You may not be the sort to read something titled “That Moment When You Realize You’re Part of God’s Project; He’s Not Part of Yours” (even if not paywalled), but perhaps that is why you should.
Whether you believe yourself religious, spiritual, or even humanist, lessons can be found everywhere we are willing to look.
If Not Now, When?
Faced as we are with cultural decline, moral depravity, and the self-indulgent internet society that dominates the lives of so many (and of which, arguably, we are a small part), truths revealed or otherwise are in short supply. And while you might not want to wade through the author’s personal journey leading up to the following pull quote, it would have been worth the effort.
Much of the modern societal upheaval regularly on display amounts to a tantrum in response to the imposition of reality itself. Trans-humanism, in all its forms, is very much a petulant rejection of the way the circumstances of our existence have been arranged. Moderns feel imposed upon by reality. Were you created as a man? Well, surgical and hormonal interventions can remedy that; no need to live with the constraints reality has imposed. Does the healthy human body operate in the direction of fertility and reproduction? That can be remedied too.
The idea that reality might intrude and dictate our understanding of ourselves, thereby constraining our actions, is something many moderns simply cannot tolerate. We are living at a time of peak “follow your heart.” The easiest thing in the world right now is to find entire communities of people who are eager to believe that self-absorption is actually a virtue. The fact that unrestrained self-absorption is indistinguishable from madness is something that we have decided to simply … forget.
Another thing we have to consider is the relationship between this new normal to liberty and human freedom. Tulsi Gabbard recently spoke about the elite’s war on God and Faith. If there is no God, there can be no God-given rights. No natural rights. No right to life, liberty, happiness, free speech, free press, no right to travel, or to defend yourself when attacked. With whom you must have fidelity (the State) and before whom there shall be no image, graven or otherwise, than the State. And maybe that sounds a lot like some religions, but it is these people who have nurtured that war on reality, seeding generations with a preference for petulant fantasies. The invention, through modern illusion, of a new way that is as old as the human experiment itself. That there are those fit to rule and those whom the State must rule as god-king, omniscient, and unmerciful—a Government whose self-absorption is unrestrained.
The trans-humanists and secular humanists, perhaps even true atheists or anarchists, can find no power greater than their current individual whims, which deprives or at least limits an understanding of the value of family and community as a tool for their own growth and liberty. That doing and giving for others strengthens them. Frees them.
Jordan Peterson explained this as only he can in a roughly 30-minute speech that you should take time or make time to watch. He examines the steps and value of self-enrichment through the series of daily personal sacrifices and how and why young people today find themselves so miserable and susceptible (I would add) to whatever sleight of hand the political class might deploy to trap them in what Peterson calls the proximal hedonistic self-interest.
That “and the next thing.” Another false prophet, empty of meaning, but something, anything, to fill the intolerable emptiness that plagues them. What some have called the godless vacuum.
The speech is profound and gratifying, and I hope you watch it more than once. Not simply to grasp another piece of the bizarre puzzle before us but to concretize your journey so far – or to help you put one foot in front of the next in each moment after to better enrich your life and that of others.
I know it’s a bit deep, but then, so is the hole in which we find ourselves, and the only way out is up.
Dave Rubin has a one-minute introduction before Peterson begins his remarks.
