Such rights flow from man's creation by God, and as society and institutions obtain to their status 'over'
men by their consent toward these ends, it is incumbent upon men to function cooperatively within them
toward their fulfillment. The Catechism also expressly notes opposition  "to all forms of collectivism" as
such are in violation of the principles it has elaborated. (7)

     Law must be established in accordance with natural law and therefore in support of such principles and
the merit of any society or community will rest upon its concurrence with free will association  and in
such communion man will best be able to attain to his prescribed purpose. (8) Hence, at least in terms of
the Catholic catechism, there is no inherent contradiction between denominational and civil religiousity.
Although other groups may assert less compatibility with such dualism, the fact that Catholicism has
taken such a position, it having been arguably less disposed traditionally to such a posture, speaks loudly
for its acceptability. Indeed, these expressions of the Holy See  are fundamentally compatible with much
which the American faith may be seen to encompass in its 'theology.' 

VI. THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF RELIGION

     The Generational Hypothesis (Converse and Beck) of partisan allegiance suggests that the political
environment in which and through which a person  -- or a generation of persons -- is socialized, will to a
great extent set the parameters of their voting patterns and political activity more generally through the
course of their lives. Thus, someone acculturated during the period of the 1930s era of Democratic
ascendancy, depending of course upon their socio-economic group, would have been cast in a specific
partisanship which they continue to adhere to. It would be conceivable that such affectation could collapse
were there to be a failure of their world view to function adequately or were there an alienation of  their
belief system from the partisan structure as events evolved, but even given such crisis, established patterns
of political behavior may persist unaltered. Similarly, each subsequent set of socialized individuals would
develop patterns of political thought and behavior out of the milieu they came out of . The World War II
set, those who grew up in the Cold War heydays of the fifties, the freewheeling spirit of the sixties
tempered by the impact of faith and loss of confidence in big governments solutions, the  perceived failure
of military strength, and the civil rights movement as well as assassination and urban violence, the
stagflation and crisis of confidence of the seventies, and the Reagan optimism in progress and prosperity,
each  would evolve a predominant form of political attitudes  based on the experiences of each in such
environment. The partisanship of those out of the thirties would be in stark contrast to the bipartisanship
of the war set and nonpartisanship perhaps of the sixties crowd. Such tendencies seem to possess some
validity although there are few absolutes or certainties. A more specific example would be contrasting
views as to the impact of poverty on people such that a depression experience might see poverty breeding
character whereas a Great Society  socialization might conceivably look upon poverty as a major cause of
crime. The 'correctness' of such positions could only be 'determined' by each individual against the
backdrop of their special circumstances of acculturalization. 

     It has been a common theme for an extended period now that violence on television has helped  lead us
into a more violent society, and debatable as that proposition may be, there can be little doubt that those
reared in front of the TV screen will have a different outlook than those before them who perhaps were
similarly but differently impacted by radio, or those of more recent vintage impacted by computers.
Indeed, the 'interactive' age of the computer may  portend a basic and exceptionally active attitude of
potency among that cohort. This all seems to make some considerable sense even if substantive room is
left for some conception of free will as a possibility. And the contrasting variables would appear to be
nearly infinite.

     The complexity arising from such a complicated process of influences would make it very difficult to
track the impact of variables or predict outcomes except to anticipate general patterns within variation
from the mean. In their SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY, Peter Berger and Thomas Luckman
contend that:

	" ... the sociology of knowledge is concerned with the relationship between
	human thought and the social context within which it arises. It may thus be
	said that the sociology of knowledge constitutes the sociological focus of a 
	much more general problem, that of the existential determination of thought 
	as such ... [but] the general problem has been the extent to which thought 
	reflects or is independent of the proposed determinative factors."(1)

