Augustine, Concerning the City of God Against the Pagans, trans. Henry Betenson (New York: 1984)

Augustine’s City of God was written in the wake of the 410 CE sack of Rome by the Visigoths. It consists of twenty two books and serves several purposes. Primarily, it seeks to distinguish the City of God from the City of Man and, in doing so, offer a Christian theology of history. Secondarily, it aims to show why Christianity cannot be blamed for the sack of Rome. Along the way, Augustine also tries to prove that pagan religion and philosophy are both inferior to Christianity and, in the case of paganism, demonic.

The rough outline of the book: Books I-X, criticism of pagan religion and philosophy; Books XI-XXII, explanation of Christian theology. The two subjects are intertwined and so the focus on criticizing paganism and advocating Christianity can be found in both sections. In a fashion the first part can be seen as giving a history of the City of Man and the second can be seen as giving a history of the City of God. Throughout God is understood as knowing the course of history, “he gives in accordance with the order of events in history, an order completely hidden from us, but perfectly known to God” (176). In addition, what appears evil to humans in only a result of our limited knowledge for “God turns evil choices to good use” (449).

Book I

Augustine begins by stating his purpose and method, “the task of defending the glorious City of God against those who prefer their own gods to the founder of that city. I treat of it both as it exists in this world of time, a stranger among the ungodly, living by faith, and as it stands in the security of its everlasting seat.” He defines “the city of this world, a city which aims at dominion, which holds nations in enslavement, but is itself dominated by that very lust of domination” (5).

The balance of the book is spent explaining how the sack of Rome was not the fault of Christians and what Christians should do in the face of the sack. He tries to show that the Christians can’t be blamed because the Visigoths respected Christian churches and did not murder those who sought sanctuary within them. Then he turns his attention to the question of rape and concludes that women who were raped during the sack should not kill themselves since, “There will be no pollution, if the lust is another’s; if there is pollution the lust is not another’s” (27). This argument fits in with Augustine’s major claim about sin, it is the misdirection of the human will from God towards the human. This means that if one is ordered to kill by the authority of the state “it was not an act of of crime, but of obedience” (32).

In this book Augustine also makes an argument about God’s punishment in this life, “the sufferings of Christians have tended to their moral improvement” while “the wicked, under pressure of affliction, execrate God and blaspheme” (14).

Book II

The major focus of this book is to show that the worship of pagan gods has never benefited Rome. There is a particular focus on the pagan theater. He argues, “Rome had sunk into a morass of moral degradation before the coming of Heavenly King” (69). Also, “I shall do my best to demonstrate that that commonwealth [the Roman Republic] never existed, because there was real justice in the community… true justice is found only in that commonwealth whose founder and ruler is Christ” (75).

Book III

This book continues the previous argument, describing the history of the City of Man through the reign of Caesar Augustus.

Book IV

Augustine begins this book by emphasizing, “the false gods whom they used to worship openly and still worship secretly, are really unclean spirits; they are demons” (135). Then he offers an account of the growth of the Roman Empire. He sees the empire as just and asks the question, “Remove justice, and what are kingdoms but gangs of criminals on a large scale?” There is good parable here, which Augustine borrows from Cicero: “it was a witty and a truthful rejoiner which was given by a captured pirate to Alexander the Great. The king asked the fellow, ‘What is your idea, in infesting the sea?’ And the pirate answered, which uninhibited insolence, ‘The same as yours, in infesting the earth! But because I do it with a tiny craft, I’m called a pirate: because you have a mighty navy, you’re called an emperor’” (139). Also, “The increase of empire was assisted by the wickedness of those against whom just wars were waged” (154).

He also makes the claim that God is not immanent. God is transcendent.

