If I were to say in one sentence what After the Future is about, it's about trying to imagine a positive human future in such a way that frames it in a metaphysical imaginary that integrates Logos and Mythos in a Christian key. There aren't many people doing that these days, at least any that I find compelling. Whether I'm mostly right or mostly wrong is not for me to say, but I have a perspective, or a salience landscape, that frames my reading the signs of the times that I hope readers find refreshing because at root it's hopeful.
When I first published "After the Future", I gave it the subtitle: "Eschatological Reflections on Politics and Culture". A friend said it was too pretentious sounding and nobody would understand what I mean by it, so I removed it. But the phrase still reflects what I see myself doing. I believe history is meaningful, that it has a telos, that what we do matters from the perspective of that telos as either moving toward it, obstructing such movement, or actively working against it.
Underlying pretty much everything I write about is the presupposition that no Progressive politics is possible if it isn't eschatologically inspired, and that the future will not be a contest between religion and secularity, but between good religion and. bad religion. By good religion I mean a metaphysical imaginary that opens up the best, deepest, richest possibilities for the human being. By bad religion I mean any imaginary that closes of such possibilities. Rationalist Materialism, the metaphysical imaginary that has been the dominant metaphysical imaginary for North Atlantic societies and elsewhere since the mid-19th Century, is bad religion. It closes off more than it opens up.
I think of After the Future as a public diary. As such, it's a place where I think out loud about what I'm reading--mostly philosophy, religious studies, and history--and about events in the world as reflected in so-called prestige media, which, for all its shortcomings and biases, I accept as a reliable reflection about what is more or less happening that has any significance. It is at least the most outward facing aspect of the zeitgeist, whose deeper undercurrents I have no better understanding of than anyone else. But that there are undercurrents, I have no doubt. And there are moments when they come to the surface and into view for those who are attentive.
We are going through momentous events in this historical moment, and while we may be having the experiences and missing their meanings, is there any doubt that we are experiencing something unimaginably significant? What happens in this century will be a huge civilizational axial moment, a turning point for humanity, for better or worse. What that means remains to be seen, but something big is afoot. Everybody feels it. It's different from other historical moments if for no other reason than the ways in which machine learning and developments in biotechnology are seeking to redefine what it means to be human.
So central to my reflections on culture and politics is my diagnosis about what ails us as "ontological dizziness". Its underlying causes are complex, but I focus mostly on, first, capitalism's role in destroying customary cultures, which have until recently provided social ballast and stability for most ordinary people. And, second, the damaging constraints of the broader rationalist-materialist metaphysical imaginary within which an unchecked capitalism flourishes. I am not against markets and entrepreneurial innovation; I am against the way that consumer capitalism flattens culture and in doing so attenuates possibilities for human aspiration.
I have no illusions that what I have to say is original. I traffic mostly in the originality of others whose insights and scholarship are far more profound and interesting than anything I am capable. If I contribute anything original it might be in the ways I make connections. If I have a talent, it is more synthetic than analytic. I think also I have a good nose for the Living Real and with it a reliable ability to sniff out b.s. when it presents itself as something more.
I am not completely anonymous--some friends, family, and a few former students know of my work here, and it is for them primarily that I write. But I write as well for the few people out in the broader world who might find their way to this site. And I am very open and willing to engage with readers in the comments sections of any post or by your contacting me by email at the link to the left.
