[Reader-list] [The Metaversity: doing cultural studies, images of america] Re: America Builds a Dream World and Moves into it

[Lachlan Brown]

On the subject of commodities and colonial and imperial 
exploitation (which is what this discussion about the 
American Dream and The West (and the Internet) is really about) 
as well as dystopia in 4th world rural/urban life,
I am scripting a couple of courses for 

The Metaversity: 'Open to Sources, Access, Ideas and Learning.'


from Images of America. week 1.
for 'the Metaversity'.
Lachlan Brown l.brown at london.com


 
A New England? America as a moral exemplar. 
Text: Winthrop's City upon a Hill.
 
(Week Two: Salem and the Witchtrials).
 
'make it like that of New England: for we 
must Consider that we shall be as a City 
upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are 
upon us'
 
'if wee shall deal falsely ....
in this work we have undertaken ... 
we shall be made a story and a 
byword through the world...' 
  Winthrop, 1630
 
 
Governor Winthrop's 'City upon a Hill' sermon, delivered to 
the Puritan settlers of Massachussett's Bay aboard ship Arabella 
prior to landing provides the earliest template of the American 
dream world, Internet is one of its more recent manifestations. 
Reading around the Biblical references (it was impossible 
at the time because all public utterance was illustrated by 
Biblical references that were far more familiar to readers than 
they are to us today) the idea was to build a society through a 
Covenant (contractual agreement) with God, and of course also a 
moral contract with one another as equals as an example to the 
world (not only Old England), and to acheive life and prosperity 
through shared wealth, labour and shared fidelity to this Covenant
made between each man and their God.

There are no tremendous tensions in this text despite the
stresses of a sea passage and the uncertainties of the landing, 
but little is said about the corporate nature of the enterprise - 
chartered as The Massachussetts Bay Company by the Crown of England 
to plant settlers and to trade - nor about the aboriginal people 
the Massachusset 
http://www.tolatsga.org/Compacts.html#Massachusett

http://www.dickshovel.com/massa.html
(reduced in the area of the Bay  by successive waves of European 
diseases including smallpox making the abandoned clearings open to
settlement by Europeans) nor competing colonising powers, 

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/united_states/exploration_before_1675.jpg


except in the reference to the warning not to break Covenant by 
following other gods and presumably foreign ideas. 

Although obviously the intention for the Company and plantations 
or settlements to survive and prosper was catered to with respect 
to the experience of the near disasters of both Viginia and Plymouth 
Plantations which were already established to the south, there were 
no guarantees that individual colonists of the Massachussetts Company 
would survive. Of course the community and the ideas of the community
would.

The reference 'City upon a Hill' is from the Gospel of Matthew; 
"You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be
hid." (5:14) It sought moral superiority, hoping to be
instruments of God 
in authoring the final chapter of divine history. 

The idea that a society Christ might like to live in should be formed 
was a fairly commonplace Puritan aspiration. The Puritans thought 
they were scripting the final chapter of divine history, while 
contributing to the early chapters of modern human history.

Failure to meet this exacting moral contract is not catered 
to by an exit clause. There is no middle ground of doubt in this 
American Image. The venture will succeed, no imagery is provided of 
what the situation will look like if it doesn't. American history has
filled the lack. 
 
'All the eyes of the world shall be upon us' is a curious combination
of the recognition of the equality of God's omniscience over an 
individual's self and conscience and also a sort of 'total 
surveillance' by peers and, strangely for the time, the rest of the 
world of historical human affairs. As if the rest of the world cared 
or would care about the landing of a few dozen English religious 
refugees in America. Indeed, the text is very much an example of the 
idea of historical human affairs emerging in a new post rennaissance 
world, the modern world.

Built in to this phrase, which has been repeatedly employed
throughout American history (John Quincy Adams's employed it in his
evocation of America as bearing the "standard of freedom and
Independence." in the 
early 19th century; Ronald Reagan employed it towards 'rolling back'
Communism and the 'Empire of Evil') there is also the imperative to
undertake ones own publicity for one's own sake and the sake of ones
community. Freedom of speech and witness, freedom of assembly, The 
American Press, Hollywood, CNN, and Internet are implied in the
sermon.
 
It is significant to see that the West, the frontier, when 
Massachussett's Bay was the frontier, was already 'the good land' 
in the English/American imaginary, the 'new England' to replace the 
old. While later the West (west of the Appalachians) was dangerous 
country occupied by Indians and French and soon Dutch trading
colonists,(Americans were timid in settling the frontier for 200
years
and were protected by hardy Celtic soldiers of the British Army) and 
also, west of the Mississippi in the early 1800s, the West was 'the 
Great American Desert'
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/united_states/exploration_1800.jpg
 
to be crossed but not to be settled - prior to improvement in 
agricultural methods and the arrival of the railway, 
to reach under the imperative of 'Manifest Destiny' 
yet more promised lands in Oregon, Utah, or California. 

