culture. Writers such as
Mary Douglas, Michel Foucault, and Jiirgen Habermas exemplify this
approach. For want of 1 a better term, it will be called the "post-
structuralist" tradition.
This way of dividing up the main orientations in the field obviously
runs counter to more familiar ways of thinking. It has been more com-
mon, for example, to think of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim as each rep-
resenting three quite distinct traditions and then to trace more recent
work to one or another of these lineages. That perspective is particularly
useful for comparing the founding fathers' specific arguments and for
highlighting the continuities that characterize work in the discipline.
This, of course, is what most overviews of the theoretical literature in so-
ciology have attempted to do. But the very strengths of this approach
also turn out to have implicit limitations. In particular, they obscure the
common assumptions shared even by writers as different as Marx, We-
ber, and Durkheim, and they underestimate the extent to which the disci-
pline has moved beyond these earlier assumptions.
The distinctions drawn here are clearly intended to emphasize the
temporal development of major theoretical orientations toward culture.
There is, indeed, a generational aspect that partially underlies these dis-
tinctions. The classical writers constitute a distinct generation, the work
of which falls roughly into the same time period (at least if Engels is in-
cluded with Marx). The main figures representing the neoclassical ap-
proach are at some remove historically from the classical tradition, but
they to an even greater degree fall approximately into the same birth co-
hort and represent contributors whose work came to full fruition during
the late 1960s and early 1970s. More generally, the neoclassical ap-
proach as an intellectual orientation appears to have been contingent on
developments in American sociology immediately following World War
II that saw the classical theorists becoming reinterpreted in the Ameri-
can context and that also witnessed an American assimilation of such
figures in philosophy as Heidegger, Sartre, Cassirer, and Tillich. Finally,
the poststructuralists are distinguished not so much in generational con-
trast with the neoclassical writers, because the leading figures of both
fall into nearly the same birth cohorts, but more in terms of the genera-
tion of American sociologists who came to be influenced by these writ-
ers. Because the main intellectual antecedents of this orientation were
European, little influence is evident in American work on culture until
the early 1970s, and much of this influence has taken root only in the
1980s. As a broader intellectual tradition, the poststructuralist ap-
proach also apparently did not become fully developed until some of the
basic assumptions of the structuralists themselves had come under at-
tack, a development that did not happen on a large scale until the late
1960s and 1970s.
To characterize these orientations as three distinct traditions, each
with its own representative set of writers, is, of course, an oversimplifica-
tion in the sense that any specific writer will be found to borrow assump-
tions from, or presage, some of the other orientations. Habermas, for ex-
ample, draws heavily from Weber and shares some assumptions with
Berger and Luckmann. Bellah shows common concerns with Habermas
and with Mary Douglas. Durkheim and Weber, by some interpreta-
tions, represent earlier manifestations of some of the perspectives em-
phasized in poststructuralism. In the discussion of these writers that fol-
lows, an effort will be made to point out some of these areas of overlap.
At the same time, it will be argued that quite distinct sets of assumptions
can be identified in the broader intellectual traditions that have shaped
work in the sociology of culture.
The main reason for delineating the three orientations in this manner
is to highlight the changing conceptions of what has, by many indica-
tions, been the central problem in studies of culture: the problem of
meaning. .An effort will be made to show how this problem became
prominent in the classical tradition, how it took on even greater impor-
tance in the neoclassical approach, and how it has now been reformu-
lated in the poststructuralist orientation. In the process of examining
these shifts, opportunity will be taken to indicate some of the ways in
which the study of culture may have been hindered by its concern with
the problem of meaning. The recent attempt in poststructuralism to re-
formulate cultural analysis in a way that goes beyond the problem of
meaning, therefore, suggests certain possibilities for future work that
need to be explicated.
There are many Webers and many Durkheims, just as there are many
different ways of understanding the more recent theorists. What follows
is an attempt neither to summarize in the full complexity of detail any of
these writers' ideas about culture nor to suggest new interpretations of
what the writers themselves "really meant." Either of these tasks would
require an extended treatment that would go far beyond the intended
scope of the present discussion. The remarks that follow are instead con-
ceived of as an attempt to draw out some of the assumptions in each ap-
proach that, for whatever reasons, appear to have penetrated broader
discussions of culture in sociology. That is, the assumptions to which at-
tention will be given do not in every case reflect what the writer explic-
itly emphasized, in most cases represent only a simplification of the writ-
er's more complex approach, and in some cases even contradict caveats
found in the writer's own work; but they are present to a sufficient de-
gree that subsequent work has been guided by them. To further under-
score this point, what follows is intended primarily as an explication of
the assumptions in each of these traditions, specifically about culture,

that have, for whatever reasons, been emphasized in American sociol-
ogy, not an attempt to 2summarize what each theorist may have actually
thought about culture.
It is difficult, of course, to establish with any certainty how much sub-
sequent work has been guided by different assumptions. To present a
thorough critique of the recent literature on these grounds would again
take the present discussion far afield of its intended goal. All that will be
claimed is that the assumptions identified in each of the three main ap-
proaches to culture bear on sufficiently important questions, and pro-
vide sufficiently distinct answers to these questions, that they represent
genuine choices confronting investigators attempting to advance the
analysis of culture.
CLASSICAL APPROACHES
One of the assumptions that most influences the classical tradition's
perspective on culture is a tendency to regard the human condition in
terms of a basic split between subject and object. This tendency is in a
sense a reflection of the Cartesian dualism that penetrated the thinking
of all the classical writers and provided the distinctive epistemological
outlook on which their work was based. At the heart of this dualistic
conception of reality was the idea of a gulf between the self, as subject,
and the external world, as object. The self, acting chiefly in the Carte-
sian view as a thinking entity, was aware of itself and of the surrounding
environment but felt cut off from this environment. In other words, a
fundamental division in the nature of reality was identified that was
thought to correspond basically with the way in which people experi-
enced their worlds. According to this view, the fundamental character-
istic of the human condition was alienation—the knowing subject's
awareness of being cut off from the object world. Though framed in dif-
ferent ways, the concern for the subject's sense of alienation from the ob-
jective world runs through the work of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim.
MANIFESTATIONS OF D U A L I S M
For Marx, alienation is the philosophical or psychological counter-

part of capitalism. It plays an especially prominent role in his earlier
work and in this sense may be seen as one of the reasons for his interest
in capitalism. That is, the analysis of capitalism was in some ways de-
rived 3from Marx's early concern with identifying the causes of alien-
ation. But of what does alienation consist? It consists essentially of the
condition in which humans feel their own powers to be entities outside
of themselves, exerting influence as self-subsistent forces over human ac-
tion. This conception is most vivid in Marx's discussion of what he calls
"alienation of labor." "In what," he asks, "does this alienation of labor
consist?"
First, that the work is external to the worker, that it is not a part of his na-
ture, that consequently he does not fulfill himself in his work but denies him-
self, has a feeling of misery, not of well-being, does not develop freely a physi-
cal and mental energy, but is physically exhausted and mentally debased.
The worker therefore feels himself at home only during his leisure, whereas
at work he feels homeless. His work is not voluntary but imposed, forced la-
bour. It is not the satisfaction of a need, but only a means for satisfying other
needs. (Bottomore, 1964:169)
The Cartesian split between subject and object is, of course, clearly evi-
dent in this passage. The subject reflects on its well-being but finds itself
confronting the world of labor not as a seamless extension of itself, but
as an external object from which it feels estranged.
Alienation of subject from object is also a prominent theme in
Marx's discussion of labor-product relations. He writes:
The alienation of the worker in his product means not only that his labour be-
comes an object, takes on its own existence, but that it exists outside him, in-
dependently, and alien to him, and that it stands opposed to him as an au-
tonomous power. The life which he has given to the object sets itself against
him as an alien and hostile force. (Bottomore, 1964:170)
Similarly, worker-worker relations are characterized by the same split

between subject and object. Competition in the marketplace forces
each worker to treat others as objects, as means to an end, rather than
being able to recognize the essential oneness that should be present
among humanity.
In Weber, the forces shaping society are ultimately conceived of in
terms quite different from Marx's. Yet there is again evidence of the Carte-
sian dualism between subject and object. Like Marx, Weber's interest in
capitalism arises from a deep ambivalence about its effects on modern
life. On the one hand, he credits capitalism with having disenchanted the
world of beliefs in superstition and magic, with having led to greater mas-
tery over the environment, and with contributing to material comfort and
affluence. On the other hand, he fears that something fundamental has
been lost in the process. In larger terms, this process was rationalization.
It was the increasing tendency in modern societies, of which capitalism
was but a single (if powerful) manifestation, toward planning, toward
more effective calculation of means and ends, and toward greater system-
atization and standardization of means. Although these were the tenden-
cies leading toward greater control over the physical environment, they
were also the sources of a potential loss of meaning.
The counterpart to Marx's discussion of alienation is Weber's con-
cern with the problem of meaning-—or, more accurately, the problem of
meaninglessness. As rationalization increased, life was gradually being
stripped of meaning. This was the problem that Weber identified to-
ward the end of his treatise on the Protestant ethic as an "iron cage."
The process of rationalization that had been decisively set in motion by
the rise of Protestantism was nevertheless leading increasingly to a
world from which the individual felt estranged.
The Puritan wanted to work in a calling; we are forced to do so. For when as-
ceticism was carried out of monastic cells into everyday life, and began to
dominate worldly morality, it did its part in building the tremendous cosmos
of the modern economic order. This order is now bound to the technical and
economic conditions of machine production which to-day determine the
lives of all the individuals who are born into this mechanism, not only those
directly concerned with economic acquisition, with irresistible force. Perhap
it will so determine them until the last ton of fossilized coal is burnt. In
Baxter's view the care for external goods should only lie on the shoulders of
the "saint like a light cloak, which can be thrown aside at any moment." But
fate decreed that the cloak should become an iron cage. (Weber, 1958:181)
The essential feature of the iron cage was that reality no longer faced
the individual as a product of choice or as an extension of the individ-
ual, but instead as an external force, a constraint limiting one's freedom.
Rather than living in relation to ultimate values that provided meaning,
even in the face of death, the individual4 was caught within a mechanical
system of rationally calculated means. Just as Marx had decried the tri-
umph of a "spiritless" and "heartless" world, Weber lamented the kind
of existence toward which rationalization was leading: "For of the last
stage of this cultural development," he wrote, "it might truly be said:
'Specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart; this nullity imag-
ines that it has attained a k:ve! of civilization never before achieved' "
(Weber, 1958:182).
In a fundamental sense, Durkheim was also driven by the perception
of a widening gulf between subjective experience and the objective
world. Certainly his work on suicide can be interpreted as an effort to

understand the processes by which individuals become cut off from the
normative order that shields them from anomie (Durkheim, 1951). But
in a deeper sense it is in Durkheim's extended quest to understand the
bases of moral community that his awareness of the split between sub-
ject and object becomes most apparent. Indeed, it was the search for a
workable balance between the free expression of individual needs, on
the one hand, and social forces governing the individual, on the other
hand, that animated much of Durkheim's work.
As several observers have recognized (e.g., Bellah, 1973; Marks,
1974), there is a progression in Durkheim's work toward ever more
complex methods of understanding and reconciling the needs of the indi-
vidual with the necessary constraints of society. In his work on division
of labor, Durkheim (1933) imagined self-interest itself as a sufficient ba-
sis of moral cohesion. Yet the very triumph of specialization in modern
societies led to such a decline of mutual interests that estrangement from
the community was an inevitable result. In dealing with professionaliza-
tion, education, and the state, Durkheim (1956, 1958, 1961, 1962)
came increasingly to recognize the need, on the other side, of mecha-
nisms capable of restraining arbitrary social control over the individual
and of providing the individual with representative groups from which
he was not estranged. Finally, in his study of primitive religion, he came
to an even greater awareness of the interplay between subjective con-
sciousness, perceptions of external constraint, and the balancing of
these in rituals and collective representations (Durkheim, 1965).
With some form of alienation or estrangement being identified as the
fundamental problem facing human existence, the highest calling of
scholarship in the classical tradition became that of finding ways to re-
unite subject and object. Indeed, the humanistic endeavor giving scholar-
ship during this period much of its motivating force was the task of re-
claiming the object world for the knowing self. In this manner, the two
could not only be reconciled, but the self could be reinstated to its natu-
ral position of mastery over the world of objects. To this end, the central
purpose of humanistic scholarship became that of demystification,
which was to be accomplished through what Ricoeur (1973) has aptly
termed a "hermeneutics of suspicion." Demystification of the object
world and of the forces in it impelling fear and estrangement in the
knowing self was to be accomplished by adopting a skeptical attitude
concerning the "objectivity" or reality of the object world. By question-
ing its nature, the world of objects was to be unmasked and shown to be
no longer an immutable fact of the external nonhuman world but rather

a product of human creation. Once the world of objects was thus un-
masked, it could be re-created, controlled, and appropriated by the self
for its own uses. In this way subject and object were to be reunited, and
alienation was to be overthrown.
Although many of the nuances of these arguments can be passed over
for present purposes, the common philosophical outlook on which the
sociological study of culture came into being registered considerable
agreement on essential points: that all of reality was fundamentally di-
vided into two categories consisting of subject and object, that human-
ity was broken by this division, and that this brokenness could be healed
by the strategic application of skeptical scholarly knowledge. The
source and function of knowledge—the epistemological agenda of the
Cartesian perspective—lay in recognizing that the self was the origina-
tor of knowledge, that the world of objects existed ultimately through
and only through the subject's knowledge of this world, and that the self
gained mastery over the world and thereby conquered self-estrangement
primarily by extending its knowledge of the world.
EPISTEMOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS
The implications of thest: assumptions for sociological investigations

of culture can be seen in the ways in which religion—the dimension of
culture to which all of the founding fathers paid attention—was concep-
tualized. Religion tended to be conceptualized as a set of subjective be-
liefs or outlooks associated with the individual. Its content consisted
mainly of beliefs about external objects or forces that were felt to exer-
cise constraint over the individual. These forces were worshiped instead
of being recognized as mere projections over which the individual could
regain mastery. So conceptualized, religion served as a prime example to
the Cartesian mind of the individual's tendency to reify, and therefore to
feel estranged from, the external world.
In Marx's work religion is conceived of as one of man's "alienated
life elements." That is, it grows out of the subject-object split and is an
attempt by the subject to heal this split. The individual's estrangement
from his labor, products, and fellows is the source of religious senti-
ments. "Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real dis-
tress and the protest against real distress" (Marx and Engels, 1964:42).
Recognizing the fundamental depth of the subject's estrangement, Marx
at times speaks almost tenderly of religion: "Religion is the sigh of the
oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit

of a spiritless situation" (Marx and Engels, 1964: 42). Yet Marx's per-
ception of religion, as ideology, is clearly contingent on his diagnosis of
the nature of this estrangement. Religious beliefs are beliefs that falsely
objectify the social forces that are the root cause of estrangement. They
not only arise from, but also sustain, the subject's estrangement from
the world of objects. Religion consists essentially of the "fantastic reflec-
tion in men's minds of those external forces which control their daily
life, a reflection in which the terrestrial forces assume the form of super-
natural forces" (Marx and Engels, 1964:147).
Following the humanistic agenda of emancipation in classical theory,
the implication of Marx's discussion is that religious beliefs, as false con-
sciousness, need to be subjected to criticism in order to overcome the
subject's alienation from the objectified world. But an epistemological
agenda for the sociology of culture is also implicit in Marx's statement.
Two features of this agenda are particularly important. First, culture is
associated with the subject and thus becomes subjective—located, as he
says, "in men's minds." Second, it nevertheless reflects social influences;
indeed, it symbolizes the external social forces that the individual experi-
ences as constraints.
Weber's work on religion, although crediting it with a more active
role in shaping events than Marx, also evokes similar assumptions
about the characteristics of culture. In his work on the Protestant ethic,
Weber runs through a familiar litany of factors that have contributed to
the rise of capitalism: separation of business from households, wage la-
bor systems, rational bookkeeping methods, technological innovations,
property and contract laws, stable governing systems. What he finds
lacking in these is a motivational factor, that is, a set of beliefs capable
of giving meaning to the acquisitive pursuit of capital. This he finds, of
course, in Protestantism. From the outset, therefore, religion is asso-
ciated with the individual, functioning as a motivational element, as
opposed to the conditions of social structure, such as states and wage
systems, that supply the more objective resources for capitalist develop-
ment. This perspective is epitomized in Weber's depiction of Protestant-
ism as an "ethic."
As in Marx, Weber's characterization of the content of religion also
reflects the influence of subject-object dualism. Beliefs again tend to be
pictured as the subject's perceptions of forces in the external world. This
influence is partly evident in the Protestant ethic thesis (e.g., Weber's em-
phasis on perceptions of predestination as a controlling force), but be-

comes more apparent in his work on comparative religion (Weber,
1963). Generally speaking, theodicies—explanations of evil—play a
prominent role in Weber's comparisons of world religions. In some re-
spects these are simply beliefs about those events and experiences that
fail to have intrinsic meaning. Yet in substantive terms they turn out to
represent conceptions of external forces impinging on the subject: laws
of karma, diabolical spirits, divine predestination, stellar constellations,
cycles of rebirth, and so forth. These conceptions of governing forces
then give rise to alternative beliefs about what one must do to be saved
from them (soteriologies), and these in turn imply certain attitudes
about how one should behave.
Durkheim's work on religion is similarly preoccupied with 5
the sub-
ject's subjective perceptions of external, constraining forces. This pre-
occupation is evident in the two main facets of his analysis of primitive
religion: the functions of ritual and the nature of religious beliefs. In
his discussion of religious rituals, Durkheim stresses the changes in con-
sciousness that overtake the individual participant. These changes are,
of course, linked to broader considerations of the qualities of group
life, particularly moral community, but the nature of ritual's functions
for group life cannot be understood apart from its effects on the indi-
vidual. These deal primarily with the individual's confrontation with
the forces of society that actually govern him but that may be experi-
enced chiefly as a confrontation with the gods. In a familiar passage
Durkheim writes (1973:189):
The believer who has communicated with his god is not merely a man who
sees new truths of which the unbeliever is ignorant; he is a man who is
stronger. He feels within him more force, either to endure the trials of exis-
tence, or to conquer them. It is as though he were raised above the miseries of
the world, because he is raised above his condition as a mere man; he be-
lieves that he is saved from evil, under whatever form he may conceive this
evil.
In other words, the believer who participates in ritual is able to confront

the forces that he believes constrain him and, in the- process, gains
strength himself. No longer are these forces from which he feels cut off;
instead, they become, once again, internal to himself. In this sense, ritual
becomes a way of healing the split between subject and object.
In his discussion of religious belief, Durkheim builds on a similar set
of premises. Religious beliefs represent the individual's attempt to ren-
der intelligible the forces he experiences as constraints on his activity

both in social life generally and in ritual particularly. The substance of
these beliefs focuses on divine personifications of these forces: "a god is
not merely an authority upon whom we depend; it is a force upon
whom our strength relies" (1973:172). The subjective attitude attached
to religious beliefs is one of respect, or devotion, that also arises from
the force or authority that appears to reside among the gods. As Durk-
heim (1973:170) explains:
When we obey somebody because of the moral authority which we recognize
in him, we follow out his opinions, not because they seem wise, but because a
certain sort of physical energy is immanent in the idea that we form of this
person, which conquers our will and inclines it in the indicated direction. Re-
spect is the emotion which we experience when we feel this interior and
wholly spiritual pressure operating upon us.
Finally, Durkheim is at pains in these passages to demonstrate that the

believer in a way transcends the estrangement of subject from object be-
cause the forces "out there" become forces "in here." Both at the level
of religious belief and at the level of intuitive beliefs about society, the in-
dividual internalizes the sense of power that resides in the object world
so that subjectively he too becomes empowered:
The collective force is not entirely outside of us; it does not act upon us
wholly from without; but rather, since society cannot exist except in and
through individual consciousness, this force must also penetrate us and orga-
nize itself within us; it thus becomes an integral part of our being and by that
very fact is elevated and magnified. (Durkheim, 1973:172)
The ways in which Durkheim, Marx, and Weber conceptualize the re-
lations between the individual and society, of course,
6
raise issues that go
well beyond the focus of the present discussion. For present purposes,
the important observation to be made has to do with the highly subjec-
tive terms in which beliefs are portrayed. In each of the classical theo-
rists, an implicit assumption about the division between subject and ob-
ject sets the stage for conceptualizing the nature of religion particularly.
The subject feels estranged from and constrained by forces external to
himself. These are, for various reasons, not regarded as objects that the
individual has simply created or ones over which he can exercise con-
trol, but rather as gods or other supernatural forces that must be feared,
believed in, or in some way taken account of. The essence of religion,
therefore, is a set of beliefs about these forces that the individual holds
in an effort to bridge the gap between them and himself.
SOCIOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE
The main research agenda that emerged from this conception of reli-
gion was one that might best be described as a radical sociology of
knowledge approach. The aim of this approach was to demonstrate
through empirical investigation of the social world that the forces be-
lieved in as divine entities were merely reflections of social experience.
By stripping these beliefs of their reified, supernaturalistic quality, hu-
man beings could once again gain control over the forces from which
they felt estranged. The way to accomplish this emancipation was by
showing that the forces experienced were really elements of the social
world and, as such, were only human creations.
Various writers, of course, diagnosed the true nature of these forces in
different ways. For Marx, the forces believed to be supernatural were a
form of "false consciousness" because they were really the products of
capitalism, specifically, of the conflict between classes, the appropriation
of surplus value from labor, and the competition among workers engen-
dered by capitalism. Durkheim shared the view that when people wor-
shiped the gods, they were really worshiping society because society was
the source of external constraint that individuals experienced.7 Yet in his
view a certain degree of inevitability seemed to be built into these experi-
ences, for individuals were always constrained to sacrifice some of their
own autonomy for the sake of collective harmony. At best, therefore, the
arbitrary nature of social constraint could be curbed, society could come
to resemble a "moral" community, and the individual could come to
grips with society's power by internalizing it ritually and symbolically.
Weber credited religious beliefs with a high degree of independent influ-
ence in social affairs but also saw in the process of rationalization, which
was in turn linked to industrialization and bureaucratization, an inevita-
ble tendency toward social constraint that even rational religion could
not fully supply with meaning. Only the possibility of a charismatic
"breakthrough" held forth hope for a reinvigoration of social life with in-
trinsic meaning.
In varying degrees, the classical approaches manifest an epistemologi-
cal thread that is reductionistic as far as the sources of knowledge are
concerned. Understanding religious phenomena, in particular, is related
to the capacity to discover their "sources" in various aspects of eco-
nomic, social, and political life—or in other writers, in biological pro-
cesses or psychological projections (cf. Bellah, 1970:246—257). Other
types of culture also tend to be understood in the same manner. Ideol-
ogy in Marx's view, for example, arises as legitimation for class domina-
tion; even the basis of scientific knowledge needs to be sought in experi-
ences of the social and physical world (Cornforth, 1955). This search in
the classical tradition for the social correlates of culture was made possi-
ble in the first place by the fact that reality had been divided into two
components—the subjective and the objective. Only this division made
it possible to argue that the two should again bear some empirical rela-
tion to each other!
Without attempting to trace its historical development, one can at
least suggest that some of the initial attraction of the radical sociology
of knowledge approach to culture lay in the fact that it seemed, para-
doxically perhaps, to meet the humanistic agenda of reclaiming the ob-
ject world for the subject, while also providing a firm scientific basis for
the investigation of knowledge, attitudes, and belief. On the one hand,
being able to demonstrate that beliefs about the gods were really beliefs
about society was a way of stripping the individual of false conscious-
ness, of overthrowing the tendency to reify external objects, and of re-
vealing the true nature of these objects as human constructions that
could, if desired, be transformed. On the other hand, a basis for scien-
tific investigation was provided because at last the murky realm of sub-
jective ideas could be related to something more substantial, more ob-
servable. The sources of ideas could be traced to objective features of
the social and physical world.
But this fortuitous union of humanism and science failed to achieve
its desired objective. In the name of humanism, as Marx saw most
clearly, science found it necessary to invert the original subject-object re-
lationship, focusing increasingly on the subjective elements of culture
(i.e., belief), while attempting to explain these elements in terms of the
more objective facts of the social world. Though rooted in the initial hu-
manistic conception of dualistic reality, the radical sociology of knowl-
edge tradition evolved in a direction that ran counter to both the philo-
sophical and epistemological agendas that had inspired it. It ran counter
to the philosophical agenda in practice because it became necessary to
identify culture as a subjective phenomenon, which it then proceeded to
alienate from the human actor by attributing beliefs to the object world
from which the actor was already cut off. Rather than reconcile the ob-
ject world to the subject, it tended to demonstrate that even the subject's
beliefs about the world were not truly his but were merely the product
of social forces over which he had no control.
This approach also departed from the original epistemological
agenda that had inspired it. To understand this deviation, it is necessary

to assert (largely without proof) that the strategy that has seemed most
to capture the fascination of scientific investigators has been that of ex-
plaining the known in terms of the unknown (ct. Kuhn, 1970). Put in a
way that may seem less counterintuitive, science has attempted to ad-
vance by relating facts (the "known") to underlying processes that had
previously been unknown. Having done that, scientists have also pro-
ceeded to make "discoveries" of the unknown by extending theories of
what is known into new empirical areas. But a qualitative difference ex
ists between the two types of investigation. Discovering an unknown
process that explains known facts is, to borrow Kuhn's familiar terms,
"revolutionary science"; extending a known perspective to the study of
new facts is essentially the business of "normal science." The radical so-
ciology of knowledge approach subverted the higher order epistemologi-
cal goal of explaining the (apparently) known—namely, the functioning
of ideas—in terms of the (previously) unknown—the wishes and needs
of the knowing subject. It replaced this higher order aim with what has
always been the more rudimentary and less satisfying strategy of normal
science—namely, explaining the unknown in terms of the known (here,
belief in terms of observable social variables).
The chief difficulty in sustaining this inversion, apart from the inher-
ent tensions that evolved in relation to its humanistic origins, was that
the radical sociology of knowledge approach could be regarded as scien-
tifically satisfactory only as long as the humanly constructed, and there-
fore further reducible, character of the objective life world to which
ideas were to be reduced was denied. There was, therefore, an inevitable
tendency within the classical tradition toward (1) reification of the ob-
ject world—a tendency that became fully pronounced with the triumph
of empirical positivism; (2) exaggeration of the distinction between cul-
ture, which was presumed to be subjective, and social structure, which
was presumed to be objective; and (3) an increasing bias in research on
culture toward focusing on its purely subjective dimensions, making it
possible for culture to be conceived of in ways that seemed explicable in
relation to social structure, instead of focusing on ritualistic, behavioral,
and institutional elements of culture that could not be as easily sepa-
rated from social structure.
These were problems that, over time, led to increasing levels of dissatis-
faction with the classical tradition, or at least with the radical sociology
of knowledge approach that had been derived from it. Before considering
the nature of this dissatisfaction, however, we must briefly mention two
further derivations of the classical tradition: its affinity with sociological

research methods and its emphasis on the problem of meaning.
METHODS AND M E A N I N G
The classical tradition has had a powerful impact on sociological

studies of culture because of its affinity with popular sociological re-
search methods, particularly survey research. This affinity seems para-
doxical because of the relatively grand, macroscopic, historical empha-
ses usually associated with the classical theorists, as opposed to the
highly microscopic, cross-sectional, social psychological orientation of
modern survey research. Once the subjectivist conception of culture that
can be envinced from the classical tradition is recognized, however, the
basis for this affinity becomes immediately apparent. Survey research
has appeared to provide precisely the kind of tools necessary for elicit-
ing subjective beliefs and for relating them to objective features of social
structure. A study like Gerhard Lenski's The Religious Factor (1963),
for example, sought not only to test Weber's assertions about the ethical
consequences of Protestant beliefs but also to relate these beliefs to vari-
ous dimensions of social stratification, community variables, and reli-
gious practice. Studies of other kinds have employed survey research to
examine Marxian arguments about the effects of social class on atti-
tudes and values, to measure anomie and feelings of alienation, to assess
beliefs in different images of God, and to relate experiences of social au-
thority to other kinds of attitudinal dispositions.
The reason for emphasizing this affinity between the classical tradition
and survey research is to indicate one of the areas in which classical
theory, so interpreted, continues to exercise a powerful influence in analy-
ses of culture. Through the wide availability of survey data, culture often
continues to be conceptualized as a matter of subjective belief that needs
to be related to objective dimensions of social structure in order to be
properly explained. This emphasis in empirical research has also affected
interpretations of classical approaches to culture. Other emphases can be
found in the classical literature, as will be seen presently, but the promi-
nence of contemporary survey research approaches to culture has proba-
bly reinforced those interpretations that emphasize the subjective quali
ties of culture.
In relation to the problem of meaning, the classical tradition not only
stressed the importance of this problem in various formulations but also

cast it in a specific light. In particular, the problem of meaning emerges
as central for the sociology of culture at several levels. At the most gen-
eral level, all the classical approaches implicitly assume a requirement
for meaning as part of the human condition. This assumption is most
evident in Weber but is also apparent in Marx and Durkheim. All three
portray the individual as a thinking entity that attempts to make sense
of the forces that are experienced. Substantively, "explanation" tends to
be identified in all three as an especially important feature of the indi-
vidual's attempt to make sense of reality: explanations of the forces that
limit one's freedom, of meaningless events such as suffering and death,
of evil, and of what one experiences in ritual. Again, the split between
subject and object appears at a fundamental level to evoke many of
these attempts to find meaning.
In more specific terms, the problem of meaning in the classical tradi-
tion focuses squarely on the individual. This may seem trivially obvious;
yet meaning is dealt with in sufficiently different ways in other ap-
proaches that its focus here needs to be made clear. Meaning is taken pri-
marily as a condition under which a person's life, or significant events in
it, "make sense" (i.e., have worth and relate to the subject's feelings of
integrity, wholeness, and self-mastery). Meaning is for the most part not
associated in this tradition with other aspects of reality, such as the
meaning of language, of symbols, or of institutions. Although these con-
stitute the frameworks in which individuals seek meaning, they tend to
be dealt with not as discrete entities, but as aspects of the individual's be-
liefs and feelings.
Above all, the problem of meaning takes on central importance in the
classical tradition as the issue with which cultural studies should be con-
cerned. The developments associated with the growth of modern social
structure, though conceived of differently by Marx, Weber, and Durk-
heim, are regarded as contributors to the increasing difficulty that the
modern individual has in attempting to find meaning. The point of cul-
tural studies, then, becomes the subjective counterpart of investigations
concerned with problems of capitalism, industrialism, bureaucratiza-
tion, urbanization, and so forth. Cultural studies should be concerned
with the problems of alienation, anomie, and meaninglessness that con-
front the modern individual and with understanding the beliefs that as-
sist or hinder individuals in their quest for meaning. This, of course, is
only to say once again that the concept of culture in the classical tradi-
don is closely connected with the subjective concerns of the individual.

From a practical standpoint, culture acquires interest primarily because
of the problem of meaning.
NEOCLASSICAL APPROACHES
The problem with radical sociology of knowledge derivations from

the classical tradition that seems to have contributed most to inspiring
alternative approaches is the problem of reductionism. Especially those
who were oriented toward the humanistic agenda found in the classical
tradition, and who felt that its scientific promise either had not paid off
or was misguided, expressed fears that culture was too easily being ex-
plained away. Why, they asked, should not culture itself be taken more
seriously, rather than being related immediately to class conflicts, inter-
est groups, or other aspects of social structure? This question was often
raised in the context of religious discussions because the reductionistic
approach implied an inherently skeptical view of the validity of religion.
But it was also addressed to the study of ideology and to the analysis of
culture more generally.
In the work of theorists like Berger, Bellah, and Geertz, who led the
way in articulating an alternative perspective on culture, the problem of
meaning became the essential element salvaged from the classical tradi-
tion. Some of the Cartesian dualism of subject and object was retained,
but emphasis shifted toward meaning in a deeper sense rather than simply
the estrangement of the knowing subject from its objective surroundings.
Marx, perhaps because he of all the classical figures was most insistent on
finding the sources of ideas in social structure, tended to be almost com-
pletely ignored, except in Berger's (1969) formalistic recasting of the con-
cept of alienation, which largely ignored Marx's relating of it to the struc-
ture of capitalism. Weber gained a certain renewed emphasis because his
concern for the problem of meaning came closest to the broader defini-
tion given this concept. But Weber's work on bureaucracy, on the state,
and on social classes as originators of religious ideas was for the most part
downplayed. It was his concept of verstehen—the idea of developing em-
pathy with one's research subjects in order to understand more fully their
subjective meanings—that gained greatest currency. Durkheim also un-
derwent a significant revision. His idea of society as the real force implicit
in men's worshiping of the gods was de-emphasized or reinterpreted, and
his emphasis on moral order, collective representations, and ritual was
elaoorated upon, all being treated as symbolic elements contributing to

the individual's quest for meaning.
M E A N I N G TO THE F O R E F R O N T
Meaning, in a formulation that went well beyond that of the classical

theorists, became the centerpiece of neoclassical approaches to culture.
Still emphasizing the individual, meaning nevertheless came to be re-
garded as an attribute of symbolism and as a function of the context in
which a symbol, or the individual himself, was located. Bellah (1970:
260—261), for example, in writing about the meanings associated with
religious symbolism, argued that meaning "is location in a context, in a
larger interrelated framework defined by values or norms or a more gen-
eral order than the specific act or object." Similarly, Berger and Luck-
mann (1966) emphasized "symbolic universes" as the contexts in which
specific acts and events acquired meaning, and Geertz (1973) stressed
the importance of overarching worldviews.
Neoclassical theorists in a sense circumvented the dualistic distinc-
tion between subject and object by emphasizing the "symbolically con-
structed" character of all reality, both subjective and objective. This
emphasis relativized the objectivity of the external world by demon-
strating that it, no less than the subjective world, was created symboli-
cally. In place of solid, unflinching social objects, like capitalist classes
and bureaucracies, therefore, everything became relegated to the world
of symbolism.
Berger and Luckmann (1966) provided perhaps the most elaborate
explication of the symbolically constructed character of reality. In their
view reality is not simply "there" as an external object but is con-
structed by the subject. The world in which people live is, in this sense,
of their own making. It is made with symbols. What we experience is
shaped by our symbols. Indeed, we experience only that for which we
have symbols. As research on the eye has shown, humans have the phys-
iological capacity to experience about 6 million hues of color; yet we
usually perceive only about a dozen because these are the ones for which
we have common words (Farb, 1973). Or as anthropological work has
shown, people in various cultures experience reality somewhat differ-
ently simply because they have diverse words that sensitize them to dif-
fering features of the environment. Research on language development
in children also points to the importance of symbolism. According to
some interpretations, youngsters learn concepts quite early but only
gradually become skilled at using these concepts, not because they lack
mental capacity, but because they have to start actually experiencing the
world in a new way—a way that conforms to these concepts (Bruner,
Oliver, and Greenfield, 1966). Even our sense of time may be shaped by
the discursiveness of language and by the kinds of verbs we use (Langer,
1951).
Carrying these observations a step further, Berger and Luckmann sug-
gest that reality is generally constructed in a highly stylized way. Al-
though each individual seems to experience the world slightly differ-
ently from every other individual because of variations in symbolic
tools, we nevertheless construct a reality that permits us to interact effi-
ciently with others. This construction Berger and Luckmann call "every-
day reality." Everyday reality is the world of waking consciousness, as
opposed to realities such as fantasy and dreams. It is oriented to the
"here and now"; that is, what seems most apparently "real" are the ob-
jects immediately around us and the events closest in time to the present.
Everyday reality is also a pragmatic world, organized in terms of actions
necessary for "getting the job done." This means it is also divided into
discrete "spheres of relevance" because the objects relevant to one set of
tasks (say, cooking supper) are compartmentalized from those relevant
to other tasks (say, commuting or playing tennis). Everyday reality is
thus a relatively efficient world in which to live. We bracket out any
doubts we might have concerning the reality of this world. We simply
take it for granted, maintaining it by acting as if it were real. For this rea-
son, Berger and Luckmann describe it as the "paramount" reality. It is
the reality to which we always return after "excursions," as it were, to
other realities, such as fantasy or dreaming.
Everyday reality provides a basic threshold of meaning for the individ-
ual. It is constructed in an orderly fashion, is sufficiently familiar that we
take many of our cues from it, and is made plausible by the fact that most
of our time, as well as that of our acquaintances, is spent within it. But
higher orders of symbolism also come into play whenever the taken-for-
grantedness of everyday life comes into question. Berger and Luckmann
distinguish four such levels of symbolism, or as they say, "machineries of
legitimation." At the most fundamental level are "explanations" that are
simply built into common vocabularies. These are not explicitly spelled
out but supply an implicit categorization that accounts for the ways in
which objects, events, or people are related. For example, referring to
someone as "cousin" or "thief" provides an immediate, if only intuitive,
sense of who that person is. Second are " rudimentary theoretical proposi-
tions" such as proverbs, moral maxims, and wise/sayings. These are some-
what more explicitly formalized than simple explanations but still refer
to a relatively discrete type of activity (e.g., "a penny saved is a penny
earned"). Third are "explicit theories" that refer to an institutional sec-
tor, such as family, economy, or government. For example, price levels in
market societies are often explained by theories about the relations
among supply, demand, and price. Finally, there are "symbolic uni-
verses" that overarch and integrate different institutional sectors. These
might range from relatively simple ideas, such as ideas about luck or free-
dom, that penetrate any area of institutional activity to more elaborate
theoretical traditions, philosophies, and religious beliefs that also deal
with events at the margins of everyday life, such as suffering and death.
The idea of meaning being dependent on context is clearly evident in
Berger and Luckmann's formulation. This notion derives from work in
linguistics that attributes the meaning of words to the broader context
(sentence or paragraph) in which they appear (e.g., Saussure, 1959;
Langer, 1951). In Berger and Luckmann's formulation the contextual
determination of meaning is specified by locating the individual in an
ever-widening series of symbolic contexts. The individual is first situ-
ated within a specific here-and-now sphere of relevance in everyday real-
ity. This context organizes and thereby gives meaning to a portion of the
individual's activity. But it is too immediate, too compartmentalized to
provide meaning in any broader sense. Different spheres of relevance
need to be integrated, near-term activities need to be organized around
longer-term goals, personal integration of the self is required, sense
must be made of other realities such as daydreams and of extraordinary
experiences such as tragedies and moments of ecstasy, and coherence
needs to be imposed on reality as a whole. The individual, therefore,
also locates himself in terms of proverbs and maxims, theoretical tradi-
tions, and symbolic universes that attempt to capture meaning at a
wholistic level.
A W H O L I S T I C PERSPECTIVE
Meaning, so defined in terms of nested categories that encompass

the individual ever more comprehensively, has been a particularly at-
tractive concept in sociological studies of religion. For Berger and
Luckmann, religion becomes a type of symbolic universe that tran-8
scends and orders reality wholistically, giving it a sense of sacredness.
For Bellah (1970), religion also constitutes an encompassing type of
symbolism that transcends the pragmatism of everyday reality, differs

from conceptual or denotative terminology, and embraces the individ-
ual in a transcendent framework that supplies meaning and motiva-
tion. Geertz (1973), too, stresses the transcendent meaning-supplying
character of religious symbolism.
The contrast between neoclassical and classical approaches is espe-
cially evident in the two traditions' formulations of religion. The classi-
cal tendency toward reductionism, in which religion is often depicted as
a kind of false or naive understanding of the forces impinging on the in-
dividual, is largely absent in neoclassical approaches. The contextual
idea of meaning in a sense creates for religion a niche that is largely
immune from reductionistic or positivistic attacks. The argument on
which this conception of religion rests is essentially one that suggests a
human requirement for wholistic meaning. As one moves toward larger
and more encompassing contexts of meaning, a limiting point is finally
reached where questions about the meaning of the whole of reality must
be addressed. These include questions such as: What is the meaning of
life? What are the ultimate conditions of existence? How did reality be-
gin and how will it end? What absolutes can be identified within the
whole of reality? Such questions occur either at a kind of vague, intu-
itive level in the midst of everyday life itself or as full-blown queries in
more reflective moments. These questions, addressed tacitly or explic-
itly, have been the focus of the world's religions. In the neoclassical tradi-
tion, therefore, the distinctive feature of religious systems came to be
identified as symbolism that attempts to evoke meanings embracing the
whole of reality.
Equating religion with wholistic symbolism proved to be an effective
way of protecting religion from the reductionistic tendencies inherent
in the classical tradition. Wittgenstein (1974) inadvertently articulated
most clearly the reason why. Defining the "world" in his familiar first
proposition as "all that is the case," Wittgenstein went on to assert that
"the meaning of the world must lie outside of the world," or in a more
poetic assertion, "the solution of the riddle of life in space and time lies
outside space and time." Put differently, the meaning of the whole of re-
ality is itself not a part of the world of facts. Symbols that point to the
meaning of the whole occupy a different plane than do those pertaining
to the empirical world. The realm with which religion is concerned,
therefore, is not reducible to the empirical world, nor can the meanings
it conveys be investigated with the same tools used for other empirical in-
quiries (i.e., positivism). As Bellah (1970:242) plainly asserts, "Science

can never wholly take over the job of making sense of the world."
Wittgenstein himself failed to grasp the full significance of his formu-
lation as an alternative to the subject-object conception of reality and re-
verted in his own life to a form of private mysticism that protected his re-
ligious convictions from objective reductionism by making them purely
subjective. Nonetheless, his formulation provided a simple statement of
a new epistemological view that was to have a profound impact on the
study of culture, albeit only remotely attributable to Wittgenstein's own
influence.
As in the classical approaches, the neoclassical perspectives contain
a distinct image of human nature and an epistemological agenda that
reflects this image. The fundamental problem facing humanity is no
longer identified as one of reconciling subject and object, but is defined
as a search for wholistic meaning. The quest for meaning is of ultimate
concern because reality is conceived to be fundamentally divided, just as
it had been in the subject-object split, but now divided between part and
whole (in this sense, it is appropriate to say that a basic dualism also lies
at the core of the neoclassical tradition). The gap between part and
whole leaves the events of life that the individual inevitably experiences
as parts of a larger drama of existence fragmented and lacking in mean-
ing because the meaning of the whole context of which they are a part
cannot be grasped either cognitively or empirically. Yet, with the excep-
tion of treatments attempting to resolve this problem simply by denying
the possibility of finding ultimate meaning, the prospect that the gap be-
tween part and whole can be mediated is held open. Symbols are the
key. Rituals, transcendent experiences, art, and religious liturgy and doc-
trine are recognized as means by which faith in the existence of
wholistic meanings can be inspired and communicated. These symbols
operate at a variety of levels, some raising appreciation of art or nature,
some linking the individual with a tradition or cultural heritage, some
helping only to express a "signal of transcendence" in play or fantasy,
others evoking commitment to public roles, and still others expressing
deeper meanings about life and its purposes. The role of scholarship,
therefore, is not so much to arrive at a cognitive understanding of the
meaning of existence, because this is thought to be impossible, but to
clarify the meanings that are conveyed by symbols.
The neoclassical tradition de-emphasizes belief and cognition, focus-
ing instead on symbols. The source of knowledge of greatest value to the
resolution of the human dilemma within this tradition is no longer the

knowing subject but the symbol, for within it lie meanings that may be
grasped only intuitively. Bellah's book Beyond Belief (1970), the very
title of which expresses the neoclassical attitude toward belief and cogni-
tion, represents a major effort to redirect the study of culture—and par-
ticularly the study of religion—toward a deeper appreciation of the reali-
ties of symbolism. Describing his perspective as "symbolic realism,"
Bellah (1970:252) argues against the reductionistic tendencies in the
classical tradition, warns against the limitations of Cartesian dualism,
and differentiates the study of symbolism from empirical positivism:
The canons of empirical science apply primarily to symbols that attempt to
express the nature of objects, but there are nonobjective symbols that express
the feelings, values, and hopes of subjects, or that organize and regulate the
flow of interaction between subjects and objects, or that attempt to sum up
the whole subject-object complex or even point to the context or ground of
that whole. These symbols, too, express reality and are not reducible to em-
pirical propositions. This is the position of symbolic realism.
Emotion, will, and experience become as important to this approach as

cognition. The meanings associated with symbols are as likely to be
grasped intuitively as they are to be understood cognitively. Cognitive
knowledge becomes important in this approach only insofar as this
knowledge enhances the capacity to understand how symbols function.
PREFERRED METHODS
The major methodological approaches that emerged within the neo-

classical tradition were phenomenology and hermeneutics. The former,
particularly in Heidegger's work, preoccupied itself with the question of
Being in an ultimate or wholistic sense, focusing
9
on how symbols con-
vey meanings about the nature of Being. Phenomenology fit compati-
bly within the epistemology of the neoclassical tradition in that it
stressed the in-depth exploration of the meanings associated with sym-
bols. Berger and Luckmann, for example, trace their intellectual roots
specifically to phenomenologists in the German tradition, particularly
Alfred Schutz and Arnold Gehlen. Hermeneutics also provided a meth-
odology that gave supreme importance to the study of symbolism, par-
ticularly in its quest to reconstruct the meanings intended in10 written
texts by their original authors and for their original audiences. Geertz,
for example, argues that the analysis of culture should essentially be a
hermeneutic or interpretive, rather than a scientific, enterprise. He
writes: "Believing . . . that man is an animal suspended in webs of sig-

nificance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and the
analysis of it therefore not an experimental science in search of law but
an interpretive one in search of meaning" (1973:5).
Both phenomenology and hermeneutics provided particularly attrac-
tive methodologies for the study of culture because each explicitly de-
nied the possibility of reducing symbolism to any other aspect of reality.
Unlike the classical tradition, phenomenology and hermeneutics treated
symbols as objective realities (from whence Bellah's term "symbolic real-
ism") and stressed the value of examining the meanings attached to
these symbols. The importance of phenomenology and hermeneutics
can be seen both in the works of neoclassical writers themselves and in
the work of those who have been inspired by their ideas. Like Geertz,
Berger has generally attempted to employ an interpretive model (cf.
Hunter and Ainlay, 1986). In examining aspects of social life as diverse
as religion and cities or marriage patterns and Third World develop-
ment, he has emphasized symbolically constructed realities and has at-
tempted to interpret the meanings of these symbols. As a theoretical
starting point, his work credits the actor with an active role in interpret-
ing, or giving meaning to, events. The subjective reality that the individ-
ual experiences, or the "imersubjective" meanings shared by collec-
tivities, interest Berger most.
Geertz's scholarship has ranged in many fields, but he too has empha-
sized both the phenomenological and hermeneutic methods. The influ-
ence of phenomenology is clearly evident in his advocacy of what he has
termed "thick description" as the preferred method of cultural investiga-
tion. Rather than striving for general laws or empirical regularities
across cases, Geertz seeks to describe the rich meanings present in a
given situation. He likens his method to "clinical inference" in which
the investigator probes ever more deeply into the significance of sym-
bolic meanings by examining them in all their complexity, by seeing
how they relate to one another, and by participating as fully as possible
in them himself so that the richness of their meaning can be grasped.
Similarly, Bellah has drawn consciously from phenomenologists like
Schutz and Cassirer and from hermeneuticists like Ricoeur and Gadamer.
In his empirical work he has attempted to combine both methods. His
work on civil religion, for example, typically approaches historical
speeches as "texts" that are to be analyzed hermeneutically to rediscover
their original meanings and to interpret whatever lasting significance
they may have for the contemporary period (e.g., Bellah, 1975). In Habits
of the Heart (1985) Bellah and his associates also draw heavily from phe-
nomenology. Generally shying away from imposing theoretical con-
structs on their subject matter, and drawing on verbatim quotes from sev-
eral hundred unstructured interviews as well as participant observation
in clubs and voluntary associations, they seek to discover the contempo-
rary meanings of individualism and commitment in American culture.
Those who have drawn inspiration from the neoclassical tradition
have generally adopted methods quite different from those employed in
"mainstream" or "positivist" sociology. If survey research bore a cer-
tain affinity with the assumptions derived from the classical tradition,
participant observation has shown a special affinity with the neoclassi-
cal tradition. Rejecting quantification as overly simplistic, researchers in
this tradition have preferred to obtain data in less structured ways in or-
der to discern more fully how their research subjects construct meaning.
Tipton's (1982) research on the cultural meanings of the 1960s and
their aftermath, for example, draws heavily on Bellah's theoretical
framework and utilizes data primarily from depth interviews and partici-
pation in social movements. Following more closely in Berger's theoreti-
cal tradition, McGuire (1982) and Ammerman (1983) have employed
participant observation to examine, respectively, the culture of pentecos-
tal Catholics and Protestant fundamentalists.
CONTRASTING MODES
It would be inaccurate, however, to depict work in the neoclassical tra-

dition as being entirely separate or distinct from studies more closely al-
lied with the classical tradition. Not only have the leading contributors to
the neoclassical tradition borrowed from writers such as Weber and
Durkheim, but the two perspectives also intermingle in studies of particu-
lar cultural phenomena. There are "Bergerian" versions of Weber, just as
there are "Bellahist" interpretations of Durkheim. In substantive areas,
considerable mixing of the assumptions of the various classical and neo-
classical approaches is typically evident. In sociology of religion, for ex-
ample, textbooks and monographs generally draw on definitions of reli-
gion from Geertz, or from Bellah or Berger, that emphasize symbolism,
but then move on to empirical evidence that, rather than dealing with sym-
bolism at all, focuses on beliefs and attitudes. Here, as in other cases, the
failure to recognize clearly the different assumptions implicit in the two
traditions often leads to conceptual confusion.
Studies of "meaning systems" represent perhaps the clearest area in
which the conceptual problems that: arise from indiscriminate mixing of

assumptions from the classical and neoclassical traditions can be illus-
trated. Both traditions emphasize the problem of meaning. Research on
this problem, however, has often combined elements of the two tradi-
tions in ways that are not entirely compatible. In the neoclassical tradi-
tion, for example, symbols are emphasized much more consciously than
in the classical tradition. In either, meanings can be examined from the
subjective perspective of the individual, but the neoclassical approaches
also provide for investigations that focus more directly on symbols them-
selves. In short, meaning systems can be distinguished from worldviews.
A meaning system refers to the dominant meanings in a culture that
are associated with a particular symbol or set of symbols. Its distinguish-
ing feature is an identifiable set of symbols with which interpretations,
feelings, and activities can be associated. A worldview or belief system,
in contrast, consists of all the beliefs that an individual holds about the
nature of reality. An individual's worldview can be comprised of beliefs
about any number of different symbols. A meaning system, by compari-
son, pertains to one set of symbols, even though these symbols may be
used in a number of different texts, settings, or collectivities. The two
concepts are also differentiated in terms of the importance they attach
to the role of cognition. Worldviews are creations of thinking individu-
als. The knowing subject of the classical tradition reflects on the world
and holds beliefs about this world. The idea of a worldview implies that
individuals function as amateur philosophers. This assumption is com-
patible with the Enlightenment image of man in the classical tradition,
but clearly does not inspire as much assent now as it once did. The con-
cept of meaning system necessitates no such assumption, only a willing-
ness to treat symbols as objects in their own right. Meanings evoked by
symbols occur at the emotional level and the volitional level as well as
the cognitive level. A symbol provides a bridge between raw experience
and some sense of a larger reality. But this sense may be as much felt, in-
tuited, worshiped, held in awe, acted upon, hoped for, trusted in, or tac-
itly accepted as codified conceptually.
Studies of cultural phenomena in which survey research techniques
have been employed have typically focused on worldviews instead of
meaning systems. Among the properties of individual worldviews that
are often examined in these studies is the property of consistency. That
is, questions are asked to determine whether or not individuals respond
in the same way to a variety of stimuli (e.g., about religion or about poli-
tics). A common expectation is that people should hold consistent be-
liefs, but empirical findings have generally disconfirmed this expecta-

tion. There is a strong capacity, it appears, to tolerate beliefs that to the
outside observer seem highly inconsistent (cf. Converse, 1964). On the
basis of this observation, however, some scholars11
have concluded that
individuals do not have meaning systems. This is the point at which
the confusion between the two traditions becomes evident.
The concept of consistency reflects the subjective, individualistic
view of culture implicit in the classical tradition as well as this tradi-
tion's historical emphasis on rationality. The fully functioning subject is
expected to have a view of the world that is accurate and internally con-
sistent. Inconsistency is tantamount to unsophistication, maladjust-
ment, improper cognitive socialization, or, as in Freud, symptomatic of
repressed drives. Even though the assumption that people strive to at-
tain cognitive consistency has been challenged repeatedly by empirical
findings (e.g., Westie, 1965), the emphasis placed on rationality in the
classical tradition has made this assumption difficult to abandon.
The concept of coherence, in contrast, derives from the concern ex-
pressed in the neoclassical tradition with the meaning of reality.
Whereas consistency is an attribute of an individual's belief set, coher-
ence is an attribute ascribed to reality. Reality is said to have meaning
if some sense of coherence can be attributed to it, that is, if it appears
to hang 12together in such a way that its elements bear a relation to one
another. For example, when Berger (1969) describes religion as a
nomizing mode, his reference is to order or coherence sensed as an as-
pect of reality, not to a pattern of consistency among individuals' be-
liefs. Wilfred Cantwell Smith's (1979:133) characterization of the mod-
ern skeptic "for whom life consists of a congeries of disparate items
among which they find no coherence" clearly refers to an attribute as-
cribed to reality rather than a lack of consistency among beliefs. More-
over, such discussions have explicitly rejected the idea that a consistent
cognitive worldview is a precondition for perceiving coherence and
meaning in reality. Geertz (1968:97) describes religious traditions as
"collections of notions" rather than well-formulated sets of beliefs. Du-
mont (1977:20) asserts that the coherence implicit in ideologies lies pri-
marily in "unstated views." Smith's (1979) distinction between faith as
a dimly felt perception of coherence and 13
belief as an attempt to articu-
late faith also reflects this point of view.
The point here is that different problems are likely to be emphasized
in the two traditions. Although both emphasize the problem of mean-
ing, one is concerned with rational consistency, the other, with wholistic
coherence. In the one, consistency inheres in beliefs; in the other, mean-

ing derives from symbolism but may actually be enriched by combining
seemingly diverse or even inconsistent symbolic images.
LIMITATIONS
There are, however, internal ambiguities and limitations within the

neoclassical tradition that also contribute to these problems. One is that
the requirement for rational consistency, as an aspect of meaning, is
sometimes implied by the neoclassical tradition just as it is in the classi-
cal tradition. In Berger and Luckmann's discussion of the machineries of
legitimation referred to earlier, for example, two principles of differen-
tiation, rather than one, are implicit. On the one hand, the difference be-
tween simple explanations and symbolic universes is a matter of scope
(i.e., the latter encompasses reality in toto). On the other hand, there is
also an implied movement from less elaborate to more elaborate theo-
retical systems. Explanations are part of ordinary speech; symbolic uni-
verses are elaborate theoretical traditions. If the latter interpretation is
emphasized, then it does become implausible to suggest that people tend
to be that rational, philosophical, or consistent in their outlooks on life.
The other interpretation, though, appears to be more in keeping with
both Berger and Luckmann's own work and that of other writers such
as Bellah. Wholistic meaning may be evoked by a simple gesture, or by a
rosary or mandala, as much as by an elaborate philosophical system.
It is primarily as a basis of systematic inquiry, however, that the neo-
classical tradition runs into difficulties. Its strengths, compared with the
classical tradition, are that it elevates culture (as symbolism) to a more
prominent position, it resists reductionistic inclinations to explain away
culture too readily by attributing it to other factors rather than grappling
with its meanings, and it presents a more detailed formulation of the prob-
lem of meaning (as contextually contingent). This tradition has also
clearly had appeal because of the broader humanistic or philosophical
perspective it reflects. Individuals are credited with a more active role in
shaping their own worlds, the complexity of human affairs is acknowl-
edged, and the desire for meaning and understanding is emphasized. Yet
the methodologies this tradition has inspired have proven frustrating,
and certain elements of its perspective have seemed overly limiting.
The methodological frustrations derive from the fact that phenomenol-
ogy and hermeneutics, as practiced in sociology, have defied systematiza-
tion and have explicitly denied efforts to arrive at replicable knowledge.
Particularly when the observer is given a large interpretive role without

having to make explicit the grounds for his or her interpretations, red
flags go up on all sides about the kind of knowledge being produced. For
example, in reviewing Geertz's book Local Knowledge, Lawrence Hirsch-
feld argues that serious danger is afoot when investigators take the ex-
treme perspective that Geertz proposes: "In repudiating explanatory
strategies for the understanding of cultural phenomena, Geertz . . . re-
jects . . . the very means for engaging the discourse in which the company
of scientists communicate." In Hirschfeld's view, Geertz "has abandoned
virtually all the strategic goals associated with scientific endeavors; not
only strong ones like the ability to generalize across instances or to pre-
dict new outcomes, but also a weaker, but most basic one, the require-
ment to provide truthful descriptions "(1986:35). These, however, are fa-
miliar problems in methodological discussions
14 that need not be gone over
yet another time in the present context. For the moment, it will suffice
to suggest that approaches of a more systematic sort might be taken to the
analysis of symbolism if the vision of interpretation were at least tempo-
rarily severed from the problem of analysis.
More limiting, it appears, are some of the particular problem foci
that have been prominent in neoclassical approaches to culture. Among
these, the continuing emphasis on subjective meanings appears to be es-
pecially important. Just as in the classical tradition, emphasis is attached
to the problem of meaning as experienced by the individual. Although
this problem has been significantly reformulated, it continues to ani-
mate the study of culture. This emphasis, it will be recognized, does not
correspond in principle with the neoclassical tradition's orientation to-
ward symbolism, particularly symbolic realism. That orientation sug-
gests focusing on symbolism as objective elements worthy of investiga-
tion. Yet in practice, greater attention has Been devoted to the meanings
of symbols than to symbols themselves.
Both the phenomenological and hermeneutic approaches to mean-
ings have limitations as far as developing empirical generalizations is
concerned. Phenomenology stresses description of the rich meanings
held by specific individuals or in specific situations; yet these meanings
are not only complex but idiosyncratic and continuously in flux. Having
discovered all the meanings a set of symbols conveys to an individual to-
day, one cannot be certain that the same meanings will still be present to-
morrow. Description of this kind, in short, becomes an endless task.
What most investigators fall back on, of course, are certain generaliza-
tions that appear to be relatively enduring or common. But doing so vio-
lates the spirit of phenomenology and raises questions about how such
generalizations are to be made. Hermeneutics has the same limitations.
Discovering the meanings of a text is difficult enough if one knows a
great deal about its author or intended audience; if the author is dead or
unknown, of if the audience is capable of interpreting the text in differ- 15
ent ways, then the search for meanings may be nearly impossible.
An additional limitation that has been evident in many applications
of the neoclassical tradition is a tendency to become preoccupied with
the individual. Berger and Luckmann, for example, go to some trouble
to suggest how their approach is applicable to collective levels of social
organization as well as to the individual, but most of the appeal of their
approach has been limited to investigations of individuals in relatively
small collectivities. Their emphasis on the individual's requirement for
meaning and personal integration seerns compelling at the individual
level; yet applying the same arguments to whole societies simply by anal-
ogy often fails to be compelling. Clearly, the symbolic dimension of
flags and corporate boardrooms, of athletic events and acts of terror-
ism, requires a level of analysis that is not predominantly preoccupied
with the individual's search for meaning.
Yet another limitation of neoclassical approaches, compared with
classical approaches, has to do with reintroducing the relations between
culture and social structure. Geertz (1973) has argued that the analysis
of culture should proceed in two stages: first, examining the symbols
and, second, relating them to social structure. But the second of these,
for whatever reasons, has generally been ignored. Berger and Luck-
mann's (1966) concept of "plausibility structure" also suggests the im-
portance of social structure. But the idea itself—simply conversation or
other types of interaction that maintain a given reality concept—is rela-
tively inspecific and again seems best suited to face-to-face contexts
rather than social units at more macroscopic levels. What has seldom
been successfully attained within the neoclassical framework are analy-
ses that relate cultural systems to large-scale institutions, that deal with
ideologies and interest groups, or that examine the resources used in the
production and ins«;itutionalization of cultural systems.
Raising these issues K not meant to suggest that they are insuperable
or that they are of sufficient magnitude to destroy the value of neoclassi-
cal approaches to culture. Major contributions have been made from
within this framework toward generating greater sensitivity to the func-
tions of religion and toward analyzing some of the problems of personal
identity in modern culture, l-rom a policy or practical standpoint, this
may be all that can be asked. But from the standpoint of developing
knowledge that meets standards of either empirical verifiability or theo-
retical generalization, many have expressed doubts about the value of
neoclassical approaches. Whether or not these doubts have been entirely
well founded, they have nevertheless prompted scholars to consider al-
ternative approaches. Some have remained more convinced than ever of
the value of the classical traditions; others have favored what has be-
come increasingly identifiable as a third perspective.
POSTSTRUCTURAL APPROACHES
It is easy to overemphasize the differences between poststructuralist
writers such as Douglas, Foucault, and Habermas and writers in the neo-
classical tradition. The anthropological styles of Douglas and Geertz,
for example, overlap considerably. Habermas's concern in recent work
with the concept of "life world" stems from the same phenomenological
tradition from which Berger and Luckmann have drawn. Foucault is
more distinct but has by no means been insignificant as an influence on
the work of such scholars as Geertz and Bellah. The three writers chosen
here as representatives of the poststructuralist approach also differ suffi-
ciently among themselves that clarity is required as to what they have in
common. What they share, and what distinguishes them from the
neoclassicists, is a significant encounter with structuralism.
BASIC ASSUMPTIONS
Structuralism and Levi-Strauss are virtually synonymous as far as the

social sciences are concerned. Both, however, mean many things. For pres-
ent purposes, the intricacies of structuralist assumptions about binary
qualities of the brain can be overlooked. The important features of struc-
turalism are its emphasis on systematic patterns in cultural codes and its
search for the underlying meaning of cultural codes through the process
of identifying these patterns. For Levi-Strauss the method of discovering
the true meaning of a myth, for example, is to examine the relations
among paired opposites in the story. By rearranging the story's
16
elements
in this manner, one can learn what the myth "really meant." This strat-
egy, of course, is not unique to Levi-Strauss. The founder of semiology,
Roland Barthes, for example, also distinguished between the signifiers
that were readily observable in myth and the deeper meaning of myth that17
could be discovered by examining the relations among signifiers.
Poststructuralists generally retain the structuralist emphasis on analyz-

ing patterns or relations in cultural materials but reject the assumption
that doing this will disclose the materials' "real meaning." In a close cri-
tique of Levi-Strauss, Mary Douglas (1967), for example, demonstrates
that a single myth may in fact have many meanings and that these mean-
ings are contingent on time and place. She also rejects Levi-Strauss's rigor-
ous emphasis on relationships among paired opposites. Yet she retains
his interest in the symbolic boundaries or categories that may be present
in pairs or more complex configurations of symbols. Foucault's work
was also deeply influenced by structuralism, so much so that some com-
mentators on his work have described it as a type of structuralism—a de-
scription, however, that Foucault himself rejected. The imprint of struc-
turalism on his work is again that of seeing symbols as dramatizations of
conceptual categories or of boundaries between categories. As in Doug-
las's work, the idea of looking at opposites often carries over into his
work as a concern with the boundaries between deviance and normality.
In his work on madness, for example, Foucault (1965) considers insanity
not in, isolation but as a negation that clarifies the nature of reason.
Habermas's indebtedness to structuralism stems less directly from Levi-
Strauss or Barthes, although one can be sure he 18
has read them, but from
structural linguists like Chomsky and Searle. He also rejects much of
the physiological binarism on which Chomsky's work, in particular, is
based. But, as will become evident shortly, he shares with Douglas and
Foucault an interest in the relationships among collections of symbols.
As with the classical and neoclassical traditions, the distinctive char-
acter of poststructuralism can be seen more clearly from examining its
implicit assumptions about the human dilemma, the task of scholarship,
and epistemology. The human dilemma is no longer the split between
subject and object or the quest to transcend fragmentation and achieve
wholeness, but the problem of communication. Humans are cut off
from one another, but they need to communicate in order to decide on
collective values. The importance of this problem is magnified by the
fact that, in the absence of collectively chosen values, we may destroy
ourselves by simply letting the taken for granted rule over us. Habermas
has been most explicit about these assumptions. In his view we need to
be able to communicate with complete openness about desirable collec-
tive goals; otherwise, our competitive interests will rule, and we will be
guided only by the struggle to attain technical mastery over the physical
environment and over one another. There is, as in all of Habermas's
work, a strong element of eclecticism here. The basic dilemma that he
perceives is in some ways reminiscent of Marx's sense that we had lost

freedom and had become bond servants of our environment. It is also
reminiscent of Weber's warning about rationality becoming a limiting
perspective. In some ways it too is a rejection of the pragmatism of every-
day reality and a quest for higher values. But there is also a new empha-
sis on the collective, or social, aspect of the present dilemma. The prob-
lem is no longer one of finding meaning in isolation or of symbolically
grasping absolutes. In Habermas no absolutes remain, only those that
are arrived at by consensus. Foucault, and Douglas to a lesser extent,
register the same concerns. Communication can be blocked by vested in-
terests and conceptions of power; it needs to become more open, more
freeing, more sustaining of a consensually constructed moral order.
From this analysis, the task of scholarship becomes one of facilitating
communication. The manner in which this is done stands somewhere be-
tween empirical positivism and hermeneutical interpretation. Communi-
cation and the factors influencing it need to be examined as objectively,
as dispassionately, as possible. Insofar as the observer always functions
as interpreter as well, the bases of these interpretations need to be made
explicit. But the standards against which results are compared do not
consist only of positivist canons, let alone criteria of technical mastery;
instead, they should have practically assessable results as far as the pro-
motion of communication is concerned.
The epistemological vision of poststructuralism is rooted, in the case
of Habermas and Foucault, in an evolutionary framework that stresses
the primacy of language for the current epoch and, in Douglas, in a
more static conception of history that also emphasizes the importance
of language. The principal barriers to communication, especially in the
modern period, are assumed to be built into the character of language it-
self—broadly defined to include rituals and other physical gestures as
well as verbal or written communication. What remains hidden (the un-
known) that will presumably illuminate the problems that are known
are the rules and patterns built into the structure of language. These are
so commonly used that they are taken for granted; yet they determine
the categories in which we think and maintain barriers and inequities
among people.
AWAY FROM M E A N I N G
Absent in all of this is the problem of meaning. At one level, the prob-
lem of meaning as a problem of the individual—estrangement or a lack
of wholeness—is clearly missing. Indeed, the individual himself is miss-

ing. Everything becomes communication, speech, categories, even dis-
course about individuals, but the individual himself is de-emphasized. In
this sense poststructuralism is,9 of the three traditions, the least subjec-
tive in its approach to culture.'
Symptomatic of the poststructuralists' de-emphasis of the problem of
meaning is the fact that religion receives almost no attention—some-
thing that has aroused criticism from religionists and humanists alike.
Foucault's work contains no references to religion, Habermas's refer-
ences are limited to a few remarks on theologians who have stressed
communication and to a brief reworking of Bellah's scheme of religious
evolution, and Douglas has dealt with religion only as a secondary in-
terest both in her work on primitive societies and in essays and books
on modern culture. None of the three has been as concerned as the
neoclassicists, especially Berger and Bellah, with the religious quest, and
none has devoted as much systematic attention to the subject as Durk-
heim or Weber. In consequence, virtually nothing is considered about
the kinds of symbolism that give meaning to life. Instead, the individual
is largely conceived of as a cultural construction whose being, identity,
and categories of discourse are reflected in the observable functions of
culture rather than being dimensions of subjective integration.
At a somewhat broader level, the problem of meaning is also absent
from the poststructuralists' discussion of symbolism. Again, this is
largely a function of the fact that the idea of symbolism itself tends to be
de-emphasized. Symbols in some ways remain the constitutive elements
of culture. But they are treated in an importantly different way than in
the neoclassical tradition. There, a symbol is symbolic because it con-
veys meaning. The nexus of investigation must, as a result, be that of the
object or event in relation to the person or group for which it has mean-
ing. In short, meaning'always lurks in the shadows as the topic of genu-
ine interest. In the poststructuralist approaches, in contrast, symbols are
taken, as it were, more literally. Rather than their being objects or utter-
ances that stand for something else, they are simply objects or utter-
ances. Supposedly they communicate, because they exist, but the essen-
tial question has less to do with what they communicate than with how
they communicate. The thrust of investigation, therefore, focuses on the
arrangement of symbols and their relations to one another, not primar-
ily their meanings.
The shift away from problems of meaning is clearly apparent in
Douglas's work. Although she has never emphasized this shift as a mat-
ter of deliberate preference, it is evident in the major topics on which she

has chosen to work. Purity and Danger (1966) is primarily concerned
with concepts of pollution and taboo in primitive settings. It demon-
strates how distinctions between and within communities are drama-
tized by the concepts, on the one hand, and how cultural classification
schemes generate concepts of pollution and taboo, on the other hand.
Many of these concerns are carried over into Natural Symbols (1970).
Dealing with culture in a more general and theoretical sense, this book
also focuses on classification schemes and their articulation in rituals
and symbols. Among the arguments developed here is what has become
the widely cited discussion of "group," consisting of external bound-
aries demarcating whole collectivities, and "grid," consisting of internal
classifications within collectivities, from which Douglas constructs a
fourfold typology of cultural styles. Many of these initial interests have
continued to be evident in more recent works by Douglas on topics such
as food (1984), material goods (1979), and concepts of risk (1982).
Foucault's historically oriented studies, covering topics as diverse as
madness and criminality, medicine, the organization of work, the social
sciences, and sexuality, also de-emphasize meaning and focus on cul-
tural classifications and their dramatization in language and in ritual. So
removed from these analyses is the individual or any concern for subjec-
tive meanings that Foucault sometimes appears to have been more enam-
ored with speech than with the speaker. Running through all his work is
an emphasis on authority—the authoritative discourse of doctors and
other professionals, the speaker's authority as dramatized in common
modes of discourse, and the state's authority as manifested in public ritu-
als. Foucault's work seldom takes cultural categories for granted but in-
stead examines them historically to discover their origins and shows
how deviants illustrated them and how professionals legitimated them.
His work on medicine, criminality, and sexuality reveals the importance
of the human body as a locus of ritual dramatizations of cultural catego-
ries, an interest that also runs through Douglas's work. Ultimately,
Foucault's expressed objective was to further human emancipation by
unmasking the categories of thought typically taken for granted.
Habermas, in approaching sociology from a more explicitly articu-
lated theoretical framework, provides perhaps the clearest discussion of
why meaning has been de-emphasized in the poststructuralist tradition.
The focal point of his work on communication has been the "speech
act"—a significant reformulation itself because culture is now seen as a
type of behavior instead of subjective beliefs and attitudes. The question

Habermas raises about speech acts is what makes them meaningful
enough to exist at all. He shows no interest in discovering what their
meaning is. This interest, of course, stems from his concern with the con-
ditions of communication. The problem is not one of determining how
everything that is communicated will be interpreted, but of discovering
the determinants of what can be said at all. In a general formulation
Habermas suggests four such conditions: (1) the relation between the
speech act and the speaker, a relation that must be characterized by sin-
cerity or truthfulness; (2) a relation between the speech act and the
physical world or, more generally, with actuality, that involves truth;
(3) a relation between the speech act and language in which comprehen-
sibility must be present; and (4) a relation between the speech act and so-
cial norms in which legitimacy is evident. All these relations, Habermas
suggests, are to a degree dramatized in what is actually spoken. One
can, then, by examining discourse and other symbolic gestures, discover
significant patterns pertaining to the broader culture.
A version of the contextual idea of meaning has been retained in
much of the poststructuralist work. Symbols—speech acts, objects, ritu-
als, concepts—are never examined in isolation or simply as substantive
themes (e.g., love, conservatism, etc.), but in relation to other symbols.
This strategy is taken not simply to provide substantive contrasts (e.g.,
between love and hate), but to illuminate the relations between symbols
and the rules employed in relating them. Douglas is frequently most in-
terested in the symbolic boundaries that separate two or more symbols.
These are, in her view, the bases of cultural order and are actively main-
tained by dramatic acts of violation, by blending and differentiation,
and by specifying mechanisms of bridging and dissociation. Foucault's
approach is in some ways broader and less systematic. Treating cultural
systems simply as "dispersions of elements," his work endeavors to find
no order of a tightly organized or systematic fashion but only a variety
of rules that specify what can be said about what and by whom. For
Habermas, the preferable strategy is to begin not with a dispersion of ele-
ments, but with a single speech act and then to work outward, finding
other verbalizations to which it is related. Habermas's search for struc-
ture in culture is also influenced by an evolutionary scheme that depicts
movement from simple to more complex forms of differentiation. Thus,
his concern is not only with the relations among speech acts but with lev-
els of differentiation between types of utterances. In all of this, the
"meaning" that may be given by different contexts is, again, not the ob-
ject of investigation; instead, the idea of context directs20 attention to-
ward the patterns and relations of which contexts consist.
COSTS AND BENEFITS
What the poststructuralists seem to have accomplished by taking an

end run around the problem of meaning is an approach to culture that
emphasizes its observable features. Rather than meanings that may be
unconscious even to the subject himself, the "stuff" of the poststruc-
turalists' investigations consists especially of verbal utterances but also
of rituals, codified bodies of knowledge, and cultural artifacts such as
ceremonial objects, bodies, and food. As a result of this emphasis, the
study of culture is apparently placed on a more solid footing. This does
not mean that cultural analysis somehow returns to the fold of positivis-
tic social science; the poststructuralists work clearly within the interpre-
tive framework, but the focus of cultural investigation changes. Its data
are more readily observable kinds of behavior rather than being locked
away in people's private ruminations. An additional consequence of this
refocusing is that the idiosyncracies associated with individual meanings
are circumvented. Instead of having to probe again and again into the
fluid meanings that a person might attach to a symbol, the arrange-
ments among symbols themselves are examined.
These gains are, of course, achieved only at a considerable price.
What many find interesting about culture is precisely what poststruc-
turalists ignore. How people perceive and interpret their worlds is not
what the poststructuralist approaches attempt to discover. Nor do they
promise to enrich one's capacity to "comprehend" the true significance
of a text, of oneself, or of current events. Instead, they present simplifica-
tions that seem to have more to do with formalistic rules and abstract
patterns than with what is really going on. The logic of their agenda,
however, is to contribute results that can be compared in different set-
tings and thus to illuminate the rules of which cultural patterns of vari-
ous kinds are made up. Theirs, in short, is an appeal more to the longer-
run aspirations of a cumulative interpretive science—aspirations that
may or may not be well founded—than to the immediate problems of
phenomenological description.
The poststructuralist approaches take a relatively broad approach to
culture. Their definition of culture is generally not restricted either to be-
liefs and attitudes or to symbolic meanings of the kind emphasized in
neoclassical work. Culture is sufficiently broad that it consists of not

only verbal acts and written codes but also the symbolic-expressive as-
pects of the ways in which prisons are organized, clinics run, and meals
partaken. There is, of course, a residual that seems to be implicitly ex-
cluded from this notion of culture. For example, Foucault treats the pun-
ishment of criminals as a form of culture that dramatizes the state's
power, but the state itself seems to fall into another category; so also
with his discussion of the factory or with Douglas's analysis of technol-
ogy and the environment. Culture apparently includes far more than
ideas, but is not simply equivalent to social organization in general. Al-
though it is not spelled out explicitly, the definition of culture in this
work seems to focus on communication. Thus, culture might be consid-
ered a communicative or symbolic-expressive aspect of social behavior.
As such, it becomes constitutive of social life itself; yet the possibility of
relating culture to other aspects of social structure also remains open.
REDISCOVERING THE CLASSICS

Before attempting any further evaluation of the implications of the
poststructuralists' move away from the problem of meaning, some ob-
servations about the role of the classical theorists in light of these recent
developments are in order. As noted previously, there are many Durk-
heims, Webers, and Marxes. If the neoclassical approaches drew out
new interpretations that placed the classics in a different light, the
poststructuralists do much the same. They provide some useful clues for
reappropriating some of the classical contributions that may have for-
merly been de-emphasized or neglected.
In the case of Marx, a whole tradition of structuralist and post-
structuralist Marxism has emerged that can in no way be done justice to
here. Writers such as Althusser, Therborn, and Seliger, as well as Ha-
bermas, have contributed enormously in recent years to the revitalization
of Marxist approaches to ideology. Suffice it to say that, although much
of this work remains at a philosophical level with implications that are
not yet apparent for empirical sociology, a significant reorientation away
from the problem of subjective meaning is also evident in this work. As
opposed to questions about alienation, emphasis has been placed to a con-
siderably greater extent on discourse, communication, and the drama-
tization of power through the symbolic aspects of social institutions them-
selves. Therborn (1980:78), for example, states flatly that ideologies "do
not constitute 'states of mind.' " Instead, he argues, ideologies need to be
seen as ongoing social processes. As such, they tend to be identified

closely with social movements, with political claims, and with demands
on social resources. Pointing to Foucault as an example, he also suggests
the importance of rituals as the embodiment of ideologies, again not as
isolated ceremonies, but as the symbolic dimensions of states and interest
groups. Above all, the study of ideology should, in this view, move away
from "a subjectivist conception of history" and take greater account of
the ideological aspects of "de-centered constraints and fissures, contradic-
tions and reinforcements, such as are inscribed in the economic and politi-
cal structure and process" (p. 102).
Reinterpretations of Durkheim are relatively easy to discern because
Douglas has drawn extensively from the Durkheimian tradition. Down-
played are the sharper distinctions in Durkheim between ideas and social
structure, the tendency to reduce the former to the latter, concerns about
anomie, his assertions about the psychological transformations associ-
ated with ritual, and subjectivist interpretations of the nature of moral
community. Even after all this is stripped away, a surprising amount is
still left. A model of the ways in which symbolic boundaries are drama-
tized is found in Durkheim's discussion of the role of ritual and taboo in
separating the sacred from the profane. Douglas, in fact, provides reason
to infer that the boundary itself may often be regarded with greater "sa-
credness" than what is on either side. Moral order is reinterpreted to be a
concept that is essentially about culture, consisting of implicit categories
that define proper relations among individuals and groups. Rituals, in
turn, serve as models of moral order and suggest analogous ways in
which other types of symbols may clarify and communicate messages
about the moral order. In much of this, the problem of meaning ceases to
be a subjective attribute of the individual and becomes one of ambiguity
or uncertainty in the ordering of social relations.
Weber also has been subject to reinterpretation. Habermas has con-
tinued to evidence interest in some aspects of Weber's work, but as a
whole the problem of meaning in Weber has seemed so central that few
in the poststructuralist tradition seem to have considered reappropri-
ating his legacy. Perhaps the most promising direction in which such an
endeavor might move is a reconsideration of Weber's comparative work
on world religions. Although the problem of meaning looms large in
this analysis, the more subjective features of religion need not necessar-
ily provide hindrances to analysis, for religion is certainly objectified in
cultural codes apart from its subjective meanings for individuals. As
such, religious codes might usefully be examined to discover how catego-
ries are defined, separated, and related. Conceptions of evil and of salva-
tion, ideas about the relations between ethical orientations and behav-
ior, and about this-worldly conduct and otherworldly rewards all ap-
pear amenable to such investigations.
Rediscovering the classics may or may not be useful for specific investi-
gations of culture. However, if advantages are to be gained in the analysis
of culture by attempting to escape the subjectivism implied in the prob-
lem of meaning, then significant elements of the classical tradition that
are not affected by this problem may still be applicable. This possibility
again points toward the importance of not drawing too sharp a distinc-
tion between poststructuralism and some of its precursors.
For some, the major barrier to rediscovering the classical tradition is
still likely to lie in its tendency toward reductionism. This may be a bar-
rier approached from either side. That is, scholars oriented toward ana-
lyzing culture in its own right may be deterred due to a dislike of the
reductionistic tendency; scholars on the other side who were in a sense
convinced by the classics of the value of reductionism may be deterred
from taking culture seriously because they tend to think of it only as sub-
jective beliefs and attitudes.
The poststructuralist tradition has, it appears, solved the problem of
reductionism-—or at least minimized it. In fact, several options for es-
caping the reductionist problem are available. One is suggested by
Habermas's fourfold set of conditions influencing the meaningfulness of
symbols. Sociologists are likely to be most successful at examining the
relations between symbols and social conditions—the relation that
Habermas suggests is a contributor to the legitimacy of a symbol. In
that sense, sociological work may be accused of reductionism. But the
other three conditions should not be forgotten, particularly the possibil-
ity that a symbol may be meaningful because its relation to the real state
of affairs is one of truth. Another option arises from the different episte-
mological orientation of the poststructuralist tradition. The fear of
reductionism in the classical tradition grew mainly from the idea that
falsely objectified beliefs, often religious, could be unmasked. The Carte-
sian dualism underlying that idea, however, is largely absent from the
poststucturalist tradition. A third option derives from Douglas's ap-
proach, that is, simply to define culture in very broad terms (including
rituals, food, etc.) and focus on the relations internal to it, rather than
paying much attention to other types of social structure to which it
might be reduced. Finally, Foucault's lead can be followed, seeing cul-
ture as in some ways a reflection of other features (the state, for exam-
pie), but also recognizing the power of culture to act back on these other
factors. In short, there seems little reason either to worry about explain-
ing culture away or to think of it so narrowly as to be irrelevant to the
study of social life.
BEYOND MEANING?
A shift away from the problem of meaning can be identified in the
poststructuralist tradition, and some of the evidence for this shift has
been suggested. It still remains, however, to consider whether or not this
shift represents a useful direction for the analysis of culture to go.
The question is not one that is likely to result in ready answers or an-
swers that will evoke consensus among sociologists interested in culture.
But as an initial approximation to the problem, the question might be
raised as to whether there are examples of major cultural events the
meanings of which we might not be interested in knowing. At first
glance, the answer would seem to be "no." Surely, if a revolution oc-
curs, we would like to know what it meant to the people involved. If reli-
gious enthusiasm suddenly breaks out, we would want to know what
meaning it contributed to people's lives. If racism flourishes in one pe-
riod but not in another, we would want to understand the meanings of
these cultural differences.
True enough. But what happens when we attempt to study these
kinds of meanings? Suppose we decide to study the meaning of the
French Revolution. Chances are, what we mean by "meaning" is not
meaning at all, but "significance." What is the significance of the French
Revolution, that is, its effects on other revolutions, its consequences for
French society, or the importance we attribute to it today? But suppose
we are serious historical sociologists and actually want to find out what
the French Revolution meant to those who took part in it. Is not this a
hopeless task? Most of the participants left no record of their thoughts
and feelings. For sake of argument, though, suppose we are good histori-
ans, like Robert Darnton, and are able to track down a detailed autobi-
ography from the period, like Darnton's (1984) discovery of the mem- 21
oirs of Nicolas Contat, a printer's apprentice in ancien regime Paris.
Unfortunately, Contat did not write about the Revolution; he wrote
about killing the boss's cat. We decide to make the most of it anyway. Af-
ter all, one good autobiography may be a valuable window into the
underlife of the French proletariat. Drawing inspiration from Geertz's
idea of thick description, Darnton sets out to unravel the meaning of the
"great cat massacre." Contat's memoirs provide rich evidence of what

the episode meant. Or do they? It turns out that Contat wrote about the
episode more than three decades after it happened. His description tells
more about the event's meaning in distant retrospect than at the time.
Contat was also not particularly gifted as a writer. He struggled to ex-
press his thoughts and feelings but often failed. He was, too, a writer who
knew he was leaving a legacy that might well become public. One sus-
pects he is not always candid in expressing his feelings. Contat was also
but one of the apprentices who perpetrated the incident. We know little
of how the others interpreted it. Nor do we know anything about how
typical or atypical Contat's views were in the Paris underclass at large.
Darnton is not unaware of these problems. Indeed, he rather quickly
moves from Contat's own account to tell us other things about the life
of apprentices, their rituals, the boss, cats, superstitions, and so forth.
He greatly enriches the story by telling how common it was for cats and
women to be associated in French culture, how the boss's cat was really
his wife's, how cats and witchcraft were connected, and how animals in
general were treated. In the end, we still know little of what the event
meant to Contat (or anybody else), but we know a lot about the arrange-
ment of symbols and rituals in French culture. Darnton's account turns
out to resemble the kind of analysis characteristically produced by Fou-
cault. It is a discussion of what was related to what. He demonstrates
many different cultural and social conditions that made the cat massa-
cre meaningful, even though its specific meaning remains in doubt—
even more so by the time he is finished because his analysis suggests
many possible layers of meaning that might have been present.
The story of the cat massacre, therefore, is interesting because it
probes the relations among symbols. It reveals how cultural categories
were dramatized in ritual acts and how these categories shaped the con-
tent of rituals. It would have been even more illuminating had Darnton
taken the analysis one step further and discussed more self-consciously
the rules evident in these constructions and in his own reconstruction.
How was it, for example, that cats and women were associated? What
showed this connection? Did the same mechanisms operate in other sym-
bolic boundaries, say, between masters and apprentices, and so forth?
But getting back to the Revolution itself, suppose the question asked
had been more typically sociological, such as what were the social condi-
tions contributing to the Revolution? Would it be possible to ignore
meanings and still provide a satisfactory answer? Theda Skocpol, in her
book States and Social Revolutions (1979), responds affirmatively. Con-
ceiving of "revolutionary ideologies" chiefly in subjectivist terms as the

goals and intentions of revolutionary leaders, she argues that little ex-
planatory significance can be attached to these factors. Revolutions, it
seems, typically produce results quite different from those envisioned by
their leaders. In her analysis, a "structural" approach to revolutions
that emphasizes coalitions of peasants and urban workers against a
weakened state is more promising.
Skocpol is probably correct in sensing that the subjective meanings of
revolutionists do not explain the origins or outcomes of revolutionary
movements. But, as so often happens in sociology, her dismissal of ideol-
ogy on these grounds leads her to neglect cultural factors of any kind. If
solidarity among peasants and workers is a decisive factor, how is this
solidarity dramatized and maintained? How do revolutionists come to
identify the state as a source of their grievances ? It is the cultural, or sym-
bolic-expressive, dimension of group life, of the moral economy of peas-
ant communities, and of the state itself that needs to be investigated in
order to address these questions.
Perhaps revolution is not the best example, however, for highlighting
the importance of the problem of meaning. The example mentioned ear-
lier of an eruption of a religious movement may be better. It is suddenly
discovered, let us say, that a new religious movement, perhaps calling it-
self the Unification Church, has come into being and claims a world mem-
bership of several million young people, many of them from middle-class
American families. Here, it would seem, is a case where the problem of
meaning can hardly be ignored. Uppermost in our minds are questions
about the search for meaning that has led these young people to join. We
will want to talk with some "Moonies" to find out why they joined.
Before grabbing our tape recorders, though, we need to pause for a mo-
ment and consider what we hope to find out. First of all, we need at least
to consider other options. The movement is itself a cultural phenomenon.
If we are interested in studying culture, one of the things we might also ex-
plore, as sociologists, is the resources that have gone into producing this
movement. Too often we apparently approach movements (especially re-
ligious ones) entirely from the "demand" side, as it were, hoping to ac-
count for them in terms of the subjective needs they seem to fulfill. This is
a bit like trying to account for American capitalism by looking at con-
sumer tastes. There is also a "supply" side in culture, just as in capitalism,
that needs to be considered in looking at cultural movements. In our ex-
ample, therefore, we should not regard matters of finance, organization,
and mobilization as being unworthy of our attention.
Having examined those matters, however, our curiosity would proba-

bly still convince us that we should interview some members. If so, we
should bear two things in mind. One is that the subjective stimuli for
joining may not be obvious to the people we interview. Just as Durk-
heim was led to investigate suicide rates rather than suicide notes, so we
may want to look at broader features of the society in order to infer
some of the pressures creating potential members. This may seem a triv-
ial point, because it is often made; yet it continues to be persistently ig-
nored in cultural studies. The second consideration is that the product
of our interviews will not be meanings, but discourse about meanings.
We can either take it at face value (leaving aside questions of its validity
and representativeness), or we can treat it as discourse. In the former sit-
uation, we accept it as evidence of an internal psychological state. In the
latter, we admit our lack of knowledge about hidden states and examine
the discourse itself, because that is all we have, to determine why it was
meaningful for some things to be said and others not to be said. As with
Darnton's cat massacre, we will probably conclude that more can be
learned about the conditions under which a statement or act is meaning-
ful than we can about its actual meaning.
Finally, the other case mentioned earlier—about the presence of rac-
ism in different periods—raises some different issues. Because racism is
a fairly broad issue, we may want to relate it to larger features of the so-
ciety. It is generally regarded as a social problem, so we will probably
also want to do a hermeneutic interpretation of it that will not only de-
scribe, but also help eradicate, it from the culture. Even if that is our
goal, we nevertheless need to begin with data as rigorous and systematic
as we can collect. Just because we are planning a hermeneutic analysis
does not permit us to get away with a subjective, idiosyncratic approach
to the cultural materials that will be used in our interpretation. In study-
ing racism, we will need to use the many opinion polls that have asked
questions about racial attitudes. But we also need to steer a middle
course between the two pitfalls that seem to be common in dealing with
survey data: dismissing it too quickly or believing it too uncritically. If
we assume survey data mean nothing because this information cannot
possibly tell us what people really think, then we are naive about the
role that surveys actually play. But if we assume that survey responses
actually tap into underlying social psychological states, then we are also
naive and are making a leap of blind faith that most scientifically ori-
ented sociologists would not like to admit. Survey responses are again a
kind of discourse, a text, or aggregation of texts. In examining relations
among them, we may or may not be tapping attitudinal states, but we

can examine the relations among elements of discourse, just as a struc-
tural linguist examines relations in language. What we can discover are
the kinds of elements that can be associated with one another, those that
are not, and perhaps some of the rules governing these associations.
As we turn from data on racism to the problem of interpreting its
place in the culture, we must again be cautious about what we are really
doing. We may use terminology that implies we are examining the cul-
tural meaning of racism. But are we? Does not racism have nearly as
many meanings as there are people (or social scientists)? We may be giv-
ing our interpretation of racism, saying what it means to us. But on
what basis is this interpretation likely to be compelling? It can be com-
pelling only if the bases of interpretation are made clear. We must build
a compelling case by examining the relations that actually are observ-
able in the culture between racial statements and other cultural ele-
ments. If we are asserting claims about biblical imagery and racism, for
example, it does far more good to examine speeches in which these re-
lations are actually present than to assert a general cultural affinity.
Again, such speeches can be taken at face value, but they can also be
taken apart to determine more precisely how configurations and catego-
ries are pieced together.
These examples seem to suggest that the problem of meaning may
well be more of a curse than a blessing in cultural analysis. When we set
out to study it, the available evidence generally makes it elusive. If we
claim to have extracted something about it, we have probably claimed
too much. When we think we have studied it, we have probably turned
anyway to an examination of the relations among cultural elements.
And if we have dismissed culture because of these problems, we have
probably thrown out other facets of culture that are valuable to exam-
ine. This is not to say that the problem of meaning is a hopeless quag-
mire. In-depth analysis by psychologists or anthropologists with train-
ing at probing the subjective consciousness may be productive. But few
sociologists have these skills, and the business of sociology as a disci-
pline has generally run in other directions, specifically, toward analyz-
ing observable data.
More generally, the brief reconnaissance of the classical and neoclas-
sical traditions that has been undertaken here reveals some of the rea-
sons why the problem of meaning has become so central to the study of
culture. Many of these reasons were rooted in broader diagnoses of the
human condition and in particular epistemological assumptions that no
longer seem as compelling as they once did. At a minimum, the problem

of meaning turns out to be contingent on cultural constructions rather
than being an inherent feature of culture itself. Once this fact is seen
clearly, culture certainly can be studied without making meaning the
central concern. Whether it is desirable to displace meaning from cul-
tural analysis is another matter. But the radical subjectivity with which
this approach has traditionally been associated clearly leads to problems
of evidence, method, and interpretation that would be desirable to
avoid if possible.
Meaning, of course, as wags have been prone to point out, has many
meanings. In addition to the radical subjectivity that has been discussed
here, either as inner attitudes or as the deep subjective meanings indi-
viduals attach to symbols, are broader usages of the term "meaning."
We may speak, as sociologists, about "shared meanings" or "collective
meanings." Or, from the perspective of interpretive sociology, we may
wish to assert the priority of interpreting the meaning of events as the
main task of social inquiry. But both these usages really refer to some-
thing else and only obscure clear discussion by relying on the same term.
The issue of shared meanings is really one of discourse and behavior;
otherwise we have no basis for calling it "shared." As such, it falls
squarely into the perspective, here associated with poststructuralism,
that emphasizes the study of discourse. Or put differently, we focus on
the messages that are" communicated, but we do not become embroiled
in the ultimate phenomenological quest to probe and describe subjective
meanings in all their rich detail. As interpretative sociologists, we also fo-
cus on enhancing the meaningfulness of events, but in all humility must
acknowledge that our interpretations are themselves subject to many in-
terpretations. We do not in fact explicate "the meaning" of an event,
therefore, but only try to render it meaningful by putting it in a clear in-
terpretive framework. In a sense, then, we retain much of what has been
seen to be of value in discussions of meaning, but we consciously try to
move away from focusing cultural analysis itself on the radically subjec-
tive beliefs, attitudes, and meanings of the individual.
To suggest abandoning the problem of meaning is, of course, much
like quitting the settlement and launching into the wilderness. Writers
like the poststructuralists may be useful as guides. But there are no
maps. It even remains uncertain whether the journey is a reasonable
gamble. Only plodding efforts to deal with the problems that culture
presents are likely to tell.
CHAPTER THREE
The Structure of
Moral Codes
The problem of moral order, prominent in the classical tradition in the

work of Durkheim, has in recent years also become a matter of broader
interest. Questions about moral commitments to public responsibilities,
changes in moral convictions, moral bases of self-worth, and the corro-
sive effects of modern culture on morality have arisen. These questions
have obviously far-reaching ramifications in fields such as ethics, theol-
ogy, education, and public policy. They also have an important cultural
dimension and thus provide an opportunity to explore some of the ideas
about culture that have just been outlined. This chapter draws primarily
on Mary Douglas's idea of symbolic boundaries to develop a structural
analysis of moral codes. A relatively broad, inductive concept of moral
codes forms the basis of this analysis. A moral code will be defined as a
set of cultural elements that define the nature of commitment to a par-
ticular course of behavior. These elements, it will be argued, have an
identifiable symbolic structure. Examining this structure will thus pro-
vide an opportunity to illustrate some of the strengths and weaknesses
of the structural approach to cultural analysis.
THE QUESTION OF MORAL AUTHORITY

