Peter L. Berger on Travelers as gods
Rest in peace, Peter L. Berger, who died last week . Here is a taste of phenomenological sociology from The Heretical Imperative : "The national airline of Indonesia calls itself by the name of Garuda, the mythological bird of the Ramayana. The name, which is emblazoned on its airplanes, is appropriate. The traveler flying over the Indonesian archipelago with its myriad islands may well feel himself to be borne on the wings of the original Garuda. Which makes him too a quasi-mythological being, a god perhaps, or at least a demigod, soaring through the sky with unimaginable speed and served by machines of unimaginable power. Down below are the mere mortals, in their small villages and fields. They look up and they watch the gods fly by." I probably should have included the following paragraph, as cited in Fraser & Campolo's Sociology Through the Eyes of Faith , however, I lack the vigor to type out any more. Nevertheless, I think the above quotation from Berger e
