I'm Caught in the 'Dustbin of History’?

This story offers a very brief summary of a recent AHA report (PDF) on the Master's Degree in History. In reading the report, I came to realize that I was pursuing a useless degree and then that I actually wasn't. Quite a roller coaster ride!

The reason I decided to pursue a degree in a field other than my profession (I'm an engineer by trade) was due to nothing more than pure intellectual gratification and the fun I have "doing history." And while the AHA report is worthwhile in pointing out the value of the MA in History, I still think that it would be more worthwhile if some institutions offered an "easier" way for professionals with backgrounds in fields other than history to work toward and attain a History PhD without having to give up their professional lives (read:incomes).

I believe that all History PhD programs are intimately tied to teaching whereby PhD candidates are required to instruct and work at institutions as part of their program. This is fine for young students, but what about "older" students like myself? Are we out of luck because we came too late to the realization that we loved history and wanted to take our hobby more seriously and pursue it more "professionally"? I'm not crying "not fair" because of any sense of entitlement. If I feel strongly enough, I can take the chances, get accepted into a PhD program sell the house, work for peanuts, send my wife to work and relocate the kids, get a degree and work for half of what I make now. However, I do have to ask: is all that necessary to pursue and earn a History PhD? Is that all part of "paying my dues" because everyone else had to do it? If so, isn't that attitude a bit, well, infantile?

My point is that there should be at least a few respectable programs that offer an alternative PhD track for non-traditional students (ie: older people who are somewhat removed from their undergraduate education) who have lived life a bit and can offer an outside-of-the-academy perspective before pursuing and attaining a History PhD. My guess is that most of us non-traditional wannabe historians enjoy research and writing more than the prospect of teaching. (I suspect most traditional PhD's feel this way, too, and I don't think this is anything that is really surprising). As such, why should we be required to teach if that is not what we want to do? It used to be that one pursued a PhD and became tied to teaching at an institution because the latter vocation provided a means of support while the Historian pursued his research and wrote on scholarly topics. But what if teaching as a vocation is not needed to support a PhD who is otherwise employed? Is my ability to support myself outside of the academy cause for suspicion? Or is it resentment? Is there a belief that, because I won't be academically affiliated, I will somehow be intellectually or scholastically compromised?

Some of these questions have been asked before, but usually within the context of questioning why there are relatively few conservative historians represented on campus. I ask them because I wonder why the presumption is that "respectable" historians have to be represented primarily on campus at all. I see a lot of lip-service paid to the independent historian, but my sense is that these folks are regarded somewhat as mavericks or, to use a less complimentary term, loose-cannons. I hear and read a lot about the ideals of open dialogue, opportunity and scholarship, but the History field I see does little to promote, encourage or facilitate alternative paths. Nonetheless, perhaps there are PhD programs that are accomodating of non-traditional, "professionals" like myself. If there are, they should do a better job of advertising such. If not, I think there is a void that can be filled by doing so. I'll be one of the first to sign up (especially if they're located in Southern New England)!

The Good War

Continuing on the same theme from my last post, Geoffrey Wheatcroft writes about the myths that arose in the aftermath of World War II, both for good and ill.

Was it ‘‘a noble crusade’’? For the liberation of western Europe, maybe so. Was it a just war? That tricky theological concept has to be weighed against very many injustices. Was it a good war? The phrase itself is dubious. No, there are no good wars, but there are necessary wars, and this was surely one.

Meanwhile, Theodore Dalrymple reminds that Frederick Hayek wrote The Road to Serfdom in 1944 in response to the growing belief among intellectual Britons, such as George Orwell, that social collectivism was a necessary good and believed that the wartime experience justified and confirmed their beliefs.

Hayek believed that while intellectuals in modern liberal democracies—those to whom he somewhat contemptuously referred as the professional secondhand dealers in ideas—did not usually have direct access to power, the theories that they diffused among the population ultimately had a profound, even determining, influence upon their society. Intellectuals are of far greater importance than appears at first sight.

Hayek was therefore alarmed at the general acceptance of collectivist arguments—or worse still, assumptions—by British intellectuals of all classes. He had seen the process—or thought he had seen it—before, in the German-speaking world from which he came, and he feared that Britain would likewise slide down the totalitarian path. Moreover, at the time he wrote, the “success” of the two major totalitarian powers in Europe, Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, seemed to have justified the belief that a plan was necessary to coordinate human activity toward a consciously chosen goal. For George Orwell, the difference between the two tyrannies was one of ends, not of means: he held up Nazi Germany as an exemplar of economic efficiency resulting from central planning, but he deplored the ends that efficiency accomplished.

Hayek believed that the British intellectuals were being influenced by the experience of World War II in which British society was atypically united because of war.

Collectivist thinking arose, according to Hayek, from impatience, a lack of historical perspective, and an arrogant belief that, because we have made so much technological progress, everything must be susceptible to human control. While we take material advance for granted as soon as it occurs, we consider remaining social problems as unprecedented and anomalous, and we propose solutions that actually make more difficult further progress of the very kind that we have forgotten ever happened. While everyone saw the misery the Great Depression caused, for example, few realized that, even so, living standards actually continued to rise for the majority. If we live entirely in the moment, as if the world were created exactly as we now find it, we are almost bound to propose solutions that bring even worse problems in their wake.

World War II: History or Preferred Remembrance?

Adam Krzeminski writes that World War II was mythologized in individual nations to replace previous ones destroyed by the conflict. However, one of the ironic twists of European unionization has been a debunking of these myths:

The war destroyed not just countries, but the whole edifice of traditional myths that supported the identity of the European nations before it began. Meanwhile, the effort to create some new myths fell foul of the shocking reality: millions of people had been killed or murdered, there was immense material destruction, and Europe had been politically and morally degraded. . . .To all intents and purposes there were as many Second World Wars as there were nations. . . .For six decades in Europe, the USA and Israel, monuments and mausoleums have been built, films have been made, and posters and postage stamps have been printed. Heroic tales of war heroes who "ducked the bullets" have been written, yet at the same time some of the legends began to be debunked very early on. Books that were praised one day were thrown on the rubbish heap the next. Monuments erected earlier were demolished, and heroes were scorned, while those who were once regarded as traitors were rehabilitated. . . .

Europeans will go on living with competing memories and competing myths for a long time to come. What is new is that these competing myths are no longer being fostered in confinement, but in constant dialogue between neighbours, besides which in each country as well as being fostered they are also being debunked. Time will tell if this clash of national myths will ultimately engender a common European view of the Second World War, without dropping the national experiences. Already in many countries the Europeans are gradually ceasing to be victims of autism, exclusively fixated on separate images of the past.

Why are academics so unhappy?

After reading this, I'm not sure if I ever want a teaching job:

Universities attract people who are good at school. Being good at school takes a real enough but very small talent. As the philosopher Robert Nozick once pointed out, all those A's earned through their young lives encourage such people to persist in school: to stick around, get more A's and more degrees, sign on for teaching jobs. When young, the life ahead seems glorious. They imagine themselves inspiring the young, writing important books, living out their days in cultivated leisure.

But something, inevitably, goes awry, something disagreeable turns up in the punch bowl. Usually by the time they turn 40, they discover the students aren't sufficiently appreciative; the books don't get written; the teaching begins to feel repetitive; the collegiality is seldom anywhere near what one hoped for it; there isn't any good use for the leisure. Meanwhile, people who got lots of B's in school seem to be driving around in Mercedes, buying million-dollar apartments, enjoying freedom and prosperity in a manner that strikes the former good students, now professors, as not only unseemly but of a kind a just society surely would never permit.

Now that politics has trumped literature in English departments the situation is even worse. Beset by political correctness, self-imposed diversity, without leadership from above, university teachers, at least on the humanities and social-science sides, knowing the work they produce couldn't be of the least possible interest to anyone but the hacks of the MLA and similar academic organizations, have more reason than ever to be unhappy.

History Carnival 7: Studi Galileiani

Studi Galileiani is hosting History Carnival VII and has a plethora of diverse, history-related blog posts to recommend. He also reminds us that the concept behind the original History Carnival is that the host should receive submissions, do a little digging themselves and then post the results. It looks as if S.G. had to do most of the digging this time. Hopefully the next Carnival will see more submissions (I'm working on one myself). In fact, I hope that by the time I host one, in a month or so, I won't have to do as much work as S.G. did!

BU History Prof.: Remove the Filibuster

Boston U. History professor Julian E. Zelizeris, author of On Capitol Hill: The Struggle to Reform Congress and its Consequences, 1945-2000, has written a piece published today in the Providence Journal explaining his belief that ending the filibuster would align the Senate with the "21st-Century understandings of democracy." He supports his call with [surprise] some history.

Late in the 1950s, liberal giants in both parties, such as Hubert H. Humphrey (D.-Minn.), Jacob K. Javits (R.-N.Y.), Paul H. Douglas (D-.Ill.) and Joseph S. Clark (D.-Pa.) made filibuster reform a top priority. It became so important that civil-rights organizations in the 1950s placed committee and filibuster reform at the top of their political agenda. The NAACP listed filibuster reform as important as ending lynching.

This struggle culminated in 1975, when Republican Vice President Nelson Rockefeller intervened in Senate deliberations and let the reform pass. Although reformers did not obtain a strictly majoritarian system, senators made it easier to end a filibuster by requiring that three-fifths, rather than two-thirds, of the Senate was needed to obtain cloture (the process by which a filibuster is ended).

