"Sociology's "One Law
Moral Statistics, Modernity, Religion, and German Nationalism in the Suicide Studies of Adolf Wagner and Alexander von Oettingen
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7102556 |
|---|---|
| Authors | David J Lederer (0000-0001-5258-0228, corresponding author), D Lederer |
| Year | 2013 |
| Volume | 46 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 684-699 |
| Publication date | 2013-01-30 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Social History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-4529 • E-ISSN: 1527-1897 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/jsh/shs128 |
| OpenAlex | W2119113030 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
| References cited | 12 |
From the onset, moral statistics were influenced by religious discourse. During the nineteenth century, Adolf Wagner discovered the “One Law” of sociology: Protestants always kill themselves more often than Catholics. Deployed by his colleague, the Baltic nationalist theologian Alexander von Oettingen, it became a moral-statistical plank in the modernity thesis and supported a Prussian master narrative of history. Accordingly, it justified the unification of Germany according to the small German model of a Kulturnation excluding Catholic Austria. This interpretation, in turn, influenced subsequent generations of German sociologists, who described modernity in idealist and spiritual terms. In this, they differed from the more mechanistic and materialist theories of French sociologists, in particular Émile Durkheim
Epistemology · German · Historical sociology · Interpretation (philosophy · Modernity · Narrative · Nationalism · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Cross-Cultural and Social Analysis · German Social Sciences and History · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies
The Politics of Large Numbers
The Taming of Chance
Rehearsal for Destruction
Vom Recht auf den eigenen Tod
Religion, Deviance, and Social Control
Low Morals at a High Latitude? Suicide in Nineteenth-century Scandinavia
Mapping Civilization
The Fatal Tendency of Civilized Society
Adolf Wagner
Adolf Wagner and German Industrial Development
Sociology's One Law
| Unique citing works | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,54 |
| Citation span | 2013 - 2022 (10) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 7 |