300 is not about 300

“... for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
~ William Shakespeare Hamlet 2.2.251

The movie 300, as well as the graphic novel upon which it was based, is not necessarily a historically accurate portrayal of the events they represent.  That is not the point.

The point is plain now that Frank Miller has been candid in a recent blog post.  300 is about the colonizer, the big government, the oppressor—fill in the blank with whatever strong-over-the-weak, rich-over-the-poor, or my-political-agenda-over-yours ideology that you want—gaining their objective.

Sadly, I think most people interpreted the movie, whether deliberately or unintentionally, as the fight of right against wrong, or good against evil (which is of course one way Miller meant it to be interpreted; his idea being that the Persians represent Islam and Islam is wrong, right?).  That’s how I initially read it (minus the Islam is the enemy idea): the small Spartan army of 300 men went bravely to stand against the massive army of the oppressor Xerxes.  Yeah, I know many did read it as being about America against the rise of, as Miller calls it, “Islamicism” (which I’m pretty sure isn’t even a word, but nevermind …).

In a previous post, Miller wrote, “We only complain about propaganda when we don’t agree with it.”  Of course.  Why would we complain about something that promotes our own agenda?  Why would be try to shoot down something that makes sense to our worldview?  So, anyway, we know that Miller is writing/drawing propaganda because he says he is.  Which is fine, because that is what many people are doing, in their own way.  Propaganda is closely linked with agenda: so the mainstream media who are owned and operated by large corporations; the marketing departments of the large corporations, and their advertising—it all is propaganda for each of their respective ideas or products--the things that will fulfill their agenda(s).

Now, we have occupiers who are using the latest and greatest technology, which is developed and sold by large corporations.  Some blatant examples: Apple, Facebook, Twitter.  I am not singling these corporations out from personal malice, they are simply the ones that come to mind, being used by people who I know are involved in OWS.  The occupiers are focusing on the banks and financial institutions.  Why?  Without their having bought the latest gadget, there would be no finance to worry about.  They are overlooking the objects in their hands; they are overlooking the clothes on their backs, the shoes on the their feet.  They want things to change, but they want things to stay the same.  It seems that they want to eat the cake they didn't bake.  They are at once using and condemning the very things they would not want to be without.  This is what confuses me about it.  It reminds me of the Russian revolution, when women who left their villages to work in the cities did not want to return to their villages without having purchased a particular type of coat, called a sak (a status symbol).¹  Today, it is the latest iWhatever that is that coat....  This is contradictory and contrapurposive to the entire ideology being propagated by OWS, right?

It seems that OWS is calling for socialism, or maybe even its extreme form communism.  While many others want something closer to fascism.  I know the labels for these ideas are getting tossed around ad nauseam these days (along with Nazi), and that most who use them are not really solid on what they are saying.  Others are trying for anarchy.  Still others would have the US continue to focus huge amounts of resources into the war against terrorism—which is about as successful as the war on drugs, right?²

I’m not an anarchist, a communist, a socialist or a fascist.  Hell, I barely even register on a political ideological scale at all.  This ramble is not to promote one form of political idea over another; this ramble is my way of working through all this shit and trying to make some kind of sense of it.  I’m not jumping into any of these ideologies, because none of them make sense to me. 

Yes, equality would be nice.  But, are we willing to let the government have the power necessary to maintain that kind of equality?  Privacy would be nice, but are we willing to let those who mean us harm free and open access to us, so that they might then bring a new form of inequality and oppression?  I don't think we really know what we want, and until we do, our united-ness will continue to polarize until the US is no longer recognizable.  Wait!  That shit is already happening, isn't it?

I guess my thinking is swayed by Buddhist thought, i.e. looking for the middle path.  But, I’m not a Buddhist, either….

---

^1.

"Women saved because you could not live without a sak. Those who did not have a sak felt they were deprived of their full rights, not fully valued, on the slide. There were endless conversations among the women workers about buying a sak. And if they bought one, they wrote to the village at once, to tell everyone that teh long-desired sak had been purchased." Mikhail Isakovskii, quoted in S. A. Smith, Revolution and the People in Russia and China: A Comparative History, 94.
MY NOTE: it seems that this, along with what I've written above speaks of a sense of entitlement which is prevalent in our time.

^2.

Adjectives

Most adjectives are shapeless, gray, boring.  Those tired three serve as a twenty-four carat example.

A couple of my new favorite adjectives (though I will superhumanly fight against their overuse) are: sadicidal, or gloomicidal; words which describe the murder of sadness or gloom.  D’uh!

I’ve been giving some Herculean thought to sexceptional adjectives that I can use spice up my dishwater writing.  I have found that sometimes you just have to make that shit up, just like the rest of the fiction you’re slapping madly on the page.

For extra fresh reading pleasure, I suggest this blog post on Sin and Syntax.

