I subscribe to the ideas of permeable and fractal boundaries. The former is one I attribute to Heather Marsh's writing - the idea of being able to move across a

I subscribe to the ideas of permeable and fractal boundaries. The former is one I attribute to Heather Marsh's writing - the idea of being able to move across a boundary fluidly and express different selves at different times and places. The latter is an original variant, using a fractal as the specific metaphor of self, and where you define your boundary is always "true until you look at the details" - then you find the exceptions, and exceptions to those exceptions. In this light, societal boundaries like public/private tend to act as hard cuts to the fractal of self, pruning it into a perhaps uncomfortable shape. In both mine and Marsh's framing, power structures represent a human health issue in that they channel the self into an element of the system, depriving it of a natural development pattern. But even so, this model allows a criticism of fringe conspiracy groups in that they represent an inflammatory response: an "anti" to the body politic. In this they differ from epistemic study groups, because the study goes nowhere, employing all the facts towards question-begging conclusions. Their collision with the "mainstream" acts to throw both into greater doubt. You want some of this inflammation, but as with inflammation in the human body, not continuously or at high levels. All of that said, I do believe that on the whole, power structures are loosening these days, because the angles of attack on them are so varied, like a horde of descending insects. Control exercised in one place causes inflammation in another. The "social media meltdown" - the typical result of an actor who has lost their place in the power structure - has grown so common as to be unremarkable. Meanwhile, people who work in between the boundaries, finding those cracks through which they can slip, seem to thrive.