Some Catholics seem to have at least a year’s worth of Saints’ feast days memorized.
I’m not one of those Catholics. The up side of this is that I’ll run across new-to-me Saints now and then. Like Francis Xavier Seelos. Today is his feast day.
Francis Xavier Seelos, C.Ss.R., (January 11, 1819 – October 4, 1867) was a GermanRedemptoristmissionary, who worked in the United States, particularly in parishes serving immigrant communities on the American frontier. Near the end of his life, he travelled[!] to New Orleans to minister to people affected by a yellow fever outbreak. He later contracted the disease and died from its complications….” (Francis Xavier Seelos, Wikipedia)
I rambled on about Saints a few times, including this:
But listening to my mother or father read “Boggle Beak” to me, or reading it myself, isn’t among my childhood memories. I’m not sure why.
No, wait. That’s not entirely true.
I remember reading the book, but the memory reminds me of my father showing me “Boggle Beak” and telling me why the book is important to him.
I’ll let him explain it. “Boggle Beak” was:
“A greatly favored book of mine when an infant or child. It was read to me on innumerable occasions by my sister Mary Alice, and, less often, by other members of my family before I could read; and, after I could read it for myself, it continued to be a favorite for perhaps a year or two. I do not recall reading it after we moved to Rockford, so by the time I was nine I must have outgrown it.” (Bernard Gill’s handwritten note, on the front endpaper of “Boggle Beak”, dated June 1963)
I’d have been 11 years old when he wrote that. We may have had the “Boggle Beak” conversation around the same time. That’d match the memories I have. We were in the basement room of 818 where he kept most of his books, desk, and assorted other stuff.
I don’t know why he, or my mother, didn’t make reading “Boggle Beak” a regular part of my childhood. Maybe he didn’t have access to the book until 1963. Maybe they had other reasons. Or maybe they just didn’t get around to it.
Boggle Beak’s “Strange Manner”
Anyway, Dad told me that the story’s emotional tone depended on how his sister read it. Her interpretation of old Boggle Beak’s voice made a big difference. Take this bit, for example:
“…’Will you carry me back to the beach?’ said Peter eagerly.
“Old Boggle Beak looked him over in a strange manner. ‘I might carry you,’ said Old Boggle Beak, ‘in a certain way.‘ Then he looked at poor little Peter Sandpiper. ‘Let’s play a game,’ he said. ‘Let’s play that you are a shrimp!’…” (“Boggle Beak”, Jean Woods Finley (ca. 1910))
Peter Sandpiper survived, by the way, learning a valuable skill in the process.
Children and Children’s Literature
I’m not sure, even after reading “Boggle Beak” many times, whether the strange old bird would have eaten Peter Sandpiper, or was teaching the young bird a valuable lesson: in a profoundly disturbing way.
Either way, I seriously doubt that a children’s book like “Boggle Beak” could have been published during my childhood. Or since then, for that matter.
It’s not just the plot. The story’s language isn’t nearly as dumbed-down as it ‘should’ have been —
“One summer day, the sun shone down on the wet ocean beach, where a tiny sand-piper scurried along so quickly his little black shadow could hardly keep up with him.
“Whenever Peter Sand Piper came to the track of a sea-gull, he jumped over it, because that was a sort of game he played on other days. But he wasn’t thinking about it now. As he hurried along the beach he heard two voices; first, the voice of a nurse who said, ‘Run quick and catch the little bird. If you catch him you may have him.’ and second, the voice of his mother who said, ‘Don’t go very far or Old Boggle Beak will get you….” (“Boggle Beak”, Jean Woods Finley (ca. 1910))
I think that there’s a place for simplified syntax and abbreviated vocabulary in children’s literature. I also think kids are a very great deal sharper than many highly-educated adults imagine, and I’ll leave it at that.
I’ll wrap this up with what’s on the book’s title page:
“Boggle Beak” Montionjoy Books “Books for Fun” Written and Illustrated by Jean Woods Finley … Published by The Regensteiner Corporation Chicago, Illinois
That’s it. No copyright date. I’m pretty sure it was written around 1910, and was reprinted in or around 1925. That’s based on what folks selling copies said.
