Starting off this back-post with a little bit of mood music, setting the mood and the stage. Bringing us back to England in the late nineties. With the rave track The messiah, featuring the quotes borrowed as a title; Who loves you, and who do you love? [Running Man]
This is part of my history, but also of a lot of myths. The summer of love. The happy generation. Bringing youths together in new ways, before Internet and mobiles dominated.
"Tribalism’s hothouse atmosphere has turned history into myth. ..., we use myth not to inform, but to bond"
Stories for children? Lies for adults... as they said in the Science of Discworld books. History is a selection, a bias, strengthens over time to support an image, an ideal, a group. But do we need it anymore at the national level?
Does it make sense to talk about the nation state in a grand perspective, when it is 14 billion years and change... And then at least ten thousand years of intelligent life (pun intended re source)?
Norway as a modern state dates back to 1905 or 1814, first parted from Denmark into a union with Sweden and then Independence. So why trace routes past four hundred years of assorted constellations jut to find a "true" past?
I for one am more influenced by ancient Greece, assorted enlightenment ideals, some English poets, thinkers and tinkerers. Not to mention the global, but US centric, online digital mash up of it all. Sure I enjoy the sagas and tales of old Norse gods and exploits. But they no more impact my daily life than does the Odyssey.
"We can found our identity on personal taste, not national myth. The future, in this reading, belongs to supranational groupings—football fans, jazz lovers, “Twilight” addicts—whose bonds soar over state boundaries like cut-price airlines"
Not one identity, but a mix suited to you, based on when and how you grew up, went to university and worked. Geography meet ideas. Limits, meet boundless.
So, I might be a Norwegian by birth, but I am a geek, a ManU man, 'enga in my heart and so on.
Not quite a brown coat, but certainly a wheedon'esqu gibson'reading free tweeting digitized mind.
Also an ex-consultant and an ENTJ, which pegs me more than any national boundary could ever possibly do. Personality goes a long way...
"Any worthwhile identity must grow from self-awareness as well as self-esteem, and the sceptical temperature of contemporary life is conducive to a journey of self-knowledge"
And with tools like blogs to reflect and for some also debate, the options are endless. To bad the time isn't. But keep on telling the stories, shaping the myths and maybe, just maybe you'll figure out; Who loves you, and who do you love?
...if not: it's time to start RUNNING
