English Grammar & Composition I
Dr. John Harris
ENGL 1301GATE
Fall 2012
Office: BUS 207a
h: 903-566-4985
w: 903-565-5701
email: jharris@uttyler.edu
Office Hours: MWF: 9-10,
11-12; TTh: 8:30-9:30
Required Texts/Materials
Dreaming in Chinese, Deborah Fallows.
The Macintosh iPad (II).
Objectives
This course is designed to teach you the rudiments of writing as critical thinking The Greek
word kritein means “to judge”—and judgment requires a number of intellectual processes, such
as amassing evidence, assessing its validity, examining the logical implications of said evidence,
drawing a conclusion, and even expressing (and justifying) an opinion about whether that
conclusion is desirable or disturbing in accord with a specific value system. Writing at this level
is equivalent to mature and profound thinking. Our objective is thus not to produce X number of
pages, but to achieve a high quality of writing (i.e., of thought) within however many pages
emerge.
Good grammar is not an objective in itself, but of course it must be an ancillary objective to
clear and logical expression. Expressions whose intent is garbled by poor usage necessarily fail
to communicate thoughts to others.
Another secondary objective is the acquisition of a proficiency in using sources to build one’s
case. A component of critical thinking, as just mentioned, is to gather and weigh evidence. For
college-level writers, this means learning how to find and present reliable information.
Rationale
The “guts” of a good essay cannot be isolated in bottles like the results of an autopsy—not if we
hope for the essay to spring to life at the end of the process. Every essay is a complex assembly
whose pieces must always be considered interrelated. Terms require definition; definitions beg
for examples; some examples are better than others, eliciting a comparison and contrast of their
illustrative matter; comparing and contrasting will likely raise questions about cause and effect.
While some essays, to be sure, do nothing but describe a scene or relate a personal experience,
these papers do not thereby achieve a very deep level of critical analysis.
Good writing must also be undergirded by “good reading”—that is, by the reading of material
that invites thought in one way or another. One may vehemently disagree with Machiavelli or
Nietzsche or Karl Marx, but one will be brought by that disagreement to a profound statement of
one’s own beliefs. Writing by celebrities or professional wags who stir smirks but cannot tackle
an idea head-on wastes the time of the student charged with producing a worthy essay. Verbal
discussion, likewise, contributes to written discussion. The ancient Greeks and Romans
originally wrote the rhetorical handbooks from which the contemporary composition text has
gleaned many of its terms in order to prime young men for speaking in the forum, law court, or
senate house. Writing is a projection of speech—a better-digested version of ideas that tend to
spring to the tongue before they are transmitted by the fingers.
Closely connected to the importance of reading is the importance of the subject read about
(or discussed). All topics are not equal, any more than are all consumer products. Whether or not
one should get a tattoo simply does not matter as much as whether societies should use pesticides
if the alternative is mass starvation. The latter topic demands that the writer thoroughly examine
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his or her beliefs about the meaning of life, the value of human life, the role of technology, and so
forth; the former topic tends to draw from the student cliché comments about self-expression,
success on the job market, and the like. The depth of thought required by the two cannot be
compared.
I have therefore designed this course to fulfill what I see as three essential objectives of good
basic writing: the harmonious combination of several registers of thought into a strong argument,
the constant support of this process with provocative readings and discussions, and the dedication
of all varieties of thinking to a range of issues truly worth thinking about.
Required Work/Grading
Class Participation (30%): This part of the grade consists largely of quizzes and discussion of
reading material. For reasons explained above under “Rationale,” I consider reading to be an
integral part of writing and will therefore monitor the degree of seriousness and thoroughness you
bring to the assigned works.
Of course, I also welcome verbal participation of a productive sort. Class discussions are
harder to assign a grade value, but I can generally tell when a student is speaking with
thoughtfulness informed by a knowledge of assigned matter. A disappointing quiz average could
be resuscitated dramatically by responsible verbal participation.
We will be doing a certain amount of writing in class. Such writing is unannounced and
sometimes a last-minute decision on my part: I may call for you to do it, for instance, when our
discussions seem to be flagging so as to force more ideas out of you. I may grade these exercises
as I would a quiz, or I may give extra credit to those who perform well on them.
Implicit in all this is the importance of class attendance. You cannot score any points at all on
a quiz or acquire any “brownie points” at all for discussing if you not physically present. You
will have deprived yourself of whatever suggestions or directions I may offer for the composition
of a forthcoming essay when you skip a class. Frequent attendance is thus not a sufficient
condition for achieving an A on this portion of your grade; but it is a necessary one, and it will
also affect your broader grade less directly.
If all of that isn’t enough to persuade you to come to class, be warned that you will not pass
this course if you have more than twelve absences: in effect, a month’s worth of missed
sessions. This degree of generosity is intended to cover illnesses, family emergencies, flat tires,
and all the rest (though athletes are excused for scheduled events). Use your freedom wisely.
Composition of Essays (70%: 15% first two, 20% second two): In a composition class,
composed essays are naturally the primary matter to be evaluated. I will ask you to write four
essays. All of the essays require multiple strategies: none is a simple “definition” essay or
“compare/contrast” essay. The final draft of each essay will also be evaluated for grammar—but
only the final draft. I will emphasize quality of thought throughout the semester. (Naturally, if
your writing at any point is so poor that I cannot follow your argument, there’s a price to pay—
and good grammar contributes to clarity. So don’t lapse into sloppiness at any stage!)
I have devised four writing assignments which will demand that you use several of the basic
“essay types” in preparing each paper: definition, exemplification, personal anecdote, research,
causation, logical analysis, and so forth. I have suggested some of the strategies that seem most
appropriate for each essay in the introductory sections below. This file will essentially be our
textbook. It comprises readings and (as just noted) recommendations for writing. No discussion
of grammar is undertaken in the file, however, since I believe we can cover the necessary points
very effectively through our own class discussions and (especially in the case of unique personal
needs) Internet support. Frankly, I have never known students to pay much attention to grammar
manuals, and the Net has now matured to a stage where specific questions can be answered
accurately and instantly.
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You will have an opportunity in every essay to offer and defend your own judgments. My
objective is that you should think deeply about a related range of issues and then express your
reflections clearly—not that you should adopt any particular point of view. I will not always
bother to conceal my own opinions about matters during class discussions; but neither will I
penalize anyone in the least for disagreeing with me. Indeed, I often argue a position which is not
my own simply to elicit further responses; and in some cases, my personal position may even be
in a state of flux.
In any event, remember that you must explain your position when you write. Do not expect
me to honor your work with a high grade just because you state what you believe without any
evidence or reasoning to support it.
This semester we shall be analyzing culture, with specific reference to the so-called Multicultural
Movement, whose aim is to bring many cultures harmoniously together. The following essay
assignments are explained with far greater elaboration in the PDF text.
Essay One: What is culture? The word is bandied about with extreme carelessness bordering,
sometimes, on absurdity. Some students think that if two people create their own
incomprehensible dialect and agree to wear the same odd clothes, they have a culture. Must a
culture have age and tradition? Must it include language or religion? Does it ever include or
imply a form of government?
This is a definition essay, but it will include examples, logical analysis, and other strategies.
Second Essay: How do advanced technology, the kind of economy required to support it, and
related forces of modernity operate in relation to culture? Though this topic is not confined to
the United States, our nation has felt the strains involved here far more than any other, at least up
to the present moment. The high-tech lifestyle, by definition, is one of constant change in quest
of “improvement” or “progress,” and a free market is clearly best suited to fuel the search for new
ways. Such an ever-shifting environment seems as though it would be invincibly hostile to the
settling influences of culture. How can two such different approaches to living coexist? Yet how
could technology ever have existed without culture?
This essay evaluates complex chains of action and reaction: it is commonly called a causeand-effect type of essay. Again, other strategies will also prove relevant (such as specific
examples).
Essay Three: What is the relationship between culture, morality, and politics? The current
trend is to speak of cultures as if they were necessarily good, and to deplore any social or political
force that jeopardizes a specific culture’s survival. Yet some cultures have encouraged human
sacrifice or slavery in the past, and, in any case, if people are conditioned by their culture to act as
they do, can they fairly be called either good or bad? Perhaps the world would be a better place
and its people more liberated to make personal choices without the influence of brainwashing if
cultures simply vanished from our midst. If we were to encourage culture’s disappearance—or to
favor the growth of a “good” culture—we would be implementing a moral decision through
political means. Is this coherent? Can cultures be improved by making new rules deliberately?
This is an evaluative essay—as are they all, but this one more than most. In fact, you will
probably be unable to prop yourself up effectively on research in this assignment, since your
personal convictions will necessarily come into prominent play.
Essay Four: What are we ultimately to make of the politically loaded term “multiculturalism”?
Can disparate forces from distinct cultures really be harmonized? Grade schools, high schools,
and colleges now regularly celebrate “multiculturalism” or “diversity” with a kind of fervor that
used to be reserved for national or religious holidays. Why? Is the objective of such occasions
4
simply to counsel a vague, sweeping tolerance, or can vibrant cultures actually be kept alive side
by side? By now you will probably have discovered that, at least for many people, the definition
of culture appears to preclude its healthy survival when it is forcibly mingled with other
cultures. To raise questions about the deliberate mingling applauded by “multicultural thinking”
therefore seems entirely fair. Does such thinking work, and can it work?
This final essay belongs to the species called a position paper or essay. Fights get started
sometimes when people stake out positions, so present yours as clearly and reasonably as you
can. To me, the reasoning behind the position is much more important than the declared stand.
Essays will be composed in three graded phases:
 outline (10%)—Most of us hate outlines, but they have their uses. In fact, I never feel
that I get enough time to review outlines properly with their authors—so I’m having
students present their outlines orally to the whole class. A further purpose of this
exercise is to develop your speaking skills, which (I am utterly convinced) are closely
related to writing skills. What I shall look for in both written outline and oral
presentation (which need not follow the outline word for word) is a clear thesis, several
major points in support of that thesis, and an ordering of the points which indicates
transition (i.e., how you anticipate getting from one point to the next). Don’t create
needless anxiety for yourself: the whole effort is a mere 10% of the total essay grade. If
you submit an outline but do not present it orally for some reason, you can receive no
more than half of these point (5%).
 rough draft (40%)—I will ordinarily not make any mark whatever relating to grammar
or spelling, nor will I deduct for such errors at this stage. I look closely, instead, at how
well the points and transitions left largely implicit in the outline have been executed. Are
they clear or vague? Are they profound or shallow? Do they need further illustration?
 final draft (50%)—Here I do indeed grade spelling, and also grammar to the extent that
I have designated certain faults in class as needing to be avoided. I also expect to see
whatever clarifications or improvements I have requested on the rough draft to be
inserted thoughtfully.
I have few requirements regarding how any phase of any essay should be written or
printed. You may even handwrite outlines and rough drafts, if you do so neatly. I do require that
all final drafts must be typed and printed out for submission or sent via email to me in a formatted
file.
The final draft will usually be expected to contain formal citations from authorities on the
subject under consideration. These authorities may be drawn from among the authors of our class
readings, but you are by no means restricted to using the textbook alone as your source. We will
discuss the proper manner of citing the work of others in our own writing when the time comes.
Schedule of Readings and Assignments
Except for days when we discuss grammatical issues, the PDF posted on Blackboard will contain
everything you need to read in a form easily accessible through your iPod. The single exception
is Deborah Fallows’ Dreaming in Chinese, which you should already have read if you are an
entering freshman. Assignments are due for (i.e., should have been read by) the day when
they are listed. Pages given are those were readings start in pdf.
August
21:
Introduction to course.
23:
Read “Culture: Why We Must Study It” (13), “Defining Culture” (20), and pp. 51-60 &
77-100 (chapters 4, 6, & 7) of Dreaming in Chinese.
5
28:
(28).
30:
Read excerpt from Xenophon’s Anabasis (24) and excerpt from the Germania of Tacitus
Read Synge’s Riders to the Sea.
September
4:
Read excerpt from Fallaci’s Rage and the Pride (34) and Moseby’s short story, “Supreme
Anomaly”(38).
6:
Preparation for First Essay: in-class discussion of outlining.
11:
Oral presentation of outline for First Essay (submit by email before 6 p.m.).
13:
Submit rough draft of First Essay. In-class discussion of grammar: sentence fragments,
comma splices, fused sentences, run-ons.
18:
Rough drafts returned and discussed; continued discussion of grammar.
20:
Submit final draft of First Essay. Post-writing discussion and new topic introduced:
“Technology, Economics, and Culture.”
25:
Read Postman’s “Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change” (57) and
excerpt from Ortega y Gasset’s Revolt of the Masses (63).
27:
Read Harris’s “Freedom Grows on Trees” (71).
October
2:
Read Berry’s “Pleasures of Eating” (84). Preparation for Second Essay: in-class
discussion of outlining.
4:
Oral presentation of outline for Second Essay (submit by email before 6 p.m.).
9:
Submit rough draft of Second Essay. In-class discussion of grammar: case, agreement,
apostrophes.
11:
Rough drafts returned and discussed; continued discussion of grammar.
16:
Submit final draft of Second Essay. Post-writing discussion and new topic introduced:
“Engineering Culture to Improve Humanity.”
18:
Read excerpt from Plato’s Republic (95).
22:
Read excerpt from More’s Utopia (107) and Toqueville’s Democracy in America (112).
24:
Read Judith Brown’s “Ernst Bloch and the Utopian Imagination” (123). Last day to
drop a class.
29:
Oral presentation of outline for Third Essay (submit by email before 6 p.m.).
31:
Submit rough draft of Third Essay. In-class discussion of grammar: use of commas,
colons, semicolons.
November
5:
Rough drafts returned and discussed; continued discussion of grammar.
7:
Submit final draft of Third Essay. Post-writing discussion and new topic introduced:
“Evaluating the Multicultural Movement.”
12:
Read pp. 63-74 & 103-142 (chapters 5, 8, 9, & 10) of Dreaming in Chinese.
14:
Read Steele’s “Age of White Guilt and the Disappearance of the Black Individual” (133).
19:
Read “Interview with Gloria Anzaldua” (145) and excerpt from Mansur’s Delectable Lie
(148).
21-24: T H A N K S G I V I N G
27:
Read “Reaction to Merkel and Cameron’s Declaration That Multiculturalism Has Failed”
(151—read everything remaining in pdf from here).
29:
Oral presentation of outline for Fourth Essay (submit by email before 6 p.m.).
December
4:
Submit rough draft of Fourth Essay. In-class discussion of grammar: like/as, vague
references.
6
6:
Rough drafts returned and discussed; continued discussion of grammar.
13:
Submit final draft of Fourth Essay by noon—at my office, at Language & Lit Office
(BUS 236), or electronically. You may of course submit this draft at any time before the
deadline.
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Students Rights and Responsibilities
To know and understand the policies that affect your rights and responsibilities as a student at UT Tyler,
please follow this link: http://www2.uttyler.edu/wellness/rightsresponsibilities.php
Grade Replacement/Forgiveness and Census Date Policies
Students repeating a course for grade forgiveness (grade replacement) must file a Grade Replacement
Contract with the Enrollment Services Center (ADM 230) on or before the Census Date of the semester in
which the course will be repeated. Grade Replacement Contracts are available in the Enrollment Services
Center or at http://www.uttyler.edu/registrar. Each semester’s Census Date can be found on the Contract
itself, on the Academic Calendar, or in the information pamphlets published each semester by the Office of
the Registrar.
Failure to file a Grade Replacement Contract will result in both the original and repeated grade being used to
calculate your overall grade point average. Undergraduates are eligible to exercise grade replacement for
only three course repeats during their career at UT Tyler; graduates are eligible for two grade replacements.
Full policy details are printed on each Grade Replacement Contract.
The Census Date is the deadline for many forms and enrollment actions that students need to be aware of.
These include:
approvals for taking courses as Audit, Pass/Fail or Credit/No Credit.
ere is no refund for these after the Census Date)
-enrolled in classes after being dropped for non-payment
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State-Mandated Course Drop Policy
Texas law prohibits a student who began college for the first time in Fall 2007 or thereafter from dropping
more than six courses during their entire undergraduate career. This includes courses dropped at another 2year or 4-year Texas public college or university. For purposes of this rule, a dropped course is any course
that is dropped after the census date (See Academic Calendar for the specific date).
Exceptions to the 6-drop rule may be found in the catalog. Petitions for exemptions must be submitted to the
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Please contact the Enrollment Services Center if you have any questions.
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Students who anticipate being absent from class due to a religious observance are requested to inform the
instructor of such absences by the second class meeting of the semester.
Student Absence for University-Sponsored Events and Activities
If you intend to be absent for a university-sponsored event or activity, you (or the event sponsor) must notify
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It is the policy of The University of Texas at Tyler to protect the confidential nature of social security
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Everyone is required to exit the building when a fire alarm goes off. Follow your instructor’s directions
regarding the appropriate exit. If you require assistance during an evacuation, inform your instructor in the first
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Prevention Services.
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Rationale for This Course: Please Read
Freshman Composition classes have conventionally been built upon the following
assumptions:
1) The good essay is a clock-like machine of well-functioning wheels and cogs assembled in
just the right pattern to accomplish a specific job. Through a kind of reverse
engineering, the composition specialist breaks the writing process down into these
component parts. The course therefore consists largely of learning how to generate
each part successfully. Typical assignments may involve writing a descriptive essay, a
definition essay, a cause-and-effect essay, and so forth.
2) Writing, for all practical purposes, is an independent skill. Naturally, anyone who knows
how to write also and necessarily knows how to read—but the two are not integrally
bonded, any more than intelligent discussion is essential to the writing process. A
student need not ever have read a single book to become a good writer (other than the
one that teaches the fundamentals of good writing).
3) The subject matter addressed by the essay is irrelevant. Students may hone their
writing skills equally well by composing a piece about congested campus parking lots,
about fast-food restaurants, or about downloading pirated music. Writing is all about
technique. A successful advertising agency doesn’t interest itself in the actual quality of
its customers’ products: neither does an accomplished writer require a genuinely
important topic to manufacture pages of smooth prose.
I am convinced that all of these assumptions are wrong. The “guts” of a good essay may not
be isolated in bottles like the results of an autopsy—not if we hope for the essay to spring to life
at the end of the process. Every essay is a complex assembly whose pieces must always be
considered interrelated. Terms require definition; definitions beg for examples; some examples
are better than others, eliciting a comparison and contrast of their illustrative matter;
comparing and contrasting will likely raise questions about cause and effect. While an essay
may certainly do nothing but describe a scene or relate a personal experience, it will not thereby
achieve a very deep level of critical analysis.
Good writing must also be undergirded by “good reading”—that is, by the reading of
material that invites thought in one way or another. One may vehemently disagree with
Machiavelli or Nietsche or Karl Marx, but one will be brought by that disagreement to a
profound statement of one’s own beliefs. Writing by celebrities or professional wags who stir
smirks but cannot tackle an idea head-on wastes the time of the student charged with
producing a worthy essay. Verbal discussion, likewise, contributes to written discussion. The
ancient Greeks and Romans originally wrote the rhetorical handbooks from which the
contemporary composition text has gleaned many of its terms in order to prime young men for
speaking in the forum, law court, or senate house. Writing is a projection of speech—a betterdigested version of ideas that tend to spring to the tongue before they are transmitted by the
fingers.
Closely connected to the importance of reading is the importance of the matter read (or
discussed). All topics are not equal, any more than are all consumer products. Whether or not
one should get a tattoo simply does not matter as much as whether societies should use
pesticides if the alternative is mass starvation. The latter topic demands that the writer
thoroughly examine his or her beliefs about the meaning of life, the value of human life, the role
of technology, and so forth; the former topic draws cliché comments about self-expression,
9
success on the job market, and the like. The depth of thought required by the two cannot be
compared.
I have therefore designed this course to fulfill what I see as three essential objectives of
good basic writing: the harmonious combination of several registers of thought into a strong
argument, the constant support of this process with provocative readings and discussions, and
the dedication of all varieties of thinking to a range of issues truly worth thinking about.
Below is a single example of the many Internet discussions readily accessible about varieties
of essay. This one appears to me better than most—but the list offered is also rather shorter
than usual. Some sites and handbooks list dozens of essay types: no exact number is
determinable either by research or by logic. I encourage you to use whatever online or print
sources you may find useful. My main emphasis, once again, will be that every essay should
employ thinking of several different kinds.
Different Varieties of Essay, Different Kinds of Writing (from
http://www.rlf.org.uk/fellowshipscheme/writing/whatisanessay/different_varietie
s.cfm)
There’s More To It Than Quoting Experts. Different essays are designed to do different things. Some
essays are designed to find out what you’ve learned about a particular aspect of your course. Some are
designed to find out what you’ve learned at a particular stage of your course. Others are designed to see
how well you understand and can apply key concepts in your subject. Different varieties of essay will
require different types of writing and sometimes a single essay will require more than one type of writing.
Here’s a guide to some of the most common sorts of writing and ways of organizing essay material.
Analytical Writing, or, What Makes Something What It Is. This type of writing makes a detailed
examination of something in order to understand its nature and its essential features. In an English
Literature essay about Thomas Hardy’s poetry, it isn’t good enough to say ‘The Darkling Thrush’ is a
powerful poem. You need to say how and why the poem is powerful by looking at its component parts –
e.g. adjectives, images, rhymes – and saying how they work individually and how they work together to
achieve particular effects. In a management essay asking you to analyse the relevance of a particular theory
to modern organizations, you would need to outline the essential features of the theory and relate them to
organizational examples.
Chronological Writing, or, What Happened And When. This type of writing relates a sequence of
events. An obvious place this is used is in history essays but you would also use it in an English Literature
essay if you need to say briefly what happens in Oliver Twist or King Lear. To cite to an example discussed
elsewhere in this resource, you would also use it in a psychology essay that asked you to describe the
development of scientific paradigms.
Compare And Contrast Writing, or, How Two Things Are Similar And Dissimilar. This type of
writing examines two things and the similarities and differences between them. It is a very common type of
writing e.g. ‘Compare the treatment of love and power in two of the Shakespeare plays studied this
semester’. Or to use an example closer to home: ‘Compare how essay writing skills are taught to new
students arriving at universities in the UK and the USA’. This type of writing can involve several of the
other types of writing discussed in this section: chronological, descriptive, analytical etc.
Descriptive Writing, or, What Something Is Like. This type of writing gives a picture of the main
characteristics of something. For example, ‘How are essay writing skills taught to new students arriving at
universities?’ This seems like a very straightforward type of writing. However, you should remember that
there may be more than one view or description of a subject; and that saying what something is leads
inevitably to saying how and why it is i.e. to analytical writing.
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Evaluative Writing, or, How And Why Something Is Important. This type of writing makes a
judgement about something. For example: ‘Evaluate the effectiveness of how essay writing skills are taught
to new students arriving at universities.’ However, in contrast to other sorts of judgement – ‘That meal was
fantastic’ or ‘Terminator 3 was rubbish’ – you have to say why and back up your judgement with evidence.
Evaluative writing can involve several of the other types of writing in this section. For example, you would
probably want to compare different ways of teaching essay writing skills and say which worked best.
Summary Writing, or, The Key Features Of Something. This type of writing gives a brief account of the
important features of something. For example, ‘Describe the important features of how essay writing skills
are taught to new students arriving at universities.’ You will probably do this sort of writing at least once in
every essay you write because university essays are usually designed to assess and test your understanding
of a particular topic, writer or concept. Some subjects, such as psychology, will ask students to produce
short seminar reports about a particular area of study. Introductions and conclusions to essays are types of
summary.
To Sum Up: There are distinct varieties of essay that require different types of writing. You can often spot
which type of writing you are being asked to do from the way the essay title is phrased. However,
remember that a well-written, effective essay will probably use several of these different types of writing.
For example, you have to say what something is like – descriptive writing – before you can say whether or
not it’s important or valuable – evaluative writing.
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Contents of This File
Culture: Why We Must Study It
13
Defining Culture With Reason and Rigor
20
What are some examples of culture—ancient, modern, revived, or imagined?
What do confrontations between groups tell us about cultural boundaries?
What generalities can we synthesize from several case-studies?
Selections from Dreaming in Chinese
Deborah Fallows
Excerpt from the Anabasis of Xenophon 24
Excerpt from the Germania of Tacitus 28
Riders to the Sea (one-act play), John Millington Synge 36
Excerpt from The Rage and The Pride 43
Oriana Fallaci
“Supreme Anomaly” (short story) 47
J. S. Moseby
Assessing the Cultural Toxicity of Cultural
Success: Economics and Technology 52
Technology and wealth grow from cultural development—but do they not
also undermine cultural tradition? Do they pose risks only at certain
evolutionary stages? Can timeless customs be protected from advanced
technology and its dynamic markets?
“Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change” (speech) 57
Neil Postman
Excerpts from The Revolt of the Masses 63
José Ortega y Gassett
“Freedom Grows on Trees: A Eudemonist Economics” 71
John R. Harris
12
“The Pleasures of Eating” 84
Wendell Berry
Engineering Culture to “Improve” Human Beings
89
Is culture capable of enhancing human good—or human evil? If so, under
what conditions is it good, and how may these be deliberately maximized?
What is goodness?
Excerpt from the Republic of Plato 95
Excerpt from the Utopia of Thomas More 107
Excerpt from Democracy in America 112
Alexis de Toqueville
“Ernst Bloch and the Utopian Imagination” 123
Judith Brown
Evaluating Hybrid Cultures of Different
Ethnicities, Races, Languages, Etc. 128
Is a harmonious fusion of diverse cultural elements good? Is it possible? To
what extent is the Multicultural Movement responding to fact, to moral
vision, or to political agenda?
Selections from Dreaming in Chinese
Deborah Fallows
“The Age of White Guilt & the Disappearance of the Black Individual” 133
Shelby Steele
From an Interview with Gloria Anzaldua (1942-2004) 145
Excerpt from Delectable Lie: A Liberal Repudiation of Multiculturalism 148
Salim Mansur
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron’s
Declaration That Multiculturalism Has Failed 151
13
Culture: Why We Must
Study It
Human beings are social animals. We are born and we die one by one, of course: we are
not a great hive of insects or a great swarm of lemmings. Most of the emotions we register
between birth and death also remain private, single affairs; even if we can communicate their
content to others, we cannot really express their degree of intensity to more than a few
intimates. Still, these emotions themselves probably revolve around our dealings with others.
Trying to imagine any meaningful experience that has utterly no point of contact whatever with
other people is practically impossible. Were one to hike alone through a beautiful valley, the
spiritual feeling of transcendence and cosmic oneness that philosophers once called “the
sublime” might fill one’s figurative heart. Yet if those philosophers were right, sublimity has
major implications upon one’s thinking about politics, moral duty, metaphysics, and other topics
that turn quickly and permanently into the wide world of sentient beings. Were one to
compose a piece of music in a quiet, isolated space, one would perhaps have a similar sense of
merging with the human family, for a love of music is something that virtually all human beings
share. If anything, experiences of this sort are even more social than a stroll through a crowded
shopping mall. The mall may only have five thousand people within its confines, whereas inner
meditation or inspiration can unite the individual with the entirety of humanity—even with
those no longer living and those yet unborn.
Yet if we take a step down from our philosophical vision into the world of daily living, we
quickly notice that people separate into groups. They prefer to be among those who speak their
language. To a lesser degree, they tend to cling to others who share their taste in food, clothing,
amusements, and so on. Religion may significantly influence the company they keep, especially
if its teachings are to them the foundation of their ethical values. Sometimes race is a dividing
factor. Even the experiences mentioned above as uniting the entire human family turn out,
almost inevitably, to have specific codes more appealing to one group than another. A person
who grew up on a vast plain might find a valley anything but beautiful to hike through: it might
induce an oppressive sense of claustrophobia. We need hardly discuss the different forms that
music and the other arts assume. If all of us love some kind of music, most of us sincerely detest
certain kinds, as well!
Most of these factors are culturally conditioned. In other words, the traditions of the
group into which we were born and within which we were raised deeply affected the
development of our likes and dislikes. Language, food, clothing, music, art… all of these
distinctly human phenomena observe vast differences around the world which are rooted in the
social environment of our upbringing: they are cultural categories. Race should not be on the
list, properly speaking, for it results from a different kind of conditioning: biological. We do not
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learn our race—we simply accept it as Mother Nature gave it to us, just as we do our height and
eye color (characteristics related to racial heritage, of course).
Some people in this complex world, however, seem to insist that race belongs among
culture’s components. More often than not, these societies are what we may call tribal: they
value human beings based upon their ancestry—upon what clan they are affiliated with.
Though most of us would be impatient with such a scale of rating human beings (since a higher
or a lower grade is awarded for reasons wholly unrelated to the individual’s gifts, virtues,
conduct, etc.), we cannot deny that we share our planet with some who would die to defend
this kind of notion.
Religion can be similarly divisive. Western culture embraces the view that an
individual’s relation to what he or she regards as divine must be very personal—that no god
would be pleased by the service of worshipers who pray this way and fast at that time only
because their great-grandfathers did things so. We are convinced that faith can only have
meaning if the person involved freely chooses it. Yet in some parts of the world, religion is like
race: one is simply born into it, and one must accept its limitations and strictures because of
that arbitrary fact. This is cultural conditioning at its most rigid.
It should be evident by now that automatically considering culture a good thing or a bad
thing would not be very thoughtful. All we have established is that culture has been shaping
human societies since their origin. We have not even proved that it must continue to do so, for
the possibility exists that human groups may one day be ordered strictly on “scientific”
principles (whatever that means) owing nothing to inherited prejudice. In fact, pushing this
discussion much farther would require a clearer definition of just what a culture is—which is
precisely the topic of our first major essay.
For now, you would do well just to recognize the complexity involved in the study of
culture—particularly since so many forces and interests around us insist on the matter’s
simplicity. For as obvious as it should be that culture in abstract does not possess either a good
or a bad “default value,” leaders and intellectuals—in North America and around the world—
routinely assume that it is self-evidently one or the other. Sometimes the same interests accept
culture as a natural good in one set of calculations and then reverse the axiom in other
calculations. If the preservation of culture is good, for instance, then culture itself must be
good; the so-called Multicultural or Diversity Movement (which has swept up most college
campuses in its enthusiasm) urges us to preserve and honor all the various cultures in our midst.
Yet no practice is more corrosive to culture than enforced close contact with other cultures over
prolonged periods. Why would you cling faithfully to one manner of dress or diet or worship
when a dozen other manners are on display, routinely and “non-judgmentally,” around you? In
this way does multiculturalism perversely advance the cause of cultural annihilation!
This incoherent position is primarily occupied by figures on the political Left. The
ensuing three pages reproduce three panels of a promotional brochure that I received last
summer from my former high school. If you read the text of the scans carefully, you may be
able to spot the names (in order of appearance) of Hillary Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Maya Angelou,
and Kofi Annan: each one a high-profile exponent of progressive causes.
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16
17
18
Yet the classical Marxist position, as you may know, holds—reasonably enough—that culture is
a noxious retardant of progress. (See the essay about Ernst Bloch later in this collection.) Like
nationalism, it inhibits people from recognizing the primacy of class in determining their
interests. Here, then, are two views of culture at the same end of the ideological spectrum that
see it in diametrically opposed ways. To these two might be added the kind of scientific
optimism briefly mentioned above, which less clearly belongs to the Left in exclusive fashion but
certainly subscribes to a dizzying faith in sudden and major transformation. Our very bodies, in
this view, may be rendered virtually immortal one day soon through fusion with robotic
technology. Why should our collective ambition as human beings be held in check by the taboos
of our primitive past? Of course, this position shares Marxism’s contempt of culture as a
nuisance to progress.
Human beings are paradoxical creatures, and such apparent (or real) contradictions in
their behavior typify their efforts—our efforts—to make sense of reality. One might even
observe, in pursuit of an especially stunning shock, that the Christian faith tends to agree with
Marxism on this point, if on no other: that cultural programming may screen people from a
proper evaluation of their own and others’ circumstances. Marx viewed religion as “the opiate
of the masses,” a strong dose of sedatives (as it were) that renders populations easier to exploit.
Nevertheless, a fundamental tenet of Christianity is that the individual person’s worth must not
be lost in a mind-numbing haze of sweeping assumptions. Rather, a disposition of the heart
toward a charitable, forgiving habit of living is supposed to animate the believer. When culture,
however, casts shadows of suspicion upon “outsiders” because they eat odd food or wear
strange clothing, it works against the principle that every soul is precious.
Naturally, different degrees of emphasis upon formal practice and outward adherence
to a prescribed lifestyle (upon cultural elements, in other words) exist across the
denominational spectrum of this faith. Certainly few Christians would rear their children to
tolerate any and every custom. What about human sacrifice, for instance? Yet the general
feeling among professional analysts and pundits in America is that religiously devout people
occupy the political Right, in stark opposition to the Left. So is it wrong to say that an American
Christian is a cultural traditionalist, or are Christians contradicting themselves by clinging to
cultural conservatism and yet professing a faith that ignores people’s backgrounds?
And what of the explicitly political Right in our society? One finds little more evidence
of coherence there than at the other polarity. The word “conservative” strongly implies that
holding on to traditions is a benefit to humanity. Yet in economic matters, exponents of Rightwing views tend to promote the unshackling of the marketplace from any sort of restriction; and
when producers are free to market whatever they want however they want, traditional values
crumble quickly under an onslaught of titillating advertisements. (Pornography must surely be
the preeminent example of something that always sells well yet deeply corrodes the nuclear
family and the principle of self-restraint underlying all civilized moral codes.) The Right also
generally champions the preservation of native mainstream ethnic communities from
“contamination” by alien groups (as opposed to the Left’s implied position that only minority
ethnic groups are entitled to guard their language and customs). Not only does the creation of
wealth through free enterprise eventually infuse the mainstream with outside influences,
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however: in this century, a standard plank of the conservative platform has been the export of
Western values to non-Western (particularly Muslim) nations. A proverb has it that what’s good
for the goose is good for the gander. Why, then, should a society that asserts the right to secure
its borders simultaneously pursue a policy of transforming cultures more agrarian and tribal
than its own into throbbing dens of malls, McDonalds, and minivans? When American tanks
rolled into Baghdad during our second and final war on Saddam Hussein, one Iraqi bystander
cheered, “Hooray, Americans! Women, whiskey, and Internet!” One must wonder how a
conservative stance on cultural issues manages to elicit such responses.
My purpose is to whet your appetite for this semester’s special theme, not to provoke
you with affronts to your political, religious, or other views. Whatever your convictions, you
should be aware that our society—from side to side of virtually any spectrum you might care to
choose—has not thought deeply about such major questions as culture. Instead, we have
wrapped ourselves in a quilt-work of positions which combine to make a gaudy, contradictory
whole. Sometimes those who preach a certain view to us understand full well its logical
absurdity. They have hidden objectives that they dare not reveal, and they want to sell us on a
superficial kind of tolerance that will allow them to proceed unmolested and unobserved. More
often, no doubt, our leaders and teachers have themselves quite honestly been snared in the
complexities of the cultural debate. Garman Chancellor Angela Merkel, for example, delivered a
speech in 2011 announcing the failure of her nation’s grand multicultural experiment—a public
admission which she would hardly have uttered if she had been consulting only her political
advantage. (Yet the two reports of the speech’s content included in this file present her aboutface precisely as a political maneuver.)
At least one fact cannot be questioned: the various cultures of the world must continue
to feel each other’s presence more and more as our communications technology renders the
planet smaller and smaller. Becoming Amish or fleeing to a tribe of Laplanders is not a realistic
option for most of us. If culture is indeed a human good, then we must set about preserving it
more thoughtfully than we have done so far. If culture instead obstructs human beings from
fulfilling their potential, then we should identify and neutralize its harmful influences in a
systematic way rather than unleashing a tsunami of leveling forces at once all across the world.
If some cultures benefit mankind but some are a plague, then we must enunciate a ground of
distinction between the two types. Furthermore, whatever steps may be taken toward any of
these objectives will and must belong to younger feet than my generation’s. You, the
generation more immersed in advanced technology than any in history, possess the kind of
comfort with that technology which will allow you to manipulate it readily. Yet if you remain
oblivious to all the directions in which you might take it—if you do no more than blindly follow it
where slick marketers and unscrupulous social engineers wish to lead you—then the human
race’s last chance to preserve the best elements of the past may be lost forever (or for an
indefinite number of centuries).
You are in a liberal-arts college, as opposed to a technical school, that you may begin to
think about such questions. This class is one of your first opportunities.
20
Defining Culture With
Reason and Rigor
What are some examples of culture—ancient, modern, revived,
or imagined? What do confrontations between groups tell us
about cultural boundaries? What generalities can we synthesize
from several case-studies?
In this beginning unit, we naturally undertake the discussion of culture by defining what
it is. Do NOT insert a dictionary definition—in the present essay or any other—and proceed
with your analysis with this as its foundation. Dictionaries are not unimpeachable sources. You
may use such a definition as a reference point to which you will respond critically, but its terms
must always be examined for validity.
“Culture” derives from the future participle of the Latin verb colo, colere: “I cultivate.”
Hence its literal meaning is “intending to cultivate”; and if we extend that meaning just a bit, we
arrive at the idea of deliberately forming the purpose of growing a certain crop well and
abundantly in certain soil. In fact, this is not at all a weak commentary on some aspects of
culture. Those who practice it intend for their progeny to grow up with certain habits and
beliefs viewed as leading to a better life. We glimpse herein the key notions that culture is
passed along from generation to generation, and that it willingly creates prejudice so that an
ignorant and impressionable youth will not have to learn “the hard way” (i.e., through personal
experience) about life’s truths.
The definition beginning to emerge here is already taking several points for granted, of
course (e.g., can a person really live a rewarding life who has not examined its assumptions for
him- or herself?). Your discussion of precisely what culture means should put such points under
the magnifying glass. It may also juxtapose rival definitions: the word is sufficiently complex
that people may disagree about what constitutes a culture. (One semester my students read an
essay written by a “dumpster-diver”: several of the class, much to my surprise, argued that his
manner of living satisfied the criteria of a distinct culture.) Furthermore, you may want to
scrutinize certain communities that do not quite meet the terms of your definition. That is, by
studying examples that fail to rise above the definition’s threshold, you will clarify—both for
your readers and, very probably, for yourself—the fine points of that definition. Naturally,
further examples that successfully fulfill your terms would pose an effective contrast to those
that do not.
Be objective and historically accurate when presenting examples of this kind.
Anthropologist Margaret Mead once stood the Western world on its head when she published
research “proving” that the aboriginal peoples of the South Seas and around Australia had
sexual attitudes often the reverse of everything we think “decent.” The only problem was (as
became apparent later, much to Mead’s embarrassment) that the natives frequently answered
her questions falsely, either through misunderstanding them or in a subtle joke kept to
21
themselves. Let her experience be a cautionary tale! Audiences tend to dismiss every claim that
an author makes who is detected in a single error, especially when crucial conclusions pivot
upon that error.
You may even add light to your discussion by relating briefly an experience of your own.
Some of you have lived outside of mainstream American culture, or perhaps have come to this
culture from another. Some have no doubt traveled in lands where a certain amount of “culture
shock” encountered you. (I could speak, for instance, about my run-in with a gypsy in Western
Ireland years ago: the locals call these mysterious vagrants “tinkers” because they have
historically performed odd jobs like repairing cooking-ware.) Use a vignette from your personal
experience if it helps to elucidate matters. Do not ramble: simply go to the heart of the issue.
(The employment of the first-person “I” is entirely acceptable at such moments, by the way.)
From this brief introduction to the first writing assignment, you can already tell that the
essay expected of you is not a “definition essay” in any narrow textbook sense. The paper just
described might contain most or all of the following kinds of writing:
a) a formal definition
b) a logical analysis of terms emphasizing their coherence (i.e., establishing some kind of
causal flow from one term to another)
c) a series of “positive” examples (i.e., that clearly illustrate the phenomenon)
d) a contrasting series of negative examples (in this case, groups that are NOT cultures)
e) a touch of research to validate the accuracy of historical or practical claims
f) a personal anecdote
A collection of many such endeavors is needed to produce a truly useful definition—one that
stirs deep understanding in the reader. With the ubiquity of Internet access today, a compelling
paper might even include a graphic or two downloaded from an “on the spot” source.
Remember: you are not expected to perform every one of the operations in the list
above—nor should you view the list as precluding you from yet another kind of writing which
has escaped me. The point to seize and hold tight is that a good paper will engage in several
intellectual operations between its overture and its conclusion. Be resourceful: be thorough.
You are explaining a difficult (nowadays, perhaps even a politically charged) word to an
audience of your peers. This audience, that is, contains thoughtful people with a reasonable
degree of education but not really expert on any aspect of the issue. Your task is to fill them in,
fairly and fully. Make them understand that a term they have heard throughout high school,
and that they will therefore probably assume to be in their complete possession, has several
hidden angles to it.
The readings below have been selected to generate ideas for your discussion. You need
not refer to all of them—or any of them. Nevertheless, on this or any other issue, you will find
reading to be an integral part of writing. Uninformed views are not worth hearing, and
unreflective assertions quickly alienate an audience. Reading slows you down and makes you
think, just as writing does. Even when what you read annoys or bores you, it can teach you
much about the annoying or the boring. Why are you annoyed: has the author slipped a
judgment past you almost undetected which—if you could locate it—would show forth as
wrong or unfair? Why are you bored: is the author digressing or reasoning in platitudes
(unambitious claims that very few would bother challenging)? Give these selections a chance to
assist you. Though you may find yourself running the other way from them, at least you will no
longer be standing still in uninspired doldrums. In writing, ALL energy can be turned into good
energy.
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READINGS
Excerpt from the Anabasis of Xenophon
Excerpt from the Germania of Tacitus
Riders to the Sea (one-act play), John Millington Synge
Excerpt from The Rage and The Pride ~ Oriana Fallaci
“Supreme Anomaly” (short story) ~ J. S. Moseby
Notice that the syllabus has inseerted a brief reading assignment from the book,
Dreaming in Chinese. Another assignment will follow toward the end of the semester.
For now, simply remark some of the features of ordinary Chinese life that pose a stark
contrast with the way we live in the United States. Some of the differences could cause
major confusion to people suddenly transported from one part of the world to the other,
and are the very essence of what is intended by the phrase, “culture shock.”
Here are five very different perspectives on culture, none of which has as its explicit
purpose to define the term “culture” at all.
Xenophon was a truly remarkable figure. Exiled from his native Athens, he shifted his
allegiance to Sparta and became a professional soldier (or mercenary). As an officer among the
ten thousand Spartans hired by the charismatic Persian noble Cyrus in a bid to seize the
kingship, Xenophon traveled deep into little-known territory. When their daring employer was
slain in battle, the Spartans had to march hundreds of miles through the wastes and mountains
of what is now Turkey on their way back to Greece, hostile tribes skirmishing with them every
step of the way. This brief chapter, however, recounts a peaceful episode where the Spartans
blunder upon a tribe that has learned to survive the bitter cold in a very ingenious fashion.
The Roman historian Tacitus sets out much more deliberately to describe the
“barbarians” who inhabit the northern frontier of the empire. Many of the author’s
observations are remarkably accurate—and, for their time, even scholarly. (Tacitus’s son-in-law
had served in the region and no doubt conveyed much of what he saw.) Notice the inkling of
cultural self-consciousness in this selection: Tacitus seems very subtly to concede a superiority
to the Germans in some areas, as if painfully aware that his own culture might be judged harshly
according to a truly objective standard.
Irish playwright John Millington Synge’s incredibly intense one-act tragedy projects in
very concentrated form the entire cultural landscape of a fishing community in the Aran Islands.
The acceptance of their hard lot displayed by these characters does not make their existence
any more attractive to us, but we must marvel how tautly it holds their lives together in bitter
circumstances. We must also read the play in the knowledge that Synge was trying to inspire in
his sophisticated audience’s members some measure of the “Irishness” that he felt they had
discarded.
The Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci was already dying of cancer when the 9/11 attacks
occurred just miles from her New York apartment. Perhaps her condition gave her the courage
to write words that would have her condemned in absentia of “hate speech” by the European
Union’s legal authorities. Most of The Rage and the Pride, which she dashed off before the end
of 2001 to express her outrage at Muslim culture’s assault on the West, underscores in vitriolic
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terms (as the title promises) that these two cultures cannot coexist. This particular excerpt,
however, focuses on the cultural experience of Italians who transplanted themselves to
America. Fallaci offers them as an example of a group that retains its love of the mother-culture
while being fully faithful to the adopted culture.
Finally, I have reproduced a short story first published in my online journal Praesidium.
The author informed me that he drew the story’s central idea from several short chapters in the
posthumous novel Citadelle of the French writer, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. In those chapters, a
desert chieftain comes upon a great walled city in the middle of an uninhabitable waste. He
looks for doors or gates, calls to those on the inside, makes camp, has music played… all to no
avail. At last he comes away with a profound contempt for the unknown city-dwellers: they
have completely shut their culture off from any possible contact with the outside world, which
can only evince a collectively closed mind and an inbred, sterile habit of existence. Mr. Moseby
leaves the reader with similar conclusions—only expressed, this time, by a speaker whose
motives and values we cannot specify. Is the interplanetary explorer’s vow to break into the
great tower a fair indictment of the tower’s arrogant insulation… or does the arrogance lie,
rather, with those who insist that other cultures open themselves up to outsiders?
Certainly the two ancient authors and the Irish playwright well illustrate the role of
physical environment—climate, geography, arability of land, and so forth—upon the formation
of culture. Of the contemporary pieces, Fallaci’s emphasizes that people also exercise
considerable choice in the direction their culture takes. They may even move into a different
culture; or, while keeping their native culture alive in the new environment, they can adjust it so
as to resolve its friction with the strange setting. The short story (as is to be expected of a
fictional work) leaves our final judgment in more suspense. Do cultures have the right to refuse
interchange with other cultures? Is there something in us as human beings—more deeply
embedded even than cultural conditioning—that resents having admittance to exotic new ways
and places denied to us?
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ANABASIS
Xenophon
430-354 B.C.
Translation by H. G. Dakyns
From Book IV
What to look for: the retreating Spartans, in their struggle to return to their Greek homeland, have
staggered into a densely mountainous area of Anatolia, or modern Turkey (roughly corresponding to
where today’s Kurds live). Notice how this simple culture has adapted itself to severe conditions. What
aspects of the mountaineers’ lives do the Greeks find most surprising? How well do you think these
aspects would withstand exposure to other cultural ways for an extended period of time?
Section V: An Underground Culture
The next day it was resolved that they should set off with all possible speed, before the
enemy had time to collect and occupy the defile. Having got their kit and baggage together, they
at once began their march through deep snow with several guides, and, crossing the high pass
the same day on which Tiribazus was to have attacked them, got safely into cantonments. From
this point they marched three desert stages—fifteen parassangs—to the river Euphrates, and
crossed it in water up to the waist. The sources of the river were reported to be at no great
distance. From this place they marched through deep snow over a flat country three stages—
fifteen parasangs (1). The last of these marches was trying, with the north wind blowing in their
teeth, drying up everything and benumbing the men. Here one of the seers suggested to them
to do sacrifice to Boreas, and sacrifice was done. The effect was obvious to all in the diminished
fierceness of the blast. But there was six feet of snow, so that many of the baggage animals and
slaves were lost, and about thirty of the men themselves.
They spent the whole night in kindling fire; for there was fortunately no dearth of wood
at the halting-place; only those who came late into camp had no wood. Accordingly those who
had arrived a good while and had kindled fires were not for allowing these late-comers near the
fires, unless they would in return give a share of their corn or of any other victuals they might
have. Here then a general exchange of goods was set up. Where the fire was kindled the snow
melted, and great trenches formed themselves down to the bare earth, and here it was possible
to measure the depth of the snow.
Leaving these quarters, they marched the whole of the next day over snow, and many of
the men were afflicted with "boulimia" (or hunger-faintness). Xenophon, who was guarding the
rear, came upon some men who had dropt down, and he did not know what ailed them; but
some one who was experienced in such matters suggested to him that they had evidently got
boulimia; and if they got something to eat, they would revive. Then he went the round of the
baggage train, and laying an embargo on any eatables he could see, doled out with his own
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hands, or sent off other able-bodied agents to distribute to the sufferers, who as soon as they
had taken a mouthful got on their legs again and continued the march.
On and on they marched, and about dusk Cheirisophus reached a village, and surprised
some women and girls who had come from the village to fetch water at the fountain outside the
stockade. These asked them who they were. The interpreters answered for them in Persian:
"They were on their way from the king to the satrap;" in reply to which the women gave them to
understand that the satrap was not at home, but was away a parasang farther on. As it was late
they entered with the water-carriers within the stockade to visit the headman of the village.
