Part One: On the Origin of Rights... here. Part Two: Liberty, Society and the Tyranny of the Individual... here.
In my previous post in this series, I asserted that the aggrandizement of the individual and his emplacement outside society was a denial of fundamental truths about being human. I made this claim despite my extreme discomfort with the notion of "human nature," offering as proof the fact that everywhere humans live, they live in communities. Logically, then, the community must be a development in human evolution that has been positively selected as our species endures. Still, we must be careful about how much we infer from nature. The move from is to ought is fraught with peril and we must avoid falling into the naturalistic fallacy. Yet I contend that we can safely infer some things from our deep past and that these offer intuitions into how we should live now. I plan to explore this idea in this post.
If we are to posit that there is something hard-wired in humans about the need for society, we must step back from the human and look at the level of organism. At this level, so it is generally assumed, the struggle for existence occurs, creature competes with creature to survive and reproduce, "survival of the fittest," as Darwin and Herbert Spencer had it. Upon first glance, then, we assume that nature selects the fittest individuals and allows their traits to be passed to subsequent generations.
How, then, are we to account for traits that are detrimental to individuals? One thinks of the bird that warns others of a predator's approach, or the mother sacrificing herself to save her child, or the soldier who risks himself for his comrades. How can the efficient mechanism of selection produce individuals such as these? Are they flukes? Mutants? Darwin never thought so, and the work of modern biologists bears him out.
The answer is that selective processes do not operate solely on individuals. Nor do they operate primarily on genes. The work of biologists like David Sloane Wilson and E. O. Wilson-no relation-suggests that selection operates on both of these levels, and more. Specifically, they argue, selection can operate on groups and on wider conglomerations as well. Indeed, wherever there is adaptation, there is selection. Groups, then, evolve in competition with other groups and, within those groups, individuals compete.
But there is a problem with this theory- the free rider. The free rider cheats; he lives off the largesse of his fellows, essentially stealing their energy and putting the group at a disadvantage. This should make the free rider a more fit specimen than his fellows and, in time, the whole group should dissolve into a mass of cheaters. Yet it does not. Why? Because of group-to-group competition. This level of competition will tend to produce fitter groups, which is to say groups that are composed of what Wilson and Wilson called "solid citizens." In other words, the exigencies of competition between groups will tend to curb the worst impulses of individuals, just as individual adaptations will tend to be disruptive to the group as a whole. Thus, the worst excesses of free riders will tend to be suppressed since they make the group as a whole less fit in competition with other groups. Most members will be genetically predisposed towards at least some degree of cooperation, because the fitness of individuals is contingent upon the fitness of the group.
What is this to do with us? My contention is simple. The same pressures that shaped the groups of animals Wilson and Wilson observed shaped us as organisms. Society has clearly been favored over individual life, compassion over cheating. Social living is in our genes. We have evolved mechanisms for living close to one another, such as morality and religion and, eventually, government, that discourage free-riding and contribute to the overall fitness of our communities. Their advantage is shown in their continuance, though there is always room for improvement.
Morality, I contend, arose as a set of rules for reining in small societies. Darwin suggested that it would be easy to imagine compassion evolving among these groups in order to keep their members from killing one another. Such compassion did not, alas, frequently extend beyond the group. Religion, however, proved to be more scalable. Evolving from tribal belief systems to global belief systems, religions worked because they extended the notion of the "tribe" beyond kin groups related by blood and marriage to, at least in theory with Christianity and Islam, embrace all mankind. Governments are potentially even bigger, since their power can extend over multiple religious groups, a check on competition among them.
The development of religion and government were required as humans began to live in larger and larger agglomerations. Morality can only hold small groups in check, typically groups where everyone knows one another and is aware of what the other is doing, say a village or a hunter-gatherer group. Religion can work as the binding force in a direct theocracy, where the ruler is the god and is perceived to be so, as was likely the case in early cities. Government works when diverse people come together from disparate places and acts as an arbiter among them.
In this respect, government is like money. Money appears in situations where trust is required between persons who do not know each other and want to do business. It is a fiction that is agreed upon by participating parties. Whether is is so-called "fiat money" or specie does not matter. The one has worth because some printing authority says it does and we assent. The other has worth because it is relatively rare and we like shiny things. Either way, our approval is required.
Government is the same. It is an abstraction that is required when communities are too large for face-to-face interaction among all members. An impartial arbiter, ideally, it takes the place of the trust we would have if we lived in a community where we all knew each other. It fails, in as much as it does fail, because it lacks personal connection. It succeeds, inasmuch as it does succeed, because it lacks personal connection. The larger the scale it operates on, the more will be required of it. Those who would have us abandon government and fall back on the safety net of family and friends, want to return to the era when we all knew each other individually. That ship has sailed. Government, to put it bluntly, is our family and friends when we have no others because, at bottom, it is us. It is left to us, then, to determine what the relationship will be.
16 September 2011
10 September 2011
Let the Wounds Heal
I will not join you as you wallow in the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks. I will not watch the countless specials, read the retrospectives, nor indulge in any empty, symbolic gestures on the Internet. I will not allow myself to be swept up in the great, emotional current over the hurt done to me and my country. I will not howl my hurt until the noise of my howling joins with the howls of others until the sound of our collective pain drowns out all other human voices. I will not pat myself on the back because "we" liberated Afghanistan. I will not pump my fist because "we" got Osama bin Laden.
I will remember, silently, and mourn. I will mourn for our losses: for the Americans who have died prosecuting the "War on Terror," for the civilians caught in the middle, for the innocence that died on that day, for the fortitude that might have kept us from meekly submitting to the will of our leaders, for the way we are still cowed whenever the event is brandished in support of some new iniquity. I will mourn those killed that day, but not because they died (I did that when it happened). I will mourn them for the world we have created in their names.
It is not a better world, on balance. We are not a better people. Challenged by history to become larger, to extend our vision beyond ourselves, we instead became smaller. We could not see past our own hurt and, blinded by the pain, we lashed out at others and, indeed, set upon ourselves. We paraded our wounds and used them to excuse the inexcusable.
If you want a wound to heal, you bandage it, keep it clean, medicate it. Afterward, if the wound is severe enough, it leaves a scar that fades over time, a reminder of the hurt tougher than the undamaged tissue around it, an emblem of the healing. It will not heal if you constantly rip off the dressing, expose it to air, and poke at it to remind yourself of the pain. Picking at your wounds, and inflicting new ones on yourself, is the very definition of masochism. Yet we will do this tomorrow, and consider it part of the healing process.
Of course it was a horrible day and of course, though it is almost a cliche, the world changed. But as we mourn our losses we should not only consider what was ripped from us but also what, more tragically, we gave away willingly.
I will remember, silently, and mourn. I will mourn for our losses: for the Americans who have died prosecuting the "War on Terror," for the civilians caught in the middle, for the innocence that died on that day, for the fortitude that might have kept us from meekly submitting to the will of our leaders, for the way we are still cowed whenever the event is brandished in support of some new iniquity. I will mourn those killed that day, but not because they died (I did that when it happened). I will mourn them for the world we have created in their names.
It is not a better world, on balance. We are not a better people. Challenged by history to become larger, to extend our vision beyond ourselves, we instead became smaller. We could not see past our own hurt and, blinded by the pain, we lashed out at others and, indeed, set upon ourselves. We paraded our wounds and used them to excuse the inexcusable.
If you want a wound to heal, you bandage it, keep it clean, medicate it. Afterward, if the wound is severe enough, it leaves a scar that fades over time, a reminder of the hurt tougher than the undamaged tissue around it, an emblem of the healing. It will not heal if you constantly rip off the dressing, expose it to air, and poke at it to remind yourself of the pain. Picking at your wounds, and inflicting new ones on yourself, is the very definition of masochism. Yet we will do this tomorrow, and consider it part of the healing process.
Of course it was a horrible day and of course, though it is almost a cliche, the world changed. But as we mourn our losses we should not only consider what was ripped from us but also what, more tragically, we gave away willingly.
16 July 2011
World Religions Class- My "Manifesto"
Note: I am being considered for a full-time teaching position at a two-year college to teach history, mostly World Civilizations and U.S. History. But an intriguing prospect is that I might have to teach a World Religions class that is cross-listed with Religious Studies. This is my philosophy of such a class and, ideally, would be part of an introductory lecture, or perhaps a challenge to students as the class starts, a touchstone for the duration of the course to test for accuracy. Some of the original ideas were first posted here.
