huh... this really seems to hit the nail on the head for something I've been struggling to verbalize for some time - ghosting vs getting into an argument, bullying vs shunning... I think it speaks to my having grown up with sort of...cultivated crankiness and yes, this "engaged cruelty" that I kind of hold as a point of pride the "rivalries" that I've turned around into working relationships, and I think in many ways, that's not something that's really seen as something good so often with this disengaged mode...
I think what you're pointing at, the human/animal nature, there's really something there... all creatures have this sort of nettling they do at each other. playfighting. biting each other until there's a yelp. it serves a social function of reinforcing and teaching boundaries via pushing on them... in absence of that, you just have to give people a wide berth, and when you bite, you don't know when to stop. part of its shifting, I wonder if is a function of there just being so many people in each others' orbits that we're afraid of dying of a million soft bites? idk, I suppose a bit of a ramble. but this has given me some things to roll around in the braincase.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2025-05-27 06:45 am (UTC)I think what you're pointing at, the human/animal nature, there's really something there... all creatures have this sort of nettling they do at each other. playfighting. biting each other until there's a yelp. it serves a social function of reinforcing and teaching boundaries via pushing on them... in absence of that, you just have to give people a wide berth, and when you bite, you don't know when to stop. part of its shifting, I wonder if is a function of there just being so many people in each others' orbits that we're afraid of dying of a million soft bites? idk, I suppose a bit of a ramble. but this has given me some things to roll around in the braincase.