We live in a world intentionally designed to reduce the quality of human thought in order to extract as much economic value from the human mind as possible.
Paul - I appreciate how you lay out and frame why the slow erosion of thinking happens inside ordinary life, not just as an abstract problem or philosophical idea. The picture you’re drawing is of a gradual shift in how people live with their own minds, and I find this extremely fascinating and a bit sad given what you highlight. Over time, the work of forming values, questioning assumptions, and creating a personal orientation toward life is replaced by ready-made frameworks, incentives, and distractions. That feels very close to what you’re pointing to with passive nihilism: not the loss of thought, but the loss of responsibility for it.
One layer that feels important here is how much the mind is already shaped to privilege what is wrong. The negativity bias keeps our attention oriented toward perceived threat, conflict, and deficiency. In an environment built to capture and monetize attention, that bias becomes a natural vulnerability in the mind. It steadily trains our nervous system toward being on high alert or being geared toward the negative rather than spending time for reflection and thinking about aspects of positive experience. Over time this could easily reshape the inner conditions under which thought happens at all. What I respect in what you’re building is the insistence that people can take our authorship back. That a micro-philosophy is not a set of answers, but a practice of examining what/why one is living by.
All to say, I love what you are doing! It gels well with my own thinking about how to better contend with the difficult human condition to begin with.
That's a solid question Paul! The answer is no if we are thinking of turning the negativity bias off like a switch. However, if we are thinking about it in terms of rewiring brain circuitry the answer is more along the lines of yes if we think about it like rebalancing our attention away from negatives to positives in our lives so that the negatives don't completely override the positives.
Science has shown our brains are plastic to some degree so using measures like mindfulness, as mentioned aspects of attention shifts consciously, cognitive reframing and gratitude practices have been shown to be successful.
I read the main essay and then your older article on micro-philosophy as well. I really like the intention behind it: pushing people toward reflection instead of pure consumption.
I did struggle with the tone and some of the big claims though. Especially the line about living in a world “intentionally designed” to reduce the quality of human thinking to extract economic value. I’m not denying market incentives or attention engineering, but “intentionally designed” makes it sound like one coordinated project called “the world.” That feels a bit totalizing and, ironically, close to the kind of pessimism you’re warning against.
Also, I don’t really recognize the picture of widespread passive nihilism. People aren’t just sleepwalking. There’s a lot of conscience and agency out there: mass protests, community organizing, mutual aid, resisting systems, and big personal life changes happening every day.
So when you state “evangelists for mediocrity" i wonder why you assume mediocrity is the enemy? A lot of human life is ordinary by nature. Caring for other people, crafting things, deep conversations with loved ones, traveling and experiencing new realities. There’s meaning there too, and a lot of reflection happens inside that.
Stating that self-inquiry is “too inconvenient to be done,” or that billions never spend "even a few hours" thinking about their beliefs, feels unverifiable and also a bit unfair. It starts to pathologize normal life. Besides, let's not forget there's a group of people who are forced to spend all there hours surviving and dealing with life, rather than having the luxury to sit back and write deeply about who they would like to be.
Finally, the micro-philosophy pitch left me torn. I get the intent, but the whole system/framework/templates vibe can read like a self-help product aimed at the same anxiety the piece diagnoses. And “I don’t teach people what to believe” sounds nice and neutral, but some ethical guardrails aren’t optional if you’re encouraging people to create their own belief system. We still need shared rules, rights, and responsibilities. I’m curious where you draw that line.
Thanks for taking the time to read and write such a thoughtful reply. I will try to address each point in order below.
Yes, the main intention is to help teach people concepts, skills, and frameworks that can empower them to think for themselves and reflect on their own lives. I don't see very many people teaching this in the philosophy space as opposed to big ideas meant to be consumed primarily as entertainment or education about the history of philosophy for its own sake.
