Idk, as far as generation gaps go (I'm - five years younger than you? I think) I feel like it might be a - social situation thing. The world's way more visibly fucked up than it was ten years ago? Like, we knew that things were going to hell, but hey, voting for Obama was gonna fix everything! (Or at least it felt like it at the time.) But then it didn't, and wars have continued, and now the election might go even worse.
I feel like - extremism is a stress response, on a social level. An attempt to gain control over the world. we know there's a threat, and it makes us anxious and angry, but since we can't attack the thing that's actually threatening us - we find easier targets. Things we can handle, to make us feel like we have some agency and control over the world around us.
And from there, things get worse - reprisals seen as validation of the initial attack, people buckling down on their views, the battle less about ideas and more about winning, and less extreme views (like ours, perhaps) get pushed out as the environment is no longer tolerable.
It's - thing that happens, I think. It's terrible to be stuck in the middle of, but it helps me at least to look at it as a sociological phenomenon than 'oh no thing i love is ruined'. Less an attack and more a storm passing. It's not - personal.
...anyway. Onto the actual topic of the post. I think it's a - macro and micro thing, almost? Social vs individual.
It's - like, we've gotten that fiction matters in society. We've figured that out, and that is good and important. But we've - forgotten, or maybe we never knew, that it also matters to the individual. And those are different processes - and I think they're both important, and both valuable. Society is both more and different from just an aggregate of of individuals - the individual is not simply a function of their society. And individual lives /matter/.
I think, for me, part of it is because art and writing and fandom have always been very personal, very much Me. It's something born out of and feeding into my self image and my understanding of myself. Writing is how I learn things about myself, how I figure out what's inside of, and sharing is how I validate the things that I've found. Maybe that's a selfish view, but I've found it necessary for me to stay stable. So art - and literature, and fandom - is about self-maintenance and self-discovery. And that is as important as looking after others, I think.
...I still don't have a full essay, but I might be closer to one now.
warning i was very nearly a sociologist and sometimes it shows
I feel like - extremism is a stress response, on a social level. An attempt to gain control over the world. we know there's a threat, and it makes us anxious and angry, but since we can't attack the thing that's actually threatening us - we find easier targets. Things we can handle, to make us feel like we have some agency and control over the world around us.
And from there, things get worse - reprisals seen as validation of the initial attack, people buckling down on their views, the battle less about ideas and more about winning, and less extreme views (like ours, perhaps) get pushed out as the environment is no longer tolerable.
It's - thing that happens, I think. It's terrible to be stuck in the middle of, but it helps me at least to look at it as a sociological phenomenon than 'oh no thing i love is ruined'. Less an attack and more a storm passing. It's not - personal.
...anyway. Onto the actual topic of the post. I think it's a - macro and micro thing, almost? Social vs individual.
It's - like, we've gotten that fiction matters in society. We've figured that out, and that is good and important. But we've - forgotten, or maybe we never knew, that it also matters to the individual. And those are different processes - and I think they're both important, and both valuable. Society is both more and different from just an aggregate of of individuals - the individual is not simply a function of their society. And individual lives /matter/.
I think, for me, part of it is because art and writing and fandom have always been very personal, very much Me. It's something born out of and feeding into my self image and my understanding of myself. Writing is how I learn things about myself, how I figure out what's inside of, and sharing is how I validate the things that I've found. Maybe that's a selfish view, but I've found it necessary for me to stay stable. So art - and literature, and fandom - is about self-maintenance and self-discovery. And that is as important as looking after others, I think.
...I still don't have a full essay, but I might be closer to one now.