Accordingly Cheirisophus and as many of the troops as were able got into cantonments there,
while the rest of the soldiers—those namely who were unable to complete the march—had to
spend the night out, without food and without fire; under the circumstances some of the men
perished.
On the heels of the army hung perpetually bands of the enemy, snatching away disabled
baggage animals and fighting with each other over the carcases. And in its track not seldom
were left to their fate disabled soldiers, struck down with snow-blindness or with toes mortified
by frostbite. As to the eyes, it was some alleviation against the snow to march with something
black before them; for the feet, the only remedy was to keep in motion without stopping for an
instant, and to loose the sandal at night. If they went to sleep with the sandals on, the thong
worked into the feet, and the sandals were frozen fast to them. This was partly due to the fact
that, since their old sandals had failed, they wore untanned brogues made of newly-flayed oxhides. It was owing to some such dire necessity that a party of men fell out and were left
behind, and seeing a black-looking patch of ground where the snow had evidently disappeared,
they conjectured it must have been melted; and this was actually so, owing to a spring of some
sort which was to be seen steaming up in a dell close by. To this they had turned aside and sat
down, and were loth to go a step further. But Xenophon, with his rearguard, perceived them,
and begged and implored them by all manner of means not to be left behind, telling them that
the enemy were after them in large packs pursuing; and he ended by growing angry. They
merely bade him put a knife to their throats; not one step farther would they stir. Then it
seemed best to frighten the pursuing enemy if possible, and prevent their falling upon the
invalids. It was already dusk, and the pursuers were advancing with much noise and hubbub,
wrangling and disputing over their spoils. Then all of a sudden the rearguard, in the plenitude of
health and strength (2), sprang up out of their lair and run upon the enemy, whilst those weary
wights (3) bawled out as loud as their sick throats could sound, and clashed their spears against
their shields; and the enemy in terror hurled themselves through the snow into the dell, and not
one of them ever uttered a sound again.
Xenophon and his party, telling the sick folk that next day people would come for them,
set off, and before they had gone half a mile they fell in with some soldiers who had laid down
to rest on the snow with their cloaks wrapped round them, but never a guard was established,
and they made them get up. Their explanation was that those in front would not move on.
Passing by this group he sent forward the strongest of his light infantry in advance, with orders
to find out what the stoppage was. They reported that the whole army lay reposing in such
fashion. That being so, Xenophon's men had nothing for it but to bivouac in the open air also,
without fire and supperless, merely posting what pickets they could under the circumstances.
But as soon as it drew towards day, Xenophon despatched the youngest of his men to the sick
folk behind, with orders to make them get up and force them to proceed. Meanwhile
Cheirisophus had sent some of his men quartered in the village to enquire how they fared in the
rear; they were overjoyed to see them, and handed over the sick folk to them to carry into
camp, while they themselves continued their march forward, and ere twenty furlongs were past
26
reached the village in which Cheirisophus was quartered. As soon as the two divisions were met,
the resolution was come to that it would be safe to billet the regiments throughout the villages;
Cheirisophus remained where he was, while the rest drew lots for the villages in sight, and then,
with their several detachments, marched off to their respective destinations.
It was here that Polycrates, an Athenian and captain of a company, asked for leave of
absence—he wished to be off on a quest of his own; and putting himself at the head of the
active men of the division, he ran to the village which had been allotted to Xenophon. He
surprised within it the villagers with their headman, and seventeen young horses which were
being reared as a tribute for the king, and, last of all, the headman's own daughter, a young
bride only eight days wed. Her husband had gone off to chase hares, and so he escaped being
taken with the other villagers. The houses were underground structures with an aperture like
the mouth of a well by which to enter, but they were broad and spacious below. The entrance
for the beasts of burden was dug out, but the human occupants descended by a ladder. In these
dwellings were to be found goats and sheep and cattle, and cocks and hens, with their various
progeny. The flocks and herds were all reared under cover upon green food. There were stores
within of wheat and barley and vegetables, and wine made from barley in great big bowls; the
grains of barley malt lay floating in the beverage up to the lip of the vessel, and reeds lay in
them, some longer, some shorter, without joints; when you were thirsty you must take one of
these into your mouth, and suck. The beverage without admixture of water was very strong, and
of a delicious flavour to certain palates, but the taste must be acquired.
Xenophon made the headman of the village his guest at supper, and bade him keep a
good heart; so far from robbing him of his children, they would fill his house full of good things
in return for what they took before they went away; only he must set them an example, and
discover some blessing or other for the army, until they found themselves with another tribe. To
this he readily assented, and with the utmost cordiality showed them the cellar where the wine
was buried. For this night then, having taken up their several quarters as described, they
slumbered in the midst of plenty, one and all, with the headman under watch and ward, and his
children with him safe in sight.
But on the following day Xenophon took the headman and set off to Cheirisophus,
making a round of the villages, and at each place turning in to visit the different parties.
Everywhere alike he found them faring sumptuously and merry-making. There was not a single
village where they did not insist on setting a breakfast before them, and on the same table were
spread half a dozen dishes at least, lamb, kid, pork, veal, fowls, with various sorts of bread, some
of wheat and some of barley. When, as an act of courtesy, any one wished to drink his
neighbour's health, he would drag him to the big bowl, and when there, he must duck his head
and take a long pull, drinking like an ox. The headman, they insisted everywhere, must accept as
a present whatever he liked to have. But he would accept nothing, except where he espied any
of his relations, when he made a point of taking them off, him or her, with himself.
When they reached Cheirisophus they found a similar scene. There too the men were
feasting in their quarters, garlanded with whisps of hay and dry grass, and Armenian boys were
playing the part of waiters in barbaric costumes, only they had to point out by gesture to the
boys what they were to do, like deaf and dumb. After the first formalities, when Cheirisophus
and Xenophon had greeted one another like bosom friends, they interrogated the headman in
common by means of the Persian-speaking interpreter. "What was the country?" they asked: he
replied, "Armenia." And again, "For whom are the horses being bred?" "They are tribute for the
king," he replied. "And the neighbouring country?" "Is the land of the Chalybes," he said; and he
described the road which led to it. So for the present Xenophon went off, taking the headman
back with him to his household and friends. He also made him a present of an oldish horse
27
which he had got; he had heard that the headman was a priest of the sun, and so he could
fatten up the beast and sacrifice him; otherwise he was afraid it might die outright, for it had
been injured by the long marching. For himself he took his pick of the colts, and gave a colt
apiece to each of his fellow-generals and officers. The horses here were smaller than the Persian
horses, but much more spirited. It was here too that their friend the headman explained to
them, how they should wrap small bags or sacks around the feet of the horses and other cattle
when marching through the snow, for without such precautions the creatures sank up to their
bellies.
Notes
(1) Al. "ten," al. "five."
(2) Hug, after Rehdantz, would omit the words "in the plenitude of health and strength."
(3) Or, "the invalids."
28
Tacitus: Germania
trans. Thomas Gordon
The dates of the birth and death of Tacitus are uncertain, but it is probable that he was
born about 54 A. D. and died after 117. He was a contemporary and friend of the younger Pliny,
who addressed to him some of his most famous epistles. Tacitus was apparently of the
equestrian class, was an advocate by training, and had a reputation as an orator, though none of
his speeches has survived. He held a number of important public offices, and married the
daughter of Agricola, the conqueror of Britain, whose life he wrote.
The two chief works of Tacitus, the "Annals" and the "Histories," covered the history of
Rome from the death of Augustus to A. D. 96; but the greater part of the "Histories" is lost, and
the fragment that remains deals only with the year 69 and part of 70. In the "Annals" there are
several gaps, but what survives describes a large part of the reigns of Tiberius, Claudius, and
Nero. His minor works, besides the life of Agricola, already mentioned, are a "Dialogue on
Orators" and the account of Germany, its situation, its inhabitants, their character and customs,
which is here printed.
Tacitus stands in the front rank of the historians of antiquity for the accuracy of his
learning, the fairness of his judgments, the richness, concentration, and precision of his style. His
great successor, Gibbon, called him a "philosophical historian, whose writings will instruct the
last generations of mankind"; and Montaigne knew no author "who, in a work of history, has
taken so broad a view of human events or given a more just analysis of particular characters."
The "Germany" treatise is a document of the greatest interest and importance, since it
gives us by far the most detailed account of the state of culture among the tribes that are the
ancestors of the modern Teutonic nations, at the time when they first came into contact with the
civilization of the Mediterranean.
From translator’s introduction
What to look for: as a sophisticated Roman, Tacitus finds the Germans to be “barbaric” in many ways. It is
very possible, though, that beneath his slightly condescending description he also means to imply
admiration for them. Some of their “primitive” qualities actually show more honesty, common decency,
and independence of spirit than the author sees in his fellow countrymen. Can you find instances of
Tacitus’s very subtle cultural self-criticism?
Germania - Part I
The whole of Germany is thus bounded; separated from Gaul, from Rhoetia and
Pannonia, by the rivers Rhine and Danube; from Sarmatia and Dacia by mutual fear, or by high
mountains: the rest is encompassed by the ocean, which forms huge bays, and comprehends a
tract of islands immense in extent: for we have lately known certain nations and kingdoms
there, such as the war discovered. The Rhine rising in the Rhoetian Alps from a summit
altogether rocky and perpendicular, after a small winding towards the west, is lost in the
Northern Ocean. The Danube issues out of the mountain Abnoba, one very high but very easy of
29
ascent, and traversing several nations, falls by six streams into the Euxine Sea; for its seventh
channel is absorbed in the Fenns.
The Germans, I am apt to believe, derive their original from no other people; and are nowise
mixed with different nations arriving amongst them: since anciently those who went in search of
new buildings, travelled not by land, but were carried in fleets; and into that mighty ocean so
boundless, and, as I may call it, so repugnant and forbidding, ships from our world rarely enter.
Moreover, besides the dangers from a sea tempestuous, horrid and unknown, who would
relinquish Asia, or Africa, or Italy, to repair to Germany, a region hideous and rude, under a
rigorous climate, dismal to behold or to manure1 unless the same were his native country? In
their old ballads (which amongst them are the only sort of registers and history) they celebrate
Tuisto, a God sprung from the earth, and Mannus his son, as the fathers and founders of the
nation. To Mannus they assign three sons, after whose names so many people are called; the
Ingaevones, dwelling next the ocean; the Herminones, in the middle country; and all the rest,
Instaevones. Some, borrowing a warrant from the darkness of antiquity, maintain that the God
had more sons, that thence came more denominations of people, the Marsians, Gambrians,
Suevians, and Vandalians, and that these are the names truly genuine and original. For the rest,
they affirm Germany to be a recent word, lately bestowed: for that those who first passed the
Rhine and expulsed the Gauls, and are now named Tungrians, were then called Germans: and
thus by degrees the name of a tribe prevailed, not that of the nation; so that by an appellation
at first occasioned by terror and conquest, they afterwards chose to be distinguished, and
assuming a name lately invented were universally called Germans.
They have a tradition that Hercules also had been in their country, and him above all
other heroes they extol in their songs when they advance to battle. Amongst them too are
found that kind of verses by the recital of which (by them called Barding) they inspire bravery;
nay, by such chanting itself they divine the success of the approaching fight. For, according to
the different din of the battle, they urge furiously, or shrink timorously. Nor does what they
utter, so much seem to be singing as the voice and exertion of valour. They chiefly study a tone
fierce and harsh, with a broken and unequal murmur, and therefore apply their shields to their
mouths, whence the voice may by rebounding swell with greater fullness and force. Besides
there are some of opinion, that Ulysses, whilst he wandered about in his long and fabulous
voyages, was carried into this ocean and entered Germany, and that by him Asciburgium was
founded and named, a city at this day standing and inhabited upon the bank of the Rhine: nay,
that in the same place was formerly found an altar dedicated to Ulysses, with the name of his
father Laertes added to his own, and that upon the confines of Germany and Rhoetia are still
extant certain monuments and tombs inscribed with Greek characters. Traditions these which I
mean not either to confirm with arguments of my own or to refute. Let every one believe or
deny the same according to his own bent.
For myself, I concur in opinion with such as suppose the people of Germany never to
have mingled by inter-marriages with other nations, but to have remained a people pure, and
independent, and resembling none but themselves. Hence amongst such a mighty multitude of
men, the same make and form is found in all, eyes stern and blue, yellow hair, huge bodies, but
vigorous only in the first onset. Of pains and labour they are not equally patient, nor can they at
all endure thrift and heat. To bear hunger and cold they are hardened by their climate and soil.
Their lands, however somewhat different in aspect, yet taken all together consist of
gloomy forests or nasty marshes; lower and moister towards the confines of Gaul, more
mountainous and windy towards Noricum and Pannonia; very apt to bear grain, but altogether
unkindly to fruit trees; abounding in flocks and herds, but generally small of growth. Nor even in
their oxen is found the usual stateliness, no more than the natural ornaments and grandeur of
30
head. In the number of their herds they rejoice; and these are their only, these their most
desirable riches. Silver and gold the Gods have denied them, whether in mercy or in wrath, I am
unable to determine. Yet I would not venture to aver that in Germany no vein of gold or silver is
produced; for who has ever searched? For the use and possession, it is certain they care not.
Amongst them indeed are to be seen vessels of silver, such as have been presented to their
Princes and Ambassadors, but holden in no other esteem than vessels made of earth. The
Germans however adjoining to our frontiers value gold and silver for the purposes of commerce,
and are wont to distinguish and prefer certain of our coins. They who live more remote are
more primitive and simple in their dealings, and exchange one commodity for another. The
money which they like is the old and long known, that indented,2 or that impressed with a
chariot and two horses. Silver too is what they seek more than gold, from no fondness or
preference, but because small pieces are more ready in purchasing things cheap and common.
Neither in truth do they abound in iron, as from the fashion of their weapons may be
gathered. Swords they rarely use, or the larger spear. They carry javelins or, in their own
language, framms, pointed with a piece of iron short and narrow, but so sharp and manageable,
that with the same weapon they can fight at a distance or hand to hand, just as need requires.
Nay, the horsemen also are content with a shield and a javelin. The foot throw likewise weapons
missive, each particular is armed with many, and hurls them a mighty space, all naked or only
wearing a light cassock. In their equipment they show no ostentation; only that their shields are
diversified and adorned with curious colours. With coats of mail very few are furnished, and
hardly upon any is seen a head-piece or helmet. Their horses are nowise signal either in fashion
or in fleetness; nor taught to wheel and bound, according to the practice of the Romans: they
only move them forward in a line, or turn them right about, with such compactness and equality
that no one is ever behind the rest. To one who considers the whole it is manifest, that in their
foot their principal strength lies, and therefore they fight intermixed with the horse: for such is
their swiftness as to match and suit with the motions and engagements of the cavalry. So that
the infantry are elected from amongst the most robust of their youth, and placed in front of the
army. The number to be sent is also ascertained, out of every village an hundred, and by this
very name they continue to be called at home, those of the hundred band: thus what was at
first no more than a number, becomes thenceforth a title and distinction of honour. In arraying
their army, they divide the whole into distinct battalions formed sharp in front. To recoil in
battle, provided you return again to the attack, passes with them rather for policy than fear.
Even when the combat is no more than doubtful, they bear away the bodies of their slain. The
most glaring disgrace that can befall them, is to have quitted their shield; nor to one branded
with such ignominy is it lawful to join in their sacrifices, or to enter into their assemblies; and
many who have escaped in the day of battle, have hanged themselves to put an end to this their
infamy.
In the choice of kings they are determined by the splendour of their race, in that of
generals by their bravery. Neither is the power of their kings unbounded or arbitrary: and their
generals procure obedience not so much by the force of their authority as by that of their
example, when they appear enterprising and brave, when they signalise themselves by courage
and prowess; and if they surpass all in admiration and pre-eminence, if they surpass all at the
head of an army. But to none else but the Priests is it allowed to exercise correction, or to inflict
bonds or stripes. Nor when the Priests do this, is the same considered as a punishment, or
arising from the orders of the general, but from the immediate command of the Deity, Him
whom they believe to accompany them in war. They therefore carry with them when going to
fight, certain images and figures taken out of their holy groves. What proves the principal
incentive to their valour is, that it is not at random nor by the fortuitous conflux of men that
31
their troops and pointed battalions are formed, but by the conjunction of whole families, and
tribes of relations. Moreover, close to the field of battle are lodged all the nearest and most
interesting pledges of nature. Hence they hear the doleful howlings of their wives, hence the
cries of their tender infants. These are to each particular the witnesses whom he most
reverences and dreads; these yield him the praise which affect him most. Their wounds and
maims they carry to their mothers, or to their wives, neither are their mothers or wives shocked
in telling, or in sucking their bleeding sores.3 Nay, to their husbands and sons whilst engaged in
battle, they administer meat and encouragement.
In history we find, that some armies already yielding and ready to fly, have been by the
women restored, through their inflexible importunity and entreaty, presenting their breasts,
and showing their impending captivity; an evil to the Germans then by far most dreadful when it
befalls their women. So that the spirit of such cities as amongst their hostages are enjoined to
send their damsels of quality, is always engaged more effectually than that of others. They even
believe them endowed with something celestial and the spirit of prophecy. Neither do they
disdain to consult them, nor neglect the responses which they return. In the reign of the deified
Vespasian, we have seen Veleda for a long time, and by many nations, esteemed and adored as
a divinity. In times past they likewise worshipped Aurinia and several more, from no
complaisance or effort of flattery, nor as Deities of their own creating.
Of all the Gods, Mercury is he whom they worship most. To him on certain stated days it
is lawful to offer even human victims. Hercules and Mars they appease with beasts usually
allowed for sacrifice. Some of the Suevians make likewise immolations to Isis. Concerning the
cause and original of this foreign sacrifice I have found small light; unless the figure of her image
formed like a ialley, show that such devotion arrived from abroad. For the rest, from the
grandeur and majesty of beings celestial, they judge it altogether unsuitable to hold the Gods
enclosed within walls, or to represent them under any human likeness. They consecrate whole
woods and groves, and by the names of the Gods they call these recesses; divinities these,
which only in contemplation and mental reverence they behold.
To the use of lots and auguries, they are addicted beyond all other nations. Their
method of divining by lots is exceedingly simple. From a tree which bears fruit they cut a twig,
and divide it into two small pieces. These they distinguish by so many several marks, and throw
them at random and without order upon a white garment. Then the Priest of the community, if
for the public the lots are consulted, or the father of a family about a private concern, after he
has solemnly invoked the Gods, with eyes lifted up to heaven, takes up every piece thrice, and
having done thus forms a judgment according to the marks before made. If the chances have
proved forbidding, they are no more consulted upon the same affair during the same day: even
when they are inviting, yet, for confirmation, the faith of auguries too is tried. Yea, here also is
the known practice of divining events from the voices and flight of birds. But to this nation it is
peculiar, to learn presages and admonitions divine from horses also. These are nourished by the
State in the same sacred woods and groves, all milk-white and employed in no earthly labour.
These yoked in the holy chariot, are accompanied by the Priest and the King, or the Chief of the
Community, who both carefully observed his actions and neighing. Nor in any sort of augury is
more faith and assurance reposed, not by the populace only, but even by the nobles, even by
the Priests. These account themselves the ministers of the Gods, and the horses privy to his will.
They have likewise another method of divination, whence to learn the issue of great and mighty
wars. From the nation with whom they are at war they contrive, it avails not how, to gain a
captive: him they engage in combat with one selected from amongst themselves, each armed
after the manner of his country, and according as the victory falls to this or to the other, gather
a presage of the whole.
32
Affairs of smaller moment the chiefs determine: about matters of higher consequence
the whole nation deliberates; yet in such sort, that whatever depends upon the pleasure and
decision of the people, is examined and discussed by the chiefs. Where no accident or
emergency intervenes, they assemble upon stated days, either, when the moon changes, or is
full: since they believe such seasons to be the most fortunate for beginning all transactions.
Neither in reckoning of time do they count, like us, the number of days but that of nights. In this
style their ordinances are framed, in this style their diets appointed; and with them the night
seems to lead and govern the day. From their extensive liberty this evil and default flows, that
they meet not at once, nor as men commanded and afraid to disobey; so that often the second
day, nay often the third, is consumed through the slowness of the members in assembling. They
sit down as they list, promiscuously, like a crowd, and all armed. It is by the Priests that silence is
enjoined, and with the power of correction the Priests are then invested. Then the King or Chief
is heard, as are others, each according to his precedence in age, or in nobility, or in warlike
renown, or in eloquence; and the influence of every speaker proceeds rather from his ability to
persuade than from any authority to command. If the proposition displease, they reject it by an
inarticulate murmur: if it be pleasing, they brandish their javelins. The most honourable manner
of signifying their assent, is to express their applause by the sound of their arms.
In the assembly it is allowed to present accusations, and to prosecute capital offences.
Punishments vary according to the quality of the crime. Traitors and deserters they hang upon
trees. Cowards, and sluggards, and unnatural prostitutes they smother in mud and bogs under
an heap of hurdles. Such diversity in their executions has this view, that in punishing of glaring
iniquities, it behoves likewise to display them to sight; but effeminacy and pollution must be
buried and concealed. In lighter transgressions too the penalty is measured by the fault, and the
delinquents upon conviction are condemned to pay a certain number of horses or cattle. Part of
this mulct accrues to the King or the community, part to him whose wrongs are vindicated, or to
his next kindred. In the same assemblies are also chosen their chiefs or rulers, such as
administer justice in their villages and boroughs. To each of these are assigned an hundred
persons chosen from amongst the populace, to accompany and assist him, men who help him at
once with their authority and their counsel.
Without being armed they transact nothing, whether of public or private concernment.
But it is repugnant to their custom for any man to use arms, before the community has attested
his capacity to wield them. Upon such testimonial, either one of the rulers, or his father, or
some kinsman dignify the young man in the midst of the assembly, with a shield and javelin. This
amongst them is the manly robe, this the first degree of honour conferred upon their youth.
Before this they seem no more than part of a private family, but thenceforward part of the
Commonweal. The princely dignity they confer even upon striplings, whose race is eminently
noble, or whose fathers have done great and signal services to the State. For about the rest,
who are more vigorous and long since tried, they crowd to attend: nor is it any shame to be
seen amongst the followers of these. Nay, there are lilkewise degrees of followers, higher or
lower, just as he whom they follow judges fit. Mighty too is the emulation amongst these
followers, of each to be first in favour with his Prince; mighty also the emulation of the Princes,
to excel in the number and valour of followers. This is their principal state, this their chief force,
to be at all times surrounded with a huge band of chosen young men, for ornament and glory in
peace, for security and defence in war. Nor is it amongst his own people only, but even from the
neighbouring communities, that any of their Princes reaps so much renown and a name so
great, when he surpasses in the number and magnanimity of his followers. For such are courted
by Embassies, and distinguished with presents, and by the terror of their fame alone often
dissipate wars.
33
In the day of battle, it is scandalous to the Prince to be surpassed in feats of bravery,
scandalous to his followers to fail in matching the bravery of the Prince. But it is infamy during
life, and indelible reproach, to return alive from a battle where their Prince was slain. To
preserve their Prince, to defend him, and to ascribe to his glory all their own valorous deeds, is
the sum and most sacred part of their oath. The Princes fight for victory; for the Prince his
followers fight. Many of the young nobility, when their own community comes to languish in its
vigour by long peace and inactivity, betake themselves through impatience to other States
which then prove to be in war. For, besides that this people cannot brook repose, besides that
by perilous adventures they more quickly blazon their fame, they cannot otherwise than by
violence and war support their huge train of retainers. For from the liberality of their Prince,
they demand and enjoy that war-horse of theirs, with that victorious javelin dyed in the blood of
their enemies. In the place of pay, they are supplied with a daily table and repasts; though
grossly prepared, yet very profuse. For maintaining such liberality and munificence, a fund is
furnished by continual wars and plunder. Nor could you so easily persuade them to cultivate the
ground, or to await the return of the seasons and produce of the year, as to provoke the foe and
to risk wounds and death: since stupid and spiritless they account it, to acquire by their sweat
what they can gain by their blood.
Upon any recess from war, they do not much attend the chase. Much more of their time
they pass in indolence, resigned to sleep and repasts.4 All the most brave, all the most warlike,
apply to nothing at all; but to their wives, to the ancient men, and to every the most impotent
domestic, trust all the care of their house, and of their lands and possessions. They themselves
loiter.5 Such is the amazing diversity of their nature, that in the same men is found so much
delight in sloth, with so much enmity to tranquillity and repose. The communities are wont, of
their own accord and man by man, to bestow upon their Princes a certain number of beasts, or
a certain portion of grain; a contribution which passes indeed for a mark of reverence and
honour, but serves also to supply their necessities. They chiefly rejoice in the gifts which come
from the bordering countries, such as are sent not only by particulars but in the name of the
State; curious horses, splendid armour, rich harness, with collars of silver and gold. Now too
they have learnt, what we have taught them, to receive money.
That none of the several people in Germany live together in cities, is abundantly known;
nay, that amongst them none of their dwellings are suffered to be contiguous. They inhabit
apart and distinct, just as a fountain, or a field, or a wood happened to invite them to settle.
They raise their villages in opposite rows, but not in our manner with the houses joined one to
another. Every man has a vacant space quite round his own, whether for security against
accidents from fire, or that they want the art of building. With them in truth, is unknown even
the use of mortar and of tiles. In all their structures they employ materials quite gross and
unhewn, void of fashion and comeliness. Some parts they besmear with an earth so pure and
resplendent, that it resembles painting and colours. They are likewise wont to scoop caves deep
in the ground, and over them to lay great heaps of dung. Thither they retire for shelter in the
winter, and thither convey their grain: for by such close places they mollify the rigorous and
excessive cold. Besides when at any time their enemy invades them, he can only ravage the
open country, but either knows not such recesses as are invisible and subterraneous; or must
suffer them to escape him, on this very account that he is uncertain where to find them.
For their covering a mantle is what they all wear, fastened with a clasp or, for want of it,
with a thorn. As far as this reaches not they are naked, and lie whole days before the fire. The
most wealthy are distinguished with a vest, not one large and flowing like those of Sarmatians
and Parthians, but girt close about them and expressing the proportion of every limb. They
likewise wear the skins of savage beasts, a dress which those bordering upon the Rhine use
34
without any fondness or delicacy, but about which such who live further in the country are more
curious, as void of all apparel introduced by commerce. They choose certain wild beasts, and,
having flayed them, diversify their hides with many spots, as also with the skins of monsters
from the deep, such as are engendered in the distant ocean and in seas unknown. Neither does
the dress of the women differ from that of the men, save that the women are orderly attired in
linen embroidered with purple, and use no sleeves, so that all their arms are bare. The upper
part of their breast is withal exposed.
Yet the laws of matrimony are severely observed there; nor in the whole of their
manners is aught more praiseworthy than this: for they are almost the only Barbarians
contented with one wife, excepting a very few amongst them; men of dignity who marry divers
wives, from no wantonness or lubricity, but courted for the lustre of their family into many
alliances.
To the husband, the wife tenders no dowry; but the husband, to the wife. The parents
and relations attend and declare their approbation of the presents, not presents adapted to
feminine pomp and delicacy, nor such as serve to deck the new married woman; but oxen and
horse accoutred, and a shield, with a javelin and sword. By virtue of these gifts, she is espoused.
She too on her part brings her husband some arms. This they esteem the highest tie, these the
holy mysteries, and matrimonial Gods. That the woman may not suppose herself free from the
considerations of fortitude and fighting, or exempt from the casualties of war, the very first
solemnities of her wedding serve to warn her, that she comes to her husband as a partner in his
hazards and fatigues, that she is to suffer alike with him, to adventure alike, during peace or
during war. This the oxen joined in the same yoke plainly indicate, this the horse ready
equipped, this the present of arms. 'Tis thus she must be content to live, thus to resign life. The
arms which she then receives she must preserve inviolate, and to her sons restore the same, as
presents worthy of them, such as their wives may again receive, and still resign to her
grandchildren.
They therefore live in a state of chastity well secured; corrupted by no seducing shows
and public diversions, by no irritations from banqueting. Of learning and of any secret
intercourse by letters, they are all equally ignorant, men and women. Amongst a people so
numerous, adultery is exceeding rare; a crime instantly punished, and the punishment left to be
inflicted by the husband. He, having cut off her hair, expels her from his house naked, in
presence of her kindred, and pursues her with stripes throughout the village. For, to a woman
who has prostituted her person, no pardon is ever granted. However beautiful she be, however
young, however abounding in wealth, a husband she can never find. In truth, nobody turns vices
into mirth there, nor is the practice of corrupting and of yielding to corruption, called the
custom of the Age. Better still do those communities, in which none but virgins marry, and
where to a single marriage all their views and inclinations are at once confined. Thus, as they
have but one body and one life, they take but one husband, that beyond him they may have no
thought, no further wishes, nor love him only as their husband but as their marriage.6 To
restrain generation and the increase of children, is esteemed an abominable sin, as also to kill
infants newly born. And more powerful with them are good manners, than with other people
are good laws.
In all their houses the children are reared naked and nasty; and thus grow into those
limbs, into that bulk, which with marvel we behold. They are all nourished with the milk of their
own mothers, and never surrendered to handmaids and nurses. The lord you cannot discern
from the slave, by any superior delicacy in rearing. Amongst the same cattle they promiscuously
live, upon the same ground they without distinction lie, till at a proper age the free-born are
parted from the rest, and their bravery recommend them to notice. Slow and late do the young
35
men come to the use of women, and thus very long preserve the vigour of youth. Neither are
the virgins hastened to wed. They must both have the same sprightly youth, the like stature, and
marry when equal and able-bodied. Thus the robustness of the parents is inherited by the
children. Children are holden in the same estimation with their mother's brother, as with their
father. Some hold this tie of blood to be most inviolable and binding, and in receiving of
hostages, such pledges are most considered and claimed, as they who at once possess affections
the most unalienable, and the most diffuse interest in their family. To every man, however, his
own children are heirs and successors: wills they make none: for want of children his next akin
inherits; his own brothers, those of his father, or those of his mother. To ancient men, the more
they abound in descendants; in relations and affinities, so much the more favour and reverence
accrues. From being childless, no advantage nor estimation is derived.
All the enmities of your house, whether of your father or of your kindred, you must
necessarily adopt; as well as oll their friendships. Neither are such enmities unappeasable and
permanent: since even for so great a crime as homicide, compensation is made by a fixed
number of sheep and cattle, and by it the whole family is pacified to content. A temper this,
wholesome to the State; because to a free nation, animosities and faction are always more
menacing and perilous. In social feasts, and deeds of hospitality, no nation upon earth was ever
more liberal and abounding. To refuse admitting under your roof any man whatsoever, is held
wicked and inhuman. Every man receives every comer, and treats him with repasts as large as
his ability can possibly furnish. When the whole stock is consumed, he who had treated so
hospitably guides and accompanies his guest to a new scene of hospitality; and both proceed to
the next house, though neither of them invited. Nor avails it, that they were not: they are there
received, with the same frankness and humanity. Between a stranger and an acquaintance, in
dispensing the rules and benefits of hospitality, no difference is made. Upon your departure, if
you ask anything, it is the custom to grant it; and with the same facility, they ask of you. In gifts
they delight, but neither claim merit from what they give, nor own any obligation for what they
receive. Their manner of entertaining their guests is familiar and kind.
36
RIDERS TO THE SEA
a play in one-act
by John Millington Synge
The following one-act play is reprinted from Riders to the Sea. John M. Synge. Boston: John W. Luce, 1911. It is now in the public
domain and may therefore be performed without royalties.
What to look for: within an hour on one fateful evening, Synge shows to us the essential points of an
entire belief system that holds this primitive community together. What are these elements, would you
say? Why do you think the playwright would want to call them to the attention of his well-read, wellheeled audience of Dublin theater-goers—is he perhaps implying, like Tacitus, his culture’s contemporary
state is inferior to the rugged but lost virtues of its past?
CHARACTERS
MAURYA, an old woman
BARTLEY, her son
CATHLEEN, her daughter
NORA, a younger daughter
MEN AND WOMEN
[An island off the West of Ireland. Cottage kitchen, with nets, oilskins, spinning-wheel, some new
boards standing by the wall, etc. CATHLEEN, a girl of about twenty, finishes kneading cake, and
puts it down in the pot-oven by the fire; then wipes her hands, and begins to spin at the wheel.
NORA, a young girl, puts her head in at the door.]
NORA: (in a low voice) Where is she?
CATHLEEN: She's lying down, God help her, and maybe sleeping, if she's able.
[NORA comes in softly, and takes a bundle from under her shawl.]
CATHLEEN: (spinning the wheel rapidly) What is it you have?
NOBA: The young priest is after bringing them. It's a shirt and a plain stocking were got off a
drowned man in Donegal.
[CATHLEEN stops her wheel with a sudden movement, and leans out to listen.]
NORA: We're to find out if it's Michael's they are; some time herself will be down looking by the
sea.
CATHLEEN: How would they be Michael's, Nora? How would he go the length of that way to the
far north?
NORA: The young priest says he's known the like of it. "If it's Michael's they are," says he, "you
can tell herself he's got a clean burial by the grace of God, and if they're not his, let no one say a
word about them, for she'll be getting her death," says he, "with crying and lamenting."
[The door which NORA half closed is blown open by a gust of wind.]
CATHLEEN: (looking out anxiously) Did you ask him would he stop Bartley going this day with
the horses to the Galway fair?
NORA: "I won't stop him," says he, "but let you not be afraid. Herself does be saying prayers half
through the night, and the Almighty God won't leave her destitute," says he, "with no son living."
CATHLEEN: Is the sea bad by the white rocks, Nora?
NORA: Middling bad, God help us. There's a great roaring in the west, and it's worse it'll be
getting when the tide's turned to the wind. [She goes over to the table with the bundle.] Shall I
open it now?
CATHLEEN: Maybe she'd wake up on us, and come in before we'd done. [Coming to the table]
It's a long time we'll be, and the two of us crying.
37
NORA: (goes to the inner door and listens) She's moving about on the bed. She'll be coming in a
minute.
CATHLEEN: Give me the ladder, and I'll put them up in the turf-loft, the way she won't know of
them at all, and maybe when the tide turns she'll be going down to see would he be floating from
the east.
[They put the ladder against the gable of the chimney; CATHLEEN goes up a few steps and
hides the bundle in the turf-loft. MAURYA comes from the inner room.]
MAURYA: (looking up at CATHLEEN and speaking querulously) Isn't it turf enough you have for
this day and evening?
CATHLEEN: There's a cake baking at the fire for a short space (throwing down the turf) and
Bartley will want it when the tide turns if he goes to Connemara.
[NORA picks up the turf and puts it round the pot-oven.]
MAURYA: (sitting down on a stool at the fire) He won't go this day with the wind rising from the
south and west. He won't go this day, for the young priest will stop him surely.
NORA: He'll not stop him, mother, and I heard Eamon Simon and Stephen Pheety and Colum
Shawn saying he would go.
MAURYA: Where is he itself?
NORA: He went down to see would there be another boat sailing in the week, and I'm thinking it
won't be long till he's here now, for the tide's turning at the green head, and the hooker's tacking
from the east.
CATHLEEN: I hear someone passing the big stones.
NORA: (looking out) He's coming now, and he in a hurry.
BARTLEY: (comes in and looks round the room; speaking sadly and quietly) Where is the bit of
new rope, Cathleen, was bought in Connemara?
CATHLEEN: (coming down) Give it to him, Nora; it's on a nail by the white boards. I hung it up
this morning, for the pig with the black feet was eating it.
NORA: (giving him a rope) Is that it, Bartley?
MAURYA: You'd do right to leave that rope, Bartley, hanging by the boards. (BARTLEY takes the
rope.) It will be wanting in this place, I'm telling you, if Michael is washed up to-morrow morning,
or the next morning, or any morning in the week, for it's a deep grave we'll make him by the grace
of God.
BARTLEY: (beginning to work with the rope) I've no halter the way I can ride down on the mare,
and I must go now quickly. This is the one boat going for two weeks or beyond it, and the fair will
be a good fair for horses, I heard them saying below.
MAURYA: It's a hard thing they'll be saying below if the body is washed up and there's no man in
it to make the coffin, and I after giving a big price for the finest white boards you'd find in
Connemara.
[She looks round at the boards.]
BARTLEY: How would it be washed up, and we after looking each day for nine days, and a
strong wind blowing a while back from the west and south?
MAURYA: If it wasn't found itself, that wind is raising the sea, and there was a star up against the
moon, and it rising in the night. If it was a hundred horses, or a thousand horses you had itself,
what is the price of a thousand horses against a son where there is one son only?
BARTLEY: (working at the halter, to CATHLEEN) Let you go down each day, and see the sheep
aren't jumping in on the rye, and if the jobber comes you can sell the pig with the black feet if
there is a good price going.
MAURYA: How would the like of her get a good price for a pig?
BARTLEY: (to CATHLEEN) If the west wind holds with the last bit of the moon let you and Nora
get up weed enough for another cock for the kelp. It's hard set we'll be from this day with no one
in it but one man to work.
MAURYA: It's hard set we'll be surely the day you're drownd'd with the rest. What way will I live
and the girls with me, and I an old woman looking for the grave?
[BARTLEY lays down the halter, takes off his old coat, and puts on a newer one of the same
flannel.]
BARTLEY: (to NORA) Is she coming to the pier?
NORA: (looking out) She's passing the green head and letting fall her sails.
38
BARTLEY: (getting his purse and tobacco) I'll have half an hour to go down, and you'll see me
coming again in two days, or in three days, or maybe in four days if the wind is bad.
MAURYA: (turning round to the fire, and putting her shawl over her head) Isn't it a hard and cruel
man won't hear a word from an old woman, and she holding him from the sea?
CATHLEEN: It's the life of a young man to be going on the sea, and who would listen to an old
woman with one thing and she saying it over?
BARTLEY: (taking the halter) I must go now quickly. I'll ride down on the red mare, and the gray
pony'll run behind me. The blessing of God on you.
[He goes out.]
MAURYA: (crying out as he is in the door) He's gone now, God spare us, and we'll not see him
again. He's gone now, and when the black night is falling I'll have no son left me in the world.
CATHLEEN: Why wouldn't you give him your blessing and he looking round in the door? Isn't it
sorrow enough is on everyone in this house without your sending him out with an unlucky word
behind him, and a hard word in his ear?
[MAURYA takes up the tongs and begins raking the fire aimlessly without looking round.]
NORA: (turning towards her) You're taking away the turf from the cake.
CATHLEEN: (crying out) The Son of God forgive us, Nora, we're after forgetting his bit of bread.
[She comes over to the fire.]
NORA: And it's destroyed he'll be going till dark night, and he after eating nothing since the sun
went up.
CATHLEEN: (turning the cake out of the oven) It's destroyed he'll be, surely. There's no sense
left on any person in a house where an old woman will be talking for ever.
[MAURYA sways herself on her stool.]
CATHLEEN: (cutting off some of the bread and rolling it in a cloth, to MAURYA) Let you go down
now to the spring well and give him this and he passing. You'll see him then and the dark word
will be broken, and you can say, "God speed you," the way he'll be easy in his mind.
MAURYA: (taking the bread) Will I be in it as soon as himself?
CATHLEEN: If you go now quickly.
MAURYA: (standing up unsteadily) It's hard set I am to walk.
CATHLEEN: (looking at her anxiously) Give her the stick, Nora, or maybe she'll slip on the big
stones.
NORA: What stick?
CATHLEEN: The stick Michael brought from Connemara.
MAURYA: (taking a stick NORA gives her) In the big world the old people do be leaving things
after them for their sons and children, but in this place it is the young men do be leaving things
behind for them that do be old.
[She goes out slowly. NORA goes over to the ladder.]
CATHLEEN: Wait, Nora, maybe she'd turn back quickly. She's that sorry, God help her, you
wouldn't know the thing she'd do.
NORA: Is she gone round by the bush?
CATHLEEN: (looking out) She's gone now. Throw it down quickly, for the Lord knows when she'll
be out of it again.
NORA: (getting the bundle from the loft) The young priest said he'd be passing to-morrow, and
we might go down and speak to him below if it's Michael's they are surely.
CATHLEEN: (taking the bundle) Did he say what way they were found?
NORA: (coming down) "There were two men," says he, "and they rowing round with poteen
before the cocks crowed, and the oar of one of them caught the body, and they passing the black
cliffs of the north."
CATHLEEN: (trying to open the bundle) Give me a knife, Nora; the string's perished with the salt
water, and there's a black knot on it you wouldn't loosen in a week.
NORA: (giving her a knife) I've heard tell it was a long way to Donegal.
CATHLEEN: (cutting the string) It is surely. There was a man in here a while ago--the man sold
us that knife--and he said if you set off walking from the rocks beyond, it would be seven days
you'd be in Donegal.
NORA: And what time would a man take, and he floating?
[CATHLEEN opens the bundle and takes out a bit of a stocking. They look at them eagerly.]
39
CATHLEEN: (in a low voice) The Lord spare us, Nora! Isn't it a queer hard thing to say if it's his
they are surely?
NORA: I'll get his shirt off the hook the way we can put the one flannel on the other. (She looks
through some clothes hanging in the corner) It's not with them, Cathleen, and where will it be?
CATHLEEN: I'm thinking Bartley put it on him in the morning, for his own shirt was heavy with the
salt in it. (Pointing to the corner) There's a bit of a sleeve was of the same stuff. Give me that and
it will do.
[NORA brings it to her and they compare the flannel.]
CATHLEEN: It's the same stuff, Nora; but if it is itself, aren't there great rolls of it in the shops of
Galway, and isn't it many another man may have a shirt of it as well as Michael himself?
NORA: (who has taken up the stocking and counted the stitches, crying out) It's Michael,
Cathleen, it's Michael; God spare his soul and what will herself say when she hears this story,
and Bartley on the sea?
CATHLEEN: (taking the stocking) It's a plain stocking.
NORA: It's the second one of the third pair I knitted, and I put up three score stitches, and I
dropped four of them.
CATHLEEN: (counts the stitches) It's that number is in it. (Crying out) Ah, Nora, isn't it a bitter
thing to think of him floating that way to the far north, and no one to keen him but the black hags
that do be flying on the sea?
NORA: (swinging herself round, and throwing out her arms on the clothes) And isn't it a pitiful
thing when there is nothing left of a man who was a great rower and fisher, but a bit of an old shirt
and a plain stocking?
CATHLEEN: (after an instant) Tell me is herself coming, Nora? I hear a little sound on the path.
NORA: (looking out) She is, Cathleen. She's coming up to the door.
CATHLEEN: Put these things away before she'll come in. Maybe it's easier she'll be after giving
her blessing to Bartley, and we won't let on we've heard anything the time he's on the sea.
NORA: (helping CATHLEEN to close the bundle) We'll put them here in the corner.
[They put them into a hole in the chimney corner. CATHLEEN goes back to the spinning wheel.]
NORA: Will she see it was crying I was?
CATHLEEN: Keep your back to the door the way the light'll not be on you.
[NORA sits down at the chimney corner, with her back to the door. MAURYA comes in very
slowly, without looking at the girls, and goes over to her stool at the other side of the fire. The
cloth with the bread is still in her hand. The girls look at each other, and NORA points to the
bundle of bread.]
CATHLEEN: (offer spinning for a moment) You didn't give him his bit of bread?
[MAURYA begins to keen softly, without turning round.]
CATHLEEN: Did you see him riding down?
[MAURYA goes on keening.]
CATHLEEN: (a little impatiently) God forgive you; isn't it a better thing to raise your voice and tell
what you seen, than to be making lamentation for a thing that's done? Did you see Bartley, I'm
saying to you.
MAURYA: (with a weak voice) My heart's broken from this day.
CATHLEEN: (as before) Did you see Bartley?
MAURYA: I seen the fearfulest thing.
CATHLEEN: (leaves her wheel and looks out) God forgive you; he's riding the mare now over the
green head, and the gray pony behind him.
MAURYA: (starts, so that her shawl falls back from her head and shows her white tossed hair;
with a frightened voice) The gray pony behind him.
CATHLEEN: (coming to the fire) What is it ails you, at all?
MAURYA: (speaking very slowly) I've seen the fearfulest thing any person has seen, since the
day Bride Dara seen the dead man with the child in his arms.
CATHLEEN AND NORA: Uah.
[They crouch down in front of the old woman at the fire.]
NORA: Tell us what it is you seen.
40
MAURYA: I went down to the spring-well, and I stood there saying a prayer to myself. Then
Bartley came along, and he riding on the red mare with the gray pony behind him. (She puts up
her hands, as if to hide something from her eyes.) The Son of God spare us, Nora!
CATHLEEN: What is it you seen?
MAURYA: I seen Michael himself.
CATHLEEN: (speaking softly) You did not, mother; it wasn't Michael you seen, for his body is
after being found in the far north, and he's got a clean burial by the grace of God.
MAURYA: (a little defiantly) I'm after seeing him this day, and he riding and galloping. Bartley
came first on the red mare; and I tried to say "God speed you," but something choked the words
in my throat. He went by quickly; and, "The blessing of God on you," says he, and I could say
nothing. I looked up then, and I crying, at the gray pony, and there was Michael upon it--with fine
clothes on him, and new shoes on his feet.
CATHLEEN: (begins to keen) It's destroyed we are from this day. It's destroyed, surely.
NORA: Didn't the young priest say the Almighty God wouldn't leave her destitute with no son
living?
MAURYA: (in a low voice, but clearly) It's little the like of him knows of the sea.... Bartley will be
lost now, and let you call in Eamon and make me a good coffin out of the white boards, for I won't
live after them. I've had a husband, and a husband's father, and six sons in this house--six fine
men, though it was a hard birth I had with every one of them and they coming to the world--and
some of them were found and some of them were not found, but they're gone now, the lot of
them.... There were Stephen, and Shawn, were lost in the great wind, and found after in the Bay
of Gregory of the Golden Mouth, and carried up the two of them on the one plank, and in by that
door.
[She pauses for a moment, the girls start as if they heard something through the door that is halfopen behind them.]
NORA: (in a whisper) Did you hear that, Cathleen? Did you hear a noise in the northeast?
CATHLEEN: (in a whisper) There's someone after crying out by the seashore.
MAURYA: (continues without hearing anything) There was Sheamus and his father, and his own
father again, were lost in a dark night, and not a stick or sign was seen of them when the sun
went up. There was Patch after was drowned out of a curagh that turned over. I was sitting here
with Bartley, and he a baby, lying on my two knees, and I seen two women, and three women,
and four women coming in, and they crossing themselves, and not saying a word. I looked out
then, and there were men coming after them, and they holding a thing in the half of a red sail, and
water dripping out of it--it was a dry day, Nora--and leaving a track to the door.
[She pauses again with her hand stretched out towards the door. It opens softly and old women
begin to come in, crossing themselves on the threshold, and kneeling down in front of the stage
with red petticoats over their heads.]
MAURYA: (half in a dream, to Cathleen) Is it Patch, or Michael, or what is it at all?
CATHLEEN: Michael is after being found in the far north, and when he is found there how could
he be here in this place?
MAURYA: There does be a power of young men floating round in the sea, and what way would
they know if it was Michael they had, or another man like him, for when a man is nine days in the
sea, and the wind blowing, it's hard set his own mother would be to say what man was it.
CATHLEEN: It's Michael, God spare him, for they're after sending us a bit of his clothes from the
far north.
[She reaches out and hands MAURYA the clothes that belonged to MICHAEL. MAURYA stands
up slowly, and takes them in her hands. NORA looks out.]
NORA: They're carrying a thing among them and there's water dripping out of it and leaving a
track by the big stones.
CATHLEEN: (in a whisper to the women who have come in) Is it Bartley it is?
ONE OF THE WOMEN: It is surely, God rest his soul.
[Two younger women come in and pull out the table. Then men carry in the body of BARTLEY,
laid on a plank, with a bit of a sail over it, and lay it on the table.]
CATHLEEN: (to the women, as they are doing so) What way was he drowned?
ONE OF THE WOMEN: The gray pony knocked him into the sea, and he was washed out where
there is a great surf on the white rocks.
41
[MAURYA has gone over and knelt down at the head of the table. The women are keening softly
and swaying themselves with a slow movement. CATHLEEN and NORA kneel at the other end of
the table. The men kneel near the door.]
