Living in Disorienting Times

The views expressed below are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights or Harvard Kennedy School. These perspectives have been presented to encourage debate on important public policy challenges.

Our disorienting times are a serious test of character for all of us. But it can also be an opportunity for us to pass such a test.

Starting in South Dakota

Earlier this year I spent a few days in South Dakota on a research trip involving visits to Pine Ridge and Rosebud Indian Reservations. When I picked up my rental car at Rapid City airport, the attendant asked where I was going. When I mentioned the reservations, he immediately knew which hotel I would stay in—there is only one option.

The trip involved considerable driving around both reservations but also yielded some memorable conversations. On one occasion, though I had tried hard not to go in this direction, politics came up when it emerged that I was from Massachusetts—a state where people vote rather differently than in South Dakota. I was talking with a local woman from a family partly from Central America and partly from the local Lakota community. She brought up various ups and downs in her family's recent history, some quite disconcerting.

From recollecting these episodes she made a connection to Jesus, pointing out how much orientation she had herself gotten from Jesus. And it was from there that she got to politics, emphasizing that she also drew a lot of solace from the fact that the United States had elected a president who also gets his—and there again was that word—orientation from Jesus. The implication was that she had given her vote to Donald Trump because he seemed more inclined to “give Jesus a chance” than the opposing Democrats.

"We all should give Jesus a chance," she concluded.

In terms of what all this means for the vote, this is not the choice that I would have made (see here and here), but I respect the reasoning, sincerity, and life experience behind it. In any event, my dissent on the voting choice is not my topic here, nor did I bring it up in that conversation.

What I would like to share here are some thoughts on orientation and disorientation—on how we live in times that for many of us are highly disorienting, and how that is a serious test of character for us. But it can also be an opportunity for us to pass such a test.

My conversation partner in South Dakota would not agree with much I have to say here. And again, I respect the sincerity and the life experience behind it. Maybe all this just speaks volumes to the state of the American soul a year before the 250^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence—or to how hard it is for people to live together in the first place.

Orientation—and Disorientation

"Orientation" is an intriguing word. It has its roots in geography and has made it into more philosophical contexts from there. It derives from the Latin for east, preserved in phrases like "the Orient" or a train that goes there, the "Orient Express." The underlying verb is oriri, meaning to rise—east is where the sun rises. ("Origin" shares this root.)

Geographical orientation thus means sensing one's position relative to sunrise. That direction holds privileged position because it first attracts attention as the source of light. Yet this does not mean one would or should travel eastward. One can get oriented by knowing where east is even without wanting to go east. Still, there must be a recognizable east.

I have spoken to many more people who find the current state of American politics profoundly disorienting than those who find any orientation from it. This should be unsurprising: where I live and work—not South Dakota, but Massachusetts—many people feel the country is veering dramatically off course and react with dismay to our deviation from previous paths.

What I am mostly hearing is not that people find it disorienting that Christian-guided leaders are in charge—people driven by a decision "to give Jesus a chance," as my South Dakota conversation partner might put it. Much like those who do not wish to go east can still get their bearings from knowing where east is, people uncomfortable living under distinctly Christian governance can still find their own political direction by relating themselves to those who do. It lies in the logic of "orientation" that one can get oriented by being different from what provides the orientation. Such people might then be alienated from current political realities, but they would not be disoriented.

But the current disorientation that many people feel very distinctly is not simply about being different from those in power. It is the more genuine and literal disorientation that comes from having no recognizable east.

Being disoriented is a problem all its own, and one that we currently have in abundance.

It is not even about refusing to go east—it is about having no recognizable east.

To be sure, I do not doubt that many who voted for our current government made their choices because they wanted to "give Jesus a chance" or were driven by other sincere conservative convictions. Still, what mostly comes across to those outside the supportive camp are phenomena I have discussed as "gaslighting" and "vindictive tolerance." (See here and here.) What is disorienting beyond just being alienating is that the driving force behind changes in this country appears to be not a political vision that some people support and others reject—but a style of politics that undermines the foundations of American democracy, a style of politics that it might be very hard to recover from.

