There is a recent YouTube video by Jubilee Media called “Jordan Peterson vs. 20 Atheists,” and it has gained significant attention. For those who are not familiar with the name, Dr. Jordan B. Peterson is a Canadian psychologist who rose to prominence as an intellectual figure online after opposing Canada’s Bill C-16 in 2016, arguing that it infringes on free speech. At that time, aside from clinical practice, he was also a university professor at the University of Toronto. From that, people looked him up and discovered that he has hundreds of hours of lectures posted on his YouTube channel. People soon realized that he is not a conventional psychologist. He still talks about the things that psychologists talk about, with all the empirical data, academic journals, and medical literature to back them up (he is also one of the most cited psychologists in the world), but his thinking is also infused with ideas from philosophy, mythology, and religion. Around this time, his worldview had been largely inspired by the Daoist model of Yin and Yang, which he framed as Order and Chaos. To him, the best way to be is to dance at the border of the two. We need Order for stability, but we also need a little bit of Chaos occasionally to rejuvenate things. Staying too long on either side will result in imbalance and trouble. That was the basis of his philosophy, and virtually anything that he talked about has its root in that view. Peterson, however, is also interested in Christianity, more than any other religion. Sure, he talked about Buddha several times, but Christianity gets significantly more attention. He has hours and hours of video of him presenting his analysis of Biblical stories. For many, the way he approaches Christianity seems so sophisticated that people, atheists and former Christians alike, started to reassess their stance on Christianity. The general reaction was that they never thought about Christianity that way, and perhaps it is not that Christianity is silly, but rather it is their own understanding of it that is shallow. Many ended up becoming Christians because of him. Many also returned to Christianity because of him (I was in the latter group). But one thing that confused people at that time (and it continues to this time, hence this article) is that he himself never formally adopts Christianity as his “belief.” Why the quotation marks? That is the crux of this writing. Fast forward to present time. Peterson is now a celebrity thinker. For the past few years, it seems he is increasingly like a Christian rather than a Daoist. He has several lengthy discussions with Jonathan Pageau, an Orthodox Christian thinker and Robert Barron, a Catholic bishop. He also hosts a dedicated show on DailyWire+ that examines some of the books in the Bible with other thinkers and scholars, including the two just mentioned. In fact, his wife, Tammy, became a Catholic and he accompanied her throughout the process. His daughter, Mikhaila, has also embraced Christianity. This all reinforces the public perception that Peterson is deeply immersed in Christianity. In the YouTube video mentioned at the beginning, Peterson was invited to a debate with a unique format: one person sitting at the center surrounded by twenty or so people with opposing views. That one person will present a claim, and one random opponent, by way of who can reach the chair fastest, will try to debate him until the allocated time ends or until he is voted out by the majority. Here, Peterson was representing Christianity, which is an odd choice considering there are other prominent (and actual) Christian thinkers and bishops. In fact, the original title was “A Christian vs. 20 Atheists” before it was changed. The atheists in this show were all familiar with Peterson, knowing how he seemed to be fully invested in Christianity yet never admits to being one. It then became the main weapon of some of them to attack him. It would be too long to cover what they talked about here, but in the comment sections, many are criticizing Peterson because, to them, he sounded evasive and couldn’t give a clear “yes” or “no” answer on the seemingly easy question of whether he was a Christian or not. Many, though, don’t understand how Peterson thinks. The thing about Peterson is that he is a “meta” thinker in the vein of Carl Jung. If you are familiar with Carl Jung (his concept of archetypes, the collective unconscious, etc.), then the association that was just made already gives you a pretty good idea of how Peterson thinks. Peterson is a higher-order thinker, approaching things from an abstract realm, while most people are first-order thinkers, seeing things empirically. When Peterson encounters a topic, he doesn’t just see what’s on the surface, but he tries to trace the unseen, complex metaphysical structure of that topic. The question of his faith, then, inevitably became the unofficial topic of that debate: is Jordan Peterson a Christian? Spoiler alert: he is not. And I will give my explanation on that and frame it, naturally, in the context of Christianity. To Jordan Peterson, it isn’t what you say you believe that determines your beliefs, but what you do that reveals them. This view is not uncommon, as it is also expressed in Matthew 7:16 (“by their fruits you shall know them”). However, Peterson is more uncompromising in his approach and applies it to himself. Though he aligns with — probably not all, but many — Christian values, he doesn’t call himself a Christian because he believes he doesn’t embody the term sufficiently. (He has expressed this numerous times, notably on the Joe Rogan podcast, where he said that claiming to be a Christian is “a hell of a claim to make,” implying, in line with his broader view, that it’s a claim that is very hard to live up to.) For him, in the context of faith, someone truly “believes” in something when their actions are entirely coherent with their stated beliefs. To Peterson, belief is an unseen structure that supports a person’s psyche, translating into corresponding, visible manifestations — how you act, how you talk, how you present yourself, etc. If what you do contradicts your claim, then, to him, it doesn’t qualify because it means the underlying structure in your psyche isn’t really what you claim it to be. To him, someone’s god is whatever he puts at the top of the hierarchy of importance (is it really God? Or perhaps it’s money? Reputation? Prestige? Etc.). If the actions don’t match the claim, it means that person has a competing god in his psyche. Thus, he exercises caution in claiming belief and expects the same from others. This reflects an odd kind of humility: on one hand, he feels he doesn’t deserve to be called a Christian because his actions don’t imitate Christ enough; on the other, it hints at pride, as he places the entire burden of being Christlike on himself — an impossible task. For someone who delves deeply into Christianity — perhaps even more deeply than many pastors — it’s surprising that he seems to miss one key aspect: God’s personhood. He clearly must have known about it, but he doesn’t seem to internalize it as he often treats God as an indifferent Ideal that only passively observes who, among us, can best emulate Him. But that’s impossible. One cannot become Christlike entirely through one’s own effort. It’s a collaboration between human striving and God’s grace. We reach upward through our imperfect efforts, and God, seeing our genuine intent, reaches down to help. Only through this dynamic can transformation happen. Thus, claiming to be a Christian despite imperfection is more than acceptable (provided the claimant shows an intent to do good despite their failures), because it reflects faith that, one day, they may embody Christlikeness as fully as possible. So, if Jordan wants to advance his pursuit, it is no longer through an intellectual effort — as he seems to have sufficiently pushed it to a level few achieve — but through a simple act that most Christians have embraced: surrender. To God. To that Fundamental Value he deeply respects. This means sharing part of the burden with God and letting God help him, as Christianity, at its core, is a relationship between the Creator and His creation. This is really a curious oversight for the cohesion of Peterson’s philosophy. In his work as a psychologist, he emphasizes the importance of relationships and their extension in society (e.g., his focus on reciprocity), yet he fails to extend this view all the way up to his conception of God, despite his affinity for the one religion that explicitly uses a relational model, despite knowing that in Genesis 1:26 God said, “let Us make man in Our image,” and despite knowing that Christians call their God “Father.” It seems, then, that Peterson lacks a unifying grand theory, as his idea of relationships operates on a different track from his conception of God. This is striking, given his intellectual rigor and his insistence on coherence between faith, proclamation, and action. Whatever is causing this — whether his over-reliance on rationalism, skepticism toward religious dogma, or something else — I hope that one day he is willing to take that leap. Not because I insist he become a Christian, but because it seems the necessary climactic act for the journey he himself has chosen to undertake. This is, ironically, the act that he advises us to do: “Every bit of learning is a little death. Every bit of new information challenges a previous conception, forcing it to dissolve into chaos before it can be reborn as something better.” (From 12 Rules for Life). That quote encapsulates a core idea of one of the things that Peterson teaches: we are the heroes of our own life journey and that we must confront our greatest obstacle to reach our fullest potential. This is virtually identical to the more formalized version found in Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero’s Journey”, as both drew their inspirations from Jung’s concept of Individuation. In that journey, the hero must enter a dark cave to confront the thing he fears most. This is often symbolized by a dragon. If the hero succeeds in overcoming it, he emerges transformed into a better version of himself. Peterson now stands at the entrance of that cave. He lingers a bit too long near it, and it seems time for him to finally enter. This cave is rather special, however, because what awaits him inside is not a fire-breathing dragon, but a cross. Will he, then, be willing to let his old self die and become something new? To shed his rational armor, confront the Divine, and find out? Only time will tell. ___ For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do… For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do — this I keep on doing… What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:15–25)

I was in an epistemology class during this discussion.  “Do you consider philosophy professors as philosophers?”  It struck me. I hadn’t really thought about this question before, and when it was brought up, I couldn’t wrap my head around the concept. Are philosophy lecturers philosophers or are they experts on philosophy? I pondered how to approach this question. On one hand, lecturers have a wide range of knowledge regarding philosophical works and discourse, but does that constitute them as philosophers? On the other hand, not all philosophers are well-versed in all types of philosophy (they might not live to infinity to discover and revise their beliefs), so are they not experts on philosophy? This meta-philosophical question regarding philosophy is somewhat important, but from a practical standpoint, it does not matter. Let me briefly explain. Philosophical Practice Considered taboo to some people, the act of doing philosophy has been synonymous with going against religion or, in a more pragmatic lens, going against the ruling power. Philosophical inquiry often forces its subject to critical assessment and scrutinizing the status quo, something that throws the balance of order off. It’s not to say that philosophical thinking is meant to disturb all aspects of life (though in the process, it certainly will), but thinking in a philosophical manner pushes the limits of our understanding by asking thought-provoking questions. Since philosophy has no real boundaries, its scope of inquiry is limitless. Some philosophical knowledge can be applied on a day-to-day basis (e.g., the rise of stoicism in contemporary literature), but sadly, most are closed to academia or educated people. Interest in doing philosophy is confined to classrooms, or in some extreme cases, secrets, due to the animosity philosophy presents. There are caveats, of course, but the fact of the matter is that philosophy is not as widespread as it should be.  Yes, I think more people should do philosophy. As I was finishing up my degree, I didn’t really think that there was a philosophy-specific job that was worth pursuing. But, through a simple internet search, I realized that I needed to expand my horizons. Philosophy is not meant just to be studied; it needs to be lived. It needs to be practiced, just like any other skill; experiment, refinement, repeat. We need to constantly engage in the act of doing philosophy. What’s more interesting is that people can do philosophy; they aren’t just trained to do so. People engage in philosophical dilemmas every day: Should I fire an underperforming manager nearing his retirement? Should I help my cousin with his bad debt? Where should I invest? People ponder these questions almost all their lives, but they are not equipped in trying to make a decision. Hence, a vicious cycle of wondering without an endgame occurs, increasing our anxiety and potentially leading to depression. So, the idea that philosophical thinking only asks deep, fundamental questions is flawed. Every day decision-making involves philosophical practice, and we ought to help people think philosophically. How to actually do Philosophy? In Timothy Williamson’s book Philosophical Method: A Very Short Introduction (2020), he mentioned that there isn’t a standardized way of doing philosophy. However, we have to acknowledge the use of logic and language as the basis of all thinking. Is this disputable? Yes. But we can’t deny the power that logic and language have to guide our thoughts. Our subject matter or point of interest can be the destination, but our cognitive capacity is what gets us there. So, for the time being, let’s accept that we need logic and language to do philosophy. What’s next? There is no real starting point in philosophy; however, we can evaluate our beliefs to get the engines rolling. It does not need to be an exclusive belief: check your surroundings. Observe your political climate, your work, or your social circle. What are the rules governing certain behaviors? Are there any pattern that underlies their movement? What is their motivation to wake up every day? Asking these simple questions can lead us to understand what is commonly accepted and what is opposed. ( Common sense ). Then, as a practice, dispute their claims. E.g., A dedicated office worker needs to stay late with no compensation. Is this true? Is this always true for all conditions? Is there a possibility that this is not true? Can it be true and not true at the same time? What can make this statement false? ( Dispute ). Next, consider asking a different set of questions. What is dedication? How late is considered good? Does staying mean being physically there, or can we be virtually staying? Can a free dinner compensate for the late working hours? ( Clarifying terms ). There is no really set of steps that is done to do philosophy, but one thing is for sure: philosopher asks more questions than they have answers. Most people just ask questions because they’re interested in the topic or out of simple curiosity. However, purposeful questioning about our everyday lives lays the foundation of philosophical thinking. Elliot Cohen outlines this in his book Logic-Based Therapy and Everyday Emotions (2016). Using Aristotelian logic, our everyday struggles are broken down to their syllogistic form: Premise 1 : If somebody cuts me off, then I will be pissed. Premise 2 : Somebody cuts me off. Conclusion : I will be pissed. Structuring our behavior in this mechanistic manner helps us understand, truly, how we emote and react towards a stimulus. From the above example, we can analyze the way we think in a couple of ways. From premise 1 Is the governing rule true? Should I be pissed whenever I am cut off?  From premise 2 What counts as cutting me off? If there are two people in front of me and one is subbed out with her friends, does that count as cutting me off? If two people replace the person in front of me and make me have to wait for 3 more people before paying, does that mean I was cut off? In the conclusion Does the reporting align with premise 1 rule? Even if I was cut off, should I really be pissed? Maybe they need to go to the toilet, or they left their dog in the car? Am I only pissed or is there any complimenting emotion? As you might observe, this type of structured philosophical inquiry seemed to be practical. It is the one I’m advocating for. However, it is not an exhaustive list of practices needed to do philosophy. Some might even argue that what I presented is not philosophy. But back to the initial question, who has the power to judge and deem someone a philosopher? It’s important to reiterate that though the question of who can be considered a philosopher is important, practically, it’s useless. Not because philosophy is useless, but let’s leave that daunting task to the academics or librarians. We should focus more on the thinking, the philosophizing. So, who is the philosopher? Most probably, you, your families, your friends, and virtually anyone capable of using logic and language, at least, in my estimate.

