Reading Notes: Swann's Way, Part III

In the final section of Swann's Way, titled "Place Names: The Name," we're thrust back into our original narrator's voice as he ruminates on the power of names, particularly their ability to trigger a memory or emotional episode from one's past. After a fair amount of lengthy prose on this phenomenon itself, he finally gets to the main point: the narrator's relationship with Swann's daughter Gilberte, of which he had spoken more briefly towards the end of Part I.

In some sense, this is where the prior two seemingly disconnected parts to the novel finally do connect. The narrator is in Paris as a child/youth [I'm a little unclear about the exact age] and while out in the Champs-Elysees he hears the name 'Gilberte,' bringing to mind the girl he met back at Combray who made an "indecent gesture" towards him. [One: I don't know what that gesture actually was. Two: See how he connects the name recollection to memory here with this personal experience; point taken.] The girl connected to the name here in Paris is, in fact, the same Gilberte, and the narrator's intrigue is quickly rekindled and strengthened, especially as he becomes a frequent playmate of Gilberte.

The intrigue quickly turns to infatuation with habits and behaviors mimicking the ones we just read about Swann; the narrator finds that Gilberte occupies his thoughts, even outside of their time together and the experiences they share. He begins to judge his own life through a lens that she colors. His governess suddenly seems less sophisticated than Gilberte's; strangers with whom she interacts suddenly have more appeal, strictly by the fact that they earned Gilberte's attention. Further, M. Swann has lost all identity to the narrator as his parents' friend, the man who came to dinner at Combray and prevented his mother from kissing him goodnight. Now, he is "Gilberte's father," and an individual whose attention the narrator desperately seeks for validation, gaining pleasure at the idea that he may occupy any place in the Swanns' thoughts.

This infatuation is called love by the narrator, juxtaposed alongside Swann's own experiences chronicled in Part II, though identified as mere innocence since he, the narrator, was only a child. It becomes clear as I read this section that Proust always intended to carry the story further, using frequent parenthetical side comments to indicate something that will be noted or seen in the future. In a way, this consideration helps make sense of the novel's disjointedness; presumably this story was always meant to be an anthology, stretched out into segments that hop back and forth in time, with a mere single volume entirely unable to tell the full story. This becomes even more apparent with the story's big twist that **SPOILER ALERT** despite Swann's insistence at the end of Part II that he is, in fact, out of love with Odette, it is she who is Gilberte's mother and Swann's wife! And more interestingly, it is simply stated as fact, without any clue as to what led here. I have to say "well done" to Proust for burying the lead; I'm only discouraged that there are six more volumes to read that may or may not, at some point, finally reveal the full story!

After dropping that bomb, Proust concludes Swann's Way with present-day reflection by the narrator as he observes the Paris of the present, finding it void of the elegance he remembers from his past. But ultimately, how accurate are these memories and recollections?

"The reality I had known no longer existed.... The places we have known do not belong solely to the world of space in which we situate them for our greater convenience. They were only a thin slice among contiguous impressions which formed our life at that time; the memory of a certain image is but regret for a certain moment [emphasis mine]; and houses, roads, avenues are as fleeting, alas, as the years."

Concluding with the idea that reminisces are not realities, that we hold our memories to a higher esteem where they take on a revered status, Proust reflects that perhaps it was never the "thing" in the first place; there's no sanctity in the objects or experiences to which we attribute such strong emotional connection, but rather it's us - our own personal moment of development, realization, experience, etc. - that creates the moment of inspiration and allows these outside "things" to hold such magic.

"But when a belief disappears, there survives it - more and more vigorous so as to mask the absence of the power we have lost to give reality to new things - a fetishistic attachment to the old things which our belief once animated, as if it were in them and not in us that the divine resided and as if our present lack of belief had a contingent cause, the death of the Gods."

And that, my friends, is my completion of Swann's Way. And having finally checked off such a daunting title that has been on my list for fifteen whole years - more of a project, really - I can say with complete confidence and acceptance that I will most likely not be reading on further into In Search of Lost Time. Sorry, Proust.

Reading Notes: Swann's Way, Part II

Part 2 of Swann's Way is a lengthy, 200-page section titled "Swann in Love," and it's drastically different than the book's first part. It chronicles a period of Swann's history when he was (yep, you guessed it) in love, which was a narrative briefly alluded to by our narrator in Part 1 (so brief, in fact, that I had not even remembered it). The object of Swann's affections is a woman named Odette who is described as rather unremarkable, not the most intelligent, and not at all Swann's usual type. Basically, she's a 19th-century basic bitch.

Swann meets Odette through this social circle led by M. and Mme. Verdurin. Basically, they seem to be a group of semi-social outcasts that have created their own circle of friends just to judge those that have judged them. It's an eclectic set of personalities with the most comedic member, I think, being Dr. Cottard, a man who so humorously lacks social awareness that he never forms a true opinion and always responds with an ironic smile as his safety net - if his attitude doesn't match the socially accepted one, well of course, he knew that all along and now he's simply making a joke about it! Socially, Swann is above all of these people and thus considered a catch for their little social set. Yes, he has managed to create a better social persona than they have, but he's just as shallow and eager to please the public as they are. He only sticks around so long because he falls for Odette, and the Verdurins are his gateway to her.

So about this relationship with Odette. It's funny because in the beginning Swann is described as quite the ladies' man. Upon meeting her at the Verdurins, he gets the impression that she is trying to woo him, though he doesn't find her particularly appealing; the only real attraction comes from the fact that he knows she likes him so much. In fact, he's often with other women right up until he meets her and the Verdurins! As time passes, though, that attraction he feels from her causes his own attraction towards her to grow, creating an interesting type of love affair. How genuine can it be considered if you only fall for the person because you know they have fallen for you? (A modern day quandary as well, I'm sure.)

As time passes, Swann's intrigue turns to infatuation, which turns to full-out obsession. We rarely hear Odette's side, just Swann's as he struggles with the passion, thrills, and insecurities of this relationship. They're definitely lovers by its most basic definition; they meet up regularly, sleep together, and carry on some sort of passionate relationship. Swann is left enamoured, holding on to tiny moments, actions, or words during the time they are not together. (That's the novel's theme playing out: the staying power of insignificant memories.)

After introducing this part's main players and building relationships with descriptive interactions, the relationship begins to fall apart as Swann continues to hear rumors of Odette's amorous past, feeding into a deep, unsettled insecurity. He begins to question everything she says and does, convincing himself that the times she is not with him are filled with deception. Both Odette and the Verdurins lose interest in Swann, most likely due a great amount to his obsessive behavior. Proust then uses pages and pages to convey Swann's internal self-deprecation. He's experiencing an obsession to the point where he doesn't know how to not think about it, creating stories and convincing himself of drama that may or may not exist, because it's easier than letting it all go - you're so used to the anguish that you don't know what to do without it.

As a reader, I'm thinking, "Ohmygod please don't let this go on forever," because it's exhausting and also pretty monotonous. And Proust, then, most likely agrees and brings Swann back into the society he has for so long neglected where it becomes clear how much he has detached himself because of Odette. This, I think, is one of the more realistic and universal points in this whole affair of Swann's. He has sacrificed all other aspects of his life for this tumultuous, insecure affair, and it's this break from Odette, as he is trying to "wean himself" from her, that illuminates that sacrifice. When he once again hears the phrase from the piano sonata that came to define his early passion for Odette, he realizes that passion no longer exists; it's maintained only by his memory.

So like the dunking of the madeleine and the view of the church steeples in Part 1, this musical phrase conjures more than just reminisces; it invokes overwhelming feeling linked to a particular time and place. And in this instance, it's the realization that this emotion no longer exists that helps Swann break with Odette for good.

And before Swann had time to understand, and say to himself: "It's the litte phrase from the sonata by Vinteuil; don't listen!" all his memories of the time when Odette was in love with him, which he had managed until now to keep out of sight in the deepest part of himself, deceived by this sudden beam of light from the time of love which they believed had returned, had awoken and flown swiftly back up to sing madly to him, with no pity for his present misfortune, the forgotten refrains of happiness.

