Spring Traditions and Celebrations: The Past, The Present and the Future of Farming

by Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin / April 1st, 2024

The Fight Between Carnival and Lent (1559) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Introduction

Eleanor Parker writes in her book, Winters in the World, that “in Anglo-Saxon poetry winter is often imagined as a season when the earth and human beings are imprisoned, kept captive by the ‘fetters of the frost’. Naturally enough, then, spring is associated with images of liberation and freedom once those fetters are released.” (p. 93) Even the title of the book, Winters in the World, described one’s age; e.g., I have 30 winters in the world, a recognition of the harshness of the winters which one had survived.

Historically, the transition from winter to spring was symbolised by many traditions that reflected the end of difficult times and the coming of the new season of growth and rebirth. These traditions ranged from the celebration of vegetation deities through fertility rites, and the public rituals associated with Carnival/Fat Tuesday (February/March), Lent (February/March), Easter (fires/eggs/hares) (March/ April) and Rogation Days (April). Many rituals were taken over by the Christian church and given new meanings which themselves are now being secularised.

However, since the development of industrial farming in the early twentieth century, the connection between local farming and spring rituals associated with the land have declined and taken on a commercialised aspect separated from nature. We can see this with Carnival and Easter, while Lent fasting is not practised so much anymore.

This is not to say that the ending of the underlying reasons for carnival and the fasting of Lent; i.e., the finishing up of winter stocks and the privation until new crops grew, is such a bad thing, but our dependence on the current global system of industrial farming is worrying at a time when climate change is affecting food production around the world.

This change is also partly due to unsustainable agricultural methods that are negatively affecting our ability to farm in the future; for example, the spread of desertification, whereby fertile areas become arid due to the overexploitation of soil.

Furthermore, supermarkets packed to the gills with produce from all over the world deflects our attention from looming disasters. In Ireland we know the difference between famine (widespread scarcity of food) and hunger (in Irish Gaelic, An Gorta Mór, the great hunger) … ‘when a country is full of food and exporting it’.

Moreover, governmental measures to deal with land issues may be too little too late, or ineffective, as new laws are simply ignored by vested interests.

The Past

Vegetation Deities and Fertility Rites

From earliest times our relationship with nature had an element of awe and respect that resulted in the belief in vegetation deities “whose disappearance and reappearance, or life, death and rebirth, embodies the growth cycle of plants.” Many vegetation deities were also considered fertility deities, that is, “a god or goddess associated with fertility, sex, pregnancy, childbirth, and crops.”

In Mesopotamian culture (dating back to the mid-4th millennium BCE) religion “involved the worship of forces of nature as providers of sustenance” and which later became personified as a range of gods with different functions. Natural phenomena in nature were seen to be directed by nature spirits, thus:

A nature deity can be in charge of nature, a place, a biotope, the biosphere, the cosmos, or the universe. Nature worship is often considered the primitive source of modern religious beliefs and can be found in pantheism, panentheism, deism, polytheism, animism, Taoism, totemism, Hinduism, shamanism, some theism and paganism.

In some cases the gods die and later return to life, particularly in religions of the ancient Near East. These dying-and-rising, death-rebirth, or resurrection deities are associated with the seasons as allegories of the death of nature and the rebirth of nature during spring; for example, Osiris, the god of fertility, agriculture, the afterlife, the dead, resurrection, life, and vegetation in ancient Egyptian religion, and Persephone in Greece, the goddess of spring and nature whose return from the underworld each spring is a symbol of her immortality.

Persephone, Queen of the underworld, Goddess of spring, the dead, the underworld, grain, and nature
Statue of syncretic Persephone-Isis with a sistrum. Heraklion Archaeological Museum, Crete

Similarly, many later Roman gods and goddesses were the subjects of fertility rites and celebrations. The festival of Liberalia was held on the 17th March to celebrate the spring growth. Liber was one of the original Roman gods. A favourite of the plebeians, he was the god of fertility and wine. His festival, the Liberalia, was an occasion to mark the return of life:

The celebration was meant to honor Liber Pater, an ancient god of fertility and wine (like Bacchus, the Roman version of the Greek god Dionysus). Liber Pater was also a vegetation god, responsible for protecting seed. Again like Dionysus, he had female priestesses, but Liber’s were older women known as Sacerdos Liberi. Wearing wreaths of ivy, they made special cakes, or libia, of oil and honey which passing devotees would have them sacrifice on their behalf. Over time this feast evolved and included the goddess Libera, and the feast divided so that Liber governed the male seed and Libera the female.