The chief problematic of the study of religion is that it crosses a number of boundaries, many of which cannot be seen until after they are transgressed. If we are to treat religion on its own terms, we are forced to admit that it does not exist, that religion proper is an abstract, a genus in scientific terms, that contains members sharing general characteristics, members who can mate, though with varying success. Yet it is an abstract induced from the very real practices of very real people. In that sense, we might then say that while there are real religions, religion is a construct, just as there are real dogs, but no Canes. Accepting this, we are then forced to deal with each faith individually, regardless of the commonalities they share, especially the commonality of ancestry. This will not do, so we posit the notion- a very useful notion- of religion as a separate discursive space in which Christianity and Islam, animism and deism, henotheism and atheism, can all be studied as members of the same genus. But the boundaries between religions are real boundaries, whose crossing often causes discomfort, and the creation of religion as a category of analysis exposes us to the risk that we will confuse the model with reality.
If, then, we admit the futility of examining "pure" religion is there anything to say that can render it useful? Assuming there is, we must approach the topic from the bottom up, addressing the origins of religious belief and working our way to individual religions and beyond. At the deepest level religion, with all the caveats listed above, is a cultural phenomenon and culture, I argue, is an outgrowth of biology. Darwin recognized this, at least in part, when he posited that morality and religions were the products of selection. "No tribe," he wrote, "could hold together if murder, robbery, treachery & c., were common; consequently, such crimes within the tribe are branded with everlasting infamy." This insight led him to suppose that sympathy, an evolved trait, was the glue that held societies together, and that a perceived lack of morality in so-called primitive peoples was due to a lack of sympathy for those not in the tribe. He even suggested an early scheme for the evolution of religion when he suggested that belief in unseen agents could easily become belief in one or more gods.
This is not, however, a class about Darwin; it is a class in the history of religion. But our starting premise is that religion is a product of men and societies, and that culture, like biology, is subject to selective pressures and that, again like biology, it does not evolve to an end. And it is this organizing premise that, I hope, will prevent this class from being a mere recitation of data points about religions through history. We will discuss religion in historical and anthropological terms, tentatively adopting as our framework for both the classification of religions offered by sociologist Robert Bellah: primitive, archaic, historic, early modern and modern. These are not static categories and, as we shall see over the course of this term, religions evolve. They are also not meant to privilege one "stage" over another, a fact which Bellah, when he proposed this classification, was at pains to remind us, stating, "primitive man is as fully religious as man at any stage of existence." The categories are more about the interaction with the exoteric culture than they are an evaluation of the advanced nature of a religion.
How do religions evolve? Culture, the geneticist Luigi Cavalli-Sforza has suggested, "enables us to accumulate prior discoveries and helps us profit from experience transmitted by our ancestors- knowledge that we would not have on our own." Just as biological evolution arises from the accumulation of new genetic information, culture evolves as it responds to novel circumstances through the accumulation of cultural genes. This is not a completely blind process, as human agency is involved, but the end is almost always and only survival, not arrival at some new and improved form. Those arise by accident. Still selection will tend to favor customs and rules with real social utility.
Religion will tend to evolve in the same way. Just as organisms evolve by recombination of genes and genetic drift, so do cultural artifacts. Imagining a religion as an organism, we can theorize the beliefs and rituals as genes and, having done this, we can postulate how recombination might affect them. Systems that are relatively closed will evolve by cultural drift, analogous to genetic drift, through slow, random change brought about by imperfect transmission. In a group of this kind a religious ritual, or other cultural artifact, would have little impetus to change once its utility is established, all other things being equal. A group-level adaptation, it would be especially resistant to change except in response to competition from other groups. It would be most resistant to change from within, since in such circumstances individual adaptations tend to undermine the group and are usually suppressed.
What about when groups, and their religious systems, come together? Relatively few groups endure for long in complete isolation from others, and it is in the places where they meet that changes will occur. Darwin noted that while isolation was good for slow improvement and better assured the survival of a species, the fastest adaptations occur when species of the same genus come into contact. So when religions meet and compete with each other, we should expect to see the greater change and the change will be greatest when the religions are already structurally similar. The exchange of cultural genes in religion is the root of syncretism and it is the most important aspect of this course. No religion is entirely an original product and, as we examine each, we will see how it arose from what came before it, and follow its traces as it meets others.
This does not mean that all religions converge on a single point. In addition to acknowledging the debt any particular religion owes to others, we will also examine those aspects that are original to it. Whatever currents feed the stream of a given religion, each arises in its own cultural and geographic milieu. So each religion we study will be considered also on its own terms. We will examine the core tenets of each faith we encounter, and take the faith claims of its believers seriously as best we are able to access them. We will attempt to understand how each establishes its core beliefs and deals with deviance. We will trace the impact of each religion on the world, by placing it in history.
Whatever our individual creeds, religious belief has been a powerful force in our lives. It has helped to shape human civilizations as human civilizations have shaped it. It is my goal in this course neither to disparage nor to encourage any individual belief, merely to show the trajectories of the major world religions, from their origins to the present day, and to provide, however limited, a means of gauging their importance to the societies that created them and which they, in turn, created.
23 June 2011
On Rights, Part Two: Liberty, Society, and the Tyranny of the Individual
A little more than a year ago, when I had grander ambitions for what I might do with this platform, I tried to raise some questions about where rights come from and what they mean as we interact with each other. In that piece, I noted how we alienate our so-called "unalienable" rights, rights which, by their very definition, can neither be taken nor given away. I suggested that the very fact that we do abridge them and that they can be abridged should cause us to pause and to re-think this notion. I ended with a plea that we take responsibility for the exercise and limitation of our "rights," asking if the tyranny of the majority was really any worse than the tyranny of the individual. These questions still plague me.
A number of articles I have read online recently, about a variety of topics, have brought me back to thinking about these issues, about the way that individual rights intersect with those of the community. Mostly, it has to do with a rising tide of libertarianism, embodied in politicians such as Ron and Rand Paul and in the Tea Party movement; everywhere we look, shrill voices are crying out about the loss of personal liberty and the encroachment of government in our daily lives. Smaller government, lower (or indeed no) taxes, much less regulation, absolutism on property rights, an end to foreign wars, the aggrandizement of individual rights... these are major components of the libertarian agenda. I have to admit a certain sympathy for it. Authority and I have at best a cordial relationship. I have, for the record, voted Libertarian twice (1996 and 2000, in states where it made no difference, it should be noted). And my inner two-year old, who stamps his feet and takes his toys and goes home when he gets mad, finds it easy to understand a political philosophy that can be summed up in a single word, "Mine!"
But the libertarian movement, whatever point its adherents might have about the morality and advisability of our foreign wars, whatever legitimate fears they may have about government overreach, encapsulates everything I fear about the tyranny of the individual. It forces to the fore my earlier question about where we calibrate the balance of personal liberty and the greater good, unless I am question-begging by assuming they are not the same. Embracing the otherwise laudatory goal of non-coercion, libertarians deny that we have any responsibility towards each other that we do not voluntarily take on. Thus, progressive taxation to fund public goods such as infrastructure, welfare, education and health care are prima facie immoral, constituting a taking from one person to give to another. Governments exist only to protect citizens against fraud and force; individuals are best left to chart their own destinies completely free of outside interference.
This valorization of the individual is all well and good, except that there is an accompanying moral apparatus that is truly horrifying. It assumes that we all succeed or fail by dint of our talents and, so, we should own all the fruits of those talents. It seems a natural outgrowth of a religious worldview that sees success as proof of God's favor and failure as the result of immorality. We see echoes of it in the popularity of the "prosperity Gospel," which seems often little more than a fig leaf for divinely-sanctioned greed. The resurgent appeal (recrudescence?) of Ayn Rand's work, which presents a world where the truly creative stand astride the world attempting to shed the common parasites who live off their labor, in conservative circles is a testament to the search for justifications. Placing the individual at the pinnacle of the social world is empowering, bold, American. And wrong, because it denies everything that makes us human.
The individualistic streak in Western political philosophy was a seventeenth-century invention, and runs counter to the main stream of most previous Christian and pre-Christian thought, which saw man as being most complete, indeed natural, in a community. While I generally shy away from claims about a so-called human nature, I think it not unreasonable to assume that there are certain habits that are, so to speak, hard-wired into the species. One such is society. What is my evidence for such a contention? Only this: that everywhere humans live, they live in the company of other humans. There may have been a point in our distant evolutionary past where humans lived alone, but the exigencies of sexual reproduction and simple survival made social organization advantageous. Simply put, those who lived in societies out-competed those who did not, they reproduced in greater numbers and we who live now are the beneficiaries of their success.