I did find a little about Theodore Regensteiner, who added the color black to the lithography printing process in 1894. The Theodore Regensteiner Wikipedia page includes a very brief discussion of the “Boggle Beak” publisher. Another resource gives a pretty good overview of the history and cultural setting of movable books:
“What are Movable Books?” Learning as Play An Animated, Interactive Archive of 17th- to 19th- Century Narrative Media for and by Children Pennsylvania State University
The Usual Links
That’s all I’ve got this week. I’ve talked about my father and stories he told me, and passing along our experiences, before:
Wednesday morning I got and started reading documents involved in setting up family property/estate/whatever arrangements for at least the next generation. I was part-way through the last document when a video conference with the lawyer started.
Good news, we caught a misspelling of my name and clarified a few points.
Surprising news, one of the documents was a health care directive. It includes a dozen or so places where I’m writing in details for what I want for situations in which I am terminally ill and/or unable to communicate.
I’ll be working on that at least into the weekend.
Deciding who I pick to speak for me if I can’t is easy, since I’m blessed with family who share my beliefs.
Killing Sick People Isn’t Nice
What’s not easy, from an emotional viewpoint at least, is getting specific about what I see as acceptable medical care.
That’s partly because I’m a Catholic, one who takes what the Church says seriously. I’ve also had opportunities for learning just how flexible medical ethics can be. It’s not that I’d insist on having a crucifix on the wall, or fish on Friday. Although the latter would be nice during Lent, and that’s another topic.
My native culture’s values and assumptions do not line up with mine in some literally vital ways.
Take, for example, being given food and water; even if I’m terminally ill. Or, in medical jargon, nutrition and hydration.
The good news is that the Church has noticed this SNAFU, and gotten specific about that particular aspect of palliative care:
“…It should be recognized, however, that the definition of palliative care has in recent years taken on a sometimes equivocal connotation. In some countries, national laws regulating palliative care (Palliative Care Act) as well as the laws on the “end of life” (End-of-Life Law) provide, along with palliative treatments, something called Medical Assistance to the Dying (MAiD) that can include the possibility of requesting euthanasia and assisted suicide. Such legal provisions are a cause of grave cultural confusion: by including under palliative care the provision of integrated medical assistance for a voluntary death, they imply that it would be morally lawful to request euthanasia or assisted suicide.
“In addition, palliative interventions to reduce the suffering of gravely or terminally ill patients in these regulatory contexts can involve the administration of medications that intend to hasten death, as well as the suspension or interruption of hydration and nutrition even when death is not imminent. In fact, such practices are equivalent to a direct action or omission to bring about death and are therefore unlawful. The growing diffusion of such legislation and of scientific guidelines of national and international professional societies, constitutes a socially irresponsible threat to many people, including a growing number of vulnerable persons who needed only to be better cared for and comforted but are instead being led to choose euthanasia and suicide.…” (“Letter Samaritanus bonus on the Care of Persons in the Critical and Terminal Phases of Life” , 4. Palliative care; Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (July 14, 2020)) [emphasis mine]
I’d like to think “it can’t happen here”, but — I’ve been paying attention and know my history. Humanity’s track record doesn’t inspire blind optimism. Or despondency. And that’s yet another topic.
Life, Death, and Making Sense
More good news: the Maryland Department of Health and Human Services asked bishops in my country what they thought about some aspects of Medicare and hospice care. That, I think was a very nice gesture.
Among other things, the bishops quoted part of “Letter Samaritanus…”, pointing out that starving a patient isn’t nice, even if it’s legal. Talking a patient into seeing suicide as a good idea isn’t nice either, and we shouldn’t do it. Ever.
I realize that may sound “judgemental”, but I’m a Catholic.
If I take my faith seriously, I must see life as precious. Even if that goes against my culture’s preferences.
One more thing before I wrap this up. Since I’m a Catholic, getting all ‘spiritual’ about pain and suffering — let’s put it this way. Using my brain is a good idea.
“Even if death is thought imminent, the ordinary care owed to a sick person cannot be legitimately interrupted. “The use of painkillers to alleviate the sufferings of the dying, even at the risk of shortening their days, can be morally in conformity with human dignity if death is not willed as either an end or a means, but only foreseen and tolerated as inevitable. “Palliative care is a special form of disinterested charity. As such it should be encouraged.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2279) [emphasis mine]
This week I remembered the time I helped fix a lock. That got me thinking about natural law and free will, among other things.
