What is the meaning crisis?

Definition

The “meaning crisis” is the term increasingly used by philosophers, cognitive scientists and cultural commentators to describe a widespread, inter-related set of problems: a felt loss of purpose, belonging and intelligibility in modern life, often expressed as loneliness, nihilism, political extremism or addiction. It is not a single pathology but an overarching name for the way many people report being “disenchanted” in a highly technological yet spiritually thin culture [1] [2].

Historical background

Disenchantment: Since the Scientific Revolution, the West has systematically replaced mythic and religious world-views with mechanistic, secular explanations. While this brought enormous material benefits, it also eroded shared symbolic frameworks that once grounded identity and morality [1].
Decline of communal institutions: Churches, unions and other thick communities have weakened, leaving individuals to construct meaning alone (“the unbundling of life” [1]).
Information overflow: The internet delivers more data than any brain evolved to handle, yet offers little guidance on what to care about. This heightens confusion between what is merely “attention-grabbing” and what is valuable [2].

Symptoms most often cited

Rising rates of anxiety, depression and suicide despite material abundance [2].
Political polarisation and conspiracy thinking, interpreted as desperate attempts to re-weave coherent narratives [1].
Growth of ersatz religions—e.g., wellness cults, fandom, crypto-utopianism—suggesting an unmet spiritual hunger [1] [3].

Drivers and mechanisms

Autopoietic loop: Modern minds are caught in a feedback cycle—algorithms optimise for engagement, which steers us toward reactive emotions, which in turn further trains the algorithms [1]. Relevance collapse: We have no culturally shared method for determining which of the infinite available signals actually matter for living a good life [2]. Loss of meta-narratives: Post-modern critiques dismantled grand stories but offered no widely adopted replacement. The resulting vacuum intensifies a search for certainty, sometimes found in fundamentalism [2].

Proposed approaches to resolution

Re-enchantment: Barsoom argues for “re-enchanting” the world—recovering practices that restore a sense of sacredness without abandoning scientific rigor, for example through ritual, deep ecology or aesthetic immersion [1]. Ecology of practices: Cognitive scientist John Vervaeke suggests building a plural set of wisdom practices (meditation, dialogic circles, contemplation of nature) to cultivate insight and community, rather than hoping for one new grand religion [2]. Technological stewardship: Some technologists see room for design ethics—rewiring platforms to serve meaning rather than merely capturing attention [1] [3].

Debate and conflicting views

Not all scholars agree a distinct “meaning crisis” exists. Sociologists like Steven Pinker emphasise declining violence and rising well-being indicators, framing angst as media amplification rather than a civilisational rupture [4]. By contrast, Vervaeke and Barsoom hold that mental-health statistics and ideological fragmentation do signal a real systemic breakdown [1] [2]. The dispute turns on which metrics—material or existential—one treats as decisive.

Public discourse

The phrase has moved from academic podcasts into mainstream journalism, Silicon Valley think-pieces and political commentary. It is invoked by:

“Loneliness epidemic” reports in public-health agencies.
Tech founders funding “spiritual startups” or psychedelic research as possible antidotes.
Online intellectual communities (e.g., Game B, metamodern circles) proposing new social operating systems.

Consequently, the meaning crisis serves as a shared reference point across otherwise opposed groups—religious revivalists, rationalists, environmentalists—who all diagnose a common existential deficit while disagreeing on cures.

Key takeaway

The meaning crisis names a cultural predicament in which unprecedented informational power meets an erosion of shared frameworks for purpose. Whether one reads the data optimistically or pessimistically, the debate itself indicates a growing recognition that technological progress alone does not guarantee existential satisfaction [1] [2].

Sources

Barsoom. “The Reenchantment of the World.” Barsoom Substack, 2023. https://barsoom.substack.com/p/the-reenchantment-of-the-world
John Vervaeke. Awakening from the Meaning Crisis (YouTube lecture series), 2019.
Tara Isabella Burton. Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World. PublicAffairs, 2020.
Steven Pinker. Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. Viking, 2018.

Suggested Sources[edit]

https://barsoom.substack.com/p/the-reenchantment-of-the-world