Analysts of contemporary culture have persistently raised questions
about the bases of moral authority in modern society. To many, prob-
lems evident at the level of moral obligations seem to have grown to
crisis proportions. In his much discussed Harvard commencement ad-
66
The Structure of Moral Codes 67
dress, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1978:51), for example, summarized a

prevailing view:
The West has finally achieved the rights of man, and even to excess, but
man's sense of responsibility to God and society has grown dimmer and dim-
mer. In the past decades, the legalistic selfishness of the Western approach to
the world has reached its peak and the world has found itself in a harsh spiri-
tual crisis and a political impasse. All the celebrated technological achieve-
ments of progress, including the conquest of outer space, do not redeem the
twentieth century's moral poverty.
For Solzhenitsyn, the problem facing the West is at heart moral and spiri-
tual. It consists of a diminishing sense of attachment or obligation to ab-
solute values. The result is, on the one hand, an increasing substitution
of technology and bureaucratic law for moral commitment and, on the
other hand, symptoms of decadence and social disintegration.
From a quite different philosophical perspective, a similar analysis has
been presented by Harvard sociologist Daniel Bell. In his view, religion
has traditionally supplied the basis of social solidarity and moral responsi-
bility. But the capacity of religion to fulfill this role has, for various rea-
sons, been shrinking. Despite numerous indications of a fundamentalist
revival, the larger prominence of religion in modern society has been
eroded by the very institutions that fundamentalists have vainly sought to
recapture—the modern bureaucratic state, an autonomous economic
sphere, secular higher education, routinized legal procedures. The result
has been hedonism, a thirst for novelty, a sense of rootlessness, a lack of
moral responsibility. Bell (1976:84) concludes: "the social order lacks ei-
ther a culture that is a symbolic expression of any vitality or a moral im-
pulse that is a motivational or binding force. What, then, can hold the so-
ciety together?"
From yet another quarter, deep concern has been voiced about a
seeming increase in narcissistic individualism. Richard Sennett's The
Fall of Public Man (1976), for example, portrays a decided erosion over
the past century in moral obligations to public roles and participation.
But for Sennett the problem is not simply a function of rising self-love at
the expense of community involvement. Rather, a crisis also is evident
at the individual level—-a shattered sense of self-identity that leaves the
individual desperately dependent on intimacy and shared feelings, but
one that ultimately provides too little self-confidence to commit oneself
to larger social causes. The social is, in short, inextricably linked to the
personal. What appears publicly as a lack of moral responsibility is com-
pounded privately as a problem in self-definition.
68 The Structure of Moral Codes
A somewhat similar diagnosis, again from quite different starting as-

sumptions, has been advanced by Habermas (1976) in his discussion of
the cultural problems present in advanced capitalism. Although Ha-
bermas's concept of "legitimation crisis" has received the greatest
attention, a parallel problem at the interpersonal level—termed a "moti-
vation crisis"—-comes closest to other writers' concern with moral au-
thority. With Sennett, Habermas perceives a marked tendency in modern
societies toward withdrawal from the public realm. The problem, how-
ever, is not primarily a failure on the part of individuals, but a characteris-
tic of the culture and, in turn, of political and economic institutions. Like
Solzhenitsyn, Habermas recognizes a growing cultural tendency toward
locating authority in technical and administrative performance. But this
type of authority does not provide an independent base of legitimacy for
the political system. Nor does it contain conceptions of intrinsically au-
thoritative moral principles. The result again is an amoral dependence on
purely rational legal codes, enforceable by coercion and utilitarian calcu-
lations, and purely pragmatic considerations of market value and techni-
cal performance.
Whether these diagnoses are correct or overstated has not been ex-
amined rigorously, but public opinion polls and voting records docu-
ment some of the more specific problems that have been discussed—de-
clining voter participation, cynicism about public1
institutions, eroding
commitment to traditional religious values. Studies also demonstrate
considerable change in standards of sexual morality and in gender
roles, life-styles, and work values, all of which may have led to increas-
ing uncertainties about moral choices and the bases for validating
moral obligations. In public discourse, issues of ethics and morality
have gained new visibility in the decade since Watergate, and research
on self-identities supports the claim that personal meaning clearly de-
pends on moral attachments and is adversely affected by ambiguities in
these attachments (e.g., Wuthnow, 1976; Gallup Organization, 1983).
Many of the more global assessments pointing to a crisis in moral au-
thority, however, can be only partially verified by studies of this kind.
Of more pressing importance, greater effort needs to be devoted to the
task of trying to understand the nature of moral obligations in general.
Two distinct literatures have addressed this issue. One focuses on
moral standards, the other, on moral development. The former has
dealt mainly with substantive topics having a clear moral component,
such as lying, sexuality, abortion, and cheating. Conceptually, this litera-
ture deals with morality primarily in terms of norms or rules. The sec-
ond body of literature, inspired to a great extent by the work of Law-

rence Kohlberg (1981, 1984), has been concerned with stages in the
development of moral reasoning. It has paid less attention to specific
moral questions but has utilized moral dilemmas as a means of evoking
evidence on how subjects arrive at—and legitimate—moral decisions.
Both of these literatures have considerable value, but neither is en-
tirely satisfactory for present purposes. The moral standards literature
seldom pays attention to the formal properties of moral codes, nor are
these standards seen as cultural complexes with an internal structure or
set of relations. Because virtually anything can qualify as a moral norm,
the task of investigation also quickly proves unmanageable or else is lim-
ited arbitrarily to prosaic traditional moral rules. The moral develop-
ment literature has given more recognition to the complex, formal pat-
terns constituting moral reasoning, but this literature can be criticized
for attempting to mold these patterns into a simplistic, heavily value-
laden evolutionary scheme. Because this literature has been developed
from examining subjects' reactions to contrived moral dilemmas, it also
has doubtful applicability for answering the broader questions about
moral obligations that Solzhenitsyn and others have raised. For these
reasons, no effort will be made here to draw systematically from these
literatures. A different approach will be offered, one that rests on rela-
tively elementary assumptions about the structure of culture and that
leads to some considerations not often addressed in the literature on
moral order.
A STRUCTURAL APPROACH
To begin, let us imagine that some degree of order has to be present
in people's behavior. In many cases the degree of orderliness required
may be quite small, but some order can always be assumed to be pres-
ent. If it were not, individuals would be unable to make sense of their be-
havior, and social interaction would be impossible. Let us also imagine,
following Mary Douglas, that order has somehow to do with bound-
aries. That is, order consists mainly of being able to make distinctions—
of having symbolic demarcations—so that we know the place of things
and how they relate to one another.
From these assumptions we can also say that in analyzing moral
codes we are going to be dealing with symbols—cultural elements that
express boundaries—and we are going to be looking for some structure
among these symbols. In other words, symbols have to be related to one
another in some manner so that boundaries or distinctions are implicitly

present. Structure, then, does not mean that any tightly organized or
logically consistent system
2 is present, only that some symbolic distinc-
tions can be identified. The payoff from this approach is that the bound-
aries identified may possibly be used to make sense of the areas in which
problems in moral obligations may be likely to arise. What exactly one
might look at can be discussed more clearly by introducing some exam-
ples. These will provide raw material from which some assertions about
symbolic boundaries can be generated.
First, suppose one were to visit a fundamentalist church, talk with
some of its members, listen to a sermon, and read some of its literature
(this is a convenient example to begin with because many investigators
have done just that; moreover, morality and fundamentalism 3
are often
thought to have a particularly straightforward relation). In keeping
with some of the methodological conclusions drawn in the previous
chapter, it would be desirable if our information could be as readily ob-
servable as possible (i.e., not pretend to be about beliefs and subjective
meanings but consist of utterances, objects, and events). Some of these
events might be observed: baptisms, hymn singing, public prayers, ser-
mons, Bible reading. One would also be likely to hear utterances about
"God," "obeying God," "sin," "the devil," "Jesus," and being "born
again," "saved," or "converted." Some behavior or utterances about be-
havior might also be worth noting: giving money to the church, attend-
ing church, abstaining from alcohol, and talking about marital fidelity,
for example.
Next, suppose we visited some middle-class or working-class families
chosen mostly at random (again because several investigators have done4
this and reported their observations and conversations in some depth).
Here we would probably observe people working, caring for children,
engaging in neighborhood activities, doing volunteer work, and so on.
We would expect to hear a lot of discourse about themselves and their
children, their jobs, plans, goals, and successes. In keeping alert to dis-
course somehow bearing on morality and moral commitments, we
might also hear utterances about "doing my best," "making things bet-
ter for my kids," "helping people," "doing what's expected of me," and
"not being a burden to other people."
Finally, to provide a contrast, suppose we made observations in a so-
called "human potential movement," such as Scientology,
5 Transcenden-
tal Meditation, est, or transpersonal psychology. This location might
be valuable for exploring some of Sennett et al.'s ideas about narcissism,
but again, rather than prejudging the type of moral constructs involved,
let us simply make note of the readily observable: people meditating, at-
tending encounter sessions or T-groups, talking about "getting in touch
with myself" and "learning to express myself," perhaps making some-
what more explicit reference to themselves or commenting on their be-
havior to a greater degree than in the other settings, and perhaps deviat-
ing (visibly or verbally) from prevailing types of dress, jobs, or marital
patterns.
These materials require us to know relatively little about beliefs, in-
ner states, reasoning processes, or moral dilemmas. As in any setting,
they benefit from comparisons and from the observer's general familiar-
ity with behavior patterns, but the observer need not make claims to un-
derstand in any detail the "meaning" of various acts and utterances.
Nor is it necessary to assume that all the observations made in each set-
ting constitute some "system" with an underlying set of assumptions or
a consistent logic. Only the fact that these acts and utterances coexist in
roughly the same time and place makes it possible to raise questions
about their relations to one another and the kinds of symbolic distinc-
tions that may be evident.
With enough materials, any number of symbolic distinctions and pat-
terns among these distinctions might be identified in each example. For
purposes of understanding the structure of moral obligations, three such
distinctions seem to be particularly important and are evident in each of
the examples. Sketching these distinctions will by no means provide a
full picture of the structure of moral obligations but will suggest some of
the ways in which this structure may be expressed symbolically.
MORAL OBJECTS AND REAl, P R O G R A M S
Some of the symbols in the examples clearly refer to an object of com-

mitment. This object, as well as the idea of commitment to it, is evident
in utterances such as "obeying God," "trying to do God's will," "mak-
ing the world better," "making life better for my kids," and "getting in
touch with myself." God, world, kids, and self represent objects of com-
mitment. Other symbols in each of the examples refer more directly to
what people do. These include activities such as reading the Bible, at-
tending church, working hard at one's job, spending time on commu-
nity activities, meditating, and talking about one's feelings. In many
cases, the two sets of symbols are closely related. For example, talk of
doing God's will may be especially common while people are participat-
ing in church activities; if asked why they work hard or meditate, people
may answer that the reason is to make the world better or discover their
true self. Yet the two sets are also clearly different. This is evident from
the symbols themselves. The church is not God, one's job is not the
world, and meditating is not the self. The two are related yet distinct.
It is in fact this subtle pattern of connected-but-separate that often re-
quires special care to observe in investigating discourse. Two symbols are
discursively connected, but one is emphasized rather than the other. In
the television miniseries Roots II, for example, Alex Haley's father ad-
monishes him, "Alex, you must get a college education, for your own
good and for the good of your people." The connection in this familiar ad-
monition is evident: an activity that Alex can perform (going to college)
and an object to which one should be committed (his people). Performing
one is a way of attaining the other. Alex's reply is also instructive: "Yes,
father, I'll do my best." Best at what—going to college or doing good for
his people? The two are distinct
6
but sufficiently related that a more spe-
cific reply is not required.
Many discussions of this type of moral logic would immediately iden-
tify a potential problem in this connection of objects and activities. To
value one thing but then actually do something slightly different runs
afoul of moral criticism. This may in fact be an area worthy of further
consideration as a possible source of moral erosion. For the time being,
however, it will suffice simply to identify this as one of the symbolic dis-
tinctions that make up the structure of a moral code. In order to identify
it, we might refer to it as the distinction between the "moral object," on
the one hand, and the "real program," on the other.
SELVES AND ACTORS
A second distinction emerges in the three examples in conjunction

with symbolism about the person or the actor. When the fundamentalist
is described as a person who has been "saved," a distinction is being
made between two aspects or components of the self. One is the soul,
the essence of the person, that is pure, forgiven, ultimately acceptable—
indeed, imperishable, as suggested by the related idea of "eternal life."
The other part is "flesh," mortal, subject to temptation and impurity.
The middle-class breadwinner who says "I'm just doing my job" is in ef-
fect making the same distinction: there is a "real me" who is good, wor-
thy, incorruptible; and this "real me" is different from the actor who
works at a job that is often boring, beneath my dignity, and sometimes
even compromises my integrity. Work may be fulfilling and provide a

sense of7 worth; yet the real self is in some ways separate from the
worker. So it is, too, in the human potential example. What meditation
does is to define8 the "true self" as an entity apart from the multiple roles
one must play.
In each instance the distinction between the real me and the roles I
play permits, as it were, a degree of role distance. One can in effect say,
"What you see me doing is really not who I am." This is the distinction
that allows one to comment on—even criticize—one's own behavior.
Woody Allen's title character in Annie Hall epitomizes this capacity.
When she says, "Gee, Annie, that was a dumb thing to say," she commu-
nicates vividly that what she 9has just done or said should be distin-
guished from who she really is.
The distinction between aspects of the self and the roles it plays is, of
course, fundamental to modern social psychology. Two points neverthe-
less need to be emphasized. One is that this distinction is not simply the
theoretical construction of social psychologists; it is also a cultural con-
struction that can be seen in discourse itself. The other is that, contrary
to some social psychological arguments, the self is not simply the sum of
a person's roles. Symbols used in conversation at least suggest the idea
of a true, real, or inner self that is different from any of these roles.
This distinction is again between symbols that are separate but also
connected. Moral arguments in the conventional sense link character
and action, self-worth and behavior. One's actions seemingly must de-
rive from or reflect upon who one is. Yet the two must also not be con-
fused. For present purposes this distinction can be named that between
the "self "and the "actor."
INEVITABILITY A N D I N T E N T I O N A L I T Y
In each of the examples some particularly powerful symbols are also

evident. Some of these are personified (Christ, the devil, one's boss or
guru); others are special events or concepts (sin, a pay raise, having an
ESP experience). They have powerful symbolic value because they hap-
pen infrequently, are unusual or divine, and sometimes influence circum-
stances or represent changes in one's life. In some cases they also serve
as objects that are pursued or venerated or are explicit sources of moral
authority (e.g., Jesus' teachings). Their special quality or power, how-
ever, also suggests that they may symbolize important cultural bound-
aries. If, as Mary Douglas suggests, boundaries are essential to social or-
der, then special significance is likely to be attached to these boundaries,

and special power may be associated with beings or events that violate,
transcend, modify, or uphold these boundaries.
Following this lead, many of these beings, events, and concepts ap-
pear to symbolize a distinction between what might be termed the "in-
evitable" and the "intentional." On one side of this boundary are forces
that the individual cannot control; on the other side is a realm subject to
the individual's control, a realm in which intentions govern, rather than
obdurate conditions. Jesus struggles with the inevitable (death, evil, suf-
fering) and wins; it temporarily violates him, but in the end he emerges
triumphant. The devil, in contrast, is originally good, capable of control-
ling his actions, but then becomes a fallen angel who succumbs to evil
and becomes its instrument. Whereas Jesus symbolizes the possibility of
pushing back the inevitable, the devil symbolizes the intentional realm
being intruded upon by the inevitable.
This pattern is in general one typified by heroes and villains. Heroes
conquer that which was thought impossible; villains succumb to forces
beyond their control and in so doing suggest 10
the possibility that we too
may be more vulnerable than we thought. Contemporary heroes and
villains follow this pattern. A villain such as the cult leader Jim Jones
symbolizes the intrusion of the inevitable: the possibility that a cleverly
administered bureaucratic organization can manipulate even our most
cherished possession, the mind. We thought the mind was under our
control, a landmark in the realm of intentionality, but Jones's seeming
ability to "brainwash" his followers, even to the point of11mass suicide,
raises the spectre of external forces penetrating the will. In opposite
fashion, much of the same constitutes the basis of adulation for cultural
heroes—the mystic guru who refuses to conform to bureaucratic rules,
the fortune-teller who extends the mind's
12
powers into new areas, the ec-
centric scientist who does the same.
Nonpersonified entities, concepts, and acts may also symbolize
boundaries between the intentional and the inevitable. Getting a promo-
tion dramatizes one's efficacy; getting fired reveals the powerful forces
one is up against. Deliberately not answering the telephone gives one a
sense of seizing control of one's life; getting a headache excuses one
from performing competently because it was beyond one's control. Con-
cepts of free will permit persons to take credit for their accomplish-
ments; concepts of determinism give them an "out" for their failures.
Although these distinctions do not exhaust the possibilities available
in moral discourse, they nevertheless provide in combination a useful
outline of the components involved in constructing moral codes. Each

of these symbolic distinctions seems, on reflection, to serve a useful func-
tion in maintaining the authority of particular moral commitments. Cul-
tural constructions that mandate certain courses of behavior as desir-
able, as "moral," can be viewed not simply as subjective commitments
or attitudes, but also as codes that consist of many symbolic elements
with an underlying structure involving boundaries between moral ob-
jects and real programs, selves and actors, and realms of intentionality
and inevitability. Any erosion or blurring of each boundary, therefore,
constitutes an area in which one might look to identify potential crises
in moral authority.
A M B I G U I T I E S IN SYMBOLIC B O U N D A R I E S
The importance of a clear set of symbolic boundaries can be seen by

considering the functions that: each boundary may perform in sustaining
commitment to a morally valued set of activities. The boundary be-
tween the moral object and the real program essentially removes the ob-
ject of moral commitment from empirical observation. Only the real pro-
gram of concrete activities lies in the empirical realm. Consequently, it
becomes possible to fulfill one's real program (or to fail), but it remains
impossible either to fulfill or to fail at fulfilling one's moral responsibili-
ties. Who can say, for example, whether one is actually serving God by
daily reciting one's prayers? The prayers are observable, and one can
succeed or fail in diligently reciting them; God is not observable. This is
true as well in other instances in which the object of moral commitment
is not a supernatural being. Who can ultimately say whether or not
working hard at one's job is making the world a better place? Who can
say whether or not meditation practices actually reveal one's "true
self"? Generally
13 the moral object remains hidden; only the real program
can be seen.
The virtue of this distinction is simply that it maintains commitment
to the moral object. Because effects on the moral object cannot be mea-
sured, thinking that one is fulfilling moral obligations, whether one in
fact is or not, remains possible. Were it possible to actually measure
these effects, one would either succeed, and therefore have to push on to
something else, or fail to the point of becoming discouraged and aban-
doning the struggle. But the special connected-but-separate relation be-
tween the moral object and the real program allows14one to discharge
one's duties without fear of empirical disconfirmation.
How might this special distinction become blurred? One possibility is

from what might loosely be termed "rationalization"
15
(i.e., substituting
the real program for the moral object). In an effort to make behavior
more rational, efficient, or utilitarian, unobservable values may be re-
placed by observable activities. Attending church takes precedence over
serving God; getting a good job, over serving humanity; obeying one's
guru, over seeking inner knowledge. Another possibility is through phi-
losophical criticism of the relation between object and activity. If philo-
sophical criticism suggests that God, after all, is not served by attending
church, then uncertainties arise about the moral worth of this activity.
In either case, an erosion of the boundary between moral object and
real program is likely to result in cynicism, which is the opposite of
moral commitment. Conflation of object with activity leaves activity
without deeper justification. Dissociation of the two opens possibilities
for doubts about which activities are most worthy. Thus, it is the deli-
cate—and subtle—symbolic distinction that must be maintained.
The boundary between self and actor also plays a significant role in
maintaining moral commitment. It assists in sustaining self-worth and
minimizing guilt. On the one hand, the fact that one does act—or, more
appropriately, that one is the actor—means that a sense of self-worth
can be derived from engaging in activities deemed to have moral value.
The fundamentalist can derive self-worth from attending church; the
breadwinner, from providing for his or her family; the seeker, from
meditating. Yet the fact that one is not the actor—that one has a "true
self" different from the roles one plays—means that self-worth is par-
tially independent from role performance. One can fail, or be lazy, and
not suffer total demoralization. The erosion of this distinction can obvi-
ously lead to a loss
16
of self-worth, insecurity, and perhaps a restless need
to prove oneself.
Among the ways in which this boundary might be eroded, two seem
especially pertinent. One is through the loss of institutionalized roles for
dramatizing that one is in fact a moral person. These consist mainly of
highly symbolic roles that one can generally perform without great sacri-
fice and without risk of failure. Roles such as contributor to charities or
volunteer for worthy causes serve as examples. Generally these are vol-
untary activities—a fact that helps demonstrate the relation between
role and self ("I chose to do this"). The fact that such roles often occur
in the private sphere, where the real self presumably resides, also re-
inforces this connection (thus, it is more worthy to give of one's free
time than to say "I gave at the office"). These roles, despite their volun-
tary nature, are generally readily available through institutionalized

sources, such as churches, fund drives, and community organizations.
But they can become scarce as a result of professionalization and bureau-
cratization. Shifting social service activities to professionals, such as
clergy and social workers, can diminish the value of volunteer activities.
And bureaucratization—or the rise of complex institutions generally—
can make it difficult to believe that one's voluntary activities really 17
make enough of a difference to be considered a source of self-worth.
The other way in which the self/actor distinction can become eroded
is through a loss of what might be termed "purification rituals." These
rituals are like a maintenance crew that sweeps out the self, rids it of fail-
ures or blame, and shores up the boundary between it and the roles it
plays. Guilt that arises from a conflation of self and compromised or
failed role performances can simply be denied if such rituals are not
available—a technique that may not, however, be entirely satisfactory.
Although some argue that this has been the modern tendency, the con-
tinuous invention of new purification rituals suggests their importance.
In recent years the resurgence of charismatic religious movements, in
which cleansing and healing play a prominent role, provides a notable
example. Another example is provided by the continued, if not rising,
quest for intimacy—having close friends who tell us we are really okay.
The symbolic boundary between inevitability and intentionality
bears most directly on the question of moral responsibility. One can be
held accountable only for those activities and outcomes over which one
exercises control. Having a realm governed by intentionality is essential
to the concept of moral responsibility. Having a realm of inevitability is
equally important because it limits this responsibility to manageable pro-
portions. It defines areas over which one has no control and, therefore,
cannot be held accountable. Moral codes that survive for any length of
time are likely to include some way of 18
limiting responsibility. Otherwise
guilt would rise to intolerable levels.
When the boundary between the inevitable and the intentional is un-
clear, arriving at or instilling a workable concept of moral decision mak-
ing becomes difficult. One becomes unsure whether a particular act can
truly be considered a matter of moral choice or not. The likely result is
apathy or frustration.
One of the cultural changes that can make this boundary unclear
is secularization—or changes in religious concepts more generally.
Changes in concepts that define the degree of individual accountability
to God can have particularly important ramifications. Theological, as
well as legal, controversies over the conditions under which a person

may be held accountable for criminal acts provide an illustration. An-
other source of boundary uncertainty that is particularly prominent in
contemporary culture is the role of science in pushing back the frontiers
of the inevitable through new knowledge. On the one hand, science's
success in this area has raised high expectations, often making heroes of
leading researchers, and has thereby extended questions of moral re-
sponsibility into vast new areas, such as biotechnology, euthanasia, and
space defense initiatives. On the other hand, these expectations can be
exaggerated and lead to frustration and apathy over issues such as nu-
clear weapons and energy conservation. Science has also in some ways
added to the ambiguities in determining moral responsibility by advanc-
ing a deterministic theory 19of causation that locates responsibility primar-
ily outside the individual. Yet another area in which uncertainties over
inevitability and intentionality have been evident is in social and geopo-
litical conditions. At one level, social systems may be seen as collective
attempts to assert control over the geopolitical environment. But as con-
ditions change, the extent of any particular society's control is often left
in doubt. Border skirmishes, summit meetings, and military showdowns
all have symbolic significance as attempts to clarify these relations.
Considerations such as these obviously range well beyond concep-
tions of morality having to do primarily with standards of individual
conduct or moral dilemmas. Morality in the present sense deals primar-
ily with moral commitment—commitment to an object, ranging from
an abstract value to a specific person, that involves behavior, that con-
tributes to a sense of self-worth, and that takes place within broad defini-
tions of what is inevitable or intentional. Moral commitment, although
in some ways deeply personal and subjective, also involves 20
symbolic con-
structions—codes—that define these various relations. These codes in-
clude symbolic boundaries that can at times become ambiguous. As
such, these boundaries provide strategic locations for seeking potential
areas of moral crisis or erosions of moral authority.
Returning briefly then to the discussions of moral crisis summarized
at the beginning of the chapter, it can now be seen that most of these
crises pertain to one or another of the symbolic boundaries under consid-
eration. The problem of narcissism, for example, concerns most directly
the boundary between self and actor. Particularly in Sennett's descrip-
tion, narcissism arises
21
from an inadequate separation of the self from
the roles one plays. Solzhenitsyn's diagnosis of law and technique sub-
stituting for commitment to absolute values concerns the boundary be-
tween moral object and real program. Possibly, the uncertainty of how
law and technique serve ultimate values raises questions of whether
moral commitment to these procedures is justified or not. Bell's discus-
sion of secularization, hedonism, and declining moral responsibility
raises questions about both the self/actor and the object/program dis-
tinctions. And Habermas's emphasis on withdrawal from public institu-
tions, as well as his analysis of legitimate questions raised by new state/
economy relations, highlights areas in which the inevitable/intentional
distinction has become ambiguous.
In order to consider in greater detail how these various symbolic
boundaries figure into the maintenance of moral commitment, an ex-
tended application of the model is developed in the next section with ref-
erence to the question of moral commitment to behavior in the market-
place. This application will also permit some further considerations to
be raised about how symbolic boundaries can become ambiguous.
APPLICATION: MORAL COMMITMENT

IN THE MARKET
The assumption on which the present discussion rests is that the mar-
ket system is more than simply a means of exchanging goods and ser-
vices. It is, to be sure, a mechanism for establishing prices, a means of
creating profits, and a system that promotes productivity. This is the
standard view presented in economics textbooks. But, whether we con-
sciously acknowledge it or not, the market system is for most of us some-
thing to which we are morally committed. It needs to be understood
more broadly than in narrow economic terms. It is an integral aspect of
our basic values and our assumptions about reality.
The market is inextricably woven into the daily activities from which
we derive a sense of self-worth. We invest market behavior with moral
importance. We associate the market system with some of our most cher-
ished values or moral objects. We also perceive the market in the con-
text of symbolic boundaries defining realms of intentionality and inevita-
bility. It follows that any change in the fundamental principles of the
market system, however subtle, is likely to threaten more than merely
our material standard of living. An erosion of the market system may
threaten the very fabric of moral commitment and challenge some of the
cultural sources from which self-worth is derived.
As already noted, some observers of contemporary culture argue that
a deep moral crisis has begun to be evident, and many signs of this crisis
relate in one way or another to the market system. Pollsters point to
high levels of alienation from business and to skepticism about the value
of work. Others speak of a disjuncture between the economic realm and
the values that once gave it legitimacy. Still others link the rise of narcis-
sism to changes in the market system.
These kinds of arguments point clearly to the fact that the market sys-
tem is more than simply a supply-demand price mechanism—that it is
an arena in which questions about moral commitments occupy an im-
portant place. But it is, again, difficult to assess these kinds of argu-
ments without some model of how moral commitments are constructed
and maintained in the marketplace. The foregoing considerations sug-
gest the outline for such a model. Following this outline, arguing that
the marketplace represents one area in which we often attempt to fulfill
the moral responsibilities we have to the society in which we live seems
reasonable. In pursuing activities of the marketplace, we derive a sense
of personal worth. This sense of worth is, in turn, one of the gratifica-
tions that sustains our loyalty to the economic system. Moreover, the
marketplace is closely associated with one of the nation's highest val-
ues—freedom. By engaging in market behavior, we do something that
appears to advance the cause of freedom. Market behavior serves as a
"real program" that is connected to the "moral object" of freedom.
This also sustains commitment to the market system. Finally, we oper-
ate in the context of certain cultural categories that give us an "out"
when we are unable to fulfill our moral responsibilities through the mar-
ket system. Together, these cultural constructions serve as a kind of
moral code that governs behavior in the marketplace and bestows legiti-
macy on the economic system. Understanding this code is therefore one
approach to assessing the malaise—the problem of legitimacy—that
some have identified in contemporary capitalism.
As a more general point, this consideration of moral codes as cultural
constructions will suggest an alternative way of conceptualizing the
problem of legitimacy. In classical terms, the problem of legitimacy fo-
cuses on the question of when, and under what conditions, a given insti-
tution or set of social practices is deemed to be "right" or "proper" by
some significant aggregate of actors. If legitimacy is present, actors will
presumably commit themselves to maintaining the institution in ques-
tion. Identifying the structure of the cultural codes that define the nature
of this commitment is therefore crucial to understanding the problem of
legitimacy. The present discussion suggests that legitimacy is likely to
be present when the symbolic structure defining moral-actor/real-

program, self/actor, and inevitability / intentionality distinctions is in-
tact. These distinctions maintain comrnitmentby providing ritualized oc-
casions for discharging moral obligations and thereby acquiring a sense
of moral worth. Legitimacy, in this view, is not simply or primarily a
matter of subjective belief but is an exchange relation consisting of ex-
penditures of resources in return for moral rewards—a relation that has
symbolic aspects containing an identifiable structure comprised of sym-
bolic boundaries.
To say that the market system has associated with it a legitimating
"moral code" is not to suggest that this code accurately portrays the
character of market relations themselves. The kind of choice that drama-
tizes our freedom in the marketplace is clearly constrained by the nature
of market demand, the institutions in which work is embedded, differ-
ences in the opportunities available to different social classes, and so on.
The moral code underlying behavior in the capitalist marketplace is in
fact an ideology—a set of common utterances and symbolic acts that
communicates a pattern of assumptions about the nature of commit-
ment to the marketplace. As such, it not only reinforces commitment
but also plays an important role in maintaining the peculiar power rela-
tions on which the capitalist system is based. In what follows, the mani-
festations of this ideology will, however, be isolated from its broader
institutional setting in order to examine the structure implicit in the ide-
ology itself.
THE MORALITY OF THE MARKETPLACE
The marketplace is fraught with moral connotations. This is true not

only in the sense of economic behavior being surrounded by moral in-
junctions to act honestly, ethically, and with integrity. The marketplace
is one of the arenas in modern society in which persons have an opportu-
nity to participate directly in public life. Market activities, and possibly
voting, actually constitute the major forms of public participation. Buy-
ing and selling, working and consuming link individuals to one another
and to the overall collective purposes of the society. The market, there-
fore, provides an important means of discharging moral responsibilities
to the society in which we live.
The founders of modern economic theory clearly recognized the moral
characteristics of the marketplace. Adam Smith, the great eighteenth-cen-
tury spokesman for laissez-faire economics, was as interested in moral
philosophy as in economic theory. In his analysis, the free functioning

market was an instrument not only of exchange but also of human better-
ment. As each individual buyer and each individual seller pursued their
private interests in the marketplace, the "invisible hand" guaranteed that
prosperity would accrue to all. Happily, what was good for the prover-
bial pin maker was good for England too. The moral dimension of
Smith's theory was that the pin maker contributed to the good of society
by making pins. If he withdrew from the market or hoarded his pins, he
not only damaged his own interests as a businessman but also failed to
keep the public trust. For this reason, he was morally beholden to partici-
pate in the market.
In the eighteenth century the marketplace was also thought to serve
as a buttress to moral virtues by placing a check on humanity's most
dangerous passions. By rationally and reflectively pursuing one's eco-
nomic self-interests in the marketplace, one channeled one's natural pas-
sions into socially desirable activities. Without the market, one was
likely to fall prey to avarice, lust, fanaticism, and caprice. But with the
market, one became disciplined and virtuous.
These arguments also had political connotations. A strong market
economy was conceived to be the best protection against the unruly de-
signs of the powerful. It was a means of promoting both domestic and in-
ternational peace by making social relations more predictable. In the tur-
bulent context of the eighteenth century, the prospect of peace was a
powerful argument in favor of the market system. And again, there was
a moral to the argument: the market was delicate, like a fine clock; it
needed to be treated with respect and devotion. By acting responsibly in
the marketplace, citizens performed a moral duty as far as the society
was concerned.
How much these philosophical arguments may have actually filtered
into the consciousness of eighteenth-century merchants and industrial-
ists remains a matter of conjecture. At minimum, historical evidence sug-
gests that these arguments were not limited to academicians alone. As
Hirschman (1977) has shown, publications of the day were filled with
claims and counterclaims about the moral qualities of the market. In
these publications and in legislative actions of the period, the market sys-
tem was not advanced strictly in the name of economic progress; it was
legitimated in the name of individual and social well-being, for which
participants in the marketplace were morally responsible.
During the nineteenth century the market system came to be such a
pervasive feature of social life, not only in Europe and America but also
on a worldwide scale, that it scarcely needed to be defended with moral

arguments—it was simply a fact of life. Yet many of the earlier assump-
tions about the moral qualities of the marketplace lingered on and re-
ceived new vitality. In the United States the market system was regarded
as a source of freedom and dignity for the individual. The famous
McGuffey readers, on which more than 150 million schoolchildren
were reared, extolled the virtues of the marketplace as a means of build-
ing moral character. And in the popular "rags-to-riches" stories of the
period, such as those of Horatio Alger and Russell Conwell, it was by
struggling in the marketplace that one discovered one's talents, devel-
oped character, and contributed to the good of the society. Never in this
literature was the market portrayed simply as an economic device.
These historical arguments probably do not carry the weight they once
did. But they have contemporary counterparts. In subtle ways the market
continues to be perceived in moral terms. Notions of character and sim-
ple moral virtues have been replaced by modern concepts of the self that
stress social responsibility and the pursuit of self-esteem. But the need to
think of ourselves as morally upstanding individuals has scarcely dimin-
ished. The market continues to be portrayed as one of the arenas in which
we can, and must, demonstrate our moral responsibility.
The best-seller lists include moralistic treatises defending the market
system, describing it as the only way of protecting the free world and the
affluent life, and challenging us to be devoted to it. The news media and
policy discussions also provide vivid dramatizations of the market's
moral dimension. Consumers are called on to conserve energy in order
to reduce dependence on foreign oil. In impassioned ethical pleas we are
asked to buy American goods, to regulate our spending habits, to avoid
hoarding and speculation. Presidents and their advisors characterize eco-
nomic policies in moral terms, sometimes describing them as the moral
equivalents of war, calling on breadwinners to sacrifice in order to con-
quer the enemy, and pitting the friends and foes of the free market
against one another in a battle fraught with moral symbolism.
In these ways behavior in the marketplace is given moral significance.
Consumer activity is defined in such a way that it cannot be considered
purely a private matter; it affects the very well-being of the society. How
one behaves is more than a matter of strict economic calculation; it is a
way of acting responsibly toward the larger society.
The way in which moral commitments are symbolized in the culture
is also demonstrated by the kinds of "moral crusades" in which we en-
gage. In the past these crusades have included a mixed lot of move-
ments, ranging from Abolition, the Temperance movement, and various

nativistic movements against Jews and Catholics, to the more recent
struggle for civil rights. At present, the pro-family and anti-abortion
movements sponsored by such groups as the Moral Majority and the
Conservative Caucus provide visible examples of moral crusades. These
are movements that impute moral meaning to various dimensions of
public life.
In recent years America has witnessed a growing number of moral
crusades that have as their focus not the family or personal conduct, but
the marketplace. We have experienced the consumer protection move-
ment, the environmental movement, and the antismoking campaign.
We have also witnessed the antinuclear movement, collective pressures
for equal employment and fair housing, and drives to control advertis-
ing and clean up television. Common to all these crusades has been the
assumption that the marketplace is an important focus for moral behav-
ior. Whether to smoke cigarettes, to recycle beer cans, or to install solar
collectors become decisions of moral, as well as economic, significance.
What is the relevance of these moral claims to the legitimacy of the
market system? Let us assume that people prefer to think of themselves
as good and decent persons, as morally upright individuals, rather than
purely calculating utilitarians. If this is a reasonable assumption, then
the marketplace influences in fundamental ways how we think about
ourselves. We need ways to demonstrate that we are morally responsi-
ble in order to maintain our sense of self-worth. Activities that give us
these opportunities are likely to evoke commitment and sentiments of le-
gitimacy because they give us this sense of well-being.
Economic actor is a role that individuals play in the marketplace. This
role is not synonymous with the self, but it is connected to the self. It also
has moral connotations. Performing this role responsibly becomes a way
of gaining a sense of moral worth for the self. The fact that market behav-
ior has moral connotations means that marketplace activity is not simply
neutral with respect to the self. It potentially contributes self-worth, not
only from the satisfaction one might gain from performing any task com-
petently, but also because these economic activities are linked symboli-
cally to the public good.
In the past, military service, kinship obligations, religion, and philan-
thropy provided ways of demonstrating that one was a morally upright
individual. Although these activities continue to fulfill this function in
limited ways, the marketplace has come increasingly to play a major
role in our efforts to demonstrate to ourselves and to others that we are
moral persons. The great advantage of the market, compared with

strictly voluntary activities, is that it conveniently combines activities
that have to be performed to maintain one's standard of living with op-
portunities for moral display—being a responsible consumer, conserv-
ing energy, contributing
22 to national prosperity, exercising one's "voice"
in the marketplace. As a result, commitment to the market system
stems only in part from sheer economic necessity or from convictions
about the market as a rational economic system. In addition, the legiti-
macy and stability of the market system rests on the fact that we obtain
a sense of self-worth from fulfilling our moral responsibilities by partici-
pating in the market.
This assumes that the market actually provides opportunities to dem-
onstrate convincingly that we are fulfilling our moral obligations. This
is the catch. Such opportunities must, in fact, be present. It does little
good, insofar as generating loyalty to the market is concerned, to set up
moral obligations that cannot be fulfilled. We need ways to act out our
moral obligations, if only in ritual forms, if we are to maintain our sense
of worth as morally responsible individuals.
In any evaluation of the strength of the market system, an important
question to be kept in mind, therefore, is whether the market actually
does provide opportunities for fulfilling moral obligations or whether it
somehow inhibits the performance of these duties. As suggested earlier,
one of the ways in which the self / actor connection can become problem-
atic is for the ritualized opportunities that permit actors to demonstrate
their moral worth as persons to be institutionalized out of existence.
CAPITALISM AND F R E E D O M
The relation between capitalism and freedom serves as an example of

market activities, as a real program of observable activity, being linked
with a highly valued moral object. Linking institutional arrangements of
any kind with the highest values of a society is obviously a useful way to
legitimate those arrangements. Apologists for the market system have of-
ten utilized the value of freedom in this manner. In the name of freedom,
government intervention in the economy is opposed, private enterprise
is extolled, and the open market is defended. Some go farther. In Milton
Friedman's (1962) view, for example, the free market provides the only
sure protection for freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom
of thought.
But it is of little value to assert a relation between capitalism and free-
dom unless that relation is carefully articulated and understood. The

concept of freedom assists in the day-to-day legitimation of the market
system, not so much by linking economic activity with abstract political
philosophy as by providing further reinforcement to the sense of moral
worth that individuals derive from the marketplace. This particular us-
age of the concept of freedom has come into prominence only in rela-
tively recent times.
Among societies in which a fully developed market economy has not
yet appeared, freedom has generally been understood as an attribute of
groups. In traditional India, for example, individuals thought them-
selves "free" insofar as they occupied a clearly
23
defined rank within the
hierarchical structure of the caste system. Studies of other traditional,
archaic, and primitive societies suggest that even where trade was rela-
tively well developed, as among the Polynesian islanders and in the
Greek city-states, freedom was not associated with the individual mer-
chant or trader but with the people collectively.
To the American colonists, freedom took on a distinctively collective
cast rather than individualistic connotations. The freedom they valued
most dearly was freedom from external domination by totalitarian mon-
archies. To the colonists this freedom was symbolized by opportunities
to worship, to create standards of government, and to build new institu-
tions deemed fitting for the New World. But these were collective enter-
prises. The Puritans and Calvinists of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries were not the Protestant individualists of the nineteenth cen-
tury. Freedom from external constraint meant close conformity to inter-
nal restraint, often on pain of expulsion or threat of divine punishment.
The new land would remain free, the Puritan settlers often reminded
themselves, only as long as the religious ideals on which their settle-
ments were founded were strictly and collectively obeyed.
As the market economy grew to prominence during the nineteenth
century, the earlier understanding of freedom underwent subtle modifi-
cation. It ceased to be associated with the collective institutions of the
American people and came increasingly to be associated with individu-
als. It was the rugged individualist on the American frontier, the heroic
woodsman, the pioneer, the robust farmer who most symbolized free-
dom. Freedom came to mean self-sufficiency. One no longer needed to
move in groups or cultivate close ties with neighbors and kin. To be
sure, kinship and ethnic identities did not die easily, but now the mar-
ket, rather than communal groups, provided an outlet for one's produce
and a source of material necessities. As the market expanded, it symbol-

ized the growth of individual autonomy, of freedom.
But self-sufficiency and autonomy, as definitions of freedom, could
not survive without some revision against the growing social complexity
that came to be felt with the rise of large-scale industry. Contrary to
what some observers have argued, the growth of complex bureaucratic
institutions did not erode the concept of freedom so much as give it a dif-
ferent meaning. No longer were free individuals able to think of them-
selves as purely separate creatures, like grains of sand on the seashore.
Instead, freedom came to mean knowing one's place and knowing that
one was functionally related to other individuals and groups.
The relations among individuals came increasingly, as Mary Douglas
(1970) has suggested, to resemble those of a grid in which each cell was
occupied by an individual. Each individual was unique as far as location
in the grid was concerned, but these individuals were also related to one
another in definite patterns. Often the idea of a grid was more than
mere metaphor. The modern economy actually created cells—cubicles,
offices, places on assembly lines—that shaped the modern image of the
person (cf. Foucault, 1979). The identity of the person came to rest not
so much on being self-sufficient but on having a unique function to ful-
fill in some larger organization or system.
In highly regimented settings such as these—assembly lines, military
organizations, bureaucracies—the individual's functions are closely pre-
scribed. But in an increasing number of contexts, such as professional
and middle management positions, the individual exercises discretion
in fulfilling his or her functions, and the individual's freedom is most
clearly manifest in these acts of discretion. In setting priorities, in choos-
ing among possible courses of action, in selecting jobs or career lines,
and in making decisions as a consumer, the individual dramatizes his or
her freedom. Freedom in the contemporary marketplace, in short, es-
sentially means the right to choose. This is the immediate, tangible con-
nection between capitalism and freedom.
Why is this type of freedom valued? In part, the right to choose repre-
sents freedom to explore personal talents and desires. It derives from
fundamental considerations about the value and dignity of the individ-
ual. But this is only part of the story—and perhaps not even the most im-
portant part because many persons seem willing to give up much of
their individuality in favor of conformity to collective norms.
What the right to choose dramatizes, even if that right is sometimes re-
linquished, is that one can be held responsible for one's own actions. Re-
sponsibility for an action can be imputed to an individual only if he or she
could have chosen to do otherwise. If the sergeant calls out an order to
march, for example, the soldier can take little credit for "deciding" to
march. But if someone voluntarily decides to purchase and maintain a
home, that person has shown responsibility. In exercising that responsi-
bility, the person can take pride in knowing that he or she has acted as a
moral self.
Freedom is important to moral obligations, then, because the idea
of moral obligations implies, as noted before, voluntary action. If the
market is to sustain a person's loyally by nurturing that person's image
as being good and decent, it must not only provide opportunities to dis-
charge moral obligations; it must also demonstrate that the person is
free and can therefore be held responsible for his or her actions. The le-
gitimacy of the market system depends on its capacity to provide this
sense of freedom.
It is probably fortunate that the concept of freedom, like other moral
objects, remains somewhat vague. Generally it is poorly enough defined
that we have considerable difficulty determining whether the market sys-
tem actually reinforces personal and collective freedom or not. There
are no standard, easily measurable criteria with which to assess free-
dom, unlike more specific economic concepts such as GNP or dispos-
able income. Instead, there is simply the sense that making choices
among the various products, services, and opportunities provided by the
market constitutes freedom. As individuals experience discretion in
their jobs or make choices as consumers, their freedom is likely to be dra-
matized to them far more vividly than if they thought about it as an ab-
stract civic value. This is the "real," experienced freedom that pushes
into the background more abstract questions about freedom, such as the
issues of freedom for the poor, for those who cannot or who choose not
to participate in the marketplace, or for those whose tastes are not repre-
sented by the market. The contemporary version of freedom is real
enough that it is difficult to invalidate. This is why freedom remains
such an important legitimating concept for contemporary capitalism.
Summarizing briefly, it has been suggested thus far that we have a
fundamental desire to think of ourselves as good and decent, morally
responsible individuals. Consequently, we seek out symbolic activities
that allow us to demonstrate our goodness, decency, and moral responsi-
bility—activities that contribute self-worth in these areas. These activi-
ties must occur in settings in which individuals feel themselves to be
free, that is, capable of making choices, for only if there is choice can we
take personal credit for our behavior. By acting responsibly in these set-
tings, we obtain a sense of personal gratification. Our self-worth is af-
firmed. The gratification we receive, in turn, motivates us to continue
participating in these activities and to regard them as legitimate forms of
behavior. Our participation is maintained as a moral commitment. The
marketplace is one of the chief sources of this type of gratification. The
culture is constructed in such a way that we are able to fulfill moral obli-
gations when we participate in the marketplace. As we go about our
business, we think of ourselves neither as conniving utilitarians nor as
evil capitalists, but as moral persons engaged in socially useful activities.
We also are convinced-that we are acting freely, voluntarily, because the
marketplace permits us to make choices. This participation contributes
to our sense of personal worth. And we, in turn, feel that the market sys-
tem is worthy of our time and devotion.
ECONOMIC REALITIES
An additional set of assumptions also assists both in maintaining the

connection between capitalism and freedom and in sustaining the con-
viction that we are acting as morally responsible individuals when we
participate in the marketplace. This set of cultural constructions tells us,
essentially, that there are certain economic forces over which we cannot
be expected to have control. These forces are simply the laws of nature.
Whenever our most conscientious choices lead to unexpected and unde-
sired outcomes, we can blame these laws. The laws of nature define a
realm of inevitability that limits the realm of intentionality, and they
give us an excuse that limits self-blame. In this way we are able to main-
tain the fiction that we are morally responsible persons, even when evil
results from our well-intentioned activities.
Like other moral codes, that of the marketplace limits guilt rather
than simply creating sources of guilt. It holds individuals responsible for
their choices but also absolves them of guilt by providing an explana-
tion for failings in the system. This explanation consists largely of the
concept of economic laws that are assumed to have their own objective
reality, to operate according to their own principles, functioning in
ways only partly comprehensible even to economists.
For us to be able to blame our failings in the marketplace on eco-
nomic laws, it helps that these laws are objectified. They are understood
as realities with an existence of their own, as forces or beings not subject
to human control or manipulation. Just as the devil is objectified in

other moral codes, so economic laws take on a reality of their own in
the marketplace. In popular discourse, for example, the economy is of-
ten objectified in terms giving it the characteristics of an ominous, will-
ful, living creature. The economy gets "sick," "recovers," falls into a
"slump," "straightens itself out," "awakens," and "revives." Like
earthly beings, interest rates "climb," inflation "soars," and productiv-
ity "staggers." More passively, the economy experiences "spurts," suf-
fers "blows," and sustains "shocks." And finally, the caretakers of the
economy, like wise physicians caring for an ailing patient, seek "reme-
dies," attempt to "heal" the economy, and maintain its "health."
This kind of language livens up the newspapers. But it also plays an
important role in sustaining moral commitment in the marketplace.
These characterizations make the economy into something "out there"
for which we cannot be held morally accountable. Propagandists know
that the most effective way of legitimating an idea is to make it seem
natural, inevitable. A mere idea is an extension of ourselves. It can be
questioned: Is it right? Could it have been otherwise? A fact of the
world, in contrast, simply exists. It stands outside the realm of choice.
Therefore individuals need not blame themselves when something goes
wrong. Such problems, after all, are simply built into the economy.
In contemporary culture the market system has largely been taken for
granted as a feature of reality itself. It has been portrayed, as Polanyi
(1977) has argued, in terms that can be characterized as an "eco-
nomistic fallacy." This fallacy consists of assuming that the market sys-
tem, as we know it, operates according to generic economic laws found
in all societies. In other words, one manifestation of economic life is re-
ified by equating it with economic life in general. Although all societies
have had economies, the market system is but one form of economic or-
ganization. Due to its massiveness, complexity, and longevity, we may
think it is simply a fact of nature. But it is a humanly constructed institu-
tion just as surely as democracy, communism, and the mass media are
constructed institutions. There is, Polanyi suggests, nothing inevitable
about it.
Yet we continue to think of the market economy as an inevitable
fact of nature because this assumption limits the realm of moral respon-
sibility. In a sense, we find restrictions on our freedom of action useful
because we cannot then be held accountable for everything that may
happen. Consumers can excuse themselves for not saving more of their
income. Large corporations can excuse themselves for not making a
profit. Even presidents are prone to point out their inability to perform
economic "miracles" (although they are quick to take credit when
seeming miracles do occur). Given the economic laws to which we are
all subject, we need think no less of ourselves for not doing better.
THE Q U E S T I O N OF C R I S I S
The implication of this kind of analysis is that the legitimacy of the

market system rests on more than its productive capacity alone. The
American system derives support from a number of cultural construc-
tions that, in combination, sustain the convictions of those who partici-
pate in it that they are good and decent persons. These assumptions do
not require formal adherence, as if to a creed, doctrine, or philosophical
outlook. They are built into the fabric of the culture itself.
To recap, the marketplace provides an arena in which some of the
moral obligations we incur as members of the society can be fulfilled.
The capacity to make choices in the marketplace provides an object les-
son in the relation between capitalism and freedom, however impover-
ished this concept of freedom may be. The notion of economic realities,
in turn, limits this freedom, defining realistically attainable areas over
which moral responsibility can be exercised. Together these assump-
tions provide security against doubt and cynicism—doubt that what we
are doing is right and cynicism about the worth of commitment to the
system as a whole.
Historians suggest that the market system gradually acquired these
connotations during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As the mar-
ketplace spread, incorporating more of the adult population in the pro-
duction of goods and services for commercial exchange, it came to be an
important source of moral meaning and self-worth. Indeed, some histori-
ans (Polanyi, for example) argue that by the end of the nineteenth century
the market system had become the single most important institution,
dominating both the broader organization of social life and the outlook
of the average citizen. That the market has continued to play a significant
role in the twentieth century goes without saying.
As indicated previously, however, some observers believe that the
market system may be experiencing a crisis of moral commitment.
Therefore, we must consider how the legitimating symbols—the moral
code—of the marketplace figure in this crisis. The question at issue is
whether larger events in the society or world are eroding these symbolic
constructions in some significant fashion.
An affirmative answer—although different arguments can also be

constructed—can be developed primarily by considering the effects that
technology may be having on the moral code of the marketplace. In sim-
ple terms, it is arguable that the economy's growing dependence on tech-
nology threatens to undermine each of the basic symbolic boundaries
comprising the moral code of the marketplace. With this development,
the legitimacy of the market system and its capacity to generate moral
commitment would also seem likely to be in danger. Several subsequent
scenarios are conceivable: (1) technology could generate its own moral
code and become a significant new basis of moral commitment; (2) tech-
nology and the market system could prove sufficiently compatible in the
long run to reinvigorate moral commitment to both; (3) the two could
exist in sufficient tension with each other that moral commitments
would remain uncertain for some time to come. Which of these scenar-
ios is most likely is not the matter at issue, however. Indeed, the rela-
tions between technology and the market system are probably suffi-
ciently varied that no single scenario is likely to prove entirely accurate.
What a consideration of the effects of technology provides is an occa-
sion to examine in a specific context some of the ways in which sym-
bolic structures may become eroded.
The moral worth traditionally obtained from participating in the mar-
ketplace has evidently already become precarious in some ways. The
growing complexity of the marketplace makes it increasingly difficult
for individuals to sustain the idea that their participation contributes in
any significant way to the public good. Participation in the marketplace
becomes less significant, in other words, as a ritualized means of dis-
charging one's moral obligations to the society. As a result, the activities
from which moral gratification is obtained tend increasingly to be relo-
cated, as Habermas suggests, in the "private" realms—family, leisure,
and voluntary associations. These are the realms in which participation
still appears to make a discernible difference. To some extent, this ten-
dency may have been slowed by the professionalization of the work
force. That is, professionalization redefines work as "career," thereby
suggesting that intrinsic fulfillment can be expected from work. But
even among professionals, intrinsic commitment
24
to working has de-
clined precipitously (Blackwood, 1979).
Although the meaning of these changes is not yet clear, there are indi-
cations that technology is coming to be imbued with the kind of moral
force that used to be associated with the marketplace. Consider, for ex-
ample, the accomplishments in which we take pride as a people: going
to the moon, medical research, sophisticated defense systems, improve-

ments in transportation and communication, breakthroughs in laser
technology, the latest generation of supercomputers. Or consider what
gives a sense of personal accomplishment: having made some small con-
tribution at work to the development of these technological feats, being
knowledgeable enough to discuss them intelligently, reaping the benefit
from these accomplishments as consumers (of home computers, micro-
wave ovens, videodiscs, and other gadgets), and taking satisfaction in
educating our children to understand better the mysteries of science and
technology.
The moral crusades that have been mobilized again indicate the na-
ture of moral commitments. Although the marketplace continues to be
the focus of some of these crusades, an increasing number have come to
be oriented toward technology. Even as more people find moral satisfac-
tion from contributing to the production of high technology, a smaller
number attribute the highest moral importance to opposing the dangers
of technology—nuclear annihilation, risks associated with nuclear en-
ergy, drugs making abortion and euthanasia easier. Moral Majority and
similar groups have seized on these issues.
The idea of freedom has also been affected by the rising prominence
of technology. The discussion of freedom increasingly centers around
questions of technology rather than the marketplace as such. Although
the marketplace dramatizes freedom of choice, awareness has increased
that the production, consumption, and prices of goods represent more
in most cases than autonomous individuals freely exercising personal
preferences. The complexity and interdependence of the economy has in
a sense eroded the connection between freedom as a moral object and be-
havior in the marketplace. In its place, technology seems to have be-
come increasingly connected with freedom. We look to technology to ex-
pand our choices. Technology dramatizes both the highest capacity for
expanding our freedom and one of the greatest potential threats to free-
dom. On one issue after another—birth control pills, abortion, genetic
screening, gender selection, solar energy, fusion research, labor-saving
consumer products, information-processing systems—technology sym-
bolizes new freedoms and poses new threats to old freedoms. Insofar as
freedom continues to be a cherished moral object, therefore, the real pro-
gram that gains legitimacy from being associated with it is likely to be
technology rather than the traditional marketplace.
Finally, the notion of economic realities that are simply there as
"givens" in the world of nature and that serve as excuses when our best
moral intentions go awry also appears to be undergoing a subtle redef-

inition. The growing importance of fiscal planning by government agen-
cies and private firms alike renders it increasingly difficult to sustain the
assumption that economic realities are simply "there," given in the na-
ture of things, and that human decisions share no responsibility for their
existence. As planning agencies assume responsibility for the economy,
they also become susceptible to charges of culpability, ineptness, and
moral failure. These agencies and their leaders are increasingly held ac-
countable for failings in the economic system.
As the market system becomes fraught with ambiguities about the
boundary between inevitability and intentionality, technology again ac-
quires greater cultural significance in relation to this boundary. Technol-
ogy comes to symbolize not only new freedoms but also areas that are
beyond freedom and moral responsibility. Just as the idea of economic
realities did at one time, so the notion of "technical capacity" now pro-
vides an excuse when our morally respectable intentions do not produce
the desired effects. Because our technical capacity is limited, we pay
what we do for oil and electricity, we must take risks in experimenting
with nuclear power, and we cannot avoid the danger of nuclear war.
Rather than having to take blame for moral indiscretions as managers,
breadwinners, or consumers, we can attribute these problems to "the
state of the art."
In defining an area of inevitability, technology has the added advan-
tage of being regarded as a function of nature and scientific laws. We may
no longer be as confident as in the past that the market system reflects the
laws of nature, but we can believe that technology rests on proven evi-
dence about the world itself. Hence, we can legitimate much of our depen-
dence on technology by virtue of the argument that things are just "that
way." With more knowledge and newer technologies, we may be able to
expect more, but at present our limitations are excusable.
Technology, then, promises to become not only an institution of in-
creasing economic importance, but also one having its own legitimating
moral code. Our sense of moral worth, as we discharge moral obliga-
tions, as we conceive of ourselves as free individuals capable of acting
responsibly, and as we recognize limitations on our freedom and responsi-
bility, can become associated with the growing importance of technol-
ogy. Technology, in turn, acquires legitimacy, not simply as a buttress of
economic progress, but also because our sense of self-worth becomes at-
tached to it.
In addition to the cultural consequences that the relations among
technology, the market system, and moral commitments may have, this
case also suggests an important feature of the symbolic boundaries that
define the structure of moral codes. These boundaries are not only
points of potential erosion and ambiguity; they are also potential points
of decoupling and recoupling. In the present case, this is most evident in
the connection between freedom and the marketplace. As the market-
place ceases to dramatize freedom, technology replaces it. A new pro-
gram of observable activity acquires a connection with an established
moral object. That this type of replacement can occur is again a function
of symbolic distinctions. If the marketplace were synonymous with free-
dom, then an erosion of the former would lead automatically to an ero-
sion of the latter as well. As long as the two are connected but separate,
one can fall into doubt and be replaced 25 by a different set of activities
without radically disturbing the other. The idea of symbolic bound-
aries therefore provides insight into some of the ways in which cultural
systems maintain their flexibility.
CONCLUSION
Commitments to particular courses of action, whether to religious
fundamentalism or to participation in the marketplace, are cultural con-
structions that have an identifiable structure consisting of symbolic
boundaries. When properly articulated, these boundaries connect, but
also keep separate, the concepts of moral object and real program, self
and actor, intentionality and inevitability. In the example of moral com-
mitment to the marketplace, market behavior is a real program that is
closely connected, yet distinct from, the higher moral object of freedom;
the role of economic actor is defined as a way of realizing the worth of
one's "true self," even though this role is recognized as not entirely iden-
tical with the "true self"; and the notion of economic realities defines a
realm of inevitability that limits the realm of intentionality and thereby
restricts the scope of actors' moral responsibility. If social circumstances
change sufficiently to make any of these symbolic distinctions ambigu-
ous, as some indications suggest has happened in the marketplace, then
a sense of uncertainty or "moral crisis" may come to be associated with
the commitments at issue.
As an illustration of the structural approach to culture, this discus-
sion has tried to demonstrate that even something as seemingly subjec-
tive as moral commitment can be examined, not as a set of beliefs
locked away in someone's head, but as a relatively observable set of cul-
tural constructions. The advantage of viewing moral commitments as

cultural codes, it has been argued, is that materials can be taken from
readily available sources, such as discourse and ritualistic behavior,
without having to assume that one is tapping into the inner meaning of
these materials. This example also illustrates the structural approach's
quest for generalizable knowledge. Just as one might try to identify re-
current patterns in the exchange relations among social classes, so one
attempts to specify orderly relations among the elements composing a
cultural code. Here, the notion of symbolic boundaries has supplied a ru-
dimentary model of "structure" that seems to have some generality for
analyzing moral codes of quite different substantive content.
The present example also illustrates some of the limitations of the
structural approach. Even though the approach strives for observable
data, it in no way succeeds in generating positivistic knowledge. The
analyst exercises discretion both in selecting the cultural elements on
which to focus and in imposing categories on these elements. The kinds
of symbolic boundaries on which attention has focused are clearly theo-
retical constructs rather than intrinsic attributes of the data. In short,
structural analysis is inevitably interpretive. A further limitation of this
approach is that it ostensibly tries to deal with culture in a social vac-
uum; it purports to focus only on the internal structure of cultural
codes. Yet ideas about the broader social context—here, about capital-
ism, American history, technology, and so forth—constantly have to be
brought into the analysis in order to make any theoretical sense of the
data. The structural approach, it appears, begs to be related more sys-
tematically to the social context in which culture operates. The next
chapter, taking the relations between ritual and moral order as a model,
suggests a way of bringing social contexts back in.
CHAPTER FOUR
Ritual and Moral Order
Mary Douglas has written that the term "ritual" has become "a bad
word signifying empty conformity" (1970:19). In her view this is not
only a mistaken but also an unfortunate understanding of the term.
Modern society cries out for a sense of community, for an enlivened
spirit of commitment to moral obligations. All around are signs of frag-
mentation into purely self-interested competing social units, from the
selfish individual to the self-serving nation-state. Yet the role of ritual,
both actual and potential, in maintaining moral order has gone largely
unrecognized. Although ritual is profoundly important in all the world's
great religions and is found in every society and in virtually every aspect
of social life, its character and functioning remain poorly understood.
To the enlightened Westerner, ritual is simply a bad word, a trouble-
some vestige of some other time and place, or a symptom of personal
maladjustment. It remains shrouded in stereotyped imagery even among
otherwise educated people. Indeed, the stereotypic,quality of the word it-
self is evident in the contradictory usages to which it is generally put.
On the one hand, the idea of ritual conjures up stereotyped concep-
tions of wildly emotional, frenetic activity. Half-naked primitive tribes-
men dance before our eyes, mutilating their flesh in hopes of appeasing
the demonic requests of animistic spirit-gods. Navaho Indians rise up in
our imaginations ready to perform frenzied rites under the mind-numb-
ing influence of peyote, hoping to revitalize some long lost civilization.
Perhaps the anthropologist is to blame for these conceptions. Most of
the best research on rituals has, of course, been done by anthropolo-
97
98 Ritual and Moral Order
1
gists, often in primitive or emotionally charged settings. But modern
rituals are also tainted by these impressions of emotion-laden irrational-
ity. The mass media graphically capitalizes on the collective hysteria of a
ritual like the Super Bowl; introductory social science texts show pic-
tures of saffron-robed Hare Krishnas dancing themselves into blind ob-
livion; educational films recount adventures in snake-handling cults in
order to tell freshmen what ritual is all about.
On the other hand, mention of the word "ritual"—and especially the
adjective "ritualistic"—evokes the image of perfunctory, meaningless
routine. This connotation is almost exactly the opposite of the first.
White-collar Christians sit impassively in Sunday morning worship ser-
vices performing their duties to God "ritualistically." Daily life becomes
habitual and unthinking, a matter of performing "rituals"—brushing
one's teeth, driving to work, going through the motions without know-
ing or caring why. Robert Merton's (1968) discussion of ritual (in his
much-cited essay on anomie) exemplifies this perspective. For Merton,
ritual consists of blind conformity to standard social practices without
really believing in the values and principles underlying them.
Both these popular conceptions of ritual, contradictory as they are,
cannot possibly be correct. The essence of ritual cannot be captured by
crazed emotionality if the same concept creates visions of impassive rou-
tine. Neither view tells very much about ritual or its role and impor-
tance in modern society. We would indeed be wise to reject ritual if
these notions told the whole story.
THE NATURE OF RITUAL
What is needed is a concept of ritual that transcends these popular ste-

reotypes—a concept that identifies an important dimension of social life
even in the modern context. Let us begin, rejecting at least temporarily
both of the stereotypic images of ritual, by simply listing some widely di-
verse kinds of activities:
tribal dances jury trials

the Eucharist revolutions
Muslim prayers etiquette
brushing one's teeth weddings
turn signals holidays
political witch-hunts protocol protocol
Ritual and Moral Order 99
By taking a list intentionally this diverse, we can begin to develop a con-

cept of ritual that may have fairly broad applicability. Some of the activi-
ties listed here clearly seem to qualify, even on the surface, as examples
of ritual. Others will take more careful consideration.
We can partially grasp the nature of ritual by contrasting some of the
more obvious candidates on the list with some kinds of behavior that
would in all likelihood not qualify as examples of ritual. Take, for exam-
ple, the contrast between a wedding and repairing a flat tire. What is the
essential difference? It is emphatically not a difference in the level of
emotion involved. The anger and frustration associated with fixing a
tire may be as intense as the joy or anxiety experienced at a wedding. Or
both may elicit little more than mechanical activity. The difference be-
tween getting married and fixing a tire, as far as ritual is concerned, lies
essentially in the fact that a wedding is structured to evoke and commu-
nicate meanings, whereas fixing a tire does not have this as one of its pri-
mary or alleged purposes. The music, physical arrangements, arid prepa-
ration involved in a wedding ceremony are carefully structured to elicit
and convey deep emotion, even if emotion is not naturally present. The
same activities express beliefs about the nature and value of marriage
and in most cases about religious values. These activities also communi-
cate to the various parties involved that a redefinition of social relations
has occurred, that consent has been obtained, and that good wishes are
in order.
EXPRESSIVITY
This example illustrates the expressivity or communication involved

in ritual. Ritual in this sense is a kind of symbol, or more specifically, a
set of symbolic acts. Acts are symbolic if they stand for something else,
if they communicate meanings rather than being performed for purely
practical or instrumental purposes. Thus, in order to understand ritual,
we must examine the nature of the communication process involved.
The activities of which ritual consists cannot be understood on the sur-
face alone. They communicate deeper meanings, often through subtle
and implicit messages. Ritual is an aspect of culture.
The expressive quality of ritual has been acknowledged in much of
the literature on this subject. This quality, however, has often been mis-
construed. Noting that rituals involve expressive behavior, many observ-
ers have argued that the chief purpose of ritual is to express emotion
and that the presence of deep anxieties, fears, or other feelings is likely
2
to result in ritual activity. The purpose of ritual has been depicted as
one of coping with emotions, either by providing opportunities to vent
them or by involving people in such routine details that their fears were
forgotten. This was largely the position taken by Malinowski
3
in his
work on the rites and beliefs of the Trobriand Islanders. Noting the ha-
tred and anger, the frustrations of courtship and love, the anxieties and
dangers involved in seeking subsistence and waging warfare in primitive
societies, Malinowski (1925:30-31) concluded,
Magical ritual, most of the principles of magic, most of its spells and sub-
stances, have been revealed to man in those passionate experiences which
assail him in the impasses of his instinctive life and of his practical pursuits,
in those gaps and breaches left in the ever-imperfect wall of culture which
he erects between himself and the besetting temptations and dangers of his
destiny.
As vivid evidence of the role of fear and frustration in generating ritual,

Malinowski observed that the Trobrianders engaged in far more elabo-
rate ceremonies when preparing to go fishing on the high seas, where
the risks were severe, than they did when planning to fish in the shallow
lagoons. Other observers who have taken essentially the same position
include W. Lloyd Warner (1974) in his discussion of death anxieties as a
stimulus to the celebration of Memorial Day services and Hugh Trevor-
Roper (1967) in his discussion of frustration and scapegoating as an ele-
ment in religious witch trials.
A more accurate rendition of 4 the idea of expressivity is simply that
communication is taking place. The content of this communication
may have to do with emotions, but it may also be strictly intellectual.
Lectures in a Unitarian church on the concept of God qualify as rituals
no less than do the emotional gatherings of Pentecostalists. A jury trial
is clearly one of the central rites of the modern system of jurisprudence;
yet the symbolic meanings it communicates may have very little to do
with expressing emotions.
AN ANALYTIC DISTINCTION
Another common misconception is one that assumes ritual to be a dis-

tinct category of behavior. There are clearly some examples that qualify
as distinctly ritualistic behavior. Weddings are one. National and reli-
gious holidays are another. In these cases the ritual activities are sharply
demarcated from ordinary behavior. But consider etiquette. Although
gestures such as exchanging "hello's" and "good-bye's" or opening

doors for one another are merely stripped-down versions of the more
elaborate ceremonies of public life, they blend in with other activities
and, as Erving Goffman's work has shown, perform many instrumental5
functions in social interaction in addition to their expressive functions.
Or, to take a more extreme example, fixing a flat tire may involve sym-
bolic communication in addition to whatever utilitarian motives may
have necessitated it (e.g., the activity may communicate one's value to
friends or family). By the same token, even an activity as clearly sym-
bolic as a wedding may have utilitarian undertones (e.g., avoiding the
embarrassment of pregnancy out of wedlock or ensuring the continuity
of a dynasty).
Thus, the distinction between expressive and instrumental activity is
not a hard-and-fast rule that can be used to divide the world into two
categories. The distinction is, rather, an analytic distinction that allows
activities to be arranged along a continuum, from those at one end that
are primarily6 expressive to those at the other end that are primarily in-
strumental. Most behavior falls somewhere in the middle, having as-
pects that are expressive and aspects that are instrumental. For example,
meals are heavily imbued with both; exams may be largely instrumental
but also communicate symbolic messages; holidays may be largely sym-
bolic but also have instrumental dimensions.
The fact that expressivity and instrumentality represent an analytic
continuum has important implications for the study of ritual. Ritual is
not a type of social activity that can be set off from the rest of the world
for special investigation. It is a dimension of all social activity. The study
of ritual, therefore, is not distinguished by its concern with certain types
of activity, but by the perspective it brings to bear on all activity, namely,
emphasis on the symbolic or expressive dimension of behavior. For exam-
ple, Meyer and Rowan (1977) examine the formal structure of complex
organizations as ceremonial behavior. Their analysis differs from most in-
vestigations of organizations in that they do not regard formal structure
merely as a way of getting work done, of allocating authority and respon-
sibility, or of dividing tasks into manageable units. Instead, they argue
that formal structure communicates important messages to other organi-
zations in the same industry or environment. Having a department con-
cerned with work safety, for instance, communicates to labor unions, the
state, and other firms that an organization is respectable, law-abiding,
and in compliance with industry norms. Here the distinction between
purely instrumental and expressive dimensions of behavior is relatively
sharp. A department of safety may perform instrumental activities, such

as monitoring accidents or teaching workers about safety regulations.
Whether it does any of these things, however, its very existence expresses
something about the identity and social position of the firm. These mes-
sages may be as important for the organization's survival as the perfor-
mance of its instrumental tasks. Ritual, then, is an aspect of complex or-
ganizations as much as it is of the primitive rites or religious ceremonies
that have more typically been the focus of investigation.
This example also illustrates that ritual need not necessarily be a spe-
cial or sacred event set off from everyday reality. This is a common
misperception rooted in the fact that holidays, festivals, and religious
rites have served as the prototypes for discussions of ritual. In his classic
work on primitive ritual, Durkheim suggested that an integral feature of
ritual was its capacity to separate the individual from everyday reality.
"They are," he wrote in describing the participants in primitive ritual,
"so far removed from their ordinary conditions of life, and they are so
thoroughly conscious of it, that they must set themselves outside of and
above their ordinary morals" (1973:179). For Durkheim, ritual set off a
sacred realm and sharply delineated it from the defiling elements of the
profane. But more systematic attention to the concept of ritual reveals
that Durkheim's description holds only for certain kinds of rituals. It ap-
plies well to those ceremonial occasions that are designed especially for
expressive purposes. On these occasions holding back the instrumental di-
mensions of behavior that ordinarily prevail in daily life becomes useful.
Marking off the time as an unusual event allows participants to focus
more attentively on the symbolic meanings conveyed in ritual activity.
This is not to say, however, that ritual needs be removed from ordinary
life to be effective. The regulation of daily life, as Goffman, Meyer and
Rowan, and others have demonstrated, also depends on ritual and, for
this reason, is imbued constantly with the ritual dramatization of sym-
bolic meanings.
THE ROLE OF INTERACTION
Before going further, it is important to clear up another misconcep-

tion about ritual that can be easily inferred from what has been said
about the expressive quality of ritual. It is not necessary to have a gather-
ing of people engaged in face-to-face interaction in order to speak of rit-
ual. In the most common examples of ritual, such as tribal feasts, wed-
dings, or church services, this condition is generally satisfied. But it need
not be for ritual to exist in the sense of communicating symbolically.

Meyer and Rowan's study of formal organizations provides one exam-
ple of ritual occurring without face-to-face communication. The word
about a firm having a department of safety can filter out to other organi-
zations through a variety of means—letters, memoranda, reports, offi-
cial documents, organization charts, government audits, informal net-
works—in addition to face-to-face interaction.
The case study presented at the end of this chapter provides an exam-
ple of ritual linking persons through the mass media. Even though face-
to-face discussions were involved, the main form of communication in-
volved in the ritual was accomplished with television. Many of the rituals
that play a vital role in the functioning of modern societies take this form.
Although some of the ritual communication comes about on a firsthand
basis, the larger share of participation occurs on an individual-by-individ-
ual basis with the media performing a critical function in providing feed-
back. Inaugurations provide a useful example because they have been ex-
amined as an important public ritual, especially in the literature on civil
religion. The event itself involves direct communication among the vari-
ous dignitaries of state. At least some of these dignitaries participate in
the enactment of the ritual while others look on, applaud, and create an in-
formal network of support for the occasion by their presence and interac-
tion with one another. But the extent of participation in the inaugural
ceremony is not limited to those present. Citizens participate in advance
stages of the occasion by voting. The act of voting takes place largely in
private as each citizen enters the voting booth alone and pulls the appro-
priate lever to register his or her choice. Yet the act is a highly stylized ges-
ture by which the citizen interacts with the mechanism of state. The me-
dia, in turn, report back both the results of the election and the activities
of inauguration day. In these ways a large segment of the public partici-
pates vicariously in the inaugural ceremony even though relatively few
are physically present on the steps of the Capitol.
These examples illustrate possibilities of ritual occurring without
benefit of direct interaction among persons in one another's immediate
presence. A different question arises, however, in conjunction with ritu-
als performed purely in private. It has been inferred from Mary Doug-
las's discussion of pollution rites, for example, that even a simple act of
tidying up one's desk bears the marks of ritual activity. Horace Miner's
(1956) tongue-in-cheek portrait of "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema"
indicates that private acts of cleansing, such as brushing one's teeth,
qualify as ritual. Other examples would include private acts of religious
devotion, such as prayer and meditation. But can these private acts be
considered ritual if ritual is an expressive dimension of behavior—if the
essence of ritual lies in communication?
The answer, it seems, is strictly heuristic. There is value in distinguish-
ing public from private ritual, especially in cases where the relation be-
tween ritual and broader processes of social integration is at issue. At
the same time, ritual is generally regarded as playing a role in the moral
tutelage of the individual as well, or as Durkheim described it, in disci-
plining the individual's interests. For these purposes it is valuable to rec-
ognize that ritual, even if performed in private, can communicate mes-
sages about the individual's position in a larger collectivity because the
individual has internalized a conception of that collectivity. Hence, the
act of tidying up one's desk may in fact be a symbolic gesture of one's re-
lation to the boss, a particular role, or the organization for which one
works. By the same token, brushing one's teeth may be an important
rite of passage performed daily to mark the transition between one's
role as a purely private individual and one's role as a representative of
some larger collectivity. One has performed an act of communication, ei-
ther consciously or unconsciously, in that one has expressed messages
about one's relation to an internalized social entity. In these cases the in-
dividual acts as both performer and audience in the drama of ritual.
MOTIVES AND I N T E N T I O N S
These considerations, then, bring us to a further problem—the extent

to which ritual involves motives and intentions. If ritual is characterized
by expressivity, a logical inference is that motives and intentions are
what is primarily being expressed. In other words, ritual provides an oc-
casion for making public what one thinks, feels, or intends to do. From
this perspective, weddings are moments in which the bride and groom
publicly announce their intentions to love and support each other, holi-
days provide opportunities to display sentiments of political loyalty,
and religious worship is motivated by a desire to communicate with
God. In each of these examples, the messages communicated in ritual re-
flect what the participants consciously intend to communicate.
The problem with this characterization is that ritual also communi-
cates messages that may not be intended. Despite the obvious purposes of
a wedding ceremony, one of the important messages that is likely to be
communicated to the group assembled has to do with the social status
and relative affluence of the families involved. The act of voting is in-
tended to register one's choice of candidates for political office; uninten-

tionally, it also communicates one's status as a citizen and in this capacity
one's support for the democratic system.
Ritual consists of both the messages intentionally given and those
that are unintentionally given off. For this reason adequate understand-
ing of ritual cannot be obtained merely by asking participants why they
took part or what the ritual may have meant to them. A man driving
down the highway is unlikely to be aware of any purpose of his behav-
ior other than arriving at a particular destination; yet this activity con-
tains an important ritualistic dimension—dramatizing, for example,
that one is a law-abiding citizen—that is likely to have escaped the atten-
tion of the driver. The observer can examine the nature and functioning
of these unintended or latent forms of communication, even though the
participant in ritual may be unaware of their presence or importance.
This methodological issue has troubled anthropological research
since its inception. The anthropologist is able to perceive certain pat-
terns in the conduct of ritual that the primitive tribesman may not have
recognized or thought important. The trouble has come from the anthro-
pologist then concluding that ritual is nonrational and that the tribal
group has merely deceived itself into thinking the ritual performs one
function when in fact it performs another. An extensive literature debat-
ing the7extent of rationality and nonrationality in primitive ritual has re-
sulted. On one side are those who have concluded that these rituals are
inherently irrational. On the other side are those who claim this to be an
ethnocentric point of view on the part of modern anthropologists. These
critics argue that primitive ritual contains a great deal that is rational
when understood within the framework of primitive culture itself,
The debate has been obfuscated by the fact of the rituals at issue be-
ing primitive. A better grasp of the problem comes from recognizing
that the same issue crops up in the study of modern rituals as well. Here
discrepancies are also likely to be present between the intended mes-
sages and those that are conveyed unintentionally. But this discrepancy
says nothing about the rationality or nonrationality of the participant.
The driver is scarcely irrational for assuming that his behavior is con-
cerned with getting home rather than recognizing the messages about
traffic laws that are implicit in this behavior. There are simply a number
of different levels at which behavior can be understood.
In order to comprehend the various levels of interpretation involved
in understanding ritual, one must recognize that ritual is subject to the
same conditions as any other form of cultural communication. If it com-
municates in a language whose rules are known, it is likely (as discussed

in Chapter 2) to communicate more meaningfully than if it conforms to
no established rules. In the case of ritual, this condition may require ac-
tivities to be performed according to highly stylized procedures or be ac-
companied by ample verbal explanation. Some portion of the communi-
cation involved in ritual therefore will probably be conducted simply to
make the activities comprehensible in terms of known patterns of com-
munication. This is one level at which ritual can be interpreted.
If the content of ritual conforms to realities that are generally be-
lieved to be true, the ritual's meaningfulness will also be enhanced. Rit-
ual may, for this reason, be subjected to philosophical critique in order
to investigate the truth value of its content. At this level it is entirely ap-
propriate to question the degree to which the overt content of ritual sub-
scribes to common notions of rationality, that is, is "rational" in con-
juftction with standard understandings of how the world operates. In
this respect the issue of rationality in primitive ritual is a matter of philo-
sophical critique entirely and can be judged only with reference to a cul-
tural conception of reality, rather than being determined from the struc-
ture and intentions involved in ritual alone.
A third level of interpretation brings the question of intentionality to
the forefront. Some portion of the overall content involved in ritual will
convey its practitioners' intentions. These are likely to indicate both the
practitioners' seriousness or conviction and their notion of the reasons
for their participation. The latter is likely to require subjective informa-
tion from each participant as well as the more public evidence displayed
by their behavior. Such information will reveal whether the participants
are sincere in their activities and whether or not they have in some way
been deluded.
Finally, there are the social messages that rituals convey. These are of
special importance in developing a concept of ritual that has value for
understanding moral order. Weddings, bar mitzvahs, Fourth of July cele-
brations, even revolutions all communicate something about the pas-
sage of time. They mark the transition from one status to another in the
lives of individuals or whole societies. In weddings it is the transition
from single person to married spouse; in bar mitzvahs, the acquisition
of adult status in the religious community; in Fourth of July celebra-
tions, the maturing of a country and the memory of its transition to inde-
pendence; in revolutions, where actual change may be relatively small,
there is yet a significant symbolic transition in the identity of the society
to its members and to other societies. Other rituals deal less with transi-
tions than with the reaffirmation of collective values. Religious services

reaffirm the common values of those who participate. Tribal dances re-
mind participants of shared ancestry. Witch-hunts become occasions for
discussing the implications of corporate loyalties. Still other examples re-
veal the importance of ritual for the alignment and regulation of routine
social activity. The stylized remarks in which we engage upon winding
up a visit at someone's house—leave-taking ceremonies, as Goffman has
called them—signal the reasons for departing, sentiments of cordiality,
and expressions of possibilities for renewed interaction in the future. Bu-
reaucratic protocol regulates social relations in tense situations where
personal feelings may be on edge and indeed helps define the situation
as a moment of formality.
These examples reveal something very basic about ritual. Ritual regu-
lates and defines social relations. It may do so by sharpening the bound-
ary between two social statuses governed by different relations and ex-
pectations (rites of passage), or by reminding people of the relations
they share and the principles underlying these relations (collective cere-
monies), or by simply sending signals concerning the definition of posi-
tions and relations in ongoing social activities (etiquette, protocol, etc.).
Metaphorically, ritual may be said to function as a social "thermostat,"
giving feedback about how to regulate behavior so as to better attain the
collective goals of that behavior.
EMBELLISHMENT
Ritual has also been characterized as having dramatic or formal quali-

ties. It tends to be more elaborate or embellished than purely instrumen-
tal behavior. Contrast the Eucharist with having a snack. Special gar-
ments, utensils, gestures, and words lend a dramatic quality to the former
that does not characterize the latter. Or compare the act of tidying up
one's desk with simply doing work. Tidying up takes time away from in-
strumental activity and may be done with a flair for orderliness—a degree
of fastidiousness—that, if Mary Douglas is correct, dramatizes concep-
tions of purity and pollution. In both comparisons ritual is less domi-
nated than its instrumental counterpart by considerations of efficiency.
The formal character of ritual has to do with its conformity to speci-
fied rules or patterns. The Eucharist is celebrated according to formal-
ized guidelines and local traditions that shape expectations about how it
is to be conducted. In this case each act is consciously performed with
prescriptions and tradition in mind. A coup d'etat, by comparison, may
appear on the surface to be completely spontaneous and unpatterned. In-

sofar as it ritually demarcates a transition in government, however, it is
likely to display greater patternedness and formality than originally
meets the eye. Accounts of Bolshevik strategy between the February and
October Revolutions in 1917, for example, give graphic testimony to
the effort and planning that went into the Russian Revolution to lend an
appearance that would resemble the events of 1789 in France. Compari-
sons of other instances of rebellion indicate that historians are likely to
reconstruct successful rebellions to emphasize their compatibility with
certain preconceived notions about the patterns that revolutions are ex-
pected to follow. This reconstruction assists contemporaries both do-
mestically and abroad as well as future generations in identifying the
event as a prototypical "revolution."
The dramatic, formalistic character of much that is known as ritualis-
tic behavior aids communication. Embellishment in ritual serves the
same function as redundancy in speech: it ensures that the message
comes across. Consecrating the bread and wine each with a special
prayer, though inefficient time-wise, enhances the likelihood of the com-
munion service conveying its message of the crucified Lord. Embellish-
ment also enhances communication by defining beforehand acts that are
to follow. The use of turn signals is an elaboration beyond the act of ac-
tually turning because both convey messages about the status of one
automobile in relation to another. But signaling gives advance warning
of the acts that are to follow.
In much the same way, the formality of ritual also facilitates the task
of communication. College graduation ceremonies mark the end of the
college experience and entry to new rights and privileges because the ac-
tivities involved conform to a familiar language of expectations sur-
rounding such occasions. Patterns become recognizable so that common
responses can be evoked in participants and observers. Additions of
novel or improvised behavior will require verbal explanation if they are
to communicate effectively. In short, what is regarded as "formality" is
really a matter of behaving according to well-established rules, thereby
enhancing the likelihood that familiar messages will be given off.
Although the elaborateness and formality of ritual enhance its com-
municative potential, these are dimensions on which ritual activity var-
ies rather than defining characteristics of ritual itself. Fixing a flat tire,
as seen already, can carry expressive elements that may qualify as ritual
even though the activities involved are neither more embellished nor pat-
terned than otherwise required for purely instrumental purposes. The
variation in elaborateness and formality is particularly important to the

analysis of ritual, however, because it allows a distinction to be made be-
tween those activities such as holidays and weddings that attract special
attention and those less obvious rituals such as brushing one's teeth or
fixing a tire that may merit attention only for certain purposes. The
former are generally more elaborate and formalized than the latter.
By way of summary, we may briefly define ritual: a symbolic-expres-
sive aspect of behavior that communicates something about social rela-
tions, often in a relatively dramatic or formal manner. This definition
incorporates the idea that ritual must not be seen as a discrete category
of behavior but as an analytic dimension that may be present to some
degree in all behavior. It emphasizes the communicative properties of
behavior and the fact that ritual often communicates more effectively
because it conforms to certain stylized or embellished patterns of be-
havior. Also worth underscoring is the idea that ritual is essentially so-
cial: although it may express emotions or intentions, it clearly assists
in articulating and regulating the nature of social relations. Thus ritual
can legitimately be approached at the dramaturgic level, as outlined in
Chapter 1, rather than treating it simply in terms of its subjective ori-
gins or meanings. To say that ritual dramatizes the moral order, how-
ever, obviously requires greater specification of the social contexts in
which ritual typically functions.
THE SOCIAL CONTEXTS OF RITUAL

What causes ritual? Or, more precisely, under what social conditions
does ritual become more important, more meaningful? Because ritual is a
dimension of behavior common to all social activity, the question must be
posed in relativistic terms. Some rituals require special effort beyond that
expended on instrumental tasks. They may be characterized by greater
embellishment, formality, intensity of participation, or interest and com-
mitment. If the specific type of ritual at issue occurs spontaneously, rates
of occurrence can also be compared. If its occurrence is institutionalized,
as in the case of periodic celebrations or festivals, levels of intensity and in-
volvement are likely to be the important measures of variation.
C O M M O N VIEWS
Several relationships between social circumstances and the incidence

of ritual seem obvious enough at first blush. Groups heavily steeped in
tradition are often thought of as having an especially acute interest in rit-

ual—Russian Orthodoxy, for example, with its emphasis on ikons and
liturgical practice. Religious groups in general tend to be thought of es-
pecially in connection with ritual. At a somewhat more sophisticated
level, authoritarian societies or groups oriented toward hierarchy may
be suspected of paying greater homage to ritual. Hitler's regime may ap-
pear to have made greater use of ritual than the United States during the
same period, or the Roman Catholic hierarchy may seem more inclined
toward ritual than the free church tradition in Protestantism. Other con-
ditions that may appear on the surface to promote ritual would include
smallness of social groups, such that community members can easily as-
semble and participate in ritual, and social cohesion or homogeneity,
such that members would be encouraged to act out common values.
But all these notions reflect an inadequate understanding of ritual.
They are rooted still in the traditional stereotyped conceptions of rituals
that perceive it to be a trait characteristic of some other time and place
but of little relevance to modern life. The connection between tradi-
tional cultures and ritual is rooted in the false conception that ritual has
to be highly stylized and formal in order to communicate. The foregoing
discussion has shown that embellishment and formality enhance com-
munication, but neither of these characteristics has to be present in any
pronounced degree for behavior to involve expressivity. Associating rit-
ual with religious groups stems from the Durkheimian idea that ritual is
set apart from everyday reality and is concerned with dramatizing and
promoting worship of the sacred. This idea has to be stretched beyond
recognition in order to accommodate rituals such as etiquette, protocol,
or ceremonial display in formal organizations. The view that ritual is
more common in authoritarian or hierarchical settings stems only from
the fact that relatively more attention has been paid to these kinds of set-
tings in the literature on modern rituals. Well-known studies have been
done of purges and witch trials, coronations and inaugurations, and reli-
gious rites, but relatively little is known about the ceremonial aspects
of, say, scientific conferences, communes, or traffic.laws. The other no-
tions—that ritual occurs more frequently in small or cohesive groups—
reflect misconceptions about the necessity of face-to-face participation
and common beliefs. As already shown, many of the rituals of modern
life seem to require neither.
If these common notions are wrong, two other possibilities about the
relations between ritual and social life can also be ruled out. One is the
assertion that ritual does not vary and therefore cannot be expected to
occur more frequently in some settings than in others. The argument

here is much like the one heard frequently in theological circles, suggest-
ing that the quest for ultimacy is a constant in human life. Ritual, like
ultimacy, varies only in how it is expressed, according to these argu-
ments. Whether or not this is true would be nearly impossible to estab-
lish. But adopting it as a working assumption necessitates overlooking
what seems obvious and interesting about ritual, namely, that it does
vary in its manifestations. Weddings happen more frequently at certain
stages in the life cycle than at others. Religious services evoke more in-
tensity of participation on some occasions than on others. To neglect
these variations leads not only to an impoverished understanding of rit-
ual but also to an inadequate grasp of its role in contemporary social
life.
The second pitfall is to assume that ritual occurs entirely at random or
that it depends so much on the whim of particular subcultures that no con-
nections of a systematic sort with social conditions can be inferred. This
view actually gains some support from the Durkheimian tradition be-
cause Durkheim believed the origin of ritual to lie in exogenous, unpre-
dictable social shocks, such as floods, wars, and catastrophes. But Durk-
heim was also concerned with seeing patterns in these events. Although a
flood may produce ritual spontaneously, the commemoration of this
event is likely to occur in predictable ways. And the promise is also there
that the careful observer can identify common dimensions of even seem-
ingly spontaneous eruptions of ritual.
SOME EXAMPLES
The kinds of conditions that generate ritual, and in turn the role
that ritual performs in social life, can be grasped most effectively by
considering several examples. A few studies of ritual have been con-
ducted in recent years with provocative results requiring only theoreti-
cal synthesis and interpretation. Other examples can be found amid
the familiar texture of everyday life itself. Again there is value in start-
ing with a diversity of cases in order to discover what patterns may
have the broadest applicability.
The act of signaling for a turn while driving down the highway serves
as a useful prototype of ritual because of its elementary nature. It con-
tains in a highly abbreviated form all the ingredients of ritual—it is an
expressive aspect of behavior distinguished, for example, from the more
instrumental act of actually making a turn; it communicates something
1
about the position of one driver in relation to others; it is an act rather
than merely a belief; and it occurs in stylized or patterned ways that con-
vey culturally comprehensible messages. The act of signaling is also fa-
miliar enough that the conditions under which it is most likely to occur
can easily be examined in the absence of a full-blown study.
When is a driver most apt to signal? On a straight road or near an in-
tersection? If all traffic is turning or only that particular driver? If turns
can be made in only one direction or if turns are possible to both the
right and left? If the driver is alone on the road or if the highway is filled
with traffic? One complicating factor makes it difficult to answer these
questions definitively. By law, signaling is required anytime one antici-
pates making a turn. If we assume for the moment, however, that our
driver is less than scrupulous about obeying the law, we can make the
following guesses about his behavior. He is more likely to signal when
there is an intersection, when only some of the traffic is turning, when
both right and left turns are possible, and when other cars are in view.
This example reveals something important about ritual. The com-
mon factor in these instances that distinguishes the high-likelihood situa-
tions from the low-likelihood situations is the element of choice and
with it the degree of social uncertainty. The presence of intersections,
varied traffic patterns, right- and left-turn options, and multiple vehicles
increase the number of choices that can be made by the various drivers
whose proximity to one another imposes a network of social relations
upon them. With this increase in potential options, the overall level of
uncertainty in the situation also increases. It therefore becomes impera-
tive for drivers to signal—to communicate with one another through rit-
ual—in order to maintain order and safety in their social relations with
one another.
Something else about ritual is also illustrated by this example. The
driver, not the passenger, signals. We shall see momentarily why this is
important.
As a second example, rites of passage are worthy of consideration
both because they qualify as ritual by any definition of the term and be-
cause they have been amply investigated. Among the most common of
these rites are reproduction rituals (baby showers, baptisms, circumci-
sion rites, christenings, dedication ceremonies), puberty rites (bar and
has mitzvahs, confirmations, commencement and baccalaureate ser-
vices), rites of marriage and fertility (engagements, weddings, chariva-
ris), and rites of death (extreme unction, funeral and memorial services,
burial ceremonies, readings of last wills and testaments). By definition,

these rites mark transitions in personal and collective lives.
The occasions on which rites of passage take place tend to be moments
of ambiguity as far as social relations and identities are concerned. The
presence of an infant imposes new demands on parents and may change
the perceptions of peers or their own expectations about how they are to
behave. Throughout most of history high infant mortality rates have also
plagued the joys of childbirth with uncertainties about disappointment
and death. Puberty rites come at times when it is unclear whether rela-
tions should be structured on the model of child-to-adult or adult-to-
adult. In many societies children are indulged with special rights and privi-
leges, but serious demands are imposed on all who are old enough to
hunt, fight, tend crops, or bear children. However, maturation never oc-
curs overnight, so a period exists when neither the maturing youth nor his
or her guardians know for sure which expectations apply. Periods of
courtship and marriage bring similar uncertainties. For the couple, uncer-
tainty exists as to the extent of each other's affection and loyalty; those
with whom the couple is acquainted have problems knowing whether to
encourage the relation, to treat the couple as a unit, or to define the rela-
tion as ordinary friendship. Death likewise raises questions about the
well-being of survivors, their immediate capacity to carry on with social
obligations, and in many instances questions about inheritances and prop-
erty rights. The community of bereaved family and friends not only expe-
riences itself broken, as Durkheim argued, but also needs information in
order to recreate damaged relations.
Like the situations evoking turn signals, those in which rites of pas-
sage occur tend to be fraught with higher than ordinary levels of uncer-
tainty because the transitional period between two social statuses inevi-
tably increases the number of options from which behavior can be
selected. It is now possible lo choose activities and relations specified
both by the status one has occupied in the past and by the new position
one is soon to acquire. Rules that formerly restricted options and chan-
neled behavior into certain predictable patterns can no longer be en-
forced as effectively because new rights or exemptions from obligations
can be claimed on the basis of the new position that has come to be par-
tially occupied. For the larger set of social relations in which these sta-
tuses are embedded, the enhancement of choice brings uncertainty, and
with uncertainty, potential for instability or collapse.
Rites of passage reduce uncertainty and latent sources of social insta-
bility by summarily redefining statuses, relations, and behavioral op-

tions. These rituals dichotomize the continuous progression of real time
into two distinct periods as far as social time is concerned. They commu-
nicate to the parties involved that, upon completion of the ceremony,
new relations are in order. Birth ceremonies confer legitimacy, religious
or national citizenship, inheritance rights, and duties of parenthood on
the various parties involved. Weddings, as dramatically revealed in re-
cent years by their absence among cohabiting couples, clarify to all con-
cerned what the status of the relation is, what subsequent relations with
members of the opposite sex are expected to be, how greetings, invita-
tions, and informal gatherings are to be structured, and so on. In each in-
stance the performance of ritual may be a matter of custom or even be re-
quired by law. But it is the uncertainty of existing social relations and
the need for communication in order to reduce uncertainty and clarify
obligations that renders the performance a meaningful event.
A third set of examples is provided by material on witch-hunts. These
have been carefully researched in a number of different settings and
with particular attention paid to social correlates. The typical pattern of
events in witch-hunts is that someone is accused of heresy, usually in the
case of religious witch-hunts, or of subversion, as is more common in po-
litical witch-hunts. A hearing or trial follows in which charges are made,
the accused is asked to confess or recant, and sentencing, acquittal, or
punishment follows. Witch-hunts, therefore, are a type of ritual. They
occur sporadically, unlike holiday celebrations. But they generally con-
sist of public acts involving patterned events in which messages are com-
municated about values and norms that have allegedly been violated.
Because witch-hunts occur sporadically, investigations have focused
mainly on the timing and location of their occurrence and have looked
primarily to larger crises or tensions in social arrangements for explana-
tions. A perhaps simpler explanation would be to investigate the subver-
sive activities of those accused. But this strategy has shown mostly that
only a loose connection exists between objective offenses and witch tri-
als. Similar activities evoke charges of heresy and subversion on some oc-
casions but not on others. Moreover, the charges filed in many of the
more famili'ar witch trials, such as those in Salem, Massachusetts, dur-
ing the seventeenth century, seem to be largely without substance when
viewed from an external perspective. Thus, the relation between witch
trials and broader social conditions has proven to be a more fruitful ave-
nue to explore.
The witch trials in colonial Massachusetts were examined from this

perspective by Kai Erikson in his book Wayward Puritans (1966). Erik-
son showed that these trials had occurred not simply at random but in
three distinct spurts. The first of these "crime waves" took place during
the second half of the 1630s, the second occurred in the late 1650s, and
the third broke out in 1692, The interesting feature of these outbursts
was that they coincided perfectly with crises in the authority structure
and values of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The first followed closely
on the heels of the so-called antinomian controversy involving Anne
Hutchinson. The controversy poked at the heart of colonial authority be-
cause it challenged the worthiness of the Puritan clergy to legislate in
spiritual matters. Hutchinson and her followers argued that the doctrine
upholding the "priesthood of the believer" should be more strictly inter-
preted, giving residents greater freedom to decide on their own qualifica-
tions for religious and political participation or leadership. The second
bout of witch-hunting came into being in 1656 and continued for nearly
a decade. According to Erikson, it was instigated chiefly in response to
the arrival in the Puritan colony of Quakers, who, though few in num-
ber, symbolized a departure from the Puritans' staunchly ascetic values.
The Quakers' emphasis on inner spirituality challenged the theocratic
discipline of the colony much in the same manner as Hutchinson's al-
leged antinomianism. Neither of these episodes involved accusations of
witchcraft per se, only charges of heresy. The third outbreak did. It was
the famed witch-hunt in the town of Salem. The crisis this time was
more severe because it involved a genuine threat of serious potential con-
sequences for the political leadership of the colony. This threat was
from England, and it involved both the possibility of losing title to the
entire colony at the hand of the king and a series of disputes with the Pu-
ritan hierarchy in England over theological points and questions of
church discipline.
Erikson concluded from these three episodes that witch trials were
collective rituals that emerged in response to "boundary crises" in the
moral order of the Massachusetts colony. Following Durkheim, he ar-
gued that collectivities develop collective identities that define bound-
aries of membership and distinguish the collectivity from outsiders.
When these boundaries change or become blurred, uncertainties about
membership, authority, and shared values set in. Heretics and witches
become figures symbolizing the boundaries; that is, they represent ways
of violating or transgressing shared values. The ritual of trying, purging,
and punishing these deviants serves as an occasion for clarifying collec-

tive boundaries and provides an object lesson to those who might be in-
clined to violate these boundaries.
Erikson's use of the term "boundary" is largely figurative. It sub-
sumes a variety of collective values, definitions, and relations. Disputes
over boundaries arise in a number of ways, including internal disagree-
ments, ambiguities over the correct or effective application of cherished
values, redefinition of boundaries by the physical inclusion of new mem-
bers, and external threats. Hugh Trevor-Roper's (1967) discussion of
witch-hunting in Europe during the same period provides instances
where boundary disputes can be taken literally.
Trevor-Roper's account, as noted earlier, focuses heavily on psycho-
logical factors. But from a different perspective the study provides illumi-
nating evidence on the social contexts of witch-hunting as well. Tempo-
rally, the main outbreaks of witch-hunting occurred during the early part
of the seventeenth century. This was 8
a time of reintegration and consolida-
tion in the European state system. The near hegemony of the Hapsburgs
over the European system had been broken by the second half of the six-
teenth century. France, England, and Holland had emerged as the new
"core powers" politically and economically. Protestantism had become
firmly established in England, Holland, Scandinavia, and parts of Ger-
many; Catholicism had reasserted itself in France, southern Germany,
and Poland and continued to be strong in Spain, Portugal, and Italy. The
European states at the beginning of the seventeenth century were well on
their way toward forming a new international system centered around
mercantile trade and a balance of power among Holland, England, and
France. The transition to this new world order was to occupy nearly the
entire first half of the seventeenth century, however. On an international
scale the relative strengths of England, France, and Holland continued to
be negotiated through economic competition, shifting alliances, and inter-
mittent wars. And domestically, each of the three core powers, as well as
Germany, continued to be divided between representatives of different re-
ligions and political ideologies, interests, and relations to the state. One
could conclude, following Erikson's line of reasoning, that uncertainties
in collective values were also present as one of the preconditions of this
episode of witch-hunting.
The spatial distribution of European witch-hunts, however, is more
suggestive even than their temporal occurrence. It was primarily in bor-
der areas where Protestants and Catholics were caught up in controver-
sies over geographical boundaries and political jurisdictions that witch-
hunts broke out. Nor was it simply the presence of adherents to an alien
faith that became the target of these rituals. Catholics did not round up
Protestants and accuse them of heresy, nor Protestants, Catholics. Each
group found subversives within its own camp, not traitors who were ex-
plicitly allied with the enemy, but weak souls endangering the solidarity
of the total community by practicing sorcery.
Under threat of external attacks on the community's physical bound-
aries, greater certainty was needed about the statuses, loyalties, and val-
ues of members within the community. The presence of religious compe-
tition at the borders may have created uncertainties about the location
of these borders themselves, but the more immediate source of ritual ac-
tivity was the need for greater clarity about the social relations within
the community. In order to mobilize its resources to the maximum, the
community needed to know where its members stood and, more impor-
tant, needed to shore up those loyalties to the community as a corporate
entity that may have grown blurred with the passage of time and the
pressures of individual or localistic demands. Witch trials became mean-
ingful rituals under these circumstances. They dramatized the nature of
collective loyalties and defined precisely the range of acceptable and un-
acceptable religious activity.
Several more recent studies have extended the discussion of witch-
hunts to the political arena. A study of lynchings during the 1890s in Loui-
siana suggests that these events varied from parish to parish and from
year to year in a manner closely corresponding with crises in the Populist
party (Inverarity, 1976). The theoretical framework of the study, al-
though drawn from Durkheim and Erikson, focuses on repressive justice
rather than ritual. Yet the discussion can be subsumed under the more
general perspective on ritual that has been presented in the preceding
paragraphs. Lynchings were collective rituals in which traditional white
Southern loyalties were dramatized. Participation in the ritual was an act
of commitment to a particular reference group and set of values. For
those who watched or heard about the event, the strength of these tradi-
tional relations among whites and against blacks was vividly demon-
strated. The two conditions that made these events meaningful (i.e., mean-
ingful enough to be performed) were a preexisting set of social relations
and a disruption of these relations. The former inhered in the stability of
uniform political orientations and was a function of religious homogene-
ity and ruralness. The latter manifested itself as an intrusion of Populist
party organizing that promised to disrupt traditional relations.
The combination of these conditions made circumstances ripe for the
appearance of lynchings. High levels of solidarity and cultural homoge-

neity are tantamount to extreme degrees of certainty or predictability in
social relations. Not only is each actor sure of what the others think and
plan to do, but also the relations among actors are "strong," in the sense
of both frequent contact and multiple bases of interaction (economic,
political, religious, familial). The stability of such relations requires a
high degree of certainty about expectations and commitments. Few
mechanisms exist to maintain stability in the absence of such certainty.
For example, the market does not provide an intervening mechanism
with which to aggregate the unpredictable activities of individual buyers
and sellers into predictable patterns of overall supply and demand. Or
at the cultural level, symbolic resources such as values of tolerance and
diversity do not exist to decouple social relations from one another.
Given potentially disruptive forces, such as the advent of a new political
party, some measures are likely to be taken, therefore, to publicly articu-
late the fact that traditional expectations can still be counted on and
that departures from these expectations will be rewarded with certain
and severe punishment. In Louisiana, lynchings provided an economical
means of communicating these messages.
Another study illustrating the ritualistic aspects of witch-hunting fo-
cuses on the Cultural Revolution in China (Bergesen, 1978). The Ameri-
can presence in Vietnam during the 1960s created a threatening situa-
tion for China's leaders. In response, the leaders sought subversives in
their midst whom they publicly expunged and made symbols of poten-
tially destructive forces against the Chinese people. The mechanisms
used to reaffirm collective values included public accusations and legal
charges, trials, large-scale ceremonies such as show trials and public rec-
tification programs, and the formation of citizens' groups and govern-
ment watchdog agencies. The implications of this study are much the
same as those from Erikson's investigation and from the research on
lynchings. Witch trials in China became meaningful in response to uncer-
tainties in the dominant relations and obligations constituting the collec-
tive order of the society.
Perhaps the most extensive examination of political witch trials is
Bergesen's (1984) quantitative investigation of more than five thousand
witch-hunting incidents against political subversives in thirty-nine coun-
tries between 1950 and 1970. The focus of this research was not the tem-
poral or spatial occurrence of witch-hunts but their distribution across
institutional sectors (government, military, education, religion, etc.).
Bergesen's principal finding was that the degree of "corporateness" in a

society—as measured by single-party versus two- or multiparty political
systems—was associated both with higher overall rates of witch-hunt-
ing and a greater dispersion of these incidents across diverse institu-
tional sectors.
Several interpretations of this finding are possible. One is that totali-
tarian regimes are simply better able than pluralistic regimes to hunt
down subversives. But this explanation fails to account for other pat-
terns in the data, such as the differences between two- and multiparty
systems or differences in the distribution of incidents within various sec-
tors of government. From the overall patterns, Bergesen concludes that
corporateness involves an infusion of collective values within everyday
life, and this interpenetration of the "sacred" into the mundane makes it
more likely for rituals that dramatize collective values or forces oppos-
ing these values to occur.
The more corporate reality that is present, the stronger, more clearly defined
and more closely merged with everyday reality are those symbolic representa-
tions which mirror that corporate reality. Daily life becomes filled with tran-
scendent political significance and, simultaneously, the enemies of the sacred
purposes. The ritual creation of oppositions to representations of corporate
social reality is one of the fundamental forms of the modern religious life.
(Bergesen, 1977:230)
How does this conclusion fit in with the other studies of witch-hunts?
The closest link is with the study of lynchings. There, solidarity and ho-
mogeneity, when they came under threat, contributed to the occurrence
of witch-hunting. Here, the parallel concept is corporateness. Corpo-
rateness, like solidarity and homogeneity, makes certainty about social
relations more important for the functioning of day-to-day social life.
The infusion of collective purposes into daily life, if Bergesen's descrip-
tion is accurate, tends to unite these disparate activities into an inte-
grated whole. No longer are the routine activities that go on within the
university, church, or firm compartmentalized to a narrow "sphere of
relevance," to borrow Berger and Luckmann's term. They are now cou-
pled through a symbolic linkage with the overall destiny and purposes
of the society. Under these conditions it becomes more important to
have ways of expressing the projected activities of each institutional
arena and the relation between these activities and those in other arenas.
Any deviation from conventional expectations or any ambiguity in the
face of novel circumstances creates uncertainties not only for the imrne-
diate actors in the situation but also for the larger society. Public rituals
such as witch trials provide a means of coping with this uncertainty.
UNCERTAINTY AND RITUAL
At the most general level the conclusion that emerges from these oth-
erwise diverse examples—turn signals, rites of passage, witch-hunts—is
that ritual is most likely to occur in situations of social uncertainty.
Other things being equal as far as the resources and freedom for engag-
ing in ritual are concerned, the greater the uncertainty that exists about
social positions, commitments to shared values, or behavioral options
likely to influence other actors, the greater the likelihood that behavior
will take on a ritual dimension of significance, that is, will involve impor-
tant aspects of expressivity.
This conclusion can be stated more systematically within the frame-
work developed in the preceding chapters. Uncertainty is an attribute
of the structure that inherently exists within culture, where culture is
understood to be the entire collection of shared meanings dramatized
within a society or some other social unit. These meanings take on
forms or patterns that vary in terms of predictability. The greater the
degree to which component elements of these patterns or the patterns
themselves can be predicted, the greater the level of certainty that can
be said to exist. This characteristic of the symbolic environment pro-
vides the context in which the meaningfulness or legitimacy of any par-
ticular ritual (expressive aspect of behavior) can be understood. All
else being constant, the meaningfulness of a particular ritual act is
likely to be greater in situations where some uncertainty exists in the
larger symbolic environment than where there is already a high degree
of certainty. This formulation emphasizes the structural patterns or re-
lations among cultural elements that influence the likelihood of any
subset of these elements being meaningful. In the case of ritual, the
sheer level of certainty or uncertainty that characterizes these relations
appears to be one of the most crucial structural conditions.
Uncertainty is an umbrella concept that subsumes a variety of more
specific observable variables. This is not the place to develop a complete
inventory of these variables, but several of the more important types have
already been illustrated in the foregoing examples and need only be sum-
marized. In each case it must be assumed that other conditions do not
change. One type of uncertainty is illustrated in both the turn signal and
the rite of passage examples. In these cases, growing levels of uncertainty
were indicated by increases in the sheer number of available options for

behavior (e.g., being able to turn in more than one direction or being able
to act according to the norms of more than one status). As long as other
features of a cultural system remain constant, expanded options make
predicting overall outcomes increasingly difficult. A second type of un-
certainty, illustrated in the witch-hunting examples, involves external
shocks to a cultural system. One way of interpreting the effect of these
shocks is to say that they introduce new sets of contingencies into the sys-
tem. Understandings communicated by external groups—the king, reli-
gious out-groups, Populists- -now have to be related to existing under-
standings, whereas the two systems were formerly capable of functioning
in isolation. The effect of solidary ties and corporatist symbolism is also
to impose connections on symbols that otherwise might bear no relation
to one another, thereby heightening the scope over which certainty or
uncertainty prevails. Finally, uncertainty can be a function merely of
equivocality with regard to particular symbols. The range of meanings
evoked by some symbols, such as a turn signal, may be straightforward
and unequivocal; the meanings associated with other symbols (a religious
text, for example) may be diverse and therefore highly equivocal in any
given situation. If the number of potential outcomes, intentions, or com-
mitments that can be conveyed by any particular act or utterance is high,
there is likely to be a high degree of uncertainty in the system. These are
some of the varieties of uncertainty that are likely to influence the inci-
dence of ritual.
One of the loose ends to which some attention must now be given is
the allegation that ritual represents not so much a response to preexist-
ing uncertainties in social relations but a means of generating such un-
certainties. This argument has been made especially in anthropological
studies of rituals involving moments of seeming chaos—what Victor
Turner (1974) terms episodes of "betwixt and between"—but is evi-
denced in modern rituals as well. Encounter groups, for example, in-
clude rituals of face-to-face interaction, such as touching, pairing and
staring, and verbal harangues. Despite temporary discomfort, these
rituals have been popular in recent years because of the increasingly
uncertain nature of face-to-face interaction in everyday life. Intimacy
frequently goes unlearned and unexperienced even in the family. Inter-
action increasingly consists of fleeting contact with strangers and of ne-
cessity takes place in diverse contexts. Changing standards of dress,
sex role behavior, and morality also promote uncertainty. Further-
more, popular psychology has taught us how fragile the self-concept is
and how easily it may be damaged through bungled relationships. En-

counter rituals take on meaning because of the precariousness of these
contacts. But these rituals also generate uncertainty.
One might suppose from the argument thus far that encounter rituals
would function mainly to reduce the ambiguities of face-to-face rela-
tions, perhaps by giving practice, teaching etiquette, or simply training
people in the cues and expectations involved in close communication.
To the contrary, these rituals demonstrate how poorly equipped most of
us are to interact on a personal level. They illustrate the difficulty of es-
tablishing eye contact, of touching, of remembering names and faces;
and they reveal starkly the defenses protecting us from truly empathiz-
ing and expressing our emotions. The rituals themselves serve only to
heighten the fears associated with intimate contact.
Yet it is the nature of these rituals to arouse fear within a controlled set-
ting. Encounter rituals take place in artificial settings removed from every-
day life. Strangers unlikely to be seen in the real world provide guinea pigs
for acting out one's fears and uncertainties. And these episodes are con-
ducted, in most instances, under professional supervision and following
careful guidelines. Although uncertainties are provoked, they are kept
within limits, after which participants are gradually encouraged to face
up to their fears and are eased back into everyday reality.
This is a pattern characteristic of many rituals, though by no means
inherent in ritual in its broadest sense. Durkheim recognized it in Austra-
lian religion, where the primitive temporarily found himself confronted
with the awesome uncertainty of communing with his gods. Van Gen-
nep saw it as a common feature in rites of passage. The initiate is mo-
mentarily left without support, neither boy nor man, faced with the terri-
ble responsibility of working through his own transition to adulthood.
In witch-hunts, the spectre of chaos emerges in the accusation of subver-
sion and pronouncements concerning the scope of incipient evil. In the
Mass, Christ perishes under the weight of the world's sin before rising
triumphantly on the third day.
These rituals are a special type. They do not create the uncertainty in
broader terms that generates interest in what the ritual activities them-
selves portray. Rather, they exaggerate this uncertainty. Protected en-
claves in which the latent uncertainties inherent in real life can be mod-
eled at extreme levels are defined. This modeling allows the sources and
implications of uncertainty to be objectified—to be imagined—and,
once brought vividly into consciousness, to be transcended by confront-
ing it and learning either to cure its devastation or to restructure rela-

tions in ways to avoid it.
In these rituals of uncertainty, the individual must act in order to over-
come the ambiguities of his or her own fears. Ritual invokes moral respon-
sibility to act. This is no less true in less extreme cases. It is, again, the
driver, not the passenger, who must signal. Through ritual the actors'
roles and obligations in each setting are dramatized to their confederates.
This is why we feel compelled to participate in ritual. Voting constitutes
an act of affirming our sense of duty and participation in civil society. Go-
ing to church bears witness to our faith. In ritual a bond is established be-
tween the person and the moral community on which he or she depends.
It is in this sense that ritual reinforces the moral order. Modern society,
no less than the tribal group, depends continually on this source of re-
inforcement.
AN EMPIRICAL CASE: "HOLOCAUST"

