No Ideal

We live in a time where primacy and place are given to the particular. We have lost sight of the goal, any goal. Every particular is primary, which means no particular is primary. What are we to do now that we have no ideals worth pursuing? Will the cacophony of voices somehow magically form a chorus?

What is good? Well, that is no longer up for debate. The individual determines what is good. But, if every good is good, then no good is good. And who can complain when all assumed goods obtain? If everyone gets whatever they want, no one gets what they want. For chaos is beneficial to no one, except the one who wants to be nothing.

I assume the driving "ideal" of our current situation was and is freedom. In this sense, individual freedom is the ability to determine for one's self what is good, what is beneficial, what is most needed. Certainly this was a deeply Enlightenment rooted "ideal." But, what has it come to? What do we now have?

People in so-called "free" societies, now more than ever, have what they want. Our material advantages are a clue to our myopic vision of the "good." We had no goal. Our bellies became our god. Satiated desires became the goal. Comfort was the mountain we chose, in freedom, to climb. So, what do we now have? Emptiness. Meaninglessness. Nothing.

We threw away the ideal in hopes of freedom. And, gained nothing. The boundaries were cast aside and chaos ensued. Sure, we have very important things to attend to. We have our outrage. We have the means to communicate our position on...well everything. We have our opinions. But we have no ideals, no anchor, no home.

The strange irony is that we got what we wanted and yet we are still not satisfied. How could we be? We did not spontaneously generate ourselves. So, why did we assume our spontaneously generated ideas of what is "good" would satisfy a being that came from some source other than ourselves? We didn't make up this reality, so why did we think our made-up ideas would be sufficient for the task? Instead of searching for truth, we made it up and then embraced a lie.

If we want what we're looking for, then we have to embrace boundaries we didn't set. The Ideal may not be in some Platonic realm, but it certainly isn't floating around in the mere whims of individuals either. What we need is the humility to look outside ourselves. We've tried the solipsistic approach, and we have ended up alone and miserable.

It's not too late. Look for the boundaries, the ideals, that are there. They are waiting and within them we will find true freedom.