A Conversation for The Great Awoke-ening Is Here!

Thanks for putting the Great Awakening in perspective. :-)

Post 1

paulh, vaccinated against the Omigod Variant

Your mention of the Dixie Chicks dropping Dixie from their name because of its association with the "land of cotton" made me think about the irony that Eli Whitney, who invented the cotton gin, came from Massachusetts. And what about the early Boston preacher known as Cotton Mather?

It appears that cotton is not grown in Massachusetts, but it *could* be, judging form this link:
http://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.25279/2015.25279.The--Empire-Cotton-Growing-Review-Vol-xv-1938_djvu.txt

I'm not trying to be persnickety, just following an idea farther than perhaps it should be followed.

Cotton can be grown in Pennsylvania, particularly Lancaster County
http://www.cotton.org/beltwide/proceedings/getPDF.cfm?year=1999&paper=220.pdf

For what it's worth, don't care what the Dixie Chicks call themselves. I thought their original name was charming, though. smiley - smiley Will referenecs to them include the note (formerly known as the Dixie Chicks)?


Thanks for putting the Great Awakening in perspective. :-)

Post 2

Dmitri Gheorgheni, Post Editor

Probably will. They're already referring to another set of clueless 'musicians' as 'the group formerly known as Lady Antebellum...'

The point I was making was that changes like this are not a matter of consumer choice. Doesn't matter if the group's fans 'mind' or not. It's about the baseline shifting - so that, agree or disagree, everybody has to start from a new set of assumptions. Of course, the music groups are doing this for commercial reasons, that goes without saying. smiley - laugh

It isn't about preserving the status quo ante - that's gone. Nor is it about memorising the intellectual laundry list of the know-alls with the most Twitter followers. People do not have to all learn how to deconstruct the whatsit.

It's about a sea change in groupthink. You know how people are always looking back at, say, ancient Rome and asking, 'How could those people have possibly thought this or that? How did they end up there?'

Well, we're watching it in real time. Sit back and enjoy. smiley - winkeye When it's done, say 'I told you so.'


Thanks for putting the Great Awakening in perspective. :-)

Post 3

FWR

I shall not start swimming, I prefer to sink like a stone, to paraphrase another annoying hippy!

Learn from the past but don't burn down the present just to score virtue signalling points.

My great uncle was tortured by the Japanese in WW2, wouldn't buy anything made there until the day he died, never forgave them their sins. Am I now to scrap my Japanese motorbike to appease the suffering of my ancestors? Shun IKEA because the Vikings ransacked and raped my Celtic tribal roots?

The times are a changing, probably for the better, but hanging onto the evils of the past and punishing the present, does nobody any good.

Just be nice to each other, I really don't care what the Georgians, Tudors, Vikings or Victorians did, they are NOT me!


Thanks for putting the Great Awakening in perspective. :-)

Post 4

Dmitri Gheorgheni, Post Editor

This is an excellent idea. smiley - smiley It is also an excellent idea to remember to have empathy for people who lived in the past, but not overidentify with them as a group. They are not you.

Part of the problem of 'finding your roots' is not realising that this doesn't require you to defend the actions of your idiot ancestors. We all have them. They are a subject for study, not a form of social identity.

As I believe Krishnamurti said, you should look at them 'without praise or blame'. Yes, it says 'CSA' on my great-great-great-grandfather's tombstone. Do I know what he thought he was doing at the Battle of Murfreesboro, apart from trying to stay alive? No, I do not. (There was a draft: you couldn't legally avoid it. North Carolina actually tortured some dissenting Quakers to death. There was peer pressure, etc.)

All I know is that my great-aunt said he liked the looks of the place - if you took away the cannon and the 80,000 desperate fools shooting wildly in all directions. So after the war, he packed up his covered wagon, hitched a team of oxen to it, and crossed the Appalachian mountains to go and live not far from there in what I insist is a woodland paradise, with the romantic name of Lost Creek. (Disney liked it, too: they filmed a live-action 'Jungle Book' there.)

Am I bound by whatever notions they had back then? Heck, no. I've never even driven an ox team.

And now, a gratuitous Bible quote.

'In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge.

But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge.'
Jeremiah 31:29-30


Thanks for putting the Great Awakening in perspective. :-)

Post 5

FWR

Maybe it wasn't such a great idea coming down from the trees in the first place? The more enlightened or awokened society becomes, the more 'we' seem to revert to animals. (apologies to all animals) Put people in boxes and some idiot will kick it for a laugh.


Thanks for putting the Great Awakening in perspective. :-)

Post 6

Dmitri Gheorgheni, Post Editor

smiley - laugh Say, maybe, that being 'woke' - that is what my elders called 'knowing better than to do that' - is the price we pay for coming down from the trees in the first place?


Thanks for putting the Great Awakening in perspective. :-)

Post 7

paulh, vaccinated against the Omigod Variant

I was going to ask the question "Where is Lost Creek?" but it occurred to me that one possible answer might be "If it's lost, then no one knows."


Thanks for putting the Great Awakening in perspective. :-)

Post 8

Dmitri Gheorgheni, Post Editor

smiley - laugh I think it's 'lost' because it goes underground. There are caves and waterfalls. The waterfalls attracted the Disney people.

Unfortunately, they have now attracted tourists. smiley - sigh I treasure a memory of swimming there with a cousin when we were teens - there was not a soul for miles around. It was hot as blazes, and the water was ice cold.

http://youtu.be/iXmG5mjeI2s?t=221


Thanks for putting the Great Awakening in perspective. :-)

Post 9

FWR

certainly lost to the native Americans...aboriginal Americans..first people in America...but they weren't actually Americans then..help help the woke police have come for me smiley - run arghhhhh!


Thanks for putting the Great Awakening in perspective. :-)

Post 10

paulh, vaccinated against the Omigod Variant

There must be more than one Lost Creek, then.

I thought you meant the one in Texas, but the youtube video is for one in Tennessee.

That video looks very refreshing. Must be a great spot.


Thanks for putting the Great Awakening in perspective. :-)

Post 11

Dmitri Gheorgheni, Post Editor

It's in Tennessee, Paul, and you're right - it's beautiful. smiley - smiley

As for who was there before the European types got there, the local river is named for Chief Calfkiller, a Cherokee leader. When I was a kid, I didn't know about Chief Calfkiller, and I thought the river was just treacherous to cows. smiley - facepalm Locally, that's pronounced 'Kayfe-killer'. According to a cousin who was 3 at the time, a 'kayfe' is a 'li'l-beedy kiaow'.

http://www.spartatn.gov/nature-draws-first-settlers

My great-great-great-grandmother wasn't Cherokee. We don't know exactly, but since she came from the Waxsaws in South/North Carolina (it straddled the border at that time), I'm guessing possibly Catawba?

Another mystery lost in the mists of time and poor record-keeping...


Thanks for putting the Great Awakening in perspective. :-)

Post 12

paulh, vaccinated against the Omigod Variant

We have some Catawba trees growing valiantly in places where people would prefer that they not grow. I'm too tired to fight them any longer.

I consider them beautiful and underappreciated


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