Its funny I remember that "the fall of the wall"

I remember Regan's speech, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" No I don't remember it word for word, but I do vividly remember sitting in my parents living room at the age of 12 (shhh don't tell anyone) and watching history take place. I recall this because I was ticked off that our only TV was occupied by a news program that was keeping me from watching whatever it was that I wanted to watch.(maybe Fantasy Island reruns, I loved Tattoo) This makes me wonder how much we gloss over in our daily lives that will be history textbook worthy in years to come. I guess it is my age that brings this to my attention.

I can understand now how easily horrible and wonderful things can happen around us with little attention paid to them. The pulse of our daily lives clouds our vision of key events that can change the direction of civilization. This is why we study history. The acute focus of the historical record allows us to remove the veil of everyday life that clouds our vision. By examining the events of the past, with focused sight, we can identify the events in our own time that are pivotal to the future course of our, or other, societies. We use the historical record to police current events so that we can stop the repetitive evils of life.

I have really enjoed the time spent in our history class this semester. It has re-introduced me to the work level and expectations of today's students. The class has restored confidence in my abilities as a student and has solidified my decision to reenter our university as both an absolute good and absolutely necessary. Thank you, Jennifer, for your efforts and encouragement.

Were they Idiots, fools, naive, or complicit

No I'm not referring to the current batch of U.S. Congress men and women. I'm referring to the populations of Italy and Germany during the rise of fascism in the early part of the twentieth century. Who was to blame for the atrocities committed by the fascist regimes leading up to and during World War II? Obviously, the leaders of these regimes, Hitler and Mussolini, deserve the brunt of blame. They are the ones that carried out the oppression, violence, war, and eventually genocide, it is their fault. This brings up some different questions, how could anyone have allowed these men, capable of so many horrible atrocities, to be placed in positions of power? Were the people ignorant and naive of the consequences of giving away so much power? Were the populations fooled by the propaganda that was fed to them? Were the people simply complicit and sympathetic to the doctrine of the fascists? I believe that all of these things played a role, however, I also believe that sometimes crazy can be sane.

Let me explain, I lived for just under 10 years with a person who is all but clinically insane. Not the strait jacket type of nuts but surely narcissistic and (I'm not a head doctor but) bipolar. Living with crazy can shift your point of view. Things you would never be able to independently rationalize begin to make sense. You kind of lose yourself in the "propaganda" of the insanity. This happens in large part due to your own fears and insecurity. This is what I think happened in Germany and Italy. People were immersed in the misery of post war Europe. With little hope of rapid change away from their own reality, the people bought into the rhetoric of the Fascist. With no hope to help them rationalize the consequences, they allowed the weathering away of their freedoms and personal power in order to feel secure. The insanity of the time caused the paradigm of the people to shift away from personal freedom to the insatiable desire for security. Thus creating the perfect storm for the rise of Fascist rule.

getting inside the heads of combat soldiers

Can you get inside the head of a combat soldier? I don't pretend to know. After reading the letters from the World War I British officers we attempted to interpret the mental state of the officers. A lot of people (including myself) seemed to think we could get in their heads. After class, I began to wonder if our statements and assumptions about the writing had any validity at all. The answer, I don't think that anyone who has not been under fire in a war zone can come close to relating to these writings. Yes, we can interpret the words on the page. We cannot, however, relate to the experience that those same words describe.

So what can the common civilian take from the words in these letters? We can certainly learn from their perspective of the horrors of modern war, learn to respect these men for their sacrifices, and hope that we can pay them back by living good and full lives provided by their sacrifices. I am in no way saying that reading these letters are a fruitless exercise. We need to learn as much as we can so that we can about these past conflicts so that we can avoid the same mistakes that made them so brutally difficult. We have a tremendous responsibility to these soldiers and all of those people who have laid down their lives for others.

You are like school on saturday...... No Class

The discussion we had about the effects that the second industrial revolution, in the late 1800's, had on the middle class made me wonder, "What is class?" I guess it really depends on how you use the word. Class can be, a group of students that are instructed by an educator, a collection of things sharing a common attribute, a ranking or grouping of people with common means, values, and methods of behavior, or just a method of behavior. What is it that we take into account that place people in classes in our society? Many more questions could be asked, but like my buddy Karl, I don't think that they are necessary so I am going to leave them out.

