[WS:] You need to broaden your horizons, I am afraid. Fearmongering is a quintessentially American phenomenon - practiced with vengeance by the right, the middle, the center, and every salesman. Fear is what keeps America moving. Outside this country, fearmongering is far less prevalent.
So please do not project warped American mind-set as a universal human feature. As a traveled man I can assure you that most people outside the US do not live in constant fear that something bad will happen to them if they do not act now. And most non-American religiosity is far more soporific than the brimstone and fire variety popular on this side of the pond.
Wojtek
On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 10:02 PM, Shane Mage <shmage at pipeline.com> wrote:
>
> On Nov 7, 2010, at 7:30 PM, Wojtek S wrote:
>
> Shane: "your caricature of the philistine notion of mass irrationality"
>>
>> [WS:] If there is any caricature here, it is the above statement. I did
>> not
>> say it is "irrationality" but rationality of a different kind than the
>> Weberian "purpose rationality."
>>
>
> Well, you are the one who wrote about "irrational antipathy towards
> government." And I'm the one who thinks that in the US antipathy towards the
> government is both rational and praiseworthy.
>
>
>
> It is the same rationality as one underlying magic rituals since the
>> beginning of humankind. Check out Malinowski's anthropological studies of
>> myth and magic or Meyer & Rowan's
>> work on myth in modern organizations.
>>
>
> How amusing to hear that these eminent empirical sociologists have some
> pipeline to the "beginning of humankind." Despite being good god-fearing
> Christian gentlemen, they have not the least conception of why every myth,
> every religion, every magic ritual expresses the notion that *the gods are
> to be feared. the gods are greatly to be feared*
>
> Shane Mage
>
> God said to Abraham, kill me a son
> Abe said man, you must be putting me on
> God said you can do what you want, Abe
> But the next time you see me coming, better run.
>
>
>
> [WS:] So face it, lefties, the voters decided to sacrifice Democrats to
>>>> avert bad luck and vent their irrational antipathy towards government.
>>>> Blaming O's administration is blaming the victim of this sacrifice.
>>>>
>>> So you say nobody can know what motivates Obama/Summers/Geithner/Bernanke
>>> &
>>> co., but you *know* that the *Obama-2008* voters who dumped the dumbos
>>> were
>>> motivated (to stay home, to vote Repugnicon, to spoil their ballots) by
>>> your
>>> caricature of the philistine notion of mass irrationality. Staying home
>>> as
>>> an apotropaic ritual like the Sacrifice of Isaac!
>>>
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