“Democracy isn’t a one-shot deal that happened one time. It comes and goes, and it’s very difficult to sustain” — Anthropologist Richard Blanton, Purdue University

Just in time for the Declaration of Independence reading and our possible discussion of representation, inclusion, or different ideas of equality, see this recent article from Science Magazine about archeological evidence of early democratic societies in the Americas. Related also to some of the previous things we read.

Writer Lizzie Wade is discussing the influential ideas of Richard Blanton, an anthropologist from Purdue University, and also recent archeological research. Wade writes that “Tlaxcallan [Mexico] is one of several premodern societies around that world that archeologists believe were organized collectively, where rulers shared power and commoners had a say in the government that presided over their lives.”

Wade goes on to quote Rita Wright, an archeologist at NYU, “who studies the 5000-year-old Indus civilization in today’s India and Pakistan, which also shows signs of collective rule. ‘A whole new set of scholarship has emerged about complex societies.'”

 

 

Continue reading “Science Magazine – “It wasn’t just Greece: Archaeologists find early democratic societies in the Americas””

In 1777, when Benjamin Franklin went to France as an ambassador from the country that would become the United States, he dressed very differently than the French, and he did it intentionally.

Continue reading “What does an American look like? Beaver (Ben Franklin edition)”

This week, CLASS C will be creating new TOPICS for the forum. This is due by Saturday night, 3/10. Topics should be 200-300 words.

Classes A and B will RESPOND to one of these topics by Sunday night, 3/11. Responses should be 150-200 words.

We are working this time with Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” and Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography (parts One and Two), but connections between current readings and previous texts are always encouraged also — through any themes, questions, changes, conflicts, and so on. Or any connections to the present. Your opinions, thoughts, feelings, and associations about any of this are welcome.

Continue reading “Week 6 Forum (Class C posts due 3/10; responses due 3/11)”

This article from Vox, was published after Hurricane Harvey. It focuses on Joel Osteen who was accused of not opening his “mega church” to people fleeing the flooding (it’s an actual converted stadium).  The article is interesting, though, because it describes a “history of ideas” that begins with the Puritans, winds its ways through writers we’ll read shortly–Emerson and Thoreau–and finally ends with Osteen and his megachurch. At the very least, it intriguingly shows how ideas can be taken out of context and reshaped over time into something very different.

Continue reading “Puritans to Prosperity: Tracing lines of American thought”

As we move forward from Jonathan Edwards to Ben Franklin, or from Puritanism into the “American Enlightenment” of the 18th century, I wanted to include below one paragraph from another sermon by Jonathan Edwards that I think shows a link or perhaps a contrast between the two. Specifically, between ideas of rational judgement and, what historian Perry Miller writing about Edwards calls, a “sense of the heart.”

Continue reading “Faith and Reason: from Edwards to Franklin”

Image from the film The Witch (2015), directed by Robert Eggers

Below are some recent articles (and not recent videos) John Winthrop, Anne Hutchinson, and the legacy of Puritanism in American culture.

God, Government and Roger Williams’ Big Idea – The Puritan minister originated a principle that remains contentious to this day—separation of church and state. From Smithsonian Magazine, January 2012.

Gifts of the Puritans – What contemporary Americans owe to the straight-laced settlers of New England. From The Atlantic, July 12, 2015.

The Witches of Salem – Diabolical doings in a Puritan village. From The New Yorker, September 7, 2015.

Related to this earlier post, City on a Hill: Reagan’s Revision, about former President Ronald Reagan’s use of John Winthrop’s idea of a “city on a hill” (Reagan referred to the phrase through his political career, including during his time as Governor of California), or more specifically thinking about “City on a Hill” as a symbol that is used over time in different ways, see videos below.

Continue reading “The Legacy of Puritanism – articles and videos”