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Opium notně vyčichlé? Náboženské procesy pozdní moderny v západní a východní Evropě

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Nespor Z. R.
Soudobé dějiny (Contemporary History)
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2007
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vol. 14
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issue 2-3
269-304
EN
In this article the author presents a fundamental overview of developments in religion in Europe in the second half of the twentieth century. He compares the situation in West European countries and post-Communist countries, and, referring to the literature, analyzes some central trends. He explains, particularly the longstanding paradigmatic concept of secularization, whose currently most influential proponent is Steve Bruce, and three alternative models - Rodney Stark's theory of rational religious choice, Daniele Hervieu-Leger's concept of religious memory, and Jose Casanova's version of the concept of three autonomous components of secularization (whose meeting led to a striking decline in church-based religiousness in Western Europe). The author also considers questions of secularization and the subsequent changes outside and within the established churches, their legal standing, and influence on politics, the mass media, the school system, and other areas. He also explores the development and subsequent decline in the importance of new religious movements, including positions taken against them and against immigrants' religiousness, as well as the influence of implicit religions. Whereas 'political religion' has long lost its role in shaping identity, functional equivalents of religiousness appear mainly in European secularism, which, on the one hand, has Christian roots and has also quite successfully substituted for church-based Christianity, for example in the form of a negative European identity with regard to Muslims. In Late Modern Europe, the author argues, a great number of privatized religious or spiritual forms continue to exist. They may get the attention of only a small part of the public and encourage them to participate, but their influence as a cultural milieu is much larger. In Europe these and other religious processes are not asserted with equal force; though various forms of religion or non-religion have also been entering European politics and public life, they remain controversial partly because they are expressed in different measure and form.
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Lidová náboženská četba na prahu 21. století

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Nespor Z. R.
Český lid: etnologický časopis (Český lid: Ethnological journal)
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2008
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vol. 95
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issue 3
225-249
EN
The Czech spiritual market is today as developed as that of western European countries. De-traditionalised and individualised holistic milieu has created a demand for spiritual literature and magazines as well as other marketable goods ('magic' stones, amulets, horoscopes, natural drugs etc.). This paper attempts to analyse the character and sources of contemporary best selling spiritual literature and its readership in the Czech Republic. It also provides a case study of a Prague spiritual bookshop and its comparison with five other Czech spiritual outlets (including an Internet outlet). The results clearly show that marketing spirituality has become a mainstream phenomenon with regard to all gender, age and class categories, although there was found to be an over presence of older middle-aged women among the buyers. There is emphasized 'churchless' and 'nonreligious' character of the buyers and the best selling books, that include predominantly those referring to 'modern' and 'esoteric' western or 'ethnic' spiritualities. The supply side comprises both special and general publishers, the former having been more successful in specialised bookshops and spiritual outlets and the latter in addressing the wider population (including via the Internet).
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Empirické výzumy (současného) náboženství v letech 1946-1989. Prolegomena k vývoji české sociologie náboženství v období marxistické dominace

100%
Nespor Z. R.
Soudobé dějiny (Contemporary History)
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2007
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vol. 14
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issue 2-3
399-438
EN
The article first summarizes projects of quantitative sociological research into Czech religiousness, which were carried out from 1946 to 1989 (when, with the exception of 1950, religious affiliation was not a question on the census), and it subjects this research to a methodical critique. The author then discusses the institutional background of these research projects. Research into religious attitudes was carried out in 1946 by the recently established Institute of Public Opinion Research. After the Communist takeover, however, sociology was no longer an acceptable discipline, and State organs that were also working against religion took over this research task. Their research into 'objective religious factors,' conducted from the 1950s to the 1980s, considered only the decline in church-based religious feeling. More profound sociological research was made possible with the establishment of the Institute of Sociology at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in the 1960s. Though this research was in the sway of the models of the period, that is to say, the 'sociology of the parish', it was relatively successful, methodologically suitable research (for instance into religiousness in North Moravia, 1963, with an attempt to expand it to the whole country), and met with a positive international response. It was doomed, however, by the policy of 'Normalization,' when the Institute of Sociology was merged with the Institute of Philosophy. Sociological research into religion was then entrusted to the Institute of Scientific Atheism, which was established in Brno. (The most important research that it conducted was into the religiousness of pupils and students of elementary and secondary schools in South Moravia, 1979.) Similar research was also carried out by the reorganized Public Opinion Research Institute in 1979, 1983, 1985, 1986, and 1989. Not one of these projects, however, can be considered rigorous, because the methods used were ideologically in the sway of the regime, it was not of sufficiently professional quality, and was palpably behind modern Western developments in the sociology of religion. More credible research, though limited for practical reasons, was provided by 'samizdat' and emigre sociology, which cast doubt on the idea of the automatic secularization of Czech society in connection with modernization and the dominance of Marxist thought. The development of truly unbiased research could take place only after the changes that began in late 1989. When interpreting earlier research and comparing results with contemporary findings on religiousness one must therefore bear in mind that it cannot be done without taking into account the conditions of the society and of the discipline in which the research was originally conducted, as well as the aims it was intended for.
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Reemigrace českých západních emigrantů v 90. letech 20. století z hlediska ekonomické sociologie

