I. Introduction
I am not a man well-schooled in philosophy. I’ve read some philosophical works, and found myself more interested in them than I had been previously, when I dismissed them as a lot of noise. But while I may know more of it than the average modern westerner, I’ve only just tasted some of it, so I’m always reluctant to engage in it personally. With that in mind, here goes.
For all its strengths and progress, the Western world seems to be lacking in some fundamental way. That’s a very broad statement. I know plenty of people who would say that no, actually, it’s not lacking in anything, and many more who would concede that there is something lacking, but say that the sense that something is lacking is actually simply a universal human condition. To the first I would say, alright, then stop reading here. If you are actually completely satisfied with the current direction of Western civilization, I’m not here to convince you otherwise. To the second, I would say that perhaps it is a universal human condition, but if this is so, there cannot be a universal solution to it, since we are all bound within certain currents of history, what works for one population cannot work for another. Western civilization is bound within a certain broad current, and I am primarily concerned with the West.
So, let us accept a couple of underlying assumptions before moving on: There is something lacking in the modern West (that may or may not be part of a broader human problem, which nevertheless requires a uniquely western solution), and in this writing I am primarily concerned with addressing this lack in a historically western context. Further, I think the case can be made that this lack is more than a purely abstract concept or spiritual malaise. I believe this lack has real-world consequences for political cohesion and vision, which in the long run can cause some very real problems.
II. The Heart of Our Worldview
When speaking of something as broad as the “West”, which can of course within itself contain a number of contradicting, competing currents, you have to get down to a very basic level to see what binds the broader structure together. Prior to the fall of Christianity, the assumption was something more along the lines of ‘The universe is vast, ordered according to the Divine, and given meaning by God.’ This was replaced by nihilism, the underlying assumption that the universe is vast, indifferent, and meaningless. Western philosophy and culture, such as it is, can be understood as a grappling with or reaction to this worldview. We’ve made some progress, but we have not yet overcome the nihilism at the heart of our culture.
There have been a few ways of attempting to deal with this:
- Since rationalism was the implement that seemingly killed Christianity, and Science was a powerful tool that we had used to overcome nature (deadly for millenia, much more manageable now) there was serious intellectual momentum to use these tools to construct a new worldview. But rationalism and science cannot give meaning or purpose. They are simply powerful lenses through which to view the world that lead to greater understanding of it, and have their limits.
- Christianity still exists. But for the most part, it is not at all similar to the Christianity that lay at the heart of the west for centuries. Most Christians are not really ‘Christian’ in the sense that they have the Divine at the heart of their worldview. They are modern, with nihilism at the heart of their worldview, with a bit of Christian paint slapped on to give them a sense of identity. There are fringes and cults of Christianity that do try to grapple with the worldview problem. However, even this can be considered a type of reaction to nihilism. “I fear an empty, meaningless universe, so I explicitly reject it and turn to the Divine” is, at its heart, fundamentally different from a worldview that doesn’t even dream of nihilism, and has God at its heart.
- The modern view, which essentially acknowledges nihilism, and says that you must find or create your own subjective meaning.
The problem with finding or creating your own subjective meaning is that not everyone is capable of doing this. To be perfectly frank, many probably don’t NEED to do this, as well. Contemplating meaning and purpose is not something that everyone feels drawn toward. Many simply lack the imagination. This is not meant as an insult. But it seems that the more intelligent and thoughtful one is, the more one is likely to grapple the nihilism at the heart of the Western worldview, and the more necessary it becomes to construct or find meaning in response to it. And since leadership in all arenas of life – spiritual, political, etc – is usually correlated with intelligence, this can become a vital problem for civilization. Nihilism, when confronted, and the confrontation is inevitable for the thoughtful, can lead to an intense depressive state if meaning cannot be constructed, and a lack of vision. A depressive elite with a dearth of vision is not a healthy place for a civilization to be. Or, at least, we can agree that it is probably not optimal.
Confronting nihilism is not something that ONLY the intelligent have to worry about, of course. But generally, it has more consequence when they do.
III. The Problem with Constructing Meaning
Modern culture has a corrosive effect on any attempt to construct meaning. This is a natural consequence of living in a society that has nihilism at its heart. Anything can (and will) be deconstructed. It takes insight, thoughtfulness and dedication to construct meaning that can withstand the critique of modern living.
There are individuals who are capable of tacking nihilism on their own, creating their own cosmic context, and overcoming nihilism without outside influence. And furthermore, there are those who, although they cannot construct meaning on their own, can cast about the wider culture, filter out the corrosive effects of modern society, and through a sort of loose collaborative effort come to a sense of meaning.
