“Securing the Blessings of Empire to our Posterity”

Years ago G.K. Chesterton wrote,

[The problem] I mean is [modern] man’s inability to state his opponent’s view, and often his inability even to state his own. . . . There is everywhere the habit of assuming certain things, in the sense of not even imagining the opposite things. For instance, as history is taught, nearly everyone always assumes that it was the right side that won in all important past conflicts. . . . Say to him that we should now be better off if Charles Edward and the Jacobites had captured London instead of falling back from Derby, and he will laugh. . . . Yet nothing can be a more sober or solid fact that that, when the issue was still undecided, wise and thoughtful men were to be found on both sides. . . . I could give many other examples of what I mean by this imaginative bondage. It is to be found in the strange superstition of making sacred figures out of certain historical characters, who must not be moved from their symbolic attitudes. . . . To a simple rationalist, these prejudices are a little hard to understand.

Our Constitution has proved itself an enduring and effective document. Some have an admiration for it that verges on veneration, which can obscure the fact that the success of the Constitution was hardly foreordained. The election of 1800, and of course the Civil War, pushed its limitations to the brink. We forget too that many reasonable and intelligent men had strong objections to the Constitution. Some of these objections proved chimerical, but some had remarkable prescience.

I referenced George Mason’s strenuous objections in another post, but to quickly recap, Mason believed that the South should have required a super-majority to pass all trade legislation. Mason believed that economic differences would eventually tear the North and South apart, and requiring this provision would ensure more unity. Unfortunately the south kept slavery in exchange for a trade legislation passing like any other law. Sure enough, states like South Carolina and Georgia cited unfair trade legislation as reason for secession in 1860.

Most expected some form of strengthening of the national government to come out of the convention in Philadelphia. Many objected, however, not so much because the federal government would be stronger, but because the states would cease to have any importance in the new scheme. Defenders of the Constitution rushed to quell such fears. Obviously the states would continue to have their contributions to make, and so on. Once again, those that objected to the Constitution had it right. Today states play no vital role in shaping policy or the identity of the country and merely serve as a kind of organizing mechanism for national politics.

The reasons for why some objectors saw the future diminution of states fascinates me the most, however. Many jumped on the first three words, “We the people,” and saw a totally new basis for governance. In making the amorphous “people” the basis for authority in the country, some argued that the United States would transform eventually into a kind of democratic empire-state. It may sound odd for modern sensibilities to equate “the people” with empire. But the founders thought in the context of Rome’s history. Rome’s emperors sought to bypass the aristocracy and the Senate and appealed directly to the “people.”* Tacitus criticizes many emperors not because of their abuses to the people, but perhaps largely because of their abuses to the senatorial class. If the preamble had said, “We the states,” it would have indicated that ultimately the senate would take the lead in shaping the tenor of American political life. “We the people,” would shift the focus to the presidency, which meant that the founder’s stated goal of a federated republic would inevitably get superceded by the people/nation. This shift from states to the “people” also greatly magnified the role of the Supreme Court far beyond the intent of the founders, as some recent and controversial decisions have overridden state laws.

Indeed, something like this happened over the course of the 20th century, and we see it accelerating recently. Bill Clinton felt our pain and played saxophone on the Arsenio Hall show. As candidates, Bush and Gore both appeared on Oprah Winfrey. While in office President Bush worked hard to maintain a “regular guy” image. President Obama went on Marc Maron’s podcast and Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, using more sophisticated forms of direct appeal to “the people.” If Trump is our next president, he will remind me of some of the practical, irascibly likable, yet for the most part dangerously erratic Roman general-emperors.** Such direct appeals to “the people” from the president I’m sure would have horrified Washington, Madison, and even Thomas Jefferson.

But they would not have surprised some of the Anti-Federalists.

Because the anti-federalists were right about their objections does not mean that we were wrong to ratify the Constitution. I still believe that despite its flaws it probably represented the realistic “best we could do” under the circumstances. But the objections of the so-called “Anti-Federalists” shine great light on where we are now as a nation.

Dave

*Caligula was certainly a nut, but the story of him making his horse a senator (if true) may have actually been a calculated swipe at the Senate itself and not necessarily evidence of his insanity.

**Thinking about comparisons for Trump . . . he may not quite fit any one particular emperor. One colleague offered Marius as a mirror image. Marius was wealthy, a “new man,” who infuriated the Roman aristocracy, who proved powerless to stop him through normal political means (it took a bloody civil war instead). Another offered Emperor Theodosius I. Though not a “general-emperor,” he was gruff and impulsive. He did terrible things on foolish whims (the massacre in Thessalonica), but proved capable of repentance and subsequent bold and important decisions (as to whether or not Trump can prove capable of repentance . . . we’ll have to wait and see).

His American President counterpart has to be Andrew Jackson. He was not a founder or the son of a founding father. He lacked a “European” education. He introduced the idea of campaigning for office, to the horror of the political elite of the time. His time on the frontier made him a rough, blunt character. He made a variety of controversial decisions that definitely divided people — i.e. closing the national bank, South Carolina’s attempts at state nullification, and some horrifying decisions like the Cherokee’s and the “Trail of Tears.”

Historical opinion on Jackson is as varied as his acts in office. But, however one views him, the U.S. survived a Jackson presidency and we just might survive a Trump presidency.

His likely opponent, Hillary Clinton, lacks the personality to connect with and directly appeal to the people that would put her in unusual company among modern presidents, like George Bush Sr., and perhaps, Nixon?

Games People Play

Feb23 by Dave Mathwin

Many of my clearest memories from growing up involve sports. I am a middle-aged man but I still remember the time I recorded three consecutive outs at third base playing t-ball. I have a very clear memory of exactly when and how I hit a double in high school off an all-county pitcher, easily the best hit of my life. I remember too the crucial error I made in a key game against Kennedy High my junior year, and the fact that I struck out three times in my last game as a senior.

“The thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat.”

I suspect that I am hardly alone having such vivid memories of sport.* But such memories come not just from playing “on stage” (if you count playing in front of 50 people a stage), but also the pickup games of football or basketball with neighborhood friends. Naturally I grew up watching local sports teams and at times had my moods rise and fall with their success or failure. But recently I have thought about the impact of sports and the culture around sports more as an observer. Concussions in the NFL, the high salaries and high ticket prices, the surrounding sports culture with athletes, fans, and parents — all of this has had me reconsider our fascination with sport.

Good Game by Shirl Hoffman has many strengths. At times it delves into anecdotes and could be more scholarly in approach. But all in all the book gets one off to a good start in thinking about sport from a Christian perspective. We certainly have to start somewhere, because in many ways our churches have been entirely co-opted by the sports culture.

As Hoffman points out, however, the connection between sports and religion is rooted in the most ancient of cultures. Athletic contests in the ancient world had strong connections to gods and came accompanied with sacrifices. This should not surprise those who played sports. Anyone who has caught a fly ball, thrown the perfect pass, etc. knows the thrill of uniting mind, body, and spirit. Great athletic feats can provide a sense of peace and simultaneous elation that hopefully comes, as God allows, in worship. Athletics at their best can represent a kind of dance that mirrors the “circle dance “of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Perhaps formal religion and sport need not go together, but we cannot deny the religious undertones of athletic achievement.

In its early years the Church faced the problem of how to separate sports from their pagan contexts, just as they did other areas of life. No absolute unanimity in the historical record exists but it appears that Church leadership consistently condemned Roman athletics for their brutality, but also for their spectacle. The games didn’t just impact those who fought or raced, but also the fans who fell prey to meaningless hatreds. Christians should not disturb their souls with such pointless cares. In saying this the Church did not downplay the significance of athletics. On the contrary, they fully recognized their power to mold and shape a culture.

To understand the full context of the Church’s condemnation, we have to understand the goal of the Christian life. The Christian should strive to attain an inner stillness of heart, a union with God. Such a person fully united to God will not be shaken by the things of the world, though certainly they deal with the world. Such a place of contentment comes only with effort and striving after it however, and we should certainly not go out of our way to disturb it. Many of the great saints testify to how easily we can forfeit such a grace. Getting angry because of a bad call by a referee, or because a team with a certain color jersey lost a game, will inevitably disturb and distort our hearts. The glory and adulation given to athletes even in the ancient world would certainly not aid in a person’s quest for humility. Hypothetically, one might be perfectly humble as throng’s of spectators chanted your name, but their point seemed to be, why put yourself in that situation to begin with? The reverse stood as well. The one who strikes out or who misses the last shot may be hounded with a different kind of attention. Both kinds hurt the soul.

However, the Church had no consistent condemnation of informal games. Exercise had its place, as did amusement, and combining the two in moderation could bring benefits. But laced throughout almost all literature on the subject comes warnings to be careful.

As the church grew in scope and influence, it began to have a chance not merely to react against their pagan environs but to formulate a positive platform for sport. Hoffman argues that right around the time when St. Francis gave us back nature and St. Thomas reason, the Church had “a moment” ca. 1250-1450 when sports could have been recaptured. Games happened on Church holidays in communal contexts, and maintained an informal atmosphere about them. Sports had their place within a larger religious context. But then the games grew too violent. Add to that, the Reformation had various Protestant groups trying not to be Catholic. And so they eschewed the celebrations and amusement on holy days and condemned all accompanying events (which included sports at times) as “Catholic.”

Here I think Hoffman overstates the case somewhat. He himself acknowledges the Church’s failure, despite centuries of condemnation, to eliminate knightly tournaments. Such tournaments often were not deadly but certainly contained much violence and injury. Nothing they tried seemed to work. Finally by the late 1500’s the Church adopted the tack of, “if you can’t beat them, join them,” and issued favorable statements about tournaments along the lines of how tournaments could train soldiers to fight the infidel. This naturally only added to their list of failures to influence athletic culture, reminding me of Homer Simpson’s comment to his daughter, “But Lisa, if I become part of the mob I can steer it in new and helpful directions.”

So yes, we have problems delineating the relationships between sports and faith, but these problems have always existed. However, Hoffman rightly points out that today we have a much worse problem, because a) Sport dominates our culture much more profoundly now than in the past, and b) The evangelical church in general has made no attempt to offer any critique, and has in some ways joined the mob.

Evidence for the idea that sports has become our de facto religion abounds. Parents will rearrange schedules and make huge sacrifices of time and money so their kids can play sports, but will rarely make even a fraction of those sacrifices for church activities. Weekends have now become the proprietary ground for athletics. A veneer of, “this will build character” seeps into our justification for this, but evidence that sports builds character is exceedingly skimpy, and plenty exists that it in fact, does just the opposite.** As Jay Leno quipped, “I see in the news that even more athletes are in trouble with the law. Imagine the state of things if sports did not build character.”

Aside from this, no one has yet justified theologically how competition can flow from a Christian ethic that teaches to put others before oneself. Some have tried by stating that competition must be built into the nature of creation itself, because it appears that culturally and economically we need competition to thrive.^ But this assumes that the most fundamental aspects of our life in Christ would be impossible to practice even if sin had never entered the world.

