Frederick Douglass' Autobiography

     So I thought I'd end my blog with a few words on Douglass' autobiography.  In high school I read Uncle Tom's Cabin and learned a decent amount about slavery, but I think this autobiography is the best way to experience what slaves went through and what their reality was actually like.  A lot of his experiences were really sad and made me think about how a lot of these people grew up- seeing their mom get whipped to pieces, never seeing your mom in the light of day, and being excited because you get to wear your first pair of pants when you're like 7 years old?  It's just so incredibly inhumane and appalling to hear how people's lives were in our country.  It was also interesting to read about how Douglass believed slavery affected his master's wife Mrs. Auld in Baltimore.  I hadn't really thought about how slavery could affect the people utilizing it and owning slaves.  The fact that her husband was so upset by her teaching Frederick how to read really affected her personality and they way she lived from then on.  Her temperment completely changed and she let the whole idea and institution of slavery change her perspective on life.  She immediately felt like she had to treat him differently and view education as a tool that could be used against her.  I felt that it was really sad both for her and Douglass to be affected this way only because of how her husband viewed slaves and education and the fact that he voiced this very clearly to his wife.

Black Friday

     Upton's words definitely rang true on Black Friday once again this year when thousands of people got up before 3am to get in line at the stores with all the deals.  Upton's statement about materialism and consumption definitely was proved accurate when stores' opening hours were pushed up to Thanksgiving night and midnight on Friday morning.  Kohl's went to 3am while Target went to 4am.  It amazes me what people will do to get the items they want at the best(?) price of the year.  It just points to the place materialism has pushed us to as well as how important physical things are to us.  Last year, one man even died while people rushed into a store on Black Friday.  It's crazy how material things were valued over a human life.  I think that's irresponsible and doesn't speak well to our nation's ideals and values.      

An American Icon

"To put it another way, consumption is a quest for identity through sensual means.  We buy what we think we see in an object, to obtain the unsaleable quality.  The catch, however, is that the longing for identity is diffuse, unfocused, and not described by any specific missing quality, so no particular commodity can satisfy it.  We desire, we buy, we are inevitably disappointed, and we buy again, and again." -Upton's "An American Icon"
     This is such a great explanation of consumption and the idea of materialism.  I haven't really put much thought into why we buy the things we buy, so this made so much sense to me.  I think Upton captures an excellent explanation for the psychology that goes into materialism.  I can totally picture myself considering buying an object and thinking about what life would be like with that object, what kind of image that would give me, and the view of other people if I had that object.  It sounds so stupid now that I think about it, but it's exactly what we do when we shop!  We see things and imagine how great our lives would be if we just had that one thing, so great in fact that we can't even glimpse the reality of the situation and the fact that one object will not change your life so much so that you're perfectly happy and content.  It's interesting to ponder this process of consumption and the individual quest for identity as the holiday season begins to unravel (although at Target, the unraveling began as soon as Halloween was over) and Black Friday is upon us.  I'll definitely be keeping Upton's words in mind when I'm joining the hordes of people around Ridgedale in Minnetonka on Friday next week. Yikes.

Freedom in the Airports

     On Saturday a man from Oceanside, CA was thrown out of the San Diego International Airport because he refused to submit to a full body scan and a pat down body search by TSA agents.  He may be prosecuted and possibly faces fines of $11,000.  He said that he felt full body scans are "a huge invasion of privacy" and did not want to opt for the other choice of going through the usual metal scanner followed by a pat down search.  He even referred to a pat down search as sexual assault.  While this whole event was going on, he turned on his cell phone and set it on top of his luggage where it recorded the next half hour of his interactions with the TSA.  He put this recording on his own blog later that day and by that same night 70,000 of people had listened to it, 5% of which he says think his actions were idiotic.  The whole story can be found on http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/nov/14/tsa-ejects-oceanside-man-airport-refusing-security/.

     While I also don't enjoy pat down searches and the whole security process at airports, I feel that they are important and unfortunately, a part of traveling today.  The TSA supervisor said to Tyner that "By buying your ticket you gave up a lot of rights"  to which Tyner countered, "I think the government took them away after 9/11."  I feel like this is true to a point.  After September 11th, the government had to tighten up security because the events of that day could have been stopped by better security.  I think that if the government had left security the way it was and left the airport procedures the same, people would have been more outraged than they are now about full body scanners.  Unfortunately, September 11th did happen and not only did it take some of your rights in the airport away, it also took people's moms, dads, children, and heroes.  This is the kind of world we live in now and I think that airport security measures are for your own safety and not just government rules put in place so that TSA agents can "sexually assault" you.  I think Tyner handled the situation somewhat immaturely and the fact that he said "Touch my junk and I'm going to have you arrested" to the TSA agent was very unnecessary.  In my opinion, he was putting his own personal feelings before the security of other Americans.  I can't assess the situation completely because I would need to find out more about how security works and what exactly the rules are in writing for flying passengers, but I'd rather have someone run their hand over my clothes for ten seconds than allow another situation like September 11th to occur again.  If Tyner has that big of an issue with any airport security, he should have driven to his destination of South Dakota rather than fly.   
(also I have no idea if this picture is a real toy or what...) 

