oh the business never leaves; better sing now while you can

[lookingforwater]

So, I talked a little bit in the entry before last (flocked) and in the comments of the entry before that (unlocked) about the fear of inappropriate sincerity.  And what I mean by that is this... thing, this New Sincerity,1 where enthusiastic engagement is a good thing but only in certain contexts e.g. artisanal breads and 18th century Japanese

Comments

[lookingforwater]

I think my basic thesis here is that attempting to divide passions - yours or someone else's - into "legitimate" and "not legitimate" makes you a tool of the man.

Passionate investment in tentacle porn is the moral equivalent of passionate investment in Mozart. Attempting to divide the world into acceptable and unacceptable passions is how commercialism works, because it creates an artificial schism that's used to induce insecurity which moves product. Irony is our great defense against this - irony is what moves us to point out, for example, that there is no effective difference between fantasy football and an RPG. New Sincerity - and most back-to-nature movements throughout history, if you want my honest opinion - tries to remove irony from the equation, which makes me strongly suspect that it is, in fact, a tool of the Man.

And, you know, don't get me started on the class privilege involved in yakking about how we need to return to the soil.

[lookingforwater]

Man, but the Romantics were pricks, too. I have yet to find a back-to-nature movement that approaches the subject with due humility, tbqh.