Something Meaningful

From Bryan White

On YouTube, I’ve been watching a number of different debates (more conversations, really) between Dr. Jordan Peterson and various prominent atheists and secular scholars. I’m not sure at this point who does or doesn’t know who Jordan Peterson is. I’ve followed his ascent with interest though a few different waves of noteriety, and it’s not always clear on the crest of which particular wave he became a name in which particular household. When he suddenly appears on a show like Real Time with Bill Maher it seems surreal, like looking up and seeing my uncle on TV. But then it occurs to me that all of Bill’s guests must have arrived by similar roads. So why should that seem so strange?

I guess a lot of people know him for his opposition to Canada’s bill C-16, but it seems that he’s been around, lecturing publicly and appearing on Canadian talk shows for a quite a while prior to this. To some people he’s a mentor of some sort; to some people he’s a nut; to some people he’s part of an intellectual vanguard laying the groundwork for a new Third Reich. Me, I just find the man fascinating to listen to. He at least appears to have given a lot of thought to the things he says. His elaborate repertoire of hand gestures alone can keep me bobbing my head and darting my eyes for hours like a cat watching a piece of string. If you see him around enough, you come to realize that he repeats his ideas a lot (like A LOT). But I certainly have a tendency of my own to ride a pet theory until every last one of its legs is broken, so I can hardly throw stones.

Anyway, these “debates.” Listening to them, I’m reminded of some of the conversations that Vincent and I have had in the past. Peterson and Vincent have definitely come at their positions from different angles, drawing on different sources, but some of Peterson’s ideas about truth and meaning have a familiar ring to them. Meanwhile, the opponents in these debates all stand squarely on the side of reason and science, where I would count myself as well. So I listen to them. What are they saying? And I’m struck by how pat and even emotionally shallow their positions tend to be. Oh, it’s all undeniably solid, but it doesn’t feel like there’s anywhere to go with it. It’s like a bird cast in lead; you release it into the air and it immediately slams back into the ground.

It’s not that I wasn’t aware of this. I was aware of it in my conversations with Vincent. I could hear it in the ideas of people like Richard Dawkins. I always knew it was a problem. But I addressed it by telling myself that it wasn’t up to philosophy (or science) to plumb the deeper chambers of the human heart. This was a personal, private matter, for each person to come to terms with on their own. I even liked the idea that this left people free. I even wrote a post about it way back when. Vincent knows what I’m talking about.

The opponents in these debates take a somewhat similar position, and I begin to see the problem. To the question of “Where will people find spiritual nourishment?” they essentially shrug their shoulders and say, “Let them eat cake.” They propose to build a moral philosophy on the foundation of “well-being”, as though well-being were a given, as though it existed in abundance and everyone understood what it was and recognized it when they saw it, as if it wasn’t the very thing that stands in question. “How will we find well-being? Well, in the pursuit of well-being!” Of course! Of course! “You’ll be able to keep your existing spiritual healthcare” they say like a politician when concerns are raised they might be undercutting the foundations of these things, never acknowledging that what one person holds onto out of force of habit, the next person might find easily dispensible in the absence of any contingent necessity to keep it. Hell, these same people themselves are hardly half a mile down the road before they’re calling free will and even the existence of consciousness itself into question. They tell you that you’re a machine, but assure you that it won’t disturb your dream of being human.

But the thing that really hit me like a punch in the gut, the thing that drove me to write this post, was a statement made by Susan Blackmore in one of these debates. She said that life was meaningless, but that she still got out of bed everyday, ate her toast, and so on, because that’s what “this body” does. I don’t remember her exact words, but she did use that terrible phrase “this body.” It was an appalling thing to say, as though she was a zombie propelled through life by nothing more than physical momentum.

And yet I had to wonder, haven’t I been living this way? I mean, I’d like to think it’s not as bad as that. I’d at least like to think I’d have a better answer. If pressed on the matter, I’d say that I try to find fulfillment in life if not meaning. I try to find fulfillment in writing, in reading, in watching academics debate the mysteries of existence on YouTube and so on. And while I’d have to admit that that fulfillment was fleeting and ultimately always left me back in the same place of emptiness, I’d counter that life is fleeting and empty, and I’m trying my best to make the most of it.

But is that enough to live your life on? Am I even really being honest? I really genuinely don’t know. I won’t go so far as to say that I’ve been wrong all along or anything like that (of course not.) But I will say this: I’ve come to realize that, when confronted with the question of “What meaning does that leave us with in our lives?” it’s irresponsible to say, “That isn’t philosophy’s problem.” It is very, very much the problem.