There is a novel by the Japanese writer Yoko Ogawa called The Memory Police in which things disappear from a small island. Not catastrophically, but quietly. Roses vanish. Then birds. Then calendars, ferries, and photographs. Then people begin to forget, not just the objects themselves, but the capacity to miss them. The world grows thinner as a result, and nobody mourns, because the grief disappears along with the thing itself. 

I have been thinking about this novel for a long time; not as fiction, but as a form of diagnosis. 

We are living, like in Ogawa’s novel, through a slow subtraction. Not of physical objects, at least not yet, but of the structures that make experience feel weighted, significant, continuous. Community, shared narrative, trust in institutions, the assumption that what one does today connects meaningfully to something larger and lasting: these are dissolving, and the dissolution is so gradual that most people do not register the loss. They have already forgotten what the thing felt like when it was there. 

Short-termism and the failure of feeling 

The human brain evolved to solve immediate threats: predators, hunger, rival tribes. It did not evolve to feel the full weight of problems that unfold over decades or centuries. This is not stupidity. It is a profound mismatch between cognitive hardware and the scale of modern problems. Climate change, infrastructure decay, institutional erosion: these are slow bleeds, not wounds. And slow bleeds are easily normalized. By the time the loss is undeniable, the capacity to name it is already half gone. 

This is what the philosopher Joseph Tainter identified in his study of civilizational collapse: complexity accumulates until the cost of maintaining it exceeds its returns. Then the whole system simplifies, rapidly and in ways that leave survivors unable to reconstruct what was lost, because the knowledge required to reconstruct it was itself part of what collapsed (Tainter 4). The people left behind are not stupid. They simply live in a thinner world and have no memory of the thicker one. 

The philosopher at the end of things 

There is a particular kind of thinker who occupies a difficult position. One who sees the pattern clearly and who carries, as a result, a weight of perception that cannot easily be shared, because the people around them are still furnished with illusions that, however false, provide genuine comfort and motivation. 

Albert Camus wrote about absurdity, being the confrontation between the human need for meaning and the universe’s silence in response to the matter. His solution was to revolt: to refuse to look away, to insist on living fully inside the absurdity rather than fleeing into false consolation (Camus 53–54). But Camus was working with individual mortality. Civilizational or species mortality is a far different scale of problem, and the revolt required is larger, and lonelier. 

Oswald Spengler, writing in the aftermath of the First World War, argued that civilizations follow organic cycles (spring, summer, autumn, winter) and that the West had entered its late autumn, what he called the age of Zivilisation: technically brilliant, but spiritually exhausted, and culturally imitative (Spengler 31). The philosopher at such a moment does not have the luxury of optimism. But neither, Spengler suggested, do they have the luxury of despair. One lives in one’s time, and does what is possible. 

The thinning of infrastructure 

The thinning is not only existential. It is material.  

Modern civilization runs on systems of extraordinary complexity and interdependence (electrical grids, global supply chains, financial networks, the internet), and these systems were built for efficiency, not resilience. They are tightly coupled, which in engineering terms means that failures propagate rapidly and widely (Perrow 4). Most people have no idea how fragile they are. The knowledge required to survive outside these systems (how to grow food, preserve it, source clean water, practice basic medicine) has largely been lost at the population level. It is not stored anywhere accessible. It has simply disappeared, like the roses (et al) in Ogawa’s novel. 

Climate change does not need to make the planet uninhabitable to produce catastrophic outcomes. It needs only to push infrastructure past its tolerance threshold at enough points simultaneously. A billion displaced people do not merely suffer: they destabilize every political system they touch. And destabilized systems make irrational decisions: historically, wars over remaining resources, and eventually the deployment of weapons capable of something far more final than displacement. 

The act of doing 

Viktor Frankl, writing under the abhorrent conditions of the Nazi concentration camps, argued that meaning does not require favorable conditions, but it does require engagement with what is actually present, however diminished. The will to meaning persists even when objects of meaning are stripped away. What matters is not the quality of the experience, but the fact of presence inside it: the act of witnessing, of remaining conscious and deliberate, as its own justification (Frankl 76–77). 

