On 03 Feb 2009, at 17:11, Stefano Mori wrote:
> I realise now that this is very different to South Africa, where there
> is no strong mythic religious culture established. There, guns are
> more about Red and just basic Red power drives of crime and
> warlordism. In thinking about South Africa I was really missing your
> point about America. Oops.
>
> And you know what? I wonder then, given that the modern and post
> modern cultures really are at war with pre modern religion, I wonder
> if part of the desire to ban guns, is also partly a desire to further
> attack the mythical religious culture, given that guns are an
> expression of that culture. They are, if we are just looking at the
> cultural quadrant of the diagram, they are like crosses, an object
> which carries a lot of mythic meaning and significance to many
> Americans.
As long as you recognize that religious should be in quotes since the
religious aspect is more mythic as I know many secularist gun
enthusiasts. The mythos in this case is the American Frontier/Pioneer
Mythos not any particular religion. Many evangelicals and other
religious conservatives in the US strongly identify with the American
Mythos and bind it tightly to their religious views but that
religious perspective is not necessary. I was raised in a very
strongly anti-federalist household and ingrained in the mythology of
Virginia and Jefferson but we were Christmas/Easter christians, in
fact I was neither baptized nor christened. But we believed in the
American Mythos deeply.
> Is that because pragmatically you don't mind all that mythic religious
> culture--let people be and let them believe what they want, and have
> guns if they must, as there is no particular harm, they are free to
> practice their religion and way of life?
While I'm a deeply rationalist person, I realized long ago that many
people are not and they need other sources of comfort to explain
their lot in life. I'm okay with that as long as they keep it to
themselves ie, they stop trying to recruit me when I say no thanks.
> IOW, can we please just put an end to these culture wars??
Hallelujah, Brother.
--
"Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names
the streets after them."
-- Bill Vaughn
_______________________________________________
OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected]
http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters
List hosted at http://cat5.org/
