Other parts listed at Worlding and the sentimental theory of value - header

Supplement on romance & romantic etymology is available here. Generated by chatGPT4 after I wrote the words below.

romancing the romantic

This relates to my notice that when we throw something into the… —gap, we often do so out of an impulse, to world or to self, regardless of the in/consistency or in/coherence or satisfaction of the issue before us.

We look… —and then leap regardless.

Sometimes this impulse is colonised by cultural practices such as those of faith-based thought, indeed they call this moment of non-suspension a leap of faith and give it value in itself, usually forget or ignoring that if others do it for a different god or gods or (idles/idols/idylls/ideal)s then they think it is obviously stupid. Identity-based reasoning is a powerful thing, i guess, but it is just as much a worlding impulse as any other 'should' we feel we should. This is despite evidence of variety in all its confounded confusions, even wihtin just one traditional genre we call a religion or sect or faction. It's fractal all the way down I guess.

In those cultures where the moment of movement is named for faith, it is as if there were no other way to do it, but there is/are. A choice is made for this, it 'is' right here: my father replaced the doctrine and my grandfather replace the rites, but it is my sacred ancestors' bundled axe. The choice maintains the frame.

In more recent centuries the same impulse within a more 'creative frame' has been called romantic. This term is one of those terms which when we look at its etymology, based on the imperial city of Rome, we see it is the least apt for what it describes or classifies. (Who did you say replaced the handle?) Even if we grant that the word romantic refers more to the ruins, or memories of the ruins of what was once a great practical power, such that the ruinators of Rome, the Goths are regarded in hindsight even more romantically than the namesakes of Rome.

Romantic or romance can thus refers to those twilight and dreamlike states of attention to the world in its power (sublime even) to organically world the bits into a whole, with ‘magic’ or 'awe', and this is often in opposition to the mechanical and logical practical realities of life that actual Romans and Goths may have lived despite their own mythic pomp and circumstance.

As such romantic in its bedevilled conflicted romance with its self, and world, stands in useful contrast to labour theory of value, (recently discussed) based as that is on perceived theft (or at least our instinct for being scammed), opportunity costs, and the loss of time to do things (it’s alienation all the way down folks).

A sentimental theory of value cares not for seeking retribution for the victims of crime, if only because it refuses to be the victim of practical constraints. Stories of revenge often end up in some re-considered balance in the narrative arcs of literature. Revenge is not good worlding, but balance is, so how do we balance everything without counting the cost with credit/blame systems of status?

The worlding urge to re-whole the bits is strong in literature.

In the romance of finding a partner a love match is more highly valued than ‘marrying well’. The true romantic story is egalitarian in spirit, in potential, even if it comes with kingdoms and orphaned heirs, these are more trimmings than true love. Fashionable contexts even the most cynical will understand even as they scoff.

One can see here the connection with the sentiment in that which is labelled the leap of faith when believing (in god/s). Devotional relationships are often marketed to the romantically inclined, this is why the nunnery is sold to women as their opportunity to become a sister-bride of Christ. A useful blind for a church more focussed on the obedience of membership than devotional practices.

This connection runs deep in civilised societies.

Of course as a devoted wife, one is obedient, and obedience is a church's primary virtue, so there is some cross-over between the two positions, and slippages blurry enough to let all the misinterpretations and mistakes fall in the high-status peeps favour when necessary. With some 'love' whispered here  and there acting as fig-leaf to cover nude mechanics of power.

The mystic unions are a promise not an actual sacrament to be enacted with any day to day regularity. Just do your bit waiting and being obedient, don’t worry about the opportunity cost, do it for the house, I mean church, I mean Christ,

One aspect of the romantic as a subset of the sentimental theory of value is that there is more loss, more sense of loss in romantic sectors of a sentimental life. Loss is a type of fuel, a gas, for the spirit stove of romance (pot-boiler or not). Such that the romance is often a tale of recovery (rather than retribution) in the big bad world one adventures in. A recovery that is often confused with redemption. 

Anyway, it is often in reconciliation which unites the romance as adventure novel with the romantic as a relationship bildungsroman— the hero returns home now understood, the love interest is not the stuck-up pillock she first thought.

All these well-used variations of the words romance and romantic are bound in a deep textual swell of literature. Worldbuilding is a common thing for peeps who self their worlds and world their selves. Literature is a sandbox, more than it is a litany of lies and falsehoods, calling it fiction misses the point. Call other literature which is not fiction 'non-fiction' completely misses the point.

Some apologists call all this a suspension of 'dis-"belief" ', to avoid accusations of the lie they undo faith, and this idea of suspending disbelief, whatever that is, is now an important element in fantastical literature, and this also complete misses the point of worlding in a sandbox. Can we just call it playing in a sandbox? Please?

Can we keep suspension for bigger difficulties once play has done it job?

Play make us special, special enough to do the magic of worlding, with or without a leap of faith, or charisma, or effort, or any sentimental intention we valorise at all.

A leap of faith is an act of play that has gone too far and become de-creative, it's a type of wanting to return to the womb, or at least, to that time before the reality principle caught up with, and we entered the world as a self among others, with our resilience tucked under one arm: a ted, a lion, a puppy.

Sentiment is the set that includes them all, with romance often being the biggest member and gets more credit/blame than the others however… —for we get easily distracted, if not fascinated, by the romantic opportunities all around us in the world. However it is also sentiment that makes us seek to recover to, to retreat to, return to… —home. The happy-ever-after is the hope of tomorrrow, and the ordinary practical life which awaits us, among us others each and all. With the world now tucked under our arm.

The issue with the romantic form, is not the form, but the timing. The period, not the style. (My father replaced the handle.)

If you stay romantic. If the romance is never let-down, it can never be stolen from you because tomorrow never comes. That is the trap, that fascination with its power as a potential is what ruins us as we tilt a windmills or yet find another new love.

It's replacement all the way down.

The beauty that 'Goths' as a subculture may find in death and the morbid arises in this inverse christ who has not yet died for our sins but will someday, thus he is Risen because he has never lived. They hope to entertain death, but for the most part its message avoids them. They stay safe circling in orbit above a death star, each a little world seeking constellations.

The recent online exploitation of people in ‘pig butchering’ in which a long con of a catfishing romance is play out with the emptying of the mark's entire life savings speaks the power of worlding the self with others, of what-might-be.

The potential is always romantic, always a power to be reckoned with.

This is why we need a better set of words than romance, romantic, not just because the Romans were not at all romantic in these senses that literature grants and develops, worlds, but because the terms blind us to that which sentiments us together in daily practical lives. Rome is getting more credit than it deserves, and not as much blame as it might be due.

What ever we can say of the feelings, romantic is the least romantic way to label them.

With this preface, I say worlding is romantic, but can be much more than that.