Opponents warned that the change would bring havoc to the institution. Reformers praised the change. A few liberal voices were disappointed that the filibuster survived at all.

Today's Democrats can learn from this older generation of liberals in the 1950s and 1960s who argued that the filibuster was fundamentally anti-democratic, especially since the Constitution, undemocratically, already granted small and large states equal representation in the Senate.

Humphrey enraged Southern conservatives by championing civil rights and legislative reform. He went so far as to call the "undemocratic" filibuster "evil." In the 1950s, the filibuster was the ultimate symbol of how procedure blocked action on civil rights. Writing for The New Republic, Senator Douglas explained that filibuster reform may seem to be "a barren and arid matter of parliamentary procedure. It involves, however, the whole question as to whether Congress will ever be able to pass civil-rights legislation."

Thomas Sowell - "Redneck Blacks"?

Economist Thomas Sowell wrote on Tuesday that it not white racism that explains the educational disparity between blacks and whites but rather culture. Specifically, what he terms "black redneck" culture.

For most of the history of this country, differences between the black and the white population--whether in income, IQ, crime rates, or whatever--have been attributed to either race or racism. For much of the first half of the 20th century, these differences were attributed to race--that is, to an assumption that blacks just did not have it in their genes to do as well as white people. The tide began to turn in the second half of the 20th century, when the assumption developed that black-white differences were due to racism on the part of whites.

Three decades of my own research lead me to believe that neither of those explanations will stand up under scrutiny of the facts. As one small example, a study published last year indicated that most of the black alumni of Harvard were from either the West Indies or Africa, or were the children of West Indian or African immigrants. These people are the same race as American blacks, who greatly outnumber either or both.

If this disparity is not due to race, it is equally hard to explain by racism. To a racist, one black is pretty much the same as another. But, even if a racist somehow let his racism stop at the water's edge, how could he tell which student was the son or daughter of someone born in the West Indies or in Africa, especially since their American-born offspring probably do not even have a foreign accent?

What then could explain such large disparities in demographic "representation" among these three groups of blacks? Perhaps they have different patterns of behavior and different cultures and values behind their behavior. . . . Slavery also cannot explain the difference between American blacks and West Indian blacks living in the United States because the ancestors of both were enslaved. When race, racism, and slavery all fail the empirical test, what is left?

Culture is left.

He explained that there was a growing disparity in the educational aptitude of whites in the north and south from the time of the revolution through the civil war and after. Thus, southern culture lagged behind northern in education and a whole host of other things.

There have always been large disparities, even within the native black population of the U.S. Those blacks whose ancestors were "free persons of color" in 1850 have fared far better in income, occupation, and family stability than those blacks whose ancestors were freed in the next decade by Abraham Lincoln.

What is not nearly as widely known is that there were also very large disparities within the white population of the pre-Civil War South and the white population of the Northern states. Although Southern whites were only about one-third of the white population of the U.S., an absolute majority of all the illiterate whites in the country were in the South.

The North had four times as many schools as the South, attended by more than four times as many students. Children in Massachusetts spent more than twice as many years in school as children in Virginia. Such disparities obviously produce other disparities. Northern newspapers had more than four times the circulation of Southern newspapers. Only 8% of the patents issued in 1851 went to Southerners. Even though agriculture was the principal economic activity of the antebellum South at the time, the vast majority of the patents for agricultural inventions went to Northerners. Even the cotton gin was invented by a Northerner.

Disparities between Southern whites and Northern whites extended across the board from rates of violence to rates of illegitimacy. American writers from both the antebellum South and the North commented on the great differences between the white people in the two regions. So did famed French visitor Alexis de Tocqueville.

None of these disparities can be attributed to either race or racism. Many contemporary observers attributed these differences to the existence of slavery in the South, as many in later times would likewise attribute both the difference between Northern and Southern whites, and between blacks and whites nationwide, to slavery. But slavery doesn't stand up under scrutiny of historical facts any better than race or racism as explanations of North-South differences or black-white differences. The people who settled in the South came from different regions of Britain than the people who settled in the North--and they differed as radically on the other side of the Atlantic as they did here--that is, before they had ever seen a black slave.

Finally, many southern blacks ventured north into the cities, especially the ghetto, and brought their cultural habits with them.

The culture of the people who were called "rednecks" and "crackers" before they ever got on the boats to cross the Atlantic was a culture that produced far lower levels of intellectual and economic achievement, as well as far higher levels of violence and sexual promiscuity. That culture had its own way of talking, not only in the pronunciation of particular words but also in a loud, dramatic style of oratory with vivid imagery, repetitive phrases and repetitive cadences.

Although that style originated on the other side of the Atlantic in centuries past, it became for generations the style of both religious oratory and political oratory among Southern whites and among Southern blacks--not only in the South but in the Northern ghettos in which Southern blacks settled. It was a style used by Southern white politicians in the era of Jim Crow and later by black civil rights leaders fighting Jim Crow. Martin Luther King's famous speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 was a classic example of that style.

While a third of the white population of the U.S. lived within the redneck culture, more than 90% of the black population did. Although that culture eroded away over the generations, it did so at different rates in different places and among different people. It eroded away much faster in Britain than in the U.S. and somewhat faster among Southern whites than among Southern blacks, who had fewer opportunities for education or for the rewards that came with escape from that counterproductive culture.

Nevertheless the process took a long time. As late as the First World War, white soldiers from Georgia, Arkansas, Kentucky and Mississippi scored lower on mental tests than black soldiers from Ohio, Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania. Again, neither race nor racism can explain that--and neither can slavery.

The redneck culture proved to be a major handicap for both whites and blacks who absorbed it. Today, the last remnants of that culture can still be found in the worst of the black ghettos, whether in the North or the South, for the ghettos of the North were settled by blacks from the South. The counterproductive and self-destructive culture of black rednecks in today's ghettos is regarded by many as the only "authentic" black culture--and, for that reason, something not to be tampered with. Their talk, their attitudes, and their behavior are regarded as sacrosanct.

The people who take this view may think of themselves as friends of blacks. But they are the kinds of friends who can do more harm than enemies."

It is an interesting interpretation and seems compatible with similar theories that point to soco-economicl factors as being inhibitors of a variety of positive aspects of the larger society. (That's a fancy way of saying that the poor generally fare worse than the middle-class and rich in most aspects of life).

Gary B. Nash: Christ's Militia

Gary B. Nash's "Christ's Militia" explains "how evangelical Protestantism came to dominate American religion."

[T]he first Great Awakening—the widespread religious revival of the 1740s—had fostered a sense of self-worth among common people, and led indirectly to their willingness to unite against the world’s mightiest nation several decades later. After the revolution, an outpouring of evangelical religion erupted, in which, as the historian Nathan Hatch has written, “the right to think for oneself became . . . the hallmark of popular Christianity.”

“The right to think for oneself.” That proposition may sound unremarkable today, but it was a radical notion 200 years ago. Traveling ministers in the early 19th century carried that message to working people throughout the country. The movement they represented—deeply democratic and, in its focus on personal revelation, at odds with Church hierarchy—would do more than anything else to spread Evangelical Protestantism and eventually make it the dominant religion in the nation.

He offers three examples. A good read.

Newton's God

In the new issue of First Things, a letter from Thomas C. Pfizenmaier, in response to an earlier essay by Avery Cardinal Dulles on “The Deist Minimum,” offers a pithy take on deism and a comment on Newton's religious belief.

I read with pleasure Avery Cardinal Dulles’ rich essay on “The Deist Minimum” (January). The timing seems providential in that just this week I read that Anthony Flew, the British poster boy for atheism, has at the age of eighty-one abandoned his atheism in favor of belief in a super-intelligent being who is the designer of the universe. Flew explains that he continues to reject the biblical God of the Christians and Muslims (and Jews?) as an “oriental despot” akin to Saddam Hussein but favors the idea of the deist conception of God held by Jefferson. Cardinal Dulles makes the statement that deism served as a kind of “halfway house on the road to atheism.” One now wonders if it may provide shelter on the return trip. Let us pray.

I would, however, like to raise a question about Cardinal Dulles’ assessment of Isaac Newton. He leaves the impression that Newton was a deist, or nearly so. This represents an earlier scholarly consensus that should now be abandoned. Not only was Newton not a deist; he believed deism heretical and harmful. For this reason he was instrumental in the formulation of the Boyle Lectures, whose avowed purpose was “to prove the truth of the Christian religion against infidels.” The infidels du jour were the atheists and deists.

Cardinal Dulles writes that Newton discovered mathematical laws that henceforth made divine intervention superfluous. This was the conclusion that the French Encyclopedists imposed on Newton’s mechanics. Newton himself believed that God was actively involved in upholding creation by the continual exercise of His will. Deists rejected the concept of revealed religion. Newton embraced it—especially in regard to biblical prophecy and chronology, on both of which he was expert.

Even Newton’s Trinitarian views, which Cardinal Dulles says caused him to “reject the doctrine of the trinity and incarnation as irrational” are under reassessment. I believe that by the 1690s Isaac Newton’s Trinitarian position could be considered compatible with the position of the Eastern Church Fathers of the fourth century, especially Eusebius of Caesarea and Basil of Ancyra.

Scholarship on Newton’s religion is gradually bringing him in from the cold. People may continue to debate various elements of his religion, but, in the words of Newton scholar James Force, one thing is sure: “He was no deist.”

A Proposed "Contrafactual" History Project?

