Truth in Comedy

I found out the other day that Jon Stewart, the host of the Daily Show on Comedy Central, is holding a rally to "restore sanity" in American discussion.  Also, his counterpart, Stephen Colbert, is holding his own rally at the same time with the goal of preserving fear.  Now I recognize that both of these guys are known to be quite the goofballs, but I think that just because something is funny doesn't mean that it doesn't have a message, even a very serious message.  The kind of sensationalized politics that finds its way into the media doesn't reflect the actual feelings of American people as a whole and makes serious discussion about politics impossible.  The voice of moderation seems to be disappearing from our political sphere, but this is the only voice that can successfully accomplish compromise.  So I endorse this event as an important realization for America.  Also, it will probably be entertaining.

Jon Stewart's Announcement

My American Landscape

After reading Stilgoe's article, particularly the section about how keepsakes take on new modern functions, I am reminded of the neighborhood I left behind in Chicago and how the keepsakes I know very well have fared.  Much of my neighborhood, Norwood Park, was once used as orchards.  While the trees are all gone, some vestiges remain.  An old farmhouse from 1833 now serves as a museum.  The houses near mine all have huge yards compared to most in the city, because the land was divided into plots originally intended for farming rather than living.  This connects straight to Stilgoe's piece about how suburban lots seek to recreate farms, since in my neighborhood's case, actual functional farms were converted to the sort of miniature farms he describes.  The local railroad station now sells coffee and sandwiches rather than train tickets.  An old hotel is now a retirement home (coincidentally, a Norwegian retirement home).  The landscape pieces of the past evolve to fit the needs of the present, or they disappear.

Anne Hutchinson

Anne Hutchinson's trial seems to me to be a classic case of a powerful religious figure working to solidify his own power in the face of a challenger.  Winthrop wasn't quite a papal figure in Massachusetts, but he did wield a lot of power and influence over the people through religion.  He and the other leaders of the colony had enough influence to be gatekeepers between the people and God.  As I mentioned in my last post, Winthrop likened himself to one of the early followers of Christ.  In this way it was easier for him to align his actions with God's will.  Hutchinson's dissent, while not particularly radical in and of itself, posed a serious problem for Winthrop.  In time when almost everything a person knew came from the church, Hutchinson was a source of new ideas that Winthrop couldn't touch.  Here we come back to one of the central themes of the Puritans, their divergent ideas of what they wanted.  Hutchinson was going one way, and Winthrop couldn't bring her back into the fold so she had to go.  Winthrop solidified his authority for the time being, but the Hutchinson case foreshadowed the ultimate dispersion of the Puritan dream.

Up in the Clouds

As I read our three Pilgrim-era pieces of literature, I am continually thinking to myself, "Who does this author think he is?"  Each piece is written in a such a sacrosanct tone, that it feels as if the author is trying to imitate the Bible in his writing.  Perhaps I, as a 21st century reader, am just used to a more down to Earth style, but I wonder if, for example, William Bradford had hoped that Of Plymouth Plantation might one day be read in the same light as the book of Acts.  Another thing to note is the different ideas Bradford and Wintrop hold regarding the duties of the individual to the rest of the community.  Bradford tells us, "the taking away of property and bringing in community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God," (133).  He goes on in the context to talk about the desire of the men to work only for their own families.  However, Winthrop's model says, "If the time and occasion be ordinary he is to give out of his abundance."  This argument persists to this day; can it be traced back to these two works?

Last Sunday I saw the French film Jean de Florette.  While clearly not a film with a direct connection to America, it did raise another question about freedom to me.  Jean, the protagonist of the film, tries to establish himself as a farmer in the Provençal countryside after living most of his life as a tax official in a French city.  However, the residents of the nearby village are not exactly welcoming to this newcomer.  I think this is a good analogy to our good friends the Puritans.  Both the villagers from the movie and the Puritans differ from today's view of freedom in one very significant difference.  They put the group's definition of freedom ahead of the individual's freedom.  Unfortunately for the Puritans, the individuals in their society eventually diverged from the group, until that idea no longer resembled what it once was.

Well That's Just Mean

Zinn's history of America was certainly not what I expected to find in such a book.  While I was aware of many atrocities committed against the natives by European settlers, I was not expecting the massacre to be so expansive or so purposeful.  The passage from Powhatan (Zinn 13) struck me the most out of the book.  The chief completely resigns from the fighting and the conflict.  He doesn't seem to harbor any hidden grudges; he wants to stop the death of his people.  The fact that he failed to bring about any sort of meaningful peace suggests that some of the violence resulted from a real hatred between the two peoples, a hatred that is often covered up as a necessary sacrifice for the sake of human progress in the textbooks.  I have never really thought that much about how European settlement affected the natives, but after reading the first chapter of Zinn, I really feel like we've lost a culture that could have taught us a lot about how to live.
While the Cullen reading didn't have quite as profound of an effect on me, it was interesting to see how some Puritan values still persist today.

Poetry and Such

These poems all raised some questions for me about both what the poets were trying to convey and about America itself.  Starting with the first poem on the list by Barbara Ras, I wondered how much of her vision is accurate.  I'm going to point out that I am from Chicago, and I don't have the strongest concept of what rural life is like these days.  However, I think what Ras was trying to point out is that many of the things in Country music are things that we want to believe about America, but aren't necessarily true.  She talks about how the package store is next to the chicken plant.  Well, nowadays, the package store probably lost its business to Wal-Mart, and the chicken plant couldn't keep up with foreign production.  She points out that the other aspects of life (e.g. smoking) are often erroneously depicted the way we would like them to be.

I thought the poem History of America was harsh, but not entirely untrue or overstated.  It is essentially an environmentalist critique of Manifest Destiny.  One particularly interesting line is "The caring was a necessary myth."  These words recall the PR efforts of both private and public institutions in this country to convince the public that they are carrying out their goals with respect to nature.  Of course, the most recent example being BP and its extensive ad campaigns in the aftermath of the oil spill.

Haugen's piece about the relatives who visit America and come back intrigued me.  His first comments about how they changed seem fairly superficial.  However the comment about seeing foreign things really confused me.  What sort of things would they consider "foreign"?  What sort of changes did they undergo?  Haugen's tone suggests that his relatives and acquaintances were changed for the worst, but experiencing a new culture often opens one up to new ideas and possibilities.

Learning to Love America seemed to be the poet's attempt to establish herself as an American.  I do not know what she is referring to when she talks about a "pure product", but the rest of the poem was mostly straightforward.  Through her son especially, she can root herself in America, although some of her lines (e.g. "because he answers I don't know") suggest that there is still some uncertainty in this identity.
The poem about sailing didn't seem to say a whole lot about America, but it was interesting to consider two kids in another country dreaming about coming to a place I've lived my whole life.  It was a fitting reminder that we shouldn't take our country for granted.

The American Dream

The American Dream is one of the great cliches of our nation.  It is one of those sacred ideals (like freedom) that it is impossible to deny, yet extremely easy to morph and redefine.  I was surprised to learn that the actual phrase might only be as old as the 1930's, but regardless the concept has existed for much longer than that.  As Cullen pointed out, one very strange aspect of the American Dream is how it is so easily embraced by people who should be most disillusioned with it.  The idea that "This is America.  You can get anything if you work hard enough or get lucky enough," can actually prevent people from attaining their goals.  The American Dream is intended as an energy that can motivate people to reach their goals, but it can become a slogan for supporting the status quo.  In this sense it is an essentially ambiguous notion, used to help and to harm, to unite and to divide, and to change and to remain.  The only real certain thing about the American Dream is that we don't know much about someone who says, "I support the American Dream."