What much of the church has actually bought into, Hoffman argues, is a version of Christianity that Frank Deford called “Sportsianity.” It emphasizes the martial virtues, where, “accomplishment and struggle are favored over mystery, joy, and spiritual insight. One member of a sports ministry organization pointed to Mike Singletary, former star for the Chicago Bears, who ‘broke 13 helmets on the football field, and he will tell you that he plays football to the best of his ability because Christ wants him to.'”

Whatever we do, we should do for the glory of God. But this does not mean that we can do whatever we like. Indeed, the only way to justify such thinking is to equate sports with war. If we justify sports this way, I cannot find a justification for dedicating childhoods and an early adulthood to pretending that these games have significance. At least the knights who fought in tournaments would actually later fight in wars. Indeed, the Church has experienced a similar tension with war and sport in its history. The general testimony of the Church has been that Christians may fight in just wars to defend the weak or prevent the aggressive spread of evil. As we have seen with tournaments, at times Christians justified sports for just this reason — recall the Duke of Wellington’s comment that the Battle of Waterloo was won on school athletic fields. But this assumes, however, that we impute all kinds of horrible things to the team with the different color jersey.

Anyone who has watched their child play competitively knows how easily such insane and bizarre thoughts creep into our heads. The other coach/player becomes “evil.” Observe most any athletic competition for children 10 and over and see pagan tribalism reborn. We can argue that this is merely a dress-rehearsal for real life, war, or what have you, but the feelings become quite real, the impact on the soul quite damaging.

Hoffman points out that when Christians today borrow sports rhetoric they do so as followers, not leaders. They remain consistently co-opted by the sports culture. And this should make us question what exactly happens to us when we play and watch sports. Why is it that certain impulses seem to take over, and why should we put ourselves in this position? Are we co-opted because of the weakness of our witness, or, is the power of sport simply too great a temptation for even strong Christians?

Hoffman’s book leaves many questions unanswered, but he raises important questions, and one can see many possible connections to other areas of life. Just recently Donald Trump won the South Carolina primary, aided in no small measure by evangelicals. “Trump is a fighter,” Mark Burns, pastor of the Greenville, S.C.-based Christian Television Network, told Fox News. “He is the one to fight for Christianity and for our conservative values we hold dear.”

What values is the man talking about? I have no idea. How can it be that we should “fight for Christianity?” I have no idea. But I suspect that one link has to do with the fact that parts of the American church have been co-opted entirely by “Sportsianity.”

Dave

************

If you have further interest, check out my podcast on sports and culture with Steve and Marc at the link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot_GZ-P-1So&t=45s

*I realize though that I may have been a bit odd growing up. As a white suburban kid I looked for heroes in the NBA and instead of Michael Jordan or local great Jeff Malone, for some reason I latched onto Detlef Schrempf. A friend of mine from high school recently sent me a basketball card of Schrempf as a gift, where he is being guarded by, quite appropriately it seems, Brad Lohaus. Two white titans in action!

**Hoffman cites the testimony of athletes in different sports who describe the trance-like state they enter into to compete. In this state, they reduce their opponents to something sub-human in order to “destroy” them. Running-back Freeman McNeil was criticized by his coach when he broke down crying on the sidelines as a result of a block he made that injured an opposing player. His coach said, “I understand his feeling, but that’s the way the game goes. Obviously what happened [McNeil allowing his grief to impact his play] wasn’t good, and he realizes that. Ultimately McNeil apologized to the team for not “staying focused” and not “being a leader.”

Perhaps no one minded when Lawrence Taylor broke Joe Theismann’s leg and got upset because no one doubted his ferocity.

^In Vol 2 of his A Study of History, Toynbee points out that for civilization to thrive, geography must present a challenge to its inhabitants. In other words, if the geography is too good, the soil too rich, etc. there is no call for a response from the inhabitants, who then stagnate at a low level of development.

12th Grade: Making it up as You Go

Feb6 by Dave Mathwin

Greetings,

This week we wrapped up our look at Madison’s notes on the Constitutional Convention. We touched on many subjects, but centered on one particular issue that illumines both the glory and the problems of the heritage of that august assembly.

As the constitution neared completion, the delegates debated how the document would be received by the public. What would make the Constitution the law of the land? Should the states ratify it through their state legislatures, or should a general, national plebisite of the “people” make the decision?

The issue seems mundane, but at its root lay certain key ideas and problems.

If the states ratified the Constitution, it might seem that the states had superiority over the federal government the document created. Charlemagne, for example objected to being crowned “Holy Roman Emperor” by Pope Leo III (he would crown his son and successor before the Church had a chance), much in the same way that Napoleon refused to allow Pope Pius VII to lay the imperial crown on his head. He who crowns the king has authority over the king. If the states gave the Constitution authority, they implicitly would hold supreme power.

The problem with this approach was that the delegates wanted to create a document that significantly increased the power of the federal government relative to the states. A handful of delegates at the convention wanted to get rid of states altogether.

Another option involved a national ballot referendum and a direct appeal to the people. Bypassing the state legislatures would help emphasize the new power base of the national government. It would exist not on the foundation of the states, but on the people/”nation” at large.* So far, so good. But most of the delegates gravely distrusted the wisdom of “the people,” and feared putting so much power in the hands of those they felt could be easily manipulated.^ So they had to flip a coin, basically, between Scylla and Charybdis.

As the delegates debated an even deeper issue arose. Why were they in Philadelphia in the first place? On whose authority? “If we exist under the authority of the Articles of Confederation,” they might have thought, “then we must give ratifying authority to the states. But if we exist under the Articles, then we must abide by the key principle of the Articles and not make any new changes without the unanimous consent of all the states.” But with the decisions they already had made unanimous consent had been rare. Besides, some states did not have any delegates at the Convention at all. Clearly then, they could not be proceeding under the Articles of Confederation or they would have to rework almost everything.

“But if we are not here under the authority of the Articles,” then who or what gives us the authority to make any decisions? Will the new government get formed under our own assumed authority, or the authority of ‘the people?’ Are we just making this up as we go?” I do wonder if the delegates felt themselves at the edge of a great precipice, or on the threshold of a dark and mysterious house, with little idea of what might come next.

One debate surrounding the American Revolution is the question as to whether or not the founders were “radicals” or “conservatives.” Some scholars (like Edmund Burke) see the Americans as conservatives trying to preserve traditional ideas of government. In this view it was the English, not the Americans, who were the real “radicals.” As much as I hate to disagree with Burke, I think the vast bulk of the evidence suggests that the founders were the radicals (historians like Bernard Bailyn and Christopher Ferrara agree) and changed the very basis of modern governance.

Back in ancient times kings derived their authority from the gods. Though the Greeks may have departed from this briefly in the golden age of their democracy, their philosophers rooted all legitimate authority in notions of Truth/God (Plato), or the Natural Law (Aristotle). The Romans had a republic, yes, but their political offices often had religious overtones and the early Romans at least did everything with reference to the gods. In Christendom, kings clearly believed they derived their authority ultimately from God, and that the state should reflect in some ways God’s kingdom and His governance on Earth.

The founders made no such assertions. They formed a government rooted in Locke’s theory of the “consent of the governed” forming the basis of all legitimate power. This gave the founders a great deal of freedom to improvise, but also created difficult dilemmas. How should the “consent of the governed” be measured? What if what the governed consent to changes over time? Without a clear and fixed point of reference, notions of authority, legitimacy, and morality inevitably would shift over time.

The founders should receive praise, I think, for creating a thoughtful system of government that did well in preventing abuses of power (relatively speaking) and allowed for a healthy tension of unity and diversity within the country. But even some of those present in Philadelphia in 1787 had a premonition that had little claim to authority beyond their own ideas. Some made reference to history with their political ideas, others to experience. But very few sought to root their thoughts in any authority beyond that. The ripples effects of this certainly linger with us today. What gives the Constitution authority is that we agree it has authority — we consent to its authority. But as that authority has its roots in day-to-day consent, so too the meaning of our consent will change over time. Hence, we decide Constitutional question by majority vote. We may lament this, but the Constitution itself has little more to offer us.

Blessings,

Dave

*Patrick Henry objected to the Constitution because he recognized this shift of power in the first three words, “We the people . . . ” He recognized the diminished role states would play in the new government.

^Reading Madison’s notes, students were routinely surprised to see the attitude of most delegates towards “the people.” A great question to ask might be, “How democratic is the Constitution really?”

Alexander Nevsky and Humphrey Bogart

Jan30 by Dave Mathwin

Whenever I teach about ancient Egypt that civilization always impresses me with its “weight.” I mean that the Egyptians expressed an utter confidence in the meaning and purpose of their civilization. We see evidence for this in a variety of places, but I draw attention to the “Tale of Sinuhe,” one of the more beloved early Egyptian folktales. The story recounts some impressive adventures of Sinuhe abroad, but the climax of the story is not found there. Sinuhe triumphs when he returns home, when he receives the favor of the king, and (strange to our ears, no doubt) when the king grants him a lavish tomb. The story concludes,

There was constructed for me a pyramid-tomb of stone in the midst of other pyramids. The draftsmen designed it, the chief sculptors carved in it, and the royal overseers made it all their concern. Its necessary materials were made from all precious things one desires in a tomb shaft. Priests for death were given to me. Gardens were made for me just as is done for the highest servants. My likeness was overlaid with gold. His majesty himself made it. There is no other man for whom the like has been done. So I was under the favor of the King’s presence until the day of death had come.

All Sinuhe ever needed was in front of him the whole time, a Hallmark card ending if there ever was one.

Of course the Exodus dramatically and deservedly shook this confidence,* and at times the “weight”and “presence” of Egypt would no doubt feel oppressive and claustrophobic (as it does for me with the Great Pyramid of Giza), but, nevertheless, they had a marvelous run.

Recently reading a collection of tales from medieval Russia, I had a reaction not unlike the one I have with Egypt. Russia is different than America — obviously. But how so? A quick look at literary luminaries reveals much. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn undoubtedly deserves its high praise, but then one reads The Brothers Karamazov (roughly contemporary works) and discovers something entirely different. Twain bounces here and there and constructs a fanciful lark (for the most part) out of the idea of rebellion against society. Though he is thoroughly American, there remains something of the delightful English politeness about him, making his points in circuitous fashion. Dostoevsky writes from a much more solid, earthy foundation. The “earthiness” of his foundation gives it all the more spiritual impact. He writes not of ideas at all — except to criticize them and the very concept of “ideas.” Instead he comes from a place of absolute confidence in a particular reality. In his stories the rebels are the bad guys, who try and introduce discontent into the Russian soul.

