A World Without Meaning: The Crisis of Meaning in International Politics A World Without Meaning: The Crisis of Meaning in International Politics Publisher: (Routledge ) | 1998 | ISBN: 0415167175 | PDF | 240 pages | The end of the Cold War marked not only the end of communism, but the emergence of a globalized world order and a crisis in national and ideological meaning. In this provocative and incisive book, Zaki Laidi argues that no power in our globalized world can any longer claim to provide meaning. As people look to old models like nationalism, religion and ethnicity to help them forge an identity, Laidi questions their effectiveness and certainty in a globalized world in a permanent state of flux. Our current inability to make sense of the world reveals an end to a way of thought dating back to the Enlightenment. The book expresses my deep not quite expressible perceptions of lack of meaning in the surrounding world politics and I might say "post industrial" life. Yeah, yeah, the same old geopolitical crap, rat race, struggle for a bigger piece of pie and propaganda to justify it, but something is lacking, something big, something that provided life spark to human societies for centuries if not millennium. As I see it. All that is left to drive politics, give meaning&purpose, to glue societies together is consumption. No more mysteries&myths, religions became kinda a servant for believer's consumption needs, society atomization and destruction/reinvention of family, kinship&friendship removing another layer of meaning, atomization even has damaged nationalism&imperialism which are pale ghosts of themselves, and lastly the faith in "progress" and science is crumbling if it's still around. Science, progress and braniacs became just tools to satisfy externally triggered consumption wants, directly or indirectly. Even goddess of economic development (whatever that means) is no longer revered. It's quite possible that everything in the world is empty and devoid of meaning. However, humans have to continuously invent (false) meanings in the meaningless world to keep going. It looks like modern world cannot generate a meaning of any significance not speaking of inspiration.
Pride, shame, hope, fear, pleasure, pain and meaning set the children up to be indoctrinated into their culture. I think it is instinctual for humans to project meaning onto something. Family, tribe and religion are the typical areas onto which meaning is easily projected. Romance, pair bonding, and sexual attraction also feel meaningful but they are not usually the focus of intellectualized projections of meaning. Finding food might be meaningful if it was not easy to do. If there is no meaning, then we are truly free. But freedom without meaning is anarchistic and destroys unity and also destroys law and order. My favorite false meaning is to try to create maximum ( happiness x people x (time + future time) / misery ). To do this we need to create a long lasting global society that suppresses tribalism, cruelty, excessive restrictions on personal freedom, unsustainable practices and zero sum competition, while supporting positive sum competition, kindness and sustainable practices. That is my goal and I would like it to be the world's goal. I am not so clear on how I or the world should go about working towards this goal. One thing that irritates me about my Nation and the world is that we barely try to decide what it is that we would like to accomplish. It is harder to accomplish anything if you don't know what it is that you are trying to accomplish. I think humans have the necessary technological competency to create Utopia on earth. What humans are lacking is sufficient socio-economic competency to create Utopia on earth.
Are you thinking like Greek Stoic or maybe a Greek Cynic? Buddhism and maybe a neo Xian-Buddhism could be good? It's a starting place. - I also like the idea of Science and Logic playing larger roles in day to day living. - self-enlightenment coupled with Buddhism and self-improvement sound good. - Internet and democracy are good. - Societal development is something to aim for. I consume but hardly live life to consume. I think a healthy appreciation for nature will help reduce this consumer mentality. I remember reading about a Greek philosophy that felt Greek society was as you describe now - thus, the cycle continues. Maybe we're in another Age of Prophets? Ron Hubbard (pbuh) Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Buddhism is all about elimination of carnal desires and worries as a way to nirvana. I don't see how self-improvement and Buddhism can be mixed. Western style self-improvement is a multi-billion business, it introduces lots of anxiety into life, it's totally non Buddhist. For majority self-improvement is a way to make more $ and boost consumption standards. That how it's sold. After all, good improved people do deserve a bigger slice of the pie. If only the returns on "self-improvement" investments were as big as expenditures Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!. Mushrooming self-improvement industry is an indicator of societal troubles, people lack meaning & connection with world and each other and seek answers in "improving" themselves, no matter how crooky are improvement gurus they follow. Advice columns and radio heads are especially pathetic and illustrate Show me democracy first Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! "We the people" decide little even in the most democratic nations on Earth, but we all know that democracy is good because we are told so. Democracy as we know it became possible ONLY after ruling classes figured out the ways to handle masses through brain manipulation&control without using rude force (up to the point, of course). More than that, people in the democratic nation are being brain "programmed" in the ways no totalitarian despots could dream of. Internet, hm. I am on the older side and I do think that Internet creates more problems than it solves. It fragments knowledge/information, it transforms human minds into extensions of search engines, it kills creativity&imagination, it decreases attention spans to the infinitesimal levels, it substitute natural human communication with its surrogate, it isolates, it depresses, it's addictive. It's addictive because monotonous clicking and mindless browsing is what depressed minds are looking for. To healthy appreciate nature one has to create a false image of nature to worship and appreciate. All that holistic crap comes to mind. Nature is cruel (it doesn't know about it though), it's a gigantic killing field, it doesn't give a dime about a man or any other creature. It's just here, it exists. Tomorrow a gigantic volcano eruption may shuffle cards all over. Quite possible (but unlikely) there is meaning in all of this. We don't know.
