State of the Meaning Crisis and Briefly How We Got Here

State of the Meaning Crisis and Briefly How We Got Here

We are in a meaning crisis. Today’s Americans are living in a dystopia. As we see the least amount of violent crime, technological advancements, the best healthcare the world has ever seen, and the overproduction of available food we also see an increase in suicides, poor nutrition, an increase in homelessness, a decrease in church attendance, and a decrease of trust in our strongest institutions. There are those who are trying to make ends meet economically and those who are trying to find a higher meaning or purpose. The state of the society and these two types of people are deeply correlated when it comes to the meaning crisis. They are intertwined and constantly changing on the individual and institutional levels. An individual can be experiencing one or both at the same time. Experts will say one follows the other or one weighs heavier than the other. It is a debate of Nature vs Nurture with no possible conclusion. This essay will focus on the meaning crisis, what is the meaning crisis, how people are awakening from the meaning crisis, and how the state of our society and economics play their part in the meaning crisis.

Society -> Meaning Finding -> Economics

Deriving meaning in one’s life is as old as consciousness. We have created religions and societies around deriving meaning in one’s life and as a society. There is a vast history of how we got here today. To give a quick example, you can look at ancient religions of stories such as Odysseus or Gilgamesh. We no longer find these ancient story’s meaningful in our society because our society has changed. As the human species evolved with no ways of living we needed new stories to guide us and give us meaning. Our purpose changed and so did our religion. The church is known for killing Galileo because he claimed the earth was not the center of the universe. This may seem barbaric now, but the level of impact is important to understand. The church was the embodied structure and the fabric of society. To have someone prove the earth was not the center of the universe is to also say that humans are not who they think they are. To prove we are not unique and embodied in life as we once thought is to destroy all of our purpose and meaning. The church had a choice, rid of Galileo or watch the fabric of society crumble. We eventually came to terms as the truth tends to prevail. Religion and how we would derive meaning was forced to be interpreted differently. This led all the way to Darwinism, the infamous death of God, and the political-economic ideologies of the 20th century.

Science had proven its ability to enhance society at a materialistic level. As biblical scholars danced around their interpretations of the Bible, Darwinian science could now describe how humans came to be. True or not, it was powerful enough to be believed by the masses and it left religion for the dogmatic believers. In the sight of this crisis, a new heroic story was needed, insert communism, fascism, nationalism, and the war on political-economic ideology. As a human species, we are looking for these grand senses of meaning and archetypical narrative to follow. We want to believe there is something greater than us. With the death of God and technological advancements of the time, Marx laid out the road we would be on if we continued down the capitalist industrialized path we were on. Describing how capitalism would lead to overproduction, monopoly, and an ultimate dystopia that left humanity in despair in favor of capital. With the death of God, we could not rely on him to save us from the disparities we saw in the world. Instead, we chose to pursue economic salvation. If only we implemented a humanity first economic system we could then reach a utopian society. This utopian vision fell short and produced the greatest catastrophes the world has ever seen as nations turned on their own citizens. This was not only seen through communism but also the rise in nationalism and fascism. As members of society started to find meaning through nationalism, the belief in one’s own nation as being of utmost importance and serve their own needs over others. These different political-economic ideologies were at war as to what would work best for their nation. Capitalism also engaged in the pursuit. I’m not here to explain how one system is better than the other, but to show how our search for meaning since the 20th century has been through the ideological means of politics and economics. We forwent the traditional religious and spiritual component of meaning after the death of God and had to find other ways to answer our deepest questions. You can see the utter perfect timing of this as well. As soon as we industrialized and advanced enough to see that we have the tools and overproduction capabilities to rid ourselves of all of our problems, food, water, and shelter we chose to pursue just that. Not only did we fall short, but we also managed to reverse progression in areas. The economic utopia was proved impossible and even if it was, humanity showed they would destroy it just to see some chaos in the world. Even with water, food, and shelter in supply we were still going to have problems. It only took the death of millions and two world wars for us to grapple with this meaning crisis and the pursuit of political-economic ideological utopias.

