Category Archives: History

What/Who Is A Luddite?

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Who Were the Luddites?

The "Leader of the Luddites"

The “Leader of the Luddites”

“Few groups have been more misunderstood and have had their image and name more frequently misappropriated and distorted than the Luddites,” according to literary scholar Kevin Binfield.  In his book, Writings of the Luddites, he describes them as “artisans…primarily skilled workers in the textile industries” who, for over two years starting in March 1811, rioted over a large area of England against factory owners and machines.

Binfield believes that Luddites resented the use of steam-powered looms and new stocking frames because these machines replaced much of the need for human labor while producing “large amounts of cheap, shoddy stocking material that was cut and sewn into stockings rather than completely fashioned (knit in one piece without seams).”

Luddites were also infuriated at the use of “colts,” who were less-skilled laborers that had not completed required seven-year apprenticeships.  The experienced cloth workers felt that their employers were actively trying to “drive down their wages and to produce inferior goods…thereby damaging their trades’ reputations.”  Their desperation was exacerbated by famine and rises in food prices, which required more and more of their dwindling earnings.   The machines would become “simply the most accessible targets for expressions of anger and direct action.”

The rioting started on March 11, 1811 in Nottinghamshire, with an attack on knitting frames.  Attacks occurred almost nightly for several weeks; this first wave, reported in the Nottingham Journal, was successful and none of the attackers were apprehended. The tensions would die down over the summer, but a bad harvest in the fall caused tempers flare once more.  The government was asked to provide military support, for “2000 men, many of them armed, were riotously traversing the County of Nottingham.”

Negotiations with the workers and their employers failed, and frame breaking continued. [1] In February 1812, it was proposed by the government that machine-breaking should become a capital offence, punishable by death. Although it was opposed by Lord Byron in the House of Lords, Parliament passed the Frame Breaking Act and 12,000 troops were ordered into the areas where the Luddites were active.  In February and March, 1812, factories were still being attacked by Luddites in Huddersfield, Halifax, Wakefield and Leeds.

Luddism gradually spread to Yorkshire, where one of the worst outbreaks of violence would occur.  Textile workers known as “Croppers” were suffering unemployment and decreased wages, and blamed that upon the gig mill, a machine which made it easier to shear cloth.[2]  The owner of Rawfolds Mill, had been using cloth-finishing machinery since 1811 and after local croppers began losing their jobs to this new technology, he suspected trouble, hiring guards to protect the factory.  The attack on Rawfolds Mill took place on 11th April, 1812.  Led by George Mellor, a young cropper from Huddersfield, the Luddites tried to force their way into the factory but were repelled. Seven days after the Rawfolds Mill incident, another local mill owner was attacked and killed.  In time, over a hundred suspects were rounded up; sixty-four were indicted.  Three men would be executed for the murder of mill owner, while fourteen were hung for the attack on Rawfolds Mill.  Days later, a mill near Manchester was set on fire and twelve were arrested on suspicion.  Four of the accused were executed, including Abraham Charlston, only twelve years old. Even though riots, executions, and deportations still took place throughout the summer, Luddism began to wane after the failed Rawfolds Mill attack; by 1817 the Luddite movement was no longer active in Britain. [3]

The true meaning of the movement is lost to most as, media historian Matthew Lasar writes in his article: You know the name, but just who were the Luddites? He acknowledges that “the popular image of them as an anti-technology movement fumbles upon a close look at their lives.”[4]  Luddism was, more than anything, a labor movement; frustrated workers, as Binfield puts, “wrecking the offensive machines and terrorizing the offending owners in order to preserve their wages, their jobs, and their trades.”[5]  They weren’t anti-capitlists by any means: they made their goods to be sold in the market.  They were upset by wage reductions, competition for jobs brought by unapprenticed workers, and new technologies that weakened the quality of their craft. According to Lasar, “what these artisans fought was a completely unregulated economy that regarded their destruction as a minor blot on the larger page of progress…(they) didn’t oppose technology; they opposed the sudden collapse of their industry, which they blamed in part on new weaving machines.”[6]

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Bibliography

Binfield, Kevin. Writings of the Luddites. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. Extract: http://campus.murraystate.edu/academic/faculty/kevin.binfield/Luddites/LudditeHistory.htm (accessed December 31, 2009).

Lasar, Matthew. “You know the name, but just who were the Luddites?” Ars Tecnica, http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/10/if-you-are-reading-this-post-you-are-not-a-luddite.ars (accessed December 31, 2009).

Spartacus Educational. “The Luddites.” http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRluddites.htm (accessed December 31, 2009).

http://www.cottontimes.co.uk/luddo02.htm

http://www.learnhistory.org.uk/cpp/luddites1.jpg

[1] Kevin Binfield, Writings of the Luddites (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004). Extract: http://campus.murraystate.edu/academic/faculty/kevin.binfield/Luddites/LudditeHistory.htm (accessed December 31, 2009).

