1/22/07
We talked more about civil religion and kind of compared it to nationalism, but civil religion is a concept that comes about by the people rather than the people being persuaded or forced to think or act a certain way. Civili religion is an unconscious and unexamined conviction by which we, a community define ourself. There was a questiion brought up today that needs to be thought about: What is the iconography of IR? Under what circumstances do we think things are real? I"m not sure about these; it makes it a little more difficult to come up with a topic for the essay. What are the important elements in civil religion and how are they related?
We looked at a table or contents; 50 key thinkers, and analyzed the names and categories and talked abut how it made a map. A key question wsa brought up. Under what circumstances do we think things are real? What are the real/factual/concrete things? What are the ways of knowing something for sure? WMDs in Iraq are an example. How are politics based on inference?