MAURYA: (raising her head and speaking as if she did not see the people around her) They're all
gone now, and there isn't anything more the sea can do to me.... I'll have no call now to be up
crying and praying when the wind breaks from the south, and you can hear the surf is in the east,
and the surf is in the west, making a great stir with the two noises, and they hitting one on the
other. I'll have no call now to be going down and getting Holy Water in the dark nights after
Samhain, and I won't care what way the sea is when the other women will be keening. (To
NORA) Give me the Holy Water, Nora; there's a small sup still on the dresser.
[NORA gives it to her.]
MAURYA: (drops MICHAEL'S clothes across BARTLEY'S feet, and sprinkles the Holy Water over
him) It isn't that I haven't prayed for you, BARTLEY, to the Almighty God. It isn't that I haven't said
prayers in the dark night till you wouldn't know what I'd be saying; but it's a great rest I'll have
now, and it's time surely. It's a great rest I'll have now, and great sleeping in the long nights after
Samhain, if it's only a bit of wet flour we do have to eat, and maybe a fish that would be stinking.
[She kneels down again, crossing herself, and saying prayers under her breath.]
CATHLEEN: (to an old man) Maybe yourself and Eamon would make a coffin when the sun rises.
We have fine white boards herself bought, God help her, thinking Michael would be found, and I
have a new cake you can eat while you'll be working.
THE OLD MAN: (looking at the boards) Are there nails with them?
CATHLEEN: There are not, Colum; we didn't think of the nails.
ANOTHER MAN: It's a great wonder she wouldn't think of the nails, and all the coffins she's seen
made already.
CATHLEEN: It's getting old she is, and broken.
[MAURYA stands up again very slowly and spreads out the pieces of MICHAEL'S clothes beside
the body, sprinkling them with the last of the Holy Water.]
NORA: (in a whisper to CATHLEEN) She's quiet now and easy; but the day Michael was
drowned you could hear her crying out from this to the spring-well. It's fonder she was of Michael,
and would anyone have thought that?
CATHLEEN: (slowly and clearly) An old woman will be soon tired with anything she will do, and
isn't it nine days herself is after crying and keening, and making great sorrow in the house?
MAURYA: (puts the empty cup mouth downwards on the table, and lays her hands together on
BARTLEY'S feet) They're all together this time, and the end is come. May the Almighty God have
mercy on Bartley's soul, and on Michael's soul, and on the souls of Sheamus and Patch, and
Stephen and Shawn (bending her head); and may He have mercy on my soul, Nora, and on the
soul of everyone is left living in the world.
[She pauses, and the keen rises a little more loudly from the women, then sinks away.]
MAURYA: Michael has a clean burial in the far north, by the grace of the Almighty God. Bartley
will have a fine coffin out of the white boards, and a deep grave surely. What more can we want
than that? No man at all can be living for ever, and we must be satisfied.
[She kneels down again, and the curtain falls slowly.]
END of PLAY
42
The Rage and The Pride (La Rabbia e
l'Orgoglio)
Oriana Fallaci
1929-2006
excerpt
What to look for: Fallaci wrote this little book after feeling the rumble of the toppling World Trade Towers
in 2001 from her Manhattan apartment. The style is vitriolic—she minces no words in expressing her fury
at certain West-hating elements within Islam. The book therefore became hugely controversial, and was
even banned in parts of Europe. In the following passage, however, she writes eloquently about how one
belongs to the culture of one’s birth in spite of adult decisions one may make to move away from it. She
explains how culture gets in our blood and stays there. What are the main points of her argument? Do
you find them valid?
Well, even if he [Osama Bin Laden] is not the one giving them money, the situation
bothers me. Even if our guests are absolutely innocent, even if there's no one among them who
wants to destroy the Tower of Pisa or the Tower of Giotto, wants to put me in chador, wants to
burn me at the stake of a new Inquisition, their presence alarms me. It makes me
uncomfortable. And whoever takes this situation lightly or optimistically is wrong. And even
more wrong is the person who compares the wave of migration hitting Italy and Europe to that
which spilled into America in the second half of the 1800's or rather at the end of the 1800's and
the beginning of the 1900's. Now I'll tell you why.
Not long ago I happened to catch a phrase uttered by one of the thousand prime
ministers that have honored Italy with their presence over these past few decades. "Well, my
uncle was an immigrant too! I can remember him leaving for America with his little cardboard
suitcase." Or something along those lines. No, my friend. No. It's not the same thing at all. And
it's not for two rather simple reasons.
The first is that the wave of migration to America that took place in the latter half of the
1800's was not clandestine and was not carried out by bullying on the part of those who
effected it. It was the Americans themselves who wanted it, urged it, and by a specific act of
Congress. "Come, come, we need you. If you come, we'll give you a nice piece of land." The
Americans even made a movie about it. That one with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, and what
struck me about it was the ending. The scene with the poor souls running to plant a little white
flag on the piece of land they want to claim as theirs, so that only the youngest and strongest
are able to make it. The rest wind up with diddly squat and some of them die in the process. To
my knowledge, there was never any act of Parliament in Italy inviting or rather urging our
present guests to leave their countries. Come–come–we–really–need–you, if–you–come–we'll–
give–you–a–little–farm–in–Chianti. They came to us on their own initiative, with their accursed
43
dinghies and in the teeth of the customs officers who tried to send them back. What occurred
was not an immigration, it was more of an invasion conducted under an emblem of secrecy. A
secrecy that's disturbing because it's not meek and dolorous but arrogant and protected by the
cynicism of politicians who close an eye or maybe even both. I'll never forget the way these
stow–aways filled the piazzas of Italy with assemblies last year to clamor for visas. Those
distorted, savage faces. Those raised fists, threatening. Those baleful voices that took me back
to the Teheran of Khomeini. I'll never forget it because I felt offended by their bullying in my
home, and because I felt made fun of by the ministers who told us: "We'd like to deport them
but we don't know where they're hiding." Bastards! There were thousands of them in those
piazzas and they sure as hell weren't hiding. To deport them all they had to do was put them in
line, please–right–this–way–sir, and escort them to a port or airport.
The second reason, my dear nephew of the uncle with the little cardboard suitcase, is
one even a schoolboy could understand. It requires only two elements to expound. One:
America is a continent. And in the latter half of the 1800's when the American Congress gave the
green light to immigration, this continent was practically unpopulated. Most of the population
was massed in the eastern states, in other words those on the side of the Atlantic, and there
were even fewer people in the Midwest. California was practically empty. Well, Italy isn't a
continent. It's a very small country, and far from unpopulated. Two: America is a very young
country. If you recall that the War of Independence took place at the end of the 1700's, you can
deduce that it's only two hundred years old and you understand why its cultural identity is not
yet well defined. Italy, on the other hand, is a very old country. Its history goes back at least
three thousand years. Its cultural identity is thus very precise—and let's not beat around the
bush: that identity has quite a bit to do with a religion called Christian religion and a church
called the Catholic Church. People like me have a nice little saying: the–Catholic–church–has–
nothing–to–do–with–me. But boy does it have to do with me. Whether I like it or not, it has to
do with me. And how could it not? I was born into a landscape of churches, convents, Christs,
Madonnas, Saints. The first music I heard coming into the world was the music of church bells.
Those bells of Santa Maria del Fiore that were smothered by the uncouth voice of the muezzin
during the Tent Age. And I grew up in that music, in that landscape. And it was through that
music and that landscape that I learned what architecture is, what sculpture is, what painting is,
what art is. It was through that church (which I later rejected) that I began to ask myself what is
Good, what is Evil, and by God...
There: you see? I wrote "by God" again. With all my secularism, all my atheism, I am so
imbued with Catholic culture that it's even part of my way of expressing myself. Oh God, my
God, thank God, by God, sweet Jesus, good God, Mother Mary, here a Christ, there a Christ.
These words come so spontaneously to me that I don't even realize I'm speaking or writing
them. And you want me to lay it all out? Even if I've never pardoned Catholicism for the infamies
it inflicted on me for centuries, starting with the Inquisition that burned even my
grandmother—poor grandmother!—even if I've never gotten along well with priests and have
no use for their prayers, all the same I really love the music of church bells. It caresses my heart.
I also love those painted or sculpted Christs and Madonnas and Saints. In fact I have a thing for
icons. I also love monasteries and convents. They give me a sense of peace, and sometimes I
envy those inside. And then let's admit it: our cathedrals are more beautiful than mosques and
synagogues. Yes or no? They're also more beautiful than Protestant churches. Look, my family's
cemetery is Protestant. It accepts the dead of all religions but it's Protestant. And one of my
great–grandmothers was Walensian. One of my great–aunts, Evangelist. I never knew my
Walensian great–grandmother. But I did know the Evangelist great–aunt. When I was a little girl
she would always take me to her church functions in Via de' Benci at Florence, and...God, how
44
bored I was! I felt so alone with those faithful who did nothing but sing psalms, that priest who
wasn't a priest and did nothing but read the Bible, that church that didn't seem like a church and
apart from a little pulpit had nothing but a big crucifix. No angels, no Madonnas, no incense. I
even missed the smell of incense, and would rather have been in the nearby Basilica di Santa
Croce where they had these things. The things I was used to. And I'll say more: in my country
house, in Tuscany, there is a tiny little chapel. It's always closed. No one goes there since my
mother died. But I go there sometimes, to dust, to make sure the mice haven't made a nest, and
despite my secular upbringing I feel comfortable there. Despite my priest–hating tendencies, I
move there with casual ease. And I believe that the vast majority of Italians would confess the
same thing. (Even Berlinguer, the head of the Italian Communist Party, confessed as much to
me.)
Good God! (Here we go again.) I'm telling you that we Italians are not in the same
position as the Americans: mosaic of ethnic and religious groups, hodgepodge of a thousand
cultures, at once open to every invasion and able to stave it off. I'm telling you that, for the very
reason that our cultural identity is so precise and defined by so many centuries, it cannot sustain
a wave of immigration composed of people who in one way or another want to change our way
of life. Our values. I'm telling you that we have no room for muezzins, for minarets, for false
teetotalers, for their fucking Middle Ages, for their fucking chador. And if we had room, I
wouldn't give it to them. Because it would be the equivalent of throwing away Dante Alighieri,
Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, the Renaissance, the Risorgimento, the liberty that
for better or worse we fought for and won, our Patria. It would mean giving them Italy. And I
won't give them Italy.
I am Italian. The fools who think I'm an American by now are wrong. I've never asked for
American citizenship. Years ago an American ambassador offered it to me on Celebrity Status,
and after thanking him I replied: "Sir, I'm very tied to America. I'm always arguing with it, always
telling it off, but I'm still profoundly tied to it. For me America is a lover—no, a husband—to
whom I will always be faithful. Assuming he doesn't sleep around on me. I care about this
husband of mine. And I never forget that if he hadn't troubled himself to wage war on Hitler and
Mussolini, today I'd speak German. I never forget that if he hadn't kept an eye on the Soviet
Union, today I'd speak Russian. I care about him and I like him. I like for example that when I
come back to New York and hand over my passport and green card, the customs agent gives me
a big smile and says "Welcome home." The gesture seems so generous, so affectionate. I also
remember that America has always been the Refugium Peccatorum for people without a
homeland. But I already have a homeland, sir. Italy is my Patria, and Italy is my mamma. I love
Italy, sir. And it would seem like renouncing my mamma to take American citizenship." I also
told him that my language is Italian, that I write in Italian, whereas I only translate myself in
English. Just as I translate myself in French, feeling it to be a foreign language. And then I told
him that when I listen to Mameli's anthem I get emotional. That when I hear that "Fratelli–
d'Italia, l'Italia–s'è–desta, parapà–parapà–parapà", I get a lump in my throat. I don't even notice
that as anthems go, it's pretty ugly. I only think: that's the anthem of my Patria. I also get a lump
in my throat when I see the white red and green flag waving. Apart from the stadium hooligans,
that is.
I have a white red and green flag from the 1800s. It is full of stains, stains of blood, all
pink from mice. And despite the fact that it has the coat of arms of the House of Savoy in the
center (though without Cavour and without Victor Emmanuel II and without Garibaldi who
bowed to that coat of arms we would never have unified Italy), I hold onto it like gold. I treasure
it as a jewel. Christ! We died for that flag! Hanged, shot, decapitated. Killed by the Austrians, by
the Pope, by the Duke of Modena, by the Bourbons. We carried out the Risorgimento with that
45
flag. And the unification of Italy, and the war in Carso, and the Resistance. My maternal great–
great–grandfather Giobatta fought for that flag at Curtatone and Montanara and was horribly
disfigured by an Austrian rocket. My paternal uncles endured every kind of pain for that flag in
the trenches of Carso. My father was arrested and tortured for that flag by the nazi–fascists at
Villa Triste. My whole family fought for that flag in the Resistance, and I did too. In the ranks of
Justice and Liberty, with the battle name Emilia. I was fourteen. The next year when they
discharged me from the Volunteer Italian Army Corps of Liberty, I felt so proud. Jesus and Mary,
I had been an Italian soldier! And when I found out that along with the discharge went 14,450
lire, I didn't know whether to accept it or not. It seemed wrong to accept it for doing my duty to
the Patria. Then I did accept it. None of us had shoes at home. And with that money I bought
shoes for myself and my little sisters.
Obviously my homeland, my Italy, is not the Italy of today. The scheming, vulgar, fat–
dumb–and–happy Italy of Italians whose only concern is getting their pensions by 50 and whose
only passions are foreign vacations and soccer matches. The rotten, stupid, cowardly Italy, of
little hyenas who would sell their daughter to a Beirut whorehouse in order to shake the hand of
a Hollywood divo or diva but if Osama Bin Laden's kamikazes reduce thousands of New Yorkers
to a mountain of ashes that seem like ground coffee they snigger contentedly good–it–serves–
America–right. The squalid, faint–hearted, soulless Italy, of presumptuous and incompetent
political parties that don't know how to win or lose but know how to glue the fat posteriors of
their representatives into the seat of a deputy or minister or mayor. The still–Mussolinesque
Italy of black and red fascists that make you think of Ennio Flaiano's terrible joke: "In Italy there
are two kinds of fascists: fascists and anti–fascists." Nor is it the Italy of the magistrates and
politicians who in their ignorance of proper verb tense commit monstrous errors of syntax while
pontificating on television screens. (You don't say, "If it was," you animals! You say "If it were.")
Nor is it the Italy of young people who, having similar teachers, are drowning in the most
scandalous ignorance, the most excruciating superficiality, drowning in emptiness. So that they
add errors of spelling to errors of syntax and if you ask them who the Carbonari were, who the
liberals were, who Silvio Pellico was, who Mazzini was, who Massimo D'Azeglio was, who Cavour
was, who Victor Emmanuel II was, they look at you with dulled pupils and dangling tongues.
They know nothing or at most they know how to play the comfortable role of aspiring terrorists
in a time of peace and democracy, how to wave black flags, hide their faces behind ski masks,
the little fools. Inept fools.
And even less is it the Italy of the chattering insects who after reading this will hate me
for having written the truth. Between one bowl of spaghetti and another they'll curse me and
hope I get killed by one of those whom they protect, that is by Osama Bin Laden. No, no: my
Italy is an ideal Italy. It's an Italy that I dreamed of as a young girl, when I was discharged from
the Italian Volunteer Army Corps of Liberty, and I was full of illusions. An intelligent, dignified,
courageous Italy, and therefore worthy of respect. And this Italy, an Italy that exists even if it is
silenced or ridiculed or insulted—woe to anyone who lays a finger on it. Woe to anyone who
robs it from me or invades it. Because whether the invaders are Napoleon's French or Francis
Joseph's Austrians or Hitler's Germans or Osama Bin Ladin's comrades, it's all the same to me.
Whether they invade it using cannons or rubber dinghies, ditto.
And with that I bid you an affectionate farewell, my dear Ferruccio, and I warn you: ask
nothing further of me. Least of all, to get involved in disputes or pointless polemics. I've said
what I had to say. Anger and pride ordered me to. Age and a clean conscience allowed me to.
But now I have to get back to work; I don't want to be disturbed. End of story.
46
Short Story
Supreme Anomaly
J. S. Moseby
What to look for: the key to this story, as far as our subject goes, is the unnamed narrator’s evolving
attitude to a completely alien culture that has sealed itself off from all possible scrutiny. Is the irritation
that arises from him ever more plainly at all justified? Is he arrogant for insisting that the culture should
open itself up to outsiders… or is he right, perhaps, to think that cultures themselves are arrogant when
they seek to deny outsiders any possible means of access?
On initial scans from the Remote Orbiter, it had puzzled the geologists. It possessed the
height of a moderate volcanic mountain, yet it lacked cone-like contours. Even the severest
volcanic slopes might have approached only forty degrees on a planet of this mass, and then
only at their summit: this object, feature, or structure was virtually perpendicular to the
surface. Nearer and nearer scans justified the equally insane impression--a fantasy which
everyone expected to see dispelled by each better image--that the sides were perfectly
squared. Measurement of the shadow cast by the anomaly when AC 13 was rising, setting, and
at various intermediate stages of day confirmed the height at six thousand meters (less by
perhaps two to three hundred).
That the planet's gravitational force was comparable to Earth's, and that its atmosphere was
of a terrestrial density, offered no clues. Indeed, Ogygia's many resemblances to a home that
most of us remembered well (and whose images all of us revisited almost weekly, if not daily)
only deepened the mystery. For nothing like this had ever been seen on Earth.
One way--the immediately obvious way--in which Ogygia differed from Earth was the
apparently complete absence of life on or in her. One could scarcely be sure without a landing:
hence our mission, or one of its major objectives. But it had been very clear to everyone for a
very long time that highly evolved life had not overrun the planet's surface. This removed yet
another plain explanation (and what would have been much the most exciting one) for the
anomaly. Something so unnatural in shape and size must truly be unnatural, an artificial
construct. Yet where were the artificers? There were no observable roads, aqueducts, or
canals; no supporting structures, such as independent habitations or protective walls or towers;
no signs of ordinary social flow, such as spontaneous low-energy sources or routine small
movements. There was no movement at all, routine or sporadic: no movement over the dusty
alluvial plains, no movement along the ragged ridges to the north and west, no movement of
any perceptible sort in the permanently shadow-draped valleys. Certainly no movement in the
air, unless it originated in something the size of an insect. And, eventually, we would have
detected even insects. Besides, insects require vegetation; and of visible surface vegetation,
there was none, either. Ogygia was turning out to be much more like Mars than Earth.
But then, all the life on Mars had turned out to live below the surface. So it might be here:
hence the mission.
47
But then again, Mars had never displayed anything like Anomaly 3 (so-called simply because
of the quadrant in which the scanners started their work: it was indisputably Number One in
regard to its oddity). In the early days of photographing Mars, explorers had frightened
themselves after too many days and weeks of poring over grainy gray blots, imagining at last
that they had found a vast face set upon the surface to stare into the stars like a Sphinx. Of
course, a good night's sleep and a new angle of the Sun had dispelled the thrilling terror.
And there was something else about the Martian incident--something that undermined its
credibility as a sign of life--which one would have to class back among "resemblances" in the
context of Ogygia. The "face" had been unique. There had been no other faces staring at
possible extra-Martian lenses from other parts of the planet. If a sophisticated population were
to engineer such an enormous sculpture--if they were to consider its erection so important as to
justify one megalith--then why not five, or eight, or eighty? So for Anomaly 3: if it were built by
intelligent and technologically advanced life, why would it be the only one of its kind? There
should be copies of it, or perhaps smaller versions leading up to it. Several pyramids were made
in ancient Egypt. (Had there been more than one Sphinx? To be researched later. But DICTA
makes mention of Polynesian face-monuments built for no apparent reason, yet in the
hundreds. Can we or can we not infer, then, that there should be more than one Anomaly 3? If
we cannot understand our own kind from several thousand years back...)
Be that as it may, there were no replicas of Anomaly 3 anywhere on Ogygia. Nothing of even
a few dozen meters in height. The mapping had long been complete as we planned the
mission. There was nothing comparable anywhere on this planet, or anywhere (that we knew
of) in this arm of the galaxy.
Of the other eight anomalies, already we knew that one had been entirely misread by an
intern and two others due to instrumental shortcomings. Anomaly 2 was indeed a remarkable
volcano, and Anomaly 6 was of a sort that we could all scarcely wait to view directly in the
mission's next phase: a frozen lake, perhaps, or something with extraordinarily reflective
properties. Yet these and the remaining genuine oddities fell into categories of structure found
elsewhere in the galaxy. They were exciting, but far from baffling. Only Anomaly 3 should not
have existed.
We had known this before the landing. We had even viewed the site remotely before the
landing with a resolution well beyond the human eye's (achieved now by the fully mobile
ATAVUS, which executed a complete walk-around: Anomaly 3's perimeter proved so huge
that the survey had to be discontinued after AC 13 set and resumed the next morning). Yet
somehow we were unprepared for what we saw upon disembarking. The artificial eye had not
been capable of the human version's exquisite peripheral vision: it had not dizzied us as we
looked on from orbit. On the contrary, it had frustrated us with too much detail. It had
revealed to us the texture of Anomaly 3's wall--a non-porous, unpolished stone (probably
synthetic) which offered no seam for meter after meter, kilometer after kilometer. Each face
had measured just under a kilometer and a half in width: not one centimeter of all that had
betrayed any crack or fissure, natural or manufactured.
But this foreknowledge, shocking though it certainly was, had not primed us for the sheer,
unspeakable, unthinkable enormity of the structure. It hit us instantly upon exiting the
lander. Sardelis fell straight back in the dust. I know this because I stumbled over him as the
weight of the vision pushed me back, as well: I should probably have ended up on my back, too,
if his body had not preempted my tumble. Perhaps the others responded the same way, every
one of them. It is extremely likely that they did. Yet I never looked. I could look at nothing but
the great monolithic face, rising and rising and rising and rising, stretching and stretching and
stretching. I can only describe my feeling as one of being afloat. With so much surface
48
spreading to either horizon and fanning upward until it actually pierced a wisp of haze and
continued beyond, one had the distinct and reversed sense that DOWN THERE should have been
one's solid ground, and that UP HERE was the vertical wall upon which one crawled miraculously
without slipping off. Galactic travel accustoms one to infinity, almost jades one with it. How
strange, that something necessarily, transparently artificial should have given me the most
irresistible dose of the infinite I had ever known...
This is not part of any official report, so I will not bother to return upon those words and
excise them. They are subjective impressions--but what else do I have that communicates the
phenomenon? An edifice many times the size of the largest station ever conceived (not built,
but conceived), its visible portion enclosing almost fourteen thousand cubic kilometers (and we
must also assume a very substantial subterranean structure, perhaps a third again of that
value).... When we returned yesterday, Fardelo so infuriated me during the debriefing with his,
"Big rig, huh?" and his incomparably stupid laugh--the one other thing in the galaxy without
compare--that I very nearly slapped him. Perhaps I am recording these feelings so that someone
may read them in the event of a psychological inquest; or, since there was no true incident,
perhaps I merely wish to conduct my own inquest into my state of mind. But is there not
something grotesque about having no more sense of the place than that?
We are told, are we not, that we exist independently of our androids precisely to have
feelings, since a feeling often conceals an objectively useful datum. Why, then, are people like
Fardelo chosen for missions like this?
The dust had been determined entirely non-toxic, and it should not have contained any stone
fragments sharp enough to cut through our lining (in any case, the atmosphere would have been
breathable for short periods); so I remained in it beside Sardelis for quite some time. We sat
with our hands on our knees. From our position, approximately five hundred meters from the
structure, we were sufficiently angled to see part of two faces. The face that more or less
confronted us ran laterally until we could no longer clearly distinguish it from the brown
distance, though the slate-gray mountain range which posed a horizon obviously was well
beyond its limit. As for the much more angularly oriented side, it also ran away from us into a
kind of brown-gray smudge. Our readings had told us that the extent of each of the four sides
fell well short of two kilometers, and the planet's surface was scarcely hilly here. Yet we
curiously had the sense (for Sardelis and I began to converse quietly off the record as we sat) of
an immeasurably great length. I have decided upon reflection that this illusion must stem from
Anomaly 3's incredible height. Try as one might, one could not simply focus one's sight upon its
lateral dimension: the vertical tended to absorb the lateral as the eye trailed farther and farther
along, so that the mind lost its way and one was at last looking skyward without realizing
it. With the structure's perfect, inviolable uniformity, such error was inevitable. Not a seam,
not a door or window, not a ledge or cornice... no sign, emblem, or insignia... no change of color
from top to bottom, from side to side (but for the angled side's uniformly darker brown
shadow)... one found oneself, eventually, fingering the dust to be sure that one was not in fact
sitting on the stone infinity's rim.
I was repeatedly surprised, at a purely subjective level, to re-confirm that I sat a good five
hundred meters away from Anomaly 3. It soaked up my mind like a dry sponge brushing over a
water droplet.
And at last it also drew my body in. I discovered that I was walking without ever having made
the conscious decision to stand up. Sardelis was beside me, and I know that Yordelis was
beyond him. Then there were two others, I believe. Certainly it was Fardelo who sped by in the
MOTAV. I should say in his defense that the rest of us were wasting valuable time and resources
in taking a needless hike; but the speed at which he passed us, churning up dust and surely
49
drowning out the noise of any attempted communication (whether among us or from the
denizens of Anomaly 3) was strictly against protocol. I could have him suspended on that
ground alone.
As for wasted time, I will not pretend that we devoted a moment to examining the soil, which
might somewhat have justified our daze. Yet ATAVUS had already made a detailed
analysis. When Morbel later attempted to defend our sluggishness along these lines, it was a
difficult defense. Yet we did blunder into the negative discovery--the non-discovery--that there
appeared to be no vents, outlets, sensors, or other contacts between the structure and the
outside environment embedded in the dust. I would come to stress that point at the debriefing,
even though establishing it had been the farthest thing from my mind as we walked. It has now
acquired immense significance for me--as huge in abstraction as the physical presence of
Anomaly 3.
The brown sheet grew and grew over us until it WAS us: our full horizon, our world, our every
thought and being. A timeless, characterless All that might as well have been Nothing. Even the
antics of Fardelo shrank to the buzz of some tiny, dying fly at the far end of a vast room. We
touched the stone, leaned on it--even pressed our chests to it. Someone fell down again... but
for most of us, it was too close now even to push us down. The sensation, rather, was of being
drawn within. I remember patting my palms upon the perfectly smooth yet sheenless surface,
and then trying to pour my thoughts through them into the mass. I had wondered if vibration
might draw a response, or if the hidden occupants might be telepathic.
For occupants there must be, or must have been: I was sincerely shocked when a doubt was
raised on this score during the debriefing. Nature could not possibly have engineered such rigid,
unscathed, severely simple perfection. Yet it was certainly conceivable that the planet's
inhabitants, having spun themselves into this gigantic cocoon of synthetic stone, had sealed
themselves too well. Inside--if only we could reach inside--might wait corpses by the
million. The planet's ecosystem had plainly degenerated in a catastrophic manner, for despite
abundant geological evidence of fluid surface water, it was now as dry as a bone (the Martian
paradigm again). Perhaps they had forgotten something or run short of something after having
walled themselves off, impenetrably and irreversibly, from a now-toxic exterior. Or perhaps
they were insulated all too well: perhaps a contagion had spread among them all and left no
survivors, distancing oneself from society being now out of the question; or perhaps they had
grown weary of each other's company (a magnified version of my ongoing friction with Fardelo),
and push had led to shove had led to blow had led to stab had led to... what a horrid vision. Yet
still more horrid, perhaps they had simply given up (given up eating, given up reproducing) in
despair over having lost the Sun--whatever they called their AC 13--forever. imagine having
been born in a transport vehicle which will never reach any destination within one's lifespan:
imagine living for no better reason than to bring someone else into life who might bring
someone else into life whose great-grandchildren might one day be able to exit the huge,
comfortable coffin.
I did not offer many of these explanations for display during the debriefing. As I have written
before, what emerged from that session--all that emerged from it--of significance to me was the
observation, volunteered at first as a hasty, somewhat guilty rebuttal to the charge of
inattention, that Anomaly 3 had absolutely no contact whatever with its surrounding
environment. It was as hermetically self-sustained as if it had been launched into interplanetary
space. Its very atmosphere must have been recycled; for there were plainly no intakes in the
walls, and if gasses had for some reason been inducted or ejected far from the structure by an
underground system, the openings required would have been huge. We already knew that the
very top panel of the edifice was no more porous than its sides: we knew this first of all, since it
50
was first surface scanned in detail. The only remaining option would be a subterranean system
of entrances and exits or of ducts and valves--which would make a certain amount of sense,
inasmuch as the water exiled from the planet's surface would very likely have welled in
abundance beneath that surface.
But why not at least have a door, invincibly sealed against the corrupted environment's
threats but still, at some point, capable of unsealing? Why not at least have a sensor? If this
species so longed to survive that it would construct such an impregnable capsule, then why not
include a warning system against new external threats--a window, a sensor, a trip-line? A major
reason for sending down a human party had been to encourage contact--to advertise, as it
were, the innocuous frailty and well-meaning curiosity of the designers of ATAVUS and other
exploratory craft. They could have seen from our actions that we were non-robotic--all too nonrobotic; and they would have extended a hand or spoken a word, if they had seen us as we
are. They had not seen us. They had not been looking. For perhaps thousands of years, they
had been walled in this beached asteroid of a crypt, not looking for anyone or anything.
Yes, thousands of years. The plain had once been the bottom of a lake, and no such structure
as this would ever have been attempted unless the terrain had been thoroughly dry and settled:
a far terminus, we determined, of perhaps ten thousand years. Yet that must also have been
the approximate near terminus; for unless the forces that destroyed the natural environment
also motivated Anomaly 3's construction, why would the mass ever have been constructed?
In volunteering for the follow-up mission, I have drawn upon every bit of trust and credibility
that I have ever banked. The Admiral is not pleased that we had to curtail our visit to Anomaly 2
due to overstaying at Anomaly 3, and I cannot offer an entirely convincing explanation of why
the delay occurred, It seems absurd to have spent so many hours in merely staring. We
attempted to gather sensor readings, of course, but no instrument registered anything but
background noise. Since protocol forbids any sort of drilling into any artificial structure on the
initial mission, we can only guess (but it is a well-educated guess) that the synthetic stone is
impervious to normal impact and extends far underground. Our data, in short, are a series of
blanks and negatives. Nothing, no, nothing. Indeterminable. Nothing. My case amounted to
arguing that ascertaining so much nothingness requires a great deal of time.
If I do not participate in the follow-ups, I have decided that I will tender my demission. It will
be impossible for me to focus on other assignments if I must leave this one in its present
state. No one regrets more than I, in retrospect, that we paid so little attention to Anomalies 2
and 6. They may very well hold the answer to the mystery of Anomaly 3. A suspiciously perfect
caldera... might it not be an entry and exit, fabricated with incredible industry a quarter of the
way around the planet, to 3's strange polis? A twenty-thousand-square-meter mirror of
perfectly smooth ice near the planet's south pole... might it not be Anomaly 3's artificially
sustained water source, or purification plant, or vacationing retreat?
Most of all, though, I should like to be allowed to penetrate that perfectly smooth, seamless
synthetic material by any means possible. A slight risk exists, perhaps, of polluting the internal
environment, and a much greater risk of disturbing the internal peace. Concerning the latter, I
haven't the slightest pang of conscience. To make such a wall, to make it perfectly, and to make
it for all time to come... I find, as I collect and classify my feelings, that this deeply angers me. I
should like to dig these beings out of their millennial hole, drag them out into the light of day,
and ask them--by sign or through interpreter--just who they think they are.
51
Assessing the Cultural
Toxicity of Cultural
Success: Economics and
Technology
Technology and wealth grow from cultural development—but do
they not also undermine cultural tradition? Do they pose risks
only at certain evolutionary stages? Can timeless customs be
protected from advanced technology and its dynamic markets?
Here is a topic that cries out for discussion: it is surely one of the least recognized
enigmas of our time, yet upon its coherent resolution depends the future of the planet. Culture
is not hostile to technology—far from it. Even the earliest human cultures were constantly
developing tools to enhance and prolong life. Instruments made of animal bones or sharpened
stone are technology: so is the controlled fire of a communal hearth, and so are thatched roofs
woven of reeds or grasses. Yet at some point in very recent history, advanced technology has
indeed turned hostile toward several impulses essential to culture. If culture requires us
somehow to preserve a certain way of life, and if our high-tech world considers anything and
everything as fair game for “upgrade,” then we must surely be witnessing a clash between the
two dispositions. Language itself may change so radically in tomorrow’s ultra-artificial reality
that people will communicate telepathically, or perhaps (in a scaled-down version of the same
thing) through monitors mounted on the head that construct images from brain waves. What
could be more basic to culture than language?
Implicit in the previous remarks is the notion that advancing technology favors a market
economy. While tribal cultures are pretty good at finding uses for stones and sticks, their
innovation tends to level off after they have reached a comfortable equilibrium with the
environment. Their technology can arrive at a plateau where it will remain for thousands of
years. More sophisticated technology appears only when some sort of need for it is recognized;
and, once the basic needs of life have been satisfied, the only need left to bait the hook is the
rather artificial one of wealth. Where market forces are free to reward innovators and risktakers with material advantages far beyond what they would have been permitted by inherited,
static privileges, the most energetic rise up to claim their prize. Of course, this is a good thing in
many ways—perhaps most ways; but it also clearly destabilizes tradition. Class boundaries are
not fixed… and a fond farewell to them—they won’t be missed! But cities tend to plow under
their older landmarks, as well. Arable farmland is “developed” into casinos. Family businesses
52
on Main Street are strangled by cheaper merchandise mass-produced on an assembly line. In
some of these cases, the overall benefit of “progress” is more difficult to see.
This brief discussion may suffice to suggest that your second essay will probably fit more
convincingly under the conventional rubric of “cause and effect” than anywhere else. You are
seeking to explain the causal connection, after all, between the motive forces of culture and
those of economic and technological. The forces run in both directions: culture causes new
wealth and technology—a dynamic duo which in turn exerts (especially in advanced form) a
major influence upon cultural practices. Yet in tracing the various links involved, you will again
be employing several kinds of operation. Naturally, the definition of culture that you teased out
earlier will be highly pertinent here. I have had students who were drawn to the notion that our
culture is precisely a culture of change—that we modern Americans live as we have traditionally
done when we play fast and loose with tradition in search of a better way: THAT is our tradition!
This paradox seems to me to require a very limber definition of the word “culture.” To make
such an argument, you must at least explain clearly what you understand culture to be. Though
some (perhaps many) may disagree with your proposed definition, no one can fault you with
inconsistency if you spell out your terms openly and then stay within their parameters.
This essay will also necessarily demand an unusual degree of scrutinizing specific cases
closely—which will in turn demand some research. Make no mistake: any reader would be
highly vexed if he or she had to read paragraph after paragraph about technology’s
transformative effect upon attitudes, morals, religious beliefs, etc., but was never offered a
single solid example. Is the author alluding to TV-viewing? Are movies included? Must violence
and sex figure prominently in the content, or do even documentaries about seals or penguins
demoralize the populace? Has the arrival of the Internet accelerated the process of decay,
slowed it down, or had no impact at all? Will the technologies likely to replace or absorb the
Internet solve any of the problems identified?
The same is true of value judgments about free enterprise—only more so. Some
students love capitalism: others detest it. Look no farther than the emotional bombshells
detonated by the “Occupy Wall Street” movement! How many on either side, though, can
advance clear examples of the supposed influences about which they feel so passionately? Was
George Washington really thinking about the freedom to sell old nags without government
inspection as he crossed the Delaware? If a central government fixed and paid all of our wages,
on the other hand, would human greed and envy really vanish from the planet? When people
(and not just young people, by any means) propose what they think are examples of an
economy in action, they usually need to go back to the drawing board, for the intricacies of any
society’s economic life are very, very complicated.
Obviously, then, clear and relevant examples will play a major part in deciding this
essay’s success. In general, research your claims rather than trying to palm them off as
“common knowledge.” Though you may think it axiomatic that watching hours and hours of
staged carnage on TV is sure to turn children violent, studies have suggested that television
actually lowers brain-wave activity almost to a sleeping state. A connection with violence
remains plausible: often children who consume television heavily have been found alarmingly
desensitized to the pain of those around them, which could indirectly breed a tolerance of
violent behavior in others. In the same way, it may seem transparently clear that poor people
should receive a minimum wage in a society containing as much wealth as ours. Yet a lot of
evidence suggests that small businesses, especially, must lay off workers—or declare
bankruptcy—every time the required wage level is raised. As you can tell, even examples often
need to be narrowly analyzed for the processes of cause and effect hidden away in them.
53
Sort through your “facts” carefully, therefore, and understand how much supposition or
inference is in them. In cases where no useful research exists, you are certainly free to
speculate. Yet this, too, must plainly be done (more so than ever) in a lucid, logical manner.
You can explain, step by step, how a future where everyone walks about with a headset,
engaged in long-distance conversations while warm bodies within arm’s length are ignored,
must see a decline in genuine interpersonal skills. The chain of causes makes sense.
Nevertheless, you must construct that chain: it won’t build itself. Or if you picture a future
where wealth is distributed more or less evenly to everyone, you must likewise picture how that
wealth is to be generated when nobody is any longer allowed to keep “excess” profits. What
will be the motive that drives people to work hard?
As before, anecdotal evidence may also be relevant. If you observed changes in your
social dealings, for instance, over a long vacation to a remote spot without many electrical
conveniences, you may call yourself as a witness. Perhaps you have lived in, or visited
extensively, a nation whose economic system differs radically from the American design.
Referring to that experience could be highly informative. Similarly, you might wish to use
friends or fellow students as sources. The personal interview is an under-utilized resource on
topics such as this one, where the world has changed faster than clinical and academic
researchers can design projects to study it. Simply be sure to document such interviews. Never
allow personal testimonies (either yours or an acquaintance’s) to lure you into an opinionated
subjectivity.
Let us then, again list the varieties of writing that might be implicated in this single
essay:
a)
b)
c)
d)
definition (of culture)
cause-and-effect (as it operates between culture and technology)
exemplification (of kinds of technology)
description (also of kinds of technology; do NOT assume that every reader understands
the intricacies of the iPhone)
e) research (to verify claims about technology)
f) anecdote (if your personal experiences are relevant)
g) interview (if you have acquaintances possessed of relevant experience)
h) speculation (especially about obscure or unexplored connections and about the course
of the future)
Rhetorical handbooks have conventionally labeled each of these items as a distinct kind of
essay, and you have indeed probably written essays in high school that merely described or
merely presented research. Critical thinking calls for your mind to work in several registers
concurrently and harmoniously, however; so our goal, once again, is to fuse several approaches
effectively.
I reiterate that you should not strive to satisfy every element on the list above—it is
intended only to recommend some of the varieties of thinking and writing that might help you
to develop a good discussion of this complex topic.
54
READINGS
“Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change” (speech) ~ Neil Postman
Excerpts from The Revolt of the Masses ~ José Ortega y Gassett
Freedom Grows on Trees: A Eudemonist Economics (essay) ~ John R. Harris
“The Pleasures of Eating” (essay) ~ Wendell Berry
The late Neil Postman became quite recognizable in the final decades of the twentieth
century as a critic of television, in particular. He was not by any means a Luddite (i.e., a person
categorically opposed to all new technology: the term originates in the violent riots against
industrialization that occurred in early nineteenth-century England). Postman, rather, simply
wanted American society to look before leaping: to weigh the probable consequences of new
technology, that is, before shifting massively to unfamiliar parameters. We do not appear to
have taken his advice, for the most part.
In many ways, the Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset anticipated all the subsequent
critiques of technology that have flowed from figures like Postman. Ortega y Gasset was the
pioneer who blazed the trail. Some of his passages read as if they were written about
computers, cell phones, or some other cutting-edge innovation of the present day; yet when his
ground-breaking essays first appeared, even automobiles were a fairly new arrival on the
cultural scene. Ortega y Gasset foresaw that the overall tendency of this high-tech revolution
would be to spoil people: to make them want more, to make them want that more right now,
and to make them feel fully entitled to such instant full service. The masses, especially—the
social rank and file—would acquire this mindset, since the average person has far too little
education to understand the complexity behind so much sudden ease and convenience. The
prospect of having vast numbers of such ignorant spoiled children set loose in the West’s
democracies did not leave Ortega y Gasset a political optimist.
In my arrogance, I have dared to include the first half of my own piece (it appeared
online in two parts) on the same reading list as these classics. I have done so because my work
cites so many of the authors chosen for this file—but also, and primarily, because the essay’s
first half clarifies how treacherous it is to attempt navigating through complex cultural issues
with bearings taken on simplistic political labels. Neither the new liberalism of the twenty-first
century (more properly called progressivism) nor the self-styled conservatism affected by
corporate giants and their dependents gives much slack to the interests of cultural tradition. In
fact, if the triumph of liberal Western culture (in the word’s original sense: liberalis means
“related to freedom” in Latin) was to deliver the fate of the ordinary man and woman into their
own hands, then today’s Left seems to want these very people beholden to a heavily centralized
government for all their needs, while the Right wants them scrambling around like miserable
insects in the high-tech free market’s busy hive. Neither option seems to me conducive to
human happiness and fulfillment.
Wendell Berry’s essay picks up some of the themes that I would have developed in the
second half of my piece—and does so, of course, much more powerfully than I could do. Berry
writes in the tradition of the Southern Agrarians (an influential group of thinkers, including
Richard Weaver, who began publishing in the Forties). Though he tends to focus upon the
primal connection between people and their food—and to stress, specifically, that people must
maintain a personal element in this connection if they are to keep both feet in reality—I would
not say that his thesis needs to be restricted to food-growing. The broader idea is that we
actually grow less free as we “free” ourselves from the chores of supplying our essential needs
55
directly. Culture has bequeathed to us various ways to preserve our self-sufficiency while also
living in relative harmony as a group. Technology often upsets the delicate balances involved
here, creating all kinds of shortcuts to fulfilling our needs that allow us to forget our basic knowhow and also to strip away close neighborly ties. To say that such results represent “progress” is
surely to use that word in a very narrow sense.
Each of these four selections identifies advanced technology and the dizzily volatile
marketplaces it creates as a menace to culture. If cultures are collective value systems passed
along for generations due to their relative success at promoting stability and contentment, then
one cannot well see the high-tech onslaught as anything but an adversary in the cultural
context. Nothing old is good enough any longer: nothing belonging to our parents works well
enough. We should consider our personal convenience, not the general comfort of our
neighbors; why should we publicly wait in line for something that can be delivered to us
privately at once? The notions of sharing, yielding, and cooperating—of manners, of selfrestraint and self-sacrifice, of patience, of good humor and perspective—all the qualities of
character that one expects to find in a well-acculturated person are subverted in what
Christopher Lasch has dubbed the “instant-gratification society.”
We need not absolutely conclude that technology is wicked, especially since it has been
created by culture. Our contemporary experience, however, has certainly forced us to confront
the reality that culture must ponder the proper role of highly advanced technology or risk being
devoured by it.
56
Five Things We Need to Know About
Technological Change
Neil Postman
1931-2003
Source: http://www.mat.upm.es/~jcm/neil-postman--five-things.html
What to look for: the late Neil Postman was among the most intelligent and thorough media critics of the
twentieth century. As this speech reveals, he thought far beyond the subtle influences of television
(though best known for his books on that subject). Essentially, Postman believed that acts are not
indifferent to the kinds of artifice used in them—that moving about by foot or horse or car, for instance,
will eventually produce three different types of human psyche. How does he build such a case in this
speech? Specifically, how might the kinds of moral change he sees being ushered in by advanced
technology completely alter our culture’s roots?
Good morning your Eminences and Excellencies, ladies, and gentlemen.
The theme of this conference, "The New Technologies and the Human Person:
Communicating the Faith in the New Millennium," suggests, of course, that you are concerned
about what might happen to faith in the new millennium, as well you should be. In addition to
our computers, which are close to having a nervous breakdown in anticipation of the year 2000,
there is a great deal of frantic talk about the 21st century and how it will pose for us unique
problems of which we know very little but for which, nonetheless, we are supposed to carefully
prepare. Everyone seems to worry about this--business people, politicians, educators, as well as
theologians.
At the risk of sounding patronizing, may I try to put everyone's mind at ease? I doubt
that the 21st century will pose for us problems that are more stunning, disorienting or complex
than those we faced in this century, or the 19th, 18th, 17th, or for that matter, many of the
centuries before that. But for those who are excessively nervous about the new millennium, I
can provide, right at the start, some good advice about how to confront it. The advice comes
from people whom we can trust, and whose thoughtfulness, it's safe to say, exceeds that of
President Clinton, Newt Gingrich, or even Bill Gates. Here is what Henry David Thoreau told us:
"All our inventions are but improved means to an unimproved end." Here is what Goethe told
us: "One should, each day, try to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if
possible, speak a few reasonable words." Socrates told us: "The unexamined life is not worth
living." Rabbi Hillel told us: "What is hateful to thee, do not do to another." And here is the
prophet Micah: "What does the Lord require of thee but to do justly, to love mercy and to walk
humbly with thy God." And I could say, if we had the time, (although you know it well enough)
what Jesus, Isaiah, Mohammad, Spinoza, and Shakespeare told us. It is all the same: There is no
escaping from ourselves. The human dilemma is as it has always been, and it is a delusion to
believe that the technological changes of our era have rendered irrelevant the wisdom of the
ages and the sages.
57
Nonetheless, having said this, I know perfectly well that because we do live in a
technological age, we have some special problems that Jesus, Hillel, Socrates, and Micah did not
and could not speak of. I do not have the wisdom to say what we ought to do about such
problems, and so my contribution must confine itself to some things we need to know in order
to address the problems. I call my talk Five Things We Need to Know About Technological
Change. I base these ideas on my thirty years of studying the history of technological change but
I do not think these are academic or esoteric ideas. They are to the sort of things everyone who
is concerned with cultural stability and balance should know and I offer them to you in the hope
that you will find them useful in thinking about the effects of technology on religious faith.
First Idea
The first idea is that all technological change is a trade-off. I like to call it a Faustian
bargain. Technology giveth and technology taketh away. This means that for every advantage a
new technology offers, there is always a corresponding disadvantage. The disadvantage may
exceed in importance the advantage, or the advantage may well be worth the cost. Now, this
may seem to be a rather obvious idea, but you would be surprised at how many people believe
that new technologies are unmixed blessings. You need only think of the enthusiasms with
which most people approach their understanding of computers. Ask anyone who knows
something about computers to talk about them, and you will find that they will, unabashedly
and relentlessly, extol the wonders of computers. You will also find that in most cases they will
completely neglect to mention any of the liabilities of computers. This is a dangerous imbalance,
since the greater the wonders of a technology, the greater will be its negative consequences.
Think of the automobile, which for all of its obvious advantages, has poisoned our air,
choked our cities, and degraded the beauty of our natural landscape. Or you might reflect on
the paradox of medical technology which brings wondrous cures but is, at the same time, a
demonstrable cause of certain diseases and disabilities, and has played a significant role in
reducing the diagnostic skills of physicians. It is also well to recall that for all of the intellectual
and social benefits provided by the printing press, its costs were equally monumental. The
printing press gave the Western world prose, but it made poetry into an exotic and elitist form
of communication. It gave us inductive science, but it reduced religious sensibility to a form of
fanciful superstition. Printing gave us the modern conception of nationhood, but in so doing
turned patriotism into a sordid if not lethal emotion. We might even say that the printing of the
Bible in vernacular languages introduced the impression that God was an Englishman or a
German or a Frenchman--that is to say, printing reduced God to the dimensions of a local
potentate.
Perhaps the best way I can express this idea is to say that the question, "What will a new
technology do?" is no more important than the question, "What will a new technology undo?"
Indeed, the latter question is more important, precisely because it is asked so infrequently. One
might say, then, that a sophisticated perspective on technological change includes one's being
skeptical of Utopian and Messianic visions drawn by those who have no sense of history or of
the precarious balances on which culture depends. In fact, if it were up to me, I would forbid
anyone from talking about the new information technologies unless the person can
demonstrate that he or she knows something about the social and psychic effects of the
alphabet, the mechanical clock, the printing press, and telegraphy. In other words, knows
something about the costs of great technologies.
Idea Number One, then, is that culture always pays a price for technology.
Second Idea
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This leads to the second idea, which is that the advantages and disadvantages of new
technologies are never distributed evenly among the population. This means that every new
technology benefits some and harms others. There are even some who are not affected at all.
