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Take the time to explore phenomena historically instead of memetically. This is an act of care. Contribute to our mutual understanding of the world. Refuse to flatten human experiences. Brilliant words via Leigh Claire La Berge.
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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
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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so often i see folks in left-of-center spaces internalize the idea that they're "just a little guy." they make being the permanent opposition a core part of their self-image, and in their obsession with performing that opposition, they completely lose sight of the fact that the point of opposing the existing institutions and those who defend them is to replace them with our own institutions - ones that we will then be responsible for defending.
no matter what your domain of interest is - media, academia, politics, technology, journalism, culture, or whatever else - it's simply not enough to spend all your time critiquing the dominant institutions, and it's also probably not necessary; most people already agree that they're shit. instead, you need to be spending that time and effort imagining what your alternative is going to look like, and how to make it more compelling, more durable, and more just than what we already have.
Dec 11, 2024
Top Recs from @thotexperiment
I am so over dystopia!!!! It is ugly and disgusting!! Thank you Kathi Weeks for teaching me that utopian thinking is a powerful revolutionary act! Fuck the last of us! Fuck imagining the end of the world before the end of capitalism! Fuck zombies!
May 4, 2025
Write down your dream imagery after waking, before it slips away. Better yet, make your dream analysis and sharing intuitive/prescient visions a friendship practice. Ask someone what dreams they have had recently <3
6d ago
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It’s the size of Carmela Soprano’s kitchen tv but with only 1 channel: dishwashing. I am a neat freak in a tiny apartment and this gives me so much joy. It’s not even the large/bulky dishes that are so tedious to wash by hand- it’s the jars/bottles with small ass plastic pieces/lids! Byeeee tedium!!!
4d ago