Lecture 4: When is a Story More than a Story? Social Commentary
I.
Introduction
Last time we took a very close look at the American Declaration of Independence.
In interpreting the text to locate the argument, we discovered that the DI has an
introduction setting up the LOGIC of the argument made. In setting up their beef
with King George, the Americans stated that one nation has the right to separate
from another when suffering ill treatment is no longer an option. Then the body
of the text presents their argument, point by point in logical succession. Each
point made is another tally, in American minds, of PROOF of the rightness of
American actions. In this section, the writers use appeal both to logic (logos) and
to the passion of the reader/listener (pathos) to generate support. Finally, to round
out their argument, the framers of the Declaration gave the SO WHAT?, the final
result of all the complaints—they formed their own country and called on the
support of God.
Today, we move away from the type of close reading of texts we've been doing to
start looking at how we use critical thinking to judge the past and the world
around us. Today we begin to think about the world around us in broader ways
than we've been doing. While we'll be talking about the Great Depression
through next week, we need to set up the discussion about it, and all the
commentary generated during that period by a detailed examination of social
commentary.
To begin this, we need to backtrack just a little and give us some solid historical
grounding.
II.
The Industrial Age
A. Massive Social Upheaval—the period from the late 18th century (1780s),
beginning in England, spreading to continental Europe and the US in the
1820s, was one of the greatest technological revolutions in the history of
mankind. Some historians argue that not since the 1st agricultural revolution
in prehistoric times when people learned to domesticate animals and to
harvest crops did a society face so much change. Well, what exactly, was this
change? This change is known as the industrial revolution. The Industrial
Revolution began slowly, and in fact, did not start with the massive factories
at all, but on the family farm. Previous to this, people supplemented their
household income (from bad harvests, etc.) with textile work, this was known
as the cottage industry. People chose how much they were going to focus on
textile manufacture based on the success of their crop for that season.
However, as I've said, this system gradually was replaced, and workers were
displaced.
B. Worker Displacement—the cottage industry, where families had control of
when and how much cloth they'd make, was replaced by the "putting-out"
system. This system is similar to the cottage industry, but now there were
restrictions placed on the worker/laborer. The putting-out system reorganized
labor through the introduction of piecework, with capitalists—people who had
the moulah—realizing they could make a lot of money if they separated all the
pieces/parts that lay in control of workers (let's say textiles, since this was
where the transition was made) and separated them into parts, with different
families responsible now only for ONE chore (dying, weaving, etc.). This
separation was known as piece work. But the problem with piecework was
that workers were still locked into pre-industrial work habits. They worked
when they wanted to, weren't tied to the clock. The capitalist might come by
to pick up his dyed yarn and find that it hadn't been done. Moreover, another
problem the capitalist faced in how to get these people to meet their goals was
that they could "steal" from him by keeping some yarn for themselves, or
weighing inaccurately to get some additional money. And as alluded to, when
the demands of the fields called them, the goods of the capitalist would just be
sitting there. Thus, something had to be done. Workers had to be moved to a
central location where an "eye" could be kept on them. Thus, the early
factories were not the big mechanized beasts with assembly lines that we see
today. It just put all the work under one roof forcing people to leave home
and COME TO WORK. Now they had a time schedule.
C. Cities changing—it didn't take long, however, for the cities to change as a
consequence of this worker displacement. Factories were not confined to
areas near water, so cities built up, people came in to work, and filth
increased. Cities became dirtier and the wealthier people moved out to the
countryside
D. Migration/Immigration—in this pattern of migration out to the country and
into the city (for differing reasons), life got worse for the workers. Now they
were tied into permanent labor in the factories at low pay, with no kinds of
worker benefits. If a hand or finger was severed as they worked, they were
dismissed with no pay and no benefits package. They were unfit for work.
Additionally, children became employed because of their small, nimble
fingers and their ease of being exploited. For example, one of the first
factories was a cotton mill for children owned by Richard Arkwright. He
literally took orphaned children and housed them to work in his factory.
According to Friedrich Engels, mid-19th-century commentator and pal to Karl
Marx: "Nobody troubles about the poor as they struggle helplessly in the
whirlpool of modern industrial life. The working man may be lucky enough
to find employment, if by his labour he can enrich some member of the
middle classes. But his wages are so low that they hardly keep body and soul
together…The only difference between the old-fashioned slavery and the new
is that while the former was openly acknowledged the latter is disguised. The
worker appears to be free, because he is not bought and sold outright. He is
sold piecemeal by day, the week, or the year…His real masters, the middleclass capitalists, can discard him at any moment and leave him to starve, if
they have no further use for his services and no further interest in his
survival."
III.
Social Welfare
A. What about the Poor? As we can see by this comment from the mid 19th
century (1800s), the poor were essentially tossed aside in this new
technological world. People who couldn't pay their bills were often sent to a
place called debtors' prison until they could pay their bills (?how can you do
that if you're not working?). the poor were the bane of the existence of this
new glorious age. They were tossed aside, placed in urban filth and forgotten.
B. Changes in Legislating Poor Laws
C. Women, Children and Exclusionary Laws—by the mid 19th century in
England and the late 19th century in the US, attempts to regulate factory life in
the form of state legislation and unionization began. This was a long-fought
battle and succeeded, but in many places, the quest for unionization is still
being fought.
IV.
The Modern World and Social Criticism
A. World War I—meanwhile, power politics, that is, politics at the level of the
nation, still moved on. By 1914, the major European alliances fought could
no longer maintain their delicate balance of power. Arguing over land and the
distribution of wealth (among other things), the two main European groups,
the Triple Alliance (Germany, Italy, Austria-Hungary) and the Triple Entente
(England, France, Russia) declared war on each other over an assassination
and political battle in an area known as Bosnia. WWI lasted until 1918. It
introduced high levels of technological warfare (trenches, tanks, mustard gas
and machine guns). Most of the war was characterized by stagnation. Not
until the US brought fresh troops in 1917 did the stalemate end in Germany's
loss.
B. Post-War Problems—lots of problems emerged from this. Some of these
problems are mentioned in our article on Sacco and Vanzetti. Other problems
included: the "lost" generation. Millions of men either killed or maimed—a
whole generation of political leaders, etc. gone. Even the men who did
survive felt out of touch with society. Economic problems. In Germany high
inflation marked the early twenties.
As a consequence, not everyone felt so happy about the post-war. There was
a definite feeling of doom and gloom.
V.
How to Deal with this techno-age?
A. Writing Fiction—TS Eliot's The WasteLand, the work of Franz Kafka, etc.
B. Withdrawing from Society—some people, especially war veterans, never fully
fit back into society. Thus they either withdrew completely or formed their
own societies in the forms of paramilitary groups. These would set the stage
for the darker thirties
C. Social Commentary—another way people dealt with this time was to fall back
on the age old tradition of social commentary. It was nothing new in the
1920s and 1930s, but it did become more accessible as literacy rates in the
20th century exceeded previous eras. People invoke social commentary for a
few reasons:
1. to caricature political and social traditions
2. to make people aware of the world
3. to push for change
4. types—music, photographs, posters, writings
VI.
Conclusion—the music you heard at the beginning of class, and the readings you
had for today and over the next week are forms of social commentary. They try
to make people aware of certain circumstances and in their enunciation they hope
to make change.
VII. Setting up for George Orwell