Another Comment on Thomas Jefferson

     As yet another connection to class, I read something interesting about Thomas Jefferson in Marcus J. Borg's book Jesus that I'm reading for my Religion class.  He writes "Thomas Jefferson's way of seeing Jesus provides a striking example.  While president, he spent some evenings with the gospels and a pair of scissors cutting out the parts that in his judgment did not go back to Jesus.  What remained was the moral teaching of Jesus, purified of the miraculous, provincial, and time-bound elements, including much of the theology.  The result was The Jefferson Bible, a collection of the moral wisdom of Jesus" (13).  For one thing, it seems like a pretty bold move to take the Bible and cut whatever you want out of it.  So I think it speaks to the person of Jefferson a little bit.  It does make sense that he would do something like that, after learning about how much he valued books in architechture.  It would be somewhat helpful to read Jefferson's Bible and see how the New Testament looked after his procedure.  Seeing Jesus' writing without all the contextual elements, just as his moral wisdom could make things very clear.  But it also could make things harder to understand since you'd be missing a lot of social context from that time period among other things.  I'd have liked to sit at the table with Jefferson during his presidency and asked him what he thought about certain verses or why he removed certain parts.  It was a really random snippet of information in a completely different book from other AmCon readings, but I think it could be used as a dense fact to point to aspects of Jefferson's character and ideologies as a scholar and as a moral human being.

Thomas Jefferson

     I really didn't know very much about Jefferson before doing the readings we have for class today besides the fact that he was the third President, wrote the Declaration, and lived at Monticello.  The information I learned from the readings about his passion for architecture and the University of Virginia made me admire him a lot more than I did before.  For one thing, I am extremely impressed that he didn't even begin official work on his idea of the Central College until he was 75 years old.  "Something Very Great and New" mentions that he "rode to the site almost daily that summer, staying home only during the worst thunderstorms" (Crawford, 154).  I don't know many people who can ride horses, although this is a very different era than Jefferson's, but I definitely can't imagine many 75 year old men horseback riding on a daily basis.  Even this simple action shows how much he invests in the things he embarks on.  I liked how he utilized multiple styles and elements of architechture in all the pavilions at the University of Virginia to create an "encyclopedia" of architechture.  He made use of every element that he could, and that increased the value and meaning of the atmosphere he was creating.  Jefferson's very unique style of architechture could certainly be used as a dense fact to point to the shift of the colonies having a very British culture to their own culture for the first time.  Not only did Jefferson build a beautiful university, he began the creation of a new style for America at a time when the new nation was sorely lacking any evidence of creative architechture and a purely American culture.  

Declaration of Independence

     Johnson devotes a good three pages to the Declaration of Independence, the changes that were made to it, its creation in general, and those involved in its synthesis.  I liked that he includes the change Congress made to the Declaration regarding slavery.  It shows that he is striving to give an honest, complete history of the United States rather than a nice rosy one.  He even calls the issue of slavery a black hole "at the heart of America's claim to liberty" (155).  I also like how he says "So the slavery passage was removed, the first of the many compromises over the issue during the next eighty years, until it was finally resolved in an ocean of tears and blood" (156).  So true.  I also enjoyed Franklin's statement when signing the Declaration took place (Johnson said all the delegates signed on the same day, but Lytle and Davidson believe otherwise).  According to Hancock, Franklin said, "Well, Gentlemen, we must now hang together, or we shall most assuredly hang separately."  He reiterates how important it is to stick together in order to win this battle against the Crown of England.  He reminds them that this is all pointless if they don't stand together as one body.  It goes along well with Davidson and Lytle's idea that the Declaration had an audience of one for that one moment when each man signed it.  It also fascinated me that Franklin's statement was said 136 years earlier by Cromwell at the start of England's Civil War.  I wonder if everyone present when he said it were immediately aware of the irony in that.