Just as we have no particular historical roots as a nation, so our folktales take on a whimsical character and have no particular roots in history (i.e., Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed, etc.). Even when Twain makes his best points, they take the form of jokes. Dostoevsky . . . not so much.** So Russian folktales usually seem to have much more direct historical roots and could rarely be described as “whimsical.”

In the tale told of about the Polish king Stephen Bathory’s siege of the Russian town of Pskov (ca. late 16th century) we see all of these characteristics. It speaks of “Holy Russia” without a trace of irony. When the “pagan” king’s army advances past some of the outer defenses, the story turns:

. . . in the Cathedral of the Life-Giving Trinity the clergy incessantly prayed with tears and moaning for deliverance. . . . [they] began to weep with loud voices, extending their arms to the most holy icon. The noble ladies fell to the ground and beat their breasts and prayed to God and the most Pure Virgin; they fell on the floor, beating the ground with their heads. All over town women and children who remained home fervently cried and prayed before holy icons, asking for the help of all saints and begging God for the forgiveness of their sins . . .

After an extended poem on the power of God the tide turns, and the people rally. But they need to stem a breach in the defensive wall.

. . . [the Russian commanders] ordered that the icons be brought to the breach made by the Poles. Once the holy icon of the Holy Virgin of Vladimir had protected Moscow at the time of Tamerlane. Now another was brought because of Stephen Bathory . . . and this time the miracle happened in the glorious city of Pskov, . . . for divine protection invisibly appeared over the breach in the wall. . . . All the commanders, warriors, and monks cried out in unison, “O friends, let us die this day at the hands of the Lithuanians for the sake of Christ’s faith and for our Orthodox tsar, Ivan of all the Russias!

In his marvelous, Everyday Saints, Archimandrite Tikhon of the Pskov Caves Monastery related a story about a particular bishop caught in an unfortunate position amidst a large crowd. Uncertainty reigned in Moscow in a public square during the collapse of communism in the early 1990’s. Some soldiers came over to shield the bishop from the crowd and began to take him into their vehicles for protection. Many in the crowd, however, thought the soldiers were imprisoning the bishop. The Archimandrite relates that several people rushed out towards the bishop, saying, “It is happening again [i.e., the Communists imprisoning church officials]! This shall not be! Come brothers, let us help this good priest. Let us die for him!” Soldiers dissuaded them from hurling themselves on their bayonets only by careful explanation of their purpose.

A particular sense of reality is evident, and an absolute confidence.

Our heroes play different roles. Even the golden age of Hollywood, when America supposedly bursted with confidence, gave us heroes like Humphrey Bogart — a man “in the know,” and somewhat detached. We love the reluctant hero.^ Russians remember instead princes like Alexander Nevsky, who when attacked by the Swedes, supposedly went immediately to church, where

remembering the song from the Psalter, he said: “O Lord, judge those who offended me. Smite those who set themselves against me, and come to my aid with arms and shields.”

Before his death, Alexander took the most strict of monastic vows, the “schema.”

Alexander’s reaction today could only be mocked by the west, just as Putin’s physicality — be it swimming in icy lakes or wrestling tigers, or whatever — becomes late-night fodder. But Putin, consciously or not, sincerely or not, very likely taps into something deep within the Russian soul and Russian history — the fearless leader of absolute confidence with not a trace of detached irony.^^

Those who do not like President Obama sometimes don’t see that his appeal has little to do with his policies. Rather, he embodies a certain idea of American hip culture. He tells deprecating jokes with wry humor, a wink, and a nod. He appears on Marc Maron’s podcast and Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Jerry Seinfeld. So too we in the west, I think, fail to understand Putin’s popularity. Perhaps he channels Alexander Nevsky, not Humphrey Bogart.^^^

Dave

*I favor a late Exodus date, and so see Ramses II as the beginning of the end, and not an “Indian Summer” after the decline had already begun in earnest.

**Of course Dostoevsky can sometimes be very funny. I laughed aloud at various points in The Brothers Karamazov, and The Gambler. But Twain was known as a humorist, and while the idea of Dostoevsky as a one man show is funny, the show itself . . . would not be.

^Might Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt of the Mission Impossible movies serve as an exception? He has none of the smirks of a James Bond. Hunt “believes” — believes in what? Who knows? Who cares? We don’t watch the movies out of love for the Ethan Hunt character, but for the stunts, scenario’s, etc.

^^The Archimandrite Tikhon has been involved with some controversy and mystery due to his “relationship” with Putin. An excellent interview with him is here — recommended. The interviewer represents a typical western perspective and the Archimandrite shows that he is not a modern-westerner. We should realize that a) Putin may have a sincere religious faith, and b) St. Petersburg will not orient Russia in the way that Peter the Great or other westerners might wish.

^^^Russia has experienced a dramatic rise in religious affiliation since the communist collapse, but not a corresponding rise in regular church attendance, at least according to one Pew Research study. I don’t mean to suggest that Putin faithfully believes and practices like Prince Alexander. If left utterly detached from the Faith, Russia’s earthiness will become frighteningly barbaric. As many have noted — Russia is a land of great sinners and great saints.

12th Grade: Constitutions for Dummies, by Dummies

Jan16 by Dave Mathwin

Greetings,

Several weeks ago the Government class discussed the basics of Plato and Aristotle’s philosophy. One goal I had in this was for students to understand . . .

How fundamental ideas about the nature of reality, and the nature of God, help form one’s ideas about government.
How one’s view of the nature of humanity (is mankind a body & soul? What is the relationship between our body and soul?) impact how one governs.
What relationship should context & history have in a given situation?

I shared an example from my own life that illustrates some of these issues. Many years ago I lived in a townhouse community run by an HOA. The development placed about 5 trashcans every 1/4 mile or so. When people walked their dogs (and we had a high population density of dogs) we commonly deposited the refuse in the trashcans. But during warmer weather, more people walked their dogs, and the additional heat made the trashcans, well, stink. This was unfortunate. Was it a “problem?”

The HOA came up with a rule: No more deposited dog waste in trashcans. This, they hoped, would solve the problem.

One can view their solution in two basic ways, from a Platonist and Aristotelian perspectives.

The Platonist would argue. . .

The law is a good one because it seeks to better the condition of all. The neighborhood would become a nicer neighborhood.
The people would be encouraged to accept more direct personal responsibility for their pets — taking the refuse to their own trashcans would help them be more responsible overall.

The Aristotelian might respond. . .

The law is foolish because people will likely not obey it. They will either continue to deposit the refuse in the trashcans, or worse, simply not pick it up at all.
The law cannot be enforced. The HOA has no mechanism to police the area. Thus, people’s disobedience will only encourage a more hostile attitude towards the HOA than they may already have. In other words, a good law can only be called “good” if people actually obey it, no matter how good in theory the law might be.

I hope students enjoyed this unit. I then wanted to have the students see how some of these ideas applied in the making of our own government. To that end we spent the last few days reading Madison’s diary of the constitutional convention debates. We see that different people had different perspectives, different notions of what “liberty” meant and how to achieve it. They wrestled with the big ideas, referencing key political texts, but also worried how those ideas would apply in the current political climate. Some of there more lengthy debates seem immediately relevant today, others quite arcane.The decisions they reached sometimes came from unanimity, but more often came through compromise and disagreement. And despite their brilliance, they failed dreadfully in not foreseeing a popular presidency, and what this meant for the Vice-Presidency.

I had a few main goals with this particular unit:

I wanted students to see that political agreements required a great deal of compromise. I don’t mean to use compromise as a word of praise or derision. Some compromises achieve great things, others, like the compromises made on slavery, condemn the future to deal with an issue that has had time to fester.
I wanted students to consider whether or not the many compromises they made had roots in their agreement on fundamental principles, or whether America was built on band-aids to the deep divisions between Americans at that time (and now). If they agreed on fundamental principles, what were they? If they had no agreement on such principles, why not?
What did the Constitution do particularly well? In what areas did it fail?
Many of the men at the original Constitutional convention had years of experience in law and government, and an education that rooted them to the classical world. And yet at times the decisions made seemed based more on arbitrary circumstance than profound guiding principles. Should this worry us, or is this the way of the world? Or perhaps it’s a gift, a reminder that we are all in need of God, that none of us, however intelligent, will ever have all the answers or the stamina to decide them fairly?

Thanks again,

Dave

Death by Abstraction

Jan4 by Dave Mathwin

“A theology without practice is the theology of demons.” So said St. Maximos the Confessor. Abstractions have never held any weight within Christianity. The devil believes, and it makes no difference. The Incarnation explodes the possibility of the efficacy of “abstraction.” God became a particular man at a particular time in a particular place.*

We see this theological truth spill out into other areas. Beware, for example, of vague descriptions of “Human Rights.” Without application in a particular context, such “rights” have no meaning. Hence France’s “Declaration of the Rights of Man” declared in 1789 gave absolutely no protection to anyone during the Reign of Terror in 1793. The Committee of Pubic Safety interpreted such rights as they pleased to do what they wished. Beware the man with grand visions of glory who cares nothing for the actual human cost. On such foundations were the great tyrannies of the 20th century built.

A great deal of debate exists as to the question, “What is America?” Different answers have been given to this question, but we don’t often stop to question why we have so much debate about our identity. I think the root of this problem lies in the commonly accepted idea (whether it is true or false) that America has its origin in certain ideas about liberty, freedom, and so on, not in any particular experience in history. In a few other posts on this blog I muse on this question (see here and here if you have not wearied of me quite yet:).

Some historians argue that America took a decided turn with the victory of the North in the Civil War. Proponents of this do not necessarily assert that the South was “good” and the North “bad,” though some may argue this. Some in this school of thought, like Clark Carlton from Tennessee Tech, don’t even put the focus on the good of one side vs. the other, or on state’s rights and federal power, but rather on culture and the idea of what America actually is or should be.

Carlton argues that the two sides in the Civil War represented two different ideas about America. The North, dominated by a New England ethos, believed that America had its roots in certain ideas that should have application everywhere for all men. The South, rooted in a very different migratory pattern (discussed brilliantly by David Hackett Fischer in Albion’s Seed, by far the best book I’ve read on colonial America), saw America as a place to transplant a certain kind of Anglo-Celtic way of life.

I lack the wherewithal to discuss the merits of this theory, except to say that it has enough plausibility to deserve consideration. For the moment let’s assume its core proposition and explore its possible merits. For the theory to hold water, we would need to trace the development of abstract ideas throughout the history of New England and see its pernicious effects.** Of course this means that we find that they did in believe such abstractions.