Regarding the intentional design of the attention economy, I do think that there is a coordinated effort to harvest human attention. It is hard for us to appreciate just how much money, thought, and engineering goes into the design of technology and apps that become normalized for us to use. There isn't some global or national conspiracy, but the current situation is close enough to that to be very concerned.
Regarding the passive nihilism, many of the things you list here are compatible with the truth of passive nihilism. Obviously there are plenty of people who take action to fight for the things that they believe in, but I would push back on the idea that this is widespread. But most of the post-college adults I know live pretty busy ordinary lives that are consumed by work, childcare, and pockets of entertainment throughout the day. This leaves very little time for leisure activities that enrich the human spirit and raise personal consciousness. Political awareness and concern can, in many ways, be a byproduct of passive nihilism/consumption culture. Finally, keep in mind that I was imagining what the end result would be if we continue down this path, not suggesting that everyone is sleepwalking already.
Regarding mediocrity, the activities you describe are not mediocre to me at all. Those sorts of activities are what I am advocating for. But I don't think internal reflection is enough. I think that much is lost when we internally reflect on meaningful experiences and never do anything with those insights or memories. If someone were to write something, craft something, tell a story, record themselves, etc., those meaningful experiences would be transforming into agency enhancing activities. The enemy is a life of no real agency, self-knowledge, or personal growth, but just going through the motions of life.
I think that ordinary American life should be pathologized because we live in an unjust system of exploitation which convinces us that it is normal for someone to work 40-50 hours for a large corporation and not see their kids for 75% of their lives.
I don't see how a self-help product that is designed to help people clarify their own values and beliefs can cause anxiety. My system gives people the tools to organize and understand their own beliefs. I am not writing online to change people's beliefs. If someone has hateful beliefs and wants to use my framework they are able to do that. They won't be a part of my online community, but I can't stop people from using ideas they find on the internet. If I were to build my own personal ethics into my system and moralize to my audience that would defeat the entire purpose of what I am doing, which is to promote agency, free thinking, and self-knowledge.
In the end, I am trying to help people in a way that I am able to. It's not going to be for everyone.
Hey Paul. Thank you for taking the time to reply point-by-point. That’s rare, and I really appreciate it.
Also, just to be clear.. I like your intention a lot. If my first comment read harsher than intended, that’s on me. I was challenging some framing, not dismissing the mission!
A few follow-ups:
I agree attention is engineered and monetized. My hesitation is the rhetorical scope. “The world is intentionally designed” reads bigger than the incentives inside big tech, advertising, and app ecosystems. I’d personally find it stronger if it stayed closer to “a major part of modern media and tech is optimized to harvest attention.” The broader wording risks sounding totalizing.
On passive nihilism: I think the reality is split. For some people, enriching leisure and reflection are a genuine privilege (time, money, bandwidth). At the same time, many of us in wealthy countries do have historically high levels of comfort and free time, which is exactly why frameworks like yours can matter. My only pushback is that when the baseline is stable, it’s easy to treat enrichment as urgent and non-negotiable, while in real crisis (war, collapse, insecurity) that layer disappears overnight. That doesn’t make it meaningless, but it does suggest the diagnosis should stay grounded in material conditions as well as psychology.
You convinced me on agency. The distinction between having meaningful experiences and converting insights into something that builds self-knowledge and agency is strong. That’s exactly where a framework can help.
On the “unjust exploitation system” point: I sympathize with the moral discomfort. I just react strongly to anything that sounds like a clean utopia claim when reality is messy and interdependent. What’s the workable solution at scale? If everyone cuts working hours sharply tomorrow, what happens to healthcare staffing, food supply, logistics, public services, and the infrastructure that makes leisure possible? I’m not defending the status quo, but there are trade-offs and coordination problems here. A critique feels incomplete if it pathologizes ordinary life without grappling with how a complex society keeps running.
On ethics and tone: I get what you mean by not moralizing. My point is that some of the wording can land as pressure. Lines like “make sure everything we believe isn’t being used to keep us under control,” “we must always continue to think,” and “freedom is the heaviest burden” can read as: you’re probably compromised and you’re not doing enough. Then the framework can feel like the one “right” way out, even if you explicitly say it isn’t for everyone. And very practically, “people can believe whatever they want” runs into limits fast in any real community.
