BONUS – Against the Rise of “Big Stupid”: Why Only a Consciousness-Based Framework Can Reverse America’s Descent

We cannot solve our problems from the same level of awareness that created them.

Author’s Note:

I recently made my way through two articles—one in Esquire by Dave Holmes titled Welcome to the Era of Big Stupid in America, which argues that the nation is no longer merely anti-intellectual but “actively anti-intellect,” and another in The Atlantic by Idrees Kahloon titled “America Is Sliding Toward Illiteracy.”

Both pieces raise alarms about a cultural trajectory that feels increasingly perilous. And as I reflected on their arguments—while recalling a mentor’s ever-present admonition to “Think big!”—a question surfaced with clarity:

How might the Seven Layers of Manifestation (SLM) and the Model for Perpetual Growth & Progress (MPGP) serve as tools for reversing this decline?

This essay is the result of those ruminations.

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There are phrases that stay with you long after you encounter them. The Esquire article circulating widely over the last few weeks contains one such line: “America is no longer anti-intellectual. We are actively anti-intellect.” It is a remarkable statement. Not because it is hyperbolic, but because it is accurate. We are watching, in real time, a nation turn away from the very capacities that once made it a global engine of innovation, discovery, and moral imagination—even if at times throughout history, it was (and remains) severely flawed in many respects. In short, while Lincoln’s “better angels” are not always obvious, they were available. However, in our present socio-historical moment, the angels seem to have retreated into that undiscovered country.

It is tempting to attribute this decline to politics alone—to elections, media ecosystems, ideology, or policy missteps. But the deeper truth is more elemental: America is facing a crisis of consciousness. A collapse in the inner mechanisms that make intellectual life possible. A society cannot sustain literacy, reason, scientific curiosity, or ethical discernment when the internal conditions that support them—attention, self-reflection, identity stability, and coherent thought—have been eroded.

This is why the familiar prescriptions—“more education,” “better STEM programs,” “improved media literacy”—feel insufficient. They treat the symptoms while leaving the root untouched. The root is consciousness.

And consciousness has been neglected.

In recent days I have been revisiting two frameworks I developed over the years—the Seven Layers of Manifestation (SLM) and the Model for Perpetual Growth & Progress (MPGP)—and a realization emerged with clarity: both models diagnose precisely why this cultural decline is happening and offer tools for repairing it.

The crisis is not simply political.
It is not merely educational.
It is metaphysical.

And only a metaphysical cure will suffice.

A Civilization Unraveling from the Top Down: When the Foundational Layers Are Forgotten

When Dave Holmes writes about the rise of “Big Stupid,” he is capturing more than a political moment. He is describing a civilizational unraveling that can be precisely mapped through the Seven Layers of Manifestation. What we are witnessing is not the failure of intellect alone, but the predictable collapse of Layers 4–7 after a long cultural amnesia surrounding Layers 1–3.

These first three layers—Pure Consciousness, Universal and Natural Laws, and the Phenomenal World—form the ontological foundation of existence itself. They are not optional, mythic, or symbolic; they are the underlying structures that enable coherence, intelligence, creativity, and meaning in all human life.

When a society denies or forgets them, the remaining anthropological layers—Human Consciousness, the Human-Derived World, Social Constructs, and Outcomes—inevitably fracture.

This is exactly what we are watching unfold, in real time, within the United States.

A civilization grounded only in its upper layers becomes top-heavy, unstable, and vulnerable to manipulation, confusion, and collapse.

Layer 1: Pure Consciousness (Forgotten Ground of Being)

Pure Consciousness is the silent field from which order, intelligence, and creativity arise. It is the foundation of clarity, coherence, and inner stability.

When a society loses access to this layer:

• attention becomes fragile

• meaning becomes distorted

• people become inwardly unmoored

• reactivity replaces reflection

A population cut off from its own depth becomes susceptible to noise, fear, and manipulation.
This is not accidental—it is a metaphysical consequence.

A society without inward coherence cannot sustain outward coherence.

Layer 2: Universal and Natural Laws (Ignored Principles of Order)

Universal and Natural Laws govern the unfolding of the cosmos—from the subtlest quantum phenomena to the behaviour of the human nervous system.

