Theonolism

     Individuals, religions, institutions, and political parties all have views that dictates their interpretations of the world around them, that explains their actions, justifies their goals, and accounts for abnormalities in their understanding of new information. A culture usually consists of several of these worldviews varying from a close-knit society with minimal discrepancies to a multicultural society with acknowledged disagreements. A nation state can consist of one or many cultures, people groups, and religions. The worldview of a nation combines the disparate views of its constituents and averages them, polishing the edges yet retaining strength from the fervor of the population.
     The worldview of a nation state, for this article, is theonolism.

Etymology

• The Greek word/derivative for god is "theo." In human mythologies, gods are the most powerful entities in existence from which everything is derived and is accountable to.
• The Greek word/derivative for idea or an area of study is "ol." Examination and refinement is essential to economics, military strategy, and political alliances. The "n" is added as a carry-over from nationalism, a sense of pride that one's nation is unquestionably better than all others.
• The Greek word/derivative for belief is "ism." Belief justifies action, inspires passion, and secures conformity within its converts. 

Components
     Theonolism is a union of culture, religious values, purposes of the state, and international intentions of the state.
     The purposes of the state are the intentions and goals that the governed population desires for the government to achieve. One of the most often used examples of the purpose of government is protection of its citizens. The citizens then must allow the government enablement of that purpose, usually through taxation, but occasionally through war drafts. Once the nation has the support of its population, it can extend itself into the wider world to interact with other countries that have their own theonolisms. Countries with similar beliefs group together and often form alliances that combine their powers throughout the world stage. The stronger a nation is militarily and economically the greater its projection of its theonolism on the world.
     Traditionally, the projection of a nation is termed as its sphere of influence. This sphere depends upon a number of economic, militaristic, geographical, and technological factors, and the result is the ability of a country to alter results within that sphere to best suit its own interests. A nation's theonolism is the values that contribute to decisions within the sphere of influence.

     The theonolism of the United States is roughly summed up by "capitalism" since money governs the United States's actions and interests, but America presents a softer, kinder, humanitarian front as its seeks wealth from other nations. As a democratic-republic the United States allows its citizens to choose the leaders that represent the theonolism of the people which is then projected through its sphere of influence. Many election-based countries have similar mechanisms. The results of this electoral system can create a rapid change in theonolism after an election period because new elected officials use their power to achieve different aims.
     Certain nations have a historical theonolism of expansion such as Russia, the United States, and many European powers. Other nations offer a historical theonolism of containment either because of isolationism or an inability to project such as North Korea, the Middle East, and many African nations. While these trends aid in presenting a cohesive interpretation of a nation's theonolism, theonolism can change if a country gets previously unknown amounts of power or when positioned to obliterate a weakened enemy.
     When theonolisms conflict, the ideological tension can lead to war or trade isolation through sanctions. If two major theonolisms are present in a single nation-state, a by-product culture blends extremes internationally because of division domestically. In the cases of the Ukraine Crisis or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a region fights between two theonolisms to determine its dominate theonolism because the status quo negotiation is unacceptable. This conflict sparks many civil wars though the divisive issue can vary widely in scope, impact, and context.
     The new idea that is portrayed in this article is not a word, not a regurgitated analysis of spheres of influence, not a project of philosophical exercise. The idea emphasis of this post is to bring attention to the fact that the mindset, worldview, ideology of a nation is a component of its people's projections on the world. The major components of this are beliefs (assumptions about the world), convictions (desires to keep or alter facets of the world), and empowerment (the ability to enact beliefs and convictions on the world).
     Where in the past, a nation could be represented by a monarch, today's modern elections change the face of leaders too often for them to holistically represent a country's desires. However, since most nations remain on steady courses, the underlying drive of that goal is not a single leader but the collective worldview of the people.


