READ MY NOTICE TO EXPRESS MYSELF AS A FREE ADULT CITIZEN OF THE STATE OF TEXAS

It is certainly no secret that my philosophical lineage traces back to Karl Jaspers through my mentor, his student, Richard Owsley. I am currently in a place where, more than ever before, I am sharing the insights of Prof. Jaspers. He not only survived the Nazis, he did so in Heidelberg until liberation by the American troops. Jaspers lived under “house exile” with his Jewish wife and brother-in-law; none of them could stand leaving their homeland because it had been taken over by the worst elements of their folk.

I feel that way in Texas right now. I am not sure I have the same level of courage that they had. I have spent my life mostly learning to “get along.” But, I am not sure how much that will work anymore. There are times when our very existence becomes threatened not by irrational fear but anti-rational self-righteousness.

In Reason and Anti-Reason in Our Time (1952), Karl Jaspers offered a philosophical diagnosis of the twentieth century’s descent into totalitarianism by analyzing the dissolution of reason’s ethical function. Though written in the aftermath of fascism’s most horrific expression in Nazi Germany, Jaspers’ insights are startlingly relevant for today’s Texas, where a convergence of christian nationalism and neoliberal ideology forms the backbone of a rising society of control; or, as I have come to call it in my private meditations, the Current Empire.

At the heart of Jaspers’ text is a call for the preservation of philosophical reason—a form of thinking that does not reduce being to scientific fact, nor dissolve itself into nihilistic mysticism. It is a form of existential responsibility, marked by humility, openness, and the will to communicate across difference. In contrast, Jaspers names “anti-reason” as the will to dominate, obscure, or seduce—through charisma, propaganda, and/or ideology.

This distinction is crucial for responding to the spiritual and political crisis currently erupting my own homeland, Texas, where:

• Christian nationalism asserts dominion over public life under the illusion of absolute moral certainty;
• Neoliberal governance reduces education, healthcare, and justice to market logic and control metrics for generating either compliant employees or mastered prisoners.
• A kaleidoscope of Anti-Black, Anti-Woman, Anti-Immigrant, Anti-Queer, Anti-Trans laws that target every stride made since the 1960’s with policies rooted not in empirical reason but in cultural panic, warped traditionalism, and theological authoritarianism.

In this context, reason—as Jaspers understands it—is not merely about facts. It is a moral and relational vocation. The anti-reason of our time wears the mask of righteousness, but beneath it lies fear, resentment, and a flight from the very responsibility of freedom.

Latin RATIO gives English this term, reason. The German word is VERNUNFT. Both notions speak to perceiving relationships, to comprehension as a kind of comparison/contrast. Thus, Jaspers reminds us that reason is dialogical. It depends on the willingness to encounter the other as a fellow presence, not a problem to be solved. In this, he gives us a crucial foundation to refuse the dehumanizing logics of both christofascism and neoliberalism. Both thrive on control, classification, and the reduction of the individual to either sinner or consumer. Yet as these who exist in all the contradictions of the human condition and as those who must regularly discover our life as a worthy project, to be only a sinner or just a consumer dehumanizes all of us, even those who are doing the reductions.

In contrast, philosophical reason invites us to stand in uncertainty with courage, to speak truth even when it fractures comfort, and to maintain fidelity to the human possibility of becoming.

Jaspers also insists that the danger of anti-reason is not abstract—it is historical and institutional. He warns of systems that exploit spiritual emptiness by offering false certainties: authoritarian ideologies, seductive myths of national purity, the glorification of leaders as saviors, false histories of community. These conditions map uncannily onto contemporary Texas, where performative faith, plutocratic interest, and legislative cruelty now intertwine to form a field of structural violence.

And yet, never on a single page does Jaspers call for us to despair. Instead, he calls for philosophical faith—a posture that believes in communication, resists intellectual cowardice, and chooses the burden of thought over the seduction of ideology.

In our own time, Reason and Anti-Reason must be read as a manual of quiet defiance. Not only for queer thinkers, educators, and counselors, but all who remain exposed in Texas’ political winds, Jaspers offers us Way not a shield. He calls to us from a post-WWII circumstance and reminds us not to harden our hearts but to stand in the storm, to refuse seduction by anti-reason’s ease, and to reassert the soft power of dialogical courage.

We know the hard, cruel dogmas arraying against us; nonetheless, we reassert the soft power of dialogical courage.

Among our friends and colleagues, family and neighbors, we understand this courage not as argument but as presence. It is the howl, the drift, the companionship in confusion. And in this spirit, Jaspers still walks with us alongside all those who respond to the vocation of humanization.

I understand this courage not as acting-out by mere argument but as showing-up by authentic engagement. It is the howl, the drift, the companionship in confusion. And in this spirit, Jaspers walks with us still, encouraging us to remain on the way as he did 1937-1944 when he and his Jewish wife lived in Heidelberg beneath the constant threat of the Nazi regime just beyond their threshold.

SOME QUESTIONS FOR SELF-REFLECTION

1. Where in my life have I mistaken certainty for truth, and how might I learn to dwell more courageously in ambiguity?
2. In what ways does the “society of control” operate in my daily habits, relationships, or workplace—and how might I respond from a place of dialogical presence rather than reactive resistance?
3. Who in my world is being silenced by anti-reason, and how can I become a more trustworthy companion in their struggle for voice and visibility?