Author Archives: G.S. Griffin

13 Songs to Survive the Trump Age

Posted on by under Politics

Previously, the playlists I have publicly shared — see Famous Bands That Sang About Kansas City, Begrudgingly Acknowledged Country Bangers, and Taylor Swift & Drake: 12 Bangers Each — were fun respites from the usual dark articles on politics, racism, religion, history, and so on. But having recently found some small solace in music from the horrors of Trumpian extremism and authoritarianism, I thought I would offer a political playlist in the hopes it might help others as well.

The collected songs are simply a few that have moved me in these times. (Countless potential pieces and artists are absent, from “We Shall Overcome” and “Mississippi Goddam” to Rage Against the Machine and Edwin Starr.) They are mostly expected songs from the twentieth century’s political folk tradition. Of all genres, nothing soothes the soul like folk — though sometimes it haunts it. I like the idea of in some small way drawing more attention to names like Guthrie, Seeger, Ochs, and, though perhaps less necessary, Dylan. (Happily, three of these artists were recently characterized in the agreeable film A Complete Unknown.) More importantly, the ages, people, and events of which they sing, which I am also pleased to direct more attention to — John Brown and Ludlow and Medgar Evers, the struggles of miners and abolitionists and blacks and peace activists — remind one that horrors, even those far worse than anything we face today, can be resisted and overcome. Horrors end. With, of course, proper ways of thinking and acting: empathetic, solidaristic, courageous, leftwing, revolutionary.

I hope these 13 songs inspire and lift your spirits, as they have mine. And stir tears, as they have in me.

For more from the author, subscribe and follow or read his books.

How to Be Happy

Posted on by under History

It wasn’t until my mid-thirties that I learned how to be happy. I think part of this was simply growing older, maturity bringing sweet respite from many of the things one stresses about as a younger person. In more ways than one, happiness is often about running out the clock. But the hard work of adopting new perspectives and ways of living played a significant role. Depression, use of anti-depressants, and musings of suicide and the three-word note I would have left are years behind me. This is not to say I am always happy. One motivation for writing this piece is to have somewhere to turn when I lose my way. But I now possess healing balms for life’s wounds that I wish I’d found long ago. Of course, some of the following is obvious or should have been or was superficially known, but only through serious thought and experience did I come to truly understand. Perhaps all this will prove useful to you, dear reader, when you face the slings and arrows — when a loved one is dead or dying, when your own health or life or youth is fading, when you despise your job, when you are struggling to find a job as your money depletes, when you’re overwhelmed as a parent, when you have no one to love and are lonely, when you are divorced or left, when you are regretful or embarrassed or don’t like what you see in the mirror. How hard it is to be a human being! I have in no way, thus far, experienced the worst life could offer; I write from a place of immense privilege and luck. But the older I get (I have now reached my late thirties), and the more hardships I face, the more I am convinced one can be content in all things, through reflection and philosophy. (And, of course, Bob Dylan.)

Be thankful for everything you’ve got. This is easier said than done, especially in truly dire circumstances. Agonizing chronic pain, disability, rape, abject poverty, homelessness, hunger, violence, prison… Such things cast a shadow over every point in this piece, and I don’t mean to discount them (though I will avoid repetition and simply trust the reader moving forward). Yet there is surely always something to be grateful for. Each individual will have her own unique tally. The sun on your face, the people that you know, the very fact you are alive and exist. From the more privileged (ableist?) vantage point, I am immensely grateful for my freedom, for a roof over my head, food to eat, the ability to walk and run and jump, to see and hear.

Make every day great. This is similar to the point above (many of these are highly alike, but just distinct enough, I find, to appreciate individually). Focus hard on making each day wonderful in some small way. Today I did some reading — that is a great day. Enjoy nature, see friends or family, watch a good film, exercise or play a sport, listen to music, do some writing. Find a way to make each day great, and boldly call it so, despite mental or physical pain. This mindset helped me a good deal.

Let go of wants and desires, relieve your suffering. How right the Buddhists are! You are angry, sad, ashamed, afraid, anxious, or dissatisfied because you desire something. Begin the difficult work of letting go — “That’s just a want, not a need. I do not need that to have a good life.” Say this to yourself every day. You may find it soon feels more and more true. Of all the items on this list, this one is surely the most challenging. I do believe that some desires can still be pursued (focusing only on what you can control; see below), but the more you let go the more they can be worked toward without painful emotion. If you crave something and don’t have it, you suffer. If something would simply be nice to have, you can be content without it but still take steps in a levelheaded way to add it to your life.

