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Hysterical Realism. Learn to recognize the style. Its exploding all around us and can be safely ignored. Writers in the west, growing up insecure about what h

Hysterical Realism. Learn to recognize the style. Its exploding all around us and can be safely ignored. Writers in the west, growing up insecure about what happens next are defaulting to hysterical realism, because many have lost the ability generate Faith. Faith in what? Faith that tomorrow can be a better day. That requires much more work than showing unequipped people a reality that mesmerises while it overwhelms. Always pick writers who produce Faith over writers who cant. Its like eating healthy.

bserge 5y ago
Yeah, I can do without faith. I see to much of it and it seems dumb to me. I just go about living however I can, doing whatever I can, not being horrible to other living beings (though I talk a lot of shit online), ready to die at any moment.
germinalphrase 5y ago
Jab at the postmodernists aside, I’m not seeing a great deal of faith in a better tomorrow anywhere across the literary spectrum. Where do you see it?
- Karrot_Kream 5y ago
  Look outside the West. While there's certainly lots of challenges throughout the globe, war and strife are much nearer in cultural memory in most of the developing and undeveloped world (and is often ongoing!) than it is in the West. Having Faith that tomorrow will be better is almost a prerequisite to life in most of these parts of the world, and you will often hear volumes of stories from parents and grandparents of wars, purges, poverty, and more.
  - laurent92 5y ago
    But what if this is caused by developing countries having a much better tomorrow, while the West countries are at their apogee?
- radicaldreamer 5y ago
  Asia, specifically China. I was in Myanmar a couple of years ago and was shocked to hear people wildly optimistic about their future — their lives had been getting better in significant ways literally month to month at that point. I’m not sure what they would feel now though. I’m sure there are places in Africa where this is the case as well.
  - throw8932894 5y ago
    Not sure Chinese would agree with you. China declined a lot in past decade. More restrictions, everything is more expensive, harder to get job, MUCH harder to travel outside country... It was way more cheerful place decade ago.
- nanomonkey 5y ago
  Solar punk is a literature genre that attempts to do just this. Metamodernism (of the variety described in "The Listening Society" by Hanzi Frinache) attempts to describe what comes after Postmodernism.
a1369209993 5y ago
> Faith in what? On faith (I think from a HN comment, actually): "Having faith" that the bridge will not fall, implies that the bridge itself isn't that trustworthy. It's not that different from "I pray that the bridge will hold my weight." I consider this a sufficient refutation. Earn trust, or don't; most of those in any meaningful position of power have consistently chosen "don't", and the result is depressing but unsurprising.
- afarrell 5y ago
  In order to build a bridge that will hold people’s weight, you need to trust that they wont suddenly cancel the project when you procure sufficient materials to hold 3x their weight.
  - a1369209993 5y ago
    Yep. When they have a long track record of undermining anything you try to do, the rational response is to not bother trying to work with them.
- redis_mlc 5y ago
  FYI: more than half of US bridges are non-redundant. Even the smallest crack from corrosion can propagate and bring it down. And they're all corroding.
soledades 5y ago
There's also faith in humanity and its capacity to renew itself throughout the cycles of civilization. You can look at the world and think tomorrow looks grim, but the morning after can be better. Faith that tomorrow is going to be better is just one of many types of faith, and it may not even be the healthiest. The prophets had faith, but they often saw dark tomorrows. ~~ 'Hysterical' Realism seems like a caricature, 'safely ignored' suggests the book is alarmist or clawing for attention. Based on the review, the book is anything but. It seems more just a vividly imagined meditation on the massive gravity of our tangling with reality, and one that could expand a persons sense of awe at the universe and our place in it.
- DoingIsLearning 5y ago
  > There's also faith in humanity and its capacity to renew itself throughout the cycles of civilization. One piece of trivia that really puts this in perspective is that around 70000BC a supervolcano event reduced the world human population to a few thousand people [0] and yet surprisingly here we are! Irrespective of all the dire future prospects it really will take a lot for us as Humans to go extinct. I find that thought somewhat conforting. [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/10/22/163397584/how-human-beings-almost-vanished-from-earth-in-70-000-b-c?t=1634194410798 https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/10/22/163397584/h...
  - EGreg 5y ago
    I wonder, sometimes, how much have people thought through what they’re saying when they value humanity living on for thousands or millions of years. If your life comes to an end, you’re not around to see anything else, why do you care? Sure maybe you may care about your immediate family, but after that, then what? No one you have personally met is around to see anything. Is that hugely different to you than millions of years ago with just dinosaurs around? Why do we have such values? Humans may look very different in 100 years (may be cyborgs) let alone 2 billion! Yet we have articles talking about “humans escaping the heat death of the universe” and so on. Machines can be easily diplicated and programs can execute on many machines. If there is a rise in AI, why do we cling to the idea of “identity” when a program may have totally different values? Commander Data in Star Trek is not realistic when it comes how AI would behave. It might not have any self-preservation at all, more like the Borg than Data. And in all this, where do we find ourselves? As they say in the Matrix, this was our heyday. Before we polluted the planet and left it increasingly toxic since we couldn’t live sustainably. Before AI took over and made it a zoo for us in the same way we make zoos for animals. I just want to understand these anachronistic tendencies by smart people to discuss why they feel good humanity will be around in 500 or 1000 years, given the pace of change now. Unless there is an afterlife where we all are resurrected and get to live out eternity happily in conditions we enjoy, I am not sure what you have to look forward to.
LordHumungous 5y ago
You put your finger on something that I've been thinking but could not articulate.
tcbawo 5y ago
Faith seems to have a part in it, for sure. But it also seems that people are demanding more and more certainty in their lives. I compare this to my Grandfather's day when kids had nearly complete autonomy and could travel to the next town over, use power tools and vehicles, shoot bows and arrows, while successive generations could do less and less (to keep them safe). I attribute this to societal problems like crime, disease, and basic safety standards going from intractable and unsolvable problems (nothing can be done, so don't worry about it), to having a possibility of control, hence constant state of worry. I think some people feel that by exposing a threat or danger to light, they are doing society a benefit. But at some point, we can't anticipate every low probability event and it's only adding to our neuroses. Society is still adapting to the social media age. I think new norms and rules are still developing for what to discuss, share, link with polite company.
- soledades 5y ago
  I think another interesting factor is that hardly anyone dies before a reasonably ripe age these days. We take for granted that we will have the full course of life. When (e.g. in the 1800s) a typical person has at least one sibling die before adulthood, it throws the fundamental uncertainties into sharp relief. Not saying that's a good thing, but it is different.
coldtea 5y ago
>Always pick writers who produce Faith over writers who cant. The problem with Faith is that it's often blind to reality. Like believing that "tomorrow can be a better day" when all signs show not just "insecurity about what happens next" (as if we are not sure) but certainly and empirical evidence of bad shit happening...