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Agatha Tyche

Nast vs Boss Tweed: A Real Life Cartoon

     The written word has enabled a proliferation of knowledge, communication, and understanding since its induction to human society several thousands of years ago. Before writing, mankind drew pictures, some of which are still evidenced on cave walls around the world. It is pictures that can convey a plethora of complex thoughts in an instant, and Thomas Nast, a nineteenth century political cartoonist, demonstrated the influence that images can have.
     Thomas Nast (1840-1902) became a cartoonist for New York's Harper's Weekly in 1859 and retained that position until 1886. Although he briefly attended school, he never proved adept. His skill was in his pen.
His first published drawing for Harper's Weekly involved the corruption of a police scandal and set the tone, purpose, and politics of most of his career.
     The many accomplishments of Nast include the popularization of iconic portrayals of the Democratic Party's donkey, Uncle Sam, and Lady Columbia as well as the modern depiction of Santa Claus as a cheery, fat man with reindeer. He is credited with inventing the Republican Party's elephant. His largest impacts on history, however, are through the influence he had on the presidential elections from 1864-1884. Because a large number of Americans could not read, the political drawings enabled voters to stay informed. Nast was instrumental in electing Ulysses S. Grant in the 1868 and 1872 elections, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, and he is credited with winning Grover Cleveland the small margin by which he won the presidency in 1884.
     Of all of these accomplishments, Nast is perhaps most famed for the take down of William "Boss" M. Tweed and the Tammany Hall Ring of New York City by publishing dozens of images depicting the corruption of the elected officials. Tweed so feared Nast's works that he offered a bribe of $100,000 that increased to $500,000 which Nast refused.

     A few years before Nast's popularity, William Tweed was an elected official from 1858-71 and is credited with the establishment of a criminal organization of New York City officials. The Ring was solid, ensured high payments of its constituents on city jobs, and was influential throughout the courts, legislature, treasury, and ballot box. The Tammany Ring consisted of close friends of Tweed and was highly organized and profitable through money laundering for all involved with estimates from $25-200 million stolen from the City of New York.
     Tweed's success depended on the power of immigrant Irish voters and the city elite's trust in his keeping this portion of the population controlled. During the Orange Riot of 1871, Irish Catholics attacked a Protestant parade where sixty people were killed. This event weakened his interactions with the city elite, but his downfall came from the newspapers. Nast's images were such a problem that Tweed said, "Stop them pictures. I don't care so much what the papers say about me. My constituents don't know how to read, but they can't help seeing them pictures!" Although investigations had been undertaken prior to the riots, Tweed successfully bought off all accusers. When Tweed's friend and bookkeeper died, the books ended up in the hands of the New York Times which published accusatory findings in July 1871.
     In 1873 Tweed was arrested for fraud but escaped in 1875 and fled to Spain. He he was arrested because of his depictions in Nast's drawings.
     Thomas Nast and William Tweed both represented the hope of America to the rest of the world: that hard work could bring wealth, success, and recognition. Nast achieved his wealth and fame through excellent artwork, skillful insight, and artistic talent. Tweed gained influence, power, and riches through scheming, corruption, and gangs. Though neither man died well off, Nast remained respected throughout his life while Tweed has become Nast's caricature: the very image of corrupt corporate wealth.