The drastic difference of this section from the previous one comes from the narration. It's told in such a third-person omniscient voice that we totally forget that it's actually the voice of "Marcel," our Part 1 narrator. In fact, I don't think he uses the word 'I' until over 100 pages into this section! We very quickly forget that this whole story about Swann and Odette is, in fact, just a retelling. We're reminded that everything we're reading took place in the past, before the narrator's time, and it must have just been retold to him, perhaps by his grandfather who has been mentioned as a friend of Swann's. I was happy to see, as I predicted, that the story would end up focusing more on Swann (since his name is in the book's title and all), but this total disconnect of narrative voice has left me wondering how it all connects. What's the point in sharing this tumultuous romance of Swann's past and nearly losing track of our narrator? Perhaps Part 3 will tell...

Reading Notes: Swann's Way, Part I

As a 16-year-old over-achiever aiming to read all the same books as Rory Gilmore, I must've checked out Proust's Swann's Way from the library about six times without ever having actually opened it to page one. It was always just too daunting, and somehow I knew back then that it was far over my analytical ability level. When my NYC book club chose it as the long holiday selection right before I moved, I decided to buy it anyway - a new motivator to pick up this long set-aside "masterpiece."

...And so it has sat for another three-and-a-half years until my fall reading of David Copperfield inspired me to pick up some other classics for my summer break reading. Thus with 6 weeks ahead of me with ample time and freedom, I decided to finally embark on the Proust journey.

For having held a position on my "to read" shelf for so long, I have known surprisingly little about Swann's Way. My skim through translator Lydia Davis' introduction ("skim" because, wow, she gets detailed) informed me that the novel's narrator is not, in fact, this titular Swann, and whomever he is is never named (though all the internet will call him Marcel, apparently after the author, assuming this is somewhat an autobiographical voice, according to a one-lined reference in a later volume of this anthology). This, along with Davis' further discourse on Proust's run-on writing style and references to this yet-unknown-to-me famous episode with a madeleine, immediately informed me that I may be in rather over my head. Some sort of reading guide seemed necessary, and I luckily found an informal one, a seeming personal reading project and journal called 182 Days of Marcel Proust in which the blog author simply records and reflects during the reading process, about 15 pages at a time. PERFECT.

Part 1, titled "Combray," involves mostly the narrator's reflections on his childhood spent at his grandparent's house in the northern French town of Combray. It starts out as a simple memory of how he often struggled with falling asleep as a child, and then experienced that sensation when you start awake and lose track of where you are and realize you were, in fact, actually asleep, but you have to piece together your surroundings of time and place. I mean, yes, it's a very real and common phenomenon, but pretty much the entire first section of this narration reflects on this idea that stemmed from this small memory. This gives you an indication of just how Proust structures his narration. [Basically, not at all. It's a lot of meandering, stream of consciousness, one thought leads to another idea sort of thing.]

Continuing on, the narrator recalls an incident when Monsieur Swann (a neighbor and friend to his grandparents) is visiting for dinner, thus preventing the narrator's mother from kissing him goodnight, which was apparently an anxiety-inducing tragedy worth reflecting upon years later. Other memories include those with Aunt Leonie, an ailing old codger who confines herself to her bed and constantly laments her state of health, whether real or imagined. [She's just like old Mrs. Harris in the Anne of Avonlea movie.] He recalls an innocent encounter with his Uncle and a prostitute that causes such embarrassment that Uncle is never seen by Narrator again. There are pedantic acquaintances that annoy the family but introduce the Narrator to a great deal of literature and culture. And there are ordinary townsfolk, like M. Vinteuil and daughter, whose small personal dramas cause great reflection on life, love, and humanity. Oh, and Narrator also meets Swann's daughter, Gilberte, with whom he apparently is essentially obsessed. [Supposedly there's more on that later.]

As I've followed along with summaries and notes during my own reading, I was somewhat surprised to realize that I was actually following what was happening. I haven't read an observation on a detail that I couldn't recall...which is a good sign; it means I am following the narration fairly well, at least. But I still haven't felt as though I really get it, that I get what Proust is saying and why. Yes, I can follow the plot points easily, but Proust is using so many words and there's such academic intellect surrounding him; surely there must be something deeper that I am missing. I mean, he's building this story, or rather, narrative, around an individual's memories and recollections and how these affect one's view and perception of the world - something that is very personally and, well, individualistic. It's like trying to put into words a complex cognitive process that happens without awareness or consciousness.

I guess it makes sense when you consider the overarching title of Proust's 7-volume anthology (of which Swann's Way is the first): "In Search of Lost Time." The Narrator here reflects a great deal on sensory experiences (dipping the madeleine into a cup of tea, observing church steeples from a moving carriage as the sun sets) and I guess Proust's p o i n t of this all is to consider how these small, perhaps insignificant moments of "lost time" actually inspire and contribute to our personal, intellectual development and experience.

But I'm still just very taken with the minor role Monsieur Swann has actually played in this first third of the book so far. Waiting to find out when (or even if) he becomes a lead.

Reading Notes: Gotham, Part 1

I am fairly certain I mentioned by goal of reading Gotham months ago. I even started reading it months ago. And at one point in 2016, I know had the goal of finishing the entire 1236 page book by the end of the 2015-2016 school year.

Well, now I'm three weeks into the 2016-2017 school year, and I'm still on page 75. Back during our January snow days, I breezed through Part One of the book—"Lenape Country and New Amsterdam to 1664"—and I made notes and tagged pages and then I never got around to writing about them and my continuation of reading has just been held up ever since. I've been breezing through a lot of random books lately, though, and decided that now, with my newfound motivation to read and write, is the time to move along actually get started.

New York City is one of my favorite topics to study. For one, its centuries of transformation are amplified, more magnificently illustrated, because of its small geographic size. Tracking development as it spreads—the buildings as they rise and fall—appears grand and drastic when the area feels so contained and so easy to observe. Secondly, and related to that point, I am a witness of the city's history. I walked its streets and inhabited its buildings for a decade. I know how the traffic flows and how cultures and communities occupy neighborhoods. Knowing what came before is what inspires history nerds like me to keep reading and keep searching for clues from another time.

"The city's well-merited reputation as a perpetual work-in-progress helps explain why Washington Irving's day New Yorkers were famous for being uninterested in their own past. 'New York is notoriously the largest and least loved of any of our great cities,' wrote Harper's Monthly in 1856. 'Why should it be loved as a city? It is never the same city for a dozen years together. A man born in New York forty years ago finds nothing, absolutely nothing, of the New York he knew.'"

Because there is so much historical fact in this book that is impossible to record and remember, I think I'll focus my reading and summarizing on the state of things at any given moment in the city's history. Who was in charge? How did people live? What were the talking points, the stressors, the norms? New York is a dynamic city that changes with its population; the people are key to understanding the city's history.

Reading Notes: The Evolution of God, Part 4

Ok, it's a little bit pathetic that it's taken me so long to get through this book and finish up the posts on it. It took me literally all summer—I checked it out from the library over Memorial Day weekend, and I returned it on July 30th, the day before I started back to work for the new school year. However, that's not indicative of my feelings for it; I was fascinated, but my priorities shifted over the summer and this book ended up taking a back seat.

The fifth and final section of The Evolution of God is ambiguously titled "God Goes Global (Or Doesn't)." And though its purpose must be a sort of concluding summation and application of the ideas he's presented in the previous four sections...to be honest, it was definitely the most confusing section of all. There was some game theory thrown in and a lot of repetitions about non-zero-sum. But mostly, I think the point Wright is trying to get across is that though religions may differ in belief, they all have the same foundation. They are all born from the same human needs, and their histories are all colorful, sometimes contradictory, and always a product of their times.

Wright contends that "...religions that reach great stature have a tendency to rewrite their history in the process. They cast themselves as distinctive from the get-go, rather than growing organically out of their milieu. They find an epoch-marking figure—a Moses, a Jesus, a Muhammad—and turn him into an epoch-making figure. They depict his message as contrasting sharply with a backdrop that, in fact, his message was infused with." In short, they all find themselves unique when, in fact, their existence largely depends on all that came before. And certain aspects of human nature make us inclined to find answers in religion--thus, for the religions to develop in the first place.

