Timothy Fitzgerald - The Ideology of Religious Studies

The Ideology of Religious Studies.(Review) (book review)
JIM STONE
2075 words
1 June 2001
Religious Studies
242
ISSN: 0034-4125; Volume 37; Issue 2
English
Copyright 2001 Gale Group Inc. All rights reserved. COPYRIGHT 2001 Cambridge University Press

Timothy Fitzgerald The Ideology of Religious Studies. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). Pp. xi + 276. $45.00. 0 19 512072 8.

Consider this position, which I will call the standard view' (SV). There is a widespread human concern with a reality taken to surpass the ordinary world revealed by sense perception. It is thought to consist either of sentient supernatural beings (e.g. gods, Adonai, or Brahman) or of an insentient metaphysical principle underlying the universe (e.g. The Unconditioned, Sunyata, or the Tao). Either way, the supermundane reality is positioned to figure centrally in the satisfaction of substantial human needs. It is controversial whether 'religion' can be defined; however, systems of practices rationalized by beliefs according to which the practices place us in a relation-of-value to such a reality are paradigmatic religions. Religions have social and political dimensions, but they should also be studied qua religions, as practices, institutions, beliefs, scriptures that flow from this sort of concern.

Timothy Fitzgerald's provocative book, The Ideology of Religious Studies, is dedicated to uprooting SV root and branch. He writes: 'Religion cannot reasonably be taken to be a valid analytical category since it does not pick out any distinctive cross-cultural aspect of human life' (4).'Religious' phenomena have profoundly different meanings within different cultures; when the phenomena are understood in the context of their local symbol systems and ritual institutions, the 'religious' dissolves into the anthropological, the political, and the sociological. The academic discipline of religious studies obstructs a clear view of what happens in other cultures. Fitzgerald proposes that it 'be rethought and re-represented as cultural studies, understood as the study of the institutions and the institutionalized values of specific societies, and the relation between those institutionalized values and the legitimation of power' (10).

Fundamental criticisms of an academic discipline should be taken seriously. Fitzgerald writes with intelligence and vigour, but with considerable detail. Much of his book's force lies in the details. I can deal only with the arguments that strike me as most central, and then only in broad strokes. The reader is forewarned that I'm constantly missing the trees for the forest. The first part of the book argues that religious studies is an ideology. In Chapter 1 Fitzgerald writes: 'The construction of "religion" and "religions" as global, cross-cultural objects of study has been part of a wider historical process of western imperialism, colonialism, and neo-colonialism' (8). Contrasts between 'religion', on the one hand, and the 'secular', 'society', 'politics', on the other, are ideological constructions that were imposed on colonial cultures as part of establishing Western hegemony.

An immediate problem (which Fitzgerald acknowledges) is that every concept applied in cross-cultural studies (e.g. 'values', 'institutions') may have played an ideological role. More important, that concepts are constructed for imperialist purposes doesn't prove that they don't carve reality at the joints. In general, the fact that concepts and theories are the product of enterprises having little concern for truth should alert us to the possibility that they are mistaken, but it hardly warrants concluding they are false. The theory of evolution would have been true if it had originated as Nazi propaganda. To fail to see this is to commit the genetic fallacy. It's unclear to me how much work Fitzgerald thinks this 'deconstruction' talk does in supporting his book's thesis.

Another difficulty: Fitzgerald underestimates SV's cross-cultural adaptability -- as though 'religion' is wedded essentially to all these 'Western' contrasts. When I lived in India I soon recognized that the distinction between 'religion' and 'the secular' doesn't apply -- religiosity runs like electricity through virtually all things Indian -- but I had no trouble applying my old concept of religion. The cross-cultural inapplicability of the contrasts doesn't prove the inapplicability of 'religion'.

In chapter 2 Fitzgerald argues that religious studies, from its beginning in the nineteenth century, has been 'imbued with theological principles of the liberal ecumenical kind' (33), and is 'heavily loaded with Western Christian assumptions about God and salvation', thinly disguised as the scientific study of religion (34). The emphasis has been on interfaith dialogue and 'fitting the non-Christian institutions ... into the framework of liberal ecumenical theology, and into a classification system dominated by Judaeo-Christian concepts of worship, sacrifice, and so on' (54).

Once again Fitzgerald appears to be flirting with the genetic fallacy. That SV is theologically motivated is no reason to deny its truth. Indeed, if there is such a thing as religion, and Christianity is an instance, proceeding in covertly Christian terms may reveal much of importance about other religions. Assuming otherwise begs the question against SV.

In chapter 3, devoted to the work of Ninian Smart, Fitzgerald concludes that 'the language of "religion" and its "social dimension"' obscures 'the real object of study', which is not 'religion' but the way that power is legitimated in a particular context - a job for sociology (71). Suppose the category of 'a world religion' is valid for Christianity. This means that several distinct social groups claim to believe in 'something called Christianity'. Fitzgerald continues: 'But Christianity is here a theological concept, and its interpretation will depend on how it is understood by each different group. To grasp this ideological entity... we have to approach it through the sociological structure of the relevant group' (70).

But why call Christianity - on the face of things a pretty definite body of practices and beliefs (about Jesus, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection) - a 'theological concept' that requires 'interpretation', not to mention an 'ideological entity' in need of being 'grasped' through 'sociological structures'? Fitzgerald's argument's are often ill served by the jargon of cultural studies; it is hard to resist the view that he sees religion himself through an ideological lens.

