Secular modernity frames consumer capitalism as a global project of equal pleasure rights

Evidence

I do not present this statement as decisive evidence of what is going on in the world. Its interest lies in the explanation it offers of how, by having “to formulate the problems [America] invents in the words [America] offers,” global society adapts to a stronger, more modern language—in which the equal right to pleasure can be articulated as America’s project of secular redemption. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 734

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Directly corroborates the vaulted Cooper thread: market freedom rhetorically fused with a secular ‘redemption’ project parallels how Cooper shows neoliberalism absorbing Christian (evangelical/neoconservative) moral norms. Asad names the mechanism by which a particular civilization’s norms get naturalized as universally modern.
• XREF: Connects to Melinda Cooper’s argument that the market is cast as carrying its own moral-redemptive project, and to the standing interest in how ‘modern’ language launders particular moral claims into universal ones. — connects to: Buycott philanthropy frames consumerism as the solution to the inequalities it creates — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 34