‘You could say COVID-19 has exposed the extent to which we are in a ‘meaning crisis’ (to use John Vervaeke’s phrase). But I’m a little wary of this term as a historical concept. When did this ‘meaning crisis’ begin? For who? Maybe young Americans are in something of a meaning crisis now, as they turn away from Christianity, but British people went through that loss of faith in the late 19th century, and I’m sure it’s different for every culture around the world.
‘I’d suggest humans are always in a meaning crisis, we always have been. We have a tiny mind-map, equivalent to a photo of a street, and we’re out there in a great megapolis trying to use this photo as if it was Google Maps. We look around bewildered, look at our photo, and think ‘this looks a bit familiar’.
‘There is so much we don’t know, and we can learn to be OK with that. As a rule of thumb, we can be suspicious of any expert who seems over-certain, who rarely pauses for breath or questions their assumptions. When was the last time they admitted they were wrong? When was the last time they said ‘I’m not very sure about this, this isn’t my field of expertise’?’
Read here (Medium, Jules Evans, Mar 27, 2020)
