Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 413
June 26, 2012
June 26, 2012: Insurance Claims
[As summer gets underway, this week’s series will be on American Studies topics connected to summer jobs I’ve worked. Your experiences, thoughts, and job stories—good, bad, or ugly—very welcome in comments, and for another crowd-sourced post this weekend!]
On the worst and the best of what I learned in my summer working in—or at least near—the health insurance industry.Nostalgia is a dangerous thing for a variety for reasons, and certainly that can be the case when it comes to American Studies. It can be easy, for example, for those of us who bemoan the increasingly corporatized and for-profit state of so much of 21st century American society to hearken to an earlier, more communal moment, when profits seem to have not so consistently been prioritized above people. Yet the truth is likely significantly more complicated—that profits and people have always been competitors, that every industry and aspect of society has been driven by both selfish and selfless forces since its origin points. Certainly the origins of health insurance in America, which began in many ways in the early 20thcentury, contains both sides: Progressive reformers argued for the need for national insurance plans in order to protect all Americans from increasing medical costs (in new, technologically advanced hospitals); while the newly formed American Medical Association and other physicians’ groups critiqued such ideas as impractical and pushed for very different, more profit-based narratives of insurance.That history is important to remember, and not to idealize or be nostalgic about. As is, to cite a very salient second example, the history of Harry Truman’s proposal for a nationalized health plan, and the significant pushback he and that proposal received (being called a Communist, for example). These issues and problems, and the social and political debates they produce, are not at all new. Yet I also feel that they may have gotten even worse in recent decades—and I had a chance to experience some of the worst aspects of the health insurance industry in the summer after my freshman year in college, when I worked for a few months for the University of Virginia’s Health Services Foundation. My job was to follow up on insurance claims for UVa patients that had been denied or otherwise not paid, and to try to find out why and help get the issues resolved if possible. And while this is purely anecdotal, I was told by one of my colleagues, who was also a former claims servicer for a major insurance company, that the company’s policy when he worked there was for the servicers to throw out every claim the first time they received it, since at least some of the patients would not follow up a second time. I don’t know if he was telling the truth—but what he said rang true for so much of what I did experience at that job, and so much of what I have seen and learned about insurance companies in general. Which is, in and of itself, a pretty strong indictment of those companies and the system they’re a part of.Yet that’s not all I saw and learned in that summer of work. After all, my own role, and the role of all those who were doing the job around me (including that former claims servicer), was indeed in the most communal and positive spirit of what health insurance can and should mean: looking out for those patients, trying to help them get the coverage (and the health care) that they need and deserve, making sure that they weren’t fighting that fight on their own. And to be very clear, I felt the same from all of the insurance company employees with whom I spoke, many of whom I talked to nearly every day; they too saw their jobs (whatever their companies might be telling them!) as working with people like me, trying to resolve things for these patients (not ignoring the company’s interests, but neither treating the patients as simply secondary to those interests), working to make the system work more consistently. Idealizing people can be as reductive or dangerous as idealizing the past, I know—but there’s no question that the vast majority of the people I encountered that summer had their hearts and goals in the right places. If we’re going to reform a system—as the Progressives well knew—it’s pretty important to remember the best of what people are and can be, as well as the worst of what those systems can include.Next summer job connection tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Experiences and ideas you’d highlight for the weekend’s post?6/26 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two unique, talented,and influential20th century American women, Pearl S. Buck and Babe Didrickson Zaharias.
On the worst and the best of what I learned in my summer working in—or at least near—the health insurance industry.Nostalgia is a dangerous thing for a variety for reasons, and certainly that can be the case when it comes to American Studies. It can be easy, for example, for those of us who bemoan the increasingly corporatized and for-profit state of so much of 21st century American society to hearken to an earlier, more communal moment, when profits seem to have not so consistently been prioritized above people. Yet the truth is likely significantly more complicated—that profits and people have always been competitors, that every industry and aspect of society has been driven by both selfish and selfless forces since its origin points. Certainly the origins of health insurance in America, which began in many ways in the early 20thcentury, contains both sides: Progressive reformers argued for the need for national insurance plans in order to protect all Americans from increasing medical costs (in new, technologically advanced hospitals); while the newly formed American Medical Association and other physicians’ groups critiqued such ideas as impractical and pushed for very different, more profit-based narratives of insurance.That history is important to remember, and not to idealize or be nostalgic about. As is, to cite a very salient second example, the history of Harry Truman’s proposal for a nationalized health plan, and the significant pushback he and that proposal received (being called a Communist, for example). These issues and problems, and the social and political debates they produce, are not at all new. Yet I also feel that they may have gotten even worse in recent decades—and I had a chance to experience some of the worst aspects of the health insurance industry in the summer after my freshman year in college, when I worked for a few months for the University of Virginia’s Health Services Foundation. My job was to follow up on insurance claims for UVa patients that had been denied or otherwise not paid, and to try to find out why and help get the issues resolved if possible. And while this is purely anecdotal, I was told by one of my colleagues, who was also a former claims servicer for a major insurance company, that the company’s policy when he worked there was for the servicers to throw out every claim the first time they received it, since at least some of the patients would not follow up a second time. I don’t know if he was telling the truth—but what he said rang true for so much of what I did experience at that job, and so much of what I have seen and learned about insurance companies in general. Which is, in and of itself, a pretty strong indictment of those companies and the system they’re a part of.Yet that’s not all I saw and learned in that summer of work. After all, my own role, and the role of all those who were doing the job around me (including that former claims servicer), was indeed in the most communal and positive spirit of what health insurance can and should mean: looking out for those patients, trying to help them get the coverage (and the health care) that they need and deserve, making sure that they weren’t fighting that fight on their own. And to be very clear, I felt the same from all of the insurance company employees with whom I spoke, many of whom I talked to nearly every day; they too saw their jobs (whatever their companies might be telling them!) as working with people like me, trying to resolve things for these patients (not ignoring the company’s interests, but neither treating the patients as simply secondary to those interests), working to make the system work more consistently. Idealizing people can be as reductive or dangerous as idealizing the past, I know—but there’s no question that the vast majority of the people I encountered that summer had their hearts and goals in the right places. If we’re going to reform a system—as the Progressives well knew—it’s pretty important to remember the best of what people are and can be, as well as the worst of what those systems can include.Next summer job connection tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Experiences and ideas you’d highlight for the weekend’s post?6/26 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two unique, talented,and influential20th century American women, Pearl S. Buck and Babe Didrickson Zaharias.
June 25, 2012
June 25, 2012: Ash Lawn-Highland
[As summer gets underway, this week’s series will be on American Studies topics connected to summer jobs I’ve worked. Your experiences, thoughts, and job stories—good, bad, or ugly—very welcome in comments, and for another crowd-sourced post this weekend!]
