BELIEFS TOPIC 7 - IDEOLOGY AND RELIGION Flashcards
(10 cards)
The impact of science
Achievements in medicine have eradicated many fatal diseases. Many basic features of daily life would be unrecognisable to our recent ancestors due to scientific and technological advances.
This has led to the widespread ‘faith in science’
Science has cognitive power - it allows us to explain, predict and control the world.
Open belief systems
Popper argues that science is an open belief system where every scientist’s theories are open to scrutiny, criticism and testing by others.
Science is governed by the principle of falsificationism. Scientists set out to try and falsify existing theories, deliberately seeking evidence that would disprove them. The theory can be discarded and the search for a better theory can begin. Knowledge claims live and die by evidence.
In popper’s view, discarding falsified knowledge claims is what enables scientific understanding of the world to grow. Scientific knowledge is cumulative - it builds on the achievements of previous scientists to develop greater understanding of the world.
In popper’s view, the key thing about scientific knowledge is that it is not sacred or absolute truth.
The CUDOS norms
Merton argues that science as an institution means an ethos or set of norms that make scientists act in ways that serve their goal of increasing scientific knowledge.
Communism - scientific knowledge is not private property. Scientists must share it with the scientific community, otherwise, knowledge cannot grow.
Universalism - the truth or falsity of scientific knowledge is judged by universal objective criteria and not by a particular race, sex etc.
Disinterestedness - means being committed to discovering knowledge for its own sake. Having to publish their findings makes it harder for scientists to practice fraud.
Organised scepticism - no knowledge claim is regarded as sacred. Every idea is open to questioning, criticism and objective investigation.
Closed belief systems
Science differs fundamentally from traditional belief systems.
While scientific knowledge is open to scrutiny, religious knowledge is sacred and religious organisations claim to hold it in God’s divine authority.
Witchcraft among the azande
The azande believe that natural events have natural causes. The azande regard witchcraft as a psychic power coming from substance located in the witch’s intestines and it is believed possible that the witch is doing harm unintentionally and unconsciously.
Evans pritchard - performs social functions. It is highly resistant to challenge.
Polanyi - self-sustaining beliefs
Circularity - each idea in the system is explained in terms of another idea in the face of apparently contradictory evidence.
Subsidiary explanations - if the oracle fails, it may be explained away as due to the incorrect use of the benge.
Denial of legitimacy to rivals - rejets alternative worldviews.
Science as a closed system
Polanyi - all belief systems reject fundamental challenges to their knowledge claims and science is no different.
Dr Velivosky - attempted to disprove the big bang but was blacklisted, and scientists boycotted his publisher.
Kuhn - mature science such as geology, biology or physics is based on a set of shared assumptions that he calls a paradigm.
Marxism and ideology
Ruling class ideology includes ideas and beliefs including:
That equality will never work because it goes against human nature
Victim blaming ideas about poverty, such as what Bowles and Gintis call ‘the people are dumb’ theory of meritocracy - everyone has an equal chance at life so the poor must be poor because
Racist ideas about inferiority of ethnic minorities dividing black and white workers make them easier to rule.
Dominant ideas create a false class consciousness in order to prevent change. However, Marx argues that the working class will form a true class consciousness and unite to overthrow capitalism.
Idea developed further by Gramsci who refers to the ideological domination of society as hegemony. Workers have a dual consciousness - a mixture of ruling class ideology and ideas they develop from their own indirect experience of exploitation and their struggles against it. It is possible for the working class to develop class consciousness however this requires a political party of organic intellectuals.
Abercrombie argues that it is economic factors of unemployment that keeps workers from rebelling.
The ideology of nationalism
Nationalism is an important political ideology that has had a major impact on the world over the past 200 years.
Nationalism claims that:
Nations are real, distinctive communities each with its own unique characteristics and a long, shared history
Every nation should be self-governing
National loyalty and identity should come before all others.
Marx was an internationalist: ‘workers of all countries, unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains. You have a world to win.’ nationalism is a form of false class consciousness that helps to prevent the overthrow of capitalism.
Nationalism functions as a civil religion that unite everyone into a single national community regardless of differences such as religion or class.
Gellner also sees nationalism as false consciousness. Nationalism is a very modern phenomenon where industrialisation creates large scale industrial societies with a complex division of labour administered by vast bureaucracies. Elites use nationalism as an ideology to motivate the population to endure hardships and suffering that accompany the first phase of industrialisation.
Ideology and utopia
Mannheim sees all belief systems as a partial or one-sided worldview. This results from being the viewpoint of one particular group / class and its interests. Leads him to distinguish between two broad types of worldviews:
Ideological thought - justifies keeping things as they are. Reflects position and interests of privileged groups such as the capitalist class.
Utopian thought - justifies social change. Reflects position and interests of underprivileged and offers a vision for how society should be organised differently.
Sees these worldviews as creations of groups of intellectuals who attach themselves to particular classes. Because these intellectuals represent the interests of particular groups and not society as a whole, they only produce partial views of reality.
The solution is to detach the intellectuals from the social groups they represent and create free-floating intelligentsia standing above the conflict.
Feminism and ideology
Marks describes how ideas from science have been used to justify excluding women from education, quoting 19th century male doctors who would argue that educating women would lead to the creation of a new race of puny and unfeminine females and disqualify women from their vocation of nurturing the next generation.
Not all elements of religious belief systems subordinate women. Before the emergence of monotheistic patriarchal religions, matriarchal religions with female deities were widespread with female priests and the celebration of fertility cults.