This is what makes the tyranny of the individual so pernicious. What I mean by this term is the notion that individual rights always predominate, that none of us can be forced into involuntary associations with others, that none of us should be required to contribute to the well-being of our fellows. If the absolute freedom of one requires others to suffer for lack of help we can provide, so be it, goes this line of reasoning. As we have seen earlier, their failure or suffering is the result of moral turpitude, so it would be immoral for government to tax the just in order to aid them. The tyranny of the majority is little better, and I would not argue for it, but there is of course a middle position and it is the position that, despite the absolutism of our founding documents, we have tried to steer as a nation. For the most part.
And, of course, it is important not to tar all assertions of individual rights against those of the greater society as tyranny. It is not tyranny to assert rights that do not harm others (in my opinion gay marriage, for instance, falls into this category; others may differ) and, in fact, the majority is tyrannical when it insists on abridging such rights. The community ought not abridge your right to speak because you say unpopular, even vile, things. It is positively tyrannical, however, to assert that your right to do what you will outweighs the rights of others, even rights broadly construed and un-enumerated. Sorry, but those taxes you pay are the price of civilization and if you think civilization is bad, go live in Somalia and tell me what the alternative is like. The discipline of civilization is the restraint of individual will, a discipline that must be enforced if we are to have civilization at all. Part of this discipline is the harnessing of resources to the greater good. We all give up some measure of autonomy for the privilege of living with others, an arrangement that has served us well. To assume you can live otherwise is childish.
I hope that I have not strayed too far from my original notions, but I am a little too close to this to tell. In a later post, I hope to offer my understanding of the nature of human societies, which informs the views I have expressed. If there is anything to take away, it is simply that I think it is fine to assert individual rights, but only to the point where it does no harm to others, and that individuals must be as careful about asserting the primacy of their rights as society must be. Libertarians would, generally, agree with the first part of this, though the sphere of action they claim would extend much farther from themselves.
And, a final point. I have picked on libertarians a great deal without going after far leftists. That is because, here at least, true leftists have such an insignificant voice that it does not even register. Radical collectivism is not the answer to our troubles any more than radical individualism is. Indeed, both are susceptible to the same aggregation of power and wealth in the hands of a few, and in the breakdown of social structures, as to be hard to differentiate by their results.
A number of articles I have read online recently, about a variety of topics, have brought me back to thinking about these issues, about the way that individual rights intersect with those of the community. Mostly, it has to do with a rising tide of libertarianism, embodied in politicians such as Ron and Rand Paul and in the Tea Party movement; everywhere we look, shrill voices are crying out about the loss of personal liberty and the encroachment of government in our daily lives. Smaller government, lower (or indeed no) taxes, much less regulation, absolutism on property rights, an end to foreign wars, the aggrandizement of individual rights... these are major components of the libertarian agenda. I have to admit a certain sympathy for it. Authority and I have at best a cordial relationship. I have, for the record, voted Libertarian twice (1996 and 2000, in states where it made no difference, it should be noted). And my inner two-year old, who stamps his feet and takes his toys and goes home when he gets mad, finds it easy to understand a political philosophy that can be summed up in a single word, "Mine!"
But the libertarian movement, whatever point its adherents might have about the morality and advisability of our foreign wars, whatever legitimate fears they may have about government overreach, encapsulates everything I fear about the tyranny of the individual. It forces to the fore my earlier question about where we calibrate the balance of personal liberty and the greater good, unless I am question-begging by assuming they are not the same. Embracing the otherwise laudatory goal of non-coercion, libertarians deny that we have any responsibility towards each other that we do not voluntarily take on. Thus, progressive taxation to fund public goods such as infrastructure, welfare, education and health care are prima facie immoral, constituting a taking from one person to give to another. Governments exist only to protect citizens against fraud and force; individuals are best left to chart their own destinies completely free of outside interference.
This valorization of the individual is all well and good, except that there is an accompanying moral apparatus that is truly horrifying. It assumes that we all succeed or fail by dint of our talents and, so, we should own all the fruits of those talents. It seems a natural outgrowth of a religious worldview that sees success as proof of God's favor and failure as the result of immorality. We see echoes of it in the popularity of the "prosperity Gospel," which seems often little more than a fig leaf for divinely-sanctioned greed. The resurgent appeal (recrudescence?) of Ayn Rand's work, which presents a world where the truly creative stand astride the world attempting to shed the common parasites who live off their labor, in conservative circles is a testament to the search for justifications. Placing the individual at the pinnacle of the social world is empowering, bold, American. And wrong, because it denies everything that makes us human.
The individualistic streak in Western political philosophy was a seventeenth-century invention, and runs counter to the main stream of most previous Christian and pre-Christian thought, which saw man as being most complete, indeed natural, in a community. While I generally shy away from claims about a so-called human nature, I think it not unreasonable to assume that there are certain habits that are, so to speak, hard-wired into the species. One such is society. What is my evidence for such a contention? Only this: that everywhere humans live, they live in the company of other humans. There may have been a point in our distant evolutionary past where humans lived alone, but the exigencies of sexual reproduction and simple survival made social organization advantageous. Simply put, those who lived in societies out-competed those who did not, they reproduced in greater numbers and we who live now are the beneficiaries of their success.
This is what makes the tyranny of the individual so pernicious. What I mean by this term is the notion that individual rights always predominate, that none of us can be forced into involuntary associations with others, that none of us should be required to contribute to the well-being of our fellows. If the absolute freedom of one requires others to suffer for lack of help we can provide, so be it, goes this line of reasoning. As we have seen earlier, their failure or suffering is the result of moral turpitude, so it would be immoral for government to tax the just in order to aid them. The tyranny of the majority is little better, and I would not argue for it, but there is of course a middle position and it is the position that, despite the absolutism of our founding documents, we have tried to steer as a nation. For the most part.
And, of course, it is important not to tar all assertions of individual rights against those of the greater society as tyranny. It is not tyranny to assert rights that do not harm others (in my opinion gay marriage, for instance, falls into this category; others may differ) and, in fact, the majority is tyrannical when it insists on abridging such rights. The community ought not abridge your right to speak because you say unpopular, even vile, things. It is positively tyrannical, however, to assert that your right to do what you will outweighs the rights of others, even rights broadly construed and un-enumerated. Sorry, but those taxes you pay are the price of civilization and if you think civilization is bad, go live in Somalia and tell me what the alternative is like. The discipline of civilization is the restraint of individual will, a discipline that must be enforced if we are to have civilization at all. Part of this discipline is the harnessing of resources to the greater good. We all give up some measure of autonomy for the privilege of living with others, an arrangement that has served us well. To assume you can live otherwise is childish.
I hope that I have not strayed too far from my original notions, but I am a little too close to this to tell. In a later post, I hope to offer my understanding of the nature of human societies, which informs the views I have expressed. If there is anything to take away, it is simply that I think it is fine to assert individual rights, but only to the point where it does no harm to others, and that individuals must be as careful about asserting the primacy of their rights as society must be. Libertarians would, generally, agree with the first part of this, though the sphere of action they claim would extend much farther from themselves.
And, a final point. I have picked on libertarians a great deal without going after far leftists. That is because, here at least, true leftists have such an insignificant voice that it does not even register. Radical collectivism is not the answer to our troubles any more than radical individualism is. Indeed, both are susceptible to the same aggregation of power and wealth in the hands of a few, and in the breakdown of social structures, as to be hard to differentiate by their results.
20 June 2011
A Teaching Philosophy
Note: I haven't done anything here for awhile because... well... I've been lazy about writing for pleasure. Or for any other purpose. My latest project (outside the normal school stuff) has been testing the waters in the community college job and private high school market, weighing some options. Inevitably, they ask for something called a Teaching Philosophy. Ugh. Such a statement, and cover letters, are about all the writing of consequence I've done of late. So, why not? Something to jump-start the writing habit?