     But such a dichotomy is not necessary at all. One need no more reject the idea of socialized knowledge
or social being to hold free will valid than disparage free will to acknowledge determinative factors. And
the root of this problem is couched in the general view of man adhered to . It is just as degrading to man
to insist that we are programmed exclusively and incapable of the potency of creative thought  as it is to
contend that our every thought and action must be totally free and spontaneous exertions of our powers
and capacities. And the latter would be just as insufficient and wasteful as the former. This means that the 
super-ego must be disciplined as well as the id, and for the purpose of more productive functioning of the
ego. Analogous to this view is the functioning of the human nervous system. Every stimuli need not flow
for processing and contemplation  by the brain. As the individual physiology develops, it learns to cut
short the physical-psychic relay with learned responses. But whether that entails a stimulus-response
reaction to and from the spinal column or even a learned functioning of an 'intelligent' nervous system
short of that, there is potential for a contemplated intervention of cognition. The learned response is an
efficiency mechanism. On this theory, the determined or programmed or conditioned  activities of the
human 'mind' function as a liberating process which frees the will in an ever-progressing manner as we
develop physiologically and intellectually, to accord us greater potential for creative thought and action. In
effect, the more and better we are 'programmed,' the freer the will is. And while an extreme determinist
perspective obliterates personal responsibility, we are rendered increasingly responsible by this process of
liberation of the will. Much as Robert Frost defined poetry as "moving freely in harness," the liberation
obtained to by the degree of efficiency on which we operate  on the determined/free continuum, the more
'the buck stops here.' But this is not the manner in which the debate has traditionally been framed.

     Berger and Luckman locate the 'immediate intellectual antecedent' of social construction in three
currents of 19th Century German intellectual activity, those being Marxism, Nietzschen, and historicist --
placing the basic proposition that our "consciousness is determined by ... social being" in the first of these,
and though the exact nature of Marx's fabric of this construction  has always been somewhat problematic
in interpretation, the waters appear to have been muddied even more with the 'rediscovery' of his 1844
MANUSCRIPTS. Suffice it to say that a crucial aspect of this sociology was the positing  of a relationship
between underlying reality and thought, the 'substructure/superstructure' in Marx.(2) And if Nietzsche was
slightly removed from the center of the debate and its anti-idealism, they were both an important part of
the 'mood' out of which the discipline came. (3) Several of the basic concepts of historicism can only be
properly comprehended with "emphasis on the social situation of thought." For instance, Berger and
Luckman suggest 'social location' as a necessary part of the translation for such ideas as 'situational
determinism' and 'seat in life.'(4) At the very least, this third group lent an historical character to the study
of sociology of knowledge. Max Schaler, who they see as the real genesis of the study, formed this debate
into the question of "human knowledge ... as an a priori  to individual experience, providing the latter
with its order of meaning."(5) It gives the person their 'natural way' of seeing the world. It was Karl
Mannheim whose work teaching and in translation ushered the consideration into 'English' language
consideration, (6) introducing the argument that "no human thought is immune to the ideologizing
influence of social context."(7) For these authors, subsequent debate in the area has not gone much beyond
these earlier formulizations, except perhaps by critique of them, but has been given some truck in
American circles, by particularly Talcott Parsons, and to a lesser extent, C. Wright Mills, among
others.(8) They caution against too great a focus on philosophy for most people, expanding reality for
people beyond 'Weltanschauunger' into a broader spectrum of inputs or 'Lebenswelt.'(9) But the
implication of societal genesis of cognition is, as Durkheim termed it, "reality sui generis."(10) And it was
out of this general direction of thought that we find the development in the United States of the ideas of a
'public philosophy' by Lippman, and Bellah's 'civil religion,' a binding and bonding character that could
function as a unifying force in a national culture, as also it would an identifying trait. The 'paradigm' they
delineate is thereby of utmost importance in examining the 'public faith.' The dialectic of such a paradigm
immediately suggests some difficulties regarding its operation, for given the utter determinism of the more
constrained versions of the argument, the most one can say is that somehow -- mechanically,
automatically -- the internal contradictions of an existing paradigm undermine it and produce a new one.
Reading that to approximate the Platonic hypothesis of a higher hypothesis may mitigate it considerably,
but it is not always the case that cognition is seen to be the creative force that would portend in the
scheme. If that does not exactly facilitate the idea of progress or human will generating creation and
invention, the problem is specified. Not only does that severely limit its utility overall, perhaps, but also its
applicability to the American specimen. It has trouble explaining novelty, or fostering it. Others have, of
course, modified Kuhn's paradigm paradigm (including, apparently, Kuhn himself) in a variety of ways.
Most notable, perhaps, is the schema of Lakatos, who articulated competing 'research projects' in what
may be tantamount to a 'pluralist' variation on the theme, But it is one much more amenable to the aspect
of creative cognition.