• Everyone seeks salvation on a personal level simply by driving human needs: good health and good spirit.
• Either we understand motivations because we relate to them, or we don't relate to them and find them illegitimate. (We like what we know and understand; we fear or dislike what we don't.)
• And people want to control their environment. Minds are open to explanations that give them such control.

Mostly, though, during this final section, Wright goes heavy on the connection between religion and social behavior...and how, really, we should all just get along, because we're all from the same stock. It's kind of the same argument he had for religions being similar; people are similar and have the same universal needs and struggles.

"To say that other people are people, too, may sound like an unremarkable insight. But it is one that is often ignored, and one that is in some sense unnatural. After all, any organism created by natural selection is, by default, under the illusion that it is special...Obviously, we can't all be right in any objective sense. The truth must be otherwise. The extension of moral imagination brings us closer to that truth."

If he ever makes an argument for the existence of God, it's here. To Wright, the Abrahamic scriptures show that there is a moral truth that's imposed on us; and cultural evolution has shown us that it makes sense to progress morally or else there are consequences. For the author, this is evidence in favor of the god hypothesis. Basically, religion can essentially be the belief in an unseen order: [it] "consists of the belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto" (William James). Wright is always vague on his own beliefs. They may not include a literal world-ruling, omniscient figure; but he seems to believe in a sense of order that exists in the world, and if you, personally, want to credit this order to a higher power God figure, then by all means you can.


The final chapter in this book is aptly titled "Well, Aren't We Special?" and I hope you can see how applicable that is to all the arguments Wright has raised in this book. Whether it's an entire religion, a population, or an individual, your way is always the right way; you're the chosen one; you are special. Back to that point of fearing or vilifying what we don't understand, this is just a part of human nature. But Wright finds proof of God in the fact that we can recognize and resist this innate fault to create a more harmonious existence. Evolution created beings so smart that they spawned another kind of evolution—cultural evolution—that forged a new connection between the growth of social organization and the progress toward moral truth. Basically, cause and effect guide us towards moral truth.

"As interdependence, and hence social structure, grew beyond the bounds of family—and then beyond the bounds of hunter-gatherer band, of chiefdom, of state—the way was paved by extensions of sympathy. This sympathy didn't have to involve its initial sponsor, love; you don't have to love someone to trade with them or even to consider them compatriots. But there has to be enough moral imagination, enough sympathetic consideration, to keep them out of the cognitive category of enemy; you have to consider them, in some sense, one of you."

You may be thinking that this book ended with a lot more philosophical ponderings than anticipated...and you're not alone. I feel somewhat like Wright just used a lot of history as a prelude to a big, theoretically-inspired hug; he's giving us a pep talk, not only on why it's beneficial for us all to just get along, but hey, it's going to be easy—because someone or something out there is making sure mankind makes the right choices, because it's our destiny. Well...thank god (or maybe God) for that.

Reading Notes: The Evolution of God, Part 3

So far in Robert Wright's The Evolution of God, we've covered the evolution of religion from polytheism to monotheism, the development of a dominant monotheistic religion called Judaism, and the emergence from that of another major religion called Christianity. In Section 4, Wright introduces another major world religion to the mix: Islam.

As you may remember, the author's focus in this book is on the three Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—and how they came to be as products of their places and times. Now, focusing on the birth of Islam, Wright begins detailing its evolution as a religion and its relationship with the already existing ones.

Wright's history of Islam goes like this (and I don't know enough to deem it factual or interpretive): Islam was born after Judaism and Christianity when a man named Muhammad claimed to be a prophet of God. God shared his word with Muhammad directly, and this is what's contained in the Koran. Being the literal "word of God," the Koran is a much more straightforward text than the Hebrew or Christian Bibles—less history, fewer stories. Muslims believe that the higher power (in this case, "Allah") existed before Islam became a religion, and he also evolved independently of other religions. And though Islam is not the same as Judaism and Christianity, Muhammad united them by deeming the Islamic God to be the same Abrahamic God shared by the other two religions, because he (Muhammad) placed himself on the same level as Moses—as one who has been contacted directly by God. This is the distinguishing point: Islam was its own movement; it didn't descend from the other religions. 

I think this is semi-accurate. Ignore the atheism website.

Muhammad is a fascinating figure, and this is ultimately what Wright tries to prove throughout this section. He was a prophet promoting an apocalyptic reversal of fortunes to amass followers, much like Jesus. And he was a politician, building an empire by making a "foreign" God local and eventually using force to demonstrate power. He preached tolerance to gain followers but once his Islamic State grew, his ties with Judaism and Christianity began to dwindle.

It seems here that Muhammad now wanted Christians and Jews to accept Islam and recognize their texts as precursors to the Koran. More problems arose with his desire for them to embrace a new religion that contradicted their own. [Islam recognizes Jesus as a person but not as the "Son" of God.] Basically, he was trying to become a leader, but others weren't accepting it. The way it played out next is sort of unclear. The big disagreement involves Jerusalem and who "took it back." Was it Muslims? Was it a Jewish-Muslim alliance? It's clear that Islam also had a break with Judaism but was that at this point or was it later added by authors of the Koran after Muhammad's time? This is where I'm hazy on religious history, and there are probably a ton of perspectives to read and consider. We're not going any further into that now.

What Wright does next is explore how Islam developed into what it is today—or, to be fair, how it is perceived in the Western world. Here he takes a scholarly, historical look at the concept of "jihad" and how it evolved into a controversial piece of modern world politics.

Apparently, "jihad" is mentioned only four times in the Koran and more times in the hadith (the oral tradition), and it refers to a constant struggle. There is, and always has been, a continuous argument about how exactly "jihad" is defined. Does it mean an internal, emotional struggle? A literal, external one? As with many religious concepts, it's up to interpretation, and one man named Sayyid Qutb decided in the mid-20th century that "jihad" should be an aggression in the name of Islam, not just a defense. This can be considered the birth of modern radical/extremist/fundamentalist/whatever-you-want-to-call-it Islam.

Wright argues that it's unlikely "jihad" was ever intended strictly as aggressive foreign policy. Violence against nonbelievers wouldn't always, historically, have benefited Islam—think about when Muhammad was trying to gain followers. But his point is that words are always interpreted to one's own benefit; you can always justify war in the name of religion. All religions have their moments of war and peace.

The author does quite a bit in the last chapter of this section to demonstrate how religions are adaptive; they may argue on a theological level, but globalization has and will continue to bring them to a peaceful coexistence based on social and economic benefit. Muhammad represents, as one man, all the highlights of Abrahamic history and religious evolution. Wright continues to argue that the Koran happens to be, theologically-speaking, the most modern text; it's evolutionary in nature, highlighting existing wonders of nature rather than miracles; these signs of nature are evidence in themselves of God's existence. If the world was created, by God, as a physical system with a purpose, then we naturally move towards "functional integration" (ie: working together and getting along), and human behavior is directly connected to both circumstance and moral consciousness. And Wright argues that the Koran, more than any other religious text, explicitly shares these ideas.

I mentioned this in my last post. Unbelievable!

I think Wright dedicates an entire section to Islam to demonstrate how connected these three religions really are, despite the assertions that each are independent of one another. I know there are years and years of further incident that drive the religions apart, but my takeaway from these sections is that these conflicts are cyclical, and Religions (with a capital R) do (or can) eventually find their way back to a cooperative, peaceful relationship with each other. Perhaps we'll find out if this is proving true in the 21st-century in the book's final section.

Reading Notes: The Evolution of God, Part 2

After a couple of weeks' break, I started back on Robert Wright's The Evolution of God, picking up where I left off. This time, though, I had a hardcover version on my hands instead of an eBook, and it made all the difference in the world. Remember how I said I was sort of lost in Section II? Well it's my own fault; I broke my own promise to myself—never read nonfiction in eBook format. After breezing through one chapter of Section III, I decided to go back and re-read those sections that had given me so much trouble before. And armed with printed pages, a pen, a notebook, and sticky notes, it made all the sense in the world.

