This reminds me of a book I read about the history of extemporaneous poetry (pretty much freestyling) in Latin America and Europe, and its decline:
> The verse improvisations of Cantabria are at best dormant. Women and men skilled at creating them are still alive, but the context that produced them is virtually extinct. That context was a world in which the lives of one’s neighbors were the chief, virtually the only, entertainment; a world in which personalities and eccentricities were savored. To some of their neighbors in adjacent valleys the attacks on differences in appearance, births out of wedlock, poverty, and impotence seemed uncouth and brutal. But running through the recollections of the older men and women I talked to were phrases like, ‘nobody was offended’, ‘they took it in good humor’, ‘it was part of the fun’, or ‘we all looked forward to it’. In 1942 Cossio wrote that the people of Polaciones knew no moral laws. One could also say that they had been able to maintain their own laws, different measures for what could be said and done and what was considered an offense.
Attribute it to the internet, car culture, personalized media, whatever, but I don’t think it’s ever been easier to decide you dislike the people around you and find another community, perhaps virtually.
In turn this easy access to frictionless interaction makes people less and less tolerant of what would have been everyday interaction in the past.
I don’t remember where, but I once read something that said the great appeal of fame is not just being adored, but being adored and not having to reciprocate. We seem to be moving in that direction.
> The verse improvisations of Cantabria are at best dormant. Women and men skilled at creating them are still alive, but the context that produced them is virtually extinct. That context was a world in which the lives of one’s neighbors were the chief, virtually the only, entertainment; a world in which personalities and eccentricities were savored. To some of their neighbors in adjacent valleys the attacks on differences in appearance, births out of wedlock, poverty, and impotence seemed uncouth and brutal. But running through the recollections of the older men and women I talked to were phrases like, ‘nobody was offended’, ‘they took it in good humor’, ‘it was part of the fun’, or ‘we all looked forward to it’. In 1942 Cossio wrote that the people of Polaciones knew no moral laws. One could also say that they had been able to maintain their own laws, different measures for what could be said and done and what was considered an offense.
Attribute it to the internet, car culture, personalized media, whatever, but I don’t think it’s ever been easier to decide you dislike the people around you and find another community, perhaps virtually.
In turn this easy access to frictionless interaction makes people less and less tolerant of what would have been everyday interaction in the past.
I don’t remember where, but I once read something that said the great appeal of fame is not just being adored, but being adored and not having to reciprocate. We seem to be moving in that direction.