Spirituality, Diversion, and Decadence: The Contemporary Predicament (SUNY Series in Religious Studies) (Suny Series in Religion). Dieser Artikel ist nicht verfügbar.Spirituality, Diversion, and Decadence: The Contemporary Predicament (SUNY Series in Religious Studies) (Suny Series in Religion)

Spiritual discipline is especially effective at combatting Pascalian diversion, the pursuit of activities that occupy the mind just enough to avoid thinking about important things; and Nietzschean decadence, the proclivity for extirpating instinctive drives instead of satisfying or sublimating them. In addition to overcoming diversion and decadence in contemporary consumerist culture, VanNess recommends spiritual discipline as a means of political resistance to powerful institutions which seek to exercise social control in democratic societies by promulgating addictive patterns of consumption.

Finally, he argues that regimens of spiritual discipline can serve healthful and liberating purposes, and generally promote fullness of life, only insofar as they are shaped by an ethos of intellectual criticism and aesthetic experimentation.

Peter H. VanNess is Assistant Professor of Philosophy of Religion at Union Theological Siminary in New York City.