Wright's biggest mission in Section II, "The Emergence of Abrahamic Monotheism," was to demonstrate just how and why the God familiar in today's religions emerged from the vengeful god(s) of polytheism. And while I hinted at this in my first post on this book, I really got it after re-reading these chapters; the dates and places and people were way less confusing the second time around!

To quickly summarize it in bullet points, here's what Wright says happened (or, if not happened, here are the factors that led to the present):

• National religion became part of national identity; King Josiah made Yahweh the "official" God of Israel, in turn centralizing power and centralizing worship.
• When Babylon conquered Israel, religion was a way to make sense of disaster. If Israel's God was defeated, it meant defeat for their national identity as well. Instead, massive destruction just meant God was more powerful than they believed, and everything that happened to Israel was just God's will.
• Now there was a new religious mission for trauma-suffering Israelites—non-believers were no longer enemies; they were potential converts. 
• Philo, a Jewish philosopher, is largely responsible for the moral development of God. He interpreted God as tolerant and, fluent in Greek, translated the Bible accordingly. Here, Wright illustrates just how important semantics have been in religious history; ambiguity, creative interpretation, and selective retention shape belief systems. 
• And further with Philo: his most important contribution is the invention of metaphor and allegory, which he often used to justify stories in the Bible that didn't fit his own idea of a loving, compassionate God. This reconciliation of Jewish and Greek thought is the basis for modern theology.
• And more with Philo: he came up with the idea of the "Logos"—the natural law for men and matter. These are the rules that govern the world, like the laws of physics or nature, created by God as a sort of plan for the world. Wright uses the analogy of the video game designer creating the world, the rules, and the players. Wisdom, then, is the way of understanding the logos.

When I mentioned in my last post that Wright is a refreshing, unargumentative voice on the subject of religion, that perspective is illustrated best by his discussion on the evolution of morality. In his words:

"If the human conception of god features moral growth, and if this reflects corresponding moral growth on the part of humanity itself, and if humanity's moral growth flows from basic dynamics underlying history, and if we conclude that this growth is therefore evidence of 'higher purpose,' does this amount to evidence of an actual god?"

I included this not-so-brief summary on a section I've already sort of written about because it's important to know where religion came from and what purpose it served as we begin Section III, "The Invention of Christianity."

Wright begins this chapter with an introduction to Jesus, though one that may be very foreign to today's Christians—what Wright labels "Historical Jesus." In comparing the Jesus from the four gospels of the New Testament, each written an increasing amount of time after Jesus' death, Wright contends that historical accuracy diminishes and the stories are embellished to make a point (whatever point it is the authors are trying to make). Jesus from Mark had only love for his Israelite neighbor, but by the time Luke was written, Jesus showed universal love for all. Here's where the Bible is its most interesting—its roles as a religious text and a historical record are conflicting!

Image credit

But this story of Jesus is just an example of the interpretations I mentioned above, and there was much more that led to the eventual rise of Christianity that also contributed to the present-day God. And this was done mostly by Paul. Paul, like Philo, believed in brotherly love while also believing Jesus died to atone for our sins. It was this idea of interethic tolerance that eventually spawned Christianity in a society that, Wright argues, already had the pieces in place.

The growth of the Roman Empire made interethnic tolerance more valuable in terms of economic transactions. Plus, the Empire already had social clubs and groups that played an important role in society—creating kinship and familial bonds in an increasingly populous world. Christianity offered unconditional love to its followers, and by Paul deeming there is "neither Jew nor Greek," he built a bridge to the Gentile world, abandoning strict Jewish custom and increasing the accessibility to God. Paul himself was ambitious, and tolerance was the key to gaining followers and expanding his empire. 

Though there were several version of early Christianity, Paul's version was the one that became mainstream, because it built off of Judaism rather than immediately renouncing it. Paul used Jewish beliefs as the foundation of his new religion, even recruiting from Jewish believers. It wasn't until Paul's followers needed to undermine Judaism as the heir to Hebrew tradition [to practice one's own religion in the Roman Empire, it must be demonstrated that the religion predates the Empire] that Christianity severed its ties with Judaism and really came into its own. Here the Christians claimed that the Jews had forsaken God by killing his son, and now the two diverged in opinion and belief. 

Wright's distinction between Historical Jesus and Biblical Jesus becomes clear in the section's last chapter, "How Jesus Became a Savior." In one sentence: New Testament authors believed Jesus to be the fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy about the appearance from the skies of a "Son of Man." Wright continues on the theme of salvation to tie everything we've learned so far together: how the emergence of monotheism and the birth of Christianity have led to a moral God. To sum it up, because this has gotten REALLY long:

• This "Son of Man" offers an eternal heaven to good Christian souls; basically, a pleasant afterlife is a perk of Christianity, which gives it an edge on other religions.
• Paul decides to explicitly define sin to help people reach heaven. This definition helps people avoid certain behaviors, which causes a group cohesiveness. Suddenly, people are nicer to each other because they know that moral behavior leads to eternal happiness.

And here is the answer as to how religion became linked with morality: Wright argues that religions develop from their ability to meet basic human psychological needs, and at this particular moment in history, Christianity was able to do just that. It provided rules to live by; it answered questions about the unknown, particularly what happens after death; it gave ways to atone for the sin of mankind (because apparently at this time, mankind had very poor self-esteem); it was a social movement providing shared a forum for shared belief systems. And most importantly, it provided a way to save the individual soul. By linking salvation to social behavior, it provided individuals a sure-fire way to a blissful afterlife. 

I have seriously learned so so much from this book so far. I grew up as a reluctant churchgoer, but I realize my knowledge base is incredibly weak. I was astounded to learn that the four gospels of the New Testament have entirely conflicting information, but I was never taught that because we learned about stories in Sunday School, not history. I never even knew these were four perspectives on the same story! Wright is doing in this book exactly what I strive for in my own spiritual questioning—he is sharing context, showing how one thing came from another, explaining how things evolve based on many factors.

One of the hardest things to remember so far is that the society we're reading about in so much depth is actually only one very distinct part of the world. We're reading about Israel and, yes, the development of major world religions, but there are whole other cultures around the world developing their own theologies and religions. Wright did establish that this book focuses on only the three Abrahamic religions, and the next section will veer us away from the Jewish and Christian Middle East and into Islam.

Reading Notes: The Evolution of God, Part 1

Remember back years ago when I read Gail Collins' When Everything Changed, blogging throughout my reading experience instead of only at the end? That was one of the most satisfying books I've ever read, and it was mostly thanks to the way I read it. Usually, with fiction especially, I devour a book straight through to formulate an instinctual, overarching reaction and opinion. Then I may go back, analyze and criticize, and interact with the book more deeply. With When Everything Changed, I read slowly and deliberately. I made notes in the margins; I underlined facts to remember.

Before I started The Evolution of God by Robert Wright, I had intended to just read it straight through like any other book, discerned only as a break in all the fiction I've been reading lately. As I kept reading, though, I figured this would be the perfect book to start reading more closely—it's full of detail; it's well-organized with easy start and stop points; its sections are thematic. To me, it didn't feel like I'd do this book justice if I breezed through it and summarized at the end; and it's about time I had a more thorough reading project. [Plus, after finishing the first two sections, I couldn't read further without a break!]


Wright's purpose with The Evolution of God is to chronicle the development of modern day monotheism from prehistoric polytheism. To succinctly sum up all 500+ pages of this book, Wright's main argument is that the three Abrahamic religions—Christianity, Judaism, and Islam—are a product of social and economic advancement. Monotheism was not a revolutionary concept; rather, as humankind evolved—as communities formed and global interactions developed—its concept of religion followed suit in ways that would continue to be of benefit socially, economically, and theologically.

But before international politics influenced religion, scientific discovery played an even bigger part. Wright states that, "However diverse the forces that shape religion, its early impetus indeed seems to have come largely from people who, like us, were trying to make sense of the world." And before science provided the reason for weather patterns and human growth and development, people created gods to explain the unexplained.

