There and Here

I am continuing to work through Michael Pollan's A Place of My Own. Today I read Pollan's musings on the pouring of the concrete footings for his little writing hut.

...any building represents a meeting place of the local landscape and the wider world, of what is given "Here" and what's been brought in from "There." The Here in this case is of course the site, but the site defined broadly enough to take in not only the sunlight and character of the ground, the climate, and flora and slope, but also the local culture as it is reflected in the landscape--in the arrangements of field and forest and in the materials and styles commonly used to build "around here."....

And There, of course, is just another way of saying the broader culture and economy, which in our time has become international....In fact, a whole set of values can be grouped under the heading of "There," and these can be juxtaposed with a parallel set of values that fit under the rubric "Here."

THERE---HERE
Universal ---Particular
Internationalism---Regionalism
Progress---Tradition
Classical---Vernacular
Idea---Fact
Information---Experience
Space---Place
Mobility---Stability
Palladio--- Jefferson
Jefferson---Wright
Abstract---Concrete
Concrete---Rock

The juxtapositions can be piled up endlessly, and though matters soon get complicated..., they can still serve as a useful shorthand for two distinct ways of looking at, or organizing the world.

The tension between the two terms is nothing new, of course....In our own time, the balance between the two terms has been steadily tilting toward the There end of the scale. There are some powerful abstractions on the side of There, and in the last century or so these have tended to run over the local landscape. The force and logic of these abstractions are what have helped farmland to give way to tract housing, city neighborhoods to ambitious schemes of "urban renewal," and regional architecture to an "international style" that for a while elevated the principle of There--of universal culture--to a utopian program and moral precept. Modernism has always regarded Here as an anachronism, an impediment to progress. This might explain why so many of its houses walked the earth on white stilts, looking as though they wanted to get off, to escape the messy particularities of place for the streamlined abstraction of space...

...these days everybody has a good word for regionalism and the sense of place. But it remains to be seen whether the balance between Here and There is actually being redressed, or whether universal culture, more powerful than ever, is merely donning a few quaint local costumes now that they're fashionable and benign. I've never visited a "neo-traditional" town like Seaside, the planned community on the Florida panhandle celebrated for its humane postmodern architecture and sense of neighborhood, but I can't help wondering if the experience of sitting out on one of those great-looking front porches and chatting with the neighbors strolling by doesn't feel just a bit synthetic. In an age of Disney and cyberspace, it may not be possible to keep a crude pair of terms like Here and There straight too much longer, not when a "sense of place" becomes a commodity that can be bought and sold on the international market, and people blithely use homey metaphors of place to describe something as abstract and disembodied as the Internet.

3/50 Plan to Save Local Businesses is Picking Up Steam

A while back I posted on the 3/50 Project, an attempt to save local "brick and mortar" businesses. What started as a grass roots movements is starting to pick up steam. This morning's Wall Street Journal is running an article about the project.

Michael Novak on the Pope's Forthcoming Encyclical

It was only a matter of time before someone at First Things responded to Thomas Reece's prediction about Benedict XVI's forthcoming encyclical, "Charity in Truth." For this debate, FT brought out the heavy artillery in the form of Michael Novak, author of The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (among many other books) and one of the most prominent Christian defenders of free-market capitalism. Here is Novak in a piece on the First Things website entitled "Economic Heresies of the Left."

What exactly is in Benedict XVI’s new encyclical on the economy and labor issues is not yet known. Catholic leftists and progressives, though, are already trembling with excitement. Three glaring errors have already appeared in these heavily panting anticipations.
An accurate presentation of real existing capitalism requires at least three modest affirmations:

1) Markets work well only within a system of law, and only according to well-marked-out rules of the game; unregulated markets are a figment of imagination.

2) In actual capitalist practice, the love of creativity, invention, and groundbreaking enterprise are far more powerful than motives of greed.

3) The fundamental systemic motive infusing the spirit of capitalism is the imperative to liberate the world’s poor from the premodern ubiquity of grinding poverty. This motive lay at the heart of Adam Smith’s important victory over Thomas Malthus concerning the coming affluence—rather than starvation—of the poor.

I think I agree with #1. I could also agree with #3 if Novak would be willing to concede some of the negative consequences of capitalism in poor countries.

#2 is a hard sell for me. Novak elaborates a bit on what he means by the notion that "in actual capitalist practice," creativity and invention is a more powerful motive than greed. He writes:

And in the United States, scores of entrepreneurs are ready to risk losing everything they have in order to create something new, create something that will make life better for their fellow men. Henry Ford failed repeatedly in several businesses before he finally made the Ford Motor Company the great model for business that it once was. (It was the first establishment in history to pay its laborers a handsome wage of five dollars per day. At the time, ordinary lawyers averaged about $1500 per year. Ford’s motives, of course, were not altruistic; he wanted his workers to purchase the cars they helped build.)

As Oscar Handlin once noted, almost every industrialist who built a new railroad North and South in the United States in the nineteenth century prospered. Nearly every tycoon who tried to build an East–West railroad lost money. What spurred men to keep trying had less to do with greed that with the sheer romance of conquering the deserts and the Rockies. The element of romance in business is simply not grasped by dialectical materialists.

I guess I tend to lean a bit more on what Novak calls the "dialectical materialist" side. My understanding of human nature makes it difficult to believe that the PRIMARY reason why Ford did what he did was to better humankind. I find it even harder to believe that the early railroad tycoons did what they did for the "sheer romance of conquering the deserts and the Rockies." (This argument completely ignores the race dimension of this romantic conquest. Was God pleased with this kind of "conquering?") Any student of history would have a hard time accepting such interpretations of American progress.

I like what "Chris," one of the commentators on the blog, has to say about the piece. (He borrows from Stephen Marglin and William Cavanaugh):

1) The issue with greed is not whether it exists or not, but whether the structure itself encourages or even glorifies what ought to be understood as a sin on par with lust and wrath. There is good evidence (and I have yet to see a satisfying critique of it) that capitalism's rise was a direct result of a move by protestant theologians to repackage greed as self-interest, in the hopes that excess in what they saw as the least deadly of the seven sins would curb excess in the others.

2) What about the fundamental premises of Capitalism: The radically self interested individual, rationally seeking his own material comfort; scarcity; unlimited desire for consumption. None of these are things that Catholics can believe in if we take seriously the church's teachings, and yet every economic model is premised on their being true as a matter of fact. I know there are attempts by economists to fit those things into traditional economic models; Marglin explains very well why every attempt to do so ends up at best problematic.

3) Finally, is our only duty to the poor to make them materially wealthier? If so, at what cost? Having traveled abroad to third world countries, generally, what the introduction of capitalism means is access to fast food chains and the destruction of the things that made them unique in terms of place, culture, the things that made them a people. Capitalism tends to homogenize peoples, to take away their distinctiveness. How do we measure this cost against the efficiencies inherent in easy access to McDonalds and Walmart?

I do not have the time or space here to develop all of Novak's argument, but the piece includes the usual shots at big government and Catholic progressives. Read it for yourself and decide.

Have the Obamas Chosen a Church?

