Edward A. Tiryakian

Toward the Sociology of Esoteric Culture

The point of departure of this paper is an examination of the sociological literature on the recent occult revival in modern societies. This phenomenon, which clashes with the image of secularization, is particularly notable among the youth of the counterculture. To further sociological analysis, a conceptualization of esoteric culture is proposed. It is further argued that esoteric culture has played a significant role in Western cultural change, in such areas as artistic expressions of reality, political ideas, and even scientific thought. Esoteric culture is thus treated as a source of ideational innovations in Western modernization.

Existential phenomenology and the sociological tradition.

Existential phenomenology is the synthesis of existential philosophy and Husserls phenomenological method. This paper discusses how this perspective is related to the phenomenological school of sociology and more broadly to the main sociological tradition of subjective realism. The complementarity of existential phenomenology and sociology opens up the possibility of a future general theory of social existence.

Rethinking Civilizational Analysis

Introduction - Sa[um]id Amir Arjomand and Edward A Tiryakian PART ONE: THE INTELLECTUAL BACKGROUND Civilization in an Historical and Global Perspective - Bruce Mazlish Civilizational Forms - Marcel Mauss (edited and translated by Diane Barthel-Bouchier) PART TWO: THEORETICAL ESSAYS Civilizational Analysis - Edward A Tiryakian The Civilizational Dimensions of Modernity - Shmuel N Eisenstadt Notes on the Concept of an Axial Turning in Human History - Donald N Levine Global Civilization and Local Cultures - Wolf Sch[um]afer Civilization and Its Sources - Arpad Szakolczai Civilizational Patterns and Civilizing Processes - Johann P Arnason Rationalization, Transformations of Consciousness and Intercivilizational Encounters - Donald A Nielsen Civilizations as Zones of Prestige and Social Contact - Randall Collins PART THREE: HISTORICAL AND COMPARATIVE ESSAYS Chinese Encounters with Other Civilizations - Cho-Yun Hsu Perso-Indian Statecraft, Greek Political Science and the Muslim Idea of Government - Sa[um]id Amir Arjomand The Comparison of Civilizations - T N Madan Confessions of a Eurocentric - John A Hall PART FOUR: CRITICAL ESSAYS From Indigenous Civilization to Indigenous Modernities - John Rundell A Clash of Civilizations or of Paradigms? - Daniel Chirot The Clash of Civilizations - Gregory Melleuish A Model of Development? For the Last Time - Hamid Dabashi

The Prestige Evaluation of Occupations in an Under Developed Country: The Philippines

A sample of urban and rural Filipino respondents was asked to rank a list thirty occupations. A high level of agreement in the ranking was noted regardless of the indexes used to differentiate the respondents. Evaluation of occupations in this underdeveloped country was found to be similar to that of industrialized nations. Attention was also given to the frames of reference used in ranking occupations.

American Religious Exceptionalism: A Reconsideration

The first part of this article deals with religion in the United States in the context of American exceptionalism. At least since Tocqueville, observers have noted that a distinctive national characteristic of the United States is its religious vitality. In addition to commonly cited aspects of religious activism, it is also argued here that this exceptional vitality is reflected in the periodical mass or public renewals of the religious life and, stemming from Puritanism, in the diffusion of religious elements to other social contexts. A second theme presented in this article is that the three major religious orientations—Protestantism, Catholicism, and Judaism—not only fill an important niche as providers of social identity but also have found in the United States an exceptional historical setting.

War: The Covered Side of Modernity

Although its presence is manifest in all modern societies - in politics, economics and popular culture as well as collective memory - was has indeed been a neglected topic of sociological research, though no discussion of modernity can be complete without it. This article first addresses the question of factors in both the liberal and the socialist traditions that have led to this neglect. Attention is then given to functions of war in the modernization process and beyond this, to the imputed moralism of modern warfare, from the 19th century to the present decade. Since modern war represents the epitome of mobilization, war may be viewed sociologically as a powerful social movement on behalf of a moral cause. A final consideration is the complex relation of war to violence.

Sociology's Great Leap Forward: the Challenge of Internationalisation

This paper advocates internationalising the sociology curriculum for both practical and theoretical reasons. Macro-sociology must drop the parochialism of implicitly confining itself to intra-state phenomena, based on Western historical experience, and develop a conceptual framework adequate to deal with the emergent transnational scene and transnational global structures and processes of change. Correspondingly, the sociology curriculum must be geared to increasing the international competency of students, both undergraduates and graduates. Doing so will attract better undergraduates seeking careers in the international field, and will for graduates provide training and research that will promote the number of sociologists actually engaged in international studies.

National Identity Issues in the New German Elites: A Study of German University Students

This empirical study treats German university students as a rising elite. After discussing the broader sociohistorical context of German national identity in recent decades, this study analyzes (a) students’ attitudes and perceptions on issues related to nationalism, national identity, and inclusion, and (b) the extent to which the “Wall in the Mind” as a psychological chasm persists in the new post-cold war generation of West and East Germans. Survey data were obtained from a sample of 544 students at 11 universities in the three areas of Germany: West Germany, East Germany, and Berlin. A major finding on the issue of national identity, as manifested in common symbols and common tasks, is a blurring of regional differences, with no significant differences found by age or gender. Overall, students reject “traditional” nationalism in favor of a “post-national” commitment to transnational values such as human rights and social equality for all. A significant majority feel there is a common German culture and that East and West Germans are forming one people; one whose future lies in being part of the European Union. We conclude there may be an emergent trend among university students of a post-national identity of being German-in-Europe, which warrants further comparative research.

Parsons's Emergent Durkheims

Parsonss training as an economist, his graduate stay at Heidelberg, and his participation in the Henderson seminar at Harvard provide major clues to his familiarity with Marshall, Pareto, and Weber—three of the four figures whose convergence forms the major theoretical achievement in The Structure of Social Action. But what led him to Durkheim, since Parsons did not study or reside in France, yet read Durkheim in the original, remains an enigma. Without resolving the enigma, this paper argues that Parsons had a great deal in common with Durkheim, and, equally important, that in his mature and late periods he found in his “revisits” of the later writings of Durkheim both inspiration and affinity. I argue that Parsons well deserves recognition as a major authority on Durkheim, and that both combined offer an alternative to the contemporary version of utilitarianism.

THE TIME PERSPECTIVES OF MODERNITY

ABSTRACT The basic hypothesis of this paper is that attitudes towards the future are highly important for explaining the differences between Western cultures and other cultural systems. In the United States in particular, these attitudes are strongly characterized by an emphasis on modernity, an emphasis which has, however, a dual character. Either the future is seen as a continuation of the present, and this is the concept of progress: or the future is seen as breaking with the present system, and this is the concept of eschatology, or even of apocalypse. Using some empirical illustrations, the author then describes these two principal myths about the future. The doctrine of Progress, which developed out of the Protestant ethic, became more and more secular and was widespread by the 19th century. It is however a myth that is fading as a result of the negative effects of economic growth and also due to a certain feeling of disillusionment among the middle classes as to their role in such progress and thei...