…I’m different, as the meme goes. You know we’re two minutes to tumblr bios that read “Terflepuff” “Terffyndor” and such, right? I’ve never been so glad to avoid all fandom shit like the plague. (This post may seem frivolous given our political moment, but bear with me.) I feel the worst for people who let that stuff replace xtianity in their liberal hearts.
Cultural Potterians. People who related every incident of moral importance in the news to ostensible lessons or wisdom found within the holy texts. People who invested twenty years of their young lives framing everything they encountered in terms of baby wizards and their foes.
Good luck replacing your religion guys. I really do mean that. If you went that far in the first place, you’re the kind of person who really does feel most comfortable having a bedrock fiction to believe in. Maybe look into Unitarian Universalism or one of the progressive xtian denominations out there.
The original version of this post over on my tumblr account ended with saying that nihilism is the alternative for those brave enough to free themselves from the need for comforting narratives. This being an atheism-themed blog network, I feel the need to retool that, but to say atheism is an alternative rings false, when all the mainstream atheist orgs are represented by intellectually shallow creeps that avoid the darker aspects of facing reality by replacing it with evopsych justifications for culturally xtian biases and comforts.
Anyway, on the FtB, I like to think we know better than to hold up heroes of any kind. It’s safer than having stars which can fall, when you get used to it.
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EDIT TO ADD: Given FtB’s recent output, maybe the alternative to comfortable fictions is collecting or creating knives. Blacksmithing is unavailable to those of us living in apartments, but maybe we could make shivs and brickbats. Yeah…
Unitarian Universalism, for the record, not the other way around. The vast majority are LGBTQ+ and atheist-friendly, and active in BLM. I attend a UU church. Out BLM banner was vandalized recently, and “white lives matter more” was spray painted on the building.
Hey thanks for the head’s up Matt G. I’ll fix it for you.
‘…those brave enough to free themselves from the need for comforting narratives.’
No. Can we just please stop with the idea that wanting a comforting narrative is some sort of weakness that superior people get over. It’s a normal human trait.
We certainly shouldn’t allow comforting narratives to become a replacement for fixing aspects of our reality that are within our power to fix, but let us please not conflate that with concluding that there is something inherently wrong with a preference for comforting narratives.
I did say “need.” Key word there. I don’t like dismal endings in stories either. Happy endings every time.
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Are you familiar with the podcast “Harry Potter and the Sacred Text”? It originated with some HP fans at Harvard Divinity School. They read through the HP canon as a source of inspiration. They have developed an inclusive and welcoming community, and have vehemently distanced themselves from Rowling’s TERFness. They intend to carry on, so your implication that HP fandom is doomed seems a bit premature.
Basically, the fandom seems to have outgrown its creator.
Don- It may well be, but I imagine it would feel awful weird for the traditionally religious if jeezy or mohammed was alive today and said a bunch of bastardly things on twitter. Some shrinkage may occur. I have sympathy for people who have to sit on the dissonance of living in jk’s world as well as those who feel they can’t anymore.
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