The essence of it would be something like "life is easier when you know your place" within the structure that you are living in. You have people to look up to and people that remind you about what your work and lifestyle was and is worth. And whatever function you fulfill, there are reliable ways to get to you and your peers and no crisis, conflict, change of leadership or cultural shift can change that.
So you mean that cultural familiarity brings the comfort of some predictability that's lost when trying to innovate?
It's a very interesting perspective and after rereading your comment:
> I believe what Chaplin hoped to achieve was to give some outliers a way to integrate themselves into the crowd
thanks to your explanation I now realize it reminds me of Anomia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomie which is thought to be caused by a divergence between personal standards and group standards.
I first had trouble following your original comment but it was intriguing, yet now with your clarifications and after rereading the wikipedia article I see your view as an extremely insightful!!
Do you believe that "We think too much and feel too little" was meant to help those who suffer from this divergence?
I would love to know your thoughts on all this, and how you weights the pros and cons of being a follower vs an innovator.