The big story (or non-story) in religious news this morning is Amy Sullivan's article on the Time website announcing that the Obama's have chosen to worship at Evergreen Chapel at Camp David. Sullivan writes:

...the 150-seat Evergreen Chapel attracts a congregation of between 50 and 70 people most Sundays. The rustic stone-and-glass octagonal structure was built nearly two decades ago through private funds; President George H.W. Bush dedicated it in 1991. At the ceremony, Christian singer Sandi Patti sang and the late Cardinal James Hickey of Washington delivered a sermon calling the chapel a "witness to our common belief that we need to seek divine guidance in the conduct of our national affairs."

Each week, regardless of whether the President is on-site, Evergreen Chapel holds nondenominational Christian services open to the nearly 400 military personnel and staff at Camp David, as well as their families. A music director from nearby Hood College coordinates adult and children's choirs (Clinton sang occasionally with the choir when he visited). In December, the kids in the congregation put on a Christmas pageant and the chapel holds a candlelight service on Christmas Eve. The Bush family enjoyed Christmas at Evergreen Chapel so much that they celebrated the holiday there for all eight years of Bush's Administration.

Camp David's current chaplain, Lieut. Carey Cash, leads the services at Evergreen. If the White House had custom-ordered a pastor to be the polar opposite of Jeremiah Wright, they could not have come as close as Cash. (As it is, the White House had no hand in selecting Cash. The Navy rotates chaplains through Camp David every three years; Cash began his tour this past January.) The 38-year-old Memphis native is a graduate of the Citadel and the great-nephew of Johnny Cash. He served a tour as chaplain with a Marine battalion in Iraq and baptized nearly 60 Marines during that time. Cash earned his theology degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth - and, yes, that means Obama's new pastor is a Southern Baptist.

What do we know about Evergreen Chapel? Not much. The fact that Christian singer Sandi Patty performed there, coupled with the fact that the Bush family worshipped there, might lead one to believe that this is an evangelical congregation. Sullivan describes it as a "non-denominational" church, but this may be misleading. In evangelical circles, "non-denominational" is actually code for a Bible-centered congregation that is not affiliated with any particular denomination (such as Assembly of God or Evangelical Free or Conservative Baptist), but is solidly evangelical in its teachings and doctrine. A classic example is Bill Hybels's massive Willow Creek Church in South Barrington, IL (which, by the way, is now the flagship congregation in its own association of churches). But as Mark Silk reports, Evergreen is actually as "non-sectarian" chapel. It was founded by mainline Protestants, Catholics, and Jews.

But this is all probably moot. The White House denies that Obama has decided on Evergreen or any other church for that matter. The search continues.

Sunday Night Odds and Ends

A few things on the web that caught my eye this past week:

Fareed Zakaria: Greed is good. Pope Benedict's forthcoming encyclical: Greed is bad.

Was the Great Siege of Gilbratar the most costly battle in the American Revolutionary War?

Religion in American History turns two.

Steven Miller on Billy Graham and the new Nixon tapes.

What do writers do all day?

Sarah Posner brings an end to her column, "The FundamentaList."

David Nasaw reviews Jackson Lears's Rebirth of a Nation.

Christopher Hitchens reviews Michael Burlingame's Abraham Lincoln: A Life.

Interview with Johan Neem, author of Creating a Nation of Joiners: Democracy and Civil Society in Early National Massachusetts.

The Bible of baseball card collecting.

Just say no.

A homeschoolers' football league.

Economically, the Pope is to the Left of Obama

Over at the Newsweek's "On Faith" website Thomas J. Reese S.J. lets us know what we can expect from Pope Benedict's forthcoming encyclical, "Charity in Truth."

Although we have to wait for the actual text of the encyclical, there are a number of points that are already evident from what Benedict has said and written on the economy:

• Continuity of Benedict's thought with the teaching of earlier popes will be evident. Rather than rejecting the progressive social teachings of his predecessors, Benedict will show himself to be the left of most Americans including President Obama.

• The Theology underpinning Catholic social teaching will be an important part of the encyclical. Economic policy is not measured by dollars and cents but by whether it enhances the dignity of the human person and reflects God's commandment of love. Love is the measure of justice.

• Being a voice for the Third World is seen by Benedict as an essential part of his ministry. As he has already said, "We cannot remain passive before certain processes of globalization which not infrequently increase the gap between rich and poor worldwide. We must denounce those who squander the earth's riches, provoking inequalities that cry out to heaven."

• Skepticism toward capitalism and the market will permeate the encyclical. Absolute faith in the market is seen by Benedict as a form of idolatry. The need for government regulation of the economy is a given.

• The Common Good and impact on the poor are the yardsticks by which the economy should be measured.

The pope will also have very negative things to say about war. As he has said before, "Violence, of whatever sort, cannot be a way of resolving conflicts. It mortgages the future severely and does not respect either persons or peoples." Like John Paul, he opposed both wars in Iraq. He also wants to see swords turned into plowshares. "[L]ess than half of the immense sums spent worldwide on armaments would be more than sufficient to liberate the immense masses of the poor from destitution. This challenges humanity's conscience." He will also have very positive things to say about the United Nations and multilateralism even if it means limits on national sovereignty.

Woods and Nostalgia and Progress

I was quite taken today when I read Historiann's post "Into the Woods." She waxes nostalgic about how many of her childhood memories "seem to revolve around the woods."

I grew up in a land of mixed fields and forests that were slowly being converted into the outer edge of a city suburb, and in the 1970s and 1980s, there were still large patches of forest surrounding my neighborhood. Riding bikes with friends to the edge of the woods, and then ditching the bikes for a walk into the unknown was how I spent my summers from ages 8 to 12...

Back then, in the days before cable TV, video games, and the internet, back even before everyone had central A/C, the woods in summer meant freedom from parents and endless entertainment for anyone under the age of 16 (that is, before the precious driver’s license was proffered.) Because I came from a family that didn’t hike or camp, the woods for me was a space totally unmediated by adult influence or supervision. We could play Little House in the Big Woods, or the Swiss Family Robinson, or Tom Sawyer there. We packed baloney sandwiches and thermoses of Kool-Aid so that we could stay out all day long. We peed in the woods, and on occasion pooped there too, because no one else was around. We followed cricks that became creeks that were lined with wild strawberries in June...

Like many of Historiann's faithful commentators, I could not help but recall my own childhood growing up in the woods. I spent almost all of my pre-adult years living on Turkey Mountain in Morris County, New Jersey (one of the more charming parts of the mountain is pictured above). We spent our summer days hiking the "blue trail," catching crayfish in mountain creeks, sneaking peeks of the New York City skyline (including the World Trade Center towers) from the top of the mountain, hanging out in a clearing that was sometimes used by the local Lions Club for clambakes, and roasting hot dogs seated on cinder blocks at a small campfire where local teens and hunters would regularly frequent.

Most of this property is now part of a housing development of McMansions. When I visit my Mom and Dad I look through what's left of the woods and see the kids of wealthy parents playing in the sterile and safe streets of this new suburban "paradise." I think about myself standing in the exact same spot thirty-five years ago. The trees and the trails and the fields are gone forever. My memory grows dimmer every day.