For our discussions in class we were talking about the ranking or grouping of people with common means, values, and methods of behavior. This social ranking was being accomplished by display of consumption. The more extravagant and over indulgent (wasteful) the display was the higher your perceived rank. We may find this to be ridiculous. I even heard in my own head, "that's the wrong way to be, I don't think our society is like that." Upon further review, that is exactly how our society works. Not in the classical bourgeois way, but in our own slightly more twisted way. The people with this bourgeois mentality in the late 1800's would buy a house that was way too big for them, fill that house with extravagant furniture and other pithy belongings, hold dinners, throw party's, and show off their wealth in any other way they possibly could. In the upper echelons of our society this behavior has not changed very much, though it is hidden, as much as it can be, by those whose livelihoods depend on the approval of the lower masses. This behavior has to be hidden because in the middle class in our society it has become the status symbol of higher class to be a conservationist, recycler, crusader, or at least to walk and talk like one. Waste is rapidly becoming taboo. People seeking higher status are now looking to attack the areas of waste in our society, or at least act like they want to. Don't get me wrong, I think that people who, out of a sense of morality and commitment, try to leave the world a better place than they found it, have a special place in heaven. I also believe that people who make a big show out of their verson of morality and by extension their class status are really no better than what they are complaining about. I am not sure this helps anything, maybe I just needed get this out of my head.

My buddy Karl

On the eve of writing my first paper since my return to school. I have some reflecting to do in order to organize my thoughts on the communist movement as told by your friend (I should probably say comrade) and mine Karl Marx. I know that Karl's goal is the emancipation of the working people of the world from the oppression of the Capitalistic system. I, however, find his "scientific" view of the human condition to be limited in its scope.

As we talked about today Karl saw that the measure of humanity could be summed up as the need to create to be truly happy in life. Production of material objects made by the hands of man provided an outlet for the essence of man to be expressed. While this is irrefutably true, it is an incomplete view of humanity. Absent from this view are motivation, free will, love, and passion. I think that Karl sees himself as Prometheus and is attempting to give knowledge to people which he, as a more enlightened being must simplify and dumb down the ideas so that his people can relate and understand.

Why else would there be reason to simplify his premise for his view of humanity. I believe that Karl worked very hard at making his argument irrefutable. Karl found that the totality of the human condition posed problems for his argument, so he simplified his premises so that the problems presented by the unevaluated areas of the human makeup didn't get in the way of his grand reorganization of society. I believe that by doing this he has damaged the whole of his argument. One of the main differences with his argument, as opposed to other ideas of the day, is his "scientific" approach. By ignoring variables in any system a scientific theory loses its validity, and the scientist turns into a witchdoctor........ can this still be considered scientific?

Conservatism and Liberalism in the 1800s and today

I am very taken aback by the original definitions of liberalism and conservatism. The concepts are so ingrained in our society that one would assume there have been no ideological changes in the terms. According to our history text (Western Civilization since 1560) the concepts are very different than we know them today. In order to understand the changes these ideologies have gone through, we need to compare the current version of each to the original theories so that we can better understand what these theories of governance mean to us today.

Liberalism: as defined by Worldnet search is "a political orientation that favors social progress by reform and by changing laws rather than by revolution; an economic theory advocating free competition and a self-regulating market." In today's world, however, U.S. liberalism is best defined as social liberalism or social progressivism, which means that while still believing in freedom, liberals, believe that it is necessary for the government to ensure the welfare of the people governed both economically and by providing for their security. Today liberals in the U.S. government are also entering into the realms of manufacturing, banking, and other financial industries to protect the public from the pit falls of the market place. These beliefs have led social liberals to increasingly attempt to legislate or pass laws to dictate social behavior. In stark contrast to the current version of liberalism, Classical liberalism is as described by our text as believing that "individual freedom was best safeguarded by the reduction of government powers. They wanted to impose constitutional limits on government, to establish the rule of law, to sweep away all state regulation of the economy, and to ensure a voice in government for men of property and education."(Western Civilization since 1560 Volume II, page 472)

Conservatism: is defined by Worldnet search as "a political or theological orientation advocating the preservation of the best in society and opposing radical changes." Today's conservatives largely hold to this definition based on the context of the U.S. Constitution, often referring to themselves as constitutionalists. Many of today's U.S. conservatives hold to the early ideals of liberalism. Freedom, limited government, rule of law, and the free market are the U.S. conservative core values. Increasingly, however more and more of today's conservatives are bastardizing their beliefs to the enjoyment special interests and whatever is the prevailing political wind of the time. In contrast original conservatism was "ultraroyalist or counterrevolutionary" (Western Civilization since 1560 Volume II, page 467) meaning that they wanted to return to the prerevolutionary governance of the monarchy.

