Tag Archives: Thomas Hobbes

A House Divided…

15 Tuesday Oct 2013

Posted by in United States

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Abraham_Lincoln_November_1863
Abraham Lincoln in 1863 (aged 54)
Daguerreotype
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
(Post revised on 20 October 2013) 
 

A House divided: 1858

“A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as well as South.”  (Abraham Lincoln, 16 June 1858)

But Jesus knew their thoughts, and said to them: “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand.  If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.” (Matthew 12:22-28, NKJV)

The Gettysburg Address: 1863

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

800px-Oakalleyplantation
Oak Alley Plantation, looking towards the main house from the direction of the Mississippi River.
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
 
 

President Abraham Lincoln

President Abraham Lincoln (12 February 1809 – 15 April 1865; aged 56), elected in 1860, opposed the expansion of slavery into the United States’ territories.  I will quote Wikipedia: “Lincoln won, but before his inauguration, on March 4, 1861, seven slave states with cotton-based economies formed the Confederacy.”[i]   Abolition was about to cost a great deal of money, as will the Affordable Care Act, so seven states turned to mutiny, or a form thereof.

It is quite appropriate for a nation to defeat an abusive and tyrannical leader.  But it is in no way appropriate to elect a leader only to divide a country or to hold it and the world ransom and to jeopardize his policies.  A policy “is a statement of intent.” (See Policy, Wikipedia.)   Everyone knew President Obama’s intent: affordable health care.  The Affordable Care Act, the ACA, was passed into law, and it has now been implemented.  As I wrote in a previous post, two words sum up Barack Obama’s presidency: obstructionism and scapegoating, the kind of misery inflicted on President Obama by members of Congress and various Sarah Palins.

At any rate, slavery was abolished on 31 January, 1865, but President Lincoln, a Republican, was assassinated on 14 April 1965, Good Friday, by actor John Wilkes Booth.  Born on 10 May 1838, Booth died on 26 April 1865 (aged 26). He was shot by Union soldier Thomas P. “Boston” Corbett (1832 – presumed dead 1894 [he may have died in a fire]).  In other words, Lincoln won the election, but at the cost of his life.  As written above, he was assassinated at the age of 56.

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The Confederacy
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
 

The Missouri Compromise

Lincoln opposed the expansion of slavery into the United States’ territories

800px-USA_Territorial_Growth_1820_alt
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
 

The Missouri Compromise (1820) prohibited slavery in the unorganized territory of the Great Plains (upper dark green) and permitted it in Missouri (yellow) and the Arkansas Territory (lower blue area).  (See the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Wikipedia.)

The Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854

The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 therefore jeopardized the Missouri Compromise of 1820.  Settlers reserved the right to use popular sovereignty to determine whether or not they would have slaves.  Put in a nutshell, this is the history of western expansion.  Settlers were in search of cheap and submissive labour.  Lingering in their mind was the memory of beautiful alleys bordered by oak trees and leading to the plantation owner’s mansion.

There were, among slave owners persons who had a degree of respect for the individuals they owned.  But the principle was morally unacceptable and it culminated in a Civil War.  The belligerents were the federal government, i.e. the Union, and the Confederate States of America.  Three more states joined the Confederacy and Lincoln resorted to the Emancipation Proclamation (1st January 1863), an executive order.

Then and Now

Has anything changed?  I don’t know, but I am seeing extremist Republicans so wish to avoid higher taxes that they are holding not only the United States, but the world hostage.  Slavery is over, but the Declaration of Independence, quoted below, remains an unfulfilled ideal.  This time, no one will lose slaves, but the Affordable Care Act will be expensive and the wealthy do not want to pay their fair share of taxes.  However, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law on 23 March 2010 and implemented on 1st October 2013.