[2] Lasar, Matthew. “You know the name, but just who were the Luddites?” Ars Tecnica, http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/10/if-you-are-reading-this-post-you-are-not-a-luddite.ars (accessed December 31, 2009).

[3] Spartacus Educational. “The Luddites.” http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRluddites.htm (accessed December 31, 2009).

[4] Lasar.

5 Binfield.

[6] Lasar.

American Fascism pre-WW2

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salute2Exiting the First World War, American businesses were extremely well off, making substantial profits from the demand for steel, weapons, and other commodities.

It was in their interests to pursue policies that would help them to increase their profits, and support of corporatist policies, or fascism, would help them do that.

Along with this there were overtones of anti-Semitism and racism, injected with Biblical moralism and nativist nationalistic attitudes. At the time, fascism was seen as a way to combat communism both in Europe and America.  There was a “Red Scare” and many Americans (mostly big business and the rich) feared the United States would turn to communism after the rise of the Bolsheviks in Russia. It was felt that there was a connection between atheism and the Socialist movement, and this was uniformly opposed by a coalition of the wealthy, white Christian upper class.[1]

America would turn to a more pro-business attitude during the 1920s because of the Red Scare and its effect on politics; “free market” ideas gained traction because popular (though, mostly manufactured) opinion was against communism.  There was popular support for fascism in the United States by Publisher William Randolph Hearst, whose newspapers sold the American public on the benefits of a fascist economy.[2]  Henry Ford supported fascism because he was extremely opposed to unions, which were seen as a communist entity.  When the Roaring Twenties would come crashing down, fascism would again be touted as the answer to American economic stagnation.  The Great Depression would serve as a good excuse to push their market ideologies, as American business leaders touted the success of Italian and German fascist policies which allowed those countries to improve their economies. [3] Cheerleaders of fascism, such as American intellectual Lawrence Dennis, felt that “Hitler and Mussolini were rising to meet the economic crisis and that we would have to do much the same thing…I defended them and tried to explain them…I said the United States will have to go fascist in the same way that Germany and Italy have gone.”[4]

Because of the ample press time given by Hearst to the public works projects initiated in Italy, “many Americans viewed Mussolini’s programs as a proven and successful way to deal with the problems of economic depression.”[5]           Prominent American figures, a veritable “who’s who” of rich capitalists like Hearst, Lindbergh, Mellon, Rockefeller, DuPont, and Vanderbilt; were welcomed guests of Hitler and Mussolini, and all touted the success of fascism back home when lobbying their business interests to the United States Government.[6] The fascists would get their way, with the money of taxpayers going to fun New Deal projects.  These were coordinated and managed by the business interests, who made out handsomely by the benefit of taxpayer subsidy and cheap labor.

Bibliography

Price, R.G. “Rise of American Fascism.” Rational Revolution. http://rationalrevolution.net/articles/rise_of_american_fascism.htm (14 January 2010).

“The Press: Four on Hearst.” Time, 27 April 1936. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,770150-1,00.html (14 January 2010).

Younge, Gary. “The fascist who ‘passed’ for white.”, 4 April 2007 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/04/usa.race (14 January 2010).

[1] Price, R.G. “Rise of American Fascism.” Rational Revolution. http://rationalrevolution.net/articles/rise_of_american_fascism.htm (14 January 2010).

[2] “The Press: Four on Hearst.” Time, 27 April 1936. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,770150-1,00.html (14 January 2010).

[3] Price, R.G.

[4] Younge, Gary. “The fascist who ‘passed’ for white.”, 4 April 2007 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/04/usa.race (14 January 2010).

[5] Price, R.G.

[6] Ibid.

Political Tension Precipitates Civil War

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N v. S

Civil-War-era-map

Civil wars are the culmination of long standing social, economic, and political differences.  While some might believe that it was the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 that set the American Civil War into motion, conflict and change were both long overdue.  Irreconcilable contrasts between the north and the south, many of which predate the country itself, finally came to a head.  These differences finally faced a grand (albeit, bloody) opportunity to face resolution, and transform this country into something new, and in many ways, unlike before the conflict, undivided.

Before there was even an American Constitution, industrial and commercial power in the continent was centered in the north.  The focus in the south was upon agriculture, which required a large, cheap workforce.  Later on, in during the industrial revolution, the northern states also needed cheap workers by the dozen,   but by that time, slave importation had ceased, and most of the slaves were in the south.  The type of labor required in the south was more unskilled than in the northern colonies.  If the barbarism of slavery was to make sense in America, it only made sense on the plantation.  By the start of the Civil War, social norms in the north generally frowned upon slavery, while it was the only profitable means for the south.

During the formation of this country, there was great factionalization between those in power as to the direction and level of control this new government would take.  Some states were more “Federalist,” while most in the south, “Anti-Federalists,” wanted strong state governments.  They figured that they were basically self-independent, and felt that an overarching federal government would micromanage them more towards the good of the Union at the expense of their state.  As the northern atmosphere became more receptive towards abolition, the southern states, for the protection of their own economic standing, would make a last ditch claim and assertion to their state rights by seceding.

