A week ago I was in the woods with the Posse group doing a ropes course. (I was going to write about it last week, but then there was a Huge Goat in Danville!) The ropes course was an excellent team-building activity. We worked together to get everyone through at least part of the course. Indeed, they were such a good team already that the staff of the University of New Hampshire's Browne Center, who ran the course, had to make up ways for them to make it harder ("with your eyes closed" or "with one hand" or "backwards" or all of the above).
Each of the high courses was about 25 or 30 feet in the air, crossing a space of about twenty feet. The four sites were: walking a wire with two guidewires; walking a wire with one guidewire; walking a telephone pole bolted horizontally between two trees; and the "leap of faith" – a leap from a platform to touch a ball suspended above the ground. In each case, the team part lay in the belaying rope attached to your harness. This is your safety line. It is also the only way down. You are trusting your teammates on the other end of the rope to keep you safe.
We all knew in our minds that we could do it, and that we could trust the team. Still, it is a big adrenaline rush to walk that high holding on to not much. The posse are healthy teens. All of them climbed the ladders, and then the staples, up the trees. Some told jokes and struck poses. But everyone was affected physically.
So why am I telling this as a Saturday story? Imagine a forty-something fat guy, in a harness with a rope attached, climbing a ladder, then climbing up steel staples about as big as the heel of your shoe, then coming to a telephone pole which hangs out over the staples. This was a poser. Nonetheless, with some thinking, and much grunting, I threw my leg over the log and hauled my way up on to the log. Did I mention that this one has no hand-holds at all? You just walk across a log? Up in the trees? Oh, and it was raining?
Walking the log was great. The adrenaline made my knees a little wobbly, but the thrill was fine. And the posse came through, lowering me gently to the ground.
If you ever get the chance to do a ropes course with friends, take it.
Saturday, July 22, 2006
Friday, July 21, 2006
The College/Not-College Class Gap Is Growing
The narrowing social distance between high school graduates and those with "some college" is offset by the widening social distance between those with "some college" and college graduates.So write Christine Schwartz and Robert Mare. Mare is a long-time researcher in "educational assortive marriage" or how much educational birds of a feather flock together.
Two generations ago, couples made up of a college graduate and a spouse with "some college" were common. Barbara Bush, for example, dropped out of Smith to marry George H. W. Bush. Now, though, couples with one college graduate are increasingly likely to include another. One generation ago, for example, George H. W. Bush and Laura Bush married when both were not only college graduates, but had completed graduate degrees, as well.
This is the trend in the United States of the percent of married couples in which husband and wife are both college graduates:
1940 1.75%
1960 3.95
1970 6.95
1980 11.35
1990 14.51
2000 18.02
One of the reasons for the increase in double-college couples is that men and women are waiting longer to marry, by which time they have usually had time to complete college degrees. Even if a couple meets in college, they are likely to graduate before marriage – both husband and wife.
Just as interesting as the consolidation in "educational homogamy" above the college-graduate line, is the increasing mixing of high school graduates and those with some college. The college/not-college line has been the main class divider in America for some time. In the past generation, though, the bar has been raised: the great class divide begins at Commencement.
Thursday, July 20, 2006
How to Raise Critical Thinkers
Many of the biggest proponents of critical thinking are themselves converts from authoritarianism. Raised in families in which authority was simply asserted, they went off to school where they were taught to think critically about all authorities, whether texts or people. Thereafter they regarded themselves as liberated from authoritarianism.
And then they had children. They were put into the position of authority. What to do? Many first-generation critical thinkers went overboard the other way. On principle, they never told their children what to do, never said no. They didn't teach their children any religious faith, in hopes that the kids would make up their own minds. They didn't make their kids read any good books, for fear of imposing a standard of goodness by authority. Likewise, they didn't forbid their children any books, movies, games, etc., for fear of stifling their creativity.
But the basic fact is that children need authority. They need limits, crave structure, beg for authoritative teaching. You can't raise kids to be critical thinkers permissively.
How do you raise critical thinkers? Use your parental authority to teach your children to question authority.
I use the simple expedient of telling my children outrageous falsehoods every day. From "good morning, chicken head, what lovely feathers you have today," to "lights outs, beloved; research has shown that sleep-deprived children develop tails," my kids are subject to a constant stream of, shall we say, critical thinking opportunities. They usually respond with reasoned arguments demonstrating that dad is obviously mistaken, again. Gradually, they are also developing wittier parries to these paternal fibs. This makes for a happy home, though it is sometimes disconcerting to visitors.
So, if you love you kids, lie to them. They will think you for it later.
And then they had children. They were put into the position of authority. What to do? Many first-generation critical thinkers went overboard the other way. On principle, they never told their children what to do, never said no. They didn't teach their children any religious faith, in hopes that the kids would make up their own minds. They didn't make their kids read any good books, for fear of imposing a standard of goodness by authority. Likewise, they didn't forbid their children any books, movies, games, etc., for fear of stifling their creativity.
But the basic fact is that children need authority. They need limits, crave structure, beg for authoritative teaching. You can't raise kids to be critical thinkers permissively.
How do you raise critical thinkers? Use your parental authority to teach your children to question authority.
I use the simple expedient of telling my children outrageous falsehoods every day. From "good morning, chicken head, what lovely feathers you have today," to "lights outs, beloved; research has shown that sleep-deprived children develop tails," my kids are subject to a constant stream of, shall we say, critical thinking opportunities. They usually respond with reasoned arguments demonstrating that dad is obviously mistaken, again. Gradually, they are also developing wittier parries to these paternal fibs. This makes for a happy home, though it is sometimes disconcerting to visitors.
So, if you love you kids, lie to them. They will think you for it later.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Are Academics and Engineers Both "Knowledge Class?"
I turn today to a wonderful little book, Alvin Gouldner's The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class. Writing in the 1970s, before the term "knowledge class" came into regular sociological use, Gouldner talked about the "new class" which was contending with the old corporate bourgeoisie (Gouldner remained a kind of Marxist) for world domination.
Gouldner argued that the new class was made up of both intellectuals and the technical intelligentsia. He uses "intellectuals" in a familiar way – academics, writers, thinkers not in directly applied or corporate settings, especially in the humanities. For the other half of his new class, though, he needed to stretch ordinary language a bit; hence, technical intelligentsia. In this category Gouldner encompasses scientists, engineers, and the kind of corporate managers who control complex systems through their technical knowledge. Gouldner is joining together what C.P. Snow famously separated in his image of the "two cultures" – humanities and science – that divide (British) universities.
Most of the time, the concerns of humanistic intellectuals and scientific engineers are poles apart. If anything, when Gouldner was writing, in the immediate aftermath of the 1960s, the two groups and cultures seemed more in opposition to one another than they do now. But Gouldner saw a deeper structural commonality and an underlying common interest. When knowledge itself is under attack, the intellectuals and the intelligentsia make common cause. When rationality is criticized, academics and engineers are on the same side. When the book burnings begin, the brave philosophers and brave scientists will man the barricades together.
