Unmasking and disclosure as sociological practices

Contrasting modes for understanding religious and other beliefs

Bibliographic Data

ID12642884
AuthorsPeter Baehr (0000-0001-7921-7162, Lingnan University, corresponding author), Daniel Gordon (0000-0001-8515-0523, University of Massachusetts Amherst)
Year2012
Volume48
Issue4
Pages380-396
Publication date2012-11-05
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1440-7833 • E-ISSN: 1741-2978
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1440783312458225
OpenAlexW1984056642
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited20

Unmasking is a recurrent feature of modern sociology and cultural criticism. While false consciousness is imputed by intellectuals to religious groups and to certain social classes, unmasking is, or claims to be, a corrective performed by intellectuals themselves. Unmasking supposes that enlightened enquirers are able to help the less rational to understand their real interests; a type of exposure, it offers a cognitive tool of emancipation. This article (a) examines unmasking; and (b) contrasts it with an approach to understanding that we call disclosure. Our claim is that disclosure is more attuned to the full keyboard of social action, and less demeaning of its players, than unmasking is. Disclosure attempts to grasp what actions are like for those who enact them. Nothing has been more often or consistently unmasked and with more venom than religion. It is the main example explored in this article

Action (physics · Consciousness · Criticism · Emancipation · Epistemology · Nothing · Politics · Sociology · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Critical Realism in Sociology · Law · Psychology · Social and Cultural Dynamics · Social Psychology