Frederick Bird

The nature of managerial moral standards

Descriptions of how managers think about the moral questions that come up in their work lives are analyzed to draw out the moral assumptions to which they commonly refer. The moral standards thus derived are identified as (1) honesty in communication, (2) fair treatment, (3) special consideration, (4) fair competition, (5) organizational responsibility, (6) corporate social responsibility, and, (7) respect for law. It is observed that these normative standards assume the cultural form of social conventions but because managers invoke them as largely private intuitions, their cultural status remains precarious and unclear. This is the second in a research series of three papers.

Participation Rates in New Religious and Para-Religious Movements

This article analyzes participation rates in new religious and para-religious movements, as indicated by surveys administered in Montreal in 1975 and 1980. When these movements are broadly defined to include various charismatic and semi-religious therapy and martial arts groups, then the survey data indicate both a comparative high rate of participation but also a remarkably high rate for dropping out of these movements. The average participant associates for a while with these movements, often as a peripheral adherent, and then drops out. The article analyzes the kinds of groups persons are most likely to have participated in, and some of the characteristic features of participants.

The Economic Strategies of New Religious Movements

This article analyzes the economic strategies of new religious and para-religious movements by comparing them with the economic strategies of traditional religious associations. The article is based on research of several dozen such movements in the Montreal area. It is argued that the economic strategies of religious groups, old and new, closely reflect and influence the overall social policies of these groups, especially their attitudes towards recruitment and the status of participants, who, after all, provide the major sources of economic resources. The paper argues that the economic strategies of contemporary new religious and para-religious movements are distinctive both, (I) because of the prominence many of them give to providing various services for fees or donations to largely transient clients or affiliates and, (1I) because of their comparative successes in recruiting core groups of highly committed adepts, who in turn donate extensive unpaid labor. The article observes the relative absence among these groups of financial contributions by regular lay members, by means of dues, titles and pledges. In the conclusion, the article examines the consequences of this configuration and the instability which these financial and organizational strategies produce. Contemporary new religious and para-religious movements have developed distinctive strategies by which they finance themselves. In this article we argue that the economic strategies of these contemporary religious movements can best be understood by comparing them to the economic strategies of traditional religious movements. In recent articles both Bromley and Shupe as well as Richardson have analyzed the economic strategies of new religious movements. Drawing largely on data about the Unification Church and the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Bromley and Shupe focused in particular on how these groups finance themselves, which they have done at times in large measure by public solicitation. They further analyzed how these groups justified this strategy and made it appear acceptable both to adherents of this group as well as to people from whom they sought charitable donations (Bromley and Shupe, 1980). In contrast, Richardson examined the quite varied economic strategies of a much wider range of new religious and para-religious movements. He notes that the economic strategies of new religious movements do change over time as the groups themselves evolve. By comparing contemporary new religious groups with contemporary communes, he observes that few of these religious groups have attempted to become self-sufficient economic generalists; that many, like Transcendental Meditation with its meditation classes, have become economically self-supporting specialists; and that others, like the Unification Church, may well have become economically dependent upon charitable solicitations from others (Richardson, 1982). In their articles, Bromley and Shupe as well as Richardson analyze the economic strategies of new religious groups by comparing them respectively to groups that finance

Moral Universals as Cultural Realities

In this essay I argue that it is possible to identify a number of moral universals and that this identification can serve as a resource for addressing the problems that arise from moral diversity. In making this case I assume that this diversity cannot be and should not be ignored; nor can it be overcome or eliminated. However, we can find ways of managing moral diversity and the problems that arise in connection with it. I maintain that the recognition of certain moral universals can assist in addressing these problems. However, I also argue that the recognition of moral universals still plays only a limited role in managing these concerns. Primarily, the problems attendant on moral diversity can be best addressed by an approach which I refer to as the Ethics of Good Deliberations or Good Conversation. This approach assumes the reality of moral diversity and views ethics as the communicative activity by which people seek to reach and honour normative agreements. The recognition of moral universals serves an important but limited role in facilitating the conversations and deliberations by means of which people who may well hold different views of moral goods, utilize different patterns of reasoning, and communicate in different patterns of discourse and rhetoric can still reach normative agreements that matter for particular periods of time.(1)

Therapy, Charisma and Social Control in the Rajneesh Movement

Throughout the history of an NRM remarkable for its social experiments and its ritual, sexual, and economic innovations, therapy has played a prominent role. On the basis of data collected through interviews and participation in Rajneesh therapy groups, it is postulated that, during the Rajneeshpuram phase, the function of therapy was to forge new identities through the ritual breaking of taboos, to educate new members in the alternative sexual ethics of the commune, and to initiate these members into the charismatic community. Also, this study will address the apparently irreconcilable conflict between an Esalen-style humanism and an oriental-style veneration for the guru found in this NRM, and will argue that therapy groups provided a forum in which the ongoing struggle between an individualistic-therapeutic focus and a collective-devotional focus could be resolved. More than most new or old religions, the Rajneesh movement (currently known as the Osho Friends International) has incorporated therapies into its program as a vital, if not essential, part of its spiritual life. Therapy groups, which were an important source of fund-raising in the groups original ashram at Poona (1974-1981) and in Rajneeshpuram (1981-1985), offered an eclectic range of techniques including gestalt, encounter, bio-energetics, primal, massage, rolfing, and others. In the course of researching the Montreal Rajneesh community between 1978 and 1986, the authors

