Quotation OF The Day: Reading History Edition

From this Adam Gopnik piece in the New Yorker:

The real sin that the absence of a historical sense encourages is presentism, in the sense of exaggerating our present problems out of all proportion to those that have previously existed. It lies in believing that things are much worse than they have ever been—and, thus, than they really are—or are uniquely threatening rather than familiarly difficult. Every episode becomes an epidemic, every image is turned into a permanent injury, and each crisis is a historical crisis in need of urgent aggressive handling—even if all experience shows that aggressive handling of such situations has in the past, quite often made things worse. 

As a side note, I'd guess that not reading history produces a similar misguided optimism: the present successes have never been equaled nor can they ever be surpassed.

A Minor Musing About Flags And Language

I realize that I'm late to this issue. I tried to avoid it because it has made me angry and angry blogging doesn't work well. I try to follow the same rules with angry blogging that I do with angry email: wait 24 hours before hitting the publish button. So I waited on this flag story, but the language use and the fact that the VA director   distorts history still angers me.

Some omissions create a lies; some may create unintentional truth. Take for example Steve DiStasio. The Rapid City Journal reports:

Steve DiStasio, director of the VA Black Hills Health System, said in a statement released Tuesday afternoon that the [Confederate States of America] flags were being returned to the historic "Freedom Shrine" in the rotunda "as "a reflection of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for America."

One assumes DiStasio is using "America" to refer to the United States of America but the Confederate States of America could be considered "America" as well.

That nation, however, sought to establish a very different America. The Confederate States of America seceded from the United States, set up their own government, and sent an army to invade Pennsylvania and other United States territory.

South Carolina, the first state to secede, did so because other states had the temerity to declare "as sinful the institution of slavery." Further, those same states elected  a "man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery." (It should be noted that this same man asked the the nation be re-united with "malice toward none and charity toward all.") Further, this man was going to urge "that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States." A close reading of South Carolina's secession declaration indicates that the states rights arguments were inextricably linked with slavery.

Putting flags from a nation established to preserve slavery in a "Freedom Shrine" is repugnant as is DiStasio's assertion that flags are part of "our" nation's history:

"Out of respect for all of our nation's veterans, from every battle in history, we will maintain the historic Freedom Shrine in its entirety." 

The Confederate soldiers did not fight for "our nation" they fought to establish a different nation.

If the DiStasio wants to display the Confederate flags, he needs to set up a different display: Foreign Flags Flown over United States Soil. The display can include Great Britain, France, Spain, Russia, Mexico, The Kingdom of Hawaii, and The Republic of Texas. I'm sure I'm forgetting a few, and Native American banners should be recognized as well. In fact, they deserve more recognition than the Confederacy.

Quotation Of The Day: The Boston Bombings And How Quickly We Forget Edition

From Steve Benen:

Rachel [Maddow] spent some time last night detailing the series of bombings we've seen on U.S. soil over the last 20 years, including the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, the Unabomber in 1994, the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, the pipe bombs at the Olympics in Atlanta in 1996, the bomb at an Alabama abortion clinic in 1998, the arson attack at a Syracuse temple in 2000, the 18 pipe bombs planted in mailboxes in five states in 2002, the 2008 bomb planted in front of a military recruiting center in Times Square, the bomb at a San Diego courthouse also in 2008, the fire bombs targeting researchers in 2008 at UC Santa Cruz, and in 2011, there was an attempted bombing of an MLK parade in Spokane.

Quotation Of The Day: Political Labels And Historical Analogies Edition

From Scott Galupo in this post at The American Conservative:

President Obama is not a closet socialist or cunningly patient radical. What he is—or what he fancies himself—is a neo-Whig. The Henry Clay of the 21st century. He never tires of pointing out that the federal government in the 19th century midwifed the transcontinental railroad and land-grant colleges. In the 20th century, it developed a proto-internet and the global positioning system. In the 21st century? Obama dreams of a green-energy revolution. High-speed rail. A smart electrical grid. And more.

Does this mean Obama may actually have been born in the United States and he's not a Kenyan anti-colonialist? More importantly, does this comparison mean that Boehner is Calhoun? If that's the case, who the heck is the corresponding Webster?

A Witness To Lincoln's Assassination Appeared On A Game Show

The Atlantic posted this video of a person who was at Ford's Theater the night President Lincoln was shot. The show was originally broadcast one year before I was born. I find it fascinating that technology can connect people to a witness of one of America's most infamous events even if that even occurred nearly 150 years ago.

Of Pop Culture And Historical Figures: Something Totally Weird Edition

I like combining pop culture with politics more than most folks, but these pictures confuse me. I don't know if they're really cool or so far over the top that I should be very afraid.

More can be found here.

