Sure, it's the apocalypse. But that doesn't keep Emmett Brickowski from his daily routine of buying two overpriced coffees, saying a friendly hello to his surly, battle-clad neighbors, and navigating the hellscape with cheerful invention as he delivers his girlfriend Lucy her morning brew. Everything is awesome, isn't it?
That little vignette from Lego Movie 2 does more than surprise and delight the viewer with silly sight gags and character intros ("It's 'Chainsaw Dave' now!"). It introduces us to the heroism of the simple man: Emmett, an ordinary construction worker who loves routine and his fellow minifigure. And even though everyone around him lives in fear, anger, and partisanship, none of them are the heroes. Emmett, simple, clumsy, good-natured Emmett, is "The Special", and it's because he doesn't change that he survives and the villain dies.
THESIS
The Fourth Turning is here, and while we await the political fallout of a contentious battle for the presidency among two septugenarians this fall, the entertainment industry churns out daily rations of Crisis Era stories for us to consume: Dune: Part Two, Civil War (2024), "Shogun", "Masters of the Air", Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. As we look around our own deteriorating landscape, the tension is palpable, and it seems like there are only two options: Go ape, or go ostrich.
But perhaps that's a false dichotomy, because whether you go crazy or stick your head in the sand, you're probably using the same methodology: addiction. In his latest Substack post, "The State of the Culture, 2024," music and culture critic Ted Gioia described the future that awaits creatives and consumers:
"The fastest growing sector of the culture economy is distraction. Or call it scrolling or swiping or wasting time or whatever you want. But it’s not art or entertainment, just ceaseless activity. [...] Our brain rewards these brief bursts of distraction. The neurochemical dopamine is released, and this makes us feel good—so we want to repeat the stimulus. [...] This is a familiar model for addiction. Only now it is getting applied to culture and the creative world—and billions of people. They are unwitting volunteers in the largest social engineering experiment in human history."
Gioia goes on to explain that technology companies are in on the experiment because addicts will always pay big bucks to get their next fix. Likes and clicks, swipes and scrolls tell your brain "Just one more!" and before you know it, you're a victim of the new zombie apocalypse, strolling through the Garden of Eden with your phone in your face. To borrow a phrase from Dune, "The spice must flow," and he who controls the spice controls everything and everyone else.
And what of the junkies, the addicts, the consumers? Following the natural progression of entertainment to addiction, we have:
Gambling addicts who ruin their finances
Dating app addicts who can't find a mate
Pornography addicts with ruined physical and emotional health
Short-form addicts who can't hold a conversation
Will our society indeed continue to amuse itself to death, so to speak, descending ever deeper into the hollows of lonliness, debt, depression, and suicide? Who will save us, or how can we save ourselves?
ANTITHESIS
Of course, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction-- not only in physics, but in society as well.
The OnlyFans moms are now meeting their match in trending Tradwives, women who showcase their homemaking skills with suspiciously photo-ready aplomb. Certainly, it's no surprise to see lonely #girlboss women who have burned out from hustle culture driven to the glamorized apron-and-apple-pie world-- at least as it's portrayed on Instagram and TikTok. After all, the Millennials this content is aimed at are of the same HERO generational archetype as the G.I. Generation: women who famously rolled up their sleeves to fasten rivets in World War II and then rolled them down again as so many meme-able "hostesses with the mostess" in the fabulous 1950s. But as Inez Stepman points out in The Spectator, it's a shame that "the most obvious and basic feminine instincts — to make a beautiful home and have a family — can only find an outlet as a niche subculture for an online audience, infused with fetishization, politics and angry thinkpieces."
The same could be said for the quick rise of other purported anti-theses on cultural decline. The Red Pill movement, originally a plaintive critique of anti-male attitudes in society, has caved in as its leaders are exposed for toxic attitudes and inconsistencies. The AI Modesty trend, extreme unschooling, and the sober curious movement all fall into similarly questionable categories: the lines between conspicuous consumerism and true virtue feel too blurry to fully embrace, like the lifestyle equivalents of the Stanley Cup craze. In fact, the missing ingredients from Influencer and Addict are the same: responsibility and authority.
SYNTHESIS
The other day, my son was asking about unleavened bread. Between fond memories of my sourdough baking days and our nightly devotional's sidenotes on the diet of ancient Israelites, he was curious about the difference between their bread and ours. I explained to him that nutritionally, the two are very similar: both are made with a dough of flour, water, and salt. However, leavened bread contains yeast, tiny microorganisms who eat the sugar molecules in the flour and burp out gas bubbles. These gas bubbles inflate the bread and give it a fluffy, porous structure, and in the case of sourdough, make the bread more digestible.
