scholarly journals Elective Affinities in the Anthropocene: Christianity and the Natural Environment Reconsidered

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. p82
Author(s):  
Thomas J Burns ◽  
Tom W Boyd ◽  
Peyman Hekmatpour
Keyword(s):  
Natural Environment ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Environmental Ethic ◽  
Religious Discourse ◽  
Dominant Culture ◽  
Ideal Types ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Elective Affinities ◽  
Short Run ◽  
Post Industrial

To reach a deeper understanding of the complex relationship between religion and the natural environment, it is important to move beyond essentializing any religious tradition as having a pro-environmental or anti-environmental ethic. Rather, prior work has shown that the canonical, scholarly, and popular literatures and discourse of a number of religious traditions can and have been socially and rhetorically constructed as supporting an array of positions, from preservation to profligacy, and much in between those two ideal types. In this paper, we develop Max Weber’s theory of “elective affinities” and adapt it to the Anthropocene, to make the case that in a fragmented society, people and communities of convenience tend to choose the tropes and framing from the dominant culture to justify self-interested action. That often can take the form of religious discourse. In the sense of finding a wide array of practical interpretations relative to the environment, the theory is largely supported, although we do find important nuances. It is instructive to look at how the language and legitimacy of one institution (e.g. religion) has been used to justify and legitimate that of others (e.g. the polity). While these processes of institutional co-optation can be effective in the short run, they may have corrosive longer-term effects. Key rhetorical, and in fact political, battles in the Third Millennium, will likely be organized around how to adapt pre-industrial religion to late industrial and perhaps post-industrial times, and it remains to see how central the natural environment will be in what communities hold sacred.

Immigration, Multiculturalism, and the Social Contract

1997 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 343-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Heath
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Cultural Value ◽  
Value Systems ◽  
Dominant Culture ◽  
National Unity ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Institutional Expectations ◽  
Internal Coherence

Since the failure of the Meech Lake constitutional reforms and the crisis of national unity prompted by the most recent Quebec referendum, the Canadian Multiculturalism Act has been subjected to particularly intense and hostile scrutiny. While some of the criticism of this policy reflects merely parochial adherence to particular cultural or religious traditions, some of it has raised more significant doubts about the internal coherence, efficacy, and overall desirability of the policy. Most importantly, the multiculturalism policy is faulted for attempting to pursue two simultaneously unachievable goals, viz., to integrate ethnic minority groups into the dominant institutions of the society, while at the same time to protect them against various pressures to assimilate to the dominant culture. Critics have pointed out that social institutions and cultural values are interdependent. Not only do cultural value systems provide the central legitimations for social institutions, but the internalization of these values through socialization processes provides agents with their primary motivation for conforming to institutional expectations. This means that integrating an agent into a system of institutions can only be achieved by assimilating the agent to its underlying cultural system.

scholarly journals Digital Death in the Age of Narcissism

2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-110
Author(s):  
Eva Vrtačič ◽  
Anamarija Šporčič
Keyword(s):  
Natural Environment ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Industrial Society ◽  
Dominant Form ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Pathological Narcissism ◽  
Post Industrial

Pathological narcissism represents the dominant form of subjectivity in post-industrial society and its consumerist ideals. The fear one feels in connection with one’s death, fear that is typical of pathological narcissism, frequently manifests itself as absolute denial of the idea of a mortal Self. According to Freud, primary narcissism prevents one from imagining or even thinking about one’s own death. In the realm of the Unconscious, death does not exist. Death is absent from cyberspace in much the same manner and in this sense, cyberspace has become a fitting metaphor for the Unconscious. It is pathological narcissism that makes cyberspace and all actions that take place within it possible, reasonable and justifiable. It is what transforms all our cyber-actions into more than merely a waste of time. Upon entering cyberspace the subjects are given the chance to leave their mortality, their corporeity behind and embark upon a journey that offers countless possibilities and realities. Yet they have thus also entered the realm of digital death. The anthropological supposition that culture is our “natural environment” can now, when cyberspace and digital technologies function as a “natural environment” for pathological narcissism, be reconsidered and reinterpreted.

scholarly journals The Impact of Religious Atmosphere on Corporate Governance: An Empirical Study Based on the Number of Temples around Listed Companies

