Pragmatic Constructions of History among Contemporary Freemasons
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jrff.v1i2.157Keywords:
symbolic, reconstruction, pragmatism, the past, contemporary freemasonsAbstract
Despite considerable interest in Freemasonry developing among historians in recent years, the social sciences have played a lesser part in the burgeoning academic interest in this area. In this paper, I seek, in one small way, to bring a sociological perspective to bear on Freemasonry. Specifically, by utilizing G.H. Mead's (1932) theory of the past as a sensitizing concept, and exploring data from 58 videotapes, 118 interviews, and field observations, I explore how contemporary Freemasons pragmatically reconstruct the past in the present, in a variety of ways, for present ends. This exercise helps shed new light on a wide range of issues facing the Craft today, including membership, Masonic constructions of self, loss of Masonic built heritage, the influence of tradition, constructions of Masonic origin, and the role of Masonic mythologies today.
References
Arcadia Entertainment/Vision TV, Inside Freemasonry, 2004.
Blumer, H. Symbolic Interactionism (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall, 1969).
Carr, E.H. What is History? (London: Penguin, 1990 [1961]).
Clawson, M.A. Constructing Brotherhood: Class, Gender and Fraternalism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989).
Fine, G.A. Difficult Reputations: Collective Memories of the Evil, Inept and Controversial (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2001).
Fine, G.A. and A. Beim, ‘Introduction: Interactionist Approaches to Collective Memory’, Symbolic Interaction 30.1 (2007), 1–5. doi:10.1525/si.2007.30.1.1
Hetherington, K. The Badlands of Modernity: Heterotopia and Social Order (London: Routledge, 1997). doi:10.4324/9780203428870
Hewitt, J.P. Self and Society: A Symbolic Interactionist Social Psychology (Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, 2007, 10th edn).
Joliocoeur, P.M., and L.L. Knowles, ‘Fraternal Associations and Civil Religion: Scottish Rite Freemasonry’, Review of Religious Research 20.1 (Fall 1978), 3–22. doi:10.2307/3509938
Knight, C., and R. Lomas, The Hiram Key: Pharoahs, Freemasons, and the Discovery of the Secret Rolls of Jesus (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1998).
Maines, D., N. Sugrue, and M. Katovich, ‘The Sociological Import of G.H. Mead’s Theory of the Past’, American Sociological Review 48 (1983), 161–73. doi:10.2307/2095102
Mead, G.H. The Philosophy of the Present (Chicago, IL: Open Court, 1932).
— Mind, Self, and Society (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1934).
Milligan, M.J. ‘Buildings as History: The Place of Collective Memory in the Study of Historic Preservation’, Symbolic Interaction 30.1 (2007), 105–23. doi:10.1525/si.2007.30.1.105
Moore, W.D. Masonic Temples: Freemasonry, Ritual Architecture, and Masculine Archetypes (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 2006).
Stevenson, D. The Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland’s Second Century 1590–1710 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).