The Present

Carnival / Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) (February / March)

Of all the ancient festivals that survived into current times Carnival is probably the most prominent.  Winter spirits have been forced out to make way for the new season since antiquity. Carnival symbolised this transition from winter to summer and darkness to light. The carnival was a feast whereby ordinary people feasted on the last of the winter stocks before they rotted. This in turn created the obligatory restraint and fasting until new produce was available. The Christian festival consists of Quinquagesima or Shrove Sunday, Shrove Monday, and Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday). Therefore:

Carnival typically involves public celebrations, including events such as parades, public street parties and other entertainments, combining some elements of a circus. Elaborate costumes and masks allow people to set aside their everyday individuality and experience a heightened sense of social unity. Participants often indulge in excessive consumption of alcohol, meat, and other foods that will be forgone during upcoming Lent.

Carnival in Rome, c. 1650

The phrase ‘Shrove Tuesday’ comes from ‘shrive’ to be absolved of one’s sins and therefore shriven before the start of Lent. It is also the last day of the Christian liturgical season which in French is known as Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) the last night of eating well before the ritual fasting beginning on the next day, Ash Wednesday.

Lent (February / March)

Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and lasts around six weeks. In this Christian religious observance, (according to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke) Jesus Christ spent 40 days fasting in the desert and enduring temptation by Satan. The word Lent comes from the lengthening days of spring and is considered a period of grief which ends with the celebrations of Easter.

Lent observers, including a confraternity of penitents, carrying out a street procession during Holy Week, in Granada, Nicaragua. The violet color is often associated with penance and detachment. Similar Christian penitential practice is seen in other Christian countries, sometimes associated with fasting.

Easter (March / April)

Easter is derived from pagan customs that celebrated the victory of Spring over Winter. They lit fires that helped to accelerate the end of Winter and spread the ashes over the fields to help fertilise the soil in fertility rites. Easter bonfires “have been a tradition in Germany since the 11 century. The Christians adopted the pagan custom and reinterpreted it. The fire was now seen as the light of Jesus, reminding people of the life and resurrection of Christ.” The Christian festival commemorates the resurrection of Jesus from the dead after his crucifixion by the Romans at Calvary c. 30 AD. Easter is also called Pascha (Aramaic, Greek, Latin) or Resurrection Sunday.

Other cultural traditions associated with Easter include Easter parades, communal dancing (Eastern Europe), the Easter Bunny and egg hunting. It is likely that the eggs and the prodigious reproduction of rabbits and hares led to their depiction as symbols of fertility.

Rogation Days (April)

Rogation Days follow some weeks after Easter when processions are formed to pray or beseech (Latin ‘rogare’) God for protection from natural disasters such as hailstorms, floods, and droughts and to ask for blessings on the fields. Rogation processions started at a very early date in order to counteract the Roman Robigalia processions that the pagans made in honor of their gods:

The Robigalia was a festival in ancient Roman religion held April 25, named for the god Robigus. Its main ritual was a dog sacrifice to protect grain fields from disease. Games (ludi) in the form of “major and minor” races were held. The Robigalia was one of several agricultural festivals in April to celebrate and vitalize the growing season, but the darker sacrificial elements of these occasions are also fraught with anxiety about crop failure and the dependence on divine favor to avert it.

Blessing the Fields on Rogation Sunday at Hever, Kent in 1967

As can be seen in these regular prayers, blessings, and processions throughout the Spring season, the anxiety of the people regarding their crops shows a deep understanding of the vagaries of nature and an awareness of their lives’ dependence on the health of their cultivation work.

The Future

Industrial Farming

By the early twentieth century agriculture started to change due to new developments that brought in the era of industrial farming. Previously a wide variety of foods were produced by many small farms. However, that was all about to change as modern science was applied to various aspects of farming:

In 1909, a scientific breakthrough by German chemist Fritz Haber—the “father of chemical warfare”—enabled the large-scale production of fertilizer (and explosives), igniting the industrialization of farming. Synthetic fertilizers, along with the development of chemical pesticides, allowed farmers to increase their crop yields (and their profits). Farmers began specializing in fewer crops, namely corn and soy, grown to feed farmed animals. Chickens became the first factory farmed animal when a farmer decided to try to raise ten times as many birds in a chicken house that was only built for 50. Other farmers followed suit.

