Week 4

It's interesting that classical republicanism can be found when looking at Ancient Greece and Rome, since we tend to believe that good systems of government can only in the modern era. Not that Ancient Greece or Rome was a perfect system of government, but it's ironic that they were both concerned with the common public good, moral virtue, and participation in the community and were opposed to corruption and extravagance, whereas America seems to care about the exact opposite values. Classical republicanism was focused on virtue and the corruption of citizens and public officials, and I have to wonder if today's republicans had to list their top 25 focuses and values, if any of the classical republican values would show up on that list. I had a chance to visit Rome last December, and it's so amazing how deeply politics and government was entrenched in their society so long ago. Even though I criticize politics and government quite a bit, I suppose it really is true that we can't live without it.

This relates, without a doubt, to chapter 5 in Dionne, where he talks about how conservatives left community behind. He questions how conservatism could be becoming more individualistic during the same time that the religious right was gaining ground in society. For much of American history, evangelicalism was associated with social reform movements. However, as the 20^th century dawned, evangelicals adopted a new label, “fundamentalist”.  This religious movement drifted further to the right and focused more on personal, and individual, salvation. Dionne then quotes Gerson, who says “If Republicans run in future elections with a simplistic anti-government message, ignoring the poor, the addicted, and children at risk, they will lose, and they will deserve to lose.” I hope Gerson is right, but it seriously terrifies me that people could be even considering voting for the current top 2 Republican candidates, Trump and Carson. Not only do they essentially ignore those populations, they even attack them. How can an individualistic view of America create an equal society, if everyone has to fight for themselves? The reality is that everyone does not have the opportunity or means to fight for themselves in this individualistic view of American that comes from the Republicans.
             I thought the quote from Sara Ahmed that we talked about in class, "We might consider giving up happiness and experiencing life", was really thought provoking. It seems like people in general are always trying to obtain happiness, but what is happiness? In America, I think that we tend to focus on material happiness, but can that really fulfill someone? I suppose material happiness probably can fulfill some people, but I think there is so much more to pure happiness, and I'm not sure that you can consciously obtain pure happiness. I think that if we focus on happiness, we end up feeling unfulfilled and that we can always find something else that we think could make us "happier". I think focusing too much on happiness ends up basically controlling our lives and then all of a sudden, we're at the end of our lives and realize that we've been so focused on obtaining "happiness,” that we haven't really lived. I don't think we necessarily need to give up happiness, as Ahmed says, but it is so vitally important to live in the moment and to not be consumed by one thought over everything else.

Week 3

I truly believe in being politically intelligent, which is why I’m currently watching the Republican debate. It’s so interesting (and aggravating) how much this sounds like a middle school fight between adolescents. Name calling, direct attacks – I can’t even take most of these candidates seriously, because all I hear is how Obama is horrible and the Iran deal needs to be ripped up. No one is talking about their personal policies and their voices just keep getting louder.

I actually ended up turning off the debate early because I couldn’t handle the constant bickering, but I was surprised as to how much I could relate our class discussions and readings to what the candidates said (or didn't say). It's pretty clear to me that, in general, republicans seem to follow more of a Residual Welfare model. Not that they would necessarily admit that (maybe Trump would) or that they agree with every aspect, but the republican party nowadays seems to emphasize individualism above everything else. I can certainly imagine someone like Trump saying that welfare programs enables the poor and that they should learn to be self-reliant (perhaps he has already said that - I try to not read too much about him. In my opinion, the residual social welfare model is horrifically dangerous for those who can't support themselves. Where would they end up if they've exhausted all other resources, such as their families? Does the government just drop them like a hot potato and leave them to fend for themselves? It sickens me that people can think that way. I'm not saying that we should 100% support everyone in the world, but there are always going to be different classes - shouldn't the higher classes help to support those who can't support themselves? If I need help from the government someday, I truly hope that I would get help.
             One thing that I was thinking about when we were talking about the Declaration of Independence was how it (and the Constitution) is taught in school. I don't remember a lot about learning about the Declaration or the Constitution, but I definitely know that we never criticized it in school. Since it created our nation (along with other documents), how could there be any problems with it? I think that we don't believe that kids (especially young kids) can think critically, when really (if they were ever given opportunities) kids are actually pretty good at thinking critically. Why do we wait until college (maybe high school) to assume that students can think critically? The individualistic notions in the declaration was a product of those times. But we've changed as a nation since then, so conscripting ourselves to only those views in the Declaration and the Constitution is selling ourselves short and limiting our ability to progress. Clearly, the tea party doesn't believe that (as Dionne says in his book), but it continually surprises me how strictly they want to apply the constitution. My museum group is actually going to the Constitution Center, so I’m interested to see how our class discussions are represented in what we see at the Constitution Center.

I think this video was shown in one of my classes when I was in elementary school.