South Dakota Right Wing Siding With Paranoia And Inaccurate Historian

Brad Ford publicizes a Stephanie Strong hosted "The Constitution is the Solution" presentation. Ford invokes Thoreau and Emerson to place this "public performance" in the 19th Century Chautauqua and Lyceum traditions. The event will feature video presentations from Robert Brown of the John Birch Society and self-alleged historian David Barton.

I've always preferred William F. Buckley conservatism to John Birch Society fringe paranoia. Barton's book The Jefferson Lies was voted the least credible history book in print in July. In August publisher Thomas Nelson pulled the book.

The publisher, Thomas Nelson, said in a statement that it had received complaints from numerous readers that there were factual errors in the book, which reached the New York Times bestseller list in May.

“We took all of those concerns seriously [and] learned that there were some historical details included in the book that were not adequately supported,” said the publisher, which focuses on releasing Christian-based titles.

Barton's book is so replete with errors that two respected historians Warren Throckmorton and Michael Coulter felt compelled to write an entire book to respond:

David Barton claims he is setting the record straight with this book, but that claim is far from reality. Barton misrepresents and distorts a host of Jefferson's ideas and actions, particularly his views and practices regarding religion, slavery and church-state relations. As Jefferson did with the Gospels, Barton chooses what he likes about Jefferson and leaves out the rest to create a result more in line with his ideology. In fact, there were so many problems with his book that we wrote an entire book in response.

Fittingly, Barton has turned to Glenn Beck for succor.

I sided with rebels against the Empire in Star Wars; I loathe the imperial New York Yankees and would have gladly helped David pick out some smooth stones as he went up against Goliath.

I really want to side with South Dakota's little guys when they go up against Daugaard Inc. The rebels and David, however, had truth on their side; by siding with Barton and the John Birch Society, Strong and Ford are using fear and propaganda to spread misinformation.

Let's Remember 1980 Correctly

I love history. History is a friend of mine. You, sir, aren't doing real history.

I know I'm the 7,923.696th person to modify that line from 1988. I also know that 1988 is not 1980, but this return to the late 1980 election when disco was dying, new wave was starting, and Ronald Reagan was riding his white horse to the White House frustrates me because it is so inaccurate. I don't know if Romney will successfully buy the election, but if he's not going to win with the claim that he is the next Ronald Reagan whereas Obama is the second coming of  Jimmy Carter.

First, if Americans actually chose Reagan because he was more charismatic that Carter, then Obama will win this election hands down. Romney is robot and robots ain't charismatic.

More importantly, there was a third factor in the election that everyone but David Frum seems to have forgotten.

There is another difference, at least equally crucial and often overlooked today: 1980 was a three-way race. Reagan won a landslide of the electoral vote, but less than 51% of the popular vote. President Carter's support collapsed in the last weeks of the campaign, with dissident liberals breaking off to support the independent candidacy of John Anderson, who scored 6.6% of the vote - the third best performance by an independent since World War II, after Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996.

If Anderson had not run - if Carter had not so alienated his liberal base - what would have happened in November? Who can say - but let's remember the actual events of 1980, not a too-gratifying legend.

What Americans Will Forget In The Future

Every fall teachers file into a school theater for the first faculty meeting of the year. Every year some administrator will have surfed the web and found the Beloit List, a compilation that documents what incoming college freshmen haven't experienced. For example last year's list provided the following reminders:

Andre the Giant, River Phoenix, Frank Zappa, Arthur Ashe and the Commodore 64 have always been dead.
Their classmates could include Taylor Momsen, Angus Jones, Howard Stern's daughter Ashley, and the Dilley Sextuplets.

1. There has always been an Internet ramp onto the information highway.
2. Ferris Bueller and Sloane Peterson could be their parents.
3. States and Velcro parents have always been requiring that they wear their bike helmets.
4. The only significant labor disputes in their lifetimes have been in major league sports.
5. There have nearly always been at least two women on the Supreme Court, and women have always commanded U.S. Navy ships.
6. They “swipe” cards, not merchandise.
7. As they’ve grown up on websites and cell phones, adult experts have constantly fretted about their alleged deficits of empathy and concentration.
8. Their school’s “blackboards” have always been getting smarter.
9. “Don’t touch that dial!”….what dial?
10. American tax forms have always been available in Spanish.

At first, the lists were interesting. After 13 years, the list's major function seems to be documenting the fact that we're only 5 years away from an announcement that the incoming freshmen class will be the last class to have been born without a Beloit List.

There's more to life than college and we all get old. Instead of focusing on the recent past, this XKCD cartoon projects what half the country will be experientially ignorant of if the future.

I can't wait for 2043.

