Aupers, S.D.

Beyond the domestication of nature? restructuring the relationship between nature and technology in car commercials (Article)

2012-02-01T00:00:00Z

It is often assessed that the construction of nature, technology and the relation between both is in the midst of a restructuring without specifying exactly what different articulations can be distinguished and how they differ from the modern notion of nature being separated from and domesticated by technology. Through an analysis of car commercials, this study develops a typology of constellations of nature and technology. Besides the well-known modern dichotomy of nature versus technology, with the latter being superior to the former, three types of articulations were found: technology as a flexible and superior technological mimicry of nature; technological mastery as harmful to nature; and nature and technology as two holistically connected realms. Implications for theories about the changing nature of nature and the restructuring of the relationship between nature and technology are discussed.

Alledaags postmodernisme. De gezagscrisis van de hedendaagse wetenschap (Miscellaneous)

2012-01-01T00:00:00Z

Inleiding 'Wetenschap is ook maar een mening', kopte NRC.Next op 14 September 2011 – een stelling die treffend samenvat hoe veel Nederlandse burgers tegenwoordig oordelen over wetenschappelijke kennis. Het typisch moderne onderscheid tussen objectieve kennis en morele waarden, feit en fictie, fantasie en werkelijkheid lijkt minder scherp dan voorheen en verschillende surveys laten daarbij zien dat het vertrouwen in wetenschap en technologie de afgelopen decennia daalt, met name in Westerse welvarende landen (bv. Inglehart, 1997). Ook in de Nederlandse politiek lijkt er, tenminste sinds Pim Fortuyn, een zekere onverschilligheid of minachting te bestaan tegenover wetenschappelijke kennis. Politieke ideeën hoefden volgens Fortuyn niet gebaseerd te zijn op de feiten – zij behoefden niet 'waar' of 'rationeel' te zijn, maar moesten vooral fungeren als een soort richtinggevende 'mythen' of 'utopieën' (Pels, 2003: 51-52). In handen van de PVV is Fortuyns fact-free politics inmiddels alleen maar verder uitgewerkt en geperfectioneerd. Zo stelt Wilders (2005: 106) dat '[w]e moeten durven dromen en aldus mogelijk maken wat in Den Haag onmogelijk wordt geacht.' Wetenschappelijke kennis en harde cijfers over bijvoorbeeld de effectiviteit van straffen, immigratie of criminaliteit in Nederland, spelen daarin steeds minder een leidende rol: feiten worden gerelativeerd, irrelevant geacht of simpelweg ondergeschikt gemaakt aan het politieke ideaal. In deze bijdrage plaatsen we de gezagscrisis van de hedendaagse wetenschap in cultuur en politiek in een breder, cultuursociologisch perspectief. Het startpunt van die analyse is het kennistheoretisch perspectief van de socioloog Max Weber op de complexe relatie tussen waarden en wetenschap – tussen Sollen (hoe men wil dat wereld is) en Sein (hoe de wereld feitelijk is). Bij het overbrengen van de boodschap dat de sociologie een echte wetenschap is, reduceren de meeste sociologische tekstboeken de ideeën van Weber over de verhouding tussen waarden en wetenschap tot een tandenloos monster. Daarmee wordt helaas onzichtbaar gemaakt dat Webers wetenschapsleer een veelbelovend vertrekpunt biedt voor de analyse van het hedendaagse wantrouwen ten aanzien van wetenschappelijke kennisclaims in cultuur en politiek.

Dromen over eeuwig leven. Vluchten voor de dood in een geseculariseerde samenleving (In Book)

2011-10-01T00:00:00Z

Inleiding. In de week na 30 oktober 2010, de dag waarop Harry Mulisch op 83-jarige leeftijd overleed, kolkten de thema’s dood en onsterfelijkheid door de Nederlandse media. Meestal was de toonzetting serieus, maar soms ook luchtiger, zoals toen Jeroen Brouwers over Mulisch’ adagium ‘Ik ben onsterfelijk tot het tegendeel bewezen is’ opmerkte dat ‘je (…) niet eleganter je middelvinger naar het universum (kunt) opsteken’. Soms was zij zelfs ronduit humoristisch, zoals in de grap volgens welke Mulisch, na door God zelf te zijn rondgeleid door de hemel, te kennen zou hebben gegeven ‘het boek toch beter te vinden’. Hoewel aandacht voor de thema’s van dood en onsterfelijkheid bij het overlijden van een van Nederlands grootste naoorlogse schrijvers natuurlijk op zichzelf niet opzienbarend is, illustreert zij hoezeer deze thema’s de ingrijpende processen van ontkerkelijking van de afgelopen halve eeuw hebben overleefd....

