Chroderos

Chroderos t1_iuxr1ic wrote

”What the Crows experienced was the collapse of their lifeworld. The traditional Crow way of life was structured around two cardinal virtues: being a warrior and being a hunter. Waging battles against rival nations and engaging in seasonal buffalo hunts were the supreme purposes of Crow existence and gave meaning to every other activity, down to the smallest gestures of everyday life. Everything was oriented toward them. “Nothing happened,” then, meant that once the telos of Crow life had disappeared, any subsequent happenings had already lost their purpose and become meaningless. In such a situation, Lear observes, “the concepts with which [one] would otherwise have understood [oneself] … have gone out of existence.” An invisible cultural scaffolding supporting a form of life and a way of being in the world has collapsed. Suddenly, the world no longer offers a solid backdrop to our existence and to our aspirations. It is as if there had been in Plenty Coups’s life “a moment when history came to an end.”

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I feel like this partially explains why people in democracies have become so drawn to “voting for chaos” and fantasizing about the apocalypse. They cannot contextualize a history, and sense a lack of telos, in the current state of the world. Waiting in the antechamber of history feels unbearable.

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Chroderos t1_itqy4ao wrote

I grew up rural and live in a smallish rural town / small city (With some basic amenities and good internet) after having lived in a major city for a few years. With so much entertainment now being piped directly to our houses, the only thing I really miss is that we have no affordable public racquetball courts. A 5 minute commute to work and being able to live like a king in a low CoL area definitely make up for that.

Sometimes I miss the city, but if I’m honest with myself, I’m too busy to engage in most of those things you mention more than a few times per year, during which time I’ll just go vacation or visit a large city. Same complaint from my family members who currently live in a large city: all kinds of offerings available, but no time or money to attend them. That being said, I’d love to retire to a big city when I actually have time and excess money to take advantage of what they have to offer.

The biggest drawbacks to living in the area are that you can get yourself in a lot of trouble with services if you leave the town. Got locked out of my car in a tiny nearby village and nearly had to smash a window in because there was literally no one available to open it for me.

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