Reviews

Man in the Modern Age by Karl Jaspers

mindfroth's review

4.0

Argues for the development of a true a self contingent on interfacing—between the individual and the masses (skirting the edge so one is neither subsumed nor lost), between the historical self and the aspirational self, between the possible and the necessary. It's ultimately an argument to neither sacrifice one's soul to the social apparatus, to be reduced to a cog and lose contact with one's own being, nor to succumb to self-limitation in the realm of the possible, which cannot be fully known. This requires both faith as well as "active forecasting," which is what has more recently come to be known as hyperstition—understanding that one's predictions for the future are a factor in how the future unfolds. The book starts from a place of rationale critique and goes into a kind of Heideggerian abstraction, championing an almost mystic vision premised on the limits of the rational mind, and then delving into a kind of New Thought ethos, a power of attraction based on a good faith mindset.