The Brothers K

     A couple weeks ago Deane told us to keep in mind the ways that our other classes have connections to AmCon.  I found one really obvious connection to an idea we've discussed and even have a book with its  title- the American Dream.  For my religion class, we're reading a book called The Brothers K by David James Duncan, which has a few small connections to The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.  Each chapter has a quote at the beginning, and the last chapter's is "I want the magnificent American dream: a wife, a dog, a house, a bathroom" -Laotian refugee (644).  It stuck out to me since we're reading Cullen's book and the mere fact that the refugee mentioned a bathroom.  But then again it makes perfect sense coming from a refugee of a country with a Marxist government and "reeducation camps."  It made me think about the fact that there are people in the world who believe that one of the best things you can receive in the United States is a bathroom.  To us, that seems crazy, but they really just wanted the same things the Founding Fathers wanted.  They wanted the ability to live how they wanted to live and have the things human beings should possess, the ability to choose.  I think the quote from the book could be helpful to think about and remember as we continue reading Cullen and what he has to say about the American Dream as it changes along with the nation and the eras.  It was a very random connection to AmCon, but a connection nonetheless.  Even in one sentence, it offers a peek inside a perspective we would definitely not encounter or consider often about a widely known, yet unique idea.

Tea Party Account in the Boston Gazette

     "A number of brave & resolute men, determined to do all in their power to save their country from the ruin which their enemies had plotted, in less than four hours, emptied every chest of tea on board the three ships commanded by the captains Hall, Bruce, and Coffin, amounting to 342 chests, into the sea!! without the least damage done to the ships or any other property. The matters and owners are well pleas'd that their ships are thus clear'd; and the people are almost universally congratulating each other on this happy event." -Boston Gazette Account of the Boston Tea Party (http://www.boston-tea-party.org/account-boston-gazette.html)
    
     I agreed with what Patrick said about the article on the Tea Party in the Boston Gazette in class on Wednesday.  He brought up how the article praises what the men did and focused on the heroic nature of their actions.  It doesn't address the danger or risk of the situation at all besides using the word brave to describe the party goers.  I like how the writer said "342 chests into the sea!! without the least damage done to the ships or any other property."  Even though they just did something incredibly dangerous in order to show the British that no one would even have a chance at drinking the tea, the writer makes it sound like they just saved the world, and they didn't even damage anything!!  The writer also calls it a "happy event," but I'm not sure it is the word I would choose to describe an event that just defied the King of England.  It does make sense that the writer would be excited about this event and what it signifies for the colonies, but I would have added some sense of caution in a city-wide newspaper article.    It's entertaining to look at different people's accounts and see how they viewed a monumentous event that we can only look back on today and be able to see the big picture and the risk it involved while these things may not have been quite as obvious and in the open for those alive at the time.

Ben Franklin & Son

     In response to Deane's comment on my last post about Benjamin Franklin: I think that in the context he writes in about the death of his son, he is continuing his narrative of his life chronologically.  However, this event must have affected him so much that he includes it in this narrative.  He also says, "I long regretted bitterly, and still regret that I had not given it to him by inoculation" (79).  Throughout the rest of his autobiography, he often mentions the big "errors" in his life that he tried his best to correct later on.  I think this is one of those big errors that he regrets he can not fix at all, but warns other parents to inoculate their children instead of passing it up and possibly losing their children.  He says that some parents are afraid that their child will die if inoculated, but that either way their death is caused, it hurts just as much.  I think this event had a big impact on him as a parent.  He felt personally responsible for his child's death when he was trying his best not to be responsible for his death by having him inoculated.  For once in his life, no amount of studying or writing or doing good could fix a situation for him.  This was certainly enough to urge him to record the event in his autobiography.  I think that by writing this, he is trying to subtly admit that he is not perfect and was incapable of saving someone who he was supposed to protect as much as possible.  He is putting aside the pride he often conveys in his autobiography and saying for the first time, I failed both my son and myself.

Good in America

     On Wednesday, Matt started talking about Franklin's attempt to explain, in his autobiography, how to construct a society that promotes "doing good."  As he was talking about virtue-ethics and different ways of looking at the idea of good in society, it reminded me of something I read for my religion class by Plato. In a conversation between Euthyphro questions Socrates about a universal good.  He asks if the gods love things that are good because of their nature of goodness or if they are good because the gods love them.  In other words, is there a universal good that everyone recognizes and lives by or have we created an idea of what is good as a society?  I wonder this especially about the United States today.  I feel like a lot of the time, Americans decide what is good as a society.  We make an idea of what is good that fits our culture and the way we live.  This has been seen through the different decades.  Earlier in our culture, like we saw as we discussed the Four Freedoms, smoking was looked at as glamorous and the thing to do.  It was considered, I think, "good" throughout a lot of the 1900's.  Now, our culture has changed to an overall view of smoking as "bad."  Now we throw aside the social aspects of smoking and value more the consequences smoking has on health and on the environment.  I feel like Americans look at things and decide for themselves if it is good or not.  As a country, I don't feel like we look up to one universal code of good in order to choose what we believe is good or bad.  We oftentimes make that for ourselves.  It's definitely something that could go either way, and it's not easy to see how this decision is made when you're looking at a whole country.  I think it's something interesting to think about, though, especially in a culture like ours which so emphasizes the influence celebrities and public figures and media have on the people of this country.  

