Beliefs: Functionalist View Flashcards
Durkheim’s idea of religious institutions
Religious institutions play a central part in creating and maintaining value consensus, order and solidarity. (Idea first developed by Durkheim)
Durkheim’s key feature of religion?
It was not a belief in gods, spirits or the supernatural, but a fundamental distinction between the sacred and the profane found in all religions.
What does Durkheim mean by the sacred?
Things set apart and forbidden that inspire feelings of awe, fear and wonder and are surrounded by taboos (cultural bans) and prohibitions.
What does Durkheim mean by the profane?
Things that have no special significance - things that are ordinary and mundane.
What two things did Durkheim think religion was important for?
Important function for society.
Binds people together like cement.
Why did Durkheim use studies of the Arunta (an Aboriginal Australian tribe with a clan system)?
He believed that the essence of all religion could be found by studying it simplest form, in the simplest type of society - a clan society.
What does the totem (clan’s emblem eg animal/plant) reinforce?
The shared totemic rituals venerating it serve to reinforce the group’s solidarity and sense of belonging.
What does Durkheim say about the clan members worshipping their totemic animal?
They are in reality worshipping society - even though they themselves are not aware of this fact. The totem inspires feelings of awe in the clan’s members precisely because it represents the power of the group on which the individual is ‘utterly dependent’.
Durkheim - cognitive functions of religion
Durkheim sees religion not only as the source of social solidarity, but also of our intellectual or cognitive capacities - our ability to reason and think conceptually.
Criticisms of Durkheim’s theories (2)
- Worsley notes that there is no sharp division between the sacred and the profane, and that different clans share the same totems. Even if Durkheim is right about totemism, this doesn’t prove that he has discovered the essence of all other religions.
- Postmodernists eg Mestrovic argue that Durkheim’s ideas cannot be applied to contemporary society, because increasing diversity has fragmented the collective conscience, so there is no longer a shared value system for religion to reinforce.
Malinowski agrees with Durkheim that religion promotes social solidarity, however in his view it does so by performing psychological functions for individuals, helping them cope with emotional stress that would undermine social solidarity.
He identifies two types of situation in which religion performs this role:
- where the outcome is important but is uncontrollable and thus uncertain.
- at times of life crises.
Malinowski’s view of where the outcome is important but uncontrollable and thus uncertain. (Study on Trobriand islanders)
In his study of the Trobriand islanders of the Western Pacific, he contrasts fishing in the lagoon and fishing in the ocean.
- lagoon fishing: is safe and uses the predictable and successful method of poisoning. when the islanders fish in the lagoon, there is no ritual.
- ocean fishing: dangerous and uncertain and is always accompanied ‘canoe magic’
Malinowski’s view on religion being there at times of life crises
Events such as birth, puberty, marriage and especially DEATH mark major and disruptive changes in social groups. Religion minimises this disruption. Eg at funerals, rituals reinforce a feeling of solidarity among the survivors.
Parson’s two essential functions that religion performs in modern society.
- creates and legitimates society’s central values. - by sacralising them (making them sacred) this serves to promote value consensus and thus social stability.
- it is the primary source of meaning. - answers ultimate questions about the human condition eg why the good suffer and some die young.
Bellah - Civil religion
What unifies American society is an overarching civil religion - a belief system that attaches sacred qualities to society itself. In the American case, civil religion is a faith in Americanism or ‘the American way of life’
