The Dynamics of Devaluation: The Spiritual Disease of Civilization

The presentation seeks to identify a major spiritual sickness that is not only widespread but also kept out of public discourse or seriously minimized in terms of its scope and destructive effects. Most religious traditions derive much of their power by giving ‘believers’ a sense of personal and/or collective worth, where worth may be associated with a feeling of positive valuation. However, as religious traditions decline in the wake of a materialist science or as they become corrupted by developing false forms of valuation, Western, if not world, civilization becomes ever more threatened by the disease of devaluation. In this context, the study will attempt three things: (1) to identify the manifestations or symptoms of devaluation as a disease of the soul; (2) to place these symptoms in a kind of historical context; and (3) to develop some effective healing strategies that may serve to counter, not only the symptoms but also the root causes of the disease of devaluation. In particular, it will be argued that false forms of valuation need to be identified so that public discourse can minimize the possibilities of these taking root and leading to one of the tragedies of our time: that is, the gaining of a kind of substitute value by the devaluing of some other group.