Sociology and the Sacred: An Introduction to Philip Rieff's Theory of Culture

215 Pages·2016·1.216 MB·English

by  Antonius A.W. Zondervan

SOCIOLOGY AND THE SACRED:
AN INTRODUCTION TO
PHILIP RIEFF’S THEORY OF CULTURE
This page intentionally left blank
Sociology and the Sacred
An Introduction to Philip Rieff’s
Theory of Culture
Antonius A.W. Zondervan
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS
Toronto Buffalo London
www.utppublishing.com
© University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2005
Toronto Buffalo London
Printed in Canada
ISBN 0-8020-8018-9
Printed on acid-free paper
This book meets the requirements of ISO 9706, 1994.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Zondervan, Antonius A.W.
Sociology and sacred : an introduction to Philip Rieff’s theory
of culture / Antonius A.W. Zondervan.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8020-8018-9
1. Rieff, Philip, 1922– 2. Culture – Philosophy. I. Title.
BD450.Z65 2005 128 C2004-906131-3
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its
publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario
Arts Council.
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its
publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book
Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).
This book was published with help from a grant from the Netherlands
Organization for Scientific Research (NWO).
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 3
1 A Bird’s-Eye View on Rieff’s Life and Work 12
2 Rieff’s Reading of Freudian Metapsychology 25
3 The Emergence of Psychological Man in Western Culture 43
4 Blueprint for a Theory of Culture 67
5 The Limits of Modernity 90
6 Late Modernity as Second Culture Camp 119
7 Rieff: Prophet of a Post-secular Culture 140
Notes 167
References 195
Index 203
This page intentionally left blank
Acknowledgments
I am grateful for the subsidies I received for this book from the Nether-
lands Organization for Scientific Research (Nederlandse Organisatie
voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek) and for the hospitality of the
Department of Sociology of the University of Pennsylvania, which
enabled me to work in Philadelphia to collect data needed for this
book. I thank Professor Rieff and his wife for their cooperation and hos-
pitality and Jonathan Imber for his information and fruitful discussions.
Thanks also go to the editors at University of Toronto Press and to James
McConica. I am particularly grateful to Raymond DeVries and Reinier
Leushuis, who taught me that friendship is an essential part of academic
work. Their encouragement, together with that of other friends, is the
mortar that binds this book.
This page intentionally left blank
SOCIOLOGY AND THE SACRED
This page intentionally left blank