Consider again the case of the printing press in the 16th century, of which Martin Luther said it
was "God's highest and extremest act of grace, whereby the business of the gospel is driven
forward." By placing the word of God on every Christian's kitchen table, the mass-produced
book undermined the authority of the church hierarchy, and hastened the breakup of the Holy
Roman See. The Protestants of that time cheered this development. The Catholics were enraged
and distraught. Since I am a Jew, had I lived at that time, I probably wouldn't have given a damn
one way or another, since it would make no difference whether a pogrom was inspired by
Martin Luther or Pope Leo X. Some gain, some lose, a few remain as they were.
Let us take as another example, television, although here I should add at once that in
the case of television there are very few indeed who are not affected in one way or another. In
America, where television has taken hold more deeply than anywhere else, there are many
people who find it a blessing, not least those who have achieved high-paying, gratifying careers
in television as executives, technicians, directors, newscasters and entertainers. On the other
hand, and in the long run, television may bring an end to the careers of school teachers since
school was an invention of the printing press and must stand or fall on the issue of how much
importance the printed word will have in the future. There is no chance, of course, that
television will go away but school teachers who are enthusiastic about its presence always call
to my mind an image of some turn-of-the-century blacksmith who not only is singing the praises
of the automobile but who also believes that his business will be enhanced by it. We know now
that his business was not enhanced by it; it was rendered obsolete by it, as perhaps an
intelligent blacksmith would have known.
The questions, then, that are never far from the mind of a person who is knowledgeable
about technological change are these: Who specifically benefits from the development of a new
technology? Which groups, what type of person, what kind of industry will be favored? And, of
course, which groups of people will thereby be harmed?
These questions should certainly be on our minds when we think about computer
technology. There is no doubt that the computer has been and will continue to be advantageous
to large-scale organizations like the military or airline companies or banks or tax collecting
institutions. And it is equally clear that the computer is now indispensable to high-level
researchers in physics and other natural sciences. But to what extent has computer technology
been an advantage to the masses of people? To steel workers, vegetable store owners,
automobile mechanics, musicians, bakers, bricklayers, dentists, yes, theologians, and most of
the rest into whose lives the computer now intrudes? These people have had their private
matters made more accessible to powerful institutions. They are more easily tracked and
controlled; they are subjected to more examinations, and are increasingly mystified by the
decisions made about them. They are more than ever reduced to mere numerical objects. They
are being buried by junk mail. They are easy targets for advertising agencies and political
institutions.
In a word, these people are losers in the great computer revolution. The winners, which
include among others computer companies, multi-national corporations and the nation state,
will, of course, encourage the losers to be enthusiastic about computer technology. That is the
way of winners, and so in the beginning they told the losers that with personal computers the
average person can balance a checkbook more neatly, keep better track of recipes, and make
more logical shopping lists. Then they told them that computers will make it possible to vote at
home, shop at home, get all the entertainment they wish at home, and thus make community
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life unnecessary. And now, of course, the winners speak constantly of the Age of Information,
always implying that the more information we have, the better we will be in solving significant
problems--not only personal ones but large-scale social problems, as well. But how true is this?
If there are children starving in the world--and there are--it is not because of insufficient
information. We have known for a long time how to produce enough food to feed every child on
the planet. How is it that we let so many of them starve? If there is violence on our streets, it is
not because we have insufficient information. If women are abused, if divorce and pornography
and mental illness are increasing, none of it has anything to do with insufficient information. I
dare say it is because something else is missing, and I don't think I have to tell this audience
what it is. Who knows? This age of information may turn out to be a curse if we are blinded by it
so that we cannot see truly where our problems lie. That is why it is always necessary for us to
ask of those who speak enthusiastically of computer technology, why do you do this? What
interests do you represent? To whom are you hoping to give power? From whom will you be
withholding power?
I do not mean to attribute unsavory, let alone sinister motives to anyone. I say only that
since technology favors some people and harms others, these are questions that must always be
asked. And so, that there are always winners and losers in technological change is the second
idea.
Third Idea
Here is the third. Embedded in every technology there is a powerful idea, sometimes
two or three powerful ideas. These ideas are often hidden from our view because they are of a
somewhat abstract nature. But this should not be taken to mean that they do not have practical
consequences.
Perhaps you are familiar with the old adage that says: To a man with a hammer,
everything looks like a nail. We may extend that truism: To a person with a pencil, everything
looks like a sentence. To a person with a TV camera, everything looks like an image. To a person
with a computer, everything looks like data. I do not think we need to take these aphorisms
literally. But what they call to our attention is that every technology has a prejudice. Like
language itself, it predisposes us to favor and value certain perspectives and accomplishments.
In a culture without writing, human memory is of the greatest importance, as are the proverbs,
sayings and songs which contain the accumulated oral wisdom of centuries. That is why
Solomon was thought to be the wisest of men. In Kings I we are told he knew 3,000 proverbs.
But in a culture with writing, such feats of memory are considered a waste of time, and proverbs
are merely irrelevant fancies. The writing person favors logical organization and systematic
analysis, not proverbs. The telegraphic person values speed, not introspection. The television
person values immediacy, not history. And computer people, what shall we say of them?
Perhaps we can say that the computer person values information, not knowledge, certainly not
wisdom. Indeed, in the computer age, the concept of wisdom may vanish altogether.
The third idea, then, is that every technology has a philosophy which is given expression
in how the technology makes people use their minds, in what it makes us do with our bodies, in
how it codifies the world, in which of our senses it amplifies, in which of our emotional and
intellectual tendencies it disregards. This idea is the sum and substance of what the great
Catholic prophet, Marshall McLuhan meant when he coined the famous sentence, "The medium
is the message."
Fourth Idea
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Here is the fourth idea: Technological change is not additive; it is ecological. I can
explain this best by an analogy. What happens if we place a drop of red dye into a beaker of
clear water? Do we have clear water plus a spot of red dye? Obviously not. We have a new
coloration to every molecule of water. That is what I mean by ecological change. A new medium
does not add something; it changes everything. In the year 1500, after the printing press was
invented, you did not have old Europe plus the printing press. You had a different Europe. After
television, America was not America plus television. Television gave a new coloration to every
political campaign, to every home, to every school, to every church, to every industry, and so
on.
That is why we must be cautious about technological innovation. The consequences of
technological change are always vast, often unpredictable and largely irreversible. That is also
why we must be suspicious of capitalists. Capitalists are by definition not only personal risk
takers but, more to the point, cultural risk takers. The most creative and daring of them hope to
exploit new technologies to the fullest, and do not much care what traditions are overthrown in
the process or whether or not a culture is prepared to function without such traditions.
Capitalists are, in a word, radicals. In America, our most significant radicals have always been
capitalists--men like Bell, Edison, Ford, Carnegie, Sarnoff, Goldwyn. These men obliterated the
19th century, and created the 20th, which is why it is a mystery to me that capitalists are
thought to be conservative. Perhaps it is because they are inclined to wear dark suits and grey
ties.
I trust you understand that in saying all this, I am making no argument for socialism. I
say only that capitalists need to be carefully watched and disciplined. To be sure, they talk of
family, marriage, piety, and honor but if allowed to exploit new technology to its fullest
economic potential, they may undo the institutions that make such ideas possible. And here I
might just give two examples of this point, taken from the American encounter with technology.
The first concerns education. Who, we may ask, has had the greatest impact on American
education in this century? If you are thinking of John Dewey or any other education philosopher,
I must say you are quite wrong. The greatest impact has been made by quiet men in grey suits in
a suburb of New York City called Princeton, New Jersey. There, they developed and promoted
the technology known as the standardized test, such as IQ tests, the SATs and the GREs. Their
tests redefined what we mean by learning, and have resulted in our reorganizing the curriculum
to accommodate the tests.
A second example concerns our politics. It is clear by now that the people who have had
the most radical effect on American politics in our time are not political ideologues or student
protesters with long hair and copies of Karl Marx under their arms. The radicals who have
changed the nature of politics in America are entrepreneurs in dark suits and grey ties who
manage the large television industry in America. They did not mean to turn political discourse
into a form of entertainment. They did not mean to make it impossible for an overweight person
to run for high political office. They did not mean to reduce political campaigning to a 30-second
TV commercial. All they were trying to do is to make television into a vast and unsleeping money
machine. That they destroyed substantive political discourse in the process does not concern
them.
Fifth Idea
I come now to the fifth and final idea, which is that media tend to become mythic. I use
this word in the sense in which it was used by the French literary critic, Roland Barthes. He used
the word "myth" to refer to a common tendency to think of our technological creations as if
they were God-given, as if they were a part of the natural order of things. I have on occasion
61
asked my students if they know when the alphabet was invented. The question astonishes them.
It is as if I asked them when clouds and trees were invented. The alphabet, they believe, was not
something that was invented. It just is. It is this way with many products of human culture but
with none more consistently than technology. Cars, planes, TV, movies, newspapers--they have
achieved mythic status because they are perceived as gifts of nature, not as artifacts produced
in a specific political and historical context.
When a technology become mythic, it is always dangerous because it is then accepted
as it is, and is therefore not easily susceptible to modification or control. If you should propose
to the average American that television broadcasting should not begin until 5 PM and should
cease at 11 PM, or propose that there should be no television commercials, he will think the
idea ridiculous. But not because he disagrees with your cultural agenda. He will think it
ridiculous because he assumes you are proposing that something in nature be changed; as if you
are suggesting that the sun should rise at 10 AM instead of at 6.
Whenever I think about the capacity of technology to become mythic, I call to mind the
remark made by Pope John Paul II. He said, "Science can purify religion from error and
superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes."
What I am saying is that our enthusiasm for technology can turn into a form of idolatry
and our belief in its beneficence can be a false absolute. The best way to view technology is as a
strange intruder, to remember that technology is not part of God's plan but a product of human
creativity and hubris, and that its capacity for good or evil rests entirely on human awareness of
what it does for us and to us.
Conclusion
And so, these are my five ideas about technological change. First, that we always pay a
price for technology; the greater the technology, the greater the price. Second, that there are
always winners and losers, and that the winners always try to persuade the losers that they are
really winners. Third, that there is embedded in every great technology an epistemological,
political or social prejudice. Sometimes that bias is greatly to our advantage. Sometimes it is not.
The printing press annihilated the oral tradition; telegraphy annihilated space; television has
humiliated the word; the computer, perhaps, will degrade community life. And so on. Fourth,
technological change is not additive; it is ecological, which means, it changes everything and is,
therefore, too important to be left entirely in the hands of Bill Gates. And fifth, technology tends
to become mythic; that is, perceived as part of the natural order of things, and therefore tends
to control more of our lives than is good for us.
If we had more time, I could supply some additional important things about
technological change but I will stand by these for the moment, and will close with this thought.
In the past, we experienced technological change in the manner of sleep-walkers. Our unspoken
slogan has been "technology über alles," and we have been willing to shape our lives to fit the
requirements of technology, not the requirements of culture. This is a form of stupidity,
especially in an age of vast technological change. We need to proceed with our eyes wide open
so that we many use technology rather than be used by it.
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THE REVOLT OF THE MASSES
Jose Ortega y Gassett
1883-1955
What to look for: Ortega y Gasset was fascinated by the effects of technology on the common man shortly
after World War One (when such amazing conveniences as cars were first becoming widely available). He
sees the average person’s mindset as being negatively impacted by a sort of arrogance potentially
dangerous to many aspects of culture. Try to identify the various kinds of risk that that “spoiled child,”
the modern Westerner, represents for his state, his neighbors, and himself.
PREFATORY NOTE
IN my book Espana Invertebrada, published in 1922, in an article in El Sol entitled "Masas"
(1926), and in two lectures given to the Association of Friends of Art in Buenos Aires (1928), I
have treated the subject developed in the present essay. My purpose now is to collect and
complete what I have already said, so as to produce an organic doctrine concerning the most
important fact of our time.
CHAPTER I: THE COMING OF THE MASSES
THERE is one fact which, whether for good or ill, is of utmost importance in the public
life of Europe at the present moment. This fact is the accession of the masses to complete social
power. As the masses, by definition, neither should nor can direct their own personal existence,
and still less rule society in general, this fact means that actually Europe is suffering from the
greatest crisis that can afflict peoples, nations, and civilisation. Such a crisis has occurred more
than once in history. Its characteristics and
its consequences are well known. So also is its name. It is called the rebellion of the masses. In
order to understand this formidable fact, it is important from the start to avoid giving to the
words "rebellion," "masses," and "social power" a meaning exclusively or primarily political.
Public life is not solely political, but equally, and even primarily, intellectual, moral, economic,
religious; it comprises all our collective habits, including our fashions both of dress and of
amusement.
Perhaps the best line of approach to this historical phenomenon may be found by
turning our attention to a visual experience, stressing one aspect of our epoch which is plain to
our very eyes. This fact is quite simple to enunciate, though not so to analyse. I
shall call it the fact of agglomeration, of "plenitude." Towns are full of people, houses full of
tenants, hotels full of guests, trains full of travellers, cafes full of customers, parks full of
promenaders, consulting-rooms of famous doctors fun of patients, theatres full of spectators,
and beaches full of bathers. What previously was, in general, no problem, now begins to be an
everyday one, namely, to find room. That is all. Can there be any fact simpler, more patent more
constant in actual life? Let us now pierce the plain surface of this observation and we shall be
surprised to see how there wells forth an unexpected spring in which the white light of day, of
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our actual day, is broken up into its rich chromatic content. What is it that we see, and the sight
of which causes us so much surprise? We see the multitude, as such, in possession of the places
and the instruments created by civilisation. The slightest reflection will then make us surprised
at our own surprise. What about it? Is this not the ideal state of things? The theatre has seats to
be occupied- in other words, so that the house may be full- and now they are overflowing;
people anxious to use them are left standing outside. Though the fact be quite logical and
natural, we cannot but recognise that this did not happen before and that now it does;
consequently, there has been a change, an innovation, which justifies, at least for the first
moment, our surprise. To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand. This is the sport,
the luxury, special to the intellectual man. The gesture characteristic of his tribe consists in
looking at the world with eyes wide open in wonder. Everything in the world is strange and
marvelous to well-open eyes. This faculty of wonder is the delight refused to your football "fan,"
and, on the other hand, is the one which leads the intellectual man through life in the perpetual
ecstasy of the visionary. His special attribute is the wonder of the eyes. Hence it was that the
ancients gave Minerva her owl, the bird with ever-dazzled eyes.
Agglomeration, fullness, was not frequent before. Why then is it now? The components
of the multitudes around us have not sprung from nothing. Approximately the same number of
people existed fifteen years ago. Indeed, after the war it might seem natural that their number
should be less. Nevertheless, it is here we come up against the
first important point. The individuals who made up these multitudes existed, but not qua
multitude. Scattered about the world in small groups, or solitary, they lived a life, to all
appearances, divergent, dissociate, apart. Each individual or small group occupied a place, its
own, in country, village, town, or quarter of the great city. Now, suddenly, they appear as an
agglomeration, and looking in any direction our eyes meet with the multitudes. Not only in any
direction, but precisely in the best places, the relatively refined creation of human culture,
previously reserved to lesser groups, in a word, to minorities. The multitude has suddenly
become visible, installing itself in the preferential positions in society. Before, if it existed, it
passed unnoticed, occupying the background of the social stage; now it has advanced to the
footlights and is the principal character. There are no longer protagonists; there is only the
chorus.
The concept of the multitude is quantitative and visual. Without changing its nature, let
us translate it into terms of sociology. We then meet with the notion of the "social mass."
Society is always a dynamic unity of two component factors: minorities and masses. The
minorities are individuals or groups of individuals which are specially qualified. The mass is the
assemblage of persons not specially qualified. By masses, then, is not to be understood, solely or
mainly, "the working masses." The mass is the average man. In this way what was mere
quantity- the multitude- is converted into a qualitative determination: it becomes the common
social quality, man as undifferentiated from other men, but as repeating in himself a generic
type. What have we gained by this conversion of quantity into quality? Simply this: by means of
the latter we understand the
genesis of the former. It is evident to the verge of platitude that the normal formation of a
multitude implies the coincidence of desires, ideas, ways of life, in the individuals who
constitute it. It will be objected that this is just what happens with every social group, however
select it may strive to be. This is true; but there is an essential difference. In those groups which
are characterised by not being multitude and mass, the effective coincidence of its members is
based on some desire, idea, or ideal, which of itself excludes the great number. To form a
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minority, of whatever kind, it is necessary beforehand that each member separate himself from
the multitude for special, relatively personal, reasons. Their coincidence with the others who
form the minority is, then, secondary, posterior to their having each adopted an attitude of
singularity, and is consequently, to a large extent, a coincidence in not coinciding. There are
cases in which this singularising character of the group appears in the light of day: those English
groups, which style themselves "nonconformists," where we have the grouping together of
those who agree only in their disagreement in regard to the limitless multitude. This coming
together of the minority precisely in order to separate themselves from the majority is a
necessary ingredient in the formation of every minority. Speaking of the limited public which
listened to a musician of refinement, Mallarme wittily says that this public by its presence in
small numbers stressed the absence of the multitude.
Strictly speaking, the mass, as a psychological fact, can be defined without waiting for
individuals to appear in mass formation. In the presence of one individual we can decide
whether he is "mass" or not. The mass is all that which sets no value on itself- good or ill- based
on specific grounds, but which feels itself "just like everybody," and nevertheless is not
concerned about it; is, in fact, quite happy to feel itself as one with everybody else. Imagine a
humble-minded man who, having tried to estimate his own worth on specific grounds- asking
himself if he has any talent for this or that, if he excels in any direction- realises that he
possesses no quality of excellence. Such a man will feel that he is mediocre and commonplace,
ill-gifted, but will not feel himself "mass." When one speaks of "select minorities" it is usual for
the evil-minded to twist the sense of this expression, pretending to be unaware that the select
man is not the petulant person who thinks himself superior to the rest, but the man who
demands more of himself than the rest, even though he may not fulfill in his person those
higher exigencies. For there is no doubt that the most radical division that it is possible to make
of humanity is that which splits it into two classes of creatures: those who make great demands
on themselves, piling up difficulties and duties; and those who demand nothing special of
themselves, but for whom to live is to be every moment what they already are, without
imposing on themselves any effort towards perfection; mere buoys that float on the waves. This
reminds me that orthodox Buddhism is composed of two distinct religions: one, more rigorous
and difficult, the other easier and more trivial: the Mahayana- "great vehicle" or "great path"and the Hinayana- "lesser vehicle" or "lesser path." The decisive matter is whether we attach
our life to one or the other vehicle, to a
maximum or a minimum of demands upon ourselves.
The division of society into masses and select minorities is, then, not a division into
social classes, but into classes of men, and cannot coincide with the hierarchic separation of
"upper" and "lower" classes. It is, of course, plain that in these "upper" classes, when and as
long as they really are so, there is much more likelihood of finding men who adopt the "great
vehicle," whereas the "lower" classes normally comprise individuals of minus quality. But,
strictly speaking, within both these social classes, there are to be found mass and genuine
minority. As we shall see, a characteristic of our times is the predominance, even in groups
traditionally selective, of the mass and the vulgar. Thus, in the intellectual life, which of its
essence requires and presupposes qualification, one can note the progressive triumph of the
pseudo-intellectual, unqualified, unqualifiable, and, by their very mental texture, disqualified.
Similarly, in the surviving groups of the "nobility", male and female. On the other hand, it is not
rare to find to-day amongst working men, who before might be taken as the best example of
what we are calling "mass," nobly disciplined minds.
65
There exist, then, in society, operations, activities, and functions of the most diverse
order, which are of their very nature special, and which consequently cannot be properly carried
out without special gifts. For example: certain pleasures of an artistic and refined character, or
again the functions of government and of political judgment in public affairs. Previously these
special activities were exercised by qualified minorities, or at least by those who claimed such
qualification. The mass asserted no right to intervene in them; they realised that if they wished
to intervene they would necessarily have to acquire those special qualities and cease being
mere mass. They recognised their place in a healthy dynamic social system.
If we now revert to the facts indicated at the start, they will appear clearly as the
heralds of a changed attitude in the mass. They all indicate that the mass has decided to
advance to the foreground of social life, to occupy the places, to use the instruments and to
enjoy the pleasures hitherto reserved to the few. It is evident, for example, that the places were
never intended for the multitude, for their dimensions are too limited, and the crowd is
continuously overflowing; thus manifesting to our eyes and in the clearest manner the new
phenomenon: the mass, without ceasing to be mass, is supplanting the minorities.
No one, I believe, will regret that people are to-day enjoying themselves in greater
measure and numbers than before, since they have now both the desire and the means of
satisfying it. The evil lies in the fact that this decision taken by the masses to assume the
activities proper to the minorities is not, and cannot be, manifested solely in the domain of
pleasure, but that it is a general feature of our time. Thus- to anticipate what we shall see later- I
believe that the political innovations of recent times signify nothing less than the political
domination of the masses. The old democracy was tempered by a generous dose of liberalism
and of enthusiasm for law. By serving these
principles and the rule of law, minorities could live and act. Democracy and law- life in common
under the law- were synonymous. Today we are witnessing the triumphs of a mass acts directly,
outside the law, imposing its aspirations and its desires by means of material pressure. It is a
false interpretation of the new situation to say that the mass has grown tired of politics and
handed over the exercise of it to specialised persons. Quite the contrary. That was what
happened previously; that was democracy. The mass took it for granted that after all, in spite of
their defects and weaknesses, the minorities understood a little more of public problems than it
did itself. Now, on the other hand, the mass believes that it has the right to impose and to give
force of law to notions born in the cafe. I doubt whether there have been other periods of
history in which the multitude has come to govern more directly than in our own. That is why I
speak of hyperdemocracy.
The same thing is happening in other orders, particularly in the intellectual. I may be
mistaken, but the present-day writer, when he takes his pen in hand to treat a subject which he
has studied deeply, has to bear in mind that the average reader, who has never concerned
himself with this subject, if he reads does so with the view, not of learning something from the
writer, but rather, of pronouncing judgment on him when he is not in agreement with the
commonplaces that the said reader carries in his head. If the individuals who make up the mass
believed themselves specially qualified, it would be a case merely of personal error, not a
sociological subversion. The characteristic of the hour is that the commonplace mind, knowing
itself to be commonplace, has the assurance to proclaim the rights of the commonplace and to
impose them wherever it will. As they say in the United States: "to be different is to be
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indecent." The mass crushes beneath it everything that is different, everything that is excellent,
individual, qualified and select. Anybody who is not like everybody, who does not think like
everybody, runs the risk of being eliminated. And it is clear, of course, that this "everybody" is
not "everybody." "Everybody" was normally the complex unity of the mass and the divergent,
specialised minorities. Nowadays, "everybody" is the mass alone. Here we have the formidable
fact of our times, described without any concealment of the brutality of its features.
CHAPTER VI: THE DISSECTION OF THE MASS-MAN BEGINS
WHAT is he like, this mass-man who to-day dominates public life, political and nonpolitical, and why is he like it, that is, how has he been produced? It will be well to answer both
questions together, for they throw light on one another. The man who to-day is attempting to
take thelead in European existence is very different from the man who directed the XIXth
Century, but he was produced and prepared by the XIXth Century. Any keen mind of the years
1820, 1850, and 1880 could by simple a priori reasoning, foresee the gravity of the present
historical situation, and in fact nothing is happening now which was not foreseen a hundred
years ago. "The masses are advancing," said Hegel in apocalyptic fashion. "Without some new
spiritual influence, our age, which is a revolutionary age, will produce a catastrophe, "was the
pronouncement of Comte. "I see the flood-tide of nihilism rising," shrieked Nietzsche from a
crag of the Engadine. It is false to say that history cannot be foretold. Numberless times this has
been done. If the future offered no opening to prophecy, it could not be understood when
fulfilled in the present and on the point of falling back into the past. The idea that the historian
is on the reverse side a prophet, sums up the whole philosophy of history, It is true that it is only
possible to anticipate the general structure of the future, but that is all that we in truth
understand of the past or of the present. Accordingly, if you want a good view of your own age,
look at it from far off. From what distance? The answer is simple. Just far enough to prevent you
seeing Cleopatra's nose.
What appearance did life present to that multitudinous man who in ever-increasing
abundance the XIXth Century kept producing? To start with, an appearance of universal material
ease. Never had the average man been able to solve his economic problem with greater facility.
Whilst there was a proportionate decrease of great fortunes and life became harder for the
individual worker, the middle classes found their economic horizon widened every day. Every
day added a new luxury to their standard of life. Every day their position was more secure and
more independent of another's will. What before would have been considered one of fortune's
gifts, inspiring humble gratitude towards destiny, was converted into a right, not to be grateful
for, but to be insisted on. From 1900 on, the worker likewise begins to extend and assure his
existence. Nevertheless, he has to struggle to obtain his end. He does not, like the middle class,
find the benefit attentively served up to him by a society and a state which are a marvel of
organisation. To this ease and security of economic conditions are to be added the physical
ones, comfort and public order. Life runs on smooth rails, and there is no likelihood of anything
violent or dangerous breaking in on it. Such a free, untrammelled situation was bound to instill
into he depths of such souls an idea of existence which might be expressed in the witty and
penetrating phrase of an old country like ours: "Wide is Castile." That is to say, in all its primary
and decisive aspects, life presented itself to the new man as exempt from restrictions. The
realisation of this fact and of its importance becomes immediate when we remember that such
a freedom of existence was entirely lacking to the common men of the past. On the contrary, for
them life was a burdensome destiny, economically and physically. From birth, existence meant
to them an accumulation of impediments which they were obliged to suffer, without possible
67
solution other than to adapt themselves to them, to settle down in the narrow space they left
available.
But still more evident is the contrast of situations, if we pass from the material to the
civil and moral. The average man, from the second half of the XIXth Century on, finds no social
barriers raised against him. That is to say, that as regards the forms of public life he no longer
finds himself from birth confronted with obstacles and limitations. There is nothing to force him
to limit his existence. Here again, "Wide is Castile." There are no "estates" or "castes." There are
no civil privileges. The ordinary man learns that all men are equal before the law. Never in the
course of history had man been placed in vital surroundings even remotely familiar to those set
up by the conditions just mentioned. We are, in fact, confronted with a radical innovation in
human destiny, implanted by the XIXth Century. A new stage has been mounted for human
existence, new both in the physical and the social aspects. Three principles have made possible
this new world: liberal democracy, scientific experiment, and industrialism. The two latter may
be summed-up in one word: technicism. Not one of those principles was invented by the XIXth
Century; they proceed from the two previous centuries. The glory of the XIXth Century lies not
in their discovery, but in their implantation. No one but recognises that fact. But it is not
sufficient to recognise it in the abstract, it is necessary to realize its inevitable consequences.
The XIXth Century was of its essence revolutionary . This aspect is not to be looked for in
the scenes of the barricades, which are mere incidents, but in the fact that it placed the average
man- the great social mass- in conditions of life radically opposed to those by which he had
always been surrounded, It turned his public existence upside down. Revolution is not the
uprising against pre-existing order, but the setting up of a new order contradictory to the
traditional one. Hence there is no exaggeration in saying that the man who is the product of the
XIXth Century is, for the effects of public life, a man apart from all other men. The XVIIIthCentury man differs, of course, from the XVIIth-Century man, and this one in turn from his
fellow of the XVIth Century, but they are all related, similar, even identical in essentials when
confronted with this new man. For the "common" man of all periods "life" had principally meant
limitation, obligation, dependence; in a word, pressure. Say oppression, if you like, provided it
be understood not only in the juridical and social sense, but also in the cosmic. For it is this latter
which has never been lacking up to a hundred years ago, the date at which starts the practically
limitless expansion of scientific technique- physical and administrative. Previously, even for the
rich and powerful, the world was a place of poverty, difficulty and danger. *
The world which surrounds the new man from his birth does not compel him to limit
himself in any fashion, it sets up no veto in opposition to him; on the contrary, it incites his
appetite, which in principle can increase indefinitely. Now it turns out- and this is most
important- that this world of the XIXth and early XXth Centuries not only has the perfections and
the completeness which it actually possesses, but furthermore suggests to those who dwell in it
the radical assurance that to-morrow it will be still richer, ampler, more perfect, as if it enjoyed
a spontaneous, inexhaustible power of increase. Even to-day, in spite of some signs which are
making a tiny breach in that sturdy faith, even to-day, there are few men who doubt that
motorcars will in five years' time be more comfortable and cheaper than to-day. They believe in
this as they believe that the sun will rise in the morning. The metaphor is an exact one. For, in
fact, the common man,
* However rich an individual might be in relation to his fellows, as the world in its totality was poor, the
68
sphere of conveniences and commodities with which his wealth furnished him was very limited. The life of
the average man to-day is easier, more convenient and safer than that of the most powerful of another
age. What difference does it make to him not to be richer than others if the world is richer and furnishes
him with magnificent roads, railway, telegraphs, hotels, personal safety and aspirin?
finding himself in a world so excellent, technically and socially, believes that it has been
produced by nature, and never thinks of the personal efforts of highly-endowed individuals
which the creation of this new world presupposed. Still less will he admit the notion that all
these facilities still require the support of certain difficult human virtues, the least failure of
which would cause the rapid disappearance of the whole magnificent edifice.
This leads us to note down in our psychological chart of the mass-man of to-day two
fundamental traits: the free expansion of his vital desires, and therefore, of his personality; and
his radical ingratitude towards an that has made possible the ease of his existence. These traits
together make up the well-known psychology of the spoilt child. And in fact it would entail no
error to use this psychology as a "sight" through which to observe the soul of the masses of today. Heir to an ample and generous past- generous both in ideals and in activities- the new
commonalty has been spoiled by the world around it. To spoil means to put no limit on caprice,
to give one the impression that everything is permitted to him and that he has no obligations.
The young child exposed to this regime has no experience of its own limits. By reason of the
removal of all external restraint, all clashing with other things, he comes actually to believe that
he is the only one that exists, and gets used to not considering others, especially not considering
them as superior to himself. This feeling of another's superiority could only be instilled into him
by someone who, being stronger than he is, should force him to give up some desire, to restrict
himself, to restrain himself. He would then have learned this fundamental discipline: "Here I end
and here begins another more powerful than I am. In the world, apparently, there are two
people: I myself and another superior to me." The ordinary man of past times was daily taught
this elemental wisdom by the world about him, because it was a world so rudely organised, that
catastrophes were frequent, and there was nothing in it certain, abundant, stable. But the new
masses find themselves in the presence of a prospect full of possibilities, and furthermore, quite
secure, with everything ready to their hands, independent of any previous efforts on their part,
just as we find the sun in the heavens without our hoisting it up on our shoulders. No human
being thanks another for the air he breathes, for no one has produced the air for him; it belongs
to the sum-total of what "is there," of which we say "it is natural," because it never fails. And
these spoiled masses are unintelligent enough to believe that the material and social
organisation, placed at their disposition like the air, is of the same origin., since apparently it
never fails them, and is almost as perfect as the natural scheme of things.
My thesis, therefore, is this: the very perfection with which the XIXth Century gave an
organisation to certain orders of existence has caused the masses benefited thereby to consider
it, not as an organised, but as a natural system. Thus is explained and defined the absurd state
of mind revealed by these masses; they are only concerned with their own well-being, and at
the same time they remain alien to the cause of that well-being. As they do not see, behind the
benefits of civilisation, marvels of invention and construction which can only be maintained by
great effort and foresight, they imagine that their role is limited to demanding these benefits
peremptorily, as if they were natural rights. In the disturbances caused by scarcity of food, the
mob goes in search of bread, and the means it employs is generally to wreck the bakeries. This
may serve as a symbol of the attitude adopted, on a greater and more complicated scale, by the
masses of to-day towards the civilisation by which they are supported.
69
Freedom Grows on Trees: A Eudemonist
Economics (Part One)
John R. Harris
Πόσων έγω χρείαν оύκ έχω
“How many things there are of which I have no need!”
Socrates beholding the agora’s
merchandise (Diogenes Laertius 2.25)
PRAESIDIUM
A Journal of Literate and Literary Analysis
8.1 (Winter 2008
70
What to look for: this is only the first half of a long essay, the second part of which develops the thesis
that people are happier when they live closer to the land and can draw their essential needs from it. Can
you follow the case that builds up to that second half? What, specifically (in the author’s view), are the
fatal flaws within industrialization, urbanization, and centralization that tend to undermine human
happiness?
I. The Tension Between Capitalism and Culture
I worry about the future. No doubt, every sane adult of average intelligence has always
shared my concern… to a point. Yet I suspect that my anxiety—and that of my contemporaries
(for we are generally a very worried bunch)—has something unique about it. Men have been
farmers, hunters, herds, and fishers for most of human history. The cultivator would naturally
worry about too much or too little rain. In many settings, starvation waited on the leeward
shore of this unease. We do not nowadays fear starvation in the West: between technological
advances and socialized governments, we enjoy the luxury of biting our nails above a fine-mesh
safety net. At the same time, we have never been farther—as individuals—from the food which
actually enters our mouths. The frontier farmer whose crop goes bad might make shift in a
variety of ways, from harvesting wild nuts to trapping prairie fowl to roasting locusts. (Hunger,
as a very ancient saying has it, makes a good seasoning.) He continued to have a large measure
of control over his survival even in the cruelest of times. If he possessed any sense at all,
furthermore, he would have preserved whatever might be salted, pickled, or sealed from
previous years of plenty. If he didn’t manage to slither beneath the Grim Scythe, he could
probably blame his lack of hard work and frugal planning for it in his last breath.
It’s different with us. We who are virtually assured of survival—and survival, at that, in a
state of relative luxury—cannot depend upon our strong hands and our moral stamina to get us
through. On the contrary, we pay for our food and grow none of it (taking us, again, as typical
individuals). More likely than not, the farmer or hunter in us will inhibit success to the extent
that he clings to our consciousness. To put it bluntly, remuneration seems to have become
inversely proportional in our Brave New World to physical exertion, sobriety, and husbandry:
the silliest live the handsomest. The liveliest markets are in frivolities. The only jobs still
requiring sweat suggest fragmentary caricatures of yesteryear’s independent cultivator, hauler,
or builder: tasks that might be performed by machines, and have been so—but that we lately
discovered could be more cheaply assigned to human drudges. And the drudges collect their
pay (with or without valid documentation of citizenship) and pile into the same supermarkets,
shopping malls, and car dealerships as do we, their white-collar-fair-skinned handlers, to pay the
going rate for staples and vanities, having no more proprietary a right to lettuces or shingled
roofs than the more costly machine which declined to replace them…. We must not join their
ranks, we tell ourselves, or allow our children to sink so low. We must struggle after the “better
life” of fatter paychecks, secured by selling discounted drugs over the Internet or the latest
cellular phones at Radio Shack or guaranteed tax advice at H&R Block. For some reason, we
regard perspiring under an August sun as a betrayal of those intellectual gifts which entitled us
to attend college, whereas none of the latter occupations is received as a slap in the face to our
English or History Major. We have been well conditioned, like drudges of a higher order.
But I am not of this “we”, much to my distress. I love to write, yet could never uncover a
market for writers in my working lifetime. The prospect of hawking cell phones to pay the bills
appalls me no less than if I were required to box the coffin-nails of literate culture on an
assembly line—which is, in fact, my metaphorical estimate of electronic communication’s
current threat. I would truly, and substantially, prefer to grow and harvest fruit (as I do in the
most modest of ways on my tiny patch of property). The endeavor would be far less gainful
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financially, but far more congenial to that independence of spirit which the literate life
awakened in me from an early age. I do not wish to utter absurdities, to make a frivolous
display of myself, or to extol playthings which strike me as subtly pernicious in order to put food
in my mouth. Feed my family I must; but to draw a salary in return for behavior sometimes
nothing short of morally loathsome strikes me as doing such violence to the conscience that one
would be dishonest not to call it servitude.
I—and those like me (for there are more than a few, though we are not the great “we”,
apparently)—am a slave; or, at best, my economic existence is a constant battle against
becoming a slave. I have heard all my life that we of the progressive West enjoy a “strong
economy”. In my middle years, however, I increasingly find myself wondering why the strength
of an economy should be defined by dividends paid to investors or the degree of ascent in the
Gross National Product’s vector. Should not human happiness serve as at least one ground of
assessment? And if a man who must fawn before fools or peddle snake oil throughout the week
is less happy than a man who digs his own carrots and potatoes, in what sense may our
economy correctly be called a triumph over yesteryear’s?
In this essay’s title, I borrow the word employed by Aristotle—eudemonist—when he made
his case for the goodness of material happiness. I am enough of a Stoic to balk at his argument;
but here, in matters economic, the criterion of happiness seems much more appropriate to me.
Granted, the ultimate measure of a human being is moral rather than economic: it lies in his or
her success at ignoring specific conditions to serve a purpose beyond the will of the flesh. Yet
the flesh is instrumental in these high aspirations (which may well be the innocuous gist of
Aristotle’s case). It must eat and sleep in order to build and lift a Jacob’s ladder for the spirit.
There must, after all, be a sufficiency of material things.
As a student of the humanities and a devoted servitor of the literate life’s higher rewards, I
shall contend in what follows that our pursuit of winning our daily bread, right here and right
now, has heeded the flesh too narrowly. Our habitual “work life” has not been well designed by
recent practice to accomplish the ends of spiritual enrichment, individual awakening, enlisted
creativity, and other worthy destinations valorized by the great traditions of classical duty and
Christian abnegation. We have turned our collective back on a noble past. As a capitalist
economy dedicated to marketing and exploiting ever-newer products and drawing consumers,
therefore, ever farther from a contentment with the status quo, our system is resonantly not
conservative in any meaningful sense. Indeed, I maintain that inasmuch as contemporary
capitalism feeds the progressive impatience with the present, it is every bit as destabilizing to
happiness as the self-contradictory Marxian quest for a world devoid of envy, laziness, despair,
and spirituality. Though the two systems radically disagree about human nature, they are alike
in eschewing fixity—a similarity which suffices to make both inimical to the cause of humane
culture.
II. The Failure of Free Trade to Bestow Freedom
I hasten to add that the notion of capitalism’s disjuncture from conservatism is nothing new.
Among a very select circle of intellectuals in the mid-twentieth century, it was indeed something
of a commonplace. Richard Weaver, author of Ideas Have Consequences, observed in another
setting that “capitalism cannot be conservative in the true sense as long as its reliance is upon
industrialism, whose very nature it is to unsettle any establishment and initiate the endless
innovation of technological ‘progress’.”1 The lucidity of this remark is of the order of “two plus
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two equals four”: a system which depends upon the rapid obsolescence of purchases to bring
consumers back to the store for “new and improved” versions could not be more definitively
anti-conservative. The sublime Russell Kirk raised this objection, essentially, in response to
Clinton Rossiter’s highly tendentious Conservatism in America (1955): “A conservative order is
not the creation of the free entrepreneur….”2 Businessmen sell things, and they sell more
things and things of greater variety when the consuming public has more and greater “needs”.
The solicitation of such yens and itches is not the work of a Socrates, a Diogenes, a Seneca, a
Marcus Aurelius, an Augustine, or a Francis—or, for that matter, of a Confucius or a Gautama
Buddha. Profit margins are uncomfortable closets for cultural treasures and timeless wisdom.
Yet in Kirk’s reflections, one may already see an unfortunate paradox beginning to knot the
corridors of its labyrinth. The conservation of a precious cultural bequest must not be equated
with blind atavism, for the life of our forefathers—if we go back very far indeed, into the
shadows of prehistory—possessed no culture worthy of the name. Our heritage of humane
institutions and uplifting creations, then, is at least somewhat dependent upon a degree of
technical innovation capable of freeing up time for leisurely endeavor. The survivor of a plane
crash does not reconstruct his shattered guitar without first assembling some sort of shelter and
retrieving or gathering a minimum of food. We can imagine very early examples of our species
toiling away at cave paintings of bison or mastodons whose accuracy and finesse a bright
kindergartner could surpass today. Surely we may therefore say that we have come a long
way—and surely we must say so before we claim that what remains in our cultural tracks is
worthy of bundling into the present.
Kirk seems to stress such progress in the critical seventh chapter of A Program for
Conservatives. His explicit theme here is the absurdity of a blunt, sweeping egalitarianism.
“Man was not created for equality,” he writes, “but for the struggle upward from brute nature
toward the world that is not terrestrial. The principle of justice, in consequence, is not
enslavement to a uniform condition, but liberation from arbitrary restraints upon his right to be
himself.”3 Nature is not self-evidently good in this view as it is in the romantic liberalism
descended from Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Savages are not noble. They are exceptionally clever
animals whose life nonetheless ends without having fulfilled a higher purpose. Cultivation of
the spirit must awaken them to a higher calling just as cultivation of the land will at last free
them from having to scavenge every day for bare survival. Some will contribute more than
others to the great awakening. The essence of culture is precisely that it makes of these
unequal contributions a common legacy. “Ability,” concludes Kirk, “is the factor which enables
men to lift themselves from savagery to civilization, and which helps to distinguish the
endeavors of men from the routine existence of insects.”4 Though the emphasis in this passage
differs from mine, falling upon the individual’s need for spiritual elbow-room rather than upon
the community’s profit from such generosity, the positions are two sides of the same coin. A
single brilliant innovation can turn an entire tribe or ethnos into an elite. As long as the
collective recognizes and indulges individual sources of brilliance, it may paradoxically be said to
honor a grand tradition rather than to stagnate or degenerate. Its conserving efforts are
focused not just on knowledge of what fruits to eat or what herbs to use in cures—an
attachment often more superstitious than cultural—but on the technique of inquiry which
1 Cited in George H. Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 (New York:
Basic Books, 1976), 204.
2 Ibid., 198.
3 Russell Kirk, A Program for Conservatives (Chicago: Regnery, 1954), 176.
4 Ibid., 177.
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allowed such discoveries to be made.
I called this dependency of cultural conservatism upon technical innovation an unfortunate
paradox because the forces which create a grand tradition, alas, can also undo it simply by
operating in their established, conserved manner. Western culture has been engineered by at
least two such dubious vectors, both vaulting from the consequences of alphabetic literacy. One
is individualism. Reading and writing (especially writing, for reading usually begins as and stays
an oral exercise over many comfortable generations) draw people in upon themselves, upon
their inner voices and private spaces. The worth of the individual human being is first widely
conceded in literate cultures, where that individual first becomes assertive. Yet the
enfranchisement of so many autonomous units can also exert a fatal drag upon society’s energy
when their various assertions become plangent and petulant for lack of proper tempering. That
is, individualism has a tendency to sour into narcissism as its creative vigor solves ever finer, less
pressing needs, and we are left with a throng of spoiled brats.
For the second worrisome impetus inspired by literacy is, of course, scientific inquiry. The
alphabet is itself a highly analytical and abstract tool, dividing words into component sounds and
then representing like sounds with an arbitrary cipher. Minds immersed in literacy engage in
dissecting and reconstituting sensory experiences with a rapid dexterity that soon grows
unwitting. The literate mind comes to “read” its physical environment quite fluidly, parsing
disparate phenomena readily into a limited and shared pool of hidden causes. It gives us
technology at a rate never approached in any other sort of human society—and hence,
eventually, the laziness of heavy dependency upon technology, and also the tasteless
infatuation with anything new. “Pure” science becomes “applied” science with the same
dismaying acceleration as we observe in the individualist’s slide into vain egotism. These
movements which have bestowed upon our culture the inestimable knowledge of what first to
cultivate and how best to cultivate it always have the potential to plow the garden topsy-turvy
just as its plants are bearing their richest fruit.
The central problem, then, for a conservative economy—an economy that would hold onto
the best of the past rather than routinely render yesteryear’s trappings obsolete—is how to
abstain from such suicide. How does an inventive, progressive culture preserve those elements
essential to cultural identity rather than tinkering with or marginalizing them until they vanish?
The urgency of this question, I should stress, will be recognized only by those of conservative
tastes and convictions, for the contemporary form of liberalism has discarded all overt
submission to the classical or universal. (“Universalist” is indeed a word of reproach in academic
circles, the reasons for its opprobrium assumed to be self-evident.) Today’s liberal is a
materialist, and hence believes that happiness can be found only in one’s circumstances. To the
extent that circumstances are manipulated to produce more happiness—more chickens in the
pot, more indoor plumbing, more health care, lower-priced football tickets—an economy
achieves superiority. Nothing deserves to be retained per se: everything is susceptible to
complete overhaul, and awaits only the right technological advance to visit the scrap yard for
meltdown. Of course, such carnal wants as those for food, shelter, good health, and spectacleclass amusements are invariable and hence (honni soit qui mal y pense) universal, after a
fashion. Biology is allowed to decree universality among progressives: it is the materialist’s
version of destiny. Here the liberal may even locate a few shreds of lingering spirituality: any
resuscitation of the inner beast repressed by bourgeois hypocrisy, from a sublime hike up a
mountainside to a tawdry program of sexual experimentation, may qualify as an epiphany. On
those rare occasions when the liberal admits that contemplating the sunrise from a peak really
is sublime, and not a mere response to the call of the wild, he or she risks walking a few steps
along a trail once dear to humane cultural conservatism—and now largely abandoned, to be
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sure, by “conservatives” who plead the economy as an excuse for their barbarity, their
progressive energy.
Yet the conservative’s paradox, I reiterate, is much the more imposing. Historically, we
cannot escape the sad fact that self-styled conservatives have permitted their affinity for
individual rights and robust creativity to ally itself with laissez-fairest, “anything goes” capitalist
ventures. In reading over the works of the late Oriana Fallaci, I lately happened upon a perfect
example of mid-twentieth-century hubris emanating from a figure who most certainly identified
himself with the political Right. The scene was Saigon, shortly before the Tet Offensive. Fallaci
was treated to an extended interview with venture-capitalist millionaire Barry Zorthion, who
told her (while chauffeuring her on a tour of the area in his private pontoon-plane) about his
grand plans for Southeast Asia. They did not include preserving much of anything: they
projected, in fact, a rabid zeal for changing everything.
Mr. Zorthian is a 54-year-old of Armenian origin, with a great nose, a great paunch, a
great faith in this war, and an unshakable conviction that “the United States should
teach civilization to these poor wretches who have never heard anyone mention
democracy and technological progress.” In other words, Mr. Zorthian maintains that
America is doing Vietnam an immense favor, not only from a military but also from an
economic point of view. “Once the war is won,” he says, “Vietnam will become rich like
Japan, modern like Japan, respected like Japan—because we’ll teach her to harvest her
resources on an industrial basis Factories, skyscrapers, and highways will spring up
everywhere, and the Mekong will be humming like Florida.” The suspicion that the
Delta’s peasantry may not want it to hum like Florida—that they may want only to live
in peace among their hand-planted, hand-harvested rice—doesn’t so much as cross his
mind.5
I shall refrain from drawing parallels with foreign policy of our own time—they are accessible
enough in Zorthian’s dual hymn to democracy and high-tech capitalism that the reader may
make connections as desired. I will stress only that this largely self-appointed emissary of
“Western values” (as they are understood by such people) not only registers triumph in Florida’s
having been “developed”: he is eager to inflict similar transformations upon parts of the world
about whose culture he knows nothing nor can imagine any lesson being worth the effort of
study. His “go-getter” Yankee spirit, when exported to go get profits beyond his native shores,
can discern in ancient religions and social customs no more than childish obstacles. Whatever
his independence may be said to “conserve” (in a tightly pinched meaning) of traditional rugged
individualism, his attitude and actions could not be more transparently anti-conservative in
every profound sense. Face it: if the new order of which he dreams were motivated more
strongly by a desire to bring electricity and hygiene to the peasantry, we would be witnessing
the resurrection of FDR’s Tennessee Valley Authority under Eastern eyes. The Soviet Union ’s
criminal devastation of Lake Baikal is perhaps even more akin—for dams shift regional balances
in nature yet leave their region fairly natural. Zorthian’s vision is so progressive that relics of
nature would seem somewhat humiliating within it, signs of wasted space.
As for theory rather than practice, nominally conservative economists were authoring a
doctrine of free trade throughout the mid-century. There was something of the primal barter at
the logic’s foundation. Two men want to make an exchange, they dicker, and finally they cut a
deal. Why create a bunch of abstracted, bureaucratically enforced rules in order to placate
other people far away from the interests of these two? If one party happens to speak a
5 Oriana Fallaci, Niente, e Così Sia (Milan: Rizzoli, 2002), 85. Reprinted from 1969. The translation from
Italian is mine.
75
different language and live on the other side of a river declared to be the national boundary…
well, a man should still be a man: his autonomy to trade a horse or swap grain for bacon is still
really no one’s business but his own, if we imagine life on the frontier. This, indeed, was the old
way, a way that had worked for millennia before the first map was ever drawn.
