This book presents a philosophical rethinking of the meaning and nature of spiritual discipline. It offers a new way of describing and justifying practices like praying, meditating, fasting, and yoga, and it provides an innovative case for their contemporary importance. 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.

Spirituality, Diversion, and Decadence: The Contemporary Predicament (SUNY Series in Religious Studies)

Van Ness, Peter H.

Religion & Spirituality

SUNY Press

This book presents a philosophical rethinking of the meaning and nature of spiritual discipline. It offers a new way of describing and justifying practices like praying, meditating, fasting, and yoga, and it provides an innovative case for their contemporary importance. 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.

Spirituality, Diversion, and Decadence: The Contemporary Predicament (SUNY Series in Religious Studies) (Suny Series in Religion)

Religious Studies

State University of New York Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Van Ness, Peter H.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Van Ness, Peter H.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Van Ness, Peter H.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Spirituality, Diversion, and Decadence: The Contemporary Predicament (SUNY Series in Religious Studies)

Spirituality, Diversion, and Decadence: The Contemporary Predicament (SUNY Series in Religious Studies) (Suny Series in Religion)