La consommation n’a pas d’odeur … Quelques réflexions sur le religieux en culture de masse

Abstract

Based on the situation observed in contemporary Arab-Muslim countries, this article analyzes the interactions between religion and mass culture and its consumerist ethos. Although consumer society supports an implicit ideology (individualism, immediacy), consumption practices are also permeable to the influence of the values of the different social configurations in which they are grounded. In its interaction with religion, consumer culture can reveal itself to be a powerful primer for neo-conservative revivals, contradicting the market’s supposed hedonist ethics. This article argues that this may be due to the fact that consumer culture is a double-edged process and that its effect on religion amounts to both a rerouting and a recall of its moral norm, almost unanimously Salafist today.