NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote
According to Max Weber, religion emerges to satisfy a social need. "In treating suffering as a symptom of odiousness in the eyes of gods and as a sign of secret guilt, religion has psychologically met a very general need (Weber 271). Rastafarianism emerges in the slums of Kingston, Jamaica in the 1930 's to meet the needs of the poor, unskilled black Jamaicans who needed a hope. The social situation which was emerging in the 1930 's which called for this need was as follows. Jamaica was a commonwealth of the British Empire. It had recently, around 1884, received a write in clause to their constitution which stipulated if the new government did not succeed and the economic life of Jamaica were to suffer because of it, the political constitution would be amended or abolished to meet new conditions.
Black Jamaicans had a taste for power in their mouths and in 1938, this erupted in labor riots and violence. This act did nothing for their cause. It would still be 30 years until Jamaica received its independence. Blacks in Jamaica were the victims of social stratification which left them at the bottom rung of the ladder. They had menial jobs such as field worker or an attendant at the sugar plant, if they had jobs at all. The blacks were suffering as a people and as an organized group.
Ethopianism had been introduced to Jamaica in 1784 by George Like, by adding it to the name of his Baptist church, hoping to graft itself onto the African religion of Jamaican slaves. But the movement to embody the Ethiopian ideology par excellence was the Back to Africa movement of Marcus Garvey (Barret 76). He saw African civilization as anterior to all others and used bible verses which were easily interpretable to portray Africans as the chosen people mentioned in the bible, as in Psalm 68: "Princes shall come out if Egypt and Ethiopia shall stretch forth his hands onto God" (Barret 78). Garvey's persistence culminated in the crowning of Ras Tafari as Negus of Ethiopia. He took the name Haile Selassie and added "King of Kings" and the "Lion in the Tribe of Judah", placing himself in the legendary line of King Soloman, and therefore, in the same line as Jesus Christ of Roman Catholicism.
Out of this came Rastafarianism which took over Jamaica at a time when it was "in a low tide economically and socially. Socially, people experienced the brunt of the Depression as well as disaster due to a devastating hurricane. Politically, colonialism gripped the country and the future of the masses looked hopeless. Any doctrine which that promised a better hope and a better day was ripe for hearing" (Barret 84). Weber analyzed conditions such as these as a theodicy of suffering. "One can explain suffering and injustice by referring to individual sin committed in former life, to the guilt of ancestors...
to the wickedness of all people. As compensatory promised one can refer to hopes of the individual for a better life in the future of this world or to the for the successors, or to a better life in the hereafter" (Weber 275). In other words, those who are disadvantaged in a situation (the poor, hopeless, black Jamaicans) will be rewarded. "The poor people have a decided advantage in the Rastas' view, since they are forced to look into themselves and confront the basic reality of human existence - and only there can God be found" (Owens 173) Their negative situation will be turned into a positive one (trans valuation) because they are the truly righteous, or so they believed. Rastafarianism was more than a religion to the people of Jamaica, it was a hope. It was their escape from the the rational everyday world. This theodicy of suffering, in which the underprivileged and underrepresented Jamaicans believed, was compensation for the deplorable state in which they found themselves.
The Rastafarian way of living and their everyday activities began as a deviant social behavior, but rather was a routinization of the masses into one cohesive unit, following the same general creed under different principles. This point can be seen most specifically in the modern Rastafarian hairstyles. In "traditional Rastafarianism" most Rastas do not cut their hair but allow it to grow naturally long matted strands or locks. These locks are in accordance with the Leviticus 21: 5: They shall not make baldness upon their head (Johnson-Hill 25). But in today's Rastafarianism, their are men who will not grow facial hair or locks in accordance to their position in the work place and in society, but still believe in the faith of and consider themselves a part of the Rastafarian religion. This process of electing points on a subject in which a followers ideas converge with is called elective affinity, as coined by Max Weber.
This elective affinity concerning Rastafarianism was spurred by charismatic prophets of the belief system such as Marcus Garvey, Haile Selassie, and Samuel Brown. All of these men preached to the negatively privileged strata which existed in the Jamaican slums and the impoverished Jamaican parishes. The underprivileged strata became a status group in a sociological point of view when they selected Rastafarianism and Haile Selassie as their god. This annunciation and promise led these impoverished blacks into a status group known as Rastafarians. This elective affinity between underprivileged Jamaicans and Rastafarians was seen most directly in a change in diet to follow "Kosher" food laws, a change in hair style, the use of a different language, and a the use of a holy weed; ganja. These highly visible symbols served as a solidification of a person's elective affinity and a public statement of their beliefs.