Recently I read the The Wreck of the Whaleship Essex by Owen Chase, written in 1821. The book tells of the shocking attack and sinking of their ship by a sperm whale, the inspiration for Melville’s Moby Dick. Most American whaling crews hailed from the New England area, as did the Essex. The account held my interest all the way through. For our purposes here, I couldn’t help notice, however, how the author spoke about God. I don’t believe he ever used the word “God,” referring instead to “Providence,” or “the benefits of the Creator,” or something like that. Certainly they never made any reference to Jesus Himself. Such language left me cold. Whether or not the author and his crew believed in Christ I cannot say, but this impersonal and ultimately abstract language is certainly not a Christian way to speak about God. It seems to exactly mirror the Transcendentalists like Emerson, who of course hailed from New England.^

As their journey in the lifeboats continued, their supplies of food obviously dwindled. At first when crewmen died they buried them at sea decently. But after several weeks they grew more desperate, and fell to eating parts of the deceased crew’s body before burial. They did so even though they still had small amounts of bread left, so they had other options. One of the lifeboats even eventually drew lots to see who would be shot, so his flesh could be consumed. A man named Owen Coffin drew the short straw and apparently submitted to his fate willingly.

So all in all eight crewmen survived, but at what cost? I do not judge them too harshly. They endured severe trials and privations. After several weeks I’m sure they had nothing left physically, mentally, and emotionally. I have never endured anything remotely akin to their ordeal. Yet in the writing of the account itself I expected some remorse, some second-guessing of their practices, especially given the time proximity of their rescue to their cannibalism. In hindsight, such horrors probably were not even necessary for their strict survival. But Mr. Chase has no such reflections.

I can’t help but wonder if their cold and distant manner of speaking about God might contribute to their cold, impersonal view of each others lives and bodies. This surprised me because earlier in the book he wrote touching passages about the attachment of the crew to each other. After the ship sunk the crew found themselves in three separate lifeboats. Chase talks movingly of losing sight of their fellow ships at night and their frantic efforts to find each other lest they be separated. But in the end, I suppose, their abstract notions of life won out.

But this crew did not invent such a way of speaking. These abstractions must have had their roots somewhere. We might start with the New England Puritans. Initially, it seems that the Puritans were anything but abstract in their views. They practiced a very particular way of life and belief. But a second look tells otherwise. I have no wish to “pile on” the Puritans, who get a lot of bad press, much of it undeserved. I admire certain things about them. But their strong Calvinism does lead one to a kind of abstraction regarding God. God’s abstract “will” often asserts itself to the fore in Puritan theology, pushing more personal characteristics such as love, mercy, etc. to the periphery. Their conception of the “will” of God swallowed up all individual personality. So I think we can say that abstraction had its roots in the foundation of New England society.^^

The American Revolution had many of its roots in New England, and there again we can say that they had an attachment to abstractions. They began by charging the British with violating their rights as British citizens in 1765, but ended by conceiving of Lady Liberty (a goddess?), and human rights that should apply to all men everywhere.

This abstract seed has grown many branches, some good and some bad. The root issue seems to be the idea that once a certain group of people latch onto a particular incarnated meaning of “liberty,” they seek to apply to all everywhere. So we have the New England abolitionists on the one hand, and LGBT rights on the other. Both have very different seeming applications, but both might have the same root.+

In the end I’m not sure “abstraction” was a distinctly New England problem. Carlton sees the Civil War as a turning point for American ideals of abstract liberty, and here I disagree. Perhaps New England held to such “abstractions” more than others, but by 1800 at least these ideals had spread most everywhere. Where I agree with him fully, however, is that latching onto abstract propositions to guide us has resulted in many theological and civil problems.

As we end the Christmas season, may the truth of the Incarnation lead us in a different direction.

Dave

*Hence the importance of the prologue of St. Luke’s gospel, the historical books of the Old Testament, and various other portions of Scripture.

**I don’t mean to leave aside the possible pernicious effects of Anglo-Celtic culture. For his part I don’t believe Carlton means to glorify this culture. Rather, he seems to assert that the culture was uniquely their culture, and thus they (and not anyone else) had ownership of its strengths and sins, slavery obviously among them. Their moral life remains their responsibility and not those of other states/countries, or the Federal government. Perhaps he might continue to argue that taking it out of their hands in a way absolved them of ownership and responsibility — creating a pernicious distance between themselves and their political and cultural lives. Did this then lead to actually more mistreatment of blacks? It seems hard to argue this, as slavery ended because of the Civil War. But . . . perhaps this “distance” gave them more subconscious permission to continue subjugating blacks as an act of defiance? This would be a pretty radical idea, one that we could not test and can therefore only speculate. But it does seem a bit of a stretch to me. Still, I am only speculating as to his argument.

^Such manner of speaking about God is not only confined to New England, however. Washington, Jefferson, and other southerners spoke in a similar way. This may cast doubt on Carlton’s thesis.

^^We can find other examples, I think. The Puritans did not really grow a local culture, but rather “imported” and imposed a large measure of it from the Old Testament — or at least their interpretation of it. We might argue that Puritan culture was the byproduct of abstract theological ideas.

+On the issue of slavery Carlton argues that the New England abolitionists accomplished nothing in part because of their abstractions. They had no roots in the culture they critiqued. They merely espoused vague notions of liberty. He wanted southern abolitionists (such societies did exist, at least in the upper South) to solve the issue — alas, they did not. But neither, I suppose, did northern abolitionists. They both failed alike to avert Civil War. As to why America could not solve this issue legislatively, as England did, I’m not sure.

Retreat to Move Forward

Dec21 by Dave Mathwin

I confess to having a strong antipathy to smart phones. I know that they have their good uses. But I am bewildered as I see people bring them out at various times and places. I wonder what has become of us.

Now, I also realize a large amount of hypocrisy on my part. I should also ask what has become of me. I don’t have a smartphone . . . but I love my iPod, and I check my email too much. In my mind, if technology had stopped advancing after Apple came out with its 160 GB iPod classic, I would be content. But even if I am right that our prolific use of smartphones do us harm, what can be done? After all, retreating from them seems impossible, and time marches on. To stop advancing technologically would condemn us to economic stagnation. To actually prevent technology from further advancing would probably require a government more powerful than would be good for us.

So it appears that we’re stuck.

But, maybe not. The premise of Noel Perrin’s Giving up the Gun: Japan’s Reversion to the Sword, 1543-1879 is that a people can halt a certain kind of technology without radically changing their society. While certain particular features of Japanese society allowed for this, Perrin states rightly that this example disproves certain well-entrenched ideas about technology and progress, among them:

That one must “keep up with the Jones'” to have a successful society
That technological progress comes as a whole and not in parts. In other words, many falsely assume that to halt “progress” in one area will prevent advances in other areas.
That halting progress will put a society irrevocably behind other societies. Instead, when Japan did decide to adopt modern weapons in the late 19th century, they very quickly caught up to others and soon posed a significant military threat.

So first we can examine why Japan could nearly eliminate guns from their society, and then secondarily, we can consider its possible application for us.

I initially assumed that Japan’s restrictive trade practices limited their contact with firearms from the start. Not so — in fact they made significant use of firearms well into the 1560’s, and European traders remarked quite favorably on their quality. We might also assume that Japan had a low-level of technology in general, but again — not the case. To quote Perrin,

Japan had already reached a high level of technology. Her copper and steel were probably better, and certainly cheaper, than any produced in Europe. Despite enormous shipping costs, the Dutch found it profitable to send Japanese copper 10,000 miles from Amsterdam.

. . . In iron and steel Japan could undersell England, the recognized leader of European producers. [Japan also] led the world in paper products. For 200 years they were the leading manufacturer of weapons. These were top quality weapons, too, especially the swords. It is designed to cut through tempered steel, and it can . . .

In a country often experiencing some kind of conflict at some point, they well understood the value of rifles. But by the end of the 16th century Japan decided against all forms of military mechanization so successfully that they generally disappeared for 250 years.

Of course others in Europe saw the problems with firearms. Martin Luther said that, “Cannon and firearms are cruel and damnable machines. I believe them to be the direct invention of the Devil.” But Germany went on to become the pre-eminent arms manufacturer. Many French aristocrats inveighed vociferously against the impersonal nature of such weapons, as well as the fact that their introduction would broaden war beyond the aristocracy. But they too followed the general trend.

Certain factors within Japan made it more likely that they would have success while Europeans failed. Being an island did not hurt. Their demographics also played a role. In France, for example, the warrior aristocracy represented about .1-.2% of the population. In Japan that number reached close to 10%, which gave them that much more influence. Japanese swords also had such a high quality that the difference in effectiveness between a sword and a 16th century gun was less than in Europe.

But Perrin argues that the main factor lies in the role of the sword in Japan. In Europe some swords had religious and symbolic significance, i.e. King Arthur’s “Excalibur,” or Roland’s “Durendal.” But in Japan, the sword almost literally represented the soul of warrior for every samurai. Swords were an extension of the self. Making them obsolete would in effect, make themselves obsolete. They would have no purpose as they would have no identity.

Perrin relates an interesting story along these lines. One group of samurai besieged the castle of another warrior. Eventually it became obvious that the besiegers would win, whereby the besieged asked for a conference. He explained to his attackers that he had several swords inside that he wished to preserve from destruction. Would the attackers agree to receive the swords and preserve them? And so, the defenders, with solemn ceremony, transferred the swords to the attacking army and then retreated back into the castle. After which, the attackers set fire to the estate and all those inside perished.

Many aristocratic warriors in Europe and Japan detested firearms because it made combat itself impersonal and unredeemable. We see many examples of dialog during combat in the Arthurian tales, but it seems the Japanese took this to another level. Perrin gives us one such example, as Warrior ‘X’ tried to behead Warrior ‘Y’ unsuccessfully, who was wounded and exhausted.

Y: Are you fluttered, sir? You see you have no success. Look, I wear a nagowa (an iron neck collar). Remove it, and you can cut off my head.

X: (Bows to “Y”) Thank you sir! You die an honorable death. You have my admiration!

One could even argue that Japanese warriors sought not so much victory, but an honorable death. Firearms dramatically increased the chance that you would die without an honorable end, without a chance to “fly the flag” at the last moment — however much it increased your chances of victory.

Early Japanese firearm manuals acknowledged this and more. To fire guns well, such manuals stated, one even had to put the body in “demeaning,” inelegant postures. For the Japanese, the gun represented not just another weapon, but another view of humanity.

Firearms returned late in the 19th century. Ironically, Admiral Perry told them that if they wanted to keep others like him away, they would need more modern weapons. Japan then turned on a dime and within a generation had a respectable military force. Within two generations they posed a grave threat to the most modern of militaries and nearly conquered all of Asia. The absence of mechanized weapons for three centuries put them at no real disadvantage once they determined to catch up.

One of the oldest tropes in the history of History is historians wishing for bygone days of yore. But I think our worries about technology go far beyond nostalgia. Advancement is now so rapid that we have no time to contemplate or evaluate the role of technology in our lives. We have to ability to develop “social antibodies” to the problems with technology. As such, we have within the last 10 years become utterly dependent and quite possibly addicted to the internet. Paul Graham, the innovator behind Reddit, Dropbox, and a variety of other programs, writes,

. . . And unless the rate at which social antibodies evolve can increase to match the accelerating rate at which technological progress throws off new addictions, we’ll be increasingly unable to rely on customs to protect us. Unless we want to be canaries in the coal mine of each new addiction—the people whose sad example becomes a lesson to future generations—we’ll have to figure out for ourselves what to avoid and how. It will actually become a reasonable strategy (or a more reasonable strategy) to suspect everything new.