Thanks again for the thoughtful reply. I’ve enjoyed the exchange, and your work gave me a lot to think about.
Indeed, Why would anybody want to spend their time fabricating their own "belief system"? Surely this is the road to anomie..anxiety...alienation..whatever?
Hey Paul, great thoughts. Comes at a perfect time for me as I am about to take a sabbatical from work.
One thing I was already planning on doing: I've been underlining non-fiction books as I read them for a long time and always wanted to take the time to write down all those nuggets in a notebook but never got around to it. I just gathered up some of the most impactful ones and will be starting a notebook for those quotes. I imagine these will definitely help me in creating my own micro-philosophy.
I'll definitely be checking out your older article. Keep up the good work, thank you.
One problem with writing is it is fixed when our thoughts actually change, so reading so-called great people's works doesn't really reflects their total thought but their thought at a point in time documented and frozen, people change but not their writings really. second I found that you referenced Nietzsche ideas which is great and commented on it with a simplistic language. I didn't quite get though how that shows anything about your own abilities of introspection as you've pitched your foundations course. I'm not against courses, I take many and believe many are valuable, but just I want to understand your contribution in the value frame, which upon clearance I myself might be interested in purchase as well.
Hi Paul - I've also been thinking recently about the importance of contemplation, and in particular imagination, which I believe is fundamental to human intelligence. I agree that writing is a key tool in this process, as it enables us to engage with and hone our ideas in a more efficient and structured way than would otherwise be possible.
A lot of it is reclaiming spaces of my time that I’ve now dedicated to my phone. A lot pf those blank spaces I try to fill with reading, sport and contemplation. It’s easier to do than to think about. The first step was the hardest.
Since we all have access to all of the quality ideas we need, but many choose not to access them, is it possible that they are already thinking for themselves, and the way they live is by choice?
If not, then your project shifts from liberation to prescription, and the burden of justification changes accordingly.
I think I would agree with you if I accepted the antecedent of your conditional, but I think there are many reasons to doubt that: 1) we all have to all of the quality ideas we need; 2) many choose not to access them.
I think access is unfairly distributed and this undermines many people’s agency and ability to even choose.
There are, of course, many who choose to focus on the wrong ideas, but there are many who never even have a chance.
Can we ever be sure of anything? How do we know when we have taken enough care?
The above questions from the essay jumped out at me.
I rather think peace is acquired by realising you can’t answer those questions. Sorry, there is one way to be sure and it’s being deluded and thinking you have. Bit harsh but true I’d say.
The state of the world is truly astonishing. One standout point is the degree to which humanity is regressing (intelligence, health, relationally) whilst humanity claims so much progress.
The best I can offer is the serenity prayer for the 12 Step Programme
This resonates — but the diagnosis risks placing a structural failure back onto individual will.
What seems new is not simply that people think less, but that thinking no longer occupies the point where outcomes can still be interrupted. Reflection, critique, even self-examination persist — yet increasingly downstream of decisions already resolved elsewhere, through delegated automation and pre-structured flows where no one fully owns the judgment, yet outcomes bind us.
In that sense, the danger is not passive nihilism as a personal failing, but a quieter condition: agency migrating away from sites where lived experience and deliberation can still exert constraint.
The question then becomes less “how do we get people to think again?” and more “where does thinking still have standing to intervene before action closes?” That is the fault line of our moment.
I writing a 2-piece article on the rise of dogma and anti-intellectualism through affective neuroscience, hemisphere theory, process-relational metaphysics, and capitalist psychopolitics — focusing on the importance of philosophy both hitherto and forthcoming.