The decision to keep slavery itself had never reached unanimity between the northern and southern states.  The Missouri Compromise, in 1820, set boundaries for slavery’s expansion, and the Compromise of 1850 was made to balance the slave and free states.  But as an issue, the moral position on its place in our country was never tackled by a firm written law.  With legislation largely “dancing” around any mutually satisfying commitment, the loopholes in these compromises caused strife around the country, with “border ruffians” from pro-slavery Missouri pouring into “Bleeding Kansas” to help make it a slave state, with both sides carrying on a small war of their own for three years.  Meanwhile, a gag rule in Washington DC, from 1835-1844 prevented anti-slavery petitions from congressional discussion.

Resentment in the slavery issue created three types of abolitionists in the north.  Some wanted to end slavery outright, some others gradually, or those like Lincoln, hoped to stop its spread.  Harriet Beecher Stowe’s, Uncle Tom’s Cabin helped to turn the public against the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.  John Brown, who advocated violence and insurrection to end slavery, raided the government armory at Harpers Ferry with the hope of acquiring enough weapons to spark a slave revolt.  At death, after his conviction for treason, he proclaimed that “the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away; but with blood,” predicting in October of 1859, just over a year in advance, the start of the Civil War.

Finally, all of this builds up to a time where politics were changing.  The current political parties, the Whigs and the Democrats began to separate by region.  The Republicans, spun off of former Whigs as an anti-slavery party in 1854, pushed a progressive agenda that was feared by those in the south. Four major candidates gained electoral votes, but the north, and its booming population took the majority.  People voted along regional lines, with Lincoln winning by clear electoral majority.  The popular votes of all his opponents, if united, would have been overwhelming enough for defeat.

Upon Lincoln’s election, South Carolina would open a convention to discuss secession and decide to leave the Union on December 24th.  Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Virginia would follow suit during the “Secession Winter,” while the incumbent President, Buchanan, posed no challenge. Large portions of the United States Army were parceled out with violent incident.  This country had fallen apart by the time Lincoln sworn in.  Entering office, he faced a split nation, an unsure army, and a moral issue to overcome.

 

Daniel Malo
US History
Dr. Hatzberger
M 630-930
2008

REVIEW: “The Life of a Slave Girl”

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Slavery: A Corrupting, Futile Exercise

Amazon Thrift Edition or Free Text from Project Gutenberg

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In her account of a servants in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs works in great detail to share with the reader the cold realities of institutional slavery, examining the morally corrupting influence it has upon the master and the degradation in the spirit of the slave; both human, but separated by color in a relationship that bears tragic consequences to both parties.

In her life as a possession, Linda, the character of which this story is centered around, grows up, at first, unaware of her role as a slave under white masters.  She is raised early on by her parents who protect her from the harshness of their situation, providing a loving and nurturing relationship.  It is from those early recollections she finds herself as capable as any other, longing for the normalcy of having her own home and family, and it is her persistence in this dream that carries her through the rougher moments of her servitude at the hands of an ill-willed and villainous master, Dr. Flint.  She takes pride in the levels of independence she is able to attain for herself, maintaining her own strong will and protection/control of her body by her knowledge and cunning.  Her hopes for herself become put on hold after motherhood, for the chance that her children will be able to have a piece of freedom, family, and shelter for themselves.  She sacrifices years of her life in hiding so that they will have an easier existence away from the control of Dr. Flint.

“I should never know peace till my children were emancipated.”  Linda

The antagonist of this narrative, Dr. Flint, is a morally bankrupt individual, lacking s any redeeming qualities. He is thoroughly one-dimensional, totally corrupted by the power that the slave system grants him. He sees no reason not to use and abuse his slaves in any way he chooses, and he never shows any signs of sympathy for them or remorse for his crimes. If he expresses kindness, it is invariably a ruse to try to get Linda to sleep with him. It often seems that forcing Linda to submit to him is more important to him than simply sleeping with her. He is infuriated by her defiance, and he becomes obsessed with the idea of breaking her will. Rather than simply raping her, he persists in his efforts make her acknowledge his mastery.  Dr. Flint seeks to lock Linda up in an isolated cottage in the woods so he can sleep with her freely.  When Linda escapes, he pursues her relentlessly, putting himself hundreds of dollars in debt to chase her to New York. After his death, his spirit lives on in the form of his son-in-law, Mr. Dodge.

“If I have been harsh with you at times, your willfulness drove me to it,.  You know I exact obedience from my own children, and I consider you as yet a child.”  Dr. Flint

This book shows the futility of such a practice.  It makes both the slave and the master less of a human.  Dr. Flint is cruel, hypocritical, and conniving, and he never experiences a moment of guilt, self-doubt, or sympathy for his victims. He never questions his right to do whatever he pleases to his slaves. Dr. Flint represents the cruelty, callousness, and treachery of the entire slave system.  He symbolizes the defining qualities that the system of slavery prerequisites: a lust for power, moral corruption, and a brutal nature. When Linda defies him, she threatens the legitimacy of slavery itself, and it is this defiance that propels his insistence on “mastering” her.

