Today is exactly 1 week before Trump becomes president for the 2nd time. The world feels in anticipation of something big. And it's not good. Much will change, but how, no one knows yet. An ominous, dark shadow.
I don't see Trump and the other modern populists as fascism. Hitler and Mussolini had a plan, an ideal. Trump is just ego and superficiality. A weather vane who shouts something different every time, without a plan. His companions at most have a plan that stands for demolition, construction is nowhere to be found. There are vague images of a Christian nationalist renaissance, but it lacks concreteness. Another vague image is of tech capitalists hijacking his lack of attention span for their own intentions. They seem to have gotten lucky in building big machines that are already greatly affecting our lives. But they seem to have no idea of what a society is and needs. They too are mainly concerned that things should be different, with their version of demolition.
As if they can see what they don't want, but not what they do want. As if beneath the surface there is nothing, no bottom.
Bottomlessness
But could it be just that? Degradation to bottomlessness, to emptiness?
What if we take up Nietzsche's scenario. He had declared God dead and gave humanity 3 centuries to deal with that. After the death of God, the era of ideologies began. People had passion, they had new certainties without God and tried to make it happen. Which failed. That was roughly century 1. We are now halfway through century 2. The era that seems to be characterized by: oh, our society is causing climate problems, but we can't address them properly. Along with it a moral relativism with a touch of hedonism. From which people got no satisfaction, so therefore they now try a wave of populism with no direction, no bottom.
It seems like we are still breaking down and failing to find a bottom. Are we as a society heading for bottomlessness and emptiness? Is the current populism just another step? A lot of bravado, maybe a lot of damage and then nothing?
What comes next, I don't know.
With mirdan, I make an effort to explore the emptiness I suspect underneath. First learn to deal with my own emptiness, with my not-knowing, with the place where language no longer has a grip.
First a step back from our 5,000 years of history. Let's see where we stand. And look honestly at what we have no answer for. Not-knowing in response to populism. God is dead, the logos useless. And now we don't go back to the philosophy of Greece, but further back, further inward, we go to emptiness. To begin again.
Let's see if that's possible.
After exploring the emptiness for a long time, I made a platform there myself. A collection of words connected to each other. They all acknowledge the void, but form a new, floating whole. Upon which new language and new stories can be stacked. With which we can look again at complexity and to see where our knowledge begins and ends. And where we learn to deal maturely with problems that are not easily solved.
I see it as a possible answer to the emptiness of populism.
As an attempt to build something new after the fall into emptiness, which in my view the populists (and perhaps the rest of society) have not even begun to do (but which they seem to be getting closer to).