What's Your Metaphysical MVP?

Epistemic Collapse and the Power of a Ripping Yarn

This here's a story about our stories.  Where they've come from, why they're falling apart, and how we can construct better, simpler, sturdier tales (AKA our Minimum Viable Philosophies) to keep us inspired on the road ahead...

***

As things unravel on all fronts, we seem to be slip sliding further and further into what fancy-pants academics might call "epistemic collapse."

Basically, that means we're out of stories to adequately explain the three most important questions we've always needed to answer to live a fulfilling life:

Where have we come from?

What's going on?

and

What (TF) do we do now?

Sure, for as long as we've been yarning around campfires, we have accrued a staggering variety of answers to those three queries.

From the rainforests of Borneo to the bush of Australia to the tundra of Siberia, shamans and elders, tricksters and philosophers have noodled on them, and taken various wild swings at What's Really Going On.

(bear with me–gonna hopscotch through the backstory here so we can get to a specific point I’d like to make today)

In the last four hundred years though, there's been a fairly significant consolidation of those stories into a weirdly coherent Western one.

(and I’m not sure I buy it anymore)

Those same fancy academics might call this "narrative hegemony"–whereby the Euro-American, Judaeo Christian version came to dominate most of the others. 

Basically, narrative hegemony means "enforced propaganda at the point of a sword or gun." 

Or checkbook. 

Or TV remote.

Or smartphone.

So what did all of those Jesuits, Soldiers, Capitalists and Marketers get us?

A soothingly coherent story of Individualism– (every one of us is a unique soul in the spiritual domain, and an inalienably righted citizen in the secular domain) 

and upwardly mobile Progress–(civilization and humanity moving ever upwards and to the right on the overlayed charts of material technology and spiritual redemption).

"got to admit it's getting better, a little better all the time!" sang sunshine Paul.

"(couldn't get much worse)" quipped sardonic John.

It's kinda critical to note right here though, that those two stories–spiritual redemption and material progress–didn't have to come together! 

In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find as tidy a union of them anywhere across all of human history.

So potent was that combination of Individualism plus Redemption, it was enough to get those post-Reformation proto-capitalists of Western Europe up and running.

It was a clear enough signal to inspire sociologist Max Weber to pen his famous works on the Protestant Work Ethic, defining this uniquely potent combo of "redemption through good works."

It became a hyper adapted memeplex that out-competed almost everything else going, from agrarianism to indigenous wisdom.

Sure, guns, germs and steel, didn't hurt when it came to the global extension of Western power.

But Consumption now = Salvation later?

Carried us all the way across the goal line.

Fucking genius.

#suckitmarx

So whether by the forced conversion of missionaries civilizing the savages, or in the finely printed term sheets of the World Bank, or the relentless barrage of movies and magazines idealizing this tale, the Western Story won, hands down.

***

But by the time it hopped the pond to the Americas?

Americans, as they are oh, so wont to do! 

Simply couldn't leave well enough alone.

Onto that fairly standard chassis of Individualism and redemptive Progressivism they inherited from their more staid Euro cousins, they couldn't resits adding chrome, tailpipes, flames and fenders.

What we ended up with was a souped up, hot-rodded monster truck of a story that, belching plumes of smoke, rode roughshod over everyone else's.

Think about it.

Hard work, thrift and ingenuity might've worked for the Mayflower Compact Yankees.

But America in general had a thirst for Manifestier Destinies.

If you trace it backwards you quickly realize:

We couldn't have whack nut congress woman Marjorie Taylor Greene nattering on about Jewish space lasers today, if we didn't have DJT and the "reality" show the Apprentice a decade ago.  

We couldn't have him if we'd never had Norman Vincent "Power of Positive Thinking" Peale and his church in Manhattan. 

Or Napoleon "Think and Grow Rich"Hill. 

Or Mary Baker "thoughts become things" Eddy. 

Or PT "sucker born every minute" Barnum.

Or the paranoiacs of the John Birch New World Order crew from the 1950's 

Or the Anti-Masonic panic a century earlier.

