To the misanthropes, malcontents, cynics, doomers, freaks, artists, wounded inner-children, the spiritually depleted, the alienated, and yes, the believers(in something—anything—) welcome. Most plainly, A New Situation is a remote outpost dedicated to exercising my ability to elucidate my thoughts about the moral and cultural degradation of Western civilization while refusing to accept that, as another Gen-Z woman with chronic depression and existential angst, I am operating under “compromised” cognitive conditions unique to the post-pandemic era. Like so many of you, I am tech-addled, distracted, and disillusioned. I could probably snap my fingers and get a prescription for Adderall, but I am not interested in “boosting productivity” or [redacted LinkedIn tongue].

I’d rather spend my time casting lines out into this vast ocean of online detritus for potential antidotes and allies. By having faith in what’s real and true in a hyperreal, post-truth era, you can help me spread the ideas that will come to define my venture, A New Situation, as a countercultural movement in opposition to the unprecedented corporate greed that is devastating the minds of our youngest generations. As a society, we have been brought to heel by tech, AI, and food mega-corporations that prey upon the least fortunate among us. Nuanced critical thought has become the new counterculture, as has been heavily (to an overhyped degree, no doubt) documented in lower-Manhattan post-pandemic. The presence of critical thought in daily life has been all but “sanitized” for most, in large part thanks to addictive 30 to 60-second political and socioeconomic soundbites on TikTok and Instagram. It is no surprise, then, that ignorance and oversimplification stoke dangerous breeds of radicalism en masse, while nuanced critical thought and real-time conversation/debate between human beings results in an environment of rationalism.

Plato’s allegory of the cave is arguably more pertinent to civilization now than at any other point in recorded history. Those of us for whom it is a spiritual necessity to defend truth, education, and artistic beauty must band together and demand revolution in a world where so many are unassuming prisoners to tech-mediated passivity and satisfaction with representation over reality. This is my core mission with A New Situation.

I’m so glad you found us.