There is a phrase in the Christian Bible that in the beginning there was the âWordâ, and the âWordâ was made flesh. Sociologists think the opposite: in the beginning (were such a thing as a âbeginningâ even imaginable), there was flesh and flesh made words. Humans created language and with language came categories that are seemingly so real that they are taken for granted, such as gender, or race, or religion. Sociologists did not invent categories. Centuries before the word âsociologyâ was spoken, the Greek philosopher Aristotle (Durkheim and Mauss 1963) argued that categories are human constructions which not only classify phenomena, but structure our thinking about them.
The anthropologist Rodney Needham, (1972, viiâxlviii) in his introduction to Durkheim and Maussâs essay, criticizes the authors for not developing or providing more evidence for that idea, but welcomes it (Needham 1972, xxxiv) nevertheless for drawing attention âfor the first time in sociological enquiry, to a topic of fundamental importance in understanding human thought and social lifeâ and, in his words, providing a theoretical contribution that âhas been to isolate classification as an aspect of culture to which sociological enquiry should be directedâ (Needham 1972, xi)
Durkheim and Maussâs argument was significant to those in circles beyond the social scientific. It expressly countered claims by the influential philosopher Immanuel Kant, who argued that human beings uniquely possessed a mental structure that existed a priori (Kant 1881). Durkheim and Mauss took the opposite position and went one step further. Not only did they say that all categories are social and not the product of any one individual, but that the first stage in such social classification would be a religious one as people attempted to explain their worlds, probably by marking a difference between people and something thought to be beyond people.
Thinking with words
Students of the sociology of religion may find it helpful to keep the term a priori in mind when reading books about religion as it identifies a particular, and important, line of argument. The Latin term means âfrom the earlierâ, and is used in philosophy to denote something that is inherent, existing before being acquired by the senses. Its opposite, a sense-derived experience, is often called a posterior, a Latin term meaning âfrom the laterâ. Sociologists generally assume that knowledge is formed from experience, and does not exist pre-socially. When sociologists of religion describe something â an idea, a need, an emotion â as a priori or inherent, they are usually drawing on their theological background rather than a sociological training.
Durkheim and Mauss also opposed James Frazer (1890), arguing that he thought people were divided into clans by something pre-existing. Durkheim and Mauss said that people classify things because they are divided by clans. These distinctions are important because exploring how social worlds are created is one of the principal aims of sociology. Sociologists work to make the familiar unfamiliar, exposing social constructions of what may be otherwise taken-for-granted, appearing ânaturalâ or âcommon senseâ. âCommon senseâ and ânatureâ are often terms for received, socially constructed and hegemonic âwisdomâ. Deconstructing those ideas and exposing their background agendas have been the defining marks of feminist analysis, beginning in the 19th century. Suffragette, novelist and sociologist Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1899) made an observation that was rare at the time: such taken-for-granted assumptions about nature are gendered, with an apparently natural social order depending largely on the unpaid labour of women as care-provider and nurturer. Insufficient numbers of social scientists then or now have retained that focus, and the apparent distinction between private and public spheres, and reproduction/production are essentialized concepts that have, as will be discussed throughout this book, important ramifications for religion.
Gilman was writing in a period of rapid social change, when the consequences of empire and the industrial revolution, for example, were having significant global impact. She and many other female and non-white sociologists have generally been ignored in what has become the sociological âcanonâ, or accepted âfoundationalâ or, in a gendered manner of speaking, âseminalâ works.1
Thinking with words
Essentialize is a critical term for sociologists. Think first of the noun âessentialâ, meaning that which defines the set of which it is part. Water is an essential resource for human survival. When the word is turned into a verb and used critically, âessentializeâ means to convey that something is an essential part of something else, when it is not. People may reduce womenâs role as care-givers to something apparently natural by essentializing gendered care. A statement like âcaring women create strong societiesâ makes the notion of care essential to the female condition. Your teachers and examiners will notice if you essentialize during your writing and guide you to think more critically.
Sociology is thus concerned not only with what may be explained about society, but with the methods of explaining that, both theoretically and empirically. What is explained, how, and by whom? Who decides on how knowledge is created? As sociologist Michael Mann put it, it is dangerous to make assumptions about what is a âfactâ:
Mann was interested in how societies operate through the manifestation and distribution of power. He noted that religion traditionally had more power than states or armies because it gave people in a large geographical area a sense of collective identity, producing âa particular way of organizing social relationsâ (Mann 1986, 21).
While it is therefore striking, it should perhaps not be surprising that many early sociological thinkers chose to investigate religion. Several of those figures were instrumental in what has been regarded as the beginning of social thought, with the French social theorists Auguste Comte and Ămile Durkheim deliberately rejecting speculative philosophy as a legitimate means of understanding human life, instead turning to science and society, identifying what Durkheim called âsocial factsâ.
The turn to describing ideas and behaviours through society has many roots, but a prime one often appearing in contemporary sociology and the sociology of religion is the era of the Enlightenment. This 18th-century, western European period, also known as the Age of Reason, will be familiar to most readers and I therefore will not provide a detailed history lesson. The reason for raising it here, however, is to prepare the sociologist of religion for some of the most heated debates, and often quietly held assumptions, in the field. Put crudely, the Enlightenment is regarded with respect by those who favour its valorization of reason and prominence of the secular over religious, and criticized strongly by those who see it as the beginning of a harsh period of industrialization, capitalism, positivism, and loss of enchantment, even innocence. An accusation of âenlightenment thinkingâ is not to be taken as a compliment.
Randall Collins (1994, 16â17) describes this period as the point where social scientific thinking began, housed both in universities and the comfortable salons of the wealthy:
The continued rise of universities gave the opportunity for ideas relating to history, economy and the social sciences to develop as their own spheres of research and writing, known as âdisciplinesâ. In the following sections, I discuss several themes arising from those new disciplines that have significantly influenced sociology and the sociology of religion.