For review of the OG's:
There are four main parts to this material in the following order.
Traditionalism against which Romanticism revolted:
1. Puritanism 2. Work Ethic 3. Gender traditionalism
Major points are in gray/black boxes
The Romantic revolt comes under 3 headings:
Authenticity Part One: INTUITION: Discover one's true self
Major points are in green boxes
Authenticity Part Two: EXPRESSIVISM: Express your true self
Major Points are in red boxes
Authenticity Part 3: INTEGRITY Have the integrity to maintain your
true self
Major points are in blue boxes:
The traditional culture
1. Puritanism
2. Protestant work ethic
3. Natural gender roles
PURITANISM
Jonathan Edwards's fearsome "Sinners in the
Hands of an Angry God". . . defined the role of
the individual:
1. to subordinate itself to the doctrine of the
community, to conform to the values of the
charter.”
2 to live for the future: salvation not present
welfare
3. To accept the authority of others as one’s own
truth
The work ethic: the self-made
man
1. Work hard; do not waste time
2. Aim for worldly success:wealth
3. Delay gratification
4. Be practical.
5. Take responsibility for oneself: “rugged
individualism”
Ben Franklin popularized and epitomized the legend of the
Self-Made Man, and its corollary idea that America was the
Land of Opportunity, where anyone who worked hard and
used his (and sometimes her) head could get ahead in the
world. Any boy could grow up to be President. Anyone could
make the climb from Rags to Riches. Characteristically this
climb was done alone, one stood on one's own two feet, and
lifted oneself by the bootstraps. One's success (or failure)
depended on oneself and oneself only. This typical American
individualism is due largely to Franklin as well. More than
any other single myth this idea that what America was about
was the prospect of individual prosperity and wealth has
governed our idea about who we are. If anything this
preoccupation with wealth has intensified in the 200 years
since Ben Franklin.
The maxims of Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack
…celebrated the virtues of hard work, sobriety, moderation, thrift
and self-improvement.
It was a production ethic. The great virtues it taught
were industry, foresight, thrift and personal
initiative. The workman should be industrious in order
to produce more for his employer; he
should look ahead to the future; he should save money
in order to become a capitalist himself;
Then he should exercise personal initiative and found
new factories where other workmen would
toil industriously, and save, and become capitalists
in their turn.
In a famous lecture of the late 19c called "the Gospel of Wealth"
Baptist minister Russell Crowell said
Never in the history of the world did a poor man without capital have such
an opportunity to get rich quickly and honestly as he has now. I say that
you ought to get rich and it is your duty to get rich. How many of my
pious brethren say to me, "Do you, a Christian minister, spend your
time going up and down the country advising young people to get rich,
to get money?”"Yes, of course I do." They say ”Isn't that awful!
Why don't you preach the gospel instead of preaching
about man's making money?" ”
Because to make money honestly is to preach the gospel."
De Tocqueville reported at about this time:
The American is devoured by the longing to make his
fortune; it is the unique passion of his life; he has. . . no
inveterate habits, no spirit of routine; he is the daily
witness of the swiftest changes of fortune, and is less
afraid than any other inhabitant of the globe to risk
what he has gained in the hope of a better future, for
he knows that he can without trouble create new
resources again...Everybody here wants to grow rich
and rise in the world, and there is no one but believes in
his power to succeed in that.
Democracy in America 2 vols 1835, 1840
Toward the end of the 19th century the name
Horatio Alger became synonymous with the idea of
“Rags-to-Riches”: anyone no matter how poor could rise
to wealth and success in America.
(1868)
Frances Trollope reported in the early 19c on
Some of the results of the combination of the
Puritan ethic and Franklin’s maxims, which
Included “a penny saved is a penny earned.”
I never saw a population so totally divested of
gayety. They have no fetes, no fairs, no
merrimaking, no music in the streets...If they
see a comedy or a farce, they may laugh at it,
but they can do very well without it; and the
consciousness of the number of cents that must
be paid to enter a theater, I am very sure turns
more steps from its door than any religious
feeling.
Edward Said says of his Palestinian father living in Cairo:
My father was ruled by the practice of self-making...
he came to represent...rationalistic discipline and
repressed emotions, and all this had impinged on me
my whole life...In me remains his relentless insistence
on doing something useful, getting things done, never
giving up, more or less all the time. I have no concept
of leisure or relaxation, and more particularly, no sense
of cumulative achievement.
We are being told that the people of our country have achieved
unparalleled equality. Listen to some of the voices. Some
months ago, a national periodical proclaimed the fact that the
United States had recently achieved the "most truly classless
society in history." A few weeks later, a publisher hailed the
disappearance of the class system in America as "the biggest
news of our era." Still later, the director of a market-research
organization announced his discovery that America was
becoming "one vast middle class." Meanwhile, a corporation
in paid advertisements was assuring us that "there are more
opportunities in this country than ever before." Whatever else
we are, we certainly are the world's most self- proclaimed
equalitarian people. The rank-and-file citizens of the nation
have generally accepted this view of progress toward equality
because it fits with what we would like to believe about
ourselves. It coincides with the American Creed and the
American Dream, and is deeply imbedded in our folklore.
Vance Packard, The Status Seekers, 1959
Rugged individualism:
The belief that all individuals, or nearly all individuals, can
succeed on their own and that government help for people
should be minimal.
--The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. 2002
Gender traditionalism
1. Women as lesser men
2. Difference
3. Separate spheres
“pre-industrial society set definite standards of gender
. . . There was no sense of evolution in gender relationships.
They seemed fixed by God and by history. . . Most people
Believed that men and women had unalterable God-given roles.
Model 1: Puritanism
The relation of women to men was frequently explained on the
Model of the Great Chain of Being, with woman appearing as
A sort of inferior man, with similar but lesser abilities and
Qualities. Women were also seen as innately evil, on the model
Of Eve: tempting men into sin by their sexuality.
Model 2: Difference
Toward the end of the 18th century, understandings of gender
Shifted, sharply, to stress the difference between men and
Women. . . . Because of woman’s God-given “innate sexual
Essence,” she had a “uniquely feminine” nature
By the end of the 19th century this had become
Model 3: separate spheres
Men and women each had their own natural sphere where
they were properly dominant. Men’s sphere was the public
World of work and politics. Women’s sphere was the private
Sphere of the home and family.
Women (and men) who tried to rebel against these “natural”
roles were condemned as “unnatural,”not “true women” and
so on.
Traditional Wisdom
1. Live for the future (sacred or secular); delay
gratification
2. Subordinate oneself to one’s community
3. Women are different than men and should
stay in their proper place
4. Accept the authority of others as one’s own truth
5. Aim for worldly success:wealth
6. Work hard; do not waste time: “nose to the
grindstone
6. Be practical, not a dreamer: Rationalistic discipline
7. Repress emotions: they are not useful
8. Take responsibility for oneself: “rugged individualism”