Thus followed the new era of industrial farming. The effect of mass production led to the use of antibiotics, selective breeding to increase the size of farm animals, and the mechanisation of slaughter houses.

These developments led to the collapse of the many small farmers who could not compete with farming on an industrial scale. For example, now in the USA “small independent and family-run farms use only 8% of all agricultural land. In just under a century, and especially since the 1960s, agriculture has become dominated by large-scale multinational corporations. Driven by profit, these food giants rely on practices that, by design, exploit and abuse animals, destroy natural habitats, and generate pollution”.

Seed corn is being harvested outside of Bode, Iowa, September 17, 2017.  USDA Photo by Preston Keres

In more recent decades industrialisation has led to more innovations in “agricultural machinery and farming methods, genetic technology, techniques for achieving economies of scale in production, the creation of new markets for consumption, the application of patent protection to genetic information, and global trade.”

This type of intensive farming has a low fallow ratio, and a high level of agrochemicals and water, producing higher crop yields per unit land area. Most of the meat, dairy products, eggs, fruits, and vegetables available in supermarkets are produced by such farms.

Costs to the Environment

Despite the current massive production of food globally, industrialized farming has costs that do not augur well for the future. It has been noted that intensive farming pollutes air and water (through the release of manure, chemicals, antibiotics, and growth hormones), destroys wildlife, facilitates the spread of viruses from animals to humans, fosters antimicrobial resistance, and is linked to epidemics of obesity and chronic disease, through the production of a wide variety of inexpensive, calorie-dense and widely available foods.

Regenerative Agriculture

The increasing awareness of the types of problems that intensive farming could be leading us to in the future is turning some farmers back to more traditional methods of farming. Regenerative agriculture focuses on “topsoil regeneration, increasing biodiversity, improving the water cycle, enhancing ecosystem services, supporting biosequestration, increasing resilience to climate change, and strengthening the health and vitality of farm soil.” Regenerative agriculture also includes different philosophies of farming such as permaculture, agroecology, agroforestry, restoration ecology, crop rotation, and uses “no-till” and/or “reduced till” practices often described as sustainable farming.

Nature Restoration and Practice

The negative aspects of industrial farming have come to the notice of governmental bodies such as the EU parliament which has adopted a law to restore habitats and degraded ecosystems in all member states. It notes that “over 80% of European habitats are in poor shape” and “sets a target for the EU to restore at least 20% of the EU’s land and sea areas by 2030 and all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050.”

However, resistance to positive changes and procrastination deal serious blows to good intentions. The recent referral of Ireland to the EU Court of Justice for failing to halt the continued cutting of peat in areas designated to conserve raised bogs and blanket bogs is a good example. The infringement is one of the longest running infringement cases in Europe, having begun in 2010.

Conclusion

Our long running relationship with nature has benefited from science in the form of the production of plentiful food on a global scale. Yet our deep respect for nature in the past was partly due to our lack of understanding of the processes of biology which led to much anxiety and fear of starvation. All of the polytheistic and monotheistic debates over the influence of gods and goddesses or God have been replaced by scientific processes, but no less anxiety about the future of farming. Farming has always been reliant on predictability as plants are very sensitive to sudden climatic changes such as drought or frost, which can destroy a crop overnight (unseasonal frost) or slowly (extreme drought). Such incidences of crop failures are sporadic if examined on a global scale, but if these incidences multiply rapidly then we will see food price rises and their disastrous social consequences. A new respect for nature is called for that echoes down the centuries when those that did not heed the warnings witnessed the collapse of civilisations.

Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin is an Irish artist, lecturer and writer. His artwork consists of paintings based on contemporary geopolitical themes as well as Irish history and cityscapes of Dublin. His blog of critical writing based on cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of Realist and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed country by country here. Caoimhghin has just published his new book – Against Romanticism: From Enlightenment to Enfrightenment and the Culture of Slavery, which looks at philosophy, politics and the history of 10 different art forms arguing that Romanticism is dominating modern culture to the detriment of Enlightenment ideals. It is available on Amazon (amazon.co.uk) and the info page is here. Read other articles by Caoimhghin.

