Abstract
A last objection, I have presupposed that secularization is a tendency of religion ready to materialize in all societies. Secularization, I have implied, needs favorable conditions and whether they arise depends on historical accidents rather than on the nature of religion or the human mind.
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Notes
- 1.
In referring to this alternative, Weber may have been influenced by Nietzsche: “The whole attitude of ‘man against the world’, of man as a ‘world-negating’ principle, of man as the measure of the value of things, as judge of the world who finally places existence itself on his scales and finds it too light—the monstrous stupidity of this attitude has finally dawned on us and we are sick of it” (2001:§346).
- 2.
My sorting implies that Christianity and Confucianism are more similar than Weber assumed. Weber highlighted that Puritanism assigned religious value (or a particularly obliging meaning) to worldly success (cp. Kalberg 2002:xxxvf). That this was possible within Christianity is more plausible if we drop the criterion of world rejection. That currently both the USA and China can cooperate by the success criterion confirms that similarity.
- 3.
- 4.
Gaerrang (Kabzung) (2015). Bracketed numbers refer to this text. Gaerrang is professor at Sichuan University.
- 5.
Eccl. 1:2–4: “Everything is meaningless. What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.”
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Steinvorth, U. (2017). Secularization Is a Western Affair. In: Secularization. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63871-3_18
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