I wonder why we get nostalgic about things like woods and other childhood play places. As I thought about this I remembered a short passage I read in William Leach's Land of Desire: Merchants, and the Rise of a New American Culture. Leach describes a campaign speech that Herbert Hoover delivered in 1928 before an audience in his home tome of West Branch, Iowa. I will let Leach tell the story:

In his childhood there was no poverty in West Branch and little suffering from the downswings in the Chicago market. Now, in 1928, the market could affect the town's whole economy...Hoover was quick to remind his audience of the progress the United States had made and of the many "benefits" of economic change. "I do not suggest return to the great security which agriculture enjoyed in its earlier days," he insisted," because with that security were lower standards of living, greater toil, less opportunity for leisure and recreation, less of the comforts of home, less of the joy of living." Yet, with this said, he came back again to his bittersweet theme, emphasizing "sentimental regret" over what had disappeared. He acknowledged that one could not really go back home and that change was "inevitable." "I have sometimes been homesick for the ways of those self-contained farms of forty years ago as I have for the kindly folk who lived in them. But I know it is no more possible to revive those old conditions than it is to summon back the relations and friends in the cemetery yonder...We must accept what is inevitable in the changes that have taken place. It is fortunate indeed that the principles upon which our government was founded require no alteration to meet these changes."

Hoover, if this speech is any indication, was a man of progress. Nostalgia is always linked to progress. Why do we get sentimental for lost worlds? Is it because we truly believe that those worlds were better places than the ones that exist today? Or is it because we, like Hoover, use nostalgia as a means of reminding ourselves how "better" our lives are today? Leach, in a masterful piece of cultural criticism, takes Hoover's progressivism to task:

Hoover's West Branch speech was poignant in its way, but it was also nostalgia, ending in self-serving optimism; at its heart was a fervent belief in "progress" and a total confidence in the rightness (the inexorable rightness) of America's evolution. Hoover had little sympathy, it appears, with those writers of the decade who also believed that America's cultural life was embodied in the West Branch's of America--small towns, face-to-face intimacies, shared loyalties, and a common sense of destiny--but who feared the pace and character of progress...For Hoover, the choice seemed clear: civilization over culture, international and national markets over local and regional ones, an ever-expanding standard of living over the relatively unchanging but sufficient simple life, mass production and mass consumption over West Branch. What is lost, alas, is lost.

I think I get nostalgic about Turkey Mountain because I believe that growing up there was good.

Do You Have a Favorite Michael Jackson Song?

I wasn't sure if I was going to say anything about the death of Michael Jackson on this blog. I was never much of a Jackson fan and I thought I would leave the eulogies up to the folks who knew more about him and his music. I tend to resonate a lot with John McWhorter's description of him as the "man who wasn't there."

But then this morning I read the New York Times feature asking readers to identify their favorite Michael Jackson song. The survey included 20 second clips of what the Times deems to be his eight most popular #1 hits. (He had 13 in all). As I listened to all of these clips I was impressed with Jackson's incredible body of work. I guess I had never stepped back and examined his entire career before. Perhaps I was a Michael Jackson fan after all.

By the way, I voted for the 1983 classic, "Wanna Be Starting Something, although my favorite stuff comes from the Jackson 5 era.

What song did you vote for?

The Christian View of Human Nature and My Low Intelligence

In today's New York Times David Brooks has an op-ed on the discipline of evolutionary psychology. I do not know much about evolutionary psychology, but I found two things in the piece worth noting here. I should also add that neither of them are directly related to the crux of Brooks's argument. If you want to read what Brooks has to say about evolutionary psychology I'd encourage you to read the article.

Brooks starts off the article with a quote about human nature:

Has there ever been a time when there were so many different views of human nature floating around all at once? The economists have their view, in which rational people coolly chase incentives. Traditional Christians have their view, emphasizing original sin, grace and the pilgrim’s progress in a fallen world.

I was struck by Brooks's understanding of the difference between the economists and the "traditional Christians." It seems to me that both groups have a very similar view of human nature: Human beings are sinful and will chase something other than God to satisfy their desires. For the economists, human beings will chase money and things and comfort to make them happy. For the Christian, it is natural that sinful human beings, by their very nature, will be prone to pursue money, things, and comfort to make them happy. But it is the "grace" part of the equation that makes the Christian view of life different from the economist's view of life. People who have received "grace" should be avoiding the materialistic pitfalls of the Vanity Fair. Yet, it seems that most Christians I meet tend to gravitate more towards the good life as defined by the economists than a Christian understanding of the good life defined less by "incentives" and more by grace.

Brooks then goes on to write about a new book called Spent by noted evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller:

We are all narcissists, Miller asserts. We spend much of our lives trying to broadcast our excellence in these traits in order to attract mates. Even if we’re not naturally smart or outgoing, we buy products and brands that give the impression we are.

According to Miller, driving an Acura, Infiniti, Subaru or Volkswagen is a sign of high intelligence. Driving a Cadillac, Chrysler, Ford or Hummer is a sign of low intelligence. Listening to Bjork is a sign of high intelligence, while listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd is a sign of low intelligence. Watching Quentin Tarantino movies is a sign of high openness.

After reading this, I was shocked at just how dumb I am. I drive a twelve-year old Ford Taurus. (The other family car is an eight year old Chevy Venture with about 120,00 miles on it). I have never listened to Bjork, but I have listened to plenty of Skynyrd. And I prefer a good Adam Sandler or Ben Stiller movie to Quentin Tarantino any day of the week. (Last night I watched "Rocky Balboa" while I was riding my exercise bike and the night before it was "Night at the Museum"--for about the fifth time). I am wondering if I am in the right profession.

Fort Ticonderoga Seminar on the American Revolution

If you are in upstate New York this coming September please consider attending the Fort Ticonderoga Seminar on the American Revolution. (I have already received an excited Facebook message from a former student in the area who is planning on coming!). Speakers include Douglas Egerton, James Kirby Martin, and yours truly. I will be sharing some of my earlier findings from my ongoing book project: "A Presbyterian Rebellion: The American Revolution in the Mid-Atlantic."

Liberty University College Democrats: A Solution is Reached

Well, it looks as if Liberty University has solved their College Democrats problem. You may recall that the Jerry Falwell Jr. decided to remove the Democrats from the list of official student clubs because he was concerned about allowing the Democratic Party's views on abortion and same sex marriage to have a voice on campus. I blogged about this here and here and here.

After much deliberation, the University has decided to change its policy on student-run political clubs. Beginning in the fall, NO student clubs connected to political parties will have official status. In other words, the Liberty College Democrats will no longer be an officially sponsored student club, but neither will the Liberty College Republicans. Both clubs, however, will be permitted to hold meetings on university property.

College Republicans around the country are not too happy about this decision.

While I would rather see both clubs receive official support, I think that this may be the best solution for a place like Liberty University.

Faculty Furloughs

There is an interesting discussion going on over at The Adventures of Notorious Ph.D. about the way the economy is impacting faculty life. Notorious Ph.D teaches at a university that may institute a furlough policy for tenure-track faculty. If I understand this correctly, all faculty will be required to take two days of unpaid leave every month. The comments discuss the implications of such a policy.

