Modernity has successfully solved the problem of material scarcity (survival, safety, production) via the tools of the Enlightenment (science, reason, law). However, it has inadvertently created a crisis of meaning scarcity by overlooking the "enchanted" needs of the human animal - status, ritual, narrative, and the tribe - viewing them as irrational or obsolete.
The path forward is not to reject modernity or deconstruct it, but to re-inhabit it. We need new institutions that use reason (the instrument) to serve passion (the intuition). The task becomes one of "co-architecting shared reality," building a world that is scientifically safe and intelligible but culturally "enchanted" by lived narratives.
This is the point of view we can call “Mythic Humanism”.
Instead of adhering to the "rational vs. emotional" binary inherited from the past, it is useful to recognize an integrated model where reason acts as the map (method) while passion provides the fuel (motivation). Rather than suppressing the irrational, we might guide it. This suggests understanding ourselves not as static categories but as dynamic stories. Institutions could therefore provide reliable narratives towards what the culture “wants” - paths where effort somewhat predictably leads to status - allowing individuals to be the protagonist of a coherent life story, while that creates the world around them.
This approach is grounded in a pragmatic phenomenology that avoids the endless debate between materialism and spiritualism. It focuses simply on the fact that humans experience the world as meaningful. We can treat "sacredness" not as a supernatural claim but as a necessary psychological interface. We acknowledge our myths are constructed, but we inhabit them with sincerity to access their coordinating and experiential aspects.
This approach proposes a resolution to the human paradox: we are, simultaneously, primal apes and transcendent beings. Rather than suppressing our evolutionary instincts, we can channel them to higher purposes. By designing environments - both physical and narrative - that provide a constructive outlet for these drives, we allow for their wider expression and, ultimately, greater flourishing.
Cognition is deeply influenced by context, and our environment acts as a scaffold for our minds. Thus, "ugly" or purely utilitarian architecture risks becoming a form of cognitive damage; beauty emerges as a functional requirement for a healthy mind. Civilizations often rely on "generative myths" - optimistic projects that use scale and ritual to orient the human spirit, cultivating awe and communitas to integrate the ego into the collective effervescence necessary for cohesion.
A healthy society operates as a "federal republic" of distinct subcultures or enclaves. Here, the guild separates the core values from the instrument of markets, ensuring efficiency doesn't cannibalize the heart of the community. Boundaries are not walls but "zones of apprenticeship" known as “enclusion”, creating the tension that drives learning rather than segregation. We move from a "factory model" of education to a "guild model" of initiation, where meaning is found in the struggle of mastery and the distinctness of a practice.
We live in a positional economy, but by recognizing the malleability of the prize, we might steer the status drive from dominance to prestige - awarding status for skill, aesthetics, and the creation of public goods. Wealth is reframed as a "claim upon society" and a vote for a specific future, moving from passive consumption to active patronage. Transactions can be treated as cultural acts that explicitly fund the values we wish to sustain.
Politically, this manifests as agonistic pluralism. Different groups hold incommensurable values, yet we trade via institutional bridges like money and law which allow cooperation without requiring consensus on truth. Democracy can also include a process of lived experience, helping leaders "feel" policy consequences beyond the spreadsheet.
Mythic Humanism refuses a nostalgic return to the past while rejecting the logic that seeks to "optimize away" human idiosyncrasy. It agrees that the individual is the ultimate unit of rights, but denies it is the sufficient unit of meaning, arguing for positive belonging. It moves beyond analyzing the world solely through power dynamics, championing instead a constructive ethos of competence and agency.
While sharing the urgent goal of planetary health, it questions the view of human impact as inherently parasitic, viewing high-tech culture as the "gardening" of nature. It respects the minimization of suffering, but places high value on narrative drama as an end in itself. Finally, instead of stopping at deconstruction or waiting for a shift in global consciousness, it suggests we might consciously build and inhabit our narratives to sustain civilization. Ultimately, it seeks to use the physical safety of the rational world to build a stage for the meaningful interactions of the human spirit.
Amidst this architectural optimism, it is valuable to acknowledge the historical context.
Looking back, the worldview reminiscent of Mythic Humanism was already discernible some 250 years ago within Western thought. It appeared in the early potential of a modernity that sought to combine the precision of new sciences with the depth of human experience. There was a window where it seemed possible to transition from the pre-modern era not into a raw industrial landscape, but into a more measured and balanced world, where dismantling superstition did not require discarding meaning.
However, the transition likely could not have been done then. The rigid, existing medieval-era institutions could not have yielded easily to this path. Faced with the rapid pace of change, civilization prioritized function via materialism and widespread automation. The result was a simplification: a shift of focus from meaning to material utility. We traded some of the shared sacred reality for the efficiency of production. This trade delivered on its material promises - granting us unprecedented health, safety, and liberation from poverty, but with great setbacks and lives lost from extreme ideologies. Yet, we built a society that often feels soullessly neutral, partly because we lacked the institutional technology to build otherwise. For two and a half centuries, we have navigated this landscape, focusing on progressive material foundations or looking on the traditional past with nostalgia.