Quotation Of The Day: Political Stagnation Edition

From Rod Dreher:

For Jesse Jackson, it’s always Selma, 1965; for Republicans, it’s forever the 1980 Reagan campaign.

The Founders And Occupy Wall Street

Writing at The Washington Monthly, Rick Ungar takes a few jabs at views that originalists like Antonin Scalia or John Roberts espouse, especially the view that corporations are people.  Ungar writes,

While we know that the Founders had contempt for these corporate entities and the corruption they produced in Parliament, it appears to have never occurred to them to directly address corporations when they wrote the Constitution. It is not particularly difficult to understand why this would be the case. The Constitution speaks to control of government by the people…for the people…and of the people. Why should it occur to the Founders that a corporation might ever be perceived as one of “the people”?

He goes on to remind readers:

After the nation’s founding, corporations were, as they are today, the result of charters granted by the state. However, unlike today, they were limited in how long they were permitted to exist (typically 20 or 30 years), only permitted to deal in one commodity, not permitted to own shares in other corporations, and their property holdings were expressly limited to what they needed to accomplish their specific, corporate business goals.

Put another way, every single investment bank on Wall Street, as we know it today, would have been illegal in the days of our founding. 

Of course corporations are now legally individuals, so what was illegal is now seen as "good business," especially when one wishes to buy political influence.  Ungar, however, concludes,

Despite the controls placed on corporations in the early days of our nation, as corporations grew larger and their shareholders wealthier, they began to influence the rule making process that governed corporations. Using the money they had accumulated, they began to chip away at corporate restrictions. Eventually, corporations were permitted to go on forever. Where shareholders had once been personally responsible for the actions of the corporation, contemporary corporations shield their owners from personal liability. And, as more money became involved, the politicians who regulated them grew were increasingly seduced by what the wealthy corporations could do for them.

Were they around today, our founders would not only be standing on the front lines of the Occupy Wall Street movement, they would likely be pursuing a far more strident strategy than playing some bongo drums in Zuccotti Park.

 I'm sure the Tea Party folk will be upset at the notion that they don't have sole claim to being on the side of God, angels, and the founders or that Occupy Wall Street has an equal claim to the founders' vision.  Were they a little more aware of the history they claim as their own, they would remember that the original tea party struck against tea owned by corporation sanctioned by crown and parliment.

The Internet: Idealism And Unintend Consequences

Evgeny Morozov gives a history lesson of the Web and declares that it is "a utopia no longer."

The people who "founded" or "created" the internet fell into two camps:  engineers and cheerleaders.  The engineers seem to combine hippie and communitarian streams of thought.  They may have been a bit naive.

But studying the history of the internet is impossible without studying the ideas, biases, and desires of its early cheerleaders, a group distinct from the engineers. This included Stewart Brand, Kevin Kelly, John Perry Barlow, and the crowd that coalesced around Wired magazine after its launch in 1993. They were male, California-based, and had fond memories of the tumultuous hedonism of the 1960s.

These men emphasised the importance of community and shared experiences; they viewed humans as essentially good, influenced by rational deliberation, and tending towards co-operation. Anti-Hobbesian at heart, they viewed the state and its institutions as an obstacle to be overcome—and what better way to transcend them than via cyberspace? Their values had profound effects on the mechanics of the internet, not all of them positive. The proliferation of spam and cybercrime is, in part, the consequence of their failure to predict what might happen as a result of the internet’s open infrastructure. The first spam message dates back to 1978; now, 85 per cent of all email traffic in the world is spam. [emphasis mine]

 As the last sentence in the prior quotation illustrates, freedom has some unintended consequences.  There were of course others.

While we are being empowered as consumers, we are simultaneously being disempowered as citizens, something that the cyber-libertarian digital prophets didn’t foresee. “Electronic town halls” never took off either. When Barack Obama tried to hold one shortly after being elected president, the most popular question posed to him concerned the legalisation of mari-juana. The internet does not and cannot replace politics—it augments and amplifies it. The Tea Party in the US does not limit its activism to social media, but uses it as part of a broader political campaign. Politics is still primary and technology secondary.

However, one set of intermediaries may well be on the decline—print media—which has been quickly jettisoned by the younger generation. Search engines and social networking sites hold as much power today as newspapers and radio stations did three decades ago. The fact that they prefer to disguise their editorial practices in the form of nominally objective algorithms doesn’t make them any less political and influential. [emphasis mine.]

As with almost any situation, the second generation must determine how to proceed.

The founding fathers of the internet had laudable instincts: the utopian vision of the internet as a shared space to maximise communal welfare is a good template to work from. But they got co-opted by big money, and became trapped in the self-empowerment discourse that was just an ideological ruse to conceal the interests of big companies and minimise government intervention.