AS MORAL RITUAL
Investigating ritual empirically is not a simple task. One can, for exam-
ple, approach the subject as if ritual were a kind of text to decipher. This
is essentially the approach taken by Shils and Young (1953) in their clas-
sic essay, "The Meaning of the Coronation." In this case the ritual per-
formed was conducted basically the same each time and was not per-
formed very often. Thus Shils and Young could concern themselves with
the various phases of the ritual, the symbols in each, and the meanings of
these symbols—the robe, crown, scepter, and so on. They argued that the
meaning of the coronation lay in the social relations that were dramatized
between crown and people, crown and estates, and crown and God. Yet
the study ultimately fails because it claims too much. We have no way of
determining whether this interpretation is correct or not. Chances are the
ceremony elicits a variety of meanings at a number of different levels.
When the queen-to-be stands momentarily before the audience in ordi-
nary garb before receiving the robe, it may be, as the authors suggest, that
a distinction is evoked between the queen's biological and social attri-
butes. But it may just as well be that here is someone ordinary with whom
the people can identify. To argue that the meaning of the ritual has been
unearthed is clearly pretentious and unfounded.
Alternatively, one can take an ethnographic approach, as Clifford
Geertz (1973) has done in his illuminating essays on the rituals of Bali.
Here one comes to the subject matter deeply immersed in the customs of
the people whose participation is at issue. If these customs pertain to a
relatively small and homogeneous population about which little else is
known, the account is likely to come off as both credible and illuminat-
ing. Yet this approach can also be criticized. Too often the ethnographer
purports to have found the true meaning
9
that even the ritual's practitio-
ners have been unable to recognize. The ethnographer also has difficulty
applying this method to the rituals of large, heterogeneous societies.
If one turns to the methods of sociology, some of these difficulties dis-
appear. For example, Erikson and those in his tradition have shied away
from saying what the true meaning of ritual witch-hunts is, claiming
only to have identified some of the circumstances rendering these rituals
meaningful. But new problems arise. Usually only a loose temporal or
geographical connection is established between circumstances and rit-
ual. Not much is known about the attitudes of those who actually par-
ticipate. Furthermore, the analyst usually assumes that the ritual has
some sort of function in restoring order to social life. But clear evidence
of these effects is seldom given.
The need is evident, therefore, for fairly extensive information to un-
derstand even one ritual, let alone to fully develop a general theory
about ritual. Without such information, the connections between moral
order and ritual remain largely conjectural. What follows is an empiri-
cal case that affords a more detailed look at some of these connections.
A TELEVISED MORAL EVENT
On four successive evenings in mid April 1978, more than 120 mil-
lion Americans looked on as the grisly horrors of violence, brutality,
and mass extermination unfolded in graphic color on their television
screens. The show was "Holocaust," a nine-and-a-half-hour adaptation
of Gerald Green's best-selling novel by the same title. No program (ex-
cept "Roots") had ever attracted so large a viewing audience. Nearly
two-thirds of the adult population watched the program. In addition,
the program stirred a great deal of public commentary. Newspapers edi-
torialized about it, clergy discussed it in sermons, teachers assigned it to
their students. In the days following the telecast NBC received more
than twenty thousand letters about the series, expressing overwhelm-
ingly favorable sentiments, and later the series became the winner of
twelve Emmy awards.
"Holocaust" provides an example of public ritual by almost any indi-
cation. Whether in terms of Durkheim's specific view of ritual (as will

be shown) or in terms of the broad definition of ritual that has just been
considered, the program was a symbolic-expressive event that communi-
cated something about social relations in a relatively dramatic way. In
terms of minimal participation (viewing), it involved more of the public
than virtually any other single event in recent times. More people
watched than voted in either the 1976 or 1980 presidential elections.
The series attracted about as many viewers as the Super Bowl, even
though it took up four evenings and lasted nearly three times as long. Its
audience was larger than that of all the nation's churches on any given
Sunday. Moreover, the program dealt with a theme of grave moral im-
portance and provoked interest ranging well beyond the series itself.
The program also became the focus of extensive research. A na-
tional telephone survey was conducted a few weeks after the series to
assess 10viewers' reactions and to compare them with nonviewers' atti-
tudes. Some weeks later a nationwide survey was conducted 11
among
clergy in five major denominations to explore their reactions. A paral-
lel study was conducted 12
in a national cross-section of high school so-
cial studies teachers. Both studies included questions aimed at prob-
ing the connection between attitudes about the Holocaust and broader
issues of moral order. A small survey of students
13
in a midwestern high
school provided some related information, 14 Several other studies were
conducted in different parts of the country. And at least two national
15
samples were polled when the series was shown in Europe. Thus
"Holocaust" became one of the most extensively studied of any con-
temporary public ritual.
The evidence from these various sources provides strong support for
treating "Holocaust" as a major public event. The telephone survey of
U.S. adults showed that 16
the number of viewers grew on each succeeding
evening of the series. Fewer than one in ten did not know the program
was on. Almost all the clergy and teachers who had not watched said
they had heard a lot about i:he program. The studies also documented
the extent of activity and social interaction stimulated by the program—
an important fact because the program might otherwise be dismissed as
merely private entertainment. About two-thirds of the viewers in the
telephone survey said they had watched with other members of their
household, meaning 17
that discussion of the program was likely at least
within the family. Newspapers, pastors, and teachers also played a
role in making the event public. Twenty percent of the clergy had
preached a sermon on the Holocaust, 80 percent had mentioned it in a
sermon, 84 percent had discussed the program with people in their

churches, and 55 percent had encouraged people to watch the program.
Large numbers of teachers had also discussed the program—92 percent
had talked about the Holocaust with students or colleagues, 56 percent
had taught a class on it, and 69 percent had encouraged students to
watch the program.
The evidence also showed how seriously viewers took the event. Tele-
vision audiences are notoriously forgetful about what they watch. "Ho-
locaust" viewers, however, were able to recall details of the program
even several months after the series was shown. Among clergy (surveyed
two months after the telecast) and teachers (seven months afterwards),
three-quarters were able to recall the name
18
of the Jewish family and the
occupation of the father in this family. Among those who had seen all
of the program, better than 90 percent gave the right answers to these
questions. Other measures also documented the program's cognitive im-
pact on its viewers. In the telephone survey more than half the viewers
said watching had helped them better understand "what Hitler's treat-
ment of Jews was all about." Among the youngest viewers (ages 18 to
29), this figure was close to 75 percent. The clergy and teacher surveys
included a battery of true-false questions about details of the Holocaust
covered in the program. Levels of knowledge on these items were rela-
tively high overall, but viewers who had seen the entire series were be-
tween 15 and 20 percentage points more likely to give correct answers
than were those
19
who had not watched and had not heard much about
the program.
"Holocaust" also evoked deep emotion among its viewers. About
half the viewers surveyed by telephone said they had found some parts
of the program "difficult or disturbing to watch." More than half the
clergy and teachers indicated that the20 "violence and pain shown in the
program" had bothered them a lot. Another indication of how seri-
ously viewers took the program is the extent to which they were both-
ered by interruptions for commercials. Mary Douglas (1966) has writ-
ten that objects come to be defined as pollution when they somehow
show that symbolic boundaries demarcating the sacred or pure have
been violated. In the present case, the commercials appeared to be an in-
trusion of the profane into something very special. One-third of the
clergy and teachers said they had been bothered a lot by "having the pro-
gram interrupted21 by commercials"; another third said they had been
bothered a little.
The studies gave evidence as well on how viewers evaluated the se-
ries. In the telephone survey, 83 percent of the viewers said it was a
"good idea" to show a progiam like "Holocaust" on television. About
the same number among the teachers and clergy felt that TV specials
dealing with atrocities such as the22Holocaust "should be shown, no mat-
ter how shocking they may be." Equally large proportions (about 85
percent) felt that the Holocaust "definitely raises23some profound moral
questions that we need to ponder very carefully."
Finally, the studies showed that the Holocaust program took place
within an atmosphere of more extended interest in the Holocaust and
knowledge about it. In the telephone survey nearly half of those who
watched all of the series said they were already very well informed
about the Holocaust, as did about a third of those who watched parts of
the series. Better than two-thirds of the clergy and teachers gave correct
answers to the true-false questions. And books, classes, and professional
publications had apparently contributed significantly to the level of
knowledge among these groups. For example, fewer than one in five
had not learned at least a little about the Holocaust during the past few
years from books; better than half had learned things about the Holo-
caust from classes or lectures; and more than 24 half had gained informa-
tion about it from professional publications.
In sum, the showing of "Holocaust" was an event that fits well the de-
scription of a major public ritual. Not only did it attract the attention of
millions of Americans, but it also moved them emotionally, influenced
their attitudes, and involved them in discussions about the Holocaust
with friends and family and in classrooms and churches. In these re-
spects, the program took on importance well beyond that of an ordinary
television series. It dealt with a moral issue of profound significance that
had already been the focus of much interest and debate in American cul-
ture. The program therefore provides an occasion to examine the social
circumstances in the moral order that may arouse interest in particular
kinds of rituals and symbols that help to reaffirm collective values. In ex-
amining these circumstances it is again important to emphasize that
these are only some of the conditions that contribute to the meaningful-
ness of a symbolic event. In the case of the Holocaust, both its gravity as
a historical episode and the skills involved in producing the television
portrayal contributed immensely to the meaningfulness it apparently
had for the American public. Even taking these factors into account,
however, still leaves much to be explained, especially in light of the fact
that some persons found the Holocaust considerably more interesting or

meaningful than did others. It is to these differences that the issue of per-
ceptions about the broader moral order becomes relevant.
THE EFFECTS OF M O R A L UNCERTAINTY
The period in which "Holocaust" was shown was a time of wide-

spread concern about the quality of American values and the strength of
America's institutions. A survey taken in 1978 by Chicago's National
Opinion Research Center found that 84 percent of the public had "only
some" or "hardly any" confidence25in the leaders running the executive
branch of the federal government. Congress fared 26 about as badly, and
the Supreme Court came out only a little better. As with government,
attitudes toward business also registered deep misgivings. Writing in Au-
gust 1978, Seymour Martin Lipset and William Schneider concluded
that "all the opinion polls agree that the reputation of business gener-
ally, and of every industry and company examined in particular, has de-
clined, often precipitously." The polling firm Yankelovich, Skelly and
White had documented a decline in agreement with the statement "Busi-
ness tries to strike a fair balance between profits and the interests
27
of the
public" from 70 percent in 1968 to only 15 percent in 1977. Other sur-
veys showed a growing mood of pessimism about the future, wide-
spread fears that America's power in the world was28 declining, and deep
concern about the erosion of traditional morality. According to polls
conducted by the Roper organization, the proportion of Americans who
felt the country had "pretty seriously gotten on the wrong track" rose
from 44 percent in 1977 to 65 percent in 1979 (Lipset and Wattenberg,
1979). Indeed, enough evidence of this kind had accumulated by mid-
summer 1979 that President Carter was prompted to describe the declin-
ing national morale as a "crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul
and spirit of our national will," a crisis
29
that threatened "to destroy the
social and political fabric in America."
The clergy and teacher studies found that the concerns held by the
general public were also pronounced among pastors and teachers. Up-
wards of 80 percent in these surveys indicated that dishonesty in the gov-
ernment, corruption in business, and a sense of powerlessness in the pub-
lic were currently serious problems in the United States, and more than
a third thought these problems were extremely serious.30 Well over half
felt that racial
31 inequality and prejudice continued to represent serious
problems. Many could also envision future outbreaks of social disor-
der. For example, about half were convinced that racial violence could
break out again, and almo.st 3
this many thought unrest like that of the
1960s could happen again. '"
If the argument developed in the previous section of this chapter is
correct, uncertainties and fears of these kinds should help explain the tre-
mendous reception that the Holocaust program evoked. "Holocaust"
was a ritual event dramatizing the evils of social and moral chaos. These
themes should have been especially meaningful to persons who per-
ceived disorder cropping up in their own society. The Holocaust, in
short, was a symbol of contemporary chaos, as well as a reminder of his-
toric evil. Some evidence to this effect is present in the explanations that
people gave for their interest in the Holocaust.
Several scenarios were advanced in the late 1970s to explain the pub-
lic's interest in the Holocaust. One held that this interest had largely
been manufactured by the media in conjunction with well-advertised
productions such as "Holocaust," "The Diary of Anne Frank," and
"The World at War." A second had it that events in Israel since the
1967 war were the reason. A third argued that people were actually ac-
quainted with survivors of the Holocaust. And a fourth—proposed
mostly because of the high interest evident among young people—sug-
gested that the interest was a function of historical curiosity. None of
these explanations gained more than limited support from the research,
however. Fewer than a sixth of the clergy and teachers attributed their
interest mainly to the media. Fewer than one in eight said the events in Is-
rael were a major reason for their interest. Only a quarter indicated that
personal acquaintance with Holocaust survivors was a major reason.
And only a fourth of the clergy attributed their interest
33 to historical curi-
osity (almost half of the teachers, however, did so).
The explanation that seemed to account for most of the interest was
the fear that something like the Holocaust could happen again. Newspa-
pers had been quick to make this point. William Safire wrote in the New
York Times, "Ask not how a previous generation could tolerate the mur-
der of six million Jews; on a smaller scale, this generation is doing just
dandy along those lines." In a similar vein the Nashville Tennessean edi-
torialized,
34 "The important thing to be learned is that it could happen
again." Teachers and clergy were prone to agree. More than half of
the teachers and almost three-quarters of the pastors said the fear that
something
35 like it could happen again was a major reason for their inter-
est. This view was also shared by the general public. Of the two-thirds
who thought the program was a good idea, 83 percent listed their rea-
son for thinking so as the necessity of being aware of what could happen
again.
More direct evidence of the connection between perceptions of dan-
ger in the contemporary moral order and interest in the Holocaust
comes from examining the differences in interest between those who per-
ceived danger and those who did not. Interest was significantly higher
among those who perceived serious moral and social problems in Ameri-
can culture than among those who did not. For someone who thought
dishonesty, corruption, alienation, prejudice, or inequality was an ex-
tremely serious problem in the country, the odds of that person having a
lot of interest in the Holocaust were between 20 and 50 percent higher 36
than for someone who did not think these problems were serious. In
other words, perceiving some threat or ambiguity in the moral order of
American society, for whatever reason, appeared to enhance the likeli-
hood that the Holocaust would be regarded as a meaningful symbolic
event.
This connection did not result simply from differences in political
views. Politically liberal clergy and teachers, as it turned out, were more
likely both to perceive serious social problems in the United States and
to be interested in the Holocaust than were their conservative counter-
parts. But liberalism was not the reason for the connection between per-
ceptions of contemporary problems and expressions of interest in the
Holocaust. Whether someone was politically liberal, moderate, or con-
servative, that person was more likely to be interested in the Holocaust
if he or she perceived serious problems 37
in the moral order than if no
such problems were thought to exist.
Political orientations did have one important effect on the findings,
however. They revealed that some kinds of danger in the moral order
can generate interest in ritual for some groups but not for others. Specifi-
cally, the effects of perceiving a decline in traditional morality varied,
depending on whether this decline was perceived by conservatives or by
liberals. The expectation was that conservatives would find declining
morality more disturbing than liberals and therefore would be more
likely to be interested in the Holocaust if they perceived such a decline
than would liberals. The data confirmed this expectation. Among both
clergy and teachers there was a sizable relation between the seriousness
with which one regarded "declining moral standards" and interest in
the Holocaust among conservatives. But among liberals 38
there was no re-
lation for clergy and only a weak relation for teachers.
The data permitted another argument to be examined: the idea that
the Holocaust was especially meaningful to those who perceived prob-

lems in the moral fabric of American society because the Holocaust sym-
bolized an ongoing danger. In other words, it was the Holocaust as sym-
bol of everpresent evil rather than the Holocaust as historical event that
was of interest to persons troubled about the moral fabric. This connec-
tion became evident in comparing those who said they were interested
in the Holocaust because it could happen again with those who did not
select this as one of their reasons. Among both clergy and teachers there
was a significant relation between perceptions of corruption and inter-
est in the Holocaust for those who indicated that the fear of another Ho-
locaust was a major reason for their interest. But among those who said
this was not a reason for their interest, no such relation 39 was evident be-
tween perceptions of corruption and levels of interest.
This rinding helps to interpret the relations between ritual and moral
order. The connection is not simply that problems in the moral order of a
society create personal insecurities that need to be vented, structured, or
expressed in some form of ritual activity. That may be the case in certain
instances, but it assumes a great deal more about the psychological basis
of ritual than has yet been verified empirically. For example, watching the
Super Bowl may be a way of venting the anxieties one feels because of cor-
ruption in business. But the connection seems unlikely or at best remote.
Instead, strains in the moral order contribute to the meaningfulness of
those rituals and symbols that directly and vividly dramatize moral decay
itself. Witch-hunts occur in times of crisis not because they provide an
emotional outlet, but because people genuinely believe that witches and
subversives are selling out the country. By the same token, the Holocaust
sparks interest not as catharsis alone, but because it symbolizes some-
thing that could happen again if present trends are not corrected.
The data also provided evidence that strains in one's personal situa-
tion, like perceptions of strain in the broader society, could generate inter-
est in the Holocaust. Interest varied not only with intellectual concerns
about the future of America but also with problems of more immediate,
existential significance. For example, clergy in theologically dissonant
contexts differed from those in consonant contexts. More specifically, lib-
eral clergy in conservative denominations and conservative clergy in lib-
eral denominations showed higher levels of interest in the Holocaust than
their counterparts who were able to see their own values 40 more fully real-
ized in the denominations of which they were a part. The study con-
ducted among high school srudents in a midwestern community provided
some further evidence of the link between personal strains and interest in
the Holocaust. Students who said they were troubled by problems in their
personal lives, such as loneliness, problems with school, or wondering
what to do in life, registered higher levels of interest in the
41 Holocaust than
did students who were not bothered by these problems.
The Holocaust was apparently more meaningful, or meaningful in a
more immediate sense, to those who were troubled about threats to the
contemporary moral order than it was to those who were not troubled
in this manner. This finding is consistent with the arguments put forth
by Erikson and others working in the Durkheimian tradition, namely,
that ritual appears to be a response to crises or uncertainties in the
moral order of a society. The present evidence extends this argument to
the individual level, suggesting that within a single society individuals
with greater concern about problems in the moral order or with greater
ambiguity in their own- lives are more likely to be interested in ritual or
symbolism that dramatizes these concerns. The explanatory power of
this argument should not be overstated. In many of the comparisons,
percentage differences were relatively small, pointing to the fact that
other conditions also enter into the picture. The fact that the differences
were for the most part statistically significant and in the expected direc-
tion nevertheless supports the contention that uncertainty about the
moral order constitutes part of what makes ritual meaningful.
DRAMATIZING COLLECTIVE VALUES
From a functionalist perspective, rituals not only become more mean-

ingful in the face of moral uncertainties; they reinforce collective values—
reaffirm the moral order—as well. By dramatizing and provoking discus-
sion about the cherished values of a people, rituals help to restore moral
order. But there have been two problems with this argument. The first is
that rituals can just as well heighten value conflicts as promote consensus
over common values. Particularly in modern complex societies there
seems to be42 no reason to assume that rituals dramatize the same values for
everyone. The most prominent rituals may, in fact, be the ones that con-
vey different messages to different groups. The second problem is that
this argument has usually been made in the context of purely official ritu-
als—those sanctioned by the state, such as inaugural addresses, Memo-
rial Day ceremonies, and so on. The question is left open as to the
effectivenes of nonofficial rituals for promoting moral order.
The Holocaust program was a nonofficial ritual, bearing no connec-
tion with the government and conveying no explicit messages about the
legitimacy of the state apparatus. Indeed, it sparked special interest (as

we have seen) from people who were concerned about corruption in the
government. The program appealed to a higher-order set of concerns,
rather than ones organized purely around the nation-state. In this impor-
tant respect it illustrated a way around the traditional dilemma43that has
faced discussions of "civil religion," from Durkheim to Bellah. It illus-
trated that moral concerns can be mobilized on a broad scale without re-
inforcing a kind of parochial nationalism. The Holocaust serves as a
symbol of evil for humanity without respect to national boundaries.
At the same time, reactions to the Holocaust program also demon-
strate that ritual can have a broad appeal without violating the spirit of
cultural pluralism; that is, it can reinforce the diverse values of a pluralis-
tic society, rather than merely promoting conformity to a least-com-
mon-denominator mode of consensus. This fact is evident both in the di-
versity of interpretations that viewers made of the program and in the
correlates between these interpretations and other values.
Although the telephone survey obtained no evidence on the kinds of
lessons viewers drew from the program, the clergy and teacher studies
explored this issue in some detail. One indication of the diversity of
meanings that the program conveyed is the variety of responses concern-
ing how best to prevent something like the Holocaust from happening
again. About a third of the clergy felt that "teaching people to be better
Christians" would help most, but the remaining two-thirds were di-
vided almost equally between an economic solution ("making sure that
everyone has a good job and a decent living"), a political solution
("teaching people about democracy"), and an educational solution
("having students learn about it in school"). A few opted for solutions
based on "limiting the power of big business and big government," hav-
ing "strict laws against political extremists," and "showing stories
about [the Holocaust] on TV." A number also offered solutions of their
own. The responses from teachers were equally diverse, dividing almost
equally among economic, political, and educational solutions, 44 with a
fair number opting for several of the other responses as well. Had the
program been reducible to any single meaning or interpretation, as ana-
lysts of ritual have often alleged in the absence of attitudinal data, some
degree of consensus on these items would have been expected among
viewers, at least more consensus than among nonviewers. A comparison
of viewers and nonviewers, however,
45 showed virtually no differences in
responses to these questions,
Considerable diversity was also evident in the responses of pastors
and teachers when asked to say what they thought the main reason was
for the Nazis' attack on Jews. Both groups distributed their responses
across a variety of explanations, including Germans being taught to
obey orders, Hitler's bureaucracy, economic conditions, 46the absence of
democracy in Germany, and mentally disturbed leaders.47 Again, view-
ers were as diverse as nonviewers in their interpretations.
These responses are entirely consistent with the thrust of the program
itself. Although it aimed to convey the moral atrocity of the Holocaust
(a message that viewers did largely agree on), it did not attempt to com-
municate any single interpretation of the forces leading to the Holocaust
or of how the Holocaust might be prevented from happening again. In-
stead, it relied on narrative to focus interest in the event and allowed
viewers to draw their own conclusions. This approach, utilizing picto-
graphic, ikonic, and expressive symbolism is in fact characteristic of a
wide variety of rituals, from church services to patriotic festivals. It is
common not only in primitive societies but also in modern societies,
where the diversity of values reduces the effectiveness of structuring rit-
ual around tightly defined cognitive themes.
The correlates between interpretations of the Holocaust and broader
values suggest that people "read into" the program their own values. It
was conceivable that clergy and teachers, when asked to say how some-
thing like the Holocaust could be prevented in the future, would suggest
solutions that essentially placed the burden on some group other than
their own. Instead, they used the occasion to indicate that their own ac-
tivities could make a significant difference. Clergy opted heavily for the
idea that the best solution was to make people better Christians. More
than half said this would help a lot, and more than a third said it would
help most of all. By comparison, only a quarter of the teachers thought
this would help a lot, and only an eighth said it would help most of all.
The teachers preferred solutions reflecting their interests in teaching and
in social studies. Four in ten indicated that students learning about the
Holocaust in school would help a lot (two in ten said it would help
most); about equal numbers said they preferred giving people good jobs
and a decent living as the best solution. Pastors were significantly less
likely than teachers to select either of these responses. In short, these dif-
ferences suggest that thinking about the Holocaust became an occasion
for reaffirming values already held dear by the clergy and teachers.
Further support for this conclusion comes from comparing the solu-
tions given by clergy holding different values and by teachers holding dif-
ferent values. Among both groups, those who selected the idea of making
people better Christians as the best solution were also the most religiously
oriented in their own values. They were likely to identify themselves as re-
ligious conservatives, likely to belong to a conservative denomination,
and likely
48
to value the importance of following God's will in their own
lives. For these people the Holocaust was an object lesson revealing the
importance of adhering to traditional Christian values. Political values
were also closely associated with the kinds of moral lessons that clergy
and teachers drew from the Holocaust. Those who felt that good jobs and
a decent living for all would do most to prevent a Holocaust from happen-
ing again were
49
also the most likely to say they held radical or liberal politi-
cal values. In other words, the Holocaust dramatized the relevance of
their political orientations to, among other things, the prevention of a ma-
jor social catastrophe.
The important point illustrated by these relations is that a single sym-
bol or ritual event can reinforce a variety of different values. Having peo-
ple focus on a common stimulus, whether that be the Holocaust, the
story of Christ's resurrection, or the American flag, need not promote
uniformity of belief. Indeed, symbols and rituals of this variety are
highly compatible with the concept of cultural pluralism. They afford a
basis for communication across a variety of subcultures by providing a
shared referent for discussion. But they allow different values to be ex-
pressed as well. As W. Lloyd Warner (1961:155—260) observed in his
study of Memorial Day services, ritual itself can convey the idea of plu-
rality. In classic Memorial Day services the concept of religious plurality
is dramatized by the inclusion of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews in the
same commemorative ceremony. In this instance pluralistic values are
built explicitly into the performance of the ritual. The Holocaust drama-
tizes two additional and perhaps more subtle ways in which plurality
can be dramatized. For one, the Holocaust itself stands as a vivid re-
minder of the dangers of totalitarianism (as evidenced in the number of
responses stressing the need to teach democracy), and it symbolizes the
chaos associated with an absence of pluralism. The massive destruction
it represents also communicates by its very severity the necessity of rul-
ing out no solution, no set of activities or values, that may contribute to
the prevention of utter destruction.
The narrative structure of ritual also plays a critical role in the ca-
pacity of ritual to reaffirm pluralistic values. Ritual tells a story, a mes-
sage of intentions and values dependent (as Durkheim recognized) on a
larger mythology of shared experience, but communicated in graphic,
ikonic imagery rich in connotative potential, thus amenable to highly
50
variable interpretations, unlike strict conceptual terminology. The ex-
pressive character of ritual permits persons or groups with different
claims on the larger collective order to articulate their own position in
relation to the moral order. Trevor-Roper (1967:90-192) observes in
his discussion of European witch trials during the seventeenth century
that the stories told and the images used as well as the punishments
meted out were often remarkably similar in Protestant and Catholic re-
gions; yet in one region the lessons derived had to do with clerical ex-
cess and in the other with incipient heresy. Each side learned the signifi-
cance of its own values by observing the ritual of witch interrogation.
Narrative also permits multiple layers of meaning to be communicated
to the same person or group, thereby enriching the significance of the
ritual itself and ensuring a more dramatic and sustained impact on its
participants.
The capacity of stories about the Holocaust to elicit different mean-
ings by virtue of their narrative structure has already been suggested by
the variety of different explanations viewers gave to account for the oc-
currence of the Holocaust. These explanations, like the lessons about
prevention, were also subject to influence from broader value predisposi-
tions. The few who saw the event as a part of God's 51 plan were strongly
oriented toward religious values more generally. Those who focused
on the role of economic conditions in Germany were likely to be politi-
cally liberal in their own views, whereas those who stressed the totalitar-
ian nature of Hitler's
52
regime were relatively more inclined toward politi-
cal conservatism. These relations suggest that the narrative structure
of the Holocaust program allowed people with different values not only
to draw different lessons about prevention but also to experience the
event itself in different ways. That is, their more general value orienta-
tions led them to perceive different forces at work in the unfolding of
the Nazi attack itself.
The danger of narrative in loosely structured rituals, like the dangers
inherent in cultural pluralism itself, is that some chance necessarily ex-
ists for the reaffirmation of values that run contrary to the very nature
of pluralism itself. This possibility was illustrated in the high school
study. Students in this study were more willing to countenance repres-
sion as a means of preventing something like the Holocaust from hap-
pening again than were either the clergy or teacher samples. Twenty per-
cent thought "strict laws against political extremism" would help a lot,
another 20 percent thought this would help a fair amount, and 7 per-
cent thought it was the best solution of all. Those who favored this solu-
tion were no less likely to have watched the program or53 to say the Holo-
caust interested them a lot than were other students. They were also
just as likely to give correct answers to factual questions about the Holo-54
caust and to say they had learned a lot about the Holocaust in school.
The main characteristics that distinguished these students from others
were (1) lower grades, (2) spending less time on homework, (3) being
less informed about current events, (4) less interest in social problems,
(5) less interest in helping
55 the needy, and (6) less concern about social in-
justices and inequities. In short, this group illustrates the importance
of broader understandings to the interpretation of ritual. Although
these students were as informed about the Holocaust itself as were other
students, they did not have the broader cognitive sophistication about
social issues to prevent them from favoring a preventive measure that ac-
tually resembled the repressive thinking that contributed to the Holo-
caust itself.
Finally, the diversity of values dramatized by the Holocaust also illus-
trates the fact that different types of uncertainty in the moral order are
likely to produce different interpretations of the same ritual. In other
words, ritual organized loosely around a set of narrative symbols can
take on different meanings depending on the kinds of threat perceived
to exist in the broader moral order. Any number of perceived threats to
the moral order may enhance the meaningfulness of a ritual event, as we
have already seen. But the specific meanings evoked will depend to some
degree on the nature of the threats perceived. In the Holocaust case, the
various interpretations that clergy and teachers derived for preventing
another Holocaust bore a close relation to the kinds of threats they per-
ceived currently endangering the future of American society. Those who
thought the best prevention was to provide good jobs and a decent liv-
ing were especially prone to perceive racial violence, social unrest, and
police harassment as serious threats 56
in American culture. This was true
among both clergy and teachers. Among clergy, those who favored
teaching democratic values as the best solution57
were also somewhat in-
clined toward the fear of police harassment. The fear of totalitarian re-
pression in this case seemed to go along with wanting greater emphasis
on democratic freedoms. In contrast, teachers and clergy who favored
teaching Christianity as a solution to future Holocausts58 were likely to be
especially concerned about declining moral standards.
Summarizing briefly, the evidence suggests that the Holocaust was
meaningful to the clergy and teachers surveyed for a variety of different
reasons and that its specific meanings varied according to different val-
ues and different concerns about the moral order. The Holocaust, like
many other symbols revealing the evils of which humanity is capable, re-
inforced the deeper religious and political convictions of those who
watched or who thought about the Holocaust's enduring significance.
Viewing the television series may not have shaped in any decisive way
the lessons that people derived. But thinking about the Holocaust pro-
vided an occasion for reflecting on deeper values. The Holocaust served
to dramatize the social and moral significance of these values.
V U L N E R A B I L I T Y AND POWER
There remains the question of mobilization. For Durkheim, the per- 59

son who participated in collective ritual was a person empowered.
Confrontation with the gods left one with strength and encouragement
for pursuing what was decent and good. Did the Holocaust program
have these effects on its viewers? Or did it leave them with a sense of per-
sonal inefficacy, indeed, of vulnerability, in the face of such overwhelm-
ing evil?
The clergy and teacher studies asked people if they felt they might
have gone along with the Nazis had they lived in Germany during
World War II. The reason for asking this was to see if vicarious partici-
pation in the Holocaust program, like personal participation in a collec-
tive ritual, would leave participants with a sense of powerlessness before
the collective events portrayed, or whether participants would in some
way be fortified to resist these evils. Relatively few of the clergy and
teachers (only one in twenty) admitted that they would have probably
gone along with the Nazis. About a third, however, indicated they
might have gone along with the Nazis. Fewer60 than a fourth felt they
would have had the courage to actively resist. More important, those
who had watched all of the television series were most likely to say they
might have gone along with 61 the Nazis, followed by those who had
watched some of the program. In other words, vicarious participation
seemed to be associated with feelings of greater vulnerability rather than
an increased sense of personal efficacy.
This sense of vulnerability was especially pronounced among those
who perceived within America itself collective weaknesses of the kind
that led up to the Holocaust in Europe. A majority of the pastors and
teachers felt it was probably true that "many Americans would do ex-
actly what they're told to do, even if it hurt someone else, just like the
62
Nazis." Among this number, 43 percent said they might have gone 63
along with the Nazis, compared with only a quarter of the remainder.
Perceiving collective weaknesses of this kind was, however, associ-
ated as well with actually doing something to communicate about the
horrors of the Holocaust. Clergy who thought Americans would 64 blindly
obey were more likely to have preached about the Holocaust. And
teachers who felt this way were more likely to support the idea of includ-
65
ing instruction about the Holocaust in their school's curriculum.
Activities of these kinds, in turn, were associated with feelings of
greater personal efficacy. Clergy who had preached a sermon on the Ho-
locaust were almost twice as likely to say they'd have resisted the Nazis
than were clergy who had not preached such a sermon. Those who said
they had mentioned the Holocaust in a sermon were also more likely to
feel this way than were those who had not. And teachers who favored
significant doses of classroom instruction on the Holocaust were three
times more likely to say they would have resisted 66
than were teachers
who opposed all but minimal levels of instruction.
The feeling that one could have resisted the Nazis was also associated
with the belief that one could resist evil on the part of one's own govern-
ment. Clergy who thought they could have resisted the Nazis were five
times more likely to say they would do what they felt was right no mat-
ter how much the government tried to stop them than were clergy who
felt they might have gone67 along with the Nazis. The ratio among teach-
ers was about six to one.
The overall pattern, then, appears to be this: Confronted by the mas-
sive brutality of the Holocaust, the typical observer is likely to experi-
ence a sense of personal vulnerability in the face of such overwhelming
evil. This is especially true if that person participates vicariously in the
destruction portrayed, that is, if he or she thinks of the Holocaust's au-
thoritarian mentality as an immanent propensity to which ordinary peo-
ple may succumb. In this sense Durkheim was correct in suggesting that
ritual participants find themselves temporarily weak before the collec-
tive power of the ritual drama. Ritual proclaims an objectified collective
force that the individual cannot escape, whether that be the innocent fri-
volity of the charivari or the horrifying inhumanity of the Holocaust.
But the end result is somewhat more complicated than Durkheim rec-
ognized. When the ritual ends, its participants do not emerge embold-
ened and empowered simply from the experience of having been swept
away in collective activity. The ritual must explicitly mandate a moral
obligation for the individual participant, one that he or she can fulfill in
service to the moral order that has been dramatized. This act of service
demonstrates that the individual, too, can make a difference and has a
moral responsibility to exercise choice. Every country preacher knows it
is insufficient merely to catch the listener up in a terrifying vision of di-
vine judgment; the sinner must be commanded to act, to make a deci-
sion in order to receive salvation. Those who watched the Holocaust
portrayal and did nothing were left only with a renewed awareness of
their own weakness to resist evil. But those who took action, who did
something even as a symbolic gesture, came away with greater convic-
tion that they could resist evil, even if their own government asked them
to do something wrong. Moral ritual not only dramatizes a connection
between a symbolic event and collective values; it also creates an oppor-
tunity for the individual to exercise moral responsibility in relation to
those values.
THE PROBLEM OF MEANING (AGAIN)
This discussion of the Holocaust is intended to illustrate the drama-

turgic approach to cultural analysis. Ritual is a symbolic act, a gesture
performed for expressive rather than purely instrumental purposes.
Whether it is a meaningful gesture depends on its relationship with
some set of objective truths, the sincerity of the speaker or speakers in-
volved, the degree to which comprehensible language is used, and its le-
gitimacy in relation to social norms and circumstances. The Holocaust
series, or accounts of the Holocaust more generally, can be examined in
relation to all these criteria. Indeed, commentators and critics of the pro-
gram were quick to discuss many of these aspects, for example, pointing
out that the program's effectiveness was enhanced by the fact that it
dealt with real events, but that this effectiveness was marred by occa-
sional lapses of credibility; that the show had been translated into a
grammar of symbolism that middle-class Americans could easily com-
prehend (particularly in its portrayal of the Jewish family); and that its
thesis would have been more forceful had the commercial intentions of
its producers (sincerity) been somewhat less apparent. But the distinc-
tive role of cultural analysis is to understand the connections between rit-
ual and the social setting in which it occurs.
The present approach to this task focuses on connections between
the observable aspects of ritual and the observable manifestations of
other conditions in the society. It makes no claims about the hidden
meanings or psychological functions of the ritual event. It examines, in-

stead, patterns among observable symbols themselves that appear to
lend legitimacy to the event in the specific social context in which it oc-
curs. In considering the Holocaust as an object of public interest in the
late 1970s, this perspective led to a consideration of various expressions
of moral concern in American society. Some of these were naturally oc-
curring, such as the president's speech in mid 1979; others were con-
trived situations generated by pollsters and questionnaires that gave peo-
ple an opportunity to make public utterances about the moral order. To
determine if the Holocaust was more meaningful in some contexts than
in others, people who articulated such utterances were compared with
people who did not.
The results supported the idea of a connection between characteris-
tics of the contemporary moral order, as evidenced in utterances about
it, and the degree to which the Holocaust served as a legitimate mode of
symbolic communication. Sectors of the public in which there appeared
to be high levels of uncertainty about the efficacy of cherished moral
standards vis-a-vis actual practice—in business, government, race rela-
tions, and so forth—were also ones in which expressions of interest in
the Holocaust were most common. Other delineations revealed that set-
tings characterized by dissonant values or personal worries were also
likely to bear evidence of interest in the Holocaust. Varied types of
strain in the moral order were associated with different aspects of the
Holocaust being emphasized. Furthermore, sectors characterized by di-
verse values found different elements of the overall Holocaust narrative
to be most meaningful. All these findings suggested that interest in the
Holocaust functioned as a multifaceted symbol of good and evil that be-
came especially meaningful when the signals given off by the arrange-
ments and activities in the society at large or in more personal contexts
contained implicit signs of danger, erosion, ambiguity, or disarticu-
lation between symbolically constructed standards of moral order and
actual events. The late 1970s was a time when such signals were easy to
identify. But some people were more exposed to them intellectually or
existentially than were others. And these were the people who found the
Holocaust narrative most meaningful. Additional data would have been
desirable to pin down these arguments beyond a shadow of doubt. But
the available evidence conformed largely to this interpretation. In short,
the program dramatized the moral order; it conveyed symbolic mes-
sages that dramatized uncertainties and reaffirmed collective values.
This approach to cultural analysis does not require abandonment of

conventional research methods, only a more modest appraisal of the
data collected. The present analysis was based on standard survey re-
search data. Such data are advantageous for comparing different popula-
tion segments, for establishing the empirical presence or absence of rela-
tions among different sets of symbols, and for eliciting utterances about
various aspects of collective and personal life that might otherwise go
unspoken or unrecorded. These data do not, however, necessarily re-
flect deeper attitudes, emotions, or subjective states of the individual.
They may, but the survey researcher is usually in no position to know
for sure. It is preferable to treat such data as a purely external, observ-
able set of symbolic utterances. The purpose of analysis, then, is to iden-
tify patterns among these utterances in relation to the broader social con-
text. This is the approach illustrated here. Theoretical considerations
about ritual and moral order suggest certain patterns existing between
the symbolic representations of social conditions in the larger society
and the specific set of symbols embodied in ritual. Questionnaire re-
sponses about social conditions provide an observable set of symbols,
the relations of which to similar responses about the Holocaust can be
examined. These relations can be compared for different kinds of sym-
bolism (e.g., utterances about declining morality versus ones about
racial inequality) and for different contexts (e.g., dissonant versus conso-
nant theological contexts) to further specify theoretically relevant pat-
terns. At no point does it become necessary to make assumptions about
the connection between these utterances and deeper subjective states of
the individual. Responses to the Holocaust program may have been con-
ditioned by differences in cognitive learning capacities or psychological
anxieties, but these become relevant to the analysis of the Holocaust as
symbolism only insofar as objective utterances can be measured. These
are treated as utterances because the deeper states they may reflect re-
main invisible to the observer. The links between verbal responses about
the Holocaust and the speaker's subjective sincerity could be explored
(e.g., through projective techniques, depth interviewing, or intensive test-
ing). But that is clearly a different issue from the study of cultural pat-
terns. The present perspective sets the analysis of culture on an empiri-
cal plane, giving it a set of observable materials—materials obtainable
from standard data collection methods—with which to work.
The method employed here allowed patterns to be identified among
symbols and, in turn, permitted conclusions to be drawn about the so-
cial circumstances that enhanced the meaningfulness of the Holocaust

program as a ritual event. But this method does not warrant assertions
about the "real" meaning of the Holocaust or its meaning to particular
individuals. Indeed, the evidence illustrates the futility of such claims.
Even within the limitations of the questions asked, it became clear that
people interpreted the Holocaust in different ways—-some as a religious
lesson, others as a lesson in social justice, still others as a message about
democracy, and so on—and these different interpretations were contin-
gent upon personal values and experiences. According to the data, the
Holocaust has many meanings rather than a single meaning. Nor was
the study's inability to reveal the true meaning of the Holocaust merely
a limitation of the data. Had the ethnographic methods preferred by
phenomenologists been employed, the complexity of the meanings in-
volved would have simply become more apparent. The meaning of the
Holocaust would have been different for each individual viewer, and for
many the richness of its meanings would not have been easily ex-
hausted. To have assumed that the real meaning of the Holocaust could
be ascertained by probing beneath the manifest content to find some uni-
versal undergirding interpretation would clearly have been futile. The
Holocaust, to be sure, contained multiple layers of interpretation. But
the meanings at each of these layers would have varied immensely from
one individual to the next, from one time to the next, and from one situa-
tion to the next, All that was discovered from the present analysis (and
all that has been discovered in analyses that have claimed considerably
more) were some of the overt patterns or structures among symbols that
made the Holocaust differentially meaningful to some persons and in
some settings more than others.
As employed here, the dramaturgic approach was able to draw heav-
ily on the Durkheimian tradition and to generate conclusions supportive
of Durkheim's general discussion of ritual and moral order. Yet the pres-
ent approach departs from Durkheim in one significant respect. Durk-
heim went most of the way down the road toward arguing that the spe-
cial, sacred qualities evoked and worshiped in ritual represent nothing
more than the power embodied in society itself. That was an easy posi-
tion to take in looking at primitive religious rites from the "enlight-
ened" vantage point of modern France. No one would dare make the
same argument about the Holocaust. Though ritual reminders of the Ho-
locaust bear all the marks of sacredness and taboo that Durkheim ob-
served, to suggest that these were merely conjured up by the moral un-
certainties of present-day life would be a ludicrous proposition. Yet, as

the evidence has clearly shown, these uncertainties did contribute to the
meaningfulness of the Holocaust as people reflected upon it. The analy-
sis of ritual and other forms of symbolism permits these conditions to be
understood. But it does not deny that symbolism can also be meaningful
because it reminds us of great truth.
CHAPTER FIVE
Moral Order and

Ideology
The idea of ritual being a symbolic-expressive aspect of social life sug-

gests an analog for understanding the social role of ideology. If the
moral order consists of definitions of the manner in which social rela-
tions should be constructed, then signals concerning these definitions
need to be sent—signals that social relations are indeed patterned in the
desired manner and that actors can be counted on to behave in expected
ways. These signals are in part communicated by social arrangements
and actions themselves, as in the case of a simple economic transaction
expressing definitions of expectations among the parties involved. But
special actions may also be engaged in to provide anticipatory signals of
intended behavior or to provide additional emphasis or clarity concern-
ing the nature of moral obligations, as in the example of turn signals in
traffic. In this sense, ritual is said to dramatize the moral order. It is this
relation on which the dramaturgic approach to culture focuses. Ideol-
ogy may be conceived of in the same way. It consists of symbols that ex-
press or dramatize something about the moral order.
Generally, ideology can be conceived of as a set of utterances (verbal
or written). These utterances have a high capacity for cognitive manipu-
lation and for this reason serve particularly well as methods of defining
and communicating the nature of moral obligations. But ideology may
also include visual representations (objects such as flags or pictures),
symbolic acts (salutes and genuflections), and events (sets of related acts
such as a parade or religious service). In this sense ideology obviously
blends with and subsumes much of what is usually referred to as ritual.
145
146 Moral Order and Ideology
The distinction between verbal or written utterances and physical acts

remains useful because physical acts often provide the means by which
utterances become institutionalized. But this conception of ideology
also emphasizes the behavioral aspects of even this narrower set of ideo-
logical components. Utterances are a kind of behavior. The contrast be-
tween the dramaturgic approach to ideology and the subjective ap-
proach, then, is between utterances and beliefs. Utterances, as behavior,
are observable to the investigator and can be examined like other ele-
ments of social life. Beliefs are the subjective correlates of utterances.
They probably cannot be observed directly but can only be inferred
from the frequency and force with which utterances are made and the
kinds of bodily or social behaviors that accompany them. From this per-
spective, ideology ceases to be the subjective residue left over after the
objective dimensions of social sturcture have been examined; it too is ob-
jective, behavioral, observable.
The sociologist may, as seen in Chapter 3, be interested in investigat-
ing the symbolic categories and boundaries that constitute the internal
structure of ideological systems (i.e., a structural approach). However,
this task will usually need to be supplemented by also considering the so-
cial context in which an ideology appears. If it is assumed, as just sug-
gested, that ideology expresses something about the moral order, then
its relations to the moral order will be of interest. A dramaturgic ap-
proach for considering these relations can be set up in the following
way.
An intuitive or commonsense consideration of ideology immediately
points to the fact of a tremendous variety of ideologies. One thinks of
fascism, populism, utopianism, communism, gnosticism, individualism,
and a host of other "isms," as well as any number of subtypes and com-
binations. Yet, despite this enormous diversity, another fact about ideol-
ogy is equally striking—namely, that an even broader variety of ideolo-
gies is easy to imagine. Given ten minutes, ten sophomores can usually
come up with ten new ideologies with no trouble at all. Nor is it
unrealistic to point out that, with recent advances in computer-simu-
lated artificial intelligence programs, a nearly infinite number of new ide-
ologies couFd be generated simply as permutations of existing words
and statements. The conclusion is that far more varieties of ideology are
possible than actually exist at the present or than have existed in the
past. Why?
The question here is comparable to that mentioned in Chapter 2 in
the context of discussing poststructuralist approaches to culture. Asking
Moral Order and Ideology 147
why some ideologies exist is similar to asking why some speech acts are
meaningful (i.e., why they are used). Here again it is possible to argue
that ideologies exist (have been meaningful) because of various circum-
stances. They may be meaningful in a trivial sense because they conform
to conventional rules of language usage—a condition that our com-
puter-driven permutations could probably satisfy. They may be mean-
ingful because they contain certain true statements about reality—-a con-
dition that might also apply to ideas developed as part of one's private
worldview or as statements about physics or biology that we would not
ordinarily associate with the term "ideology." They might also be mean-
ingful because they are uttered forcefully by someone who seems really
to believe in what he or she was saying—a case that might, however,
brand one as being insane rather than a great ideological leader. What is
missing, of course, in these conditions is a consideration of the moral or-
der—the social conditions leading ideological claims to be regarded as
legitimate.
If ideology is understood in the first place as dramatizing something
about the moral order, then it becomes probable that ideology should
have some systematic or predictable relations to social conditions. In a
limiting (perhaps trivial) sense, the plausibility of this assertion becomes
evident in considering whether or not ideologies have been distributed
uniformly in space and time and whether or not they seem to be distrib-
uted randomly in space and time. The answer to the first question is cer-
tainly negative, and, to the second, certainly more likely to be negative
than positive. Thus, it seems likely that part of the variation in ideolo-
gies can be understood by looking at social conditions.
To restate the issue, the most abstract formulation of the research
problem is that of explaining why only some ideologies, among the
many that are conceivable, actually exist. Implicit in this formulation of
the problem, of course, is the assumption that ideologies actually exist.
The reason this is important may be obscure. It is important because it
provides a way of distinguishing ideology from culture more generally.
Ideologies are sets of statements that actually exist, now or in the past;
culture, within this framework, is the broader set of statements that ei-
ther exists or is conceivable. That is, ideology is like speech or discourse
in that it represents a finite subset of all cultural possibilities; culture is
more like language, in the technical sense of the term, in that language is
generally understood now not only as a finite set of words (a vocabu-
lary) but also as an infinite or nearly infinite set of statements made pos-
sible by the rules that govern its usage. To say that ideologies actually ex-
ist is again to emphasize their observable qualities and to delimit the

study of ideology as being somewhat more manageable than the study
of culture generally. In practical terms, the central research question con-
cerning ideology becomes that of explaining why particular ideologies
or ideological themes (patterns) exist in some situations and not in oth-
ers—the problem that derives from assuming that ideologies are not dis-
tributed uniformly or entirely at random. Linguists, philosophers, psy-
chologists, and sociologists may all have something to contribute to
answering this question. The sociological contribution is likely to con-
sist primarily of examining social conditions to determine how they af-
fect the distribution of ideological patterns.
Now that the problem has been set up in this way, another impor-
tant consideration can be introduced. The nature of this problem is for-
mally similar to that faced by biologists interested in explaining why
certain species exist in some environments and not in others. Without
suggesting any closer parallels between species and ideologies, this anal-
ogy nevertheless suggests that some value may be present in considering
"population ecology" models in relation to ideologies, just as has been
done in other areas of sociology, such as the study of organizations.
The chief contributions of adopting a loose population ecology frame-
work are those of emphasizing the dynamics of ideological change, of
emphasizing the importance of competition among ideologies, and of
creating sensitivity to certain formal characteristics of social environ-
ments. In terms of our broader interests, ideas from population ecology
theory may provide a useful way of specifying some of the relations be-
tween ideology and the social environment that are central to the
dramaturgic approach.
The dynamic aspect of ideologies' relations to the social environment
is stressed in the idea of a three-phase analytic model. In the first phase
ideological variation is produced. That is, some change occurs in the so-
cial environment that evokes an increase in the kinds of ideologies pres-
ent in that environment. This variability then makes possible a second
phase in which some of the ideologies survive and others perish. In this
phase the effect of environmental factors in limiting the choice of ideolo-
gies from a broader menu of ideological possibilities becomes most ap-
parent. Finally, those ideologies that survive are said to undergo some
process of internal change that facilitates the likelihood of their reten-
tion in the social environment, even against subsequent environmental
changes that may augur against their viability. In terms of the schema
set forth in Chapter 1, this last analytic phase moves beyond the dra-
maturgic approach and raises questions primarily about how ideologies

become institutionalized.
Implicit in the assertion that some ideologies survive and others perish
is the idea of competition. In many settings multiple ideologies do in fact
coexist and appear to compete with one another. At times this competi-
tion is evident in the copresence of ideologies and counterideologies that
are explicitly opposed to one another, for example, in ideologies such as
Prohibition versus Repeal or "pro-choice" versus "pro-life." At other
times the competition is less explicitly recognized but nevertheless is
likely to exist among ideologies that share the same environment (e.g.,
feminism, Methodism, and Republicanism). The importance of acknowl-
edging the likelihood of competition among ideologies lies in the fact that
a change of perspective is indicated. Rather than focusing on single ideolo-
gies, ideological fields—that is, sets of simultaneously copresent ideolo-
gies—need to be considered. The ways in which ideologies influence one
another are of obvious importance in understanding the specific content
of any given ideology. More generally, a focus on ideological fields shifts
attention toward the kinds of themes and formal patterns among other-
wise substantively diverse ideologies that may be particularly suited to
some environments but not to others. In addition, the fact of competition
among ideologies points to a feature that is generally associated with ide-
ology in the sociological literature, namely, its concern with power. In
struggling with one another for survival, ideologies inevitably include
claims about power. They include arguments about the authority of their
own claims, counterarguments concerned with neutralizing the claims of
ideological competitors, and statements about the nature of power in the
environment at large.
Population ecology models generally conceive of the social environ-
ment as a pool of resources that populations must in some way manage
to exploit in order to survive. Relatively simple differences in environ-
ments can be favorable or unfavorable to different types of populations.
Some populations seem better suited to environments with an abun-
dance of resources, others to resource-poor environments. Some adapt
to niches in the environment that are relatively homogeneous, others to
heterogeneous niches. Changes in an environment over time also appear
to attract or encourage different kinds of populations. Some popula-
tions are relatively better suited to stable environments; others adapt
well to changing situations.
The idea of environments as pools of resources makes obvious sense
in dealing with living organisms that physically consume resources or in
examining formal organizations that utilize economic resources in turn-

ing out material products. Ideologies may seem less obviously connected
to the idea of resources; yet the connection is there. Ideologies do not
emerge simply from the effortless fantasizing of individuals. It takes
time, energy, and other resources to produce them. Usually new ideolo-
gies are formulated and disseminated in social movements. The success
or failure of an ideology, therefore, depends on its carrier-movement's
capacity to extract the necessary resources.
In a somewhat less direct sense ideologies also depend on social re-
sources because these resources affect the character of the moral order,
and the moral order is intertwined with the ideologies that dramatize it.
Moral order serves as the mechanism relating social environments and
ideologies. Changes in the environment may not affect ideologies di-
rectly, but if these changes alter the moral order, then ideologies will al-
most certainly be affected. What this conception provides is an alterna-
tive to purely subjective or social psychological conceptions of ideology.
Rather than positing individual moods as the link between ideology and
social structure, moral order is posited as the mediating connection.
From this perspective ideologies do not arise primarily from anxieties or
feelings of dislocation or other psychological needs attributed to the indi-
vidual. They arise instead from changes in the moral order—in public
definitions of moral obligations—that make room for or necessitate
new efforts to dramatize the nature of social relations.
The relation between an ideology and its environment is an interac-
tive one. In utilizing resources and in articulating moral obligations, an
ideology obviously depends on its environment. But an ideology is also
capable of influencing its environment. The moral order that it articu-
lates is itself concerned with the distribution of resources. In strength-
ening the prevailing moral order, an ideology may well legitimate the
manner in which resources are distributed. In providing models of al-
ternative moral obligations, ideologies can also undermine existing so-
cial arrangements. This again is to say that ideology is concerned with
power. It not only describes reality in the abstract; it also tells how re-
ality should be related to in the here and now.
The distinction between ideologies and their environments is inevita-
bly one of perspective. In the case of a specific, well-codified ideology
(Pentecostalism, for example) the environment from which it draws re-
sources may consist of religious competitors—other ideologies—as well
as "material" resources such as incomes, leaders, and buildings. For a
general discussion of ideologies such as capitalism or communism, it
may be necessary to focus on a broader range of societal conditions.

Clarity about the specific niche an ideology occupies is also important.
An ideology that appeals to a single social class may be described as hav-
ing a relatively homogeneous environment, for example, whereas an ide-
ology with cross-class appeal may be said to have a more heterogeneous
environment.
Summing up briefly, then, the model that has been outlined posits a dia-
lectic framework in which to consider the relations between ideology and
moral order. This framework specifies a three-phase dynamic sequence: a
phase of production in which the existing variation in ideologies is ampli-
fied, typically by the emergence of new ideological movements and in con-
junction with some disturbance in the moral order; a phase of selection in
which competition among ideologies for scarce resources—competition
to provide plausible models of moral obligations—results in some ideolo-
gies or ideological forms being "selected for" and others being "selected
against," depending on the nature and distribution of social resources in
the environment; and a phase of institutionalization in which successful
ideologies develop or take on additional features that make them less vul-
nerable to competition and less subject to radical alterations in the envi-
ronment. In all three phases an interactive relation exists between ideol-
ogy and moral order. The character of social resources and the definition
of moral obligations in the environment have an arguable effect on the
kind of ideologies that are likely to emerge, but in no way does this effect
allow explanations that reduce or explain away ideologies by attributing
them to their environment.
THE SOCIAL PRODUCTION OF IDEOLOGY
The question of why, and under what circumstances, variations in

ideological forms get produced is of considerable importance to broader
questions about social order and social change. The production of ideo-
logical innovations represents an example of cultural adaptation that fre-
quently has important ramifications for the shaping or reshaping of
societal goals. In some instances these ramifications have been quite dra-
matic. One thinks, for example, of the ideological movements that consti-
tuted the Protestant Reformation or of the various socialist movements
that emerged during the nineteenth century. In other instances, of course,
the broader implications are much less obvious (for example, in the1 case
of many of the small religious cults that have arisen in recent years). Yet
even in these cases the total effect of all the ideological movements pro-
duced in a given time period may add up to considerable proportions, and
short of that, the very emergence of new ideologies raises questions about
the current condition of the moral order.
As mentioned previously, the production of ideology in a collective
sense (as opposed to the production of individual contributions to knowl-
edge) can often be associated with the rise of ideological movements, that
is, to social movements in which innovative sets of symbols and rituals
play a prominent part, as in most religious movements and in many politi-
cal protest movements. A dynamic ecological model seems particularly
suited to the study of ideological movements. It emphasizes shifts in
moral order that result in the appearance of ideological movements in the
first place, a competitive process of environmental selection among move-
ments, and subsequent aspects of the institutionalization of these move-
ments. This approach, however, has been little explored in the context of
established work on ideological movements. Instead, there has been a
prominent tendency to rely on social psychological assumptions about
the sources of movements or to ignore the role of ideology entirely.
ALTERNATIVE A P P R O A C H E S
One of the more familiar approaches to the study of ideological move-

ments has emphasized relative deprivation as the primary causal factor.
Numerous kinds of relative deprivation have been identified: economic
distress, downward social mobility, frustrated upward social mobility,
loneliness, alienation, anomie, anxiety, ethical questions, and even prob-
lems with physical health (e.g., Clock, 1973; Schwartz, 1970; Stark and
Bainbridge, 1985). Common to all these types of deprivation is the as-
sumption that necessity is the mother of invention. In other words, peo-
ple have to have some reason for inventing new ideologies (or adopting
newly invented ideologies); thus, the researcher must examine social
and other conditions as potential sources of subjective deprivation in or-
der to discover what motivates people to deviate from tradition. An ad-
ditional assumption in this literature is that the content of resulting ide-
ologies can often be understood in terms of the compensations provided
for the deprived. Otherworldly expectations in religious movements, for
example, compensate people for the more tangible this-worldly rewards
that they would really like to have had instead. From this perspective,
ideology is often portrayed as a somewhat irrational response to the
world. It either grows from such extreme personal anxieties that wild
and misleading perceptions of reality are contained in it, or else it func-

tions (as Marx suggested) as a form of false consciousness that prevents
people from coping adequately with their problems.
The relative deprivation approach—and related approaches that em-
phasize the psychological problems associated with severe social crises—
have been subjected to much criticism in recent years. Some critics have
objected simply because these approaches seem to be rooted in a re-
ductionistic view of the world that puts ideology in a negative light. Reli-
gion especially seems to find defenders among these critics. Their objec-
tions generally take the form of arguing that religion itself is a basic need
and should not be thought of simply as a compensation for needs of a
more tangible sort (e.g., Bruce, 1983). Other criticisms dealing with ideol-
ogy more generally suggest that it should not necessarily be regarded as
an irrational or distorted perception of reality. Still other criticisms have
been launched primarily from empirical grounds. According to these crit-
ics, relative deprivation' is not always obvious among the advocates of
new ideologies or among their followers. Often, it appears, ideological
movements occur among the relatively advantaged, are "upbeat" in out-
look, and are mainly concerned with maximizing new opportunities
rather than restoring some traditional values that have become endan-
gered. At other times, deprivation does in fact seem evident among the fol-
lowers of new ideologies, but no more so than at other times or among
other groups where ideological movements remain absent.
As a result of criticisms such as these, studies of social movements
have come increasingly to emphasize the role of other factors: social net-
works as means of recruitment and aggregation, leadership and adminis-
trative arrangements, financial resources, coalitions among constituents
and with other movements, and so forth (e.g., Gerlach and Hine, 1970;
Beckford, 1975; Richardson, 1982; Zald, 1982). Many of these studies
have explicitly taken issue with relative deprivation approaches, arguing
that these approaches need to be replaced by a perspective that pays
more attention to the mobilization of resources. In reality, though, the
assumptions on which deprivational arguments have been based have
not been challenged; only the importance of additional factors has been
highlighted. Nor has much attention been given to the broader structur-
ing of resources in the social environment. The resources specified as
having been mobilized are generally ones closely controlled by move-
ments themselves, which therefore figure into the strategies adopted by
these movements.
A criticism that challenges the relative deprivation approach at a
more fundamental level is one that emphasizes its essentially subjective

character. In focusing on internal psychological states, such as anxiety
and other felt needs, relative deprivation models are basically concerned
with explanation at the individual or social psychological level of expla-
nation. As with other subjective approaches, these factors may or may
not be present; the problem is one of knowing how to find out. Depriva-
tion is generally inferred from theoretical premises rather than being
studied directly. It is not studied directly with much frequency because it
is a subjective variable that is largely unobservable, especially in histori-
cal contexts but often in contemporary contexts as well. Deprivation is
sometimes even conceptualized as a condition that can only be inferred
theoretically because subjects themselves are supposedly deluded by
their own ideologies into thinking that they are not deprived. In short,
deprivation becomes a deus ex machina that accounts for its own conse-
quences without requiring any evidence of its actual existence.
DISTURBANCES IN MORAL OBLIGATIONS
The alternative being proposed here is to retain some of the insights

of relative deprivation theory but to reconceptualize them so that they
are seen as features of the social order itself. Ideologies need to be under-
stood as inherently social in nature, apart from whatever psychological
functions they may perform for individual believers. Ideologies always
contain propositions about moral obligations—obligations of patrons
to clients, of clients to patrons, of members to communities, of citizens
to states and of state representatives to citizens, of persons to one an-
other in their basic dealings (e.g., honesty and integrity), and so on (see
Scott, 1977; Eisenstadt and Roniger, 1980; and Tipton, 1982, for vari-
ous examples). These propositions specify how social relations should
be conducted and therefore affect how social resources may be distrib-
uted. Insofar as ideologies also require social resources in order to be
maintained, any disturbance of social resources that results in uncertain-
ties about the nature of moral obligations is likely to result in some
modification at the level of ideology itself. In other words, disturbances
in the moral order are likely to be a factor in the production of new ideo-
logical forms. Several important observations follow from this line of
analysis.
One is that disturbances in social resources need not lead directly to
the production of alterations in ideology, nor are the disturbances that
do necessarily the kind that result in feelings of deprivation on the part
of the individual. Rather, disturbances in moral obligations appear to be

the most likely sources of alterations in ideology. Moral obligations
themselves bear some relation to the nature of social resources, but this
relation is not strictly determined by those resources. Indeed, the role of
moral obligations in many cases is to anticipate disturbances in social re-
sources and to provide for the maintenance of social order in the pres-
ence of such disturbances.
Research on peasant societies, for example, indicates that a "moral
economy" is often present—a set of expectations about peasants' obliga-
tions to one another and about the reciprocal obligations between peas-
ants and landlords (often dramatized ritually)—that buffers the commu-
nity against recurrent subsistence crises (Scott, 1976). In these settings,
the occurrence of a subsistence crisis would not necessarily be expected
to result in new or unusual ideological patterns. If, however, conditions
were to change in such a way as to render inoperable or uncertain the
system of moral obligations, then some degree of ideological effort
would undoubtedly be expended to reconstruct, as it were, the nature of
those obligations. The intrusion of foreign powers into peasant econo-
mies, for example, has often been accompanied by an upsurge of novel
religious activity because, from this perspective, local elites are drawn
into external alliances that permanently alter their relations to the exist-
ing moral economy of peasant life (e.g., see Scott, 1977).
In this example, peasant clients who suffer a loss of patronage from
local elites may well experience some degree of subjective deprivation.
Still, clients and patrons alike may experience the new conditions as a
kind of liberation or as a situation that poses a new potential. Whether
this is the case or not, the change effected at the level of moral order
may in fact present an opportunity in terms of its potential for ideologi-
cal innovation. The disruption of established moral expectations creates
a situation in which new symbols can be advanced as interpretations of
what the moral order should include. The capacity to exploit these mo-
ments of opportunity will depend, of course, on the availability of sym-
bolic leaders, their capacity to generate recruits, and the kind of cultural
materials present from which to construct new interpretations. Disrup-
tions of the moral economy in peasant societies, for example, have seem-
ingly been more productive of millenarian religious movements than
have disruptions of the moral order among the urban proletariat—one
reason being that folk beliefs, community rituals, and potential leaders
remain more readily available in the peasant than in the proletarian set-
ting. Other things being equal, ideological movements are also more
likely to emerge when whole collectivities are affected by changes in

moral obligations than when individuals are subjected to uncertainties
and risks solely as individuals or as family units.
An emphasis on moments of opportunity provided by uncertainties
at the level of moral obligations requires no assumptions about individ-
ual anxieties or individual needs as the inspiration for ideological inno-
vation. Rather, it posits a requirement strictly at the social level for
communication about the nature of moral expectations. It also posits
that ideological codes provide a means of dramatizing and clarifying
such expectations. Ideology creates, as it were, models of moral order
that can be visualized and experimented with symbolically, enacted in
ritual or in idealized communities, and implemented as a way of recon-
structing social relations. Accordingly, any ambiguity in moral obliga-
tions creates possibilities for innovative ideological interpretations to
be presented.
VARIETIES OF U N C E R T A I N T Y
"Uncertainty" in moral order can be of several varieties. Risk may be

defined as a situation in which any given activity (X) may or may not
achieve its desired goal (Y). Ambiguity is a situation in which a given ac-
tivity (X) either has or has not achieved its desired goal (Y), but for vari-
ous reasons it cannot be determined whether or not the goal has been
achieved. Unpredictability is a situation in which a given activity (X)
may achieve any of several different goals (Y or Z), but it cannot be de-
termined ahead of time which of these goals will be achieved. All three
of these situations represent kinds of uncertainty.
The first—risk—can be illustrated by the case of a hockey player tak-
ing a thirty-foot shot at the goal. For various reasons (coordination, vi-
sion, etc.), there is considerable risk that the goal will not be attained,
even though hitting the puck in that direction is clearly the best means
of doing so. In this example, uncertainty consists of the fact that for any
given shot it cannot be determined accurately whether or not a goal is
likely to be made. Under such circumstances the best that can be done is
to estimate a probability of the shot being made based on the player's
previous performances under similar conditions.
The second type of uncertainty—ambiguity—can also be illustrated
with hockey as an example. Here, a shot has been attempted and a goal
has either been made or not been made; however, because of a pileup of
players, it cannot be determined immediately which state of affairs ex-
ists. The function of referees, umpires, and storekeepers in sports is, of

course, to minimize the role of ambiguity so that other types of uncer-
tainty can prevail.
The remaining type of uncertainty—unpredictability—can be illus-
trated best by considering the uncertainties facing a hockey player who
is considering passing the puck to another player. These uncertainties
take the form of unpredictability because this player cannot tell in ad-
vance whether the receiver will then attempt a goal, pass to another
player, attempt to move the puck himself, or allow a defensive player to
gain control of it. In making a pass, therefore, the first player must be
prepared for any number of outcomes, some of which may be desirable
and others of which may be undesirable,
Translated into more naturally occurring settings, these examples sug-
gest some of the ways in which the moral order can become uncertain
and, therefore, some of the ways in which ideology may function to re-
duce uncertainty. In the case of risk, moral order is likely to be involved
in efforts to reduce risk—for example, by specifying conditions under
which actions should and should not be taken. Ideology functions partly
as a purely communicative device, that is, as information about proba-
bilities and relevant conditions for computing probabilities. In addition,
ideology is likely to be involved in dealing with residual risks that can-
not be reduced. Contingency plans, for example, may be part of prevail-
ing ideologies, thereby providing anticipatory patterns of conduct to be
pursued if desired outcomes are not obtained. Ambiguity is also likely to
be resolved by the communicative aspects of ideology. However, if a pos-
sibly ambiguous outcome has already been attained, then means need to
be available for communicating what has actually happened to other ac-
tors less privileged with respect to the relevant information. Ideologies
specifying that families gather during times of illness facilitate the trans-
mission of accurate information about what has actually taken place. As
evident in the hockey example, ideologies may also resolve ambiguities
by specifying how ambiguous situations are to be resolved (e.g., by
legitimating the office of a decision maker). And unpredictability can be
minimized ideologically by systems of ideas that specify what is to be
done under particular situations. In sports, formal rules as well as play
books provide for the team an ideological subculture that enables it to
function without unnecessary confusion. Ideologies that legitimate ritu-
als in which various courses of action are practiced also play an obvious
role in reducing unpredictability.
More precision could be added to these specifications of the varieties
of uncertainty, of course. Generally speaking, however, uncertainty is

usually minimized in social relations by carefully patterning them ac-
cording to commonly understood prescriptions. This is the function of
schooling, laws, and bureaucratic methods of institutionalization. Ideol-
ogy is normally built into these methods of institutionalization in the
form of symbols that communicate standard expectations. Periodically,
however, new uncertainties are added, perhaps most often by the addi-
tion of "new players" who have not yet learned these expectations, by
"new rules" that change expectations, or by "new games" that happen
as a result of changed circumstances, changed resources, or some combi-
nation of new players and new rules. Whenever any of these uncertain-
ties come about, opportunities arise for new definitions of the situation
to be articulated.
Any of the foregoing kinds of uncertainty can become sources of indi-
vidual anxiety. The role of ideology may also be to alleviate this anxiety.
But this palliative role for the individual is not at the core of the present
argument. What is being emphasized is not the subjective or psychologi-
cal role of ideology but its social role. That is, uncertainty constitutes a
social problem: collective goals become more difficult to achieve, re-
sources cannot be allocated as effectively, actions cannot be coordinated
as well, and any particular actor's performance cannot be planned or
evaluated as clearly. Even if there were no subjective anxieties involved
in social uncertainties, therefore, ideologies would likely be generated in
order to solve these social requirements.
Again, the presence of uncertainty in the moral order cannot be as-
sumed to lead automatically to the production of new ideologies (any
more than individual deprivation can). An authoritarian state may pre-
vent ideas from being discussed, economic conditions may force actors
to concentrate on short-term survival rather than giving attention to
longer-range problems, or difficulties may be faced because of short-
ages in leadership, communication devices, and so forth. All these pos-
sibilities need to be considered as part of what was identified in Chap-
ter 1 as an institutional analysis of ideologies. At the dramaturgic level,
however, it remains important to consider simply the opportunities
that uncertainties give rise to, other things being equal. In other words,
uncertainties in moral order provide possibilities for new ideologies to
be produced. These possibilities are probably necessary but are un-
doubtedly insufficient in themselves for predicting the occurrence of
specific ideological movements.
COMPETING I D E O L O G I E S
A second observation is that disruptions of the moral order generally

elicit not one, but multiple ideological responses. The religious responses
to changes in economic and political circumstances in the sixteenth cen-
tury, for example, included not only Lutheranism and Calvinism but also
a myriad of Erasmian, Arminian, and Anabaptist formulations, as well as
counterformulations within Roman Catholicism and scattered episodes
of mysticism and witchcraft The social changes accompanying industri-
alization during the nineteenth century in Europe resulted in numerous
variants of Utopian socialism, Marxism, democratic socialism, Blanqu-
ism, and anarchism, all of which—sometimes quite directly—competed
with one another to define the interests of workers and to mold these inter-
ests into political loyalties. Similarly, the social disruption of the late
1960s in the United States was accompanied by "new religions" as varied
as Zen and Synanon and by various syntheses and modifications in Chris-
tianity, Judaism, and quasi-religious disciplines such as Scientology.
Multiple ideological responses occur partly because a disruption of
the moral order, by definition, involves uncertainty—and this uncer-
tainty evokes debate as to which response may be most compelling. The
presence of this uncertainty is especially likely to evoke multiple re-
sponses in situations characterized by a high degree of cultural, politi-
cal, or economic diversity (e.g., central Europe in the sixteenth century
and the United States in the 1960s). In addition, multiple responses
often result from the fact that the various entities that have been tied to-
gether by moral obligations may now find themselves separated and hav-
ing to respond to different circumstances. Part of the diversity of re-
sponses in the sixteenth century, for example, can be attributed to the
fact that the rising commercialization of central Europe opened differ-
ent types of opportunities for urban merchants, artisans, landlords, and
peasants. Each in a way became the primary carrier of a different form
of ideological response. Studies of other periods of religious innovation,
such as the early nineteenth century in the United States, also point to
the importance of rising differentiation among various economic and oc-
cupational strata (e.g., Johnson, 1978). Multiple responses are also gen-
erated by the fact that movements' initiatives often invite counter-
initiatives. The moral order conceived by one set of actors is likely to
structure resources in a way that is inequitable or threatening to other
actors. The sheer opportunities provided by uncertainty in the moral or-
der may lead individuals to consolidate forces in hopes of protecting these

opportunities once an alternative vision begins to predominate. As a re-
sult, ideological movements and countermovements frequently emerge in
roughly the same contexts.
Another observation is that the emergence of multiple ideological re-
sponses often invites direct competition among the various movements
associated with these responses. Ideological movements, often from the
beginning, are compelled to compete with one another for scarce re-
sources (e.g., members, leaders, finances), and some effort must be
made to carve out a suitable niche that ensures access to resources and
perpetuates the movement's ideology. This competition often trans-
forms previously diffuse sentiments into an articulated ideology. Tai's
(1983) study of Vietnam, for example, demonstrates that Maitreyan
millenarianism and communism emerged at about the same time, both
responding to the opportunities provided by France's declining posi-
tion as a colonial power in the years immediately prior to World War
II and each attempting to define a vision of the future in competition
with the other. This example also illustrates another reason why epi-
sodes of multiple ideologies are likely to emerge, namely, that compet-
ing movements themselves add to the environmental uncertainty that
ideologies attempt to restructure. In other words, what to anticipate
and how to behave become all the more problematic because resources
will be distributed quite differently if millenarianism, say, rather than
communism becomes the dominant ideology.
The presence of multiple, competing ideological movements means
that efforts to typologize or categorize kinds of movements have an im-
portant dimension beyond that of pure scholarship. Such efforts have, in
fact, resulted in a proliferation of typological schemes, differentiated
partly by differing conceptual and theoretical purposes, but also differen-
tiated by the focus on different periods of social unrest or sets of ideologi-
cal responses, each of which is of course historically unique (e.g., Robbins
and Anthony, 1981; Wallis, 1984; Beckford, 1986). But social move-
ments are related to one another not only in observers' typologies but also
in the competitive reality of the social world; thus, modes of differentia-
tion must be a part of the strategic ideology of any social movement. Sym-
bolic markers must be adopted that set each movement off from its com-
petitors and that cause it to be identified with certain classes of ideology
rather than others. These are the materials that observers have sometimes
used in constructing their own typologies. But the markers and classifica-
tion schemes evident in movements' ideologies themselves remain a
Moral Order and ideology 161
rarely investigated subject. These markers probably do not emerge sim-

ply as orientations toward the world in general, as some typologies imply,
but as orientations aimed specifically at setting one movement off from
its competitors. Gager (1983), for example, suggests that anti-Semitism
emerged in early Christianity at least partly because Judaism posed a
strong competitor to Christianity. In other settings, Anabaptists have
taken their very name from opposing confessional Protestants, as have
Protestants from opposing conciliar theological settlements; Marxists set
themselves apart from Blanquists; Black Muslims define themselves
against black Christian churches; pro-life, against pro-choice; populists,
against statists; ultrafundamentalists, against moderate evangelicals; and
so on (e.g., Heinz, 1983; Luker, 1984).
Further, the role of disturbances in moral obligations need not be lim-
ited to the emergence of whole ideological movements as such. The
same logic applies to minor variations in the content of doctrines, phi-
losophies, teachings, and beliefs that modify rather than change funda-
mentally the nature of existing moral codes. For example, Carroll's
(1983, 1986) detailed investigation of the elevation of the Virgin Mary
to the status of a near-deity in the fourth-century Roman Empire demon-
strates its relation to the political changes that took place under the rule
of Constantine. The effect of Constantine's rule was to alter radically
the existing moral order by giving Christianity official recognition. In-
cluding such tangible resources as government funding for the erection
of churches, this recognition permitted Christianity to expand beyond
the relatively narrow niche it had previously occupied among the urban
merchant class. As Christianity diffused among the population at large,
which consisted mainly of the rural poor, it encountered a different type
of family structure—a structure that had supported local goddess cults
for several centuries. This environment also provided a niche conductive
to the development of a goddess cult around the Virgin Mary.
IDEOLOGIES AND SELECTIVE PROCESSES

