Notes
Notes CHAPTER ONE 1. Hammond (1985) has recently edited another survey of the field that draws much more optimistic conclusions. 2. The wide differences in orientation are evident in the contrasting approaches provided by such volumes as Harris (1979), Borhek and Curtis (1975), and Geertz( 1973). 3. For a recent study of considerable merit that neverthelessreflects the abstract philosophical orientation toward the analysis of culture, see Thompson (1984). Much of the secondary literature generated by the work of writers such as Habermas and Foucault (cited in Chapter 2) also reflects this tendency. 4. The idea of dramaturgy in the social sciences has been associated particularly with the work of ErvingGoffman. Using the term "dramaturgic" here implies no attempt to follow the intricaciesof Goffman's approach, which was oriented more toward questions about the dramatization of the self than about the dramaturgic character of culture moregenerally. 5. Gilbert and Mulkay (1984) provide a valuable discussion of scientific discourse that generally follows the structural approach. CHAPTER TWO 1. The term "poststructuralism" will not be used to refer to the specific, small, Paris-based school of literary criticism sometimes known as "poststructuralism ," but will be given a broader definition in the course of the discussion that follows. 2. There is, for example, a much more pronounced tendency in Americansociology than in European sociology to emphasize the subjective aspects of some of the classical theorists' conceptions ofculture. 351 Notes to Pages 24-46 3. Oilman (1971:131) remarksthat Marx's theory of alienation is "the intellectual construct in which Marx displays the devastatingeffect of capitalistproduction on human beings, on their physical and mental states and on the social processes of which they are a part." Oilman's study provides a particularly valuable explication of Marx's theory of alienation. 4. For a useful discussion of Weber's idea of the iron cage, see Mitzman (1971). 5. In comparison with Marx and Weber, Durkheim is usually credited with taking a more objective approach to religion insofar as he emphasizesthe role of collective rituals. If we pay closer attention to this description of the functions of these rituals, however, we see clearly the basis, again, of a conception of culture rooted in subject-objectdualism. 6. These ways of conceptualizing the relations between the individual and society are examined critically in Giddens (1971). 7. From Durkheim's argument about men's true object of worship and from his discussion of the rules of sociological method, a number of writers have drawn a more general perspective on the social sources of knowledge; for example, Hamilton (1974:105) interprets Durkheim as suggesting that "concepts and the categories of understanding are not given, but are created by the facts of social life; in short, the forms which thought takes are constructed as representations of social organization in terms of its collectivenature." Many of the empirical studies of Guy E. Swanson have, of course, explored the validity of this argument. For more on this, see Chapter 9. 8. On Berger's approach to religion, seeWuthnow (1986a). 9. Although Berger and Luckmann's version of phenomenology differs significantly from Heidegger's (cf.Wuthnow et al., 1984:21-76), there isnevertheless a significant degree of borrowing from Heidegger as well. Among the concepts Heidegger emphasized are those of the linguistic construction of reality, the nature of everyday reality, the concept of facticity, and, above all, the importance of examining meanings. As Steiner (1979:82) observes: "To question Sein is to question its Sinn—its 'sense,' its 'meaning,' its 'purpose.' " 10. For an introduction to the hermeneutic method in social science, see Bleicher(1980). 11. Cf. Bibby (1979). On the broader question of research approaches to meaning systems versus research approaches to worldviews, see Aidala (1984). 12. Cf. Fingarette (1963), who describes the therapeutic process as one of "meaning-reorganization." He writes: "What the patient 'reads' are the bits and pieces of his life. He brings these fragments of his life to the therapist who then suggests a meaning-scheme in terms of which to reorganize and unify the patient 's experience" (p. 21). At a more philosophical level, Barrett (1978:141), who contrasts the modern search for meaning with that of Descartes, suggests that we have developed a "coherence theory of truth, according to which truth is a matter of our ever-widening and self-integrating consciousness." 13. In contrast to research that suggests low levels of consistency in worldviews, empirical findings generally support the idea of a widespread concern for coherence. For...
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