All things are temporary. Nothing lasts. More Buddhist wisdom. The temporary nature of all circumstances, states, life itself — embracing this is quite freeing indeed. Good things won’t last. Loved ones will move away or pass away. Such trials hurt less when I consider that this is the natural way of things. No need to fight it. I will treasure a good while it lasts, knowing it’s fleeting, and be grateful I had it for a time when it’s gone. Likewise, the bad things don’t last! The pain of losing loved ones will ease with time, your financial crisis is probably temporary, your embarrassment will pass — after months, years, or decades, awful events and eras will be a dim memory (death will take care of anything that persists). “Time heals all wounds” is a classic for a reason. Taking all this to heart helps you get through the dark days.

Every loss an opportunity. When the person you like does not like you, you lose your job, or your business goes under, look at it as a golden opportunity. Change your perspective. It’s the opportunity to find or build something even better. You may have to focus for a time on the negatives of the things you lost. Embrace reason over emotion. (I admit this one might even be taken to a controversial, disturbing place to rescue the spirit from unhappiness. The grief of a loved one’s death may be lessened by finding silver linings, not just the common, outward-facing “He’s no longer suffering, he’s at peace now” but also the shame-inducing, supposedly selfish “I no longer have to care for him each day, I am free as well.”)

You can’t change the past, only your perspective — which is almost as good. What if the disasters of your past could be seen as positives? As events that taught you valuable lessons? And made you a wiser, stronger, better person in some way?

Life is a river. You mostly can’t control where you’re going. Let go! Stoicism emphasizes that much of what happens to us is beyond our control, and that we must only focus on what we can control, which can bring much peace. (Helpfully, the philosophy stresses other perspective changes and premeditatio malorum, imagining potential hardships to be more mentally and emotionally prepared for them.) Indeed, the River of Life takes us to places we never thought we would go. To places of great joy and great sorrow, and some that are simply bizarre. On the River you can paddle and steer a little bit, and even get off entirely, hopefully leaving a note of more than three words. But it’s going to take you where it will. (Some think it’s God’s Plan, seeking comfort and happiness in the being who allows or sends the miseries.) When I find myself in times of trouble, I accept that this is simply where life brought me. I can then be more content — let it be.

Things couldn’t have happened any other way. This was fate. I wanted to wait to write this piece until finishing If Free Will Is False, Destiny Is True. I invite you to read it. There are serious reasons to doubt that you could have made different choices in life. You made this or that awful decision because that’s who you fundamentally were in that moment, shaped by all prior experiences. To have made a different choice, you would have had to have been someone else, a different you. Impossible! Understanding this helps you let go of your regrets over the past or lamentations over an unsatisfactory present — open your hand, let the wind carry them away.

Everything in its own time. Why must everything happen right now, or when it is common? One way to help ensure your pursuit of desires remains casual is to break free of timelines constructed by both yourself and society. You may have wanted to get married by 25. Seemingly everyone else is. You don’t have to wear that weight around your neck. Change your perspective. If you’re married at 50, that’s wonderful! Embrace patience as one of the ultimate virtues. Let things happen naturally. Nothing can be forced. Everything in its own time.

Take care of yourself. The working, logical mind can’t always do it alone. Exercise, enough sleep, healthy eating, proper hydration, therapy, medication, meditation, orgasm, sunlight, fresh air, balancing time alone and time with people… The body keeps the score. Caring for it can go a long way toward building a happy life.

In this effort, I do wish you the best.

For more from the author, subscribe and follow or read his books.

What Is the Role of Love in the Trump Era?

Posted on by under Politics

Since the 1980s, blues musician Daryl Davis of Maryland, a black man, has sought out members of the Ku Klux Klan in an effort to befriend them. His friendship has convinced sizable numbers to throw out their white robes. I have thought about Davis often over the past decade.

We live in disturbing times. Rightwing extremism and authoritarianism are ascendant. The indecency knows no limit. Eleven years of the Trump age, and especially the last year, in which the horrors and absurdities have reached a fever pitch, leave little appetite for what is castigated on the Left as the soft, disgustingly liberal notion of loving thy neighbor. I am sick enough from the nightmare from which we cannot awake; do not sicken me further by asking me to love the fascists. Facing an assault on democracy and human freedom, much of the Left has come not to bring love, but a sword.