This is a different posture from optimism. It does not require believing that the arc is launching upward. It requires only continuing to engage with the reality that is actually here: the thinning world, the honest questions, the weight of clear perception. The narrator of Ogawa’s novel keeps writing even as the world loses its objects. The act of writing does not restore what is lost. But it is not nothing. It is, in fact, quite a lot. 

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” 

— Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (77) 

The question is not whether meaning survives the thinning, or whether the act of remaining present (of doing, in the full weight of that word) is itself a form of meaning sufficient to sustain a life. There are philosophers who have concluded that it is. There are people living inside that conclusion right now, carrying the perception clearly, continuing anyway. 

That continuance is a quiet form of resistance. Not loud. Not optimistic. But real. 

The world thins. Some of us notice. Some of us keep writing. 

Works Cited 

Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus. Translated by Justin O’Brien, Vintage International, 1991. 

Frankl, Viktor E. Man’s Search for Meaning. Beacon Press, 2006. 

Ogawa, Yoko. The Memory Police. Translated by Stephen Snyder, Pantheon Books, 2019. 

Perrow, Charles. Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies. Princeton University Press, 1999. 

Spengler, Oswald. The Decline of the West. Translated by Charles Francis Atkinson, Alfred A. Knopf, 1926. 

Tainter, Joseph A. The Collapse of Complex Societies. Cambridge University Press, 1988. 

There is a particular kind of exhaustion that has no good name. It is not the tiredness that follows a long day of honest work, the kind that earns deep sleep and a dreamless night. It is something older, more corrosive. It lives in the marrow. It has settled into us collectively, quietly, the way damp settles into old walls: invisible until the plaster starts to bow. 

In 2025, the American Psychological Association found that stress levels across the United States had reached their highest recorded point in nearly two decades. Not since the aftermath of 2008 had so many people, across income brackets, across generations, described themselves as overwhelmed and barely holding on. Globally, the World Health Organization reported that rates of anxiety and depression had climbed forty percent above pre-pandemic baselines and simply... stayed there. The emergency ended, but the wound did not close. 

We need each other more than ever. But we are so very distracted. 

The average person now spends upwards of seven hours a day looking at a screen. More, if they work digitally/virtually. Algorithms, those patient and remorseless architects of our attention, have learned with terrifying precision exactly what flavor of outrage or grief or spectacle will keep our eyes moving, our thumbs scrolling. We are not browsing anymore. We are being browsed. Catalogued. Served back to ourselves in slightly more enraging versions, until we are too overstimulated to feel anything and too under stimulated to act. 

And we are tired. We are oh so very tired. 

Our muscles ache almost as much as our bones, and our voices are harsh and raspy, and bark like the worst of secrets spat out at the worst of moments. One in three adults in the developed world now reports chronic sleep deprivation. One in five reports that they have no one they would consider a close confidant. This is up from one in twenty just thirty years ago. We are, in the clinical language of researchers and quietly in the private language of our own hearts, desperately, profoundly lonely. Not the romantic kind that songs are written about. The grey, grinding kind that makes ordinary afternoons feel like something to survive. 

We stumble and cry as we slip and fall, tearing our flesh in tiny, neat slits. Clean, but not. We are bothered, but do not break. 

Watch any city street at rush hour, or rather, look at it, look past the AirPods and the lowered gazes and the carefully performed purposefulness, and you will see it. People moving through each other like water around stones. There is grief being carried in those bodies. There is fear. There is the residue of news cycles that do not pause: of wars that grind on in corners of the world we name and then forget; of wildfires and floods and disasters arriving in places that were told they were safe; of economic squeezes that turn the simple act of buying groceries into a small, humiliating arithmetic. We howl and twist into the mud and the blood and the roots and the rocks, and our human symmetries slip away into something far older than we. 

Something animal. Something pre-language. Just the body, trying to persist. 