Louisiana’s ‘In God We Trust’ law tests limits of religion in public schools

Photo by CDC on Unsplash

The Conversation

October 28, 2023

When Louisiana passed a law in August 2023 requiring public schools to post “In God We Trust” in every classroom – from elementary school to college – the author of the bill claimed to be following a long-held tradition of displaying the national motto, most notably on U.S. currency.

But even under recent Supreme Court precedents, the Louisiana law may violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment, which prohibits the government from promoting religion. I make this observation as one who has researched and written extensively on issues of religion in the public schools.

The Louisiana law specifies that the motto “shall be displayed on a poster or framed document that is at least 11 inches by 14 inches. The motto shall be the central focus … and shall be printed in a large, easily readable font.” The law also states that teachers should instruct students about the phrase as a way of teaching “patriotic customs.”

Similar bills are being promoted by groups like the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation, a nonprofit that supports members of Congress who meet regularly to defend the role of prayer in government. To date, 26 states have considered bills requiring public schools to display the national motto. Seven states, including Louisiana, have passed laws in this regard.

Recent shift in the law

The Supreme Court has long treated public schools as an area where government-promoted religious messaging is unconstitutional under the First Amendment’s establishment clause. For example, the Supreme Court held in 1962, 1963, 1992 and 2000 that prayer in public schools is unconstitutional either because it favored or endorsed religion or because it created coercive pressure to religiously conform. In 1980, the court also struck down a Kentucky law requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in classrooms.

At the same time, the court has protected private religious expression for individual students and teachers in public schools.

The Louisiana law comes at a time of rising concerns about Christian nationalism and on the heels of a pivotal court case. In the 2022 case Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the court overturned more than 60 years of precedent when it ruled that a public school football coach’s on-field, postgame prayer did not violate the establishment clause. In doing so, the court rejected long-standing legal tests, holding instead that courts should look to history and tradition.

The problem with using history and tradition as a broad test is that it can change from one context to the next. People – including lawmakers – are apt to ignore the negative and troubling lessons of U.S. religious history. Prior to the Kennedy decision, history and tradition were used by a majority of the court to decide establishment clause cases only in specific contexts, such as legislative prayer and war memorials.

Now, states like Louisiana are trying to use history and tradition to bring religion into public school classrooms.

A history of ‘In God We Trust’

Contrary to what people often assume, the phrase “In God We Trust” has not always been the national motto. It first appeared on coins in 1864, during the Civil War, and in the following decades it sparked controversy. In 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt urged Congress to drop the phrase from new coins, saying it “does positive harm, and is in effect irreverence, which comes dangerously close to sacrilege.”

In 1956, amid the Cold War, “In God we Trust” became the national motto. The phrase first appeared on paper money the next year. It was a time of significant fear about communism and the Soviet Union, and atheism was viewed as part of the “communist threat.” Atheists were subject to persecution during the Red Scare and afterward.

Since then, the motto has stuck. Over the years, legal challenges attempting to remove the phrase from money have failed. Courts have generally understood the term as a form of ceremonial deism or civic religion, meaning religious practices or expressions that are viewed as being merely customary cultural practices.

The future of the law

Even after the Kennedy ruling, the Louisiana law may still be unconstitutional because students are a captive audience in the classroom. Therefore, the mandate to hang the national motto in classrooms could be interpreted as a form of religious coercion.

But because the law requires a display rather than a religious exercise like school prayer, it may not violate what has come to be known as the indirect coercion test. This test prevents the government from conducting a formal religious exercise that places strong social or peer pressure on students to participate.

The outcome of any constitutional challenge to the Louisiana law is far from clear. Prior cases involving the Pledge of Allegiance offer one example. Though the Supreme Court dismissed on standing grounds the only establishment clause challenge to the pledge it has considered, lower courts have held that reciting the pledge in schools is constitutional for a variety of reasons.

These reasons include the idea that it is a form of ceremonial deism and the fact that since 1943 students have been exempt from having to say the pledge if it violates their faith to do so.

The Louisiana law, however, requires instruction about the national motto.

If the law is challenged in court and upheld, teachers could teach that the motto was adopted when the nation was emerging from McCarthyism and fear of communism was widespread. Moreover, they could teach that many people of faith throughout U.S. history would have viewed this sort of display as against U.S. ideals.

Division is likely

More than two centuries before Roosevelt argued that it was sacrilegious to put “In God We Trust” on coins, the Puritan minister and Colonist Roger Williams famously proclaimed that “forced worship stinks in God’s nostrils.” Williams founded the colony of Rhode Island, at least in part, to promote religious freedom.

