By Harald J. Kiczka
Lorenzo Ravagli: Divided face
The contrast between angloprotestantischem sense of mission and the creation myth of the Hopi Indians with a message of peace and prophetic visions of the future Ravagli Lorenzo, in his book published in the fall to the roots of American state and exposes the inner turmoil of a country to understand that searches an imperial megalomania and isolationism after an orientation. \u0026lt;Amerika Selbst> looking after themselves is the subtitle of this book, which tries Ravagli structured in four chapters, making this enigmatic empire understandable. Thus the book with its 114 pages a compact analysis, however, more than 230 years of history of the confluence and merging diverse currents, mainly from the Europe of the Enlightenment. We find not only the historical Foundations for today's America in its policies, its social life, its culture and religions, but also that of the spirituality of indigenous people, the example of the Hopi Indians. This long-overdue assessment of the \u0026lt;indianischen Amerikas> countenance occupies a large part pleasing, makes us acquainted with the myths of the Native Americans, and points to the spiritual impulse. Thus, in their world view of human origins in the cosmos, and there is also its future.
child of the Enlightenment
Ravagli points to the essential feature of American identity that America since its founding in Anglo-Saxon traditions, relies on the Calvinist Puritanism and the related ethics. America is a child of the Enlightenment, posits the author, as has been put up "the first time in the history of the western part of humanity in the New World to create out of rational considerations, a company that not only a centuries-long tradition should "be justified but by ideas. America is, according to the author, an artificial creation that has emerged from specific European ideas.
In clear easy steps outlined the development of the American form of Protestantism. Ravagli quoting Gunnar Myrdal, in his view, the religious, ethnic, regional and economic Americans shattered by a common social ethos and political beliefs are held together. There are elements of belief in freedom, equality of opportunity, individualism, and justice. This \u0026lt;amerikanische Glaube> is therefore the creation of a dissenting Protestant culture, according to Gilbert Keith Chesterton the secular credo of a "nation with the soul of a church." In other words, it is the civil religion of America.
\u0026lt;Gelobtes Land>
is clearly in Ravaglis pleadings that the Protestant origins of American culture in the puritanism of the early settlers are due. Religious reasons for the colonization of America were key driving forces that have been preserved. Many immigrant groups have been marked by religious self-understanding of the colonists as a community of elect who had made a covenant with God. She likes to compare himself with the Israelites, led by Moses from captivity in Egypt. The first settlers of America came out of the "old corrupt Europe" to establish a model for the rest of the world a \u0026lt;Stadt on a Berg> that \u0026lt;New Jerusalem>. They all lived in Land> \u0026lt;Gelobten in \u0026lt;Gottes Land> own, and felt - as the last years of the reign right circles have been under the direction of evangelical fundamentalists - many still feel their country is the \u0026lt;New Israel> with a mission sanctioned by God, and religious references are primarily Old Testament.
mystery
Ravagli summarizes the American cultural history and opens the reader the possibility that America can understand better today on its historic foundations. The \u0026lt;Gespaltene Antlitz> is not only the result of projections, depending on which setting looks to the viewer on the \u0026lt;Amerikanische>. Ravagli names the two ways of looking at Amerikaphilie and America phobia. He has occasionally haughty intellectual critics of America and the Americans in their place by showing them holds a mirror. "If the Europeans today look to the West, they see in a mirror, [...] appears only in that mirror magnified everything and all the more easier to see."
America is the first time a state entity, which is composed of nearly all ethnicities, religions, races and languages of the world. The second coming of Christ, the numerous religious groups are expected in the U.S., "occurs on spiritual way in the encounter between people, between cultures and peoples." In this Sounds of comforting words that may be leading the American people on this path of individuals and of humanity to Christ. This book is recommended to anyone who wants to understand the "mysterious empire in the West" (Klaus Harpprecht) and estimated an anthroposophical approach that does not need to keep to well-known terms.
face Divided: America in search of its identity , gate-Verlag, Dornach 2008th
Originally published in the journal "The Goetheanum.
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