Questions
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berger.pptA True and Worthy Selfhood: Identity.
The Problem of Identity
We are the “unfinished animal”
-- Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy (1967)
We create our identity by creating culture
Over time humans create categories
for thinking about self and the world –
That is a “dog.”
Dogs are edible.
Dogs taste good.
A True and Worthy Selfhood: Identity.
The Problem of Identity
We are the “unfinished animal”
-- Peter Berger,The Sacred Canopy (1967)
We create our identities by creating culture:
Over time humans create categories
and invent practices
Make fire by rubbing sticks.
Cook the dead dog on the fire
A True and Worthy Selfhood: Identity.
The Problem of Identity
We are the “unfinished animal”
-- Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy (1967)
We create our identities by creating culture
Over time humans create categories
and invent practices as well as rules
Do not have sex with siblings.
Never talk to your wife’s mother.
A True and Worthy Selfhood: Identity.
The Problem of Identity
We are the “unfinished animal”
-- Peter Berger,The Sacred Canopy (1967)
Over time humans create
categories + practices + rules.
Over time humans thereby create culture
Etc.
A True and Worthy Selfhood: Identity.
The Problem of Identity
We are the “unfinished animal”
-- Peter Berger,
The Sacred Canopy (1967)
- We create culture.
“Externalization”
Then we get used to the culture.
It begins to seem “natural,”
the objective truth,
the one true way to be human.
Black beans
and rice –
w/o dog.
A True and Worthy Selfhood: Identity.
The Problem of Identity
We are the “unfinished animal”
-- Peter Berger,
The Sacred Canopy (1967)
1. Create culture.
2. Treat the culture as the natural way.
“Objectification”
“eating dog is normal human behavior”
but whale-blubber is better yet for eating.
A True and Worthy Selfhood: Identity.
The Problem of Identity
We are the “unfinished animal”
-- Peter Berger,
The Sacred Canopy (1967)
1. Create culture.
2. Treat the culture as the natural way.
3. Internalization
As a person grows up
the person ‘internalizes’ the culture
as the person’s identity –
e.g. I eat dogs; that makes me a noremal person.
A True and Worthy Selfhood: Identity.
The Problem of Identity
We are the “unfinished animal”
-- Peter Berger,
The Sacred Canopy (1967)
1. Create culture.
2. Treat the culture as the natural way.
- Internalize the culture as one’s identity.
examples ??
A True and Worthy Selfhood: Identity.
1. The Problem of Identity
We are the “unfinished animal”
-- Peter Berger,
The Sacred Canopy (1967)
1. Create culture.
2. Treat the culture as natural.
3. Internalize the culture
as one’s identity.
Now you know
who you are
A True and Worthy Selfhood: Identity.
1. The Problem of Identity
We are the “unfinished animal”
-- Peter Berger,
The Sacred Canopy (1967)
1. Create categories = produce culture.
2. Treat the culture as natural.
3. Internalize the culture
as one’s identity.
Now everyone knows who
he or she is.
A True and Worthy Selfhood: Identity.
The Problem of Identity
We are the “unfinished animal”
-- Peter Berger,
The Sacred Canopy (1967)
Identity is precarious, however
on two levels:
- individual level --
Have not ‘found yourself’?
A True and Worthy Selfhood: Identity.
The Problem of Identity
We are the “unfinished animal”
-- Peter Berger,
The Sacred Canopy (1967)
Identity is precarious, however
on two levels:
- individual level --
have not ‘found yourself’?
OR: have found self not to
fit with the culture?
A True and Worthy Selfhood: Identity.
The Problem of Identity
We are the “unfinished animal”
-- Peter Berger,
The Sacred Canopy (1967)
Identity is precarious, however
on two levels:
- individual level – find a self that fits society
- social level – find stable clear social order
so you can know what you ought to be like
A True and Worthy Selfhood: Identity.
The Problem of Identity
Religion as a support for identity:
Throughout history religion
has been in fact the major
source of support for
identity, by supporting
the social order and
the values it dictates
At right: a modern secular
chart of personality aspects
related to one’s values
A True and Worthy Selfhood: Identity.
