Re-enchantment in Philosophy

Ours is an age when the humanities have been gutted and decimated by radical ideological mendacity. Today several generations of students, and readers alike, have never heard of philosophy, philosophers, self-reflection, self-actualization or the big picture. For several generations now young people have never considered the nature of objective truth, the quest for beauty, reflection on transcendence and the sublime, and the effect that reflection on those existential concerns has on a well-grounded existence.

For the past several generations, people have never considered or have ignored the essences that ground the superstructure of human reality. Instead, the here-and-now reigns supreme as the god of one-dimensional mass man – moral, spiritual, and cultural minimalists; self-proclaimed masters of vapid positivism. The Epic of Gilgamesh, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle are only a few antidotes to the moral, spiritual, and cultural bankruptcy that has come to define late postmodern life.

Philosophia is an ancient Greek word that means love of wisdom. In late postmodernity, philosophy – the queen of the sciences – finds itself debased, disabused, and gutted, not because an inherent frailty of this life-affirming discipline, but through repeated attempts to convert her into a radicalized, ideological whore. In late postmodernity, universities, book publishers, journals, and other institutions are bankrolled by crafty and opportunistic denizens of corrosive, radical ideological positivism. ‘The ideological buck stops with them,’ they proclaim. In other words, time immemorial truth and objective values that have built and sustained civilizations die at the entrance of the morose cemetery of radical ideological positivism.

As a consequence of pervasive radicalization of all aspects of human life, late postmodernity is an age of destructive, anti-humanistic philosophical materialism that spreads its attenuated values to all aspects of human life.

Now What?

How does a perennial discipline like philosophy, the mother of all disciplines, regain its bearings and life-affirming glory? How can future generations enjoy the same nobility of thought, spiritual, and cultural appropriation of human reality and the human condition that thoughtful people have enjoyed for millennia?  How can philosophy be revived, not as an academic offering that students grudgingly take in universities to fulfill a mishmash of courses they must take to receive a four-year degree? No, that model has become obsolete in failing to turn out genuinely educated persons. In late postmodernity – education at all levels – has played a crucial role in the destruction of the humanities. Irony abounds on that topic. Part of the problem is that education has been highjacked by radical ideologues. This has resulted not in education of the human person, but rather debasement through ideological indoctrination.

Instead, I am talking about philosophy as courageous self-reflection, an existential quest that enables concrete persons to cultivate a well-grounded existence, a life of moral and spiritual discernment; the cultivation of self-reflection that can lead to self-empowerment through self-actualization. Philosophy is the purview of non conformist free thinkers. This should not be confused with radicalization and Marxist resentment of the human condition. The latter can only gain traction through sinister conditioning and indoctrination, and not reflection on the human condition by thoughtful free spirits. Philosophy is a vital, life-affirming task that is cultivated by concrete, self-reflective persons, not collectivization, and definitely, not theorists. Philosophy is the only discipline that can deliver differentiated persons to self-actualization. The result of this is self-empowerment.

Philosophy is the only discipline that can deliver future generations to the attainment of self-actualization through self-reflection. This means power over the self that enables man to cultivate prudence, responsibility, self-reliance, self-discipline, and autognosis. In effect, philosophy is the only discipline that can make man whole again, in a milieu when the human psyche has been fractured by radical ideology.

Philosophical reflection, as a way of life and a manner of confronting human reality, is the only discipline that can return man to metaphysical and existential re-enchantment, and awe and wonder. Philosophy is the only discipline that can mend the broken and tormented human psyche that radical ideology, and the late postmodern anti-philosophy, deconstructionism, has corrupted.

Concrete, Differentiated Persons of Flesh and Bones

The problem for philosophical reflection in our time is that late postmodernity, which is the domain of radical ideology, has squashed the idea of differentiated persons: individuality and self-reflective subjectivity. For one, the daunting task of re-enchantment of philosophical self-reflection requires that we discover people worthy of this task. Re-enchantment in philosophy, the cultivation of awe and wonder, demands thoughtful, healthy-minded, and well-grounded persons, individuals who possess a temperament capable of self-reflection.