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Nespor Z. R.
Sociologický časopis. Czech Sociological Review
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2005
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vol. 41
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issue 1
31-55
EN
In this article the author discusses qualitative economic sociology and its connections to social-constructionist sociology of knowledge, cultural institutions and economic culture, and he applies this theoretical background to his survey on Czech Western re-emigrants in the 1990s and their perceptions of contemporary Czech society, economic-cultural institutions, and business/entrepreneurial behaviour. He concludes that fundamental differences between Czech and Western societies remain owing to the strong historical and socio-cultural embeddedness of the patterns of economic culture, especially value-based attitudes to the categories of time, supra-individual entities, different forms of capital, and managerial and other business activities. While the (ideal type of) Western socio-economic behaviour can be understood in terms of 'fundamental individualism', the Czech 'individualism of (material) consumption' seems essentially different. The latter originated in the disintegration of the socialist way of living, though it also incorporates some older cognitive and behavioural patterns, and thus it understands capitalism in a somewhat Marxian way, implying '(economic) liberalism without liberals'.
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Religious Processes in Contemporary Czech Society

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Nespor Z. R.
Sociologický časopis. Czech Sociological Review
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2004
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vol. 40
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issue 3
277-295
EN
Regardless of the role religion plays in the contemporary world, and the fact that there has occurred a massive de-privatisation of religions and desecularisation of societies, in the Czech Republic the state of religion remains considerably understudied. This paper attempts to fill in this lack of knowledge. The subject is analysed with special regard to the values that are based on culture, symbolic representations and socio-economic institutions. Owing to the lack of empirical research, with the exception of some quantitative surveys and censuses, in this article the author works mainly with his own observations, which also incorporate historical arguments and analyses. He maintains that the developing trends in contemporary Czech religiosity are both similar to and distinct from those in Western Europe. The similar trends include out-of-church movements and even strong anti-clericalism, along with a process of de-traditionalisation and the rise of new spiritual outlets, connected either with 'New Age' spirituality or with the new charismatic and Pentecostal movements. The distinct trends involve a certain de-privatisation of traditional Christian beliefs, which is a reaction to the over-secularised suppression of the public sphere under the communist regime, and even before that. The paper reflects arguments that many of these processes, which have an important influence on Czech society as a whole, will undergo some changes with the state's entry into the European Union.
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‘VZDUCH K BOHU DYCHTÍCÍ.’ ROZPRAVA O (300) NEPÍSŇOVÝCH LIDOVÝCH NÁBOŽENSKÝCH RUKOPISECH Z 18.–19. STOLETÍ

100%
Nespor Z. R.
Český lid: etnologický časopis (Český lid: Ethnological journal)
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2007
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vol. 94
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issue 3
225-256
EN
The paper quantitatively analyses a sample of 300 Czech prayer books and other popular religious handwritten material (not including songbooks) from the 18th and 19th centuries. The author maintains that most of the material consisted of (partial) transcriptions of popular printed books and their widespread popularity was influenced by the growth of literacy and the individualization of piety. Their use was by no means limited to the milieu of the secret non-Catholics which were proscribed until 1781; indeed the majority of Catholic writings were not fully orthodox. The character and decoration of the writings in question were not directly related to the confessional nature of their originators and/or users; in fact the general rules of early modern popular culture played a much more important role and in many cases it is difficult to determine whether the source is catholic, protestant or sectarian. Prayer books fully reflected official forms of religion relatively late i.e. from the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries as a result of church domination over popular piety. However, even at this time the process did not result in absolutes: religious writings substituted the non-existence of baroque literature the printing of which was prohibited by the enlightened censorship prevalent at the time. Only a change in religious forms and new opportunities for the printing of pre-enlightenment books in the mid-19th century led to a decline in handwritten prayer books.
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'THE SON HAS PLOUGHED', BUT A FOREIGN SON. FIVE CASE STUDIES ON TRANSFORMATION STRATEGIES IN CZECH AGRICULTURE AFTER 1989

