How long will it be before we “cancel” the days of the week?
Tuesday is “Tyr’s day.” So who was this Tyr character? He’s best known for offering his hand to Fenriswolf when the gods were trying to trick the poor beast. This is clearly an example of toxic masculinity.
Wednesday is “Odin’s day.” Slaves were sacrificed to Odin.
Thursday is “Thor’s day.” I’m sure Thor wouldn’t hold up to modern scrutiny. (Although Loki might.)
So, while we’re ridding our culture of everything objectionable, why don’t we do something about this?
I suggest we rename the days one, two, three, etc.
Oh, and why seven days in a week? That’s obviously a religion relic that we have to abandon, right? Why not make it ten?
You can still find some traditionalist Brethren calendars that don’t use the names of the days of the week, I think..
But I suspect the days are going to be safe, because principled consistency isn’t what’s driving cancellation. There’s a section in That Hideous Strength which I always remember: Mark is taken to the Objective Room and told he must trample a crucifix.
—
“This,” said Mark, “this is all surely a pure superstition.”
“Well?”
“Well, if so, what is there objective about stamping on the face? Isn’t it just as subjective to spit on a thing like this as to worship it?”
“That is superficial. If you had been brought up in a non-Christian society, you would not be asked to do this. Of course it is a superstition: but it is that particular superstition which has pressed upon our society for many centuries. It can be experimentally shown that it still forms a dominant system in the subconscious of many whose conscious thought appears to be wholly liberated. An explicit action in the reverse direction is therefore a necessary step towards complete objectivity. We find in practice that it cannot be dispensed with.”
—
So shall it ever be. The justifications change, but never the target.
Since any two things which aren’t the same thing differ in some way, it’s always going to be possible to come up with some criteria which distinguish what you want to permit from what you want to forbid, and if you’re clever enough you can even make it sound persuasive. So to make sense of this stuff I tend to focus on the outcomes and not the arguments advanced.
I don’t like thinking this way, but it’s depressingly predictive.
People are generally not educated enough to know that the days of the week were named after pagan gods. This is nothing like the association that even the most poorly educated person makes between the crucifix and the redemptive act of salvation. I am from Kentucky where a lot of rednecks say that they are Christians, and though they openly despise anything remotely smacks of a “cat licker” mentality they would never trample a crucifix. That association is fixed in Western culture down to the lowest elements of humanity, whereas the names of the days of the week are of no real significance to people.
*anything that remotely smacks of a “cat licker”
Note: In case you don’t know “cat licker” is a term of contempt that some Protestants use as a synonym of “Roman Catholic.”