Review: Undoing Conquest

 I'm doing a good bit of thinking lately about decolonisation and also about the Hebrew scriptures -among which is how to understand and take as scripture some of the horrific genocidal and ostensibly settler-colonial narratives. So this book got my interest. The commending blurb said, among other things: 

Undoing Conquest offers ways to incorporate archeological research into the life of the church to repair the harms of settler-colonialism and genocide, creating a more just future. Undoing Conquest interprets this new archeological research from feminist and decolonial theological perspectives and designs a new liturgical season, the Season of Origins. This season integrates archeological histories and centers justice work at the heart of the church’s annual rhythms.

... and that seemed to address my interests as stated above. 

I liked that it starts with a consideration of how the Christian social imaginary (and that term is explained) has at different times developed and how new discoveries and challenges affect what can be imagined. Noting that there is a kind of Overton Window (not a term used in the book -that's my analogy) whereby what is imaginible and usable by Christian disciples and publics needs to move by increments referring to what is already known or believed and not by complete breaks with the past. This is a smart move when trying to present and evaluate what new understandings of biblical origins are and how they might be assimilated. It was intriguing to learn of how the book The Tribes of Yahweh had played a part in liberation movements of the late 20th century, so it seems important to understand what the scholarship behind that book might offer to the wider Christian movement.

Of course, the elephant in the room for Judaism and Christianity when reflecting on Joshua 1-11 is genocide and the challenge of that elephant is how to handle it while still acknowledging the writings as Scripture. It's a more general question, but that part of the Hebrew Bible perhaps is paradigmatic in this respect. There is an issue for many more conservative users of the bible about how to think about scripture if/when some results of archaeological and historical research seem to show that things that had been considered more-or-less reliable history begin to look like just-so stories or quasi-mythological tales of origins. Is this in principle different from re-reading Genesis 1 in the way that Richard Middleton presents in The Liberating Image ? The big question for me is how to hear or read these stories as scripture in our context with our understandings of the world? Does reading them as in some way divinely inspired mean that we can receive them as other than historically accurate?

In this case, we are reminded that the archaeology appears to contradict the idea of a Conquest as a first-sight reading might lead the reader to imagine. We are invited rather to consider that these stories recount things "in ways that aim to shape culture and contribute to a shared sense of identity".

I found it helpful to be able to read a really well written overview of the the results of archaeology and reflection on it over the last century or so -much of which I only had a vague inkling of (because until recently, I was not as interesting the Hebrew scriptures as I am now).

There is a sketch in the penultimate chapter of how we might story for ourselves an archaeologically fair narrative which also allows us to take hold of the Exodus story in scripture. This is worth reflecting on -along with the call to find ways to bring this into popular Christian imagination. I think that this will be a tough job with the so-called Christian Nationalist crowd! That said, I'd want to see a bit more scaffolding to help more conservative readers to be able to rethink their own a priori understandings of what scripture is and how it 'works' in devotional and theological reflection. There are some pointers here, but it is not a strong thread.

I enjoyed the idea of having a liturgical season of origins to engender a liturgical and thus whole-church pedagogy. There's a reasonably detailed proposal for a Season of Origins. I'm taking it seriously as something to incorporate into my own Our Common Prayer in Climate Emergency liturgical collection. I felt that the proposal, though, needs to pay more attention to how such perspectives are made liturgical. Do it badly and the questions and skepticisms of the congregation will actually be counter-productive. (I'm reminded of the putative Josianic story that the book outlines -which succeeds, humanly speaking, because of it's political backing and the moment of history in which it is introduced). I suspect the idea of trying to give what might be seen as official credence to 'rejected' or 'dispreferred' texts of the past (non-canonical gospels etc), is not going to fly widely in the Christian world. I'd love to see a wider conversation about the idea, though, of a season such as this.

I'm also concerned because at the moment a lot of Christians are trying to encourage churches to adopt a 'new' Season of Creation. Another new season might be a bit hard to add to the pile of innovation -even though I've kind of been doing it myself with a season of Transfiguration in Our Common Prayer liturgies. The proposal is to situate the Origins season after Creationtide, in effect. -Though the existence of Creationtide is clearly not known by the author. So I'd want to invite a longer and wider conversation about how we're shaping the autumn Kalendar -I'd also want to discuss whether we should reconsider Advent and November (Kingdomtide) in terms of the foci of these seasons. That said, 'Origintide' after Creationtide seems a good fit -and then a contrast with the themes of death and decay that comes prominently in early November (Kingdomtide). Certainly the shape proposed for Origintide invites it to have a pentitential thread running through it which would be suitable since that thread has become so hard to maintain in Advent because of the wider societal context in which it falls. This means that in the northern hemisphere, the lengthening nights of  encroaching winter would be mirrored in considering the darkness in the moral world and our complicity in it.

While I was reading I found myself cross- referencing with the tales of Robin Hood and King Arthur -the former is briefly mentioned towards the end of the book. But it is worth considering how these stories originated (in as far as we know or suppose) and how they have at various points been picked up and reworked or elucidated with various ideological spins in them. This could help us to think about the stories of Exodus and Joshua before they become crystallised as scripture. -So that's another bit of further research for me!

In short, I have found this very intriguing and enlightening. What's more it is not a lengthy tome and while there are very thorough footnotes, it is not an especially academic dense text. I'd be pretty confident to put it into the hands of a reasonably educated non-specialist. There were some things being said which were repeated at times -but I guess that helps make for secure cross-referencing of materials in the book for some readers.

One of the things that this has done for me is make me want to dig into (pun intended) the archaeological findings and reflection on them. It's also got me wondering how this can inform and how it affects my own research on the way that The Powers and Principalities show up in Hebrew scriptures -given that I've been developing, in effect, a kind of corporisations narrative.

Kate Common’s Website
Undoing Conquest on Bookshop #UndoingConquest

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/i7u2ix4en0xb2l6kxrr93/ANcouHIrfzj7Ky6D7ucIsIw?rlkey=6l38lsatqxnv8iwp48kmkbyt0&e=1&dl=0

Communion via internet?

Our bishops have produced a brief service of Spiritual Communion When Unable to Attend a Celebration of the Eucharist which outlines a brief 'antecommunion' service culminating in an act of spiritual reception of Christ. This to avoid, it would seem, the pre-distribution of bread and wine to participants to be consecrated* by a duly ordained person present remotely by means of the internet. I would guess that this is because we collectively have not yet discussed this possibility in practical theological terms. And I recognise that my characterisation in the previous sentence already pre-loads some assumptions (so critiques might start there!)