Additionally, there is no prohibition on alternative designs for the national motto posters as long as the motto is “the central focus of the poster.” In Texas, a parent donated rainbow-colored “In God We Trust” signs and others written in Arabic, which were subsequently rejected by a local school board. This situation, which gained significant media attention, brought the exclusionary impact of these laws into public view.

It could be argued that accepting wall hangings that favor Christocentric viewpoints – and rejecting those that reflect other religions or add symbols such as the rainbow – is religious discrimination by government. If so, schools might be required to post alternative motto designs that meet the letter of the new law in order to uphold free speech rights and prevent religious discrimination.

The Louisiana law would have been brazenly unconstitutional just two years ago. But after the Kennedy decision, the law may survive a potential legal challenge. Even if it does, one thing is for certain: It will be divisive.

Frank S. Ravitch, Professor of Law & Walter H. Stowers Chair of Law and Religion, Michigan State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

 Martini Judaism

Why I am saying kaddish for Al Jaffee of Mad magazine

A childhood literary hero has died — the man who taught me the art of snark.

April 12, 2023

By 

Jeffrey Salkin

Mad magazine was the haggadah of my childhood.

It was my sacred text, my script and my constant companion — so much so that I cannot imagine my childhood and early adolescence without it.

That is why these past few days have been sad for me, and for so many others.

Al Jaffee, perhaps the last of the creators of Mad, has died at the biblical age of 102. In 2016, Guinness World Records recognized him for having had the longest career as a comic artist.

Let me go through that haggadah — that “sacred” script — of my childhood.

I lived for Mad. 

Every month:

• “Spy vs. Spy” was a playful, silent introduction to the Cold War (along with Boris and Natasha from “Rocky and Bullwinkle”).
• Dave Berg’s “Lighter Side of…” introduced me to the small absurdities of life (and when his daughter attended my college, and I met him on the first day of the fall semester, it was one of the most memorable days of my youth).
• Don Martin’s cartoons. Yes, they were, in their own way, a little sadistic. But, as a 10-year-old, what did I know about sadism and borderline-inappropriate humor? They were hysterical.

Then, of course, there were the satires on movies and television shows. Those satires would introduce me to the art of satire and parody, which is a love I have maintained for my entire life.

Some of those satires became famous.

Who can forget “Antenna On The Roof,” which updated “Fiddler on the Roof”? It was more than a satire; it was a piece of American Jewish social commentary. It suggested the shtetl world of “Fiddler” had morphed into a world of bourgeois acceptability (and if you were paying attention, you could see an homage to that satire in the Coen Brothers’ “A Serious Man,” with Larry on the roof, fixing the antenna).

But today, we mourn Al Jaffee, who was responsible for two of Mad’s most iconic features.

First, the fold-in of the back cover. This was Jaffee’s sardonic response to “Playboy” magazine’s fold-out in the center of the magazine.

To quote The New York Times:

It was in 1964 that Mr. Jaffee created the Mad Fold-In, an illustration-with-text feature on the inside of the magazine’s back cover that seemed at first glance to deliver a straightforward message. When the page was folded in thirds, however, both illustration and text were transformed into something entirely different and unexpected, often with a liberal-leaning or authority-defying message.

For me, and for many others, the fold-in was a monthly experience of subversive origami. For this former 10-year-old, the idea that you could take a picture, fold it and manipulate it, and come up with something entirely new was a monthly artistic revelation.

But, second — and even more important — was “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions.” For me, this was inspirational.

It was also, in a sense, aspirational. I knew that if I ever responded to stupid questions the way he did, I would get into serious trouble.

Which is why when people ask the 6-foot-4 me, “Did you play basketball?” I have (thus far, pretty much successfully) suppressed the inner response: “No. Did you play miniature golf?”

That is the point. Al Jaffee, and the rest of the Mad artists and writers, created a world of response that we only wished we could emulate.

Mad Magazine’s cartoon for Al Jaffee’s 100th birthday in 2021. Image via Mad Magazine

Al Jaffee was deeply Jewish — born in Savannah, Georgia, as Abraham to Lithuanian Jewish parents; his mother actually took him back to the shtetl in Lithuania for what was supposed to have been a brief sojourn, but which turned into years. (How Mad — to do the American Jewish immigrant journey in reverse.)

