[lit-ideas] Re: Awakening from the Nightmare of History
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2005 23:55:59 -0400
> [Original Message]
> From: Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 8/5/2005 5:02:47 PM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Awakening from the Nightmare of History
>
> From the 'nightmare of history" Spam: Nations constitute a shared
> fantasy of immortality.
>
> -----
>
> It's hard to read this stuff without laughing.
>
> If nations are "a shared fantasy of immortality," then so are
> families, children, friendships, one's work, language, religion,
> nature, space exploration, and of course, psychoanalytic writing.
>
Why do you think this is so far fetched? Evolutionary psychology says
people have children to pass on their DNA, another way of saying being
immortal. Don't you think being immortalized through one's work is at
least the secret ambition of most writers and artists? Certainly religion
is about immortality. We take it for granted that nations have to exist,
but why do we need nations? Why can't we be the United States of Earth?
Seriously, why not?
> Equally, world government would be a "shared fantasy of
> immortality." Except that people would have no way to escape from
> one fantasy and immigrate to another fantasy.
>
The Founding Fathers wrote checks and balances into the system precisely
because government is prone to abuses "Immortality" might be a shorthand
for some characteristic, some longing perhaps. Most people prefer fantasy
to reality and they find it in one form or another.
Andy Amago
> Such overgeneralization gives fantasy a bad name.
>
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