At its most vital, history is meant to instruct. It is the mirror we hold to our past so that we do not stumble blindly in repetition. But what if the mirror is fogged? History relies on fragile foundations: photographs & documents, monuments worn by time. Artifacts secondary and only meaningful in service of something more human; the primary foundation of all: memory. Collective remembrance .  Our best hold on truth lies in fragments shaped by those who remember. But human memory is malleable as clay. It can be shaped and misshaped. So, if full truth is literally beyond human reach, how do we know if we’re living in truth at all?  What do we mean when we say ‘history’?  We must begin with a distinction that there are two kinds of history: formal and folk.  Foucault says that "power produces knowledge.” ( Discipline and Punish 27), that “ truth as we know it today is not an objective constant, but a historical artifact shaped by discourse and institutions.” ( Power/Knowledge 131). History begins at an education curated to project a particular version of events, standardized into the same chapters & vocabulary. Underneath this ocial narrative runs a second current; lived stories, passed down in fragments: in protest songs, in family memories, in the silence of absence.  While formal history does begin from people’s history, it can break away and even override it. Formal – authorized history, holds the systemic power to choose what becomes (or becomes of) the prevailing narratives. It has the power not just to record but to define the past. Here, truth is not neutral; it is governed.  A clear example is the Japanese government’s treatment of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre. A clearly documented campaign of mass murder, rape, and destruction veried through photographs, diaries of Japanese soldiers and Western witnesses, records from the post-war Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal (Chang, The Rape of Nanking 87). Carved into its survivors.   Yet, it was for decades, reduced to a simple ‘military conict’ or reframed as Chinese propaganda. The result is a generation of Japanese citizens potentially unaware of, or misinformed about, one of the most horric war crimes of the 20th century.  The truth wasn’t disproved; it was rebranded . The facts were not erased but recast as ‘opinion’. The result is twofold: victims are erased, and the collective memory becomes complicit. This is not simply a loss of information. It is the erosion of a shared moral reality.  Hannah Arendt calls this the defactualization of reality ( Truth and Politic s 227–264). Dened not by the absence of evidence, but the reclassification of evidence as ideology, opinion, exaggeration. Factual truths that inconvenience are no longer denied outright — they are labeled as bias. And so we no longer argue over what happened, but over whether what happened counts as truth at all.  But history always calls for some interpretation, so, what makes something a historical fact? Arendt draws a critical distinction. Facts — like “ Germany invaded Belgium in 1914” — are not opinions but a collective reality, therefore to deny it would be falsication. The opposite of truth is not error, but the lie told with intent ( Between Past and Future, 242) . Error is human. Lies are political. And if public discourse is saturated with lies, people will lose the distinction between fact and fiction.  In Assassins of Memory , Pierre Vidal-Naquet ( Assassins of Memory 3–5) calls them revisionists. Those who deliberately distort shared reality and fog the mirror . History becomes not “What happened?” but whose definition prevails . Whose truth does it become?  It’s important to note that not all revisionism is pejorative. Sometimes it corrects lies. It’s the kind that sanitizes or erases that must be resisted. But how do we know when to resist, or when to trust? Isn’t people’s history just as prone to distortion, whether by agenda, time, or forgetting?  What then, when all your anchors—what you were taught & told—become questionable?  The answer is not to descend into paranoia. That path often leads to conspiratorial cynicism, not clarity. But we also can’t rely passively on inherited narratives; critical memory is a moral obligation.  Social change is always driven by discernment. Movements begin in minds. People act not because they know everything, but because they know enough to draw a line. Before people ever take to the streets, they have taken positions in their minds. Conviction precedes motion.  The great danger is not in being wrong, but in not knowing where you stand — or that you needed to. ‘If You Stand for Nothing, Burr, What’ll You Fall For?’  In Hamilton ( Miranda , Hamilton: An American Musical) , Aaron Burr’s refusal to take a stand is not merely indecision. It is the erosion of identity, and it mirrors what happens when people either cannot or refuse to dene their selves, values, or history. Untethered from memory or principle, we drift not towards truth, but toward what’s convenient: staying idle, and it has distorted our understanding of what truth looks like.  Truth demands labor: it requires standing, questioning, thinking. But in a post-factual age, truth is often mistaken for consensus — echoed, but not examined. This is not dialogue nor comprehension. It is herd repetition. A performance of agreement (a kind of pseudo-truth, perhaps. One that feels like unity but stems from inertia, not understanding) born for the sake of blissful ignorance.  Factual truth is a collective reality – but only when held in integrity. It is not a mere general consensus, rather, it’s what survives after honest scrutiny. Real truth is forged not from uniformity, but from confrontation: dissent, nuance, discourse. Without integrity, the collective dissolves into a mob.  And as Arendt warns, “ The mob is not a crowd. It is the refusal to be a person. ” ( Origins of Totalitarianism 315). The danger is not merely believing falsehoods, but also the collapse of individual thought. When we surrender individuality for belonging, we do not deepen the truth; we atten it . We no longer remember; we echo. And in that echo, truth becomes less a matter of what happened and more a matter of what we’re willing to repeat. The antidote is dicult, but necessary: we must learn to belong critically . Belonging oers unity, but truth gives it substance. Abandon one, and the other becomes hollow. A belonging without critique is a recipe for disaster. A truth without belonging becomes detached abstraction.  But here’s the painful truth: many don’t drift into ignorance by choice. For some, it is inheritance—shaped by systems that never taught them how to dissent. For them, complicity is not a decision, but a design. That’s why ignorance is a matter of choice, it is a privilege. And recognizing this makes the task clearer: to act where others couldn’t. This is our responsibility.  History Has Its Eyes on You  What comes next of history depends on how we choose to carry what we know.  To remember is not enough. As Nietzsche once wrote, “ history must serve life, not stifle it ” ( On the Use and Abuse of History for Life 10–15). Too much reverence for the past can paralyze. When we reduce history to brittle preservation, we forget it was meant to guide us. History was never meant to be a museum.  Nietzsche proposes three kinds of history. M onumental history inspires action, critical history exposes injustice & dismantles lies, and antiquarian memory roots identity ( On the Use and Abuse of History for Life 10–15). If we don’t balance the three, history either weakens or oppresses us. Forgetting makes us naive, but so will holding on without clarity or agency. This aligns with Arendt’s reminder that our political life — our ability to act meaningfully in the world — depends on the integrity of thought and speech ( The Human Condition 175, 184). Without it, we collapse purely into conformity (thus sacricing truth), and history becomes a spectacle instead of instruction.  We must remember actively and wield history not as dogma or decoration, but as an ethical tool. It is not there to be worshipped. Nor to be erased. But to be understood.  This takes discernment. It takes moral clarity. It takes refusal and the willingness to say: “this matters, and this cannot be forgotten.”  Human history is not determined by victors alone. Eventually, it is shaped by what ordinary people choose to preserve, and what they choose to protect. This is the real weight of history’s gaze: not what has happened, but how we respond to it.  History, then, is not a chronicle. It is a living ethical project.  And the question is no longer whether truth exists —  but whether we are willing — and brave enough — to carry it.

