Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

This period of American history is by far the most embarrassing story that could be told of any nation. The institution of slavery left an impact on our culture that it will never completely recover from, and it is this institution that makes me cringe when some derelict flag-waver proclaims that he is "proud to be American."
That being said, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is a text that brings to light many of the issues of American identity in the 19th century-- the first of which is the treatment of African slaves. These people were not treated as people, but rather as property. As Harriet Jacobs puts it, "These god-breathing machines are no more, in the sight of their masters, than the cotton they plant or the horses they tend" (135). And the citizens of this country turned a blind eye to the awful injustices done to this people, just as they did to many before. After the country was founded on the near genocide of a continent's worth of human beings, it then went to the lengths of importing a whole new race to subjugate. And the landowners worked everything to their advantage. Jacobs speaks of gross irony after gross irony when referring to her masters. Dr. Flint treats her horribly, but when asked for her freedom, he responds by saying, "Linda does not belong to me. She is my daughter's property, and I have no legal right to sell her" (167). Then on page 215, she alludes to Reverend Nemiah Adams' A Southside View of Slavery and his claims that abolitionists are overexaggerating the wrongdoings of slave owners. And further still, the overwhelming majority of people truly believed that African slaves were rightfully objectified. They used Bible passages to justify themselves. Even one of the most influential figures in American history, Thomas Jefferson, wrote in his "Notes on the State of Virginia" that "...their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection." He was truly ignorant to the fact that the Africans brought over in slave ships were actually intellectually endowed reasoning human beings. This poses an even scarier ethical question: How can someone differentiate between the concepts of good and evil in a fundamentally corrupt social setting? The poetic tragedy in Jacobs' narrative is that the slaves that were considered mere property and nothing more had a much clearer sense of right and wrong than their masters, who attended church regularly and viewed themselves as disciples of God. Dr. Flint even blatantly affirms his religion as primarily a social status when Linda Brent identified that he had given "no indication that [he] 'renounce[d] the devil and all his works.'" He responded by saying, "It was proper for me to do so. I am getting in years, and my position in society requires it... You would do well to join the church too, Linda" (216).
Also, I just wanted to note that the subject of American slavery was featured in tonight's episode of The Simpsons. There really wasn't any thread of the story that had much to do specifically with Incidents, but it is still intriguing that for two posts in a row, I can include a reference to a cartoon.

*Source: Jefferson, Thomas. "Notes on the State of Virginia"

Emerson vs. Thoreau

First of all, who caught Family Guy tonight? Leave it to a cartoon to lampoon the masses for being uneducated enough to mistake Henry David Thoreau for Rodney Dangerfield. Loved it. And it made me feel smart.

As for my second order of business, I like both of these guys (Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson) because they are anarchists and anarchists are cool. But Ralph is the kind of gentle inward-looking anarchist that struggles with demons, whereas Henry David is the more militant kind of guy that doesn't pay his taxes and calls for the resignation of every office in government.
We spent a lot of time covering Ralph last week in class, which is good. But I enjoyed Henry David's writing a lot more. What H. D. did in "Resistance to Civil Government" was take the transcendentalist musings of "Self-Reliance" and turn them into an attack on organized government. Ralph was calling for a look inward in 1841 and advocating for the self in order for humanity to progress. Eight years later, H. D. repackaged transcendentalism in the same way that Norman Vincent Peale repackaged Buddhism. I like the way H. D. contrasts the self with the idea of government. Benjamin Tucker, another famous 19th century anarchist wrote that" if the individual has the right to govern himself, all external government is tyranny." That is what we have witnessed, and it is undoubtedly what Ralph and Henry David were witnessing in the lead up to the Civil War. I have had college professors tell me two different things about the civil war: "It was clearly a war fought around, about, and against slavery" and "If anyone tells you the American Civil War was fought over slavery, they're full of shit." Honestly, those are both direct quotes. But what appears to be happening in these works is that power is being taken away from the individual and given to the states, and then that power is being taken from the states and given to the federal government. Maybe there's a tie-in to rights of slave-ownership in there somewhere but I'd rather not get in to that until I'm done with Linda Brent.
That being said here are my favorite extracts from each essay:

"But prayer as a means to effect a private end, is theft and meanness." (Ralph) -- This reminds me of my stepmother praying in church for her '96 Chevy Blazer to get out of the shop early. She actually said that out loud.

"That government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have." (Henry David) -- He cuts right to the chase, doesn't he? That's what I love about "Resistance." It kind of has a messianic feel to it.

"... a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience" (Henry David) -- I like this only in its sarcasm. An entire economy has been built on this precept, and it appears to be crumbling before us.

"The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet..." (Ralph) -- This whole rant was entertaining as far as essays go. It is funny how much emphasis was and is put on the concept of "Progress" while we as a civilization are losing some of our most important adaptations.

"Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence." (Henry David) -- A great motto to live by.


And one more quote because J. T. can't get any love for Vonnegut:

"We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane." (Kilgore Trout 1907-1981) -- So it goes.