     Paul Feyerband has weighed in with important discussion on the 'method,' going beyond the critique
offered by Popper and Lakatos to contend that there has never been a rational method by which science
has proceeded, but that such achievement rested on quite different tracks. For intellectual progress to take
place, what has to be emphasized is the creativity of the scientist and not science's method or authority. In
place of the Lakatos methodology of freedom which maintains law and order in the scientific community,
Feyerband poses the 'withering away of reason,' and demands the 'separation of state and science' as a
necessary supplement to the more familiar expression.(11)

     As appealing as that may seem, there are some stumbling blocks to letting 'market' mechanisms
govern, the most important of which is probably the negentropic character of the universe to organize.
The 'collective' entities thus cultivated have the potential and indeed the prospect of emergent control.
Perhaps what is needed is a Madisonian system of checks and balances to block that so that the real reason
of creativity can function. Even with that, established 'research projects,' despite their apparent glaring
deficiencies and gapping holes, may be able to maintain hegemony for substantial periods due to their
position and authority, and stave off collapse. Defense of active cultivation of new ones by some collective
sanction may not be so much a problem of whose ox is gored, though that is clearly a problem, as it would
be whose cattle are prodded. At the same time, however, the economy of scale requisite for the level of
scientific inquiry we are about may necessitate such collective involvement.

     Feyerband is important in the understanding of the social construction of reality because of his notion
of paradigm methodology establishing parameters beyond which no one not only are not go, but
effectively cannot go. The environment thereby created delimits through social constructs the alternation
of reality. Reality thus is limited and defined by the constraints of such social construction, barriers which
inhibit the creative exercise of will. The paradigm that is hegemonic becomes effectively a walled prison.
Such science, he suggests, "is much closer to myth than a scientific philosophy is prepared to admit," but
there is in his system at least the prospect of escape through cultivation of the individual creative will. It
becomes a Great Wall or Maginot Line which cannot stave off invasion.

     For the American context examined here, the account in Feyerband of Galileo's struggle in defense of
the Copernican revolution is instructive. The forces arrayed against him and it were at least in
institutional structure, religious, but it is contended here that an important essence of the public faith of
America involves the sort of freedom he proffers. The historical record of scientific advance which has
been manifest in the United States would suggest some considerable level of success of such faith, and yet
it cannot overlook the imperative of struggle 'to keep the arteries open.' In that sense, Feyerband's vision
for the 'withering away of reason,' instead of approximating a Trotskyesque 'permanent revolution' much
more accords with vital aspects of the American public faith. Indeed, it demands it. However, toward that
end, on whichever side one comes down, it is mandatory to understand the nature of the social
construction of reality one operates within, so that the relationship of religion and society is a critical
concern. 

     Emile Durkheim and Max Weber are probably the most suitable starting  point for such consideration.
As Anthony Wallace has written, these set in motion the conception of systematic study of the functional
nature of religion in society. He writes:

	"The  primary functional thesis is a simple one: that the religious institutions
	of a society represent, and elicit acceptance of, certain central values whose 
	internalization by members of the society is necessary for the adequate 
	integration of that society's various parts." (12)

     Even though the theme is recurrent throughout his work, no where does Max Weber more clearly
express the perceived inter-relationship between religion and society than in his connection of
Protestantism and capitalism. That connection will be explored more appropriately further along in this
examination, but the essential characteristic to be underscored at this juncture is the notion prevalent in
Weber that there is an irrepressible linkage between both the forms and ethics of religiousity and those of
the culture in which the reside. The interactive relationship is a mutually supportive one across the scope
of societal settings analyzed in his work. Particular social, economic and political patterns are associated
with specific manifestations of religiousity. While the causal connections do not always seem to so clearly
run throughout this spectrum as they do in the causative nature of the Protestant ethic to the spirit of
capitalism, the mutually supportive character of the relationship is clear whether he is looking at
'primitive' or contemporaneous settings. Religiousity throughout performs a vital function in the
construction of the world in each situation.

     In the work of Emile Durkheim, where the emphasis appears always to be on the origins of
religiousity, its actual object of veneration was society, not the supernatural, and its purpose was per se the
structuring of reality. Those sentiments requisite for societal existence were through it inculcated into the
population as its mission. In well-integrated cultures, this values thesis is paramount, but in societies rent
by internal contradictions, it must be supplemented by some form of conflict resolution mechanism. It
performs the role of a general rationalizer which reduces dissonance, whether that is perceived
analytically as the mediation of conflicts in values or in a more cynical way as an 'opiate.'