I just finished “The Abolition of Man” by C.S. Lewis for the third time. One would think a book of a mere 90 pages would require three readings but it has for me. He warns of the void that comes from not following the Tao. The Tao (his philophy) for Lewis is Christianity (as it for me) and his prescient warnings from 1943 hold even more today. Philosophy is the search for truth and wisdom - if you don’t have a framework, as Lewis illustrates, one will be provided for you.
First, I’d like to say as someone with an undergraduate degree in philosophy, that I agree with your central thesis that people should really spend more time dissecting their own belief structures. Nietzsche himself raises this critique in “The Gay Science,” and “Genealogy of Morals.” I have a funny story about this critique which I’m going to be publishing on my Substack sometime this week.
Second, as a Doctor of Jurisprudence, I have to say that if the average American actually engaged in this sort of critical thinking, the suicide rate would likely spike dramatically. I think the primary driving force toward “the last man” is the grim realization that the more a person knows about how the sausage is made, the worse they feel about the world and their place in it. Nietzsche, of course, would probably tell people to do whatever it takes to undermine the institutions which perpetuate this state of affairs, but I don’t think the average American has the will to do so. They’re too enthralled in the Christian Slave Morality.
In any event, this was a delightful read! Thank you for writing it.
Paul - I appreciate how you lay out and frame why the slow erosion of thinking happens inside ordinary life, not just as an abstract problem or philosophical idea. The picture you’re drawing is of a gradual shift in how people live with their own minds, and I find this extremely fascinating and a bit sad given what you highlight. Over time, the work of forming values, questioning assumptions, and creating a personal orientation toward life is replaced by ready-made frameworks, incentives, and distractions. That feels very close to what you’re pointing to with passive nihilism: not the loss of thought, but the loss of responsibility for it.
One layer that feels important here is how much the mind is already shaped to privilege what is wrong. The negativity bias keeps our attention oriented toward perceived threat, conflict, and deficiency. In an environment built to capture and monetize attention, that bias becomes a natural vulnerability in the mind. It steadily trains our nervous system toward being on high alert or being geared toward the negative rather than spending time for reflection and thinking about aspects of positive experience. Over time this could easily reshape the inner conditions under which thought happens at all. What I respect in what you’re building is the insistence that people can take our authorship back. That a micro-philosophy is not a set of answers, but a practice of examining what/why one is living by.
All to say, I love what you are doing! It gels well with my own thinking about how to better contend with the difficult human condition to begin with.
Thanks Bronce, you’re the best.
Do you think it is possible for us to rewire the negativity bias?
That's a solid question Paul! The answer is no if we are thinking of turning the negativity bias off like a switch. However, if we are thinking about it in terms of rewiring brain circuitry the answer is more along the lines of yes if we think about it like rebalancing our attention away from negatives to positives in our lives so that the negatives don't completely override the positives.
Science has shown our brains are plastic to some degree so using measures like mindfulness, as mentioned aspects of attention shifts consciously, cognitive reframing and gratitude practices have been shown to be successful.
Well said.
I read the main essay and then your older article on micro-philosophy as well. I really like the intention behind it: pushing people toward reflection instead of pure consumption.
I did struggle with the tone and some of the big claims though. Especially the line about living in a world “intentionally designed” to reduce the quality of human thinking to extract economic value. I’m not denying market incentives or attention engineering, but “intentionally designed” makes it sound like one coordinated project called “the world.” That feels a bit totalizing and, ironically, close to the kind of pessimism you’re warning against.
Also, I don’t really recognize the picture of widespread passive nihilism. People aren’t just sleepwalking. There’s a lot of conscience and agency out there: mass protests, community organizing, mutual aid, resisting systems, and big personal life changes happening every day.
So when you state “evangelists for mediocrity" i wonder why you assume mediocrity is the enemy? A lot of human life is ordinary by nature. Caring for other people, crafting things, deep conversations with loved ones, traveling and experiencing new realities. There’s meaning there too, and a lot of reflection happens inside that.