A cultural globalization of popular music? American, Dutch, French, and German popular music charts (1965 to 2006) (Article)

2011-05-01T00:00:00Z

In this article, the authors address the question of whether and how the appreciation of popular music consumers has globalized in the four decades since the mid-1960s. They use information from American, Dutch, French, and German popular music charts from 1965 through 2006. They find no corroboration for an overall trend toward an internationalization of hits. However, important shifts are noticeable underneath the surface. For the period up until 1989, the authors find increasing international diversity as well as increasing Americanization. From the 1990s onwards, they find a growing popularity of national music in all three European countries in the study.

Authenticiteit (Article)

2010-09-01T00:00:00Z

Inleiding (tot themanummer) De roep om authenticiteit – om echtheid, puurheid, oorspronkelijkheid – is alom aanwezig in de westerse samenleving. Het grote draagvlak voor biologisch en ecologisch verantwoorde en daarmee natuurlijke voeding wijst daar op. Zo belooft een winkelketen als Marqt, net als vele andere bedrijven en producten, ‘Écht Eten’, ofwel ‘oorspronkelijke producten’ zonder ‘onnodige toevoegingen’. Maar ook de persoonlijke zoektocht naar een authentieke identiteit – het echt ‘jezelf zijn’, vooral ‘jezelf blijven’ of ‘jezelf worden’ met behulp van coaches, psycho-spirituele trainingen of zelfhulpboeken – is moeilijk te overschatten. Reality shows als Big Brother, De Gouden Kooi en talkshows als Oprah en Dr. Phil bestaan bij de gratie van authenticiteit: zij tonen de mensen graag en gretig ‘zoals zij werkelijk zijn’ en exploiteren emotionele uitbarstingen, persoonlijke openbaringen en getuigenissen (zie ook Egan en Papson 2005; Furedi 2004), terwijl ook politici steeds meer beoordeeld worden op persoonlijke authenticiteit in plaats van het politieke programma dat zij vertegenwoordigen (Houtman en Achterberg 2010; Van Zoonen 2005). Toeristen, consumenten, burgers – zij lijken meer dan ooit op zoek naar authenticiteit en echte, ongemedieerde ervaringen.

Yogho!Yogho!, bereid uit natuurlijke ingrediënten volgens eeuwenoude familietraditie? (Article)

2010-09-01T00:00:00Z

[Engelse samenvatting van Nederlandstalig artikel; summary in English of article in Dutch] An exploratory analysis of commercials and advertisements for foodstuffs and alcoholic beverages reveals an obsession with product authenticity in contemporary consumer culture. Rooted in the Romantic heritage and its upsurge in the countercultural 1960s, articulations of product authenticity serve to disconnect products from suspicions of rationalized mass production by emphasizing how ‘naturally pure’, ‘historically rooted’ and ‘geographically embedded’ they actually are. There are however also instances where these Romantic-nostalgic articulations of product authenticity are actively deconstructed and unmasked as consumer manipulation, sometimes even in one and the same commercial. By way of conclusion, we discuss the wider social and theoretical implications of Romantic-nostalgic longings for product authenticity and their deconstruction in contemporary consumer culture.

Trajectories to the New Age. The Spiritual Turn of the First Generation of Dutch New Age Teachers (Article)

2010-09-01T00:00:00Z

Abstract
Most studies on New Age spirituality remain overly descriptive and lack solid, empirically grounded historical-sociological explanations for its increasing popularity since the counter culture of the 1960s and 1970s. In this article we therefore study the motivations of the ‘first generation’ spiritual seekers to turn to the New Age on the basis of 42 qualitative in-depth interviews with Dutch New Age teachers that grew up in the counter culture. The analysis demonstrates that they were motivated by discontents about Christian churches and modern work organizations, especially in the field of social care. Due to the countercultural emphasis on individual liberty, our respondents experienced both institutions as ‘meaningless’ and ‘alienating’ and felt attracted to the promises of humanistic self-spirituality and holism. In the conclusion we speculate on how and why the young, “second generation” New Agers turns to spirituality nowadays and in what ways their motivations differ from the first generation.
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Abstract in French
Le plupart des études sur la spiritualité Nouvel Âge reste trop descriptive et manque des solides explications historiques et sociologiques empiriquement fondées pour sa popularité croissante depuis la contre-culture des années 1960 et 1970. Dans cet article donc, nous étudions les motivations de la ‘première génération’ de chercheurs spirituels à se tourner vers le Nouvel Âge. Nous le faisons sur la base de 42 interviews qualitatifs approfondis avec des enseignants néerlandais nouvel âge, qui ont grandis dans la contre-culture et de nos jours s’occupent activement avec la propagation du discours de la spiritualité. L'analyse montre qu'ils ont été principalement motivée par le mécontentement à propos traditionnelles églises chrétiennes, d'une part et les organisations modernes du travail de l'autre. En raison de l'accent mis en général sur les valeurs de liberté individuelle, nos répondants ont vu les deux institutions comme ‘vides de sens’ et ‘aliénants’; ils de plus en plus sentiraient attirés par les promesses de l’ auto-spiritualité humaniste. Dans la conclusion nous spéculons sur comment et pourquoi la nouvelle, la ‘deuxième génération’ se tourne vers la spiritualité Nouvel Âge.