Book V

Here Augustine inquires “why God was willing that the Roman Empire should extend so widely and last so long” (179). Again his purpose is to show that the sack of Rome has nothing to do with the rise of Christianity. There is an important discussion of the nature of free will and God’s knowledge, “Our wills themselves are the order of causes, which is, for God, fixed, and is contained in his foreknowledge, since human acts of will are the causes of human activities” (192). He also begins to make the argument that evil wills result from turning away from God, “they are contrary to the nature which proceeds from him” (193). A good summary of his position: “The fact that God foreknew that a man would sin does not make a man sin; on the contrary, it cannot be doubted that it is the man himself who sins… A man does not sin unless he wills to sin; and if he had willed not sin, then God would have foreseen that refusal” (195).

Book VI

This book presents a critique of pagan religion and philosophy, primarily as presented by the philosopher Marcus Varro. He tries to show here that both are insufficient for creating righteousness in this life.

Book VII

This book follows the argument of the previous. However, the emphasis here is on why pagan religion and philosophy offer inadequate account of how the divine operates in this life.

Book VIII

This book focuses more exclusively on pagan philosophy and makes the claim “the true philosopher is the lover of God” (298). He tries to show the Platonist school got things mostly right, “There are none who come nearer to us than the Platonists” (304).

Book IX

This book continues the previous discussion of Platonism. He also makes the claim that humans need a mediator, i.e. Christ, because “there can be no direct meeting between the immortal purity on high and the mortal and unclean things below” (364). He begins to describe angels and demons, both of which he believes to be real.

Book X

Augustine begins this book by summarizing his agreements and disagreements with the Platonists, “they have been able to realize that the soul of man, though immortal and rational… cannot attain happiness except by participation in the light of God… [yet] they have supposed… that many gods are to be worshipped” (371). He then moves onto a discussion of the nature of true religion and Christ. Christ is “our priest, his only-begotten son” through him people learn to offer God, “on the altar of the heart, the sacrifice of humility and praise” (375). Further, true love of self is understood to be love of God, “For if a man loves himself, his one wish is to achieve blessedness” (376). In addition, acts are understood to be righteous only if they are “directed to that final Good” (i. e. God) (379).

This is followed by a discussion of the nature of God, “he moves events in time, while himself remains unmoved by time” (390).

Book XI

This book concerns the origins of both cities. Augustine claims, “the existence of the world is a matter of observation: the existence of God a matter of belief” (432). He discusses the nature of time, “there can be no doubt that the world was not created in time but with time. An event in time happens after one time and before another, after the past and before the future” (436) and provides an account of the creation, including the creation of the angels and the fall of “some angels who turned away from… illumination” (443). These fallen angels “fell, by their own choice” (445). He claims that evil can be understood as necessary because it enriches “the course of the world history by the kind of antithesis which gives beauty to a poem” (449).

The City of God exists because God “founded it” and its structure can be found in the Trinity, “It exists; it sees; it loves” (458). Human beings mirror this as well, “We resemble the divine Trinity in that we exist; we know that exist, and we are glad of this existence and this knowledge” (459).

Book XII

In this book Augustine further explains the origins and natures of both cities, “We may speak of two cities, or communities, one consisting of the good, angels as well as men, and the other of evil.. We must believe that the difference had its origin in the wills and desires” (471). Evil is understood to be good which has turned away from God, “the turning is itself perverse” (478).

A second part of the book makes argument that human history is only 6,000 years old and that those who believe otherwise are following a false teaching. Furthermore, true history is to be found in the Bible. The when God’s creation of the world is understood to be a mystery, “it is certainly a profound mystery that God existed always and yet willed to create the first man, as a new act of creation, at some particular time, without any alteration in his purpose and design” (490). Various other theories of history are then rejected.

Book XIII

Here Augustine is concerned with the problem of death. He makes a distinction between the death of the body, “the first death,” and the death of the soul, “the second death” (511). Death begins “from the moment that… bodily existence” begins” (519). While asserting that the Fall was real, he also reads the Fall and paradise allegorically, “paradise stands for the Church itself” (535).

