“Let's be clear: We do want to destroy their culture - DAILY KOS” |
| Let's be clear: We do want to destroy their culture - DAILY KOS Posted: 04 Aug 2010 06:32 PM PDT The Culture War John Boehner made the problem very clear,
as did Rush Limbaugh.
Limbaugh is of course referring to "Real America". He said this in the context of claiming that President Obama created the Bush Recession as payback for slavery. The Leisure Class and Its Discontents It is impossible to understand American politics, or any politics, without a grasp of what Thorstein Veblen meant to convey in The Theory of the Leisure Class. This is the book that introduced the phrase "conspicuous consumption", and traced it through dozens of cultures, from the Japanese samurai to the most extreme form of Northwest Native American potlatch. But Veblen gave us more than that. Here is his description of the present-day American Religious Right, actually written a century ago about the 19th-century Church of England.
And after those changes were accomplished (and Prohibition later abandoned) we moved on to Civil Rights, union organizing, and so on, and now to the resistance we see to abandoning racism, to gay marriage, to the refusal to allow the "lower orders" to be helped out of their difficult situations and the insistence that the problems of the poor are of their own making.
And this is precisely what the Religious Right claims that we are doing to them, in order to raise the wrath of their followers to the highest attainable pitch. Veblen continues
All of which are currently in progress, with even fiercer opposition in some cases.
This is in fact what has been happening over questions of race and bigotry for a century and a half since the Civil War, at a very, very gradually accelerating pace. I have mentioned in earlier Diaries polling data showing a falling off of racism by about 1% annually in the US in 1948, and recent data showing nearly 2% annual progress on gay marriage. This does not come about by changing people's opinions, and only part comes from changing behavior through new laws. Most of the advances are due to the deaths of old people who acquired these opinions and habits in childhood, and their replacement with children who did not acquire them, due to vast changes in the experiences of children over the decades. Invidious Distinctions At the base of racism in the US and all over the world lie all of the invidious distinctions that humans can make among themselves based on wealth, ancestry, employment, and especially sex. The separation of men's work and women's work is fundamental. But we must understand that disabled men and slaves are traditionally classed with the women, in that they can be assigned low-status drudgery, while to free men are normally reserved the occupations of war, religion, hunting, and the creative arts.
Although there are some peaceful human societies free from warfare, not dependent on hunting, and with little or no concept of personal property, the main line of development of human societies is that where the glory and honor of conquest and booty becomes the chief concern of men, with hunting usually not far behind. In many such societies, as in traditional England, hunting of various kinds is reserved to an aristocratic class, or to the monarch only. All other societies are conquered, and almost all assimilated. The practice of hunting in highly developed aristocracies becomes completely divorced from acquiring food, and becomes as elaborate and wasteful as can be managed. Fox-hunting in England and the American South, described by Oscar Wilde as "the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible", is its highest form, although horse-racing is even more wasteful. Looking back at the early development of such societies, Veblen observed
One way to see the pervasiveness of this distinction is to remember that women in the medieval period were expected to spend every free moment spinning wool or other fibers with distaff and spindle. This resulted in the later phrase "the distaff side" for women, long after the spinning wheel and then modern manufacturing made that continuous drudgery pass away. Conspicuous Consumption The key point in The Theory of the Leisure Class is that those who do not do manual labor must give every possible sign of that fact at all times, in manner, in dress, in daily activities, in every material possession, in the education of children, in religion, and everywhere else that anyone will notice. They may do something with their hands on occasion, such as a bit of gardening or furniture making, for example, as long as it is perfectly clear that they do it as a hobby, not for a living. This rule is observed by the wealthy, the military, the churches, the academy, the arts, and as many other occupations as can manage it. The proof of wealth is not only show, but most especially waste, for example, having servants who do nearly nothing.
