An April 1st parable on moral nihilism.

An amusing parable on the downsides of being the typical deluded moral nihilist in 2020 (from Michael Tymn's blog).

To be read on April 1st (I know it's too late for that, but in these times we can use all the humor we can get). The protagonist becomes trapped and slowly sinking in a jungle mudpool near Kuala Lampur, Indonesion in 1969. No one comes to help. He enters a near death experience. Suddenly he finds himself in the presence of Milo, one of his spirit guides. Milo explains that he can choose to survive this crisis, and go on living his present life, or he can choose to expire in the enveloping mud. If he comes through this crisis to continue his present life, there will be a lot of tough times ahead. In the latter eventuality after death in the mud his soul will choose to come back around the year 2000 to experience a future world much transformed. He can choose now which path to take.

Milo responds to the natural question, what will this new life be like, by transporting him to the body of his possible future incarnation in the year 2020. Milo explains,

"The person you are in 2020 has been nurtured in a philosophy of materialism, more than that, hedonism, and with an entitlement mentality.  And, he has been sheltered from adversity. Your president in 2020 will call your kind a ‘snowflake’.” “How did that happen?” the protagonist asks Milo. “It’s very complicated, but in a nutshell it has do with science and technology progressing much faster than people could adapt to the changes; it’s humans looking for new powers when they haven’t adjusted to those they already have,” he responded. He went on to explain that it all started with the impeachment of religion by Darwinism and the growth of critical rationalism."

"The primary culprit, Milo said, is academia, since it rejected all things spiritual as “unscientific,” thereby misleading fertile minds – minds which were at the same time being indoctrinated by the advertising and entertainment industries into thinking that life is all about pleasure seeking.....Milo added that by 2020 nihilism will be the philosophy of many, including an increasing number of young people. “Your heroes will be movie actors – people pretending to be real people – and athletes – people pretending to be real warriors,” he said. “The unreal will become the real for most people and that will result in a flight into self-delusion. You’ll live in a fantasy world.  Salvation will be a secular matter and dependent on government entitlement programs."

...Young people will have so much in the way of material goods and toys in 2020, Milo further explained, that they’ll become bored and lonely and rebel against materialism. “They’ll become angry, arrogant, apathetic, anxious, apprehensive, alienated, and aimless... Some of them trick themselves into thinking some cause for protest makes sense. (But) most of them are in deep despair, even though they don’t realize it.”

..."He told Milo that he preferred not to die and face that future, but wondered what was ahead if he managed to free himself from the mud.  “You’ll face a lot of adversity,” Milo said, “but you’ll take it in stride and learn from it.  You’ll find love and meaning in life, a meaning that will totally escape you in your life as a snowflake.”

So he freed himself from the mud and lived to many times consider the wisdom (or otherwise) of this choice.

How can you not realize you are in deep despair?

And I doubt materialism as a metaphysical philosophy so easily elides into every political position the author seems desperate to dismiss?