4min chapter

Subversive w/Alex Kaschuta cover image

Jacob Phillips - Do we still have a duty to each other?

Subversive w/Alex Kaschuta

CHAPTER

The Crisis of Meaning

I get frustrated with a lot of stuff on discourse from both sides that just have to include a cold understanding of human existence. I see all around me people making really irrational decisions, which aren't necessarily in the best interests. And I think we're increasingly living in a situation where everything's conditioned on a self interest. The book is kind of your response to this crisis of meaning that I see a lot of people responding to. So you should essentially detach and, I don't know what happens after this next step.

00:00
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, it comes out of the writing, but there's also, I feel like this is kind of a feeling that you've tapped into. And obviously the book is kind of your response to this crisis of meaning that I see a lot of people responding to. And in an interesting way, a lot of people are saying, okay, responsibility is not on the table until certain conditions are met. So the idea that responsibility, take responsibility for anything in the world, as being the last man, is too high of an ask. There's nothing to take responsibility for. We're just peering into the abyss and there's really nothing to hang on to, like, responsibility for anything within the state of play, within the field of options that we see in front of us is essentially a trap. You're tethering yourself to something, to a sinking ship. So you should essentially detach and, I don't know, exactly what happens after this next step. But it feels to me that you've kind of taken a leap of faith here, obviously you are a man of faith. So maybe that has something to do with it. But yeah, I mean, maybe you could speak a little bit to that.
Speaker 1
Yeah, I mean, I think. Yeah, I think that's right. I get frustrated with a lot of stuff on discourse from both sides, actually, that just have to include a cold understanding of human existence whereby, you know, we kind of engage with stuff, you know, prior to some conditions being met, which we consider to be advantageous to ourselves. And I think that's, I think that that party reflects the way in which, you know, what those on the left were called late capitalism has kind of affected the most, you know, profound, intimate aspects of our subjectivity, even to the degree that everything's become kind of choice on the basis of self advantage. And maximizing one's own self advantage, everything's conditional in terms of what suits oneself. And I suppose I just, in kind of normal life, I see all around me people making really irrational decisions, which aren't necessarily in the best interests. And I'm quite interested by that. And I think we're increasingly living in a situation where everything's conditioned on a self interest. I suppose the fact my background is on the left is part of, it's part of what's going on here really because stuff that seemed to me kind of natural left-wing impulses immediately very quickly and around 2010 became right-wing impulses and this is one of those examples. So, for me taking responsibility for others was a natural impulse of the left, the kind of traditional economic left-wing thinking that I grew up around. Now, I moved a million miles away from that. I wouldn't describe myself as left wing anymore. But not making decisions purely on the basis of maximizing self advantage seemed to me to kind of come from that world, to speak naturally to that world. So, I've just kind of got increasingly frustrated with this way in which everything presented as a kind of choice. And even to the point of stuff discourse on the right about, for example, birth rates and the issues with really low birth rates in Western countries in the UK, people will point out how difficult it is economically for people in the next 20s to have kids. And it's a really big problem and it should be sorted out and there need to be policies to make it easier that human beings don't have kids because they can afford them. Human beings have kids because we have kids and we're configured to share our lives with our offspring. That's just a fact of life and making it purely about economic conditions being met does frustrate me a bit. I think there's something just so much richer going on there.

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