What follows introduces the central components of the discipline of sociology. Of course, in a chapter of this length, only the most rudimentary elements of the sociological gaze can be sketched. To this end, the following material aspires only to promote sufficient understanding of the principal concerns, debates and approaches in play within sociology to furnish a suitably informed platform upon which subsequent chapters might build. As the sociology of religion is a sub-discipline of the much broader sociological paradigm, an appreciation of its content, rationale and methods is best achieved through first engaging overarching disciplinary preoccupations and their respective theoretical contentions. Given its thoroughgoingly modern provenance, the discipline of sociology must be understood against the thematic backdrop of ‘modernity’ (Bilton, Bonnett and Jones, 2002). As such, the chapter opens by outlining the chief characteristics of the modern social landscape which sociology engages. The central importance of society and its constituent dimensions is then treated along with some key theoretical debates in respect of the relationship between individuals and social structures. The chapter closes by sketching a number of the most important themes, theoretical variations and methodological approaches in play across the sociological spectrum.
Modernity
The academic discipline of sociology is inextricably fused with the rise of modern, urban-industrial society. This rise occurred initially in Europe and North America and properly began at the close of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries. As this emergence occurred at a particular historical moment in a particular geographical space, the discipline of sociology bears the marks of a specific time and place. Of course, the twentieth-century globalization of the modern, urban-industrial paradigm has occasioned the socio-cultural pluralization of the sociological gaze. The growth of modernity and spread of urban-industrialization to virtually all parts of the world have resulted in sociology’s welcome variegation through the addition of multiple voices speaking with pluriform accents and articulating miscellaneous concerns. However, and for a variety of historical and contemporary reasons, the overwhelming majority of the theory, vocabulary and analytical preoccupations of sociology continue to be those of the modern-day West. Because modernity is ‘multiple’ and the processes of urban-industrialization multifaceted, it cannot be assumed that theories and concepts which illuminate social dynamics in the West automatically apply to the likes of Brazil, China and India (see Chapter 10). By no means negating the ability of sociology to address matters beyond its traditional Western cradle, this observation nevertheless warrants an element of caution, if not humility, both in respect of sociology in general and the sociology of religion in particular (Cohen and Kennedy, 2007).
Key characteristics of modern society
Like the urban-industrial landscape it seeks to understand, sociology is a modern phenomenon. According to the English social theorist Anthony Giddens:
modernity is a shorthand term for modern society or industrial civilization . . . it is associated with (1) a certain set of attitudes towards the world, the idea of the world as open to transformation by human intervention; (2) a complex of economic institutions, especially industrial production and a market economy; (3) a certain range of political institutions, including the nation-state and mass democracy. Largely as a result of these characteristics, modernity is vastly more dynamic than any previous type of social order. It is a society – more technically, a complex of institutions – which unlike any preceding culture lives in the future rather than the past. (1998, p. 94)
In more or less explicit terms, Giddens’ definition highlights a number of features which make modern society what it is and thereby distinguish it from what has gone before. Of the most relevant points Giddens makes, first and foremost, modern society is urban-industrial. Even rural parts of the modern landscape characterized by agricultural production are in modern society orientated to meeting the needs of the urban-industrial heartlands they ultimately serve. Although by no means evenly achieved across the globe, a typically modern society in any part of the world concentrates the overwhelming majority of its population – understood now as a ‘workforce’ – within urban environments geared to facilitating mechanized and technologically driven forms of industrial production.
Second, modern society is integrated. In structural terms, modern societies are characterized by the universal, and usually centralized, application of political, legal, economic, and, at times, linguistic processes which impact upon all aspects of social life. Driven initially by the industrial revolution of the 1800s, structural integration was facilitated through the rapid development of infrastructural networks of transport (e.g. canal, rail, road, air) and communication (e.g. mail, telegraph, telephone, radio, satellite). The social integration characteristic of modernity arises directly from the processes and networks of structural integration. Catalysed by the dynamics of urbanization, social integration is further enhanced by virtue of the modern individual’s increased interaction with and mutual reliance upon other human beings. From basic goods (e.g. food, clothing, shelter), through institutional encounter (e.g. education, work, leisure) to mediated interaction (e.g. reading, radio, television, internet), the average member of modern society both interacts with and relies upon a vast array of integrated networks and those who populate them. At the same time, this interaction and dependence relies upon a substantial amount of co-operation enabled by common knowledge and shared values – much of which we take for granted but without which we would be unable to function.
Third, modern society is highly complex. Often referred to as ‘differentiation’, the complexity of modern society is realized through the progressively varied nature of both its structures and population. In structural terms, modern society has an almost vertiginous number of processes, mechanisms, organizations, and institutions through which the day-to-day activities of its members occur. Be they economic, political, legal, employment-related, educational, recreational, communal and familial, the structures of modern society are numerous, variegated and highly specialized. At the same time, modern society exhibits a socio-cultural variety unprecedented in human history. On the one hand, social pluralization occurs in response to structural differentiation. This is the case because variegated kinds of social structures engender progressively diverse life-experiences for the different groups who populate the various parts of the system. The increasing number of ‘social categories’, ‘status groups’ or ‘classes’ evident in modern society responds directly to its structural complexity. On the other hand, social differentiation occurs through migration, as different socio-cultural groups move – or are moved – from one place to another. In addition to adding to the socio-cultural mix by their simple presence, the subsequent interaction of different racial, ethnic and linguistic groups further enhances the socially plural character of modern society.
Fourth, modern society is characterized by constant, rapid and far-reaching transformation at both structural and social levels. In combination, for example, the spread of global capitalism and pace of technological innovation necessitate continued revision of economic, political, legal and educational structures. From new means of financial regulation and infrastructural integration through shifting employment patterns and modified modes of civil participation to expanded human rights and extended access to health care and education, modern societies of every shape and size are continually remodelling their structures to keep pace with the scale and rapidity of contemporary change. In socio-cultural terms, for example, the gap between past and present generations has never been so stark. While intergenerational differences have long been a feature of human history, the swift and widespread transformation typical of modernity fundamentally alters the hold which the traditions and practices of our antecedents are able to exert. In effect, as the scale and rapidity of change distances contemporary from past experience, current generations find it increasingly hard to both appreciate the relevance of inherited traditions and willingly perform received practices. Indeed, for some, this distance is experienced as so great that the traditions and practices of prior generations are rendered obsolete, meaningless and irrelevant
