Religion. Luddites. What a mess.

[Paul Mackin]

On Thu, 8 Jun 2000, Michel Ryckx wrote:

> For a
> non-American religion in America seems to be everywhere and so it will
> inevitably pop up in its literature.  Though I can not imagine people
> actually 'believing' (Lat.: religare = accepting without argument), that
> has never stood in the way for appreciating mr. Pynchon's work.


All very baffling to Americans as well as nonAmericans. Just the statistic
that a very sizable proportion of Americans say they believe in God. This
in the face of Americans (by and large) seeming to lead the least
religious or tradition connected lives imaginable. It's true religious
ideas often come up in American lit--Melville for example as Jane
emphasized and of course in P. One thing you have to remember about the
American Revolution as opposed to the French Revolution is that religion
was never overthrown along with the Monarchy as in Europe. In
Europe religion was an elite thing--along with the monarchy. Jefferson and
the other Founding Fathers would have loved to have seen religion
obliterated here and everything rationalized.  They loved the French as
much as the modern lit professors. But the working and yeoman class in
America saw their religion as a power base, a source of strength against
the elite of the country. That's in many ways the way religion has
remained here even into the present. That's why it is so important to
electoral politics. Oh dear me. I am writing in generalities with lots of
over simplifications. Of course it would take volumes to develop points
about the meaning of religion-in-America. I did just want to try to make
the quick point that religion in America may not a lot of the time have
much to do with religion or religious ideas.


				P.