The Nature of Our Current Disorientation: Gaslighting and Vindictive Tolerance

"Gaslighting" has become one of the great buzzwords of our time. Some decades ago, distinguished philosopher Harry Frankfurt diagnosed that it was a hallmark of the times back then that there was “so much bullshit.” “Bullshit” in Frankfurt’s sense is speaking without regard to the truth—not lying, but uttering words regardless of their truth. (See Frankfurt’s also commercially highly successful book On Bullshit.) Frankfurt's diagnosis remains apt, but we must add that gaslighting has become equally characteristic of our own era. It is stunning how much gaslighting there is.

Analysts examine everything from personal relationships to international leadership through this lens. At the most general conceptual level, gaslighting can be characterized as persuasion that essentially involves besmirching or belittling, particularly through claims of violated values or commitments.

This can happen in intimate but manipulative relationships where one partner tries to convince the other that their cognitive capacities cannot be trusted. It can also happen in political leadership when guidance is provided by accusing opponents of violating norms and undermining values that in fact one is violating or undermining oneself.

Typically, such leadership comes into its own in the context of grievance politics, where political discourse is full of indignation. And that is the situation in the United States. On the political left many are indignant because profoundly troubling aspects of American history have never been as thoroughly discussed as they think they should be—and even if they have, the implications for the present have not been properly sorted out.

On the political right, people are indignant because to them there is either too much discussion about these troubling aspects and too little of what they consider the glorious aspects or because the current generation is taken too much to task for past failures.

In such a climate, and in a system with only two parties that matter politically, it is tempting to persuade one’s receptive followers that the other side violates shared norms or values while it is in fact one’s own side that does so—say, undermining democracy by stealing an election when it was actually one's own party that attempted to do so. This creates a moral high ground for those who are so persuaded and creates a cacophony in which getting to any shared positions is practically impossible.

Trump's incessant accusations that Democrats stole the 2020 election exemplifies this perfectly. That so many around him echo this claim, and can be in their official roles apparently only because they do, speaks for itself. Undoubtedly this is a huge part of the disorientation so many Americans feel. A recent New York Times headline reads “Trump is Putting Election Deniers in Charge of Elections.” If that is not disorienting, then what is?

While gaslighting (among other things) describes a leadership style, "vindictive tolerance" characterizes how an entire political system functions. It is a system that those in charge want to portray as tolerant and committed to values like democracy, human rights, freedom of speech, and rule of law. But the tolerance is vindictive because political opponents are not actually tolerated but attacked as enemies of the system. Opponents within the system are described and attacked as enemies of the system.

This allows those in charge to have it all: they can claim they are needed to maintain a tolerant society while arguing that those who oppose them must be sanctioned morally, socially, and legally. One example is the current ambition of some in the Trump administration to target left-wing organizing with legal tools designed for organized crime or terrorism.

Obviously, this government does more than gaslight, and American society involves more than vindictive tolerance. But there is quite a bit of both, explaining why many Americans feel profoundly disoriented in that genuine, literal sense. In oversimplified terms: it is not even about refusing to go east—it is about having no recognizable east.

The disorientation is compounded by the fact that for many other Americans, there is a recognizable east. They seem willing to ignore or tolerate considerable dysfunction as long as in their minds the current government can be described as "giving Jesus a chance" more distinctively than the other party would. Steve Bannon recently referred to Trump as “an instrument of divine will,” making clear that there is a plan to keep him in power for a third term. (See here and here.)

Conversations across such divides prove extremely difficult, especially since different sides get their news in completely different ways. It often feels like we inhabit different planets with certain similarities that do not quite add up to shared reality.

A Focus on the Wrong Things

For those feeling disoriented, American politics these days focuses on entirely the wrong things. Climate change is profoundly altering living possibilities on our planet. The constant news of climate-related disasters offers continuous reminders of this reality. Yet the President tells the UN it is all a big con job.

Imminent developments in Artificial Intelligence could affect everything from daily life to the emergence of new forms of consciousness. This demands serious global engagement, or at minimum cooperation with as many allies as possible. Instead, the American AI Action Plan treats the situation as pure competition between the U.S. and China, viewing everyone else at best as customers. (See here.)

