Category Archives: Sticks in the Mud

“Armies of the Raj,” and the Psychology of Empires

by Dave Mathwin

I picked up Byron Farwell’s Armies of the Raj on a whim, and was very pleasantly surprised.  From the title one might think this book has a very narrow focus, but this is not so.  Farwell uses the army as a springboard into England itself and the whole Victorian era.  Cultures come in many parts, but each diffracted part contains the whole, like light through a prism. So, while this book is military history, it is really cultural history disguised as military history, which I appreciate.

Many have made the point that Victorian era nations really worshipped themselves, and one certainly sees this confirmed by Farwell.  Part of this might have resulted from those India being away from the home country.  Perhaps they felt the need to overcompensate and out-English those in England itself.  I suppose this ‘diaspora’ psychology is not common to the English.  David Hackett-Fischer touched on this same psychology in his wonderful examination of New Zealand and America, both settled by Brits. This might not have been a problem, were it not for the over-inflated view of themselves the Victorians possessed. Toynbee comments,

The estrangement between India and a western world which, for India, has been represented by Great Britain, goes back behind the beginning of the Indian movement for independence in the eighteen- nineties, and behind the tragic conflict in 1857. It goes back to the reforms in the British administration in India that were started in the seventeen-eighties. This birth of estrangement from reform in the relations between Indians and English people is one of the ironies of history; and yet there is a genuine inner connection between the two events. In the eighteenth century the then newly installed British rulers of India were free and easy with their newly acquired Indian subjects in two senses. They were unscrupulous in using their political power to fleece and oppress them, and at the same time they were uninhibited in their social relations with them. They hob-nobbed with their Indian subjects off duty, besides meeting them at work on less agreeable terms. The more intellectual Englishmen in India in the eighteenth century enjoyed the game of capping Persian verses with Indian colleagues; the more lively Indians enjoyed being initiated into English sports. Look at Zoffany’s picture ‘Colonel Mordaunt’s Cock Match at Lucknow’, painted in 1786. . .

It tells you at a glance that, at that date, Indians and Englishmen could be hail-fellow-well met with one another. The British rulers of India in the first generation behaved, in fact, very much as their Hindu and Moslem predecessors had behaved. They were humanly corrupt and therefore not inhumanly aloof; and the British reformers of British rule, who were rightly determined to stamp out the corruption and who were notably successful in this difficult undertaking, deliberately stamped out the familiarity as well, because they held that the British could not be induced to be superhumanly upright and just in their dealings with their Indian subjects without being made to feel and behave as if they were tin gods set on pedestals high and dry above those Indian human beings down below.

Exhibit B for Toynbee’s analysis might be this painting done of Queen Victoria’s visit to the “Jewel in the Crown”. . .

What can account for this shift, and how did it express itself?

One obvious reason was the Suez Canal, which made transportation to India quicker and safer.  This opened up the possibility of women and families traveling to India, which meant the end of India as a playground for English businessmen, and the arrival of more civilizing influences.  But if one looks at how Victorians dressed, one sees that their version of a “civilized” world was in effect a closed system.  They would not be able to fully reach out to Indians.  Even their clothes seem to send a message of, “Back!  Back, I say!”

Before slamming the British completely, Farwell argues (and I agree) that many if not most British had a sincere desire to do good in India.  And they did in fact accomplish a variety of good things.  As to whether or not the good outweighed the bad in the end, Farwell doesn’t say, and I would think it’s too soon to tell for sure.  He puts his focus on how  the British reformed the military after the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857, and how their innate prejudice kept getting in the way in a few key areas:

  • The British wanted to integrate Indian troops more into the regular army, but no Indian was ever allowed to command a British soldier
  • Indian officers never had the social privileges that British officers had
  • The British recruited troops very successfully in certain provinces, but never even tried to recruit in other areas of India, believing the people there to be less martial in temperment.  Indians in the British army could never really claim to represent India as a whole, and this had a terrible impact when India did gain its independence.

As time went on the British changed some of their attitudes and tried harder to treat Indians equally. Yet rarely could they go all they way.  Some officers clubs for example, came to allow Indian officers to the bar and billiard room, but not the “swimming bath,” as they called it (though some British officers refused to allow their troops to join if their Indian officers were not granted full membership).  When W.W. II came the British worked hard to recruit all the Indians they could, and the army served to break down a variety of social barriers between British and Indians, and between Indians themselves.  Yet when it came to actually declaring war, the British government announced that India was at war with Germany without even consulting the Indian National Congress, a foolish act that led to much violence and a tragic split between Moslems and Hindu’s within the Congress itself.  General Auchinleck commented in 1940 that,

In my opinion we have been playing a losing hand from the start in this matter of “Indianization.”  The Indian has always thought, rightly or wrongly, that we never intended this scheme to succeed and expected it to fail.  Colour was lent to this view by the way in which each new step had to be wrested from us, instead of being freely given.  Now that we have given a lot we get no credit because there was little grace in our giving.

In their foibles, the British are hardly alone.  Empires find it very difficult psychologically to fully open up themselves.  They tend to believe that the locals should be thankful, first and foremost, for the blessings they bring.  They want to be seen as benefactors.  At their worst, they insist that those they rule thank them for their kindness, and get angry if others fail to do so. . .

The book is another confirmation about how nations cannot do things halfway.  You cannot bring part of your civilization and trust that it will satisfy.  If you rule on the basis of the superiority of your civilization and claim to bring its blessings, you have to bring them all.  England could claim that they brought more economic opportunity to India, as well as modernization.  These are features of western culture.  But many of the Indians the British generously sent to Oxford and Cambridge (like Ghandi and Nehru) learned that there was more to western culture than railroads.  Others principles, like equality under the law and self-determination will be evident in a western education.  That the British did not see this coming testifies to their short sight, but again, their problems were human problems, and hardly uniquely their own.  In a fallen world, we often don’t recognize what’s best for ourselves, let alone others.

I, Robot

by Dave Mathwin

I discovered last summer when I read Isaac Asimov’s Foundation that he makes great summer reading.  I mean this in the highest respect.  To create bad summer fiction  might be easy, but to keep it light, entertaining, but thought provoking enough to prevent the reader from feeling like a total sellout — that requires a graceful touch.

His I, Robot achieves this same delicate balance.  The book has a remarkable coherence for the fact that he culled it together from several short stories written over a period of about 15 years.  Like the best science fiction, it seems to grow only more relevant as time marches on.  As a special bonus, he anticipates the rise of Asia and the decline of Europe.  But nothing he wrote could top those sideburns.

Asimov muddies the waters well and creates complex questions, but comes down on the side that robots benefit mankind.  I remain unconvinced, though more for gut level reactions than anything absolute.  As technology progresses in the stories, robots become superior to humans in many ways.  They are faster, stronger, more durable, and more efficient than humans.  To help reinforce their control and perception of robots, humans build into their programming that robots call humans “master,” while many of the male characters call robots, “boy,” which Asimov surely knows conjures up connotations of slavery.  Perhaps we should not think so much about robots rising up and taking over.  Perhaps we should think what damage we would do to our own souls if we created servants to do our every bidding.

But if we treat robots with deference and respect, would that make them our equals, and essentially human?  Not necessarily — we can treat trees with respect.  But treating trees or even dogs with respect does not threaten us because such interactions do not threaten our sense of humanity.  The likely proliferation of walking, talking robots within the next few decades raises even the question over the tone of how we address them.  As Brian Christian noted, part of the confusion regarding our humanity may lie not just in the increase of technology, but in the fact that we are worse at being human than previously.

