I was listening to the Art of Manliness Podcast. As usual I had my fluff filters on. The little boys trying to define manhood mentioned the cowboys taming the wild west. I was raised on the early years of TV when we had great cowboy shows. In addition to the long running Gunsmoke and Bonanza we had Maverick, Sugarfoot, Rawhide, The Cisco Kid, and Have Gun Will Travel. That is a short list. I don’t know how old I was when I began to realize that these portrayals of the past had as much accuracy as Star Wars describing the future. One of the mystical beliefs we had was the significance of the cowboy as a bringing of law and order.
That was a mistake. It was the farmers who tamed the wild west. Actually it was the farmers’ wives who tamed the wild west. They are the ones who held families together and perpetuated culture. They are the ones that reined in their men and made them act like adults. They got the churches built and the saloons shut down. They are the ones who put up the fences, sat on the juries and served on the posses. They are the ones who used the telegraph and railroad to bring an end to the crazies.
We make big mistakes when we believe what we see on any screen. That is true if it is a movie, a cartoon or a news blog. I don’t know if you ever saw Pocahontas. I refer to the cartoon movie. If you did you might remember John Smith as a tall, broad shouldered, blond stud and the governor as a pudgy, bearded dark character. In real life John Smith looked like the cartoon governor. When is the last time you saw a cowboy and Indian movie where the cavalry that rode to the rescue was made up of black soldiers? When was the last time you tried to fire a gun from a running horse and seceded in hitting even the broad side of a barn?
Go ahead and watch, but read and think also. Enjoy what I call the “Star Wars Effects”. At the same time don’t base your decisions on what someone trying to make money off of you told you.
Stay awake. Mark your ballot. Vote the suckers out. When you can’t vote them out try to find the least destructive choice.
homo unius libri
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Comments are welcome. Feel free to agree or disagree but keep it clean, courteous and short. I heard some shorthand on a podcast: TLDR, Too long, didn't read.