Much undocumented immigration is driven by people's inability to flourish or, in many cases, even survive where they live. When they leave, the vast majority of those threatened in their very ability to survive travel only as far as necessary to find safety, then do their best to rebuild their lives. Current U.S. governmental activities against immigrants are driven by rhetoric deploying vastly exaggerated numbers while often depicting them wholesale as "the worst of the worst."

Of course, some immigrants commit crimes, including heinous ones. But since the 19^th century, according to the evidence, both legal and illegal (undocumented) immigrants have had a lower crime rate than native-born Americans. (Also see here and here.) Still, American cities increasingly become sites of ICE raids targeting people whose only "crime" was seeking the closest place of safety or a chance at prosperity—many of whom come from countries south of the border whose economic and political fate has long been intertwined with that of the United States. (For background on illegal immigration, also see here and here and here.) Many see such ICE raids as a crude deployment of state power against human beings whose choices to move to safer and more prosperous places merely reflect a universally intelligible human desire not to founder in a hostile world.

Canada has long been part of an integrated cultural and economic space with the United States while maintaining its own distinct political identity that makes Canadians proud to live separately from Americans. Now they must worry about potential invasion in the coming years. The American president's willingness to deploy troops to Democratic cities for "training purposes" offers no reassurance to Canadians—and deeply troubles many Americans.

These examples focus on America without even touching Ukraine, Israel/Palestine, Venezuela, the situation of the Uyghurs in China, or the many neglected conflicts in Africa. Others around the world also live in disorienting times and have been hit much harder. But my focus here is the United States.

Surveying all this misdirected attention, we must ask: with all the human understanding, scientific knowledge, and wealth we have accumulated, is this really the best we can do?

This question bears repeating: Is this really the best we can do?

This question arises with considerable urgency after several weeks of governmental shutdown in the United States that above all seems to indicate a shift away from problem-solving at the congressional level toward an increase in presidential power.

Temptations to Disengage in Disorienting Times

Political engagement becomes difficult during disorienting times, and many Americans, especially young people—as well as many people everywhere in the world—must now decide upon their political commitments under precisely these circumstances.

What might easily happen if you engage politically is this: if you present yourself as opposing the system, you might be attacked as an enemy of the system. You might be labeled as someone who undermines democracy, rule of law, freedom of speech, or tolerance, or you might be demonized in other ways—even though what you wanted was to contribute to preserving such values or act under their guidance.

In times like these, we might look around for young idealists who wish to change the world—and not find them because they do not want such exposure. Their idealism simply vanishes.

Let me turn briefly to my own institution, Harvard University. From what I can tell, the campus atmosphere seems strikingly different now in fall 2025 than during the spring semester. We still find political activism on campus, of course, but remarkably little given what is at stake for American democracy. During spring, when Harvard started to draw government ire, there was much fear but also solidarity and heightened political consciousness.

Now more people seem to be keeping their heads down, hoping that the troubling tendencies will pass by, or in any event, will pass them by. This appears largely based on wishful thinking, maybe a bit like the deer in the headlights hoping that the source of the light will move past.  Many students feel intimidated, even worry their education might be disrupted by deportation, certainly feel political developments are beyond them, or have retreated from their previous self-understanding as political actors. Or they try not to think too much about the world. And these are new times—for all of us.

To mention one particularly striking symptom of the times: Any kind of discussion of free speech and its limits seems to make people anxious. I see this as a symptom of the vindictive tolerance that is settling in all around us. On October 21, German journalist Melanie Amann gave a talk at Harvard’s Center for European Studies on which the campus newspaper reported the next day. The headline was “Journalist Melanie Amann Condemns Politicization of Free Speech in Germany and at Harvard.” Towards the end, Amann is quoted as saying “You need to be able to say what is obviously wrong, biased, or not based on facts.” Then the article concludes by stating that “a spokesperson for Harvard University did not respond to a request to comment.”

Take a step back. Why would a spokesperson for Harvard need to comment on such a straightforward statement about free speech? Why would the paper even inquire?

