Spiritual Atheism
This week a friend of mine told me that she follows the teachings of an Indian guru and that she hadn’t come across many people who shared her spirituality.
Do you call yourself spiritual? Lots of people tell me they are, but everyone seems to mean something different when they use the word.
In Selling Spirituality (Carrette and King), they say there is a modern kind of spirituality which is all about keeping people focused on themselves, staying stress-free and committed to the company. (Why do thousands of office workers do yoga in their lunch break? Because it calms them down so they can get back to work.)
It’s a bit heady, but it’s a stunning read. See what you think:
“Since the Enlightenment and the birth of modern political liberalism, we have seen the privatisation of religion. This combined with the emergence of a modern capitalist system has allowed the contemporary notion of consumer-oriented and individualised spiritualities to emerge[...] We are now seeing the corporatisation of spirituality, that is the tailoring of those individualised spiritualities to fit the needs of corporate business culture in its demand for an efficient, productive and pacified workforce.”
Thus…
“The ‘spiritual’ becomes instrumental to the market rather than oriented towards a wider social and ethical framework, and its primary function becomes the perpetuation of the consumerist status quo rather than a critical reflection upon it.”
So…
“The secularist critique of religion, most famously represented by Marx’s claim that religion is the opiate of the masses, now needs to be applied to the ideological institutions and practices of corporate capitalism itself.”
There’s a lot in there.
They reckon that if your ‘spirituality’ doesn’t get you out changing the world and helping to fix things up, then it’s probably just a kind of sedative; a bit like putting your hand in the fire and then chewing on painkillers. They reckon there’s a reason you don’t like your job and they say it’s spiritual.
An unusual conclusion for such an academic read.
It got me thinking, anyway.
Daniel
PS: The album comes out soon.
Very nice Mr Townsend.
I think you should review each book you read here.
Here’s my question: how do so many Christians in the West spend so much energy keeping this painkiller spirituality going, and not see how radical Jesus was and question why his modern day followers aren’t as radical?
My feeling is most people can’t be stuffed. We realise Jesus was radical, but have found in our own lives that being radical hurts, so we settle for comfortable, uncontroversial and laughingly dismiss the hard questions & paradoxes.
So we look to religion to address our sense of meaninglessness, and leave the hard bits on the table.