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Agatha Tyche

Holy, Roman, and an Empire

     The actions of emperors of long gone empires still impact modern life. July and August have thirty-one days to make them among the longest days of the year. Originally with thirty days, February was robbed of two days to make these adjustments possible. The Roman emperors and Roman laws have some of the longest and farthest reaching impacts of history. Rome directly birthed both the Byzantine Empire, which lasted until the fifteenth century, and Europe. Europe went on to influence and dominate the world, especially in the nineteenth century, and it is appropriate for a topic that deals with a mixture of both Rome and Europe to begin with Rome.
     Living in an age of absolute monarchs, Voltaire, the famous French philosopher of the eighteenth century, famously stated, "This agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire." When this was said, the Holy Roman Empire had less than a century of existence left, and it was another Frenchman, Napoleon Bonaparte, that dismembered the nine-hundred year old empire.
     The Holy Roman Empire was never a simple state governed by one monarch. While the power of the emperor increased for several centuries, the size and terrain, hindered by the Alps, limited absolute control over the territory. The diversity of culture and history throughout the region further complicated assertions of control and led to a constant, internal fracturing of provinces throughout the centuries; these many narratives complicate a single explanation or agenda of the empire throughout its nine-hundred year existence. Thus, due to the complicated, constantly shifting power structure, fluid borders, and variant personalities of the monarchs, an uneven presentation of the power of the empire through the centuries must look at distinct people and periods since the world greatly changed from establishment to abolishment.
     A reflection of this unpredictable nature, the name itself changed multiple times as the purpose and peoples of the empire shifted. The most famous, longest lasting, and most recognized name is the one that will be explained and defended based, not off of the empire of Voltaire's day but, on history.
Roman
     Otto the Great became king of German-based East Francia in 936, stabilized his rule, and successfully conquered Northern Italy and Rome in 951. In 962 Pope John XII crowned him as Emperor over the German and Roman Empires. Because of the regional overlap and an understanding passed down from the Merovingian and Carolingian rulers, Otto assumed translatio imperii which placed him as the inheritor of Charlemagne's and the Western Rome Empires.
     Further legitimizing claims of reestablishing the Roman Empire, Otto the Great was the only emperor to have marital ties with the Byzantine Empire, the inheritor of the Eastern Roman Empire. While this success is notable, it was short lived since the son born from this marriage had a short reign and never had children.
    Although there was some overlap, the Holy Roman Empire's power base around Saxony Germany was never ruled by the Roman Empire. Rome never succeeded in expanding as far northeast as Otto's land claims, but with the control of the city of Rome, the conveyance of power and authority succeeded in legitimizing the claims in the new emperors.

Holy
     Control over Rome and Northern Italy allowed the emperor to control the pope and through him Western Christendom that extended to the rest of Europe. Frederick I Barbarossa solidified this strategy and expended great efforts to ascertain imperial influences throughout Italy. Under his reign the empire adopted the title of "holy" to demonstrate this desire to dominate the papacy. Interestingly, this power struggle reinforced the Investiture Controversy which pitted the powers of pope versus the powers of the king.
     One of the largest obstacles in justifying the title of "holy," notably after the Investiture Controversy, is that as the power of the empire waned, Rome became independent and the justification for the title faded away. In an attempt to renegotiate its name, the 1512 Diet of Cologne changed the official name to "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" since controls over Italian lands had disappeared.
Empire
     The Confederation of Germanic tribes, governance over dozens of modern nation states, and successful passage of inheritance rights through several generations attest to the strength and endurance of the empire. Even in its last years, the empire ruled over an assortment of Germanic states, Belgium, the Czech Republic, and portions of other modern countries.
     The most significant opposition to the declaration of empire comes from imperial coronation by the pope. Harkening back to Charlemagne and Otto I, many rulers only took the title of "emperor" after official papal recognition. From 1493 to 1806, only Charles V (1530) was crowned as emperor. The languishing power of the kings lasted three hundred years until a truly powerful emperor put the millennium-old state out of its misery.

     Undoubtedly names hold power. Even today oppressive, authoritarian, and tyrannical regimes often rule in countries titled "Republic of the People of" around the world. While a title may not longer the strength it intends, its creation is backed by the pages of history and the irreversible presses of the times.

