A Liberal Dose, September 29 2022, "The Good of the Many or the One: Why Not Both?"

 

A Liberal Dose

September 29, 2022

Troy D. Smith

“The Good of the Many or the One: Why Not Both?”

 

Several things have sort of coalesced and crossed over for me the last few days, creating a sort of pattern.

This weekend my wife and I attended the WilCo (Wilson County) Pow Wow, which is directed by our friend Cindy Yahola. We both love the pow wow experience, being surrounded by Native culture and indigenous community. I found myself thinking about what an honor it is to be invited into that community, which has a very real, unique, and palpable feel to it. I often stress to my environmental history students how much we can learn from indigenous people (in the present, not just the past)… not only because of the way they care for their surroundings, but because of how good they are at coming together as a community to do so, even though their communities are made up of human individuals just like everyone else’s.

Just this week, in my basic early U.S. history course, I have been talking about American Indian culture and how it differed from that of the colonists. It is a paradox, in a way; Native people were (and continue to be) very communal-minded, with a strong sense of working together as a group, for the good of the group, while simultaneously being extremely individualistic. No Indian leader had the authority or power to MAKE one of their people do something, he had to CONVINCE them to do so. And they did not have to comply. Each person was free to make their own decisions. And yet their culture was such that, in most cases, people chose to act for the good of the tribe rather than for themselves.

For example, most tribes had a communal corn field that everyone worked in, and everyone shared from. At harvest time each family was given what it was estimated they would need to get them through the winter, and what was left over was put into a community storage building so that anyone who ran short could draw from it. No one came in and took it all, because everyone had the good of the tribe in mind. At the same time, though, the tribe had the good of the individual provided for.

Thinking of this reminded me of the discussions in my American West class recently, where I have pointed out that -from the Revolutionary period onward -there had been basic disagreements over whether America should be more about protecting the rights of the individual or the rights of the majority (the community, or the “general welfare”), and that in our movement west and the way we imagined it later, the emphasis seemed to be on the lone frontiersman or cowboy solving his own problems and making his own way. Yet, in reality, community was just as important. “Settlement” isn’t done by one person. Even working cowboys “rode for the brand” and were loyal to their outfit and their compadres. There has been, and continues to be, tension in America between these two ideas which only seem conflicting on the surface. The real answer, as Native people have always known, is to do both together at once, seamlessly.

Finally, the book we are reading for Sunday school talked today about the fact that American Christians have tended to let western thought, centered on individualism, color their faith to the exclusion of community. There was a great quote from a Methodist bishop who said he did not want to belong to a church that did not acknowledge the individual relationship with God, or to one that did not acknowledge the Bible’s many scriptures about helping others. He wanted a church that does both: in his words, that has two oars, with both of them in the water, and is going someplace.

That’s the kind of country I want. Maybe you do, too.

We should listen more to the first Americans on how to achieve that.

 

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

 

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

A Liberal Dose, Sept. 22, 2022 "Ralph Waldo Emerson, 'The American Scholar,' and the Dangers of Fear"

A Liberal Dose

September 22, 2022

Troy D. Smith

“Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American Scholar, and the Dangers of Fear”

 

A few more words about fear.

Every year, I share with honors freshmen an excerpt from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 1837 essay “The American Scholar.” It lays out the civic responsibilities of an educated person. I have tried to live by Emerson’s advice, and I think every person -regardless of the amount of formal schooling they’ve had -should do the same. I’m going to cite one paragraph in particular, as I do in class, and then comment on it.

