Critical interpretation and evaluation of lifestyles: The need for a critical education that does this

The existential and feel-good emphases in contemporary lifestyles seem to have eclipsed the transcendence, reflectiveness and review of life that characterised traditional spirituality.  The clock cannot be turned back on these pervasive cultural changes;  there is no likelihood of a widespread return to the religious practice that was common in the past.  Hence a religious education that does no more than propose a traditional religious spirituality will be insufficient, even though it validly gives access to religious heritage.  For religious education content and pedagogy to be relevant to most young people today, and to enhance their basic human spirituality, it needs to probe the values implied in the existential and feel-good aspects of lifestyle.  This is precisely where the spiritual and moral dimensions, or their absence, need to be investigated.  If there is any fundamental starting point for investigating spirituality today, then it is in the area of lifestyle.

Most people are interested and engaged in lifestyle;  for many, the word spirituality has little if any meaning.  Even some overtly religious people may be indistinguishable from their secular counterparts as far as participation in consumerist lifestyle is concerned;  their operational core values may be the same despite their engagement with the overlay of a religious culture.  For these reasons, at least some part of religious education needs to address lifestyle directly;  it needs to help young people explore how consumerist culture conditions life expectations (Hill, 1990) and how the marketing/advertising/media complex orchestrates imaginations of what life should be like (Warren, 1992; Williams, 1980).  And if the argument advanced here that consumerist culture functions like a ‘religion', then this would be an added reason for including the study of such culture as content appropriate for religious education.

This approach asks fundamental questions about the healthiness of excessive attention given to the existential and to feel-good.  It raises basic questions about what it means to be human and about what is essential and crucial for happiness and harmony.  The pedagogy engages young people in stopping and thinking about the values and spirituality that may or may not figure in contemporary culture.  It prompts critical thinking, reflectiveness and moral judgment – elements that have long been important for traditional religious spirituality.  And it provides an inquiring context within which their religious tradition has something constructive to say.

While religious educators may well agree with the cultural diagnosis and pedagogical approach proposed here, the official Catholic religion curricula for schools remain traditional, like scaled-down seminary theological syllabuses (Rossiter, 2010).  Nevertheless, there is some creative scope for religion teachers to increase the extent of critical interpretation and evaluation of contemporary culture.

The pedagogical approach proposed for investigating the mise-en-scène in traditional medieval and contemporary secular spiritualities is a practical example of one way in which the spiritual/moral dimension to modern culture can be investigated fruitfully.

The argument and comparisons presented here suggest that contemporary consumer lifestyle functions like a religion.  To the extent to which this is plausible, a further interesting conclusion can be considered –a new meaning for secularisation.  The traditional meaning for secularisation is a decline in the prominence and influence of mainstream religion in personal and social life (Norman, 2002) – despite the situation within particular pockets of society where traditional religions still remain conspicuous and powerful.  But now a different note to secularisation can be added:  It is not so much that traditional religion has declined, but that people have switched to another religion – consumer lifestyle, and it shows a widespread high level of fervent religious devotion.  Secularised people may remain quite religious, but with a different sort of consumerist religiosity.  This religion is global;  it has a dominant influence on thinking and behaviour in Westernised countries, and its dominance is rarely questioned.  This prompts the question:  Has secularisation always included ‘consumerisation'?

Another aspect to this interpretation:  There are many religious people today whose lifestyle and values are hardly different from those of consumer-oriented people who have no religious affiliation;  they appear to practice two religions!  One might wonder about these bi-religious people:  Which of their religions is most influential, and to which do they give most allegiance?  Has their traditional religion been accommodated to harmonise with, and perhaps even reinforce their consumer religion?

These reflections also give a new twist to the meaning of secularisation:  If consumerism is your religion, what does ‘secularisation of your consumerist religion' mean?  Initially, secularisation meant that people both questioned, and dissociated themselves from organised religion;  they took more personal responsibility for the construction of their own spirituality with greater independence from religion.  So, by analogy, a ‘second secularisation' could mean a questioning and withdrawal from consumerist religion, taking a more independent values stance in relation to consumption.  Paralleling traditional secularisation, the new or second secularisation could be regarded as the action of individuals who consciously identify and question the presumed dominant cultural religious meanings and values in consumerist lifestyle, and who reduce their involvement in status-oriented consumer activity.

Finally, a new twist to the study of ‘world religions':  In tune with the above argument, a question can be raised about whether global consumerist religion warrants a place in programs of religion studies where world religions are the content.  For example:  If the current interest in the inclusion of some form of religion studies in the new Australian national school curriculum ends up being successful, could consumerist religion be part of the content?  Or could a topic such as ‘the religious function of contemporary consumerism' be included in current Year 11-12 state based religion studies courses.

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