Most people by now are familiar with the 'materialist' life story - happiness is to be found in 'goods' (the name itself is suggestive). You will be happy if you own a big house, a nice car, fly business class and buy your ham and cheese from a provedour instead of the supermarket. If you tick all those boxes and are still unhappy, then what you probably need is a private jet.
Now obviously comfort is an important thing. My travels have very much brought that home to me. A pleasant roof over your head, tasty food in your belly and quality leisure are essential components of a really good life - but there are limits, and it is easy to fall into excess. I have doubts whether, in the long run, Shaquill O'Neal will find happiness in his room where every inch of wall, floor and ceiling space is covered in televisions playing Scarface 24hrs a day, seven days a week. I am sometimes also concerned about Australia's lack of existential ambition. Many of us seem to dream of an eternity of sleepy sundays in the backyard tyre swing.
But at the moment we don't have much else. Barring religion, which is a useful lie, the world seems a bit devoid of theories of meaning at present.
Now this isn't really anything new. Man has been trying to rescue meaning from absurdity since the moment he first attained consciousness (usually with religion). This has lead to a great deal of suffering, not just because many people never found an adequate solution, but also because many people who did find an adequate solution, like the Spanish inquisition or the crusaders, decided to enforce their solution on others (for their own good of course).
the scary thing is that I think this suffering is currently reaching the point where the earth can't sustain it anymore. For starters, the attempt to fill the existential void with 'stuff', as Lester from American Beauty so insightfully describes materialism's 'goods', has led to an epidemic of over-consumption. Oceans of plastic, albatross guts full of bottle caps, an atmosphere full of carbon, I'm tracing it all back to existential angst.
Intolerance is also back in vogue. Last week in America, the land of freedom and opportunity, with centrist politics and a culture of discussion and debate, a senator was shot in the head because someone disliked her opinions. Racism, partisanship, righteousness and all the other manifestations of intolerant bigotry, are not, as we so often claim, merely a case of ignorance, but more often a case of angst. Everyone wants an identity, and when that identity - the gate through which meaning enters our world - is threatened by the existence of another entity which denies our version of truth, we, mankind, are often quick to react by annihilating the other as an abominable manifestation of untruth - the very devil himself.
The path to large steps forward, in my opinion, must therefore lie in furnishing individuals in our society with the tools and perspectives neccesary to establish identities through healthier mediums than the KKK, extreme political positions andI by that I mean socialism as well as whatever brand of bullshit that infamous Alabama senator was peddling), religious extremism, or any other form of us vs. them group affiliation (like the red/blue divide in Australia). We need a quality, atheist (because god is either a delusion or a dishonesty), existential system, that is, a system of meaning and value.
This existential system will, in my opinion, require the input of all of humanity. That means an end to arguments and the beginning of discussion. It means more tolerance, less bigotry, the elmination of us vs. them and any other attitude that gets in the way of us recognising and engaging with each other as equal individuals with the shared characteristic of being human. All humans want the same thing - a reason for life, the experience of being alive, whatever you want to call it - and manifest that need in different ways. We can never arrive at a total answer that encompasses the vast range of the human condition if we continue to brand those who are different from us as 'alien', or worse, 'sub-human'.
All this is starting to get a little grandiloquent. The main point I wanted to communicate was merely that all the efforts currently underway to combat intolerance and other major issues like climate change, 3rd world development and the ongoing absence of leadership ethics in the West are all good and well, and worthy of applause. However, if we really want a quality, lasting solution, and a position from which to build upwards, we need to get a decent answer to the existential void that was left by the death of god, and soon.
Now obviously comfort is an important thing. My travels have very much brought that home to me. A pleasant roof over your head, tasty food in your belly and quality leisure are essential components of a really good life - but there are limits, and it is easy to fall into excess. I have doubts whether, in the long run, Shaquill O'Neal will find happiness in his room where every inch of wall, floor and ceiling space is covered in televisions playing Scarface 24hrs a day, seven days a week. I am sometimes also concerned about Australia's lack of existential ambition. Many of us seem to dream of an eternity of sleepy sundays in the backyard tyre swing.
But at the moment we don't have much else. Barring religion, which is a useful lie, the world seems a bit devoid of theories of meaning at present.
Now this isn't really anything new. Man has been trying to rescue meaning from absurdity since the moment he first attained consciousness (usually with religion). This has lead to a great deal of suffering, not just because many people never found an adequate solution, but also because many people who did find an adequate solution, like the Spanish inquisition or the crusaders, decided to enforce their solution on others (for their own good of course).
the scary thing is that I think this suffering is currently reaching the point where the earth can't sustain it anymore. For starters, the attempt to fill the existential void with 'stuff', as Lester from American Beauty so insightfully describes materialism's 'goods', has led to an epidemic of over-consumption. Oceans of plastic, albatross guts full of bottle caps, an atmosphere full of carbon, I'm tracing it all back to existential angst.
Intolerance is also back in vogue. Last week in America, the land of freedom and opportunity, with centrist politics and a culture of discussion and debate, a senator was shot in the head because someone disliked her opinions. Racism, partisanship, righteousness and all the other manifestations of intolerant bigotry, are not, as we so often claim, merely a case of ignorance, but more often a case of angst. Everyone wants an identity, and when that identity - the gate through which meaning enters our world - is threatened by the existence of another entity which denies our version of truth, we, mankind, are often quick to react by annihilating the other as an abominable manifestation of untruth - the very devil himself.
The path to large steps forward, in my opinion, must therefore lie in furnishing individuals in our society with the tools and perspectives neccesary to establish identities through healthier mediums than the KKK, extreme political positions andI by that I mean socialism as well as whatever brand of bullshit that infamous Alabama senator was peddling), religious extremism, or any other form of us vs. them group affiliation (like the red/blue divide in Australia). We need a quality, atheist (because god is either a delusion or a dishonesty), existential system, that is, a system of meaning and value.
This existential system will, in my opinion, require the input of all of humanity. That means an end to arguments and the beginning of discussion. It means more tolerance, less bigotry, the elmination of us vs. them and any other attitude that gets in the way of us recognising and engaging with each other as equal individuals with the shared characteristic of being human. All humans want the same thing - a reason for life, the experience of being alive, whatever you want to call it - and manifest that need in different ways. We can never arrive at a total answer that encompasses the vast range of the human condition if we continue to brand those who are different from us as 'alien', or worse, 'sub-human'.
All this is starting to get a little grandiloquent. The main point I wanted to communicate was merely that all the efforts currently underway to combat intolerance and other major issues like climate change, 3rd world development and the ongoing absence of leadership ethics in the West are all good and well, and worthy of applause. However, if we really want a quality, lasting solution, and a position from which to build upwards, we need to get a decent answer to the existential void that was left by the death of god, and soon.
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