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It's unlikely that the organized religions will get more sectarian... or is it? I am not at all sure.

Mary Douglas

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Mary Douglas
Age: 86 †
Born: 1921
Born: March 25
Died: 2007
Died: May 16
Anthropologist
University Teacher
Writer
San Remo
Dame Mary Douglas
Margaret Mary Tew
Sectarian
Unlikely
Religions
Organized
Sure

More quotes by Mary Douglas

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Islam is in principle egalitarian, and has always had problems with power.
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Any great organization can go through sectarian phases.
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Behind a leader there must be followers, but they should always be on the lookout for the main chance and ready to change sides if the current leader doesn't deliver.
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Inequality can have a bad downside, but equality, for its part, sure does get in the way of coordination.
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Religion can make it worse. Are you supposing that if people were encouraged to believe in a transcendent reality, and to be encouraged by grand rituals and music and preaching, to love their neighbors, then they would put jealousy and frustration aside?
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Institutions have the pathetic megalomania of the computer whose whole vision of the world is its own program.
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Where there is dirt there is system. Dirt is the byproduct of a systematic ordering and classification of matter.
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Hierarchy works well in a stable environment.
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The history of the Church of Rome is a constant leakage of members into such breakaway cults, which go on splitting.
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Just in our lifetime our society has become looser and more private, it becomes extremely difficult to hold to any permanent commitment whatever, least of all to organized religion.
Mary Douglas
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I am sure it must be true that people opt out of the mainstream society because they feel that there are going to be no rewards for them, if they stay.
Mary Douglas
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If people want to compete for leadership of a religious group, they can compete in piety. A chilling thought. Or funny.
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Since 1970, relationships can be more volatile, jobs more ephemeral, geographical mobility more intensified, stability of marriage weaker.
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I have increasingly, over the years, felt that religion today does our civilization more harm than good.
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The human body is always treated as an image of society.
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When we are reflecting on terrorism we can grieve for many things we do and have done.
Mary Douglas
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If you want to change the culture, you will have to start by changing the organization.
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Pretensions to moral superiority are devastatingly destructive.
Mary Douglas
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Our technological infrastructure alienates us from each other. No need to form a workplace community, everybody there will be out in a year or two, and so will you, looking for a better place.
Mary Douglas
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Mormons... are so strong, they can handle wealth, they are confident. I think it is because they are not bogged down by rules for equality, but have a firmly defined system of relative status and responsible command.
Mary Douglas