In late 2025, after rightwing activist Charlie Kirk was shot, I wrote:

For me, a Leftist, the Charlie Kirk killing brought a lot of different thoughts and emotions. Political violence is disturbing and frightening. This was an unacceptable act that will only make things worse. I don’t want to live in a world like this, where we’re all murdering each other over our views, whether standard or extremist. We want the temperature lowered. I can’t relate to any Leftists cheering this.

At the same time, and while such thoughts hardly lower the temperature, the erosion of democracy and the rule of law will make political violence in general, in other possible contexts, more difficult to enthusiastically reject, for whether you’re a 1770s American colonist, a 1930s German, or a 2020s North Korean, political violence at some point may be the right thing to do. This is not to say that America is at that point, nor is it to say I know when that point is, nor is it to say that Kirk’s murder belongs in this category of the acceptable (it does not, see first paragraph). It’s simply to say that the authoritarian trends over the past year and past decade have been quite frightening, reminding us of this spectrum where political violence is wrong in a democracy, but less wrong under other systems. We all know this — and it’s haunting a lot of minds right now. We don’t want to move a micrometer down that moral scale. Preserving our democracy and avoiding political violence is very important.

In America Is Simply Too Absurd for Democracy to Survive, I affirmed that violence is at times necessary and justified in the face of tyranny. All of this is to simply lay bare my sympathies for the Leftist’s (and most everyone else’s) view on the ethics of violence — turning the other cheek and loving your enemies is not always the right thing to do — while also confessing some liberal sentiments. (Of course, the radical Left has a rich history of nonviolent mass action, so this whole dichotomy is hardly set in stone.)

What is the role of love in the Trump era? To an extent, the Daryl Davis approach — the philosophy of Jesus, Dr. King, Confucius, Gandhi, the Buddha, and so on — is fundamentally correct. One may not like it. One might rather smash a Klansman in the face with a baseball bat. But if one actually wishes to change people, then friendship, love, and connection are necessary. As Davis will tell you, it does not always work. But being nasty or violent or cold to Trump supporters will not work — it will only entrench them in their views. You’re going to need kindness and perhaps earnest conversation. Those who have made it through the complex, difficult deradicalization process will tell you that exposure to targets of hate can be transformative. (Alongside Davis, consider black activist Ann Atwater and later-former Klan leader C.P. Ellis, who were forced to work together and became friends in 1970s North Carolina, immortalized in the moving film The Best of Enemies, which misleadingly sounds like a bad rom-com.) Plenty of studies support the obvious idea that friendship, empathy, and exposure can change political views in positive, if often small, ways. No matter how horrific things get, no matter how far the nation descends into the chasm, loving a Trump devotee offers the best chance of his metamorphosis. It would be a social good. It’s one of those things that we may not want to be true, but probably is anyway.

Of course, to everything there is a season. It is not difficult to differentiate how one might treat one’s extremist relative or coworker or church friend from the proper response to a dictator, his officials, and his soldiers, those more directly responsible for the terrors. As expressed in my post above and elsewhere, this is not to say we live in a dictatorship or advocate violence at this hour; there are many things that can and should be done first, especially nonviolent mass action (after 80 years, the general strike has been reborn in the United States: 50,000 people striking and protesting in downtown Minneapolis, and far more elsewhere around the nation, recently pushed the Trump administration into publicly backing down). Friendship and kindness to MAGA types — that heretical, vile, stomach-churning notion — would also come first. But speaking in general terms, it seems clear enough that more liberal and more leftwing philosophies can coexist. Love for the individual does not rule out violence against an authoritarian regime, nor vice versa. One could do both in a single afternoon. Love for the commoner, the sword for the king.

