DeTocqueville's France - More Musical Theatre!

"Do you hear the people sing?
Singing the song of angry men?
It is the music of a people who will not be slaves again.
When the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the drums,
there is a life about to start when tomorrow comes."

The musical, Les Misérables, is based on the 1862 novel by Victor Hugo, and takes place during the French Revolution. While the Jean Valjean, the main character, is less concerned with the Revolution and more for his adoptive daughter, the struggle is one of the themes of this... epically long... and trying... novel.
I prefer the musical - it's got most of the same themes, and boils down the near 1,400 page novel into about 4 hours.
These lyrics come from the English translation version of the song "Do You Hear The People Sing?", which occurs somewhere near the end of the first act. This is the part of the musical which deals with the Revolution. Marius, who is the love interest of Cosette (Valjean's adoptive daughter), is involved with the rebellion against the French government.
I've never seen Les Mis, but I hope to one day. And, as I've shown before, musical theatre helps me to better understand society at times.

Anyway, I think it's important to remember what kind of place DeTocqueville is coming from when he wrote "Democracy in America." Maybe he writes this "love letter" to America because of all the terrible things happening in France, and he's desperately searching for proof that a fair government will work.


"Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Beyond the barricade
is there a world you long to see?

Then join in the fight
that will give you the right to be free!

Do you hear the people sing?
Singing the songs of angry men?
It is the music of a people who will not be slaves again.
When the beating of your heart, echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start when tomorrow comes."

Why a Monarchy Doesn't Work...

"On the far away Island of Sala-ma-Sond,
Yertle the Turtle was king of the pond.
A nice little pond. It was clean. It was neat.
The water was warm. There was plenty to eat.
The turtles had everything turtles might need.
And they were all happy. Quite happy indeed.

They were... until Yertle, the king of them all,
Decided the kingdom he ruled was too small.
'I'm ruler,' said Yertle, 'of all that I see
But I don't see enough. That's the trouble with me.
With this stone for a throne, I look down on my pond
But I cannot look down on the places beyond.
This throne that I sit on is too, too low down.
It ought to be higher!' he said with a frown.
'If I could sit high, how much greater I'd be!
What a king! I'd be ruler of all I could see!'

So Yertle, the Turtle King, lifted his hand
And Yertle, the Turtle King, gave a command.
He ordered nine turtles to swim to his stone
And, using these turtles, he built a new throne.
He made each turtle stand on another one's back
And he piled them up in a nine-turtle stack.
And then Yertle climbed up. He sat down on the pile.
What a wonderful view! He could see 'most a mile!

'All mine!' Yertle cried. 'Oh, the things I now rule!
I'me kind of a cow! And I'm king of a mule!
I'm king of a house! And what's more, beyond that,
I'm kind of a blueberry bush and a cat!
I'm Yertle the Turtle! Oh marvelous me!
For I am the ruler of all that I see!'

And all through that morning, he sad up there high
Saying over and over, 'A great king am I!'
Until 'long about noon. Then he heard a faint sigh.
'What's that?' snapped the king
And he looked down the stack.
And he saw, at the bottom, a turtle named Mack.
Just a part of his thrown. And this plain little turtle
Looked up and he said, 'Beg your pardon, King Yertle.
'I've got pains in my back and my shoulders and knees.
How long must we stand here, Your Majesty, please?'

'SILENCE!' the King of the Turtles barked back.
'I'm king, and you're only a turtle named Mack.'

'You stay in your place while I sit here and rule.
I'm king of a cow! And I'm king of a mule!
I'm king of a house! And a bush! And a cat!
But that isn't all. I'll do better than that!
My throne shall be higher!' his royal voice thundered,
'So pile up more turtles! I want 'bout two hundred!'

'Turtles! More turtles!' he bellowed and brayed.
And the turtles 'way down in the pond were afraid.
They trembled. They shook. But they came. They obeyed.
From all over the pond, they came swimming by dozens.
Whole families of turtles, with uncles and cousins.
And all of them stepped on the head of poor Mack.
One after another, they climbed up the stack.

THEN Yertle the Turtle was perched up so high,
He could see forty miles from his throne in the sky!
'Hooray!' shouted Yertle. 'I'm king of the trees!
I'm king of the birds! And I'm king of the bees!
I'm king of the butterflies! King of the air!
Ah, me! What a throne! What a wonderful chair!
I'm Yertle the Turtle! Oh, marvelous me!
For I am the ruler of all that I see!'

Then again from below, in the great heavy stack,
Came a groan from that plain little turtle named Mack.
'Your Majesty, please... I don't like to complain,
But down here below, we are feeling great pain.
I know, up on top you are seeing great sights,
But down at the bottom we, too, should have rights.
We turtles can't stand it. Our shells will all crack!
Besides, we need food. We are starving!' groaned Mack.

'You hush up your mouth!' howled the mighty King Yertle.
'You've no right to talk to the world's highest turtle.
I rule from the clouds! Over land! Over sea!
There's nothing, no NOTHING, that's higher than me!'