We are trapped. But we have always been trapped in a silent contract we never signed. Just like all the other animals: things reduced to numbers, to be bought and sold by the supposed best of us. Used and discarded. Tools for trade. Meat to be manipulated, molested, and passed around until no longer useful. 

The language of markets has colonized everything now. Our attention is inventory. Our data is a commodity. Our fears are a revenue stream: packaged, segmented, monetized by platforms worth more than the economies of mid-sized nations. We did not agree to this, not in any meaningful sense. We clicked accept on terms we did not read, for services we could not afford to refuse, offered by entities with no face and no address and no particular interest in whether we flourish or merely persist long enough to generate another quarter's worth of engagement metrics. 

I want it to stop. We want it to stop. Surely, we must. 

There are days I think we have forgotten what it feels like to want something without being told to want it first. We have outsourced so much. Our navigation, our memory, our social lives, our sense of what matters... that the self begins to feel like a subtenant in its own house. We put ourselves first, stupid and vain apes that we are, and by doing so, we have created a world that somehow serves almost none of us. The wealthiest eight people on earth now hold more than the bottom half of humanity combined. We built that. We ratified it with every transaction, every election, every time we decided that a stranger's suffering was not quite our problem. 

We have turned our backs upon everything else. We have no one else to turn to. 

And yet. 

After the Los Angeles fires of early 2025, strangers drove hours to deliver supplies to people whose neighborhoods had burned while they slept. After the floods in Valencia, in Brazil, in the Sahel, ordinary people organized in group chats and neighborhood networks and did the work that institutions were too slow, too structured, too self-preserving to do. When the lights go out (literally or otherwise) something in us still moves toward each other. Still reaches. Still lifts. 

This is not sentimentality. It is data. It is ten thousand years of evidence that we survive not by our individual brilliance but by our stubborn, irrational, magnificent tendency to help each other anyway. 

Reach for my hand in the dark. I will help lift you up, just as surely as you lift me. 

I mean this as plainly and as urgently as it sounds. Not as a metaphor. Not as a motivational poster. As instruction. As the only thing that has ever worked, in the end, in any civilization, across any catastrophe you care to name. We are going to need each other, not abstractly, by way of speeches and manifestos, but in the concrete, unglamorous way of checking in on someone, of showing up, of asking the question and then waiting for the actual answer instead of the acceptable one. 

We cannot get out by ourselves. We never could. The self-made myth was always exactly that: a fiction stitched together in retrospect over a lifetime of invisible dependencies, of mothers and teachers and strangers who held a door. The most radical thing any of us can do, in this particular darkness, is to refuse the fiction of our own self-sufficiency and admit, out loud, that we are here because someone reached for us once, and that we owe the same reaching to someone else. 

So. Here is my hand. I cannot promise you light. But I can promise you company in the dark, and that is, as it turns out, may just be the same thing 

Works cited 

American Psychological Association. Stress in America 2024: A Nation in Crisis. APA, 2024, www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress. 

Cacioppo, John T., and William Patrick. Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection. W. W. Norton, 2008. 

Cox, Daniel A. "The State of American Friendship: Change, Challenges, and Loss." Survey Center on American Life, American Enterprise Institute, 8 June 2021, www.americansurveycenter.org/research/the-state-of-american-friendship-change-challenges-and-loss. 

DataReportal. Digital 2025: Global Overview Report. Kepios, Jan. 2025, datareportal.com/reports/digital-2025-global-overview-report. 

National Sleep Foundation. Sleep in America Poll 2024: Sleep and Performance. National Sleep Foundation, 2024, www.thensf.org/sleep-in-america-polls. 

Oxfam International. Inequality Inc.: How Corporate Power Divides Our World and the Need for a New Era of Public Action. Oxfam, Jan. 2024, www.oxfam.org/en/research/inequality-inc. 

Twenge, Jean M. iGen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy — and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood. Atria Books, 2017. 

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Global Humanitarian Overview 2025. OCHA, 2024, www.unocha.org/global-humanitarian-overview-2025. 

