Religion, culture and society in the 'information age'

Sociology of Religion, Winter, 2004 by Philip A. Mellor

Taken together, these two key areas of continuity between Virilio, Zizek and Durkheim help illuminate the inadequacy of those theories of society and culture that ignore the human and religious dimensions of contemporary life in their intoxication with machine-mediated flows of information, and point towards a more productive way forward. In particular, although Durkheim could not have anticipated the development of the types of technology central to the information society, the social realist focus on the emergence of society as a phenomenon contingent upon the embodied potentialities of human beings, and characterized by inherently religious dynamics, remains as relevant today as it was at the turn of the twentieth century. Indeed, Durkheim's critiques of the utilitarianism and individualism of his time offer models that can usefully be applied to theorists of the information age: challenging the artificial vision of human beings implied by such philosophies, he emphasized the need to take full account of the interrelationships between religion, politics, family, nationality, geography and historical location that shape the complex realities of human social and cultural life (Durkheim 1970:85). In this respect, it might be said that he anticipated aspects of the critiques of contemporary realities developed by writers such as Virilio and Zizek. If we are to develop these critiques further, and avoid the extremes of technological reductionism or social constructionism which have marked many contemporary forms of the cultural turn in sociological theory then further reflection on these concerns can make for a more productive start than losing the sociological focus on society in our intoxication with the programs, networks and hypertexts of communications technologies.

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