Book XIV

This book focuses primarily on the Fall and human nature. He begins by underscoring the differences between the “two cities… one city of men who choose to live by the standard of the flesh, another those who choose to live by the standard of the spirit” (547). The Fall be understood, in part, as a decision to reject the spirit for the flesh. This decision originates, however, not in the flesh itself but in the will, “it was the sinful soul that made the flesh corruptible” (551). Further, the “important factor in those emotions is the character of a man’s will. If the will is wrongly directed, the emotions will be wrong; if the will is right, the emotions will be not only blameless, but praiseworthy” (555). Because of these two factors the human life must be seen as full of sin, “anyone who thinks that his life is without sine does not succeed in avoiding sin, but rather in forfeiting pardon” (564).

Augustine recounts the Fall as told in Genesis. A fallen angel is seen as tempting Adam and Eve to leave the City of God. Disobedience understood as originating Satan then being transfered to Eve and finally, through Eve, to Adam. The Fall is also understood as a movement from being to nonbeing, “although the will derives its existence, as a nature, from its creation by God, its falling away from its true nature is due to its creation out of nothing” (572).

Augustine focuses on the orgasm and the erection as both proof of, and a symptom, of humanity’s fallen nature, “So intense is the pleasure that when it reaches its climax there is an almost total extinction of mental alertness” (577). The erection shows that lustful sinful men cannot control their own bodies. As a result, sex is shameful because it demonstrates a loss of control. When humanity is reconciled with God this will no longer be the case.

Book XV

In this book Augustine traces the history of the City of Man, and the City of God, from the story of Cain and Able through the Flood. He sees the Ark as a symbol of the City of God, “this is a symbol of the City of God on pilgrimage in this world, of the Church which is saved through the wood on which was suspended ‘the mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus’” (643).

Book XVI

This book continues the histories of the City of Man and the City of God through the start of the time of the prophets.

Book XVII

This book continues the histories of the City of Man and the City of God from the time of the prophets to the birth of Christ. The history of the City of God in the world is to be understood, in part, as the story of “two things promised to Abraham… that his descendants would possess the land of Canaan… [and that he would be] the father… of all nations follow in the footsteps of his faith” (712). A great number of pages are spent trying to prove that the Hebrew Bible contains passages foretelling the coming of Christ.

Book XVIII

This book continues along the lines of the previous three. The last chapters begin to explain the nature of Christ and the Church. People born before Christ had the possibility of belonging to the City of God, “I have no doubt that it was the design of God’s providence that… we should know that there could also be those among other nations who lived by God’s standards and were pleasing to God, as belonging to the spiritual Jerusalem” (829). Augustine sees the Christ event as, “After sowing the seed of the holy gospel, as far as it belonged to him to sow it through his bodily presence, he suffered, he died, he rose again, showing by his suffering what we ought to undergo for the cause of truth, by resurrection what we ought to hope for in eternity, to say nothing of the deep mystery by which his blood was shed for the remission of sins” (832).

Book XIX

In this book Augustine defines “Final Good is that for which other things are to be desired, while it is itself to be desired for its own sake. The Final Evil is that for which other things are to be shunned, while it is itself to be shunned on its own account” (843). This is the book that most clearly articulates Augustine’s ethics. The primary emphasis here is on the kinds of virtues and vices and what the good Christian life consists of, “eternal life is the Supreme Good, and eternal death, the Supreme Evil” (852). Happiness can never be found in this life. It will only come in the next “we are saved in hope, it is in hope that we have been made happy; and we do not yet possess a present salvation, but await salvation in the future, so we do not enjoy a present happiness, but look forward to happiness in the future” (857). Augustine returns to arguing against Marcus Varro. The themes of peace and justice, both of which have to do with alignment with God, are visited. Just war theory is partially articulated. And slavery to lust is described as a greater evil than slavery to a human being. Augustine summarizes his ethics thus, “In this life, therefore, justice in each individual exists when God rules and man obeys, when the mind rules the body, and reason governs the vices even when they rebel, either by subduing them or by resisting them, while from God himself favour is sought for good deeds and pardon for offences, and thanks are duly offered to him for benefits received” (893).