United States Surgeon General. Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation: The U.S. Surgeon General's Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2023, www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf. 

World Health Organization. World Mental Health Report: Transforming Mental Health for All. WHO, 2022, www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240049338. 

Andrei Tarkovsky’s fifth (and final movie as a citizen of the Soviet Union), Stalker (1979), follows the story of three men, referred to only as the Writer, the Professor, and their guide, the titular Stalker, as they navigate a forbidden area called the Zone. Hidden in this unnatural setting lies a secret place guarded by checkpoints and surrounded by traps; a room where one is given their innermost desire. 

Stalker is an existential film about man’s search for meaning amidst the noise and chaos of the world. It is also a film about the beauty and horror of the world itself, full of wide, contrasting shots of decaying industrial structures and natural landscapes full of green grass and flowing water. In each case, Nature has broken down man’s impressive architecture, depicted in deteriorating walls and torn metal, as if each detail of the environment bears a mystery in the debris scattered about by some unknown catastrophe.

The Stalker is himself obsessed with his mission of taking others to the miraculous room and giving them the opportunity to have their greatest wishes fulfilled, but he has never entered the threshold of the room itself. This journey is for others, yet he yearns to take one that would change the world into the Zone. Like John the Baptist of the Christian New Testament, the cross is not his to bear. He is only making the way for someone better, that is, one that is truly worthy: a Savior.

But the journey in the Zone reveals the true nature of the Writer and the Scientist, both superficial and vain in their materialism (and fueled by ulterior motives). The Stalker slowly loses hope that humanity can improve the world, his doubt reflected his gaunt face and haunted expression. He is tormented by the failure of his past and unable to comprehend the meaning behind himself and the Zone, each one stripping away at his crumbling faith little by little. Like the greatest of existentialists, the Stalker is looking for hope among the hopeless.

Jean-Paul Sartre (echoing Heidegger) used the terms dread and anguish to describe an essential state that, while unpleasant, is the first step towards an appreciation of freedom and authenticity (Tarkovsky’s Stalker...). This sense of hopelessness can be seen in both The Writer and The Scientist, though their motives for navigating the Zone (i.e.- seeking freedom) are vastly different. The Writer, a poet without a muse (audience), seeks to reclaim a sense of purpose despite personal and material wealth. The Scientist, however, secretly plans to plant a bomb at the uncanny site, fearing what may happen if the secrets of the Zone fall into the wrong hands. The Scientist, in the words of the Stalker seeks to destroy what he believes will be either humanity’s redemption or greatest temptation: hope.

The Stalker, having glimpsed but never reaching freedom for himself, is driven not only by a sense of failure, but bound by a sense of duty (Botz-Bornstein et al). Near the end of the film, the Stalker’s wife addresses the audience (breaking the fourth wall with profound effect). Looking directly into the camera, the at once a devoted, yet lonely woman, speaks of her husband’s physical and mental absence like a widow, describing him as a holy fool (that is, one so devoted to an individual calling that they inadvertently doom themselves to failure). Like Camus’ vision of Sisyphus, the fool carries their burdens both for and despite the gods. Cursed by their sense of duty, yet transformed by it, they exist in a foreign place that is familiar yet hidden. A Zone.

And it is in this Zone, this metaphorical mental battleground full of puzzles and secrets, that the Stalker finds his happiness: a tiny speck of hope for something better (Pourtova 779). The three men return from the Zone, its threshold left unused and untouched by any. The Stalker returns home and retires to his bed, riddled with existential angst and despair, crying out for understanding and peace, repeating the words It isn’t enough (evoking visions of the madman Nietzsche’s deathbed). Despite his torment and mental anguish, he clings to some small piece of curiosity, though some may call it hope.

The film concludes with the Stalker’s disabled daughter, Monkey, using telekinetic powers, no doubt caused by her father’s time in the Zone. Though it remains hidden from him, the change he so desperately wants and the freedom he desires lies in the very place he paradoxically abandons in search of it: home. This is the tragedy of the Stalker, and no doubt often of man itself.