I think this is also interesting in light of the Stern chapter that we read for this week. The chapter was about the pre-civil war period in American history, but spoke a lot about how exclusive the constitution was originally (and let’s be honest, still is in many ways). The Declaration was based on limited democratic ideals and cited the promotion of the general welfare as one of the reasons for forming this new government. However, as Stern states, there was no mention of social welfare concerns among the newly elected congress. Providing for the social welfare needs of citizens became the responsibility of the states. It’s so interesting to me that many modern republicans still desire to follow exactly what the Constitution said when it was created as if we haven’t changed as a nation since 1776. Of course, we’ve added amendments since that time, but I highly doubt that if there was a desire to add another amendment to the constitution, almost regardless of what the amendment would be, that we would be able to pass it, due to the unwillingness of our governmental officials to work with each other. I think it’s also interesting that Stern talks at length about the immigrant populations during this time. It’s fascinating to me that we can have similar problems now to problems that we were experiencing before the civil war, namely that immigrants were (and are) perceived as a threat to American citizens. I suppose this surprised me because I’ve always been taught that America is a “melting pot” and that we pride ourselves on being built by many different cultures. In reality, though, it seems like we’ve always had similar social issues, we just sugarcoat it for easier digestion years later.

Week 2

Sometimes I wonder if I’m always going to be angry about one social problem/injustice or another. It is so frustrating to me that some people don’t get fired up about inequalities and injustices in this country and throughout the world. And if people do get fired up, they forget about it by the next day because it doesn’t affect them in their everyday lives. I can recognize that I lead a life of privilege. I am a white woman from a family who is very staunchly middle class – I have had to deal with comparatively few injustices personally in my life. But precisely because I come from a place of privilege, I feel as though I need to be the voice for people who have injustices levied upon them every single day. I keep having this experience where I read about a specific social injustice and I feel the need to discuss it with someone, but mostly it ends up with me talking about the injustice to someone and then a discussion never really occurs because it either doesn’t affect them personally or they don’t have their own opinion about it. Thankfully, I’m in a place where I can finally discuss things like this on a daily basis with other people who understand what I’m saying and have things to say about it too.

             The chapters in the Dionne book this week talked a lot about communitarianism versus individualism. Dionne says that America’s inability to understand its own character leads to confusion and tension. He also talks about Bill Clinton saying that there are two commitments – to protect personal freedom and to seek common ground - and that America is bound to both of those obligations. Many historians even say that the best way to understand American philosophy during the time of the revolution and the founding is to see it as both individualistic and communitarian. Somewhere along the line though, I feel that “community” somehow received a negative connotation.

             It’s actually kind of funny that we talked about “American Exceptionalism” in class this week, because my mom and I criticize this idea quite often. My mom is an ex-patriot and lives in Germany with her husband. She and I both criticize America and Americans a lot for claiming to be this perfect land where everyone has the same opportunities to be successful, where in reality we just tend to ignore our rampant issues. In reality, we’re all part of the problem by letting this continue to occur and basically saying that everyone can have a success story, as long as that person has self-reliance, responsibility, and doesn’t expect any handouts. My mom and I compare Germany and the US a lot and it’s very interesting to see the differences between how they remember history. Germany acknowledges its less than stellar history, and attempts to learn from it, not hide it. It also commemorates horrible acts that have been committed by Germany/Germans by some of the most beautiful memorials that I’ve had the opportunity to see. Whereas America doesn’t really teach its full history to students and doesn’t acknowledge the horrible acts that it has done to others (such as the Native Americans and African Americans). I, for one, knew embarrassingly little about Native Americans and the horrible atrocities that America committed against them – I wasn’t taught much about that time in history in school, and what I was taught glossed over the genocide we committed against them). The so-called “American Dream” is entrenched in this idea of American Exceptionalism too. America and Americans seem to be so intent on creating an “other group” and being so exclusionary, that we can never be a cohesive nation of people. Of course, that’s not to say that other countries don’t have similar issues, but they don’t seem to flaunt their “acceptance” of others as much as America does. We say that community is a central part of American thought and life, but most of us don’t seem to practice it much in our daily lives.

             Another place that we see community as an essential aspect in American life is with this idea of “The city on a hill”. As Winthrop said, “the eyes of the world are on us” so we should be seen as caring for the powerless. This Christian charity was seen as the heart of the community during Winthrop’s time. I think it’s interesting that we claim to be a nation founded on Christian principles, but (again) most people don’t seem to practice the ideals of Christianity very closely. Of course, some people go to church, but in terms of actually practicing these Christian principles in their daily lives, many people fall flat. This is one important reason why I am very critical of organized religion. Most of my family is very religious, so I respect the fact that faith and religion can be important parts of people’s lives. However, when people pick and choose which parts of religion are important and which ones can be ignored, I get very annoyed at the hypocritical statements they tend to make. (Update: I’m watching the Republican debate and Governor Kasich just said that he wants to restore America to the city on a hill!).