I can't imagine this kind of arrangement at Messiah College. What does it mean, in practical terms, to be on furlough? Does it mean that a furloughed faculty member should not answer student e-mail, meet with students, go to committee meetings, or grade papers on the day he or she has chosen to take a furlough? Some of the commentators suggest that the furlough should be taken on the day in which a professor teaches their classes.

Others in the comment section are having to face serious reductions in travel money, pay, and course releases for scholarship. At Messiah, we are facing cuts in scholarship funding and may not receive our regular pay raise for next year. (A lot will depend on what the tuition numbers look like for the fall semester). But I can't complain. It seems as if we are doing better than most.

Writing Sheds Part 3

My quest for a writing shed continues. I have been looking at a few "barn-style" sheds that might convert very well into a small writing office in my backyard. (I like the gambrel roof on the mini-barn models because it allows me enough room for a loft).

I have measured out a possible spot for the thing. My kids love the idea and my wife is coming around. Now all I need is the guts to commit to it. I am worried about several things, especially climate control for my books and cost.

I recently started Michael Pollan's A Place of My Own. I thought I was obsessing a bit about the shed until I picked up this book. I have made it through about 100 pages and Pollan has not yet started building his little writing hut in the woods! He spent hours visualizing his shed, picking out a spot on his property, making sure the spot had the proper views of his house and pond, and assessing the structure's "chi." Then he consulted with an architect. From what I have been able to glean from the book, Pollan lived at the time somewhere in western Connecticut and the architect lived in Cambridge, Mass. Both of them took trips back and forth to discuss how this building would be constructed. (I am guessing that is several hours each way, but I could be wrong).

Pollan's book is inspiring (so far), but I do not have the time or the resources to build the kind of shed he eventually constructed.

I will keep reading and perhaps throw out a few more posts on this very engaging book.

Oh yes, I will also keep you updated on my own shed plans.

What Are Colleges Selling?

Over at the Chronicle of Higher Education's "Brainstorm" blog, Kevin Carey wonders if college consumerism has "run amok." I think he has put his finger on something here. Colleges spend a lot of time selling bells and whistles--expensive dorms, regular pilates classes, and student centers with climbing walls and cafeteria food courts. (The University of Akron student center is pictured on the left). But how do colleges sell themselves as academic institutions--places where a student, as Carey puts it, can "become an enlightened, ethical, fair-minded public citizen." He concludes: "If colleges want consumers to make choices differently, then colleges have to take the lead in creating, promoting, and standing behind different terms of consumer choice. "

Review of Lindman, Bodies of Belief

I published a review today over at Religion and American History on Janet Moore Lindman's Bodies of Belief: Baptist Communities in Early America.

You can read it here.

Today is Our First Birthday!

One year ago today I began "The Way of Improvement Lead Home" blog. Here was my original post on June 23, 2008:

Well, I have finally given in to my blogging impulse. For the past year I have been doing some occasional blogging over at Religion and American History, but I have never held forth on my own site before. I hope to use this blog to update you on what is happening with The Way of Improvement Leads Home: Philip Vickers Fithian and the Rural Enlightenment. I hope to keep this blog focused on events, reviews, thoughts, and anything else related to the book. I am not sure how long this blogging experiment will last, but for those of you interested in the book I hope you find something useful here.

As noted above, I started this blog to promote my book, but the more I blogged the more I enjoyed doing it. I continue to use the blog to tell you more about The Way of Improvement Leads Home and Philip Vickers Fithian, but I have branched out to cover a host of topics related to American history, religion, politics, and academic life.

On a good day we can get up to 100 visits to the site, but nothing has compared to my "Does Sarah Palin Speak in Tongues" post which received 59 comments and over 3000 hits. My series on Sam Wineburg and historical thinking was very popular and my weekly "Sunday Night Odds and Ends" usually leads to a relatively high number of visitors on Monday mornings.

As we enter our second year, I am hoping for more visitors and more conversation in the comments section. I am still looking for photos for my "places" features so send in pics of the places that have meaning to you in your everyday lives. And if you have a blog, please feel free to add me to your blogroll.

Thanks to all of my faithful readers!! I know some of you have been with me since the beginning and continue to read. If there is anything you would like to see on this blog, or if you have any suggestions, do not hesitate to contact me.

The Plight of University Presses

The Association of American University Presses held their annual meeting this weekend in Philadelphia. A report on the conference appeared in today's Inside Higher Ed. (The Chronicle of Higher Education report is behind the subscriber wall and Stanley Katz has commented on the meeting here).

The reports focus on survival. While the printed scholarly book is not yet dead, it does look as if e-books, small print runs, publishing on demand, and free content will be the wave of the future. But will departments accept an e-book for tenure and promotion? Katz wonders when humanities departments will "come to their senses" on this issue.

The Inside Higher Ed report mentioned a talk at the conference by Beth Jacoby, the collections librarian at York College in Pennsylvania. Jacoby confirmed what I have noticed happening among my students. They will not do their research in printed material unless it is required. Students rarely use printed reference books. Jacoby says that some of her students do not even know how to use a printed phone book. As a result, York College is investing its money in digital resources and on-line reference works instead of university press monographs.

The academic monograph's days are numbered. Academics will continue to produce scholarship, but it will soon appear almost entirely on-line. If future scholars want to write books they are going to have to learn how to write for larger audiences and publish their work in national and regional trade presses.

Sunday Night Odds and Ends

A few things on the web that caught my eye this week:

Twitter and university presses.

Focus on the Family's new president: We need more families like Barack Obama's.

Jeremy Beer reports from the Congress for the New Urbanism.

Are college students better off with full-time faculty members?

Heather Cox Richardson on writing college history papers.

Charles Cohen writes on Mormonism and the work of Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.

Jon Meacham on why theocracies are doomed.

Top 100 Banned Novels of the 20th Century.

Frank Gannon reviews Kevin Mattson's book on Jimmy Carter's "malaise" speech.

New biography of Thaddeus Kosciuszko.

Do you take notes on index cards?

Diane Winston reviews Bethany Moreton, Between God and Walmart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise.

But Can He Hit the Ball?

Apparently not. He never made it out of "A" ball." But you should still check out this swing from former minor league baseball player Josh Womack:

Should I Have A Microfilm Reader?

The Messiah College library has two microfilm reader/printers that they want to give away to a member of the faculty. At the moment, I have an old fashioned manual microfilm reader in my study. It loads at the top, has a manual crank on the side, weighs a ton, takes up a lot of space, and reminds me of one of those instant replay booths that NFL referees shove their heads into when they review a controversial play.

I now have the possibility (assuming that one of my other colleagues has not already snatched it up) of getting a more modern electronic (is that the right word?) reader with a printer attached. One of the machines is pictured on the left. You can read about it here. I have room for the reader in my home office, but I worry about maintenance, etc....

Anyone with some experience on these machines?

Is Teaching Necessary for Tenure?

Absolutely.

