A few years ago, one of my friends' dad had a mental breakdown. Back in the middle years of the 1980s, he had a choice to make between pursuing the love of his life, or hiding that he had fallen in love with a man in order to continue a career with the military. He chose the later; and gradually came to regret it. Eventually, the remorse became such that he ended up having a full blown break from reality: denying he had ever made the decision, insisting he was still a young man, and that it was still the 1980s.
What worries me is that I think I recognize some of the dynamics that were at work with this mental breakdown playing out on a larger scale. I think the case can be made American society made a major mistake with the embrace of consumerism in the 1950s, and I think the collective consciousness is starting to grapple with this; and some of the weirder dynamics in American politics and culture look a lot like the months leading up to the mental breakdown I mentioned above.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2023-09-25 07:41 pm (UTC)What worries me is that I think I recognize some of the dynamics that were at work with this mental breakdown playing out on a larger scale. I think the case can be made American society made a major mistake with the embrace of consumerism in the 1950s, and I think the collective consciousness is starting to grapple with this; and some of the weirder dynamics in American politics and culture look a lot like the months leading up to the mental breakdown I mentioned above.
Can egregors go insane in this fashion?