pause

Classes are over for fall term.  I've read Stout's new book, but while out of electronic range.  My January/Interim course is Lutheran Heritage.  I anticipate some posts from that, but until then, I'm in pause mode for blogging.

Ben Franklin & the (culture of the) Middle Class

an american conversation with petra: Ben Franklin & the Middle Class: "In this article, Ben Franklin's Nation, David Brooks talks about what the United States' rank in the world means to our perception of o..."

Thanks to Petra and David Brooks for this anticipation of our concerns in 102!  We'll be investigating and pondering various sorts of "voluntary associations" that contribute to civil society.  As we do so, this animated data set about life expectancy and wealth may be of interest.  FROM WANT?

the dream before us

NPR Books

‎"Oh, it's delightful to have ambitions. I'm so glad I have such a lot. And there never seems to be any end to them-- that's the best of it. Just as soon as you attain to one ambition you see another one glittering higher up still. It does make life so interesting."
— L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables)

 So, is it true that the American dream is of whatever is just over the horizon? There is never end to it? Is this what drives us to keep at it, to hope for a new day, to believe that there will be change?

 If so, maybe we should change our national anthem to "Somewhere over the rainbow."

Perfect freedom

"The perfect freedom of a single necessity"  a fragment from Annie Dillard's essay, "Living Like a Weasel."

The famous 1991 Halloween blizzard

Dillard's graphic image is of the weasel's skeleton with its teeth clamped into the neck of a predatory bird, perhaps an eagle.  But today my image is of a blizzard insisting that we all stay home and thereby bestowing freedom from ACTs, concerts, Christmas shopping, and any number of other competing opportunities and responsibilities.  I know that this is not freedom for some who wanted to do those things or for those who still must be out plowing or selling groceries or otherwise taking care of business.  Even in my house there is work to be done: grading, and bill paying, and making cookies.  But the doing of it, with the horizontal snow blowing outside the window and an occasional bird landing on the feeder, seems more like freedom than captivity today.  And even though I'm still blogging and checking up on other people on Facebook, I realize that this freedom is freedom from distraction as well as from decisions.

ripples of freedom

The power of an idea that can not be contained by its originator's intentions.

spiritualism and final essay assignments

Gosh, in the midst of talking to students about their assignment for the end of the term I realized that we've asked them to do something rather "era appropriate."  (This little phrase picking up on "developmentally appropriate" as when a two year old repeats "no, No, NO, NO," or a teenager seems always a bit unfinished, or a middle-aged professor begins to lose track of her papers.)


The "common place" blog intentionally picked up on the common place book, something Jefferson kept.  Now, we ask you/them to write a letter from 2010 to a person in the 1860s.  This reminds me, in an "era appropriate" way of the craze for spiritualism in the 19th century.  Can you imagine yourself gathered around a table with a medium who promises to be in contact with the "dear departed"?  (And, why does writing about this topic require so many scare quotes?)

More seriously, this assignment and this observation both suggest that a liberal arts education puts lively young students in conversation with dead people in the hope that the world in the future will be a place worth living in.  For Christians this notion that community extends across time, both into the past and into the life beyond, is common; but, for Americans it might be a bit of a stretch to consider how both the now dead and those not yet born are part of the conversation.  A stretch, but a valuable effort.

dreams and desire

Is it the case that the American Dream depends upon unfilled desire rather than upon satisfaction or contentment?  Is it the case that in this dream no one will ever have enough of whatever it is that they long for?  Is that good for the pursuit of justice but bad for the pursuit of happiness?

I'm reminded of the cat who could count to more.

Franklin, Douglass, Obama

Yesterday we talked about Frederick Douglass in conversation with Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography and (then) Senator Obama's 2008 speech on race in America.  While the differences in their circumstances are obvious, there are also some telling similarities in their commitment to education, or at least the value of learning.  What stood out for me is their common optimism that individuals and the nation can improve. Once again this seems to support the very elastic notion that the American Dream is "of a better, richer, and happier life" (Adams quoted by Cullen) and the expectation that the dream can be realized. 

I also notice that Franklin tells his story in a way that highlights the individual.  Douglass does the same but with the agenda of expanding opportunity for many through the abolition of slavery.  Obama gives individual examples, including his own life, but links the well-being of each to the well-being of others.  The trajectory here is to enlarge the scope of who is "eligible" for the dream and then to recognize inter-dependence as foundational to achieving the dream.  This is a fine starting place for 102 and our investigation of "Democratic Vistas" in the 19th and early 20th century.

free designs

Harriet Jacobs

DESIGNING MINDS  This provocative post by my friend and colleague Jim Farrell extends our discussion of place and houses to more sorts of stuff (e.g. chairs) and lives.  Reading it as I have been reading Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, I also notice other connotations of the verb, "to design."

