It's a complicated idea, but I think I can see where you're coming from and mostly agree. I would venture a step further though and say that those who adhere to increasingly fringe mass political movements, and those who become extremely obsessed with fictional universes, are both subsets of the same trend. Which is, people are trying to find some kind of meaning, some kind of ingroup to belong to, and something to "fight' for, in a world that has become more and more sterile, homogeneous, and devoid of actual struggle. Basically what you said- they want a framework and a group of likeminded people to help them in life, and in lieu of religion they find other things.
You would probably really like Ted Kacyzinski's book "Industrial Society and its Future". Ted notes many of the same things you note- the breakdown of "traditional" ways of organizing and viewing society, like religion and the family unit. And that people have tried to fill this void in other activities, with varying degrees of success.
His manifesto isn't directly related to what you are talking about- it's ultimately about how he believes technological development is causing most of the social and mental problems in modern people, because technology leads to changes in the structure of society that people are not psychologically equipped to handle. But his discussion on "surrogate activities" that people use to find meaning when they don't have any real struggles, touches on some of the same points that you talk about.
Edit: the book itself can be read online for free, don't bother buying it.
Thanks for sharing this, and you’re right, while I have never read the whole book, I’m partial to some of the “ted-posting” of its core ideas that occurs in other sections of this site, and think he may have been questioning similar things.
It's a complicated idea, but I think I can see where you're coming from and mostly agree. I would venture a step further though and say that those who adhere to increasingly fringe mass political movements, and those who become extremely obsessed with fictional universes, are both subsets of the same trend. Which is, people are trying to find some kind of meaning, some kind of ingroup to belong to, and something to "fight' for, in a world that has become more and more sterile, homogeneous, and devoid of actual struggle. Basically what you said- they want a framework and a group of likeminded people to help them in life, and in lieu of religion they find other things.
You would probably really like Ted Kacyzinski's book "Industrial Society and its Future". Ted notes many of the same things you note- the breakdown of "traditional" ways of organizing and viewing society, like religion and the family unit. And that people have tried to fill this void in other activities, with varying degrees of success.
His manifesto isn't directly related to what you are talking about- it's ultimately about how he believes technological development is causing most of the social and mental problems in modern people, because technology leads to changes in the structure of society that people are not psychologically equipped to handle. But his discussion on "surrogate activities" that people use to find meaning when they don't have any real struggles, touches on some of the same points that you talk about.
Edit: the book itself can be read online for free, don't bother buying it.
Thanks for sharing this, and you’re right, while I have never read the whole book, I’m partial to some of the “ted-posting” of its core ideas that occurs in other sections of this site, and think he may have been questioning similar things.