To feel up is to feel ascendent, with a positive attitude and an elevated perspective, looking up toward the highest. Being uptight is not like that at all. It’s a defensive emotion, with an emphasis on what ought not to happen, pulling us inward even as we feel the world closing in around us.
People in an uptight mood feel uncooperative, operating with the attitude that the world should be smaller, with fewer possibilities. When people are uptight, they react against the expansiveness of their environment, seeking to close down its open vistas, to tighten the space in which it’s possible to move.
The word uptight was first used in this sense during the 1960s, as a way to describe the perspective of reactionaries who opposed activist campaigns for increased freedom and equality. The uptight faction of society sought to re-establish old controls on social behavior.
Everybody lives within some boundaries, of course. Sometimes, the accusation that a person is uptight is itself used as a tool of social control, to try to force individuals to engage in activities that they don’t feel comfortable with. When people become uptight, it’s a response to feeling unsafe.
Judgments of safety in a complex safety cannot be made objectively. They’re a matter of perspective. An uptight attitude can both protect people from harm and impose harm upon others.