I am employed at a college that values teaching. (OK--what college or university does NOT value teaching? I guess my point is that teaching plays a VERY MAJOR role in the tenure and promotion process at my college). One must be a "satisfactory" (read "adequate") teacher in order to get tenure regardless of his or her service or publication record. One must be better than satisfactory in order to hold on to tenure and gain promotions. Since I have been here, I know of several faculty colleagues denied tenure and/or promotion because they were lousy teachers.

I occasionally do peer evaluations for my faculty colleagues. This means that I have to visit one of their classes and write a report about the quality of their teaching. I do not like doing this, but it is a responsibility that comes with being a college professor.

I teach at a small college (about 2900 students). I cross paths at one time or another with most of the full-time faculty on campus. Most of my colleagues are friendly and gracious. I consider many of them to be friends. So what if they are not good teachers and I have to say so? Fortunately, most of the faculty I have observed are very good teachers. I have yet to write a negative report; but someday I will. And in a small academic community a negative report could result in some real awkwardness.

I thus really enjoyed Gina Barecca's recent post at the Chronicle of Higher Education's Brainstorm blog. She writes about one of her former graduate students--she calls him Rick--who did a peer review for a sub-par teacher at 'Wombat State University." Should Rick write a negative report on this teacher's performance? What might be the consequences?

Here is a glimpse of Barecca's post:

How did he handle the letter he submitted to the department about the class? Did he acknowledge his deep reservations?
Now it was Rick’s turn to offer a long silence.

“No. I didn’t have the guts. I tried to convey my distaste for her style by making the letter generic, writing chicken crap like ‘She attempts to connect with even the most reluctant student’ although I did force myself to say something like ‘Perhaps she might consider taking the “Improve Your Classroom Skills” workshop offered by Human Resources.’ My chair wanted to take that line out because she thought it might hurt the candidate but the committee voted to keep it in.”

I told him that I thought he did the right thing by at least mentioning his concerns about the class, but I also winced when I thought about his colleague reading that line about her teaching.

I also wince every time I wonder if I have the guts to do what Rick should do.

A Calendar is a Moral Document

Here is a nice Father's Day piece from Jim Wallis, founder, president, and executive director of Sojourners.

Bald Blogging Interview: Part Two

The second part of Bald Blogging's interview with me about the The Way of Improvement Leads Home is now up. Phil, the "Bald Blogger," has included a YouTube link to a book talk I did in September 2008 at the Cumberland County Historical Society in Greenwich, NJ., the birthplace and home of Philip Vickers Fithian.

American Creation on YouTube

As some of my readers know, there is a blog called American Creation where dogged researchers such as Brad Hart, Jon Rowe, and others write well-informed posts debunking the myth that America was founded as a Christian nation. (To be fair, some of the bloggers at American Creation do not agree with Hart and Rowe's views on the subject). It is an entertaining and informative blog with a prolific group of commentators.

Now you can actually see Hart and Rowe rail against the Christian America crowd. American Creation is promoting their own YouTube page. Check it out.

Research in Newspapers

I have occasionally worked on projects that require me or one of my work-study students to read historic newspapers. For example, my half-baked project on the history and memory of the Greenwich Tea Burning of 1774, an event in which Philip Vickers Fithian may have been involved, requires me to examine the way the tea party was celebrated and commemorated at various points in the decades and centuries following the event.

I thus found Rachel Leow's recent post at A Historian's Craft to be very helpful. If you are a student or historian doing research in newspapers, Rachel offers some excellent tips.

Writing Sheds: Part 2

I went to look at "writing" sheds today with my daughter. I thought this one was nice:

It is 10X16 (slightly larger than my current home office) with four windows and it comes wired for electricity.

While it would be convenient to buy such a pre-fabricated unit, it is also a bit out of our price range. I come from a family of contractors so I have not yet ruled out the idea of building one myself. I could probably save a lot of $.

One more big problem: In order to build a shed of this nature I will need to remove the girls' swing set. Since the girls are not yet ready to give up their childhood, it looks like the writing shed will need to wait.

I promise to keep my readers posted. For whatever reason, the last "writing shed" post was very popular.

My Dad Makes the Blogosphere!

DM is a contractor, author, blogger, and farmer from Iowa. I first met him in the 1980s when he and his family spent some time in New Jersey during my high school and college years. He and his family attended the church my family was attending at the time. His blog, "Heart to Heart," has a short piece entitled "Permission to Fail." I was surprised to see that the post features a story about my Dad!

As far as I know, this is the first time that my father has ever appeared in the blogosphere!

Lasch on Family Life

Can you tell that I have been on a bit of a Christopher Lasch kick lately? In light of my previous post about the family and capitalism, I now offer to my readers one of the best paradigms for family life I have ever read from an academic. It comes from p. 32 of The True and Only Heaven: Progress and its Critics.

We wanted our children to grow up in a kind of extended family, or at least with an abundance of "significant others." A house full of people; a crowded table ranging across the generations; four-hand music at the piano; non-stop conversation and cooking; baseball games and swimming in the afternoon; a poker game or Diplomacy or charades in the evening, all these activities mixing children and adults--that was our idea of a well-ordered household and more specifically of a well-ordered education. We had no great confidence in the schools; we knew that if our children were to acquire any of the things we set store by--joy in learning, eagerness for experience, the capacity for love and friendship--they would have to learn the better part of it at home. For that very reason, however, home was not to be thought of simply as the "nuclear family," Its hospitality would have to extend far and wide, stretching its emotional resources to the limit.

This is great stuff, but I can't help wondering when Lasch had time to write all those books! He continues:

None of this was thought out subconsciously as a pedagogical program, and it would have destroyed trust and spontaneity if it had been; but some such feelings, I believed, helped to shape the way we lived, along with much else that was not only thought out but purely repulsive. Like all parents, we gave our young less than they deserved. At least we did not set out to raise a generation of perfect children, however, as many middle-aged parents are trying to do today; nor did we undertake to equip them with all the advantages required by the prevailing standards of worldly achievement. Our failure to educate them for success was the one way in which we did not fail them--our one unambiguous success. Not that this was deliberate either; it was only gradually that it became clear to me that none of my own children, having been raised not for upward mobility but for honest work, could reasonably hope for any conventional kind of success...

Lew Daly: Capitalism vs. Family Values

I first came upon the work of Lew Daly when I stumbled upon a piece he published last year in the Boston Review entitled, "In Search of the Common Good: The Catholic Roots of American Liberalism." (I blogged about the essay here). Now Daly is guest blogging with the gang over at the Front Porch Republic. His recent contribution, "Face Right, Move Left," is another one of his essays that has caught my attention.

Daly begins with a discussion of Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd. According to Daly, Rudd

may be the first politician since Franklin Roosevelt to win national power for a center-left party by attacking the conservative establishment from the right, in the name of family security and family values. Uncharacteristically forthcoming about his religious convictions (uncharacteristic for Australia, that is), Rudd successfully painted the John Howard-led Liberal-National coalition government as the anti-family party, the party of commercial values and business predation against the things we hold most dear.

