Winter is coming, and so is Solstice season. There'll be large rationality-centric-or-adjaecent events in NYC, the Bay Area, and Seattle(and possibly other places - if you're interested in running a Solstice event or learning what that involves, send me a PM). In NYC, there'll be a general megameetup throughout the weekend, for people who want to stay through Sunday afternoon, and if you're interested in shared housing you can fill out this form.

The NYC Solstice isn't running a kickstarter this year, but I'll need to pay for the venue by November 19th ($6125). So if you are planning on coming it's helpful to purchase tickets sooner rather than later. (Or preorder the next album or 2016 Book of Traditions, if you can't attend but want to support the event).

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This is the second post in the Solstice 2015 sequence, discussing plans and musings on the potential cultural impact of the Solstice. The first post was here. 

This explores the Solstice's relationship with Atheism, Rationality, and Death.

Atheism

Some may be surprised that I don't consider atheism particularly core to the Solstice.

This probably will remain a part of it for the forseeable future. Atheists happen to be the demographic most hungry for some kind of meaningful winter traditions. And Beyond the Reach of God, a powerful essay that (often) plays an important role in the holiday, happens to frame it's argument around the non-existence of God.

But this doesn't actually seem especially inevitable or necessary. Beyond the Reach of God *isn't* about God, per se (at least, I don't see it that way). It's about the absolute, unforgiving neutrality of the laws of physics. It's about all the other sacred things that even atheists believe in, which they may make excuses for.

I think it's *currently* useful for there to a moment where we acknowledge that there is no God to bail us out, and that this is really important. But this may not always be the case. I would be pretty happy if, in 50 years, all references to God were gone from the Solstice (because the question of God was no longer one that preoccupied our society in the first place), but those crucial points were made in other ways. It can be a holiday for atheists without being about that in any specific way.

Rationality

It's common throughout the secular world to speak highly of "rationality." But oftentimes, what that means in practice is pointing out the mistakes that other people are making, the fallacies they're committing.

The brand of rationality that spawned the Solstice has a different meaning: a specific dedication to looking at the way your own mind and beliefs are flawed, and actively seeking to correct them. Looking for the sacred cows of your culture (be it liberal, libertarian, academic or otherwise) and figuring out how they have blinded you.

Rationality is... sort of a central theme, but in an understated way. It underlies everything going on in the event, but hasn't really been a central character.

This might be a mistake. In particular because rationality's role is very subtle, and easy to be missed. Axial Tilt is the reason for the season, not crazy sun gods. But the reason that's important is a larger principle: that beliefs are entangled, that habits of excuse-making for outdated beliefs can be dangerous -- and that this can apply not just to antiquated beliefs about sun gods but (more importantly) to your current beliefs about politics and finance and love and relationships.

Aesthetically, in a culture of rationalists, I think it's correct for "rationality" to be very understated at the Solstice - there are plenty of other times to dwell upon it. But since Solstice is going to get promoted outside of the culture that spawned it, it's possible it may be best to include songs or stories that make it's epistemic core more explicit, so as not to be forgotten. It would be very easy for the Solstice to become about making fun of religion, and that is very much not my goal.
 
This year I have a story planned that will end up putting this front and center, but that won't make for a very good "permanent" feature of the Solstice. I'm interested in people's comments on how to address that in a more longterm way.

Death

I think one of the most valuable elements of the Solstice is the way it addresses' death. Atheists or "nones" don't really have a centralized funeral culture, and this can actually be a problem - it means that when someone dies, you suddenly have to scramble to put together an event that feels earnest and true, that helps you grapple with one of life's harshest events, and many people are too overwhelmed to figure out how to do so.

Funerals, more than any kind of secular ceremony, benefit from prior ritualization - a set of clear instructions on what to do that feel familiar and comfortable. It's the not the time to experiment with novel, crazy ideas, even genuinely good ones.