First, a little background: Emerson, like Thoreau, was a philosopher of the Transcendentalist Movement. They believed you should look for God in nature, that all people should be independent and self-sufficient in their thoughts, and that we should transcend the artificial restrictions of convention and what is “popular.” Here is the paragraph:

“Free should the scholar be, — free and brave. Free even to the definition of freedom, ‘without any hindrance that does not arise out of his own constitution.’ Brave; for fear is a thing, which a scholar by his very function puts behind him. Fear always springs from ignorance. It is a shame to him if his tranquility, amid dangerous times, arise from the presumption, that, like children and women, his is a protected class; or if he seek a temporary peace by the diversion of his thoughts from politics or vexed questions, hiding his head like an ostrich in the flowering bushes, peeping into microscopes, and turning rhymes, as a boy whistles to keep his courage up. So is the danger a danger still; so is the fear worse. Manlike let him turn and face it. Let him look into its eye and search its nature, inspect its origin… he will then find in himself a perfect comprehension of its nature and extent; he will have made his hands meet on the other side, and can henceforth defy it, and pass on superior. The world is his, who can see through its pretension. What deafness, what stone-blind custom, what overgrown error you behold, is there only by sufferance, — by your sufferance. See it to be a lie, and you have already dealt it its mortal blow.”

The scholar should be free and brave. If you are brave, you will be free, for it is fear that shackles people and fear comes from the unknown. If you are a responsible scholar, you face the unknown and try to figure it out, thereby gaining knowledge and ending fear, not only for yourself, but for those who listen to you. Both you and they will be free.

It would be dishonorable, on the other hand, for the scholar to hide his or her head in the sand and avoid uncomfortable, disagreeable, or unpopular problems in order to protect themselves. It is a shirking of their duty… and it only feeds fear and makes it stronger, in yourself and others.

Whatever issue arises, turn and face it with courage -throw your arms around it to see how big it is, figure out where it comes from, and you are already on the way to defeating it. If it is a threat, it is so only because you allow it to be, by not facing it head-on, which is your civic duty as a scholar.

“See it to be a lie, and you have already dealt it its mortal blow.”

One of the biggest problems, down through American history, has been our tendency to look away from problems, to ignore them, because facing them is hard and uncomfortable. For a scholar to do that is a betrayal of all they stand for. A lot of politicians want educators to ignore the truths of history and teach pleasant fables. That is not education, it is misinformation. It is a teacher’s duty -it is everyone’s duty -to be brave and tell the truth.

And we continue to do so.

 

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

 

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

 

 

A Liberal Dose, September 15, 2022 "Don't Let Fear Be Our Downfall: A reflection on 9/11"

 

A Liberal Dose

September 15, 2022

Troy D. Smith

“Don’t Let Fear Be Our Downfall”

 

This newspaper is published on Thursdays, but I write these columns on the weekend before it comes out. I am writing this one on Sunday, September 11.

Like many of us, I’ve spent much of this day remembering the horrors of that awful event 21 years ago. In addition to the shock and outrage everyone in the country felt, I was also struck that day with an eerie sense of déjà vu: having lived in New York City little more than a decade earlier, I had been in those buildings and, even more often, the plaza below them.

I was also struck by a strong feeling that the terrorists had made a huge miscalculation. I was reminded of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which they thought would cripple and demoralize America but which instead unified the country as never before. As I watched the screen I muttered aloud a WWII-era quote about the Japanese: “They have awakened a sleeping giant.”

It appeared I was correct. The whole country seemed to pull together, to put aside racial, religious, and political differences with a determination to shine through (with a notable exception, which I’ll discuss in a moment). Those of us old enough to remember that day remember that feeling, which lasted for months. It was as beautiful a feeling as the day was horrendous.

But it didn’t last. And it seemed that when we did tear apart from each other again, it was far worse than it had been before 9/11… and seems to worsen with each passing year, until we’ve become divided to the point of violent rhetoric occasionally bursting into violent actions. At the very least, we are at each other’s throats ideologically far more than we used to be. With the hindsight of years of study since then, I have begun to understand why.

What was Osama Bin Laden trying to accomplish? He was striking against the symbols of American hegemony. Hegemony is defined by three things: the most powerful economy, the most powerful military, and the dominating political system. What were the three targets on 9/11? The World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the Capitol (or maybe the White House- we’ll never know). But his plans were more than just symbolic, they were practical.