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Agatha Tyche

Pilgrimage

     Early Medieval Europe was not especially significant on the world stage with China, India, Byzantium, and the Islamic Caliphates controlling and interacting in large scale conquests and discoveries. That does not mean that the Europeans did not document odd bits of information about the world as they became aware. Mappa mundi, medieval world maps, offer interesting insights as to how the European view of the world changed over the course of centuries.
     Several format variations existed that focused interest differently, similar to how online maps today can show either roads, satellite imagery, or street views. The purpose of the maps was often schematic or instructional instead of navigable since local, regional maps would be more useful for traveling. Location sizes varied with historical and religious importance without regard to actual size or distance. Although a grid map based on latitude and longitude did not fit in medieval worldview, Roger Bacon did propose one in the thirteenth century.
     Until the fourteenth century, most European maps were oriented East, not North. East is the direction of the sunrise, beginnings, and the location of the Garden of Eden, the Biblical earthly paradise. The Pillars of Hercules, the Strait of Gibraltar, regularly marked the westward edge of the map for centuries even as ships began to sail beyond them.
     After the Crusades focused much of Europe's religious zeal on Jerusalem, maps began focusing the city as the center of the map, but more written descriptions of Jerusalem depict the city at the center of the world than maps.

"Overall it seems likely that that the new emphasis is spiritual rather than physical. The loss of Jerusalem was a great source of grief and guilt to Western Christendom, and the real city seems to have been transformed in the imagination into a shimmering version of heavenly perfection, now out of reach. As the mappmundi tradition began to lose its hold on the European mind, later mapmakers, trying to represent the earth in a more physically accurate mode, felt called upon to explain the displacement of Jerusalem from the center of their maps."
         Edson, Evelyn. The World Map 1300-1492: The Persistence of Tradition and                                   Transformation. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University                                                       Press, 2007.

The loss of Jerusalem in 1244 seemed to spark the imagination of cartographers who quickly began placing the city at the center of their world maps. The Hereford Map, the largest existing mappa mundi, does an excellent job of defining the typical European map of the time. It is oriented to the East, depicts Eden, Jerusalem at the center, and treats a large portion of the world as fringe lands.
     Other depictions of the world remained significant until the European Renaissance. Several cartographic formats were used to display information to draw attention to different themes. One of these methods was altering or simplifying landmasses. The clover leaf map, a rendition of the T-O map, shows a round world split into three segments: Asia, Africa, and Europe. The Bunting Clover Leaf Map from 1581 in Itinerarium Sacrae Scripturae places the world's continents around the focal point of Jerusalem. For this drawing, depictions of many Biblical stories were mapped out many of which branch out from or center upon the city Jerusalem. Referencing Ezekiel 5:5, "Thus saith the Lord God; This is Jerusalem: I have set it in the midst of the nations and countries that are round about her" (KJV), Bunting's work also included Europe drawn as a queen with her face to the West and feet to the East as well as Asia drawn as Pegasus, a winged horse from Greek mythology.

     Throughout the centuries mapping became a detailed science. Britain's naval dominance led to thousands of voyages purposed only to map coastlines and isolated archipelagos. Cartographic symbolism has faded away as geographical accuracy has taken precedence and become the satellite and digital imagery that is prolific today. While the shape of the earth is well known today just as is the surface of the Moon and Mars, the organization of information presents challenges still just as it did to cartographers nearly a millenia ago.
     Focus and intent are more important than location, but the context of history is always helpful in knowing where the path leads.