 So what might be at stake in holding a communion service via an online meeting platform (Teams, Skype, Jitsi, Zoom, Big Blue Button etc)? It seems to me that there is one big difference that leads to consequential difference with a physically gathered community. The congregants are not together in one physical space: they cannot shake hands with one another at the peace, nor receive bread from one hand to another in that physical space, nor take hold of the cup of wine in that space that stood on the altar/table as the presider said the eucharistic prayer. In short there isn't a common loaf and a common cup.

The only way to make it work in real time is for each worshipper or household to bring to the event some bread and some wine of their own. But let's also note, near the outset of consideration, that the Church of England has traditionally not allowed communion to be celebrated by a priest alone**. That said, the definition of 'alone' is part of what is under consideration here. But I do note that if we don't count electronic attendance as 'presence', then a priest-presider cannot 'do communion' on their own even if they are 'witnessed' via media electronica.

The questions that, let's call it, 'remote presence Holy Communion' (RPHC) raise are as follows, I think.

• Do we need to have a common loaf and a common cup for it to be okay? (I'm avoiding the word 'valid' because that seems to me freighted with canon-law ramifications). 
• What is the value of physical presence that might make it decisive? 
• What indeed *is* human presence in such scenarios? 

 I wonder if concretising it might help to reflect upon these and any other issues. Imagine this: a duly ordained priest has before them on a clear table with a fair linen cloth on it (BCP allusion there!) a chalice of wine and a piece of bread. Perhaps they are in their home, perhaps a private chapel. Before them also is an electronic device using a conferencing platform so that people not in that room can see and hear and also vocally and visually participate in the proceedings. In rooms around the city are a dozen, say, people who are seeing and hearing the priest via their own electronic device connected to the same platform allowing them to be in a conference electronically with their priest. They have have the same order of service before them all. So the remote congregants pray with the priest silently and vocally, some of them read scriptures at appropriate moments, some of them lead the petitionary prayers at the appropriate time, they say the responses at the appropriate moments. They can hear each other and see each other. They greet each other with waves and nods and smiles at the peace. Are they at the same event?
 And then ... Well, what next?

Let's say the priest continues, prays the eucharistic prayer with the remote congregants joining in silently and aloud with the opening responses, sanctus and acclamations, Lord's prayer and words of humble access. The priest breaks the bread, consumes it and drinks the wine, in remembrance of Jesus. Has that priest taken communion? Now add to this scenario that each of the remote congregants has also before them a piece of bread and a glass of wine set on a fair linen cloth. Everything is as described in the previous paragraphs and also when it comes to the communion part, each remote congregant breaks the piece of bread before them and drinks the wine before them. Have they taken communion?

In the case of the priest alone consuming bread and wine in that scenario, the answer in BCP terms seems to be 'no' because there is no-one to communicate with the priest. If the remote congregants consume bread and wine also, then the answer is 'yes' if a meeting together really is a meeting together when electronically mediating otherwise remote congregants. It is 'no' if remote congregants do not add up to a meeting.

So at this point I notice that in another area of its life, the CofE has recently published something that may give us an answer to the question about what constitutes a meeting. This is to do with church council meetings check out the article linked to the next paragraph which summarises the article. So, are PCCs allowed to meet without meeting?

"PCCs should continue to meet, albeit remotely by Skype or Zoom or, where that is not possible, by a telephone conference call. Minutes can still be kept of such a “virtual meeting” and record as present all those members taking part."  So, for legal purposes a remote-participant meeting is okay. Can this 'okayness' transfer to a meeting for the purposes of Holy Communion? Well, clearly, the ability to act in community is possible since people can speak with and see one another. People's lives are affected by what goes on: minds are changed, emotions are roused or mollified, learning takes place, decisions with binding effect are taken in both kinds of meeting. In terms of the impact on people's hearts and minds clearly a meeting has taken place in both a remotely presenced PCC meeting and a service for worship together. It's not quite the same but the essentials as so far described are in place in both scenarios.

I asked previously whether the people in the scenario were at the same event. If they were watching a football match on a TV in a pub, I would say they were witnessing the same event but not 'at' the football match. However, I do think that the interactive nature of the scenario (they can see and hear each other and interact directly) means that they are doing more than witness an event (in this case a service), they are 'at' that event. They are participants in every meaningful way that I can think of.

The next question, then, is whether the addition to this scenario of bread and wine taken and shared in remembrance of Jesus depends crucially on non-remote presence in some way for it to be okay. Is there something essential added by the ability to physically touch other congregants? It's hard to say so when a number of congregations of the CofE have actually tried to avoid touching (in some congregations extreme social distancing has long been a norm) and yet still celebrated a Eucharist which is presumably okay. They have been remote in space. Though still housed within the same building -so is it being under one roof that is important, or in the same room? And if so, what would it be about that shared space that constitutes the okayness of the communion? If some congregants were in a different room, linked by a live electronic link and then some of the eucharistic bread and wine was taken to that other room for distribution, is that okay? (It's not far from what I've seen happen in some cathedrals when there's been a big service; there's been in effect two or three congregations sharing a common acoustic space -often electronically enhanced). I'm going to say 'yes' -even if not ideal.

Is there something essential added by having the same loaf and same cup of wine? -Given that many churches have already busted that by having wafers or more than one cup -even having individual cups ... well, let's say I don't think it 'breaks' communion; again even if it's not ideal. Is essentialness, then, in having the elements from the same altar/table? Maybe, but how far is that a convenience of administration? Ie if individual cups are pre-distributed, are they not consecrated? If a bunch of deacons held bread and wine as the president led the eucharistic prayer, would those pieces of bread and cups of wine be unconsecrated? I suspect no-one would seriously argue that.

I think you see where this is going by now. I'm struggling to find any essential thing missing from the RPHC scenario. It may not be ideal, but then a number of ways of doing communion often aren't. I don't think it's ideal to have wafers (far from it) but I don't think I don't have communion if the bread is a bunch of wafers.

The one last thing that occurs to me as something that might be essential and missing from the RPHC scenario is that the bread and the wine are the same bread and wine. In the RPHC scenario people might have different bread and wine: one has Sainsbury's white bread and a merlot, another has home-baked bread and homebrew and so on. And yet the fact that we can have wafers and individual cups seems to apply here too. And if we did think this was a deal-breaker, couldn't we arrange to pre-distribute to the virtual congregants -and wouldn't that be a grand way to symbolise the unity, fellowship and belonging to one another of that congregation? So, I can't really think of a substantial theological reason not to have RPHC. I'm left with only concerns about possible misuses. These would be things like whether people have suitable bread and wine, whether they can be trusted to be suitably reverent, to dispose of left-overs in a seemly fashion, not to open it up to mischief with irreverent persons making of with consecrated elements for no-good purposes, and so on. And there are practical ways forward for all of those things because they all exist in some form in the non remote way of doing things currently.
I have a final act of naughtiness to perpetrate on this reflection. Canon B40*** of the CofE canons says we're not normally supposed to celebrate Holy Communion anywhere but a duly consecrated building without permission from our bishop. The exception is that we may do so in the houses of people who are sick -such that they can't attend church. Clearly the situation of pandemic lockdown was not in view in drawing up that canon leading to the impediment of a priest from entering such a house for fear of infecting the household (or being themself infected). It does seem to me that allowing RPHC in such a case would be within the spirit of the canon.

