http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/32597.html

On the subject of “myth, “ symbol, and image, they embody and express deeper truths/things that mere common language cannot often express anywhere near so well, or with so much resonance, effect, and power. What, after all, is “Art.”

Galadriel is fictional. Fiction=myth, IMHO.

. . . I challenge you to say that that by this standard we are in the same situation as in the first two centuries after our Founding, and that this belief in and fairly strict adherence to Christian belief and morality is the general situation with most of our citizenry today.

I accept that challenge.

Perhaps you are correct, and yet perhaps we persist in judging the depth of the citizenry by the surface of a national dialogue controlled and massaged by a corrupt media.

Dont forget Chik-Fil-A day amd Empty Chair Day and especially the Tea Party which was born of a little heard (in the popular sense—how many people tune in to CNBC?) rant from Rick Santelli, and most importantly, the effects of the Tea Party in replacing establishment candidates (and these are only a few examples).

Wolla Dalbo, don’t forget my friend, that “Even the very wise can not see all ends.”

Frodo:”I wish none of this had happened.” Gandalf: “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

Do not despair. human nature has not changed in 40,000 years. We act no differently than our ancestors did at the time of our founding fathers (and mothers). The envelope has changed, but where human activity is concerned, nihil sub sole novum (there is nothing new under the sun).

In my mind, this is actually cause for hope because life is dynamic and we live in a unique culture which is verbally disputational and therefore dynamic in and of itself. We do not live in accord with principals handed down by one claiming the divine right to rule, the present occupant of the oval office notwithstanding.

The envelope does change and we have, in this country, the unique situation of allowing that change without literally storming a bastille; we do it metaphorically, on election day, and we get to achieve similar revolutioninary results.

Keep the faith my friends!

Many voters would vote for Bozo the clown if the most prominent voices in the party came out in his favor. That’s not because the voters are stupid, but because we have a two party system and most voters will go with the party candidate before they’ll “throw their vote away” on a complete unknown. But whatever. We’ve proven many times over that we lack the belly to reform our own party. It’s old news and I know I’m spitting into the wind.

Truth is truth, no matter what its source–high or low.

Galadriel speaks for me in the things she senses and says here, and I calls them as I sees them.

And, while we are at it, in view of the great job our “educational system” has done and is doing in editing, truncating, “transforming,” ignoring, obliterating, “reframing,” re-imagining, reinterpreting, and twisting our History and Heritage, some others of the words in Galadriel’s prologue might also be apropos:–

“…But the hearts of men are easily corrupted… And some things that should not have been forgotten, were lost…History became legend, legend became myth…”

As the characters and the histories of our Founders, the deeply religious climate of those Revolutionary times, their philosophy, their conception of man and his relationship to God, and the heady ideas about power, the nature of government, and the state swirling around in the time of our Foundation that they felt so compelling and acted on, our real history and heritage, have largely been “forgotten” and effectively “lost” for far too many of us. “Legends” become insubstantial and distant, now become so many “myths” of a distant, almost unimaginable past; histories, and legends, and myths refuted -when discussed at all–every day in our K-12 and University classrooms, assignments, lectures, and textbooks.

RE: Our current national character, independence, self-reliance, morality, honesty, hard work, thrift, delayed gratification, planning, actions and consequences, foresight, and the long view, and the trends and debate concerning “Takers” vs “Makers”.

If you want sources of a higher pedigree, I will say that there are plenty of quotes by various of our usually highly educated and experienced Founders, in which they very clearly state that the Republic they created–and deliberately founded on Christian religion, faith, and morality–could not flourish or, ultimately, survive, if that Christian moral structure–that infused, informed, and gave direction to their times, and to our citizenry, then and for many generations thereafter–were to eventually dissipate and disappear, as it has been and continues to do today.

Our Republic was not designed to, and simply cannot function without a citizenry that is truly educated and aware, conscientious, holds to and operates on the basis of and out of a fairly strict, Judeo-Christian, Bible-based, Ten Commandments moral code, and I challenge you to say that that by this standard we are in the same situation as in the first two centuries after our Founding, and that this belief in and fairly strict adherence to Christian belief and morality is the general situation with most of our citizenry today.

I do think that you are precisely correct. I add that Walter Russell Mead has been writing about this same thing in his essays regarding the attrition of the “blue social model.” His claim is that both liberals and conservatives essentially pose past remedies for developing future problems.

As you imply, we can’t go “home” again, but as the saying goes we must return home and see it for the first time;” an exceedingly difficult thing to do.