Here Be Monsters

As the old world crumbles before us, what new world struggles to be born? Over the past decade or so, the horizon has grown increasingly bleak. Climate catastrophe is no longer off in the future, but a present reality that our leaders appear to have given up on. Between a housing crisis that leaves a growing mass of people without a roof over their head, a horrific genocide fully aided and abetted by the Western powers, and the gutting of the social safety net, we are in a civilizational freefall that appears to have no end in sight.

It’s not that nothing changes—things are changing all the time. Yet we seem to persist in a continuous state of unraveling. The world we grew up in is gone, yet its collapse itself seems to be an unending process. At least Sisyphus had the task of rolling his rock up the mountain. We seem to be in the position of a boulder tumbling down a slope whose bottom we never seem to reach. Yet of course we know that this trajectory cannot continue, that something has to give. But how exactly will it give? Some possibilities are positively horrific, from civilizational collapse to outright human extinction. Such is the path toward which our current trajectory points.

Is there another possibility? Could we, in fact, bring about a new and better world? Such dreams are typically dismissed as utopian, but I would argue that utopian thought is precisely what is needed, so long as it is also paired with radical action. The crisis of our present age holds numerous opportunities for remaking the world anew. What we cannot afford is nostalgia for the old world. The old maps no longer serve us and the old rules no longer apply. Here be monsters.

Apocalypse

We live in truly apocalyptic times. The word “apocalypse” comes from the Greek apokálupsis, meaning “revelation” or “unveiling.” It does not denote the end of things so much as a revelation of things hidden. It is not so much the end of the world as the end of a facade, the stripping way of structures and institutions of falsehood. Apocalyptic literature was highly popular in Second Temple Judaism, with writings such as the Book of Enoch and the Apocalypse of Moses describing prophetic visions connecting the heavenly world above and the human world below and foretelling a time of cataclysm in which a time of reckoning would come for this world and divine justice would reign. The most famous such text is of course the Book of Revelation, which the occult scholar Justin Sledge has described as the most Jewish book of the New Testament.

No one knows the final day or hour, but the world has experienced apocalyptic moments before. The end of the Bronze Age in the 12th century BCE saw the collapse of civilizations such as the Hittites, while other civilizations such as the Egyptians and Assyrians were greatly weakened. The first century CE, in which apocalyptic literature flourished, saw a Jewish revolt which brought about the destruction of the Second Temple and a subsequent schism between rabbinical Judaism and the fledgling messianic movement known as Christianity. Later apocalyptic moments include the fall of the Roman empire, first in the West and later in the East, as well as the fall of the ancien regime in France and the Romanovs in Russia.

We speak of the collapse of civilizations as a human tragedy, but what really collapses is a particular power structure. David Graeber describes the fall of the Roman empire in the West as something of a boon for many of the lower classes. Slavery, an institution foundational to Roman society, all but disappeared in the early Middle Ages. When it was revived in the early modern period, it took the invention of race as a category to justify it to people who could no longer conceive of enslaving one of their peers. An apocalyptic moment can simply be a reversal of fortune in which the powerful fall from their thrones while the lowly are raised up, exactly as the Virgin Mary proclaims in the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55).

Such is not always the case, of course. Perhaps the greatest apocalypse in human history was the collapse of the indigenous population in the Americas following the arrival of Europeans. First decimated by diseases to which they had no immunity, the New World subsequently faced centuries of conquest and subjugation that endures to this day. Enslavement, genocide, and environmental destruction followed. The exploitation of this land, combined with the trans-Atlantic slave trade, fueled the growth of industry in Europe and its settler colonies throughout the world. This led to the rise of global capitalism, which dominates our lives to this day. These overseas conquerors transformed the entire world and subjected it to a system of plunder and exploitation crying out for its own apocalypse.

