RT Article
T1 The Crisis of Western Culture and Secularism
JF Verbum vitae
VO 42
IS 2
SP 377
OP 400
A1 Perszon, Jan 1958-
LA English
YR 2024
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1892775050
AB The subject of this article is the crisis of Western culture (Christianity) in terms of its sources and consequences. The author attempts to present the diagnosis of European culture by John Paul II and Benedict XVI. They associate its crisis with the internal weakness of Christianity (the Catholic religion) and the influence of philosophical trends and ideologies with the purpose of creating a "new culture" on the ruins of the old one. Postmodern thought, which not only breaks with the rationalism of the Enlightenment but questions (in the name of individual freedom) the truth and the ability to get to know it, plays a special role in this respect. The anti-Christian narrative adopted by intellectual elites in the West, which in some manifestations becomes an ideology of secularism, is thus a consequence of philosophical assumptions. The author suggests that the popularisation of a model of life according to the principle "as if God did not exist," i.e. the acceleration of de-Christianisation processes (e.g. in Poland) is significantly related to the development of the so-called new media, especially in the form of virtual reality.
DO 10.31743/vv.17061