“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” —Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough For Love
Welcome to the Renaissance Humans Newsletter, where I focus on sense-making and story-telling in the turbulent twenties. The Renaissance (“rebirth,” in French) spanned from the 14th to the 17th century and marked a period of cultural, artistic, and intellectual renewal in Europe. A Renaissance Human fosters curiosity, creativity, critical thinking, and character in a journey of never-ending learning. They cultivate Mind, Body, and Spirit, in service of Community, and oriented to the Transcendentals.
For my last job in the military, one of my responsibilities was teaching Naval History to freshmen ROTC students. When the curriculum moved to the modern era and the events of 9/11, I tried my best to describe it to these humans, who weren’t alive when it happened. They grew up learning about 9/11, but didn’t directly experience the event and the resulting national mood. In class, I compared it to the Kennedy assassination. Both events shared a common attribute— the ability for most people to remember where they were the moment they learned what happened.
On Saturday, July 13th, 2024, around 6:11 pm Eastern, someone attempted to assassinate a former president and current candidate for the presidency of the United States. Whether or how one discusses such an event has become polarized. How you choose to talk about it is a political act. Whether you like former President Trump or not, we were fortunate that the assassin failed.
It’s possible this event is going to join the JFK assassination and 9/11 in our memories. I am already seeing theories coming forward about other shooters and all manner of conspiracies— it’s going to make the JFK assassination theories and 9/11 inside job seem quaint in comparison. This may be too much recency bias— there’s a good deal of desire to minimize the importance of the event.
But here in the United States, we are in the “weeks where decades happen.”1
As citizens, we have a choice. How do we respond— both to this event and the general climate of partisan vitriol and viciousness?2
Do we respond as patriots or partisans?
If you favor Trump, you will see him surviving the assassination attempt while showing literal courage under fire as evidence he has the “Mandate of Heaven” to lead the United States.
If you don’t, you see a lifelong showman “committing to the bit” so hard that he can turn a deadly event to his favor in real-time.
The same event can be viewed in nearly diametrically opposed ways, like this 3-D object Geoff Marlow uses to symbolize his Substack, “Create a Future Fit Culture.” It reveals a different image depending on the position you examine it from:
We descend into a deeper level of the turbulent twenties. The only way out is through.
I want to talk about Patriotism. Love for one’s country. A love for the place you inhabit, geographically and temporally speaking.
I’d like to briefly describe Lene Rachel Anderson’s concept of Polymodernity, and situate Zak Stein’s elaboration of Pre-Tragic, Tragic, and Post-Tragic mindsets within her framing of cultural codes.
Let’s do a whirlwind tour of cultural codes, according to Anderson. They have confluences and overlap with other thinkers, such as Max Borders’ deep dive into Integral Theory, Joe Lightfoot’s “decidedly undevelopmental” take on worldviews, and psychologist Gregg Henriques’ here.
Indigenous: Loyalty to Tribe/Clan, Animist, Holistic, Connected to Land.
Premodern: Medieval, Religious, Hierarchical.
Modern: Enlightenment, Rational, Liberalism (in the sense of economic freedom, individual rights/equality), Cosmopolitan.
Postmodern: Critique/Deconstruction of Power Structures and Narratives, Equity, Social/Environmental justice movements, Holistic.
Polymodern: Integration/Synthesis of previous worldviews, importance of relationality, moving between previous codes. It is an effort to discern what is useful from the other worldviews that distinguishes Polymodern from the other codes.3
This is my take on Zak Stein’s progression of tragic mindsets:
Pre-tragic: “We’re ok, it’s going to be fine. We can innovate our way out of these problems with technology and creativity. We’ve done it every time before.”
Tragic: “We are screwed — we’re collapsing already and we can’t do anything about it. Don’t even have children in this world.”
Post-tragic: “Yeah, things are bad. Roll up your sleeves and get to work. Get in where you fit in.”