Remember, the Russians invaded Afghanistan in 1980 and spent the rest of the decade at war there (it has been called their Vietnam). Bin Laden was one of many Muslims (called mujahedeen) who came to fight there against the Russians (often trained and equipped by the U.S.) By forcing the USSR into a quagmire that overextended their resources and lost the support of their people, the mujahedeen played a large role in causing the collapse of the Soviet Union, one of the two world powers.

And Bin Laden planned to do the same thing to the other world power, us. By provoking us into an ideological, resource-draining, endless, unwinnable war that would cripple our economy and divide our people. I used to think “wow, it almost worked!”

But now I’m not so sure it didn’t.

There was a fissure immediately after 9/11: Americans began to persecute Muslim citizens. Or citizens they thought LOOKED Muslim, like Sikhs from India or Coptic Christians from Egypt. Or anyone dark. Or any non-white immigrant. Or anyone that scared them by looking or thinking differently- because we all WERE scared, very scared, on an existential level. And, as I pointed out last week, when we are scared we behave irrationally and turn on each other. The fear took hold on 9/11 and has snaked out its tendrils into every part of our lives.

It was a Terror attack.

We are still in terror, and we are attacking each other. 21 years down the line, we are in danger of tearing our country apart and handing the ghost of Bin Laden the very victory he hoped for.

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

 

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

A Liberal Dose, Sept. 8, 2022 "The Monsters Are Coming to Maple Street"

 

A Liberal Dose

September 8, 2022

Troy D. Smith

“The Monsters Are Coming to Maple Street”

 

Last week President Biden gave a speech in which he warned that some die-hard Trump supporters were responding to calls of violence and thereby endangering democracy. The result, at least from what I’ve seen on social media (and, in fact, even on regular media), has been a lot of those same MAGA folks infuriated that such an accusation would be made against them, calling Biden a “divider”… and doubling down on talk of violence.

This time around the object of their fury -well, before that speech -was a legal and clearly warranted search of Trump’s premises to look for top secret documents he was suspected of illegally removing and (unsafely) storing at his golf resort. I was shocked to see conservative friends whom I’ve always known as clear-headed calling on social media for potential violent insurrection. FBI agents were targeted around the country -one Trump supporter tried to break into FBI headquarters in Dayton, Ohio with a nail gun, apparently thinking it would shatter the bulletproof glass and allow him entrance to shoot up the place -he died in a shoot-out with police.

Thanks to January 6, 2021, we now know with certainty what effect the words of Trump and his political cronies can have when used to inflame his base with violent rhetoric. Violent rhetoric leads to violent action. Since Trump came down that golden escalator in 2015, we have seen plenty of both -with the vast majority of it coming from the far right. Now, some reading this column might argue that most of the violence is coming from Black Lives Matter and Antifa, and point to demonstrations where property was damaged. That has been greatly exaggerated by Fox News and other outlets, which minimize (or omit completely) what some on the far right have done. Violent protest in Charlottesville which led to a young liberal woman being murdered with a car, and many others being injured. The insanely violent assault on our Capitol, which is a black mark on the history of this country. Synagogue shootings, supermarket shootings, and various other shootings in the last few years that have targeted people by race, religion, sexual orientation, and so on. And on and on and on.

In 2017 there was a Black Lives Matter event held on Tennessee Tech campus, hosted by an African American fraternity. There were some speeches, a poem or two read, a song or two sung, and it closed with everybody present (including a large number of white allies) hugging each other. But social media was insane, and several local people stated their intention to drive by with guns to “defend themselves” against the protesters. I had one (white) student ask me if classes were being canceled that day for the students’ safety from BLM, and said he had read on social media that black students intended to rape every white girl they found on campus that day. The police wound up cordoning off every street leading to the event… to protect protesters from armed hooligans, not the other way around. Something similar happened on the Cookeville square in May, 2020, after the murder of George Floyd.