Jonah Goldberg at National Review Online asks:

Here's an idea for some intrepid blogger or fellow NROnik: What would be the constitutional history of the last couple decades if Robert Bork had been confirmed? That would mean Kennedy wasn't. It also might mean Souter wasn't -- since the need for stealth nominees might not have materialized.

What decisions would have worked the other way? A couple readers say Roe would have been overturned in 1992. I think it'd be a great piece for someone with a serious understanding of the Court to write. It'd probably have interesting lessons for liberals conservatives alike, with liberals saying "shhweeeooooo" and conservatives saying "dang."

I *think* contra- and counter-factual would be the same thing, right? Regardless, there's an idea for someone. Run with it!

Federalism: Birds of Different Feathers

David J. Barron explains that "Rehnquist" Federalism (which, though it "has a strong conservative flavor" it doesn't lack "conceptual integrity as a form of federalism"), basically gives the Federal Government dominion over economic matters while giving the states dominion over social or privacy issue-type matters. Further,

The Rehnquist Court's conservative majority seems committed to maintaining this boundary even though it may limit the ability of Congress to advance conservative policies in particular cases. Take same-sex marriage. Even though it is an A-list issue for social conservatives, the Court expressly identified marriage (in a recent Commerce Clause case) as a matter of "truly local" concern and not at all "economic." There is little reason to think the Court will back off on this, even if confronted by a federal statute banning same-sex marriage. The Rehnquist Court's federalism, then, is conservative without always generating a conservative outcome.

He proposes that "Progressive Federalism" should be the mirror image of this.

It would give states and local governments much greater room to regulate the private market. This would check national and multinational business influence as Louis Brandeis and earlier progressives once imagined. It would also give the national government much more power to regulate nonmarket social relations. This would give Congress the power to protect basic Fourteenth Amendment rights.

"Nobility alone is still not a winning strategy."

In The Claremont Institute: Freedom Fighter, Gerard Alexander reviews The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror by Natan Sharansky, the book that President Bush is said to have been much-inspired as he called for his neo-"Wilsonian" foreign policy of spreading freedom/democracy/liberty in the Middle East and the world. Like Alexander, I believe in this ideal, but Alexander reminds that freedom and democracy can't be started in a political vacuum. A stable state structure, especially security, must be in place to safeguard personal liberties. Stability provides an environment for a nation and its people to develop their own unique version of democracy. One informed by their own particular social, cultural and religious traditions and ideals. Alexander doubts that all societies or cultures are ready for democracy and asks: "If stable democracy requires these structures, how might they come about where they are currently absent? Can the U.S. do much to help?" Also, the political minority must be willing to abide majority rule without relying on revolution. To this, Alexander points to some examples:

Free speech is usually what economists call a "non-rival" good: one person's use of it does not diminish its availability to others. But democracy also involves reaching political decisions, and when one party or coalition controls government, others are necessarily excluded, at least temporarily. Many democracies have produced decisions (such as expropriation) that so profoundly threaten the core values and interests of the current minority that the latter will support coups which protect some of its values (property) at the expense of others (civil liberties). This is roughly what happened in Spain in 1936, in Chile in 1973, and in Haiti in 1991. In each case, sizable segments of the population supported non-democratic regimes that they saw as the lesser of two evils. In such contexts, stable democracy is unlikely unless these underlying conflicts are resolved. But how does such resolution happen? And what exactly should the U.S. do to help? The sobering fact is that social scientists really do not know.

Combined, it can be boiled down to this: the people must be willing to do the hard work, and accept the compromises necessary, to have a successful democratic state. Not all nations are ready or willing. Nonetheless, Alexander believes there is "good news."

The good news is that U.S. policy since 9/11 looks a lot like that. Elections have been urged peacefully on several regimes, but force has been used against only two, and the Bush Administration has worked successfully with many dictators in the war on terror. We are pushing at many limits, but are feeling our way. A dictator of Mexico once explained his complex choices by saying that his country was so far from God, and so close to the United States. America's margins of maneuver are greater than ever before, and much greater than Porfirio Diaz's ever were, but we, like him, remain closer to the ugly realities of political variety than to the cosmopolitan ideal of harmony. The journey toward the latter is the noble task that Americans now confront. But nobility alone is still not a winning strategy.

The party of the Rich and Enlightened

In a review of Byron York's new book, The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy, Timothy P. Carney noted that

York's chapter on the ACT [Americans Coming Together, a liberal 527 PAC] is the best part of the book. It thoughtfully examines the rewritten ground rules of politics and also begins to dismantle the myth that the GOP is the rich party. Characters like Soros and other filthy-rich leftists pervade the book, but York doesn't aim to leave the perception that they are exceptions to the rule.

"People who contributed less than $200 to politicians and parties gave 64 percent of their money to Republicans," writes York, based on 2002 campaign-finance data. "People who gave $1 million or more to politicians or parties gave 92 percent to Democrats."

In this same vein, Jon Weiner believes it is this fact that has undermined the traditionally effective class-warfare waged by the Democrats in the past.

In a critique of Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas, Weiner begins

If only working-class and poor people would register and vote, liberal Democrats would win every election-that's what we thought, until November 2, 2004. Democrats work on voter registration, Republicans work on vote suppression. So tens of millions were spent on Democratic voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts over the summer and fall. But on November 2 we discovered how wrong we were. Turnout in poor and working-class precincts was unprecedented, but many of those voters cast their ballots for George W. Bush-especially white people from non-union households, especially outside of cities. How did the Republicans do it? How did they get poor people to vote for tax cuts for the rich?

Thomas Frank became the pundit of the hour for his answer to those questions. In his best-selling book What's the Matter with Kansas?, published before the election, he argued that Republicans distracted and confused ordinary voters with a phony kind of class-war rhetoric and with the culture wars. In short, they fostered what we used to call "false consciousness." In Marxist theory, when workers accept the ruling ideology that justifies their exploitation, they have false consciousness. It's "a failure to recognize the instruments of one's oppression or exploitation as one's own creation, as when members of an oppressed class unwittingly adopt views of the oppressor class"-that's the dictionary definition. It's when ordinary workers "insist on re-electing the very people who are screwing them" - that's Tom Frank's definition.

This theory presumes that the American people, especially the poor, white one's in middle-America, have been tricked by Republicans into holding social, cultural or moral issues as more important than economic ones: this is so-called "false consciousness." For example:

The culture wars foster false consciousness above all by focusing on abortion. Take away people's good industrial jobs, Frank writes, and the "next thing you know they're protesting in front of abortion clinics." How do you get poor people to vote for tax cuts for the rich? By convincing them that the issue is not tax cuts for the rich, it's stopping the slaughter of the unborn. And if you really believe the fetus is a person with a right to life, saving the lives of those helpless "babies" is a moral imperative that makes tax policy pretty insignificant. And if abortion is not your thing, there is school prayer, gun rights, and gay marriage-lots of issues to get angry about. This consciousness is false because it depends on "a systematic erasure of the economic." It really is a trick, a kind of sleight of hand: don't look at people who are taking away your jobs; look at the people who are taking away your guns!

In other words, emphasize culture over economics. Wiener and Franks negatively portray this as Republicans tricking the poor, culturally "traditional" voters into voting against their own economic interests. Another way to put it would be to say that Republicans have convinced poor, culturally "traditional" voters into voting for higher principles above their own self interest. Wiener does point to the flaw in Frank's thesis.

Frank's case is a powerful and compelling one, but it has come in for some sharp and significant criticism from writers who know a lot about false consciousness. According to the theory, for consciousness to be false, a challenge to the ruling ideology must be available to ordinary people. That challenge would lead to "class consciousness"-an awareness of social conflict and of the potential power of working people to transform the status quo.

But if it's false consciousness for poor and working people to vote Republican, does a worker with class consciousness automatically vote Democratic? Here Frank's argument gets shaky. The "true" interests of the working class in America today start with jobs. But the de-industrialization of America, and the export of good industrial jobs to Mexico and now to China, was the policy of Bill Clinton, who introduced, fought for, and signed the North American Free Trade Agreement. John Kerry went along with that project. His jobs program in 2004 was pathetic: tax cuts for the rich-in this case, for corporations that don't export jobs. But if unemployed industrial workers in Kansas wanted to vote their true interests in protecting decent jobs, why would they support the candidate and the party that established the policies that did away with those jobs?

. . . The opposite of false consciousness is class consciousness. Where does class consciousness come from? Does it arise spontaneously from the experience of ordinary workers? Frank says no-people do not necessarily understand their situation or know how to act to defend their interests. The role of a political party is to explain these things, to define interests, and then to fight for them. But the Democrats have little to say about the interests of ordinary people, while the Republicans are full of angry arguments that identify problems and propose solutions.

Here is where the objections arise. Tom Mertes, writing in the New Left Review (Nov-Dec 2004), notes that, in Frank's 250-page book, only 8 pages are devoted to criticizing the Democrats. And while the critique is "robust enough," it fails to ask the obvious question: why does the Democratic Party act the way it does? By calling the Democrats "criminally stupid," Frank implies that the solution is simply for them to get smart-to bring them to their senses, to recall their true mission: fight for equality, solidarity, and social progress.

But the Democrats' problem, Mertes argues, is not simply stupidity. The party is controlled "largely by the super-rich," and in understanding and fighting for their own interests, they have been fairly smart. The evidence lies in what Mertes terms "the blue plutocracy": virtually all of the wealthiest electoral districts in the country have become Democratic bastions. Bill Clinton may have been a poor boy from Hope, but the Democrats' candidate in 2004 was the richest man ever to run for the White House. More of the super-rich favored the Democrats in 2004-the divide was 59-41 among individuals with assets above $10 million. That's why working-class consciousness was not part of the Democratic Party message.

