The Dawn of Vitalism

A new era of American culture committed to vitality--the power giving continuance of life, present in all living things--is trying to happen

DISCLAIMER: As a non-MFA holding, mostly maritime writer, journal editor, and smalltime newbie author, I’m getting a bit “out of my lane” with this thesis I’m throwing down. But I'm inundated with clever think pieces about the state of American writing and the arts here on Substack and can’t seem to help myself. In my defense, these are not idle intellectual exercises for me. I’m constantly in a lurch at book fairs, literary events, arts organizations, and the like trying to figure out why certain writers are giving the keynote address and others can’t get on a panel discussion. These civilization scoping zeitgeist gladiator duels have a direct effect on my livelihood like the heaving seas upon which a small seabird (me) bobs.

Just a heads up. This is an earnest, hopefully not pretentious, think piece. Proceed with caution.

Writers Surf the Zeitgeist

I remember a stint as a commercial tuna deckhand out of Westport, Washington. I agreed to the seasonal gig thinking I’d make an easy $10k or more for a month or two of sweat. I was told I was going to be in and out of port every few days, so the lovely lady I was enamored with wouldn’t miss me too much. The captain seemed like a nice guy on shore. I hopped on the boat feeling fortunate and ready to work.

Well, this was a year when the infamous warm water Blob messed up the whole season, misdirecting tuna to who knows where exactly. In our desperation, we ended up being out there for almost a month straight and the lady I was crazy about dumped me upon return. The captain was a real cranky geezer once land was out of sight to boot. Through no fault of my own, I was broke, heartbroken, and half shanghighed. “Traumatized” is going too far, but man, my ass was kicked.

When the weather and Norns conspire against you, the tuna season is skunked and you’re broke no matter how hard you work, earnestly you pray, or far you sail. So it is with writing for a living. Simply put, I don’t think Hemingway would’ve been published if he came up during the era of The Beats. Same with Jack Kerouac in Hemingway’s time. To me, the writers who rise are less like inevitable conquerors ascending through force of will and more like pro surfers catching waves. Yes, they still must be pros—the best they can be—but they must catch that swell. And the swell is a force of Mother Nature and Father Time, a thing sculpted by wind and submerged geography and other such things too grand for a little human to typically influence or fully comprehend.

A good illustration of what I’m talking about is a central theme of the new movie A Complete Unknown about Bob Dylan. Based off Elijah Wald's Dylan Goes Electric! book about Dylan’s early career that culminates in his 1965 Newport Folk Festival performance, the central conflict in the narrative is Bob Dylan’s acoustic-only, Pete Seegar-blessed folk roots versus a new awakening that includes a band and electric instruments. Blowing in the Wind versus Like A Rolling Stone. The conflict is alluded to in the trailer, “I want to know what side he’s on.”

Bob Dylan was booed and basically had to flee the folk festival for going electric, but he “won” in the sense that he successfully caught the zeitgeist wave rising around him. The pro surfer rips.

You may also note that rarely are these surfers and environmental conditions a question of good versus evil, right versus wrong. The folk versus electric dynamics and struggles are inherent to all moments, cultural movements, and the like. There is nothing inherently bad about Pete Seeger’s dominant folk institution or virtuous about Bob Dylan’s electric rebellion. And yet, these are the kinds of conflicts that define a time, culture, philosophies, and art. They must happen. And the new must always challenge the old. If there is virtue at all, it’s the continuation of the cycle of life. Death and birth.

Decade of Fun but Demoralizing, and Ultimately Pathetic, Subverstructionism

One needn’t be a culture warrior to notice that a, if not the, dominate philosophical underpinnings of American art has been deconstructionist and subversive. I hereby deem these two things when combined into a primary philosophy subvertstructionist. So sayeth me! While neither of these things are inherently bad, their overwhelming dominance in the arts over the last decade or so must be noted if one is to understand these times.

I’m defining deconstructionist as “a method of critical analysis of philosophical and literary language which emphasizes the internal workings of language and conceptual systems, the relational quality of meaning, and the assumptions implicit in forms of expression.” Essentially, a deconstructionist will take a story and break it down into its component parts to the barest linguistic and sociopolitical pieces. Deconstructionist storytellers rearrange and reassemble these parts to tell stories they believe are inherently superior by virtue of the deconstruction method said storyteller utilized. Picture someone dissembling a car down to the bolts in order to understand it, then recreating not the car but a sculpture. Maybe something edgy and defiant—a phallus! Or perhaps they leave the pieces in a pile, proclaiming smugly, “It was just metal all along, man.” Again, there’s nothing inherently wicked about this practice. But we’ll circle back.