More on Ben Franklin

     I thought I'd say a little bit more about Ben Franklin after discussing him a little bit on Monday in sections.  A lot of people in class didn't seem to like his autobiography at all because of his tone of arrogance and pride.  I agree that there definitely is some arrogance in the ways he talks about things and tells of all his accomplishments.  However, I didn't notice too much of this until Part 2, when he talks about trying to be morally perfect, his position as postmaster general, etc.  I think one of the strangest things, like Athena mentioned in her blog, is how he talks about the death of his four year old son due to smallpox for about 3 sentences and immediately afterwards, goes on about his Junto club.  Maybe he doesn't dwell on his son's death for long because it is so painful to him and he doesn't want to emphasize this in his autobiography, but I felt that he unintentionally makes the reader feel like this was a minor event in his life compared to these other large, lofty accomplishments that he goes on to talk about.  I do think that he is a great embodiment of the American Dream, though, in how he constantly is pursuing learning, inventing new things, looking for ways to make Philadelphia better, and striving to better himself as a person.  Instead of waiting for things to happen and make life easier, he finds solutions on his own, and his actions end up benefiting a lot of people.  I like how he isn't hesitant to do things and go places.  He's willing to experience as much as possible in life.  One part of the American Dream he doesn't seem as concerned with is the materialistic part.  He seems like he values knowledge and learning more than having fancy things.  However, he was writing an autobiography, not a journal.  As a whole, though, I thought Benjamin Franklin's writing was interesting for the most part, even if he was arrogant.  His autobiography gives a really good sense of what life was like around the time of the Revolution.    

Benjamin Franklin

      There wasn't one particular quote or passage that Franklin wrote in his autobiography that I've read so far (I'm not through all 72 pages for tomorrow yet) that really stuck out to me, but as soon as I started reading it, I realized how much he emphasizes his education as well as his father's, uncles', and brothers'.  He seems to put a lot of value on education rather than on the material things in his family's lives.  On his parents' grave marker, he put "Without an estate or any gainful employment, By Constant labor and industry, with God's blessing, They maintained a large family comfortably."  His family was obviously not wealthy or overrun with possessions, but through hard work and an education of at least one skill, they were able to live comfortably.  He mentions his brothers' different apprenticeships as well as his own and how he was able to improve his writing tremendously through reading a lot and working under his brother in the print shop.  He makes a strong impression that education was very important in the America he lived in at the time.  I think that we still place a huge emphasis on the importance of education in the US today.  We are constantly trying to find better ways to improve test scores, keep kids in school, etc.  In the community and family I was brought up in, it was assumed that I would go to a four year college right after high school.  Everyone is always telling you to "stay in school so you can get a good job and live happily ever after."  In almost all cases, education is necessary in the United States in order to live comfortably, as Franklin described.  We may not have to sign forms as indentured apprentices to someone, but we are placed in an education system for twelve or thirteen years where we're held accountable to be there and do the work.  Americans place education as a very high priority, and I would like to find out more about how other countries' education systems work or what happens if they don't really have one.  I think that in our generation, it is more and more assumed that you have graduated from at least high school and a lot of the time, college as well.  It seems like it will get harder and harder to get a job and "live comfortably" without a decent education like Ben Franklin and many of his peers received.      

Things Material

     In Butler's chapter, "Things Material," he talks about colonial houses and how they changed over time.  He mentions various houses, such as William Hancock's, who put his initials and the date the house was finished in the brickwork, or Samuel Harrison's mansion, whose exterior he painted himself and later had it depicted as an oil on wood painting.  These men were extremely proud of the work they put into creating this place for themselves and their families.  You could physically see their touches in the houses' materials.  These homes seem like much more permanent, personal dwelling places than a lot of the houses we have today.  You don't see unique houses that convey a history and a story very often anymore.  I'm used to the hundreds of developments that are built all over the Twin Cities and even smaller cities now.  More emphasis and value is put on building them quickly and slapping them up with the most inexpensive materials, and selling them to young families asap than careful building, choosing unique materials to put into a house, or special ordering exactly what a family wants to surround them in their home.  I don't think there is as strong of a relationship or connection between families and their homes as often as there seem to have been in colonial times.  If we want a house with more rooms and space, we simply move to a different one instead of changing the space like Harrison did.   Houses are not as permanent as they seemed to have been.  Maybe this is because Americans don't spend nearly as much time at home as they used to, since so many of us are constantly on a schedule and are oftentimes not home during the day or evenings.  This tendency also points to how on the move Americans are and don't always want to settle.  People also tend to move to larger homes as their families grow, whereas colonial families would not have that option.  There are a lot of different reasons why homes are not as closely linked to families as they used to be, but those are the couple I thought of right away while reading Butler.

