Imagining Secularisation and Modernity: some reflections on Charles Taylor's A Secular Age
Wednesday 20 March 2024
This event is part of the Sea of Faith - 'In Conversation' series
- Start Date:
- Wednesday 20th March 2024
- Start Time:
- 7:00PM
- Location:
- Zoom
- Contact:
- Marianne Mead
- Email:
- inconversation@sofn.uk
- Speakers:
- John Holroyd
- Host:
- Sea of Faith
- Cost:
- Free
In his book A
Secular Age Charles Taylor paints an unsettling picture of our times. The self,
he claims, has been disembedded from community and the attention of individuals
has come to focus on personalised goals and material acquisitions. Taylor is
clearly persuaded, in part at least, by Nietzsche's view that 'the last of men
live just for a pitiable comfort'. In the West we celebrate the hard fought
victories that have given rise to individual freedom, and yet, Taylor also
wants to suggest, we are simultaneously prey to consumerism and prone to lose
our liberties as our desires are nudged around by market forces. By leading us
away from the provisions and associations of community our individualistic
culture has exposed us to the prospect of being primarily buyers and sellers;
cogs in the mechanisms of the market.
In this talk, I will try and clarify the 'problem situation'
that Taylor seeks to hold up to us as a mirror of much Western society. I will
ask us to consider how accurate Taylor's unsettling images are. I shall also
examine what I believe to be the dangers of 'oven ready' religious solutions to
the problems he outlines, and make some comments of my own about the
interrelated character of spirituality and secularity.