Additionally, Wiener points to a conference paper by Mike Davis in which Davis pointed out the context of some of Frank's statistics.

Frank offers the poorest county in the United States-McPherson County, Nebraska-as his prime example of false consciousness. It voted 80 percent Republican in 2000. But the people who vote there, Davis points out, are mostly small cattle ranchers. Their incomes put them among the nation's poor, but their assets give them the interests of property owners. So voting Republican isn't necessarily delusional or self-destructive. And their assets make them the wrong people to serve as examples of voters who are poor or working class.

A more telling example of the political consciousness of declining workers, Davis argues, can be found in West Virginia, where deindustrialization has been catastrophic, and where the shift to the right has been more dramatic than any other state. It was once a Democratic stronghold, but Kerry lost West Virginia by 13 percent. And although many mine and mill workers voted against him, they voted for the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, and Democrats held on to two of three congressional seats with an impressive two-thirds of the vote. Is this schizophrenic divide an example of false consciousness? Davis argues that it is not: the Democrats who were elected in West Virginia made jobs the center of their campaigns, while Kerry offered only that pathetic proposal for tax breaks for corporations that didn't export jobs. Bush, meanwhile, had imposed tariffs on imported steel in 2001, which could be spun as taking a stand against the European competitors who were killing West Virginia's mines and mills. That was certainly deceptive, but it was more than Kerry did.

Finally, Wiener pointed out that the election was not won because of a sort of morality-gap, as so many quickly decided based on exit polls.

Although the evidence is overwhelming that Republican media pounded away to foment culture war, it's not at all clear that cultural issues provided the basis of working-class votes for Bush. Despite the conventional wisdom the day after the election that "values" had been the Republicans' trump card, opinion polls showed that the number of voters who said they voted primarily on the basis of "values" in fact declined: in 1996 (Clinton-Dole) it was 40 percent; in 2000 (Bush-Gore) it was 35 percent; and in 2004 it fell to 22 percent. If these polls are accurate, we have to conclude that the culture war as a basis for voting has steadily lost ground over the last decade.

Instead, Wiener correctly concludes that it was terrorism and the War, stupid, that prompted so many traditional Americans to do what they usually did when voting for President during wartime: they supported the incumbent because it signalled support for his foreign policy, including a willingness to "see it through." Wiener takes a cynical view.

I don't think it is false consciousness to fear another terrorist attack; I think it's rational. And it's not a class issue. Of course, the president has manipulated that fear, used that fear as the basis of an ideology, in the classic sense of that term. Crudely put, the claim is that working- class and poor people should vote for the party that is screwing them because that party is also protecting them from our enemies. That's a different kind of "false consciousness," one that is harder to fight because it invokes real problems and real dangers.

Throughout, one can detect the elitism. I believe ideology is powerful explanatory concept, but I also think we should be careful not to ascribe too much to it or to confuse rhetoric for ideology. It is always a risk to assume that "average Americans" can have firm convictions changed because of the rhetoric of a political party. Instead, that rhetoric needs to eventually be supported by reality. To put it another way, perhaps as a regular Joe would put it, it needs to pass the smell test.

Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum

I caught a brief snippet of a C-SPAN program with Brian Lamb at the new Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum. The part that grabbed me was their presentation called "The Civil War in Four Minutes," which is

also known as The Electronic Map, is a map of the war with battle lines that continuously move, showing the changing progress of the war. Here, each week of the war has been condensed to one second. In the corner of the map, a casualty counter tracks the mounting butcher's bill - an odometer of death.

It was visually impressive and seemed the type of sexy thing that can grab kids. We hear about short-attention-Americans all the time. I wonder if the key to teaching history in the future could lay in condensing long events in such a visually exciting way. (Here is a RealPlayer link to the program).

The Claremont Institute examines Bernard Bailyn's Work

I must confess that I am a Bailynite. No, I did not work with or study under the fine professor (though I have taken a course from and frequent the same gym as one of his former protege's), I simply find his scholarship well done and his theory extremely intriguing, if oft misunderstood. For those few who do not know, the Claremont Review of Books offers a fine summary of Bailyn and his ideas in "A Revolutionary Historian" by Hans L. Eicholz.

Most current historiography focuses on Bailyn's early work, recognizing his critical contribution to the rejuvenation of American intellectual and cultural history. His work on the American Revolution showed that political ideas played a crucial role in bringing it about. For this reason, he is rightly credited with helping to father the "republican synthesis" of the '70s and early '80s, which emphasized the role of classical republicanism and Old Whig doctrines in sparking the 1776 revolution....Unfortunately, this fact has often obscured Bailyn's more profound contribution to the history of ideas and political culture. Commentators list him among the architects of the republican interpretation but frequently overlook the dynamism and heterogeneity of culture and ideas evident from his earliest work. He is associated with what quickly became a rigid and static view of the republican paradigm: a view that came to stress its ancient lineage and backward-looking conservatism, and that is, thankfully, no longer the dominant interpretation of the revolution and founding.

Most scholars no longer insist on forcing a choice between classical republicanism and Lockean liberalism. Bailyn was there long before them. It is high time to see his work in the context of his growing appreciation for the complexity of thought in human life, rather than as an autopsy of a particular configuration of ideas.

I did a historiographical paper on Bailyn that traced his ideological theory and the way it was misunderstood by those who both agreed and disagreed with him. Eicholz explained that

The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution(1967). . . took up the fate, in America, of the Old Whig or English commonwealth ideas of the early 18th century. Here, again, it was the peculiar relevance of these ideas, and the conscious choosing among them and adding to them that was at the core of Bailyn's history. The critique of power's corrupting influence, what might be called the "anti-power" ethic, resonated with American experience. But the independent contribution of the American experience was not fully appreciated by the profession at large. Inured to explanations from necessity—to structures of social causation such as class—both his critics and his proponents took Bailyn's insights in directions very different from his own.

My research indicated much the same thing. Social historians, such as Gary Nash, were particularly critical of Bailyn's theory and others, especially Joyce Appleby, had well-founded problems with the so-called "Republican Synthesis" that arose our of Bailyn's theory and figuratively wondered "what happened to Lock?". (A synthesis, it should be noted, to which Bailyn himself didn't adhere). However, as Eicholz points out

There is a dynamic quality to ideas in Ideological Origins that shows Americans actively selecting among a variety of viewpoints to understand their place within the empire. Thus Bailyn argued:

Within the framework of these ideas, Enlightenment abstractions and common law precedents, covenant theology and classical analogy—Locke and Abraham, Brutus and Coke—could all be brought together into a comprehensive theory of politics.

This was no unchanging paradigm, but the vibrant and shifting undercurrents of English opposition thought, "stirred by doctrinaire libertarians, disaffected politicians, and religious dissenters." It is this dynamic stirring that was and is the focus of Bailyn's interpretation.

Where are the choices being made? Where is the influence of time and place being worked out? Within the individual actors themselves. But a discussion of ideas and modes of thought, of political tensions and social conflict, cannot by itself reach the heart of historical transformation. And perhaps that is why the dynamism Bailyn had hoped to convey in these earlier works was not so apparent.

Rhode Island Historical Society: Selling A Desk V

Perhaps the Brown desk won't have to be sold after all. (For earlier posts see: I, II, III, IV)

An anonymous donor has given the historical society $750,000, to postpone and potentially end much-criticized plans to sell a prized possession: a rare Colonial-era desk-and-bookcase once owned by Providence merchant Joseph Brown.

Since the historical society's board of directors voted in January to sell the mahogany museum piece to prevent a financial crisis, the society has been in turmoil.

Some board members walked away. Docents rose up. Curators looked down, calling the society tacky, and worse, unethical.

But, according to the historical society, in an announcement yesterday, much good has arisen from the desk debate, including a call from a person of means.

Bernard Fishman, executive director, said the gift, one of the largest in the society's 183 years, came from a "very generous" person. This person wishes to give the historical society a few months' "breathing room," -- time to attract other philanthropists, or time to come up with a plan to improve finances and possibly avoid selling the desk, he said. He, and Roger N. Begin, president of the society, yesterday called the donation an expression of faith in the Rhode Island Historical Society. . .He said, however, selling the desk is still on the table as an option. . .

Last fall, an internal review found that the historical society's endowment had dropped by nearly 30 percent in six years, from $6.5 million in 1998 to $4.5 million in 2004. The review also found that future operating costs could result in deficits of up to $700,000.

The society's leadership has said the past leadership lived beyond its means, and drained the endowment. . . .In January, the board voted 15-7 to auction off the desk. It was estimated that the desk could get $10 million at an auction, enough to create an endowment to preserve the society's collection.

Since then, descendants of the Brown and Goddard families protested, as did many in the cultural community. Four of the seven dissenting board members left, said Luther Spoehr, a lecturer in history and education at Brown University. Docents giving tours were "very unhappy" over the desk, he added.

Spoeher is a member of the historical society's board of directors, and voted to sell the desk. "You don't hang onto one artifact if it means the entire organization goes under," he said. "It's as simple as that." Of the $750,000 donation announced yesterday, Spoeher said: "I think it's good news. It buys us some time." He hopes another "financial angel" comes forward. . .

"All the anger and emotion that was spent over those Audubon prints and they weren't even created in Rhode Island," said Roos, of the Newport Restoration Foundation.

