Seculosity summary

The chase for “enough” dominates our daily lives, manifesting in our desires to be successful, happy, fit, wealthy, influential, and accepted. This pursuit, driven by an unending societal pressure to achieve, creates widespread anxiety and loneliness but also reveals a deeper, innate aspect of human nature: our obsession with righteousness, which in theological contexts denotes “self-justification.”

This drive for righteousness, as moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt explains in The Righteous Mind, is a fundamental human condition, deeply embedded in our DNA. It’s not merely a product of religious adherence, often labeled with a capital “R,” but a basic aspect of what it means to be human. This inherent longing to feel justified or sufficient is essential for social cohesion and the survival of our species, as it influences group formation and collaborative survival strategies.

The irony of enoughness is that while it unites us in a common human desire across diverse boundaries such as politics, nationality, gender, race, and age, it simultaneously divides. This yearning can solidify in-groups, fostering a strong sense of community and altruism, yet it also sharply defines out-groups, creating rifts and fostering judgments that can dehumanize. The desire for enoughness or righteousness often escalates into moral showdowns, where differences in perspective can quickly transform into battles between good and evil.

Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr captures the essence of this dichotomy by highlighting the cruelty that can emerge from the pursuit of righteousness, a concept known as “Pharisaism” within religious contexts. This refers to an adherence to the letter of the law so rigid that it contradicts its spirit, often leading to a superficial display of virtue that masks deeper moral failings.

As we’ve seen, the pursuit of righteousness has taken on new forms, infiltrating aspects of daily life from the kitchen to the gym, the computer screen to the bedroom. With traditional altars becoming less central, modern life has crafted its own sites of worship where every choice, whether it’s where we send our children to school or who we choose to date, feels fraught with the pressure to choose correctly or risk falling behind.

This phenomenon, termed “the nova effect” by philosopher Charles Taylor, describes the explosion of options that mimic religious fervor, offering a pluralism of pursuits that all demand our devotion. These modern “religions” – be it fitness, food, or romance – demand constant attention and adherence to their rituals, but unlike the traditional religions of the past, they often lack the element of mercy.

Performance shapes our self-worth. It operates under the unspoken assumption that our identity is directly tied to our accomplishments. In this view, our résumés are synonymous with our selves, and our value is measured by our performance in various arenas of life. If we aren’t excelling or achieving at a high level, we perceive ourselves as less valuable than those who are “killing it.”

This perspective turns everyday life into a relentless competition or a problem that must be solved, rather than a journey to be enjoyed or a series of moments to be savored. Tasks, even the mundane, are laden with existential weight, transforming simple activities into metrics of self-worth. The language of what is called “performancism” is unforgiving, a constant scorekeeping that, when intensified by technology, heightens anxiety, loneliness, and even mortality.