Teaching should be a passion. It should be something one does because one cannot imagine anything more satisfying than the exchange of ideas in robust discussion. This, at least, is what has drawn me again and again to the teaching of history. Teaching was my first choice as a profession in high school more than twenty years ago, and though life diverted me temporarily, the desire to teach was always there. Indeed, as I look back over a varied career path, it was the jobs where teaching was an element of my job that were the most satisfying. It was the urge to teach history that drew me out of the corporate world and back into the academic world, a decision that has left me materially poorer, but richer in knowledge; it is a decision I have never regretted.
I approach the classroom as, I hope, my students approach it- as a learner. I cannot, alas, know everything there is to know about history and it is a constant surprise and pleasure to discover how much my students know that I might not expect. They sometimes teach me how to look at things in a way I had not before, and this is a joy to experience. The teaching experience is a learning experience not only through what happens in class, but what happens out of class. Preparation always brings up some new fact that seems to be a piece of a larger puzzle, one I cannot wait to put together with my students. Both of these require a sort of humility in the face of one's own ignorance, a humility that I sometimes struggle with but that, on my best days, I achieve to my own betterment and that of my students.
My own experience both as a student and a teacher has shown me that a successful class is an engaged one. To that end, I try every day to bring a high level of energy to my work. It does no good to be enthusiastic about history without projecting that enthusiasm and students- I remember this from when I was a student- are very good about picking up on false enthusiasm. Energy is required to create the positive learning environment that leaves both students and teachers certain that the time spent in class is time well spent.
Teaching history is little different from teaching anything else in the end. As a historian and a teacher, I want to show my students the grand arc of whatever subject I am teaching, provide them with the plot in which the people and events are story elements. I enjoy making connections in this regard and, through discussion, I encourage my students to make them as well. At all times I try to make them aware of the contingency of history, to make them aware that any given episode could have turned out differently, to make them aware of human agency throughout. History is not the result of vague, impersonal forces; it is the result of people doing things.
I recognize that, often, the Western Civilization or U.S. History class a student takes in his or her first or second year is the only academic contact with history that student has in college. As teachers, then, we should strive to use this opportunity to demonstrate history's relevance to their lives. I am constantly looking for ways to connect historical material to current events. No event is without a back story and it is the study of history that provides them with context.
One of the best ways I know to engage students is by showing them how history is done. Study of primary documents and writing about these documents is of supreme importance in this endeavor, as students learn how to marshal facts in support of an argument and how to present this argument clearly. The critical thinking and writing skills learned in this manner should, one hopes, attune students to the world around them, helping them better understand the media they consume.
I have always felt that, in order to learn and to avoid hidebound thinking, categories need to be destabilized. There must be a point where disciplines converge and it is impossible to move towards that point if disciplinary divides are rigidly policed. My goal as a history teacher has always been to help students breach the boundaries around the discipline and to bring their own experiences and disciplines to bear. Since my undergraduate degree was in philosophy, I use some of the tools I learned in that field. I also bring insights gleaned from my reading in the social and natural sciences and in other areas. I feel that the variety of my interests has translated well to my dealings with young college students who come with a variety of academic gifts and interests. I share with them an intense curiosity about the world and a desire to understand its workings. Together we teach each other to see the world anew, a process in which I can only serve as a facilitator.
These are the beliefs and attitudes that I bring as a teacher. I come expecting to learn as much as I teach. I believe in offering my students all of my energy and focus while I am in the classroom with them. I seek to emphasize trends and not events and to show the contingency of history which is the result of human agency. I strive to make history relevant by showing its impact on what is happening today. I attempt to demonstrate history's utility in developing critical thinking skills by making students, at least temporarily, into historians. I have never experienced anything so satisfying in my professional life as when all of these mesh together.
Teaching should be a passion. It should be something one does because one cannot imagine anything more satisfying than the exchange of ideas in robust discussion. This, at least, is what has drawn me again and again to the teaching of history. Teaching was my first choice as a profession in high school more than twenty years ago, and though life diverted me temporarily, the desire to teach was always there. Indeed, as I look back over a varied career path, it was the jobs where teaching was an element of my job that were the most satisfying. It was the urge to teach history that drew me out of the corporate world and back into the academic world, a decision that has left me materially poorer, but richer in knowledge; it is a decision I have never regretted.
I approach the classroom as, I hope, my students approach it- as a learner. I cannot, alas, know everything there is to know about history and it is a constant surprise and pleasure to discover how much my students know that I might not expect. They sometimes teach me how to look at things in a way I had not before, and this is a joy to experience. The teaching experience is a learning experience not only through what happens in class, but what happens out of class. Preparation always brings up some new fact that seems to be a piece of a larger puzzle, one I cannot wait to put together with my students. Both of these require a sort of humility in the face of one's own ignorance, a humility that I sometimes struggle with but that, on my best days, I achieve to my own betterment and that of my students.
My own experience both as a student and a teacher has shown me that a successful class is an engaged one. To that end, I try every day to bring a high level of energy to my work. It does no good to be enthusiastic about history without projecting that enthusiasm and students- I remember this from when I was a student- are very good about picking up on false enthusiasm. Energy is required to create the positive learning environment that leaves both students and teachers certain that the time spent in class is time well spent.
Teaching history is little different from teaching anything else in the end. As a historian and a teacher, I want to show my students the grand arc of whatever subject I am teaching, provide them with the plot in which the people and events are story elements. I enjoy making connections in this regard and, through discussion, I encourage my students to make them as well. At all times I try to make them aware of the contingency of history, to make them aware that any given episode could have turned out differently, to make them aware of human agency throughout. History is not the result of vague, impersonal forces; it is the result of people doing things.
I recognize that, often, the Western Civilization or U.S. History class a student takes in his or her first or second year is the only academic contact with history that student has in college. As teachers, then, we should strive to use this opportunity to demonstrate history's relevance to their lives. I am constantly looking for ways to connect historical material to current events. No event is without a back story and it is the study of history that provides them with context.
One of the best ways I know to engage students is by showing them how history is done. Study of primary documents and writing about these documents is of supreme importance in this endeavor, as students learn how to marshal facts in support of an argument and how to present this argument clearly. The critical thinking and writing skills learned in this manner should, one hopes, attune students to the world around them, helping them better understand the media they consume.
I have always felt that, in order to learn and to avoid hidebound thinking, categories need to be destabilized. There must be a point where disciplines converge and it is impossible to move towards that point if disciplinary divides are rigidly policed. My goal as a history teacher has always been to help students breach the boundaries around the discipline and to bring their own experiences and disciplines to bear. Since my undergraduate degree was in philosophy, I use some of the tools I learned in that field. I also bring insights gleaned from my reading in the social and natural sciences and in other areas. I feel that the variety of my interests has translated well to my dealings with young college students who come with a variety of academic gifts and interests. I share with them an intense curiosity about the world and a desire to understand its workings. Together we teach each other to see the world anew, a process in which I can only serve as a facilitator.
These are the beliefs and attitudes that I bring as a teacher. I come expecting to learn as much as I teach. I believe in offering my students all of my energy and focus while I am in the classroom with them. I seek to emphasize trends and not events and to show the contingency of history which is the result of human agency. I strive to make history relevant by showing its impact on what is happening today. I attempt to demonstrate history's utility in developing critical thinking skills by making students, at least temporarily, into historians. I have never experienced anything so satisfying in my professional life as when all of these mesh together.
06 June 2010
Revisting Gold Beach
Note: I have decided to revisit a "photo-essay" I posted on my Facebook page last year, following a visit to Arromanches-les-Bains in Normandy, the the D-Day landing site known as Gold Beach. What I wrote then was not terribly measured and I don't know if this will be any more so, but it is June 6, 2010, and the day should be marked somehow.
I am a medieval historian, and so loath to comment on topics outside my ken, like World War II. The only other occasion when I have done so was in an earlier blog post, which was not about the war as much as war and its effects and the things you learn in unexpected places. Still, if one has lived the last twenty years as an attentive citizen, one can hardly not be aware of the great interest that has been shown for the event. These thoughts stemmed from a 2009 visit to Arromanches-les-Bains, a site I first visited in 1989 just after graduating from high school. Code-named Gold Beach on D-Day, it was an invasion site taken primarily by British Forces, who were tasked with creating an artificial harbor (which a friend tells me is called a Mulberry harbor). Until Antwe
rp was liberated, the Mulberry harbor at Arromanches was a primary resupply point for Allied forces in Normandy. The above photo is of a segment of that harbor, still resting on the beach. Segments of the harbor remain in the Channel and are visible on satellite photos.