2008 – American History

Columbian Butterfly Effect Exchange

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The “Butterfly Effect,” from an anthropological perspective, can be witnessed in the migration of Europeans to the New World.  Certainly, the current culture and attitudes that are evident in the United States were not the ones if those that permeated the land three or four hundred years ago.  Who we are “now” has been shaped from the influx of different languages, religions and races; each geometrically developed with irrevocable insights and setbacks, by war and peace. 

Congressional Budget & Impoundment Control Act of 1974

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Overview of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974

The Congressional Budget Act (CBA) has been the foundation of U.S. federal budgeting since 1974. The Act shifted budgetary control away from the Executive to the Legislature; curbing encroachment of the Office of the President upon the rights and purpose of Congress.[1] The text of the Constitution establishes Congress as the body with controlling power over the federal budget wherein only Congress has the power to levy taxes or borrow against the credit of the U.S.  Article I, Section 9 prohibits the drawing of funds from the Treasury without an appropriation by law.

The Executive Office gained power over a number of maneuvers, beginning in the 1800s to compensate for increased government spending and the ability of congressional committees to line-item manage hundreds of millions of dollars in appropriations.  “The increased size of the government combined with the increased presidential powers would be identified by Arthur Schlesinger “Imperial Presidency”.  Eventually, this resulted in fiscal conflict with Congress, in the “Seven Year Budget War” waged by President Nixon until 1974.

Spending in social programs had been on the rise with congressional approval, coupled with an ‘incursion’ abroad in Southeast Asia led to rising deficits. Nixon entered into office inheriting a fiscally troubled government… with the continuing rise in entitlement spending and the lack of sufficient economic growth to sustain an enlarging federal government weighing heavily on the budget.” In his approach to mitigate this issue, Nixon “made decisions which alienated Congress … and his actions greatly contributed to the crisis in the government which eventually necessitated the 1974 act.”[2]

An Act to establish a new congressional budget process; to establish Committees on the Budget in each House; to establish a Congressional Budget Office; to establish a procedure providing congressional control over the impoundment of funds by the executive branch; and for other purposes.[3][4]

Title X of the law, also known as the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, specifies that the President may propose to Congress that funds be rescinded. If both the Senate and the House of Representatives have not approved a rescission proposal (by passing legislation) within 45 days of continuous session, any funds being withheld must be made available for obligation.[5]

Congress is not required to vote on such a proposal and has ignored most Presidential requests thus; effectively removed the historical Presidential power of impoundment, replacing it with a program whereby the president was required to propose to Congress the rescission of specific funding proposals. [6] Many Presidents and government officials have called for more Executive leverage to rescind Congressional spending since implementation of the Act. [7]  I personally believe that the topic of presidential, top-level, impoundment is an important notion to consider, of course, under requisite oversight of appropriately determined ‘checks and balances’.

 

[1] Wikipedia: Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Budget_and_Impoundment_Control_Act_of_1974

[2] Lee, Nooree, Harvard Law School Federal Budget Policy, Briefing Paper No. 34; “Congressional Budget and

Impoundment Control  Act of 1974, Reconsidered” http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/hjackson/BudgetActRevisited_34.pdf

[3] Wikipedia; ibid.

[4] Lee, Nooree;  ibid.

[5] http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/02C17B.txt

[6] Lee, Nooree;  ibid.

[7] Wikipedia: Impoundment; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impoundment

Manifest Destiny: American Progress?

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John Gast’s (1872) “American Progress.”

John Gast’s (1872) “American Progress.”

Few early American paintings capture the “spirit” of the young nation like that of John Gast’s (1872) “American Progress,” otherwise known as “Manifest Destiny”.  The visual detail itself tells a great story that is familiar from any history reading.  It shows the westward migration of “Americans” across our continent, leaving behind the civilization of east, and entering the foreboding “unsettled” territory that lay beyond the reach of train and telegraph; All of this, while being guided by divine “providence,” who carries the books that will “civilize” the wild west and helps to lay the wire that will keep the country connected, brightening the path for the railroads and future expansion.

Being driven ahead of the new settlers, are the old inhabitants of the land; the bear, the Indian, and the buffalo; moved out as to be replaced by a manufactured landscape filled with new farms and cities, supervised by a beautiful servant of God, who helps to rid ignorance and evil in this “untamed” land.  The painting shows no sympathies towards those displaced, and they can be looked at as a hindrance of progress.  They stand in the way of this great migration, and are relics of a darker, less civilized time.  American idealism is what will “save” our land, and in its future applications, the world.

It is an aspect of early America that has carried into modern times; the idea that our way of life is worthy of expansion and wished for (and supported) by our God.  We see in ourselves the ability to help mankind, and at the same time help ourselves.  But in reality, as well as what is on the canvas, the tendency is to forget about the perspective of the people driven out by our expansion, and the decimating effect it has on culture; the ones who never asked to be “saved” from their supposed “ignorance.”

