the tragedy of acceleration
Jul. 23rd, 2006 08:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rmIt occurs to me that the reason I so love JKR's wizarding world may not be the characters, the magic or the funny clothes, and don't get me wrong, I love all that. It may be that in that world time always moves at the same pace. It doesn't in this one -- or so I thought looking at the People Magazine retrospective on the '90s in the drug store; didn't we used to wait longer to engage in these exercises?
Even my Regency obsession doesn't solve the acceleration problem, for the Regency era is arguably when acceleration began -- the world was getting bigger then, travel faster and lives longer. Ways of conducting the self suddenly became much more what we would considering recognizably modern compared to what they had been in the 1700s.
Wizarding society is stagnant though -- that's its toxicity, but it's also what allows genius to thrive in its confines. In an accelerating world everyone must be a Slytherin (welcome to the petty games of our world); in the wizarding world it sets one apart. After all, manipulation is a form of forcing time to bend to your will for rarely is manipulation anything more than accelerating the natural gravity of other people's choices.
I, apparently, desire a world where my greatest skills allow me quiet excellence, as opposed to merely contributing and an exhausting and often utterly valueless acceleration.
Even my Regency obsession doesn't solve the acceleration problem, for the Regency era is arguably when acceleration began -- the world was getting bigger then, travel faster and lives longer. Ways of conducting the self suddenly became much more what we would considering recognizably modern compared to what they had been in the 1700s.
Wizarding society is stagnant though -- that's its toxicity, but it's also what allows genius to thrive in its confines. In an accelerating world everyone must be a Slytherin (welcome to the petty games of our world); in the wizarding world it sets one apart. After all, manipulation is a form of forcing time to bend to your will for rarely is manipulation anything more than accelerating the natural gravity of other people's choices.
I, apparently, desire a world where my greatest skills allow me quiet excellence, as opposed to merely contributing and an exhausting and often utterly valueless acceleration.