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. p11
Author(s):  
Kaikai Liu ◽  
Xinyi Wang ◽  
Jingjing Liang
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Governance ◽  
Empirical Study ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Listed Companies ◽  
Economic Behavior ◽  
Risk Averse ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The Impact

Religious belief can affect individual’s behavior. It usually induces managers to be more risk averse, thereby mitigating the agency problem and positively influencing governance. This paper conducts an empirical study to analysis the effect of religious atmosphere on corporate governance. It could be figured out that strong religious atmosphere plays an active role in corporate governance. The stronger the influence of religious tradition on listed companies, the less likely the managers are to violate the rules. Through precepts and deeds, these religious traditions are passed on from generation to generation and have become a significant factor affecting human economic behavior.

Nones

2019 ◽  
pp. 140-162
Author(s):  
Tim Clydesdale ◽  
Kathleen Garces-Foley
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
National Study ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Popular Press ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Growing Population

Relying on in-depth interviews and the National Study of American Twentysomethings, this chapter describes the heterogeneous young adults who are religious unaffiliated. Known in the popular press as the Nones, most of these young adults were raised in a Christian religious tradition, which they now reject, but that does not mean they have no interest in religion. Some are anti-religious and many are disinterested, but others hold traditional beliefs in a personal God and in an afterlife while rejecting religious institutions. Still others create an eclectic spirituality that draws from many religious traditions. The chapter provides estimated proportions of Nones who are philosophical secularists, indifferent secularists, spiritual eclectics, and unaffiliated believers. This chapter examines the role of context in the fluid religious, spiritual, and secular identities of twentysomething Nones and reports on the values, behaviors, and confidence in social institutions of this growing population.

Two Concepts of God

1966 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-240
Author(s):  
John Lachs
Keyword(s):  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Religious Language ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Philosophical Theology ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
God Concepts ◽  
Scientific Curiosity ◽  
Concepts Of God ◽  
Theology Proper

Philosophers have long debated the question of the existence of God. This is one of many philosophical issues in which the motivation for inquiry has come more perhaps from the side of human feeling than from disinterested scientific curiosity. Powerful emotions appear to prompt thinkers to devote effort to the attempt to prove or disprove the existence of God. The urgency of this task has made some of these philosophers pay less than adequate heed to the concepts they employ. It appears to have escaped the attention of many of them that the word “God” does not have a single meaning either in religious language generally or in philosophical theology. It is obvious that one of the important ways in which religious traditions differ is in their conceptions of the Deity. But a considerable number of different God-concepts may be distinguished in the Judeo-Christian religious tradition itself, and not even in Christian theology proper is the word “God” free of ambiguity.

What's Postmodern about Earth's Insights?

1997 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-129
Author(s):  
Lois Ann Lorentzen
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Environmental Ethic ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Postmodern Thought

AbstractCallicott convinces us that diverse religious traditions provide resources in constructing an environmental ethic. However, his use of the term postmodern, while rejecting most of postmodern thought, is not helpful for his project. Callicott also presumes that nonanthropocentrism and holism are necessary for a universal environmental ethic, and provides only one version of ecofeminism. There are reasons to prefer pluralism in environmental ethics and ecofeminism.

Buddhist Encounters with Diversity

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald K. Swearer
Keyword(s):  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Singular Terms ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Buddhist Tradition ◽  
Japanese Buddhism

All singular terms for designating a religious tradition (e.g. Buddhism, Christianity) belie their multiplex diversity. Historically evolved, culturally embodied religious traditions are by their very nature dynamic, complex, and multilayered. Buddhism is no exception. The tripartite division that developed to encompass the historical breadth of the Buddhist tradition—Hinayana (Theravada), Mahayana, Tantrayana (Vajrayana)—merely suggests a diversity that includes perhaps hundreds if not thousands of different sects, subsects, and movements. Even broad historical-cultural distinctions such as Thai Buddhism or Japanese Buddhism fail to encompass differences in belief and practice interwoven into the textures of global Buddhisms. This chapter addresses the question of Buddhist encounters with diversity in terms of the tripartite division familiar to all Buddhist traditions, namely, Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. While this model is shared by the varied forms of Buddhism, the ways in which it is embodied and expressed have been quite diverse.