A Cultural Globalization of Popular Music? American, Dutch, French, and German Popular Music Charts (1965-2005) (Article)

2010-01-01T00:00:00Z

Christian Religion in the West: Privatization or Public Revitalization? (Article)

2010-01-01T00:00:00Z

1. Introduction “After nearly three centuries of utterly failed prophesies and misrepresentations of both present and past, it seems time to carry the secularization doctrine to the graveyard of failed theories, and there to whisper ‘requiescat in pace’” (Stark 1999: 269). Stark’s words, published just before the turn of the century, may count on much approval among sociologists of religion today. Secularization theory has been discredited because of its inability to account for religious change in the modern world (e.g., Berger, 1999; Heelas and Woodhead, 2005; Houtman and Mascini, 2002) and because of its sheer broadness and lack of specificity, as emphasized by Hadden (1987: 587), for instance, when he noted that it is a “hotchpotch of loosely employed ideas rather than a systematic theory”. Secularization theory’s two principal subtheses, the ‘decline-of-religion thesis’ and the ‘privatization thesis’ (Casanova, 1994), have both become increasingly contested and recent research even suggests that these two aspects of secularization may develop in a remarkably uneven way. That idea is put forward by Achterberg et al. (2009), who point out that the decline of Christian religion in the West spawns its public revitalization rather than its further privatization. This paper elaborates on this by assessing the empirical merits of two objections that suggest that these recent findings may after all not contradict the established notion that religious decline and religious privatization occur in tandem.

Christian religiosity and new age spirituality: A cross-cultural comparison (Article)

2009-03-20T00:00:00Z

Dialectiek van secularisering: Hoe de afname van christelijke religiositeit samengaat met een sterkere nadruk op haar publieke belang in achttien westerse landen (Article)

2009-01-01T00:00:00Z

In dit artikel wordt onderzocht of twee centrale aspecten van secularisering hand in hand gaan: een afname van het aantal christenen en een toenemende privatisering van het christelijk geloof. Via een analyse van gegevens over achttien westerse landen en voor Nederland over de periode van 1970 tot 1996 laat dit artikel zien dat afnemende christelijke kerkelijkheid opmerkelijk genoeg niet gepaard gaat met een afnemende publieke relevantie van het christelijk geloof. In plaats daarvan zien de auteurs een dialectische relatie tussen beide dimensies.

The Spiritual Turn and the Decline of Tradition: The Spread of Post-Christian Spirituality in 14 Western Countries, 1981–2000 (Article)

2007-09-01T00:00:00Z

This article uses data from the World Values Survey to study the spread of post-Christian spirituality ("New Age") in 14 Western countries (1981-2000, N = 61,352). It demonstrates that this type of spirituality, characterized by a sacralization of the self, has become more widespread during the period 1981-2000 in most of these countries. It has advanced farthest in France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Sweden. This spiritual turn proves a byproduct of the decline of traditional moral values and hence driven by cohort replacement. Spirituality's popularity among the well educated also emerges from the latter's low levels of traditionalism. These findings confirm the theory of detraditionalization, according to which a weakening of the grip of tradition on individual selves stimulates a spiritual turn to the deeper layers of the self.

Religion Beyond God (Research Paper)

2007-01-01T00:00:00Z

The ambition of the present paper is to theorise processes of re-enchantment in the modern western world by drawing on Max Weber’s and Emile Durkheim’s classical sociological insights on modernity, meaning and religion. Our aim in doing so is not only to demonstrate how much the latter have to offer to such an analysis, but especially to argue for the need of a rejuvenation of sociology of religion by shrugging off its traditional Christian bias and going beyond its narrow focus on secularisation and religious decline.