Insurance Companies will no longer make huge profits by considering certain illnesses, such as cancer, as “pre-existing” conditions.  The only pre-existing condition all of us have to face is our own mortality.  But does anyone have to die for lack of money?  And must people die in pain?  Insurance Companies have long allowed innocent individuals to die prematurely and in pain.  Humans have a right to work, a right to education, and a right to health, not to mention other rights.[ii]  And they have duties, such as the duty to protect these rights and to protect women who also have rights.  Is the health of a woman less equal than the health of a man?

Wealthy individuals can afford an education and they can afford to pay medical bills, but in the US many are saying to the other half, the less affluent and the poor: “Perish if you wish; I am safe.”  (Discours sur l’inégalité, Jean-Jacques Rousseau.)  No one is asking that wealthy citizens take their shirt off their back and give it to less fortunate citizens.  However, there has to be some equality, as stipulated in the Declaration of Independence (4 July 1776).

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Taxes are the “Freedom we surrender” (Thomas Hobbes)

A number of extremist Republicans hail from states that once constituted the Confederacy.  Their ancestors had slaves.  But slavery is no longer acceptable.  It’s a crime.  Moreover, it is now part of the social contract to provide citizens with affordable health care.  Nations no longer threaten their economy and global economy over a right, such as the Affordable Care Act, but it is happening in the US.  No, it’s not President Obama’s fault.

As for the scary videos on the internet, one expects the worst, only to learn they are about the taxes everyone will have to pay.  That is the fear these videos are instilling in people who are not always in full possession of the facts.  Yes, taxes will probably go up, but, as I mentioned above, taxes are the “freedom we surrender” (Thomas Hobbes) so we can live in a civil and just society.  The Affordable Care Act is a law and one doesn’t break the law.  Nor does one blackmail a President whose intellectual superiority no longer needs to be proven.  He is a man of colour.  So this smacks of racism.  There comes a point where one decides that racism should be put away once and for all.

The Solution

It’s relatively simple, in the short-term.  I believe Congress should raise the debt ceiling immediately!  It’s an obligation.  That debt was incurred during a Republication administration waging wars in the Middle East.  If the debt ceiling is not raised, those who have caused delays will have abused the power invested in them by their constituents and they may have triggered a depression that will affect not only the United States, but its trading partners.

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Christine Lagarde, International Monetary Fund (IMF)
(Photo credit: Getty Images) 
 

President Obama said that a default would be “devastating.”  Those are the sentiments expressed by Christine Lagarde, the chief of the IMF.  “IMF’s Christine Lagarde warns America’s lawmakers they risk pushing world into recession.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-budget-battle-imfs-christine-lagarde-warns-americas-lawmakers-they-risk-pushing-world-into-recession-8877239.html

News: not very good

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24515440

Conclusion

President Obama cannot give in to blackmail and he has to protect Joe Biden, the Vice-President.  Mr Biden is currently under the Witness Protection Program, which is prudent.  I cannot understand that the Affordable Care Act would cause the US Government to shut down.  So, I’m afraid I may have to agree with those who look upon Congress as “immature.”  Yet, somehow, I believe matters will be resolved.

A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. (Abraham Lincoln)

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______________________________

[i] The Confederacy (1861): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_States_of_America
[ii] Human Rights (1948): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights
 

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Grigory Sokolov (b. 1950) plays Rachmaninov, Prelude Op.23-5

494px-Stephens-reading-proclamation-1863© Micheline Walker
October 14, 2013
revised October 20, 2013)
WordPress
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Henry Louis Stephens, untitled watercolor (c. 1863) of a man reading a newspaper with headline
“Presidential Proclamation/Slavery”.
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
(Please click on the image to enlarge it.)

Thoughts on Quebec

23 Wednesday Jan 2013

Posted by in Canada, Quebec

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marois

— Pauline Marois.  Nelson Wyatt, Canadian Press, Jun 21, 2012 8:18 AM ET (Photo credit: The National Post)

there are rules to everything…

President Obama is devoting so much energy to unite his country.  He is fighting what Thomas Hobbes called a “private force” and viewed as “unlawfull.”