Book XX

The subject of this book “is a belief held by the whole Church of the true God, in private confession and also in public profession, that Christ is to come from heaven to judge both the living and the dead, and this is what we call the Last Day, the divine of divine judgement” (895). Much of the focus is on the scriptural evidence for the judgement and nature of “the resurrection of the dead” (900). The judgment is include a purifying fire.

Book XXI

This book focuses on “the kind of punishment which is in store for the Devil, and for all those of his party” (964). The “bodies of the damned [are] to suffer torment in the everlasting fire” (976). About the metaphysical conflict between the two cities he writes, “Better war with the hope of everlasting peace than slavery without any thought of liberation” (993). A small section is devoted to arguing against Origen and universal salvation.

Book XXII

The final book describes what will happen when the City of God comes, “in this City all citizens will be immortal, for human beings also will obtain that which the angels have never lost” (1022). Human will will be restored to its proper orientation and people will no longer sin, “this last freedom will… bring the impossibility of sinning… [it will be] that condition of liberty in which it is incapable of sin” (1089). He concludes by claiming that humans live in the sixth epoch and that the last judgement will bring about the seventh.

Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (New York: Penguin Books, 2006 [1963])

Arendt’s comparative study of the American and French revolutions examines one of the two major political issues in the world (the other being war). She finds that war and revolution have an interrelationship and that at, in some sense, both require the glorification or justification of violence. She believes that revolutions are fundamentally about liberation and that the revolution process is two-fold. It begins with the effort to gain freedom and ends, if it ends successfully, with the foundation of new institutions designed to preserve that freedom. She believes that revolution is a modern concept that can be traced primarily to French revolution and “the idea [that] freedom and the experience of a new beginning should coincide” (19). French revolution was a failure because it got sidetracked in efforts to deal with the abject poverty in France and stopped focusing on freedom. The American revolution was successful because the colonies were wealthy in comparison to Europe. The kind of poverty that existed in France simply did not exist in the colonies. 

The last chapter of the book focusing on recovering the revolutionary tradition. Arendt traces both creation of political parties and councils to revolutionary periods and claims “political freedom, generally speaking, means the right ‘to be a participator in government’, or it means nothing” (210). The councils are the authentic spaces for political freedom that can be traced to revolutionary periods. They are crushed by the logic of the nation state while the parties are able to succeed. Ideally, the parties can be a space for knowing and the councils a space for doing. As she writes, “Wherever knowing and doing have parted company, the space of freedom is lost” (256).

A few synthetic notes: Like Theda Skocpol, Arendt believes that revolutionaries are bad at both organizing and predicting revolutions. Unlike Skocpol, she is not interested in what causes revolutions but rather in the course they follow after their advent. Human agency appears mostly in the events that stem from a revolution and the long term success of a revolution is dependent on the culture and institutions that proceed it. The American revolution was successful because it depended on the long standing institutions of local governance. The French revolution was unsuccessful because it swept away entirely the old order and sought to replace it. As she writes, “…the more absolute the ruler, the more absolute the revolution will be which replaces him.” (147)

I have started to study for my general exams, which take place at the end of May. As part of my study process I am writing notes on all of the books on my reading lists. I plan to post the notes on a few books that I think people I am in regular dialogue with might be particularly interested. Here’s this morning’s notes on Karl Marx’s The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte:

Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, translated by Terrell Carver in Marx’s ‘Eighteenth Brumaire’: (post)modern interpretations, ed. Mark Cowling and James Martin (London: Pluto Press, 2002)

This is Marx’s analysis of the rise of Louis Bonaparte in the wake of the 1848 February revolution and abdication of King Louis-Philippe. It covers the period of 1848 to 1852, when Bonaparte assumed dictatorial powers. Marx divides the era into three periods:

1. The February period or the overthrow of Louis-Philippe, which ran from February 24 1848 to 4 May 1848;
2. The Constituent Assembly period, May 4, 1848 to May 28, 1851;
3. The Constitutional Republic, May 28, 1851 to December 2, 1851.

