Legislating from the Bench

The controversy behind "legislating from the bench" was brought up in class Wednesday, and though it may not be the direct focus of the Lombardo book, I feel it's an interesting topic of which I would like to get others' opinion on considering several of the books we have read are about the history and evolution of the Supreme Court. It is interesting how, as Dr. Baker noted, the Court has taken a much more active role in recent history in terms of overturning precedents, and though this could be called "legislating," I believe you would be hard-pressed to find anyone on the side of the overturning who would say so.

If it is true that the Supreme Court picks only a few cases a year to hear, than wouldn't the very fact that they   will render judgment on the constitutionality of a law, no matter what the outcome, send a de facto message to the states as to how they should engage said law? In other words, a non-answer is still an answer. The argument could be made that in the Buck v. Bell case the Supreme Court was merely showing judicial restraint and deferring to the states, as many would insist they should, but as a result they were putting their stamp of approval on a provocative medical practice. As Lombardo states in the introduction, in the wake of the decision, "opposition to sterilization seemed to melt away." Within a decade, more than a dozen states would use these methods. The underlying message here seems to be that the very act of the Supreme Court hearing a case is a form of "legislating from the bench" in its own right. I wonder if they are aware of this dynamic or if they even believe its veracity. Do you disagree?

Buck v Bell=Dystopian Future?

I haven't gotten too far into the Lombardo book yet, but I can already tell that it is already going to be interesting. Before I started it, I only knew a VERY small amount about the eugenics movement in the United States: basically, all I knew was that it happened. However, when I got to thinking about it, and as I got to reading the Lombardo's book, the whole situation really reminded me a LOT of Dystopian literature (I'm a big fan of Dystopian lit, ever since I took a class in undergrad), especially books like Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, where social engineering, which is just a synonym for the word 'eugenics,' becomes the norm. Even though the Supreme Court probably thought they were doing the right thing in Buck v Bell, who are WE, as humans, to determine whether or not other people should be forced to undergo sterilization? Who are we to define 'socially inadequate'? This leads to another problem: people will have different ideas of what is socially inadequate. It's really a slippery slope, and really pretty terrifying to think that happened, and not even all that long ago.

Strange Career/Strange Title

I'm curious what the class thinks about the use of the word "career" in the title. Woodward discusses why he uses it in general terms, but I wonder if you believe this is the most appropriate way to describe the Jim Crow narrative. Is it merely a quirky synonym for "history" or "evolution" or is there something inherently apt in using this word as a thematic framework for his argument that no other term could have encapsulated as well?

Initial thought on Woodward

After doing some pre-reading, it seems that the objective of Woodward's book, for the time it was written in, was to dispel the belief that segregation of African Americans was a natural order of society. He establishes his argument by showing that despite the common belief that the South is a region that has long established beliefs and traditions, the South as a region has had the most discontinuities in its history than any other region in the United States. His first chapter begins this process by showing that in the days of slavery segregation was not a compatible system to govern the work of slaves. In fact, he shows that slavery required more interaction of racial groups than did the period following emancipation. I would imagine this book was very provocative for the time it was written. One thing I am confused about is something he says in the preface to the second edition. He states that segregation as he defines it means physical separation, not social separation. How can people be physically separated without being also socially separated? Can anybody help me here? 

the First Chapter

 Even though I'm well past the first chapter, I really liked how Bederman begins the book. Through a lot of the book, she spends time writing about the idea of a white, masculine, ideal, that men have always been trying to attain. Starting her book by writing about how an African-American boxer attained this while in the public eye was interesting to read, and, in my opinion, really added to her work, and shows how deeply rooted class issues were, even in things that, on the surface, might seem more trivial.

Bederman Enlightenment

What has taken place in this book is a national crime against not only African-Americans, but Native Americans, Black Women, White Women and other non-White groups that had to endure the degradation of White Supremacy masking itself as the Civilized and Cultured.  Obviously, the contributions of all people under the American banner had been vastly overlooked by the period of the late 1800s and the early 1900s.  I believed a lot of this backlash occurred after the end of Reconstruction and the rise of African-American economic independence.  Shamefully, the myth of the Black Brute and Rapist appeared along side the antithetical caricatures of C--n, Sambo, Aunt Jemima, Mammy, and Uncle.  Just like the White Supremacist ideals, on one hand Blacks are menacing savages and on the other hand Blacks are subservient submissives.  Same contradictions as American Slavery, American Freedom.