When these laws are denied, mocked, or misunderstood:

• discernment erodes

• cause and effect is replaced by superstition and spectacle

• knowledge becomes politicised

• truth becomes negotiable

• wisdom loses cultural legitimacy

A society that rejects Universal and Natural Law loses the feedback loop that keeps it sane. As a result, its institutions become chaotic, its citizens confused, and its course erratic.

Once the principles of order are dismissed, disorder naturally follows.

Layer 3: The Phenomenal World (Misread Reality)

The Phenomenal World is the expressed universe—the material conditions shaped by Layers 1 and 2. It is where we meet consequences.

But when Layers 1 and 2 are forgotten, the Phenomenal World becomes misinterpreted:

• evidence becomes optional

• physical reality becomes inconvenient

• science becomes adversarial

• facts become irrelevant whenever they clash with narrative

In such a climate, the world itself stops serving as an anchor.
People become untethered from reality.

This misreading of the Phenomenal World is the precursor to cultural collapse.

Where the Breakdown Becomes Visible: Layers 4–7

Once the foundational layers have been abandoned altogether or distorted beyond conscious recognition, Layers 4–7 begin to visibly deteriorate. This is the level at which Holmes’ description of “Big Stupid” lives—the symptoms, not the causes.

Layer 4: Human Consciousness (Cognitive and Emotional Collapse)

Without grounding in Pure Consciousness, the human mind becomes:

• reactive

• fragmented

• overstimulated

• volatile

• easily hijacked

Attention spans collapse.
Emotional regulation deteriorates.
Propaganda thrives.

Human Consciousness becomes a storm without a center.

Layer 5: The Human-Derived World (Distorted Thought and Interpretation)

This layer encompasses the collective mental models through which we understand reality.

When it falters:

• interpretation collapses into reaction

• beliefs detach from evidence

• nuance becomes intolerable

• certainty replaces curiosity

• learning becomes threatening instead of liberating

This is why anti-intellectualism feels so virulent: Layer 5 has become detached from its metaphysical roots.

Layer 6: Social Constructs (Institutional Degradation)

Social Constructs—governments, universities, laws, media—cannot function when Layers 4 and 5 degrade.

Thus:

• institutions become hostile to knowledge

• expertise becomes devalued

• scholars become targets

• evidence becomes politicised

• ignorance becomes performative

This is the terrain where “Big Stupid” consolidates power.
Not out of strength—out of vacuum.

Layer 7: Outcomes (Non-Local Influence and Emergent Consequence)

At the final layer, the cumulative effects of the lower layers become visible:

• policies become incoherent

• national behaviour becomes erratic

• social systems degrade

• innovation stalls

• the culture drifts toward entropy

These are not random failures.
They are the predictable manifested outcomes of a society that has severed its relationship with Pure Consciousness, Universal and Natural Law, and Reality.

“Big Stupid” is simply what emerges when the upper layers try to function without the foundations beneath them.

America’s retreat into anti-intellect is not merely the failure of education or politics—it reflects a civilization afflicted by a long-standing, almost Stockholm Syndrome-like attachment to anti-intellectualism itself, a pattern Ijeoma Oluo examines with precision in Mediocre (2020). When the first three layers of reality are forgotten, the human layers inevitably collapse. Reversal is possible, but only through a return to grounded development. The Model for Perpetual Growth and Progress offers precisely that: a consciousness-based architecture for both individual renewal and societal repair.

The MPGP and the Stalled Development of a Nation

If the Seven Layers of Manifestation explain where the collapse is occurring, the Model for Perpetual Growth & Progress explains why. The MPGP outlines a six-tier developmental arc—each tier containing three progressive elements—that moves a human being from basic inner coherence to higher-purpose action and non-local influence. This inner development and perspective shift evinces in all one—subsequent to the deepening of the MPGP within one’s epistemological base—thinks, says, does, and produces. In short, one comes to serve as a pivotal point of reference regarding the process of moving from “impossible” to “I’m possible” in recognizing that true and lasting change must first begin with modification of the scaffolding of prior ways of thinking, acting, and generation of outcomes.

Again, a perspective can only be changed from a higher level as the inadequacies of the prior level, when faced with mind-expanding new data necessitates the jettisoning of the old way. The MPGP provides a pathway to vaunted levels of understanding and action necessary for self and social change.

