A Justice Site
Mirror Sites:
CSUDH Habermas UWP
California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: June 6, 2001
Latest update: November 18, 2001
jeannecurran@habermas.org
Transforming Discourse Readings
- Divided We Fall: America's Two Civil Religions Excellent and relatively brief article by Robert Wuthnow
- Homi K. Bhabha: Post Colonialist Important to get a sense of postcolonialism to be able to relate it to the dominant discourse today.
- Concepts for Conceptual Linking:
- religion and politics - Wuthnow.
- "begging and religion" - Weber - See Soc Theory
- "labor as a calling" and "capitalism" - Weber - See Soc Theory
- conservative and liberal religion - Wuthnow
- "hybridization" and interdependence
- Some Suggested Measures of Learning:
Comment on one of the following topics, or do something of your own choosing.
- Prepare the discussion topics on Divided We Fall: America's Two Civil Religions By Robert Wuthnow.
- Discuss the relationship between Weber's perceptions of religion in our politics and social organization, and the postmodern approaches.
Consider that Weber drew the connections between religion and capitalism in the early part of the 20th Century.
- Do you think we could add the metaphor of Society as the Intended Vehicle of a Chosen People to Rigney's metaphors of social theory?
Remember that Rigney describes each or the metaphors he discerns as having creative analogies and dangerous pitfalls of misunderstanding when we fail to consider the underlying and unstated assumptions that go with these metaphors.
Recall that a chosen people suggests "a God," for what would happen if a different God chose a different people? Also consider the possibility that the commandments say "Thou shalt have no other Gods before me." But might it not be that we worship the same God under different names, and different myths? Only our strong certainty that we are "right" can assure us, and that "knowingness" leads to hubris.