Asimov also makes us realize  that the very terms we use make a difference in our perceptions.  Is a robot essentially a computer?  If so, then are computers robots?  Very few of us, I think, would be comfortable with this.  I use a computer, not a robot, thank you very much.

As time marches on within I, Robot, the machines get more advanced and more integrated into society.  Eventually they come to direct the world’s economy and much of governance itself.  If the first law of robotics entails that robots may not harm humans, or allow humans to come to harm, then why fear anything they do?  For Asimov, with robots in charge the world unites, war stops, and people get more productive.

At the very end, Asimov tips his hand as to why he believes robots will be beneficial for us.  According to him, much of the misery mankind has suffered has resulted from impersonal factors like geographic resource distribution and macro-economics, rather than personal choice by individuals.  He asserts that mankind has always been at the mercy of forces beyond his control.  Forces beyond our comprehension drive us at times to try and destroy each other.  Well, robots/computers, with their vastly more efficient brains, can manage those things for us.  Factors that brought conflict in the past get effectively managed by robotic brains.

This is the root of why I fear the possible coming of increased computer/robotic domination.  Abdication of responsibility  to robots means a denial of part of our humanity.  If we put a robot in charge of our economy, it would be akin to moral and intellectual laziness–a denial of part of the image of God within us.  I find views of history that make us passive dangerous.  Should we reduce ourselves to, “Can’t somebody else do it?”

Of course, I’m probably overreacting and blind to the ways in which I rely on computers/robots all the time.  But still, Asimov tips the scales towards something problematic.

Another issue:   why was Asimov so high on science in the direct aftermath of the atomic bomb, but today we seem to be much warier?  Movies like Terminator and Matrix series, Blade Runner, the new Battlestar Galactica all proclaim doom for the future because of our continuing dependence on technology.  Even the recent Will Smith version of I, Robot strongly modifies Asimov’s original message in a more negative direction (while also strongly changing elements of the story, as you might expect).

But even an edgy show like The Outer Limits 50 years ago goes even further than Asimov in proclaiming the “robots = good,” message.  The prosecutor and sheriff represent pure ignorant anti-science sentiment in this episode. . .

We use computers much more than they did 50 years ago.  Why do we proclaim our fear out of one side of our mouths, while rejoicing in the latest gadget with the other?  How can we make sense of this? Why did an era that lived within the shadow of nuclear annihilation to a much greater degree than us believe much more in robots?  Many have claimed that Hiroshima marked the high-water mark of the scientific worldview in the west.  Is this true, or do we still live within an era dominated by an Enlightenment oriented scientific era?

I, for one,  do not have the answers, but would be curious for any feedback.

Blessings,

Dave

Steve Gadd plays drums with his Neck

by Dave Mathwin

I have enjoyed Steve Gadd’s drumming for years, but recently listened again to Paul Simon’s “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover,” where Gadd created a classic, universally admired beat for the song.   If you have not heard it before, you can below in a live performance. .

So many with much more knowledge than I have commented on this beat, but one thing that strikes me is how well Gadd   gives the song a massaging of the shoulders feel, like being out on a slightly choppy lake in a small sailboat where your body can pleasantly roll from side to side.  He avoids giving the beat too heavy a feel by only lightly accenting beat 4 at the end of the two measure phrase on the low tom-tom.  Most drummers (myself included)  would drag the song down unnecessarily by doing precisely what Gadd avoids and give a big “thud” at the end of the phrase.  Gadd keeps it light.

While watching Gadd perform the beat by himself, a friend noted how Gadd’s neck moves while he plays:

So, no, he does not actually play with his neck, but the way he moves it reflects the tremendous feel he gives the song.  From a purely technical standpoint, playing the beat is not very difficult.  But as the following shows, how one plays the beat makes a tremendous difference.

Perhaps the instructor needs to bob his neck more.

Gadd’s abilities start not with his wrists/fingers but somewhere inside him.  Some might call it Gadd’s “Zen” approach, but I hate that word because it implies disengagement.  I don’t think Gadd is disengaged at all, rather he engages in a different way than most drummers.  He’s after overall feel, not technique.  He stands inside, not outside the pattern.  In the following clip, Dave Weckl and Vinnie Colaiuta outclass him technically, but which of the three’s playing most impresses?   Look for Gadd’s neck to start doing its thing at the 3:27 mark, and yours may join him!

Our culture talks a lot about innovation, creativity, and the like, and we rightly recognize the importance of such things.  Unfortunately much of our approach to education will not produce it.  It will give us the same kind of result that we saw in the drum “lesson” on Gadd’s beat above, which robs all the life from Gadd’s creation.  Our standardized, rote-fact approach to education will never allow us to get inside History, Science, Math, etc. in the way that Gadd gets inside the beat in Simon’s song.  Creativity will not come from outward mastery of exteriors, but from cultivating a love and engagement with the subject from the inside out.

The master, one more time, giving his neck a wonderful workout. . .

Chesterton and Toynbee on Sumerian and Greek Mythology

by Dave Mathwin

The explosion of interest in the ancient near east, and the rise of archaeology and anthropology in the late 19th-early 20th centuries stands as one of the great eras of historical research.  It added a great deal to our understanding of so much of the past related to the Old Testament.

Unfortunately these discoveries came at a time when Darwinism, Victorian conceit, unbelief, and the Whig interpretation of history all coincided to help radically misinterpret much of what they found, and nowhere is this more evident than in their commentary on Sumerian mythology.

In Donald MaKenzie’s  Myths of Babylonia and Assyria he mentions in the preface how scholars believe that Egyptian and Sumerian mythology had a common, ancient, as yet undiscovered source.  At this the Christian might raise an eyebrow of amusement and hopeful anticipation that Mr. Alexander might say something profound.

But no, because from there he quotes approvingly from Joseph Frazer who believed that this “homogeneity of belief” came from a “homogeneity of race” *(see below).  From the muddling use of big words he continues to slide down the slope . . .

  • In Sumerian mythology we do not deal with symbolized ideas but simple folk beliefs enlarged into greater stories.
  • Babylonian creation myths can be traced back to a story of some tribal hero who liberated the people from some oppressive neighboring tribe.
  • Sumerian dragon stories show disunity more than anything else, for some have the dragon bringing drought and others flood.  Translation: Those silly Sumerians!
It seems to me that this dissection, done with intent to kill, misses the overall point.  Myths, in their view, “evolved” from stories with “different local color, and different local geographies,” into a grand story that explained the origins of everything.  But as Chesterton said in The Everlasting Man, 
We cannot say that religion arose out of religious forms, because that is only another way of saying that it only arose when it existed already.
Somehow, according to the MacKenzie/Frazer school, the Sumerians had the audacious intelligence to found civilization itself, yet persisted in the Victorian-imposed imbecility of supposing that their view of the creation of the cosmos had its origins from some local chieftan hailing from some “local geography.”  But even if you want to suppose some gradual ascent, that still does not solve the problem.  How to explain the spiritual underpinnings of the stories? Chesterton again writes,
An event is not more intrinsically intelligible because of the pace at which it moves.  The medieval wizard may have flown through the air to the top of a tower.  But to see an old gentlemen walking through the air in a leisurely manner would still seem to call for some explanation.  Yet there runs through all the rationalistic treatment of history this curious and confused idea that difficulty is avoided, or mystery eliminated, by dwelling on mere delay . . .