A Lock, a Broken Key, and Frustration
Sauk Centre, my home since the 1980s.
I spent two decades of my life working for a small publishing house here in Sauk Centre, Vocational Biographies.
One of these days I may talk about the 175 “career biographies” they published each year. But today I’ll talk about the time their back door lock needed repair.
The company operated in a mansion that’d been converted first to a funeral home and then office space. When I started working there, my desk — a table, actually — was near what had been the mansion’s coach/carriage entrance.
By the time I worked there, the old coach entrance was at ground level, with steps up to the floor a few paces inside. That’s where I usually entered the building, particularly in winter when navigating the front entrance’s outside steps could be tricky.
I had a key for that door, since I was often the last one out of the building. It didn’t do me much good, though, after someone unlocked the door and broke their key.
With the key blade still in the lock.
Tools, Time, and a Short Walk
The back door could still be locked, but only from the inside, which meant I had to use either the front or mail room doors when leaving at night. Neither of which were ideal choices, thanks to my distinctly sub-standard hip joints.
It wasn’t a large company, fewer than a dozen full-time employees, so there wasn’t a maintenance staff. Maybe that’s why the door stayed unfixed for a frustratingly long time.
At any rate, I finally decided that enough was enough.
I found a toolbox in the basement.
Then I disassembled the lock until I’d isolated the lock cylinder — the part with lots of fiddly small pieces inside. By then I’d taken about a coffee break’s worth of time, so I signed out.
After that, I took the cylinder to my father-in-law’s place, about a block away.
He used his skills and tools to extract the key blade without damaging the lock, put the cylinder back together and handed both to me.
Another short walk and a few minutes at the back door left me with comfortable access restored, a few tools, and a broken key blade.
I put the company’s tools back where I found them, handed the broken blade to the company’s owner, and told him what I’d done.
He said “it’s a good thing you’re honest”, and I went back to writing advertising copy.
Honestly!
First chapter of the Book of Sirach, rendered by an anonymous artist (1654).
I haven’t heard the platitude “honesty is the best policy” for a long time.
Grammarist says the bromide popped up in English when Sir Edwin Sandys wrote “Our grosse conceipts, who think honestie the best policie.” in “Europae Speculum” (1599).
Latin was still cool back then, and I’m drifting off-topic.
Anyway, I think honesty actually is the best policy. At least in the long run.
That’s my opinion: which, plus a few dollars, will buy you a cup of coffee.
I’m a Catholic, so I don’t have to rely on my opinions, what celebrities say, or some alleged expert for deciding what is and is not a good idea.
The down side is that I can’t do whatever I like, following the moment’s impulse, and congratulate myself on being free of the trammeling constraints of a hierarchical, authoritarian, male-dominated society. Or whatever is considered sophisticated, intelligent, and well-educated these days.
Natural Law, Using Our Brains
“Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” (1953). The ‘good old days’ had their problems, too.
I don’t, by the way, yearn for yesteryear — when another set of weird notions dominated my culture’s landscape.
I remember the ‘good old days’, and they weren’t.
As I see it, honesty, being truthful, and related ideas, are part of natural law: ethical principles written into reality’s source code.
Natural law doesn’t change. Ever. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1950-1960)
That was true when the Code of Hammurabi was written, and will still be true when Hammurabi and the United States Constitution are seen as roughly contemporary.
Positive law, rules we make up to deal with whatever circumstances we’re in at the moment, changes as our circumstances change. That’s a good thing. (Catechism, 1957)
“Fighting crime and/or evil”: Dick Orkin’s Chickenman. (1966-1969)
When positive and natural law don’t line up, we’ve got problems. (Catechism, 1957-1958, 2273)
The idea of natural law isn’t new.
Folks like Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics figured that order exists, and that it isn’t necessarily whatever the current fashion dictates.1
Much more recently, Pope Leo XIII wrote about free will, reason, and how we should use these aspects of our nature.
