Puritan Myth as the Background for American National Mentality

Unit I

Why do nations need underlying myths?

Nations need underlying myths in order to feel their unity, to mark their difference from other nations, to ground their national self identification in common past, to share certain stories, concepts, and heroes. Present-day scholars point out that any national ideology is based, first and foremost, on canonized and sacralized national culture in its temporal and local integrity (often imaginary), including its system of values and beliefs, its traditional myths and heroes. Benedict Anderson’s influential book on nations calls them “imagined communities”.

If nation is a cultural construct, national myths are a form of expressing ideas, concepts, and dreams of intellectuals underlying the unity of a community. According to Benedict Anderson, members even of the smallest nation could never know the majority of their compatriots, but each of them had and image of their communality. It is not real relations in a community that make it a nation, but imagined, including cultural.

National mythology is instrumental in solving the problem of self-identification that figures prominently in present-day postmodern society, is central in late 20^th – early 21^st cc. literature. Nations aware of their mythology are stronger since the members of a society are aware of their connection with other representatives of the community even without direct contacts with them, since they share the same ideas, symbols, etc.

Especially today – in a rapidly shifting world there is a need for stable truths not subject to historical changes. Ernest Gellner – culture is unifying factor (as a system of ideas, thoughts, signs, connections, practices, behaviors, ways of communication).

Assignment. Summarize your understanding of national mythology.

Main idea: Puritan concept of building New Eden in the New World underlies the American mentality.

Main issues:

- Providential Puritan mindset; concept of “Covenant with God”; belief in being an “elected nation” (parallel to Israel), reliance upon Old Testament, typology

- Vision of America as “New Jerusalem” (“City on the Hill”, “New Eden”)

- Belief in the sacred mission of New England settlers

- Americans as “new Adams”

- Idea of human innate sinfulness, intolerance, fanaticism (“witch-hunting”), sexual taboos

- Cult of work, perception of riches as award to righteous men; the concept of “salvation”

- Self-reflexivity (diaries, journals, notebooks)

- Emblematic, sign-based thinking – reading God’s will in any event, no matter how insignificant

- Factors causing the Puritan myth’s viability

Key Concepts:

v Pilgrim Fathers (Mayflower, Plymouth Rock,1620) – «Батьки-пілігрими»

v New Eden – “новий Едем”

v New Jerusalem – “новий Єрусалим”

v City on the Hill – “місто на пагорбі”

v Errand into the Wilderness – “місія в пустелі”

v New Adam – “новий Адам”

v Promised land – земля обітована

v Covenant with God – договір (контракт) з Богом

v American Jeremiad – американська єреміада

Дата добавления: 2015-06-27