As you probably know, in Quebec, sovereignists and indépendantistes, initially called separatists are advocating secession from Canada and have done so since the 1960s.  Pauline Marois is the leader of the Parti Québécois, the péquistes (PQ), as they are called, and, on 4 September 2012, she was elected Premier of the Province of Quebec.  It was a narrow victory.

“A Quebec election that was too close to call has turned out to be just that: less than one percentage point – about 40,000 votes – separated the Parti Québécois [separatist]and the Liberal party [federalist] in the final ballot last night, with the third party Coalition Avenir Québec close behind.”  (ANTONIA MAIONI, The Globe and Mail, Published Wednesday, Sep. 05 2012, 7:56 AM EDT. Last updated Wednesday, Sep. 05 2012, 7:59 AM EDT)

A Man Dies and a second man is critically injured.

Matters worsened.  On the evening of 4 September 2012, as Madame Marois was preparing to celebrate her victory, 62-year-old Richard Henry Bain aimed at Madame Marois whose life was saved by 48-eight-year-old Denis Blanchette.   However, the shooter killed Denis Blanchette and seriously injured a second man.

(please click on the picture to enlarge it)
uly 22 (left), May 22 (up) and April 15 (center) demonstrations and Victoriaville riots (down).

July 22 (left), May 22 (up) and April 15 (center) demonstrations and Victoriaville riots (down).  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

At this point, I must step backward, as I need to tell about Madame Marois’ campaign.

Quebec students go on strike (February 13, 2012 – September 7, 2012)

The raise: (from $2,168 to $3,793 between 2012 and 2017)

In the spring of 2012, students enrolled in Quebec universities and CEGEPS[i] (numerically, Grades 12 & 13) started opposing a small raise in tuition fees (from $2,168 to $3,793 between 2012 and 2017 (Quebec student protests, Wikipedia).  At that moment, tuition fees paid by Quebec students were approximately half the fees paid by my former students in Nova Scotia.  The students’ demands were therefore unrealistic.

La Classe

The movement was soon named Coalition large de l’Association pour une  solidarité syndicale étudiante (CLASSE).  Not only were the students’ demands unrealistic, but they organized increasingly disorderly demonstrations.  It was “[t]he largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian History,” between 400,000 and 500,000 people marched in downtown Montreal on May 22.[ii]

“On June 12, 2012, some protesters were referring to local police authorities as SS and anti-police pamphlets using the swastikas were distributed.”  (Quebec student protests, Wikipedia)

Madame Marois (Parti Québécois) steps in

Carré rouge

Carré rouge

Parti Québécois leader, Pauline Marois, stepped in and “supported” the students’ demands.  She wore their symbol, a red square, and she became very visible.  This won her a great deal of publicity.  It would be my opinion that endorsing the students’ demands benefitted Madame Marois.

Bill 78

  • The strike was problematical.  For instance, it jeopardized the completion of an academic term.
  • Therefore, on 18 May 2012, the National Assembly of Quebec passed Bill 78, an “Act to enable students to receive instruction from the postsecondary institutions they attend” (Bill 78, Wikipedia).
  • On 27 August 2012, “[p]rotesters def[ied] back-to-school law as Quebec universities reopened]” (The Globe and Mail).
  • On September 7, “planned tuition increases were repealed by a decree from Pauline Marois‘ Parti Québécois government the very next day” (CBC News).

Yet, on November 8, 2012, Madame Marois stated that free tuition was “very difficult” (see The Globe and Mail).  (The students wanted free tuition.)  Did she not know this in the Spring of 2012?

Province of Quebec

Province of Quebec, red; Canada, white

Comments

  • The demonstrations were disorderly and had to be contained, which costs Premier Jean Charest’s government a fortune.
  • There was opposition to Bill 78.
  • In all likelihood, Madame Marois benefitted by involving the students.  She seemed a concerned mother to students who were being abused by the Liberal Party, then in power.
  • A man died in an attempt to protect Premier-elect Pauline Marois.
  • Tuition fees.  Can Madame Marois make ends meet?

