I'm melting...
Aug. 28th, 2003 08:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidIt occurred to me this afternoon that 'melting pot' is a pretty strange sort of phrase. If it parallels things like 'pizza pan', it's a pot for melting things in. I guess I don't melt stuff very much, since this doesn't seem very useful to me. If I start thinking about how it's used to mean society blending into a whole, I can easily hare off into horrid thoughts of nazism... but I'm not going there. I'm not, I tell you. No baldness at all.
I checked dictionary.com; a melting pot is indeed a utensil for melting, aka a crucible. Hmmm... I wonder how far this analogy for a blended society would have come had the wordmeister involved used the word 'crucible'? Not very far, I'd bet, especially after Arthur Miller's play. Though perhaps he'd not have called it that had the word been in use that way.
I know that Canada uses a completely different idea for its kind of blending society. And, yes, dictionary.com includes a quote about it. Score! I'd thought it was a mosaic (the one they cite), but part of me wondered whether salad might not have been used. Both show the idea of the distinct parts making up a whole while keeping their individual characteristics, which is a much more appealing paradigm, really. I look at Canada, and see a place where there's huge numbers of immigrants, but there are not the same issues that there are here. It's not perfect; there's all sorts of questions of language with the Quebecois, for instance. And yet, we ostensibly tout our mantra of individuality, yet really the way to get along is to become like everyone else. Why else the English-only referenda, or the proliferation of skinheads and other separatists (over whatever issue), not to mention a judge not understanding how his statue might violate the divide between church and state. By gum, the 10 commandments are just right, no matter what your religion! Who could argue with them? And so on.
I think it wouldn't bother me so much if America didn't seem to keep on playing the role of a country that's got it together. And it doesn't, on so many fronts. It's a far better country than many (most?), despite the current politics I hate, but there's so much that should be fixed at home before we try to fix the rest of the world into our own image (which scares me for lots of other reasons as well. How arrogant can we be?).
Today an NPR reporter mentioned a 'gas-powered turban'. I don't doubt that 'gas-powered turbine' was meant, but, oh, the visions of Ali Baba flying under his own turban power...
I checked dictionary.com; a melting pot is indeed a utensil for melting, aka a crucible. Hmmm... I wonder how far this analogy for a blended society would have come had the wordmeister involved used the word 'crucible'? Not very far, I'd bet, especially after Arthur Miller's play. Though perhaps he'd not have called it that had the word been in use that way.
I know that Canada uses a completely different idea for its kind of blending society. And, yes, dictionary.com includes a quote about it. Score! I'd thought it was a mosaic (the one they cite), but part of me wondered whether salad might not have been used. Both show the idea of the distinct parts making up a whole while keeping their individual characteristics, which is a much more appealing paradigm, really. I look at Canada, and see a place where there's huge numbers of immigrants, but there are not the same issues that there are here. It's not perfect; there's all sorts of questions of language with the Quebecois, for instance. And yet, we ostensibly tout our mantra of individuality, yet really the way to get along is to become like everyone else. Why else the English-only referenda, or the proliferation of skinheads and other separatists (over whatever issue), not to mention a judge not understanding how his statue might violate the divide between church and state. By gum, the 10 commandments are just right, no matter what your religion! Who could argue with them? And so on.
I think it wouldn't bother me so much if America didn't seem to keep on playing the role of a country that's got it together. And it doesn't, on so many fronts. It's a far better country than many (most?), despite the current politics I hate, but there's so much that should be fixed at home before we try to fix the rest of the world into our own image (which scares me for lots of other reasons as well. How arrogant can we be?).
Today an NPR reporter mentioned a 'gas-powered turban'. I don't doubt that 'gas-powered turbine' was meant, but, oh, the visions of Ali Baba flying under his own turban power...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Re: crucibles
Date: 2003-08-29 05:08 am (UTC)Re: crucibles
Date: 2003-08-29 06:28 am (UTC)Er, salad. Yup.