(Roughly) Daily

Further to an earlier post in his wonderful newsletter The Honest Broker, Ted Gioia offers a provocative (and for your correspondent’s money, ultimately optimistic) forecast…

Would you believe me if I told you that the biggest news story of our century is happening right now—but is never mentioned in the press?

That sounds crazy, doesn’t it?

But that is often the case when a bold new worldview appears.

The biggest changes often happen long before they even get a name. By the time the scribes notice, the world is already reborn.

• How long did it take before the Renaissance got mentioned in the town square?
• When did newspapers start covering the Enlightenment?
• Or the collapse in mercantilism?
• Or the rise of globalism?
• Or the birth of Christianity or Islam or some other earthshaking creed?

You can take this to the bank: If the New York Times notices the Buddha, the enlightened one has already left town.

For example, the word Renaissance got introduced two hundred years after the start of the Renaissance. The game was already over.

The same is true of most major cultural movements—they are truly the elephants in the room. And the elites at the epicenter of power are absolutely the last to notice.

Tiberius may run the entire Roman Empire, but he will never hear the Good News.

There’s a general rule here—the bigger the shift, the easier it is to miss.

We are living through a situation like that right now. We are experiencing a total shift—like the magnetic poles reversing. But it doesn’t even have a name—not yet.

So let’s give it one.

Let’s call it: The Collapse of the Knowledge System.

We could also define it as the emergence of a new knowledge system.

In this regard, it resembles other massive shifts in Western history—specifically the rebirth of humanistic thinking in the early Renaissance, or the rise of Romanticism in the nineteenth century.

In these volatile situations, the whole entrenched hierarchy of truth and authority gets totally reversed. The old experts and their systems are discredited, and completely new values take their place. The newcomers bring more than just a new attitude—they turn everything on its head.

That’s happening right now…

[Gioia unpacks ten signs of this collapse…]

… Why isn’t this discussed openly—in media, in universities, in public discourse? Everything I’ve mentioned above is public knowledge. So why aren’t the experts discussing it?

Well, that’s obvious.

The experts don’t want to admit this is happening because it puts their status at risk. And the same is true of all the organizations and businesses that own and control the knowledge system.

The last thing they want is to call attention to the breakdown.

So they can only address the situation in isolated, disconnected ways. Admitting that these ten symptoms are part of a larger, systemic problem can’t be acknowledged—not under any circumstances.

And that’s why we can’t assume that any quick fix—from politicians or universities—will reverse this decline. We are beyond that stage.

The more important question is this: When the old knowledge hierarchy collapses, what will replace it?

Yes, something will replace it. And I’ve hinted at that in previous articles here—for example, my “Notes Toward a New Romanticism.”

Even as tech gets degrades, people will still need something solid and reliable that will contribute to human flourishing. In fact, they will need that more than ever.

If they can’t get it from Silicon Valley, they will find it elsewhere.

But where?

Let me point out that despite all the manipulations, hallucinations, abuses, and dysfunctional excesses of the digital life…

…Despite all of these, symphonies sound as majestic as ever. Philosophy is more necessary than ever. Paintings are still glorious. Great architecture does not collapse. Nature warms the heart. As do poems and epics and myths.

Jazz still swings. Heroes still prevail. The soul is stirred. And one lover still reaches for another.

I’m not sure what exactly will replace the cold, dying knowledge system. But I suspect it will recognize the value of these things. And will prevail for that very reason…

… before closing, let me make a few more points

1. Science and tech will not disappear. But they will face an intense backlash beyond anything we’ve experienced in the last 200 years.
2. The people running the tech world fail to grasp this. They think that the next big stage is the Singularity—when everybody lets the technocracy control everything and make every decision. In fact, the exact opposite is about to unfold.
3. I’m not suggesting that you can replace tech with a poem or symphony. But tech now desperately needs what can only be provided by the humanities and human values.
4. The new knowledge system will be built on these human values. Technology will be forced to serve it—or it will get locked into a losing battle with the new “softer and gentler” knowledge system…

A huge change is coming: “The Ten Warning Signs,” from @tedgioia.bsky.social‬.

* Bob Dylan

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As we wonder about ways of knowing, we might recall that it was on this date in 1983 that the Kinks released their 20th studio album, State of Confusion. (The LP features the single “Come Dancing“, which hit number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was one of the band’s biggest hit singles in the United States, equaling the 1965 peak of “Tired of Waiting for You.” The album itself was a major success, peaking at number 12 on the Billboard albums chart.)

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