As a result, when individuals progress through these tiers, societies grow wiser.
Yet, when whole populations remain stalled in the earliest tiers, societies decay.

Modern America is showing every sign of Tier One stagnation, with pockets of regression into pre-Tier exposure emotional development.

Let us examine the tiers as they truly exist.

Tier One — Stabilisation in Self

Tier One concerns establishing the minimum inner stability required for higher cognition.

Its three elements—Knower, Process of Knowing, and Known—form the ground of all intellectual life to come as based in an understanding of the three-in-one structure of Pure Consciousness.

But America today is:

• chronically stressed

• intentionally and maliciously overstimulated

• inflamed by outrage as entertainment

• neurologically dysregulated

A destabilised nervous system cannot sustain democracy.
A population trapped in perpetual fight-or-flight becomes uneducable.

This is where the national collapse truly begins—via the lack of an understanding of this fundamental level. However, assuming one has said understanding rooted deep within their inner world, the subsequent level is approached with both wonderment and zeal for the journey of personal development ahead. A journey sure to produce lasting results to benefit the one and that of the many within one’s sphere of influence for the long-term.

Tier Two — The Journey Begins

Tier Two deepens interiority. It cultivates:

1. Accurate self-perception

2. Emotional maturity

3. The capacity to observe one’s own patterns

This is the tier where humility forms for the road ahead made easier through scientifically supported technologies of consciousness such as Transcendental Meditation® are embraced and dogmatism dissolves. As a result, one begins to note an evolving perspective on life itself and the journey in particular.

But our culture rewards the opposite:

• tribal identity (“Us vs Them”) over authentic identity

• performance over introspection

• certainty over curiosity

• defensiveness over growth

• substance ingestion e.g., alcohol and various other mood-altering compounds as coping mechanisms

A nation without self-understanding grows hostile toward knowledge. This develops as a result of holding a mindset that boldly proclaims “My ignorance is just as valid as your knowledge.” Sadly, this seems a dominant mindset possessed by more than a few within our socio-political arena.

Tier Three — Expanded Awareness

Here, individuals develop:

• the ability to hold complexity

• ethical clarity

• multi-perspectival thinking

• discernment grounded in depth rather than fear

• compassion

This is the level at which thinking becomes subtle, layered, reflective, and where one’s compassion increases due to cultivating a broadened and deepened perspective. This layer, coupled with an understanding of the value of the preceding layer are best developed within a community of accountability.

But America rewards:

• speed over consideration

• reaction over reflection

• spectacle over wisdom

• the flattening of all nuance

• rugged individualism

Where Tier Three is underdeveloped, demagoguery becomes attractive. As a result, people become so enthralled with the realm of the anti-intellectual to the point of harming themselves when they, mistakenly, believe the only parties to be harmed are “Not my kind of people,” when nothing could be further from the truth.

As one comes to know, fundamentally and irrevocably, we are all together on this “pale blue dot” together and must work in a collective manner for both our well-being and that of the planet, the burden of becoming better becomes lighter. As I learned many moons ago, “Many hands make light work.”

Tier Four — Synthesis

(Wisdom • Embodiment • Conduct)

Tier Four concerns the embodiment of higher values borne of continued study and acceptance of both one’s inevitable cognitive change as well as the losing of flotsam and jetsam along the journey of one’s continuing unfoldment. In short, knowledge becomes character. Insight becomes conduct. And an individual begins living the wisdom they have previously only intellectually understood.

But America produces:

• abundant information yet little reflection

• abundant opinion yet little integration

• abundant talent yet little embodiment

• abundant certainty but little nuance

People can recite knowledge while living in contradiction to it. Here, I am reminded of Leon Festinger and his work titled A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (1957).

Tier Five — Conscious Engagement

(Skillful Action • Purpose • Contribution)

Here, the individual becomes capable of:

• applying inner development to outer life

• responsible civic participation

• skillful action grounded in awareness

• deepened understanding of one’s self within society

• moving from passive critique to constructive contribution

This is the tier where democracy thrives. Where people begin to both recognise and live life based on an understanding of “the power of one” person to make a meaningful change for the good. But America now cultivates:

• argument without action

• complaint without contribution

• criticism without competence

• failing up without meaningful accountability

The collapse of civil discourse and meaningful participation is not random—
it is the predictable result of inaction in favour of the status quo despite the obvious need for radical restructuring of both mind and society.