Stating that self-inquiry is “too inconvenient to be done,” or that billions never spend "even a few hours" thinking about their beliefs, feels unverifiable and also a bit unfair. It starts to pathologize normal life. Besides, let's not forget there's a group of people who are forced to spend all there hours surviving and dealing with life, rather than having the luxury to sit back and write deeply about who they would like to be.
Finally, the micro-philosophy pitch left me torn. I get the intent, but the whole system/framework/templates vibe can read like a self-help product aimed at the same anxiety the piece diagnoses. And “I don’t teach people what to believe” sounds nice and neutral, but some ethical guardrails aren’t optional if you’re encouraging people to create their own belief system. We still need shared rules, rights, and responsibilities. I’m curious where you draw that line.
Emma,
Thanks for taking the time to read and write such a thoughtful reply. I will try to address each point in order below.
Yes, the main intention is to help teach people concepts, skills, and frameworks that can empower them to think for themselves and reflect on their own lives. I don't see very many people teaching this in the philosophy space as opposed to big ideas meant to be consumed primarily as entertainment or education about the history of philosophy for its own sake.
Regarding the intentional design of the attention economy, I do think that there is a coordinated effort to harvest human attention. It is hard for us to appreciate just how much money, thought, and engineering goes into the design of technology and apps that become normalized for us to use. There isn't some global or national conspiracy, but the current situation is close enough to that to be very concerned.
Regarding the passive nihilism, many of the things you list here are compatible with the truth of passive nihilism. Obviously there are plenty of people who take action to fight for the things that they believe in, but I would push back on the idea that this is widespread. But most of the post-college adults I know live pretty busy ordinary lives that are consumed by work, childcare, and pockets of entertainment throughout the day. This leaves very little time for leisure activities that enrich the human spirit and raise personal consciousness. Political awareness and concern can, in many ways, be a byproduct of passive nihilism/consumption culture. Finally, keep in mind that I was imagining what the end result would be if we continue down this path, not suggesting that everyone is sleepwalking already.
Regarding mediocrity, the activities you describe are not mediocre to me at all. Those sorts of activities are what I am advocating for. But I don't think internal reflection is enough. I think that much is lost when we internally reflect on meaningful experiences and never do anything with those insights or memories. If someone were to write something, craft something, tell a story, record themselves, etc., those meaningful experiences would be transforming into agency enhancing activities. The enemy is a life of no real agency, self-knowledge, or personal growth, but just going through the motions of life.
I think that ordinary American life should be pathologized because we live in an unjust system of exploitation which convinces us that it is normal for someone to work 40-50 hours for a large corporation and not see their kids for 75% of their lives.
I don't see how a self-help product that is designed to help people clarify their own values and beliefs can cause anxiety. My system gives people the tools to organize and understand their own beliefs. I am not writing online to change people's beliefs. If someone has hateful beliefs and wants to use my framework they are able to do that. They won't be a part of my online community, but I can't stop people from using ideas they find on the internet. If I were to build my own personal ethics into my system and moralize to my audience that would defeat the entire purpose of what I am doing, which is to promote agency, free thinking, and self-knowledge.
In the end, I am trying to help people in a way that I am able to. It's not going to be for everyone.
Hey Paul. Thank you for taking the time to reply point-by-point. That’s rare, and I really appreciate it.
Also, just to be clear.. I like your intention a lot. If my first comment read harsher than intended, that’s on me. I was challenging some framing, not dismissing the mission!
A few follow-ups:
I agree attention is engineered and monetized. My hesitation is the rhetorical scope. “The world is intentionally designed” reads bigger than the incentives inside big tech, advertising, and app ecosystems. I’d personally find it stronger if it stayed closer to “a major part of modern media and tech is optimized to harvest attention.” The broader wording risks sounding totalizing.
On passive nihilism: I think the reality is split. For some people, enriching leisure and reflection are a genuine privilege (time, money, bandwidth). At the same time, many of us in wealthy countries do have historically high levels of comfort and free time, which is exactly why frameworks like yours can matter. My only pushback is that when the baseline is stable, it’s easy to treat enrichment as urgent and non-negotiable, while in real crisis (war, collapse, insecurity) that layer disappears overnight. That doesn’t make it meaningless, but it does suggest the diagnosis should stay grounded in material conditions as well as psychology.
