Third World, Modernization, Religion

Name:
Location: Germany

I’m a Ph.D. student of Sociology in Germany. I did read somewhere that Weblogs today are more functional than thesis committee. I would like to know how it works for my thesis about fate of Religion in the epoch of Modernity specially in the Third World.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Secularization From Without, Secularization From Within

Theory of secularization has very many aspects. One of them is: “Secularization from without“versus “Secularization from within”
Secularization from within has an internal nature and come up from modification of social institutions. During the time, the process of differentiation divide political power from religion and sacred institutions undermine by secular one.

In secularization from without, conversely, a foreign power attempt to develop the process in a society.
Democracy, human rights and economic development are the main characters of modernization. According to the old theory, modernization and secularization are cognate phenomena. Nevertheless secularization from without will not triumph. Iran and Turkey 30 years ago, and Afghanistan and Iraq today are the top examples of secularization from without.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

plausibility structure

In Berger’s sense of the term, “plausibility structure”, every social institution has a specific structure and its structure works properly.
All parts are in the proper place, they have own function, they work together and keep the structure as a system alive. One structure, or you can read it one social institution may be is not plausible for some observers but it is not important. They are just observes. The mean point is that the structure is plausible for participants or, say, players. Top example is religion. Unbelievers think that religion and faith, especially in the modern world is completely nonsense and useless particularly when they confront whit unanswered questions or contradictory parts of a religion.
However, many religions continue to exist even in era of modernity.
The problem of “plausibility structure” is not the problem of observer and player. The problem is in fact the problem of player.
In the era of modernity and because of the plurality of institutions, roles and status, every social actor has in his everyday life many shifting between different roles in different institutions.
Every institution has own plausibility, and it is very possible that plausibility of one structure is partly or completely implausible from perspective of other plausibility structures.
In this field, a player confuses that where is the goal.
Contradiction between logic of different structures makes the play very difficult for contemporary man.
This is the problem of religion in the modern world and countries that are undergoing modernization: contradiction between plausibility of religious structure and plausibility of scientific structure.