Googlism – Man’s New “Religion” in the Digital Age
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31261/PaCL.2023.09.1.06Keywords:
Google, religion, spirituality, man, digital eraAbstract
The aim of this paper is to present the main premises of googlism and to characterize the various ways of understanding it. The paper comprises two main parts: the first part presents the main elements of googlism (the doctrine, moral principles, the cult and the community), which makes it resemble a religion in its conventional meaning. However, it emphasizes that the similarity to a religion is only superficial since one crucial element is missing: the affirmation of a supernatural and personal Absolute and an existential, dynamic and holistic interpersonal relation between It and man. Sacralization and deification of a search engine can hardly be regarded as a constitutive element of a religion. The second part contains characteristics of googlism as a lay religion, with the sacrum reduced to natural aspects as a result of technology sacralization; a digital religion, that is, a technological space which favors the creation of new religious content and practice; the “new spirituality” of the man of the era of a digital revolution; and, finally, a “joke religion,” which is a parody of religious life.
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