A couple of books for you to check out on the subject:
 

Finally, Through It

Well, I really got into studying the Bible for a while (I mean minutely).  I had always heard about contradictions, but had also heard that those could be explained away.  Well, I cannot see how they can be.  After going through a time of agnosticism, I eventually came to atheism.  I really believe that there is no god other than those made up by the human mind and changed to fit the current need of humans.  One of the first steps I came to, when I was looking at the Bible closely was: if "God is love", then he has a strange way of showing it. 

Then, I began to look at the world around me and think about it in terms of this god.  If he truly loves humans, then why does he let them suffer?  If he can do nothing about it, then he is not almighty, and so, not a god.  If he can do something and chooses to do nothing, then he is wicked.  So, either this god is 1) impotent rather than omnipotent or 2) a masochistic fiend worse than any devil in his Hell or 3) (and most likely) he is imaginary. 

I decided from what I saw and experienced that he was imaginary just like Zeus, Odin, Jupiter, et al.  And so came to atheism.  This is just my choice.  I’m not a zealous, militant atheist like some that are out there.  I simply made my choice and am living accordingly.  I don’t party, I don’t steal, or kill or any of those things that are called sin.  I simply live by a set of morals and ethics that I have inside of me naturally.  Partly, I observe the Golden Rule, which by the way, is much older than Christianity.  Because of this, I cannot and do not judge other people, nor do I let them judge me.  I have no guilt, because I am not a sinner, I am a human being.  And if I do “wrong”, it is my choice and my responsibility.  The responsibility does not fall on my parents, grandparents, a god, a demon, or anyone else.  It is mine.  If the wrong happens to be against the law, then I might have to pay by going to prison, but that is not something I think will happen, because I generally abide by the laws of the land.

During my agnostic phase, I thought a lot about human inability to prove that a god does or does not exist.  I cannot prove that he doesn't and someone that believes he does cannot prove that he does.  All the experiences are subjective, personal.  What I find interesting is that most religions have these same kinds of personal experiences to "prove" the existence of their deity/deities.  The similarities between the Bible and so many other mythologies is just icing on the cake, so to speak.  It was the Bible itself (along with what I could--and could not--see for myself in the world) that turned me away. 

I'm still interested in the myths (including the Judeo-Christian one), mostly because of their influence on literature.  And I use myth in its denotative meaning.  That is, according to Joseph Campbell, all myths are true in their contexts.  So, there are "truths" (though not absolute) that can be taken from all mythologies, and it is often these truths that are borrowed from one and passed on to another; or truths that are represented by the metaphors, symbols and themes in the myths.  Death, burial, and resurrection, for example, are simply references to nature and agriculture.  Jesus even is quoted as saying, "Unless a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die it beareth much fruit."  While this, of course refers to himself as a fertility god, it also refers to plant life.  Those themes only came into the mythologies once the people who believed them were agrarian.  Those themes do not work as well for hunter/gatherers.  They had a completely different set of myths based on a completely different set of truths, or ideologies.

More Through It

It wasn’t really a very negative or hurtful experience that drove me from Christianity.  Merely observation about what was going on and how all of it seemed phony, or worthless.  None of it connected to the Bible, and the Bible was quickly losing ground in my mind as infallible truth anyway.  All of it just added up to doubt for me; then, I asked myself what I really believed. 

The conclusion is that I believe what I can observe (or better, what is observable).  It is somewhat scientific, but it is my way.  I don’t trust emotions or the things that happen during highly emotionally charged situations.  I’m not saying that I am emotionless, but that I don’t trust them because they can mean so many things and come from so many different stimuli.  Many religious leaders use emotions to keep people coming back.  It is similar to an addiction.  So much that happens in churches would be considered sheer madness if one individual acted that way, but because it is an entire group, it is okay.  I think it is group madness and I was right in the middle of it, as you may have been or may still be.  In that highly emotional state, which becomes a type of hypnotism, people are super-suggestible and if they go far enough they become gullible and eventually are enslaved, either to a person/personality, or an office (i.e. apostle, etc), or a doctrine.  It sounds harsh, but I think it is accurate. 

This is how my first steps into agnosticism began.  I started looking, listening, etc., and soon realized that a deity’s existence cannot be either proved or disproved.  There is nothing to see, nothing to feel, nothing to hear that can be seen, felt, heard by another.  In other words, one person’s experiences with religion, god, spirituality, or whatever are entirely subjective.  Others cannot duplicate those “experiences”.  I might claim to hear the voice of a god, but the whole room full of people does not hear it.  I might say, “Thus sayeth the Lord,” but the rest of the people only hear what comes from my mouth.  There is no voice directly from heaven.  So, directly observing situations and really taking apart what people (especially the “leaders”) said was a big step toward thinking for myself and coming to the conclusion that I did not believe any of it.  The things that happened to me, which at one time I credited to God, I then began to see were either purely coincidental or had some other explanation. 

So, a negative experience didn’t drive me out of the church, but I did notice a general lack of genuine care and concern from many, particularly from the leaders.  They mouthed love, but their lives were the exact contradiction.  This, of course, didn’t make me want to stay there either.  And my family and I did try other churches.  Each had their own “weird” thing that turned me off, but it was ultimately my observations of both the Bible and the church that made up my mind. 