The human psyche is a fragile thing, isn’t it? On our best days—when dopamine and serotonin flow just right—we wish ourselves a longer, fuller life: one filled with laughter, love, and a kind of imagined immortality. But on darker days, thoughts rot quietly in the mind—imagining tumors growing within our bodies, or anticipating wars on horizons we can’t quite see—as we remember our mortality, and how utterly small our existence is against the vast, indifferent backdrop of the universe.  Existential dread is inescapable. Whether you’re a driven woman chasing a bright career in your thirties, or a young father swept up in dreams for his child’s future, the awareness always lingers: that we will end, and that the roads we didn’t choose might have led us elsewhere—perhaps somewhere brighter, or perhaps a bleak future filled with shame and regret.  Now, imagine yourself an aging man: isolated, exhausted, working a menial job, tethered to routine. If the world stopped noticing you, would you notice too? When the unlived life begins to speak louder than the one you're living—how do you survive that realization? We might begin to imagine a life truly lived: of a certain someone beside us—who loved us for who we are; or simply an opportunity for a passionate life—taking on a harmless hobby, or professing your interest in a lovely young man from a long time ago. But most of us opt for a safer route, don’t we? A boring job, an agreeable spouse, or living in our parents’ house for the rest of our lives.  In Charlie Kaufman’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020), we are asked to imagine ourselves as this aging man. He is Jake, an old school janitor with a withering bodyand a withering life—writhing through his day cleaning a massive school, enduring silent mockery from those around him. In between these mundane rituals, he escapes into fantasy: imagining a life truly lived. A young girlfriend he never had. A visit home to parents he never really left. Winning a Nobel Prize. Receiving admiration from people who’ve never met him.  In true Kaufman fashion, we are slowly drawn into the janitor’s delusion, until it is our turn to project ourselves onto him. As the song from Synecdoche, NewYork says: “I’m singing this song, but it’s about you. Whoever is listening—it’s always about you.” Regardless of your gender, your age, or how much money is in your bank account, this film is about all of us. It is a cinematic reimagining of our mortality—of missed chances, unlived versions of ourselves, and options we will never reclaim.  Jake the janitor’s story is the purgatory of Camus’ Sisyphus. We hear the echoes of alife that might have been: Jake the artist. Jake the quantum physicist. Jake the gerontology student. Jake the poet. And yet, he is a janitor. These unlived paths embody the absurd: the confrontation between the human longing for clarity, meaning, and permanence, and the silence of an indifferent universe. Jake’s hunger for meaningis met with a life of obligation, compromise, and quiet failure. When the world fails togive us meaning, but we continue to demand it—that tension, as Camus reminds us, is where the absurd is born. If Camus shows us that life has no inherent meaning, this prompts us to consider the very nature of the 'self' that longs for meaning. Here, the insights of Jacques Lacan become particularly illuminating. Lacan shows us that the 'self' who longs for that meaning is already a construction — a fiction composed of fantasy, misrecognition, and social mirrors. The girlfriend in Jake's fantasy is not a person, but a mirror. She refracts the selves he could have been, the lives he yearned for. She is poet, physicist, gerontologist; each identity a mask Jake puts on her to reflect his unlived selves.  Jake is trapped in what Lacan calls the Imaginary: a hall of mirrors filled with unattainable ideals. He can no longer exist comfortably in the Symbolic world —thestructured, repressive world of jobs, relationships, and names. Hence, he invents a new order, governed by a fantasy.  But all fictions must eventually break. When Jake’s Imaginary no longer holds, the Real emerges: a grotesque, unspeakable void. He walks into the darkness, and finds himself in the presence of a fantasy — a maggot-infested pig. This pig, once a memory from Jake’s childhood, becomes a grotesque symbol of decay —and perhaps of Jake himself. No longer shielded by fantasy, he must face the unbearable truth: the body ages, dreams fade, and no imaginary girlfriend can save you from the slowunraveling of the self.  This realization is mirrored in Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York . In it, the main character, Caden Cotard, also crafts a fantasy through his massive theater—in which he hops between many roles—desperate to be seen, loved, and recognized. But just as Caden’s theater grows beyond his control, Jake’s imagined girlfriend begins to shift, unravel, and dissolve. In both works, the self is not revealed but dispersed —brokenacross roles, timelines, and imaginary lives. And when the performance ends, what remains is not truth or salvation, but the quiet persistence of decay and regret.  And these realizations mirror our own reality. Our position as viewers is nowdisrupted. We no longer see Jake and Caden as mere characters. We are them. Theyare us. We actively engage in the reimagination of our own lives—of missed chances, and the inescapable truth of aging and perishing. Jake and Caden are not just characters born from the minds of their creators; they are the representation of our own inevitable fate.  And maybe that’s what honest art does: it dissolves the line between the subject andits audience. Like a song sung to a crowd of strangers, yet felt as if written for one heart alone. Consider this song from Synecdoche, New York :  I'm singing this song, but it's about you  Whoever else is listening, it's only about you  See there's just one story, and everyone's the star  And it goes like this:  No one will ever love you for everything you are  And so you build up layers of deception  And you leave out things to alter the perceptions  Of the ones you love, who would never love you back  If they knew all about you, every solitary fact And the sadness of your life is built upon this lack  Of really knowing anyone or having them know you It's the sadness of the world, there's nothing left to do  And so just go to sleep, just let the hours pass  Sleep it all away, none of it will last  Soon it's all over, you're under clover  And none of it matters anymore  The relentless honesty of the song speaks to each of us. The longing for meaning andconnection, for recognition and unconditional love — it is a beautiful ideal, yet one inevitably undermined by the fact that we are mortal and impermanent.  Jake’s story. Caden’s theater. These are stage sets for our own quiet catastrophes andunanswered what-ifs. And perhaps, in surrendering to those fictions —in seeing ourselves in their fragments — we are not escaping life, but witnessing it more clearly. Even unlived, even imagined, life speaks.

When the New York Knicks reached the Eastern Conference for the first time in 25 years, its namesake city went into a frenzy. Out on the streets across the 5 boroughs, New Yorkers celebrated the wins of people they will never meet, with people they had never met before. What do each of these individuals share in common with the players who had just won or the strangers cheering next to them? If you were to take any one of them aside and ask them this question, they’d likely give the same answer: “We’re New Yorkers!”  Whether it be our culture, nation, or family, each of us are defined by groups which encompass us — collective identities.  Collective identities play an integral role in shaping individual characters. Although its arguably most influential version of modern nationalism is still a relatively recent phenomenon, collective identities have been prominent for as long as human history. Whether it be the formation of the first civilizations in the Fertile Crescent, the religious conflicts of medieval kingdoms, and the  birth of the nation-state following the Peace of Westphalia, the concept of an “us” and a “them” has driven how individuals define themselves in relation to groups they “belong” to.  Still, the amorphous meaning of what a collective identity actually is has been a topic that many historians have found difficult in defining. The concept of what constitutes a nation, for example, has drawn particular debate. Although most historians agree upon the general definition as “a community of people who feel they belong together in the double sense that they share deeply significant elements of a common heritage and they share a common destiny for the future” (Emerson) others argue that it is bounded by more “physical” characteristics, such as ethnicity and religion. This sense of a common past, present, and future, defined as the history of a collective identity, has become a characterizing factor that historians argue have shaped groups.  Despite what some may argue about factors surrounding ethnicity, religion, and language, this essay argues that collective identities are not just shaped by historical narratives, ideas, and myths, but formed entirely from them. Given the need for a group to justify its existence, while also finding means to unite its members, having a history that resonates with them is central to forming a collective identity. As such, ethnicity, religion, and language can prove arbitrary relative to the defining force of remembered history. Additionally, for the peoples of a collective identity, it is not just the parts of history remembered as integral that form to which group one “belongs”, but also which parts are forgotten. In essence, there is no objective historical truth that exists. Rather, the history of a collective identity is based on events that are both emphasized and omitted by key figures in the group.  To understand how collective identities are molded, we first need to understand the driving forces of individual identities. Plato argues that the human soul is divided into three parts: the reasoning Logistikon, the craving Epithumetikon, and the spirited Thymos. Plato points that Thymos is the part that feels a spectrum ranging from pride to shame. In other words, Thymos acts as the spirit of dignity in the individual. When one’s sense of honor is affronted, Thymos acts as the force mobilizing to reclaim it (Plato).  From this, Francis Fukuyama argues that just as our individual Thymos desires for honor and recognition, collective identities embody an extension of this feeling (Fukuyama). Whether it be the American Revolutionaries desire for representation, or the Third Estate’s fight against the monarchy, when a group faces a slight against their dignity, their collective identities rally together to unite their members. But in order to create this sense of belonging with one another, while also fulfilling the need to justify its own existence, the key figures of a collective identity must form a history, a sense that they as a people, institution, and system have a shared past and destiny (Anderson).  Some may argue that collective identities are shaped predominantly by factors like ethnicity, religion, or language. Yet, history demonstrates that these characteristics serve as secondary elements, merely aiding rather than fundamentally forming a collective identity. Instead, it is the historical narratives pushed by key figures that instill feelings of solidarity within members of the groups, despite more often than not, being strangers to one another. For example, take the USA — a melting pot of different cultures, ethnicities, and languages all under one nation. In theory, its sheer diversity can prove difficult to form a singular identity encompassing all its people. Yet, the Jeffersonian ideas, inspired by Rousseau, of “all men are created equal” and “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” (Jefferson) have set the defining feature of what it means to be an American. Although some in the nation, especially those in more ethnically homogenous regions, may argue that it is ethnicity that defines one’s collective identity, the past 200 years have shown that it is instead the ideals pushed by key figures in American history that have far greater influence. The idea formed by the Founding Fathers of liberty-lovers blind to ethnicity, gender, or religion has remained central to what it means to be an American, as shown by the nation’s multiculturalism.  A collective identity’s history however, is not objective. It is instead the accumulation of specific events that have been emphasized as important — which can be a source of collective pride and belonging — while also omitting others which are perceived as shameful. This stands in line with Fukyama’s interpretation of Thymos, as history enables groups to channel their pride from the past toward a collective future.  For example, in Ukraine, the painting Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks has become an especially remembered part of the national identity in light of its current war with Russia. It depicts Cossack soldiers, ancestors of modern Ukrainians, sending an insulting reply to the ultimatum given by the Ottoman Empire. Today, the painting has come to symbolize national pride in stubbornness by Ukrainians. In its current war, fighters have rallied their remembered history of their unwillingness to be conquered, boosting their shared pride, and prolonging a war that was supposed to last 10 days into 3 years. Remembered histories, especially of events which bring pride to a people, drive, as Benedict Anderson puts it, “millions of people, not so much to kill, as willing to die.” (Anderson) But just as history is made up of events remembered, it is also formed through others forgotten. Events that may damage solidarity among members can oftentimes be omitted from collective memory. Philosopher Ernest Renan states, “No French citizen knows whether he is a Burgund, an Alain, a Taifala, or a Visigoth. Every French citizen has forgotten St. Bartholomew’s Day and the thirteenth-century massacres of the Midi.” (Renan) The fact that previous divisions in the creation of a French nation, that being the differing feudal kingdoms before centralization, had now been largely forgotten by the common man demonstrates how the strengthening of a collective identity’s history can result from the removal of another, older identity that may have stood in the way of unification. Likewise, most of the French have since forgotten shameful events of history, as they may weaken collective concord within the nation.  Indonesia is a prime example of how national narratives take priority over divisions of language, culture, and ethnicity in shaping collective identity, but also how its history is one molded through remembered and forgotten events.  With over 600 ethnicities and 700 languages (Ananta), the grouping of these diverse islands share few commonalities, the most prominent being they were all Dutch colonies. As a result, the formation of these groups under a single nation was centered around the history of the collective struggles faced by the colonized people. National holidays are focused almost exclusively around anniversaries of independence movements. Its focus on moments of struggle were emphasized as important parts of the collective identity’s history, and events in which its citizens feel a shared pride. At the same time, the history pushed by the nation’s elites is one which is fraught with events intended to be forgotten. Events like the 1965 Communist Genocide are not publicly acknowledged by the government, victims’ accounts are silenced, and government-sponsored efforts to “rewrite history” in educational books further reinforce the message that certain parts of history are to be omitted.  Just as how our individual Thymos affect our response to affronts to dignity, the spirit of collective identities is centered around shared pride and solidarity. In order to draw the line which divides what it means to be a Canadian from an American, a Ukrainian from a Russian, or a Knicks fan from a Nets fan, collective identities create their own histories, emphasizing specific ideas and events to be remembered and omitting those that may threaten their dignity. In the end, our collective identities live not within objective truths, but in the narratives we construct, powerful enough to unify millions of strangers into a unified ‘us’.