He identifies these periods largely with the classes who held power in the country during them. Only in the first period was the proletariat in charge. After that various bourgeois parties held power. Louis Bonaparte skillfully manipulated them until he was able to consolidate his own power at the end of 1851, beginning of 1852.

In the text Marx lays out a theory of revolution and political transformation. It is summarized in the first two sentences of text: “Hegel observes somewhere that all the great events and characters of world history occur twice, so to speak. He forgot to add: the first time as high tragedy, the second time as low farce” (19). By this he means that during times of revolutionary struggle revolutionaries always look to the past for inspiration. They begin by imitating the past but only succeed in creating revolutionary change when they move beyond imitation. The first example he gives of this is the way in which revolutionaries during the French Revolution looked back to the Roman Republic for inspiration. The second example he offers is the way that the revolutionaries of 1848 and Louis Bonaparte both looked to earlier struggles and figures, in the revolutionaries case it was the French Revolution and Louis Bonaparte is was that of his uncle.

Another important theme that Marx takes up is how during revolutionary times people, particularly, the bourgeoise, prioritize order above progress. People are not often aware of this tendency within themselves which leads Marx to observe, “Just as in private life one distinguishes between what a man thinks and says, and what he really is and does, so one must all the more in historical conflicts make the distinction between the fine words and aspirations of the parties from their real organization and their real interests, their image from their reality” (43). What’s really going on is always class struggle. That struggle may be veiled, from the participants themselves, by words.

Towards the end of the book Marx provides a description of class in relation to his discussion of the French peasantry. It is worth quoting in whole:

Thus the great bulk of the French nation is formed by simple accretion, much as potatoes in a sack form a sack of potatoes. In so far as millions of families get a living under economic conditions of existence that divide their mode of life, their interests and their culture from those of other classes and counterpose them as enemies, they form a class. In so far as there is merely a local interconnection amongst peasant proprietors, the similarity of their interests produces no community, no national linkage and no political organization, they do not form a class. They are therefore incapable of asserting their class interests in their own name, whether through a parliament or constitutional convention. They cannot represent themselves, they must be represented. (100-101).

Every year I keep track of the books I read and post the list to my blog. This year my six year-old son started to get into graphic novels and so I read quite a few of those with him. I read a lot of great books over the year. A few that stand out for particular praise are: Debt; The First 5,000 Years, David Graeber; Speaking in Parables: A Study in Metaphor and Theology, Sallie McFague TeSelle; Orlando, Virginia Woolf; After Virtue, Third Edition, Alasdair MacIntyre; Local Histories/Global Designs, Walter Mignolo; and, of course, Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes. I have read Don Quixote before, in 2003 or so when I was staying in a Zapatista community in Chiapas, Mexico, and it remains one of my three favorite novels (the other two are The Brothers Karamazov and Moby Dick). This year I read Cervantes while walking the Camino de Santiago. Someplace in me is a long essay about Cervantes, pilgrimage, social justice work, colonialism and decolonial theory. Maybe someday I’ll write it.

The two books I was probably least impressed with were: The Spanish Civil War, Stanley Payne and En La Lucha/In the Struggle; Elaborating a mujerista theology, Asa María Isasi-Díaz. I disliked Payne’s history of the Spanish Civil War because I read it as having a right-wing bias. He claimed that the civil war and the right-wing uprising were reactions to social chaos brought on by the rise of the Popular Front government. Such an explanation is line with the story almost every right-wing coup leader tells about why he organized a coup against an elected government. As for Isasi-Diaz, I wanted to like her book. I was engaged by her methodology (enthnography), inspired by her commitment to remain in dialogue with and accountable to her community and liked her writing. Her theological argument, however, was completely disconnected with the work of latina theorists like Gloria Anzaldua, who were her contemporaries. This disconnection was unfortunate. I find Anzaldua’s work, and that of those who respond to her, much richer than Isasi-Diaz’s. If Isasi-Diaz had integrated some of the work latina theorists into her own work I think she would have written a powerful text. As it was, I was left feeling like her text was rather flat, not particularly useful and not part of the same dialogue of many of her contemporaries. 