Once generated, ideological movements then become engaged in a
struggle, as it were, tp develop a suitable mode of adaptation to their en-
vironment. Decisions may be made according to rational calculations
about maximizing potential adherents, securing favorable access to the
media, instilling recruits with zeal for the movement's ideology, and cul-
tivating respect for movement leaders. The ways in which movements
adapt are not always this rational, however. Immediate crises may call
for short-term solutions, and these solutions may be arrived at within

the context of various opportunities and constraints presented by the
movement's environment. Movements are not passive in this process,
but their strategies are likely to reflect the fact that they must secure re-
sources from the social environment in order to survive. Some ideologi-
cal forms may be relatively flexible and therefore capable of adapting to
a changing environment. In this sense the ideology "innovates" in order
to survive. The flexibility to innovate may itself be a trait that is environ-
mentally selected, however. Some environments will encourage flexible
ideologies; other environments will encourage more rigid ones. More-
over, the ideology that a movement succeeds in propagating is likely to
be highly contingent not only on the movement's success as a movement
but also on the matrix of culturally defined moral obligations in which
the movement functions.
AN EMPHASIS ON FORMS
What may be "selected for" or "selected against" is not always an en-

tire movement in all its complexity, but particular ideological styles or
themes that become characteristic of a wide variety of movements or be-
come diffused far beyond specific movements. For example, the present
approach does not offer a theory that yields predictions about the sur-
vival rates among specific religious movements, such as those produced
during the 1960s. Even in retrospect it is evident that many factors
would have been necessary in order to predict why the Unification
Church succeeded to so much greater an extent than the Meher Baba
movement. What might have been predicted, however, is that otherwise
diverse movements frequently drew on scientific arguments for legit-
imation and adopted highly rationalistic styles of ideological argumen-
tation; it might .also have been possible to suggest some of the reasons
why these ideological forms were better suited for survival in the Ameri-
can context than those adopted by some other new religious move-
ments. In other words, examining the relation between environments
and ideological selection requires a significant change in how ideologi-
cal movements are usually conceived. The conventional approach is to
choose a particular ideological movement (say, Mormonism) and ask
about the conditions facilitating its growth, or else to classify move-
ments into types (such as "cults" or "revolutionary sects") and ask simi-
lar questions about a particular category of movement. In contrast, the
present focus shifts to specific dimensions or ideological forms. That is,
an analytic level of investigation is specified that crosscuts actual move-

ments. This amounts to simply becoming more specific about the object
of investigation. An entire movement is likely to combine a number of
different ideological forms, some of which may work at cross-purposes
with others. And most typologies of movements also represent ideal-
typical aggregations along a number of different dimensions. Focusing
on specific ideological dimensions or forms allows examination of a
closer link between environments and ideological selection. For more
substantive purposes these dimensions can then be aggregated to see
how a specific movement may operate.
Any number of ideological forms might of course be identified: utopi-
anism, millenarianism, mysticism, nostalgia, collectivism, thaumatur-
gical motifs, and so forth. In Chapter 6, three ideological patterns having
quite far-reaching applications—folk piety (and fundamentalism), indi-
vidualism, and rationality—are considered in order to illustrate the selec-
tive relationships between ideological forms and social environments in
some detail. Here, a somewhat briefer example—millenarianism—is con-
sidered as a way of introducing some of the environmental conditions in-
fluencing ideological selection.
THE CASE OF M I L L E N A R I A N I S M
Millenarianism is generally conceived of as a kind of revitalization

movement (see Chapter 7). It appears to share certain characteristics
with other varieties of revitalization movements, such as cargo cults, Uto-
pian sects, nativistic movements, and revivalist movements. What this
means is that all these movements have been observed to emerge under
somewhat similar social conditions. Each may be regarded, therefore, as
a potential competitor of the others. In this competition, millenarianism
shares some ideological characteristics with the others but is also rela-
tively distinct.
A common view of millenarianism is that it is typified by specific so-
cial movements. That is, millenarianism becomes the dominant feature
of a specific movement, earning it the designation of a "millenarian"
movement. Although examples can be found where this has been the
case, a better approach is to disaggregate millenarianism as an ideologi-
cal form into component dimensions or themes. Doing so reveals that
millenarianism essentially comprises two ideological themes that differ-
entiate it from other kinds of revitalization movements: an optimistic fu-
ture orientation, and a collcctivist or particularist orientation.
The optimistic future orientation in millenarianism takes the form of

anticipation of a better world to be established at some time in the fu-
ture. This may be literally a millennium—a thousand-year reign—of
peace and prosperity, as prophesied in biblical writings concerning the
Second Coming of Christ, or it may be something much less dramatic,
such as an expectation of blessings, material goods, or success. Gener-
ally these expectations are couched not merely in an optimistic attitude
that things will somehow get better but in a strong eschatological or pro-
phetic orientation that offers definite predictions concerning the future.
These predictions, therefore, take on a rationalistic quality, a systematic
determinism that conceives of history as moving along a definite path to-
ward an inevitable destination.
The collectivist or particularistic orientation is evidenced in the fact
that the expected millennium is generally associated with the entire
group of faithful aspirants. This again may be a fairly broad collectivity
but is usually limited to a specific sect, church, or local community. This
is the feature that distinguishes millenarianism from more psychological
or individualistic expectations about the future. Whatever blessing or
prosperity eventuates will accrue to the entire group. Nonmembers will
be deprived or punished; members will become a remnant that escapes
tribulation, receives rewards for their faithfulness, and may even be-
come leaders of the new age. Because rewards are contingent on collec-
tive participation, strict membership requirements are usually included,
and public demonstrations of one's loyalty are often required.
The combination of these two orientations reveals the similarities
and differences between millenarianism and various other ideological
forms. Cargo cults have the same formal characteristics because the
material goods anticipated in the future are expected to benefit the
group as a whole. Utopian sects generally combine both elements as
well but envision an optimistic future being created through the work
of the community itself. Nativistic movements, though seen as having
backward-looking or nostalgic ideologies, may in fact espouse the com-
ponents of millenarianism insofar as the "golden age" of the past is ex-
pected to return again in the future. Revivalistic movements, in con-
trast, generally emphasize an optimistic future for the individual (e.g.,
through individual salvation), but this future often is not linked di-
rectly with the entire group as a collectivity. Only the expectation of in-
dividuals in the collectivity sharing a similar future life approximates
the collectivist dimension of millenarian ideology. Millenarianism is
also to be distinguished from most gnostic and mystical ideologies,
which may become manifest in communal settings but nevertheless em-

phasize individual enlightenment.
Millenarianism conforms closely to what has already been said about
ideological production. It appears to have emerged historically in set-
tings in which moral obligations were fundamentally disrupted. In early
modern Europe, the millenarian elements of Reformation ideology, as
manifested in the Zwickau prophets, Munzerites, and some of the Ana-
baptist sects, emerged primarily in areas in which traditional patron-
client relations between landlords and peasants were broken. Peasants
and recent migrants to the towns, often lacking stable moral communi-
ties, became reintegrated into a new moral order as part of millenarian
movements. In many parts of the Third World, similar processes appear
to have been at work in the production of cargo cults, prophet cults, and
other millenarian movements. In many of these cases, however, mil-
lenarian ideology is but one of a number of responses to moral dissolu-
tion. More established religions, political parties, and individualistic ide-
ologies also compete to redefine moral obligations. To understand why
millenarianism gets selected for, at least in some instances, it becomes
necessary, therefore, to consider the kinds of environmental conditions
that may favor its major dimensions.
CONDITIONS FAVORING OPTIMISM
Optimism appears to be an ideological dimension that extends well

beyond millenarianism as such and one that generally seems useful in at-
tracting members to new social movements. Even in the contemporary
United States, optimistic assumptions about human nature have been
shown to be an important factor contributing to experimentation with
alternative life-styles. Unlike many traditionally religious conceptions of
human nature that focus on the "depravity" of humankind, symbol sys-
tems rooted in the social sciences (ones that attribute blame to social
conditions rather than to human nature) or in humanistic versions of
contemporary psychology appear to encourage participation in alterna-
tive social movements (e.g., Wuthnow, 1976; Aidala, 1984). Bryan Wil-
son (1979) has observed that new religious movements in both Japan
and the United States have generally offered a more optimistic view of
salvation than have established religions. A similar claim has also been
made concerning periods of religious reformation more generally (Sha-
piro, 1973). It has also been suggested that heterodox or minority ide-
ologies are more likely to regard human nature optimistically (i.e., as
perfectible), and therefore in less need of institutional restraints, than

are orthodox or majority worldviews (Douglas, 1980).
The value of optimism to fledgling social movements can be under-
stood in relation to the performance-payoff nexus that informs much of
social behavior. Optimistic ideology affects the balance between invest-
ments and rewards. It objectifies expected rewards, as in cargo cults, so
that required investments appear justified, or it suggests that smaller in-
vestments can be made, as in substituting faith for doctrine and ritual,
with no loss on expected returns. A comparative advantage over more
costly relationships is thereby attained, affording access to new environ-
mental niches.
The environmental perspective also allows an explanation for varia-
tions in the distribution of optimism. Common sense to the contrary, nei-
ther the richness of environmental resources nor the direction of shifts in
their availability seems to have much to do with these variations. The
millennial dreams of impoverished Munzerites appear to have been no
less hopeful than the optimism inspired by Luther's doctrine of sola fide
among the rising German magistracy. The primary condition favorably
affecting the selection of optimistic ideologies appears to be environmen-
tal instability. Under unstable conditions, a deep moral obligation estab-
lished at one time is likely to become disadvantageous for maximizing
access to resources at a later time. Should the duration between environ-
mental changes be relatively long, or should each change be regarded as a
purely idiosyncratic occurrence, moral obligations capable of stabilizing
social exchange over the long run are likely to retain adaptive value. If,
however, the duration between changes is relatively short and the total pe-
riod over which change is expected is relatively long, then moral obliga-
tions that can be maintained with minimal investments, and therefore can
be changed to meet new environmental conditions, are likely to provide a
comparative advantage over deeper, more enduring commitments. To
the extent that optimism, in fact, readjusts investment-reward calcula-
tions in the direction of less costly investments, it is likely to be selected in
these situations.
In the case of millenarianism, social environments appear generally
to have been not only unstable but also unstable with respect to a criti-
cal threshold (i.e., subsistence). Instability took the form of radical vacil-
lations in broader political and religious policies, often as a result of con-
flict between dominant religious movements (as in the Reformation),
which intermittently encouraged and then persecuted particular doc-
trines and life-styles. In addition, economic crises often lent uncertainty
to the situation by periodically pushing incomes below subsistence lev-

els. The optimism of millenarianism contributed stability to social rela-
tions under these circumstances. As long as future rewards could be ex-
pected, investments in family and community life were more likely to
seem legitimate. The appeal of millenarianism cannot be understood en-
tirely on the basis of optimism alone, however.
CONDITIONS FAVORING COLLECTIVISM
The collectivist orientation in millenarianism in some ways comple-

ments and in some ways conflicts with its optimistic future orientation.
The kind of environment in which collectivism is likely to be selected for
can be illustrated by imagining a lifeboat adrift at sea with a handful of
survivors aboard. Under these conditions "each man for himself" is not
likely to be an ideal ideology. A strong sense of esprit de corps is needed
for the group to survive. Food and water must be rationed and tasks
must be shared, or the venture will fail. So it is with other environments
favoring collectivism. The lifeboat illustrates a resource-poor environ-
ment that is relatively homogeneous and stable. Supplies are scarce,
each person's fate depends on the same circumstances as every other per-
son's, and for the immediate future no radical change in conditions is ex-
pected. A sense of esprit de corps in this instance protects scarce re-
sources. This orientation is easy to maintain because the stability of the
environment does not alter the nature of moral obligations. Environmen-
tal homogeneity also means that resources can be exploited as effec-
tively, if not better, by the group than by a more diverse or complex
structure.
Although collectivism and individualism may sometimes combine in
curious ways, the two are essentially opposites of each other and are
selected by different environments. Individualism, as will be seen in
Chapter 6, is selected for in relatively rich, heterogeneous, unstable envi-
ronments. Richness provides resources that individual units can exploit,
apart from the group; heterogeneity means that decouplf»d units can
overall adapt to and exploit the resources in diverse niches; and instabil-
ity encourages ideologies that decouple component units to the extent
that, if environmental changes cause some to fail, others will neverthe-
less survive. Collectivism in general contrasts with all these characteris-
tics. It encourages conformity so that scarce resources will be divided
among the group and keeps outsiders from taking advantage of group re-
sources, survives best in a homogeneous niche in which resources can be
exploited by the group, and fares best when there are few changes to up-
set moral obligations within the group. It is not surprising, therefore,
that millenarianism has been common in poor societies such as peasant
settings in early modern Europe and the Third World and that it has
flourished in homogeneous environments such as rural villages. The ne-
cessity for stability, however, conflicts with the role of instability in re-
inforcing optimism. This conflict is, in fact, an important feature of
millenarian movements.
The conflict between optimism, as an ideological form suited to un-
stable environments, and collectivism, as an ideological form suited to
stable environments, manifests itself in millenarian movements in sev-
eral interesting ways. On the whole, this conflict may explain the rela-
tive infrequency of millenarian movements. For example, in early mod-
ern Europe, estimates of religious patterns indicate that only about 1
percent of the population in any country or region became involved in
the "radical reformation" of which millenarianism was a part. Simi-
larly, Third World millenarianism, though widely discussed, appears
to be relatively limited in occurrence, especially in comparison with ide-
ologies of revolution, spiritism, revivalism, and so forth. Part of the rea-
son may be that the instability that encourages optimism contradicts
the stability needed to sustain collectivism. This conflict may also ex-
plain some of the more common features of millenarian ideology as it
evolves over time. In highly unstable environments, millenarianism of-
ten appears in conjunction with a strong authoritarian leader. This
leader's function is to maintain collective loyalty in the face of environ-
mental conditions that would otherwise militate against such orienta-
tions and to make decisions that would be difficult for a collectivity to
make in the absence of strong leadership. Lacking strong leadership,
millenarianism in unstable environments often takes the form of a rela-
tively individualized optimism. In a rapidly changing environment such
as the American frontier, for example, millenarianism as such appears
to have been less prominent than revivalism, and the millenarianism de-
scribed by historians seems to have included little in the way of collec-
tivism other than diffuse expectations about the destiny of the nation.
In contrast, millenarian movements in environments that become sta-
ble, because of either sustained persecution or a normalization of eco-
nomic conditions, veer toward collectivist sects with strong in-group
boundaries but with weakened expectations about the coming of the
millennium. This has been the trajectory of many sects within the
Anabaptist tradition.
This example, then, suggests some of the ways in which even rela-
tively crude dimensions of the environment can generate predictions con-
cerning the relative prominence of alternative ideological forms. In the
case of millenarianism, some value is evidently gained by treating it as a
combination of two ideological forms rather than as a single ideological
category. Although these two forms often are found together in actual
millenarian movements, theoretical considerations suggest that they
may not be entirely compatible, and thus that millenarianism may be a
relatively uncommon or unstable ideological complex. In Chapter 6, a
somewhat more detailed argument concerning the structure of ideologi-
cal forms and their relation to various environmental characteristics is
developed.
THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION
OF IDEOLOGY
Stressing the environment's selective influence over ideological forms

may cause objections that ideology is accorded too passive a role. These
objections can be set aside, however, by reintroducing the third ele-
ment—institutionalization—of the dialectic framework set forth at the
outset. The process of becoming an institution involves developing a
relatively stable means of securing resources, an internal structure for
processing these resources, some degree of legitimacy with respect to so-
cietal values and procedural norms, and sufficient autonomy from other
2
institutions to be able to establish and pursue independent goals. An
ideology that has become fully institutionalized is therefore capable of
not only withstanding considerable alterations in its environment but
also producing some of these alterations itself. The dynamics of institu-
tionalization can be illustrated with respect to rituals, organizations,
and the relations between ideology and the state.
THE ROLE OF COLLECTIVE R I T U A L S
Much of the ambiguity that has surrounded the study of rituals can
be resolved if it is recognized, as shown in Chapter 4, that their social
function is chiefly one of communication. Like verbal utterances, rituals
are behavioral acts that explicitly or implicitly express something about
actors' relations to one another. Rituals may be consciously orches-
trated at specified times according to preestablished norms to com-
memorate or initiate some important event in the life of a community—
in which case the term "ceremony" may be more appropriate. Other

rituals consist of relatively simple acts that nevertheless convey meaning
(a soldier's salute or an automobile driver's signal to turn). Even acts
that are conducted primarily for purely instrumental purposes (e.g., dig-
ging a ditch) may have expressive roles, depending on how they are per-
formed. Thus, ritual may be more appropriately described as an analytic
dimension of behavior than as a totally discrete type of behavior. Ritual
is symbolic-expressive, and in order to accomplish this communicative
task, it often conforms to formalized norms and has a built-in degree of
redundancy that gives it an elaborated or ceremonialized character.
Although it is possible to conceive of ritual apart from ideology and
ideology apart from ritual, the two often go together. Both articulate the
moral order. Ideology is likely to consist mainly of verbal and written ut-
terances, ritual, of behavior enactments. Ritual is a way of enacting the
ideas that are uttered verbally or in writing. In this sense ritual inte-
grates ideology into the realm of social behavior. Ideology thus affects
social behavior, and this behavior reinforces and affirms ideology.
As suggested already, rituals are generated in much the same manner
as other ideological systems. Both are likely to appear in situations of un-
certainty in the moral order and to help clarify the moral obligations
constituting that order. The very conditions in the social environment
that are most conducive to ideological movements, therefore, are likely
also to be conducive to rituals. Some of the cases considered in the previ-
ous chapter involved rituals sponsored by the established religious or po-
litical structures (e.g., witch-hunts sponsored by the Puritan authorities
or political show trials sponsored by corporatist regimes). In these cases
rituals provided occasions for dramatically reaffirming established ide-
ologies. Just as likely, however, is the possibility that uncertainty in the
moral order will generate oppositional ideological movements that spon-
sor their own rituals. The dissenters in Puritan Massachusetts had their
own worship services; Protestants in the Reformation not only burned
heretics but also engaged in ritual violence against Catholic ikons and
sponsored their own form of the sacraments; millenarian movements in
the Third World withdraw from and oppose dominant regimes and also
draw their adherents into collective rituals.
As ideological movements progress, rituals not only serve as a
response to broader ambiguities but also become part of the normal func-
tioning of the movement itself. This pattern is especially evident in reli-
gion. As religious movements become established and form religious orga-
nizations, one of the prominent functions of these organizations is that of
maintaining a regular set of ritual offerings. That is, religious organiza-

tions produce rituals as a kind of service to their members, in return for
which resources are contributed. Worship services, funerals, weddings,
and christenings are all examples. A religious organization's effectiveness
in conducting rituals is likely to be one of the ways in which its beliefs are
perpetuated. Its rituals are also likely to be one of the means by which it
shields itself from its environment. This becomes most evident in rituals
that not only utilize resources but also manufacture them.
One of the obvious ways in which rituals manufacture resources is
by generating enthusiasm (what Durkheim called "collective efferves-
cence"). Research on rituals emphasizes the role of charismatic leaders
in evoking such enthusiasm. Studies have also led to greater recognition
that enthusiasm, once generated, has to be carefully controlled in order
to channel it toward realization of the organization's goals (see espe-
cially McGuire, 1982). For this reason, a strong charismatic leader may
again be necessary. Or in other settings, carefully prescribed rules ap-
pear to operate to limit what may otherwise seem to be purely spontane-
ous behavior (Bainbndge, 1978; Zablocki, 1980).
Rituals also manufacture resources by providing collective confirma-
tion of promised rewards. Testimonials play a special function in this re-
gard. They not only confirm to the believer a particular alteration of
self-identity but also provide the collectivity with evidence that its be-
liefs are efficacious. Seemingly supernatural claims acquire pragmatic
justification as members point to the fact that "lives are changed" (Ault,
1983). Testimonials also dramatize the collectivity's legitimacy by dem-
onstrating the "acts of grace" that have befallen its members (anything
from good fortune in locating parking places to miraculous healings).
The ritual publicizes these happenings: believers are thus encouraged to
selectively perceive such acts of grace in order to have something to
"share." Otherwise infrequent or random occurrences seem to become
more common by virtue of being communicated to the entire collectivity
(Kroll-Smith, 1980; Downton, 1979).
Rituals also help stabilize ideologies by solving the so-called "free
rider" problem (i.e., the tendency for members of organizations to reap
collective rewards without contributing resources) (Olson, 1971; Hilke,
1980). This is a particular problem for ideologies that attach a high de-
gree of importance to individual conscience. These ideologies often give
the individual the right to make choices independent of any group and,
thereby, the ability to secure rewards without contributing to group
maintenance. For example, many variants of modern religion bestow on
the individual the capacity to communicate directly with God and thus
the expectation of receiving supernatural rewards directly. The ten-
dency for such beliefs to reduce involvement in religious organizations is
mitigated in part, as Weber recognized, by the radical uncertainty that
besets the individual with regard to salvation and thus the need for con-
firmation through legitimate membership in a religious collectivity. In
addition, most religious organizations orchestrate rituals in such a way
as to prevent the full benefits of the organization from being distributed
to persons who are not actively contributing members. Persons having
contributed at specially high levels may be accorded recognition in lead-
ership roles as part of the organization's rituals, access to privileged in-
formation may require participating in rituals, having individual needs
met may require making these needs known in ritual settings, and the be-
lief system may simply define as high rewards such benefits as "fellow-
ship" or "the worship experience"—rewards that can be attained only
through ritual participation.
Most established religions in the West continue to rely mainly on these
kinds of collective processes to ensure that sufficient contributions of
time and energy are received to maintain their organizations. However,
the professionalization of many of the welfare and charity services that re-
ligious organizations have traditionally provided their members may
have eroded some of this capacity. In response, a tendency has become evi-
dent in some religious organizations to offer programs on a fee-for-ser-
vice basis (e.g., educational programs, youth activities, and counseling)
or to simply establish membership dues. Another potential problem for re-
ligious organizations that has only recently become the focus of research
is the impact of religious television programming (Hadden and Swan,
1981; Horsfield, 1984). The question raised by the rapid increase in such
programming is whether its convenience and availability to "free riders"
may detract from personal involvement in religious rituals and organiza-
tions. Preliminary results from the United States suggest that this has not
been the case in the short run but leave open the question of longer term ef-
fects (Gallup Organization, 1984).
ORGANIZATIONS AND IDEOLOGY
In addition to serving as a source of rituals, organizations represent a

higher level of institutionalization than rituals alone in that they consti-
tute an ongoing application of resources to the advancement of specific
ideologies. Organizations serve as mechanisms not only for the extrac-
tion of resources from the environment but also for the coordination of
these resources around the accomplishment of specific objectives, some
of which may effect transformations in the environment itself. Thus, the
essential components of an ideological organization include a system of
drawing in resources, a relatively stable system of processing these re-
sources, and a set of goals or tasks to which processed resources are com-
mitted. Organizations of all kinds can be said to be engaged in the propa-
gation of ideology in that their very institutional structure is, as Meyer
and Rowan (1977) have argued, a kind of mythic statement about their
purposes in relation to the larger environment. Beyond this general con-
nection between organizations and ideology, however, some organiza-
tions are explicitly concerned with the production and maintenance of
ideology. Political propaganda agencies, scientific organizations, and re-
ligious bodies constitute prime examples. Some of these organizations'
relations with the social environment will be considered in later chap-
ters. Here, some of the ways in which social environments influence the
structure of ideological organizations can be illustrated by briefly consid-
ering the patterning of religious organizations,
Beginning with Troeltsch, a basic distinction has been drawn be-
tween two types of religious organizations: churches and sects. These
terms have been used widely in the literature on sociology of religion,
but the distinction between churches and sects has often been confusing
because localized examples, rather than conceptions of a more formal
nature, were used. In keeping with an emphasis on the extractive rela-
tions between religious organizations and their environments, churches
may be defined as religious organizations that extract resources in a rela-
tively nonintensive way from a large segment of the environment; sects
may be defined as religious organizations that extract resources inten-
sively from a smaller segment of the environment.'
This way of distinguishing churches and sects clearly rests on not one
but two distinctions: the size of the environmental segment from which
resources are drawn (large/small) and the intensity with which these re-
sources are drawn (low/high). Other things being equal, churches are
more likely to be relatively large but make shallow demands; sects are
more likely to be smaller but make deeper demands. Another way of mak-
ing the same point is to say that churches attempt to regulate or fulfill a
few of the activities or needs of large numbers of people; sects attempt to
regulate or fulfill many of the activities or needs of small numbers of peo-
ple. An attractive feature of this distinction is that it corresponds well
with common usage of the two terms. The term "church" is typified by
various national churches that encompass an entire society but elicit mini-
mal levels of commitment by fulfilling mainly such limited functions as
administration of sacraments; sects are typified by denominations that
(though sometimes quite large) are small in comparison with national
churches but provide an all-encompassing set of activities for their mem-
bers and obtain high levels of commitment in time and money in return.
Also typical of many contemporary churches are organizations that sup-
ply a wide variety of services but that involve any given member in rela-
tively few of these activities (e.g., choir for one, youth activities for
another).
An important implication of this way of defining churches and sects
is that both can be viable means of adapting to the modern social envi-
ronment—and therefore of propagating their distinctive ideologies. Con-
trary to an assumption prevalent in the literature, sects need not follow
some inevitable path toward becoming churches. Indeed, the persistence
of sects should itself be sufficient to cast doubt on this notion. Sects can
maintain themselves by adapting to relatively discrete niches in the envi-
ronment and by giving much but also demanding much. Churches can
adapt by demanding little but specializing in services that at least secure
a little commitment from large numbers of people.
Increasingly, too, religious organizations have adapted by combining
elements of both styles, resulting in what sometimes looks like an in-
verted pyramid, with many members having few commitments and a
few members having many commitments. Not only established religious
organizations but also new religious movements have incorporated this
strategy, providing low-commitment services such as public meetings
and open classes, but also providing more intensive training for the few
willing to make a commitment (for some examples, see Popenoe and
Popenoe, 1984).
Some of the problems characteristic of sects and churches also seem
to be closely linked with their particular modes of competing for re-
sources. Sects, for example, turn their "consumers" into "employees"
by relying on intensive commitment from small numbers of people. But
this strategy increases the likelihood of having "labor" problems; hence,
one of the traits typical of sectarianism is a tendency toward internal dis-
putes, often resulting in relatively high rates of schismatic factionalism.
Churches, in contrast, tend to follow mass market strategies oriented to-
ward the casual consumer with relatively low levels of product aware-
ness. As a result, educational programs are often underemphasized,
audiencelike behavior is cultivated, high levels of organizational switch-
ing (low product loyalty) are evident, withdrawal becomes more com-
mon than efforts at reform, and organizational initiatives tend to come
less from lay members than from the more heavily involved bureau-
cratic staff.
Churches and sects, however, represent only two of the four types of
organizations conceivable from the cross-classification of size and in-
tensity. Also conceivable are large/intensive organizations and small/
nonintensive organizations. The former appears to represent
4 a nearly
"empty cell" as far as modern societies are concerned. Institutional dif-
ferentiation, resulting in many functions and resources being dissipated
among other organizations, appears to preclude large numbers of peo-
ple giving total commitment to religious organizations. The other op-
tion (small/nonintensive) appears to be a nonempty but neglected cate-
gory of religious organization. This category is represented by relatively
small religious organizations that make specialized demands of their
members and fulfill specialized functions. The most appropriate term to
describe these organizations is perhaps "special purpose groups."
Special purpose groups are exemplified by religious movements ori-
ented toward the reform of some larger religious body or the larger soci-
ety, by interest groups and professional organizations among laity or
among religious specialists, and by coalitions that integrate or bridge in-
terest groups across the boundaries of established religious organiza-
tions. Rather than dealing inclusively with core religious concerns such
as worship and instruction, they tend to be oriented toward more spe-
cialized aims (e.g., music, evangelism, or church policies on race). Their
ideologies define social relations within only a limited sphere of the
moral order. For this reason, many are characterized either by fleeting
existences or by fleeting memberships. The intensity of commitment re-
quired may be quite high (as in other social movements) but in formal
terms tends to be routinized either as a professional interest or as a fo-
cused commitment, in contrast with the model of religious communities
that purports to encompass all of an individual's interests and activities.
Special purpose groups have a long history alongside churches and
sects, but their numbers and memberships have apparently risen dra-
matically over the past half-century or so (Wuthnow, 1985).
The rising importance of special purpose religious groups appears in
part to represent a kind of isomorphism in religious organizations with
secular organizations (e.g., feminist movements in churches as counter-
parts to the broader feminist movement). In addition, special purpose
groups may be especially adaptable to the modern environment. In
more narrowly focusing the goals of an organization, they may gain

greater adaptability in relation to an environment that is not only hetero-
geneous but also rapidly changing. Special purpose groups may arise in
relation to a specific social or political concern, but then disband once
this concern has passed. By clearly differentiating themselves from estab-
lished churches and sects, special purpose groups can channel their re-
sources in more specific directions.
An implication of this typology for the study of ideology is that
highly diverse ideologies are likely to be sustained within any heteroge-
neous environment. Heterogeneity is unlikely to lead inevitably toward
any single ideological form (e.g., secularization in the case of religious
ideology). Heterogeneity may, however, reinforce a kind of polarization
in broader ideological patterns. Those that adapt to broad niches, on
the one side, may become increasingly similar to one another in basic
form and may incorporate orientations perceived as being liberal, toler-
ant, and flexible. On the other side, ideologies that fill in the gaps by set-
tling into homogeneous niches may be rather diverse among themselves
but formally take on characteristics that outsiders tend to regard as con-
servative, parochial, or rigid. Certainly this kind of polarization has
been evident in the religious orientations of many industrialized soci-
eties in recent years. It may also be a factor in political and economic ide-
ologies. Rather than modernity promoting consensus around strictly lib-
eral ideologies, it may promote both liberal ideologies and conservative
counterideologies. The liberal ideologies may be best suited for generat-
ing minimal commitments from loose coalitions among diverse groups,
whereas the conservative ideologies may be better suited for creating
deep commitments in more homogeneous settings.
Neither of these ideological forms is ideally suited to many of the or-
ganizations and tasks that make up modern societies. For example, liber-
tarian orientations in the polity, although useful for defending basic hu-
man rights and broad civil liberties, offer little in the way of legitimation
for concrete government proposals on defense policies or interest rates.
The highly communal orientations of families, sectarian religious bod-
ies, cults, survivalist collectives, and so forth also fail to inform many of
the more utilitarian aspects of economic and political life in the wider so-
ciety. Consequently, special purpose groups that pursue these more lim-
ited objectives are likely to create—consciously or inadvertently—their
own distinctive ideological forms. The substantive content of these
groups is likely to be quite diverse, but similarities in basic form may be
evident as well. These similarities may consist of a relatively strong em-
phasis on pragmatic norms o<: evaluation, technical competence, special-

ization, and proper procedure. These groups are therefore likely to dem-
onstrate a certain degree of isomorphism in such ideological and ritual
practices as professionalization, certification procedures, rational orga-
nizational styles, and technological legitimation.
THE STATE AND R E L I G I O N
A remaining aspect of institutionalization that can be used to illus-

trate this aspect of the ideology-environment nexus is the relation be-
tween ideology and the state. This relation has often been examined
from a teleological perspective concerned with ideology as legitimation.
From this perspective, ideology comes into being in order to fulfill the
state's need for legitimation; necessity (again) is the mother of inven-
tion. This institutionaiization of ideology therefore receives little more
than a simplistic treatment in terms of its justification of state interests.
An environmental perspective emphasizes the role of the state as an
environmental resource that influences the selection and institutionaliza-
tion of ideologies. Often the state constitutes the most significant factor
of all ideological institutionalization because this process may in fact be
mainly a matter of securing official recognition from the state. In short,
the state sanctions an ideology as official doctrine.
The state influences the process of ideological institutionalization in
many other ways as well. In its law-setting and regulatory functions the
state defines the environments that may or may not be open to ideologies
and imposes requirements to which ideologies must conform. It is widely
argued, for example, that the growth of the modern national state was a
factor conducive to individualistic ideologies because the national state
brought diverse local groupings together into a single collectivity with a
heterogeneous structure to which individualism was especially adapt-
able. As a wielder of economic; resources, the state also significantly af-
fects the distribution of material resources that may be at the disposal of
different ideological movements. For example, the rapid influx of federal
money into higher education in the United States since World War II has
contributed significantly to the resources available to campus-based
movements, such as the antinuclear movement, divestiture campaigns,
and religious cults.
Attention to the state points to the fact that ideological movements
do not actually compete with one another in a strictly free market of
ideological appeals or as movements with relatively equal access to ba-
sic resources. The environment in which they compete is likely to be

shaped fundamentally by the state. Having such vast resources at its dis-
posal, the state can sometimes simply "swamp" all other competitors by
declaring a particular ideology to be official. In other ways, ideologies
are likely to be greatly influenced by the stance that different move-
ments assume toward the state. Even where the state is officially neutral
with respect to different ideologies, awareness of its presence is likely to
shape the strategies taken by various movements.
Religion again provides ample illustrations of these dynamics. The
relation between religion and the state was ignored for a considerable
time in sociology because of theoretical perspectives that concentrated
on the5 growth of institutional differentiation between religion and the
state. Insofar as any continuing interaction was seen, it tended to be
portrayed in terms of religious organizations fighting a rearguard action
against the intrusion of the state into areas formerly under ecclesiastical
jurisdiction. From this perspective it seemed evident that even by the
end of the nineteenth century the church had withdrawn into comfort-
able isolation from the public affairs now supervised by the state. Yet re-
cent developments in a number of societies, particularly in Latin Amer-
ica and the Middle East (but not excluding Europe and the United
States), have heightened awareness of the complexities of the relations
between religion and the state. In the last6 decade alone a number of
solid empirical studies have been produced. Many of these studies have
of necessity been preoccupied with the sheer task of developing a de-
scriptive empirical base; others have been devoted to questions of practi-
cal, legal, and ecclesiastical concern.
The topic of civil religion is one area in which much thinking has
been generated about the relations between religion and the state. Civil
religion has been defined as "that religious dimension, found . . . in the
life of every people, through which it interprets its historical experience
in the light of transcendent reality" (Bellah, 1975:3). In practice, civil re-
ligion generally consists of god-language used in reference to the nation
(e.g., biblical quotations in presidential addresses, religious jeremiads di-
rected at government policies, etc.). A society's civil religion includes a
"myth of origin" that relates (and often reconstructs) the nation's his-
tory, a conception of the nation's purpose or destiny in history and in
the world, definitions of what constitutes legitimate membership in the
nation, and various taboos that define the society's external boundaries
and differentiate it from other societies. Like religion generally, civil reli-
gion performs a dual function for the society: it legitimates the social or-
der, evoking commitment and consensus; and it permits 7
specific social
policies to be criticized in light of transcendent ideals.
Civil religion can be conceived of as an example of incomplete differ-
entiation between religion and the state. It represents an intermingling
of religious and political symbolism at the cultural level. Despite formal
separation of church and state, the presence of a civil religion allows reli-
gious values to influence the state, on the one hand, and gives the state a
means of influencing religion, on the other. The fact that these influ-
ences remain possible in highly industrialized societies suggests that the
relations between religion and the state may be more complex than a
strict conception of institutional differentiation would imply. Two em-
pirical questions follow: Do religious organizations tend to benefit by
having this form of access to the state, or does civil religion generally
force them to compromise? Does the state benefit from having access to
religious arguments, or does it function more effectively in terms of
purely secular norms? These questions remain open, but available evi-
dence indicates that answers are likely to vary from society to society de-
pending on the nature of the state and the strength of different religious
traditions.
The key limitation of studies concerned with civil religion to date is
that they have concentrated almost entirely an matters of symbolism
rather than including considerations of the institutional structure of the
state and of religion. Greater attention needs to be given to how organi-
zational constraints, resources, interest groups, and social cleavages—-
on both sides—affect the relations between religion and the state. For
analytic purposes, these factors can be investigated at one or both of two
distinct levels. At the societal level, the state becomes a relevant consider-
ation chiefly as an element of the resource environment. At the institu-
tional level, specific alliances and other forms of interaction between reli-
gious organizations and political organizations can be conceptualized.
As a feature of the resource environment, the state influences religion
in a number of indirect ways. Other things being equal, the presence of a
centralized state with legitimate rule over a sizable territory defines an
environment that encompasses local and regional niches of considerable
heterogeneity. Indeed, the expansion of the nation-state typically takes
place at the expense of local and regional autonomy. In this manner,
state expansion is likely to create an environment that selects for the
kinds of ideological systems that adapt most easily to broad heterogene-
ous niches. As the defender of uniform laws and regulations, the state
also in a sense establishes "rules of the game" to which religious institu-
tions must conform.
The state not only defines the environment but also monopolizes
many of the resources in the environment. To the extent that its mo-
nopoly over the resources religious systems need—charters, educational
facilities, public buildings, communications media—is complete, reli-
gious competition may be reduced to an inconsequential minimum (as
in the case of theocratic states or states banning all forms of religious
practice). But states whose own legitimacy is in doubt or whose capacity
to elicit consensus is weak are likely by default to create niches in which
religious opposition is able to flourish. That is, pockets of opposition to
the state become recognizable social niches in which alternative reli-
gions can develop. In these niches, more established religions may be un-
able to succeed because of their identification with the norms and values
of the state. A strong sense of internal solidarity may also give rise to col-
lective symbolism and rituals that take on religious connotations. Exam-
ples include such diverse movements as Shi'ism among the technical in-
telligentsia in Iran, Protestant pentecostalism among ethnic minorities
in Latin America, and Eastern mystical religions among American youth
during the Vietnam War.
In its capacity to manipulate resources, the state also produces alter-
ations in the social environment that affect the capacity of established
religious communities to maintain themselves. Matters as seemingly re-
mote as government expenditures on space exploration and military in-
stallations can have significant ramifications for religious communities.
In a society characterized by a high degree of religious involvement,
such as the United States, commitments to the educational upgrading in-
volved in space exploration and other highly technological programs
lead indirectly to serious cleavages within religious bodies by altering
the educational and occupational statuses of the members of these bod-
ies; similarly, decisions to locate military installations in previously lo-
calized cultures give the religions of these areas greater interest in and ac-8
cess to national agendas (Hunter, 1980; Sweet, 1984; Wacker, 1984).
These effects cannot be summarized simply in terms of a decline in reli-
gious influence but rather have to be examined in terms of the restructur-
ing of religious resources, organizations, and commitments. If religious
systems constitute moral communities with patterned relations to their
environments, then cleavages and other changes in the social environ-
merit are likely to produce a significant restructuring of religious organi-

zations, commitments, and ideologies.
The other—institutional—level of investigation focuses on formal and
informal interactions between religious organizations and state agencies.
These interactions take place within the context of considerable complex-
ity on the sides of both the state and religion. For its part, the state cannot
be viewed as a static or monolithic entity but must be conceived of as a set
of interdependent organizations, with both representative and intrinsic in-
terests, having to secure resources from a changing environment, and sub-
ject to internal cleavages as a result of differential relations to the environ-
ment. On the religious side, different religious organizations are likely to
be in competition with one another (and with secular organizations), will
be characterized by different levels of resources, and will adopt strategies
aimed at protecting or enlarging their niche in the environment.
During much of the period extending from the beginning of the six-
teenth century to the middle of the nineteenth century, the relations be-
tween states and religious organizations in the West were deeply influ-
enced by the breakup of ecclesiastical universalism and by the internal
conflict between representative estates and central administrative agen-
cies that accompanied the transition from medieval standestddten to the
modern bureaucratic state. Competition among religious organizations
was typically resolved by different organizations forming alliances with
estates or central administrative agencies, the outcome of which was
greatly affected by changes in the broader economic base and by the vari-
ous groups' access to these resources.
Mary Fulbrook's (1983) comparative study of Puritanism in seven-
teenth-century England and Pietism in eighteenth-century Prussia and
Wurttemberg illustrates the dynamics of this process. In Wiirttemberg,
Pietism was absorbed relatively easily into the state church and, for this
reason, did not engage in direct political agitation as a means of enlarg-
ing its resources. In Prussia, eighteenth-century economic and military
expansion led to an enlarged cleavage between the landed aristocracy
and the central bureaucracy, with Lutheranism maintaining its tradi-
tional alliance with the landed elite. As a result, the central bureaucracy
threw its support behind the Pietist opposition, in return for which Prus-
sian Pietism came to associate fairly closely with proabsolutist senti-
ments. In contrast, English Puritanism developed strong antiabsolutist
sentiments despite a close resemblance between its purely religious style
and that of Prussian Pietism. The difference, Fulbrook argues, was the
fact that Anglicanism had been closely allied with the central bureau-
cracy, thus heightening the chances of an alliance between the Puritan re-
ligious opposition and the parliamentary political opposition.
At an earlier stage of political development, some of these processes
are also evident in the religious conflicts surrounding the Reformation in
the sixteenth century. Parts of central Europe, Scandinavia, and England
underwent rapid commercial expansion, providing central administra-
tors and urban magistrates with resources no longer associated with the
rural aristocracy. In these areas, Protestant reformers were able to gain
strong support from central administrators despite resistance from the
landowning classes. Other areas such as Poland, France, and Spain bene-
fited less significantly from commercial expansion or acquired military
obligations that retained the state's fiscal and administrative dependence
on the landed elites. These areas experienced Protestant agitation in
many urban areas but ultimately remained Catholic in the face of strong9
pressures from the landowning sector on the central bureaucracies.
In the twentieth century, interactions between religious organizations
and states in industrialized societies have been marked chiefly by the am-
bivalent character of the modern welfare state. On the one hand, the
modern welfare state continues to function in accordance with classical
laissez-faire conceptions that define its role as a guarantor of open mar-
ket competition. On the other hand, it has taken an increasingly active
role in providing for public welfare, making available public services,
regulating and promoting economic growth, and supervising a greatly
enlarged set of civil rights. Many observers have commented on the ten-
dency of welfare functions and civil rights regulations to interfere with
the traditional activities of religious groups, thereby producing a seem-
ingly endless series of litigations (e.g., Robbins, 1985). These conflicts
have been taken as ready evidence of the further erosion of religious in-
stitutions in modern societies. Yet closer examination indicates that the
state's own ambivalence has played a role in these relations with reli-
gion and that religious organizations have adopted a wide variety of
strategies in dealing with the state.
As a rule, religious organizations have supported the laissez-faire con-
ception of the state, at least in matters where religion is concerned, per-
haps largely because the long history of religiopolitical conflicts has gen-
erated norms favoring religious tolerance and some degree of separation
between church and state. Most religions, it appears, have adapted to
the modern situation by developing quasi-commercial strategies that al-
low them to compete in the marketplace rather than relying heavily on
the state for resources (e.g., see White, 1972). This, of course, has been
more the case in religiously diverse societies than in societies where a sin-
gle religion can overpower all the others. In return, religious organiza-
tions' support of free market conditions in religion has often provided
proponents of minimalist state intervention in economic affairs with
ideological ammunition, if not supportive constituencies (e.g., Novak,
1982,1984).
Where the strategies of religious organizations have been more varied
is with respect to the welfare, service, and regulatory functions of the
state. In part, these strategies can be analyzed in relatively straightfor-
ward terms based on the kinds of interests involved. For example, reli-
gious organizations with large investments in private schools are more
likely to support tax vouchers than organizations without such invest-
ments. Not all of the relations can be analyzed this simply, however.
Both the issue under consideration and the broader social position of
the religious organizations involved are likely to influence the nature of
the interaction.
Animating many of the relations between religious organizations and
the state is the fact that religion tends to be concerned not only with hu-
man-divine relations but also with moral or ethical questions. The ex-
pansion of the welfare state into a broader range of regulatory and ser-
vice functions has made it a relevant resource for religious organizations
to attempt to exploit in implementing their moral and ethical programs.
Religious organizations of all theological orientations have attempted to
forge coalitions with state agencies and have greatly expanded their use
of the courts in order to promote particular moral crusades, whether
these crusades consist of drives against racial segregation, lobbying for
gender equality, antipornography campaigns, efforts to promote prayer
in schools, or movements in favor of or against abortion. The difference
in religious organizations' attitudes toward government involvement
has typically depended more on the issue concerned than on general ori-
entations toward church and state.
At the same time, religious organizations' relations to the state are also
affected by their position in the larger society. Again, access to resources
appears to be a decisive consideration. Minority religions with limited re-
sources are likely to favor relatively strict separation between church and
state because religious freedom allows them to retain control over the lim-
ited resources they have acquired. Claims to religious freedom by Amish
groups and Jehovah's Witnesses provide cases in point. At the other ex-
treme, religious organizations with such an ample supply of resources as
to be able to dominate the religious market also tend to support policies

of government noninterference (except in the extreme case of theocracies,
of course). These establishments have sufficient resources to achieve
many of their own programs without government assistance; in arguing
for strict noninterference, they in effect pit their substantial resources
against other religious organizations with fewer resources (cf. Lindblom,
1977, for a related economic argument). Therefore, the groups most
likely to support government intervention, other things being equal, are
those in the middle—groups having enough resources to entertain hopes
of being successful in relations with the state, yet lacking the resources
needed to win over their competitors in strictly open religious competi-
tion. Such groups are particularly likely to become involved in the politi-
cal process when actions of the state or changes in political climate give
them a sense of political entitlement (e.g., Wuthnow, 1983).
None of this implies that religious organizations act according to
strictly rational resource maximization strategies or that these organiza-
tions are, after all, more concerned with pragmatic matters than with ar-
ticulating worshipful responses to the sacred. But social environments
characterized by rational, pragmatic, technical procedures necessarily
impose certain constraints on the manner in which religious organiza-
tions can function. How religion adapts—whether it maintains a critical
role in relation to its environment or whether it compromises in serious
ways—bears importantly on the direction of culture itself.
These examples obviously could be multiplied in areas other than reli-
gion, such as scientific and political ideologies. The following chapters
suggest additional factors involved in the state's influence over the pro-
cess of ideological institutionalization. Whereas the selective phase of
the dialectic relation between ideology and the social environment fo-
cuses on relatively broad differences in the kinds of ideologies that are se-
lected for or selected against, the institutional phase brings into consider-
ation factors such as the state that actually link up ideologies and their
environments. In this linkage the institutionalization of ideologies in
rituals and organizations is also of importance.
Emphasis on the relations between social systems and their environ-
ments has been increasingly evident in the discipline more generally, as
have related perspectives such as those dealing with the network struc-
ture of social systems and the structural arrangement of social resources.
Although there may well be characteristics of ideological systems that
make them different from other social entities, many of the distinctive
concepts of the field can clearly be translated in ways that make them
more compatible with formulations having wider use in the discipline.

Thus, to speak of various processes of social production, selection, and in-
stitutionalization in ideology is to speak in words that have become rele-
vant in other parts of the discipline as well. This chapter has been con-
cerned primarily with amplifying the dramaturgic approach to the study
of ideology. In doing so, some attention has also had to be given to issues
that become central in the institutional approach. Before turning to a dis-
cussion of that approach, however, the next two chapters will develop
some additional applications of the dramaturgic approach.
CHAPTER SIX
Social Selection Among

Ideological Forms
One purpose of examining ideologies in relation to the social environ-

ment is to account for part of the wide variation evident in ideological
forms. As suggested in the previous chapter, ideologies are vastly di-
verse, but not as diverse in any given social setting as we might imagine
them to be. Some ideologies seem to be better suited to particular envi-
ronments than others. We can therefore make some headway toward un-
derstanding the culture in which we live by considering how different en-
vironments reinforce certain ideologies and hinder others.
An essential starting point for this kind of investigation is the assump-
tion that a multitude of ideologies exist at some time, with some eventu-
ally perishing and others surviving. This assumption is usually satisfied
by the fact that disruptions in the moral order, from which uncertainties
about social relations arise, generally result in a number of new ideolo-
gies, all of which compete with one another to redefine the situation. This
competition does not consist of mere philosophical debates but involves
claims on social resources—moral claims articulated as part of an opera-
tive ideology. The manner in which social resources are distributed, there-
fore, should be consequential for the types of ideologies selected.
This formulation of the problem requires no assumptions about inter-
ests or legitimation. Questions about interests and legitimation can still
be raised, but as potential consequences of ideology. Too often these
questions have substituted for careful consideration of the conditions
that lead ideologies to be in existence in the first place. These conditions
may be quite different from the functions an ideology fulfills.
186
Social Selection Among Ideological Forms 187
Because the present approach to the study of ideology is in many re-

spects new, it probably makes sense to begin with some fairly simple
distinctions. Environments can be distinguished along relatively simple
dimensions, and these variations can be associated with some broad
differences in ideological iorms. If persuasive at this level, the models
can always be expanded by introducing additional dimensions and more
elaborate distinctions. This chapter examines three ideological forms
that are not only of some interest themselves but also permit illustration
of some simple propositions about the effects of social environments:
folk piety, individualism, and rationality. Considering these ideological
forms will also provide occasion to introduce some further ideas about
the internal structure of ideological systems.
FOLK PIETY AND FUNDAMENTALISM
Studies of contemporary culture have come increasingly to recognize

the importance of what has been termed "folk piety." Whereas formal re-
ligion is characterized by codified doctrines, ecclesiastical organizations,
and a professional clergy, folk piety consists of relatively amorphous be-
liefs, is extraecclesiastical, and is located among the common people
(Vrijhof and Waardenburg, 1979). Folk piety tends to be syncretistic,
drawing simultaneously from indigenous folklore (the "little tradition,"
in Redfield's [1956] terms) and the more formalized symbols ("great tra-
dition") associated with historical or world religions (cf. Scott, 1977).
Symbols are drawn from a wide variety of common sources—nature,
work, food, music—rather than systematic theology; yet these symbols
are distinguished from ordinary folklore in that they incorporate beliefs
about divine or supernatural intervention in the realm of everyday experi-
ence. Examples include beliefs about demons and witchcraft, spiritual-
ism, astrology, magic, miracles, and superstitions.
In a valuable introduction to the study of folk piety, Williams
(1980:65) identifies six subject headings under which the beliefs and prac-
tices of folk piety can be classified: food, health and sickness, major transi-
tions in the life cycle, death and the dead, predictions of the future, and
problems of evil and misfortune. These categories also provide a basis for
discussing the relations between folk piety and the social environment.
Folk piety has been most evident in relatively nonmodern situations. Stud-
ies of medieval and early modern Europe, of Third World countries, and
of traditional settlements in North America, such as Amish and Hutterite
communities, give ample testimony to the importance of popular super-
188 Social Selection Among Ideological Forms
stitions,
1
charms and amulets, stories of miraculous happenings, and so
forth. The implied conclusion is that folk piety fails to adapt well to the
modern environment. Yet more recent research has begun to challenge
this inference. Numerous studies now suggest that folk piety may be
remarkably robust even in the most modernized settings. Beliefs in astrol-
ogy and extrasensory communication, contact with the dead and out-of-
body experiences, superstitions about lucky numbers, mystical experi-
ences, and trances, not to mention the quasi-sacred character of many
holidays, sports events, and emblems of nature, all seem to be relatively
2
common in settings such as the United States and Western Europe. The
question of how beliefs and practices that, on the surface, seem incom-
patible with the secular, scientific norms of modern culture could have
proven so adaptable has therefore arisen. Scattered research evidence per-
mits us to construct at least a partial answer.
A D A P T A T I O N TO THE M O D E R N E N V I R O N M E N T
First, it seems important that folk piety tends to be relatively un-

formalized. That is, tenets of folk piety are generally ill specified in re-
lation to one another. Specialists, to be sure, may develop systematic
treatments of these tenets (manuals for astrological interpretations and
theological treatises on spiritualism being prime examples), but to the
typical practitioner, folk piety appears to consist of relatively discrete
sayings, dictums, and aphorisms. It also tends to be notably anecdotal
(i.e., moral maxims are substantiated less by formal argument than by
personal experience or by narratives of others' experiences, thus mini-
mizing the degree to which different elements become formally con-
nected with one another). This looseness of structure also characterizes
the syncretism of folk piety: discrete elements can be attached readily to
other belief systems in diverse combinations (cf. Firth, 1984; Van
Baaren, 1984).
More formally, folk piety can be described as a symbol system com-
prised of a relatively large number of elements, but with a low number
of definite relations among pairs of elements. Other things being equal,
a disconnected system of this kind tends to withstand external shocks
relatively well because an alteration in any specific
3 element or subsys-
tem of elements need not affect the entire system. Belief in demon pos-
session, for example, might decline; yet if this belief is not logically
related to other elements of folk piety, this decline could occur without
affecting, say, the tendency to believe in life after death or the credibility
of astrology.
A second point is that folk piety tends to gravitate toward the inter-
stices of modern society. Most of the beliefs and practices in Williams's
sixfold typology deal with the marginal or unanticipated—illness, death,
misfortune—or with those transitional states that Turner (1974, 1977)
and others have associated with "liminality" (i.e., with a feeling of being
"betwixt and between"). Even seemingly ordinary beliefs and practices in
this schema, such as those dealing with food preparation, turn out to be
most concerned with high feast days and festivals and, as Mary Douglas
(1966,1984) has shown, symbolize deeper boundaries in social relations
and understandings, Much of the impetus for folk piety appears to come
from what Berger (1969) has identified as experiences of "marginality,"
which fall at the edges of ordinarily constructed realities.
The location of folk piety within the interstices of ordinary reality
means that it is concerned with experiences that happen to nearly every-
one at some time or another (e.g., illness, bereavement, tragedy), even in
modern societies, but that are generally not dealt with adequately by the
dominant institutions in these societies. Death and bereavement notori-
ously fail to be4 handled satisfactorily, except to be insulated from the
rest of society. Illness and tragedy, although subject to risk reduction
and insurance schemes, continue to raise problems of personal adjust-
ment because of their unpredictability and undesirability. And life pas-
sages are often inadequately handled because they occur precisely at
those points of exit and entry between major institutions. The result is
that folk piety is able to occupy a relatively enduring and important
niche in modern society, just as it does in traditional society. Less ob-
viously, the nature of this niche also reinforces the disconnectedness
among tenets of folk piety. The events to which it relates are themselves
disconnected, separated in time from one another in the typical individu-
al's biography, largely unanticipated, and in most cases relatively lim-
ited in frequency and duration.
A third feature of folk piety is that its association with crisis events
means it is likely to be associated with informal gatherings of close rela-
tives and friends. Whether at birthdays or weddings, hospital visits or
wakes, a small community of intimates is likely to be present, at least
more so than at other times. Despite the occurrence of folk piety within
modern society, the immediate context in which it takes place is likely to
resemble in some ways the solidary communities in which it occurs in
traditional societies. The general association of folk piety with solidary
groups allows a further explanation of the nature of its structure and of

its persistence in modern societies.
Bernstein's (1975) research on linguistic codes indicates that solidary
groups are more likely to generate "restricted" than "elaborated"
codes. That is, the high degree of shared understandings in solidary
groups means that fewer 5
words actually have to be spoken for communi-
cation to take place. Because it is evoked in the presence of solidary
groups, folk piety is likely to share the characteristics of restricted
codes: much is left unspoken, few of the relations among its various ten-
ets are spelled out, and what is spoken tends to be intertwined with the
anecdotes and experiences—the folklore—of a particular group. In addi-
tion, the relative isolation of these experiences and gatherings from insti-
tutional life increases the likelihood that the material used to construct
folk religious discourse will be the events of one's childhood, ancestors,
or immediate acquaintances. As a result, "discourse" is indeed likely to
consist of discourse—an oral tradition—rather than becoming subject
to greater systematization through written formalization.
Finally, another body of research permits us to interpret the fre-
quency with which folk piety seems to manifest a belief in, or experience
of, divine intervention. A substantial body of empirical literature con-
tains the idea, on the one hand, that major "life events" tend to evince
stress, including emotional and physical symptoms, and that these
events, on the other hand, evoke a wide variety of religious responses,
ranging from mere questioning of the purpose of life to experiences of
divine contact or revelation (cf. Dohrenwend and Dohrenwend, 1974;
Thoits, 1981; Stokes, 1982). The connection between stressful events
and religious experiences is in some ways obvious because the questions
these events elicit may have culturally specified answers that fall into the
domain of religious interpretations. This line of reasoning, of course,
leads directly to the observation that formalized religious beliefs fre-
quently play a role during crisis events and less directly to the observa-
tion that folk piety may also be elicited (because it too is culturally avail-
able). But such a cultural interpretation does less well at accounting for
events in which an extraordinary intervention of the supernatural is ac-
tually experienced.
Here, a combination of psychological, sociological, and cultural expla-
nations seems necessary. At the psychological level, a well-established
body of research indicates a connection between crisis-induced stress and
propensities to hallucinate, including visual and auditory components
(e.g., Bender, 1970; Jaffe, 1966). At the sociological level, research sug-
gests that patterns of family socialization that require individuals to act

on behalf of the family itself (as opposed to acting on behalf of one's indi-
vidual interests) create a propensity for individuals to feel constrained by
purposes other than their own and as a result to be susceptible to a particu-
lar kind of hallucinatory experience in which they feel the presence of, or
possession by, an external power (Swanson, 1978a, 1978b). And at the
cultural level, evidence from studies of religious experiences points to the
importance of either preconceived frameworks with which to interpret
one's experience or else of associates who suggest an interpretation for
what is at first a seemingly ordinary or ambiguous event (Laski, 1961;
Carroll, 1986).
Placing these arguments beside one another therefore suggests that the
persistence of folk piety in modern societies can be understood in terms of
a distinct relation between its ideological structure and the social environ-
ment. The niches in modern society to which folk piety adapts are rela-
tively common (as common as illness and death). Yet in actuality, from
the standpoint of the specific person or group most immediately in-
volved, these niches are relatively narrow, unstable, and discrete: narrow
in the sense of happening to only a few people at a time who have contact
with one another, unstable in terms of unpredictability of occurrence and
duration, and discrete as far as any particular individual's biography is
concerned as well as falling into the interstices between social institu-
tions. The tenets of folk piety that are preferentially selected by this kind
of environment also tend to be relatively discrete elements with few sys-
tematic relations with one another, thus permitting them to adapt with
relative flexibility to diverse and changing circumstances.
THE SOCIAL LOCATION OF F U N D A M E N T A L I S M
In some respects, fundamentalism may appear to be the polar oppo-

site of folk piety. Strict adherence to doctrinal orthodoxy, a rigid concep-
tion of faith, and a lack of tolerance for superstition and the occult—all
seem to set fundamentalism apart from folk piety. Yet the two bear cer-
tain similarities to each other. Like folk piety, fundamentalism has been
studied mainly as an anomaly of modern culture that is presumably bet-
ter suited to more traditional settings. Its origins have been sought in so-
cial crises that breed hostile reactions to the modernization process. Its
content is described as a totalistic worldview, organized around abso-
lute values and representing a countertrend to the process of cultural dif-
ferentiation (cf. Lechner, 1983). Implicitly, fundamentalism is generally
assumed to be a short-term phenomenon that is unlikely to survive in

the modern milieu. But (again like folk piety) fundamentalism has sur-
prised many observers by its persistence and, in some cases, its growth.
Kelley's (1972) research on the growth of fundamentalist churches in
the United States initiated a wave of renewed interest in the study of fun-
damentalism (cf. Hunter, 1983, 1985). This interest was further stimu-
lated by American fundamentalists' move toward political activism and
by an apparent resurgence of fundamentalism in the Islamic world and
in Judaism (Antoun and Hegland, 1986). Although most of this re-
search has been limited to the American case, some general lines of inter-
pretation have emerged. One is the view (just mentioned) that funda-
mentalism is a reaction against certain modernizing tendencies, such as
greater emphasis on higher education and the penetration of local com-
munities by the national state. Another is that fundamentalism, al-
though rooted in traditional communities, is rapidly accommodating to
modernity itself, gaining resources in the process, but losing many of its
distinctive qualities. Both of these interpretations predict a relatively lim-
ited future for fundamentalism. A third view is that fundamentalism has
grown mainly by default as liberal denominations have abandoned ulti-
mate concerns to engage in social activism (Kelley, 1972). Bibby and
Brinkerhoff (1973, 1983) suggest that fundamentalism's growth reflects
little more than high fertility rates among its members. All these interpre-
tations have some empirical support, but each is somewhat limited in its
conceptualization of fundamentalism.
Participant-observer studies of fundamentalist groups have begun to
fault the idea that fundamentalism is a totalistic worldview, tightly inte-
grating behavioral norms with central values and lacking in usual kinds
of cognitive differentiation. These studies suggest that fundamentalist
beliefs focus on several highly salient aspects of behavior (family, for ex-
ample) but leave most others up to the individual's discretion (Ault,
1983; Ammerman, 1983). In addition, the relation between central val-
ues and prescribed norms often appears to rest more on custom than on
clearly specified arguments. Survey studies of fundamentalists support
these conclusions, revealing relatively low correlations between funda-
mentalist beliefs and many other attitudes and demonstrating that identi-
fication with local custom is the principal link binding attitudes with be-
liefs (e.g., Rothenberg and Newport, 1984; Roof, 1978).
In formal terms, fundamentalism appears to be an example of an
ideological system comprised of relatively few elements that are strongly
related to one another. The elements generally considered essential in
Christian fundamentalism in the United States—the so-called "funda-

mentals"—are limited to no more than five or six beliefs (concerning
biblical inerrancy, the divinity of Jesus, his resurrection, the individual's
need for salvation, and so forth). These, as well as the relations among
them, were codified in great detail in a series of volumes published be-
tween 1910 and 1915 (Marsden, 1980). Empirical studies generally re-
veal a high degree of consistency in believers' answers to these questions
(e.g., Clock and Stark, 1965). Other attitudes popularly associated with
fundamentalism (premillenarian views, attitudes toward tobacco and al-
cohol, political conservatism), however, tend to vary widely among dif-
ferent fundamentalist groups. Indeed, the division of fundamentalists
into numerous small denominations means that, from the standpoint of
formal ideology, the core tenets of fundamentalism 6
are connected in
widely diverse ways with other beliefs and attitudes.
In comparison with folk piety, therefore, fundamentalism consists of
fewer elements with stronger relations. As an ideological system, it is
somewhat less stable than folk piety because the strong relations among
its elements mean that a change in any one is likely to affect all the others.
But fundamentalism is more stable than a comparable ideological system
having large numbers of elements. It is, on the whole, a conceivable candi-
date on formal grounds to persist in an otherwise changing environment.
Fundamentalism has in fact demonstrated remarkable resilience in rela-
tion to processes such as urbanization and industrialization and shifts in
political and economic patterns. Its weakness has been mainly in relation
to cultural processes of rationalization that add to the number of interre-
lated elements and thus increase the likelihood of change occurring in the
system. Increasing levels of education, imposing a greater consistency on
diverse ideological elements, has been one such process (for an interesting
empirical study, see Hammond and Hunter, 1984). Political movements
and moral crusades, welding tighter relations,between religious beliefs
and social attitudes, have been another. Of the two, education appears to
have the more serious consequences. The reason may not be, as often as-
sumed, that education provides alternative values that make more sense.
Rather, the effect of education may be to encourage a more rational sys-
tematization among fundamental beliefs, transforming them from the
"more fragmented and less internally consistent" beliefs characteristic of
the less educated (Scott, 1977:6), but at the same time making them more
vulnerable to environmental disturbances.
For these reasons, fundamentalism appears to function best in rela-
tively homogeneous niches within the larger environment in which the
connections between core tenets and life-style issues can remain im-
plicit. The introduction of heterogeneity into such settings frequently
proves disruptive to the ideology, causing either a sectarian schism that
re-creates homogeneity within each splinter group or an attempt at ratio-
nalization that may produce further strain among the ideological ele-
ments. Under these circumstances, it is not uncommon to find ideologi-
cal flexibility being increased by a shift toward greater emphasis on the
individual.
INDIVIDUALISM
Individualism is another ideological form to which much attention

has been given. Its importance was identified by nearly all the classical
contributors to sociology, thus rendering it an issue that bears on a
broad range of theoretical questions as well as substantive questions per-
taining uniquely to the study of ideology. Certain developments in con-
temporary culture have also opened new lines of inquiry into its nature.
Like folk piety and fundamentalism, it can be examined beneficially in
relation to the kinds of social environments in which it tends to be
selected.
SOCIAL STRUCTURE A N D I N D I V I D U A T I O N
In the classical tradition, individualism gained prominence in the work

of Marx and Weber and to a lesser extent in the work of Durkheim. Marx
and Weber regarded it as a uniquely compatible ideology in relation to
capitalism. According to Marx, the emergence of capitalism, particularly
in England during the seventeenth century, necessitated an ideology that
had a corrosive effect on traditional.solidary groups standing in the way
of market relations and that legitimated individual property rights. Al-
though in some ways present in all the Reformation doctrines, this ideol-
ogy became prominent in an especially powerful form in English Puritan-
ism. Weber's interpretation differed from Marx's in terms of the priority
accorded to ideology as an independent contributor to economic change,
but it also emphasized a unique compatibility between capitalism and Pu-
ritanism. Durkheim differed from both Weber and Marx in the causal fac-
tors to which he assigned priority, but he also envisaged a general in-
crease in "the cult of the individual," as he described it, during the course
of modernization.
The characteristics of Puritanism that in the classical literature quali-
fied it as an example of individualism include the high priority it at-

tached to personal salvation and direct accountability to God, its de-
legitimation of sacraments and offices associated with the ecclesiastical
community, and the considerable degree of ethical responsibility it as-
signed to individual behavior. In Puritanism the individual stood alone
before God, faced with ultimate uncertainty about personal salvation,
yet free to make ethical decisions from which evidence of his or her
moral worth could be discerned. Such accountability obviously bore
strong similarities to the conditions under which entrepreneurs func-
tioned in the capitalist marketplace.
The more recent sociological literature has provided theoretical and
empirical evidence bearing on these initial formulations and has ex-
tended the idea of individualism into other areas. Much of this work has
consisted of relatively technical reconsiderations of the classical materi-
als themselves, constituting a body of literature that falls largely outside
the purview of the present discussion. However, a number of important
contributions have focused directly on the conceptualization of individu-
alism and its relation to features of the social environment.
Rather than viewing individualism as a coherent philosophical sys-
tem in its own right, treating it as a formal characteristic that can infuse
many types of ideology may be more productive. That is, individualism,
in the same sense as folk piety and fundamentalism, can encompass a
relatively wide variety of substantive tenets, but common to all these
variants are certain formal properties that distinguish the structure of
the ideology itself. In the case of individualism, the most general effect
of a strong emphasis on the individual appears to be a tendency to
"decouple" the substantive tenets of any formalized set of doctrines or
creeds. The effect of this decoupling is somewhat similar to that accom-
plished in folk piety but at a different level of ideological organization.
Whereas the tenets of folk piety tend to be disaggregated by virtue of
their intrinsic aphoristic quality and lack of formal codification, indi-
vidualistic orientations are disaggregated at the level of the individual.
Accordingly, for any particular individual, a highly integrated world-
view may exist, but its components may be quite dissimilar from those
of any other person's worldview. The extreme manifestation of individu-
alism, therefore, lies in the dual formulation "do your own thing" and
"anything goes."
From this perspective, it becomes obvious that individualism seldom
takes on its most extreme manifestation. Rather, some degree of ideologi-
cal effort is devoted to restraining the total disaggregation of personal
convictions by defining the nature of the relations among individuals

(i.e., in terms of moral responsibilities). In other words, individualism em-
phasizes the individual as decision maker—as the unit around which per-
sonal convictions crystallize—and yet the fact that individuals never func-
tion entirely in social isolation means that some conception of moral
responsibility must be defined. Several implications follow from this ob-
servation, around which a fairly diverse body of theoretical and empirical
literature can be organized.
Above all, the existence of any ideology that can be characterized as
being individualistic requires a number of markers or cues to be present
at the level of discourse itself that individuate the structure of that ideol-
ogy. These cues may be "given" explicitly as part of the propositional
content of discourse or "given off" implicitly as part of the illocutionary
force of that discourse (Searle, 1969; Brummer, 1982; Taylor, 1984). In
either case, the result must be to heighten the importance of any utter-
ance's connection with its speaker as an individual (or in some cases,
with the hearer as an individual).
Foucault's (1965, 1970, 1972, 1975, 1979) studies into the cultural
developments that took place during the eighteenth and nineteenth cen-
turies in Europe provide a number of examples of how discourse be-
came individuated. In the realm of criminality, individuation developed
in conjunction with theories and sentences that emphasized the individu-
al's body as a relevant object of discipline and punishment. Notions of
insanity, he suggests, developed in tandem with heightened conceptions
of the mind and with medical concepts that dramatized disturbances of
the mind. Even the development of modern social sciences, he argues, re-
quired that the individual be invented so that it could be studied and re-
lated to other concepts. More generally, Foucault's framework for the
analysis of knowledge emphasizes the importance of "formations" that
make it appropriate for the individual to speak, for individuals to be ob-
jects of speech, and for them to be related to other objects of speech that
are not individuals.
In the case of contemporary religious discourse, for example, illus-
trations that show the high degree to which individuation is generally
present are readily available. Religious beliefs are usually referred to as
beliefs, rather than as teachings or symbols, implying that they are to
be associated chiefly with individuals rather than institutions or cul-
tural systems. The Protestant reformers' emphasis on the "priesthood
of the believer" clearly sought to reassociate what had been an institu-
tional role with the common person. Believer's baptism further empha-
sized the choice-making capacity of the individual, as have more recent

pastoral emphases on conversion, being "born again," personal "faith
development," and so forth,
Several empirical studies have examined the nature of individuation
in religious discourse. McGuire (1982), in a study of Catholic pente-
costalism, has demonstrated the importance of conversion testimonials
for associating religious teachings with individual biographies. Hunter
(1983), in a systematic content analysis of evangelical literature, has
found evidence of a strong tendency to associate subjective concerns,
such as emotional problems, guilt, worry, and personal adjustment,
with religious assertions. Cuddihy (1978) observes that religious dis-
course now frequently is prefaced with such personalizing phrases as
"In my experience" or "My own view of it is," which, he suggests, make
religion increasingly a matter of individual preference and serve to intro-
duce an element of civility into pluralistic religious gatherings. Bellah et
al. (1985) present evidence of a fairly radical individuation of religious
commitments in America in both liberal and conservative churches.
Other research shows statistically significant tendencies among respon-
dents in survey studies for beliefs about the importance of the individual
to be associated with beliefs about the importance of religion (e.g.,
Wuthnow, 1976; Apostle et al., 1983). In all these cases, the evidence
suggests a relatively prevalent tendency toward individuation in modern
religion, thus raising the question about how this tendency may be pref-
erentially selected in modern social environments.
Marx's interpretation was that the market system, especially under
capitalism, reinforced individuation by forcing buyers and sellers to
compete with each other as individuals whose relations were defined
strictly by the supply-demand-price mechanism. Along similar lines,
Durkheim (1933) argued that a division of labor inevitably accompa-
nied market exchange that led to greater and greater specialization, thus
breaking down homogeneous groups and causing the individual to be-
come more clearly differentiated from every other individual. Foucault's
(1975, 1979) work has added flesh to these assertions, demonstrating
that individuation was reinforced through the very physical manipula-
tion of persons. Holding pens gave way to individual cells in prisons,
narrenschiffe were replaced by the psychoanalyst's couch, military regi-
ments placed soldiers into distinct positions and gave them clearly de-
fined duties to fulfill, and assembly lines eventually broke down the
group character of work itself.
What has often seemed anomalous is how individuation could be ad-
vanced at the same time that bureaucracies became bigger and social insti-
tutions in general became more complex. Foucault's examples illustrate
that individuation may go hand in hand with the means by which effort in
such large-scale entities is coordinated. Studies of the state point in the
same direction. As Bendix (1977) has suggested, individuation on a soci-
etal scale may serve usefully in the state-building process as a means of
achieving social control. Autonomous individuals, simply, are likely to be
easier to control than are tribes, ethnic groups, collectives, unions, or
other solidary entities. Thus, modern bureaucratic states have generally
advanced individuation through, on the one hand, standardization—es-
pecially through schooling and language uniformities—which makes per-
sons relatively interchangeable with one another, and, on the other hand,
through personalization, which attaches rights and responsibilities—
such as voting and paying taxes—-to the individual. In short, indi-
viduation at the level of ideology, including religious discourse, appears
to be reinforced, relatively nonproblematically, in social environments in
which the social structure also tends to be individuated. Both seem to be
fairly general features of modern societies, even in the midst of relatively
large-scale bureaucratic institutions such as the modern army, the bureau-
cratic state, and the assembly line.
INDIVIDUALISM AS MORAL IDEOLOGY
But individuation and individualism are not exactly the same things.
Following Turner's (1983:160—161) valuable discussion, individualism
may be defined as "a doctrine of individual rights, which may be ex-
pressed in a variety of religious, political, economic or legal forms," as
contrasted with individuation, which consists only of "marks, numbers,
signs and codes" that identify and separate "persons as differentiated
bodies." The key to distinguishing individualism from individuation,
therefore, lies in the idea of rights, which of course always connotes a
set of responsibilities as well.
The sense of rights and responsibilities that individualism implies
helps clarify the nature of Puritanism as an example of religious indi-
vidualism. Puritanism not only contributed to the individuation of per-
sons—as did religious doctrines as different as Anabaptism and mystical
contemplation; it also specified a clear sense of rights and responsibili-
ties among religious persons. Puritans not only stood alone before God,
but they also felt a duty, as Weber recognized, to work for the improve-
ment of humanity and to abide by the discipline and norms of the reli-
gious community. Out of this conception of responsibility, the Lockean
theory of property rights was formed. This sense of a moral relationship
also permitted the American Puritans to mold strong communities and
served as a moral basis for that distinctive brand of American individual-
ism that Tocqueville was to describe in the phrase "self-interest rightly
understood."
What individualism consists of, then, is an ideological form, based on
a sharp sense of individuation of the person, that defines certain rights
and responsibilities between the individual and other individuals. Sev-
eral features of this ideological form are crucial to its coherence and also
constitute the components to which cultural imagery usually bears a di-
rect relation. First, the individual must be conceived of as capable of pos-
sessing rights; second, the individual must be free to act as a locus of
choice; finally, the individual must be conceptualized as having certain
moral obligations to other actors.
With respect to the idea of rights, the individual clearly cannot be re-
garded simply as a self or as a conjuncture of interests and instincts. In-
stead, the individual must be a possessor of something that gives him or
her membership as a unit of some larger system. Property ownership
and citizenship have been two of the most common such possessions. In
religious conceptions, salvation, sanctification, or election have served
similarly to define individuals as members in good standing with rights
to certain privileges. Not surprisingly, therefore, "religious tests," if
only as informal expectations, have often been closely associated with
the right to enjoy other social privileges, to hold office, and so forth.
Freedom to act as a locus of choice is a considerably more compli-
cated issue. Its presence as an ideological element performs a dual func-
tion. It adds ideological flexibility by crediting the individual with the
opportunity of making decisions. This is particularly important in the
context of religion because individual freedom connotes the ability to
render doctrinal interpretations and thus to adapt universalistic ideas to
particular situations. In addition, the concept of individual freedom
seems to provide the essential link between individual rights and individ-
ual responsibilities in that: 7freedom is necessary for the individual to be
held morally accountable That is, any sense of moral obligation re-
quires that the individual be free to do otherwise; if not, no sense of hav-
ing fulfilled these moral obligations is possible. Consequently, it is not
surprising to find individualism strongly associated in many instances
with notions of personal morality.
Finally, the sense of moral obligation is primarily an "other-di-

rected" concept, defining normative relations between the individual
and specified others. The individual is not simply free but is free to exer-
cise certain responsibilities. This concept, of course, necessarily implies
some notion of a community or social system with which one shares con-
tractual obligations. Mary Douglas's (1970) idea of "grid" and "group"
captures this notion: as a cell in a grid, an individual is individuated but
also knows clearly his or her place in relation to other cells in the sys-
tem; in contrast, an individual who is simply an unspecified member of
a group fails to know precisely what his or her obligations are, and a per-
son who has neither group nor grid is in the worst situation of all with
respect to having clearly defined roles.
Returning then to the question of how the social environment preferen-
tially selects for individualism, it can be seen that individualism is un-
likely to flourish in a situation characterized strictly by autonomous
monads (desert hermits, for example). Rather, it is likely to flourish best
where the environment demands some degree of coordinated but flexible
relationships. Such conditions are likely to be present in an environment
with heterogeneous resources (e.g., a diversity of natural resources or a
high degree of occupational specialization) and where the environment is
organized across these various heterogeneous resources—requiring coor-
dination rather than the mere coexistence of largely separate, internally
homogeneous entities. Obviously, this kind of environment becomes rele-
vant whenever a market system spans a relatively large area and when it
leads to a kind of internal division of labor such that independence ("or-
ganic solidarity," in Durkheim's terms) becomes present.
Historical studies generally support the idea that individualism be-
came more prominent in areas characterized by market conditions. In-
deed, the appearance of market conditions, rather than capitalism as
such, seems most closely associated with the rise of individualism. As
trade expanded in the thirteenth century, for example, a heightened
sense of individualism seems to have developed in various areas of Eu-
rope, particularly in the trading areas of Italy and England. In the six-
teenth century, towns engaged in commerce over long distances, as op-
posed to those oriented strictly toward local trade, seem to have been
especially prominent in adopting the new ideas of the Reformation
(Wuthnow, 1986b). Davis (1981) suggests that part of the appeal was
precisely the fact that Protestantism conceived of social relations more
as a network of responsibilities among individuals than as membership
in predefined local collectivities. Later still, the globalization of markets
during the nineteenth century seems to have been accompanied by an-

other wave of individualism. Thomas (1979, 1986), for example, has
provided statistical evidence for the United States between 1870 and
1890 that indicates a close relation between the spread of capitalist agri-
culture and the diffusion of individualistic religious beliefs (especially
Methodism).
CONDITIONS FOSTERING INDIVIDUALITY
The topic of individualism has not, however, been of strictly historical

interest. A different series of studies has been prompted by recent discus-
sions of the relations between narcissism, privatism, and religion. Writers
such as Sennett (1976), Lasch (1978), Habermas (1976:75-92), and
Bellah et al. (1985) have identified a type of individualism, variously re-
ferred to as narcissism, civil privatism, or expressive individualism, that
seems to be an increasingly prominent feature of modern culture. Because
this form of individualism appears to differ from its historical counter-
part, it has proven helpful to refer to it by another name. Turner (1983:
162), for example, suggests using the term "individuality" instead of
individualism. By this he means "a romantic theory of the subjective inte-
rior of persons, which is concerned with the growth of sensibility, taste,
consciousness and will." Perhaps the clearest way of drawing the con-
trast, therefore, is to say that individualism emphasizes a concern for the
moral responsibility of individuals toward other individuals, whereas in-
dividuality focuses8 on the moral responsibility of the individual toward
his or her own self. In the one, relationships are specified among individu-
als; in the other, relationships are specified among the component parts
of the self. Individuation is an important precondition of both, but the
two differ sharply in the kinds of relationships given priority. Discussions
of narcissism and civil privatism correspond well with this definition of in-
dividuality. According to Sennett, the main feature of narcissism is its in-
ability to distinguish among parts of the self—as in the case of Narcissus,
who confuses his image reflected in the spring with himself and thus even-
tually falls in and drowns. The result, Sennett suggests, is a tendency to be-
come preoccupied with relations purely within the self and therefore to be-
come withdrawn from public rol^s (i.e., from moral relationships with
other individuals). Habermas's discussion of civil privatism flows along
similar lines, suggesting that withdrawal from public roles is accompa-
nied by an inner search for meaning and purpose.
Examples of heightened individuality are not hard to find. Troeltsch's
(1960:691—806) contrast between mysticism and sectarianism in some

ways parallels the distinction between individuality and individualism.
Whereas the sectarian may emphasize individualism (in the form of reli-
gious rights and duties) as a protest against- more organized churchlike re-
ligions, the mystic is more likely to withdraw from public roles and en-
gage in a life of contemplative introspection. Public roles, such as political
and economic participation, are thought to require too many compro-
mises of one's ideals; consequently, the mystic carves out an inner realm
over which greater control can be exercised. It has also been suggested
that many of the "new age" spiritual disciplines that have become attrac-
tive in the West may represent this kind of individuality. Certainly those
who are attracted to mystical religious movements and the various hu-
man potential movements are more likely to focus on fantasy, new in-
sights about themselves, and symbolism (Wuthnow, 1976). What these
movements appear to accomplish in many cases is a clarification of the
various components of the self. Specifically, an inner self is often identi-
fied as a kind of command center that then becomes capable of defining
the relations among other component selves (Fingarette, 1963; Tipton,
1982; Westley, 1983).
The social conditions promoting such orientations remain inade-
quately examined, but several plausible hypotheses have been put forth.
One is that life in modern bureaucratic institutions becomes so well or-
ganized—so regimented—that any sense of free choice, and thus of
moral responsibility, becomes incomprehensible; consequently, persons
who have been socialized to value freedom and moral responsibility
shift increasingly to private or inner pursuits over which they have
greater discretion (cf. Wilensky, 1964). An alternative hypothesis is that
individuality stems not so much from overorganization but rather from
the greater degree of flexibility required in role performances in areas
such as the professions or, indeed, in any complex situation where the
different components of the self may need to become operative at differ-
ent times (cf. Bell, 1977; Swanson, 1980; Yankelovich, 1982). Accord-
ing to this hypothesis, multiple role requirements lead to multiple selves,
which in the extreme can lead to problems in forming a stable self-iden-
tity and therefore to a preoccupation with self-exploration.
There is greater agreement that individuality, whatever the source,
poses relatively serious implications as far as modern social life is con-
cerned. Rather than providing an ethical system that attaches impor-
tance to strict moral obligations, individuality seems likely to be associ-
ated with a highly relativistic outlook that focuses on inward pursuits
and leaves public or collective values to be informed primarily by prag-

matic considerations (Luckmann, 1967). At this juncture, much debate
has in fact begun to appear over the ramifications of such an orientation
for the stability of modern societies (e.g., Bellah, 1982; Neuhaus, 1984;
Bellahetal. 1985).
RATIONALITY
Another general theme that has been of considerable importance in
the study of modern culture, particularly in light of Weber's (1963)
work on the process of rationalization, has been the role of rationality.
Some of the discussion of this topic has been cast simply in terms of an
apparent conflict between traditionalism, as a presumably nonrational
belief system, and rationality, as manifested in the secular culture of
modern societies. Weber's principal contribution, however, was to cre-
ate awareness of rationality as a characteristic even of modern religion.
In his treatment of the Protestant ethic, for example, he envisioned a
relatively high degree of rationality in the teachings of the Protestant re-
formers that would, in his opinion, eventually produce a tightly rational-
ized ethical system that would damage the mysteriousness of the reli-
gious impulse itself.
"Rationality" is unfortunately a word that has a number of different
technical meanings as well as a relatively vague set of popular connota-
tions. Even in Weber's usage it had different meanings. Most relevant to
the present discussion, however, are his references to rationality as a sys-
tematization of means or norms in relation to an end or goal. Behavior
therefore could be considered rational insofar as it conformed to the
norms that were accepted as efficient and effective means of attaining
one's designated goal. In purely formal terms, rational ideological sys-
tems are thus ones in which the various elements (i.e., designations of
means and ends) bear relatively strong relationships to one another. In
addition, these relationships are subjected to a kind of performance cal-
culation such that failure to attain specified ends casts into question the
nature of the elements that are identified as means. All of this obviously
suggests a relatively high degree of reflection about the relationships
among the elements of a rational ideological system: an application of
"reason." Rational ideological systems are also likely to be character-
ized by a high degree of univeisalism; that is, a conviction that the under-
lying procedures used to arrive at specified relationships between means
and ends can be generalized to a wide variety of situations.
In attempting to identify the kinds of social environments in which a

preferential selectivity toward rational systems is evident, it has been im-
portant to heed the warnings of a number of anthropologists who have
pointed out that a type of rationality that might to the observer seem
governed only by magic and superstition also exists in primitive settings
(cf. Wilson, 1970a; Geraets, 1979). Nevertheless, the thrust of this de-
bate in the anthropological literature seems to be oriented toward recog-
nizing that a certain logic exists within nonmodern belief systems, but
not toward arguing that 9
the specific kind of rationality identified in We-
ber's work is present. If the application of reason to practical tasks
seems to be evident in virtually all societies, the development of a system-
atized, means-end calculus oriented toward performance and conform-
ing to universalistic norms appears to be limited to a much smaller set of
social environments.
HETEROGENEITY AND RATIONALITY
Other things being equal, rationality (so defined) appears to bear an

elective affinity with heterogeneous social environments. In particular,
rationality is likely to characterize those ideological systems that occupy
a relatively broad niche in a heterogeneous environment such that the re-
sources on which they depend are characterized by a high degree of
diversity. The reason why this relationship appears evident can be speci-
fied along several different lines. One is that a heterogeneous environ-
ment presents a sphere in which learning can take place. In contrast
with an entirely homogeneous environment, the presence of diverse stim-
uli means that comparisons can be made, and as a result, learning about
the kinds of means that produce different consequences can be acquired.
The exception to this process is a heterogeneous environment in which
resources are distributed simply at random (e.g., an island fishing econ-
omy in which schools of fish swim around the island in entirely random
patterns). Under such conditions, learning is sufficiently unlikely that
the most efficient means of maximizing results may be one that also ran-
domizes behavior (e.g., certain types of magic). Thus the attempt to
make achievement predictable through a rational systematization of
means and ends appears likely to prove most successful in an environ-
ment with heterogeneous but nonrandomly distributed resources.
Another line of reasoning that relates heterogeneity and rationality
points to the need for greater degrees of coordination in heterogeneous
environments. If the niche occupied by a population is sufficiently broad
that a diversity of resources has to be utilized, then a complex system of

social exchange will have to be developed. However, the greater the de-
gree of complexity in any system of exchange—that is, the larger the
number of actors and the more diverse the tasks involved—the greater
will be the potential for uncertainty as far as the entire system is con-
cerned and for unpredictability as far as any specific outcome is con-
cerned. For interaction to be effectively orchestrated under such condi-
tions, therefore, a high degree of communication must take place (cf.
Beniger, 1986). Any belief system that functions either to impose predict-
ability on the actors in the system or to facilitate communication is
likely to be favorably selected in this kind of environment.
Yet another line of reasoning is suggested by the last observation con-
cerning the need for communication. As mentioned earlier, Bernstein's
(1975) work on language codes suggests that "elaborated" codes are
likely to be more effective than "restricted" codes in highly diverse set-
tings where communication is needed among actors with few shared
understandings. Rational belief systems represent a type of elaborated
code in that they have explicitly articulated relationships among their
various elements and are framed in such a way as to be presumably
applicable to a wide variety of settings. Thus, rational belief systems
should again be preferentially selected in heterogeneous environments.
Many of the more familiar examples dealing with the development of
rational belief systems in the West give prima facie support to arguments
about the importance of heterogeneous social environments. Weber's
own treatment of innerworldly asceticism, as epitomized in Puritan Cal-
vinism, stressed the high degree of systematization that this orientation
imposed on ideas about ethical behavior as well as the predictability that
accompanied this systemati/ation as far as the individual's behavior was
concerned (cf. Schluchter, 1981). Both of these characteristics were, in his
view, deeply compatible with the kinds of complex calculations required
by the expansion of capitalism in the seventeenth century. During the
same period, as Merton's (1970) application of Weber has suggested, Pu-
ritanism and capitalism appear to have provided conducive environ-
ments for the growth of rational experimental procedures in the natural
sciences. In the following century, the extension of rational procedures to
moral and political philosophy—indeed, the triumph of these procedures
in the Enlightenment—appears to have been reinforced not only by a fur-
ther expansion of the mercantile economy but also by a tremendous ex-
pansion of the bureaucratic state that added greatly to the complexities
and uncertainties involved in formulating public policies.
Research that deals with less obvious examples has also pointed
strongly to the role of environmental heterogeneity in the development
of rational belief systems. LeGoff's (1984) magisterial history of the
idea of purgatory, particularly of its development in the twelfth century,
argues that the acceptance of teachings about purgatory needs to be un-
derstood in the context of changes taking place in the medieval social
system. Among these was the rapid spread of a particular type of feudal-
ism marked by a dual hierarchy of lords versus peasants and high nobil-
ity versus chevaliers. In addition, a tripartite system of estates came into
being distinguishing the ecclesiastical, military, and laboring orders (re-
spectively, oratores, bellatores, and laboratores). Other changes in-
cluded geographic expansion, both in trade and in military conquests,
monastic reforms, and a more detailed system of contract law, penal
codes, and bookkeeping procedures. The idea of purgatory, LeGoff ar-
gues, was both an adaptation to and an extension of this increasingly
complex social and cultural milieu. It added an important intermediate
category between heaven and hell just when intermediate categories
were being recognized in the social structure; it corresponded to a whole
set of ternary logical models evident in social, legal, and philosophical
classifications; above all, it introduced into eschatological visions a new
kind of calculation, similar to that being introduced in the courts, in
which fixed terms or "sentences" served as a more realistic mode of reck-
oning between behavior, rewards, and punishments.
In a quite different setting, Geertz (1968) has provided an insightful il-
lustration of the shift toward religious rationalization that frequently
apears to accompany the integration of localized social systems into the
broader context of world markets and export trade. Both in Morocco
and in Indonesia, Geertz observes a period in which Islam placed increas-
ing emphasis on "scripturalism," including greater demands for strict
adherence to Islamic doctrine and greater interest in religious schools. In
both cases these tendencies toward rationalization accompanied waves
of commercial expansion that eroded the personalized moral bonds be-
tween cultivators and rural landlords and gave merchants a stronger
hand in establishing economic links with the outside world. Much the
same phenomenon, it appears, took place in Brazil at a time when mer-
chant classes were concerned with restricting spirit worship and other lo-
cal folk beliefs and were seeking greater legitimacy with the church out-
side of Brazil (Ribeiro de Oliveira, 1979).
In a number of cases, the process of ideological rationalization appears
to be mediated by the state rather than simply being a diffuse, undirected
instance of cultural adaptation. In the Reformation, for example, the rela-

tively high degree of rationality evident in both Lutheranism and Calvin-
ism (especially in matters of church government and in procedures for set-
tling theological disputes) appears to have occurred as a direct result of
church leaders seeking the in vol vement of secular princes, courts, and par-
liamentary assemblies in ecclesiastical controversies. One result of this
involvement was the development of standardized procedures that per-
mitted these faiths to operate in relatively broad, heterogeneous environ-
ments. Similarly, in the case of early scientific development, as will be
seen in Chapter 8, the scientific academies not only received direct patron-
age from the state but also consciously borrowed parliamentary proce-
dures from the state for the conduct of their meetings. In other cases, the
vehicle of rationalization was not the state but direct borrowing from
other highly rationalized bureaucracies (e.g., the adoption of corporate
methods of organization by many denominations in the United States dur-
ing the last quarter of the nineteenth century).
INSTABILITY A N D B L O C K I N G
An aspect of the issue of rationality that has apparently remained rela-

tively overlooked is that, notwithstanding its seeming adaptability to
heterogeneous environments, it is highly vulnerable to instabilities in its
environment. This is because its structure, in formal terms, consists of
large numbers of elements that are systematically related to one an-
other. Unlike folk religions or fundamentalism, therefore, rational belief
systems can be easily subjected to internal strain by a significant change
in any subset of their many elements. On the surface, this feature may
appear counterintuitive; yet the relative frequency and suddenness with
which highly rationalized systems such as scientific theories or theologi-
cal perspectives change suggests that there may be some truth to the mat-
ter. Perhaps because of this susceptibility to instability, rationalized be-
lief systems appear frequently to incorporate one or both of two other
formal properties.
One of these is individualism, which, as already seen, serves as a
decoupling mechanism in ideological systems, heightening their flexibil-
ity by giving individuals the right to combine ideological elements largely
as they choose. A further advantage of combining individualism with ra-
tional belief systems is that assertions about the individual's responsibil-
ity may be sufficient to lend the kind of predictability that is required in
complex social environments. It needs to be added, however, that the radi-
cal relativism that comes with certain types of individualism is in some

ways incompatible with a rationalistic orientation in a strict sense (cf.
Jarvie, 1983).
The other property is a kind of formal "blocking" of rational belief sys-
tems into discrete subsystems. The division of knowledge into specified
disciplines, specialties, and theoretical perspectives accomplishes this
task in science. As a result of this division, alterations in one subsystem be-
come less likely to have ramifications for the entire system. In religion, a
similar function is fulfilled by formal divisions along denominational
lines. These divisions, occurring in the context of certain shared beliefs
common to all denominations, create what is sometimes called a "feder-
ated" structure that is usually highly adaptable to complex and changing
circumstances (cf. Hannan and Freeman, 1977). Both of these proper-
ties—individualism and denominational blocking—help, incidentally, to
explain why religious commitment has remained at remarkably high lev-
els in the otherwise deeply rationalized context of American culture.
Blocking of a distinct kind often takes the form of distinguishing core
tenets of an ideology, ones that presumably need to remain constant,
from their practical or ethical applications, that may be regarded as
situationally variable. This distinction gives added flexibility to rational-
ized belief systems by allowing them to be adapted in diverse ways in dif-
ferent environments. Communist ideology in China, for example, for-
mally incorporated a distinction between "theory" (Marxist-Leninist
doctrine) and "thought" (Mao Zedong's more practical interpretations),
enabling the Chinese to develop their own programs even to the extent
of critically distancing themselves from the Soviet Union (Schurmann,
1968). U.S. leaders of the "new religious right" have found it expedient to
separate "morality," which they claim is agreed on by a large majority of
the public, from "religion," which they acknowledge is divided according
to sectarian preferences (Wuthnow, 1983).
If other conditions are constant, extreme fluctuations in the official
reception given a belief system appear to promote this kind of blocking.
Gager's (1975) study of early Christianity, for instance, suggests a close
relation between the variable reception given it by different governor-
ships and the emergence of a sharp distinction between universal mil-
lenarian doctrines and the more temporal apostolic teachings concerned
with establishing Christian communities.
At another level, rational ideological systems appear to be particu-
larly susceptible to processes of internal differentiation in response to
changes in their environment. Such internal differentiation represents a
method of reintegrating elements that have become seemingly incom-

patible by identifying a higher order of generalization to which these ele-
ments can be related. Modern religious systems are often characterized,
as Weber recognized, by a type of rational integration which differs
from that evident in more traditional religions. Specifically, purely sub-
stantive modes of integration that relate religious elements in terms of
logical content (e.g., scholasticism) tend to be replaced by types of inte-
gration that emphasize underlying procedures or techniques. Emphasis
on conscience, methods of biblical criticism, rules of textual hermen-
eutics, and norms of tolerance, therefore, may provide the level at which
otherwise conflicting religious beliefs become integrated.
How cultural systems become internally differentiated has, in fact,
been the subject of much exploration. Several comprehensive schemes
that summarize a complex evolutionary process marked by increasing dif-
ferentiation have been put forth. These schemes need to be understood,
first, as having particular, if not unique, relevance to rational ideological
systems, as opposed to other varieties such as folk religions, which may
be less vulnerable to environmental shocks. Second, the process of inter-
nal differentiation needs to be clearly recognized as a mode of adaptation
to fundamental changes in the social and cultural environment.
One of the most systematic treatments of the process of religious dif-
ferentiation within a broad evolutionary framework remains that of
Bellah (1970:20—50). He distinguishes five stages of religious evolution,
ranging from the relatively undifferentiated to the most highly differenti-
ated: primitive, archaic, historic, early modern, and modern. In the
primitive stage, mythical realities and the actual world remain undiffer-
entiated, whereas in the archaic stage mythical beings begin to be objecti-
fied as distinct gods. This process continues in the historic stage, which
begins to distinguish clearly between the present world and a supernatu-
ral or transcendent reality. The early modern stage (notably Protestant-
ism) breaks out the individual from othef realities, making salvation
more contingent on personal choice. Finally, the modern stage generates
a more "multiplex" version of reality in which multiple realities replace
the dualistic worldview of previous stages. Other aspects of religion,
such as religious action, religious organization, and ethical systems,
show corresponding increases in differentiation. With each successive in-
crease in differentiation, religious systems presumably gain greater ca-
pacities to adapt to complex environments.
Habermas (1979a, 1979b) has taken Bellah's scheme, modified it by
collapsing the early modern into the modern stage, and attempted to
specify some further theoretical distinctions. In Habermas's version, cul-

tural evolution is even more clearly specified in terms of increasing differ-
entiation. At the initial (neolithic) stage, motives and behavioral conse-
quences remain undifferentiated, as do actions and worldviews, human
and divine events, natural and social phenomena, and tradition and
myth. In the next (archaic) stage, greater degrees of differentiation occur
between all these categories, producing a clearer sense of the linearity of
history, providing for calculated action oriented toward the control of
nature, and giving rise to rational law and the state. The third (devel-
oped) stage replaces myth and tradition with unified cosmologies and re-
ligions oriented toward high (monotheistic) gods, includes better defined
moral precepts, and posits universalistic norms and values. The final
(modern) stage is typified by an erosion of confidence in the validity of
these higher order principles, replaces absolute laws with reflective appli-
cations of reason to collective problems, and invokes a greater degree of
self-consciousness about the procedures used to test the validity of state-
ments concerning religion and morality. Habermas's scheme, therefore,
closely links the process of internal differentiation with the rationaliza-
tion of culture. Each successive stage introduces a higher order of ab-
straction, usually focusing increasingly on procedural modes of integra-
tion, that resolves problems at the previous stage. These problems occur
principally as economic and political systems develop to the point of hav-
ing to coordinate activities over larger and more diverse environments.
Bellah's and Habermas's schemes are presented at a sufficiently high
level of generality that their connection with concrete historical events is
not always evident. What they suggest, however, is that the process of
ideological rationalization represents a response to the inherent instabil-
ities of rational belief systems against changes in the social environment.
Evolutionary differentiation appears to be the basic method of gaining
greater stability in more complex environments. But this process is
clearly more applicable to ideological systems characterized by a high de-
gree of rationality than it is to other kinds of ideological systems.
The obverse of the relationship between rationality and heterogene-
ous social environments is, of course, that nonrational ideological sys-
tems are more likely to be evident in relatively narrow social niches in
which resources are homogeneous rather than heterogeneous. What
nonrationality does is to inhibit communication with other environ-
ments, thus in a way protecting local resources from becoming subject
to exploitation in broader environments. It is not uncommon in such
niches, therefore, to find religious expressions such as trance states, emo-
tionalism, glossolalia, and snake handling that seem unintelligible to the

outsider (see Scott, 1977, for examples). These cultural expressions
serve as dramatizations of a particular ideological style, just as other ex-
pressions, such as philosophical discourse, bureaucratic structures, and
formalized creeds, provide public dramatizations of a "rational" style
(cf. Meyer and Rowan, 1977),
AN ANALOGY
Additional clarity on the loregoing can perhaps be gained by consid-
ering briefly the similarity between ideologies and organizations. Orga-
nizations are, as the term implies, patterns of behavior, usually around
some specific task or with sufficiently distinct external boundaries that
one can be distinguished from another. The same is true of ideologies,
except we usually think of ideologies as consisting of patterns of ideas,
even though they could also be seen as consisting of a special type of
behavior, such as utterances, ideologies are simply sets of symbolic or
communicative elements that bear some relation to one another. As the
foregoing has illustrated, these relations can be modeled in quite simple
(formal) terms, just as one might the units of an organization.
Thinking of ideologies in this way is not likely to be appealing to
those who wish to explore the complexity of any specific ideology. The
same is true, again, of organizations. Looking at the broad forms that or-
ganizations could take represented a considerable departure from stud-
ies that focused on the internal dynamics of an organization, that de-
scribed the life of its employees, and that examined its products and
profitability. The shift of perspective nevertheless proved valuable. It
highlighted the fact that no organization was unique, nor did any organi-
zation exist in total isolation. Certain commonalities could be identified
among the organizations in specific societies or industries, and differ-
ences in social structure seemed to affect these commonalities. So it is
with ideologies. What we lose in rich descriptive detail as far as any par-
ticular ideology is concerned is balanced by what we learn about the
similarities and differences among ideological forms in given social envi-
ronments. Seemingly different ideologies—different because of their sub-
stantive content—often turn out to have quite similar forms as a result
of the social environments in which they are nurtured.
A focus on ideological forms does not require the internal structure
of an ideology to be neglected. In fact, this perspective attaches consider-
ably greater importance to this structure than do many of the ap-
proaches that emphasize the interests served or legitimated by an ideol-

ogy. Rather than assuming immediately that an ideology is really about
false assumptions, social class, and so forth, this approach suggests the
importance of seeing how the elements of an ideology are put together.
Even simple variations such as the number of elements and the strength
of their relations with one another may be significant to consider.
Like organizations, ideologies are, finally, assumed in this approach
to depend on social resources from their environments. It may not take
as many resources to maintain an ideology as it does to operate General
Motors or the government of France, but resources are nevertheless re-
quired. Again, this observation can lead to inquiries about how revolu-
tionary leaders, media, cults, and so forth actually muster resources and
translate them into ideologies. Or broader relations between how re-
sources are distributed in different environments and the tendency for
particular ideological forms to be associated with those environments
can be examined. Both are ways of specifying the connections between
ideology and the moral order.
CONCLUSION
It is well to be reminded of the kinds of connections between ideolo-

gies and their social environments that have been suggested. It has em-
phatically not been argued that the structure of ideology simply mirrors
the structure of the social environment (e.g., that diverse environments
produce diverse ideologies or that simple ideologies correspond to sim-
ple environments). Some confusion on this point may be understandable
because some of the literature reviewed in this chapter does in fact sug-
gest such a straightforward connection. The problem with simply posit-
ing a direct correspondence of some kind between ideology and social
structure, however, is that no plausible mechanism is provided to ex-
plain why this correspondence should exist or how it comes into being.
Generally, the only connection specified is one of subjective consistency
between individual experience and individual attitudes. Somehow, we
are asked to assume, individuals shape their beliefs so that these beliefs
reflect the exact shape of the social world. Subjectivism, again, plays the
role of a magical theory in the absence of any testable explanations.
This kind of argument will be considered in greater detail from a critical
standpoint in Chapter 9.
Population ecology models, such as the one employed here, are also
notoriously deficient in being able to describe the actual intervening pro-
cesses that link certain kinds of organisms to their environment. These

models are better at suggesting broad connections between certain kinds
of populations and certain kinds of environment than they are in specify-
ing how a particular population functions in its environment. General
properties of populations such as size and complexity can often be ex-
plained by these models more easily than the traits of a specific organ-
ism or organization. Population ecology models can also involve theo-
retical mystification, just as the subjective approaches that have been
criticized, when vague notions of fitness become an invisible hand guid-
ing the selection process. These limitations notwithstanding, ecology
models nevertheless do contain some useful arguments that go well be-
yond simple notions of correspondence when applied to the relations be-
tween ideology and social environments.
The linkage between ideology and the environment that has been
specified here suggests that social movements typically become the pro-
ducers and disseminators of new ideologies and that ideological move-
ments generally have to compete with one another for scarce resources.
The mechanism by which ideology and social structure are related is
clearly an observable, collective entity, rather than simply the dis-
aggregated, subjective beliefs of individuals. The process of ideological
production and selection, moreover, does not focus on single idiosyn-
cratic cases, but requires attention to be directed to larger fields of com-
peting ideologies and ideological forms. Over a period of time, those
that survive will be the ones that manage successfully to secure re-
sources. There are, of course, many determinants of success in this con-
text, some of which clearly involve social institutions, whose role has
thus far been treated only minimally. In addition to institutional factors,
however, ideologies have also been claimed to serve a symbolic-expres-
sive role; that is, ideologies dramatize (clarify, reinforce, communicate)
the nature of social obligations. Part of what influences their success or
failure, therefore, is their capacity to dramatize social obligations.
It was also suggested that the formal structure of ideologies, particu-
larly the number of elements of which they are composed and the relat-
edness of these elements, makes it more or less likely that an ideology
will be stable over time. Specifically, systems of any kind that have
fewer elements and weaker connections among these elements are, other
things being equal, less susceptible to change as a result of external
shocks than are larger and more highly interconnected systems. The spe-
cific examples considered—folk piety, fundamentalism, individualism,
rationality—were discussed within the framework of these formal vari-
ables in order to make some assertions about their propensities toward

stability or instability. Relatively simple features of social environments
were used to offer some suggestions about the conditions under which
these different ideological structures would be most viable. It was sug-
gested, for example, that folk piety could be perpetuated in quite rapidly
changing environments, especially if the contexts in which it was articu-
lated did not require tight formulations of the interconnections among
its ideological elements. Rationality, in contrast, was seen as a more
tightly integrated kind of discourse that was likely to be required in
highly diverse environments but was subject to instabilities that often
led its elements to become decoupled by being combined with individual-
ism or various blocking techniques.
The connections drawn between ideologies and their environments,
therefore, depend primarily on assumptions about the formal structure
of ideological systems and the capacity of these systems to withstand
changes in the environment, on the one hand, and to facilitate necessary
kinds of communication about social relations, on the other. There is, of
course, never a guarantee that the most effective ideologies will actually
emerge. But because it is assumed both that ideologies have competitors
and that they are relatively flexible, it seems safe to argue that some
form of adaptation between environments and ideologies will emerge
over time.
The next chapter will pursue the relation between environments and
ideological movements somewhat further. Thus far, the relation has fo-
cused heavily on formal characteristics, which can easily become too ab-
stract to be useful in concrete empirical studies. The approach developed
in the next chapter is more contextually situated in relation to specific his-
torical developments. It, too, depends primarily on the dramaturgic ap-
proach to culture and, as such, focuses more on the symbolic-expressive
qualities of ideology than on the direct institutional mechanisms by
which ideologies are produced.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Moral Basis of

Cultural Change
216 The Moral Basis of Cultural Change
one-to-one correspondence between the two that might be taken as a ba-

sis for sociological reductionism. They nevertheless posit a loose rela-
tionship between social environments and cultural patterns; for exam-
ple, traditional ideologies are said to be increasingly difficult to sustain
in the modern environment. Indeed, these theories are not difficult to
reconcile with some of the arguments about the connections among het-
erogeneous environments, individualism, and rationality in Chapter 6.
Yet there is a growing sense of dissatisfaction with evolutionary mod-
els of cultural change. One of their chief limitations is the fact that such
large time periods are lumped together and seen operating according to
a few linear tendencies. Most of these models consider the entire "mod-
ern" period—covering the half-millennium since the fifteenth century—
as a single evolutionary epoch and portray cultural changes simply as
shifts in the direction of greater modernization. They offer little assis-
tance in dealing with shorter term changes or comparing one century
with another. A second limitation is the lack of attention paid by these
theories to concrete mechanisms of cultural change. They seem to as-
sume in principle that change is incremental and relatively uniform
within each cultural epoch, apparently resulting from the aggregate im-
pact of numerous individual changes or minute adjustments in the cul-
ture at large. They do, however, posit profound changes occurring in
the transition from one epoch to another. In practice, they also point to
concrete events (e.g., the Reformation or the Enlightenment) as having
special significance. But no effort is made to account for these events or
to suggest what transpires in the shift from one epoch to the next. A
third, closely related, limitation is the failure of these theories to focus
on specific historical details that would validate or invalidate them. The
models seem to be articles of faith—metatheoretical frameworks—
rather than testable hypotheses. Seldom are detailed historical studies
conducted with an eye toward testing or modifying these theories.
Fourth, only progressive, unidirectional changes are emphasized. The
progressivism of these theories is a value judgment that may or may not
be warranted. Their unidirectionality is more simply an empirical weak-
ness that causes them to concentrate on some kinds of change but to
ignore the many ideological movements that fail and to neglect the im-
portance of counterideologies that arise in opposition to presumably
dominant cultural tendencies. Finally, these theories are limited by their
tendency to be either intrasocietal or asocietal rather than inter- or
transsocietal. That is, culture change is depicted in terms of specific na-
tional cultures, such as the United States or England, or is treated simply
The Moral Basis of Cultural Change 217
as "modern" cuiture—as if there were no important societal distinc-

tions. Seldom has attention been paid to the differing positions of soci-
eties in the larger world order, to the ways in which their interaction af-
fects the domestic moral order, or to transsocietal environments that
may in themselves constitute a type of moral order.
The objective of this chapter is to outline an alternative approach to
the study of cultural change. This alternative posits the importance of
going back to the historical record in order to see how concrete events
influenced the production, selection, and institutionalization of cul-
tural developments. Instead of relying on broad deductive assumptions
about modernization and cultural evolution, we develop a more induc-
tive model based on comparisons of the social trends and ideological
movements characterizing different periods in European history since
the sixteenth century. Drawing on the general arguments put forth in
Chapters 5 and 6 about moral order and social resources, the model
represents an effort to extend these arguments by considering specific
historical developments in the moral order and in ideological move-
ments. To transcend the societal focus of the evolutionary literature,
we borrow from some of the recent globalistic perspectives such as
world-system theory. After considering the assumptions of these per-
spectives, we present a tentative typology of modern ideological move-
ments. This typology affords an occasion for considering some of the
changes in moral 1
order that have resulted in various kinds of ideologi-
cal movements.
THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Globalistic perspectives in the social sciences cast a distinct shadow

across the prevailing paradigm that has guided sociological theorizing
about the dynamics of modern culture. That paradigm of course re-
mains deeply indebted to the classical European trinity (Marx/Weber/
Durkheim), as interpreted by the structural-functional tradition. Among
the widely accepted tenets of this tradition are the ideas that cultural
changes can be understood with reference to a linear evolutionary pro-
gression, that the sources of cultural evolution are located principally in
the internal dynamics of individual societies (e.g., structural differentia-
tion, industrialization, urbanization), and that the overall consequence
of "modernization"—the term most frequently used to summarize these
processes—is a gradual shift in the direction of secularization.
The most direct challenges posed by the globalistic viewpoints are,
first, that societies may not be the only—or even the most natural—
contexts in which to examine cultural developments and that it may be
possible to identify social systems transcending societies. Second, the
new perspectives challenge the temporal assumptions of the traditional
paradigm, suggesting that social processes in the modern period may
be understood better by focusing attention on cycles, phases, periods
of expansion and contraction, and even relatively abrupt or cataclys-
mic transformations.
It seems important to consider seriously whether there is anything in
the emerging global perspectives that can be of use in understanding pat-
terns and changes in culture. This task requires, first of all, a candid as-
sessment of the assumptions required in moving from societal to more
global models of social structure. To make this task more manageable,
attention can be concentrated on four questions: (1) What is the differ-
ence between global models and theories of history? (2) How is it possi-
ble to conceive of models that include cataclysmic social transforma-
tions? (3) Is it legitimate to look for social systems at the global level?
(4) Can a general process of social transformation within such systems
be identified?
MODELS A N D H I S T O R Y
The first question—the difference between global models and theories

of history—arises in the present context because of the shift in spatial
scope from single societies to modernity in general and because of the
tendency in current global perspectives to entertain the possibility of re-
current social cycles. The latter, in particular, brings to mind shades of
Spencerism, Spenglerism, and Toynbeeism and, not surprisingly, sug-
gests that the same historical errors are being committed once again. It be-
comes necessary, therefore, to state much more explicitly than one gener-
ally finds in this literature the delimitations that circumscribe globalistic
models. One of these, most apparent in the work of Immanuel Wal-
lerstein (1974, 1979), but implicit in other discussions as well, is that the
foeus of analysis is uniquely the modern capitalist world-system since
about the sixteenth century. Concepts such as core and periphery, cycles,
and interdependence, though framed as theoretical abstractions, have em
pirical referents only within this context. Thus, although it is tempting to
draw analogies between the modern capitalist system and other times or
places (the Roman empire, Byzantium, the Ming dynasty, the Italian city-
state system), such generalizations may not be warranted because the so-
cial forces associated with capitalism are lacking.
This delimitation greatly restricts the capacity to go beyond historical
description to the development of general theory because there has been
but one case of modern capitalism. Accordingly, we commonly find a
new rapprochement in the world-system literature between social scien-
tists and historians. Comparative societal analyses also remain of value
because a dearth of larger units makes it imperative to compare units
within the capitalist world-system itself in order to understand the struc-
ture of this system.
The second limiting factor differentiating present global models from
theories of history is that these models, however encompassing spatially
and temporally they may appear, are always restricted to a specific, and
often thin, analytic slice of historical reality. One may differentiate the
political dimension of world order—or, by the same token, the cultural
dimension—from much else that goes on either within smaller social
units (nation-states, interest groups, voting districts) or within other di-
mensions of world order (population, trade, migration). Thus, rather
than being a theory of history, a global model is merely an analytic tool
focusing attention on one set of phenomena so that it can be understood
internally or related to other theoretically relevant conditions.
The confusion between global models and theories of history, such as
those of Spencer, Spengler, or Toynbee, arises principally from failure to
make explicit these delimitations, not from any inherent fallacy preclud-
ing analysis at a higher level than that of the society.
DISCONTINUITIES
The second issue—how it is possible to conceive of models that sug-

gest cataclysmic social transformations—occurs in response to the fact
that the emergence of global models has been associated with a strong re-
newal of interest in the idea of cycles, phases, and discontinuous social
patterns of various sorts. These ideas contrast sharply with the linear
evolutionary view that has dominated the social sciences.
The clearest exposition of why these tendencies—globalism and cy-
cles—should have appeared simultaneously comes from Michel Fou-
cault (1972). He observes thai as long as scholars focused on the empiri-
cal events of history themselves, and as long as the objective of historical
scholarship was to organize these events into a coherent framework, the
dominant tendency was to seek to emphasize continuities because the
important fact of history was its progression from point X to point Y.

