The Battle For Control of Your Soul

The Fight For and Against the Future

I think there’s an unseen battle raging in the world today. It’s not a battle, really, over politics, society, or even the world. It’s about you. Who you really are, why you are here, and what your life means. It’s a battle for control of your soul.

You might think that’s overstated. I just want to put it simply and clearly — and you can be the judge. This battle is between between two ways of thinking, seeing, understanding the world. I’ll call them reductionism and expansionism. Now, I mean them in a subtle, difficult way. What is “expanded” or “reduced” is us, in the end, our better selves, our possibilities for meaning, happiness, purpose, our truths— but let me explain how.

To illustrate it, I’ll use the example of capitalism, which is today’s — and maybe history’s — greatest reductionist system. You can skip it, and go straight to the marrow if you want.

What do all today’s great problems have in common? Some — nationalism, extremism, neo-fascism — are forms of reactionary backlash to capitalism, what happens when capitalism degenerates into its raw elements, greed, fear, and hate. Some — climate change, inequality, middle class implosion, precarity, democratic decay — are direct consequences of capitalism, which, left to its own devices…