Country houses of the rich must be vast mansions in vaster grounds. Townhouses cannot be as vast, but a proper aristocratic townhouse has two separate staircases, one in front for the owners and guests, and one in back exclusively for the servants. The rich must wear clothing of the best materials, meaning expensive and delicate, not suitable for work or rough wear. Exceptions are military uniforms and hunting gear. Though possibly tough and long-lasting, they are constructed so that it is clear that they cannot be used for manual labor. Kings of England once had gold plates and cups, and gold tableware, some of which can still be seen in the exhibit spaces of the Tower of London. The next class down used solid silver, then silver plate, then baser metals. The point is to make it as clear as possible that one is wealthier and does less manual labor than others around you. This imperative grows even stronger as one moves down the scale. When others are wealthier than you, you have to find someone in a lower position to impress, and then insist on all of the trappings and formalities of your higher status. Gore Vidal summed this imperative up as well as anyone.
Racism and Anti-Feminism I will only bring up a few of Veblen's observations on the position of women. The recorded history of trophy wife as slave goes back to Homer's Iliad, which opens with Achilles sulking in his tent because that bully Agamemnon took away his toy—er, that is, his beautiful captive slave Briseis—Wait, yes, I do mean his sex toy. Over centuries, even millenia, the position of first wife of the wealthy and powerful advanced so that, while still property, she was of such high status that she could not be expected to do household labor, and then that she had to be dressed and decorated to be as beautiful as possible, and to demonstrate that she was as important as possible. This is also where the feminine mystique comes in and becomes ever more exaggerated. The Southern version is of course the Purity of Southern Womanhood, particularly vehement, often violent rejection of "miscegenation", that is illegitimate intermarriage or other sexual relations between White women and non-White men. White masters fooling around with slave women were exempt from these strictures, in accordance with the usual double standard. The South's Peculiar Institutions In this archaic usage, "peculiar" does not mean strange, but unique to a particular society or person. But it is easy to see how the transformation occurred from a peculiarity as a unique trait to one that is bizarre. The South's original Peculiar Institution was slavery, including the "Curse of Ham" theology of the Southern Baptist Church. They were followed by Jim Crow, Massive Resistance, Dog Whistle speech, the Republican Southern Strategy, and now Tea Partyism and the Party of No. Not that any of them were actually unique to the South originally, but that is where they have most flourished—the states of the former Conferacy, other former slave states, and the more extended Bible Belt and Book of Mormon belt. The Mormon church, officially the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, has a different history of racism than the Southern Baptists. Although not part of Joseph Smith's teaching, it became official doctrine that Blacks could join the Church but could go only so far up the ladder within it. In modern times, a new revelation has allowed them full membership. Nevertheless, old attitudes persist, just as polygamy persists here and there. There is no difficulty in seeing Conspicuous Consumption at work in the South, where slaves did the work and slaveowners enjoyed the profits and the leisure. The slaveowners proclaimed themselves the Southern Aristocracy, and went to great lengths to build up a culture and a practice to reinforce that idea at every possible opportunity. Other Southern Whites also took every opportunity to assert and to demonstrate their more fortunate state than Black slaves, and to assert further the religious, moral, and intellectual superiority that they were encouraged to claim over the unfortunates. In the same way, no opportunity was lost to degrade the life of slaves further. After the Civil War, without slavery as the basis of social standing and moral superiority, the White elite had to work harder at it, hardening attitudes toward sharecroppers even further, and bringing out the Klan and other such organizations to intimidate Blacks as often as was judged necessary, until the vast edifice of Jim Crow could be set up to institutionalize Black inferiority, White superiority, and the even greater superiority of wealthy Whites. Again after the Civil Rights Acts and Voting Rights Acts, the South had to redouble its efforts to maintain this culture and way of life of invidious distinction and oppression. The final act began with the election of Barack Obama. Unlike the Senate, with its arcane and archaic traditions requiring 60 votes to clear legislative roadblocks, the Presidency requires only a majority in the Electoral College, so it should be no surprise that it came first. Now the racists have had to multiply their efforts again in order to diminish and marginalize the President, lest he actually bring us to the post-racial Promised Land where they don't matter. I cannot describe for you all of Veblen's themes that relate to the Ante-Bellum slave South, the Jim Crow South, and the modern South, or to the development of pro-slavery Southern Baptist teachings, in essentially the same manner as the pro-Apartheid Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa. If you follow the news, and read the book, many more will jump out at you. One that Veblen did not mention, because it had not yet happened in his time, is the growth of Young Earth Creationism in the South during the Civil Rights period. The Baptists had been ferociously anti-Darwin all along, but had not felt the need to deny much of the rest of science (large parts of physics and astronomy by which we can date events, and almost all of post-Darwin biology) until then. It became clear not only that Evolution meant that we are all descended from presumably Black Africans, but that the Damyankee Liberal Federal Tyranny was hellbent on making African-Americans equal in status with Whites. Creationism also serves as a demarcation between Southern Evangelical churches and Northern and more liberal national churches, and a point on which members can claim superiority over them as well. The South today What do we see in the South, and in other areas where the Religious Right and the Tea Parties are strong?