Deep down, Gouldner argued, a common culture and a parallel structure unite the new class, what I am calling the knowledge class. The common culture is what Gouldner terms the Culture of Critical Discourse, or CCD (which is think is a sly Catholic joke). The highest value, and most honored practice, of the culture of critical discourse is to examine the principles underlying any practice, to dissect the reasons and causes that lead people to act a certain way. The aim is to see if those practices still seem justified after such scrutiny. And this criticism is also self-criticism; CCD requires that its practitioners constantly examine their own practice, including, paradoxically, the practice of critical discourse itself, to see if it can be justified. A measure of the success of the knowledge class is that almost any college catalogue today will list "critical thinking" as one of the most important aims of education.
The structural position that unites intellectuals and intelligentsia is their control of the knowledge necessary to make the social system run. In Marx's day, a "factory" was simple enough that the owner/entrepreneur could master the whole production process. Today, just about any kind of manufacturing is too complex to for the nominal owners to follow. The social system as a whole is of gargantuan complexity. No one could master it, and it is the life's work of millions of smart people to understand parts of it. Moreover, the whole social system now depends on countless feedback loops, reflexive channels that bring ongoing information back to the system, allowing continuous adjustment. The people bringing and interpreting that feedback are essential to the working of the system. They are integral members of the knowledge class.
The knowledge class does not rule the modern world, but the modern world could not function without the knowledge class.
Gouldner argued that the new class was made up of both intellectuals and the technical intelligentsia. He uses "intellectuals" in a familiar way – academics, writers, thinkers not in directly applied or corporate settings, especially in the humanities. For the other half of his new class, though, he needed to stretch ordinary language a bit; hence, technical intelligentsia. In this category Gouldner encompasses scientists, engineers, and the kind of corporate managers who control complex systems through their technical knowledge. Gouldner is joining together what C.P. Snow famously separated in his image of the "two cultures" – humanities and science – that divide (British) universities.
Most of the time, the concerns of humanistic intellectuals and scientific engineers are poles apart. If anything, when Gouldner was writing, in the immediate aftermath of the 1960s, the two groups and cultures seemed more in opposition to one another than they do now. But Gouldner saw a deeper structural commonality and an underlying common interest. When knowledge itself is under attack, the intellectuals and the intelligentsia make common cause. When rationality is criticized, academics and engineers are on the same side. When the book burnings begin, the brave philosophers and brave scientists will man the barricades together.
Deep down, Gouldner argued, a common culture and a parallel structure unite the new class, what I am calling the knowledge class. The common culture is what Gouldner terms the Culture of Critical Discourse, or CCD (which is think is a sly Catholic joke). The highest value, and most honored practice, of the culture of critical discourse is to examine the principles underlying any practice, to dissect the reasons and causes that lead people to act a certain way. The aim is to see if those practices still seem justified after such scrutiny. And this criticism is also self-criticism; CCD requires that its practitioners constantly examine their own practice, including, paradoxically, the practice of critical discourse itself, to see if it can be justified. A measure of the success of the knowledge class is that almost any college catalogue today will list "critical thinking" as one of the most important aims of education.
The structural position that unites intellectuals and intelligentsia is their control of the knowledge necessary to make the social system run. In Marx's day, a "factory" was simple enough that the owner/entrepreneur could master the whole production process. Today, just about any kind of manufacturing is too complex to for the nominal owners to follow. The social system as a whole is of gargantuan complexity. No one could master it, and it is the life's work of millions of smart people to understand parts of it. Moreover, the whole social system now depends on countless feedback loops, reflexive channels that bring ongoing information back to the system, allowing continuous adjustment. The people bringing and interpreting that feedback are essential to the working of the system. They are integral members of the knowledge class.
The knowledge class does not rule the modern world, but the modern world could not function without the knowledge class.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Classification Schemes Classify the Classifier
Pierre Bourdieu enjoys clever turns of phrase that make your head hurt, like the above. The idea, though, when you wrestle with it, is a rich one. We classify others. We fit everyone into some kind of classification scheme. Social stratification amounts to a shared system for classifying others.
At a higher level of abstraction, though, the system that we use to classify others also classifies us. This is true in two senses. The more obvious sense is that if we classify all of society, and we are members of society, too, then we have to be able to fit into our own classification scheme.
The less obvious sense comes from the fact that we tend to use classification schemes that make our class, our kind, look good compared to the other classes. Moreover, other people who are like us tend to do the same thing. When we add up all the classification schemes, similar people will tend to classify similarly. Thus, the classification scheme that we choose among all possible classification schemes tells a great deal about what class we are in ourselves.
One of the things that people in successful marriages tend to share is a classification scheme for classifying all of society.
Classification schemes classify the marriage.
At a higher level of abstraction, though, the system that we use to classify others also classifies us. This is true in two senses. The more obvious sense is that if we classify all of society, and we are members of society, too, then we have to be able to fit into our own classification scheme.
The less obvious sense comes from the fact that we tend to use classification schemes that make our class, our kind, look good compared to the other classes. Moreover, other people who are like us tend to do the same thing. When we add up all the classification schemes, similar people will tend to classify similarly. Thus, the classification scheme that we choose among all possible classification schemes tells a great deal about what class we are in ourselves.
One of the things that people in successful marriages tend to share is a classification scheme for classifying all of society.
Classification schemes classify the marriage.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Corporate Gentleman in an Age of Enron
Last week I stepped into one of the stickiest patches of the jungle of social classification: who is a "gentleman?" This is a rich question; indeed, I think it is an endless question, one impossible to answer definitively. Gentleman, and lady, are ethical ideals as much as they are social class types. People with identical backgrounds of family status, education, income, occupation, looks, self-assurance, etc., etc., will still have characters which put them, in the end, on opposite sides of the gentleman/not-gentleman divide.
The gentleman is heir to the ethic of the warrior. In some places, where family honor and shame are still measured by how other people see you, this bloody ethic (in the literal sense) results in honor killings and endless vendettas. In the Christian world, especially the Protestant portion of it, the warrior ethic was significantly modified by Christianity to produce the kind of gentility more familiar to Jane Austen readers. The standard of honor is measured more by an inward compass and conscience. Dealing generously with others, especially the weaker, is a crucial part of the ethic of gentility. Strictly speaking, people of any social class could be gentlemen or ladies. In democratic societies, were often presume as much in addressing crowds. Gentility is an ideal.
The ideal of the gentleman requires common sense about how the world works, especially about the use of power. Gentility does not, though, require book learning, formal schooling, erudition. The warrior ethic remains alive, of course, in the military. The gentlemanly ideal, though, has migrated mostly to the form of competition most favored in a bourgeois society, the marketplace. And today our warriors and business leaders often spend a long time in school. Still, those with a vocation for learning are regarded as, well, weak compared to the military and corporate leaders. "An officer and a gentleman" is a natural progression. "A gentleman and a scholar," on the other hand, is an unusual composite.
