Sociology of the Secret Missionaries

   This essay analyses the sociological theories in the Secret Missionaries. If you haven't read it, I would recommend that you did before reading this post. You can easily find it on the archive on the date of the 6th of April 2020. Enjoy.

   The church of Minaura feeds to its followers the divine order of God, represented by the magical tree above the organ. Gramsci argues that religion is used by the powerful to impose a hegemony, that is, a view on how society should be run and how things in general should be. It is thus that Norbert's friends initially try to persuade him into accepting that that is the order God decided for them and shouldn't be changed because 'He knows best'. Gramsci says that a hegemony is a form of ideological control that moulds people's behaviour in such way that cohesion, the use of force, is not necessary to maintain the power relations as they are. Moreover, Althusser argues that religious belief can act as an ideological state apparatus (ISA): it is an institution that justifies the existence of inequality: Marx called it the divine right of the King. Similarly to Gramsci, Althusser believes that ISA replaces repressive state apparatus (RSA), the use of the police or military forces, to maintain the status quo. In the narrative, when ideological control fails and Norbert and Bertrand are caught countering the Church, Lord Jeremy uses cohesion in the form of corporal punishment: this works as a deterrent which acts as boundary maintenance. Boundary maintenance is the process by which the norms and the values of a society are reminded to its members so that their culture can prevail. For functionalists such as Durkheim this is a positive thing because it allows us to function effectively in cooperation, which we'd struggle to do if we had distinct norms and beliefs; on the other hand, Marxists believe this is negative because it perpetuates class inequality and exploitation. Boundary maintenance is also seen in the divine tree and in the paintings of the crucified heretics at the base of the side walls of the church. Thus, the church of Minaura uses ideology to make people accept the feudal structure where land owners exploit labourers 'from dawn to dusk', by justifying it as the will of God, and if anyone should deviate from this schema, they have available the use of deterrent punishment to maintain boundaries.

   Althusser argues that, despite this, ideas have relative autonomy, meaning they are not completely conditioned by institutions. A real life example are Willis's Lads, a group of working class boys who rejected school's norms and values and had created their own anti-school subculture, which included active challenge of authority. In the Secret Missionaries, Norbert and his fellows are able to discern from the Church's hegemony and visualise their own God. This is what Ernst Bloch calls the principle of hope: religion provides with a view of a better world, and it is this faith that allows us to challenge oppression. Gramsci puts it in this way: the oppressed can create a counter-hegemony that is inspired by their belief that God really wants them to be in good conditions, in the way that Norbert persuaded his friends that all that was not the true kingdom of God. A real life example are the Cargo Cults, which were cults in the colonised island of Milenesia who believed that the Europeans were unjustly taking for themselves all the material goods (cargo) that arrived, which had been sent by God and was aimed at them, the natives, and that consequently their power had to be challenged. Engels believed that this was the first example of the working-class acquiring class consciousness. Thus, although religion generally works for the ruling-class, it can also be an inspiration of hope to battle oppression; as Engels puts it, religion has a dual character.

   [In this essay, it must be remembered that Marxists focus on a capitalist society, whereas the one of Minaura is a feudal one. For this, I have tried to avoid using terms such as bourgeoisie or proletariat, as these are specifically parts of capitalist dynamics.]