Social Sciences En Politieke En Sociale Wetenschappen
European History
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Summary European History L8: Culture and secularisation
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European History
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Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB)
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Abbreviations:
DRTR: divine right to rule
E-G: Estates-General
CC: Catholic Church
AR: Ancien regime
DL: Germany (Deutschland)
WS: Welfare state
SD: Social democracy
SDs: social democrats
CDs: Christian democrats
O1H: on the one hand
OOH: on the other...
Social Sciences en Politieke en Sociale Wetenschappen
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8: Culture and secularisation
Content:
1. Secularisation
1.1. Modernity and the secular
1.2. Revisions to secularisation theory
1.3. Secularism as a political project
2. Cultural changes
2.1. Nationalism and the sacralisation of ‘the people’
2.2. Industrialisation and the commercialisation of the arts
2.3. Birth of mass consumer culture
2.4. A plurality of artistic styles
1. Secularisation
● Defining secularisation:
= a process of differentiating religious and secular spheres of life; accompanied by widespread acceptance
of the relativism of people’s beliefs.
2nd sphere that is in essence not religious - a sphere of social, political, economic life, a sphere of interaction
that doesn’t predominantly gravitate around one’s religious identity.
Crucial differentiation - until C19: close interrelationship between king and church; close intermingling of
worldly affairs and religious practice.
(esp. In Fr - kings anointed by the Pope)
Over the course of the 19C - process of differentiation between the two.
Differentiation between the religious parts of our life and the ‘state’/between public and private life.
Still being a religious person but accepting that another might hold different beliefs. ==> process of relativism.
● ‘Secular’ means not spiritual, not sacred, not religious.
● Latin ‘saeculum’: an ‘age’/’the world’
○ Used to differentiate an enclosed clergy (monastic priests) from a secular clergy (those serving
the parish, being ‘out of the world’).
○ How the opposites religious - secular came to be:
■ Enclosed clergy - withdraw from society to practice their religion.
■ Secular clergy - priests not in a monastery, but living in society, in a
community/parish.
○ ‘Secular’ used increasingly to refer to a lifestyle that is at odds with God (differentiation civil -
religious law).
● Secularisation thesis = the claim that religion is declining in importance.
+ That this is the result of modernisation (processes) - rationalisation, indn, urbanisation. - linking it to
C19.
Secularisation: two main theses
1) Disappearance thesis
● Modernity brings about the “death of religion”.
○ With all its processes.
● The significance of religion for society and individuals will decrease until it disappears.
2) Differentiation thesis / aka ‘privatisation’ thesis
● Not a general decline in religiosity but a decline in the social significance of religion.
○ Not that individuals are becoming less religious/religion is less important to them, but that
religion as a social practice/mechanism that ties people together and that they centerstage in
interaction is declining.
● Two main causes
, ○ Institutional differentiation: religion is no longer a force permeating society as a whole, but
displanted to a sphere of its own; the economy, political and legal institutions become
autonomous.
■ Level of autonomy they lacked in AR.
■ It’s especially with the development of the N-S, (19C particularly) modern states, that
religion is pushed back.
■ No longer interrelated to the fabric of the state, but given its own sphere.
○ Disenchantment: reluctance to accept explanations referring to forces outside this world.
■ As a result of rationalisation - become more critical - and urbanisation - people leaving
their traditional societies and => also their traditions behind.
■ People asking for practical answers.
As a result of these 2 causes:
● Religion becomes a private matter: can still remain significant for individual people. } as a result of
another differentiation between the public and the private sphere.
Due to the creation of modern states that creates an institutional differentiation, claiming a sphere of their
own/their own autonomy, => they build their own institutions and keep them separate from religious ones:
building own bureaucracies, public schools to educate citizens to the benefits of the modern state.
==> Religion doesn't disappear, is not seen as an impossible match with processes of institutional
differentiation. → the claim is more modest: privatisation, not disappearance.
==> Loses its significance as a form of social glue.
(due to privatisation/differentiation)
Nietzche - death of religion, “God is dead”
1.1. Secularisation and modernisation
Secularisation theory derives mainly from sociological work of the 1960s.
● 1960s authors published various interpretations of foundational sociological theory that explored the
link between Western modernisation and the decline of traditional religions.
● Max Weber: Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
○ One of the key foundational work that is being re-read and re-interpreted in the 60s.
(+ Durkheim)
Theorists (sociological ones in particular) are developing arguments for the disappearance thesis by relying
heavily on Weber’s writings.
Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism:
- Focuses on the unique features of Western historical development.
- Argues that these features can never literally be repeated elsewhere - it’s a specific case study.
- Yet, suggests that comparable forms of rationalisation might occur within different regional and
religious traditions.
→ His case study is being re-interpreted in the 1960s as suggesting that secularisation in Europe can also take
place elsewhere.
Weber argued that after the Protestant Reformation, a specific form of Christian Protestantism - Calvinism -
encouraged a different attitude to work, which had far-reaching effects.
- Belief in predestination → a precise number of souls would go to heaven, had places reserved by God.
- Most Calvinists were terrified that there was no seat waiting for them; were always on the
lookout for signs of Godly favor.
- One clear sign of Godly favor was their active contribution to the community through their work.
- Weber: The Calvinist need to reassure themselves through their industry was an important factor in
the growth of capitalism in Northern Europe. They built up businesses that generated wealth.
- But they lived thrifty lives → reinvested surplus and so helped fuel capitalism.
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