While I honestly do not know if this has ever been done before, Rudd's campaign seems to take a page out of the writings of Christopher Lasch. In True and Only Heaven and Haven in a Heartless World: The Family Besieged Lasch shows how free market forces work against the cultivation of strong families and takes some hard shots at Reaganites and Thatcherites who stump for family values but embrace free market principles that undermine any meaningful defense of family life. Sadly, I can't imagine an American politician getting elected on Rudd's platform. It would require the American electorate--especially those on the Right-- to choose between their commitment to free market corporate capitalism and their commitment to so-called "family values."

Daly, who I assume is a Catholic, argues, based upon the Catholic idea of subsidiarity,
for the role of government in protecting the family:

Under the principle of subsidiarity, of course, the notion of “designing” social structures can only refer to the need for certain kinds of protection and support for the prior natural order of families and communities, the formative structures of human belonging and well-being. To be a “Christian” social democrat one must embrace a structurally limited, but fiscally supportive, role for the state, providing the help families need to protect themselves and their communities from the inhuman market powers that, increasingly, control the world.

Daly praises Australia's support of paid maternity leave for mothers and sees the recent House of Representatives more modest maternity leave bill for federal employees as a step in the right direction. With Daly, I hope that the private sector will follow suit. If the free market will not protect the family then perhaps the government might play an important role in doing so. I need to read more on this topic, but Daly is close to convincing me that limited government aid to families makes sense in the context of Catholic social teaching.

Daly concludes:

Call it welfare, an expansion of the “nanny state”–choose your Tocquevillian epithet–but in my life, certainly, and millions of others’, the lack of such support has made it harder, distressingly and sometimes tragically harder, to be the mothers and fathers, the providers and nurturers, God made us to be.

Sunday Night Odds and Ends

A few things on the web that caught my eye this week:

An Oregon ghost town for sale.

Selling faith, selling security systems.

Jenell Williams Paris on the faith of her fathers.

Praying for the Stanley Cup.

Beverly Gage reviews Jackson Lears's Rebirth of a Nation. LA Times review here.

Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure.

Michael Kazin reviews Simon Schama, The American Future: A History.

Allen Guelzo: Is there an American mind?

Obama may be a bad bowler, but he is not "Bowling Alone." Click here to read about Obama's participation in Robert Putnam's Saguaro Seminar.

Historiann on access to archives.

Are you cut out to be an academic? Or maybe you are an academic bore?

Top 100 books about New England or written by New England authors.

ADDENDUM: Here are a few more things:

Nathan Hatch on friendship.

Should Catholic Supreme Court judges recuse themselves on certain cases? Joyce Appleby thinks so.

Interview at Bald Blogging

Phil Sinitiere, one of my fellow bloggers over at Religion and American History and the author of his own blog, Bald Blogging, has posted an interview he did with me about The Way of Improvement Leads Home.

And congrats to Phil on his recent graduation from the University of Houston with a Ph.D in American history, on the publication of his new book, Holy Mavericks: Evangelical Innovators and the Spiritual Marketplace (NYU Press), and on his new teaching post in the history department at Sam Houston State.

Writing Sheds

Our house is getting a bit crowded as my daughters get older and have begun asking for their own rooms. We need space. At the moment I have a 10x14' study in the lower level of our split level home, but we may need that space in the future for an additional bedroom.

With this mind, I have been reading a lot about writing sheds. It seems that more and more writers are writing in small outbuildings in their backyards. A few people build them from scratch, but many of them buy prefabricated sheds and convert them into tiny offices.

Here are a few examples of these kinds of sheds.

Article from the Christian Science Monitor.

An interesting blog post about a writer's shed.

Here is some advice about how to convert a garden shed into a writing shed.

Here is a pic of food writer and cultural critic Michael Pollan's writing cabin.

Here are some wild possibilities for writing sheds, including the shed where George Bernard Shaw wrote.

This one is cool.

Here is a blog about working in sheds.

Do any of my readers have a writing shed? If so, I would love to hear from you. I am seriously considering this, so any advice would be great!

Why We Should All Know About Amitai Etzioni

I have never really thought of myself as a communitarian, but there is a lot about the movement that makes sense to me.

The New Republic website is running a jeremiad against consumerism by communitarian guru Amitai Etzioni entitled "Spent: America After Consumerism." He writes:

What needs to be eradicated, or at least greatly tempered, is consumerism: the obsession with acquisition that has become the organizing principle of American life. This is not the same thing as capitalism, nor is it the same thing as consumption. To explain the difference, it is useful to draw on Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of human needs. At the bottom of this hierarchy are basic creature comforts; once these are sated, more satisfaction is drawn from affection, self-esteem, and, finally, self-actualization. As long as consumption is focused on satisfying basic human needs--safety, shelter, food, clothing, health care, education--it is not consumerism. But, when the acquisition of goods and services is used to satisfy the higher needs, consumption turns into consumerism--and consumerism becomes a social disease.

Also:

True, it is sometimes hard to tell a basic good from a status good, and a status good can turn into a basic one (air conditioning, for instance). However, it is not a matter of cultural snobbery to note that no one needs inflatable Santas or plastic flamingos on their front lawn or, for that matter, lawns that are strikingly green even in the scorching heat of summer. No one needs a flat-screen television, not to mention diamonds as a token of love or a master's painting as a source of self-esteem

Etzioni concludes with three practical examples of how we might challenge the culture of consumerism.

1. Schools can work against the culture of consumerism by teaching students that they ought to "respect the environment, not discriminate on racial or ethnic grounds, and resolve differences in a peaceful manner." He advocates school uniforms as a means of countering conspicuous consumption.

2. Change the workplace by limiting overtime, making the workweek shorter, giving workers the freedom to work from home; and allowing employees to "dress down" so they do not have to spend so much money on professional clothing.

3. Taxes are useful because they discourage people from buying large houses that they do not need, they lead people to take public transportation to work instead of driving cars, and they encourage the use of commercial aviation over private jets.

During this economic crisis it appears that many Americans are starting to limit their consumerist habits in favor of more simple pleasures. I have always admired the section from Chrisopher Lasch's True and Only Heaven when he writes about the way he raised his kids. (Our family is playing a lot more Yahtzee after dinner these days!). But the real question for communitarians will be whether or not such tendencies will persist when the economy revives. I hope so.

Witness Competency and Christian America

If you have not been able to tell from this blog, I have been doing a lot of reading lately in the debates over whether or not America was founded as a Christian nation. Today I read a very interesting article in the recent volume of the Journal of the Early Republic by veteran political historian Ronald B. Formisano and one of his students, Stephen Pickering. The title of the article is "The Christian Nation Debate and Witness Competency."

Formisano and Pickering argue that early national state courts would not let people testify who could not swear to a belief in God, the belief in a "future state" of rewards and punishment, or a belief that God would punish those who lied on the stand. This meant that Atheists, Universalists and other non-Christians could not testify in court.

But what is fascinating is that these laws of "witness competency," despite protests from defenders of religious freedom, were still on the books and were still being enforced in most states as late as the first few decades of the twentieth-century.

The authors conclude that the persistence of these witness competency laws show how Christianity was "embedded in the common law and the in courts across the country throughout the antebellum period and beyond."

It seems that the debate over "Christian America" is a bit more complicated than many of us tend to think it is.