 

Week 1

In Dionne’s first chapter, he talks a lot about the conception of the Tea Party and the party’s amnesic qualities when it comes to remembering parts of American history. To be honest, I’ve never really understood quite how Americans allowed the Tea Party to be created – even some Republicans don’t take them seriously. Dionne explains that the Tea Party was basically founded by opponents of Obama who got angry when Obama pursued the policies that he ran on. What’s even more embarrassing to me than that, is that I have family members who I strongly suspect identify with major chunks of Tea Party ideals. (I should interject here that, while I grew up in a conservative household, am decidedly not of a conservative mindset). What was most surprising to me in this first chapter of Dionne’s book is on page 34. On that page, he writes of the 150^th anniversary of the civil war. During this time, defenders of the South’s “Lost Cause” sought to downplay the role of slavery as the Civil War’s primary cause. I’m a pretty open minded person, but to me, the answer here is cut and dry – those “defenders” are just plain wrong. I honestly can’t believe that people could possibly spout that nonsense in today’s day and age. Truthfully, the people who say that are on the same page as Holocaust deniers in my book. It’s appalling that people can deny such an important part of American history. Despite all of the problems in the school system (such as denying/hiding the genocide we enacted against Native Americans), we at least learned about the root cause of the civil war – how can someone claim that the root cause was anything else?

             One of the reasons that I find history so interesting is that although there are certain facts that can’t be denied, history is subjective. What to Americans looked like progress when we started displacing Native Americans, looked unfair and cruel to the Native Americans (and rightly so). Does progress have to come at the expense of someone else? The definition of “progress” (per google) is “the forward or onward movement toward a destination”. But that doesn’t really encompass how America sees progress. Often when we progress, we don’t know exactly where we are heading, hence there really isn’t a desetination. Progress, by nature, is subjective. What may seem like progress to someone, may be seen as regression to someone else. I don’t believe that progress has to come at the expense of someone else, but I think that it often does (whether intentional or not).

             One thing that is in the news right now that relates to this is the refugee crisis currently in Europe. Germany has recently relaxed restrictions on immigrants because of the refugee crisis. This makes entering Germany much easier for the refugees that are currently detained in Hungary. Many Germans and people around the world are praising the chancellor, Angela Merkel, for these recent developments and Germans have actually been seen at train stations greeting the refugees with cheers and gifts. For a nation that has traditionally been xenophobic, this progress is certainly heartening to see. However, there are certainly some Germans and others who do not see this as progress and have been protesting and burning down facilities meant for housing refugees. From one perspective, this progress isn’t coming at the expense of anyone, but others could argue that it is coming at the expense of the German tax-payers. As Americans, we tend to not care as much about things that aren’t happening right in our backdoor. But, when the picture of the little Syrian boy who drowned went viral, all of a sudden there was this major outcry from Americans saying that Europe should be letting more refugees in, etc., when in actuality, this crisis has been going on for months. I’m not saying that the outcry is unwarranted, because I do think Europe should be doing all that it can for these refugees, but I think it’s interesting that it only entered in to American’s eyes recently. I feel sad for that boy and his family, but there are more like them out there. I’m glad America opened its eyes to this crisis, but I don’t think we will be as welcoming when the refugees are at our doorstep asking for help. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong, but somehow I doubt it. In their book, Stern and Axinn say that anti-immigrant attitudes has existed in America essentially since its conception. Even Benjamin Franklin was worried about the German language and culture spreading in Pennsylvania. Despite this country calling itself a “melting pot”, we have traditionally been repeatedly resistant to that idea. As Stern and Axinn say, the entry of millions of immigrants since the 1970s has both provoked the belief that immigrants enrich our society and also the intense fear that they will steal “our” jobs.

           One part of the first class that I found thought-provoking was the Walter Benjamin text. I read a fair bit of Benjamin texts when I was studying in Berlin, but I hadn’t read this one before. Benjamin’s critique of history as progress is certainly warranted. We, as Americans, don’t really question ideas as much as we should and I think we accept that history is progress without second guessing it. I think it’s important for us to take a step back and objectively look at our history – is it pure progress? Are there things that we may not be proud of? Then why do some of us still consider it to be history? Benjamin saw history as catastrophe and tragedy. Perhaps if we combine Benjamin’s thoughts about history with Marx’s, we come up with something similar to Dionne’s view – that we progress, but leave behind chaos as well. In my opinion, that seems to be the most encompassing view of history. I don’t think anyone can claim that history is beautiful and perfect and can be fit into one nice box. History is messy, but perhaps if we realize that, we can grow from it and be more successful in the future.