A Skeptical Inquirer

Philosophical skepticism as a solution to the ills of the modern world

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.” —Call of Cthulhu—

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For the last 20 years I have been an enthusiastic reader of H.P. Lovecraft. More than any other writer, he defined and captured the fears and anxieties of the modern world. Where older writers of horror dealt with matters of a macabre and supernatural nature, locating our deepest fears in realms of spirits and demons, Lovecraft saw differently. Standing on the precipice of the 20th century, he knew that the discoveries of modern science were revealing a world far more terrifying than the old one. A world in which demons were made of atoms and came from the blackness of space rather than the fires of hell.

But more than that, he saw that with the beginnings of the modern age our increasing power over and knowledge of the natural order would ironically lead to our most terrifying discovery: our utter smallness and irrelevance within that order. He thought this knowledge would destroy us. The archetypal Lovecraftian protagonist is man who, confronted with nightmares beyond his ken, is overwhelmed by the realization of his own meaninglessness and his inability to comprehend the true nature of reality. His mind breaks, and the universe notices not.

Recently, The Horn Gate released an interesting article (as their’s often are). It too sought to grapple with a fundamental dilemma of modern man, best encapsulated by the opening statement:

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“Community is dead. Religion falters. Family fades before our eyes. What choices are left us?

Two great vacancies stir beneath our feet.

One: To yawn our lives away. To betray every impulse. To be the plaything of every fad and whim, pleasure seekers, seekers of nothing. To live by the gut and lungs.

Two: To settle for a certainty. To be made hot by an idea. To live by our enemies. To become the slave of an ideal.”

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At first, this may seem a very different dilemma to the one expressed by the good gentleman from Providence. What does a choice between aimless nihilism and ideological fanaticism have to do with eldritch horrors from beyond the stars shattering the fragile minds of men? But I believe they are speaking to very similar concerns, namely the issue of modern man’s epistemological hollowness.

Our minds are pattern-recognizing machines. They are evolved, beautifully evolved, to make sense of the torrent of incoming sensory data the world constantly bombards us with. Directed outwards, they allow us predict the movements and activities of other forces, other beings, and other minds. In this, we are no different from any other higher animal. But humanity took a further step. Our minds turned inward. We are cognizant not only of our physical location relative to the rest of the world, but to our broader metaphysical position as well. We look to the stars and wonder: why we are here? For what are we here to do?

This desire makes us human, but it leaves a gaping wound in the core of our being. We yearn for the sense that we understand the world and our place in it. When we possess this, it is our balm in a reality where so many of life’s tragedies are outside of our power to affect. When it is lost, we are adrift. Given enough time the wound can fester, inflicting a pain so great as to trigger that most quintessential feature of the human condition: the capacity for suicide. In no other creature can the pain of not knowing the meaning of it all drive an individual to seek the soft release of oblivion.

In the past, we have dealt with this pain in a myriad of ways. For some religion and philosophy offered genuine answers that bandaged and healed them (though never without leaving a scar). For many others though, the edifice of our minds required scaffolds to stay erect. Cultural structures like family, faith, marriage, and community provided a framework that allowed people to go about their lives in relative peace.

And what of these scaffolds today? Destroyed, or at best under-minded. As Nietzsche feared, science has killed God. As Lovecraft feared, all it has found to replace him is Azathoth. The discoveries of science have laid bare just how vast and incomprehensible the cosmos is and, though we may still find beauty and wonder in it’s awesome majesty, we can no longer look up at the stars and be confident in our place within the broader scheme. To speak of the “sanctity” of marriage in this day and age rings hollow, practically a contradiction in terms. We have taken a pledge before God to live our lives together in holy matrimony and replaced it with a temporary contract that holds for as long or as little as we desire it. Few find meaning in work, fewer still in relations with their neighbors (if they even know them). We are no longer bound by self-reinforcing rules of behavior, policed by the fellow members of our tribe. It is for each of us to choose and do as we please.

You may think that many of these changes were, on balance, beneficial. In some cases, I might agree with you. Much as modern civilization has removed so many of the restraining forces of natural selection that curtailed change in our physical form, by stripping these scaffolds from our minds we have opened entirely new horizons of mental and cultural up to exploration. However, I do not believe it can be deined that, with each plank removed, a little more of the sense of certainty we once took for granted eroded. Our evolution freed from it bonds, but it is worth remembering that there are far more dangerous mutations than beneficial ones.

In what is very likely a response to this new found freedom, it seems that many today find solace in the comforting arms of political and social ideologies. They provide seemingly everything their forebeares did. A welcoming community of like-minded individuals. An analytical framework for understanding the chaos of the modern world. A moral framework for dividing the just from the wicked and dispensing rewards and punishments accordingly. Just as importantly, they are a faith that science cannot undermine and a god that can never be slain; a fact which assuredly flatters those who consider themselves too mentally sophisticated for faith. If anything, as The Horn Gate puts it:

“Note: high intelligence is not serum against ideology—if anything the chances are increased: for with a preponderance of intellectuality one is more prone to suffer from the stings and confusions of the world, its aberrants and eccentricities; one is more likely to ask “why?” and, forever denied an answer, one is also blessed with better tools to twist reality to one’s bidding. There is no better example of this than the philosopher—the subtlest mind of all—who becomes enslaved to their own ideals.”

The problem of course is that our ideologies, magnificent though they are, are inventions of the same minds they now seem to dominate. In addition, they lack many of the features that made previous scaffolds so effective. Unlike religion, they do not require or allow a leap of faith to paper over their flaws. Unlike philosophy, they do not innoculate their adherents with any sense of intellectual humility. Unlike community, family, and work they do not allow for a space outside of them, where an individual move from one sphere of their life to another, leaving their hat and shoes at the door.

