Histomat: Adventures in Historical Materialism

'Historical materialism is the theory of the proletarian revolution.' Georg Lukács

Saturday, January 20, 2007

A random conversation

This morning while sitting in bed reading I was disturbed by a knock on the door. I came downstairs, blurry eyed and slightly pissed off and opened the door to find two women in the thirties in long black coats and little name badges. The conversation went something like this:

Woman: [in American accent] 'Hello, we are from your local church and we were wondering if you were interested...'

Me: [biting back the temptation of challenging their dubious 'local credentials' given their American accent] 'Look, I'm sorry I am a Marxist and an atheist...'

Woman:[pause] 'Oh thats...cool. I am sure we share the same hopes...'

Me: 'Yes, I am sure we probably do, though I also think there is little point in me trying to convert you and you trying to convert me to be honest'

Woman: [reaching into her bag] 'Okay then, would you like a copy of American-Indian writings about God from the sixteenth century'*

Me: [kind of intrigued, and perhaps feeling a little guilty about not raising the war on Iraq or the question of Marxism and religion with them - given they thought Marxism was...'cool'] 'Um, ok then...thanks'

Woman: [handing me not some big book but a tiny leaflet advertising 'The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ'] 'Goodbye'.

Me: [closing door] 'Yeah, see you'.

[*I think that was what she said but apologies in case I heard this wrong and have just accidently insulted 'The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints'].

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5 Comments:

At 11:22 pm, Blogger Derek Wall said...

Ask them in for a coffee, how are you getting on with the critique of my other chapters?

 
At 11:55 pm, Blogger ygkpd said...

I hate how the Americans still call First Nations "Indians".

 
At 10:22 am, Blogger Snowball said...

Derek - yeah, with hindsight I probably should have done but I guess I was annoyed at being distubed.

I have sent you an email...

 
At 5:56 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It seems she won!

She gave you what she came to give you, and you offered no resistance, even though she used the word "Indian"!

 
At 11:06 am, Blogger Snowball said...

Yes - I fear that may well be so. Fair play to the Mormons.

Marxists 0 : Mormons 1.

A poor result, especially since I was at home. I guess they caught me off guard early on, and my lack of caffeine (and reluctance to counter attack by inviting them in and defeating their arguments point by point over a coffee) showed in the end. A few seasons ago, I took a similar battering at home from the Jehovah's Witnesses who succeeded in offloading a whole load of 'Watchtower' material on me despite my intellectual domination on the doorstep for long periods...

 

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