Is Obama More Christian Than George Washington?

Politico reports that Barack Obama has already used the name of Jesus Christ in speeches more than George W. Bush did in his entire eight years in office. Interesting.

It is common among those who want to argue that America was founded as a Christian nation to mine the writings of Founders in search of references to Jesus Christ. A reference to Jesus Christ, they argue, is a sure bet that the Founder was a Christian. I too have found this a helpful test in evaluating the personal religious beliefs of the Founders, but I think the Christian America crowd goes too far when they assume that someone who mentions Jesus Christ in their writings wanted to make the United States a "Christian Nation." I am a Christian, but I do not want America to be a Christian nation. There were a lot of eighteenth-century Baptists--John Leland and Isaac Backus come directly to mind--who were evangelical Christians who did not want to live in a Christian nation.

If we apply this approach consistently, then Obama must be considered as one of our more Christian presidents. He must certainly be more Christian than George Washington, who never used the words "Jesus Christ" in any speech.

Something to think about.

The Christian America Crowd Is At it Again

Mike Huckabee and Newt Gingrich joined Christian America "historian" David Barton last weekend at the "Rediscovering God in America" conference in Virginia Beach. (Believe it or not this event, despite it being held in Virginia Beach, was not sponsored by the 700 Club or Pat Robertson). Here are a few quotes from the event, courtesy of Dan Gilgoff and the Virginian-Pilot.

Gingrich: "We are in a period when we are surrounded by paganism. And paganism is on offence and that's why our first great challenge is spiritual. " What does Gingrich mean by paganism? Does he mean that we are surrounded by pre-Christian folk religions, satanic cults, and polytheistic sects? Or is he using this word, as I might expect he is, as a buzzword for anyone who is not a conservative Christian? Is someone who believes in the separation of church and state a "pagan?" Are lapsed Christians who still try to live moral lives pagans? Who are these pagans that are "surrounding" us?

Gingrich: "(We need to) reignite in people an understanding that the heart of your life is subordination to God, the heart of your life is seeking God's will and that all of us are weak and vulnerable, all of us make mistakes, but that all are welcomed by a loving God.". As a Christian I give a hearty "Amen" to this statement, although I need to look more deeply at the context in which it was uttered.

Gingrich: "The beginning of wisdom and virtue is a recognition of our subordination to God, and to the fact that a life without God is a life so empty that even drugs and alcohol and other things cannot fill it." Again, as a Christian, I give this a hearty "Amen."

Huckabee: "The notion that we are just one of many among equals is nonsense," Huckabee said. The United States is a "blessed" nation, he said, calling American revolutionaries' defeat of the British empire "a miracle from God's hand." (This is a quote from the Pilot reporter). This is the kind of providential history that worries me. Huckabee is echoing the earliest New England settlers who believed that the Massachusetts Bay Colony was God's chosen people--a new Israel. As Nicholas Guyott has shown in his study of "Providence" in early American history, the notion that America is doing the will of God in the world has gotten us into trouble before. Was the American victory over the British a miracle? It seems to me that we can be more certain in explaining the American victory over Britain in ways other than proclaiming it as some kind of supernatural intervention that defied the laws of nature.

Gingrich: I am not a citizen of the world, I am a citizen of the United States because only in the United States does citizenship start with our creator." First, by claiming that he is not a "citizen of the world" (a clear swipe at Obama's recent speech in Cairo) Gingrich violates his newfound Catholic faith. Catholic social teaching, at least the version put forth by Vincent Rougeau in his recent Christians in the American Empire, suggests that all human beings have solidarity with all other humans based upon the fact that they are created beings who share a common humanity. Catholic solidarity implies, in part, that one's loyalty should be primarily to the entire human race and not a particular nation-state. Rougeau argues that Christian belief in the solidarity of all human beings means that national favoritism is "difficult to justify on moral terms." The nation-state is not divinely ordained. Loyalty to the state should be based on whether or not the state is promoting human dignity and the common good. Moreover, what does Gingrich mean by the idea that "citizenship" starts with "our creator?" The last I checked I do not think that American citizenship requires belief in a creator God.

Gingrich may have found religion, but he has yet to come to grips with the ways his newfound Catholic faith might force him to change his Republican/Religious Right talking points. During the 2008 campaign, Huckabee seemed to show promise, through his populist message, of articulating a Christian-informed politics. But he never did quite separate himself from the error-laden "God and Country" approach to the American past that has become a staple of the Religious Right.

This conference tells me that the "Christian America" advocates are not going away anytime soon. This should keep Brad Hart and his gang over at American Creation quite busy in the future.

Sunday Night Odds and Ends

A few things on-line that caught my eye this week:

California replaces Thomas Starr King statue with one of Ronald Reagan.

Was Ann Lohman the first George Tiller?

Jonathan Yardley reviews Vincent J. Cannato's American Passage: The History of Ellis Island.

Check out the new Journal of Southern Religion.

Will higher education be the next bubble to burst?

Boston 1775 invokes the "Sacred Name of Washington." (Related: Chris Rodda takes on Barbara Bachman).

Jessica Rhoads, the ace of Messiah College's national championship softball team, is a "Face in the Crowd." (This, BTW, is Messiah's third NCAA Division III national championship this academic year, which should make us one of the best DIII sports programs in the country!).

Alan Taylor reviews Richard S. Newman's Freedom's Prophet: Bishop Richard Allen, the AME Church, and the Black Founding Fathers.

Patrick Deneen on marriage.

Damon Linker asks some interesting questions about the pro-life movement in the wake of the Tiller shooting.

The world's most beautiful libraries.

Parkman Prize winner Jared Farmer reflects on writing "extralocal" history.

The Stanley Cup finals: A tale of two rustbelt cities.

Light Rail and Walking to School

A couple articles in the the local paper, the Harrisburg Patriot-News, caught my eye yesterday.

The first article deals with the ongoing attempts to build a light rail system in South-Central Pennsylvania. One part of this light rail project, the "Red Rose Corridor," will connect Harrisburg and Lancaster. At the moment, this project is moving forward and is under review by federal authorities. The other major part of this project is a rail spur that would run across the Susquehanna River to Carlisle. At the moment, the Cumberland County commissioners have yet to throw their support behind this project. My own town of Mechanicsburg would benefit from this Cumberland spur. Organizing for America--Central PA, an organization associated with the Obama campaign, has been holding public meetings to raise grass roots support for the spur. They argue that the Cumberland light rail will reduce traffic, improve air quality in the region, and provide economic development.

It seems to me that this is a no-brainer. I am sure it would be popular among West Shore commuters to Harrisburg. It will take traffic off the highways during rush hours and do some environmental good. (My favorite writer and activist on these issues is Thomas Hylton. His website is worth a look). But most of our local politicians, including my own representative, Republican Sheryl Delozier, are opposed, preferring to put money into road improvements. Most of them feel that people will not use light rail because they prefer to travel on their own time, in their own way, and on their own schedule. Those who make this argument are probably right, but at what point should people make a few minor sacrifices for the common good of the community? And it does seem that there will be environmental and economic benefits.

Stay tuned. There is a meeting on June 23, 7:30pm, at the local Giant Food Store in the community room. I am going to try to make it.