The nature and function of ritual forms: A sociological discussion

Sociologists have often commented disparagingly on ritual activities. Like Merton they have tended to view rituals as meaningless routines, as unthinking habituated activities, or as the overly elaborated ceremonies accompanying certain kinds of political or religious practices. Protestant religious thinkers too have often viewed rituals critically because they sensed that a preoccupation with rites and liturgies detracted attention away either from real, inner religious experiences or from responsible moral action.2 These criticisms arise in part because of a failure to distinguish between rituals as cultural codes and certain stylized and habituated forms of behaviour, which may be acted out in keeping with these codes, and, in part, because of religious and moral critiques of particular rituals or ritualisms rather than ritual action as such. Rituals are cultural phenomena. As symbolic codes, they regulate human interactions in a wide variety of contexts from religion and etiquette to types of therapies, ceremonies, and intimate exchanges. Without an understanding of the particular nature of ritual actions, we are liable to arrive at quite distorted views of the many activities in which ritual action plays a central part. In the paragraphs below I present a phenomenological and functional analysis of ritual forms, distinguishing in the process religious rituals from other kinds. In setting forth these theoretical arguments, I have attempted to develop generalizations which are valid for primitive, historic, and contemporary religions and which are fitting as well for activities associ-

Max Weber's perspectives on religious evolution

Frederick Bird is Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Concordia University, Montreal. On a number of occasions Max Weber voiced his opposition to what he considered to be the arbitrary impositions ofevolutionary models on historical data. He criticized the evolutionary schemes of Comte, Spencer, Marx, and Hegel because these schemes were , he thought, too linear, too narrowly conceived, and too mono-causal in their assumptions about social change. i He particularly objected to the attempts to classify various religions in relation to evolutionary models with clear sequential stages . ’ In no respect, ’ he wrote , ’ can one simply integrate various world religions into a chain of types , each of them signifying a new stage . ’2 However, in spite of these reservations, it can be argued that Weber nonetheless utilized an evolutionary, development perspective when he analyzed various world religions . 3 In the paragraphs below I will set forth the evidence for this argument and sketch the characteristic features of Weber’ s evolutionary perspective . This evolutionary, development perspective did not assume a linear form , was not ordered in relation to sequential stages and types , was not set forth in relation to a set of law-like hypotheses about historical change , and did not make mono-causal assumptions regarding historical transformations. This evolutionary perspective was particularly evident in Weber’s

Empowerment and Justice

How much say should those who work for organisations have in the organisations for which they work? How much influence should they be able to exercise over the pace and patterns of their own work, over the development of their own careers, over the direction of their organisations? Should businesses be operated like democracies? Should workers be treated like partners? These questions have been raised time and again since the beginnings of industrialisation. They are being raised again and now by the current interest in programmes that promise, among other things, to empower workers. Corporations are being counselled today to empower their workers and democratise their organisations because such changes are deemed to be both just and fair as well as good for business (Kanter, 1983, chapter 6; Lawler, 1986; Foy, 1994; Ackoff, 1994).1

Theories of justice in new religious and parareligious movements

a major role in the soteriology and ethics of Christianity. Judaism has with equal passion insisted upon the justice and righteousness of God and upon expectation that humans ought to act in keeping with these standards. Notions about justice have been at the heart of major philosophical theories from Plato’s Republic, Aristotle’s Ethics, Machiavelli’s Discourses, Marx’s Manifesto, through to Rawls’s recent work. In marked contrast most contemporary new religious and parareligious movements exhibit little concern for justice and have articulated few theories about justice.’ I

Comptes rendus / Reviews of books: Moon Webs, Journey into the Mind of a Cult: Josh Freed Toronto: Virgo Press, 1981. Pp. 216

over two years. The efforts of a very few dedicated British and Canadian officials, Canadian political figures, and representatives of charitable and voluntary organizations finally secured the release of the internees, against all the inertia of Canadian military, bureaucratic, and political machinery. The Canadians reasonably expected, at the start, to receive hardened subversives and fifth columnists, and it took a long time to recognize that there was no guile in the lack of discipline, the self-pity, and the thoroughly unmilitary bearing of the mainly adolescent central Europeans. A Canadian officer described the arriving internees and other prisoners: ’’’Over there, there are a thousand prisoners of war: soldiers, sailors, airmen: very good troops. On the stem, there are 800 Italian civilian internees: they’re no trouble at all. Over there&dquo;-and he pointed to us-&dquo;These people, they’re the scum of Europe.&dquo;’ The last mentioned, as may be seen from biographical sketches of about 1,000 of the internees appended to the book, included one future Nobel Prize winner, one future atomic spy, the Kaiser’s grandson, and a dilettante pianist acquaintance of both Hitler and Roosevelt, as well as many future professors, priests, rabbis, tailors, writers, and musicians, many of them well known in Canada. Erich Koch, a writer and former internee, gives a fair hearing to every faction of prisoners and officials, without sparing any from the criticisms of the others. There is one definite hero in the story, Alexander Paterson, the British official who, with experience in reforming the borstals, was perfectly chosen for unravelling the administrative tangles that had wasted some thousands of man-years of anti-Nazi