Tier Six — Action Leads to Higher Integration

(Alignment • Service • Non-Local Influence)

Tier Six represents an integrated human being—one whose inner coherence produces outward coherence.

Its elements involve:

1. Aligning personal purpose with collective evolution

2. Acting from higher awareness rather than egoic reaction

3. Exerting subtle, non-local influence that uplifts systems, communities, and discourse

This is where leadership emerges—not performative leadership, but the kind capable of guiding societies through complexity.

When a population cannot reach Tier Six, a society becomes unleadable.

What emerges instead is exactly what Holmes describes as “Big Stupid”—a culture governed by reaction, confusion, spectacle, and incoherence.

Why Consciousness Is the Missing Piece

If a society’s conscious connection to Pure Consciousness remains unmoored, its intellectual life will either remain adrift or collapses altogether. No amount of education reform can counteract this. A stressed, fragmented, fear-driven mind cannot sustainably learn, reason, or interpret reality. Maslow hinted at this in his Hierarchy of Needs: higher faculties or the pursuit thereof collapse when basic stability is absent.

This, I believe, is why the anti-intellectual movement feels so difficult to combat: We are fighting consciousness dysfunction with policy tools. Yet, it will never work.

The SLM and MPGP offer a different approach.

They begin not with information, but with awareness.
Not with memorization, but with meaning.
Not with policy, but with presence.

A culture cannot think clearly unless its people can be clear. This fundamental understanding highlights the import of working to reverse problematic trends that have plagued civil society for far too long.

What a Consciousness-Based Reversal Looks Like

If the crisis is rooted in a loss of connection to the foundational layers of reality as discussed within the Seven Layers of Manifestation framework—Pure Consciousness, Universal and Natural Laws, and the Phenomenal World—then the reversal must follow the laws embedded within those layers. A consciousness-based approach does not begin with policy or information; it begins with restoring the inner stability from which discernment, coherence, and healthy social systems naturally emerge.

Below are the essential steps, framed directly through the metaphysical structure of the first three layers of the Seven Layers of Manifestation.

Restore Inner Knowing / Pure Consciousness

Practices such as Transcendental Meditation® reconnect individuals with the silent field that makes clarity possible. At this level, transformation is physiological as much as philosophical.

Restoring Pure Consciousness restores:

• attention

• intuition

• emotional regulation

• cognitive flexibility

• inner steadiness

From this alone, literacy improves, reasoning stabilizes, polarization softens, and learning becomes possible again.

The mind must be stabilized before it can be educated.

This is Layer 1.

Mature Identity Through Alignment with Natural Law

Layer 2 is the domain of Universal and Natural Laws — the organizing intelligence of the cosmos. A consciousness-based society supports identity formation that reflects those laws:

• inner balance

• cause-and-effect understanding

• respect for order and coherence as evidenced within Nature as opposed to solely socially constructed order which operates from a base of dominance and control

• humility before the larger whole

Meditation, reflection, and inner development shift identity from reactive and group-based to grounded and self-reflective. This reduces susceptibility to manipulation and ideological rigidity.

A stable identity does not require an enemy.
An unstable identity searches for one.

Restore Thought by Relearning How to Interpret Reality

Layer 3—the Phenomenal World— is the expressed universe, the arena where natural laws play out in time and space. It encompasses the conditions into which all beings are born, governed not by human preference but by the deeper intelligence embedded within creation itself—of which the human species is but a part. To engage this layer meaningfully, one must learn to recognize—not override—the laws that underlie it.

To honour this layer, individuals must:

• pause long enough to perceive the natural patterns already governing reality

• seek to understand and cooperate with these laws rather than impose themselves upon reality

• recognize that Human Consciousness shapes the Human-Derived World, which must be built in harmony with the deeper order

• release the impulse to dominate Nature and instead participate within it

• accept that consequences unfold according to law, not opinion

This is the level at which humility toward reality is born. Yet a society that misreads the Phenomenal World soon misreads itself; it confuses preference for principle, narrative for truth, and will for law. This is how collapse accelerates.

Meditation strengthens the capacity to read Nature correctly by grounding thought in inner clarity rather than outer chaos.

This dismantles the machinery of “Big Stupid” at its root: reactivity dissolves, and reality reasserts itself.

Advance Individuals Through the MPGP Tiers

Once Layers 1–3 are restored, individuals can progress through the developmental arc of the Model for Perpetual Growth & Progress.

• Tier One grounds physiology and awareness.

• Tier Two deepens identity and self-understanding.

• Tier Three cultivates ethical clarity and nuanced awareness.

• Tier Four transforms insight into conduct.

• Tier Five enables skillful civic participation and responsibility.

• Tier Six produces leaders who embody coherence, purpose, and non-local influence.

This is the antidote to the anti-intellectual movement: individuals who cannot be seduced by ignorance.

Why This Matters Now

We live in a culture where the incentives favor confusion over clarity, outrage over reflection, and entertainment over truth. Holmes calls this “Big Stupid,” but it is simply the predictable outcome of a society whose consciousness has been starved.

The solution is not censorship.
It is not shaming.
It is not lecturing.

The solution is the reintroduction of consciousness literacy.

A society that reflects can learn.
A society that meditates can think.
A society grounded in stillness cannot be manipulated by noise.

This is why the rise of TM, mindfulness, contemplative practices, and consciousness research may be more important to the survival of the republic than any political platform.

You cannot build an intellectual culture without first building a contemplative culture.

The Future Depends on Consciousness

If America continues along the path Holmes describes—starving research, defunding education, intimidating scholars, and weaponizing ignorance—then the decline will accelerate.

But decline is not destiny.
Collapse is not inevitable.

Human beings possess a resource far more powerful than fear, spectacle, or noise: Pure Consciousness.

It is the origin of every intellectual movement, every scientific discovery, every work of genius, and every ethical breakthrough—be it past, present, or future. When consciousness is cultivated, wisdom emerges. When wisdom emerges, societies evolve. When societies evolve, all citizens win.

The Seven Layers of Manifestation and the Model for Perpetual Growth & Progress were designed as frameworks for personal transformation. But, as you have undoubtedly observed, their implications are civic and civilizational.

They are blueprints for rebuilding a culture capable of thinking again.

If we want a nation that reads, reasons, questions, and learns—we must first build a nation that reflects, regulates, meditates, and evolves.

The crisis described by Holmes and Kahloon is not the end.
It is a call—and a confrontation with what we have neglected.
A reminder that intellect without consciousness collapses into noise,
but consciousness with intellect becomes wisdom.

And wisdom always builds worlds.
As for ignorance… I will leave it to you, dear reader, to complete the sentence.

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Suggested Practice: Rebuilding the Inner Foundations

1. Ten Minutes of Stillness
   Sit comfortably, close your eyes, and allow the mind to settle into silence. Simply observe the movement of thought without engagement. Notice what clarity arises when reactivity quiets.

2. Ask Yourself Three Questions:

   1. What assumptions about the world do I hold that may not align with reality?

   2. Where do I confuse preference for principle?

   3. Where do I override natural order in favour of control or certainty?

3. Engage One Layer Consciously Today
   Choose either Pure Consciousness (Layer 1), Universal and Natural Law (Layer 2), or the Phenomenal World (Layer 3), and spend the day noticing how it operates around and within you.

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About the Author

Dr. Baruti KMT-Sisouvong is a consciousness scholar, executive coach, and Certified Teacher of Transcendental Meditation® based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His work—spanning The Model for Perpetual Growth and Progress and The Seven Layers of Manifestation—explores how Pure Consciousness, neuroscience, and social-systems transformation intersect in the evolution of both the individual and society.

He is the Founder and Director of Radical Scholar Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to consciousness-based research and public scholarship, and President of Serat Group Inc., the parent company of Transcendental Brain, a consulting and educational platform bringing consciousness science into leadership and institutional development.

Alongside his wife, Mina, he co-directs the Cambridge and Metropolitan Boston TM Program and serves as Host and Founder of International Meditation Hour (IMH), a quarterly global gathering dedicated to the unifying power of silence.

He writes from the conviction that the most important race is not between nations or machines, but between the conditioned mind and the awakening soul.

To learn more about him, visit: https://www.barutikmtsisouvong.com/.