Introduction

Modern discussions of art, virality, and attention are typically framed in economic or psychological terms. Yet these phenomena also possess a deeply theological character, because they concern how value is generated, how others are regarded, and whether meaning is received or extracted. This essay proposes that contemporary distinctions between manufactured virality and emergent memetic meaning map closely—perhaps uncomfortably closely—onto the theological framework known as the Two Trees, articulated by Herbert W. Armstrong.

Far from being a dated metaphor, the Two Trees provide a precise diagnostic tool for evaluating the moral posture embedded in modern attention-seeking behavior, especially within artistic, religious, and intellectual production.

I. The Two Trees as Moral Orientation

Armstrong’s teaching distinguished between two fundamental orientations toward life:

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil — the way of get, characterized by appropriation, control, self-justification, and outcome fixation. The Tree of Life — the way of give, characterized by trust, relinquishment, patience, and generativity without coercion.

Importantly, Armstrong did not frame these as merely ethical choices but as competing modes of being. One does not simply do the way of get; one inhabits it. The same is true of the way of give.

This distinction becomes particularly illuminating when applied to the modern economy of attention.

II. Attention as a Moral Resource

Attention is finite, relational, and asymmetrical. To demand it is already to make a claim upon another person’s time, cognition, and interpretive agency. For this reason, attention cannot be treated as morally neutral.

Manufactured virality—whether in art, ministry, or commentary—relies on techniques designed to:

trigger predictable responses, pre-shape interpretation, and compel circulation independent of intrinsic meaning.

Such strategies treat the audience not as moral agents but as infrastructure. Attention is not received; it is harvested. Meaning is not offered; it is engineered.

This posture corresponds precisely to the way of get. The problem is not success, reach, or even persuasion. The problem is instrumentalization.

III. Emergent Meaning and the Way of Give

By contrast, works that become meaningful—or even memetic—without being designed for virality exhibit a radically different posture. The creator:

releases control over interpretation, accepts misunderstanding as a cost of sincerity, and permits the work to circulate—or not—without coercion.

When such works are reinterpreted, parodied, or even detached from original intent, this is not a failure but evidence that meaning has exceeded authorship. The work has become gift-like: it now belongs to the commons of human sense-making.

This aligns with the way of give, not because it is passive, but because it refuses to pre-claim outcomes. Fruit is allowed to emerge rather than demanded.

IV. Manufactured Fruit and Plastic Abundance

One of Armstrong’s most consistent warnings was that fruit produced through the way of get often resembles genuine fruit while lacking its substance. It is abundant, immediate, and impressive—but hollow.

Manufactured virality functions the same way. It can simulate resonance without relationship, circulation without conviction, and visibility without legitimacy. It is meaning-shaped foam: impressive in volume, unstable in structure.

Emergent meaning, by contrast, grows slowly, unevenly, and often invisibly. Yet it persists precisely because it was not forced.

V. The Irony of Unrecognized Posture

There is a particular irony when individuals deeply familiar with the Two Trees framework fail to recognize their own posture within it—especially when operating in new technological or cultural contexts.

Within traditions shaped by institutions such as the Worldwide Church of God, the way of get was often associated narrowly with money, overt power, or doctrinal corruption. Less attention was given to attention itself as a site of moral extraction.

As a result, behaviors motivated by relevance, visibility, or “impact” can be misclassified as virtuous—even when they replicate the very posture the Two Trees were meant to expose. This is not hypocrisy so much as category lag: the theology remains, but its application has not kept pace with changing forms of extraction.

Conclusion

The distinction between manufactured virality and emergent meaning is not merely aesthetic or strategic. It is theological.

To engineer attention is to inhabit the way of get, regardless of one’s stated intentions. To offer work sincerely—without coercion, without outcome guarantees—is to risk the way of give.

The enduring relevance of the Two Trees lies precisely here: they diagnose not only what we pursue, but how we pursue it. In an age obsessed with reach, metrics, and visibility, the refusal to extract attention may be one of the clearest remaining signs of fidelity to the Tree of Life.

Meaning that must be forced is already suspect. Meaning that survives being given away may yet be alive.