The most disturbing part of the growth of interest in World War II was the peddling of a triumphalist narrative. It is, indeed, a story that has been crammed down our throats at least since the 1998 publication of Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation and driven home by movies like Saving Private Ryan. Such efforts, which would seem to run counter to the noted reticence veterans of the war consistently
show to lionize their efforts, offer us a straightforward good-versus-evil struggle and the triumph of democracy over totalitarianism. This can generally be accomplished only by minimizing the involvement of Stalin's Soviet Union and Chinese Communists under Mao, whose efforts were integral to the Allied victory. How then, in this narrative, can we explain this, for if Stalin and Mao were not totalitarians--though, to be fair, Mao would have to wait a few years--then who is?
The truth seems to be that by constructing a narrative in this fashion, we allow o
urselves to duck our measure of responsibility for a war that claimed more than 70 and perhaps as many as 100 million lives. We can claim to have been drawn in by the December 7 attack on Pearl Harbor, but we had always been involved, if only through policies such as Lend-Lease or documents like the so-called "Atlantic Charter." We had sold Japan much of the steel its war machine needed in much the same way that the United Kingdom sold its desert camouflage to Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the years preceding the first Gulf War.
In the end, World War Two was the result of the bad faith of governments throughout the world. That the Allies won is, of course, a good thing for humanity. But that the war had to be fought at this scale, that the threat of German fascism was not strangled in its crib, is evidence of how colossally all the parties fucked up--there is no other way to put it--in the years before the war. We went to war because we had screwed up too badly not to go to war. And, as always, old men far from the battlefield sent young men to die for their mi
stakes. And, again as always, these young men responded with bravery and with cowardice, with conviction and with doubt, willingly or not. Their sacrifice should be remembered, and it is not my goal to denigrate that, but to point out that they were, at least in part, cleaning up their own mess, as is always the case. One reminder is the refuse of this war, still leaking oily residue over 65 years later. The battlefield is beautiful, and the locals fish for clams in these pools, but the detritus of war still pollutes the beach.
Yet, the uncritical narratives dominate, precisely because they fail to challenge us. And through the efforts of hagiographers like Brokaw, Steven Spielberg, Stephen Ambrose and others, everything is framed by the war. The god-men they describe and portray make the rest of us seem like homunculi by comparison. Their message is disheartening. Never can we rise to such a level of excellence, so we must be content to adore. Was their accomplishment marvelous? Yes. But it was only equal to the size of the mistakes their leaders made. And, of course, it is not the veterans who write and film these masturbatory exercises in hero-worship. For the most part, content with having done their jobs, they attempted to return to the lives they left behind.
Part of what the hagiographers have done stems from a noble source. The World War Two generation was notably silent about their achievement and no one should argue that memory must be preserved. However, we must take the good with the bad. Remnants like these will clutter the beaches long after the last veteran has died.
It is important, however, to resist the simplistic narrative of the war that media and markets attempt to foist on us. Forgetting the complexity of the war, ignoring our own culpability, makes it difficult to avoid the next war. Nothing so big is ever so simple as some would have us think. Monuments like the monstrosity on the National Mall force us into this mold, and it is no coincidence that the chief movers of this projects were the same people selling us the triumphalist story. So the monument becomes more a paean to their o
wn excesses than to the veterans. It belies, in its way, the message they have tried to sell us.
In Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, perhaps the most profound meditation on war ever filmed, the master Shimada Kambei tells the callow swordsman Kikuchiyo that in war only the peasants win. At the end of the film, Kikuchiyo abandons the way of the sword and returns to his peasant roots. Like Cincinnatus, whose example so stirred the Revolutionary generati
on, this is what the veterans of the war did. Once the artificial harbor and the bridges connecting it to the land had served their purpose, it was abandoned. The people and their need to work and eat remain, their survival a fitting monument. They will outlast anything built by the hand of man.
I am a medieval historian, and so loath to comment on topics outside my ken, like World War II. The only other occasion when I have done so was in an earlier blog post, which was not about the war as much as war and its effects and the things you learn in unexpected places. Still, if one has lived the last twenty years as an attentive citizen, one can hardly not be aware of the great interest that has been shown for the event. These thoughts stemmed from a 2009 visit to Arromanches-les-Bains, a site I first visited in 1989 just after graduating from high school. Code-named Gold Beach on D-Day, it was an invasion site taken primarily by British Forces, who were tasked with creating an artificial harbor (which a friend tells me is called a Mulberry harbor). Until Antwe
rp was liberated, the Mulberry harbor at Arromanches was a primary resupply point for Allied forces in Normandy. The above photo is of a segment of that harbor, still resting on the beach. Segments of the harbor remain in the Channel and are visible on satellite photos.The most disturbing part of the growth of interest in World War II was the peddling of a triumphalist narrative. It is, indeed, a story that has been crammed down our throats at least since the 1998 publication of Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation and driven home by movies like Saving Private Ryan. Such efforts, which would seem to run counter to the noted reticence veterans of the war consistently
show to lionize their efforts, offer us a straightforward good-versus-evil struggle and the triumph of democracy over totalitarianism. This can generally be accomplished only by minimizing the involvement of Stalin's Soviet Union and Chinese Communists under Mao, whose efforts were integral to the Allied victory. How then, in this narrative, can we explain this, for if Stalin and Mao were not totalitarians--though, to be fair, Mao would have to wait a few years--then who is?The truth seems to be that by constructing a narrative in this fashion, we allow o
urselves to duck our measure of responsibility for a war that claimed more than 70 and perhaps as many as 100 million lives. We can claim to have been drawn in by the December 7 attack on Pearl Harbor, but we had always been involved, if only through policies such as Lend-Lease or documents like the so-called "Atlantic Charter." We had sold Japan much of the steel its war machine needed in much the same way that the United Kingdom sold its desert camouflage to Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the years preceding the first Gulf War.In the end, World War Two was the result of the bad faith of governments throughout the world. That the Allies won is, of course, a good thing for humanity. But that the war had to be fought at this scale, that the threat of German fascism was not strangled in its crib, is evidence of how colossally all the parties fucked up--there is no other way to put it--in the years before the war. We went to war because we had screwed up too badly not to go to war. And, as always, old men far from the battlefield sent young men to die for their mi
stakes. And, again as always, these young men responded with bravery and with cowardice, with conviction and with doubt, willingly or not. Their sacrifice should be remembered, and it is not my goal to denigrate that, but to point out that they were, at least in part, cleaning up their own mess, as is always the case. One reminder is the refuse of this war, still leaking oily residue over 65 years later. The battlefield is beautiful, and the locals fish for clams in these pools, but the detritus of war still pollutes the beach.
Yet, the uncritical narratives dominate, precisely because they fail to challenge us. And through the efforts of hagiographers like Brokaw, Steven Spielberg, Stephen Ambrose and others, everything is framed by the war. The god-men they describe and portray make the rest of us seem like homunculi by comparison. Their message is disheartening. Never can we rise to such a level of excellence, so we must be content to adore. Was their accomplishment marvelous? Yes. But it was only equal to the size of the mistakes their leaders made. And, of course, it is not the veterans who write and film these masturbatory exercises in hero-worship. For the most part, content with having done their jobs, they attempted to return to the lives they left behind.
Part of what the hagiographers have done stems from a noble source. The World War Two generation was notably silent about their achievement and no one should argue that memory must be preserved. However, we must take the good with the bad. Remnants like these will clutter the beaches long after the last veteran has died.It is important, however, to resist the simplistic narrative of the war that media and markets attempt to foist on us. Forgetting the complexity of the war, ignoring our own culpability, makes it difficult to avoid the next war. Nothing so big is ever so simple as some would have us think. Monuments like the monstrosity on the National Mall force us into this mold, and it is no coincidence that the chief movers of this projects were the same people selling us the triumphalist story. So the monument becomes more a paean to their o
wn excesses than to the veterans. It belies, in its way, the message they have tried to sell us.In Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, perhaps the most profound meditation on war ever filmed, the master Shimada Kambei tells the callow swordsman Kikuchiyo that in war only the peasants win. At the end of the film, Kikuchiyo abandons the way of the sword and returns to his peasant roots. Like Cincinnatus, whose example so stirred the Revolutionary generati
on, this is what the veterans of the war did. Once the artificial harbor and the bridges connecting it to the land had served their purpose, it was abandoned. The people and their need to work and eat remain, their survival a fitting monument. They will outlast anything built by the hand of man.Nothing beside remains, round the decay
Of that colossal wreck. Boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
-Percy Bysshe Shelley
05 June 2010
Review: "Greetings from Afghanistan, Send More Ammo: Dispatches from Taliban Country" by Benjamin Tupper
There were several points in Benjamin Tupper's astounding book, "Greetings from Afghanistan" where I had to set the thing down for a few moments and regain my composure before I could continue, sometimes more than once in the same essay. Based on Tupper's postings on "The Sandbox," Doonesbury's milblog, and on pieces presented on NPR and other media outlets, the book is a collection of well-observed and -drawn sketches from the year he spent as an ETT operating on an ANA FOB in Afghanistan. No, I will not explain those terms; if you are going to read this book you had best learn what these acronyms mean and get used to seeing them.