On two very different, yet equally meaningful, ways to use a historic site.James Monroe’s longtime home, Ash Lawn-Highland, sits just down the hill from Thomas Jefferson’s much more famous Monticello, and it’s fair to say that Monroe’s home will forever be in that shadow of that most prominent Charlottesville, Virginia, and American landmark. The relationship between the two houses and sites, much like that between the two Founding Fathers and Presidents (and their neighbor James Madison), is certainly an interesting one, and could lead to plenty of American Studies analyses in its own right; but I believe that we owe it to Monroe and his home not to analyze them solely in that light. Moreover, having had the opportunity to spend two high school summers working at Ash Lawn-Highland, I came away particularly interested in the relationship between two quite distinct elements of the site.The first, and far more traditional, is the site’s recreation of Monroe’s home and era, its role as an educational and performative historic site. There are a couple of interestingly unique components to that role, to be sure: Monroe, an alumnus of the College of William and Mary, left his house to that institution, and so its educational connections are long-term and multi-layered; and the site is a working farm, making its recreations not just performative but in many ways quite productive as well. Yet despite those unique qualities, Ash Lawn-Highland’s identity as a historic site parallels it very fully to other similar sites, from Monticello and Madison’s Montpelierto America’s many other historic houses. Such sites, as we discussed at length in this spring’s NEASA Colloquium, have their strengths and weaknesses, their opportunities and limitations in how they connect audiences to the past; they are in any case an invaluable part of our national heritage, and Ash Lawn-Highland is certainly a representative and interesting example of the type.But every summer for many decades, Ash Lawn-Highland has featured a very different event: the Opera Festival (known, when I worked for two summers in the ticket and box office, as the Summer Music Festival). While some of the shows perfomed in the Festival are period pieces from the era of Monroe’s life, many are not—each summer includes at least one 20th century musical, for example; and many of the operas that have been performed over the years are likewise outside of the context of Monroe’s era. Yet what struck me about the festival, which for most of its run saw the shows performed on the site’s grounds (they have apparently moved in recent years to a different Charlottesville theater), was precisely what it contributed to the experience of Ash Lawn-Highland: a new perspective on the home, in every sense; a chance to sit behind the main house on a summer evening, to see it in a different light (literally and figuratively), to have an experience that felt not at all disconnected from the goals and identities of America’s founders and of the educational, historical, and cultural legacies of their lives and era and purposes of the sites that remember them. There are many ways to connect to a figure like Monroe, and the world of which he was and is a part; in the Festival, Ash Lawn-Highland highlighted precisely the variety and power of those different approaches.Next summer job connection tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Summer jobs you’d highlight?6/25 Memory Day nominee: James Meredith, the Civil Rights activist whose pioneering educationaland social efforts were only the first acts in a long and complexAmerican life and story.
On two very different, yet equally meaningful, ways to use a historic site.James Monroe’s longtime home, Ash Lawn-Highland, sits just down the hill from Thomas Jefferson’s much more famous Monticello, and it’s fair to say that Monroe’s home will forever be in that shadow of that most prominent Charlottesville, Virginia, and American landmark. The relationship between the two houses and sites, much like that between the two Founding Fathers and Presidents (and their neighbor James Madison), is certainly an interesting one, and could lead to plenty of American Studies analyses in its own right; but I believe that we owe it to Monroe and his home not to analyze them solely in that light. Moreover, having had the opportunity to spend two high school summers working at Ash Lawn-Highland, I came away particularly interested in the relationship between two quite distinct elements of the site.The first, and far more traditional, is the site’s recreation of Monroe’s home and era, its role as an educational and performative historic site. There are a couple of interestingly unique components to that role, to be sure: Monroe, an alumnus of the College of William and Mary, left his house to that institution, and so its educational connections are long-term and multi-layered; and the site is a working farm, making its recreations not just performative but in many ways quite productive as well. Yet despite those unique qualities, Ash Lawn-Highland’s identity as a historic site parallels it very fully to other similar sites, from Monticello and Madison’s Montpelierto America’s many other historic houses. Such sites, as we discussed at length in this spring’s NEASA Colloquium, have their strengths and weaknesses, their opportunities and limitations in how they connect audiences to the past; they are in any case an invaluable part of our national heritage, and Ash Lawn-Highland is certainly a representative and interesting example of the type.But every summer for many decades, Ash Lawn-Highland has featured a very different event: the Opera Festival (known, when I worked for two summers in the ticket and box office, as the Summer Music Festival). While some of the shows perfomed in the Festival are period pieces from the era of Monroe’s life, many are not—each summer includes at least one 20th century musical, for example; and many of the operas that have been performed over the years are likewise outside of the context of Monroe’s era. Yet what struck me about the festival, which for most of its run saw the shows performed on the site’s grounds (they have apparently moved in recent years to a different Charlottesville theater), was precisely what it contributed to the experience of Ash Lawn-Highland: a new perspective on the home, in every sense; a chance to sit behind the main house on a summer evening, to see it in a different light (literally and figuratively), to have an experience that felt not at all disconnected from the goals and identities of America’s founders and of the educational, historical, and cultural legacies of their lives and era and purposes of the sites that remember them. There are many ways to connect to a figure like Monroe, and the world of which he was and is a part; in the Festival, Ash Lawn-Highland highlighted precisely the variety and power of those different approaches.Next summer job connection tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Summer jobs you’d highlight?6/25 Memory Day nominee: James Meredith, the Civil Rights activist whose pioneering educationaland social efforts were only the first acts in a long and complexAmerican life and story.
June 23, 2012
June 23-24, 2012: Crowd-Sourced Post on the Election
[Once again I’m following up the week’s series with a crowd-sourced post, drawn from comments and thoughts of readers and fellow American Studiers. Please add yours to the mix!]
