Chapter 11 reconstructs Hegel's conception of objective spirit, which specifies the kind of being, or reality, characteristic of the social world and distinguishes it from other domains of reality, such as nature and subjective spirit (or mind). It begins by examining what objective spirit means for Vincent Descombes and, to a lesser extent, for Durkheim and John Searle. Four claims associated with Hegel's account of objective spirit are distinguished and defended: 1) there is a form of mindedness that exists outside the consciousness of individual social members; 2) externally existing mind, embodied in social institutions, is metaphysically prior to the minds of the individuals who live within those institutions; 3) social reality depends on a collective acceptance of its institutions' normative rules; and 4) such rules constrain what social members do but also expand their practical possibilities and hence enrich their agency

Chapter 12 applies what we have learned from prehistory to explain why religions exist and how they emerged and persisted into the present day even while their precepts are clearly contrary to all that we have learned from science. Looking at the present human challenges of warfare and terrorism from an evolutionary standpoint helps readers to better understand and deal with the problems of our modern globalized world.

The Elmhirsts emerged from the First World War feeling that orthodox Christianity was no longer adequate as a guide either to belief or to conduct. Like others of their era, they looked for new forms of spiritual meaning, a new guide to moral behaviour, new sources of affective or social fulfilment and different frameworks for understanding the nature of society as a whole. Collectively, this chapter terms these searches ‘socio-spiritual questing’. It considers four approaches taken at Dartington to filling the gap left by Christianity. The Elmhirsts tried re-shaping the Church with the help of the arts, explored the possibilities of Eastern spirituality, worked to advance humankind’s unity through group spiritual exploration and experimented with a planned regime of ‘psycho-physical hygiene’. Interwar socio-spiritual questing was so wide-ranging and amorphous that it defies comprehensive survey. Dartington Hall provides an alternative way of drawing together its various strands: an unusual convergence in a diffuse landscape of seeking.

In this chapter on strain theory, the influence of positivism continues to be present; however, the focus changes from the level of the community to the broader influence of society and culture on regulation, socialisation and consequences of behaviour. Strain theory proposes that individuals are not solely responsible for their deviant and criminal behaviours; rather their actions are normal responses or adaptations to pressures generated by society’s structure and culture. This chapter will discuss the trajectory of ‘strain’ theory from Emile Durkheim’s concept of ‘anomie’ through to Robert Merton’s ‘structural strain theory’ and Robert Agnew’s ‘general strain theory’. A number of deviant and criminal behaviours will also be discussed to consider how ‘strain’ theories address the interplay between social structures, cultural context and individual responses. First though, Durkheim’s most significant contribution to the discipline of sociology, ‘social facts,’ will be explored. This represented a new approach to understanding the social world, informing Durkheim’s seminal work on anomie and the collective consciousness and later influencing the development of strain theory.