Tupper brings a keen eye and a mordant wit to his descriptions of the everyday triumphs and tragedies of combat operations in Afghanistan, bringing home to the reader how ordinary even sheer terror can become. He is obviously, and justly, proud of his work at the "Tip of the Counterinsurgency Spear." He is also obviously, and justly, frustrated at how little understanding there seems to be that the best methods of pacifying the country do not involve the application of hard power, that the distribution of used clothing and stuffed animals (an activity which earned him the nickname "Captain Carebear") can be more effective than a well-placed artillery barrage in suppressing the Taliban. His praise, and occasional criticism, of Afghans he knew and worked with, does a great deal to help the reader realize that, like us, these people want to live free and peaceful lives.
Where Tupper's work really shines, and where it most touched me, is in the descriptions of his comrades-in-arms. You can walk away feeling that you actually met people such as Ski, Vandy, Deg and a handful of others who have stood up on our behalf. We see how alive they were in the field and, for those who made it home, how troubled re-entry into society can be for people who have been kept on edge for so long, and for whom coming back to civilian life removed much of the sense in their lives. It provides an apt illustration of the long-noted conundrum of how to turn the warrior off when so much time and energy has been spent turning him on, and of the effect this has not only on the warrior but on those around him.
I would like to say more, so much more, but I find it difficult once again to maintain composure. Let me simply say that you will know much that you did not before for reading this, and you will know things that the news cannot tell you. It is, as Ken Sterns says on the jacket blurb, "Raw, direct and powerful... vitally important." Afghanistan remains the forgotten war we are currently engaged in, despite a renewed focus on operations there. In a way, success there is far more important than success in Iraq. "Greetings from Afghanistan" brings this lesson home trenchantly, profanely, humorously and sadly. It left me shaken, but also optimistic that men (and women; their absence was perhaps the most noticeable, but this may be excused for reasons which, I think, become obvious) such as Tupper serve on our behalf and bring reports to us.
This is not a dispassionate review, and I realize that. This book does not allow it.
Tupper brings a keen eye and a mordant wit to his descriptions of the everyday triumphs and tragedies of combat operations in Afghanistan, bringing home to the reader how ordinary even sheer terror can become. He is obviously, and justly, proud of his work at the "Tip of the Counterinsurgency Spear." He is also obviously, and justly, frustrated at how little understanding there seems to be that the best methods of pacifying the country do not involve the application of hard power, that the distribution of used clothing and stuffed animals (an activity which earned him the nickname "Captain Carebear") can be more effective than a well-placed artillery barrage in suppressing the Taliban. His praise, and occasional criticism, of Afghans he knew and worked with, does a great deal to help the reader realize that, like us, these people want to live free and peaceful lives.
Where Tupper's work really shines, and where it most touched me, is in the descriptions of his comrades-in-arms. You can walk away feeling that you actually met people such as Ski, Vandy, Deg and a handful of others who have stood up on our behalf. We see how alive they were in the field and, for those who made it home, how troubled re-entry into society can be for people who have been kept on edge for so long, and for whom coming back to civilian life removed much of the sense in their lives. It provides an apt illustration of the long-noted conundrum of how to turn the warrior off when so much time and energy has been spent turning him on, and of the effect this has not only on the warrior but on those around him.
I would like to say more, so much more, but I find it difficult once again to maintain composure. Let me simply say that you will know much that you did not before for reading this, and you will know things that the news cannot tell you. It is, as Ken Sterns says on the jacket blurb, "Raw, direct and powerful... vitally important." Afghanistan remains the forgotten war we are currently engaged in, despite a renewed focus on operations there. In a way, success there is far more important than success in Iraq. "Greetings from Afghanistan" brings this lesson home trenchantly, profanely, humorously and sadly. It left me shaken, but also optimistic that men (and women; their absence was perhaps the most noticeable, but this may be excused for reasons which, I think, become obvious) such as Tupper serve on our behalf and bring reports to us.
This is not a dispassionate review, and I realize that. This book does not allow it.
13 May 2010
Casual Destruction
Nature had prepared the bird to escape any number of ground- and air-based predators, but against two tons of metal hurtling toward it at 55 miles per hour evolution had apparently given it little answer. I saw it try to take wing, wondering why it waited so long, just as it disappeared from view. In the time it took me to kill the bird, from the instant I realized he (she?) was going to react too late, to glimpsing feathers drifting down to the pavement in my rear-view mirror, I was able to utter three words.
"God. Damn. Bird."
Angry words, but spoken with sadness. Because it really wasn't the bird's fault that it died. She had the right instinct; she merely waited too long. One might argue that through such (un)natural selections, the gene pool for the species is improved. One might be right. But I did not run over an entire species of bird. A species is an imaginary notion anyway; it is abstracted from the totality of its individuals. And an individual is what I killed.
I can never know what the inner world of a bird is like or, indeed, whether it has one. I have enough trouble conceiving of my own. It's hard enough to understand what it is like for me to be alive here and now. Life itself has arisen from the chance interactions of chemical processes. It is complicated, and requires the input of energy, and for all that it is still difficult to comprehend.
Killing is so much easier, stopping the processes is all that is required. On. Off. Like a switch. That my flipping this particular switch was an accident, that what was a bird and is now a carcass that will help other animals live, does not change my culpability.
If I had any decency I would cry. If I believed in God I would pray. If I had the courage of my convictions I would give up meat, at least for the day. But the best I am apparently able to do is register my regret, realizing that it will not last as long, perhaps, as it should. And I'm sorry.
"God. Damn. Bird."
Angry words, but spoken with sadness. Because it really wasn't the bird's fault that it died. She had the right instinct; she merely waited too long. One might argue that through such (un)natural selections, the gene pool for the species is improved. One might be right. But I did not run over an entire species of bird. A species is an imaginary notion anyway; it is abstracted from the totality of its individuals. And an individual is what I killed.
I can never know what the inner world of a bird is like or, indeed, whether it has one. I have enough trouble conceiving of my own. It's hard enough to understand what it is like for me to be alive here and now. Life itself has arisen from the chance interactions of chemical processes. It is complicated, and requires the input of energy, and for all that it is still difficult to comprehend.
Killing is so much easier, stopping the processes is all that is required. On. Off. Like a switch. That my flipping this particular switch was an accident, that what was a bird and is now a carcass that will help other animals live, does not change my culpability.
If I had any decency I would cry. If I believed in God I would pray. If I had the courage of my convictions I would give up meat, at least for the day. But the best I am apparently able to do is register my regret, realizing that it will not last as long, perhaps, as it should. And I'm sorry.
21 April 2010
2010 Congressional District Survey
Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee needs MY help! Immediately! He sent me a survey and a form letter saying so. This is because I am apparently "one of our Party's most dedicated and trusted activists [whose] views and opinions on this survey will be used to represent thousands of Republicans in [my] congressional district." Not only can I provide valuable guidance for the party I can also...wait for it...provide MONEY! Hot damn! Money for "the critical campaign support they need--including polling data, research materials, strategic planning, advertising, volunteer training, lap dances and even direct cash assistance." OK, one of those I made up; you decide which. And $500, $250, $100, $50, or even just $25 seems a small price to pay to stop the Socialist Armageddon Mr. Steele seems certain is looming just over the horizon. The Democrat (sic) Party must be stopped. Did I mention I could give $500, $250, $100, $50, or even just $25? Because he did. Three times, in case I forget!
Anyhoo, I just thought I'd share the survey questions with you all:
Anyhoo, I just thought I'd share the survey questions with you all:
- Do you support the Obama Administration's efforts to eliminate further testing and deployment of an intercontinental missile defense system?
- Should Republicans fight congressional Democrats' efforts to grant full unconditional amnesty to illegal immigrants?