Bederman: Race, Class, Gender, and ???

As I read the chapter about Ida B. Wells' work, I see that Bederman invokes a common historical and literary trope of race and nature (nature as savage and uncontrolled, the role of white supremacy in controlling it). Bederman seems to use this to define the conflict in terms of the space between the waning importance of Victorian restraint vs. natural "savage" instinct in which white, middle class men found themselves. The complicity of American culture to lynching recalls Roediger's discussion of minstrel shows as a place where men were allowed participation in savage, infantile behavior. The trouble, however, seems to be Bederman's focus on class and race only--her approach seems to consider only marginally a factor that Roediger included: the growing immigrant population. I'm left wondering if this is one reason why, while I find the author's investigation interesting and important, I feel that something significant is missing as I read this text. To her credit, she makes clear in Chpt. 1 the complexity of the historical moment and topic she is investigating. But her choices do not seem to illustrate this complexity. Other thoughts on this? What about her methodology? Acceptable? Effective? I am not far enough along to answer this, but I'd like to hear what others think.

Since brevity is the soul of blog posts, I'll keep this brief. Much of the conversation in class about cultural history is about how ambiguous it is as a mode of analysis. Much of this is because there's always a suspicion that the sampling of examples to illustrate culture at a given time is arbitrary. So I want to throw it out there now. Bederman uses Jack Johnson for a reason to further her argument. Do you guys find this valid or just another example of cherry picking actors to prove a cultural point? i for one believe he;s a perfect person to make Bederman's point for the very reason that he throws the characteristics of white masculinity consciously back in the face of his detractors, which Bederman claims galvanized them more than anything else. Do you guys disagree?

Also, here's a link to the trailer for "The Great White Hope," a wonderful movie about Johnson starring James Earl Jones. Even from the clips in the trailer, you see a lot of the themes presented in the book.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeiG7-0lQX0 

"White City"

I have been trying to wrap my brain around the final chapter and I am now convinced I got lost somewhere in the description of how the Fair was laid out. I do not understand the cultural meaning the Fair represented according to Trachtenberg. I did however catch that Black Americans were only allowed to participate in the production of the Fair through menial work. Native Indians were there to represent the living past and the spectacle of savagery. Women were by far more represented to include a woman architect but if I understood Trachtenberg, women were still represented through the guise of their domestic importance.

Does anyone have a different understanding of "White City"?

The Fictions of the Real - Thoughts?

Did anyone else find the chapter on The Fictions of the Real to be a fascinating chapter?

I felt like the real heart of Trachtenberg's argument could be found through his literary analysis of Herman Melville's Billy Budd. I admit, I probably liked this chapter more than others because I have Bacherlor's in English Lit., but I thought it was a very interesting how he used literature and other artistic forms to analyze the period of the Gilded Age as being a conflict between expressing individuality, or as Trachtenberg states, "a defiance of the standards of symmetry and harmony and a "complete emancipation from levels of style," and being forced into these elements of style and conformity of public taste instituted by those in power.

I admit, I still am thinking on it and the wheels are still turning, but I just really liked the idea of "Realist" literature having the intention of speaking to the commonplace man, and how this goes back to the idea that the Gilded Age was characterized by a nervous populace that sought self-control and self-expression in the face of growing conformity. As Trachtenberg mentions in his discussion of Billy Budd, the state "no longer promised redemption" but instead forced obedience. The America founded by early colonists to be the "city on a hill" or a religious, moral example, is no more, the ideal having been torn down by gritty realities faced by Gilded Age America such as class conflict, war, and "unrelenting law".

I think this is an interesting argument that brings up more questions such as,

What does this mean for the Protestant ethic? Does Trachtenberg think the Protestant ethic was changed to conform to American nationalism?

