Hi Zig Forums. I spent some of my childhood sheltered in a extremely religious culture that had held on to the past. Both the good and the bad. They had kept alive social technology that had evolved over hundreds of years. It kept their families together. It kept their communities together. It kept them spiritually healthy. They understood what the degenerating mainstream culture was losing because they hadn't lost it yet. But they didn't hang on to their culture because they understood this. They hung on to it because they were scared. Once you get old enough you need a culture as much as it needs you. If values change - if roles change - who will you be, what will you do? The elders led the community and the fear of this existential threat lead them. They understood what their culture did for them because they experienced it - in a way that couldn't be put fully into words. But they understood this because they kept themselves sheltered. There was a lot they didn't understand. When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back. They kept a healthy distance. There was a lot they didn't understand.
That was the first part of my childhood. The next, I had very little oversight or direction. I found worldly friends I wanted to be like. I experienced drugs, girls, the chans, porn. I converted to progressivism. I hated religion. I thought it was used to control people. I knew what it was like to be free. I wasn't going back.
In college I started to fall away from orthodox progressivism. I started to see it more like a religion. I started reading blogs and forums that were outside the Overton Window on the left and the right. I kept reading the New York Times but didn't take its opinions seriously - didn't take any opinions seriously. I would argue the right's side on leftist blogs and the left's side on rightist blogs. I would occasionally comment on a mainstream article but people who let themselves think are much more interesting to talk to. I like interesting Ideas not 'interesting' expressions of the party line.
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