Westboro Baptist Church: Jonathan Edwards' Legacy Revived?

After reading the gist of Jonathan Edwards' piece, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, I can't help but feel a little bit of disgust at what he is saying because I've been so influenced and so surrounded by my many peers who are atheist or agnostic or at least, non-Christian. I guess it's really been a part of today's youth, liberal, atheist culture, to look down on with disgust and contempt and ridicule on what we see as stupid, uneducated, devout, Bible-thumping, hill-billy, conservative Christians who we view as having these arrogant and self-righteous beliefs about who's going to hell and who isn't, and I just can't help but feel a little disgust at that. It's because of so many cultural and media influences, and even though I'm not really sure what I believe, I still have doubts about what I've been fed by my own peers. 

In class, we talked about the Edwards' and his Puritan thoughts, with the whole consensus being one of mockery of the idea of a fiery Hell and "Hey, his ideas are crazy extreme!" Well, I wanted to shout out as well, "Well, maybe you're crazy! Maybe because you all are living in this present moment that you think that! Maybe it's singly the influences of today's culture that make you think that, since you're all so young, you haven't had the chance to explore the ideas and thoughts of other cultures and times! Who knows what you'd think if you were all born a century in the future! Maybe we are all only perpetuating the beliefs of today, not of ourselves!"

But then again, I'm not that kind of person.

I guess what I mean to say is that I maintain doubt on both sides of the religious and the non-religious, the atheist and the agnostic, the pantheist and the pagan, or whatever. It's all really kind of confusing. 

I mean, look at the Westboro Baptist Church. We view them as crazy, condemning, "you're-going-to-hell" people, and maybe that's what they are, crazy, condemning, "you're-going-to-hell" people. But go back to colonial times and they're just the Brady Bunch of the 1700s.

So I guess what my point is that belief is based on perspective of time period. With like the ancient Aztecs or Mayans who never heard of Christianity, so are they going to hell? So, this brings into doubt so many other things about my own belief system; shouldn't truth be an everlasting thing that is not subject to time? So, what is the truth? Is there any truth at all? Have we missed it? Is it coming?

So what I really guess my point is that...well—stuff is confusing. And I regret having written myself into this hole of confusion. 

God, I Love Sherman Alexie

"Ni hao."

"Oh, I don't speak Chinese. I'm Korean."

"Wait, what?"

"Yeah."

"I totally thought that you were Chinese."

"Well, I'm not, haha."

"So, you're Korean. North or South?"

"Uh, yeah, my family totally crossed over DMZ into South Korea, somehow afforded a plane ticket to Midwestern America, and managed to live in a well-to-do suburban community."

"...Oh, wow."

And, like any other self-respecting Korean, I would loudly defend my proud South (NOT North) Korean nationality. This conversation is bound to happen with almost all of my friends. It just does. And I'm not spiteful or angry, it just happens. And that's okay.

***

After having read Sherman Alexie's "fictional" memoir, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, as well as another of his hilarious books, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, I've decided to address what it means to be the first child of an Asian immigrant family in a well-to-do suburban community.

Let's begin.

Granted, stereotypes exist for some sort of truth, whether minorities like it or not, and, I'm ashamed to say, that a lot of my Asian friends (okay, all of my friends) fit a good number of them.

For example, due to America's view of Asians and from what stereotypes I'm aware of, I am supposed to...

Have small slits for eyes

Have extremely conservative and strict parents.

No speak Engrish.

Be unathletic.

Be a piano virtuoso or a violin virtuoso.

Have a blackbelt in kung fu.

Be a doctor or engineer when I grow up.

Have no fashion sense.

And look like everyone else in China, Japan, and/or Korea.

Of course, I fit all of these.

I'm kidding! I'm kidding. 

I never took kung fu.*

But the sad truth about Native Americans or even all other ethnicities is the dark side that occupies each one of them. I bet you don't want to hear about the tear-filled nights of bad grades, or the frustrations of an "A-Average Asian" to become the best that her parents pushed her to be. The hours of intense solitude sprinkled with the hope of making it to the Ivies. The resentment, the resignation, the stress. You don't want to hear about that, just like how it's painful to read Alexie's dark tales of booze-filled, hunger-filled, and hopeless experiences on a reservation. And yet, at the same time, it's these experiences that bring us closer to one another. Anecdotes of punishments, lectures, and that "one time when," help us to cope with our own dark secrets. The kind that are shared by everyone. 

*I took judo.

How Does Fear Fuel Hysteria and the Mob Mentality?

This concept of the "mob mentality" has been analyzed and observed in many novels over history as well as in the individual reader.

In terms of our summer reading, the concept is most directly introduced in Huck Finn, when Colonel Sherburn confronts the mob outside his house. He says that the mob mentality was only engendered by one fool who screamed to "lynch him! Lynch him!" This led others around him to begin fearing embarrassment and ridicule for not joining in. Thus began a domino effect, until everyone was peer pressured into conglomerating into a lynch mob. Colonel Sherburn asserts that no one really wants to lynch him, as they just want to follow the crowd. It is this fear of embarrassment and peer pressure, that forces them to his door.

We can also see the example of mob mentality when the duke and the king's ridiculous rip off performance convinces its initial audience to lie to the rest of the town. The first audience is quickly embarrassed and so agrees, as a whole, to lie to the rest of the town so that they are not the only ones fooled. This trickery and deception only occurs because of fear and embarrassment

In ninth grade English, we first learned about the mob mentality in To Kill a Mockingbird. It has its relations with racism against Tom Robinson. When the mob gathers outside, Atticus explains that one of the men there, Mr. Cunningham, is a good person but that he's allowed the mob mentality to pressure him into joining outside.

To be honest, when I first read that chapter in Huck Finn, I felt that Sherburn's whole speech was kind of unexpected and unnecessarily included. To a first time reader attempting to quickly finish her summer reading, the speech was confusing and out of place. I found myself asking, "Why did Twain include this speech?" However, after some contemplation, I found that the theme of mob mentality is consistent with the rest of the book. It's an example of an extreme form of peer pressure. It's a comment on Huck's experiences with racism, with religion, and with society overall.