My Dorm Room

    So here's my list of stuff from my dorm room.  It'll be interesting to compare with other people and see how much I have versus other people.  I feel like I have the majority of what was in my room at home and am not missing that much, but I still don't have everything.  All of my stuff probably wouldn't even fit in one room of the little colonial house shown in the PBS link.  We live with a lot more stuff than they did then, but we still feel like we really need most of the stuff we have and use now.  Anyway, here's my compilation:
clothes, desk, chair, desk chair, ottoman, mirror, fridge, blankets, pillows, bedding, Macbook, cell phone, phone charger, lamp, iHome, 2 iPods, dresser, textbooks, purses, snacks, drinks, cleaning supplies, mug, bowls, silverware, plates, backpack, pictures, picture frames, perfume, memo board, waterbottle, shower  caddy, shampoo, conditioner, etc, lotion, straightener, laundry basket, laundry detergent, trash can, towels, shoes, bags, notebooks, pens, pencils, books, DVD's, rings, necklaces, hair binders, bobbypins, lanyards, keys, hand sanitizer, quilt, hand mirror, mittens, robe, coat, brush, slippers, belt, scarves...

Pocahontas Poetry

 And, if you eat
of the fruit of Disney
you will die. —Ed Ochester in Pocahontas

     So I'm not exactly sure what the author was trying to get at through this entertaining poem.  It kind of just sounds like a rant about how much he dislikes all things Disney.  It was strange, watching part of the Disney movie tonight; you realize how unrealistic everything is and how much you thought it made perfect since when you were little.  Now that I think about it though, I don't think there is another animated Disney movie that is based on actual people or events.  Maybe the author was upset that the Pocahontas movie was so misleading and strayed so far from actual events (a lot of which we don't know loads about) and was produced by one of the biggest companies in America.  I think Disney is a huge enterprise in American culture; there aren't many kids that have never seen a Disney movie.  I feel like they should have either stuck closer to actual events in the Pocahontas movie or not make a movie based on actual events.  Until this class, I didn't really know what actually happened in her life, and I really only remembered what happened in the movie.  I feel like that isn't very fair to her and her memory, and like the author seemed to say, I blame Disney (as well as myself).

Baptism of Pochahontas Painting

     This painting of Pochahontas' baptism, painted long after its actual occurrence seems to say a lot about the effect of such an event as well as the artist's thoughts. I think I remember seeing this in the Capitol Rotunda four years ago, but I definitely didn't look at it as closely as I do now that I know more about her than just the person Disney created.  One of the things I notice right away is the difference of shadows and light in the painting.  Pocahontas and the priest are in the most light, almost like God's shining down on this righteous act, almost rite of passage of the Church.  The light seems to represent the good and God's approval of what Pocahontas is choosing to do.  The few Native Americans that are in the painting are more in the dark, and not nearly as "involved or active" in what is taking place like the British are.   Two of the Native Americans are not even watching, but looking away, as if this is not something they approve of. They are not excited to see this happening as the British are.  The white that Pochahontas and the priest are wearing also seems to represent purity and holiness compared to the darker clothing of everyone else.
     I'm curious why this was chosen to be one of the paintings on the Capitol Rotunda.  I suppose it makes sense because it was part of the whole process of Pocahontas and John Rolfe's "royal" wedding, which gave England the upper hand when it came to the control of the New World.  I'm not sure that putting a moment that was vital to Pocahontas' abandoning of her own culture and heritage is something that we want to proudly display on our nation's capitol ceiling.  However, I definitely wasn't there and am not a very good judge of why this has been chosen for the Rotunda.  I'll have to look into that further.

The Pocahontas Perplex

"Always called a Princess (or Chieftain's Daughter), she, like Pocahontas, has to violate the wishes and customs of her own 'barbarous' people to make good the rescue, saving the man out of love and often out of 'Christian sympathy.'  Nearly all the 'good' Princess figures are converts, and they cannot bear to see their fellow Christians slain by 'savages.'" -Rayna Green in The Pocahontas Perplex (pp. 19-20)

     This statement goes right along with something John Smith says in his letter to Queen Anne in 1616.  He writes, "and at last rejecting her barbarous condition, she was married to an English Gentleman, with whom at this present she is in England; the first Christian ever of that Nation, the very first Virginian ever spoke English, or had a child in marriage by an Englishman: a matter surely, if my meaning be truly considered and well understood, worthy a Princess understanding."  It sounds like he's glorifying, in a way, this unprecedented act that Pocahontas has done.  He is cheering the fact that she is "rejecting" her own people and culture and adopting the English way of life.  He seems to be indirectly trying to convince others to join her and come on over to the other side.  I wonder how she felt when all this happened.  I doubt she had this great feeling of accomplishment because she just abandoned and condoned everything she has known.  Green is showing how Indians are only seen as "good" if they follow this example of Pocahontas, condone their culture, and do things as the European Christians do.  They're only doing the "right" thing if they save and protect the Englishman.  Again, this shows the automatic response of the English to look down on the Native Americans and be extremely geocentric.  

