Anxiety and the Formation of Early Modern Culture

Bouwsma, William J.; Malament, Barbara C.

doi:10.9783/9781512803990-010

Cited by 21 publications

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“…Historian William J. Bouwsma also finds efforts to reduce anxiety in changing attitudes toward work and time in the West, although he assigns religion a smaller role than does Weber. He describes the period in Europe beginning around 1300 as one of ‘extraordinary anxiety’ (Bouwsma : 230). Although developments in the sphere of religion were very much involved, Bouwsma proposes that the broader cause of this anxiety was ‘an inevitable response to the growing inability of an inherited culture to invest experience with meaning’ (: 230), and that a ‘new quantifying mentality’ was in part a response to such anxiety.…”

Section: So What?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…He describes the period in Europe beginning around 1300 as one of ‘extraordinary anxiety’ (Bouwsma : 230). Although developments in the sphere of religion were very much involved, Bouwsma proposes that the broader cause of this anxiety was ‘an inevitable response to the growing inability of an inherited culture to invest experience with meaning’ (: 230), and that a ‘new quantifying mentality’ was in part a response to such anxiety. The new mentality was applied to time and ‘served not only the needs of business but the deeper psychic needs of men inhabiting a problematic universe’ (: 236–237).…”

Section: So What?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although developments in the sphere of religion were very much involved, Bouwsma proposes that the broader cause of this anxiety was ‘an inevitable response to the growing inability of an inherited culture to invest experience with meaning’ (: 230), and that a ‘new quantifying mentality’ was in part a response to such anxiety. The new mentality was applied to time and ‘served not only the needs of business but the deeper psychic needs of men inhabiting a problematic universe’ (: 236–237). It is not hard to see a parallel with the current era in Papua New Guinea here, although—as I argue above—all that is necessary to inspire returning migrants with zeal for greater time order is thorough socialisation into the habits and values of the institutions in which they made their careers.…”

Section: So What?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Bloody time revisited: New observations on time in a Papua New Guinea Village

Smith

2015

Australian J of Anthropology

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In a 1982 paper I argued that perceptions of time scarcity in Kragur Village, Papua New Guinea, in the mid-1970s were best understood as a reaction to new forms of authority characteristic of the growth of capitalism and calls for greater time order were grounded largely in its perceived ritual significance. More than forty years later, villagers are much more familiar with Western time, but less likely to perceive time as scarce. As in the 1970s, aspiring leaders still press for greater time order. Millenarian illusions informed advocacy of time order in the 1970s. Although today these illusions are, if not extinct, then dormant, unquestioned assumptions mirroring Western capitalist views of time inspire many of today's advocates. Yet, lacking the authority to impose new forms of time order, they have little effect on the rhythms of village life, and economic incentives to abandon comparative indifference to time remain weak.

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Section: So What?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: So What?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: So What?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Bloody time revisited: New observations on time in a Papua New Guinea Village

Smith

2015

Australian J of Anthropology

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“…Living in a liberal democracy, we do not celebrate fear's entrance into the political sphere; it signals a rush of unwelcome emotion. Fear is allowed to lurk at the outer limits of modernity (Bouwsma 1980;Naphy and Roberts 1997) or to stalk the political periphery. 1 But in our own midst, fear is supposed to be confined to right-wing militias, apocalyptic religious sects, or some other manifestation of "the paranoid style in American politics" (Hofstadter 1964).…”

Section: "F;mentioning

confidence: 99%

Reflections on Fear: Montesquieu in Retrieval

Robin

2000

Am Polit Sci Rev

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According to most scholars, Montesquieu argues that fear threatens a loss of self. Disconnected from the exercise of reason, fear is an emotion that is supposed to prevent the individual from acting with any kind of moral or rational agency. Fear is also premised on the liquidation of civil society; intermediate institutions and plural social structures are destroyed so that despots can act with unmitigated power and violence. I argue that this view does not capture Montesquieu's theory. In my alternative account, fear is intimately connected to our capacity for reason and to our sense of self. It is built on a network of elites, the rule of law, moral education, and the traditional institutions of civil society. I conclude that twentieth-century social science remains too indebted to conventional interpretations of Montesquieu's views, and contemporary theorists would be better served by the alternative analysis proposed here.

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“…It was an inevitable response to the growing inability of an inherited culture to invest experience with meaning ( [7], p. 172).…”

Section: The Trauma Of Secularizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Secularization and the Loss of Love in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress

Boscaljon

2013

Religions

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Abstract:In this paper, I place Bunyan's popular Pilgrim's Progress into a cultural context infused with, and informed by, a change from a sacred to secular preunderstanding. I discuss the ways that Bunyan wrestles with these changes in light of Taylor's work on secularization, and theorize that Bunyan's text reveals how the sacred and secular imaginaries were able to merge through a shared embrace of an economic system of rationalization. Additionally, and more tragically, both ideologies share a disdain for love in its vulnerable, intimate, and material forms that has led us to desire security instead of attending to a more humble (but powerful and enriching) need for assurance. I conclude by discussing Adorno's discussion of love and Auschwitz as a warning still necessary in our 21st century secular age.

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Anxiety and the Formation of Early Modern Culture

Cited by 21 publications

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Bloody time revisited: New observations on time in a Papua New Guinea Village

Bloody time revisited: New observations on time in a Papua New Guinea Village

Reflections on Fear: Montesquieu in Retrieval

Secularization and the Loss of Love in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress

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