The second article focuses on Sally Holbert, a Mechanicsburg mother who moved from Upper Allen (where I live) to downtown Mechanicsburg so her kids could walk to school. Holbert has spent the last five years educating the local community on the virtues of walking to school. Now Mechanicsburg has been awarded nearly one million dollars from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation to repair and build sidewalks.

While we are not yet ready to move from our neighborhood so our kids can walk to school, I applaud Holbert's efforts.

"I Am More Green Than You Are"

In his Autobiography, Ben Franklin has much to say about the importance of status and reputation when one is trying to "make it" in America. Consider this classic passage:

I began now gradually to pay off the debt I was under for the printing-house. In order to secure my credit and character as a tradesman, I took care not only to be in reality industrious and frugal, but to avoid all appearances to the contrary. I drest plainly; I was seen at no places of idle diversion. I never went out a fishing or shooting; a book, indeed, sometimes debauch'd me from my work, but that was seldom, snug, and gave no scandal; and, to show that I was not above my business, I sometimes brought home the paper I purchas'd at the stores thro' the streets on a wheelbarrow. Thus being esteem'd an industrious, thriving young man, and paying duly for what I bought, the merchants who imported stationery solicited my custom; others proposed supplying me with books, and I went on swimmingly.

Franklin wanted to show that the mere appearance of being a hard working, simple, plain person can get someone very far in America.

I thought of Franklin this morning when I read an essay on the Time website entitled "Competitive Altriusm: Being Green in Public." Here are few snippets from the author, John Cloud:

Sure, buying a green product like one of those long-life compact fluorescent bulbs means giving up the understated softness of a regular incandescent. But you also gain something precious when you buy a compact fluorescent: status. When your friends see the bulb screwed into the socket of your lamp, many of them will think you're a better, more socially conscious person (which you may well be). And as the aphorist Publilius Syrus wrote a couple thousand years ago, "A good reputation is more valuable than money."

Evolutionary psychologists have a cynical term for cooperative, procommunity behaviors like buying a Prius or shopping at Whole Foods or carrying a public-radio tote bag: competitive altruism. Cynical, but accurate. As several studies (like this one) have shown, altruistic people achieve higher status, and are much more likely to behave altruistically in situations where their actions are public than when they will go unnoticed.

This, in a way, sounds very Franklinesque to me. It also sounds true. "Green" is the new status symbol in American culture.

Cloud concludes:

If green products are too cheap, they might undermine the buyer's ability to signal her status — a desire built into our evolutionary psychology. Griskevicius and his colleagues recommend that companies find a way to publicize the fact that celebrities buy green products. They might also consider keeping those products at a higher price, since penniless people can't afford to indulge in status-seeking and others will pay a premium for it. We may all be selfish and petty, but there's no reason the planet can't benefit from those shortcomings.

Arts and Letters Daily has described it all as "conspicuous environmentalism."

More On Liberty University's College Democrats.

My regular readers know that I have been following the story about Liberty University's decision to ban the college Democrats from campus. (See my coverage here and here). Yesterday Inside Higher Ed ran an article examining student Democratic clubs at other colleges with roots in both Protestant fundamentalism and/or conservative politics. The administration at Pat Robertson's Regent University did not resist a student attempt at founding a Democratic society, but the student body did. Patrick Henry College allowed a Democratic student group to exist, but it apparently did not attract many students. (The college website notes that the club has no elected officials).

Meanwhile, historically liberal colleges, such as Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, have had to deal with the emergence of a College Republicans club on campus.

It now looks as if Liberty will restore the official status of the College Democrats if they would become members of an organization called Virginia Democrats for Life. Stay tuned.

Jerry Seinfeld on How to Think Historically

Leah Colby showed this to the teachers in Mississippi today. Hilarious.

Hattiesburg, Mississippi

I am in Mississippi for a few days working with teachers at a Gilder-Lehrman workshop. I am doing some content lectures on Colonial America and working with Leah Colby, who runs a Teaching American History grant in Savannah. A former elementary school teacher, she is a very engaging and knowledgeable pedagogy specialist--the epitome of what the folks at Gilder Lehrman call a "master teacher."

This is my first visit to the Magnolia State. I flew into Jackson airport (thus the choice of yesterday's "Song of the Day") and drove down Route 49 to Hattiesburg. In the process I got a glimpse of central Mississippi and saw some of the state's rural poverty. I also got confused by a strange looking directional sign at a traffic circle near the airport.

I was a bit disappointed that I was not going to experience this region of the country as a "place." In his book Confederates in the Attic, Tony Horwitz cites a 1995 letter written to the editorial page of the Richmond Times : "The South is a place. East, West, and North are nothing but directions." I wanted to experience this "place," but my only exposure to it was the Jackson airport and the inside of a Hilton Garden Inn hotel room and conference room. Last night I sat in my hotel room (there wasn't even a picture or painting of Mississippi on the walls) and watched Conan O'Brien host his first Tonight Show. I could have been anywhere in the world. The local news anchors did not even speak with a southern accent! This is all a sad commentary on the way that corporate capitalism and cultural nationalism has now made it possible to travel somewhere without really experiencing it as a distinct place.

My disappointment subsided, however, when I met the thirty or so teachers I am working with. Almost all of them are native Mississippians. Those who are "transplanted" to Mississippi are originally from places "as far a way" as Alabama and Kentucky! It is safe to say that there are no "Yankees" in the group. (In fact, I have been called a "Yankee" more than once by these teachers, especially when I mispronounced "Hattiesburg"). These teachers remind me that there are still many "rural Enlightenments" in America. The teachers are bright, engaged, hospitable, and rooted. They love SEC football. They cheer on the University of Southern Mississippi baseball team, which just advanced to the NCAA Super Regional for the first time ever. They argue over their loyalties to "Ole Miss," Southern Mississippi, and Mississippi State. They care for their students and want to be better teachers despite the fact that many of them have limited resources.

And then came the highlight of the my two days in Mississippi. Tonight some of the teachers took us out to get barbecue at award winning Leatha's. (They have a website at http://www.leathas.com/, but it does not seem to be available at the moment). I have never been to a barbecue joint quite like this. (In fact, I do not think I have ever been to a barbecue joint before). Leatha's is located on a dirt driveway off of Route 98 in Hattiesburg behind an RV dealership. The interior of the restaurant is unimpressive. In fact, it reminds me a bit of the brown wood-paneled family room in my 1960 split-level in Mechanicsburg. One of "Miss Leatha's" (pictured on the left) daughters served us some ribs, pulled pork, and pecan pie. The food was incredible. Our utensils came wrapped in a white towel (no mini-wipe packages here) and the chairs in the place were the kind of folding chairs that one might find at a church social in a church basement. Leatha's daughter controlled the floor, moving back and forth between tables making sure everyone had what they needed. In the end, it was one of the best "dining out" experience I have had in a while--both in terms of food and service. Leatha's is a must stop you ever find your way to Hattiesburg.

I leave Mississippi tomorrow after a few more lectures. I am not sure when I will return again, but I am glad that I did get a bit of local flavor.