These are the times that fire the apocalyptic imagination. As John of Patmos wrote from his place of exile, persecuted for his faith by a tyrannical empire, he envisioned a coming time in which evil would overextend itself, crushing the world under heel, only to be met by the triumph of righteousness and justice in a new messianic age. The final battle of good and evil would see evil’s ultimate defeat and the completion of creation, brought into perfect alignment with its divine purpose. The eschaton is not merely some future event to look forward to. It is the very reason for our being. It is the universal telos—that purpose toward which our existence is directed. All that we are now is wrapped up in our ultimate destiny.

Novum

To get to our ultimate destiny, however, we must first see the possibilities in our midst. Ernst Bloch spoke of a “novum”—the latent potentials for change within the present situation. Bloch was a Marxist materialist, but he saw in the religious impulse a principle of hope which directed the eye toward such possibilities. The novum, for Bloch, is material, yet his materialism is inherently dynamic, seeing in matter a creative flux bringing novelty into being. The novum emerges from the dialectical tensions within a given concrete situation. It gives rise to a “concrete utopia,” which unlike purely speculative abstract utopias is grounded in real potentials of the present.

Bloch was critical of Henri Bergson’s view of time as pure flow. For him, to treat time and creativity as continuous is to treat them as flat, almost as if to negate them altogether. Bloch sees creativity as something that emerges dialectically from the contradictions and struggles of the concrete situation. This criticism demonstrates two different aspects of time. There is on the one hand time as duration, as Bergson saw. There is on the other hand time as history, with which Bloch was concerned. In duration, there is novelty and creativity, but it is in history that we find upheaval, discontinuity, fortune, destiny, and purpose. The novum may be compared with what Stuart Kauffman calls the “adjacent possible.” This is the concept that a phase space of possibility is opened up by every concrete reality.

Every innovation, every novel emergence opens up a new space of possibility that because of its contingency did not exist before. In biology, there is a concept called “exaptation,” in which a trait that is adapted for a certain purpose finds a new function in the evolutionary trajectory of the species and goes on to adapt to that new function over its old one. Kauffman gives the example of a fish’s swim bladder, which evolved out of the lungs of certain basal fish. Such exaptations introduce new functions into the biosphere, and thus create new conditions to which organisms must then adapt. Biology is therefore constantly rewriting the very rules to which it must abide. This exaptation process applies equally to technology, science, culture, and social structures. The nature of emergence is such that it creates the conditions for what emerges next, which cannot, in principle, be pre-specified. It is contingency all the way down, rendering the universe, in Kauffman’s words, “partially lawless.”

Complexity emerges where chaos and order meet. Too much chaos in a system leads to instability and breakdown. Too much order leads to stagnation and inflexibility. Yet at the “razor’s edge” between the two, a dynamic order emerges that is resilient against perturbation and adaptable to change. Here lies the novum. It is the emergent possibility, the adjacent possible where a phase shift happens and a new world of possibility opens up.

One crucial way that complex systems self-organize is through catalysis. In chemistry, a catalyst is a substance that increases a chemical reaction. Enzymes are a common catalyst in biological systems. Self-organizing systems often produce their own catalysts, thereby sustaining their own self-organization. Society is a self-organizing system, and it produces catalysts in the form of people. We are catalysts who reproduce social processes in our everyday interactions. Yet we are conscious catalysts who can choose which processes we wish to accelerate and which ones we wish to undermine. We can reinforce systems of domination such as racism or patriarchy or seek to undermine them by constructing counter-hegemonies.

The novum cannot act on its own. It requires catalysts. The novum arises autocatalytically and requires further catalysts to be actualized. We must be attentive to the novum in order to actualize it, and it requires a critical mass of catalysis to do so. We are each individually only one such catalyst, and must organize with others to reach this state of criticality. Yet how do we build up this level of organization? Organizing for social change can be a long and grueling process, and can seem to be hopeless at times as it is overwhelmed by the oppressive systems it stands against. Yet sometimes it takes off rapidly, cascading at a pace that organizers can scarcely keep up with. A critical mass is reached with massive waves of protest and direct action, and a whole new world of possibility opens up.

