🔋Man's Search For Meaning
🔋Man's Search For Meaning
Nihilism taking over for meaning in society has led to a deterioration in creative institutions like science and art, instigated by a general financialization of the world.
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Meaning
Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl is the riveting story his experience as a holocaust survivor, time spent in concentration camps, and analysis of the experience from a psychological point of view. Frankl was a trained psychiatrist and his experience shaped his views and contributed to his additions in the fields of existentialism and psychotherapy. I highly recommend the book for better understanding of human motivations as well as a true understanding of what people had to go through during that time.
Frenkel noted that prisoners even in the face of desperation and likely death, could cling onto loved ones, whether alive or not, as a way to get through. Conversely, if they lost what purpose they were clinging to, their physical condition would immediately deteriorate as well. In such an extreme environment, changes in psyche have a magnified effect than they would on any somewhat well off person in a developed nation today. He noted that prisoners also had a sense of higher purpose which was seen through signs of beauty like sunsets or birds. People would sometimes sacrifice food to hear jokes from other members even under starvation conditions. Frenkel notes that having some future goal is what makes the past and present have consequence and allowed people to enjoy things like jokes and birds even in such an environment.
One of the most powerful lessons from the book is that while camp life could destroy people into losing all dignity, there is always the last inner freedom that cannot be lost. That is to bear your suffering, have purposeful attitude towards existence, and be able to chose your next action whether it be acting bitter, giving up, or being nice and helping others. Each action you take is up to you and that has meaning to yourself and the world whether it is in suffering or in creativity/prosperity. This is the idea that people are not merely the product of their environment, there is always the final choice/outlook in each and every person. This idea leaves the responsibility within each person, rather than outside their control which is such an easy excuse to justify.
Humans yearn for meaning often found in love, art, music, nature, and even suffering/death as Frenkel suggests, regardless of their current environment. While people have different appreciations and experiences with what gives them meaning, todays society has seen some signs that these aspects aren’t as prominent in life. Whether it be increasing political tensions and the demonization of fellow humans, lack of magnificent architecture, less emphasis on religion, and lack of appreciation of the environment, it certainty seems like finding purpose, beauty, and meaning is substituted by a growing nihilism.
“If you know the why, you can bear almost any how” -Nietzhe
Financialization
While today’s luxuries cannot rightfully be compared to the horrific traumas people faced in the holocaust, meaning is under attack today in a different way. I have long talked about the often deleterious second and third order consequences of government policies in my previous articles. Some of them focus on money as a driver of debt and inflation and the consequence on the world of energy, the economy, and climate.
To briefly summarize, since 1971 in particular when Nixon severed the US dollar tie to gold, the US has had no recourse to inflate the money supply. Since that day 52 years ago, the dollar has lost 98% of its purchasing power and the debt has exploded ~100x an an exponential fashion. Today I am focusing on the ill-incentive this provides to society and some of the meaning that we may not realize is absent.
Due to this, people have become financialized against their will. With inflation running rampant, people inadvertently become obsessed with money. Conscious or not, people change their behavior to make sure they have enough money or in attempt to make more. This means many people do not explore their true passions or work on long term projects because there is no benefit for a long time. If real wages go down over time, it doesn’t allow for people to pursue their long term goals. Purchasing power and standard of living are being pulled away from us at an ever increasing rate causing people to focus on maintaining their way of life instead of what they are most passionate about.
Below is a graph of the most essential items in one’s life by importance. A shocking trend is observed over time is ‘being well off financially’ was not on the list prior to 1970, but has become the clear dominant factor today. With other factors varying only little, this sentiment has clearly replaced developing a meaningful philosophy of life as the most important life goal. Correlations with this time frame are stark, with things like incarceration rates, mass shootings, median age of marriage all following similar trajectories over time.
Art
Monetary inflation subconsciously influences time preferences of people. This is actually a target of central planners as seen by the 2% target inflation rate of the federal reserve. Inflation pushes people to consume/spend more in the present as their savings will be worth less in the future. This shift to higher time preference is seen in other areas of creative endeavors as well.
For example, why don’t see beautiful new architecture anymore? For developers it would be a tremendous waste of money and resources in todays world to plan a project that would take 100 years to build. Similarly, there have been less beautiful works of art or truly impactful works of music that transcend the shallow attention spans and resonate meaning through time. Why have we seen songs get shorter, internet videos get shorter, and masterful art left to the wayside over recent years?
