So many years have passed since my political science classes at the University of Alabama that today's students of that science (?) would probably think we believed the political world to be flat. And they may be right to a degree, but that may be a topic for a later effort.
Details of what I learned in those classes with Dr. Bennet and Dr. Snow, among others, have faded. One thing I do remember is the idea of the "Great Social Myth." It has intrigued me since I first read about it lo those many years ago because it seems to be so obvious and so true, and so very, very useful.
I am sure there have been books and blogs written about it, and I'm sure that I am not aware of the nuances of the concept. The basic idea is that throughout history there have arisen social myths within societies against which the people could unite, usually rallying around a leader whose declared purpose was to eliminate the evil of the social myth of the day. The leader used the fight against the social myth to maintain his (I'm not aware of any hers who did this, for you who are gender sensitive) position and power.
For example, the witch hunts of early New England fame fit the definition, unless you believe there really were a bunch of witches that needed taking care of. A number of people were accused of being witches. The fires of fear and hatred were fanned by the religious leaders. The entire community became engaged in the identification, pursuit and elimination of any "witches" among them. Today we still call wrongful accusation and prosecution "witch hunts."
This seems to occur in all cultures. Hitler raised it to an extreme level in identifying Jews as a national enemy of Germany and the superior race, unless of course you believe the Jews were the cause of all the ills of Germany at the time.
We in the United States suffer the phenomenon on a regular basis. The rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the South against the evil presented by freed slaves in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries (unless you believed the African-Americans were evil). The Red Scare and the demonization of labor unions and the McArthy era (unless you believed that all those people who were deemed connected to communism were out to destroy our country).
Liberals. Conservatives. Gays. Immigrants. Terror.
Unless we really believe. God help us.
I happen to have been reading about the Hollywood Ten lately. We were robbed of some great writing. Ring Lardner Jr. won two Academy Awards before his career was ruined. He is reputed to have won a third under someone else's name. Even some who weren't in "the ten" were blackballed. Like Dorothy Parker, one of the best and funniest American satirists ever to take up the pen. Sad, sad. God, give us the courage to speak up!
ReplyDeletei guess one thing that bothers me is that we (the universal we not a literal we) will rally around a myth, yet ignore real problems such as poverty and global warming.
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