[lbo-talk] American Religion (Was Irrationality of the Masses)

joanna 123hop at comcast.net
Fri Jun 10 17:44:07 PDT 2005


Marvin Gandall wrote:


> Or so it appears from the outside. I can't think of another country where
> nationalism has assumed such a quasi-mystical religious character, except
> maybe Israel.

Well, yeah. For sure.

From my reading of British and Roman writiers, I wouldn't say it was the same with them at all.

Kipling wasn't religious. In fact, come to think of it, the Brits were pretty quiet about their imperalist projects. Empire wasn't God. God was more like the sainted civil service. As, for the Romans, they wound up deifying their emperors, but not the nation/empire. There wasn't really the expectation that everyone would conform...only those who wanted to join the imperial administration. Like, say, Augustine. I suppose one could argue that the Catholic church was the religious precipitate of the Roman empire. Still, that's different from the U.S.

Actually, I find the "religiousness' of Americans paper thin. The fact that it winds up in the science text books doesn't alter that.

Joanna


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