Why the nonreligious are not, in fact, religious

It has been several months since I last posted something, mainly due to the long summer break and the transition from Boston to Miami to Princeton.  Add to that a heap of nephews and nieces to babysit, and you have yourself a recipe for lack of time to blog.

In any case, excuses notwithstanding, I am back and ready to post on some meandering thoughts I have had.

The title for this post might sound odd, but let me explain.  I often find in my day-to-day experiences that one of the most frustrating things that can be said to a nonreligious person is that they are, in fact, religious.  Maybe an anonymous Christian (a la Rahner)?  Or it could be said to the person in a way that is slightly condescending: the good works you perform could not have arisen from your nonreligiosity.  You are, in fact, religious (read: Christian) and you do not know it.  The pursuit of truth is actually a pursuit of god.  Time spent alone in silent meditation is actually prayer.

These are simple examples, but they point out a very profound cultural and sociological conundrum for the nonreligious in the United States.  In an environment so profoundly religious (and predominantly Christian), where can the nonreligious turn to find the nonreligious language, description, etc?

I come to this because of some recent readings that have sparked my interest.  The first is a piece by the sociologist of culture Stephen Vaisey titled "Motivation and Justification: A Dual-Process Model of Culture in Action."*  Vaisey just left UC Berkeley for a professorship at Duke.  In this piece, Vaisey explicates the two main models that have come to represent a bulk of the research on the sociology of culture: one that views culture as a motivation for action, and on that views culture as a justification for action.

Although simplifying an academic's work is often dangerous, let me just give a few words on the difference.  If culture is motivational, then it is implied that people perform certain actions and act in certain ways depending upon a set of cultural norms that have been assimilated by the person.  To view culture as justification, on the other hand, means that individuals perform actions and only look back to culture after the fact in order to explain why they acted the way they did.

In the piece, Vaisey addresses mainly the 1986 article by Ann Swidler, "Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies."**  In this piece (and in her book, Talk of Love), Swidler details how individuals often perform actions that contradict their cultural assertions, what one would imagine would be the cultural motivations for their actions.  Swidler is surprised by the contradictions; Vaisey seeks to explicate why we should not be surprised.

More importantly for me, however, is Swidler's use of the idea of a cultural "tool kit," one that is drawn from as needed and employed when required.

Reading these two pieces made me think a little bit more about the frustrations that the nonreligious may feel.  When the cultural tool kit in the United States is religious in general, Christian in particular, from where can the nonreligious draw her/his cultural language while remaining somewhat "true" to her/his nonreligiosity?  How do the nonreligious tweak, amend, or altogether abandon the cultural tool kit in both the motivational and justificatory aspects of cultural use?

Just a thought for the time being.  Apologies for the long post.

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*  Stephen Vaisey.  2009.  "Motivation and Justification: A Dual-Process Model of Culture in Action."  American Journal of Sociology 114: 1675-1715.

**  Ann Swidler.  1986.  "Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies."  American Sociological Review 51: 273-86.