I believe Stein’s framework maps onto the three most recent worldviews. Pre-Tragic maps onto Modernism with a naive optimism, Tragic to Post-Modernism with cynical nihilism, and Post-Tragic to Polymodernism, with pragmatic optimism. The ability to see all the warts and scars, yet still keep a quiet, hopeful air. Here’s Stein in the shortest clip I can find where he describes it (6 min):
And as we learned from Rebecca Costa in The Watchmen’s Rattle, when the complexity of the problems facing a society overwhelms the complexity of their response, collapse looms. Or at least, a simplification to reach parity with our capability.
A post-tragic, polymodern cultural code matches the complexity of the moment we face.
Patriotism
Patriotism has become a radioactive word in some circles, guilty by association with partisan passion.
And yes, should we seek to evolve our political systems past the nation-state model? Yes, that’s a good idea to deal with problems on the planetary level. But we’re not there yet. Will we get there in this decade? Magic 8-Ball says: Outlook Unclear. Check Back Later.
By patriotism I don’t mean nationalism.
Here’s Ye Olde Merriam Webster on the differences between Patriotism and Nationalism:
These two words may have shared a distinct sense in the 19th century, but they appear to have grown apart since. Or rather, it would be more accurate to say that only nationalism has grown apart, since the meaning of patriotism has remained largely unchanged. There are still obvious areas of overlap: we define patriotism as “love for or devotion to one’s country” and nationalism in part as “loyalty and devotion to a nation.” But the definition of nationalism also includes “exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups.” This exclusionary aspect is not shared by patriotism.
We have all heard Taylor Swift’s take on nationalism. “Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind." Or when she expanded on it during an interview:
“I am against any nationalism, even in the guise of mere patriotism. Privileges based on position and property have always seemed to me unjust and pernicious, as did any exaggerated personality cult.”4
The Modern cultural code, with its pre-tragic, naive optimism, is that sort of “My country, right or wrong” or the “Love it or leave it” sentiment. If we’re doing it, we’re the good guys. We’re the heroes, saving the world for freedom and democracy. This was a common sentiment after 9/11, the conventional narrative that fueled our invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq, and intervention in multiple other countries.
The Post-Modern cultural code is tragic, and views the concept of patriotism through the prism of a grand narrative of the social control, a tool of coercion wielded by elites with an agenda to keep the herd in line. The Post-Modern code is cosmopolitan in nature, and views any sort of loyalty to geographic place with suspicion. To be clear, this suspicion is sometimes warranted. The strength of Post-Modernism is that it brings powerful analytical frameworks for teasing out implicit biases, power asymmetries, and hidden societal narratives which shape human lives. This code would remind us that the White House was built with slaves, and unjust conditions in fact built much of the modern world. Those who say this have a point.
Most Americans are in one of these two modes right now. We’re either firmly patriotic in the Modern sense, or retain a Postmodern skepticism of patriotism because of America’s long Jungian Shadow— there is no shortage of events where we’ve fallen short of our espoused ideals.
What if there was another option? Another way to view patriotism? Instead of an unrelenting zeal or a contemptuous dismissal of patriotism, what if there was a third option?
Post-tragic sensibilities have promise here.
If you’re an American, this is a perspective that says “yes, the White House was built with slaves. Yes, Black people and women didn’t have many rights when the nation was founded. But yet, there is still good here. Something special was created by the founders that deserves fighting for, and preserving.”
Patriotism— love of the place and country you live, is self-love. Before we can do our part to help and heal the world, we have to heal ourselves.
Should we love our local bioregion, as well as the larger world? Hell yes. Counter-intuitively, patriotism helps us do that. Living in a healthily functioning polity helps us address challenges locally and at the planetary level.
We have to love who we are, even with all the warts and scars. Especially the warts and scars.
Patriotism is loving where you live. It’s a devotion, an adding to the Pattern, a contribution to collective trust for a larger group of humans.
