Archetypal Keys in Wiccan Mythological History

[persipone]

I've been bored lately, and when I'm bored, I read. Mostly, I've been reading RJ Stewart's The Underworld Initiation. I have a lot of problems with the book, but it's definitely thought-provoking. It inspired some thoughts, that I thought I'd share with everybody :-)

Comments

[persipone]

Ooh nice response. I'll reply to the political part here.

I don't think that our victory in the cold war was unearned- or at least not exactly. I think "earning" may be too simplistic a concept for the situation. But, if anything, I think the power to last is one of the most valuable things a society can offer. It's apparently far more valuable than freedom to most people, as shown by the majority's disturbing tendency to choose security over freedom.

But neither do I buy the patriotic version of history that holds that the collapse of the USSR was due directly to the actions of the USA. Based on my limited knowledge, I think that the Soviet system would have collapsed with or without American intervention. Insofar as the Cold War hastened the USSR's demise, it was through the actions of the USSR itself- if they had chosen to disengage at any time, they could have refocused their energies towards the goal of building a sustainable nation.

Which is sort of the central point I was getting at, politics-wise. If you choose to fight, you can win or you can loose and that's all you can do. But if you choose to do the things that actually matter rather than scoring meaningless "I can blow up the world ten times over" points, you hold yourself to a different standard for success, and one that's much easier to reach.

[madfedor]

I don't mean to minimize the danger we were all in during the Cold War. There was way too much room for mistakes. But, it's like the current situation and the borderline (and also valid) paranoia over the possibility of a nuke showing up in an American city: it has been possible for this to happen for many years now, and one has to ask why it hasn't happened yet, especially in the wake of 9/11. If they could go through many months, with all the planning and resources needed for the preparation, why the heck didn't they nuke 10 or 12 cities instead? The answer lies underneath the growing myth around 9/11: because they were deterred.

The USSR was a very complex situation, so I'll stipulate all your points and just mention one thing: it is not stereotyping to describe the Russians as a culture as paranoid. It is a factual, reasonable description. Much can follow from that, including a brinksman strategy of goading them to hasten their downfall.

[persipone]

I don't dispute your characterization of Russian culture as paranoid- I don't know enough about the culture to judge, but the government certainly *was*. Again, though, their fall was in their flaws, not in our success.

And, to be honest, I personally abhorr the ethic of deterrence. I know we differ on this- we interperet history and current events very differently. But I think the theory that if we kill enough Iraqui children we can avert another 9/11 (because, to my mind, this is what "deterrence" means) is inexcusable. Violence only leads to more violence, unless it is carried forth to the point of anihillation.

I think the situation in the Middle East- Iraq, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine/whatever you call it- supports this. I think anyone who believes that deterrence is working, either for the US, the Islamic fundamentalists, or the Israelis, is being deceived.

I think the fact that there hasn't been another 9/11 (in the US, there have been many attacks elsewhere in the world) is testament to how difficult it is to pull something like that off, not to the fact that the US somehow has fewer enemies than we did five years ago. And I think that our survival during the cold war was due to chance and the goodness of a few individuals who didn't push the big red button when they had the opportunity to do so.

[madfedor]

I join you in your view of deterrence, especially in the incompetant use of it being demonstrated by Dubya, Israel and our European "partners" in the war on terror. It's half-assed at best.

Ironically, though, I must point out that the fate of Afghanistan's Taliban regime is a strong lesson to many would-be pinpricks on the US skin. How effective it has been or will be depends on negative proof, so we'll just have to wait and see...

Thank you for this. I don't get enough true, intellectual stimulation.