The dimension of meaning has been explored by sociologists in many ways and constitutes a central part of our understanding of human life. Rational enchantment: a balance between the search for truth and, at the same time, the search to enchant one’s existence. Rational enchantment is a balance between the search for knowledge and enchantment, in which the sublime, a sense of wonder, is preserved and reinforced through interaction. Sacred feelings are united with rationality. The profane and the sacred are united. We do not know exactly how this is to be done; this is a central part of the journey of discovery that delves into the deepest and most difficult questions, some of which lie beyond the realm of science. Using Charles Taylor’s conceptual framework, rational enchantment corresponds to immanent transcendence, lying on the border of what immanent understanding explains, where paradoxes and ambiguities begin to arise, where the mystery of life becomes profound. This does not mean concluding that God must exist, but rather pausing to contemplate the vastness and grandeur of existence, which gives rise to feelings such as wonder (Haidt & Keltner, 2003). The meaninglessness and heaviness of existing solely within the immanent perspective, without transcendental explanations, which Taylor views as a major risk (2007), must be balanced by transcendental explanations. The sense of “fullness” that Taylor describes, which is the opposite of the alienating discomfort and emptiness, is the feeling of meaning rooted in transcendence (2007). ABT largely follows Taylor’s conclusions in that an anchoring in both the immanent and the transcendental is required to achieve a high degree of balance in rational enchantment. The immanent perspective is difficult for the secularized person to escape, just as the transcendental perspective is difficult for the religious person to escape. The religious and the secular person who become stuck in their respective “frames” and even reify them will miss out on certain experiences. This is not, however, to suggest that a high level of balancing is reified mysticism that elevates the mystical to something in and of itself, something that must not be examined, for then one moves away from ambiguity and paradox and has ceased to attempt to balance between the immanent and transcendental frames. It is a matter of setting things aside, of continuing to balance through epoché, and of not reifying or objectifying any of the frameworks or a particular balance between the various frameworks.
The meaning one chooses to ascribe to “meaningfulness” is crucial. Psychologist Viktor Frankl ascribes a very profound meaning to “meaning” when he speaks of a “super, meaning” that goes deeper. This differs from the notion of “meaningfulness” that, for example, certain psychologists may advocate. Psychologist Anna Kåver, for example, argues that a meaningful life is quite open, ended and that as long as one feels that one is helping others, that is what matters (2020). Here, sociologists like Illouz have been entirely correct in their criticism when meaningfulness is reduced to an emotional state that is somehow linked to helping someone else, but it remains unclear what actual impact one has (Illouz, 2019). In its worst form, then, a wealthy, corrupt person who attends charity galas could live a meaningful life if they feel they have done something meaningful. Meaningfulness in a sociological sense requires a high degree of commitment to developing meaning through constant discovery in order to create what might be called a greater richness of meaning (a concept comparable to Nordenfeldt’s “richness of happiness (2004)). The more we know about the world, the more meaning needs to be discovered. For the more we know about it, the more a purpose beyond oneself becomes concrete, a purpose that may be something other than what one thought it was when one began the journey.
The world is absurd and meaningless, according to some sociologists (Lyman & Scott, 1989). The sociology of absurdity holds that we possess a freedom, an ongoing “becoming.” There is always subjective meaning in the fact that we have an intention and seek to understand the meaning of various actions on one level, but there is no ultimate objective meaning. Ontological security can therefore never be fully attained; for the time being, there is an inherent uncertainty in our existence. Meaninglessness is something that many sociologists have argued is an important condition that causes great suffering (e.g., Paulsen, 2013; Clegg et al., 2016). Perhaps a balance and striving in this regard can lead us to higher levels of meaninglessness, where the lower levels of meaninglessness are particularly difficult for us, because we are slaves to them. We are driven to discover, perhaps, higher levels of meaninglessness. The concept I would like to use is “enlightened Kafkaesque, ness.” Franz Kafka’s books explore the feeling of meaninglessness within various labyrinths in The Castle and The Trial. “Kafkaesque” is a specific form of meaninglessness and alienation. “Enlightened kafkaesqueness” then becomes something that strikes a balance: we seek higher levels of Kafkaesque, ness and find certain meanings in it, but these are provisional. “Enlightened kafkaesqueness” is close to Camus’s absurdism but more of a compromise with existentialism.
Rationalized enchantment is, of course, linked to the dualisms of sacred/profane and purity/danger. Making something sacred is a process of enchantment; it is something of greater value than its material reality. Enchantment and sacralization can occur with a multitude of objects and even people. Zelizer, for example, highlights the sacralization of children in the United States (Zelizer, 2017), which is part of a larger trend in which human beings are sacralized as being invaluable and possessing a dignity that cannot be violated in modernity. This form of sacralization is associated with a high degree of rationality, as it leads to systems such as democracy and hinders situations of slavery, which both cause suffering and are inefficient in terms of the victims’ potential. To put it in Kantian terms, the starting point is that human beings are ends in themselves (sacralization as subjects), leading to the paradoxical result that human beings become better means or tools for others (rational objectification).