As some readers pointed out, the American corporate class seems poles apart from the ethical ideal of the gentleman just now. It is certainly true that the Enron-type business crooks fall on the not-gentleman side of the line. But the ideal remains. At the same time that we don't lament the passing of Ken Lay, we honor the gifts of Warren Buffet and the Gateses. There have always been business crooks, and there always will be. That is why we need a strong ideal of what kind of citizens and human beings corporate leaders should be. Adapting the ancient ideal of the gentlemen is the best and highest notion that our culture has developed for our richest and most powerful to aspire to. I think the ideal of the corporate gentleman is a good one for society.
The knowledge class ideal, though, is different. We will explore the difference as we go along with this research.
The gentleman is heir to the ethic of the warrior. In some places, where family honor and shame are still measured by how other people see you, this bloody ethic (in the literal sense) results in honor killings and endless vendettas. In the Christian world, especially the Protestant portion of it, the warrior ethic was significantly modified by Christianity to produce the kind of gentility more familiar to Jane Austen readers. The standard of honor is measured more by an inward compass and conscience. Dealing generously with others, especially the weaker, is a crucial part of the ethic of gentility. Strictly speaking, people of any social class could be gentlemen or ladies. In democratic societies, were often presume as much in addressing crowds. Gentility is an ideal.
The ideal of the gentleman requires common sense about how the world works, especially about the use of power. Gentility does not, though, require book learning, formal schooling, erudition. The warrior ethic remains alive, of course, in the military. The gentlemanly ideal, though, has migrated mostly to the form of competition most favored in a bourgeois society, the marketplace. And today our warriors and business leaders often spend a long time in school. Still, those with a vocation for learning are regarded as, well, weak compared to the military and corporate leaders. "An officer and a gentleman" is a natural progression. "A gentleman and a scholar," on the other hand, is an unusual composite.
As some readers pointed out, the American corporate class seems poles apart from the ethical ideal of the gentleman just now. It is certainly true that the Enron-type business crooks fall on the not-gentleman side of the line. But the ideal remains. At the same time that we don't lament the passing of Ken Lay, we honor the gifts of Warren Buffet and the Gateses. There have always been business crooks, and there always will be. That is why we need a strong ideal of what kind of citizens and human beings corporate leaders should be. Adapting the ancient ideal of the gentlemen is the best and highest notion that our culture has developed for our richest and most powerful to aspire to. I think the ideal of the corporate gentleman is a good one for society.
The knowledge class ideal, though, is different. We will explore the difference as we go along with this research.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
A Church That Is Not Clear About What It Believes Is Not Worth Belonging To
The Presbyterian Panel, the church's ongoing survey, found that most members, elders, and pastors agree with this statement. They want real standards, and they want the church to mean them. I think the vagueness about what any mainline church believes is one of the key factors preventing most mainliners from evangelizing. If asked the reasonable question, "Well, what do Presbyterians [or other mainline church members] believe?" many mainliners are stuck for an answer.
The silver lining of the Peace, Unity, and Purity report controversy may be that the church will establish some clear signposts of what it believes. This will help those being evangelized, skeptics, and committed members alike.
Most Presbyterians support the main points of the PUP report. What we need to do now is clarify the standards the church really does believe in. This includes clearly supporting our current constitution, as well as the new emphasis on letting the locals decide essentials whenever practical.
For more of my analysis of what the Panel says about PUP, go to the Presbyterian Outlook article here.
The silver lining of the Peace, Unity, and Purity report controversy may be that the church will establish some clear signposts of what it believes. This will help those being evangelized, skeptics, and committed members alike.
Most Presbyterians support the main points of the PUP report. What we need to do now is clarify the standards the church really does believe in. This includes clearly supporting our current constitution, as well as the new emphasis on letting the locals decide essentials whenever practical.
For more of my analysis of what the Panel says about PUP, go to the Presbyterian Outlook article here.
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Huge Goat in Danville!
A goat, described by some as huge, leapt through a plate glass window into my local coffeehouse in the middle of Danville. The patrons were as surprised as the goat was disoriented. After running about a bit in the coffeehouse (and possibly in the bookstore, too – reports were confused) the goat then leapt through another plate glass window, and escaped. It was pursued by police cars and sheriff's cars, sirens wailing. They trapped it on Martin Luther King Boulevard. A "goat wrangler" appeared, like the cavalry, wrestled the goat into submission, and took him back to the stockyards. Order was restored.
Friday, July 14, 2006
Leadership Really Is the Best Investment
I have spent the last few days at a retreat with the Centre Posse Number One, the fine group of young people who will be coming to the college in the fall. This retreat is to enhance their bonding to one another, and to begin the handoff from their trainers to me. (I will write more about the ropes course (!) tomorrow).
Colleges face the perennial problem of how to measure promise in high school students. Brains are, of course, a necessary precondition. But brains alone are clearly not enough. We have all seen too many smart kids without the vision, perseverance, or confidence to make use of them.
Academics often ruefully repeat the old saw that "the world is run by B- students." If only, we think, we nerdy Ph.D.s were in charge, the world would be a more rational place. I have been coming to reassess this aphorism, though. I still think it is true; I no longer think it is such a bad thing. The world would not be better if it were run by Ph.D.s. The world is run by people with drive, more than brains alone, because they want it more. They want to achieve their vision more. They want to do things more than just school.
Yes, of course, I want all my driven students to be of excellent understanding. But I can understand that people who want to achieve things in the world now are not as fully devoted to their studies now as we nerds are.
As a teacher, I am coming to see that my main job is to school the vision of driven people. I am blessed with smart students at Centre. And some can be pushed to develop a drive they had not focused before, especially the men. But the main thing the world needs all of these future leaders to develop is a virtuous vision of what they want to achieve.
Because in the long run, leadership is the best investment that the college can make for the world.
Colleges face the perennial problem of how to measure promise in high school students. Brains are, of course, a necessary precondition. But brains alone are clearly not enough. We have all seen too many smart kids without the vision, perseverance, or confidence to make use of them.
Academics often ruefully repeat the old saw that "the world is run by B- students." If only, we think, we nerdy Ph.D.s were in charge, the world would be a more rational place. I have been coming to reassess this aphorism, though. I still think it is true; I no longer think it is such a bad thing. The world would not be better if it were run by Ph.D.s. The world is run by people with drive, more than brains alone, because they want it more. They want to achieve their vision more. They want to do things more than just school.
Yes, of course, I want all my driven students to be of excellent understanding. But I can understand that people who want to achieve things in the world now are not as fully devoted to their studies now as we nerds are.
As a teacher, I am coming to see that my main job is to school the vision of driven people. I am blessed with smart students at Centre. And some can be pushed to develop a drive they had not focused before, especially the men. But the main thing the world needs all of these future leaders to develop is a virtuous vision of what they want to achieve.
Because in the long run, leadership is the best investment that the college can make for the world.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Is Corporate Class to Knowledge Class as Gentleman is to Scholar?