The current state of affairs is not irreversible. We still have some privacy left and internet companies can still be swayed by smart regulation. But we need to stop thinking of the internet as a marketplace first and a public forum second. What is long overdue is a fundamental reconsideration of the primacy of the internet’s civic and aesthetic dimensions. It’s time to decide whether we want the internet to look like a private mall or a public square. [emphasis mine]

Thomas Hardy, Jim Bolin, and Cory Heidelberger

Jim Bolin is a friend of mine.  Cory Heidelberger is a friend of mine.  I'm probably the only person in South Dakota who can make both of  those statements.  That's a fact that scares me.

Yesterday, Cory went after Jim on the Madville Times.  I wish Cory had been kinder to Jim whom I know to be a good history teacher.  I had the chance to hear some of his lectures back in the day.  I also wish Cory had shown a little less deference to Wade Pogany.  I don't recall Mr. Pogany doing that much good for the education or debate communities lately.

For his part, Jim should have been more consistent.  If the Common Core Standards that are being proposed for history are bad, the English ones should be questioned also.  After all, a fig tree can't bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs; in addition, a salt spring can't produce fresh water [James 3:12 Plainsman Paraphrase Version].  Jim also could have avoided the "San Francisco" and "heartland values" talking points.  Those phrases are part of the "plain folks" propaganda technique that every high school student should recognize and avoid.

This incident made me think about a larger point that I believe the beginning of a Thomas Hardy poem illustrates.

"HAD he and I but met,
By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!

Cory provides "[l]iberal media for Lake Herman, Madison, and the great state of South Dakota."  Jim is proudly conservative, so these two are "ranged as [political] infantry." 

South Dakota has a de facto one party political system; Republicans dominate.  Half of the Republican Party is to Jim's political right.  I think the state has about 37 liberals and 19 moderates. I'd hate to hear what the people to Jim's right would say about Cory.  The principle behind Aristotle's Golden Mean should apply to politics.  South Dakota shows what happens when the Golden Mean is absent; one is left with "tea-baggers" or "enemies of the the heartland."  Those conditions make it unlikely that members of either political persuasion will engage in any nipperkin wetting. (I'm pretty sure that both Jim and Cory are teetotallers, so I'm not sure what beverages would be in those tiny cups, but that's beside the point.)

To survive the next decades, my students will need to know more than any previous generation; they'll also need to know how to use those facts and how to come up with new ways to deal with old problems like budget deficits and clashing values.  I'm not sure they'll be able to that if they see everyone with an opposing viewpoint as an enemy.  Yet, the state seems to have created a political culture that will continue foster just such an attitude.  Hardy, were he writing today, to say that South Dakota politics, not war, is "quaint and curious."

Some Observations about Technology and the Web

I've been fascinated by David Gerlenter's observations about the Internet and it's impact.

I love this assertion:

"The Internet is no topic like cellphones or videogame platforms or artificial intelligence; it's a topic like education. It's that big. Therefore beware: to become a teacher, master some topic you can teach; don't go to Education School and master nothing. To work on the Internet, master some part of the Internet: engineering, software, computer science, communication theory; economics or business; literature or design. Don't go to Internet School and master nothing. There are brilliant, admirable people at Internet institutes. But if these institutes have the same effect on the Internet that education schools have had on education, they will be a disaster."

I can't agree more that effective teachers need to know their subject matter before they teach. I also can't agree more that education schools have been a disaster for education.

The most fascinating part, however, was the assertion that the question "if this is the information age, what do our children know that our parents didn't?" has a specific answer. According to Gelernter, The answer is 'now.' They know about now." He continues, "Nowness is one of the most important cultural phenomena of the modern age"

I see nothing to argue with in these points; I am, however, frightened by them. If he is correct, then knowledge of the past and preparation for the future cease to be important. Equally important, reflection is nearly impossible if one is currently in the moment.

Gelernter, however, is optimistic: ". . . the Internet could be the most powerful device ever invented for understanding the past, and the texture of time. Once we understand the inherent bias in an instrument, we can correct it. The Internet has a large bias in favor of now. Using lifestreams (which arrange information in time instead of space), historians can assemble, argue about and gradually refine timelines of historical fact. Such timelines are not history, but they are the raw material of history. They will be bitterly debated and disputed — but it will be easy to compare two different versions (and the evidence that supports them) side-by-side. Images, videos and text will accumulate around such streams. Eventually they will become shared cultural monuments in the Cybersphere."

I'm not so sure. It seems to me that lack of knowledge of the past makes it possible to use Orwell as a blueprint not a warning. If there is no real knowledge of anything but "now," then the evidence can be massaged in a way that makes the debate and the evidence used to support each side position suspect. It will be theater not fact.