Work Thinks
Aug. 29th, 2017 07:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tealinAh, the good old Work Thinks ... in which a fairly tedious and low-concentration task gives a lot of spare RAM to the old soggy computer and it spends the spare cycles processing stuff in the queue. It's a positive indication of my mental health the last few years (and my work situation) that its usual preoccupation with the brokenness of the studio/industry, or of various aspects of myself, is off the table, freeing it up to poop out these musings on other matters:
1.
Perhaps the preoccupation with 'dark' things in generations of the last 40 years – e.g. heavy metal, Gothic fantasy, the Millennial fascination with 'the feels' (usually a species of sadness) – have something to do with the attitude that certain ideas and feelings, namely the 'dark' ones, are 'unacceptable.' Perhaps there is something deeper in the human psyche that says: This is the spectrum of life, and you have to be equipped to deal with the whole of it – this is certainly reflected in most traditional cultures' folklore, which doesn't shy away from misfortune or man's capacity for evil. When it's not part of everyday life, or even permitted room in the going social culture, it comes out in personal internal (and shared-on-the-Internet) reverie, as a way of rehearsing the feelings and learning to deal with them, in a way that has been lost – or suppressed? – in society. See also the appeal of 'dark' television shows – Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Hannibal – leading people through a range of emotions they're not allowed to explore in the public sphere anymore, and which hypersanitized children's entertainment would not have run past them when young. The role of fiction generally can be to rehearse and prepare for real-life situations in a safe and contained environment, but as real life situations, and even the possibility of considering hypothetical situations aside from the optimum, have been curtailed to the 'acceptable', subconsciously motivated fascination for the spectrum that falls outside those confines is enhanced.
[Post-Work Thinks: Actually, it seems like people in all cultures, regardless of the gatekeepers' attitudes towards darkness, appreciate dark things in their imaginative worlds; people are drawn to this anyway, it's only in cultures where darkness is feared that such an attraction is considered perverse.]
2.
'Ghost cultures' in the American Midwest – Is there a difference in the collective values and mindset of, say, a Scandinavian-majority community and a German-majority one? Perhaps between Minnesota and Wisconsin? Is the dominant (culturally, if not numerically) immigrant population reflected even now in statistics that measure other things entirely, e.g. openness, neuroticism, etc.?
3.
Brexiteers argue that the problem with immigration is that immigrants don't assimilate. However, the attitude of the nativist Britons who argue this (including, to some extent, the Government) towards those who have assimilated as much as humanly possible – language, family, lifestyle, embedded in the fabric of British society and institutions, etc) proves that assimilation to the desired standard is something impossible to achieve. The only sufficiently British people are people who are already British, and therefore the topic of assimilation is moot.
Well, that's enough thinking for one day, Pat Keohane and I are going to the pub.
1.
Perhaps the preoccupation with 'dark' things in generations of the last 40 years – e.g. heavy metal, Gothic fantasy, the Millennial fascination with 'the feels' (usually a species of sadness) – have something to do with the attitude that certain ideas and feelings, namely the 'dark' ones, are 'unacceptable.' Perhaps there is something deeper in the human psyche that says: This is the spectrum of life, and you have to be equipped to deal with the whole of it – this is certainly reflected in most traditional cultures' folklore, which doesn't shy away from misfortune or man's capacity for evil. When it's not part of everyday life, or even permitted room in the going social culture, it comes out in personal internal (and shared-on-the-Internet) reverie, as a way of rehearsing the feelings and learning to deal with them, in a way that has been lost – or suppressed? – in society. See also the appeal of 'dark' television shows – Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Hannibal – leading people through a range of emotions they're not allowed to explore in the public sphere anymore, and which hypersanitized children's entertainment would not have run past them when young. The role of fiction generally can be to rehearse and prepare for real-life situations in a safe and contained environment, but as real life situations, and even the possibility of considering hypothetical situations aside from the optimum, have been curtailed to the 'acceptable', subconsciously motivated fascination for the spectrum that falls outside those confines is enhanced.
[Post-Work Thinks: Actually, it seems like people in all cultures, regardless of the gatekeepers' attitudes towards darkness, appreciate dark things in their imaginative worlds; people are drawn to this anyway, it's only in cultures where darkness is feared that such an attraction is considered perverse.]
2.
'Ghost cultures' in the American Midwest – Is there a difference in the collective values and mindset of, say, a Scandinavian-majority community and a German-majority one? Perhaps between Minnesota and Wisconsin? Is the dominant (culturally, if not numerically) immigrant population reflected even now in statistics that measure other things entirely, e.g. openness, neuroticism, etc.?
3.
Brexiteers argue that the problem with immigration is that immigrants don't assimilate. However, the attitude of the nativist Britons who argue this (including, to some extent, the Government) towards those who have assimilated as much as humanly possible – language, family, lifestyle, embedded in the fabric of British society and institutions, etc) proves that assimilation to the desired standard is something impossible to achieve. The only sufficiently British people are people who are already British, and therefore the topic of assimilation is moot.
Well, that's enough thinking for one day, Pat Keohane and I are going to the pub.