Dissent and Faction

Madame Marois’ Parti Québécois is advocating “sovereignty” or separation from the other provinces of Canada, which means dissent or faction and is not insignificant.  On the contrary!  But, I wonder whether or not Madame Marois’ Parti Québécois and fellow sovereignists, or indépendantistes are fully aware of the consequences of a separation from Canada.

My Canada & a possible separation scenario

  • Canada is an officially bilingual country.  It protects the French language.  That could end for French-speaking Canadians living outside Quebec. The Federal Government might not agree to remain bilingual and bicultural.

  • There would be a country separating the Maritime Provinces of Canada from Ontario and the rest of Canada.

  • French-speaking veterans of World War II, who landed on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, would be very confused.  They were serving their country, Canada.

  • There could be resentment between the two “countries.”  Many Québécois would be dissatisfied, and there could be an exodus on the part of Anglophone Quebecers.

  • If there is an exodus, there would be fewer taxpayers.

  • And, to quote The Globe and Mail once again, “less than one percentage point – about 40,000 votes – separated the Parti Québécois and the Liberal party.”

But I would go further…

Past referendums have not supported separation from Canada.  In other words, the people of Quebec have yet to agree to a separation from the rest of Canada.

  • Yet, unlike my Nova Scotia health-insurance card, which was valid everywhere in Canada, including Quebec, my Quebec health-insurance card provides limited coverage outside Quebec.
  • I pay taxes levied by the Quebec government (5%) and taxes levied by the Federal government (10%).

It would appear that the above is the price Québécois and Quebecers pay because Quebec failed to sign the Patriated Constitution of 1982.  There is a substantial degree of duplication: a government inside a government.  What I would like to know is whether or not Quebec’s government has been mandated to start walking away from  Ottawa.

As for the manner in which Madame Marois was elected to the Premiership of Quebec, it has been described as “opportunistic” (The National Post, 21 June 2012)?  There is nothing wrong with seizing the moment.  However, the goal may defeat the means and the means defeat the goal.  At any rate, Quebec now has its own flag day.  I should be very pleased (Quebec creates its own flag day; Fleur-de-lis to be feted every Jan. 21 [timescolonist.com]).

There were deaths in the 1960s and, on 4 September 2012, Denis Blanchette was shot protecting Parti Québécois Leader Pauline Marois.  Human life is fragile and so very precious.  I’m certain Denis Blanchette’s life was dear to him and to his family and friends.  So none of this is banal.  If Quebec does want to secede from the rest of Canada, persons whose integrity and good will are above suspicion will have to negotiate acceptable terms.

However, what remains a mystery in my eyes is just why Quebec has not signed the long Patriated Constitution of Canada (1982).  It has been 31 years since it arrived on the North-American side of the Atlantic.  A referendum held in May 1980 did not allow Quebec to negotiate a new partnership with Ottawa.  The indépendantistes were then named the Mouvement Souveraineté-Association, a “forerunner” of the Parti Québécois.

There are rules to everything…

 
 
© Micheline Walker
January 23, 2013
WordPress
_________________________   
[i] Quebec students enter A CEGEP (Collège d’enseignement général et professionnel or General and Vocational College) after Grade 11 and, two years later, successful candidates obtain a Diploma of College Studies (Diplôme d’Études Collégiales).  The Vocational program is a year longer.
[ii] Schonbek, Amelia (September 2012). “The Long March”.  The Walrus: 15–16.
 
singer songwriter: Joni Mitchell  (b. November 7, 1943)
title: “Both Sides Now”
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The Week in Review & Louis Riel Revisited

20 Sunday Jan 2013

Posted by in Canada, History, Métis

≈ 11 Comments

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Abenakis, Algonkian Amerindians
Abenakis (Algonkian Amerindians), 18th Century (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A Summary of this week’s Posts

What a week! This is what I wrote last Sunday when putting an end to that week’s posts.  This week, I expressed my wish for Canadian unity, using a quotation from Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Part II, xxii).  Hobbes looked upon “private force” as unlawful.  It was a breach of the “social contract.” (See Thomas Hobbes on “Private Force”.)

