Enchantment is just the measure of the quality of our attention
Modulo the attention that leads to enchantment is a privilege. When a person's world is full of actual danger, bending down to smell the flowers can be a fatal vulnerability.
Or to put it another way, lack of enchantment is not a moral failing any more than disenchantment is a virtue. Other people's circumstances are not what bliss-ninnies project upon them any more than they are the projections of cynics, conspiracy theorists and paranoids.
I’m not sure privilege is the right way to think about this- but chronic stress definitely shifts the world to being unenchanted. I remember living in an enchanted world as a kid, and it can return with something as simple as a breathing exercise, meditation, or sitting in a forest hot spring.
I imagine — so I admit it might not be the case — your childhood contained ample food and not a lot of violence, want, and abuse. That’s why I used “privilege.” There is probably a better word but I can’t think of it.
I think you’re talking about emotional trauma- which can be caused by a lot of things- including but not limited to the type of difficult childhood you are mentioning.
My interpretation is that it's related to modulate. Like how you might modulate the volume to reduce it (without muting it), "X is true modulo Y" means that Y makes X less true (but not untrue).
I didn't find any evidence for this etymology from casual searching however (other than that the roots are related).
Modulo the attention that leads to enchantment is a privilege. When a person's world is full of actual danger, bending down to smell the flowers can be a fatal vulnerability.
Or to put it another way, lack of enchantment is not a moral failing any more than disenchantment is a virtue. Other people's circumstances are not what bliss-ninnies project upon them any more than they are the projections of cynics, conspiracy theorists and paranoids.