In The Homeless Mind, Peter Berger, Brigitte Berger and Hansfried Kellner present a novel interpretation of the reasons for the secularization of consciousness. Compared to industrial society, they argue that pre-industrial societies were more closely knit, more integrated. As a result people had a single ‘life world’, a single set of meanings, a single reality.
Family life, work, education and politics were closely integrated. They formed part of the same pattern. This pattern could be comprehended and made sense of in terms of a single universe of meaning. Typically religious beliefs formed the foundation of this universe of meaning. Modern industrial society is highly differentiated and segmented, and, as a result, members have a ‘plurality of life worlds’, several sets of meanings, and several realities.
There is the world of private life, the world of technological production, the world of bureaucracy, the world of education, the many worlds presented by the mass media. The individual participates in all these worlds, each of which has, to some extent, different meanings and values, a different reality. The individual has also a plurality of life worlds.