At the close of the twentieth century it appeared that the great ideological battles between fascism, communism, and liberalism had resulted in the overwhelming victory of liberalism. Democratic politics, human rights, and free-market capitalism seemed destined to conquer the entire world. But as usual, history took an unexpected turn, and after fascism and communism collapsed, now liberalism is in trouble.
Humankind is losing faith in the liberal story that dominated global politics in recent decades… liberalism has no obvious answers to the biggest problems we face… perhaps the time has come to make a clean break with the past and craft a completely new story.
The above quotes are from the book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari, published in 2018. The idea that we are living in liminal times is growing. The notion that new grand narratives need to emerge if we are to save civilization has taken root. The big stories which shaped society since WWII were written by the elites and most of us Baby Boomers marched to their tune most of our lives. But no more. The new narratives, the new stories, the new myths to live by will now, hopefully, be created by the collective wisdom of average and ordinary people.
My friend David Bryen brought a website to my attention that nicely illustrates what I am trying to communicate. Later I will describe how this can connect to our current situation as a result of the coronavirus crisis. I find it exciting to see a path that may link me to being a part, a very small part, of the solution to big problems.
Mosaic’s Living Myth project seeks to bring the enlightening, transforming and healing power of mythic imagination to a world facing global problems that include both radical changes in nature and massive disruptions of culture.
At the heart of Living Myth is the idea that each person has come to life with gifts to give and something meaningful to contribute to a world in crisis. By living out the story set within our souls, we discover creative ways of serving both the healing of nature and the re-imagination of culture.
Myth offers a living library of narratives and symbols that are ancient and immediate at the same time. Thus myth is not a thing of the past but a vital and creative resource for understanding the current struggles of life. Whereas fixed beliefs and ideologies tend to separate and polarize people, the universal levels of myth offer cohering and imaginative narratives that can be contemplative as well as creative. Living Myth reveals the world, despite all its troubles, to be a place of deep imagination and ongoing creation.
The American Dream is an example of a grand narrative, a powerful story that promised progress and prosperity. I lived the Canadian version of that dream and I achieved unspectacular, but satisfying, results. Politicians are now struggling to save that dream, to keep the myth alive. But many Millennials have given up on it and they realize that many harms, such as global warming, come with the dream of a better life. An adequate alternative to the American Dream is not yet apparent.
From personal experience, I know how a myth can capture us and bend us to its will. For the first half of my adult life, I was a member of a benign Christian cult. I have told that story in the documentation of my spiritual journey - Part 1 - My Cult Experience.
Why are narratives important? The human brain has always received vast amounts of sensory input from the body, far more than what is necessary for survival and meeting other basic needs. Our brains have evolved mechanisms that process and filter information, including memories. Furthermore, our brain generates a mind that operates not only on a conscious level but also at subconscious and nonconscious levels. This mind needs to make sense of the world and our place in it. Narratives are a tool that helps achieve this purpose. Narratives help us escape the tyranny of freedom.
In my essay About Tribes I talked about how we all need the comfort and safety of our own tribe. And from this secure perch, rather than engage in destructive tribal wars, we can build bridges. It is not easy to understand other tribes. But we can gain much insight from the stories they tell about our tribe and the stories we tell about other tribes.
“A Liberal East Coast Science Writer Talks to a Pro-Trump Texan Strength Coach about COVID-19” by John Horgan, writing in Scientific American, is a fine example of bridging gaps.
So where does my interaction with a pro-Trump, Texan libertarian leave me? Rippetoe has made me more aware of my biases. From now on, I’ll try harder not to let my political views distort my view of the pandemic.
I already have experience with meaningful dialogue with another tribe member. I am a secular liberal and have a good friend who is a Christian conservative. We have had an abundance of deeply meaningful exchanges from which we both learned much. I know his story in considerable detail and he knows my story equally well. I would like to build additional bridges like this, built on a foundation of sharing our lived experience.
In recent years a new tribe has emerged, metamodern pioneers, which Jonathan Rowson describes in his article AWAKENING THE TWELVE TRIBES OF TRANSFORMATION as follows:
11. Metamodern pioneers (integration)
Metamodernism is a way of thinking and being that tries to integrate indigenous, traditional, modern and postmodern ways of knowing. As a way of thinking, it insists on reconstruction after deconstruction and helps move society beyond critique towards vision. Metamodernism values dialogue rather than dialectic because the diversity that matters most is epistemic diversity - different ways of truthfully seeing and knowing the world, but we do not yet have the cultural maturity to host this kind of dialogue at scale.
These metamodern pioneers have begun writing a grand new narrative, a completely new story which in 2018 Harari had not noticed, nor had I. They are trying to do something that they readily admit they do not know how to do. The project is too big, much too big, for any one individual. The project is too big for a small group of individuals. It needs and has room for many, and I feel drawn to it. And this project is but one of many in a larger program of redesigning every aspect of civilization.
As I observe the world today, I see some people struggling as the narratives that have served them well for their entire lives began to become difficult to sustain. Perhaps it is easier for me in this time of growing chaos because in my midlife crisis I needed to completely rebuild my worldview and find some new stories to live by. At midlife my goal was to survive extreme cognitive dissonance, a process which took about five years. Maybe this time I have something positive to contribute beyond maximizing my own personal well-being. Of course, connecting to something big that transcends my own life is not disconnected to my own well-being.
Drawing on myths of the Greek gods Chronos and Kairos, in his article Pandemic Time: A Distributed Doomsday Clock Venkatesh Roa reveals the significance of the coronavirus crisis.
The distorted experience of time through the COVID-19 pandemic reveals it to be an atemporal liminal passage between two great historic eras.
...pandemic time can be understood as a liminal passage between the end of the industrial era and the beginning of the digital era.
…COVID-19 is taking us on a wild, traumatizing ride, one that will dump us with scarred, partially rewilded frontier psyches, into a new aeon.
I often encourage others to write their story as a legacy. But I realize that that may be my path but not the path for everyone. A few years ago I met a lady in Lakeside and we became friends. As she shared her story with me I encouraged her to document it, thinking it would be very inspiring for many people. But she had the perfect putdown. She joyfully said, “I am so busy living my life that I have no time to write about my life.” I had nothing more to say and I will never forget that moment.
But I will issue an invitation. Think of yourself as the unique person you are with a unique contribution to make. Think of a bit of wisdom you hold that you can share and that will otherwise be lost when you die. Think about making your tiny contribution to what may be the most important, most urgent and most enormous task ever faced by human beings. Help write a new meta-narrative, the best solution to a meta-crisis.
Or, at the very least, prepare to recognize and support the new narrative if and when it emerges.