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Nespor Z. R.
Sociologický časopis. Czech Sociological Review
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2006
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vol. 42
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issue 6
1171-1194
EN
European agriculture has recently undergone important changes connected with the reorientation of EU policy towards regional, recreational, and land-use subsidies, and owing to the internal divergence in agriculture itself, which has led to large 'industrial' farming companies on the one hand and small, ecological farms on the other. During the period of transformation, the Czech agricultural sector has been forced to confront these changes and full stability remains a long way in the future. Transformation has thus brought both advantages and disadvantages to all the players involved. The former include the existence of large-scale farms, relatively highly skilled workers, and a cheap labour force, which make Czech agriculture competitive on a European scale. On the other hand, Czech attitudes towards work and respect for the property of others are inadequate; production efficiency and quality are low, whereas the expectations of farmers are high. Czech entrepreneurs have opted for relatively strict, unsocial, win-win strategies and understand their business simply in terms of material profit. Conversely, Western businessmen active in the Czech Republic more highly value the long-term profit, social ties and the symbolic functions of agriculture, though that does not mean they would not prefer 'industrial' forms of farming. The main problem of Czech agriculture is thus the absence of family-type farms rooted in their local, social environment, and there is only limited potential for this to develop. Unfortunately, this fact creates the threat of a 'two-speed' European agriculture: the Western model, combining both small and 'industrial' farms, and the Eastern model, focusing solely on extensive large-scale farming.
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Dvojí tradice české sociologie náboženství

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Nespor Z. R.
Sociologický časopis. Czech Sociological Review
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2004
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vol. 40
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issue 4
447-458
EN
Regardless of the role religion plays in the world today, i.e. despite the significant de-privatisation of faith in the socio-cultural space and in politics, contemporary Czech sociology of religion is in rather poor shape. The author presents a number of factors to explain this, including the legacy of the communist regime, and low levels of church attendance in the Czech Republic, the latter having been erroneously interpreted as non-religiosity. But the author focuses mainly one other reason: the discordant legacy of Czech pre-communist sociology of religion and the neighbouring field of social studies. Two different traditions of the subject are identified - the 'profane' sociology of religion, founded by T. G. Masaryk, and Catholic religious sociology. Although the former legacy declared itself non-religious and even anti-clerical, in the case of many of its followers this claim was only partially true. In the 1930s and 1940s, when they (especially Prague's sociological school, which formed a certain opposition to Masaryk) turned more towards Durkheimian attitudes, they emphasised, for example, their own religious experience as a necessary tool for understanding piety. On the other hand, Catholic religious sociology was closely related to church activism, policy, and contemporary social work, i.e. strictly conservative and anti-modern. Its way of understanding modern society was discounted by the former group of scholars, though to at least some degree the two legacies shared similar methodological approaches. Both certainly seem outdated today, but their theoretical and methodological discussions and their findings remain of importance. Consequently, a re-thinking of these legacies and their theoretical backgrounds is still significant for the sociology of religion today.
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Před ¾ stoletím… Kvantifikovaný esej o časopisecké produkci české sociologie před nástupem marxismu a dnes