In everyday life we get by with a very simplified language to describe the social classes and status groups of American life. Almost all Americans will pick middle class as their self-identification. Union families might call themselves working class (though if the union is working well, they often work their way into the middle of the income spectrum). We might talk about other people as rich or poor, but small percentages of Americans would describe themselves that way in public.
For a sociologist, though, the nuances of class and status are the rich flora and fauna of the social world we study. Classes, and the "ideal types" of the people in them, are, to take another metaphor, our bread and butter.
The particular corner of the social structure that I am most concerned with is that portion near the top where the corporate class meets the knowledge class. These terms are not in everyday use outside of sociology, but they are not so far from common meaning that we can't quickly feel comfortable using them.
The corporate class centers on the top management of business corporations. They shade off into pure owners at the top and permanent middle management at the bottom. They shade off into the top management of government and, at a further remove, the non-profit sector on the "left," and perhaps into successful entrepreneurs on the "right."
The knowledge class is the class that makes its living from the control of knowledge. It centers on the top writers, thinkers, and analysts who make knowledge, and the professors who teach it. The knowledge class shades off into the greatest artists and scientists at the top, and schoolteachers and librarians at the bottom. The right side shades into engineers and technicians, while the left edge would, perhaps, lead to barely employed coffeehouse intellectuals, perpetual students, and working class men and women who have made themselves experts in one corner of their avocation.
Clearly, studying the classes is as much an art as it is a science.
Pierre Bourdieu is a great theorist of how the classes relate to one another. The terms that he uses, though clearer in a scientific sense, are far from ordinary language indeed. The contrast that I am drawing between the corporate class and the knowledge class he describes as the "dominant fraction of the dominant class" versus the "dominated fraction of the dominant class." Clearly, this will need a little translation, and not just from French.
Bourdieu does, though, suggest a fruitful image to summarize the contrast. Put in the terms I use, the image, and insight, is this: corporate class is to knowledge class as gentleman is to scholar.
In the coming years of research, we will unpack that insight.
For a sociologist, though, the nuances of class and status are the rich flora and fauna of the social world we study. Classes, and the "ideal types" of the people in them, are, to take another metaphor, our bread and butter.
The particular corner of the social structure that I am most concerned with is that portion near the top where the corporate class meets the knowledge class. These terms are not in everyday use outside of sociology, but they are not so far from common meaning that we can't quickly feel comfortable using them.
The corporate class centers on the top management of business corporations. They shade off into pure owners at the top and permanent middle management at the bottom. They shade off into the top management of government and, at a further remove, the non-profit sector on the "left," and perhaps into successful entrepreneurs on the "right."
The knowledge class is the class that makes its living from the control of knowledge. It centers on the top writers, thinkers, and analysts who make knowledge, and the professors who teach it. The knowledge class shades off into the greatest artists and scientists at the top, and schoolteachers and librarians at the bottom. The right side shades into engineers and technicians, while the left edge would, perhaps, lead to barely employed coffeehouse intellectuals, perpetual students, and working class men and women who have made themselves experts in one corner of their avocation.
Clearly, studying the classes is as much an art as it is a science.
Pierre Bourdieu is a great theorist of how the classes relate to one another. The terms that he uses, though clearer in a scientific sense, are far from ordinary language indeed. The contrast that I am drawing between the corporate class and the knowledge class he describes as the "dominant fraction of the dominant class" versus the "dominated fraction of the dominant class." Clearly, this will need a little translation, and not just from French.
Bourdieu does, though, suggest a fruitful image to summarize the contrast. Put in the terms I use, the image, and insight, is this: corporate class is to knowledge class as gentleman is to scholar.
In the coming years of research, we will unpack that insight.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Multiculturalization or Immigrant Renewal?
Yesterday I heard encouraging reports about the future of Christianity in the Netherlands, and indeed in all the secularizing lands of Europe. A team at the Free University of Amsterdam, led by Hijme Stoffels and Mechteld Jansen, have been studying Christian immigrants in the Netherlands. Most European countries have been very attentive to immigration lately, but primarily from deep anxiety about Muslim immigrant communities. However, the immigrant stream brings hundreds of thousands of Christians, as well. Many of the immigrants are zealous, pious, and eager to share their faith with the people of Europe. One of the organizations we heard about is GATE - The Gift of Africa to Europe. From the immigrants' perspective, they are engaging in "reverse mission."
The research team is faced with the question of what to call the effect of these Christian immigrants from all over the world on Dutch Christianity. They leaned toward "multiculturalization" as a term and concept. Still, they were not satisfied with it. The problem that emerged with this conceptualization is that it doesn't really capture the religious effects. Moreover, multiculturalization seems to me to be a temporary, transitional phenomenon. All churches now existing have multiple cultural roots; most have succeeded in blending them together into a new culture.
The ISSRC did not settle the question of how to think about Christian immigrants in European Christianity. We were left, though, considering the idea of "immigrant renewal." The advantage of this way of looking at the issue is that it puts the religious effect front and center. There are, to be sure, many other cultural effects of the immigrant churches – Mechteld Jansen began her talk on Indonesian Christian immigrants by handing out cloves, a wonderful reminder of one of the most distinctive smells of Indonesian life. But the main effect of mixing two streams of the same faith ought to be in the faith itself. If nothing else, immigrant zeal may enliven the learned practice of the culturally established church.
The old churches of Europe are in a very parlous state. They desperately need renewal. Hundreds of thousands of zealous Christian immigrants are arriving – perhaps just in time – to help renew the faith and practice of the old, if only the European churches will let them.
Immigrant renewal of existing institutions, even more than their introducing new cultures, could be the great silver lining of Europe's demographic globalization.
The research team is faced with the question of what to call the effect of these Christian immigrants from all over the world on Dutch Christianity. They leaned toward "multiculturalization" as a term and concept. Still, they were not satisfied with it. The problem that emerged with this conceptualization is that it doesn't really capture the religious effects. Moreover, multiculturalization seems to me to be a temporary, transitional phenomenon. All churches now existing have multiple cultural roots; most have succeeded in blending them together into a new culture.
The ISSRC did not settle the question of how to think about Christian immigrants in European Christianity. We were left, though, considering the idea of "immigrant renewal." The advantage of this way of looking at the issue is that it puts the religious effect front and center. There are, to be sure, many other cultural effects of the immigrant churches – Mechteld Jansen began her talk on Indonesian Christian immigrants by handing out cloves, a wonderful reminder of one of the most distinctive smells of Indonesian life. But the main effect of mixing two streams of the same faith ought to be in the faith itself. If nothing else, immigrant zeal may enliven the learned practice of the culturally established church.
The old churches of Europe are in a very parlous state. They desperately need renewal. Hundreds of thousands of zealous Christian immigrants are arriving – perhaps just in time – to help renew the faith and practice of the old, if only the European churches will let them.
