through the alienating processes of projection, religion is treated by Marx as inherently mystifying. For Marx, the act of ‘mystification’ involves the misrecognition of a thing as something else (McLellan, 1977, p. 511). Mystification is important because it represents a distortion of relations which allows for people and things – by virtue of their misrecognition – to be treated in ways in which they should not. For example, the opinion that society is both unchanging and hierarchically ordered by God-given nature is an act of misrecognition which both justifies (through ‘moral sanction’) unequal structures and imbues the downtrodden with an air of resignation and passivity. As a result, religious duty is portrayed as wilful obedience to one’s betters for which one receives immaterial consolation through the assurance of eternal blessedness. Criticism of religion, then, involves the unmasking of its mystifying nature and starts with the assertion that ‘man makes religion, religion does not make man’ (McLellan, 1977, p. 63).
Marx’s understanding of religion as ideology is not, however, purely abstract. In contrast to the likes of Feuerbach, Marx claims, he fully appreciates the fact ‘that the “religious sentiment” is itself a social product’ (McLellan, 1977, p. 157). In his most famous assertion in respect of religion, Marx states that:
Religious suffering is at the same time an expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the feeling of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless circumstances. It is the opium of the people. (McLellan, 1977, p. 64)
Mindful of the horrendous living conditions under which the urban poor were suffering, and despite its mystifying and alienating character, religion is recognized by Marx as at least providing some degree of ‘consolation’ and ‘happiness’ – however misplaced – for those at the rough end of the nascent capitalist system. Faced with the realities of social injustice, Marx criticizes established religious institutions for their alliance with the prevailing elite and ongoing refusal to address the real causes of social inequality. Arguing that ‘the parson has ever gone hand in hand with the landlord’, Marx is scathing of purportedly progressive religious movements such as Christian Socialism, which he maintains ‘is but the holy water with which the priest consecrates the heart-burnings of the aristocrat’ (McLellan, 1977, p. 239). A beneficiary of its long-standing integration within dominant economic-political systems, the ‘Established English Church’, Marx says, ‘will more readily pardon an attack on 38 of its 39 articles than on 1/39th of its income’. Indeed, such is its investment in the status quo that ‘compared with criticism of existing property relations’, the church regards atheism as but a ‘minor fault’ (McLellan, 1977, p. 417).
Religious mystification and ideological sanction
Marx’s critique of religion can be said to be twofold. On the one hand, religion contributes to humankind’s inability to perceive itself as an active agent of historical change. By virtue of its mystifying and alienating origins, religion instead identifies humanity as the passive object of supernaturally determined social structures and processes. By no means the only ideological culprit, as a form of ideology par excellence, religion is nevertheless a key part of the problem. On the other hand, religious institutions are integral to upholding prevailing systems of inequality. By virtue of its alliance with and dependence upon the status quo, established religion works hand-in-glove with the ruling elite. While not the only source of ‘moral sanction’ and ‘justification’ of dominant modes of societal reproduction, established religion nevertheless provides an important roadblock to social transformation. In combination, the inherent nature of religiosity and the concrete practices of religious institutions make religion both unable and unwilling to contribute to radical social transformation. Furthermore, its alienating character and privileged institutional status leads religion – both unwittingly and intentionally – to agitate against such change ever taking place. On both counts, then, religion is an enemy of those in need of change.
Although engaged by both Durkheim and Weber, Marx’s work became something of a niche interest until its later translation and subsequent mainstreaming at the hands of left-leaning academics and successive emancipatory movements which emerged in Europe and the USA in the 1960s. On the one hand, the unsystematic character of Marx’s work and its overly deterministic readings of historical development and economic causality have limited its appeal to social theorists. On the other, Marx’s egalitarian concerns, reflections upon the unequal nature of society and the relationship between knowledge and social location have proved inspirational to those theoretically and practically committed to understanding and/or engendering social transformation.
Émile Durkheim (1858–1917)
Writing a generation later than Marx, Durkheim’s theoretical engagement with society is something more akin to the sociological endeavour as we understand it today. In The Division of Labour in Society (1893/1984) and The Rules of Sociological Method (1895/1982), Durkheim unites received enquiry with pioneering reflections upon social structure and methodology in ways which continue to be important referents of much contemporary social science. In the same vein, and despite its rudimentary nature, Durkheim’s use of statistics in his analysis of the varying suicide rates of different European countries (On Suicide, 1897/2006) established patterns of enquiry followed by subsequent generations of sociologists.2 Although his earlier works treat the social relevance of religious discourse and practice, it was Durkheim’s last major work which established him as one of the most formative figures in the history of sociology’s engagement with religion. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912/2001) continues to be indispensable reading for all would-be sociologists of religion.
Raised as an orthodox Jew, Durkheim’s engagement with religion is nevertheless flavoured almost entirely by the typically French preoccupations of the time with social integration (Lukes, 1992). The theoretical backdrop against which Durkheim works can be summed up by the following problematic: Given that the collective reality of society is populated by naturally self-interested individuals, how does it continue to function? Ultimately, Durkheim’s response to this question is twofold. First, society functions best when it accommodates individuality through the nurturing of typically human traits such as initiative, creativity and self-expression. While these traits have served humanity well in its long evolutionary ascent, they find their best expressions through the socio-cultural conditions made possible by the historical emergence of society. Second, the optimal functioning of society requires the subordination of individuality to the collective needs of the social whole. Unless individuals are so minded to co-operate, compromise and, at times, make sacrifices, the corporate structures and collective processes through which society is founded simply cannot exist. An irony not lost on Durkheim is that while individuals are at their best when living in society, the successful functioning of society requires the inhibition of unqualified individuality. Consequently, the human condition is such that the individual is best served through her subordination to something greater than herself:
The individual submits to society and this submission is the condition of his liberation . . . By putting himself under the wing of society, he makes himself also, to a certain extent, dependent upon it. But this is a liberating dependence. (1965, p. 72)
As with the functionalist tradition which he is often credited as founding, Durkheim’s response to the above problematic revolves around understanding the optimal functioning of society as achieved through its ability to generate ‘social solidarity’ through the integration of individuals within socially cohesive structures and processes. Such integration, however, is no easy matter. Given humankind’s nature, the subordination of individual self-interest to the collective interests of the social whole comes neither naturally nor easily. As a result, individual submission to social processes must be generated from outside, be constantly reinforced and come with ‘a tone of authority’ sufficient to engender from individuals something which might ‘even tell him to violate his most natural inclinations’
