Tuesday, August 7, 2018

South Park's "Imaginationland" and the Forgotten Value of Religion

“It's all real. Think about it. Haven't Luke Skywalker and Santa Claus affected your lives more than most real people in this room? I mean, whether Jesus is real or not, he - he's had a bigger impact on the world than any of us have. And the same can be said for Bugs Bunny and - and Superman and Harry Potter. They've changed my life - changed the way I act on this earth. Doesn't that make them kind of real? They might be imaginary but, but they're more important than most of us here. And they're all gonna be around here long after we're dead. So, in a way, those things are more realer than any of us.”
-Kyle Broflovski, “Imaginationland Ep. 3”


This monologue from South Park’s Kyle Broflovski has stuck with me ever since I first watched “Imaginationland” in middle school nearly a decade ago. “Imaginationland” brings the kids of South Park into a land which exists purely within our imaginations, and is inhabited by each and every conceivable imaginary construct of mankind. Throughout the story, our imaginations are attacked by terrorists in imaginationland (a pretty clever metaphor in its own right), and the government is trying to nuke our imaginations while the kids try convincing everyone that imaginationland is real in order to save it. In the end, they succeed by posing the argument above. By the end of the story, the characters as well the viewers are convinced that in an ironic dichotomy our imaginations are more real than any of us are due to their inarguable tangible impact on all of our lives.

This argument is based on more than conjecture, as its evidence pervades our artistic culture and the way most of us are taught valuable lessons through stories in our various artistic mediums. Just think: how many children were taught valuable life lessons after reading Harry Potter? How many people lead their lives by words they’ve read within the pages of Lord of the Rings, or had their behaviour altered by its lessons? How many people have been brought together in their shared passion for Star Wars, or World of Warcraft, or Pokemon? These imagined worlds, people, and stories have had a far more vivid and universal impact on mankind than most real people, and their influence lasts a thousand lifetimes so long as their stories are passed down. Neil Gaiman’s musings and theories on religion discussed last week happen to tie into South Park’s philosophy of the importance of imagination in our real world:

“None of this can actually be happening. If it makes you more comfortable, you could simply think of it as a metaphor. Religions are, by definition, metaphors, after all: God is a dream, a hope, a woman, an ironist, a father, a city, a house of many rooms, a watchmaker who left his prize chronometer in the desert, someone who loves you - even, perhaps, against all evidence, a celestial being whose only interest is to make sure your football team, army, business, or marriage thrives, prospers and triumphs over all opposition.

Religions are places to stand and look and act, vantage points from which to view the world.”

And this, in essence, is where the merit in all religions, philosophies, creeds, or faiths lies. The merit does not lie in which religion is “true” or “right”, or whose god is more powerful, but rather the lessons that one can learn from the stories and people that have lived on in these divine legends since the dawn of recorded time. We all seem to forget in our modern age that that “being right” was never the point of religion in the first place. Religions, mythology, and lore since their inception were stories which were told to our young and old alike to give them a moral compass or vantage point which taught them how to be better people, and by extent, how to be a better community, and a better world. It was within religious and mythological stories that many cultures around the world instilled their morals and values to reinforce their communities’ values through example and narrative. These stories did not necessarily need to be “real” or “true”, so long as their impact and influence was “real” or “true” enough to affect the lives of those who listened.

To use myself as an example: One can surmise from a lot of my writing that I do in fact agree with modern interpretations of norse paganism and hold many of its beliefs because they speak to me, but not many people understand what that means. When I say I’m a norse pagan, does this mean I really believe the Sun and Moon are carriages being pulled across the heavens as they flee from the wolves Skoll and Hati? Does this mean I believe that if I sacrifice a lamb and spread its blood on my crops, I will gain the favor of my gods and harvest slightly bigger carrots? Does this mean that I truly believe people go to hel if they don’t die in battle? Of course not, but the lessons and morals one can learn from these stories have affected my life and the way I act in a strong enough way that I identify with the faith, and that is what I believe is most important. 

