There is a serious critique buried beneath the crude MAGA attacks. It is one that Nietzsche leveled and it’s being reprised by some of the tech bros today. Nature worried that Christianity’s egalitarian ideas made us less likely to be wildly ambitious, risk-seeking, even reckless. Have we become so humane that we’ve lost the primal urges that made us heroic?
—Fareed Zakaria, CNN commentator
That’s his take on Christopher Nolan’s the Odyssey, since I have talked about it already, it is not my main topic today.
“Blood, gore, and conquest”. If, as Mr. Zakaria says, Donald Trump’s “heroism” is in fact primitive as well anti-Christianity; then should I say, Donald Trump himself is in fact “anti-Christ”?
MORALITY in BED
Therefore I always believe that the Church should not avoid political and moral problems, if so, it would be avoiding the human problem, then when issues come up, they can’t offer solutions.
I guess Christian Church have not been avoiding political and moral problems; the problem is, however, is the issues they are interested in are just what happen in bed between which sex the 2 persons belong.
As a result, today’s Christian Church, especially those fundamentalist and evangelical churches in the US, is incapable of dealing with the complex social problems the nation is facing today. They simply solve it in the yes-or-no, right-or-wrong answer: Terrorism is bad, immigrants are threat; solving crime with jails, and owning guns is a right.
And when someone who cares the issues they concern, they will embrace him/her, despite his/her other policies are harmful, illegal, even immoral.
And this is the result of this fiasco called Donald Trump.
As it turns out, Jesus Christ was a progressive in his own day, but the same cannot be said for his church.
OUTDATED IDEOLOGY
Seems that Donald Trump’s “greatness” sticks with pre-historic era: armed with 12th century BC heroism, 19th century ideology and 1970’s asthetics, he is treating 21st international affairs with determination.
I guess the host of this podcast is lenient to him. In another program, also from ABC of Australia, Mr. Trump’s outdate ideology is even more obvious:
The Navy’s apparently also considering another major redesign of this upcoming aircraft carrier because of what Trump thinks looks good. They’re considering moving the multi-story command tower on the ship further forward to the middle of the ship so the new ships can look more like the ships did back in World War II.
Oh, I should correct my statement before: not “1970’s asthetics”, but 1940’s … Turn out for the sake of his old taste of warship design, some 5,000 sailors and pilots need to stay on the Arabian Sea for more then 270 days without seeing the land.
(Note retrospectively: it’s 286 days)
Furthermore, I don’t think he believe his sailors should rest …
Shouldn’t we surprise if there is a superstition of pre-historic heroism from Mr. Trump?
FUNDAMENTALISM
“Make America great again,” because America’s greatness is not happening today; it was a thing in the past, even in pre-historic era.
Fundamentalism’s concept is basically the same: We should go back to what it was, and what it should be. Baptism must be submerged your whole body into the water, not just sprinkling just those few ceremonial and pointless drops. Women should stick in their home and be men’s slaves as well a baby-producing machine, and shouldn’t have knowledge, intelligence and ambition to the world. Sex is for a man and a woman, not with anyone you desire or born to be …
Sound familiar? These are also ideal of al-Qaeda, Taliban and Islamic State.
In Chinese, we translate “fundamentalism” differently if refers to different religion: in Christianity (Protestantism, to be exact), it is “基要派”, literally “the sect of basic necessity”; in Islam, it is “原教旨主義”, means “the ideology of original teaching”.
Furthermore, “原教旨主義” sounds more negative then “基要派”, since the former is so “outdated” and “stubborn”.
But it is, afterall, “outdated” and “stubborn”; they are all “fundamentalism“.
“LEFTARD”
Certainly I am not saying old stuffs are always bad. Old buildings are always more beautiful then the new ones, we always love to collect antiques, and I love fountain pens more then modern ballpoints.
The point is not the new always better then the old. The point is we must not force everyone to think the same, act the same and loyal to the same person and beliefs.
A society of uniformity is always a basic necessity to dictatorship, since it is more easier to control, the morality is much more “simple”, as well one man’s will can be much more easier to push to the mass. A country with only one religion is a thing of the past, and shouldn’t be brought back.
The world is progressing, so we must not satisfy with just some simple solutions and answers. Addiction to drugs is always bad, but why is it happening to some people, even some of them obviously know it is bad? Banning all the drugs is a simple solution (and very satisfying, too), but shouldn’t we consider a more effective way, like dealing with the reasons why people rather use drug: work stress, social pressure, self-esteem, purpose of life? Prostitution, in some’s mind or some religions’ moral code, are bad; but have you consider some solutions like stopping human trafficking to root out completely?
This is why I goes against present day’s Conservatism: they are not solving problem, they are simply waging a culture war, halting all progresses we fight for all those ages (and they even calls them “woke”, think they are some kinds of injustice), and in some cases, they even whitewash those dictatorships, aggressors and warmongers, and help them to windowdressing their crimes, as Alternative für Deutschland’s so-called “Vision 2026” shows.
These are not visions for AD 2026, but 1175 BC, roughly the time when Odysseus was trying to return home.