Something semi-friv, and something usefully deep....

[aureantes]

Heh, you get to pick which. :P

First, the quiz results:

Your Score: Clark Gable

You scored 38% Tough, 4% Roguish, 23% Friendly, and 33% Charming!

You're a helluva guy, a real split personality and a bit of an enigma. On the one hand, you're a man's man, tough talking and ready for anything. But on the other hand, you soften your rough and tumble core with a disarmingly smooth exterior, and you make the ladies swoon. You're equally admired by both men and women alike, drinking other men under the table all the while charming the socks off half a dozen lovelies. You're a commanding presence, and you know how to get what - and who - you want when you want it. You're drawn to women who, like you, are savvy enough to deal with the world on their own terms. You work well with spitfires. Leading ladies include Joan Crawford, Myrna Loy, and Jean Harlow. No damsels in distress for you.

Find out what kind of classic dame you'd make by taking the Classic Dames Test.

Link: The Classic Leading Man Test written by gidgetgoes on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Now the other half, which is a comment initially made at http://community.livejournal.com/dark_christian/841742.html on how the resurgence of evangelical fundamentalism occured in the U.S. despite major historical points like the Scopes trial (1925):

I think that it has a lot to do with something that I've noted in terms of American RRism, where you can find people reacting against the supposed excesses of secular liberalism, godlessness, sexual immorality, etc. in places whose overall social structure and mindset have barely made it into the 20th century (despite all the advances of modern technology and media -- much of which now depends on voluntary exposure).

Not only do people have short memories and a lot of intellectual inertia, but the ideals that most of us here would assert that we live by have never fully saturated the nation as a whole, thereby leaving many Brigadoonish 'cultural evolution gaps' to be exploited by paranoia over modern things (like uncloseted queerness, neo-paganism and same-sex marriage) that they don't yet really know in real life to be able to react to in a rational way. Also, and even in developed areas, where many people have lived in ethnic self-insulation and/or emigrated in since the times of prime public awareness over matters like the Scopes trial, sexual liberation, Women's Lib and Roe v. Wade, Watergate, the Jonestown massacre, the Stonewall riots, and protests against the Vietnam War, they too have "missed out" on those parts of U.S. history and the changes that they brought to society -- at least, those parts of society which were consciously engaged/affected by them. Again, they are primed for being misled by religious politics.

They have not been prepared to deal with what the most "modern" areas/demographics are dealing with, and it is extremely difficult to build a bridge now while the propaganda of the RR has been in motion for years to prevent people from listening to the 'other side.' They are "reactionary" out of a lack of real exposure and acclimation, like Rip Van Winkle waking up after the Revolutionary War had been fought -- which leads to the question of whether it was ever "real" for him, or whether large portions of U.S. history can be termed as being "real" to those now railing against the furthermost prows of human social progression.

So.....for some Americans it's not merely a dim historical consciousness but blank awareness of history itself -- at least the parts of it upon which many other parts have since been founded and relied on. It's like missing the middlemost parts of the argument, and disagreeing with its conclusion.

I'll likely make more of this matter later on hyperlucidity....

_

Comments

[schnee.livejournal.com]

Good point about the (parts of) US-American culture. I'm often rather reminded of the current quagmire in Afghanistan (and Iraq); it's easy to believe that you just need to topple dictatorships in order for perfect, civilised democracies to emerge, but in reality, you also need to change the way people think and feel - you can't just impose democracy on them and think it'll work.

The same thing's true here, too, and in the US-American (deep) south, it often seems that the whole thing's a vicious circle of sorts, too: people are actually PROUD to be ignorant, narrow-minded and intolerant, even those who're leaning towards the more intelligent side and/or who're from bigger cities. Most wouldn't phrase it that way, of course, but ultimately, that's what it boils down to, and the "us vs. them" ideology and the perception of the "yankees" (or whatever the nom du jour is) trying to impose their values and subjugating "the south" helps reinforce that.

It's often said that perfect is the enemy of good, but here, it seems to me that it's "better (but not good)" that is the enemy of "good". Sometimes, you need a revolution rather than an evolution, since the latter will just stop again once things have reached a state where they're (barely) tolerable and not progress any further.