Excellent essay. You’ve articulated something crucial, that civilizations need to rely on coherence, bc if it fractures, violence rushes in. The challenge, though, is that coherence based only on social consensus is always fragile. It shifts with power, mood, and circumstance. Rome’s civic religion, Germany’s nationalism, Iraq’s imposed unity all eventually crumbled because their “shared meaning” was contingent.
For coherence to be sustainable, infinitely tenable, it can’t come from within the system alone. It requires an anchoring reference point beyond the flux of human subjectivity, something that doesn’t change with politics, tribes, or the incentives of media. Otherwise, every narrative eventually collapses into another fracture.
In other words, coherence needs a transcendent constant, not just a negotiated story. Without that, we are only postponing entropy, not overcoming it.
Excellent essay. You’ve articulated something crucial, that civilizations need to rely on coherence, bc if it fractures, violence rushes in. The challenge, though, is that coherence based only on social consensus is always fragile. It shifts with power, mood, and circumstance. Rome’s civic religion, Germany’s nationalism, Iraq’s imposed unity all eventually crumbled because their “shared meaning” was contingent.
For coherence to be sustainable, infinitely tenable, it can’t come from within the system alone. It requires an anchoring reference point beyond the flux of human subjectivity, something that doesn’t change with politics, tribes, or the incentives of media. Otherwise, every narrative eventually collapses into another fracture.
In other words, coherence needs a transcendent constant, not just a negotiated story. Without that, we are only postponing entropy, not overcoming it.
There's an argument to be made that only postponement is possible. But I take your meaning. Well said.