The idea that The West, the frontier, was beautiful is an idea that 
has come and gone, been reformed and reworked in art and literature 
and is today used by many different people in different ways for 
different intentions and agendas, from the Firearms Lobby to Native
Americans. To most Americans The West is simply beautiful, the 
promised land, the promise fulfilled, the promised land,
over-exploited, abused, lost, to be remade and reimagined.

Winthrop in his sermon epitomises the beginning of a tradition in 
which America is always promising the impossible and fulfilling the 
promise. From the founding of Massachussetts to Landing a Man on the 
Moon. When it fails to do so, or when forces it hadn't accounted for -
frontier wars, market downturns, ideas that contradict the myth
that the Puritans carried with them to New England as one of
America's most potent memes, that America has a special contract
with divine grace, America provides other negative images. 

'a story and a byword through the world, wee shall open the mouthes 
of enemies to speake evill of the wayes of god and all
professours...' 

However, the strength of the text and this early American idea
lies in the surity of common good through solidarity, care of
others, ability to forgo material superfluity and thoughts
of the other before oneself in community during a crisis
as in everyday life: 

'wee must be knitt together in this worke as one man, wee must 
entertaine each other in brotherly Affeccion,  wee must be willing 
to abridge our selves of our superfluities, for the supply of others
necessities'
 
The context of the Salem Witch Trials (coming soon) was very
different. The accusers were refugees from frontier wars
with French and Natives in Maine, a generation that did not
know Old England had grown up and had children of its own,
classes (indentured servants) and slavery (of Indians
and Blacks) had emerged, and publicity and privacy, independence
and interdependence of business and household, had appeared in as
yet undefined patterns to define the ideas, beliefs, policies
and politics, legalities and government of this New England
shortly to be known as America. The Patriarchy of equality and 
fraternity merely among men was challenged by women who had
experienced frontier life at first hand. As well as early attempts to
govern the community internally without necessarily involving the
governmental expertise of the colonial power or the Merchant Company.


 
Winthrop's Sermon, Massachussett's Bay, aboard The Arabella, 1630.


Now the onely way to avoyde this shipwreck and to provide for our 
posterity is ... to walke humbly with our God, for this end, wee 
must be knitt together in this worke as one man, wee must entertaine 
each other in brotherly Affeccion,  wee must be willing to abridge 
our selves of our superfluities, for the supply of  others
necessities, 
wee must uphold a familiar Commerce together in all meekenes,
gentlenes, 
patience and liberallity, wee must delight in eache other, make
others 
Condicions our owne rejoyce together, mourne together, labour, and 
suffer together, allwayes haveing before our eyes our Commission and 
Community in the worke, our Community as members of the same body, 
soe shall wee keepe the unitie of the spirit in the bond of peace, 
the Lord will be our God and delight to dwell among us, as his owne 
people and will commaund a blessing upon us in all our wayes, soe
that 
wee shall see much more of his wisdome power goodnes and truthe then
formerly wee have beene acquainted with, wee shall finde that the God 
of Israell is among us, when tenn of us shall be able to resist a 
thousand of our enemies, when hee shall make us a prayse and glory, 
that men shall say of succeeding plantacions: the lord make it like 
that of New England: for wee must Consider that wee shall be as a
Citty upon a Hill, the eies of all people are uppon us; soe that if
wee 
shall deale falsely with our god in this worke wee have undertaken
and 
soe cause him to withdrawe his present help from us, wee shall be 
 made a story and a byword through the world, wee shall open the 
mouthes of enemies to speake evill of the wayes of god and all 
professours for Gods sake; wee shall shame the faces of many of gods 
worthy servants, and cause theire prayers to be turned into Cursses 
upon us till wee be consumed out of the good land whether wee are
going: And to shutt upp this discourse with that exhortacion of Moses
that faithfull servant of the Lord in his last farewell to Israell
Deut. 30. Beloved  there is now sett before us life, and good, deathe
and evill in that wee are Commaunded this day to love the Lord our
God, and to love 
one another to walke in his wayes and to keepe his Commaundements and 
his Ordinance, and his lawes, and the Articles of our Covenant with 
him that wee may live and be multiplyed, and that the Lord our God 
may blesse us in the land whether wee goe to possesse it: But if our
heartes shall turne away soe that wee will not obey, ... wee shall 
surely perishe out of the good Land whether wee passe over this 
vast Sea to possesse it; 

Therefore lett us choose life, 

that wee, and our Seede, 

may live; by obeyeing his 

voyce, and cleaveing to him, 

for hee is our life, and 

our prosperity. 


Scripted for the Metaversity - open to sources, open to access
by Lachlan Brown January 2003.
l.brown at london.com



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Lachlan Brown

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