The Madness of American Culture

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I'm not trying to throw gasoline on the UK vs US fire here, I know that the UK has plenty of weirdos and morons and the US has loads of super clever funny ppl etc. etc.

But OTOH, we don't have NOTHIN like this (so far as I'm aware? Maybe Derek Acorah and ppl like that are on this spectrum of spiritual grifters)

 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I always think that the one saving grace of politics in this country is that even our most objectionable hard-right fuckheads are generally not also religious fundamentalists, or in hock to that constituency. Although I guess maybe that doesn't necessarily apply in Northern Ireland?
 

catalog

Well-known member
the thing is, this same spirit is also what makes america america, in the sense that nowhere else in the world has that sort of self-actualisation belief system encoded into the national psyche - the sort of willing things into manifestation self-actualisation mantra. hip hop has the same spirit. the god is inside me element.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
That's an interesting comparison.

I suppose you could say that America is very much still a land of belief. And not necessarily just a belief in God - although obviously there is that, and, for many people, an equally fervent belief in the devil - but, uniquely, a land of belief in Belief.
 
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catalog

Well-known member
yes and people flock to it still because of that. because the dream is possible. and it sustains people at a very basic level. and just simple things, like how you pledge to the flag before a footie game and stuff. it's hard coded in. beleive what you want, it can come true, in fact it will come true
 

borzoi

Well-known member
i've never seen that televangelist guy before 2 days ago and since then i've seen like 6 videos of him. what's going on.
 

catalog

Well-known member
there is something in that, in that both of them experienced conversion/spiritual rebirth of some description. i think that conversion experience of one kind or another is central to america. at a certain point, as an american, you have to have a road to damascus moment and buy into something, whether that's god, or tecg, or sex and drugs. and it's stronger in america than anywhere else. in england you can happily live your life in a very boring way everywhere apart from london, which is another country in reality.
 

borzoi

Well-known member
imo there are basically 2 americas that are always clashing and mixing and intertwining. theres walt whitman/herman melville visionary america, the mountains, the plains, the open roads, the vision quest spiritual ecstatic stuff. and then theres the genocide nuclear war CIA death drive america. the first one can't exist without the second one (you can't have a quest without a frontier and you can't have a frontier without millions of dead natives) but that doesn't mean the moments of transcendence that emerge from it are false or meaningless.
 

catalog

Well-known member
also the first one is totally fake. it's a dream. the story is more real than the reality. the walden pond guy went to visit his mum every week who lived 3 miles away.
 

borzoi

Well-known member
yes 100%, its an abstract thread in the mind that only becomes real for brief flashes and then dissipates. but its enough to keep me going i guess.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
i've never seen that televangelist guy before 2 days ago and since then i've seen like 6 videos of him. what's going on.

A video of him reacting to Biden's victory in an incredibly cringeworthy/sinister way has gone viral
 

linebaugh

Well-known member
yes 100%, its an abstract thread in the mind that only becomes real for brief flashes and then dissipates. but its enough to keep me going i guess.
Someone one in here mentioned something about space being the essential American characteristic, forget who. Regardless, does give a a materialist edge to the abstract american visionary ideal.
 
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