bserge 5y ago

Yeah, I can do without faith. I see to much of it and it seems dumb to me. I just go about living however I can, doing whatever I can, not being horrible to other living beings (though I talk a lot of shit online), ready to die at any moment.

germinalphrase 5y ago

Jab at the postmodernists aside, I’m not seeing a great deal of faith in a better tomorrow anywhere across the literary spectrum. Where do you see it?

Karrot_Kream 5y ago
Look outside the West. While there's certainly lots of challenges throughout the globe, war and strife are much nearer in cultural memory in most of the developing and undeveloped world (and is often ongoing!) than it is in the West. Having Faith that tomorrow will be better is almost a prerequisite to life in most of these parts of the world, and you will often hear volumes of stories from parents and grandparents of wars, purges, poverty, and more.
- laurent92 5y ago
  But what if this is caused by developing countries having a much better tomorrow, while the West countries are at their apogee?
radicaldreamer 5y ago
Asia, specifically China. I was in Myanmar a couple of years ago and was shocked to hear people wildly optimistic about their future — their lives had been getting better in significant ways literally month to month at that point. I’m not sure what they would feel now though. I’m sure there are places in Africa where this is the case as well.
- throw8932894 5y ago
  Not sure Chinese would agree with you. China declined a lot in past decade. More restrictions, everything is more expensive, harder to get job, MUCH harder to travel outside country... It was way more cheerful place decade ago.
nanomonkey 5y ago
Solar punk is a literature genre that attempts to do just this. Metamodernism (of the variety described in "The Listening Society" by Hanzi Frinache) attempts to describe what comes after Postmodernism.

a1369209993 5y ago

> Faith in what? On faith (I think from a HN comment, actually): "Having faith" that the bridge will not fall, implies that the bridge itself isn't that trustworthy. It's not that different from "I pray that the bridge will hold my weight." I consider this a sufficient refutation. Earn trust, or don't; most of those in any meaningful position of power have consistently chosen "don't", and the result is depressing but unsurprising.

