“Transference
of fear and self-loathing to an authoritarian vessel. It’s catharsis. He absorbs their dread with his
narrative. Because of this, he is
effective in proportion to the amount of certainty he can project. Certain linguist anthropologists think that
religion is a language virus that rewrites pathways in the brain, dulls critical
thinking.”
Let me put
this show in the category of something we all like to think that we
understand better than everyone else. Of
course, this doesn’t apply to everyone – many people I talk to just simply
enjoy the show. They don’t think about
the symbolism, the clues throughout each episode that may foreshadow future
events, or the overall theme of the show.
Hell, one guy I talked to didn’t even notice the [[Spoiler Alert]] lawn
mower man at the end of Episode 7 had scars on his face. He just saw a strange beard. I guess, in some ways, those people are our
betters.
Buuuuut, I’m
kidding. We who think deeply about life
and about this show really are better than they are. I was listening to a podcast this morning done by some jackass sports bloggers I follow regularly (because I
apparently have the humor of a teenager - but hey, I laugh at what I laugh at) and this led me to revisiting the above quote from Episode 3.
I don’t need
to read True Detective reviews on Daily
Kos or Reason or RationalWiki or Salon or wherever it is that people go to
reinforce their own ideologies, to tell you how this quote was received online. With a standing ovation, especially by the
talentless and mindless commenters. The
vogue for slamming religion in a blasé manner has become so played out and
unoriginal, that anyone still doing it should be labeled as a hack, or at least
as lacking sophistication. (Never mind
that the “scientific” heroes that do this seem to reserve special animosity for
Judeo-Christian faiths.)
I’m not even offended by the critique itself. In fact, I love this quote. It certainly applies to my religion and probably to most others. But keep in mind that religion is no more than a vehicle by which man creates an internal orthodoxy through which he processes his reality. Defined this way, your religion can be any formula for thought, your tenants any standards you apply to the world, your preacher whatever external stimuli reinforce your conclusions and silence the fear that you are wrong, and your god whatever pinnacle you hope to evolve to within this orthodoxy. Is it any wonder why conservatives refer to the “religion” of the Left or of global warming? Perhaps, those things are actually quite real and workable, but many of their adherents follow the narrative of an “authoritarian vessel” with the same lack of critical thought that they sneer at in the religious.
I’m not even offended by the critique itself. In fact, I love this quote. It certainly applies to my religion and probably to most others. But keep in mind that religion is no more than a vehicle by which man creates an internal orthodoxy through which he processes his reality. Defined this way, your religion can be any formula for thought, your tenants any standards you apply to the world, your preacher whatever external stimuli reinforce your conclusions and silence the fear that you are wrong, and your god whatever pinnacle you hope to evolve to within this orthodoxy. Is it any wonder why conservatives refer to the “religion” of the Left or of global warming? Perhaps, those things are actually quite real and workable, but many of their adherents follow the narrative of an “authoritarian vessel” with the same lack of critical thought that they sneer at in the religious.
More on this
theme to come. We all worship a
god. And the source of all conflict may
be simply a disagreement about which one is best.
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