After the world wars, America, through its geographical advantages and capitalistic pursuits, proved to be the dominant force for the time being. During this economic prosperity, you also begin to see the increase of psilocybins use in the culture. As economic needs are met you begin to see young individuals in another meaning crisis, this time spiritual. This is also where it becomes messy and conflated in describing. Not only are people beginning to find meaning outside of the church, but also within their own system of politics. The birth control pill, welfare state, civil rights movement, and the war on drugs are all coming to fruition and are changing our materialistic freedoms and desires. Society begins to progress as the capitalist society also begins to crumble and institutions become corrupt (or viewed as corrupt with the likes of Watergate and the Vietnam War). The economic success of America begins to slip away slowly.

Now our institutions of healthcare, education, and housing are the best they have ever been, but they have become too expensive for the average day citizen to reasonably afford. The gap of inequality increases and many of our attempted corrections seem futile to the larger picture. How we got here and how we fix this is not my goal for this essay. It is simply to point on the map to show where we are now. It is also important to note that I know I am painting a very broad picture of society. This is due to my intuition of living in our state of society as an individual and the statistics I’ve seen. If you question American success in comparison to other countries, it is important to note that you are only going to evaluate yourself in accordance with the society you live in. American citizens won’t evaluate their success to a farmer in Costa Rica. They will compare themselves to the individuals within their society and around them. Our meaning must be derived and embodied within the society we live in, not someone else’s. Household costs then and now. Healthcare costs then and now. Educations costs then and now.

Most individuals will at some point go through an existential crisis in their life for a variety of reasons. I find this usually occurs when people are at either their lowest of lows or their highest of highs. At your lowest of lows, you need to find a reason to keep going. At your highest of highs, you need something more out of your life. In a dystopia, you increasingly experience both as there is more economically successful and unsuccessful. This would encapsulate the rise of the meaning crisis to the forefront of our society. This is seen between the number of individuals who claim they are spiritual, the increase of use and interest in psilocybin to derive meaning, the increase in suicides, the increase in talk of mental health, and ultimately the desperate need to find religion in non-traditional religious settings. As we awaken from the meaning crisis we are desperate for answers. We never came to a conclusion after the death of God. We merely attempted the political-economic ideological solutions that left us without a universal utopia. After rebuilding from the shock of the world war, physically and mentally, we also fell into having the internet. This has given us all the answers and no answers at the same time. We can find any answer that fits our confirmation bias on the internet. You might find meaning in new-age religion, zodiac signs, escapism, stoicism, eastern religions, mindfulness, atheism, political activism, belief in God, or whatever else you naturally find concluding to your meaning crisis. But because of our differences, we are finding different answers for the same problem. As many are rediscovering God in the Eastern Orthodox Church others are finding meaning through mindfulness retreats while using psychedelics. As we have united as one on the internet searching for meaning we are also becoming more divided with the different conclusions we hold close. None of us truly know what is best for society, but many claim they do because they can’t afford to be wrong on life’s biggest question. We are on an ideological rollercoaster of discovering meaning and with our different world views, it is becoming harder to communicate with one another. Not only are some of us wrong, but the entirety of existence is wrong if we don’t agree. As more citizens experience their lowest of lows or their highest of highs this search for meaning will only increase.

To find this meaning they must search for it. I have my own opinions, but ultimately I know every individual is different. Ultimately, I want to see people live a meaningful life and have a good well-being. I am afraid it could rise up again in nationalism or some other political ideology we have seen before. I originally titled this essay Psilocybins, Religion and Finding Meaning, but I would like to end here. The next essay will be my opinions on the different avenues on how one can find meaning in one’s life.

We are in need of some higher meaning or perspective so we can grapple with this life and continue on with it, but we may have a hard time coming together to figure it out.