So basically, somewhere along the way, these gods that controlled the weather evolved into modern-day religion. But...

1. When did gods become a God we worship? and
2. When did religion become about morality?

"Religion" was once something that was "so tightly interwoven into their [hunter-gatherer] everyday thought and action that they don't have a word for them." To answer my above questions, Wright brings in the factor of human interaction. The values taught by modern-day religion—love, honesty, generosity—weren't present in primitive religion, because there wasn't a larger society to be accountable to; when your only interactions are with family and close friends, these values are inherent. When populous settlements began to form, requiring interaction with each other, these values were needed for mutually beneficial co-existence. Because religions that "encouraged people to treat others considerately...made for a more orderly and productive city."

Sections I and II of this book (titled "The Birth and Growth of Gods" and "The Emergence of Abrahamic Monotheism," respectively) mostly discuss this evolution from many gods to one God, and the emergence of the God personality familiar today. According to Wright, this evolution didn't stop when god became God; his personality has evolved as well. Throughout history, gods have been angry and spiteful; gods have taken human form with human qualities; and God has appeared gracious and all-knowing. Wright tries to demonstrate how all these different forms of a "higher power" are a reflection of society's needs at a particular time. 

Image credit

It's refreshing to read a non-controversial, unassuming voice on an often debated topic. Wright writes without sarcasm or skepticism; his approach is more cultural and historical than theoretical or scientific. He writes seemingly without agenda other than to highlight the historical evidence offering an explanation of why things exist as they do. He considers the two most debated and most dominate positions regarding the purpose of modern religion: 1) to provide "reassurance and hope in the face of pain and uncertainty, overcoming our natural selfishness with communal cohesion," and 2) as "a tool of social control, wielded by the powerful for self-aggrandizement." In other words, he recognizes opposing views on this topic and addresses them both as valid.

I'll be honest...Wright sort of lost me in Section II. By this point, society has progressed into the great empires we know from history—Babylonia, Greece, Rome. Wright touches on the issue of religion breeding intolerance as societies competed with each other, which seems to be a point he will address more later on. But overall, this section features many names and places, and how all of these factors have shaped religion into what it is today; and he points to several passages in the Bible that indicate biblical evidence of thought patterns...

And this made me consider how fascinating the Bible is as a piece of literature, because it serves as both a platform for storytelling and a historical record. 

Mostly in this section, though, I felt like Wright was jumping ahead. The text identifies historical figures as Jewish or Christian, but he never touched on the point at which these religions separated from one another; we have the build up to monotheism from polytheism, but not the point at which different belief systems (different religions) emerged. I believe he will touch on these things in the coming sections, but it was confusing to read about particular people and stories from the texts of specific religions before we had reached that point.

I have now rambled for a very long time on these sections without much coherent conclusion or summary! I find Wright to be that kind of big-picture nonfiction author that helps you understand his main points, but I found Section II to be bogged down with too much historical detail. It was more confusing than enlightening. I hope Section III, "The Invention of Christianity," will bring it back down to a single track that's easier to follow. In the meantime, here's one of the most important takeaways from these sections that explains why I find religion to be so fascinating to question and explore:

"Whatever the truth about Yahweh's early history, there is one thing we can say with some confidence: the Bible's editors and translators have sometimes obscured it—perhaps deliberately, in an attempt to conceal evidence of early mainstream polytheism."

Because history is always open to interpretation, and stories always reflect their author's voice.

Joint Reading: Lions of the West, Chapter 9

Here we are on the final chapter of Aarti's and my joint reading of Robert Morgan's Lions of the West (except for the epilogue and final thoughts, which she'll post later this week!). This book looks at America's westward expansion by way of a few key figures that made a big impact during the era. Chapter 9 focuses on Nicholas Trist, a person I had never heard of and, frankly, didn't much impress me. However, the point of this joint reading was for Aarti and I to share our agreements, disagreements, and discover how our own personal experiences with history have shaped our opinions.

We hope these posts have been informative, enlightening, thought-provoking, or maybe inspired you a little bit to explore some history on your own. You can read up on the rest of the book both here and over at BookLust.

Nicholas Trist: The Search for a Father Voice

Kari: Nicholas Trist really seems to be the biggest pansy out of this group. I mean, look at him! He was basically a secretary, turned advisor, turned negotiator, strictly because of his political connections. He didn’t discover anything; he didn’t fight a war; he didn’t win an election. Overall, it was hard for me to figure out what on earth he did to earn him a chapter in this book. 

Aarti: Aw, I liked Trist! I actually thought Morgan gave him the short end of the stick. While he didn’t go conquer the Western states for America, he did bring a lot of diplomacy to the table, and I enjoyed learning about someone who did more of the grunt work. But I agree that he wasn’t particularly lovable. :-)

Kari: Throughout his chapter, I just kept thinking that this is an unfortunate soul who could’ve done a lot more than he did. He was incredibly well-educated. He was well connected. He showed some fire and initiative by dropping out of West Point, despite Jefferson wanting him to go. But it’s like he just never really decided what he wanted to do with himself, and he stuck around Jefferson because he was in love with Jefferson’s granddaughter. He just sorta did what he did because people expected him or urged him to. He didn’t seem to make many decisions of his own, which is completely opposite of the Western mentality that has dominated the characters of this book.

Joint Reading: Lions of the West, Chapter 7

As you may recall, Aarti and I have been reading Robert Morgan's Lions of the West for the past couple of weeks, delving into the history of key individuals who played a big role in America's expansion out west. We hope that you'll join in the discussion on the complexities and contradictions that have built this country's history.

You can also catch up on our previous discussions:

Chapter 1: Thomas Jefferson
Chapter 2: Andrew Jackson
Chapter 3: John Chapman
Chapter 4: David Crockett
Chapter 5: Sam Houston
Chapter 6: James K. Polk


Winfield Scott: Old Fuss and Feathers Goes to the Mountain

Kari: Winfield Scott is a person I wouldn’t have been able to tell you anything about before reading this chapter. And thankfully, I enjoyed this chapter more than the last, probably because we learned more about Scott as a human and not just achievements in politics or on the battlefield. In fact, I was actually interested in the descriptions of war battles and strategy. The way Morgan described Winfield Scott and his strengths made me realize that there is actually a lot of strategy surrounding war. It’s not just charge and destroy; to Scott, it was an art, and one at which he excelled.

Aarti: Yes, I liked learning about Scott, too, because he sounds FASCINATING. I loved learning just how complicated he was. One theme throughout this book is that so many of the characters in it made up tall tales and stories about themselves, and I think Scott is totally one of those people who fell in love with his own stories. But he did what he loved, and he was good at what he loved.

Kari: This was also a chapter that made me dislike Polk even more. Where Polk can be described as a certain kind of jerk, Scott should be described as a certain kind of saint in comparison. This chapter on Scott relates a person that possesses that special something that makes him a man of this era of western expansion. He had the ingenuity, forethought, and dedication to actually train an army because he knew it would be beneficial to his country’s future. He continued to fight for his cause despite personal conflict with his superiors (Polk)—enough conflict to drive most men away from frustrations.

Mostly the difference between him and the leaders of his time was his humane mentality on war. He treated a battle as a match of wits where the most skill and ingenuity would prevail. He didn’t attack with a vendetta; he wasn’t trying to fuel his ego; he wasn’t out to kill. It’s like war was a game to him, and he treated the “losers” with respect, not like he was better than them. He was constantly applauded by enemies for his compassion, and at one point, Morgan notes that Scott has been called one of the “most capable soldiers this country has ever produced.” With such regards bestowed upon this one man from such a popular era of history, I am surprised I have never known nor heard much about him.

Joint Reading: Lions of the West, Chapter 5

The fifth chapter in Robert Morgan's Lions of the West was my favorite from this past week. I've always associated Sam Houston 100% with Texas, and I enjoyed leaning more about him outside of that.