While “Progress” depicts a hard-working, groundbreaking ideology with enormous potential; one can see the makings of a self-centered, oblivious, obnoxious, and ultimately insincere materialistic consumer nation.  The tendency is there to jump headfirst into any project, because of the faith we have in ourselves and our “destiny”.  It is shown in the attitude of the portrait: that there is “new land” that must be “tamed” and it is the American destiny to tame it.  We eventually decide to “share” our idea with the rest of the world.  Pride and capital led to further expansion, but faced the externalities of egoism and greed.

The plight of the ways of life displaced by the expansion of is ignorantly brushed aside, and ultimately, heavily criticized in hindsight.  Since the creation of this work, there have been many parallels questioning the motives of expansion, and many references to the attitude of “Manifest Destiny.”  Is it the American imperative to spread ourselves first nationally, then globally?  “American Progress” views this country as divinely inspired, the land of liberty and the light of modern democracy in the modern era.

Our big ideas are of course, worthy of sharing with our neighbors.  However, history will determine whether our goodwill is viewed as an imposition or accepted graciously.  We must remember that the eyes of the world are upon us, and they expect better of our motives and implementations.  They ask us to question:  Have all the big words taken on different meanings?  Has our ideology been corrupted, all in the name of “American Progress?”

Galileo: Beyond the Dogma

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A detail from Cristiano Banti's Galileo Before the Inquisition (1857).

A detail from Cristiano Banti’s Galileo Before the Inquisition (1857).

In 1616, when it was formally declared heretical, it didn’t matter that heliocentricity was true and could be proven.  The scientific community of the time was biased by popular opinion, and did little to challenge archaic beliefs with persistent scientific inquiry.  Galileo believed that science reconciled with the Bible; that facts should be discovered, and then analyzed and interpreted based upon observation.  A devout follower of Christianity, Galileo felt that “the Bible shows the ways to go to Heaven, not the way the heavens go.”[1]  He thought that the facts of what he had seen through the telescope could not be denied, and expressed the challenges his ideas faced in a letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany in 1615. He shows regret at the controversy his observations had caused when writing about the trouble he had “stirred” amongst other professors, proclaiming “as if I had placed these things in the sky with my own hands to upset nature and overturn the sciences.”  Galileo felt that scientists showed “a greater fondness for their own opinions than for truth” and felt that if they had just “cared to look for themselves” truth would be discovered “by their own senses.”[2]

 

There was a tendency for rational argument to be dismissed in Galileo’s era, in favor of old beliefs which clung to Aristotelian ideas and a “sprinkling” of church dogma.  Galileo felt that his critics brought “vain arguments” against him, mixing in passages from the Bible “which they had failed to understand properly, and which were ill suited to their purposes.” He points out that “these men have resolved to fabricate a shield for their fallacies out of the mantle of pretend religion and the authority of the Bible.” These poor arguments won debates because they did little to challenge the power system of the Catholic Church.  Instead of adequately countering his viewpoint and critique on Aristotle and Ptolemy, Galileo’s scientific contemporaries, as well as those of the Church, polarize themselves, spitefully, against “arguments that they do not understand and have not even listened to.”  His ideas were hardly given a chance, and “for deceitful purposes,” they were proclaimed as being contrary to the bible. He felt that his idea would live on, because it was the truth, and that truth would have “adherents,” contrary to what his critics believed.  For the issue to be effectively erased, the Church would have to “ban the whole science of astronomy” and “forbid men to look at the heavens, in order that they might not see Mars and Venus” while they changed positions in the sky.[3] As a pious man, he felt that “the Bible can never speak untruth—whenever its true meaning is understood.”[4]  He was not out to disprove Christianity, he was seeking to share with those around him, the discoveries that reaffirmed his faith.

 

Galileo did not see his work as besmirching that of God, who wasn’t “any less excellently revealed in Nature’s actions[5] than in the sacred statements of the Bible.”[6]  Centuries later, Pope John Paul II would echo the idea that “science and religion are both gifts from God” when issuing a posthumous apology for the treatment of Galileo during the Inquisition.  Unlike Popes of an earlier time, John Paul II believed, much as Galileo did, that faith can coexist alongside discoveries in the natural world.  He labeled the “Galileo case” a “regrettable past event of history” that “undermined the good understanding between the Church and the scientific community.  The Pope called for an “objective review” of the past controversy in that it could “do honor to the truth of the faith and of science and open the doors for future collaboration.”[7]  Seeing both as essential, he stated “that science and religion are at the service of the human community.” Both, in his opinion, would do well to shed the mutual suspicion while aspiring “to establish a constructive and cordial relationship.” The Pope believed that “the light of reason, which made science possible, and the light of Revelation, which makes faith possible, both emanate from a single source.” He sees them as harmonizing and by their “very nature,” he claims, they are designed to coexist, “never on a collision course.”  He saw science as a “gift,” a precious tool which helps “the natural capacity of the mind to grasp reality by means of rigorous and logical procedures.”  John Paul II makes the claim that any time the two are in discord, it is because of “an unfortunate pathological condition,”[8] as can be assumed the case in Galileo’s time.

 

The concern in the 1600s was that ideas such as Galileo’s were “dangerous,” and they can be.  The evolutionary tract of humanity’s awareness of the natural world has led to sinister creations like the atomic bomb, the dangers of which John Paul II addressed. Just as dangerous is the adherence to dogmatic biases, and although humanity is far removed from executions by burning, strict convictions continue to blind many, stifling the John Paul II’s natural “trajectory” of both science and faith.  The work of natural philosophers such as Galileo and today’s scientists, according to John Paul II, is meant to go together with the work of theologians and priests for the protection of all and the benefit of both; both science and faith, he expressed “must take on a precise ethical responsibility in regard to their relationships and applications…the stakes are too high to be taken lightly.”  He saw it as “necessary to be tireless in promoting a scientific culture capable…of serving the universal good.”[9]  Past shortsightedness and the failure to understand science should be learned from, the former Pope believed. Critical observation and reason, along with faith, in their proper dosages, fosters and nurtures a sound and happy society, while dogmatic subscription sets back and stifles the natural order of existence.

Bibliography

Coffin, Judith and Robert Stacey. Western Civilization, Volume Two.  15th ed. New York:  W.W. Norton & Company, 2005.

Modern History Sourcebook: Galileo Galilei: Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany, 1615.  Hosted at: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/galileo-tuscany.html (accessed January 5, 2010)

Pope John Paul II.  The Resolution: Science and Faith are both Gifts from God.  1993.  Hosted at: http://mycommnet.blackboard.com/webct/urw/lc1419885091071.tp1566710861121//RelativeResourceManager?contentID=1666442825081 (accessed January 5, 2010)

 

[1] Judith Coffin and Robert Stacey. Western Civilization, Volume Two.  15th ed  (New York:  W.W. Norton & Company, 2005), 584.

[2] Modern History Sourcebook: Galileo Galilei: Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany, 1615. Hosted at: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/galileo-tuscany.html (accessed January 5, 2010)

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] The study of “nature’s actions,” being Galileo’s life’s work.

[6] Modern History Sourcebook: Galileo.

[7] Pope John Paul II.  The Resolution: Science and Faith are both Gifts from God.  1993.  Hosted at: http://mycommnet.blackboard.com/webct/urw/lc1419885091071.tp1566710861121//RelativeResourceManager?contentID=1666442825081 (accessed January 5, 2010)

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid.

Daniel Malo

Western Civ 2

01/05/2010

 

The Conquest – [Historical Fiction]

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The meeting of Moctezuma II and Cortés: detail from a folding-screen mural painted by Roberto Cueva del Río (1976)

Foreboding and Omens

It has been said that the native peoples of this land witnessed a flaming tongue of fire, lasting a full year—beginning ten years prior to the date of our arrival on this new earth. This carried the effect of omens upon the people who witnessed it as a sight portending a radical change of events. Accompanying the comet were critically placed lightning strikes, meteors from the sky, and the boiling and flooding of the great lake. Some thought the gods brought the comets here to smite their enemies in the hills, but the majority thought themselves accursed, haunted by the wail of women, crying “we are about to go forever, O my children!”  Dreamers told their great king, “do not be troubled in your heart for what we are about to tell you…In our dreams, we mothers, saw a mighty river enter the doors of your royal palace… it ripped up the walls from their foundation…until nothing was left standing.” This flood took the temples and caused the people to flee for the surrounding hills. The king, greatly displeased, cast them in jail to starve to death, slowly, for relaying their vision.

The great king of the native peoples called for the jailing of all who prophesied any dark vision, for its reality come true. He ordered his jailers to tear down the houses and “kill their wives and children… all their possessions are to be destroyed.” This was mercilessly done, and the corpses dragged through the street, and from then on, there was no more prophecy. The king never smiled again, it is said, and he secluded himself to private chambers, and attempted to find out through his most trusted advisors, who it was that had come to their land and where they were from. He commissioned a painting from a witness, secretly, to depict the encounter with our peoples, and it presented as a galleon, bearing white men, bearded, with swords. Further into his frenzied inquiry, other symbols turned up fish-men, cyclops’s, and beings half man, half snake, but none appeared like the image with the galleon. He came to be told of an old man who could answer his questions, and he summoned the old man for his testimony and papers.
The old man spoke of mounted, armor clad people of a great wooden house on the water. These men were white and bearded, and brought with them horses and other variety of beasts unfamiliar to these peoples. According to the old man, these foreigners came to the shores to possess these lands, multiply their numbers, and claim the gold, silver and precious stones of the earth. He presented the king another image from his ancestors, one similar to the painting he commissioned before, depicting Spaniards in hats. This shocked the king, who wept and told the old man that these foreigners were just here, in their country, only a few days ago, from lands east. The king attempted to comfort himself, saying that he paid them tribute and asked them to leave—an order which they obeyed. The old man, wiser than the king, informed him, that it is possible that they came and went, but within two or three years, these strangers will return. “Their coming was meant only to find a convenient way to return…Do not believe them: they will not go that far.”

