The temptation is always to file strange or extreme subcultures away as aberrations as if they are disconnected from anything we would call mainstream life. But in reality they are often exaggerated symptoms of forces already present in the wider world.
The notion of turning outward drives much of what we have historically seen as healthy human functioning. Social bonds family formation even the small interactions of community all involve stepping outside ourselves and engaging with something unpredictable and resistant to our total control. Inverting that into pure interiority and control whether through compulsive sexual behavior or endless digital self stimulation changes the rules of the game. It creates a parallel life free of the friction that makes real relationships meaningful and often difficult. That absence of friction might be the most dangerous part because it erodes resilience and strips away the mechanisms we have evolved both psychologically and socially to mediate between self and others.
C S Lewis’s suspicion of the concept of an unchanging human heart becomes relevant here because if cultural patterns can reshape not just our habits but potentially our mental and even physiological wiring then there is no guarantee that behaviors like this remain only fringe. It is not that humanity has suddenly lost its essence but rather that the conditions under which that essence operates have shifted so profoundly that it may begin to express itself in unfamiliar distorted ways.
The temptation is always to file strange or extreme subcultures away as aberrations as if they are disconnected from anything we would call mainstream life. But in reality they are often exaggerated symptoms of forces already present in the wider world.
The notion of turning outward drives much of what we have historically seen as healthy human functioning. Social bonds family formation even the small interactions of community all involve stepping outside ourselves and engaging with something unpredictable and resistant to our total control. Inverting that into pure interiority and control whether through compulsive sexual behavior or endless digital self stimulation changes the rules of the game. It creates a parallel life free of the friction that makes real relationships meaningful and often difficult. That absence of friction might be the most dangerous part because it erodes resilience and strips away the mechanisms we have evolved both psychologically and socially to mediate between self and others.
C S Lewis’s suspicion of the concept of an unchanging human heart becomes relevant here because if cultural patterns can reshape not just our habits but potentially our mental and even physiological wiring then there is no guarantee that behaviors like this remain only fringe. It is not that humanity has suddenly lost its essence but rather that the conditions under which that essence operates have shifted so profoundly that it may begin to express itself in unfamiliar distorted ways.