     The last being corollary to the first, for Durkheim, it is this social construction of the individual
consciousness

	" ... which raises him outside himself; it is over that which made him. For that
	which makes a man is the totality of the intellectual property which constitutes
	civilization, and civilization is the work of society."(13)


     There is, in that excerpt, a connotation of some weight, both for the immediate conversation and for
the greater discussion this project is engaged in, for it is Durkheim's assessment from this that religion
plays such a preponderant role in human life:


	"This is because society cannot make its influence felt unless it is in action, 
	and it is not in action unless the individuals who compose it are assembled 
	together and act in common. It is by common action that it takes consciousness
	of itself and realizes its position; it is before all else an active co-operation."(14)

     Durkheim suggests in this context that there is but one kind of social activity which has "not yet been
attached to religion" and that is economic conduct.(15) Weber's PROTESTANT ETHIC AND THE
SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM certainly does that, but, as will be emphasized further along, this 'associational 
aspect' attaches economic behavior to religion, as Poe went to some lengths to elaborate in EUREKA! But
the attempts at rational explanation of religion which concentrate on belief and not on rites and actions
except as outward manifestations are not adequate because:

	"The collective ideas and sentiments are even possible only owing to these
	exterior movements which symbolize them ... Then it is action which dominates
	the religious life, because of the mere fact that it is society which is its source."(16)

     It is at this point that Durkheim seems to discount the economic connection, but other than for that
possible exception, "nearly all the great social institutions have been born in religion."(17) In fact, he
would elevate religiousity to pre-eminence:

	"Now in order that these principal aspects of the collective life may have commenced
	by being only varied aspects of the religious life, it is obviously necessary that the
	religious life be the eminent form, and, as it were, the concentrated expression of the 
	whole collective life. If religion has given birth to all that is essential in society, it is
	because the idea of society is the soul of religion."(18)

     Rites and symbols may seem to be little more than 'purely manual operations' or abstract
representations, when they really are, in his term, "mystic mechanics,"(19) and one which transcends
from the real to the ideal world, in the attempt to conceive of the latter and move from the former and
toward it. That  "something added  the real" is the definition which Durkheim gives to 'the sacred,'(20)
but  it entails more than that may connote:                                              
	"The formation of the ideal world .. is a natural product of social life. For a society
	to become conscious of itself and maintain at the necessary degree of intensity the
	sentiments which it thus attains, it must assemble and concentrate itself."(21)

It is only at this "school of collective life" that society can create or recreate itself. Religion is a product
then of social causation.


     Since conceptualization of the ideal results of the collective expression but must be given expression in
individuals, it takes on a personalization in each individual, the ideal becomes 'an autonomous source of
action.' Without this, we could not be fully human, but it is also this character which can give rise to the
problem of alienation and anomie in man. At the same time, it is the individual in collective association
which offers the therapy for overcoming such pathologies. Durkheim also contends that 'secondary sacred'
entities stem from their individual consciousness, and he locates this as the source of such imagery as the
soul, but the source of this locates the meaning of the individual within the collective Thus, what he is
suggesting is a sublimation of the 'rugged individual' whose existence is only justified in its field of action,
a notion very much in the spirit of monadology out of Liebniz. For Durkheim, too, this idealization
beyond the real world which marks all religion -- and all societies and individuals -- is the essence of
spirituality:
	"All religions ... are in a sense spiritualistic: for the powers they put into play
	are before all spiritual [in this sense], and also their principal object is to act 
	upon the moral life."(22)
     Following on Spencer, Durkheim articulates the relationship of this 'organic solidarity' within a culture
to contract. Without a "fundamental contract which sets forth the general principles of political life,"(23)
there must exist a complex system of contractual arrangements among individuals to whatever extent they
are mutually interdependent. Without this, social relations approach the state of war of all against all
which has come to identified with the Hobbesean state of nature. With 'higher' societies, which move
beyond the level of simple economic exchange, this state is mediated by some manner of generalized and
fundamental contract. This, and the necessity of enforcement, are the source of the state, and:

	" ... when men unite in a contract, it is because, through the division of labor, ...
	they need each other. But in order for them to cooperate harmoniously , it is not
	enough that they enter into a relationship, nor even that they feel the state of 
	mutual dependence in which they find themselves. It is necessary that the 
	condition of this cooperation be fixed for the duration of their relations. The
	rights and duties of each must be defined ... "(24)


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