He faced antisemitism in his career. He reminisced about applying for positions in advertising agencies:

In a lot of firms, there was an unwritten policy that no Jews need apply … You went in and sat down with your portfolio and the message came through clearly: “Look, your work looks pretty good and I wouldn’t mind taking you in, but there’s a policy here. We don’t hire too many Jewish people.”

That was what was amazing about the comic book industry. It was brand new. Jews could forge their own path.

Mad magazine was also deeply Jewish. It was a piece of modern, secular Jewish literature — almost up there with Philip Roth. The list of the members of that fabled “usual gang of idiots” reads like a Jewish accounting firm: Al Feldstein, Harvey Kurtzman (who once drew a caricature of me), Mort Drucker, Will Elder, Dave Berg and, of course, Al Jaffee. (No, no women. This was the era of “Mad Men.”)

Contrast Mad with my second humorous love, the National Lampoon, which I started reading in college.

If you wanted to extend Lenny Bruce’s famous shtick: “Mad magazine was Jewish; the National Lampoon was goyish.”

The National Lampoon emerged from the decidedly gentile and genteel walls of the Harvard Lampoon. Its creators were gentiles — Doug Kenney and Henry Beard. So, it seemed, were many of its writers.

As Thomas Carney wrote:

The “National Lampoon” was the first full-blown appearance of non-Jewish humor in years —not anti-Semitic, just non-Jewish. Its roots were W.A.S.P. and Irish Catholic … This was not Jewish street-smart humor as a defense mechanism; this was slash-and-burn stuff that alternated in pitch but moved very much on the offensive. It was always disrespect everything, mostly yourself, a sort of reverse deism.

Mad was not that way. It did not snarl. It soothed. It told you life could be funny, but it did so in a way that was rarely cruel. It was the gentle, knowing joking of your uncle — not the elitist prank of the frat boy.

At this moment, I flash back to a personal memory.

It is of a photograph.

Decades ago, I was visiting my sons at summer camp. I picked up a copy of Mad magazine that belonged to one of them. I also grabbed a Hebrew Bible that seemed to be lying around.

The photo is of me in a chair, reading Mad, with the Hebrew Bible peeking out from behind it.

Yes, that was me.

Mad magazine, but with the Hebrew Bible behind it.

The sacred text of my childhood and the sacred text of my adulthood.

So, in saying kaddish for Al Jaffee, let me acknowledge my debt to him. The fold-in showed me that creativity could be disruptive, and vice versa. “Snappy Answers” gave me an attitude toward the absurdities of everyday life.

But, more than that. I go back to my childhood memories and honor this fact: Mad magazine made life bearable for so many nerdy kids.

Like me.

So, Al, when you get to heaven, God will ask you questions. The Talmud even lists them for us.

Those questions won’t be stupid.

Just do yourself a favor.

Don’t — I repeat, don’t — give any snappy answers.

  

 

 

LOCKEOCRACY IN AMERICA

On the morning of Saturday, October 28th, 1704, in a room in the household of Sir Francis Masham, John Locke died. He had no immediate kin. His ideas, however, would play a profound role in the political organization of the Western world for many centuries to come. It was to be 71 years, 8 months, and 6 days from his death, however, that the greatest of Locke’s inheritors and ideological heirs were to make their lasting mark. Crowded in at 520 Chestnut Street between 5th and 6th streets in Philadelphia, also known at the time as the Pennsylvania State House, a group of disgruntled delegates from all across the Thirteen colonies agreed, on July 4th, 1776, to adopt one of the most profound statements of Locke’s Enlightenment political thought theretofore produced since his death: the United States Declaration of Independence.

The Declaration opens with the famous words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” This hearkens back to the second chapter of the Treatise, entitled Of the State of Nature: “We must consider,” Locke says, “what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.” He continues, saying that it must be a “state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another,” and states that there is “nothing more evident, than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection.” (¶4)

The Declaration then progresses, stating (about the men concerned above, namely, all men) that “they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Here again the Founders echo Locke. In the fourth chapter of his Treatise, called Of Slavery, Locke argues that “This freedom from absolute, arbitrary power, is so necessary to […] a man’s preservation, that he cannot part with it, but by what forfeits his preservation and life together.” Thus, Locke says, every man must have these unalienable rights, immune to arbitrary power, and he may only give them up as he loses his own life. Locke concludes, “No body [sic] can give more power than he has himself; and he that cannot take away his own life, cannot give another power over it.” (¶23) Hence even man cannot alienate himself from his own rights without also losing his life.