I'll be the first to admit my post here is kind of confusing, haha, I'm still working out my thoughts, but this chapter just provoked a lot of thought for me and I'm interested to hear other people's thoughts on it and what they thought.

What is incorporation?

What is incorporation?

Trachtenberg uses incorporation in his book in reference to its cultural impact upon America.  Specifically, the author argues that economic incorporation helped subsume earlier aspects of American culture and simultaneously created new ones.  For the author, this process was characterized by discord and strife. Incorporation here is meant to simultaneously mean the economic structures developed after the Civil War AS WELL AS the cultural impact these structures had on American society. For instance: The Jeffersonian ideal in the homestead act vs. the reality of railroad corporations control of the settlement of the west. 

In other words: The Incorporation inherent in the railroads offered/created a culture of middle executives, engineers, and wage labor at odds with the Jeffersonian Ideal, which had been prevalent, of yeoman farm tenancy.  This new culture of technical experts, stock holders, and wage laborers injected new cultural elements into society - things like time discipline, dignity/indignity of labor, etc.  However, these new cultural elements did not go unopposed, and it is this strife which characterizes much of the narrative in "The Incorporation of America".  

Incorporation?

I'm sensing a disturbance in the force. Only one post so far this week, which suggests either that everyone completely gets Trachtenberg, or we're all getting really really tired.

So I'll post a question. Can anyone please explain to me in a couple of sentences what "incorporation" is? I mean, I get incorporation as a business strategy to reduce liability and pool resources and all, but how does this help us understand cultural history? (Best answer gets 25 points toward discussion grade)

Trachtenberg and Chaos.

Hey all!  I'm a bit more than half of the way through Trachtenberg at the moment and I thought I'd share some thoughts - I know you were all waiting breathlessly.

Thus far Trachtenberg does a good job staying on track with what I feel to be his main argument - that Incorporation/Industrialization caused a revolution in the very definition of America - its social patterns, thoughts, art, etc, in short, its culture.  This is impressive as what cultural  history texts I've read, admittedly few, have often read more like metaphysical tracts of a hundred and fifty years ago.

Trachtenberg's thematic approach is helpful in keeping the reader focused.  By chapter two, "Mechanization Takes Command", you begin to see how the author builds from changing cultural ideas regarding the settlement of the west, i.e. the west as Jeffersonian dream vs. West as extension of Incorporation, to how Mechanization itself changed culture via Mechanization's enforcement of time discipline etc.  Sprinkled throughout these "concrete" examples of change over time, i.e. railroads, Trachtenberg utilizes language, art, spectacle, etc, to show changing cultural perceptions and specifically how culture in America was changing due to Incorporation/Industrialization.  The use of these "cultural" elements is of course standard fair in cultural history. 

I will say I have enjoyed and found the arguments cogent in The Incorporation of America as much as I have ever enjoyed any work of cultural history - which is to say lukewarm at best.  At the heart of my less than enthusiastic response to works of cultural history in general, including The Incorporation of America, is the constantly nagging thought, when I'm reading said works, of, "Did the people of the time actually conceive of these buildings, works of literature, spectacles in these ways?"  Strong arguments can be made for, "Yes, they did."  Trachtenberg in particular has come the closest of any cultural historian I've read of carrying his arguments via a use of cultural examination.

However, there is a penchant in cultural history of citing a few examples from the "culture" of the time and then inferring broad movements.    In Trachtenberg, a good example of this comes on pages 119-120.  In reference to the symbolism of skyscrapers and what they meant to the people and culture of the time under discussion, the author states, "Even the most rationally designed skyscrapers still presented themselves as statements of implacable power, and even forms designed to demystify the interior organization of space only further mystified the larger organization of life."  What does this statement even mean?  I understand the "symbol of power aspect", but the mystification of the organization of life?  At best it's a vague reference to Incorporation's causation of change within social orders, but where is the proof?  And again, I have to ask, did anyone at the time actually walk into a skyscraper and say, "You know what? The way this place is laid out really confuses my understanding of the ordering of life.  What does life mean?  I am going home to read Nietzsche."

Cheers,
Carl