Peter L. Berger (1929–2017)

Here is an older book I should have read a couple of decades ago (when it was not new), in order to apply its insights in my academic work. First published in 1967, Berger's The Sacred Canopy is subtitled "elements of a sociological theory of religion." Despite his insistence on sociology as an empirical discipline, the book is not oriented to primary studies of the sociological features of contemporary religious operation. Most of the book is trained on very large-scale phenomena over long show more periods, using lenses inherited and adapted from theorists such as Weber, Durkheim, and Mead.

Berger hardly touches the term "belief," but makes extensive use of the closely related concept of "plausibility," advancing the creation and maintenance of "plausibility structures" as inherent operations undertaken by society in the religious mode. There are useful distinctions between the methods used to maintain plausibility in religions that dominate entire cultures and the different strategies that are necessarily adopted by "cognitive minorities" He also highlights theodicy, taken in a sense generalized beyond the usual theological problem to any religious explanation of the anomic challenges of death, suffering, and evil.

The later parts of the book are preoccupied with the phenomena of secularization and their relationship to parallel and dialectically related developments in economic and scientific development. Throughout the book, Berger uses examples from a wide diversity of religions, but in these sections he pays special and deserved attention to Christianity generally, and Protestantism in particular. "If the drama of the modern era is the decline of religion, then Protestantism can aptly be described as its dress rehearsal" (157).

Perhaps the high point of the whole volume for me was "Appendix II: Sociological and Theological Perspectives," in which Berger points out some methodological distinctions, withdraws and revises positions made in a previous book (The Precarious Vision, 1961), and proposes possibilities for constructive dialogue between sociology and theology. He is clear that such possibilities may not be realized, because of the demands for "openness" that they make on both sides. show less

I made it about halfway before my eyeballs were twitching so badly I couldn't continue. I can summarize it best by saying it's the dated, obtuse ramblings of a couple of German post WWII academics on the primacy of society - I would characterize this more as Social Existentialism rather than sociology. A weird mash of Nietzsche and Camus with an overcoat of religion. Really it's the old nature/nurture debate, and in this instance nurture is everything, nature is nothing. Which is about half show more right...
Read it only if your eyeballs need the exercise. show less

The purpose of this book is nothing short of attempting to explain how human thought and representation become material reality and how that material reality becomes the basis for individual consciousness and social identification. The argument moves astonishingly fast for the grandness of its scope.

The authors argue, convincingly, about how individual consciousness begins with one's own thoughts and awareness of surroundings. We then come to realize ways of sharing what is internal through show more objectivation. What becomes externalized as objects becomes incorporated into typified actions and interactions around which we (and others) develop roles. Multiply these relations and the result is institutions and beliefs that exist "in reality" apart from, but very much a product of our shared consciousness. As institutions take hold and persist across generations they take on independent legitimacy that is further supported through the development of tradition, mythology, ideology, religion, etc. These institutions and their associated roles are then internalized by future generations, becoming part of their identities and outlook on the world.

The argument is laid out quickly and at times in broad strokes. There are examples that help to envision the logic of the argument, but many of the details in the process of externalization and internalization are fuzzy and implied. Pairing this book with work from someone like John Searle makes for a satisfyingly rich view of the social construction of reality and the central function of language and discursive interaction in that process. show less

Peter Berger, sociologist, churchman, and a prolific commentator on the contemporary scene, is a voluntarist who believes that the choices of policy-makers affect the course of history; he is also a social scientist who believes that the ethical questions attendant on modernization should be confronted head-on. His book, Pyramids of Sacrifice, submits the two dominant schemes for national development—capitalism and Communism—to human cost-accounting. Berger thereby takes a long step show more toward uniting “two attitudes that are usually separate—the attitudes of ‘hard nosed’ analysis and of utopian imagination.”

Pyramids of Sacrifice is an essay on the human dimensions of development. It views development not from the perspective of world history or of ideological combat, but through its impact on the individuals whose lives are transformed by social, economic, and political change. This perspective makes Berger sensitive to human problems which are too frequently ignored in the calculations of philosophers of history, revolutionaries, and reformist social engineers. Viewing history from below, Berger reflects on the moral imperatives of policy-making for the Third World. Foremost among such imperatives, for him, are that those affected by a policy have the opportunity to participate in the making of decisions; that policymakers carefully calculate the likely human costs of alternative policies in order to avoid those that come too dear; and that no development strategy be adopted which would require the sacrifice of a generation to the achievement of long-range goals.

by Jeane J. Kirkpatrick show less