Musings from the library’s computer lab
Evans-Pritchard on Nuer religion (but it applies so well to ill-conceived contemporary analyses of religion that I had to go and be academic and quote it here):
But Durkheim and his colleagues and pupils were not content to say that religion, being part of the social life, is strongly influenced by the social structure. They claimed that the religious conceptions of primitive peoples are nothing more than a symbolic representation of the social order. It is his society that primitive man worships in the symbol of a god. It is to his society that he prays and makes sacrifice. This postulate of sociologistic metaphysic seems to me to be an assertion for which evidence is totally lacking. It was Durkheim and not the savage who made society into a god. (emphasis mine)
Evans-Pritchard, E.E. Nuer Religion. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956. pp 313.
Hey NU kids: have you ever noticed that orange painting to the right of the check-out desk in the library? I’m talking about the one that’s about 15′ by 5′ with some colored circles on it. That thing is a piece of crap. I can do better in Microsoft Paint.
Of all the annoying personalities I can think of, the flaming theater major may be the worst.