Art is the signature of man. That is the sort of simple truth with which a story of the beginnings ought really to begin. The evolutionist stands staring in the painted cavern at the things that are too large to be seen and too simple to be understood. He tries to deduce all sorts of other indirect and doubtful things from the details of the pictures, because he cannot see the primary significance of the whole; thin and theoretical deductions about the absence of religion or the presence of superstition; about tribal government and hunting and human sacrifice and heaven knows what.

Greek mythology  has just as much strangeness and murkiness to it as Sumerian mythology, with violence and capricious gods doing as they please.  And yet, western Europe never subjected Greek myths to the same kind of psuedo-scientific dissection and subtle derision. Why might this be?

One reason could be that western Europe knew of Greek/Roman mythologies for many many centuries prior to the late 19th. Having been known in a more sensible age, Greek myths could be taken in the more proper literary  sense than their ancient near-eastern counterparts.  Another could be that their assault on Sumerian mythology helped train their guns, a kind of test run, for their assault on the Old Testament.

But I think a truer reason might be that Victorian Europe, and especially England (from whence so much of that nobly minded scholarship came) saw themselves as the inheritors of the Greek legacy.  Surely then, Greek foundation myths had some nobler origin than their Sumerian counterparts.

The Toynbee Convector has a great anecdote from Toynbee related to England’s patterning themselves after the Greeks, especially their “idolization of the parochial state,” (i.e. idolatrous nationalism) which I quote in full.

At some date during the latter part of the breathing-space between the general wars of A.D. 1914-18 and A.D. 1939-45, the writer of this Study heard the presiding officer of one of the livery companies of the City of London bear testimony which was convincing, because it was unselfconscious, to the primacy, in his Weltanschauung, of one of these tribe-worships. The occasion was a dinner at which the company was entertaining the delegates to an international congress that was in session in London at the time, and the presiding officer had risen to propose the toast “Church and King”. Having it on his mind that a majority of his guests were foreigners who would not be familiar with an English tribal custom, the president prefaced the toast with an apology and an explanation. No doubt, he said, the order in which he had rehearsed the two institutions that were to be honoured conjointly in the toast that he was about to propose might seem to a foreigner not only quaint but perhaps even positively unseemly. He apologized for abiding, nevertheless, by the traditional order, and explained that he did so because it was the pride of the city companies to be meticulous in preserving antique usages, even when these had become so anachronistic as to be open to misconstruction by the uninitiated. — from A Study of History, Vol. IX

The tragic irony of all these brilliant and inquisitive men like Mr. MacKenzie and Mr. Frazer ascribing real spiritual hunger to “homogenous local ethnographies” is that they reduced themselves to tribal worship of their local community, and suffered the cataclysmic fate that the Greeks suffered from 431 B.C. – 338 B.C during the years 1914-1945.
*On the love of long words, Chesterton again is spot-on:
One of my first journalistic adventures, or misadventures, concerned a comment on Grant Allen, who had written a book about the Evolution of the Idea of God. I happened to remark that it would be much more interesting if God wrote a book about the evolution of the idea of Grant Allen. And I remember that the editor objected to my remark on the ground that it was blasphemous; which naturally amused me not a little. For the joke of it was, of course, that it never occurred to him to notice the title of the book itself, which really was blasphemous; for it was, when translated into English, ‘I will show you how this nonsensical notion that there is a God grew up among men.’ My remark was strictly pious and proper; confessing the divine purpose even in its most seemingly dark or meaningless manifestations. In that hour I learned many things, including the fact that there is something purely acoustic in much of that agnostic sort of reverence. The editor had not seen the point, because in the title of the book the long word came at the beginning and the short word at the end; whereas in my comment the short word came at the beginning and gave him a sort of shock. I have noticed that if you put a word like God into the same sentence with a word like dog, these abrupt and angular words affect people like pistol-shots. Whether you say that God made the dog or the dog made God does not seem to matter; that is only one of the sterile disputations of the too subtle theologians. But so long as you begin with a long word like evolution the rest will roll harmlessly past; very probably the editor had not read the whole of the title, for it is rather a long title and he was rather a busy man.

Food and Sacrament

by Dave Mathwin

The recent issue of The City, a publication of Houston Baptist University, features an interview with Hoover Institute policy fellow Mary Eberstadt.  In the interview she makes a striking observation.  We all know, she remarks, that our society has become increasingly amoral regarding sexual activity over the last 50 or so years.  But an interesting thing has happened: as we became more lax on sex, we became much more censorious and aware about food.

She does not necessarily condemn this concern about food, noting that she herself is a vegetarian.  After all, we should know something about what we put in our bodies.  But she feels that a connection must exist between these two phenomena, and I agree.

What is this possible connection, and how did it come about?

For starters, we have lost the sacramental nature of sexual activity, and I don’t just mean “lawful” sex between husband and wife, but of sexual activity in general.  As St. Paul notes in Ephesians 5, the sexual union is itself a mystery, a clue to the keystone relationship of Creation itself, the union between Christ and His Church.  In certain Old Testament passages, like the meeting of Isaac and Rebecca, the sexual union is the marriage.

But sex outside of marriage also “works” — works in the sense that it forms a spiritual union between the participants.  But no man can serve two masters, and this is why those who have multiple sexual unions with many different partners might be expected to have issue that resemble those who have had multiple marriages.

To engage in the “freedom” of “free love” we have had to try and rob sex of its inherent spiritual meaning and focus on its mere physical aspects, or as a purely personal means of self-expression.

But we are a hungry people, in need of meaning.  We need to replace the meaning abandoned in sex, and perhaps we have chosen food to do that.

As mentioned, the impulse to find some kind of spirituality in food is not inherently wrong.  Fr. Alexander Schmemann wrote in the opening pages of his classic, For the Life of the World,

“Man is what he eats.”  With this statement the German materialist philosopher Feurbach thought he had put an end to all “idealistic” speculations about human nature.  In fact, however, he expressed, without knowing it, the most religious idea of man.  For long before Feurbach the same definition of man was given by the Bible.  In . . . the creation story man is presented . . . as a hungry being and the whole world as his food. (Gen. 1:29-30).  He is indeed that which he eats, and the whole world is presented as one all-embracing banquet table for man.  And this image remains throughout the whole Bible the central image of life.  It is the image of life at creation and also the image of life at its fulfillment: “. . . that you eat and drink at my table in my Kingdom.”

Later he comments that the family meal is the last American sacrament left.

If we look around we can also see that emptying the sacramentality from sex has also gone in tandem with a rise in concern for the environment, which of course also goes in tandem with increased interest in food.  In abandoning a spiritual perspective on sex, we have discovered something of the spirituality in creation.  But tragically, much of our culture associates our newfound interest in creation with something apart from a Christian world-view, even though certain conclusions the modern environmental/food movement draws are right in line with historic Christianity.  Take, for example, the interest in getting away from industrial farms and towards humane treatment of animals, which makes us think more about stewardship, and helps us realize that meat does not come from the grocery store.  I grant that this can go too far. . .

. . . but this is not the problem with the Church or the world at the moment.