But once a clear separation of distinct analytic levels of historical reality
had been made, and once attention shifted (as it has, for example, in
Foucault's own work) toward seeking the rules that constitute a system
within each analytic slice, then the important fact of history is that any
such system exists only for a certain time, and over any given period of
time, there are likely to appear at least several such systems having quite
different regulative structures. Hence, the focus of scholarship becomes
that of explaining how one system forms and is then replaced by an-
other; in short, discontinuity supersedes continuity as a problem of epis-
temological importance.
Foucault's point can be illustrated with reference to the concept of
world order. Once analytic distinctions among the concrete events of his-
tory have been put forth such as to make it possible to conceive of some-
thing called world order and to posit that world orders might be exam-
ined to discover the rules lending internal unity to each, the fact that
there have been quite different world orders (empires, mercantilist state
systems, free trade economies, detente) becomes paramount. Within this
dimension of reality, a theory emphasizing discontinuity becomes en-
tirely plausible.
LARGER SYSTEMS
if Foucault's argument is accepted as one justification for the current

interest in global historical discontinuities, the question of whether it is
legitimate to look for unities or systems, such as Foucault describes, on
a level that transcends society nevertheless remains (the third question
mentioned earlier). Foucault himself argues, much as Wallerstein has in
the more immediate context, not only that it is legitimate to look for
such systems, but also that a devoted effort should be made to identify
the larger but less obvious unities within social reality, rather than rely-
ing on surface distinctions that social actors themselves may employ.
Still, there are sufficient pitfalls in applying systems analysis to the
study of social life that it is imperative to tread carefully in pursuing this
path. Above all, it must be clearly acknowledged that a system is not
something discovered from examining reality. It is a construct imposed
on reality by the observer. The appropriateness of the construct is not to
be judged in terms of how obvious it may be from observing empirical
events, but in terms of how useful it is for understanding certain aspects
of these events. Again, we are in the realm of interpretive sociology, not

positivistic science.
World order is a "system" not because there is integration at the
world level of the same kind that may be expected within national soci-
eties, but because certain useful understandings emerge from taking a
more totalistic view of world events (i.e., not as disparate, unrelated phe-
nomena). It has proven useful, for example, even in empirical studies
concerned with developments within individual societies (such as eco-
nomic growth, income inequality, and educational development) to con-
sider the position of these societies in a larger matrix of trade and diplo-
macy, rather than focusing only on properties internal to the societies
themselves (e.g., Chase-Dunn, 1975; Rubinson, 1976).
The fallacy of equating consistency with systems must be avoided as
well. In the strict sense of the term, a system implies only relationships,
even relationships consisting of nothing more than spatial or temporal
copresence. The term does not imply consistency or integration among
these elements. To cite Foucault again, there is a "dispersion of ele-
ments" for which one wishes to discover the rules that allow their simul-
taneous presence. In treating widely scattered events within the world
community, this is clearly the connotation that needs to be kept in mind.
T R A N S I T I O N A L TYPES
Finally, the question arises: can a general process of social transfor-

mation within a global system be identified? The remarks thus far show
that the transition from one system to another at the global level has
high priority as a problem for investigation. For the study of cultural
change, this is also the point at which analysis is likely to be most pro-
ductive. Yet this task will prove elusive if it is assumed simply that crises
and transformations are interstices—periods betwixt and between sta-
ble world orders. The key to examining the transition from one form of
world order to another (such as empire to mercantilism) is to recognize
that systems need not be limited to equilibrium states, but that dynam
systems can be conceptualized, having as their main characteristic the
very presence of change, even crisis.
A variety of alternative models of social change meeting these general
requirements might be put forth (e.g., models concerned with the rise
and decline of hegemonic states, with the expansion and contraction of
colonial powers, or with the cyclic character of economic upswings and
downswings). For present purposes, considering the following as distin-

guishable types of dynamic world systems seems useful: first, expan-
sionary systems, characterized by overall growth in population, territory,
physical resources, or technology contained within an exchange network
of the kind that Wallerstein has taken to be the defining element for mem-
bership in the capitalist world economy; second, polarized systems, in
which overt conflict is present between periphery (dependent) areas and
core (dominant) areas of the capitalist world economy; and third, sys-
tems in the process of reintegration, characterized by conflict among inter-
est groups in core areas, particularly between interest groups whose for-
tunes have risen in conjunction with emerging patterns of new world
order and interest groups whose fortunes have been tied closely to previ-
ous patterns of world order and are therefore declining. These systems
are obviously distinguished in a way that again emphasizes the availabil-
ity, distribution, and stability of social resources and, as will become evi-
dent, the structure of moral obligations.
Each type of system can be illustrated with reference to distinct histori-
cal periods, although there is much disagreement about the exact limits of
these periods. Wallerstein's work on the sixteenth century is compatible
with more standard historical treatments of the period (e.g., Wilson,
1976) in identifying the late fifteenth century and early decades of the six-
teenth century as an expansionary system, principally because of the
extension of the Hapsburg military domination over new territories, ris-
ing population, and growing regional interdependence in the grain, lum-
ber, shipping, and woolens industries; the second half of the sixteenth cen-
tury represents a period of polarization, marked by wars against the
Hapsburg dynasty; and the early to middle seventeenth century serves as
an example of reintegration with the emergence of mercantilist-centered
interest groups in England, France, and the Netherlands. The transition
from mercantilism in the seventeenth century to free-market capitalism in
the nineteenth century also provides examples of these intermediate sys-
tems, although the concrete events constituting each period were quite
variable. The first wave of colonial expansion provides the clearest in-
stance of an expansionary system during these two centuries. Then a po-
larized system can be identified in the last quarter of the eighteenth cen-
tury, during which the main colonial wars of independence occurred.
And, as Michael Kammen's (1970) informative study of interest groups
in Britain during the early part of the nineteenth century suggests, this pe-
riod, fraught with conflict between free-trade and mercantilist interests,
provides an instance of a system undergoing reintegration. Finally, the pe-
riod encompassed by the free-market system, which existed largely under

the tutelage of the pax Britannica from the second half of the nineteenth
century to the middle of the twentieth century, also provides examples of
each of these transitional systems. Polanyi (1944), Wallerstein (1979),
Kuznets (1966), and others manifest close agreement in identifying trade
and colonial patterns during the last quarter of the nineteenth century as
an example of an expansionary world order, the period encompassed by
the two world wars as an example of a polarized world order, and the pe-
riod since 1945 as an example of a system undergoing reintegration. Stu-
dents of post—World War II international relations differ in the extent to
which they emphasize U.S. hegemony as a stabilized world order, but the
instability in economic and diplomatic relations that has characterized
much of this period argues for treating it as a system still in the throes of re-
integration, marked by a juxtaposition of interests rooted principally in
prewar free-trade patterns to a new set of interests oriented more toward
a controlled balance of power.
SOME GENERAL PATTERNS: OVERVIEW

With this preliminary framework in place, and with the help of the
brief historical examples just mentioned, attention can now be directed
to sketching some of the broad cultural developments that can be identi-
fied as correlates of expansionary, polarized, and reintegrating patterns
of world order within the capitalist world economy. In the following sec-
tion the specific types of ideological movements associated with these
various patterns will be discussed in greater detail. The present section
will concentrate primarily on an overview sketch of the relevance of
world-level factors for understanding cultural movements
L and on some
of the consequences of these movements for the subsequent structuring
of moral order at the world-system level.
THE ROLE OF E X P A N S I O N
Rapidly expanding world-systems, such as the early sixteenth-century

Hapsburg empire, the early eighteenth-century mercantile state system,
and the late nineteenth-century British free-trade system, have been char-
acterized by frequent and widespread ideological turmoil, especially in
newly annexed peripheral areas. The intrusion of external social forces
appears to be most disruptive of established moral communities in these
areas. Particularly among affected subsistence-level communities, this tur-
moil takes the form of revitalization movements, and, although there are
many local variants of these movements, their connection with the expan-
sion of the larger world economy is sufficiently straightforward that most
studies have acknowledged the importance of extrasocietal forces.
At the most general level, these movements appear to emerge in re-
sponse to a disruption of traditional moral obligations between the
lower strata and upper strata on whom they have depended for protec-
tion, either economically or militarily. With the expansion of core politi-
cal and economic forces into peripheral areas, local elites acquire new
economic opportunities or, alternatively, may be exposed to an imposi-
tion of new economic demands, either of which changes their interest in,
or capacity to fulfill, traditional moral obligations to subject popula-
tions. As the local moral economy is disrupted, revitalization move-
ments develop among the lower strata, taking different forms depending
on how their members have been incorporated into larger economic and
political structures. But these movements share beliefs that, among
other things, help to restore a sense of moral economy (e.g., the commu-
nitarianism of millenarian movements, hopes in cargo cults for divine
intervention, and so forth). Again, in keeping with the arguments devel-
oped in Chapter 5, the disruption of social relations, rather than subjec-
tive feelings of deprivation, provides moments of opportunity in which
these movements, as ideological reconstructions of the moral order, can
arise.
In addition to revitalization movements, the long-term fortunes of
which are linked closely to the positions that the lower strata come to oc-
cupy in the world economy, there has been a tendency for expansionary
world-systems to generate sweeping ideological reform movements hav-
ing much wider social consequences (e.g., the Protestant Reformation in
the sixteenth century, certain aspects of the Enlightenment in the eigh-
teenth century, and Marxist socialism in the nineteenth century). These
ideological revolutions find carriers among elites in peripheral areas and
sometimes in core areas as well—the landed aristocracy, city magis-
trates, and merchants—who have gained greater opportunities to dis-
avow traditional obligations to the lower strata and who can be united
in their opposition to the expanding power of the ruling class in the core
of the world-system. Although much depends on specific circumstances
governing the relations among local elites, mass populations, and repre-
sentatives of external forces, the success of ideological revolutions (in
comparison with that of most revitalization movements) can be traced
to the greater social resources of their carriers, especially access to the re-
sources of central, territorial, or municipal regimes; to the rising influ-

ence of these elites within larger networks of regional or global trade,
thereby giving them a resource base not controlled by segments of the
elite with close ties to established modes of cultural production; to their
exposure to cosmopolitan communication channels that provide means
of developing common ideas and values; and to the unifying effect of
their common opposition to the values and institutions that legitimate
core domination.
Most of these assertions can be supported with evidence from conven-
tional historical accounts of revitalization movements and ideological
revolutions, and, though framed differently, the present account does
not contradict the main observations of these studies. Still, the more
global perspective appears to provide some additional mileage. Revital-
ization movements have flourished more widely in some periods than in
others. Linking them to waves of expansion and contraction in the
world economy helps account for these variations. This perspective also
highlights the external forces disrupting moral obligations between lo-
cal elites and mass populations, underscores the reciprocal relations ex-
isting between the kinds of movements that develop among each, and
helps account for the transsocietal diffusion of ideological revolutions.
Arguments concerning the costs of taking a global perspective, as op-
posed to focusing on domestic societal structures, can also be put forth.
Thus, some justification must be found for suggesting a leap to this
broader level of analysis. The more provocative question this perspec-
tive raises concerns the relation between an expansionary infrastructure
at the world level and the larger world culture that develops as a result
of ideological movements during such periods. Addressing this question
requires a conscious shift in perspective away from examining compo-
nent parts of world order (such as the presence or absence of local move-
ments) toward considering the structure of world order as a social unit
in itself (i.e., in much the same manner as required when shifting from in-
dividual-level analysis to that of examining societies as social facts in
their own right).
Making this shift in the present context generates an insight that di-
rectly contradicts an argument of the conventional modernization frame-
work, namely, that the cultural effect of modernization, at least in the
relative near term, is to act as a so-called universal solvent, producing
cultural convergence. Rather, the expansion of core economic and politi-
cal influence promotes cultural heterogeneity. Incorporating peripheral
areas into the world-system does more than erode traditional cultures; it
promotes new cultural forms (revitalization movements and ideological

revolutions) that differ both from tradition and from the culture of core
areas. We can, therefore, reconcile the fact of economic modernization
with the obvious persistence of local and regional cultural differences,
for they are elements of a common process.
Further, a more highly diverse cultural pattern at the global level may
also be conducive to further material expansion. The relevant compari-
son here is between a monolithic but highly general cultural pattern, on
the one hand, and a more pluralistic pattern, on the other hand, consist-
ing of loose integrating assumptions (as present in the West since the Mid-
dle Ages) coupled with a much more diversified array of specialized, local
cultural communities. The second pattern not only is more adaptable to
a broad variety of local conditions than the first, but it also decreases the
administrative burden required to maintain cultural cohesion (a burden,
for example, that weighed heavily on the Hapsburg empire). The second
pattern encourages the development of middle-range, semiautonomous
power centers in peripheral regions and, in the case of ideological revolu-
tions, provides a new basis for the integration of peripheral regions—or
new centers of power in core areas—one with another. In other words,
what may appear at one level as highly local, reactive ideological move-
ments may at a more general level constitute a cultural pattern well suited
to further expansion of the world-system. At the same time, this argu-
ment needs to be limited to the near term because the cultural patterns
that form in conjunction with rapidly expanding world-systems 2
also pro-
vide the groundwork for subsequent polarities in world order.
EFFECTS OF P O L A R I Z A T I O N
World-systems characterized by polarization (such as the war be-

tween Spain and the Netherlands in the second half of the sixteenth cen-
tury, the era of colonial wars of independence in the late eighteenth cen-
tury, and the period of decolonization in the Third World that coincided
roughly with World Wars I and II) also provide a climate conducive to
ideological turmoil, but of a different variety. Although there is conflict
between core areas and periphery areas seeking to gain greater auton-
omy, this conflict must be seen in the full context of economic stagna-
tion at the world level and conflict among core countries (especially in
the absence of clear hegemony by any single country)—conflict precipi-
tated by declining economic growth and, in turn, consuming the re-
sources of core areas sufficiently that they attempt to impose greater re-
strictions on peripheral areas at the very time when they are less capable
of enforcing these controls. The net result is greater incentive and oppor-
tunity for periphery areas to seek political and economic independence.
In each of the three periods that provide clear examples of this pattern
of world order, the most striking ideological developments were, first,
militant movements in the periphery that drew on and extended the
ideas of earlier ideological reformers to legitimate the use of force
against core powers and to promote solidarity among the groups in-
volved and, second, a strong reactive or "counterreform" movement
aimed at buttressing the corporate identity of core areas, especially with
respect to their own populations. The simultaneous presence of Calvin-
ist militancy and the Tridentine counterreformation, of Jacobin mili-
tants and Gallicanism, and of Bolshevism and nationalism can be cited
as examples. What is obvious about these two kinds of movements,
apart from the differences that can be accounted for by their differential
locations in core and periphery areas, is that both are efforts to reinte-
grate institutions previously differentiated, particularly religious and po-
litical institutions. Moreover, both stress collective loyalties to a greater
extent and on a more encompassing scale than is true of movements in
less polarized settings.
The international political context of these movements provides in-
sights into their character and development. Again, however, the world-
system perspective is probably less useful for what it reveals about the
origins of specific movements than for the questions it raises about the
structure of world order itself. At this level, militant movements and
countermovements constitute a highly corporate world order divided
along deep ideological boundaries. Although there remain overarching
rules governing the conflicts present, the main foci of loyalties are par-
ticular ideological blocks in the world-system. Considerable effort is ex-
pended to maintain these ideological divisions, which, in turn, have im-
portant consequences for the further development of the global system.
First, in the face of global economic contraction, sharp ideological
boundaries assist in reducing economic interdependence, in checking the
extension of an international economic division of labor, and in promot-
ing the utilization of resources that had been marginal under conditions
of full international competition. Second, collective ideological loyalties
provide a basis for reinstituting the moral obligations between upper
strata and lower strata that were disrupted by economic expansion and
previous ideological movements. Among the results is a greater availabil-
ity of resources for collective purposes despite economic contraction (i.e.,
extractive power). Finally, and perhaps most important, the division of

world order into largely autonomous ideological zones promotes the full
institutionalization of alternative social and political patterns within
each of these zones, a process that appears to be crucial in determining the
role that these different zones come to occupy in subsequent stages of
world economic development.
To the extent that core areas are competitively weakened by the ad-
ministrative costs of waging counterinsurgency wars, for example, or by
fixed costs associated with maintaining the position of traditional inter-
est groups, the presence of a strong counterreform ideology may ease
the economic decline of these areas by legitimating the importance of tra-
ditional ways of life. By contrast, ideological divisions at the world level
appear to be particularly conducive to the development of those periph-
ery areas that gain independence from the core relatively early in com-
parison with other dependent regions (e.g., the United States early dur-
ing the demise of the mercantilist system, and the Soviet Union as the
free-trade system began to decline). These areas provide relatively pro-
tected pockets of social innovation and frequently play leading roles in
the formation of new global patterns. This, then, brings us to systems un-
dergoing reintegration.
REINTEGRATION
The term "reintegration" is used to characterize a world-system that

has recently passed through a time of polarization and contraction, to
the point that the rules on which world order was formerly based no
longer function effectively, and in their place a new set of rules is begin-
ning to emerge. The period since 1945 can be taken as an example of re-
integration, especially in view of Karl Polanyi's (1944) useful discussion
of the erosion prior to this period of the institutions on which the nine-
teenth-century system of free trade had been established and more re-
cent analyses of the ad hoc economic policies that have been tried in the
absence of these institutions (e.g., Block, 1977). The corresponding tran-
sition from mercantilism to free trade occurred primarily in the 1830s
and 1840s and the transition from the Hapsburg empire to the mercan-
tile system, in the period (roughly from 1618 to 1660) that has been
termed "the general crisis" of the seventeenth century.
Because of the tremendous variation in social patterns in periphery ar-
eas during these periods—partly a function of different degrees of inde-
pendence from the core and partly because of different- rates of eco-
nomic and political development—attention is perhaps best restricted to

core areas during periods of reintegration, at least in this kind of initial
formulation. The most striking aspect of these periods in core areas is
the degree of domestic social tension between interest groups linked to
previous institutions of world order and interest groups with power that
has risen more recently because of the emergence of new institutions of
world order (e.g., between "court" and "country" in the transition to
mercantilism or currently between advocates of free trade and the so-
called new class of technicians, state planners, and policy officials). This
tension, coupled with international economic and political instability,
generates a succession of political realignments within core countries, a
reshuffling of the power and membership of interest groups, and not in-
frequently, civil wars or domestic violence on a smaller scale.
These instabilities are also felt at the level of ideology. Movements of
accommodation (such as mergers), shifts in the direction of mainstream
values, or movements aimed at improving public welfare develop among
groups whose influence is rising as a result of emerging patterns of world
order; sectarianism occurs among groups whose fortunes are declining,
often taking the form of splinter groups that break away from other orga-
nizations undergoing accommodation. These developments, for exam-
ple, have been described in the "church-sect" literature and have been il-
lustrated by recent religious and political movements in the United States.
The value of examining them in the context of world order is, first, that
what may appear superficially as a bewildering array of interest groups
and alliances can often be sorted into meaningful patterns once their struc-
tural position
3
in relation to international political and economic forces is
recognized. Second, historical comparisons can be selected on a more sys-
tematic basis (e.g., strong similarities would be expected between the
overall pattern of movements in the 1960s and the 1830s, but not be-
tween these patterns and those giving rise to the Reformation).
Once again, questions can also be raised about the relevance of these
ideological patterns to the structuring of world order itself. If a metaphor
can be used, it is as though ideological communities provide lubrication
during the process of shifting gears—that is, the process of rearranging in-
terest groups—to form a new world order. For some groups, ideological
communities provide moral capital sustaining them in the face of declin-
ing influence; for others, ideology provides linkages with other groups
and with larger national purposes; and for still others, ideology rescues
them from being entirely displaced during the transition. The result
(greatly simplified) is the construction of a stabilized world order in
which dominant institutions (multinational corporations, cartels, inter-

national standards of human rights, technology transfer mechanisms,
etc.) enjoy the support of legitimating moral communities, while less ad-
vantaged groups also retain a place in the moral universe.
This is a simplification because the social unrest associated with peri-
ods of reintegration also provides fertile ground for seeds of social criti-
cism to be sown—certainly more fertile than that provided by a more
stable world order. For example, the seeds of the Enlightenment began
to germinate in the formative years of mercantilism, just as Marx began
to formulate his vision of communist revolution in the era of nascent
free trade.
VARIETIES OF IDEOLOGICAL MOVEMENTS

With these preliminary considerations in place, greater attention can
now be devoted to describing the specific kinds of ideological movements
that appear under different conditions in the broader world order. It has
been suggested that movements are likely to differ, depending on whether
the broader world order is primarily characterized by expansion, polar-
ization, or reintegration. It has also been suggested that these periods cor-
respond roughly to phases in the overall development of different pat-
terns of world order, at least in the expanding capitalist world economy
that has characterized first Western Europe and then increasing shares of
the globe since the sixteenth century. Many different depictions of this
process have been advanced, the differences depending mostly on which4
aspect of development and what time frames were being emphasized.
There is much agreement about general patterns, however, in discussions
that have been concerned with shifts in the overall patterns of capitalist
world order as evidenced not only in sheer growth or decline but also in
the dominant kinds of institutions and institutional arrangements govern-
ing the distribution and exchange of resources on an international scale.
These discussions emphasize mercantilism as one dominant period in the
development of Western capitalism, free trade as another. Both are con-
trasted with the imperial, aristocratic, or feudal system that characterized
the late Middle Ages and continued to subordinate much of Europe in the
sixteenth century under the Hapsburgs. Both are also contrasted with the
present form of world order in which a high degree of planned state inter-
vention has come to alter the earlier terms of free trade. What must be un-
derstood in attempting to relate these forms of world order to the develop-
ment of ideological movements is that none of these forms represented a
stable system that characterized a long period of modern history. In pur-

est form each was relatively short-lived (mercantilism reaching its fullest
expression only during the latter half of the seventeenth century and free
trade occupying a relatively brief period during the 1860s and 1870s). It
is for this reason that attention has been devoted mainly to identifying ma-
jor phases in the transition from one system to another (hence, the phases
of rapid expansion, polarization, and reintegration). These phases, al-
though in some ways analytic abstractions, may correspond roughly to ac-
tual historical periods in the development of the capitalist world-system.
During the long transition from the Hapsburg imperial system to the
mercantilist system, the expansionary phase was most closely associated
with the first half of the sixteenth century, the period of polarization
with the second half of the sixteenth century, and the reintegration
phase with the first half of the seventeenth century. After a period of
relative stability under the mercantilist system in the second half of the
seventeenth century, another long transition can be seen, culminating in
the free-trade system of the nineteenth century. This transition was
marked roughly by a period of expansion lasting during most of the first
three-quarters of the eighteenth century, a period of polarization that
dominated international relations from about 1776 until 1815, and
then a reintegration phase that lasted until about 1860. In the develop-
ment of the world-system from the beginning of the free-trade era until
the present, the period from about 1870 until 1914 is characterized
mainly by expansion; from 1914 to 1945, by polarization; and the pe-
riod since 1945, by reintegration. This of course is an extremely general
periodization that must be understood in the rather specific context for
which it is intended and needs to be qualified in examining the develop-
ment of any specific society because not all societies developed at 5the
same rate or experienced each transitional phase to the same degree. It
nevertheless provides a framework that highlights some of the condi-
tions in the broader resource environment that were likely to have influ-
enced the pattern of ideological movements in each period.
The kinds of ideological activity generated in each period also differ,
it appears, depending on whether that activity occurs among groups
whose relation to power is rising or among groups whose relation to
power is declining (cf. Tilly, 1969). In expansionary periods the main
groups whose power increases include new political and economic cad-
res in periphery areas, and the main groups whose power decreases are
members of the lower strata 6 in periphery areas who lose traditional
rights vis-a-vis these cadres. In periods of polarization, representatives
of the rising periphery areas that are struggling to secure independence

from the dominant core have tended to gain power, whereas representa-
tives of the core have typically lost power relative to these rising areas in
the periphery. In periods of reintegration, strata associated with emer-
gent patterns of international exchange within each society have been
most likely to gain power, and strata associated with decaying patterns
of international exchange have been likely to lose power. These periods,
of course, are characterized by considerable back-and-forth movement
in the position of interest groups, often over a period of several decades.
It is therefore important to examine the power of specific groups in rela-
tion to their position in the broader world order, rather than allowing
purely domestic or short-term considerations (e.g., profit margins or
electoral counts) to be the decisive factor.
The perspective afforded by regarding the context of ideological
movements as world order, rather than single societies, makes it possi-
ble to identify commonalities among movements that have sometimes
been overlooked and to suggest some of the ways in which resources
and moral obligations at the international level may affect these move-
ments. A population's place in the larger world order is likely to influ-
ence how it defines its major problems—how it defines its moral obliga-
tions to other actors locally or internationally—and therefore to affect
the form or content of its ideological movements. Some of these influ-
ences may be quite explicit and direct, such as those affecting the ideol-
ogy of an anticommunist movement in the contemporary United States.
Others may be mediated through more localized networks of moral obli-
gation—for example, the ideology of a prayer group that responds most
directly to decisions made by a religious hierarchy or to changes in the
occupational status of its members, both of which are in turn subject
to influences from the broader economic or political condition of the
world-system. These movements, in turn, ultimately have some effect,
directly or indirectly, on the development of the world-system. Again,
their survival is likely to depend on the availability of resources to spe-
cific movements and on the degree to which specific ideological forms
are selected for or selected against by the pattern of environmental re-
sources. Thus, any specific sector of the core or periphery of the world-
system will differ from others in its propensity to sponsor ideological
movements. The wider perspective affords a context that sets broad pa-
rameters on these more immediate propensities. As the foregoing discus-
sion has suggested, ideological movements of the following kinds seem
distinguishable in terms of this framework: revitalization movements,
ideological revolutions, militant ideologies, counterreform movements,

ideological accommodation, and sectarianism. A brief consideration of
each is now in order.
REVITALIZATION
The term "revitalization" is Anthony Wallace's (1956). Here, how-

ever, it seems better to give it a restricted meaning that is both more in
keeping with the movements with which Wallace was most concerned
and more useful for discriminating among kinds of movements. Revital-
ization movements are attempts involving some form of religious, quasi-
religious, or political ideology to collectively restore or reconstruct pat-
terns of moral order that have been radically disrupted or threatened.
The main varieties of revitalization movements include (1) nativistic
movements, which attempt to purify their members from the influences
of alien persons or customs; (2) revivalistic movements, which attempt to
rediscover simple or natural styles of life perceived as being threatened
by modern culture; (3) cargo cults, which attempt to import advantages
supposedly available from alien persons or ideologies; (4) millenarian
movements, which attempt to prepare their members for the coming of
an apocalyptic world transformation; and (5) messianic movements,
which attempt to prepare for the coming of a divine savior. Periods of re-
vitalization may combine a number of these kinds of movements.
Conventional accounts of revitalization movements have generally em-
phasized social disruption as their source. But not all sorts of disruption
seem to produce revitalization movements. Natural disasters often dis-
place entire communities but have seldom been the source of revitaliza-
tion movements. Wars produce disruption, too, but usually without revi-
talization movements arising. During World War II, much of Europe fell
victim to extreme devastation, but largely without such movements devel-
oping. The kind of disruption that has most often resulted in revitaliza-
tion movements has come from contact between traditional populations
and a dominant cultural system (cf. Worsley, 1968). This kind of contact
also varies, both in the type of disruption produced and in its tendency to
evoke ideological movements. Occasionally such contact is disruptive in
a very radical or physical sense: forced migration, resettlement, violent
conquest. These kinds of disruptions, despite their severity for the vic-
tims, usually have not resulted in revitalization movements, however.
The reason seems to be that they either decimate the population or im-
pose a totally new form of social organization on it (e.g., see Wolf,

1959:176—201). Thus, a special type of disruption is most conducive of
revitalization movements. As argued in discussing the production of new
ideology more generally, disruption has to create new uncertainties in the
moral order. In the case of revitalization movements, this uncertainty
seems to arise mostly from social changes that create cleavages between
local elites and the broader mass of the population.
Cleavages of this sort have occurred on the widest scale during periods
of rapid expansion in the capitalist world-system. As trade flourishes and
new markets become integrated into the world-economy, local elites who
have previously depended on local economies participate in the benefits
of broader markets. Their new prosperity gives them greater power vis-a-
vis subject populations, whose traditional rights can now be restricted or
neglected entirely. In other instances, the process may be more complex.
Rather than there being simply elites and subjects, lesser elites often pro-
vide the key in maintaining the balance between upper elites and subjects.
But broader economic expansion may seriously undercut the position of
these lesser elites. Upper elites gain the resources to "buy out" these elites,
to pass laws that weaken their position, or simply cease to provide the
higher sponsorship on which these elites depend. As a result, subject popu-
lations may come under increasing degrees of exploitation or find them-
selves in direct competition with lesser elites who have now entered their
own ranks. In still other cases, cleavage between local elites and subject
populations results from an increasing degree of specialization in the lo-
cal economy, often as a result of the increased profitability of a single
export commodity. Elites in this expanding sector of the economy are
likely to gain political and economic power, even to the point of becom-
ing absentee owners who pay little attention to their lower status depen-
dents; elites in other sectors are likely to be driven into desperate eco-
nomic circumstances, sometimes to the extent that they may become
involved in the same type of movements that appeal to the lower strata.
Cleavage between local elites and subject populations, whatever specific
form it takes, is likely to be not only economically disadvantageous to
the lower strata but also disorganizing as far as the moral order is con-
cerned, for local elites in these settings have typically been the main
source of social welfare and have enforced the customs and regulations
that affect daily life. Revitalization movements provide symbols that
transcend immediate deprivations and inspire new modes of structuring
the moral order. As observed in discussing millenarianism, these move-
ments generally attract relatively small proportions of the broader popu-
lation that is faced with a disturbance of moral obligations. Other fac-

tors—available leadership, kin networks, the stability of local communi-
ties, the capacity of religious or political organizations to fill the gap—
all influence the likelihood of revitalization movements occurring. But
for those who become involved, these movements reconstruct some of
the moral bonds that have been shattered, often by imposing tight
communitarian discipline on the collectivity.
The conditions giving rise to revitalization movements are clearly il-
lustrated in the origins of the Anabaptist movements of the early six-
teenth century. These movements developed during a period of rapid ex-
pansion in trade, population, prices, political hegemony, and capitalist
agriculture throughout Europe, but especially in central Europe, where
Anabaptism had its origins and greatest successes. This expansion
brought to the territorial landlords and city magistrates of the German
states, Swiss cantons, and Hapsburg sections of Austria and Hungary
new opportunities for production and exchange beyond the local mar-
ket and permitted or encouraged the erosion of traditional seigneurial
obligations. The sale or division of common lands, the replacement of
land tenure with contractual obligations, and the centralization of judi-
cial functions resulted from this growth. In the wake of these infringe-
ments of traditional peasant rights under the "old common law," the
Anabaptist movements occurred first and most extensively among those
peasants who had enjoyed the greatest prosperity and freedom under
these customs and who 7 therefore were most disinherited by their ero-
sion (Williams, 1962).
Similar effects are again apparent in the early eighteenth century dur-
ing the commercial and colonial expansion of the mercantilist system
(e.g., in the early Methodist movement among the miners at Bristol, in the
religious awakening among the urban poor in Scotland, and in the vari-
ous prophet cults among the Indians of North America). The same effects
are also evident during the early years of the twentieth century in areas
newly incorporated into the free-trade system (e.g., the Watchtower
movement in South Africa, the widespread influence of Pentecostalism
among the Toba Indians in northern Argentina, the spiritualist move-
ment in Singapore, and the cargo cults in Melanesia [Wilson, 1973]). In
all these cases the communal form of tribal, peasant, or village life pro-
vided the initial basis from which new movements could be mobilized.
The hierarchical patronage system on which communal bonds had de-
pended was disrupted by an intrusion of the broader—in many cases, ac-
tually foreign—world-system. This disruption generally took the form of
a horizontal cleavage between a significant segment of the local elite

strata and the lower strata of the community. What was left among the
lower strata was then reorganized into a new moral community by the ide-
ology of revitalization. In a few cases violent opposition to the alien cul-
ture erupted, but revitalization seldom took a militant form. Rather than
launching political attacks or attempting to overthrow established cul-
tural institutions, most of these movements focused on reorganizing the
lives of their members. Far from representing a mere nostalgic or escapist
form of ideology, they offered members tangible goals to strive for, reaf-
firmed individual discipline, created new moral obligations, and made
provisions for personal care and social welfare.
The distinctive diversity of revitalization movements is a function,
first, of the fact that these movements are aimed at restoring disparate lo-
cal customs in the face of an expanding world economy and, second, of
the different forms in which this expansion becomes manifest. For exam-
ple, revivalistic movements that stress individual salvation and piety,
such as early Methodism, have been more common where individuals
have been displaced from traditional groups and incorporated sepa-
rately into new economic contexts. In contrast, cargo cults and na-
tivistic movements have been more likely where whole groups8 have been
collectively displaced, as among the North American Indians.
The evolution of revitalization movements has also varied with the
kind of expansion experienced. Where commercial expansion has been
accompanied by settlement colonies, revitalization movements have
tended to be short-lived because of the reorganization or extinction of
native populations. Where expansion has occurred through the incorpo-
ration of domestic lower classes into new occupational roles, these
movements have generally evolved into established religious organiza-
tions, as in the evolution of Methodism in England. Revitalization move-
ments have persisted as such on the widest scale among populations ex-
posed to the dominant world order but not fully incorporated into its
rights or style of life, as evidenced by the continued spread of these
movements in the Third World.
One implication of these last considerations that bears comment in
passing is that the usual trajectory from sect to church or from cult to
church that has been inspired by the history of revitalization movements
in Europe and North America may be misleading in many other con-
texts. The successful transformation of a small revitalization movement
like early Methodism into an established church depended to a large ex-
tent on the high degree of economic expansion and social integration of
the working class in the British context. In other cases this expansion
and incorporation have been less successful. For example, the refeu-
dalization of eastern Europe during the latter half of the sixteenth cen-
tury and the seventeenth century left many of the smaller Anabaptist
groups that had settled there in a state of permanent serfdom. Not until
some of these groups migrated to the United States in the nineteenth cen-
tury did their social position and religious outlook9 change significantly,
and even then the die had been cast in many cases.
IDEOLOGICAL REVOLUTIONS
Ideological revolutions occur under conditions broadly similar to

those in which revitalization movements develop, but they differ in both
their content and location relative to centers of power. In the modern pe-
riod three such movements or clusters of movements appear unquestion-
ably to qualify as ideological revolutions: the Protestant Reformation in
the sixteenth century, the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century, and
the growth of Marxist socialism in the nineteenth century. Each of these
movements was "revolutionary" in the sense of successfully institution-
alizing a whole set of assumptions that differed radically from previ-
ously accepted definitions of reality. Rather than simply restoring a con-
ception of moral community, they radically challenged the prevailing
cultural order, primarily with words, however, rather than with force,
and succeeded in becoming the official ideologies of whole territories in
the world-system. Of the various kinds of ideological movements, these
are the most distinctively international in scope and clearly require a
transsocietal perspective in order to understand their social origins.
Ideological revolutions have been carried out by elites with rising de-
grees of power and autonomy, often in areas that were previously pe-
ripheral to the core of the world order, during periods of rapid expan-
sion in the world-system. Overall economic expansion incorporates
these elites into wider markets and, as previously suggested, increases
their freedom relative to subject populations. As rising elites, these
groups often gain new access to the state as well, thereby securing a pow-
erful resource for institutionalizing their ideologies. Other states that re-
main dependent on interest groups whose resources are not expanding
or whose moral obligations draw legitimacy from established cultural in-
stitutions simply have fewer opportunities to take the vanguard role in
pursuing new ideologies. In the extreme, economic and political expan-
sion may also create greater administrative burdens for core areas than
for periphery areas, significantly increasing the competitive advantages

of rising elites in relation to the core. The correlative shift in the distribu-
tion of world power has afforded opportunities for the growth of new
ideas, especially ones that challenge the hegemony of the core—or the
hegemony of older status groups in the core—and legitimate the rising
status of new elites whose resources are linked to the expanding world
economy.
The Protestant Reformation occurred in the context of rapid popula-
tion growth, a long-term rise in grain prices, great expansion in the vol-
ume and circulation of money because of the importation of American
bullion, naval and military innovations, and an intensification and broad-
ening of trade. This expansion greatly benefited the German and Swiss
city magistrates, Dutch and English merchants, and many of the mon-
archs and territorial princes in northern Europe, all of whom prospered
from the expanding trade between the Baltic and the Mediterranean,
through the Rhineland corridor, along the Atlantic coast, and through
the Danish Sound. It was among these previously peripheral cadres,
long secondary to the economic powers of the Mediterranean princes
and the political strength of the Spanish Hapsburgs, that the Reforma-
tion first became institutionalized. The reformers' attacks against the
church implicitly desacralized the Hapsburg empire because its legiti-
macy rested heavily on the idea of a universal faith, whose defender was
the Hapsburg monarch. The reformers' teachings also significantly broad-
ened access to legitimate authority by encouraging preaching in the ver-
nacular, by championing salvation by faith alone, and by substituting
scriptural for ecclesiastical authority. In the German lands, Low Coun-
tries, Scandinavia, and England, the Reformation prompted the secular-
ization and sale of church lands, giving elites revenues independent of
church tithes and other taxes and encouraging land reform that was in
the long run beneficial to the development of commercial agriculture.
The net effect of these changes was to place the periphery of northern
Europe in a more favorable trading position in the world economy. Af-
ter the middle of the sixteenth century, significantly as a result of the fi-
nancial burdens that Spain incurred in attempting to suppress the Protes-
tant heresies, the core of the European economy shifted increasingly to
the north, and with it, the Reformation became firmly established.
Like the Reformation, the Enlightenment and the institutionalization
of Marxist socialism also took place during periods of demographic, eco-
nomic, and territorial expansion, the first during the years in which the
mercantilist system had spread to its farthest reaches through commer-
cial, industrial, and colonial expansion, the second during the global ex-
plosion of trade and imperialism that occurred toward the end of the
nineteenth century. The Enlightenment attracted the rising commercial
and industrial classes in areas that had previously been peripheral to the
dominant axis of the world economy—members of the new elite in ar-
eas such as Manchester, Edinburgh, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Boston, and
Philadelphia. Unlike the Reformation, the Enlightenment also became
institutionalized in core areas such as Paris and London (but scarcely at
all in Amsterdam), partly because the growth of the state was a signifi-
cant resource for Enlightenment scholarship, and partly because France
and England (unlike Spain in the previous period) maintained their posi-
tion in the core of the world economy despite its transition from one
mode of organization to another. Marxism also eventually became most
successfully institutionalized in areas other than the core of the world
economy, namely in Russia and later in parts of the developing world,
although socialism more generally experienced considerable success
among the political leaders of the working classes in rapidly rising sec-
tors of Europe itself, such as Germany, Austria, Sweden, and Belgium.
Both of these ideological movements challenged the legitimacy of pre-
vailing patterns of world order and encouraged successful economic re-
forms, respectively of labor and capital. In all three cases, these were
revolutions "from above," gaining institutionalization before achieving
mass popularity.
Like revitalization movements, ideological revolutions have been
characterized by much internal diversity. Reformers, writers associated
with the Enlightenment, and socialist parties all competed with one an-
other for ascendancy. Yet there has been a coherence to these ideolo-
gies—a common set of assumptions—that has not been the case for
many revitalization movements. Part of this coherence can be traced to
the efforts of movement leaders themselves, many of whom (Luther,
Marx, Engels) worked unceasingly to impose unity on movement ideol-
ogy as it began to diffuse. Part of it can also be attributed to the greater
supply of resources available to these movements for purposes of com-
munication and formalization. In addition, a significant factor has been
their opposition in each case to the sacred assumptions underlying the es-
tablished world order. These assumptions were often made the explicit
objects of profanation: church as harlot, mercantilist protectionism as
inimical to national wealth, bourgeois culture as false consciousness.
Each ideology also vigorously attacked the rituals binding people to
their most sacred institutions: the sacraments (for which Luther was ex-
communicated), the laws and tariffs of the mercantilist state, the fetish-
ism of commodities in the free market. At the same time, each ideologi-
cal revolution posed a new definition of reality that liberalized access to
the "sacred": salvation by faith, freedom in reason, justice through pro-
letarian revolution. Each movement's success was determined by the
conjunction of these ideas with the rising status of the elites that were at-
tracted to the new definitions of reality.
MILITANCY
Relatively little attention has been paid to militant ideology as a type

of social movement, although some of the more familiar of modern po-
litical and religious movements have been of this kind. Calvinists, Jaco-
bins, and Bolsheviks all provide cases in point. Ideological militancy can
be defined as a diffuse social movement that actively attempts to over-
throw an established social order through violent or forceful means and
legitimates its efforts in terms of an ideology radically opposed to pre-
vailing cultural institutions. The successors of ideological revolutions,
these movements typically espouse an even more strident critique of the
established order, believe (in the case of religious movements) in an
avenging God, and champion the authority of the minority over that of
the majority. The more radical departure from established definitions of
reality can be seen in Calvin's rejection of Luther's hope of working for
reform within the established church and in the increasingly radical turn
of the Enlightenment after about 1750, especially in Febronianism and
militant atheism. The emphasis on vengeance and judgment is evident in
Calvinism, Jacobinism, and Leninism—all of which have an avenging
and deterministic view of history. They have also generally been orga-
nized into tightly knit, strictly disciplined struggle groups.
A militant stand has sometimes been associated with all the ideological
movement types under consideration here, but ideological militancy as
an extreme type has usually been most common and most successful
among cadres in the periphery of the world-system during periods of deep
polarization and conflict. The radical Calvinism of the Huguenots in
Navarre or of the Sea Beggars in the Netherlands, the Reign of Terror fol-
lowing the French Revolution, and the Union of the Godless in the Soviet
Union during the 1920s all serve as examples. These have been periods in
which widespread economic instability, including stagnation, has pro-
duced divisive political strain within core areas, especially where these ar-
eas have been politically decentralized (i.e., divided into competing core
states). Instability and strain of this sort have typically resulted in efforts
on the part of the core to tighten control over economically or politically
strategic periphery areas. Often these efforts have taken the form of colo-
nial and imperial ties; in more recent periods, neocolonialism, protection-
ism, trade partnerships, and military intervention have been the more
common strategies. These restrictions on core-periphery relations have
seldom been received lightly in the periphery, particularly among elites
that have grown strong in autonomy during times of expansion and pros-
perity. The usual consequence has been conflict between periphery and
core areas, as in the revolt of the Netherlands against Spain toward the
end of the sixteenth century, the American Revolution against England in
the eighteenth century, and the various anticolonial revolts of the twenti-
eth century. As these examples suggest, militant revolts have had an epi-
sodic character, have included relatively few that resulted in an eventual
triumph of the periphery over the core, and have generally been of great
importance in the history of those areas that successfully resisted the core.
The emergence of ideologically militant groups has been a function,
among other things, of the distinctive state of world order during peri-
ods of polarization. The weakened position of the core because of eco-
nomic reversals and increasing military and bureaucratic expenditures
has inhibited its ability to crush the formation of militant movements in
the periphery. This has particularly been the case when the resources of
the core were preoccupied with internal factionalism and war. Militant
movements have been facilitated as well by the social disorganization ac-
companying war. A large number of the Dutch Calvinists who revolted
against Spain in the late sixteenth century, for example, were exiles
from earlier purges in the Netherlands and from elsewhere in Europe
(Geyl, 1932). Beyond this, a decisive circumstance contributing to the
rise and spread of ideological militancy has been the fact that periods of
polarization in world order have usually followed on the heels of suc-
cessful ideological revolutions that have left the world divided ideologi-
cally and politically.
The important consequences of previous ideological ferment for the
formation of militant ideological movements have been primarily two-
fold. First, these movements have been able to gain strength through
international alliances and, indeed, have typically espoused interna-
tionalistic orientations (a fact that Troeltsch [1960] emphasizes in his
discussion of Calvinism, for example). Second, international political di-
visions have tended to promote competing domestic factions benefiting
from, and therefore supporting, alternative foreign policies (the War of
the Three Henrys being an extreme example). Internal rivalry of this

sort has necessitated disciplined loyalty within the ranks of such fac-
tions. Militant ideological devotion has been of strategic value to politi-
cal mobilization in such periods of polarization.
COUNTERREFORMS
Counterreforms may be characterized as movements among represen-

tatives of established cultural institutions to strengthen the moral obliga-
tions that bind individuals to the corporate order. The ideologies of
these movements conceive of reality in corporatist terms and stress the
immanence of ultimate reality in institutions representing the corporate
order. Attainment of a relation with ultimate reality is made contingent
upon participation in corporate sacraments and ceremonies. Examples
include the renewal of Thomism in sixteenth-century Spain (the so-
called Counterreformation), the Gallican revival in eighteenth-century
France, and the religious and political nationalism of the interwar years
in the present century. Again, these are manifestations of ideological ten-
dencies that have been present in other movements as well, but they
have been the most pronounced themes in a few highly corporatist move-
ments.
Counterreform movements have been especially evident in core areas
during periods of polarization in world order, usually at least partly in
reaction to the challenge presented by ideological revolutions and mili-
tant ideological movements. It was in the context of the Protestant re-
volts, military setbacks, price inflation, and imperial bankruptcy that
the Counterreformation experienced its greatest successes in the Haps-
burg domains. It was in the period of colonial revolt against the mercan-
tilist system, accompanied by growing disaffection among the lower
classes and increasing rivalry and conflict among the core powers, that
the romantic reaction against the Enlightenment, and (soon after) the
Napoleonic corporatist state, emerged in France. Similarly, it was in the
aftermath of World War I, followed by the collapse of the balance of
power system and the international gold standard that had undergirded
the free-market system, that fascist ideologies commanding quasi-reli-
gious devotion spread throughout much of Europe.
In each case, the geopolitical conditions were much the same. Increas-
ing military and administrative expenditures on the part of the core, to-
gether with declining export markets and enlarged foreign debts, pro-
duced an unfavorable balance of trade for the core, weakening further
its domestic economy. To maintain the traditional system of stratifica-

tion under these circumstances placed greater burdens, especially in the
form of taxation, on the lower strata. Declining economic opportunities
among the upper strata also produced pressures on the polity to absorb
excess members of these strata into the administrative bureaucracy, espe-
cially through the bestowal of honorific titles, military pensions, and—
wherever available—ecclesiastical offices.
The incentive for counterreform came most directly from the need to
reinforce the loyalties of the lower strata to the social order in the face
of declining material rewards. Thus, the activities of counterreforms,
although including proselytizing activities toward the periphery, have
been focused for the most part on the lower strata within the core, di-
rected especially at undermining local, family, and ethnic ties providing
alternative sources of identification with the social order. Successful car-
rying out of such reforms has been enhanced by the influx into the cen-
tral bureaucracies of new personnel representing the established order.
Although the emergence of counterreformist ideologies has been
most evident during such periods of crisis and polarization, these move-
ments have generally appeared only in some segments of the core areas.
Other segments (England in the eighteenth century, for example) have
made the transition to core status under new rules of world order, thus
escaping some of the domestic retrenchment called for in other areas.
On a smaller scale, counterreform ideologies have sometimes also been
present under less severe economic conditions, occurring mainly in re-
sponse to the threats perceived from militant ideologies that challenge
the established order.
ACCOMMODATION
The term "ideological accommodation" is used to indicate an adap-

tation of ideology to emerging forms of world order during periods of
reintegration in the world-system. Some of the varieties of ideological
accommodation include (1) liberal reform movements; (2) movements
concerned with alleviating social problems; (3) movements oriented to-
ward the rights and the social incorporation of minority or sectarian
groups; and (4) defections from established cultural institutions that
serve the purpose of stripping these institutions of traditional moral ob-
ligations. Although the form these movements may take is likely to
vary, they all bear evidence of the influence of a broader transition to-
ward a new world order—an attempt, at some times more conscious
than at others, to emphasize ideas and values that seem to be in keep-

ing with the new rules around which world order is organized.
Movements of these kinds have been particularly evident in core
countries of the world-system at times when new patterns of world or-
der were becoming institutionalized. The emergence of the mercantilist
system was accompanied by the Arminian movement in Holland, by the
charitable movement initiated by Vincent de Paul in France, and by the
incorporation of the Separatists and Independents in England. Similarly,
the rise of the free-trade system coincided with the Liberal-Catholic
movement in France and Belgium and the great theological reforms of
Schleiermacher, Hegel, and Strauss, the French monastic renewal ori-
ented toward ministering to the poor, the incorporation of Protestant
dissenters in England through the repeal of the Test and Corporation
Acts, and with what Eric Hobsbawm (1962) has aptly called "the secu-
larization of the masses" in speaking of the widespread religious defec-
tion that took place among the middle and lower classes during this pe-
riod—to list but a few of the more prominent examples.
The social contexts nurturing these movements are too complex to
subsume under any simple typological scheme, but at the level of world
order, the following conditions appear to have contributed significantly
to the prominence of these movements: the declining status of formerly
dominant core areas during periods of reintegration, the rising status of
new core powers, new relations with periphery areas, and the tempo-
rary absence of a stable international monetary and diplomatic order.
The major consequence of these conditions for ideological movements is
an erosion of economic groups whose power has been protected by
former patterns of international exchange and a strengthening of eco-
nomic groups oriented to new patterns of international exchange.
This realignment of the power of interest groups, together with the
overall economic instability that derives from the absence of an embrac-
ing international monetary order, generates civil conflict that often re-
sults in some degree of political reform. This process occurs within the
limits imposed by the interests of other nations and is conditioned by
the presence of similar conflicts elsewhere. The net result consists typi-
cally not only of a change in the position of domestic interest groups but
also of a redefinition of government policy and of national roles in the
world-system. The effect of these changes is often apparent among reli-
gious or ethnic groups that have created an ideological form closely
linked to an established moral community. The transition in the broader
social infrastructure cuts through these moral communities, as it were,
creating new bases of moral cleavage, dividing solidary moral orders

into competing interest groups, and giving the various factions a differ-
ent place in the larger social order. For established religion, especially
where it has been in some measure subordinated to the polity, the conse-
quences have usually included rising legitimacy for minority religions
formerly critical of existing social arrangements, defection by groups dis-
satisfied with the ossification of religious organizations, and efforts by
others to reform religious organizations in keeping with new political
and moral climates. These have often included social service activities
functioning to alleviate hardships brought on the lower strata by the eco-
nomic and political instability of the times.
As a brief example, the religious situation in England during the
first half of the nineteenth century may be considered. England is a par-
ticularly obvious example because the degree of religious pluralism
that had become institutionalized there made it possible for a greater
degree of ideological maneuvering to surface in specific ecclesiastical
and political reforms than might have been likely under less pluralistic
conditions. By 1815, the mercantilist system of protective tariffs, colo-
nial bilateralism, and state monopolies had been rendered obsolete by
the successes of the American and French revolutions, the high costs of
the Napoleonic Wars, and the popularity of Enlightenment ideology. A
new system of world order organized along principles of free trade was
emerging, creating pressures for changes in domestic social organiza-
tion. Most urgently needed was reform of the protective tariff policies
on shipping and grain that kept British food prices unnaturally high in
view of cheaper sources from the United States and Prussia, thereby
preventing wage levels from sinking to internationally competitive lev-
els, creating unrest among the working classes, and maintaining undue
privileges among the landed aristocracy (Knorr, 1944). Conflict be-
tween the landed aristocracy and the rising industrial, commercial, and
financial interests came to a head in a series of parliamentary clashes
between the Whigs and Tories, culminating in the repeal of the Corn
Laws in 1846 (Kammen, 1970). In religion the changing climate of po-
litical power and opinion led to increasing legitimacy for those minor-
ity bodies (largely Evangelicals and Dissenters) that had been early ad-
vocates of political reform and that could be counted on for further
support of the new government policies. It also led to the reforms of
the 1830s, the purpose of which was to effect changes in the Anglican
church, both in theology and organization, making it more compatible
with the views and interests of the new commercial classes, many of
whom had defected from the church over its support of aristocratic
privileges. Finally, this period saw increasing efforts by the church—es-
pecially among its more evangelical elements—to minister to the needs
of the urban poor.
SECTARIANISM
The remaining kind of ideological movement to be considered is what

might be called, drawing mainly from religious examples, sectarianism.
This variant, like ideological accommodation, has also been especially evi-
dent in periods of reintegration in the world-system but has occurred
more commonly among groups whose relation to power was declining
than among groups whose relation to power was increasing. Sectarian-
ism includes movements in which a strong element of "backlash" is often
evident, sometimes as a specific reaction against movements that have ac-
commodated themselves to new social circumstances. These movements
have been noted especially among groups with formerly high levels of sta-
tus. Sectarianism also includes movements that arise among the lower
classes, sometimes as a result of the pressures placed on these classes dur-
ing times of major economic and political transition. And it includes vari-
ous radical and Utopian movements such as those that frequently arise
among intellectuals and students during these periods.
The accomplishment of so-called liberal reforms in religious or politi-
cal organizations often takes place against a backdrop of opposition
from those whose interests were better protected by previous patterns of
world order and by previously popular domestic policies. When this op-
position contains moral as well as purely political dimensions, it fre-
quently results in religious schisms—splinter groups that object to re-
forms being made by parent organizations. If not contained, these
schisms often lead to the formation of new minority religious bodies.
The devot movement in France, arising in opposition to Richelieu's pol-
icy of cooperation with the German Protestants, is a clear example of
this kind of movement during the early mercantilist period. The Oxford
movement, which developed in reaction to the liberalization of the
Church of England in the 1830s, provides a similar case during the early
free-trade period. It was largely contained within the church. Among
those movements that were not contained were the "great dispute" in
Scotland in 1843, the secession of "Old Lutherans" in Prussia, and the
birth of the Christian Reformed Church in the Netherlands. In each
instance these movements were predominantly populated by interest
groups whose privileges were being undermined by the emergence of

new patterns of international exchange.
The conditions leading to the rise of sects among the lower classes dur-
ing these periods result in the largest sense from a lack of stable interna-
tional monetary and political relations. These uncertainties precipitate
and worsen domestic economic crises that create temporary unemploy-
ment and economic hardships for the lower strata. These deprivations are
aggravated by the efforts of both rising and declining elites to maintain
their share of scarce economic resources. In addition, the likelihood of
new sects emerging among the lower strata is enhanced by their physical
migration away from established moral communities due to economic dif-
ficulties and changing opportunities for employment. The kinds of move-
ments that result are illustrated by the diffuse spread of what G. L. Mosse
(1970) has termed "popular piety" among the peasants of England, Hol-
land, and Germany during the early mercantilist period and by the efflo-
rescence of Baptists, Methodists, and Adventists in the new grain-grow-
ing regions of North America and the new industrial workers of Britain
during the early free-trade period. The diffusion of these movements is sig-
nificantly enhanced by the presence of political and economic instability
throughout the world-system during such transitional periods.
This instability, together with the fluctuating moral climates it pro-
duces, is also an important factor contributing to the radical and Uto-
pian sects that have frequently developed among intellectuals and stu-
dents during these periods (e.g., the Cambridge Platonists and the
Rosicrucians in England and the Socinians in Poland during the seven-
teenth century, the Christian Socialists in England and the Transcenden-
talists in America during the nineteenth century). In each case, con-
sciousness among intellectuals of domestic injustices to the lower classes
and of foreign struggles for political reform were significant factors in
the inspiration of these movements.
THE PERIOD SINCE WORLD WAR II

One of the questions that initially motivated this effort to spell out
some of the broad relations between ideological movements and pat-
terns of world order was that of identifying social factors underlying the
considerable ideological ferment that has been evident in the United
States since World War II. Some observers—especially during the high
point of unrest in the late 1960s and early 1970s—suggested that the
present period signaled changes as sweeping as those of the Reforma-
don or the Enlightenment. Others argued that there had always been
ideological movements and that nothing special should be made of the
contemporary ferment. Still others drew parallels between the 1960s
and moments of unrest at earlier times in American history, such as the
1770s or the 1830s. The problem with most of these comparisons was
that they were made without any consideration of the broader social
context in which ideological movements had appeared. The present
framework at least provides some crude dimensions along which such
comparison cases can be selected. It suggests that the period since World
War II has been characterized mainly by the transition from the world
order that dominated the latter half of the nineteenth century to a new
world order that has not yet become fully institutionalized. Some observ-
ers of the present world order, it should be noted, suggest a different sce-
nario. They argue that the United States achieved a dominant position
in the world economy immediately following World War II, much as
Britain had in the nineteenth century, and that this world order flour-
ished with few problems until the 1970s, when it finally began to be
challenged by the growing economic power of rivals such as West Ger-
many and Japan. According to this scenario, there will be increasing
protectionism, economic and political rivalry, and eventually another
major world war before another world order comes into being (barring
nuclear annihilation). This model has the advantage of highlighting the
importance of economic expansion in the American context. However,
even within this context there has remained much domestic uncertainty
and adjustment concerning the terms of domestic and world order. For
purposes of understanding cultural change, these realignments appear
to warrant the greatest emphasis.
Ever since World War II, the United States has experienced a great
number of ideological movements. Contrary to predictions promising
an "end of ideology," movements and countermovements have been the
order of the day. Especially evident has been the unrest that has charac-
terized American religion. In the 1950s, these movements included a
broad revival in mainline denominations, a rebirth of pentecostalism
and fundamentalism, and a renewed interest in ecumenism and church
union. In the 1960s, religious unrest became more pronounced. That de-
cade witnessed a movement away from organized religion, especially
among young people, many of whom defected from the churches, first
to campus religious centers, and later from those, too. It also saw the
spread of religiously inspired civil rights movements among minorities
and, in turn, of ethnic backlash. Among Catholics, it saw the initiation
of the Vatican II reforms. And perhaps most visibly, the 1960s gave
birth to a host of new religious movements, many of which barkened to
traditions other than Christianity. In the 1970s, these movements sur-
vived for the most part, spread, splintered, and cross-fertilized to the ex-
tent that the number of local groups ran in the thousands and the num-
ber of followers ranged in the hundreds of thousands. By the end of that
decade, a strong movement on the conservative end of the religio-
political spectrum had also arisen. Consolidating its ideological claims
around traditional positions on abortion, pornography, homosexuality,
and communism, it attracted a large following, including disproportion-
ate numbers from the South, from rural areas, and among the less edu-
cated and elderly.
Although many of the religious movements of the past few decades
have deep historic roots, the postwar period is unique in several ways. It
has produced a unique mixture of Judeo-Christian, Asian, tribal, cultic,
and pseudoscientific movements. It has resulted in no single philosophy
or liturgical reformation, but a diversity of competing movements and
countermovernents. These alternative movements have not crystallized
into distinct, stable organizations, but have shown a great deal of fluid-
ity in organizational style, teachings, and membership. Like religious
movements of the past, many of the current organizations have at-
tracted the downtrodden and disadvantaged, but other movements have
been effective in attracting the privileged. The religious unrest of the
postwar period has not been limited to America. If anything, it has been
equally pronounced in Japan, Western Europe, and, though different in
content, throughout large sections of the Third World.
A variety of social and cultural conditions has contributed to this
ideological ferment. But these conditions do not explain it satisfactorily,
either singly or in combination. The great increase in higher education
since World War II has undoubtedly exposed people to new ideas, many
of which have run counter to traditional beliefs. But there have been edu-
cational revolutions before, in the 1880s, for example, without similar
repercussions, and even the best statistical studies have failed by and
large to pin down a direct causal relation between higher education and
religious experimentation. The postwar period has contributed prosper-
ity and affluence. But religious movements in the past have more often
occurred among the less affluent and in times of economic uncertainty.
Science has mushroomed in the years since Sputnik, undoubtedly with
some effects on worldviews. But the most dramatic scientific revolution
in modern history, that of the late seventeenth century, did not produce
such dramatic religious unrest. There has perhaps been enough tension
and stress to inspire some to seek comfort in new religious movements.
But this stress has been no greater than that associated with two world
wars or the Great Depression. Some have suggested that religious plural-
ism in America has itself been the source of ever-expanding religious
experimentation. But this explanation fails to account for the parallel ex-
perimentation that has occurred in countries as different as France, Ja-
pan, England, and Denmark. Others have seen a connection between
the present religious turmoil and the demise of the small business in fa-
vor of the giant corporation. But this connection fails to explain the rela-
tive absence of religious turmoil in earlier periods of this economic tran-
sition, notably during the age of giant trusts, nor does it account for
even earlier periods of religious unrest, such as in the early nineteenth
century. Still other explanations emphasizing professionalization, ecol-
ogy, the mass media, urbanization, trade and technology have been ten-
dered. But they, too, fall prey to these limitations.
All these explanations are limited because they are not situated in a
historical context. Each development has had some impact on religious
communities, but an understanding of that impact requires knowledge
of the broader context in which each has occurred—the broader transi-
tional period in world order. This transition has directed such domestic
social changes as rising levels of education, dependence on technology,
and the growth of the state. Placed in the present international context,
these changes have affected religious communities in ways that were not
characteristic of other times and places.
A PERIOD OF TRANSITION
An understanding of the present transition in world order requires go-

ing back again briefly to the nineteenth century, when the world order
we have inherited was constructed. That order rested principally upon
the functioning of free trade within a self-regulating international mar-
ket. From the middle of the century onward, the free-market system
regulated trade, dominated international relations, benefited and main-
tained the power of principal interest groups, and provided unprece-
dented material welfare. Especially in Britain, where it was of obvious
economic advantage, the free-trade system was looked on with near-
religious devotion. For instance, the Economist editorialized in 1843:
Free trade is itself a good, like virtue, holiness and righteousness^ to be loved,
admired, honoured and steadfastly adopted, for its own sake, though all the
rest of the world should love restrictions and prohibitions, which are of them-
selves evils, like vice and crime, to be hated and abhorred under all circum-
stances and at all times, (quoted in Amery, 1969:221)
In addition to the free market, the nineteenth-century world order

rested on three supporting institutions. The first was the British-domi-
nated balance-of-power system that maintained international peace
throughout most of the century, a condition necessary for the successful
conduct of international free trade. Second was the laissez-faire system
of government that minimized domestic interference with the free func-
tioning of the market. And third was the international gold standard
that limited fluctuations in exchange rates, protected the value of for-
eign loans, facilitated the free flow of international commerce, and bene-
fited the industrialized countries, mainly Britain, which were the leading
exporters of goods and capital. These institutions, in turn, were legiti-
mated by an underlying utilitarian philosophy that called for freedom of
the will, freedom in trade, and freedom in civil matters, the combination
of which was assumed to guarantee high levels of prosperity and social
justice. Under this system, nearly all parts of the globe were incorpo-
rated into the Western world economy.
The free-market system operated as an integrated form of world order.
Organized around a coherent philosophical worldview, the free-market
system wedded the interests of dominant political and economic elites,
provided stable assumptions for the governing of international relations,
maintained the position of dominant nations, and effectively controlled
the passions of subordinate nations and classes. It functioned effectively,
however, only as long as Britain maintained the industrial supremacy
that ensured it the advantages of open trade (cf. Hobsbawm, 1969). This
advantage diminished greatly by the eve of World War I, as other Euro-
pean nations, especially France and Germany, developed their own indus-
trial capacities. The economic competition that resulted led the European
powers increasingly to expand their trade and investments into the devel-
oping world and ultimately to circumvent the free-trade process itself by
partitioning the developing world into colonial enclaves.
With the outbreak of World War I, financial chaos befell the already
weakened free-market system. The war hampered trade and investments.
Country after country repudiated foreign debts or declared moratoria on
their repayment and otherwise acted to halt international gold ship-
ments, leaving the gold standard operational only in a trivial sense. The
economic impact on Britain was devastating. After the war, Britain was
forced to borrow heavily from the United States and liquidated much of
her investments abroad. In 1931, Britain abandoned the gold standard,
devalued the pound, and adopted protectionist trading policies, signaling
the collapse of the free-market era. Other signs of its demise included the
launching of the New Deal, the five-year plans in Russia, the rise of fas-
cism in Germany, and the collapse of the League of Nations in favor of
autarchist empires. Karl Polanyi (1944:23) has described the change in
the international order in this way:
While at the end of the Great War nineteenth century ideals were para-
mount, and their influence dominated the following decade, by 1940 every
vestige of the international system had disappeared and, apart from a few en-
claves, the nations were living in an entirely new international setting.
The international gold standard had been displaced both in practice

and, following Keynes, in economic theory as well. Throughout Europe,
currencies fluctuated wildly, bringing concomitant unemployment and
economic uncertainty. The hegemony of Britain, and with it Britain's
peacekeeping ability, had been permanently destroyed. The liberal na-
tion-state had temporarily ceased to function throughout much of the
world and was replaced either by totalitarian regimes or by new welfare
state economies. And although the ideology and tactics of free trade
were far from dead, a profound ideological revolution had been success-
fully institutionalized in the Soviet Union, one that challenged the basic
premises of the free-trade system.
By the end of World War II, the realities of global politics precluded
any possibility of reconstructing an international order along the princi-
ples of the nineteenth-century free-market system. Western Europe lay
in disarray, and the United States was still reluctant to shoulder the re-
sponsibilities of world leadership that Britain had carried. The lessons
of international finance during the preceding two decades had shown
the impossibility of any single country stabilizing international mone-
tary arrangements in the way that Britain had done during the previous
century. The communist bloc had succeeded in establishing itself as a sig-
nificant foe of the free world. China had ceased to be a hinterland for
Japanese and American investment. The preoccupation of Europe with
its own affairs during the war had created opportunities for numerous
incipient nationalist movements to emerge throughout the colonized
world. As a result, the postwar period emerged as one in which repeated

efforts to create a new world order would be made.
These efforts have been made in the absence of an integrated system
of international institutions and in the presence of a world divided ideo-
logically between the successors of the Enlightenment and the succes-
sors of Marxist socialism. As a result, national and international policy
since World War II has had to be formed in the face of frequently incom-
patible objectives without the benefit of well-established policy guide-
lines. American relations with Western Europe, for example, have vacil-
lated between a policy of bilateralism, designed to keep Europe divided
and economically subordinate, and a policy of multilateralism, designed
to strengthen Europe as a buffer against the Soviet Union. As interna-
tional power arrangements have shifted, often from year to year, the
United States has found itself favoring first one and then the other of
these contradictory policies toward Western Europe (cf. Calleo and
Rowland, 1973). United States policy toward former colonial posses-
sions of the European nations has demonstrated a similar ambivalence:
on the one hand, American policymakers have wished to erode the privi-
leges of Europe; on the other hand, they have wished to make sure that
these possessions do not fall to hostile regimes, as in the case of French
Indochina. In American eyes Third World nations have appeared alter-
natively as little brothers ready to imitate the modernity of their more
mature siblings, as junior partners capable of offering new markets and
sources of labor, and as potential enemies ever waiting to remind Ameri-
cans of their own guilty consciences. The political instability of the
Third World has only added to the ambiguities of U.S. policy.
International economic arrangements have also been in a transitional
phase since World War II. Chronic inflation, defiant of all Keynesian
solutions, has dramatized the instability of the international monetary
system that had been forecast by the economic planners from forty-four
nations who participated in the conference at Bretton Woods, New
Hampshire, in July of 1944. Rather than being guided by long-term poli-
cies, responses to economic crises, such as the OPEC price increases of
1973, typically have come forth on a case-by-case basis. Often, each na-
tion has acted unilaterally to protect its own economy, through cur-
rency devaluation, for example, and in so doing has neglected the inter-
ests of international economic well-being.
At a deeper level, economic policy remains ambivalently associated
with the lingering principles of free trade. Given the changes in world
economic conditions, a policy of free trade permits only two means of

economic adjustment: (1) changing the level of domestic economic activ-
ity, or growth rate; and (2) changing the exchange rate, or productivity
ratio, of currency. Both techniques are likely to have negative political
repercussions. At the same time, economic policy is guided by principles
of social planning, the application of which is likely to be perceived
within the business community as restrictive of vital competitive pre-
rogatives, as evidenced by the recent tensions between multinational cor-
porations and their host governments. Of course, economic policy is a
function of compromise in any era. But the capacity to achieve work-
able compromises in recent years has been complicated by the absence
of both an underlying international monetary system and a coherent eco-
nomic philosophy (cf. Block, 1977).
The construction of a stable world order has also been made difficult
in the years since World War II because of (1) political problems associ-
ated with the management of large military forces and wartime econo-
mies in ways that are consistent with the prospects of world peace; (2)
the fundamental instability of a nuclear weapons monopoly on the part
of the superpowers as a key to world order; and (3) the comparative
recency with which both the Soviet Union and the United States have
assumed roles of world leadership. Despite frequent complaints about
American imperialism, the United States has actually adapted slowly to
its leadership role, lacking any deep philosophical rationale for taking
an aggressive stance in international affairs, save perhaps the fear of
communism. Having been critical of European imperialism and having
been economically self-sufficient throughout most of its history, the
United States has remained deeply sensitive to accusations of imperial-
ism. And yet, as further evidence of the ironies of world politics in the
postwar period, some of the most blatant U.S. imperialist activities, usu-
ally disguised as policies designed to protect national security, have been
implemented by isolationists and internationalists alike.
In addition to the international uncertainties that these conditions
have generated, an important consequence has been the politicization of
domestic interest groups, including a nearly constant shifting of posi-
tions and alliances among these interest groups. The shifting state of
world affairs has produced a proliferation of pressure groups to influ-
ence the domestic response. Labor has emerged as a politicized interest
group, dependent on government goodwill (again in the absence of a
firm international monetary order) to go slowly in the fight against infla-
tion, rather than opposing it through recessionary policies that might re-
duce standards of living and create unemployment among workers.

These concerns, together with fears of competition from foreign work-
ers, have made U.S. labor a generally protectionist, patriotic supporter
of national government, contrary to labor's more general tradition of in-
ternationalism and class consciousness across national boundaries. Agri-
culture has also been politicized but has found itself in an even more
ambiguous position than labor. As political and climatic conditions fluc-
tuate throughout the world, agriculture finds itself the supporter of pro-
tectionist nationalism in one instance and, in another instance, the sup-
porter of open international markets. The professional and managerial
staffs of large corporations that depend on multinational markets have
adopted a more consistent live-and-let-live attitude toward interna-
tional policy, even toward the Soviet Union and China insofar as it has
benefited trade, but have been less eager to take such an attitude toward
left-leaning countries in the developing world for fear of losing overseas
investments. The universities have been placed in a similarly ambiguous
position of benefiting materially from the development of advanced tech-
nology, including military and space technology inspired by the arms
race and nationalist competition, while at the same time being commit-
ted to more humanitarian and universalistic values. Other examples
could be added, but the important point is that domestic interest groups
have increasingly become oriented to the vagaries of international poli-
tics, finding themselves frequently in the position of having to adopt ori-
entations internally inconsistent or contradictory to more traditional
positions and having to adjust these orientations with each new develop-
ment in world affairs. The task of achieving stable relations among do-
mestic interest groups, therefore, does not simply rest on domestic politi-
cal consensus, but is deeply conditioned by the affairs of world politics.
RETROSPECTIVE COMPARISONS
The relevance of all this to the recent ideological unrest in American

religion may in some ways be obvious. But it will help to see the connec-
tions in a more informed manner if, before considering them explicitly,
we pause to examine briefly the religious response to the two similar pe-
riods of transition in world order in past centuries.
As mentioned before, there have been two previous periods bearing
conditions structurally similar to the present one. The first was the early
part of the seventeenth century. In these years, the European world lay in
the midst of a major social transition. The imperial order that the Spanish
Hapsburgs had attempted to impose on Europe during the sixteenth cen-

tury had been defeated militarily and economically by the rising states of
northern Europe. The Reformation had played a significant role in under-
mining the universalistic assumptions on which the domination of the
Hapsburg dynasty had been erected. In its wake followed a period of inter-
national wars that emancipated most of the Hapsburg imperial posses-
sions. The resulting situation in the early seventeenth century was a pe-
riod of domestic tension and instability as the English, Dutch, and French
sought to reconstruct a normative order along mercantilist lines. The civil
war between crown and country in England reflected the adjustments be-
ing made among interest groups across Europe.
The second period was the early and middle years of the nineteenth
century, during which the Western world was undergoing a transition
from the mercantilist system to the free-trade system, of which we have
already spoken. These years followed a period in which the sovereign
ideals associated with mercantilism had led to increasing international
conflict among the core European powers, drastically increasing the
costs of maintaining the entire system. In addition, the Industrial Revolu-
tion had brought about new modes of economic production, the Enlight-
enment had done much to undercut the protectionist principles of inter-
national exchange, and the American Revolution had largely destroyed
the prevailing pattern of colonial relations. By the early nineteenth cen-
tury, the old mercantilist system had ceased to provide a stable norma-
tive order. The following transition period was accompanied by unparal-
leled conflict within nations. New interest groups arose and replaced
old interest groups, both looked to the polity for assistance, and the
lower strata clamored for social reform. Between 1812 and 1865, Spain
and Portugal (and their American colonies), Russia, Greece, France, Bel-
gium, Italy, Poland, Germany, and the United States all experienced ma-
jor revolts or civil wars.
What was common in both of these periods, as well as in the more re-
cent period, was that the basic institutional structure of the prevailing
world order had, for various reasons associated with the expansion of
that order, broken down. As the core area of each prevailing world or-
der was weakened, economic and political domination shifted to new ar-
eas formerly on the periphery of world politics. In each case, this shift
was facilitated by a profound ideological revolution that undermined
the sacredness of the dominant system of world order and gave legiti-
macy to its successor. But the transition to a new system of world order
was not accomplished immediately or without difficulty. Each transi-
tion was followed by a period of domestic economic instability, itself

the function of an ambiguous structure of international finance and ex-
change, and by a succession of civil conflicts brought on by the changing
roles and strengths of nations and of interest groups within nations.
Only gradually, through these series of domestic adjustments, were new
patterns of world order forged and stabilized.
In these two historical periods, hindsight has shown a close connection
between the genera! crisis in world order and the prevailing religious re-
sponses. Both periods were characterized by exceptional religious unrest
and diversity. Rising interest groups developed new religious forms, of-
ten with strong moral and social welfare components that assisted in
legitimating their new preeminence in social affairs, while declining inter-
est groups were frequently led to reject prevailing values and to form splin-
ter groups, often in response to changing relations between church and
state. The rising power of the Puritans in England during the first period
and of the New Light and so-called "popular" denominations in the
United States during the second period are among the best known exam-
ples of the former; the latter are illustrated by the Oxford movement and
sectarian divisions in the Reformed and Lutheran churches. Instabilities
in moral climates produced corresponding shifts in the popularity of alter-
native religious persuasions. And unsettled political conditions moti-
vated religious protest, persecution, and emigration. The net effect of
each period was a proliferation of religious movements throughout the
international system.
In an immediate sense, the source of each of these episodes of reli-
gious unrest was domestic turmoil. But to understand the pervasiveness
and the complexity of this turmoil, it must be viewed in an international
context. We have come to recognize more clearly the profound connec-
tions between the10
religious convictions of a people and their sense of na-
tional purpose. But this sense is molded by the climate of world opin-
ion and by the global milieu within which nations function. In times
when there is an underlying structure of world order, national purposes
are formed within a matrix of shared assumptions, whether these con-
cern the defense of a universalistic religion and the authority of dynastic
succession, as in the Hapsburg empire, or the sovereignty and mutual an-
tagonism of states, as in the mercantilist system. In times of deep polar-
ization and conflict in world order, nations continue to be guided by pre-
vailing global assumptions, either through strong reaffirmation of these
assumptions or in strong reaction against them. But in the aftermath of
such polarization and transition, when the fundamental operating prin-
ciples of world order are in question, the purposes of nations become

subject to the vagaries of events and opinion. Interest groups adopt
moral positions and root them in religious convictions. Religious bod-
ies, in turn, derive moral positions in keeping with their role in society
and the role of their members. As political and economic conditions
change, both domestically and in the larger world, the fortunes of those
associated with these moral positions also change, and the relevance of
the moral positions themselves may change. Religious orientations are
likely to alternate, conflict, and multiply with each nation's efforts to
find its place in the international order.
MORAL CLIMATES AND R E L I G I O U S U N R E S T
Since World War II, the multiplicity of U.S. religious movements has
been conditioned by the deep uncertainty of world affairs. Moral cli-
mates have vacillated in response to the changing circumstances of
world politics, and with them the legitimacy of alternative religious ori-
entations has risen and fallen. A few examples will serve to illustrate
some of these relations.
The freezing and thawing of the cold war and the uncertainties of de-
tente have provoked direct religious responses from the American pub-
lic, for we perceive rightly that communism represents not only an alter-
native political system but also a profoundly different interpretation of
ultimate reality itself. As relations between the two superpowers have
shifted, the plausibility of alternative religious positions has also varied.
Whether we wish to acknowledge it or not, periods of moral conflict
with the Soviet Union have always been associated with a reassertion of
American religious traditions, and detente and peaceful coexistence
have invariably required us to rethink those traditions. How closely
linked our religious convictions as a people are with our sense of na-
tional purpose toward the communist bloc has been well evidenced in re-
cent years, not only in President Ford's much-criticized remarks about
Eastern Europe and in President Carter's campaign for human rights,
but also in President Reagan's cultivation of anticommunist fears
among evangelicals and fundamentalists. Yet the very reality of the So-
viet Union and its growing importance as a vast export market for agri-
cultural and industrial production have placed the religious convictions
of many a farmer and factory worker at odds with their economic moti-
vations. Is it not perhaps the accompanying sense of guilt and betrayal,
however deeply subconscious, that has led to such violent denunciations
of campus radicals and others who have openly admitted their Marxist
leanings? The effect of a world divided between democracy and commu-
nism has not been simply to reinvigorate our civil religion, but to cast it
into the depths of uncertainty.
The rise of China to world power has also contributed to the moral
ambiguity of U.S. religious culture. The case of China has been espe-
cially revealing of the precarious framework of world order that has
been constructed since World War II. To a great extent the postwar or-
der has been predicated upon domination by the superpowers of the ulti-
mate deterrent force, namely, nuclear weapons. When China exploded
its own atomic bomb in 1964, a new reality was imposed on the super-
powers. Within both China and the Soviet Union, the progress toward
China's nuclear capability had been fraught with political conflict.
Khrushchev fell from power the same day that China tested its bomb.
For the United States, short-term alarm gradually gave way to long-term
changes in foreign policy as the Sino-Soviet split deepened and as the
United States became increasingly
1 dependent on China to assist in extri-
cating itself from Vietnam. ' Although the religious responses to these
events were less direct than they typically have been to the activities of
the Soviet Union, the consequences reverberated widely. No longer
could the world be divided as easily into the "just" and the "unjust."
China's power represented an added peril, should its differences with
the Soviet Union be healed, or a potential ally, should some common
ground be found. Scholars and diplomats revived earlier reservoirs of
fascination with the ancient culture and religions of China. Forward-
looking American missionaries again began praying for the day when
China's door would be reopened and took heart at reports of the num-
ber of indigenous Christians still living in China. "Yellow peril" fears
that had crept into the churches during the 1950s (and before) came in-
creasingly to be disrespectable, and groups that had flourished in these
fears, of which Sun Myung Moon's Unification church was one of the
most notable examples, became increasingly sectarian and suspicious of
the new mood of the U.S. government.
The absence of stable relations between the United States and the
Third World, too, has deeply affected the moral consciousness of the
postwar period, particularly when these relations have involved Ameri-
cans in morally questionable positions, as in Vietnam, Cambodia, Chile,
Bangladesh, and Nicaragua. Each new failure to impose our American
conceptions of stability and prosperity on the Third World has brought
with it charges of imperialism and neocolonialism. Americans have been
forced to reevaluate the moral basis of their motivations. The changes

have come both from other nations and from domestic interest groups,
and they have multiplied as policies are first initiated, then reversed, and
then reinitiated. The effect on religion has been that the plausibility of
the whole Western tradition, with its emphasis on modernity and ratio-
nality, can no longer be taken for granted quite as easily as it once was.
This has not been the result of some mysterious philosophical reorienta-
tion, but the product of empirical relations between the West and the de-
veloping world. And in the lacunae of ultimate confidence, many have
turned inward to reconstruct their own personal experiences of the sa-
cred, often by borrowing heavily from the tribal, magical, and mystical
religions previously relegated to the fringes of the Western tradition.
The relations between moral climates, religious movements, and the
broader transition in world order were probably revealed most clearly
by the crisis of the 1960s. That crisis, in an immediate sense, was the
Vietnam war. It was also a crisis in world order and in the positions of
domestic interest groups connected to that order. Insofar as the United
States was concerned, the world order of the 1950s and early 1960s was
oriented chiefly toward military containment of the communist bloc
and the strengthening of America's stabilizing influence in the free
world. This system was predicated upon the monopoly of effective nu-
clear strike capacities by the United States and by the Soviet Union, the
dominance of the Soviet Union in the communist world and its ability to
exert control over member nations, U.S. ability to maintain security
within its sphere of influence, and the tacit agreement on the part of
both superpowers as to the boundaries of their respective spheres.
The containment system also meshed neatly with the interests and ide-
ologies of major U.S. power groups, even to the extent of limited wars. In
the South, strong military commitments to the defense of the free world
strengthened the political power of old-guard hawks, fed money into
southern military training camps, provided career opportunities for both
blacks and whites, and wedded the conservative religious orientations of
the South to the national interest. For agriculture, the same forces that
kept southern politicians strong also helped ensure a stable farm subsidy
program that in the short run appeared better than the vagaries of an
open international market, and again coincided with the religious and
moral convictions of farmers and townspeople in the rural areas. For the
largest corporations, containment politics were scarcely essential to their
prosperity. But for many of the weaker corporations (and, in turn, labor),
continuous demands for new weapons systems, the role of a large stand-
ing army in minimizing unemployment, and formal encouragement of

foreign subsidiaries and joint ventures with Japan and Western Europe
were by no means without importance. Even for the larger corporations,
and certainly the universities, the scientific and technological efforts in-
spired by the arms race, and increasingly the space race, contributed sig-
nificantly to their overall well-being.
Vietnam was both symptom and cause of the changes in world order
that witnessed the demise of containment politics. These changes in-
cluded the rise of China as a nuclear power, the Sino-Soviet split, eco-
nomic tensions among the Western allies, and postcolonial instabilities
in the Third World. Under these circumstances Vietnam became the
catalyst that precipitated far- reaching realignments among domestic in-
terest groups, Eor the South the increasing costs of the war, and hence
its growing unpopularity, undermined the power of the old guard and fa-
cilitated the rise of the so-called new southern politician. Increasingly
the war divided the interests of blacks, who saw the Great Society
usurped by the costs of defense, from those of the white establishment,
further eroding the traditional base of southern politics.
Ideologically, the war drove a wedge between the more liberal advo-
cates of containment and the more conservative champions of a rollback
policy. For the corporate community, the worsening balance of foreign
payments as the war dragged on precipitated a reevaluation of its commit-
ment to a firm containment orientation. In the universities, the war
brought to a crisis the basic inconsistency of interests wedded to the ex-
port of military technology and ideology espousing universal humanitar-
ian ideals. In short, the 1960s witnessed a major realignment of domestic
interests, not just because of internal unrest, but also because of larger
conditions in world affairs associated ultimately with the breakup of the
free-trade system and the transition to a new pattern of world order.
In religion, the most immediate consequences of this realignment
were the radical and Utopian cults that emerged among intellectuals and
students, generally espousing antiwar and arititechnological sentiments,
and deriving popularity from their rejection of Western religious tradi-
tions. But the religious repercussions of Vietnam ran far deeper. The
shifting moral climate and definitions of national purpose associated
with the protests and realignments of the 1960s nourished liberalizing
and social reform movements within the mainstream churches, includ-
ing Christian-Marxist dialogue, civil rights activism, antiwar efforts, ex-
periments in liturgy, and reevaluations of traditional political and moral
postures. They also contributed to widespread defection from the
churches among the better educated classes for whom the events of the
1960s symbolized a growing gap between world conditions and the tra-
ditions of the church.
As in the past, religious accommodation of this sort brought forth
other movements as a reaction among those for whom the emerging pat-
tern of world order meant declining power—new denominations in the
South and in the Midwest, such as the National Presbyterian church and
the reconstituted Missouri Lutherans; movements among Vietnam hard-
liners within the churches (the Presbyterian Laymen's Association, for
example); and diffuse defection from mainline denominations into the
more politically conservative evangelical churches. Although general-
ized affluence and the welfare state prevented the kind of extreme hard-
ships that had given rise to widespread sectarianism among the lower
classes in the past, those caught at the margins of society during this
transitional period, particularly minorities and less privileged young peo-
ple, followed predictable patterns in their attraction to movements such
as the Children of God, Pentecostalism, the Unification church, the
Black Muslims, and the Black Christian Nationalist movement.
Because the United States has been a nation of immigrants, the fron-
tiers of American religion have always been exposed to the influences of
foreign affairs. But never before have these frontiers been as widely ex-
posed as they have been in recent years. Not only has the postwar pe-
riod suffered from the tensions of a world order in transition, but Ameri-
ca's dominant role in world politics has also exposed it on all fronts to
world events. Accordingly, many of its new religious movements have
been directly or indirectly influenced by U.S. foreign relations. As in the
past, friendly relations with Britain and Western Europe have facilitated
the import and export of new religions. Devotees of groups such as the
Process and Scientology turned from Britain to the United States when
legal and economic restrictions became oppressive. The Children of
God turned to Britain when the same pressures developed against them
in the United States. Transcendental Meditation found its way west-
ward more easily because of the longstanding relations between India
and Britain and because of the use of those relations by such prominent
figures as the Beatles. Yet the tensions that have existed between the
United States and Western Europe since World War II as the United
States has exerted its dominant influence in world affairs have made
Americans somewhat less eager to borrow from the Europeans than
they may have been in the past. Certainly there has been less fascination
with European theology than with Asian religions. The protective and
commercial alliances between the United States and Japan have made it
as easy to import Zen Buddhism and Nichiren Shoshu as Datsuns and
Toyotas. Similarly, the ease with which Tibetan yoga has been im-
planted, and the degree to which American youth have been able to
make pilgrimages to the fountains of Divine Light and Hare Krishna,
are partly a function of U.S. relations with Asia. In short, American reli-
gion has experienced the consequences of the deep U.S. involvement in a
global network of security and trade relations.
This network has created exposure to new religions, but the transi-
tional state of world affairs has ultimately conditioned their legitimacy.
Students, especially those on the nation's large cosmopolitan campuses,
and young people more generally have grown up amid competing concep-
tions of national destiny. Their futures have been much influenced by the
demands of foreign wars, by the varied fortunes of the space and arms
races, by academic preoccupations with international studies, and by the
economic consequences of currency fluctuations, inflation, and energy
embargoes. This has been as true of students in Japan and Western Eu-
rope as in the United States, And the religious consequences have been
much the same. For the churches, it has been the liberal mainline denomi-
nations, those most capable of and most committed to speaking out on
world affairs, whose plausibility has been undercut by the shifting contin-
gencies of national and international politics. The effect on these denomi-
nations was particularly evident during the 1960s when the rapid transi-
tion from support of the cold war to protest against the Vietnam war gave
rise to criticism and defection among both conservatives and liberals.
Rightly or wrongly, the preeminent orientation in foreign affairs has been
an amoral realpolitik, rather than the moral principles devised by the
churches in their quest for public relevance. Thus, the churches that have
fared healthiest have generally been those among the fundamentalist and
evangelical denominations that have sought only the salvation of souls
and have skirted the practicalities of social policy pronouncements.
Much the same kind of negative consequences seem likely to overtake
their counterparts in the other wings of U.S. fundamentalism that have
become mobilized in support of strong defenses, anticommunism, tradi-
tional sexual standards, and so on.
In the most general sense, the plausibility structure undergirding U.S.
religious culture is one that encourages diversity and change. The most
powerful gods we experience in our everyday lives—the sovereign na-
tion-states of the modern world—function within a transitional interna-
tional order ideologically fractionated and institutionally precarious. In-
deed, the precariousness of international affairs has made governments

reticent to espouse irrevocable moral positions or to encourage the for-
mation of overweening interest groups whose support today may be-
come burdensome tomorrow. Particularly in the democratic world,
where public policy and public opinion are so closely linked, it has been
in the interest of states to promote a climate of tolerance for diversity
within broad limitations. This has redounded for the most part to the
benefit of religious experimentation. As long as world affairs remain in
their present transitional condition, there is no reason to suspect that re-
ligious movements and countermovements will cease to be born.
Yet suggesting that the current unsettledness in world order and in
ideology is somehow an undesirable situation to be gotten through as
quickly as possible would be rash. In the past, tightly consolidated
world orders have been constructed only at a tremendous cost in human
freedom and social resources. And when economic and political contin-
gencies have gone beyond a certain point, the prevailing system of world
order has itself given way to the challenges of new forces and new ideolo-
gies, as the failures of Spain, the Netherlands, and England at various
times in the past have borne witness. What is perhaps more viable in the
long run than a tightly consolidated framework of world order is a loose
confederation of local, national, and regional communities that can re-
spond with flexibility to changing global conditions. Religious plural-
ism, diversity, and toleration could contribute much to the strength and
adaptability of such a confederation.
Implicit in the foregoing has been an assumption that ideology re-
quires social resources and undergoes change depending on tendencies
in the broader social environment. Ideologies respond, as it were, to the
changing fortunes of the moral order, both domestically and internation-
ally, and these responses help to dramatize the symbolic constructions
on which moral order depends. These are the relations between ideol-
ogy and moral order on which the dramaturgic approach to cultural
analysis focuses. But ideologies clearly do not arise only in the context
of loosely organized social movements, nor are they free-floating re-
sponses to social events. They become institutionalized and are pro-
duced and diffused within specific institutional settings: universities,
churches, government agencies, scientific organizations. Consideration
of these contexts requires shifting from a purely dramaturgic approach
to an institutional level of cultural analysis.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Institutionalization of
Science
266 The Institutionalization of Science
of the process by which a cultural form becomes institutionalized. Al-

though the production and diffusion of scientific ideas now occurs on
such a vast scale that the existence of science as a cultural form is often
taken for granted, science nevertheless has gained prominence only
through the process of becoming a social institution. The crucial period in
this process is generally taken to be the seventeenth century. During this
period science acquired the requisite position in relation to its social envi-
ronment that allowed it to develop subsequently into the major cultural
institution that it is today. Before (and even during) the seventeenth cen-
tury, competition and selection influenced the relation that different scien-
tific approaches came to have with particular social environments. But
the significant accomplishment of the seventeenth century was science's
achievement of sufficient autonomy, resources, communication and orga-
nization, and legitimacy for its development to become largely self-sus-
taining and in large measure self-guided. On each of these dimensions of
institutionalization, science was furthered by the special conditions that
existed in Europe at the time. Examining the relations between science
and these conditions therefore provides a window for observing the pro-
cess of cultural institutionalization more generally.1
Historians of science characteristically distinguish between inter-
nalist and externalist approaches to the development of science. In-
ternalist approaches focus on the unfolding of ideas within science itself
as the prime mover of its development. Externalist approaches empha-
size interaction between science and the social environment. Although
both approaches are necessary, internalist explanations have long had
the upper hand. Because science has been responsible for a number of
discoveries about the natural world and because many of these discover-
ies have contributed to technological development, it has been easy for
scholars and the public alike to assume that science is uniquely suited to
arrive at the truth. Although this assumption can be disputed, it has
probably obscured understanding of the development of science by re-
inforcing the internalist perspective. In regarding science strictly as
truth, one can be tempted to explain its development as the simple un-
folding of an inner intellectual logic. According to Barry Barnes (1974),
this point of view is in fact the one currently taken by most historians of
science of both Popperian and Kuhnian persuasion.2
At present, therefore, efforts to examine the institutionalization of sci-
ence with reference to larger social conditions run counter to the main-
stream of historical explanation. Yet it seems hard to deny that institu-
tionalization is a social process—even when it involves science. Joseph
The Institutionalization of Science 267
Ben-David (1971), who has recognized this fact more clearly than most,
puts it well when he says that certain aspects of science are "eminently
sociological phenomena." To say this in no way jeopardizes the impor-
tance of examining the internal dynamics of scientific ideas. But it poses
the importance of also investigating the institutionalization of science in
relation to social conditions.
MERTONIAN AND MARXIST

