ABSTRACT
The purpose of this book is mainly to present an explanatory theory of violent radicalization, paying special attention to those forms of radicalization linked, in some way, to religion. However, the first chapter made explicit the problem currently posed by the study and understanding of, and public policy approach to social phenomena related to religion. In the same chapter, an alternative methodological approach was proposed. Chapter 7 applies this approach to a specific case as an example. One characteristic of the modern or postmodern world is related to the fact that some secular social phenomena take on pseudo-sacred forms. This type of transcendence can be dangerous when an economic narrative, which aspires to expand at any cost, uses religious traits to construct discourses to legitimize its practices. The narrative revolving around the Silicon Valley project could be one such case to be analyzed in the chapter. American secularization is considered an exceptional case in the Western world due, on the one hand, to the milder form in which it seems to have occurred in relation to other Western countries and, on the other hand, to the fusion that takes place between Judeo-Christian traditions in what is known as American civil religion. The point proposed above is problematic and needs to be questioned, both in the light of the revisions that scholars such as Casanova have made to the theory of secularization, and in the light of the fact that it is a theory that has been applied in the United States (through the interpretation of empirical data collected around the world on people’s religiosity) as well as the many published works on the use of “sacred” language in American public life. However, this chapter takes these problematic dimensions for granted in order to delve into what can be considered another secular human enterprise endowed with a religious spirit, namely the spirit of Silicon Valley. This new secular-sacred narrative is not only American, but is being exported as a narrative with a “messianic” semblance that seems to aspire to encompass the entire world. Thus, the chapter explores the origins and evolution of this narrative in the United States, on the one hand, and the spread of what can be considered a “salvation” ideology abroad, on the other.