On the Open Salon version of Monday’s post, Johnny Fever argues that it’s actually the Republicans who are poised to pass their version of the DREAM Act or similarly pro-immigrant legislation, while Paul J. O’Rourke echoes my sentiments with some additional political takes.Rob Gosselin replies to Tuesday’s post by arguing, “I despise the fact that we live in a world where guns have to exist, and I choose not to own a gun myself. But I do know many people that own guns, and I do not fear them because they choose to keep one in their house. In fact I consider an armed populace to be a necessary, and perhaps the ultimate, check and balance to the power of government. Since we live in an educated and modern society it is hard to imagine that brutal and repressive people can use the rule of law to find their way to power. But history teaches us otherwise. Hitler and his cohorts legally rose to power. That does not mean that prudent regulation of guns should not exist. If no gun laws exist the population will live in fear of violence from people who will use guns to hurt them. There has to be reasonable restrictions on who is allowed to own a weapon. But if there is no gun ownership by a capable and law abiding populace then there is nothing to prevent the rise of tyranny. All we have to do is look at what is happening in Egypt right now. The military has taken control after an election said they couldn’t. A piece of paper, or a ballot box, will never guarantee freedom in a world where those who rise to power have exclusive access to weapons.” (And check out that post for subsequent conversation between me and Rob!)Not a specific response to my Wednesday post of course, but I can’t pass up linking to this Robert Wright article on the latest move toward war with Iran, one unfortunately co-sponsored by both political parties.Next series next week,BenPS. What do you think? What American Studies connections would you make for this election, for our current political or social issues, for our debates or conversations? 6/23 Memory Day nominee: Alfred Kinsey, the scientist and researcher whose pioneering and controversial investigations into human behavior and sexuality fundamentally changed our understanding of ourselves.6/24 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two almost diametrically opposed but equally i
On the Open Salon version of Monday’s post, Johnny Fever argues that it’s actually the Republicans who are poised to pass their version of the DREAM Act or similarly pro-immigrant legislation, while Paul J. O’Rourke echoes my sentiments with some additional political takes.Rob Gosselin replies to Tuesday’s post by arguing, “I despise the fact that we live in a world where guns have to exist, and I choose not to own a gun myself. But I do know many people that own guns, and I do not fear them because they choose to keep one in their house. In fact I consider an armed populace to be a necessary, and perhaps the ultimate, check and balance to the power of government. Since we live in an educated and modern society it is hard to imagine that brutal and repressive people can use the rule of law to find their way to power. But history teaches us otherwise. Hitler and his cohorts legally rose to power. That does not mean that prudent regulation of guns should not exist. If no gun laws exist the population will live in fear of violence from people who will use guns to hurt them. There has to be reasonable restrictions on who is allowed to own a weapon. But if there is no gun ownership by a capable and law abiding populace then there is nothing to prevent the rise of tyranny. All we have to do is look at what is happening in Egypt right now. The military has taken control after an election said they couldn’t. A piece of paper, or a ballot box, will never guarantee freedom in a world where those who rise to power have exclusive access to weapons.” (And check out that post for subsequent conversation between me and Rob!)Not a specific response to my Wednesday post of course, but I can’t pass up linking to this Robert Wright article on the latest move toward war with Iran, one unfortunately co-sponsored by both political parties.Next series next week,BenPS. What do you think? What American Studies connections would you make for this election, for our current political or social issues, for our debates or conversations? 6/23 Memory Day nominee: Alfred Kinsey, the scientist and researcher whose pioneering and controversial investigations into human behavior and sexuality fundamentally changed our understanding of ourselves.6/24 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two almost diametrically opposed but equally i
June 22, 2012
June 22, 2012: American Studying the Election, Part 5
[The fifth in a series on some of the broader American Studies issues and stakes in the 2012 presidential election. As always, and doubly so with controversial topics like these, your takes are very welcome!]
On the stakes of 2012 for the American issue that can seem more abstract but has plenty of very concrete effects, and that matters most to me.Anyone who has read this blog for a while, or who has read my second book, or who has ever talked with me about anything American Studies-related, knows how centrally interested I am in the question of how we define “American,” of what that idea, that identity, that community, means. As I argue at length in that book’s Conclusion, I believe that the debates over Barack Obama’s “American-ness,” over the question (to quote a Time cover story from just before the 2008 election) “Is Barack Obama American Enough?,” have been central to our political culture for the last four years. You can see those debates in the Birther movement, in the Tea Party cry of “I want my country back,” and in so many other moments and issues in contemporary America. And Mitt Romney has been a part of those debates for just as long, dating back at least to his statement, during the 2008 presidential campaign, that “Barack Obama looks toward Europe for a lot of his inspiration; John McCain is going to make sure that America stays America.” It’s easy to see this issue as the least significant of the five with which I’ve dealt this week, and I’m not going to argue that it has nearly the immediate and practical relevance that they do. Certainly the question of where Obama was born, while incredibly frustrating to those of us in the reality-based community, would only be practically significant if one of the many Birther lawsuits managed to actually keep him off of a state’s ballot or the like. But I think there are any number of immediate and significant effects to each possible definition of America, from the most to the least inclusive; is there any doubt, to cite one ongoing current event, that the debate over a possible mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, depends entirely on whether we see Muslim Americans as part of “America” or somehow outside of it? Isn’t it clear, as Obama acknowledged in the speech with which he announced his DREAM Act executive order, that seeing its young beneficiaries as “Americans in their hearts, in their minds” is crucial to supporting that policy change? The second of those examples is without doubt more complex than the first, includes legal and governmental factors much more centrally; but both nonetheless hinge on precisely who and what we mean (and don’t mean) by “American.”Yet there’s another, and to my mind even more meaningful, effect to these debates: what they mean for the identities and perspectives of each individual American. I’ve expressed before my admiration for Colin Powell’s answer, during his 2008 endorsement of Obama, to lies about Obama’s Muslim identity, his statement that while the correct answer is that Obama is not a Muslim, the “more correct” answer is: “Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is no. That's not America. Is there something wrong with a seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing he or she could be president?” If I had to express most succinctly why I think these debates over the meaning of “American” are so crucial, I would ask precisely the same question, writ large: how do you think it feels for a young kid—a Muslim American kid, or the child of undocumented immigrants, or a kid realizing he or she is gay—to be told, implicitly but often explicitly as well, that he or she is outside of “American” identity, is an other within his or her homeland? That’s the stake of these debates—and, I believe, one of the most fundamental stakes of the 2012 election, and many of our ongoing political arguments beyond it.Crowd-sourced post on these topics this weekend,BenPS. What do you think? I’d love to add your voice and ideas about any of the week’s topics, or anything else election and American Studies-related, to that weekend post!6/22 Memory Day nominee: Billy Wilder, one of America’s most talentedand successful film directors and screenwriters, and one who contributed some of the 20thcentury’s most pioneeringand important (as well as popular and influential) films.
