The urgent task of making sense

The war on meaning, and how we find our feet

Warning:

This piece is pretty heavy and contains descriptions of war, though I do offer a way towards hope.

Dark vortex with a yellow light at the end

I’ve written before about how we are in the midst of a crisis of narrative — but lately I’ve been thinking about it more as a crisis of meaning. The two are closely connected of course, since narrative is a primary way in which we make and express meaning. But meaning seems to me to be even deeper, and can go beyond narrative, beyond language. 

We’re in a crisis of meaning, or perhaps it’s more accurate to say, a deliberate attack on meaning. On any kind of sense or meaning-making, whether narrative or otherwise. When Israel’s attacks in Gaza and Lebanon kill whole families, it’s not only the killing of people, but the erasure of memory and history. When Israel’s bombs vaporize bodies, lives are lost, and on top of that it’s so much more difficult for surviving relatives and friends to mark and make meaning from the loss. When buildings, neighbourhoods, landmarks and monuments are razed, so too is the rich tapestry of meaning and the sense of place and belonging these locations provided. (Mindy Fullilove has written about this in relation to the forced removal and destruction of African American communities in the US, in her book, Root Shock).

When politicians use nonsensical language like ‘escalate to de-escalate’ or fabricate lies and shamelessly insist on their right to do so, as Trump and Vance have been doing, that is an attack on meaning. When Haris and Biden talk about wanting a ceasefire while at the same time sending more bombs, that’s an attack on meaning. When politicians who have torn up the international human rights regime ask us for their support in the name of saving democracy, that’s an attack on meaning. Meaning is under attack when newspapers and TV news channels gaslight us through hedging headlines and passive language (as the podcast, It’s Not You, It’s the Media highlights so well). When authorities try to control access to archives, or ban books and the teaching of history, that is an attack on meaning. When the foundational myths we have been born into, and suckled on, and lived within all our lives, are exposed to be lies, we feel that as a loss of meaning too.

The horror we are witnessing also makes a mockery of the small moments in our everyday lives from which we derive so much meaning, purpose and pleasure. What are my little amusements, my small complaints, in the face of all the devastation we are seeing? When teenagers are being burned alive, what right do I have to take pleasure in a sunset, or a celebration, or seeing my dog sitting in the sun — let alone share these small joys with others? When colleagues and friends in the line of fire talk about the suffocating heaviness they are living through, words, condolences, and thoughts of solidarity seem trivial and pathetically inadequate. And so, little by little, a sterile silence spreads.

Yet, this is the very aim of the attack on meaning — to erase, to silence. To make beauty, and kindness, and everyday small moments seem like nothing — inappropriate at best. When there is nothingness, when there is meaninglessness, when we have lost our everyday humanity, then there is no mooring. No up, no down, no right and no wrong. Everything is permitted and the winner takes all.

I’m reminded of my visit a few years ago to Maropeng, at the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site in South Africa. The exhibition includes a ‘rotating vortex’ — a bridge through a dark tunnel, enveloped by spinning and rotating lights. It’s supposed to mimic a black hole and the experience is utterly disorienting — you feel dizzy, nauseous and unstable. Your logical mind knows there is solid surface under your feet, but your body tells you there is nothing, and wants to fall over. It takes immense concentration to hold on to the handrail and inch forward to the other side.

Continual, conscious and deliberate work to make meaning is every bit as important as the protests and the boycotts and the witnessing and sharing of the horror. It’s a vital and urgent task. We can’t go back to the myths and comforting stories that we now know to be untrue. Nostalgia has become a weapon. We have to find anchorage points in core values, and then have the courage to feel our way forward, threading sense together one small, clear strand at a time, until we have a rope that can connect us to truth in the murky darkness.

And while action at national and international level remains crucial, it’s also increasingly clear to me that meaning and sense has to be built out from the local, from place and body, from rootedness, and from building real and honest connection, moment by moment, with ourselves, with others and with the earth. The small moments, the tiny gestures, the seemingly trivial, the beauty, the love, the humour as well as the sadness, the grief, the rage, the emptiness, the shame, the helplessness —I’m realizing it’s important to be with it all, to be in it all, to value it all and share it if we wish, in authentic ways.

Meaning-making is resistance.

As Nima Shirazi writes so beautifully, “We are all the authors of a better future”.