into a proper account of religion. But we do not have the easy solution
we may have anticipated.RELIGION AND THE SOCIAL MIND
Social accounts are examples of what anthropologists call functional-
ism.A functionalist explanation starts with the idea that certain beliefs
or practices or concepts make it possible for certain social relations to
operate. Imagine for instance a group of hunters who have to plan
and coordinate their next expedition. This depends on all sorts of [25]
variables; different people have different views on where to go and
when, leading to intractable disputes. In some groups people perform
a divination ritual to decide where to go. They kill a chicken; the
hunters are to follow in the direction of the headless body running
away. The functionalist would say that since such beliefs and norms
and practices contribute to the solution of a problem, this is probably
why they were invented or why people reinvent and accept them.
More generally: social institutions are around and people comply with
them because they serve some function. Concepts too have functions
and that is why we have them. If you can identify the function, you
have the explanation. Societies have religion because social cohesion
requires something like religion. Social groups would fall apart if rit-
ual did not periodically reestablish that all members are part of a
greater whole.
Functionalism of this kind fell out of favor with anthropologists
sometime in the 1960s. One criticism was that functionalism seemed
to ignore many counterexamples of social institutions with no clear
function at all. It is all very well to say that having central authority is a
good way of managing conflict resolution, but what about the many
places where chiefs are warmongers who constantly provoke new con-
flicts? Naturally, functionalist anthropologists thought of clever expla-
nations for that too but then were vulnerable to a different attack.
Functionalism was accused of peddling ad hoc stories. Anyone with
enough ingenuity could find some sort of social function for any cul-
tural institution. A third criticism was that functionalism tended to
depict societies as harmonious organic wholes where every part plays
some useful function. But we know that most human societies are rife
with factions, feuds, diverging interests and so on.^8
WHATISTHEORIGIN?