- Do you agree with Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi's efforts to impost massive tax hikes on the American people?
- Do you believe that the federal government should maintain a permanent ownership stake in large auto companies?
- Do you support giving captured foreign terrorists full judicial privileges and rights that are granted to U.S. citizens?
- Do you support expanded exploration and drilling for fossil fuels off of U.S. coasts and on federal land?
- Do you support the Democrats' efforts to create a massive new federal government bureaucracy that would be run by unionized government employees and would have complete control of your healthcare costs and choices?
- Should Republicans in Congress make expansion of veterans' benefits a priority?
- Do you support maintaining anti-terrorism laws that give law enforcement and intelligence agencies the far-reaching powers to track detain and prosecute terrorists and their accomplices?
- Should the U.S. government normalize relations with Cuba?
- Do you believe Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress have the best interests of you, your family and your community in mind?
- Do you believe that American business and industry will be able to compete in the world economy if the Obama Administration bends to pressure from radical environmentalists and implements draconian regulations on emissions, energy consumption and transportation beyond what is required in other countries?
- Do you support Barack Obama's plan to get Medicare to fund a new bloated entitlement program?
- Do you agree that President Obama and the Democrats in Congress seem more concerned about passing their liberal pet-programs than creating jobs and getting the economy going?
- Do you believe that the nation's Founding Fathers intended for the federal government to micro-manage state and local functions such as healthcare, child care and unemployment assistance
- Do you feel that total Democrat (sic) control of both chambers of Congress and the Presidency will make our nation more safe prosperous and free?
- Are you ready to actively support Republican candidates in your area and across the country who are fighting to stop the liberal Obama agenda and reinstitute conservative Republican policies and principles such as personal responsibility, lower taxes, cutting government waste and keeping our defense strong?
- Yes! I want to join the RNC's effort to win control of the U.S. House and Senate in the fast-approaching 2010 mid-term elections, safeguard our values and principles, and get America moving towards a strong, prosperous and secure future. I am enclosing my most generous contribution of: $500, $250, $100, $50, $25, $____ Other
- I cannot pledge my support this year, but I would like to include a contribution of $11 to help the RNC fund this survey and its tabulation.
01 April 2010
The Host Desecration Project Finale: The Introduction
Note: This is a draft introduction for the Host desecration piece I've been working on. It is to appear in a source reader on pilgrimage, which is why it is mentioned in the final paragraph.
The twelfth and thirteenth centuries were a time of increasing anxiety concerning the presence of Jews in Christian Europe. Beginning with the massacres attending the summons to the First Crusade in 1099, Jews in Europe found themselves more and more alienated from their Christian neighbors and more the target of polemical attack from Church authorities. In around 1150, the monk Thomas of Monmouth, seeking increased pilgrim traffic to the local shrine of William of Norwich, wrote an account of the Child-saint's life that introduced the fantasy of Jewish ritual murder into the arsenal of anti-Judaic invective.
When, in 1215, it was decreed at the Fourth Lateran Council that underneath the bread and wine of the Eucharist were the actual, historical body and blood of Christ, a new source of anxiety appeared, this one concerning the proximity of Jews and the Eucharist. These concerns would find full expression in accounts of host desecration, the capture and torment of the consecrated bread by Jews, like the one presented here. Though composed of tropes that began circulating in the mid-thirteenth century, this incident, which took place in 1290 in Paris, is generally considered to be the first fully-articulated account of Host desecration. Like the accusations of ritual murder that preceded it, this was also an anti-Judaic fantasy, an expression of Christian angst about the Eucharist.
All of the elements are here: the doubting Jewish merchant, the Christian woman ensnared by debt, the family of the Jew, the tortured host that bleeds, the execution of the Jew and the conversion of his family to Christianity as he burns. This account adds the twist that the knife used and some of the blood become venerated as relics which the people can come to see with their own eyes. Thus the perfidy of Jews led to an opportunity for pilgrimage, and a possibility for the same redemption achieved by the unnamed merchant's wife and children.
The Host Desecration Project 4: The Rest of the Story
He who considers this will, astonished, praise divine mercy, and the other things of the Lord (he was allowed to return from death and not immediately to die) and speak as it were of the resurrection. Indeed, that sacrosanct Host, after being stabbed, pierced, scourged, burnt by the flames, torn, lanced and thrown into a cauldron of boiling water, unblemished and whole, lay with honor in the Church of Saint John in Gravia, covered by a small piece of the Lord's clothing, and to the greater glory of the Lord, adorned with a small piece of the Cross. The faithful can look at with their own eyes the aforementioned breadknife and the blood that miraculously flowed forth from the wound and the container of ashes in which it arrived, in the church of the Brothers of Blessed Mary of Charity, in the same neighborhood.
These deeds came from the house to the notice of the people thus. When, at the hour of the High Mass, the signal was given by the bell in the Crusader church, that the gathering people might adore the sacrosanct body of Christ, the son of the Jew, going outside, asked those passing by where they were running. They declared that they were going to the venerable mystery of the sacrosant body of Christ. The boy told the Christians that they would seek their god in that church in vain, and how his father had beaten it, scourged it, afflicted it with injury and treated it with evil. A certain woman, hearing this and eager to find out, charged into the house of the Jew, full of horror, armed with the sign of the Cross saw again the martyrdom of the flesh of the Lord. Immediately the sacrosanct host, consecrated and unharmed, ensiled itself in a wooden container used for carrying ashes, which the woman reached for to carry. She bestowed it for safekeeping on the priesthood of Saint John in Gravia, and they concealed it with great reverence under the interior. That woman, moreover, although she attempted to leave the church, could not as though she were bound in chains, until she told the priests how she got the Host she had bestowed, witnessed by many who had now gathered and made reports.
The woman related the deed and the things she saw. Whereupon the priest undertook to tell the bishop of Paris. The whole of the city rushed to the spectacle; the Jew was joined with his wife and children in chains. Brought to the presence of the bishop and men distinguished in ecclesiastical dignity, the Jew confessed to the crime; he was warned that he should repent, for it is written, I desire not the death of the wicked, but it is better to turn from this way, and live, he hoped for pardon when he prayed a long time ago before they crucified him. The woman and children were converted to the Christian faith, although the obstinate Jew had been condemned to be cremated by fire, and was led to the place of punishment. When the executioner wanted to place him on the fire he exclaimed, "Woe is me, who was so unexpectedly caught, I was not able to take arms!" Asked what were these aforementioned arms, the Jew responded, "I have a book in my home, which, were I to have it with me, God would make it so that you could not immolate me."
At the command of the prior the book was brought by the ushers, bound to the Jew, and placed under the flame both were reduced to ashes as easily as it was difficult for the Jew to be converted from his infidelity. Then with the crowd of people standing around, the Bishop of Paris reviewed the place where the miracle occurred, as was told. He marked with holy anointing of chrism the wife of the Jew, his son and his daughter, who were cleansed by baptism. Many other Jews, too, so moved by the evident miracle, converted to the faith, securing the sacrament of baptism.
Moreover, in that spot where so great a crime was savagely perpetrated, Raynerius Flamingus, a citizen of Paris, undertook the building of a chapel where the miracle was expressed, at his own expense in the year 1294. Then, with Guido of Joinville managing, he bestowed it upon the brothers of Blessed Mary of Charity of the diocese of Catalina. Also Philip, king of the Franks, called the Fair, enlarged the home near the aforementioned chapel in the Year of our Lord 1299. Indeed the aforementioned brothers of the order established a commemoration of so great a miracle to be celebrated solemnly each year on Whitsunday.
These deeds came from the house to the notice of the people thus. When, at the hour of the High Mass, the signal was given by the bell in the Crusader church, that the gathering people might adore the sacrosanct body of Christ, the son of the Jew, going outside, asked those passing by where they were running. They declared that they were going to the venerable mystery of the sacrosant body of Christ. The boy told the Christians that they would seek their god in that church in vain, and how his father had beaten it, scourged it, afflicted it with injury and treated it with evil. A certain woman, hearing this and eager to find out, charged into the house of the Jew, full of horror, armed with the sign of the Cross saw again the martyrdom of the flesh of the Lord. Immediately the sacrosanct host, consecrated and unharmed, ensiled itself in a wooden container used for carrying ashes, which the woman reached for to carry. She bestowed it for safekeeping on the priesthood of Saint John in Gravia, and they concealed it with great reverence under the interior. That woman, moreover, although she attempted to leave the church, could not as though she were bound in chains, until she told the priests how she got the Host she had bestowed, witnessed by many who had now gathered and made reports.
