Skip to content

Booksellers & Trade Customers: Sign up for online bulk buying at trade.atlanticbooks.com for wholesale discounts

Booksellers: Create Account on our B2B Portal for wholesale discounts

Spirituality, Diversion, and Decadence: The Contemporary Predicament

by Peter H. Van Ness
Save 1% Save 1%
Current price ₹3,744.00
Original price ₹3,770.00
Original price ₹3,770.00
Original price ₹3,770.00
(-1%)
₹3,744.00
Current price ₹3,744.00

Imported Edition - Ships in 18-21 Days

Free Shipping in India on orders above Rs. 500

Request Bulk Quantity Quote
+91
Book cover type: Paperback
  • ISBN13: 9780791412060
  • Binding: Paperback
  • Subject: N/A
  • Publisher: State University of New York Press
  • Publisher Imprint: State University of New York Press
  • Publication Date:
  • Pages: 350
  • Original Price: GBP 29.0
  • Language: English
  • Edition: N/A
  • Item Weight: 581 grams
  • BISAC Subject(s): Spirituality

This book presents a philosophical rethinking of the meaning and nature of spiritual discipline. It offers a new way of describing and justifying practices like praying, meditating, fasting, and yoga, and it provides an innovative case for their contemporary importance.

Spiritual discipline is especially effective at combatting Pascalian diversion, the pursuit of activities that occupy the mind just enough to avoid thinking about important things; and Nietzschean decadence, the proclivity for extirpating instinctive drives instead of satisfying or sublimating them. In addition to overcoming diversion and decadence in contemporary consumerist culture, VanNess recommends spiritual discipline as a means of political resistance to powerful institutions which seek to exercise social control in democratic societies by promulgating addictive patterns of consumption.

Finally, he argues that regimens of spiritual discipline can serve healthful and liberating purposes, and generally promote fullness of life, only insofar as they are shaped by an ethos of intellectual criticism and aesthetic experimentation.

Trusted for over 49 years

Family Owned Company

Secure Payment

All Major Credit Cards/Debit Cards/UPI & More Accepted

New & Authentic Products

India's Largest Distributor

Need Support?

Whatsapp Us