March 26 - American History Chat

Link to Video on Facebook

Link to transcript (provided by Rana Olk)

Over the next 7-8 sessions, Heather will be discussing something she refers to as the “American Paradox” (referring to the disconnection between a philosophy based on equal rights in the presence of historic and persistent inequality). In this session, she linked three ideas -- 1) the ‘new world’ as a concept that emerged in the late 15th century in the European imagination (with a nod to Shakespeare’s “Tempest”), 2) the concepts of grace and works in puritanism, and 3) the emerging traditions of the Enlightenment -- which, along with the conflict between James I and the Puritans, led to the intellectual and cultural traditions of British America, in particular the notions of destiny, self-determination, equal rights and distrust of hereditary hierarchies. These notions came into conflict with the realities that were encountered in emerging colonies, where it became necessary from the beginning for certain groups not to have essential rights. She illustrates this with a brief history of what happened in Jamestown (where after a very rough beginning, the colony moved towards tobacco production using the labor of indigenous people and African slaves).

Her thesis that the paradox survives to this day (in that it seems that for some to enjoy certain privileges and freedoms, others must be denied them) will be developed over the next several weeks.

Links

  1. The destructive impact of the transatlantic slave trade on Africa

  2. Concept of "New World" in Shakespeare's Tempest and its effect on British imagination

  3. Anti-catholicism in British Isles during Elizabethan times

  4. The Puritans in Elizabethan England and early America

  5. James I of England and the Puritans

  6. A comparison of Hobbes and Locke on Social Theory

  7. Bentham vs. Spooner on Natural Rights

  8. American Enlightenment

  9. Puritanism and early American intellectualism

  10. Influence of Puritanism on American Society

  11. Grace and works in Puritan thought

  12. Capitalism and Puritanism

  13. Slave Codes 1705

  14. Bacon's rebellion and 'invention' of Black and White