EXPLANATIONS
The two leading attempts to account for the institutionalization of
modern science are those advanced by Robert K. Merton and by various
Marxist writers. The "Merton thesis," as it has been called, was set
forth in Merton's doctoral disseration, later published in 1938 as Sci-
ence, Technology and Society in Seventeenth-Century England. The
Marxist explanations were formulated about the same time. Neither
theoretical approach was intended as a complete explanation for the de-
velopment of science in Europe during the seventeenth century, but both
have become prominent in the literature, and each represents a major ap-
plication of one of the classical theorists' perspectives on culture.
Following a Weberian line of reasoning, Merton argued that certain
values in English Puritanism had contributed legitimacy to the scientific
role. These values included reason, service to humanity, and the glorifi-
cation of God through study of his handiwork. The effect of these val-
ues, as they became increasingly pronounced in England during the sec-
ond quarter of the seventeenth century, was to enhance the likelihood of
science being chosen as a vocation. Like Weber, Merton assumed that
motivation was an essential factor for any new social institution to
come into being. He also recognized that culture is an institution that re-
quires a commitment of social resources in order to develop and be
maintained. In the case of science, a principal requirement was for indi-
viduals with the necessary talents and training to choose science as an oc-
cupation rather than engaging in other pursuits, such as theology, law,
business, or the military. The values of Puritanism, he asserted, could
have played a major role in legitimating science as an occupation.
This assertion, in fact, appeared to be supported by a considerable
body of evidence that Merton was able to piece together. From materi-
als on large numbers of prominent residents listed in the Dictionary of
National Biography, it was possible to demonstrate that the numbers of
persons choosing science as a career rose dramatically during the second
quarter of the seventeenth century—precisely the time when Puritanism

was gaining a large following among the elite. Shortly thereafter, in the
1660s, the number of scientific inventions also showed a dramatic in-
crease. In addition, an examination of the founders of the first scientific
academy, the Royal Society, revealed that most (forty-two out of sixty-
eight) were Puritans. Other historical studies indicated that Protestant-
ism and science seemed to go together generally (e.g., in New England,
France, the Netherlands, and Germany). And materials from the writ-
ings and biographies of leading scientists suggested that they indeed
were motivated by Puritan convictions about reason, service, and the
glorification of God.
The Marxist approach, formulated by Edgar Zilsel (1951), J. D. Ber-
nal (1971), Boris Hessen (1971), and others, was somewhat more com-
plex as a result of its multiple originators. The essential idea, however,
was that science had arisen in the seventeenth century primarily because
of the increasing social role and needs of the bourgeoisie. The needs of
the bourgeoisie in large measure consisted of new technological de-
mands brought about by the growth of capitalism. Among these were
problems of marine transport that had arisen as a result of the growth in
international trade, military problems that had arisen indirectly from
nations' increasing economic dependence on one another, and mining
problems that had arisen because of the growing demand for precious
metals and industrial ores. Not only the Marxists but also Merton ar-
gued that these technological needs had played an important role in
guiding scientists' choice of problems. For example, Torricelli's discov-
ery of the vacuum, Boyle's work on air pumps, and Huygens's experi-
mentation with piston engines all reflected the growing need for pumps
as a method of draining mines. Similarly, the need for improved naviga-
tional and transport technologies could be recognized behind such inven-
tions as the pendulum clock and logarithms. Technological needs had
another important effect on science as well. Not only did they contrib-
ute to the invention of new instruments; they also played a role in over-
turning traditional philosophical concepts and legitimating broad scien-
tific views of the world. For example, the need for better astronomical
calculations for navigation and the development of better lens-grinding
techniques made possible the telescope, which in turn made possible
Galileo's observation of Jupiter's moons and the terrain of the earth's
moon, both of which were inconsistent with Aristotle's theory of a uni-
verse constructed of perfect spheres and therefore indirectly supported
Copernican theory.
Beyond the effects of technology, capitalism also presumably encour-

aged science in several roundabout ways. One was by shifting the center
of power from the aristocracy to the towns, thereby undermining the au-
thority of traditional ideas and giving science freedom to grow. Another
was by stimulating competition for economic goods, which eroded the
power of the guilds, thereby encouraging individualism and greater free-
dom to think innovatively and independently. Still another was by erod-
ing the medieval conception of a hierarchical society that had kept phi-
losophers, as members of the educated aristocracy, from interacting
with artisans. Theory was thereby allowed to interact with practical ge-
nius, resulting in new theories that combined logic and empirical evi-
dence. Finally, the rise of the bourgeoisie was said to have stimulated
broader interest in scientific discoveries because these new ideas helped
legitimate the elite status of the bourgeoisie. (Newton, for example, was
said to favor new concepts of gravitational force because they corre-
sponded to his broader outlook as a member of the bourgeoisie.)
Here then were two theories, quite different on the surface, yet
clearly influenced by the assumptions of the classical tradition (as dis-
cussed in Chapter 2). Both regarded science as a type of knowledge sub-
ject to the influences of other social institutions, whether religion or the
economy. And both specified as the chief line of social influence a sub-
jective or motivational factor: individual scientists were motivated to
adopt scientific careers or to work on particular scientific problems be-
cause they were motivated by certain experiences, values, or interests.
The two approaches did, however, depart significantly from the classi-
cal tradition in recognizing the institutional character of science. Rather
than conceptualizing science purely as an individual belief system, the
proponents of both approaches maintained that science developed be-
cause it was able to secure resources, chiefly individual talent, and to
make useful discoveries.
A number of sympathetic readers have extended the Merton thesis in
the half-century since it originally appeared. Some have argued that, in
addition to its emphasis on reason, service, and God's glory, Puritanism
also undermined the prevailing hierarchical picture of the world and the
contemporary emphasis on unpredictable supernatural spirits, replacing
them with a worldview that emphasized lawful order among interacting
bodies. Others have suggested a more straightforward effect: science
challenged the authority of the church, emphasized the individual's
right to make private judgments, and thereby encouraged scholars to ex-
periment with and make up their own minds about new scientific ideas.
Yet another argument has been advanced claiming that Puritanism en-
couraged science primarily by fostering a progressive, optimistic out-
look on life. Finally, an empirical study of scientific discoveries con-
firmed the argument that Protestant countries had contributed 3
a larger
number of discoveries per capita than had Catholic countries.
The Marxist literature has also been extended by arguments specify-
ing additional causal links between capitalism and science. The role of
capitalism as a source of rationality, for example, has been emphasized.
The argument here is similar to Merton's except that the source of inter-
est in reason has been identified as the economy rather than religion. Par-
ticularly, the emphasis on counting and calculation that capitalism re-
quired has been identified as a possible source of the new quantitative
approach in science. A related argument has suggested a connection be-
tween increasing mechanization in the economy and the rise of mechan-
ical and causal theories in science. The possibility that exploration,
trade, travel, and increased wealth simply expanded people's horizons,
giving them a thirst for novelty and new ideas, has also been considered.
WEAKNESSES OF THE TWO APPROACHES
Although both the Mertonian and Marxist theories have attracted

large followings, each has nevertheless been seriously faulted by subse-
quent historical research. Even the harshest critics of the two theories
have stopped short of suggesting that Puritanism and capitalism had no
effect on the institutionalization of science. Puritanism and capitalism
were such important social developments in the seventeenth century that
science could scarcely have not been affected by them in some way, at
least indirectly. But the accumulation of more detailed and more exten-
sive historical information has led to two rather damaging conclusions.
First, neither the effects of Protestantism nor those of capitalism now
appear to have been as direct or as straightforward as once thought. The
Merton thesis has been reexamined in light of more extensive data on
early members (not just founders) of the Royal Society and a comprehen-
sive study of British scientists of the eighteenth century. The former re-
vealed that only one-fourth of the members of the Royal Society were
Puritans and that many had changed religious and political loyalties,
seemingly more from expediency than from firm convictions (Mulligan,
1973). The latter discovered that less than 5 percent of eighteenth-cen-
tury scientists had graduated from the Protestant dissenting academies
(Hans, 1951). Intellectual historians have shown that the "elective af-
finity" between Puritan ideals and scientific values breaks down at a

number of points upon closer scrutiny of these concepts (Hall, 1963;
Greaves, 1969; Hooykaas, 1972). The country-by-country comparisons
of scientific discoveries also fail to sustain an idea of Protestant domi-
nance once more4 realistic controls for population differences are taken
into account.
The Marxist set of explanations has also come under attack. Recent
work by economic historians has generally suggested that technological
inventions in the seventeenth century owed little to scientific research
and that scientific research was not greatly stimulated by technological
problems. For example, John Nef (1964:320-321) concludes, "The
more one considers the direct connections between the scientific and the
early industrial revolution, the more they seem to be superficial." Sir
George Clark (1970:63—64) has also questioned the connection be-
tween technology and science, asserting that "few of the inventions . . .
owed anything to scientific inquiries." A. Rupert Hall (1967:154)
has similarly argued that until well into the nineteenth century no evi-
dence can be found of scientists being in any way consciously motivated
by technological problems; "The men who followed science at all had
done so either for the sake of its personal intellectual satisfactions or as
an element in an educational scheme that was not directed towards tech-
nical or professional training" (cf. Hall, 1972; Braudel, 1973:321).
Other evidence has challenged the assumption that scientists were re-
cruited primarily from bourgeois backgrounds. Of a list of 186 scien-
tists in seventeenth-century England, for example, only 22 had been
reared by merchants and traders; even by the eighteenth century, only
84 out of 494 known scientists came from merchant backgrounds
(Hans, 1951). Nor was the influence of the bourgeoisie particularly pro-
nounced in the Royal Society: between 1660 and 1689, only 19 of its
108 members were from merchant or artisan backgrounds (Mulligan,
1973:108).
Second, it is now evident that neither theory accounts for some of the
more interesting developments associated with the institutionalization
of science. The Merton thesis fails to explain the significant degree of in-
stitutionalization that took place in Italian science prior to similar devel-
opments in England. The prosperity of French science also poses a par-
ticular embarrassment to the Merton thesis. Even if the Huguenots were
a significant force in French science, their success amid presumably alien
religious conditions and the continued success of French science after
their expulsion remain to be explained. Nor will it do to argue that sci-
ence on the Continent merely diffused there from England. Although

there was substantial diffusion, there was equally as much infusion from
the Continent to England. Dutch science presents an embarrassment of
a different sort. Its marked decline after the middle of the seventeenth
century squares poorly with the continued prominence of Calvinism
there. The Merton thesis also falters, insofar as it is focused primarily on
individual motivation, in accounting for the other social requisites that
contributed to the emergence of science as an institution.
Spokesmen for the Marxist approach, for their part, have been notice-
ably silent about the virtual absence of scientific activity in the two coun-
tries where problems of transportation, metallurgy, and ballistics were
particularly important—Spain and Portugal. Nor does the Marxian
theory explain why other absolutist states—ones that remained very
much in the hands of the aristocracy (as Perry Anderson [1974] has
shown)—should have become major patrons of the fledgling sciences.
The Marxist theory also proves unsatisfactory once comparisons are
made between Europe and China. Until the end of the sixteenth century,
China remained technologically superior to Western Europe in a num-
ber of important respects (Needham, 1954). Yet, contrary to the Marx-
ist assumption that technology produces science, Chinese technology
failed to promote anything like the institutionalization of systematic sci-
entific experimentation that occurred in Western Europe.
These criticisms need not lead to the conclusion that the Mertonian
and Marxist explanations should be abandoned—only that the last word
on the institutionalization of science has not been spoken. As with any
complex social process, the institutionalization of science in seventeenth-
century Europe does not lend itself to monocausal explanations. The reli-
gious explanation yields considerable mileage in accounting for certain as-
pects of the institutionalization process in England, as does the economic
explanation. But neither in itself, nor the two in combination, fully ac-
counts for the connections that came to be established between science
and its social environment. A large amount of historical research obvi-
ously remains to be done in examining these connections, but equally im-
portant is the need for new perspectives to guide this research.
AN ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVE
In this chapter use will again be made of the broad globalistic perspec-
tive on the social environment that was employed in the previous chap-
ter. Borrowing from the work of Wallerstein and others who have made
The Institutionalization ofScience 273
major contributions to the development of this perspective is not meant

to rule out social factors on a smaller scale nor to imply agreement with
the more specific assumptions in this literature about the development
of the modern political economy. Nevertheless, certain general concepts
emerge from viewing the European region as a single social system that
correspond well with several of the important characteristics of seven-
teenth-century science. Before turning to specific considerations about
the institutionalization of science, therefore, if is probably worthwhile
to comment briefly on these points of correspondence.
In the first place, it can be argued that science in the seventeenth cen-
tury was highly integrated across the European system. There were im-
portant differences in the character of science from one country to the
next, to be sure, but science was European-wide, bound together by an
international network of communication and concerned with problems
that transcended national boundaries. In describing English science, A.
Rupert Hall (1972:44) has remarked:
The current problems in these various sciences tackled in England were the
current problems over all Europe—science was international, critical, com-
petitive in the seventeenth century as it is now. There was no separate little
English world of science isolated from the universe and playing the game ac-
cording to private rules, as though science were a form of cricket.
In both the Mertonian and Marxist approaches, science is implicitly ac-

knowledged to have been distributed unevenly across Europe and, for
this reason, to have been subject to social conditions that also differed
from country to country. But the emphasis has clearly been on science
within isolated national contexts, particularly England, rather than on sci-
ence as a cultural institution that was an integral organization spanning
national boundaries. Given this transnational character, the appropriate
context in which to examine the institutionalization of science would ap-
pear to be one that emphasized the broader systemic nature of European
social structure as well. In other words, science is one cultural institution,
unlike many localized ideological movements, that seems to require a
broad, transnational approach in relating it to the social environment.
Second, taking the entire European system as the relevant context
forces the authority structure of seventeenth-century Europe to be viewed
differently—again in a way that seems appropriate to an understanding
of science. The shift of perspective here is away from an emphasis on cen-
tralized authority toward greater awareness of the decentralized struc-
ture of European authority. This shift is valuable because decentralized
authority has received much attention in the literature on scientific devel-

opment in other contexts. Generally speaking, decentralized authority
has been regarded as a positive factor in the development of science and
in intellectual innovation of other kinds as well. For example, Weber
(1951:152) saw the importance of a lack of authoritarianism during the
Period of Warring States in China, the first period in which "a hundred
[intellectual] flowers bloomed," and likened it to the political conditions
in antiquity that fostered Greek science and philosophy. More recently,
for another example, Ben-David (1971) has stressed political decentral-
ization as a factor in the institutionalization of science in Germany and
the United States in the nineteenth century. Political decentralization has
also been emphasized implicitly 5
in discussions of the compatibilities be-
tween science and democracy.
As far as the seventeenth century is concerned, it has been difficult to
reconcile the growth of science with the prevailing political conditions
of Europe because those conditions seemed more characterized by cen-
tralized than by decentralized authority. The traditional view, formu-
lated by looking at individual societies, has been that the late sixteenth
and early seventeenth centuries constituted an age of absolutism and oli-
garchy. In comparison with late medieval feudalism, the dominant fea-
ture of absolutism and oligarchy was their greater concentration of cen-
tralized authority. From the standpoint of the larger European system,
however, the relevant comparison is with other territorially large social
systems, of which the chief cases prior to the seventeenth century had
been politically unified empires. In this comparison, the important thing
about authority in Europe is not that it was centralized, but that it was
decentralized—divided among competing sovereign states. Rather than
having a single regime that imposed imperial authority over the entire so-
cial context in which science developed, Europe had a political system in
which authority was divided territorially by France, England, Spain,
and other countries. At the societal level, authority was often central-
ized; at the "world-system" level, it was decentralized.
These two views of authority are less incompatible than they may ap-
pear at first sight. Wallerstein (1974) has presented evidence suggesting
that the growth of centralized authority within states was partly nurtured
by the decentralization of authority between states—a fact to which we
shall return later. But the important implication that derives from view-
ing Europe as a larger social system is that political decentralization may,
after all, have contributed to the institutionalization of science in the sev-
enteenth century, as it seems to have done in other periods. What this con-
tribution may have been seems worthy of investigation.
The other conceptual advantage one gains by regarding Europe as an
organic unit is probably less obvious. Some accounting has to be made
for the fact that science became institutionalized in varying degrees in
different parts of Europe—or at least did so at different times and, ac-
cordingly, grew at diverse fates. One of the reasons that the Mertonian
and Marxian theories have enjoyed such prominence, despite the objec-
tions surveyed here, is probably that both predict a high degree of scien-
tific institutionalization in England—where it did, in fact, occur. Yet if
one takes the previously mentioned objections seriously, then some
other manner of describing the variation in European social structure
that better corresponds to the variation in scientific institutionalization
must be sought. Without entering fully into the details at this point, we
can argue that the distinction between "core" (or dominant) and "pe-
riphery" (or dependent) areas6 of territorially large social systems affords
a useful way of doing this.
Having hinted briefly at the relevance of the framework to be out-
lined, we can now turn to an examination of the institutionalization of
seventeenth-century science from this perspective. Supplying empirical
detail of the kind needed to fully test the utility of this perspective must
be left to historians of science. But some tentative indications of this per-
spective's utility can be provided from even a cursory survey of the avail-
able historical material. Let us consider each of the four aspects of insti-
tutionalization previously listed: autonomy, resources, legitimacy, and
internal communication and organization.
SCIENTIFIC AUTONOMY
Institutional autonomy, insofar as science is concerned, means auton-
omy from any body capable of arbitrarily restricting the freedom of scien-
tific inquiry, which in nearly all practical instances means government.
But no one would argue that autonomy implies total independence, let
alone isolation, from government, for science has been heavily indebted
to state protection and patronage. One might suggest, therefore, that sci-
entific autonomy consists of a special form of relation in which science
and the state interact for mutual gain, but where checks are present to
limit the arbitrary extension of state control over science (cf. Shils, 1962;
Price, 1965; Ravetz, 1971).
As previously mentioned, explaining how institutional autonomy for

science could have developed during the age of absolutism and oligar-
chy is difficult because these highly centralized and expansive forms of
political organization appear inimical to scientific autonomy. But if sci-
ence is viewed in the context of the larger European "world economy,"
the presence of competing sovereign states emerges as a means by which
the arbitrary intrusion of any single government could be circumvented
or controlled.
AUTONOMY AND MIGRATION
How might this have worked in practice? One possibility is that scien-
tists were able simply to migrate from one jurisdiction to another in or-
der to escape politically undesirable conditions. There is indeed a great
deal of evidence that this was the case. Kepler, for example, was perse-
cuted in Tubingen but was able to escape to Austria. Descartes is alleged
to have voluntarily exiled himself from France because of his disenchant-
ment with the political conditions there. The scientific movement in
Flanders was able to survive when the scientists fled north (Geyl,
1932:273-274). During the 1630s, large numbers of English students
went to Leyden to study in order to escape the political turmoil in En-
gland (Hackmann, 1976:93). The entire group of scientists that had
gathered around the Duke of Northumberland and that later became in-
strumental in the formation of the "invisible college" fled England dur-
ing the revolutionary period and received patronage in France (Brown,
1934). Newton's mentor, Isaac Barrow, who was a firm supporter of
the king, for which he felt certain of being excluded from becoming re-
gius professor of Greek during the Cromwellian period, spent four years
touring the Continent, returning to England only upon the restoration
of Charles II. Joseph Priestly fled to America avowedly because of his
political views. Countless other examples could be added. The obvious
but not trivial point is that a politically centralized Europe would have
made such freedom much more difficult to sustain.
Of course it is impossible to assess, except in individual cases, how
much the political decentralization of Europe contributed to the politi-
cal autonomy of scientists. However, the same conditions promoting au-
tonomy in the larger European system seem also to have been present in
the Italian city-state system. For example, Galileo's criticisms of an in-
vention proposed by a member of the Medici family temporarily placed
him in disfavor with the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who controlled his ap-
pointment at the University of Pisa. Fearing for his appointment, Gali-

leo turned to the Venetian Republic, where he obtained an appointment
at the University of Padua, avoiding an early termination of his career
(Geymonat, 1965:15—16). For another example, Borelli found himself
accused of sedition after an uprising at Messina. Rather than stand trial,
the outcome of which seemed particularly uncertain, he took refuge in
Rome, where he was received into the academy of Queen Christina of
Sweden, who was residing there.
These examples may have been more the exception than the rule.
But they illustrate that some of the same conditions that may have fa-
cilitated the institutionalization of science in seventeenth-century Eu-
rope may have also facilitated this process in Italian science. Insofar as
this may have been the case, the hypothesis of a relationship between
political decentralization and scientific autonomy appears to be at least
somewhat generalizable. In contrast, the Mertonian theory, and to a
lesser extent the Marxist theories, appear to be of limited applicability
to the Italian situation.
POLITICAL C O M P E T I T I O N
The other way in which political decentralization may have contrib-

uted to the autonomy of seventeenth-century scientists is by invoking po-
litical competition for their services, thereby enhancing the bargaining
power of scientists with their particular governments. That there was
such competition between governments seems to be well evidenced at
least among the more prominent scientists of the period. A number of
courts competed to attract f:he medical skills of Vesalius and Harvey.
France competed successfully for Huygens, Homberg, Viviani, Cassini,
and Roemer, among others, by offering handsome stipends in compari-
son to what they could have received in their native countries. The
Dutch also competed actively to attract foreign scientists, offering high
university salaries as incentives, apparently with considerable success,
so that in the seventeenth century at Groningen, for instance, thirty-four
of its fifty-two professors were foreign (Hackmann, 1976). And En-
gland drew a number of foreign scientists both through patronage and
by promoting a climate of toleration and appreciation of scientific in-
quiry (Nef, 1964:324).
Clearly the fact that governments competed at all for the services of
eminent scientists indicates that science already enjoyed a certain degree
of respectability. This is not the point at issue. The point, as any scientist
who has participated in the "job market" knows, is that one's auton-
omy goes up measurably if there are multiple sources of employment
competing for one's talents. In the seventeenth century there was compe-
tition within countries as there is today (though on a smaller scale, of
course). But the evidence suggests that there was also significant compe-
tition among countries.
The main comparison case that illustrates the importance of political
centralization for scientific autonomy in the seventeenth century—by
virtue of its absence—is the Hapsburg empire. Although Charles V,
whom Napoleon came to admire greatly, nearly succeeded in bringing
Europe under the central control of the Hapsburg regime in the early
part of the sixteenth century, these ambitions lay unfulfilled and largely
beyond hope of repair by the beginning of the seventeenth century. Cas-
tile was rapidly becoming incorporated into the larger European world
economy as a peripheral member dependent on foreign exchange and
foreign diplomatic agreements. Yet in domestic economic and political
structure, Castile remained organized as a closed imperial state. Cultur-
ally it continued to be the most educated society in Western Europe. But
unlike other areas having the necessary educational prerequisites, it
developed no autonomous scientific tradition. According to Richard
Kagan (1974), who has extensively studied seventeenth-century Castil-
ian universities, the major cause of this failure was not so much Catholi-
cism, as usually alleged (although this may have been an indirect factor),
but the degree of government intervention in the selection of instructors,
curricula, students' career choices, and academic standards (cf. Ortiz,
1971:235). Not only did the crown take a strong interest in salary
raises, appointments, academic decisions, and student conduct, but
books from the outside world were also strictly prohibited, and almost
all students were forbidden to attend universities outside Castile. There
was neither opportunity nor much incentive—given the reward system
of the Castilian university—for scientists to bargain or migrate in hopes
of gaining greater intellectual autonomy.
Of course, autonomy can be gained from even the most centralized
empire if one is willing and able to emigrate. The difference with the de-
centralized European system was that one could emigrate but still re-
main within the larger system, where there was contact and communi-
cation with other scientists. In short, autonomy could be negotiated
within the European social system itself.
Some evidence, then, appears to suggest that the institutional auton-
omy of science in the seventeenth century was facilitated by the political
decentralization of the European world economy. However, the impor-

tance of autonomy and decentralization should not be overemphasized.
At most, autonomy is but a passive condition in the development of a
cultural institution. Other social and intellectual conditions no doubt
played a much more active role in the overall growth of seventeenth-cen-
tury science. Furthermore, the political autonomy that scientists en-
joyed—to the extent that it was important—can be attributed only in
part to political decentralization. Even if decentralization provided a
lever against political interference, it must be asked why this lever was
permitted to be used as it was. The role of autonomy, therefore, only
partly explicates the effects of the European world economy on the insti-
tutionalization of science.
PATRONAGE
In the seventeenth century, science was infinitely less costly to main-

tain than it is now, but even then it had to obtain material resources in
order to become established as a social institution. In particular, the live-
lihoods of interested and talented individuals had to be secured in order
for them to devote time to scientific experimentation rather than to
more gainful careers. Beyond this, support was also a frequent necessity
for the procurement of expensive scientific apparatus.
F O R M S OF P A T R O N A G E
In virtually every European country, scientists received financial assis-

tance from persons of wealth and from those in positions of power.
Tycho Brahe received assistance from Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II.
Kepler's observatory was built at the expense of the King of Denmark.
Galileo received advances from the Medici and from the Florentine firm
Giucciardi Corsi (Braudel, 1973:320). Benedetti, who was known pri-
marily for his work in mathematics and physics, served as court mathe-
matician to the Duke of Farnese in Parma and received financial support
from the Duke of Savoy. Bonaventura was supported by the Duke of
Urbino. In Italy the most consistent supporters of scientists were Ferdi-
nand II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and his brother Prince Leopold, found-
ers of the Accademia del Cimento (Middleton, 1971). In France the
Academy of Sciences provided royal pensions of 1,500 livres annually
for fourteen scientists; in addition, a number received patronage from
private sources (Hahn, 1962). In England similar sources of support

were provided by a variety of individuals in private life.
Patronage was also bestowed indirectly in the form of public offices.
In France these included the offices of tax collector (occupied by La-
voisier), treasurer (occupied by Montigny), postmaster general (occu-
pied by d'Onsenbray), and director of the Royal Observatory, as well as
numerous court physicians, apothecaries, surgeons, and tutors. Simi-
larly, in England government positions were held by a number of the
more prominent scientists, including Gilbert, Wilkins, Bacon, Newton,
and Brouncker. One estimate has suggested that nearly one-third of the
original members of the Royal Society were "high servants of the
Crown and state officials" (McKie, 1960:35).
In addition to supporting scientists, a number of the nobility and offi-
cers of the state also took a personal interest in scientific experimenta-
tion. Rudolf II amassed a rich collection of scientific and artistic curiosi-
ties at his court in Prague (Holborn, 1976:284). Charles II had his own
chemistry laboratory, as did Louis XIV's brother, the Due d'Orleans.
Other amateur scientists in France included the Due de Luynes, the
Due de Roannes, and Melchisadec Thevenot (founder of the Academy
Thevenot and patron of a number of scientists including Steno and
Frenicle). Prince Rupert, according to his biographer, had an "inexhaust-
ible interest in forge and laboratory." The ninth Earl of Northumberland
earned the appellation "wizard of earl" for his experiments in anatomy,
alchemy, and cosmography (Stone, 1967:326). Other amateur scientists
in England who either had their own laboratories or took an active role in
experimentation included the Earl of Cork, the Duke and Duchess of
York, the Bishop of London, the second Earl of Cumberland, fifth Lord
Dudley, the Duke of Buckingham, Lord Willoughby, Sir Robert Moray,
and Sir Robert Hale.
As one survey suggests, patronage and direct involvement in science
was a fact of life among the English elite by the early part of the seven-
teenth century:
Noblemen and great officers promoted the rise of applied sciences, not only
as patrons but sometimes also as active researchers. Cuthbert Tunstall, Mas-
ter of the Rolls under Henry VIII and later Bishop of London and Durham,
wrote a textbook on arithmetic (in Latin); in Thomas More's large house-
hold mathematics and astronomy were considered to be principal subjects of
study, and the noted mathematician Nichols Katzer tutored More's children
in astronomy. When John Dee in the third quarter of the sixteenth century as-
sembled a large scientific library in his house near London, it became a center
not only for scholars and instrument makers who looked for advice, but also
for the great merchants who sought his counsel before voyages, and for mem-
bers of Elizabeth's court and council who came to study chemistry with him.
Lord Burghley, Elizabeth's chief minister, tried to promote both the sciences
and scientists. On his request, William Bourne wrote a short treatise on the
properties and qualities of glasses for optical purposes. Digges, one of the
greatest mathematicians of his time, was called into the service of his country
as a military engineer, first to supervise the fortifications at Dover, later as
Muster-Master-General of the English forces in the Netherlands. (Fischer
and Lundgreen, 1975:544)
In Italy Ferdinand II and Prince Leopold were not only patrons of

science but active experimenters as well, as were Count Federigo Cesi,
founder of the Accademia del Lincei, and a number of other Italian no-
tables (Burke, 1974:73--74), Members of both the Medici and Fugger
families dabbled in science. Amateur scientists in Germany included the
Duke of Magdeburg, Tschirnhausen, Hevelius, and Otto von Guericke.
To the extent that scientists received patronage from persons of power,
therefore, it seems reasonable to conclude that this patronage was given
out of genuine interest in, and typically with some knowledge of, the na-
ture and purposes of science.
In total amounts the patronage that scientists received was seldom a
major expense on the part of its benefactors. For example, in France,
where stipends were perhaps more generous than anywhere else, the to-
tal amount of pensions to scientists added up to approximately 30,000
livres a year during the 1670s and for the twenty-five-year period from
1664 to 1690 totaled 1.7 million livres, plus another 0.7 million livres if
the cost of the royal observatory is included (King, 1948:289; Hahn,
1976:131). Yet during this period government receipts from the faille
alone amounted to between 40 million and 50 million livres annually
(Anderson, 1974:98). Thus the amount given over to scientific activities
represented only a tiny fraction of the state's finances. However, this fi-
nancial support was of considerable value to those receiving it, making
it possible to devote time to experimentation that would otherwise
probably have been spent in more gainful activities and providing instru-
ments for the conduct of these experiments.
The importance of obtaining financial assistance was often evident in
the activities of even the leading scientists. As Roger Hahn (1971:7) ex-
plains:
The financial problem became the central issue in the soliciting of governmen-
tal assistance by the more dedicated members of the learned circles. On one
level, their needs stemmed from the cost of constructing improved instru-
ments (especially the expensive ones for astronomical observations) and of
purchasing raw materials to carry on chemical and biological experiments.
Without substantial sums, it was also impossible to initiate large-scale enter-
prises such as scientific expeditions.
And in a similar vein, Martha Ornstein (1975:67) has argued that the
high cost of instruments and laboratories was one of the important rea-
sons why the aristocracy was so heavily represented among the early sci-
entists and why gradually the scientists began to form organizations to
allow greater cooperation in the procurement and use of instruments.
EXPLANATIONS FOR PATRONAGE
But why was patronage given to the sciences? The Mertonian theory
offers no explicit explanation. One can perhaps infer from the Mer-
tonian argument that patronage was granted because science was
thought to be of value to the general welfare and that concern for the
general welfare had been promoted by certain doctrines of the Protes-
tant reformers. But this explanation fails to account for the extensive pa-
tronage that scientists received in Catholic countries and from Catholic
monarchs. The Marxist discussions have also failed to give any explicit
explanation of scientific patronage. It is not inconsistent with the Marx-
ist approach to assume that the rise of commercial capitalism was an im-
portant stimulus to this patronage. Indeed, there are instances of patron-
age being given directly by members of the new commercial classes and
of state-sponsored research connected with commercial ventures. What
does not square well with the Marxist interpretation is the high involve-
ment of the aristocracy and the absolutist state in providing patronage
to the sciences.
Whatever their general limitations, the Mertonian and the Marxist
theories do stress one motivation that seems to have been present
among the early patrons of science. Both theories suggest that science
was of utilitarian value, chiefly in promoting technological innovation.
And there is certainly anecdotal evidence suggesting that science was pa-
tronized for this purpose. Bacon's utilitarian defense of science clearly
seems to have been widely appealing. Charles II repeatedly admonished
the Royal Society to study things that were useful. Colbert's interest in
science rested heavily on utilitarian considerations. "Among the noble-
men and gentlemen who were conspicuous as scientific dilettanti at this

time," writes G. N. Clark (1970:9), "it is easy to see that the excitement
of study was mixed with the hope of gain."
The case could probably be argued that both Protestantism and capi-
talism reinforced a general "ethos" in seventeenth-century Europe in
which utilitarian interests in science could surface. But there also seems
to be evidence that this utilitarian interest in patronizing the sciences, es-
pecially insofar as much of this patronage seems to have been associated
with the state, may have been reinforced by the political and economic
competition that prevailed among the leading members of the European
world-system. More explicitly, one of the social conditions that proba-
bly helped to motivate patronage of the sciences in the seventeenth cen-
tury was the decentralized character of the European world economy
and the rivalry that existed among these multiple centers of power. This
condition emerges as a dominant feature of the seventeenth century
once one adopts a world-system perspective on the period.
By the end of the sixteenth century, it had become apparent to contem-
porary statesmen that Europe could not be politically unified but would
consist of a system of multiple competing powers. Hopes of religious uni-
fication had been destroyed by the firm footholds that Protestantism had
gained in the German states, the Low Countries, Scandinavia, and En-
gland. Militarily, the Hapsburg efforts to restore unity to Europe had
dissipated with the defeat of the Spanish armada, the success of the revolt
in the Netherlands, and the continuing effectiveness of France as a
counterpoise against Hapsburg expansion.
The fact of political decentralization had also begun to be regarded
as normative. Schemes emphasizing the doctrine of equilibrium or "bal-
ance" were evident in Machiavelli and later became pronounced in the
writings of Harrington and Cromwell and in the Duke of Sully's "Great
Design." "That Europe should be unified through the hegemony of any
one power, be it Hapsburg or be it Bourbon," Geoffrey Barraclough
(1963:28) has written, "was rejected on all sides as unthinkable." In
place of unification, the new schemes argued that interdependence
among the European powers was preferable, indeed, that it was inevita-
ble because the various states were endowed with different abilities, cli-
mates, and resources. If interdependence was inevitable, the important
problem was to maintain a balance of power among the major contend-
ing states sufficient to ensure a steady flow of exchange without any one
state gaining an unfair advantage over the others.
Along with the political doctrine of equilibrium, the economic the-

ory—later to be named "mercantilism"—stressed the necessity of each
state cultivating its own unique resources and developing its full potential
strength in relation to the others (see Schmoller, 1896; Knorr, 1944;
Hecksher, 1955; Wilson, 1958). The assumption upon which this theory
rested was that the European states, though interdependent, coexisted
competively in what would now be called a "zero-sum game" in which
one could gain only at the expense of another. As Bacon put it, "whatso-
ever is somewhere gotten, is somewhere lost" (quoted in King, 1948). If
any one state failed to maintain its strength, it was thought that the result
would be unwarranted gains on the part of other states, the ultimate con-
sequence of which might be the destruction of the precarious European
equilibrium. Thus, a politically and economically powerful corporate
state was deemed to be important both for its own domestic security and
for the well-being of the larger international system.
The situation in the seventeenth century therefore resembled in many
respects the political situation in the contemporary world, especially in
the importance attached to the power of competing states and in the de-
gree to which this power was evaluated, perhaps less in terms of control
over subject populations, but in comparison with other states occupying
similar positions in the world-system. Both in reality and in normative
understandings, the world economy of seventeenth-century Europe was
characterized by competition among states to develop their political, so-
cial, and economic resources to the fullest possible extent.
Evidence has already been presented on the extent to which European
states competed to attract and retain eminent scientists. In mercantilist
theory, science was regarded, like material resources, as a storehouse of
strength with which each country had been differently endowed, and it
was up to the officials of each country to develop this potential. Accord-
ing to one authority on the period:
Laffemas, the earliest of the French economic writers who attempted to work
the scattered mercantilist ideas into a complete system, proposed the organi-
zation of Chambres des manufactures which should instruct youth in "sci-
ences" and teach them to study scientific treatises. In his Economies
royales . . . the Due de Sully, who had been the principal finance minister of
Henry IV, proposed an industrial museum like that suggested by Descartes;
there should be set up in the Louvre a collection of models of machines used
in industries. A. de Montchretien, who had traveled in Holland, Germany,
and Switzerland, proposed the establishment in France of the sort of elemen-
tary industrial training which he had seen abroad. (Art?., 1966:24)
Not only the domestic good of the nation but also the collective good of
the entire region depended on the responsible cultivation of the sciences.
As one observer of the times wrote in 1646:
Each climate receives its particular influences; these influences communicate
divers qualities, and the qualities create divers talents of the mind, and by
consequence divers kinds of sciences and industries among men. Some are
suited for Philosophy, others for mechanics, others to some arts and particu-
lar exercises: the Author of nature distributing thus unequally his gifts and
his talents to men, in order to render them reliant on one another, and to
oblige them to share what they have in particular, (quoted in King,
1948:135)
It is difficult to know how much the political and economic competi-

tion of the mercantilist period may have contributed to the provision of
patronage to the sciences. What does seem clear is that this competition
carried over into the realm of science, as we have seen, and that it was
typically the countries that provided the greatest patronage and re-
sources, either in the form of royal stipends as in France or in the form
of private support and state offices as in England, that attracted the
most eminent scientists. The competitive spirit of the age was clearly not
wholly lost on scientists themselves. For example, the undercurrent of
this spirit is evident in the following appeal to Louis XIV on behalf of a
proposal to found a national observatory in France:
Its Project is so great, and may be so glorious for the state, and so useful for
the public, if it is executed in all its details, that it is impossible not to be per-
suaded that Your Majesty, who has designs so vast and so magnificent,
should not approve and favor it; and I can declare that all the neighboring na-
tions have been for some time in an incredible expectation of so great an es-
tablishment, (quoted in Brown, 1934:145)
The observatory was built at a cost of 700,000 livres.

Although much of the incentive for patronizing the sciences may
have been rooted in strictly utilitarian considerations, this patronage
was probably also motivated by expressive or "ceremonial" concerns.
The seventeenth century was the great age of ceremony. In the arts, in ar-
chitecture, and in learning, if was the age of the baroque, of Versailles,
of the richly ornamented facade and the ornamental garden, the heroic
tragedy, great operas and orchestras, punctilious court etiquette, the
King James Bible, and St. Paul's Cathedral (Ogg, 1972:36-38). The sev-
enteenth century was also the age of high ceremony and protocol in dip-
lomatic relations, and it was the age of what G. N. Clark (1947:139--
143) has called "speculative wars," which dramatized state boundaries

by testing the military strength of opposing forces.
It is perhaps not surprising that ceremony should have been as pro-
nounced as it was in the seventeenth century, given what has already
been said about the European world economy. Lacking a central author-
ity capable of defining and legitimating the membership and status of
states in the European system, ceremonial activities may have served as
an alternative means of dramatizing the strength and status of states to
one another. These activities may have also served as a means of demon-
strating each state's ability to maintain and defend its position in the Eu-
ropean system and of manifesting each state's subscription to norms
and expectations common to members of the system. In a somewhat par-
allel context, for example, Meyer and Rowan (1977) have observed that
formal organizations in competitive environments often develop formal
structures that, among whatever other functions they may fulfill, dram- 7
atize the status and purposes of the organization to its competitors.
There are several reasons for suspecting that science may have been
patronized, though perhaps not in any deliberate or systematic fashion,
because of its ceremonial value. For one, the arts were just as likely as
the sciences to be the recipients of patronage (Wolf, 1951; Foss,
1971)—something that one would not expect had utilitarian concerns
been the sole motivation for patronage. For another, the scientists who
received patronage and who were elected to the royal academies were
more often men of eminence, whose sponsorship added prestige to the
state, than men of proven practical accomplishments. For example, in
describing the members of the French Academy of Sciences, Roger
Hahn (1971:14-15) observes:
Among them were men of considerable cultural attainments and erudition,
such as Pierre Carcavi and Christian Huygens, the polymath Marin Cureau
de La Chambre, the Oratorian theologian Jean-Baptiste Du Hamel, the mag-
istrate Bernard Frenicle de Bessy, and Charles Perrault's equally famous
brother, the architect and physician Claude Perrault. Though many were inti-
mately concerned with the practical applications of scientific studies, none
was selected for his technical prowess alone. . . . A tacit understanding al-
most seems to have existed that a sound liberal education rather than appren-
ticeship in a trade was a proper qualification for admission. Hence, from the
outset, there was a certain social and intellectual bond in the Royal Academy
which ran counter to the hopes of the framers of the Company. Artisans
were clearly excluded.
A similar picture is given by Maurice Ashley (1973:156) in his descrip-

tion of the Royal Society in England:
One is particularly struck by the versatility of the members of the Royal Soci-
ety. They included John Aubrey, the author of the Brief Lives of his contem-
poraries . . . John Evelyn, botanist and numismatist, and Samuel Pepys, the
naval administrator , . . John Locke, metaphysician, educationist, political
philosopher, theologian, physician, and man of affairs; Sir William Petty,
who contends with Captain John Graunt for the distinction of being the first
English statistician or "political arithmetician"; Dr John Wallis, who wrote
books on arithmetic as well as English grammar; John Dryden, the poet;
Wren, the architect; Dr John Williamson, the politician; the Duke of Bucking-
ham and the Earl of Sandwich; Sir Kenelm Digby, the Roman Catholic, who
collected book bindings and invented the "powder of sympathy" to heal
wounds; and even the Moroccan ambassador who was admitted as an honor-
ary member. Besides them stood scientists whose names are still universally
honoured: Robert Boyle, the "father of modern chemistry" and inventor of
Boyle's law; Isaac Barrow, the mathematician and clergyman; Robert
Hooke, city surveyor, mathematician, physicist, and a great inventive genius;
and Jonathan Goddard, one of the first English makers of telescopes.
Many of these individuals, as we shall see later, were also placed in dip-
lomatic positions where their eminence could serve directly to dramatize
the prestige of their sponsoring governments.
Patronage continued to be granted to the sciences even when it was
evident that few scientists were especially concerned about practical
problems and few practical solutions seemed to be directly attributable
to their work. It seems doubtful that patronage would have been as
consistent in the absence of more pronounced practical accomplish-
ments had patronage been given only for utilitarian considerations.
But even when science was not of practical value, it may have func-
tioned as a locus of erudition. Thus, by supporting the sciences—even
nominally as Charles II did in chartering the Royal Society—representa-
tives of state could 8demonstrate their commitment to learning, rational-
ity, and modernity.
In short, the decentralized and competitive social structure of the
larger European system in the seventeenth century may have contrib-
uted to the interest that representatives of state showed in patronizing
the sciences, perhaps for both utilitarian and ceremonial reasons. Pa-
trons also supported the sciences for a host of personal reasons; many
probably supported the sciences simply because of personal fascination.
Had it been strictly a matter of personal whim whether or not the sci-
ences received patronage, however, this aspect of the institutionaliza-
tion process might not have developed to the extent that it did. What the
social structure of the larger European system did was to create a com-
petitive situation, both practically and normatively, that encouraged the
leading states to develop their national resources, among which was sci-
entific experimentation.
LEGITIMATION
Traditional explanations have paid more attention to the legitima-
tion of early scientific activities than to the other aspects of scientific in-
stitutionalization that have just been considered, and they have been
relatively more successful at explaining legitimation than these other
aspects. Protestant and capitalistic values, insofar as both stressed the
practical realities of this life and of nature, probably helped legitimate
science even beyond those specific areas in which Protestantism and
capitalism were most successful. Also, Protestantism and capitalism
were probably pervasive enough that their values "filtered down" suffi-
ciently to individual scholars to have some direct motivating potential in
the direction of scientific careers, as Merton in particular has stressed.
ROLE OF THE STATE
To this discussion of scientific legitimation can be added the sugges-

tion that science may have also received a significant share of legitima-
tion from its relation to the state. In an age when even religious claims
were coming to be subordinate to the ideology of raison d'etat and
when enterprises ranging from trading ventures to societies of literature
looked to the state for justification, it would be surprising if science did
not also receive legitimation from the state. We have already seen that
there was, indeed, a close relation between science and the seventeenth-
century state: (1) in the numbers of scientists who received patronage
from the state; (2) in the numbers of scientists who occupied positions
within state bureaucracies; and (3) in the numbers of state officials who
took a personal interest in science as amateur experimenters. Evidence
also suggests that scientists, for their part, were aware of the importance
of receiving official sanctioning of this nature.
It has been said that Galileo's willingness to recant his views to the
church was less a sign of any weakness of character than an indication
of his conviction that good relations with the church, as the most power-
ful authority in his immediate milieu, were crucial to the legitimacy and
survival of the fledgling sciences (Geymonat, 1965). This same convic-
tion allegedly motivated him to devote over twenty years of his life to a
dialogue with representatives of the church on behalf of his discoveries9

and to make every effort to enlist the powerful Medici in his struggle.
In England the members of the invisible college, though by no means
of exclusive royalist persuasion, were quick to agree on the importance
of soliciting a royal charter for their society from Charles II. It has been
more generally argued that royal legitimation, even before the founding
of the Royal Society, was one of the decisive influences that attracted sci-
entists to England and permitted science to flourish there to the extent
that it did:
On the Continent, except perhaps in Holland and Denmark, there was no
country where the learned man who wanted to try new methods of scholar-
ship and research, without any practical purpose, could count as much as in
England on sympathetic recognition and authoritative support. For several
generations the universities and the ecclesiastical foundations, including the
churches set up by the Reformers, had been generally hostile to revolutionary
intellectual innovations. Queen Elizabeth's patronage of Gilbert was a symp-
tom of a new attitude among the mighty toward the experimenter and his ef-
forts. Isaac Casaubon (1559—1614), the French classical scholar, could not
find satisfactory conditions for his work either at Geneva or at Paris, and in
1610 he finally sought asylum at the English court and became a naturalized
Englishman. Casaubon's biographer, Mark Pattison, tells us that the court of
James I, for all the king's pedantry, was the only court in Europe where the
learned professions were in any degree appreciated. It is significant that
Kepler, who must have known of James I's visit to the observatory of Brahe
in Denmark in 1590, should have thought enough of the king's scientific
interests to dedicate to him De harmonice mundi, a work published at
Augsburg in 1619, in which the great scientist announced his third law of mo-
tion. During James I's reign, with Francis Bacon in office as solicitor-general
and later as attorney-general, the outlook on experimental inquiry by
learned men was more liberal in England than in other parts of Europe. So
the English court provided new experimental work with official approval
such as could be obtained almost nowhere else. (Nef, 1964:324)
The relation between this sort of legitimation and the decentralized

character of the European world economy is indirect, of course. If it can
be argued, as attempted in the previous section, that the actual and nor-
mative political competition that characterized the mercantilist world
economy of the seventeenth century was an inducement to the patron-
age of science, both for utilitarian and for ceremonial reasons (although
in varying degrees in different countries), then this aspect of the larger
European social system also contributed indirectly to the legitimation
that came with patronage from the state. It is perhaps useful to mention
at least two specific consequences of this legitimation.
C O N S E Q U E N C E S FOR SCIENCE
First, to the extent that official approval of the sciences on the part of
the state fulfilled ceremonial functions as well as strictly utilitarian inter-
ests, science was afforded an a priori form of legitimation that did not de-
pend on the production of immediately useful knowledge. As we have
seen, science continued to receive support even though its practical ac-
complishments were as yet of perhaps minimal importance in compari-
son with those being made outside of science. This support and approval
was probably of special value when science was first becoming institution-
alized—that is, before its legitimacy became independently rooted in dis-
coveries and technological contributions.
The second consequence of receiving legitimation from the state that
may have been of particular importance to the development of science
was the fact that this legitimation gave science additional autonomy
from the established universities. It was important for the state to func-
tion as a corporate unit, according to mercantilist philosophy, especially
in the eyes of its rivals in the European system. As far as the universi-
ties were concerned, however, they had, following the decline of the
church's influence, become a force increasingly associated with local in-
terests (Lytle, 1974; Morgan, 1974; Stone, 1974). By supporting scien-
tific activities outside the universities, the state was able to circumvent
the power of the universities to some degree, and, in turn, science re-
ceived from the state a strong voice in overcoming resistance from
within the universities to the new 10
methods and discoveries it sought to
propound (cf. Ben-David, 1971).
COMMUNICATION AND ORGANIZATION
The remaining aspect of institutionalization mentioned earlier has to

do with the fact that any institution must manifest a minimal degree of
communication among its members and must organize its activities into
stable patterns of organization if it is to survive. The two most notable
developments along these lines in seventeenth-century science were the
institutionalization of an extensive international communication net-
work among scientists and the organization of scientists into national
academies. The latter has been carefully described in studies by Har-
court Brown (1934), Roger Hahn (1971), W. E. Knowles Middleton
(1971), Martha Ornstein (1975), and others. The former has been stud-
ied less systematically, but there is ample evidence of the extensive com-
munication that existed among European scientists from at least the mid-
dle of the sixteenth century onward.
INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION
For example, Henry Oldenberg carried on an extensive correspon-

dence with scientists throughout Europe from his home in England. A
similar network was established in France through the efforts of
Mersenne. Galileo appears to have kept informed of Kepler's research
through personal correspondence. Galileo is also alleged to have first
learned of the Dutch telescope from correspondence with a French no-
bleman, Jacques Badovere (Drake, 1957:28—29). Besides correspon-
dence, scientists also learned of one another's work through extensive
foreign travel. For example, forty-four of the sixty-five eminent six-
teenth- and seventeenth-century scientists discussed in Taton's History
of Science had been educated abroad, had traveled extensively, or had
worked in countries other than those in which they had been born.
Had Europe in the seventeenth century consisted simply of a set of
relatively autonomous countries, as textbook history has often por-
trayed it, it would likely have been less conducive to the kind of interna-
tional communication that developed within the scientific community.
But the various countries oi Europe by the seventeenth century had be-
come highly interconnected economically and politically. Regular ship-
ments of naval stores from the Baltic to the Mediterranean by way of
the German trading cities, or grain from Poland to England via the Neth-
erlands, or wool from England to the Netherlands in return for finished
cloth had become commonplace, ensuring that correspondence and in-
formal flows of information would occur on a routine basis (Wal-
lerstem, 1974).
With increasing economic interdependence also came attempts to
institutionalize diplomatic relations (Mattingly, 1955). These attempts
especially appear to have augmented the flow of information among sci-
entists. For example, most of the extensive international correspon-
dence of the Accademia del Cimerito was carried on by resident minis-
ters of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, such as Lorenzo Magalotti in
France, and other persons in diplomatic service (Middleton, 1971). For
another example, Sir Francis Bacon spent four years in the retinue of the
English ambassador at the French court, where he came into contact
with a number of French scientists. William Harvey visited Germany in

1636 in the company of the English ambassador and made observations
that served importantly in the writing of his Anatomical Exercises on
the Generation of Animals (1651). Sir John Finch, a noted English as-
tronomer, became the resident minister of Charles II in Florence. The
French diplomat Frenicle, a protege of Melchisadec Thevenot, is said to
have been an important link between experimenters in Italy and experi-
menters in France. Thevenot himself, founder of one of the forerunning
academies to the Academy of Sciences, was both scientist and diplomat
and maintained close contact between scientists in France and Italy dur-
ing the 1650s. Leibniz, of course, was also both scientist and diplomat.
Perhaps Dorothy Stimson (1948:146) has described the situation most
clearly:
Though there were no newspapers as yet, even then a net-work of communi-
cations linked England with the European countries. Men went abroad on
government or on private business and brought back European books as well
as news. Students wandered from university to university in Italy, France,
Holland. Men, exiled to foreign cities, when restored to favor, brought back
with them new tastes, new ideas, new interests learned abroad.
RIVALRIES
Scientists, in a sense, were welded into a single transnational com-

munity through their correspondence, travel, and common interests.
However, no single scientific body of the kind that might have eventu-
ally stifled creativity and diversity of opinion emerged. Instead, sepa-
rate scientific academies developed in the various European states. The
circumstances surrounding the founding of these academies have been
studied extensively. What is of interest in the present context is that
the political and economic competition that characterized the Euro-
pean state system in the seventeenth century also seems to have been re-
flected in the competition among the scientific academies themselves.
The rivalry between the Royal Society and the Academy of Sciences is
well known. Such rivalry, it appears, also characterized some of the
earlier academies in Italy. Indeed, one theory concerning the founding
of the Accademia del Cimento in Tuscany—the theory espoused by dis-
tinguished Italian historian Riguccio Galluzzi—suggests that its found-
ing may have been at least partly motivated by the founding of an
Academy of Belles Lettres in Vienna a year previously (1656).
Middleton (1971) discounts this theory on the grounds that the acad-
emy was short-lived and had nothing to do with scientific experimenta-
tion. Yet the founders of the Accademia del Cimento were aware of the
other academy, and the two were organized along similar lines in their
respective states. Middleton's research has also uncovered evidence in
letters from the 1650s showing the rivalry then beginning to exist be-
tween the Montmor Academy in Paris and the scientists associated with
Prince Leopold in Tuscany, For example, a letter from Constantyn Huy-
gens to his brother Christiaan remarks:
We have had a good laugh at that fine assembly at Monsieur de Montmor's,
and what happened in that meeting of fools when you were there hardly
makes us respect the intelligence of these academicians, who patiently listen
to pedants jawing for hours on end about nothings. To tell you what I think,
it seems to me that those gentlemen in Florence are worth much more than
these Parisians and treat things with fore-thought and modesty. (Middleton
1971:298-299)
Rivalry such as that expressed in Huygens's letter may have contrib-

uted to the multiplicity of academies that developed across Europe in
the seventeenth century, and these in turn may have afforded greater in-
tellectual freedom than might have been present had a single academy,
capable of imposing its opinion on all, developed. Rivalries between sci-
entists in different states may have also reinforced skepticism and criti-
cism of the kind useful for the advancement of scientific knowledge. For
example, Wolf (1951:224) has suggested that there were probably not
more than three or four people in all of Europe capable of understand-
ing Newton's Principia at the time it was published. Among these were
Halley in England, Huygens in France, and Leibniz in Germany. It may
not be entirely coincidental that, of the three, only Halley accepted
Newton's work without reservation; Huygens and Leibniz raised impor-
tant criticisms, some of which were not answered until the middle of the
nineteenth century.
These pieces of evidence suggest that the structure of the larger Euro-
pean world-system—integrated yet decentralized—was reproduced in
the scientific community. Scientists not only interacted with one another
across national boundaries but also organized themselves into compet-
ing bodies. There was within the scientific community already in the sev-
enteenth century, therefore, the making of an integrated yet flexible insti-
tution capable of expanding and adapting as its own discoveries and the
growth of modern political and economic conditions dictated.
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN CORE

AND PERIPHERY
Thus far, the important differences that existed among the various
European countries in their contributions to scientific activity have been
ignored in the interest of discussing some of the general implications for
the institutionalization of science of the decentralized social structure of
the European system. Against this background some suggestions can
now be formulated from the same perspective about the sources of na-
tional differences and similarities in the production of scientific culture.
IMPLICATIONS FOR SCIENCE
An important distinction that informs work on the early modern

world-system is that between core areas, which are politically and eco-
nomically dominant, and periphery areas, which are politically and eco-
nomically dependent. From the perspective of the world-system as a
whole, core areas occupy structurally similar positions that differ from
those occupied by the periphery. Core areas can be expected to generate
some of the same kinds of activities, therefore, merely because of their
structurally similar positions, despite differing greatly from one another
on other political, religious, or economic characteristics. Similarly, cer-
tain activities would be expected to be common to periphery areas, de-
spite other domestic differences in these areas.
The implication of this argument for the institutionalization of sci-
ence is that scientific activity might be expected to manifest similarities
in areas occupying structurally similar positions in the world-system, re-
gardless of other differences in these areas. In particular, we might hy-
pothesize that science should show similar overall patterns of growth in
core areas of the world-system, despite political and religious or other
differences, because of certain advantages accruing to core areas from
their central position in the world-system. These advantages might in-
clude (1) the flow of economic resources toward the core, making it pos-
sible for the core to support a larger educated elite from whom scientists
and patrons of science could be recruited and a larger state bureaucracy
providing offices and patronage to scientists; (2) the central position of
the core in relation to channels of trade, diplomacy, and communica-
tion, all of which might create more effective exposure to new ideas;
and (3) the greater role of ceremonial activities for the purpose of
legitimating the power and position of states in relation to one another

in the core (cf. Shils, 1972; von Gizycki, 1973)."
It is possible to test this hypothesis, at least indirectly, not only by
comparing the scientific activity of core and periphery areas, but also by
examining the changes in scientific activity that occurred over time as
countries moved into or out of the core of the world-system. Two gener-
alized indicators of scientific activity are available for the period 1500
to 1850: the number of scientists living in selected countries as calcu-
lated from Marquis's Who's Who in Science and the number of discover-
ies in selected countries listed in Ludwig Darmstadter's {1
Handbuch zur
Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften und der Technik.
SOME E V I D E N C E
The data on numbers of scientists demonstrate the relative domi-

nance of the Hapsburg domains (Spain, Italy, and Germany) in 1500—
when the Hapsburg empire could be regarded as the core of the Euro-
pean system—and the increasing shift away from these domains as the
core of the world economy moved to other parts of Europe. Of the
ninety-three scientists who were living in 1500, for example, sixty-four
resided in Spain, Italy, or Germany. By the beginning of the seventeenth
century, this pattern had begun to alter. Although Italy still led (with
fifty-eight scientists in 1600), England, France, and Germany had each
become near-rivals for the leadership as well (with fifty, forty-seven,
and forty-nine, respectively). During the course of the seventeenth cen-
tury, these three countries solidified their position while Italy—parallel-
ing the larger shift of economic power—gradually declined. In 1700, for
example, France had one hundred six scientists, England had seventy-
three, Germany had forty-nine, and Italy had only thirty-two. The Neth-
erlands also showed an interesting pattern during this period. As its posi-
tion among the core powers of the world-system increased, the numbers
of scientists residing there also increased, rising from six in 1550 to sev-
enteen in 1600 to twenty-three in 1650; after this date, however, the
Netherlands' difficulties in rivaling England and France economically
and politically were also evident in the numbers of scientists, which
declined to fourteen in 1700. Other countries that were definitely periph-
eral in terms of economic and political power in the seventeenth cen-
tury—for example, Poland, Denmark, Portugal, and Ireland—each reg-
istered fewer than five scientists at any point in the seventeenth century.
Finally, the differences between core and peripheral countries is also
evident in these data for the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
During most of this period, the core countries consisted mainly of En-
gland, France, and Germany. For all three, numbers of scientists grew
rapidly and in about the same absolute proportions. Thus by 1850, 480
scientists were listed for England, 510 for France, and 470 for Germany.
By comparison, only 60 were listed in 1850 for Italy, 9 for the Nether-
lands, 12 for Poland, and 14 for Denmark. Only the United States,
which was rapidly gaining strength as a core economic power, had be- 13
gun to rival the leading European states, listing 408 scientists in 1850.
The data on scientific discoveries, as might be expected, closely resem-
ble those on numbers of scientists. Again, differences appear between
core and periphery countries, and the longitudinal trends closely paral-
lel movement into and out of the core. Spain and Italy are again promi-
nent at the beginning of the sixteenth century, but Spain's position de-
clines markedly after 1550, and discoveries in Italian science appear to
level off after 1600. From 1600 onward, approximately the same num-
ber of discoveries are made in England, France, and Germany—with
Germany taking a slight lead around 1850. Scientific discoveries in the
Netherlands rank nearly equal to England, France, and Germany in
1600 and grow at nearly the same rates until 1700, after which they lag
increasingly behind the numbers made in the core countries. Again,14sci-
entific discoveries are virtually absent in the periphery countries.
These indicators, of course, mask important differences in the kinds of
scientific work being done in the various countries at different times—dif-
ferences in style, subject matter, and quality of research, owing to varia-
tions both in cultural traditions and in the talents of individual scientists.
But they suggest a crude correspondence between levels of scientific activ-
ity and countries' positions in the larger European world economy. The
reasons for this correspondence undoubtedly include social conditions
indigenous to particular countries preceding both their position in the
world economy and their level of scientific activity. Apart from these con-
ditions, however, the similarities in levels of scientific activity in countries
occupying similar positions in the larger European 15 system suggest that in-
fluences of this larger system cannot be ignored.
IMPLICATIONS FOR
CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE
In concluding, some implications for the analysis of contemporary sci-

ence might be suggested. Although science has for several centuries been
a highly institutionalized feature of modern culture, some of the same

patterns in the broader social environment that contributed to its initial
institutionalization also appear to have a continuing effect in promoting
scientific productivity. Three influences in particular seem to remain evi-
dent today as much as in the seventeenth century.
First, there continue to be similarities in the scientific activities of
countries occupying similar positions in the world-system, despite gross
differences in the domestic structure of these societies. Contrary to the
argument that science and totalitarianism are mutually exclusive, for
example, the Soviet Union has emerged as a major competitor of the
United States in scientific research. The achievements of both in science
and technology serve not only to maintain their status as core nations in
the modern world but also to dramatize this status to each other and to
the other nations of the world. Manifestations of these achievements,
whether in explorations of outer space, military hardware, or consumer
products, dramatize the powers not only of science but also of the soci-
eties sponsoring them. Nobel prizes especially, as Harriet Zuckerman
(1967, 1977) has shown, become cherished tokens of national wisdom
in much the same way that Olympic medals symbolize national fitness
or physical prowess. However different in domestic social structure, the
core countries of the world have felt compelled to participate in this cere-
monial scientific competition and have allowed this competition to influ-
ence their scientific activities.
Second, periods of intense national competition such as prevailed in
the seventeenth century (although actual outbreaks of war appear to be
an exception) appear to have been particularly conducive to the rapid de-
velopment of science. The great steps forward in atomic research during
World War II cannot be fully explained without taking account of the
conflict present in the larger world-system, nor can the rapid buildup of
scientific research in the 1960s be explained apart from the cold war
competition between the two leaders of the postwar world. Despite the
universalistic norms and the cosmopolitan attachments of the scienti-
fic community, science has frequently been the beneficiary of rivalries
among core nations.
Finally, the foregoing discussion suggests certain continuities in the
history of science. Contrary to popular arguments distinguishing be-
tween the contemporary problems associated with "big science" and the
historic opportunities associated with "little science," there appear to be
some similarities in the social factors conditioning the institutionaliza-
tion of science throughout the entire modern era. In particular, the close
relation between contemporary science and the state is not entirely new;
it can be illustrated as early as the seventeenth century. Again, the state
seems an especially important factor to consider in examining the institu-
tionalization of cultural forms—a factor that will emerge again in the
next chapter as a central issue.
The aim of this chapter has not been to present a thorough analysis
of the relations between the European world economy and the institu-
tionalization of science in the seventeenth century, but rather to suggest
some of the relations between science and the broader social environ-
ment and to illustrate some of the ways in which the idea of "world-sys-
tem" might be beneficial in examining these relations. There is no need
to argue that the effect of international or transnational factors was
more important than the effect of domestic factors; those were surely im-
portant as well. But the limitations of purely domestic arguments, such
as those found in both the Mertonian and Marxist traditions with re-
spect to England, indicate that some attention needs to be paid to
broader social contexts as well.
CHAPTER NINE
State Structures and

Cultural Reform
300 State Structures and Cultural Reform
Swanson's study. Combining important theoretical concerns with a mas-

sive array of carefully analyzed data, Religion and Regime represents
a model of systematic comparative methodology. Moreover, the vol-
ume purports to make a substantial contribution to the application of
Durkheimian theory to the sociology of knowledge. Along with his The
Birth of the Gods (1960) and numerous articles (1971, 1973, 1976,
1978a, 1978b, 1980), it stands as one of the central contributions in
Swanson's extended quest to demonstrate the universality of the effects
of political arrangements—specifically, variations in the structure of sov-
ereign groups—on popular attitudes and beliefs. Although others have
made significant applications of the Durkheimian tradition in a number
of areas, Swanson's work is distinctive in the specificity of its hypothe-
ses concerning the social determination of ideology and its attempts to
subject these assertions to empirical test.
In the two decades since it was written, Religion and Regime has ex-
perienced a somewhat curious reception. Soon after its publication, his-
torians devoted a great deal of attention to it, including two major re-
view symposia in leading journals, where it was discussed by a number
of prominent experts on early modern European history (Brodek, 1971;
Bouwsma, 1968; Davis, 1969, 1971; Flint, 1968; Francois, 1972;
Koenigsberger, 1971). Since then, however, historians have paid the
book almost no attention, often failing even to include it among stan-
dard bibliographic sources on the Reformation. Sociologists, in con-
trast, have shown far more positive and sustained interest in the book,
recommending it favorably in reviews, discussing it in textbooks on the
sociology of religion and culture, and applying some of its major con-
cepts in other studies (Bergesen, 1977, 1978, 1984; Robertson, 1970;
Robertson and Lechner, 1984; Winter, 1983, 1984; O'Toole, 1984;
Simpson, 1983). Judging from the reception it has been given, the book
appears to have become a minor classic in some branches of sociology.
This is not to say that it has been received uncritically. Sociologists, like
historians, have raised questions about some of the book's conclusions.
But neither group has attempted to replicate the study empirically or
even to reexamine its major premises in light of more recent historical
evidence—a fact that appears all the more surprising because a substan-
tial amount of new evidence on the Reformation period has accumu-
lated in recent years.
The purpose of this chapter is to reexamine part of the evidence on
which Swanson's theory of the Reformation is based in order to clarify
the intervening theoretical links relating regime structures to religious
State Structures and Cultural Reform 301
ideology. At a more general level, the chapter's goal is to suggest an alter-

native to the way in which the relations between social conditions and
ideology have generally been conceived, using Swanson's study as a vehi-
cle to illustrate this alternative. This effort should be seen neither as a
full replication nor as an attempt to refute the conclusions of Religion
and Regime, but as an attempt to transcend some of the limitations of
the approach to the study of states and ideology that it exemplifies. The
chapter begins with an attempt to situate Swanson's study in terms of its
larger theoretical importance to the sociology of knowledge; criticisms
of the study that suggest its chief shortcoming is a failure to specify a
plausible set of intervening connections between state structures and ide-
ology are then discussed; next, evidence on the Reformation in France
and England is presented to illustrate the nature of these connections in
two prominent European states where religious policies clearly differed;
and finally, an alternative approach that stresses the institutional rela-
tions between state structures and ideological outcomes is proposed.
RELIGION AND REGIME

The theoretical thread integrating Swanson's work on ideology is the
argument, suggested by Durkheim, that when human beings worship
the gods, they really, unknowingly, worship society. Swanson argues
that the critical dimension of society that generates variations in reli-
gious ideas is the arrangement of sovereign groups. These are the reposi-
tories of transcendent force that carry the immutable, constraining
power that Durkheim regarded as the source of fear, trust, veneration,
and other sentiments assigned to the gods. The way to verify the correct-
ness of this assertion, Swanson recognized, was to examine societies dif-
fering in authority structures to determine if religious patterns varied
accordingly. His work on primitive societies in The Birth of the Gods ex-
amined these structures, yielding powerful empirical results that demon-
strated, among other things, that belief in "high" or monotheistic gods
is more common in societies characterized by at least three levels of po-
litical authority where the highest authority's sovereignty is manifested
by its rule over lesser authorities. The results of that study appeared to
provide evidence for a strong, direct influence of political arrangements
on the actual content of religious ideas.
Religion and Regime sought to extend the generalizability of this con-
clusion by examining a related set of hypotheses for early modern soci-
eties. Differences in ideology between Protestantism and Roman Ca-
tholicism provided the critical dependent variable. Swanson argued that

the important operative distinction between the two lay in their differ-
ing conceptions of God's immanence: Catholics believed that God was
actually (physically) present in the Eucharist, in the offices of the priest,
in relics of the saints, and in the church; Protestants denied that God
was immanent in these ways, adopting the view that God was in heaven
and could be reached only through faith and prayer. These differences,
Swanson hypothesized, bore a direct relation to the kind of regime struc-
tures present in the various European areas just prior to the Reforma-
tion. Specifically, Protestantism should have been adopted in areas
where political authority was decentralized or shared by constituent
interests, thus leading to a conception of political sovereignty that
transcended any of these component bodies; Catholicism, in contrast,
should have remained strongest in areas with centralized regimes (i.e.,
where sovereignty was vested in or "immanent" in the regime itself). In
short, Swanson posited a direct resemblance or correspondence between
how people experienced political authority and how they conceptual-
ized God. If ultimate power in the political sphere resided in the central
organs of the state itself, then people would be more likely to think of
God's authority as being immediate and tangible. If political power was
divided, so that sovereignty was in a sense higher or removed from any
specific interest group, then God's authority would also be thought of as
distant, removed, transcendent, separate from any particular religious
ritual or object.
To test this hypothesis, Swanson developed a list of forty-one sover-
eign states (territorial states, principalities, duchies, and cantons) that
were free of any kind of external rule by another power during the criti-
cal decades prior to the Reformation. Using a complex series of indica-
tors, he classified these states into five types of regime, ranging from cen-
tralized to four types of decentralized structures. He then related these
patterns to the type of religious ideology officially adopted in each state.
With only two exceptions the predicted patterns held. Further, Swanson
was able to predict subtypes of Protestant ideology (Lutheran, Anglican,
Calvinist) from variations in the political arrangements of the decentral-
ized states. As in his previous study, then, strong evidence seemed to
emerge in support of the argument that the manner in which people ex-
perienced political sovereignty had a direct impact on the content of
their religious ideas.
Not surprisingly, many sociologists have recognized the importance of
this conclusion. The study has been characterized as one of the most
elaborate and successful applications of Durkheimian theory (Robert-

son, 1970:151; Fallding, 1974:22-24); as an "important critique of We-
ber" (Budd, 1973:61); as "complex and painstakingly detailed" (Wilson,
1978:174); as a study that is "original, detailed, and thought-provoking"
(Nottingham, 1971:319); and as "a major resource with which to deal
with problems of comparative and intersocietal analysis" (Robertson
and Lechner, 1984:187). Methodologically, the book demonstrates the
value of systematic comparisons among large numbers of societies; sub-
stantively, it offers a distinctly sociological explanation of the Reforma-
tion. Its primary importance as a theoretical work, however, lies in its sys-
tematic examination of the hypothesis that popular knowledge tends to
correspond with social experience.
I D E O L O G Y AS A R E F L E C T I O N
OF SOCIAL REALITY
That there is a determinate relation between ideology and social expe-

rience is the central premise on which the subdiscipline of sociology of
knowledge is based. According to this premise, ideas are substantively
conditioned by the social contexts in which they arise. In the Durk-
heimian formulation (as seen in Chapter 2), ideas symbolize or repre-
sent vital aspects of collective reality (such as the distribution of author-
ity). As a result things are never quite what they seem as far as ideas are
concerned. Beneath their surface content lies another level of meaning,
shaped by and symbolic of social configurations. Moreover, in the strict
interpretation of this relation, the content of ideas themselves directly re-
flects these configurations. Ideas are said to vary not only in the indeter-
minate sense of being conditioned by different cultural traditions, but
also in the determinate sense of having fixed relations with particular so-
cial arrangements. Thus, the task of sociological inquiry as far as ideol-
ogy is concerned is to discover these relations.
This theory, which might be termed the "correspondence theory of
knowledge," though seldom formulated explicitly, has wide currency in
social science. Specific applications range from studies in social psychol-
ogy and anthropology, to theories of cultural evolution, to the so-called
"strong program" in the sociology of science. For example, Foucault
(1965, 1975, 1979) has argued that the modern concept of the individ-
ual developed in some ways as a reflection of the experience that be-
came increasingly prominent in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
of ordering individuals according to strict arrangements in military regi-
ments, of treating individuals' bodies medically, of incarcerating them

in separate cells, and later of organizing work into specialized tasks.
Thomas (1979, 1986) has presented evidence suggesting that the experi-
ence of producing for the market as an individual entrepreneur was asso-
ciated in the history of American agriculture with rivivalistic religions,
such as Methodism, which gave prominence to the salvation of the indi-
vidual. For an earlier period, LeGoff (1984) argues that the birth of pur-
gatory in the twelfth century was a type of ternary logic that corre-
sponded directly to ternary divisions among social orders. In science,
various observers have suggested correlations between how earthly pow-
ers were experienced and how heavenly bodies were conceptualized and
between individuation in social life and atomistic theories of matter
(e.g., Olson, 1971). Extending these ideas, Bloor (1976) has attempted
to show that even simple mathematical ideas may reflect common types
of social experience.
The theoretical underpinnings of these arguments have often re-
mained implicit. There are, however, two arguments as to why a direct
correspondence might exist between social arrangements and ideology.
One is the concept of "natural symbolization," which has been ad-
vanced most explicitly in the work of Mary Douglas (1966, 1970). This
work suggests that certain kinds of symbols (or knowledge) are associ-
ated with certain social arrangements because the intrinsic structure or
form of the two is so naturally similar that virtually anyone can recog-
nize the correspondence. For example, bodily orifices often symbolize
social boundaries because goods obviously pass through or across both.
Or in other settings, patron saints are believed in because societies are ac-
tually structured around relations of patronage and clientage. Here, the
connection between social structure and ideology is not only direct but
also straightforward and is rooted in conceptions of individual cogni-
tion. Knowledge will be learned more readily if it consists of classifica-
tions that are also dramatized by social arrangements. Thus, over time,
one should expect a certain correspondence between cultural classifica-
tion schemes and underlying social arrangements.
The other implicit interpretation of correspondence theory is the idea
of "isomorphic legitimation." Derivative in some respects from both
Marx and Weber, this idea suggests (1) that ideologies that legitimate
dominant institutions will be generated and (2) that the capacity to legiti-
mate will be greater if the ideology's form is isomorphic with that of the
institutions. Thus, a rational ideology will be likely to emerge in a ratio-
nally organized society, individualism will emerge in individuated insti-
tutions, and so forth. This is a more macroscopic perspective than the

first, focusing on dominant institutions, but an implicit assumption
about the importance of individual cognition is again present. Individu-
als are presumably more likely to credit an ideology with plausibility if
its form reflects that of familiar institutions.
Both of these arguments rest on the classical subject-object form of
dualism in which ideas are distinguished from objective elements of the
social environment and are, moreover, regarded as having been prop-
erly "explained" by being related to the social environment. Because of
an apparent tendency toward sociological reductionism in these ap-
proaches, theorists in the neoclassical tradition (Chapter 2) have called
for greater attention to the phenomenological meanings2of ideological
constructs themselves (e.g., Bellah, 1970; Geertz, 1973). This alterna-
tive, however, has not generated a research strategy that goes signifi-
cantly beyond empirical description or that manages successfully to
reintroduce the traditional concern of the sociology of knowledge with
relations between social structure and ideology. At present, the most via-
ble alternative in the sociology of knowledge to correspondence theory
is the reality construction approach, as articulated in the work of Berger
and Luckmann (1966). Although portraying knowledge as emergent,
objectivated constructions of reality, this approach brings social arrange-
ments into the picture through the concept of "plausibility structures,"
that is, settings of social interaction (especially "conversation") in
which ideologies are made plausible by being verbally articulated and
by being dramatized in the unspoken assumptions on which interaction
is based. The problem with the reality construction approach, however,
is that it specifies only an indeterminate role for social conditions in the
shaping of knowledge and ideology. Plausibility structures are essential,
but essentially indeterminate: any set of ideas can apparently be main-
tained in any type of social setting. Thus, correspondence theory re-
mains the strongest attempt to specify determinate relations between
social conditions and social knowledge. Swanson's work, therefore, ac-
quires added significance as one of the few efforts to systematically
operationalize and test hypotheses derived from the correspondence
argument.
Although Religion and Regime is but one of the studies in Swanson's
oeuvre that has examined the correspondence between social experience
and ideology, it serves as a particularly valuable case for consideration.
It is the study that deals most explicitly with the relation between state
structures and ideologies. Among Swanson's major works, it also is the
one that has been most neglected in terms of having not been subjected
to empirical reexamination. The Birth of the Gods, for example, has
been reexamined several times, with mixed results as far as the broader
theory is concerned (e.g., Underbill, 1975,1976; Simpson, 1979, 1984).
Perhaps obviously, the importance of Religion and Regime is also magni-
fied by the fact that its subject matter—the Protestant Reformation—is
an event of major consequence for understanding the development of
modern societies.
CONCEPTUAL AND METHODOLOGICAL

CONSIDERATIONS
Criticisms of Religion and Regime have focused on both conceptual

and methodological issues. The conceptual issues raised by historians
have focused on questions about the clarity and appropriateness of key
concepts such as "immanence" and "gubernaculum" (e.g., Bouwsma,
1968; Davis, 1971; Ozment, 1975). A close reading of Swanson is suffi-
cient to set many of these objections aside, however. Although the termi-
nology often fails to capture precise historical nuances, it is admirably
well articulated in terms of the basic variables at issue. More serious is
the criticism that the linkage among major concepts remains sufficiently
unclear as to leave the theoretical argument somewhat less than convinc-
ing. Specifically, the question of why theological views should corre-
spond with political structures remains open.
The assumption on which Swanson's argument rests is essentially
Durkheimian in that the society is presumed to penetrate individuals'
consciousness as they inevitably confront society through the personal
experience of living in it (cf. Robertson and Lechner, 1984:195). In the
Durkheimian formulation, ideas about society are thus molded directly,
albeit not necessarily consciously, by the forces constituting society,
chiefly through the informal socialization
3
process and through subse-
quent enactment in collective rituals. In applying this logic to early mod-
ern societies, it becomes imperative, however, to indicate more precisely
the channels by which social experience becomes articulated as an influ-
ence on formal religious ideology. Both Durkheim and Swanson imply
that the process is sufficiently complex that it cannot be assumed to oper-4
ate strictly through the psychological processes of atomized individuals.
In focusing on the problem of establishing an empirical correspon-
dence between regime structures and Reformation outcomes, Swanson
does not indicate explicitly who makes the connection between regime
structures and religious ideas, or exactly how this connection is made.

Occasionally, reference is made to "apologists," "the reformers," or sim-
ply "the people," but for the most part passive verbs, such as "are re-
garded as" and "will be considered," which have no identifiable subject
as the actor, are chosen. Presumably, the assumptions about this connec-
tion are the same as in The Birth of the Gods because the study is pre-
sented as a further test of the theory developed there. But the social psy-
chological processes are not as obvious in early modern nation-states as
they are in small primitive societies, both because of the difference in
scale and because of presumed differences in cultural and institutional
differentiation. In more recent work, Swanson has related authority
structures to ideology by examining socialization patterns within fami-
lies. But again it seems less obvious that the same processes would have
been at work in linking state structures to the Reformation.
To frame the problem more concretely, we may consider two possi-
bilities of how the experience of state structures could have affected Ref-
ormation ideology. First is the possibility that "the people" were more
receptive to Protestant teachings in some countries than in others be-
cause of having experienced a decentralized political structure and, for
this reason, influenced Reformation outcomes by lending popular sup-
port or popular opposition. This interpretation fits either of the theoreti-
cal approaches mentioned earlier, as well as the logic of Swanson's
primitive and socialization studies. In the case of the Reformation, how-
ever, it tends to break down because it presupposes too much about typi-
cal levels of political awareness and exposure. Literacy, public educa-
tion, and publishing were increasing rapidly during the Reformation,
but upwards of 80 percent of the population (and in most cases 90 to 95
percent) still remained illiterate. Perhaps more to the point, the vast ma-
jority had little, if any, contact with the state as a basis for forming opin-
ions influenced by its structure: uniform legal codes existed hardly any-
where; taxes were generally channeled through local notables or tax
farmers; military service still focused on fealty or mercenary obligations
rather than directly on the state; itinerant courts, which touched some
of the people directly, still touched relatively few; and in most countries,
an extended franchise was still more than three centuries in the future.
Nor does the argument of variations among social strata make sense.
The nobility, for example, was in a position to be especially aware of
state structures; yet during the first half of the sixteenth century, the no-
bility everywhere remained overwhelmingly resistant to the Reforma-
tion, despite differences in state structures—even in Poland, where a
decentralized parliamentary system kept the crown from exercising vir-

tually any centralized authority. Similarly, in the towns, where aware-
ness of the state might have been higher, artisan classes often supported
the Reformation as much as did the more literate and more cosmopoli-
tan professional and merchant classes; this was as true in areas such as
Poland, France, and Spain, which remained Catholic, as in England or
the German and Swiss territories, which turned Protestant. For these rea-
sons, historians of the period have generally been skeptical of Swanson's
interpretation, arguing that more immediate contexts—family, commu-
nity, and patron/client relations—were probably more significant mold-
ers of ideology than were political structures. Even historians who give
some credence to the correspondence theory have pointed to correla-
tions between ideology and guild structures, local communities, trade
networks, and godparentage, rather than more remote influences of the
state (e.g., Davis, 1981; Moeller, 1972).
The second possibility of linking state structures to the Reformation
is through "reformers" and "apologists." Here the argument would
have to be that authority patterns in existence prior to the Reformation
shaped the reformers' ideas as they were originally developing (i.e.,
scholars living in decentralized areas were more likely to come up with
nonimmanentist ideas of God). This argument is more compelling than
the first because it can more readily be assumed that reformers them-
selves were aware of political conditions and of theories about these con-
ditions. There are, however, several difficulties. One is that the human-
ist tradition, which partially preceded the Reformation and which also
rejected immanentist conceptions of God, fails to follow this pattern;
much of the important humanist scholarship occurred in areas classified
as politically centralized, namely, France and Spain (including the Span-
ish Low Countries). Nor does the Anabaptist tradition fit easily with the
argument that reformers were highly aware of political conditions be-
cause its leaders included many lay preachers from lower status origins.
More important, though, is the fact that Swanson's thesis is explicitly
concerned, not with the intellectual origins of the Reformation, but with
Reformation "settlements," that is, with the official endorsement of the
Reformation in different societies. This emphasis solves one problem
(the problem of political awareness, because settlements were made by
those in power), but it creates another: even if state agents were dis-
posed one way or another toward the Reformation, what was the
mechanism by which these attitudes were put into practice? In other
words, is it sufficiently explanatory to attribute the Reformation to per-

sonal predispositions (which are now largely unknown and even at the
time may not have been apparent to the actors involved), or do these pre-
dispositions need to be considered in relation to social conditions that
made them more or less likely to be adopted? The conceptual weakness
of the correspondence theory rests squarely on this problem—the prob-
lem of letting unobservable psychological states serve as the only mecha-
nism linking social structure and ideology, rather than considering so-
cial processes mediating between social structure and the formation or
adoption of ideology. In the present case it seems especially ironic that
the connection between social structure and ideology should turn out to
be primarily a hidden psychological process because Swanson's neo-
Durkheimian approach has generally been praised for its distinctively so-
ciological character.
The other set of—methodological—considerations concerns the man-
ner in which the thesis of Religion and Regime (accepting its conceptual
correctness) was tested. As noted before, the study focuses on forty-one
autonomous states, of which accurate predictions are given for thirty-
nine. But the forty-one represent only a small fraction of the number of
states in Europe at the time. Central Europe alone contained approxi-
mately two hundred forty principalities, bishoprics, duchies, imperial cit-
ies, and other political units of varying size. Nor do the forty-one encom-
pass the most sizable, populous, or influential states. For instance, all of
the Holy Roman Empire, the Papal States, Flanders, Norway, Finland,
and Russia are excluded; in contrast, more than a third of the forty-one
cases are Swiss cantons. This means, of course, that minor principalities
each count as much in the analysis as do dominant countries such as
England, France, and Spain (and collectively, of course, count for far
more). Because many of these minor principalities are geographically
proximate to one another, the study also suffers from Galton's problem
(i.e., cases are not strictly independent). The basis on which these forty-
one cases were selected was the requirement that states be autonomous
(sovereign) in order to test the theory of political structure. But on this
criterion, questions can also be raised about the basis for including or
excluding a number of the cases. Austria is included; the Holy Roman
Empire was excluded, even though both were officially part of the
Hapsburg dynasty. None of the sixty-five imperial cities was included,
even though most had been granted sovereignty as early as the thir-
teenth century. All the Swiss cantons were included as separate cases, de-
spite the fact that the Swiss Confederation (just as much as the United
Provinces, treated as a single case) bound them into a single unity for
most purposes. Ducal (East) Prussia was excluded, even though its auton-
omy from Poland was virtually complete. Florence was included, but
Piedmont and Sicily were excluded, even though the latter enjoyed
greater autonomy from Spain than the former. Hesse, which was in-
cluded, was officially subject to the emperor and was in practice governed
for significant periods by regents from neighboring Saxony. In short,
doubtful selection criteria were employed in many of the cases.
Faced with problems of this kind, sociologists often construct an en-
larged or more elaborate data base on which to perform statistical calcu-
lations. Similar criticisms aimed at The Birth of the Gods, for example,
have resulted in several studies employing larger numbers of cases and
more elaborate statistical procedures (e.g., Underbill, 1975; Simpson,
1979, 1984). In the present case, however, a strategy of this kind is not
preferable. Adequate data on the political structure of many of the cases
still remain nonexistent. For example, Swanson's coding for Appenzell
was based on a brief passage in a single study; fairly extensive searching
indicates that that source still remains the only one. In other instances,
such as Hesse, Wurttemberg, and the imperial cities, a great deal of re-
search has been done since Swanson's study, but the result has been
to make Swanson's coding scheme more, rather than less, ambiguous.
Even an enlarged number of cases would remain subject to Gallon's
problem and would remain insufficient to provide for adequate controls
of other variables. An enlarged sample, even if possible, would still re-
main undesirable because the thrust of the foregoing considerations has
dealt chiefly with the intervening processes connecting state structures
and ideologies. For this purpose, a more detailed comparative investiga-
tion of a few
5
cases is preferable to a statistical approach involving larger
numbers. For this reason, the following discussion focuses on a com-
parison of two cases: France and England. Both meet Swanson's criteria
of being sovereign states; both are sizable and of considerable impor-
tance to the subsequent history of the Reformation and of Europe gener-
ally; and ample evidence is available for each; indeed, much evidence
has become available since Swanson's study was published, thus provid-
ing an opportunity for an "update" as opposed merely to a critical re-
analysis. As will be shown, the two countries also resembled each other
in many respects, thus sharpening the importance of explaining why one
adopted the Reformation and the other did not.
THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE

AND ENGLAND
The fact that the Reformation was adopted in England but not in
France should not obscure the considerable similarities that also charac-
terized the two countries. In both, reformed teachings spread to the ma-
jor cities within a few years of Luther's break with Rome. London and
Paris had groups of Lutheran devotees by 1520, and other cities in south-
eastern England and in northern and eastern France had pockets of evan-
gelical activity by the same date. The new doctrines in each case were
carried by merchants with commercial connections in central Europe
and by students and clergy fiom German universities. If anything, there
may have been more reform activity in France than in England during
these years because it was easier to travel and to ship books, even after
they were banned, between France and the Rhineland (Knecht, 1972).
At the popular level, evangelical activity was most common in the cit-
ies and relatively absent in rural areas in both countries. In England,
London was the most visible center of reform interest, although there
were also congregations in the smaller towns in Kent, Sussex, Essex, and
neighboring areas (Clark, 1977; Cross, 1980; Manning, 1969; Parker,
1966). In northern France, adherents of the new doctrines were most evi-
dent in Rouen and to the east in Paris, Meaux, Beauvais, Senlis, and
Soissons (Benedict, 1981; Berce, 1980; Nicholls, 1980, 1983; Richet,
1977). Other towns where reforming sentiment was strong included
Troyes, Nantes, Lyons, Montpellier, and Nfmes (Davis, 1975; Galpern,
1976; Vance, 1977:178-179). In all of these areas, merchant-traders
and artisans were disproportionately involved in the new congregations
relative to local shopkeepers, unskilled workers, and vagabonds (Davis,
1981; Rosenberg, 1978; LeRoy Ladurie, 1974:158-164). Among mer-
chants and artisans, those involved in the textile industry in both coun-
tries appear to have been particularly well represented. These trades
were more likely to have contact with Protestant areas, had higher rates
of literacy, and were less tied to local markets or guild associations spon-
sored by the church.
Protestantism, therefore, was by no means absent at the grassroots
level in France. During the first half of the sixteenth century, it experi-
enced steady growth in the cities. By mid century, as many as one-third
of Rouen's seventy thousand residents had converted, approximately
the same proportion of Lyons's sixty thousand residents were Protes-
tants, and perhaps as many as a fourth of Paris's two hundred thousand
residents had adopted the new faith. In medium-sized towns, the propor-
tions of Protestants were often equally high: 25 percent of Caen's fifteen
thousand residents, 50 percent of Nimes's ten thousand residents, 50
percent of LaRochelle's twenty-five thousand residents, and as many as
78 percent of Montpellier's ten thousand residents (Lamet, 1978). Over-
all, approximately two thousand Protestant congregations are known to
have existed in France by 1559. Figures as high as one-quarter of the to-
tal population have been suggested for adherents, but at minimum at
least 5 or 6 percent (totaling about 1.2 million) probably converted to
Protestantism by this date (Spitz, 1985:194-203). It is difficult, conse-
quently, to attribute the Reformation's failure in France strictly to a lack
of popular appeal. If, as Swanson argues, the immanent conception of
political sovereignty in France stripped Protestantism of legitimacy, this
problem seems not to have deterred many of the more active, literate
residents of its cities—those in a position to be aware of prevailing politi-
cal conceptions—from adopting the new teachings. Judging from the ex-
tent of Protestantism's appeal, the immanent sense of political sover-
eignty supposedly present in France may have actually been as weak as
it was in England.
If attitudes toward the Reformation among those at the highest levels
of French and English government are examined, greater support for
Swanson's thesis may be evident, at least on the surface, for Francis I
threw his weight against the reforms, but Henry VIII became the Refor-
mation's greatest defender. Yet closer consideration reveals a somewhat
more complicated pattern. During the first decade or so of the Refor-
mation, Henry VIII was largely opposed to it. Indeed, while his older
brother was yet alive, Henry had been destined for the priesthood and
thus had fairly well developed views on theology. In 1521, he wrote a
treatise condemning Lutheranism that he sent to the pope, who, in grati-
tude, bestowed on Henry the honorific title "defender of the faith."
Francis I, in contrast, was keenly interested in humanism, became
known for both his tolerance and his defense of new ideas, and several
members of his household were counted among the early converts to
Protestantism (Knecht, 1981, 1982). In 1532, this erstwhile symbol of
immanental sovereignty even concluded an agreement with Henry VIII
in which he promised to exercise his influence with the pope on behalf
of Henry's "great cause." Only after the placards affair in 1534 did
Francis begin to actively oppose the reformers. Even two years later,
John Calvin was sufficiently optimistic about the king's leanings to dedi-
cate the Institutes to him. In England, however, even after the king was
proclaimed head of the church, little progress was made toward institut-
ing reforms in the actual conduct of religious worship. Not until the
reign of Elizabeth does evidence suggest that reform ideas began to pene-
trate widely into popular practice (Bowker, 1981; Hey, 1974; Oxley,
1965; Haigh, 1975). During most of the sixteenth century, the major
changes were in high levels of ecclesiastical administration, rather than
in sacraments and belief; and for an even much longer time, Anglican-
ism did not depart radically (except in official treatises) from imma-
nentist conceptions of God. In other words, here were two kings, the
one supposedly in charge of a state with immanental sovereignty and
the other heading a state lacking such sovereignty; yet their own views
of religious immanence demonstrate little in the way of a straightfor-
ward correspondence with their experiences of political sovereignty.
Thus, it appears difficult to account for the Reformation's success in En-
gland compared to France strictly on the basis of its intrinsic appeal to
the two countries' rulers.
Nor are the differences entirely evident among other top officials.
Members of the nobility who occupied high government offices were of-
ten opposed to the reforms in England just as in France, at least until6
revenues from the sale of church lands began to change their minds.
The Sorbonne's denunciation of Lutheran heresies in 1521 is no more in-
tolerant than the campaigns against them led by Thomas More (Elton,
1963:118-119; Knecht, 1972:9-10; Hempsall, 1973). NorwastheSor-
bonne itself beyond taking a liberal stance toward the church. By a nar-
row margin it actually came out on Henry's side in his contest with the
pope (Knecht, 1978). In the same year, the English Parliament, although
also supporting Henry, nevertheless passed the Heresy Act in an attempt
to root out Protestantism once and for all through heavy fines, imprison-
ment, and death by fire. It is the case, of course, that Parliament lent a
more sympathetic voice to the Reformation than did the Parlement of
Paris or any of the regional parlements in France. But these differences
raise questions less about religious attitudes than about differences in
the distribution of power in the two countries—Swanson's independent
variable. This variable bears closest examination.
For Swanson the principal grounds for characterizing England and
France as different types of government appear to be formal (i.e., depen-
dent on the formal nature of legitimate authority). England represented
a "limited centralist" regime because of the division of sovereignty
between the crown and Parliament and between the crown and local
authorities. No such division existed in France; sovereignty adhered
strictly in the crown; hence, it exemplified a "centralist" regime. As spe-

cific indicators, Swanson points to the fact that in England the king was
bound by customs and laws of the realm, was dependent on Commons
to originate money bills, and could be impeached by Commons. More-
over, nobles, gentry, and boroughs were represented in Parliament, and
local justices remained capable of resisting royal law (Swanson, 1967:
129—133). In contrast, the French state was centralized in the hands of
the monarch, who was in control of vast patronage and wealth that was
meted out in the form of offices for the higher nobility. The Estates Gen-
eral had given up control of the public purse, parlement was not an effec-
tive check on royal policy, and the crown managed successfully to estab-
lish its own officers in titular control over every major division of local
government (Swanson, 1967:77-85).
But this conception of the state in France and England has undergone
a serious revision since Swanson's study was conducted, not in direct re-
sponse to Swanson, but on the basis of more careful considerations of
the actual functioning of the two regimes, including studies of both the
processes of policy formation at the central level and policy execution as
well as political representation at the community level. Historians have
concluded that the French state under Francis I was in practice a weak,
relatively decentralized regime in which authority was shared by special
interests. England, rather than France, more nearly exemplified a
strong, centralized regime with actual power concentrated in the crown.
Not until well after the Reformation, particularly during the parliamen-
tary period in England and the reign of Louis XIV in France, did the two
countries assume the characterizations given them by Swanson. These
conclusions require more careful explication.
CONTRASTING STATE STRUCTURES
In practice, the development of a strong regime in England that was

capable of exercising central authority was greatly facilitated by eco-
nomic developments of the period—a factor largely ignored in Religion
and Regime. Commercial expansion worked primarily to the advantage
of the state relative to its major rival, the landed aristocr icy. Commer-
cial expansion in England, as elsewhere, depended parL on rising de-
mand from domestic population growth. This growth, though unspec-
tacular in comparison with that in the Low Countries and many of the
German areas, was nevertheless steady, giving the country a figure
about 50 percent higher at the end of the century than at the beginning
(Cornwall, 1970; Grigg, 1980). But having a population only half the
size of Spain, one-third the size of Germany, and one-sixth the size of
France meant that England's economic fortunes had to be more closely
associated with foreign trade than with the growth of its domestic mar-
ket. On the whole, England's foreign trade tripled during the last half of
the fifteenth century and multiplied several times again during the six-
teenth (Postan, 1973:162). Cloth exports grew particularly rapidly, qua-
drupling between 1500 and 1550, both as a result of favorable treaties
negotiated by the crown and as a result of royal loans (Bowden, 1962;
Parry, 1967; Dietz, 1964; Postan, 1973:214-218). Unlike Poland and
Spain, England's trade was not allowed to slip into foreign hands. Ac-
cordingly, London became a prosperous commercial center and a power-
ful lobby that the crown could exploit against the rural nobility (Myers,
1971:206; Ramsey, 1965:55; Zagorin, 1982:72).
By the beginning of the sixteenth century, the crown had become sol-
vent as a result of rising customs revenues, better management of its es-
tates, and a policy of frugality in military affairs and administration of the
royal household (Batho, 1967a:257, 1967b; Wolffe, 1964, 1970). More
important, the structure of crown revenues gave the state a degree of fis-
cal autonomy from the landed sector that was unparalleled at the time.
According to estimates at the beginning of the reign of Henry VIII, 35 per-
cent of the crown's revenues came from customs, another 35 percent
came directly from the earnings of crown lands, and an additional 20 per-
cent came from special sources such as revenues from the royal mint (Wil-
liams, 1979:58; Slavm, 1973:98-103; Alsop, 1982). Thus, only 10 per-
cent was left to be raised from direct taxes on land or other properties.
Although Parliament did control the public purse, therefore, this control
posed little in the way of a real threat to the crown's sovereignty.
Administratively, the state also succeeded in emancipating itself in
large measure from the landowners' control. The Tudors, unlike their
counterparts in France, practiced a deliberate policy of excluding the no-
bility from high appointive office. Nor did they sell offices to the nobility
in order to raise supplemental revenue. Instead, officeholders were se-
lected from the royal family itself, from merchant and professional fami-
lies, and from die lower strata. As a result, the king's advisory councils
and ad hoc commissions were: largely independent of noble connections
(Elton, 1953). In some ways the ability to gain this degree of administra-
tive autonomy also rested on broader economic conditions. Compared
with France, where the economic plight of the nobility during most of the
fifteenth century had reinforced its efforts to secure remunerative posi-
tions in the state, the English nobility had a wider variety of options avail-
able outside of the state, particularly as suppliers for the burgeoning trade
in wool (cf. Heller, 1977b).
Like representative bodies in other European countries, the English
Parliament still reflected the vested interests of men of wealth, including
landowners. But by the reign of Henry VIII, the landowners' influence
in Parliament was greatly reduced. Through strategic moves the crown
gradually increased the representation of merchants and city officials,
members of the clergy, and royal officeholders—all loyal to the crown
or dependent on its patronage (Miller, 1970). Thus, the Parliament of
Henry VIII—the Parliament that assisted him at every turn in advancing
the Reformation—was an ally on whom he could generally depend
rather than a foe ready to limit his sovereignty and defend the landown-
ers' interests (Lehmberg, 1970).
The House of Commons in 1529 consisted of 74 knights of the shire
and 236 burgesses. The former were landowners, all but a few with
stronger ties to the gentry than to the crown. The burgesses, in contrast,
physically resided in the towns, and most were engaged in commerce. In-
deed, the majority participated in some aspect of the cloth trade. Of the
remainder, many were local officeholders or professional people (e.g.,
lawyers, surveyors) with close connections to the crown. Thus, landed
interests were outnumbered by a margin of as many as three to one.
In the same year, the House of Lords' dependence on the crown was
also clearly in evidence. Nearly half its members were representatives of
the church—a surprising fact in view of the ecclesiastical reforms they
were to approve. But ecclesiastical appointments had for some time
been made by the crown, and representatives voicing opposition to
royal policy found the seats they vacated filled by appointees with more
pliable views. Among the temporal lords, many were longtime servants
of the crown, holding peerages created by the king in return for their ser-
vices; others were members of the royal household itself. The crown
also held traditional prerogatives giving it influence over the lords. It
could command opponents not to attend or at least intimidate them,
threaten the positions of ecclesiastical and royal officials, and appoint
its own chancellor and other nonnoble servants of the House. Overall,
the influence of the crown over the Lords was probably as great as, if
not greater than, its influence over the Commons. Contrary to the sup-
position that Henrician England represented a decentralized state in
which royal power was balanced by Parliament, therefore, it is probably
more appropriate to conclude, as one historian does, that Parliament
had still "not established itself as an effective and sufficient vehicle for
the expression of opposition and for the resolution of political conflict"
(James, 1970:70; McKenna, 1979).
The means by which the state administered local justice were also
symptomatic of the crown's capacity to rule in a manner largely autono-
mous from the landed elite. Under the Tudors, the collection of local
taxes did remain directly or indirectly under the influence of the local
landed elite. But these collections were by no means the centerpiece of
crown finances (as they were in France). Nor were the local clergy, who
remained closely allied with the landowners, utilized to any significant
extent in the administration of local justice, certainly not to the extent
that they were in France. Gradually their role was modified toward little
more than a hortatory function. Local justices of the peace were the pri-
mary officials concerned with local administration, and, although they
were in effect selected by local landlords, they were increasingly sub-
jected to the authority of royal lords-lieutenant. Courtier justices, crown
lawyers, and special commissions—deliberately created on an ad hoc ba-
sis to prevent attachments from developing with local elites—were also
used to extend the state's control (Williams, 1979:407—420; Clark,
1977:19—20). Finally, the Tudors were by no means above using intimi-
dation and sheer force, including purges and treason charges, to keep
the nobility in line (Williams, 1979:381-382; Elton, 1972).
The contrasting situation in France is readily apparent. Again, the
state's power in actuality was heavily dependent on broader economic
developments. After more than a century of war that had badly depopu-
lated much of the country, France experienced a demographic recovery
during the last two decades of the fifteenth century and first half of the
sixteenth (Salmon, 1975:27-37). Demand for foodstuffs and necessities
rose, stimulating vigorous trade in local markets and providing incen-
tives for expansion in agriculture. Coastal cities such as Bordeaux,
Nantes, and Rouen, as well as regional markets such as Troyes and Ly-
ons, grew at a rapid pace. But the price inflation was generally not as se-
vere in French towns as in England (Baulant, 1976). Nor did the topog-
raphy of France lend itself to widespread or intensive involvement in
commerce. Approximately nine of every ten persons remained closely
tied to the land, and the majority of the nobility continued to derive
their incomes from the land (Liitge, 1958:45—46; Fourquin, 1964;
Wood, 1980). Generally, the seigneurial system intensified: landlords ac-
quired stronger claims over common lands, peasants found themselves
increasingly at the mercy of landlords, and both found themselves wed-
ded to the other in a marriage of economic interdependence (Bloch,

