Have you heard the good news? The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand! Salvation can be yours!
Salvation by algorithm, that is. Forget God, that sort of religion is so old school.
“Nowadays, the most interesting place in the world from a religious perspective is not Syria or the Bible Belt, but Silicon Valley,” wrote Yuval Noah Harari, the high prophet of the newest religion, back in 2016.
“[I]n the coming decades new techno-religions are likely to take over the world by promising salvation through algorithms and genes. In the 21st century we will create more powerful myths and more totalitarian religions than in any previous era. With the help of biotechnology and computer algorithms these religions will not only control our minute-by-minute existence, but will be able to shape our bodies, brains and minds and to create entire virtual worlds, complete with hells and heavens.”
The idea is an interesting one, and Harari actually makes a compelling case for technology driving revolutions in religious ideas. Just as the discovery of evolution changed our understanding of Christianity, or the steam engine converted many millions from Abrahamic religions to the 20th Century religions of communism and socialism (Harari defines a religion as “anything that legitimises human norms and values by arguing that they reflect some superhuman order”), so challenges of AI and human-machine augmentation will cause millions to rethink the old religious stories, reinterpreting them for the modern age.
Whether AI will produce new gods remains to be seen. Meanwhile, the person who has arguably done more to rethink the old religious stories in our time than anyone else, reframing them for the modern world, has been Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson. His lecture series on the Book of Genesis, with its comprehensive analysis of the psychological forces at play within the foundational stories of our society, has unlocked a new world of meaning for thousands, perhaps millions of people, especially young men who were previously in despair.
“It isn’t that the Bible is true,” Peterson told Joe Rogan last year. “It’s that the Bible is the precondition for the manifestation of truth, which makes it way more true than just true. It’s a whole different kind of truth. And I think this is not only literally the case. Factually, I think it can’t be any other way. It’s the only way we can solve the problem of perception.”
And what is the meta-truth that the Bible contains?
“Life is suffering Love is the desire to see unnecessary suffering ameliorated Truth is the handmaiden of love Dialogue is the pathway to truth Humility is recognition of personal insufficiency and the willingness to learn To learn is to die voluntarily and be born again, in great ways and small So speech must be untrammeled So that dialogue can take place So that we can all humbly learn So that truth can serve love So that suffering can be ameliorated So that we can all stumble forward to the Kingdom of God”
“Stumble forward to the Kingdom of God.” That’s an interesting line, don’t you think? Are we stumbling forward to the Kingdom of God? Can we? Is salvation at hand?
Peterson’s success in preaching the Bible to a disaffected population has caused some to dub him a modern day prophet — in the biblical sense of the word, that is. While the word prophet has come to mean ‘someone who can predict the future’, that’s not the original meaning. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks once explained:
“What was distinctive about the prophet was not that he foretold the future. The ancient world was full of such people: soothsayers, oracles, readers of runes, shamans and other diviners, each of whom claimed inside track with the forces that govern fate and “shape our ends, rough-hew them how we will.” Judaism has no time for such people. The Torah bans one “who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead” (Deut. 18:10-11).
It disbelieves such practices because it believes in human freedom. The future is not pre-scripted. It depends on us and the choices we make. If a prediction comes true it has succeeded; if a prophecy comes true it has failed. The prophet tells of the future that will happen if we do not heed the danger and mend our ways. He (or she — there were seven biblical prophetesses) does not predict; he or she warns.”
Framed in that way, the label fits quite nicely. What else has Peterson been up to over the last few years, if not to warn society to take a different path than the one we’re currently on?
But Peterson is no Jeremiah or Isaiah, merely warning the populace of their fate if they refuse to change their ways. Jordan is simply not the sort of person to sit around and wait for events to unfold. No, he’s more of a Moses type, leading from the front. Or a Noah, building institutions that can shepherd us through the storm.
This is not (just) me waxing lyrical. In the past few weeks Peterson has announced the creation of a new forum, designed to counter the World Economic Forum, that can scope out solutions to our current problems that don’t involve the wholesale yoking of humanity into digital feudalism.
If the WEF is Davos Man’s attempt to solve the problems we face as a species in a way that favours himself, well, then, it stands to reason that the people of the world should have their own forum that attempts to solve the problems we face as a species in a way that favours everyone else. Peterson’s project is that counterbalance.
It’s called the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC).
According to the ARC website,
“ARC is being established as an international community with a vision for a better world where every citizen can prosper, contribute and flourish. Our core belief is that everyone has intrinsic worth and something to contribute, and humanity has an extraordinary capacity for innovation and ingenuity.”
Well this sounds great. What else?
“We will provide an alternative to big government and the inevitability of decline by seeking answers which draw on humanity’s highest virtues and extraordinary capacity for innovation and ingenuity.”