Naturally, my homespun images are a very poor crash course in the libertarian doctrine of
Milton Friedman. I hope that my highly simplistic presentation of issues beyond my ability to
explain fully, however, betrays a certain sympathy. People should live free. The conservative,
especially, with his belief in a metaphysical purpose to human life, should insist not just upon
our right to be frugal, but also upon our right to choose risky options, to make bad choices
producing instructive failures, and generally to grow as moral beings. In the broadest sense,
perhaps the idea behind free trade is not merely to be allowed to learn that cheaper shoes from
overseas fall apart sooner: perhaps there is an implied civic calling to save one’s fellow citizens
from living in a fool’s paradise of artificial protections aimed at postponing hard realities; for the
shoes from overseas may not fall apart—we may need to stop making shoes and start making
satellites.
The free-trader, in this view, is supposed to be a mature globalist, not a ruthless adventurer.
In the words of Friedman’s distinguished contemporary, Henry Hazlitt, “The art of economics
consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it
consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.”6
Paying “real world” value for goods and services is facing up to the “longer effects”. It forces the
diehard traditionalist to admit with traditional resignation that, while there may be nothing new
under the sun, neither does anything under the sun last forever.
Who would have guessed half a century ago that indexing prices to the international market
would come to be less the mark of dry common sense than—once again—of giddy
progressivism? Yet so it has happened. With respect both to the individual barterer and the
entire society seeking to avoid self-delusion, free trade has forged heavy shackles. Its original
architects (going back to the sainted Adam Smith) could not foresee that huge multinational
corporations would exploit grossly unequal economic and social conditions around the globe to
grind out the cheapest possible product. Half a century ago, specifically, American workers
were having to learn the hard lesson that their destiny lay in becoming highly skilled—that
unskilled manual labor could be found elsewhere in abundance and at a discount. Free trade
thus ushered us, certain sectors kicking and screaming, into a golden age of technological
innovation. This floruit lasted a generation or two… and then the rest of the world began to
produce technicians and engineers as competent as our own, but available for far less pay. As
we have watched “outsourcing” blaze its somber trail with the impeccable logic of greater
profits, we have seen—just as logically—the lead in the race after more refined technology slip
beyond our borders, as well. The best-case scenario is that, as other nations grow more
prosperous, the cost of living will rise on their shores, their social welfare programs will multiply
as ours have done, and the American worker—at last willing to accept far less, like a starving
laborer after a failed strike—will appear attractive once more. Our standard of living, in other
words, will meet somewhere in its downward spiral the ascending standard of the Third World.
Economically, we shall have created The Planet of High-Tech Lackeys.
The worst-case scenario, by the way, is that societies ruled by megalomaniac oligarchs will
acquire the dangerous technologies which we have thus far kept on a creditably tight leash.
Gaffes of the Chernobyl variety will inevitably turn entire cities and provinces into morgues; but
beyond that, the oligarchs—whether enflamed by eschatological zealotry or simply unmoved by
6 Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson (New York: McFadden, 1961), 13.
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the prospect of killing millions—will launch doomsday weapons which we will no longer have
the ability to defuse or fend off. In short, this “cold market logic” could well be embarking us
upon a voyage to annihilation.
That, you must agree, doesn’t seem a very “conserving” sort of endeavor. Friends of the free
market may object that, if the bartering frontiersman tires of buying cheap Christmas toys from
China, he may always crank up his own company back home and appeal to similarly disaffected
countrymen. In most particular cases, this is a practical impossibility. Take the toy industry: we
have found (as if we had any right to be surprised) that a wholly unprincipled Chinese regime
exports products under respected American brand names which are neither well made nor safe
to handle. An opportunity for native manufacturers to rise from the ashes? Alas, no: for the
brand names, despite their highly publicized embarrassments, are just too big. It’s no longer a
question of a garage-enterprise competing with a local factory: the Internet has dispensed with
all locality. The presence of a company like Mattel, say, on the Net simply gobbles up the
virtuous competition. There is no quaint and curious new store front on Main Street, no
favorable report from a friend, no small ad in the back of Sunday’s newspaper: utter oblivion,
rather. The Net was heralded by neoconservatives like George Gilder as a kind of libertarian
utopia where every vendor could display his wares, untaxed and unharassed, to the whole
world. With the curious overreaching into cultural matters so typical of progressive prophets,
Gilder proclaimed in 1995 that “the Internet has already made of this era a golden age of
letters.”7 Yet the technology of universal publishing and publicizing turned out to be an
impassible logjam. Contradicting Gilder’s cornucopia of diversity and free expression, the Net,
by exploiting the very finite time which most people have to spend peering at a very small
window of images, has queued up all the competition for miles and then allowed only the first
two or three contestants a screening. Our barterer may have the prettiest little milch-cow in
five counties… but there’s no fair where he may display her. His neighbors aren’t even sitting on
the front porch any more: they’re in a dark room hunched over a monitor, perhaps googling
“heifers”.
As if to accelerate the collapse of our independent small producers into a nineteenth-century
mass of minimally skilled laborers servicing the edges of twenty-first century digitalized markets,
free trade has even been used lately to justify the complete dissolution of national borders,
permitting the unskilled masses of other countries to flood our own workplace. If this is
conservatism, then one is hard-pressed to distinguish it from Soviet paternalism. In both cases,
a tiny elite—political in the USSR, economic but increasingly political in the USA —assumes the
“burden” of providing the basic needs (and, chez nous, a few frivolous wants) to a passive
throng that lifts, hoes, and scrubs when and where it is told to. We are to believe that these
masses are actually happier now that their physical survival is guaranteed, and that they are
happier still because the rich are “soaked” in taxes to fund their ration of weight-loss pills or to
subsidize their switch to high-definition TV. That is, they envy the millionaire less because, after
the tax man cometh, the millionaire’s bank account looks infinitesimally more like theirs.
Richard Layard, a British MP and professor emeritus of Economics, explains trough assignments
on this behavioristic animal farm with appalling bluntness and the chilling superbia of a bornand-bred social messiah:
If a person works harder and earns more, he may himself gain by increasing his income
compared with other people. But the other people lose because their income now falls
relative to his. He does not care that he is polluting other people in this way, so we
7 From p. 209 in George Gilder, “Breaking the Box,” The Information Revolution, vol. 67 of The Reference
Shelf, ed. Donald Altshiller (New York and Dublin: H. W. Wilson, 1995), 202-210.
77
must provide him with an automatic incentive to do so [i.e., to care]. Taxation provides
exactly this incentive.8
Dwight Lee, whose brief essay brought this passage to my attention, places “polluting” in
italics—as well he should; for it is most remarkable that elitists like Layard fancy themselves to
be cultivating turnips or adjusting an artificial lake’s size to duck migrations when they write of
tinkering with human lives through mandatory taxation. The reader may recall my claim that
contemporary liberals, being devout materialists, cannot view happiness as other than an
arrangement of circumstantial factors. Layard does not recoil from the tendency of his fellow
beings to envy the wealthy, let alone exhort them to build happiness’s foundation on more
spiritual ground: he determines, instead, how best to channel envy so that no one has too great
a measure of it, quite as clinically as one might station sugar-water for laboratory mice in a
Skinner Box. Yet Lee documents that both Layard and Cornell University economist Robert
Frank view their proposed heavy taxation as encouraging the masses to spend more time with
their families, and perhaps even to “develop the preferences of university professors… [for]
more ‘elevated’ activities.”9
We have come full circle again. Socialist theoreticians and lawmakers are concerned about
“family values” and art museums, while free-traders who claim conservative colors are busily
engineering a swarm of docile masses beholden to its self-taxing masters for education, health
benefits, and cues about taste and morals. What, I ask, is the difference between the socialist
Big Brother and the capitalist Dutch Uncle? Multi-billionaire adventurer Bill Gates has lately
expressed an interest in creating European-style educational tracks, the better to separate
worker-bees and queens in the hives of humanity which he claims—by divine right of net
worth—to know how to prepare for tomorrow’s world. Multibillionaire CEO Warren Buffett has
lately insisted that he and his financial peers—a microscopic group, to be sure—pay far too little
of their earnings to the sacred cause of central government’s good works. To consider these
men somehow antithetical to the snobbery of “nanny totalitarianism” on the Left is absurd. In
them, rather, we see that “harmony with the opposition” which the electorate is supposed to
desire so piously of its representatives. The Gateses and Buffetts would have us all well
groomed, fat, and content—not the least bit volatile or brooding, without the least need of
Heaven—in the caressing hands of some global mass-distribution plan. A few drops of manna
for all… with the servers, of course (for we are never to forget that our rulers serve us),
deploying bowl and ladle as they see fit.
No, this is not any imprint or facsimile of that cultural legacy which the conservative was to
conserve. On the contrary, it is a cluster of symptoms hinting at pathological egotism—the
“benign tyrant”, the “bully who didn’t mean it”. The ruthless entrepreneur is embarrassed one
day to wake up and find himself incalculably rich as the corpses of slain adversaries surround
him. Jules Romains precisely sketched such “social consciousness” in the unsavory person of
Sammécaud, an oil magnate who seduces the wives of aristocratic colleagues because he finds
them “purebred” and secretly subsidizes a Syndicalist newspaper. Musing to himself,
Sammécaud reflects:
It’s so chic to concern oneself about the people’s plight without being forced to do so by
circumstances or self-interest—while risking one’s interests, even, and without believing
in any ideology. The secular, gratuitous generosity of the superior race (“race”
understood as “essence”, a mysterious something, a spontaneous volunteering of the
elite). Ultimately, these poor buggers owe us their access to civilization, to whatever
8 Richard Layard, Happiness: Lessons from a New Science (New York: Penguin, 2005), 228.
9 P. 43 of Dwight R. Lee, “Happiness and Liberty ,” The Intercollegiate Review 42.2 (Fall 2007): 41-48.
78
little well-being they have. And that little is already a lot.10
Sammécaud discovers a “fake spirituality” of sacrifice—fake because he himself is the god who
deigns to bend over. His “service” is the game of an imaginative nihilist, and it besmirches the
hubristic player while demeaning his pawns. If the classical view was correct in asserting that
human beings only find happiness in seeking after transcendent, eternal truths—that the
unexamined life is not worth living—then we have forgotten which way is up, for playful giants
are not gods. If Aristotle himself, who insisted that food, health, and shelter could not be
excluded from happiness, was correct in explaining their contribution as merely instrumental,
then we are fattening our loins for a slaughterhouse of the soul.
III . Farming and True Freedom of Speech
Stipulate, then, that unimpeded marketplace activity is not a blueprint for preserving that
creative introspection, nurtured by literate culture, which tends to yield true, deep happiness
(as opposed to those balmy affects deemed the signs of happiness by questionnaires). A
vigorous day trading at the market may make us well-to-do, or a year of such days leave us
positively wealthy… but it may also, eventually, enslave us. For a master is enslaved along with
his slaves: the wheeler-dealer in any of his more sophisticated guises and locations is chained to
his business interests in a way that corrupts his little bit of leisure (about that much, Professors
Frank and Layard are correct). Even the billionaire-philanthropist must discover that being one
of the welfare state’s messiahs is an Atlas-like burden. To escape the horrible fact of one’s own
tyrannical power, one is apt to be mugging constantly for cameras and servilely courting a kind
word from populist firebrands. The satisfactions of the palace cannot be much more durable
than the pleasures of the Colosseum if supplemented by no inner magnetism to an
unconditional, immaterial goodness.
Richard Weaver was fond of alluding to the forsaken nobility of medieval Christendom, and
Wendell Berry loved to mingle the Gospels with earthy oral-traditional wisdom like that of the
Sioux sachem Black Elk. We all know that the Right was able to galvanize its political base in the
latter twentieth century by appealing directly to Christian fundamentalism; yet Weaver and
Berry would clearly have been uncomfortable with any formula that might equate material
affluence with God’s blessing and reserve moral censure for specific behaviors like abortion and
homosexuality. I believe they were correct to insist that the fulfilled citizen must prosecute
every stage of his daily existence in a conserving frame of mind—the parsimonia which Cicero
extols in his Tusculan Disputations, the Socratic joy in needing so very little which rings
resonantly through classical philosophy and persists in Augustus, Boethius, and medieval
monasticism. The “happy American” must be something more than a person whose mate is of
the opposite sex, who slightly undercuts the competition at “year-end clearance sales”, who
watches multimedia productions in a large church on Sundays, and who celebrates Christmas
the way he would a child’s birthday. If he is only this, he does not really understand happiness.
He is merely the product and the purveyor of mass-mentality, accepting material comfort as a
self-evident good, rather too sensitive to public approval to be enlisted among the devoted
knights-errant of moral duty.
I have found few references in Weaver to José Ortega y Gasset, and none in Berry; but I have
no doubt that both thinkers were familiar with The Revolt of the Masses.11 Weaver’s sixth
10 My translation from Jules Romains’s novel Les Superbes, p. 829 of Les Hommes de Bonne Volonté, vol.
1 (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1988 [reprinted from 1958).
11 Cf. Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1948), 130; and Nash (op.
cit., 38) claims that the Spanish theorist was a major influence on Weaver’s doctoral dissertation.
79
chapter in Ideas Have Consequences is even entitled, “The Spoiled-Child Psychology” (very
probably an allusion to Ortega y Gasset’s señorito satisfecho). Like the Spaniard, too, Weaver
charges modern technology—especially the “Great Stereopticon” of instant info-entertainment
provided by pandering communications media—with reducing our masses to this state. Yet the
accelerated pace of city-living is implicated in the degeneration from numerous other angles:
No one can be excused for moral degradation, but we are tempted to say of the urban
dweller, as of the heathen, that he never had an opportunity for salvation. He has been
exposed so unremittingly to this false interpretation of life that, though we may
deplore, we can hardly wonder at the unreasonableness of his demands. He has been
given the notion that progress is automatic, and hence he is not prepared to understand
impediments; and the right to pursue happiness he has not unnaturally translated into a
right to have happiness, like a right to the franchise. If all this had been couched in
terms of spiritual insight, the case would be different, but when he is taught that
happiness is obtainable in a world limited to surfaces, he is being prepared for that
disillusionment and resentment which lay behind the mass psychosis of fascism.12
Parallel passages could readily be found in Ortega y Gasset’s great book.13 The difference lies in
the emphasis: Weaver pits the urban against the rural and carnal whim against spiritual longing.
He is constantly pulling back on the reins, harkening after a precious legacy squandered. The
Spaniard, in contrast, will imply as his essays feel their way along that fascism might be averted
if Europe ’s nations would bond together in a progressive venture. The former is more
conservative, the latter more liberal. Weaver was disappointed in contemporary Christianity:
Ortega y Gasset apparently concluded Christianity to be a relic of the naïve past, incapable of a
contemporary form.
This distinction is worth stressing, because Europe turns out to have followed Ortega y
Gasset’s recommended course—with the result that it is now a loose collective whose manners
are tightly monitored by gloriosi like The Right Honorable Richard Layard. Far better would have
been a rediscovery that envy is a sin: that all creatures must die in the flesh, that all things must
decay to dust, and that only a fool would therefore stake his happiness upon never sickening
and ever acquiring more pelf. To the Stoic philosopher Epictetus (for such insights are by no
means confined to Christianity), the deduction was as simple as A, B, C: “The good should be
such that one might be firm upon it and trust it.—Yes, it should.—Can one be firm upon the
unsteady?—No.—But surely pleasure of the senses is not steady, is it?—No.—Out with it, then,
and clear it from our scales!”14 The masses have only the fleeting image of pleasures and
luxuries, fulfilled briefly or in part from time to time, upon which to found their sense of
achievement. That manipulators like Layard are so aware of the image’s vacuity as to build a
comparative record of various flawed perceptions—to devote, indeed, entire social programs to
creating maximal illusion—testifies to the new Europe’s ruinous cynicism in choosing intoxicants
over the sobriety of real striving.
For to strive is to integrate oneself into the natural cycle begun with birth but not ended with
death: it is to exchange oneself for something not oneself, yet enduring after one (to speak in
earthly terms) as an expression of what one has chosen to serve—perhaps literally to die for.
Such is the perspective of Wendell Berry’s elegant essay, “Discipline and Hope”. Berry, alas,
12 Ibid., 113-114.
13 Besides the already suggested eleventh chapter of Part One, “La época del señorito satisfecho”, the
ensuing chapter of La Rebelión de las Masas, “La barbarie del especialismo”, stresses the role of the
technician in narrowing cultural vision—a perspective even more central in Wendell Berry’s argument shortly
to follow.
14 My translation from the discourse recorded by Arrian “On the Beginning of Philosophy”, 2.11.20-21.
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refers not to Europeans but to his own countrymen when he writes,
Because of the prevalence of economics [i.e., profitable, faddish “conveniences”] and
the philosophy of laborsaving, it has become almost a heresy to speak of hard work,
especially manual work, as an inescapable human necessity. To speak of such work as
good and ennobling, a source of pleasure and joy, is almost to declare oneself a pervert.
Such work, and any aptitude or taste for it, are supposedly mere relics of our rural and
primitive past—a past from which it is the business of modern science and technology
to save us.15
The “specialist”, that arch-villain of Ortega y Gasset’s, is again very visible in Berry ’s assessment.
Particularly aggrieved by the predations of strip-mining in Kentucky, Berry was incurably
astonished that human beings could create such hellish landscapes for the sake of such
temporary gains. Only someone fitted with the blinders of an obsessively narrow ambition
could so ignore an exploitation that outraged both the human spirit and plain common sense.
For Berry, like Weaver and other Southern Agrarians (a vague movement inspired by the
publication of I’ll Take My Stand in 1930), was as keen to observe that people cannot live very
long in wastefulness as to lament that no one could enjoy living in wastelands: the heart hath
plenty of reasons, pace Pascal, which reason understands full well. To conserve is a spiritually
enriching duty, but it is also a practically necessary one. The specialist or “economist” cannot
see this because he measures success by the quarter-year. Perhaps the unnamed Ortega y
Gasset could not see it clearly because a clinical positivism had not scalded Europe ’s physical
appearance, for the most part, but only made her consumers hungry for American gadgetry.
Uniting specialists in a common adventure, however—in harvesting the ocean bottom or mining
the Moon—will do nothing to restore the missing spirituality of life that reconciles man to his lot
and makes enduring happiness accessible. On the contrary, it will feed the illusion of the far
horizon’s heavenly amplitude. It will slate Lake Baikal for execution by progressive Soviet
bureaucrats with inflexible timetables for “productivity”.
If the key for both Weaver and Berry was spirituality, then the key to economic spirituality—
to feeding one’s children and paying one’s bills in a fashion pleasant rather than odious to
intellect and soul—was the land. The good, rich earth: source of perpetual rebirth from death,
sacrificial mother to the human race, inspiration of human creativity’s most powerful images
and melodies. Berry actually revived the fine art of plowing behind a draft animal: as if to
emphasize that labor itself is as important for the spirit as food for the body, he embraced
grinding toil with zeal. My own objection to such devotional acts, rewarding though they surely
are to the individual, is that they invite caricature of an entire range of positions on critical
economic issues. We will not convince most Americans to become Amish farmers—nor should
we try, in fact. The technological genie is out of the bottle. If we were willing to surrender the
lead in the arms-and-energy race to our hungry pursuers, we should have to live in the world—
and very possibly die an untimely death in it—that would result. Allowing the current Chinese
regime to dictate the course of the twenty-first century would be a crime against humanity that
we would scarcely have time to regret.
The alternative to the great hive which Chinese communism seeks to make of the human
race, however, is precisely a society of self-sufficient individuals—not another hive, set in
motion by the lure of profit and the goad of envy rather than by a soldier’s machine-gun. To be
truly independent in a high-tech economy is no easy matter, and the hardest value of the
15 Wendell Berry, p. 117 of “Discipline and Hope” in A Continuous Harmony: Essays Cultural and
Agricultural (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972), 86-168.
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equation to supply is food. Farming one’s own small plot of land has become appallingly lowtech, visited both with a certain derisive social stigma and with the practical difficulty of
demanding too much time; for you can’t farm in the city, and to the city you must go if you
would pay your other bills after growing your own vegetables. Yet the high-tech job awaiting us
at the end of a painful daily commute through smoggy traffic jams is less likely the design of a
satellite system to avert hostile missiles than the design of a new cellular phone which starts the
hot water running in the tub back home. What contemporary man needs for his happiness—
and maybe even his sanity—is the economic ability to refuse work on this cell phone, to refuse
the alternative of building pizzas at a “drive-thru” window, and to refuse the occasional third
option of living on the dole. He needs to be able to participate in contemporary life without
being enlisted into the West’s growing army of wage-slaving clowns, acrobats, and snake-oil
salesmen. He needs, with all his learning and humanity and optimism, to be able to conserve a
sense of honor.
Land can give him this honor, because it can provide him with a) a place to find shelter, and
b) a source of food staples. He may or may not find conscionable employment as an architect or
copy-editor within a few weeks of refusing to market pills for “sexual enhancement” or to sell
used cars in Spanish. If a satisfactory option is slow in coming, however, he and his family will
not starve—not, that is, if he can deploy technology in farming his half-acre of suburban
property. A few tomato plants on the patio, or even a back-yard garden of the conventional
kind, won’t do the trick; but if he knows or learns how to maximize his yield with innovative
strategies, then he will be a provider in the word’s true, direct sense while also being nobody’s
toady or pimp. So privileged a position, unfortunately, is enjoyed by ever fewer in our
entertainment-economy. Land is the key to our recovering our personal dignity—the power of
announcing at a lucrative but morally squalid place of employ, “I won’t do it—I quit.”
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Wendell Berry
What to look for: Berry is an extraordinary man—a retired college professor who has worked his Kentucky
farm for years by traditional horse-and-plow method. Naturally, he knows that not all of us can adopt this
routine. How, then, would you describe the essential message he is trying to transmit to us about the
proper relationship between humans and culture? In other words, having read the essay, see if you can
express its thesis without mentioning food.
Many times, after I have finished a lecture on the decline of American farming and rural
life, someone in the audience has asked, "What can city people do?"
"Eat responsibly," I have usually answered. Of course, I have tried to explain what I
mean by that, but afterwards I have invariably felt there was more to be said than I had been
able to say. Now I would like to attempt a better explanation.
I begin with the proposition that eating is an agricultural act. Eating ends the annual
drama of the food economy that begins with planting and birth. Most eaters, however, are no
longer aware that this is true. They think of food as an agricultural product, perhaps, but they do
not think of themselves as participants in agriculture. They think of themselves as "consumers."
If they think beyond that, they recognize that they are passive consumers. They buy what they
want — or what they have been persuaded to want — within the limits of what they can get.
They pay, mostly without protest, what they are charged. And they mostly ignore certain critical
questions about the quality and the cost of what they are sold: How fresh is it? How pure or
clean is it, how free of dangerous chemicals? How far was it transported, and what did
transportation add to the cost? How much did manufacturing or packaging or advertising add to
the cost? When the food product has been manufactured or "processed" or "precooked," how
has that affected its quality or price or nutritional value?
Most urban shoppers would tell you that food is produced on farms. But most of them
do not know what farms, or what kinds of farms, or where the farms are, or what knowledge of
skills are involved in farming. They apparently have little doubt that farms will continue to
produce, but they do not know how or over what obstacles. For them, then, food is pretty much
an abstract idea — something they do not know or imagine — until it appears on the grocery
shelf or on the table.
The specialization of production induces specialization of consumption. Patrons of the
entertainment industry, for example, entertain themselves less and less and have become more
and more passively dependent on commercial suppliers. This is certainly true also of patrons of
the food industry, who have tended more and more to be mere consumers — passive,
uncritical, and dependent. Indeed, this sort of consumption may be said to be one of the chief
goals of industrial production. The food industrialists have by now persuaded millions of
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consumers to prefer food that is already prepared. They will grow, deliver, and cook your food
for you and (just like your mother) beg you to eat it. That they do not yet offer to insert it, prechewed, into our mouth is only because they have found no profitable way to do so. We may
rest assured that they would be glad to find such a way. The ideal industrial food consumer
would be strapped to a table with a tube running from the food factory directly into his or her
stomach.
Perhaps I exaggerate, but not by much. The industrial eater is, in fact, one who does not
know that eating is an agricultural act, who no longer knows or imagines the connections
between eating and the land, and who is therefore necessarily passive and uncritical — in short,
a victim. When food, in the minds of eaters, is no longer associated with farming and with the
land, then the eaters are suffering a kind of cultural amnesia that is misleading and dangerous.
The current version of the "dream home" of the future involves "effortless" shopping from a list
of available goods on a television monitor and heating precooked food by remote control. Of
course, this implies and depends on, a perfect ignorance of the history of the food that is
consumed. It requires that the citizenry should give up their hereditary and sensible aversion to
buying a pig in a poke. It wishes to make the selling of pigs in pokes an honorable and glamorous
activity. The dreams in this dream home will perforce know nothing about the kind or quality of
this food, or where it came from, or how it was produced and prepared, or what ingredients,
additives, and residues it contains — unless, that is, the dreamer undertakes a close and
constant study of the food industry, in which case he or she might as well wake up and play an
active an responsible part in the economy of food.
There is, then, a politics of food that, like any politics, involves our freedom. We still
(sometimes) remember that we cannot be free if our minds and voices are controlled by
someone else. But we have neglected to understand that we cannot be free if our food and its
sources are controlled by someone else. The condition of the passive consumer of food is not a
democratic condition. One reason to eat responsibly is to live free.
But if there is a food politics, there are also a food esthetics and a food ethics, neither of
which is dissociated from politics. Like industrial sex, industrial eating has become a degraded,
poor, and paltry thing. Our kitchens and other eating places more and more resemble filling
stations, as our homes more and more resemble motels. "Life is not very interesting," we seem
to have decided. "Let its satisfactions be minimal, perfunctory, and fast." We hurry through our
meals to go to work and hurry through our work in order to "recreate" ourselves in the evenings
and on weekends and vacations. And then we hurry, with the greatest possible speed and noise
and violence, through our recreation — for what? To eat the billionth hamburger at some fastfood joint hell-bent on increasing the "quality" of our life? And all this is carried out in a
remarkable obliviousness to the causes and effects, the possibilities and the purposes, of the life
of the body in this world.
One will find this obliviousness represented in virgin purity in the advertisements of the
food industry, in which food wears as much makeup as the actors. If one gained one's whole
knowledge of food from these advertisements (as some presumably do), one would not know
that the various edibles were ever living creatures, or that they all come from the soil, or that
they were produced by work. The passive American consumer, sitting down to a meal of preprepared or fast food, confronts a platter covered with inert, anonymous substances that have
been processed, dyed, breaded, sauced, gravied, ground, pulped, strained, blended, prettified,
and sanitized beyond resemblance to any part of any creature that ever lived. The products of
nature and agriculture have been made, to all appearances, the products of industry. Both eater
and eaten are thus in exile from biological reality. And the result is a kind of solitude,
unprecedented in human experience, in which the eater may think of eating as, first, a purely
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commercial transaction between him and a supplier and then as a purely appetitive transaction
between him and his food.
And this peculiar specialization of the act of eating is, again, of obvious benefit to the
food industry, which has good reasons to obscure the connection between food and farming. It
would not do for the consumer to know that the hamburger she is eating came from a steer
who spent much of his life standing deep in his own excrement in a feedlot, helping to pollute
the local streams, or that the calf that yielded the veal cutlet on her plate spent its life in a box
in which it did not have room to turn around. And, though her sympathy for the slaw might be
less tender, she should not be encouraged to meditate on the hygienic and biological
implications of mile-square fields of cabbage, for vegetables grown in huge monocultures are
dependent on toxic chemicals — just as animals in close confinements are dependent on
antibiotics and other drugs.
The consumer, that is to say, must be kept from discovering that, in the food industry —
as in any other industry — the overriding concerns are not quality and health, but volume and
price. For decades now the entire industrial food economy, from the large farms and feedlots to
the chains of supermarkets and fast-food restaurants has been obsessed with volume. It has
relentlessly increased scale in order to increase volume in order (probably) to reduce costs. But
as scale increases, diversity declines; as diversity declines, so does health; as health declines, the
dependence on drugs and chemicals necessarily increases. As capital replaces labor, it does so
by substituting machines, drugs, and chemicals for human workers and for the natural health
and fertility of the soil. The food is produced by any means or any shortcuts that will increase
profits. And the business of the cosmeticians of advertising is to persuade the consumer that
food so produced is good, tasty, healthful, and a guarantee of marital fidelity and long life.
It is possible, then, to be liberated from the husbandry and wifery of the old household
food economy. But one can be thus liberated only by entering a trap (unless one sees ignorance
and helplessness as the signs of privilege, as many people apparently do). The trap is the ideal of
industrialism: a walled city surrounded by valves that let merchandise in but no consciousness
out. How does one escape this trap? Only voluntarily, the same way that one went in: by
restoring one's consciousness of what is involved in eating; by reclaiming responsibility for one's
own part in the food economy. One might begin with the illuminating principle of Sir Albert
Howard's, that we should understand "the whole problem of health in soil, plant, animal, and
man as one great subject." Eaters, that is, must understand that eating takes place inescapably
in the world, that it is inescapably an agricultural act, and how we eat determines, to a
considerable extent, how the world is used. This is a simple way of describing a relationship that
is inexpressibly complex. To eat responsibly is to understand and enact, so far as we can, this
complex relationship. What can one do? Here is a list, probably not definitive:
1. Participate in food production to the extent that you can. If you have a yard or even
just a porch box or a pot in a sunny window, grow something to eat in it. Make a little
compost of your kitchen scraps and use it for fertilizer. Only by growing some food for
yourself can you become acquainted with the beautiful energy cycle that revolves
from soil to seed to flower to fruit to food to offal to decay, and around again. You will
be fully responsible for any food that you grow for yourself, and you will know all
about it. You will appreciate it fully, having known it all its life.
2. Prepare your own food. This means reviving in your own mind and life the arts of
kitchen and household. This should enable you to eat more cheaply, and it will give
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you a measure of "quality control": you will have some reliable knowledge of what has
been added to the food you eat.
3. Learn the origins of the food you buy, and buy the food that is produced closest to
your home. The idea that every locality should be, as much as possible, the source of
its own food makes several kinds of sense. The locally produced food supply is the
most secure, freshest, and the easiest for local consumers to know about and to
influence.
4. Whenever possible, deal directly with a local farmer, gardener, or orchardist. All the
reasons listed for the previous suggestion apply here. In addition, by such dealing you
eliminate the whole pack of merchants, transporters, processors, packagers, and
advertisers who thrive at the expense of both producers and consumers.
5. Learn, in self-defense, as much as you can of the economy and technology of
industrial food production. What is added to the food that is not food, and what do
you pay for those additions?
6. Learn what is involved in the best farming and gardening.
7. Learn as much as you can, by direct observation and experience if possible, of the
life histories of the food species.
The last suggestion seems particularly important to me. Many people are now as much
estranged from the lives of domestic plants and animals (except for flowers and dogs and cats)
as they are from the lives of the wild ones. This is regrettable, for these domestic creatures are
in diverse ways attractive; there is such pleasure in knowing them. And farming, animal
husbandry, horticulture, and gardening, at their best, are complex and comely arts; there is
much pleasure in knowing them, too.
It follows that there is great displeasure in knowing about a food economy that
degrades and abuses those arts and those plants and animals and the soil from which they
come. For anyone who does know something of the modern history of food, eating away from
home can be a chore. My own inclination is to eat seafood instead of red meat or poultry when I
am traveling. Though I am by no means a vegetarian, I dislike the thought that some animal has
been made miserable in order to feed me. If I am going to eat meat, I want it to be from an
animal that has lived a pleasant, uncrowded life outdoors, on bountiful pasture, with good
water nearby and trees for shade. And I am getting almost as fussy about food plants. I like to
eat vegetables and fruits that I know have lived happily and healthily in good soil, not the
products of the huge, bechemicaled factory-fields that I have seen, for example, in the Central
Valley of California. The industrial farm is said to have been patterned on the factory production
line. In practice, it looks more like a concentration camp.
The pleasure of eating should be an extensive pleasure, not that of the mere gourmet.
People who know the garden in which their vegetables have grown and know that the garden is
healthy and remember the beauty of the growing plants, perhaps in the dewy first light of
morning when gardens are at their best. Such a memory involves itself with the food and is one
of the pleasures of eating. The knowledge of the good health of the garden relieves and frees
and comforts the eater. The same goes for eating meat. The thought of the good pasture and of
the calf contentedly grazing flavors the steak. Some, I know, will think of it as bloodthirsty or
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worse to eat a fellow creature you have known all its life. On the contrary, I think it means that
you eat with understanding and with gratitude. A significant part of the pleasure of eating is in
one's accurate consciousness of the lives and the world from which food comes. The pleasure of
eating, then, may be the best available standard of our health. And this pleasure, I think, is
pretty fully available to the urban consumer who will make the necessary effort.
I mentioned earlier the politics, esthetics, and ethics of food. But to speak of the
pleasure of eating is to go beyond those categories. Eating with the fullest pleasure — pleasure,
that is, that does not depend on ignorance — is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our
connection with the world. In this pleasure we experience and celebrate our dependence and
our gratitude, for we are living from mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we
cannot comprehend. When I think of the meaning of food, I always remember these lines by the
poet William Carlos Williams, which seem to me merely honest:
There is nothing to eat,
seek it where you will,
but the body of the Lord.
The blessed plants
and the sea, yield it
to the imagination intact.
1989
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Engineering Culture to
“Improve” Human Beings
Is culture capable of enhancing human good—or human evil? If
so, under what conditions is it good, and how may these be
deliberately maximized? What is goodness?
Students often display a visceral (i.e., uncritical: literally “gut-level”) response to the
word “culture” that has all the signs of a programmed reflex. We should never deny any group
full status as a culture, they appear to say. Who are we to be so cruel? Who made us the
judges? Maybe the group in question could turn around and charge us with not being a true
culture!
This kind of response obviously assumes that being recognized as a culture is the
inalienable right of any and all groups, guaranteed by natural law, just as life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness are such rights for the individual. A more basic and implicit assumption
within it is that cultures are necessarily good; for why would a group want to be denominated a
culture if that “honor” might turn into a disgrace? The students who have registered this
manner of righteous indignation before me seem to take for granted that we will instantly and
automatically label a group barbaric once we declare it just below the “culture threshold”—that
the two are the same thing. Yet where is it written that on the spectrum of societal advance,
culture occupies the “good” polarity and non-culture the “barbaric” or “bad” polarity? No
doubt, this kind of thinking reflects the popular use of the word “cultured” to mean “educated,
refined, mannerly, and sensitive.” When somebody in evening dress sips a fine wine and
murmurs, “Excellent—a good year!” we may well hear him or her described as “cultured” or
“cultivated.”
I hope that our discussion has by now carried us beyond the point, however, of basing
this complex word’s definition upon its treatment in popular usage. (Many words suffer from
such degraded pedigrees today, by the way. “Passion” is one more—a word that literally means
“suffering” in Latin [Greek form: “pathos’]. No one would have said before about 1970, “He
writes with passion,” but rather “with heart” or “with feeling” or “with sensitivity.”) Though all
of you will not have arrived at the same definition of “culture,” you will all probably agree that
cultures can sometimes inspire regrettable behaviors in human beings. It has been said, for
instance, that the traditional German family’s emphasis upon paternal authority paved the way
for Hitler’s rise to power as the Führer. Though this particular argument may not hold much
water, it suffices to demonstrate how a cultural setting might induce good people to do bad
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things. In such a case, we should have to say that the culture—or at least an element of it—was
morally corrosive.
Or should we even go this far? Perhaps some of you may feel that a culture is not
responsible for those of its members who exaggerate certain teachings to create a wicked
practice. Perhaps the ancient Aztec practice of sacrificing young maidens to the Sun, for
example, originated in a desperate effort to reduce population in an environment that provided
little food. If the unfortunate girls in question had reached breeding age, perhaps they would
have left so many children behind them that the ensuing generation would have suffered mass
starvation. As a strategy for birth control, cutting a child’s heart out seems excessively
gruesome… but the original intent behind the horrid custom might have been to spare future
children from starving pitifully by the thousand.
The example above is somewhat far-fetched. The rulers of Aztec society probably did
not possess the long-term forecasting ability necessary to see starvation coming a generation or
two ahead of time. In any event, the answer of tribal cultures to such environmental challenges
is not to reduce population—for then they render themselves vulnerable to being overrun by
their neighbors—but, precisely, to overrun their neighbors: to expand. Furthermore, other
kinds of human sacrifice were common in Northern European pre-history that had nothing to do
with stemming the birth rate. Julius Caesar wrote that the Gauls embraced this odious custom;
and in a later section from the work of Tacitus excerpted above, the Roman historian makes the
same claim of certain German tribes. In both cases, the victims were male and their number
plainly too small to leave a dent in the overall population. Human societies—let’s face it—
engage in a few loathsome practices from time to time for no better reason than that our
species has a cruel streak. Call such societies “barbaric” if you like (a word used by the Romans
for both the Gauls and the Germans). You would be very hard pressed, nevertheless, to explain
why their abominable practices should not be viewed as a direct outgrowth of genuine culture
rather than as a sign of cultural deficiency.
This carries the debate to another area of issues. If we concede that cultures do indeed
sometimes teach wicked habits to their members, then how will we defend our choice of the
moral qualifier “wicked”? Murdering innocent victims in something of a celebratory
atmosphere seems pretty hideous… but that valuation must still be objectively justified. How do
we know that, in making it, we are not simply sharing a prejudice programmed into us with
others of our cultural group? Many of us would find it almost as hideous to slay and devour a
cat or a dog; but in some parts of the world, these animals that we raise as family members are
just another food source. Are those cultures wrong? If so, why? Why are we not wrong, by the
same token, for slaying and eating cattle and pigs?
The intellectual “easy way out” is to proclaim, “There you have it—all values are merely
cultural programming! We eat what we were taught to eat and hate whom we were taught to
hate. Unconditional right and wrong do not exist: all values are culturally relative.” On most
college campuses today and for many decades past, a sizable proportion (often a clear majority)
of professors would willingly sign off on some such statement as that above. It has an appealing
tidiness, and it absolves one from any charge of cultural bigotry. It extends Einstein’s
observations about the physical universe into the ethical realm—which seems a very
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enlightened kind of thing to do! Just as the absolute speed of no object in space can be judged
since the measurement would require reference to another object known to be perfectly
stationary, so no person in the human universe can be judged by another since that other will
also possess his or her own flaws and foibles. This is a shrewd bit of reasoning, one has to
admit!
Yet in the post-9/11 world, how many of us are willing to live with that view? Our loved
ones may be blown up on a train or airplane: if that should happen, are we prepared to shrug
and say, “Well, to each his own”? From the perspective of the suicide-bomber, too—who is
often a kind of child-sacrifice to the Sun god—are we prepared to say that mothers who rear
their sons from the cradle urging them to cut short their youth in an act of mass-murder simply
have a different view of parenting from ours? If our objective is to be fair-minded, then we
shouldn’t project sentiments upon others that we could never imagine entertaining in our own
hearts. Which of us would ever pressure a son or young brother to rush a cockpit and steer a
jetliner into the ground? If such behavior is unthinkable to us, how can we advance it as
perfectly natural in someone not of our culture? Isn’t that close to accusing the other culture of
being an inferior race without actually using the word “inferior”? We don’t hold tigers
responsible for devouring lambs, either. They’re tigers—just tigers. When a human being
commits a grotesquely inhumane act, ought we to say, “Oh, well, he’s one of those, you
know”—or ought we to call his culture to account for poisoning his mind with evil notions?
And yet another issue emerges. Whether you believe cultures to be always good,
always bad, or a mixture according to certain criteria, you might quite naturally wish to favor the
good cultures—or to “create” them if they don’t exist: to make them more numerous, and to
make any promising ones even better. Is this a sensible, realistic way to talk about a culture?
Can a culture be modified like an engine? Philosophers have actually dreamed of building “the
perfect culture” from the ground up at least since the days of Socrates. Is it that easy—can we
say, “This kind of family, eating this kind of diet and worshiping this kind of god, would result in
a wonderful world… so let’s do it!” Inasmuch as such a large part of culture is revered
inheritance, would not such deliberate and massive overhaul of the past be significantly
counter-cultural? Maybe culture, after all, is a major force obstructing the rule of reason in
human affairs: maybe the project of the republic described by Socrates is precisely to get rid of
culture.
These are immensely involved questions, and of course you can’t possibly answer all of
them thoroughly in one essay. Your choice of where to place the emphasis will surely have
some effect on the variety of essay that you produce. Let us review, however, some of the more
obvious possibilities: what types of essay would most likely emerge from your reflections?
Prominent on the list must be the comparative and contrastive sort of exercise that lends itself
to drawing fine distinctions.
a) definition (of the moral good and bad)
b) exemplification (of good and bad cultures: the examples may well precede any
formal definition of good and bad)
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c) compare/contrast (of examples—say, Aztec human sacrifice versus Eskimo
hospitality: this will feed into an evaluation of critical factors)
d) evaluation (of your own defining of good and bad and of culture itself and of how
cultures do or do not pursue good objectives: expose as many of your moral
assumptions as you can [they’re unavoidable], and be realistic about whether a true
culture can actually address the value issues involved in upright conduct)
e) analysis (of your evaluation: are you an ethical relativist, do you base your values on
metaphysical principles, are you an empiricist/material progressive,
etc.; also, are you subscribing to some prominent political ideology [and, if so, how
does it view culture?])
This may be the most abstract—or at least the most generalized—essay that you write
during the semester. Values are both intensely personal and, paradoxically, sweeping in scope:
they reflect the individual’s assessment of what reality means—of what precisely is real. At this
very personal level, you may profit little even from doing research. The most brilliant
philosophical minds in history cannot tell you what is right and wrong if your “inner light” finds
them unconvincing. Of course, if you conclude that no such light exists and that values—yours
and everyone else’s—are mere cultural constructs, then that, too, is a viable position; yet your
conviction that you see right and wrong only because of your environment’s conditioning
remains something that you sense personally to be true.
As for the “wide angle” to which your values are being applied, that can indeed be
researched to some extent (and the readings below are an excellent place to start). How have
thinkers of the past projected their view of “the good” onto the entire social organism? This is
the foundation of politics. The Greek word for the republic sketched out in Plato’s Socratic
dialogue is in fact politeia (“things related to the city, the general population”). Does culture
help to promote this broad application of worthy objectives, or does it get in the way? Or must
previous culture be annihilated so as to make room for a new, more rational culture? Such
questions are the very essence of political theory.
READINGS
Excerpt from the Republic ~ Plato
Excerpt from the Utopia ~ Sir Thomas More
Excerpt from Democracy in America ~ Alexis de Toqueville
“Ernst Bloch and the Utopian Imagination” ~ Judith Brown
The following readings are not necessarily better suited to a discussion of morally
evaluating and designing cultures than previous ones. You should feel entirely free to draw
from previous reading assignments in your essay. Yet the relevance of these authors to the
topic is probably a little plainer than in the case of our earlier authors. Plato approaches the
political state as a rational construct. His champion, the master-debater Socrates, fancifully sets
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about selecting or excluding the elements desirable in the ideal state during a casual chat with
friends. We might say that he is creating a culture out of nothing, purely with a view to
engineering the best possible environment to produce the best possible human beings. Of
course, a state is not a culture; but if reasonable people might pick and choose among the
qualities of their political order, why might they not do the same for their culture? (Those who
actually endorse this view would further argue that the engineered state needs only time to
settle into the popular mind as a set of cultural traditions.) Socrates and his group really are
talking more about cultural institutions than political ones, if you take note of the importance
that psychological conditioning holds for them. This is very nearly a treatise on how to engineer
taste. The present text’s small excerpt offers only the beginning of what would become Plato’s
longest Socratic dialogue by far, but you can see in about ten pages how attention to very basic
human needs quickly spills over into the fine-tuning of political, civic, and personal life.
Thomas More, who eventually became a Catholic saint after Henry VIII had him
executing for not condoning a whimsical series of royal divorces, surely had Plato in mind when
he composed his Utopia. The word, concocted by More and destined to find its way into every
English dictionary, literally means “no place” (Greek ou + topos). Scholars have always
wondered just how tongue-in-cheek the composition may be, especially considering its title. Did
More fully appreciate that he was describing a Never-Never Land? And even if he did… was he
resigned to this model land’s being a mere pipedream because he knew that human nature
could not be programmed as rigidly as he portrays here (robotically, we would say today), or
was he skeptical about his utopia’s ever existing just because there were too many political
obstacles in its way at the time? Whatever was in the author’s mind, the pages he produced
show a marvelously well-functioning—but almost insect-like—hive of activity where individuals
seem to have surrendered their free will. Do you feel enthusiastic about the possibilities implied
in this vision, or does it make you shudder at the kind of authoritarian discipline that must lurk
behind its pretty picture? More’s fable has drawn both reactions frequently over the centuries.
In contrast to the previous two authors, Alexis de Toqueville was supremely interested
in what works. Admirably level-headed, this young French scholar was keenly aware both of the
French Revolution’s benefits to the common man and of its bloody excesses. He traveled to a
lively young nation that had in some ways been France’s model for revolution, the United
States, in search of answers about how democracy on a large scale might stand the best chance
of success. As an observer of our institutions and habits, he was by no means always flattering.
In fact, in this excerpt Toqueville raises some of his most profound reservations about American
democracy. They are all embedded in what we might call cultural issues. That is, Toqueville’s
worries do not really stem from a belief that America could better have designed her political
institutions, but rather from a sober knowledge that institutions cannot force people to disobey
what is firmly fixed in their minds and hearts. He goes so far as to suggest, however, that the
political structure of American democracy may be encouraging certain unfortunate tendencies
in our culture. The relationship between politics and culture, therefore—between what’s legal
and what’s right—in Toqueville might best be described as complex and reciprocal. Form of
government affects culture, but culture also—and no doubt more directly—affects how strictly
the government’s formalities are observed.
Finally, a scholar’s essay summarizing the neo-Marxist theory of Twentieth-century
philosopher Ernst Bloch shows us (in rather dense scholarly language) an example of modern
utopian thinking. I could not find a ready English translation of Bloch; and the invective of
Messieurs Marx and Engle themselves is often too polemical (i.e., spoiling for a fight) and too
rigid in its assumptions to fuel a very good discussion. Professor Brown successfully conveys (I
hope) the most essential quality of Bloch’s revised Marxist vision: that we would “think outside
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the box” and take more chances on improving the world, as opposed to being trapped within
the same rigid patterns of life (a trap whose setting he attributes to capitalism). One might call
many of Bloch’s formulations “beautiful ideas.” The question is this: how much attention can
the real world afford to give to a beautiful idea? Are there sound reasons why we should leave
our dreams of a better world in the magical realm of dreamland? This issue actually returns us
squarely to the question posed to us by More’s Utopia. Ironically, In More’s visionary world
created by a stunning leap of originality, a “new culture” designed from the ground up has
produced a society of people who cannot (or dare not) think outside the box. How would Ernst
Bloch have answered this conundrum?
Obviously, the more choice we have over our culture, the more we must take
responsibility for its failures. If culture is a political construct and can be fundamentally
redesigned to serve more rational ends, then we would be responsible both for not redesigning
bad cultures and also for the errors of our redesigned cultures. But if culture is as natural to us
as sleeping or as instinctive as self-preservation, then the latitude for labeling this or that culture
good or bad begins to shrink: for what we cannot control cannot be subjected to a moral
judgment.
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The Republic
Plato
excerpt
Written 360 B.C.
Translated by Benjamin Jowett
What to look for: it would not have occurred to anyone in Plato’s day (whose Socratic dialogues show us
most of what we know about his master’s teaching) to talk directly about culture. The ideal republic that
Socrates begins to map out in this discussion strikes him, obviously, as a reasonable proposition, not an
accident of environmental circumstances. To some extent, Socrates must surely be right that all societies
begin by addressing basic needs. Where does the rational train run off the track, so to speak? That is, at
what point would you say this blueprint begins to accommodate wants and tastes shaped by culture
rather than true needs?
From Book II
I will tell you, I replied; justice, which is the subject of our enquiry, is, as you know, sometimes
spoken of as the virtue of an individual, and sometimes as the virtue of a State.
True, he replied.
And is not a State larger than an individual?
It is.
Then in the larger the quantity of justice is likely to be larger and more easily discernible. I
propose therefore that we enquire into the nature of justice and injustice, first as they appear in
the State, and secondly in the individual, proceeding from the greater to the lesser and
comparing them.
