Regarding the "woke" cultural revolution, average people are at a loss concerning how to address it because the reality of it being fundamentally a spiritual revolution hasn't yet settled in. This is not merely a movement to redress some temporal grievances but rather a radical revolution against Logos itself. That is why there is religious zeal- it's because it's a religious war, masquerading as a political remodel. Take race. Wokesters are not colorblind - that is no revelation - but what is important to understand is that their notion of systemic racial bias is just a cover, concealing and giving respectability to something much darker: the real (but never confessed) indignation is that some in fact *are* more capable, more beautiful, more intelligent, etc. and this is deemed cosmically unfair; thus, the solution must be not mere improved treatment of the less blessed as in former times, but ultimately annihilation of all difference, but not before a punitive and vengeful inversion in which the least capable, beautiful, and intelligent are put on a pedestal, and the most, subjugated and murdered. It is a rebellion of malcontents and their philosophical sympathizers, fomented by the propaganda of Satan, exactly as in its heavenly counterpart. The fact is, we don't know exactly why some are born black and others white, some short and others tall, some brilliant and others feebleminded. Man has traditionally deferred to the wisdom of God on those matters. But for those who don't view this life as spiritual preparation for the real life to come, this is of course unacceptable. If, then, for the sake of justice reality itself can and must be reshaped according to the wisdom of man rather than the wisdom of God, why respect *any* aspect of reality? Why can't 2+2=5, if the answer of 4 is only correct because the matrix of reality set up by God (Logos) dictates it to be so? This is what we are dealing with here. As you might have guessed, if reason itself is in play, these people can't be reasoned with.
This comment implies a universal aesthetics of human beauty that is ethnically biased. Yes, according to widely accepted standards of beauty, some people are more beautiful than others. That is a fairly non-controversial claim.
But this comment doesn't at all acknowledge or recognize that standards of beauty vary from culture to culture. In fact, it implies that the currently predominant white European culture is inherently more beautiful than others, and that those who are "born black" are put in this supposedly inferior position by God. By attributing such occurrences to God, it further implies that they should not be questioned.
It's not difficult to see how problematic this framing is.
Actually, there are universal standards of beauty: thin and fit, prominent cheekbones and jaw lines, good skeletal proportions, etc. These have nothing to do with ethnicity and skin color. The above post didn’t mention ethnicity—but you fall back on it immediately.
In fact, you seem to resemble the type of people he was discussing.
We have been heading for disaster (and/or change) for some time. Ultimately, the powerful have become disconnected from their own societies and are attempting to reshape it. This project is at least 50 years old, but we are now at a crisis point.
I will take a stab at oversimplification since complexity seems to be so au courant these days.
Is our current Crisis any more complicated than the neverending war between what Matthew Crawford notes are the "Kunlangeta" (the sociopaths and psychopaths essentially) and the other 80% of humanity? In other words, human history might be said to be the struggle between the psychopaths compelled to attain mastery at any cost and humans who desire autonomy and liberty.
A quick glance at history shows that a society organized around individual liberty and due process of law is almost nonexistent. Tyranny, authoritarianism, collectivism...these are the rule. Why, then, should we be surprised that the psychopaths have gained the ascendancy once more and now have the tools of technology to restore the authoritarian norm? It's expected once a system gains sufficient wealth and power to attract the sickos (and their adherents) among us.
The optimistic note to offer here is that this present society is quickly breaking apart and will collapse much sooner than later. And by collapse i mean a system wide, war famine destruction. When that happens all of us who cherish faith, liberty, and law will have the opportunity to reestablish these things against what will be the Collectivists' final attempt at police state. If we are only half as good at taking real action as we are at talking, victory is assured.
I don`t think you are over simplifying. There does seem to be a rather basic motivation behind collective human affairs, a sort of pattern they tend to follow when individuals delegate authority and institutions are formed. It almost seems that this motivation is the antithesis of intelligence, whatever you would call that, probability perhaps. The fight against probability is inefficient, which means it doesn`t catch on, in economic terms, it would require a subsidy, and on an individual level it would be the opposite of stimulating, so meditation perhaps. If someone tries to meditate, they find there is a tendency to think; thoughts pop up and the thinker identifies with them, and off the process goes, with a probability of continuity, while meditation is stillness, with none. Once it has been established that process offers efficiency, it is plain that all sorts of things will be delegated to process, and the outcome will be automation, with maximum efficiency. The automation of understanding is something that we are not generally aware of, because we only think about thinking, which is already too late.....