On the stakes of 2012 for the American issue that can seem more abstract but has plenty of very concrete effects, and that matters most to me.Anyone who has read this blog for a while, or who has read my second book, or who has ever talked with me about anything American Studies-related, knows how centrally interested I am in the question of how we define “American,” of what that idea, that identity, that community, means. As I argue at length in that book’s Conclusion, I believe that the debates over Barack Obama’s “American-ness,” over the question (to quote a Time cover story from just before the 2008 election) “Is Barack Obama American Enough?,” have been central to our political culture for the last four years. You can see those debates in the Birther movement, in the Tea Party cry of “I want my country back,” and in so many other moments and issues in contemporary America. And Mitt Romney has been a part of those debates for just as long, dating back at least to his statement, during the 2008 presidential campaign, that “Barack Obama looks toward Europe for a lot of his inspiration; John McCain is going to make sure that America stays America.” It’s easy to see this issue as the least significant of the five with which I’ve dealt this week, and I’m not going to argue that it has nearly the immediate and practical relevance that they do. Certainly the question of where Obama was born, while incredibly frustrating to those of us in the reality-based community, would only be practically significant if one of the many Birther lawsuits managed to actually keep him off of a state’s ballot or the like. But I think there are any number of immediate and significant effects to each possible definition of America, from the most to the least inclusive; is there any doubt, to cite one ongoing current event, that the debate over a possible mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, depends entirely on whether we see Muslim Americans as part of “America” or somehow outside of it? Isn’t it clear, as Obama acknowledged in the speech with which he announced his DREAM Act executive order, that seeing its young beneficiaries as “Americans in their hearts, in their minds” is crucial to supporting that policy change? The second of those examples is without doubt more complex than the first, includes legal and governmental factors much more centrally; but both nonetheless hinge on precisely who and what we mean (and don’t mean) by “American.”Yet there’s another, and to my mind even more meaningful, effect to these debates: what they mean for the identities and perspectives of each individual American. I’ve expressed before my admiration for Colin Powell’s answer, during his 2008 endorsement of Obama, to lies about Obama’s Muslim identity, his statement that while the correct answer is that Obama is not a Muslim, the “more correct” answer is: “Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is no. That's not America. Is there something wrong with a seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing he or she could be president?” If I had to express most succinctly why I think these debates over the meaning of “American” are so crucial, I would ask precisely the same question, writ large: how do you think it feels for a young kid—a Muslim American kid, or the child of undocumented immigrants, or a kid realizing he or she is gay—to be told, implicitly but often explicitly as well, that he or she is outside of “American” identity, is an other within his or her homeland? That’s the stake of these debates—and, I believe, one of the most fundamental stakes of the 2012 election, and many of our ongoing political arguments beyond it.Crowd-sourced post on these topics this weekend,BenPS. What do you think? I’d love to add your voice and ideas about any of the week’s topics, or anything else election and American Studies-related, to that weekend post!6/22 Memory Day nominee: Billy Wilder, one of America’s most talentedand successful film directors and screenwriters, and one who contributed some of the 20thcentury’s most pioneeringand important (as well as popular and influential) films.
June 21, 2012
June 21, 2012: American Studying the Election, Part 4
[The fourth in a series on some of the broader American Studies issues and stakes in the 2012 presidential election. As always, and doubly so with controversial topics like these, your takes are very welcome!]
On the stakes of 2012 for perhaps the most longstanding and significant, yet also one of the most often misrepresented, American political debate.The Federalist and Anti-Federalist debates over the Constitution, which lasted for over two years and featured most of the prominent Revolutionary era leaders, were big, complicated, and shouldn’t be boiled down into a paragraph of a blog post; I can’t recommend strongly enough that every American Studier read both The Federalist Papers and the collected Anti-Federalist papers to get a much fuller sense of those debates than I can provide here. Yet it’s also true that the two sides’ names were purposefully and rightly chosen, since the core of the debate can be boiled down to two relatively clear and certainly contrasting positions: a support for a present, well-defined, and at least somewhat strong federal government on the one side; and an opposition to virtually any such government on the other. So it seems to me that there are few, if any, American political subjects older or more vital than this one: what the federal government’s presence and roles should be.On the other hand, one of the most disingenuous positions in American political history—and it too has a long history—is the one which uses the phrase “states’ rights” or its ilk to advocate not for a less strong federal government, but instead for a federal government that uses its strength in service of what particular states, and more exactly particular communities within those states, desire. For example, as James Loewen has argued very effectively, and as anyone who has read the Confederate Articles of Secession knows well, the Confederate states actually objected strongly to other, Northern states exercising their “states’ rights” and opposing the Fugitive Slave Act—what these Confederate states wanted was a federal government like the one that had existed under President Buchanan, one which would protect the institution of slavery (and even aid in its expansion) on the national level. In a different vein, Ronald Reagan famously argued in his 1981 inaugural address that “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,” yet during his two terms oversaw one of the largest expansions of federal government spending in recent history, making clear that he and his supporters were referring to certain aspects of the federal government and not at all to others.Which brings me once again to the 2012 election. It’s possible that this election will genuinely represent another debate between those who believe that federal spending and influence have a significant role to play in all aspects of American society (as Obama and the Democratic Party certainly do believe, and as I do as well) and those who believe that the federal government should be as limited and powerless as possible (as is the expressed belief of conservative forces as diverse as Grover Norquist and the Tea Party). Yet it’s also possible that the differences are more about what roles an expansive federal government would have under each potential administration—which is to say, that Mitt Romney, like Ronald Reagan (and George W. Bush) before him, might continue and even expand federal spending on defense, on support for business and corporations, and so on. Both of these are, again, longstanding American debates—over the size and power of the federal government on the one hand; over its proper focus and role on the other—but they are also quite distinct, and it would serve us well, at the very least, to push both candidates, and especially Romney, to articulate in which debate they are actually participating.Final election and American issue tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?6/21 Memory Day nominee: Reinhold Niebuhr, the son of German immigrants who became one of 20thcentury America’s greatest theological, philosophical, and cultural thinkers and commentators, and whose voice and ideas continue to influence our national converations.
On the stakes of 2012 for perhaps the most longstanding and significant, yet also one of the most often misrepresented, American political debate.The Federalist and Anti-Federalist debates over the Constitution, which lasted for over two years and featured most of the prominent Revolutionary era leaders, were big, complicated, and shouldn’t be boiled down into a paragraph of a blog post; I can’t recommend strongly enough that every American Studier read both The Federalist Papers and the collected Anti-Federalist papers to get a much fuller sense of those debates than I can provide here. Yet it’s also true that the two sides’ names were purposefully and rightly chosen, since the core of the debate can be boiled down to two relatively clear and certainly contrasting positions: a support for a present, well-defined, and at least somewhat strong federal government on the one side; and an opposition to virtually any such government on the other. So it seems to me that there are few, if any, American political subjects older or more vital than this one: what the federal government’s presence and roles should be.On the other hand, one of the most disingenuous positions in American political history—and it too has a long history—is the one which uses the phrase “states’ rights” or its ilk to advocate not for a less strong federal government, but instead for a federal government that uses its strength in service of what particular states, and more exactly particular communities within those states, desire. For example, as James Loewen has argued very effectively, and as anyone who has read the Confederate Articles of Secession knows well, the Confederate states actually objected strongly to other, Northern states exercising their “states’ rights” and opposing the Fugitive Slave Act—what these Confederate states wanted was a federal government like the one that had existed under President Buchanan, one which would protect the institution of slavery (and even aid in its expansion) on the national level. In a different vein, Ronald Reagan famously argued in his 1981 inaugural address that “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,” yet during his two terms oversaw one of the largest expansions of federal government spending in recent history, making clear that he and his supporters were referring to certain aspects of the federal government and not at all to others.Which brings me once again to the 2012 election. It’s possible that this election will genuinely represent another debate between those who believe that federal spending and influence have a significant role to play in all aspects of American society (as Obama and the Democratic Party certainly do believe, and as I do as well) and those who believe that the federal government should be as limited and powerless as possible (as is the expressed belief of conservative forces as diverse as Grover Norquist and the Tea Party). Yet it’s also possible that the differences are more about what roles an expansive federal government would have under each potential administration—which is to say, that Mitt Romney, like Ronald Reagan (and George W. Bush) before him, might continue and even expand federal spending on defense, on support for business and corporations, and so on. Both of these are, again, longstanding American debates—over the size and power of the federal government on the one hand; over its proper focus and role on the other—but they are also quite distinct, and it would serve us well, at the very least, to push both candidates, and especially Romney, to articulate in which debate they are actually participating.Final election and American issue tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?6/21 Memory Day nominee: Reinhold Niebuhr, the son of German immigrants who became one of 20thcentury America’s greatest theological, philosophical, and cultural thinkers and commentators, and whose voice and ideas continue to influence our national converations.
June 20, 2012
June 20, 2012: American Studying the Election, Part 3
[The third in a series on some of the broader American Studies issues and stakes in the 2012 presidential election. As always, and doubly so with controversial topics like these, your takes are very welcome!]
On the stakes of 2012 for what might—or might not—be America’s next war.I’ve written a good deal about war in this space, for obvious reasons: you can’t write about American history without addressing the many wars in which we’ve been involved, from the first conflicts between European arrivals and Native Americans through the latest wars in the Middle East. While every war is unique and complex, and demands its own attention and analyses, I would say that I’ve tried to consistently emphasize two interconnected ideas when it comes to all American (and really all) wars: that no matter the causes or reasons for a war, no matter how just or understandable it might be, war always produces horrors that come to define it for all involved; and that the most important thing we can do, when it comes to remembering the histories and stories of wars, is to do the fullest justice we can to those effects, on soldiers, on civilians, on communities, on nations. If we’re able to remember and engage with those things, I believe there would be a number of positive results, but here want to highlight one for our political conversations and debates: such memories and engagement would make it very hard, if not impossible, for us to treat war as a political option, as one of many ways to resolve various world crises or problems. Certainly George W. Bush’s doctrine of preemptive war, as illustrated dramatically in his attack on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, is the most recent and striking example of this attitude toward war; but the truth is that many American wars, from the 19thcentury’s Mexican American and Spanish American Wars up through that most recent war in the Persian Gulf, have been similarly wars of choice, pursued (sometimes more covertly and under the context of “attacks” on America, to be sure, as was the case in the 19thcentury wars) by our government in an effort to gain territory, to resolve international difficulties, to influence other nations and relationships, and so on. Again, each situation has been specific and complex, but the fact remains that the United States has consistently treated war as a choice, an option to consider when confronted with various (and not immediately threatening, to be clear) problems.You would think, perhaps, that the catastrophic failure of the most recent Iraq War would make it unlikely for us to treat war in this way again, at least so soon after that war’s horrors. But I believe you would be wrong, and that the very prominent and continuing drumbeat for war with Iran—led by many of the same neoconservatives who drove Bush’s foreign policy—exemplifies the presence and power of these same arguments in 2012. Moreover, Mitt Romney’s foreign policy advisors consist almost exclusively of such neoconservatives, as best illustrated by John Bolton, the former Bush Ambassador to the UN who has recently appeared in print advocating for a war with Syria (which, I assume, he thinks we could handle smoothly before moving on to Iran). There’s obviously no way to know for sure what our foreign policy future will include, nor whether President Obama will or would in a second term be able to resist various pressures pushing for conflict with Iran; but it seems clear that a vote for Mitt Romney represents, at the very least, a vote for a foreign policy team for whom preemptive, chosen war is an entirely valid, if not indeed often the first, option.Next election and American issue tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?6/20 Memory Day nominee: Charles Chesnutt, author of (to my mind) the greatest and most significant American novel, among his many other complex and important, and far too unremembered, literaryand historical works.
On the stakes of 2012 for what might—or might not—be America’s next war.I’ve written a good deal about war in this space, for obvious reasons: you can’t write about American history without addressing the many wars in which we’ve been involved, from the first conflicts between European arrivals and Native Americans through the latest wars in the Middle East. While every war is unique and complex, and demands its own attention and analyses, I would say that I’ve tried to consistently emphasize two interconnected ideas when it comes to all American (and really all) wars: that no matter the causes or reasons for a war, no matter how just or understandable it might be, war always produces horrors that come to define it for all involved; and that the most important thing we can do, when it comes to remembering the histories and stories of wars, is to do the fullest justice we can to those effects, on soldiers, on civilians, on communities, on nations. If we’re able to remember and engage with those things, I believe there would be a number of positive results, but here want to highlight one for our political conversations and debates: such memories and engagement would make it very hard, if not impossible, for us to treat war as a political option, as one of many ways to resolve various world crises or problems. Certainly George W. Bush’s doctrine of preemptive war, as illustrated dramatically in his attack on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, is the most recent and striking example of this attitude toward war; but the truth is that many American wars, from the 19thcentury’s Mexican American and Spanish American Wars up through that most recent war in the Persian Gulf, have been similarly wars of choice, pursued (sometimes more covertly and under the context of “attacks” on America, to be sure, as was the case in the 19thcentury wars) by our government in an effort to gain territory, to resolve international difficulties, to influence other nations and relationships, and so on. Again, each situation has been specific and complex, but the fact remains that the United States has consistently treated war as a choice, an option to consider when confronted with various (and not immediately threatening, to be clear) problems.You would think, perhaps, that the catastrophic failure of the most recent Iraq War would make it unlikely for us to treat war in this way again, at least so soon after that war’s horrors. But I believe you would be wrong, and that the very prominent and continuing drumbeat for war with Iran—led by many of the same neoconservatives who drove Bush’s foreign policy—exemplifies the presence and power of these same arguments in 2012. Moreover, Mitt Romney’s foreign policy advisors consist almost exclusively of such neoconservatives, as best illustrated by John Bolton, the former Bush Ambassador to the UN who has recently appeared in print advocating for a war with Syria (which, I assume, he thinks we could handle smoothly before moving on to Iran). There’s obviously no way to know for sure what our foreign policy future will include, nor whether President Obama will or would in a second term be able to resist various pressures pushing for conflict with Iran; but it seems clear that a vote for Mitt Romney represents, at the very least, a vote for a foreign policy team for whom preemptive, chosen war is an entirely valid, if not indeed often the first, option.Next election and American issue tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?6/20 Memory Day nominee: Charles Chesnutt, author of (to my mind) the greatest and most significant American novel, among his many other complex and important, and far too unremembered, literaryand historical works.
June 19, 2012
June 19, 2012: American Studying the Election, Part 2
[The second in a series on some of the broader American Studies issues and stakes in the 2012 presidential election. As always, and doubly so with controversial topics like these, your takes are very welcome!]