Some would argue that it is only from a place of immense privilege that one can suggest loving Trump supporters. No question it is far easier (and less dangerous) for some than others. But the more one reflects upon these matters, the less relevant privilege seems. If a black man can befriend Klan members, who am I to reject such love? How can the white man refuse to follow such an example? Earning the ire and scoff of many a past and modern Leftist, Dr. King (also a socialist), who lived in a time far worse than this one, said, as has been endlessly shared on social media: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” A shocking statement. A disturbing, inconceivable sentiment, given the terrors of his age. If someone like Dr. King can insist on such a thing, who am I to say he is wrong to do so? What arrogance and privilege that would require. Further, who could deny that it is the personally impacted, not merely ideological liberals and Leftists, who are the most important people for Trump supporters to meet? If Daryl Davis was white, would Klansmen see how wrong they really are about blacks? If conservatives and far-right extremists found themselves unexpectedly becoming friends with undocumented immigrants and trans persons, some hearts and minds would change. That is the cold, hard truth. None could deny the inherent risks of violence or deportation, the fear and anguish, and this is not to suggest the vulnerable be sacrificed on the altar of love and hope — no one is forcing Davis at gunpoint to get a beer with a Klansman to build a better world. It is simply to embrace pragmatism, to say that if love works, even just sometimes, then those who advocate for it or try to make use of it, privileged or not, are hardly outside their minds.

And there is another reason for the Left to think more like Christ (in whom I do not believe), since much of the Christian Right refuses to do so. Dr. King also said, “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.” I have also thought of this repeatedly over the years, and cannot help but grow emotional. Again, that a black man during Jim Crow could say something like this. Hate is indeed such a burden. Sometimes it’s fuel, quite beneficial. But it’s also, as the reverend would put it, “internal violence of the spirit,” self-violence. It flays one’s mental health. Holding onto it is, as the saying goes, like drinking poison and expecting the hated to die — all the liberal cliches will find refuge here today. Who among us does not feel like she has been drinking poison for the past decade? Perhaps we are not solely sickened by the nightmare, but by the ensuing detestation Dr. King warned against. Again, hatred, like violence, at times must be unleashed against despots. It is difficult to imagine one without the other; they pour out together to drown and wash away regimes. I have always reserved any hatred for those at the top, those more directly responsible. I can carry a certain weight, one surely inevitable as long as I have a conscience. Those indirectly responsible — Trump voters, everyday believers in cruel policies and rhetoric and lies — I have never really had the strength to hate. Most of us, if we have not yet cut them out of our lives, have family, friends, and acquaintances who support Trump, whether or not we discuss politics with them. It is usually a bit easier to love them, enjoy their company — but strangers are no different than they. They are all together commoners. Hating them is too great a burden to bear — whether this is from an overdose of poison or privilege, the reader will decide.

For more from the author, subscribe and follow or read his books.

Republicans Are Calling Themselves Nazis and You a Terrorist

Posted on by under Politics

As the nation descends further into madness and authoritarianism (where “they’re eating the dogs” meets “they’re ignoring the courts” — it has been educational how sanity and democracy collapse together), one observes with increasing concern 1) how the perpetrators refer to themselves and 2) how they refer to their enemies. As with recent works, some quite lengthy (America Is Simply Too Absurd for Democracy to Survive), this writer intends to be a witness to such things, for as long as waning strength allows. After all we’ve seen over the past decade it is quite difficult to be shocked anymore, but we cannot allow the most troubling developments to be lost and forgotten in the numbing ocean of stupidity and horrors.

“The GOP has a Nazi problem,” Laura Loomer, rightwing activist, admitted in the fall of 2025. “And the more we pretend like we don’t, the worse it’s going to get.” A stunning admission. It was prompted by the Young Republicans, many not so young, getting caught praising Hitler, cursing Jews, and speaking of gas chambers for opponents. At least fellow Trump ally Loomer regarded Nazis as a bad thing. This of course was after the Nazi salutes given by Musk and Bannon at public speeches, which garnered no consequences, coming and going like the wind. Paul Ingrassia privately said he had a “Nazi streak” — and now serves as acting general counsel of Trump’s General Services Administration. An aide to a Republican lawmaker displayed an American flag with a swastika on it in his cubicle. Republican Nazis run for office in Missouri, North Carolina, Illinois, and elsewhere. The GOP even has a self-described “black Nazi.” These are chilling developments. While plenty of decent conservatives and Republicans have condemned these events (anti-nazis no doubt still in the majority), and even doled out punishments, it is impossible to deny that a Nazi cancer exists in the party, and that in the Trump era the kind of indecency that would have been political suicide fifteen or twenty years ago has become business as usual. The most blatant of evils has spread from the darkest corners of the rightwing masses and has reached the top. No, it is not wholly new — American Nazis infected Republican politics long before they celebrated the election of Trump as a new dawn for their movement — but it is more open and powerful now. Quite understandable, given Trump’s public embrace of white supremacist ideas and figures, his post-and-delete use of obvious Nazi imagery, and his reported private admiration of Hitler.