ABSTRAK Artikel ini menganalisis relevansi metode Socrates dalam konteks zaman modern yang ditandai oleh pesatnya perkembangan teknologi. Terutama dalam bidang komunikasi digital dan kecerdasan buatan yang semakin sering menjadi perbincangan di media sosial. Metode Socrates, yang berlandaskan dialog, pertanyaan kritis dan pencarian kebenaran melalui proses dialektika telah menjadi pendekatan fundamental dalam tradisi yang digunakan dalam filsafat. Namun, di era kini, ketika diskusi publik cenderung dangkal dan tergesa-gesa melalui media sosial, serta dengan munculnya kecerdasan buatan sebagai mitra dialog, muncul pertanyaan: apakah metode Socrates masih relevan? Artikel ini membandingkan karakteristik metode Socrates dengan dinamika komunikasi pada era digital. Hasil analisis menunjukkan bahwa meskipun tantangan masa kini berbeda dari masa Socrates, esensi metode ini tetap penting. Pendekatan tersebut, bahkan dapat menjadi alat yang ampuh untuk membangun pemikiran yang kritis, etika, dan refleksi dalam menghadapi kompleksitas informasi dan teknologi masa kini. Kata kunci: Filsafat, Metode Socrates, Kecerdasan Buatan, Zaman Modern, Dialog Kritis PENDAHULUAN Dalam sejarah filsafat Barat, Socrates dikenal sebagai tokoh yang menandai titik awal perkembangan filsafat sebagai suatu disiplin yang mengandalkan nalar dan dialog. Ia tidak meninggalkan tulisan apa pun. Namun, pengaruhnya begitu besar melalui karya-karya muridnya, terutama Plato. Salah satu kontribusi utamanya adalah metode tanya jawab yang kini dikenal sebagai metode Socrates yakni suatu pendekatan dialogis yang bertujuan menggali kebenaran dengan menguji keyakinan melalui serangkaian pertanyaan kritis dan reflektif. Metode ini tidak bertujuan memenangkan argumen, melainkan mendorong lawan bicara untuk berpikir secara mendalam dan menemukan kontradiksi dalam cara berpikir mereka sendiri. Di tengah dunia modern yang diwarnai oleh kecepatan informasi, dominasi media sosial, dan kemajuan kecerdasan buatan, muncul pertanyaan penting: apakah metode Socrates masih relevan? Kita hidup di era di mana diskusi publik sering kali dangkal, retoris, bahkan terpolarisasi. Teknologi memungkinkan komunikasi yang instan, tetapi tidak selalu mendorong kedalaman berpikir. Di sisi lain, perkembangan kecerdasan buatan menghadirkan tantangan baru terhadap cara manusia mencari, memproses, dan mendiskusikan sebuah pengetahuan. Artikel ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis relevansi metode Socrates dalam konteks zaman modern dan era teknologi yang semakin canggih. Penulis akan mengkaji karakteristik inti dari metode tersebut, membandingkannya dengan dinamika komunikasi dan teknologi saat ini, serta menilai sejauh mana metode Socrates masih dapat diterapkan, baik dalam pendidikan, diskursus publik, maupun dalam pengembangan etika teknologi. Dengan pendekatan analitis dan filosofis, artikel ini ingin menunjukkan bahwa metode Socrates, meskipun lahir ribuan tahun lalu, tetap memiliki nilai strategis dalam membangun masyarakat yang reflektif, kritis, dan bijaksana. TINJAUAN PUSTAKA Metode Socrates, atau elenchus, merupakan teknik dialektika yang digunakan untuk menguji konsistensi logis dari suatu pendapat melalui pertanyaan-pertanyaan beruntun. Metode ini terutama dikenal melalui karya- karya Plato, seperti Apology, Euthyphro, dan Meno, di mana Socrates sering tampil sebagai tokoh utama yang menggiring lawan bicaranya untuk mengkaji ulang keyakinan mereka sendiri. Brickhouse dan Smith (2000) menegaskan bahwa tujuan utama Socrates bukan untuk mengajarkan doktrin tertentu, tetapi untuk mendorong refleksi diri yang mendalam dan membuka jalan menuju kebijaksanaan melalui pengakuan akan ketidaktahuan “knowing that one does not know”. Dalam konteks pendidikan modern, metode Socrates telah diadaptasi dalam bentuk diskusi berbasis pertanyaan atau Socratic seminar, yang bertujuan menumbuhkan pemikiran kritis dan partisipasi aktif siswa. Paul dan Elder (2007) menunjukkan bahwa pendekatan ini sangat efektif dalam membentuk kebiasaan berpikir reflektif dan rasional, yang sangat dibutuhkan dalam menghadapi kompleksitas informasi saat ini. Sementara itu, beberapa studi kontemporer mulai mempertanyakan efektivitas metode ini dalam era digital. Misalnya, Turkle (2015) dalam bukunya Reclaiming Conversation mengungkapkan bahwa kehadiran teknologi seperti ponsel pintar telah mengubah cara manusia berinteraksi, membuat percakapan menjadi lebih dangkal dan terfragmentasi. Hal ini menimbulkan tantangan serius bagi penerapan metode Socrates, yang justru menuntut waktu, kesabaran, dan perhatian penuh dalam proses berdialog. Di sisi lain, muncul pula pertanyaan filosofis mengenai apakah kecerdasan buatan dapat menerapkan metode Socrates. Meskipun Artificial Intelligence (AI) seperti ChatGPT mampu menghasilkan pertanyaan dan menjawab secara logis, beberapa filsuf seperti Bostrom (2014) dan Floridi (2016) berpendapat bahwa kesadaran dan niat manusia dalam berdialog tidak dapat sepenuhnya direduksi menjadi logika algoritma. Ini menimbulkan ketegangan antara nilai-nilai dialog manusiawi dan kemampuan simulatif teknologi modern. Dengan demikian, tinjauan ini menunjukkan bahwa meskipun metode Socrates telah terbukti penting secara historis dan pedagogis, penerapannya di era teknologi digital memerlukan pembacaan ulang yang kritis dan kontekstual. PEMBAHASAN DAN ANALISIS A. Inti Metode Socrates: Dialog sebagai Jalan Menuju Kebenaran Metode Socrates dibangun atas dasar keyakinan bahwa kebenaran tidak dapat diajarkan secara langsung, melainkan harus ditemukan sendiri oleh individu melalui proses berpikir yang jujur dan terbuka. Melalui teknik tanya jawab (elenchus), Socrates mengajak lawan bicaranya menggali makna dari konsep-konsep yang mereka klaim pahami seperti keadilan, kebajikan, atau pengetahuan hingga mereka menyadari bahwa pemahaman mereka tidak konsisten atau belum sepenuhnya matang.Strategi ini bukan untuk mempermalukan, melainkan untuk mendorong kesadaran kritis. Dalam pendekatan ini, dialog bukan sekadar alat komunikasi, melainkan sarana epistemologis: sebuah jalan menuju pengetahuan yang lebih benar. Berbeda dari retorika yang berfokus pada meyakinkan pendengar, metode Socrates menuntut keterbukaan untuk dikoreksi, serta keberanian untuk meragukan diri sendiri. B. Tantangan Zaman Modern: Teknologi dan Deklinasi Dialog Di era modern, terutama dalam dua dekade terakhir, pola komunikasi manusia telah berubah drastis. Media sosial, pesan instan, dan platform digital lainnya menciptakan ruang diskusi yang serba cepat, pendek, dan sering kali dangkal. Dialog yang mendalam jarang terjadi, tergantikan oleh opini singkat, slogan, atau bahkan konflik verbal. Alih-alih pencarian kebenaran, banyak percakapan publik justru berorientasi pada pembenaran diri atau pencitraan sosial. Fenomena ini membuat penerapan metode Socrates menjadi semakin sulit. Proses dialog yang mendalam membutuhkan waktu, kesabaran, dan kehadiran penuh hal-hal yang sering kali bertentangan dengan logika teknologi digital yang menuntut kecepatan dan efisiensi. Bahkan dalam ruang pendidikan, diskusi filosofis sering kali tergeser oleh pendekatan instan yang berorientasi hasil ujian, bukan pemahaman esensial. Di sisi lain, kemunculan kecerdasan buatan juga membawa dilema baru. Teknologi seperti ChatGPT, meskipun mampu mensimulasikan dialog Socrates secara teknis, tidak memiliki kesadaran, nilai, atau intensi moral. Dialog dengan AI tidak dapat menggantikan kualitas dialog antar-manusia, yang dilandasi empati dan komitmen terhadap kebenaran. C. Relevansi dan Adaptasi: Peran Strategis Metode Socrates Hari Ini Meski menghadapi tantangan besar, metode Socrates justru semakin penting dalam zaman yang penuh informasi dan disinformasi. Dalam dunia yang terfragmentasi secara ideologis dan sosial, kemampuan untuk bertanya, meragukan, dan mendengarkan secara aktif menjadi kompetensi yang krusial. Pendidikan yang mengadopsi pendekatan Socratic seminar telah terbukti mampu membentuk pelajar yang berpikir kritis, terbuka, dan reflektif. Lebih jauh, metode ini bisa menjadi landasan etis dalam pengembangan teknologi. Para pengembang AI, pembuat kebijakan, dan pengguna teknologi digital dapat menggunakan prinsip Socrates, bertanya sebelum percaya, menguji sebelum menyimpulkan, sebagai cara untuk menghadapi masalah etika dalam teknologi. Dengan demikian, metode Socrates tidak hanya tetap relevan, tetapi justru dibutuhkan untuk mengoreksi arah perkembangan zaman modern yang cenderung kehilangan kedalaman dan makna dalam dialog manusia. KESIMPULAN Metode Socrates, yang berakar pada dialog, pertanyaan kritis, dan pencarian kebenaran melalui proses dialektika, telah menjadi fondasi penting dalam tradisi filsafat dan pendidikan kritis. Di tengah dunia modern yang ditandai oleh kemajuan teknologi, terutama dalam bidang komunikasi digital dan kecerdasan buatan, metode ini menghadapi tantangan besar. Budaya instan, komunikasi yang dangkal, dan dominasi media sosial telah menggeser nilai- nilai dialog reflektif yang menjadi inti metode Socrates. Namun demikian, analisis dalam artikel ini menunjukkan bahwa metode Socrates justru semakin relevan di tengah krisis makna dan banjir informasi yang sering menyesatkan. Dalam pendidikan, ia dapat membentuk peserta didik yang kritis dan terbuka. Dalam pengembangan teknologi, ia bisa menjadi prinsip etis yang membimbing manusia dalam menghadapi dampak sosial dari kecerdasan buatan dan algoritma digital. Bahkan dalam kehidupan sehari-hari, penerapan prinsip Socrates seperti kesediaan untuk bertanya dan mendengarkan dapat memperkuat budaya berpikir yang sehat dan demokratis. Dengan demikian, meskipun konteks penerapannya perlu disesuaikan, esensi metode Socrates tetap hidup dan krusial dalam membentuk masyarakat yang lebih bijaksana dan manusiawi di era teknologi yang terus berkembang.

