Throwback!

My sophomore year of high school I was talking American Literature. It was with this teacher named Mrs. White, who I was terrified of at first. She looked like one of the oldest teachers in the school, and did a good job of terrifying us sophomores the first few weeks. She was tough, but taught us to be strong writers and did a fantastic job leading us through our first research papers. Of course she was just trying to scare us into compliance at first; over time I found her to be a sweet woman (she brought us all cookies after we finished our papers), always receptive and willing to help you with English. I don't know how else to describe my gratitude towards her... Especially because I had less than adequate teachers the year before and after.

But I digress.

When we discussed transcendentalists in her class, she gave us a project; we were to go out to nature for 4 hours, on our own, and bring a creative response back to class. I went into the forest with some friends, parted ways, almost got hopelessly lost and started taking  photos. I added some poems associated with each sense to my 5 best shots, and got the following images. Looking back now the poems are far from inspiring, but hey, for a sophomore this was pretty good.

She kept them as an example for years to come.

For Freedom!

Over Spring Break I went with 9 other Oles to South Carolina, to help Habitat for Humanity build a house in East Cooper. On our day off we had the privilege of going to Fort Sumter. Here's a little history lesson, in case you forgot (I definitely did): Lincoln was elected president. Prior to that, South Carolina said they would succeede if he was elected. They kept true to their word and were the first to leave the Union. Major Anderson was stationed at the nearby Fort Moultrie, which was indefinsible. Now in enemy territory, he decided it would be most wise to move to Sumter where he stood a chance against attack. During the night, him and 85 men stole away to their new headquarters. Over time his supplies dwindled, so he called for supplies and reinforcements from the Union. They sent a ship, but the Confederacy found this out and weren't too happy. Confederate General Beauregard sent the Union ships home and gave Anderson an ultimatum; he leave in 1 hour or they attack. Anderson stayed, so after 1.5 hours time a signal mortar was shot and exploded over Fort Sumter, giving the nearby forts (now garrisoned with Confederate soliders) permission to start seige. This was the first shot of the civil war. After one of the longest seiges in American War History, Anderson and his 85 men just couldn't hold out any longer. On the condition of a safe passage to Union territory and a 100 gun salute Anderson abandoned the fort,  leaving it to the Confederacy. It would later play more roles in the war.
I bring this up because while I was wondering around I couldn't help but think about the implications of the civil war itself. Both sides were fighting for freedom. But how does one violently pursue the goal of being free? By killing, are we not binding ourselves by guilt? How can such a pure ideal be polluted by something so vile? In the end, the truth prevailed. But what if it hadn't? How could we trust such an unpredictable medium like war to produce the right goal? I suppose it's easy to look back and scold Americans for going this route. I just hope we never head down a similar path again.

Attitudes "changing" Landscapes.

I remember when Matt first mentioned the Hudson River School of painting; he had two paintings, one of which was Niagara Falls in all its glory, the other was Niagara Falls, still impressive, but not quite as rapturous. I think this would a good place to re-address these two images. I wish I had them.. But, each one really depicts the attitudes towards nature at the time. If you look at the first one, you can see the fear and awe of the Puritans captured in every stroke. They were in this wilderness, powerless against the whims of mother nature. Sure, it was terrifying, but it was entrancing at the same time. By creating this image the artist hoped to give the viewer a glimpse of the emotions the artist felt. The other image, conveys a different attitude. There is serenity within that painting. Nature is beautiful, but it's not to be feared any longer. Don't worry, man's got it under control! Or maybe the message wasn't that domineering. The images merely became more scenic. This reflects the times in multiple ways. Society was moving away from the environment it was once in. These landscapes served as a reminder. As technology developed people were more in control of the role nature played in their lives. With the confidence of society, people could explore the boundaries with confidence and curiosity rather than apprehension and fear. All of these details are reflected in those styles.

Teh intertubez

I've talked a lot recently about how the itnernet is changing the way Americans communicate with one another, and how it is quickly becoming the medium through which American values are manifesting themselves. I've discussed the press becoming electronic, and in our group paper one of our main points was the evolution voluntary associations onto the internet. I wasn't sure how to discuss this, and then I realized:

I have a blog.
Two blogs, actually.

And quickly I'm realizing what sort of connections these can make. I believe it was Athena who mentioned that anyone from across the country, even world can read these. We're blowing up our audience from simple American voluntary associations into a world community. Cross-cultural groups can be formed to address our issues.

Maybe this lull in social capital is simply an adjustment, building the foundations for a mass increase in social capital across the world. Or maybe I'm just quixotic. Only time will tell.

Organization

With all this talk of community action, all I want to do is get up and get passionate about something! I feel like a huge theme that's been popping up in my life recently, from the CEL "Break the bubble!" event to Amcon. I'm trying to discover what I'm passionate about; perhaps it's education? So I think about taking Ed Psych next semester, but then what about genetics? Or what if health is what I'm really passionate about? I suppose this is something I should worry about to myself. All I know is that within all this discussion there's a push within me, wanting me to find something to get truly engaged in. Not just going to the hospital and changing bed linens, but becoming part of a group that is trying to change norms. But I digress...

Stout referenced being passionate about justice. While this is important, he seemed more concerned that groups were organized. That makes sense; what good is a ragtag group of people just yelling if they don't band together and find a way to make the change they are so vocal about. Hold officials responsible, work across lines- it's all a part of the democratic process. You have an obligation to be a valuable citizen through remaining aware.

