I am going to comment on your writing on my blog. Very interesting topic. Helps us understand what is going on here
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Posted by nurelhuda on 11/22 at 10:15 AM
I linked your blog to mine and quoted your quote of a quote. I found it to be powerful and incisive. However, I been toying with the idea of “Myth Making” that is, nations/cultures are built (in large part) on shared mythos. This mythoi covers the cultures origins, values, rituals and identity markers. In other words, human macro-groups (clan,village,city-state,nation, et al) define themselves by the myths the create for themselves. The current battle in modern American culture is about the power of mythos, who defines the American Myth defines America.
Posted by Rafael Pinero on 12/03 at 10:01 PM
Hi Rafael. Thanks for that. It is an interesting take on the political side.
I don’t know much about Bush but I can well believe it. Certainly Tony Blair seems of this type. I remember reading somewhere (can’t find reference now unfortunately) about a (psychoanalyst’s ?) psychologist’s observations of Blair and he concluded that his attitude to truth was that it was malleable - ie that whatever he said was true because he said it and that this explained many contradictions in his public statements. I suppose the recent stance of negotiating the Eu rebate when he categorically stated he never would is another example. I can well believe Bush is also of this type - perhaps more so as he is also reputed to be subject to expressions of violence which is something I have not heard about Blair.
Posted by segovius on 12/05 at 01:18 PM
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Bit more on literalism…
As promised earlier, I thought I’d expand a bit more on the ‘literalism’ motif I mentioned I was writing about elsewhere.
The central idea of the book is that there are two modes of perception - or perhaps two ‘types’ of perceiver - the ‘literal’ and the ‘metaphoric’. Actually I am not too happy with these terms and will change them when other more suitable ones suggest themselves but for now they will do. Basically the ‘literal’ is seen as a rigid mode of fixed, inflexible thought. This is not to be equated with what is called ‘fundamentalism’ (in fact the book will argue that this is a nonsensical and artificially constructed term which is of little use) but rather is the position taken when someone is, for example, convinced they are always right regardless of any evidence to the contrary. Obviously this condition is prevelant in religion to a considerable extent for various reasons which are explored but it can and does also occur in politics, science and in everyday life but in the context of the work under discussion it is explored particularly in relation to Islamic thought as well as, to a lesser extent, other religions such as Christianity.