Is the West spiritually impoverished

The Matrix and its genre are typically vague on how, exactly, the machines rose up and took control. Didn't those in the near-future see it coming? What was the leadership thinking?

Well, doubtless there were intense pre-apocalypse debates, much considered thought and various solutions proposed. The fatal flaw lies in the fact none of the thinking or arguing would have entertained the inconvenient idea that reason had unwittingly become the problem.

The more a culture denies reality has an incomprehensible quality, the more control it is able to gain over the natural world, yet the closer it gets to the limits that bind cognition and language. Maximal intellectual momentum-and utmost hubris-coincides with the crossover point when the head should give way to the heart.

Refuse to embrace Nothing Matters, and society's political and economic systems, hitherto beneficial, begin to crowd out the spiritual side of life. Overall well-being declines, despite us having more of everything. Such folly, of course, isn't taken seriously by our cultural custodians. Sporadic panic and hand-wringing regarding, let's say, vapid consumerism, a burgeoning bureaucratic state or icky bioethics, amount to empty gestures. The trajectory and pace of moral decline will not vary while ever the reigning ethos is predisposed to negate what gives life ultimate meaning and purpose.

Meanwhile, a decadent ruling class, pressed to do something, anything, continue to build out our very own modern-day Matrix. We're increasingly in our heads, unable to relate to the world or pin point what is literally wrong, yet still sensing those in charge are leading us further and further into no-man's land. As Nietzsche explains in Twilight of the Idols, hard-core materialism is a lose-lose strategy:

We have suppressed the true world: what world survives? The apparent world perhaps? … Certainly not! In abolishing the true world we have also abolished the world of appearance!

Which brings us to the Trump White House.

With the basics satisfied, the spiritually impoverished citizens of Western society hunger for the more-real-than-real, a unifying, heart-felt connection to what is, by definition, beyond the organizing machinery that now dominates everyday life. Alas, there is no truth pill. Nor is there a Morpheus at large prepared to pose the type of questions needed to break the spell of self-referential rationalism. Closed minds and distant hearts render our public discourse as crude and aggressive as it is futile. Political fear and social apathy triumph.

The establishment dog whistles: there's too much at stake, people, to let go and have faith there is something more dignified and meaningful at stake!

It was logical for America to vote for a candidate-statesman preferably, but buffoon if need be-who has some inkling of WTF is going on and acts, in part, as if Nothing Matters. Donald Trump doesn't overthink the situation-that's the subtle relevance. He has no real solutions, another nuanced point missed by the pundits. The man goes with his gut, empathizing with ordinary folk, people who may fail to articulate their real concern, but who still have a better grip on reality than the clever fools who speak down to them.

Perhaps there was no wrong turn at Albuquerque and Donald Trump is the right person for the job, despite being so wrong for it in so many other ways. Though in several respects a fake, he nonetheless remains a tribune for what those inside the Beltway have lost touch with.

Robert Merry is right to claim that getting rid of him will change nothing, since Trump is a symptom not the cause. If those in the groupthink elite, left and right, can park their wounded egos for a moment and step back from a justified popular animus, they might finally join the metaphysical dots.

It's the human spirit, stupid.