The Antisocial Socialist

So Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, died today. In a startling coincidence, this was the day everyone in my class had to do their presentations on various habits (they were actually pretty funny because my classmates are cool, but I think the book is bollocks).

One thing that struck me is how often that book, which is ostensibly about leadership and management, segues into religious claptrap. Same with most self-help books, even some of the better ones I've encountered. Of course, they don't call it "religious claptrap." They call it spirituality.*

Everyone, I am told, is spiritual.

No offense to people who are religious, but this one grates. Big time. Especially because "spirituality" outside of the context of New Age nonsense almost always means "Christianity, but we don't want to alienate Jews who might want to buy our book." In this case, there are direct references to "your church" and "reading scriptures," which is pretty specific to one religion that happens to be the dominant one in this part of the world. It's another way that non-Christians and non-theists are erased: "Oh, 'church' could mean 'synagogue' or 'mosque' too! Oh? You don't go to either of those? Well, walk through Nature-with-a-capital-N to renew your spirit. Everyone is spiritual."

Nope. I'm not. I'm completely grounded in the material world. I don't believe in a God, or gods, or fairies in the garden, and haven't since I was a wee child. That's cool if you do, but your assumption that my experience is just an exotic variation of your own is annoying as all fuck. I've never had any sort of religious experience, and it's pretty hard for me to comprehend how people can have religious experiences; I imagine the reverse is just as alien.

I've often been told–and it's generally meant as a compliment—"sabotabby isn't religious, but she's one of the most spiritual people I've ever met." Which, yes, is also pretty offensive, and untrue. It makes me think that people just think that I'm lying when I tell them about my beliefs. I think maybe they mean "ethical," maybe, but again, the conflation of ethics with belief in the supernatural is problematic. I do the stuff that I do because I believe that there's no afterlife, no judgment, no punishment, and no reward. Because the here and now is all that matters. To suggest that I'm an activist because subconsciously I'm doing what someone's God wants me to do is to negate my agency as a human being.

To be told that my spiritual wellbeing is an essential part of my fulfillment as a person is to tell me that I'll never be fulfilled as a human being. Fullstop. That's okay, I guess. I might be happier if I were religious, but then, I'd also be happier if I were a billionaire, but we live with our limitations. The problem is I don't think it's actually true. I suspect that religious people live with the same kind of gnawing doubts and empty spaces as atheists do, get just as terrified when their relatives die or when their bodies fail, are just as awful when they get into positions of power and responsibility, and so on. It would be like me suggesting that everyone should be politically involved; that if you're not out on the streets marching with signs, you're neglecting a vital part of your personhood. It's something that I'm into, a lot, but I don't think you're lying to yourself if you're not into it. You probably find it as boring as I find Nature-with-a-capital-N.

So that's my rant for the day. If you should happen to find the phrase, "everyone is spiritual in their own way" bubbling up in your head, clamp a lid on that baby and I'll be quiet about the opiate-of-the-masses thing.

* It's been awhile since my rant about how I respect religious fundamentalists more than cafeteria New Agers, but I'm sure I don't need to go into it again. Right?