On the stakes of 2012 for the newest phase in our longstanding, conflicted national relationship to guns.When you remember how the American Revolution—or at least the military portion of it—got started, the 2nd Amendment sure makes a lot of sense. After all, the Minutemen who fought the Redcoats at Lexington and Concord, who fired that shot heard ‘round the world, were a militia in the truest sense of the word: farmers and other locals who brought nothing more than their own lives—and their own guns—to those crucial first conflicts. And for many decades after the Revolution, state and local militias continued to serve as the nation’s primary armed forces, with a standing army being assembled as necessary (during military conflicts such as the War of 1812 and the Mexican American War, for example) but not consistently maintained. Given those contexts, the syntax and logic of the 2ndAmendment—which reads in full “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”—seem perfectly natural and uncontroversial.But the term “militia” has of course come to mean something completely different in early 21st century America, and the shift to my mind signifies the other side to our national relationship to guns. These contemporary militias, comprising communities of heavily armed resistance to perceived threats (from the government, from the United Nations, from ethnic or racial “others”), see their guns, and their right to bear them, not as a part of our shared national community, but as a way to defend their own lives and security within, and yet fundamentally outside of, that nation. For these Americans, it seems to me, the key words in the 2ndAmendment are “free” and “the people,” since in this reading of the Amendment its guarantees have nothing to do with the government (which would presumably do the regulating of militias) nor the nation (the State) and everything to do with every individual gunowner. There is of course no necessary conflict between individual gunowners and the national community—again, the Minutemen were composed precisely of such individuals, coming together to fight for their fledgling nation’s interests—but such conflicts have without question come to form a complex, controversial, and crucial part of gun culture in America.Which brings me to today, and specifically to the “Stand Your Ground” laws that have, in response to pressure from the NRA and ALEC and other conservative organizations, been passed by numerous state legislatures since the ascendance of Tea Party majorities in the 2010 elections. How we analyze these controversial pro-gun laws—which factored directly into the Travyon Martin shooting and other recent tragedies—depends precisely on whether we see them as part of our nation’s founding identity, a legacy of the Concord Minutemen; or part of the contemporary militia movement, tied to the 21stcentury Minutemen and their ilk. But in any case, there’s no doubt that the 2012 election—which NRA vice president Wayne LaPierre has called “a turning point for gun rights”—will greatly influence these narratives moving forward; there’s less than no evidence that a second-term President Obama would ban guns or dismantle the 2nd Amendment (as LaPierre warns), but certainly an empowered Republican majority (nationally and at that state level) could continue to pass more laws like “Stand Your Ground,” and otherwise to push forward this extremely pro-gun agenda. Which would be a very American thing to do—but what version of America it would embody is an entirely open and significant question.Next election and American issue tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?6/19 Memory Day nominee: Pauline Kael, perhaps America’s greatest and most influential film critic, and a cultural commentator and critic whose voice and perspective helped shape our conversations and community throughout the late 20th century.
On the stakes of 2012 for the newest phase in our longstanding, conflicted national relationship to guns.When you remember how the American Revolution—or at least the military portion of it—got started, the 2nd Amendment sure makes a lot of sense. After all, the Minutemen who fought the Redcoats at Lexington and Concord, who fired that shot heard ‘round the world, were a militia in the truest sense of the word: farmers and other locals who brought nothing more than their own lives—and their own guns—to those crucial first conflicts. And for many decades after the Revolution, state and local militias continued to serve as the nation’s primary armed forces, with a standing army being assembled as necessary (during military conflicts such as the War of 1812 and the Mexican American War, for example) but not consistently maintained. Given those contexts, the syntax and logic of the 2ndAmendment—which reads in full “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”—seem perfectly natural and uncontroversial.But the term “militia” has of course come to mean something completely different in early 21st century America, and the shift to my mind signifies the other side to our national relationship to guns. These contemporary militias, comprising communities of heavily armed resistance to perceived threats (from the government, from the United Nations, from ethnic or racial “others”), see their guns, and their right to bear them, not as a part of our shared national community, but as a way to defend their own lives and security within, and yet fundamentally outside of, that nation. For these Americans, it seems to me, the key words in the 2ndAmendment are “free” and “the people,” since in this reading of the Amendment its guarantees have nothing to do with the government (which would presumably do the regulating of militias) nor the nation (the State) and everything to do with every individual gunowner. There is of course no necessary conflict between individual gunowners and the national community—again, the Minutemen were composed precisely of such individuals, coming together to fight for their fledgling nation’s interests—but such conflicts have without question come to form a complex, controversial, and crucial part of gun culture in America.Which brings me to today, and specifically to the “Stand Your Ground” laws that have, in response to pressure from the NRA and ALEC and other conservative organizations, been passed by numerous state legislatures since the ascendance of Tea Party majorities in the 2010 elections. How we analyze these controversial pro-gun laws—which factored directly into the Travyon Martin shooting and other recent tragedies—depends precisely on whether we see them as part of our nation’s founding identity, a legacy of the Concord Minutemen; or part of the contemporary militia movement, tied to the 21stcentury Minutemen and their ilk. But in any case, there’s no doubt that the 2012 election—which NRA vice president Wayne LaPierre has called “a turning point for gun rights”—will greatly influence these narratives moving forward; there’s less than no evidence that a second-term President Obama would ban guns or dismantle the 2nd Amendment (as LaPierre warns), but certainly an empowered Republican majority (nationally and at that state level) could continue to pass more laws like “Stand Your Ground,” and otherwise to push forward this extremely pro-gun agenda. Which would be a very American thing to do—but what version of America it would embody is an entirely open and significant question.Next election and American issue tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?6/19 Memory Day nominee: Pauline Kael, perhaps America’s greatest and most influential film critic, and a cultural commentator and critic whose voice and perspective helped shape our conversations and community throughout the late 20th century.
June 18, 2012
June 18, 2012: American Studying the Election, Part 1
[The first in a series on some of the broader American Studies issues and stakes in the 2012 presidential election. As always, and doubly so with controversial topics like these, your takes are very welcome!]