Humans are always searching for meaning. We believed that God created us with purpose. "I exist — that must mean something, right?" But what if your entire life was not preplanned? What if your birth was merely a happenstance? What if your entire life is meaningless? What I’ve come to realize after years of being on this planet is that life has no meaning whatsoever. Everything you do will eventually come to an end. Someday, you will perish, and all that’s left will be your dust on this Earth. Even that dust will eventually vanish. After a while, Earth will be swallowed by the Sun, never to be seen again. The Sun will then turn into a dwarf and die slowly in a cold, lonely universe. Perhaps God doesn’t exist. Everything we’ve done is a consequence of our own actions. There’s no greater force to dictate our behavior. Everything happens just by the random dice roll of the universe. Humans exist only to die. Life is inherently absurd. Then, what’s left for us? If life is essentially meaningless, then what’s in it for us? If everything is pointless, then what’s the point? Should we all just die? Should we all just fall into despair for the rest of our lives? Well, quite the opposite, actually. While existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre believed that our lives are ours to control — that we are condemned to be free, and that the future is in our hands — Albert Camus proposed a different idea. He believed that to live is to revolt.  Even when faced with absurdity, we must by no means succumb to it. The daily struggle is meaningful. That coffee you tasted. That morning sun piercing through your skin. That movie you just watched. There’s beauty in this world. And so, the only thing we can do is keep moving forward — keep heading toward the future, no matter how bleak it may seem. Life may lack purpose, but the journey itself doesn’t. There’s fulfillment in the mundane things. Life is full of surprises. But that’s what makes it a worthwhile journey. Sometimes we fall, and sometimes we rise — and that’s all part of it. “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” - Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus The absurd isn’t an enemy to defeat, but a reality to live with — courageously. So please, don’t give up. Keep facing the future head-on. Everything will be okay.

Imagine you built a time machine. Like any curious person, you use it to travel 50 years into the future. When you arrive, you find that not much has changed. We are still in a climate crisis, the political landscape remains stagnant with the left and right locked in endless conflict, and none of today’s major problems have been resolved. However, you learn something shocking: our current solutions have actually made things worse. Let’s say, for example, that geothermal energy, which we now champion as a green alternative, has ended up causing devastating consequences. Many of us would likely return to the present to warn the world, urging people to stop using and developing geothermal energy. But if you think about it, this decision isn’t without consequences. Consider the countless scientists, engineers, and workers in the field. What about their families, their livelihoods, and the generations that would have come from them? Their stable careers vanish; their futures become uncertain. In a way, as a pro-lifer might argue, you have committed a kind of genocide—not of those who exist, but of those who never will. So, should we consider the future when pushing for progress, or should we disregard it entirely? We assume that progress is inherently good, that it leads to a better future. But we often forget the unintended consequences that come with each step forward. The Butterfly Effect and All the Dead Birds In Against Progress , Slavoj Žižek writes, “Therein resides the basic premise of a dialectical notion of progress: when a new, higher stage arrives, there must be a squashed bird somewhere.” He compares progress to a magic trick in The Prestige , where a magician crushes a bird in a cage, only to reveal another bird in his hand. To the audience, it seems as if the bird was transported rather than killed. But behind the scenes, the magician discards the lifeless bird into a bin filled with others just like it. Progress in our world seems to follow the same pattern—one step forward, but always at a cost. This mirrors the way time travel is portrayed in media, particularly through the Butterfly Effect. Movies and stories often depict small changes in the past leading to catastrophic consequences in the present and future—whether it’s your best friend turning evil or aliens invading Earth. Time travel narratives, whether based on single timelines or multiverse theories, consistently reinforce the idea that altering the past leads to unintended destruction. Saving one group of dead birds just means another group dies in their place. Let’s return to our hypothetical scenario. If we warn the world that geothermal energy is harmful, entire industries will collapse. Scientists, engineers, and plant workers will lose their jobs. Cities will be left without a primary energy source. Governments will have wasted billions on what turns out to be a failed project. These are our new dead birds—sacrifices we make in the belief that we are shaping a better future. But are we really? Asbestos: Could Our Solutions Become Future Problems? It seems that for progress to continue, there will always be casualties. The utilitarian approach is to minimize harm, but a more interesting question emerges: should we even consider the future when making decisions today? Our current technologies, from artificial intelligence to renewable energy, are advancing at breakneck speed. Those developing these solutions often view them through rose-tinted glasses, believing that their innovations will solve everything and lead to a utopian future. We see this in the push for AI-powered smart cities and the repeated promises of a carbon-free world—always just five years away. These developments justify themselves in the name of progress, rarely pausing to consider what happens if they go wrong. A historical example of a solution that turned into a catastrophe is asbestos. In the 20th century, asbestos was considered a miracle material. Its history stretches back to ancient times, used in pottery and insulation. It became vital for urban expansion, incorporated into cement, roofing, and infrastructure. It was durable enough for ships, aircraft, and military barracks during both world wars. Most importantly, its fire resistance made it an essential insulator in an era of increasingly complex electrical systems. For the people of the time, asbestos was the perfect solution. It was cheap, abundant, and highly effective. But we all know how the story ends. By the 1920s, asbestos-related health issues were already surfacing. By the 1960s, definitive research confirmed that asbestos exposure led to severe diseases, including lung cancer. Corporations like Johns Manville covered up the dangers for decades. Even as bans emerged in the early 2000s, some countries, like Japan, waited until as late as 2012 to fully prohibit it. Today, major nations like the United States, China, and Russia still allow limited use. In the U.S. alone, despite restrictions, asbestos-related illnesses still claim 10,000 lives annually. Did the industrialists of the early 20th century knowingly choose to sacrifice thousands of future lives for the sake of progress? Of course not. They saw asbestos as a solution to immediate problems—insulating rapidly growing cities, fortifying war machines, fueling industrialization. Their problematic solution built the foundation of the modern world. But the dead birds they crushed didn’t just disappear—they became a specter that haunts us to this day. Žižek’s metaphor misses something crucial: in Hegelian dialectics, what came before doesn’t simply vanish. It lingers, shaping what comes next. Progress is not just about dead birds—it’s about the ghosts they leave behind. Not Just Dead Birds, but the Specter of Progress So we must ask: is our current progress creating the next asbestos? Are today’s solutions merely future disasters waiting to happen? Our optimistic view of progress blinds us to its dangers. We like to believe that innovation leads to a better world, but we rarely stop to ask whether it might create even worse problems down the line. This doesn’t mean we should fall into nihilism or reject progress entirely. But we must recognize that progress is neither linear nor clean. Every solution we develop carries with it a new responsibility—a new specter that will linger in the future. Progress is not about building a better tomorrow; it is about addressing our relationship with the world in the present. We may never know how many birds we have crushed in pursuit of a better world. But one thing is certain: every bird we squash leaves behind a ghost that will haunt the next generation’s pursuit of progress.

ABSTRAK Nurani bukan hanya soal kebijaksanaan diri untuk menahan dan mempertimbangkan diri dalam menghadapi berbagai situasi, namun ia juga menjadi jembatan bagi sikap kritis kita dalam melihat berbagai persoalan. Sikap kritis yang tidak tersampaikan seolah membiarkan kejahatan merajalela dan itu bertentangan dengan nurani. Dengan sikap kritis saja tidak cukup, ia mesti tersampaikan dan menggugah hati publik untuk melihat bahwa dunia ini tidak baik-baik saja. Tantangannya adalah siapa yang mesti memulai dan apa yang harus dipersiapkan. Itulah mengapa nurani menjadi jembatan kita untuk bersikap dan berani menyampaikan sikap kritis demi kemajuan peradaban Indonesia. Bicaralah! Mudah diucapkan, tetapi sulit diwujudkan. Selain harus memantaskan diri, juga kita harus memiliki daya agar “bicara” itu dapat diterima dan membangun kesadaran publik.   Kata kunci: nurani, kritis, peradaban.   LATAR BELAKANG          Pudarnya sinyal nurani adalah alarm ancaman bagi peradaban Indonesia yang terus menguat, mulai dari level masyarakat hingga penyelenggara negara. Misalnya, dalam kasus kecelakaan pikap di Desa Aek Batu, Labusel, Sumatera Utara, dimana warga berbondong-bondong menjarah muatan telur yang dibawa pikap yang kecelakaan tersebut. Bahkan, dalam laporan yang Halimatu Sadiah (2025) pada laman radarbogor.jawapos.com , disebutkan bahwa diduga juga telepon genggam milik korban meninggal, kebetulan kernet pikap yang mengalami luka berat dan meninggal di rumah sakit, termasuk dompet dan jam tangan hilang dalam aksi penjarahan tersebut.          Tidak selesai di situ, pada level pemerintah pun demikain, seperti buruknya komunikasi pemerintah dalam mengurangi ketegangan publik. Pertama, ada dari peristiwa Wakil Menteri Ketenagakerjaan, Immanuel Ebenezer, yang merespons fenomena tagar viral #KaburAjaDulu dengan pernyataan, “Mau pergi, ya silakan saja. Kalau memang tidak ingin kembali, juga tidak masalah.” Ataupun, ungkapan Ketua Dewan Ekonomi Nasional (DEN), Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, yang mengatakan, “Kalau ada yang bilang Indonesia gelap, yang gelap kau, bukan Indonesia,” yang merupakan respons atas aksi “Indonesia Gelap” sebagai bagian dari kritik pada kebijakan pemerintahan Prabowo. Adapun respons Kepala Komunikasi Kepresidenan/PCO, Hasan Nasbi, soal teror kepala babi yang ditujukan kepada salah satu jurnalis Tempo dengan mengatakan, “dimasak saja”.          Bagi Pakar Komunikasi Politik, Gun Gun Heryanto, sebagaimana ditulis oleh Ulya (2025) pada laman Kompas.com , kondisi ini menunjukan adanya ketidakcakapan pihak Istana Kepresidenan dalam mengelola komunikasi publik dan seharunya mereka memerhatikan empat hal, yakni mutual understanding , goodwill , damage control , dan policy orientation . Hal ini juga dikritisi oleh Widodo (2025), dalam perspektif teori komunikasi krisis, yang menyebutkan bahwa pemerintah seharusnya mengadopsi strategi yang dapat meredam kepanikan publik dan membangun kembali kepercayaan, bukan justru memperlihatkan pola komunikasi yang elitis, tidak empatik, dan defensif terhadap kritik publik—justru sering memprovokasi reaksi lebih luas, yang mana hal itu diperlukan saat ini.          