The End of History - And How We Can Forge a Better Future

This podcast is a must-listen for anyone interested in looking to understand how we can shape our future in meaningful ways.

Join us as we journey through the history of art, culture, and society, from the Pax Romana to the present day. In this thought-provoking podcast, we explore the broad movements and zeitgeists that have shaped our world, from the dark ages to the renaissance, from the enlightenment to the romantic period, and through modernism and post-modernism.

And we look to the future, exploring the emerging epoch of metamodernism and the opportunities it presents to shape our world in new and exciting ways.

Full podcast episodes available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. ⁠⁠⁠

Insights for the Matt's Mindset Podcast drawn from: ⁠⁠Tim Ferriss⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Sam Harris⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Neil de Grasse Tyson⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Dr. Brene Brown⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Dr. Andrew Huberman⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Dr. Matthew Walker⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Jonathan Haight⁠⁠, Roland Griffiths, PhD, ⁠⁠Niall Ferguson⁠⁠, Chris Palmer, MD, ⁠⁠Dr. Michio Kaku⁠⁠, Noah Feldman, Emile Durkheim, Stanley Milgram, Jean Piaget, B.F. Skinner, Abraham Maslow, Carl Jung ⁠⁠Bill Gurely⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Jason Calacanis⁠⁠, Jim Collins, Aryeh Bourkoff, Balaji Srinivasan, Ed Thorpe, ⁠⁠Chamath Palihapitiya, David Sachs, David Friedberg⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Howard Marks⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Ray Dalio⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Naval Ravikant⁠⁠, Peter Theil Rick Rubin, ⁠⁠Todd McFarlane⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Bill Burr⁠⁠, Terry Crews, ⁠⁠Hugh Jackman⁠⁠, Matthew McConaughey ⁠⁠James Clear⁠⁠, Stephen Pressfield, ⁠⁠Seth Godin⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Susan Cain⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Morgan Housel⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Jocko Willink⁠⁠, Ayn Rand, Ray Bradbury, Aldous Huxley, Friedrich Nietzsche, Marcus Aurelius, ⁠⁠Tamara Levitt⁠⁠, Soren Kierkegaard, Jean Paul Satre, James Joyce, ⁠⁠Malcolm Gladwell⁠⁠, ⁠David Deutsch⁠, ⁠Richard Dawkins⁠, ⁠John Vervaeke⁠

Show Notes:

Introduction

• Greetings to listeners

• Quote from Rich Rubin

• Disclaimer about Eurocentrism

Discussion

• Begin tracking the large cultural movements of history, known as Zeitgeists

• Brief overview of the Pax Romana, 27 BC to 180 AD.

• The power vacuum if the Dark Ages

• The birth of the Renaissance

• The natural progression into the Enlightenment

• The morph into Romanticism

• The explosion into Modernism, its pros cons and pitfalls

• The reaction of Post Modernism, its pros cons and pitfalls

• Discussion of Meta-modernism and applications for a brighter future

Transcript

Hello beautiful people. It’s another day, it's another Tuesday, it's another day for the Matt's Mindset Podcast.

We start off with a quote.

"It's helpful to view currents in the culture without feeling obligated to follow their direction. Instead, notice them as you might notice a waft of warm wind, move with it but not be of it."

• Rich Rubin, the "most important music producer of the last twenty years."

Culture is a funny thing. History and culture often go hand in hand, shaping one another. Epochs are shaped by the currents of culture and the people who go on to shape that culture.

I touched on this a bit in my America series but wanted to take a broader look at the undercurrents that have affected history and led us to where we are today.

As a bit of a disclaimer, this is going to be relatively Eurocentric as that is where the majority of my expertise lies. While the rich histories of the Arab world, India, China, and Japan all have massive cultural implications for the world, the current world system is fashioned in the image of American idealism, and by extension, Eurocentrism. As such, I will be tracking those cultural movements for the purposes of this video.

So without further ado, let's get into it.

We begin in 27 BC. Caesar Augustus, also known as Octavian, has brought an end to the Roman Civil War, ushering in an era of economic and cultural stability. He reformed the military, created infrastructure projects to create jobs and improve the standard of living, expanded territory, and increased free trade between the kingdoms of the world. I mean, I'd vote for him.

This is what's known as the Pax Romana or the Roman peace, which lasted until around 180 AD. Why did it end? Economic instability, rampant inflation, and a widening wealth gap which led to social and political unrest. A dilution of, for lack of a better word, "national identity," and lack of shared goals. And political corruption and instability within the Roman government, which weakened its ability to respond effectively to these threats.

Stop me if any of this sounds familiar.

