you're getting double http'd for some reason. http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/04/01/175584297/mining-books-to-map-emotions-through-a-century ought to do it
Right, so what we keep on running up against is that defining or explaining this phenomenon and describing ourselves is virtually the same operation. We can't get outside of the phenomenon in order to analyze it objectively, since it concerns the production of "us" or of our concept of ourselves.
That said, the self-declaration of the Nones seems to be a late stage effect of Weberian "disenchantment of the world," which would occur within each individual gradually as it occurs in society "outside" gradually. Eventually, in social-evolutionary time, a lessening attachment to traditional or pre-modern beliefs and related customs (or particular forms of belief and custom), as inherited, shows up, somewhat unevenly but in broad parallel trends: in marriage patterns, social mobility, economics, law, politics, etc., as well as finally in the verbal conduct or expressed self-concepts of masses of Americans, specifically as reflected in the poll-answering behavior. The poll doesn't tell us anything we didn't know already, but appears to confirm the existence of a trend of some kind over some period of time. The poll can't tell us on its own whether it's recording an aftereffect or epiphenomenon or in fact capturing a continuing or truly accelerating fundamental process. In other words, if we or the world were "becoming re-enchanted" or "re-traditionalized" in some way - not saying we are or aren't - it might not show up in "how people answer such questions" for a very long time, if ever.
In the meantime, the very asking of the question is part of the process it measures: The very awareness of non-pre-de-legitimated alternative belief systems and the assumption of their co-legitimacy tends to reveal pluralism as incipient indifference, a process that is itself subject to the same process of conversion from perceived threat or danger into perceived irrelevancy on the way to unperceived unreality.
Hard to separate cause and effect there. The secularized, transactionalized "open society" - as TV, as Gen X, as malls, as capitalism - somehow dislodged a certain vestiges of pre-capitalist or pre-liberal-democratic commitments or identities in a sizable group, in a way that was finally expressible in terms of "declaratory behavior." Another relevant factor might be the growing number of mixed marriages, though mixed marriages would also be both causes and effects of the same phenomenon.
It's worth emphasizing though that the 20% aren't "atheists," mostly, but free-floating theists. Self-professed atheists, according to the pollsters whom Silliman quotes at his blog, are still 3% of the total, though were only 1% in 1962 (maybe too small a difference and absolute number to take seriously, unless the change is confirmed consistently over the entire life of the poll). It would seem reasonable to suspect that the growth of the "non-professing" segment of the entire population might be accompanied by a growth of a "weakly professing" unmeasured segment. I wonder if anyone has ever tried to measure strength or type of religious commitment. Might be worth bothering Silliman a little more for what else his fellow researchers on the Nones say about them.
I agree that from the graph it's not really '88, but '93 or '94 is a "new all-time high," and first measurement in a clear "peace dividend year." It seems clear that "something" is going on if a figure has changed from tiny minority to large population segment and an increase of 400%. It's an epochal change of some kind, and, though we date the Fall of the Commies to 1989, the process it represents likely began earlier, and would have taken longer to set in. So I'm not speculating that when the Berlin Wall came down, "all the walls came down" and we were suddenly free to be you and me for the first time, or maybe I am.
you're getting double http'd for some reason. http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/04/01/175584297/mining-books-to-map-emotions-through-a-century ought to do it
Does look fun!
Right, so what we keep on running up against is that defining or explaining this phenomenon and describing ourselves is virtually the same operation. We can't get outside of the phenomenon in order to analyze it objectively, since it concerns the production of "us" or of our concept of ourselves.
That said, the self-declaration of the Nones seems to be a late stage effect of Weberian "disenchantment of the world," which would occur within each individual gradually as it occurs in society "outside" gradually. Eventually, in social-evolutionary time, a lessening attachment to traditional or pre-modern beliefs and related customs (or particular forms of belief and custom), as inherited, shows up, somewhat unevenly but in broad parallel trends: in marriage patterns, social mobility, economics, law, politics, etc., as well as finally in the verbal conduct or expressed self-concepts of masses of Americans, specifically as reflected in the poll-answering behavior. The poll doesn't tell us anything we didn't know already, but appears to confirm the existence of a trend of some kind over some period of time. The poll can't tell us on its own whether it's recording an aftereffect or epiphenomenon or in fact capturing a continuing or truly accelerating fundamental process. In other words, if we or the world were "becoming re-enchanted" or "re-traditionalized" in some way - not saying we are or aren't - it might not show up in "how people answer such questions" for a very long time, if ever.
In the meantime, the very asking of the question is part of the process it measures: The very awareness of non-pre-de-legitimated alternative belief systems and the assumption of their co-legitimacy tends to reveal pluralism as incipient indifference, a process that is itself subject to the same process of conversion from perceived threat or danger into perceived irrelevancy on the way to unperceived unreality.
Hard to separate cause and effect there. The secularized, transactionalized "open society" - as TV, as Gen X, as malls, as capitalism - somehow dislodged a certain vestiges of pre-capitalist or pre-liberal-democratic commitments or identities in a sizable group, in a way that was finally expressible in terms of "declaratory behavior." Another relevant factor might be the growing number of mixed marriages, though mixed marriages would also be both causes and effects of the same phenomenon.
It's worth emphasizing though that the 20% aren't "atheists," mostly, but free-floating theists. Self-professed atheists, according to the pollsters whom Silliman quotes at his blog, are still 3% of the total, though were only 1% in 1962 (maybe too small a difference and absolute number to take seriously, unless the change is confirmed consistently over the entire life of the poll). It would seem reasonable to suspect that the growth of the "non-professing" segment of the entire population might be accompanied by a growth of a "weakly professing" unmeasured segment. I wonder if anyone has ever tried to measure strength or type of religious commitment. Might be worth bothering Silliman a little more for what else his fellow researchers on the Nones say about them.
I agree that from the graph it's not really '88, but '93 or '94 is a "new all-time high," and first measurement in a clear "peace dividend year." It seems clear that "something" is going on if a figure has changed from tiny minority to large population segment and an increase of 400%. It's an epochal change of some kind, and, though we date the Fall of the Commies to 1989, the process it represents likely began earlier, and would have taken longer to set in. So I'm not speculating that when the Berlin Wall came down, "all the walls came down" and we were suddenly free to be you and me for the first time, or maybe I am.