1966; Teall, 1965; Galpern, 1976).
As for the state, certain powers had been arrogated by the crown, such
as extending its powers of taxation and expanding venality of offices
(Knecht, 1982). But the centralized absolutism that was to character-
ize the reign of Louis XIV was by no means that of Francis I (Wolfe,
1972:98). Instead of being powerful, centralized, or capable of engaging
in autonomously determined policies, like England, the French state was
"inherently weak, not strong"; its administrators "accepted the decen-
tralization of the state and made little effort to centralize it" (Major,
1971:44). Separate provinces retained distinctive prerogatives in admin-
istering local justice; landowning magnates cultivated their own patron-
age networks, opposed centralization of tax administration, kept a rein
on venality of office, objected to the garrisoning of troops, and retained
regulatory control over the grain trade (Harding, 1978; Lewis, 1965,
1968; Shennan, 1969; Strayer, 1971:346-347). If the king was officially
sovereign, his sovereignty was nevertheless shared in practice with the
powerful Parlement of Paris. This body, permanently located in the capi-
tal city, in contrast to the king's peripatetic court, often had greater com-
mand over public affairs than the king himself. During the king's impris-
onment in Spain in 1525, it clearly held the upper hand. It also held legal
right to pass remonstrances against the king and used this right on sev-
eral occasions to express severe indictments of royal policy. Particularly
in matters of religious heresy, this body, along with the ecclesiastical
courts, established policies and executed final jurisdiction (Knecht,
1978). Compounding these problems, the central bureaucracy was un-
derstaffed and ineffective in implementing royal policy (Anderson,
1974:87); the treasury continued to function as an aggregation of private
accounts; military strength remained almost exclusively in the hands of
the wealthier nobles; and the financial condition of the crown steadily de-
teriorated, from the fiscal crisis of 1522 to its eventual bankruptcy in
1559 (Thompson, 1967:2; Edelstein, 1974; Guery, 1978"). Henry VIII
had gained sufficient control over Parliament that he could risk asking
for—or, perhaps better, demanding—increases in customs rates and
taxes. Francis, in contrast, knew better than to attempt to convene the Es-
tates General for this purpose. In consequence, state revenues in England
multiplied more than tenfold during Henry's reign; those in France little
more than doubled, causing the king increasing difficulties in implement-
ing either foreign or domestic policies (Miskimin, 1977:160). If, as Swan-
son (1967:84) asserts, Francis I "went from one military and diplomatic
success to another, constantly strengthening his house," these successes

were not evident in most of the state's operations.
It was instead the landed nobility who expanded their control over
the state to the point that "the crown had become the archpatron and a
number of powerful noble factions had created networks of their own in-
fluence" (Salmon, 1975:92; cf. Major, 1964). Rather than exercising au-
tonomous sovereignty over the nobility, the state served as an institu-
tion for the protection of the nobility's interests. Just as in Poland, the
nobility continued to dominate Parlement, provincial governorships,
and local jurisdiction (Major, 1960:115; Neuschel, 1982:42; Wood,
1980:170). Financially, the landowners held close rein over the state.
At the start of the sixteenth century, only one-fifth of the king's revenue
was supplied by crown lands, with the remaining four-fifths having to
be raised from taxation and borrowing (Sherman, 1969:50; Wolfe,
1972:11). As for taxation, the nobility claimed broad prerogatives for it-
self, including exemption from major taxes and control over the offi-
cials who supervised the administration of local taxes (Major, 1980;
Mandrou, 1974; Bonney, 1981:1—21). But taxes alone failed to be ade-
quate for the king's needs: expenditures consistently outstripped reve-
nues by a sizable margin (Guery, 1978). Intermittent wars with the
Hapsburgs, including Francis's defeat, capture, and ransom in 1525, re-
quired extensive borrowing. Between 1522 and 1547, this borrowing,
in fact, tripled, and most of it came from the wealthier landowners who
held provincial offices, either in the form of payments for office or direct
loans (Salmon, 1975:76-77; Wolfe, 1972:93; Knecht, 1981:24-33).
The nobility also became the state's chief beneficiaries. Comprising less
than 2 percent of the population, they received more than half of the
state's total outlays, the largest share consisting of stipends for venal
and military offices (Heller, 1977b). Administratively, the largest share
of offices in the bureaucracy and in the Estates General was held by the
nobility. In contrast with England, the French monarchy had been con-
strained by economic expediency to grant the largest number of offices
to the nobility rather than gaining autonomy from the nobility by select-
ing officials from professional or artisan classes (Pegues, 1962; Au-
trand, 1974; Stocker, 1978). The fact that many of these offices were
sold when the crown was in desperate financial need also meant that of-
fices generally went to anyone who could be persuaded to take them,
rather than (again in contrast with England) being used to reshape the
bureaucracy or gain greater autonomy from the nobility (cf. Perroy,
1959). As time progressed, the noblesse de robe emerged as a distinct
class, although even in the eighteenth century its distinctness from the
older nobility should not be exaggerated. In the sixteenth century, how-
ever, the landowning nobility appears to have retained its authority
even among those holding government office (Heller, 1977b; Guenne,
1963; Contamine, 1972). Even explicit conceptions of the state recog-
nized its function as a preserver and protector of its aristocratic subjects'
interests (Stocker, 1971).
If the actual structure of power (as opposed to formal authority)
means anything, therefore, France seems to provide a better candidate
for Swanson's category of "limited centralist" regime, and England
seems to have functioned more effectively as a "centralist" regime.
France had a more immanental sovereign state in principle because the
Estates General was infrequently convened and a national assembly simi-
lar to Parliament had not emerged. But in practice the king shared au-
thority with the judiciary and regional parlements, the members of
which acted as representatives of their constituent estates, and the nobil-
ity exercised strong influence over the financial and administrative func-
tions of the state. The experience of political authority in England, com-
paratively, came much more directly and totally from the crown, which
embodied not only the state but, after 1534, the church as well. Perhaps
those who framed policies toward the Reformation were more deeply in-
fluenced by political theory than by political practice, but if ideas were
to reflect their experience of the distribution of political authority,
France rather than England should have abandoned immanentist con-
ceptions of God and supported the Reformation. The manner in which
power was actually structured does, however, provide a clue to the
mechanism that was probably at work linking state structures to Refor-
mation outcomes.
IMPLEMENTING RELIGIOUS POLICIES
That clue is the degree of relative autonomy that the state in England
enjoyed vis-a-vis the ruling aristocracy, as compared with the high de-
gree of dependence on the rural elite in the case of France. Virtually
everywhere in Europe the church was deeply integrated into the moral
economy of rural life. Religious rituals mirrored the patron-client re-
lations on which rural society depended, physical arrangements in
churches and in religious festivals dramatized the status of landlords in
relation to peasants, the church provided public goods from which peas-
ants could draw in times of exceptional hardship as well as offices for
the absorption of younger sons of the nobility, and fiscal relations be-
tween the church and the state played an important role in maintaining
tax exemptions for the nobility (e.g., see Burguiere, 1978; Bossy, 1973,
1975, 1981; Febvre, 1977; Tazbir, 1975; Christian, 1981; Kagan,
1981; Mousnier, 1979). In return, the nobility generally contributed
heavily to the maintenance and defense of the church (Addy, 1970; Dick-
inson, 1979; Goubert, 1973; Cipolla, 1976). For the state to adopt poli-
cies that threatened this structure as radically as did the teachings of
many of the reformers, the structure of power obviously had to give
state actors a high degree of autonomy relative to the landed ruling
class. The importance of this relation can be seen clearly in the different
policies pursued by the state toward the Reformation in England and
France.
Virtually every account of the Reformation in England emphasizes
the decisive role of the state (cf. Elton, 1958:226; Parker, 1966:47;
Cross, 1976:53; Slavin, 1973:117-152; Dickens, 1964). Although reli-
gious unrest was in evidence at the popular level as well, it was the state
that succeeded in imposing the Reformation, as it were, "from above."
Incentive for the state's action came, of course, from Henry's famous di-
vorce case (Elton, 1958; Heal, 1980; Smith, 1953). Had it not been for
a favorable arrangement in the structure of power, however, Henry
probably would not have been able to carry out successfully the policies
he initiated. Nor does the English Reformation appear to have been
strictly the result of a rationally calculated strategy on the part of high
officials. Rather, solutions to immediate problems were developed on a
piecemeal basis but within the constraints and opportunities provided
by the structure of the state. Thus, in 1534 (a year after the secret mar-
riage to Anne Boleyn) Henry was proclaimed head of the church, plac-
ing the entire jurisdiction ol ecclesiastical affairs under the state's con-
trol. Having accomplished this with only minor resistance, he launched
a general investigation of the monasteries the next year, culminatingin a
series of dissolutions that included virtually all monastic lands by 1539.
In 1540, all church wealth and property was declared vested in the
crown.
In initiating these reforms, the crown received strong assistance from
Parliament (Lehmberg, 1970). As already shown, Parliament had ceased
to function as a political voice for the landlords and was temporarily
dominated by a coalition of cloth merchants, burgesses, and royal offi-
cials closely allied to the crown. In 1529, the "Reformation Parliament"
canceled the king's debts, providing greater room to maneuver in nego-
tiations with the pope. In 1531, it imposed an indictment and fine on

the clergy for acting without respect for the king's rights. The next year
it forced the clergy to surrender ecclesiastical law to the jurisdiction of
the crown and forbade the granting of papal annates. A year later the
Act of Restraint of Appeals to Rome prohibited appeals from domestic
courts to courts outside the realm, and in 1534, the Act of Supremacy
named the king as supreme head of the Church of England.
Merchants and burgesses played a significant role in the Reformation
Parliament's actions. A number of interests were reflected in their deci-
sions, not the least of which were the facts that the church had long been
accused of restricting trade and that popular support for reformed teach-
ings was relatively widespread in the towns (Lehmberg, 1970:81—82;
Palliser, 1979:233-234; Clark, 1977:40; Cross, 1980:210; Manning,
1969:243; Parker, 1966:19; Brigden, 1981:286). Nevertheless, the
crown was by no means the dependent partner in this alliance. Mer-
chants were personally beholden to the crown for trading privileges and
for the crown's promotion of favorable foreign relations. In addition,
the crown had strong support from ecclesiastical appointees, royal offi-
cials, and temporal lords as well as merchants.
Predictably, the rural nobility opposed the reforms. Uprisings devel-
oped in 1536 and again in 1549 at least partly in response to the
crown's religious policies (Cross, 1976:83; Dodds and Dodds, 1915;
Dickens, 1964; Davies, 1968; James, 1970). Nothing symbolized the
crown's expanding influence in the countryside quite as dramatically as
the sight of local religious treasures being loaded onto royal wagons for
shipment to London. By this time, however, the crown's control was suf-
ficiently complete to quash incipient rebellions. Family alliances, patron-
age and royal office, as well as a centralized army, provided what was
needed to carry out the reforms. As elsewhere, danger always lay in the
possibility of leading nobles entering directly into alliances with foreign
powers and receiving financial and military assistance against the king
in return. Some intrigue of this sort did develop between the nobility
and agents of the French and Spanish kings. However, Henry's political
and economic strength was largely successful at minimizing these risks
through diplomatic agreements with France and Spain.
In contrast, the Reformation in France was unable to secure ratifica-
tion even in the cities where its popular support was strongest. One of
the inhibiting factors was the continuing strength of the landlords rela-
tive to the local merchant classes and agents of the state. What Protes-
tantism depended on, as elsewhere, was sponsorship from the state or
from municipalities that had sufficient autonomy from the landed sector
to risk such actions. Where this autonomy was at least partially present,
as in Lyons, Protestantism experienced a degree of success. In other ar-
eas it either failed to take root initially (as in Bordeaux) or else ran into
trouble in attempting to gain official support (Benedict, 1981; Major,
1964). In Rouen, for example, the parlementaires were largely of rural
landowning stock, even though they maintained residences in the city,
and most had extensive landholdings from which the greatest share of
their incomes derived (Dewald, 1980). These elites also loaned consider-
able sums of money to the crown. When religious unrest broke out in
Rouen, they immediately supported neighboring landlords in suppress-
ing it (Benedict, 1981; Nicholls, 1980). In Lyons, a similar uprising was
also forcibly suppressed; in Reims, Troyes, and Toulouse, town coun-
cils' policies were also heavily influenced by the landed elite (Galpern,
1976:123-140; Mentzer, 1973).
At the level of the central regime, religious policies also reflected the
deep influence of the nobility over the state. Gallicanism had given the
king considerable power over the church, and the Concordat of 1516
had extended these privileges. In material terms the king benefited from
his share of the tithe and from loans granted by the church (Salmon,
1975:79—89). Yet the nobility benefited to an even greater extent than
the king by protecting the church. Of the 129 appointments to ecclesias-
tical office made as a result of the Concordat of 1516, for example, 123
went to the nobility (Edelstein, 1974). By mid century virtually all ap-
pointments to high ecclesiastical office were under the control not of the
crown but of the Guise faction among the nobility. In local and provin-
cial assemblies the nobles also managed to bring the clergy more com-
pletely under their control by securing appointments to these assemblies
for members of the middle clergy (whom they could influence) while ex-
cluding members of the upper clergy (Major, 1960:136).
During the religious wars that broke out during the latter half of the
sixteenth century, a significant number of the nobility did become sup-
porters of the Protestant cause. But by this time the regime had become
sufficiently weakened that power was effectively being contested by dif-
ferent factions of the nobility itself. Protestantism served as an opposi-
tional ideology for the less powerful of these factions (Galpern, 1976;
Wood, 1980; Kingdon, 1956; Harding, 1978). During the formative pe-
riod of the Reformation itself, it was chiefly the lack of autonomy in rela-
tion to the nobility that restricted the state's options in dealing with the
reformers and their supporters. Much in the same way in which the
state in Poland and in Spain remained closely tied to the nobility, the
state in France was unable to seriously pursue a policy of active support
for the Reformation. England, in contrast, experienced a greater degree
of separation between the state and the rural elite, just as in Sweden and
Denmark and in many of the imperial cities in central Europe, which ex-
panded its options in dealing with the Reformation.
For the Reformation to be carried out successfully in England, cer-
tainly to a greater extent than in Scandinavia or the German territories,
given the institutional scale of the church in England, an effective bu-
reaucracy was also imperative. The task of dissolving the monasteries
was no mean achievement. Assessments of ecclesiastical lands and trea-
suries had to be undertaken, those that were acquired and retained by
the state had to be efficiently managed, and the remainder had to be dis-
posed of in a timely and profitable manner. The mere task of surveying
properties and crops was immense, let alone the task of dealing with liti-
gation, the resettlement of clergy, and claims of tenets. In this period
state officials often did not act in ways that clearly maximized the state's
interests, but they seldom engaged in projects that were totally beyond
the grasp of existing organizational capacities or that would be of obvi-
ously greater benefit to rival groups than to the state itself. In the case of
the monastic dissolutions, it seems doubtful that state officials would
have been as ready to promote the Reformation as they were had the or-
ganizational means of doing so not already been in existence. These
means, however, had gradually come into being as a result of the re-
forms put into practice in managing the crown's extensive lands, in deal-
ing with local justice, in creating ad hoc commissions for special proj-
ects, and in organizing the state's fiscal matters (Elton, 1953). Studies of
the revenues derived from sales of monastic lands do indicate that these
properties were often disposed of at lower than market values and to
purchasers who did, in fact, manage to increase their influence in lo-
cal affairs as a result (Knowles and Hadcock, 1971; Youings, 1954;
Habakkuk, 1958; Trevor-Roper, 1953; Nef, 1964:215-239). Neverthe-
less, the crown did succeed to a large extent in minimizing these prob-
lems through systematic division and reorganization of monastic hold-
ings and by developing an efficient system of settling legal disputes.
Overall, the potential for ecclesiastical properties to be exploited by
members of the bureaucracy for private gain or to cultivate personal pa-
tronage networks appears to have been minimized (Elton, 1953:206). In
France, by comparison, it seems unlikely that the central bureaucracy
could have sustained a similar enterprise. Anderson (1974:90), for ex-
ample, argues that one of the principal reasons for the continuing re-
gional autonomy in provincial government in general was simply the
central bureaucracy's incapacity to manage affairs on a national scale.
In short, the execution of the Reformation depended not only on rela-
tive state autonomy but also on an autonomy that had developed into
an effective organizational structure.
STATE STRUCTURES AND IDEOLOGY

This interpretation of the Reformation in England and France does
not entirely rule out the possibility that some correspondence may have
also existed between immanent or transcendent concepts of the state
and of the divine in the two societies. The degree of centralization actu-
ally present in the English state as compared with the fragmentation of
power in France casts some doubt on this possibility. In terms of actual
authority, the state in England was experienced as highly powerful and
centralized, and this authority was clearly symbolized in the person of
the king, so much so that contemporaries often described him as "the
most sovereign king England ever had" (Pickthorn, 1934). In France the
actual experience of authority consisted of competing regional, represen-
tative, judicial, and executive bodies that clearly functioned on behalf of
their constituencies, especially the nobility, in ways that seriously con-
strained the implementation of royal policy. The evidence also casts
doubt on the clarity of the distinction between immanence and transcen-
dence in the two societies. England appears to have backed itself into
the Reformation, almost unwittingly, by contesting the pope's authority
over the state and by taking action against the economic power of the
church, rather than directly challenging the immanentai view of the su-
pernatural; indeed, those who actively did so were punished for reli-
gious heresy. France, on the other side, witnessed a striking amount of
support for the reformed teachings both at the popular level and among
certain segments of the state itself.
But the main purpose of reviewing the historical evidence has been to
suggest an alternative perspective that highlights the role of social re-
sources in bringing about ideological change. An advantage of this ap-
proach is that hidden psychological affinities need not be posited as the
primary connection between social arrangements and ideologies. The Ref-
ormation was clearly more than a set of beliefs: it constituted a far-reach-
ing restructuring of the moral order, and this restructuring appears to
have required a highly favorable set of social circumstances in order to
have been carried out successfully. The nature of these institutional ar-
rangements is readily observable in the historical material. In contrast,
the difficulties faced in attempting to establish a direct attitudinal link
between authority and belief seem nearly insurmountable. A closer look
at one specific episode—the placards affair—will serve to illustrate this
point.
AN ILLUSTRATIVE CASE
According to most accounts, the placards affair marked a significant

turning point in the history of the French Reformation. Before this
event, reformed teachings seem to have had some chance of succeeding
in France; after it, this chance seems to have been virtually nil. The epi-
sode itself consisted simply of a number of posters, denouncing the
Mass in quite outspoken terms, being posted in Paris and in a number of
other French cities, including one allegedly attached to the door of the
king's bedchamber. In many respects the placards affair offers evidence
that seems to support Swanson's interpretation. First, the placards' mes-
sage directly attacked the sacredness of the elements of the Mass, thus at-
testing to the importance of Swanson's emphasis on the idea of imma-
nence. Second, the king and other officials of state appear to have been
infuriated by the placards, suggesting that they may have at least intu-
itively felt the correspondence between an attack on immanence in the
Mass and their own authority. Third, a relatively widespread popular
uprising broke out in Paris in reaction against the placards, suggesting
that high state officials may not have been the only ones to sense the con-
nection between immanence in the Mass and public authority. Finally,
the king himself only a few days later led a public processional to restore
order in which his sovereignty was dramatically reassociated with the
Mass, particularly as he stopped at numerous points along the way to
partake of the Mass at temporary altars that had been erected for this
purpose. From this series of events, a close connection between the sov-
ereign conception of the state and the immanent sense of sacredness in
the church's central sacrament is apparent. When Protestant heretics
challenged this sense of immanence, their attack was perceived as a deep
defilement of the state itself, which in turn lent both its ceremonial and
coercive powers to restoring the moral order.
A closer consideration of the placards affair, however, casts a rela-
tively broad shadow across this interpretation. At no time did the perpe-
trators of the affair point any of their attacks at the state itself, a fact
that seems surprising if the association between the Mass and the state
was as close as it has been alleged to be. They may have refrained from
attacking the state on grounds of expediency; yet they clearly stood to
lose as much by challenging the church as the state. Even the placard at-
tached to the king's door turns out to have been apocryphal, in all likeli-
hood, because many of the early accounts fail to mention it. Moreover,
the intent of the affair seems to have been to challenge the Mass itself
rather than anything about the state because the posters were put up so
that devout Catholics would see them the next morning on their way to
Mass. The event was not timed to coincide with any public ceremony of
state; indeed, the king and much of his retinue were away from Paris at
the time. The perpetrators, of course, simply may have been unaware of
the implicit political message in their attack on the Mass. Yet the official
reaction is also puzzling. Although reports of the king's anger seem to
be fairly well substantiated, action against the perpetrators was not initi-
ated by the sovereign himself but, without consulting him, by the theo-
logical faculty of the Sorboune and then by the ecclesiastical members of
the Parlement of Paris. The king actually sought to downplay the event
(and did later reduce some of the sentences), but found the wheels of jus-
tice already in motion by the time he returned to Paris. Indeed, the
king's reaction to the attack on the Mass can hardly be taken as evi-
dence of an implicit connection between political sovereignty and divine
immanence, for at the very time of the affair the court was engaged in ne-
gotiations with some of the reformers to reach a conciliar compromise
on the very meaning of the sacrament (Knecht, 1978). Finally, very
much cannot be made of the fact that a popular uprising occurred in de-
fense of the Mass. Similar reactions occurred in England, Holland, and
in many of the German towns during this period as well. Iconoclasm
never went unopposed. Nor was the uprising in Paris entirely representa-
tive of public sentiment. As already noted, as many as a quarter of the
population seems to have been sympathetic with Protestantism around
this time. The question in the case of Paris, therefore, should focus not
on the popular uprising, but on why the state was constrained to favor
this reaction rather than place itself behind the reforms.
The ambiguities involved in interpreting the placards affair illustrate
the difficulty in pinning down the intervening processes supposedly oper-
ating in the correspondence approach to ideology. Ultimately the pro-
cess depends on implicit connections that may not be evident even to the
actors involved in the situation and that may be contradicted by their
own behavior. Even if a formal correlation can be demonstrated, little
can be said about why this correlation exists. Closer examination of the
actors involved is likely to reveal a variety of orientations and compet-
ing motives. In addition, the presence of a motivational predisposition
toward a particular ideology does not in itself tell anything about the
conditions under which these predispositions can be realized.
TOWARD A S O C I O L O G I C A L F O C U S
The correspondence hypothesis offers a plausible approach to ideol-

ogy if ideology is depicted as simply the atomized beliefs of individuals. In
developing their particularistic worldviews, individuals may be predis-
posed toward certain ideas because of affinities between personal experi-
ence and these ideas (e.g., favoring paternalistic images of God in pater-
nalistic families). But this is an extremely limited view of ideology. Rather
than being depicted as sets of subjective beliefs, ideology needs to be rec-
ognized as a constitutive feature of social order itself. Ideology requires
social resources to be produced and maintained, it defines moral obliga-
tions that influence the distribution of social resources, and it becomes in-
stitutionalized in organizations, in professional roles, in collective rituals,
and in relations with the state. Neither the Catholic church nor the Protes-
tant opposition was simply a set of subjective beliefs, available for individ-
ual adoption in the free market of ideas; both were ideological institu-
tions of sufficient magnitude that specific characteristics of the state were
required for their institutionalization to be protected or eroded.
Emphasizing the role of social resources shifts the burden of explana-
tion from psychological processes to sociological variables. Rather than
accounting for the presence of ideology in terms of its subjective appeal,
a structural approach emphasizes the embeddedness of ideology in
social arrangements. To institutionalize a new ideology, therefore, re-
quires a set of social conditions that permits resources to be expended in
ways that further ideological innovation. In the present case, these condi-
tions consisted chiefly of relative autonomy on the part of the state, fi-
nancially and administratively, from the landed ruling class. This auton-
omy gave agents of the state in England certain options in dealing with
religious reforms that were not open in France. This is not to say that of-
ficials in either country were favorably disposed toward the Reforma-
tion or that they set out on a rationally calculated course of support or
opposition. In both countries officials did what was their chief responsi-
bility to do: maintain public order, protect the society from external
threat, and protect their own power from being interfered with or dissi-
pated. In responding to immediate problems along these fronts, Henry

VIII had options available that gradually favored the Reformation; Fran-
cis I had options available that increasingly shut the door on reform.
In neither case was the relation between state structures and ideologi-
cal content strictly determinate. Even to suggest that a single factor such
as state authority could have determined the essential content of a move-
ment as vast and as complex as the Reformation strains the bounds of
credibility. In terms of the correspondence hypothesis itself, it is difficult
to defend consistently the idea that experiences of state sovereignty
alone were the determining factor because many other kinds of social ex-
perience could also have conceivably conditioned religious ideas. The
present emphasis on structural conditions affecting the availability of re-
sources focuses more on the timing and social location of ideology than
on its specific content. The Reformation became institutionalized at
about the same time under roughly equivalent conditions in a number of
different sections of Europe, but its content even within particular coun-
tries was highly diverse. What an institutional approach offers is a
means of highlighting the social resources that become available directly
or indirectly to ideological movements. These resources shape the social
location an ideological movement comes to occupy, and this location in
turn may have decisive consequences for some of the specific ideological
forms that become emphasized. In the Reformation, for example, the
moderation of the reforms in England as opposed to many of the urban
reforms in central Europe appears to have been influenced by the fact
that the king's control, however extensive, was nevertheless limited at
the local level by other constituencies, whereas in central Europe many
of the more extreme reforms took place in limited urban contexts where
the magistracy had fewer competing power groups with which to con-
tend. Or in a different context, as noted previously, Fulbrook (1983)
has suggested that much ol the difference in the political orientations
that came to be associated with Puritanism and Pietism, which were
quite similarly theologically, can be accounted for by the different ar-
rangement of power groups in seventeenth-century England as opposed
to eighteenth-century Prussia.
It remains to draw together several threads of a more general nature
that bear on the relation between scates and ideologies. Implicit in the ap-
proach taken here is an attempt to reformulate the relation between states
and ideologies in a way that deemphasizes the idea of legitimation. This
idea is clearly important to the understanding of modern states, but its
weaknesses as an analytic tool are sufficiently apparent that it should not
be the only way of conceiving the relation between states and ideologies.
One of the, albeit avoidable, problems to which discussions of legit-
imation often fall victim is the tendency to assume that the existence of an
ideology implies it has a positive legitimating function in relation to the
state or ruling class. Another, perhaps more serious, problem is the ten-
dency to attribute the existence of an ideology to the fact that it seems to
fulfill a legitimating function. What the present example illustrates is a dif-
ferent causal model in which certain state structures make more or less
likely the possibility of a given ideology becoming institutionalized. Hav-
ing attained the resources to become institutionalized, an ideology may
or may not work to the benefit of the state. In the case of England, for ex-
ample, the Reformation provided Henry with substantial sums of money,
which postponed the fiscal problems of his administration, but it is argu-
able whether or not the Reformation contributed stability to the throne at
any point during the next two centuries.
Finally, the issue of state autonomy warrants comment. The manner
in which this concept has been used here differs from its usage in several
prominent discussions. Generally, state autonomy has been conceived in
terms of interests (i.e., as conditions under which the state pursues its
own interests rather than those of a ruling class or external interest
group). The difficulty with this formulation has been identifying the
state's interests as opposed to the interests of other groups (especially
when these interests may overlap). Here, state autonomy has been con-
ceptualized in terms of a specific relationship (i.e., its relationship admin-
istratively and financially to the landed ruling class). No asssumptions
were made about the state's intrinsic interests as opposed to those of the
landed elite. Rather, it was argued that a degree of fiscal and administra-
tive autonomy from the landed elite gave the state certain options that it
otherwise may not have had. In some cases these options clearly favored
the rising commercial classes; in others, holders of bureaucratic office;
and in others, the longer term growth of the economy as a whole. But
for the institutionalization of a major ideological reform, such as Protes-
tantism, state autonomy clearly played an important role. It essentially
supplied a concentrated pool of resources that were not under the con-
trol of the landed ruling class, thus providing the reformers with a
means of institutionalizing their claims. This function, it should be
noted in concluding, does not appear limited to the sixteenth century.
As the state expanded both functionally and administratively, it has in
fact provided an increasingly important pool of resources that influence
the institutionalization of ideology.
CHAPTER TEN
Conclusion
332 Conclusion
phasis on meaning (as shown in Chapter 2) are firmly rooted in both the
classical and neoclassical traditions.
The structural level of analysis, in contrast, pays relatively little atten-
tion to the individual or the problem of meaning. Its emphasis is on the
objectified social presence of cultural forms. Symbols—utterances, acts,
objects, and events—are assumed to exist in some ways independent of
their creators and to take forms not entirely determined by the needs of
individuals. That is, patterns among symbols cannot be understood
with reference alone to the requirements for meaning, security, or per-
sonal integration of individuals. Rather, the elements of culture are ar-
ranged in relation to each other, forming identifiable patterns. Under-
standing the structure of culture, therefore, requires paying attention to
the configurations, categories, boundaries, and connections among cul-
tural elements themselves. Although this level of analysis has been less
commonly incorporated into sociological investigations of culture, its
theoretical foundations are firmly established in the poststructuralist lit-
erature, and some of the classical theories contain ideas that point as
much to this approach as they do to the subjective approach.
The dramaturgic level builds on the structural by adding consider-
ations about the relations between patterns of symbols and broader so-
cial relations. Although it remains important at this level to examine the
patterns among symbols that give them coherence, these patterns are as-
sumed to play an expressive role in dramatizing and affirming the moral
obligations on which social interaction depends—the moral order. It is
again assumed at this level of analysis that cultural elements are not ex-
clusively (and perhaps not even primarily) shaped by individual motives
and meanings. Rather, the sociological importance of cultural elements
arises decisively from the fact that they take place within a matrix of
moral obligations and are, in turn, shaped by the structure of social rela-
tions. From this perspective, the kinds of cultural elements likely to be
of greatest interest are those that are objectified in concrete social set-
tings. Ideologies and ideological movements, therefore, acquire special
significance, as do the ritual aspects of social behavior. In both cases,
the degree of uncertainty present among moral obligations is a signifi-
cant consideration in attempting to understand the conditions giving
rise to cultural forms.
At the institutional level of analysis, all of the foregoing assumptions
remain in effect, but greater emphasis is given to the role of social re-
sources in producing and maintaining cultural forms. In a direct sense,
time and money are required for ideas to become part of the culture.
Conclusion 333
Less directly perhaps, the very moral obligations that ideologies articu-
late are concerned with the control of social resources and are likely to
be influenced by the type and amount of resources to be controlled. Be-
cause the connection between ideas and resources is always precarious,
those ideas that survive and that gain social importance are likely to be
the ones that become institutionalized. Regular and well-organized
means of extracting resources from the broader environment and of
channeling these resources into specified types of cultural production
greatly enhance the chances of survival of any given ideological form.
As the preceding two chapters in particular have shown, this process
typically depends on constraints and opportunities built into the struc-
ture of the broader society. The likelihood of any cultural form becom-
ing institutionalized, it has been argued, depends especially on condi-
tions affecting its autonomy; its access to political, social, and economic
resources; its legitimacy in relation to broader cultural patterns; and a
degree of internal communication and organization.
In much of the foregoing the structural, dramaturgic, and institu-
tional levels of analysis were emphasized. The subjective level was given
less attention because it already represents a well-established tradition
in the study of culture. As a matter of strategy, it appeared more useful
to point out the limitations of the subjective approach and to explore
ways of applying the other three. In the process, only the advantages of
the structural, dramaturgic, and institutional approaches were consid-
ered, and even these were often dealt with implicitly rather than explic-
itly. Any conceptual or methodological tool brings its own weaknesses
as well as its strengths. Some candid reflections on the uses and limita-
tions of each of the four levels of cultural analysis, therefore, would
seem to be in order.
SUBJECTIVE ANALYSES
The criticisms of the subjective approach that were raised in Chap-

ters 1 and 2 dealt mainly with the problem of meaning. It was suggested
that, for all its intrinsic interest, the problem of meaning may have be-
come more of a detriment than an asset to the analysis of culture. Im-
plicit in that assertion, of course, is an emphasis on culture as a focus of
inquiry. One can obviously choose to investigate the problem of mean-
ing for its own sake. The difficulty lies in the fact that so much of what
passes as cultural inquiry has actually focused on the problem of mean-
ing that the two have often become synonymous. There are exceptions,
334 Conclusion
of course. Especially at the institutional level, studies that have had little
to do with the problem of meaning have been made. But the more com-
mon tendency has been a strong infusion of questions about meaning
into the very theoretical and methodological assumptions of cultural
analysis.
The limitations associated with emphasizing the subjective, perhaps
not surprisingly, have both theoretical and methodological counter-
parts. That is, certain biases are built in with respect to the investigator's
choice of problems and concepts, including the assumptions typically
made about the processes shaping cultural patterns. In addition, these as-
sumptions produce operative problems as soon as the investigator at-
tempts to study culture in accordance with the accepted canons of social
research.
The methodological limitation posed by the subjective approach
arises principally from the difficulties associated with making verifiable
claims about subjective phenomena. As argued in Chapter 2, the subjec-
tive meanings evoked in a person's mind by any given symbol or com-
plex of symbols are likely to be highly idiosyncratic and at least margin-
ally unstable, because of their contingency on the immediate context,
and are also likely to be richly interwoven with the person's biographi-
cal and intellectual experience. If an investigator sets out with the task
of providing a complete, rich description of some symbol or event's
meaning to an individual, it will be necessary, first, to do an incredible
amount of probing into the individual's experiences, background, cogni-
tive frameworks, and emotional states of which the individual may not
even be fully aware. Second, it will be necessary the very next day to re-
peat the entire process because new experiences, contexts, and memo-
ries (including those of having been a research subject) will all alter the
meanings the person constructs to at least some small, or possibly large,
extent. Finally, one must not assume that the information gained can be
generalized exactly to any other individual or situation. To engage in a
phenomenological or hermeneutic analysis of these meanings, therefore,
is unlikely to result in any readily verifiable or compellingly cumulative
type of knowledge.
Social scientists have not been unmindful of this problem. Several lead-
ing ways of resolving it have in fact been evident in the literature. One is
to draw a sharp distinction between the interpretive sciences that focus
on meanings and the more positivistic sciences that are devoted to the pur-
suit of objectified, cumulative knowledge. A second is to diminish the
problems of probing subjective meanings by arguing for the possibility of
Conclusion 335
a kind of empathic or intuitive understanding of these meanings. A third

is to deemphasize their subjectivity and variability by demonstrating the
existence of shared or "intersubjective" meanings.
But none of these alternatives is entirely satisfactory. Differentiating
sharply between the interpretive and the positivistic sciences gives up too
much too quickly. Many aspects of culture can be treated as observable
data and can be investigated with rigorous, replicable methods. Even if
cultural analysis is regarded as an interpretive science, the need remains
to put its claims on as solid an empirical footing as possible. (Nor should
it be assumed that other phenomena in 1the social sciences simply conform
more readily to the positivistic model.) Interpretation, it appears, should
be acknowledged as the epistemological stance from which all sociologi-
cal investigation is conducted, not just the investigation of culture; but in-
terpretation should not provide an excuse for bad methods, subjectivism,
and analyses lacking a strong evidentiary base. Relying on empathic or in-
tuitive methods may work in some cases, for example, where the objects
of investigation are either widely and consensually understood or where
they are completely esoteric/ But in most instances, skeptics are unlikely
to be satisfied. Some imaginative insights that strike a resonant chord
with the sensitive reader may be gained, but such insights need to be re-
ceived cautiously in light of any broader claims that may be offered about
"the meaning" of an event or about the subject's " worldview" or mode of
"constructing reality." If it can be shown that the materials at issue are
not really subjective but rather that they are shared (intersubjective),
these problems are less serious. In that case, however, it can legitimately
be asked what the level of analysis actually is. The very basis for making
claims about the shared quality of meanings is likely to have shifted to the
level of discourse and symbolic behavior. Thus it may be well simply to ac-
knowledge that the level of analysis has shifted away from the problem of
subjective meaning.
As noted earlier, one of the symptoms that seems particularly indica-
tive of the methodological problems faced at the subjective level is that
investigators typically do not have much to say about subjective mean-
ings, despite their claims, and often appear to rely more on other kinds
of evidence. Studies of cat massacres, coronations, and Balinese cock-
fights are interesting because they provide us with an interpretation of
the event, because they put it in a set of cultural contexts that enhances
its meaningfulness, but they do not actually tell us what "the meaning"
of the event is. Although the stated objective may be to interpret the
"meaning" of an idea or event, what is usually presented is only an as-
336 Conclusion
sessment in terms of broader cultural or social patterns. The investiga-

tor develops his or her interpretation by describing a context or frame-
work of events, but actually
3 does not reveal what actors in the situation
may have thought or felt. In other instances—especially ones involving
firsthand interviewing or participation—stronger claims may be made,
but here too the results need to be regarded with caution. Although
words such as "moods" and "motivations" are likely to be employed,
the account actually consists of discourse—both the subjects' and the ob-
server's—and requires an effort to identify underlying patterns or rela-
tions with behavior. Seldom does it genuinely exhaust the subjects' own
subjectively held meanings.
At the theoretical level, the limitations inherent in the subjective ap-
proach consist mainly of underestimating the significance of social, as
opposed to psychological, processes and of attributing too much to the
needs and interests of the individual. As previous chapters have shown,
almost every topic that cultural analysts have addressed—from religious
rituals to witch-hunts, to the origins of millenarian movements, to the
cultural factors giving rise to modern science, to the sources of geo-
graphic variation in the Reformation—has been subjected to an essen-
tially psychological interpretation. Characteristically, the theoretical
connection seen between social structure and cultural outcomes has
been one involving moods and motivations: religious movements arise
from subjective deprivation, ritual enactments occur because of subjec-
tive anxieties, science developed in the seventeenth century because En-
glishmen were properly motivated, and the Reformation was adopted
because it corresponded with people's experience of the polity. In each
case, some subjective state has served as a kind of mysterious process re-
lating social structure to cultural patterns. Sociologists, it appears, have
had a marvelous propensity to advance psychological interpretations of
culture rather than focus on the collective variables of their own stock
and trade. Rather than examining what could be observed at the social
level itself—discourse, dramatic acts, resource arrangements, means of
cultural production—investigators have simply posited a "black box"—
a subjective state that could not be observed directly.
In other instances, these kinds of arguments have been carried fur-
ther, influencing the substance of theoretical interpretations as well.
That is, not only do subjective states serve as a theoretical link between
social conditions and cultural phenomena, but a specific kind of cultural
pattern is also emphasized as a result of assumptions being made about
the nature of these subjective states. The clearest example of this kind of
Conclusion 337
reasoning is the wholistic view of culture in many of the neoclassical

theories (discussed in Chapter 2). Assuming a need for personal integra-
tion, these theories went on to argue by analogy that cultural systems
provided meaning and integration for whole institutions in much the
same way that meaning was provided at the personal level. In some of
the more extreme Marxist theories of culture—for example, Hessen's in-
terpretation of Newton—assumptions about personal experience have
also been allowed to color the entire interpretation given for a cultural
development. These interpretations may at times have value, but they
tend generally to obscure the communicative aspects of culture that de-
rive from its broader location in the society. Usually there is a lot more
going on than just the "objectification" of the reality constructions of
individuals or the shaping of attitudes by the experiences of many
disaggregated individuals.
It should be apparent, therefore, that the subjective level of cultural
analysis—taken alone—is constrained by rather serious methodological
and theoretical limitations. As in any other approach, this is only to be
expected. The purpose of pointing out these limitations is not to gener-
ate defensive arguments between the users and opponents of a particu-
lar perspective, but to clarify costs and benefits likely to be associated
with adopting a research strategy. The benefits—or uses—associated
with the subjective approach also need to be appreciated. Two such
uses, in particular, warrant consideration.
The first of these uses is as an exploratory tool of inquiry. Many of the
objections that can be raised about the subjective level of cultural analysis
focus on matters of evidence, proof, and replicability. Ideally, arguments
need to be based on rigorous, observable cultural materials rather than as-
sertions about unobservable inner conditions. In exploratory stages of
cultural research, however, efforts to gain an intuitive feeling for what is
happening are likely to be of considerable value. The researcher may not
know what all the subjective meanings present in a situation are. But
some effort to elicit these meanings and to develop empathy can be a valu-
able aid to the research process. Among other things, such subjective im-
pressions can orient one to the complexities of cultural patterns and can
yield valuable clues about what is important in the situation or transfer-
able to other situations. Ideas about what is being communicated suggest
what cultural patterns may be most important to investigate. This, of
course, has been the principal argument behind the explicit use of such
tools as verstehen or ethnographic immersion in the social sciences.
Analyses of culture can benefit greatly from these methods. At the same
338 Conclusion
time, cultural research should be pressed as much as possible toward the

use of other kinds of evidence as well.
The second use is as a vehicle for examining commitment. In many
cases the object of inquiry is not culture alone, or even culture in relation
to social conditions, but culture in relation to the person. Problems per-
taining to what might be referred to as the "social psychology of culture"
are indeed quite prominent. They arise in studies of religious belief; in re-
search on self-concepts, stress, alienation, and personal adjustment; in
surveys of political opinions and voter preferences; and in any number of
inquiries in which ideas are assumed to bear on individuals' uses of time
and energy. In all of these cases, what is at issue is the question of a rela-
tionship between particular cultural elements and the person. Whether a
person is "committed to" an idea or belief is the heart of the matter. From
the standpoint of the individual, commitment is important because it re-
veals something about how one is likely to think and behave. From the
standpoint of the cultural element, commitment is also important be-
cause it signifies a kind of resource that may enhance the viability of that
cultural form (i.e., people who are willing to defend, disseminate, and en-
act an ideological pattern). With a relatively slight modification in per-
spective, the subjective level of analysis can be a useful tool for examining
commitment. That modification is to think of commitment not primarily
as a subjective state or inward predisposition, nor as "the meaning" of a
cultural element, but as a relatively discrete and observable relation be-
tween a symbolic statement and the person. As suggested in Chapter 2,
one aspect of the conditions that make any symbolic statement meaning-
ful is a relation of sincerity between the statement and the person who ut-
ters it. Something that demonstrates the speaker's sincerity is likely to be
built into the statement. What this consists of is actually quite close to the
usual idea of commitment (i.e., the speaker is committed to or "really be-
lieves in" the statement that has been uttered). The virtue of this reformu-
lation of the problem is that it renders as an issue worthy of investigation
the very means by which commitment is expressed. Rather than assuming
that commitment is simply an expression of some internal state of the indi-
vidual, the researcher now must consider the cultural repertoire of utter-
ances and actions that can be used to demonstrate commitment. Under
different conditions, the same subjective propensity is likely to find ex-
pression in quite different ways. For example, whether a commitment to
public service takes the form of defending capitalism, being a responsible
parent, or engaging in volunteer work is obviously a matter of cultural
definition. The subjective level serves quickly to move one toward cul-
Conclusion 339
tural questions. Again, little may actually be learned about subjective

meanings. But commitment, after all, is more than merely a subjective
condition.
STRUCTURAL ANALYSES
This way of thinking about commitment actually comes close to sug-

gesting the importance of moving from a subjective to a structural level
of analysis. If both the person and a given symbolic statement are con-
ceived of as cultural categories, then one way of thinking about commit-
ment is as the relation between these two categories. Both the boundary
separating them and the connections that allow them to be related are
cultural constructions. The individual by no means drops out in struc-
tural analyses of culture. Rather, the individual is regarded as an entity
about which discourse takes place. The relation between the individual
as a cultural category and other cultural categories, therefore, can be ex-
amined. More generally, the structural approach is concerned with dis-
secting relations of this kind,
The main limitation of this approach is a dearth of theoretical propo-
sitions. Much of the theoretical literature has emphasized the idea of
symbolic boundaries between opposites or the notion that such bound-
aries are often revealed by opposites (e.g., deviance/normality, male/
female, etc.). The theoretical rationale for emphasizing opposites has in
some of the structuralist literature been linked to ideas about binary
structures in the brain and to assumptions of parallelism among pairs of
opposites. It is not essential to adopt these extreme limiting assump-
tions, however, to recognize the importance of opposing symbolic cate-
gories as aspects of cultural order. In the discussion of moral codes
(Chapter 3), some use was made of a looser conception of symbolic
boundaries to suggest some of the conceptual distinctions on which
moral commitments may depend. In general, however, little has been of-
fered in the theoretical literature as guidelines to the kinds of structure
that may be worthwhile investigating.
Another limitation of this approach is that applications seem to be
particularly susceptible to the kinds of untestable psychological assump-
tions that have been criticized in conjunction with the subjective ap-
proach. The reason for this problem may lie in the fact that symbolic
structures, as manifested in categories of discourse, are still largely pre-
sumed to reflect the cognitive or emotive processes of individuals. In dis-
cussing moral codes, for example, some strong assumptions were made
340 Conclusion
about individuals' requirements for self-worth, absolution from guilt,

and so on. These assumptions may have seemed necessary there, be-
cause issues of moral commitment were at stake, to a greater extent
than they might in dealing with, say, categories of discourse about the
state. In any case, such assumptions may not prove to be entirely dis-
pensable even in deliberate efforts to shift away from the subjective. If
so, they should at least be presented as presuppositions rather than
4
em-
pirical concepts that can actually be observed in cultural data.
The structural approach, at present, must also be regarded as subject
to limitations of established methods and, indeed, of clear canons of evi-
dence. As with the subjective approach, efforts to document structural
patterns in cultural materials often appear to succeed purely because the
materials presented are from esoteric contexts, and the ethnographic
depth of these materials gives the investigator a dispensation from skep-
tical criticisms. In more ordinary settings, the fact that cultural materials
are readily observable may in some ways also mitigate this problem. In
selecting cases to illustrate the ingredients of moral codes, for example,
attention was deliberately restricted to these kinds of materials. Never-
theless, the problem that remains largely unresolved is how to establish
the existence of a particular cultural category or symbolic boundary.
Established methods can go part way toward resolving this problem.
For example, "content analysis" techniques can be used to establish the
existence and frequency of relatively straightforward cultural categories
and to demonstrate empirical correlations among the distributions of
these categories. Survey data, analyzed with standard statistical tech-
niques, can also be of value in determining whether various utterances
tend to cluster together (as shown by the material concerning "Holo-
caust" in Chapter 4). These methods remain most limited in examining
the nature of symbolic distinctions and connections themselves. Often
the sheer presence of categories in the same contexts reveals little about
how these categories are related. Imaginative analyses of these kinds of
symbols generally cannot be reduced to a simple formula or be derived
directly from reading a text or observing a ritual. They require the inves-
tigator to draw on a wider body of knowledge and experience. They are,
again, essentially acts of interpretation. But the kinds of evidence used
to create these interpretations still need to be disclosed as fully as possi-
ble. As suggested in Chapter 3, these relations are often precarious,
fraught with ambivalence, and in need of periodic reaffirmation. Heroes
and villains, connections with cultural authorities, poignant examples,
Conclusion 341
deviance, and other symbolic violations are all likely to be important

considerations in determining how symbolic categories are related.
It also bears noting that the paucity of formalized methods for exam-
ining cultural structures in the social sciences does not exhaust the possi-
bilities of identifying such methods more broadly. Major advances have
been made in recent years in disciplines such as artificial intelligence,
cognitive psychology, and musicology, from which ideas might usefully
be borrowed. To cite only one example, a study by Cerulo (1985) has
presented a highly sophisticated method, drawing on insights from musi-
cology, for comparing the structures of musical codes. Using these mea-
sures, the study was able to provide rigorous tests of propositions de-
rived from Bernstein (1975) about the relations between social structure
and elaborated or restricted codes. In a broader sense, the study sug-
gested rich possibilities for developing mathematical measures of the
form, complexity, and variability of such musical properties as melody,
harmony, and rhythm.
The uses to which structural analyses of culture can be put are clearly
limited, therefore, by the relative novelty of this approach in relation to
established social scientific theories and methods. Nevertheless, at least
four promising areas of application seem worthy of mention.
The first of these is deviance, the one area of study in which consider-
able use has already been made of the structural approach. As many of
the examples presented in the chapters on moral codes and rituals sug-
gested, deviance has often been recognized as one of the ways in which
moral boundaries are expressed. Kai Erikson, as well as Mary Douglas,
Foucault, and others, has seen this relation between deviance and sym-
bolic structures. Other approaches, such as the familiar "labeling the-
ory" of deviance, have also paid close attention to this relation. Often
the thrust of this work has been more concerned with understanding de-
viance than with understanding culture. But the basis for further work
paying greater attention to culture has been laid. The essential insight is
that symbolic boundaries are often maintained by litanies of deviant
events that reveal normality by their very violations of it.
Cultural change is the second area. Because the structural approach
focuses on patterns among symbols themselves, it is especially appropri-
ate for comparing differences in these patterns from one time period to
another. A clear distinction must be drawn, however, between the struc-
tural approach and the ways in which cultural change has most often
been examined. The usual method has been to trace the development of
342 Conclusion
particular ideas (e.g., race, death) or the evolution of broader cultural

abstractions (e.g., universalism, nationalism). Where the structural ap-
proach differs is in emphasizing categories, boundaries, relations, and
the symbols that express these structures. For example, rather than pur-
suing a study of church-state relations by tracing arguments about
church and state, a structural approach to cultural change would begin
by regarding both the concepts of "church" and of "state" as problem-
atic cultural constructions, and then proceed by examining what was
categorized with each, how the boundary between the two was negoti-
ated, and how symbolic events contributed over time to changes in these
definitions. Underlying this kind of study is the assumption that ideas
have a distinctly objective existence as cultural categories and that the
structural relations among these categories are at least as important to
examine as their content.
A third promising area of application is moral order. If, as argued in
a number of the foregoing chapters, uncertainties or ambiguities in the
moral order are likely sources of rituals, ideologies, or other cultural pro-
ductions, then the nature of these uncertainties is clearly a problem
worth investigating. The structural approach is one method by which
these uncertainties might be examined. Assuming that moral obligations
constitute a kind of cultural code (as suggested in Chapter 3), then the
components of this code might be examined to discover points of uncer-
tainty or ambiguity. What may loosely be termed "uncertainty" may,
on closer inspection, turn out to have its own decipherable patterns. The
loci of ambiguity may actually consist of disputes over the classification
of specific acts into broader categories, of problems in relating catego-
ries to one another, or of difficulty in maintaining the objectivity of cer-
tain categories. This kind of analysis, it has been suggested, can also be
applied to more traditional questions about the self or about commit-
ment by comprehending these as cultural categories as well.
Finally, as an application of a more general kind, the structural ap-
proach seems well suited to the task of making culture a more objective
focus of inquiry. Much of the literature that deals with culture continues
to "look past" it, not so much (as Geertz suggested) by looking to the in-
terests being served or to class relations, but by concentrating on the
meanings conveyed. Rather than treating culture as an object, to be in-
vestigated from the outside, studies have shown a preference for delving
into the midst of culture, exploring it from the inside. There is value in
doing this. But much is missed as well. The problem is somewhat akin to
participating in a conversation. The participant becomes so engrossed in
Conclusion 343
the content of the conversation that little awareness remains of the un-
derlying rules by which the conversation is governed. A bystander, tak-
ing a more distanced perspective, may be in a better position to analyze
what the participants are taking for granted. So it is with culture. The5
structural approach requires that a degree of distance be established.
The elements of culture must be treated almost as if they were tangible
objects—building blocks—to be arranged, rearranged, and scrutinized
in order to determine how they are put together. From such a process,
greater awareness of the rules of communication (as Habermas has sug-
gested) is the desired result. Such awareness can also play a valuable role
as a foundation for relating cultural elements to other aspects of the so-
cial order.
DRAMATURGIC ANALYSES
From a sociological perspective, a key virtue of the dramaturgic level

of analysis is that it incorporates an explicit social dimension into the
study of culture. In suggesting that culture dramatizes something about
the moral order, one necessarily raises questions about the broader so-
cial milieu in which culture exists and the influences that this milieu may
have on culture. The foregoing chapters have implicitly adopted this
perspective at a number of points. Although these explorations have
touched on only a few of the many facets of analysis possible at this
level, four important uses have been illustrated.
First, at a very general theoretical level, dramaturgic analyses of cul-
ture offer a distinct alternative to the kinds of social psychological expla-
nations that have fallen into disrepute for lack of empirical confirma-
tion. Deprivation as a source of ideological movements and anxiety as a
source of ritual are two examples that have been considered at some
length. The assumptions about psychological needs in these models
have been widely challenged in the empirical literature as an inadequate
basis for explaining the connections between cultural outcomes and so-
cial conditions. The dramaturgic approach substitutes the idea of moral
order as the intervening link in these models. It suggests that ideologies,
rituals, and other cultural phenomena may arise in response to social
rather than psychological conditions. The role of symbolism, according
to this view, may be less to resolve personal anxieties than to clarify the
nature of social relations and expectations. In many cases, this type of ar-
gument seems at least worthy of serious consideration.
Second, a focus on the dramaturgic aspects of culture offers a theo-
344 Conclusion
retical extension of the conditions outlined by Habermas under which

symbolic acts are likely to be meaningful. As discussed in Chapter 2,
Habermas's formulation represents a significant recasting of the general
problem of meaning. Shifting attention away from the subjective mean-
ing of symbols, Habermas has attempted to emphasize instead the con-
ditions under which a symbolic act is likely to be meaningful, where
"meaningful" becomes a central theoretical concept in predicting the
use, existence, survival, or distribution of a given symbolic act. It was
seen that Habermas specified four types of conditions, each marked by a
relation between the symbolic act and a relevant aspect of its environ-
ment: a relation with the speaker or actor, marked by sincerity or truth-
fulness; a relation with the external or factual world, marked by truth; a
relation with language, marked by comprehensibility; and a relation
with the social milieu, marked by legitimacy. The last of these clearly
represents the domain of greatest interest to sociologists. However,
Habermas's own specification of this relation is somewhat less than sat-
isfactory. His view of the social milieu (in this context) emphasizes
norms and values that give substantive legitimacy to a given symbolic
act (e.g., like democratic values giving legitimacy to the act of voting).
This kind of legitimacy is obviously important but does not exhaust the
relations between symbolic acts and their social environments that may
contribute meaningfulness. The dramaturgic emphasis on moral order
broadens the relevant types of social conditions that may affect the
meaningfulness of a symbolic act. In this conception, symbolic acts are
likely to be meaningful if they articulate the nature of social relations.
Articulation may occur through substantive legitimation or, more
likely, by clarifying the positions and interests of actors in relation to
one another,
A third important use is the role of uncertainty. In a more specific
sense, several of the preceding explorations have pointed to the impor-
tance of uncertainty in the moral order as a source of cultural produc-
tion. The idea on which this observation rests is that cultural forms dra-
matize (articulate, clarify, reaffirm) the character of moral obligations.
Thus these dramatizations are likely to be in greater demand whenever
the character of moral obligations becomes uncertain. If other things re-
main constant, uncertainty is likely to be increased by an addition of
new actors, by greater numbers of available choices, and by more com-
plex relations among actors. This kind of argument seems to have some
empirical support in studies of the conditions under which rituals arise
or attract interest and in studies of the origins of new ideological move-
Conclusion 345
ments. Obviously, a great deal more needs to be done toward specifying

and applying this type of argument to other areas.
Finally, in addition to simply articulating ideas about moral obliga-
tions, ideologies also reinforce these obligations. In this sense, ideologies
exercise influence or control over the ways in which social resources may
be distributed or expended. It was suggested in the context of discussing
the relations between ideologies and social environments (Chapters 5 and
6) that one way of assessing the survival possibilities of an ideology is to
consider its implications for controlling the moral order. If resources are
quite heterogeneous, for example, an ideology that decouples moral obli-
gations, permitting individuals a high degree of diversity, may have a high
survival value. Here, the formal properties of an ideological system are
said to bear an important relation to the kinds of moral obligations that
are most conceivable. Again, this is little more than a suggestive hypothe-
sis that stands in need of further elaboration.
The principal limitation that confronts the dramaturgic approach, as
presently conceived, is a lack of theoretical specification concerning the
core concept of moral order. Several competing conceptualizations of
this idea are currently available in the sociological literature. One con-
ceives of moral order as a kind of internalized set of norms or expecta-
tions. Another conceives of it as a set of intrinsic or deep commitments
that are somehow more enduring or less instrumental than social ex-
change of a purely utilitarian variety. A third posits moral order as a
kind of analytic element of any social relation (i.e., as the ordinary rela-
tion that may exist analytically independent of any goods and services
that are exchanged).
Clearly, none of these conceptions seems entirely satisfactory. The
idea of internalized expectations again introduces subjective elements
that may be difficult to examine empirically. The idea of noninstru-
mental commitments obscures the fact that even instrumental commit-
ments contain moral connotations and are dramatized ideologically (as
seen in considering market behavior as a moral code). Conceiving of
moral order as an analytic distinction may be most useful, but greater
clarity is needed about how this distinction is to be made and what pur-
pose it serves.
Lacking this kind of conceptual specificity, the dramaturgic approach
remains subject to considerable theoretical ambiguity. It can be argued,
perhaps compellingly, that cultural forms dramatize something about the
character of social relations (i.e., that culture plays a communicative
role). Yet any number of alternatives remains open for conceptualizing
346 Conclusion
this aspect of culture. What seems essential, at minimum, is the idea that
social relations require some degree of organization and that this organi-
zation is not supplied in all cases either by totally coercive power struc-
tures or by totally self-interested exchanges of goods and services. Even in
coercive and self-interested relations, signals need to be sent about actors'
positions and the courses of action they are likely to take. These signals
constitute, on the one hand, the moral order and are, on the other hand,
supplied by cultural forms such as ideologies and rituals.
INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSES
At the institutional level, cultural forms are regarded as having not

only structural and dramaturgic qualities but also relations of depen-
dence with social resources. Thus the role of social factors becomes
particularly important to examine. Whereas dramaturgic approaches
emphasize the symbolic messages about social relations that are often
communicated unintentionally, institutional analyses focus mainly on
social resources that are deliberately devoted to cultural production.
This type of analysis obviously has close ties with fields of inquiry de-
voted to the study of specific cultural institutions, such as science, reli-
gion, education, and the mass media. For this reason, many of its appli-
cations have already become widely developed. However, to draw the
contrast with other levels of cultural analysis, three of its more general
uses can be enumerated.
The first is social resources. More than any of the others, the institu-
tional level stresses the importance of social resources to the production
and maintenance of cultural forms. In the preceding chapters, several
models for considering the role of these resources were utilized. In Chap-
ters 5 and 6, inferences about the general relations between such proper-
ties of social resources as quantity, heterogeneity, and stability and the
selection of alternative cultural forms were developed from a popula-
tion ecology model. In Chapter 7, some implications were drawn from
world-system theory about the general effects of changes in social re-
sources, such as expanding economic conditions or declining political
positions, on the origins of various types of ideological movements. In
Chapter 8, a similar set of theoretical assumptions was used to provide
an interpretation of the conditions surrounding the early institutionaliza
tion of modern science. And in Chapter 9, more attention was given to
the role of the state as a significant actor in the control of resources af-
fecting cultural production. In all of these cases, it was assumed that cul-
Conclusion 347
tural forms depend on an appropriate mix of social, economic, and po-

litical resources. Attention was also directed to the fact that these re-
sources were linked to broader social patterns. Thus it was important to
look not only at the internal dynamics of particular cultural movements,
but also at their larger social environment.
Establishments and movements are the second general use. As sug-
gested in Chapter 5, ideologies often appear to undergo a process of pro-
duction, selection, and institutionalization. The last phase in this pro-
cess generates sensitivity to the fact that ideological movements do not
simply compete with one another on a more-or-less equal basis. New
movements continually confront well-established ideological institu-
tions that have vast resources at their disposal. These ideologies do not
prevail on the basis of being attractive alone—of fulfilling individuals'
needs for meaning and6 purpose—or because their "hegemony" is implic
itly taken for granted. They prevail because they have a systematic rela-
tion with organizations, because they are routinely enacted in rituals,
and because they are closely linked with a power structure that channels
them resources in return for tangible and intangible rewards. This fact
bears repeating here because more attention needs to be devoted to how
ideological movements confront these established cultural forms. Some
examples were given in the discussion of ideological revolutions in Chap-
ter 7, but this is an area that clearly needs more detailed consideration.
The third general use is the role of the state. It was also suggested in
several of the preceding chapters that alternatives to the usual formula-
tions of state-ideology relations need to be entertained. The problem
with many traditional formulations is that they deal only with the idea
of legitimation—at their worst, leading to teleological explanations for
the origins of political ideologies. An emphasis on the resources in-
volved in ideological institutionalization points to the possibility that
ideologies may come into being for quite different reasons than the func-
tions they eventually serve. Thinking of the state as having a limited ar-
ray of options for dealing with ideological movements, because of their
relations with elites who control fiscal and administrative resources (as
argued in Chapter 9), may be one useful way of conceptualizing the
state's role in cultural production.
The limitations of institutional analyses of culture arise mainly from
the fact that cultural institutions, like other institutions, are sufficiently
complex to require detailed investigations of everything from budgets to
leadership styles, from publishing practices and attendance records to
communication networks and personnel policies. Thus what is usually
348 Conclusion
of greatest interest as culture—the form and content of the ideas them-

selves—becomes easy to neglect. The institutional analysis of science in
Chapter 8, for example, provides some insight into the development of
science as a general cultural form, but offers little with respect to particu-
lar theories or inventions. What needs to be specified in dealing with cul-
tural institutions are sublevels of analysis at which particular cultural
variations can be examined in greater detail. Also needed are deliberate
efforts to link matters of organization, leadership, participation, and so
on with the form and content of culture itself.
Institutional analyses of culture run the danger of focusing too heav-
ily on deliberately produced cultural forms—on official ideologies and
explicit efforts to communicate systematic ideas and to cultivate commit-
ment to formal creeds. As it has been argued, culture also needs to be
considered more broadly as the symbolic-expressive dimension of social
life generally, as an aspect of behavior that communicates implicitly as
well as explicitly. Keeping in mind the structural and dramaturgic levels
of analysis is, therefore, likely to be a useful corrective in pursuing insti-
tutional analyses of culture.
MEANING AND MORAL ORDER

In the present period, it is perhaps vaguely sentimental to be con-
cerned with meaning and moral order. These concepts, having legacies
in the classical theories of the nineteenth century, can arguably be re-
placed in mainstream social science by concerns of greater contempo-
rary relevance, such as the structuring of market relations, the triumph
of technology and science over religion, the pursuit of rational communi-
cation systems, and the functioning of the bureaucratic state. Yet it has
been seen that all of these seemingly hard and dry topics—from the mar-
ketplace to the bureaucratic state—have cultural dimensions that raise
significant questions about meaning and moral order. These questions,
it has been argued, need not remain the domain of subjective analyses or
of humanistic exhortations alone. They require careful consideration, in-
cluding efforts particularly devoted to examining the internal structure
of cultural forms, their relations to the moral order, and the role of so-
cial resources in producing and sustaining them.
Cultural analysis, like other social scientific investigations, can be di-
rected toward various ends. At one extreme, it can be concerned simply
with the technical maintenance of prevailing cultural institutions—with
the collection and tabulation of statistics on members, leaders, prod-
Conclusion 349
ucts, revenues, and so forth, ft can be devoted to matters that are largely
descriptive or to studies aimed at revealing the significance of events by
relating them to larger cultural patterns. For the social sciences, develop-
ing theoretical models has always been of higher priority than purely
technical, descriptive, or even interpretive applications. The selection of
theoretical models, moreover, can itself be influenced by broader critical
objectives—by a search for knowledge that promotes discourse about
collective purposes and the common good. This is the point at which
meaning and moral order properly cease to be entirely matters of de-
tached investigation and fold back into the process of inquiry itself. This
is the goal that inspired the classical theorists to be interested in mean-
ing and moral order and that continues to inspire much of the best in so-
cial science—work that becomes an influential part of the culture itself.
If the present treatment of meaning and moral order has been self-
consciously programmatic, it is because the task of cultural analysis
clearly deserves to be advanced by every means that it can. It has been
said, in a different context, that self-consciousness—consciousness of
one's feet—is a hindrance to dancing. Maybe so. It is, nevertheless, an
indispensable step toward learning how.
Notes
352 Notes to Pages 24-46
3. Oilman (1971:131) remarks that Marx's theory of alienation is "the intel-

lectual construct in which Marx displays the devastating effect of capitalist pro-
duction on human beings, on their physical and mental states and on the social
processes of which they are a part." Oilman's study provides a particularly valu-
able explication of Marx's theory of alienation.
4. For a useful discussion of Weber's idea of the iron cage, see Mitzman
(1971).
5. In comparison with Marx and Weber, Durkheim is usually credited with
taking a more objective approach to religion insofar as he emphasizes the role of
collective rituals. If we pay closer attention to this description of the functions of
these rituals, however, we see clearly the basis, again, of a conception of culture
rooted in subject-object dualism.
6. These ways of conceptualizing the relations between the individual and
society are examined critically in Giddens (1971).
7. From Durkheim's argument about men's true object of worship and
from his discussion of the rules of sociological method, a number of writers
have drawn a more general perspective on the social sources of knowledge; for
example, Hamilton (1974:105) interprets Durkheim as suggesting that "con-
cepts and the categories of understanding are not given, but are created by the
facts of social life; in short, the forms which thought takes are constructed as
representations of social organization in terms of its collective nature." Many of
the empirical studies of Guy E. Swanson have, of course, explored the validity of
this argument. For more on this, see Chapter 9.
8. On Berger's approach to religion, see Wuthnow (1986a).
9. Although Berger and Luckmann's version of phenomenology differs sig-
nificantly from Heidegger's (cf. Wuthnow et al., 1984:21-76), there is neverthe-
less a significant degree of borrowing from Heidegger as well. Among the con-
cepts Heidegger emphasized are those of the linguistic construction of reality,
the nature of everyday reality, the concept of facticity, and, above all, the impor-
tance of examining meanings. As Steiner (1979:82) observes: "To question Sein
is to question its Sinn—its 'sense,' its 'meaning,' its 'purpose.' "
10. For an introduction to the hermeneutic method in social science, see
Bleicher(1980).
11. Cf. Bibby (1979). On the broader question of research approaches to
meaning systems versus research approaches to worldviews, see Aidala (1984).
12. Cf. Fingarette (1963), who describes the therapeutic process as one of
"meaning-reorganization." He writes: "What the patient 'reads' are the bits and
pieces of his life. He brings these fragments of his life to the therapist who then
suggests a meaning-scheme in terms of which to reorganize and unify the pa-
tient's experience" (p. 21). At a more philosophical level, Barrett (1978:141),
who contrasts the modern search for meaning with that of Descartes, suggests
that we have developed a "coherence theory of truth, according to which truth
is a matter of our ever-widening and self-integrating consciousness."
13. In contrast to research that suggests low levels of consistency in
worldviews, empirical findings generally support the idea of a widespread con-
cern for coherence. For example, 70 percent of the respondents in a California
survey claimed they thought a lot or some about the purpose of life (Wuthnow,
Notes to Pages 48-56 353
1976); 90 percent of the respondents in a Gallup survey of the U.S. population

said they thought at least a fair amount about living a worthwhile life, and 83
percent said they thought this much about basic values in life; and the same sur-
vey indicated that seven of ten respondents attempt to tie together the different
spheres of their lives rather than keeping them separate (Gallup Organization,
1982).
14. The essentially subjective character of the hermeneutic method is
stressed by Bleicher (1980:9), who writes: "Understanding, then, is motivated
by our interest in partaking in the inner life of somebody else and is both neces-
sary and rewarding."
15. In discussing Ricoeur's understanding of the hermeneutic method,
Bleicher (1980:220), who is basically sympathetic to the approach, nevertheless
observes its open-ended quality: "The object of interpretation, the text, further-
more, takes on an autonomous character once produced, so that it is no longer
adequate to merely refer to its original meaning; instead of containing a fixed
meaning, a text invites plural reading and interpretation. It is on this basis an
open, unlimited process."
16. See especially Levi-Strauss (1963). Leach (1974) provides a useful intro-
duction to the work of Levi-Strauss; several useful essays of a critical nature are
found in Leach (1967).
17. The essay titled "Myth Today" in Barthes (1972) provides a useful over-
view of Barthes's method; for greater detail, see Barthes (1967).
18. See especially Chomsky (1957, 1965) and Searle (1969). For more gen-
eral overviews of structural linguistics, see Pettit (1977) and Leiber (1975).
Habermas (1979a) is a particularly vivid demonstration of his borrowing from
Searle.
19. The contrast between the subjectivism of the neoclassical approaches and
the reorientation toward the problem of meaning evident in poststructuralism is
aptly summarized by Barrett (1978:170), who writes: "Meanings are first and
foremost not in the mind but in the world, in the linkings and interconnections
of things we find there." Barrett, in focusing primarily on European writers, per-
ceives a greater degree of continuity between writers such as Heidegger and
Wittgenstein and the poststructuralists than is typical among American writers.
Among European writers the discontinuity is nevertheless evident in the major
debates that have taken place between Gadamer and Habermas; see, especially,
Gadamer (1975), Habermas (1977), and Misgeld (1976,1977).
20. For a fuller discussion of the contributions to the analysis of culture of
Douglas, Foucault, and Habermas, see Wuthnow et al. (1984). Among the
many secondary sources on Foucault, Major-Poetzl (1983) and Dreyfus and
Rabinow (1982) are particularly useful in explicating his methodological ap-
proach; the latter also emphasizes Foucault's differences with hermeneutics and
classical structuralism. On Habermas, one of the most useful secondary sources
remains that of McCarthy (1978), which emphasizes the problem of communica-
tion. A brief but highly useful discussion of Habermas's work on ideology (more
from a philosophical than a sociological perspective) is found in Geuss (1981);
Held (1980) is valuable for situating Habermas in the broader context of critical
theory.
21. Darnton's account is not presented as an attempt to examine the mean-

ings of the French Revolution, but it provides a rich example of historical analy-
sis at its best.
CHAPTER THREE
1. Some of these studies of voting records and public opinion polls are re-
ferred to more specifically in Chapter 4. Recent issues of Public Opinion and the
Gallup Opinion Index provide useful general sources. For a valuable non-
quantitative sampling of opinions on many of these topics, see Bellah et al.
(1985).
2. Marvin Harris's (1979:47) injunction against reifying the idea of cultural
systems is appropriate here: "The systemic nature of such conjunctions and ar-
rangements is not something to be taken for granted. Rather, it is a strategic as-
sumption that can be justified only by showing how it leads to efficacious and
testable theories."
3. Fundamentalism as a cultural system is discussed at greater length in
Chapter 6.
4. For examples of observations of and conversations with randomly
chosen families, see Sennett and Cobb (1972) and Terkel (1974).
5. Examples of qualitative evidence from people in the human potential
movement include Tipton (1982), Westley (1983), and Downton (1979).
6. More generally, discourse about "doing my best" or "trying hard"—pre-
sumably common constructions in American culture—removes action from
pragmatic criticisms based on performance criteria. Thus, as long as one "tries
hard," one's moral obligations have been satisfactorily discharged, even though
one may not have achieved a specific objective.
7. Sennett (1976:263) makes this point about the separateness of the self
and the worker in discussing what he regards as a prevailing emphasis on
interiority in modern concepts of the self: "The self no longer concerns man as
actor or man as maker; it is a self composed of intentions and possibilities."
8. The distinction between selves and actors is analogous to that between
"competence" and "performance" in Chomsky's and Habermas's discussions
of language (Chapter 2). The self remains morally competent, even though the
actor's performances sometimes deviate from this standard.
9. These observations concerning the "real self" and roles obviously have
implications for Habermas's argument (as discussed in Chapter 2) that meaning-
ful speech acts must communicate a relation of sincerity between the act and the
speaker. Clearly, there are layers of sincerity and multiple relations between the
speech act and the speaker. In commenting on one's own speech acts, one implic-
itly raises doubts about their sincerity (were they in fact the product of an actor
rather than the self?). But in making such comments one also realigns a speech
pattern by indicating that it had gone in a wrong direction and that one's "true
self" now realizes the mistake.
10. Some of the evidence discussed in the next chapter on Nazi villainy and
vulnerability to evil produces a further example of the pattern typified by heroes
and villains.
11. Victims also play an important symbolic role in relation to the boundary
between inevitability and intentionality. In the case of Jim Jones's followers (or
in the case of victims of racial discrimination or of the Nazi Holocaust), victims
symbolize the power of the inevitable to penetrate and control those who would
otherwise presumably act according to their own good intentions. Counter-
arguments against victims—the proverbial "welfare chiseler," for example—
aim to demonstrate that persons were really not subject to a realm of inevitabil-
ity but acted intentionally and could, therefore, be held morally responsible for
their own fate. Arguments and counterarguments over victims have great cul-
tural importance because they define symbolic boundaries between the inevita-
ble and the intentional.
12. Goffman's (1974:28—37) discussion of "primary frameworks" provides
a useful basis for identifying other ways in which the boundary between the in-
evitable and the intentional may be dramatized. His terms "natural" and "so-
cial" connote a similar distinction. Fie identifies five kinds of activities that in
different ways deal with this symbolic boundary: (1) the "astounding complex,"
in which (in our terms) the intentional miraculously penetrates the inevitable;
(2) "stunts," in which the intentional is heroically maintained against seemingly
insuperable constraints presented by the inevitable; (3) "muffings," in which the
intentional or controllable is temporarily lost control of, allowing the inevitable
to take over; (4) "fortuitousness," in which the inevitable happens to coincide
with or cooperate with the intentional, leading to either good or ill conse-
quences; and (5) "tension," in which the boundary between the intentional and
the inevitable is artificially confused, generally with either comic (the intentional
knowingly masquerading as the inevitable) or tragic (the intentional unknow-
ingly being made into the inevitable) effects.
13. A negative example that perhaps reveals the importance of removing the
moral object from empirical observation is the frustration that came to many
parents during the 1960s as a result of children—who had become quite tangi-
ble moral objects to which many parents were sacrificially devoted—adopting
different ideas or seeking independence, thus denying parents the opportunity of
serving them and thereby achieving a sense of moral worth.
14. An effective moral obligation assumes that the object of that obligation
in fact desires or needs the acts performed (e.g., God wants our obedience, hu-
manity needs us to make it better). The object may or may not desire or need the
acts performed; the important thing is that the actors are able to assume that it
does. When the object is an individual or group, even minimal evidence that it
desires or needs certain performances may be sufficient to maintain moral com-
mitment as long as reinforcement occurs. In other cases, the possibility of receiv-
ing information to the contrary must be avoided. Accordingly, a vague or unob-
servable definition of the moral object renders an important service in making
the connection between performances and the moral object secure against em-
pirical disconfirmation.
15. A more systematic discussion of rationality as an ideological form is pre-
sented in Chapter 6.
16. The boundary between self and actor essentially prevents guilt that re-
sults from incompetent role performances from becoming associated with the
self. This distinction suggests a basis for interpreting Heidegger's claim that the
"they-self" of everyday life is inauthentic in that it knows no ethical guilt. The
they-self is objectified culturally and separated from the active self; only the ac-
tive self can be made to know guilt. There is, however, an irony here. Heidegger
describes the condition of engaging in actions from which a sense of moral
worth can be derived as one of "fallenness." That is, the basic existential prob-
lem arises precisely at that point at which a person attempts to achieve a sense of
moral worth. Evil, therefore, does not represent a turning away from moral ac-
tion, but the pursuit of it. And this problem appears inevitable. The more one
tries to convince oneself that one is acting morally, the more "fallen" (es-
tranged, divided) one will become—in the sense of reinforcing the division be-
tween (moral) self and actor.
17. Religious teachings on charitable works are interesting because they of-
ten provide secondary arguments to counteract problems of bureaucratization.
For example, the feeling that one's efforts make no difference is countered by
the "bread upon the waters" argument that asserts the possibility of indirect,
even unknown, effects and by an antipragmatic argument that asserts the impor-
tance of obeying religious injunctions whether they seem to have practical ef-
fects or not.
18. Some insight into the contemporary problem of alienation may also be
gained from considering the boundary between self and actor. Alienation from
public institutions can function symbolically as a means of reaffirming the
boundary between self and actor. In withdrawing emotional investment from
the roles one plays, one protects the self from compromises, failures, and other
problems of performance associated with these roles. As Sennett and Cobb
(1972:197) suggest, "The divorce of the real person from the institution's indi-
vidual is a way to ward off becoming an 'institutional man.' "
19. Charles Y. Clock has developed the idea of science adding to ambiguities
in several essays; see, for example, Clock (1976) for a discussion of the corro-
sive effects of science as a possible factor leading to social unrest and experimen-
tation with alternative life-styles and new religions.
20. Although Harrington Moore's (1978) discussion of moral codes goes in a
direction quite different from that presented in the text, he also assumes that
moral codes are fundamental to an understanding of society and that certain
regularities of structure may be identified. He writes, for example, that "there
are grounds for suspecting that the welter of moral codes may conceal a certain
unity of original form, as well as a discernible historical drift in a single direc-
tion, and that variations from this pattern of a single basic form undergoing
prolonged historical modification are explicable in general terms" (1978:4).
Moore's discussion also overlaps with the present formulation in emphasizing
the importance of the distinction between controllable and uncontrollable
realms of behavior. Another useful discussion of moral codes, but one that stays
primarily with the conception of morality as normative orientation, is that of Lit-
tle and Twiss (1978).
21. Reference to the problem of separation of the self and one's roles is also
made in the discussion of individualism in Chapter 6.
22. The idea of sacrifice is, of course, a prominent theme in discourse about
behavior in the marketplace. Both the moral significance of this theme and its
potential for perversion have been usefully examined by Sennett and Cobb. For
example, they write:
Sacrifice, then, legitimizes a person's view of himself as an individual, with the right to
feel anger—anger of a peculiar, focused sort: In setting you off as an individual, a virtu-
ous person compared to less forceful others, self-denial makes possible the ultimate per-
version of love; it permits you to practice that most insidious and devastating form of
self-righteousness where you, oppressed, in your anger turn on others who aie also op-
pressed rather than on those intangible, invisible, impersonal forces that have made
you all vulnerable. (1972:140)
23. Dumont (1970) argues that the Western concept of freedom as individual
automony was virtually unknown in India until recent times.
24. Based on analysis of Detroit Area Survey data for 1958 and 1971, Black-
wood (1979) found a major decline in responses indicating intrinsic attachment
to the importance of work among professionals and managers, a moderate de-
cline among skilled workers, and only a modest decline among service workers.
25. Insofar as social institutions sometimes appear to be organized around
distinct moral codes (e.g., the marketplace, fundamentalist churches, human po-
tential movements), decoupling and recoupling may become major sources of or-
ganizational restructuring as well. For example, schisms in American religious
denominations in the twentieth century sometimes appear to have been closely
associated with a shift in real programs for serving God—from an emphasis on
biblical knowledge and personal morality to an emphasis on altruistic or social
reform activities. The presence of a symbolic "fault line" between moral objects
and real programs, again, may have adaptive value in permitting these forms of
restructuring to take place without negative repercussions for the moral objects
themselves.
CHAPTER FOUR
1. For an extensive bibliography of empirical studies of ritual, see Grimes

(1985).
2. For examples of writers who link ritual and emotion, see Van Gennep
(1960), Gluckman (1962), and Turner (1977).
3. Malinowski (1925:32) writes:
An interesting and crucial test is provided by fishing in the Trobriand islands and its
magic. While in the villages on the inner lagoon fishing is done in an easy and abso-
lutely reliable manner by the method of poisoning, yielding abundant results without
danger and uncertainty, there are on the shores of the open sea dangerous modes of
fishing and also certain types in which the yield varies greatly according to whether
shoals of fish appear beforehand or not. It is most significant that in the lagoon fishing,
where man can rely completely upon his knowledge and skill, magic does not exist,
while in the open-sea fishing, full of danger and uncertainty, there is extensive magical
ritual to secure-safety and good results.
Malinowski's view was challenged by Radcliffe-Brown (1939), who argued that

the function of ritual was not so much to alleviate anxiety as to evoke it so that
it could be displayed publicly. In both cases, however, the idea was that the es-
sential quality of ritual was one of expressing individual anxiety. Also see Ho-
mans (1941) for a discussion of this dispute.
4. The brief conceptual remarks on ritual in Leach (1964) remain as some
of the clearest allusions to the communicative nature of ritual. He suggests that
ritual should be understood as a "symbolic statement about social order" (p.
14), as an activity that "makes explicit the social structure" (p. 15), and as "a
language of signs in terms of which claims to rights and status are expressed" (p.
278).
5. See especially Goffman (1967).
6. Lane (1981:11) makes a similar point in suggesting that the activities
making up social relations "can be entirely symbolic, or [social relations] can
have both a symbolic and an instrumental or expressive aspect."
7. Several important contributions to this literature on rationality and
nonrationality have been reprinted in Wilson (1970a).
8. Further discussion of this period of European reintegration and consoli-
dation is presented in Chapters 7 and 8.
9. An excellent discussion and criticism of the anthropologist's role in inter-
preting ritual is found in Skorupski (1976), especially part 2.
10. Survey No. 4036 was conducted by Response Analysis Corporation,
Princeton, New Jersey, in May 1978. Telephone interviews were conducted
with 411 randomly selected adult viewers and 411 randomly selected adult
nonviewers. Data from this survey were made available by Response Analysis.
A summary of results from the study is available in a report entitled "Americans
Confront the Holocaust: A Study of Reactions to NBC-TV's Four-Part Drama
on the Nazi Era" (New York: American Jewish Committee, Institute on Human
Relations, 1978).
11. Data were collected from clergy under a grant to the author from the
Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith by means of a mailed questionnaire sent
to nationally representative samples of pastors from five religious bodies: Unitar-
ian, United Presbyterian Church U.S.A., Lutheran Church in America, Re-
formed Church in America, and Roman Catholic. These bodies were chosen in
order to represent a broad spectrum of theologian orientations, including liberal
(Unitarian), moderate (Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Catholic), and conservative
(Reformed), as well as both large and small denominations and Protestants and
Catholics. The samples were selected by choosing names randomly from clergy
directories from each of the five denominations. Questionnaires were mailed to
each pastor in the sample in mid June, approximately eight weeks after the televi-
sion broadcast. A follow-up letter including a second copy of the questionnaire
was mailed to nonrespondents approximately three weeks after the initial mail-
ing. A third reminder letter was mailed about a month later. In all, 1,144 com-
pleted questionnaires were returned, a response rate of 68 percent.
12. Data from teachers were collected, also under a grant to the author from
the Anti-Defamation League, through the cooperation of the National Council
for Social Studies, a national voluntary organization with a membership of ap-
proximately twenty thousand teachers drawn mainly from specialists in high
school social studies. Although the membership of NCSS cannot be assumed to
be representative of all high school social studies teachers, it does provide a
broad cross-section of teachers with a variety of orientations on a nationwide ba-

sis, as well as representing those educators most likely to be in charge of instruc-
tion in their high schools dealing with issues such as those raised by the "Holo-
caust" program. A random sample of teachers was drawn from the complete
NCSS membership list. Questionnaires were mailed in mid September to coin-
cide with teachers' return to regular fall schedules. Follow-up letters and ques-
tionnaires were mailed approximately three weeks later, and, as with clergy, a fi-
nal follow-up letter was mailed about a month later. A total of 1,344 completed
questionnaires was returned, a response rate of 72 percent.
13. A questionnaire designed by the author and administered by a local staff
representative of the Anti-Defamation League was administered to 326 seniors
(the entire senior class) in a suburban community high school in the Midwest in
the fall of 1978. The project originally called for data to be collected in other
parts of the country as well, but cooperation could not be obtained from local
school boards in the time period necessary for making valid comparisons of re-
sponses to the program. The results of the student study largely parallel those of
the clergy and teacher surveys and, for this reason, will be referred to only when
they afford additional information.
14. A study of more than twenty-two thousand high school students (sopho-
mores and juniors) from twenty-seven different schools in the Pittsburgh area ex-
plored viewing and attitudes toward the program (summarized in Burnstein,
1979). A second study was conducted among 668 tenth grade social studies stu-
dents from five schools in the Miami area to measure attitudes before the Holo-
caust program was shown arid to make comparisons with attitudes from a
subsample of 289 respondents given questionnaires again after the telecast
(Greenbergetal., 1978).
15. National surveys were conducted in West Germany and Austria. The
West German data are summarized in Ernst (1979). The Austrian data are dis-
cussed in Markovits and Hayden (1980). "Holocaust" was televised in West
Germany in January 1979 to an audience of 15 million viewers, more than a
third of the total viewing public. In Austria more than half of all viewers
watched the program when it was shown in March 1979.
16. Of all the "Holocaust" viewers surveyed, 73 percent had watched the
first evening, 75 percent had watched the second evening, 76 percent had
watched the third evening, and 80 percent had watched the final evening. In
West Germany the same pattern developed, even though the program was aired
on different evenings of the week than in the United States.
17. Most viewers in other countries also watched "Holocaust" with other
members of their household. In Austria, 61 percent of the viewers had discussed
the film with their families, 49 percent had discussed it with friends, and 35 per-
cent had discussed it with people at work. In West Germany, 64 percent had dis-
cussed the program with members of their family, 40 percent had discussed it
with friends, acquaintances, and colleagues, and only 23 percent had discussed
it with no one.
18. Viewers were given three options to choose from as well as the option of
saying they did not recall.
19. The six items and the correct answer for each were (1) "Jews were killed
in Germany, but not in Poland" (false); (2) "The Nazis permitted Jews to mi-
grate to America until 1944" (false); (c) "The Nuremberg Laws denied Jews the
right to vote" (true); (4) "Although the Nazis killed Jews, they did not destroy
synagogues" (false); (5) "The Nazis killed people who they thought were men-
tally ill" (true); (6) "Himmler was Hitler's field marshal in North Africa"
(false). The percentage of clergy and teachers, respectively, giving the correct an-
swer to each question were (1) 94 and 95 percent; (2) 60 and 68 percent; (3) 25
and 42 percent; (4) 76 and 83 percent; (5) 78 and 78 percent; and (6) 78 and 85
percent. The average percentage correct for all the questions was 74 percent
among clergy who had watched the entire series, 67 percent for clergy who had
watched some of the series, 63 percent for clergy who had not watched but had
heard a lot about the program, and 57 percent for clergy who had heard little
about the show. For teachers the respective figures were 81, 73, 67, and 60 per-
cent. Measured at only one time after the show, these patterns of course do not
indicate whether the program led to an increase in knowledge or whether it was
the more knowledgeable who watched in the first place. Several of the other
studies, however, did incorporate longitudinal designs. In West Germany,
where 51 percent said they had learned something new about the Holocaust
from the program, "before" and "after" comparisons of responses given by the
same persons showed significant changes. For example, before the program 15
percent had thought Nazi crimes should continue to be prosecuted; after the pro-
gram this figure had risen to 39 percent. Austrian responses also showed a
change in this attitude, although somewhat smaller, from 17 percent to 24 per-
cent. In the Miami study, before and after comparisons showed that the percent-
age who felt Nazi atrocities should continue to be discussed went up from
slightly over half to about two-thirds of the respondents.
20. Additional questions asked only in the clergy survey showed that 78 per-
cent of the clergy viewers had been bothered a lot by "the fact that Jews were in-
nocent victims," and 75 percent had been bothered a lot by "the way Germans
blindly followed their leaders." Only 6 percent of the clergy and 4 percent of the
teachers had been bothered a lot by the "feeling that the Holocaust was cheap-
ened by being shown on TV."
21. Not surprisingly, the response in West Germany and Austria was also
highly emotional. In West Germany, 64 percent of the viewers questioned said
they had found the show deeply upsetting, 41 percent said the show was an im-
portant experience for them personally, 39 percent felt shame that Germany
had committed such crimes and tolerated them as well, and 22 percent said
there were scenes that made them almost cry. In Austria, 82 percent of the view-
ers indicated that the film had been truly moving.
22. The question read, "There have been a number of TV specials lately deal-
ing with the great tragedies of history—the Holocaust, slavery, assassinations,
war. Which one of these statements comes closest to your own view of these pro-
grams?" Seventy-four percent of the clergy and 81 percent of the teachers se-
lected the response "I definitely think they should be shown, no matter how
shocking they may be." Fifteen percent and 9 percent, respectively, selected the
response "As long as they tone down the violence, it's OK to show them."
"Somehow I tend to dislike shows like this, although I can't exactly say why"
was the response of 5 and 3 percent, respectively. "Shows like this are definitely
in bad taste and should not be shown on TV" was the response of only 2 and 0
percent, respectively. Five percent in both studies opted for none of the re-
sponses listed.
23. This question pertained to the Holocaust as a historical event, rather
than the television program: "Which one of the following comes closest to your
view of the Nazis' campaign against the Jews during World War II?" The re-
sponse "It definitely raises some profound moral questions that we need to pon-
der very carefully" was chosen by 87 percent of the clergy and 85 percent of the
teachers. "I agree that it raises moral questions, but we shouldn't dwell on it too
much" was chosen by 4 and 7 percent, respectively. "Although it was certainly
tragic, Hitler is dead and there are other problems for us to be concerned about
now" was the response of 5 and 4 percent, respectively. Only a few (2 and 1 per-
cent) chose "I honestly feel that it has been given too much attention," and the
remainder (2 and 2 percent) opted for none of the responses provided.
24. Fifty percent of the teachers and 37 percent of the clergy said they had
learned a lot about the Holocaust during the past few years from reading books.
Another 38 and 44 percent, respectively, said they had learned a little from this
source. Books, it turned out, were the largest single source of information for
these groups. The second most common source was television programs. Thirty-
six percent of the teachers and 20 percent of the clergy had learned a lot from
television programs; another 51 and 59 percent had learned a little. Publications
for teachers appeared to be a fairly important source of information: 24 percent
of the teachers had learned a lot from this source and 47 percent had learned a
little. By comparison, church publications were important to relatively fewer of
the clergy: 10 percent had learned a lot and 52 percent a little from this source.
Classes, lectures, and speeches were another source of information. Fifteen per-
cent of the teachers and 8 percent of the clergy indicated that classes in school
had been a source of a lot of information about the Holocaust. Another 31 and
23 percent, respectively, said they had learned a little from this source. Other
classes, lectures, or speeches were the source of a lot of information for 15 per-
cent of the teachers and 9 percent of the clergy. Thirty-one percent and 39 per-
cent, respectively, had learned a little from this source. Finally, a majority of
each group had learned something about the Holocaust from friends—another
indication of the role played by social interaction. Fifteen percent and 12 per-
cent, respectively, said they had learned a lot from this source, and 47 percent
and 50 percent said they had learned a little.
25. National Data Program for the Social Sciences, Cumulative Codebook
for the 1972—1980 General Social Surveys (Chicago: National Opinion Re-
search Center, 1980).
26. Eighty-four percent of the public said they had only some or hardly any
confidence in the leaders running Congress. Sixty-seven percent gave these re-
sponses concerning the Supreme Court.
27. Quoted in Lipset and Schneider (1978:43); also cited are Harris polls
showing a drop in the proportion of the public expressing confidence in "major
companies" from 55 percent in 1966 to 23 percent in November 1977.
28. A Yankelovich poll showed that 67 percent of the public thought the
country was in "deep and serious trouble." According to a Gallup poll, 69 per-
cent were "dissatisfied with the way things are going in the U.S. at this time." In
a national poll conducted by Patrick Caddell for President Carter in 1978, one
person in three listed himself or herself as being "pessimistic" about the nation's
future. By 1979 this proportion had risen to one in two. A Gallup poll in 1978
showed that just under a third of the public (32 percent) thought America's
power would decline during the following year. Using a different question, a
study conducted by CBS showed that 56 percent of the public felt America was
less powerful than it had been a decade before.
29. "Transcript of President's Address to Country on Energy Problems,"
New York Times (July 16,1979), p. A10.
30. The two samples were asked, "How much of a problem would you say
each of the following is in our country?" "Dishonesty in the government" was
marked as an extremely serious problem by 35 percent of the clergy and 32 per-
cent of the teachers and as a serious problem by another 56 and 53 percent, re-
spectively. "Corruption in big business" was considered extremely serious by 32
and 27 percent, respectively, and serious by an additional 54 and 53 percent.
"People feeling that they can't affect what goes on in the society" was regarded
as an extremely serious problem by 51 percent of both groups and as a serious
problem by 41 percent of the clergy and 39 percent of the teachers.
31. "Racial inequality" was regarded as an extremely serious problem by 30
percent of the clergy and 23 percent of the teachers and as a serious problem by
57 and 56 percent, respectively. "Prejudice toward ethnic groups" was listed as
extremely serious by 19 and 21 percent, respectively, and as serious by 56 and
51 percent. Two additional problems also elicited expressions of concern by
many of the pastors and teachers. "Doctors charging too much for medical
care" was listed as an extremely serious problem by 25 and 22 percent, respec-
tively, in the two groups and as a serious problem by 46 and 41 percent. "Too
much power in the hands of the military" was regarded as an extremely serious
problem by 20 percent of the clergy and 9 percent of the teachers; 38 and 28 per-
cent, respectively, thought it was a serious problem.
32. The question asked, "Do you think that any of the following could hap-
pen within, say, the next 25 years?" Fifty-five percent of the clergy and 47 per-
cent of the teachers thought that "new outbreaks of racial violence in the United
States" "definitely could" happen, and almost all of the remainder (42 and 49
percent) thought this "possibly could" happen. The proportions who felt that
"violence and social unrest like we had during the Sixties" could definitely hap-
pen were 46 and 39 percent, respectively. Large proportions also felt that "po-
lice harassing innocent citizens in the United States" was something that could
definitely happen (46 and 40 percent).
33. Clergy and teachers who said they had any interest in the Holocaust at all
were asked to indicate, for a list of reasons, whether each was a major reason for
their interest, a minor reason for their interest, or not a reason. For clergy and
teachers, respectively, the percentages listing each as a major reason were 13 and
16 percent for "People keep writing books and making TV shows about it," 12
and 10 percent for "It's mostly because Israel is in the news so much," 28 and 23
percent for "I know people who experienced it personally," and 28 and 46 per-
cent for "I can't understand how something like that could have happened."
34. "Holocaust Keeps Memory Alive" (April 28, 1978). The editorial went
on to say, "This may be impossible for many to believe. But right today in many
parts of the world—in the Middle East, in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Ireland
and elsewhere—people are killing, persecuting, torturing or threatening one an-
other because of their race, religion, political views or other causes." Other
newspapers also drew contemporary implications from the program. For exam-
ple, the Columbia, South Carolina, State described the program as "a symbolic
story of the tyranny that still stalks mankind." Ellen Goodman wrote in the Bos-
ton Globe (April 25, 1978) that the experience of watching the program was
like "a confrontation with Evil. Pure Evil. Irrational Evil. What Martin Buber
once described as 'the eclipse of the Gods.' " William F. Buckley, Jr., in a more
critical vein, wrote that the world could benefit from the program only "by re-
solving that such a thing shall not happen again" (April 20, 1978, Worcester
Telegram}. The Christian Science Monitor (May 8, 1978) highlighted another
contemporary lesson implicit in the Holocaust story, noting that the "Holocaust
has become a rallying point through which religious leaders—Christian and Jew
ish—are expressing mutual concern about global violations of human rights."
35. The figures for clergy were 73 percent and for teachers 57 percent fearing
that something like the Holocaust could recur.
36. Interest in the Holocaust, rather than having watched the program, was
used as a measure for making ihese comparisons because watching appeared to
be more contingent on personal time schedules than was interest. In all, 39 per-
cent of the clergy and 47 percent of the teachers said they had a lot of interest in
the Holocaust. As evidence of the relationships between interest in the Holo-
caust and concerns about contemporary social problems, 45 percent of the
clergy who felt that corruption in big business was extremely serious said they
had a lot of interest in the Holocaust, compared to 37 percent of those who
thought corruption was just a serious problem, and only 34 percent of those
who thought it was a small problem. The comparable percentages for teachers
were 57 percent, 46 percent, and 39 percent. For the question about dishonesty
in government, the percentages having a lot of interest were 44 percent among
clergy who thought the problem was extremely serious, compared with 38 per-
cent among those who thought it was only a small problem. For teachers, the
comparable percentages were 54 and 45. Similar comparisons, using the ques-
tion on alienation, showed differences of 42 percent versus 34 percent for clergy
and 50 percent versus 36 percent for teachers. Although these differences are
generally small, they are consistent with and in the expected direction for both
clergy and teachers. Perceptions of problems having directly to do with issues of
justice and inequality were somewhat more strongly related to differences of in-
terest in the Holocaust. For example, 48 percent of the pastors who thought ra-
cial inequality was extremely serious said they had a lot of interest in the Holo-
caust, compared with only 26 percent of those who thought racial inequality
was a small problem. The differences among teachers on this question were 61
percent versus 39 percent. Substituting questions about military power, preju-
dice, or doctors charging too much produced patterns of similar magnitude.

