necarion:

balioc:

bambamramfan:

balioc:

I’m sure I’m not the first person to think in these terms, or the thousandth, but -

- there’s something to the idea of an anxious zeitgeist versus a secure zeitgeist, right?

Which is not the same as “things being bad” versus “things being good.” Things can be quite bad in a way that doesn’t require, or reward, a lot of worrying about the situation becoming worse for you or your people. Things can be overall really excellent but also scarily volatile on the micro-scale.

I would really prefer to live in a world of kooks and cults than in a world that engenders a lot of Pride and Prejudice shit.

Okay I thought I had you, until that last sentence. I don’t get how sz and az map to those two things. like az to p&p seems obvious but…?

Culty weirdness is often thought to be a dangerous failure mode of people spinning their wheels because they’re secure enough to survive but can’t really advance (or don’t have enough reason to want to advance).

Since almost everything I treasure in life falls under the umbrella heading of “culty weirdness,” I am not especially scared of this tradeoff. But I am not blind to it.

Are you thinking of P&P as an anxious one? Because while there is an element of stability in that world, everyone is *extremely* worried about their place in it.

…yes. That’s the point. P&P is about a world where it’s extremely hard for most people to construct personal commitments to any ideas other than “I should be successful and not ruined.”