The Invention of Clutter and the New Spiritual Discipline of Decluttering
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Christy Lang Hearlson
Abstract
This essay argues that the popular global decluttering movement epitomized in Marie Kondo is a new spiritual discipline tailored to a particular cultural moment in which members of affluent societies, especially women, are caught between the shame of displaying too much “stuff” at home and the guilt of discarding it. After suggesting reasons for the movement’s neglect by theologians, the essay offers a brief history of the “invention of clutter.” Through this history, the essay frames decluttering as an expression of “makeover culture” that posits a timeless aesthetic self. Decluttering functions as a spiritual practice of late consumer capitalism that converts its followers to a disposition of detachment through procedures that mirror Christian conversion. While appreciating the attention the movement shows to women’s domestic lives and to material things, the essay offers a theological critique of the movement’s construction of an aesthetic self who is absolved of guilt by escaping time and the ecological web into private, timeless space. The essay commends instead a narrative, ecological self whose engagement with material things reflects a sacramental vision that issues in virtues like frugality.
Zusammenfassung
Der Aufsatz richtet seinen Blick auf das „decluttering“, also das Aufräumen und Entrümpeln des persönlichen Besitzes – eine von Life Coaches wie Marie Kondo zuletzt wieder popularisierte Praxis – und analysiert diese Praxis als eine der Konsum- und Wohlstandsgesellschaft entsprechende, spirituelle Innovation. Nach einem geschichtlichen Abriss zu ähnlichen Praxen erörtert der Aufsatz strukturelle Entsprechungen zwischen (dem Aufruf zum) Entrümpeln und dem christlichen Motiv der Bekehrung. Während eine Stärke des „Decluttering“ darin liegt, ein komplexes Schamgefühl gegenüber erdrückendem Besitz zu thematisieren, muss der Absolutionsgestus, den es beinhaltet, theologisch kritisiert werden.
© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Research Articles
- Truth in Pastoral Practice: A Firmer Foundation for Contested Territory
- Living Between: Exploring a Framework of Spirituality for Teachers and Students in Catholic Schools
- Theological Wiggle Room as a Resource in Ordinary Theology: Significance for Ecclesiology, Leadership, and Personal Development
- The Invention of Clutter and the New Spiritual Discipline of Decluttering
- Decolonizing “Protestant” Death Rituals for the Chinese Bereaved: Negotiating a Resistance that is Contextually Relevant
- Systemic Terror, Silent Mourning, and Postcolonial Hope: The Case of Forcibly Separated Migrant Families
- Embrace at the International Ecumenical Youth Meeting in Beirut 2019
- Research Report
- Praktische Theologie angesichts der ökologischen Krise
- Book Review
- Wilfried Engemann, Einführung in die Homiletik, Tübingen (Narr Francke Attempto Verlag), 3., durchgehend neu bearb., aktualisierte und erw. A. 2020, 709 S., ISBN 978-3-8252-5293-9, € 39,90 (utb 2128).
- Mai-Anh Le Tran, Reset the Heart: Unlearning Violence, Relearning Hope, Nashville (Abingdon Press) 2017, 176 pp., ISBN 9781501832468, $34.99
- Muslim Subjectivities in Global Modernity: Islamic Traditions and the Construction of Modern Muslim Identities by Dietrich Jung and Kirstine Sinclair: Brill: Leiden, 2020
- John Swinton, Finding Jesus in the Storm: The Spiritual Lives of Christians with Mental Health Challenges, Grand Rapids (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company) 2020, 245 pp. ISBN 9780802873729, $25.00
- Ulrike Auga, An Epistemology of Religion and Gender: Biopolitics – Performativity – Agency. Routledge Critical studies in Religion, Gender and Sexuality, Abingdon and New York (Routledge) 2020, 364 pp., ISBN 9780367226176, £120 (Hardback), £33.29 (eBook).
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Research Articles
- Truth in Pastoral Practice: A Firmer Foundation for Contested Territory
- Living Between: Exploring a Framework of Spirituality for Teachers and Students in Catholic Schools
- Theological Wiggle Room as a Resource in Ordinary Theology: Significance for Ecclesiology, Leadership, and Personal Development
- The Invention of Clutter and the New Spiritual Discipline of Decluttering
- Decolonizing “Protestant” Death Rituals for the Chinese Bereaved: Negotiating a Resistance that is Contextually Relevant
- Systemic Terror, Silent Mourning, and Postcolonial Hope: The Case of Forcibly Separated Migrant Families
- Embrace at the International Ecumenical Youth Meeting in Beirut 2019
- Research Report
- Praktische Theologie angesichts der ökologischen Krise
- Book Review
- Wilfried Engemann, Einführung in die Homiletik, Tübingen (Narr Francke Attempto Verlag), 3., durchgehend neu bearb., aktualisierte und erw. A. 2020, 709 S., ISBN 978-3-8252-5293-9, € 39,90 (utb 2128).
- Mai-Anh Le Tran, Reset the Heart: Unlearning Violence, Relearning Hope, Nashville (Abingdon Press) 2017, 176 pp., ISBN 9781501832468, $34.99
- Muslim Subjectivities in Global Modernity: Islamic Traditions and the Construction of Modern Muslim Identities by Dietrich Jung and Kirstine Sinclair: Brill: Leiden, 2020
- John Swinton, Finding Jesus in the Storm: The Spiritual Lives of Christians with Mental Health Challenges, Grand Rapids (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company) 2020, 245 pp. ISBN 9780802873729, $25.00
- Ulrike Auga, An Epistemology of Religion and Gender: Biopolitics – Performativity – Agency. Routledge Critical studies in Religion, Gender and Sexuality, Abingdon and New York (Routledge) 2020, 364 pp., ISBN 9780367226176, £120 (Hardback), £33.29 (eBook).