When I used the term subversive, I’m referring to the mainstream definition of “tending or intending to subvert or overthrow, destroy, or undermine an established or existing system, especially a legally constituted government or a set of beliefs.” Once again, there is nothing inherently wrong with being subversive. In fact, being able to apply deconstructionist methods to understand the world and being subversive in the face of established norms one wishes to change are basic intellectual skills—especially in a typical American life with election cycles, consumer choice and power, etc.

But like all outlooks, there must be a balance. Overbearing subvertstructionism as I see it is an inherently off-balance worldview that tends to consume its host. On a personal note, most of these works leave me demoralized and hopeless when I close the last chapter or watch the final scene.

Let me cite some examples. Take the archetypical parent in contemporary fiction. These days, they are universally dead or villainous (especially fathers). The wise mentor? Broken spirited and whose only honorable purpose is to renounce their legacies and literally die. The lover character is more often than not a source of chaos and danger who is just as likely to prey upon the protagonist as bring her to orgasm.

I’ve written in the past about the rise of dystopia and my private boycott of the genre “Society Snuff”. I argue that Society Snuff is a form of subvertstructionism as well.

Perhaps most importantly for me to underscore is that subvertstructionism is not contained to the arts. Anybody else notice how the powerful and their media tried to herd us all into the Metaverse, a renunciation of the real, living world? Inherent to that whole schtick is that real life is bad and here is a new reality that’s better. We deconstructed life and they subverted it with your desires! What’s wrong? Get in there, you!

How about all this religious praise for and multi-trillions invested in artificial intelligence? Again, the human mind is no good, the robotic one that’s reduced all human expression into algorithmic formula is needed. Even space exploration has taken a strange cultural turn. As a kid, I associated going to Mars as an exciting, peaceful celebration of humankind banding together as friends as part of an evolution into an amazing future. Now conversations about Mars are almost entirely held by billionaires who are animated by the central thesis that the Earth is doomed. Earth our beautiful home is bad = subversive. Humans need only a livable artificial habitat backed by enough money = deconstructionist. Voila, subvertstruction.

The problem for the subvertstructionists is corporeal reality. Our innate instincts and sense are decently attuned to reality. The real world and life experience is overwhelmingly amazing and the metaverse a hilarious, cheap parody. No matter how “good” AI gets, the human mind is an endless treasure trove of wonder and reward for the user. Going to other planets sounds amazing, but not as some kind of hamster cage themed desperate bid for billionaire immortality. Even an Earth ravaged by climate change and nuclear war is infinitely more hospitable to us humans than Mars. These are commonsense conclusions that one can determine just by taking a few deep breaths during a reflective walk through the park. But such nourishing inhales and strolls in the sun have no value at the table in a subvertstructionist culture.

So are the arts affected. Mentors, parents, and lovers are inherently the most treasured figures in most people’s lives. Those of us unfortunate enough to not have these bonds need compassion and strength to form these bonds anew or live a sort of crippled half life. Additionally, an overwhelming percentage of humans need a society in which to belong and feel reasonably comfortable within, whether the scale be a tribal unit or country. All societies have faults worth exploring, but to wage endless war against the concept of a society is extreme to say the least.

But none of these archetypes in fiction nor environments can endure an avowedly subvertstructionist publishing house or movie studio. When shit hits the fan in every Society Snuff film I’ve seen, one’s neighbors immediately come to kill—sometimes as undead zombies, often as unreasonable cannibal fuckheads. Take a minute to appreciate how demoralizing it is that the “Hope and Change” Obama family produced the Society Snuff film Leave the World Behind. The plot is Iran cyberattacks us and civilization shuts down. A black and white family are forced to live together and fail to get along. Ultimately the main character sneaks into a bunker to watch Friends as bombs fall upon Manhattan and rogue elements storm the White House. Yeesh! What a subvertstructionist nightmare.

But an anti-subverstructionist school of philosophy and art exists. I deem the rival faction, which I believe is in rapid ascent, as vitalism. I’m defining vitalism as stemming from the noun vitality which means simply “the power giving continuance of life, present in all living things”. The organically beloved art and ascendant popular ideas coming down the pipe will, at their core, affirm and celebrate the innate power, awe, and virtues of the life experience as felt by most people. Vitalism is generally marked by earnesty of the artist and felt underlying belief—faith—that the structures of art forms have virtue.

Examples: Mooo! v. Rich Men; The Joker v. Joker 2

And to clarify, vitalism isn’t codeword for simplistic tripe, good vibes only, or pro status quo. One can be vitalist and subversive or use deconstructive methods to examine something and still be devoted to vitality. But what’s dominated is a kind of dogmatic subvertstructionist tyranny. To illustrate my point, I reference musician Doja Cat’s breakout music success Mooo! from 2018. The verse:

Bitch, I'm a cow, bitch, I'm a cow
I'm not a cat, I don't say meow
Bitch, I'm a cow, bitch, I'm a cow
Bitch, I'm a cow, bitch, I'm a cow

This is subverstructionist music. It’s a fun, humorous parody of music that could very well be a sort of generational insider joke about how dumb the music industry currently is. Doja Cat openly talks about how the song was a joke, yet Mooo! is a major moment in her music career and the YouTube video alone has over 134 million views. And I’ll confess, I like Mooo!! But the problems kick in when American culture and the dominate fundamental life outlook becomes Mooo!. What happens when music has to be like Mooo! or not get a record deal? A demoralizing hellscape if we’re being honest.

