Against spirituality

Comment published on New York Times blog in response to op-ed essay by Times columnist David Brooks, “The Age of Aquarius, all over again,” June 10, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/10/opinion/astrology-occult-millennials.html#commentsContainer&permid=100886096:100886096:

Another form of liberal nonsense conservatives can enjoy denouncing, as they use scorn in place of argument. But the "spirituality" that is invoked has long been popular in marking what a business society excludes.

Biblically, magic was forbidden along with paganism. It was an effort to manage the natural forces that people seemed ruled by. Magic is everywhere today, in notions culled from a grab bag of religious sources, including Jewish Kabbalism, and hip psychologies, like Jung's. Common are authoritative declarations like that there are X forms of the Y aspects of the Z main things. These express a desperation to "know" the "truth" of "reality." Some call it a game, but still use it to "know" their destiny.

At the source of much of this is American "spirituality" of all kinds, which has flourished in tacit correspondence to medical health practices. Knowledge by authority is a common element, as is the broad desire for the transcendence of something other than this life in all its prosaic realism. Psych patients are told that they should have "a spirituality"; it matters not which you choose. We fetishize health, link it and happiness, and make the latter a norm.

Traditional religion is one alternative, but so are art, politics, and maybe love, not to be confused with "relationships." Spirituality is both comically empty in most cases and a desperate attempt at self-management. That is what most needs to be questioned.