Women's rights

This week in class we discussed the beginning of the Women's Rights movement, and placed it in the organization of the Relief Society in 1842 in Nauvoo, rather than the traditionally accepted beginning at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. Although looking back from 2010, 1848 seems far away, why has it taken women in Western society so long to rally and organize for a concentrated effort for their rights? I certainly don't have all the answers, but it seems that often woman's very position in society has kept her from organizing.

In Western culture, women have long been entrenched in their position as homemakers: servile to men, charged with caring for children and housekeeping, perhaps occupied by more 'menial tasks.' This comes back curiously to the reason why Thomas Jefferson was able to have such a solid self-education and through that help philosophize-up the new American government: he had slaves to do his work for him, and thus was able to free his mind up to think about weightier matters. Women, on the other hand, have long been kept occupied with more menial cares, and further were often (until only very recently) denied the academic opportunities presented to men. Without an education, and without the time to devote to the grander ideas of philosophy, women were probably prevented from even considering their servile position in the same way as men.

Second, the attitudes inherent in Western society had long kept women from seeing their position as that needed to be changed. Our individual attitudes are so fundamentally shaped by our culture. A woman born into a culture where women are perceived as servile, weaker, and with a specific, limiting, matronly role to fill is probably not going to consider rallying for her 'rights' without some outside stimulus - she won't consider herself as being heir to those same 'rights' granted to men. For example, the women at Nauvoo who received their endowments and were sealed to their husbands in the temple received an outside, divine stimulus. They were with outside help able to see their divine role (rather than a cultural one) and see their place as equals with men. In our textbook reading, the author often tries to emphasize that black slaves had an inherent drive for freedom and liberty, and while this may be true for the bond-free conflict, attitudes toward gender roles have are probably different in this respect: societally and culturally based, rather than inherent. The women of Nauvoo, with their divine perspective on gender roles, rather than a cultural perspective, were able to organize for their rights. Although many today see Mormon women as still servile to their husbands as stay-at-home moms, Mormons perhaps have a greater vision of gender equality than do many men and women alike, because they have a divinely inspired pattern for such equality in the temple.

Third, in some situations women were probably kept very isolated from each other, which would prevent them from 'commiserating' (forgive the negative connotation). For example, our textbook talks about how plantation mistresses in the South often complained of isolation. They lived far from one another, separated by acres and acres and acres of land. Perhaps this is another reason why it seems that many social and political movements start in urban areas and spread outward. You've got to have people together, discussing and letting ideas ferment, in order to instigate and inspire change. There can be no rallying - for Women's Rights or for Civil Rights or any rights at all - with out groups of people. One voice, as it turns out, often doesn't do much.

Beyond these reasons, the simple fact that women lacked, to this point, several basic rights and weren't considered full citizens once they were married, but rather minors, they would have been prevented from assembling. Protection of the freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of the press would've been limited in their extension to women. Some women may have also been themselves opposed to an upset of the traditional gender roles implied in the Seneca Falls Convention. Perhaps that's what's so neat about the Nauvoo Relief Soeciety - it plays to women's strengths as caring, organized, and efficient.

Amistad

In class on Wednesday, we watched Steven Spielberg's 1997 film Amistad. In this blog, I'm supposed to explain how the film helped me visualize slavery, but the daily grind of slave life is not what Amistad's about. Instead, the film helped me visualize the conditions of the slave passage between African and the New World, and some key actors and arguments in the drama of the slave debate.

The opening minutes of the film, Cinqué's desperate struggle to free himself from his chains in the hull of the ship, are of course highly dramatic and very "Hollywood." They are, however, really riveting and honestly disturbing - the blood, the sweat, the lightning, the rain... It seems to represent the whole of the calamity of African slavery, and it is in that aspect that the film helped me 'visualize slavery.'

There is also Cinqué's description, through the help of an interpreter, (and montaged by Spielberg) of the absolutely inhumane conditions of his capture, trade, and passage. The sight of starving Africans climbing over each other for a morsel of the gruel the sailors brought them... the woman with her baby... the drowning of the slaves... that's all sickening to me, but again helped me 'visualize' the slave trade. I'm used to reading about it in books, but it was really poignant to have a visual representation.

Third, my favorite part of this film was actually that it provided a stage on which the many major arguments for and against slavery were presented. John Quincy Adams, Baldwin, Joadson, and Cinqué himself were able to make voiced powerful arguments against slavery, and Holabird and John C. Calhoun voiced the opposite. These arguments even came up in a discussion with some friends last night.

Didn't West Africans practice slavery themselves? a friend asked. All I had to do was quote Ensign Covey, the interpreter, to explain the difference between these two types of slavery. And who can forget John Quincy Adam's final speech before the Supreme Court of John C. Calhoun's tension-filled words at the Presidential dinner?

