231 - Facing Up to Modernity

Facing Up to Modernity
By Peter Berger
New York, Basic Book Publishers, 1977, 233 pp. $11.50.

This collection of articles written by Peter Berger over the last fifteen years deals with the crisis of present society and the role of religion, topics that have been treated at greater length in his many books. To Peter Berger fans, these articles will not be new. They represent the stance toward society and the attitude toward religion, with which the student of Peter Berger has become acquainted.

232 - Facing Up to Modernity

In the introduction Berger again defends his methodology. His sociological analysis, he claims, is objective or value-free. He knows, of course, that the value-free nature of sociology has been questioned. It has been argued that implicit in every sociological inquiry is a set of values and a vision of what society should be like. Berger dismisses this position as if it necessarily transforms sociology into propaganda. Unfortunately, he does not provide arguments that deal with this methodological difficulty. The sociological schools that deny the value neutrality of sociology claim that operative in all sociological investigations are norms that make sociologists ask some questions rather than others, select one set of data rather than another, etc. It is, therefore, the scientific task of sociologists to clarify for themselves the values operative in their work and submit them to a systematic critique. Sociology always makes use of norms that are not wholly derivable from empirical science. These sociologists argue that the social scientists who claim to be value-free in their research hide from themselves their operative values and become advocates of social positions in their work knowing it.

Here lies the enormous vulnerability of Berger's sociology. Berger is of course a moralist; he is, in fact, a Christian thinker. But he insists that social science and moral philosophy are distinct fields of inquiry, related only extrinsically through moral agents who apply sociological conclusions to the problems of society. This neo-Kantian position seems to me to be at odds with Berger's view of knowledge as part of the world building process.

To the reader, Peter Berger's sociological essays do not appear value-free at all. Berger analyzes society from a certain point of view. For instance, he applies what he calls the debunking role of sociology mainly to movements that seek to change the existing order. Characteristic here is his interpretation of the sixties. Berger looks upon the sixties as a confused period in which people misread the malaise caused by the growth of technology and bureaucracy as signs of the emergence of a new society. People allowed themselves to indulge in romantic expectations and underestimated the sustaining power of the dominant institutions. The youth movement is related by Berger to the personalist method of child rearing adopted by middle class parents in the fifties which left young people unprepared to live in the modern world defined by impersonal relations. In this period and to some extent today, "the knowledge industry" carried on by the growing number of "intellectuals" produce myths of alternative societies, such as the socialist myth, which focus on the negative aspects of the American dream, appeal to the restlessness produced by modernity, undermine the achievement orientation of western culture and attack the class system to which America is committed. These intellectual "fashions" give rise to unrealistic social policies; what they overlook is the stability of the dominant institutions.

During the sixties the churches themselves, Berger holds, were will-

233 - Facing Up to Modernity

ing to listen to these "fashions." Unsure of their self-identity the churches lost their nerve. They wanted to become relevant and join the clamor for an alternative society.

There are of course other sociological readings of the sixties. Many sociologists see in critical movements, such as the movement of the sixties, social manifestations that bring to light the discrepancies, of the existing order. The people who are hurt by the dominant structures speak out in protest and symbolize for themselves new forms of societal life that promise to overcome present ills. Something pertaining to the whole of society reveals itself in the various ernancipatory movements. Karl Mannheim thought that it was the task of sociology to discover what he called "the documentary meaning" of social events. If the sixties are read in this way then they make available critiques of society which have an objective status and from which society should learn. If this reading is correct, then the churches which listened to this truth were not losing their nerve but remained faithful to their gospel mission. Which is the correct reading of historical events? To solve this question sociologists must move beyond declarations of value-neutrality to the hermeneutical question.

Peter Berger wants to do sociology while bracketing the truth question. He does this in his sociology of religion, and he does this in his sociology of social unrest. Instead of examining in a rational manner the claims made by a movement or a group, he simply studies the social function these claims exercise. For instance, he tells us that an ever greater number of social scientists, intellectuals, even church people have come to regard the present form of capitalism as a system that widens the gap between the rich and the poor countries, leads to a gravely unequal distribution of wealth in the developed nations, and commits the control over resources and production to an ever smaller number of individuals. It has become fashionable in intellectual circles to regard capitalism as an irrational system that produces unemployment and inflation beyond anyone's control and hence to advocate socialism in some form or other, that is, a system in which the production and distribution of goods are planned by bodies responsible to the public. Instead of examining whether there is some truth in the view that capitalism has become irrational, Peter Berger focuses on the function this socialist "fashion" supposedly fulfills in the community of "intellectuals." Berger speaks of the socialist myth possessing a quasireligious quality that consoles the middle class caught in the homelessness and rootlessness which modern, technological society inevitably produces. The socialist myth, moreover, reveals the resentment of the intellectuals against the industrial and commercial hierarchy which holds great power in present society. This method allows a sociologist to avoid the substantive question regarding capitalist versus socialist economies.

In some of his theological writings, Peter Berger has suggested that religion deals first of all with the sacred and that the intermingling of

234 - Facing Up to Modernity

the sacred and the profane, practiced in some modern churches, weakens the sense of divine transcendence and hence undermines the self-identity of these churches. In this book, however, Berger expresses the view that there is no contradiction between divine transcendence and human emancipation. "The transcendence of God," he writes, "and the worldly mission of humanity are not in contradiction. On the contrary, the worship of God who is utterly beyond the world is deeply, inextricably linked with the most passionate engagement in the moral struggles of this world." God transcends transcendence and becomes immanent in the human struggle for justice and peace,

Gregory Baum
St. Michael's College
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario