The magic goes away

[davywavy]

I've lately been reading The Fellahin of Upper Egypt by Winifred Blackman. It's an anthropological study of the peasantry of Egypt in the 1920s, written first hand by Blackman who spent years living in peasant villages and directly integrated herself into the lives of the people so she could understand them better. It is, to my knowledge, the only

Comments

[anonymous]

When we talked about this in the BM recently I wondered if the blind adherence to rote allows you to feel control over the uncontrollable - and also have someone else tell you what to do. It's regressive but comforting to know exactly what to do and not have to worry about why other than "it says here". It works across many disciplines - blindly adhere to dogma when the going gets complicated

[anonymous]

Just a thought but the march of rationality in the enlightenment is usually considered to have done much to mitigate against the Christian fundamentalism of that age. I think the idea's an interesting one but not sure it's borne out by a broader perspective.