That, he said, is an excellent proposal.
And if we imagine the State in process of creation, we shall see the justice and injustice of the
State in process of creation also.
I dare say.
When the State is completed there may be a hope that the object of our search will be more
easily discovered.
Yes, far more easily.
But ought we to attempt to construct one? I said; for to do so, as I am inclined to think, will be a
very serious task. Reflect therefore.
I have reflected, said Adeimantus, and am anxious that you should proceed.
A State, I said, arises, as I conceive, out of the needs of mankind; no one is self-sufficing, but all
of us have many wants. Can any other origin of a State be imagined?
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There can I be no other.
Then, as we have many wants, and many persons are needed to supply them, one takes a helper
for one purpose and another for another; and when these partners and helpers are gathered
together in one habitation the body of inhabitants is termed a State.
True, he said.
And they exchange with one another, and one gives, and another receives, under the idea that
the exchange will be for their good.
Very true.
Then, I said, let us begin and create in idea a State; and yet the true creator is necessity, who is
the mother of our invention.
Of course, he replied.
Now the first and greatest of necessities is food, which is the condition of life and existence.
Certainly.
The second is a dwelling, and the third clothing and the like.
True.
And now let us see how our city will be able to supply this great demand: We may suppose that
one man is a husbandman, another a builder, some one else a weaver --shall we add to them a
shoemaker, or perhaps some other purveyor to our bodily wants?
Quite right.
The barest notion of a State must include four or five men.
Clearly.
And how will they proceed? Will each bring the result of his labours into a common stock? --the
individual husbandman, for example, producing for four, and labouring four times as long and as
much as he need in the provision of food with which he supplies others as well as himself; or will
he have nothing to do with others and not be at the trouble of producing for them, but provide
for himself alone a fourth of the food in a fourth of the time, and in the remaining three-fourths
of his time be employed in making a house or a coat or a pair of shoes, having no partnership
with others, but supplying himself all his own wants?
Adeimantus thought that he should aim at producing food only and not at producing everything.
Probably, I replied, that would be the better way; and when I hear you say this, I am myself
reminded that we are not all alike; there are diversities of natures among us which are adapted
to different occupations.
Very true.
And will you have a work better done when the workman has many occupations, or when he
has only one?
When he has only one.
Further, there can be no doubt that a work is spoilt when not done at the right time?
No doubt.
For business is not disposed to wait until the doer of the business is at leisure; but the doer must
follow up what he is doing, and make the business his first object.
He must.
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And if so, we must infer that all things are produced more plentifully and easily and of a better
quality when one man does one thing which is natural to him and does it at the right time, and
leaves other things.
Undoubtedly.
Then more than four citizens will be required; for the husbandman will not make his own plough
or mattock, or other implements of agriculture, if they are to be good for anything. Neither will
the builder make his tools --and he too needs many; and in like manner the weaver and
shoemaker.
True.
Then carpenters, and smiths, and many other artisans, will be sharers in our little State, which is
already beginning to grow?
True.
Yet even if we add neatherds, shepherds, and other herdsmen, in order that our husbandmen
may have oxen to plough with, and builders as well as husbandmen may have draught cattle,
and curriers and weavers fleeces and hides, --still our State will not be very large.
That is true; yet neither will it be a very small State which contains all these.
Then, again, there is the situation of the city --to find a place where nothing need be imported is
well-nigh impossible.
Impossible.
Then there must be another class of citizens who will bring the required supply from another
city?
There must.
But if the trader goes empty-handed, having nothing which they require who would supply his
need, he will come back empty-handed.
That is certain.
And therefore what they produce at home must be not only enough for themselves, but such
both in quantity and quality as to accommodate those from whom their wants are supplied.
Very true.
Then more husbandmen and more artisans will be required?
They will.
Not to mention the importers and exporters, who are called merchants?
Yes.
Then we shall want merchants?
We shall.
And if merchandise is to be carried over the sea, skilful sailors will also be needed, and in
considerable numbers?
Yes, in considerable numbers.
Then, again, within the city, how will they exchange their productions? To secure such an
exchange was, as you will remember, one of our principal objects when we formed them into a
society and constituted a State.
Clearly they will buy and sell.
Then they will need a market-place, and a money-token for purposes of exchange.
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Certainly.
Suppose now that a husbandman, or an artisan, brings some production to market, and he
comes at a time when there is no one to exchange with him, --is he to leave his calling and sit
idle in the market-place?
Not at all; he will find people there who, seeing the want, undertake the office of salesmen. In
well-ordered States they are commonly those who are the weakest in bodily strength, and
therefore of little use for any other purpose; their duty is to be in the market, and to give money
in exchange for goods to those who desire to sell and to take money from those who desire to
buy.
This want, then, creates a class of retail-traders in our State. Is not 'retailer' the term which is
applied to those who sit in the market-place engaged in buying and selling, while those who
wander from one city to another are called merchants?
Yes, he said.
And there is another class of servants, who are intellectually hardly on the level of
companionship; still they have plenty of bodily strength for labour, which accordingly they sell,
and are called, if I do not mistake, hirelings, hire being the name which is given to the price of
their labour.
True.
Then hirelings will help to make up our population?
Yes.
And now, Adeimantus, is our State matured and perfected?
I think so.
Where, then, is justice, and where is injustice, and in what part of the State did they spring up?
Probably in the dealings of these citizens with one another. cannot imagine that they are more
likely to be found anywhere else.
I dare say that you are right in your suggestion, I said; we had better think the matter out, and
not shrink from the enquiry.
Let us then consider, first of all, what will be their way of life, now that we have thus established
them. Will they not produce corn, and wine, and clothes, and shoes, and build houses for
themselves? And when they are housed, they will work, in summer, commonly, stripped and
barefoot, but in winter substantially clothed and shod. They will feed on barley-meal and flour
of wheat, baking and kneading them, making noble cakes and loaves; these they will serve up on
a mat of reeds or on clean leaves, themselves reclining the while upon beds strewn with yew or
myrtle. And they and their children will feast, drinking of the wine which they have made,
wearing garlands on their heads, and hymning the praises of the gods, in happy converse with
one another. And they will take care that their families do not exceed their means; having an
eye to poverty or war.
Socrates - GLAUCON
But, said Glaucon, interposing, you have not given them a relish to their meal.
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True, I replied, I had forgotten; of course they must have a relish-salt, and olives, and cheese,
and they will boil roots and herbs such as country people prepare; for a dessert we shall give
them figs, and peas, and beans; and they will roast myrtle-berries and acorns at the fire,
drinking in moderation. And with such a diet they may be expected to live in peace and health
to a good old age, and bequeath a similar life to their children after them.
Yes, Socrates, he said, and if you were providing for a city of pigs, how else would you feed the
beasts?
But what would you have, Glaucon? I replied.
Why, he said, you should give them the ordinary conveniences of life. People who are to be
comfortable are accustomed to lie on sofas, and dine off tables, and they should have sauces
and sweets in the modern style.
Yes, I said, now I understand: the question which you would have me consider is, not only how a
State, but how a luxurious State is created; and possibly there is no harm in this, for in such a
State we shall be more likely to see how justice and injustice originate. In my opinion the true
and healthy constitution of the State is the one which I have described. But if you wish also to
see a State at fever heat, I have no objection. For I suspect that many will not be satisfied with
the simpler way of way They will be for adding sofas, and tables, and other furniture; also
dainties, and perfumes, and incense, and courtesans, and cakes, all these not of one sort only,
but in every variety; we must go beyond the necessaries of which I was at first speaking, such as
houses, and clothes, and shoes: the arts of the painter and the embroiderer will have to be set
in motion, and gold and ivory and all sorts of materials must be procured.
True, he said.
Then we must enlarge our borders; for the original healthy State is no longer sufficient. Now will
the city have to fill and swell with a multitude of callings which are not required by any natural
want; such as the whole tribe of hunters and actors, of whom one large class have to do with
forms and colours; another will be the votaries of music --poets and their attendant train of
rhapsodists, players, dancers, contractors; also makers of divers kinds of articles, including
women's dresses. And we shall want more servants. Will not tutors be also in request, and
nurses wet and dry, tirewomen and barbers, as well as confectioners and cooks; and
swineherds, too, who were not needed and therefore had no place in the former edition of our
State, but are needed now? They must not be forgotten: and there will be animals of many
other kinds, if people eat them.
Certainly.
And living in this way we shall have much greater need of physicians than before?
Much greater.
And the country which was enough to support the original inhabitants will be too small now,
and not enough?
Quite true.
Then a slice of our neighbours' land will be wanted by us for pasture and tillage, and they will
want a slice of ours, if, like ourselves, they exceed the limit of necessity, and give themselves up
to the unlimited accumulation of wealth?
That, Socrates, will be inevitable.
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And so we shall go to war, Glaucon. Shall we not?
Most certainly, he replied.
Then without determining as yet whether war does good or harm, thus much we may affirm,
that now we have discovered war to be derived from causes which are also the causes of almost
all the evils in States, private as well as public.
Undoubtedly.
And our State must once more enlarge; and this time the will be nothing short of a whole army,
which will have to go out and fight with the invaders for all that we have, as well as for the
things and persons whom we were describing above.
Why? he said; are they not capable of defending themselves?
No, I said; not if we were right in the principle which was acknowledged by all of us when we
were framing the State: the principle, as you will remember, was that one man cannot practise
many arts with success.
Very true, he said.
But is not war an art?
Certainly.
And an art requiring as much attention as shoemaking?
Quite true.
And the shoemaker was not allowed by us to be husbandman, or a weaver, a builder --in order
that we might have our shoes well made; but to him and to every other worker was assigned
one work for which he was by nature fitted, and at that he was to continue working all his life
long and at no other; he was not to let opportunities slip, and then he would become a good
workman. Now nothing can be more important than that the work of a soldier should be well
done. But is war an art so easily acquired that a man may be a warrior who is also a
husbandman, or shoemaker, or other artisan; although no one in the world would be a good
dice or draught player who merely took up the game as a recreation, and had not from his
earliest years devoted himself to this and nothing else?
No tools will make a man a skilled workman, or master of defence, nor be of any use to him who
has not learned how to handle them, and has never bestowed any attention upon them. How
then will he who takes up a shield or other implement of war become a good fighter all in a day,
whether with heavy-armed or any other kind of troops?
Yes, he said, the tools which would teach men their own use would be beyond price.
And the higher the duties of the guardian, I said, the more time, and skill, and art, and
application will be needed by him?
No doubt, he replied.
Will he not also require natural aptitude for his calling?
Certainly.
Then it will be our duty to select, if we can, natures which are fitted for the task of guarding the
city?
It will.
And the selection will be no easy matter, I said; but we must be brave and do our best.
We must.
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Is not the noble youth very like a well-bred dog in respect of guarding and watching?
What do you mean?
I mean that both of them ought to be quick to see, and swift to overtake the enemy when they
see him; and strong too if, when they have caught him, they have to fight with him.
All these qualities, he replied, will certainly be required by them.
Well, and your guardian must be brave if he is to fight well?
Certainly.
And is he likely to be brave who has no spirit, whether horse or dog or any other animal? Have
you never observed how invincible and unconquerable is spirit and how the presence of it
makes the soul of any creature to be absolutely fearless and indomitable?
I have.
Then now we have a clear notion of the bodily qualities which are required in the guardian.
True.
And also of the mental ones; his soul is to be full of spirit?
Yes.
But are not these spirited natures apt to be savage with one another, and with everybody else?
A difficulty by no means easy to overcome, he replied.
Whereas, I said, they ought to be dangerous to their enemies, and gentle to their friends; if not,
they will destroy themselves without waiting for their enemies to destroy them.
True, he said.
What is to be done then? I said; how shall we find a gentle nature which has also a great spirit,
for the one is the contradiction of the other?
True.
He will not be a good guardian who is wanting in either of these two qualities; and yet the
combination of them appears to be impossible; and hence we must infer that to be a good
guardian is impossible.
I am afraid that what you say is true, he replied.
Here feeling perplexed I began to think over what had preceded. My friend, I said, no wonder
that we are in a perplexity; for we have lost sight of the image which we had before us.
What do you mean? he said.
I mean to say that there do exist natures gifted with those opposite qualities.
And where do you find them?
Many animals, I replied, furnish examples of them; our friend the dog is a very good one: you
know that well-bred dogs are perfectly gentle to their familiars and acquaintances, and the
reverse to strangers.
Yes, I know.
Then there is nothing impossible or out of the order of nature in our finding a guardian who has
a similar combination of qualities?
Certainly not.
Would not he who is fitted to be a guardian, besides the spirited nature, need to have the
qualities of a philosopher?
I do not apprehend your meaning.
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The trait of which I am speaking, I replied, may be also seen in the dog, and is remarkable in the
animal.
What trait?
Why, a dog, whenever he sees a stranger, is angry; when an acquaintance, he welcomes him,
although the one has never done him any harm, nor the other any good. Did this never strike
you as curious?
The matter never struck me before; but I quite recognise the truth of your remark.
And surely this instinct of the dog is very charming; --your dog is a true philosopher.
Why?
Why, because he distinguishes the face of a friend and of an enemy only by the criterion of
knowing and not knowing. And must not an animal be a lover of learning who determines what
he likes and dislikes by the test of knowledge and ignorance?
Most assuredly.
And is not the love of learning the love of wisdom, which is philosophy?
They are the same, he replied.
And may we not say confidently of man also, that he who is likely to be gentle to his friends and
acquaintances, must by nature be a lover of wisdom and knowledge?
That we may safely affirm.
Then he who is to be a really good and noble guardian of the State will require to unite in
himself philosophy and spirit and swiftness and strength?
Undoubtedly.
Then we have found the desired natures; and now that we have found them, how are they to be
reared and educated? Is not this enquiry which may be expected to throw light on the greater
enquiry which is our final end --How do justice and injustice grow up in States? for we do not
want either to omit what is to the point or to draw out the argument to an inconvenient length.
Socrates - ADEIMANTUS
Adeimantus thought that the enquiry would be of great service to us.
Then, I said, my dear friend, the task must not be given up, even if somewhat long.
Certainly not.
Come then, and let us pass a leisure hour in story-telling, and our story shall be the education of
our heroes.
By all means.
And what shall be their education? Can we find a better than the traditional sort? --and this has
two divisions, gymnastic for the body, and music for the soul.
True.
Shall we begin education with music, and go on to gymnastic afterwards?
By all means.
And when you speak of music, do you include literature or not?
I do.
And literature may be either true or false?
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Yes.
And the young should be trained in both kinds, and we begin with the false?
I do not understand your meaning, he said.
You know, I said, that we begin by telling children stories which, though not wholly destitute of
truth, are in the main fictitious; and these stories are told them when they are not of an age to
learn gymnastics.
Very true.
That was my meaning when I said that we must teach music before gymnastics.
Quite right, he said.
You know also that the beginning is the most important part of any work, especially in the case
of a young and tender thing; for that is the time at which the character is being formed and the
desired impression is more readily taken.
Quite true.
And shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which may be devised by
casual persons, and to receive into their minds ideas for the most part the very opposite of
those which we should wish them to have when they are grown up?
We cannot.
Then the first thing will be to establish a censorship of the writers of fiction, and let the censors
receive any tale of fiction which is good, and reject the bad; and we will desire mothers and
nurses to tell their children the authorised ones only. Let them fashion the mind with such tales,
even more fondly than they mould the body with their hands; but most of those which are now
in use must be discarded.
Of what tales are you speaking? he said.
You may find a model of the lesser in the greater, I said; for they are necessarily of the same
type, and there is the same spirit in both of them.
Very likely, he replied; but I do not as yet know what you would term the greater.
Those, I said, which are narrated by Homer and Hesiod, and the rest of the poets, who have ever
been the great story-tellers of mankind.
But which stories do you mean, he said; and what fault do you find with them?
A fault which is most serious, I said; the fault of telling a lie, and, what is more, a bad lie.
But when is this fault committed?
Whenever an erroneous representation is made of the nature of gods and heroes, --as when a
painter paints a portrait not having the shadow of a likeness to the original.
Yes, he said, that sort of thing is certainly very blamable; but what are the stories which you
mean?
First of all, I said, there was that greatest of all lies, in high places, which the poet told about
Uranus, and which was a bad lie too, --I mean what Hesiod says that Uranus did, and how
Cronus retaliated on him. The doings of Cronus, and the sufferings which in turn his son inflicted
upon him, even if they were true, ought certainly not to be lightly told to young and thoughtless
persons; if possible, they had better be buried in silence. But if there is an absolute necessity for
their mention, a chosen few might hear them in a mystery, and they should sacrifice not a
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common [Eleusinian] pig, but some huge and unprocurable victim; and then the number of the
hearers will be very few indeed.
Why, yes, said he, those stories are extremely objectionable.
Yes, Adeimantus, they are stories not to be repeated in our State; the young man should not be
told that in committing the worst of crimes he is far from doing anything outrageous; and that
even if he chastises his father when does wrong, in whatever manner, he will only be following
the example of the first and greatest among the gods.
I entirely agree with you, he said; in my opinion those stories are quite unfit to be repeated.
Neither, if we mean our future guardians to regard the habit of quarrelling among themselves as
of all things the basest, should any word be said to them of the wars in heaven, and of the plots
and fightings of the gods against one another, for they are not true. No, we shall never mention
the battles of the giants, or let them be embroidered on garments; and we shall be silent about
the innumerable other quarrels of gods and heroes with their friends and relatives. If they would
only believe us we would tell them that quarrelling is unholy, and that never up to this time has
there been any, quarrel between citizens; this is what old men and old women should begin by
telling children; and when they grow up, the poets also should be told to compose for them in a
similar spirit. But the narrative of Hephaestus binding Here his mother, or how on another
occasion Zeus sent him flying for taking her part when she was being beaten, and all the battles
of the gods in Homer --these tales must not be admitted into our State, whether they are
supposed to have an allegorical meaning or not. For a young person cannot judge what is
allegorical and what is literal; anything that he receives into his mind at that age is likely to
become indelible and unalterable; and therefore it is most important that the tales which the
young first hear should be models of virtuous thoughts.
There you are right, he replied; but if any one asks where are such models to be found and of
what tales are you speaking --how shall we answer him?
I said to him, You and I, Adeimantus, at this moment are not poets, but founders of a State: now
the founders of a State ought to know the general forms in which poets should cast their tales,
and the limits which must be observed by them, but to make the tales is not their business.
Very true, he said; but what are these forms of theology which you mean?
Something of this kind, I replied: --God is always to be represented as he truly is, whatever be
the sort of poetry, epic, lyric or tragic, in which the representation is given.
Right.
And is he not truly good? and must he not be represented as such?
Certainly.
And no good thing is hurtful?
No, indeed.
And that which is not hurtful hurts not?
Certainly not.
And that which hurts not does no evil?
No.
And can that which does no evil be a cause of evil?
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Impossible.
And the good is advantageous?
Yes.
And therefore the cause of well-being?
Yes.
It follows therefore that the good is not the cause of all things, but of the good only?
Assuredly.
Then God, if he be good, is not the author of all things, as the many assert, but he is the cause of
a few things only, and not of most things that occur to men. For few are the goods of human
life, and many are the evils, and the good is to be attributed to God alone; of the evils the causes
are to be sought elsewhere, and not in him.
That appears to me to be most true, he said.
Then we must not listen to Homer or to any other poet who is guilty of the folly of saying that
two casks Lie at the threshold of Zeus, full of lots, one of good, the other of evil lots, and that he
to whom Zeus gives a mixture of the two Sometimes meets with evil fortune, at other times
with good; but that he to whom is given the cup of unmingled ill,
Him wild hunger drives o'er the beauteous earth. And again
Zeus, who is the dispenser of good and evil to us. And if any one asserts that the violation of
oaths and treaties, which was really the work of Pandarus, was brought about by Athene and
Zeus, or that the strife and contention of the gods was instigated by Themis and Zeus, he shall
not have our approval; neither will we allow our young men to hear the words of Aeschylus, that
God plants guilt among men when he desires utterly to destroy a house. And if a poet writes of
the sufferings of Niobe --the subject of the tragedy in which these iambic verses occur --or of the
house of Pelops, or of the Trojan war or on any similar theme, either we must not permit him to
say that these are the works of God, or if they are of God, he must devise some explanation of
them such as we are seeking; he must say that God did what was just and right, and they were
the better for being punished; but that those who are punished are miserable, and that God is
the author of their misery --the poet is not to be permitted to say; though he may say that the
wicked are miserable because they require to be punished, and are benefited by receiving
punishment from God; but that God being good is the author of evil to any one is to be
strenuously denied, and not to be said or sung or heard in verse or prose by any one whether
old or young in any well-ordered commonwealth. Such a fiction is suicidal, ruinous, impious.
I agree with you, he replied, and am ready to give my assent to the law.
Let this then be one of our rules and principles concerning the gods, to which our poets and
reciters will be expected to conform --that God is not the author of all things, but of good only.
That will do, he said.
And what do you think of a second principle? Shall I ask you whether God is a magician, and of a
nature to appear insidiously now in one shape, and now in another --sometimes himself
changing and passing into many forms, sometimes deceiving us with the semblance of such
transformations; or is he one and the same immutably fixed in his own proper image?
I cannot answer you, he said, without more thought.
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Well, I said; but if we suppose a change in anything, that change must be effected either by the
thing itself, or by some other thing?
Most certainly.
And things which are at their best are also least liable to be altered or discomposed; for
example, when healthiest and strongest, the human frame is least liable to be affected by meats
and drinks, and the plant which is in the fullest vigour also suffers least from winds or the heat
of the sun or any similar causes.
Of course.
And will not the bravest and wisest soul be least confused or deranged by any external
influence?
True.
And the same principle, as I should suppose, applies to all composite things --furniture, houses,
garments; when good and well made, they are least altered by time and circumstances.
Very true.
Then everything which is good, whether made by art or nature, or both, is least liable to suffer
change from without?
True.
But surely God and the things of God are in every way perfect?
Of course they are.
Then he can hardly be compelled by external influence to take many shapes?
He cannot.
But may he not change and transform himself?
Clearly, he said, that must be the case if he is changed at all.
And will he then change himself for the better and fairer, or for the worse and more unsightly?
If he change at all he can only change for the worse, for we cannot suppose him to be deficient
either in virtue or beauty.
Very true, Adeimantus; but then, would any one, whether God or man, desire to make himself
worse?
Impossible.
Then it is impossible that God should ever be willing to change; being, as is supposed, the fairest
and best that is conceivable, every god remains absolutely and for ever in his own form.
That necessarily follows, he said, in my judgment.
Then, I said, my dear friend, let none of the poets tell us that
The gods, taking the disguise of strangers from other lands, walk up and down cities in all sorts
of forms; and let no one slander Proteus and Thetis, neither let any one, either in tragedy or in
any other kind of poetry, introduce Here disguised in the likeness of a priestess asking an alms.
For the life-giving daughters of Inachus the river of Argos; --let us have no more lies of that sort.
Neither must we have mothers under the influence of the poets scaring their children with a bad
version of these myths --telling how certain gods, as they say, 'Go about by night in the likeness
of so many strangers and in divers forms'; but let them take heed lest they make cowards of
their children, and at the same time speak blasphemy against the gods.
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UTOPIA
Sir Thomas More
1478-1535
Selections from
Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library
What to look for: the “ideal” community fantasized by More may seem a dream of human harmony and
efficiency—or a nightmare of oppressed human individualism. It is impossible to know how the
Archbishop wanted us to read his fabrication, for he presents it as a traveler’s tale rather than (in Socratic
fashion) as his own position in a spirited discussion. Do you think the dark side of this vision is implied by
the author, or simply ignored? What are its most appealing qualities, and where do you see evidence of
its costs and risks?
Of Their Towns, Particularly of Amaurot
HE that knows one of their towns knows them all, they are so like one another, except where
the situation makes some difference. I shall therefore describe one of them; and none is so
proper as Amaurot; for as none is more eminent, all the rest yielding in precedence to this,
because it is the seat of their Supreme Council, so there was none of them better known to me, I
having lived five years altogether in it.
It lies upon the side of a hill, or rather a rising ground: its figure is almost square, for from the
one side of it, which shoots up almost to the top of the hill, it runs down in a descent for two
miles to the river Anider; but it is a little broader the other way that runs along by the bank of
that river. The Anider rises about eighty miles above Amaurot, in a small spring at first, but other
brooks falling into it, of which two are more considerable than the rest. As it runs by Amaurot, it
is grown half a mile broad; but it still grows larger and larger, till after sixty miles course below
it, it is lost in the ocean, between the town and the sea, and for some miles above the town, it
ebbs and flows every six hours, with a strong current. The tide comes up for about thirty miles
so full that there is nothing but salt water in the river, the fresh water being driven back with its
force; and above that, for some miles, the water is brackish; but a little higher, as it runs by the
town, it is quite fresh; and when the tide ebbs, it continues fresh all along to the sea. There is a
bridge cast over the river, not of timber, but of fair stone, consisting of many stately arches; it
lies at that part of the town which is farthest from the sea, so that ships without any hinderance
lie all along the side of the town.
There is likewise another river that runs by it, which, though it is not great, yet it runs
pleasantly, for it rises out of the same hill on which the town stands, and so runs down through
it, and falls into the Anider. The inhabitants have fortified the fountain-head of this river, which
springs a little without the town; so that if they should happen to be besieged, the enemy might
not be able to stop or divert the course of the water, nor poison it; from thence it is carried in
earthen pipes to the lower streets; and for those places of the town to which the water of that
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shall river cannot be conveyed, they have great cisterns for receiving the rain-water, which
supplies the want of the other. The town is cormpassed with a high and thick wall, in which
there are many towers and forts; there is also a broad and deep dry ditch, set thick with thorns,
cast round three sides of the town, and the river is instead of a ditch on the fourth side. The
streets are very convenient for all carriage, and are well sheltered from the winds. Their
buildings are good, and are so uniform that a whole side of a street looks like one house. The
streets are twenty feet broad; there lie gardens behind all their houses; these are large but
enclosed with buildings that on all hands face the streets; so that every house has both a door to
the street, and a back door to the garden. Their doors have all two leaves, which, as they are
easily opened, so they shut of their own accord; and there being no property among them,
every man may freely enter into any house whatsoever. At every ten years' end they shift their
houses by lots.
They cultivate their gardens with great care, so that they have vines, fruits, herbs, and flowers
in them; and all is so well ordered, and so finely kept, that I never saw gardens anywhere that
were both so fruitful and so beautiful as theirs. And this humor of ordering their gardens so well
is not only kept up by the pleasure they find in it, but also by an emulation between the
inhabitants of the several streets, who vie with each other; and there is indeed nothing
belonging to the whole town that is both more useful and more pleasant. So that he who
founded the town seems to have taken care of nothing more than of their gardens; for they say,
the whole scheme of the town was designed at first by Utopus, but he left all that belonged to
the ornament and improvement of it to be added by those that should come after him, that
being too much for one man to bring to perfection. Their records, that contain the history of
their town and State, are preserved with an exact care, and run backward 1,760 years. From
these it appears that their houses were at first low and mean, like cottages, made of any sort of
timber, and were built with mud walls and thatched with straw. But now their houses are three
stories high: the fronts of them are faced with stone, plastering, or brick; and between the
facings of their walls they throw in their rubbish. Their roofs are flat, and on them they lay a sort
of plaster, which costs very little, and yet is so tempered that it is not apt to take fire, and yet
resists the weather more than lead. They have great quantities of glass among them, with which
they glaze their windows. They use also in their windows a thin linen cloth, that is so oiled or
gummed that it both keeps out the wind and gives free admission to the light.
Of Their Trades, and Manner of Life
AGRICULTURE is that which is so universally understood among them that no person, either
man or woman, is ignorant of it; they are instructed in it from their childhood, partly by what
they learn at school and partly by practice; they being led out often into the fields, about the
town, where they not only see others at work, but are likewise exercised in it themselves.
Besides agriculture, which is so common to them all, every man has some peculiar trade to
which he applies himself, such as the manufacture of wool, or flax, masonry, smith's work, or
carpenter's work; for there is no sort of trade that is not in great esteem among them.
Throughout the island they wear the same sort of clothes without any other distinction, except
what is necessary to distinguish the two sexes, and the married and unmarried. The fashion
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never alters; and as it is neither disagreeable nor uneasy, so it is suited to the climate, and
calculated both for their summers and winters. Every family makes their own clothes; but all
among them, women as well as men, learn one or other of the trades formerly mentioned.
Women, for the most part, deal in wool and flax, which suit best with their weakness, leaving
the ruder trades to the men. The same trade generally passes down from father to son,
inclinations often following descent; but if any man's genius lies another way, he is by adoption
translated into a family that deals in the trade to which he is inclined: and when that is to be
done, care is taken not only by his father, but by the magistrate, that he may be put to a discreet
and good man. And if after a person has learned one trade, he desires to acquire another, that is
also allowed, and is managed in the same manner as the former. When he has learned both, he
follows that which he likes best, unless the public has more occasion for the other.
The chief, and almost the only business of the Syphogrants, is to take care that no man may
live idle, but that every one may follow his trade diligently: yet they do not wear themselves out
with perpetual toil, from morning to night, as if they were beasts of burden, which, as it is
indeed a heavy slavery, so it is everywhere the common course of life among all mechanics
except the Utopians; but they dividing the day and night into twenty-four hours, appoint six of
these for work; three of which are before dinner, and three after. They then sup, and at eight
o'clock, counting from noon, go to bed and sleep eight hours. The rest of their time besides that
taken up in work, eating and sleeping, is left to every man's discretion; yet they are not to abuse
that interval to luxury and idleness, but must employ it in some proper exercise according to
their various inclinations, which is for the most part reading. It is ordinary to have public lectures
every morning before daybreak; at which none are obliged to appear but those who are marked
out for literature; yet a great many, both men and women of all ranks, go to hear lectures of one
sort of other, according to their inclinations. But if others, that are not made for contemplation,
choose rather to employ themselves at that time in their trades, as many of them do, they are
not hindered, but are rather commended, as men that take care to serve their country. After
supper, they spend an hour in some diversion, in summer in their gardens, and in winter in the
halls where they eat; where they entertain each other, either with music or discourse. They do
not so much as know dice, or any such foolish and mischievous games: they have, however, two
sorts of games not unlike our chess; the one is between several numbers, in which one number,
as it were, consumes another: the other resembles a battle between the virtues and the vices, in
which the enmity in the vices among themselves, and their agreement against virtue, is not
unpleasantly represented; together with the special oppositions between the particular virtues
and vices; as also the methods by which vice either openly assaults or secretly undermines
virtue, and virtue on the other hand resists it. But the time appointed for labor is to be narrowly
examined, otherwise you may imagine, that since there are only six hours appointed for work,
they may fall under a scarcity of necessary provisions. But it is so far from being true, that this
time is not sufficient for supplying them with plenty of all things, either necessary or convenient,
that it is rather too much; and this you will easily apprehend, if you consider how great a part of
all other nations is quite idle.
First, women generally do little, who are the half of mankind; and if some few women are
diligent, their husbands are idle: then consider the great company of idle priests, and of those
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that are called religious men; add to these all rich men, chiefly those that have estates in land,
who are called noblemen and gentlemen, together with their families, made up of idle persons,
that are kept more for show than use; add to these, all those strong and lusty beggars, that go
about pretending some disease, in excuse for their begging; and upon the whole account you
will find that the number of those by whose labors mankind is supplied, is much less than you
perhaps imagined. Then consider how few of those that work are employed in labors that are of
real service; for we who measure all things by money, give rise to many trades that are both
vain and superfluous, and serve only to support riot and luxury. For if those who work were
employed only in such things as the conveniences of life require, there would be such an
abundance of them that the prices of them would so sink that tradesmen could not be
maintained by their gains; if all those who labor about useless things were set to more profitable
employments, and if all they that languish out their lives in sloth and idleness, every one of
whom consumes as much as any two of the men that are at work, were forced to labor, you may
easily imagine that a small proportion of time would serve for doing all that is either necessary,
profitable, or pleasant to mankind, especially while pleasure is kept within its due bounds.
This appears very plainly in Utopia, for there, in a great city, and in all the territory that lies
round it, you can scarce find 500, either men or women, by their age and strength, are capable
of labor, that are not engaged in it; even the Syphogrants, though excused by the law, yet do not
excuse themselves, but work, that by their examples they may excite the industry of the rest of
the people. The like exemption is allowed to those who, being recommended to the people by
the priests, are by the secret suffrages of the Syphogrants privileged from labor, that they may
apply themselves wholly to study; and if any of these fall short of those hopes that they seemed
at first to give, they are obliged to return to work. And sometimes a mechanic, that so employs
his leisure hours, as to make a considerable advancement in learning, is eased from being a
tradesman, and ranked among their learned men. Out of these they choose their ambassadors,
their priests, their Tranibors, and the prince himself, anciently called their Barzenes, but is called
of late their Ademus.
And thus from the great numbers among them that are neither suffered to be idle, nor to be
employed in any fruitless labor, you may easily make the estimate how much may be done in
those few hours in which they are obliged to labor. But besides all that has been already said, it
is to be considered that the needful arts among them are managed with less labor than
anywhere else. The building or the repairing of houses among us employ many hands, because
often a thriftless heir suffers a house that his father built to fall into decay, so that his successor
must, at a great cost, repair that which he might have kept up with a small charge: it frequently
happens that the same house which one person built at a vast expense is neglected by another,
who thinks he has a more delicate sense of the beauties of architecture; and he suffering it to
fall to ruin, builds another at no less charge. But among the Utopians all things are so regulated
that men very seldom build upon a new piece of ground; and are not only very quick in repairing
their houses, but show their foresight in preventing their decay: so that their buildlngs are
preserved very long, with but little labor, and thus the builders to whom that care belongs are
often without employment, except the hewing of timber and the squaring of stones, that the
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materials may be in readiness for raising a building very suddenly when there is any occasion for
it.
As to their clothes, observe how little work is spent in them: while they are at labor, they are
clothed with leather and skins. cast carelessly about them, which will last seven years; and when
they appear in public they put on an upper garment, which hides the other; and these are all of
one color, and that is the natural color of the wool. As they need less woollen cloth than is used
anywhere else, so that which they make use of is much less costly. They use linen cloth more;
but that is prepared with less labor, and they value cloth only by the whiteness of the linen or
the cleanness of the wool, without much regard to the fineness of the thread: while in other
places, four or five upper garments of woollen cloth, of different colors, and as many vests of
silk, will scarce serve one man; and while those that are nicer think ten are too few, every man
there is content with one, which very often serves him two years. Nor is there anything that can
tempt a man to desire more; for if he had them, he would neither be the warmer nor would he
make one jot the better appearance for it. And thus, since they are all employed in some useful
labor, and since they content themselves with fewer things, it falls out that there is a great
abundance of all things among them: so that it frequently happens that, for want of other work,
vast numbers are sent out to mend the highways. But when no public undertaking is to be
performed, the hours of working are lessened. The magistrates never engage the people in
unnecessary labor, since the chief end of the constitution is to regulate labor by the necessities
of the public, and to allow all the people as much time as is necessary for the improvement of
their minds, in which they think the happiness of life consists.
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Democracy in America
Alexis de Toqueville
1805-1859
Excerpt from Book One, Chapter 15
What to look for: Toqueville’s critique of post-revolutionary, pre-Civil War America has become legendary
for an astuteness that is sometimes almost prophetic. In this brief passage of a vast work, he grazes the
surface of a subject to which he returns from time to time: how formal institutions are often at the mercy
of a society’s general habits—what we might call its culture. To what extent do you think his fears about
democratic majorities would apply to any culture; that is, do you think cultural conditioning is so mighty a
force that no amount of legislating could dispel its most unpleasant tendencies?
Chapter XV: Unlimited Power Of Majority, And Its
Consequences—Part II
Tyranny Of The Majority
How the principle of the sovereignty of the people is to be understood—Impossibility of
conceiving a mixed government—The sovereign power must centre somewhere—Precautions to
be taken to control its action—These precautions have not been taken in the United States—
Consequences.
I hold it to be an impious and an execrable maxim that, politically speaking, a people has a right
to do whatsoever it pleases, and yet I have asserted that all authority originates in the will of the
majority. Am I then, in contradiction with myself?
A general law—which bears the name of Justice—has been made and sanctioned, not only by a
majority of this or that people, but by a majority of mankind. The rights of every people are
consequently confined within the limits of what is just. A nation may be considered in the light
of a jury which is empowered to represent society at large, and to apply the great and general
law of justice. Ought such a jury, which represents society, to have more power than the society
in which the laws it applies originate?
When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right which the majority has of
commanding, but I simply appeal from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of
mankind. It has been asserted that a people can never entirely outstep the boundaries of justice
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and of reason in those affairs which are more peculiarly its own, and that consequently, full
power may fearlessly be given to the majority by which it is represented. But this language is
that of a slave.
A majority taken collectively may be regarded as a being whose opinions, and most frequently
whose interests, are opposed to those of another being, which is styled a minority. If it be
admitted that a man, possessing absolute power, may misuse that power by wronging his
adversaries, why should a majority not be liable to the same reproach? Men are not apt to
change their characters by agglomeration; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles
increase with the consciousness of their strength.* And for these reasons I can never willingly
invest any number of my fellow-creatures with that unlimited authority which I should refuse to
any one of them.
I do not think that it is possible to combine several principles in the same government, so as at
the same time to maintain freedom, and really to oppose them to one another. The form of
government which is usually termed mixed has always appeared to me to be a mere chimera.
Accurately speaking there is no such thing as a mixed government (with the meaning usually
given to that word), because in all communities some one principle of action may be discovered
which preponderates over the others. England in the last century, which has been more
especially cited as an example of this form of Government, was in point of fact an essentially
aristocratic State, although it comprised very powerful elements of democracy; for the laws and
customs of the country were such that the aristocracy could not but preponderate in the end,
and subject the direction of public affairs to its own will. The error arose from too much
attention being paid to the actual struggle which was going on between the nobles and the
people, without considering the probable issue of the contest, which was in reality the
important point. When a community really has a mixed government, that is to say, when it is
equally divided between two adverse principles, it must either pass through a revolution or fall
into complete dissolution.
I am therefore of opinion that some one social power must always be made to predominate
over the others; but I think that liberty is endangered when this power is checked by no
obstacles which may retard its course, and force it to moderate its own vehemence.
Unlimited power is in itself a bad and dangerous thing; human beings are not competent to
exercise it with discretion, and God alone can be omnipotent, because His wisdom and His
justice are always equal to His power. But no power upon earth is so worthy of
* No one will assert that a people cannot forcibly wrong another people; but parties may be
looked upon as lesser nations within a greater one, and they are aliens to each other: if,
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therefore, it be admitted that a nation can act tyrannically towards another nation, it cannot be
denied that a party may do the same towards another party.
honor for itself, or of reverential obedience to the rights which it represents, that I would
consent to admit its uncontrolled and all-predominant authority. When I see that the right and
the means of absolute command are conferred on a people or upon a king, upon an aristocracy
or a democracy, a monarchy or a republic, I recognize the germ of tyranny, and I journey onward
to a land of more hopeful institutions.
In my opinion the main evil of the present democratic institutions of the United States does not
arise, as is often asserted in Europe, from their weakness, but from their overpowering strength;
and I am not so much alarmed at the excessive liberty which reigns in that country as at the very
inadequate securities which exist against tyranny.
When an individual or a party is wronged in the United States, to whom can he apply for
redress? If to public opinion, public opinion constitutes the majority; if to the legislature, it
represents the majority, and implicitly obeys its injunctions; if to the executive power, it is
appointed by the majority, and remains a passive tool in its hands; the public troops consist of
the majority under arms; the jury is the majority invested with the right of hearing judicial cases;
and in certain States even the judges are elected by the majority. However iniquitous or absurd
the evil of which you complain may be, you must submit to it as well as you can. *
If, on the other hand, a legislative power could be so constituted as to represent the majority
without necessarily being the slave of its passions; an executive, so as to retain a certain degree
of uncontrolled authority; and a judiciary, so as to remain independent of the two other powers;
a government would be formed which would still be democratic without incurring any risk of
tyrannical abuse.
* A striking instance of the excesses which may be occasioned by the despotism of the majority
occurred at Baltimore in the year 1812. At that time the war was very popular in Baltimore. A
journal which had taken the other side of the question excited the indignation of the inhabitants
by its opposition. The populace assembled, broke the printing-presses, and attacked the houses
of the newspaper editors. The militia was called out, but no one obeyed the call; and the only
means of saving the poor wretches who were threatened by the frenzy of the mob was to throw
them into prison as common malefactors. But even this precaution was ineffectual; the mob
collected again during the night, the magistrates again made a vain attempt to call out the
militia, the prison was forced, one of the newspaper editors was killed upon the spot, and the
others were left for dead; the guilty parties were acquitted by the jury when they were brought
to trial.
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I said one day to an inhabitant of Pennsylvania, "Be so good as to explain to me how it
happens that in a State founded by Quakers, and celebrated for its toleration, freed blacks are
not allowed to exercise civil rights. They pay the taxes; is it not fair that they should have a
vote?" (continued next page, bottom)
I do not say that tyrannical abuses frequently occur in America at the present day, but I maintain
that no sure barrier is established against them, and that the causes which mitigate the
government are to be found in the circumstances and the manners of the country more than in
its laws.
Effects Of The Unlimited Power Of The Majority Upon The Arbitrary Authority Of The
American Public Officers
Liberty left by the American laws to public officers within a certain sphere—Their power.
A distinction must be drawn between tyranny and arbitrary power. Tyranny may be exercised by
means of the law, and in that case it is not arbitrary; arbitrary power may be exercised for the
good of the community at large, in which case it is not tyrannical. Tyranny usually employs
arbitrary means, but, if necessary, it can rule without them.
In the United States the unbounded power of the majority, which is favorable to the legal
despotism of the legislature, is likewise favorable to the arbitrary authority of the magistrate.
The majority has an entire control over the law when it is made and when it is executed; and as
it possesses an equal authority over those who are in power and the community at large, it
considers public officers as its passive agents, and readily confides the task of serving its designs
to their vigilance. The details of their office and the privileges which they are to enjoy are rarely
defined beforehand; but the majority treats them as a master does his servants when they are
always at work in his sight, and he has the power of directing or reprimanding them at every
instant.
"You insult us," replied my informant, "if you imagine that our legislators could have committed
so gross an act of injustice and intolerance."
"What! then the blacks possess the right of voting in this county?"
"Without the smallest doubt."
"How comes it, then, that at the polling-booth this morning I did not perceive a single negro
in the whole meeting?"
"This is not the fault of the law: the negroes have an undisputed right of voting, but they
voluntarily abstain from making their appearance."
"A very pretty piece of modesty on their parts!" rejoined I.
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"Why, the truth is, that they are not disinclined to vote, but they are afraid of being
maltreated; in this country the law is sometimes unable to maintain its authority without the
support of the majority. But in this case the majority entertains very strong prejudices against
the blacks, and the magistrates are unable to protect them in the exercise of their legal
privileges."
"What! then the majority claims the right not only of making the laws, but of breaking the
laws it has made?"
In general the American functionaries are far more independent than the French civil officers
within the sphere which is prescribed to them. Sometimes, even, they are allowed by the
popular authority to exceed those bounds; and as they are protected by the opinion, and backed
by the co-operation, of the majority, they venture upon such manifestations of their power as
astonish a European. By this means habits are formed in the heart of a free country which may
some day prove fatal to its liberties.
Power Exercised By The Majority In America Upon Opinion
In America, when the majority has once irrevocably decided a question, all discussion ceases—
Reason of this—Moral power exercised by the majority upon opinion—Democratic republics
have deprived despotism of its physical instruments—Their despotism sways the minds of men.
It is in the examination of the display of public opinion in the United States that we clearly
perceive how far the power of the majority surpasses all the powers with which we are
acquainted in Europe. Intellectual principles exercise an influence which is so invisible, and often
so inappreciable, that they baffle the toils of oppression. At the present time the most absolute
monarchs in Europe are unable to prevent certain notions, which are opposed to their authority,
from circulating in secret throughout their dominions, and even in their courts. Such is not the
case in America; as long as the majority is still undecided, discussion is carried on; but as soon as
its decision is irrevocably pronounced, a submissive silence is observed, and the friends, as well
as the opponents, of the measure unite in assenting to its propriety. The reason of this is
perfectly clear: no monarch is so absolute as to combine all the powers of society in his own
hands, and to conquer all opposition with the energy of a majority which is invested with the
right of making and of executing the laws.
The authority of a king is purely physical, and it controls the actions of the subject without
subduing his private will; but the majority possesses a power which is physical and moral at the
same time; it acts upon the will as well as upon the actions of men, and it represses not only all
contest, but all controversy. I know no country in which there is so little true independence of
mind and freedom of discussion as in America. In any constitutional state in Europe every sort of
religious and political theory may be advocated and propagated abroad; for there is no country
in Europe so subdued by any single authority as not to contain citizens who are ready to protect
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the man who raises his voice in the cause of truth from the consequences of his hardihood. If he
is unfortunate enough to live under an absolute government, the people is upon his side; if he
inhabits a free country, he may find a shelter behind the authority of the throne, if he require
one. The aristocratic part of society supports him in some countries, and the democracy in
others. But in a nation where democratic institutions exist, organized like those of the United
States, there is but one sole authority, one single element of strength and of success, with
nothing beyond it.
In America the majority raises very formidable barriers to the liberty of opinion: within these
barriers an author may write whatever he pleases, but he will repent it if he ever step beyond
them. Not that he is exposed to the terrors of an auto-da-fe, but he is tormented by the slights
and persecutions of daily obloquy. His political career is closed forever, since he has offended
the only authority which is able to promote his success. Every sort of compensation, even that
of celebrity, is refused to him. Before he published his opinions he imagined that he held them
in common with many others; but no sooner has he declared them openly than he is loudly
censured by his overbearing opponents, whilst those who think without having the courage to
speak, like him, abandon him in silence. He yields at length, oppressed by the daily efforts he
has been making, and he subsides into silence, as if he was tormented by remorse for having
spoken the truth.
Fetters and headsmen were the coarse instruments which tyranny formerly employed; but the
civilization of our age has refined the arts of despotism which seemed, however, to have been
sufficiently perfected before. The excesses of monarchical power had devised a variety of
physical means of oppression: the democratic republics of the present day have rendered it as
entirely an affair of the mind as that will which it is intended to coerce. Under the absolute sway
of an individual despot the body was attacked in order to subdue the soul, and the soul escaped
the blows which were directed against it and rose superior to the attempt; but such is not the
course adopted by tyranny in democratic republics; there the body is left free, and the soul is
enslaved. The sovereign can no longer say, "You shall think as I do on pain of death;" but he
says, "You are free to think differently from me, and to retain your life, your property, and all
that you possess; but if such be your determination, you are henceforth an alien among your
people. You may retain your civil rights, but they will be useless to you, for you will never be
chosen by your fellow-citizens if you solicit their suffrages, and they will affect to scorn you if
you solicit their esteem. You will remain among men, but you will be deprived of the rights of
mankind. Your fellow-creatures will shun you like an impure being, and those who are most
persuaded of your innocence will abandon you too, lest they should be shunned in their turn.
Go in peace! I have given you your life, but it is an existence incomparably worse than death."
Monarchical institutions have thrown an odium upon despotism; let us beware lest democratic
republics should restore oppression, and should render it less odious and less degrading in the
eyes of the many, by making it still more onerous to the few.
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Works have been published in the proudest nations of the Old World expressly intended to
censure the vices and deride the follies of the times; Labruyere inhabited the palace of Louis XIV
when he composed his chapter upon the Great, and Moliere criticised the courtiers in the very
pieces which were acted before the Court. But the ruling power in the United States is not to be
made game of; the smallest reproach irritates its sensibility, and the slightest joke which has any
foundation in truth renders it indignant; from the style of its language to the more solid virtues
of its character, everything must be made the subject of encomium. No writer, whatever be his
eminence, can escape from this tribute of adulation to his fellow-citizens. The majority lives in
the perpetual practice of self-applause, and there are certain truths which the Americans can
only learn from strangers or from experience.
If great writers have not at present existed in America, the reason is very simply given in these
facts; there can be no literary genius without freedom of opinion, and freedom of opinion does
not exist in America. The Inquisition has never been able to prevent a vast number of antireligious books from circulating in Spain. The empire of the majority succeeds much better in
the United States, since it actually removes the wish of publishing them. Unbelievers are to be
met with in America, but, to say the truth, there is no public organ of infidelity. Attempts have
been made by some governments to protect the morality of nations by prohibiting licentious
books. In the United States no one is punished for this sort of works, but no one is induced to
write them; not because all the citizens are immaculate in their manners, but because the
majority of the community is decent and orderly.
