deTocqueville, Advertising, Norwegian Sweaters, and Thanksgiving

That is a mouthful.

The connection comes from Mary C Water's book, Ethnic Options: Choosing Identities in America.  In her discussion of "symbolic" ethnicity she draws upon both deTocqueville (anticipating 102!) and William O. Beeman's analysis of advertising. 

About deTocqueville she writes: "Tocqueville noticed that while individualism led people to find their own beliefs within themselves, this isolation was at the same time compatible with conformity, because people are constantly looking for affirmation of those beliefs in the people around them."  (p. 148)

She quotes Beeman: "In the United States, through exercise of individual choice, people not only demonstrate their uniqueness, they also recognize and actualize their integration with others.  They do this by making, acknowledging, and perpetuating ties based solely on the affinity that arises through making the same choices."  (Waters, p. 150).  Advertisers depend upon this combination of individualism and conformity when they offer us such things as blue jeans as a mode of self-expression and as a vehicle for demonstrating our membership in the group of people who wear that brand and style of jeans.

Thus, Waters argues that in the third and four generation after immigration, Americans select their ethnic identification in ways similar to selecting their cola preference: Pepsi, Coke, Royal Crown, etc.  This sort of symbolic ethnicity does not require, or grow from, membership in an ethnic association or speaking the language or living in an enclave.  It is as easy as wearing a Norwegian sweater to Christmas Festival at St. Olaf.

Another scheme for thinking about this comes from Willard B. Moore in the catalog for Circles of Tradition, an exhibit of folk art in Minnesota.  He identifies three circles of tradition: integrated, perceived, and celebrated.  In the first "forms, techniques, materials and symbolic meanings" are tightly integrated with community life. In the second, function either practical or symbolic, is primary.  In the last, form is most important.

What struck me as I read Waters' conclusions was how closely they coincided with my recent post "Thanksgiving Jazz."  She helped me to see that my observations about Thanksgiving might well be described with reference to this negotiation of individuality and conformity, this affinity based upon making the same choices.

In class learning

Enich's Amcon Thoughts: Slave Justification:

I'm sure that every now and then students do learn something in the midst of class.  In fact I have treasured memories of times I've watched the proverbial light-bulb click on as I have watched.  It is an awesome sight.  (I use the term in its original sense: that is, inspiring awe.)   Moreover, this is a joy rare enough that I'm always grateful for it.  So too, I'm grateful to Enich for this post to his blog which includes the news that he made a discovery in class.  Thank you, Enich.

I'm also gratified that our efforts to think about slavery produced this specific learning: that American slavery did not appear full blown one afternoon in 1619 or even in the mid-1700s or the early 1800s.  My hunch is that most Americans, regardless of our personal biological relationships to either slaves or slave owners, find our national history of slavery and its continued aftermath shameful, painful, and frightening enough that merely acknowledging the existence of slavery in "the land of the free" is hard enough.  The topic sets us quivering with emotion and politics. To also take a careful, honest look at the large decisions and small compromises made by individuals, legislators, and institutions along the way to racialized, hereditary, life-time slavery is harder still.

Nonetheless, doing so is important not only for what we learn about the past, but also for what we learn about ourselves and our own potential for dramatic and banal evil.  We need to be reminded of our ""perilous liberty."  That is, our liberty is both"full of danger" and "exposed to imminent risk of disaster."  The term is Jefferson's.  Who better to serve as a warning to us about dangers of not paying attention to our scruples and about the importance of giving freedom a firm foundation in equality and justice.

see also post on The Grace of Silence

Definition of perilous from dictionary.com

BBC: "dense" objects

The British Museum and the BBC team up to tell the history of the world through a relatively few objects. (To be precise, through 100 objects at the start.  Individuals have added more.) Their site says nothing about dense facts, but their approach will be familiar to students of American studies.  Read an object, perhaps an ordinary one or perhaps a rare one; follow the story it unfolds to see what can be learned about the world it was a part of.

Doc Marten Boots

Unlike the probate lists we consulted in class or the dorm room inventories students prepared, these objects are selected rather than being everything one person or household or empire possessed  The objects are selected from the museum's collection which suggests that a museum is, intentionally or not, a sort of time-capsule.  The difference is that the makers and users of the objects did not set them aside for this purpose as we might when determining which things to put in a time capsule for 2010.  (The Doc Marten's are an individual contribution, so intentional for a recent decade.)

BBC has broadcast all 100 episodes.  (Among the more recent objects: a plastic credit-card. This would inevitably lead us to "The Graduate," to department stores, to identity theft, to bottled water, to recycling, and more.)  The pod-casts are available along with photos of objects, a time-line, and other interesting stuff.

Thanksgiving jazz

This year we did not have our customary AmCon 101, day-before-break, discussion of Thanksgiving.    That topic allows us to tie together lots of themes from the semester: reading images such as paintings and cartoons of the "First Thanksgiving," the role of mythos and history in national identity, the importance of social location in memory, etc.   We read about Plymouth Plantation and mid-20th century Native American protests.  We talk about presidental declarations and the development of food practices.  I missed the conversation.  Last Sunday's Mpls StarTrib ran a feature about Thanksgiving illustrated by Rockwell's poster, "Freedom From Want."  We could have talked about that as well.

then there is the day after

As I've been planning for the dinner at our house tomorrow, I've also been thinking about how another American cultural practice might be a fine metaphor for the meal: jazz.  There are certain usual, not quite mandatory, elements to this meal that function almost like the chord chart.  Knowing that there will be turkey, stuffing/dressing, potatoes, bread, pie, etc. the cook's culinary imagination is set free to consider how to perform the meal this year.  The turkey could be brined in green tea, or deep fat fried, or stuffed with something Italian, or coated in mayonnaise (I kid you not). What variations of cranberry sauce is always a compelling opportunity for me.  This year there are three sorts: a pesto with lots of garlic, chutney with both fresh and dried pears (the later serendipitously supplied by guests last evening), and a sweeter one with red wine and spices!  To shift the metaphor a bit, at least at our house, there are also old standards that won't be riffed upon: the bread dressing my husband's family loves and quarts of gravy for mashed potatoes.
  
Perhaps the brilliance and delight of Thanksgiving is not only that it gives us a channel to express gratitude, or that it is is vaguely religious in a capacious rather than sectarian way, or that it has not been moved to Monday, but that it affords Americans a salutary, creative opportunity to take comfort in the familiar and shared while also engaging in individual innovation.

the smell of freedom

"Freedom smells of a freshly painted room,
of wooden floors swept with a willow broom,
and of stale raisin bread."

This from "Painting a Room" by Katia Kapovich

The poem itself is lovely and bittersweet as the contrasting smells of fresh paint and stale bread suggest.  With an immigration visa in her pocket, the speaker is painting a room in preparation to leave.  Gently the poem evokes the cost of freedom that is won by leaving behind or giving up.