Comments on: The Social Condition: The Third Intellectual Project

By: Daniel Winchester

Daniel Winchester — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 00:31:00 +0000

I’m late to the discussion here (great blog, by the way), but this is good stuff. Probably the reason I’m most intrigued by studying subjectivity and the self from a sociological perspective is precisely that these kinds of tensions and dilemmas seem to be at the center of the question of identity itself. There is just something about the fact that human selfhood emerges from taking the point of view of social others that makes it a site of intense ethical problematization and potential: Who am I? Where is my life going? What is most significant about who I am as a person? These aren’t just philosophical questions – these are questions inherent in what you call the “social condition” and sociologists are certainly well posed to explore them.

Btw, I’ve heard that article comparing Orthodox Jewish and Muslim converts is brilliant… 😉

By: Jeffrey Goldfarb

Jeffrey Goldfarb — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 22:10:00 +0000

I already responded earlier, John, but somehow the response was lost. So briefly: yes of course I know Jim’s work. He in fact is a Deliberately Considered contributor. We realize that many have been studying what we are calling the social condition, including Jasper. Our task will be to highlight an appreciation of this and to criticize work that oversimplifies. I wonder about dialectical materialism. I tend to think of it as more teleological, less open than what we are developing. But I am interested in what exactly you have in mind.

By: John Krinsky

John Krinsky — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 13:20:00 +0000

Jeff and Iddo, I trust you know Jim Jasper’s work? He’s been studying predictable dilemmas for something like the last ten years. And though I only have time for a quick comment before taking my son to school, I’d note that this project has some affinities with dialectical materialism…

By: Jeffrey Goldfarb

Jeffrey Goldfarb — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 20:04:00 +0000

I would point out that Iddo is highlighting the study of the social condition as an intellectual project, but it is also a perspective that illuminates a part of the human condition, that part of it that is generated by the fact that we associate. It is quite predictable to the experienced observer, if not to the social actor. The forms of our associations always open some possibilities and close others. In his example, developing religious mastery necessarily diminishes intense religious experience.

By: Iddo

Iddo — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 11:36:00 +0000

Hi S.J.

Thanks for the note. What I mean when I say that tensions are predictable is that people find themselves (again and again) in these conditions. So, although it may not be predictable from their point of view (that’s the first time they are getting into this situation), it is from the sociologists’ point of view.

As an example, when I talked to a friend who was studying Muslim converts about what I saw in the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood (the stuff above), he told me that he saw almost exactly the same pattern in his case. In fact, the patterns were so similar that we ended up writing an article together. And since we wrote it, I got a few other people (who study, or belong to, other faiths) say that it is uncannily similar to what they know of their congregations. The point is, routinization of experience is predictable (and not only in religion), but so is the emphasis on emotional and experiential highs in religion today. When these two things clash–and they almost invariably clash–people may feel an existential crisis that is quite predictable from a sociological standpoint.

the best,
Iddo

ps. not completely sure what you mean by linear. If you mean it looks like a snapshot, then not quite: it is based on five years of observations, where I saw friends go through the process.

By: S. J. Thapa

S. J. Thapa — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 22:22:00 +0000

Iddo, thank you for an interesting post.
I understood why this third intellectual project, inherent in the daily tensions of small moments, are interesting and significant to you (and if I understood you correctly, they are to me as well). But I don’t see how the conditions of these tensions could be predictable?
The example of newly religious Jews’ shift from a deep to a routinized experience seems to be a bit of a linear observation.
Aren’t the sociologically revealing moments, the situations where the predictions and expectations which we have, appear to be false?