GirlChat #455807


Arm and Hammer

Posted by Dante on 2008-November-20 22:25:13 EST, Thursday
In reply to Re: Mjolnir and Marxism? posted by Iron Marxist on 2008-November-20 18:44:09 EST, Thursday

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Sorry, your first claim is only sourced to the degree that your interpretation makes it so.

But history often provides an explanation of its own regardless of how you wish to see it.

The SLP page shows the Arm & Hammer ⚠️ ↗ symbol; both used by the SLP and the "baking soda" brand.

The symbol is that of Vulcan. It was both used by the Vulcan Spice Mills which produced the baking soda, and Vulcan's arm was an American labor symbol going a ways back.

Even if you acknowledge your error and start worshipping Vulcan, it doesn't change the fact that the Greco-Romans and the Vikings were hardly the model of Freedom.

As for Freya Aswynn ⚠️ ↗; far from being an expert on the beliefs of the Pagan Norse, she is a modern Alexandrian Witch, astrologer, kabbalist and syncretistic occultist. If one wants to know what a medieval Kabbalist believed, one doesn't consult Madonna ( or her Rabbi for that matter.) If one wants to learn about the ancient Thor cult, one doesn't consult a Tarot reader.

When it comes to entirely modern spins on the Thor cult, Marxists lose out to White Supremacists in trying to spin the religion in the wrong direction. But I'm not terribly interested in the misuse of Mjolnir, just in its historic use.

H.A. Guerber rewrote the Eddas into stories for gradeschoolers ( who she thought were unfit to hear the stories as they were writ.) Similarly I've read the D'aulaires, that isn't a source for what the ancients believed. It may serve as an introduction, but one should hardly argue history from a version which has been reduced to tales.

Thor soon wielded it in protection of the common man, or as we call them today, the working class. Hence, Mjolnir as a symbol of the working class is valid.

You spend a paragraph characterizing the forging of Mjolnir and then in your last two sentences you introduce your unproven assertion, and then claim that the introduction proves the assertion. This would be not unlike the deceptions of the Welsh trixter god Osiris. Thus proving that Osiris is a Welsh trixter god ;p

You can't have it both ways. You can't say that Thor was worshipped by the lower classes, and then excuse away his use by the upper classes by characterizing him as universal. I'm not arguing that he was a symbol of the power elite; just that he never stood for a classless society, nor for a revolution.

And of course we've argued before about Marxism in practice vs Marxism in theory. Since you seem to disown all practical examples you're free to posit that somehow it might still work. But it does seem awful strained to hold onto an idea while denying every historical example where those touting the concept held practical power. This eludes that falsifyability standard which empiricists love.

If you could find some sources who weren't reworking lore for modern uses, it would be appreciated. Perhaps some actual historians in lieu of popularizers?

Dante


Dante


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