PART I of II
According to humanists, represented by people like Stephen Pinker, it’s all good in society (for more information, see our series of four recent blog posts on Steven Pinker and his book Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress).
Pinker says we just need more humanism. “Everything is amazing. Are we really so unhappy? Mostly, we are not. Developed countries are actually pretty happy, a majority of all countries have gotten happier, and as long as countries get wealthier, they should be happier still” [283].
Does faith reflected in various manifestations—followed by six billion or so people around the globe—play any role? No. Anything smacking of faith or transcendent experience as a pathway to meaning is poppycock.
He argues that “the first step towards wisdom is the realization that the laws of the universe don’t care about you. The next realization is that this does not imply that life is meaningless, because people care about you and you care about them. You care about yourself, and you have a responsibility to respect the laws of the universe that keep you alive, so you don’t squander your existence” [434-5].
I don’t have enough faith to believe in that approach. Despite Pinker’s Pollyannish view of the world, culture, and society, things are not too rosy. Pinker’s humanism is a meaning dead end for seekers.
A very different approach to meaning is proposed by Arthur C. Brooks, a Professor of Happiness at Harvard Business School. His recent book, The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness, provides an alternative to the humanism dead end.
Clearly, it’s not all good in society. Three out of five young people in America say their lives have little or no sense of purpose. The practical manifestation is that young people today who say they're struggling to find meaning also report much higher levels of mental health issues like anxiety and depression. People aren’t happy.
What is happiness? Brooks uses this equation: “Happiness = Enjoyment + Satisfaction + Meaning” [13]. Why aren’t people achieving it?
The challenge is that people today struggle with meaning because they have been “deskilled in the deepest mysteries of life” [17]. According to Brooks, “this growing inability to find meaning in life is, I believe, the most important phenomenon in the behavioral sciences today” [19].
Happiness is often related to meaning. What is “meaning?" Brooks uses this equation: “Meaning = Coherence + Purpose + Significance” [26]. Coherence is “an understanding that things happen in your life for a reason” [26]. This is particularly important because “life feels meaningless when you see it as totally random and incoherent” [26]. By contrast, Pinker's view is that a “spirituality” that sees cosmic meaning in the whims of fortune is not wise but foolish.
Brooks, despite existing in the Ivory Tower, a nexus of anti-religious zealotry, plainly states his faith perspective: “As a Christian, I believe God exists and has a plan for my life and the universe, a lot of which we can learn about by studying science but much of which will also always be a mystery to me” [27].
So, how do we think about faith? Brooks refers to the work of Ian McGilchrist, author of The Master and His Emissary, who talks about the left and right brains. McGilchrist notes that religious experience is largely a right-hemisphere, numinous phenomenon.
Further, “the left side of the brain manages what is clear and straightforward in life—the necessary but prosaic tasks you do all day. The right side of the brain deals with what is spiritual, mysterious, and awe-inspiring in life. A good word for this is numinous, which means a feeling of wonder with a touch of the unknown” [44].
Brooks notes that, “hemispheric lateralization explains the acute crisis of meaning today” [47]. There is what he refers to as the “meaning doom loop: distraction with easy, addictive technology; a lack of the sense of meaning; feelings of emptiness; numbing with even more use of our addictive devices” [52].
Meaning requires knowledge of our life’s why. But we spend almost all our energy on the what and how instead [89]. That’s a dead end. For Brooks, “I believe God exists and has a plan for my life first and foremost” [97].
“If your life does not matter, your life does not have meaning. Therefore, this is a question you must contemplate: why does your life matter—and to whom?” [104]