Kurt Lewin address: influence, power, religion, and the mechanisms of social control

Journal of Social Issues, Spring, 1999

Religion, Power, and Social Control

How might these ideas apply then to religions as mechanisms of social control? As I introduce this discussion, I beg your indulgence, since my presentation here will very likely appear to be oversimplified and even naive.

A Naive Illustration of the Development of Religious Power

Let us imagine a time when supposedly chaos characterized the relationships among peoples, in something approximating Hobbes's "natural state" - a time when murder, theft, rape, mayhem were rampant and when people were relatively unrestrained in acting on their impulses or in acquiring whatever they needed or desired. Let us imagine a sage and chieftain (at that time, most likely a male, otherwise religions might have developed differently) who observes that such behaviors will ultimately lead to individual and collective catastrophe. He attempts to restrain a shepherd who, it seems, is ready to murder a neighbor who had just stolen one of the shepherd's sheep. He tries to explain (informational power) that "this is not a good practice, since it will lead to ultimate suffering for everyone." The shepherd is not convinced. "Look," he says, "Trust me. Even if you don't understand, you must respect my wisdom and experience." (Expert power doesn't work.) "But I am your chieftain and you should feel an obligation." But the shepherd does not accept the chieftain's legitimate right to restrict this behavior. If these bases of power are insufficient, then how about: "I shall see to it that you are punished for such an act." But, again, the shepherd does not really believe that the chieftain really has the means to punish the shepherd. Besides, the act could be carried out without the chieftain's even knowing about it.

The sage then develops or discovers another means to implement change in the shepherd and others. (Some might find it more comfortable at this point to think of the sage as divinely inspired.) He develops the concept of a "Deity," a Supreme Being. This Deity is omnipotent, can determine life or death, has the ultimate power to offer the ultimate reward (heaven) or the ultimate punishment (hell), and many other intermediate rewards and punishments. He is omnipresent: He is everywhere, His power is universal. He is also omniscient: He is the ultimate expert power. and furthermore, with this Deity as the influencing agent, the target can be assured that there will always be the surveillance that is necessary for behaviors to be rewarded and punished. In effect, the sage is going through a series of preparatory strategies, but specifically attributing qualities that provide bases of power to an omnipotent third party. This Deity is certainly a formidable influencing agent with such a strong armament available to induce compliance.

As an aside, I am sure that most of us have had experience with people even today invoking the power of God. We hear religious ministers and authorities do so, particularly from fundamentalist religions, but also others, including parents. Some years ago, Clyde Nunn (1964) interviewed 367 parents and found that two-thirds of them told their children that God will punish them if they are bad, a proportion that has probably changed little, if at all, since then. Such invocation of the coercive power of God was most likely among parents who had low income, were members of fundamentalist churches, and who felt that children should obey their parents without question. Nunn concluded that such parents would be likely to feel relatively powerless and needed such a powerful ally to gain compliance. At this very conference, Bugental (1998) reported that parents who feel powerless are particularly likely to use excessive force (coercive power) in disciplining their children. She did not ask about invoking the coercive power of God, but we would expect that that would also be more likely for such parents. Recently, Haruki Sakai (personal communication, 1998) questioned Japanese university students about the tendency of Japanese parents to invoke the power of "gods," and though he found that this device was less likely than Nunn had found in his earlier American sample, 44% of his sample still reported that they did so.(2)