I then remembered that on 4 September 2012, a man had tried to kill Premier-elect Pauline Marois.  This time, violence was not used by a member of a terrorist cell of an “indépendantiste” Québécois Party.  The shooter was a bilingual Quebecer and his weapon was a gun.  Richard Henry Bain, the accused, is about to stand trial, if doctors determine he is fit to appear in court.  If so, gun ownership may be an issue.  The Newtown Massacre has triggered a debate that is likely to spill over the US border and may spare Québécois and Quebecers another painful referendum.  Secession from Canada, on the part of Quebec, is an endeavor that requires serious examination.  (See Shooter Aimed at Premier-elect Pauline Marois.)

Finally, I remembered that although the settlers of New France had to defend themselves against attacks by Iroquoians and built fortresses, for most of its history, Canada has needed its Amerindians to ensure the “security of the state.”[i]  It started during the winter of 1535-1536, when Amerindians came to the rescue of Frenchmen dying of scurvy.  Later, in the seventeenth century, French settlers married Amérindiennes because France had not sent women.  The French in Canada are métissés.  Then came the voyageurs who needed the guidance of Amerindians.  (See Shooter Aimed at Premier-elect Pauline Marois)

Music of the Week

If I had to choose, my favorite music of the week would be “If Ye Love Me” by English composer Thomas Tallis (30 January 1505 – 23 November 1585, Greenwich), yet I also love Sir Henry Wood‘s ‘Suite No. 6,’ a transcription of J. S. Bach‘s ‘Lament,’ the ‘Adagio’ from Bach’s ‘Capriccio on the Departure of His Most Beloved Brother’ in Bb major, BWV 992.  YouTube released this video on 17 January and I featured it the very same day.  I am glad I do not have to choose.

Hero of the Week

Louis Riel (22 October 1844 – 16 November 1885), a Member of Parliament, a Métis leader, almost a lawyer (he studied Law), the Father of Manitoba and a Father of the Confederation remains a controversial figure.  He was executed at the age of 41, in Regina, Saskatchewan.  I mentioned him in one of this week’s post, but had previously written about him.  (See From Coast to Coast: Louis Riel as Father of the Confederation)

The Above Image

The Abenakis are Algonkian/Algonquian Amerindians.  They first lived in the Maritime Provinces of Canada, but moved to what is now Quebec.  Many died of diseases brought by Europeans, smallpox, in particular.  There are Abenakis to this day.  They live in Vermont, Quebec and New Brunswick.  However, most have been assimilated and most have long converted to Catholicism.  Given that they converted to Catholicism early, settlers may have chosen brides among Abenakis.

The Theme

So the week had a theme.  Hobbes condemned factious “private forces.”  People want to protect their identity, but need they create a country within a country.  People also want to protect themselves, but need they carry dangerous firearms and create militias that threaten rather than protect “the security of a free state.”  Do we have the right to encourage discontent?  Last Spring, Quebec students whose tuition fees are the lowest in Canada opposed a small raise, a few hundred dollars.  Madame Marois stepped in.

—ooo—

I am including a video on the Métis of Batoche.  The Métis were defeated at the Battle of Batoche (9 May – 12 May, 1885).  Louis Riel was hanged on 16 November 1885. Gabriel Dumont, who had requested Riel’s help, had fled to the United States.