Wonderful, go on…
“Our ambition is to draw on our moral, cultural, economic and spiritual foundations to imagine a future where empowered citizens take responsibility for bringing flourishing and prosperity to their homes, neighbourhoods, and all sectors of society in their nation.”
… Is it me, or is this starting to sound a little… social credit-y?
Let’s dismiss those niggling concerns for a moment, and see what Peterson has to say. This quote comes from the launch announcement:
“ARC is being established as a new movement of hopeful vision, local, national and international in its aim and scope, aimed at the collective, voluntary establishment of an alternative way forwards in a time when the stories which once provided our societies with coherence have been picked apart by corrosive cultural criticism and governing elites are taking ever more power to themselves.
“We at ARC do not regard ourselves or our fellow citizens as destructive forces, living in an alien relationship to the pristine and pure natural world. Neither do we believe that we are primarily motivated by lust for power and the desire to dominate.
“We hope — and posit — instead that men and women of faith and decisiveness can arrange their affairs with care and attention so that abundance and opportunity might be made available to all. We hope that the answers to our core questions, collectively generated, will help us all form a vision that is voluntarily compelling, motivating, stabilizing and uniting.”
This seems genuinely hopeful, and if ARC (and Peterson) can pull it off, I’m all for it. Our only way of the mess we have created is to return to individuals the power to run their own lives and local communities, so that they can use their innate ingenuity to come up with solutions that work for them.
BUT.
Then we get to this within ARC’s launch announcement, from founder and chairman of the Legatum group, Christopher Chandler:
“For a better world, we need better people, not just better institutions, or more laws. Better people build better communities.”
Hold up, better people? How is that any different from the Managerial Class’s drive to create ‘New Man’, as discussed in last week’s essay?
And then there’s this, from Congressman Mike Johnson, Vice Chairman of the House Republican Conference:
“ARC represents a unique opportunity to bring together some of the most influential leaders in politics, business, media and academia to re-evaluate humanity’s direction of travel and revitalize our vision of what it means to flourish.”
Well, hey, that’s exactly what the World Economic Forum does! Fancy that!
Has it ever occurred to you to ask why we need salvation stories, why we strive to reach the Kingdom of God?
It occurred to Daniel Quinn, author of a book called Ishmael. Here’s Quinn again, on the question of salvation.
“One of the most striking features of Taker culture is its passionate and unwavering dependence on prophets. The influence of people like Moses, Gautama Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, and Muhammad in Taker history is simply enormous. I’m sure you’re aware of that.
“What makes it so striking is the fact that there is absolutely nothing like this among the Leavers—unless it occurs as a response to some devastating contact with Taker culture, as in the case of Wovoka and the Ghost Dance or John Frumm and the Cargo Cults of the South Pacific. Aside from these, there is no tradition whatever of prophets rising up among the Leavers to straighten out their lives and give them new sets of laws or principles to live by.
“Why do you need prophets to tell you how you ought to live? Why do you need anyone to tell you how you ought to live?
“Questions about how people ought to live always end up becoming religious questions among the Takers—always end up being arguments among the prophets.”
Recall, in last week’s post we looked at Quinn’s book to discover the founding flaw within our civilisation: the fear of not being in control.
Quinn splits humans into two social groups: Takers, who take their lives into their own hands, and Leavers, who leave their fates in the hands of the gods. Leavers are tribal societies, people who live in a way that evolved directly from our animal ancestors, living within the rules of nature. Takers are the rest of us: those who’s cultures tell us that we evolved beyond the animal state, and now have dominion over the planet.
Judaism is a Taker religion, born out of the mindset of the agricultural revolution, as, oddly enough, Harari points out in his 2016 essay:
In ancient agricultural societies many religions had surprisingly little interest in metaphysical questions and the afterlife. Instead, they focused on the very mundane task of increasing agricultural output. The Old Testament God never promises any rewards or punishments after death. Rather, he tells the people of Israel:
“And if you will diligently obey my commandments that I am commanding you [. . .] I will also give rain for your land at its appointed time [. . .] and you will gather your grain and your new wine and your oil. And I will provide vegetation in your fields for your livestock, and you will eat and be satisfied. Be careful not to let your heart be enticed to go astray and worship other gods and bow down to them. Otherwise, Jehovah’s anger will blaze against you, and he will shut up the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will not give its produce and you will quickly perish from the good land that Jehovah is giving you.”
— Deuteronomy 11: 13-17
Abraham, the foundational figure of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, is an archetypal Taker figure — someone who has overcome adversity to build up great reserves of wealth. Remember, the Taker project revolves around creating and storing up excesses of food, to guard against uncertainty. In Genesis 24:35, Abraham’s servant tells us:
The Lord has greatly blessed my master, so that he has become rich; and he has given him flocks and herds, and silver and gold, and servants, and maids and camels and donkeys.