The Pax Romana was characterized by a strong central government and military, efficient administration, a common legal system, and cultural identity, all of which facilitated the free movement of people and goods across the then-known world.

But, as mentioned, Rome continued to decline around 200 AD, and by 300 AD, the Western Roman Empire entirely collapsed, leading to the emergence of the Middle Ages or the "Dark Ages." As mentioned above, it's important to note that most of the Arab world and Asia continued to thrive during this period, as did the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire. For example, we don’t use Roman numerals today; we use "Arabic" numbers. Can you imagine trying to do particle physics with Roman numerals?

But not to digress, the Middle Ages were characterized by political instability and decentralization, with power shifting back to local lords and kingdoms, and marked a significant decline in the standard of living for the average person and a decline and stagnation of cultural, scientific, and economic development. It can be summed up in two words: not good.

This lasted for a while until finally giving birth to the Renaissance, starting around 1300 AD. Renaissance literally means "rebirth" in French, and it was characterized by a renewed interest in classical learning and humanistic values, such as individualism, human potential, and the pursuit of knowledge and beauty. Generally, good stuff there.

We, as a human spirit and culture, had a renewed hope in the future, in exploration, discovery, artistic pursuits, creativity, and economic development.

The Renaissance gave way to the Enlightenment in the 1700s, which built upon the Renaissance with even more emphasis placed on reason and rationality, individualism and equality, the rejection of a social hierarchy, the embracing of science as the primary way to uncover universal truths and grow epistemological knowledge, and optimism for the future of progress and improvement. The belief that through reason and science, we could overcome ignorance, prejudice, superstition, and religious dogma, leading to a better society.

The Enlightenment led to a reaction in the form of Romanticism in the early 1800s, which took the optimism of the Enlightenment and used it to focus on personal emotion and individual experience, vs universal objective truth. A return to an appreciation of the natural world. An interest in the supernatural, the mystical, and the sublime, as well as a celebration of creativity and imagination.

Now, Romanticism then progressed into modernism in the late 1800s and early 1900s, which was a radical break from tradition and convention. The culture of the modern era was characterized by a preoccupation with the alienation of modern life (modern being early 20th century). A sense of disillusionment with the complexity and ambiguity of modern life.

There was also a crisis of meaning, as religion began to fall out of favor as the means by which the vast majority of people found meaning in their day-to-day lives. As Friedrich Nietzsche would write, "God is dead, and we have killed him."

Humanity looked to science for a way forward, as a beacon of progress and optimism for a utopian society. So as the 20th century dawned, with science, rationality, and humanism firmly in the driver's seat, a number of projects began, all with a utopian vision in mind, unconstrained by traditional morality.

And while incredible progress was made, both socially, scientifically, culturally, and economically, this era was also characterized by previously unseen crises and catastrophes.

Humanity learned the harsh lessons that, while atrocities can be committed in the name of "God" and religion, equal if not worse atrocities can be committed in the name of nationalism and progress.

Such atrocities include eugenics and unethical experimentation, such as the American Tuskegee Syphilis experiment, the Nazi twin experiments, or the infamous experiments of the Japanese Detachment Unit 731.

These atrocities, coupled with the trauma of two world wars, unlike the world had ever seen, had a profound impact on writers and thinkers, leading to works such as Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger, and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.

Just like the protagonist in Catcher in the Rye, humanity had emerged from a kind of immature childhood and was now wrestling with forces it barely understood. It had decided that it was ready for metaphorical adulthood. That we could do this thing without the concept of God, and we became incredibly disillusioned by the results.

And as such, postmodernism was born in the late '50s to early '60s. Postmodernism was a reaction against modernism. We had thought we could do it all on our own. That science and progress would never lead us astray. That the narrative of the ubermensch or the rational superman would lead us to a brighter future. And when it didn't, the human spirit developed defense mechanisms.

Cynicism, irony, and self-reflexivity. Skepticism of grand narratives or overarching themes of history and society. The rejection of progress or universal values, as well as a skepticism of government to bring about positive social change.

But at its heart, postmodernism, especially in America and beyond, had its roots in the right place. A place of peace and love and self-awareness.

But this newfound desire for peace over competition, love over hate, and self-awareness over arrogance was still a bit immature. In the words of modernist writer Ayn Rand, "its abstractions were not grounded in reality."

To get a bit anecdotal, when I was younger, I was a bit of a pothead and loved to smoke weed, especially by myself, because I could go off on these rambling abstract tangents, which would actually take me to really cool conclusions. But the issue was, I couldn’t really get into this state when I wasn’t under the influence of drugs.

And it wasn’t really until I cleared out the need for any sort of chemical buffer between myself and reality that I was able to enter this wonderful state of creativity and optimism naturally, without the need to chemically alter my own biochemistry.