Next in the Declaration comes the great statement concerning the purpose of government and the source of its authority: “That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” A more Lockean sentence is not to be found in the entire document. As Locke argues in the tenth chapter of his Treatise, “The great and chief end, therefore, of men’s uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property.” (¶124) In his eighth chapter, Of the Beginning of Political Societies, Locke discusses at length the question of consent of the governed. Given “that men are naturally free, and the examples of history shewing [sic], that the governments of the world, that were begun in peace, had their beginning laid on that foundation, and were made by the consent of the people;” given all that, Locke says, “there can be little room for doubt, either where the right is, or what has been the opinion, or practice of mankind, about the first erecting of governments.” (¶104) He continues, saying that “I affirm, viz. that the beginning of politic society depends upon the consent of the individuals, to join into, and make one society; who, when they are thus incorporated, might set up what form of government they thought fit.” (¶106)

Then, in the body of the second paragraph of the Declaration, the Founders get to the real meat of their purpose – they justify their revolution.

That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. […] [W]hen a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

Here the gloves come off. They appeal heavily to Locke’s Enlightenment political philosophy, to his justification and purpose of government, and therefore also to his defense of just revolution. Locke’s defense, coming again from his Second Treatise in the twenty-ninth chapter (somewhat ominously titled Of the Dissolution of Government) is a dead ringer for the language and spirit of the Declaration. Thus Sayeth Locke:

[W]henever the Legislators endeavor to take away, and destroy the Property of the People, or to reduce them to Slavery under Arbitrary Power, they put themselves into a state of War with the People […]. Whensoever therefore the Legislative shall transgress this fundamental Rule of Society; […] By this breach of Trust they forfeit the Power, the People had put into their hands, for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the People, who have a Right to resume their original Liberty. (¶222)

Locke was also heavily present, ideologically speaking, the formation of the United States Constitution. Locke believed that

[T]he first and fundamental positive law of all commonwealths is the establishing of the legislative power; […] This legislative is not only the supreme power of the common-wealth, but sacred and unalterable in the hands where the community have once placed it; nor can any edict of any body else […] have the force and obligation of a law, which has not its sanction from that legislative which the public has chosen and appointed: for without this the law could not have […] the consent of the society, over whom no body can have a power to make laws, but by their own consent, and by authority received from them. (¶134)

Here Locke is emphasizing the importance of the legislative power in a government over all other forms of governmental power and authority. His reasoning for this authority, as is evident, hearkens back to the same reasoning he justifies government in the first place: the approval and consent of those governed. This is reflected in the very structure of the United States Constitution – the first power enumerated in the government is the legislative, and it receives at least twice as much space as any other power; indeed, in a document of about 4500 words, about 2270 words are devoted to the legislative branch alone, which is more than half of the document (roughly 50.44% ).

Now, it has been aptly shown through the documents of the American founding that John Locke did indeed a great impact on the American Founders; however, it remains to be shown that John Locke’s thought, and by extension the thought of the American Founders, is consistent with the ideals of the Enlightenment. This we will endeavor to show in the remainder of this paper.

Among the core ideas of the Enlightenment are devotion to reason, appreciation of method, love of liberty, belief in the primacy of utility, belief in the knowability of nature, worship of progress, critique of tradition, belief in deism, and acceptance of universalistic individualism. Locke and the American Founders adopted nearly all these ideas, as evidenced by the documents, and they were, therefore, participants in the Enlightenment.

For example: reason, rationality, and method all permeate both the Second Treatise and the American Founding documents – everything is treated with scrupulous examination and logical argument. Liberty is everywhere praised as a natural and unalienable right, and as a necessary means, or a thing that must be utilized to bring about the ultimate Good: true human happiness. Tradition is only justified through consent – in both sources, it may be thrown off like shackles through revolution if it is tyrannical or unwanted by those whom it governs. There are references to God in Locke and to a Creator in the Declaration, but not to any particular religious practices – God is seen as the source of rights, but not as a personal or acting agent in the world.

The American Experiment, then, is not a wholly American thing. This great country which has bred and raised so many of us operates not on principles of uniquely American origin, but on the axioms of the Enlightenment as espoused by a resident of the very kingdom from which we severed ourselves and found our freedom. American Exceptionalism must, it seems, make an exception, if only for a slim, gaunt old Englishman from a bygone century whose scribblings gave our revolution its start.

