Dream of the Dragon

May 28, 2010

Mourning Aftermath

by Justin

“A ritual is an opportunity to participate in a myth. You are in one way or another putting your consciousness, even the action of your body, into play in relation to a mythological theme, and, as I hope I’ve made clear, mythological themes are projections of the order of the psyche… by participating in a ritual occasion you are in a magical field, a field that is putting you in touch with your own great depth.”

Joseph Campbell from The Myths and Masks of God

In the thick of a more immediate and shocking wave of grief, I’ve started mourning the absence of ritual in my life. Ritual, mind you, not worship. America, or rather post-industrial culture in general, lacks a strong tradition of practicing ritual without specific and distracting religious baggage. Read the rest of this entry »

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May 27, 2010

On Unrealistic Idealism

by Justin

It’s become more and more apparent to me that the extreme polarization of politics in this country isn’t only among the politicians, figureheads, lobbyists, talk-show hosts, whatever – it’s grassroots, too. Sure, the liberal extreme will never match the fevered fanaticism of the Tea Party. That sort of militant (as in gun toting) ignorance lends itself better to insane slogans and rallies than the so-called informed opinions of their liberal opponents. But both camps seem incapable of listening to one another. More importantly, neither side understands the way this country works.

Extremism has its place in politics. It’s useful to demand impossible degrees of excellence, because otherwise the eventual compromise would be laughably insufficient. Read the rest of this entry »

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May 26, 2010

New Genesis

by Justin

Mankind may now be capable of executing the greatest and most miraculous act of divinity: creation. From chemical scratch a couple scientists managed to cross the Frankenstein threshold. Maybe. I slipped rapidly from mindblown elation into a sort of cynicism about just how devastating this news is. I’m not a frontlines reporter, so all I can do is read the work of the professionals and then form opinions. Often I rely upon journalists to articulate my own opinions and do the distillation work for me. What does one do, then, when the Atlantic, Guardian, and the Economist frame this revelation so differently? I stumbled upon this first in the Economist:

Craig Venter and Hamilton Smith, the two American biologists who unravelled the first DNA sequence of a living organism (a bacterium) in 1995, have made a bacterium that has an artificial genome—creating a living creature with no ancestor. Read the rest of this entry »

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