In fact, even that won’t be enough. We’ll have to worry not just about new things, but also about existing things becoming more addictive. That’s what bit me. I’ve avoided most addictions, but the Internet got me because it became addictive while I was using it.

Do we have any hope of emulating the Japanese and pausing our technological growth?

A few other random examples of at least halting technology exist (such as Elizabeth I preventing indoor plumbing), but I can’t think of another example of a society moving “forwards,”* then “backwards” with the adoption of certain technologies. Japan’s insular geographic position helped them, as did their demographics, governance, and culture — and I find these last two most significant.

Americans rarely acknowledge the fact that aristocracies come with some benefits, or at least, alternative possibilities. Japan’s warrior elite had the political and social status to make the ban stick. Add to that the pull of a unique and deeply distinctive Japanese culture, one that perhaps approximated that of ancient Egypt in its power to unify a large mass of people in a particular way of life (another geographically insulated civilization).

We have no geographic isolation. Nor does our culture have anything close to Japan’s gravitational pull, i.e. — our capital exports little more than bureaucracy to the rest of the country. And finally, our democratic system has something close to a zero-percent chance of desiring, or certainly enforcing, such a return to earlier ways. Self-denial simply has very little place in democratic cultures.

Now I think it’s time for me to check my email . . .

Dave

Matt Zoller of RogerEbert.com writes,

We’ve become a one-handed species. We keep one hand in reserve for taking out a wallet, digging in a purse, swiping a Metrocard, helping up a person who’s fallen on the sidewalk, whatever. The other hand is for Making Sure We Got This.

I know, I know. This has been going on for a few years. It’s not a news flash; it’s who we are as a species. I’m Grandpa Abe Simpson yammering about onion belts. I should climb onto the ice floe and shove off. Or say, “Oh yeah, things change, technology changes, it’s no big deal” and quit complaining.

But I think it deserves ongoing consideration and argument, because it’s everywhere.

Is it merely different from, but in no way inferior to, older forms of participation, as people who are addicted to doing it tend to claim when they read pieces like this one? I have no idea. Only a cognitive researcher could say with any authority. But it’s a major and visible change. It’s species-wide.

And I’ve personally not heard any convincing arguments against the idea that it means we have become, in some basic way, detached from our own existence; that life itself is becoming a supplier of material for Instagram, Flicker, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and the like, rather than a thing that happens to us, and that we absorb with our bodies and minds, not with our phones.

*I think it would be a nearly impossible to construct a good argument that mechanized weaponry represented an advance for civilization.

12th Grade: From Nation to Market, from Family to Individual

Dec19 by Dave Mathwin

Greetings,

This week we looked at the transition from the ‘Nation-State’ to the ‘Market-State,’ with all its attendant implications.

The ‘Nation-State’ (1914-89) was the era that you and I grew up in. Sometimes its easy to assume that our experience is somehow universal, but in fact that America was different than the America of Thomas Jefferson, and the America of our children will be different as well.

What characterizes this era?

We see here that, in Bobbitt’s words, “Government’s are responsible to and for the people.” In contrast to Washington, Jefferson, etc., whereas before, people found their identity in ‘the state,’ now ‘the state’ finds its identity in ‘the people’ (my thanks to Addison Smith for this insight). Gone is the more aristocratic, patriarchal attitude of the founders. One can see beginnings of this shift in Jacksonian Democracy. The closing of Lincoln’s ‘Gettysburg Address’ puts forward a new basis for government’s relationship to the people.

Essentially, the Nation-State will end up creating a sense of unity and community. Many of us remember growing up playing with kids from ‘the neighborhood.’ ‘We are the World,’ and ‘Hands Across America’ were major cultural phenomena. We listened in with all our friends to Casey Kasem’s Top 40 to see what the #1 song was for the week.

Politically, if we are a family, we take care of the family. So programs like Social Security to take care of the elderly and Welfare to care for the poor make sense within this rationale. Iconic presidents on both sides of the political spectrum arise like FDR and Reagan that can rally the whole nation behind them.

It is easy to romanticize this era, and it has many strengths. But this was also the era of ‘Total War,’ for if whole populations make up ‘the State,’ then whole populations can be the targets. The horrific devastation of World War I & II come out of this mentality. Also, mass groups define themselves at times by who is outside the group as well inside. So the Nation-State era also experienced terrible levels of ethnically motivated violence of which the Holocaust is only the worst example.

The ‘Long War’ of 1914-89, like all epochal conflicts, inevitably forces states to innovate. And so they did. The weapons that won this war (nuclear weapons, the computer, international trade) just as in the past, ended up destabilizing the nation-state order and helped bring about our current one, what Bobbitt calls the ‘Market-State.’

We might contrast the two orders by recalling some common experiences then and now. In the Nation-State, you had to go to a few centralized locations to ‘consume culture,’ for example. If you wanted to hear a couple songs from an artist, you had to buy the whole album. If you want news, go to one of the 4-5 major outlets, most of which said much the same thing. It was the era of the ‘water-cooler’ show, where everyone tuned in to see the Cosby Show, for example (‘Seinfeld’ may have been the last show truly like this).

Now, thanks to technology, identity politics, Vietnam and Watergate, among many factors, we have many more choices. We can individualize our lives in ways not possible even 15 years ago.

I wanted the students to think about the implications for modern America, and the modern state in general.

First, we noted that governments now have a much harder time controlling the message they want heard. Government’s simply won’t be able to mobilize mass opinion as they could before. The Arab Spring is one example of this, but there are countless other smaller ones. Note the leaking of the Abu Ghraib scandal, for example. Perhaps a downside to this is that with the wealth of options available, we never have to listen to the ‘other side’ if we don’t want to. Might this contribute to the current rancor in politics today? Both Bush and Obama have been compared to Hitler, which in my opinion does not foster healthy, responsible debate on their relative merits. Still, every president or senator is bound to have plenty of critics. In one sense then, governments have much less power than they used to.

But on the other hand, technology puts a tremendous amount of information at the government’s disposal. What will happen to the concept of privacy, for example? The globalized market de-emphasizes territorial boundaries among states. In the same way, traditional notions of private and public boundaries are also changing. Will our interpretation of the 4th Amendment also change?

Regardless of where we might stand on these developments, we must avoid a) Vainly wishing for a mythically pristine bygone era, or b) Assuming that every change is inherently good because it is change. The Market-State, like any other model, will give and take away, and we need to be discerning to maximize its strengths and minimize its weaknesses.

Dave Mathwin

12th Grade: From State-Nation to Nation State

Dec19 by Dave Mathwin

Greetings,

This week we continued looking at the development of states, attempting to make the connection between the various elements in society that propel change. We looked this week at the ‘State-Nation,’ and the ‘Nation-State.’

Th ‘Territorial-State’ (1648-1776) was a conscious move away from the monarchical ambition and religious motivated violence of the previous era. They sought order, symmetry, balance, and proportion. This required careful international diplomacy, and sought to prevent any inward social upheavals, for good or ill.

A variety of factors lead to the breakup of this constitutional order. For one, the Enlightenment grew stale and begged for a more ‘Romantic’ counter-reaction. But perhaps more than that, the expansion of Territorial States stretched the logic of their identity based on contiguous property (and not ideology, which travels in the minds of men). The French-Indian War is perhaps the most striking example of a Territorial-State conflict that gives birth to the ‘State-Nation’ here in America.

The French-Indian War created a sense of identity, a sense of a ‘people’ in the English North American colonies. This ‘people’ would naturally now not want to be treated as pawns in an international game. They would inevitably demand rights, and this is at least part of the roots of the conflict between the colonies and England.

A look at the Declaration of Independence and Constitution gives us insight into the emerging world of ‘State-Nations.’

We have the basis of the particular relationship between government and the people rooted in universal ideas (all men are created equal)
We have recognition that the ‘people,’ not territory or states, are the basis for political power, i.e. “We the people. . .”
At the same time we still have a somewhat aristocratic, paternalistic attitude towards ‘the people.’ Government was responsible “for” the people, but neither George Washington, John Adams, Robespierre, or Napoleon would have thought in terms of government “by” the people, or “of” the people.

Napoleon is a great example of someone who understood how the socio-political landscape had changed, and understood how to take advantage of it. The French Revolution destroyed not only the aristocracy, but the professional army led by aristocrats. Napoleon had mass, energy, and ideology at his disposal, but lacked the well drilled and trained armies of the rest of Europe.

With a “people” now organized in France to form a “nation,” Napoleon could mobilize more support for his campaigns. He had the supplies, backing, and motive to take his army far (we are liberators of the oppressed). His took this energy and channeled, achieving superiority of mass at points of his choosing. This rag-tag ball of energy created by the French Revolution and harnessed by Napoleon made quick work of the rational, balanced, symmetrical, and aristocratic armies of Europe.

But then a curious thing happened. The countries Napoleon occupied inevitably brought with them the ideology and ‘constitution’ they espoused. If France was so great, why couldn’t Prussia or Austria be great too? If they wanted to resist, they would need to raise a new army rooted in this new sense of solidarity, this new sense of a ‘people.’ The old aristocratic officers had been discredited by their initial defeat at Napoleon’s hands. The armies that defeated Napoleon from 1809-1815 from Spain to Russia, from Prussia to England, were in sense, Napoleon’s accidental creations.

Napoleon’s success and ultimate failure have many lessons. For our purposes I want the students to see how elements of society fit together and in a sense, carry the same message. Different ideas and actions create new social and political contexts. Without awareness of the ripple effects of these changes, nations will end up behind the 8 ball, much like Spain of the early 17th century, France and England in the late 18th century, the Austro-Hungarians in the early 20th century, and so on.

We discussed in class the various ways the transition from these two state models might manifest itself. The “State-Nation” built itself on universal ideas, (i.e. “all men are created equal, and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights.”) These grand, sweeping ideas have their incarnation in Beethoven’s music, for example.

But the music of the next model, the “Nation-State” reflected different values. It was more group oriented, so the music aimed not everywhere but for the broad middle, creating more “popular” and “accessible” music.

Later we had. . .

And then. . .

The ‘Nation-State’ (1914-89) was the era that you and I grew up in. Sometimes its easy to assume that we experience is somehow universal, but in fact that America was different than the America of Thomas Jefferson, and the America of our children will be different as well.

What characterizes this era?

Now, thanks to technology, identity politics, Vietnam and Watergate, among many factors, we have many more choices. We can individualize our lives in ways not possible even 15 years ago.

I wanted the students to think about the implications for modern America, and the modern state in general.

