...the sectionalism and regionalism of the 20th century are an American expression of dissatisfaction with the culture, or pseudo-culture that has accompanied the diffusion of industrialism. We begin to see that applied science has failed as a sovereign organizing principle in American life(11).
What all are seeking is a definition of the terms on which America may have both the diversity and the unity that give soundness to a tradition. They seek to define the nation in terms of its real and permanent rather than its superficial and temporary qualities. They are learning how to meet the subtlest and most dangerous foe of humanity - the tyranny that wears the mask of humanitarianism and benevolence. They are attacking Leviathan(11).
Thus American History can be viewe, not as a series of events in which a unified national development, proceeding from an acknowledged center, is majestically unrolled, but as a series of sectional clashes(24).
on differing historian's views...
Frederick Jackson Turner's view assured the continuity of multiple traditions within one general tradition; it looks to the land and the people as forming, within nature, a stable, if not permanent historical factor, leading to a more or less permanent diversity.
Turner stands for a flexible, decentralized society, allowing the maximum of tolerance, within the national govt for divergencies of interest.
Charles Beard stands for extreme centralization, for conformity to one type of economic interest, and hence for the minimum of tolerance for any sort of divergencies.
Turner represents the Immoveable Bodies of the great American problem.
Beard represents the Irresistible Forces.
The social scientist leaning toward the totalitarian state is thus understandable, since it is the only kind of state which will have authority enough to make the perfect adjustment that they demand of a government.
What makes a region a region is first of all the geographic factors that provide a national setting in which animal and vegetable life are adapted to environment; and second, the cultural cycle or cycles produced by man's invasion of the natural scene. The second factor gives us "human geography," which is the science of human adjustment to environmental conditions. Man both manipulates nature and is manipulated by it(45).
...They do not realize that a city may be, not a true regional capital, but an outpost of empire(45).
...The mountain boy could get a college education, but the system that built him a school also took out of his mouth the traditional ballad that was his ancient heritage, and instead of a ballad gave him a "mammy song" devised in Tin Pan Alley by the urbanized descendant of a Russian Jew. Meanwhile, the system working through another specialized department, recorded the ballad and stored it away on the shelf of a library to be studied and annotated, as the artifact of a lost culture, by men who would never sing it(74).
...To the country boy, newly become a millhand, the system gave more money than he had ever seen; but organized capital and labor told him how to spend it. The new woman, advancing into pursuits denied her grandmother, gained a profession or a job; but she lost her right to become a mother. The farmer got an automobile; but he lost his home(74).
..its sway might be challenged in those sections where standardization implied an economic despoliation which could be recognized as accruing to the material benefit of the Northeast(74).
The self-conscious revolt of the artist may be considered as symptomatic of something more general, that is everywhere in society. In its self-counscious phase, regionalism may be described as a retreat from the artistic leviathanism of the machine age, symbolized by the dominance of New York during the 1920s(81).
Like their predecessors of several past generations in England and America, these writers [Robert Penn Warren and Allen Tate] were engaged in the search for a "usable past" which had trouble Western art since the beginning of the Renaissance. For five hundred years the people of the West have seen a series of advance and recessions in art, brought on by the continuous destruction of society under the auspices of scientific rationalism, and by the compensatory effort of the artist, gradually dissociated from intimate relationship with society, to find the kind of art that will be socially valid without injury to its own worth and integrity(84).
...extremists, pragmatists agree in believing that the Leviathan State, is not only a national form but a world form, is necessary to secure to humankind the equal benefits of technological advance, to which they would sacrifice all else. These men, like the followers of Muhammad, will hear no appeal to reason, but will choose rather to put unbelievers to the sword...
- Donald Davidson, The Attack on Leviathan
No comments:
Post a Comment