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Personal Apocalypse

One of the most popular stories in the Wall Street Journal this week is about Charles Murphy. This is how the article was titled

Wall Street Made Charles Murphy Successful and Rich, but Happiness Eluded Him
After his apparent suicide, friends say the brilliant, commanding, sometimes abrasive banker suffered from depression—and grew despondent maintaining the charmed life he built for his family

There are many filthers through which to look at the story. Depression certainly was a factor but he had all of the assets and access necessary to treat the illness. The article is popular on the Wall Street Journal because the paper is read by many who have what he had or are trying to get it. The article begs the question “is all that this world offers enough?”

Storied Creatures

Yuval Harari, an atheist best selling historian, drives the point hard in his two books that what sets us apart from every other species we know to exist and what makes us successful is that we are storied creatures. Our ability to live within stories is what enables us to collaborate to create vast structures and projects that puts us light years above and beyond any other species in the world. In the animal kingdom one animal might lay down its life for another, but only human beings will lay down their lives for someone or something other than blood kin. Stories create friendship. Stories create family. Stories create nations. Stories create causes and visions that people lay down their lives for, or surrender their lives in sacrifice towards.

Cultures are the layering of stories in unique and diverse ways. Stories compete, intermingle, evolve and in the process shape and reshape all human life on this planet. Cultures are composed of many narrative threads usually and become unique by which threads gain priority and which lose power.

The Triumph of Humanism

Harari notes that one easy way to track the evolution of our civilization can be how we view war. War is the kind of thing that defines because it deals in life, death and destiny. For a nation losing a war usually means misery, slavery or death. Winning a war means affluence, privilege and prosperity. 

Older artistic portrayals of war illuminate the stories behind them. 

In this picture you see a general on a horse with throngs of troops behind. Here the great leader is what matters and the little people lay down their lives for the great leaders or for their nations. 

In this picture wars are ordeals that illuminate the battle for the heavens. Wars fought in the Ancient Near East viewed it that way. Religious wars in Europe saw it that way. 

Neither of these threads totally disappear. They just tend to get de-prioritized in the modern period as humanism emerges. Notice Lincoln’s second inaugural where God is still present but Lincoln notes the ambiguities and God’s reticense to validate our priorities. 

World War I was a good war to see the rise of humanism. You still had the other two threads quite active and strong in their cultures but what emerged from it was All Quiet on the Western Front, photography of the suffering and death of the common soldier. War was evaluated not so much on the glories or tragedies it brought to nations or religions or leaders but on what it costs soldiers on every side. 

How Meaning Was Shifted by Humanism Continue reading →