Tarkovsky’s Stalker is an existential cinematic experience depicting man’s struggle for freedom and salvation. It is an analogy of man’s struggle for meaning in a meaningless world, with the Zone acting as a reflection of each character’s mind (each full of secret desires, regrets, and horror). Yet it is also a metaphor for hope. The Stalker continues to take others into the danger of the Zone in the hopes that he will find the key to happiness yet never dares to reach for that key himself. Like Sisyphus, one must imagine the Stalker happy, as he creates his own meaning in the face of a stark reality he refuses to accept. This is where he finds his freedom, his hope, and, ultimately, peace.

Works Cited:

• Andrei Tarkovsky as an Existentialist Cinematic ..., https://www.highonfilms.com/andrei-tarkovsky-existentialist-cinematic-philosopher/.

• Botz-Bornstein, Thorsten. “Realism, Dream, and ‘Strangeness’ in Andrei Tarkovsky.” Film- Philosophy, vol. 8, no. 3, 2004, doi:10.3366/film.2004.0028.

• Pourtova, E. (2017). Andrei Tarkovsky: stalker of the unconscious. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 62(5), 778–786. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5922.12365

• Tarkovsky, Andrei. Stalker. Janus Films, 1979.

• Tarkovsky's Stalker: existentialism and mental health, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(19)30474-2/fulltext.

In the United States, today is the Super Bowl: the annual sporting event which generates over $500 million in revenue annually through $7 million ad slots and halftime shows, exceeding $13 million in total costs. All profits aside, the Super Bowl is also a damning metaphor for the transformation of desire into spectacle under the cover of capitalism. 

French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard’s controversial yet often misunderstood postmodern philosophy may offer a distinct lens to investigate at this phenomenon. This can specifically be seen in his critique of grand narratives. According to Lyotard, universal ideologies, such as Marxism or Enlightenment progress, have collapsed, and have been replaced by competing micro-narratives. The Super Bowl is a perfect metaphor for this shift, substituting collective political goals with hyper-individualized consumption, such as luxury box seats marketed as “communal experiences” despite their exclusivity. Prioritizing performance over cultural authenticity mirrors Lyotard’s claims that capitalism reduces even communal traditions to pure engines of profit. 

Lyotard’s concept of the ‘libidinal economy,’ or economies driven by libidinal 'energies' or 'intensities' that flow through all structures (including the human body and social events), refers to the distribution and arrangement of desire and identification, and the complex relationship between sexuality and the unconscious, further hints at capitalism’s reliance on raw, often irrational desire rather than ideological coercion. The Super Bowl’s halftime spectacles and limited-edition merchandise channel collective longing into commodified experiences, sustaining the system through emotional intensity. This “cathexis of desire” as Lyotard calls it, reflects his view that capitalism thrives by diverting human energy into consumptive acts, where anticipation of purchases (such as planning Super Bowl parties) often outweighs satisfaction from ownership. Yet this system breeds an interesting paradox: while capitalism frames consumer choice as self-expression, it also homogenizes identity. For example, organic food purchases, marketed as acts of individuality, mask structural inequities (exploitative labor practices or premium pricing) that excludes marginalized groups. Lyotard’s skepticism of universal progress narratives illustrates how such “choices” often reinforce systemic inequality, as dissent becomes co-opted. This can be clearly seen in corporate greenwashing campaigns strategically advertised during the Super Bowl. Yet, the Super Bowl is anything but green, and the overall costs are steep. Environmentally speaking, individual Super Bowl stadiums generate up to forty tons of waste per game, in a sobering reminder of capitalism’s blatant neglect towards sustainability. Exploitation-wise, luxury goods, produced en masse for the big event, are often riddled with labor and human rights abuses. Such byproducts of capitalism are hidden behind brightly colored, mass produced products and experiences that, while entertaining, do little to add to the consumer’s quality of life.

