Il Mulino - Rivisteweb

In its hermeneutically rich reconstructions of “Axial Age” breakthroughs in the world’sgreat religions, RHE provides an all-important historical explanation for the autonomy of cul-ture vis-à-vis social structure in the present day. Powerfully documenting “Eastern” as well as“Western” Axial breakthroughs, RHE goes beyond the Orientalism that distorted Weber’s ownhistorical and comparative sociology of religion, which restricted such breakthroughs to theJudeo-Christian tradition and its offshoots. Because RHE is a progressive narrative about thecreation of new capacities, it cannot systematically address the dark side of post-Axial societies.RHE advances two possible lines of explanation. One is that earlier, Archaic modes of subordi-nation and domination have continued to stick; the other is that there are contradictions insideAxial transcendence itself. Is it possible that Axiality facilitates reification and othering? If so,what cultural and institutional resources might serve as antidotes?