Let us not throw the baby out with the bath water.  As Schememann and others have noted, if sacraments reveal and communicate the life of God to us, the whole of creation is sacramental in itself.

 

Thus ends the original post.  A friend of mine forwarded me this article about the Olympic village that perhaps many of you have already seen.  Sobering, to say the least.  The analogy of a college frat atmosphere used by the author may be the best explanation for their behavior.  But I wondered if there might be a connection to Eberstadt’s thoughts above.  If they train and eat so “religiously” for so long, might that lead to emptying the mystery and sacrament out of sex?

James McPherson’s “Drawn with the Sword: Reflections on the Civil War”

by Dave Mathwin

James McPherson is my favorite Civil War historian.  Those familiar with McPherson might assume the cause of my affinity lies in McPherson’s fondness for the Union cause.  But to say McPherson is pro-Union is like saying St. Thomas Aquinas was pro-Catholic.  Both canvass a wide field of inquiry, both speak with conviction, but conviction accompanied with a sober and careful mind.  Admittedly, an ardent pro-Confederate might not be amused.  But like any good scholastic, McPherson respects his opponent.

Drawn with the Sword is not one continuous book, but a collection of essays on a few different topics.  The most interesting section for me dealt with the broad picture issues of whether the North won the war, or the South lost it.

McPherson points out that how we frame the question will tell a lot about our perceptions of the conflict.  I have never been a fan of the view that the South lost due to the overwhelming resources of the North.  In general I fear explanations that allow you to transfer blame, and I also feel we should have antennae up when people attempt to avoid reality via romantic escapism.  Truly sometimes I feel that a minority of Confederate sympathizers are subconsciously glad they lost, for it allows them to dream of the “lost cause.”  This romance can be preserved in part because of their defeat, because their society never really had to face reality in full.

McPherson makes it clear that the South could have won the war, and in his opinion almost did in late 1862 and again as late as the summer of 1864.  Any look at a map of northern and southern territory shows that the Confederacy had certain key advantages, namely, a huge amount of territory for the North to conquer.

I have always thought that a Russian style tight-knit defense-in-depth would have served the Confederacy much better than what they actually attempted.  But the whole concept of state sovereignty forced them to spread their forces out which robbed them of a key advantage.  One might say the inherent logic of their system worked against them without “dooming” them.

McPherson gives at least a partial counter to this.  First, he notes that, however much the South may have been forced by their cultural values to a strong border defense , this would not in itself hurt them.  If the North penetrated their lines they could always let them pass through and then fall upon their rear.  One might think of Marius in the battle of Aquae Sextae, or Patton’s comment about the Nazi offensive during the Battle of the Bulge, where he said that we could let the Nazi’s advance, leading them by the nose so to speak, and then turn and kick them in the rear (it was Patton, so you might guess the quote’s not exact!).  So a strong border defense in his view was not foolish per se.  Reasons for their defeat lie elsewhere.

Second, he argues that the South came close to winning.  He defends Lee against critics that argue that his “Virginia-centrism” and his two main offensives into Northern territory cost the South the war.  Virginia was an important theater, and one where the success they had almost gave them recognition from England.  Furthermore, the relatively narrow confines between the two capitals minimized the territory the Confederacy had to defend, and thus minimized the North’s physical advantages.  Lee, he argues, did not pursue a strategy doomed to fail.  He chose a strategy that could have, and almost did work.  Again, we must look elsewhere for reasons for the North’s victory, or if you prefer, the South’s defeat.  McPherson quotes General Pickett, who when asked why the Confederacy lost, remarked, “Well, I always thought the Yankees had something to do with it.”

McPherson throws out his own opinions here and there, but mostly he forces his readers to follow an ever-widening game of ping-pong, where the ball bounces back and forth between different ideas and perspectives.  McPherson is that rare Civil War writer that can make studying the period enjoyable, as opposed to merely emotionally draining.

Daniel Pinkwater and Public Education

by Dave Mathwin

It’s always a blessing in disguise when you fail to turn your kids into clones of yourselves, but still, I feel a slight twinge in my gut when I realize that my children don’t love Daniel Pinkwater’s books.  Yobgorgle, The Last Guru — my absolute favorite The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death — all of them classics, and the list could continue.

Ethan Iverson, the pianist of the jazz trio The Bad Plus grabbed my attention with his musings on Pinkwater here.  The fact that a Pinkwater fable from his book Borgel was recently included on a standardized test in New York is more than a bit ironic, as anyone familiar with his books knows.  The only really evil thing in his books are the schools, and from what I recall he gave them names like “Bat Masterson Junior High,” and “Ghengis Khan High.”  Pinkwater responded to the kerfuffle here for those interested.

I believe that just about everyone involved in education means well.  I have some good friends who do a lot of good in the public school system.  My dad devoted his life to public school education. I went to public schools, and while it could have been better, you can say that about most things in life.

I pull for public schools, in the immediate short term at least.  Society asks schools to do far more than is really possible, given the circumstances.  We ask them to teach huge groups of students with diverse abilities and backgrounds and make it all come out in the wash.  Aside from that, feed them, tell them about drugs, sex, and provide exciting and meaningful extra-curricular activities.  How does anything happen at all?  Having said that, public education has serious, systemic problems, even if we don’t have any one person or group to blame.

Toynbee once declared,

In a previous part of this Study we have seen that the process of growth [leads to] civilizations becoming differentiated from one another.  We shall now find that, conversely, the qualitative effect of disintegration is standardization.      — “The Study of History,” vol. 5

The unintended consequences of education reform have resulted in vast increase in standardization.  This mad rush to standardize cannot serve education, which should ultimately have an expansionistic and not reductionistic character.  It cannot serve political freedom, for it subtly encourages everyone to think in the same way.  As to why we standardize, the answers are grim:

  • We standardize because we lack the willpower or ability to think of more creative solutions
  • We standardize because we have no other choice — we are completely overwhelmed with a problem that we cannot fix.
Related to this second answer, a friend of mine who teaches 9th grade English has commented to me that of course he would like to assign more essays, but how can he grade 175 of them at a time?  So, Scan-tron it is.  If Toynbee is right, once standardization takes hold only a few outcomes remain:
  • A slow drift towards Kafka-esque absurdity, irrelevance, and disintegration, or
  • A reversal towards greater freedom and mobility of mind, but this can only come when the standardizing system gets forcibly dismantled.  This process brings with it large amounts of pain and disruption.
The fact that an alternative to public schools, or a solution to the problem within public schools, seems impossible to fathom is an indication that we are deeply embedded into a problematic system.  We have a long way to go.

I have been too gloomy for my tastes, so all who have read this far need rewarded. .  .

From The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death:

Everybody ate in silence until the Bullfrog Root Beer was served. Then the conversation at the table got started. Aunt Terwilliger began making a sort of speech about grand opera. She was against it. Later, Rat told us that her aunt had just about every opera recording ever made. Her aunt spent hours in her bedroom listening to them, but all the rest of her time was spent arguing that people shouldn’t listen to operas, and, above all, they shouldn’t go to see them performed. Rat said that Aunt Terwilliger makes regular appearances in Blueberry Park, where she tries to convince people to live their lives opera-free. She feels that operas take up too much time. Also, she has an idea that people who like opera will become unrealistic, and not take their everyday lives seriously. Most of all, she believes that operas are habit-forming, and once a person starts listening to them, it’s hard to stop, and one tends to listen to more and more operas until one’s life is ruined.