Philosophers lately tend to agree that there is merely a 'family resemblance' between religions (to use Wittgenstein's term), a network of features generally shared, no single one of which belongs to every religion. In chapter 4, which deals largely with the work of Peter Byrne, Fitzgerald maintains that a 'family resemblance theory of religion overextends the notion so badly that it becomes impossible to determine what can and what cannot be included' (72). Without some essential characteristic, 'the family of religion becomes so large as to be practically meaningless and analytically useless' (73). I am sympathetic to this objection. The 'family resemblance' theory invites the charge that philosophy, ideology, politics, anything people really care about, is religion; but then 'religious studies' is defined too broadly to constitute an academic discipline.

I disagree, however, with Fitzgerald's additional claim that the failure of the 'family resemblance' theory of religion suggests that religion has 'no distinctive theoretical property and therefore cannot supply the basis of an academic discipline' (95). Religious studies is hardly the first discipline to need rescuing from Wittgenstein. I've argued in this journal that a religion is a system of practices meant to place us in a relation-of-value to a supermundane reality (that is, a reality surpassing the world revealed by sense perception) so grand that it can figure centrally in the satisfaction of substantial human needs. Fitzgerald's principal objection to such definitions appears to be that they are 'imbued with theological principles of a liberal ecumenical kind', which is hardly fatal. In any case, one of the book's strengths is that it shows that much depends on the success of such essentialist efforts.

Part 2 of the book concerns religion in India. Chapter 6 is about Ambedkar Buddhism. In the last century millions of untouchables in Maharashtra (led by B. R. Ambedkar, one of the framers of the Indian constitution) tried to change their status by convening to Buddhism. This led to a remarkable form of Buddhism in which Ambedkar, who died in 1956, is revered as much as the Buddha. Buddhist soteriology plays virtually no role in Ambedkar's version of Buddhism. 'According to Ambedkar's understanding, Buddha dhamma is essentially morality. By morality he means compassion, caring for one's fellow human and for the natural world.... On this line of reasoning, Buddhism becomes the basis of the new egalitarian society' (127). Fitzgerald finds the concept of religion 'unhelpful' in studying this movement (121). 'The concept of religion either as a traditional soteriology or as interaction with superhuman beings is patently inadequate for dealing with the realities of the situation of untouchable Buddhists'(129). An obvious response to Fitzgerald is that the concept of religion is unhelpful, not because it is defective or meaningless, but because Ambedkar Buddhism is principally a political movement in Buddhist trappings.

Hinduism is not a religion as much as a religious civilization. One cannot 'convert' to Hinduism, for instance; it is necessary to have a caste. In chapter 7 Fitzgerald argues plausibly that the wish to depict Hinduism as 'a world religion' has often led writers to ignore the profound influence on Hinduism of caste and concerns about ritual pollution. In addition, he suggests that categories such as 'ritual', 'hierarchy', 'gender', 'caste', 'ritual specialist', 'purity', and 'pollution' may provide a more precise framework than 'religion' to study Hinduism (144). Most fruitful to that study is understanding the 'fundamental symbolic system underlying the whole range of ritual institutions' (145). This system is rooted in dharma, Fitzgerald suggests.

Dharma is an eternal ritual order that defines the correct condition of all beings, whether they be gods, demons, animals, ancestors, members of different castes and sub castes. Dharma is fundamentally an ideological expression of hierarchy or ritual order that embraces the whole mythical cosmos but is manifested to the observer most evidently in caste, including the power exercised by the king or the dominant castes in contemporary India (145). I take the force of this to be that to understand Hinduism, finally, we must understand the relevant institutionalized values and their relation to the legitimation of power; but then talk of 'religion' is irrelevant.

This perspective is illuminating, but perhaps Fitzgerald is carried away by his vision. If the more 'precise' categories plus dharma explain Hinduism, what is the supernatural realm doing there at all? It's a bit hard to take seriously the claim that 'the human quest for the Divine' fails utterly as an explanatory category in a culture positively swarmingwith deities. While concerns about caste and pollution affect the ordering of the supernatural realm, one can hardly dismiss a priori the contention that this is a two-way street; for instance, caste is provided a supernatural warrant in the Rig- Veda. Dharma is itself a religious concept, at least by the theory of religion I mentioned above, and the claim that it is an 'ideological expression of hierarchy' is hardly self- evident -- though I expect there is some truth to it. Why not allow that a powerful religious vision (or collection of such visions) plays a role in shaping Hindu society? Above all, Fitzgerald fails to recognize that caste is itself a rel igious institution (a central part of a system of practices meant to place practitioners in a relation-of-value to a supermundane reality), one reason it is so very hard to uproot. This failure, I suspect, flows partly from his apparent conviction that the concept 'religion' is wedded essentially to 'Western' contrasts with 'society' and the 'secular'.

The book's third section, which concerns religion in Japan, argues in part that 'religion' is a category foisted on the Japanese in the last two centuries by Western countries. (In Part 4, concerning problems with the category 'culture', Fitzgerald responds to the concern that all concepts deployed in cross-cultural studies are defective.) Fitzgerald is an apt observer of Japanese culture, as evidenced by his discussion of Japanese baseball. He is also a gifted storyteller. Chapter 10, 'Bowing to the taxman', contains a beautifully crafted account of a Western friend's adventures with the Japanese national tax office, which culminate in his unexpected adoption as a member of Japanese society.

I fear that this review fails to do justice to the intelligence that informs Fitzgerald's writing. I frankly don't know whether religious studies can withstand fundamental criticism. Anyone interested in these matters will profit from reading The Ideology of Religious Studies. While unpersuaded by Fitzgerald's book, I am nervous that its thesis is true.