RELIGIOUS MARGINALITYAS A FEAR OF FREEDOM IN THE CULTURE OF PROTESTANTISM
Abstract
The article focuses on marginality which stems from the fact that the individual goes through the previous socialization of preparation for membership in a positive reference group which is not inclined to accept it. The marginal state aims at multiple loyalties and double identification incomplete socialization and lack of social affiliation. First of all, religious marginality is a marginal status and the need to distinguish between a position in the social structure and a set of psychological traits that can develop in an individual who has this status and thus embodies the contradictions of the structure of society. It is noted that marginality as a phenomenon is a process that determines the historical and personal time which is constantly changing, turning itself into a new means of other possibilities. Moreover, these opportunities are pluralistic in nature due to the uncertainty of marginality in the world of consciousness – its stabilizing nature. This pluralism reveals the basic existential possibilities realizing which in the immediate existence of consciousness a person is able to navigate in life and determine their place in the social world. The marginal is given the opportunity to observe, realize and comprehend several wholes at the same time and it is not included in any of them completely. Such non-inclusion of the marginal in any one integrity makes its view as objective and abstract as possible in relation to the existing norms and standards of consciousness but also so unconscious because marginality is equal to spontaneity in the perception of reality. Such a person has the potential opportunity and through his means of existential difference to bring to the world innovative ideas that provoke phenomena that can radically change the established social, cultural and other realities.
A parallel is drawn between Protestantism and Christianity which is dominated not so much by fear of liberation (salvation), and as a result there are constant warnings about the improper use of marginal freedom found in Christ, there are no religious grounds for hostility to freedom as such. At the same time Protestantism is characterized by a desire to introduce opposition – freedom of external and internal, freedom of choice and marginal freedom in the Truth which means such a shift of emphasis which turns into a struggle with freedom as a dangerous permissiveness.
Marginal consciousness focused on the present is closed in ideas only about the existing social and understands freedom as something that is possible, realistic, and achievable within this social reality. This sets the boundaries for understanding mobile marginality: successful arbitrariness in achieving traditional benefits – health, longevity, happy family, wealth, power, career, etc. Freedom is further understood as the attainable state of the maximum possible and amenable to a formal description (such as «I will be free when I get rich or become a boss»). Freedom here is understood as conditionally external, fundamentally limited and is always achieved in portions, in parts – it is a certain quantitative process of accumulation (conditions, opportunities, increasing the scope of control). Freedom is always possible at the expense of others by reducing their capabilities and requires efforts to maintain vital resources as a basis for margins. Existential freedom is based only on the complete marginal sovereignty of self-consciousness. True marginal freedom is possible only in solitude, everything else means dependence.