 And as a bit of further reading: try this twitter search and find that lots of people are already not scrupled about this. (PS a more recent article in Church Times seems to coincide at points with this post)


 End notes 
 * I'm using the word 'consecrated' as shorthand for the processes of making sure that the bread and wine are the elements of communion when people take them in remembrance of Christ. You'll notice I'm trying to avoid being specific about which theological interpretation of it is foregrounded. I take it as unremarkable that God can do whatever God wants. So a further question could be -do we think God wants us to do this?
**I've not been able to find this in the CofE canons though the BCP says: And there shall be no Celebration of the Lord’s Supper, except there be a convenient number to communicate with the Priest, according to his discretion. And if there be not above twenty persons in the Parish of discretion to receive the Communion: yet there shall be no Communion, except four (or three at the least) communicate with the Priest. (Book of Common Prayer 1662, postscript to the communion service)
*** Canon B40: "No minister shall celebrate the Holy Communion elsewhere than in a consecrated building within his cure or other building licensed for the purpose, except he have permission so to do from the bishop of the diocese: Provided that at all times he may celebrate the Holy Communion as provided by Canon B 37 in any private house wherein there is any person sick, or dying, or so impotent that he cannot go to church"

A belief in meritocracy makes us selfish

It has seemed obvious to me for a very long time that the Bill Gates, Richard Bransons and Elon Musks of this world are not the exceptional geniuses they are sometimes painted to be but individuals who have had the luck to be in the right place and the right time for the talents and perspectives that they had to prosper. The corollary of this is that there are dozen, in fact probably thousands or even millions of people with a similar level of skill and insight and ability to all of those who 'make it' in whatever field who have simply not had the background or the opportunities (often delivered by sheer fluke) to make the money or come to the prominence that the lionised have. I seems my observation and reflection may be being borne out.

Furthermore, the idea that nurtures this belief in the exceptional deservingness of these men (as it nearly always is) is actually bad for us as societies for ...

...a growing body of research in psychology and neuroscience suggests that believing in meritocracy makes people more selfish, less self-critical and even more prone to acting in discriminatory ways. Meritocracy is not only wrong; it’s bad.

Which suggests that we should be spreading the awareness of 'success' as a product most prominently of the vicissitudes of life, biases in the social system and favourable accumulation of good fortune. We need to help people at large to realise that there are many of us who could do just as well if we had been in the right place at the right time.

Now, that can sound a bit like 'the politics of envy' -and it could of course fuel such a thing. However, I'm not sure that some of that is not called for. But we could develop an attitude of "Well ,good for you, lucky you: but don't go around thinking you are so much better than others; be aware of your good fortune and be humble, recognise that so many others are just as deserving but without the breaks you have had and act accordingly".

It might also make us less squeamish about recognising that the monetary accumulations that come with many versions of 'success' are also products of good fortune and the tendencies for 'more to become more' as illustrated in the game of monopoly -in other words the accumulative nature of what in economics is called rent.



A belief in meritocracy is not only false: it’s bad for you | Aeon Ideas:

Funerals should affirm the reality of death

I think that this is in the same ballpark as a post of mine from a couple of years back.

current practice seems determined to deny both the fact and the solemnity of death. We say “We are sorry for your loss,” and talk about the deceased’s “passing”.

I'd just invite Angela to consider the place of 'customer is always right' capitalism in reinforcing and maintaining this unhealthy situation. And don't get me started on this new euphemism 'passing'! I guess it's derived from 'passed away' but somehow even the 'away' was felt to be too final, so it is cut off in its prime. Passing is the new dying.



Angela Tilby: Funerals should not deny the reality of death: 'via Blog this'

We need the singular ‘they’ and ears will 'pop'

Given impetus by the just move to allow people to flex gender-related terms, the pressure to develop a gender neutral but animate pronoun (because 'it' seems to denigrate personhood), I reckon that 'They' will continue to widen its usage. In this article at Aeon we read as an example, the following sentence: "Carey makes themself coffee every morning". Clearly to the author this sounds mangled. I was interested to note that for me it sounded okay. I think in my case because I don't know from the name what gender should be assumed for the subject and so as the rule in colloquial English is that singular 'they' is used when there is some doubt about the identity of the referred-to person, then doubt about gender, for me, allows the selection of 'they'.

The second part of the title of the article: 'it won't seem wrong for long' is right. The rules of grammar are not set in stone, they are not pieces of legislation. They are the current state of social convention about how syntax, morphology and lexicon are used. The social convention is always being negotiated to deal with new experiences, viewpoints and social perceptions of things like class. This means that the more something gets used, the more that our inner 'polling' of frequency will adjust to normalise something. So something that seems wrong will sound okay over time with enough use. This has happened over many unremarked things in my lifetime. For example, the Americanism "it is not so big of a thing" now sounds normal and I might even find I say it myself because I hear it so often. It is replacing the rule of my childhood where one could only so "It is not so big a thing". It tends only to be the politically charged things that get remarked on and fought over.

The phrase in my title about ears popping, I am recycling from the early eighties when it seemed that for many of us the use of 'he' to include women seemed wrong -even though replacing it was fraught with difficulty. But some referred to that in circles where liturgy was discussed as 'if your ears have popped' -that moment when you could no longer hear 'he' as gender neutral. This ear popping moment is the precursor to the next ear-popping moment -when 'they' begins to feel okay as a singular in wider syntactic domains. If we practise it, we can hasten it by priming our inner polling facility.

I think the interesting thing to keep an eye on as a testing measure of what is happening would be at what point singular 'they' for God becomes possible. I've just started experimenting with it in writing prayers, but I'm still looking for a way to do it that would act as a bridge from 'he [/she]' to they. I suspect an explicitly trinitarian setting is the way forward.

'via Blog this  'We need the singular ‘they’ – and it won’t seem wrong for long | Aeon Ideas:

Physical presence and social media

The article referred to underlying the title text is about why some scientists are postulating that smell may be implicated in autism. However, for me the new learning was that we do, in fact, subliminally process smells from each other that we can't consciously notice:

Although this sense [smell] is not our primary sense, as it is in many other mammals, we still subliminally read and react to certain odors. For example "smelling fear," even if we cannot consciously detect its odor, is something we may do without thinking... this is a form of social communication...

So, one of the things that this led me to was the thought that this may be a factor in why it is that we often think that church should involve face-to-face meeting: something about bonding and responding to each other in physical proximity is actually biologically important.

