The deal of modernity is simple: it is the exchange of meaning for power.
Throughout history, we have believed that we were part of a cosmic plan. This plan gave people’s lives meaning but placed strict limits on what they could do.
Modern culture rejects this belief – the new belief is that life has no script; the universe is blind and purposeless. During our brief stay on earth, we can do whatever we want, and then we will never be heard of again when we are gone.
The modern motto is ‘shit happens’.
But if shit just happens, then there is no script to bind our behavior. We can do whatever we want, if we can find a way. Our ignorance is our only impediment. Wars, plague, and droughts don’t offer us meaning, they are just problems for us to eradicate.
The modern deal dangles the possibility of omnipotence in front of us, since it is constantly researching, inventing, and discovering, yet the abyss of nothingness is below us, supplementing our lives with constant existential angst.
In ancient times, economies did not grow, because people did not launch new ventures. They did not launch new ventures, because credit was not available. Credit was not available, because there was no trust in the future.
This has all changed in the modern era. Even epidemics are opportunities. If enough new ventures succeed, people will have more trust in the future, more credit will be made available, and the economy will grow, as will science.
When capitalism encourages people to specialize in jobs that take away family time, and this becomes the expected dogma, then it is entering the religious domain. The gift of capitalism is proving that not everything is a zero-sum game.
The greatest scientific discovery was the discovery of ignorance – knowing how much more there is to know.
The Communist Manifesto accurately describes the nature of the modern world, that it constantly requires uncertainty and disturbance. That all relations and ancient prejudices are wiped away, and new structures become old before they can ossify. It is difficult for people to live in such a world, or to govern it.
The value of growth in modernity keeps people in the rat race and keeps the world functioning. Governments fear stagnation and constantly aim for more growth, while as individuals, we are pushed to make more money and improve our standards of living. This value was not a hard sell, since humans are greedy by nature.
But capitalism has its shortcomings, we are going on a ride that we can neither understand nor control. On one hand, we are experiencing an ecological disaster, but production and growth have remained constant. In the long run, despite some economic crises and wars, we have managed to overcome famine, plague, and war – things that were thought impossible to overcome.
Read Homo Deus