The basic premise should be obvious. Slaves did the work, and masters did not. Slaves are unworthy, and masters are worthy, having acquired the labor of the slaves, and the material possessions created by their labor, by fraud and force. Masters could do what they liked with slave girls, and neither the slaves nor the master's wife could say, "Boo". This, the masters tell themselves, is the Will of God. It is vital, therefore, that these relationships be maintained, because they are the foundation of a just society and of True Religion. In order to maintain these cultural fictions, it became necessary to invent pseudo-scientific and pseudo-religious theories to justify the superiority of rich White men over all, and of all Whites over Blacks. These were integrated into the teachings of Southern Baptist churches, becoming in essence Articles of Faith. As Northern opposition to slavery grew, this teaching expanded to include the moral superiority of Southerners and the Southern way of life, as we continue to hear today, but with the pretense that the racism has been taken out of it. Each of the cultural traits listed above can be traced directly to these facts. The insistence on the Purity of Southern Womanhood, for example, is due in large part to guilty husbands, and at the same time became a stick to beat or lynch Black men. It is widely believed, also, that it was a stick to beat white women with, to make sure that they could not prefer younger, stronger Black men to their older White husbands, or if they ever did, they couldn't act on it. Salvation by faith, not works, is of a piece with Veblen's theory, since the common notion of works eventually leads to doing work, and to doing it on behalf of low-status people. (Churches that emphasize works tend to make prayer and other observances the most important works, and also deny much aid to the poor and needy. Possibly enough to maintain them in poverty and want, but certainly not enough to get them out of it, with rare exceptions.) It should be clear that the rest of the list also consists of reasons for believing oneself and one's class superior to all others, without having to do any unworthy sorts of work to get there. Socially superior, morally superior, intellectually superior, in every way the pinnacle of God's Creation. In addition to the masters establishing their own positions, they let free Whites who were not masters share just a bit of their status. These people want to think themselves better than slaves, and turn their full ferocity on those of lower status than they. Similarly after Abolition, and before complete Jim Crow, such men could be relied on to exercise the ferocity needed to keep freed slaves "in their place". Well, the remnants of the Southern Aristocracy can't set the Klan on Blacks any more, but they can still turn a significant part of the legal power of the state against them, even after Blacks and other despised minorities got their basic civil rights and voting rights. You can't have race covenants on real estate, but you can still zone out all poor people. You can't have poll taxes and literacy tests, but you can still have onerous identification requirements, confusing procedures, incorrect information, incompetently-made voting machines, and illegal voter purges with impunity. Keeping property tax as the basis for school funding guarantees inequality. And so on. Except that the Damnyankee tyrants keep coming back with more restrictions, and our children don't mind their parents, much less honor and respect them properly. The problem for these self-proclaimed Aristocrats is that nothing they can do can keep up the numbers of their allies high enough to win state and Senate elections for more than a few more years, even in darkest Mississippi and Alabama. A projection based on the results of polls over many years shows that the Senate should tip in the next decade, and even darkest Mississippi and Alabama will tip in the 2020s. They will still win the occasional school board election, where they can still do much mischief, but even that will pass away in time. Then what? Well, Blacks and Latinos and feminist women and LGBTs will make up a majority that won't care about all that is Good, True, and ordained by God, and will fail to give the former master class the respect that it is due. These people will feel that their lives have been destroyed. They will still, for a time, have the money they extorted from others, and such positions as they have achieved. But they will fall ingloriously to age, death, or younger challengers. They will attempt to console themselves with the words of Edmund Burke, Father of Conservatism.
But in the end they will be inconsolable. Five Filters featured article: "Peace Envoy" Blair Gets an Easy Ride in the Independent. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| You are subscribed to email updates from fictions - Bing News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar