intertext

I risk a lot by writing about something Intertext knows I have no knowledge of, as I can count on one hand the number of fantasy novels I've read. However, this fascinating discussion has got me thinking about romanticization of all sorts of marginality, not only street life but also drug culture, rural poverty, war trauma, and so forth. This makes me wonder if we have a doubled attitude to such experiences/arenas. On the one hand, we suspect that life at the margins or in extreme situations has more freedom, more intensity, and more authenticity or "magic," and even that those very margins exist because of our inability to honour those who don't fit into our world but perhaps see things more clearly. On the other hand, maybe it's partly an expression of a cultural pyschological trauma. I believe that most of "us" are extremely traumatized and terrified and sorrowful about the pain and loss that street people, among others, manifest in their very existence. Perhaps romanticizing this culture (or even "explaining" it) allows us to transform that pain into something that will not annhilate us spiritually. Not to relieve guilt, necessarily, but to cope with the horror of just how broken our civilization actually is.