You convinced me on agency. The distinction between having meaningful experiences and converting insights into something that builds self-knowledge and agency is strong. That’s exactly where a framework can help.
On the “unjust exploitation system” point: I sympathize with the moral discomfort. I just react strongly to anything that sounds like a clean utopia claim when reality is messy and interdependent. What’s the workable solution at scale? If everyone cuts working hours sharply tomorrow, what happens to healthcare staffing, food supply, logistics, public services, and the infrastructure that makes leisure possible? I’m not defending the status quo, but there are trade-offs and coordination problems here. A critique feels incomplete if it pathologizes ordinary life without grappling with how a complex society keeps running.
On ethics and tone: I get what you mean by not moralizing. My point is that some of the wording can land as pressure. Lines like “make sure everything we believe isn’t being used to keep us under control,” “we must always continue to think,” and “freedom is the heaviest burden” can read as: you’re probably compromised and you’re not doing enough. Then the framework can feel like the one “right” way out, even if you explicitly say it isn’t for everyone. And very practically, “people can believe whatever they want” runs into limits fast in any real community.
Thanks again for the thoughtful reply. I’ve enjoyed the exchange, and your work gave me a lot to think about.
Thanks Emma, this was awesome.
Thank you. Your challenging points are spot on.
Indeed, Why would anybody want to spend their time fabricating their own "belief system"? Surely this is the road to anomie..anxiety...alienation..whatever?
Awesome stuff
Hey Paul, great thoughts. Comes at a perfect time for me as I am about to take a sabbatical from work.
One thing I was already planning on doing: I've been underlining non-fiction books as I read them for a long time and always wanted to take the time to write down all those nuggets in a notebook but never got around to it. I just gathered up some of the most impactful ones and will be starting a notebook for those quotes. I imagine these will definitely help me in creating my own micro-philosophy.
I'll definitely be checking out your older article. Keep up the good work, thank you.
Thanks Jake.
That’s actually how I approach my underlines.
You can use AI to automate the extraction process as well.
Always great stuff! Your summary of The Last Man really got me thinking too.
Thanks!
Genuine question — is there a mechanism in your framework that prevents it from becoming the very kind of inherited structure you’re warning about?
My goal is to put people in a position to see differently and choose for themselves. But all frameworks should be questioned.
Thank you. Clarity about the limits of a framework is valuable.
Right…. How do you prevent a framework for independent thought from simply becoming another inherited framework?
I can’t prevent it, the responsibility is on the user to develop their own frame so they can use ideas rather than consume them.
One problem with writing is it is fixed when our thoughts actually change, so reading so-called great people's works doesn't really reflects their total thought but their thought at a point in time documented and frozen, people change but not their writings really. second I found that you referenced Nietzsche ideas which is great and commented on it with a simplistic language. I didn't quite get though how that shows anything about your own abilities of introspection as you've pitched your foundations course. I'm not against courses, I take many and believe many are valuable, but just I want to understand your contribution in the value frame, which upon clearance I myself might be interested in purchase as well.
Hi Paul - I've also been thinking recently about the importance of contemplation, and in particular imagination, which I believe is fundamental to human intelligence. I agree that writing is a key tool in this process, as it enables us to engage with and hone our ideas in a more efficient and structured way than would otherwise be possible.
I've recently written a post about the importance of imagination which may be of interest - https://sajmalhi.substack.com/p/making-sense?r=2cl55d. Let me know what you think, thanks.
Great piece! Im on my own journey and this article couldn’t be more helpful.
A lot of it is reclaiming spaces of my time that I’ve now dedicated to my phone. A lot pf those blank spaces I try to fill with reading, sport and contemplation. It’s easier to do than to think about. The first step was the hardest.
Definitely. That’s great you make space for contemplation!
