Modernity offers a deal: stop searching for a prewritten cosmic script, and in return gain the ability to reshape the world. Meaning is downgraded; power is upgraded.
It trades “purpose” for “process.” Instead of asking what suffering is for, it asks what causes it—and how to reduce it. The reward is obvious: medicine, infrastructure, abundance, and far more predictable lives.
But the deal has a price. If nothing is sacred, everything becomes negotiable, and life turns into an optimization problem. Science demands constant research, economies demand constant growth, and individuals feel pressure to keep improving.
Anxiety follows. The machine runs on dissatisfaction, and “enough” is hard to define. You are promised freedom, but also responsibility for every choice.
Once meaning is outsourced, the authority of feeling grows. Humanism steps in.