This is not to say no aspect of church and fellowship should be done any other way than by physical presence. After all, swathes of the New Testament are actually the remnants of first century social media -fellowship at a distance via letters and Roman roads. However, it should help us to value the dimension of physical presence.

What this article doesn't really go into is the effects of other kinds of subliminal smelling -assuming that there may be pheromones (I'm assuming that's what we're talking about here -but happy to be informed more fully) for enjoyment or other kinds of general affect. There is mention of hexadecanol in relation to calmness, so I guess there is something in this.

Of course, the other thing we need to notice is that this study is related to autism -and seems to suggest that those with ASDs may misinterpret these chemical signals. So that's a matter for us to consider in working out, as churches, how better to include them.

A further surprise was that

Research in recent years has turned up smell receptors like those in our nasal passages in all sorts of other places in our bodies -- from our brains to our uteri.

Intriguing eh?

Autism and the smell of fear: Odors that carry social cues seem to affect volunteers on the autism spectrum differently -- ScienceDaily

'via Blog this'

Surge pricing goes universal: some effects

Here's something I learnt today in an article which definitely deserves pondering by those concerned with culture, social justice and keeping an eye on corporate tactics.

In 1861 a shopkeeper in Philadelphia revolutionised the retail industry. John Wanamaker, who opened his department store in a Quaker district of the city, introduced price tags for his goods, along with the high-minded slogan: “If everyone was equal before God, then everyone would be equal before price.” The practice caught on. Up until then high-street retailers had generally operated a market-stall system of haggling on most products. Their best prices might be reserved for their best customers. Or they would weigh up each shopper and make a guess at what they could afford to pay and eventually come to an agreement.

Now, I never knew that history, though I suppose any of us would have guessed that perhaps there had to be a first place to move from haggling (and the personalised pricing that must have meant) to fixed ticket pricing. I am intrigued and delighted by the insight into how a simple change alters a whole culture for a couple of centuries across the globe. I note how it plays well with massification and the then-developing ideology of free trade.

Downsides not mentioned: this would blow a hole in rpi calculations and render difficult or impossible inflation calculations and thus problematise things like index-linked pensions or other payments relying on rpi systems (note the comment in the article "Increasingly, there is no such thing as a fixed price from which sale items deviate"). There's an interesting feed-back loop potential in that. And then there is the hint in the article that poorer people might not come out well, that they would be given higher quotes on the basis that they are less likely to buy lots.
It might also become difficult to argue for the price-lowering effects of the Market (capitalisation intended) if in fact such selective pricing is taking place. Interestingly this exposes, possibly, the reliance that market economics may have on fixed pricing as its ideological support. Now I understand that 'surge pricing' or whatever does rely on free-market justification but I suggest that offering a price based purely on demand at a particular point is not the same as offering personalised prices based on what the algorithm suggests that you are willing or able to pay. If the algorithms are using the same or similar digital shadows for you or me, they will all tend to offer similar 'deals' to us. Thus the possibility of shopping around with the consumer power that commands is nullified: this could become a sort of cartel/oligarchy arrangement powered by algorithms. This would create its own algorithmic feedback loop having the effect of ratchetting up prices over time. And I say that in contradiction to the article's assessment towards the end:
This looks a lot like the beginning of the end of John Wanamaker’s mission to establish “new, fair and most agreeable relations between the buyer and the seller” and to establish something closer to a comparison site that works both ways – we will be looking for the low-selling retailer, while the retailer will equally be scanning for the high-value customer.
I'm not sure that the algorithm's will be sufficiently differentiated. If you want a sense of how this might work, spend half an hour looking at the prices of rarer second-hand books on a variety of sites, asking yourself the question about who would buy at that price -yet probably the prices have been set by an algorithm: the idea that second hand means cheaper in most cases has been blown. Unless of course someone creates price-busting algorithms that have the consumer's better price interests at heart. Algorithm price-wars, anyone?

My own response is surprisingly visceral at a personal level. I feel that somehow this seems like a violation of natural justice -I resonate with Wanamaker's slogan about equal before God and price. And yet I find myself questioning how far that gut feeling is actually an artefact of a lifetime's exposure to fixed pricing and the way that it has become part of the way that I calculate swathes of everyday life.
Perhaps this kind of response is why "Horgan suggests that British retailers are still a bit terrified that customers will be put off by changing prices ".

I'm also thinking that it is likely to bring to the fore questions of profit; charging what the market /consumer will bear may increase an awareness of how questions of relative power are framed. Is the retailer really adding "that much" value to the product? Is the price of status projection really that high? Most of us don't quibble about the idea of a reasonable mark up for costs and a living wage, but some 'surge pricing' seems to be sheer profiteering and this would be a mechanism for that. 

So, I'm wondering whether we need to have a set of standards for algorithms which give a quality assurance which guarantees the protection of consumer interests?

Rules for Revolutionaries: a book review

I have a back history in coming to this book which I think I would be well to declare upfront. I'm a bit of a lefty. There: what you could probably guess by looking at other posts on this blog is now openly declared for this review. Furthermore I have been so for a long time and as a result of my Christian convictions. So this book was interesting at first sight to me because it promised to help show what was learnt by the Bernie Sanders campaign in 2016 (and a bit before). In this I have not been disappointed. Though it should be noticed that for Brits like me some of the details are a bit hazy in terms of comprehension and as a result there were some points in the middle of the book where I felt that I was getting more detail than I really wanted or at least could cope with.

What I do take away from this book though is an insight into the way that a mass movement can develop and be organised without the initiative being taken away from the ordinary people who matter, rather, in fact empowering them. I was a little reminded of the Podemos and Syriza campaigns in Spain and Greece respectively which I believe shared some of the same characteristics of people having distributed ways to organise around issues that matter to them.

It makes me think about the role of political parties which I think have traditionally been the way to try to pull things together under modernity. However, in the Bernie campaign and the Podemos and Syriza phenomena I think we see the start of a kind of 'party' organising that is more democratic and participatory.

The other thing that has left an impression on me is the analysis of the traction of the Bernie Sanders campaign. The stand-out for me is about laying before people something big and world-changing versus the careful incrementalism of contemporary managerial triangulation politics. The authors attribute the rapid gain in momentum of the Sanders campaign to the big ideas and the call to be a part of changing things. It seemed to me that this is something we in the churches should consider more fully. Perhaps too much of what we do is to triangulate Jesus' call on us rather than letting the whole Kingdom of God thing hang out...

Link-Love for this Review: 
Rules for Revolutionaries website
Rules for Revolutionaries at Amazon
Rules for Revolutionaries on Facebook
Becky Bond on Twitter
Zack Exley on Twitter
Robcast Interview - the conversation between Rob Bell and Zack Exley
BrandNewCongress.org  - Becky and Zack's new Big Organizing non-partisan initiative to upset the power balence of Congress in 2018! 