Awesome. How would you describe your journey?
Since we all have access to all of the quality ideas we need, but many choose not to access them, is it possible that they are already thinking for themselves, and the way they live is by choice?
If not, then your project shifts from liberation to prescription, and the burden of justification changes accordingly.
Hi Patrick, this is an interesting thought.
I think I would agree with you if I accepted the antecedent of your conditional, but I think there are many reasons to doubt that: 1) we all have to all of the quality ideas we need; 2) many choose not to access them.
I think access is unfairly distributed and this undermines many people’s agency and ability to even choose.
There are, of course, many who choose to focus on the wrong ideas, but there are many who never even have a chance.
When access is sufficient but unused, is agency actually constrained, or is it being exercised in a way you simply judge as wrong?
If it’s the latter, the claim shifts from liberation to normative prescription, and the justification burden changes.
Can we ever be sure of anything? How do we know when we have taken enough care?
The above questions from the essay jumped out at me.
I rather think peace is acquired by realising you can’t answer those questions. Sorry, there is one way to be sure and it’s being deluded and thinking you have. Bit harsh but true I’d say.
The state of the world is truly astonishing. One standout point is the degree to which humanity is regressing (intelligence, health, relationally) whilst humanity claims so much progress.
The best I can offer is the serenity prayer for the 12 Step Programme
God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.
These are great questions Stephen.
I don’t think certainty is the standard to aim for.
A more attainable standard is “giving reasons/justifications”.
But even that is a lot to ask sometimes.
This resonates — but the diagnosis risks placing a structural failure back onto individual will.
What seems new is not simply that people think less, but that thinking no longer occupies the point where outcomes can still be interrupted. Reflection, critique, even self-examination persist — yet increasingly downstream of decisions already resolved elsewhere, through delegated automation and pre-structured flows where no one fully owns the judgment, yet outcomes bind us.
In that sense, the danger is not passive nihilism as a personal failing, but a quieter condition: agency migrating away from sites where lived experience and deliberation can still exert constraint.
The question then becomes less “how do we get people to think again?” and more “where does thinking still have standing to intervene before action closes?” That is the fault line of our moment.
Thanks for this great comment.
I am very sensitive to structural failures and injustices, and I love the way you explained how this undermines agency here.
Much of my writing focuses on the individual because that is who I think I can help the most.
Your work is what the world needs. Thank you.
So kind of you Luca, I appreciate it.
I writing a 2-piece article on the rise of dogma and anti-intellectualism through affective neuroscience, hemisphere theory, process-relational metaphysics, and capitalist psychopolitics — focusing on the importance of philosophy both hitherto and forthcoming.
I just finished “The Abolition of Man” by C.S. Lewis for the third time. One would think a book of a mere 90 pages would require three readings but it has for me. He warns of the void that comes from not following the Tao. The Tao (his philophy) for Lewis is Christianity (as it for me) and his prescient warnings from 1943 hold even more today. Philosophy is the search for truth and wisdom - if you don’t have a framework, as Lewis illustrates, one will be provided for you.
Thanks Rob. I should read Lewis’ book.
First, I’d like to say as someone with an undergraduate degree in philosophy, that I agree with your central thesis that people should really spend more time dissecting their own belief structures. Nietzsche himself raises this critique in “The Gay Science,” and “Genealogy of Morals.” I have a funny story about this critique which I’m going to be publishing on my Substack sometime this week.
Second, as a Doctor of Jurisprudence, I have to say that if the average American actually engaged in this sort of critical thinking, the suicide rate would likely spike dramatically. I think the primary driving force toward “the last man” is the grim realization that the more a person knows about how the sausage is made, the worse they feel about the world and their place in it. Nietzsche, of course, would probably tell people to do whatever it takes to undermine the institutions which perpetuate this state of affairs, but I don’t think the average American has the will to do so. They’re too enthralled in the Christian Slave Morality.
In any event, this was a delightful read! Thank you for writing it.