On the stakes of 2012 for a core American issue of immigration policy, law, and narratives.I’ve written a good deal on the DREAM Act and concurrent contemporary issues and public figures in this space (more than most other current events/issues, I’d say), and I don’t want to repeat myself. I also hope to have a book coming out at some point in the not-too-distant future on parallel historical and national issues (watch this space!), and so I don’t want to steal my own thunder. So for today I’ll simply say this: I think there are few 21st-century issues more crucial than the question of how we treat undocumented immigrants, and more exactly those undocumented immigrants who exemplify the very best of what America has been and can be. The DREAM Act is designed to benefit precisely that latter category, and its failure to pass the Senate (including one of its Republican co-sponsors voting against it) last year represented the triumph of bigotry and xenophobia over logic, empathy, and American community.President Obama hasn’t always gone with those more positive perspectives on this issue either, but this past week, he definitely did so: issuing an executive order version of the DREAM Act that, as I wrote in a Facebook post on it, seems to me to be one of the boldest and best things an American president has ever done. While it’s unsurprisingly difficult to pin Mitt Romney down on this issue, there’s no question that during the Republican primaries, and particularly in arguments with Texas Governor Rick Perry, Romney staked out a far more anti-immigrant position than either Perry or Obama, suggesting for example the ludicrous concept of “self-deportation” as a viable option for undocumented immigrants. Since Obama’s act was an executive order, it would be instantly reversible by a future such order—and there’s no reliable reason to think a President Romney would not take that step.So that’s one pretty clear American Studies stake in this election, I’d say: whether we continue to pursue a more empathetic, logical, and genuinely American policy toward kids like these (and, hopefully, toward their older peers); or whether we give in to the kinds of bigotry and xenophobia that have driven so many of the Republican-controlled state legislatures in their anti-immigration efforts over the last couple of years. Some of the issues and stakes I’ll address in this week’s series are pretty complex, but I’ll be honest: when it comes to the DREAM Act, and to the attitudes to which support or opposition for it connect, I don’t know if a contrast gets more simple and stark than this. Next issue tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?6/18 Memory Day nominee: James Montgomery Flagg, the talented child prodigy and turn of the 20th century artist and illustrator whose most lasting legacy is his creation of an iconic, definitely patriotic, perhaps jingoistic and disturbing, and certainly striking and memorable American figure.
On the stakes of 2012 for a core American issue of immigration policy, law, and narratives.I’ve written a good deal on the DREAM Act and concurrent contemporary issues and public figures in this space (more than most other current events/issues, I’d say), and I don’t want to repeat myself. I also hope to have a book coming out at some point in the not-too-distant future on parallel historical and national issues (watch this space!), and so I don’t want to steal my own thunder. So for today I’ll simply say this: I think there are few 21st-century issues more crucial than the question of how we treat undocumented immigrants, and more exactly those undocumented immigrants who exemplify the very best of what America has been and can be. The DREAM Act is designed to benefit precisely that latter category, and its failure to pass the Senate (including one of its Republican co-sponsors voting against it) last year represented the triumph of bigotry and xenophobia over logic, empathy, and American community.President Obama hasn’t always gone with those more positive perspectives on this issue either, but this past week, he definitely did so: issuing an executive order version of the DREAM Act that, as I wrote in a Facebook post on it, seems to me to be one of the boldest and best things an American president has ever done. While it’s unsurprisingly difficult to pin Mitt Romney down on this issue, there’s no question that during the Republican primaries, and particularly in arguments with Texas Governor Rick Perry, Romney staked out a far more anti-immigrant position than either Perry or Obama, suggesting for example the ludicrous concept of “self-deportation” as a viable option for undocumented immigrants. Since Obama’s act was an executive order, it would be instantly reversible by a future such order—and there’s no reliable reason to think a President Romney would not take that step.So that’s one pretty clear American Studies stake in this election, I’d say: whether we continue to pursue a more empathetic, logical, and genuinely American policy toward kids like these (and, hopefully, toward their older peers); or whether we give in to the kinds of bigotry and xenophobia that have driven so many of the Republican-controlled state legislatures in their anti-immigration efforts over the last couple of years. Some of the issues and stakes I’ll address in this week’s series are pretty complex, but I’ll be honest: when it comes to the DREAM Act, and to the attitudes to which support or opposition for it connect, I don’t know if a contrast gets more simple and stark than this. Next issue tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think?6/18 Memory Day nominee: James Montgomery Flagg, the talented child prodigy and turn of the 20th century artist and illustrator whose most lasting legacy is his creation of an iconic, definitely patriotic, perhaps jingoistic and disturbing, and certainly striking and memorable American figure.
June 16, 2012
June 16-17, 2012: Crowd-sourced Post on Material Culture
[Trying something new to round off the series on toys, material culture, and American Studies: a crowd-sourced post, drawn from comments and ideas shared with me by readers and fellow American Studiers. Please add yours in the comments below!]
Laura MacDonaldhighlights an “excellent discussion of the American Girl brand by Maurya Wickstrom in Performing Consumers (2006).”Steve Railton remembers when hula hoops “became ubiquitous in Sunset Park, the housing development I grew up in. My own favorite way to play with one was as a traditional hoop -- i.e. I liked seeing how far I could roll it before it fell, etc., though I'd never played with the kind of hoop that kids played with for centuries. It is interesting to think, though, that physically adding ‘hula’ doesn't change the ‘hoop’ at all, but culturally, it sure made a huge difference in what hoops were used to do.”Rebecca D’Orsogna notes the poster for an “Uncle Tom Opera” that appears in the background of a scene in the animated Disney film Lady and the Tramp (1955, but set in 1909).And Rebecca also shares this very funny McSweeney’s article!Suggested reading to follow up the Uncle Tom’s Cabin post and on the intersections between race, childhood, toys, and more: Robin Bernstein’s Racial Innocence (2011).Responding to the post on tabletop role playing games, Kisha Tracy notes that “it's interesting (sometimes sadly, sometimes otherwise) that the table top RPG history has mostly been male. It took a very long time for women to be ‘allowed’ into it. I'm always kind of fascinated by the marginalization within marginalized groups/activities.”Joseph Adelman shares this interview with historian Jill Lepore, on her recent/ongoing work that definitely connects to this series in lots of interesting ways.More next week,BenPS. What do you think? Plenty of room to add your voice to the mix!6/16 Memory Day nominee: Geronimo, or Goyathlay, the Apache leader and warrior whose legendary life has inspired numerous cultural responses and texts, but should not blind us to the very real and often dark histories to which he also connects. 6/17 Memory Day nominee: James Weldon Johnson, on whom see that post!
Laura MacDonaldhighlights an “excellent discussion of the American Girl brand by Maurya Wickstrom in Performing Consumers (2006).”Steve Railton remembers when hula hoops “became ubiquitous in Sunset Park, the housing development I grew up in. My own favorite way to play with one was as a traditional hoop -- i.e. I liked seeing how far I could roll it before it fell, etc., though I'd never played with the kind of hoop that kids played with for centuries. It is interesting to think, though, that physically adding ‘hula’ doesn't change the ‘hoop’ at all, but culturally, it sure made a huge difference in what hoops were used to do.”Rebecca D’Orsogna notes the poster for an “Uncle Tom Opera” that appears in the background of a scene in the animated Disney film Lady and the Tramp (1955, but set in 1909).And Rebecca also shares this very funny McSweeney’s article!Suggested reading to follow up the Uncle Tom’s Cabin post and on the intersections between race, childhood, toys, and more: Robin Bernstein’s Racial Innocence (2011).Responding to the post on tabletop role playing games, Kisha Tracy notes that “it's interesting (sometimes sadly, sometimes otherwise) that the table top RPG history has mostly been male. It took a very long time for women to be ‘allowed’ into it. I'm always kind of fascinated by the marginalization within marginalized groups/activities.”Joseph Adelman shares this interview with historian Jill Lepore, on her recent/ongoing work that definitely connects to this series in lots of interesting ways.More next week,BenPS. What do you think? Plenty of room to add your voice to the mix!6/16 Memory Day nominee: Geronimo, or Goyathlay, the Apache leader and warrior whose legendary life has inspired numerous cultural responses and texts, but should not blind us to the very real and often dark histories to which he also connects. 6/17 Memory Day nominee: James Weldon Johnson, on whom see that post!