This is excellent. I have been thinking about this very topic a lot lately--like many others, for sure. Something big is happening and our thinking has not caught up. I think of McLuhan's meme of driving a car by using the rearview mirror. So how then to conceive of this upheaval in a way that isn't so broad that anything at all that happens confirms the theory. Conversely, how not to get lost in the ocean of minutiae and miss the forest the trees. I look forward to what you have to say.
Thank you for the summary. Your observations ring true to my experience. I frequently feel at a loss for my place in this confusion and wonder how do I hold on to truth and Truth. In my opinion we are now approaching a climax akin to the repetitive Biblical stories that have been chronicled through time. I focus on the purpose of each individual in this massive drama and work to prepare the soil in my own backyard and hopefully I will bloom at the appointed time. I was not always this faithful but this existential battle appears to be organizing itself and my instincts and prayers tell me to be "ready". If anything it has helped me to stay conscious of what I believe and value. As an OBGYN the destruction of women and the beauty of life is glaringly obvious to me and as a result I often feel sad, disgusted, and discouraged. Then I go home and dedicate myself to creating a life that is beautiful, truth filled, and hopeful and pray for everyone. The deception is real and I am perplexed as to how it is perpetuated so easily.
"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places." Ephesians 6:12 NASB
this arise corporately but we can only resolve them individually.People go senile in crowds, but only regain their senses slowly, and one by one.
We have delegated individual authority to systems and structures, but these have an agenda of their own. Take the legal system. Does it remain as it was set up ? No, it keeps growing like toenails, and comes to defend criminals and punish victims. Why ? This is not an intelligent process, but an overgrowth, a senility that is an inevitable outcome of growth.
We need to maintain intelligence, which we have delegated to efficiency. The end result of efficiency is not utopia, but automation, when intelligence is out of the loop, and all options lead to the same outcome. Intelligence is maximum possibility, but efficiency leads to maximum probability.
Consider how fragile our current situation is : it would only take a war to put out of action all of our electronic systems, and we would be back to what ? Paper and ink would be OK but they have long gone.
So the lesson is that yes, we have gained a very civilised way of life, but it comes with huge instability. If our systems cease to function, who has the authority to reinstatement them ?
I will most definitely join you in this exploration of the multiple crossroads ahead of us.
It is exactly this uneasy feeling you described at the beginning of your article that prompted me to create a newsletter in the first place. First and foremost for myself (to help articulate my thoughts, pull insights from contemporary and past thinkers, etc..) and to hopefully engage people from everywhere interested in intellectual discourse.
My main takeaway from this introduction of yours is that we just might be downplaying too much the upheaval ahead at our own peril.
Hope to share other thoughts with you down the road.
"Simultaneously, we are facing a technological revolution the consequences of which we are only beginning dimly to grasp, let alone understand."
This is my question about the consequences of our technological advances: do we simply not know what they could be, or are we so distracted with keeping up the pace of change that the innovators won't take the time to consider the consequences? It seems reasonable enough to me that a bright person with a little foresight (such as yourself) can extrapolate how new technological advances could affect the individual and, to a lesser extent, society also. I do find the rate of change to be a bit blinding, but I also believe that the writing is on the wall for those who have eyes to see. To be clear, I agree with your statement, I just can't help but ask useless, unanswerable questions.
Thanks for putting together such a thoughtful essay.
Very thoughtful. And I like the historical perspective along with the sketching out of the diverse problems of our confusing modern-day world. As with the writings of several other concerned thinkers, I am left searching for suggestions regarding how best to proceed toward appropriate and geopolitically scalable ideas on how to address these problems. Franklin Delano Roosevelt and others hoped that the creation of several international institutions could improve mankind's lot. However human nature and accelerating technologies (with big climate, health, and agricultural complications) appear to be making human advancement a tough slog. As you proceed ahead on this journey toward solutions, we need to move beyond rearranging the deckchairs, and (within the context you laid out) identify what are reasonable goals for mankind to achieve, and actions that key international actors need to take.
Yuval Noah Harare's books, Sapiens and HomoDeus, provide a superb starting point for anyone trying to figure out what policies the US/Canada, Europe, India, and Japan/Australia/New Zealand might jointly offer that would have the greatest chances for success in dealing with the more difficult policies of China/Russia, et al.