What Republicans call others can of course be closely related to what they call themselves. Trump labeling leftists “vermin” and declaring undocumented immigrants to be “poisoning the blood of our country” obviously echoes Hitler and other monsters. But there is a more frightening word increasingly thrown about (also utilized by the Third Reich against communist enemies), one more familiar: terrorist. Anyone who has lived in the post-9/11 epoch understands the power of this word: labeling someone as such justifies doing whatever you please to them, such as torture or indefinite detention without trial. At the very least, the epithet serves to generate fear and hatred, to say of someone, no matter how innocent, “This is the most despicable kind of human being” (Zohran Mamdani was, naturally, called a terrorist by bigots just for running for mayor of New York). Trump and his allies are continuing this American tradition, broadening its scope to increasingly frame opponents as despicable and dangerous, as “the enemy from within,” as Trump also called leftists.

In September 2025, the Trump administration declared Antifa a “domestic terrorist organization” and then released the notorious NSPM-7 memorandum that laid out the beliefs of Antifa terrorists: “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.” While Joint Terrorism Task Forces and federal agencies were directed to investigate and prosecute violence (alongside some troubling language about going after “radicalization” efforts, i.e. free speech), the danger was obvious. Antifa is at most a bunch of small groups of socialists, anarchists, and communists; it isn’t one organization, and might be more accurately viewed as an ideology or movement. Thus, the administration has framed individuals who think a certain way (an anti-fascist way, pretty necessary these days), or belong to the wrong local group, as terrorists, even if they have never hurt a fly (this is not to say some haven’t). Just as horrifying, there is real fear that by using such a vague, barely-existing “organization” as its terrorist boogeyman, an authoritarian might crush nonviolent dissent: any leftist, liberal, or even conservative critic of the administration could be said to be spewing “anti-Americanism,” “extremism,” or “hostility” (equally vague terms), and thus be associated with Antifa, and thus be a domestic terrorist worthy of arrest. We are not yet living in such a nightmare, but the language of terrorism has been deployed. Activist Renee Good, though disobedient, was probably not attempting to hit ICE agents with her car in Minneapolis earlier this month, unless completely suicidal. Trump’s homeland security secretary labeled her a “domestic terrorist” immediately, pre-investigation. The vice president did something similar. After Border Patrol agents pulled a legal gun out of Alex Pretti’s belt and then shot him, Trump officials transformed Pretti into an “assassin” “brandishing” a weapon, a “terrorist.” Meanwhile, in Texas, Trump’s Department of Justice appears to be prosecuting standard protesters alongside violent offenders who shot cops — they happened to be at the same protest, but they are all condemned and charged together as “Antifa” “terrorists.” For Trump, rioters in Portland were terrorists. During the national “No Kings” rallies, Republicans slandered the peaceful protesters as terrorists and Antifa. A world where such slander of critics is followed by incarceration grows slowly easier to imagine, especially as the slanderers embrace the Nazi mark.

My writings often have more of a thesis. But sometimes it is enough to simply witness, to help ensure events of this age are never forgotten. To say these things happened. And that I was appalled.

For more from the author, subscribe and follow or read his books.

If Free Will Is False, Destiny Is True

Posted on by under Religion

Free will is like God: perhaps dead, its absence having something to say about morality (what Nietzsche meant by “Gott ist tot” was that the Christian God wasn’t believable, and that societal shifts away from him would undermine ethics), and yet impossible to fully disprove. By free will, we mean the ability to have done differently — the notion that the control we feel over our choices, words, and deeds is real, not delusional.

The more thought devoted to free will the less believable it becomes. Even the mixed, limited bag of scientific findings generates at least some skepticism. Two short books I found interesting take opposing sides in the debate over the relevant studies: Sam Harris’ Free Will (2012) and Alfred Mele’s Free (2014). Though over a decade old, these works collectively remain a valuable and accessible introduction. Today’s commentary is little different. Skeptics of free will

point to evidence that we can be unconsciously influenced in the choices we make by a range of factors, including ones that are not motivationally relevant; that we can come to believe that we chose to initiate a behavior that in fact was artificially induced; that people subject to certain neurological disorders will sometimes engage in purposive behavior while sincerely believing that they are not directing them. Finally, a great deal of attention has been given to the work of neuroscientist Benjamin Libet (2002). Libet conducted some simple experiments that seemed to reveal the existence of “preparatory” brain activity (the “readiness potential”) shortly before a subject engages in an ostensibly spontaneous action. (Libet interpreted this activity as the brain’s “deciding” what to do before we are consciously settled on a course of action.) Wegner (2002) surveys all of these findings (some of which are due to his own work as a social psychologist) and argues on their basis that the experience of conscious willing is “an illusion.”

