preprints.org > social sciences > sociology > doi: 10.20944/preprints201908.0121.v1

Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Version 1 : Received: 8 August 2019 / Approved: 9 August 2019 / Online: 9 August 2019 (13:01:05 CEST)

American secularisation is considered a exceptional case in the Western world because of, on the one hand, the softer way it seems to have occurred in relation to other Western countries and, on the other, the fusion it seems to have been done among Judeo-Christian traditions into what is known as American civil religion. The point proposed before is problematic and needs to be called into questions under the light of both the revisions made to the secularization theory by scholars such as Casanova through the interpretation of empirical data collected through the world about the religiosity of people and the multiple works made about the use of “sacred” language in American public life. However, this paper takes those problematic dimensions for granted in order to deepened into what can be considered another secular human endeavour endowed with a religious spirit, namely: the spirit of Silicon Valley. This new secular-sacred narrative is not just American but is being exported as a narrative with “Messianic” traces that seems to aspire to embrace the whole world. Thus, this article explores the origins and evolution of this narrative in the United States, on the one hand, and the expansion of what can be considered a “salvation” ideology abroad that country, on the other.

Ideology and utopia, Silicon spirit, secularisation, populism

Social Sciences, Sociology

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