I was just referred here from Angela Nagle's newsletter. Brilliant overview. I look forward to reading more of your thoughts on these most pressing issues of the day.
"The evidence seems to be growing that this revolution – which is more accurately a revolution in how information is generated, collected, processed, analyzed, shared, consumed, and understood – may be fundamentally changing not only our relationship with each other, but our individual and collective perception of, and relationship with, reality itself."
I wonder often how different history would have been, and how different our perception of it would have been, had it featured mass literacy and a global communications infrastructure. Our ability to perceive what is happening in real time is one thing; our ability to process and make sense of it is another, and seems mostly to elude our grasp. But for most of human history, we could do neither of those things. And I have to imagine that led to a sort of baked-in fatalism about the world, but also a much stronger reason to go all in on religious belief. If everything is out of your hands, you're going to lean more heavily on a higher power to hopefully sort things out for you in a benign and even beneficial way.
Frankly, the claim that the USA has globally significant cultural leadership is scarcely credible. Just after the Second World War, when Modernism peaked, and then the Blues dominated popular music - yes, but that's it. Orherwise, what has dominated is finance.
Eventually, the PRC, following Japan, Korea and Europe followed suit, but the result of a universal chase after economic growth has been stagflation - first in evidence in Asia's leading economy, Japan. Waves of attempts at reviving growth have resulted in public services being starved of funds, leading to increased funds for corporate expenditure (privatisation and other corporate welfare) but disengagement (drugs?) and disillusionment among the general populace. Social mobility has shrivelled on the vine, and corporations are turning to leaching off customers - starting in the corporate market for health in the USA.
Where health services are publicly owned (almost everywhere else, with the important exception of China), there is great resistance to this, but agency work, shortfalls in public expenditure and the clear gulf between those living on high salaries, including elected representatives, and the general public all undermine confidence in public health services; meanwhile, corporate industries buy into, for example, GP businesses.
Regarding the "woke" cultural revolution, average people are at a loss concerning how to address it because the reality of it being fundamentally a spiritual revolution hasn't yet settled in. This is not merely a movement to redress some temporal grievances but rather a radical revolution against Logos itself. That is why there is religious zeal- it's because it's a religious war, masquerading as a political remodel. Take race. Wokesters are not colorblind - that is no revelation - but what is important to understand is that their notion of systemic racial bias is just a cover, concealing and giving respectability to something much darker: the real (but never confessed) indignation is that some in fact *are* more capable, more beautiful, more intelligent, etc. and this is deemed cosmically unfair; thus, the solution must be not mere improved treatment of the less blessed as in former times, but ultimately annihilation of all difference, but not before a punitive and vengeful inversion in which the least capable, beautiful, and intelligent are put on a pedestal, and the most, subjugated and murdered. It is a rebellion of malcontents and their philosophical sympathizers, fomented by the propaganda of Satan, exactly as in its heavenly counterpart. The fact is, we don't know exactly why some are born black and others white, some short and others tall, some brilliant and others feebleminded. Man has traditionally deferred to the wisdom of God on those matters. But for those who don't view this life as spiritual preparation for the real life to come, this is of course unacceptable. If, then, for the sake of justice reality itself can and must be reshaped according to the wisdom of man rather than the wisdom of God, why respect *any* aspect of reality? Why can't 2+2=5, if the answer of 4 is only correct because the matrix of reality set up by God (Logos) dictates it to be so? This is what we are dealing with here. As you might have guessed, if reason itself is in play, these people can't be reasoned with.
This comment implies a universal aesthetics of human beauty that is ethnically biased. Yes, according to widely accepted standards of beauty, some people are more beautiful than others. That is a fairly non-controversial claim.
But this comment doesn't at all acknowledge or recognize that standards of beauty vary from culture to culture. In fact, it implies that the currently predominant white European culture is inherently more beautiful than others, and that those who are "born black" are put in this supposedly inferior position by God. By attributing such occurrences to God, it further implies that they should not be questioned.
It's not difficult to see how problematic this framing is.
Actually, there are universal standards of beauty: thin and fit, prominent cheekbones and jaw lines, good skeletal proportions, etc. These have nothing to do with ethnicity and skin color. The above post didn’t mention ethnicity—but you fall back on it immediately.
In fact, you seem to resemble the type of people he was discussing.
A brilliant analysis "D". I'd like to use this in one of my articles.
Perfectly said.
We have been heading for disaster (and/or change) for some time. Ultimately, the powerful have become disconnected from their own societies and are attempting to reshape it. This project is at least 50 years old, but we are now at a crisis point.