“Such, then, being the condition of human liberty, it necessarily stands in need of light and strength to direct its actions to good and to restrain them from evil. Without this, the freedom of our will would be our ruin. First of all, there must be law; that is, a fixed rule of teaching what is to be done and what is to be left undone. This rule cannot affect the lower animals in any true sense, since they act of necessity, following their natural instinct, and cannot of themselves act in any other way. On the other hand, as was said above, he who is free can either act or not act, can do this or do that, as he pleases, because his judgment precedes his choice. And his judgment not only decides what is right or wrong of its own nature, but also what is practically good and therefore to be chosen, and what is practically evil and therefore to be avoided. … This ordination of reason is called law. In man’s free will, therefore, or in the moral necessity of our voluntary acts being in accordance with reason, lies the very root of the necessity of law. Nothing more foolish can be uttered or conceived than the notion that, because man is free by nature, he is therefore exempt from law. Were this the case, it would follow that to become free we must be deprived of reason.…
“Foremost in this office comes the natural law, which is written and engraved in the mind of every man; and this is nothing but our reason, commanding us to do right and forbidding sin. Nevertheless, all prescriptions of human reason can have force of law only inasmuch as they are the voice and the interpreters of some higher power on which our reason and liberty necessarily depend. For, since the force of law consists in the imposing of obligations and the granting of rights, authority is the one and only foundation of all law — the power, that is, of fixing duties and defining rights, as also of assigning the necessary sanctions of reward and chastisement to each and all of its commands. But all this, clearly, cannot be found in man, if, as his own supreme legislator, he is to be the rule of his own actions. It follows, therefore, that the law of nature is the same thing as the eternal law, implanted in rational creatures, and inclining them to their right action and end; and can be nothing else but the eternal reason of God, the Creator and Ruler of all the world.…” (“Libertas” , On the Nature of Human Liberty, Encyclical letter, 7, 8; Pope Leo XIII(June 20, 1888)) [emphasis mine]
Free Will and All That
Me, Brian H. Gill, back in 2021.
Having free will means that I can decide what I do or don’t do. It also means that I am responsible for my decisions. (Catechism, 1731-1738)
Of course, I can decide that I won’t decide: which is a decision of sorts.
Following whatever daft impulses flutter through my brain has the advantage of being easy and, in the short term, gratifying.
However, I’ve noticed that actions have consequences, whether I want them to or not.
If I haven’t been using my brain, those consequences can be embarrassing, downright unpleasant, or worse.
Taking an example from the embarrassing end of that continuum, there was the week I spent most of the money left after rent on video games. Consequences were minimal, but I felt really stupid. And I learned that paying attention to small expenses was a good idea.
As a Catholic, deciding what I do — or don’t do — is pretty straightforward. In terms of the rules I follow, at least.
Scenic, no. Good farmland, yes. Red River Valley, near the Goose River, looking south.
Change happens, which isn’t a new idea. At all.
“Everything changes and nothing stands still” (“πάντα χωρεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει”, quoted by Plato in “Cratylus” (ca. 360 B.C.)) (Heraclitus, Wikiquote)
This week I’ll be talking about — mentioning, actually — some of my relatives, what Thomas Jefferson said about settling central North America, and why I like being an American. On the whole.
Tony Webster’s image: Itasca State Park, Minnesota. (June 2017)
A high school field trip brought my class to Minnesota’s Itasca State Park. One spot we walked through was what I’ll call an Indian cemetery. What the currently official term is, I don’t know. Moving along.
As our teacher talked about the customs associated with this particular burial ground, one of the students made the wawa-wawa sound associated with Indians in westerns.
This was the 1960s, so the act wasn’t as remarkable as it might be today. Our teacher, responding to the vocalization and other disrespectful behaviors, reminded us that this was someone’s grave and shouldn’t be mocked.
I didn’t say anything at the time, or later, but remember feeling startled and repelled by what a few of my fellow-students did. No virtue there. Mocking someone whose chief offense was being dead and not closely related just didn’t make sense.
Make that not very closely related. I’ll get back to that.
Republic, Republican
Before getting to what Thomas Jefferson said about folks living in what had abruptly become part of the United States, I’d better clarify what he meant by “republican”.