Lyotard dismissed universal justice narratives, clarifying society’s tolerance for such inequities when presented as localized issues rather than systemic failures. Resistance, therefore, lies in the “little narratives” that challenge capitalist logic without claiming universal solutions. Worker cooperatives like Evergreen redefine corporate hierarchies, while Patagonia’s “Don’t Buy This Jacket” Super Bowl ad subverts consumption: even as its irony (boosting sales despite anti-consumerist messaging) underscores Lyotard’s warning that critique reinforces the overall system. 

The Super Bowl, in its gratuitous displays of excess, serves as a stark metaphor for capitalism's inherent contradictions, highlighting human creativity and technological prowess while simultaneously revealing the system's inherent capacity for alienation and inequality. The hyperreality it constructs, while offering a seductive escape from the trials and tribulations of life in a capitalist system, ultimately reinforces the existing power structures. The challenge of navigating this landscape lies in harnessing our collective desires and creativity towards more equitable ends.

The emergence of alternative economic models and the resulting shifts in consumer consciousness may offer a temporary sense of hope, but, without a fundamental reimagining of our economic systems (and social values), such efforts risk being consumed by the relentless logic of capital accumulation. The Super Bowl ultimately stands as a shining monument to capitalism's innate ability to commodify every aspect of human experience, from sport to social justice: a reminder that true liberation cannot be found in the shallow waters of hyperreality but in genuine social and economic transformation.

References:

1. Environmental Protection Agency. (2024). Textiles: Material-Specific Data. EPA.

2. Evergreen Cooperatives. (2025). About Us. Evergreen Cooperatives.

3. First Insight. (2024). Gen Z Shopping Behaviors Support Sustainability. First Insight.

4. IKEA. (2020). IKEA launches furniture buy-back and resale program. IKEA.

5. International Labour Organization. (2024). World Employment and Social Outlook. ILO.

6. Knox, S. (2025). Late-stage capitalism has made the Super Bowl too expensive even for the millionaires. Deadspin.

7. Lyotard, J.F. (1984). The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. University of Minnesota Press.

8. Lyotard, J.F. (1993). Libidinal Economy. Indiana University Press.

9. Lyotard, J.F. (1988). The Differend: Phrases in Dispute. University of Minnesota Press.

10. Nielsen. (2024). Super Bowl LVII Draws Nearly 115 Million Viewers. Nielsen.

11. Patagonia. (2011). Don't Buy This Jacket - Black Friday and the New York Times. Patagonia.

12. Santino, J. (2016). The Super Bowl: America's Holiday. Sport in American History.

13. Waste Management. (2024). Sustainability Report. Waste Management, Inc.

14. World Economic Forum. (2024). The State of Fashion: 2024. McKinsey & Company.

The spoken word has always been a challenge for me. Social phobias and anxiety transform my speech into something clumsy and stilted, especially in public settings, where every word feels like it is under scrutiny. During these occasions, I worry that my words do not come across with the authority or intention I mean to convey; that my performance- because that’s what speech often feels like- is lacking in the eyes of those who hear it. My voice shakes and falters, betraying the very confidence I try so hard to project. I wonder if people see through me if they notice the cracks in my composure. At the doubt that seeps through.

For me, the written word is preferable, but no less faulty. Writing offers the luxury of revision: the ability to write and rewrite thoughts until they feel polished, but even this process has its flaws. Memories can be misremembered or forgotten altogether, leaving gaps that imagination eagerly fills. Fiction becomes reality as I unconsciously embellish details to make sense of events or to soften their edges. The written word may feel more deliberate than speech, but it is no less susceptible to distortion.

We are all unreliable narrators of our own stories. We erase what is hurtful, damning, or inconvenient. We rewrite roles for ourselves, recasting our most villainous pursuits as confused or misguided, wholly ignoring our intentions or, worse yet, the consequences of our actions. We are like actors playing the heroes in narratives that are often anything but heroic. And while we may not be the monsters we believe ourselves to be, we must admit that some are among us.

