Talk – Discussion: Peter L. Berger on Dez. 12, 2007.

Most of us will know Peter Berger from his famous book "The Social Construction of Society" (1966 with Thomas "Tommy" Luckmann). I don't have to mention the importance of this book for social science (including STS). Berger is also well known for his early diagnosis/critique of modernity (e.g. "The homeless mind"), his sociology and religion and of course his great "Invitation to sociology" should not be forgotten and is still a good book for the first readings in sociology.
Last week he had a talk at a discussion organized by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung in the Leibnitz-Saal of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften. The Topic of the event was:

Transatlantischer Dialog über Religion und Politik
"Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar"
Religiöse und demokratische Werte im Spannungsfeld internationaler Politik

(trans-atlantic dialogue: the dignity of the human being is untouchable. Religous and democratic values in a field of tension in international politics).

In his search for a basis for humanistic moral and ethics, he was asking: "How can one define a religious perspective which is neither relativistic nor fundamentalistic."

Bergers main argument was, that relativism and fundamentalism are two counterparts, which are deeply interrelated with and rooted in the process of modernisation. Moving away from a zone of "taken for granted knowledge", a "questionable zone of knowledge" becomes bigger and bigger and takes all certainties away. Radical forms of relativism destroy every basis of moral judgement and do not allow the people to know what is right and what is wrong. Science leads to a dissolution of certainty. As a consequence the modern wishes to be "liberated from the liberation" and is looking for new certainties. In this view, fundamentalism is not a pre-modern phenomenon, but a highly modern reaction.

Fundamentalism can be found in two forms: as (1) a totalitarian state, which tries to exclude other forms of knowledge and enforces its borders or (2) as a sub-society, which forms some kind of counter-culture (Berger gave examples from radical religious, but also feministic groups for both).

In a normative judgement Berger argues, that relativism as well as fundamentalism are bad for society and we do need a “politic of moderation” as solution for our moral dilemma. Faith is not impossible, if you know, that you have chosen certain basic values (the notion of choosing is suppressed by fundamentalism!), but at the same time have to stand in for them, and have to make them a basis for your action and judgement (and not tolerate every unacceptable practice because of a misunderstanding of the concept of tolerance). The central value, the dignity of human beings, must be accepted and defended against its enemies. The problem is, that we do not know easy answers to all problems: When does a life start (debate about embryonic Stem-cells) and other uncertain answers cannot be given easily, but have to be grounded on the basic moral norms. Sociological or biological “functionalism” is not able to give answers to this problems, the policymakers and every individual have to decide and to use our empathy for this decisions.

To make it a little bit easier, Berger drew a line, on which we can locate our decisions.

On the one end, there are unacceptable practises, which cannot be tolerated (e.g. torture or killing) on the other end of the line practises (like having to wear a headscarf) are easily acceptable. In between, there lie the really problematic ones, and there the decision about “right” action can only be given in context. For Berger and his discussant, bishop Huber, moderate ehtics and moral foundation can be found in christianity, and this is the cause, why they are necessary for a good society.

In my opinion, Berger gave an interesting, but very abstract and vague analysis. I would agree to most of his arguments, but the problem is, that he avoided all the concrete and important questions. He addressed the problem so vaguely, that with his normal postulates none of the problems can be solved.

In the contemporary discussions, you can not only look at the moral norms, which found decisions, but they are more complicated. The problem is, that every decision has (more or less) unwanted and unanticipated consequences. Many problems, which should be solved by “moderate” politics, cannot be removed with a moderate approach in polity, because the problems are too big.

But Berger was talking about moral foundation and not about concrete policy, this is, why his conservative arguments may be acceptable, but the question of the adequate means is still open. He addressed global inequality as unacceptable, but did not say a word about the policy to resolve this problem.

I liked one joke he told:

There is a guy, which always complains about his new job. Asked what he does, he says he has to sort oranges into three baskets: small, medium and big. In fact this is a nice job, but he did not like this job, because of “all this decisions”.

Important Literature by Peter L. Berger

Berger, Peter L. (1963), Invitation to Sociology: A Humanistic Perspective, Anchor Books.

Berger, Peter L. and Thomas Luckmann (1966), The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise its the Sociology of Knowledge, Anchor Books.

Berger, Peter L. (1967), The Sacred Canopy, Doubleday.

Berger, P. L., Berger, B. and Kellner, H. (1974), The Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness, Penguin.