Basically, it’s the idea that people have a right to choose their political officials. A related idea is that a government’s power comes from the folks being governed, not that everything folks at my level have comes from the state.
A “republic” and a “democracy” aren’t the same thing. In a democracy, citizens rule themselves directly. The United States Supreme Court paraphrased something Daniel Webster said about that, back in 1891.
“…Mr. Webster’s argument in that case took a wider sweep, and contained a masterly statement of the American system of government, as recognizing that the people are the source of all political power, but that as the exercise of governmental powers immediately by the people themselves is impracticable, they must be exercised by representatives of the people; that the basis of representation is suffrage; that the right of suffrage must be protected and its exercise prescribed by previous law, and the results ascertained by some certain rule; that through its regulated exercise each man’s power tells in the constitution….” (In Re Duncan; No. 1174; United States Supreme Court; argued December 17, 1S90; Decided March 30, 1891) [emphasis mine]
Now, onward to stuff Thomas Jefferson said.
Thomas Jefferson, Change, and Using Our Brains
The ‘good old days’: 1800 presidential election “The Providential Detection” (ca. 1800). Jefferson kept from burning “Constitution & Independence U.S.A.” on the altar of “Gaelic Despotism”, with help from Satan, the writings of Thomas Paine, and French philosophers.
Politics of yesteryear: “Dividing the National Map” (left, 1860), “The abolition catastrophe….” (right, 1864).
My country’s 1800 presidential election was about as serene as any other. I think that’s why Jefferson strongly suggested less hand-wringing and more looking at what was actually happening.
I also think that’s good advice, no matter what period we’re in. Or which crisis du jour we’re told to face with blind panic.
This excerpt from Jefferson’s first Inaugural Speech, by the way, is chunkier than I’d like. I’m handling it this way for two reasons. First, I like to give at least a little context; second, I spent part of this week thoroughly enjoying a visit from our grandchild and don’t have time for summary.
“…If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. I know, indeed, that Some honest men fear that a republican government cannot be strong; that this government is not strong enough. But would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm, on the theoretic and visionary fear that this government, the world’s best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest government on earth. I believe It is the only one where every man, at the call of the laws, would fly to the Standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern. Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of Others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
“Let us, then, with courage and confidence pursue our own federal and republican principles, our attachment to our union and representative government. Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe; too high-minded to endure the degradations of the others; possessing a chosen country, with room enough for our descendants to the hundredth and thousandth generation; entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our industry, to honor and confidence from our fellow citizens, resulting not from birth but from our actions and their sense of them; enlightened by a benign religion, professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them including honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man; acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter; with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow citizens — a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities….” (Thomas Jefferson First Inaugural Address (March 4, 1801); via PresidentialRhetoric.com; — Dr. Martin Medhurst Distinguished Professor of Rhetoric and Communication, Baylor University, Waco, Texas / Paul Stob, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Communication Studies, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee) [emphasis mine]
One of these days I may get back to that “hundredth and thousandth generation” snippet, the Louisiana Purchase and Lewis and Clark expedition, and 19th century American history. Or at least a manageable subset of those topics.
But this week I’ll skip ahead to Jefferson’s second inaugural address, and how he saw my homeland’s “aboriginal inhabitants”.
After, that is, a short — for me — look at how I found these transcripts.
“Hundredth and Thousandth Generation”
Earlier this week, I remembered hearing that Thomas Jefferson thought settling North America’s interior would take at least a few centuries.
After a fair amount of digging, I began wondering if this was another of those ‘famous things that never really happened’.
Then I got a break.
Google’s started putting an “AI Overview” at the top of search results. It’s a handy new feature, partly because the Overview often includes search terms I can use.
This time the AI Overview told me that the Thomas Jefferson quote I’d been looking for was in his second Inaugural Address. That, and a little checking, led me to a transcript.
But a quick glance through his second Inaugural Address didn’t show me what I was looking for. Neither did a careful paragraph-by-paragraph reading.
Turns out that Jefferson’s prediction was in his first Inaugural Address. He said that the recent Louisiana Purchase had “room enough for our descendants to the hundredth and thousandth generation”.
