Two societies confronting each other with conflicting universes will both develop conceptual machineries… — Peter Berger
Two societies confronting each other with conflicting universes will both develop conceptual machineries designed to maintain their respective universes. From the point of view of intrinsic plausibility the two forms of conceptualization may seem to the outside observer to offer little choice.
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A society’s stock of knowledge is structured in terms of what is generally relevant and what is relevant only to specific roles… the social distribution of knowledge entails a dichotomization in terms of general and role-specific relevance… because of the division of labor, role-specific knowledge will grow at a faster rate than generally relevant and accessible knowledge… The increasing number and complexity of [the resulting] sub universes [of specialized knowledge] make them increasingly inaccessible to outsiders.
p. 77
Specific procedures of universe-maintenance become necessary when the symbolic universe has become a problem. As long as this is not the case, the symbolic universe is self-maintaining, that is, self-legitimating by the sheer facticity of its objective existence in the society in question.
Modern science is an extreme step in this development, and in the secularization and sophistication of universe-maintenance.
