The Ethics and Public Policy Center has posted a transcript of James Davison Hunter’s talk, “To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World,” at this year’s Faith Angle Conference on Religion, Politics & Public Life. Ross Douthat of The New York Times and Amy Sullivan of Time responded to his comments, which addressed the problem of social solidarity:
I focus on a realm that I call political culture. By political culture what I mean is, the framework of moral claims and narratives within which ideals, attitudes, institutions, and actions, operate.
By comparison to political theory and political science, the dynamics of political culture aren’t often discussed in academic circles, but it seems to me critically important. It brings into relief the nature and character of politics as opposed to simply the form and process or the ideals and ends of politics. So I begin the second essay with a reflection on one of the great puzzles of modern social theory, the problem of social solidarity.
How do societies hold together? The classic answer to that question was that traditional societies, that is agrarian, economically underdeveloped and non-urban societies were held together mainly by beliefs held in common by all of its members. Modern societies by contrast are held together through social and economic interdependence.
Now, the reason why this question remains a puzzle is that just as people and associations and so-called traditional societies depended heavily upon each other for the sake of survival, so too in modern societies we depend upon at least some common beliefs, some shared ideals, some collective myths to function smoothly. The question of how societies hold together gains new poignancy in a world like ours where even a minimal consensus of sensibilities, dispositions and attitudes seems elusive.
Where there are even fewer beliefs, ideals, and commitments, and hopes held deeply in common and where there are few if any real meaningful traditions observed, or binding public rituals practiced, what else is there to hold such a society together? What remains to bind together its innumerable fragments? The answer in large part is power, the exercise of coercion with a threat of its use.
Read the full event transcript here.