The Meaning Crisis Explained...Is Modernity Killing Meaning? John Vervaeke and Malcolm Guite hosted by John Nelson

In this profound episode of Unbelievable?, host John Nelson convenes a deep dialogue between cognitive scientist John Vervaeke and poet-priest Malcolm Guite on the so-called 'meaning crisis' of modernity. Vervaeke argues that the crisis stems from a cultural shift since the late Middle Ages—particularly the rise of nominalism and the Enlightenment's 'propositional tyranny'—which privileged abstract, detached reason over embodied, participatory, and imaginal ways of knowing. This has severed the deep human need for connectedness to a 'larger reality,' leading to widespread loneliness, anxiety, and spiritual emptiness. Guite adds that modernity’s Cartesian dualism and reductionist science have created an 'epistemological apartheid,' where imagination and myth are dismissed as non-rational, despite their essential role in apprehending meaning. Both guests emphasize that meaning is not merely intellectual but relational, communal, and rooted in practices that bind us to ourselves, others, and reality. They advocate for a recovery of 'religio'—the binding force of meaning—through integrated ecologies of practices: dialogical, imaginal, mindful, and embodied. The episode concludes with a hopeful vision of the 'advent of the sacred,' where diverse traditions converge in a renewed, embodied wisdom that transcends individualism and re-enchantment through pilgrimage, myth, and shared commitment.