If we don’t love the place we live— if we’re not grateful for its blessings, we dishonor what it provides. We accept living in a degraded, diminished, and disenchanted reality.
The polymodern code allows us to reach back into the past, to retrieve what is helpful from indigenous and premodern codes, in addition to modern and postmodern. All will be required to meet the complexity of this moment.
Former President Trump won the 2016 election by 80,000 combined votes in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.
President Biden won the 2020 election by around 77,000 total votes dispersed over Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and Wisconsin.
Both of these were closely contested, passionate elections. It is quite probable this election will be similarly close.
Meeting this moment with patriotism means that we can disagree with our fellow countrymen, we can disagree vigorously, about values we find sacred.
But we can resist the rhetoric that paints our political opponents as existential, republic-destroying threats.
In reality, the other side has different ideas about how to further perfect our union. Those ideas represent their good faith effort to reorient the country amidst a very disorienting time.
You may not agree with them— they may fill you with anger, they may impact your life in ways you object to. That doesn’t justify violence, which will only lead to spirals of more violence.
Patriotism is respecting that once an election is over, and any court challenges to voting irregularities are addressed, we make peace with the result.
Even if the result is not the one we wanted. Wanted with every fiber of your being. Especially if that is the case.
We can choose to be patriots, not partisans.
Taking a post-tragic and polymodern perspective will help in that endeavor.
P.S. Went through DC, took the kids to my favorite memorial.
Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Quotes
Youth
I want to see you game, boys, I want to see you brave and manly, and I also want to see you gentle and tender.
Be practical as well as generous in your ideals. Keep your eyes on the stars and keep your feet on the ground.
Courage, hard work, self-mastery, and intelligent effort are all essential to successful life.
Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.
Manhood
A man's usefulness depends upon his living up to his ideals insofar as he can.
It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.
All daring and courage, all iron endurance of misfortune-make for a finer, nobler type of manhood.
Only those are fit to live who do not fear to die and none are fit to die who have shrunk from the joy of life and the duty of life.
The State
Ours is a government of liberty by, through, and under the law.
A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be great or a democracy.
Aggressive fighting for the right is the noblest sport the world affords.
In popular government results worthwhile can only be achieved by men who combine worthy ideals with practical good sense.
If I must choose between righteousness and peace, I choose righteousness.
Nature
There is a delight in the hardy life of the open.
There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy, and its charm.
The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased; and not impaired in value.
Conservation means development as much as it does protection.
Currere Certamen Tuum
“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” ― Lenin
Check out Braver Angels for an example of an organization working to turn the political temperature down in the United States.
Polymodern is a similar term to Metamodern, but the difference is one of scope. Anderson frames Metamodern as the oscillation between Modern and Postmodern cultural codes, which she views as inadequate to the complexity of the moment. Not all Metamodern thinkers agree with that.
Einstein: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/19539/einstein-nationalism-is-an-infantile-disease-it-is-the-measles-of-mankind
I like the idea of Polymodernism. It aligns very well with my layers of politics where I can legitimatly be an anarchist, socialist, democrat, republican, and libertarian at the same line if we don't force everything into one layer.
https://www.polymathicbeing.com/p/quantum-superposition-and-politics
"In reality, the other side has different ideas about how to further perfect our union. Those ideas represent their good faith effort to reorient the country amidst a very disorienting time.
You may not agree with them— they may fill you with anger, they may impact your life in ways you object to. That doesn’t justify violence, which will only lead to spirals of more violence.
Patriotism is respecting that once an election is over, and any court challenges to voting irregularities are addressed, we make peace with the result.
Even if the result is not the one we wanted. Wanted with every fiber of your being. Especially if that is the case."
This is so true. I spend a great deal of effort teaching my kids to play board games to win, but to lose gracefully and to shake hands and be friends afterward. If we lose that ability as a nation, we may end up flipping the whole table over, and nobody wants that.