To become a member of the Rastafarian status group was to embrace the lifestyle and the conceptual living of a personal relationship with nature, in a pure organic way (Johnson-Hill 25). The Rastafarian lifestyle, at its early core, was based upon responses to social actions cast forth by the Jamaican bureaucracy. These actions exist on the guise of a messianic hope which is "generally known as Ethiopia or Africa" (Barret 117). The first reaction is aggression, which was exemplified by the social struggles for equality or even acknowledgment by the economically challenged island residents. The second reaction is acceptance. This ambivalence toward the situation is more of a standstill than anything else.
The act of accepting one's own unfortunate situation negates the aggression and action of the previous step. This is where the Messianic values began to seep into the Rastafarian watershed. "With these people and this clear-cut fashion only among them and under other very particular conditions, the suffering of a people's community, rather than the suffering of the individual, became the object of hope for religious salvation" (Weber 273). Rastafarian men and women began to forget their own individual struggles and rely on the preaching from Haile Selassie to comfort them as a group. Individuality is looked down upon in the Rastafarian religion. The status group or strata will suffer as a whole, not as individual pieces of a puzzle. "Every Rastafarian considers himself an authoritative spokesman for Selassie. It is consequently unthinkable that one of the brethren should assume special prerogatives in speaking for the Emperor" (Owens 43).
The third and final response to social action by Rastafarians is avoidance. This act is predominated by the view that Jamaica is Babylon and Ethiopia is Zion. This metaphor implying hopelessness in Jamaica acts very much, in Marxian terminology, as an opiate. This outlook on everyday life does not produce action, rather it reduces it. Another example of this can be seen economically. "The Rastafarians generally represent the lowest segment of the Jamaican social class... This level of Jamaican society represents the largest body on unemployed and underemployed and the greatest number of unemployable's... " (Barret 115).
This fact is well known among the Rastafarians and it is partially why many are in the religion, acceptance into a social class which is higher than their own. They have mostly given up on employment besides that of home produced items which are pawned to tourists or others within the Rastafarian movement. Their is no motivation to produce economically because most of the industry within Jamaica during the early Rastafarian period was controlled by the British land owners. Working for these British men would have been a direct violation of their religious creed; "The white person is inferior to the black person" (Barret 104) and "The Black person is the reincarnation of ancient Israel, who, at the hand of the White person, has been in exile to Jamaica" (Barret 104). This ties into Weber's Theodicy of Suffering because to suffer economically is to suffer through all aspects of one's life. But, many times, as previously illustrated, an ambivalence to end suffering leave's one still in the same peculiar situation.
Without a motive to change, there is not change in a culture's motives. So, the early Rastafarian's suffered not from a theodicy of suffering which was merely and only forced upon them by the white Jamaican bureaucracy; but rather a self- imposed and self-induced level of their suffering. This way of viewing Rastafarian all changed as time passed. Social strata are decisive for the development of a religion (Weber 282) and as the social strata which embodies this religion began to change, the religion changed proportionately with it. This can be seen in contrasting the previous three social reactions just stated: aggression, acceptance and avoidance.
As the general body of Rastafarianism began to grow old and pass away, so did many of their ideas and rationality's concerning the religion in which they were a part. These views were handed down to the new, younger members of the Rastafarian religion and updated substantially to concur with the new time period and the new state of Rastafarians in Jamaica. Largely, there is no need for one to use aggression to prove equality in Jamaica. The modern Rastafarian, rather is a symbol of the Jamaican lifestyle and one can almost mistakenly assume all Jamaicans embody the Rastafarian way of thinking and lifestyle. The newly independent Jamaica uses aspects of the traditional Rastafarian to promote its tourism industry: such as the reggae music which originally symbolized the suffering of black Jamaicans, the dread locks which represented the I-tal way of organic living and the artifacts and cultural productions of such Rastafarian artisans.
Rastafarians no longer accept their status as a constant; an unchanging fact which merely misrepresents them in popular culture. They have began to work on their economic status within the Jamaican community. ."..
Free research essays on topics related to: social strata, social class, max weber, marcus garvey, haile selassie
Research essay sample on Haile Selassie Marcus Garvey