Such interpretations have been criticized, but the findings themselves — for instance, that the brain lights up (milliseconds or even full seconds) before we make certain conscious choices — are largely taken for granted. The scientists and philosophers who believe in free will, such as Mele, rightly point to the constraints of the experiments, which ask participants to do mindless tasks. As neuroscientists recently wrote in Scientific American while arguing science has not disproven free will:

The neuroscience of volition typically focuses on immediate (or proximal) and meaningless decisions (for instance, “press the button from time to time, whenever you feel like it, for no reason at all”). The decisions we care about with respect to free will and responsibility, however, are ones that are meaningful and often have longer time horizons. Perhaps many, or even most, of our day-to-day decisions — choosing when to take the next sip from your water cup or which foot to put forward — are not acts of conscious free will. But maybe some decisions are.

Observe the ground that is given here. It is seismic that what we once regarded as a conscious choice — reaching for your water to take a sip — was actually a directive of the subconscious. Your brain began firing long before you “decided” to act. You had your orders, and you followed them, unwittingly. (Note that this is not marveling over the fact that you reached for your glass without an inner monologue — “I should drink now.” Most of what we do is done without the voice inside our heads speaking. But we still assume that we decided to do whatever it was, not our subconscious.) No, science has not shown free will to be false. But it has produced cause for doubt. If my decision to stand rather than remain sitting was not really my decision, it is at least possible that more meaningful, higher-order “choices” — whether to quit a job or propose — are also guided by subconscious processes outside of one’s awareness. We will have to see what future experiments bring.

Philosophy also erodes trust in free will. First, consider the experiential. Sam Harris, on his Making Sense podcast, once suggested we try the following. Think of a movie. Go ahead, any movie will do. Do you have one? When we do this, in no sense do we choose which film arrives. One simply bubbles up from the dark. Who chose it? Well, your subconscious delivered it to you. This is merely a fun introduction to the idea that we may not be as in the driver’s seat as we think, but it is imperfect, for at least the conscious self called out for an example. It is more valuable to simply reflect upon the instances when a random thought pops into your head. We’ve all experienced this. Have you ever thought to yourself afterwards What the fuck was that? or Where did that come from? The fact is, thoughts often come to us completely against our will. They are much like emotions — in the same way the brain inflicts anger, sadness, embarrassment, and so on upon you, many thoughts arrive uninvited and often without mercy. Sometimes we blurt them out, “speaking without thinking.” And of course you are pure animal instinct when you notice an object hurtling toward your face, ducking to safety. Is it so strange to suppose our “choices” might be automatic and involuntary in bodies defined by such terms, where thoughts bubble up from nowhere, unwelcome emotions burn, instinct takes over actions, lungs breathe unnoticed, and the heart drums unstoppably?

More importantly, determinism seems obviously true, as plain as the nose on your face. Think of a mistake from your past. Why do you regret it today? Why, it’s because you’ve had many life experiences since then, you’ve gained wisdom or a new perspective, you’re a different person. If you had been the person you are today back then you could have avoided the misstep. But the reason you made the choice you did was because that’s who you were in that moment. This is self-evident. To have made a different choice you would have had to have been a different person. And how is that possible?

Free will is the ability to have chosen differently. To legitimately choose among options before you at every present moment — for instance, to continue reading or to stop reading. We make a choice, but there is reason to suspect this is an illusion — surely we were always going to choose whatever we did. It seems obvious that each “choice” is simply the product of every moment that came before. How could it be otherwise? Each choice is the inevitable end result of every thought, feeling, “choice,” act, life experience, genetic disposition, and so on you’ve ever had. It is the effect of countless causes. That’s what’s meant by determinism. The thesis seems difficult to deny. How can one argue that who you are in any given moment is not the creation of all preceding moments (going all the way back to conception); how can one argue that who you fundamentally are in that moment does not determine the choice you make? This would make little sense. Every biological, environmental, and experiential factor determined who you were, and who you were could not have chosen differently — only a different you could have done that! Free will seems illusory.