By contrast, he said, the Joseph Brown desk is not only made in Rhode Island, it is Rhode Island. "It says that we're innovators in design. . . that this tiny little state, yes, we're innovators, we're important," he said. It's all a lot to place on a desk. So the Rhode Island Historical Society sees to it that the piece is pampered. It's feather-dusted daily. Kept out of the sun. The room temperature is just so. The visitors stop by, Fishman said, more than ever these days.

History written in invisible ink?

Even if it was, or if the ink is fading, it seems that technology will allow us to see what we've missed. Now we can read what was once lost.

Thousands of previously illegible manuscripts containing work by some of the greats of classical literature are being read for the first time using technology which experts believe will unlock the secrets of the ancient world.

Among treasures already discovered by a team from Oxford University are previously unseen writings by classical giants including Sophocles, Euripides and Hesiod. Invisible under ordinary light, the faded ink comes clearly into view when placed under infra-red light, using techniques developed from satellite imaging.

The Oxford documents form part of the great papyrus hoard salvaged from an ancient rubbish dump in the Graeco-Egyptian town of Oxyrhynchus more than a century ago. The thousands of remaining documents, which will be analysed over the next decade, are expected to include works by Ovid and Aeschylus, plus a series of Christian gospels which have been lost for up to 2,000 years.

Yes, Even Christians use Philosophy

Mark Daniels at Philosophy Now has an "Introduction to Medieval Philosophy" that is worth reading for any wondering what the relevance of such a topic could be. I, for one, (as an amateur medievalist) have been struggling with this topic off and on for a couple years. The reading is thick.

"One final victim of the Rape of Nanking?"

Was Iris Chang "One final victim of the Rape of Nanking?"

On November 6 she spoke to Paula Kamen, whom she knew from university, and told her that she was struggling to deal with the magnitude of the misery she had uncovered, listened to and written about. She begged to be remembered as lively and confident. It was the last conversation they would have. Two days later, Chang was even more despondent than she had previously been. Her husband tried to calm her down but eventually fell asleep.

At some point in the night, Chang got into her white 1999 Oldsmobile, taking with her a six-round pistol that she had bought from an antique weapons dealer to defend herself from attackers. She drove to a country road, loaded the pistol with black powder and lead balls, aimed it at her head and fired. She was found a few hours later, along with a farewell note to her family.

Yet even in death Chang was not rid of the controversy. In recent memorial services across China, historians have blamed intense hostility from Japan for her death. The People’s Daily in Beijing hailed Chang as a “warrior full of justice” and a “dart thrown against the Japanese rightists”. In April the massacre museum in Nanjing will add a statue of Chang to its commemorative collection, in effect giving her the status of a massacre victim, with a finger pointed firmly across the Sea of Japan. The San Francisco Chronicle seemed to concur: “Many wonder if the gentle, sympathetic young woman was the massacre’s latest victim.”

How sad...

A Call to Rid the Left of Postmodern Thinking

Barry Seidman at Philosophy Now has reviewed David Detmer’s book, Challenging Postmodernism: Philosophy & the Politics of Truth. According to Seidman

Challenging Postmodernism is a philosophical treatise which examines the problems with postmodernism and its anti-humanistic implications, and tries to determine whether or not the intellectual Left is indeed guilty en masse of cultural relativism. It then explains how a progressive politic is indeed very much in step with Enlightenment humanism.

Further, Seidman's summary of Detmer's thesis is a concise deconstruction of postmodern "philosophy"

In the opening chapters, Detmer points out the faulty logic of postmodernism by reviewing the concept of self-referential inconsistencies, and the ‘Argument from Disagreement.’ The former occurs, in Detmer’s words, because when “relativism is judged, as seems only reasonable and fair, in the light of its own explicitly stated content, it seems to contradict itself.” That is, if truth is to be regarded as merely a construct of society, rather than reflecting how things really are, then the claim that truth is socially constructed, must itself be understood as a social construct rather than a reflection of how things really are.

‘The Argument from Disagreement’ has two premises. The first asserts that there is no consensus in some area of thinking, but rather controversy and disagreement. The second premise that if there really was a way things really are, we would not have so much controversy about it. Detmer offers several explanations for how misleading this kind of argument is. One is the fact that “frequently, not all parties to a dispute have access to the same evidence. (Therefore) people confuse relativity of justified belief with relativity of truth.” This leads Detmer to implement critical thinking, and inquire as to how we gain access to evidence in the first place (we being the general public, and not scientists and philosophers).

That access, in today’s world, is gained through the media.

It is here where Seidman and I diverge. In the "what it all means" portion of the review, Seidman applauds Detmer's use of Noam Chomsky as an "objective" news source. And while he does take the news media to task for trying to present arguments as being a choice of either/or or black/white/no-shades-of-gray and for trying to offer voices with the most entertainment value (John McCain or Joe Biden, anyone?), it is in making this last point that he betrays his leftward cant.

Also, Detmer points out that the press’s criteria for finding out who should provide the two sides to any argument, they often look for who will offer the best ‘entertainment value,’ for who is most popular, or for which opinion fits the political slant of their publication or production (as is well-known, many of these have shifted far to the Right since the merging of major mass media operations, mostly owned by the likes of Clear Channel, Rupert Murdoch, and Disney.)

Sure, the ownership may be conservative in their management style because it is sound business practice, but to imply that because media ownership is more conservative means that media content and news analysis has shifted "far to the Right" is a stretch. Finally, Seidman wraps up his review with a quote from Detmer

Quoting Chomsky for the purpose of emphasizing an ethical framework based on Enlightenment Humanism and of the virtues of truth, Detmer records, “Why don’t our leaders tell the truth? When they’re going to destroy Iraq, why don’t they announce: 'Look, we want to control the international oil system. We want to establish the principle that the world is ruled by force, because that’s the only thing that we’re good at. We want to prevent any independent nationalism. We’ve got nothing against Saddam Hussein. He’s a friend of ours. He’s tortured and gassed people. That was fine. But then he disobeyed orders. Therefore, he must be destroyed as a lesson to other people: Don’t disobey orders.'”

I'll let that stand on it's own as an indication from where Detmer and Seidman view politics, etc.

In summary, the review is valuable in that it provides a good synopsis of how to undercut your postmodern friends in a dinner party debate. It is also valuable in revealing that even poor reasoning leftists agree that postmodernism is bunk.

History's Most Misunderstood Concept

The Chronicle of Higher Ed asked four scholars to explain the most misunderstood concepts in their fields in "The Short List: Misunderstood Concepts." Robert J. Norrell, a professor of history at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville offered that it was the concept of objectivity:

The most misunderstood concept in history is objectivity. I entered the academic world in the aftermath of 1960s idealism with the faith that the truth would set me, and society, free. I thought, 'Let's study the past, identify the wrongs done, and correct them' -- an idea that presumed confidence in both human authority in the world and our ability to objectively establish what was wrong in society.

Objectivity as an ideal for historians, however, soon lost favor. In the 1970s, historians began a quest to include those who had been left out of our typical narratives: blacks, women, the working class. Influenced by the countercultural influences of the 60s, those practicing this 'new history' often dismissed old history as biased in favor of white, male elites in the West, and tended to celebrate those forgotten people without subjecting them to the same tough-minded criticism that they were applying to the old elites.

Postmodernist thought in the 80s continued to undermine historians' notions of objectivity, and for many younger historians, the pursuit of truth held about the same importance as looking for the Loch Ness monster. They presumed instead that all reality is constructed according to internal or group perspective, mainly by class, race, or gender. With reality so fractured by our limited perspectives, they felt, it is therefore impossible to determine an objective truth -- and is, in fact, misguided to even try.

The problem was that the academy's dismissal of objectivity set us against the larger public that likes to read history and think historically. The average nonacademic person believes that historical truth can be established, or at least approximated, and that the value of history is its ability to teach us actually what our experience has been. This divide between academic history and what the public understands about the past has resulted from the intellectuals' too-casual dismissal of the human capacity to seek truth, which has undermined our ability to shape understandings of the past outside the academy.

While I am by no means a strong believer in post-modernism as a historical "method," I do believe that the repercussions of post-modern thought have forced historians to look in new places for sources and to re-evaluate the old sources. As Norrell mentions though, the critical eye should properly be fixed on the new groups who benefitted from post-modern historical analysis. Thus, many disparate truths can be combined into a whole. It is obvious people have different perceptions of what happened. Usually it is a combination of many factors that best explains "the truth."

The Jaded Utopianist

In "The last of the utopian projects," Eric Hobsbawm asks

Did perestroika herald "the end of history"? The collapse of the experiment initiated by the October Revolution is certainly the end of a history. That experiment will not be repeated, although the hope it represented, at least initially, will remain a permanent part of human aspirations. And the enormous social injustice which gave communism its historic force in the last century is not diminishing in this one. But was it "the end of history" as Francis Fukuyama proclaimed in 1989, in a phrase that he no doubt regrets?

The answer is, of course, "NO", it was not the end of History. And though many have misunderstood Fukuyama's main thesis, Hobsbawm clearly doesn't when, after a paragraph summarizing (yet again) the U.S. drive for world empire, he continues:

Even more questionable is the wider - almost quasi-Hegelian - sense of Fukuyama's phrase. It implies that history has an end, namely a world capitalist economy developing without limits, married to societies ruled by liberal-democratic institutions. There is no historic justification for teleology, whether non-Marxist or Marxist, and certainly none for believing in unilinear and uniform worldwide development.