Regardless of where we might stand on these developments, we must avoid a) Vainly wishing for a bygone era, or b) Assuming that every change is inherently good because it is change. The Market-State, like any other model, will give and take away, and we need to be discerning to maximize its strengths and minimize its weaknesses.

Men Behaving Badly

Dec18 by Dave Mathwin

Byron Farwell’s The Great Anglo-Boer War offers an intriguing glimpse into the waning days of Victorian England, deals with some difficult moral dilemmas, and entertains with good writing and good stories. When one combines the myopia of Victorian Brits and the self-righteousness of the Dutch Boers, it can lead, if nothing else, to entertaining reading. The whole episode reminded me of the failed Rob Schieder TV show Men Behaving Badly. I saw exactly 0 episodes of this show, but I do remember the promo, which had Schieder’s character standing by a sink full of dirty dishes. He narrated,

What does a guy do when all of his dishes are dirty? Well, the way I see it, he could a) Buy more dishes, b) Rent another apartment, or c) Find suitable dish-like replacement from your natural surroundings (holds up a frisbee).

My guess is that was about as good as the show got.

Who is one to root for in this conflict?

On the surface, you have an imperial nation at the high-water mark of its power, fighting in land not their own against a group of rag-tag farmers who only wish to be left alone. Our underdog instinct wants to kick in, but then we remember the Dutch Boers woeful mistreatment of the indigenous local African population and back off on any potential support. So perhaps we can root for the Brits? After all, “Empire” is not, or should not be, a dirty word in and of itself. Sometimes empire-states can serve the common good. And one can make a legitimate argument that England’s empire on balance did more good than harm, where no such argument exists for say, the French or Germans.

But then you see their reasons for their fight against the Dutch, and you throw up your hands. The British and the Dutch had their separate spheres of influence in South Africa, and managed to tolerate each other. But then miners found gold in the Dutch portion and a variety of treasure-seeking Brits came to seek their fortunes. The Dutch understandably did not embrace their presence. Almost exclusively they farmed and cared nothing for mining. They had a narrow, pious view of how life should be led that did not mesh well with the more rambunctious materialistic miners. Some kind of conflict between them would be inevitable.

The British couldn’t face the idea of their citizens not getting the royal treatment. Without citizenship, the miners naturally could not vote, and the Dutch passed a law aimed squarely at the miners making the residency requirement for voting 14 years. The British were outraged, and some minor scuffles ensued, followed by negotiations. The Dutch agreed to lower the residency requirement to seven years, two shy of the five years the British wanted.

It took someone like Foreign Secretary Alfred Milner to make this difference into a war. A brilliant scholar, perhaps his German ancestry led him to develop an outsized passion for all things British, especially the Empire. Was it his mixed ethnic background that subconsciously put so much racial language into his speech? He once stated,

I believe in the British race. I believe that the British race is the greatest governing race that the world has ever seen, and I believe there are no limits to its future. It is the British race which built the Empire, and the undivided British race which can alone uphold it. . . Deeper, stronger, more primordial than material ties is the bond of common blood, a common language, a common history and traditions.”

His Credo, published posthumously, somehow unfortunately only added to his popularity. . .

I am a Nationalist and not a cosmopolitan …. I am a British (indeed primarily an English) Nationalist. If I am also an Imperialist, it is because the destiny of the English race, owing to its insular position and long supremacy at sea, has been to strike roots in different parts of the world. I am an Imperialist and not a Little Englander because I am a British Race Patriot … The British State must follow the race, must comprehend it, wherever it settles in appreciable numbers as an independent community. If the swarms constantly being thrown off by the parent hive are lost to the State, the State is irreparably weakened. We cannot afford to part with so much of our best blood. We have already parted with much of it, to form the millions of another separate but fortunately friendly State. We cannot suffer a repetition of the process.

As an aside we can see that the Nazi’s did not invent all of their horrible language about “race,” and “blood.”

To our point, with this attitude Milner could make a mountain out of a molehill. His extreme sense of British dignity could be quite easily tweaked. When some in England felt that with the concession of the Boers war could be avoided Milner stated, “No no no. If enforced rigidly their government would be able to exclude anyone they deemed undesirable.” As Farwell noted, why Milner thought that the sovereign Dutch state could not exclude people they deemed undesirable implied that the Dutch had no sovereignty where England was concerned.

Milner’s counterpart Joseph Chamberlain also saw these minor disputes in absolute terms. He argued for war as well, stating,

We are going to war in defense of principles, the principle upon which this Empire has been founded, and upon which it alone can exist. The first principle is this–if we are to maintain our existence as a great power in South Africa, we are bound to show that we are both willing and able to protect British subjects everywhere when they are made to suffer injustice and oppression. The second is that in the interests of the British Empire, Great Britain must remain the paramount Power in South Africa. [The Dutch] are menacing the peace of the world.

That last sentence is almost breathtaking in its foolishness. How could a small group of Dutch farmers who denied British citizens the vote in Dutch elections and taxed them 5% on their profits menace the peace of the world? Not unless the British see their own peace as the world’s peace, or their own inability to get their way everywhere as tantamount to a rupture of “world peace.”

I could not bring myself to root for the British. Even British opponents of the war, like Major General William Butler, show this same insufferable posture. Butler forecasted many troubles the British faced in the war, and afterwords commented, “I was able to judge of a possible war between us and the Boers with a power of forecast of a quite exceptional character.”

The war progressed in the way we might expect. The rugged South African terrain gave the Dutch farmers plenty of hiding space, and British arrogance and unfamiliarity with their surroundings made for a few massacres. The Dutch were better shots and had better rifles. But then, British persistence kicked in. They poured in more money, more troops, and even had an upswing in Victorian enthusiasm, and eventually wore the Boers down. They took pages out of Sherman’s book by burning crops and farms (they targeted more broadly than Sherman did) and starving troops in the field. They anticipated the Nazi’s not only in racial language, but also in the use of concentration camps.

But the peace settlement showed that England had only won battles, and in fact, lost the war. They could not stay in South Africa, and eventually the Dutch gained their complete independence. As for “upholding British prestige,” the Germans did not think much of it and thus crashed through Belgium in 1914. So England lost what it both indirectly and directly fought for within a few years of the war’s conclusion.

What lessons can we deduce from this conflict?

1. The expansiveness of late-stage empires

The end of the Victorian era saw a huge expansion of the the Empire. As the reign waned, they had to loosen their belts. The same happened, albeit with less success, under Louis XIV in France, and with Augustus’ bid to get into Germany at the end of his life.

I have no good explanation for this. My only stab might be that when we get older, we don’t really change, but our characteristics come into sharper focus, be they good or bad. The same might hold for civilizations at the end of epoch. Expansive minded rulers might take a while to find their sea legs, but then once they/the civilization have made their characters, their expansive nature could accentuate itself more and more as time went on.

2. The Persistence of the Armies of Empire

The British troops showed remarkable tenacity and a passion for glory, much like the Roman army in its heyday. Mounting British casualties early on did nothing to abate this. I think we can say that rather than the expansiveness creating the armies, the armies provide the possibility of it in the first place.

3. Empires in their late stages make mountains of molehills

Pericles did this with the Megaran Decree, and Victoria did it in South Africa. To some extent, Napoleon did this with Russia. When empire-states do this, they always justify their extreme action under the aegis of defending their reputation throughout the world. For them, their action proves their vitality, but in reality, it may only prove that they have grown old, cranky, inflexible, and overly touchy.

4. The futility of force alone

On certain extreme political ends, some might say that, “violence never solves anything.” This is quite obviously untrue. But violence alone, apart from any other political or moral power, will rarely solve problems, especially for the aggressor far from home. The British experience in India should have taught them this lesson, for they established themselves there with very little force, and rarely had to use it to stay.

Milner wanted to make South Africa something of a second India, but their brutal tactics could never win over the local population. The Dutch never wanted to be British the way some Indians did. Even many Indians that eventually fought for independence used their British educations to do so.

I like the ‘Redux’ version of Apocalypse Now, and I think this scene sums up in some ways the position of the Dutch and the British.

Like sand falling though our fingers, South Africa slipped away despite their military victory.

12th Grade: The Changing State of Nations

Dec12 by Dave Mathwin

Greetings,

Towards the end of this week we began preparation for our look at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 by examining how nations change over time, and why.

To help guide us we will be using Philip Bobbitt’s framework from his book, “The Shield of Achilles.” I have picked this because we need to have some kind of general categories to work from, and Bobbitt provides them, though one can debate his specific conclusions. One of the strengths of Bobbitt’s work for our project is that he is more concerned with showing the possibilities than arriving at specific conclusions. Bobbitt chose the title because he wanted to emphasize the connections between various aspects of society, and he refers to the famous shield given to Achilles by his mother Thetis. We might expect that the shield would have military insignia exclusively, but in fact that shield had depictions of numerous scenes of life in general, as the diagram shows.

I want the students to see these same connections.

Bobbitt makes several points worth noting.

Many historians will seek for the one defining turning point in the history of the western idea of the state. Bobbitt points out, rightly I think, that there are many such turning points in history, and that we are in the midst of one now. By understanding how these changes happened before, we can better prepare for our own future
People remain who they are from birth, but the way they relate to the world will change over time. For example, as a young boy I thought of myself as a future NFL wide receiver. What if I still thought of myself that way? What if I left my job, trained hard, and showed up at Redskins training camp next year hoping to make the team? This would be silly, but also destructive. What would happen to my family, for example? So too, nations must accurately assess their own identity and match it to the reality they face. When nations fail to do so — when their concept of their own identity does not fit well with reality, that nation suffers.
Bobbitt also encourages us to see the various state models over time as opportunities. Often people, like nations, get stuck wishing and acting based on a bygone past. How much better if we could accept things we could not change and make the most of them? What are those things that can be changed, and things that cannot? How should we act and plan accordingly?

We proceed recognizing that elements of a state’s internal order (politics, economics, culture, military, etc.) will all share a common rationale. When we looked at the “Territorial State” (1648-1776) model we saw its origins in the rejection of the “Kingly State” (1588ish-1648) and its identity.

The Kingly state built itself around the king. The “bigger” the king, the grander the people. So, for example, the French took pride in the fact that Louis XIV could eat far more than other men. It made him seem larger than life, and this in turn spilled over into the people. Frequently other monarchs of this era (like Henry VIII, Elizabeth I) pictured themselves in outsized proportions.

If the king’s religion formed the religion of the people, than those that did not share in that religion must either have second-class status (like Catholics in England, or Protestants in France) or be banned entirely from participation in the state. Furthermore, the wars of the state could in theory be universal in scope, because religion is not bound by geography.

The transition to the “Territorial State” came about due primarily to the physical and moral exhaustion brought about by the wars of religion. Now states feared above all “enthusiasms,” or anything that might upset the apple cart. Now rulers sought to keep wars local and short, because the only justification for war had to be acquisition of contiguous territory. The universal ambitions of previous monarchs made no sense anymore.