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Nespor Z. R.
Sociologický časopis. Czech Sociological Review
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2007
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vol. 43
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issue 2
397-422
EN
This article focuses on Czech pre-Marxist sociological journals - 'Sociologická revue' (established in 1930, published until 1940, and again in 1946-49) and 'Sociálni problémy' (established 1931, published 1931-1938/39 and 1947/48) - and compares how they functioned with the work of the contemporary 'Sociologický casopis/Czech Sociological Review' (analysed volumes 32 (1996) to 41 (2005)). Although the internal situation of the branch and its public evaluation were rather different during each of the two periods, the author believes that looking back at the well-established earlier period of Czech sociology can provide some comparative data for a better understanding of the current situation and its imperfections. First, the author quantitatively analyses the 'genre' composition of the old and new journals and concludes that in the earlier publications reviews and scientific polemics were more strongly represented, whilst the papers - especially those in 'Sociologická revue' - were less likely to be connected with any empirical research. Conversely, the old sociologists were highly involved in the public sphere, which included student education and active participation in policy making. Nowadays, Czech sociologists tend to be wrapped up in themselves; they produce better theoretical and empirical papers, but the number produced per person has decreased, and their reception is probably weaker. In the article the author also analyses the means of recruitment of the journals' editorial boards, relations within the Czech sociological community itself and its relations abroad, and other issues of the sociology of Czech sociology, past and present.
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THREE EUROPEAN SOCIOLOGIES OF RELIGION: BEYOND THE USUAL AGENDA OF THE DISCIPLINE

100%
Nespor Z. R.
Sociologický časopis. Czech Sociological Review
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2008
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vol. 44
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issue 3
557-579
EN
The contemporary boom in the popularity of religion(s) and religiosity has led to new interest in their sociological study that has returned the sociology of religion to the heart of sociological research. In secular Europe alone, three new overviews of the discipline have appeared in 2006 and 2007, written by Grace Davie, I. Furseth and P. Repstad, and Z. R. Nespor and D. Luzny, all of which attempt to go beyond the traditional agenda of the discipline. This review article summarises the various attitudes of the respective authors and provides a general overview of their books. However, rather than evaluating them it tries to use the three books as a starting point for thinking of the discipline itself. Primarily, the author examines whether there is one single sociology of religion or not and stresses the multiplicity of 'national' approaches with regard to the state of religion in respective societies. Beyond the attention usually paid to the European-American division, and Davie's 'hybrid cases' of British, Canadian, German and Eastern European versions of the sociology of religion, which are also discussed, the author outlines the particularities of the French and Scandinavian approaches. The article then concerns itself with the various theoretical and methodological issues surrounding the discipline and emphasises its 'post-paradigmatic' stage. While some sociologists are looking for new theories (Furseth and Repstad), others highlight the variety of methods which allow a deeper understanding of the multiplicity of facts and meanings (Davie, Nespor and Luzny). Finally, the article discusses the specific position of religion(s) in post-communist countries and the ways in which it is studied.
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Česká sociologie náboženství v letech 1948–89

100%
Nespor Z. R.
Sociologický časopis. Czech Sociological Review
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2007
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vol. 43
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issue 4
675-698
EN
The article examines the theoretical development of Czech sociology of religion during the period of communist rule, which widely affected the social sciences in general and research on religion in particular. The author divides the period into three different stages. First, from the very end of the 1940s to the beginning of the 1960s sociology as a whole was abolished as a 'bourgeois pseudo-science', and any discourse on religion was possible only in purely negativistic, anti-religious terms. However, some scholars (most notably A. Kolman, E. Kadlecová and I. Sviták) established less ideological attitudes and called for deeper sociological analyses of religion at the end of the 1950s and the start of the 1960s. Their 'revisionism' eventually won out in the 1960s, in the second stage, when Czech sociology of religion achieved international acceptance and Kadlecová became (for a short time) the author of the state's new religious policy. Although these scholars (V. Gardavský and M. Machovec) accepted a wider definition of religiosity and debated with Christian scholars, they remained Marxists. They were convinced religion is doomed to extinction. The last stage began after the violent termination of the Prague Spring in 1968 and lasted throughout the era of the so-called normalisation in the 1970-80s. Progressive scholars were removed from their posts. The official sociology of religion changed its name to 'scientific atheism', but the outcomes of its work were far from any standard of excellence, both in the theoretical and empirical fields. Research from the era of official neo-Stalinism was very poor in quality, but during that time very important unofficial scientific contributions did emerge, written by banned sociologists (E. Kadlecová, J. Siklová), social theologians (B. Komárková), and Czechs in exile. Unfortunately, since 1989 the reception of these works has been narrow. With the abolition of official Marxist scientific atheism there is an opportunity for the spread of truly modern sociological approaches to religion - if only there were enough students.
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