Aunt Terwilliger has pamphlets printed up that she hands out. Her most popular one is called “Grand Opera: an Invention of the Devil.”

Brian Christian’s “The Most Human Human”

by Dave Mathwin

The backdrop for this book is the famous Turing Test, devised decades ago by the scientist Alan Turing.  Questions about AI existed from the very beginning of the invention of computers, and scientists wondered about a time when computers might possibly be able to “think” in a human-like way.  Turing speculated that if a computer could successfully impersonate a human 30% of the time, we would know that the necessary threshold had been crossed.

The advent of the internet has allowed computers to amass huge amounts of data and gain proficiency at this task much faster than Turing could have imagined.  And of course, technology in general improves all the time at speeds never before thought possible.  But I found Christian’s central premise quite intriguing: Is it possible that computers are better at impersonating humans not just because of the growth of technology, but  because we are worse at being human than we used to be?

Hidden behind this premise is to what degree we begin to act more like machines the more we interact with them.  When different cultures interact each leaves an imprint, however faint, on each other.  Does the same happen when we interact with machines?  Will our spoken language, for example, eventually reflect the language we use in texting?

I have just a few minor quibbles with the book.  He rambles a bit and wanders into other questions (though admittedly related ones) about the nature of language, the soul, and so on.  Here Christian summarizes the basic ideas on these questions throughout history, and because he didn’t seem to inject much of himself into these sections, they left me flat.

Still, kudos to Christian for raising a timely and interesting question.  But I wish he went further.  More questions need addressed, such as, “Why are so many so interested in proving that computers are “human?” I have a few possible theories:

  • The people who push the limits of AI do so in a vacuum, or in their minds, “science for Science’s sake.”  Science, or knowledge, is the only reward or consequence worth pursuing.  Let others deal with the moral consequences, that’s not our job.

Or

  • Some pursue the so-called merging of man and machine because they nurse a secret, perhaps unconscious hatred of Humanity itself and seek to abolish it.

Or

  • They believe that the best science helps us understand ourselves.  Thus, the success of computers at mimicking us will only push us to a further and more exploration of humankind.  The more we understand ourselves, the better we can know God.

I would guess that all three views (and no doubt others I have not thought of) exist in the computer science camp.  No doubt others do as well, so if you think of any, please let me know.

Many thanks,

Dave

The Blessings of Impractical Civilizations

by Dave Mathwin

(What follows was originally written in 2012) . . .

Ad Fontes is located in Centreville, which puts us within spitting distance of Dulles Airport.  That meant that we had a wonderful view of the space shuttle Discovery as it piggybacked its way to the Udvar-Hazy Center for display.  The students admired the sight (and enjoyed getting out of class), but in discussions I had with them no one seemed particularly chagrined that the shuttle program had ended.  “Why should we bother with space exploration,” many argued, “when we have so many other problems?”  To them space exploration has no point to it, “unless we know that something valuable is out there.” This argument is hardly unusual.

In 9th grade we just finished looking at the incredible boom of exploration during the early years of the Renaissance, ca. 1450-1500.  Historians have speculated on the reasons for this sudden jump, and many suppose that the answer must be “technology.”  I agree with Felipe Fernandez-Armesto who argues in his book Pathfinders that the exploration boom happened not because of any particular technological advance, but because they simply wanted to go.  Sailing technology did not measurably increase for about 300 years after the 15th century boom, when we discovered how to measure longitude, yet that their relative lack of technology did not deter them.  Given the great dangers of sailing in those early days, one cannot say that exploration was a particularly practical activity, though certain voyages did generate large profits. Despite this, people continued to travel, and most historians agree that exploration helped define and benefit Renaissance civilization in important ways.

Other civilizations did this too.  What could be more impractical than a massive cathedral?  And yet cathedrals popped up throughout northern France and England in the 12th century, then spread throughout western Europe.  Some historians talk about the economic benefits of cathedrals, as it drew visitors and trade and so on.  However true this may be, cathedrals cost tons of money and took decades to build.  I don’t think the medievals built them to create trade, and yet clearly the Gothic cathedral defined and shaped an era.

As far as glorious impracticality goes, its hard to top the Celtic monks who illumined so many manuscripts in the 5th-10th centuries.  In the midst of the Dark Ages, when civilization itself needed rebuilt, you had some of the best educated men playfully “wasting their time” drawing monsters on the pages of St. Matthew when they could have been about so much more!  And yet many historians credit this process with helping revive civilization after Rome’s fall.

Other civilization have been “impractical” in different ways.  The Age of Reason had opera, which as Kenneth Clark notes in this brief clip, has nothing rational about it.  And yet, Mozart left part of his greatest legacy in opera, and there can be little doubt of its impact on opera’s cultural impact from the mid-1700’s up until the 20th century.

This brief survey makes me wonder in what sense our civilization is wonderfully impractical, and I don’t think the question merely frivolous.  Much of what we appreciate about civilization has little direct practical value.  Take education, for example.  If we decided that a good education consisted merely in technical training human society would collapse shortly thereafter.   We could build better dams than beavers, but the difference between man and beast would be one of degree and not kind.  Thankfully, students rarely ask, “When will I need to use this in real life?” when reading Shakespeare (though they ask it all the time in math, which should clue us in that something is wrong about how we teach it).

Of course, we don’t have to pick the space shuttle program as our cultural fancy.   We can choose something else.  And, given the diversity of our culture (which has much to commend it), its unlikely that we’ll land on one thing like cathedrals or sailing.  Still, nothing prevents us as from changing civilization by starting with ourselves.  History speaks and says, “Be impractical.”

The best reason for a revival of philosophy is that unless a man has a philosophy certain horrible things will happen to him. He will be practical; he will be progressive; he will cultivate efficiency; he will trust in evolution; he will do the work that lies nearest; he will devote himself to deeds, not words. Thus struck down by blow after blow of blind stupidity and random fate, he will stagger on to a miserable death with no comfort but a series of catchwords; such as those which I have catalogued above.  . . .The idea of being “practical”, standing all by itself, is all that remains of a Pragmatism that cannot stand at all. It is impossible to be practical without a Pragma. And what would happen if you went up to the next practical man you met and said to the poor dear old duffer, “Where is your Pragma?” Doing the work that is nearest is obvious nonsense; yet it has been repeated in many albums. In nine cases out of ten it would mean doing the work that we are least fitted to do, such as cleaning the windows or clouting the policeman over the head. “Deeds, not words” is itself an excellent example of “Words, not thoughts”. It is a deed to throw a pebble into a pond and a word that sends a prisoner to the gallows. But there are certainly very futile words; and this sort of journalistic philosophy and popular science almost entirely consists of them.

From G.K. Chesterton’s “The Revival of Philosophy”

How Advanced are “Primitive” Societies?

by Dave Mathwin

I have noticed in some history books that certain assumptions get made about the age of so-called developing societies.

Generally one sees an argument that goes something like this:

  • Most societies go through a stage where laws are not written for the public.  Instead law stays unwritten, in the hands of a priestly caste of some kind.
  • Without law as an observable guide for the public, they seek out oracles, who provide guidance, and give people direction and a measure of certainty.
  • This stage is supposedly evidence of a civilization in a early stage of development, which they then pass through to become more advanced.
  • In this advanced stage, they have written, public laws accessible to the people, which breaks the power of the once dominant oligarchic collusion.

