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Humans have been doing this for a long time

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…

@taterhole

Jan 15, 2025

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YES AND…

i think it’s paired with anti-intellectualism - we’re getting to a place where nearly everyone wants immediate gratification so they need a constant stream of consumption. i think this is particularly true in capitalist countries and in the west. i do think superficial interests in culture by the masses are the historical norm, partly bc historically that media was often the most accessible, but i think, combined, the internet and trends changing so rapidly nowadays has exacerbated the issue. everything is cheapened, there’s little respect for craft or appreciation of Doing. many people want everything fast fast fast, so it’s tiktok instead of movies, AI summaries instead of books, chatgpt instead of research (or simply google), fast fashion to keep up with trends, etc. many of us are privileged enough to be able to access an impossible amount of information through the internet and yet so many people are simply using that resource to mindlessly consume whatever content. also, with the internet i feel we’ve lost subcultures’ uniqueness because it’s easier to find them - you can quickly learn about the symbolic aspects of basically any subculture and adopt those (ie fashions, slang, media) without having a personal relationship with whatever community it is. which basically means (tongue-in-cheek) we’re in a poser renaissance. i think as living conditions gets worse for most people, there’s a lower ability to think as clearly and increased desire to escape, so most of the people who can live so mindlessly, do it. plus throw in the American dream (which i think is just the myth of success that exists in all capitalist societies) and there’s this other group of people who prioritize “hustle culture” or whatever and that takes up time they could’ve used to really engage with art, film, reading, etc (alienation as the other Marx once said lol). which is its own unique depreciation of art and scholarship! in his essay on ur-fascism, umberto eco notes the opposition to most artistic and intellectual pursuits as an aspect of fascism (which we can observe in the right-wing movements of many countries today), in part that, to fascists “thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes.”

@marxinista

May 18, 2025

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EVOLUTION OF CULTURE VULTURE

I really appreciate all of the research that went into this video, and the way that it lays out all the little nefarious ways racism (specifically against african americans) is embedded in american culture and inadvertently celebrated. One point I think is often glazed over in conversations around racism by people who are against outright aggressions but pretty blasé in being critical of where their own thoughts and actions stem from is the evolution of culture from a colonial and imperial background. We really didn’t just spawn in the year 2025 out of a vacuum, and just as much as culture has evolved, so has racism.

@ugliestbinch

May 13, 2025

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GIRLS ARE MAGIC

@FFH

May 25, 2025

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finding who you are in the world

i love being alone. i know who i am when i'm alone and i love myself when i'm alone. when i'm around people it's easy to forget and i get lost and aimless. how do you share parts of yourself without feeling overexposed? even just sharing creative work makes me feel like it's not mine any more and makes me doubt the part of myself that went into making it. but i also feel so stagnant when i'm not putting anything out into the world. where is the balance? how do you deal with this?

@FFH

Feb 24, 2025

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knowing a sample

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