More than the daily life of a slave, this film helped me visualize the debate surrounding slavery and the passage between West Africa and the New World.

The Federalist Paper

I really enjoyed this past week's reading of a few selected Federalist papers, especially as we read them side-by-side with Adam Smith's economic theory. I guess this blog is supposed to be on a single Federalist paper, but I'm going to play with that a little. What I appreciated the most in all of these works - James Madison and Adam Smith together - was the similar theme of pluralism.

In Federalist 51 and 57, James Madison argues that the best cure for factions is actually to let factions perpetuate and multiply. The fact of having "several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places" (51). A plurality of many minority factions provides safety from the take-over of a single majority faction. The presence of a "multiplicity of interests" and a "multiplicity of sects" will, Madison argues, protect in turn civil and religious liberty (51). A multiplicity of factions and interests requires, as Madison more fully elaborates in Federalist 57, a large are of land. Here, Madison argues that factions act out of self-interest, but further that having several competing parties act out of self-interest actually benefits the rights and liberties of all, because it checks the 'tyranny of the faction,' as we could say.

Madison says it this way: "Extend the sphere" (allow a single government to rule a larger populace) "and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens" (57). This, as Dr. Hozapfel mentioned in class, is James Madison's so-called Large State Theory, and it seems, to this point, to have more or less worked.

This sounds, in a certain way, similar to Adam Smith's theories set forth in The Wealth of Nations. From the very beginning, Smith praises the "division of labour" because it allows for improvement of "skill, dexterity, and judgment," giving the classic example of the hatpin makers. For Smith, divvying up tasks allows workers to specialize, which enables efficiency and productivity. This clearly recalls Madison's claim that a greater diversity of factions enables a productive protection of civil and religious liberties.

In the second chapter of The Wealth of Nations, Smith states he fundamental principle of his economic theory: that the market operates on self-interest, which actually benefits the market. This is so similar to what Madison says - that several competing (and let's say 'specialized') factions can actually factions benefit the society.

In the third chapter, Smith argues that in a small market, there is less division of labor, and that thus in a larger market, there is greater diversity and specialization of labor. Again this sounds like Madison: in a large populace, there is a greater diversity of interests and thus factions.

The gist is this:

Both Adam Smith and James Madison argue that in a larger market or a larger population, there is a great degree of specialization. For Smith's economic theory this means that rather than being a jack-of-all-trades, an individual in the market will analyze basketball statistics or make shoelaces for a living. For Madison's political theory, this means that an individual will be a tobacco lobbyist or protest abortion clinics. In both theories, this diversity and specialization benefits the whole society. In Smith's economy, our basketball statistics analyst can call a plumber to fix his shower head and buy his milk and bread at the grocery store rather than farming himself. In Madison's political 'economy,' the tobacco lobbyists and pro-lifers, along with thousands of other factions, are vying for their own interests, which competition means that neither can take over and rule as a tyrannical majority.

Cool.

A more perfect union

This week in class, we watched A More Perfect Union: America Becomes a Nation





Just to start this blog out on a lighter note, my friend Derk looks exactly like Craig Wasson, who played James Madison in the movie. A total Doppelgänger. I pointed this out to Derk, and this photo is now his Facebook profile picture. Win.

On a more substantive note, I keep noticing in every film that we watch the differences between the characters and personalities of the Founders. I sometimes think of them as a monolithic block of upper-class white men in wigs. How wrong could I be! Benjamin Franklin's hair was totally real.

But seriously, the creation of the Constitution required serious sacrifice and compromise between competing ideas of what a good government would be. It is really incredible that the document they were able to draw up has lasted as long as it has, especially with only minor revisions. The fundamental premise of our government has remained what James Madison organized and wrote and compromised into the Constitution.

Interesting to me, in the film, was the debate over the Bill of Rights - that states would protect those rights, and that the prescribed system of government would check that.

Last, and I know this is sort of a weak-sauce blog entry, and further, I write this doubting that the TAs actually read our blogs, but why are we watching movies instead of having class lecture? How does a C-list film produced by BYU replace a lecture from a PhD? This is an honors class, and I can see the value of watching films as a supplement to lecture, but totally replacing class with a movie? I'm always a little sketched out by historical films in any case, because how can you represent another time period accurately?

Sorry to be critical, I just expected more from an Honors course.

The struggle.

This week's blog topic is the big questions the Founding Fathers wrestled with in creating the constitution.

Unfortunately, I can't dig up the drive in myself to write 600-800 words about these big questions, so I hereby forfeit my weekly blog points.

Better luck next time.