(so anyone who's getting their knickers twisted now about Great Resets and microchips and Fauci, and doesn't know the Birchers backstory verbatim should just STFU and realize they've been algorithmically captured by retread memes that spun up their cranky old grandpa half a century ago.)

#actuallydoyourownresearch

Same goes for contemporary fears about "global financier" George Soros and viruses designed to spare the Jews (lookin' at you, RFK). 

If you don't know the backstory and narrative structure of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, you really, really should slow your roll.

#nothingjewunderthesun

But out of these bastardizations and metastasizations, has sprung up a uniquely American, blithely self indulgent meta-narrative of materialism and spiritual salvation that spans the political spectrum.

And that's the one I struggle to wrap my head around these days.

From New Agers running the Law of Attraction script, where they believe they deserve to manifest the house, spouse, cars and careers of their dreams, 

to alt-Right Q Anons awaiting the return of JFK to free them from the Satanists and re-elect their King Cyrus

#lookitup 

it's all the same, really.

"Everything happens for a reason" might be the well-meaning reply of the Church Ladies when you mention your kid has cancer or your spouse just got laid off.

Or the wobbly DM from the inspo-poster on the 'Gram when they're fresh out of Brainy Quotes to soothe you.

"Trust the Plan" might be the feverish advice of a Reddit/4Chan bro.

Or a Christian Zionist, cheerfully awaiting the destruction of Israel to usher in the Second Coming.

It's all kinda nuts, when you think about it.

But think about it, we must, because as we noted at the top, our stories are falling apart.  

(another plug for Kurt Anderson's super fun Fantasyland: 500 Years of How American Went Haywire if you're remotely into this kind of pop-intellectual history)

On the secular plane, the comforting narrative that if we all do our part, get good grades, go to college, get a good job, max out our home and car loans and vote once every four years (more often if you're an American Idol fan)?

That one's coming undone fastest of all.

And because our "spiritual" redemption/progress stories grew so tightly coupled with the material ones over the past few centuries–that abundance in one realm implied/guaranteed redemption in the next–we're quickly coming to doubt the Great American Prosperity Gospel altogether.

***

As I wrote about in Recapture the Rapture, nature may abhor a vacuum, but so does culture.

The more unstable and uncertain our narrative footings get, the more that Rapture Ideologies beckon.  

And what do all Rapture Ideologies, whether traditional fundamentalist ones, or shiny techno-utopian ones have in common?

The shared conviction that the world as it is is broken/corrupt and that the one to come is infinitely preferable for me and mine (never mind the mortal sinners or benighted Bubbas Left Behind).

Rapturists rush in, where angels fear to tread.

But here's the thing.

And why I felt like taking a stab at writing this today.

I really don't know what to think.

About any of it.

People ask me all the time about my views on consciousness, evolution, reincarnation, Simulation Theory, angels, aliens, the Multiverse, God, fate of the world, and whether there's a Plan to get us out of this mess.

To which my honest and consistent answer is:

Fucked if I know!

I mean, there's a tiny sliver of magical, mystical or just plain weird things I've experienced, and I've spent the rest of my life trying to make some kind of sense of them. 

But shit I haven't even glimpsed, I (or any of us) are supposed to have a definitive opinion on?

Just doesn't feel honest, or like it has any chance of being remotely accurate over the long haul. 

So why bother?

Kinda like Scuttle the seagull in The Little Mermaid who fancies himself an archeologist of the above world, confidently interpreting pipes and forks as snarfbladts and dinglehoppers–we really have no idea what we're talking about, let alone looking at when it comes to metaphysics. 

A few weeks ago, we were on a call with our yearlong FGP Guide Certification crew, and I said something along the lines of "I guess what we're trying to get across here is an MVP–a Minimum Viable Philosophy.

What's an MVP?

It's an orientation or way of viewing the world that doesn't get too far out over our skis. It's as "parsimonious" or stingy as possible in its truth claims, a la Occam's Razor. 

A philosophy stable and reliable enough to get us through life without needing to rely on deus ex machina solutions where Divine Intervention saves us at the last minute from all the scary math that doesn't pencil out.

(as utterly normal as our Protestant Prosperity Gospel might seem to us, as thoroughly as it's permeated nearly every aspect of secular and religious life, it is a Deus ex Machina tale to the bone).

So what do I mean about "getting too far out over our skis" in our storytelling?

For starters, the absolute obvious: believing that this life is but a dream/test/prelude and St. Peter's host of heavenly angels (or Vestal Virgins, or whatever Welcoming Committee you hold dear in your pantheon) will be awaiting us after we die to let us know that everything happened in our lives for a bigger reason.

#footprintsonthebeach

But also, more terrestrial versions like: accepting that "no matter how bad it's ever seemed we've always invented our way out of tight spots. We're humans, we will always find the new solution to our last problems, it's what propels us forward to the Singularity (or at least, an ever expanding GDP)!"

Remove both of those options, and we have neither Redemption nor Progress to soothe us or save us. 

The entire storytelling edifice of the past 400 years comes undone if we're no longer as confident in either of those happy endings.

And that's where we experience the stomach lurching suddenness of "epistemic collapse." 

We lunge for any remotely steady handholds to catch us, and the only ones left?

Rapture Ideologies.

Hockey stick escape routes.  

Crypto seasteading.  Metaverse utopias fueled by NFTs. 

Universal Basic Income and 3D printed Food! 

Cloudseeding and carbon sequestration.

Moon mining and colonies on Mars.

More Tesla batteries, More Space X rockets and More X(XX). 

The Everything App for All the Things!!!

(there's nothing obscene about that, just look at the logo ;)

Or vibrating out of 3D altogether in some sort of reheated Celestine Prophecy bypass.

***

So where has that left me, personally?

Strangely, I'm feeling most comfortable these days with a kind of post-modern Existentialism.

During my youth, I was pretty dismissive of Camus, Sartre and all the rest, smoking their little brown cigarettes and playing with their berets.  

"Ah Hah! I thought smugly to my college self. Those dimwits never even dipped a finger into the Psychedelic Pudding!!! What do they know?

Of course they felt there was nothing more to life than the meaningless rubble of Europe and the horrors of Auschwitz and Hiroshima.

But they were obviously thinking too small. Unimaginative nihilists, the lot of 'em!"

Then after having my ass handed to me by life, parenthood and profession, I reread a few bits and pieces.

On a closer reading, I realized those Froggy bastards weren't as simplistic as I'd once assumed.  

What I heard the second time around, was something closer to: 

"Ultimate Meanings of Life to comfort and guide us are fundamentally unknowable for certain. 

Therefore, the best course of action is to assume there is no intrinsic Meaning of Life, so that we are then freed from superstition and galvanized to take radical responsibility for making the meaning we want in the face of this vast and unknowable Universe."

Or to quote St. John and St. Paul once more, "in the end, the love you take is equal to, the love you make."

I don't think it's any clearer in the transcendent domains either.  

Contemplate the Burning Bush, stare at the sun too long, or realize the vast and inscrutable nature of hyperspace on your latest late night bender, and, more or less, you come back down to the same conclusions as Camus and Sartre.

#turtlesalltheway

#letthemysterystaythemystery

#dontbelieveeverythingyouthink

At root, the Infinite is as (or more) unknowable than the Finite.

***

Or to frame it in another way, we could call this MVP:

WYSIWYG Stoic Taoism.

Let’s break it down one term at a time.

(WYSIWYG) What You See Is What You Get–Nobody ever promised us a rose garden! Life is nasty brutish and short, and a vast majority of people have always sought pleasure and avoided pain. Like Diogenes with his lamp, you can beat the streets for quite a while looking for even one honest man.

Also: We are grist for the ruthless mill of evolution, and if we want to preserve and protect the fragile things that matter to us (AKA "complexity"), we need to nurture and even fight to ensure their survival.

But...

Taoism–Life can also be graceful, gorgeous and perfect exactly as it is! 

In fact, the more we align with that inherent balance, the less we struggle and the more we're rewarded with magic, serendipity and ease. (that's the "Flow" part of the Flow Genome Project)

As Alfred North Whitehead observed in his Process Philosophy, and Georg Hegel mapped with his neverending dialectical process of world history–the meaning of life never lies exclusively in one thing or the other. 

It emerges in a constant process of backing and forthing, coaxing meaning, and life out of the infinite dance of opposites.

#outtheyinyang

Which also reflects the dance between "go with the Flow" Taoism and "paddle like a motherf*cker" Stoicism.

Because...

Stoicism–sometimes life is hard!  And in those parts we've got to screw our courage to the sticking point and nobly gut it out and do the hard thing without complaint, until we eventually find ourselves back in alignment with the Tao. If we flinch or bail, it only prolongs the suffering.

#dothehardthing

***

And in my own fumbling efforts to explore and embody WYSIWYG Stoic Taoism in action, I realized something kinda weird.

(this is a bit of a dog-legged segue but hang in there, we’re almost done)

I’ve never prayed for help.

I've never asked my angels or my ancestors for special dispensation. 

It always felt superstitious, prideful, or some other thing I wasn't keen on being.

So I haven't. 

Other than the never failing companionship of my good woman, I've been staring down the Screaming Abyss pretty much alone.

Now, if I do end up at the Pearly Gates, and there's a giant communion of Force Ghosts, and my ancestors and guardian angels letting me know that all along I've been guided, cared for and loved and this whole lived experience was just nursery school for higher beings?!

Well, I'm gonna feel pretty stupid. 

All that angsty wondering, figuring and struggling for nuthin'!

But, on the other hand, if it does turn out that Camus and Co were more or less right, then I'll be glad to have lived by a principle tending towards Radical Self Reliance. 

Where Blaise Pascal famously made his wager "I'd better believe in God just in case he's real, than take the risk of burning in hell for my doubts" I guess I'd rather take Camus' Inverse Wager: 

"I'd rather build a life based on no supernatural aid in case it turns out we're alone after all, than place my hopes on an empty promise and come up snake eyes when I need it most."

If it turns out that I had favorable tailwinds (and Force Ghosts) nudging me along after all, then perhaps I'll get to my destination a bit sooner than planned.

Who knows?

If not, I've right-sized my expectations and have a decent WYSIWYG metaphysical map to match the territory of my life.

But despite my existentialist leanings, here's the one thing I am willing to take on Faith along the Way:

If I choose to believe just this one thing, the rest of my Minimum Viable Philosophy of WYSIWYG Stoic Taoism falls into place and feels solid and trustable:

I choose to believe that a world with a little more Good, True and Beautiful is a better world than one with a little less.

That's enough to get me out of bed in the morning.

It's enough to point me in the right direction of what to do next.

It's enough to pick me up after landing flat on my back.

Does it deliver us to Salvation?

No idea.

Is it aligned with the Divine Plan.

Haven't a clue.

Will it save us from our existential meta-crisis?

Unlikely, but too soon to tell.

But in the Biggest of Schemes, I'm willing to sign up for a universe that bends 51/49 towards the Good, True and Beautiful.

The Church of the GTB.

Kinda has a nice ring to it.

And because it's so simple (the MVP bit) there's plenty of room for folks of all stripes and creeds to come together around it.

Believe what you want to believe (just never lose the faith!)

***

So when it comes time to ponder the Yonder, and ask those deepest questions

Where have we come from?

What's going on?

and

What (TF) do we do now?

I think the answers we find and the stories we tell can be boiled down to something fairly simple.

We are the products of the utterly amoral, indifferent novelty engine of evolution.

But along the way we have come to perceive and even conceive of Goodness, Truth and Beauty.

Our purpose (now and forever) might be to choose to be stewards of the GTB, through those endless oscillations of creation and destruction.

And that includes our old stories getting plowed under, and our new ones putting down roots and shoots.

Just because nobody promised us a garden full of roses, doesn’t mean we can’t choose to water, weed and prune them as we go.

Stopping to smell them might be kinda nice too.

--

Jamie Wheal

410.259.7003