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Religious Zeal, Affective Fragility, and the Tragedy of Human Existence
Today, in a Western secular context, the affective phenomenon of religious zeal is often associated, or even identified, with religious intolerance, violence, and fanaticism. Even if the zealots’ devotion remains restricted to their private lives, “we” as Western secularists still suspect them of a...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Springer Netherlands
2021
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10063461/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37013161 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10746-021-09575-6 |
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author | Tietjen, Ruth Rebecca |
author_facet | Tietjen, Ruth Rebecca |
author_sort | Tietjen, Ruth Rebecca |
collection | PubMed |
description | Today, in a Western secular context, the affective phenomenon of religious zeal is often associated, or even identified, with religious intolerance, violence, and fanaticism. Even if the zealots’ devotion remains restricted to their private lives, “we” as Western secularists still suspect them of a lack of reason, rationality, and autonomy. However, closer consideration reveals that religious zeal is an ethically and politically ambiguous phenomenon. In this article, I explore the question of how this ambiguity can be explained. I do so by drawing on Paul Ricœur’s theory of affective fragility and tracing back the ambiguity of religious zeal to a dialectic inherent to human affectivity and existence itself. According to Ricœur, human affectivity is constituted by the two poles of vital and spiritual desires which are mediated by the thymos. As I show, this theory helps us to understand that religious zeal as a spiritual desire is neither plainly good nor plainly bad, but ambiguous. Moreover, it enables us to acknowledge the entanglement of abstraction and concretion that is inherent to the phenomenon of religious zeal. Finally, this theory helps us to understand why religious zeal, as one possible expression of the human quest for the infinite, is both a promise and a threat. In conclusion, human existence is tragic not in that we necessarily fail, but in that no matter which path we take with regard to our spiritual desires—that of affirmation, rejection, or moderation—we are and remain fallible. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10063461 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Springer Netherlands |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-100634612023-04-01 Religious Zeal, Affective Fragility, and the Tragedy of Human Existence Tietjen, Ruth Rebecca Hum Stud Theoretical / Philosophical Paper Today, in a Western secular context, the affective phenomenon of religious zeal is often associated, or even identified, with religious intolerance, violence, and fanaticism. Even if the zealots’ devotion remains restricted to their private lives, “we” as Western secularists still suspect them of a lack of reason, rationality, and autonomy. However, closer consideration reveals that religious zeal is an ethically and politically ambiguous phenomenon. In this article, I explore the question of how this ambiguity can be explained. I do so by drawing on Paul Ricœur’s theory of affective fragility and tracing back the ambiguity of religious zeal to a dialectic inherent to human affectivity and existence itself. According to Ricœur, human affectivity is constituted by the two poles of vital and spiritual desires which are mediated by the thymos. As I show, this theory helps us to understand that religious zeal as a spiritual desire is neither plainly good nor plainly bad, but ambiguous. Moreover, it enables us to acknowledge the entanglement of abstraction and concretion that is inherent to the phenomenon of religious zeal. Finally, this theory helps us to understand why religious zeal, as one possible expression of the human quest for the infinite, is both a promise and a threat. In conclusion, human existence is tragic not in that we necessarily fail, but in that no matter which path we take with regard to our spiritual desires—that of affirmation, rejection, or moderation—we are and remain fallible. Springer Netherlands 2021-03-30 2023 /pmc/articles/PMC10063461/ /pubmed/37013161 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10746-021-09575-6 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Theoretical / Philosophical Paper Tietjen, Ruth Rebecca Religious Zeal, Affective Fragility, and the Tragedy of Human Existence |
title | Religious Zeal, Affective Fragility, and the Tragedy of Human Existence |
title_full | Religious Zeal, Affective Fragility, and the Tragedy of Human Existence |
title_fullStr | Religious Zeal, Affective Fragility, and the Tragedy of Human Existence |
title_full_unstemmed | Religious Zeal, Affective Fragility, and the Tragedy of Human Existence |
title_short | Religious Zeal, Affective Fragility, and the Tragedy of Human Existence |
title_sort | religious zeal, affective fragility, and the tragedy of human existence |
topic | Theoretical / Philosophical Paper |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10063461/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37013161 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10746-021-09575-6 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT tietjenruthrebecca religiouszealaffectivefragilityandthetragedyofhumanexistence |