These are not most people. I would say that the first type is very rare indeed, and the second type not quite as rare but still very uncommon. But most (even though they may be intelligent) need guiding, mentorship, some sort of institution, some structure, some context in order to overcome nihilism. They need a bridge, but the problem is that our modern political circumstances deprive us of the tools needed to construct this bridge, namely filtering and coercion.
The modern state, reacting to the fragmentation of meaning with the advent of nihilism, created a sort of uneasy middle ground for thought. You are allowed to construct meaning on your own, but you are not allowed to force that meaning on anyone else. This sounds good in theory. But the problem is that in our modern culture of deconstruction, ‘no force allowed’ came to mean that you could not effectively propagate meaning.
Meaning – a coming to terms with and overcoming of nihilism – is the basis for much of culture. But we could have hundred, even thousands of different competing cultures, and all perhaps may have different ideas of meaning at their hearts. The state has decided that it must be a neutral actor in this situation, and not advocate one culture over the other (at least, that is what it thinks it is doing in theory. In reality, I think it is very much biased towards a certain sense of meaning and culture, but that’s not the point of this writing.) Because it is ostensibly ‘neutral’, and because any powerful institution is eventually going to have to deal with the demands of the state, much of our public space is devoid of culture and meaning. Moreover, a sense of politeness and ‘getting along’ means that even in areas where the state does not enforce this ‘neutrality’, methods for advocating for a particular type of meaning are considered poor form.
The problem with this is that if constructing meaning requires institutions, and the state forces all institutions into neutrality, then for many there is no path to meaning. The only ones that are capable of constructing meaning are those who go to the extreme of building institutions outside the purview of the state, which, in this age, implies a certain degree of animosity towards it. In the name of enforcing ‘neutrality’, the state actually lends incredible power to those who oppose it.
The problem is that meaning, for many, must be built up by a slow process, during which time they have limited contact with the corrosive effects of critiques of that meaning. Not that they must be shielded completely from outside ideas, it is simply that any truly worthy sense of meaning takes a lot of time to fully communicate. The less familiar you are with a certain worldview, the more likely that a facile or simplistic criticism can change your mind on it, or simple social pressure can get you to abandon it.
That is the world we live in now: People search for meaning, and the world is not devoid of explanations. But because the state enforces neutrality, free speech laws ensure that no filters can be put up, and a cultural zeitgeist of nihilism means that any forays into any type of meaning quickly encounter the corrosive effects of facile, simplistic critique. Unfortunately, in an environment like this, where greater meaning can be difficult to establish, the neutral middle ground seems to default to hedonistic materialism, which is its own way of dealing with nihilism – “There is no greater meaning, so why not maximize your happiness?”
Some might say that people are freely choosing hedonistic materialism. My point would be that people are not actually being offered much of a choice. To learn of a sense of greater meaning requires a certain degree of isolation and institutional support that one can only get nowadays by, maybe, joining a monastery. My point would also be that a lot of people probably don’t really want the choice. Many people are clearly dissatisfied with the hedonistic materialism that society defaults to. They would probably have preferred to have been raised in a somewhat isolated community that tried to impart its sense of meaning into them. A community that had the power to erect filters and the ability to build a bridge from nihilism to meaning. But this sort of isolation is impossible, this level of control is forbidden, and honestly, good mentors are scarce.
IV. Fanaticism
I mentioned before that the state empowers those who oppose it, because the ones that have the will to defy state power, built institutions outside its scope, and force a certain level of filtering and control on their societies have the ability to impart meaning, and thus have a certain attraction that the modern state simply cannot offer.
However, these sort of societies and organizations do not always have to be violent, or even extremist sects. The problem is that the level of state intrusion today means that those that have the will are likely to be violent or extremist. But there are organizations founded in the past, like the Amish, that offer up a more palatable example. The Amish even afford their children an opportunity to sample modern life, and most Amish children return to the fold.
In order to escape the default of hedonistic materialism of modern life, perhaps there needs to be more like the Amish. Not necessarily religious, but worldviews and constructions of meaning that build institutions outside of the domain of the modern state, which would impose disintegrating neutrality upon them. The problem is that things like this cost a lot of money, which requires ever-deeper levels of participation in the modern state.
Those who are capable of constructing meaning for themselves – and those who succeed in becoming wealthy – should consider the creation of institutions outside the purview of the state that can teach their worldview. These individuals, who are capable of constructing their own meaning in the face of corrosive effects of modern life, should do their best to help guide those who are not quite as capable. All this implies a certain degree of fanaticism, but it’s better than going it alone.
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