What's at Stake
I. incommensurable comprehensive normative doctrines
A. "We must start with the assumption that a reasonably just political society is possible, and for it to be possible, human beings must have a moral nature, not of course a perfect such nature, yet one that can understand, act on, and be sufficiently moved by a reasonable political conception of right and justice to support a society guided by its ideals and principles." (Rawls lxii)
Rawls, John. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996 [1993].
a. What happens when an individual or group refuses to set up Rawls' "reasonable justice" as their chosen comprehensive normative doctrine?
b. Who is Rawls' to tell us "reasonability" is better anyway?
B. the challenge of pluralism
a. a diversity of normative doctrines
b. the necessity of setting aside disagreements to decide issues of shared good
i. But is this possible?
Discussion Point
What can the rhetoricians say to Rawls?
New Situation
I. diversity increasing of belief
A. technology fueling
a. travel technologies
B. access to information
II. institutional influence diminished
A. statistics show institutions losing influence
a. Pew. 2008. “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey.” February 1, 2008. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. <http://religions.pewforum.org/pdf/report-religious-landscape-study-full.pdf>.
B. increasingly comprehensive normative doctrines are arrived at by "voluntaristic" acquisition of ideas, beliefs, and symbols
a. American, Nancy T. 1997. “Organized Religion in a Voluntaristic Society.” Sociology of Religion. 58: 203-215.
C. researchers of rhetoric to address contemporary religion must consider the implications of this shifting phenomenon
a. "The occurrence of contradictory or conflictive modes of interpretation . . . often arise when new or discordant media move into or among religious cultures.” As a result, “researchers will need to become more sensitive to the multiple vernaculars” (Lindlof 2002, 71-2).
i. Lindlof, Thomas R. 2002. “Interpretive Community: An Approach to Media and Religion.” Journal of Media and Religion. 1(1): 61–74
New Directions in Research
I. moving from artifact to event (performance)
A. text as static object
a. traditionally beneficial way for scholars of words to analyze on human behavior
B. as fragments (or "shards"), more contextualized
a. imagined instead as moments of human behavior or performance documented in some specific way
i. text
ii. photo
iii. video
iv. so on
b. each unique moment as a unique event
i. neither fully representative of anyone or anything
ii. nor fully separated as the conventions of documentation might make it appear
I. technology and the individualization of belief
A. as highly specific fragments
a. each individual different
i. as opposed to being imagined as a normative outgrowth of some specific theological idea, denominational claim, or historical movement
b. each specific discursive event different
i. people are not always consistent
ii. to judge them as if they are or should be denies their agency
B. etic (analytic) versus emic (native)
a. defining terms
b. creates (provokes) discourse about
c. sign versus spirit
i. not transcendent real, but shared agreements of meaning (never perfected)
II. Vernacular versus Institutional
A. religions and institutions
a. constructs
i. institutions have real power, but are aggregate entities
ii. religious are typically imagined as constructs about the sacred that have created institutional power
B. religions and individuals
a. imagined as subject to institutions
b. hold own ideas about the sacred
i. "spiritual"
C. vernacular religion
a. "lived religion"
b. the vernacular
i. specifically along side but apart from religious institutions
ii. characterizes the majority of religious expression today (if not always)
iii. gets at not only the "leaders" of religious expression, but at the everyday individuals: voters, supporters, actors in the world