Introduction: The Weirding of the Symbolic

You see, there’s this idea floating around that we’re living through what some are calling the “Great Weirding.” Now, that might sound like the title of a sci-fi novel, but it’s really about something pretty fundamental—and a little unsettling—about how we understand the world. It’s the collective realization that our symbolic order, the way we construct and interpret meaning, is slowly unraveling. It’s not just a matter of things getting a little chaotic; it’s about entropy, the universal law that things fall apart, applied to our social and symbolic structures.

The concept of the “Great Weirding” encapsulates a collective realization that our symbolic order—our systems of meaning, language, and social structures—is not only vulnerable to the encroaching chaos of entropy but is itself an expression of it. Our attempts to impose a spontaneous decrease in entropy within the symbolic realm are, in many ways, futile and, in others, fundamentally misguided.

Entropy and the Universe

Let’s start with entropy. In the simplest terms, entropy is a measure of disorder. In physics, it’s the idea that the universe tends to go from order to disorder, from structured energy to random chaos. Imagine a cup of coffee cooling down—it never spontaneously gets hot again. That’s entropy in action. The universe is constantly moving towards a state of higher entropy, more disorder.

Now, what happens when you take this concept and apply it to human systems—our cultures, our languages, our social norms? That’s where things get interesting. The “Great Weirding” is the notion that our symbolic order, the structures we rely on to make sense of the world, is succumbing to this entropic drift.

The Symbolic Order: A Brief OverviewHumans, we’re pretty good at making symbols—words, laws, institutions. These are the tools we use to bring order to the chaos around us. We create meaning through these symbols, and that’s how we build societies, communicate with each other, and maintain a sense of continuity. But here’s the catch: just like everything else in the universe, these symbolic structures are subject to entropy. They decay, they unravel, they lose their coherence over time.

The symbolic order is the structure within which we construct our reality. It is the domain of language, law, and social norms—the framework through which we navigate the world and make sense of our experiences. Yet, this order is not static; it is dynamic, constantly threatened by the Real, the chaotic undercurrent of existence that resists symbolization. The symbolic order is inherently unstable because it is built upon a void—a lack that cannot be filled. This lack is the engine of desire, driving us to seek meaning and coherence in a world that is fundamentally incoherent. The “Great Weirding” represents a moment of collective realization that this instability is not an anomaly but the very nature of the symbolic order itself.

Entropy and the Symbolic Entropy, in the thermodynamic sense, refers to the tendency of systems to move towards disorder. In the symbolic realm, entropy manifests as the gradual breakdown of meaning, the erosion of the structures that once provided coherence and order. The more we attempt to impose order, the more we are confronted with the inevitability of entropy. The “Great Weirding” is the recognition that our symbolic systems are not immune to this entropic force. The more we cling to outdated symbols, rigid ideologies, and fixed identities, the more we accelerate the process of symbolic entropy. This is not merely a pessimistic view but an insight into the nature of the symbolic: it is always already in a state of decay.

Why We Can’t Beat Entropy

So, what do we do when things start to fall apart? We try to put them back together, of course. We double down on our symbols, we reinforce our rules, we cling to old traditions. But—and this is the key point—we’re up against the second law of thermodynamics. You can’t reverse entropy. You can shuffle things around, maybe buy a little time, but in the end, the system as a whole is always tending towards greater disorder.

In a way, this is what’s happening with our symbolic order. We’re trying to resist the tide of entropy, but it’s a losing battle. Every time we think we’ve re-established order, the underlying chaos breaks through in new and unexpected ways. It’s like trying to unspill the coffee—no matter how hard you try, the stain is always there.

The Futility of Reversing Entropy Our attempts to reverse entropy in the symbolic order—through the revival of traditional values, the reinforcement of social norms, or the creation of new ideologies—are doomed to failure. From our perspective, these efforts are not only futile but are also “not even wrong,” to borrow Wolfgang Pauli’s famous phrase. They are misguided because they fail to recognize the fundamental nature of the symbolic order as a system that is always tending towards entropy. Lacan’s notion of the “objet petit a,” the unattainable object of desire, illustrates this futility. We seek to impose order, to reduce symbolic entropy, in the hopes of achieving a perfect, harmonious reality. But this quest is illusory because the symbolic order is predicated on a lack that cannot be overcome. The “Great Weirding” thus reveals the absurdity of our efforts to resist entropy in the symbolic realm.

The Real and the Irreducibility of Entropy

Lacan’s concept of the Real, the unsymbolizable kernel of existence that resists all attempts at integration into the symbolic order, is where entropy finds its most potent expression. The Real is the locus of the “great weirding”—the point at which the symbolic order confronts its own limits and the inevitability of entropy.

In encountering the Real, we are faced with the impossibility of fully controlling or understanding the forces that shape our reality. The “Great Weirding” is not just a moment of crisis but a profound insight into the nature of the symbolic order and our place within it. It is the recognition that entropy is not something to be resisted or reversed but rather an intrinsic aspect of the symbolic order that we must learn to navigate.