How many such people are there who do not have a wealthy uncle who can support them while they find their purpose? How many do we lose in the morass of making a living?
We don't have a culture that recognizes the value of higher and highest ends. This is part of the self-described pragmatism of liberal societies. For "pragmatic" reasons, we say that we cannot agree on what those higher ends are. So, we restrict common life to economics. The result, of course, isn't that we simply disagree on what those highest ends are. We reduce life to economics and reinterpret life in economic terms. So, rather than accommodating them, the liberal order actually progressively erodes higher ends, coercing life into the narrow straitjacket of economics, recasting even human relationships according to the market paradigm. Economics becomes the point of life, its ordering principle, an end in itself that we serve rather than something that serves us as we pursue higher ends. This is why economists are held in such high esteem. They are something of a priesthood of the salvific religion of Homo Economicus, with the Market as its god.
The result is perhaps more material wealth, but aimless, ugly, mediocre, and vulgar in its nature, because we suffer an acute spiritual poverty. Consumerism is what happens when material goods are not ordered toward a higher end. We have replaced the cathedral with the hamburger and the dildo.
But hamburgers and dildos are good. It's not pleasure itself that has an ugly face; rather, it's seeking pleasure in spite of the cost to others.
You offer spiritualism as a cure. I think our higher end should be not spiritualism but the well-being of those we care about.
It's nice that spiritualism covers all bases: you should care about and help your friends and family; you should practice gratitude; etc. But we should state those things directly, lest fundamentalist screwball ideas like restriction of individual expression creep in under the guise of moral righteousness.
PS. And yet, forecasts and "expectations" happen. Look at Nvidia. 3Tn. worth and down sharply, with increasing profits just because of market expectations.-
> The result, of course, isn't that we simply disagree on what those highest ends are. We reduce life to economics and reinterpret life in economic terms. So, rather than accommodating them, the liberal order actually progressively erodes higher ends
This is an impressively sharp observation. And, this, in a comment that is already gold. Really appreciated.-
