Science Forums 2

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by lemit

So, anybody interested in talking about Frederick Jackson Turner's "The Frontier In American History?" What about the "Green World Myth," widely held to be the informing myth of all of the Americas?

Oh, we're not really discussing "America the Myth" here, are we?

Nearly 100 posts and 4 years since this thread was started, it’s easy to concentrate ones attention on its title, and forget its opening post,

Originally Posted by DFINITLYDISTRUBD

For 30 years every person of authority has fed me (and you) the same old lies. They proudly proclaim (with their fingers crossed no less ) that as an american I'm lucky. I live in the land of milk and honey. No other nation in the world is as free or well off as the good ol U.S.A.
I say not true. Why?:
Lets start at the begining:
From grades k-12 children and young adults are required (forced) to swear allegience to the U.S. (there are penalties for noncompliance) ...

We’d do well, I think to rename it “America the Myth (re: the Pledge of Allegiance)”. If there are no objections, of if DD doesn’t do it first, I'll do that.

The thread could also stand, I suspect, a good moderatorly “raking” of its several subthemes into separate threads, as can many threads in this and other forums. Alas, hypography’s all-volunteer moderators have limited time, so not every needed organizational cleanup will get done.

Originally Posted by lemit

When you think about all the environmental issues that can't be dealt with in a straightforward manner because they bump up against our deep-seated frontier psyches and their informing myths, we probably should discuss "America the Myth" somewhere. And when you think about our dealings with the rest of the world . . . well, you can guess where I'm going. We need to have that discussion.

Can we do that here, or is there a better place?

My advice is “better place = new thread”. As noted above, this is a very old thread which was intended to be about a specific conflict between a political ideal and reality, not the whole class of such conflicts.