I was just finishing up the article for class today, the one about the religious vacation sites in the Ozarks. The article comes with the bias that I assume most of us in the class would come to the article with: the sense that the coexistence of capitalist enterprise and authentic religious feeling are incompatible, that the spiritual aspect is depreciated by the presence of the desire for wealth.

Perhaps in a nation that has fought so strongly against capitalism, this would be lessened. But more importantly, I was just struck by the idea that if it's the case that religious folks in these areas aren't getting really drunk and doing inappropriate things, if they're not addicted to crystal meth, if they aren't having their lives destroyed by early pregnancy, if they're able to get firmly established enough to even give back to their communities and manifest some real compassion, if they're promoting a more harmonious society for those who subscribe to their beliefs, if it gives them genuine succor, why nitpick this little point? I can, of course, think of plenty of good reasons to continue to critique (their society might not be as rosy as it seems), but I think it's very easy to overlook the genuine virtues that this kind of faith has. We don't have to say it's perfect, we don't have to agree that this is the best way to live (I certainly don't), but I think it's too easy to sit in our ivory towers and say, "OMG UR DUMB L00K @ HOW UR MISSING WUT RELIGOIN IS ALL ABOUT, " and throw out the baby with the bathwater. Academics should have an encompassing view, not a pessimistic one, but the pessimistic comes out far too easily even in scholarly writing.

Why would the creation myth about the Ozarks be hackneyed and forced (with the sweetheart running away and tossing all kinds of geological features in the way of the Old Devil, and the Bible being the final protection against him), when if it were Chinese it'd be a heart-warming story tying a people to their land? Why is it that when we substitute the Dao De Jing and Mount Wu, it suddenly becomes OK to tell this story? Folks might say, "Well, that wasn't a modern culture, they don't need baby stories to justify it, and they didn't take the land from anybody..." I dunno if that argument holds up, though.

I guess what it comes down to is that I recognize that I have a bias against that kind of faith, and I don't really want to anymore. I'm sure that life in Missouri presents some wretched problems to have to deal with, and perhaps this lifestyle offers a genuinely better alternative, and has plenty of virtues that I cannot even manifest, myself.