Submitted by: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
Last night Ann Coulter, a person I loathe, appeared on the Bill Maher Show. She was pushing her new book “Demonic: How the Liberal Mob is Endangering America.” Cringing as I watched her the thought nevertheless occurred to me that “She really believes this crap she sells.” This minor epiphany led me on to other thoughts. The battle in American politics has essentially devolved into a two sided affair between opponents convinced of the “demonic,” to use Ann’s term, nature of their ideological opposites. In this ongoing struggle one can’t merely disagree with us on a given political/societal issue, without our believing them to be hateful and worthy of being despised. Their motivation must undoubtedly be sociopathy and/or undemocratic. I must admit that I myself often feel that way about those who disagree with me and I say this with the rueful knowledge that when I do I am allowing myself to engage in stereotypical behavior.
This has been the American condition almost since its inception and was implicit in Ben Franklin’s question about our ability to maintain our Constitution and the freedoms it provides. In order to begin to find solutions for bridging the gaps between us all in the attempt to govern the body politic, we must first understand the fact that much of this division is the result of conflicting mythologies of what we are as a society. If we can identify the underlying mythologies that guide us, perhaps we can see beyond the constraints that limit our ability to see beyond them and discover basis for true negotiation between apparently irreconcilable differences.
In 1988, I watched a many part conversation Bill Moyers had with a Columbia Professor Joseph Campbell: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell and_the_Power_of_Myth I was fascinated by the man and by the concepts he was teaching. I found it so compelling that I ran out, purchased, and read most of his books. The books that were the most informative to me were “The Masks of God” series and “The Hero With a Thousand Faces”. What Campbell showed was human history was influenced greatly by the mythologies of various political states and ethnicities. These myths indeed reflected not only religious belief but also social and political philosophies. I don’t pretend great expertise in this area to explain it to you cohesively and the topic is one that has produced untold volumes of throughout thousands of years. Suffice it to say that the mythology of a people is a strong influence of not only its behavior, but of its interactions with other believing different myths. I’m sure as a general concept this idea is not a new one to readers here, especially when it comes to religious beliefs.
Stemming from Campbell reading I embarked on rediscovering the books on mythology I had previous read, but with the new perspective of Campbell’s insights. I later discovered: “TheGunfighter Nation: Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America” by Richard Slotkin. Using literature, history and even the movies, Slotkin persuasively posited that much of America’s domestic and foreign policy was dictated by the false mythology created of our frontier expansion, “Wild West” and rugged individualism. This myth was portrayed in the newspapers, literature, “Dime Westerns”, Wild West Shows and later on in the Movies.
The nature of myth is such that it’s ingested not only intellectually, but also viscerally. Seeing Gary Cooper in “High Noon” when I was seven in 1951 influenced my own life greatly and actually dictated some actions years later. John Wayne, a college football star spent WWII making innumerable, heroic war movies, while others such as James Stewart actually fought in action. Yet Wayne remains an iconic American Hero and that is pure, though deeply believed mythology. I would be safe to say that many who consider themselves conservative’s today look up to John Wayne as a role model and a hero. That myth becomes meme and that meme becomes point of view.
We of the left are no different in our choice of heroic figures to follow, mythologizing their activities and persona’s into something heroic. JFK, a man I admire on many levels and who I idolized in his time, was a serial philanderer of such epic proportions as to be pathological. Eldridge Cleaver, Bobby Seale, Jerry Rubin, Abby Hoffman were people who my generation followed with veneration and yet in retrospect, given their future lives, were hardly heroic.
We absorb both past and current myths and allow them to cloud our judgment, limiting our ability to make informed political choices, by shutting down our options of reacting to our environment based on the facts at hand and not the reality we perceive colored by the blanket of our mythology. We see people applying “What Would Jesus Do?” to a broad spectrum of possible decisions and yet isn’t even the concept of WWJD, different based upon ones particular Christian denomination. This is true conceptually for most other religions, all of which have subsets of varying belief.
We need to individually work to understand just what myths guide our own actions in order to be able to react appropriately to the to the decisions we need to make in reacting to the environment of life around us. If we can do that honestly perhaps, we can then comprehend what motivates those with which we disagree. Maybe then, in understanding the other’s mythological viewpoints we can find ways to bridge our differences. This is most probably an over optimistic view from the perspective of possibility.
So let me end on a less positive, but perhaps more practical note. We ignore the influence of our surrounding mythologies at our own peril. The human organism has a need to interact with its environment in such a way that it draws the sustenance it needs from that environment. If our perception of that environment is skewed by preconceptions of reality, we are unable to benefit fully from the interactions, to our detriment.
The country today is engaged in a deadly battle with itself. The rage and hostility on each side seems to be growing. There is a conflict of fundamental mythologies, neither of which holds all the answers, yet blinded by its own preconceptions. These types of battles can end in a total victory and concomitant harsh defeat for the loser; a continuing stalemate and ongoing struggle; a total collapse of our society; and/or perhaps understanding and cooperation by the parties leading to a synergy of ideas. I’d much prefer the latter, but I am sanguine about it’s’ possibility.
Gyges, have you read Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell? A wonderful read.
The hero may have many faces, but the underlying story is pretty much the same. Dragon threatens village, so the village identifies an ordinary person, maybe even a child, to go slay the dragon. Erstwhile hero sets out, kills dragon and then either returns home to be celebrated as a hero, or decides to press on and look for the Dragon’s grandaddy and slay him too. Sometimes the myth turns out well, or sometimes it doesn’t.