That’s not to say that the Christian Bible is a Taker document wholesale. Consider this well known passage from Luke 12:22-32:
22 Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. 23 For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. 24 Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! 25 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life[b]? 26 Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?
27 “Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 28 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! 29 And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. 30 For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. 31 But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.
32 “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.
This is the call to live again like Leavers. Jesus literally says: do not be afraid. Rather than fearing uncertainty, learn to rely on god rather than yourself for the things you need — and they will come. They always have. That’s how our species was able to evolve and prosper in the first place.
ARC is a well-meaning project, but ultimately it is doomed to fail for a very simple reason: the drive to control is built in, inextricably, into the Taker mindset from which it draws its foundational stories. It can’t help itself. Even as the founders attempt to find ways to free humanity from bureaucracy to allow them to innovate their way out of trouble (which is something we absolutely do need to do), they immediately fall back on solutions that involve fixing a flawed humanity through control of the population.
So while on the surface, we appear to have an argument between rival prophets: Peterson, the Biblical prophet, whose religion is betterment through personal striving, v’s Harari, the Digital prophet, whose religion is betterment through technological innovation, dig down into these rival stories and it turns out we have no such conflict. The core message is the same: “Humanity is flawed, we need salvation. Let me tell you how to live.”
If our problems have been created through fear and the need to control, it only follows that the solution must be to do the exact opposite: let go of fear and cede control. ARC, which seeks a “compelling, motivating, stabilising, and uniting vision” cannot work for the same reason the WEF’s solutions cannot work: they are predicated on the need to control how society is organised and run.
ARC has a survey on its website, and is inviting answers from the public. The questions themselves reveal ARC’s Taker mindset. They include:
How do we facilitate the development of a responsible and educated citizenry?
How do we govern our corporate, social and political organizations so that we promote free exchange and abundance while protecting ourselves against the ever-present danger of cronyism and corruption?
How do we provide the energy and other resources upon which all economies depend in a manner that is inexpensive, reliable, safe and efficient, including in the developing world?
How should we take the responsibility of environmental stewardship seriously?
What is the proper role for the family, the community, and the nation in creating the conditions for prosperity?
You see how these all assume the continuation of a global system run by governments, corporations and NGOs managing large complex systems. The answers ARC claims to seek cannot be found there.
Here are a few of my answers:
You remove all government control and support systems, and all forms of formal education. People will be responsible for themselves and their children when they have no other choice.
You abolish them. The presence of these organizations invites corruption.
You allow communities to find their own energy supply.
You make food production local. Once people cannot simply trash their environments and get food from elsewhere, they will embrace sustainable practices.
You understand that the role of the family and community isn’t to create wealth, it is wealth. Wealth is not material goods, it’s the security that comes with having a strong network of personal relationships.
Human beings are perfectly capable of maintaining an equilibrium with each other and with nature when they live within the laws of nature, rather than trying to take matters into their own hands.
Indeed, even within the last 10,000 years, and even within Taker society, most human beings on the planet lived a peaceable existence in balance with the seasons of the year and of life. That’s because until the Industrial revolution, most humans lived within small communities — the small conservative communities that the Managerial Class went to war with in the last century, as laid out in last week’s essay. But, as apes, it is in our nature to live in small social groups, creating mutually beneficial relationships.
How small? The optimal group size varies depending on who you talk to.
In the in the 1990s, British anthropologist Robin Dunbar came up with ‘Dunbar’s Number,’ after finding a correlation between primate brain size and average social group size. By analysing human brain size, he set this number at 150 — although he recognised this was at best a guest, and the number may be higher. Analyses of life in medieval villages suggests that most were made up of populations of about 250 people, so that would seem to fit the upper estimates better.
Most people, of course, don’t want to return to a slower way of life. Millions of people actively enjoy living in large cities, listening to their governments, and using their smartphones to pay for goods. They like eating processed foods and watching tiktok reels til 4am. It’s not what I want to do with my life, but each to their own.
For the rest of us, those who can see that modern life is killing us, we first need to understand that we don’t need to be taught how to live. We already know.
Form relationships
Take only what you need
Live within the cycles of nature
Learn to trust each other
Learn to let go of fear
Learn to let go of the need to control.
Great article. Challenging topic. You’ve drawn a good comparison between the WEF/ARC big society models and a small localised society option that is forever overlooked as if it isn’t to even be considered.
I like the option of localised communities with nature/unpaved areas nearby, where people live less driven, more exploratory lives. I don’t mind people living in cities as long as they don’t possess that attitude of superiority and inevitability that sometimes accompanies.
I can see why JP wants to go head to head with WEF etc in order to counter it, but I would hope freedom of choice and the economic possibility of living simplified lives is included in whatever they envisage.
Thanks for writing.