In today's video I continue to work the matrix of popular story telling as gyroscope for hidden truth in a secular age using @TheCriticalDri2 @jordanbpeterson and @clayroutledge . @GrimGriz gets a cameo.
Sure this is Hollywood's lazy attempt at making money without having to do the hard work of making something "that moves the ball forward" but it's more like the Decadence that @DouthatNYT writes about in his book that has unfortunately receded too quickly. https://www.amazon.com/Decadent-Society-Became-Victims-Success-ebook/dp/B07THDLJZL/
I think neo-paganism is the soft-reboot of anti-institutional religion. It is decadent in that it is a turning-in-on-itself attempt to locate the sacred within a secular frame. The thread was lost. See @PageauJonathan
Also hear Rod Hutton on @TheRestHistory podcast https://pca.st/k41eknq4
One of the things that the soft-reboot tries to cash in on is Nostalgia. Nostalgia gets a bad rap but it shouldn't. One of my favorite convos of the @jordanbpeterson second wave series is his talk with @clayroutledge
.@clayroutledge is sort of a BOGO stop in this because he's both an expert on nostalgia and has written on the fact that when people shed their organized religion they gravitate towards dis-organized or poorly formed religious methods.
Even though nostalgia gets a bad rap it's a powerful piece of the psychology behind religion and community. Yes it can get decadent but its machinery is a powerful way to afford comfort and mobilize for the continuation of community.
Given the fact that Hollywood popular film makers are the high priests of the folk religion of our age it's not surprising that they defer to nostalgia driven by the market. Psychology and markets have long worked together. If they want to escape the trap of decadent nostalgia, however, they'll need to resist the cash grab and continue to try to make popular art. This art is both formative and expressive of current religious assumptions.
This like many of my videos is sort of unfinished. I pull these things together at the end of the work day with some found time. I hope to make a "part 2" where we have to move beyond Star Wars into the Matrix.
I plan to follow up on this with @redlettermedia 's treatment of the new Matrix soft-reboot Resurrections.
It pulls some of these threads together.
So hopefully more to come this week or next.