In effect, re-enchantment in philosophy requires people who are qualified to lead and inspire others in this existential task; philosophers cannot be fabricated in universities – they never have – regardless of the vast number of endowed chairs, hefty endowments, and costly tuition. Those things have nothing to do with thought proper, self-reflection, and philosophy.

Re-enchantment in the discipline of philosophy, that is, philosophy as a way of life, requires free thinkers, courageous people who seek moral, spiritual, and cultural enlightenment through moral authenticity. The existential task of self-actualization disqualifies people who merely seek a college degree, pencil pushing university bureaucrats, and careerist teachers of philosophy at colleges and universities. That model of institutionalized ‘education’ has failed miserably in creating self-motivated people who are capable of critical thinking. Today we have a sea of statistical data that proves this. The receipts do not lie.

Free Thinkers: Breaking the Stranglehold that Marxism has on the Humanities

In an age of new journalism, thoughtful and incisive free thinkers must embrace this genre, which eschews radical ideology. Philosophical new journalism aims to construct, not destroy life-affirming philosophical thought. Courageous thinkers must break the stranglehold that academia and academese, that sterile, analytic, and pathological method of writing and talking that lacks intimations of existential vitality, has on academic philosophy and the humanities.

Philosophical reflection that is approached through new journalism is a no-nonsense appeal to knowledge, learning, and human reality that ‘leaves the world as it is’ – to cite Wittgenstein – while self-empowering man by making human existence solidly grounded in the human condition. In turn, this means that human beings can become better suited to handle the contingencies – vital and practical – that the human condition demands that we perpetually address.

That is, by vital I mean existential inquietude, curiosity, and awe-and- wonder that aim to save individual, concrete persons. Reflection on existential concerns has everything to do with saving and enlightening the lived-experience, safeguarding it from collectivization and conformist ideological zombification. The latter is the legacy of radical Marxist indoctrination, which castrates free thinkers.

To continue to promote the debasement of the human person through radical ideological, theoretical, and abstract notions of human reality, circa 2026, will not only deliver more human beings into the gutter of acrid, dysfunctional lives that embrace corrosive and destructive notions of the human person, it will collapse what remains of the humanities in the coming years. Colleges and universities are leading that charge.

The perspicuous Martin Heidegger conveys our current condition best when he argues that man is the keeper and shepherd of Being. What does Being, which signals life-affirming, self-validating creation, and not (nothingness), mean to the human person? What does Being signify, if anything at all, to late postmodern mass man? We ought not to forget that the human person is a future-oriented being that possesses an innate capacity for self-reflection. Self-reflection is the ground that makes it possible for man to cultivate authenticity in human existence. However, authenticity requires moral courage.

For time immemorial, thoughtful people have cultivated ideas and morality that delivered them to self-actualization. This meant the desire to cultivate moral, spiritual, intellectual, and personal development. The goal was to become a well-grounded and complete person. This always comes at great personal price. The effects of self-actualization mean empowerment of the self – the ultimate power that man can attain.  

The twenty-first century is a quarter of the way finished. The understanding and knowledge of human existence and the human person that Western Civilization has gathered in human history cannot be permitted to be destroyed for radical ideological ends. That is, over two millennia of thoughtful philosophical reflection, Christian philosophical anthropology, and science (not scientism) have offered Western Civilization a complimentary array of answers to the question: What is man? Philosophical anthropology should alert the rational adults in the room, not people inebriated with Marxist fetishism, to a constructive and objective definition of man.

Western Civilization cannot afford to allow late postmodernism, a time of bloated theoretical and politicized pseudo reason – not even self-respecting rationalism – to further alienate thoughtful and discerning thinkers, and a well-informed general public, from constructing a productive, life-affirming relationship with the human condition.

Ideological Mendacity, Distortion of Human Reality and Systems Collapse

Again, we must ask…and now what?  

We must recognize that Western Civilization has reached an impasse, a point of critical mass in late postmodernity that has turned the question, what is man? sinister. This signals an ominous future for Western Civilization. Theories and abstractions cannot cover up the dire status quo of Western Civilization; only the embrace of life-affirming values can salvage Western Civilization.