Excellent start. I look forward to future posts
I will take a stab at oversimplification since complexity seems to be so au courant these days.
Is our current Crisis any more complicated than the neverending war between what Matthew Crawford notes are the "Kunlangeta" (the sociopaths and psychopaths essentially) and the other 80% of humanity? In other words, human history might be said to be the struggle between the psychopaths compelled to attain mastery at any cost and humans who desire autonomy and liberty.
A quick glance at history shows that a society organized around individual liberty and due process of law is almost nonexistent. Tyranny, authoritarianism, collectivism...these are the rule. Why, then, should we be surprised that the psychopaths have gained the ascendancy once more and now have the tools of technology to restore the authoritarian norm? It's expected once a system gains sufficient wealth and power to attract the sickos (and their adherents) among us.
The optimistic note to offer here is that this present society is quickly breaking apart and will collapse much sooner than later. And by collapse i mean a system wide, war famine destruction. When that happens all of us who cherish faith, liberty, and law will have the opportunity to reestablish these things against what will be the Collectivists' final attempt at police state. If we are only half as good at taking real action as we are at talking, victory is assured.
I don`t think you are over simplifying. There does seem to be a rather basic motivation behind collective human affairs, a sort of pattern they tend to follow when individuals delegate authority and institutions are formed. It almost seems that this motivation is the antithesis of intelligence, whatever you would call that, probability perhaps. The fight against probability is inefficient, which means it doesn`t catch on, in economic terms, it would require a subsidy, and on an individual level it would be the opposite of stimulating, so meditation perhaps. If someone tries to meditate, they find there is a tendency to think; thoughts pop up and the thinker identifies with them, and off the process goes, with a probability of continuity, while meditation is stillness, with none. Once it has been established that process offers efficiency, it is plain that all sorts of things will be delegated to process, and the outcome will be automation, with maximum efficiency. The automation of understanding is something that we are not generally aware of, because we only think about thinking, which is already too late.....
Fantastic, Caitlin Johnstone and CJ Hopkins both have substacks that talk extensively about our leadership being psychopaths.
Systemwide war famine distraction is not normally presented as an optimistic note, but at least it made me chuckle.
Oh for normal times!
Destruction (not distraction)
Distraction works too. :-)
This is excellent. I have been thinking about this very topic a lot lately--like many others, for sure. Something big is happening and our thinking has not caught up. I think of McLuhan's meme of driving a car by using the rearview mirror. So how then to conceive of this upheaval in a way that isn't so broad that anything at all that happens confirms the theory. Conversely, how not to get lost in the ocean of minutiae and miss the forest the trees. I look forward to what you have to say.
Thank you for the summary. Your observations ring true to my experience. I frequently feel at a loss for my place in this confusion and wonder how do I hold on to truth and Truth. In my opinion we are now approaching a climax akin to the repetitive Biblical stories that have been chronicled through time. I focus on the purpose of each individual in this massive drama and work to prepare the soil in my own backyard and hopefully I will bloom at the appointed time. I was not always this faithful but this existential battle appears to be organizing itself and my instincts and prayers tell me to be "ready". If anything it has helped me to stay conscious of what I believe and value. As an OBGYN the destruction of women and the beauty of life is glaringly obvious to me and as a result I often feel sad, disgusted, and discouraged. Then I go home and dedicate myself to creating a life that is beautiful, truth filled, and hopeful and pray for everyone. The deception is real and I am perplexed as to how it is perpetuated so easily.
"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places." Ephesians 6:12 NASB
Problems like
this arise corporately but we can only resolve them individually.People go senile in crowds, but only regain their senses slowly, and one by one.
We have delegated individual authority to systems and structures, but these have an agenda of their own. Take the legal system. Does it remain as it was set up ? No, it keeps growing like toenails, and comes to defend criminals and punish victims. Why ? This is not an intelligent process, but an overgrowth, a senility that is an inevitable outcome of growth.
We need to maintain intelligence, which we have delegated to efficiency. The end result of efficiency is not utopia, but automation, when intelligence is out of the loop, and all options lead to the same outcome. Intelligence is maximum possibility, but efficiency leads to maximum probability.
Consider how fragile our current situation is : it would only take a war to put out of action all of our electronic systems, and we would be back to what ? Paper and ink would be OK but they have long gone.
