Between questions on True Religions and Christine Wicker's book, "We're Not in Kansas Anymore," it is hard to find a place to begin. Where does "practical sense" come from? Where does magic begin and end? Does it include religion? And just who, exactly, are the suckers?
The suckers; the parents to the Baby Boomers, now re-titled the Greatest Generation, were so called because of the hard times they went through and overcame. This produced a no-nonsense approach to life which I think can be found in my childhood's favorite character, Bugs Bunny. "What a moroon!" Bugs would say of dreamers and oddballs, and so it was with my parent's generation: look to the facts of life and work with what you find. Don't believe in pie in the sky crap (another phrase from the 1930's). Have religion if you wish, but keep it out of the boardroom or factory. Don't be a sucker or you will be punished in very real terms. They were a far cry from the founding Pilgrims, who were furious over the sinful behavior of the colonials that followed them - why, they went for the money! God was supposed to be all, but the Yankee character took another turn and became synonymous with the sharp and often dishonest salesman. My home state of Connecticut is also known as the Nutmeg State, as the nutmeg vendors of the colonial era were known for their shrewdness and attention to the dollar. They could spot a sucker a mile away.
They had practical sense, as did my parent's generation - they knew how to make a buck and keep it. There is nothing wrong with that, but to many in my generation, that was not enough. It was too shallow and did not fulfill the soul. A lot of us thus became, like myself, suckers - throwbacks, in many ways and in spite of the drugs and sex, to the founding Americans. But what of reality? Being tightly practical IS a good way to make bucks and save them, but does it really reflect reality? And this is the problem and interest I am having with Wicker's book.
No, Bugs Bunny knew little of realty - not the spacey, new-age stuff, but the REAL stuff - atoms, energy equations, light waves and particles, and gravity. If you told him he was not matter as he thought of it, but rather a slowed-down form of energy, he'd quickly steal a carrot from you and call you a 'moroon.' But he would be wrong. Reality, even as defined by our priests of reality, the scientists, is not anything like what the practical man knows - and yet, he, our daily Bugs, is the smart guy. He knows an apple from a turnip, and a magical spell from a carburetor. Or so he thinks.
On the other hand, a lot of what Wicker describes IS at best nonsense. She opens with a visit to a witch's party in Salem, where people who are convinced that they are vampires roam. Many are also convinced that they can curse you, cause you to fall in love, or cause you to fail or succeed by types of magic exemplified by voodoo dolls, or one's that use hair or fingernails from the subject. As was proven all too clearly by the Western colonial conquerors, this magic seemed to work only on those who believed. The white man did not die when his stolen lock of hair was burned, or a fingernail was dropped into some sour milk. No, the practical won and the magical became subjects or slaves. That is our Western history and it is largely true.
Where does the truth of magic lie? We might find it in religion, which is also thought to be wishful thinking and silly magic by the practical man. Others more conciliatory believe that magic is a decadent offshoot of religion, but both fall in the same overall category to the skeptic; there is little proof that either work or are correct. Both fall into the subjective realm, although most religions, unlike magic, do not promise results. It is for this reason that some of little faith (or so it might be said) practice both magic and religion - one to get the job or the love interest, the other to stay in good with the BIG god or gods. For those of much faith, results and proof are not to be expected. Jesus, for instance, especially blessed those who believed in him with faith alone, unlike his disciples who saw the risen Christ. Suckers, anyone?
And yet - the sucker's also the sucker. His life is flat, often wrong even from a scientific perspective, and the answers to the bigger questions must simply be sloughed off - because the answers to these questions do not conform to his reality pattern. But as Wicker points out, in reality the practical man is a hard item to find. Most have their private magic, their belief that making it through five lights in a row or finding five bucks in the snow means that a good day - a lucky day - is coming. Some have magic talismans, an item that they keep for good luck or as a guardian, others see in the health of a plant given to them at the start of their business the future success of the business, or a bad event before a big trip is planned an augury of a disastrous trip. Some think eating carrots will keep away cancer, others that exercise will protect them from aging; and many scientists believe in their theories well beyond the point in which facts would tell them that they are wrong; that, too, is a kind of magic.