But while he was shouting, he saw with surprise
That the moon of the evening was starting to rise
Up over his head in the darkening skies.
'What's THAT?' snorted Yertle, 'Say, what IS that thing
That dares to be higher than Yertle the King?
I shall now allow it! I'll go higher still!
I'll build my throne higher! I can and I will!
I'll call some more turtles. I'll stack 'em to heaven!
I need 'bout five thousand, six hundred and seven!'

But, as Yertle, the Turtle King, lifted his hand
And started to order and give the command,
That plain little turtle below in the stack,
That plain little turtle whose name was just Mack,
Decided he'd taken enough. And he had.
And the plain little lad got a little bit mad
And that plain little Mack did a plain little thing.
He burped!
And his burp shook the throne of the king!

And Yertle the Turtle, the king of the trees,
The king of the air and the birds and the bees,
The king of a house and a cow and a mule...
Well, that was the end of the Turtle King's rule!
For Yertle, the King of all Sala-ma-Sond,
Fell off his high throne and fell Plunk! in the pond!

And today the great Yertle, that Marvelous he,
Is King of the Mud. That is all he can see.
And the turtles, of course... all the turtles are free
As turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be."

-Theodor Geisel, aka. Dr. Seuss. 1958.

Soverignty of the People

As DeTocqueville says in chapter four, "In America, the sovereignty of the people is neither hidden nor sterile as with some other nations; mores recognize it, and the laws proclaim it..." He is saying that in the United States, citizens embrace our so-called freedom in a way that no other country has.

I think this is only true to some extent. Maybe when DeTocqueville wrote this book two hundred years ago, it was, but it doesn't quite hold true today.
Sure, we're proud of our freedom - or at least, our own definition of freedom - but we're too proud.
For some reason, some figureheads of our government have it in their heads that our political system is better than anyone else's. That we're flawless. That all other countries look up to us. This surely cannot be the case. But this thought causes the American government to do some very stupid things that DeTocqueville probably never realized could happen.

Like Jake said in class yesterday: DeToqueville is practically writing a love letter to the United States, which only enhances the country's ego.
I think DeTocqueville idealizes the American goverment. But then again, maybe it held true then.
Going back again to Jake's insights, the ego of the American government causes it to get involved in so many things that, frankly, don't concern us at all.
Jake mentioned Egypt. I think of Iraq and Kosovo. But these are only a few examples.
America thinks it's got itself all figured out, and that it should go in and help other countries: "Time out. Here's the game plan," as Jake said.
I think we need to figure out our own problems, first.

"This is the Age of Jackson" - Musical Theatre Again...

Sorry - This was meant to be posted yesterday, but I went to bed at 5PM, so it never got posted.

For the Fresh Faces Cabaret, there are several numbers performed by smaller groups, and three pieces performed as a whole. My small group got assigned to perform the song "Populism, Yea, Yea," which is the opening number in the rock musical "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson".
I suppose this has more to do with what we covered first semester when we talked about Manifest Destiny. I've never seen the musical, but it looks pretty interesting. It just debuted on Broadway in September, 2010, but closed in January due to poor attendance. Despite this, it received some very good reviews. It covers the story of Andrew Jackson in a non-traditional light.

I think this song reflects the attitudes of many Americans during the Manifest Destiny period. The first verse doesn't really have much to do with this, but other than that...

Anyway, the lyrics to the song:

"Why wouldn't you ever go out with me in school?
You always went out with those guys
Who thought they were so cool.
And I was just nobody to you,
Nobody to you, nobody to you.

But it's the early 19th century
And we're gonna take this country back
From people like us who don't just think about things
People who make things happen.
Sometimes with guns
Sometimes with speeches too.
And also other things.

Populism, Yea Yea
Populism, Yea Yea
Populism, Yea Yea
Populism, Yea Yea

This is the age of
This is the age of,
This is the age of Jackson

Take a stand against the elite [Sigh]
They don't care anything for us
And we will eat sweet democracy
And let them eat our dust,
Eat our dust, eat our dust

Cause it's the early 19th century
We'll take the land back from the indians
We'll take the land back from the French and Spanish
And other people in other European countries
And other countries too
And also other places
I'm pretty sure it's our land anyway

Populism, Yea Yea
Populism, Yea Yea
Populism, Yea Yea
Populism, Yea Yea

This is the age of Jackson
This is the age of Jackson
This is the age of Jackson
This is the age of Jackson

This is the age of,
This is the age of Jackson"

Link to it on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKHmTJMa5tk

I'm really excited for the Fresh Faces performance on Saturday. Hope to see you there!

Defining The Second Great Awakening

In class, we were asked to write out a 25-word-or-less abstract about Nathan Hatch's article. Here is mine:
The Second Great Awakening, fueled primarily by (the) common people of America, brought together the American community, rather than normalizing religion.
I discussed this a little bit in my previous blog-post, but not quite enough.