Imbalances
Below are various imbalances in this dimension.
Rationalized disenchantment occurs when rationality diminishes feelings of magic, charisma, aura, and the sacred. A form of this would be over, bureaucratization, over, calculation, over, standardization, and McDonaldization (Weber, 1978; Ritzer, 2004). Rational disenchantment is a balancing act in which various forms of enchantment are reduced in strength, resulting in a more rational and balanced form of enchantment. This should be distinguished from rationalized enchantment, a process in which “rationality” is applied to various forms of enchantment to an excessive degree. Rationalized disenchantment often leads to the reaction that other symbols, phenomena, processes, artifacts, spaces, or practices can be enchanted. Another form of rationalized disenchantment is a shallow secular culture. De Botton, in his informative book Religion for Atheists, uses the term “secular culture” (2013). The tendency to view secular culture merely as “culture” is sometimes overlooked. De Botton offers an important critique of secular culture: that it is a shallow form and that much is forgotten because there is such a constant focus on the new (2013). De Botton opposes the motto “art for art’s sake” because this dilutes secular culture. Culture must support us in dealing with life’s challenges. Art and culture can serve this purpose if we adopt that perspective. All themes are present in art and literature. We need to make a habit of regularly engaging with the best of secular culture, not just something we do occasionally. De Botton writes that failing to make this a habit leads us to forget the experiences we’ve had (2013). De Botton gives the example of walking out of a movie theater thinking you’re going to change your life after seeing the film, but after a few days that feeling fades and you eventually forget it. This applies even to conscious acts of spiritualization, they need to become routine: creating mantras, making schedules, preferably with others, to engage with culture and powerful cultural experiences.
The rationalization of society is often accompanied by the automation of various tasks through technology. Rationalized disenchantment can then manifest itself in what Sennett has called “the specter of meaninglessness” (Sennett, 2002).
Irrational enchantment, as a form of imbalance, can be found in fundamentalism, New Age movements, the spectacle (Debord, 1995), and fetishization (Marx’s commodity fetishism, but also Freud). This category also includes “forced hope” (Camus, 2005) and cruel optimism (Berlant, 2011). Other forms of irrational enchantment include “Disneyfication” (Bryman, 2004), seduction, and the creation of consumer worlds such as shopping malls (Baudrillard, 1990; Ritzer, 1999; Gabriel, 2005). Gabriel captures Ritzer’s thinking on the re, enchantment of the disenchanted in consumption:
“Settings such as theme parks, cruise ships, casinos, tourist resorts, sports venues, theaters, hotels, restaurants, and shopping malls are referred to as ‘cathedrals of consumption’ to indicate their quasi, religious, enchanted qualities. They are part of a process called by some ‘Disneyization,’ which, thanks to TV and online shopping, now extends to the home, transforming it from an arena of interpersonal relations into a highly privatized outpost of consumption. Ritzer’s central thesis is that today’s management sets its sights firmly, not on the toiling worker, but on the fantasizing consumer.” (2005).
Another form of irrational enchantment is pseudo-wonder, or reified wonder. Pseudo, wonder occurs when one reifies things as merely magical and incomprehensible, first declaring them incomprehensible and then becoming marveled by them. Wonder can thus be something that hinders, which is essentially an “empty depth” in Hegel’s words (Jacoby, 1996, 53). Adorno wrote about occultism: “Occultism is the complement of reification. When the objective world appears to the living as more blinding than ever before, they attempt to find meaning in it through abracadabra.” (Jacoby, 1996, 149)
Irrational disenchantment occurs when irrationality can shut out the world’s enchantment for us. This can result from experiencing traumatic events or participating in or witnessing severely unethical practices. In psychosocial studies, the concept of a “moral wound” has been used to better capture what psychologists have termed post, traumatic stress disorder. The moral wound stems from what one has witnessed, which may have robbed one of a certain view of humanity, perhaps a sense of innocence has been taken away. Irrational disenchantment occurs when things are irrational, for example, functional stupidity, cynicism, or despair, which only darken one’s experience of the world (Paulsen, 2017). The world can become disenchanted as we move toward depressive states characterized by low emotional energy (Collins, 2004). A central form of irrational enchantment is Kafkaesque, ness. Kafkaesque, ness (Clegg et al., 2016) is the experience of meaninglessness in the social sphere, for example, in being part of an organization where every attempt at meaning is blocked by complexity, fragmentation, and irrational practices.