Tag as #RulesforRevolutionariesSpeakeasy

I do solemnly declare that although I got this book free as a review copy, I am *not* up to no good with it: I have commented freely and as honestly as I know how for good or for ill, for better or for worse. 

Religious Children show up as less altruistic: but why?

I found myself very intrigued by this report of research. Partly because it sems to contrast markedly with a lot of research which indicates that te pattern is reversed in adults who tend to show up as having greater altruism and empathy where religion or spirituality is positively involved in their lives.

Family religious identification decreases children’s altruistic

behaviors.Religiousness predicts parent-reported child sensitivity to

injustices and empathy.Children from religious households are harsher in their punitive tendencies

The best explanation by way of working hypothesis to bridge the gap might be to investigate how far it might be to do with children growing into their faith and negotiating identity. Also the forms of religiousness in the background might need closer investigation and by contrast the social and political views of the groups involved: I'm wondering how far 'religion' in parents correlates to socially conservative expressions of faith to. What if we controlled for social attitudes and then investigated whether that correlated. Would socially conservative and non-religious be different to their religious counterparts? Would socially 'liberal' non-religious be different to theirs?
Once we know things like that, we might be able to assess more helpfully.


The Negative Association between Religiousness and Children's Altruism across the World - S0960-9822(15)01167-7.pdf: Family religious identification decreases children’s altruistic
behaviors

The fun in funerals and the bittersweet

I've attended a number of funerals in the last few years as a support to mourners. Mostly the deceased have been students, most young people in their 20s. A number of them have been non-religious ceremonies. And I've also been to a number of funerals for other people too. One of the strands running through many of all of the above has been a declared desire to celebrate the life of the person who has died. In fact, thinking about it, when I was reasonably regularly conducting funerals myself, this was a refrain I was increasingly hearing as I spoke with the bereaved next of kin and friends.

The BBC have recently run an article on this growing phenomenon in which we can read:

 Instead of looking ahead to the afterlife, British funerals increasingly rejoice in memories of the deceased's triumphs, relationships and their favourite songs. There's a phrase for ceremonies like this - "a celebration of life" Happy funerals: A celebration of life? - BBC News

The manifestations of this desire can show up in a variety of ways, but my experience would note requests from the family of the deceased for people attending the event to wear bright colours or particular forms of clothing that were in some way meaningful to the person who has died. Also what was said in the ceremony would highlight the fun and good times. This makes more sense in the increasingly commonly articulated idea that the only afterlife that can be guaranteed or made sense of by many is 'living on in our memories'. In that scenario, one wants happy and positive memories to be a host to!
There's a lot to affirm in this but there are a couple of concerns that a responsible ceremony-leader should probably be balancing in the planning of the occasions.
To be affirmed is the recognition of the value of human relations and of memory: that each of us is because of the others in and around our lives and that the things we can celebrate about those we have loved are the very stuff of growing and worthwhile relationships (in general terms, at least, occasionally I do wonder). To be affirmed (though I suspect this is not really what is intended by those wanting celebrations of life) is the bittersweetness of such recollections. In the fond recollection there is an awareness that this has come to an end and this produces a feeling of Sehensucht. And I think that is probably a good thing at a funeral.

"Instead of looking to an afterlife" is an interesting counterpoise. I take it that it is meant as a characterisation of a traditional religious funeral. And I certainly gained the impression in comments about funerals as celebrations of life, that one of the things that people were trying to get away from is feeling that they could only really participate if they had some kind of belief in the afterlife and/or God. The two don't necessarily go together, of course: some people believe in some kind of God without an afterlife and some consider an afterlife perfectly possible but not really God. What we should take from that is that it is not necessarily the case any more that the concern uppermost in mourners' minds about the fate of the deceased after death and doing something for them to make things better or at least not to get in the way of their post-mortem happiness. Denial or agnosticism about life after life therefore shifts the horizon of the ceremony in most people's understandings. Now it has to be about the way that those who are left carry on and a big part of that is how they remember the deceased.
Never mind that most CofE funerals have, for a good while, included concern for the bereaved and incorporated some kind of eulogy; clearly the God/afterlife themes have a stronger cultural hold associated with the church funeral hanging on in the popular imagination than the frequent realities of the actual experiences of the funerals.
This leads into my concerns. A bit further on in the article, we read: "despite being being the great leveller, death is increasingly seen as an occasion to express one's individuality." That can work quite well with the celebration of life and may have played a part in strengthening the idea: what one wishes for oneself, is projected onto the funerals of others (and that in turn becomes a template for still others). I don't have a problem with that except in one respect. Sometimes the wishes of the deceased may not be appropriate for the needs of the mourners. As one of those interviewed puts it...

He doesn't want any tears. The purpose is not to dwell on loss, he says, but to rejoice in what happened when he was alive: "I don't want them mourning - I want them laughing."

But, I want to say, it's not just about what you want. In any case, you will either be completely absent, or at least in a position, I would hope, to appreciate better the needs of those left behind. They may need to grieve and the ceremony probably should be an occasion when something of that can be expressed in solidarity with other mourners. This gives permission for it to be done. In actual fact, it is an honour to the deceased that their impact has been such that they will be missed. Tears are appropriate. That's not to say that laughter is out of place and I think that there is a rightful reaction against funerals being only about grief.
You see, I think it is important that the positive place a funeral can have in the bereavement process is recognised. For it to do that, it should normally help the bereaved to face their loss, at least in the initial or early phases. To do this in community with others is part of what a funeral offers by way of benefits. Bereavement also involves recognising and beginning to renarrate ones own stories in relation to the person who has died; to make meaning out of the event of the death by situating or re-situating in the stories which carry most meaning for us. This is a time for bittersweet and for Sehensucht, and something of that should normally be part of the funereal proceedings; after all, any remembering has to entail some recollection at some level that a sad event involving the one remembered has taken place. This has been where, traditionally, relating to the big story of God and human destiny has come in.
So, it seems to me, that remembering something of the significance and the abundance of the life of one who has died is important. To give hospitality to laughter and tears is likely to be part of that. In some cases the laughter is part of the ceremony, in others, part of the informal eating and drinking afterwards.

