Recovering enchantment: addiction, spirituality, and Charles Taylor's malaise of modernity
This article illuminates the nature of 'spirituality' as it relates to addiction in modernity. It does so by using philosopher Charles Taylor's conception of the malaise of modernity and the meta-narrative he presents in A Secular Age as theoretical starting points. It then draws from...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Carfax Publ.
[2019]
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| In: |
Journal of contemporary religion
Year: 2019, Volume: 34, Issue: 1, Pages: 39-56 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Taylor, Charles 1931-, A secular age
/ Spirituality
/ Fascination
/ Addiction
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| IxTheo Classification: | AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism AE Psychology of religion AG Religious life; material religion |
| Further subjects: | B
Charles Taylor
B Spirituality B Addiction B Modernity B Disenchantment |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Resolving-System) |
| Summary: | This article illuminates the nature of 'spirituality' as it relates to addiction in modernity. It does so by using philosopher Charles Taylor's conception of the malaise of modernity and the meta-narrative he presents in A Secular Age as theoretical starting points. It then draws from qualitative data collected through semi-structured interviews and ongoing ethnographic fieldwork conducted with Canadian millennials who self-identify as 'spiritual but not religious'. The young people's experiences of addiction provide insight into the trappings of free-market capitalist modernity and its inability to provide an overarching source of meaning to their lives. Addiction becomes the means by which these individuals experience the malaise of modernity, which in turn leads them to seek an alternative understanding of the good life-a process they equate with 'spirituality'. Therefore, an interest in 'spirituality' ought to be understood as a personalized attempt to re-enchant what is experienced as a disenchanted world. |
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| ISSN: | 1469-9419 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of contemporary religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/13537903.2019.1585102 |