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Agatha Tyche

Shintoism

   The island of Japan essentially functioned in isolation for centuries before American naval expansion forced trade issues on the Japanese people. Despite the centuries of isolation and strict process of executing shipwrecked sailors that landed on their island, the Japanese proved remarkably successful in adapting the modernized industrial practices of nineteenth century Europe, and within fifty years, Japan, though still torn between the Samurai and farm dominated traditional lifestyle and new found industrial power, had successfully converted to a mechanized labor force and become the local East Asian power that successfully defeated Russia in the 1905 Russo-Japanese War.
     The European infiltration of the East was not the first attempt at ideological conscription the Japanese faced through history. Confucianism and Taoism both entered Japan from China; Buddhism spread into Japan over time as well. These religions never gained full strength within Japan and remained philosophical
or sociological theories and practices.
     The actual Japanese-based religion did not get named until other religions began to enter the islands. Shintoism is an unusual religion around the world because there is no historical founder that introduced the belief structure. This sets it apart from other Eastern religions that gained followers in Japan as well as the major world religions of Christianity's Jesus and Islam's Muhammad. Also peciliar to Shintoism is that the religion does not offer universal claims of acceptance or involvement for all people. Shintoism is the religion of and intended only for the people and culture of Japan.
     The religion is based on kami ("what is worshiped") which can be objects, people, events, or ideas with shrines dedicated for such things as mountains, war memorials, and successful harvests. Kami is used in specific contexts when referring to shrine dedications. Ancient documents declare that there are "eight million kami," but the large number merely indicates that kami are too numerous to count and that many things can be worshiped.
     The Japanese people attend shrines for various occasions to seek help, offer praise, or give celebration - of which the largest and most popular is the annual new year festival that many of the Japanese participate in.

     Despite the thousands of years of Shintoism in Japan, the reestablishment of the Japanese Emperor and the establishment of a more organized Shinto religion distressed Americans during the occupancy of Japan post-WWII. Although the emperor never explicitly called for a state-sponsored state religion, Americans unfamiliar with the Japanese saw the mass-involvement as evidence of state sponsored religion. By December 1945, Emperor Showa announced himself not eligible to be an object of worship and "denounced" the state sponsorship of Shintoism. As a result of the privatization of shrines, Shintoism has become a type of religious corporation in modern Japan.
     Regardless of modern influences, economic pressures, political renouncements, or cultural changes, Shintoism is what the Japanese believe as it has always been. Through two and a half millenia, the Shinto arches have stood in Japan as a symbol of the strength of the Japanese people and have outlasted emperors, wars, invasions, and natural destruction. Shintoism is not just the religion of Japan or the beliefs of its island people. Shintoism is Japan.

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Agatha Tyche

Oppression

     Situated near the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa with strong religious ties to the Byzantine Empire and Greek Orthodoxy, Baltic Vikings, and the Asiatic Steppes, Russia is a land that merges East and West and is an anomaly of both. Some points of its history function as Eastern European while still others seem more Western Asiatic. Since Peter the Great's modernization of Russia in the eighteenth century, Russia has faced the West economically, militarily, and socially.
     Ivan the Terrible's reign became foundational  for Russia as it is today. His wars expanded the tsar's control along the entire Volga River and secured contacts with Central Asia. He also cemented power in the hands of the tsar, not the aristocratic boyars, by instituting land reforms, heavy taxes on the rich, and giving high governmental positions to lower class subjects. Perhaps the most famous examples of Ivan's fabled "terribleness" was the institution of the Oprichinina (1565-1572), the secret police, who answered directly to the king and could raid villages and kill nobility with impunity. These implementations stagnated the unadministered country and led to a period of significant instability following the death of Ivan the Terrible in 1584.
     By 1613 the Russian populace had rallied around a new tsar of the Romanov family and expelled all foreign rulers from their land. This stability lead to the expansion of bureaucratic rule that organized and controlled all governmental interests. A consequence of this increased state control greatly curtailed peasant migrations who, by 1649, were no longer allowed to leave their landlord or homeland.
     Despite this limitation on mobility on the serfs, Western influences grew through the acquisition of Ukraine and other western lands, and the ideological hold of the bureaucratic elite over the peasant class wavered. Peter the Great brought Russia into step with the great powers of Enlightened Europe during his reign in the early eighteenth century by political and scientific modernization.
     As the Russian empire expanded, so did the powers of the tsarist autocracy. Owning a much larger percentage of land and being in power over other religious leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church gave the emperor unequaled power within his realm. No popular resistance challenged the accumulation of the tsarist powers, and many famous Russians, including Dostoyevsky, and many Russians believed that the might of the Russian Empire depended solely on strength and power of the tsar. Political blunders and military disasters were often blamed on the aristocracy and bureaucracy of the empire.
     From at least the early 1800s, the segments of society that resisted the repressive power of the tsarist regime were sent to Siberia to join work camps and to isolate and reduce the possible spread of dissent. Nicholas I (1825-55) put down the Decembrist Revolt that sought to introduce a constitutional monarchy to the Russian Empire after the military's exposure to Western liberalism during the Napoleonic Wars. In place of a constitutional monarchy, Nicholas I implemented "Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality" as his governing ideology and sent secret police to enforce anti-monarchical censorship around the empire.