Today Western Civilization is in imminent danger of losing all subsequent generations of young people to corrosive and self-destructive radical ideological mendacity. It remains an open question whether this is the intent of radical ideologues or the result of the withering away of meaning and purpose, which is exacerbated by radical ideology. The signs of the coming collapse of western civilization are flagrant and striking. Since, at least the 1990s, IQ scores have declined worldwide. Today an unprecedented low number of students at all levels are proficient in math and reading. They don’t suspect the extent and severity of their ignorance – and don’t care, given that they do not have an iota of awe-and-wonder. They know nothing about history and geography. Schools, at all levels, including colleges and universities, turn out illiterates en masse.

The rate of suicide, depression, and mental illness in late postmodernity – much of which is groomed by radical ideology – has reached ominous levels. The causes of this include massive exposure to television, the Internet, cellular telephones, social media, and a sustained attempt to usurp traditional educational curricula at all levels to serve radical ideological ends. I have written in greater depth about the unsustainable values that Marxism, in all its variant forms, has ushered into late postmodernity: “Requiem for Lost Time: The Future of Youth” (Observer & Review: Culture, Metapolitics, History, Jurisprudence, Vol. 3, Issue 1, Number 5 , 2025).  

While dysfunctionality at all levels of human life has been normalized in late postmodernity, a condition that has fragmented the human psyche, few alleged experts can, are willing to, or have the moral courage to effectively decipher, that is, to call out the source of late postmodern degeneracy. Radical ideological so-called experts have an axe to grind in refusing to admit that the dissolution of objective and constructive human values has had a profound effect on the decline of Western Civilization. They refuse to recognize that the destruction of objective values cannot be carried out ad infinitum, disguised as alleged progressivism, especially of the moral kind, and not expect further breakdown of the human person.

Yet, discerning thinkers understand that the unprecedented degree of moral, spiritual, psychological, and cultural dysfunction of people in late modernity is groomed and exacerbated by radical ideology’s distorted view of human reality. We ought not to forget that Marxism is an anti-philosophy, messianism of the here-and-now that aims to change the world. This entails a protracted battle against the constants of nature, as this serves as the foundational of human reality.

The current lamentable condition of Western Civilization, and what is left of its culture, is unsustainable. This is why we must refer to our time as late postmodernity. The spread of corrosive radical ideological falsehood is the modus operandi of ideologues who have an invested interest in the collapse of Western Civilization and culture for ideological reasons; self-serving moral depravity seeks to protect itself at all cost. With that comes a cottage industry of depravity and dysfunctionality that corrodes constructive values and enslaves the people who, perhaps unsuspectingly, believe that alleged progressive and expansive values are liberating and chic.

The collapse of Western Civilization signals an ominous, worldwide systems collapse. Systems collapse is the bogeyman that threatens to eventually deliver Western Civilization into a technological dark age. The complexity of Western civilization requires well-grounded persons to maintain it functioning. Thoughtful and self-reflective persons are the essential ingredient required to maintain the moral, spiritual, and cultural health of nations, and the cultural, moral, spiritual, and technological infrastructure of Western civilization. Systems collapse will result in unprecedented barbarity and human suffering.

Life as the Ultimate Value: The Moral and Spiritual Ground of Re-enchantment in Philosophy

Timing is everything.

Human existence is all about timing. Human events, including our ability to cultivate the lived-experience, are not as innocuous as unsuspecting people make them out to be. Man responds and appropriates human events, that is, the minutiae of daily life with values that, at minimum, are practical and capable of solving our pressing affairs. In turn, the human values that we utilize to guide us through the lived experience must be enlightening and life-affirming. Such values reaffirm and strengthen our morale in addressing and ultimately conquering the contingencies that help mold human existence.