I don’t deny that these phases exist, but as to how we label them, I’m not so sure.

Let us take the state of law in the modern day U.S., and for example of a law we’ll use the controversial health care legislation.

While technically this law is written and available to the public, is this true in a de facto sense?  Can you or I actually read and understand this law and its implications?  It is not written in English that the common man can understand.  It is demonstrably not written with the public in mind.

Ah, but there exists a certain priestly caste that does understand this strange language.  We call them lawyers.

And us, the citizen body, who have no real direct access to the law itself — we consult oracles to divine the law’s meaning.  Some of us seek out the CNN oracle, or Rush Limbaugh, or NPR, or Jon Stewart, or anyone else.  Many of us adhere to our oracles with a semi-religious fervor, which, as long as we’re dealing with oracles, is only appropriate.

The great thing about democracy is the proliferation of oracles.

But oracles they remain, for we cannot read and understand the law on our own.

Thousands of years from now if people write our history they might look back at us and say, due to the mystery and incoherence of our laws, that we were a “primitive” society.   Most of us would probably object to this, and argue that we are hardly primitive.  Look at our technology, our intricate power grids, and the abundance of bloggers!

Either we will have to change our concept of primitive societies, or our concept of ourselves.  Or, I’m wrong in my theory.

If I am right, then the news is bad for us.  We may be worse off than we imagined, and the problem won’t be located in either political party, but deeper, in the fundamental roots of our civilization.  But all is not lost.  This interpretation of our current state actually does provide a good bit of hope.

If what we called “primitive society” in the past was really an advanced stage of decay, those civilizations found a way to renew themselves.  By the grace of God, that option stands open to us as well.

Dave

The Redskins R.G. III Trade and Napoleon III, Revisited

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings,

This is getting a bit of traffic, so I should explain.  I originally wrote this after the 2012 draft.  Then, I revised after the 2014 draft, so some of the comments below will be outdated.

With the recent play of Kirk Cousins, and considering that we drafted him in the 4th round the same year that we drafted Griffin, this is looking like my one real shot at an “I told you so!” moment.

I will savor it.

Many thanks!

Dave

And now, the original addition to the original post. . .

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

I published this already, but the day after the first draft day has me saddened as I compare the round 1 trades of the Cowboys and Redskins.

Redskins: To move up 4 places in the draft, they swapped this #1 picks, plus the next two years of #1’s, plus a second round pick.

Cowboys: To move up 6 places in the draft they swapped #1’s for this year, and also gave up this year’s second round pick.

Both trades were made with the SAME RAMS team.

So either the Cowboys got a massive steal, or the Redskins, as usual, paid far too much to a team they probably could have given less to had they waited.  Either way, the news is not good for Redskins fans.

 

In 1848 Charles Louis Napoleon rode a wave of popular enthusiasm and was elected President of France.  He rode this same wave in 1851, declaring himself Emperor Napoleon III of France, backed by a national plebisite.  Ok — so he wasn’t his more famous, more competent uncle.  He did, however, seem to understand a lesson few other European leaders grasped, that leadership in France and in Europe in the post-Revolutionary era required a deep connection to “the people” to be truly effective.  He began his reign with confidence.

Time passed, however, and Napoleon III proved frustrating and inadequate in his statesmanship.  He flailed about, following one policy, then another, seeking the home run that would make France truly relevant in world affairs once again.  First he started with an authoritarian empire, then switched to be more liberal.  But as he liberalized France at the same time he undermined the power of legislature over France’s finances.  He announced that “the Empire means peace,” but strengthened France’s involvement in Southeast Asia.  He helped forge a new alliance system as a result of the Crimean War, but also undermined that system by his support of national independence movements.  Superior statesman learned to take advantage of him in particular, and France in general.  Dangle something of value, and he runs after it, heedless of the long-term consequences.

Prussia’s Otto von Bismarck would prove to be Napoleon’s undoing.  In Bismarck, Napoleon dealt with  a man of  focus, purpose, and creativity.  When Bismarck wanted war against Austria in 1866, he knew that he needed the French not to intervene.  France and Austria had been enemies off and on, and he counted on Napoleon III to underestimate Prussia’s rising power.  True to form, Napoleon III jumped at the chance to be needed.  “Yes,” perhaps he told himself, “France and I are relevant once again!”

Prussia’s swift and crushing victory over Austria surprised many, and it gave them either direct or indirect control over most of the German provinces.  In the blink of an eye, Prussia undid 200 years of French foreign policy, which aimed at keeping Germany divided.  People in France turned on Napoleon III, who felt humiliated.  He then came up with a solution, another attempt at a home run.  He sent his Foreign Minister to Bismarck with a demand.   “We insist that Prussia cede a portion of German territory as compensation for our neutrality.”  Bismarck easily laughed off this suggestion, and then went one better.  To further Napoleon III’s embarrassment, he published France’s demands in major French papers.  The sun had set on the French Empire, and Napoleon III knew it.

I have been a Redskin fan my whole life.  I had the great fortune of growing up with the glory days during the first Gibbs era.  But Dan Snyder’s reign has inflicted a great deal of suffering on many fans like me.  I don’t question his heart. He wants to win.  Like everyone else, I question his strategy.  The continual bid for the grand slam has given us Deion Sanders, Bruce Smith, Steve Spurrier, Joe Gibbs II, Donovan McNabb, Mike Shanahan, and so on.  Though possessing few actual wins, Snyder managed the marginally impressive feat of staying relevant for the past 12 years by his media-worthy signings.

Now, however, fans are getting restless.  The fabled waiting list of season ticket holders seems not to actually exist.  The umpteenth attempt at a home run in the person of Shannahan has brought  5-11 and 6-10 seasons.  But nothing spells relief like “Quarterback.”  So we made an enormously lopsided trade with St. Louis to acquire the right to draft Robert Griffin III.

I can only imagine the desperation Snyder and Shanahan felt when Peyton Manning chose not to give them the time of day.  He wanted nothing to do with us, and I don’t blame him.  Snyder still had one more chance at executing his favorite move, the “splashy signing.”  Shannahan had one more chance to salvage his legacy.  Beware of an old man in a hurry.  For a king’s ransom, we could still snatch Robert Griffin III.

I can’t help but see parallels.  Napoleon III thought he had scored a great coup with their neutrality in the Austro-Prussian War.  In reality, it was Napoleon who did the dancing.  Bismarck knew just how to play him. . .

How St. Louis must have salivated at the thought of Dan Snyder desperate for relevance, desperate to sell tickets, desperate to create the media buzz he craves and needs to sell those tickets.

I am utterly flabbergasted by columnist Tom Boswell who wrote,

There’s a karmic shadow over this deal, of course. It’s the apotheosis of the whole Daniel Snyder era. Just a few hours after Peyton Manning didn’t even give the Redskins a waltz on his city-hopping dance card, the team completed this blockbuster. Maybe Griffin was always Plan A. But the appearance, around the NFL, was that the Redskins hadn’t even made the first Manning cut. “We’ll-show-’em-we’re-not-dysfunctional” decisions have long been a dysfunctional Redskins trademark. But, sooner or later, one of ’em has to work, right?

The Redskins needed a huge splash for every conceivable reason: to give their fanatic fans a glimpse of glory, not more grief; to give Mike Shanahan a realistic chance to be successful again; to stay dominant in a sports market where other rivals are emerging; and to keep printing money for one of the most valuable sports franchises on earth.

