Miles Jackson wrote:
>
> If I wanted an alien to understand the culture
> of our society, it's one of the books I'd make her/it/him
> read. The Bible is another one.
>
Some books cease, for the most part, to have any content of their own and (merely?) reflect the views that the reader brings to them. Hence I am doubtful that reading the Bible will tell anyone much about current u.s. culture. Of course this _may_ be true of almost all books??? For example, subversive movies are not, I think, subversive, unless they are seen and interpreted within the context of some sort of conscious resistance movement. Lord of the Rings perhaps images powerfully the manichaen aroma that capitalism under attack (or assumed to be under attack by its leaders) gives off. But to get that out of it isn't it necessary to have that knowledge prior to reading the work? (Tolkien was not a manichaean, but the reason Manichaeism is the most threatening heresy to xtianity is because the two differ in such slight ways. So a xtian plot not explicitly xtian will tend towards either stoicism or manichaeism.)
This may be generally true in respect to any one 'domain' of contemporary culture: it only "reveals" the culture to those who already know everything that it reveals. ??
Carrol
> Miles
>
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