Meskipun hanya menampilkan sebagian kecil dari persoalan memudarnya nurani, tapi itu sudah cukup membuat kita sadar adanya rasa yang hilang dalam hati nurani sebagian orang Indonesia. Barangkali, kita perlu sedikit mengkritisi persoalan ini, sebab lenyapnya nurani dalam kemanusiaan akan menempatkan potensi kejahatan semakin liar dan mendorong kebaikan untuk mati secara perlahan. Harapannya, perbincangan soal nurani hari ini menjadi gerbang untuk memulihkan peradaban bangsa.          PEMBAHASAN Nurani dan Pahatan Kemegahan          Nurani adalah refleksi cahaya batin diri tentang sesuatu yang menjadikan kita sebagai “manusia”, bukan sekadar hewan yang mengandalkan nalurinya. Alih-alih manusia melihat dunia secara destruktif, manusia dapat menempatkan nurani untuk menciptakan dunia yang lebih baik. Nurani sendiri adalah cahaya, cakrawala untuk menyeimbangi ruang hasrat dan pikiran. Levinas (1991) menyebut bahwa penerangan itu mampu menyingkirkan perlawanannya atas eksistensi, karena cahaya membuka cakrawala dan mengosongkan ruang—mengeluarkan keberadaan dari ketiadaan. Ketiadaan rasa dalam jiwa manusia, tempat nurani bersemayam sepanjang hayatnya, yang mudah sekali terabaikan.          Sayangnya, nurani begitu rapuh. Jarang sekali orang membuat pilar atas nama nurani, dibandingkan res cogitans (jiwa yang berpikir)   dan hasrat, ia cenderung ornamen indah dalam kemegahan jiwa manusia yang tidak jarang berdebu karena usang dan tidak terawat. Dalam beberapa hal, ia bahkan ditengarai sebagai penghambat bagi prinsip kebebasan atau sekadar pelepasan hasrat-hasrat hormonal. Padahal, ia sendiri adalah satu perwujudan—bila bukan kasih tuhan—takdir evolusi yang menakdirkan manusia untuk menjadi makhluk yang melampaui “baik dan jahat”, evaluator yang membuatnya nampak tidak seperti makhluk hidup lainnya di dunia.          Ketika nurani terabaikan, dan tidak lagi menjadi keindahan bagi lorong-lorong kehidupan, jiwa dan raga, maka manusia sebagai bangunan hanya menjadi reruntuhan tidak bertuan, kosong, dan hampa. Bencana humanitas itu akan segera meruntuhkan peradaban, mengembalikan manusia ke periode barbarik yang kurang memadai dalam melihat humanitas. Hal yang mengerikan adalah pembangkangan nurani beramai-ramai, dipertahankan dalam kolektivitas publik, dan dibenarkan atas nama egoisme semata, yang menjadi tanda besar jatuhnya nilai peradaban bangsa. Sama seperti kita memberikan motivasi pada si miskin untuk terus bekerja hingga kaya oleh sang motivator yang mewarisi kekayaan dari papi dan maminya, memulai start  “perjuangannya” di angka 90 dari 100.          Masalah nurani ada pada diri setiap manusia, namun kurang mendapatkan penghormatan yang layak. Dengan sejenak berpikir, mencerap pemikiran itu pada pertimbangan nurani yang matang, mempermasalahkan setiap keputusan dalam pikiran, sejenak kritis demi kemaslahatan, mungkin itu jauh lebih baik daripada mempertaruhkan masa depan secara cuma-cuma. Kita menyadari, bahwa nurani cenderung tertekan dalam relung hati yang dalam. Hanya keberanian dan kepekaan kita yang akhirnya menyelamatkan diri dan orang-orang yang dicintai dari kebodohan dan perbudakkan pikiran, hingga pendorong bagi terwujudnya dunia yang lebih baik. Maka dari itu, perdebatan atas nurani mestilah tampil di permukaan, dan bukan hanya tenggelam dalam relung hati yang gelap. Kritik ini diajukan dengan alasan bahwa kurangnya perdebatan terbuka dapat merugikan perkembangannya (Millar 1989). Konyolnya, kita membiarkan pembangkangan terhadap nurani dan itu sama dengan membiarkan kejahatan berkelana, membiarkan ketidakpantasan berjalan mengangkangi kesucian.          Aku Ingin Meraih Agape          Kita berharap, nurani menjembatani kita untuk menyelamatkan banyak manusia, sejauh yang bisa kita lakukan hingga di tahap menuju agape , yang menurut Bagus (1996) yakni cinta yang tidak mementingkan diri sendiri. Kita mestilah melihat diri kita sebagai manusia paripurna, yang menahan hasrat egoisnya, untuk menyelesaikan tanggung jawabnya sebagai manusia dalam rangka mencapai kesejahteraan bersama dan pergi menuju Taman Eden dengan tenang. Namun, bagaimana nurani ini tersampaikan ke hati setiap orang, sedangkan tidak semua orang membukakan ruang bagi cahaya di celah jiwa-jiwanya.          Maka, bicaralah! Apalagi yang harus dilakukan. Kita cenderung untuk menyembunyikan itu semua, karena kekhawatiran pada dampak dari “perbedaan”, telah membuat nyali kita ciut lebih awal. Terlebih, ketika kita kurang siap dalam menghadapi tantangan itu, mentalitas telah lebih dulu meredupkan semangat partisipasi kita. Masih ingat dengan momen di mana Gubernur Jawa Barat, Dedi Mulyadi, berdebat dengan seorang anak bernama Aura Cinta, yang diketahui baru lulus dari Sekolah Menengah Atas (SMA), tentang wisuda dan acara perpisahan. Peristiwa ini menyita perhatian sebagian orang, bukan tentang substansi perdebatan mengenai ekonomi, melainkan tentang esensi dari interaksi, kritis, dan keterbukaan. Mungkin, kita akan menyadari bahwa apa yang diungkapkan oleh Aura Cinta begitu lemah, goyah, dan kurang matang. Namun, keberanian dia mengungkapkan itu di depan media dan otoritas yang memonopoli opini, layak mendapatkan apresiasi di tengah negara demokrasi cacat ( flawed democracy ).          Belajar dari kasus Aura Cinta dan Dedi Mulyadi, kritis memang perlu mendapatkan persiapan. Terkadang, hasrat kita tidak memberikan waktu sejenak untuk meluangkan pikiran, memutuskan, dan mewujudkan. Maka, nurani menjadi jembatan atas hasrat dan pikiran kita yang meronta-ronta. Kemudian, guna memastikan hal itu terwujud menjadi sebuah wacana, ruang-ruang demokrasi mestilah menjamin orang-orang seperti Aura Cinta. Inilah bagaimana ruang demokrasi dibentuk, melalui kritisisme yang tersalurkan dengan damai kepada publik, yang sebelumnya telah melewati fase “evaluasi nurani”.          Kita mesti menyadari, bahwa semua orang bisa berbicara. Namun, di satu sisi, kita mesti membedakan antara kebebasan bicara publik dan otoritas publik. Auerbach, sebagaimana James (2024) kutip, menilai jika demokrasi dapat bertahan apabila terdapat persetujuan pihak yang kalah, individu yang menundukkan identitas mereka kepada identitas orang lain dan memerintah melalui prinsip yang melampaui identitas biner, sebab demokrasi sejati melibatkan pemeriksaan prasyarat semua orang. Namun, pembicaraan kita bukan soal mana yang memiliki otoritas lebih untuk berkata-kata, karena itu telah jelas memperlihatkan bahwa dalam hal tertentu orang berbicara dengan kapasitasnya, dan itu sangatlah diperlukan untuk merawat pikiran. Tetapi, hal yang perlu dievaluasi adalah ruang untuk memungkinkan semua itu mewujud dan menjamin suara-suara dari nurani yang terabaikan. Barangkali, ada secercah cahaya yang tersembunyi dan perlu diungkapkan kepada publik. Maka jelaslah bila ruang kritis perlu disampaikan untuk menyalurkan pesan dari hati nurani terdalam tanpa syarat yang menjauhkan kita dari hak-hak demokratis yang dijanjikan.          Tetapi, satu catatan penting yang perlu diperhatikan adalah agar sikap kritis kita bernilai dan layak diterima orang, maka kualitas substansial dalam pesan-pesan yang hendak disampaikan haruslah memadai. Nurani berperan dalam menjaga agar kualitas kritis kita memadai, sehingga tidak mempermalukan diri kita sendiri ketika berhadapan dengan publik atau sekadar menyampaikan rasa egoisme ketika dengan dalih idealisme. Berpikir kritis adalah proses berpikir yang didasarkan pada persiapan pribadi, seperti: pendidikan, pelatihan, pengalaman, perolehan alat dan keterampilan berpikir dalam penggunaannya (McVey 1995). Memantaskan diri adalah bagian dari peran nurani, sehingga sikap kritis kita cukup berwibawa di mata publik. Semuanya saling bertautan dan tidak dapat diabaikan baru satu variabelnya.          Dalam epos Mahabharata, Krishna sebagai perwujudan dari Yang Kuasa (avatar), tidak serta merta memandang dunia dan masalahnya sebagaimana manusia pandang pada umumnya. Krishna tidak mengikuti apa yang dikatakan orang tentang darma, dia dapat mendefinisikannya dengan caranya sendiri, dan dapat membenarkan definisinya dan apa pun itu, jika itu membawa seseorang ke tujuan yang diinginkan maka itu baik, sedangkan jika tidak maka itu buruk (Regmi 2018). Apa yang menjadi menarik di sini adalah peluang kita dalam mendalami pesan-pesan ilahiah, dalam hal ini Krishna sebagai avatar dari Yang Kuasa. Hanya nurani yang mampu menangkap pesan-pesan itu, sehingga Pandawa berhasil mengatasi batasannya untuk mencapai takdir yang telah dinubuatkan, yakni mengalahkan Kurawa dalam perang. Tuhan memberikan kita ruang untuk mengevaluasi jalan yang ditempuhnya, lalu bagaimana kita bisa mewujudkan langkah itu.          Kita tahu, tidak ada peradilan di muka bumi ini yang dapat menghukum manusia atas nuraninya, yang ada adalah perwujudan mens rea- nya (niat jahat). Sebab, siapa yang bisa menilai hati manusia? Ialah manusia yang mampu melihat ke kedalaman hati yang gelap dan tersembunyi, dan itu mustahil. Tetapi, perwujudannya masih bisa kita hakimi, tentunya oleh otoritas yang dimandati. Namun, tetap saja keadilan perlu diberikan dengan bijak dan pertimbangan itu ada pada hati nurani, lagi.          Dengan begitu, kita akan menyadari bahwa semua persoalan ini bermuara pada satu hal, yaitu manusia itu sendiri. Ketika kita berharap akan sosok pahlawan kritis yang muncul, seperti para influencer  dengan narasi-narasi bombastis dan menghimpun para pengikut yang banyak, seharusnya kitalah yang meyakinkan diri bahwa orang itu adalah diri kita. Kadang, kita pun menuntut mereka menjadi mesianik demi diri kita dan menuntut nuraninya untuk turut berbicara. Kepahlawanan sering kali dipandang sebagai puncak perilaku manusia; menyaksikan tindakan heroik sungguh menarik—secara harfiah menarik perhatian kita (Franco, Blau and Zimbardo 2011). Lalu, kemanakah kita? Apakah nurani kita mati karena telah menuntut begitu banyak kepada orang yang tidak kita kenal dan mengandalkannya demi kesejahteraan kita sendiri? Jadi, mengasah nurani manusia adalah dengan melibatkan diri pada permasalahan, menyuarakannya dalam rangka mengevaluasi persoalan, sehingga menghasilkan kebijaksanaan dalam mengatasinya. Bahkan, bila memang kita harus menjadi martir hanya demi menyampaikan kebenaran itu, biarkan langit yang menjadi saksi, itulah bagaimana Yesus dan Muhammad lakukan. Memang, hal ini akan selalu menjadi tantangan yang tidak berkesudahan. Manusia adalah lautan misteri yang membingungkan. Hanya mengandalkan bacaan buku? Pendidikan formal di berbagai institusi pendidikan terkemuka? Diskusi sana-sini? Hanyalah bagian kecil dalam membangun sikap kritis, tetapi nurani adalah hal yang lain.          Namun, penulis merasa ada satu cara untuk mengasah nurani kita, yaitu merasakan. Banyak orang kurang menghargai rasa karena sesederhana tidak merasakannya. Ketika terdapat orang yang tersiksa karena pedasnya, kita hanya bisa mengungkapkan, “makanya jangan makan-makanan yang pedas,” tanpa kita menyadari bahwa ia sedang kepedasan, atau kita tidak pernah merasakan pedas sama sekali. Kerja emosi mengacu pada upaya—tindakan mencoba—dan bukan pada hasilnya, yang mungkin berhasil atau mungkin tidak (Hochschild 1979). Nurani justru membuat kita mengevaluasi lebih awal masalah, yakni “ia kepedasan”. Begitu nurani dipertimbangkan, tentunya akan ada keputusan bijak yang dihasilkan, kendati harus berjibaku dengan perlawanan.          Menukil sedikit dari Adorno tentang “manusia tercerahkan”. Ada kalanya kita mengembalikkan persoalan kritisisme kepada nurani kita. Apakah kemudian kita layak menjadi kritis dan kemudian diam menyaksikan pembangkangan terhadap nurani dijejalkan dan dipampang begitu saja. Atau, kita harus membara dalam menyampaikan sikap kritis kita demi apa yang diperjuangkan? Sebab, pilihan kedua ini berimplikasi pada peran kita sebagai insan cita yang bernurani, untuk tidak membiarkan pembangkangan nurani berlanjut. Pada tahap inilah, peradaban Indonesia dapat dibentuk. KESIMPULAN          Pada akhirnya, kita tidak bisa mengharapkan pesan dari hati nurani ini dapat dipatenkan dalam dokumen-dokumen dan berkas-berkas sakral, seperti kitab hingga konstitusi. Sedangkan, persoalan ini ada pada diri manusia. Kita masih bisa untuk menggugat, bagaimana menciptakan manusia yang dipenuhi dengan nurani yang mumpuni? Namun, kapan kita menyadari bahwa diri ini akan menjadi bagian dari perusak peradaban yang kehilangan nuraninya. Memang memuakkan, tapi cara kita mengasah nurani, di antaranya adalah dengan menyuarakan dan merasakan nurani itu sendiri. Maka, kita akan melihat kesadaran bertumbuh, sebagai modal dalam membangun peradaban.