Time preferences have increased meaning people tend to think more about the present at the expense of the future and the rules/regulations have evolved to reflect it. Long term projects like the Sistine chapel or beautiful roman, renaissance, baroque, or gothic art and architecture are not feasible or appreciated today. Can you imagine construction crews going to work on a building knowing they won’t finish in their lifetimes and without managers breathing down their necks about completion dates to keep up with their margins?
Science
I would be remiss not to relate this to science and this may even be a controversial take, but where is the funding for meaningful physics research? Academia today is solving “engineering problems” akin to the role of a company, not making fundamental breakthroughs. Focusing on optimizing systems rather than true discoveries of the unknown are most common through the cost burden of PhD programs and financial incentive underlying much of today’s research. Sure there are many institutions doing good research out there, but the quality has been effected on the whole. Yes we have the internet, increasing means of communication, and faster processing speeds. However, generations before had experienced the newfound ability to travel the world, the ability to access bountiful energy from fission, create the latest understanding of the world through quantum mechanics, and discover the fundamentals behind the enhanced communication and semiconductor capabilities that have since been expounded upon.
The number of truly monumental scientific breakthroughs has decreased since the 1970s and we haven’t exceeded with many fundamental physics discoveries either. Throughout history, the funding behind these breakthroughs was through wealthy colleagues or through the university itself. This provided the researchers with the true passion to call the shots. Nowadays the primary funding mechanism for research, student loans, and ultimately university profits is the government. This means that at the end of the day the monetary incentive is in the hands of the government, not at the hands of the researchers. This means that the research direction is not controlled by those most competent to decide and has the ill incentive to drive up costs.
On top of these ill incentives, the 1970s was a time where the government started getting increasingly paranoid about wasted money. Instead of austerity we know in hindsight they chose quiet default and severed the dollar tie to gold in 1971. One little known consequence is that the funding for deep physics aka “cowboy science” projects that brought many of the ideas throughout world war two and beyond were discontinued. On top of that, the modern peer review system was widely adopted in the mid 1970s. Known today as one of the pillars behind academic quality, I argue it really be a system of inhibiting some of the most groundbreaking science. Psychology tells us that humans like to fit in and this disincentivizes people from doing crazy research may not get approved to a journal by peers. It also may lose them their jobs from the Universities if they are not being “productive” in the modern academic sense. A contrarian professor who has a 40 year time horizon on their theory that would transform a discipline would not get a job in many universities today where they need to spin out papers and offer consistent progress.
Conclusion
While the government proclaims to care about its citizens, actions often have consequences contrary to their aims. The federal reserve in press conferences even quote their responsibility to price stability and their care for the needs of the common people, however their actions over the arc of history tell a different story of aggressive devaluation of currency and exaggeration of the business cycle.
One of the many ills of the government intervention in money is the behavioral changes it causes people. Until it gets to the severity of revolt, people typically don’t understand the implications of inflation because it is just a few percent each year. Unfortunatly, behaviors over time are changed and eventually we can see large differences between now and the not so distant past.
Ultimately, people bear the responsibility for their actions and yearn for meaning in many different ways. Meaning has largely been hijacked in todays society through monetary inflation and artificial increase in time preference. People are finding many unique outlets for their search for meaning since many career paths are not sustainable in this hyper-financialized world. Do you have someone in your family or friends with a passion for art go into engineering due to peer pressure because of money? Further, the rising prevalence of avoiding responsibility and placing blame for societal issues is another nihilistic theme becoming more common.
All in all, what governments gain through monetary inflation is paid for by the deterioration of art, sciences, career purpose, and price inflation for everyone else. This little talked about side effect is not acknowledged by those in charge and arguably effects the most important aspect of human nature, the search for meaning. Until next week,
-Grayson
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I lot of truth there. I've often complained about the lack of architectural innovation in the US (though Dubai, Singapore, and other SE Asian cities are doing great stuff). The great cathedrals though we're mostly built when the church had more power and controlled more of a country's systems and I'm not sure I want to go backwards on that, lol.
Transitioning to a service economy and the Fed throwing cheap money at us has not bade us well--we seem more interested in parasitizing our own citizens (healthcare, student loans with interest, corporate housing and rentals,etc.) and fattening the bank accounts of the already filthy wealthy than investing said energy into new and innovative industries.
Nice article, thanks!