Sacred–profane dichotomy

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The sacred–profane dichotomy is an idea posited by French sociologist Émile Durkheim, who considered it to be the central characteristic of religion: "religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden." In Durkheim's theory, the sacred represented the interests of the group, especially unity, which were embodied in sacred group symbols, or totems. The profane, on the other hand, involved mundane individual concerns. Durkheim explicitly stated that the sacred/profane dichotomy was not equivalent to good/evil. The sacred could be good or evil, and the profane could be either as well.

Criticism

Durkheim's claim of the universality of this dichotomy for all religions/cults has been criticized by scholars such as British anthropologist Jack Goody. Goody also noted that "many societies have no words that translate as sacred or profane and that ultimately, just like the distinction between natural and supernatural, it was very much a product of European religious thought rather than a universally applicable criterion."

See also

• Carnival and Carnivalesque
• Grotesque body
• Kegare
• Mircea Eliade
• Profanum
• Ritual and Ceremony
• Sacred and Profane (8 medieval lyrics) (Choral composition, by Benjamin Britten)
• Sacred and Profane Love (Oil painting, by Titian)
• Social control
• The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder – a novel by Evelyn Waugh
• The Sacred and Profane by The Smashing Pumpkins on their album Machina/The Machines of God
• The Fall of Dalajiel - a contemporary novel by Amalia Pursell and video explanation by author explicitly referring to this dichotomy

References

• Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, (1912, English translation by Joseph Swain: 1915) The Free Press, 1965. ISBN 0-02-908010-X, new translation by Karen E. Fields 1995, ISBN 0-02-907937-3
• Pals, Daniel (1996) Seven Theories of Religion. New York: Oxford University Press. US ISBN 0-19-508725-9 (pbk).

Further reading

• Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World [1941]. Trans. Hélène Iswolsky. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993.
• C. Renate Barber Sacred and Profane: Some Thoughts on the Folk-Urban Continuum of This Dichotomy Man, Vol. 65, Mar. - Apr., 1965 (Mar. - Apr., 1965), pp. 45–46 doi:10.2307/2797525
• S. S. Acquaviva, Patricia Lipscomb The Decline of the Sacred in Industrial Society. review: [1]