 

The Siege and fall of Tenochtitlan

On the third year, the prophecy of the old man was fulfilled. After unloading their wooden houses on the water, the Spaniards quickly sought alliances with natives dispossessed by the king, and the king was forced to form alliances where he could. He sent messengers to the lands around him to warn of the newcomers: “Montezuma, the Master of Mexico, sends us with orders to report to our brothers the strange people who have come and taken us by surprise.” The messengers would describe the beasts in armor, horse and human, and the treachery of another tribe which turned against them in battle. The chieftains of the neighboring peoples would thank the king for the information, but resisted offering their men to fight these intruders. The advisors of the chieftains asked: “What shall we do? This message is serious.” However, seeing it as a trick to steal lands and conquer them through treachery, the chieftains dismissed the messengers. “Let the strangers, kill the Mexicans because for many days they have not lived right.” Besides, their gods proclaimed that the city of the Mexicans would never be destroyed.

Soon, the peoples of the land were bleeding from the bowels, and suffering the hardship of smallpox, which ran rampant throughout the land, it killed many: princes, priests, and the ordinary person. The Great Rash, struck before the intruder, lasting sixty days, and when the population began their recuperation, the Spanish arrived. The slaughter was immense, but the Spaniards were, at first, repelled. The kings had captives taken and herded to Yacacolco, where one by one, they were sacrificed at the Mexican alter. Spaniards suffered first, with their heads winding up on poles, along with the heads of their horses. Still, after the sacrifices, the people of the land suffered greatly, and large numbers died of hunger, brought about by famine. A meteor would portend the fate of the city, in the darkest nights of the siege, and it is near this point, when the myth began that these peoples saw themselves and their king, as lesser “to the gods, the Spaniards.” The Spaniards then set to acquiring the spoils of their victory, stopping people by force, for their precious stone and metal. Robbing the people by force, of their possessions and beautiful women, and scarring any capable boy still left into errand servitude, branded at the cheek.

The leader of these men, Cortés, first marched through Texcoco, and provisioned and quartered his troops there. He constructed boats for the conquest of the lake, and made allies, and then made his move for Tenochtitlan. He positioned his men at the crucial causeways that led to the island city, and battered the city both by water and land. The people defended their water supply from their springs of Chapultepec, and bravely formed barricades to block the Spaniards entrance to the city. They defended from rooftops. But alas, the Mexicans would be driven out, escaping by night in the shallow parts of the great lake, in depths higher than the chest of most. The fighting had concluded, but for random skirmish or shout. The Spaniards had conquered the city, and when and with the remaining native people in the throes of smallpox and starvation, passed on, the conquest of the Mexicans was complete, and the king and peoples scattered far beyond the hills.

Burying the White Gods

This total devastation was, of course, seen as the act of gods by some of the Mexicans. But, these were not the actions of gods they were the doings of men, with their beasts, tactics and mode of warfare, new to these peoples, and many of them understood this well. The Cartas of Cortés may suggest a grand number of things, perhaps that his conquest of this land and its inhabitants were done for your majesty, on behalf of the faith, or for the noblest of reasons. Others will no doubt write the same in our time, of varying prose. The great fear is that in the future, those looking to describe the fall of the Tenochtitlan will have, solely, the Spaniards record to rely upon, for they completely burned or otherwise obliterated the language and symbols of the people they conquered. The record of these men have them poised to stand as heroes through eternity, however it is the nature of men to aggrandize their exploits.

Contemporaries will also be quick to describe the deeds as ‘godlike’, and then weakly associate that these people saw their conquerors as gods, from the awesomeness of the power they wrought, because that has become the popular rumor.  Though “these men are not gods,” this topic will never go away, having been let loose upon the imagination of mankind. The characters and narrative will continue to embellish themselves, as new ‘witnesses’ write into history, that which they heard third- or fourth-hand. As well, the words of informants and their interpreters can never well describe the events, in part from biases and preconceived notion. The conquest’s best description can only be told contaminated and partly ineffable, as translations which have gone through many iterations on its way to print. These interpreters of events did not have their interviews or conversations with the king, yet they pretend to know and make assumptions on his sorrow and anguish.

The literature and history of the future will suggest that Montezuma should have read into the signs and omens witnessed by his people, and prepare for the Spaniards by the insights they could have provided, rather than punish them cruelly. In his fear of what was to be, he himself may have imbued the power of god against him, but never forget that it was the conquest of men and the notions of empire, power, and wealth—of the Spaniards—which delivered destruction to these people. Cortés was not Quetzalcoatl, nor were his men divinely elements conducting the work of a higher deity. All of this perpetrated and employed by ruthless and disease carrying men, white-skinned and bearded—not a single god among them.