Elaine, we had to do battle with the branch of the St. Louis Public Library nearest our home. When our oldest son was in the 4th grade, we were in the library one evening when he came to me in tears. He had been browsing in the adult section of the library when the librarian chastised him for being in that section. She put him back over in the elementary school section and told him books for his age group were there.
I am afraid I unloaded on the head librarian. I told her this little fourth grader was reading at the second year college level and that he could read any damn book he wanted. She then wanted me to sign a release so they would not be held responsible for him reading from the adult section of the library. I signed the form, but I was really irritated.
He is now a physician. You never, ever, want to play either Scrabble or Trivial Pursuit with him for money. ;-D
And now I’m going to attempt to, by words alone, transform and transport a train from a wrecked heap to one running smoothly on an entirely different track. If that’s not a feat of mythic proportions, I don’t know what is.
Might I suggest that the myth/cultural relationship is a more complex feedback relationship? I think to a large extent, myths don’t cause our behavior, they rationalize the behavior we’ve got built in (including making myths). On the other hand, I don’t think anyone would argue that they also serve to reinforce and channel those existing behaviors. Prayer of some sort or another is pretty common to all humans, but I’m much less likely to try a laying of hands if I haven’t heard about the “Gifts of the Spirit” in Sunday school.
Roco,
Just so you know: The ALA list of banned and censored books I provided includes books for all ages–from picture books through adult novels. The list changes from year to year. New books are being published all the time. New books make their way onto the list. It’s the people who try to ban and censor books who are responsible for the book titles that appear on the list. BTW, the ALA hasn’t been compiling the list for decades.
Speaking from my own personal experience–my daughter read a number of challenging books when she attended a public high school in a community where the residents are well-educated and open-minded. There have been very few attempts to censor or ban any books that the children and teenagers in that communty read. The adults in that town are not afraid of literature. They don’t think it will warp their children’s minds.
Mespo::
“Maybe we just read John Stuart Mill and take him at his word. It is hard to tell the difference sometimes:
Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.
~John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill couldn’t make up his mind as to whether he was a socialist or liberal free market type.
I am not so sure I would be quoting someone who had no clue as to where he stood in regard to his philosophy. If he doesnt know his own mind can he know the mind of another?
Mespo:
“Maybe we just read John Stuart Mill and take him at his word. It is hard to tell the difference sometimes:
Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.
~John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill couldn’t make up his mind as to whether he was a socialist or liberal free market type.
I am not so sure I would be quoting someone who had no clue as to where he stood in regard to his philosophy. If he doesnt know his own mind can he know the mind of another?
Funny how we always get back to the troll epithet when someone points out Elaine’s inconsistent views to her.
Maybe I should get myself a copy of “The Modern American Dictionary of Internet Troll Language.”
😉
So Elaine, are you saying you are selectively laissez faire for, say, censorship, but apparently not for anything else. That sounds convenient.
Roco,
What does Krugman have to do with anything I wrote about here? Good grief! You do have a wild imagination.
OS:
the reason none of those books is in that list above is because American schools have been dumbed down.
You now how to read those works on your own and you get the 3rd or 4th tier writers for your school work. in my opinion it should be the other way around.
The list Elaine produced is summer beach reading for the most part, I dont see Mespo citing “The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things”.
Roco,
“basically you are trying to tie religious fanatics to conservatives and to our belief in free markets.”
No, I’m not. You’ll notice that I wrote about fundamentalist conservatives and Christians. Not all Christians and conservatives are fundamentalists.
I wrote nothing about free markets. Not sure how you made that connection.
There is more than one definition for laissez faire.
Definition #2 from “The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language”: Noninterference in the affairs of others.
Yes, he was a very smart dude and insightful too. What jackasses you two are.
If anything those old timey conservatives are closer to modern day liberals. Too funny. What a moron.
Mespo, did you know that in his studies of genius, Terman and his group of researchers determined that John Stuart Mill may have had the highest IQ of anyone? IIRC, J. S. Mills’ IQ was about 215. Einstein had an estimated IQ of 185.
At those levels, there is no standardized test, so the numbers are based on early childhood writings, musical talent, and other methods that allowed the researchers to compare the genius being studied with other average kids of the day for whom they had drawings, writing, etc.
@Mesporon, you do eralize that European conservatives, especially at the time of Mill, were practically the exact opposite of today’s U.S. conservatives. That’s the problem with relying on quotes instead of your brain, feeble though it is.
It is the chauvinism of the left, you think you have superior intellects and superior ideas. For every Krugman there are 10 more able laissez faire economists who do not get air time and who are not as well known because of that chauvinism.
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Maybe we just read John Stuart Mill and take him at his word. It is hard to tell the difference sometimes:
Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.
~John Stuart Mill
@Mespo, do you even have a point?
Elaine M:
basically you are trying to tie religious fanatics to conservatives and to our belief in free markets. You make the implication that since Christians would like to see creation taught in public schools they must be crazy and therefore their belief in laissez faire must be crazy as well. In fact every single conservative idea must be crazy.
It is the chauvinism of the left, you think you have superior intellects and superior ideas. For every Krugman there are 10 more able laissez faire economists who do not get air time and who are not as well known because of that chauvinism.
And thank you, my dear cornfielderosa, for hilariously proving mine. Man you are always right on cue. That’s good for a comic. I wonder if I can make you stand on your head now. LOL