THE SOCIAL LOCATION OF IDEAS.

Christian Socialism is a concept which involves the amalgamation of ideas which are frequently considered to be contradictory and are not normally assumed to imply one another. In the mid-nineteenth century, the suggestion that Christianity and socialism might be reconcilable or even necessarily connected was far more unacceptable than it is today; the emergence of a group claiming to be not only both Christian and socialist but Christian Socialist was thus more anomalous. The existence of Christian Socialism between 1848 and 1854 therefore invites explanation, as does the disbanding of the movement so soon after its inception. Intuitively, the 'failure' of the movement may be felt to be natural and not surprising; this does not, however, mean that explanation is superfluous, for intuition may be ill-founded, and even if it is not, the assumptions about social processes which underly such judgements may fruitfully be exposed and perhaps evaluated.
The theme of this paper is that both the emergence and submerging of Christian Socialism at this time may be understood in terms of the social roots of the ideas involved in such a synthesis, and that such roots are crucial to any changes which may occur in the social distribution of ideas. Mannheim claims that ideas axe always rooted in social groups and amalgamate when the carrying groups merge;[1] the implication is that when such amalgamation of groups does not occur, syntheses of their ideas are unlikely to find a receptive audience. Berger suggests that the links between ideas and the social processes in which they are rooted may be extrinsic or intrinsic, that is, they may be contingent or necessary; some 'packages' of ideas, processes and groups may be more easily untied than others.[2]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]