Somewhere in Columbus, Indiana, there were two people standing in front of a building, talking quietly. Their figures were reflected through an all-glass building, the trees surrounding the landscape seemed to diffuse the relentless sun so the effect of the scene was to evoke this calm attentiveness, something quiet but never passive. In the midst of the scene, the man asked,“ Do you love this building intellectually because all of the facts? ” There was a sudden, contemplative pause that followed before the woman replied,“ No, I am also moved by it. ” “ Yes, tell me about that. What moves you? ” She took a deep breath and there was a recognition almost immediately that the film went mute then. Just when we thought we were entering something profound on why such space and building moves her so deeply, the sound was silenced so we can only see through the Motions. We can see someone in her deepest being enamored by space – her hands gestured to some kind of shape, her eyes went soft and a little bit misty, dazed perhaps by her own revelation on how that building stirs something deep inside her. It is as if this film is saying that words can be subdued in this kind of stillness. We are allowed here to feel abundance in silence. Kogonada shows precisely this in Columbus  (2017), there is a suggestion that our interiority is probed not through language but through the senses – tender hand gestures, eyes that are drenched in fondness, a sigh of relief at the end, a longing perhaps of some kind of deliverance. Gaston Bachelard was a highly revered philosopher during his time in the French academy. His academic origins were those of epistemology and the philosophy of science, in which he had spent a large part of his career on the examination of science and the philosophy of knowledge. It was no surprise then, when the Sorbonne offered him the inaugural chair of history and philosophy of science in 1940. There was a shift, however, which appears almost radical which concerns the subjects of his inquiries when he switched from his work on science and the pursuit of objectivism and rationalism – stripped of all possible remnants of the irrational and the unconscious – to turn to the study of poetics and the imagination instead. Bachelard was struck by how little imagination, and the poetic takes place in the study of science itself — such neglect disturbs Him. He re-evaluated his methods and found that psychoanalysis is no longer appropriate to his purpose and delves instead into what he termed as the phenomenology of imagination, or he commonly referred as poetic image – which he wrote extensively through his work The Poetics of Space  where he found his own distinctive philosophical voice. Poetic image, to Bachelard, is not only about picture, or space, or metaphor. It goes deeper, it is the very stuff of consciousness, which he calls as “phenomenology of the soul”. We may encounter moments similar to that scene in Columbus : feelings and emotions experienced in vignettes where we stand in front of a work of architecture, a solitary house in a winter night, a painting, or when we watch those films that do not have a narrative, do not seem to be about anything other than scenes or landscapes of one image to another. Experiences that carry deep emotional charge familiar to those who are so inward with themselves. Poetic image, argues Bachelard, arises from a mind that is foreign to its own process of creation, eluding its own origin, is not concerned with causality. He as far as calls a “doctrine” that is timidly causal like psychology or psychoanalysis would shift the emphasis to the various pathological complexes that give rise to the poetic image itself, rather than focusing on it as a direct experience of the human consciousness. Here is the place where Bachelard resides, the very focal point of his exploration of poetic image or the poetics of space. He explores space by transcending its geometrical dimension, envisioning it as more than a purely theoretical idea. At a time when there is so much that has been said about the gap between the poetic and the rational, Bachelard is probing its axis through poetic image – something that is so distinctive, rare, and special. This tension is not new though, imagination has always been perceived as a kind of obstacle in scientific thinking and understanding. They hang from a different axis that has been said to be opposed to one another rather than complimentary. The imaginative and the poetic traffic in the realms of the subjective, meanwhile the rational and the scientific traffic in the realms of the objective. Such disinterest attitude disturbs Bachelard. It does me too – the poetic is not peripheral. He powerfully phrase in the introduction to this book:“A philosopher who has evolved his entire thinking from the fundamental themes of the philosophy of science, and followed the main line of the active, growing rationalism of contemporary science as closely as he could, must forget his learning and break with all his habits of philosophical research, if he wants to study the problems posed by the poetic imagination.” (Bachelard xv) He seems to be saying that the poetic image doesn’t always have to be potent or valid through referents of psychic investigation. It does not need to be credible through an explanation of the past, infantile experiences, or psychological (traumatic) events – in order to take root inside of us. Rather, it’s something warm and familiar that you feel, nostalgic in its universality, more like a hum or a pang that reverberates in your chest when you encounter something that doesn’t have a name. Bachelard is special in this way, exploring the poetics – perhaps it is fitting to call it poetics of epiphany – through spaces and images. It is concerned with image as it emerges in its fullness before we can identify it with any structural, psychological, or rational considerations. It is not to pit science against the poetic, he only wants us to reside here for a while, to the richness of our experience and reality that so easily pass us by. Phenomenology has a fitness to explain this limit of understanding, to explain moments and realities where our experiences move beyond the grasp of rational thought, that rare glimpses of 'otherness' when we are in the middle of such experiences. It is something distant from articulation and closer, I think, to that hum we feel in our chest. When phenomenologists investigate the poetic image, it has little to do with analysis or mind-bending paradox, and has more to do with the experience itself, with the phenomenon of things as they emerge. For rationalists, this might sound like a crisis. One has to admit that these are not easy concepts: it is very vaporous, heady, and hinges on the breaking point of language itself. And here is exactly where poetry comes forth. At the threshold of the limit of our understanding, poetry is a language that can approach this mystery – the one language that we can borrow. A language that does not rigidly attempt to express something absolutely to show its depth, but one that is grounded in experience and imagination, that does not bludgeon the mysterious aspect of our existence, that functions as a living corpus and not one that is stagnant and fossilized. To register an experience as it is, to offer witness. Poetic language is not merely a linguistic decoration, as Eugene Peterson once wrote,“Poets tell us what our eyes, blurred with too much gawking, and our ears, dulled with too much chatter, miss around and within us. Poets use words to drag us into the depth of reality itself. Poetry grabs us by the jugular. Far from being cosmetic language, it is intestinal.” (Peterson 11) There are in total twenty-five paintings of haystacks that Monet painted at different times of day. It was arguably one of his most extensive works series. He wanted to capture different ways the light shines through the haystack at different times of day. There are ones that capture the light on the late summer evening, one just before dawn, or one bathed in the misty light of a winter day. I was struck by such sight, of that black and white haystack painting with deeply visible contrasting brush strokes of the shadows. There was something so piercingly abundant in what I witnessed, something the was much closer to wonder than clarity, that at the time I could only recall a poem that Robert Bly wrote: “When Monet glimpsed the haystack shining in fall dawn, knowing that despair and reason live in the same house, he cried out: ‘I have loved God!’" And he had

Foundations of Perception: Human Metaphysics and the Scientific Endeavor Human beings comprehend the world through the interplay of two distinct yet interdependent registers: the immediacy of embodied experience and the abstraction of the scientific method. On the one hand, our sensory apparatus constrains and contours our raw encounter with reality. Humans perceive only a narrow band of the electromagnetic spectrum, hear sounds within a limited frequency range, and navigate space according to an inherited, species-specific set of perceptive cues. These perceptual bounds are overlaid with deeper narratives—cultural, psychological, even mythical—that pre-shape our affective responses. Jakarta’s notorious traffic, for instance, provokes more than mere impatience: it triggers the internalized myth that velocity equals value, casting even a brief delay as damage to one’s worth. On the other hand, the scientific method extends and refines our natural capacities. Through systematic hypothesis formation, controlled experimentation, rigorous peer review, and the demand for statistical significance, science has delivered profound breakthroughs: Louis Pasteur’s germ theory, which transformed public health; the mRNA vaccines that stemmed a global pandemic; and LIGO’s detection of gravitational waves, confirming ripples in spacetime first predicted by Einstein. These achievements demonstrate science’s unique power to convert anecdotal observation into replicable, consensual knowledge. Yet even the most exacting protocols rest upon human-devised concepts—measurements are interpreted through mathematical models, and “replicability” itself depends on standardized instrumentation and shared methodological assumptions. Thus emerges a pivotal question: do these methodological triumphs grant us direct access to the noumenal “thing-in-itself,” or do they simply elaborate, with ever-greater precision, the manifold phenomena as refracted through the human cognitive apparatus? When Science Falls Short: Consciousness and Empirical Limits Immanuel Kant’s critical philosophy exposes a fundamental firewall: phenomena are always mediated by categories of space, time, and causality, while the noumenon—things-in-themselves—remains forever inaccessible (Kant 167). Confronting this sensorium of limitation, the Hard Problem of consciousness emerges: subjective experience, or qualia, refuses full capture by objective, third-person descriptions. Attempts to reduce the vivid redness of a sunset, the pang of loss, or the warmth of communion to neural firings reveal a conceptual chasm that our truth-factory of science cannot bridge. Quantum mechanics compounds this epistemic gap. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle shows that the very act of measurement transforms the observed system; electrons exist in superposed probabilities until an observation forces a single outcome. In this light, measurement ceases to be a neutral window on reality and becomes an active participant in the phenomenon. Slavoj Žižek’s provocation—“we have caught God with his pants down”—serves as a biting metaphor for the moment science exposes its own limitations, unveiling that reality resists the brute application of empirical probes (Žižek). This metaphor invites two complementary readings: one, that the universe itself is ontologically incomplete, thus paradoxically contradicting the very function of ontology—if existence harbors fundamental gaps, then metaphysical inquiry finds not certainty but confusion; and two, the more epistemological interpretation we have discussed thus far, where the act of observation reveals the structural limitation of human attempts to capture The Real. In either case, what emerges is not the mastery of reality, but the exposure of its radical inadequacy. Moreover, the replicability cornerstone of the scientific method encounters a profound challenge when one considers consciousness beyond the human subject. Experiments designed by human investigators presuppose human modes of perception and cognition. If a non-human intelligence—be it cetacean, avian, or artificial—were to pursue identical protocols, would it synthesize the same laws? While simpler forms of cognition demonstrate consistent behavioral responses under controlled stimuli, the assumption that scientific laws universally apply to all conscious beings remains conjectural. This invites the reasonable hypothesis of forms of higher-order consciousness—or higher intelligences—whose experiential matrices might yield novel phenomena beyond our current epistemic reach. Thus, empirical tools, however sophisticated, continuously reshape rather than exhaust the mysteries they probe. Every refined instrument and every repeatable experiment bolster our confidence in patterns of phenomena but never delivers the unmediated noumenal core of reality. Science, in its noble quest, maps an ever-expanding territory of appearances, yet The Real—the “thing-in-itself”—remains shrouded behind the inescapable firewall of human cognition. A More Abstract Layer of Reality: Language, Mathematics, and Power-Knowledge Language is the operating system of thought: it defines the commands we can issue, the loops we can write, and the exceptions we even notice. Think of a research paper I read last month—simply swapping “risk factor” for “predictor” shifted the entire framing of the study, recasting causal claims into probabilistic hypotheses. A single semantic tweak can reroute whole debates, like a refactored function that unexpectedly breaks smaller logic and arithmetic. Mathematics operates as a domain-specific language for nature: its symbols and axioms aren’t cosmic constants but human-devised notations that both unlock patterns and impose limits. When climate models compress complex fluid dynamics into matrix algebra, they reveal large-scale trends—but they also erase the eddies and microclimates that live outside their grid. In that sense, equations are not transparent windows but carefully coded scripts that shape what gets simulated and what remains invisible (Wittgenstein 76). Beyond these symbolic lenses, Michel Foucault’s power-knowledge nexus reminds us that “objective” science often serves institutional agendas (Foucault 27). I’ve sat in project meetings where “statistical significance” became the trump card—even when the human costs told another story. Pharmaceutical trials, algorithmic surveillance, and standardized testing all wield empirical rigor as a means of control: they validate certain outcomes, elevate specific voices, and suppress inconvenient anomalies. In sum, scientific methodologies—through their linguistic labels, mathematical formalisms, and institutional protocols—function as a mythic apparatus. They illuminate parts of reality even as they blind us to everything beyond their predefined scopes. Understanding this duality is the first step toward an epistemic humility that treats our most cherished data not as final truths but as provisional maps, always subject to revision. Towards Epistemic Humility: Mythopoeian Epistemology and Metaphysics Given these limitations, an attitude of epistemic humility becomes imperative. Etymologically, mythos  denotes ‘story’ or ‘word’; genealogically, myths have guided communal values from pre-literate tribes to modern nation-states. Far from archaic relics, myths function as interpretive systems—cognitive frameworks that order experience, authorize inquiry, and establish criteria for truth claims. Just as scientific paradigms channel investigations through protocols of measurement and peer validation, mythic paradigms shape which questions appear meaningful, which anomalies warrant investigation, and which voices count as authoritative. To characterize science itself as mythic is not to diminish its breakthroughs but to reveal its own narrative scaffolding: the myth of objective neutrality, the belief in progress as an inexorable march, and the dogma of scientism, which insists that only quantifiable phenomena deserve serious consideration. Recognizing science as one among many interpretive traditions invites a broader pluralism: it acknowledges that myth-making and empirical inquiry share a common logic of model-building, hypothesis-testing, and communal validation. This realization paves the way for a mythopoeian epistemology that treats myths not as obstacles to knowledge but as tools to be examined, revised, or replaced according to evolving cultural needs and ethical commitments. A mythopoeian epistemology offers a constructive response by insisting on three interrelated procedures: Expose : Employ psychoanalytic critique to uncover unconscious narratives that confer unquestioned authority upon certain beliefs, revealing the surplus enjoyment that sustains them. Excavate : Utilize genealogical analysis to trace how myths have served particular power structures, thereby recognizing their historical contingency. Enact : Engage dialectics and deconstruction to re-mythologize interpretive frameworks, generating provisional narratives that embrace ambiguity and foster creative renewal. Such a praxis transforms myth from an enemy of reason into a tool of epistemic reflection. For instance, rather than reflexively unlocking your phone to scroll through an endless feed of notifications the moment you wake, you might instead brew a simple cup of coffee and step onto your balcony or into your garden. Spend those first five minutes attending to the weight of the mug in your hand, the steam rising against your skin, the sound of birdsong or distant traffic—thereby enacting an alternative narrative of sensory presence in place of algorithmic consumption. “In the gap between notions and things, myths arise to contour the boundaries of inquiry.” This analysis calls for active participation in narrative formation: every asserted “fact” invites scrutiny of the myth that undergirds it. Only through such continuous critique and creative recomposition can understanding advance toward, though never fully attain, the noumenal core.

The river remembers every stone but the ocean forgets every drop. — Anonymous  There used to be a river here.  It did not roar nor rage—only wept softly.  We mistook its silence for passivity.  Now it is paved,  as though stillness meant understanding.  Concrete does not echo like water does.  Because concrete answers—  and water questions.  The Fortress of One Will  In the labyrinth of leadership, a figure rises from the masses—each word a promise, a beacon of hope in the dark corners of despair. This figure, with their charisma, their unwavering conviction, may speak the language of unity, of justice, of revolution. But what is the price of such unity? Is it the echo of the collective will or the weight of a single hand gripping the helm?  They yearn for strength, for a return to power, and in their search for salvation, they put their faith in a singular figure—a leader who, like a fortress, stands tall against the winds of adversity. But what happens when the walls of the fortress begin to close in? In the name of the people, decisions are made, yet their voices fade into whispers beneath the weight of the leader’s will.  As Rousseau cautions in The Social Contract, when the line between a leader’s will and the people's will begins to blur—the collective becomes a tool for maintaining the leader’s power, rather than a means for actualizing justice. They seek strength and unity, but at what cost? If the walls of the fortress are built upon fear, does it not become as fragile as the fear itself? The people, once united in their hope for salvation, may soon find themselves trapped in a vision of the future crafted not by the collective will, but by the hand of a singular leader.  So we turn to ourselves—as seekers of strength, as survivors of chaos. We try to become leaders, of others or of ourselves. But in this pursuit, something begins to shift. Unity becomes currency. Conviction becomes performance.  And when that guiding voice goes silent, what remains?  Progress as Performance  We say the river flows best when it bends—when it adapts to stone and soil alike—when it forgets where it began, and chases only the sea. Some of us forsake the straight path for one more winding, one that feeds more mouths, lights more homes. But if every compromise is a stone skipped across the surface of truth, how long before the waters beneath grow still and shallow? We begin to shape our choices not by ideals, but by outcomes—visible, measurable, applauded. But beneath the polished surface, something darker stirs.  Horkheimer and Adorno saw it clearly, in a world governed by instrumental reason, logic ceases to liberate and begins to dominate. When thought becomes calculation, and people become numbers in a policy brief, we risk replacing morality with mere management.  Yes, perhaps it is noble—to seek the good of the many. But if our compass points only to results, who measures the cost of the journey?  How do we count what cannot be counted? What if the truest parts of human life—dignity, longing, fear—resist conversion into data?  In a world obsessed with clarity, the uncertainty is cast aside.  Yet perhaps the uncertain is all we ever truly have.  In chasing the most good, can we lose the meaning of good itself?  And so, we perform.  The Theatre of Identity  We say, “I am human.”  We wear our masks so long they begin to fit like skin.  Sartre called this bad faith—when we forget that we are not statues, but beings of choice. We reduce ourselves to roles, not because we must, but because freedom terrifies us. The weight of it is unbearable.  Beauvoir saw it too—that identity, once externalized, becomes performance. We do not just live—we act. We perform certainty. We mimic the past. We echo the expectation.  But in pretending to be what we think the world needs, do we not forget who we are? The Violence of Certainty  Camus might whisper, beware the one who brings too many answers. In a world where absurdity is our native condition, certainty becomes a kind of violence.  We crave meaning, even where none exists. So we create gods, nations, leaders. We build myths that promise full knowledge. But what if the world cannot be fully known? What if meaning is not discovered, but forged—and thus always flawed?  Myths become policy. Doctrine replaces dialogue.  And stone, as always, cannot bend with the river.  Perhaps it is nobler to live without appeal. To resist the seduction of certainty.  To lead—not as savior, but as companion in the darkness.  We often forget that,  Steel is forged in fire.  So too are we—tempered by conflict, shaped by memory, scarred by discipline.  Our histories speak of victories and losses, of enemies faced and fears subdued. We learn action. We learn command. We mistake repetition for truth.  The Violence of Certainty  Nietzsche warned us—strength, once tasted, demands repetition. The will to power seeks not only to protect, but to shape. When the hand that once gripped the sword begins to write law, we must ask: does it still defend, or now dominate?  Power often masquerades as comprehension.  The louder the voice, the more it convinces us it knows.  But confidence is not wisdom. It is often only the echo of desire.  Machiavelli might smirk and say, it is better to be feared than loved, if fear sustains order. In this vision, justice is not an ethic—it is a tactic.  We build visions of modern strength, tanks, flags, speeches.  We applaud order, we cheer for salvation.  But do we weigh what is lost in that silence?  Can a nation be loved into strength, or must it be ordered into silence?  We walk paths stitched from many threads—memory, myth, survival.  We speak of unity, of sovereignty, of vision. But do we hear our own voice in that echo?  Our philosophy is not carved in marble.  It is shaped by tides, patched by necessity, carried forward by longing. We say we lead—but perhaps we only search.  And maybe that’s enough.  Maybe the tension of all leadership, including self-leadership, is not merely to direct—but to remain human while doing so. Maybe sovereignty, in the end, cannot live in one voice alone.  Maybe it flows—like water, always questioning.  And if we listen, really listen, perhaps we’ll hear it again,  The soil remembering.  The river is returning.  The silence—not as an answer, but as an invitation. To what extent can we understand the world at all?  We build systems, names, categories—history, nation, leader, people—not to reveal reality, but to survive its overwhelming blur. Human reason reaches out like a lantern in fog, casting shadows more than clarity. We do not see the world as it is; we see it as we are able. And what we cannot name, we pave over.  Every truth is filtered through perception. Every law is a simplification. Every ideal, a compromise with the unknowable. The hunger to know , to grasp the totality of being—it drives civilizations. And yet, like Icarus, each ascent toward the sun of absolute knowledge risks collapse.  Perhaps the river knew this. That flow was wiser than form.  There are things in this world that refuse understanding. The soil remembers them. The silence between words. The tear that falls without a cause. These are truths, too—resisting capture, eluding logic.  To lead, then, is not to conquer uncertainty, but to accompany it. To govern, not by illusion of total knowledge, but by reverence for the partial, the broken, the in-process.  For if all systems are simplifications, then all certainty is a kind of violence. And maybe the most just leader is the one who dares to say, “I do not fully know.”