     The nineteenth century revealed Russia's potential strength as during the Napoleonic wars but hinted at the flaws of stifled innovation as the nation was torn by revolts mid century. Aside from the top-down emancipation of the serfs in 1861 by Tsar Alexander II, few freedoms were granted to the populace compared to the much more liberal Western powers. Nonetheless, later in the nineteenth century, Alexander III returned to Nicholas I's autocratic policies and sought to isolate his empire to reverse the effects of the West in a process called Russification.
     The taste of reform and freedom that 1861 gave to the peasants coupled with reports of reforms going on throughout Europe led to political turmoil and social unrest that intensified throughout the nineteenth century, imposed reform in the 1905 revolution, and ultimately overthrew the tsarist government in 1917. As Lenin then Stalin instituted a communist state, control over dissidents, propaganda, and state confiscations led to the development of a powerful secret police. Dissenters and suspected dissenters of the government were sent to the now infamous work camps known as gulags scattered throughout Russia. After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, Russia became a federal state that has adjusted to the balance of its communist past with capitalist economic reforms.
     Despite the by-Western-standards oppressive history of the tsars and Secretary Generals of the last half-millennium, the Russian people remain energetic, passionate, and powerful. The Russian people slug through adversary and opposition with an ease that rival nations envy. Russia is resource rich, diverse, and fearsome in both its geography and its people.
     No other people in the world can maintain a multi-continental empire for five centuries through world wars, revolts, political collapse, economic flouderings, and the uncertainty of the modern age with the respectable success of the Russian people who will always outlast winter and persist in conquering.


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Agatha Tyche

Packaged

     The British Commonwealth of Nations celebrates Boxing Day on December 26, the day after Christmas. There is no known origin for the holiday, but theories abound from the Roman-early Christian period to the Medieval to the Renaissance. It coincides with the feast of St. Stephen and also has religious undertones as the second day of Christmas. During the World Wars, Canada, Australia, and several other British colonies, protectorates, and sister nations sent supplies to England for the war effort.
     Begun as a day to give gifts to strangers, Boxing Day continues to be a day of giving to people with less, but recent decades have challenged this past. Canadian Boxing Day has become an enormous retail day similar to Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, in the United States.
     There is another way to share surplus goods with strangers: actions, words, care.

     What is a box? Whatever you need a box to be. The box can be a mindset, a paradigm, a method, a worldview, a theory, a mood, a method or approach. It can be freedom, hope, exploration, discovery, happiness, desire, creativity, love, a dream, a goal. The box is anything, good or bad, that can be passed on to others. It can be lost, desperate, inevitable or definite, confident, enduring. Sometimes a box is only a weak, flimsy cardboard container that cannot withstand use, weather, or time. Sometimes a box is a secret place of gilded mahogany that secures the most valuable items in the world.
     Mankind is curious, creative, and ingenious. We create, alter, expand, and build like no other creature. Perspective is key. A box is more than something to transport, store, or hold items. A box can be permanent or temporary, plain or adorned.
     Think of a box from the view of a cat. Hide in it, hop on it, learn its crevices, and use it for a variety of purposes. Move forward with gifts; don't store your burdens up like curses. Be strategic, flexible, adaptable, caring, and selfless.
     It all depends on you see the box.


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Agatha Tyche