[Vision2020] The crazy side of the line

[Michael]

Melynda,

 

> By which I presume he means to assert that "American Indians" lacked moral
standards or high ideals. "Unique cultural sin" looks like the same old
racism in a new package. 

 

Their moral view of the world and their understanding of their role in
changing the world was not of the sort that I imagine would bring out the
sin of 'hypocrisy' as strong a concern-hypocrisy as we understand it (and we
borrow from our Christian heritage). 

 

> When I look at historical documents from the antebellum South I find it
difficult to come to the conclusion that its primary failing was being too
darned idealistic.  And when we look past the Civil War through Jim Crow and
the rise of the lynch mob, respectability looks even less plausible as a key
note for the culture.  You seem to be claiming that prior to the Civil War,
the moral climate of the South, despite slavery, was superior to that of the
North or the West, and that "respectability" is the quality which elevated
it.

 

Because of were this discussion has gone, I'm willing to lump the North and
South together in comparison to our own; and I wouldn't even know where to
begin if this comparison is going to be seriously challenged.  Regarding
hypocrisy, I was simply responding to Keely's argument. But of course,
hypocrisy is not the sin of "being too darned idealistic." 

 

> So maybe I'm just not getting what "respectability" signifies, or how it
can counterbalance the gravity of slavery.  

 

Please note my argument from modern abortion and Kai's argument from
classical culture.  I don't think 'counterbalance' is the appropriate term.

 

> Note that I'm not asserting that the North was or is free from racism; the
largest lynch mob ever documented was far above the Mason-Dixon Line. But
I'm missing a big step in the argument.  Yes, the Civil War had multiple
causes.  Yes, racism permeates the history of the U.S. in every geographic
region.  Yes, life is complex.  But how do I get from there to the notion
that the antebellum South represents a moral high point from which we have
lamentably declined?

 

I think these are important concessions, and I'm glad you have pointed them
out. But like I said, if it is going to be seriously maintained that we have
not seen a moral decline in the U.S. over the last 100 years, then, well, I
guess I don't know where I would begin.  Perhaps then I'll just take the
first thing that enters my head.  I don't think Leave It To Beaver perfectly
represents a Christian Ideal, but as illustration, it seems to beat the
schism, disrespect, autonomy, immorality, and instability of the typical
modern family.

 

Perhaps De Tocqueville can progressively help too:

 

Chapter IX

  _____  


EDUCATION OF YOUNG WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES 

No free communities ever existed without morals, and as I observed in the
former part of this work, morals are the work of woman. Consequently,
whatever affects the condition of women, their habits and their opinions,
has great political importance in my eyes. 

  _____  

 

Among almost all Protestant nations young women are far more the mistresses
of their own actions than they are in Catholic countries. This independence
is still greater in Protestant countries like England, which have retained
or acquired the right of self-government; freedom is then infused into the
domestic circle by political habits and by religious opinions. In the United
States the doctrines of Protestantism are combined with great political
liberty and a most democratic state of society, and nowhere are young women
surrendered so early or so completely to their own guidance. 

Long before an American girl arrives at the marriageable age, her
emancipation from maternal control begins: she has scarcely ceased to be a
child when she already thinks for herself, speaks with freedom, and acts on
her own impulse. The great scene of the world is constantly open to her
view, far from seeking to conceal it from her, it is every day disclosed
more completely and she is taught to survey it with a firm and calm gaze.
Thus the vices and dangers of society are early revealed to her; as she sees
them clearly, she views them without illusion and braves them without fear,
for she is full of reliance on her own strength, and her confidence seems to
be shared by all around her. 

An American girl scarcely ever displays that virginal softness in the midst
of young desires or that innocent and ingenuous grace which usually attend
the European woman in the transition from girlhood to youth. It is rare that
an American woman, at any age displays childish timidity or ignorance. Like
the young women Europe she seeks to please, but she knows precisely the cost
of pleasing. If she does not abandon herself to evil, at least she knows
that it exists; and she is remarkable rather for purity of manners than for
chastity of mind. 

I have been frequently surprised and almost frightened at the singular
address and happy boldness with which young women in America contrive to
manage their thoughts and their language amid all the difficulties of free
conversation; a philosopher would have stumbled at every step along the
narrow path which they trod without accident and without effort. It is easy,
indeed, to perceive that even amid the independence of early youth an
American woman is always mistress of herself; she indulges in all permitted
pleasures without yielding herself up to any of them, and her reason never
allows the reins of self-guidance to drop, though it often seems to hold
them loosely. 

In France, where traditions of every age are still so strangely mingled in
the opinions and tastes of the people, women commonly receive a reserved,
retired, and almost conventional education, as they did in aristocratic
times; and then they are suddenly abandoned without a guide and without
assistance in the midst of all the irregularities inseparable from
democratic society. The Americans are more consistent. They have found out
that in a democracy the independence of individuals cannot fail to be very
great, youth premature, tastes ill-restrained, customs fleeting, public
opinion often unsettled and powerless, paternal authority weak, and marital
authority contested. Under these circumstances, believing that they had
little chance of repressing in woman the most vehement passions of the human
heart, they held that the surer way was to teach her the art of combating
those passions for herself. As they could not prevent her virtue from being
exposed to frequent danger, they determined that she should know how best to
defend it, and more reliance was placed on the free vigor of her will than
on safeguards which have been shaken or overthrown Instead, then, of
inculcating mistrust of herself, they constantly seek to enhance her
confidence in her own strength of character. As it is neither possible nor
desirable to keep a young woman in perpetual and complete ignorance, they
hasten to give her a precocious knowledge on all subjects. Far from hiding
the corruptions of the world from her, they prefer that she should see them
at once and train herself to shun them, and they hold it of more importance
to protect her conduct than to be over-scrupulous of the innocence of her
thoughts. 

Although the Americans are a very religious people, they do not rely on
religion alone to defend the virtue of woman; they seek to arm her reason
also. In this respect they have followed the same method as in several
others: they first make vigorous efforts to cause individual independence to
control itself, and they do not call in the aid of religion until they have
reached the utmost limits of human strength. 

I am aware that an education of this kind is not without danger; I am
sensible that it tends to invigorate the judgment at the expense of the
imagination and to make cold and virtuous women instead of affectionate
wives and agreeable companions to man. Society may be more tranquil and
better regulated, but domestic life has often fewer charms. These, however,
are secondary evils, which may be braved for the sake of higher interests.
At the stage at which we are now arrived, the choice is no longer left to
us; a democratic education is indispensable to protect women from the
dangers with which democratic institutions and manners surround them. 

 

 

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