[Milton-L] Samson as suicide bomber

[Carrol Cox]

Andy Frisk wrote: "There's a great essay in MIlton Quarterly Vol. 42 No.
1 March 2008 titled "A Poem to the Unknown God: Samson Agonistes and
Negative Theology" by Michael Bryson that addresses Samson in the
context of the motivations for his actions and argues that his
motivations are not of God and that Samson has much more in common with
Satan, rather than The Son."

There is an elephant in the room - so far delicately ignored: "Suicide
Bomber" refers, of course, to Arabs, who have replaced "dirty commies"
in the mythology of u.s. politics. But that is not the elephant but
merely the context. The elephant is that, through discussing Samson in
_theological_ terms, one implies that the suicide bombers of the daily
newspaper are acting or claiming to act from theological motives - that
they are religious fanatics.

But they are acting from strictly secular motives, as a study of a year
or so established: they represent frustrated nationalism! So if we want
to discuss Samson as a suicide bomber, we need to discuss his politics,
not his religion.

(I can't remember now thename of the author of the study. He was a
professor at the University of Chicago. I'll inquire on another list for
a citation.)

Carrol

P.S. Suicide bombers have been defined as the poor man's F-16.