First Hand Accounts of Virginia, 1575-1705

"free from all care of heapinge opp Riches for their posterite, content with their state, and livinge frendlye together of those thinges which god of his bountye hath given unto them, yet without givinge hym any thankes according to his desarte.  So savage is this people, and deprived of the true knowledge of god. For they have none other then is mentionned before in this worke." Ihon White in "First Hand Accounts of Virginia, 1575-1705"

     This passage from one of the first accounts concerning Virginia speaks to the attitude of the Europeans and their judgment of the Native Americans right off the bat.  The author has observed these people and their culture and has just written about his ideas about them, but he immediately points out a major flaw that instantly gives the audience, which is more Europeans, a negative image of these people.  He seems to pity the Native Americans when he describes them as "deprived," but it doesn't even seem to occur to him that they are content with the lives they have.  They have a whole culture and community that they enjoy and have known their whole lives, yet White reduces it to nothing since they aren't giving credit to God for it.  It seems prejudiced that he depicts and talks about their "religious men," but says that they "have none other than is mention before."  He ignores their religious beliefs and customs because those beliefs and customs are not centered around the "one, true God," according to European standards.  I feel like even this early in the process of starting this new country, already present is the feeling of prejudice and ignorance toward Native Americans which continued on through hundreds of years and ended up causing far worse things to happen than a one-sided statement in a historic account.

The Phrygian Cap

     In response to one of the slides in the Images of Liberty Powerpoint, this red felt hat, also called the Phrygian Cap, that is often seen in early American art and coins signifies freedom or liberty, or the pursuit of liberty.  It was also used during the French Revolution and ancient Rome.  In the United States, during this time where Americans were really trying to find their own identity that was neither British or Native American, it was put on top of a pole.  This was used to signal the people of a town or the Sons of Liberty to meet and discuss issues with British rule and interference.  It represented the American's resentment of England.  If people were dancing around it, it could have been part of this "carnival" side of American identity that people started to adopt, and this celebration of liberty and the pursuit of freedom that colonists were embarking on.  This makes me wonder if there are other things that we put mentally or emotionally at the center of our lives that represents the goal we are trying to achieve today.  Is there something we focus on and celebrate around that unites us as a country?  I think some things like a white picket fence, a Ford truck, country music, football and baseball games, and many other things are things that we, as Americans, rally around, and bring us together.  Even if it's as simple as cheering together for our favorite baseball team to win a game (especially as the Postseason starts tomorrow for MN!), we still are experiencing that unity and celebration of a common goal.  In a country where individuality is often emphasized, the things that bring us together mean that much more, and looking at these things today helps me better understand the use of the phrygian cap and what it meant to the early colonials.  

The Puritan Reading

"Americans, he says, have always tended to understand freedom as primarily a dimension of space.  To explore the possibilities of being human has been to possess unbounded freedom of movement over new terrain." -Belden Lane in "The Puritan Reading of the New England Landscape" (pg. 144)

     When I read these two sentences I thought they were so true.  The idea of being able to walk across a space without any hindrances from life is such a good feeling.  I read Into the Wild over the summer, and this idea is exactly what Chris McCandless was hungry for.  He wanted to get as far away as possible from the institutions he was used to, the control and influence of his parents, the idea of money, and many other things.  As Americans, we seem to hunger for it to some degree, but then we always come back to our "center," which is home, and our jobs, and our daily routine that we are comfortable in.  It seems like as Americans, we find it admirable to go out and explore for a while, but then reel that adventurous side in and be more "practical."  This was how many people felt about McCandless' journeys, and some even criticized him for it.  Where does this attitude come from, that we need to follow the cookie cutter pattern of the "American Life" when doing so sometimes causes us to inhibit ourselves and not make use of the freedoms we possess?  Maybe it's part of the stereotypical idea of the American Dream.  To me, it sometimes does not make a lot of sense because McCandless was utilizing freedom to its fullest, and felt as free as he had ever been, yet many people felt he was being stupid and naive.  I feel like he knew exactly what he wanted, and ended up getting that, to a certain extent.  He felt this "unbounded freedom of movement over new terrain."  I hope I can experience that feeling for a little bit of my life.  Feeling completely free, in this sense, is something that a lot of us never do, here in the "Land of the Free."  

The American Campus as an "Academical Village"

"Campus sums up the distinctive physical qualities of the American college, but also its integrity as a self-contained community and its architectural expression of educational and social ideals." -Paul Turner in The American Campus as an "Academical Village"

     Besides just this quote, I liked a lot of what Paul Turner was saying and what it reveals about the character of America.  I hadn't thought about the way colleges are set up in America versus other countries until reading this.  After visiting and touring multiple colleges in the past year, it is interesting to think about this idea of college campuses as individual cities and communities.  I remember commenting that the University of Minnesota is its own city after visiting it last fall, but every college really is its own community and world.  As a body of students, professors, and faculty, we abide by a code, so to speak.  This is why we can go without professors proctoring exams, mailboxes with locks, etc.  We elect our own hall council and live by similar "social ideals" like Turner talks about.  We coexist in a community in order to further the knowledge and education we have at the moment.  This is occurring on thousands of campuses around the country.  The fact that we, as Americans, set up our campuses in a way that we live together in order to learn shows the value that we give education and the independence we emphasize in our culture.  For a certain amount of time, and often for the rest of life, people devote all their time and energy solely to learning.  We emphasize how important it is to better yourself and advance your education so that you can be successful on the road ahead.  It is a part of our character as Americans to be educated in order to be an individual and have the ability to achieve that American Dream and exercise the freedoms that we have.  This stands at the core of being American and millions of us live it everyday.  

Anne Hutchinson

     I really liked the reading about Anne Hutchinson because it showed a different side of Anne and what she was really trying to do.   It was interesting to read about how she was not actually a deviant as she is portrayed so often to be.  One of the most interesting points of the reading was how Winthrop saw her as a threat, not because of her differing opinions about the church and beliefs, but the fact that she was a woman.  It would be interesting to see how Winthrop would have reacted if Anne had not been a female in this time.  Westerkamp talks about how he attacked her gender and the fact that she was not living up to her duties as a woman when she says, "Not only was she a woman, she was a disgusting woman, an unwomanly woman.  She could not even give birth" (493).  She also later says "Winthrop was responding to a threat he had linked, consciously or not, to Hutchinson's gender.   Whether or not he himself understood precisely the nature of that threat, there was a connection between Hutchinson's gender and her religiosity."  It seems like if Hutchinson was a man, things would have gone a lot differently.  If she was not a deviant, she simply was another part of a group with ideas that were different from Winthrop's and would have been looked at as much less of a threat, if she was not a female.

What Freedom Means to Me

     I thought that for my "extra" post of the week, I'd put up my "What Freedom Means to Me" object and the paragraph I wrote since we didn't get to see everyone's or read everyone's paragraphs.

     Cameras come in a variety of ways, whether they are plastic and disposable, expensive and complicated, or average yet functional.  Almost everyone these days owns a camera in one form or another to capture images of everyday life, travel sites, and special occasions. Even the most simple of cell phones now have cameras on them.  While people may take numerous pictures of whatever they so desire, it often goes unnoticed that Americans even have the freedom to take photos in public places and display them however or wherever they want, such as in blogs or on social websites like Facebook or Myspace.  It is important to realize that people in other countries do not always have this freedom.  Also, the idea of displaying pictures online, on walls, or elsewhere goes along with the freedom of speech.  People can make statements and convey ideas through images, whether they are trying to raise awareness for something or document a certain event.  For example, Norman Rockwell communicated ideas with his Four Freedoms posters.   It is said that “ a picture is worth a thousand words,” and images can have a powerful impact on how one thinks of something or someone.  Simply put, a camera is a good representation of the fact that in the United States, everyone has the freedom to photograph in a public place and use those photos to tell a story and express their thoughts in a visual way.    
    
    
    

Of Plymouth Plantation

"Thus it pleased God to vanquish their enemies and give them deliverance; and by His special providence so to dispose that not any one of them were either hurt or hit, though their arrows came close by them and on every side of them..." -William Bradford in Of Plymouth Plantation


     This statement was somewhat shocking to me because Bradford is implying that they, the Puritans, overpowered the Native Americans because they had God on their side.  He even says that it was pleasing to God to "vanquish" them.  I think the Puritans believed God to be on their side because they believed they were striving to live according to his commands and be free from worldly corruption while the Native Americans obviously were not, in their opinion.  Bradford even refers to them as "savage barbarians" earlier in the text. This makes me question- under what circumstances is God on our side as Americans?  I think it is an interesting idea to think about when it comes to the wars we've fought in, the way we've treated people, and the way we move forward now.  Abraham Lincoln said, "My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right."  This is the opposite of how the Puritans thought about it.
     I think different people would answer my question very differently, depending on how they view God, as well as America.  Although I'm not sure what "qualifies" you to have God back you up,  it's an interesting thought for us as a nation as well as for looking back on the history we share.

Frontiers

"The lust for land, the fear of contagious disease, and, one surmises, a desire for freedom from the burden of community impelled this dispersal which leaders like Winthrop regularly lamented.  But expressions of regret, however sincere, did little to concentrate the spread of people who would go on to show a seeming inexhaustible appetite for frontiers." -Jim Cullen in Dream of the Good Life (I): The Puritan Enterprise


     This passage from The American Dream reminded me a lot of the poem The History of America.  Although Cullen doesn't state the idea in such negative light, both authors make similar points about a seemingly common characteristic of Americans- a certain hunger for land and the idea of a frontier.  Cullen talks about how both the Puritans and the Pilgrims began to become more and more spread out after a short time in the New World.  Alicia Ostriker talks about an aggressive drive west that involves the railroad, "murdering the buffalo," and "driving the laggard regiments."  It reminds me of how Americans oftentimes mean well, but end up being too overkill and making stupid mistakes.  Manifest Destiny and the move west made a lot of sense to people in that it was their mission as Americans to bring and promote democracy as far as they could and also part of God's will that this be done.  This is still an important idea to us today.  The war in Iraq comes to mind as well.  Working toward the good of everyone is admirable and important, but as a country that is already seen as being egocentric, we need to be careful not to overstep our bounds or trample on others and do damaging things like Alicia Ostriker mentions.      

References:
The American Dream by Jim Cullen
The History of America by Alicia Ostriker

Sailing to America

  "She turned and bravely set our course

North-by-northwest for the New World.

Did we arrive? Years later, yes.

By plane, suddenly. With suitcases

And something as hazy as a future."

-Gary Djanikian in Sailing to America

     In the first two lines of this passage from his poem, Gregory Djanikian makes reference to a childhood memory of playing with his sister in pretend ships as if journeying on an ocean together.  The third line suddenly bridges the gap from this distant memory to one slightly more recent.  Since this poem has such a personal feel (he even quotes himself and his sister from their childhood memories), I wanted to find out where this experience had come from in his life.  It turns out that Gregory was born in Alexandria, Egypt and came to the United States with his family at the age of 8 in 1957.  This fact goes with the idea of the American Dream, which we have started talking about in class.  It is extremely likely that this prompted the Djanikian family to move to the US and start a life for themselves in Pennsylvania.  I like how his use of the phrase "something as hazy as a future" provides a window into an experience that most of us can not relate to in a literal sense.  The phrase indicates the feeling of being unsure, anxious, and completely lost in a new place.  On a smaller scale, I can relate to Djanikian's experience.  Coming in to college for the first time certainly made me feel that way.  I understand the idea of having a completely unclear future, but still seeing the goal on the other side.  It's somewhat unnerving and uncomfortable, but exciting all the same.

  References: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/entertainment/poetry/profiles/poet_djanikian.html

Sailing to America by Gregory Djanikian

The American Dream

"The term [American Dream] seems like the most lofty as well as the most immediate component of an American identity, a birthright far more meaningful and compelling than terms like "democracy," "Constitution," or even "the United States." -Jim Cullen in The American Dream


     To me, this statement is somewhat startling yet also makes a lot of sense.  I think that the American Dream is an incredibly interesting idea, in all its forms, kinds, and details.  I love that the idea is important to the people of this country and that it is different for each person who believes in it (or doesn't believe in it).  However, it also does not really seem right that, as Cullen states, we value it more than the terms he states: democracy, Constitution, and United States.  This statement he makes in his introduction leads me to ask the question- why would we value the term or idea of the American Dream over three things that make our country what it is?
     I think that one reason the American Dream appeals to us more than democracy, Constitution, or United States is the fact that the American Dream is somewhat mysterious and not a concrete fact.  I like what Cullen says later in the introduction, "The American Dream would have no drama or mystique if it were a self-evident falsehood or a scientifically demonstrable principle."  We are allured to it because no one is quite sure that it is attainable.  This is so unlike the Constitution, which firmly lays out the framework of our country, or democracy, which we already understand and experience every day.  I think we are attracted to the American Dream because it applies directly to us right now.  This also goes along with some of the adjectives we used to describe Americans on the first day of class: individualistic, materialistic, driven.  Oftentimes, materialistic things are a huge part of the American Dream, such as nice houses and cars, and that also compels us far more than say, the Constitution does.  The American Dream is also very compelling in its nature of being individualistic- each of us wants to be the best we can be and achieve the greatest things we can achieve.
     I think it is important not to forget the three terms Cullen mentions because without them, the American Dream would be absolutely impossible to attain.  T.T. Williams even mentions one of the terms Cullen does when she points out what we could lose if we accept things the way they are- "Everything. Everything we value, cherish, and love. Democracy."  I think we forget the basics sometimes when we are striving to reach our goals and live our version of the American Dream, which again, would not be attainable without those basic principles.

Reference: The American Dream by Jim Cullen