selfplaced on scientific technology to offer solutions, and divine intervention
is limited to extraordinary occasions.
These various factors that contribute to secularization foster an egali-
tarian spirit that in some cases lead to the rejection of religion by some
people, while others adapt the old values to certain circumstances thereby
creating newer values. Those of a more intransigent demeanor refuse to
change or alter their prior convictions. These types of people reaffirm the
traditional beliefs and modes of life by turning inward, becoming more
exclusive, and possibly embracing fundamentalism. The turn to terrorist
tactics by Muslim extremists, for instance, represents an attempt to pre-
serve an old way of life and reject secularization of their communities.
Further reading: Barker et al. (1993); Berger (1969); Crimmins (1989);
Dobbelaere (1999); Smith (2003); C. Taylor 2007); Weber (1963); Wilson
(1982)
SELF
In the West, the concept of the self suggests personal identity, uniqueness,
a self-related and self-conscious being. In modern terms it also recog-
nizes relationship with others and coming to recognize one’s identity in
a relational way. In Eastern cultures, the self is usually defined more
impersonally and often in isolation from the other, or it is identified with
the other. Even taking into consideration these fundamental cross-cultural
distinctions, many paradigms of the self have been proposed by different
thinkers.
The Danish thinker Søren Kierkegaard defines the self as a combination
of body, soul, and spirit. The soul is the animating faculty that enables
one to make choices defining who we are but the spirit is identified with
the self. More precisely, a self is a relationship that is related to itself, but
it is not the relationship itself, because it is rather the aspect of the relation-
ship by which the relationship is related to itself. The self is a relationship
because a person is a synthesis of infinite and finite, eternal and temporal,
and freedom and necessity. As long as a person remains only a synthesis
between two such antitheses, such a person is not yet a self, which implies
that a third element is needed to place the two opposites in a relationship,
This third element is the self that is related to itself. Kierkegaard argues
that a person can be tricked out of selfhood by the crowd, which emerges
out of de-personalization. It is the crowd that swallows up the single one,
engenders moral corruption, and destroys one’s relationship with God.