Now compare to the Rich Men North of Richmond song by Oliver Anthony, the surprise protest folk/country megahit from 2023. The lyrics are an on-the-nose critique of modern America’s powerful in Washington DC, so therefore subversive. The chorus:

Livin' in the new world
With an old soul
These rich men north of Richmond
Lord knows they all just wanna have total control
Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do
And they don't think you know, but I know that you do
'Cause your dollar ain't shit and it's taxed to no end
'Cause of rich men north of Richmond

Unlike Mooo!, Anthony’s art isn’t fundamentally deconstructionist as he adheres to songwriting basics, traditional guitar music composition, and aesthetically pleasing vocals. No matter one’s thoughts, here is an earnest person with a guitar singing a song he thinks is important. The subtext isn’t “music is a joke”, it’s “music is powerful stuff, man”. Now, I like Doja Cat and Oliver Anthony—this is not a debate about who is right and who is wrong. But I think we’re going to see more Rich Men North of Richmond and less Mooo! in the coming years.

The same is doubly true with writing. In recent times, if you’re not subverting and deconstructing, good luck. One example I wrote about was the release of “most anticipated memoir of the year” Sociopath. I argue this book is subvertstructionist in that it subverts with a pro-normalization of sociopathy (not a cultural norm) message and is deconstructionist in that it’s not really trying to be a work of art or even a story in any sort of conventional sense. There’s no striving for beautiful prose or intriguing layers of narrative that tie in the world around us. A sociopath exists and she relates her life in upper crust California. She, the sociopath, gets a PhD studying sociopathy. It’s almost an anti-story. All is as it should be and you should give her the stage, money, and elevate her culturally. The end. Mooo!

As a vitalist memoir foil to Sociopath, Salmon Rushdie’s Knife about being nearly stabbed to death in Chautauqua also dropped last year. Key to the story is how the power of Rushdie’s love with wife Rachel Eliza Griffiths got him through recovery. There are earnest, impassioned meditations of the importance of freedom of speech, the power of storytelling, the nature of violence, and the redemption of love. This work oozes with themes core to vitalism. I think we’re going to see more Knife and less Sociopath in public appeal. What the literati wants to do with this information is anybody’s guess. I’m just calling the weather here.

One can even compare a contemporary original work with a sequel. Joker (2019) was a smash hit, a subversive movie in that it was critiquing modern American life but earnest in that it was devoted to storytelling: character arcs, act structures, setup and payoff, etc. The film is dark in nature, but nevertheless many fans felt kinship with the Joker’s feeling of isolation in a hostile, unjust society. Joker almost served as a wakeup call, a worst case scenario for a certain type of person in the mix of the real world.

Now compare it to the despised Joker 2 of last year. The rambling film barely has a cohesive narrative and erupts into mediocre musical numbers at random moments. Comedian Tim Dillon who had a minor role in the film has publicly called it the “worst movie ever made”. Plots twists exist for the sole purpose of undoing elements from its predecessor. The entire project hardly watches as a movie. Like Mooo!, this is textbook subvertstruction. Not only do the themes subvert culture and the human experience, but the storytelling style is deconstructed in a way where the entire elemental structural core of storytelling is thrown out.

Why? Who knows. Why do you care? The implication is that you’re dumb for caring, the antithesis of vitalism that earnestly seeks to reward those who engage with it. Caring is cool for vitalism. “Life sucks and maybe isn’t even real, so fuck it and piss off the people I don’t like” of subvertstruction meets the “Hot damn, we’re both alive and I’ve got a hell of a story for you” of vitalism.

Vitalism is the Incoming Cultural Tsunami

Unlike many critics of contemporary culture and subvertstruction—even if they don’t call it that—I am not a doomer. The reason is primarily because I have a casual but persistent curiosity and love of history. JFK was right when he said that “…time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future."

We Americans are an especially dynamic people. It’s also clear to me that all societies have echoes, cycles, and rhythms across their years, decades, and even centuries. One must always be cautious and humble about becoming too enamored and dogmatic about claiming “Now is just Decade X all over again”. But one would also be foolish to completely renounce the idea that the appearance of Captain America punching Hitler was related to WWII era culture and that this character has reappeared in our modern times on the big screen says something about us and our time. As a zeitgeist surfing writer, these kinds of things are interesting and sometimes relevant.