Agnosticism soon became a silly notion in the light of what I saw and understood.  I think agnosticism is a legitimate response to things that can eventually be tested, or to things that have been tested but not completely proved or disproved.  It simply means that I don’t know based on current observations by myself or others.  Atheism seemed a more realistic approach to the idea of gods.  I do not believe in any gods, including the one portrayed in the Bible.  I also don’t believe in Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, or the Easter Bunny.  To my way of thinking, they are all the same kind of thing.  I see them as devices imagined/created to keep people in line, under control, or in a position in which their minds or bodies can be easily manipulated. 

I know I’m talking more about what I think that what happened to me or the progression of events.  It’s difficult to distinguish ONE thing that did it, but if I had to pin it down, I would go, once again, with the observations I mentioned before. 

That’s about all I have time for right now, so I will have to write more at another time.

Through It

I can relate to the idea of feeling like something is wrong.  Religious leaders like to use that to keep people under control, don’t they?  I hadn’t really thought of a period of  de-programming after leaving Christianity, but after I had made the choice to be atheist I did read a couple books by prominent atheists which was a kind of de-programming.  They are fairly militant in their whole idea, but I can understand why.  That being said, I don’t agree with everything they write or say, but I now realize that that is okay.  I can think for myself!  I do agree with much and so I recommend them as a way to get a basic idea of where I am.  The first book, if you’re interested, is The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins.  The other is God Is Not Good, by Christopher Hitchens. 

I don't mind telling you how I got here.  Strangely enough, it started with my studying the Bible very minutely.  The more I looked at certain things in there in connection to what I was seeing in the world around me, the more I questioned.  It is also strange that a very staunch Calvinist—Calvin himself—started me on this path.  In his theological work, he says to read the scripture for one’s self.[1]  So, I did.  I could go on about this, but some of the main things were also fundamental things.

For example, my first eye-opener was with Adam and Eve.  God is supposed to be omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient, right?  Well, if he was all-knowing, then he would have known that Adam and Eve were going to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  My question is why did he go ahead and put the tree in the garden?  OK.  He wanted to test them.  Why?  He already knew they were going to eat the fruit.  What's to test?  Then, after the Fall, why did it take so long for a savior to arrive?  I mean this is the creator and master of the universe, right?  Why did it take so many thousands of years to get the redeemer in place?  OK.  Because of sin.  Well, if that's the case, then even God almighty is weak before sin and takes a couple of thousand years to fix what it took only seven days to create, and a few minutes to screw up.  Hmmm…  Also, I'm sorry, but a god that knows that his creation is going to screw up and then freely gives them the opportunity in their complete and total innocence and ignorance to do so, is not a very nice god.  And, if all people born are born into sin because of what Adam and Eve did, where is the justice in that?  Why am I sent to burn for eternity in Hell because of something I had absolutely no control over?  That is not just.  That is evil and tyrannical!  So, if this god is not just, then he is a liar, because he claims to be just.  Punishing people who do not deserve it, merely because they were born is also not love, it is hatred, pure unadulterated hatred.

Sorry, that's just the first couple of verses of the first book and that is mostly my emotional response!  I became agnostic for a time, because I thought about humans trying to prove a deity's existence.  It cannot be done.  But, it also cannot be proven that a deity does not exist.  So, I went on in that way for awhile.  Then, after feeling like I was wasting my time even thinking about it, I just kind of woke up and realized that I believe that there is no god.  This is, of course, different than most peoples' definition of atheism, which states that “an atheist does not believe in God.”  And, it is not simply semantics.  The typical definition begins with the idea that there is a god in which to believe.  True atheism believes there is NO god and so nothing to believe in. 

I'm not a closet atheist, but usually don't just go around telling people that I am unless they bring it up or ask me a question regarding my “faith.”  I guess I want to avoid being responsible for their giving up faith, if that happens.  Not that I am particularly persuasive about it.  I actually don't even think that much about it unless someone asks, and then I can go on and on about it as you can see from this post.  It's not that I even want to go on about it, it just happens because there is like a valve and the question opens it.  This post is me trying to restrain myself from being wordy, and I'm not sure it's working all that well...

There is a lot of Judeo-Christian “stuff,” as well as other mythology, in literature, but it was several years before I was comfortable enough to use what I had learned in writing and thinking about literary texts.  I even avoided certain literature that seemed particularly Christian because I would get angry about the things I had been through.  I then began to realize that most of the literature is just interpretation, like those asserted by all the thousands of Christian sects or denominations out there.  Everyone has their own interpretation and so there is NO single right interpretation, even though thousands of people have killed and been killed for what they believed was the only single interpretation.  What a confusing mess.  Anyway, I’m going to shut up for now.

---

[1] This is quite similar, in fact to Buddha’s telling his followers to find their own path.