Immigrant renewal of existing institutions, even more than their introducing new cultures, could be the great silver lining of Europe's demographic globalization.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
The Dutch Future
Nearly half of this conference of the International Society for the Study of Reformed Communities considers Dutch and Dutch-American questions. In the opening paper of the conference, George Harinck, of the Free University of Amsterdam, argued that the Netherlands, as a nation composed of minorities, had historically been held together by the strong sub-group loyalties of Dutch people. In the early 20th century Abraham Kuyper, the great Dutch politician and churchman (and something of the patron saint of this society) set in motion the reorganization of Dutch society that, by mid-century, had organized everyone into one religious/ideological pillar or another. The Dutch "nation" was the sum of these pillars. Their national identity was composed of mutually tolerant minorities.
And then the Sixties happened. Television brought everyone awareness of life in the other pillars, and in the non-pillarized world beyond. Individualism as the dominant ideology throughout the West created heroic movements of individuals asserting their identity against the pillar, against the church, school, state, and any other institution that established a group identity. In the headiest days of the revolt, families, too were rejected as too confining. The pillars were dismantled. The welfare state was reconfigured to subsidize individualism.
The problem with this kind of anti-establishment identity, though, is that it becomes hollow when the establishment gets demolished. It is a negative identity, which requires a substantial Other to define itself against. Barring invasion, there is little to make a "Dutch" identity with.
And then the invasion came. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants, in a country of but 16 million, arrived from the Sixties on – arriving exactly as the old identity-making institutions were dissolving. The immigrant communities do have strong identities, sometimes overwhelmingly strong. The groups that have gotten the most attention are Muslim, with their strong sense of faith, and honor, and a restricted place for women. Yet there have also been hundreds of thousands of non-Muslim immigrants, especially Christians from the ghostly remnants of the Dutch colonial empire. They, too, have strong identities and strong institutions.
The United States has a muscular tradition of assimilating immigrants through Americanization. Some of the more relativist elites in this country now shrink from anything so forceful, but most Americans, and most immigrants, do strongly identify with the American dream and the American Project. We still do make Americans out of all the world's people, just as we do with each new generation born here.
There is no parallel tradition of "Dutchification" in the Netherlands. The Dutch Project was defined negatively as the culture that tolerated all groups of Dutch people. What made them Dutch people, though, was just assumed. Harinck argued that devotion to the royal House of Orange, a seeming anachronism to American ears, became one of the few unifying symbols of 20th century Dutch identity. He did not say that there is a concerted effort to "orangize" the new immigrants.
The Netherlands is not America. They are not even on the same scale of comparison. The analogy that occurred to me is that the Netherlands is the Rhode Island of Europe. Rhode Island cherishes its identity as the place where the refugees from the surrounding strong religious cultures could be free. When Quakers were being hanged on Boston Common, they were freely practicing the faith in Rhode Island. Yet Rhode Island, like every other state, became absorbed in the strong and absorbent identity of the United States. True believers in Europe are trying to forge a strong European identity, and it is possible that the residents of the Low Country will become strong Europeans in the future. So far, though, there is not enough to "Europe" to make a real identity, and the Dutch have proven skeptical of the European Union anyway.
The Dutch future is a negative space waiting to be filled by a positive identity. This is a mission opportunity for a revitalized Reformed Church. Or it is an invitation to conquest by a stronger outside identity.
And then the Sixties happened. Television brought everyone awareness of life in the other pillars, and in the non-pillarized world beyond. Individualism as the dominant ideology throughout the West created heroic movements of individuals asserting their identity against the pillar, against the church, school, state, and any other institution that established a group identity. In the headiest days of the revolt, families, too were rejected as too confining. The pillars were dismantled. The welfare state was reconfigured to subsidize individualism.
The problem with this kind of anti-establishment identity, though, is that it becomes hollow when the establishment gets demolished. It is a negative identity, which requires a substantial Other to define itself against. Barring invasion, there is little to make a "Dutch" identity with.
And then the invasion came. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants, in a country of but 16 million, arrived from the Sixties on – arriving exactly as the old identity-making institutions were dissolving. The immigrant communities do have strong identities, sometimes overwhelmingly strong. The groups that have gotten the most attention are Muslim, with their strong sense of faith, and honor, and a restricted place for women. Yet there have also been hundreds of thousands of non-Muslim immigrants, especially Christians from the ghostly remnants of the Dutch colonial empire. They, too, have strong identities and strong institutions.
The United States has a muscular tradition of assimilating immigrants through Americanization. Some of the more relativist elites in this country now shrink from anything so forceful, but most Americans, and most immigrants, do strongly identify with the American dream and the American Project. We still do make Americans out of all the world's people, just as we do with each new generation born here.
There is no parallel tradition of "Dutchification" in the Netherlands. The Dutch Project was defined negatively as the culture that tolerated all groups of Dutch people. What made them Dutch people, though, was just assumed. Harinck argued that devotion to the royal House of Orange, a seeming anachronism to American ears, became one of the few unifying symbols of 20th century Dutch identity. He did not say that there is a concerted effort to "orangize" the new immigrants.
The Netherlands is not America. They are not even on the same scale of comparison. The analogy that occurred to me is that the Netherlands is the Rhode Island of Europe. Rhode Island cherishes its identity as the place where the refugees from the surrounding strong religious cultures could be free. When Quakers were being hanged on Boston Common, they were freely practicing the faith in Rhode Island. Yet Rhode Island, like every other state, became absorbed in the strong and absorbent identity of the United States. True believers in Europe are trying to forge a strong European identity, and it is possible that the residents of the Low Country will become strong Europeans in the future. So far, though, there is not enough to "Europe" to make a real identity, and the Dutch have proven skeptical of the European Union anyway.
The Dutch future is a negative space waiting to be filled by a positive identity. This is a mission opportunity for a revitalized Reformed Church. Or it is an invitation to conquest by a stronger outside identity.
Monday, July 10, 2006
Does Globalization Do Anything Good for Reformed Christianity?
I will be writing for the next few days from the International Society for the Study of Reformed Communities, meeting at Princeton, NJ. My particular contribution is a paper on the Peace, Unity, and Purity Task Force report of the Presbyterian Church. Most of the contributors here, though, are from the Dutch Reformed stream, rather than the Presbyterian stream, of worldwide Calvinism. The general theme of the conference is a consideration of globalization and pluralism in relation to the Reformed churches.
Globalization is an encouraging theme for the church as a whole. Whenever I get mired in the decline of the mainline church in America, or the near disappearance of Christianity in Europe, I am lifted up by the sheer exuberance, and massive growth, of Christianity in the global South. Philip Jenkins makes a forceful case in The Next Christendom that the center of gravity in the church has already shifted south of the equator. Jenkins, an English Catholic working in America, is particularly good on documenting Anglican, Catholic, and Pentecostal growth in the (former) Third World. Reading his book as a Presbyterian, though, I was struck with his near silence on how the Reformed churches were doing. I was, thus, particularly looking forward to this conference.