The age of the Territorial State is the age of the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment, with a focus on what can be known and measured. Economically, the “mercantile” philosophy dominated the era, with its strict control on imports. Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations would do much to undermine this philosophy, and coincidentally, appeared at the same time as the American Revolution.

This transition can be seen visually:

The ‘Kingly-State’ King, Louis XIV, where the “bigger” kings are, the more power they have (notice how Louis seems to say, “Look at me in all my glory!”):

The ‘Territorial State” King, Frederick the Great (notice that does not seek to reveal himself to the painter–he almost turns himself away):

‘Kingly State’ Architecture:

‘Territorial State’ Architecture:

This is a tough concept, but I hope the students will get the hang of it.

Dave Mathwin

The “Great Man” Theory of History

Dec11 by Dave Mathwin

The book “Blood and Iron Origin of the German Empire As Revealed by the Character of Its Founder, Bismarck,” by John Hubert Greusel is not so much a biography of Bismarck as it is a pean to an idea, an homage to a theory of History.

Historiography has its fashions just like other disciplines. In the late 19th century the “History is Made by Great Men” theory gained prominence among a certain set.

To best of my knowledge, the theory runs something like this:

Existence, political or otherwise, is about struggle for survival and little else.
Civilizations have moral codes to help check our naturally competitive instincts, and these serve a good purpose — most of the time. But times arise that call for a transcending of such codes. We don’t like to admit it to ourselves, but the vast majority of us lack the strength of will and purpose needed to accomplish what needs done. Society craves champions.
“Great Men” arise to meet such a challenge. Such men have vast intellects and plentiful energy. They can mold the minds of men and make Lady Fortune their mistress. Their grand vision naturally requires sacrifice, but they sacrifice themselves most of all to their ideals. They sacrifice the prevailing mores of the time to this ideal as well. Their “greatness of soul” excuse all their crimes and vices, some of which are only mere convention anyway.
Such “Great Men” are beloved by some, hated and reviled by most others. Inevitably, “lesser” men gang up on them and bring them down, but the “Great Men” manage to have the last laugh. They gain immortality by their deeds and the impact they leave behind.

Colonel Jessup believed in this theory. . . (warning: language)

Historians typically use a few different people to expound this philosophy. Julius Caesar fits the bill, as does Napoleon, who said, “The world begged me to govern it.” Some write about Alexander the Great this way, a man with a vision of the brotherhood of man, only to face betrayal from his own army. Hannibal gets this treatment too, as his own government first would not give him reinforcements and then after the war betrayed him to of all people, the Romans. At least Hannibal, unlike Napoleon, Caesar, and Alexander, got a noble death by his own hands. He remained “unconquered.”

Bismarck most definitely could be written about this way, and that is how Greusel treats him.

Fashions change of course, and historiography changed. By the mid-20th century historians had stopped focusing on the great men and swung the pendulum to examine culture, environment, and the everyday (think Fernand Braudel). Interestingly, the “Great Man” approach coincided with the advent of Nietzche’s philosophy of the “over-man” and the heyday of imperialism. Historians’ focus switched as empires collapsed and the civil rights movement began.

First, a word about Greusel specifically.

His writing has an endearing quality, because he cannot contain himself. He gets carried away with his subject, with both Bismarck and the Idea. Each page has multiple exclamation points to accompany the exalted language. A typical paragraph might look like . . .

And here is Bismarck, striding over the plain of Sedan. Look at his steps, like a Colossus! His face — o his face! — triumphant in his glory. But look close. Is that a tear in his eye? A tear for the slain, the cost of victory? Weep, o weep Bismarck, if you must, but not here, not now. Watch him suppress his anguish, for what is the cost? This is Germany’s hour! Watch Bismarck complete the triumph. For he will drink champagne — yes champagne! — right in Versailles where Louis XIV looked with eagle eye over his foppish band. Bismarck guzzles the liquid, as he guzzles glory! For here we have a man who loves and hates like no other!

Entertaining in doses, but not entirely informative.

Greusel does not entirely gloss over Bismarck’s faults, but he keeps returning to the idea that, “You need Bismarck on that wall, you want Bismarck on that wall!” Germany needed united, after all, and it took a force of nature to overrule a pathetic Parliament and outmoded provincial princes. Thus Bismarck fulfilled, “the secret yearning of the Teutonic Heart,” (his words, not mine) and the immensity of the task meant that immense deeds needed done, and lesser men must give way to The Deed.

I’ll give Greusel credit for this: he does not hide his thoughts in flowery prose. He has no qualms with making his views obvious, such as his intolerance for weakness or the “pettiness” of democracies. His heroes are the Great Men, who serve the god Will, embodied in the German national consciousness.

I have profound antipathy for the “Great Men” theory of History for many reasons, but we must first understand its appeal. We admire strength because we do need it at times. Part of us can’t help but agree with Colonel Jessup. Certain times call for clarity of vision and courage to make difficult decisions when all others see a foggy grey landscape. The question is, what kind of strength do we need?

With that in mind, problems with the theory abound:

The theory absolves one of responsibility. Bismarck’s individuality gets merged into something resembling Fate. For all of Greusel’s croonings about how Bismarck was a “man” his treatment of him abstracts Bismarck to the point where he no longer is an individual, but a Type. As a colleague of mine rightly pointed out, a great gulf exists between the Great Men and Biographical approach to History. The biographical approach values their subjects as men/women, rather than seeing them through the lens of imagined archetypes.
This absolving of responsibility allows the characters of this treatment (Napoleon, Alexander, etc.) to indulge via proxy in childish shifting of blame. “It’s not my fault! He did it!” Again, not particularly manly.
The theory has no appreciation for anything like moral strength, or the power in humility. The growth of the Church within the Roman Empire, or the Civil Rights movement stand as clear examples of the power of humility. Selfishness and pride get pride of place with “Great Men.”
Great Men adherents tend to think that force is always the correct solution. Napoleon may have been right that Europe needed unity, and that every war between European nations had the character of a civil war. But his conquests provoked far more war than existed previously. Bismarck wanted to Germany to unite, and I suppose that Germany had a right to unity if they mutually desired it. But Bismarck did not want unity through a democratic process. He wanted to create Germany through the forge of blood and iron. Only in that way could he serve his god.
The theory predicates itself on the unremitting “struggle of life.” But if History means looking at actual people in time, we should ask if “struggle” defines human existence. Obviously struggle is part of life, but it also seems like most of the time people watch tv, hang out with friends, read books, visit relatives, etc.
Not so much on the theory but on Greusel specifically — why exactly did Germany need united, and why did it need to get that unification at the expense of a patient democratic process? Greusel never addresses this question directly.

Historian Herbert Butterfield commented,

It is easy to make plans of quasi-political salvation of the world. . . . And when such plans go wrong, it is easy to find a culprit–easy for the idealist to bring out from under his sleeve that doctrine of human sinfulness which would have been much better to face squarely and fairly in the first instance. At a later stage in the argument the disillusioned idealist trounces the people who opposed him, brings human wickedness into the question as a deux ex machina. . . . And now he discovers human wickedness with a vengeance, for on this system the sinners are fewer in number, and thus must be diabolically wicked to make up for it. Nothing more completely locks humanity in some of its bewildering predicaments and dilemmas than to range history as a fight between the righteous and the wicked, rather than seeing initially that human nature–including oneself–is imperfect generally.

Greusel wrote in 1915, when Germany looked like it might “fulfill its destiny on the world stage.” The sad irony of this book is that Germany’s worship of force led them to near annihilation over the next 30 years. Beware of calling forces to your aid you call you cannot control. Their gods Will and Force turned out to be demons. St. Augustine commented in The City of God, referring to the Romans folly of adopting the gods that could not save Troy,

For who does not see, when he thinks of it, what assumption it is that they could not be vanquished under vanquished defenders, and that they only perished because they had lost their guardian gods, when, indeed, the only cause of their perishing was they chose for themselves protectors condemned to perish.

Finally Greusel’s abstraction of Bismarck has him overlook aspects of the man that don’t fit his theory. I’m no great fan of Bismarck, but after 1871 he showed a measure of restraint in foreign policy. He thought imperialistic ventures foolish and self-defeating, for example. Germany only embarked on extensive colonialism as he lost power in the government. Was this a “conversion experience” that Greusel overlooked, or is Bismarck just more complicated that he lets on? I suspect the latter.

Therefore the book, while entertaining in parts, may reveal more about Greusel than Bismarck himself.

8th Grade: Cambyses and Unfriendly Historical Sources

Dec5 by Dave Mathwin

Greetings,

This week we looked at the death of Cyrus and the reign of his son and successor, Cambyses II.

When examining Cambyses, we must use some caution. Much of the information (though not all) about what we know about Cambyses comes from Herodotus’ writing, but Herodotus got much of his information from Egypt. Cambyses had conquered Egypt, and we can assume that the information the Egyptians gave Cambyses would be slanted against him. It appears that Cambyses had a terrible temper, exhibited erratic behavior, and may have killed both his brother and sister. What are we to make of this dilemma?

If Cambyses was all who Herodotus says, this would not be terribly surprising. Historically, Cambyses does fit the general pattern of the behavior of privileged sons of self-made men. His father Cyrus worked from the ground up and achieved world-power status by his own innovative policies and bold tactics. His son, on the other hand, would simply be handed the keys to something he had not earned. In class I likened Cyrus to an expert Formula-1 driver who had been driving since he was a boy, worked his way up the lesser racing circuits, etc. Cambyses, on the other hand, would simply be handed the keys to a Formula-1 car upon Cyrus’ death without all the work Cyrus had done.

Under such circumstances, a fiery crash of some kind would be quite likely.

We can speculate as armchair psychologists that Cyrus, given his tremendous energy and success at spreading the power of the Medo-Persians, would not have been home much. We might surmise some latent guilt over this, and this means that if Cambyses ever came to him and said, “My tutor did ‘x’ and I didn’t like it, do something,” Cyrus might feel compelled to take his side and defer to Cambyses instead of his teachers. And, if he was raised always to be deferred to, if he was always told how wonderful he was, he would never blame himself for his bad driving. It would have to be the pit crew’s fault, the car’s fault, the designer’s fault — anyone or anything but himself. This frustration would lead to anger, and erratic behavior might result. It is noteworthy that Cambyses’ successor Darius I, a much better king than Cambyes, came from outside Cyrus’ family and was more “self-made” than Cambyses.

However, Herodotus also records several incidents of Cambyses going out of his way to desecrate Egyptian religious sites and customs after his conquest of Egypt, and this seems less plausible to me.. Cambyses, for example, is supposed to have exhumed a dead Pharaoh’s tomb and abused his corpse, and personally killed the “Apis Bull,” sacred to Egyptians. These actions would have involved such a dramatic departure from Persian practice under Cyrus, that I wonder about their authenticity.