Responsibility and authority, flip sides of the same coin, are the leavening yeast of life. They give us a reliable structure that creates security, and they help us digest difficult situations in a healthy way. Addicts lack responsibility: they are slaves to their desires, unable to think or act in a way that considers the future. Influencers lack authority: they are slaves to their audience, unable to understand the greater meaning of their actions. In a world where action is removed from meaning and the individual is removed from the collective, there cannot be healthy structure. In other words, it's a natural conclusion that when nobody can answer, "Who's the Boss?" we're all stuck in the infinite loop of childhood, with a failure to launch and a severe lack of adulting.
This kid-syndrome shows up in a myriad of ways: the growing nostalgia toy market, the mental health epidemic, even the rise of DINKs. But just like the false dichotomy of going ape or going ostrich, none of these coping mechanisms solves the underlying problem. We need responsibility and authority, but how do we create it?
FEED, KNEAD, AND RISE
When baking with sourdough, everything starts with the starter. What’s the starter, you ask? Typically, it’s a glass mason jar where you keep your yeast colony– and it is hungry! Just like a pet, the yeast colony requires regular feeding: more if it’s warm, less if it’s cold, and very regularly if you’re preparing to make bread. In other words, the sourdough starter embodies the idea of habit, a “a settled tendency or usual manner of behavior” (per Merriam-Webster). Used properly, habits are the foundation of taking responsibility and claiming authority over one’s life. As detailed by Stephen Covey in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, habits of planning, prioritizing, resting, and working for mutual benefit can have a magical effect on your life and those around you.
But starter alone does not a bread loaf make. When preparing to bake, starter must be added to dough and mixed by kneading. Too much kneading will build up the gluten strands so thick that your bread will rival beef jerky in texture. Too little will result in a flaccid loaf that fails to rise. Kneading is a temporary action, repeated at intervals in the breadmaking process to facilitate the ideal loaf. So too is tradition, the exercise of customary or seasonal habits for a specific time and occasion. Traditions as strange as preparing your ancestors’ bathtub fish recipe or as silly as hanging a pickle on your Christmas tree can create positive feelings of connection to your past, your people, and your future. Moreover, the need to pass traditions on to others creates a sense of responsibility (“let’s not lose this”) and authority (“I know how and why we do this.”)
Once a loaf is formed, is it oven-ready? Not quite. Your leavened dough must rise, gaining the puffy, upward-driven structure created by those little yeasty beasties and their exuberant feasting. Likewise, we mere humans need ritual, regular actions that connect our physical and spiritual selves. For Christians, the special breaking of bread* and drinking of wine (known as Communion, the Lord’s Supper, or Holy Eucharist), are ritualistic expressions commanded by Jesus in remembrance of Him and acknowledgement of His sacrifice:
“For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”
Our metaphysical selves, who are more than bodily cravings (addict) or spiritual desires (influencer), need that special connection to our Creator to be reminded of His ultimate responsibility and authority. The cross where Jesus died shortly after issuing this command is where He took responsibility for the sins of the world. The tomb from which He rose is where He claimed authority over death. Both acts can and should inspire awe and obedience in us– and help us learn by example.
Moreover, this ritual, as most others, is meant to be exercised in concert with others of the faith, not privately and alone (1 Corinthians 11:33). Addiction separates, isolates, and suffocates people. Chasing influencers provides a shallow and fragile connection based on trends and opinions, not deep, long-lasting beliefs. If anything, the lesson of generational theory should be that we are not alone. Our lives exist in conversation with those before, present, and after us. Each generational archetype has its own unique set of skills: PROPHETS to vision-cast, NOMADS to survive, HEROES to build, and ARTISTS to connect. While the Fourth Turning’s Crisis Era burns bright, a new First Turning’s High is around the corner, just like the promise of Easter is the promise of Spring.
By slowly bringing habit, tradition, and ritual back into our lives, we can work together to rebuild the structures that ekpyrosis** has burnt down. Like the hero’s journey from thesis to antithesis to synthesis, or the bread loaf’s progression from feed to knead to rise, we can incorporate the lessons of each generation and season to create something better. And what better place to start than a cup of coffee with a friend?
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*Today's Christian practice of Communion/Lord's Supper/Holy Eucharist may use either leavened or unleavened bread, although it is understood that at Jesus' Last Supper unleavened bread was used in observance of the Jewish Passover ritual.
**"The final phase [of the four-part saeculum] evokes the Stoic's Ekpyrosis (or kataklysmos), the purifiying and time-ending fire (or flood) that marks the great discontinuity: the end of one circle and the beginning of the next" (The Fourth Turning is Here, p. 49).