I should probably also mention that I had a real love hate relationship with David Hall’s A Reforming People: Puritanism and the Transformation of Public Life in New England. On the one hand, it is one of the best intellectual histories of 17th and 18th century New England Puritanism. On the other, it made almost no mention of said Puritans relationships with the indigenous peoples of New England. I would like to say that I found this to be inexcuseable. But truthfully, I find it more perplexing than anything. Hall is a great scholar and I simply don’t understand how he could make such an obvious omission. I imagine that most people would just chalk it all up to some form of unconscious white supremacy but I have a nagging suspicion that explanation is deeper than that.

Here’s the full list of my 2013 books:

The Signal and the Noise; Why So Many Predictions Fail—But Some Don’t, Nate Silver
Debt; The First 5,000 Years, David Graeber
From Here to There; the Staughton Lynd Reader, Staughton Lynd
The Intellectual Origins of American Radicalism, Staughton Lynd
Accompanying: Pathways to Social Change, Staughton Lynd
Stepping Stones; Memoir of a Life Together, Alice and Staughton Lynd
Speaking in Parables: A Study in Metaphor and Theology, Sallie McFague TeSelle
Rumpole a la Carte, John Mortimer
Transmetropolitan: Year of the Bastard, Warren Ellis
Transmetropolitan: back on the street, Warren Ellis
Transmetropolitan: lust for life, Warren Ellis
A Machiavellian View of the Ministry, Brandoch Lovely
A Theology for the Social Gospel, Walter Rauschenbusch
Parish Parables, Clinton Lee Scott
Transmetropolitan: the new scum, Warren Ellis
Rumpole and the Angel of Death, John Mortimer
The Cosmic Race, Jose Vasconcelos
Elfquest Vol. 1, Richard and Wendy Pini
Elfquest Vol. 2, Richard and Wendy Pini
Elfquest Vol. 3, Richard and Wendy Pini
Elfquest Vol. 4, Richard and Wendy Pini
Elfquest Siege at Blue Mountain, Richard and Wendy Pini
Elfquest Kings of the Broken Wheel, Richard and Wendy Pini
The Spanish Civil War, Stanley Payne
Transmetropolitan: one more time, Warren Ellis
Transmetropolitan: the cure, Warren Ellis
Transmetropolitan: dirge, Warren Ellis
Transmetropolitan: gouge away, Warren Ellis
At the Same Time, Susan Sontag
Local Histories/Global Designs, Walter Mignolo
En La Lucha/In the Struggle; Elaborating a mujerista theology, Asa María Isasi-Díaz
Red Rackham’s Treasure (Tintin), Herge
The Seven Crystal Balls (Tintin), Herge
Contentious Politics, Charles Tilly and Sidney Tarrow
Tintin and the Picaros, Herge
Ethics for a Small Planet, Daniel Maguire and Larry Rasmussen
Under the Net, Iris Murdoch
Los Borgia Intergral, Alejandro Jodorowsky (Spanish)
Don Quixote Vol. 1, Miguel de Cervantes
El Señor Cocodrilo Está Muerto De Hambre, Joan Sfar (Spanish)
El suspiro, Marjane Satrapi (Spanish)
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Century: 1910, Alan Moore
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Century: 1969, Alan Moore
Nemo: Heart of Ice, Alan Moore
Don Quixote Vol. 2, Miguel de Cervantes
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Century: 2009, Alan Moore
Orlando, Virginia Woolf
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, J. K. Rowling
When You Are Engulfed in Flames, David Sedaris (audio book)
Thank You Jeeves, P.D. Wodehouse, fiction (audio book)
Private Lives, Noel Coward, drama, (audio book)
MacBeth, William Shakesphere, drama (audio book)
When Jesus Came To Harvard, Harvey Cox
Rumpole Misbehaves, John Mortimer (audio book)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J. K. Rowling
The Names of the Lost, Philip Levine
The Time of the Doves, Merce Rodoreda
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, Marina Lewycka
Take the Cannoli; Stories from the New World, Sarah Vowell
The Star Thrower, Loren Eiseley
Good Omens, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
The Ocean at the End of the Land, Neil Gaiman
Utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill
Utilitarianism: For and Against, J. J. C. Smart and Bernard Williams
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J. K. Rowling
A Reforming People: Puritanism and the Transformation of Public Life in New England, David Hall
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Immanuel Kant, translated by H. J. Paton
Living for Change: An Autobiography, Grace Lee Boggs
The Sources of Normativity, Christine Korsgaard
The Next American Revolution; Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century, Grace Lee Boggs with Scott Kurashige
The Creation of the American Republic: 1776-1787, Gordon Wood
Chico & Rita, Javier Mariscal and Fernando Trueba (Spanish)
The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, Eric Foner
Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
After Virtue, Third Edition, Alasdair MacIntyre
Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, Bernard Williams
Attack of the Deranged Killer Monster Snow Goons, Bill Watterson
They Feed The Lion, Philip Levine
Revolution and Evolution in the Twentieth Century, James and Grace Lee Boggs
Bertie’s Guide to Life and Mothers, Alexander McCall Smith
Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, Kiran Desai
The Days are Just Packed, Bill Watterson
Nervous Conditions, Tsitsi Dangarembga
Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat, Bill Watterson