Beyond the spiritual supermarket : the social and public significance of New Age spirituality (Article)

2006-05-01T00:00:00Z

ABSTRACT This article argues that New Age spirituality is substantially less unambiguously individualistic and more socially and publicly significant than today’s sociological consensus acknowledges. Firstly, an uncontested doctrine of self-spirituality, characterised by sacralisation of the self and demonisation of social institutions, provides the spiritual milieu with ideological coherence and paradoxically accounts for its overwhelming diversity. Secondly, participants undergo a process of socialisation, gradually adopting this doctrine of self-spirituality and eventually reinforcing it by means of standardised legitimations. Thirdly, spirituality has entered the public sphere of work, aiming at a reduction of employees’ alienation to increase both their happiness and organisational effectiveness. A radical ‘sociologisation’ of New Age research is called for to document how the doctrinal ideal of self-spirituality is socially constructed, transmitted, and reinforced and critically to deconstruct rather than reproduce sociologically naive New Age rhetoric about the primacy of personal authenticity.

The spiritual revolution and the New Age gender puzzle: the sacralisation of the self in Late Modernity (1980-2000) (In Book)

2006-03-10T00:00:00Z

A first aim of the present chapter is to provide evidence for the spread of spirituality during the last few decades by studying spiritual beliefs and self-designations among the general populations of Western countries. This chapter’s more important second aim is to refine Houtman and Mascini’s (2002) theory that the spread of spirituality is caused by a process of detraditionalisation. This refinement is called for, because in its original form it cannot explain the high levels of affinity with spirituality among women (although it does a good job in explaining those among the younger age cohorts and the well educated). With men and women being identical when it comes to levels of post-traditionalism, the question why women nevertheless display more affinity with spirituality than men remains ‘an intriguing and theoretically important puzzle to be solved’ (Houtman and Mascini, 2002: 468). Solving this ‘gender puzzle’ (Heelas et al., 2004) requires gendering the theory of detraditionalisation (see also Woodhead 2005, forthcoming 2006). The second aim of the present chapter, in short, is to develop and test a gendered version of the theory of detraditionalisation.

Beyond the spiritual supermarket : the social and public significance of New Age spirituality (Article)

2006-01-06T00:00:00Z

A previous version of this paper has been presented by the first author at the 28th ISSR/SISR Conference Challenging Boundaries: Religion and Society, Zagreb, July 18-22, 2005.

Soul-Searching in Cyberspace: Christianity and New Age on the internet (Research Paper)

2006-01-01T00:00:00Z

In the last few decades the Internet has developed into an indispensable medium in the daily lives of most western people. Not surprisingly, also religious and spiritual groups use the Internet intensively to proclaim their beliefs and to get in contact with fellow believers. Yet, from the viewpoint of classical sociology, this is a very remarkable observation. According to secularisation theory, after all, the technological and religious realms are fundamentally incompatible, as the modernization and rationalization of western society will eventually lead to a ‘disenchantment of the western world’ (Max Weber). This means that as people increasingly come to rely on science and technology, religion will be marginalised and may even disappear. Despite the ongoing scientific and technological developments, however, religious and especially ‘spiritual’, esoteric beliefs are booming nowadays. The recently started Ph.D. research project of this article’s first author aims at scrutinising issues concerning spirituality, traditional religion and the Internet. Its central hypothesis will be set out in this article, focusing on the differences between Christianity and New Age spirituality in relation to cyberspace.

‘Reality Sucks’: On Alienation and Cybergnosis (Miscellaneous)

2004-12-01T00:00:00Z

'Gewoon worden wie je bent': Over authenticiteit en anti-institutionalisme (Article)

2003-01-01T00:00:00Z

Analysis of a dozen semi-structured interviews with Dutch New Age trainers demonstrates that the modern 'ethics of authenticity' underlies contemporary society's anti-institutional mood. All institutions, be they traditional or modern, or so our respondants argue, prevent one from being true to oneself. Institutional pressure for conformity to social roles, they maintain, causes feelings of alienation, mental and physical illness, malicious types of sexuality, violence and many other problems. Although the ethics of authenticity thus produces a demonization of institutions, it simultaneously, and in quite a paradoxical way, exerts considerable institutional pressure itself. Politicians, media stars and others are today morally expected to be authentic: to be true to themselves and express their emotions in public.