19AR24-31

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AR 24:31 - The new religion of Seculosity (and how it's defended)

In this issue:

SOCIAL MORALITY - how to neutralize opposition the politically correct way

Apologia Report 24:31 (1,439)

August 1, 2019

SOCIAL MORALITY

Seculosity, by David Zahl ("a staff member of" Christ Episcopal Church in Charlottesville, Virginia) [1] -- Fortress Press says their book reveals "a universal yearning [that] religions call 'righteous.' To fill the void left by religion, we look to all sorts of everyday activities - from eating and parenting to dating and voting - for the identity, purpose, and meaning once provided on Sunday morning.

"In our striving, we are chasing a sense of enoughness. But it remains ever out of reach, and the effort and anxiety are burning us out. Seculosity takes a thoughtful yet entertaining tour of American 'performancism' and its cousins ... while challenging the conventional narrative of religious decline. ... Ultimately [Zahl] brings us to a fresh appreciation for the grace of God in all its countercultural wonder."

Another promo describes it as examining "how secular activities in modern culture are failed attempts to search for the identity and meaning in life provided by traditional Christian religions [sic] and how a recognition and acceptance of God's grace can lead to spiritual fulfillment."

Aysha Khan's interview (Religious News Service, Jul 17 '19) explains that "Zahl is [also] the founder of the popular nondenominational Christian Mockingbird Ministries project <mbird.com>, which formed 12 years ago to reach out to young adults who felt they had been 'burned' by the church." His book "suggests that American culture is not actually becoming more secular at all.

"'It's simply becoming more religious about more things, with people increasingly attaching their natural yearning to feel like enough to more and more things.

"'If you want to understand what makes someone tick, or why they're behaving the way they are, trace the righteousness in play, and things will likely become clear,' he writes."

Zahl helpfully explains that "seculosity" is "a mashup of secular and religiosity. It really refers to what I call religious devotion or religious feeling or even the impulse when it's directed at earthly rather than heavenly objects."

He offers a unique insight that caught our attention as Khan asks: "Do you see the proliferation of social media and technology as exacerbating seculosity? Perhaps in the ways people present certain kinds of images of themselves online?"

Zahl replies: "Absolutely" adding:

"But I don't think this tendency is something that's invented by social media or technology. Church people have always felt that there was a sort of Sunday face that you would put on where everyone was sort of shiny and happy sitting in church wearing nice clothes and got the sense that everything was going well. Then there was the rest of the week where you were just who you were. That phenomenon of like a 'Sunday face' versus the 'rest of the week face' — that's social media to me.

"It's the gap between who you should be and who you actually are, which creates a lot of dissonance and ... anxiety but also loneliness. ...

"One of the things I wanted to do in the book was ... to point to whatever it is, wherever it is, a person finds some form of grace - that can be in the form of forgiveness, mercy, love in the midst of deserving something else." <www.bit.ly/2Ojeai6>

All the above reminds us of Jonathan Haidt's <www.bit.ly/2LKF3cF> appearance on the Waking Up with Sam Harris podcast of March 15, 2016 <www.bit.ly/2ydsQ7J> in which Haidt analyzes "runaway political correctness and social justice religion on campus."

A similar theme often comes up in the work of Tim Pool <www.bit.ly/2SOgiwX> an unassuming, very impressive centrist YouTube pundit whose relentless criticism of the Left is frequently spot-on.

The implications grow more alarming in "Neutralizing Ngo: The Apologetics of Antifascist Street Violence" by Ernest Nickels (Quillette, Jul 11 '19) -- a report on 21st-century Brownshirt activism <www.washex.am/2Olp6f7> in our very midst. Nickels introduces us to Neutralization Theory - in which "acts that would violate accepted laws or norms, or otherwise contradict one's beliefs or self-image, carry the threat of guilt and shame. That threat can be neutralized, allowing for such violations to occur, using rationalizations that deny the disparity between one's values and actions. In a sense, these rationalizations are coping strategies for managing moral dissonance, quieting one's conscience in the pursuit or defense of expedience.

"Neutralization Theory was originally conceived as an explanation of juvenile delinquency by Gresham Sykes and David Matza. It has since been broadly expanded and applied to adult and white-collar crime, and to other acts of deviance and subcultural divergence. It has been used to examine honor crimes as well as the coping strategies of domestic violence victims, the denial of elderly abuse by both victims and abusers, the perpetration of right-wing violence and online ideological extremism, and even genocide and intergenerational war guilt.

"Neutralization Theory 'transcends the realm of criminology… [with] 'universal applicability,' as it can be applied to any situation where there are inconsistencies between one's actions and beliefs,' whether individually or collectively. And so, while it has not yet been formally applied to the kind of context examined here (i.e., apologetic framings of leftist political street violence), the sheer breadth of the literature seems to suggest a cursory exploration in that direction may be warranted and fruitful. ...

Nickels identifies "gaps - between behavior and value; image and reality - where techniques of neutralization can be expected to appear" and applies them to the Antifa "masked mob [that] publicly beat and robbed a gay, Asian journalist [Andy Ngo, an editor <www.bit.ly/2LQvjxJ> for Quillette] who offered no resistance."

"Neutralizations function to loosen the normative constraints of conventional society, to allow one to drift into deviant modes of action and ideation. ...

"'Political language,' Orwell observed, 'is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.' Neutralizing techniques are illustrative of this tendency." <www.bit.ly/2YpTF7b> (Reader beware: If foul language derails your study, better to steer clear.)

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SOURCES: Monographs

1 - Seculosity: How Career, Parenting, Technology, Food, Politics, and Romance Became Our New Religion and What to Do About It, by David Zahl (Fortress, 2019, hardcover: 250 pages) <www.amzn.to/310EsaA>

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