>Doug Henwood:
>
>>So why is the US an outlier on religion, compared to other rich countries?
>---------------------------
>Good question, lots of theories, none of them very satisfying, including
>what seems to the most currently fashionable - a "market-based" explanation
>which seeks the answer in the lack of an established church and an abundant
>supply of competitive denominational sects agressively seeking adherents.
>
>The US is also an "outlier" in politics - no mass socialist tradition to
>speak of. Maybe there's a relationship between the two - individualistic
>Americans have evidently channeled their suppressed collective human
>striving for community and salvation into religious rather than political
>institutions. Americans more alienated because of a more demanding form of
>capitalism, and religion - especially the messianic type -always a major
>comfort for alienated souls?
Yeah, I think it's something like that - a really nasty feedback loop of bad politics, alienation, religion/individualism, leading to more of the same. But some would say I'm being elitist or insensitive by pointing to this.
Doug