The post-subvertstruction era will be vitalist.

I don’t say this purely out of personal bias for vitalism (for the record I am a vitalist writer), rather I see it starting to happen all around me. Exhibit A, the romance novel boom. While the more salacious, frankly pornographic, titles tend to get the attention, the vast majority of the titles I’ve seen are endearingly plain in setup with perhaps half a dozen blush inducing scenes sprinkled throughout. Plain, sometimes chubby or homely, Jane suddenly has two varsity hockey hunks vying for her affection. Lonely but moderately successful career woman Sally goes on a soul searching vacation in Italy and falls in with a friendly, dashing local who guides her through the most sexually gratifying week of her life. The male love interests are unabashedly tall, dark, and handsome. No subversions, besides sometimes cheeky societal norm defiance, or deconstructionist shenanigans in sight. The leather jacket wearing wanderer with piercing blue eyes is going to screw the hostess or career lady into euphoria. Full stop. Vitality.

The romance boom is a canary in the coal mine that is reminiscent of the Women’s Dime Novel boom. Many tie the Romantic Era of the arts with the booming first Industrial Revolution and all its dehumanizing chaos. People, men and women, took up the pen to extol, perhaps even defend, the merits of spontaneity, intangible magicness of being alive, and emotional frequencies intrinsic to many of our lives. This is a form of vitalism in my conception of things.

Note how just because something is vitalist does not mean it is of exceptional or timeless quality. At its core, it’s simply reveling and celebrating in being alive. Meeting new exciting people. Having experiences. Lean into, not away from, Hero’s Journey fundamentals. To a certain degree, surrendering to the universe as it is versus waging a jihad to break and control it.

Enter Exhibit B, Superman. It’s worth noting that a Superman movie is coming out this year. Note something about the poster image when compared to Man of Steel Superman in subvertstructionist 2013?

Bright colors. Hopeful message. Devotion to the earnest canon. Again, what we’re seeing in the 2025 marketing is vitalism. Fans in the 2020s don’t want to see brooding, misanthropic Superman in a bar. They want, dare I say need, Truth, Justice, and the American Way Superman to heroically rescue a chid from a burning building and encourage him to eat his vegetables. What was tossed aside as corny trash is now vital nutrients for starved Americans who by most metrics need a pick me up. The subvertstruction considered exciting and innovative in the mid-2010s with Zach Snyder yields to the mid-2020s vitalism play of James Gunn.

Instead of reading about endless dysfunctional heterosexual relationships and abusive power struggles, I’d like a few happily married protagonists doing great things together in the mix. Rather than exclusively miserable old mentors whose only duty in the plot is to hurry up and die, I want the old sensei solving problems and living a good life as an example. Where is the heroic character who's unabashedly defined by her motherhood? The inseparable platonic bromance taking on the world like Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson? Deadpool and Wolverine made over a billion bucks last year mostly because the two bros were just too fun, charismatic, and surprisingly earnest to ignore. Even the appearance of the bright yellow, canonical Wolverine costume has a vitalist signal about it. A clean billion bucks just for recreating the freewheeling good vibes and nuanced personal complexities high school buddies enjoy on a good day out. As a storyteller, I’d like to make a billy. How about you?

For years now the vengeful outsiders painted the pictures with overly bleak palettes. But vitalism is in, baby. The life experience is not solely a specimen for the hyper cerebral, academic, or politically active to dissect for study nor is it entirely a cruel or manufactured reality to rage against in a Pyrrhic war. If the deconstructionist completely disassembled our car to understand it and the subversive decried our car as a broken, even evil, thing that needed to go to the scrapyard, the vitalist will have a sense of humor, get the car running, and take us on a noteworthy adventure we’ll remember fondly for a long time.

Gmork and his The Nothing master of The Neverending Story were correct. Subverstructionism run amok is The Nothing of our time:

Gmork: People have begun to lose their hopes and forget their dreams. So The Nothing grows stronger… it’s the emptiness that’s left. It’s like a despair, destroying this world. And I have been trying to help it.

Atreyu: But why?!

Gmork: Because people who have no hopes are easy to control. And whoever has the control… has the power!

As surfers of the zeitgeist, writers, those in the arts, hopefully our leaders, and all humans seeking full lives ought to see the signs on the water and paddle accordingly. Bob Dylan is going to play electric whether the 1965 Newport Folk Festival crowd wants him to or not.

Champion vitalism.

Slay Gmork.

Be alive.

PS. Joker 2 sucks.

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Consider buying my book, Salmon in the Seine: Alaskan Memories of Life, Death, & Everything In-Between! Available wherever books are sold, including Amazon, Powell’s City of Books, and Third Place Books. It’s won eight notable independent/small press book awards, so hey, it can’t be that bad, amirite? Leaving reviews on Amazon or Goodreads helps a ton too.