French philosopher Jacques Derrida’s famous assertion that “there is nothing outside the text” (French: Il n’y a pas de hors-texte) gives an interesting lens to examine this struggle between communication and self-perception. Where many suggest this statement suggests a world confined entirely within language, that is, where nothing exists beyond words, Derrida’s meaning remains notoriously misunderstood. What he is saying is that all experience, whether spoken, written, or otherwise, is always mediated through interpretation. In this way, the text is not limited to writing and includes all forms of signification and meaning.

This parallels my personal experience with spoken and written communication. If everything is an interpretation, my words, no matter how carefully I chosen, are subject to constant reinterpretation by others (and myself over time). Speech and writing are not pure channels for thought, but are shaped by context, history, and the biases of both speaker and listener. Derrida’s thoughts on the impossibility of fully capturing or controlling meaning both frustrates and liberates me.

Whenever I write or speak, I am constructing a version of myself, a text, that will be read differently depending on who is reading and under what circumstances. This applies even to myself: my own understanding will inevitably change over time. This endless process of interpretation echoes Derrida’s most popular concept known as deconstruction, the process of revealing hidden assumptions and contradictions within texts, recognizing in the process that no single interpretation can claim absolute authority.

Part of my struggle may lie in the significance I place on the idea of authenticity. I want my words, spoken and written, to reflect who I am. Yet, defining my self feels like an impossible task. Am I the anxiety ridden performer stumbling over my words in public, or am I the careful writer who crafts each sentence with an exacting precision? 

Perhaps I am both. Or neither, depending on the moment in time.

Derrida reminds us that authenticity is a construct shaped by language and interpretation. If there is no fixed meaning outside the text, then there may also be no fixed self; only a series of narratives we create and recreate as we navigate the world. This does not reduce the importance of seeking honesty in communication but invites us instead to embrace the fluidity of identity and meaning.

What I have learned from my struggles with communication is that perfection is something neither attainable nor necessary. The beauty of words, whether spoken or written, does not lie in their impeccability, but in their ability to connect us with others. Even the clumsiest of words can carry meaning. Even the most imperfect stories can reveal certain truths.

I may never fully speak or write with ease or without doubt, I am learning to find grace in my imperfections. While my words may falter, fail, or fall short of what I want to express, they are mine. 

 Perhaps that is enough.

Reference:

1. Derrida, J. (1967). Of grammatology (G. C. Spivak, Trans.). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. 

“One of the recurring philosophical questions is: 'Does a falling tree in the forest make a sound when there is no one to hear?' Which says something about the nature of philosophers, because there is always someone in a forest. It may only be a badger, wondering what that cracking noise was, or a squirrel a bit puzzled by all the scenery going upwards, but someone.”

-Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

The movement known as humanism began in 14th century Italy with Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374), who promoted the study of a curriculum based on ethics, grammar, and poetry, effectively laying the groundwork for an educational archetype that emphasized the vast importance of civic virtue and human dignity and civic virtue. By the 15th century, humanism had spread throughout Europe as an attempt to reconcile classical ideas with Christian teachings, emphasizing moral philosophy over abstract theology. The movement would inspire the Renaissance artists, such as Donatello and Michelangelo, to embrace humanist principles; particularly the belief that art could promote not only the individual but the whole of society. 

The 18th century, however, signified a drastic turning point in humanist thinking, as the Enlightenment thinkers expanded beyond classical revival to embrace scientific rationality and political reform. Philosophers such as Baruch Spinoza, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Thomas Paine, would begin to redefine divinity as a totality of nature, framing human rights as something inherent and universal. Ludwig Feuerbach and Karl Marx would begin to criticize traditional institutions, arguing that religion alienated humans from their true potential, as Charles Darwin would present a naturalistic explanation for human existence, eschewing theological claims of divine creation. Such critiques would lay the foundational origins for secular humanism, which effectively prioritized empirical evidence and ethical autonomy over religious dogma.

The 20th century would see a rise in institutionalized humanism, which sought to place the responsibility of leading an ethical life of personal fulfillment over supernaturalism. Advocates called for compassion, global cooperation, reason, and compassion, as they addressed contemporary issues like environmental sustainability and civil rights. 1941 would see the founding of the American Humanist Association, which championed secular governance and science while adapting to the rising challenges of modernity. 