I’m pretty sure what Jefferson actually said was “hundredth and thousandth” . But either way, the point is that he thought the process of folks setting up farms, towns, and cities in North America would be very lengthy.
I’m not sure why Google points me to Yale’s Avalon Project for both Jefferson’s first and second Inaugural Addresses. Whatever the reason, it shows why thinking is a good idea, and verifying results makes sense. No matter what technology a researcher uses.
Attitudes and “The Call of Cthulhu”
I’m not sure what the currently-official term for groups Jefferson called “aboriginal inhabitants” is.
Instead of Bowdlerizing or expressing revulsion, I’ll share another oversized excerpt and natter on about some of it.
“…The aboriginal inhabitants of these countries I have regarded with the commiseration their history inspires. Endowed with the faculties and the rights of men, breathing an ardent love of liberty and independence, and occupying a country which left them no desire but to be undisturbed, the stream of overflowing population from other regions directed itself on these shores; without power to divert, or habits to contend against, they have been overwhelmed by the current, or driven before it; now reduced within limits too narrow for the hunter’s state, humanity enjoins us to teach them agriculture and the domestic arts; to encourage them to that industry which alone can enable them to maintain their place in existence, and to prepare them in time for that state of society, which to bodily comforts adds the improvement of the mind and morals. We have therefore liberally furnished them with the implements of husbandry and household use; we have placed among them instructors in the arts of first necessity; and they are covered with the aegis of the law against aggressors from among ourselves.
“But the endeavors to enlighten them on the fate which awaits their present course of life, to induce them to exercise their reason, follow its dictates, and change their pursuits with the change of circumstances, have powerful obstacles to encounter; they are combated by the habits of their bodies, prejudice of their minds, ignorance, pride, and the influence of interested and crafty individuals among them, who feel themselves something in the present order of things, and fear to become nothing in any other. These persons inculcate a sanctimonious reverence for the customs of their ancestors; that whatsoever they did, must be done through all time; that reason is a false guide, and to advance under its counsel, in their physical, moral, or political condition, is perilous innovation; that their duty is to remain as their Creator made them, ignorance being safety, and knowledge full of danger; in short, my friends, among them is seen the action and counteraction of good sense and bigotry; they, too, have their anti-philosophers, who find an interest in keeping things in their present state, who dread reformation, and exert all their faculties to maintain the ascendency of habit over the duty of improving our reason, and obeying its mandates.…” (Thomas Jefferson Second Inaugural Address (March 4, 1805); via PresidentialRhetoric.com; — Dr. Martin Medhurst Distinguished Professor of Rhetoric and Communication, Baylor University, Waco, Texas / Paul Stob, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Communication Studies, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee) [emphasis mine]
I think this is an important point: Jefferson said that folks who’d been living in central North America were “endowed with the faculties and the rights of men”. That he needed to point this out is less than ideal, and I’ll leave it at that.
What he said about their “anti-philosophers” convincing others that “their duty is to remain as their Creator made them, ignorance being safety, and knowledge full of danger” reminded me of something H. P. Lovecraft wrote.
“…The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. … The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age….” (“The Call of Cthulhu,” H. P. Lovecraft (1929); via WikiQuote)
Words, Meanings, and Respect
Oi.
These days, I’d probably say something like “faculties and rights common to all humanity” instead of “faculties and the rights of men”.
In Jefferson’s day, and during my youth, “men” and “man” was synonymous with “humanity” in this context.
Many folks did not assume that using the male pronoun meant that women weren’t quite ‘human’.
Others — were another matter. I remember when ‘she’s smart as a man’ was supposed to be a compliment, I don’t miss ‘the good old days’, and I’m drifting off-topic.
I think it’s worth pointing out that Jefferson saw folks whose ancestors had been here long before the first English colonists as people. He also thought that they hadn’t gotten in on the ground floor with use of technologies used by English-Americans. I think he was right.
I also don’t feel shock and revulsion at Jefferson’s statement that making new technologies available to these non-English folks was a good idea. I’ll grant that ‘inducing them to exercise their reason’ wasn’t always done well.