What is to be done then? Unmored as we are in the vast ocean of human experience, we seek a safe path between Scylla and Charbydis. Between nihilism and fanaticism. Can we avoid both? Will we inevitibly sucumb to despair and pessimism? Or are we destined to be the slaves of our own creations? Entrapped by servitors which, like Shoggoths deep in the Mountains of Madness, have turned on their creators? If we are not careful, I fear this may be our fate. But it need not be.

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I have spoken in the past about my travels through philosophy. As a young atheist, bereft of the mental support structures that those of faith take for granted, I spent years wandering through the variegated gardens of humanity’s ideologies. From the bounty of those plants I tasted every fruit I could find. Here a bit of utilitarianism, their sampling of virtue ethics, searching ever farther and more fervently for my own personal Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. My search ended the only way it could have; in vain.

Or did it? I have since come to realize that for inherently limited and fallible beings such as ourselves no answer will ever be forthcoming. If we are intellectually honest, the we must recognize that the universe is far stranger and more amazing than can be grasped by a lump of thinking meat. Our ideologies may aid us but, like all models, they are simplifications of the system they seek to comprehend. We may sample the bounty of the garden but, in the end, no single fruit, no matter how sweet, can ever fully satisfy us. None on their own can contain all the textures, tastes, and experiences that comprise the whole of this comedy of errors we call life.

For a time, this realization drove me into nihilism. If I could not know how I should be living my life, then what was I doing here? I entered a dark night of the soul that saw me question not just the the purpose of striving for any goals beyond baseless hedonism, but the very purpose of continued existence in a cosmos that neither allows me to understand it nor cares for the grief that deficiency causes me. But as dawn follows night, so to did I finally emerge into the light.

I realized that I had overlooked another path. Between the blinders of the ideologue and the blindness of the nihilist, I could walk a middle road. We cannot know, truly know, the cosmos. But does that mean we cannot become less ignorant of it? We cannot live without an ideology. It is the lens through which we view and interpret reality. But where is it written that we need restrict ourselves to just one? None may provide a comprehensive explanation of our reality, but that is not to say that they contain nothing that is true.

Ideologies are mental tools. Crafted from a set of arguments and assumptions that together provide a unique and coherent method to observe and comprehend our world. As a microscope allows us to peer into the unseen ecosystem of a drop of water, or a telescope lets us gaze into the heart of a black hole. But you would not use the former for the task of the latter. As powerful as it is, there are vistas of reality that are hidden to it.

Ideologies are lenses. So, fill your tool box with lens of all shapes and sizes. Keep them polished and clear. When you encounter a problem, take them out slowly and, one at a time, turn the problem in your hand before them. Examine it from every angle, allowing each new viewpoint to illuminate an aspect you were previously blind to.

Learn Liberalism. Everything starts with the individual. A society is judged by the degree to which it allows each and every member to pursue their own conception of the good life. The only just and highest purpose of government is to prevent infringement on the inherent rights of all members of society.

Learn Conservatism. Society is a compact between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are yet to be born. Embrace the traditions handed down to you by your ancestors, for they represent the accumulated knowledge of your people. Your nation’s history and culture is distributed information processing network that, over the course of generations, has fashioned solutions to problems of your environment more elegant than any philosophers dare attempt.

Learn Socialism. The history of mankind is the history of class warfare. The dominance of the ruling class (for there has always been a ruling class) over those who produce all of value in society is the common thread of civilization. By understanding this process we can break the cycle, recapturing the value of our work that was stolen from us and create a more just and equitable world.

Learn Scientism. The world is made matter and energy, reacting in predictable and understandable ways. The only proper way to understand natural phenomena is through rigorous application of the scientific method, the most powerful epistimological tool humanity has created. Look to the wonders of the modern world and the power we now wield over all in our domain, and you cannot help but reject supernatural explanation and anything that reeks of an ancient, unenlightened age.

Learn Mysticism. There is far more in Heaven and Earth than is drempt of in the philosophies of those dry and timid souls who, incapable of looking beyond the edges of their own noses (unless their eye is pressed to a microscope) see only the appearance of reality and miss the deeper truth hiding in the penumbra of their perception. Stare not too long at the shadows on the wall. The sun awaits you, if you have but the courage to climb up to greet it.

Learn Utilitarianism, for Hell is the destination of too many roads paved with good intentions. Learn Deontology, for moral laws which do not bind us all are not worthy of the name. Learn Eudaemonia, that you may know what it is to flourish in the excellence of human nature.

Above all, learn Skepticism. Be humble in your search for truth, for you have much to be humble about. You are human and to be human is to be limited. But forget not that from the moment we stood upright and struck one stone against another, we have used tools to overcome these limitations. Our ideologies are but the latest iteration of this grand tradition. Like fire and cloth, like flint and blade, they are human artifacts shaped by our will to achieve a purpose. Use them wisely, for they are without exaggeration more powerful than your ability to comprehend. Do not allow yourself to be captured by them, any more than you would bind yourself in your own clothing or blind yourself with your own flame.

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“Skepticism is always possible while it is partial. It will remain the privilege and resource of a free mind that has elasticity enough to disintegrate its own formations and to approach its experience from a variety of sides and with more than a single method. But the method chosen must be coherent in itself and the point of view assumed must be adhered to during that survey; so that whatever reconstruction the novel view may produce in science will be science still, and will involve assumptions and dogmas which must challenge comparison with the dogmas and assumptions they would supplant.” —Reason in Common Sense—