Ryan Schram

Mills 169 (A26)

ryan.schram@sydney.edu.au

http://anthro.rschram.org/1002/10

8 October 2014

In the recent public debate about whether women should be allowed to wear a face veil in Parliament House, two prominent politicians offered their views.

• Tony Abbott
• Julie Bishop

What were they?

Hijab: 'veil, curtain'. Typically a headscarf that covers the head and chest. Also a generic word for 'covering' of all kinds.

Chador: A long robe that covers head and body, revealing the face.

Jilbab: A long coat covering hands.

Niqab: A face veil.

Abaya: A long sleeveless 'cloak' covering the body.

Burqa: A long robe covering head, face and body.

All of these Arabic terms have specific meanings in local contexts, and every local culture has its own styles of each type of clothing.

Commentators have offered many views on what the veil 'means'.

It's a very anthropological sort of question.

None of them have apparently read this week's article.

All societies change, but as we have learned in this class, not all societies turn out the same.

There is no single road of progress which all societies travel.

Globalization is not the conquest of the world by capitalism or Western culture.

Put another way: There are multiple modernities.

If there is no one single road of progress, where did this idea of modernity come from?

Max Weber's theory of society is key to the development of modernization theory. Weber argued that history is a process of rationalization. Over time, all societies become more complex, and develop greater differentiation in their social organization.

Weber says that modernity is the opposite of tradition.

Weber's theory of society starts with the concept of “social action”.

Social action is action that is recognized as having a meaning, and means something to the actor.

There are four types of social action, each based on a type of meaning they embody.

• Traditional: I do it because this is how it has always been.
• Affective: I do it because it expresses my emotions.
• Value-rational: I do it because this is the best possible way to advance a collective goal of my society.
• Instrumental-rational: I do it because I get the most for the least amount of effort.

People are always motivated to act by a combination of all four types of motivation: tradition, affect, value-rationality, and instrumental rationality.

One type of motivation is always predominant in a single form.

People do different kinds of actions in different kinds of contexts.

Social institutions and rules tap into different kinds of motivation.

Giving a fruit loaf.

Giving change to the Salvos.

Buying ramen noodles.

Each of these have different kind of primary motivation. Each social role one plays – relative, donor, customer – embodies a different value.

What kind of value does religion embody? Or, from an actor's point of view, what is the motivation for participating in religious worship and a religious organization?

In most senses of the word, people are not motivated to participate in religion for reasons of economic gain, at least not primarily. It isn't instrumentally rational, at least not primarily.

By the same token, religious institutions are not set up to create a space for people to pursue self-interested goals.

Many people find religion emotionally satisfying. But many people find soap operas emotionally satsifying too, so that can't be the only motivation.

Tradition, yes, perhaps.

For Weber, some religions draw people because they give them an answer to the ultimate meaning of life, and show them how to be an ethical person. They ask people to do things based on “value rationality”. Pursuit of a collective goal is the reason why people pray, worship and participate in a religious community.

Religion is a force in society because it gives people an alternative to tradition. It forces them to examine why they do what they do.

In other words, religion rationalizes people's social behavior.

Weber argued that many religious movements sowed the seeds of social revolutions.

As society became more rationalized in general, he believed people would not need religion to give them motivation to be rational. They could rely on systems based on instrumental rationality, like bureaucracy and markets.

This is called the “secularization thesis”:

• Religious ethics forces people to reorganize society in ways that separate traditional practices and rules from higher values.
• As societies become more rationalized, religious institutions are separated from other domains of society.
• Religious identity becomes a private matter.
• Overall, people become less involved in religious activities.

For many years, people have observed a return to religion.

As more modern forms of society have developed, new religions are developing too.

While Europe and Australia are highly secular in some ways, religion is still a defining feature of people and groups.

This is not what Weber predicted!

Religion causes people to be rational, and to rationalize their lives and their environment. But this rationality does not lead to secularism or modernity in a classic sense.

Brenner considers several theses:

• A 'return' to tradition
• Symbolic shelter
• Maintain social esteem

She ultimately rejects all these as insufficient explanations.

She ultimately chooses to take seriously the explanation that her own informants gave her.

Brenner's informants described religious change as a 'movement', a kind of training, and as self-discipline.

Rather than being a restraint on freedom, women saw it as part of a set of new activities for self-improvement, including reading, study, prayer, and participating in a community.

In other words, it was a new way of seeing oneself. It is a means to a new subjectivity.

Brenner contrasts the Islamic movement with the nationalism of the New Order and the goverment of Suharto (1960s-1990s).

New Order: Modernity through consumerism and capitalism.

Islamic movement: Modernity through creating autonomous individual believers who can choose to follow a pure Islamic ethic.

What do these visions of the future have in common?

What do they differ on?

World Values Survey 2014, Australia, “How important is religion to you?”:

• 'Important' 31.1 %
• 'Not very important' or 'not at all important' 65.3%
• Compared to around 60% in Scandinavian countries and 30% in the US.

Do these figures surprise you? Why is religion so unimportant to a majority of Australians, and for that matter, many European countries too, but not the US?

Ryan will be back for Week 13.

World Values Survey. 2014. “World Values Survey Wave 6: 2010-2014: Online Data Analysis: V.9 Important in Life, Religion.” World Values Survey Database. Accessed June 30, 2014. http://worldvaluessurvey.org/.