Root problem for dysfunctional culture goes deeper than politics

This is the second of a three-part series about where I’m going with my life and work.

We no longer live in the Age of Reason. Or even the Age of Enlightenment. Today, we live in what might be called the Age of Entertainment.

Those who don’t entertain the public are marginalized or trivialized. It’s easier than ever to publish or broadcast to almost everybody in the world, but what good is that when the cultural norm is for consumers to dive into mindless entertainment and trivia? What good is it to publish if few will read? What good is it to speak if almost nobody will hear?

What good is reasoned argument if few are willing to think?

There was a time when I was certain I could rationally explain to any person why he was wrong about anything. I was confident in the power of reason. I also assumed that other people wanted to know the truth if they were mistaken. I believed that if I showed people the morality of individual freedom — of voluntary self-ownership by every individual — I could change the world.

And more than anything else, I assumed that I was right about everything. I’ve slowly had to accept that my reasoned assumptions were wrong — about almost everything.

I trusted in my ability to clearly make rational arguments with words. I thought I could write essays — or maybe record podcasts or make documentaries — that would logically show why my beliefs were right.

And then everybody would agree with me.

I’ve determined that I was wrong about all of that. That’s simply not the way things work in the Age of Entertainment.

Very few people are interested in learning the ways in which they’re wrong. Few people engage in dialogue for the purpose of finding the truth. Pretty much everybody engages merely to tell someone else why he or she is wrong.

And worst of all, I was wrong about the root causes of the world’s problems. That doesn’t mean I’ve changed my political or philosophical views. It just means that I understand now that the problem goes far deeper than anything that can ever be fixed through politics.

So I realized that the truth which I wanted to share was deeper than any political idea. That truth is deeper than any religious dogma or ethical system or cultural norms. I wasn’t trying to start a political movement or a religion or a cult.

All I wanted to do was to share the truth as I was coming to understand it. The truth about love and beauty. About nature and meaning. About what a human life could be. But I’ve come to understand that almost nobody was interested in hearing me talk about the things which are most important to me.

I’ve come to understand that very few people arrived at their beliefs in a rational way. For the most part, people in our culture simply believe what they choose to believe. We like to think that evidence drives our conclusions, but the truth is that our existing conclusions drive the way we see the evidence.

You might listen to what I say or write, but generally only if you already agree with what I have to say. Public discourse no longer happens through reasoned arguments which lay logical foundations and then convince the masses. For years, I have been living as though I believed I was speaking to that sort of world — and I understand now that acting in such a way has been useless.

I’ve been struggling for years to lay out a path for myself going forward. I know I want to share the truth as I understand it. I feel compelled to share truth as I see it, but hardly anybody is going to listen to my words — written or spoken — unless those people already generally agree with me.

When I started publishing this site more than 10 years ago, I initially started publishing political content that merely preached to a crowd which already agreed with me. I became pretty successful doing that, but I soon realized it was a waste of my time. It seemed pointless.

I gave up on “preaching to the choir” and started writing things that I saw as far more honest and vulnerable. Things which I thought could share my thoughts and feelings as I tried to work out how to speak to the world.

My readership plummeted.

The thousands of people who used to read me daily soon became hundreds. And I contented myself with that — basically writing for myself until I could figure out how I might be able to speak truth in a way that it could be heard.

I’ve worked hard to ignore the simple reality that I’ve had the answer all along. I just ignored that answer, because I didn’t like what it would mean I would have to do.

In 2005, I made a short film called “We’re the Government — and You’re Not.” (The versions on YouTube have several hundred thousand views, but the Vimeo version linked here has slightly higher resolution.) Although the film is a political satire, I didn’t start out to make a political statement. It wasn’t intended as a lecture. I simply had what I thought was a funny idea — and my political ideas of the time were naturally reflected in what I made.

The film is simple and crude by my current standards. I had no paid actors. I didn’t know what I was doing. The film is very flawed, but it reflected what I knew how to do and what I could afford to make.

And somehow, a film which reflected strong anti-statist political ideas — from a blatantly libertarian point of view — somehow got into 25 smaller film festivals. It won four or five awards. (I don’t recall the details since it’s been so long.) I sold hundreds of copies of the DVD of that 10-minute short film. And even today, I get emails from people fairly frequently who discover it online and enjoy it.

In the Age of Entertainment, my straightforward rational arguments have almost no chance of being heard. But my art has a chance to be heard, even if it’s flawed and imperfect.

So the truth seems fairly clear. If I want to speak to my world — and have any hope of making a difference to hurting people in a dysfunctional culture — I have to make art. Even if it scares me to admit that I can be an artist.

If I want to keep talking to myself — and a relatively small group of people who generally agree with me — I can keep doing what I’ve been doing. And if I want to speak to a larger audience, I have to make the art that I’ve been so afraid to make.

Reasoned argument has no chance. Art has a real chance of expressing truth as I see it to a wider audience. What they do with my truth — or my art — is up to the audience.

If you make entertainment designed to sell your ideas, it’s just propaganda, though. And that’s not good art. So how do I avoid the mistakes of my past — trying to lecture the world — while also avoiding the mistake of making dogmatic propaganda?

I need to return to the days when I knew nothing and questioned everything. I need to be clear that I have more questions than answers. And I need to let my art do the talking about whatever truth I might have found.

They won’t listen to my arguments. They might listen to my art. And that’s the best I can possibly ask for.

Note: Part 3 will be posted very soon. If you missed it, you can find Part 1 here.