And we remember. And it is true that remembering is a kind of afterlife for the one remembered. We do all belong to one another in the memories and stories we share; we don't just exist in our own heads but in the minds and memories of those we love and who love us (as we are reminded in 'I am a Strange Loop' by Douglas Hofstadter). Keeping the memory alive, in this sense, is a kind of maintaining the remaining life of the deceased.
As a Christian, I want to affirm that and gently suggest that there is One Who Remembers more fully, intimately with greater love and more realism than any of us. Remembers each and every one of us. Eternally. And as creator is able to give life to that remembering in a way that far exceeds the lingering but fading recollections of us humans. Giving a fullness of life and a perfecting of life. Dipping that lively remembrance in glory and setting it in a web of recollection of the best and of fulness and completion. We call this New Creation. Do we dare speak of this hope?

self-esteem is socially constructed

 I have tended to think of self-esteem in individual terms. I guess if pressed to think further, I would have probably said that cultural values and the esteem of others would play a part. Now in this study of 5,000 young people worldwide, there is confirmation that to some degree, self-esteem is socially constructed, or at least co-created between individuals and their peers in relation to the cultural values of the group.

The researchers noted that their respondents' self-esteem was based, in all cultures, on four key factors: controlling one's life, doing one's duty, benefiting others and achieving social status. Nonetheless, the relative importance of each of these items for individual self-esteem varies between cultures. For example, participants in the survey who live in cultural contexts that prize values such as individual freedom and leading a stimulating life (in Western Europe and certain regions of South America) are more likely to derive their self-esteem from the impression of controlling their lives. On the other hand, for those living in cultures that value conformity, tradition and security (certain parts of the Middle East, Africa and Asia) are comparatively more likely to base their self-esteem on the feeling of doing their duty.

 In that, there are two important things. One is the identification of the matrix lines along which self-esteem is constructed: agency, duty, benefaction (Chesed? Lovingkindness? Even love?) and status. The other thing is that cultural values form an important part of how we measure value including self-value:

self-esteem seems to be a mainly collaborative, as opposed to
individual, undertaking. These findings suggest that the system for
building self-esteem is an important channel through which individuals
internalize their culture's values at an implicit level, even if they
claim not to subscribe to these values when explicitly asked. These
subtle processes can encourage people to act according to the
expectations of the society they live in, thus helping maintain social
solidarity.

To me the interesting thing there is that self-esteem building is possibly something that we 'mime' into ourselves (that is the mimetic instinct disposes us to reproduce into our psyche) and we mime into ourselves these values because they have an instinctual substrate which culture gives a relative hierarchy of valuation to.



This suggests that we should 'measure' culture by what happens with the four matrix lines.

It suggests too a lens by which to examine the way that corporisations might marshall their human resources.



I'm also intrigued by the possibility that they could form the nexus of a theological anthropology of corporisations:  how are they disposed to reward or shame their human resources? (I'm not sure why I wrote 'shame' but I have a suspicion that it may be an important choice, so I'm letting it stand, at least pro tem). Those values seem to have a grounding God's purposes for humanity: love, choice, fidelity, relationship ...



I don't quite feel able yet to take this further, i have though a sense that it is important for understanding culture and corporisations.

Culture
influences young people's self-esteem: Fulfillment of value priorities
of other individuals important to youth -- ScienceDaily:

Prepare kids to be billionaires?

I get updates of questions from Quora -they are often interesting questions and sometimes the answers are knockout. I found that this question What are good ways to prepare my kids to be billionaires? And it stuck with me. i must confess that some of it was because I was really disturbed by it. I bespoke unaware entitlement (though I may be wrong) and a load of assumptions that really need unpicking.



So I found myself commenting:

Bigger questions: why would you think they would become billionaires?
And what is it about being a billionaire that you covet (for them)? Why
is that the measure of whether you have helped bring a wonderful human
being into the world?



I ask these further question because there are 7bn people on the planet.
Millions of them have the qualities necessary but only a very small
amount of the total potential billionaires have actually achieved that
potential. Why? -we should perhaps recognise that it is mostly good
fortune that makes a billionaire: the good fortune to have social,
financial and political capital that can be leveraged and to be in the
right place at the right time.



Our problem is confirmation bias -we see the already successful but
discount their failures on the way and see them as if their 'success'
was inevitable. We *don't* see the thousands just as 'worthy' who happen
not to have had the happy combination of factors come together for
them. To prepare kids to be billionaires they have to be prepared not to
be: to fail: character  such as humility , empathy, no sense of
entitlement, generosity etc are never going to go wrong.



Also, why would you think that your own efforts to hothouse your
children might not backfire? Better to put more effort into making the
world one where more of the billions can be heirs to a better chance to
make more than a dollar a day. In building a world like that we make a
safer world for all our children.

 What I didn't write because I thought it was even more likely to draw trolls was that, in fact, too often billionaires become rentiers and end up in rent-seeking behaviour; in effect by occupying certain critical/strategic positions in the political-economic complex they accrue money for doing, in actuality, nothing and they accrue money by denuding others of opportunity or  even the means of proper livelihood. To prepare a child to be a billionaire -even if this were a sure thing- must, morally, surely, involve helping them to recognise that they would have huge debts to society and good fortune which should be given back (I'm not saying they don't have some kind of right to enjoy the fruits of their genuine labours). That no-one actually needs (or really deserves) that amount of money and that holding onto it is actually clinging to power to continue to exploit without work or effort -'rent seeking behaviour'.



The obverse of this is to think more about the normal fact of life for 'successful' entrepreneurs: failure is rife before, for a small percentage of them, they get a big break. Commonly this may involve 'betting the farm' on something: it's about risk. So, if we want a society where people can have a go at 'making it big' we need to make sure we have a society which looks out for the losers (some of whom may become 'winners' one day): we need 'safety nets' and the means to put people back on their feet -because not everyone can be billionaires -or the inflation would make the 'admiration' connoted in the term obsolete.



(2) What are good ways to prepare my kids to be billionaires? - Quora:

I'm sorry for the late running of this service

I've noticed a few times in the last year or three that announcements at some rail stations and on some trains have surprised me a little with their automated announcements which apologise for delays or other inconveniences in the service. I guess I have tended to expect -because it would be what i'd do- that they might say things like, "Broad Acres Railways regrets any inconvenience ..." but what catches me by suprise is the first person singular: "I apologise" or "I am sorry ....".

Perhaps it doesn't strike you as odd, but for me there are two questions spring to mind. One question is, knowing that it is an automated announcement, who is this 'I'? And the second question is, assuming that somehow it is the company being represented, how seriously can we take expressions of regret, remorse or penitence on the part of a company?

With regard to  who the 'I' might be, the recording carries the trace of a real human 'I' who is/was the voice actor who recorded the various components that the computer algorithm uses to assemble the panoply of announcements. Clearly that person is not apologising, it is merely their voice that has been rented to express some other's messages. However, what their voice does is to give an illusion of a human subject making the apology (or whatever else it might be) and presumably the company is interested in the sense of rapport that this creates in their customers, establishing a friendly, humane, presence in our psyches.