Catch up on the first four chapters of our joint reading:

Chapter 1: Thomas Jefferson
Chapter 2: Andrew Jackson
Chapter 3: John Chapman
Chapter 4: David Crockett

Chapter 5, Sam Houston: The President Who Loved to Dance

Kari: This chapter was by far the most interesting to me! Naturally, I knew of Houston’s associations with Texas, and that is what he’s always been linked with in my mind. I never knew that he had such a history in Tennessee, though...and that’s my state! (In fact, three out of these five chapters have strong ties to Tennessee. Guess we were just instrumental in western expansion!) Throughout this chapter and the Jackson and Crockett chapters, there are many individuals whose names I recognize because they are used in Tennessee geography—Jackson, Old Hickory, Grundy, Polk. But I don’t know of anything using the Houston name in Tennessee, which is why Houston’s associations with this state and the city of Nashville really surprised me. I thought after reading the chapter that it probably has something to do with his somewhat shameful exit from Tennessee politics. Perhaps the state decided its former Governor was not worthy of a Tennessee legacy? It is surprising, and unfortunate, though, that such history has not been as widely shared. 

Aarti: So much about history in that way makes me sad. We like to present history as series of unblemished heroes instead of presenting the more accurate, tarnished accounts, and that makes it seem like no one ever made a bad decision or wavered over an issue before in the world, which I think is a really dumb way of teaching history. I agree that this was a FASCINATING chapter. I really knew NOTHING about Houston going in. I am astonished at everything about him, including his very Indian upbringing, his crazy marriage (all of his crazy marriages, really), his ridiculous habit of duelling with people, his alcoholism....

Kari: We realize that there is much more to the stories of each of the individuals we have read about so far. They all seem complex, somewhat contradictory; we’re not fully sure from these brief snippets if Morgan is depicting them in a realistic light or not. Houston, though, seems to me to be the first individual who is extremely conflicted within his own self. He’s not only conflicting with society or persons around him; he just strikes me as a guy who has a lot going on in his own head. It’s like he can never really figure out quite where he belongs. 

Aarti: Right, and Houston is also the first person (besides Crockett, to be fair) that we really see in a long-term light. Jefferson and Jackson were presented to us in a very “spotlight on this particular period” way, whereas Crockett and Houston had a more long-term perspective to their chapters that gave us much more of the nuance and complexity that we missed in the earlier chapters. Houston seemed like he was haunted by a lot of devils, particularly that of drinking too much. It was so sad to see his life slip away so quickly through addiction. Though he seemed very well able to strike right back up again! That made me feel a bit better, really- sometimes I get really upset by how quickly people forget the horrible actions of famous people, but it looks like they did the same thing in the past, too.

Joint Reading: Lions of the West, Chapter 3

Continuing on Aarti's and my joint reading of Robert Morgan's Lions of the West: Heroes and Villains of the Westward Expansion, we've moved on to the early 1800s and the man you probably know as "Johnny Appleseed."

Catch up with chapters 1 and 2, Jefferson and Jackson, respectively.

Chapter 3, John Chapman: Apples and Angels

Kari: I thought that this chapter was quite a departure from the previous two on Jefferson and Jackson, and I thought this for a couple reasons. The first being, Chapman is a figure who was “monumental” in westward expansion...but he actually had zero power! He was not political; he was not a general; he was just a guy, yet he is remembered for his role in western settlement. (To be honest, I’ve never associated him with western expansion, but since Morgan is including him in this book, I’ll just give it to him without argument.)

Aarti: I never associated Johnny Appleseed with westward expansion, either! Though to be fair, I always thought of him as a “frontier man,” though never in the sense of Pennsylvania and Ohio being the frontier. I do really like him, though, so I am glad he got his own (very short) chapter.

Kari: The second difference is that Chapman didn’t play the same role that Jefferson and Jackson had—that role of conquering, compromising, defining. He represented a different side of the expansion, one that was more idyllic than the forceful nature of the Presidents. He stood for more than just his actions; he represented something, an ideal, that meant more than what he actually did. If anything, the most important role he played in western conflict was that of a mediator, making things better between opposing sides by acting as a message man and looking out for others. It’s like he worked to prevent conflict while he went about doing his own thing. Basically, Chapman strikes me as an 18th century wandering hippie type. He just went around, never getting too caught up in the lives of others, holding strong to his own set of ideals and lifestyle, not caring what others thought. It’s not an image you really associate with this time period!

Aarti: You really hit the nail on the head here. In a way, Chapman is the anti-Manifest Destiny guy, and it’s refreshing to read about him. I can just imagine how much he flummoxed the people he encountered - wearing rags, preaching a very obscure branch of Christianity, planting apple trees, giving girls ribbons... It’s sad because I feel like if I were to come across Johnny Appleseed today, I’d be totally freaked out by him, with the evangelizing and the torn clothes and the weird gifts to little girls. But reading about him, I am totally enthralled. And so happy that people were so kind to him, too.

Joint Reading: Lions of the West, Chapter 2

I've been talking about this western reading project of mine for a couple months now, and one thing that inspired it in the first place was finding Robert Morgan's Lions of the West while browsing the shelves at the library. I thought the format of this book is pretty cool. Morgan tells the story by focusing on ten different individuals who had an impact on western expansion. There's just something about "the West" that grabs my interest—this adventurous spirit, the lifestyle of survival, the melding of peoples and cultures. I immediately wanted to read this book, but I thought it'd be a lot more interesting (both for me and for you!) to read it alongside someone so we can discuss.

So I approached Aarti over at Booklust to see if she might be interested in joining me. In the past couple of years that I've read her blog, I've noticed an increasing interest in nonfiction, and she is always great with finding points of interest within a text. I thought she'd be a great reading partner and luckily, she hopped on board! We're going to be reading Lions of the West chapter by chapter over the next few weeks. Aarti started the discussion on Chapter 1, about Thomas Jefferson, on Tuesday, so catch up now if you haven't already!

Chapter 2, Andrew Jackson: Old Hickory at the Bend

Aarti: This chapter is where the chronology that Robert Morgan forced himself into really bothered me. It seemed like a cop-out to me that he focused on Andrew Jackson before he became President, especially considering that Jackson earned the name “Indian Killer” during his tenure and was the mind behind the Trail of Tears. I understand that Morgan focused on a major battle between Americans and Native Americans, and that he chose the one in which Jackson earned his stripes, as it were, but I thought there was too much focus on the battle and the military tactics themselves than on Jackson and his mindframe.

In a sense, I understand this. I don’t know much at all about Andrew Jackson except, really, that he was called the Indian Killer and that he forcibly removed many Native Americans from their lands and drove them further and further west. I didn’t realize that he had such a striking personality as well. Here again, we have a very ambiguous and complex man whittled down into several pages. It’s not fair of me to complain that these chapters aren’t longer, but I do complain that so much of Jackson’s chapter was given over to battle tactics instead of to a higher-level strategy and description of his overall character.

Kari: Having grown up in Nashville and taken many a school trip to Jackson’s home outside of Nashville, The Hermitage, I was particularly interested in reading this chapter because despite this, I don’t actually know all that much about him. I knew he was around for the War of 1812; I knew he fought some Indians; and I knew he had a wife named Rachel. It’s not like the state of Tennessee automatically painted a Tennessee President in a positive light; he wasn’t really painted in any light when I was learning about him in school. He was just from Tennessee, and we learned the basic facts mostly without bias. It wasn’t until I came up to the North that I heard such strong opinions about Jackson one way or the other (though mostly the opinion that he was brutal and ruthless against the Indians).

Aarti: Haha, as I grew up in Illinois, the Land of Lincoln, I think I know what you mean. We LOVE Lincoln here. Though admittedly, I think Lincoln very worthy of lots of love ;-) But also a very complex man, and I didn’t realize how complex until reading Team of Rivals a couple of years ago.

Reading Notes: A People's History, Part V

The fifth and final section, covering the late 70s to the present (or at least to 2003 when this edition was published).

