The ‘Z Blog’ continues to post articles that will have you looking at the challenges of our times at slightly different angles. I don’t know if the arguments they introduce and the theories they expound are founded in sound social theory but if your looking for a voice of a different tenor you’ll want to take a look. Their site here. Below is a little piece I snatched from their pages.
Because all societies begin low and violent, purity and grandeur arise from distance from their origin. The rulers and the people must put distance between themselves and the origins of their people, in order to give purpose to the perpetuation of their people, but they can never be disconnected from their origins. Instead, they mythologize them in order to both disguise the reality of their beginnings, but celebrate themselves as part of the natural order. The origin myth is a pretty lie that keeps us looking forward.
The most obvious example of how this works is the Lincoln fetish we see with our ruling class in America. Both sides venerate Lincoln and the Gettysburg address, The Civil War has been cast as the second founding, a purification ritual that addressed the original sin of slavery and republicanism in the founding. Rather than being seen as a break from the founding, which is surely was, it is a continuation of it. Lincoln the usurper, is replaced with Lincoln the saint, who saved the republic.
The Gettysburg Address now holds more emotional power for our elites than the actual founding documents. At some level, Lincoln certainly knew he was a usurper and that speech is pretty good proof of it. He allegedly jotted it down without much thought, but it shows all the signs of a man who knew he destroyed the old order and was now tasked with creating a new one. Starting with a lie about his own motivations was the most obvious place to start. It was the usurper announcing his victory.