Some snapshots from the book I'm working on. More on each of these in the coming months.

1. Progress is Not Inevitable; It is a Shared Spiritual Achievement

Civilization does not automatically expand; it is a rarity salvaged from the common human state of barbarism. In an age where algorithmic acceleration mimics advancement, we must remember that authentic progress is snatched from the welter of decline only through the shared, deliberate work of discerning people.

2. To Save Practicality, We Must Radically Withdraw From It

In our rush to optimize society and its education systems for technological efficiency, we have become like the prisoners in Plato's cave, happily analyzing shadows. To actually serve our 8-billion-person world, we must practice a withdrawal from practicality to ask the fundamental philosophical questions that yield insights for the human good.

3. The Digital Age Has Destroyed the "Unsocial Sociability" Necessary for Human Thriving

Immanuel Kant (in Universal History) noted that the friction of living with others—our "unsocial sociability"—is exactly what awakens human creativity and development. Today, pseudo-personal avatars in curated digital spaces have slackened this vital tension, replacing the messy demands of pluralism with shallow, isolated simulacra.

4. Artificial Intelligence Cannot Replace Meaning-Making Because AI Does Not Think

The anxiety in liberal arts disciplines over AI replacing human thought asks the wrong question. The real crisis is our failure to cultivate the authentic, self-transcending subjectivity necessary to construct shared meaning—a uniquely human task that no algorithm can perform.

5. Virtual Communities Evade the Incarnate Reality Required for True Solidarity

Human beings still live in a non-digital world: we have bodies, consume food, get sick, and navigate love, suffering, and death. When our communities become inordinately digital, we avoid the difficult, incarnate realities of pluralism that are an absolute prerequisite for global solidarity.

6. Shared Meaning is the Molecular Structure of Society, and It is Currently Collapsing

Community is not just a geographic boundary; it is a hard-won achievement of common experience, understanding, and judgment. When social media algorithms curate our consciousness and feed our biases, they actively destroy the molecular structure of belief and shared meaning that holds our diverse world together.

7. Cosmopolis is Not a Utopian Dream; It is a Practical Heuristic for Survival

Pursuing cosmopolis—a wholly good global society—is not about enforcing a single, flattened global regime. Rather, it serves as a critical heuristic that draws good people out of their tribalism, compelling them to practice an ethics of discernment that elevates local community actions toward universal justice.

8. The Survival of Our Fractured World Depends on a "Healing Minority"

Against dominant minorities compromised by financial and political interests who operate by the Thrasymachan pursuit of power, we must cultivate a "healing minority". Composed of disinterested teachers, scholars, artists, therapists, ministers, and others, this group must arrest social decline by deliberately promoting intersubjectivity.

9. True Education in the AI Age is Teaching the Student About the Student

Education must pivot away from merely teaching pragmatic skills destined for technological obsolescence. Following Bernard Lonergan’s theory of education, we must realize that teaching any subject is ultimately about teaching the student about their own capacity for insight, judgment, and self-appropriation.

10. "Omnicompetent Common Sense" is a Bias That Prevents Global Progress

We cannot solve the complex realities of an 8-billion-person world with localized common sense alone. "Omnicompetent common sense" is a dangerous bias that prevents us from seeking the systematic, higher viewpoints required to address the massive demographic and social shifts of our time.

11. The Loss of Religion is the Loss of the Meaning That Constitutes Community

As Charles Taylor observed regarding our changing social imaginary, the decline of religious belonging doesn't simply remove dogma; it actively dissolves the shared meaning that binds communities. Without new forms of spiritual meaning-making, shared civic life inevitably devolves into tribalism.

12. "Civic Spirituality" is the Only Antidote to the Modern Crisis of Loneliness

Against the staggering isolation of the digital world—epitomized by trends like hikikomori—we must reclaim a robust civic spirituality. This requires a habitus of mind and heart oriented toward self-gift, awakening individuals from natural egocentrism to care for the other.

13. Belief is Not Ignorance; It is the Burned Bridge to Knowledge We Must Rebuild

Because the complexities of the modern world make it impossible to individually verify all knowledge, we must rely on acts of trust. Belief exists between ignorance and knowledge; the collapse of community trust in a fragmented media ecosystem is the central epistemological crisis of our time.

14. Without Spiritual Exercises, We Remain Trapped in Inauthentic Lives

Just as ancient philosophers engaged in askesis as a primordial practice to radically transform their desires, modern citizens need spiritual exercises. Without disciplines of interiority, we remain vulnerable to the rapacity of immediate desire and the manipulation of the attention economy.

15. We Work For Each Other: Reclaiming the Telos of Labor in a Technocracy

Technocracy and modern economics have cost us the Aristotelian “that for the sake of which” we work. We must reclaim intersubjectivity—the truth that we work for each other—as the ultimate goal of human development and the foundation of any functioning global economy.

16. Philosophy Must Return to its Roots as a Lived, Communal Engagement

True philosophy is fundamentally the practice of civic spirituality. It cannot be restricted to abstract cognitive levels; it must involve communitary engagement, calling on us to plunge ourselves into the totality of the world and act in accordance with global justice.

17. We Cannot Be "World Citizens" Without Mastering Our Own Inner Lives

The ethical self is the discerning self. Only through the rigorous interior work of self-appropriation—paying refined attention to our own consciousness, biases, and affective movements—can we overcome group bias and contribute to the broader good of a diverse cosmopolis.

18. Epistemic Humility is the First Move Toward an Ethics for 8 Billion People

Navigating a pluralistic world requires profound epistemic humility and the suspension of private interest. The very first step toward an ethics capable of sustaining global society is the willingness to interrupt mimetic, pragmatic patterns and deliberately judge broader goods that sit upstream of our divisive politics.

19. The Daily "Examen" is a Radical Political Act

In a culture of constant digital noise, taking time for prayer, such as the Ignatian Examen—a daily exercise of withdrawal and recollection—is a radical act. This abstraction from the flow of experience allows us to achieve new insights, freeing our consciousness to discern genuine avenues of service to the world.

20. The Ultimate Goal of the Moral Life is Not Merely Justice, but Friendship

Drawing on Aristotle, the true culmination of cosmopolitan practices is homonoia—a union of hearts that holds diverse cities together. To build a society of 8 billion people, we must aim beyond transactional justice and foster schemes of recurrence that build profound civic friendship.