In covering the Carter-Reagan-Bush years, Zinn made one thing clear: he HATES Reagan and Bush. He's not too impressed with Carter, either, but I get the feeling he DESPISES Reagan and Bush. Zinn describes the 80s and 90s as an era when corporations were taking control of politics and the President was losing power, despite his decisions aiming to reassert his own power rather than the represent the will of the people. The nation was also frustrated and around half the population didn't even bother to vote in elections by 1976.

So these are some of the horrible things Zinn accuses the Reagan/Bush administrations of in this section:

• Abolishing the "fairness doctrine" of the FCC, which required air time for dissenting views.
• Preventing doctors in federally supported family planning clinics from giving women information on abortions
• Ignoring environmental hazards in favor of economic gains
• Eliminating free school lunches for more than one million poor children
• Lowering the tax rate on the very rich from 70% to 28%
• Unnecessarily involving America in foreign affairs and lying to the public about it (Iran-contra affair)

Plus, billions of dollars were still being spent on the military, justified by the "Soviet threat." But when the Soviet Union collapsed and the US had the opportunity to reallocate funds to be used for constructive projects instead of arming a military against a nonexistent threat, it did not do that. Instead, it decided to start a war in the Middle East over oil, because has history has proven, combat leads people to forget their day-to-day problems...temporarily. And Bush needed this to boost his support.

Some good quotes I underlined:

"The U.S. can destroy Iraq's highways, but not build its own; create the conditions for epidemic in Iraw, but not offer health care to millions of Americans. It can excoriate Iraqi treatment of the Kurdish minority, but not deal with domestic race relations; create homelessness abroad but not solve it here; keep a half million troops drug free as part of a war, but refuse to fund the treatment of millions of drug addicts at home..."

"One percent of the nation owns a third of the wealth. The rest of the wealth is distributed in such a way as to turn those in the 99 percent against one another: small property owners against the propertyless, black against white, native-born against foreign-born, intellectuals and professionals against the uneducated and unskilled. These groups have resented one another and warred against one another with such vehemence and violence as to obscure their common position as sharers of leftovers in a very wealthy country."

Student speaker re: Saddam Hussein, "When he was gassing the Kurds, he was gassing them using chemical weapons that were manufactured in Rochester, New York. And when he was fighting a long and protracted war with Iran, where one million people died, it was the CIA that was funding him. It was U.S. policy that built this dictator. When they didn't need him, they started imposing sanctions on his people. Sanctions should be directed at people's governments, not at the people."

Did you know: in 1990 the average of pf the CEOs of the 500 largest corporations was 84 times that of the average worker. But by 1999, it was 475 times the average worker's pay. Blows my mind.

Chapter 23 is a good summary of Zinn's points. I think it must've been the original conclusion to the book before he added sections on Clinton and Bush Jr.

Zinn's point in these last few chapters is that its not one party's fault or the other's...the American political system is broken. Corporations have too much control over politics. Short-term economic gain is given more precedence than the long term effect it could have. The President serves more as a pawn in big-league politiks than as a representative of the people of this country. 

If I could sum this book up in three short points, it would be these:

1. All wars are economic.
2. The elite exploit the poor for their own gain.
3. Change is never made through the ballot but through action. 

Overall, I enjoyed reading this book. For the majority of my life, I've been completely apathetic about politics and current events, mostly because I feel I don't know enough information to form a solid opinion. As I mentioned in my very first post about this book, history is tricky because any one historical occurrence was inevitably seen and experienced by several different perspectives. To try and write a solid historical account that includes all the various points of views would certainly not be brief enough to fit in a single textbook. And while Zinn writes his history book from only one perspective (and yes, he does acknowledge this fact), it's one more that can be added to my own thought processes as I try to digest American history.

Reading Notes: A People's History, Part IV

Chapters 16 - 20: World War II through the Seventies. What a turbulent thirty years.

World War II--the fight against totalitarianism, racism, fascism, and militarism around the world, to "step forward as a defender of helpless countries." But Howard Zinn, being the cynic that he is, questions the real motive of American involvement. It's fact that American involvement in the war began with Pearl Harbor, when we were attacked and our link to the Pacific economy was threatened. The country rallied behind the idea of fighting for liberty, justice, and democracy. But Zinn points to how well the United States was representing liberty, justice, and democracy within its own borders--the armed forces were still segregated and blacks were still discriminated against for jobs; the status of women was little better than that of the Fascist countries we were fighting; and anti-Japanese "hysteria," as Zinn calls it, swept through the government. Zinn argues that American involvement in the war was more economic and more power-driven, despite this being a non-imperialistic war, than war propaganda of the time led the public to believe.

After reading the chapter on WWII and its immediate aftermath, I thought a great simultaneous read would be Tom Brokow's The Greatest Generation. Zinn is incredibly pessimistic and one-sided in his criticisms of the country, but his research is also very convincing. I read this book and I start to hate America. The weakness, though, in this section covering 1941-1960 is that Zinn just goes on a diatribe about how WWII had motives other than the ones the public rallied behind and he leaves out the collective conscience of the public (which he usually thoroughly analyzes!). I learned from Zinn that America quickly developed a military economy because it proved profitable (which I did not realize since I was not alive in the fifties) but what was the mindset of the American people at the time? Whether or not they were pawns in the war games of government and big businesses, the war generation is usually highly regarded as self-sufficient and united behind a cause.


Then we get to the sixties and everything just seemed to explode. Social issues had reached boiling points in society--women's rights, civil rights. Legislation that protected equal rights was not enforced. On top of the social unrest amongst the American public, the "Establishment" was tied up in international affairs. The Socialist and Communist movements across the globe--in Korea and the Soviet Union--threatened the Capitalistic society of the United States, and, as we know, the US got involved in foreign conflict to assert power and ensure continued international economic success. The Vietnam War and all its controversy seemed to be the culmination of all the conflict of the post-war era.

Now, before reading this, I am certain I could not tell you the reasons for US involvement in Vietnam (and I'm sure many would argue, "Yes, exactly!"). But even Zinn is brief in listing the reasons, and this man is not usually concise! One brief mention from a primary source states, "The countries of Southeast Asia produce rich exportable surpluses such as rice, rubber, teak, corn, tin, spices, oil, and many others.." But we all know the Vietnam conflict was presented to the public as a fight against Communism. No matter the reasons, I think this is one of the most fascinating eras of American history to read about. Massive protest and rejection of government, rule and order; critical opinion voiced loudly (very loudly); a rising suspicion of government and big business, and a strong belief in self.

And from what I gathered from the final chapter on the seventies, it sounded like an awful time of low morale and shitty government. The whole Vietnam affair made a joke of the United States, and those running the country strove to reassert American power at the expense of its people. The public was already distrustful of the government after Vietnam and political scandals like Watergate only reinforced this distrust. The American political system had been established--economy was key and the corporate class had the power.

***********************************

"...to channel anger into the traditional cooling mechanism of the ballot box, the polite petition, the officially endorsed quiet gathering." I think the point Zinn is trying to prove is that the ballot box doesn't lead to change; action leads to change, violent or not.

"...In a capitalistic society...if work is not paid for, not given a money value, it is considered valueless." The root of the issue with homemakers.

"What kind of government or society would spend millions of dollars to pick upon our bones, restore our ancestral life patterns, and protect our ancient remains from damage--while at the same time eating upon the flesh of our living People...?" Sid Mills, a Native American, October 13, 1968

Reading Notes: A People's History, Part III

I'm not going to bore you to death with a long dissection of chapters 11–15. Why? Because I was bored to death with these chapters.

The previous 10 chapters had me constantly going, "Oh yes...hm...yes, good point...oh I didn't think of it from that perspective...yes." (And I'm saying that as if I had a pipe in one hand and a monocle in the other.) But this section, covering from post-Civil War to the Depression had one point. ONE. And Zinn repeated his "thesis sentence" about a billion times throughout 150 pages just by rearranging some words and changing the dates.

The rich keep getting richer at the expense of the poor, and the government uses war to distract lower-classes from organizing and rebelling. 

