Boredom is the Root of Our Cultural Crisis

When we think of boredom, we might picture a man nodding off during a long, uneventful baseball game. But consider this a second man spends three frantic hours checking tasks off his to-do list, scrolling for the next item to buy on Amazon, and calculating his next workout. He’s active, even productive but he’s still bored. Why?

Both men are experiencing different forms of the same emptiness, the same disconnection from joy. One is passively disengaged. The other is restlessly chasing meaning through activity. Neither finds rest.

According to philosopher Michael Hanby, this shared emptiness reflects a deep cultural sickness a “culture of death” rooted not only in moral choices like abortion or euthanasia, but in the widespread inability to delight in life as inherently good. In his 2004 essay, The Culture of Death, the Ontology of Boredom, and the Resistance of Joy, Hanby argues that this spiritual disease is driven by a more fundamental affliction boredom. Not boredom as a fleeting emotion, but as an ontological failure a failure to see the world, and ourselves, as meaningful.

The Culture of Death and Its Symptoms

Hanby describes the modern Western mindset as one that strips all things of intrinsic worth. Nature is no longer received as a gift, but treated as raw material for production. Human value is reduced to utility. From vast forests to unborn children, everything is measured by its usefulness, not its goodness.

In such a culture, satisfaction always remains just out of reach. Entertainment, consumption, and constant progress mask a profound spiritual restlessness. We are, Hanby says, a people without rest, without wonder, and increasingly without love.

And the statistics back this up. A 2023 Gallup poll showed that only 31% of Americans describe themselves as "very happy," a number that has declined steadily for over two decades. Meanwhile, global antidepressant use has increased by more than 60% in the past 15 years, pointing to a deep hunger for meaning that pills and productivity cannot fill.

What is Boredom, Really?

Hanby links this existential boredom to the Christian understanding of acedia, or spiritual sloth. In classical Christian thought, acedia is not laziness but the refusal to delight in the good especially in the goodness of God and His creation. Boredom, in this view, is a judgment: a belief that nothing around us is worthy of our full attention or joy.

This is a grave error, and more dangerous than it first appears. Hanby calls it a “double noughting” a nullifying of both the self and the world. Nothing is compelling, and we ourselves feel empty. And so, we scramble for control, turning to science, entertainment, or even moral transgression to manufacture meaning. Yet the more we try to consume, the more we diminish our capacity to love.

Hanby echoes the insight of Nietzsche, who saw that a world “beyond good and evil” is also a world beyond love. If nothing is truly good, then nothing is truly lovable. And so, a culture of boredom ultimately becomes a culture of death not because it is too hedonistic, but because it cannot even sustain real pleasure.

Rediscovering Joy as Resistance

But Hanby offers a surprising remedy Joy.

Not shallow, fleeting pleasure. Not manufactured happiness. But Joy the deep, soul-anchoring delight that comes from receiving the world, and life itself, as a gift from God. Joy sees beauty, not because it is useful, but because it reflects the goodness of the Creator. It is the “double affirmation” of self and world. It is rest in what is.

This kind of Joy aligns with the biblical witness: that “everything God created is good” (1 Timothy 4:4), and that the creation declares the glory of God (Psalm 19:1). When we experience true joy, we echo God’s own pronouncement over His creation: “It is very good” (Genesis 1:31).

Christian hedonism affirms this. If God is the highest good, then all lesser joys from a sunrise to a child’s laugh point back to Him. Joy becomes not escapism, but worship.

Joy is a Way, Not a Quick Fix

Importantly, Hanby doesn’t present this as a solution to be implemented. There’s no policy, no product, no five-step plan to overcome cultural boredom. Joy is not a fix it’s a way of life. A way of seeing, of being, of living in faithful resistance.

To resist a culture of death, we must form a culture of joy. This means training our eyes to see God’s goodness in all things. It means living slowly enough to actually receive the beauty around us. It means choosing gratitude over entitlement, wonder over cynicism, presence over distraction.

We may not see the fruit of this resistance in our lifetime. Like Galadriel in Tolkien’s epic, or Rainy from Peace Like a River, we may be called to “cheerfully refuse” the despair around us, quietly and consistently naming the good, loving what is lovable, and resting in God’s promises.

A Simple Step: Naming the Good

As a starting point, Hanby urges us to recover the lost art of naming. In Genesis, God gives Adam the task of naming the animals a symbolic act of attentiveness, reverence, and love. To name something rightly is to affirm its dignity.

This might look like calling Sunday the “Lord’s Day,” and keeping it set apart. It might mean referring to the unborn not as “fetuses” but as “children.” It might mean recognizing a wildflower as a gift instead of a weed, or a slow conversation as a grace rather than an inconvenience.

Naming reminds us that the world is not empty it is full of meaning. And every moment of joy is a reminder of the Giver.

As Hanby writes, “God himself is joy: the good of all goodness, the perfect coincidence of giving and receiving, and the perfection of delight.” When we live in Joy, we don’t just enjoy the world we glorify its Maker.

Joy, in this sense, is not merely a feeling. It is a spiritual discipline. A holy defiance. A quiet, powerful resistance to the culture of death that threatens to numb our souls.

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