So the literal or direct referent for the 'I' could be the algorithm that generates the messages in response to whatever inputs to the computer system that is running the program that the algorithm is part of. The "I' in this case is the output of data processing -though that might, in a wider context, be too reductionistic a statement: just because this 'I' is produced most proximately by loudspeakers driven by electrical signals which are patterned in turn by a computer algorithm, does not mean that the 'I' so produced is meaningless in the sense of there being no person 'behind' it. If we adhere too strongly to that, then we risk denying personal meaningfulness behind the output of the voice synthesiser used by Stephen Hawking. Come to that, we could notice that our own voice production is in many ways a biological reflex of the electro-mechanical systems just mentioned: we have neuronal patterns which perform a similar function to the computer algorithm in respect of producing syntactically and phonologically (though often not prosodically) well-formed utterances and translate those into speech.

Now, thinking about the corporate expressing regret etc, it is tempting to deny personal meaningfulness to the train or station announcement on behalf of Broad Acres Railway Company but we might want to pause. Is it possible that a company could desire, intend, regret? And could it do those things at least in part in relation to human persons?

We readily acknowledge, of course, that those who lead the company may have desires, intents and relational-motives in common. We can acknowledge that more lowly members of the company might also do those things on a one-to-one level (though it's an interesting question to wonder how far they might do so in their own persons and how for as representative persons -or if that is a meaningful distinction). And the question is whether that is all that there is to say: a bunch of individual humans happen to agree that it is regrettable that the train is late or whatever. Or is it possible that it is more than an aggregated, collective, emotion? That, at least sometimes, the company is a collective being-in-itself and capable of something analogous to human emotions like desire, fear, anger, loyalty?

This would mean that in some way the confluence of legal instruments, financial flows, contracts, mission statements, human affectivity (of a variety of 'stakeholders') become synchronised and feedback-reinforced such that while the machinery, software and human agents which form the infrastructure are in place 'performing' the company, then the company is real and has some degree of agency. It impinges on the human social world as an actor with analogues to personality (ethos?), intentions (mission statement and other direction-setting instruments) and a certain degree of vulnerability to what others 'think' of it (reputation, image, brand etc).

What makes it hard for us to go with that is often that we are tripped up by the fact that a company (or whatever) is made up of human beings and we are by instinct and habit disposed to relate to other humans. We can accommodate, usually by analogy, 'lesser' creatures into our relating or we can treat things as mere instruments of our will. What we are less equipped to do is to relate to something that is made from us and which might use our intelligence and affectivity as part of its own life -a little like our brains use the electro-chemical and biological capabilities of the cells we call neurons which go about their own business but collectively help create a mind. And of course, such a thing is so alien to what we are disposed to relate to and we have few everyday experiences on which to draw to give analogues which could help us.

So, I think it is possible that the 'I' can refer, at least sometimes, to a real entity which has agency and a 'self' to refer to within human language-games. We actually do refer to companies in an agentive way at times: "the college should know..."; "that company thinks it can ..." etc are all acceptable clause openings. The issue in interpreting them is more to do with whether the company or the college or the organisation is being personified or whether there is something more to it than merely a way of speaking.

I started writing this thinking I might be producing something that might send-up the companies' affectation. I've ended by thinking it may be an affectation at the level of the commissioning group and the PR departments but that it might actually be accurate in a way.

Presence, space and relating mind

In a previous post, Presence, space and mind, I wrote about how presence need not always imply physical proximity but could be mediated by tokens such as letters, or electronic signals and that the crucial thing was that the tokens enabled and carried forward a relationship. At the end of that previous post I noted that there was still some exploration of the idea to be done:  

to think about the way that relationship can be mediated by tokens and the conditions for successful mediation of relationship which might be relevant to the Eucharist.

So it seems that presence need not be equated to physical proximity. However, we should note that this is not to imply that God is not present. Some of what we need to explore is that God is always and everywhere present so eucharistic presence is not a presence in distinction to absence, but it is rather the kind of presence being mediated. God's 'normal' or 'ordinary' ubiquity is supplemented or interpreted by the communicative tokens of bread and wine in the eucharist. God is present anyway and in the eucharist that presence is 'enhanced' by a collection of inter-related signifiers in a communicative economy based in narratives of Divine-human interaction.

So this is beyond merely 'physical' presence (that is presence alongside, over or through the physical universe rather than of a physical body). It is a storied presence invoked upon and by broken bread and outpoured wine and their place in the stories so invoked. So the presence is not only physical but it is collectively-mental; a presence within the minds and affectivities of disciples. This is a 'place' where the normal and ordinary presence of God does not automatically exist: it can only be there by some degree of welcome and acknowledgement. Which welcome and acknowledgement are called forth and substantiated by the rite. Perhaps, then, this gives a further credence to the notion of "transsignification" as a way of understanding the eucharist.

There is a real presence of Christ in the social-mindscape of the congregation. 'Real' in the sense that it is not merely a subjective construction of the human congregants but it is a presence-in-sign whereby the self-giving of Christ is appropriated subjectively within the social-mindscape as the physical rite is enacted. Just as word or gesture is needed to convey a personal and relational presence so is the rite important in conveying the Christ presence into the social-mindscape. The reality of the presence beyond the subjectivity of the congregants derives from the given-ness of the sign/s by God. As a letter conveys a real presence by virtue of it being sent by the author to renew or to keep alive a relationship, so this rite conveys a real presence by virtue of being 'sent' by God.

And what is communicated is particularly signified as not simply presence or availability but more precisely the given-ness-unto-death of the God-man Jesus. The tokens communicating the real presence-in-social-mindscape are more precisely communicating the self-donation of the Word of God through deathly passion and 'resurrascension'. This too goes beyond mere presence and interprets presence as 'for us' and solidary as well as committed and saving. This is God conveying commitment to relating positively to us by re-presenting to us what God has been doing to create a positive relationship with the implication of inviting us to respond in kind. The presentation and the response come together in the co-ordinating signs that make up the rite: the actions of taking, blessing, breaking and consuming the bread and the wine,

And such presence involves both time and space.It is in the rite that the communication takes place -as the rite is 'read' by the congregants, the relationship via the deathly passion and resurrascension is renewed as a real presence in the mindscape. a real presence that becomes us at the very least by changing and reinforcing our neuronal patterns and their connections with the various aspects of our lives over time.

I think there's a little more to unpack ... watch this space.

Gingerism and its discontents

At school and watching films on telly as a primary-aged child, I got the impression that beautiful or handsome humans were either black haired or blonde women whereas people like me who were some variety of red-headed were not. I also got 'reverse' skin-colour racism: being picked on because I didn't tan and only had freckles. So I don't need convincing that there is something in 'gingerism'.  I'm not saying it's as bad or systematic as racism or sexism, but it does really exist and we shouldn't let it pass without challenge.
As the article says:

the whole gingerism thing is a stealth form of acceptable racism that goes on in boardrooms, in authors' minds.