None of the reasons he gives for the trade are actual football reasons, and to hope that at some point even a dysfunctional decision will work is an abdication of responsibility, a resignation to fate.  Boswell later talks about the Redskins suffering from a “curse” as he closes his column:
The Redskins just doubled down on the very same high-profile, high-cost, high-risk (or all-of-the-above) method that has introduced Washington to Deion Sanders, Jeff George, Marty Schottenheimer, Dan Wilkinson, Bruce Smith, Steve Spurrier, Mark Brunell, Adam Archuleta, Sean Gilbert, Jim Zorn, Gregg Williams, Albert Haynesworth, Donovan McNabb and Shanahan. That the list is so long and familiar doesn’t make it any less staggering. RGIII will either demolish an amazing losing streak or confirm a curse.
Again, the idea that we suffer from a curse is absurd.  It reminds me of Napoleon III’s uncle Napoleon I, who said after reflecting on his defeats in exile on St. Helena

The vulgar have never ceased blaming all my wars on my ambition.  But were they of my choosing?  Were they not always determined by the unalterable nature of things?

and

I am the greatest slave among men.  My master is the nature of things.

The most I can say for the venerable Mr. Boswell is that he too is a weary Redskins fan, and subject to that great symptom of weariness, blaming fate.  If one actually looks at Napoleon I, we see that perhaps his invasion of Russia, not fate, had a lot to do with his defeat.  If we look at the Redskins, we see that perhaps their addiction to big names and quick fixes, and not a curse, has put them in their current position.

Whether it be Babylonian dream interpretation during their “Time of Troubles,” or the rise of Stoicism in the Roman Empire, trusting to fate and chance is a tell-tale sign of decline.  Toynbee wrote,

Chance and Necessity are the alternate shapes in which this [passivity] is saluted by its votaries, and while at first sight the two notions may appear to contradict one another to the point of being mutually exclusive, they prove to be merely different facets of one identical illusion.

Whenever you think you must trade your future to draft a player, that is a sure sign that you better not, and start dealing with reality instead.

I hate to be a curmudgeon (well — not always, sometimes it’s fun!), and I usually don’t like to agree with Steve Czaban, but he had it right when he wrote:

The other big argument in favor of this move, is purely emotional. It goes something like this… “After 20 years without a franchise quarterback, you have to pay whatever price it takes.”

Oh, really?

Why? Because Robert Griffin III is the LAST  “franchise” quarterback the college game is ever going to produce? Because if the Redskins don’t make the playoffs this year, the NFL has announced the franchise will be folded forever?

Why?

The answer is simple. The owner is desperate. The coach is desperate. And when the fan base is also desperate, you have fertile conditions for “stupid.”

The rest of his column is here.
At least Napoleon III saw his doom approaching.  When it came after the battle of Sedan, he abdicated.  Snyder will not do this.  We are therefore left with, “But, sooner or later, one of [the dysfunctional decisions] has to work, right?”
Saddened,
Dave

Ip Man and The Rise of China, Reconsidered

by Dave Mathwin

I posted this a few months ago, but a student of mine recently looked at it and had a brilliant observation of his own that I include below.

Here is the original. . .

I like to watch ‘Kung-Fu’ movies on occasion.  Most of these used to come straight from Hong Kong, but recently movies are starting to come from China proper.  I have seen two such movies and their similar characteristics raised some questions.

The first was “Bodyguards and Assassins,” set in the early 20th century.  The plot revolves around an attempt to assassinate the leadership of the  nascent democratic movement by supporters of the traditional monarchy.

The second was “Ip Man,” a movie where you can safely fast-forward through all talking scenes and not miss much.  Thankfully, most of the movie consists of remarkable fighting scenes.

Both of these movies share in strongly nationalistic sub-plots, along with generally sub-par acting.  These are perhaps to be expected.  What did surprise me was the fact that each of these movies go for over-the-top drawn out emotional endings that are entirely predictable.  In the case of “Ip Man,” they even rejected the real story of Ip Man’s actual resistance to Japanese invaders during World War II and replaced it with something far more maudlin.

It is these over-dramatic endings that have me curious.

Are these over-dramatic endings common to any new creative endeavors embarked upon by people for the first time?  That is, are they likely to overdo it?  Are there similarities between Chinese movies today and the stories (written or film) during America’s rise ca. 1890-1920?  Perhaps there are some similarities with these movies and the stories of Horatio Alger.

Is this the kind of movie likely to be made by a nation on the rise?  In other words, do these dramatic expressions express something of the latent emotions of a people held back for a while?

India is in a similar position to China as far as its national arc is concerned.  Do Bollywood films display this same excessively manipulative emotion?

Or perhaps I am missing something and what I call ‘overdone’ is just right for Asian cultures as whole.  Is anyone familiar with media from Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, etc?

A friend suggested that the endings I described reflected how authoritarian cultures tell stories.  Think of Stalinist era propaganda stories.  If so, how authoritarian is China with its artists?

Again, a comparison with India would be helpful here.

This is the extent of my knowledge of foreign film.  I have many questions, and if anyone might have some answers or suggestions, do please respond.

Thus ends the original post.

The student’s theory was that Ip Man is a lot like Rocky in the construction of its story.  The Rocky template is the standard underdog story, of one man rising up against the system, or an unbeatable champion.  Ip Man turns that template on its head, however.  It is not about an underdog.  Anyone with knowledge sees he’s obviously the best at his craft.  He just needs a platform large enough so that others can give him his due.

Both Ip Man and Bodyguards and Assassins are basically national epics, so Ip Man can be easily seen as a stand-in for China.  In contrast, Rocky clearly is about an individual.

Great stuff!  Please keep comments like that coming.

Recently I saw the Jet-Li movie Fearless.  Jet-Li has starred in many American films, and has no doubt imbibed something of a western ethos.  But I think this movie had many distinctive Chinese themes.  The movie was just so-so for me, but I did find the tension between the two competing kinds of stories within the movie.  On the one hand, it is “western” in that Li’s character goes through a transformation and has to prove himself, which is not at all like Ip Man.  On the other hand, Li’s character fights “foreign-devils” just as in Ip Man 2, with strong nationalist overtones.  We will see if Chinese cinema changes if their political culture ends up more western than it is today.

Blessings,

Dave Mathwin

Warning: The Ip Man trailer has a bit of blood.

Bathroom History and Fungible Human Values

by Dave Mathwin

I always enjoy when History presents us with unexpected curveballs.  Blindsided, our perceptions get challenged and the present, as well as the past, can be illumined even by  so-called unimportant aspects of civilization.

One of those unusual bits of flotsam for me are toilets.

Anyone who studies History will ruminate on the question,  “What part of the past would you like to live in?” It usually draws interesting responses from students.  But mention the lack of indoor plumbing and most anyone gets drawn right back into the present.

Flush toilets have a longer history than we might assume.  Their mass production took until the late 19th or early 20th century.  When we consider the infrastructure needed, like piping, drainage systems, and so on, this should not surprise us.  But the flush toilet existed long before in limited use, possibly even in ancient Minoan civilization.  In the modern era, we know that Tudor England developed the flush toilet, and Eilzabeth I had the chance of using a private one herself.

But she didn’t want to.

