New Modes of Thinking Are Terribly Necessary to Survive this, um, Batshit Epoch
aka an ethos isn’t a flotation device
Last month, I wrote an essay for Tablet magazine titled “Hamas Killed My Wokeness.” It went global. The article not only circulated through Substack and social media but also was republished (with permission) in RealClear Politics and The Australian. I had previously been unfamiliar with the latter publication, but a few kind friends Down Under have informed me I should be very flattered. I was also quoted in Newsweek. All in all, it was a big couple weeks for my writing career.
Despite years of covering diverse subjects online, I’m still coming to terms with the fact that my most widely embraced piece of writing is, without a doubt, a political one. Ever since, countless follow-up essay ideas have flooded my mind. It’s clear to me how effortlessly I could adopt an “anti-woke” stance, a move I’m confident I could execute adeptly, leading to a rapid surge in readership. Audience-capture dynamics like this possess a certain slippery and sinister allure, one might even dare to describe them as addictive.
In no uncertain terms: this month has laid bare the dangers of “wokeness,” revealing the deep intellectual roots it has woven into our societal fabric and pointing to the substantial unlearning that lies ahead for an entire generation—if we want any hope of transcending tribalistic thinking and ways of being. This reductive ideology has infiltrated far beyond just the extremists or fundamentalists.
Please, believe: as I explained in my essay, I somewhat hesitate to use the term “wokeness.” I’m aware of the challenges in doing so, and how the term has been coopted by shrewd actors. But we simply lack better linguistic options. This essay effectively describes the trap here, highlighting how language is simultaneously policed while permitting no alternative names.
And I have zero interest in becoming an Anti-Woke Bloke! My work has always been, and will remain, about depth. Being “anti” anything is an insult to depth and complexity, not to mention hope or the drive to make the world a safer, healthier, fairer place than it is today. Anti’s can’t build—they only burn. In that spirit, I still call myself a liberal, as my heart is still drawn to the forward-thinking and progress-seeking.
I do plan, however, to keep exploring the shadowy lineaments of the Left because they are serious and carry a risk on par with the more obvious dangers posed by the Right. Have you seen the legion of Substack savants who, after skimming a couple of essays and podcasts within their bubbles, now assertively believe they’ve cracked the code to the world’s most enduring geo-political problem—all accomplished, of course, from the coziness of their homes?
On a more macro scale, we are witnessing a global surge in reactionary politics—recent elections in Argentina and the Netherlands are only the beginning of a cyclical backlash, at least in part, against the systemic rise of new-age Leftism. Despite this, I continue to contend that adopting reactionary politics as a guiding ethos and method will never furnish us with a sustainable, long-term remedy.
For the past two months, a singular question has been my muse:
In this age of high entropy, what mode of thinking can navigate the chaos?
Because whatever modes have predominated thus far, well, they are not working.
Prominent brain models today propose that our brains operate by attempting to control entropy. We humans do not like uncertainty. Indeed, on a biological level, we fear and loathe it as much as we do on a psychological level. Our brains have evolved to keep as much uncertainty as possible at bay—and uncertainty is just another word for chaos.
Thus I contend: the reason for today’s pervasive sense of personal and collective unease (or righteousness…) is rooted in the simple fact that evolution did not equip us to manage this unprecedented level of information overload. If our information ecology feels crazily bewildering to you, rest assured—it is!
It is not your fault.
A paradigm shift beckons, even begs—an entirely novel approach that can negotiate the high entropy states now intrinsic to modern life. What’s being asked of us is nothing short of a revolutionary reconstruction of our modus operandi—a shift that involves moderating and curbing our online presence, fortifying emotional resilience, embracing contemplative practices to foster and scale equanimity, practicing dialogue (dialogos) among opposing tribes, and undertaking wise initiatives within communities, political structures, and other arenas.
At the heart of this paradigm, the shift we so desperately need, lies a crucial transformation in identity, moving away from individual separation to a basic (yes, basic!) realization that we are interconnected, diverse manifestations of a singular evolutionary force. We are the pulsating heartbeat of consciousness, radiating through myriad forms, all just taking a good look at itself.
I refer to an MLK-style, colorblind aspiration, a vision seemingly forgotten, even reviled, by those promoting divisive identity politics. Through this holistic lens, it becomes evident that the suffering of others is inseparable from our own. From here, in a world of global supply chains, it’s just a baby step toward understanding what once was considered “normal” behaviors are now entirely nonsensical.
Examples of such nonsense: believing all conflicts between humans have a definitive “right” and “wrong” side; encouraging lifelong disengagement from the news rather than conscious moderation, as if civic resignation will prevent global suffering from impacting you (or your children); fixating entirely on the accumulation of wealth; ceaseless worship at the altar of (supposed) self-improvement; fetishizing victimization and past trauma as a means for self-excuse; and the self-defeating fallacy that we’re powerless to mend the culture gap amidst escalating chaos. Such counsel only inflicts harm upon oneself.
The second law of thermodynamics states that in any natural process, the total entropy of an isolated system will never decrease over time; it will either remain constant or increase. This implies a tendency for systems to move towards states of higher disorder and/or randomness. Despite our brains’ inherent unease with this reality, a beautiful insight can be gleamed. Recent research suggests that creativity and an expanded breadth of consciousness unfurl during elevated states of brain entropy. Case in point: the mind’s literal expansion as observed in the midst of psychedelic experiences, nondual meditation, and flow state absorption.
Simply put, there are moments when it’s wise for us to completely detonate the ancient edifices of our thinking, metaphorically blasting away outdated mental blueprints to make way for the fertile unknown.
In his book Psychology of the Future: Lessons from Modern Consciousness Research, Joseph Campbell wrote something that, these past several years, I’ve thought of at least twice per week:
The psychotic drowns in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight.
Why drown in the currents of chaos when you can master the backstroke? It needn’t be a dirge, either. Like good metamodernists, we can acknowledge the slim odds of avoiding societal collapse amid unparalleled existential risk. Because, as another favorite philosopher of mine once waxed: The struggle towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. He then said he imagined Sisyphus happy.
So too can we be. No -ism will get us there. Too far right or left and we fall off the boat. What’s needed is a new, fresh mindset that says: Jump!
The water misses you.
Yes, it's not simply a new way of thinking that we need, but a new way of BEING in the world. A being that is fully alive, attuned to the present, and from which thinking, in tandem with feeling and sensing, arise unselfconsciously from the depths of our core carrying us into action wu wei style.
It seems that every time your fingers touch the keyboard, my heart is lifted. Thank you Alex.