This conclusion can cause consternation. Some see life as less meaningful or real, despite still being surrounded by the wonderful things that made their lives rich and full. As hinted at in the opening paragraph, people wonder where all this leaves morality. If all decisions are inevitable, are we really responsible for our actions? The killer was never not going to kill, after all. He was the product of all past things, how is it his fault? First, it must be said that the question of moral responsibility (like meaning) is often used irresponsibly: it is used to argue for the existence of free will. Free will must be true, we must believe in it, or no one will be responsible for her own actions, everyone might start killing each other! This is the fallacy argumentum ad consequentium, believing something is true because things would be bad if it wasn’t. Sorry, potential consequences don’t have anything to do with whether something is true or false.

Second, and more to the point, skepticism of free will does indeed weaken or reframe the idea of moral responsibility, perhaps stressing the need to build a more decent society, to improve the environment and experiences of all people, to change behavior. If poverty has something to do with crime, eliminate poverty. If a rapist rotting in prison is the result of his fate, not his genuinely free choices (recall that children who are sexually abused are more likely to become sexual abusers themselves; who we are is the result of all preceding realities), more mercy — improved prison conditions and rehabilitation, elimination of the death penalty and solitary confinement — may be justified. Regardless, the concerns over ethics and accountability have always seemed overdramatic. If everyone gained The Knowledge, judging free will and personal responsibility to be fictions, certain people might engage in foul words and deeds they otherwise wouldn’t have (they won’t be able to help it). But most people probably wouldn’t (they won’t be able to help it). This is because acquisition of The Knowledge would be only one cause in an ocean of causes that determine one’s choices. It might be a big one, but so is genetic disposition, a happy life, fear of consequences, and so on. You’ve read a few things in this piece that perhaps make you doubt free will a bit; do you now feel a bit closer to being able to rape or murder someone? Probably not, due to all the other factors that make you who you are. In the same way, laws and punishments, while perhaps reformed, would not disappear if everyone had The Knowledge. Even without belief in free will, we would still be vulnerable, living creatures: most people would still not want to be harmed (they won’t be able to help it) and would thus (again, inevitably) demand violent people be kept away from the general population, regardless of whether such criminals are morally responsible for their actions. As others have pointed out, we already do this. An insane person, a child, or someone who commits crimes while sleepwalking is not considered as morally responsible for misdeeds as your usual adult, but they are not exempt from law or restraint. (The overall concept of morality isn’t going anywhere either, because it is necessary to justify that desired protection from physical harm, as it always has been. Plus, to say we do not freely choose between moral and immoral possibilities is not to say such possibilities have no meaning, as if the latter don’t cause real suffering or violate holy scriptures. We would still want to teach and internalize ideas of what’s right, a powerful causal factor of a desired effect: the unavoidable “choice” to do good, avoiding real-world harms.)

If free will is false, destiny is true. Here it’s skeptics of agency that must be careful to avoid fallacy, because the positives that might come from free will’s nonexistence cannot be used as evidence or argument for such nonexistence. That will always be a temptation, because determinism is psychologically comforting. As already implied, it helps us let go of regret and dissatisfaction. Our most terrible mistakes needn’t burden us any further. You were always going to make that choice. It couldn’t have happened any other way. It’s who you were. Our present conditions, now matter how miserable, no matter what we lack, were likewise inevitable. It was always going to be this way. You can be at peace, grateful for what you have, what you inevitably received. See, determinism is also like God: so comforting we should be suspicious.

I cannot conclude with full conviction that free will is false, for while it is less believable now it has hardly been disproven. However, though armed with a healthy suspicion, I can appreciate the new meaning that would be wrought by The Knowledge. Destiny is a beautiful idea, and here it is fully realized, in the secular world. A few Christian sects reject free will and embrace the concept of fate (see Calvinism, predestination, theological determinism, and so on), but most are mired in the quicksands of their own contradictions: as a human being I was divinely created with free will, yet, as the song goes, “God has a plan for my life.” When God intervenes in this world and saves you from a killer, he violates the free will of two people. How free are you if gods ensure your life goes just so? All that can be put aside. There are no contradictions with the destiny considered here. Old phrases that used to feel so empty to us rationalists who reject religion, astrology, and so on — “everything happens for a reason,” “if it’s meant to be,” “you’re where you’re supposed to be” — are suddenly imbued with new meaning. And that’s a delightful thing.

For more from the author, subscribe and follow or read his books.