So the lesson is that yes, we have gained a very civilised way of life, but it comes with huge instability. If our systems cease to function, who has the authority to reinstatement them ?
I will most definitely join you in this exploration of the multiple crossroads ahead of us.
It is exactly this uneasy feeling you described at the beginning of your article that prompted me to create a newsletter in the first place. First and foremost for myself (to help articulate my thoughts, pull insights from contemporary and past thinkers, etc..) and to hopefully engage people from everywhere interested in intellectual discourse.
My main takeaway from this introduction of yours is that we just might be downplaying too much the upheaval ahead at our own peril.
Hope to share other thoughts with you down the road.
Take care.
Patrick
"Simultaneously, we are facing a technological revolution the consequences of which we are only beginning dimly to grasp, let alone understand."
This is my question about the consequences of our technological advances: do we simply not know what they could be, or are we so distracted with keeping up the pace of change that the innovators won't take the time to consider the consequences? It seems reasonable enough to me that a bright person with a little foresight (such as yourself) can extrapolate how new technological advances could affect the individual and, to a lesser extent, society also. I do find the rate of change to be a bit blinding, but I also believe that the writing is on the wall for those who have eyes to see. To be clear, I agree with your statement, I just can't help but ask useless, unanswerable questions.
Thanks for putting together such a thoughtful essay.
Very thoughtful. And I like the historical perspective along with the sketching out of the diverse problems of our confusing modern-day world. As with the writings of several other concerned thinkers, I am left searching for suggestions regarding how best to proceed toward appropriate and geopolitically scalable ideas on how to address these problems. Franklin Delano Roosevelt and others hoped that the creation of several international institutions could improve mankind's lot. However human nature and accelerating technologies (with big climate, health, and agricultural complications) appear to be making human advancement a tough slog. As you proceed ahead on this journey toward solutions, we need to move beyond rearranging the deckchairs, and (within the context you laid out) identify what are reasonable goals for mankind to achieve, and actions that key international actors need to take.
Rearranging the deckchairs is a superb analogy
Yuval Noah Harare's books, Sapiens and HomoDeus, provide a superb starting point for anyone trying to figure out what policies the US/Canada, Europe, India, and Japan/Australia/New Zealand might jointly offer that would have the greatest chances for success in dealing with the more difficult policies of China/Russia, et al.
Well this piece sure makes a provocative intro to a new Substack.
I was just referred here from Angela Nagle's newsletter. Brilliant overview. I look forward to reading more of your thoughts on these most pressing issues of the day.
This observation is extremely important:
"The evidence seems to be growing that this revolution – which is more accurately a revolution in how information is generated, collected, processed, analyzed, shared, consumed, and understood – may be fundamentally changing not only our relationship with each other, but our individual and collective perception of, and relationship with, reality itself."
I wonder often how different history would have been, and how different our perception of it would have been, had it featured mass literacy and a global communications infrastructure. Our ability to perceive what is happening in real time is one thing; our ability to process and make sense of it is another, and seems mostly to elude our grasp. But for most of human history, we could do neither of those things. And I have to imagine that led to a sort of baked-in fatalism about the world, but also a much stronger reason to go all in on religious belief. If everything is out of your hands, you're going to lean more heavily on a higher power to hopefully sort things out for you in a benign and even beneficial way.
Bon voyage, NSL.
Hey N, great stuff! As an info-custodian (j.mp/ar-chive), I've been interested in this for over three decades. You've helped clarify it for me. THANKS
Frankly, the claim that the USA has globally significant cultural leadership is scarcely credible. Just after the Second World War, when Modernism peaked, and then the Blues dominated popular music - yes, but that's it. Orherwise, what has dominated is finance.
Eventually, the PRC, following Japan, Korea and Europe followed suit, but the result of a universal chase after economic growth has been stagflation - first in evidence in Asia's leading economy, Japan. Waves of attempts at reviving growth have resulted in public services being starved of funds, leading to increased funds for corporate expenditure (privatisation and other corporate welfare) but disengagement (drugs?) and disillusionment among the general populace. Social mobility has shrivelled on the vine, and corporations are turning to leaching off customers - starting in the corporate market for health in the USA.
Where health services are publicly owned (almost everywhere else, with the important exception of China), there is great resistance to this, but agency work, shortfalls in public expenditure and the clear gulf between those living on high salaries, including elected representatives, and the general public all undermine confidence in public health services; meanwhile, corporate industries buy into, for example, GP businesses.