Both evolutionary science and the experiences of the 20th century have taught us that evolution has no direction that allows us concrete predictions about its future social, cultural and political consequences.

The belief that the US or the European Union, in their various forms, have achieved a mode of government which, however desirable, is destined to conquer the world, and is not subject to historic transformation and impermanence, is the last of the utopian projects so characteristic of the last century. What the 21st needs is both social hope and historical realism.

It is interesting that one who was so wedded to his own utopian ideal (Communism), now dispenses with the possibility that any other set of ideals can be approached. As for myself, I don't believe that any set of "utopian ideals" can ever be attained either, but Hobsbawm has the tone of one who, after seeing his own worldview dismantled, has resolved to dismantle that of others by essentially saying they are wasting their time in the effort. In short, Hobsbawm assumes that because he and his fellow Communists wrongly believed that their socio-political model would prove everlasting, proponents of other socio-political arrangements will "repeat history" and the results will be similar failure. While it's nice to see that he now believes in some degree of "historical realism," (basing it, it seems, on "evolutionary history", which is in and of itself an interesting theory) he misses the mark in trying to peg those who believe in "a world capitalist economy developing without limits, married to societies ruled by liberal-democratic institutions" as being utopianists. According to my albeit amature understanding, once a society reaches Utopia, its citizenry believes that it can go on autopilot and that no tweaking needs to be done. As such, vigilance is lost. In the case of Communism, even when the ideals on which it was based were bastardized and undercut, the Communist idealist failed or wouldn't see the problem and sought to paper over the cracks in the system. With no means to fix the system, it became unworkable.

However, Hobsbawm's warning is worth heeding because it is true that no system that is perfect in theory is perfect in application, but his cynical assumptions don't undercut the "theory of liberty" on this point for two reasons. One is that liberal democracies don't assume they are perfect for everyone within the society and are forever being changed and modified to meet practical problems with pragmatic solutions that are often at odds with ideals previously espoused by that society. The second is related to the first. Liberal democracies are generally aware that they must always be on guard against threats to liberty from power (to borrow from Bernard Bailyn and his example of the radical Whig commonwealthmen). As such, vigilance is at the very core of the system. So long as citizens maintain this vigilance and make sure that they can continue to take action against encroaching power, liberal democracies will succeed.

The Relative Evils of Fascism and Communism

Slavoj Zizek begins an essay titled "The Two Totalitarianisms" with this observation:

A small note – not the stuff of headlines, obviously – appeared in the newspapers on 3 February. In response to a call for the prohibition of the public display of the swastika and other Nazi symbols, a group of conservative members of the European Parliament, mostly from ex-Communist countries, demanded that the same apply to Communist symbols: not only the hammer and sickle, but even the red star. This proposal should not be dismissed lightly: it suggests a deep change in Europe’s ideological identity.

Till now, to put it straightforwardly, Stalinism hasn’t been rejected in the same way as Nazism. We are fully aware of its monstrous aspects, but still find Ostalgie acceptable: you can make Goodbye Lenin!, but Goodbye Hitler! is unthinkable. Why?

Zizek explains what he believes are both the valid and flawed points of the argument and some of the comparisons he makes are worth pointing out.

Stalinism conceived itself as part of the Enlightenment tradition, according to which, truth being accessible to any rational man, no matter how depraved, everyone must be regarded as responsible for his crimes. But for the Nazis the guilt of the Jews was a fact of their biological constitution: there was no need to prove they were guilty, since they were guilty by virtue of being Jews.

In the Stalinist ideological imaginary, universal reason is objectivised in the guise of the inexorable laws of historical progress, and we are all its servants, the leader included. . . . Consider the fact that, on Stalin’s birthday, prisoners would send him congratulatory telegrams from the darkest gulags: it isn’t possible to imagine a Jew in Auschwitz sending Hitler such a telegram. It is a tasteless distinction, but it supports the contention that under Stalin, the ruling ideology presupposed a space in which the leader and his subjects could meet as servants of Historical Reason. Under Stalin, all people were, theoretically, equal. . .

Nazism displaces class struggle onto racial struggle and in doing so obfuscates its true nature. What changes in the passage from Communism to Nazism is a matter of form, and it is in this that the Nazi ideological mystification resides: the political struggle is naturalised as racial conflict, the class antagonism inherent in the social structure reduced to the invasion of a foreign (Jewish) body which disturbs the harmony of the Aryan community. It is not, as Nolte claims, that there is in both cases the same formal antagonistic structure, but that the place of the enemy is filled by a different element (class, race). Class antagonism, unlike racial difference and conflict, is absolutely inherent to and constitutive of the social field; Fascism displaces this essential antagonism. . .

[t]he irrationality of Nazism was ‘condensed’ in anti-semitism – in its belief in the Jewish plot – while the irrationality of Stalinism pervaded the entire social body. For that reason, Nazi police investigators looked for proofs and traces of active opposition to the regime, whereas Stalin’s investigators were happy to fabricate evidence, invent plots etc.

He also calls to task Communist thinkers who saw the flaw in Stalinism but did little to bring it in line with the "true" Communist ideals.

We should also admit that we still lack a satisfactory theory of Stalinism. It is, in this respect, a scandal that the Frankfurt School failed to produce a systematic and thorough analysis of the phenomenon. The exceptions are telling: Franz Neumann’s Behemoth (1942), which suggested that the three great world-systems – New Deal capitalism, Fascism and Stalinism – tended towards the same bureaucratic, globally organised, ‘administered’ society; Herbert Marcuse’s Soviet Marxism (1958), his least passionate book, a strangely neutral analysis of Soviet ideology with no clear commitments; and, finally, in the 1980s, the attempts by some Habermasians who, reflecting on the emerging dissident phenomena, endeavoured to elaborate the notion of civil society as a site of resistance to the Communist regime – interesting, but not a global theory of the specificity of Stalinist totalitarianism. How could a school of Marxist thought that claimed to focus on the conditions of the failure of the emancipatory project abstain from analysing the nightmare of ‘actually existing socialism’? And was its focus on Fascism not a silent admission of the failure to confront the real trauma?

It is here that one has to make a choice. The ‘pure’ liberal attitude towards Leftist and Rightist ‘totalitarianism’ – that they are both bad, based on the intolerance of political and other differences, the rejection of democratic and humanist values etc – is a priori false. It is necessary to take sides and proclaim Fascism fundamentally ‘worse’ than Communism. The alternative, the notion that it is even possible to compare rationally the two totalitarianisms, tends to produce the conclusion – explicit or implicit – that Fascism was the lesser evil, an understandable reaction to the Communist threat.

Zizek clearly believes Fascism, particularly Nazism, worse than Communism. To me, the whole debate is premised upon the kind of false either/or choice that only an academic would engage in. While his points of contrast are interesting, the very real result of life under both systems was tragic. While we can debate which was more evil, the bottom line is that both political systems resulted in evil acts done in their "name," regardless of the ideals that purportedly formed their foundation.

Rhode Island Historical Society: Selling A Desk IV

Having blogged, or more accurately, passed along, the debate regarding the Brown Family 9-shell desk, I am happy to pass along a piece regarding the historical importance of the desk, sans the debate. (Excerpted from here):

"It really is a one-of-a-kind piece," says Thomas S. Michie, former decorative arts curator at the RISD Museum and an authority on Colonial-era Rhode Island furniture. "Even in the rarefield world of Colonial furniture, the Joseph Brown desk is in a class by itself."

Michie, who recently moved to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, says the desk's unique history makes it especially important. Long attributed to Newport's Townsend-Goddard workshop, the desk is now thought to be the work of Providence cabinetmaker John Carlile Jr.

"Until recently, Newport was considered the gold standard for Colonial furniture in Rhode Island," Michie says. "Now the pendulum seems to be swinging in the other direction. Now we know there were great cabinetmakers working in Providence and Newport."

Still, what difference does it make if the desk was made in Newport or Providence? A lot, say Michie and other experts.

For one thing, it proves that Providence had skilled craftsmen capable producing high-style Colonial furniture. Until recently, scholars had assumed that Newport, as Rhode Island's largest and wealthiest Colonial city, was the state's only source for such furniture.

The desk also has a number of unusual features -- notably a series of nine carved scallop shells on its drawers and cabinets.

"By themselves, scallop shells are nothing special," Michie explains. "What makes the Joseph Brown desk unique is the number of shells, and the fact that the shells are carved directly into the drawers and cabinets rather than being carved separately, then applied later."

While such details may seem obscure, they can also provide information about the past that might otherwise remain hidden. Michie, for example, speculates that the maker of the Joseph Brown desk may have been trying to beat Newport cabinetmakers at their own game.

"For Newport cabinemakers like the Townsends and Goddards, six shells was usually the maximum," he says. "To make a desk with nine scallop shells might have been a way of saying, 'Hey, whatever you can do, I can do better.' "

That, in turn, could shed light on the growing rivalry between Providence and Newport at the end of the Colonial period, according to Wendy A. Cooper, a curator at Delaware's Winterthur Museum.

"Before the Revolution, Newport was clearly the dominant city," Cooper says. "Yet by the end of the war, Providence had emerged as the real economic powerhouse. In that context, it makes sense that a prominent member of Providence's merchant class -- Joseph Brown -- would commission a desk from a Providence rather than a Newport workshop."

At the same time, Cooper notes that Joseph Brown's brothers -- John, Nicholas and Moses -- all owned Newport-made desk-and-bookcases. Indeed, it was the sale of one of those desks in 1987 that set the record for a piece of American furniture at auction: $12.1 million.

