Humans are strange creatures.
Darwin ensured the drive of eros. Capitalism has ensured that love costs a ton of dough! Yikes...don't even mention the cost of raising offspring under neoliberalism.
The western philosophical tradition brought us romanticism which was entwined with German Idealism. The English had their own unique take on it and it was a kind of nature worship and writers like Thoreau continued the tradition in America. Today the Neo-Luddites are bringing it back but mostly in reaction to mega-city 5-G smart grid city-states wherein life may very well look like a blend of Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's, Brave New World.
Richard Rorty culturized Darwinism, I think, or, at least in a way he did. If God was impossible to find then it made total sense to focus on humans, secularism, logic, reason; juxtaposed to theimaginal and poetic--sort of a left brain/right brain holism for culture--with the target being the most hopeful integration of both. And then came 911...And well, that's another post, but that day unleashed a fissure within the trajectory of the best hopes of secular pragmatism. And no, Jordan Peterson ain't going to save the day.
Age has made me a pragmatist in my day to day life. Romanticism's kicked the shit out of me-- more or less-- mainly because I've never been able to adjust to the neoliberal mode of operation--greed. God damn hippies just aren't appreciated anymore! And God? And my youthful exuberance at a hopeful outcome there? Hey, we live in a prison matrix that is actively trying to kill us! No, I have no idealism left in me. That isn't to say that God doesn't exist--it's just not here--for all practical purposes, we are on our own. I don't think it's going to work out well here, but then again, how could it if this place is doomed?
I suppose it's the ongoing struggle between Eros and Thanatos with an added dose of incredible complexity mixed together with the new plutocracy--the corporate state machine! Pay or die, either way as long as we can profit from it--and profit we will!
Perhaps romantics naturally seek pragmatists as nature always seems to strive for equilibria. To me, there's a certain sense in that--we search out unconsciously and long for wholeness. Someone should mention to these two groups the futility of it all--what was it the psalmist said? All is vanity...Which ironically aligns so well with nihilism. But if anyone knows its turf it's the demiurge and it covets what is his.
All we can do is find the key that makes us rise above it all.