So Solstice provides a venue to test out pieces of funeral ritual, and let the good ones become familiar. It also provides a time, in the interim, for people who haven't had the chance to grieve properly because their loved one's funeral was theistic-by-default.

I think for this to work optimally, it needs to be a bit more deliberate. There's a lot of death-centric songs in the Solstice (probably more than there should be), but relatively few that actually feel appropriate for a funeral. I'd like to look for opportunities to do things more directly-funeral-relevant, while still appropriate for the overall Solstice arc.

There's also a deeper issue here: secular folk vary wildly in how they relate to death. Some people are looking for a way to accept it. Other people think the very idea of accepting death is appalling.

Common Ground

I have my own opinions here, and I'll dive a bit more deeply into this in my next post. But for now, I'll just note that I want to help shape a funeral culture that does feel distinctive, with traditions that feel at least a little oddly specific (to avoid a sort of generic, store-brand feel), but which also strike a kind of timeless, universal chord. Funerals are a time when wildly disparate friends and family need to come together and find common ground.

When my grandmother died, I went to a Catholic mass. Two hundred people spoke in unison "our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name." The words themselves meant very little, but the fact that two hundred people who speak them flawlessly together felt very meaningful to me. And I imagine it'd have been even more meaningful, if I believed in them.

In the secular world, not everyone's into chanting things as a group. But it still seems to me that having words that are familiar to you, which you can at least listen together and know that two hundred people also find them meaningful, could be very important.

Now, humanity has certainly not lacked for beautiful poetry surrounding death. Nor even beautiful non-supernatural poetry surrounding death. Nor even beautiful poetry-surrounding-death-that-matches-you-(yes-you)-'re-specific-worldview-surrounding-death. But what it does seem to be lacking is are well-known cultural artifacts that a wide array of people would feel comforted by, in a very primal way.

There's a particular poem that's meaningful to me. There's another poem (very similar, both relating to the turning of the seasons and our changing relationship with the seasons of over time), that's meaningful to my girlfriend. But they're just different enough that neither would be feel safe and familiar to both of us, in the event of someone's death.

So something I'd like to do with the Solstice, is to coordinate (across all Solstices, across the nation, and perhaps in other holidays and events) to find words or activities to share, that can become well known enough that everyone at a funeral could feel united.

An actionable question:

In particular, I think I'm looking for a poem (not intended to be the only element-addressing-death in the Solstice, but one that has a shot at widespread adoption),  with a few qualities:

 - Short enough (or with a simple refrain) that people can speak it aloud together.
 - Whether metaphorical or not, hints at a theme of relating to memories and the preserving thereof. (I think this is something most worldviews can relate to)
 - All things being equal, something fairly commonly known.
 - Since everyone's going to want their own favorite poem to be the one adopted, people interested in this problem should try applying some meta-cooperative-considerations - what do you wish other people with their own favorite poems were doing to try and settle on this?

If you have either suggestions for a poetic contender, or disagreements with my thought process here, let me know!

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In the next (probably final) post of this mini-sequence, I'll be talking about Humanism, Transhumanism, and the Far Future.

Winter is coming, and so is Solstice season. There'll be large rationality-centric-or-adjaecent events in NYC, the Bay Area, and Seattle (and possibly other places - if you're interested in running a Solstice event or learning what that involves, send me a PM). In NYC, there'll be a general megameetup throughout the weekend, for people who want to stay through Sunday afternoon, and if you're interested in shared housing you can fill out this form.

The NYC Solstice isn't running a kickstarter this year, but I'll need to pay for the venue by November 19th ($6125). So if you are planning on coming it's helpful to purchase tickets sooner rather than later. (Or preorder the next album or 2016 Book of Traditions, if you can't attend but want to support the event).

-

I've been thinking for the past couple years about the Solstice as a memetic payload.

The Secular Solstice is a (largely Less Wrong inspired) winter holiday, celebrating how humanity faced the darkest season and transformed it into a festival of light. It celebrates science and civilization. It honors the past, revels in the present and promises to carry our torch forward into the future.

