51 Fragmentation and Subjectification 1 The consequences are alienation from the framework and consequently from each other, disintegration of groups in society and atomisation in the sense of loneliness. Globalisation intensifies this trend, but it is especially strong in Western countries, where directional diversity is most intense, homogeneity most breached and modernity forms the historical-cultural background. In this context, the conceptual scheme becomes a vicious circle: disintegration leads to alienation, alienation leads to atomisation, atomisation leads to detachment, and there the circle starts to repeat itself. Conceptual scheme of fragmentation Level Structure Threat Outcome Macro: world Ordered framework Disintegration Alienation Meso: society Peaceful coexistence Atomisation Detachment Micro: person Relational flourishing Alienation Atomisation The conclusion for this study can be that the broadly perceived problem of a lack of social cohesion, especially in Western countries, requires an answer that addresses fragmentation. This implies an answer that does not reduce itself to some aspect or level but instead accepts fragmentation as a layered problem that needs to be simultaneously addressed at the micro-level of the person, the meso-level of the society and the macro-level of the world. 1.1.3 Protestantism as an accelerant A question that requires specific attention is how both MacIntyre (2007) and Taylor (1989) criticised Protestantism for being historically and substantially interwoven with modernity. They depicted Protestantism as, at least, an accelerant for modernist tendencies. For MacIntyre (2007), this was a question of dogmatic Protestant (and Jansenist) views on reason. Where medieval Catholicism left room for reason and rationality to (re)discover the virtues and collaborate with grace, Protestant theologies were critical towards both reason and works. In particular, Calvin depicted the fall of man as so profound and significant that only God’s grace could rescue humanity and, in the end, only very partially restore reason and virtue in the renewed believer (MacIntyre, 2007, p. 53). Taylor’s (1989) argument was less theological and more sociological, partially following the Weberian critique of Calvinism as being intertwined with capitalism (p. 225). Taylor (1989) described Protestantism as ‘rationalized Christianity’, for which he especially blamed the Protestant affirmation of the ordinary life. It is important to consider the substance of Taylor’s (1989) argument because, at first glance, he seemed to contradict MacIntyre (2007). For Taylor
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