June 15, 2012
June 15, 2012: Playing with America, Part 5
[The fifth and final planned post in a series on toys, games, and American Studies. If you want to contribute some thoughts toward the weekend’s open post, please feel very free to do so in comments!]
On the stigmas and the scholarly benefits of D&D and other role-playing games.Today’s the 35th birthday of my oldest and still best friend, Steve Peterson. I mention that partly because it’s past time Steve made an appearance in this space—despite not being a scholarly American Studier per se, Steve has taught me much of what I know about a range of important questions, from friendship and family to taking chances and following life’s unexpected opportunities—but also because it was with Steve that I got into one of my most enduring childhood pursuits: tabletop role-playing games. We didn’t play the best-known such game, Dungeons & Dragons; but most of our gaming was with a system, Middle-earth Role Playing (MERP), that was deeply indebted to D&D (although created by an amazing local Charlottesville company, Iron Crown Enterprises; whether you have ever role-played or not, if you’re a Tolkien fan I can’t recommend strongly enough trying to get your hands on one of ICE’s beautiful and fun companion books about the world of Middle-earth). I’m ashamed to admit that I hesitated a bit in deciding to make role-playing one of this week’s focal points, and the reason is clear enough: the substantial social stigma that comes with the subject, and really with any reference to Dungeons & Dragons. You’d think that the widespread popularity of video games (including many, such as Skyrim, that owe quite a bit to D&D and its ilk), of fan conventions like Comic-Con, of fantasy literature, films, and television shows, and the like would have changed these narratives, but I don’t believe that it necessarily has: to my mind, and in my experience, cultural references to D&D almost always entail the same tired clichés of socially awkward nerds in their parents’ basements, creating fantasy worlds to escape the tragicomic circumstances of their realities. Moreover, the broader and even more damaging social narratives and fears, of D&D turning teenagers into suicidial or even homicidal outcasts, have likewise remained in play, at times virtually unchanged from the first such stories when D&D was new. There are a variety of ways to pushback on those stigmas and argue instead for social, communal, and individual benefits to role-playing games (including some exemplified by the pieces at those last two links); here, I’ll just highlight two that connect to this blog’s focus on scholarly questions. For one thing, role-playing games require consistent leaps of imagination in a way that differentiates them from many other toys or games—on the part of the game-master, the person in charge of creating the world and scenarios and guiding the other players into and (to a degree) through it; but also from all those players, who have to both respond to what’s unfolding in front of them and yet create their own stories and futures. And for another, the specific experience of being the game-master—of creating that world and its different narratives, of conveying it to the players, and yet then of being required to adjust and shift it as the game plays out, and even to scrap any or all of it in favor of where the players are going and of producing the most fun and meaningful experience as a result—was, to my mind, about the best training for teaching I could have ever gotten. Just another reason to thank Steve, who, along with MERP, prepared me pretty well for this crucial part of my career and life.Open post this weekend, so please contribute any ideas or thoughts in comments!BenPS. What do you think? And for the weekend’s post, you know what to do!6/15 Memory Day nominee: Josiah Henson, the escaped slave turned abolitionist, preacher, and activist whose inspiring life and compelling autobiography served as one of Stowe’s influences and remain unique and vital American texts (in every sense). [image error]
On the stigmas and the scholarly benefits of D&D and other role-playing games.Today’s the 35th birthday of my oldest and still best friend, Steve Peterson. I mention that partly because it’s past time Steve made an appearance in this space—despite not being a scholarly American Studier per se, Steve has taught me much of what I know about a range of important questions, from friendship and family to taking chances and following life’s unexpected opportunities—but also because it was with Steve that I got into one of my most enduring childhood pursuits: tabletop role-playing games. We didn’t play the best-known such game, Dungeons & Dragons; but most of our gaming was with a system, Middle-earth Role Playing (MERP), that was deeply indebted to D&D (although created by an amazing local Charlottesville company, Iron Crown Enterprises; whether you have ever role-played or not, if you’re a Tolkien fan I can’t recommend strongly enough trying to get your hands on one of ICE’s beautiful and fun companion books about the world of Middle-earth). I’m ashamed to admit that I hesitated a bit in deciding to make role-playing one of this week’s focal points, and the reason is clear enough: the substantial social stigma that comes with the subject, and really with any reference to Dungeons & Dragons. You’d think that the widespread popularity of video games (including many, such as Skyrim, that owe quite a bit to D&D and its ilk), of fan conventions like Comic-Con, of fantasy literature, films, and television shows, and the like would have changed these narratives, but I don’t believe that it necessarily has: to my mind, and in my experience, cultural references to D&D almost always entail the same tired clichés of socially awkward nerds in their parents’ basements, creating fantasy worlds to escape the tragicomic circumstances of their realities. Moreover, the broader and even more damaging social narratives and fears, of D&D turning teenagers into suicidial or even homicidal outcasts, have likewise remained in play, at times virtually unchanged from the first such stories when D&D was new. There are a variety of ways to pushback on those stigmas and argue instead for social, communal, and individual benefits to role-playing games (including some exemplified by the pieces at those last two links); here, I’ll just highlight two that connect to this blog’s focus on scholarly questions. For one thing, role-playing games require consistent leaps of imagination in a way that differentiates them from many other toys or games—on the part of the game-master, the person in charge of creating the world and scenarios and guiding the other players into and (to a degree) through it; but also from all those players, who have to both respond to what’s unfolding in front of them and yet create their own stories and futures. And for another, the specific experience of being the game-master—of creating that world and its different narratives, of conveying it to the players, and yet then of being required to adjust and shift it as the game plays out, and even to scrap any or all of it in favor of where the players are going and of producing the most fun and meaningful experience as a result—was, to my mind, about the best training for teaching I could have ever gotten. Just another reason to thank Steve, who, along with MERP, prepared me pretty well for this crucial part of my career and life.Open post this weekend, so please contribute any ideas or thoughts in comments!BenPS. What do you think? And for the weekend’s post, you know what to do!6/15 Memory Day nominee: Josiah Henson, the escaped slave turned abolitionist, preacher, and activist whose inspiring life and compelling autobiography served as one of Stowe’s influences and remain unique and vital American texts (in every sense). [image error]
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