In Spiritual Guides: Pathfinders in the Desert, Fred Dallmayr
challenges the "desert character" of modern culture. Political and
economic corruption, incessant warmongering, spoliation of natural
resources, and, above all, mindless consumerism and greedy
self-satisfaction are all symptoms of what he contends is an
expanding wasteland or desert where everything creative and
nourishing decays and withers. Through an alternative
interpretation of Nietzsche's saying "the desert grows," this book
calls for spiritual renewal, invoking in particular four prominent
guides or pathfinders in the desert: Paul Tillich, Raimon Panikkar,
Thomas Merton, and Pope Francis. What links all four guides
together is the view of spiritual life as an itinerarium, a pathway
along difficult and often uncharted roads. Dallmayr begins by
drawing a connection between Nietzsche's characterization of the
desert in Thus Spoke Zarathustra and the present culture of
consumerism, in which a nearly-exclusive emphasis on productivity,
efficiency, profitability, and the transformation of everything
valuable into a useful resource prevails over all other goals. He
also draws attention to another sense of "desert," namely, as a
place of solitude, meditation, and retreat from affliction. Aptly
defined, it becomes a place where spirituality arises from a
painful "turning-about": a wrenching effort to extricate human life
from the decay of late modernity. Spirituality is not a possession
or property but rather the contemplation and radical mindfulness
that we develop through engaged practices as we search for pathways
to recovery. Spirituality becomes critical in the dominant
political and cultural wasteland because it provides a bond linking
humanity together. In the spirit of global ecumenism, Spiritual
Guides also includes a discussion of Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist
forms of spirituality. This book will interest students and
scholars of philosophy, political theory, and religion.
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