According to curator and author Lucy Worsley, Elizabeth’s preference for the chamber pot had to do with her concept of royalty.  She would not flee like some subject to the almighty toilet, the toilet would answer to her — in the form of a servant or two carrying the appropriate accoutrements.  To go “to” the bathroom offended her sense of royal dignity.

Who today would choose a chamber pot while others hovered nearby over a private flush toilet?  Had I heard half of the story without the ending, I would assume that Elizabeth would have claimed the new invention as an “executive privilege,” much like some Executive Washrooms today.

Elizabeth’s actions have  echoes in Lyndon Johnson, who according to Robert Caro, used to make his aides follow him to the bathroom when he became a congressman.  This likely had little to do with his desire to continue to conduct their business (no matter the nature of his business in the john), and served more as a way to demonstrate his power and provide a loyalty test.

But most of the time, I’m sure Johnson chose to be by himself.

Not all societies insisted even on relative privacy when it came to bodily functions.  The Romans, for example, had no qualms about sharing space in what we would consider to be an intimate moment, as this public restroom makes clear:

I believe strongly in the uniformity of human nature.  History makes no sense without this bedrock truth applied to it.  However, I do think that a study of bathrooms reveals in a small way how the “geography” of a time and place and  its context relative to other priorities, impacts other values we may have.  Human nature has an unalterable core but our values may be fungible at the periphery.

We need not think that Queen Elizabeth or the Romans placed no value on privacy.  Rather, in their hierarchy of values, privacy did not occupy the pride of place it does for many Americans today.  Queen Elizabeth valued her sense of royal imperium more than privacy.  The Romans valued community more than privacy. They could easily have erected barriers in their mini-stalls of they wanted to.

For the record — I have no problem serving as an apologist for the “Privacy” camp and advocating for indoor plumbing.

“Cain built a city, but Abel. . .”

by Dave Mathwin

Soon Romney will have enough delegates secured and the 2012 presidential campaign will begin in earnest.  All who lack excitement are forgiven.

One theme of the coming campaign is sure to be the economy.  Candidates will talk about creating jobs, and innovation as the key to a strong economy, and a strong economy as the key to a strong country.

Sir Peter Hall’s Cities and Civilization is quite a long read and I have just started it.  But already I am intrigued at the prospect of trying to achieve historical perspective on just what makes cities thrive, and how “golden ages” come about.  Though I have just begun, a few things have already struck me:

  • Vienna glittered in the late 19th and early 20th century, but not for its creature comforts.  Hall noted that the Viennese remained almost indifferent to the new technologies that had arisen in their time.  In contrast to other cities, suburbs had no piped water, with hardly any phones, and almost no bathrooms.
  • Vienna’s cultural golden age owed much to  immigrants, or at least, non-Tuetonic Viennese like the Jewish middle and upper-middle classes (cheers from the left and libertarians).
  • In Periclean Athens, perhaps the most glittering of all western epochs, citizens faced no direct taxation (cheers from the right), but all were more or less expected to voluntarily donate money to the state, especially the rich (cheers from the left).  Indirect taxes had erratic application.  Of course we should realize that Athens financed much of their democracy through tribute from their overseas empire (cheers from hopefully no one!).
  • As in Vienna, Athenian creature comforts practically did not exist.  We are used to the glory of the Acropolis, but archaeologists reveal that Athenian homes were bare and primitive.  Athenian diets did not venture beyond the staples, and foreign visitors remarked how badly planned Athens seemed (cheers from the “back in my day” crowd).

Both Athens and Vienna created golden ages, by seemingly

  • Not caring about technology
  • Combining a curious mix of strong individualism and strong public attachments.
  • Not caring much about personal wealth.

As Kenneth Clarke noted, civilization needs a moderate amount of wealth to get by, but too much money will make any nation lethargic.

In short, vibrant economies and technological innovation will not create greatness.  Greatness comes by seeking something else, something higher.  St. Augustine said as much when he wrote in his The City of God,

Accordingly, it is recorded of Cain that he built a city, but Abel, being a sojourner, built none.

And C.S. Lewis discussed something similar when he elucidated the principle of “First and Second Things,” in his classic essay of the same name, excerpted here below:

The woman who makes a dog the centre of her life loses, in the end, not only her human usefulness and dignity but even the proper pleasure of dog-keeping.

The man who makes alcohol his chief good loses not only his job but his palate and all power of enjoying the earlier (and only pleasurable) levels of intoxication.

It is a glorious thing to feel for a moment or two that the whole meaning of the universe is summed up in one woman—glorious so long as other duties and pleasures keep tearing you away from her. But clear the decks and so arrange your life (it is sometimes feasible) that you will have nothing to do but contemplate her, and what happens?

Of course this law has been discovered before, but it will stand re-discovery. It may be stated as follows: every preference of a small good to a great, or partial good to a total good, involves the loss of the small or partial good for which the sacrifice is made.

. . . You can’t get second things by putting them first. You get second things only by putting first things first.

I don’t know if I would have voted for Santorum had he received the nomination, but good Catholic that he is, he rightly stated that, “[W]e hear this all the time: cut spending, limit the government, everything will be fine. No, everything’s not going to be fine.  There are bigger problems at stake in America.”

Kentucky Wins and “There’s Nothing to See Here!”

by Dave Mathwin

For  years in the upper echelon of college football and basketball, the notion of the players as “student-athletes” has been stretched to the limit.  Now, along comes John Calipari’s Kentucky Wildcats to end the charade once and for all.

In the past, we could always count on a team assembled of “one-and-done” players to self-destruct in some way. The players would be selfish, or wouldn’t gel together when it really mattered.  But not this Kentucky team.  Even curmudgeonly commentators noted how unselfish the players were on offense, and how well they played team defense.

But never fear, the NCAA rode into the Final Fourt to fix the situation, in the best way they know how: a silly, ridiculous rule.  As Pierce notes in aforementioned article, reporters had instructions at press conferences not to call Kentucky’s players “players,” but “student-athletes.”  So, for example, a reporter would have to phrase the question along the lines of, “Coach, how do you expect your, ah. . . student-athletes to handle the Louisville defense?” The press conferences came with NCAA bureaucrat attached, ready to enforce the rule.

“There’s nothing to see here!”

The NCAA has long had the problem of inherent contradictions embedded within, and has long sought to fix it in the worst way possible, through rules.  As Tocqueville commented,

The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage. That is a commonplace truth, but one to which my studies are always bringing me back. It is the central point in my conception. I see it at the end of all my reflections.

When you resort to law to fix culture, you reveal a weakness that predators can smell a mile away.  Law cannot fix culture by itself.

But an attorney friend of mine challenged that assumption in regard to the Civil Rights movement.  Surely, he argued, the Civil Rights Acts of 1965 and 1968 accomplished more change than some amorphous “culture” did .  I countered with the claim that civil rights efforts from Brown v. BOE to the March on Washington laid the foundation upon which law could build, but unfortunately my knowledge of that period lacks the necessary depth for me to be sure.

Or what about the whole question of gay marriage?  Some argue that law has led the fight in this issue, against the general culture, with stunning success.  But again, I’m not so sure.  Maybe the movies, tv shows, and such laid the groundwork for the charge?  The broader question is, if the movement relies on law/judges to lead the way, will they have ultimate success?  As always, I would be curious for anyone’s thoughts on the question, and here is one opinion from the UK.