It broke something I have been lapping up against for some time, which is the very high wall of my intellectualism. Abstraction, I see, is a powerful narcotic, one which allows you to avoid most emotions, perhaps for a lifetime.
But it does so at the cost of being in the moment, of genuinely feeling happy and connected with the world, which is what I have been trying so hard to cultivate.
Here is a bon mot: Abstraction is the Sacrifice of the modern era.
What I mean by this is we bind parts of our collective lives in abstraction. We sell a part of the experience of having a soul, of being a living, breathing being on Earth, for protection from the realization of our more primitive instincts.
What I also mean is that Sacrifice–human, animal and other–was a means of processing for a time all the demonic impulses within a society. In our own society, we in general eschew violence–at least our chattering, academic class does, and particularly when it appears warranted in the pursuit of national security–;but it does not go away when it is ignored. It appears as abstraction. Individual and social “selves” are split into the sane and shadow.
And one sees this process of abstraction in place when you ponder the ease with which the Left has been able to peddle, and get repeated, the ridiculous comparisons of Trump with Hitler. Agree or disagree with his policies–and by and large they have been pretty clearly expressed, and all seem on their way to being implemented–he is NOTHING like Hitler. His supporters are nothing like fascists. Only people lacking the capacity to connect emotional intelligence to the process of thinking could possibly be that stupid.
And I see too that “crusading” is almost always both the result of abstraction, and an effort at avoiding unpleasant feelings. Many people need to be needed, so even if the people they want to “help” don’t want that help, even if they explicitly reject it, they will “help” anyway. And in the case of black people, part of the dynamic has been convincing them they are functionally helpless, and that they do need help, which to my eye looks like grotesque racism.
And if the problem does not exist, they invent it. By and large, the transgender folks have been managing the bathroom issue quite well for some time. The only current addition to the debate is whether or not people who are OBVIOUSLY a different gender get to impose their will on others. This does not make sense to me, or most people, which is why this is a great cause for people who need to be needed. Since they are battling common sense and long custom, they are well positioned to use the resistance they encounter to bolster their internal sense of moral supremacy.
But to take that last shot of abstraction away from myself, I was in my body for a time, and it felt good.