And so we have the set-up: what is there that we can call reasonably real? Who, really, is the sucker and who the wise guy? We will hopefully sort some of this out in following days. FK
The suckers; the parents to the Baby Boomers, now re-titled the Greatest Generation, were so called because of the hard times they went through and overcame. This produced a no-nonsense approach to life which I think can be found in my childhood's favorite character, Bugs Bunny. "What a moroon!" Bugs would say of dreamers and oddballs, and so it was with my parent's generation: look to the facts of life and work with what you find. Don't believe in pie in the sky crap (another phrase from the 1930's). Have religion if you wish, but keep it out of the boardroom or factory. Don't be a sucker or you will be punished in very real terms. They were a far cry from the founding Pilgrims, who were furious over the sinful behavior of the colonials that followed them - why, they went for the money! God was supposed to be all, but the Yankee character took another turn and became synonymous with the sharp and often dishonest salesman. My home state of Connecticut is also known as the Nutmeg State, as the nutmeg vendors of the colonial era were known for their shrewdness and attention to the dollar. They could spot a sucker a mile away.
They had practical sense, as did my parent's generation - they knew how to make a buck and keep it. There is nothing wrong with that, but to many in my generation, that was not enough. It was too shallow and did not fulfill the soul. A lot of us thus became, like myself, suckers - throwbacks, in many ways and in spite of the drugs and sex, to the founding Americans. But what of reality? Being tightly practical IS a good way to make bucks and save them, but does it really reflect reality? And this is the problem and interest I am having with Wicker's book.
No, Bugs Bunny knew little of realty - not the spacey, new-age stuff, but the REAL stuff - atoms, energy equations, light waves and particles, and gravity. If you told him he was not matter as he thought of it, but rather a slowed-down form of energy, he'd quickly steal a carrot from you and call you a 'moroon.' But he would be wrong. Reality, even as defined by our priests of reality, the scientists, is not anything like what the practical man knows - and yet, he, our daily Bugs, is the smart guy. He knows an apple from a turnip, and a magical spell from a carburetor. Or so he thinks.
On the other hand, a lot of what Wicker describes IS at best nonsense. She opens with a visit to a witch's party in Salem, where people who are convinced that they are vampires roam. Many are also convinced that they can curse you, cause you to fall in love, or cause you to fail or succeed by types of magic exemplified by voodoo dolls, or one's that use hair or fingernails from the subject. As was proven all too clearly by the Western colonial conquerors, this magic seemed to work only on those who believed. The white man did not die when his stolen lock of hair was burned, or a fingernail was dropped into some sour milk. No, the practical won and the magical became subjects or slaves. That is our Western history and it is largely true.
Where does the truth of magic lie? We might find it in religion, which is also thought to be wishful thinking and silly magic by the practical man. Others more conciliatory believe that magic is a decadent offshoot of religion, but both fall in the same overall category to the skeptic; there is little proof that either work or are correct. Both fall into the subjective realm, although most religions, unlike magic, do not promise results. It is for this reason that some of little faith (or so it might be said) practice both magic and religion - one to get the job or the love interest, the other to stay in good with the BIG god or gods. For those of much faith, results and proof are not to be expected. Jesus, for instance, especially blessed those who believed in him with faith alone, unlike his disciples who saw the risen Christ. Suckers, anyone?
And yet - the sucker's also the sucker. His life is flat, often wrong even from a scientific perspective, and the answers to the bigger questions must simply be sloughed off - because the answers to these questions do not conform to his reality pattern. But as Wicker points out, in reality the practical man is a hard item to find. Most have their private magic, their belief that making it through five lights in a row or finding five bucks in the snow means that a good day - a lucky day - is coming. Some have magic talismans, an item that they keep for good luck or as a guardian, others see in the health of a plant given to them at the start of their business the future success of the business, or a bad event before a big trip is planned an augury of a disastrous trip. Some think eating carrots will keep away cancer, others that exercise will protect them from aging; and many scientists believe in their theories well beyond the point in which facts would tell them that they are wrong; that, too, is a kind of magic.
And so we have the set-up: what is there that we can call reasonably real? Who, really, is the sucker and who the wise guy? We will hopefully sort some of this out in following days. FK
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