The Legacy of Puritans

[tealin]

Mr Lovecraft reminds me of the thought Mr Schama placed in my head: that I need to study the Puritans more in order to better understand the U.S.

' ... the product of generations of pathetic Puritanism; kindly, conscientious, and sometimes gentle and amiable, yet always narrow, intolerant, custom-ridden, and lacking in perspective.'

~ From The Plague-Daemon

Unfortunately most Americans' familiarity with their Calvinist founders stops at the Grade 2 Thanksgiving Feast reenactment. Puritans ... they were the ones with the buckled hats and big white collars, right? You mean Pilgrims. They landed at Mayflower and had Thanksgiving and nine months later America was born. The end.

Ohhh, historical ignorance.

I promise there will be drawings tomorrow.

Comments

[azvolrien.livejournal.com]

Oh, those wacky Puritans.

I've always thought the Pilgrims were Puritans. Were they? I know an abysmal amount of US history.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Yes, the Pilgrims were Puritans. In the US educational system, which I have the incomparable honour of having been processed through, you never really find out who the Puritans were, as a group, or as a political entity, or their history in England (which would explain why they came over) or what they believed in, which really had a lot of influence on the character of the nation and is still apparent even to this day. Most Americans know them only as the Pilgrims, though – they don't even know why they were called 'pilgrims' (as in someone who journeys somewhere for a religious purpose) and the ignorance as to who they actually were, as opposed to their symbolic status the American mythos, does everyone a disservice by removing a vital key in the understanding of the course of history.

I think that was a run-on sentence.

I'm sure Oliver Cromwell would have loved being called 'wacky' as well. ;)

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

... their symbolic status IN the American mythos ... (sorry)

[azvolrien.livejournal.com]

*feels less ignorant now* Whenever I hear about the Pilgrims, I always think about Eddie Izzard's spiel on them ("Yes, there's more of us coming, but we all keep out promises.").

Well, the Cerne Abbas giant was quite possibly somebody making fun of Cromwell, rather than an ancient fertility symbol. There isn't any mention of it in the local abbey's records before Ollie.

[azvolrien.livejournal.com]

*our promises.