Translating these percentage differences into "odds" of having a lot of interest
produces ratios on the order of 1.2 to 1.5 for persons concerned about social
problems compared with persons not concerned about these problems.
37. Among conservatives, 34 percent of those who regarded corruption in
business as an extremely serious problem (using this as a measure of perceived
threat in the moral order) said they had a lot of interest in the Holocaust, com-
pared with 23 percent of those who thought corruption in business was only a
small problem. Among moderates the comparable figures were 36 and 29 per-
cent. Among liberals the figures were 53 versus 46 percent. Each relationship
was significant at or beyond the .05 level.
38. Among conservative clergy, 35 percent of those who thought declining
moral standards were an extremely serious problem had a lot of interest in the
Holocaust, compared with only 17 percent of those who said that declining mor-
als were "serious" (too few thought declining morals were a small problem to
permit comparisons with this category). Among liberal clergy, exactly the same
percentages (48 percent) were interested in the Holocaust in all three categories
of perceptions about moral decline. Among moderate clergy, there was a weak
relation between perceptions and interest (36 percent, 28 percent, and 29 per-
cent, respectively, for the three levels of perception). The comparable figures for
teachers were 48 versus 18 percent for conservatives (again, too few said moral
decline was only a small problem to allow comparisons); 49, 38, and 41 percent
for moderates; and 66, 53, and 52 percent for liberal teachers. A comparison of
gamma statistics confirmed that the relations were stronger in both cases among
conservatives than among liberals.
39. Comparing the percentages who had a lot of interest in the Holocaust for
those who thought corruption in business was extremely serious with those who
thought it was only a small problem revealed the following: 54 versus 43 per-
cent for clergy who said the Holocaust happening again was a major reason for
their interest, 19 versus 23 percent for clergy who said this was a minor reason,
and 12 versus 9 percent for clergy who said this was not a reason for their inter-
est. For teachers, the comparable figures were 65 versus 53 percent, 45 versus
28 percent, and 30 versus 29 percent.
40. Theologically liberal denominations included Presbyterian, Lutheran,
and Roman Catholic, in which 57 percent, 54 percent, and 60 percent of the pas-
tors, respectively, listed their theological views as liberal or neoorthodox. The
Reformed Church in America was classified as theologically conservative be-
cause 60 percent of its pastors listed their theological views as conservative or
fundamental. Unitarians were not included in these comparisons because there
were no conservative or fundamental pastors in the sample from this denomina-
tion. The percentages indicating a lot of interest in the Holocaust were 38 per-
cent among conservatives in liberal denominations, 36 percent among liberals in
conservative denominations, 33 percent among consistent liberals, and 27 per-
cent among consistent conservatives. These differences were statistically signifi-
cant beyond the .05 level.
41. Of the 326 high school seniors who filled out the questionnaires, 28 per-
cent said they were bothered a lot by "problems with school," 44 percent said
they were bothered a little, and 28 percent said they were not bothered. Thirteen
percent said they were bothered a lot by "feeling lonely," 39 percent said they
were bothered a little, and 48 percent said they were not bothered. Forty-nine
percent said they were bothered a lot by "deciding what you want to do in life,"
30 percent were bothered a little, and 20 percent were not bothered. Among
those bothered a lot by school problems, 58 percent indicated a lot of interest in
the Holocaust, compared with 41 percent among those bothered a little and 35
percent among those not bothered. Among those bothered a lot by loneliness,
53 percent had a lot of interest, compared with 41 percent of those bothered a
little, and 44 percent of those not bothered. And among those bothered a lot by
deciding what to do in life, 51 percent had a lot of interest, compared with 34
percent among those bothered a little and 38 percent among those not bothered.
42. See Lukes (1977) for an excellent discussion of the potential in political
ritual for exacerbating social conflict and a critique of the civil religion literature
from this perspective.
43. A useful discussion of the traditional problem in the civil religion litera-
ture is found in Schoffeleers and Meijers (1978); see especially pp. 13-50.
44. Exact figures for clergy indicating that each option would help a lot and
that it would help most of all are as follows: having students learn about it in
school (41 and 16 percent); showing stories about it on TV (26 and 3 percent);
teaching people about democracy (41 and 11 percent); making sure that every-
one has a good job and a decent living (32 and 16 percent); teaching people to
be better Christians (55 and 38 percent); strict laws against political extremists
(5 and 1 percent); limiting the power of big business and big government (21 per-
cent and 7 percent); can't decide (8 percent). For teachers the respective figures
were as follows: students (41 and 21 percent); stories (31 and 5 percent); democ-
racy (40 and 18 percent); decent living (37 and 25 percent); better Christians
(27 and 12 percent); strict laws (5 and 1 percent); limiting power (14 and 7 per-
cent); and can't decide (6 percent).
45. The only answer that varied significantly was that concerned with show-
ing stories on TV. Thirty-four percent of the clergy who had watched all of the
program said this would help a lot, compared with only 11 percent of the clergy
who had not watched and had not heard much about the program. The percent-
ages for teachers were, respectively, 39 and 15. Viewers were also somewhat
less likely to check "better Christians" as the best solution than were
nonviewers among clergy and, among teachers, were somewhat more likely to
check "students." Otherwise, the percentages were nearly identical for viewers
and nonviewers. Favored solutions were also examined to determine if reading
books about the Holocaust might have a significant influence on the kinds of so-
lutions adopted. Clergy were again somewhat less likely to choose "better Chris-
tians" if they had learned a lot about the Holocaust from books than if they had
learned little or nothing from this source. And teachers were more likely to
choose "students" if they had learned a lot than if they had learned nothing
from this source. The other responses did not vary.
46. For clergy the exact percentages choosing each option as a very or fairly
important reason for the Holocaust and as the most important reason of all
were as follows: the Nazis were mentally disturbed (23 and 9 percent); times
were so hard in Germany that people would have done almost anything (35 and
16 percent); the Germans were taught to obey orders no matter what (73 and 27
percent); Hitler created such a huge bureaucracy that nobody could oppose it
(59 and 20 percent); the Jews brought it on themselves by not leaving when they
still could (2 and 1 percent); there was no democracy in Germany (47 and 10
percent); it was part of God's plan, although we don't know why it had to hap-
pen (7 and 3 percent); and can't decide (15 percent). For teachers these are the
comparable figures: mentally disturbed (20 and 7 percent); hard times (52 and
25 percent); taught to obey (72 and 24 percent); huge bureaucracy (61 and 18
percent); Jews (3 and 0 percent); no democracy (47 and 12 percent); God's plan
(4 and 1 percent); and can't decide (7 percent).
47. Clergy who watched all of the program were slightly less likely to select
"mentally disturbed" and slightly more likely to choose "hard times." Other-
wise the responses were almost identical for viewers and nonviewers. Nor did
the extent of reading books about the Holocaust seem to affect these explana-
tions. Usually only a couple of percentage points distinguished the explanations
of those who had learned a lot about the Holocaust from books from those who
said they had learned nothing from this source.
48. Theological conservatism was measured by an item that asked, "Which
of the following would come closest to describing your theological views?"
Thirty-five percent of the pastors said "liberal," 24 percent said "neo-
orthodox," 32 percent said "conservative," 2 percent said "fundamental," and
7 percent said "other." Teachers were asked, "Which of the following would
come closest to describing your religious views?" Forty-four percent said "lib-
eral," 27 percent said "conservative," 18 percent said "nonreligious," and 10
percent said "other." Denominational conservatism (pastors only) was mea-
sured by classifying denominations into liberal (Unitarian, Presbyterian, Lu-
theran, and Catholic) or conservative (Reformed) according to the proportions
of clergy from each who listed themselves as liberal (including neoorthodox) or
conservative. Emphasis on doing God's will was measured by an item in both
surveys phrased "following God's will." Seventy-four percent of the clergy said
this was of "great importance" to them, as did 34 percent of the teachers. Of
clergy who preferred making people better Christians as the best preventive mea-
sure, 53 percent listed themselves as theological conservatives, 33 percent were
from a conservative denomination, and 93 percent valued following God's will
a great deal. Of teachers who selected this option, 54 percent were religiously
conservative, and 68 percent valued following God's will a great deal.
49. Forty-one percent of the total clergy sample and 42 percent of the total
teacher sample listed their political orientations as liberal or radical. By compari-
son, 65 percent of the clergy and 51 percent of the teachers who felt good jobs
would be the best preventive measure listed themselves as liberals or radicals.
50. The distinction between ikonic and conceptual symbolism is from
Bruner, Oliver, and Greenfield (1966:1—66). The distinction here is also similar
to that between presentational and discursive forms, as drawn by Langer
(1951:75-93).
51. Of clergy who thought the Holocaust "was part of God's plan, although
we don't know why it happened," 69 percent were theologically conservative,
46 percent were denominationally conservative, and 94 percent valued follow-

ing God's will a great deal (compared with 32 percent, 15 percent, and 74 per-
cent for the total clergy sample). Of teachers who gave this response, 63 percent
were religiously conservative, and 75 percent valued following God's will a
great deal (compared with 27 and 34 percent for all teachers).
52. Of clergy who thought hard times were the main reason for the Holo-
caust, 50 percent listed their political orientations as liberal or radical, com-
pared with 41 percent of all clergy; respective figures for teachers were 45 and
42 percent. By comparison, only 34 percent of each group who felt that Hitler's
bureaucracy was the main cause of the Holocaust listed themselves as liberals or
radicals. These relations were relatively weaker in general than were the rela-
tions for preventive measures.
53. A higher percentage of the students who selected the option of "strict
laws against political extremism" had watched the program (79 percent) than
the percentage of those who had watched among students in general (73 per-
cent). Slightly more of the former than of the latter also expressed a lot of inter-
est in the Holocaust (46 versus 43 percent).
54. Exactly the same proportion (67 percent) of those who favored strict
laws gave correct answers on the average to the factual questions as did the
whole student sample. Sevenry-eight percent of each group said they had
learned about the Holocaust from classes in school.
55. The figures for students favoring strict laws and the figures for the entire
student sample on each item are as follows: B— to D grade point average (50
and 34 percent); spend one-half hour or less a day on homework (67 and 47 per-
cent); value keeping up to date on national news little or none (54 and 36 per-
cent); value helping solve social problems little or none (63 and 41 percent);
value helping people who are in need little or none (42 and 25 percent); racial in-
equality is only a small problem or not a problem (71 and 48 percent); doctors
charging too much is only a small problem or not a problem (63 percent and 40
percent); agree there are countries in the world today similar to Nazi Germany
(42 and 60 percent).
56. Of clergy who thought "good jobs" were the best prevention, 67 percent
thought racial violence could definitely happen in the next twenty-five years, 62
percent thought social unrest and violence could break out, and 64 percent
thought police harassment was likely. These were higher than the figures for
cleygy who favored teaching democracy (53, 40, and 50 percent, respectively) or
who favored making better Christians (50, 41, and 32 percent, respectively).
For teachers the differences were smaller but in the same direction. Of those
who thought "good jobs" were best, 47 percent expected racial violence, 44 per-
cent expected social unrest, and 43 percent expected police harassment. Compa-
rable figures for those favoring the teaching of democracy were 48, 35, and 36
percent and for those favoring making better Christians, 41, 30, and 32 percent.
In other words, there was a relation between the kind of solution preferred to
prevent another Holocaust and the propensity to see various problems in the so-
ciety. Other questions showed similar patterns. Fifty percent of the clergy who
favored "good jobs" thought racial inequality was extremely serious, compared
with 32 percent of those who favored teaching democracy and 21 percent of
those who favored making better Christians. Comparable figures for teachers
were 31, 18, and 16 percent. Similar patterns were evident for the perception
that doctors were charging too much and that the military had too much power.
57. Comparing clergy who favored teaching democracy with clergy who fa-
vored making people better Christians, 50 percent of the former compared with
32 percent of the latter felt that police harassment could definitely happen. For
teachers, the comparable figures were 36 and 32 percent.
58. Sixty-three percent of the clergy who favored making people better Chris-
tians as the best solution thought declining moral standards were an extremely
serious problem, compared with only 34 percent of those who favored teaching
democracy and 33 percent of those who favored good jobs. The respective fig-
ures for teachers were 53, 36, and 29 percent.
59. In a much quoted passage, Durkheim writes, "The believer who has com-
municated with his god is not merely a man who sees new truths of which the un-
believer is ignorant; he is a man who is stronger. He feels within him more force,
either to endure the trials of existence, or to conquer them" (quoted in Bellah,
1973:189).
60. The question read, "Suppose you had lived in Germany during World War
II. Do you think you might have gone along with the Nazis in their effort to wipe
out the Jews?" The percentages of clergy and teachers, respectively, giving each re
sponse were as follows: "I'm afraid I'd have probably gone along with it just like
everyone else" (5 and 6 percent); "I'm not sure, but I might have" (35 and 32 per-
cent); "No, I definitely would not have gone along with it" (38 and 43 percent);
and "No, I would have actively resisted the Nazis" (23 and 17 percent).
61. Forty-four percent of the clergy who had watched all of the program said
they might have gone along with the Nazis, compared with 39 percent of those
who had watched some of the program and 32 percent of those who had not
watched the program. This pattern did not hold among teachers. Perceptions of
personal vulnerability did not vary by levels of viewing.
62. The question concerning following orders even if one injured another was
prompted by Stanley Milgram's research using laboratory techniques. Milgram's
findings suggested that otherwise conscientious people might be convinced under
laboratory conditions to deal out electrical shocks that they believed to be painful
to other experimental subjects. See Milgram (1974). Subsequent research has
both challenged and confirmed Milgram's findings. For example, see Bickman
and Zarantonello (1978), Hamilton (1978), Miller et al. (1974), and Zimbardo
(1974). The intent of the question was to see whether or not clergy and teachers
agreed with Milgram's conclusions. It read, "Some people claim that many Ameri
cans would do exactly what they're told to do, even if it hurt someone else, just
like the Nazis. Do you think this is true or not true ?" Fifteen percent of the clergy
and 13 percent of the teachers thought it was "definitely true," 54 and 48 percent,
respectively, thought it was "probably true," 26 and 31 percent thought it was
"probably not true," and 5 and 7 percent thought it was "definitely not true."
63. Of those who thought the statement was definitely or probably true, 43
percent in both the clergy and teacher studies said they might have gone along
with the Nazis, compared with 26 percent of the clergy and 28 percent of the
Notes to Page 139 369
teachers who felt the statement was probably or definitely not true. These find-
ings were replicated in the student study, in which 53 percent of those who
thought the statement was true said they might have gone along, compared with
30 percent of those who thought the statement was not true. Here, the sense of
vulnerability was also more pronounced among students who saw the Holo-
caust as a product of broad social forces than among those who thought it had
been the result of only a few mentally disturbed leaders. For example, among
those who thought the main reason for the Holocaust was the economic hard
times in Germany, 55 percent felt they might have gone along; by comparison,
only 26 percent of those who thought the main reason was the Nazis being men-
tally disturbed said they might have gone along. The student data included a
question that allowed another dimension of the sense of vulnerability to be ex-
plored as well. The study asked, "To what extent do you think most Germans
knew what the Nazis were doing to Jews," in response to which 21 percent said
"knew a lot," 54 percent said "knew something," and 25 percent said "knew lit-
tle or nothing." The expectation was that those who felt the Germans had
known a lot about what was going on would be more likely to say that they
themselves might have gone along with the Nazis. The results showed just the
opposite. Among those who thought the Germans knew a lot, only 30 percent
said they might have gone along, compared with 53 percent of those who
thought the Germans knew little or nothing. This finding seems to suggest that
the feeling of vulnerability represents a fear of unknowingly getting "caught up"
in something, rather than willingly taking part in atrocities.
64. Thirty percent of those who thought Americans would definitely blindly
obey orders had preached a sermon on the Holocaust, compared with 21 percent
of those who thought Americans would probably blindly obey orders, 18 percent
of those who thought they probably would not do so, and 21 percent of those
who thought Americans would definitely not blindly obey orders. The propor-
tions who had mentioned the Holocaust in a sermon also varied in this manner.
The respective figures were 87 percent, 79 percent, 76 percent, and 71 percent.
65. Forty-six percent of the teachers who thought Americans would defi-
nitely obey orders blindly said they favored devoting at least five hours' of in-
struction to the Holocaust, compared with 41 percent of those who thought
Americans would probably do so, 38 percent of those who thought Americans
would probably not do so, and 22 percent of those who thought Americans
would definitely not blindly obey orders. This question—support for instruc-
tion—was used as an indicator of activity among teachers instead of actual class-
room instruction because a number of the teachers were not employed in full-
time classroom situations.
66. Thirty-five percent of the clergy who had preached a sermon on the Holo-
caust thought they would have actively resisted the Nazis, compared with 19
percent of those who had not preached a sermon on it; 25 percent of those who
had mentioned the Holocaust in a sermon gave this response, compared with 15
percent of those who had not mentioned it. Among teachers, 34 percent of those
who favored twenty-five or more hours of classroom instruction about the Holo-
caust said they would have actively resisted, compared with 25 percent of those
who favored between ten and twenty-five hours, 17 percent of those who fa-
vored between five and ten hours, 13 percent of those who favored between one
and five hours, and 11 percent of those who favored less than one hour.
67. The question read, "Suppose the government asked you to do something
you felt was wrong. Which of the following do you think you would actually
do?" Twenty-one percent of the clergy and 13 percent of the teachers said, "I'd
do what I felt was right, no matter how much the government tried to stop me."
Forty-six and 44 percent, respectively, responded, "Frankly, it would be a hard
decision, but I honestly feel that I'd do what I felt was right." Thirty-two and 42
percent said, "I hope I would do what was right, although one never knows for
sure what he'll do until the time comes." Less than 1 percent of each group re-
sponded, "If it wasn't very serious, I really think it would make more sense to go
ahead and do it rather than get into trouble with the government." Among
those who felt they could have actively resisted the Nazis, 41 percent of the
clergy and 31 percent of the teachers felt they would do what was right if the
government asked them to do something that was wrong, compared with 24
and 14 percent, respectively, among those who said they probably wouldn't
have gone along with the Nazis, 8 and 5 percent of those who said they might
have gone along with the Nazis, and 6 and 4 percent of those who said they
probably would have gone along.
CHAPTER FIVE
1. A discussion of the sources of ideological movements is included in Chap-

ter 7.
2. These four conditions are discussed in greater detail in Chapter 8 in con-
junction with the institutionalization of science.
3. A third concept—cult—is often introduced as well. By one set of criteria,
a cult differs from a sect chiefly by virtue of originating as an independent orga-
nization rather than as a splinter group from an established organization; in
other treatments, cults are simply less stable or more dependent on a charismatic
leader than are sects. It would appear preferable to retain these questions about
the origins and evolutions of religious movements as empirical matters rather
than prejudge them by the definitional process. On the debate over terminology,
see especially Stark and Bainbridge (1985).
4. "Civil religion" may fit this category; however, civil religion in modern
societies, although appealing to a large environment, generally does not appear
to evoke intense commitments.
5. Representatives of the perspective concentrating on the growth of institu-
tional differentiation between religion and the state include Donald Eugene
Smith (1970). For a critique, see Levine (1979, 1981:24-25).
6. On Latin America, see especially Levine (1980, 1981), Smith (1982),
Dussel (1981), Bruneau (1982); also see Levine (1985) for a wide-ranging re-
view of the literature; studies of religion and politics in the Middle East include
Esposito (1983), Arjomand (1984a, 1984b), Piscatori (1982), Voll (1982), Had-
dad (1982), Fischer (1980), Keddie (1983), and Pipes (1983). Recent work has
also focused on Poland (Pomian-Srzednicki, 1982), Italy (Kertzer, 1980), Ire-
land (Bowen, 1983; Gallagher and Worrall, 1982), and Israel (Elazar, 1983;
Liebman and Don-Yehiya, 1983, 1984). Work on the United States has been
somewhat more scattered, often dealing with specific religiopolitical movements
or with the relations between religion and voting. Several studies of more gen-
eral use include Kelly (1983), Benson and Williams (1982), Mechling (1978),
Sorauf (1976), Bourg (1980), and Robertson (1981). Earlier works that are still
valuable include Stokes and Pfeffer (1964), Pfeffer (1967), and Stroup (1967).
An excellent source for more specific studies is the Journal of Church and State.
7. For an extensive review of the literature on civil religion, see Gehrig
(1979); also see Hammond (1976) and John F. Wilson (1979). Most of the
work on civil religion has been limited to the American case, but several valu-
able studies that provide comparisons are also available; see especially Moodie
(1975), Liebman and Don-Yehiya (1983), and the essays in Bellah and Ham-
mond (1980).
8. Further examples of increased interest in and access to national agendas
on the part of religions are given in Chapter 7.
9. Further evidence on this point concerning the retention of Roman Ca-
tholicism for France and England is presented in Chapter 9.
CHAPTER SIX
1. Some of the more interesting of these studies, by subject matter, include
the following: Middle Ages: Lerner (197,2), Moore (1975); early modern Eu-
rope: Bruckner (1968), Thomas (1971), LeRoy Ladurie (1979); Third World:
Wilson (1973); American rural south: Browne (1958), Rickles (1965), Geno-
vese (1974); Arnish: Hostetler (1968); Hutterites: Peters (1965), Hosteller and
Huntington (1967); Judaism: Trachtenberg (1970), Poll (1969), Friedman
(1975).
2. For some statistical studies, see Greeley (1975), Gallup (1982),
Wuthnow (1978), Krarup (1983), and Towler (1983). On holidays, see Caplow
and Williamson (1980), Caplow (1982), and Caplow, Bahr, and Chadwick
(1983); and on sports and other media events, see Owens (1980) and Goethals
(1981).
3. For a mathematical proof of this assertion regarding the ability of a dis-
connected system to withstand external shocks, see May (1973). I am indebted
to James R. Beniger for this insight; see Beniger (1981).
4. Among the relatively large number of discussions of the common experi-
ences with which the dominant social institutions fail to deal adequately, several
that bear on the subject of religion include Parsons (1951:297-321; 1978:264-
299, 331-351), Cook and Wimberley (1983), Aries (1981), and Hochschild
(1978).
5. The relationship suggested by Bernstein's (1975) research appears to
have gained empirical confirmation in a wide variety of settings; see, for exam-
ple, Bergesen (1979) and Cerulo (1985).
6. For example, core tenets are variously combined with widely differing
teachings about the so-called charismatic gifts, about prophecy, about baptism,
and about church government. For an interesting discussion of the ways in
which theological tenets among evangelicals have adapted to contemporary cul-

ture, see Hunter (1987).
7. The argument here about individual freedom is the same as that devel-
oped in Chapter 3.
8. As suggested in Chapter 3, the boundary between self and actor is of par-
ticular importance in this conception of individuality.
9. Recent contributions to the debate on rationality and cultural relativism
include Geertz (1984) and the essays in Hollis and Lukes (1982).
CHAPTER SEVEN
1. The following sections draw on material from Wuthnow (1980, 1982).

2. The flexibility associated with these cultural developments is often in-
creased as well by an added emphasis on the individual (i.e., individualism be-
comes a decoupling ideological mechanism that favors the adaptive potential of
new ideologies and ultimately contributes to the adaptability of the cultural sys-
tem at large). However, the role of individualism can be overemphasized. Doing
so reinforces the linear evolutionary assumptions of the modernization perspec-
tive by suggesting that individualism is simply the long-term (perhaps inevita-
ble) tendency of modern culture. This assumption is contradicted by the fact
that many revitalization movements as well as some aspects of ideological revo-
lutions have scarcely been individualistic in character. The flexibility added to
modern culture by these movements has not been a function simply or even pri-
marily of a tolerant, "do your own thing" attitude. Rather, it must be seen,
again by adopting a globalistic perspective, as resulting from opposition to estab-
lished cultural systems and the rise of regionally diverse ideological movements
that "block" the cultural system into an increasing number of loosely connected
subsystems.
3. See, for example, the following analyses of religious movements in the
United States, all of which use ideas about the effects of changing positions in
the broader world order: Anthony and Robbins (1978), McGuire (1982),
Wuthnow (1978), Thomas (1986), and Hunter (1987).
4. For example, studies of price fluctuations have resulted in various models
that depict change occurring in regular cycles lasting approximately fifty years
each; research on colonial expansion, in contrast, has divided the past half-mil-
lennium into roughly two periods, each characterized by initial expansion fol-
lowed by contraction.
5. England, for example, appears to have mostly achieved the reintegration
process involved in the rise of the free-market system by the end of the 1830s,
whereas France underwent a series of domestic crises that lasted until 1871.
6. Variations in these generalizations concerning groups whose power in-
creases and decreases again need to be allowed for because of differences in soci-
etal structure. In later periods of capitalist development, one of the mechanisms
that appears to have maintained the core position of societies like England and
France was a relatively flexible economic structure in which new elites were able
to increase power and even reinvigorate established elites rather than having to
operate in different societies altogether. Also, the periphery of the world econ-
omy during expansionary periods may in certain areas be gaining political

power or growing economically at a more rapid pace than the core itself. En-
gland, for example, although "peripheral" with respect to the Mediterranean
economy of the late Middle Ages, was nevertheless developing more rapidly by
the end of the fifteenth century than many parts of the Mediterranean. The same
was true of the United States relatively early in the nineteenth century. Though
peripheral to the core of the mercantilist world economy of the eighteenth cen-
tury (England, France, and the Low Countries), the United States rapidly be-
came a more dynamic sector of the nineteenth-century world economy than
many sectors of the earlier core. In short, peripheral status is often more clearly
defined for present purposes in relation to the preceding form of world order
that is being transcended than with respect to simple calculations of contempo-
rary economic strength.
7. The Anabaptist movements are another case in which the immediate so-
cial sources of an ideological movement* are domestic, even local; yet taking the
broader picture into account helps illuminate why these cleavages occurred
when they did.
8. Diversity is also a function of prevailing religious cultures; for example,
millenarianism appears to be more common in areas exposed to the Judeo-Chris-
tian tradition, and tribal cultures without this exposure are more likely to gener-
ate spiritualistic and thaumaturgic movements.
9. Another feature of revitalization movements that has often seemed curi-
ous is why these otherwise apolitical, often pacifist, groups should arouse such
violent hostility from their host environments. Part of the explanation (besides
the obvious threat of religious nonconformity to established traditions) may lie
in the fact that their emergence often coincides with periods of rapid expansion
in which there is an exceptionally strong demand for labor. In retreating from
the world, as many of these groups do, they also sometimes withdraw their la-
bor from available markets, preferring instead to depend on subsistence in-
comes and communal bases of mutual support.
10. This awareness of the connection between national purpose and religious
convictions has been heightened especially by the literature on "civil religion."
11. An excellent discussion of these relations among China, the Soviet
Union, and the United States is found in Schurmann (1974).
CHAPTER EIGHT
1. This chapter is a revision of an article originally published in Bergesen

(1980).
2. A distinction is often drawn between the Popperian and the Kuhnian per-
spectives because the former emphasizes gradual evolutionary development,
and the latter emphasizes abrupt revolutionary changes in science. Both perspec-
tives, however, focus almost exclusively on the internal development of scien-
tific ideas rather than considering the relations between science and its external
environment.
3. Thorner (1952) and Hooykaas (1972) are particularly interesting exten-
sions of the Merton thesis. For a useful survey of the literature, see Greaves
(1969); see also the essays in Marsak (1964).
4. Thorner's (1952) study simply divided the total number of scientific dis-
coveries in each country by total population. This strategy seriously weights the
results against Catholic countries, however, because the most populous were
France, Spain, and Italy. Nor does any plausible reason to divide by total popula-
tion seem evident. Scientists (and therefore scientific discoveries) were by no
means drawn from a national talent pool; only those with access to higher edu-
cation could generally qualify; and in no case did more than fifty persons (out of
total populations ranging from 5 million to 20 million in the larger countries) de-
vote their major energies to science.
5. For example, see the discussions of science and democracy in Barber
(1962), Polanyi (1964), and Merton (1973). Much of this literature can, of
course, be criticized in light of advances in science under totalitarian regimes,
such as Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia. With the rise of large-scale, state-ad-
ministered research and development (R8cD) systems involved in scientific
work on "collective goods" problems, the relation of decentralization to innova-
tion has also become problematic (see, for example, Shrum, Wuthnow, and
Beniger, 1985).
6. The concepts of "core" and "periphery," as employed in the text, derive
mainly from Prebisch (1959), Shils (1972:355-371), and Wallerstein (1974).
Wallerstein's intermediate concept of semiperiphery may also have applications
to the study of science, but for present purposes does not appear to require sepa-
rate attention.
7. Other examples also suggest that ceremony is particularly important for
dramatizing membership "in good standing" in decentralized systems. For in-
stance, athletic contests, colors, mascots, and so forth dramatize membership in
loosely coupled systems such as the Ivy League or among major cities. Member-
ship in these systems is often problematic, depending largely on recurring ritual
dramatizations because a single authority capable of defining membership is gen-
erally lacking. In contrast, membership in bureaucratic organizations is gener-
ally determined and legitimated simply by a hierarchical chain of command.
8. The peculiar manner in which some of the European states patronized sci-
ence makes more sense from the ceremonial perspective than from the utilitar-
ian perspective. Had science truly been regarded as a promising endeavor for
strictly utilitarian purposes, it seems surprising that Charles II gave no money to
support it and Louis XIV gave relatively modest amounts in comparison with
the larger resources at the state's disposal. From the ceremonial perspective, this
kind of minimal support still fulfilled its function. Science was not supported
adequately enough to achieve any major utilitarian goals, but supporting it even
nominally created the necessary ceremonial tie between science and the state.
9. On behalf of the Medici, Galileo named the moons of Jupiter after mem-
bers of their household.
10. As observed in Chapter 6, the close relation that developed between sci-
ence and the state also tended to legitimate the adoption of a rational style of dis-
course in science (which in turn dramatized the mercantilist state's commitment
to rationality). The early scientific academies typically borrowed parliamentary

modes of deliberation and reporting directly from established practices in legisla-
tive and bureaucratic agencies.
11. There is, of course, considerable support in the social network literature
for the relation between centrality in communication systems and greater scien-
tific productivity. Some of these studies are limited to relatively small samples of
scientists (e.g., Breiger, 1976; Crane, 1972), but others show similar results on
networks of organizations at least as large as that of the scientific academies in
seventeenth-century Europe. For example, several colleagues and I have studied
communication and research productivity in two national R&D networks de-
voted to energy problems, each involving more than three thousand scientists
scattered among more than fifty major organizatons across the United States.
Our findings show strong relations at both the organization and individual lev-
els between various measures of centrality in communication networks and sci-
entific productivity (as indicated both by bibliographic counts and by network
assessments of the quality of contributions). For example, see Wuthnow,
Beniger, and Shrum (1952) and Shrum, Wuthnow, and Beniger (1985). The hy-
pothesis that core states may have used science to a greater degree for ceremo-
nial purposes than peripheral states is more open to dispute. On theoretical
grounds, it could also be argued that peripheral states might have made even
greater use of this tactic because their membership may have been more in
doubt. In the twentieth century it appears, for example, that Third World coun-
tries have often developed formal scientific and educational programs well be-
yond what their economic and political resources might warrant in order to dra-
matize their status as "modern" countries. Contrary to this pattern, however,
the empirical evidence from the seventeenth century suggests that greater cere-
monial use was made of organizational affairs in general by core states than by
peripheral states. Part of the reason appears to be the fact that economic and po-
litical theory recognized that core states were more crucial to the equilibrium o
the larger system and therefore paid more attention to the "balance of power"
among these than among the peripheral states.
12. Darmstadter's volume was originally published in Berlin in 1908. A brief
description of the material is contained in Merton (1970). I made the calcula-
tions from both sources.
13. The numbers in each case refer to all scientists listed in the Marquis vol-
ume who were living in a particular country in the year indicated. The Marquis
volume does not purport to provide an inclusive listing of all known scientists,
only those who had achieved some degree of eminence. It does, however, list far
more names than any other single source (for example, than the multivolume
Dictionary of Scientific Biography). The numbers for England are consistent
over the entire period in that Scottish scientists are listed separately (one in
1550, four in 1600, four in 1650, eleven in 1700, twenty-two in 1750, forty-six
in 1800, and eighty-two in 1850). Germany is, of course, a statistical fiction for
this period, because it was not politically unified until 1871. Prussia was by far
the leading German state both politically and scientifically. During much of the
mercantilist era, many of the German states functioned to some degree as an eco-
nomic unit because of the Zollverein. Data were tallied only through 1850 be-
cause the volume after this date appears to become decreasingly representative
as the numbers of scientists began to increase dramatically.
14. The numbers of discoveries calculated for each country for the half-cen-
tury preceding each date, beginning in 1500 and extending through 1850, are as
follows: England, 3, 6, 32, 44, 121, 141, 341, 843; France, 4, 15, 33, 55, 75,
134, 290, 801; Germany, 19, 38, 35, 49, 93, 107, 257, 1,026; Italy, 23, 47, 67,
62, 49, 21, 44, 82; Netherlands, 8, 33, 31, 32, 65, 51, 42, 64; Switzerland, 1, 7,
5, 10, 7, 13, 22, 20; Spain, 15, 20, 8, 5, 2, 6, 6, 5; Portugal, 9, 6, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1;
Scandinavia, 0, 5, 13, 3, 9, 11, 13, 29; United States, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 4, 20, 137.
15. It is possible to speculate that some of the differences in the content or style
of scientific work in these countries are also associated with their position in the
larger European social system. Specifically, scientific work in core areas may dif-
fer systematically from scientific work in periphery areas, given differences in ac-
cess to communication and legitimacy. Core areas, in particular, seem more likely
to be conducive to theoretical innovations, along with other types of discoveries;
periphery areas seem more likely to be limited to making empirical and technical
innovations. Although it is difficult to distinguish precisely among these kinds of
work, scientists commonly use the three terms to characterize their own work. In
rough contrast, theoretical innovations are concerned with ordering phenomena
(i.e., finding a general order of things, a pattern, system, or unifying explanation,
such as Boyle's Law). Empirical activity involves observing phenomena and mak-
ing new descriptions (e.g., Leeuwenhoek's discovery of bacteria). Technical activ-
ity consists of inventing tools or methods (e.g., the invention of the telescope).
Reasons for expecting greater concentrations of theoretical activity in core areas
include the resources in these areas for (1) chartering scholars with the task of or-
dering culture in a general way, (2) providing the confidence and legitimacy to in-
novate (as in the case also of "center" concepts in primitive cultures that define ar-
eas from which supernatural revelations can arise), (3) providing the confluence
of information channels necessary for constructing new integrative models, (4)
providing material resources to sustain a larger critical mass of scientists in one
place, from which cross-fertilization and specialization can develop, (5) provid-
ing the communication channels necessary for disseminating a new theory to all
parts of the scientific community, and (6) legitimating new ideas simply because
they come from core areas. For the seventeenth century, some support for the hy-
pothesis comes from an examination of the geographical origins of the forty-four
scientific discoveries given greatest attention in several leading histories of sci-
ence. Of the seventeen discoveries that could be classified as theoretical innova-
tions, eleven originated in the core areas of England, France, and Germany; of the
seventeen discoveries that could be classified as empirical discoveries, only four
originated in these countries; and of the ten technical inventions, only three origi-
nated in these areas.
CHAPTER NINE
1. An earlier version of this chapter was published in the American Socio-

logical Review 50 (December 1985): 799-821.
2. For a useful argument that interprets Swanson in a way that circumvents

the two criticisms, see Robertson and Lechner (1984).
3. Bergesen (1977, 1984), for example, in applying Swanson's concept of
immanence to the study of state structures and deviance, suggests that the
mechanism by which political experience influences ideology is collective ritu-
als, specifically political witch-hunts, in which the nature of collective purposes
is actually dramatized.
4. Winter (1984) also raises the problem of the complexity of the process
but resolves it in a way that seems unsatisfactory for understanding the influ-
ence of state structures on ideology in complex societies. His argument is that so-
cial forces represent an example of Mead's "generalized other" and are thus in-
ternalized by the individual according to principles of functional psychology.
5. Although the problems involved in Swanson's choice of specific cases re-
main, some of the original study's lack of representativeness can be excused on
the same grounds, namely, that Swanson was chiefly concerned with theoreti-
cally strategic comparisons rather than an effort either to generalize to a larger
population of cases or to provide an empirically satisfactory explanation for the
Reformation.
6. Powerful factions in the court itself also opposed the reforms, of course,
and remained loyal to Catholicism for a number of decades (e.g., Ives, 1972).
CHAPTER TEN
1. Part of the reason why the distinction between the interpretive and posi-
tivistic sciences is unsatisfactory is that the positivistic approach is now gener-
ally regarded as an overly simplistic orientation in the social sciences.
2. Several writers have suggested that Erving Goffman's work on the rituals
of everyday life is compelling because the evidence is so completely in the do-
main of shared experience. At the other extreme, anthropological work some-
times succeeds, even on the basis of sketchy evidence, because it deals with soci-
eties about which little is known.
3. For an example of an investigator interpreting by describing an event's
context or framework, see Hunter (1987), who employs the question "What do
these things mean?" more as a device for reflecting on their broader social sig-
nificance than for actually probing the subjective meanings attached to them.
4. It is, of course, possible in many cases to obtain and examine cultural
data consisting of discourse about subjective concepts (such as guilt, anxiety,
etc.), but these kinds of data should not be confused with direct measures of sub-
jective conditions.
5. This requirement of distance is why anthropological studies of other cul-
tures often succeed to a greater extent than analyses of one's own culture.
6. The term "hegemony" is, of course, from Gramsci's writings, but has
gained wider currency in the literature advancing the idea of a "dominant ide-
ology."
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Name Index
Addy, Sidney Oldall, 321 Barthes, Roland, 6, 50, 353n.l7

Aidala, Angela A., 165, 352n.ll Batho, Gordon, 315
Ainlay, Stephen C., 43 Baulant, Micheline, 317
Atger, Horatio, 83 Beckford, James, 153, 160
Allen, Woody, 73 Bell, Daniel, 67, 79, 202
Alsop, J. D., 315 Bellah, Robert N., 1, 2, 5, 20, 22, 26,
Althusser, Louis, 2, 6, 8, 57 31, 36, 37, 39-40, 41, 42, 43, 44,
Amery, Julian, 251 47, 50, 53, 133, 178, 197, 201, 203,
Ammerman, Nancy Taton, 44, 192 209, 215, 304, 354n.l, 371n.7
Anderson, Perry, 272, 281, 318, 324 Ben-David, Joseph, 267, 274, 290
Anthony, Dick, 160, 372n.3 Bender, Lauretta, 190
Antoun, Richard, 192 Bendix, Reinhard, 198
Apostle, Richard A., 197 Benedetti, Vincent, 279
Aries, Philippe, 371n.4 Benedict, Philip, 311, 323
Aristotle, 268 Beniger, James R., 205, 371n.3, 374n.5,
Arjomand, Said Amir, 370n.6 375n.ll
Artz, Frederick B., 284 Benson, Peter L., 371n.6
Ashley, Maurice, 286 Berce, Yves-Marie, 311
Aubrey, John, 287 Berger, Peter L., 5, 9, 19, 20, 22, 36,
Ault, James M., Jr., 192 37-39, 42, 44, 46, 47, 49, 50, 53,
Autrand, Franchise, 319 119, 189, 304, 352nn.8, 9
Bergesen, Albert, 118-119, 300, 371n.5,
Bacon, Francis, 280, 282, 284, 289, 373n.l, 377n.3
291 Bernal, J. D., 268
Badovere, Jacques, 291 Bernstein, Basil, 190, 205, 341, 371n.5
Bahr, Howard M., 371n.2 Bibby, Reginald, 352n.ll
Bainbridge, William Sims, 152, 171, Bickman, L., 368n.62
370n.3 Blackwood, Larry, 92, 357n.24
Barber, Bernard, 374n.5 Bleicher, Josef, 352n.lO, 353nn.l4, 15
Barnes, Barry, 266 Bloch, Marc, 318
Barraclough, Geoffrey, 283 Block, Fred L., 228, 254
Barrett, William, 352n.l2, 353n.l9 Bloor, David, 304
Barrow, Isaac, 276, 287 Boleyn, Anne, 321
418 Name Index
Bonaventura, Saint, 279 Clark, Peter, 311, 317, 322

Bonney, Richard, 319 Cobb, Jonathan, 354n.4, 356n.l8,
Borelli, Giovanni, 277 357n.22
Borhek, James T., 35In.2 Colbert, Jean Baptiste, 282
Bossy, John, 321 Constantine I, 161
Bourg, Carroll J., 371n.6 Contamine, Philip, 320
Bourne, William, 281 Contat, Nicolas, 60-61
Bouwsma, William J., 300, 306 Converse, Philip E., 46
Bowden, Peter, 315 Conwell, Russell, 83
Bowen, Kurt, 371n.6 Cook, Judith A., 371 n.4
Bowker, Margaret, 313 Cork, Earl of, 280
Boyle, Robert, 268, 287 Cornforth, Maurice, 32
Brahe, Tycho, 279, 289 Cornwall, J., 315
Braudel, Fernand, 271 Corsi, Giucciardi, 279
Breiger, Ronald L., 375n.ll Crane, Diana, 375n.ll
Brigden, Susan, 322 Cromwell, Oliver, 283
Brinkerhoff, Merlin, 192 Cross, Claire, 311, 321, 322
Brodek, Theodor V., 300 Cuddihy, John, 197
Brown, Harcourt, 276, 285, 290 Cumberland, second Earl of, 280
Browne, Ray B., 371n.l Curtis, Richard, 351n,2
Bruce, Steve, 153
Bruckner, Wolfgang, 371n.l
Brummer, Vincent, 196 Darmstadter, Ludwig, 295, 375n.l2
Bruneau, Thomas C., 370n.6 Darnton, Robert, 60-61, 354n.21
Bruner, Jerome S., 38, 366n.50 Davies, C. S. L., 322
Buber, Martin, 363n.34 Davis, Natalie Zemon, 200, 300, 306,
Buckingham, Duke of, 280, 287 307, 311
Buckley, William F., Jr., 363n.34 Dee, John, 280
Budd, Susan, 303 Descartes, Rene, 284, 352n.l2
Burghley, Lord, 281 Dewald, Jonathan, 323
Burguiere, A., 321 Dickens, A. G., 321, 322
Burke, Peter, 281 Dickinson, J. C., 321
Burnstein, Barbara, 359n.l4 Dietz, Frederick C., 315
Digby, Kenelm, 287
Dodds, M. H., 322
Caddell, Patrick, 362n.28 Dodds, R., 322
Calleo, David P., 253 Dohrenwend, Barbara S., 190
Calvin, John, 312 Dohrenwend, Bruce P., 190
Caplow, Theodore, 371n.2 Don-Yehiya, Eliezer, 371nn.6, 7
Carcavi, Pierre, 286 Douglas, Mary, 1-2, 20, 22, 50, 51, 52,
Carroll, Michael P., 161, 191 53-54, 55, 58, 66, 69, 73, 87, 97,
Carter, Jimmy, 128, 258, 362n.28 103, 107, 126, 166, 189, 200, 304,
Casaubon, Isaac, 289 341, 353n.20
Cassini, Giovanni, 277 Downton, James V., Jr., 171, 354n.5
Cassirer, Ernst, 21, 43 Drake, Stillman, 291
Cerulo, Karen A., 271, 371n.5 Dreyfus, Hubert L., 353n.20
Cesi, Federigo, 281 Dryden, John, 287
Chadwick, Bruce A., 371n.2 Dudley, fifth Lord, 280
Charles II (king of England), 276, 280, Du Hamel, Jean-Baptiste, 286
282, 287, 289, 292, 374n.8 Dumont, Louis, 357n.23
Charles V (king of Spain), 278 Durkheim, Emile, 1, 3, 4, 14, 19, 20,
Chase-Dunn, Christopher, 221 21, 22, 25-26, 29-30, 31, 35, 36,
Chomsky, Noam, 51, 353n.l8, 354n.8 44, 57-58, 63, 66, 102, 104, 111,
Christian, William A., Jr., 321 113, 115, 117, 122, 125, 133, 135,
Christina (queen of Sweden), 277 138, 139, 143, 171, 194, 197, 200,
Cipolla, Carlo M., 321 217, 300, 301, 352nn.5, 7, 368n.59
Clark, G. N., 271, 283, 285 Dussel, Enrique, 370n.6
Name Index 419
Edelstein, Marilyn Manera, 318, 323 Gerlach, Luther P., 153

Eisenstadt, S. N., 154 Geuss, Raymond, 353n.20
Elazar, Daniel J., 371 n.6 Geyl, Pieter, 241, 276
Elizabeth I (queen of England), 281, 289 Geymonat, Ludovico, 277, 288
Elton, G. R., 313, 315, 317, 321, 323 Giddens, Anthony, 352n.6
Engels, Fnedrich, 21, 27, 239 Gilbert, G. Nigel, 351n.5
Erikson, Kai T., 1,5, 115-116, 117, Gilbert, William, 280, 289
124, 132, 341 Clock, Charles Y., 4, 152, 193, 356n.l9
Ernst, Tilman, 359n.l5 Gluckman, Max, 357n.2
Esposito, John L., 370n.6 Goddard, Jonathan, 287
Evelyn, John, 287 Goethals, Gregor T., 371n.2
Goffman, Erving, 14, 101, 102, 107,
Fallding, Harold, 303 351n.4, 355n.l2, 358n.5, 377n.2
Farb, Peter, 37 Goodman, Ellen, 363n.34
Farnese, Duke of, 279 Goubert, Pierre, 321
Febvre, Lucien, 321 Gramsci, Antonio, 2, 8, 377n.6
Ferdinand II (grand duke of Tuscany), Graunt, John, 287
279, 281, 291 Greaves, Richard L., 271, 374n.3
Finch, John, 292 Greeley, Andrew M., 371n.2
Fingarette, Herbert, 202, 352n.l2 Green, Gerald, 124
Firth, Raymond, 188 Greenberg, Barry, 359n.l4
Fischer, Michael M. J., 370n.6 Greenfield, Patricia M., 38, 366n.50
Fischer, Wolfram, 281 Grigg, David, 315
Flint, John T., 300 Grimes, Ronald L., 357n. 1
Ford, Gerald, 258 Guenne, Bernard, 320
Foss, Michael, 286 Guericke, Otto von, 281
Foucault, Michel, 6, 20, 50, 51, 52, 53, Guery, Alain, 318, 319
54, 57, 59, 87, 196, 197-198, 219-
220, 303, 341, 351n.3, 353n.20 Habakkuk, H. )., 324
Fourquin, Guy, 317 Habermas, Jiirgen, 2, 5, 6, 20, 22, 50,
Francis I (king of France), 312, 314, 51, 52, 53, 54-55, 57, 58, 59, 68,
318, 319, 329 79, 92, 201, 209-210, 215, 299, 344,
Francois, M., 300 351n.3, 353nn.l8, 19, and 20,
Frank, Anne, 129 354nn.8, 9
Freeman, John, 208 Hackmann, W. D., 276, 277
Frenicle de Bessy, Bernard, 286 Hadcock, R. Neville, 324
Friedman, Milton, 85 Haddad, Yvonne Yazbeck, 370n.6
Friedman, Norman L., 371 n.l Hadden, Jeffrey, 172
Fulbrook, Mary, 181,329 Hahn, Roger, 280, 281, 286, 290
Haigh, Christopher, 313
Gadamer, Hans Georg, 43, 353n.l9 Hale, Robert, 280
Gager, John G., 161, 208 Haley, Alex, 72
Galileo, 268, 276, 277, 279, 288, 291, Hall, A. Rupert, 271, 273
374n.9 Halley, Edmund, 293
Gallagher, Eric, 371 n.6 Hamilton, Peter, 352n.7
Gallup, George, Jr., 371n.2 Hamilton, V. L., 368n.62
Gallup Organization, 172 Hammond, Phillip E., 4, 193, 351n.l,
Galluzzi, Riguccio, 292 371n.7
Galpern, A. N., 311,318, 323 Hannan, Michael T., 208
Geertz, Clifford, 1, 5, 9, 20, 36, 37, 40, Hans, Nicholas, 270, 271
42-43, 44, 46, 48, 49, 50, 60-61, Harding, Robert R., 318
123-124, 206, 304, 342, 351n.2, Harrington, James, 283
372n.9 Harris, Marvin, 35In.2, 354n.2
Gehlen, Arnold, 42 Harvey, William, 277, 292
Gehrig, Gail, 371 n.7 Hayden, Rebecca S., 359n.l5
Genovese, Eugene D., 371n.l Heal, Felicity, 321
Geraets, Thomas, 204 Hecksher, FJi F., 284
420 Name Index
Hegland, Mary, 192 King, James E., 281, 284, 285

Heidegger, Martin, 21, 42, 352n.9, Kingdon, Robert M., 323
355n.l6 Knecht, R. J., 311, 312, 313, 318, 319,
Heinz, Donald, 161 327
Held, David, 353n.20 Knorr, Klaus E., 245, 284
Heller, Henry, 316, 319, 320 Knowles, David, 324
Hempsall, David S., 313 Koenigsberger, H. G., 300
Henry IV (king of France), 284 Kohlberg, Lawrence, 69
Henry VIII (king of England), 280, 312, Krarup, Helen, 371n.2
315,316,318,321,329 Kroll-Smith, J. Stephen, 171
Hessen, Boris, 268, 337 Kuhn, Thomas S., 33
Hevelius, Johannes, 281 Kuznets, Simon, 223
Hey, David G., 313
Hilke, John C., 171
Hine, Virginia H., 153 Lacan, Jacques, 6
Hirschfeld, Lawrence A., 48 La Chambre, Marin Cureau de, 286
Hirschman, Albert O., 82 Lamer, Maryelise Suffern, 312
Hitler, Adolf, 110, 360n.l9, 361n.23, Lane, Christel, 358n.6
366n.46 Langer, Susanne K., 38, 39
Hobsbawm, Eric J., 244, 251 Lasch, Christopher, 201
Hochschild, Arlie Russell, 371n.4 Laski, M., 191
Holborn, Hajo, 280 Lavoisier, Antoine Laurent, 280
Hollis, M., 372n.9 Leach, Edmund, 353n.l6, 358n.4
Homans, George C., 358n.3 Lechner, Frank J., 191, 300, 306,
Hooke, Robert, 287 377n.2
Hooykaas, R., 271, 373n.3 LeGoff, Jacques, 206, 304
Horsfield, Peter G., 172 Lehmberg, Stanford E., 316, 321, 322
Hosteller, John A., 371n.l Leiber, Justin, 353n.l8
Hunter, James Davison, 43, 180, 192, Leibniz, Wilhelm, 292, 293
193, 197, 371-372n.6, 372n.3, Lenski, Gerhard, 34
377n.3 Leopold (prince of Tuscany), 279, 281,
Huntington, Gertrude Enders, 371n.l 293
Hutchinson, Anne, 115 Lerner, Robert E., 371n.l
Huygens, Christiaan, 268, 277, 286, 293 LeRoy Ladurie, Emmanuel, 311, 371n.l
Huygens, Constantyn, 293 Levi-Strauss, Claude, 50-51, 353n.l6
Levine, Daniel H., 370nn.5, 6
Inverarity, James M., 117 Lewis, P. S., 318
Ives, E. W.', 377n.6 I.iebman, Charles S., 371nn.6, 7
Lmdblom, Charles E., 184
Lipset, Seymour Martin, 128, 361n.27
Jaffe, Steven, 190 Little, David, 2, 356n.20
James, M. E., 317, 322 Locke, John, 287
James I (king of England), 289 London, Bishop of, 280
Jarvie, I. C., 208 Louis XIV (king of France), 285, 314,
Johnson, Paul E., 159 318, 374n.8
Jones, Jim, 74, 355n.l 1 Luckmann, Thomas, 5, 9, 20, 22, 36,
37-39, 42, 44, 47, 49, 50, 119, 203,
Kagan, Richard L., 278, 321 304, 352n.9
Kammen, Michael, 222, 245 Luhmann, Niklas, 6, 215, 299
Katzer, Nicholas, 280 Lukacs, Georg, 2
Keddie, Nikki R., 370n.6 Luker, Kristin, 161
Kclley, Dean M., 192 Lukes, Steven, 365n.42, 372n.9
Kelly, George Armstrong, 371n.6 Lundgreen, Peter, 281
Kepler, Johannes, 276, 279, 289, 291 Lu'tge, Frederich, 317
Kertzer, David I., 370n.6 Luther, Martin, 166, 239
Keynes, John Maynard, 252 Luynes, Due de, 280
Khrushchev, Nikita, 259 Lytle, Guy F., 290
Name Index 421
Machiavelli, Niccolo, 283 Needham, Joseph, 272

Magalotti, Lorenzo, 291 Nef, John U., 271, 277, 289, 324
Magdeburg, Duke of, 281 Nelson, Benjamin, 2
Major, J. Russell, 318, 319, 322, 323 Neuhaus, Richard John, 203
Major-Poetzl, Pamela, 353n.20 Neuschel, Kristen B., 319
Malinowski, Bronislaw, 100, 357n,3 Newport, Frank, 192
Mandrou, Robert, 319 Newton, Isaac, 276, 280, 293, 337
Manning, Roger B., 311, 322 Nicholls, David J., 311, 323
Mao Zedong, 208 Northumberland, Duke of, 276
Markovits, Andrei S., 359n.l5 Northumberland, ninth Earl of, 280
Marks, Stephen R., 26 Nottingham, Elizabeth K., 303
Marsak, Leonard M., 374n.3 Novak, Michael, 183
Marsden, George M., 193
Marx, Karl, 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 19, 20, 21, Oldenberg, Henry, 290
23-24, 25, 27-28, 30, 31, 32, 35, Oliver, Rose R., 38, 366n.50
36, 52, 57-58, 153, 194, 197, 217, Oilman, Bertell, 352n.3
239, 304, 352nn.3, 5 Olson, Mancur, 171
Mattingly, Garrett, 291 Orleans, Due d', 280
May, Robert M., 371n.3 Ornstein, Martha, 281, 290
McCarthy, Thomas, 353n.20 Ortiz, Antonio D., 278
McGuire, Meredith B., 44, 171, 197, O'Toole, Roger, 300
372n.3 Owens, Virginia Stem, 371n.2
McKenna, J. W., 317 Oxley, James E., 313
McKie, Douglas, 280 Ozment, Steven E., 306
Mead, George Herbert, 377n.4
Mechling, Jay, 371n.6 Palliser, D. M., 322
Meijers, Daniel, 365n.43 Parker, T. M., 311, 321, 322
Mentzer, Raymond A., 323 Parry, J. H., 315
Merton, Robert K., 2, 98, 205, 267, Parsons, Talcott, 1, 18, 215, 371n.4
269, 270, 374n.5, 375n.l2 Pattison, Mark, 289
Meyer, John W., 101, 102, 173,211,286 Pegues, F. J., 319
Middleton, W. E. Knowles, 279, 290, Pepys, Samuel, 287
291, 293 Perrault, Charles, 286
Milgram, Stanley, 368n.62 Perrault, Claude, 286
Miller, A. G., 368n.62 Perroy, Edouard, 319
Miller, H., 316 Peters, Victor, 371n.l
Miner, Horace, 103 Petit, Philip, 353n.l8
Misgeld, Dieter, 353n.l9 Petty, William, 287
Miskimin, Harry A., 318 Pfeffer, Leo, 371n.6
Mitzman, Arthur, 352n.4 Pickthorn, Kenneth, 325
Moeller, Bernd, 307 Pipes, Richard, 370n.6
Montchretien, A. de, 284 Piscatori, James P., 370n.6
Moon, Sun Myung, 259 Polanyi, Karl, 90, 91, 223, 228, 252
Moore, Barrington, Jr., 356n.20 Polanyi, Michael, 374n.5
Moore, R. I., 371n.l Poll, Solomon, 371n.l
Moray, Robert, 280 Pomian-Srzednicki, Maciej, 370n.6
More, Thomas, 280, 313 Popenoe, Cris, 174
Morgan, Victor, 290 Popenoe, Oliver, 174
Mosse, G. L., 247 Postan, M. M., 315
Mousnier, Roland, 321 Prebisch, Raul, 374n.6
Mulkay, Michael, 351n.5 Price, Don K., 275
Mulligan, Lotte, 270, 271 Priestley, Joseph, 276
Mullins, Nicholas, 9
Myers, A. R., 315 Rabmow, Paul, 353n.20
Radcliffe-Brown, A. R., 357n.3
Napoleon Bonaparte, 278 Ramsey, Peter, 315
National Opinion Research Center, 128 Ravetz, Jerome, 275
422 Name Index
Reagan, Ronald, 258 Sorauf, Frank J., 371n.6

Redfield, Robert, 187 Spencer, Herbert, 1, 219
Ribeiro de Oliveira, Pedro A., 206 Spitz, Lewis W., 312
Richardson, James T., 153 Stark, Rodney, 152, 193, 370n.3
Richelieu, Cardinal, 246 Starr, Paul, 5
Richer, Denis, 311 Steiner, George, 352n.9
Rickles, Patricia K., 371n.l Steno, Nicholaus, 280
Ricoeur, Paul, 26, 43, 353n.l5 Stimson, Dorothy, 292
Roannes, Due de, 280 Stocker, Christopher, 319, 320
Robbins, Thomas, 160, 182, 372n.3 Stokes, Anson Phelps, 371n.6
Robertson, Roland, 300, 303, 306, Stokes, Kenneth E., 190
371n.6, 377n.2 Stone, Lawrence, 280, 290
Roemer, Ole, 277 Strayer, Joseph, 318
Roniger, Louis, 154 Stroup, Herbert, 371n.6
Roof, Wade Clark, 192 Sully, Duke of, 283, 284
Roper Organization, 128 Swan, Charles, 172
Rosenberg, David, 311 Swanson, Guy E., 1, 191, 202, 299-
Rothenberg, Stuart, 192 302, 305-307, 310-314, 318,
Rowan, Brian, 101, 102, 173, 211, 286 352n.7, 377n.3
Rowland, Benjamin M., 253 Sweet, Leonard I., 180
Rubinson, Richard, 221
Rudolf II (Holy Roman Emperor), 279,
280 Tai, Hue-Tarn Ho, 160
Taton, Rene, 291
Safire, William, 129 Taylor, Mark C., 196
Salmon, J. H. M., 317, 319, 323 Tazbir, Janusz, 321
Sandwich, Earl of, 287 Teall, Elizabeth S., 318
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 21 Terkel, Studs, 354n.4
Saussure, Ferdinand de, 39 Therborn, Goran, 57
Savoy, Duke of, 279 Thevenot, Melchisadec, 280, 292
Schluchter, Wolfgang, 205 Thoits, Peggy, 190
Schmoller, Gustav, 284 Thomas, George M., 201, 304, 372n.3
Schneider, William, 128, 361n.27 Thomas, Keith, 371n.l
Schoffeleers, Matthew, 365n.43 Thompson, James Westfall, 318
Schurmann, Franz, 208, 373n.ll Thompson, John B., 351n.3
Schutz, Alfred, 42, 43 Thorner, Isidor, 373n.3, 374n.4
Schwartz, Gary, 152 Tillich, Paul, 21
Scott, James C., 154, 155, 187, 193, 211 Tilly, Charles, 231
Searle, John R., 51, 196, 353n.l8 Tipton, Steven M., 44, 154, 202, 354n.5
Seliger, Martin, 57 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 1
Sennett, Richard, 67, 201, 354nn.4, 7, Toennies, Ferdinand, 1
356n.l8, 357n.22 Towler, Robert, 371n.2
Shapiro, Sheldon, 165 Toynbee, Arnold, 219
Shennan, J. H., 318, 319 Trachtenberg, Joshua, 371n.l
Shils, Edward A., 123, 275, 295, 374n.6 Trevor-Roper, Hugh, 100, 116, 136,
Shrum, Wesley, 374n.5, 375n.ll 324
Simpson, John H., 300, 306, 310 Troeltsch, Ernst, 1, 2, 173, 201-202,
Skocpol, Theda, 61—62 241, 299
Skorupski, John, 358n.9 Tschirnhausen, Nicholas, 281
Slavin, Arthur Joseph, 315, 321 Tunstall, Cuthbert, 280
Smelser, Neil, 1 Turner, Bryan S., 198, 201
Smith, Adam, 81-82 Turner, Victor, 121, 189, 357n.2
Smith, Brian H., 370n.6 Twiss, Sumner B., 356n.20
Smith, Donald Eugene, 370n.5
Smith, Lacey Baldwin, 321
Smith, Wilfred Cantwell, 46 Underbill, Ralph, 306, 310
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr I., 67, 78-79 Urbino, Duke of, 279
Name Index 423
VanBaaren, T. P., 188 Willoughby, Lord, 280

Van Gennep, Arnold, 122, 357n.2 Wilson, Bryan, 165, 204, 235, 358n.7,
Vance, James E., Jr., 311 371n.l
Vesalius, Andreas, 277 Wilson, Charles, 222, 284
Vincent de Paul, 244 Wilson, John, 303
Viviani, Rene, 277 Wilson, John F., 371n.7
Voll, John Obert, 370n.6 Wimberley, Dale W., 371n.4
von Gizycki, Rainald, 295 Winter, J. Alan, 300, 377n.4
Vrijhof, Pieter Hendrik, 187 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 40-41
Wolf, Eric, 234
Waardenburg, Jacques, 187 Wolf, |ohn B., 286, 293
Wacker, Grant, 180 Wolfe, Martin, 318, 319
Wallace, Anthony F. C., 233 Wolffe, B. P., 315
Wallerstein, Immanuel, 218, 222, 223, Wood, James B., 317, 319, 323
272, 274, 291, 374n.6 Worrall, Stanley, 371n.6
Wallis, John, 287 Worsley, Peter, 233
Wallis, Roy, 160 Wren, Christopher, 287
Walzer, Michael, 2 Wuthnow, Robert, 68, 165, 175, 184,
Warner, W. Lloyd, 100, 135 197, 200, 202, 208, 352nn.8, 9, and
Wattenberg, Ben J., 128 13, 353n.20, 371n.2, 372nn.l, 3,
Weber, Max, 1, 2, 3, 4, 18, 19, 20, 21, 374n.5, 375n.ll
22, 24-25, 28-29, 30, 31, 35, 36,
44, 52, 57-58, 172, 194, 203, 206, Yankelovich, Daniel, 202
209, 217, 267, 274, 299, 303, 304, Yankelovich, Skelly and White, Inc., 128
352nn.4, 5 York, Duke and Duchess of, 280
Westie, Frank R., 46 Youings, Joyce, 324
Westley, Frances, 202, 354n.5 Young, Michael, 123
White, O. K., Jr., 183
Wilensky, Harold, 202 Zablocki, Benjamin, 171
Williams, Dorothy L., 371n.6 Zagorin, Perez, 315
Williams, George H., 235 Zald, Mayer N., 153
Williams, Penry, 315, 317 Zarantonello, M., 368n.62
Williams, Peter W., 187, 189 Zilsel, Edgar, 268
Williamson, John, 287 Zimbardo, P. G., 368n.62
Williamson, Margaret Holmes, 371n.2 Zuckerman, Harriet, 297
Subject Index
Abolition movement, as moral crusade,

84
Abortion, symbolic aspects of, 93
Academies, scientific. See Science
Acquisitive spirit, and rise of capitalism,
28
Actors, and selves in moral codes, 72—73
Adventists, 247
Alienation: in Berger's work, 36; in
Marxism, 23—24; from work, 80
Ambiguity. See Uncertainty
Ambivalence, and modernity, 24
Anabaptists: early development of, 168;
and economic conditions, 168, 235;
and serfdom, 237
Annie Hall, 73
Anthropology: and language develop-
ment, 37; priorities in, 3; and study
of ritual, 97-98, 105
Antinomian controversy, 115
Anxiety, and ideological movements,
152-153
Aristocracy: and conflict with bourgeoi-
sie, 245; decline of power of, 269;
and Marxist theory of science, 272;
and Protestant Reformation, 322-324
Artisan classes, and science, 269
Arts, patronage of, 286
Asceticism. See Protestant ethic
Assembly lines, and individualism, 87
Atheism, 240
Attitudes: changes in, 68; consistency
among, 45—46; as defining elements
426 Subject Index
Business (continued) 315-316, 319-320; and late medi-

tion of, from household, 28. See also eval religion, 320—321; lower, 243;
Capitalism; Market system and moral codes, 70; and scientific de-
velopment, 269—272; and sectarian-
Calling: concept of, in Puritanism, 25; in ism, 246-247; and state structures,
social theory, 26 330
Calvinism: internationalism of, 241; mili- Clergy: attitudes of, toward "Holocaust"
tancy of, 227, 240-242; radical, 240. television program, 125—145; and
See also Protestant Reformation folk piety, 187
Cambridge Platonists, 247 Cognition, in anthropology, 3
Capitalism: alienation in, 23—24; devel- Coherence, in meaning systems, 46—47
opment of, 222-223; disenchantment Collective representations, Durkheimian
from, 24-25; and freedom, 85-89; view of, 36
mercantilist, and scientific develop- Collectivism: in millenarian movements,
ment, 283—285; and moral codes, 163—165; and social environments,
79—95; and scientific growth, 267— 167-169
272. See also Market system Colonialism: American, 259—260; and
Careerism, and personal fulfillment, 92 American Revolution, 256;
Cargo cults. See Millenarianism bilateralism in, 245; end of, 252—
Cartesian dualism. See Dualism 253; reduction in, 226; and revitaliza-
Catharsis, and psychological strain in rit- tion movements, 235—236; and Viet-
ual, 131 nam, 160; waves of, 222-223
Cat massacre, as ritual, 60—61 Color, research on, 37
Causality, 17. See also Interpretation Commitment: analysis of, 338—339; to
Ceremony, and community life, 170. See moral objects, 71—72
also Ritual Communication: and driving, 111 — 112;
Character, concept of, in nineteenth- and embellishment, 107-109; face-to-
century literature, 83 face, 102-103, 122; about Holocaust,
Charismatic leaders, 171. See also 139; and institutionalization, 265; in-
Heroes ternational, and scientific develop-
Children, and language development, ment, 290—292; in market system,
37-38 79—95; about meaning, 63; and new
Choice, and external constraint, 25. See ideas, 225; and ritual, 99-100; about
also Voluntary action self, 72-73; and speech acts, 54-55;
Christianity: in China, 259; and Holo- theoretical interest in, 51-52
caust, 133—134; and Judaism, 161; Communism: Chinese, 208; containment
and Marxism, 261; and rationality, of, 260—261; opposition to, 252; and
208. See also Fundamentalism Vietnam, 160. See also Marxism;
Church attendance, and moral obliga- Socialism
tions, 70-72, 98 Compartmentalization, in everyday real-
Churches: defection from, 261—262; deity, 38
fined, 173—174; new, 262; and sects, Competition, and alienation, 24. See also
173-174; and state, 177-184. See Capitalism; Market system
also Sects Comprehensibility, of speech acts, 55
Civic culture, 6. See also Culture Computers, and pride in technology, 93
Civil religion: defined, 178; and plural- Concepts, and early language develop-
ism, 133; and religious organizations, ment, 37
179; social role of, 178-179. See also Conflict: between China and Soviet
Religion Union, 259; between communism and
Class consciousness, 1 free world, 253; among core countries
Classes: artisan, and Protestant Reforma- in world-system, 226—227; between
tion, 311-312; commercial, 245; core and periphery in world-system,
elite, and Protestant Reformation, 241; economic, 248; and economic in-
307-308; elite, and scientific acade- terests, 222—223; among European
mies, 280-281; and ideology, 31-32; powers, 251; between local elites and
landed, and religious uprisings, 322— lower '" rata, 234—235; in nineteenth-
323; landed, and state autonomy, century England, 245; political, and
Subject Index 427
scientific competition, 277—279, 296— Decoupling, of ideological elements, 195

298; with Soviet Union, 258. See also Democracy, 133-134
Polarization Demography, 5
Consciousness, in everyday reality, 38 Demystification, 26—27
Conservative Caucus, 84 Denominationalism, as ideological block-
Consistency, in woridviews, 45—46 ing, 208
Consumer behavior: and economic as- Deprivation. See Relative deprivation
sumptions, 90—91; and moral codes, theory
83-84 Determinism. See Freedom
Consumer protection movement, 84 Deviance, and symbolic boundaries, 341.
Containment system, in U.S. foreign pol- See also Witch-hunts
icy, 260-261 Devil, role of, in moral codes, 74
Contextual theory of meaning, 37 Differentiation: and institutional auton-
Control, definitions of, in moral codes, omy, 265; theory of, and cultural sys-
74-75 tems, 208-210
Conversion, study of, 62—63 Diplomacy, 285, 291
Core and periphery. See World-system Discontinuities, in world order, 219—220
theory Discourse. See Communication
Coronation, as example of ritual, 123 Discretion, and individualism, 87. See
Corporateness, and witch-hunts, 119 also Voluntary action
Correspondence theory: criticisms of, Discursiveness, in language, 38
306-310, 326-328; examples of, Disenchantment, Weber's view of, 24—25
303—306; and ideological selection, Division of labor, in Durkheirnian
212; and reductionism, 216 theory, 26
Counterreform movements: and moral Dramaturgy: and cultural analysis, 13—
order, 243; and polarization, 242 15, 332, 343-346; and ideology,
Cults: as ideological innovation, 151; 147; and institutionalization, 264;
and international relations, 262—263; and problem of meaning, 344; and rit-
and science, 162. See also Religious ual, 105-109
movements Dualism: in classical theory, 23—27; in
Cultural analysis: in classical tradition, neoclassical theory, 36, 41; in
20, 23—36, 57—60; dramaturgic ap- poststructural theory, 51
proach to, 140-145, 332, 343-346;
institutional approach to, 332—333,
346—348; in neoclassical tradition, Economistic fallacy, 90
20-22, 37-50; in poststructural tradi- Economy: contraction of, 227—228,
tion, 20-22, 50-57, 146-147; struc- 243; cycles in, 221-222; effects of
tural approach to, 332, 339-343; World War I on, 251-252; and free
structural approach to, and moral trade, 228, 242, 244; inflation in,
codes, 66—96; subjective approach to, 253; integration of local markets in,
331-332, 333-339; views of, in soci- 234; laws of, 89-91; nineteenth-cen-
ology, 19-20 tury form of, 250—251; personifica-
Culture: as behavior, 56-57; bourgeois, tion of, 90. See also Market system
239; change in, 215-217, 341-342; Education: expansion in, 249; and Holo-
definitions of, 12, 13, 15; differentia- caust, 132—138; standardization of,
tion of, 208-210; diversity in, 132- and individualism, 198. See also Uni-
135, 225—226; and ideological move- versities
ments, 159—160; and ideology con- Elements, in structural approach to cul-
trasted, 147—148; objectification of, ture, 12
342-343; pluralism in, 135 Embellishment, in ritual, 107-109
Cynicism, and ambiguity in moral codes, Empirical positivism. See Positivism
'76 England, Protestant Reformation in,
311-314, 320-322, 324-325
Death: explanations of, 34; and folk pi- Enlightenment: class theory of, 45; as
ety, 189; rites, 112 ideological revolution, 237—240; ori-
Decentralization, of authority, and scien- gins of, 230; radical, 240; reaction to,
tific innovation, 273—275 242; and social expansion, 224—225
428 Subject Index
Environments. See Population ecology Formations, Foucault's concept of, 196

model; Social resources France: culture of, in ancien regime, 61;
Epistemology: in classical theory, 27— Huguenots in, 240; Jacobins in, 227,
30; and hermeneutic assumptions, 17; 240; Protestant Reformation in, 311—
in neoclassical theory, 41; and positiv- 314,322-324
ist assumptions, 16—17. See also Freedom: and capitalism, 85—89; and de-
Reductionism terminism, 74—75; difficulty in mea-
Estrangement, 30, 52—53 suring, 88; in India, 86; and individu-
Ethics: interest in, since Watergate epi- alism, 199—200; and market system,
sode, 68; in marketplace, 81; and reli- 83; in nineteenth-century America,
gious movements, 183; and science, 86—87; and scientific inquiry, 275—
78 279; and technology, 93; view of, in
Ethnicity, 243 American colonies, 86; and voluntary
Etiquette, as ritual, 100-101 action, 76—77
Eucharist, embellishment in, 107 Free trade, 222, 228, 242, 244, 251-
Everyday reality, 38 252, 254
Evil, explanations of, 29, 34, 74 Frontier spirit, and individualism, 86
Evolution: cultural, 208—211; theories Fundamentalism: and education, 193;
of, 215-216 growth of, 192; and modernization,
Expansion: commercial, in early modern 191-192; and moral codes, 70; and
England and France, 314-315, 317- public withdrawal, 263; and secular-
318; and Enlightenment, 238-239; ization, 67; and social settings, 193—
periods of, in modern world-system, 194; values of, 192
231; and Protestant Reformation, Funerals, social functions of, 113
238; and socialism, 238-239; and
world order, 222—226 Gallicanism, 227
Explanations, of forces governing life, 35 Gestures, symbolic, 12
Exploration, role of, in cultural analysis, Globalistic theory: and discontinuity,
10 219-220; and history, 218-219; sys-
tems in, 220—221; and view of social
Face-to-face interaction: role of, in rit- transitions, 221—223
ual, 102—103; uncertainties in, 122 God: doing will of, 71; measurement of
Faith, contrasted with belief, 46 images of, 34; responsibility to, in
False consciousness, 31 Western society, 67; and worship of
Family: communal orientations of, 176; society, 36
as institution, 4; and privatism, 92; so- Government: confidence in, 128; corrup-
cialization patterns of, and susceptibil- tion, 13; expenditures, 180-181; lim-
ity to hallucinatory experience, 191; iting power of, 133; resistance to,
theories of, 39 139. See also State structures
Fantasy, and everyday reality, 38—39 Gratification, and market behavior, 88-89
Fascism, 242 Greek city-states, concept of freedom in,
Federated structures, as examples of 86
blocking, 208 Grid and group, Douglas's concept of,
Feminism, and religious organizations, 54, 87, 200
175 Groups, and freedom, 86
Fiscal planning, and moral responsibility, Guilt: in marketplace, 89-91; and moral
94 codes, 74-76
Folk piety: and crises, 189-190; Euro-
pean, 247; and marginality, 189; and Hallucinations, 191
science, 188; and syncretism, 188; Headaches, and inevitability, 74
types of, 187-188 Hedonism, 67
Food, study of cultural aspects of, 54, Hegemony: absence of, 226—227; Brit-
188-189 ish, 252; Hapsburg, 224-226; and
Formality, of ritual, 108-109 Protestant Reformation, 238; of
Formalization, and folk piety, 188 United States, 248
Formal structure, ceremonial aspects of, Heresy. See Witch-hunts
in organizations, 101 Hermeneutics: in neoclassical theory,
Subject Index 429
42—44; problems of, 47—48; in sociol- 330; and uncertainty, 156-159. See
ogy, 17; of suspicion, 26 also Folk piety; Fundamentalism; Indi-
Heroes: in science, 78; as symbolic ac- vidualism; Millenarianism; Rationality
tors, 74-75 Immanence, of sacredness in social struc-
Heterogeneity: and ideology, 149-151; ture, 302
and liberalism, 176; and moderniza- Immigration, 262
tion, 225—226; and rationality, 204— Inaugurations, ceremonial aspects of,
207 103
History, and analytic models, 218-219 India, concept of freedom in, 86
Hockey, types of uncertainty illustrated Individualism: and classical theory, 194;
by, 156-157 correspondence theory of, 303—304;
Holocaust: causes of, 133—135; clergy's development of, 196; and freedom,
attitudes toward, 125-145; knowl- 199; and freedom in nineteenth-cen-
edge of, 127; prevention of, 133- tury United States, 86; ideological
135; resistance to, 138-140; stu- functions of, 195—196; and interests,
dents' attitudes toward, 131-132, 199; and markets, 87, 200-201; and
136—137; teachers' attitudes toward, modernization, 198; narcissistic, 67—
125-145 68, 78; and poststructuralism, 53; in
"Holocaust" (television program): and Puritanism, 194—195; and rationality,
collective values, 132—138; and com- 207-208; in religion, 196-197; and
mercials, 126; emotion elicited by, revivalism, 236; and rights and re-
126; and feelings of vulnerability, sponsibilities, 198; and ritual, 97,
138-140; media views of, 129-130; 104; and social conditions, 201-203;
and moral uncertainty, 128—132; pub- as theoretical preoccupation, 49
licity of, 124; recall of details about, Individuality: contrasted with individual-
126; as ritual, 124—125; size of view- ism, 201; and new age spiritual disci-
ing audience for, 125 plines, 202; social sources of, 202—
Homelessness, 24-25. See also Alien- 203
ation; Dualism Individuation: and bureaucracy, 198; of
Homogeneity: and collectivism, 167— discourse in eighteenth and nineteenth
169; and conservatism, 176; and fun- centuries, 196; and individualism con-
damentalism, 193-194. See also Het- trasted, 198; and market system, 197;
erogeneity role of religion in, 196—197
Huguenots, 240 Inevitability, in moral codes, 73—75
Humanism, 8, 26, 32—33 Insanity, 55
Human potential movement, 70—71 Institutionalization: and cultural analy-
sis, 15-17, 332-333, 346-348; de-
Ideas. See Culture; Ideology nned, 265
Ideology: and accommodation move Instrumental activity, contrasted with rit-
ments, 243—246; competing, 159- ual and expressivity, 108—109
162; and counterideology, 149; and Intellectual traditions. See Theory
culture, 147-148; defined, 145; and Intentionality: ambiguity in, 77; in mar-
disturbances in moral order, 154—156; ketplace, 89—91; in moral codes, 73—
dramaturgic approach to, 344-345; 75; and ritual, 104-107
end of, 248; institutionalization of, Interest groups: changes in, during nine-
169-185; in Marxist theory, 57-58; teenth century, 256; and ideological
and moral order, 145—185; move- accommodation, 244; and reintegra-
ments as carriers of, 230—247; and or- tion, 229; shifting alliances among,
ganizations, 172—177; and polariza- 254—255; and state autonomy, 330
tion, 226—228; racial, 63—64; and re- Interpretation: and epistemology, 335;
integration, 228—230; revolutionary, of meaning, 56; in neoclassical
61-62, 237-240; and ritual, 145- theory, 42-43; problems of, 47-48;
146, 169-172; sectarian, 246-247; of racism, 64; of ritual, 140-145; in
and selective processes, 161-169. sociology of culture, 17
186—214; and social expansion, 224— Intimacy: and interpersonal rituals, 121—
226; social production of, 151—161; 122; and self-identity, 67
and social structure, 301-306, 328- Introspection. See Individuality; Self
430 Subject Index
Invisible hand, Adam Smith's concept of, Mary cult, 161

81-82 Maturation, and rites of passage, 113
Inwardness. See Individuality; Self McGuffey readers, cultural role of, 83
Iron cage, Weber's concept of, 25 Meaning: in classical theory, 34—36; and
coherence, 46-47; and commitment,
Jacobins, militant ideology of, 227, 240 338; of coronation ritual, 123; of
Jesus, and struggle with evil, 74, 122 French Revolution, 60—62; interpreta-
Jews. See Holocaust tion of, 56; intersubjective, 43; and
Jury trials, as ritual, 100 narrative, 136—138; in neoclassical
theory, 36—44; in poststructuralism,
Karma, law of, as theodicy, 29 52-56; problem of, in Weber, 25;
problems of abandoning, 60—65; and
Labor: alienation from, 24; shifting ritual, 140-145; shared, 65; and
views of, 254—255. See also Capital- structuralism, 50—51; and subjective
ism; Work approach to culture, 335—338; sys-
Language: comprehensibility of, 140; tems of, 44—45; and uncertainty, 121
early childhood development of, 37- Medicine, 5
38; elaborated and restricted codes Meditation: and moral obligations, 71—
of, 190, 205; and musical codes, 341; 72; as private ritual, 104
and ritual, 105—106; and speech, Memorial Day services, as ritual, 100,
147; underlying rules of, 52 135
Leave-taking ceremonies, 107 Mental illness, 133-134
Legitimation: and class interests, 31—32; Mercantilism, 222, 230, 239, 242, 244,
crisis of, 68; and ideology, 177, 186; 284-285
and institutionalization, 265; Merchants, as carriers of ideological
isomorphic, 304—305; and libertar- revolutions, 224, 238
ianism, 176; machineries of, 38-39; of Messianic movements, 233
market system, 79-95; of minority reli- Methodism: origins of, 235—236; in
gions, 245; of new religions, 263; and North America, 247
political ideology, 329-330; and rit- Methodology. See Cultural analysis; Sur-
ual, 132-133; and science, 92-94, vey research
288-290; and social norms, 140; of Middle East: fundamentalism in, 192; ra-
speech acts, 55; study of, 347; and testi- tionality in, 206; religious movements
monials, 171; of tradition, 228 in, 180
Leninism, militant ideology of, 240 Migration, and scientific development,
Liberalism: and cultural accommodation, 276-277
243-246; and Vietnam war, 261 Militancy: as ideological style, 240-242;
Life cycle. See Rites of passage and polarization, 227
Liminality, 189 Millenarianism: and collectivism, 164,
Liturgy. See Ritual 167—169; and moral economy, 224;
Lynchings. See Witch-hunts optimism in, 163—167; and social en-
vironment, 163-169; in Vietnam, 160
Madness, 51 Modernization: and cultural evolution,
Magic: and disenchantment, 24—25; and 208—210; and cultural heterogeneity,
primitive ritual, 100; and rationality, 225-226; and folk piety, 188-191;
204 and fundamentalism, 191—192; and
Marginality, 189. See also Relative depri- individualism, 194-203; and rational-
vation theory ity, 203-211; theories of, 215-217;
Market system: cultural crisis in, 91—95; in Third World, 253
and freedom, 83, 85-89; and indi- Moods, 11. See also Subjectivity
vidualism, 87, 197-198, 200-201; Moral codes: in capitalism, 69—96; prob-
moral commitment to, 79—95; and lems of, 66—69; structural approach
peace, 82; and success, 83 to, 69-79; and technology, 92-95
Marxism: in cultural analysis, 20-22, Moral community, 1, 26
23-24, 27-28, 31-32, 57-58; and Moral crusades: and market system, 83-
poststructuralism, 51—52; religion in, 84; and technology, 93
27-28; and science, 267-272 Moral development, 69
Subject Index 431
Morality, and religious conservatism, Passions, and self-interest in eighteenth-

208. See also Moral codes century thought, 82
Morality play, 14, See also "Holocaust" Patronage, and scientific development,
Moral Majority, 84, 93 279-288
Moral objects, 71-72 Patron-client relations: disturbances in,
Moral order: and attitudes toward Holo- 155-156; and ideology, 154; and
caust, 128—132; disturbances in, Protestant Reformation, 308; and reli-
154-156; divisions in, 244-245; gion, 320-321
Durkheim on, 26, 31; erosion of, Peasants: and folk piety, 247; moral obli-
128; and ideology, 145-151; and in- gations among, 155-156; and ratio-
stitutionalization, 169—185; and pro- nality, 206; and religious movements,
duction of ideology, 151—161; recon- 155—156; and revitalization move-
struction of, 224; and religious un- ments, 235-236; and revolution, 62;
rest, 258-264; and revitalization and Third World millenarianism, 16
movements, 233—237; and ritual, 58, Personality, and culture, 2. See also Self
109-123; and selection among ideolo- Personalization, in language about reli-
gies, 161-169; study of, 342; and un- gious belief, 197
certainty, 156-159; at world level, Phenomenology: and explanations of ide-
232-233 ology, 305; and meaning, 65; in neo-
Motivation, 11,28. See also Commitment; classical theory, 42-44; problems of,
Subjectivity 47-48
Motives, expression of, and ritual, 104— Philanthropy, as moral ritual, 84
105 Philosophy, 7, 27, 47. See also Epistemol-
Multiple realities, 209 ogy; Theory
Mysticism, 164-165, 202 Pietism, political orientations of, 181-182
Myth, structuralist study of, 50 Placards affair, 326-328
Plausibility, maintenance of, 49
Narcissism: defined, 67; and individual- Pluralism, ritual affirmation of, 134—
136. See also Culture
ism, 201; in moral codes, 78 Polarization: and counterreform move-
Narrative, and cultural pluralism, 1,!5—
ments, 242—243; and militancy, 240;
136
periods of, 231; and world order,
Nationalism, 227 222, 226-228
Nativistic movements, 164, 233 Political attitudes, 130, 133
Nazis. See Holocaust Political party systems, 119. See also
Niches. See Heterogeneity; Homogene- State structures
ity; Population ecology model; Social
resources Political patterns. See State structures
Political science, 3
Nobel prizes, ceremonial significance of,
297
Political witch-hunts. See Witch-hunts
Pollution, Douglas's concept of, 54, 126
Nobility. See Aristocracy
Normal science, Kuhn's view of, 33 Population ecology model: and ideology,
Nuclear annihilation, dangers of, 93 148-151, 184-185; and organiza-
tions, 211-212; problems of, 212-
213
Objectification, of culture, 12 Populism, 117
Optimism: and millenarianism, 166- Positivism: in classical theory, 33; in neo-
167; and new social movements, 166; classical theory, 42, 44; and
varieties of, 165 poststructuralism, 52; in study of cul-
Organizations: ceremonial aspects of, ture, 16-17
101—102; and free rider problem, Poststructuralism, and structuralism, 50—
171-172; and ideology, 172-177; 51
and institutionalization, 265; political, Power: decline in, 262; in early modern
181-182; and rituals, 170-171; and Europe, 238; and ideological accom-
social selection, 211—212; and socio- modation, 244; and ritual, 138-140
logical study of, 3. See also Churches; Pragmatism, in everyday reality, 38, 52
Sects Prayer: and moral responsibility, 75; as
Oxford movement, 246 private ritual, 104
432 Subject Index
Predestination, 29 Real programs, in moral codes, 71—72

Predictability, and rationality in complex Reductionism: avoided, 47, 59—60; in
social settings, 207—208 classical theory, 31—32, 59; and corre-
Prejudice. See Racism spondence theory, 216; criticized, 42;
Priesthood of the believer, Protestant doc- and relative deprivation theory, 153
trine of, 196-197 Redundancy, in communication, 108
Privatism: as cultural crisis, 68; in mar- Reformation. See Protestant Reformation
ketplace, 92; and moral codes, 79; Reintegration: and ideological accommo-
and ritual, 103-104 dation, 243—246; periods of, 231; in
Production. See Ideology: social produc- world order, 222, 228-230
tion of Relative deprivation theory: criticisms
Professionalization: and commitment to of, 153—154; and ideological move-
work, 92; and legitimation, 177; and ments, 152—153; and social distur-
moral codes, 77; and religious organi- bances, 154-155
zations, 172 Relativism, and individuality, 202
Program statements, 9-10 Religion: and commitment, 75; and cul-
Projection, and religious belief, 31 tural codes, 58—59; decline of, 67; and
Proletariat, in ancien regime Paris, 60- denominationalism, 208; diversity in,
61. See also Classes 264; evolution of, 209-210; and Holo-
Protestant ethic, 25, 28-29 caust, 132—135; and immigration,
Protestant Reformation: and 262; and individualism, 196—197; and
counterreform, 242-243; in England, life crises, 190; and meaning, 40; and
311-314, 320-322, 324-325; in moral codes, 71—72; organizational
France, 311-314, 322-324; as ideo- types in, 173-177; in poststructural
logical innovation, 151; as ideological theory, 53; primitive, 29—30, 301; pro-
revolution, 237-240; and individual- fessionalization in, 172; and regimes,
ism, 200; and millenarianism, 165; 299-330; and relative deprivation
radical wing of, 168; and rationality, theory, 153-154; and ritual, 97-98,
207; and social expansion, 224-225; 110; schisms in, 246—247; and science,
social sources of, 182; and state struc- 267-272; and state structures, 177-
tures, 299-330 184, 299-330; and television, 172. See
Protestants: and Catholics, 116—117, also Christianity; Churches; Fundamen-
135; and social stratification, 34 talism; Religious movements; Sects; So-
Puberty rites. See Rites of passage ciology of religion
Public opinion, 11. See also Attitudes Religious movements: approaches in
Public roles, 67-68 studying, 62—63; charismatic leaders
Purgatory, 206, 304 in, 171; cross-fertilization among,
Puritanism: and individualism, 194-195, 249; and individualism, 202; and in-
198-199; political orientations of, ternational relations, 262—263; in
181-182; and rationality, 205; rise nineteenth century, 159, 257; and po-
of, 257; and science, 267-272. See litical opposition, 180; and purifica-
also Protestant ethic tion, 77; recent episodes of, 258-264;
in sixteenth century, 159; testimonials
Racism: cultural aspects of, 63-64; as in, 171; typologies of, 160—161;
problem in United States, 128-129 among youth in 1960s, 159-162
Rationality: and communication, 205; Revitalization: defined, 233; and mille-
and cultural differentiation, 209—211; narianism, 163; and social disruption,
development of, 205—206; and funda- 233-234; and world order, 224-225
mentalism, 193; in ideological move- Revolution: American, 256; French, 108,
ments, 161-162; as ideology, 203; 240; ideological, 224-225, 237-240;
and instability, 207—209; and law, industrial, 256; and meaning, 60-62;
66-68, 210; and millenarianism, 164; and ritual, 107-108; Russian, 108
and moral codes, 76; and resource Revolutionary science, Kuhn's view of,
maximization, 184; and ritual, 105; 33
and social learning, 204; and social re- Risk, defined, 156
sources, 204-205; Weber on, 25 Rites of passage: examples of, 112; func-
Reality construction, 38 tions of, 113; and social ambiguity,
Subject Index 433
113; and uncertainty, 122. See also internalist approaches to, 266; and in-
Ritual ternational communication, 290—293;
Ritual: as analytic distinction, 100-102; and interpretation, 48; and
Balinese, 123—124; and class rela- legitimation of new religions, 162;
tions, 320-321; and conformity, 97- Marxist theory of, 267-272;
98, 110; and cultural pluralism, 135- Mertonian theory of, 267—272; and
136; defined, 109; Durkheim on, 29- national competition, 292-293, 296-
30; and emotion, 97—98, 131; empiri- 298; and national pride, 92—93; pa-
cal study of, 123-124, 141-143; as tronage of, in seventeenth-century Eu-
enactment of ideology, 306; in en- rope, 278-288; and Puritanism, 267-
counter groups, 122; ethnographic ap- 272; and rationality, 207; and ritual,
proach to study of, 123-124; exam- 110; and technology, 94; trends in
ples of, 98-99; expressivity in, 99- personnel involved in, 295; variations
100; "Holocaust" television program in rates of growth of, 294—296; and
as example of, 123—144; and ideol- wholistic meaning, 40—41; and
ogy, 58, 145-146, 169-172; and world-system theory, 272-275
mass media, 103; and meaning, 140— Scripturalism, 206
145; and narrative, 135—136; in Sects: and church-state relations, 183-
poststructural theory, 54; and power, 184; collectivist, 168; and declining
138-140; in primitive society, 97-98, power, 262; defined, 173—174; funda-
100, 102; purification, 77; and reli- mentalist, 194; as ideological move-
gion, 100; and role of science, 286— ments, 246—247; and individualism,
287; and sacredness, 58, 239-240; 202; in sixteenth century, 159; and so-
and social position, 106—107; social cial instability, 229; Utopian, 164
role of, 169-172; and social solidar- Secularization: of church lands, 321; of
ity, 118; and uncertainty, 120-123; the masses, 244; and moral codes, 76,
vulnerability in, 138—140; and 79; moral problems associated with,
wholistic meaning, 41; witch-hunts as 77—78; in Protestant Reformation,
example of, 114—115. See also Rites 238; sources of, 67; in 1960s, 248
of passage Selection. See Ideology: and selective pro-
Roman Catholicism: and immanence, cesses
302; liberal movement in, 244; and Self: esteem for, and ritual, 121-122; es-
pentecostalism, 197; and Protestant teem for, and work, 81—95; identity
heresy, 116—117; and Protestant crises of, 67; as moral actor, 72-73;
sects, 159; reforms in, 249; and sci- and subject-object dualism, 23-27
ence, 270; and worship of Virgin Semiology, 50
Mary, 161 Sermons. See Clergy
Roman Empire, 161 Sexual standards, 68
Rosicrucians, 247 Sincerity, of speech acts, 54—55, 140
Rules, and cultural coherence, 12 Skepticism, 26—27
Social activism, and liberal denomina-
Sacred: and assumptions underlying tions, 192
world order, 239—240; celebration of, Social classes. See Classes
in Mass, 326; experience of, 190; and Social control, and representative
iconoclasm, 327; and political witch- groups, 26. See also Alienation; Indi-
hunts, 119; and ritual, 58, 110; set vidualism; Voluntary action
off from everyday life, 102; symbolic Social environment. See Social resources
construction of, 39—40; and television Socialism: Christian, 247; competing va-
commercials, 126 rieties of, 159; and ideological innova-
Science: autonomous development of, tion, 151; as ideological revolution,
275-279; in classical theory, 32-33; 237—240; and social expansion, 224—
discoveries in, by country, 296; early 225
legitimation of, 288-290; effects of, Social movements: focus on meaning in,
on moral codes, 78; expansion of, 62-63; and free rider problem, 171-
249; externalist approaches to, 266; 172; population ecology model of,
and folk piety, 188; and freedom, 93; 145-152; relative deprivation theory
and government intervention, 278; of, 152—153; resource mobilization
434 Subject Index
Social movements (continued) ity, 206-207; and religion, 177-184;

theory of, 153—154; and world order, and revolution, 61—62; and ritual,
230-247. See also Ideology; Mili- 103; and secularization, 67; and so-
tancy; Religion; Revitalization; Sects cial welfare system, 182
Social psychology, 3, 73 Stratification, social, 5. See also Classes
Social resources: and churches, 173— Stress, and supernatural experience, 190
177; and collectivism, 167—169; and Structuralism, 12, 50—51
cultural forms, 346—347; disturbances Structures, 12. See also Cultural analysis
in, 154-156; and ideology, 149-151; Students: attitudes of, toward Holocaust,
and individualism, 200; and institu- 132; and Utopian sects, 246-247
tionalization, 265; international, and Subjectivity: in classical theory, 34—36,
ideological movements, 264; mobiliza- 59; and cultural analysis, 331-332,
tion theory of, 153—154; and opti- 333—339; and historical research,
mism, 164—167; and psychological 299, 304-305, 308-309, 327-328;
processes, 328; and rationality, 204- and poststructuralism, 54—58; and
207; and religious organizations, relative deprivation theory, 152—154;
183-184; and sects, 173-177; and in sociology of culture, 16—17
state, 177-178, 180-181 Subject-object dualism. See Dualism
Social solidarity, 118, 189-190, 200 Subsistence crises, 155
Social welfare system: growth of, 182, Success, 83
252; and social movements, 229 Suffering, explanations of, 29, 34
Society, and worship of gods, in Suicide, in Durkheimian theory, 26
Durkheimian theory, 36 Super Bowl, as ritual, 98, 125, 131
Socinians, 247 Supernaturalism. See Sacred
Sociology: classical theory in, 20, 23- Superstition, 24
36, 57—60; European, 1; interpretive Supreme Court, 128
method in, 17; neoclassical theory in, Survey research: and affinity with classi-
20-22, 37-50; positivism in, 16-17; cal theory, 34; and cultural analysis,
poststructural theory in, 20—22, 50— 142-143; on cultural change, 68; on
57 racism, 63—64; and utterances, 340
Sociology of culture, 3. See also Cultural Symbolic boundaries, 2, 69
analysis Symbolic interactionism, 18
Sociology of knowledge: in classical Symbolic realism, 42. See also Theory:
theory, 31—34; and correspondence neoclassical
theory, 301-306 Symbolic universes, 39
Sociology of religion: in classical theory, Symbols: boundaries defined by, 69; in
27-30; evaluation of theory in, 4; ma- folk piety, 188-189; of good and
jor contributions in, 2; in neoclassical evil, 73-75; and legitimation, 38-39;
theory, 39; and symbolism, 44 in marketplace, 79-95; natural, 304;
Sociology of science, 9. See also Science in poststructuralism, 51, 53; used in
Specialization. See Division of labor; constructing reality, 37—38
Modernization Syncretism, 187
Special purpose groups, in religion, 175-
177. See also Social movements Taboo, Douglas's concept of, 54
Specialties, scientific, as examples of ideo- Teachers, attitudes of, toward Holo-
logical blocking, 208 caust, 125-145
Speech acts. See Communication Technical mastery, Habermas's concept
Spheres of relevance, and reality con- of, 51
struction, 39, 119 Technology: and culture, 57; and moral
Spiritualism, 235 codes, 78-79, 92-95; and scientific
State structures: and cultural reform, development, 268—272
299—330; in early modern England Television, and religion, 172. See also
and France, 314—320; and economy, "Holocaust"
79; and individualism, 198; instability Temperance movement, as moral cru-
in, 253; and international order, 263— sade, 84
264; and peace, 82; and political Testimonials, 171
witch-hunts, 118—120; and rational- Texts, interpretation of, 48-49
Subject Index 435
Theodicy, 29 Virgin Mary, worship of, 161

Theology: conservative, 134-135; disso- Voluntary action: and freedom, 88; and
nant views in, and Holocaust, 131 — moral codes, 76—77; and privatism,
132; Habermas's view of, 53 92; and self-esteem, 84-85
Theory: classical, 20, 23-36, 57-60; in Voting: and moral responsibility, 123; as
classical economics, 81—82; Euro- ritual, 103-105
pean, 6; globalistic, 217—223; as
legitimation, 38—39; neoclassical, 20— War: and militant ideology, 241; reli-
22, 37-50; poststructural, 20-22, gious, in early modern Europe, 323—
50-57 324; and revitalization movements,
Thick description, method of, 43 233; speculative, 285-286; Vietnam,
Third World: revitalization movements 260. See also Vietnam; World War I;
in, 235-236; U.S. relations with, World War II
259-260 Watergate, and ethical discourse, 68
Totalitarianism, 135. See also Hege- Weddings, ceremonial aspects of, 99,
mony; Holocaust 101, 113-114
Traditionalism, and ritual, 110. See also Welfare. See Social welfare system
Modernization Wholism, in neoclassical theory, 39—42
Transcendence, 40, 302 Witch-hunts: characteristics of, 114; and
Transcendentalists, 247 Cultural Revolution in China, 118; in
Transcendental Meditation, 262 early modern Europe, 116—117; and
Trobriand Islanders, ritual among, 100 lynchings, 117-118; political, 118-
Truth, of speech acts, 55 119; in Salem, Massachusetts, 114-
Turn signals, as rituals, 111 — 112 115; and social boundary crises, 115-
120; and social solidarity, 118
Uncertainty: and ambiguity, 156—157; Work: and freedom, 87; as moral object,
and anxiety, 158; and attitudes to- 71-72; and self-fulfillment, 76, 81-
ward Holocaust, 128-132; and com- 95
munication, 112; and ideology, 157- World, Wittgenstein's definition of, 40-41
158; and religious experience, 191; World order: expansion in, 222-226; in
and risk, 156; and rites of passage, interwar period, 251-254; and moral
113-114; and ritual, 120-123; and obligations, 232; in nineteenth cen-
salvation, 172; and social transitions, tury, 250—251; periodization of
113; study of, 344-345; and unpre- phases in, 230—231; polarization in,
dictability, 156-157 222, 226-228; reintegration of, 222,
Unification Church, 62, 162 228-230; transitions in, 255-257;
Universalistic norms and values, 210 since World War II, 254-255
Universities: ambiguous position of, 255; World-system theory: assumptions of,
and military technology, 261; and 218-219; cycles in, 219-220; and sci-
new religions, 263; and scientists in entific development, 272—275; and so-
seventeenth-century Europe, 277— cial change, 221-222
278, 290 Worldviews: consistency in, 45—46; de-
Utterances, 145—146. See also Communi- fined, 45; in neoclassical theory, 37
cation; Ideology World War I, economic effects of, 250-
251
Values: absolute, 67, 78-79; dramatiza- World War II: and Holocaust, 125-145;
tion of, 114—120; fundamentalist, and recent ideological change, 247—
192-193; and Holocaust, 132-138. 264; and U.S. hegemony, 223; and
See also Freedom Vietnam, 160
Verstehen, method of, 36
Vietnam: ideology in, 160; war, and reli- Youth movements, 262—263
gious movements, 263; war, and U.S.
policy, 260-261 Zen Buddhism, 263
Villains, 74-75

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What are some of the theoretical approaches discussed in the text?

What are some of the theoretical approaches discussed in the text?

What are some examples of rituals discussed in the text?

What are some examples of rituals discussed in the text?

All use subject to

5. Moral Order and Ideology 145

In a previous volume (Cultural Analysis, 1984), several colleagues and I

tempting to work with some of the general theoretical orientations that

formalistic or even reductionistic. These ideas are not expected to be re-

My deepest gratitude, as always, is to my wife and children, who, de-

The founders of sociology all recognized the importance of culture in so-

One such possibility is that the changing place of cultural analysis in

ments and other sorts of observer bias. As a result, it is often tolerated as a

CONCEPTUAL AND THEORETICAL

The problems one encounters in investigating culture nevertheless re-

of the sources of knowledge, and of the humanistic purposes to which

to questions of major cultural change in history. When different methods

able in terms of identifying central problems and providing an orienting

SCOPE OF THE BOOK

traced, as well as its roots in more recent "neoclassical" theories that

able, even behavioral in a sense. The relations or patterns among these

may in some ways serve as a prototype of other symbol systems, such as

as a mode of organizing the moral order were of principal interest, it

Throughout, the epistemological stance taken in this volume is that

Beyond the Problem

agreement, that preoccupy scholars who share these traditions. Often

the assumptions in each of these traditions, specifically about culture,

For Marx, alienation is the philosophical or psychological counter-

Similarly, worker-worker relations are characterized by the same split

world. Certainly his work on suicide can be interpreted as an effort to

no longer an immutable fact of the external nonhuman world but rather

The implications of thest: assumptions for sociological investigations

oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit

phasis on perceptions of predestination as a controlling force), but be-

In other words, the believer who participates in ritual is able to confront

der intelligible the forces he experiences as constraints on his activity

Finally, Durkheim is at pains in these passages to demonstrate that the

agenda that had inspired it. To understand this deviation, it is necessary

further derivations of the classical tradition: its affinity with sociological

The classical tradition has had a powerful impact on sociological

stressed the importance of this problem in various formulations but also

don is closely connected with the subjective concerns of the individual.

The problem with radical sociology of knowledge derivations from

elaoorated upon, all being treated as symbolic elements contributing to

Meaning, in a formulation that went well beyond that of the classical

Meaning, so defined in terms of nested categories that encompass

symbolism that transcends the pragmatism of everyday reality, differs

quiries (i.e., positivism). As Bellah (1970:242) plainly asserts, "Science

resolution of the human dilemma within this tradition is no longer the

Emotion, will, and experience become as important to this approach as

The major methodological approaches that emerged within the neo-

writes: "Believing . . . that man is an animal suspended in webs of sig-

It would be inaccurate, however, to depict work in the neoclassical tra-

which the conceptual problems that: arise from indiscriminate mixing of

liefs, but empirical findings have generally disconfirmed this expecta-

coherence. In the one, consistency inheres in beliefs; in the other, mean-

There are, however, internal ambiguities and limitations within the

Particularly when the observer is given a large interpretive role without

Structuralism and Levi-Strauss are virtually synonymous as far as the