Over time, humanism has adapted to address the changing needs of its time, promoting the honorable core tenets of empathy, reason, and the pursuit of knowledge. Grounded in human potential, it is an attempt to transcend divisions and embody the Renaissance idea of excellence in service to the common good. However, I posit there is an inherent danger present in the movement that I believe complicates the legacy of the Humanist movement, one grounded in oppressive structures that render it inadequate and dangerous in addressing contemporary challenges. 

Environmental proponents (myself included) look to indict humanism for legitimizing ecological exploitation though its anthropocentric worldview. Anthropocentrism, or the belief that humans are the most valuable creatures on the planet, can be seen at the root of global crises like biodiversity loss and climate change, Experts argue that humanism creates a definite schism between humans and nature, repurposing the Earth’s ecosystems as a resource to be used and commodified instead of nurtured. It is humanism’s narrative of mastery and progress, I argue, that accelerates our current environmental collapse. 

Humanism’s ethical focus on human flourishing, while well intended, fundamentally ignores nonhuman interests, perpetuating a dominant mentality that nature exists solely to serve our human needs. This undermines the idea of biodiversity conservation and reinforces our destructive and unsustainable consumption patterns. Even social appeals for environmental stewardship hide the innate belief in human exceptionalism, placing it over the importance of environmental humility. Furthermore, secular theorists echo concerns over the legacy of humanism, framing it as a Eurocentric project that masks imperial violence while legitimizing hierarchies under the guise of enlightenment.

I am not, however, advocating the religious criticism of humanism, which condemns the movement for eroding moral absolutes, making it a scapegoat for moral relativism, free sexuality, and the disintegration of traditional family values. Rather, like Foucault, I am rejecting the idea of a fixed human nature, and advocate instead for a critical ontology that seeks to reinvent subjectivity beyond Enlightenment constraints, echoing Nietzsche’s charge to overcome the human by embracing creativity and multiplicity over rationalist dogma. 

 This proposition rests on the following arguments.

1. Human agency is an illusion shaped by ideological/ material forces beyond our control. 

2. Anthropocentrism creates environmental exploitation which jeopardizes the stability of the planet.

3. Universalist claims hide exclusionary practices that fundamentally reinforce capitalist, colonial, and patriarchal systems.

4. The category of ‘human’ fails to account for posthuman realities.

This final point is derived from Jacques Derrida’s later work, The Animal That Therefore I Am, where he not only critiqued humanism, but dismantled the epistemological foundations of anthropocentrism, revealing its contingency and violence. In our Anthropocene, this deconstruction is an ethical necessity, forcing us recognize nonhuman agency and redistribute our responsibilities to reimagine humanity as part of the ecological network, instead of placing ourselves above it. Derrida is offering a path beyond humanism’s innate exceptionalism towards an ethics of shared vulnerability and care.

To be clear, I am not arguing against humanism’s ethical aspirations but am seeking to challenge its foundational assumptions. Perhaps the task is to recreate humanism in such a way that human and nonhuman humans coexist under the umbrella term ‘animals?’ No matter what form humanism takes, if we are to live sustainably, humankind must learn to reclaim its rightful place within nature, instead of claiming mastery over it.

References:

• https://www.britannica.com/topic/humanism

• https://www.bop.gov/foia/docs/humanism_manual.pdf

• Derrida, Jacques. The Animal That Therefore I Am. Translated by David Wills, Fordham University Press, 2008.

• https://thehumanist.com/commentary/humanism-and-history-a-brief-look-at-our-resolutions-and-social-justice-issues/

• https://www.worldhistory.org/Renaissance_Humanism/

• https://www.worldhistory.org/timeline/Renaissance_Humanism/

• Nietzsche, Friedrich. Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits. Translated by R. J. Hollingdale, Cambridge University Press, 1996.

• Pratchett, T. (1992). Small Gods. HarperTorch.