The motivation deficit in modernity - and how to overcome it

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Modern man needs motivation in a way that did not apply to pre-modern societies where the majority of the population were negatively-motivated by the Malthusian lash of starvation, disease and violence; and where the small minority who were not, were either desperately trying to keep themselves above this maelstrom, or who were clinging to power against multiple rivals who would kill them if successful.

So modern man needs motivation - and that motivation must be strong enough and complex enough and long-termist enough to structure his life; and that is exactly what the secular Leftism which now dominates the developed world some completely and utterly fails to provide.

There are weak, simple and short-termist motivations provided by secular Leftism, of course; for example, envy, hatred, hedonism and sex. These are amplified and channelled into political 'movements' by the mass media, state propaganda, laws and regulations. But clearly they are on the one hand socially destructive, and on the other hand clearly inadequate.

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My initial interest in Christianity came from a consideration of motivations; and a recognition that the empirical evidence showed that when Christianity was removed from society as an effective source of primary motivation, nothing remotely adequate had replaced it.

And this had led to the characteristic malaise of this late modern period, increasingly evident since the mid-1960s - the collapse into sub-fertility in developed nations combined with staggering growth levels in some undeveloped countries, the active embrace of population replacement by Western elites, and endemic, compulsory dishonesty not only in public discourse (the mass media and all bureaucracies) - but also in science and medicine (those areas I best know from the inside)

The utter helplessness of the developed world stems from demotivation.

This helplessness is willed; it is not just a failure to tackle problems, but a demotivation so profound that it deliberately, systematically, mandatorily avoids even noticing the problems.

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More than sufficient empirical data is available to show that Man must have a religion or else he will despair, give-up and eventually seek his own extinction (including the extinction of his society).

More than sufficient empirical data is available to show that secularism cannot provide motivation; so the viable choice is a choice between religions. Secular religions (like nationalism, communism, fascism, neo-paganism, New Age spirituality... so many have been thoroughly tried - and they have failed to provide a sustainable alternative - they are negative, demotivating, self-destructive and destructive of good.

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It seems clear that religion is built-into Man in some sense; and if Man deletes religion then he deletes his motivation.

Does this prove that religion is true? Not exactly prove; but it is more compatible with the truth of religion (at some level, in some way) than it is compatible with the prevalent idea that religion is a pure delusion.

Because a delusion is (almost by definition) dysfunctional - that is how we know it is a delusion - and it is the absence of religion which is demotivating, which is clearly dysfunctional.

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Of course it is facile for modern people to disbelieve the obvious and commonsensical, and to suppose that there will be some as-yet-undiscovered and non-obvious way of 'fixing' modernity that does not involve religion.

However, the both the present and future lies with religion.

The first decision is therefore whether to try and discover or make a new religion, or adopt an existing religion. It is easy to make a new religion, but very, very difficult to make a motivating new religion. Unless a religion can prove itself motivating enough to stop or reverse destructive trends under real world, modern conditions, then it is probably just a life-style option, rather than a real religion.

Having decided that viable options are restricted to actually existing religions; the next thing is to discover which religion is true, or rather which is true-est since all have considerable elements of truth.

Then it is a question of determining whether we can join, or at least actively support, that religion which we believe to be true/ true-est. In a world where all large institutions are strongly affected by secular Leftism, then this applies to religions and their adherents to some extent - and many or most religions are indeed utterly in-thrall to secular Leftism.

Nonetheless, Man must have a religion; therefore, in some way or another everyone needs to make a choice of religion to support and sustain; and then work-out how that support is t be implemented; in whatever way and to whatever extent they can manage, and which is most effective for them: effectiveness being measured (partly, but necessarily) in terms of motivation.

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