But I don't entirely go with the choice of example up next:

Look at Harry Potter – the redheads are the poor, weak family, the buffoons. If Harry Potter had been ginger, that would have been a different story.

It's true that Rowling has rightly picked up the way that a ginger family would quite likely be the object of derisive and dismissive comments. But it's worth noting the heroic and sympathetic qualities of that family. Rowling has the underdogs turn out to be among the celebration-worthy: their compassion, self-sacrifice are key to the plot. They are heroes in the story. The main hero even ends up marrying one of them.

Would it have been a different story if HP had been ginger. Not sure it would: one more thing for him to be harassed for and a further reason for him to identify with his best friends the Weasleys. They may be buffoons in the eyes of the self-important muggle-haters, but in terms of authorial and readerly respect, quite the reverse. Harry Potter is no gingerist text. It witnesses to gingerism but it critiques it too.

Damian Lewis and the case of the missing redheads | Art and design | The Guardian:

Co-operative university

I've found myself musing over the last few months, as you do, about the way that our Higher Education system is being funded and the cultural effects that seems to be having on the enterprise: on students, on institutions, on staff and the relationships. expectations and possibilities created or ruled-out.
My own university, Northumbria's history prompted a further sort of reflection. A major strand of the precursor institutions was a set of educational establishments set up by a Congregational minister and his church to serve the educational advancement of working class and poor families. So my musing was about how a university could run without the business ethos taking over and the whole thing becoming a version of service/product provision for customers. Then I wondered what if students were not positioned as 'customers' or 'consumers' -could that be done?

So I started wondering whether a university could be a co-op. All staff, like the John Lewis Partnership, as genuine economic partners in a truly democratic organisation (see also article on the Uni of Mondragon). Students who, like the customers of the co-op shops, could become members and be paid dividends on their fees. Alumni could remain members, perhaps.

The problem with universities in their current form is that they “treat professionals as employees”, he argues. This means that running difficulties and big decisions are seen as “management’s problem”, not “our problem”.
Give staff a slice of ownership and control and they are more likely to take responsibility, [Mervyn Wilson, quoted from here)

I like the idea that students could become members too. Perhaps that could help the Students' Union to find a fuller and renewed role.

There are already co-operative schools in this country and perhaps they could offer us a glimpse of how it could be.

The co-operative trust model embeds co-operative values and principles into schools. These include open membership, equal democratic participation (one member, one vote) and a clear line of accountability from those who manage the schools to those that use the school and its extended services. Importantly this offers schools the opportunity to involve the wider community in the running of the school, including local people, businesses, voluntary groups, charities, parents, pupils and staff through membership of a ‘Council’ or ‘Forum’. The ‘Council’ appoints trustees to the trust which, in turn, appoints governors to the governing body of the school. The Council plays a pivotal role in delivering the trust’s objectives in accordance with the core co-operative values.  (quoted from here)

Co-operative university seminar | The Co-operative College: This approach offers a new take on debates over privatisation, marketisation and the defence of the ‘public university’ It'll be interesting to hear what the outcomes of the seminar are in a few days time.
PS An article pointing to some of the seminar papers here. One of the slides in the presentation cited gives a useful summary of why bother which seems to pull together the various things that have gone through my mind about the topic.

• Disenfranchisement / Alienation of academic labour (casualization, instrumentalism, performativity, managerialism) 

• Challenge to notion of student as consumer 

• Market volatility, competition, differentiation 

• Alignment of values with governance  perhaps benefits performance & bottom line

And another slide notes an alignment of academic and co-op values: "Co-operative values are (broadly) academic values:
self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity"

See also article on the Uni of Mondragon and the New University Cooperative of Canada.

Some reflections on power and culture with Andy Crouch

At the moment I'm reading Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power eBook: Andy Crouch: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store and I'm finding some helpful and intriguing things in it. One of the things I'm musing over is his characterising of culture in the form of an analysis of institutions.
"Institutions have four essential elements". (Crouch, location 2674) these are 'artefacts, 'arenas', 'rules' and 'roles'. These are mostly understandable: artefacts are things that we make, arenas are places where activities take place, rules are the consensus of how artefacts should be deployed in our social spaces and relationships, and roles are the kinds of self-deployment gestalts that we exercise in relation to artefacts, arenas and rules we participate in.

What I've been musing over is that there is a lot of resonance between this analysis of institutions and my own characterising of culture which can be seen in a number of lectures I've given over the last ten years (check out here or from slide 8 here ). There is a relationship between culture and institutions. I think that institutions (defined by Crouch thus: "Institution is the name that sociologists have given to any deeply and persistently organized pattern of human behavior"): institutions are particular intensifications of culture, a nexus and entanglement of cultural components. So it is worth considering them together while remembering that they are not trying to do the same job, quite.

You'll see if you check out those slide sequences that I characterise culture as the intersection of mind ('ways of thinking' which includes affective and well as cognitive stuff), material (which includes events and artefacts) and practices (things like queueing or voting). Crouch's artefacts and arenas are what I deal with under 'material' that is 'artefacts and events'. I guess I would say that an arena is an artefact for the staging of events. Of course 'artefact' doesn't have to mean something humans have crafted, it may be something 'natural' which in made part of a particular cultural event. It becomes an artefact by use, even though it may undergo little or no material change except by being incorporated into a human cultural 'game'. Rules would be part of 'mind' -being something to do with the way we think (and relating to affectivity -usually, they express feelings about things like fairness and enjoyment). Rules do also implicate 'practices' since, by and large, that's what they seek to regulate. Similarly, it seems to me that 'roles' falls across two of my categories: roles are an intersection of human mental/affective categorisations and on the other hand practices by which roles are defined and in turn define.

Of course, as I mentioned a but earlier, Crouch is aiming to define and characterise institutions. And to do so in relation to the exercise of power. Whereas I have been trying to characterise culture more generally with a view to enabling Christians to reflect on culture generally and in specific instances. To be sure, when considering institutions, 'roles' is an important consideration, though I think that seeing roles from the point of view of a human mind-construct is probably most important and I think it is important, too, to be able to consider the balance between perceptions and practices affects roles and contributes to them, rather than simply seeing them an a basic category. I think they are better understood as an intersection of understandings, affects, ways of doing things.

So, I'm starting to wonder whether the tripartite characterisation I've developed is adaptable to being a specifically institutional analytic and if so (as I suspect it should), whether it then enables me to use it in relation to a theological appreciation of institutions relating to 'principalities and powers' in other words whether this analysis enables me to strongly link cultural analysis and corporisations. This is important to me since I'm leaning towards approaching corporisations as specific stable precipitates of cultural 'ingredients'/interactions.

Hopefully, I'll be able to take this further in another post shortly.