I largely agree with your observations, particularly with your last paragraph. I don't want to put words into your mouth but it seems to me that the phenomenon that Brooks was writing about -- and what your observations seem to confirm -- is highly correlated with an intelligence divide in developed countries.
In previous times and in previous cultures I think it would be generally true to say that religions engaged all the population in a fairly smooth gradation from the top of the power (and intelligence) structure to the bottom. The trends that we're talking about now -- particularly stark in the developed countries -- show a very clear divide between an intelligentsia of, maybe, 25% of the population and the remainder. (By "remainder" I mean about 50% of the population who are sufficiently well-socialised to be susceptible to persuasion either by the authorities [for example, in supporting declarations of war] or by charismatic religious sects, and another 25% who are not well socialised and are delinquent in one way or another.)
The above generalisation is a crude one but, I think, an accurate enough description of our socio-economic structure (in developed countries) to hold water for several important purposes -- including matters like the future of work, the future of political structures, and religious affiliation.
There seem to me to be two "not evers" in the coming few decades. In the developed world, the increasing complexity of our institutions (political and commercial) means that we are not ever going to have the sort of widespread electoral democracy that was envisaged, say, at the time of the 1832 Reform Act in England and attempted to be followed through ever since. In the countries of the undeveloped world (with the possible exception of China), most of their inhabitants are not ever going to be able to have the same standard of living as we now 'enjoy' in the west because the availability of *cheap* energy is almost certainly going to decline within the lifetime of those being born now, unless some wonder technology (such as the hydrogen economy) is developed very soon and expanded very rapidly.
Keith Hudson
At 15:23 05/06/2003 -0700, you wrote:
On Thu, 05 Jun 2003, Keith Hudson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>I much enjoyed reading David Brooks' article, "Kicking the Secularist
>Habit". I agree with Brooks that many of us have accepted the notion that
>as the world becomes richer and better educated, it becomes less
>religious. But that's only because we (that is, the sort of people who
>read the Atlantic Monthly) are richer, better educated and less religious
>than we used to be.
>
>It is interesting that the main examples of religious revivalism Brooks
>cites -- in Africa and in the Moslem countries -- not to mention two
>large blocs he doesn't cite -- South America (Brazil particularly) and
>India (among the Hindus particularly) -- are plainly affected by being
>"mere conduits for thwarted economic impulses", to use his words, even
>though he doesn't agree with this as a reason for religious revival.
>
>Well, all I can say is that this seems to me to be a very adequate reason
>for the revival of religion in the above regions of the world. What's
>more, this also accounts for the fairly large numbers of lower
>middle-class whites in America, England, and very likely (though I don't
>know for sure) in western Europe who, fearing that they are not going to
>be as secure or prosperous as they thought (in the 1960s, 70s and 80s)
>they were going to be, are now turning to pentecostal and fundamentalist
>sects. (The evangelical wing of the Anglican church is growing healthily
>in England, while the more austere, intellectual, liberal main body is
>losing ground fast.) We can also point to the vigorous revival of the
>Orthodox Church in Russia to which millions have turned after being let
>down by the economic promises of communism.
I agree, at least in part. The first step in secularism
(other than those instances of secularism by imposition
of state policy, which has turned out to have not "taken"
terribly well) is the time to reflect on received indoctrinations.
The second is the self esteem to consider one's own judgement
in these matters at least as valid as that of the received
authority. Both of these conditions are linked fairly strongly
to, if not affluence, at least a social milieu where one
feels free to hold independent opinions and strike out on
one's own. That latter criterion is also an aspect of the
last step, the security of being necessary to discard the
blanket offered by the recipes of tradition, and the
community of the faithful, in favour of the uncertainty
of some sort of existential philosophical position, however
foggily outlined. This sort of state of mind is surely
aided by conditions of economic security.
Having said that, I also think that observed
trends to secularism in the west over the past half century
have been distorted by demographics, and thus the "retreat"
is likely due in part to the same mechanism. That is, for
every secularist who makes his way by free thought, there
are some number who are rather in the position of finding
themselves essentially, at least in their own perception,
ejected by their sectarian tradition, due to conflicts between
their peer social values and those of the tradition. This
is a function of coming of age, and so the baby boom resulted
in a blip in the statistics, which may have been overemphasized
by surveys. There is also the contributing factor that the
same demographic event led to a particularly vital and
active peer culture, which accentuated the conflicts with
traditions. The thing is that the individuals who found themselves
thus "disenfranchised" of their religious traditions by
this process are not the same as those who arrive at their
secularism by free thught, and they are therefore not likely
to be permanently secular, but rather to find a way to reconcile
with the traditions which they were not fully equipped to
abandon, later in life; particulary as many of these people
never seem to develop a philosophical scaffolding for their
secular position. For the baby boom, that "later in life" is
happening now.
I'm afraid I have nothing to back up this notion beyond my
rather limited observations of society.
-Pete Vincent
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Keith Hudson, 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath, England
