Luckmann is a neo-Durkheimian, that is, he too believes that modern societies maximize our sense of individuality.

Luckmann believes that these four things are culturally dominant in modern industrial cultures:

    1) individualization
    2) privatization
    3) autonomy
    4) inner-directedness

As a result, he believes that modern societies maximize our choices.

Choice is not simply utilitarian, of course -- we style our lives in ways that express our individuality.  Luckmann speaks of the individual as "the artist of lifestyle."

What about religion in this modern society, then?

In a famous phrase, he observes that to some extent at least "taste has been substituted for truth."

Institutionalized religion was once the moralist of our lives, our conscience; it used to define good and evil for us.

No longer, however, because religion can no longer evoke guilt -- we live in a pluralistic, relativized, and in some ways healthier age.  We live in an age where increasingly religion has become a matter of taste, another consumable in a consumer society.

Too, religion shows a new, sharper emphasis upon the individual -- religion becomes less a corporate activity and more highly subjective and personal, a personal journey to the depths of spirit, an intense and personal relationship with God.