Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

The myth of disenchantment?

#11
Ben the Donkey Offline
... so anyway:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-...k/10148330

I have a tendency to lump religion in with other "superstitions", but I thought I'd post the article above to indicate where I'm coming from.
Australia might be different to the USA and Europe in many ways, although as previously noted using "Europe" as a geographical reference is problematic in itself when it comes to this sort of thing.

I actually thought Australia would be different, but it appears your numbers hold up even here :
2014: https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/it-seem...32gnu.html
2017: https://indaily.com.au/news/2017/09/26/m...iens-poll/

And a little something, perhaps addressing the "why":
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-29/wh...gs/9000096

That 2017 article doesn't seem right to me though.
34% of Australians, apparently, believe that "the story of creation in the book of Genesis is a true account of the first man and woman".
That is neither my experience, nor my observation. Sometimes, you can't trust these types of articles at all.
Reply
#12
Secular Sanity Offline
Well, there's Queensland. I've noticed that there's quite a bit of woo coming from that area. Something in the water maybe.
Reply
#13
C C Offline
(Aug 22, 2018 03:26 AM)Ben the Donkey Wrote: That 2017 article doesn't seem right to me though.34% of Australians, apparently, believe that "the story of creation in the book of Genesis is a true account of the first man and woman". That is neither my experience, nor my observation. Sometimes, you can't trust these types of articles at all.


I really don't much trust (any?) polling and social research data outputted these days ("agnostic" maybe more on the mark), even when it's direct from the original journal's mouth. But such winds up being among the playing pieces or the "fall back to" because there are no better "authority stories" for filling certain knowledge area placeholders. Since our personal experiences, or the aggregated impressions of a group, don't wield influence for the latter domains or are equivalent to being invisible, when not processed by institutional bodies and enterprises, (The workaround apparently being politics, voting, lobbying, activism, etc).

If I lived during the monastic Irish scholarship of the "Dark Ages" (and women actually did contribute as envoys of learning to the European continent -- i.e., that not being yet another fashionable retcon or interpretation), then I'd doubtless be similarly dispensing or appealing to whatever counting/sorting and mixture of nonsense and practical knowledge served as the "authority stories" for that era -- due to their rep or blessing from scholars, state, and churchmen. But what I went by as personal guides might be more derived from the particular nature and events of my experienced life. Granted some minor deviation from being a robot conforming to approved generalities was possible.

~
Reply
#14
Ben the Donkey Offline
Ah, Queensland. Yes, well. It's vaguely embarrassing to be Australian at all, these days... but being a Queenslander, I'd imagine, would be far worse.

I like to think I'm a good data analyst, but a side effect of that is that I trust no one else without seeing their methodology first. If I can't see it, I tend to dismiss the conclusions.
"Agnostic" is a good term for it. You edited your reply, CC. I know, because I briefly glanced at it this morning, but having just woken up I thought I'd read it again tonight. And now it's gone.

I remember that it had me thinking along the lines of social contact within a society, and how that alone would influence perception... and that there is every possibility that that figure of 34% is absolutely correct.
Reply
#15
Syne Offline
(Aug 22, 2018 03:26 AM)Ben the Donkey Wrote: That 2017 article doesn't seem right to me though.
34% of Australians, apparently, believe that "the story of creation in the book of Genesis is a true account of the first man and woman".
That is neither my experience, nor my observation. Sometimes, you can't trust these types of articles at all.

If your perception of the world is filtered through the media, you're liable to think there are more ethnic minorities, gays, and secular folk than there actually are in any given country.
Reply
#16
C C Offline
(Aug 22, 2018 11:57 AM)Ben the Donkey Wrote: [...] "Agnostic" is a good term for it. You edited your reply, CC. I know, because I briefly glanced at it this morning, but having just woken up I thought I'd read it again tonight. And now it's gone. [...]


Yah, as noted in the "Edit reason", on second look I felt was doing some late-night insomniac rambling there from the brief comment I originally intended. I've restored it as best as I can remember, while also keeping the edited version embedded in it.

Quote:I remember that it had me thinking along the lines of social contact within a society, and how that alone would influence perception... and that there is every possibility that that figure of 34% is absolutely correct.


Predatory publishing, the so-called "replication crisis", the publish or perish self-promotional trends and competition for funding, public sector scientists being arguably "owned" by the industries which employ them, the stealthy creeping-in of politics and ideology or trying to appease such, etc... have somewhat shaken my confidence in the human sciences in a general sense.

~
Reply
#17
Yazata Offline
(Aug 16, 2018 06:45 PM)C C Wrote: In The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences, Williams College religion professor Jason Ā. Josephson-Storm opens with this anecdote, noting that it doesn’t quite jibe with “the single most familiar story in the history of science,” one we tell ourselves in the modern, secular world: the story of disenchantment.

I think that there definitely has been a change since ancient and early medieval times, when people believed in all manner of magic and practiced all manner of divination, when they believed that reality was filled with daemons (sub-divine supernatural beings), miracles and prodigies. The days are over when a thunderstorm is interpreted as a deity's wrath or disease as the result of witchcraft. I don't see any problem with calling that intellectual transformation "disenchantment".

As somebody once put it, today we're trapped in a clockwork.

Quote:Josephson-Storm summarizes it as follows:

... at a particular moment the darkness of superstition, myth, or religion began to give way to modern light, exchanging traditional unreason for technology and rationality. When told in a soaring tone, this is a tale of triumph; and when recounted in a different and descending emotional register, it can sound like the inauguration of our tragic alienation from an idealized past.

That's attaching value to the change I just referred to, associating it with the myth of "progress" or with some kind of "lost paradise" myth. One can indeed applaud the change as valuable, or mourn the death of magic.

But that doesn't mean that the cultural change hasn't occurred, whatever we think of it.

Quote:Whichever your take, the narrative abides: Modernity, thus understood, is an age of rationalism, science, and technology that eventually (and inevitably) overcame the mysterious wonders of magic, religion, and superstition. But this story, Josephson-Storm argues, is a myth.

It's an oversimplification. Obviously people could reason rationally in ancient times. (Just read Aristotle.) And obviously there are still people who believe in magic, ufos and the paranormal today. (That's you, MR.) It's also simplistic to think that everyone who doesn't believe in the anomalous things is a supremely-rational pointy-eared 'Mr. Spock' (they may just be social conformists) while anyone who believes in those things can't be rational.
Reply




Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)