The Problem of Identity,
Religion as a support for identity
Throughout history
the major source of support – for example:
Grand Ayatollah
Khomeini, Iran
Mullah Omar,
Afghanistan,
one-time Taliban leader
What Guided and Guides Muslim life?
“At the end of the 18th century a Muslim visitor
pitied the poor British who did not have a divine law
and had to make up their own” (Lewis, 2002: 113-14).
Answer: Shari’a guides Muslim life.
What is Shari’a?
The Qur’an
+
Sunna [traditions about Muhammad contained in
Hadiths (stories)]
+
Community
consensus
=
Shari’a
[What God commands and what people must obey. Islamic law]
4 Legal traditions
A True and Worthy Selfhood: Identity.
The Problem of Identity,
Religion as a support for identity
Throughout history
the major source of support -- for example
A True and Worthy Selfhood: Identity.
The Problem of Identity
Religion as a support for identity
Throughout history
the major source of support – by saying
about all the social norms:
- These norms are guaranteed correct by God.
- These norms will be enforced by God.
So you can safely build your own sense of
Identity and self-worth on them.
A True and Worthy Selfhood: Identity.
Some specific ways in which
religion supports identity
“Whirling
Dervishes,”
Sufi dancers
A True and Worthy Selfhood: Identity.
Some specific ways in which
religion supports identity
a. Special status for a few people –
e.g., shamans, nuns, rabbis . . . .
A True and Worthy Selfhood: Identity.
Some specific ways in which
religion supports identity
a. Special status for a few people –
b. Special status for everyone –
e.g., bar mitzvah, bat mitzvah
A True and Worthy Selfhood: Identity.
Some specific ways in which
religion supports identity
a. Special status for a few people –
b. Special status for everyone –
c. Our secret identity --
e.g., Scientology says we are Thetans –
godlike beings caught in
these bodies, until we learn
to become ‘clear’ through
Scientology.
A True and Worthy Selfhood: Identity.
Some specific ways in which
religion supports identity
a. Special status for a few people –
b. Special status for everyone –
c. Our secret identity –
d. Reassurance for a threatened identity –
e.g., snake-handling?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVDKSK2J_Ps
A True and Worthy Selfhood: Identity.
Arizona: a small town, where people live by a traditional nomos.
Chinle sits 5,500 feet above sea level, west of Canyon de Chelly, where in the 1860s the Navajo held out against Kit Carson and federal troops who had come to destroy their crops and burn their homes. Basketball is a passion here. Chinle has 4,500 residents, and its high school arena, the Wildcat Den, seats 7,000. Fans drive and hitchhike 50, 60, 80 miles to games. Coaches are regularly tossed aside after a single losing season.
Most of the teenage players observe traditional beliefs: They bow to the four sacred mountain peaks of Navajo; they carry corn pollen in case their path crosses that of the coyote, a notorious trickster; they swallow a bitter herb before games to guard against envy, jealousy and witchcraft. One senior wears his unshorn hair in a woven pony tail. He will cut it at age 18 and present the locks to his grandfather. As they wander canyons, they listen for the voices of ancestors.
For Navajo Team, a Season of Change and Challenge [basketball],
By MICHAEL POWELL, New York Times, FEB. 26, 2017. Downloaded, Feb. 27, 2017
A True and Worthy Selfhood: Identity.
Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy. 1967
Analysis: Berger “reduces” religion to a cultural product (an “externalization”) whose function is to support and stabilize the social order by attributing it to a sacred or cosmic source. Motivation: to avoid “anomy” – a sense of lawless chaos, which threatens individual identity based on the social nomos (lawful and coherent rule of life/society). It can be called an intellectualist theory to the extent that it portrays religion as a conscious construction to bring and support society.
Critique: 1. This may describe how religious ideas usually function in a society. Primitive folktales which explain the origin of parts of reality and of social rules usually impart a sense of correctness and permanence to such realities; so does attributing social patterns to the will of the gods or God. But we have no evidence that anyone ever sat down and said “I think I will invent religious beliefs in order to uphold the social nomos” – or do we? (The “priestly” writer in the O.T. devised seven days of creation to include a Sabbath for worship.)
2. This theory may not account for the metaphysical notion of God.
