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...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Watts, Galen (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Carfax Publ. [2019]
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
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)
Description
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.
ISSN:1469-9419
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of contemporary religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/13537903.2019.1585102