The Meaning Crisis is a Crisis of Incoherent Self Concern

I've been following the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW) movement over the last couple years with an intent of making sense of what's really new here. It's a nebulous movement with thought leaders such as Jordan Peterson, Eric Weinstein, Sam Harris, and several others. An astute tweeter recently distilled the IDW into the people who hold these three positions: (1) those who pursue of truth instead of power; (2) those who favor understanding over judgment; and (3) those who value ideas more than identity. I tend to like this check list, but I also don't see anything that new in it. This is how the great philosophers and theologians have been orientating themselves for eons.

At its core, the IDW is also attempting to identify today's meaning crisis and to come up with alternatives that could serve to ameliorate it without going back in time to something more traditional. The reason of it being dismissive of traditional forms of meaning is that we can't unlearn what we have already learned, and at this stage of the game we have all been heavily indoctrinated into modernity and post-modernity. The assumption is we can't believe in biblical revelation, a virgin birth, and the Eucharist to explain things anymore. (Ironically, many of today's New Age pagans have bought into the healing power of crystals, Divine goddess worship, and alien abductions.)

Many in the IDW have a God allergy, but are pointing to ideas that have a religious fervor. We see a striving to come up with a new myth that puts on a fresh coat of paint on the crumbling walls of western civilization. I don't think it is a fruitless effort by any means, since it is lighting many up to look beyond their indoctrinated beliefs. And if it's a Trojan horse to something higher and deeper, then all the power truth to it. My point is to contest the idea that our search for meaning can be fulfilled by any belief system by itself — as it can only point us to ultimate meaning which is beyond the searching! Otherwise, we are just grasping at belief systems to create another identify for ourselves.

Our meaning comes through our being, and there are three ways of being a person in the world: “(1) knowing Tao; (2) not knowing Tao; and (3) instead of knowing Tao, or clinging to a Taoist teaching” (Shaw). (1) will always provide a deeper realization than (2) or (3). In the case of (1), you know Truth, trustingly, beyond any belief system. It is not a borrowed Truth, but is a known meaning that is ours. The paradox is ultimate meaning does not come from searching for it, but is allowed by reversing our intention for searching for meaning. 

(1) goes by many names other than Tao. Shinzen Young, in Return to the Source, compiles a great list of the unseen order that gives life significance:

Pure Consciousness (Purusha in Yoga)

Cessation (Cittavrittinirodha in Yoga, Nirodha in Buddhism, Cesó in St. John of the Cross)

The Source (Ha Makom in Kabbalah, Kongen in Sasaki Roshi)

The Witness (Drashtri in Yoga)

True Self (Atma in Hinduism)

No self (Anatma in Buddhism)

The Unborn (Ajata in Buddhism and Hinduism)

The Undying (Amrita in Buddhism and Hinduism)

Emptiness (Shunyata in Buddhism)

Fullness (Purna in Hinduism)

Nothingness (Nihil in Christianity, Ayn in Judaism, Ākiñcañña in Buddhism)

Ground (Grund in Christianity, Gzhi in Tibetan practice)

Peace of Heaven (Shalom bimromav in Judaism)

Void (Shunya in Buddhism, Xūin Daoism)

True Love (Shinjitsu no ai in Sasaki Roshi)

Shaw notes, “belief systems are to be valued for their effect rather than for their informational content, and yet from this side their content is indispensable.” Meaning via a belief system can come from the distilled experiences of others, through the traditions, so the wheel does not have to be recreated through the one's own self indulgence. This can be useful, where we can become reenchanted with a religious faith/spiritual path despite seeing the cracks and loving it still.

But we must also realize Truth by practices that take us beyond all concepts. To seek meaning through doctrines, theories, self-expression, and reason will always be limiting and prolong the existential crisis. Only by turning to God with an open heart, aligned as body and soul, can we really find the meaning we desire because He is the Source of our being and the Reality of what we truly are. 

Ultimate meaning = Self realization beyond time and self actualization in time.