Modern Mythology

Did you ever watch the 1990s TV series "Northern Exposure"? It's probably my all time favorite TV show, and we have all the episodes on DVD. In one episode this American Indian shaman, played by Graham Greene, is trying to research the White Man's mythology as part of an ongoing effort to broaden his perspective. All he can get out of the people he interviewed were those trashy "urban myths" that seem to have the sole purpose of grossing people out. As he heard each one, he would ask what life lesson or healing power it contained and, of course, none of them had any. After he had given up and left town, his apprentice "Ed", who was a movie buff, concluded that maybe the movies were our modern mythology. I think Ed was right, someday anthropologists will look at our movies the same way they now study Egyptian hieroglyphics and Mesopotamian clay tablets. That's why I have always been interested in old stories, they may not be historically accurate, but they give you a window into the cultural values of the people who told them.

Remember when that guy put a crucifix into a bottle of piss and called it "art"? The worst part was that he had collected some kind of government subsidy to do it. That's one reason my ilk disapproves of government subsidies for the arts, and the other reason is that there is a danger of the government trying to control art for its own purposes when it pays people to produce it. On the other hand, many of the classical music composers of past centuries worked under royal patronage. There was no other way to finance lavish productions like operas in those days. If it weren't for those government subsidies, we might not have that kind of musical heritage to put on DVDs today. My favorite story about that is when Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria almost bankrupted his country supporting Richard Wagner, who was a bit of an eccentric himself. Ludwig became so unpopular as a result of this and other character flaws (he was gay you know) that he was eventually deposed and committed to his own private mental institution, where he ultimately died under mysterious circumstances. Wagner went on to write some of the greatest operas the world has ever known, which have brought enough tourist revenue to Bavaria over the years to more than make up for the money Ludwig squandered on Wagner.

Funny that the average Iranians are afraid of us, while their leadership keeps rattling their sabers over our heads. I think it was the same with the Russians back in the Cold War days. This is not an original idea, but wouldn't it be nice if we could put all those brave politicians in an arena and encourage them to settle their grievances with each other directly instead of letting them send the rest of us off to war?

I don't know why people admire cosmopolitanism and look down on provincialism. I am just the opposite, but I never claimed to be normal.