Homeland Mythology: Biblical Narratives in American CulturePenn State Press, 10 սեպ, 2015 թ. - 288 էջ Since 9/11, America has presented itself to the world as a Christianist culture, no less antimodern and nostalgic for an idealized past than its Islamist foes. The master-narrative both sides share might sound like this: Once upon a time, the values of the righteous community coincided with those of the state. Home and land were harmoniously united under God. But through intellectual pride (read: science) and disobedience (read: human rights), this God-blessed homeland was lost and is now worth every drop of blood it takes, ours and others’, to recover. For Americans, the prime source for this once-and-future-kingdom myth is the Bible, with its many narratives of blessings gained, lost, and regained: the garden of Eden, the covenant with Abraham, the bondage in Egypt, the exodus under Moses, the glory of David and Solomon’s realm, the coming of the promised Messiah, his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension into heaven, his apocalyptic return at the end of history, and his establishment of the earthly kingdom of God. As Homeland Mythology shows, these biblical narratives have, over time, inspired a multitude of nationalist narratives, myths ingeniously spun out to justify a number of decidedly unchristian policies and institutions—from Indian genocide, the slave trade, and the exploitation of immigrant workers to Manifest Destiny, imperial expansionism, and, most recently, preemptive war. On March 25, 2001, George W. Bush shared a bit of political wisdom: “You can fool some of the people all of the time—and those are the ones you have to concentrate on.” The cynical use of religion to cloak criminal behavior is always worth exposing, but why our leaders lie to us is no longer a mystery. What does remain mysterious is why so many of us are disposed to believe their lies. The unexamined issue that this book addresses is, therefore, not the mendacity of the few, but the credulity of the many. |
From inside the book
Արդյունքներ 46–ի 6-ից 10-ը:
... communal relationship and an egalitarian ethos rarely found in agricultural economies. Dependent on one another, they have had to share information, work, risks, and rewards. Such societies, as Colin Turnbull pointed out, “frequently ...
... communal behavior the recessive.16 In this archaic phase, when agriculture first began converting the surface of the earth into real estate, religious rituals that had long been used on the communal level of family and clan to influence ...
... communal culture were impeded by one simple, ineluctable fact: the praxis of a nation contradicts the ethos of a village. No entity motivated solely by self-interest and by a principle of sovereignty unconstrained by the judgment of ...
... communal level and the expedient policies of the nation must be mitigated by cultural spin, that is, by recourse to governmental narratives, newly minted myths that seem to accord with the myths that undergird the communal. In this way ...
... communal and the governmental—the home and the land—and because these two often conflict, most of us internalize this conflict. Citizens, for example, are regularly asked to support with taxes or even with their children's lives ...
Բովանդակություն
Biblical Time and the Full Narrative Cycle | |
Myths of Curses Myths of Blessings | |
Narratives of the Night | |
Abduction Narratives | |
Homeland Nostalgia and Holy | |
Secular Modernism Biblical Style | |
Notes | |
Bibliography | |
Index | |
Այլ խմբագրություններ - View all
Homeland Mythology: Biblical Narratives in American Culture Christopher Collins Դիտել հնարավոր չէ - 2013 |