Whether singularity, fate, or fortune can account for an explanation of seemingly disconnected events in human reality – the human condition – that question is likely easier to answer than we suspect. These concerns yield practical life answers, when they remain as the purview of individual existential inquietude. On the other hand, we do not receive viable answers, that is, heuristic lessons to existential questions, when such questions are placed in the pigeon box of radical ideology, abstraction, and theory, as late postmodernity has conditioned people to believe. Instead, by theory, I mean the ancient Greek meaning of the word: theoria (θεωρία), which refers to contemplation, philosophical insight, and a self-sustaining vision of human reality. Theoria refers to existential contemplation of practical life concerns that ultimately lead to contented human persons.  

If we are to be successful in answering ultimate, metaphysical questions, the answers will pertain to concrete human existence. That is, the aforementioned existential concerns are not the purview of collectives, only differentiated human existence. This alone disqualifies radical ideology and social engineering from addressing human problems in an intellectually honest manner, much less the human condition.

Metaphysical and Existential first Principles

For time immemorial, human events, philosophy, art, literary creation, and invention have owed their origin to metaphysics. The metaphysical scaffolding of human history has offered man the possibility to attain a unified lived experience. This has enabled man to frame human concerns on solid grounding, which in turn, has enabled man to experience the lived experience with the certainty that man seeks. The line of demarcation between man’s understanding of metaphysical first principles, and how these principles serve as the foundation of human reality, has been snapped in late postmodernity by radical ideology. The political landscape of the twentieth century, and the mores and values of late postmodernity…and beyond, originate not in metaphysics but in radical ideology. This is a betrayal of philosophical reflection and the objective truth that reason uncovers, as much as a betrayal of the metaphysical grounding of human reality. This has resulted in an inversion of human values and reality, which have been manipulated and deformed to serve the ends of radical ideology.

Metaphysics – the queen of the sciences – supplies human beings with understanding of the essences that lie beneath human experience. This means that the truths and truisms that metaphysical reflection uncovers, which keep man from devouring itself with radical ideological mendacity – individually and collectively – serve as the ground and time-immemorial superstructure of the human condition. Whatever truths man uncovers must be dealt with and internalized with humility, courage, and moral conviction. This is a task for human persons as individuals, not the bloated, suspended animation of human reality and affected sentimentalism of world-ism that radical ideology exploits. This is why questions regarding fate and fortune, even synchronicity, that myth, religion, metaphysics, and poetry have traditionally addressed, if we are to remain intellectually honest, are questions that must be confronted by individuals as existential concerns that determine the trajectory of individual human life.  

Beginning in the late nineteenth century, metaphysics was highjacked by anti-philosophy and anti-thought. Crass and unimaginative philosophical materialism, social-political engineering, and science, which in its applied mode has morphed into scientism, have defined the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, as what the Spanish philosopher, José Ortega y Gasset, refers to as the age of self-serving, immoral mass man.  

This inversion means that we ought to be careful in realizing that everything that looks like and appears to be metaphysics is not metaphysics. This is particularly the case in philosophical materialism, which has defined the twentieth and twenty-first centuries as the age of radical ideology. The twentieth century ushered in a profound and devastating anti-metaphysical age that is antithetical to the development of the incarnate human person. That is, the twentieth century, and now the twenty first, have made anti-philosophy the ground and leading form of misguided statecraft.

Anti-philosophy, which is characterized by reductionism of the human person, the lived-experience, and the human condition to sterile biological and radical ideological terms, has destroyed man’s capacity for self-reflection. This has eclipsed the possibility for self-actualization and the cultivation of authenticity and objective values that take their cue from the constants of human reality; essences that are the intelligences that serve as the scaffolding of human reality.

Granted, the task of proposing and seeking re-enchantment in philosophy, a task that necessitates that human existence be conceived in an existential vein, is next to an impossible task in an age that is ruled by wanton positivism. If the first quarter of the twenty first century has taught us anything, it is that positivism has a corrosive, yet enticing chic appeal for mass man. Positivism is viewed by the mass mind as liberating. Though, liberating from what, we must ask? Liberation from the weight of human reality, from the plight of being a human person in a material condition that is poised to destroy authenticity, virtue, sincerity, and any values that reward man, especially people who embrace the most difficult path. This is one reason why radical ideology promises positivism as liberation, as a social-political program that seeks utopia through coddling abstraction. Progressivism is the de facto religion of late postmodernity.

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