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Have you ever had a day when your thoughts are too big to blog? They're not particularly well-considered, just big. They won't change anyone's world except mine. Here's the executive summary, which makes just about as much sense as most executive summaries.
I'm still pursuing the cultural change thing that fascinated me a little while ago. Maybe eighteen months ago on this blog, but much longer for me in real life. In fact, it so completely nags me that, no matter what else I do, I return and return and return to it, looking at everything from the South Sea Bubble to Fanny Burney's diaries to the temporary demise of Arthurian romances. It's very much linked to the New Ceres novel, not by happenstance, either. I started off looking at the aspects of the Enlightenment that clashed with notions of the rise of modernity and at the common beliefs of the time - which is a very long-winded way of admitting I read popular literature, especially chapbooks (hence the New Ceres thing - read about highwaymen and lo, they will appear in fiction).
Yesterday I had a kind of minor epiphany with it. My ghosts met my reading, somewhere in the depths of my brain.
The minor epiphany comes down to how humans use culturally-based world views to explain reality, and what the world views I understand the best leave out. It also relates to how important it is for each and every one of us to believe that our world view contains tools that will make sense of things for us. That we can make our way through life, because we understand enough to feel a little bit intellectually or emotionally secure.
That's the super-short version. It took maybe twenty minutes to explain a more complete version (with examples of good ghosts and bad science) to a friend yesterday and I've been thinking about it some more today. It explains a bunch about cultural dynamics and related things (eg invention, innovation, trust) in the West since the Middle Ages and why some important aspects of the Medieval world view still give us explanations for phenomena in our lives.
It makes sense of a lot of my reading, both modern and not-quite-modern, which makes me such a happy bunny that I even did some sewing today. Understanding cultural dynamics is one of the core reasons for my existence, though I try not to ram it down anyone's throat (unless they're my students, of course). To have sorted out some principles that might help explain longer duree change gives me a happy, warm feeling.
I'm still pursuing the cultural change thing that fascinated me a little while ago. Maybe eighteen months ago on this blog, but much longer for me in real life. In fact, it so completely nags me that, no matter what else I do, I return and return and return to it, looking at everything from the South Sea Bubble to Fanny Burney's diaries to the temporary demise of Arthurian romances. It's very much linked to the New Ceres novel, not by happenstance, either. I started off looking at the aspects of the Enlightenment that clashed with notions of the rise of modernity and at the common beliefs of the time - which is a very long-winded way of admitting I read popular literature, especially chapbooks (hence the New Ceres thing - read about highwaymen and lo, they will appear in fiction).
Yesterday I had a kind of minor epiphany with it. My ghosts met my reading, somewhere in the depths of my brain.
The minor epiphany comes down to how humans use culturally-based world views to explain reality, and what the world views I understand the best leave out. It also relates to how important it is for each and every one of us to believe that our world view contains tools that will make sense of things for us. That we can make our way through life, because we understand enough to feel a little bit intellectually or emotionally secure.
That's the super-short version. It took maybe twenty minutes to explain a more complete version (with examples of good ghosts and bad science) to a friend yesterday and I've been thinking about it some more today. It explains a bunch about cultural dynamics and related things (eg invention, innovation, trust) in the West since the Middle Ages and why some important aspects of the Medieval world view still give us explanations for phenomena in our lives.
It makes sense of a lot of my reading, both modern and not-quite-modern, which makes me such a happy bunny that I even did some sewing today. Understanding cultural dynamics is one of the core reasons for my existence, though I try not to ram it down anyone's throat (unless they're my students, of course). To have sorted out some principles that might help explain longer duree change gives me a happy, warm feeling.