Mechanisms of Social Control - 4
Religion, Power, and Social Control
How might these ideas apply then to religions as mechanisms of social control? As I introduce this discussion, I beg your indulgence, since my presentation here will very likely appear to be oversimplified and even naive.
A Naive Illustration of the Development of Religious Power
Let us imagine a time when supposedly chaos characterized the relationships among peoples, in something approximating Hobbes's "natural state" - a time when murder, theft, rape, mayhem were rampant and when people were relatively unrestrained in acting on their impulses or in acquiring whatever they needed or desired. Let us imagine a sage and chieftain (at that time, most likely a male, otherwise religions might have developed differently) who observes that such behaviors will ultimately lead to individual and collective catastrophe. He attempts to restrain a shepherd who, it seems, is ready to murder a neighbor who had just stolen one of the shepherd's sheep. He tries to explain (informational power) that "this is not a good practice, since it will lead to ultimate suffering for everyone." The shepherd is not convinced. "Look," he says, "Trust me. Even if you don't understand, you must respect my wisdom and experience." (Expert power doesn't work.) "But I am your chieftain and you should feel an obligation." But the shepherd does not accept the chieftain's legitimate right to restrict this behavior. If these bases of power are insufficient, then how about: "I shall see to it that you are punished for such an act." But, again, the shepherd does not really believe that the chieftain really has the means to punish the shepherd. Besides, the act could be carried out without the chieftain's even knowing about it.
The sage then develops or discovers another means to implement change in the shepherd and others. (Some might find it more comfortable at this point to think of the sage as divinely inspired.) He develops the concept of a "Deity," a Supreme Being. This Deity is omnipotent, can determine life or death, has the ultimate power to offer the ultimate reward (heaven) or the ultimate punishment (hell), and many other intermediate rewards and punishments.
He is omnipresent: He is everywhere, His power is universal. He is also omniscient: He is the ultimate expert power. Furthermore, with this Deity as the influencing agent, the target can be assured that there will always be the surveillance that is necessary for behaviors to be rewarded and punished. In effect, the sage is going through a series of preparatory strategies, but specifically attributing qualities that provide bases of power to an omnipotent third party. This Deity is certainly a formidable influencing agent with such a strong armament available to induce compliance.
As an aside, I am sure that most of us have had experience with people even today invoking the power of God. We hear religious ministers and authorities do so, particularly from fundamentalist religions, but also others, including parents. Some years ago, Clyde Nunn (1964) interviewed 367 parents and found that two-thirds of them told their children that God will punish them if they are bad, a proportion that has probably changed little, if at all, since then. Such invocation of the coercive power of God was most likely among parents who had low income, were members of fundamentalist churches, and who felt that children should obey their parents without question. Nunn concluded that such parents would be likely to feel relatively powerless and needed such a powerful ally to gain compliance. At this very conference, Bugental (1998) reported that parents who feel powerless are particularly likely to use excessive force (coercive power) in disciplining their children. She did not ask about invoking the coercive power of God, but we would expect that that would also be more likely for such parents. Recently, Haruki Sakai (personal communication, 1998) questioned Japanese university students about the tendency of Japanese parents to invoke the power of "gods," and though he found that this device was less likely than Nunn had found in his earlier American sample, 44% of his sample still reported that they did so.(2)
But in those earlier times, it must have been quite a challenge for the sage to convince that shepherd and others that such a Being exists, and exists with these characteristics. It becomes more understandable if we realize that really there is not just one sage, but that this sage, in fact, continues in one form or another over many hundreds of years. The sage and his future "collaborators," in fact, develop a series of stories, which are modified in retelling over many years and which then support the nature of such a Deity. Indeed, it turns out that these collectively form a book or series of books, which come from no less than the Deity Himself. The establishment of this omnipotent authority is developed over and over again, including convincing stories of miracles, beginning with the creation of the world itself. His omnipresence and omniscience is also demonstrated time and again. Much of what is in our holy books today, it seems, was first transmitted orally, over many generations, over many centuries. The religion attributed to Abraham, which is central to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, is said by biblical scholars to have its origins in the 20th Century, BCE,(3) but it appears that it was not written down until twelve centuries later (Armstrong, 1993). As these were transmitted, they were modified to fit the period and the political situation of that period (Kelman & Hamilton, 1989, p. 58) and honed to serve their purposes. Some stories and dicta were added and some were lost, or edited out, in the retelling. Recent studies of ancient works, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, show how the words and stories of that day appear to have been inherited and modified from previous works of the past, and were remodified in future works that we know today (Vermes, 1997). These are the works of an innumerable series of writers and editors. Why and how were these earlier works modified? The book that we know as the Bible becomes more meaningful in these terms. As Kelman and Hamilton (1989) point out, "The Bible can be conceived as a book of norms: a historical window into the 'oughts' and 'ought nots' of long ago cultures in what was then the crossroads of the world" (p. 58).
We would go somewhat further and also see the Bible, among its many other qualities, as a magnificent, convincing preparatory or stage-setting mechanism, designed to demonstrate and establish God's bases of power and to thereby provide an elaborate and often effective mechanism for social control.(4) These prescriptions and proscriptions of various behaviors, and the power behind them, is amplified and emphasized over the years by other writings, sermons, works of literature and art. Let us look at some examples and see if they can be considered in this way.
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