What does it all mean? How does understanding the original philosophies help us today? On one hand it could be argued that there is nothing to be learned from this, variables in our society are too different from those in the past to make any kind quality assessments of what direction our free society should go. On an other hand it could be said that without the foundational knowledge of our political philosophies we cannot make any sound judgments on how to proceed in our society, or if our political, social, and cultural existence is in need of defense from attackers who would like to eliminate or change the government of, by, and for the people.


post script:

the entire time I was writing this blog I was watching the movie "Friday". I love that movie. I kept trying to get some of the fathers quotes in here but I just couldn't make it work. So, I'll put some here "Every time I come in the kitchen, you in the kitchen. In the goddamn refrigerator. Eatin' up all the food. All the chitlins... All the pig's feet... All the collard greens... All the hog maws. I wanna eat them chitlins... I like pigs feet." and one from Smokey "No sugar? Damn. Y'all ain't never got two things that match. Either y'all got Kool-aid, no sugar. Peanut butter, no jelly. Ham, no burger. Daaamn.

"Can't we just all get along?" (Rodney King)

Wow...

After the first week of my history class, Western Civilization from 1500, I have to say wow, it is funny to think of how Uncivilized the world can be. We began the week (really last Friday) talking about the reformation of the church. The Reformation of the church refers to the disagreement between the Catholic church and the ideas of people like John Calvin and Martin Luther in the early 1500s. Luther believed that the church bureaucracy was corrupt and limited the common man's access to the Word of God. Calvin believed that our lives were predetermined and that we lived our lives by the mercy of God. Both Luther and Calvin believed that people should be educated and literate. The people who held with these alternative views or changes of Christianity we know as Protestants. To challenge the Church was to set an environment that pit people against each other in a very violent way.

In the mid 1500s in France many of the members of the nobility where Protestant(mostly Calvinist) while the king and rest of the nobility was very much tied to the Catholic church. Religious fighting, motivated by the desire to increase territory, power, and influence, occurred all over the country side causing increasing devastation to the infrastructure and the people. These violent and destructive occurrences remind me of the violent mob wars of the early 1900s in the United States. None more so than that of the St. Bartholomew Day Massacre. In terms of the Mob, a hit was executed on the head of the rival family(Admiral Coligny). While the hit was not successful it prompted Don Corleone(king Charles) to make a preemptive strike on the other family leaders (protestant leaders). Starting out relatively small word got out and a full scale massacre was on hand (i.e. the hits to the Dons at the end of the "Godfather"). These tribulations were not isolated to France but extend to eastern Europe as well.

By 1618 in the Holy Roman Empire or HRE, which was located in eastern Europe around the area of modern day Germany, there was a fairly diverse mix of Protestant(mostly Lutheran) and Catholic areas. Politically, the HRE was a loose collection of principalities under one Emperor. The Emperor, was not in this case very powerful. Most of the power base seemed to lie with princes who ruled over the individual principalities. These princes chose what religion their people were to practice. So there was a hodgepodge of areas with a different faith in each town. This seems to me to be like territories of gangs in Los Angeles (crips and bloods). The "gang" war that results is not an informal war like we see in our cities but the motivation is the same. These motivations are territory, power over commerce,and a willingness to send your people into battle on an ideological basis (they are Catholics and they want to oppress you or those protestants are heathens and should not be allowed to live). For thirty years HRE is ravaged by war ending in 1648 with the peace of Westphalia.

Where did all of that violence and bloodshed get the people of France and the HRE? Politically, France is much stronger while the HRE is weaker but the people of these nations are suffering under the miseries and fallout of the war. I am a Catholic and I know the stance that my religion holds now is very different from the one that led up to, and greased the wheels of, these conflicts. However, I am very embarrassed that anyone who holds to the teachings of Christian faith could corrupt the faith by their actions done in the name of that faith. It seems to me that we as people of the world do very little learning from the past. We continue to make the same mistakes over and over again with no end in sight. Maybe it is just human nature.?

This is a test

Not to pickup in the middle of a conversation but we have long been friends.