Today, I would argue, there is an immense and growing popular thirst for a return to and reconnection with reality. And our leaders and would-be leaders should recognize this and understand that it is (I am convinced) an immense latent political force, of which we have only seen the first stirrings.
He links to Mary Harrington, who writes,
And even as tech and media elites sing the praises of luxury Gnosticism for the rest of us, they’re reserving unconstrained, in-person human interaction as a privilege for themselves.
They describe gnosticism as a movement to escape the physical world and live in an alternate reality. Metaverse, anyone? With Bitcoin as currency?
–“Today, I would argue, there is an immense and growing popular thirst for a return to and reconnection with reality.”–
I would hope so, but I’m not so sure. Not a single person who goes further than “transgender people may tragically sincerely believe they are another gender but in reality this is false” is that interested in reality. Affirming the worldview of those who believe men are women on the basis of their own feelings is about as reality based as affirming that 2+2 = 5 because some people feel it to be true.
Meanwhile, in recent news about the other side of the political spectrum, a grouping of QAnons met in Texas expecting JFK Jr. to help Trump be reinstated.
Outside of politics, I’m not sure people are any less immersed in their smartphones than in prior years.
I’d like to be proven wrong here, but my sense is that a desire for reality is sadly a minority view at this point.
–“They describe gnosticism as a movement to escape the physical world and live in an alternate reality. Metaverse, anyone? With Bitcoin as currency?”–
Gnostics indeed weren’t fans of the world, but pretty sure the OG Gnostics would be embarrassed to be associated with the idea of a Metaverse as a solution to that. I can’t help but think that they’d consider Zuckerberg as a sort of lower-level physical demiurge.
Seems had to square any optimism for the Metaverse with the people’s intense thirst for reality.
The Lyons piece was a wonderful read. Inspiring really. Thank you for posting. He is on to something. Personally having quit social media years ago and being quite happywith the trade off using the freed up time to read more books, Liked it so much that the past two years I have also abstained from the gnostic world of broadcast TV and professional baseball and football as well. Not saving much unfortunately there as the books are just about as expensive as going to the games. Giving up eating out has been a big saver though, and there is definitely something anti-gnostic about puttering about the kitchen cooking vegetables grown in my own garden, fish I have caught, and nearly so with fresh meat purchased at a meat locker rather than the grocery store. Something to be said for a semblance of personal autarky. Definitely need to spend less time on this smartphone. Given the crude wokeness of big business, a “boycott everything “ approach to modern living probably carries a lot of health benefits. Highly recommend all the novels of Mishimi by the way but have yet to read BAP.
Today, I would argue, there is an immense and growing popular thirst for a return to and reconnection with reality.
Today, I would argue, there is an immense and growing popular thirst for a return to not-fat bodies.
As always, one must look at the realistic alternatives.
If the only way to get a non-fat body is to often be hungry and tempted by food that one used to eat, to have a constant push by your body to eat some more–a push that you are hardly aware of and not really in control of–then it ain’t gonna happen for most people.
If non-reality is a revealed short-term preference, if it’s just too hard to resist …
(Which brings us back to Weinstein/Heying.)
I would not want to be deprived of virtual reality, but, of course, one can get too much of it. As for physical reality–it is inescapable!
“ The proof of the mightiest power is to be able to use the ignoble nobly, and given formlessness, to make it the material of unknown forms.” – Plotinus
I quibble with your Bitcoin quip.
Currency was immaterialized long ago by the banking system, and especially by governments abandoning the gold standard. Yes banknotes haven’t been banned yet, but give them time.
Arguably that is natural, because currency always was a cyber technology and physical tokens are just one possible implementation. If anything Bitcoin ties it artificially to the real world by demandung proof of (energy consuming) work.
Oh and you can print your Bitcoins out and stuff the in your pillowcase if you like. It might get stolen, but it can’t be demonetized.
BC can’t be demonetized, by an alternative one scintilla better?
Will that alternative be Sh*itCoin, BitchCoin, or BiteMeCoin?
True if I understand you! Bitcoins might become worthless even if while of paper with Bitcoins written on them will remain worth one Bitcoin.
This is in contrast to what happened a few years ago to pieces of paper with Indian rupees written on them.
All the theological, ideological, and historical Gnosticism talk, while interesting in its own right, seemed a bit too heavy-handed, dense, and superfluous to me.
Instead, all of that talk merely serves to demonstrate a kind of common psychological phenomenon which is the perception that one’s consciousness, soul, spirit, etc. is separate from the physical body it inhabits, which can have an influence over it, but nevertheless has a totally distinct fundamental character.
My impression is that this has always been more pronounced a tendency among intellectuals and those imaginative types who work with their minds, and do a lot thinking, manipulating abstract symbols and processes in de-personalized systems. The additional factor of remote interaction via digital communications devices and the unreal imagery to which one is constantly exposed strongly exacerbates these feelings.
What seems to be happening with the impact of cyberspace is that suddenly a large number of people are experiencing the bulk of their lives and exposure to social influences and cues in a highly virtualized way which, in its pathological manifestation, tends towards vertiginous uncertainty paranoia, the unease of disembodiment and ‘dysphoria’, and leading in some extreme cases to complete psychological derealization and breakdown.
The impact of all of this is probably less a latest and immense desire to restore real interaction (absent a Butlerian Jihad, that ship has probably sailed), and more of a widespread temptation to adopt the transhumanist perspective of being a mind merely trapped in the sarcophagus of a disappointing mortal shell and thus eager to find ways to transcend such condition and become liberated and emancipated from oppressive material constraints that are seen as mere accidents of biological circumstance.