• Dr. Flint has designs on Linda.
• Aunt Martha (Grandmother)'s house is designed in such as way as to provide a hiding place for Linda.
• The whole system of slavery draws everyone near it into its design.

You get the picture.  We might also say that the book itself is designed to reveal a design that makes persons into property.  The two primary meanings seem to point in different directions.  The one suggests the designer's intentionality, vile and virtuous; the other allows that the design itself, intentional or not, has power to subordinate its elements.  And yet, the book does show us examples of persons who resist the design of slavery in small and large ways.

I doubt that we humans can live in total free-form design (i.e. chaos or constant improvisation), but Jacob's book, read in 2010 can serve as a reminder that slavery is not the only design that can diminish human life and steal freedom as well as stimulate readers to consider how to better design their lives for freedom: their own and that of others around them.

slave to fashion?

In the month of November I made a moderate effort to go on a "clothing diet."  (What is this? And if you google "clothing diet" you will fine much more.)  Try as I might, I only got down to seven pieces of clothing for public wearing (e.g. school, church, and other places where I think I need to dress like a grown-up) and while I made an effort to contain what I wore "off hours," I did not count those items.  I did not count shoes or boots, stockings, long underwear, ordinary underwear, nightgown, jewelry, outer wear (i.e. warm coats, hats, gloves), or scarves.  (NB: the scarf category in my wardrobe is very full.)

The outcome: it was not difficult.  I was not bored with my attire. I was reminded of traveling with a single suitcase and the freedom that comes from having only a few choices to make.  No one commented on the lack of variation in my clothing so I don't know if anyone noticed.  The discipline did help me decide not to buy some new things, but in the final week I could not resist an on-sale jacket, a classic design in my colors, that could be the eighth piece or might replace one of the original seven.  The principle challenge was being warm enough as the season changed from a warm fall to the cold of winter.  In the summer, six pieces is simple; in the winter, it requires careful selection.

Just as my experiment is more-or-less coming to an end this sobering passage in Frederick Douglass' Narrative rather put my game into historical and moral perspective.  "Their [the slaves] yearly clothing consisted of two coarse linen shirts, one jacket, one pair of trousers for winter, made of coarse negro cloth, one pair of stockings, and one pair of shoes; the whole of which could not have cost more than seven dollars."  The passages continues to describe what was given to children and notes "When these failed them, they went naked until the next allowance day."  (Dover edition, p .6)

Real grassroots?

Lots of student editorials (well several) argued that the Tea Party movement is 1) not very well organized and 2) not really a grassroots movement.  So, of course this book by Jeffery Stout catches my attention.  The publisher's description promises stories of "ordinary" citizens working together in ways that preserve democracy and make America a better place.
  
Who has room on their Christmas list for this book and will read it before January?  I'd love to have it be part of our conversation in AmCon 102, Democratic Vistas! Maybe we can share a copy and each take a chapter?

Blessed Are the Organized: Grassroots Democracy in America 

Chapter One: The Responsibilities of a Citizen 1
Chapter Two: A Power Analysis 21
Chapter Three: Organizing for the Common Good 34
Chapter Four: Rites of Solidarity, Commitment, and Mourning 45
Chapter Five: Domination, Anger, and Grief 53
Chapter Six: Public Address 70
Chapter Seven: Ain't It Awful? 85
Chapter Eight: The Authority to Lead 93
Chapter Nine: On the Treatment of Opponents 114
Chapter Ten: Organize, Reflect, and Reorganize 125
Chapter Eleven: The Compelling Force of the Ideal 134
Chapter Twelve: Face-to-Face Meetings 148
Chapter Thirteen: The Passion of St. Rose 165
Chapter Fourteen: Blood and Harmony 181
Chapter Fifteen: Fathers and Sisters for Life 186
Chapter Sixteen: Pastors and Flocks 196
Chapter Seventeen: The Contested Sacred 210
Chapter Eighteen: Across Great Scars of Wrong 235
Chapter Nineteen: The Organizer President 260
Chapter Twenty: Walking in Our Sleep 278

 P.S. I ordered a copy.