We are living in the Age of the Maxxers.
That, anyway, is what Sam Kriss thinks; it's also what a surprising number of other cultural commentators, Substackers, and NPR hosts think as well. Moderation is out; normalcy is out; morality itself is out. It doesn't matter what you maxx; pick something, anything, and maxx it.
I don't believe in this trend; I don't believe in any trend that NPR hosts and Substackers tell me about, beginning with AI but also including Traditionalism, Social Media, the Alt Right, and facts. I am, as Dr. Ian Cameron once said, an educator in daily contact with young minds.
Nevertheless, like many fake trends talked about by people on the Internet, the term "maxxing" does in fact designate something--though what it designates is not in fact a fad originated by a few teenagers, but a pervasive cultural viewpoint that has structured our social and economic lives for many decades and is now mostly exemplified by people over fifty. This is true of every one of the trends mentioned above.
This particular viewpoint is easily defined, if not necessarily easily understood: it is merely what happens when people try to do ethics and live human life without believing in transcendent ends.
Hence the modest purpose of this short essay: to point out the exceptionally simple, straightforward, and obvious fact that without a robust and practical acceptance of transcendence as a pervasive feature of human life and action, it is impossible to construct a coherent ethical system, impossible to live a human life, and utterly impossible to be happy.
