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Monday 13 July 2020

Aten vs Amun - Culture Wars reprised

Back in Ancient Egypt the land had many gods, who were worshipped more or less equally, to keep them all happy. Until that is one pharaoh came along and decreed that one god in particular was to be favoured - the disc of the Sun. This chap had been known as Amun-Ra until then; he became Aten. The other gods were to be neglected, abandoned. The world's first recorded culture war had broken out. And just as iconic images of women have changed today to feature huge arses, swollen lips, tiny waists and cartoonish features in a hideous distortion of the human form, they did exactly the same during the cult of the Aten. Distorted, unnatural.

Well the Aten thing lasted only about twenty years. Then the iconoclasts got to work destroying all those images of distorted people and throwing down the authoritarian decrees dictating what they could and couldn't say. Banned words were unbanned, and Egypt got back to normal, with extra sausages for all the gods who had been neglected for two decades and were feeling a bit miffed.

It was never about Sun gods, of course, just as the current culture war isn't really about black lives or pronouns or the rights of girls with todgers. It was an attempted take-over of Egyptian society by a metropolitan elite. That's not to say it didn't have a lasting effect - perhaps a greater prominence for the new ideas, a broadening of tolerance as established thinking shifted in its seat to accommodate the newcomer.

The Polish election is just another skirmish in the current culture war. Right now, as I write, it's too close to call. It's between a metropolitan liberal, comfortable with sexual diversity and open to new values and his opponent, a traditional maintainer of Polish dignity, big in the country and with those aged over 50. Whichever way it goes, it won't be an end of the schism.

And so with our own dear nation. The grounds of the skirmishes are rarely at the heart of the grounds of the war. We will see many small shifts of allegiances and mini-alliances formed and broken as a score of factions, a hundred factions, all jostle to be heard. Hey ho.

Huge arses and trout pouts are a feature of culture wars, it seems

13 comments:

Span Ows said...

I would be very surprised if Duda fails although it is much closer than I would have thought a few days ago so maybe I just spoke too soon...d'oh.

The Culture thing is just the same old shit with another mask: BLM, Exrinction Rebellion, Antifa, go back a few years to the Occupy crowd: they are all the same root, the same money, the same dick-head students (new generations added) led by the same agitators with nothing better to do. The Quarantine has geiven them several months instead of the normal several weeks over summer.

Span Ows said...

Be great if he wins 51.9 to 48.1% LOL

Anonymous said...

Law and Justice are socially conservative - which annoys some people here - but economically solidarist, and enjoying widespread support among trade union members. It is interventionist, and only mildly eurosceptic. You'd hate it.

DeeDee99 said...

Since the EU and assorted globalist "liberals" desperately want the metropolitan liberal to win, I shall consume a glass of Somerset craft cider if he loses.

Meanwhile, Will Jones over at The Conservative Woman is worth a read. He explains to "libertarian" :) Boris why he's going to have to tell the truth if he wants to save some of those service-sector jobs in London. Oh, and get the kiddies back to school.

I can't wait to see what restrictions the authoritarian nutters come up with when they graciously permit swimming pools to re-open.

DeeDee99 said...

"Poland's Duda wins election in narrow victory over liberal challenger"

Glass of cider it is :)

Span Ows said...

DeeDee, 51.2% to 48.8 - Boom

Raedwald, I am willing and happy to look at beauty in all its forms but some of the 'sculptured' ladies these days are taking it to extremes.

Dave_G said...


If authorities want to be PC about swimming pools they should ban blacks as they are proven to be more susceptible to Covid than whites.

So, they'll keep the swimming pools closed for the duration to avoid bringing attention to the fact.

Shop floor Stan said...

I’ve been in a trade union for twenty years. Over 30,000 members.
Not one of them has ever said a kind word about the EU that I’ve ever read or heard.

terence patrick hewett said...

The sexual life of the camel,
Is stranger than anyone thinks,
At the height of the mating season,
It tries to bugger the Sphinx.
But the Sphinx's nether proportions,
Are sunk in the sands of the Nile,
Which explains the hump on the camel,
And Sphinx's inscrutable smile.

In the process of civilization,
From anthropoid ape down to man,
It is generally held that the Navy,
Has buggered whatever it can.
Yet recent extensive researches,
By Darwin and Huxley and Hall,
Have conclusively proven the hedgehog,
Cannot be buggered at all.

We therefore believe our conclusion,
Is incontrovertibly shown,
That comparative safety on shipboard,
Is enjoyed by the hedgehog alone,
Why haven't they done it at Spithead,
As they have at Harvard and Yale,
And also at Oxford and Cambridge,
By pulling the spines from the tail?

Ed P said...

There was a programme about Akhenaten on the TV recently, which made a convincing case for him actually being the Moses of the Bible.

As Pharaoh, he banned the worship of the many Egyptian Gods, insisting the people should worship just one God. This was resisted and after several years, he fled from Egypt, crossing the Nile. The crossing was over a narrow section of the Nile flowing east-West, where strong winds will sometimes naturally part the waters.

The translation which became "The Red Sea" (for Moses) - the parting of the waters being an unlikely natural event - was said actually to be "The Reed Sea", i.e., a part of the Nile, much more possible to cross.

JuliaM said...

That's fascinating, I must catch that programme on repeat. I've never heard that theory before.

Span Ows said...

No, nor me, thanks Ed P

Greg T said...

What utter, total irrelevant bollocks.
If only because there are no "gods" of any sort, at all ...

True liberal values ( note the small "l" - should prevail.
And neither fascism (which is where we are heading at the moment) nor the utterly discredited supposed "socialism" of Corbyn & idiots to the left of him, should have no place in a civilised society.
Unfortunately far too many people here ( i.e. this blog )have bought into "populism" which is actually a mask for fascism-lite.