afarrell 5y ago
In order to build a bridge that will hold people’s weight, you need to trust that they wont suddenly cancel the project when you procure sufficient materials to hold 3x their weight.
- a1369209993 5y ago
  Yep. When they have a long track record of undermining anything you try to do, the rational response is to not bother trying to work with them.
redis_mlc 5y ago
FYI: more than half of US bridges are non-redundant. Even the smallest crack from corrosion can propagate and bring it down. And they're all corroding.

soledades 5y ago

There's also faith in humanity and its capacity to renew itself throughout the cycles of civilization. You can look at the world and think tomorrow looks grim, but the morning after can be better. Faith that tomorrow is going to be better is just one of many types of faith, and it may not even be the healthiest. The prophets had faith, but they often saw dark tomorrows. ~~ 'Hysterical' Realism seems like a caricature, 'safely ignored' suggests the book is alarmist or clawing for attention. Based on the review, the book is anything but. It seems more just a vividly imagined meditation on the massive gravity of our tangling with reality, and one that could expand a persons sense of awe at the universe and our place in it.

DoingIsLearning 5y ago
> There's also faith in humanity and its capacity to renew itself throughout the cycles of civilization. One piece of trivia that really puts this in perspective is that around 70000BC a supervolcano event reduced the world human population to a few thousand people [0] and yet surprisingly here we are! Irrespective of all the dire future prospects it really will take a lot for us as Humans to go extinct. I find that thought somewhat conforting. [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/10/22/163397584/how-human-beings-almost-vanished-from-earth-in-70-000-b-c?t=1634194410798 https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/10/22/163397584/h...
- EGreg 5y ago
  I wonder, sometimes, how much have people thought through what they’re saying when they value humanity living on for thousands or millions of years. If your life comes to an end, you’re not around to see anything else, why do you care? Sure maybe you may care about your immediate family, but after that, then what? No one you have personally met is around to see anything. Is that hugely different to you than millions of years ago with just dinosaurs around? Why do we have such values? Humans may look very different in 100 years (may be cyborgs) let alone 2 billion! Yet we have articles talking about “humans escaping the heat death of the universe” and so on. Machines can be easily diplicated and programs can execute on many machines. If there is a rise in AI, why do we cling to the idea of “identity” when a program may have totally different values? Commander Data in Star Trek is not realistic when it comes how AI would behave. It might not have any self-preservation at all, more like the Borg than Data. And in all this, where do we find ourselves? As they say in the Matrix, this was our heyday. Before we polluted the planet and left it increasingly toxic since we couldn’t live sustainably. Before AI took over and made it a zoo for us in the same way we make zoos for animals. I just want to understand these anachronistic tendencies by smart people to discuss why they feel good humanity will be around in 500 or 1000 years, given the pace of change now. Unless there is an afterlife where we all are resurrected and get to live out eternity happily in conditions we enjoy, I am not sure what you have to look forward to.

LordHumungous 5y ago

You put your finger on something that I've been thinking but could not articulate.

tcbawo 5y ago

Faith seems to have a part in it, for sure. But it also seems that people are demanding more and more certainty in their lives. I compare this to my Grandfather's day when kids had nearly complete autonomy and could travel to the next town over, use power tools and vehicles, shoot bows and arrows, while successive generations could do less and less (to keep them safe). I attribute this to societal problems like crime, disease, and basic safety standards going from intractable and unsolvable problems (nothing can be done, so don't worry about it), to having a possibility of control, hence constant state of worry. I think some people feel that by exposing a threat or danger to light, they are doing society a benefit. But at some point, we can't anticipate every low probability event and it's only adding to our neuroses. Society is still adapting to the social media age. I think new norms and rules are still developing for what to discuss, share, link with polite company.

soledades 5y ago
I think another interesting factor is that hardly anyone dies before a reasonably ripe age these days. We take for granted that we will have the full course of life. When (e.g. in the 1800s) a typical person has at least one sibling die before adulthood, it throws the fundamental uncertainties into sharp relief. Not saying that's a good thing, but it is different.

coldtea 5y ago

>Always pick writers who produce Faith over writers who cant. The problem with Faith is that it's often blind to reality. Like believing that "tomorrow can be a better day" when all signs show not just "insecurity about what happens next" (as if we are not sure) but certainly and empirical evidence of bad shit happening...