“Crafty Individuals”
“…These persons inculcate a sanctimonious reverence for the customs of their ancestors; that whatsoever they did, must be done through all time; that reason is a false guide….” (Thomas Jefferson Second Inaugural Address (March 4, 1805); via PresidentialRhetoric.com)
The last point I’ll make — the part with “crafty individuals” and “they, too, have their anti-philosophers” — is that I think a problem Jefferson saw affecting “the aboriginal inhabitants” is also part of today’s America.
I get the impression that folks at one edge of political spectra feel that what we need is a return to the ‘good old days’ of, say, the early 1950s. Meanwhile, folks along another edge — it’s as if they never got the memo that it’s no longer 1967.
Me? This isn’t the America I grew up in.
Some changes have very emphatically not been for the better, some are improvements, some are simply — changes.
Spotting “crafty individuals” who aren’t aiming their appeals at folks whose causes and principles I can sympathize with isn’t all that hard. Double negative: awkward, but I’ll let it stand.
When they’re tugging at my heartstrings, that’s another matter.
For me, at least, it helps that I think Heraclitus was right. Change happens. I also believe that reason makes sense and thinking is a good idea. Which should be obvious, but apparently isn’t.
Family and Neighbors
Hovde, in Beridalen, Nordre Land, Norway: about 110 miles north of Oslo.
Folks on my mother’s side of the family ended up in the Red River Valley, some of the planet’s best farmland that’s as flat as their homeland was mountainous.
We were among the first Euro-Americans living there, so meeting folks from the established families was pretty much inevitable.
A Blanket
One encounter wasn’t friendly. The homemaker noticed someone walking off with a blanket that she’d left to dry on a clothesline.
I’ve no idea why he thought this was a good idea, and she probably didn’t either. She did, however, know that this was her blanket and she wanted it back.
So she scurried after the blanket and its temporary bearer, expressing her views on the propriety of his action with many words and one broom. He kept walking.
This went on for some time until the man made an exasperated sound, threw down the blanket and resumed his hike toward the horizon.
Marrying Into an Older Family
Another encounter was rather more permanent.
Somewhere along the line, I learned that one of my aunts — great-aunt, actually, if memory serves — wasn’t happy about her appearance.
I hadn’t noticed anything odd, apart from her not being as long-faced as most. But I didn’t see anything odd about my very Norwegian relatives speaking English, so I’m arguably not all that observant.
When one of my cousins married, the ceremony followed norms of my great aunt’s ancestors. I appreciate the sentiments behind that decision. What I think of it is a bit more complicated, and far more than I have time or inclination to discuss this week.
None of this shows that we’re paragons of virtue or exemplars of tolerance.
From where I’m standing, someone on my mother’s side married someone from the area’s older families: and that’s about it.
On the other hand, being related by marriage to a particular subset of this continent’s “aboriginal inhabitants” does affect how I see my country finally sorting out the mess left by broken treaties in the 19th century.
I Like It Here
“Uncle Sam — It’s all right! … The noise you hear is just my family celebrating!” (1902)
On the whole, I like being an American.
Despite having started as thirteen English colonies, this country let my ancestors become citizens: even though many were Irish.
I like living in a country where following my faith is legal, and I can say what I think without first getting approval.
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Weekly Schedule
Something new each Saturday.
Life, the universe and my circumstances permitting. I'm focusing on 'family stories' at the moment. ("A Change of Pace: Family Stories" (11/23/2024))
Blog - David Torkington
Spiritual theologian, author and speaker, specializing in prayer, Christian spirituality and mystical theology [the kind that makes sense-BHG]
I was born in 1951. I'm a husband, father and grandfather. One of the kids graduated from college in December, 2008, and is helping her husband run businesses and raise my granddaughter; another is a cartoonist and artist; #3 daughter is a writer; my son is developing a digital game with #3 and #1 daughters. I'm also a writer and artist.
![Left: '[Dividing the] national [map]', political cartoon by John Cabell (1860). Right: 'Political caricature. No. 3, The abolition catastrophe. Or the November smash-up', political cartoon (1864) see https://www.loc.gov/resource/ppmsca.33122/ https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3a12905/](https://i0.wp.com/brendans-island.com/blogsource/20240813ff/20241021-DividingTheNationalMap1860-TheAbolitionCatastrophe1864-PoliticalCartoons-329.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)
