Consider the following

Over the summer I read Benjamin Wiker's, 10 books every conservative must read. Although a trilogy, he considered the Lord of the rings to be classified as a book. He masterfully analyzed Tolkien's disdain for cities and love of the country as illustrated by the Shire versus Mordor. The Shire as we remember is a land of peace; citizens are connected to the earth and have a love of their land. Mordor in contrast was a black and twisted land where the orcs lived by the fuel of mere pleasure (the likely hood of eating a hobbit) and pain (hopefully not getting consumed by the all seeing eye).

I have been thinking, why do we like certain places and which are our favorite places? Tonight I couldn't sleep and as usual my mind was drifting into the land of strange Ideas. I thought about making a new aquaintence with someone from Arizona (which I did while waiting for the Shuttle). I thought about making fun of Arizona and then I thought to gain friendship points I should rather mock New Mexico. Most of us, at least those of us who live closely bordering another state often times think of the foreign state as inferior, and all of us think that way of New Jersey.

But why? What makes Washington so vastly different from Oregon? There are somewhat arbitrary State boundaries, but the land scape in many cases is quite similar. So do we love that there are slightly more of a kind of tree?

So if it's not the landscape is it the state legislative system? Or Tax code? Is it certain businesses and corporations that we prefer (either local or international)? Is it the way the pavement curves around a mountain as compared to a tunnel that might go through a mountain?

I agree with Wiker. We love a place because we love ... People. We love our family so we love our land and so we love our city and so we love or region etc. There is a very egocentric mordorian ethic that we would love a place for the egocentric-hedonistic benefits it provides us rather than
for a love of people.

Even the love for America is not manifested by a flag but by a person. The mordorian ethic is that we follow a leader for our benefit. But the Love ethic says we love our land for someone else rather than ourselves.

RANTdom topical thoughts for future elucidation.

Maybe in our world of technocracy we would be able to love our family without being connected to the same land?

Maybe we don't love our home land because we are frustrated with the people that inhabit it.
Maybe we think they have a lack of vision or the people have become complacent and have shunned creativity, exploration and progression. Well in that case your land needs you more than ever. I wonder if the creative leaders often leave out of frustration but then enter a larger system where there creativity smothered by hedonism rather than using thier God given ability to produce substantive change. When I say creative leaders I am not limiting this to painters, although they may be included but more specifically leaders who have creative, positive progressive ideas. (In or society conservatism and progressivism are not in tandem, but for the purposes of this discussion I am referring to any kind of positive change.)

There is also an element of loving a people for thier collective beliefs, because those beliefs are consistent with my own. But that should be secondary to the primary attachment of ones family and neighbor. And when do other inconsistent beliefs outweigh shared beliefs in love of people calculation?

Finally, the love of the Land of Israel is another element in this discussion; loving a place because it is God's landing strip? Or anyplace that illicits a specific memory of a previous (or future) occasion. Jacob anointed a rock in the dessert and called it Bethel meaning the House of God.... i'm done