Legoyda Vladimir

Main Page ~ Authors ~ Legoyda Vladimir
  • № 2, 2001

  • № 4, 1999

    • CIVIL RELIGION OF THE USA: CERTAIN SYMBOLS AND RITUALS

      The research of the American civil religion leads the author to the conclusion that the base of the political culture of the USA includes a special mythological dimension, which provides the national self-identification and serves as an integrative factor. While the civil religion doesn't deny the confessional constituent of national culture as manifestation of individual choice of everyone, it dominates undoubtedly on the socio-political level, where its main provisions are categorically imperative for all the members of society. The author shows that a specific nature of the American civil religion is conditioned by the features of its genesis and, first of all, by the relationship between religion and policy in the USA. These relationships represent a converted form of the secularized Protestant views with regard to the mission of the state. Among the sources of the American civil religion the author considers a Roman ideal of the Civitas Aeterna and also a number of socio-political and philosophical ideas of the Epoch of Enlightenment. The American civil religion, being a special form of the national political mythology, consolidates the main ways of the national political tradition by means of the specific symbols and rituals that perform the legitimacy function of the social status of their participants.

      DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-1999-14-4-160-172

      Pages: 160-172