This post's authors have general content warnings that might apply to the current post.
View Flat HTML
View Metadata
Search Post
More than once I've seen this idea that dungeon kidnappings are inherently traumatizing to everybody who experiences them and I genuinely do not understand where it comes from. Dungeon kidnappings are unpleasant and are sure to be unhappy memories for their victims, and there are certainly breeds of dungeon that can leave their victims with psychological damage, but let's not lose sight of the fact that they are something that will happen to literally everybody on Earth who lives in an urban area at least once in their lives. I simply do not believe that everyone who lives in the city is walking around thinking about how permanently psychologically damaged they are by an unpleasant few days in a small room. I am willing to concede some rhetorical ground to the identitarian labelmakers of tumblr.com - it's clear that they get something important out of being able to use sexuality and gender microlabels in the way that they do, even if I don't understand what it is - but there is a time and a place for words that mean things, and trauma is solidly within both of them. The world does not look like a place in which the majority of city dwellers are incapacitated or unable to function and live normal lives. It plausibly looks like a place where everyone who lives in the city will have several days in a row that are the worst days of their lives - but everybody has a worst several days of their lives.
I understand the malcontent impulse to insist that the world is broken and nothing works; I often feel it myself. But the world is basically a good place and people are basically okay. By every objective measure life does in fact get better with every passing year. Fewer people are dying of anything that one can die of and fewer children are dying before the age of five, every year. It's not perfect, but it's important not to lose sight of that by fixating too hard on its imperfections. If this doesn't match your experiences, consider whether selection effects from the communities you belong to and the people you surround yourself with may be affecting your perception of reality, or indeed your mental health.
[Author's note: both of @the-systematizing-instinct's links lead to other posts on their own blog.]