Awakening

I experienced such a moment at a formative point in my life with the Occupy movement. After the global financial crisis of 2008, many on the left openly wondered why there did not seem to be a mass movement against the banks who had looted the economy. Mark Fisher lamented a situation he called “Capitalist Realism,” in which it was easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. Some even suggested allying with the reactionary Tea Party movement, which seemed to have some populist appeal despite being bankrolled by billionaires such as the Koch brothers. Yet in 2011, a group of activists met in New York’s Zuccotti Park with the intention to “Occupy Wall Street.” The movement took off rapidly, with occupations throughout the country, and soon throughout the world.

I was living in Portland, Oregon, which saw the largest such occupation in the country. My politics at the time could best be considered a kind of wonkish liberalism. I was interested in what were then heterodox ideas such as Georgism and Modern Monetary Theory, but was still very much reform-minded. Yet I shared in the widespread disaffection with an economic system that had failed us, and was excited to participate in this mass movement. I even saw an opportunity to spread these wonkish heterodox ideas I had been studying by signing up to do a teach-in. What I did not expect was that I myself would be converted by this amazing community I found there. This encampment had a kitchen that served anyone who cared to stop by with food donated by community members. It had a library, a media team, and as I mentioned, a space for teach-ins and skill-shares. We went on regular marches through the city and made decisions democratically through a consensus process. It was a vision of a different kind of society, a democratic civilization governed by cooperation and mutual aid. I experienced something there that I do not hesitate to call a spiritual awakening.

I had apprehended the novum. I was given a vision of the world as it could be, and would never again be the same. After seeing the rotten core of capitalism in the corrupt banking system that had brought the economy to its knees and ran away with the loot, I now saw that another way was possible, and moreover, necessary. I had been catalyzed by this upheaval and sought to become a catalyst for further change. Such is the nature of social change. Each person who has been awakened becomes a means by which others can become awakened. An autocatalytic process spreads throughout society.

It seemed that this new world was not only possible, but imminent. It felt like we were unstoppable. Yet this movement would go out not with a bang, but a whimper. The energy continued for an extended period after the eviction of the camps, but it eventually dissipated. Numerous post-mortems of the Occupy movement have been written, criticizing the “fetishization of space” or the limitations of the consensus process, but I would contend that it was no failure at all. It certainly stirred something in me that I will carry with me the rest of my life, and I know I’m not the only one. Moreover, it ushered in a new age of radical direct action movements, including Idle No More, the Women’s March, and Black Lives Matter. It had revealed the novum, which continues to light the fire of the radical imagination.

Reaction

This movement for social change was not without its opponents. Conservatives recoiled in horror at what they saw as the chaos of leftists destroying their cities, but the liberals also sought to tamp down on this radicalism, appropriating its social justice language with calls for inclusivity and checking one’s privilege, but paying no heed to the call for a change in material conditions. This culminated in the notorious election of 2016, when the corporate neoliberal Hillary Clinton ran against the corrupt demagogue Donald Trump. Clinton spoke to the spirit of tolerance and multiculturalism, but it was Trump who tapped into the populist anger against the out-of-touch political elites of which Clinton herself was a prime representative.

The calls for racial justice and gender equality which had been crucial to these social movements were now equated with the very elites they were raging against. The reactionary MAGA movement saw themselves as sticking it to these elites who had dismissed them as “deplorables” while taking out their fury on those oppressed groups over whom, they were told, they were privileged. It is a mistake to see the MAGA movement as a primarily working class movement, as it was often portrayed in the media. Like other fascist movements, their base lay in the petit-bourgeoisie: small business owners and middle managers. Yet it captured a sense of resentment against a system that didn’t seem to be working for anyone.