"There's still a lot we don't know," says Cooper.

The masterpiece

Interestingly, Michie and Cooper both give Newport cabinetmakers higher marks for style than their Providence counterparts.

"The best Newport pieces are incredibly refined," says Cooper. "There's a feeling for wood as a living, organic material that you don't find anywhere else, including Providence. In that sense, people like the Townsends and Goddards were more like artists than artisans."

Michie agrees, describing the Joseph Brown desk as "chunky" and "heavy" compared to similar Newport pieces.

Yet Michie and Cooper also say such stylistic considerations are beside the point in gauging the desk's historical value. In their view, the desk's connections to Brown, Carlile and Providence make it an invaluable part of the Historical Society's collection.

"It really is the masterpiece of Providence furniture-making," says Michie. "No matter what kind of financial problems the Historical Society is facing, I don't see how they can justify selling it. It violates everything they're supposed to stand for."

Cooper, who has worked as an adviser to the Historical Society, would say only that she is "saddened" by the society's decision to sell the Brown desk. But she did agree to talk about the desk's social and cultural background -- a subject with which she is well acquainted.

Indeed, it was a 1999 essay by Cooper and another scholar, Tara Gleason, that firmly placed the Brown desk in the context of Providence cabinetmaking clans such as the Rawsons and the Carliles.

"Almost from the beginning, people had noticed differences about the Joseph Brown desk," she says. "It had nine shells, not the usual three or six. The pediment was different. The moldings were different. The problem was that we didn't have a context for it."

Hand-scrawled inscription

Cooper says a major breakthrough came in 1982, when a scholar named Joseph K. Ott noticed a hand-scrawled inscription on a Colonial-era desk owned by a private collector. The inscription read: "Providence August 6 1785 John Carlile junr of said town Joyner."

"It was first time a specific piece of furniture had been connected to a specific furniture-maker working in Providence," Cooper says. "In retrospect, I think you could say that was the catalyst."

Since then, Cooper and other scholars have continued to gather information on Providence furniture and furniture-makers.

We now know, for example, that Carlile was part of a larger family of "joyners" or woodworkers who moved to Providence from Boston in the mid-1750s. We also know that the city had at least one other major furniture-making workshop -- this one headed by Grindal Rawson, another Massachuetts native who moved to Providence in 1752.

Scholars have also identified a number of features that distinguish high-style Colonial furniture from Providence.

For example, Providence furniture-makers typically carved shells and other decorative motifs directly into the body of their pieces, a process that gives them a bolder, more sculptural appearance. Details on Newport furniture, on ther other, were often carved separately, then applied as finishing touches to drawers and cabinets.

Another distinctive feature is the use of complex moldings, including an unusual arch-shaped foot that loops upward on the instep, then dips suddenly before resuming its upward climb. By contrast, Newport furniture-makers generally preferred simpler, more elegant moldings.

Brown may have helped

Codifying such features has allowed scholars to identify other examples of Providence-made furniture, including a nine-shell chest-on-chest (also attributed to John Carlile Jr.) in Winterthur's collection, and another chest in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Scholars have also uncovered a number of connections between Carlile and Joseph Brown.

Indeed, both Michie and Cooper point to similarities between the top, or pediment, of Brown's desk and the roof of his residence at 50 South Main St. as evidence that Brown may have helped Carlile design the desk.

"It's an intriguing idea," says Cooper. "We know that Brown had an interest in architecture and design. There's also speculation that he may have designed his own house. So why not the desk?"

Rhode Island Historical Society: Selling A Desk III

David Brussat, in "A deskful of hope and hypocrisy," extends the debate on the Brown 'shell desk and exposes the "hypocrisy" of some of those critical of the RIHS plan to sell the desk to fund their endowment.

Our memories are so short. Even recent history challenges recollection. Take the sale of a desk to save a house steeped in Rhode Island history. The sale was a case of "one icon saving the other."

Who said that?

Capt. Nicholas Brown said that in 1989, as he donated his desk to be put up at auction to finance repairs of the Nightingale-Brown House, built in 1791 and once the home of his late parents. Today, he opposes the sale of a similar desk to save another icon -- the Rhode Island Historical Society, founded in 1822, almost as old as its colonial-era desk.

This time, the planned sale of a desk has set off furor and umbrage unseen since . . . well, since last year, when the Providence Athenaeum sought to sell an original folio of Audubon bird engravings to solve its own financial problems.

Critics asserted that the Athenaeum had been secretive about its plans to sell the folio. So the Historical Society opened its decision-making to public view. But that won it few points with foes of the sale, and a barrage commenced in short order.

Almost every notable critic of the society's proposed sale has been involved, it seems to me, in decisions far more corrosive of Rhode Island's heritage than the society's proposal to sell its desk.

Edward Sanderson, director of the Rhode Island Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission, resigned from the society's board. But his agency has approved projects that would mar or even block views of the State House. It okayed a glass box on top of the Masonic Temple (a version of the hotel project that fell through) and the modernist GTECH headquarters now under construction, which will block the State House from some angles and, in my opinion, ruin Waterplace Park. Sanderson has no standing to object to the mere sale of a desk.

Roger Mandle, president of the Rhode Island School of Design, wrote a letter to The Journal ("R.I. heritage sale," Feb. 23) asserting that the sale "grossly betrays the preservation of regional heritage." But RISD's planned modernist Chace Center, on North Main Street, would be a far worse betrayal -- tantamount to spraying graffiti on a canvas of the collective work of local architects going back more than two centuries. RISD's planned desecration of the city's first street leaves Mandle with no standing to criticize the mere sale of a desk.

Is it something in their drinking water?

Frank Mauran III, ringleader of opposition to the Athenaeum's Audubon sale, sought to demolish a row of historic triple-deckers he owned at Benefit and Bowen streets. And he a former president of the Providence Preservation Society! Mauran has no standing to criticize the mere sale of a book.

Some will deny that these architectural disruptions are comparable to selling a desk. Indeed, they are far worse. They erode civic history and beauty that, unlike even the most rare and valuable desk in a house museum, the public enjoys every day. The desk may be sold but it won't be demolished.

Not all of the opponents of the desk sale have committed sins against architecture. Hardly. The very same Captain Brown was the director of Preserve Rhode Island when it tried, not long ago, to auction off original copies of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. He now objects to the sale of a desk. What cheek!

But wait, there's more!

In January, the Goddard and Brown families -- including three who signed a letter by Captain Brown criticizing the society -- auctioned off furniture that included a 1760s tea table, which fetched $8.4 million. Other items among those sold had been on public display at the Nightingale-Brown House. Yes, it was theirs to sell, but now it's no less gone from Rhode Island. They have no standing to criticize the society for planning to sell a desk donated unconditionally in 1944.

This catalogue of hypocrisy does not prove the rightness or wrongness of any decision to sell off historical treasures. Rather, it suggests that some mysterious factor beyond regret at the potential loss of a desk must explain all the hyperventilating.

Doubtless, well-heeled and well-connected readers are already composing deft ripostes to this column. Save your energy. Spend your money instead.

A consortium drawn exclusively from the personages and institutions named in this column could buy the desk. They could display it in the RISD Museum's excellent furniture collection -- where it really belongs -- or elsewhere in Rhode Island.

Or perhaps they could get money from the defunct, or at least hibernating, Heritage Harbor Museum project and use it to bail out the Historical Society (and, for that matter, other cultural nonprofits whose donor pools were for years drained by Heritage Harbor). That way, the society wouldn't have to sell the desk to ensure its own survival.

The Rhode Island Historical Society doesn't want to sell the desk. But to keep it in Rhode Island, leadership must come from those who have not stepped up to the plate, except to criticize. I don't think they've got it in them. Please prove me wrong.

Meanwhile, Robert E. Cusack, a member of the Rhode Island State Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission and a financial assets manager, explains that there is a way to both sell historical treasures to private interests to raise money and for the general public to still have access to those items.

This loss of important historical resources, many of which are unique to Rhode Island, diminishes all of us, both those with a keen appreciation of these things and those who have yet to learn about them. Of course, the financial problems of the institutions that prompt the sales have not happened overnight, and the stresses and strains the financial pressures have produced have caused rancor and clashes of personalities that make it all the more difficult to attract the major gifts that would solve the budget shortfalls. Moreover, prospective donors wonder if their gifts would truly solve the financial problems once and for all, or would they be asked again for help in a few years' time?

But what if there were another way to solve the financial problems and yet keep the treasures? What if an organization could sell the "priceless" object but still have it to exhibit? What if Audubon's The Birds of America and the nine-shell Joseph Brown desk could stay in Rhode Island?

A new entity, itself a nonprofit, could be formed to raise funds, buy the assets, and lend them back to the organizations to display. This entity would advise a trust established at the Rhode Island Foundation, for example, which would invest the funds raised, and distribute annual income at the rate of, say, 4.5 percent, to the institution, to supplement its budget.

As the principal value of the invested assets grew, so would the dollar amount of the annual distributions. Thus, the institution would have the effect of an increase in endowment, with a prudent level of withdrawals available, but would not control the principal -- or the art object, either, for that matter.

The new entity, under no pressure of programs or salaries to fund, would simply pay a rising "allowance" to the old entities. If for any reason the old entities got in financial trouble again, then at least the most important assets would be safe.

And why would donors want to help? I believe they always did, but found many reasons to think twice. They now would not have to choose sides in the battles among board factions. They now could know that a prudent steward of the capital raised would be there to safeguard both the investments and the collection. In fact, if it made financial sense to temporarily lend an item to a museum in another part of the country for a fee, that could be another source of income.

