Part of my reaching back to 19th c. philosophy and fiction is looking for a grounding in a way of thinking that was current before the modern, the sense of going along with things even if you didn't precisely understand what they were, came over the world. The latter, which came to ascendancy after the second world war, has its antecedents in idealist/pragmatist philosophy, and has much to do with industrialization. Even our unthinkingess is historical in nature, if you think about it.
What makes this essential, rather than capricious, is my particular situation. I've been through these things, and I've been to these places, and I know that much about them is false. It is simply a mistake to go along with these sorts of things even if you don't precisely understand them, and the present order of things seems to rely on some fraction of the population doing just that, and the rest proving manageable.
My slate is not clean. It has valuable inscriptions on it. Not quixotic, but Socratic. Onward.