“We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.”
I agree with this quote, if by “meaning” he’s referring to concepts. Humans are conceptual animals. We don’t simply look at facts. We integrate the facts we see into generalizations, or concepts. “Table” is a concept. “Freedom” is a concept. Rational concepts arise from facts; concepts are the whole point of gathering facts.
Increasingly, most of us have not learned the skills of thinking. We have not learned how to form and manage concepts. We are swimming in facts and data–without anything to bind all that data together. Without concepts, there would be no science, no technology, no world as we know it. Teachers have not merely failed at the job of teaching. They indoctrinate children with facts alone, and most of the “facts” taught are not even facts, but dogma and half truths or falsehoods designed to advance some ideological or political narrative.
Self-esteem, rationality, common decency and civilization itself are perishing from a lack of critical thinking. I am a psychotherapist and mental health professional of 38 years. If you ask me, THIS is at the root of the widespread and growing mental health crisis fostering the decline of reason and freedom. When your mind is starved of the use of its cognitive capacity, it’s left with nothing but paralysis, depression, anxiety and low self-esteem.