Hinduism to Hindus in the Western Diaspora

2005 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 274-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arti Dhand
Keyword(s):  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Religious Traditions

AbstractThis article reflects on some of the methodological issues pertaining to situations in which both instructor and students belong to the same religious tradition as that about which the course is taught. It is framed within questions of scholarly objectivity and privilege to represent religious traditions. In a political atmosphere in which it has become increasingly suspect for "Outsiders" to teach traditions that they do not personally confess, this article engages the reverse scenario: what pedagogical challenges confront the professor who is an "Insider" to the tradition she teaches?

scholarly journals RELASI MITOS, DAN AGAMA SEBAGAI MEDIA PENINGKATAN EKONOMI PRODUKTIF DALAM TRADISI “TEBOKAN” DI DESA KALIPUTU KOTA KUDUS

INFERENSI ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 451
Author(s):  
Saifuddin Saifuddin
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Method ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Local Society ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Religious Behaviors ◽  
Clifford Geertz ◽  
History Of ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

“Tebokan” was the history of jenang production processes that was visualizedon cultural carnival. It was one of the place where the relationship of religious traditions and the myth of local society became a new spirit to increase the economy of the community. This research was based on interpretative perspective to religious behaviors such as done by Clifford Geertz. Therefore this research used qualitative method. This study found the cultural illustrations where the relationship of myth, religious tradition, and the social structure was able to activate spirit of productivity in the Kaliputu Society as a central of jenang Production in Kudus. Both of these systems of meaning were able to present three important spirits, those areinnovative, identity affirmation, and work ethic. 

scholarly journals Extreme Audio Culture in the New Digital Underground

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Tamatai-A-Rangi Ngarimu
Keyword(s):  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Distribution Networks ◽  
Urban Society ◽  
Industrial Society ◽  
Music Culture ◽  
Dominant Culture ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Underground Music ◽  
Post Industrial

<p>This thesis examines the use of technology – particularly obsolete technologies and residual¹ media – within underground and experimental music, using extreme audio culture (the genres of noise music and power electronics) and its relationship with the new digital underground of music and art as a primary focus. It seeks to illuminate issues surrounding not only the survival of underground music culture into the internet age (zines², mail order and independent production and distribution networks) but also broader, philosophical and sociological notions concerning humanity’s relationship with technology within contemporary urban society, as well as examining how these notions have influenced alternative and extreme music cultures. This includes how these issues are addressed within underground and avant-garde scenes; specifically, the manner in which extreme audio culture (beginning with industrial music) voices critique upon the digital age and post-industrial environments by illustrating the negative and grotesque aspects of contemporary urban society through the employment of transgressive themes and subject matter, coupled with the use of materials, practices and ideas coded as residual or as ‘noise’ (reappropriating what dominant culture perceives as unwanted, unfashionable, ‘wrong’ or taboo). By addressing these issues, we may work further towards understanding the progression of musical thought and the influence of sound upon the human psyche, as well as the ways in which music aids the continual transformation of culture within the digital/post-industrial age.  This research was undertaken from February 2012 until July 2013 with the primary methodological approach consisting of discourse analysis coupled with anthropological observations and historical contextualisation as we trace extreme audio culture back to its genesis within industrial music and the avant-garde. Drawing from the theories of Jacques Attali, Donna Haraway and Pierre Bourdieu, it will be argued that such music is prophetic of the way in which a society may develop over time, particularly in regards to our perceptions and attitudes towards technological advancement and urbanisation, not to mention our increasingly symbiotic relationship with machines as a prescriptive element of everyday urban existence. With these factors in mind, phenomena such as extreme audio culture and the new digital underground offer rich and striking considerations for the examination of digital age, post-industrial society from the perceptions of marginal creative scenes, extreme music, the avant-garde and contemporary underground music cultures.  ¹ As discussed by Michelle Henning, Will Straw, et al., residual media are those media technologies and techniques which are no longer useful, fashionable or profitable within dominant culture and are thus seen as obsolete or ‘noise’ (residue). These technologies, laid to rest upon the ‘scrapheap of dominant culture’ (as we shall discuss in Chapter One) may be acquired, utilised and reappropriated by dominated, marginal – i.e. alternative and underground – cultures and, as examined here within the context of underground music culture, be given a new use-value within creative communities or fetishised by collectors. See Acland, Charles A., ed. Residual Media. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 2007. Print.  ² A.k.a. Fanzines: Independently produced, often hand-made, magazines.</p>

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