Peter L. Berger
Peter L. Berger
Peter Ludwig Bergeris an Austrian-born American sociologist known for his work in the sociology of knowledge, the sociology of religion, study of modernization, and theoretical contributions to sociological theory. He is best known for his book, co-authored with Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, which is considered one of the most influential texts in the sociology of knowledge, and played a central role in the development of social constructionism. The book was...
NationalityAustrian
ProfessionSociologist
Date of Birth17 March 1929
CountryAustria
Peter L. Berger quotes about
There are times in history when the dark drums of God can barely be heard amid the noises of this world. Then it is only in moments of silence, which are rare and brief, that their beat can be faintly discerned. There are other times. These are the times when God is heard in rolling thunder, when the earth trembles and the treetops bend under the force of [God’s] voice. It is not given to men [and women] to make God speak. It is only given to them to live and to think in such a way that, if God’s thunder should come, they will not have stopped their ears.
Religion is the human attitude towards a sacred order that includes within it all being-human or otherwise-i.e., belief in a cosmos, the meaning of which both includes and transcends man.
The human organism is thus still developing biologically while already standing in a relationship to its environmont. In other words, the process of becoming man takes place in an interrelationship with an environment. (...) From the moment of birth, man's organismic development, and indeed a large part of his biological being as such, are subjected to continuing socially determined interference.
On the one hand, man is a body, in the same way that this may be said of every other animal organism. On the other hand, man has a body. That is, man experiences himself as an entity that is not identical with his body, but that, on the contrary, has that body at its disposal. In other words, man's experience of himself always hovers in a balance between being and having a body, a balance that must be redressed again and again.
Capitalism has been one of the most dynamic forces in human history, transforming one society after another, and today it has become established as an international system determining the economic fate of most of mankind.
I'm sure Putnam is right that there's been a decline in certain kinds of organizations like bowling leagues. But people participate in communities in other ways.
There is a continuum of values between the churches and the general community. What distinguishes the handling of these values in the churches is mainly the heavier dosage of religious vocabulary involved
There is an intrinsic linkage between socialism and economic inefficiency.
If a socialist economy is opened up to increasing degrees of market forces, a point will be reached at which democratic governance becomes a possibility.
We also have a cultural phenomenon: the emergence of a global culture, or of cultural globalization
F. A. Hayek is probably the most prominent advocate of capitalism in the present period.
So I think one can say on empirical grounds - not because of some philosophical principle - that you can't have democracy unless you have a market economy.
If the cultural elite has its way, the U.S. will be much more like Europe
It has been true in Western societies and it seems to be true elsewhere that you do not find democratic systems apart from capitalism, or apart from a market economy, if you prefer that term