So far, though, the papers are pretty gloomy. Everyone knows about the huge significance of the Calvinist tradition in shaping the modern world in the first place (thank you, Max Weber). Few of our papers, though, report great vitality in the Reformed churches worldwide today. Globalization, in our consideration thus far, comes as a dissolving, even secularizing force to the Presbyterian and Reformed churches. The most encouraging reports have merely documented ways to slow the Calvinist church's decline in the face of globalization.
Globalization today has been good for heart religions, like Pentecostalism, and those streams of Christianity with a strong place for a religion of feeling. Calvinists, though, are the headiest of Protestants. So far, this current wave of globalization has not played to Reformed strengths.
Globalization is an encouraging theme for the church as a whole. Whenever I get mired in the decline of the mainline church in America, or the near disappearance of Christianity in Europe, I am lifted up by the sheer exuberance, and massive growth, of Christianity in the global South. Philip Jenkins makes a forceful case in The Next Christendom that the center of gravity in the church has already shifted south of the equator. Jenkins, an English Catholic working in America, is particularly good on documenting Anglican, Catholic, and Pentecostal growth in the (former) Third World. Reading his book as a Presbyterian, though, I was struck with his near silence on how the Reformed churches were doing. I was, thus, particularly looking forward to this conference.
So far, though, the papers are pretty gloomy. Everyone knows about the huge significance of the Calvinist tradition in shaping the modern world in the first place (thank you, Max Weber). Few of our papers, though, report great vitality in the Reformed churches worldwide today. Globalization, in our consideration thus far, comes as a dissolving, even secularizing force to the Presbyterian and Reformed churches. The most encouraging reports have merely documented ways to slow the Calvinist church's decline in the face of globalization.
Globalization today has been good for heart religions, like Pentecostalism, and those streams of Christianity with a strong place for a religion of feeling. Calvinists, though, are the headiest of Protestants. So far, this current wave of globalization has not played to Reformed strengths.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Is the Virgin Birth Essential?
The Presbyterian Church is faced, once again, with a serious question about what are the essential tenets of Reformed faith and practice. We have always had to decide these questions in examining officers of the church. Lately, though, the question has been on the back burner. The recent adoption of the Peace, Unity, and Purity (PUP) report has, however, moved the question of essential tenets front and center.
The recent Theological Task Force of 2001, which produced the PUP report, was modeled on the Special Commission of 1925, which was also charged with finding a way forward through the endemic conflicts that wracked the church in those days.
The particular conflict that called the Special Commission into being was this question: is belief in the virgin birth of Christ an essential tenet of the Reformed faith? Nearly all Presbyterians in those days took it for granted that it was. To believe otherwise was to undermine the authority of the Bible. Believing in the authority of the Bible was certainly an essential tenet of the Reformed faith.
Two young candidates for ordination, recent graduates of Union Theological Seminary in New York, however, were not convinced of the virgin birth. New York Presbytery, always one of the most liberal in the denomination, was willing to ordain them. A minority protested, and brought their case the General Assembly. When the General Assembly of 1925 created the Special Commission, they handed the virgin birth question, along with others, to the Commission.
The Special Commission held that doctrine of the virgin birth of Christ is indeed true, and obligatory for Presbyterian ministers. They also held, though, that if some potential ministers, who were otherwise sound in the faith, were "insufficiently clear" in their understanding of the doctrine of the virgin birth, a presbytery could legitimately ordain them. The fledgling ministers were obliged to continue to wrestle with the doctrine. The Special Commission, though, understood that an ordination decision is a complex whole, based on all the beliefs, practices, and character of a potential church officer. They affirmed that the church depends on the presbyteries and sessions to make those judgment calls – guided, of course, by the constitution, but not more bound by one particular doctrine than they are by the whole.
The Special Commission report was adopted overwhelmingly.
So here is the standard of judgment that I read from the work of the Special Commission of 1925, and the similar achievement of the Task Force of 2001:
If a candidate for office in the church said "I know the Bible says X, but I by my own judgment don't believe X, and therefore I reject the authority of the Bible," that person should not become a minister, elder, or deacon of the Presbyterian Church.
If, instead, a candidate for office in the church said "I know the Bible says X, but I have not been able to wrap my mind around that idea yet, though I continue to wrestle with it," that person may become a minister, elder, or deacon of the Presbyterian Church if the presbytery or session regards them as called and qualifiable in other respects.
The recent Theological Task Force of 2001, which produced the PUP report, was modeled on the Special Commission of 1925, which was also charged with finding a way forward through the endemic conflicts that wracked the church in those days.
The particular conflict that called the Special Commission into being was this question: is belief in the virgin birth of Christ an essential tenet of the Reformed faith? Nearly all Presbyterians in those days took it for granted that it was. To believe otherwise was to undermine the authority of the Bible. Believing in the authority of the Bible was certainly an essential tenet of the Reformed faith.
Two young candidates for ordination, recent graduates of Union Theological Seminary in New York, however, were not convinced of the virgin birth. New York Presbytery, always one of the most liberal in the denomination, was willing to ordain them. A minority protested, and brought their case the General Assembly. When the General Assembly of 1925 created the Special Commission, they handed the virgin birth question, along with others, to the Commission.
The Special Commission held that doctrine of the virgin birth of Christ is indeed true, and obligatory for Presbyterian ministers. They also held, though, that if some potential ministers, who were otherwise sound in the faith, were "insufficiently clear" in their understanding of the doctrine of the virgin birth, a presbytery could legitimately ordain them. The fledgling ministers were obliged to continue to wrestle with the doctrine. The Special Commission, though, understood that an ordination decision is a complex whole, based on all the beliefs, practices, and character of a potential church officer. They affirmed that the church depends on the presbyteries and sessions to make those judgment calls – guided, of course, by the constitution, but not more bound by one particular doctrine than they are by the whole.
The Special Commission report was adopted overwhelmingly.
So here is the standard of judgment that I read from the work of the Special Commission of 1925, and the similar achievement of the Task Force of 2001:
If a candidate for office in the church said "I know the Bible says X, but I by my own judgment don't believe X, and therefore I reject the authority of the Bible," that person should not become a minister, elder, or deacon of the Presbyterian Church.
If, instead, a candidate for office in the church said "I know the Bible says X, but I have not been able to wrap my mind around that idea yet, though I continue to wrestle with it," that person may become a minister, elder, or deacon of the Presbyterian Church if the presbytery or session regards them as called and qualifiable in other respects.
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Teasing Boys
A heroic colleague has been Resident Assistant for the soccer camp on campus this week. Wrangling a pack of young teen boys puts him on the front lines of civilization. Each morning has brought new first-hand accounts of primatology. I thought his hilarious account of finding them stripped to their boxers, which they had rolled into thongs, sumo wrestling, would be the best story. I was wrong.
On the last night of camp, the two boys who had been waiting at the curb for the pizza came thundering into the dorm to call all the other guys. Girls! In a car! And one of them FLASHED HER BOOBS!