By the way, over 80,000 people in 2002 paid admission to see four of the Audubon birds prints at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. The folio at the Providence Athenaeum has 435 prints in (rare) loose-leaf form to display, and valuable collections today travel routinely, with the help of professionals.

Although the Athenaeum purchased the Audubon folio, most of the treasures in the hands of Rhode Island institutions were donated by owners confident that the objects would be kept safe, made available to the public, and retained indefinitely. To put it mildly, recent developments will have a chilling effect on potential future donations of valuable and historically significant objects. Objects that might have been given to local nonprofits may simply be sold to faraway high bidders and lost to Rhode Island forever.

A new entity protected from financial pressure could not only save treasures currently endangered, but also provide peace of mind to future donors -- encouraging gifts that future generations would be able to view and appreciate.

Thus, it's not really an either/or situation.

Rhode Island Historical Society: Selling A Desk II

As mentioned earlier, the Rhode Island Historical Society, cash-strapped from poor endowment management and bad decisions, has decided to auction off a rare desk, estimated to be worth $10-12 million. Now, members of the family who originally donated the desk are protesting the potential sale. From the Providence Journal story:

In a Feb. 16 letter to society president Roger Begin, members of the Brown and Goddard families say the sale would violate the "intent of the gift" that brought the desk to the Historical Society in 1944. Prior to 1944, the desk belonged to Brown & Ives, a Providence company that traces its roots to the days of the desk's original owner: 18th-century merchant Joseph Brown.

The letter, which was released to The Journal this week, also questions whether the society's financial problems are as acute as its officials maintain.

Last fall, an internal review found that the society's endowment had dropped by nearly 30 percent in six years, from $6.5 million in 1998 to $4.5 million in 2004. The review, which is posted on the society's Web site (www.rihs.org), also found that future operating costs could result in deficits of up to $700,000 a year.

But Nicholas Brown, a former director of Baltimore's National Aquarium and one of the Brown family members to sign the letter, said the review exaggerated the extent of the society's financial crisis.

"If you look closely at the report, it's clear the deficit numbers don't reflect the society's current situation," Brown said. "What they've done is take a bunch of programs and other initiatives that they want to implement after they sell the desk and simply folded them into their financial projections for future years."

Brown said the society should explore other options -- including selling its longtime administrative headquarters, Aldrich House -- before selling the Joseph Brown desk. (In addition to Aldrich House, the Historical Society operates the John Brown House Museum and the RIHS Library in Providence, and the Museum of Work & Culture in Woonsocket.)

Rhode Island Historical Society / David Schultz

This mahogany desk and bookcase is expected to fetch up to $10 million in auction.

"The problem with selling the desk is that once you've sold it, it's gone," said Brown. "You can't get it back."

At the same time, Brown conceded that mounting a legal challenge to the sale would be difficult. He noted that the desk had been given to the Historical Society without specific directions for its future care or display.

"Basically, our position is that the sale violates the spirit and intent of the bequest," Brown said. "The question of whether there's a solid legal basis to challenge the sale is, at best, murky."

Contacted about the letter -- which was also signed by Angela Brown Fischer, William H.D. Goddard and Thomas P.I. Goddard -- the Historical Society yesterday released a statement saying that it is willing to discuss any "realistic ways to strengthen the society in ways that would make selling the Joseph Brown desk unnecessary."

However, the statement added that "no realistic alternative to selling the desk has yet appeared."

The statement also detailed steps the society has already taken to ease its financial problems, including eliminating one-fifth of its paid staff and reducing hours at its Hope Street library.

The statement concluded with a stark choice: "The sale of the desk will allow the society to properly care for its vast collections, which represent all Rhode Islanders, for generations to come. The alternative is a desk locked away in a closed and shuttered house, dark to the public and lost to the community."

Meanwhile, representatives of some of the state's leading arts and cultural organizations have signed their names to another letter condemning the Historical Society's actions.

The letter begins: "We are writing today to express our sorrow and indignation at the proposed sale of the Joseph Brown desk by the Rhode Island Historical Society."

Written by Pieter Roos, executive director of the Newport Restoration Foundation, the letter goes on to say: "This action by the Historical Society is nothing short of the sale of Rhode Island's birthright, and as both museum professionals and residents of this state, we are deeply angered by this major breach of ethics."

So far, the letter has attracted more than 25 signatures, including those of Trudy Coxe, executive director of the Preservation Society of Newport County; Christine Callahan, executive director of the Newport Art Museum; and Lora Urbanelli, interim director of the Rhode Island School of Design Museum.

"Basically, it's a way for those of us in the museum world to express our feelings about what the Historical Society is doing," said Roos, an expert in Colonial-era furniture. "In the museum field, you're supposed to take care of the objects that have been entrusted to you. You're not supposed to get rid of them, especially to cover expenses."

Other letter signers echoed Roos' remarks.

"I have the greatest respect for the Historical Society and its leadership," said Coxe. "But in this case, I think they need to consider the long-term impact of their decision. Who's going to donate the Joseph Brown desks of tomorrow if there's a chance they'll be sold?"

"I think it's a tough letter, but I think it sends an important message," said RISD's Urbanelli. "We all want to support the Historical Society, but we think there are better ways to deal with its financial problems than selling off what is, in effect, its greatest treasure."

. . . Protests have grown in recent weeks, as the society moves closer to selling the desk and other objects. The items' combined value is estimated at $12 million. The most likely scenario is a public sale organized by a major auction house such as Christie's or Sotheby's.

For the most part, Roos and other critics say they have no objection to selling pieces with little or no connection to Rhode Island. What they can't abide, they say, is the sale of the Joseph Brown desk, a "nine-shell" mahogany desk and bookcase long attributed to Newport's famed Townsend-Goddard workshop, but now thought to be the work of Providence cabinetmaker John Carlile Jr.

In the eyes of Roos and other experts, the desk's Providence pedigree makes it even more valuable, since few examples of high-style Colonial furniture were produced in the city.

"Regardless of whatever monetary value you assign to it, its historical value is really incalculable," said Roos. "Its beauty, its rarity, its craftsmanship -- along with its intimate connection to Rhode Island and to Providence -- really make it one of a kind."

Many of the critics fault the RIHS for wanting more money than it really needs.

Four years ago, the society was operating with a $700,000 deficit. In the past few years, the organization cut $500,000 from its budget, but stills runs a $250,000 deficit. Its annual budget is now $1.7 million.

How did the society get here?

Many factors led to the group's financial situation, but the society's leaders say that the crisis centers around the endowment fund, which is the financial backbone of many nonprofit organizations. The society's endowment fell from $6.5 million to $4.6 million between 1998 and 2004 because of fluctuations in the stock market and heavy withdrawals in previous years.

Investment income from the endowment is used to support an institution, but the principal money and remaining interest income are supposed to be untouched.

A safe draw on an endowment fund is about 5 percent, said Bernard P. Fishman, who was hired in 2002 as executive director of the Historical Society. But from 1995 to 2002, the society drew 6.5 percent to 12.3 percent from the fund each year.

"It's contrary to sound practice," Fishman said.

The withdrawals infused the society's budget with between $320,000 and $804,000 annually, but eroded the endowment and masked the deficits that the society was running, society leaders said.

During that period, the society expanded programs and plunged into efforts to create the Heritage Harbor Museum -- a project that failed.

A former director of the Historical Society said the Heritage project distracted and drained the society.

"Rhode Island Historical Society didn't pay enough attention to its own fundraising needs," said Sanderson, who recently resigned from the board because of the proposed sale of the mahogany desk and bookcase.

The society's leadership believes the sale of the desk and other objects could fetch $12 million at auction. The money would be pumped into the endowment fund, and in turn, help pay for cataloging and preserving the society's massive collection.

But Sanderson believes that the society should raise the money through donations, not the sale of the desk.

"I think the society needs to make its case to the community for increased support," he said.

Fishman said there is no way they can raise $12 million from the community. The most the society has ever raised in a fundraising campaign is $1 million, he said.

Fishman said it is difficult for a financially unsound organization to raise money, and contributors are reluctant to donate to an endowment; they prefer giving to "bricks and mortar" projects where they can see the results.

Critics question whether the society really needs $12 million.

Sanderson, the Brown family, and Harrison Wright, another board member who quit over the sale of the desk, believe the society could survive with less.

The society predicts it will have deficits of $700,000 in upcoming years. But Wright said that scenario is based on a "strategic plan" that involves creating exhibition space for the society's collection. Wright and Sanderson said the proposed plans are good for the society, but not at the expense of the desk.

The society could survive with an additional $3.5 million, which would cover the $250,000 deficit, Wright said.

That is just treading water, said Donald Carleton, acting director of development at the society. "Treading water means no attention to collections care," he said. "It means only keeping the lights on."

The question is: is it worth selling a unique piece with intrinsic historical linkages to Rhode Island for the sake of preserving and expanding the mission of the Rhode Island Historical Society? How much more Rhode Island History can be preserved and shown if this one piece is "sacrificed"? There is no easy answer, but it would seem that losing one, extremely valuable piece to save many more is worth it. The hard part is being confident that the RIHS will spend the money wisely. They haven't shown such ability in the past. Nonetheless, the point is not to tread water, it is to extend and expand the reach of the RIHS. In the course of saving a vast quantity of Rhode Island's history, it would seem that one item is a small price to pay.