History

One of our questions to answer as we prepared to do today's reading asked us to guess how our history books would portray the events we were going to read about. I hadn't really thought about Paul Johnson's point of view on history, but after reading the question and thinking about it I've come to this: Johnson portrays the history of America in a worldly way. He explains what was going on in certain parts of the world that directly related to what was happening in the colonies and the founding of our country. For example, on page 71 he explains that America was being colonized right at the time of "smoldering dispute between the king and parliament". Because of this dispute, Johnson explains, the history of America took the course it did. Throughout the rest of his book Johnson explains events in worldly context. He describes the different groups of people, where they were from and why they decided to come to America. He differs from Takaki because he doesn't focus on them but certainly takes them into account.

African Homes

As we study the homes of plantation owners verses the homes of the slaves, we are quick to label them as "poor", "minimal" and in general "not good". What we fail to realize is that these are the same words we would use to describe the homes of the average American of the time. We only thing the homes of the slaves to be unacceptable when we compare them to those of their owners. We discussed this very idea in class, but what we didn't point out (which I think may be a bit more significant) was that the homes of the slaves were not all that much different from what they experienced at in Africa.



"the use of consistently smaller room unit matches up with what is known of the usual spatial patterns for proxemic codes of West and Central Africa" pg 225 from "Afro-American Housing in Virginia's Landscape of Slavery"

We think they're living situation to be detestable, but really, it was just what they were used to. I think this is a good example of how our own experiences, standards and expectations can give a skewed perspective on history. It's really hard, but we need to learn to step back and think about the context and to approach facts from the right point of view.

As I read "Architecture and Education" I couldn't help but to think about The Fountainhead. The climax of the story occurs when Howard Roark blows up the brilliant building he designed because the people building it were taking the beautiful structure he created and turning it ugly. The beauty of the building was in what it would accomplish for society. It was perfectly designed for impoverished people who could not afford housing else where. The people in charge of it's construction decided thy physical beauty was not good enough and decided to "improve" upon it. Reading "Architecture and Education" was like jumping into the mind of Howard Roark and understanding how he created his buildings. So many people think beauty is physical when they need to understand beauty is a concept.

Orr stars with this quote:
The worst thing we can do to our children is convince them that ugliness is normal.

If we don't teach the next generations what is wrong, nothing will change. If we don't show them how a building can be ugly (no matter how many flowers are planted around it)then how will they learn to make it beautiful?

I think our society is starting to move from ugliness to beauty. More and more we see and hear about fair trade, environmentally friendly and sustainable methods. Many of these ideas are new and just starting to get under way and they will take a long time to bloom. Habits are hard to break, but I think we are on our way to breaking these habits by teaching the next generations what is ugly and how to make it beautiful .

More college campuses!

Something Very Great and Very New
Pg. 152
"But what Jefferson wanted was indeed 'something very great and very new': a university that would be wholly secular and utterly independent of any religious institution. An outpost of the Enlightenment, this university would be 'so broad, so liberal, and modern' he told Joseph Priestly".

It's understandable why Jefferson would call his unaffiliated college "new" and "liberal". This was a time where religion still had a very strong hold on the way society ran as a whole. To have a highly regarded institution (higher education was a BIG deal) that wasn't lining up with what they considered to be the highest institution of all (God) must have been completely absurd, I find it interesting that Jefferson, from what is presented in this article, was able to gain a lot of support of the idea. The fact that his earlier attempt failed makes me wonder if it's secularism had anything to do with how people's opinion of the school was formed.Even today it's somewhat unusual to find a college (with the exception of public schools) that doesn't have a religious affiliation. For the most part, they do.

As Jefferson was sketching and planning his campus and college I wonder if he thought about the concepts described in "Campus: An American Planning Tradition". Did he think about the kinds of characteristics St. Olaf embraces? And lastly, I couldn't help to wonder, why didn't we read this when we were talking about landscapes?

Johnson
Pg. 154
"It also wanted to give the future citizens of America a classic statement of what their country was about, so that their children and their children's children could study it and learn it by heart."

We kind of discussed this in class on Monday. We had reached the conclusion that those who wrote and signed the Declaration of Independence didn't realize that what they were writing would be studied for generations and generations to come and therefore did not keep notes or records on the process. Johnson clearly rebuts this. I have to say I completely agree with Johnson. The founding fathers knew quiet well exactly what they were doing and what it meant for the country. This was not some friendly letter they were sending to the king. They were basically saying "take that! HA! We tried, but you didn't listen so we're going to form our own country." Even if the revolution had failed it would still be something that would be studied for generations to come. It would have been a significant piece of history about the attempt made by the colonies to overthrow the super power of the world. The founding fathers also knew that if this declaration and revolution succeeded, this would be dubbed as the start of a new nation. No matter how you look at it, the founding fathers were brilliant people who knew exactly what they were doing and what it could mean for the world for generations and generations to come.

I never realized how much finger pointing there was during the revolution. Cullen's paraphrase of their arguments not only made me laugh but made me realize what each side was claiming. In general, chapter two of Cullen's book helped me realize how ambiguous the revolution was. I feel like nobody was really on the same page. They all had different goals and objectives and interpreted the Declaration in different ways. In a way I'm starting to get the feeling Americans were starting to throw hissy fits. They got so used to being very separated from the rest of the English government that when they were being ruled or controlled they didn't like it. Of course, they were  right in the sense that they should have representation in England. Their "hissy fits" kind of reminds me of my old job. When I first started we had one supervisor who didn't do much supervising. She trusted me and the two other pages to do what needed to be done when it needed to and that we wouldn't abuse her trust. We could do our jobs they way we wanted, take our breaks when we wanted and pretty much do as we pleased. Then she left and we got a new supervisor. He started changing things and would direct us and tell us what to do when and we had to check in with him before and after we took our breaks. At first we were really upset because he was doing what normal managers and supervisors do; we were just used to our old boss and her lack of actual supervision. We really had no reason to be upset; he was just doing his job.

Again?

The fact that The Boston Tea Party wasn't called the The Boston Tea Party until much later relates, in a sense, to Pocahontas (I can't believe I'm writing about her again, I was hoping we were done with her). Things were twisted and we're really not sure what is true and what is not. Obviously we know the Boston Tea Party did actually happen, who did it and why, but what we don't know is where the name came from. Just like Pocahontas, the origins are a little if-y. Now that we have 2 examples of uncertainty in well known historical events/people, it makes me wonder what other parts of history we have had drilled into our brains that may actually have sketchy information supporting it.