Webb, Walter Prescott. “Ended: 400 Year Boom. Reflections on the Age of the Frontier.” Harper’s, October 1951.
So I have two classes of English 11 this term, and…long story short…my kids are actually a Control group for a study by California State University. CSU developed a curriculum that they would like to impose on high schools throughout the state, but their first step is to conduct a study to determine if they actually get “better results” with their curriculum as opposed to mine. (Not just Mine…the study is being conducted at multiple schools). So all the other English 11 teachers here are teaching CSU’s curriculum, and I am left to do whatever I want.
In the past, English 11 has been taught through the lens of “The American Dream.” What is it, and is it a “real” thing, etc.” I haven’t taught this course in ten years, probably, and I’m still not recovered from my weariness at the theme, and I’m playing around with something different. I’m kind of more interested in the American Character. Who are we, and why? Then read a bunch of documents, and stories, and speeches, and a novel or two, and a play, or two.
So I’ve been thinking about this. And here are some characteristics I think are dominant features of our culture…I’d love everyone on the board to chime in with their thoughts and/or suggestions.
A. Our tendency to violent solutions to problems
1. Mass shootings
2. Incessant wars
B. Constant stream of “enemies” (Commies, Terrorists, Mexicans), and always
living under a threat to security
C. Anti-government i.e. “freedom.”
D. Conspicuous consumption – belief in limitless resources
E. Belief in “hard work + wit = prosperity.”
F. Superiority
So those are characteristics, imo, of the American personality. I’m happy to entertain other thoughts on this.
I attribute these characteristics to our unique history which I think is this: America was colonized by a lot of people who sought freedom from social and economic restrictions faced in Europe, and elsewhere. European social and economic structures were fairly rigid and static for centuries…until the discovery of vast land that was rich in resources, and basically “up for grabs” to anyone with the balls to head west into the unknown armed only with wits and guns.
I started watching “Godless” this week with my wife (it’s set in Colorado in the 1880s) and I noticed how every time people encounter strangers, they pull out their guns. Now…I don’t think this is just Hollywood. If you were living in the middle of nowhere, basically, and the nearest sheriff was a 15-minute horse ride away, and there are a variety of hostile and/or desperate humans around…I mean, the idea of NOT having multiple guns would be laughable, right?
So the first 300-400 years of our cultural history was dominated by a “kill or be killed” mentality out on the frontier. Webb makes the point – in the article I want – that “frontier” in Europe means the thin international boundary between countries. In America, the Frontier means vast, practically limitless space and resources that have to be mastered by the individual rather than the state. It’s a completely different way of looking at the world. So the history of the Frontier really accounts for A through E above.
Our sense of Superiority, I think, can be traced to the Puritans and their “City on the Hill” concept. Also our puritanical attitudes towards moral issues. The Puritans were the first successful colonists, and they were successful partly because of their strict internal discipline.
So now…here we are with all these Frontier attitudes…but no frontier anymore. All filled up. But we treat our resources as if there is always more just over the horizon, and we are vigilant in our search for enemies.
Anybody got any thoughts on that? Or stories/poems/novels/plays that would help bolster any of these themes?
