Oh, I feel you on fuzzy!brain--- and let me say that your fuzzy!brain response was far more in-depth than my own fuzzy!brain response is likely to be! (Again, see the length of time it's taking me to respond... :/)
First, I could not agree more on the repeating patterns of human existence--- the broad common themes that you find across cultures as contrasted with the flavoring that the different experiences of respective groups of humans give to those common themes. The whole piece of “ways we are all alike as humans/ways we are like some humans but not others/ways each of us is unique”, if you will.
(That last piece, that unique-experience-within-species-and-culture piece, is demanding my attention here; what you said about the repeating themes that call to each of us interests me, because... it’s a thing for me, but it’s not a thing that fits neatly into existing classified archetypes? Your trickster example in particular got my attention, because there are trickster types I love and ones I could not possibly care less about, and yet at the same time I can find common themes in the types-I-love, even though I have yet to see them... um, documented?... as standard archetypes.)
Hah, I’m definitely cool with an agnostic/atheist perspective; even from a spiritually-oriented perspective there’s a lot to be said for attending to those common themes across cultures, those attempts to “get at” the truths of human experience on the one hand and--- okay, I see your agnostic perspective and I raise you a downright critical one!--- if not outright exploit those truths in terms of the way that they can be used to make large groups of people respond to them, then at least work with that, whether it’s the Catholic Church’s historical ability to operate as a world power or Square Enix’s ability to get us to cough up money for their product. (Which come to think of it is not dissimilar to some behaviors of various religious institutions, except SE and their fellow gaming companies are going straight for the profit-from-entertainment motive.)
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2013-03-30 06:27 am (UTC)First, I could not agree more on the repeating patterns of human existence--- the broad common themes that you find across cultures as contrasted with the flavoring that the different experiences of respective groups of humans give to those common themes. The whole piece of “ways we are all alike as humans/ways we are like some humans but not others/ways each of us is unique”, if you will.
(That last piece, that unique-experience-within-species-and-culture piece, is demanding my attention here; what you said about the repeating themes that call to each of us interests me, because... it’s a thing for me, but it’s not a thing that fits neatly into existing classified archetypes? Your trickster example in particular got my attention, because there are trickster types I love and ones I could not possibly care less about, and yet at the same time I can find common themes in the types-I-love, even though I have yet to see them... um, documented?... as standard archetypes.)
Hah, I’m definitely cool with an agnostic/atheist perspective; even from a spiritually-oriented perspective there’s a lot to be said for attending to those common themes across cultures, those attempts to “get at” the truths of human experience on the one hand and--- okay, I see your agnostic perspective and I raise you a downright critical one!--- if not outright exploit those truths in terms of the way that they can be used to make large groups of people respond to them, then at least work with that, whether it’s the Catholic Church’s historical ability to operate as a world power or Square Enix’s ability to get us to cough up money for their product. (Which come to think of it is not dissimilar to some behaviors of various religious institutions, except SE and their fellow gaming companies are going straight for the profit-from-entertainment motive.)