Large-scale demonstrations (No Kings) show that significant portions of the population reject where the country is headed, providing some reason for hope. But anyone following global coverage of the United States knows how much international consternation exists about how readily American elites have largely ceased defending democracy, human rights, freedom of speech, and rule of law.

The priority for many seems to be moving unscathed into the next period of American history—one where these values might have become cries from the past.

All of these are symptoms of disengagement in disorienting times—though indeed it bears emphasizing that a good deal of hope does remain. This is a genuinely dialectical moment. That means there is significant pressure to change America in one direction, but considerable counterpressure is also emerging. This is not a linear process. We do not know where it leads. While outcomes remain uncertain, there is substantial room for agency. Our disorienting times do not need to drive anyone to despair. At least not yet.

And There is Advice to Be Had

Fortunately, the history of philosophy offers abundant advice for living in disorienting times—including periods of genuine calamity far more challenging than what many Americans currently experience. This does not minimize that for many people in our country, these times are not merely disorienting but truly calamitous, with current trends in public health funding likely to increase their numbers. (See here for more discussion.)

In fact, a good deal of philosophy, to the extent that philosophy has been concerned with how people live in the world rather than making sense of the world itself, has always been about giving advice on how to get through disorienting times.

With all the human understanding, scientific knowledge, and wealth we have accumulated, is this really the best we can do?

Let me offer a sample of helpful philosophical approaches, introducing them only briefly. What follows is deliberately eclectic. But after all, advice should be diverse, allowing recipients of the advice to determine what works for them. This is also merely a short list—much else is to be found “out there.”

Collectively, human history has seen it all before, wise people have written about it, and the best work of that sort remains useful to this day.

Stoicism: Focus on Your Sphere of Agency

From the ancient world, the Stoic school continues asking us to see ourselves as political beings while cultivating the art of distinguishing between what we can and cannot change. We should do our best to change what we can, find ways to adjust to what we cannot change, and develop wisdom to distinguish between the two.

In the 1930s, Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr translated ancient Stoic wisdom into the Serenity Prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.” Michael Ignatieff’s 2022 book On Consolation explores how a number of thinkers and political actors have put this advice to work in troubling times across history.

Stoicism remains relevant because its basic teachings address human challenges every generation experiences in navigating political change.

In disorienting times, focusing on your sphere of agency becomes crucial. By yourself, you cannot control whether gaslighting dominates public discourse or whether vindictive tolerance characterizes the system. But you can control your commitment to truth-telling in personal and professional life. You can control how you treat political opponents—refusing to mirror vindictive tolerance in your own behavior.

You can control your daily civic practices: voting, informed discussion, community involvement. You can also, to some extent, control your internal response to external chaos by cultivating relationships and activities that create balance and prepare you for future challenges—and allow you to become a force for good when it really matters.

Existentialism: Create Micro-Orientations When Macro-Orientation Fails

Fast-forwarding to the twentieth century, Existentialism urges us to create micro-orientations when macro-orientation fails.

"Existence precedes essence," Jean-Paul Sartre famously declared, meaning that much of how we view the world, make judgments, and navigate life is up to us. We need not inhabit anyone else's story, though we inevitably will if we do not take responsibility for our choices. A great piece to read on this remains Sartre’s speech “Existentialism Is a Humanism,” given right after the end of the Second World War.

For existentialists, orientation imagery does not quite apply because it suggests there is something like an "east" beyond geography to begin with. Existentialists do not believe there is such a thing. Absent that, we must create meaning and direction at smaller scales. Existentialists like Sartre and Albert Camus saw the absence of orientation as a fundamental human condition—not a cause for despair but a source of strength. Camus thought we lived in an absurd world, where we constantly look for answers but the world never provides any.

Existentialists recommend embarking on a quest for authentic action—action we can meaningfully identify with without being guided by either imitation or defiance. (So, no, authentic choice does decidedly not mean to say ‘no’ to everything that comes from anyone with authority—that is just another way of being dependent.) They recommend finding paths even when larger systems seem meaningless, engaging in concrete local action where we can see direct impact, and building larger communities from there. For existentialists, the authentic existence you create can be deeply political—and thereby deeply meaningful.