Today was the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address.” I spent the better part of the day reading Eric Foner’s recent The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. Foner makes the following argument about the address:

At the time of his death and for years thereafter, Lincoln was remembered primarily as the Great Emancipator. Not until the turn of the century, when the process of (white) reconciliation was far advanced, would Americans forget or suppress the centrality of slavery and emancipation to the war experience. Lincoln would then be transformed into a symbol of national unity, and the Gettysburg Address, which did not explicitly mention slavery, would, in popular memory, supplant the Emancipation Proclamation as the greatest embodiment of his ideas. (333)

The Civil War wasn’t about States rights or any other similar nonsense. It was about slavery. As people take time to remember Lincoln’s let’s also remember that.

Today I gave a presentation on matter for the American Studies colloquim. It is currently focused on material culture. Below is the text of the handout I put together for class. Since some of my Facebook friends asked for it I thought I’d just go-ahead and make it publicy available. I’ll try to put up a .pdf version tomorrow.

Some Thoughts on Matter

1. Matter is weird and complicated. It can behave in counter-intuitive ways. What physics gives us is different models for understanding matter. These models help us predict how it will behave in different circumstances. Remember: a model of the universe is not the same thing as the universe. Also, as evidenced by the search for dark energy and dark matter, there is still an awful lot that we don’t understand (together they make up 95% of the observable universe).
2. How physics models the behavior of matter depends on speed, scale and frame of reference. There are three overlapping models: Newtonian Mechanics, Quantum Mechanics and Relativity.
3. Two things to remember before turning to these models:
   A. e = mc^2 or mass and energy are different forms of the same thing;
   B. The First Law of Thermodynamics says that the total amount of energy (and therefore mass) in a closed system must be conserved;
4. Newtonian Mechanics:
   A. Describes the world that we can see with the naked eye: largish objects (i.e. larger than a molecule) moving at slow speeds (i.e. significantly less than the speed of light).
   B. Essentially deterministic: I can write an equation predicting where a ball I throw will land.
5. Quantum Mechanics (i.e. the Standard Model and whatever comes after it):
   A. Describes the world that we can’t see with the naked eye: atomic and subatomic particles.
   B. Counter-intuitive and essentially probabilistic: I can write an equation predicting the probability of a particle arriving at a particular place. (Einstein said: “God does not play dice.”)
   C. Is predicated on the idea that particles have fixed values or quanta associated with them (i.e. an electron has a charge of -1).  
   D. At this scale matter has a dual particle wave nature (an electron behaves like both a particle and a wave form).
   E. Places limits on knowledge (i.e. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle: we can only know so much about the position and momentum of a particle. The more we know about one, the less we know about the other).
