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Bring back the wild west on-line
The Wild West, along with the stories of the Bible, is a defining mythology of the United States — of America even before our founding as an independent nation. Many of the people who immigrated here came because they were forced or because of their desperate circumstances in their homelands, but for those who arrived of their own free will, the image of the land was a picture of openness in which living by one’s wits without masters was possible — as long as the current owners could be moved somewhere else without too much trouble to the conquerers’ consciences.
How wild the actual west was is a matter of historical debate, but myth rarely needs evidence to support itself. The story is what matters, and it works in that it appeals to something in our psyches, something that makes a meaningful comment about who we are. Or so those of us who write westerns hope.
What appeals to Americans in this mythology is the idea of total freedom. In the wild west, there are no bosses, no taxes, and “no one for to give you no pain,” as the song has it. This might look like a rejection of responsibility, and there is an element of that, but we also should recognize that the American psyche has been a major driver in giving to the world the understanding of privacy, a belief that I should be able to draw a circle around myself into which no one may enter without my permission…