By this point I've come to the conclusion that this is the theme of this book, because it's been the focus of all 400 pages of it I've read so far. In the seventy years covered in this section, it went like this:

1. Labor class gets exploited and people get angry.
2. People start to rebel and go on strike.
3. The government responds violently OR gets the country entangled in some war or foreign affair to distract people from the issues at home.
4. War ends, people remember they're still angry with their own country. Cycle begins again.

At one point while reading, I just started to mark all the times Zinn rewrites his thesis in different words, so my book is filled with little margin notes that just say, "AGAIN??"

My biggest complaint about this section is that lots was going on in the country at this time, but he only writes about Reconstruction, WWI, and the Depression as they relate to labor disputes. So actually, I'm understanding this book is a very one-sided perspective. Now, I know it's easy to paint it black and white and say the working classes were victims of corporations, but there are a lot of people somewhere in the middle between the poorest of the poor and the richest of the rich. And all these perspectives are completely ignored. 

So that's all I have to say on that.

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• J.P. Morgan began business before the Civil War, during which he bought five thousand rifles from an arsenal for $3.50 each, then selling them to a general in the field for $22 each. They were defective and shot the thumbs off soldiers using them, but a federal judge upheld the deal as fulfillment of a valid legal contract. Scumbag.
• In the 1890s, alliances between farmers began the Populist movement. They created a political party that was anti-elite and against mainstream parties, got some representation in the government, and spread new ideas and a new spirit—reminds me of the whole Tea Party hubaloo. And just to note, the Populist movement crashed and burned before 1900.
• One interesting point I did not realize: all our international issues began because America was way overproductive and produced more than we could consume. So we searched for foreign markets. Or took them by force. So, see! That whole fighting an -ism (ideal) is just fluff propaganda to get the masses involved. Really, it's about money.
• When did the term "socialism" get the connotations it has today? Because according to this, EVERYONE was a socialist in the early half of the 1900s. I'm convinced the majority of people saying Obama is a socialist have no idea what the word means. I mean, the socialists DID foster the "Progressive Era," which is a GOOD thing. We have socialists to thank for housing codes, health codes, and food/drug codes. My health and living conditions thank them.
• W.E.B DuBois' "The African Roots of War" from the May 1915 issue of the Atlantic Monthly may be a good/important read.
• "A socialist critic would go further and say that the capitalist system was by its nature unsound: a system driven by the one overriding motive or corporate profit and therefore unstable, unpredictable, and blind to human needs" (p 387).
• "People organized to help themselves, since business and government were not helping them in 1931 and 1932" (p 394). We usually hear of FDR as a saint, saving the country from the Depression, but according to Zinn, he didn't have as immediate of success as we would expect. Oh hey look at that. A recession can't be fixed immediately. Things like this are why I think historical study is necessary—so people can learn from the past and gain a better grasp of how to deal with/react to present situations.

Reading Notes: A People's History, Part II

So I'm a couple days behind schedule...but it was a holiday weekend and my parents were visiting!

Chapters 6 through 10 cover post-Revolutionary War to the post-Civil War era in American history. So many groups in America were angry during this time period—women, Indians, slaves, farmers, workers, poor whites. The only group that was living easy was, of course, the upper class, and they aimed to keep it that way. The period before and after the Civil War involved a lot of manipulation by the elite to benefit their economic wealth and support a growing nation. Each of these five chapters have the same point but are pretty individual, so this will be long. I'm thinking it will come together later with 20th century reform, though.


Chapter 6, "The Intimately Oppressed", WOMEN—

What's interesting is how the status of women evolved as a result of the capitalistic environment of the new nation. A chain of events:

1. Europeans brought to America a capitalistic society that sharply contrasted the egalitarian society of the Native Americans.
2. “Societies became based on private property and competition in which monogamous families became practical units for work and socialization.” A “cult of domesticity" was created for the woman…a way of pacifying her with a doctrine of ‘separate but equal’—giving her work as equally as important as the man’s but separate and different.” A common theme in history books.
3. Many women in the early 1800s refused this idea and began to rally behind causes such as equal rights, voting, abolition of slavery, and, especially once women were a strong part of the factory workforce, labor reform. And these are the strong women of history that we know—Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriet Tubman—proving the point of one author: Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History. Of course, women wouldn’t gain the right to vote until 1920, but that’s neither here nor there…

Chapter 7, "As Long As the Grass Grows or the Water Runs," INDIANS—

A simple cause and effect here. A) Americans wanted to expand their territory. B) These lands were already occupied by the native Americans.

“Indian removal was necessary for the opening of the vast American lands to agriculture, to commerce, to markets, to money, to the development of the modern capitalist economy.” 

It’s that money thing again. President Andrew Jackson took charge of this mission and, in a series of conniving maneuvers, turned Indians against one another to weaken their defense and take their land. Zinn talks about this a lot. I don’t think he likes Andrew Jackson. He may be upset with how many times I’ve been to his home, the Hermitage, back home in Tennessee….Anyway, it’s interesting because basically, it was a tactic of “civilizing” them—introducing them to western thought and forcing them to abide by national and state laws—that led to the disintegration of their own cultures and, along with it, their solidarity. Which I’m sure was Jackson’s evil plan.


Chapter 8, "We Take Nothing By Conquest, Thank God," MEXICO—

Texas was part of the Union after 1845, of which the Rio Grande may or may not have been the Texas/Mexican border. Either way, President James Taylor decided to move troops into this debatable area just to provoke Mexico. And it did, obviously. He wanted Mexico's territory (present-day New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, California, and part of Colorado). And he got it by moving in and taking it, all in the name of “manifest destiny”—because God wants the American people to spread over the entire continent as they multiple, spreading liberty and democracy to more people. Yes, God wants it. In the end, America provoked Mexico into a war, forced them into surrender, and then “bought” the land for $15 million as if the statement, “we take nothing by conquest…Thank God,” were actually true. Ha!


Chapter 9, "Slavery Without Submission, Emancipation Without Freedom," SLAVES—

The Civil War has always been tied to the issue of slavery, but it's a bit more complicated than that. Yes, there had been rumblings to end it prior to war—outlawing slave importation, slave rebellions, abolitionist causes. But there were many other people in the country suffering from their own economic hardships, and the nation couldn't unite behind this one cause. This is why Abraham Lincoln is important:

“Such a national government would never accept an end to slavery by rebellion. It would end slavery only under conditions controlled by whites, and only when required by the political and economic needs of the business elite of the North. It was Abraham Lincoln who combined perfectly the needs of business, the political ambition of the new Republican party, and the rhetoric of humanitarianism….Lincoln could skillfully blend the interests of the very rich and the interests of the black at a moment in history when these two interests met. And he could link these two with a growing section of Americans, the white, up-and-coming, economically ambitious, politically active middle class.”

In so many words, once the South seceded, the North fought to keep those territories and resources, and the issue of slavery was tied in as part of that crusade. And once Southern slaves abandoned their work to fight with the North, the South’s resources were crippled, leading to defeat. However, the emancipated slaves didn’t find much freedom after the war as whites began taking control of the South again, violence against blacks escalated once the slave profits of the old South disappeared, and most states still did not allow blacks to vote. The Civil War is a lot more complicated than grade school textbooks let on, always pinning it as a clear-cut, black-white issue. This is one of the most interesting chapters so far.


Chapter 10, "The Other Civil War," FARMERS AND WORKERS—

The people of America were agitated before the Civil War with many groups suffering at the hands of the wealthy. The gap between rich and poor was widening, technological advancements were lowering the value of human labor, farmers and workers were rebelling, immigrants flooded the country spurning racial hostility as a substitute for class frustration. This movement was put on hold when the country was sidetracked by the Civil War in the 1860s, but only briefly. As soon as the war ended, people quickly began to focus on their own survival, forming labor unions and organizing strikes against unfair business practices. For decades after the Civil War, the “common man” was struggling for his rights and equality as promised to him by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. But it was a disheartening period, exacerbated by economic depression, and as Zinn states, “…working people learned they were not united enough, not powerful enough, to defeat the combination of private capital and government power.”


People are angry and starting to actually act on it. We'll see what that action leads to as we enter the 20th century. But, enough for now...