The stories of old viking heroes and northern gods have taught me much about myself and the world in my adolescence as well as in my adulthood. The story of Ragnarok teaches me that if I push my problems aside or if I don’t address them appropriately, they simply grow until they overcome me as Fenrir does Odin. Thor’s stories teach me that people will respect and revere you so long as you stand up and fight for what’s right regardless of your wealth or social class. Utgard-Loki’s trials teach me that no matter how strong you are, you may never out contend age, and no matter how quick you are, you will never outrun thought. Odin taught me that if you want knowledge, you must first be willing to sacrifice, and Tyr taught me that the value of your hand is nothing compared to the value of the safety of your family and friends. I wear Thor’s hammer Mjolnir around my neck, because every time I see it or hold it, I’m reminded of those very stories where Thor had to rely on only himself to overcome a great hardship or challenge, or when he against all odds stood against the world serpent at the edge of the world because it was his duty and his alone to sacrifice himself for the new world.


These stories affect me in the same way that others are affected by the stories of the Old and New Testament, or the Tanakh, or the Tao Te Ching. The stories and sagas of the north are the best preservations of the faith which gave my earliest teutonic ancestors meaning and helped them survive through hardship and unforgiving conditions. The fact that this faith is what gave my ancestors hope in a dark and cold world, and that my ancestors played a role in the propagation and cultivation of this wonderful culture that inspires art and music to this day is enough for me to find hope and inspiration in it as well. In the words of Rasmus B. Anderson (fun fact: the man responsible for Leif Erikson Day), who has been fighting this same fight since the late 19th century, “It is a deplorable fact that the religion of our forefathers seems to be but little cared for in this country. [...] In these Eddas our fathers have bequeathed unto us all their profoundest, all their sublimest, all their best thought. They are the concentrated result of their greatest intellectual and spiritual effort, and it behooves us to cherish this treasure and make it the fountain at which the whole American branch of the Yggdrasil ash may imbibe a united national sentiment.” 


In the end, though Rasmus B. Anderson speaks specifically of his own ancestral religion, as well as I do, these sentiments apply to everyone and we merely use ourselves as examples. If you are on this planet, you have an ancestral religion. Be you French, Italian, Slavic, Mongolian, Peruvian, Indian, Thai, Congolese, Egyptian, or Pacific Islander, you have an ancestral religion that deserves to at least be acknowledged, if not respected, as one of the basic building blocks of not only yourself but the rest of mankind. You may learn something of yourself, or you may simply find a few minutes of entertainment reading the stories, but at least you gave your ancestors, the people responsible for you being here, a moment of thought. As you explore these ancestral faiths and folklores, remember that it matters not if these stories are fact or fiction, but if they influenced us enough to change how we act and think on this earth.

3 comments:

  1. Quite an interesting thought process, and I'm sure that very few people would disagree with the idea that imagination's (religion in this context also) value and morals come from its stories. Though, I think your text is idealized and optimistic. Let's not forget the tyranny and evil deeds highly influenced by this same imagination. Man is not only judger of all things, but an imbecile worm too, my point being that imagination's educational purposes should not be entirely held in high regards, for, I agree, it contains much light and moral value, but, at the same time, it can be a place where human fear, ignorance and superstition find a warm home, be it knowingly or unknowingly.

    Nice read, though, and sorry for any possible incoherence.

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  2. Nice entry. Human reality in many ways is not objective reality. Only real in their consequences. Money, society, cultures, languages, all are just mutually agreed upon fictions, and because a group is in mutual agreement about them it gives them objective status and quality, depth. They order the world in ways human minds and lives can make sense of, as the true nature of reality likely os beyond our limits of perception. So human constructs of the true nature of reality therefore ARE true and become reality. Is a dog a dog, chien, xaj, or wuloo? It is all of those words and countless others and none of them. Does a magical leather charm blessed by the marabout protect you? It protects you from the chaos of a world without magical assistance, from a world without meaning. It protects the culture and brings the depths of history into the present moment, ensuring it's survival to following moments in time... It protects a great deal, whether it protects you physically from harm is merely a matter of belief, a powerful thing. Placebo, mind over matter, whatever you want to call it, it's real.

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