I’m not sure what you mean here… the church example doesn’t seem to be ‘related to my personal history’ except for the fact that I’m there when it’s happening. I never been religious or attended church regularly (though there were a couple of hilariously baffling Sunday school sessions a babysitter once took me too...), so I don’t mean to imply that I feel this way because I used to actually be in their shoes, the way e.g. Luke did.
I’ve had similar feelings in some liberal arts classes: someone would speak, I would perceive their opinion to be either egregiously wrong or vacuous dribble, but I couldn’t do anything but groan because of the sort of warm-fuzzy-sharing-non-judgemental atmosphere.
At this point I feel like I’m coming off as an angry, pretentious grouch, so I’d like to add that I never feel this way outside of these very unusual situations, and in general consider myself to be a friendly person who is plenty capable of polite discussion :-)
If your question was just whether I feel this way about settings I haven’t personally experienced, I guess the answer is only distantly. I’ve never, for example, been in a cult, and the strength of my frustration at the idea is limited by my inability and disinclination to imagine it concretely.
If neither of those answers your question, my apologies. I’ll be happy to retry if you can clarify.
I’m not sure what you mean here… the church example doesn’t seem to be ‘related to my personal history’ except for the fact that I’m there when it’s happening. I never been religious or attended church regularly (though there were a couple of hilariously baffling Sunday school sessions a babysitter once took me too...), so I don’t mean to imply that I feel this way because I used to actually be in their shoes, the way e.g. Luke did.
I’ve had similar feelings in some liberal arts classes: someone would speak, I would perceive their opinion to be either egregiously wrong or vacuous dribble, but I couldn’t do anything but groan because of the sort of warm-fuzzy-sharing-non-judgemental atmosphere.
At this point I feel like I’m coming off as an angry, pretentious grouch, so I’d like to add that I never feel this way outside of these very unusual situations, and in general consider myself to be a friendly person who is plenty capable of polite discussion :-)
If your question was just whether I feel this way about settings I haven’t personally experienced, I guess the answer is only distantly. I’ve never, for example, been in a cult, and the strength of my frustration at the idea is limited by my inability and disinclination to imagine it concretely.
If neither of those answers your question, my apologies. I’ll be happy to retry if you can clarify.
Nope, that answered my question. Thanks!