John Adams on the silver screen

First, I'm glad that Tom Hanks made this film. In general, it seemed to be quite honest in its portrayal of the Continental Congress. I think we sometimes forget how much internal struggle existed before the colonies finally united. Of course, there's only so much we can realistically recreate, be it in a film or in a novel, because the documents that still exist aren't of a descriptive nature – they don't say things like, "The air in the Congressional hall hung heavy with tension," – nor do they contain personal details like, "John and Abigail shared a tender moment sitting on the edge of their nuptial bed." So the artist has to take some liberties and experiment. I thought Hanks did a great job of capturing his audience's attention but keeping the film historically accurate.

Second, I absolutely loved the Ben Franklin character. He was hysterically funny, yet had wise insights into the politics of the Congress. If Ben was anything like that in real life, I want to be friends with him in the life to come.

Third, I wondered why Hanks chose to include the scenes of the children’s inoculation. It’s scientifically interesting from a medical-historical perspective, but it doesn’t seem to fit clearly into the central story, at least not explicitly. I wonder if perhaps Hanks included to stand as a sort of metaphor for the colonies’ decision to break ties with England.

For example, the doctor warns Abigail Adams of the dangers associated with inoculation – illness, even death, potentially. Yet she decides the risk of inoculation is worth it to protect her children. This is similar to the risk the colonies took in seceding from Britain and declaring their independence. They faced extreme risks. In spite of Thomas Paine’s optimism for America’s political and economic stability, the colonies stepped out onto a political and financial ‘limb’ by challenging Britain, a major world power.

Similarly, the American colonies were still in their ‘childhood’ – they didn’t have centuries upon centuries of independent history like Great Britain did. They described their relationship with Britain in terms of ‘mother’ country and ‘child.’

Further, in seceding, the American colonies weakened themselves, just as Abigail’s daughter succumbed to an infection from her inoculation. Yet America emerged stronger from her period of challenge and testing.

The film interpreted this time in John Adams life as a time of great growth of character for him personally. By showing Adams under the tutelage of Ben Franklin, the film creates an arc of the development of Adam’s own life. He moves from being almost violently outspoken and alienating his political rivals at the beginning of the film, to understand the ‘politics’ of politics, or being able to reconcile differences in opinion and unite political rivals in order to accomplish the good of the people.

More than the portrayal of John Adams, I loved the portrayal of his wife as strong, independent, and unafraid to express her true feelings to her husband. She was a ‘republican mother’ – she taught her children to love the new America, as in the scene where she and her children read the Declaration of Independence. Most telling to me was the line where she says that women would cut through all the ‘politics’ (in the sense of verbose speeches and stagnancy) and get things done quickly and efficiently. More power to that woman!

Intimations of Divinity

For class on Wednesday we attended the exhibit at the Museum of Art called 'Types and Shadows: Intimations of Divinity." It wasn't the first time I had been to the exhibit, but I definitely saw new things this time around, and I think I'd even like to go back to study more the things that I noticed on Wednesday.

First, the very object of the exhibit is remarkable to me - that our specifically Mormon culture so celebrates art. We seem to understand how art - and all symbolic representations - can lead us to God. Last semester in my French culture class, we discussed the beginning of the Gothic art and architecture movement and read the writings of Abbot Suger, the movement's founder, and Pseudo-Dionysis, an early Saint that he often quoted. These two men believed art to be an essential and enlightening part of religious worship with 'anagogical' - that which leads us to God - character. They believed that God, as the "father of all lights," created all material things, and that thus all material things reflect him, and art's job was to celebrate that light. On the other hand, Saint Bernard disliked art because he felt it distracted from worship. We Mormons tend to agree with Suger and Pseudo-Dionysius, and embrace symbolic representations and explorations of divinity and divine character. I love this, because through symbolism, we are taught 'line upon line.' This is the principle I was trying to get at when I said that new things came to me the second time I saw this exhibit, and that new things will come with the third: God uses symbolic teaching methods (art, Myth [capital M intended, but not explained here]) because it allows for varying and progressive interpretations, and enables man to push beyond the constraints of the temporal to access the divine.

Okay, that was all super theoretical and probably unclear, but what I basically mean is this: God uses symbolism - and in this case, art specifically - to teach us because it's multifaceted. Different people can understand one work in multiple ways, and learn equally valuable things from it. One person can also grow to understand more of a work of art as they study it, and as they have more different life experiences. As for the temporal to the divine, I like what President Packer says in his book The Holy Temple. Basically, he explains that temple ordinances and rites are symbolic, because the spiritual is used to explain the spiritual, and the symbols of the temple are a conduit to from temporal to spiritual.

Second, specifically to this exhibition, my favorite piece was actually not any of the ones we discussed on the tour, but the Brian Kershisnik painting entitled Resurrecting. I love Kershisnik's work - it's all so light-hearted. Resurrecting is again, just that. The painting depicts people joyfully jumping out of their tombs, and a mother running to scoop up her baby into her arms, both newly resurrected. The simple gladness this painting expresses makes me smile every time I see it.