On the brink of default

[redbreegull]

Originally Posted by Trotskilicious

our entire culture is that, relentless and unrealistic positivity, no real self-assessment, dismissal and isolation of realists as "downers", etc

This makes me think of an essay I read by Forster in which he muses that liberalism is always at an intrinsic disadvantage because its fundamental premise is "question everything" or "everything is uncertain," whereas conservatism just asks people to have faith. In this way, conservatism is like religion or myth because it appeals to our irrational but very human desire to pack all our fears and cognitive dissonances away by investing our minds in absolutes and immutabilities.