I was able to get into a practice of meditation and process my emotions in a healthy way and reach conclusions about my life and the nature of reality.

In the words of Fyodor Dostoevsky, the 19th century Russian author, "everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing themselves."

Similar to what Freud said, when there is conflict and tragedy in society, such as school shootings, race violence, and war, it is indicative of the fact that large swaths of the population are mentally ill.

Even people who are not mentally ill are negatively impacted by the chaos going on around them on a daily basis and the broadcast news, which relentlessly repeats these narratives, causing even those of a fairly sound mind to live in a state of fear of the present and future.

So if people are fractals of society, then the counterculture movement, which was founded on the principles of love, freedom, and peace, kind of evolved, and not in a good way.

Because of the immature use of drugs, sex, and free love without the bonds of relationships based on monogamy and mutual respect, it kind of developed into this naïve shit show that had shadow elements of incredible darkness within it, such as the Charlie Manson family murders and the kidnapping of Patty Hearst by the Symbionese Liberation Army.

And what the counterculture movement, postmodernism failed to take into account was nuance. Because of the trauma of World War II and then, by extension, Vietnam, identity politics really got their start during this era.

But suffice it to say, the countercultural movement was an entirely natural reaction caused by the trauma and violence of two world wars.

However, rather than dealing with the trauma, the generation basically got lost in a fantasy world of drugs, sex, and rock and roll without taking into account the nuance and need for the society that afforded them to live as such.

And so, while the underlying themes of peace, love, and freedom were in the right place, it became a flash in the pan that quickly burnt out and left in its wake an increased level of cynicism, irony, and even nihilism, of which we have yet to recover from.

History is hard to know because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of "history," it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then, the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.

My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket...booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change)...but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went, I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that....

There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda....You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning....

And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave....

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes, you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.

Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, 1971

In the '70s, you had the war on drugs, and then you had the Pentagon Papers. The Pentagon Papers were a big deal because, up until that point, both its citizens and the world had been giving America the benefit of the doubt.

There's a great quote by Winston Churchill, "America inevitably does the right thing after exhausting all other options."

That's kind of how the US had been. It was a superpower that was looking out for itself, but at the end of the day, it was a benevolent superpower, and it was looking out for us citizens in the world at large.

Then the Pentagon Papers happened, which were published by The New York Times. It was kind of an Edward Snowden situation on crack. The Pentagon Papers were a classified study of the war in Vietnam, commissioned by the Department of Defense and included these main points:

So, this was like the Tower moment where not only the world, but the US citizenry couldn’t trust the US government to do the right thing anymore. The trust was shattered. And unlike the snafu that was the second Iraq War under George Bush, this war included a draft.

You were conscripted to fight in this conflict sometimes against your will.

And it became clear from the report conducted by the Department of Defense that your government did not have your best interest at heart. Just a decade or so hence, Ronald Reagan won on a platform of political conservatism and distrust of big government. “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help." Ronald Reagan, August 12, 1986.

And so the postmodern era, which started with this kind of naïve optimism in hope, love, peace, and freedom, ended up devolving into this shit show of drug abuse and promiscuous sex to try to bury the trauma of what had happened and what was currently happening, which culminated and is still culminating in a kind of radical cynicism that I don’t think we have yet recovered from.

We are Rome circa 180 AD: Economic instability, rampant inflation, and a widening wealth gap which is leading to social and political unrest. A dilution of national identity in the form of identity politics, buttressed by a press that was bought and sold decades ago.

A lack of shared goals with political corruption and instability within our government has weakened our ability to respond effectively to the existential threats now facing us.

And while this all may sound dire, because of the lessons of history, we have a choice at this moment. We are on the precipice. History would show us that continued decentralization and fragmentation will only lead to further stagnation.

That’s kind of catchy, I should put that on a t-shirt.

You have entrepreneurs like Balaji Srinivasan, claiming that central banking is failing, the sky is falling, you need to get into the Bitcoin lifeboats and we are going to have a massive decoupling and decentralization of power.

He postulates that each city or state in the US will have its own "stable coin" and in order to live there, you’ll have to own the stable coin issued by that state, and you can’t sell that stable coin for at least five years, and you can’t live anywhere else while owning the first stable coin. He puts forward the idea that this will allow people to vote with their feet and move to places that have effective political and economic policies, and like shares in a company, the more people who move to your state, the higher your stable coin will be worth, and the less likely you are to move, and therefore more likely to invest in your community.

Chamath Palihapitiya also has a great refutation of this point in the All in Pod Ep 123. He discusses why the dangers of de-dollarization may be overblown.