In these cases the advantages derived from the exercise of this power are unquestionable, and I
am simply discussing the nature of the power itself. This irresistible authority is a constant fact,
and its judicious exercise is an accidental occurrence.
Effects Of The Tyranny Of The Majority Upon The National Character Of The Americans
Effects of the tyranny of the majority more sensibly felt hitherto in the manners than in the
conduct of society—They check the development of leading characters—Democratic republics
organized like the United States bring the practice of courting favor within the reach of the
many—Proofs of this spirit in the United States—Why there is more patriotism in the people than
in those who govern in its name.
The tendencies which I have just alluded to are as yet very slightly perceptible in political
society, but they already begin to exercise an unfavorable influence upon the national character
of the Americans. I am inclined to attribute the singular paucity of distinguished political
characters to the ever-increasing activity of the despotism of the majority in the United States.
When the American Revolution broke out they arose in great numbers, for public opinion then
served, not to tyrannize over, but to direct the exertions of individuals. Those celebrated men
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took a full part in the general agitation of mind common at that period, and they attained a high
degree of personal fame, which was reflected back upon the nation, but which was by no means
borrowed from it.
In absolute governments the great nobles who are nearest to the throne flatter the passions of
the sovereign, and voluntarily truckle to his caprices. But the mass of the nation does not
degrade itself by servitude: it often submits from weakness, from habit, or from ignorance, and
sometimes from loyalty. Some nations have been known to sacrifice their own desires to those
of the sovereign with pleasure and with pride, thus exhibiting a sort of independence in the very
act of submission. These peoples are miserable, but they are not degraded. There is a great
difference between doing what one does not approve and feigning to approve what one does;
the one is the necessary case of a weak person, the other befits the temper of a lackey.
In free countries, where everyone is more or less called upon to give his opinion in the affairs of
state; in democratic republics, where public life is incessantly commingled with domestic affairs,
where the sovereign authority is accessible on every side, and where its attention can almost
always be attracted by vociferation, more persons are to be met with who speculate upon its
foibles and live at the cost of its passions than in absolute monarchies. Not because men are
naturally worse in these States than elsewhere, but the temptation is stronger, and of easier
access at the same time. The result is a far more extensive debasement of the characters of
citizens.
Democratic republics extend the practice of currying favor with the many, and they introduce it
into a greater number of classes at once: this is one of the most serious reproaches that can be
addressed to them. In democratic States organized on the principles of the American republics,
this is more especially the case, where the authority of the majority is so absolute and so
irresistible that a man must give up his rights as a citizen, and almost abjure his quality as a
human being, if te intends to stray from the track which it lays down.
In that immense crowd which throngs the avenues to power in the United States I found very
few men who displayed any of that manly candor and that masculine independence of opinion
which frequently distinguished the Americans in former times, and which constitutes the leading
feature in distinguished characters, wheresoever they may be found. It seems, at first sight, as if
all the minds of the Americans were formed upon one model, so accurately do they correspond
in their manner of judging. A stranger does, indeed, sometimes meet with Americans who
dissent from these rigorous formularies; with men who deplore the defects of the laws, the
mutability and the ignorance of democracy; who even go so far as to observe the evil tendencies
which impair the national character, and to point out such remedies as it might be possible to
apply; but no one is there to hear these things besides yourself, and you, to whom these secret
reflections are confided, are a stranger and a bird of passage. They are very ready to
communicate truths which are useless to you, but they continue to hold a different language in
public.
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If ever these lines are read in America, I am well assured of two things: in the first place, that all
who peruse them will raise their voices to condemn me; and in the second place, that very many
of them will acquit me at the bottom of their conscience.
I have heard of patriotism in the United States, and it is a virtue which may be found among the
people, but never among the leaders of the people. This may be explained by analogy;
despotism debases the oppressed much more than the oppressor: in absolute monarchies the
king has often great virtues, but the courtiers are invariably servile. It is true that the American
courtiers do not say "Sire," or "Your Majesty"—a distinction without a difference. They are
forever talking of the natural intelligence of the populace they serve; they do not debate the
question as to which of the virtues of their master is pre-eminently worthy of admiration, for
they assure him that he possesses all the virtues under heaven without having acquired them, or
without caring to acquire them; they do not give him their daughters and their wives to be
raised at his pleasure to the rank of his concubines, but, by sacrificing their opinions, they
prostitute themselves. Moralists and philosophers in America are not obliged to conceal their
opinions under the veil of allegory; but, before they venture upon a harsh truth, they say, "We
are aware that the people which we are addressing is too superior to all the weaknesses of
human nature to lose the command of its temper for an instant; and we should not hold this
language if we were not speaking to men whom their virtues and their intelligence render more
worthy of freedom than all the rest of the world." It would have been impossible for the
sycophants of Louis XIV to flatter more dexterously. For my part, I am persuaded that in all
governments, whatever their nature may be, servility will cower to force, and adulation will cling
to power. The only means of preventing men from degrading themselves is to invest no one
with that unlimited authority which is the surest method of debasing them.
The Greatest Dangers Of The American Republics Proceed From The Unlimited Power Of The
Majority
Democratic republics liable to perish from a misuse of their power, and not by impotence—The
Governments of the American republics are more centralized and more energetic than those of
the monarchies of Europe—Dangers resulting from this—Opinions of Hamilton and Jefferson
upon this point.
Governments usually fall a sacrifice to impotence or to tyranny. In the former case their power
escapes from them; it is wrested from their grasp in the latter. Many observers, who have
witnessed the anarchy of democratic States, have imagined that the government of those States
was naturally weak and impotent. The truth is, that when once hostilities are begun between
parties, the government loses its control over society. But I do not think that a democratic
power is naturally without force or without resources: say, rather, that it is almost always by the
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abuse of its force and the misemployment of its resources that a democratic government fails.
Anarchy is almost always produced by its tyranny or its mistakes, but not by its want of strength.
It is important not to confound stability with force, or the greatness of a thing with its duration.
In democratic republics, the power which directs society is not stable;* for it often changes
hands and assumes a new direction. But whichever way it turns, its force is almost irresistible.
The Governments of the American republics appear to me to be as much centralized as those of
the absolute monarchies of Europe, and more energetic than they are. I do not, therefore,
imagine that they will perish from weakness.**
If ever the free institutions of America are destroyed, that event may be attributed to the
unlimited authority of the majority, which may at some future time urge the minorities to
desperation, and oblige them to have recourse to physical force. Anarchy will then be the result,
but it will have been brought about by despotism.
Mr. Hamilton expresses the same opinion in the "Federalist," No. 51. "It is of great importance in
a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one
part of the society against the injustice of the other part. Justice is the end of government. It is
the end of civil society. It ever has been, and ever will be, pursued until it be obtained, or until
liberty be lost in the pursuit. In a society, under the forms of which the stronger faction can
readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of
nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger: and as
in the latter state even the stronger individuals are prompted by the uncertainty of their
condition to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves, so in
the former state will the more powerful factions be gradually induced by a like motive to wish
for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful. It can
be little doubted that, if the State of Rhode Island was separated from the Confederacy and left
to itself, the insecurity of right under the popular form of government within such narrow limits
would be displayed by such reiterated oppressions of the factious majorities, that some power
altogether independent of the people would soon be called for by the voice of the very factions
whose misrule had proved the necessity of it."
* This power may be centred in an assembly, in which case it will be strong without being stable;
or it may be centred in an individual, in which case it will be less strong, but more stable.
** I presume that it is scarcely necessary to remind the reader here, as well as throughout the
remainder of this chapter, that I am speaking, not of the Federal Government, but of the several
governments of each State, which the majority controls at its pleasure.
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Jefferson has also thus expressed himself in a letter to Madison:* "The executive power in our
Government is not the only, perhaps not even the principal, object of my solicitude. The tyranny
of the Legislature is really the danger most to be feared, and will continue to be so for many
years to come. The tyranny of the executive power will come in its turn, but at a more distant
period." I am glad to cite the opinion of Jefferson upon this subject rather than that of another,
because I consider him to be the most powerful advocate democracy has ever sent forth.
* March 15, 1789.
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Ernst Bloch and the Utopian Imagination
Judith Brown, Otago University
Eras Journal (14 February 2008)
Downloaded from http://arts.monash.edu.au/publications/eras/edition-5/brownarticle.php
What to look for: in the absence of an easily available translation of Bloch’s works to excerpt from, I
selected part of a scholarly article that highlights several of his major ideas. The piece is dense and
requires very careful reading. You will understand readily enough, though, that Bloch sought to take
Marxism to spiritual regions where it doesn’t usually go. Can you discern from this article what exactly he
disliked so much about capitalism, and what he thought the solution to its problems should be? How
does culture fit into his outlook?
Abstract
...but the essence of the world is cheerful spirit and the urge to creative shaping: the Thing In
Itself is objective imagination.[1]
Introduction
Ernst Bloch's major work, The Principle of Hope, is a compendium of the forms and history of
hope. While Bloch is recognized as a Marxist thinker, he stands somewhat apart from this
tradition in both his specific emphases, and the manner in which they are presented. Bloch
concerns himself with cultural and creative phenomena to an extent rare in Marxist theory.
While Bloch's concern is the great sweep of history he asserts that the true character of this is
revealed in the 'small things' of human endeavour:"…a sudden convergence of every road on an
overgrown, insignificant side road that becomes the main road to human progress".[2] Bloch
himself had a genuine love of fairs, circuses, the cinema, and Western and detective fiction. The
style Bloch employs in his writings on the arts is not incidental to his philosophy but serves as a
means of cohering highly diverse material. It is elusive, provocative and stimulating: a selfacknowledged attempt to reproduce the collage effect of his beloved Expressionist artists.
Utopia, Marx, and Imagination
Among the most heterodox aspects of Bloch's Marxism is his reclamation of the Utopian
tradition. It is in this context that his understanding of the imagination comes to full, if often
allusive, flowering. For Bloch the imagination is productive of the revolution. And the revolution
is the changing of the world. It is an "overturning of all circumstances in which (humanity) is a
degraded, a subjugated, a foresaken, a contemptible being".[3]
For Bloch the world, and humanity in it, are unfinished. Humanity's only authentic task is the
completion of the world [4] and therefore ourselves: "the world is untrue, but it wants to return
home through man (sic) and through truth".[5] As we shape the world through our work so we
come to a condition of self-possession. Bloch's conception of authenticity is as a coming-to-
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ourselves, in which we have reclaimed our human capacities from our alienation, manifest in the
worship of the gods and masters.
Bloch's concern is to call attention to a path toward unalienated humanity. Bloch offers a reinterpretation of humanity's constitutive characteristics - what is only internal in us must
become a self-encounter enabling us to direct our subjectivity into the external world. It is only
after this preparation that utopia manifests itself as an expanse of human self-presence that
transcends the "falseness" of the world, the closedness we are told is our lot by death,
deprivation, and loss.[6]
This involves a struggle to attain a perspective on ourselves. It also includes the "only
problem"[7]: the interrelationship of the self and the 'We'. The problem of how we are to know
ourselves is the same as the world problem. Possession of the self is finally a collective
possession for Bloch, brought about by shared praxis. This issue is the "ultimate basic principle
of utopian philosophy".[8] We make of our subjectivity the world. And hope is the moral
conditioner of this project: "Only hope understands and also completes the past, opens the
long, common highway".[9] Hope is the critical and constitutive heart of Bloch's philosophy. It is
both goal and always sought for. Hope and the blossoming of reason, a critical self-awareness,
go hand in hand.
Hope knows itself as the 'utopian function'. Its contents are first represented in ideas, and
essentially in those of the imagination.[10]Bloch speaks of such imaginative ideas as extending,
"in an anticipating way, existing material into the future possibilities of being different and
better".[11] Here imagination is qualitatively, ontologically, something other than fantasizing or
the remembering. It has a quality which is forward-directed, a call to action. The truth-bearing
imaginative act is 'hope-charged' and realistic, "fully attuned... to objectively real
possibility...and consequently to the properties of reality which are themselves utopian, i.e.
contain future".[12] Hence it is able to respond to circumstances and sustain the work of
changing the world in even the most adverse conditions. It is not diverted by the ephemeral but
is the fulcrum round which 'dreams and life' come to have a realistic relationship to one
another.
This last remark bears on the functional significance Bloch accords the imagination. For Bloch
our human condition is one of 'not-yet' (noch nicht), a category that in Bloch's philosophy is a
signifier,[13] referring to the fundamental directionality of the world and its unfinished
character. Bloch's emphasis is on reality as "process and open".[14]Imagination which affects
the utopian function in humanity (and possibly of matter itself) coheres reality, understanding it
as a Totality (Totum). It is the applied aspect of hope, which is understood by Bloch as
metaphysics.
The imagination overcomes the disabling 'gap' between the things we day-dream [15] and
reality as it is. Our desires, dreams, and longings, are given their form by the imagination; they
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are how hope is cast by the imagination. When these original desires are given form as
particular wishes it is by the imagination. The teleological moral-nature of the imagination
emerges when we make conscious choices as to which of our wishes we seek to fulfill. Hope is
participatory: the "waking dream".[16] Choosing those wishes is in effect a critique of present
reality: an expression of utopian aspiration. Action, or in more orthodox Marxist terms, the
labour process, consists of materializations of goal projections - concretizations of the
imagination.
As the utopian function hope is the only remaining transcendent function, but one which is
immanent. Its correlate is process. Because of its openness the "Novum , (genuinely new thing),
[is] no longer alien in material terms".[17] Bloch rejects both the compartmentalizing of reality
which he believes characterizes capitalism, and the Marxist subordination of culture to
economic organization. For Bloch the superstructure,[18] the activities that arise subsequent to
economic organization, is in a dialectical relationship with the organization of production and
the division of labour.[19] Bloch was critical throughout his life of what he termed "cold-stream
Marxism": the theory that developments in the economic base have an inevitable tendency in
themselves sufficient to bring about the collapse of capitalism. Indeed, such an approach is
mimicking capitalism and perpetuating the bourgeois division of labour.[20] The significance of
Bloch's position is that it allows him to say that our activity, our choices are as important to the
revolution as any alteration in the relations of production. As Bloch remarks "economic
schematicism does not explain Pushkin or Beethoven".[21]
Within the Totality humanity, both individually and collectively, are an incognito. We live in life
(gelebt) but do not experience it. Bloch speaks of our condition as one of being too close to
ourselves. We live in a darkness which is that of the "lived instant"[22]:
The Now is the place where the immediate hearth of experience in general stands...As
immediately being there, it lies in the darkness of the moment. Only what is just
coming up or what had just passed has the distance which the beam of growing
consciousness needs to illuminate it.[23]
The necessity for humanity to come to itself is a "journey"[24] problem. What Bloch's
understanding of human nature says is that there are possibilities whose conditions have not yet
ripened. He suggests, in consonance with his rejection of closure, that conditions may evolve.
This is not just true of human being but matter itself. However, the revolution is not inevitable;
it has to be worked for. And even where there is a receptiveness "it is not always possible even
to pluck a Now that has come".[25]
Hence, one of the reasons Bloch accords the arts so significant a place in his thought is that the
artist is able to experience and depict a now, a present, which has a subtly different tenor: it is a
mediated "now".[26] Art is an active revision that expands the world and essentially increases it.
The imagination is thought, understood as "transformed material"[27] which constitutes our
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difficult participatory knowledge of the external world.Bloch's philosophy is a summons to a
humanly fit world. A world unreified, unalienated, and undistorted by the relations engendered
in capitalism. It is to this end that he rehabilitates the utopian tradition. Bloch's fundamental
position is that utopia is a mode of our being. For Bloch wishes are presentiments of our
capacities. The essence of humanity is hopefulness:
...but human longing in both forms - as impatience and as waking dream - is the
mainsail into the other world. This intending toward a star, a joy, a truth to set against
the empirical, beyond its satanic night of incognito, is the only way still to find
truth.[28]
In Bloch's philosophy this is given expression in a number of concepts, including that of
homeland (Heimat).[29] Utopia is the locus of our homeland:
Once [we have] established [our] own domain in real democracy, without
depersonalization and alienation, something arises in the world which all men (sic)
have glimpsed in childhood: a place and a state in which no one has yet been. And the
name of this something is home (Heimat).[30]
As a name for that which constitutes our being Heimat is congruent with utopia.
Other terms enrich this concept, among which is 'anticipatory illumination' (das Vor-Schein). By
this Bloch means a pre-appearance that acts as an intimation of humanity 'come to itself'. This is
material that contains elements of ongoing worth. Such material has an authenticity to it that
arises from the nature of its intersection with contemporary realities: "an anticipatory
illumination that could never be realized in an ideology of the status quo but, rather, has been
connected to it like an explosive".[31]It constitutes a surplus (Überschuss), transcending the
ideology of its era. The surplus is what gives the superstructure a historical character. Bloch calls
this surplus the 'cultural heritage'. The surplus is a consequence of 'non-synchronous
development' (Ungleichzeitigkeit), the idea that all parts of the social totality do not move at the
same pace. There are both regressive and progressive elements. The later are a kind of revenant
of the "hidden essence (das Eigentliche) in which the world (not art) could attain its aim".[32]
This is why Bloch also describes the surplus as a "tradition of the future".[33] Anticipatory
illumination is therefore an arsenal in the world. In its utopian nature it is both against the world
and a not-yet (noch nicht).
The utopian imagination is productive in the true Marxist sense of work: this is an engagement
in activity through which the individual is confirmed. Like all engagement it makes revolution
possible by overcoming the fracturing of the world. Creativity is one word for the work of the
imagination in materiality. Hence creativity, or the imagination active in material outcome, is, as
indicated by the title of the section on music in Das Prinzip Hoffnung, a "venturing beyond".
125
Notes
[1] Ernst Bloch,Das Prinzip Hoffnung, Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, 1959. Ernst Bloch,The Principle of
Hope (3 Volumes) translated by Neville Plaice, Stephen Plaice and Paul Knight, MIT Press, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, 1986. Quotation in The Principle of Hope Volume 1, p. xx. Back
[2] Ernst Bloch, Geist der Utopia, (The Spirit of Utopia), translated by Anthony A. Nassar, Stanford
University Press, Stanford, 2000, p. 15. This is a translation of the Second Edition of this work, published
as Geist der Utopie: Bearbeitete Neuauflage der Fassung von 1923, Frankfurt am Main, deiser Fassung
Suhrkamp, 1964. Back
[3] Bloch, Principle of Hope 3, 1355. Back
[4] Ernst Bloch, The Utopian Function of Art and Literature: Selected Essays, translated by Jack Zipes and
Frank Mecklenburg; MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, p. 73. Back
[5] Bloch, Spirit of Utopia, p. 279. Back
[6] Bloch, Spirit of Utopia, pp. 2-3. Back
[7] Bloch, Spirit of Utopia , p. 206. Back
[8] Bloch, Spirit of Utopia, p. 206. Back
[9] Bloch, Utopian Function, p. 51. Back
[10] Bloch, Principle of Hope 1, 144. Back
[11] Bloch, Principle of Hope 1, 144. Back
[12] Bloch, Principle of Hope 1, 145. Back
[13] Wayne Hudson, The Marxist Philosophy of Ernst Bloch, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1982. Back
[14] Bloch, Utopian Function, p. 72. Back
[15] The day-dream is formed consciously. It is 'within our power'. The day-dream runs the spectrum from
silly and escapist to shaped art. Principle of Hope 1, 87-88. See also Principle of Hope 1, 86-113. Back
[16] Bloch, Spirit of Utopia, p. 3. Emphasis added. See also other references; for example Utopian
Function , p. 105. Back
[17] Bloch, Principle of Hope 1, 146. Back
[18] Included in the superstructure are legal, social, cultural, educative, governmental, and bureaucratic
institutions and structures. Back
[19] Ernst Bloch, "Ideas as Transformed Material in Human Minds, or Problems of an Ideological
Superstructure (Cultural Heritage)", in The Utopian Function of Art and Literature, translated by Jack
Zipes and Frank Mecklenburg, 1972, pp. 18-71. Back
[20] Bloch, Utopian Function, p. 23. Back
[21] Bloch, Utopian Function, p. 30. Back
[22] Bloch, Utopian Function, p. 208. Back
[23] Bloch, Principle of Hope 1, 287. Back
[24] Bloch, Spirit of Utopia, p. 3. Back
[25] Bloch, Principle of Hope 1, 179. Back
[26] Bloch, "On the Present in Literature" in Utopian Function , translated Zipes and Mecklenburg, p. 208.
Back
[27] Bloch, Utopian Function, p. 18. The phrase is from the title of Bloch's important paper "Ideas as
transformed Material in Human Minds, or Problems of an Ideological Superstructure (Cultural Heritage)".
Back
[28] Bloch, Spirit of Utopia, p. 206. Back
[29] This is a concept with a rich lineage in Austro-Germanic culture. While it means one's physical home
it is much more than a living space. It involves the full spectrum of the human sense of belonging and
completion. Back
[30] Bloch, Principle of Hope 3, 1376. Back
[31] Bloch, Utopian Function, p. 41. Back
[32] Bloch, Utopian Function, p. 49. Back
[33] Bloch, Utopian Function, p. 50. Back
126
Evaluating Hybrid
Cultures of Different
Ethnicities, Races,
Languages, Etc.
Is a harmonious fusion of diverse cultural elements good? Is it
possible? To what extent is the Multicultural Movement
responding to fact, to moral vision, or to political agenda?
I continue to be shocked by the number of students who insist that they have never
heard of the Multicultural or Diversity Movement. Not only college and high-school curricula,
but even elementary and pre-school texts and materials, actively manifest an interest in
projecting the world as a cultural marble-cake. This interest is the more curious in that,
demographically speaking, most of our nation consists of rather homogeneous groups. One
finds the Amish concentrated in a few small areas; Mormons are everywhere in modest
numbers, but Utah is their historical “promised land”; Oklahoma has far more people of
Cherokee descent than Vermont, and New Mexico more of Navaho descent than Michigan.
Descendents of Northern European Germanic immigrants outnumber those of Japanese
immigrants in Wisconsin by a whopping amount, whereas the latter are far more abundant
along the West Coast than human ripples of the Scots Presbyterian wave dating back to the
early eighteenth century (and strongly influential in the Carolinas). Except for major
metropolitan areas, North America is not particularly diverse in the manner portrayed by
posters in third-grade classrooms. As a nation, to be sure, the United States comprises dozens
and dozens—perhaps hundreds—of distinct cultures. These almost always carve out niches for
themselves here and there, however, where a person strolling through his or her neighborhood
is most likely to see many others (if not only others) of the same ethnicity, religion, linguistic
habits, and so forth. The arrangement makes sense, given human nature. People prefer to be
among those who share their values to a significant degree. The occupants of a college
fraternity house would have a difficult time if they tried to transplant their lifestyle to a quiet
suburban community of professionals.
Are our educators and leaders, then, telling us that this tendency, though natural, must
nonetheless be resisted? Is it wrong to prefer being among one’s “own kind”? Most of us can
probably sense a certain tension in the phrase I have just quoted. The notion of one’s “own
kind” can indeed become a destructive one very quickly if carried too far. It is most definitely
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wrong to refuse to sell a house to people of “another kind,” to deny them service in a place of
business, to exclude them from recreational facilities, and so forth: it is morally wrong, and it
also happens to be illegal. The Diversity Movement no doubt aims at rearing children who do
not need the strictures of the law to abstain from such exclusive behaviors—who have been
conditioned to do the right thing. (Whether a behavior that results from conditioning, though,
can any longer be considered morally right—the element of free choice having been removed—
is a critical question: are we raising truly good people or only well-trained insects conforming to
Big Brother’s notion of the Good?)
Another issue plaguing the multicultural project has been mentioned before. If cultures
are forced to mix and mingle at close quarters over sustained periods of time, they inevitably
decay. Adherents of one culture may feel outrage when a woman circulates through public
spaces without her head covered, whereas adherents of another culture may feel the same level
of outrage if their women are required to “cover up” in some manner. The American way is to
let those cover up who choose to and let those go uncovered who choose to: an entirely
equitable solution, most of us would think. Yet its long-range consequences (if such complete
tolerance is enforced) must necessarily be the dissolution of both cultural practices. Individual
women will treat the top of their head however they wish. While this may seem precisely the
right outcome to any American, once again, it nevertheless annihilates the cultural stricture that
requires adherents to suppress their individual desires and conform to a set of rules. If anyone
and everyone can eat Mexican food today, Chinese food tomorrow, and Italian food the next
day, then what is the significance of calling these foods Mexican, Chinese, and Italian? People of
Mexican or Chinese or Italian descent will themselves end up mixing tacos with pizzas and egg
rolls! The characterization of the specific food as belonging to a certain culture or nationality
will then become as pointless as a snake’s vestigial legs—a curious historical relic of a time long
gone.
I repeat still again that such results may be fully satisfying in your view: perhaps this is
the kind of place we should want the world to become. I argue neither for nor against that view
in these comments: I observe merely that the phenomenon we behold here is not multicultural
at all, but culturally degenerative. That is, we witness in the tight fusion of many cultures, not a
continued existence of individual cultures in happy harmony with their competitors, but a
melting down of all major dividing lines. A parent who does not want his or her child to eat beef
because such an act would outrage the gods of their tradition will not be content to allow the
child a hamburger on Tuesdays and Thursdays. A father whose tradition insists that girls should
not expose their midriff in public will not be happy if his daughter wears a tank top only in the
mornings or limits “over-exposure” to bikinis on the beach. Genuine cultures come down to
being all-or-nothing affairs: you either play by their rules or you don’t.
Just think about the television-viewing habits of a hypothetical American household. If
parents do not want their children seeing graphic sexual acts, will giving them a free run of all
the channels only over the weekends keep the desired values intact? If the parents have a
strong dislike of “anal humor” and swearing, would they be likely to pass their values along to
their children if episodes of South Park were tolerated only every other week? Our economic
system is astonishingly efficient at enticing people into the “new and improved” and seducing
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them with “forbidden fruit”: the indiscriminate mix of cultures into a great stew would involve
very similar kinds of hucksterism as one group sought to come out on top. The final taste of the
mix, however, would probably surprise everyone. The precise amounts of this or that cultural
seasoning in our language, our religious beliefs, our sexual habits, our attitude toward aging and
death, etc., etc., must surely be unpredictable, for the process as we see it now appears nearly
chaotic.
Is a multicultural society, then, desirable or even possible? At a certain level, it is
inevitable: cultures in the twenty-first century are mingling as never before in human history,
and nothing we do can reverse the process. Yet is this great collision of values really a kind of
rainbow coalition, or is it rather the sort of meltdown just described? The fusion of every color
on the artist’s palette is a muddy, insipid brown, not a rainbow. Is this what we may expect?
And another question: since the anxiety of cultural collision is so transparently fueling
much of the violence on earth today (the West’s problems with the Islamic world, for instance,
virtually all reduce to a vast cultural incompatibility), why do figures in authority continue to
advance the multicultural agenda? Some no doubt have noble motives, but some may be
moved by the proverbial “hidden agenda” beneath their praise of tolerance. How are we to
process this call for a broader solidarity—a global, human solidarity? Since we should not, and
indeed cannot, reject the idea of a closer-knit human family as our technology shrinks
traditional boundaries, how do we translate multiculturalism into something that is workable
and makes sense? When all the manipulative rhetoric is removed, what kind of program
remains?
This final essay may well be the toughest of all: the problem it confronts may even be
insoluble! If such is your conclusion, then say as much honestly. Yet my hope is that you will
not find yourself led to a position of deep pessimism. We cannot produce a pleasant future
merely by shutting our eyes to the present and dreaming happy dreams; but to stare the facts in
the face, even though they may be very sobering facts, is already cause to feel a little better.
Dreams are a headlong flight from problem-solving: analysis of the facts is a mapping out of
spaces where visionary thinking can be productive.
In composing this essay, you may very likely employ some of the following varieties of
writing:
a) definition (to explain terms like multiculturalism and diversity)
b) compare/contrast (to juxtapose your definition of culture with what emerges from the
multicultural society)
c) cause-and-effect (to analyze the impact that cultural fusion has upon individual cultures)
d) exemplification (of how individual cultures fare in a diverse society)
e) personal anecdote (involving any relevant experience of your own)
f) research (concerning the success of formal multicultural experiments, the motives of
those who conduct them, etc.)
g) position paper (not an entire paper in this case—but you should express a clear
judgment about the viability and/or future of multiculturalism)
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Once more, you are neither required to incorporate all of these strategies in your writing nor
limited to using only these. The list is advisory, not prescriptive.
READINGS
“The Age of White Guilt and the Disappearance of the Black Individual” (essay) ~
Shelby Steele
From an Interview with Gloria Anzaldua (1942-2004)
Excerpt from Delectable Lie: A Liberal Repudiation of Multiculturalism ~ Salim Mansur
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minster David Cameron’s
Declaration That Multiculturalism Has Failed
Part One (3-117), “Toronto and Pondicherry,” from Life of Pi ~ Yann Martel
Note in the syllabus that another assignment has been added from Dreaming in Chinese.
In these chapters, you are to consider whether Fallows has not overstated the solidarity
of Chinese culture—for she offers solid evidence that modern China is itself a complex
mix of classes, languages, and traditions. Do these add up to cultural clash? If not, then
wherein would you locate the deep uniformity that holds together such diversity? If you
think that China lacks such uniformity and is indeed multicultural, then can you trace a
tendency in Fallows to present diverse Chinese customs as one monolithic cultural
spectrum simply because they make such a sharp contrast with American practices?
Shelby Steele has written some of the most insightful and honest commentary about
race relations in the United States since the Civil Rights Movement opened up such topics for
public discussion. I may possibly have included the present long essay more because of my
admiration for his work than because the piece has specific bearing upon multiculturalism; yet I
think a significant connection exists. Here Steele argues that race-consciousness has reached a
point where it demands the individual to sacrifice his or her uniqueness in submission to a
“higher” group identity: this, at least, appears to be a pressure felt by members of many
minorities. I suspect that the Multicultural or Diversity Movement may unwittingly have had the
same effect on young people, especially. When the community urges you to stand up and be
applauded for your cultural difference, is it not refusing to recognize you as an individual so that
you may become a token of that special group? I heard had high-school students make
precisely this kind of complaint about the activities of a yearly Diversity Day.
The late Gloria Anzaldua has long struck me as the “poster child” of cultural collision. I
could not find a version of any of her essays that could be reproduced in this format; but her
writings typically insist that, in a fair and just world, she would be allowed to break into any one
of several dialects of Spanish or English as the spirit moved her. Her text will invariably lurch
unannounced into examples of such dialects, sometimes translated afterward, sometimes not.
Yet the primary purpose of language is surely to communicate. For Anzaldua, language appears
to have become instead a way of advertising one’s difference in front of others—a gesture of
defiance, as if to say, “I will now express myself in terms that you will find utterly unintelligible.”
One must wonder if such “celebration” of cultural difference lies along the road to greater
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tolerance or, rather, opens a door to greater social tensions. The brief online interview included
here will convey something of Anzaldua’s ideology.
Brief, also, are the two journalistic accounts of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s
“Multiculturalism Has Failed” speech A translated text of the speech itself appeared online for
a few days and was then removed, reportedly due to the hostility it stirred in certain quarters.
Both journalists interpret Merkel’s motive for the speech as the placation of quasi-racist forces
far to the political Right. See for yourself what you make of the evidence offered. Perhaps you
can find a version of the speech that evaded my search.
Finally, I ask that you read Part One of Martel’s Life of Pi. (Entering freshmen were
supposed to have read the whole work by the end of August!) This is the least exciting part of
the book by far, and we can certainly discuss later parts if the occasion arises and the will
emerges. In the first hundred pages especially, however, one finds repeated gestures by the
author in the direction of cultural fusion. The main character insists on practicing all religions as
one, studies several languages, moves fluidly between the human and the animal world, and so
on. Martel does not frame his story in this manner for no reason—though the ultimate reason
may be hidden later in the book: we shall have to decide that later. Read the whole thing if you
can!
131
The Age of White Guilt and the
Disappearance of the Black Individual
Shelby Steele
Harper's Magazine, November 30, 1999
What to look for: the paradox that Professor Steele seeks to represent has ramifications for any society or
culture containing groups (not just racial groups, but religious or ethnic or linguistic ones, as well) clearly
distinct from the mainstream. How are these groups received into the broader culture? Does a
“tolerant” reception show that the limits of culture have been magnanimously relaxed—or does it simply
show that the mainstream culture wants to think itself tolerant and needs its minorities to remain
different in order to do so? What precisely is kind or fair or generous in such cases? See if you can figure
out Steele’s answer to this critical question.
One day back in the late fifties, when I was ten or eleven years old, there was a moment when I
experienced myself as an individual--as a separate consciousness--for the first time. I was
walking home from the YMCA, which meant that I was passing out of the white Chicago suburb
where the Y was located and crossing Halsted Street back into Phoenix, the tiny black suburb
where I grew up. It was a languid summer afternoon, thick with the industrial-scented humidity
of south Chicago that I can still smell and feel on my skin, though I sit today only blocks from the
cool Pacific and more than forty years removed.
Into Phoenix no more than a block and I was struck by a thought that seemed beyond me. I have
tried for years to remember it, but all my effort only pushes it further away. I do remember that
it came to me with the completeness of an aphorism, as if the subconscious had already done
the labor of crafting it into a fine phrase. What scared me a little at the time was its implication
of a separate self with independent thoughts--a distinct self that might distill experience into all
sorts of ideas for which I would then be responsible. That feeling of responsibility was my first
real experience of myself as an individual--as someone who would have to navigate a separate
and unpredictable consciousness through a world I already knew to be often unfair and always
tense.
Of course I already knew that I was black, or "Negro," as we said back then. No secret there. The
world had made this fact quite clear by imposing on my life all the elaborate circumscriptions of
Chicago-style segregation. Although my mother was white, the logic of segregation meant that I
was born in the hospital's black maternity ward. I grew up in a black neighborhood and walked
to a segregated black school as white children in the same district walked to a white school.
Kindness in whites always came as a mild surprise and was accepted with a gratitude that I later
understood to be a bit humiliating. And there were many racist rejections for which I was only
partly consoled by the knowledge that racism is impersonal.
Back then I thought of being black as a fate, as a condition I shared with people as various as
Duke Ellington and the odd-job man who plowed the neighborhood gardens with a mule and
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signed his name with an X. And it is worth noting here that never in my life have I met a true
Uncle Tom, a black who identifies with white racism as a truth. The Negro world of that era
believed that whites used our race against our individuality and, thus, our humanity. There was
no embrace of a Negro identity, because that would have weakened the argument for our
humanity. "Negroness" or "blackness" would have collaborated with the racist lie that we were
different and, thus, would have been true Uncle Tomism. To the contrary, there was an embrace
of the individual and assimilation.
My little experience of myself as an individual confirmed the message of the civil-rights
movement itself, in which a favorite picket sign read, simply, "I am a man." The idea of the
individual resonated with Negro freedom--a freedom not for the group but for the individuals
who made up the group. And assimilation was not a self-hating mimicry of things white but a
mastery by Negro individuals of the modern and cosmopolitan world, a mastery that showed us
to be natural members of that world. So my experience of myself as an individual made me one
with the group.
Not long ago C-SPAN carried a Harvard debate on affirmative action between conservative
reformer Ward Connerly and liberal law professor Christopher Edley. During the Q and A a black
undergraduate rose from a snickering clump of black students to challenge Mr. Connerly, who
had argued that the time for racial preferences was past. Once standing, this young man smiled
unctuously, as if victory were so assured that he must already offer consolation. But his own
pose seemed to distract him, and soon he was sinking into incoherence. There was impatience
in the room, but it was suppressed. Black students play a role in campus debates like this and
they are indulged.
The campus forum of racial confrontation is a ritual that has changed since the sixties in only
one way. Whereas blacks and whites confronted one another back then, now black liberals and
black conservatives do the confronting while whites look on--relieved, I'm sure--from the
bleachers. I used to feel empathy for students like this young man, because they reminded me
of myself at that age. Now I see them as figures of pathos. More than thirty years have passed
since I did that sort of challenging, and even then it was a waste of time. Today it is
perseveration to the point of tragedy.
Here is a brief litany of obvious truths that have been resisted in the public discourse of black
America over the last thirty years: a group is no stronger than its individuals; when individuals
transform themselves they transform the group; the freer the individual, the stronger the group;
social responsibility begins in individual responsibility. Add to this an indisputable fact that has
also been unmentionable: that American greatness has a lot to do with a culturally ingrained
individualism, with the respect and freedom historically granted individuals to pursue their
happiness--this despite many egregious lapses and an outright commitment to the oppression of
black individuals for centuries. And there is one last obvious but unassimilated fact: ethnic
groups that have asked a lot from their individuals have done exceptionally well in America even
while enduring discrimination.
Now consider what this Harvard student is called upon by his racial identity to argue in the year
2002. All that is creative and imaginative in him must be rallied to argue the essential weakness
of his own people. Only their weakness justifies the racial preferences they receive decades
after any trace of anti-black racism in college admissions. The young man must not show faith in
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the power of his people to overcome against any odds; he must show faith in their inability to
overcome without help. As Mr. Connerly points to far less racism and far more freedom and
opportunity for blacks, the young man must find a way, against all the mounting facts, to argue
that black Americans simply cannot compete without preferences. If his own forebears seized
freedom in a long and arduous struggle for civil rights, he must argue that his own generation is
unable to compete on paper-and-pencil standardized tests.
It doesn't help that he locates the cause of black weakness in things like "structural racism" and
"uneven playing fields," because there has been so little correlation between the remedies for
such problems and actual black improvement. Blacks from families that make $100,000 a year or
more perform worse on the SAT than whites from families that make $10,000 a year or less.
After decades of racial preferences blacks remain the lowest performing student group in
American higher education. And once they are out of college and in professions, their own
children also underperform in relation to their white and Asian peers. Thus, this young man
must also nurture the idea of a black psychological woundedness that is baroque in its capacity
to stifle black aspiration. And all his faith, his proud belief, must be in the truth of this
woundedness and the injustice that caused it, because this is his only avenue to racial pride. He
is a figure of pathos because his faith in racial victimization is his only release from racial shame.
Right after the sixties' civil-rights victories came what I believe to be the greatest miscalculation
in black American history. Others had oppressed us, but this was to be the first "fall" to come by
our own hand. We allowed ourselves to see a greater power in America's liability for our
oppression than we saw in ourselves. Thus, we were faithless with ourselves just when we had
given ourselves reason to have such faith. We couldn't have made a worse mistake. We have
not been the same since.
To go after America's liability we had to locate real transformative power outside ourselves.
Worse, we had to see our fate as contingent on America's paying off that liability. We have been
a contingent people ever since, arguing our weakness and white racism in order to ignite the
engine of white liability. And this has mired us in a protest-group identity that mistrusts
individualism because free individuals might jeopardize the group's effort to activate this
liability.
Today I would be encouraged to squeeze my little childhood experience of individuality into a
narrow group framework that would not endanger the group's bid for white intervention. I
would be urged to embrace a pattern of reform that represses our best hope for advancement-our individuals--simply to keep whites "on the hook."
Mr. Connerly was outnumbered and outgunned at that Harvard debate. The consensus finally
was that preferences would be necessary for a while longer. Whites would remain "on the
hook." The black student prevailed, but it was a victory against himself. In all that his identity
required him to believe, there was no place for him.
In 1961, when I was fifteen years old, my imagination was taken over for some months by the
movie Paris Blues, starring Sidney Poitier, Diahann Carroll, Paul Newman, and Joanne
Woodward. For me this film was first of all an articulation of adult sophistication and deserved
to be studied on these grounds alone. The music was by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, and
the film was set in the jazz world of early-sixties Paris--a city that represented, in the folklore of
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American Negroes, a nirvana of complete racial freedom. To establish this freedom at the
outset, Paul Newman (Ram) makes a pass at Diahann Carroll (Connie) as if her race means no
more to him than the color of her coat. Of course the protocols of segregation return soon
enough, and the four stars are paired off by race. But I could not hold this against a film that
gave me a chance to watch the beautiful, if prim, Diahann Carroll against a backdrop of
Montmartre and the Seine, Paris a little dim for being next to her.
Sidney Poitier's character (Eddie) has by far the most interesting internal conflict. He has come
to Paris--like almost the entire postwar generation of black American artists, musicians, and
intellectuals--to develop his talents and live as an individual free of American racism. Eddie finds
this in Paris as a jazz musician in Ram's band, and when he and Connie begin their romance, he
is an unapologetic advocate of expatriation for blacks. Paris is freedom; America, interminable
humiliation. "I'll never forget the first time I walked down the Champs-Elysees.... I knew I was
here to stay."
But there is a ghost on his trail. And Connie, the new and true love of his life, embodies that
ghost. A teacher on vacation in Paris, she brings him news of the civil-rights movement building
momentum back home, and, as their love deepens, she makes it clear that their future together
will require his coming home and playing some part in the struggle of his people. She brings him
precisely what he has escaped: the priority of group identity over individual freedom. The best
acting in the film is Eddie's impassioned rejection of this priority. He hates America with good
reason, and it is impossible to see him as simply selfish. He has already found in Paris the
freedom blacks are fighting for back home. And he has found this freedom precisely by thinking
of himself as an individual who is free to choose. For him individualism is freedom. And even if
blacks won the civil-rights struggle, true freedom would still require individuals to choose for
themselves. So by what ethic should he leave the freedom of Paris for the indignities of
America?
Clearly no ethic would be enough. But love, on the other hand, is the tie that binds. And when
the object of that love is Connie, Eddie begins to see a point in responsibility to the group. But at
the very end Eddie does not get on the train out of Paris with Connie. He promises to follow her
home as soon as he can arrange his affairs, and it looks like he will be good to his word. But the
movie ends on his promise rather than on his action. It is a long time now since 1961, so we can
know that Eddie will never have the same degree of individual freedom if he goes back home. If
whites don't use his race against him, they will use it for him. And there are always the
pressures of his own group identity. As an individual he will have a hard swim. Thinking of the
lovely Connie, some days I root for him to leave. Other days, even thinking of her, I root for him
to stay.
The greatest problem in coming from an oppressed group is the power the oppressor has over
your group. The second greatest problem is the power your group has over you. Group identity
in oppressed groups is always very strategic, always a calculation of advantage. The humble
black identity of the Booker T. Washington era--"a little education spoiled many a good plow
hand"--allowed blacks to function as tradesmen, laborers, and farmers during the rise of Jim
Crow, when hundreds of blacks were being lynched yearly. Likewise, the black militancy of the
late sixties strategically aimed for advantage in an America suddenly contrite over its long
indulgence in racism.
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One's group identity is always a mask--a mask replete with a politics. When a teenager in East
Los Angeles says he is Hispanic, he is thinking of himself within a group strategy pitched at larger
America. His identity is related far more to America than to Mexico or Guatemala, where he
would not often think of himself as Hispanic. In fact, "Hispanic" is much more a political concept
than a cultural one, and its first purpose is to win power within the fray of American identity
politics. So this teenager must wear the mask that serves his group's ambitions in these politics.
With the civil-rights victories, black identity became more carefully calculated around the
pursuit of power, because black power was finally possible in America. So, as the repressions of
racism receded, the repressions of group identity grew more intense for blacks. Even in Paris,
Connie uses the censoring voice of the group: "Things are much better than they were five years
ago ... not because Negroes come to Paris but because Negroes stay home." Here the collective
identity is the true identity, and individual autonomy a mere affectation.
If Paris Blues ends without Eddie's actual return to America, we can witness such a return in the
life of a real-life counterpart to Eddie, the black American writer James Baldwin. In the late
forties, Baldwin went to Paris, like his friend and mentor Richard Wright, to escape America's
smothering racism and to find himself as a writer and as an individual. He succeeded
dramatically and quickly on both counts. His first novel, the minor masterpiece Go Tell It on the
Mountain, appeared in 1953 and was quickly followed by another novel and two important
essay collections.
It was clearly the remove of Europe that gave Baldwin the room to find his first important
theme: self-acceptance. In a Swiss mountain village in winter, against an "absolutely alabaster
landscape" and listening to Bessie Smith records, he accepts that he is black, gay, talented,
despised by his father, and haunted by a difficult childhood. From this self-acceptance emerges
an individual voice and one of the most unmistakable styles in American writing.
Then, in 1957, Baldwin did something that changed him--and his writing--forever. He came
home to America. He gave up the psychological remove of Europe and allowed himself to
become once again fully accountable as a black American. And soon, in blatant contradiction of
his own powerful arguments against protest writing, he became a protest writer. There is little
doubt that this new accountability weakened him greatly as an artist. Nothing he wrote after
the early sixties had the human complexity, depth, or literary mastery of what he wrote in those
remote European locales where children gawked at him for his color.
The South African writer Nadine Gordimer saw the black writer in her own country as conflicted
between "a deep, intense, private view" on the one hand and the call to be a spokesman for his
people on the other. This classic conflict--common to writers from oppressed groups around the
world--is really a conflict of authority. In Europe, Baldwin enjoyed exclusive authority over his
own identity. When he came back to America, he did what in Western culture is anathema to
the artist: he submitted his artistic vision--his "private view"--to the authority of his group. From
The Fire Next Time to the end of his writing life, he allowed protest to be the framing authority
of his work.
What Baldwin did was perhaps understandable, because his group was in a pitched battle for its
freedom. The group had enormous moral authority, and he had a splendid rhetorical gift the
group needed. Baldwin was transformed in the sixties into an embodiment of black protest, an
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archetypal David--frail, effeminate, brilliant--against a brutish and stupid American racism. He
became a celebrity writer on the American scene, a charismatic presence with huge, penetrating
eyes that were fierce and vulnerable at the same time. People who had never read him had
strong opinions about him. His fame was out of proportion to his work, and if all this had been
limited to Baldwin himself, it might be called the Baldwin phenomenon. But, in fact, his
ascendancy established a pattern that would broadly define, and in many ways corrupt, an
entire generation of black intellectuals, writers, and academics. And so it must be called the
Baldwin model.
The goal of the Baldwin model is to link one's intellectual reputation to the moral authority--the
moral glamour--of an oppressed group's liberation struggle. In this way one ceases to be a mere
individual with a mere point of view and becomes, in effect, the embodiment of a moral
imperative. This is rarely done consciously, as a Faustian bargain in which the intellectual
knowingly sells his individual soul to the group. Rather the group identity is already a protestfocused identity, and the intellectual simply goes along with it. Adherence to the Baldwin model
is usually more a sin of thoughtlessness and convenience than of conscious avarice, though it is
always an appropriation of moral power, a stealing of thunder.
The protest intellectual positions himself in the pathway of the larger society's march toward
racial redemption. By allowing his work to be framed by the protest identity, he articulates the
larger society's moral liability. He seems, therefore, to hold the key to how society must redeem
itself. Baldwin was called in to advise Bobby Kennedy on the Negro situation. It is doubtful that
the Baldwin of Go Tell It on the Mountain would have gotten such a call. But the Baldwin of The
Fire Next Time probably expected it. Ralph Ellison, a contemporary of Baldwin's who rejected
the black protest identity but whose work showed a far deeper understanding of black culture
than Baldwin's, never had this sort of access to high places. By insisting on his individual
autonomy as an artist, Ellison was neither inflated with the moral authority of his group's
freedom struggle nor positioned in the pathway of America's redemption.
Today the protest identity is a career advantage for an entire generation of black intellectuals,
particularly academics who have been virtually forced to position themselves in the path of their
university's obsession with "diversity." Inflation from the moral authority of protest, added to
the racial preference policies in so many American institutions, provides an irresistible incentive
for black America's best minds to continue defining themselves by protest. Professors who resist
the Baldwin model risk the Ellisonian fate of invisibility.
What happened in America to make the Baldwin model possible?
The broad answer is this: America moved from its long dark age of racism into an age of white
guilt. I saw this shift play out in my own family.
I grew up watching my parents live out an almost perpetual protest against racial injustice.
When I was five or six we drove out of our segregated neighborhood every Sunday morning to
carry out the grimly disciplined business of integrating a lily-white church in the next town. Our
family was a little off-color island of quiet protest amidst rows of pinched white faces. And when
that battle was lost there was a long and successful struggle to create Chicago's first fully
integrated church. And from there it was on to the segregated local school system, where my
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parents organized a boycott against the elementary school that later incurred the first
desegregation lawsuit in the North.