Instantly, pizza forgotten, the whole horde raced to the street. The girls were gone, but the boys lined the curb, standing on tiptoe, peering up the street, in case the sirens returned. And they did.
The car drifted along the curb. On girl held her hand out, calling to the boys to come and touch her. The line of boys turned into a swarm, each eager for the proffered hand. Each time the boy-mass approached, the driver would scoot the car a little further down the street, teasingly. The swarm followed. This went on for half a block, then the car drove away. A couple of the boys ran after it, until reigned in by the RA.
Did they go inside and laugh about it? Did they turn to the pizza? Did they settle down to discuss Shakespeare? All equally unlikely scenarios.
No, they waited at the curb in case the girls came back. One of those who had been closest to the car noted that it reeked of alcohol. Excitement rose. The RA realized that he had no control over the primal horde. In fact, their brains seemed to be secreting a hormone that blocked out the sound of his voice.
The girls came back a third time. This time they stopped, and one of them started to get out of the car. My colleague realized that the time for intervention had come, before he had a hormone riot on his hands. He firmly suggested to the young ladies that they should move on; the police would be happy to assist them in that resolve, should that be necessary. In one fluid motion, the lead temptress eased back into the car while it sped off.
He sent the boys back to wrestling. And cold showers.
On the last night of camp, the two boys who had been waiting at the curb for the pizza came thundering into the dorm to call all the other guys. Girls! In a car! And one of them FLASHED HER BOOBS!
Instantly, pizza forgotten, the whole horde raced to the street. The girls were gone, but the boys lined the curb, standing on tiptoe, peering up the street, in case the sirens returned. And they did.
The car drifted along the curb. On girl held her hand out, calling to the boys to come and touch her. The line of boys turned into a swarm, each eager for the proffered hand. Each time the boy-mass approached, the driver would scoot the car a little further down the street, teasingly. The swarm followed. This went on for half a block, then the car drove away. A couple of the boys ran after it, until reigned in by the RA.
Did they go inside and laugh about it? Did they turn to the pizza? Did they settle down to discuss Shakespeare? All equally unlikely scenarios.
No, they waited at the curb in case the girls came back. One of those who had been closest to the car noted that it reeked of alcohol. Excitement rose. The RA realized that he had no control over the primal horde. In fact, their brains seemed to be secreting a hormone that blocked out the sound of his voice.
The girls came back a third time. This time they stopped, and one of them started to get out of the car. My colleague realized that the time for intervention had come, before he had a hormone riot on his hands. He firmly suggested to the young ladies that they should move on; the police would be happy to assist them in that resolve, should that be necessary. In one fluid motion, the lead temptress eased back into the car while it sped off.
He sent the boys back to wrestling. And cold showers.
Friday, July 07, 2006
Barak Obama vs. Paris Hilton
Sen. Barak Obama has made another superb speech on the critical role of faith in public life. He rebuked the secular wing of the Democratic Party – his party and mine – for it self-defeating paranoia about faith. He put it more nicely than I did.
Just to give a sample of the speech, he said
One example surprised me as not usually on the faith-based list. Sen. Obama contends that
I believe that whenever someone says "end the death tax," Democrats should say "strengthen the Paris Hilton tax." If we really had an estate tax in this country, Paris Hilton would have to look for honest work (and no, porn star doesn't count).
Obama has raised my sights in this debate. The estate tax is not only good for the character of rich kids. It is a just way to fund some social programs for the poor. Starting with Paris.
Just to give a sample of the speech, he said
But what I am suggesting is this - secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryant, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King - indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history - were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. So to say that men and women should not inject their "personal morality" into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.Obama then went on to take a couple of examples of how faithful people, not just Christians, make better public policy when the act on their faith -- fighting AIDS, lifting Third World debt, stopping genocide.
One example surprised me as not usually on the faith-based list. Sen. Obama contends that
And by the way, we need Christians on Capitol Hill, Jews on Capitol Hill and Muslims on Capitol Hill talking about the estate tax. When you've got an estate tax debate that proposes a trillion dollars being taken out of social programs to go to a handful of folks who don't need and weren't even asking for it, you know that we need an injection of morality in our political debate.I have long thought that the estate tax is a serious moral issue, and a political issue that Democrats can and should win. Yet Republican opponents of the estate tax have been winning the argument – no, not the argument, just the rhetorical competition – through the brilliant trick of always referring to the estate tax as the "death tax." George Lakoff cites this as one of the best examples of how Republicans have been winning the political competition by reframing the terms of the debate, without changing the substance of the debate.
I believe that whenever someone says "end the death tax," Democrats should say "strengthen the Paris Hilton tax." If we really had an estate tax in this country, Paris Hilton would have to look for honest work (and no, porn star doesn't count).
Obama has raised my sights in this debate. The estate tax is not only good for the character of rich kids. It is a just way to fund some social programs for the poor. Starting with Paris.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
"Taste is a matchmaker"
So says Pierre Bourdieu in Distinction. The most fruitful idea to come to me so far from our sojourn in Bourdieu's great study is the notion of taste endogamy.
It is well known that people with similar backgrounds are more likely to marry one another. The normal sociological standards for measuring background are rather blunt instruments, though. We run across thousands of people with similar backgrounds who we would not think of marrying. The subtler connector is shared taste. Taste is, certainly, connected with background – that is one of the main points of the book. But taste is also more individual than just a shared class measure. Taste is individual enough to bring two people together.
And then, as Bourdieu notes, we often see "the astonishing harmony of ordinary couples who … progressively match each other by a sort of mutual acculturation." This is, I think, what Max Weber means by "elective affinity." I can testify to this in my own marriage in many ways. My favorite, which is delightful for its sheer mystery, is that my wife and I, having started out with different favorite colors, now have grown to share a passion for yellow. Neither of us could say why this is so, but it does make decorating together easier.
Sociologists are accustomed to measuring similarities of education and occupation between parents and children. What the idea of taste endogamy suggests is that we should be just as interested in comparing parents-in-law and children-in-law. At the least, we should measure similarities in education and occupation between a man and his father-in-law and a woman and her mother-in-law. Deeper than that, though, we should look for similarities of taste within those pairs. If is woman sees a similarity in taste between her father and her potential husband, it would go a long way toward explaining their attraction and marital success.
As Bourdieu observes,
"Two people can give each other no better proof of the affinity of their tastes than the taste they have for each other."
It is well known that people with similar backgrounds are more likely to marry one another. The normal sociological standards for measuring background are rather blunt instruments, though. We run across thousands of people with similar backgrounds who we would not think of marrying. The subtler connector is shared taste. Taste is, certainly, connected with background – that is one of the main points of the book. But taste is also more individual than just a shared class measure. Taste is individual enough to bring two people together.
And then, as Bourdieu notes, we often see "the astonishing harmony of ordinary couples who … progressively match each other by a sort of mutual acculturation." This is, I think, what Max Weber means by "elective affinity." I can testify to this in my own marriage in many ways. My favorite, which is delightful for its sheer mystery, is that my wife and I, having started out with different favorite colors, now have grown to share a passion for yellow. Neither of us could say why this is so, but it does make decorating together easier.
