Friday, June 14, 2013
Second Section of Wood's Book
Well I believe Wood did a good job a describing the attitudes the lead to the possibility of a revolution in the American Colonies that would alter not only the political but the social structure of the new nation. I enjoyed his relating the fall of patriarchal structures to enlightenment as a stage-setter. I felt that most chapters in this section were pretty good, but was not a big fan of "Benevolence." I was also caught a little by surprise when I began reading this section and he immediately opened with the breakdown of patriarchy/hierarchy in the colonies after spending so much time, I thought, in the previous section describing it's prevalence.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
There is a sort of tension between Wood's narrative. At some points he seems to be saying that the paternal society was one of the most important structures in colonial society and the New World was merely a reflection of the old. At other points, he makes a case that American society had already broken from European norms.
ReplyDeleteI think that both things were happening simultaneously and Wood is trying to make the point that the Revolution was such a radical moment that this movement towards the destruction of the paternal society was sped up.
I saw the same thing. It seemed that sometimes he was saying America was just as hierarchical as England (which boosts his thesis about how radical the Revolution was) and other times he was saying Americans were already egalitarian. Part of the explanation for this may come when he talks about how surprised and disillusioned many of the founders were after the Revolution. In the minds of the founders, we had a system that made possible virtuous republic, but it would still entail deference. The revolution destroyed all hierarchies and deference/dependence and created a democracy. A democracy without deference was not what they had in mind.
Delete