Amidst all this protest, I could see only the price people were paying. I saw my mother's health
start to weaken. I saw the white minister who encouraged us to integrate his church lose his job.
There was a time when I was sent away to stay with family friends until things "cooled down."
Black protest had no legitimacy in broader America in the 1950s. It was subversive, something to
be repressed, and people who indulged in it were made to pay.
And then there came the sunny day in the very late sixties when I leaned into the window of my
parents' old powder-blue Rambler and, inches from my mother's face, said wasn't it amazing
that I was making $13,500 a year. They had come to visit me on my first job out of college, and
had just gotten into the car for their return trip. I saw my mistake even as the words tumbled
out. My son's pride had blinded me to my parents' feelings. This was four or five thousand
dollars more than either of them had ever made in a single year. I had learned the year before
that my favorite professor--a full professor with two books to his credit--had fought hard for a
raise to $10,000 a year. Thirteen five implied a different social class, a different life than we had
known as a family.
"Congratulations," they said. "That's very nice."
The subtext of this role reversal was President Johnson's Great Society, and beneath that an
even more profound shift in the moral plates of society. The year was 1969, and I was already
employed in my fourth Great Society program--three Upward Bound programs and now a junior
college-level program called Experiment in Higher Education, in East St. Louis, Illinois. America
was suddenly spending vast millions to end poverty "in our time," and, as it was for James
Baldwin on his return from Paris, the timing was perfect for me.
I was chosen for my first Upward Bound job because I was the leader of the campus civil-rights
group. This engagement with black protest suddenly constituted a kind of aptitude, in my
employers, minds, for teaching disadvantaged kids. It inflated me into a person who was gifted
with young people. The protesting that had gotten me nowhere when I started college was
serving me as well as an advanced degree by the time I was a senior.
Two great, immutable forces have driven America's attitudes, customs, and public policies
around race. The first has been white racism, and the second has been white guilt. The civilrights movement was the dividing line between the two. Certainly there was some guilt before
this movement, and no doubt some racism remains after it. But the great achievement of the
civil-rights movement was that its relentless moral witness finally defeated the legitimacy of
racism as propriety--a principle of social organization, manners, and customs that defines
decency itself. An idea controls culture when it achieves the invisibility of propriety. And it must
be remembered that racism was a propriety, a form of decency. When, as a boy, I was
prohibited from entering the fine Christian home of the occasional white playmate, it was to
save the household an indecency. Today, thanks to the civil-rights movement, white guilt is
propriety--an utterly invisible code that defines decency in our culture with thousands of little
protocols we no longer even think about. We have been living in an age of white guilt for four
decades now.
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What is white guilt? It is not a personal sense of remorse over past wrongs. White guilt is
literally a vacuum of moral authority in matters of race, equality, and opportunity that comes
from the association of mere white skin with America's historical racism. It is the stigmatization
of whites and, more importantly, American institutions with the sin of racism. Under this stigma
white individuals and American institutions must perpetually prove a negative--that they are not
racist--to gain enough authority to function in matters of race, equality, and opportunity. If they
fail to prove the negative, they will be seen as racists. Political correctness, diversity policies, and
multiculturalism are forms of deference that give whites and institutions a way to prove the
negative and win reprieve from the racist stigma.
Institutions especially must be proactive in all this. They must engineer a demonstrable racial
innocence to garner enough authority for simple legitimacy in the American democracy. No
university today, private or public, could admit students by academic merit alone if that meant
no black or brown faces on campus. Such a university would be seen as racist and shunned
accordingly. White guilt has made social engineering for black and brown representation a
condition of legitimacy.
People often deny white guilt by pointing to its irrationality--"I never owned a slave," "My family
got here eighty years after slavery was over." But of course almost nothing having to do with
race is rational. That whites are now stigmatized by their race is not poetic justice; it is simply
another echo of racism's power to contaminate by mere association.
The other common denial of white guilt has to do with motive: "I don't support affirmative
action because I'm guilty; I support it because I want to do what's fair." But the first test of
sincere support is a demand that the policy be studied for effectiveness. Affirmative action went
almost completely unexamined for thirty years and has only recently been briefly studied in a
highly politicized manner now that it is under threat. The fact is that affirmative action has been
a very effective racial policy in garnering moral authority and legitimacy for institutions, and it is
now institutions--not individual whites or blacks--that are fighting to keep it alive.
The real difference between my parents and myself was that they protested in an age of white
racism and I protested in an age of white guilt. They were punished; I was rewarded. By my
time, moral authority around race had become a great and consuming labor for America.
Everything from social programs to the law, from the color of TV sitcom characters to the
content of school curricula, from college admissions to profiling for terrorists--every aspect of
our culture--now must show itself redeemed of the old national sin. Today you cannot credibly
run for president without an iconography of white guilt: the backdrop of black children, the
Spanish-language phrases, the word "compassion" to separate conservatism from its
associations with racism.
So then here you are, a black American living amidst all this. Every institution you engage--the
government, universities, corporations, public and private schools, philanthropies, churches-faces you out of a deficit of moral authority. Your race is needed everywhere. How could you
avoid the aggressions, and even the bigotries, of white guilt? What institution could you walk
into without having your color tallied up as a credit to the institution? For that matter, what
political party or ideological direction could you pursue without your race being plundered by
that party or ideology for moral authority?
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Because blacks live amidst such hunger for the moral authority of their race, we embraced
protest as a permanent identity in order to capture the fruits of white guilt on an ongoing basis.
Again, this was our first fall by our own hand. Still, it is hard to imagine any group of individuals
coming out of four centuries of oppression and not angling their identity toward whatever
advantage seemed available. White guilt held out the promise of a preferential life in
recompense for past injustice, and the protest identity seemed the best way to keep that
promise alive.
An obvious problem here is that we blacks fell into a group identity that has absolutely no other
purpose than to collect the fruits of white guilt. And so the themes of protest--a sense of
grievance and victimization--evolved into a sensibility, an attitude toward the larger world that
enabled us always and easily to feel the grievance whether it was there or not. Protest became
the mask of identity, because it defined us in a way that kept whites "on the hook." Today the
angry rap singer and Jesse Jackson and the black-studies professor are all joined by an
unexamined devotion to white guilt.
To be black in my father's generation, when racism was rampant, was to be a man who was very
often victimized by racism. To be black in the age of white guilt is to be a victim who is very
rarely victimized by racism. Today in black life there is what might be called "identity grievance"-a certainty of racial grievance that is entirely disconnected from actual grievance. And the
fervor of this symbiosis with white guilt has all but killed off the idea of the individual as a source
of group strength in black life. All is group and unity, even as those minority groups that ask
much of their individuals thrive in America despite any discrimination they encounter.
I always thought that James Baldwin on some level knew that he had lost himself to protest. His
work grew narrower and narrower when age and experience should have broadened it. And,
significantly, he spent the better part of his last decades in France, where he died in 1987. Did
he again need France in those years to be himself, to be out from under the impossible demands
of a symbiotically defined black identity, to breathe on his own?
There is another final and terrible enemy of the black individual. I first saw it in that Great
Society program in which my salary was so sweetened by white guilt. The program itself quickly
slid into banana republic--style corruption, and I was happy to get away to graduate-student
poverty. But on the way out certain things became clear. The program was not so much a
program as it was an idea of the social "good," around which there was an intoxicating
enthusiasm. It was my first experience with the utter thrill of untested good intentions. On the
way out I realized that thrill had been the point. That feeling is what we sent back to
Washington, where it was received as an end in itself.
Now I know that white guilt is a moral imperative that can be satisfied by good intentions alone.
In my own lifetime, racial reform in America changed from a struggle for freedom to a struggle
for "the good." A new metaphysics of the social good replaced the principles of freedom.
Suddenly "diversity," "inclusion," "tolerance," "pluralism," and "multiculturalism" were all
conjure words that aligned you with a social good so compelling that you couldn't leave it to
mere freedom. In certain circumstances freedom could be the outright enemy of "the good." If
you want a "diverse" student body at your university, for example, the individualistic principles
of freedom might be a barrier. So usually "the good" has to be imposed from above out of a kind
of moral imperialism by a well-meaning white elite.
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In the sixties, black identity also shifted its focus from freedom to "the good" to better collect
the fruits of white guilt. Thus it was a symbiosis of both white and black need that pushed racial
reform into a totalitarian model where schemes of "the good" are imposed by coercion at the
expense of freedom. The Franco-Czech writer Milan Kundera says that every totalitarianism is
"also the dream of paradise." And when people seem to stand in its way, the rulers "build a little
gulag on the side of Eden." In this good-driven age of white guilt, with all its paradises of
diversity, a figurative gulag has replaced freedom's tradition of a respected and loyal opposition.
Conservatives are automatically relegated to this gulag because of their preference for freedom
over ideas of "the good."
But there is another "little gulag" for the black individual. He lives in a society that needs his race
for the good it wants to do more than it needs his individual self. His race makes him popular
with white institutions and unifies him with blacks. But he is unsupported everywhere as an
individual. Nothing in his society asks for or even allows his flowering as a full, free, and
responsible person. As is always the case when "the good" becomes ascendant over freedom,
and coercion itself becomes a good thing, the individual finds himself in a gulag.
Something happened at Harvard last fall that provides a rare window into all of this. Harvard's
president, Lawrence H. Summers, rebuked the famous black-studies professor Cornel West for
essentially being a lightweight on a campus of heavyweights. These were not his words, but
there is little doubt that this was his meaning. West himself has said that he felt "devalued" and
"disrespected" in the now famous meeting between the two.
The facts are all on Summers's side. West's achievements are simply not commensurate with his
position as a University Professor, the very highest rank a member of an already esteemed
faculty can ascend to--a rank normally reserved for Nobel-level accomplishment. West had
spent the previous year on leave making a rap CD and chairing Al Sharpton's presidential
exploration committee. Privately--that is, behind the mask of the protest identity--few serious
black academics saw West much differently than Summers did. Even publicly, where the mask is
mandatory, he was never more than "officially" defended.
But Harvard itself had created the monster. Harvard did not promote Cornel West to a
University Professorship because his academic work was seminal. Cornel West brought to
campus the special charisma of the black protest identity--not, of course, in its unadorned street
incarnation but dressed up in a three-piece suit and muted by an impenetrable academese that
in the end said almost nothing and scared no one. This was not someone akin to the young
Eldridge Cleaver, who had a real fire and could really write but who also might be rather difficult
in and around Harvard Square. With Cornel you could sit the black protest identity down to
dinner amidst the fine china and pretty girls from tony suburbs and everyone would be so
thrilled.
Here, in the University Professorship, white guilt and black protest perfectly consummated their
bargain. It was never Cornel West--the individual--that Harvard wanted; it was the defanged
protest identity that he carried, which redounded to the university as racial innocence itself.
How could anyone charge this university with racism when it promoted Cornel West to its upper
reaches? His marginal accomplishments only made the gesture more grand. West was not at
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Harvard to do important work; he was there precisely to be promoted over his head. In the bold
irrationality of the promotion was the daring display of racial innocence.
What Lawrence Summers did not understand, when he became Harvard's new president, was
that West was an important part of the institution's iconography of racial innocence. Or maybe
he did understand and wanted to challenge this way of doing things. In any case, he did the
unthinkable: He saw West as an individual. Thus, he did not confuse the charisma of the protest
identity with real achievement.
His rebuke of West caused an explosion, because it broke faith with the symbiotic enmeshment
of white guilt and black protest. West has now left Harvard for Princeton, where this
enmeshment prevails unthreatened by ham-fisted administrators who might inadvertently see
their black moral-authority hires as individuals. Summers himself--as if fresh from re-education
camp--has apologized to West and professed his support for affirmative action. The age of white
guilt, with its myriad corruptions and its almost racist blindness to minority individuality, may
someday go down like the age of racism went down--but only if people take the risk of standing
up to it rather than congratulating themselves for doing things that have involved no real risk
since 1965.
I know Cornel West to be a good man, whose grace and good manners even with people he
disagrees with have been instructive to me. As contemporaries, we have both had to find our
way in this age of white guilt. As educated blacks, we have both had to wrestle against the
relentless moral neediness of American institutions, though I'm sure he wouldn't see it that way.
I saw the way race inflated people like us back in those Great Society programs I mentioned, and
it was my good luck to enter them when the corruptions were so blatant that it was mere selfpreservation to walk away.
One of my assignments in that last program was to help design some of the country's very first
black-studies programs, and by 1970 I already knew that they would always lack the most
fundamental raison d'etre of any academic discipline: a research methodology of their own. This
meant that black studies could never be more than an assemblage of courses cobbled together
from "real" departments, and that it could never have more than a political mandate--a perfect
formula for academic disrespect. But, as I say, it was luck to learn this early, before white guilt
became infinitely more subtle and seductive.
In the age of racism there were more powerful black intellectuals, because nobody wanted
them for their race. Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, W.E.B. Du Bois, and many
others were fully developed, self-made individuals, no matter their various political and
ideological bents. Race was not a "talent" that falsely inflated them or won them high position.
Today no black intellectual in America, including this writer, is safe from this sort of inflation.
The white world is simply too hungry for the moral authority our skins carry. And this is true on
both the political left and right. Why did so many black churches have to be the backdrop for
Clinton speeches, and why should Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell have to hear Bush crow
about their high place among his advisers?
James Baldwin once wrote: "What Europe still gives an American is the sanction, if one can
accept it, to become oneself." If America now gives this sanction to most citizens, its institutions
still fiercely deny it to blacks. And this society will never sanction blacks in this way until it drops
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all the mechanisms by which it tries to appease white guilt. Guilt can be a very civilizing force,
but only when it is simply carried as a kind of knowledge. Efforts to appease or dispel it will only
engage the society in new patterns of dehumanization against the same people who inspired
guilt in the first place. This will always be true.
Restraint should be the watchword in racial matters. We should help people who need help.
There are, in fact, no races that need help; only individuals, citizens. Over time maybe nothing in
the society, not even white guilt, will reach out and play on my race, bind me to it for
opportunity. I won't ever find in America what Baldwin found in Europe, but someday maybe
others will.
Shelby Steele is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His last book
was A Dream Deferred (HarperCollins)
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From an Interview with Gloria Anzaldua
(1942-2004)
Anzaldua has become a commonly featured author in freshman anthologies, which usually
excerpt from her book, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. Born in the Rio Grande
Valley, she apparently knew a childhood saturated in the often conflicting standards of different
racial, ethnic, religious, and national communities. Her writings variously reject the restrictive
influence upon her life of Anglo culture, the Spanish component of Mexican culture, the English
language, “castellano” Spanish, the Tex-Mex dialect of Spanish, her female gender, heterosexual
expectations, middle-class morality, academic orthodoxy, and a host of other codes and customs.
Her published works (including much poetry) typically shift back and forth from English to
Spanish, and often drift through various Spanish dialects. One might well conclude that
Anzaldua, who since her recent death has become an icon of radical feminism and of the
multicultural, rejects the very notion of cultural conditioning at its roots. Yet her writing
contradictorily insists that the key to identity—hers and everyone else’s—lies in complete
liberation to use unmolested the idiom and the habits in which one was raised. If such
conditioning is not the very definition of culture, it is only because individuals develop unique
habits even within cultures. The question abides, therefore: is Anzaldua one of culture’s great
exponents or one of its most inveterate opponents? The enigma of multiculturalism crystallizes
in her work and her life.
What to look for: in the light of the brief introduction above, try to keep a tally of Anzaldua’s various
references (or allusions) to culture-related behavior. What do you think—is she criticizing the role of
culture as a conditioning force in people’s lives, on the balance, or is she celebrating it as the source of
personal identity? Do you think she coherently does either one?
They didn’t consider ethnic cultural studies as having the impact or weight needed to enter the
academy. And so in a lot of these classes I felt silenced, like I had no voice. Finally I quit the Ph.D.
program at UT and left Texas for California in 1977. When I moved to San Francisco, I participated in the Women’s Writers’ Union, where I got to know Susan Griffin, Karen Brodine, Nellie
Wong and Merle Woo, among others. Also I joined the Feminist Writers’ Guild, which was a little
bit less radical. This is where I met Cherríe Moraga, whom I asked a few months later to become
my co-editor for This Bridge Called My Back. Anyway, I found that this little community of
feminist writers in San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley, this Feminist Writers’ Guild, was very
much excluding women of color. Most of the white women I knew were part of that organization. I did meet Luisah Teish there, though. She is an AfroAmerican woman from Louisiana
who has all those books on spirituality and practices all that in her own life, so you can call her a
santeria. Every two weeks we would have our meetings and everybody would talk about the
white problems and their white experiences. When it was my turn to talk, it was almost like they
were putting words into my mouth. They interrupted me while I was still talking or, after I had
finished, they interpreted what I just said according to their thoughts and ideas. They thought
that all women were oppressed in the same way, and they tried to force me to accept their
image of me and my experiences. They were not willing to be open to my own presentation of
myself and to accept that I might be different from what they had thought of me so far.
Therefore one of the messages of This Bridge Called My Back is that gender is not the only
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oppression. There is race, class, religious orientation; there are generational and age kinds of
things, all the physical stuff et cetera. I mean, somehow these women were great. They were
white and a lot of them were dykes and very supportive. But they were also blacked out and
blinded out about our multiple oppressions. They didn’t understand what we were going
through. They wanted to speak for us because they had an idea of what feminism was, and they
wanted to apply their notion of feminism across all cultures. This Bridge Called My Back, therefore, was my sweeping back against that kind of “All of us are women so you are all included and
we were all equal.” Their idea was that we all were cultureless because we were feminists; we
didn’t have any other culture. But they never left their whiteness at home. Their whiteness
covered everything they said. However, they wanted me to give up my Chicananess and become
part of them; I was asked to leave my race at the door.
…
Well, when Chicanas read Borderlands, when it was read by little Chicanas in particular,
it somehow legitimated them. They saw that I was code-switching, which is what a lot of
Chicanas were doing in real life as well, and for the first time after reading that book they
seemed to realize, “Oh, my way of writing and speaking is okay” and, “Oh, she is writing about
La Virgen de Guadalupe, about la Llorona, about the corridos, the gringos, the abusive, et cetera.
So if she [Gloria Anzaldua] does it, why not me as well?” The book gave them permission to do
the same thing. So they started using code-switching and writing about all the issues they have
to deal with in daily life. To them, it was like somebody was saying: You are just as important as
a woman as anybody from another race. And the experiences that you have are worth being
told and written about.
…
My whole struggle is to change the disciplines, to change the genres, to change how
people look at a poem, at theory or at children’s books. So I have to struggle between how many
of these rules I can break and how I still can have readers read the book without getting
frustrated. These are the things that have to happen first. I need other people who deepen my
fears, like professors, critics, the students. They do have to somehow like and approve what I am
writing and accept it.
K.I.: The task, therefore, is to keep the traditional approaches in mind somehow but don’t stay
there, right?
G.A.: Yes, that’s it. It is the same kind of struggle mestizas have living at the borders, living in the
borderlands. How much do they assimilate to the white culture and how much do we resist and
risk becoming isolated in the culture and ghettoized? This issue applies to everything.
K.I.: So do you think intercultural understanding is possible and can be enhanced by writing?
G.A.: I do. I believe that both inter- and intracultural understanding can be enhanced.
“Intracultural” means within the Chicano culture and Mexican culture. “Intercultural” is about
how we are related with other cultures like the Black culture, the Native Amerkan cultures, the
white culture and the international cultures in general. I am operating on both perspectives as I
am trying to write for different audiences. On the one hand, I write for more of an international
audience that came across from one world to the other and that has border people. Actually,
more and more people today become border people because the pace of society has increased.
…
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I also want Chicano kids to hear stuff about la Llorona, about the border, et cetera, as
early as possible. I don’t want them to wait until they are eighteen or nineteen to get that
information. I think it is very important that they get to know their culture already as children.
Here in California I met a lot of young Chicanos and Chicanas who didn’t have a clue about their
own Chicano culture. They lost it all. However, later on, when they were already twenty, twentyfive or even thirty years old, they took classes in Chicano studies to learn more about their
ancestors, their history and culture. But I want the kids to already have access to this kind of
information. That is why I started writing children’s books.
…
The way that I originate my ideas is the following: First there has to be something that is
bothering me, something emotional so that I will be upset, angry or conflicted. Then I start
meditating on it, sometimes I do that while I am walking. Usually I come up with something
visual of what I am feeling. So then I have a visual that sometimes is like a bridge, sometimes like
a person with fifty legs, one in each world; sometimes la mana izquierda, the left-handed world;
the rebollino, et cetera, and I try to put that into words. So behind this feeling there is this
image, this visual, and I have to figure out what the articulation of this image is. That’s how I get
into the theory. I start theorizing about it. But it always comes from a feeling.
K.I. So first there is the feeling, then a vision or visual and then comes the writing?
G.A.: Sí. For example the feeling of not belonging to any culture at all, of being an exile in all the
different cultures. You feel like there are all these gaps, these cracks in the world. In that case I
would draw a crack in the world. Then I start thinking: “Okay, what does this say about my
gender, my race, the discipline of writing, the U.S. society in general and finally about the whole
world?” And I start seeing all these cracks, these things that don’t fit. People pass as though they
were average or normal; however, everybody is different. There is no such thing as normal or
average. And your culture says: “That is reality!” Women are this way, men are this way, white
people are this way. And you start seeing behind that reality. You see the cracks and realize that
there are other realities.
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Excerpt from Delectable Lie: A Liberal
Repudiation of Multiculturalism
Salim Mansur
Posted September 19, 2011 at http://actforcanada.ca/salim-mansur-delectable-lieexcerpt/
What to look for: Salim Mansur is a Muslim-Canadian scholar who has dared (for there are risks
involved—some of them physical) to take on both that nation’s aggressive multicultural programs and the
outspoken proponents of Islamic fundamentalism. This brief excerpt from his controversial new book
speaks on behalf of Western values. Do you find his advocacy culturally prejudiced, or does he imply that
the values he wishes to save should somehow, and for some reason, be lifted above the fray of clashing
cultures?
In March 2010, a rare and unusual debate took place in the Senate of the Canadian
Parliament. The subject of the debate was on a motion moved by the Conservative
Senator Doug Finley, the "Erosion of Freedom of Speech."
In his remarks, Finley urged his fellow Senators consider the extent to which free speech
in Canada was under siege from officially appointed censors in the human rights
commissions, in the media, in the universities, and those self-appointed who could
mobilize a mob to shut down speech they disapproved. He reminded his peers that
Canada inherited the tradition of free speech from Great Britain and France, and that it
"is as Canadian as maple syrup, hockey and the northern lights."
But then Finley said: "Yet, despite our 400-year tradition of free speech, the tyrannical
instinct to censor still exists. We saw it on a university campus last week, and we see it
every week in Canada's misleadingly named human rights commissions."
The reference to university was the University of Ottawa's cancellation of a speaking
event for Ann Coulter, a right-wing American political commentator and author, due to
fears that student demonstrations against her views might incite violence. But the odd
thing in this decision was even before Ms. Coulter would have spoken, she was
cautioned in a letter by François Houle, the university's vice-president, that promoting
"hatred against any identifiable group would not only be considered inappropriate, but
could in fact lead to criminal charges."
The incremental assault on free speech, through such mechanism as Section 13.1 of the
Canadian Human Rights Act, that forbids any speech which likely might cause offense to
people on the grounds of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, has had an effect
on public opinion in Canada.
Senator Finley's effort in defending free speech was an indicator of this effect. But there
were other indicators that public opinion in the West was increasingly uneasy since 9/11
147
with multiculturalism as an ideology and official policy undermining the core liberal value
of freedom based on individual rights and responsibilities.
Since 9/11 the Muslim population in the West has not shown forthrightness and
determination in repudiating Islamism as an ideology that increasingly makes a mockery
of Islam as a peaceful religion tolerant of other faith-traditions or in isolating the
Islamists.
In Europe, in particular, there is concern about what the growth of Muslim immigrants
means for the continent's culture and for liberal democracy. Muslims in Europe are now
estimated to number in around 38 million, or about 5% of the population. In contrast,
Muslims account for less than 1% of the total population of Canada and the United
States. These numbers will increase relatively quickly through immigration, especially
under the family re-unification policy, and a higher fertility rate within the Muslim
immigrant communities than among the native non-Muslim population.
It is the meaning of these numbers projected into the future that raises alarm, especially
among those Europeans who fear their culture is being undermined by the twin forces of
immigration and multiculturalism.
Multiculturalism has meant immigrants are not required to assimilate into the host
culture. In the years after 9/11, however, the public concern with erosion of free speech,
fear of home grown terrorism, levels of immigration from non-Western cultures, and
unemployment among newly arriving immigrants that strained the welfare benefits and
social security arrangements in liberal democracies required of politicians to respond.
But in liberal democracies elected politicians are generally followers, instead of makers
and leaders of public opinion. Caution is a habit bred in successful politicians, of not
being either too far ahead or too far behind the public on issues that might turn out to be
of importance during elections. Reading the public mood is something of an art, and
success in politics requires the art of gauging well the public mood and responding
accordingly.
The response that startled Europe came from Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel
addressing a youth meeting of her ruling party, the Christian Democratic Union in
October 2010.Merkel remarked, "At the start of the 60s we invited the guest-workers to
Germany. We kidded ourselves for a while that they wouldn't stay, that one day they'd
go home. That isn't what happened. And of course the tendency was to say: Let's be
'multikulti' and live next to each other and enjoy being together, (but) this concept has
failed, failed utterly."
Merkel's announcement on the failure of multiculturalism as an official policy was hugely
important. Germany is the largest and richest member of the European Union, and given
its history, Germans have been guarded and reluctant in speaking about their unease
with a policy that would brand them as bigots or worse.
But Merkel was not alone. A few months later in February 2011, Britain's Prime Minister
David Cameron, speaking at a security conference in Munich, joined Merkel in declaring
"multiculturalism has failed." He called for a stronger national identity and the need for
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"more active, muscular liberalism." Cameron's words were a useful reminder that
liberalism is a fighting creed, and freedom cannot be taken for granted.
In April 2011, France became the first European state to officially ban the "burka"–the
veil worn by some Muslim women covering the entire face–in public.
The French measure could be viewed as somewhat of an extreme response directed at
a very small number of Muslim women wearing the full veil in public, and infringing upon
their liberty to dress as they please. But the dress code for women in Muslim countries
under pressure from the fundamentalists, as in Saudi Arabia or Iran, had been
politicized, and it indicated the public segregation of men and women in an Islamic
society.
The importation of such custom by Muslim immigrants to the West and its practice,
however limited in numbers, also came to symbolize in the post-9/11 world a repudiation
of liberal and secular values that had brought about the gains of the feminist movement.
The French law against wearing "burka" indicated tolerance for those intolerant wilfully,
or by custom, of liberal values had worn thin.
Taken together the openly stated views of Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and
Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron, the decision of the French government to
legislate the banning of burka, and the acquittal by the Netherlands Court of Appeals of
Geert Wilders of all charges of inciting hatred and discrimination against Muslims as a
visible minority group, showed that despite nearly half-century of official multiculturalism
the political philosophy of liberalism as the keystone principle of the modern West was
not entirely eroded. At a minimum Britain, France and Germany together as the three
largest members of the European Union let it be known that containment, or pushing
back, of official multiculturalism needed to be publicly discussed.
Excerpt from Delectable Lie: A Liberal Repudiation of Multiculturalism by Salim Mansur
and published by Mantua Books (Canada). The passages printed with permission from
the publisher and author.
149
Reaction to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and
British Prime Minister David Cameron’s Declaration
That Multiculturalism Has Failed
What to look for: the series of short articles below, drawn from various Internet sources, tracks the
evolution over the past couple of years of Europe’s heated, sometimes violent response to
multiculturalism’s complexities. The actual speeches delivered by Merkel and Cameron are apparently
not published online due to the strong feelings that they originally stirred. How impartial are the reports
of their contents, do you think? How would you define the basic issues in this controversy, and what
more superficial issues do you think may be causing various factions in the debate to grow so excited?
Merkel Walks a Tightrope on German Immigration
By Tristana Moore / Berlin Thursday, Oct. 21, 2010
Read more:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2026645,00.html#ixzz1QPyYJ7G9
German Chancellor and head of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Angela Merkel smiles as
delegates at the congress of the youth wing of the CDU, Junge Union, in Potsdam, October 16,
2010.
Thomas Peter / Reuters
Chancellor Angela Merkel's pronouncement last weekend that attempts to build a
"multicultural" Germany had "failed, absolutely failed" was hardly the first such tirade against
immigrants. In August, Thilo Sarrazin, a former board member of Germany's central bank,
150
caused a stir by writing in his bestselling book, Germany Does Away With Itself, that Muslim
immigrants are "dumbing down" Germany and the rapid growth of the immigrant population
was contributing to the country's decline. But while Merkel's comments during an address to
the youth wing of her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) on October 16 came as an
unusually emotional outburst, she may nonetheless have had a political motive for weighing in
on the fraught topic of immigration. (See pictures of Germany's New Hitler Exhibit.)
The Chancellor's comments appear directed at Germany's 3 million Turkish immigrants,
who began to arrive as "guest workers" ("Gastarbeiter") to fill labor shortages during the 1960s
and '70s. And they were received with a standing ovation, clearly pleasing her party's hardline
conservatives, who have long argued that Muslim immigrants are poorly integrated. With her
conservative bloc trailing in the polls ahead of a key state election next March, commentators
seized on Merkel's speech as evidence of a rightward populist shift designed to tap into German
fears about the economy and immigration. (See "Is Spain's Tolerance for Gypsies a Model for
Europe?")
"This was a response to her party's disastrous approval ratings — Angela Merkel is
reaching out to disgruntled conservative supporters and to many Germans who harbor strong
prejudices about immigrants," says Jürgen Falter, professor of political science at the University
of Mainz. "Immigration used to be a sensitive topic and for decades it was suppressed in
Germany. The issue has suddenly exploded onto the public stage." And, Falter says, Merkel is
hoping that "anti-immigration rhetoric will be a vote-winner."
Sarrazin's book and Merkel's comments certainly resonate with many Germans. A report
published last week by the center-left Friedrich Ebert Foundation found that negative attitudes
towards foreigners living in Germany have surged. One in three survey respondents said
immigrants had come to Germany to exploit the country's generous welfare benefits, and
"should be sent home" when jobs are scarce. A similar number said the country was "overrun
with foreigners". One in ten respondents also wanted a new "Fuhrer" to rule Germany "with an
iron fist".
Merkel's statement appeared to echo controversial anti-immigrant remarks two weeks
ago by one of her coalition partners, Horst Seehofer, the conservative governor of the southern
state of Bavaria. Seehofer prompted a furious reaction from Germany's Turkish community
when he told the magazine Focus, "It's clear that immigrants from other cultural circles, like
Turkey or Arab countries, have more difficulties... we don't need any more migrants from other
cultural groups." Seehofer said Germany should first "deal with the people who already live
here" and "crack down hard on those who refuse to integrate" before opening the doors to
further immigration. Turkish community leaders demanded an apology. "These comments were
inflammatory and irresponsible," Hilmi Kaya Turan, the deputy head of Germany's Turkish
community, told TIME, adding that Chancellor Merkel and Horst Seehofer were "exploiting
popular fears about immigrants for political gain — the government's immigration bashing is
sending a signal to far-right parties and will only encourage extremism." (See "German Railway
Controversy Sends Angela Merkel Off Track.")
Opposition parties rushed to condemn Merkel's speech as a cynical political stunt. Horst
Seehofer "is pandering to resentments and public worries about foreign infiltration" and Merkel
"can't pluck up the courage to contradict him," said Sigmar Gabriel, the leader of the Social
Democrats. Renate Künast, the Green Party's parliamentary leader, accused Merkel of "looking
for an enemy" in order to "distract attention away from the problems in her party."
Still, even though Merkel tried to appease her conservative critics by urging immigrants
to learn German and comply with local laws, she also struck a conciliatory note, reminding her
audience of young conservatives that immigrants were welcome in Germany. (German
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President Christian Wulff had grabbed headlines by declaring in an October 3 speech that "Islam
is also part of Germany.") Merkel held up the 22 year-old German football star Mesut Özil, a
hero of last summer's World Cup campaign that had thrilled the nation and who was born to
immigrant Turkish parents, as an example of successful integration and urged Germans to step
up efforts to integrate immigrants. But she did add that immigration shouldn't be encouraged
"until we have done all we can to help our own people to become qualified and give them a
chance."
Merkel is caught on a political tightrope: While playing to fears over immigrants may
win her votes, the economic reality is that Germany faces an acute labor shortage. As Europe's
biggest economy gets back on its feet after last year's deep recession, analysts say a lack of
skilled workers could jeopardize the recovery that has seen unemployment figures fall, in
September, to 7.5%. According to the German Chambers of Commerce, the country needs
400,000 skilled workers, in particular IT specialists and engineers — and it's estimated that the
labor shortage is costing the German economy at least $20 billion each year. That has prompted
more liberal-minded ministers in Merkel's center-right government to call for new measures to
encourage immigration by skilled workers.
Economy minister Rainer Brüderle has argued that Germany should introduce a pointsbased system of immigration, like in Canada or Australia, which eases the terms of immigration
for those whose skills are most desired. But his view is not shared by Interior Minister Thomas
de Maizière, who responded that "the existing laws are flexible enough." The government,
clearly divided on the issue, is due to hold a summit on November 18 to try to thrash out an
agreement on ways to tackle the skilled labour shortage. And, with a key state election looming
in the conservative stronghold of Baden-Württemberg next March — which polls predict will see
Merkel's CDU party eclipsed by a coalition of the SPD and Greens — it's expected that Merkel's
party will sharpen its attacks on immigrants in the hope of bolstering its grip on power.
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,2002819,00.html
Read more:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2026645,00.html#ixzz1QPym2P4f
Angela Merkel declares death of German multiculturalism
Chancellor's remarks, which claimed multiculturalism had 'failed utterly', interpreted as a shift
rightwards from previous views


Kate Connolly in Berlin
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 17 October 2010 20.27 BST
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/17/angela-merkel-germany-multiculturalismfailures
Chancellor Angela Merkel has declared the death of multiculturalism in Germany, saying
that it had "failed utterly" , in what has been interpreted as a startling shift from her previous
views. The German leader said it had been an illusion to think that Germans and foreign workers
could "live happily side by side".
152
"We kidded ourselves for a while that they wouldn't stay, but that's not the reality," she
said at a conference of the youth wing of her Christian Democratic Union party at the weekend,
referring to the gastarbeiters, or guest workers, who arrived in Germany to fill a labour shortage
during the economic boom of the 1960s.
"Of course the tendency had been to say, 'let's adopt the multicultural concept and live
happily side by side, and be happy to be living with each other'. But this concept has failed, and
failed utterly," she said, without elaborating on the nature and causes of this failure.
Merkel's verdict marks a shift in her previously liberal line on immigration which had
always put her at odds with the more conservative wing of the party.
While she stressed in the same speech that immigrants were welcome in Germany and
that Islam was a part of the nation's modern-day culture, her remarks positioned her closer to
Horst Seehofer, the Bavarian state premier of the Christian Social Union, who last week called
for an end to immigration from Turkey and Arab countries.
They also align her with Thilo Sarrazin, the former Bundesbank member whose book on
how the failure of many of Germany's 16 million immigrants to integrate was contributing to
Germany's decline led to his dismissal.
Sharing the same podium as Merkel in Potsdam, Seehofer also said "multiculturalism is
dead" and that both the rightwing parties were committed to a "dominant German culture". If
Germany did not revise its immigration policies, he said, it was in danger of becoming "the
world's welfare office".
Seehofer insisted his statement was "an attempt to stop rightwing lunatics" but Jürgen
Trittin, for the Greens, called the comments "shabby" and in danger of "lending social
acceptability to views similar to those of rightwing extremists". There is a labour shortage in
Germany. The chamber of industry and commerce has said Germany is short of 400,000 skilled
workers and the gap costs €25bn a year, equivalent to 1% of growth annually.
While industrialists have called on the government to remove obstacles stopping more
skilled workers entering Germany, citing lengthy bureaucratic procedures as well as unrealistic
thresholds, others say that long-term unemployed German workers should be given more of a
chance first. Merkel insisted in her speech that immigrant workers should not be considered
"until we have done all we can to help our own people to become qualified and give them a
chance".
The issue has caused tension within Merkel's year-old coalition with the pro-business
Free Democrats.
Labour minister Ursula von der Leyen, a member of Merkel's party, has said it was an
illusion to believe people were queueing up to enter Germany.
"For several years more people have been leaving our country than entering it," she said
in an interview. "Wherever it is possible, we must lower the entry hurdles for those who bring
the country forward."
Merkel faces pressure to take a tougher line on immigration, particularly on so-called
"integrationsverweigerer" or those immigrants who show a lack of willingness to adapt to the
majority culture, by, for example, refusing to attend German language classes.
While trying to embrace both sides of the debate, including repeatedly calling on
Germans to accept that foreigners are a part of their country, Merkel cannot have ignored the
popular response with which Sarrazin's book was received, nor the repeated polls in which
Germans have indicated a growing intolerance towards immigrants which observers say is linked
to fears about economic stability, even though the economy is showing strong signs of recovery.
Last week a study by the Friedrich Ebert foundation found more than 30% of people
questioned agreed that Germany was "overrun by foreigners", while a similar number said they
153
believed that some immigrants had only come to Germany to take advantage of its social
welfare, and therefore "should be sent home when jobs are scarce".
What they said
"At the start of the 60s we invited the guest-workers to Germany. We kidded ourselves for a
while that they wouldn't stay, that one day they'd go home. That isn't what happened. And of
course the tendency was to say: let's be 'multikulti' and live next to each other and enjoy being
together, [but] this concept has failed, failed utterly."
Angela Merkel, German chancellor
"Germany should … get tougher on those who refuse to integrate before opening itself up to
further immigration."
Horst Seehofer, Bavarian state premier
"Integration is the achievement of one who has integrated … I don't have to recognise anyone
who lives from the state, rejects that state, refuses to ensure his children receive an education
and continues to produce little headscarfed girls."
"A large number of the Arabs and Turks living in this city (Berlin) has no productive function
other than selling fruit and vegetables".
"Turks are conquering Germany in the same way as Kosovars conquered Kosovo – with a high
birth rate."
Thilo Sarrazin, former Bundesbank board member
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http://www.spiegel.de/international/topic/integration_debate/
09/10/2010
Sarrazin's Truths Political Correctness Is Silencing an
Important Debate
A Commentary by Matthias Matussek
Thilo Sarrazin:
German central banker Thilo Sarrazin is being pilloried over his polemic chastising of Muslims,
but there are a few things his critics clearly fail to understand. You can't cast away what the
man embodies: The anger of a German people who are tired of being cursed at when they
offer to help foreigners to integrate.
Nothing is as it used to be. In this season of public outrage, the case of Thilo Sarrazin has grown
far bigger than Sarrazin. It's much bigger than the man or the Islam-critical book he wrote.
The Sarrazin case is also a Merkel case, a case for his party, the center-left Social Democrats, and
for the German political and media establishment. Sarrazin has become code for the outrage
over how the politically correct branch of Germany's consensus-based society have dispatched
their stewards to escort this unsettling heckler to the door. On their way, they seem to be trying
to teach him a lesson, as well: "We will beat tolerance into you."
Sarrazin isn't telegenic and he often gets tangled up in statistics. When it comes to styling, he's
at a loss -- he is unkempt when he appears on the myriad talkshows that keep our
entertainment society going. He slips on one banana peel of political correctness after another,
opening himself to attack with his statements about genetics. But his findings on the failed
integration of Turkish and Arab immigrants are beyond any doubt.
Sarrazin has been forced out of the Bundesbank. The SPD wants to kick him out of the party,
too. Invitations previously extended to Sarrazin are being withdrawn. The culture page editors at
155
the German weekly Die Zeit are crying foul and the editors at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
are damning Sarrazin for passages he didn't even write.
Technicians of Exclusion
But what all these technicians of exclusion fail to see is that you cannot cast away the very thing
that Sarrazin embodies: the anger of people who are sick and tired -- after putting a long and
arduous process of Enlightenment behind them -- of being confronted with pre-Enlightenment
elements that are returning to the center of our society. They are sick of being cursed or
laughed at when they offer assistance with integration. And they are tired about reading about
Islamist associations that have one degree of separation from terrorism, of honor killings, of
death threats against cartoonists and filmmakers. They are horrified that "you Christian" has
now become an insult on some school playgrounds. And they are angry that Western leaders
are now being forced to fight for a woman in an Islamic country because she has been accused
of adultery and is being threatened with stoning.
Strangely enough, a good number of our fellow Turkish citizens are more outraged by Sarrazin's
book than they are about those things.
Should those Turkish immigrants fortunate enough to have exemplary careers not start exerting
a bit of influence over their fellow immigrants and their neighborhoods, so that the Koran shows
its gentler, more charitable face? Isn't it time for them to stand up and show their backing for
plurality and freedom of expression?
That certainly wasn't the case recently when the Migration Board, an umbrella group for
immigrant organizations in Berlin, spoke out successfully against a reading by Sarrazin during the
International Literature Festival in the German capital. Bernd Scherer, who heads the House of
World Cultures, the venue of the festival, buckled under the pressure and cancelled the event.
Now the reading is to be held at another venue on Friday -- under police protection.
Protecting the Public from Poison and Temptation
But as a society, we seem content with the fact that our politicians, opportunistic as they have
become, are struggling under the same weight. And as far as the politically correct media is
concerned, it hardly functions any longer.
Until now, the media was dominated by two archetypes: There was the patronizing governess
style, which assumes the public is ignorant and, without being asked to do so, seeks to protect it
from poison and temptation. Or there is the energetic denouncing approach, which also
assumes the public is dim and focuses on revealing secrets: Mr. Teacher, I've noticed a brown
spot, you can't see it with the naked eye, but because I'm so smart I was able to spot it.
156
Klaus von Dohnanyi, who is to defend Sarrazin as the SPD seeks to expel him, told the
Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper how Germany was overshadowed by its Holocaust history and
how a culture had developed whereby anyone saying the words "gene" or "Jew" was
automatically considered suspect.
He is right to complain that we shy away from debates which "are commonplace in other
countries." Among those is the discussion that "specific ethnic groups" share specific
characteristics.
Simply Don't Get It
Debates about identity and cultural dominance are ubiquitous in an increasingly globalized
world -- in the United States just as in the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands or Denmark.
Such a debate doesn't exclude cosmopolitanism in the slightest. It merely represents an
insistence on maintaining traditions and values. Religion is one of them and it is not something
that people will let go of lightly.
These are the passages of Sarrazin's book that I find most interesting. Those which
melancholically reflect that Germans are not only demographically working towards their own
demise, but also that they are bidding farewell to their cultural and educational background.
Whoever calls that racist simply doesn't get it.
But ever since the Sarrazin case, it is clear that intimidation from the politically correct thought
police of the media and the threats they issue of casting people out of society no longer work.
By now the public has a highly developed instinct for fairness.
The support Sarrazin has received demonstrates this. The Germans are learning. Maybe, one
day, the country's newsrooms will catch up with where British colleagues have long been -- a
place where debates can be conducted without blinders or language controls.
157
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12371994
5 February 2011 Last updated at 13:55 ET
State multiculturalism has failed, says David Cameron
David Cameron said Britain had encouraged different cultures to live separate lives
David Cameron has criticised "state multiculturalism" in his first speech as prime minister on
radicalisation and the causes of terrorism.
At a security conference in Munich, he argued the UK needed a stronger national identity to
prevent people turning to all kinds of extremism.
He also signalled a tougher stance on groups promoting Islamist extremism.
The speech angered some Muslim groups, while others queried its timing amid an English
Defence League rally in the UK.
As Mr Cameron outlined his vision, he suggested there would be greater scrutiny of some
Muslim groups which get public money but do little to tackle extremism.
Ministers should refuse to share platforms or engage with such groups, which should be denied
access to public funds and barred from spreading their message in universities and prisons, he
argued.
"Frankly, we need a lot less of the passive tolerance of recent years and much more active,
muscular liberalism," the prime minister said.
Meanwhile, the Muslim Council of Britain's assistant secretary general, Dr Faisal Hanjra,
described Mr Cameron's speech as "disappointing".
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He told Radio 4's Today programme: "We were hoping that with a new government, with a new
coalition that there'd be a change in emphasis in terms of counter-terrorism and dealing with
the problem at hand.
"In terms of the approach to tackling terrorism though it doesn't seem to be particularly new.
"Again it just seems the Muslim community is very much in the spotlight, being treated as part
of the problem as opposed to part of the solution."
In the speech, Mr Cameron drew a clear distinction between Islam the religion and what he
described as "Islamist extremism" - a political ideology he said attracted people who feel
"rootless" within their own countries.
"We need to be clear: Islamist extremism and Islam are not the same thing," he said.
The government is currently reviewing its policy to prevent violent extremism, known as
Prevent, which is a key part of its wider counter-terrorism strategy.
Inayat Bunglawala from Muslims4Uk says Mr Cameron is "firing at the wrong target". A
genuinely liberal country "believes in certain values and actively promotes them", Mr Cameron
said.
"Freedom of speech. Freedom of worship. Democracy. The rule of law. Equal rights, regardless
of race, sex or sexuality.
"It says to its citizens: This is what defines us as a society. To belong here is to believe these
things."
He said under the "doctrine of state multiculturalism", different cultures have been encouraged
to live separate lives. 'I am a Londoner, too'.
"We have failed to provide a vision of society to which they feel they want to belong. We have
even tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run counter to our values."
Building a stronger sense of national and local identity holds "the key to achieving true
cohesion" by allowing people to say "I am a Muslim, I am a Hindu, I am a Christian, but I am a
Londoner... too", he said.
Security minister Baroness Neville-Jones said when Mr Cameron expressed his opposition to
extremism, he meant all forms, not just Islamist extremism.
159
"There's a widespread feeling in the country that we're less united behind values than we need
to be," she told Today. "There are things the government can do to give a lead and encourage
participation in society, including all minorities."
But the Islamic Society of Britain's Ajmal Masroor said the prime minister did not appreciate the
nature of the problem.
"I think he's confusing a couple of issues: national identity and multiculturalism along with
extremism are not connected. Extremism comes about as a result of several other factors," he
told BBC Radio 5 live.
Former home secretary David Blunkett said while it was right the government promoted
national identity, it had undermined its own policy by threatening to withdraw citizenship
lessons from schools.
He accused Education Secretary Michael Gove of threatening to remove the subject from the
national curriculum of secondary schools in England at a time "we've never needed it more".
"It's time the right hand knew what the far-right hand is doing," he said. "In fact, it's time that
the government were able to articulate one policy without immediately undermining it with
another."
Analysis
Laura Kuenssberg Chief political correspondent, BBC News channel
David Cameron strode firmly into a debate where many politicians tread timidly.
In his view, such caution is part of the problem. In frank language he made abundantly clear he
believes multiculturalism has failed. Any organisation that does not stand up to extremism will
be cut off from public funds, and he wants the country to develop a stronger sense of shared
identity.
It is the first time he has spoken so directly as prime minister, but there are echoes of what has
gone before. Tony Blair edged away from multiculturalism in the years after the 7/7 bombings in
London, and his ministers moved to stop funding any community organisation that did not
challenge extremism. And what of Gordon Brown's continual quest to strengthen "Britishness"?
160
Behind the scenes, ministers are reviewing the "prevent" strategy, the policies designed to try to
deal with extremism. But the review, which had been planned for publication this month, is
likely to be delayed. It is not clear yet how Mr Cameron will translate his strong words into
action.
Human rights
"Let's properly judge these organisations: Do they believe in universal human rights - including
for women and people of other faiths? Do they believe in equality of all before the law? Do they
believe in democracy and the right of people to elect their own government? Do they encourage
integration or separatism?
"These are the sorts of questions we need to ask. Fail these tests and the presumption should be
not to engage with organisations," he added.
The Labour MP for Luton South, Gavin Shuker, asked if it was wise for Mr Cameron to make the
speech on the same day the English Defence League staged a major protest in his constituency.
There was further criticism from Labour's Sadiq Khan whose comments made in a Daily Mirror
article sparked a row.
The shadow justice secretary was reported as saying Mr Cameron was "writing propaganda
material for the EDL".
Conservative Party chairman Baroness Warsi hit back, saying that "to smear the prime minister
as a right wing extremist is outrageous and irresponsible". She called on Labour leader Ed
Miliband to disown the remarks.