all bundled up

As people we do weird things. Many of the beliefs and values that we have are not necessarily logical or coherent as a 'bundle.' The US may not do this more than other places, but there are some funny combinations that we have in the US that are not typically found in other countries. One of the more prominent causes of this is the religious nature of our country. Here, likely because of a high rate of religiosity, non-religious things are linked and bundled in people's minds with religion.

Some of the more interesting combinations will come out of a mix of religion and politics. In the US they are very closely tied, where as in other places, such as Canada, even the religious politicians are forced to not only be quite about their faith but at times work counter to what they would prefer to do in order to keep the job. Here, a candidate must publicly show that they are religious or they loose legitimacy. They are nearly required to say "God bless America" at the end of their speeches.

It doesn't end with just the politicians and their use of religion to get elected or get things done (or religion's use of them?). You see it in individuals as well. For a final project I was just looking at a set of questions asking people what they think one must do in order to be a good person. There were 7 questions in that section ranging from 'actively seek social and economic justice,' to 'have faith in God,' and on to 'serve in the military' and 'consume fewer goods.' I did a factor analysis in order to see which of these things most typically 'go together.' This shows us which of these things people will typically associate as being in the same category - like all things that have to do with God and all things that have to do with society, or something like that.

The result is mostly predictable, with one minor exception. In with the more 'religious' responses for what a person must do in order to be a good person was also 'serve in the military.' Because of the fusion of (conservative?) politics and religion here in the US, a high rate of people conceptually think of serving in the military as being in the same category as having faith in God. The funny thing is that it isn't just a minor association either - the alpha score (tells us how strongly the group is related to each other) is .73 (.5 to .6 is usually considered fairly good on a 0 to 1 range).

Anyways, we bundle things together cognitively as the result of the groups and people that we communicate with and are exposed to. The identity of who we are is often largely the result of who we hang out with, what we read, what church we go to, what news channel we watch and so on. While postmodernism as a philosophical construct may not be very clear or interesting, as a social reality it is very interesting. We constantly are engaging in creating our world and reality socially. What does religion and serving in the military have to do with one another? Nothing besides the fact that we have agreed they are related. The reality is in the agreement/common mental association.