And while I think Balaji's theory has its incentives in order, the lessons of history teach us that following a previous period of economic and political stability, the worst thing we can do as a human civilization is de-centralize and atomize.

And so I put forward one of my own conjectures instead.

I think that's why we really just have to close out this zeitgeist. Close out the cycle of postmodernism, and we need to have a conscious reaction in the other direction in what my contemporaries would refer to as metamodernism.

Some key characteristics of metamodernism include:

• A desire to move beyond the binary oppositions of modernism vs postmodernism. Metamodernism seeks to synthesize these perspectives rather than choosing one over the other. Like the dialectic we have discussed on this channel, rather than digging deeper into a hole of identity politics and rejecting forcefully the ideas of the past we should be taking what works and building to create a more perfect future.

• An interest in transcending cynicism and critique. Metamodernism aims to rediscover notions of wonder, utopia, and progressive ideals. We can achieve progress. We can use science and technology to create a better world here on earth, so long as we are guided by the wisdom of religious and moral traditions that have come before.

• A belief in simultaneously embracing contradiction and paradox. Metamodernism recognizes that ideas can be complex, ambiguous and even contradictory. So even though life is not black and white, neither good nor evil, that doesn't mean we can't come to a consensus about what we want our world to look like.

• A drive toward creativity, playfulness, and experimentation. Metamodernism encourages moving beyond rigid categories and exploring new ideas in an open-ended manner. Stop putting epistemological knowledge in a box. Science can't progress without religious tradition. Biology can't be understood without history. Art and engineering are two sides of the same coin. Why do you think so many physicists are also amazing musicians? Stop putting knowledge in a box. Life does not fit neatly into your little categories.

• A focus on aesthetics, activism, and belief. Metamodernism cares about not just critique but also embodiment, activism, and constructs that people can believe in. We all know how badly society is broken right now. Stop spreading negativity. Focus on solutions.

• An emphasis on community and collaboration. Metamodernism sees culture and knowledge as co-created through shared experiences and relationships rather than authored by individuals. Life is co-created. As much as America would have us believe it was founded by rugged individuals, as every Oscar speech tells us, it takes an army to achieve something of value.

• An awareness of itself as an emerging epoch. Metamodernism understands itself as a new phase in history with its own characteristics, much like modernism and postmodernism. And this is rather unique among zeitgeists. We are aware we are on the precipice. And as Niall Ferguson would say, the senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, history is not predetermined. It is counterfactual. We can choose and determine the course of history. So while there are natural cycles of boom and bust, we don’t have to resign ourselves to a period of negativity, stagnation, and misery. We don’t have to be victims of circumstance. We can take what’s given to us and transmute them into wonderful gifts for ourselves and the world at large.

• An interest in embracing possibility rather than dismissing utopian thought. Metamodernism seeks to reclaim idealism, vision, and radical hope. A desire to make meaning in an era of increasing chaos and uncertainty. Metamodernism aims to develop new frameworks, narratives, and structures that can provide orientation in a complex world.

And the beautiful thing about this is we have been flirting with this idea for a while in the forms of shows like Stargate SG1, the West Wing, the Indiana Jones movies, the Marvel franchise, and The Chris Nolan Batman movies.

The rise of artists and rappers like Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole, who are speaking about their own experiences and the experiences of the black community in America.

And so, despite the chaos going on, we really are at a unique moment in time to be able to effectuate change in an amazing way. We’re poised to be able to close out a cycle of staunch postmodern nihilism.

We need to be able to be using our tools and the knowledge built upon by the generations that came before us to be able to synthesize the best parts of modernism rationalism, optimism, and hope for a utopia here on earth, but also use the lessons of postmodernism and recognize that contradiction and paradox can live in harmony with one another.

Life is complicated, and there can be meanings that are at times contradictory because of their perspectives. Knowledge and revelation are slippery, and we need to be able to hold contradictory ideas together and allow them to engage in opponent processing so we can create a more nuanced theory.

So we can be optimistic about emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, that they will transform societies for the better, but we can also be properly skeptical and wary about the implications that such technology heralds.

What we need more than ever at this moment in time in history is temperance, nuance, and opponent processing, where we can have respectful discourse about the issues that are facing us today because they are formidable.

But every generation has its crosses to bear, so to speak, and we have ours.

And as Joseph Campbell would say, the challenges we face are uniquely suited for where we are on our journey. We will never be met with challenges that are not within our power to overcome.

He does not promise it will be easy; he promises it will be worth it. We can use lessons of the past to be able to move forward and solve our problems for ourselves, our children, and our children’s children. And we can do that by embracing and seeking to reclaim idealism, vision, and radical hope for our future.

Light and love, my friends. Go in peace to love and serve.

Outro: For what it's worth: Buffalo Springfield