For the first 2-3 years, I had a fair amount of influences over the Solstices held in Boston and San Francisco, as well as the one I run in NYC. Even then, the holiday has evolved in ways I didn't quite predict. This has happened both because different communities took them in somewhat different directions, and because (even in the events I run myself), factors come into play that shaped it. Which musicians are available to perform, and how does their stage presence affect the event? Which people from which communities will want to attend, and how will their energy affect things? Which jokes will they laugh at? What will they find poignant?

On top of that, I'm deliberately trying to spread the Solstice to a larger audience. Within a couple years, if I succeed, more of the Solstice will be outside of my control than within it. 

Is it possible to steer a cultural artifact into the future, even after you let go of the reins? How? Would you want to?

In this post, I lay out my current thoughts on this matter. I am interested in feedback, collaboration and criticism.

Lessons from History?

(Epistemic status: I have not really fact checked this. I wouldn't be surprised if the example turned out to be false, but I think it illustrates an interesting point regardless of whether it's true)

Last year after Solstice, I was speaking with a rationalist friend with a Jewish background. He made an observation. I lack the historical background to know if this is exactly accurate (feel free to weigh in on the comments), but his notion was as follows:

Judaism has influenced the world in various direct ways. But a huge portion of its influence (perhaps the majority) has been indirectly through Christianity. Christianity began with a few ideas it took from Judaism that were relatively rare. Monotheism is one example. The notion that you can turn to the Bible for historical and theological truth is another.

But buried in that second point is something perhaps more important: religious truth is not found in the words of your tribal leaders and priests. It's found in a book. The book contains the facts-of-the-matter. And while you can argue cleverly about the book's contents, you can't disregard it entirely.

Empiricists may get extremely frustrated with creationists, for refusing to look outside their book for answers (instead of the natural world). But there was a point where the fact of the matter lay entirely in "what the priests/ruler said" as opposed to "what the book said". 

In this view, Judaism's primary memetic success is in helping to seed the idea of scholarship, and a culture of argument and discussion.

I suspect this story is simplified, but these two points seem meaningful: a memeplex's greatest impact may be indirect, and may not have much to do with the attributes that are most salient on first glance to a layman.

Simplicity

So far, I've deliberately encouraged people to experiment with the Solstice. Real rituals evolve in the wild, and adapt to the needs of their community. And a major risk of ritual is that it becomes ossified, turning either hollow or dangerous. But if a ritual is designed to be mutable, what gives it it's identity? What separates a Secular Solstice from a generic humanist winter holiday?

The simplest, most salient and most fun aspects of a ritual will probably spread the fastest and farthest. If I had to sum up the Solstice in nine words, they would be:

Light. Darkness. Light.
Past. Present. Future.
Humanity. Science. Civilization.

I suspect that without any special effort on my part (assuming I keep promoting the event but don't put special effort into steering its direction), those 9 pieces would remain a focus of the event, even if groups I never talk to adopt it for themselves.

The most iconic image of the Solstice is the Candelit story. At the apex of the event, when all lights but a single candle have been extinguished, somebody tells a story that feels personal, visceral. It reminds us that this world can be unfair, but that we are not alone, and we have each other. And then the candle is blown out, and we stand in the absolute darkness together.

If any piece of the Solstice survives, it'll be that moment.

If that were all that survived, I think that'd be valuable. But it'd also be leaving 90%+ of the potential value of the Solstice on the table.

Complex Value

There are several pieces of the Solstice that are subtle and important. There are also pieces of it that currently exist that should probably be tapered down, or adjusted to become more useful. Each of them warrants a fairly comprehensive post of its own. A rough overview of topics to explore:

Atheism.
Rationality.
Death.
Humanism.
Transhumanism.
Existential Risk.
The Here and Now.
The Distant Future.

My thoughts about each of these are fairly complex. In the coming weeks I'll dive into each of them. The next post, discussing Atheism, Rationality and Death, is here.