Here is my point. Trump and his cronies keep calling for violence, and gullible people who support him are providing it. I fear that we are sitting on a powder keg. Most of those folks are acting in fear -unfounded fear, stoked for political gain by Trump and company -and nothing is more dangerous than someone who is scared. Have you seen the Twilight Zone episode “The Monsters Are Coming to Maple Street”? We acted out the script when I was a student at White County Middle School (I wonder if teachers are still allowed to do that).

Its moral: when we are ruled by panic and paranoia, we become the monsters.

Step back, friends, take a breath, and remember that you love your neighbor.

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

*note- the correct title is actually "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street"

 

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

A Liberal Dose, Sept. 1, 2022 "What's So Bad About Nationalism?"

 

A Liberal Dose

September 1, 2022

Troy D. Smith

“What’s So Bad About Nationalism, Anyway?”

For the last three weeks I’ve been talking about the troubling nature of Christian Nationalism, which is rising in popularity on the right. I demonstrated that it is not historically accurate, and runs counter to what this country WAS founded on. If you missed that, you can catch up online at SpartaLive or at tnwordsmith.blogspot.com. Now I am going to add some more context.

First, though, let me speak briefly as a Christian. It has always been my understanding, from the New Testament and the words of Jesus, that a Christian’s primary citizenship is in God’s Kingdom, and that all Christians around the world -whatever country they live in -are brothers and sisters. Christianity transcends national borders and governments. God does not have a “chosen country”, and there is no scriptural reason to believe that He would love the United States more than, say, Australia. Or Nigeria. Or any other country. Hence my argument that Christian Nationalism is not Christian. But it is nationalistic.

This is from the Wikipedia definition of nationalism:

“Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state… It further aims to build and maintain a single national identity, based on shared social characteristics of culture, ethnicity, geographic location, language, politics (or the government), religion, traditions and belief in a shared singular history, and to promote national unity or solidarity. Nationalism, therefore, seeks to preserve and foster a nation's traditional culture.”

Fascism is nationalism taken to the extreme. This is from the Wikipedia definition of fascism (emphases mine):

“A RADICAL AUTHORITARIAN NATIONALIST political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in NATIONAL IDENTITY by suprapersonal connections of ANCESTRY, CULTURE, AND BLOOD. To achieve this, fascists purge forces, ideas, people, and systems deemed to be the cause of decadence and degeneration. Fascists believe that a nation requires strong leadership, singular collective identity, and the will and ability to commit violence and wage war in order to keep the nation strong.”

Finally, here are several identifying marks of fascism, as I have taught them for fifteen years when discussing WWII in class -and, let me point out, these are standard markers historians use to define the concept:

The nation must have one culture, with no “outside” or “inferior” cultures allowed.

The same is true with religion. Remember that WWII German military belt buckles said “Gott mit uns”… “God is with us.”

Anyone who does not conform to the main culture must be excluded or weeded out.

The leader must be a strong, aggressive individual, who will take the nation back to its earlier days of glory.

Dissent in any form is not tolerated.

The leader is supported by extremely violent followers.

Read over all that, and think about Proud Boys and others chanting things like “Jews will not replace us” and “Blood and Soil” (a Nazi slogan). Think about the criminals on January 6^th who waved, not only American flags, but crosses as they sought to besmirch and destroy our Capitol, and to attack and try to kill police and members of Congress. Think of the love some of these folks have for Trump and Putin- and certainly not because of any Christian qualities either of those men have ever displayed. None of that is Christian, and none of it is patriotic.

And none of it is in line with the principle this country was founded on, respect for the natural and civil rights of all people equally, regardless of origin or religion. I know we have often done a poor job of following those principles, but we have to keep them in our sight as goals to work toward.

But to support Christian Nationalism, and Trumpism (the two seem to go hand-in-hand), is to embrace authoritarianism and fascism and reject democracy, freedom, and justice.

 

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

 

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE S