Theoretical and conceptual foundations of research on religious Conservatism as a social structure in the works of Karl Mannheim and Talcott Parsons

Kovalenko Vladimir Dmitrievich ORCID: 0000-0003-4260-8877 Senior Lecturer of the North-Western Institute of Management of the Russian Academy of National Economy; Postgraduate student of the Faculty of Sociology of St. Petersburg State University 199034, Russia, Saint Petersburg, Saint Petersburg, nab. University, 7/9 vl.workvl@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Introduction: In 2016, Donald Trump won the US presidential election. This came as a kind of surprise, not only to a part of the US population, but also to a large number of people in the rest of the world. According to preliminary polls and according to analysts, Trump's opponent Hillary Clinton confidently won. There is a hypothesis among the expert community that Trump's victory was largely helped by conservative religious groups in the United States (for example, the Amish or Jewish Orthodox), whose structures exist parallel to the mainstream society and are very difficult to study within the framework of sociology.

The relevance of the study of religious conservatism exists in Russia as well. Many politicians use conservative religious symbols, and events around religious traditional values have become the main information occasions in the country for quite a long time. A notable case is the long–running campaign around the film Matilda, in which, according to Orthodox conservative communities, the Orthodox saint Tsar Nicholas II was offensively shown. Gradually, the momentum of the discussion reached its limit and, in addition to public actions, there were attempts to set fire to the car of the director of the film and even an attempt to blow up the cinema that showed the film "Matilda"^[1]. The above examples are only special cases of religious conservatism. This topic is extensive, and there are many examples of the manifestation of conservatism – from the Middle East to Latin America.

The purpose of this work is to consider the theoretical and conceptual basis for the research of religious conservatism in sociology through the prism of the analysis of fundamental works for the entire discipline.

However, despite the high relevance of the topic, there is no unified and holistic theory of religious conservatism in modern sociological discourse. There is also no generally accepted concept of religious conservatism, suitable for characterizing both the phenomenon itself, its types and manifestations. This leads to a large number of interpretations and a wide understanding of the phenomenon by different authors.

The second level of difficulty is the use of the concept of "religious conservatism" to characterize a large number of diverse phenomena. This may be a style of thinking aimed at preserving certain norms of society, or a political ideology, whose component is religious foundations or social movements representing conservative circles of religions or confessions. And the understanding of religious conservatism is not limited to this. Researchers often put two contradictory meanings into the concept. Firstly, it is the desire to preserve the existing order of life of the religious community, and secondly, the desire to restore the model of society from, conditionally, a better era in the past (not necessarily existing, maybe mythical). It is worth noting that this is a common, "generic" feature of the use of the term "conservatism", which includes both a protective and a restorative element ^{[6, P. 109]}.

The third level of complexity correlates with the fact that in the public field, in journalistic discourse and in scientific discussion, religious groups and communities focused on preserving or returning to a certain state of religious teaching or practice are simultaneously designated by different researchers as "religious conservatism" ^[10], "religious traditionalism" ^[8] or "religious fundamentalism" ^[9].

Theory: The very concept of "conservatism" is initially associated with the political and social dimension in continental Europe. The concept of "religious fundamentalism" appeared at the end of the XIX century and was associated with groups of Evangelical Christians in the USA ^{[1, p. 14]}. "Traditionalism" was initially associated with the Weberian understanding of this term ^{[21, pp. 58-59, 72-73]}, but later it also became associated with an atypical intellectual and esoteric movement, consonant with the ideas of R. Guenon, Y. Evola, etc.

There is a logical explanation for the conceptual variation – the names appeared and were used at different times in different territories and in social spheres. An example of the concept of "religious fundamentalism" is indicative here, which began to be actively used in scientific literature only since the 1980s, which was caused by an attempt to comprehend many events. These were phenomena of different nature, type and essence, such as the revolution in Iran, the politicization of Islam in the Middle East, and the Catholic Church's support for the Solidarity movement in Poland. One can also recall the political processes associated with the reinstitutionalization of Orthodoxy in the USSR, liberation theology in Latin America, and the return of Protestant rhetoric to public policy in the United States under President Reagan ^[3].

In sociology, all these terms penetrate through the media and public discourse, where the issue of a clear definition is not paramount. In the era of globalization and the transnationalization of science, including sociology, these concepts have become very mixed. The need to respond to new phenomena and give them names has led to the definition of similar phenomena in different terms and vice versa.

The term "religious conservatism" has been used for a very long time to characterize movements, groups, and ideas in Christian churches in the United States and European countries. However, now this term is used, among other things, for non-Christian religions, including the religions of Asia and Africa, which also causes research problems. Given the multidirectional use of terms, we cannot ignore sociological theories aimed at understanding related phenomena (described above, such as religious fundamentalism). Studying only concepts with religious conservatism in their name will inevitably lead to the loss of important elements from focus. Our review will be based on the consideration of the very first theories in sociology that dealt with the understanding of religious conservatism in a broad sense and could use various terms to define it. Phenomena such as "religious conservatism" and "fundamentalism" had an initial distinction in sociology, which took shape almost simultaneously with the formation of the modern framework of this science at the beginning of the 20th century. Therefore, our next task is to reactualize these grounds for the study of these phenomena on the basis of an appeal to the theoretical and conceptual foundations of the study.

The introduction of the concept of "conservatism" into sociological circulation and its primary conceptualization in sociology is usually associated with the name of the German sociologist, the founder of the sociology of science Karl Mannheim. In his works "Conservative Thought" (1927) and "Ideology and Utopia" (1929), the author formulates the definition of the term. In the context of reflections on the sociology of knowledge ^{[4, p. 195]}, Mannheim operationalizes the phenomenon of thinking and designates it with the concept of "style" ^{[5, p. 574]}. To build his own theory of the sociology of knowledge, Mannheim turns to the works of lawyer and historian F. K. Savigny, borrowing a model of social knowledge based on the authenticity of social roots ^{[4, p. 196]}. This model is complemented by A. Muller's work on practical knowledge in contradictory situations ^{[5, p. 652]}. Hegel's dialectical approach is also important, since it is with the help of dialectical synthesis that contradictions can be overcome ^{[11, p. 71]}.

Mannheim is based on the thesis that most human reactions are not creative in nature and are a repetition of the external cultural environment. To describe his thinking, Mannheim uses the concept of "style", borrowed from the history of art. It describes the development of human thought ^{[5, p. 574]}. The author refers to Maximilian Weber's theory of society, pointing to the transition to the private sphere of certain spheres of life that were previously considered public (they are dominated by personal and religious feelings) ^{[5, p. 585]}. Thus, conservatism is a compensation for the growing rationalization of life, which causes a reaction from some classes (committed to the old style – the feudal nobility and peasants).

However, the "Old style of thinking" derived by Mannheim is being pushed out of the society of capitalism and industry to the periphery, but it does not disappear. A striking example is the style of Romanticism, which contains a nostalgic reflection on the Middle Ages, religion, and irrationalism, where religion was the crystallizing axis. Mannheim presents the difference between conservatism and the traditionalism of M. Weber . He points out that traditionalism is the primary reaction to rationalization, an attempt to preserve the previous, old, "vegetative" ways of existence, often associated with magical remnants of consciousness ^{[5, p. 592]}.

In Mannheim's first interpretation, conservatism is a dynamic structure of spiritual and mental factors that are independent of individual carriers. Using the Weberian theoretical apparatus, Mannheim points out that conservatism has not a subjective and not a theoretical type of meaning, but its own type of intrinsic rational meaning ^{[5, p. 593]}.

In the second interpretation, conservatism appears as a way of thinking about a person and society, which gives weight to certain spiritual and material interests weakened by rationalization (for example, religion). It provides a practical orientation with a certain degree of effectiveness in a new politicized and rationalized world.

Mannheim uses the developments of Karl Marx's theory of society; he points out that conservatism was formed as the antithesis of the ideology of liberalism that arose after the French Revolution ^[11] (as a result, liberalism itself is an ideology). Mannheim's ideology is conceptualized in line with the materialistic approach as a type of mental activity that depends on "social roots". Ideology is a kind of cultural formation that structures reality and is a special way of cognition in the service of a certain ruling class. Mannheim notes that ideology is a guiding way of thinking corresponding to new rationalized societies ^{[4, p. 107]}.

Thus, Karl Mannheim was one of the first to provide a well-developed, complete sociological concept for the study of conservatism, based on the German law school, Weberian sociology and the tradition of Marxism. However, there are significant drawbacks to his approach. First, conservatism is defined through two logical categories; as a style of thinking and as an ideology.

Formulating a negative definition of conservatism as opposed to the achievements of the Enlightenment, the natural scientific method, natural law and capitalism, Mannheim makes a logical mistake, because in this case, the ideology of conservatism includes all the experience preceding modernity (at the time of writing the work) ^[2]. At the same time, emphasizing the importance of Georg Hegel's dialectical approach, Mannheim shifts his analysis to the gnosseological level. This makes it impossible to use it in modern applied sociological research.

However, it was Mannheim who first formulated the sociological concept of religious conservatism with special emphasis on the epistemological feature of conservatism as "anti-rationalism". The intention of contrasting the modern world with a large share of the influence of religious motives is reproduced in a large list of works on the study of conservatism and related phenomena.

The connection of his own structural and functional theory with the concept of the sociology of knowledge of Mannheim is noted by the classic of sociology Talcott Parsons ^[14]. He often refers to the topic of religion, for example in the works "The Social System" ^{[18, p. 575]}, "American University" ^[19]. The author was actively engaged in the study of religion in the United States, the analysis of American Protestant movements.

Parsons' definition of religion is eclectic, he borrows elements of the theory of Weber and Durkheim. In his theory, five main components of religion are distinguished – a set of beliefs regarding sacred objects, a system of expressive symbols, prescribed actions, a moral community and common moral values ^[15]. Parsons' theory was created to analyze American religious life, Parsons turns to the study of such a phenomenon as religious fundamentalism, linking it with religious conservatism ^[13]. The researcher's attention is focused on the United States, because it is this country that demonstrates the highest level of urbanization and modernization, and the society was originally formed as a consensus society with a high level of religious pluralism.

Borrowing developments from biology into the evolutionary approach, Parsons proposes a "paradigm of evolutionary change", which contains three components. This is a process of differentiation in the form of the emergence of new subsystems, the process of integration – the inclusion of these new subsystems in the existing society. And the third component is the value system, which goes through changes due to the differentiation of society ^[17].

The evolutionary approach assumes a three–pronged scheme of development of societies - a primitive stage, intermediate and modern.  Modern society is becoming more complex, modernizing, and there are more different spheres with their own rules and functions. To describe the modern (at that time) Parsons uses the concept of "moral community" (moral community), borrowed from Durkheim's theory. At the level of institutionalized values and their cultural legitimization, it has a single religious basis. In the United States, Parsons believes, this foundation is a "civil religion."

Civil religion is a concept created by R. Bell, demonstrating the connection between religion and national identity. Bella explains this as a set of civic national rituals and ideas influenced by religion; ideas about God and human kindness become driving goals shared by every citizen in the form of a unified system of common Judeo-Christian values, but which have become secular. Pointing to generalization (one of the structural changes of society) Parsons says that on the one hand, religious values play a lesser role in society, and on the other, they are strengthened in the form of a "civil religion" ^[7].

The pluralistic diversity of religious organizations in the United States leads to their orientation towards a secular society. The moral consensus of religious organizations is increasingly determined through conscience rather than through religious teaching. But in order to conform to a complex society, this consensus must correspond to moral imperatives at the most general level ^[16].

Conflicts in this system arise due to the rapid development of society and lead to a weakening of trust, which leads (Parsons borrows the concept from economics) to "deflationary processes" (understood as the introduction of new restrictions or the revival of old moral values) ^{[13, p. 142]}.

Parsons calls this reaction to change "moral fundamentalism," which is close to religious fundamentalism. Using historical examples, he demonstrates the background of fundamentalism – the complex interweaving of religion and secular social order in a pluralistic society. The problem lies in the heterogeneity of the changes – some elements are at the forefront, others are not. When transformations reach less developed spheres of society, there is a mobilization resistance of religious groups that try not only to stop the change, but also to return to the previous state of society.

Parsons points out that U.S. society is characterized by pluralism and no religious tradition, unlike other societies, has had a long-term monopoly. Therefore, he notes the multidimensionality of religious fundamentalism as a phenomenon that is associated with "biblical literalism" and with a deflationary type of moral rigorism.

Fundamentalists are trying to impose their norms on the whole society at once, but this attempt is obviously a failure. Parsons notes two levels of the consequences of fundamentalism. The first is the tendency to isolate a religious group, which is characterized by a split not so much between denominations and religions as within denominations. The second trend is more important than the first, it demonstrates the ability of religious groups to resist social changes, identifying themselves with the previous state of society ^[17]. 

Parsons points out that this is reminiscent of the European experience of the division into progressive and conservative poles in the 19th century, emphasizing the connection of religious fundamentalism with political conservatism. Parsons points out that the Marxist approach is not unreasonable for studying Europe, but it is not suitable for the American experience. Religious fundamentalism is closely related to political and religious conservatism, which are also a particular manifestation of moral rigorism ^[13].

The work of K. Mannheim and T. Parsons influenced the whole of sociology. The tools developed by these authors were used by sociologists of religion T. Lukman, P. Berger, H. Casanova, Y. Habermas, N. Ammerman and many others. For example, B. Wilson proposed a complete model of secularization based on the works of Parsons with a certain influence of the works of K. Mannheim.

Parsons' theory is also relevant for modern sociological works. The American sociologist F. Lechner refined the concepts of the classic and considered fundamentalism through the prism of the theory of revitalization and social action. Social action is understood by Lechner as a number of central cultural concepts around which the worldviews of members of society are formed and around which institutional construction develops.

Lechner concludes that any social order leads to the emergence of "discontent." Quite often, social problems associated with awareness of the loss of the sacred or the loss of community solidarity become the point of application of efforts to revive and interpret values in an anti-modern way.  Fundamentalist beliefs and actions are thus value-oriented and lead to an escalation of conflict to the level of personal values ^[20]. Lechner emphasizes that one of these trends can be called fundamentalism. The phenomenon of fundamentalism itself, according to the author, was defined by Parsons, but not definitively developed ^[12].

The conceptual and methodological foundations of the modern study of religious conservatism were created in the early concepts of the classics of sociology Karl Mannheim and Talcott Parsons. The difference between conservatism and fundamentalism was also presented in Parsons' works. The opposition "religion/tradition – secularization/modernization" laid down in these works formed the basis of the mainstream concept of secularization in sociology. This demand is due to the fact that further study of religious conservatism took place in the mainstream of the sociology of religion, in which the concept of "secularization" began to dominate since the middle of the 20th century.

^[1] The new adventures of "Matilda": everything is on fire and canceled // Gazeta.<url> URL: https://www.gazeta.ru/culture/2017/09/11/a_10883726.shtml (date of application: 04/20/2024).