Tag: individualism

  • Explaining the Growth of the New Age Movement…

    Steve Bruce points out that the New Age mostly appeals to successful, highly educated, middle class individuals, especially those working in the creative and expressive professions. The kind of individualist beliefs espoused by the New Age Movement fit in well with the world view of such individuals. The doctrine of self-generated success fits their experience…

  • Types of religious organisation: the cult

    Types of religious organisation: the cult

    Steve Bruce (1995) defines a cult as a ‘loosely knit group organized around some common themes and interests but lacking any sharply defined and exclusive belief system’. Cults correspond closely to Roy Wallis’ category of ‘World Affirming New Religious Movements’. Examples of Cults/ World Affirming NRMs include Scientology Transcendental Meditation The Human Potential Movement  Key…

  • Bauman’s ‘The Individualised Society’ – A Summary of the Preface

    It may sound odd doing a summary of a preface, but there is a lot of heavy stuff in here…. According to Bauman ‘Sociology can help us link our individual decisions and actions to the deeper cause of our troubles and fears – to the way we live, to the conditions under which we act,…

  • Summary of Zygmunt Bauman’s ‘The Individualised Society’ (part 1/3)

    Chapter One  – The Rise and Fall of Labour This chapter explains that the decline of the labour movement is due the extraterritorial power of Capital. The industrial revolution led to labour being uprooted from its age old link to nature and then becoming tied to capital in commodity form, thus it could be bought…

  • Why Did Labour Gain Seats in the 2017 General Election?

    In the recent June 2017 General Election, Labour won more votes than it did in 2001, 2005, 2010 or 2015, proving almost all the forecasts and commentators wrong.According to this Guardian article there are three main reasons for this… It motivated young people to get out and vote. A lot’s been made of the historically…