[lit-ideas] Re: All praise to JC

  • From: Judith Evans <judithevans001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2010 21:57:22 +0000 (GMT)

 but I should reply to Lawrence too, if both briefly and partly, now

>Another
 way to look at the objects of Blogblather's condemnation would be to 
see them >.as European ways that had not yet been sloughed off by 
Americans dedicated to free
>.enterprise and human rights.

a way that falls foul of the difference between indentured labour and chattel 
slavery, of Somersett's case, which effectively abolished slavery 
(mainly=domestic service, some 14.000 slaves) in the uk -- 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somersett's_Case -- of the 1807 Slave Trade Act 
and the 1833 Abolition of Slavery Act (seen as the only way to eliminate the 
slave trade). 

but anyway as Mike says, the US is a hotchpotch


 

--- On Fri, 2/7/10, Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

From: Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: All praise to JC
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Friday, 2 July, 2010, 20:30

I posted a response to Mike's (aka Billy Blogblather's) note at 
http://www.lawrencehelm.com/2010/07/shame-germany-america-and-genocide.html 
 Lawrence  From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mike Geary
Sent: Thursday, July 01, 2010 8:09 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: All praise to JC  Hi, Chris,

To begin: "Civilization" is a meaningless word .  Let's use the word 'culture' 
instead -- significantly less meaningless.  In the U. S. there are innumerable 
cultures -- my guess is, more so than in any of the European countries, but I 
don't know that.  European countries strike me as being much more homogeneous 
than the US.  And, as I write this, America is becoming more and more 
Hispanicized day by day.  I celebrate that.  Hispanics seem to have a hell of 
lot better grip on reality than the Northern European stock here who've grown 
fat,  proud and complacent,  and supremely confident of their superiority.  I 
can't speak to Cheever's disillusionment with America.  I grew up in Memphis, 
raised by very liberal parents,  I've been aware almost from the very beginning 
how racist and ultra-right the South is.  I  learned from my parents and from a 
few subversive teachers that the Southern culture is not only retrogressive, it 
is morally
 deficient -- to put it politely.  I don't think of America as an entity, or as 
a culture.  It's too diffuse.  And that's a wonderful thing.  There are many 
things about America that I hate, primarily its militarism. But this is all I 
know.  I have a brother who has lived in Denmark for the last 47 years and 
loves it totally.  I myself came within a week of emigrating to Canada rather 
than going to Vietnam, a war I believed was indefensible on moral grounds.  A 
teaching job came through at the very end -- sweet deferment.  I've lived one 
year in San Francisco -- god what a paradise -- and  six years in Seattle -- a 
place better called "Heaven".  Everything about both those cities were right 
down my perspective alley, but weirdly I never really connected with anyone in 
either city -- maybe it was my Southern accent  : )   When my kids started 
having kids I came back to Memphis.  I was struck at how quickly all the old 
relationships fell back
 into place.  I was home again, and loving it.  And hating it.

I've not sure what Cheever expected.  What was he needing America to be?   It's 
just another country, but one that's a hodgepodge  of cultures, a country 
founded in genocide, supported through slavery and slave wages for three 
hundred years. A country that presents itself as the noblest of the noble.  But 
America is not the shining light on the hill, that I was taught it to be by my 
educators -- men (almost exclusively -- most of whom I now know knew less about 
life and human nature than I did at ten years old all praise and  thanks to my 
wondrously anomalous parents.)  America is just another grouping of people 
trying to bring things together without too much pain to themselves.  What 
people aren't?  

Mike Geary
Memphis.

PS  anyone interested in contemporary "Southern Culture" should tune into the 
Memphis Commercial Appeal's website: http://www.commercialappeal.com/  ; and 
read the comments on the various articles..  If you see one by Kinch, that's me.


      

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