It makes me wonder about how many citizens would be considered not valuable right now.

E-Social Capital

I feel like I've been relating a lot of what we're talking about to the internet. Well, specifically I talked about the evolution from the printed press to press on the internet. Keeping in the same light, I decided to read an article entitled "Bowling Alone, Online Together" by David Hill, published in Information, Communication and Society. With the article Hill sites the differences between communities, proximal communities, and e-communities; the first being communities we just happen to end up in (like neighborhoods) the second being in-person communities we choose to join, and the third being on the internet. What was interesting was that a lot of similar values applied to all the groups, it's just they way they were monitored that changed. There were ways to build trust, reputation, and finding common ground. One thing that I found interesting about the article was the lack of focus on websites for civic engagement. While ebay and geocaching.com both make a community, I wonder whether they contribute the same degree of social capital like E the people, the one political website the article mentioned, It forms a society of trust, but does it engage people like the voluntary organizations of the past did? I would think not, but the intertubes are growing at an exponential rate.

I know a guy who knows a guy/I hate movies.

I'm combining two topics that we covered in class today: Bonding social capital and isolation. We talked about how bonding social capital manifests itself in the crossover between communities. Our example was Marissa looking for a nursing job talking to me, and me having a theoretical uncle who works at Mayo to get her one. I feel like this is a sort of shallow example. Yes, it's the connections between people that eventually form social capital, but the connections need to be stronger. Like an environmentalist group teaming up with a group that provides low cost solar panels for small businesses. There need to be more, stronger bonds to generate the capital our society really needs to thrive.

As for movies, I am not a fan. I'm not saying I don't like movies themselves; they can be fantastic art forms, and I definitely have favorites (500 Days of Summer, Mean Creak, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Charlie Bartlett, and Dead Poet's Society included...) but I don't like what they do to groups of people. When you go into a movie with your friends, in essence, you're sitting in a dark room for 2.5 hours being silent. Yes, you can laugh together and whatnot, but imagine what else you could do for 2.5 hours? I suppose it's slightly different if you're watching it in the background at someone's house. I just think it's similar to how Putnam said TV started the move towards isolated individualism.

Basically this is me just wishing it was socially acceptable to talk to movies.

Missing a Pin

Putnam's Bowling Alone did a very good job of citing the changing attitudes in America that have caused a shift in our values, away from the associations De Tocqueville adored so much when he visited. He does a good job of citing facts; all of the associations he mentions have a documented decline in participation. He cites counter trends, and notes the differences in attitude (from a community to more of a ragtag recognition that others do believe in the same goal). And then he provides his details. All of it makes sense, but something is... missing. He proposes explanations, but none of them really dig deep into why the American psyche has changed. Yes, people are more mobile, which makes organization participation difficult, but why are people more mobile? Why are Americans watching more television? It's a fantastic blend of information but it's missing something solid at the core. (This could all be a "chicken or the egg?" style of thinking; which came first, the change in attitude or the trends Putnam cites?)
     I might be expecting too much from his article; a deep analysis like I expect would take a dissertation or dissertations, not a twelve page long article. The most frustrating part is that I feel like I am treading on an answer. This feels like a topic I've covered in my other classes, I just can't pull the reasons up from the depths of my consciousness. With some discussion to fish out the details, and synthesis of information from multiple subject areas, I think we may begin to approach the answer as a class.

American Beaurocracy

I was thinking about De Tocqueville and his idea of centralized government. He was very wary of a centralized government throughout the second book; to him, voluntary associations are what check the government, not small government controlled associations.  It seems as if he would not have been happy with America during the early 20th century. During this time period FDR created a lot of government run organizations in order to thwart the depression. In a way, he set a standard that we carried through to our current time period. I wonder what De Tocqueville would have to say about that...

In my APUSH class junior year we read this book called America's Threee Regimes, which described three major social "regimes" from America's founding to the present (who'd of thought that from the title?). The final one was entitled the "Populist-beaurocratic regime". The author discussed this movement towards bureaucracy, which De Tocqueville would probably frown at. But what about the populism portion? The promotion of the people as a movement runs right in line with what DT supported. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding populism... perhaps it's very individualistic in nature, and wouldn't even incorporate groups...

This is the broad point I was trying to make in class. I don't know if I made it any clearer here.

"Framing Structures to Rally the World"

Last night I went to the Arab Revolts discussion panel. More and more I'm thinking that this might be some of the most significant uprisings of our generation, but that's an unprofessional opinion. Different perspectives were offered, including the role of social media in the revolts, the role of nonviolence, religious influences and why revolts haven't spread to other African Nations.
Jamie Schillinger, a religion professor here at St. Olaf, gave a talk that I thought strongly connected with what we were discussing in class on Wednesday. We came up with lists of what we would tell budding democracies to do in order to make their new government thrive. One thing that kept coming up, at least in our small amcon group, was the necessity of a tradition of Democracy. This is something that these North African countries lacked, Schillinger asserted. That's one of the reasons why democracy may not be the answer in Egypt. Egyptians come from a far different tradition than we do. Historically, religions are much more closely tied to the government there. To westerners, this is scary. Religion has merely influenced-but been theoretically separate from- the state. To say the American attitude of religion would be accepted in North Africa would be "naive." This however, is no excuse to be unsympathetic. It just means that this should not be a place where Americans fly into save the day. Perhaps assist, maybe only advise. But this is a case best left to be solved by Egyptians and other natives. They just lack the necessary experience, and in a sense, so do we.