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this dude herbert elaborating a hundred fold on freud that our culture is built on the concealment of imagining better futures underneath all our sheer amount of distractions and junk
Feb 13, 2024
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non fifction philosphy by jean baudrillard, i found it very comforting- like theres ppl more insane and observant out there. very great book abt capitalism
Feb 9, 2024
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We love looking backwards to try to get in touch with ourselves, our history, traditional ways of doing things. I think this is a noble pursuit but the pace of cycling through eras in the trend cycle for example has grown increasingly rapid to the point that it feels like we’re endlessly regurgitating everything all at once, without context.
Rediscovering the past can look like going back to pre-industrial ways of living which is a beautiful thing to strive toward. In a lot of ways, we’ve also abandoned a lot of traditional ways of doing things in favor of methods that are easier, faster, and simpler, not necessarily better.
On the other hand, one of the three essential elements to fascism identified by Jason Stanley is invoking a mythic past to manufacture nostalgia for a more traditional, patriarchal, and racially pure past, which is I think what we’re seeing with a lot of people who romanticize 1950s Americana as some kind of utopian traditional society.
Carl Sagan said:
“In general, human societies are not innovative. They are hierarchical and ritualistic. Suggestions for change are greeted with suspicion: they imply an unpleasant future variation in ritual and hierarchy: an exchange of one set of rituals for another, or perhaps for a less structured society with fewer rituals. And yet there are times when societies must change.”
“As a consequence of the enormous social and technological changes of the last few centuries, the world is not working well. We do not live in traditional and static societies. But our government, in resisting change, act as if we did. Unless we destroy ourselves utterly, the future belongs to those societies that, while not ignoring the reptilian and mammalian parts of our being, enable the characteristically human components of our nature to flourish; to those societies that encourage diversity rather than conformity; to those societies willing to invest resources in a variety of social, political, economic and cultural experiments, and prepared to sacrifice short-term advantage for long-term benefit; to those societies that treat new ideas as delicate, fragile and immensely valuable pathways to the future.”
So I think we need forward-thinking transformational change, though it may not be as comfortable as nostalgia…
Jan 15, 2025
Jan 23, 2024
Top Recs from @briffinglue
made a joke post on substack notes that i honestly still think is pretty funny but it turns out it went whoosh right over a lot of peoples' heads, especially on twitter people thought it was serious,—and so here i am with my phone blowing up because friends and people i haven't heard from in years are just seeing it on their feeds and texting me allll about it
Sep 9, 2024
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this feels like a crazy little window of time in which everyone on this app is cool,
i'd follow anybody here honestly
Jan 27, 2024
Sep 17, 2024