In class, we talked about how we define the "common American people". We came up with the idea that within the "common people," education is not the base of authority, and it encompassed a majority of American citizens, which were gaining a growing influence on the effect of religion. During the Second Great Awakening, they were the ones who "converted", and joined congregations, and promoted the spread of religion.
These were the people who fueled the movement.

I feel that the Second Great Awakening brought together the American community rather than normalizing religion because the religious movements were all over the board. Hatch talks primarily about the Baptists, Methodists, black churches, Mormons, and Christians, and ignores the rest. Most people talk about how the movement brought together with a single religious purpose, but there is no single religious purpose. The Second Great Awakening brought many members of communities together, forming stronger townships and a few common ideas. From the communities that formed, democracy became easier to promote.

Notes on the Reading

It seems the most important thing for me to take away from the first section of the reading was that it was the people that shaped Christianity in America, not the institutions. This is unlike Britain, where freedom and religion were very different concepts.

Religion in America in the late 18th century came from the raw power of the common people, which formed the unstructured, passionate movement. Americans refused to look higher up for religious guidance, but insisted instead that leadership would come from the common people, and so leadership was redefined.

These ideas were met by resistance from the more elite. As the reading quotes, a writer from the Connecticut Evangelical Magazine said: "No person is warranted from the word of God to publish to the world the discoveries of heaven or hell which he supposes he has had in a dream, or trance, or vision." Despite the resistance, the Second Great Awakening was created by, and solely for, the common citizen in America.

Fishbowl Discussion in AmCon

I have to say, I was really hesitant to participate in the fishbowl conversation in class yesterday.
The last time we had such a discussions, a student was not allowed to speak when she had something very important to say. She was upset, and many of the rest of us were as well.
I felt that yesterday's discussion went very well, however. I think maybe next time we have a fishbowl, we should keep that format. I liked that there was no requirement as for how long a student could stay in the conversation. The fact that there were two clear opinions helped keep the conversation going, I felt. Previously, we were up there only trying to come up with different facts to state, instead of arguing a point.

Many interesting points were brought up.

Should we trust David Brooks' authority?
He's probably read many more political sermons than we (AmCon class) have, but he certainly has different ideas than we do. David Brooks believed that Whitman's assertion represented the common man, but most people disagreed with him.

I have to say, I love Walt Whitman. Song of Myself has some of my favorite poetry. But I do disagree with him on his vision of American democracy. He seems to place an inflated purpose on literature. Not all of American society takes pleasure in reading and writing political thoughts. I certainly do, but all too often, I meet people who claim that they hate reading (it makes no sense!).

Well, I must get back to reading for tomorrow's class. Ciao!

Democracy in America

When talking about American Democracy, I feel as if I am speaking of our ideals and the Dream, rather than the actual political system in place. The American Dream, as we discussed last semester, takes many different forms. A true democracy, I believe, is only one of these forms.

In a true democracy, every vote cast is truly equal. Every person in the American society has an equal say about what is done with our money, who we decide to support, and etcetera. I am not entirely sure this would be practical, however.

There are several problems with this system. As DeAne mentioned, who is included in the American society? How does a government deal with someone who is uninformed? What about the issue of how much time it takes to get anything done? As someone stated (Jake, I believe) in class on Monday, the supposed democracy in America is less of a democracy, and more of a republic.

In the United States, every day citizens elect members of the House of Representatives and the Senate, who then take it upon themselves to be as informed as possible and represent those that elect. They are then asked to vote on many issues, hopefully keeping in mind the interests of those that support them. If the entire population of the United States were to be asked to vote as often as the Senate and Representatives, on the same scale as the elections of these officials, the government would be spending a lot more money on a simple decision.

When discussing this subject, Athenian democracy almost always comes up. If it worked for them, why can’t it work for us? I feel like it’s important to realize how much smaller their societies were in comparison to ours. California is a perfect example of what a large scale Athenian democracy could turn out like – it takes them ages to accomplish anything.

Whitman, himself an optimist, valued the spirit and enthusiasm in the American society and ultimately, the government. Not all people possess this enthusiasm for politics. I, myself, find politics a difficult subject. Though I do enjoy fiction with content matter concerning war and disagreements, the real thing is a much scarier concept. I don’t like to hear about death, or the Taliban, or who is stealing from whom. It worries me. If it were to fall to me to make such important decisions on a regular basis, I regret I would probably make very uninformed choices. I am aware of my own ignorance. Therefore, I feel the system we have in place works well for me. I do understand how many people find this system inefficient, though. I realize I am one of the few odd ones who would rather distance themselves from thinking about large problems.

I suppose Whitman would have thought me as exactly the sort of American that threatened his idea of democracy, but that’s okay by me.

Second Semester, Here We Come!

Interim Break proved to be very relaxing - I spent four full days and four total driving days in Jackson, Wyoming with a few of my friends. I cooked quite a bit, and pretty much was the mother hen on the trip (because they refused to do the dishes >.<).
Anyway, who's ready for second semester AmCon?
I am.

Also, I miss leaves. So the background is now very green.