After posting yesterday, I stumbled on this piece in The New Republic. I think Chris Murphy and David Brooks would enjoy dinner together, I think they have much they in common.

Brooks can be tedious and insufferable, Murphy comes close. But I think Murphy's "four sources of our unease" is about on target, and largely congruent with Brooks' views:

These include: a loss of control over economic and family life; an acute loneliness and disconnection from community; a frustration with the pace and nature of technological change; and an exhaustion with suffocating consumerism. The result is a dangerous lack of meaning or positive identity for tens of millions of Americans—a spiritual emptiness—that leaves us casting about for outlets for our anxiety and anger.

It's a long piece, but it's worth skimming over, I think. I don't know if there's any chance we can get a "third way" political movement in America. I'm not optimistic.

This idea of loneliness keeps recurring:

What prepares men for totalitarian domination in the non-totalitarian world is the fact that loneliness, once a borderline experience usually suffered in certain marginal social conditions like old age, has become an everyday experience …

– From The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) by Hannah Arendt

Arendt and Hoffer (The True Believer) both published in 1951. Of the two books, Hoffer's is easier to read and was a popular book among more general audiences. I think it was likely also wrong in many ways.

Hoffer embraces a kind of uniquely American notion of "rugged individualism." Itself, a romantic myth that hasn't served us well.

But that's not what this post is about.

I think the "four sources" are symptoms rather than root causes. And I think the root causes are the more fundamental beliefs that underly this civilization.

One is that man is above nature. We're supposedly created in God's image, and that God was "made man" in order to save humanity from its inherent nature. At least, in one religious tradition.

Another is that material and economic progress are inherently "good." This might be true if we had a complete understanding of the implications of what we view as "progress." Much of our present crisis is due to ignorance, or at least ignoring the implications of material progress.

Also included is capitalism, which is an article of faith so deeply rooted in my culture that it's radical heresy to question it, and heretics should be burned at the stake! (Rhetorically at least.)

Finally, I have to believe that "competition" as a central organizing principle of our culture and civilization has been more bane than benefit. We have lost sight of the value of cooperation, and we view far too many questions through a zero-sum lens.

These are fundamental beliefs, core values, and they're either wrong, or misunderstood. In either event, they have brought us to the present crisis.

I don't know that we have the time to make the kinds of radical change necessary to arrest the unfolding catastrophe. But if we can at least understand how we went wrong, and can record that in a way that survives, perhaps the next civilization might avoid our mistakes.

That would be progress.