The woman related the deed and the things she saw. Whereupon the priest undertook to tell the bishop of Paris. The whole of the city rushed to the spectacle; the Jew was joined with his wife and children in chains. Brought to the presence of the bishop and men distinguished in ecclesiastical dignity, the Jew confessed to the crime; he was warned that he should repent, for it is written, I desire not the death of the wicked, but it is better to turn from this way, and live, he hoped for pardon when he prayed a long time ago before they crucified him. The woman and children were converted to the Christian faith, although the obstinate Jew had been condemned to be cremated by fire, and was led to the place of punishment. When the executioner wanted to place him on the fire he exclaimed, "Woe is me, who was so unexpectedly caught, I was not able to take arms!" Asked what were these aforementioned arms, the Jew responded, "I have a book in my home, which, were I to have it with me, God would make it so that you could not immolate me."
At the command of the prior the book was brought by the ushers, bound to the Jew, and placed under the flame both were reduced to ashes as easily as it was difficult for the Jew to be converted from his infidelity. Then with the crowd of people standing around, the Bishop of Paris reviewed the place where the miracle occurred, as was told. He marked with holy anointing of chrism the wife of the Jew, his son and his daughter, who were cleansed by baptism. Many other Jews, too, so moved by the evident miracle, converted to the faith, securing the sacrament of baptism.
Moreover, in that spot where so great a crime was savagely perpetrated, Raynerius Flamingus, a citizen of Paris, undertook the building of a chapel where the miracle was expressed, at his own expense in the year 1294. Then, with Guido of Joinville managing, he bestowed it upon the brothers of Blessed Mary of Charity of the diocese of Catalina. Also Philip, king of the Franks, called the Fair, enlarged the home near the aforementioned chapel in the Year of our Lord 1299. Indeed the aforementioned brothers of the order established a commemoration of so great a miracle to be celebrated solemnly each year on Whitsunday.
29 March 2010
The Host Desecration Project 3: The Saga Begins
Part One of the Host Desecration Project is here; Part Two is here...
On the Miracle of the Host!!
Many Disgraces Inflicted by a Jew of Paris!!!
12 April 1290, Paris
The benefits that God conferred on his people, the Jews were vast, but those divine bounty showed, and daily shows, us Christians are immeasurable. It was not enough for him to change the children of wrath by nature into children of God by the sacrament of baptism. He also endures with us unto the completion of the world, sustaining us through the eating of his own flesh and the drinking of his own blood. When we receive in our members his body and blood we become Christ-bearers, joined to him, just as our limbs, fitted, join to the head itself.
Yet our venomous, odious cousins, taught of the necessity of the Eucharist to the life of the soul by the Lord, turned away from it. Thus the children of the poisonous Jews remain doubtful of it. See for yourself how, in the year of our Lord 1290, on 11 April, Easter day, the most celebrated of all by Parisians up and down the city, a certain down-on-her-luck common woman had pawned her clothes to a Jew for the pledge of 30 Parisian solidi. She reclaimed them, that she might appear in the sacred precincts.
The Jew promised to return them for free, if she would bring to him the thing she claimed was her God. The greedy woman promised to do so. And, when she was ready, she received the most holy body of Christ at the Church of Saint Merry. She took it, hidden in her mouth, to the Jew, from whom she received her clothes free of charge.
"I will know," said the cruel merchant, "whether what the insane Christians blather on about this kind of thing is true." So he grabbed a bread knife and, placing the most holy body of Christ on a chest, pierced it with dire blows, whence he perceived sacred blood to flow copiously! This deed was witnessed by his wife and children.
His wife, upon seeing this stupendous miracle, stood astonished. The Jew, frightened as well, but feeling no remorse, again seized the Host and attacked it with hammer and nails, causing the sweet-smelling blood to flow as before. His wife admonished him, to little avail, that he might desist from his endeavor. He then threw the most holy Host into a large fire, from which it emerged whole, flying throughout the house.
Trying once more in vain to rip it to shreds with a knife, he attacked the Host, which always remained whole, with all his strength, finally hanging it from a lancet near the washroom. And, the Host abundantly flowing with blood as before, the Jew threw it into a cauldron of boiling water. The water, elevated by the power of the Host's glory, became blood. It showed itself to the Jew in the form of the body of the crucified Lord, at whose appearance while his wife and children wept contritely, he went mad and fled from the room.
to be continued...
25 March 2010
On Rights- Part One: On the Origin of Rights
There are, perhaps, no more dangerous words in the English language than these:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it."
They are dangerous not in and of themselves--no words are--but for the responses they inspire. At their very best, they inspire us to shatter the shackles of tyranny, to assert our "rights" as autonomous human beings to govern ourselves and live as we choose. At their very worst, and often after throwing off the shackles of tyrants, they inspire us to a different kind of tyranny, that of the atomistic individual, to take our status as autonomous human beings as license for the unrestrained exercise of will. Both the triumph and the tragedy of this stem from the assertion that these rights derive from a Creator or, as Jefferson puts it elsewhere in the Declaration of Independence, "Nature and Nature's God."
The tension is never more evident, the line between triumph and tragedy never more blurred, than in discussions (debates? hissy-fits?) about the meaning of our Constitution and, especially, of the Bill of Rights. Take, for example, the protection of speech. The first Amendment states: "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech." Congress, as the legislative power, can be read to stand for the entire government. Government, of course, is "We the People," the repository of sovereignty. If we are to take seriously that freedom of speech, as a right, is an endowment from "Nature and Nature's God," then government cannot restrict any speech.
It is a triumph when the speech government cannot prevent is criticism of itself; it is a tragedy when it cannot prevent speech acts that lead to harm, such as child pornography. So we (most of us) have accepted certain limitations--I may not photograph children for prurient purposes, may not shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater. We accept these restrictions because accepting them is better than the alternative, but it is inescapable that in this acceptance we have begun to alienate our supposedly unalienable rights. Is it possible that these rights are not so self-evident as we have been led to believe?
Addressing this question requires us to step away for a moment from the language in which rights are expressed. If we accept that rights derive from a creator, we arrive at an impasse. Necessity requires us to accept them uncritically and to write off our failure to properly perceive and exercise our rights to the fallibility of human free will. The fact that we cannot be permitted full exercise of our "God-given" right to free speech is because fallen men exercise these rights in ways that are unconscionably harmful.
The truth is that we seldom think of the exceptions because most of us will never run up against the limitations they impose. We are then able to blithely ignore the contradiction inherent in the voluntary alienation of rights that, by the accepted definition, can not only not be taken away by government, but can also not be given away by us. This is a clumsy way of putting it, but a necessary one, since the expression of rights is largely a negative one. When we do think of the exceptions, and become alarmed, it is generally because someone in power is trying to force us to do something we don't want to do--this ability is, of course, the very definition of power. For speech restrictions, it could be attempts to place legal penalty on certain speech acts. However, we may also become alarmed at any legislation that is viewed as an infringement on the rights of an autonomous individual.
Yet, and this is where we must step back, taking the language of the Constitution seriously, "We the People" are sovereign; "We the People" are the government. We are also the guarantors of our rights and, we might argue, "We the People" are the source of those rights, if not originally, then at least inasmuch as "Nature and Nature's God" are nowhere to be found enforcing them. How else to explain the absence of divinity in the Constitution? How else to explain the evident discomfort of certain of the framers concerning the very inclusion of a Bill of Rights? The tacit admission of their inclusion is that the "God-given" rights might be infringed is an open admission that they can be infringed and that they are somewhat less than divine.
Does such an admission diminish the importance of these rights? No. It increases their importance. For if we are to accept that these rights do not derive from a creator, then we must accept responsibility for the exercise and, yes, limitation of these rights when appropriate. Limitations not only for others, whose exercise of rights we might disagree with, but for ourselves. And we must do this based on justice and with an eye toward the greater good. Which is more important, personal liberty or the greater good? I don't know. Embracing personal liberty at the expense of the greater good is either a praiseworthy embrace of principle or a shameful embrace of selfishness depending on circumstances. Embracing the greater good exposes us to danger of the elevation of society over the individual, and we know what tragedies can obtain from that. Is it not equally tragic to condemn society to the tyranny of the individual?
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