The Human Conflict With Reality
I passionately suggest you read Jamie Wheal’s series concerning his reaction to climate change burnout. “How Not To Be Climate Memejacked.” It just so happens that I’m reading “The Burnout Society” by Hyung-Chul Han, gaining a new appreciation for burnout in all of its manifestations.
I think a lot like Jamie. We come from the same culture, although I left it decades ago. He does a great job summing up the complexities surrounding the grand predicament in a style that isn’t too intellectually taxing, cynical, bitter, or dripping with ironic humor.
I also want to share recent posts by Gad Saad and Norman Gary Finkelstein, who argue with those who argue with Reality. And one might intuit that when one argues with Reality, one loses.
Along this theme, I was pondering a conversation with an old friend of mine who believes the world is currently under attack by demonic forces and Satan.
Thinking about those who argue with Reality led me to imagine God as Reality. Think of it: if God created the Universe and us, then God created all the rules that govern Reality. God is as Real as it gets.
So, if we ignore Reality, we can expect things to get difficult. Perhaps it’s not Satan and demons but simply people arguing with Reality. Perhaps God’s rathe is what happens when we stubbornly refuse to learn from Reality.
We are unique creatures with unique capabilities; one is knowing how to fool ourselves.
Perhaps the best way to get back into God’s good graces is to humbly learn how Reality works.
Stubborn adherence to ideology, because your career depends on us, will only bring civilization to ruin.
Let’s look at the deadly sins again; not that this particular tradition is universal, but there is something universal about how they tend to be relevant across cultures.
Regardless of who we are and where we come from, we seem inordinately vain, narcissistic, and prideful. Vanity clouds our judgment.
(2) greed, or covetousness,
We lust for things, status, power, other people’s stuff, money, etc. Would a small community of people who depend on each other and their environment tolerate such a person?
(3) lust, or inordinate or illicit sexual desire,
We all know this is a sickness bordering on addiction. Sex is sex, love is loving, and the mind is sexy. Pure lustful action is violence and destroys communities. Look at all the “gurus” felled by lust.
(4) envy,
Does playing the envy game on social media make you happy?
(5) gluttony, which is usually understood to include drunkenness,
The dose makes the poison and is big business for pharmaceutical companies. The standard of care for general practitioners of evidence-based medicine worldwide includes updated advice on nutrition and other lifestyle advice.
(6) wrath, or anger, and
Does anyone feel good when they are angry? Although unavoidable and all too human, excessive anger is destructive.
(7) sloth.
“Who’s going to plant the corn?” One must engage and do things to support life. Pure sloth is death.
Add to this the sin of wilful ignorance, and we are in a bad way.
As I have said many times, Circumstances can be a brutal dictator.
If God gave us life and we are causing its destruction, that would seem to be the prime mortal sin.
The superorganism, meta-crisis, poly-crisis, or whatever you want to call it, is a complex conglomeration of qualities, activities, ideas, thoughts, and feelings emerging from civilization and turbocharged by science, engineering, and technology.
We had better be much more reverent in the face of Reality if we want to live in God’s graces.