Sociologists are accustomed to measuring similarities of education and occupation between parents and children. What the idea of taste endogamy suggests is that we should be just as interested in comparing parents-in-law and children-in-law. At the least, we should measure similarities in education and occupation between a man and his father-in-law and a woman and her mother-in-law. Deeper than that, though, we should look for similarities of taste within those pairs. If is woman sees a similarity in taste between her father and her potential husband, it would go a long way toward explaining their attraction and marital success.
As Bourdieu observes,
"Two people can give each other no better proof of the affinity of their tastes than the taste they have for each other."
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Marriage Education Works
Someday I want to study to alumni of my family life class to see how their marriages turn out. My guess is that they will turn out to have a divorce rate less than half that of the rest of the college. More than a guess, that is an objective. I know that students who take such a class might be more marriage-minded than the average, so they might have a lower divorce rate even if the class itself had no effect. Students tell me, though, that one of the biggest eye-openers for them is to study the many benefits that marriage brings to married people and to society as a whole. In all their prior education, no one had made that case, or even talked about marriage as other than a loss of freedom.
Now Scott Stanley, one of the national leaders in marriage education, and his colleagues have shown that marriage education is likely to reduce the risk of divorce by up to a third. Their article, "Premarital Education, Marital Quality, and Marital Stability: Findings From a Large, Random Household Survey," by Stanley, Paul Amato, Christine Johnson, and Howard Markman, is in the current Journal of Family Psychology. Marriage education means group courses, not premarital counseling for a couple. The marriage education reported in the survey ranges from full courses to two-hour workshops. Many churches offer marriage education, and some require it. Marriage education is a popular topic of adult education, as well. Few of those in the survey were thinking of their college family sociology courses.
Which is a shame. Colleges are full of people who want to be married, and will be married, someday. They are the very people who are most prone to learn from their studies. If every college made marriage education a regular part of the curriculum, and offered it enough to reach all who wanted it, I am sure we would see a significant reduction in the divorce rate – and a rise in the marriage rate, instead of cohabitation – in a decade.
Because marriage education works.
Now Scott Stanley, one of the national leaders in marriage education, and his colleagues have shown that marriage education is likely to reduce the risk of divorce by up to a third. Their article, "Premarital Education, Marital Quality, and Marital Stability: Findings From a Large, Random Household Survey," by Stanley, Paul Amato, Christine Johnson, and Howard Markman, is in the current Journal of Family Psychology. Marriage education means group courses, not premarital counseling for a couple. The marriage education reported in the survey ranges from full courses to two-hour workshops. Many churches offer marriage education, and some require it. Marriage education is a popular topic of adult education, as well. Few of those in the survey were thinking of their college family sociology courses.
Which is a shame. Colleges are full of people who want to be married, and will be married, someday. They are the very people who are most prone to learn from their studies. If every college made marriage education a regular part of the curriculum, and offered it enough to reach all who wanted it, I am sure we would see a significant reduction in the divorce rate – and a rise in the marriage rate, instead of cohabitation – in a decade.
Because marriage education works.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Have a Gruntled Fourth
A thought for Independence Day: married people and their children have the greatest freedom to do what they want, because what they normally want to do is support one another.
Monday, July 03, 2006
Knowledge Class Marriage
I am starting a new project that will occupy me for the next few years, if not decades. I want to compare marriage and family life in the knowledge class versus the corporate class. I will explain what I mean by this over the next series of posts.
We are starting with some of the foundational theory of the knowledge class. This week we are working through Pierre Bourdieu's Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. For my money Bourdieu was the best French sociologist until his death a few years ago.
Bourdieu says that in looking at the class structure of society we need to examine three components of class for any given group:
1) the volume of capital;
2) the composition of capital; and
3) the trajectory of the class over time.
Volume is what we usually think of as "class" – how much stuff your group has. Composition, though, introduces an important nuance of the different kinds of capital. In addition to economic capital – which is basically how much wealth you have – Bourdieu also looks at cultural capital, made up of the kinds of knowledge and understanding that make for social status. Cultural capital comes from two main sources – what you learn in school, and what you learn at home.
The great advantage that people from higher classes have is not only that they start with money. Just as important, they learn the kinds of high culture most esteemed in society by growing up with it. Smart poor kids can learn school culture in school, but it is harder to pick up these more subtle kinds of family-based culture, of taste, of distinction, on your own. It can be done, but it is harder. It is particularly difficult to learn extra-curricular culture because people from low-status families don't even know it exists, and people from high-status families don't know that they are passing on to their kids a kind of capital just by their lifestyle.
Bourdieu was, therefore, concerned with the effects of families in transmitting capital. He did not, though, give much attention to exactly how families produced these effects, nor to what difference different approaches to marriage and children would make for transmitting cultural capital.
It has become more obvious in the generation since Distinction was written that the knowledge class is the class most likely to never marry, or to never have children. The cultural capital that knowledge class individuals accumulate is more likely to die with them than is other kinds of capital, or in other classes.
A class will only pass on its capital to the next generation if it has a next generation. One hypothesis that we are exploring is that knowledge class life makes it less likely that you will produce a next generation.
We are starting with some of the foundational theory of the knowledge class. This week we are working through Pierre Bourdieu's Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. For my money Bourdieu was the best French sociologist until his death a few years ago.
Bourdieu says that in looking at the class structure of society we need to examine three components of class for any given group:
1) the volume of capital;
2) the composition of capital; and
3) the trajectory of the class over time.
Volume is what we usually think of as "class" – how much stuff your group has. Composition, though, introduces an important nuance of the different kinds of capital. In addition to economic capital – which is basically how much wealth you have – Bourdieu also looks at cultural capital, made up of the kinds of knowledge and understanding that make for social status. Cultural capital comes from two main sources – what you learn in school, and what you learn at home.
The great advantage that people from higher classes have is not only that they start with money. Just as important, they learn the kinds of high culture most esteemed in society by growing up with it. Smart poor kids can learn school culture in school, but it is harder to pick up these more subtle kinds of family-based culture, of taste, of distinction, on your own. It can be done, but it is harder. It is particularly difficult to learn extra-curricular culture because people from low-status families don't even know it exists, and people from high-status families don't know that they are passing on to their kids a kind of capital just by their lifestyle.
Bourdieu was, therefore, concerned with the effects of families in transmitting capital. He did not, though, give much attention to exactly how families produced these effects, nor to what difference different approaches to marriage and children would make for transmitting cultural capital.
It has become more obvious in the generation since Distinction was written that the knowledge class is the class most likely to never marry, or to never have children. The cultural capital that knowledge class individuals accumulate is more likely to die with them than is other kinds of capital, or in other classes.
A class will only pass on its capital to the next generation if it has a next generation. One hypothesis that we are exploring is that knowledge class life makes it less likely that you will produce a next generation.
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