 

Westinghouse: The Riveter

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We_Can_Do_It!
More people in the modern era have seen the iconic “Rosie the Riveter” poster, than when it was originally released. Although the image now carries a feminist connotation, Dr. Gwen Sharp, in her review of “Visual Rhetoric Representing Rosie the Riveter: Myth and Misconception” conveys that the origin of the image was as an internal Westinghouse propaganda piece. Its beginning, according James Kimble and Lester Olson, was in a commissioned series of images and messages, shared in production facilities to soften labor issues. The 1940’s labor unions struggled with the controversies of communism, discrimination and red-baiting. Kimble and Olson feel that the posters were created to stabilize the mood of the workforce from those disruptive sentiments. They find that the modern understanding of the image is grounded in myth, and that the poster’s purpose wasn’t necessarily to reflect women’s empowerment, or to encourage women into the workforce.
“The image is widely seen as a symbol of women’s empowerment and a sign of major gender transformations that occurred during the 1940s. The assumption of current viewers of the image is usually that it was meant to recruit women into the workforce, or to rally women in general — an early example of girl power marketing, if you will — and was widely displayed. But the audience was actually only Westinghouse employees.” (Sharp)
“Events and process are often more important for what is expressed than for what is produced.” (Bolman, p. 253) Although the intention of the image was not for mass dissemination, nor was it produced with the aim of aiding women’s issues, the poster has had a second life in modern times, where it is widely disseminated and perceived as a gender equality icon.
“The company commissioned artists to create posters to be hung in Westinghouse plants for specific periods of time” (Sharp)
“Culture forms the superglue that bonds an organization, unites people, and helps an enterprise accomplish desired ends.” (Bolman, p. 253) Culture, rather, the creation of culture by Westinghouse propaganda, worked, it appears, to allay labor issues during the war effort. It also seems that it reflected something underlying and subconscious in their workforce, perhaps the mindset of equality, and it reinforced the idea—an unintentional, self-fulfilled prophecy—to give the poster it’s modern interpretation.
“Westinghouse workers would have seen it in a different context, as one of a series of posters displayed in the plant, with similar imagery and text. When seen as just one in a series, rather than a unique image, Kimble and Olson argue that the collective “we” in “We can do it!” wouldn’t have been women, but Westinghouse employees, who were used to seeing such statements posted in employee-access-only areas of the plant. By addressing workers as “we,” the pronoun obfuscated sharp controversies within labor over communism, red-baiting, discrimination, and other heartfelt sources of divisiveness.” (Kimble, p. 550)
“Facing uncertainty and ambiguity, people create symbols to resolve confusion, find direction, and anchor hope and faith.” (Bolman, p. 253) The War Committee was faced with the potentiality of extreme labor issues and discontent, at a time when they needed certain output. ‘We’ is a strong pronoun, which could be argued to have an effect on the mind, and individuals’ willingness to participate in a group endeavor. It is commonly used in propaganda campaigns, and its use within the context of the Westinghouse posters, gives validity to the notion that the image was created with propagandist intent, rather benevolence or specific concern to gender. Rosie, in many respects was a cardboard stock image, a “default” warehouse employee in a marketing campaign.
“One of the major functions of corporate war committees was to manage labor and discourage any type of labor disputes that might disrupt production. From this perspective, images of happy workers expressing support for the war effort and/or workers’ abilities served as propaganda that encouraged workers to identify with one another and management as a team; “patriotism could be invoked to circumvent strikes.”(Kimble, p. 562).
“In collective bargaining, labor and management meet and confer to forge divisive standoffs into workable agreements. The process typically pits two sets of interests against each other.” (Bolman, p. 253) To avoid work stoppages during a critical time, the Westinghouse Company attempted to minimize the friction of the competing interests by working a patriotic angle and incorporating teambuilding imagery and language into art.
“Of course, today the “We Can Do It!” poster is seen as a feminist icon, adorning coffee cups, t-shirts, calendars, and refrigerator magnets (I have one). Kimble and Olson don’t explain when and how this shift occurred — when the image went from an obscure piece of corporate war-time propaganda, similar to many others, to a widely-recognized pop cultural image of female empowerment.” (Sharp)
“What is most important is not what happens, but what it means.” (Bolman, p. 253) Ultimately, the image has acquired its modern connotation, which differs from its roots. The current interpretation is noble, and as Dr. Sharp discusses, it is an effective and empowering symbol, that will mean different things to different people. Seventy years into the future, it may have yet more meanings, but it remains a good exercise to understand and gain insight from its origin.

Works Cited:
Bolman, Lee G, and Terrence E. Deal. Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2003. Print. Page 253.
Kimble, James and Lester Olson. “Visual Rhetoric Representing Rosie The Riveter.” Rhetoric & Public Affairs. 9.4 (2006): 533-569. Print. <Excerpts: http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/01/04/myth-making-and-the-we-can-do-it-poster/>.
Sharp, Gwen. “Myth-Making and the “We Can Do It” Poster.” Society Pages 4 January 2011. Web. 10 Nov. 2013. <http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/01/04/myth-making-and-the-we-can-do-it-poster/>.