Existentialism will remain part of the philosophical repertoire because it speaks to an understanding of the human place in the world where each person is essentially alone in terms of finding their philosophical commitments and responsibilities. Then each person needs to take it from there. But major representatives of Existentialism also make clear that from there a world of possibilities opens up, including genuinely rewarding political stances.

Buddhism: Presence Over Paralysis

From a very different cultural context, Buddhism urges what we might call "presence over paralysis." Buddhist thinking centers on impermanence—everything is in constant flux. We typically see how things stay the same, but this profoundly miscomprehends reality. By getting fixated too much on what we think is permanent, humans become greedy, hateful, and remain ignorant.

Once we grasp that everything is in flux, we realize even the most disorienting times are not permanent. Buddhist ethics is about offering advice on how to inhabit a world in which nothing is permanent. Shantideva is an 8^th century Indian scholar, but his book The Way of the Bodhisattva remains timeless in this regard.

This basic insight about the world’s impermanent nature might offer small immediate consolation. But it is not advice for passive acceptance—rather for engaged presence. More specifically, we are advised to stay informed without being consumed by news cycles, act from clarity rather than reactive emotion, and maintain perspective about historical cycles and human resilience.

The current Dalai Lama—the head of Tibetan Buddhism—has been especially articulate about the political dimensions of Buddhism. One great book to read is his joint work with Howard Cutler, The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living. The message is that there are ways of being happy even while displaying an attitude of presence over paralysis in a political maelstrom. That is a good message to process these days.

Disorientation Tolerance as Democratic Skill

Perhaps we also need to cultivate "disorientation tolerance" as a democratic skill. Maybe learning to live with disorientation itself is necessary for democracy. At this stage in American and global history, uncertainty might just be democracy's normal state.

If that is what it is, we might ask ourselves questions such as these: What is one small act of integrity I can perform today? How can I strengthen one relationship across difference—and if not across difference, then maybe just one that otherwise needs repair? Where can I contribute to something larger than myself without losing myself?

Asking these questions and acting on the answers will not by itself solve larger problems. At the same time, nothing else will. It might create and maintain smaller spheres of agency, helping us preserve and advance our very sense of agency. From there, it will be possible to connect to larger movements for democratic renewal, which for some people might well be the No Kings movement.

Preserving and advancing agency one person at a time ultimately means preserving and advancing democratic agency writ large. And so for each of us, this is a good investment in the future of our political communities. Conversely, without preserving and advancing agency one person at a time political spaces will simply close down.

The various, dramatically different philosophical perspectives we have encountered here would all support this conclusion. This should not be surprising. The philosophical wisdom of human history has always been about making sure there is a bearable future—ideally a better future, a good future. Our disorienting times are a serious test of character for all of us. But it can also be an opportunity for us to pass such a test.

And Ending in South Dakota

Let me return to South Dakota. In the small town where I stayed, I ate at the same restaurant several times. That restaurant was across the street from where the conversation that I described at the beginning took place. On one occasion I paid with a credit card, so the waitress—the same waitress each time—saw my name.

"Are you here to visit the Risses who live in the area?" she asked.

That question came as a complete surprise—I had no idea such people existed. It was my own first time in South Dakota, and I am confident that nobody from my extended family ever visited, no matter how extensive a sense of “extended” one would use. But she told me "tons of them" lived in the area. I later confirmed through a quick internet search that my surname is indeed common in that part of South Dakota. I vaguely recall from a youthful passion for genealogy that a very long time ago, one or two of my ancestors had shipped off to the United States.

Since I was there for work on Indigenous affairs, my joy at this discovery was limited and qualified—especially around Pine Ridge and Rosebud, places where the deep history of Indigenous trauma is more present than just about anywhere else in the country.  And while mine is not a common last name in Germany, and a very regional one, it is not so uncommon or regionally specific to allow for much of an inference here.

But in a highly disorienting world, finding unexpected connections, or what might be connections—just taken by itself, without considering the larger context, which obviously one quickly must—can be a welcome reminder that there is more connectivity around us than might meet the eye.

Perhaps that is a reason for a smile, much needed in these disorienting times.