   F. Matter itself is made up two families of particles: fundamental particles (fermions) and radiation or force carrying particles (bosons). Asif Hassan, a physicist at University of Texas at Austin, says: “no two fundamental particles (electrons, neutrinos, quarks) can be at the same place with the same properties. The other kind of particle is bosonic (commuting), so that this kind of particle (photons, W and Z particles, gluons, and the Higgs) can be at the same place with the same properties. So photons for instance can constructively interfere at the fundamental level and lots of them can be in the same quantum state at the same time – this is what is arranged to happen in a laser. There is no such thing as a neutrino laser, or an electron laser for example. So with bosons you can see the quantum behavior at an energy and size scale that we consider normal, but with fermions the quantum behavior mostly shows up at tiny scales. You have to be careful though about the idea of material things corresponding to fermions… because we usually think of those things as things we can touch, and neutrinos are fermions but they are so weakly interacting that we don’t even notice them. Intuitively we associate “stuff” with things we can touch, and most of that is fermions – electrons and quarks (which make neutrons and protons.)”
   G. There are lots of amazing phenomena observed at the quantum level that we don’t have time to go into: entanglement, quantum tunneling, virtual particles…
   H. Satisfactorily accounts for three of the four fundamental forces: electromagnetic, and the weak and strong nuclear forces.
6. Relativity:
   A. General relativity accounts for gravity and how mass and energy distort space.
   B. Special relativity says:
      1. There is no universal frame of reference;
      2. The laws of physics are the same for all frames of reference;
      3. The experience of time depends upon the frame of reference.
   C. Relativity is useful for understanding things that are either very large or are moving very fast. That doesn’t mean it can’t show up in our everyday life. Asif Hassan says, “the gravitational field of the earth changes the speed of clocks, so GPS satellite clocks run at a different rate than they do here on Earth. GPS has to account for this correction to work properly. Most of us don’t realize it but we are carrying around an application of general relativity in our pockets.”

Suggested Resources

Scientific American (www.scientificamerican.com)
Albert Einstein, Relativity: The Special and General Theory
Richard P. Feynman, QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter
Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
Stephen Hawking, Black Holes and Baby Universes
Brian Greene, The Fabric of the Cosmos
Leon Lederman, If the Universe is the Answer: What is the Question?

Acknowledgement

Asif Hassan commented on a draft of this handout.

This semester I am taking a research seminar with Professor Lisa McGirr entitled “Twentieth-Century Politics and Social Movements.” I am currently trying pick a research topic for the seminar. The ideal topic would be something that relates to the labor movement, indigenous movements and/or religion, has not been written about widely and has archival material that I can access either on-line, through Harvard’s Interlibrary Loan or within a two hour drive of Boston. There are a few different topics I am considering at the moment. These include indigenous membership in the Industrial Workers of the World in the 1910s through the 1950s, the religious dimensions of the sanctuary movement for refugees from Central American of the 1980s and the turn towards Latin American liberation theologian by American Marxists in the 1980s (specifically looking at the relationship between Vincent Harding, Grace Lee Boggs and Staughton Lynd). Since I labor under the delusion that my scholarship may in some way be relevant to people I work with in liberal religious circles and on the labor and radical Left I thought it might be interesting see what other ideas people have and/or if any of these ideas resonate with anyone. There’s a decent chance that I will eventually publish a version of the paper or something relating to it.