Individuality fosters American Innocence?

When looking at the myth of “American Innocence” there are points when I find it hard to see my countries faults especially in certain wars. World War II is one that I feel many Americans might see it hard to not find innocence. We were trying to stay out of the war, but Japan bombed [...]

And then …

Whether the need is, as Wuthnow puts it, to be “examining our [nation’s underlying] assumptions” (Wuthnow, American Mythos: 220) or whether it is, as Jewett writes, “a need for theological reflection” (Jewett, Mission and Menace: 302), commentators both Christian and secular are aware of the state of America: we have bought, often unthinkingly, into the [...]

New Frontiers

The original Maverick wasn’t a fighter pilot. He was a cowboy.
Who is the tall dark stranger there?
Maverick is the name.
Riding the trail to who knows where
Luck is his companion
Gamblin’ is his game.
In Campbell and Kean’s American Cultural Studies, a brief discussion of the effect of the Western mythos on our culture states, “anyone who seeks [...]

History and Saturday mornings- a powerful combination.

Personally, the American myths or deep narratives that are the strongest to me are those I saw on Saturday mornings as a child during School House Rock, a mix of cartoons, snappy 70’s music and education, which around the bi-centennial focused on the founding of the United States.  (Everybody sing with me now, “We the people…”)  One particularly [...]