Book Byte #271 "Seculosity" By David Zahl

How Career, Parenting, Technology, Food, Politics, and Romance Became Our New Religion and What to Do about It

📣 Curious Quotes from the Author

“Our addiction to control ends up controlling us.”

“What the heart desires, the will chooses and the mind justifies.”

“Performancism is the assumption, usually unspoken, that there is no distinction between what we do and who we are. Your resumé isn’t part of your identity; it is your identity.”

“Real love does not recoil at weakness. That is where it begins.”

“Listen carefully and you’ll hear that word enough everywhere, especially when it comes to the anxiety, loneliness, exhaustion, and division that plague our moment to such tragic proportions. You’ll hear about people scrambling to be successful enough, happy enough, thin enough, wealthy enough, influential enough, desired enough, charitable enough, woke enough, good enough. We believe instinctively that, were we to reach some benchmark in our minds, then value, vindication, and love would be ours—that if we got enough, we would be enough.”

“Religions of law promise wholeness and peace, but as the preceding chapters illustrate, they ultimately deliver anxiety, self-consciousness, and loneliness. A culture awash in seculosity is therefore a culture of despair.”

“the most pathological example being the eating disorder on the rise known as Orthorexia nervosa, a term that literally means “fixation on righteous eating.”

“Alas, as Stephen Marche writes in The Unmade Bed, “The business of correcting idealism is a parlor game in which, one by one, everybody leaves the room.” Sub out “idealism” for “orthodoxy” and you’re pretty close to some churches I know.”

“Indeed, calling others out for virtue signaling can be a mighty convenient way not only of dismissing any public utterance we don’t like but also of signaling our own superiority in the process.”

📚 Cognition of the Book’s Big Idea

Modern culture frequently confuses performance and busyness with personal worth, which results in an unrelenting search of enoughness that has an effect on relationships, societies, and identities. This desire, which is motivated by peer pressure to succeed, causes a great deal of anxiety and loneliness, especially in young individuals who are in competitive settings. We don't actually need material achievement in this world to be pleased. In the end, what matters are human connections and unconditional acceptance.

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