We discussed this dilemma in class. I tend to think that if one source is all we have to go, we should accept that source unless someone else can contradict it. Unless Herodotus can be shown generally untrustworthy (and I believe him to be generally trustworthy) than we should not discount his evidence without other evidence. We should not indict him on mere suspicion. His actions in Egypt seem very uncharacteristic, but again, we have other evidence in Persian art of the period as well (see above image). Perhaps Cambyses was just as bad a Herodotus and the Egyptians claimed.

Many thanks,

Dave

Fun with Lists

Nov17 by Dave Mathwin

A colleague of mine who also teaches history recently asked me to play an enjoyable game of “Name your Top Five Historical Events between the Roman Empire and the Reformation in western Europe.”

With some brief banter back and forth we came to an agreement fairly quickly on four and I inserted a fifth. They are, in order of when they occurred,

The conversion of Constantine, ca. 313 A.D.
Charlemagne named Holy Roman Emperor, 800 A.D.
The first Crusade, 1097 A.D.^
The Black Plague ca. 1348 A.D.
Columbus, 1492

As we considered these five, I rejoiced at our selections. For, while the list is quite prosaic and hardly original, it reflects a shared worldview between us, and a shared philosophy of history.

For you see, the list has no technological innovations. Not even the printing press! I had to pat ourselves in the back in a moment of self-satisfaction.

Some context . . .

I like James Burke’s old show from the 1970’s Connections. In a typical episode Burke will start with some everyday modern phenomena and then ask, “How did this come to be?” He will then, by a serious of ingenious jumps and skips back in time, declare that, “If it were not for the discovery of the wood grouse in 1756 B.C., the modern computer would never have come to be.”

Or something like that.

I exaggerate, but sometimes Burke gets carried away.

In the first episode, Burke travels from a power outage in NYC to the invention of the plow in ancient Egypt (it actually makes some sense). But implicit in Burke’s theme lies the idea that technology creates and then drives civilization. I don’t buy it. Yes, the plow probably helped ancient people produce more crops, but what brought people together in the first place? Ok, people would gather by rivers for sure, but what would make them organize themselves into communities?

It would not be the plow. Before the plow, some kind of common bond must have drawn people together — almost certainly a religious bond.* Of course, it is this shared belief that still holds civilizations together today, not technology.

Admittedly not everything on that list involves a directly spiritual concern, so a brief defense of the selections seems in order:

Neither one of us thought Charlemagne’s title purely political. It represented a hope of reorganizing society spiritually and culturally (yes, political as well) along more unified lines. Some argue that the Holy Roman Empire never amounted to much, but it had a long run as a political and organizing force in Europe.

Whether or not the Crusades had justification in 1097, the conduct of the Crusaders and the ultimate failure of the enterprise seriously weakened the Church as an organizing force in European society. From around 1200 A.D. on, the state had much more say than previously vis a vis the Church. Whether an improvement or not, certainly this represented a new means of how people interacted with one another.

The Black Plague killed millions, and in the process effectively ended the feudal system, which had governed Europe arguably since the time of Charlemagne. In time a new middle class would arise with a new way of relating to one another

Columbus is in some ways a stand-in for Renaissance-era exploration as a whole. As Felipe Fernandez-Armesto argues in his excellent book Pathfinders, exploration did not start based on new technological discoveries. Exploration began because the way people viewed their place in the world had changed. In that sense, Columbus is a stand-in for an entirely new way of thinking.

The printing press certainly had significance. Probably it makes our top 10? But the printing press has little effect without there first existing a desire to read, a desire to interact with the world in a different way through the printed page. We should not imagine a world always hungry for books, just begging someone to invent a machine that could make them more accessible.

I am reminded, for example, of a story about Elizabeth I and toilets. Apparently indoor plumbing was created in her day, and some enterprising inventors offered her the chance to use it. Who among us would refuse indoor plumbing?

She refused. Having to go to the bathroom offended her sense of royal dignity. The bathroom, in the form of the chamber pot, would come to her. What good is being Queen if you can’t order the bathroom around anyway?

The story illustrates the point about the printing press. It’s not about the invention, but the culture surrounding the invention that matters. Culture and belief drive technology, and not vice-versa.

Dave

^In the interest of fairness, this represents my choice more so than an absolute unified agreement between the two of us. As I mentioned, we were lock-step on the other four.

*Not surprisingly, armed with his materialistic view of history, Burke essentially reduces all of the religion and mysticism of Egypt down to applied science.

A Proud Death

Nov2 by Dave Mathwin

Exposing oneself to older ideas has many benefits. Such a statement is almost a cliche for someone in my line of work, but then every so often the reality of this truth hits one afresh. The old world had much wisdom that we have lost.

One idea that struck me with particular force recently has to do with the early Church’s link between the reality of sin as it relates to fact of death. For Adam and Eve, sin brought death, and their progeny inherit bodies of death. After the Fall, sin now results from death. That is, we sin because we know we will die. Sin often originates in our rebellion against death.

We do this unfortunately, in a variety of ways. We distract ourselves endlessly with extended consumption.* When men reach my age they buy sports cars and get trophy wives in an attempt to feel young and powerful again. All of us feel the need for self-preservation, so when we see a chance to “extend ourselves” and grow our kingdom we seize it, whether that means invading another country or cutting someone off in traffic.

The futility of such actions is obvious on a biological level — we will die. But such actions do more than merely delay the inevitable. By making death more distant, we lose our dominion over it and thereby give it more power over our lives.

This is the main theme of Philippe Aries’ book The Hour of our Death, which stands as a greatly expanded version of his Western Attitudes toward Death. In that book he talks about the idea of a “tame” death in a more thematic manner. In this work, in minute and at times fascinating detail Aries gives the reader a multi-faceted look at how western man has died since the early Middle Ages.

I will try not to repeat myself too much from the review linked above. He begins his study under the heading “The Tame Death.” Essentially from the early Middle Ages, our approach to death consisted of . . .

A belief that death “politely” let one know of its imminent arrival. This blessed those about to die, for it gave them a chance to say goodbye and reconcile with friends and family.
Rituals that governed the process of death for the dying, which included last rites
The rituals having the effect of “taming” death*

Aries concludes his first chapter by writing,

The fact that we keep meeting instances of the same general attitude toward death from Homer to Tolstoy does not mean we should assign a historical permanence exempt from variation. . . . But for 2000 years it resisted pressures in a world subject to change . . . this attitude toward death is like a bulwark of inertia and continuity.

It has by now been so obliterated from our culture that it is hard for us to imagine or understand it.

Thus, when we call this “familiar” death the tame death, we do not mean to say that it was once wild and is now domesticated. On the contrary, we mean that it has become wild today when it used to be tame.

This “wild” state of death came about in distinct stages.

Perhaps because of the plague, the later Middle Ages depicted the gruesomeness of death and the reality of death much more frequently in their artwork. Death was far from “put aside,” but assumed a more terrible aspect.
The late Renaissance made death more about the Last Judgment than redemption in their art. Perhaps this happened as Renaissance culture knew that it had drifted from its medieval roots and sought through a kind of force — like shaking a patient — to regain some ground.
Many Protestants abandoned this Catholic practice, but as is typical in such cases, swung the other way entirely. Death no longer brought terror, but neither could it allow for mourning. Some Puritans, for example, had encouragement to remarry within a month or two of the decease of their spouse. Rather than fix the “problem” of death, this approach attempts to give death an unreality, which makes it ultimately abstract and impossible to tame.
The scientific age believed that cemeteries were unhealthy places. Burials stopped happening in or beside churches (located within the town) and got moved outside town limits. Now, too, rituals involving the dying were in jeopardy, because of the risk of disease, infection, etc. In suffering “medicalization,” death left the field of the Church and entered the field of science.
The Romantic era of the “beautiful death” attempted to correct the Enlightenment approach. But like the Puritans before them, they unintentionally swung unhelpfully in the other direction in two main ways: 1) The “beautiful death” imposed a burden on the dying to “get it right” — be tranquil, be composed, be “natural,” etc., and 2) In returning death to the provence of nature they believed they entered a beneficent realm. But nature in truth (at least according to Aries) is arbitrary, and cannot be “tamed” on its own terms. Thus, the impossibility of taming death in nature.
The modern era has abandoned rituals of almost every kind that guide cultural practice. Our societies do not pause in any way for death, unless it is perhaps the death of a statesmen or our military. Other deaths in society do not register. As the “ends” of our communal life have secularized, so too has death been secularized. The whole notion of a “communion of saints,” or a “cloud of witnesses” has disappeared utterly from nearly all Protestant churches. Without this sense of continuity or ritual, death has free reign, no controls, and again, becomes more terrible in aspect.

Aries published his book in 1981, perhaps the height of the modern medicalization of death. With the advent of hospice care and other less invasive end of life medical practices we begin to move back in a more positive direction. But we have a long way to go.

One key way back to a more proper understanding of death will involve a theological shift, as I hinted above. If we persist in the idea that God resides “up there” while we remain “down here,” we will never understand death. The same holds true for the departed. Without the communion of saints, death will continue its lordship. I quote extensively from Stephen Freeman’s Everywhere Present below to illustrate the point and show us the way forward.

At the time of my visit [to the St. Saba monastery] one of the brotherhood had “fallen asleep” two weeks earlier. “We never say that a monk has died, ” our guide told us, and I suddenly imagined the unspokenness of death I knew so well [from living in America]. He continued, “We always say, in the words of Scripture, that they have “fallen asleep.” But most we say this because we see them so often.

Now I knew I was in a different place.

“You see them?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said. “They appear to monks all the time. It’s nothing to see St. Saba on the stairs or elsewhere.” The witness of the monk (who happened to be from San Francisco) was not a tale of the unexpected. These were not ghostly visits he described, but the living presence of the saints who inhabit the same space as ourselves. It is a one-storey universe. Such stories . . . can be duplicated all over the monastic world.

The doctrine of the ancient Church is quite clear in this matter. Those who have died are separated from us in the body, but the Church remains One. There is not one church in heaven and another on Earth.

Dave

*Who doesn’t love Amazon Prime? But my countenance fell upon reading a recent ad of theirs for same day shipping — “Patience no longer required.”

A Stick in the Mud

A Classical-Christian History Teacher Seeks Help

Author Archives: Dave Mathwin

“Securing the Blessings of Empire to our Posterity”

Games People Play

12th Grade: Making it up as You Go

Alexander Nevsky and Humphrey Bogart

12th Grade: Constitutions for Dummies, by Dummies

Death by Abstraction

Retreat to Move Forward

12th Grade: From Nation to Market, from Family to Individual

12th Grade: From State-Nation to Nation State

Men Behaving Badly

12th Grade: The Changing State of Nations

The “Great Man” Theory of History

8th Grade: Cambyses and Unfriendly Historical Sources

Fun with Lists

A Proud Death