spheres of influence

Just something I wrote for a class. I wanted to preserve it here.

There are various parts of life that have the potential to be centers of authority and organizing principles for living. These various parts each have their own sets of rules. In former times, these various parts of life had to contend with one another. Religion had to contend with politics which had to contend with family and extended family. School had to contend with charity and morality and hobbies. These various spheres had to be aware of and work with or against others. One example is the way that many stores (business) interacted with religion by closing on Sundays.

Today, these various things seem to be almost isolated. Each sphere acts with autonomy as if the others didn’t exist. I think this is what Scharen means by Compartmentalization in Faith as a Way of Life. Today, many sports and stores no longer care if they are demanding Sunday morning time because they function in isolation from religion. There is thus, also as spreading effect. The interaction between spheres that used to exist in effect created some boundaries of influence. It was expected that schools and businesses wouldn’t function on Sunday mornings because this was the boundary where school met religion.

This reminds me some of spheres of influence. Whereas market principles used to only exert influence over the spheres of market exchange, those principles, devoid of the boundaries created by the interplay between spheres, has been claiming ground in other areas such as the way friendships function or how hospitals are run.

The conflict between the spheres, however, does not go away. The difference is, that instead of the spheres contending with one another and creating boundaries and spheres of influence, it is now up to each individual to contend with these spheres in each aspect of life. Now on Sunday mornings each family must decide if they will live into the sphere of children’s sports demands, the sphere of work demands, the sphere of religion and many many more. This ongoing struggle between spheres that are compartmentalized and not interacting is what I understand as fragmentation. Each aspect of our life is pulling us in various directions. Our lives are fragmented because we must choose between activities, priorities, and passions that constantly conflict. It is not only time constraints that cause this fragmentation. These various spheres demand from us different characteristics. We therefore are pulled to become different people with different priorities in different places. When people talk about wearing different hats I believe this is what they mean.