Such reactionary populism has a zero-sum character. Their problems, in their mind, are because these other groups have been coddled. Immigrants, black people, trans people, and all these uppity college students with blue hair, were all beneficiaries of a nefarious (((globalist))) agenda that had it in for them. A “Great Replacement” was underway which would strip them of what tenuous power they enjoyed. It was to this global conspiracy that they violently directed their rage, led by their champion, Donald Trump.

Trump’s rise did not occur in isolation. He arrived at a global moment of reaction, with similar authoritarians rising to power in India, Brazil, and the Philippines, among many others. They are symptoms of a system deeply in crisis. Neoliberalism was supposed to be the end of history. Its rising tide would lift all boats, its benefits trickling down to everyone. Instead, it crashed over everyone like a tidal wave, crushing the boats it was supposed to lift. Rather than discredit socialism, its looting of the economy inspired a brand new wave of radicalism no longer beholden to Soviet hegemony. The reactionary wave of Trump and his fellow autocrats represented a response to both the failure of the neoliberal world order and the left-wing movement against it. It sought to preserve the privilege of those who felt attacked by both sides.

Now that Trump is back in power again, we face a whole new wave of horrors, but hopefully we will have learned the lessons of last time. We cannot turn the clock back to the neoliberal detente of previous decades, nor should we try. The Democrats in this past election abandoned even the message of tolerance and pluralism of 2016 and branded themselves as the “competent” authoritarians, promising to get tough on the border and lead the world’s deadliest military. Their loss, while tragic for the rest of us, was well deserved. We cannot look to them to get their act together by 2028, especially as they seem determined to learn all the wrong lessons from this loss.

Hope

We must be our own solution. The stakes have never been higher and no one else is here to save us. We must direct our gaze toward the concrete utopia of the novum. As the current crisis crushes the institutions on which the old system relied, the only alternative to the present tyranny is to make the world anew. The mass movements of the past decade have not been in vain. They have formed the foundation from which we will achieve critical mass and overcome a system that is presently devouring its own.

We must gaze toward the transcendent even as we work within the immanent. A previous crisis over a millennium ago saw what is known as the Axial Age, when the major religions and philosophical traditions that govern the world today saw their genesis. Plato, Confucius, the Buddha, and the great Hebrew prophets all arose within a small time frame at a time when coinage, the rise of markets, and imperial conquest threatened to destabilize the social order. They fought back not through direct action, but by apprehending a transcendent dimension to the cosmos, in which truth and justice transcended earthly power. Lacking the ability to overthrow the powers that dominated at the time, they undermined their justification by denying that might was right and recognizing an order to which the powerful themselves must submit.

John Vervaeke has said that we need not another French Revolution, but another Axial Revolution. I would say that we must engage with the spirit of both to bring about a new revolution uniting the transcendent and the immanent in the realization of the novum. Vervaeke, who has devoted his work to addressing the “meaning crisis,” makes the common mistake of seeing in the Axial revolution a purely interior turn. Yet its apprehension of transcendence had a political dimension. These prophets engaged the utopian imagination, pointing the way to the world as it should be, beyond the tyranny of the present world. It was the Axial revolution that made the French Revolution possible. Moreover, it is futile to wish for another Axial revolution, or another French Revolution for that matter. Each did the work that was needed at the time, and must form a platform from which the next revolution must be waged. We must see the transcendent in the novum while working in the world to actualize it. We must heed the call of St. Ignatius of Loyola to be “contemplatives in action.”

Together we can be catalysts for the World to Come. We cannot force this world through sheer willpower, but by careful attention to the signs of the times, we can rise to the occasion. As I describe in my book Logos and Liberation, we must follow a path of kenosis, or self-emptying, in which we let go of the drive for control and domination and attune ourselves to what is unfolding before us. Even as we live in a time of monsters, a new world awaits us if we have the courage to actualize it. As the current world passes away, we must greet the World to Come with open arms. Our destiny awaits.