Posted on April 24, 2014 by Wm. 

PRESENT CONCERNS

polysyllabical meaningless noises

The War On Atheism

Here is a biased survey on Atheism and Morality conducted by Reginald Bibby of the University of Lethbridge.

A new Canadian survey has found that believers are more likely than atheists to place a higher value on love, patience and friendship, in findings the researcher says could be a warning that Canadians need a religious basis to retain civility in society.

About the only claim that holds any 'value' is this one;

In the survey findings, there was only a five percentage-point difference between how theists and atheists valued honesty. But of all the categories, honesty is the value that is least connected to broad emotions such as love and compassion. In other words, someone can be honest and brutal.

I stand by that, being a Saggitarian and an ENTJ, I am often brutally honest.

The assertion made by the article that 'atheists' are less compassionate and moral than Christians misses the point. Those Canadians he interviewed are not necessarily atheists, per se, rather they are Canadians who do not profess a belief in God or organized religion. That is an unbelief, while atheism, and its derivatives; Marxism and Anarchism are counter beliefs, and in all cases rely upon classical liberalism as the basis of morality.

But in the realm of forgiveness, which is a core value of many major religions, particularly Christianity, the difference - 32 percentage points - is stark.

"That's a pretty explicit value within a large number of religious communities," said Prof. Bibby.

"Look at the culture as a whole and ask yourself: to what extent do we value forgiveness against themes like zero-tolerance? We don't talk very much about what we're going to do for people who fall through the cracks. So I think forgiveness is pretty foreign to a lot of people if they're not involved in religious groups."

Heck even Satanism has a moral code. Though it is not one of forgiveness. It is modeled on Ayn Rands morality.

In a consumer capitalist culture based on the values of ; I'm Ok Your Ok, the Me Generation and I Got Mine Jack 'unbelief' in God reflects a consumer choice. And the morality of the individual is then shaped by the society they exist in. In the era of Enron, Chainsaw Jack Welch, and other criminal capitalist enterprises, where Business Schools are having to 'teach' morality to budding business types, it is no surprise to find that Bibby's findings are what they are. Which is actually what Bibby is saying , despite the National Posts spin on the survey, that 'godless' capitalism has no values.

After all seeing that the culture is one of consumer capitalism, then this is more a condemnation of that then atheism or its political and philosophical offshoots.

But there is a war on Atheism currently in vogue amongst the Christian Right, and this just gives ammunition to the side which has conducted wars, pogroms and mass genocide, and continues with oppression, exploitation and mindless discrimination to excuse themselves as being 'good' people, with 'values'.

He said people who are believers are encouraged ­- whether by a desire to please God, or because of a fear of God - to adopt these values

To please or to fear the ultimate cosmic boss, to accept 'his' values, is not as humanistic as it appears. It is the morality of the slave. And thus is reflected in the social schizophrenia that creates the need for God, Priests, Bosses, Cops, Social Workers, etc, the whole kit and caboodle of authority ( a hold over of aristocracy within capitalism).

While Christians on the right claim that we need less human rights and more folks taking responsibility for their actions, they always seem to lovingly accept them folks who break the social or moral code, if they accept Jesus into their hearts.

The enlightened individual sees morality as a social construction; one of mutual agreement and sees no difference between human rights and responsibilities. Thus with the rise of Freemasonry and its child The Rights Of Man a new 'godless' revolutionary morality evolved and created secular society; Liberty, Equality,Fraternity.

Immoral Capitalism has truncated Liberty from Equality and Fraternity. That is the ultimate truth in Bibby's survey.

Only one word more concerning the desire to teach the world what it ought to be. For such a purpose philosophy at least always comes too late. Philosophy, as the thought of the world, does not appear until reality has completed its formative process, and made itself ready.

History thus corroborates the teaching of the conception that only in the maturity of reality does the ideal appear as counterpart to the real, apprehends the real world in its substance, and shapes it into an intellectual kingdom.

When philosophy paints its grey in grey, one form of life has become old, and by means of grey it cannot be rejuvenated, but only known. The owl of Minerva, takes its flight only when the shades of night are gathering.

Hegel, Philosophy of Right (1820), "Preface"

SEE:

Islamicists and Evangelical Christians

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