Is there any merit at all to this accusation?

[del]

Of course it was.

Are you familiar with Speech Act theory? John Searle is the most relevant and effective representative of the group, IMO, and Vygotsky, Habermas and other post-modernist philosophers? Many have focused on the role of language in shaping behavioral norms.

At the risk of way over-simplifying, I'll briefly summarize for those not familiar with an essential precept of post-modernism:

1) Societies create myths in order to dramatize desirable behaviors and exaggerate behaviors deemed undesirable for the deliberate indoctrination of the young and to serve as primary role models for adults, as well. This function of FICTION is also elevated by Aristotle as a primary social POSITIVE effect -- where Aristotle's own teacher, Plato, had rejected fiction as a great social corrupter and advocated the expulsion of all "poets" (writers of fiction, including playwrights and actors) as a great threat to any Republic, Aristotle claimed that fiction teaches social norms critical to the survival of the Republic. And we've long acknowledged the role of tales like Cinderella in teaching helpless dependency of the Male Prince Charming for survival in a corrupt and potentially abusive world.

2) Where Speech Act theory gets innovative is in the idea that there are two "directions of fit" in ALL language use, not just fictions, but non-fiction as well, because non-fiction ALSO is intricately and inescapably mixed into Personal INTERPRETATION of real world phenomena. As Bahktin notes, every person is a product of prior experiences, which includes what we read and what we hear AND WHAT WE SAY TO OTHERS, so that, in typing this summary, I AM ALSO RESHAPING my OWN understanding of this precept, becoming my own experiential shaper of my own preconceived perceptions and interpretations which will need REVISION from exposure to still further real world experiences (both reading, physically acting and reacting, and reverbalization in talking with others of different societal + self actualization).

3) The first direction of fit, most common and the earliest noted in childhood (stuff like pretending to be Robin Hood or some other semi-historical way exaggerated "hero"), is the person shaping beliefs, values, and behaviors to FIT the tale the child has heard (or seen in movies or pretended in online gaming stuff) -- we all use ROLE MODELS to shape our own attitudes and understandings of what Aristotle called the Universal Human Condition -- some of those role models come from real life experiences (a teacher we either love or hate, a parent or relative, and our own peers) -- and some of them are societally advocated FICTIONS based on somebody else's INTERPRETATION of the Universal Human Condition. So, most children -- especially young adults -- and some adults in our communities are forever allowing some behaviors and rigidly refusing to engage in others BECAUSE OF A SEMI-UNCONSCIOUS imitation of a person who DOES NOT EXIST except in our own half-imagined recreations of our experiences.

So, Joe, at 4, encounters the movie, Pocohauntus. Joe does NOT see the totality of the character of John Smith -- he RECREATES the movie character in his own mind, based on values he's already learned from previous experiences -- this FICTIONALIZED RECREATION of the movie character is itself a FICTIONALIZED RECREATION in somebody else's brain, only partially recognized even by the person who created the FICTION in the first place. The IMAGINARY RECREATION of an imaginary recreation of the real John Smith becomes a romanticized and highly idealized ROLE MODEL for Joe, aged 4. For some time -- probably for all his life -- Joe will judge his own behaviors by comparing THIS MOMENT in his real world to this imaginary recreation of a HERO he doesn't even fully know he's got floating around in his subconscious.

First direction of fit: Joe will do WHAT HE THINKS his "hero" would do in the same or similar situations -- personal responses SHAPED TO FIT A MYTH.

And this same romanticization/fictionalization occurs when in contact with ANY real world phenomenon -- especially with other people -- we create Heroes and Villains BECAUSE WE NEED HEROES AND VILLAINS as guides for our own behaviors -- myths --

if you read Hayslip's autobiographies of life as first a VC in Nam and then an anti-VC and American sympathizer in Saigon, and finally a refugee in the US, you see this first direction of fit in full bloom.

3) the second direction of fit is very much illustrated in Kingston's own autobiographies as a Chinese American.

In this direction of fit, we start off with the first one, Heroes and Villains, deliberately created by society (in Kingston's case, it was a "noble female ancestress" who didn't resist even her own murder by an abusive husband -- the object of that Myth was to teach Kingston to submit to male dominance and be a "good little Chinese wife and mother" according to the old pre-American frontier model of what "good" and "bad" women are like).

However, in Kingston's case, exposure to a different role modeling through her school classmates, created a contradictory Myth, the self-sufficient NOT submissive female. Two myths from two different existing social models in direct conflict with each other.

When people -- especially teenagers, already psychologically destabilized by the onset of puberty and hormone-caused surges of growth in the emotional centers of the brain -- encounter a contradictory Role Model/MYTH, they undergo a socio-cultural adaptation conflict -- one or the other Hero MUST be false -- and, subconsciously driven to conform to a MYTH, they flip flop between the two conflicting behavioral norms and endure a lot of angst in their evaluation of themselves.

Eventually, as Kingston did, they toss BOTH myths -- and create a new one unique to themselves -- a NEW version of socio-culturally inherited MYTHS -- they adapt the myth to fit their real world experiences.

Summary: two directions of fit -- we fit ourselves to a culturally created MYTH -- or we change socially-created MYTHS to fit our own personal realities.

When we write HISTORY, we are INTERPRETING events -- it is NEVER the who, what, where, and when that counts -- that's not history -- that's only chronology.

The true function of an historian is to INTERPRET the chronology -- to present possible WHYS -- and the RESULTS of past events -- and the "whys" and the results ARE ONE PERSON's MYTH PRODUCTION -- we shape our own understanding of past developments to either fit some preconceived MYTH we ourselves inherited (first direction of fit -- which is the vast majority of us) and recreated for ourselves (4 year old Joe/Hayslip for a real world example) -- or we use past events to CREATE OUR OWN MYTH to impose upon others.

So, back to the Puritans: YES, they mythologized the First Thanksgiving --

but NOT to bury the truth

to exaggerate and romanticize a POSITIVE AND DESIRABLE behavioral norming

TO TEACH KIDS not to be like the reality -- TO TEACH KIDS TO BE LIKE THE IDEALIZED MYTH they needed for themselves, too

The first direction of fit: to create HEROES for kids to imitate -- by deliberately burying the negatives in order to create Perfect People YOU MUST BE LIKE.

Now, historical revisionists take somebody else's Heros You MUST Become to create Villains You MUST NOT Become -- shoving their own MYTHS upon society and young Joes and real world Hayslips as ROLE MODELS for their own socio-cultural purposes.

The mature and truly independent person throws BOTH myths out and recreates out of history a unique and personal Myth that validates what the "social rebel" wants to become for him/herself.

So, Puritans are neither villains nor heroes -- they are PEOPLE, as conflicted and as messed up AND AS HUMAN as Mature Grown Up Joe living in the real world where absolute truths NEVER really exist -- just people as tortured and as conflicted struggling with both desirable and undesirable conditions to find a SELF CREATED role model of SELF -- not some self-imagined myth about somebody else's self-imagined myth about John Smith -- a SELF created interpretation of John Smith both good and evil that can in some situations be a positive be-like-this pattern to live by -- and in other situations be a negative do-not-be-like-this pattern to avoid.

It's only when an INDIVIDUAL tosses BOTH versions of the Puritan past and creates his or her OWN PERSONAL INTERPRETATION that the INDIVIDUAL reaches full SELF CREATED INDIVIDUALITY.

As kids, we go through the First Direction of Fit.

As young adults, we go end the First and enter into the Second Direction of Fit.

As we age, we come to realize that ALL history is actually a MYTH -- a recreation and PERSONAL INTERPRETATION of what really happened -- and we can live with the realization that NO HUMAN BEING is either absolutely good or absolutely evil -- just like ourselves, half good and half bad, and sometimes trapped in a mess where good is NOT POSSIBLE at all so that the best we can do is LIMIT the damage our actions and reactions cause and hope that tomorrow will see less negative conditions where our actions and reactions CAN BE more constructive.

But a lot of us never reach the maturity required to TOSS THE MYTHS and create a more realistic comprehension of the Universal Human Condition in which our ancestors were themselves trapped -- just like we are trapped in the same Universal Human Condition

where Heroes and Villains DO NOT EXIST -- just people struggling to do the best they know how to do as best as circumstances allow.

justify the rug

Since I reject the MYTH OF OBAMA, I cannot.

And I refuse to conform to some externally imposed MYTH intended to force me into submission to a DIFFERENT FORM of social oppression -- just as corrupt and destructive to individualism as the old one the Social Imperators seek to empower in their own turn.

Reality: we've got DESPERATE needs that money should have been spent on -- and a LIAR telling tall tales to turn himself into the Perfect Man -- a New Hero we must all conform to, the 21st century version of King Arthur and the Round Table of Perfect Knights chasing a damned Holy Grail and fighting Evil Dragons that exist ONLY IN THEIR FAIRY TALES.

Now, either contribute something SUBSTANTIVE to the search for wisdom -- or get the hell out of the way of those who seek understanding so that humanity can create less DESTRUCTIVE interpretations of the Universal Human Experience.

The knee-jerk emotional response of IMMATURE NOT THINKeRS trapped in Hero vs. Villain fairy tale world:

a) vilify anyone who dares take a whack at their IMAGINARY heroes of perfect virtue
b) distract and deflect from any issue where their MYTHOLOGIES begin to evaporate in the face of the realities of the Universal Human Condition -- out of sheer terror that their CHILDREN might wake up to the fairy tales and begin to form truly independent and personalized INDIVIDUAL behavioral norms so that the MYTHOLOGIZERS lose control over other people and can no longer force CONFORMITY to the wanna-be social supremacists

rationalize the carpet