Suggested Reading on Canadian Literature

© Micheline Walker
20 January 2013
WordPress
____________________
 
[i] “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”  (Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, 1791)
 
 
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Shooter Aimed at Premier-elect Pauline Marois

19 Saturday Jan 2013

Posted by in Canada, Quebec

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Quebec City Flag
Quebec City Flag

One Man dies, one is critically injured

In a post on Thomas Hobbes‘ “Private Force,” dated 15 January 15 2013, I wrote that during the October Crisis, the Prime Minister of Canada, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, had sent in the troops, at the request of the Quebec Premier, Robert Bourassa and Montreal Mayor, Jean Drapeau.  Trudeau used the War Measures Act and put an end to several years of terrorism.

Pauline Marois

Pauline Marois, Quebec’s Premier

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/quebecvotes2012/story/2012/09/05/marois-victory-speech-shot-fired.html

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/quebecvotes2012/story/2012/09/05/f-quebec-citizen-initiative.html

The above links tell a different story.  How could I be so forgetful?  The Front de Libération du Québec (the Quebec Liberation Front) no longer exists.  However, on 4 September 2012, the day Pauline Marois of the Parti Québécois, an indépendantiste (separatist) Party, was elected Premier of the Province of Quebec,[i] someone tried to shoot her.  The shooter, 62-year-old Richard Henry Bain, lost his footing when an alarmed individual intervened, preventing Mr Bain from killing Quebec’s Premier-elect Pauline Marois.  The shooter then aimed at 48-year-old Denis Blanchette, the person who intervened, killing him and critically injuring a second man.

Parti Québécois

Parti Québécois

This incident was not strictu sensu terrorism.  The man who tried to kill Premier-elect Pauline Marois was not a member of a terrorist organization.  He acted alone and it has yet to be determined whether or not he is fit to stand trial.  However, using plain common sense, it would seem reasonable to assume Mr Bain was extremely distraught and that the Parti Québécois’ victory may have angered him.  He muttered, in French, “les anglophones se réveillent” (the Anglophones are waking up) and, in English, that “[h]e want[ed] to cause trouble.”

For many Québécois and Quebecers, a Parti Québécois victory means yet another referendum: “to separate” or “not to separate” from Canada.  That’s what has happened in the past and it has been motivation to leave Quebec. However, Madame Marois’ victory does not seem no have perturbed anyone seriously, except Mr Bain.  Montreal is a very attractive and cosmopolitan city and will probably remain as it is, whichever way the pendulum swings.

However, as I wrote in my earlier post, Quebec has yet to sign the Patriated Constitution, ie. the Constitutional Act of 1982, which poses difficulties.  There have been attempts to solve this problem, one of which was the proposed Meech Lake Accord[I] (1987).  Had the various Premiers agreed, Quebec would have become an officially “distinct society,” which it is, unofficially or officieusement.  Given the circumstances, a deadlock, it may have been in the best interest of all parties concerned to pour “un peu d’eau dans leur vin,” ie. to make concessions in order to maintain Canadian unity.  The people of Quebec are sitting between two chairs.  They are a country within a country, Hobbes’ “private force.”

Which takes us to gun ownership…

So, last September 4 (2012), Pauline Marois, the current Premier of Quebec, was shot at, a man died, and a second man was critically injured.  Although, the federal government of Canada has relaxed Canada’s gun-control legislation, I do not think this change was a factor.  But given events in the United States, the rapid dissemination of debates through social networks such as Twitter, and last September’s attempt to assassinate Madame Marois, gun-control will and may already be a factor.

What happened to me will probably happen to others.  They will suddenly remember, as I did, that Charles Henry Bain tried to shoot Quebec Premier-elect Pauline Marois.  The American experience, the Newtown massacre in particular, will colour, probably to a lesser than greater extent, the Canadian experience.  In fact, Madame Marois is now remembering that a man tried to assassinate her.  The event is no longer a “glitch.”  Just click on the above links.  The National Riffle Association (NRA) and the militias seem an aberration to me.  Were it not that Canada trusts President Obama and his administration, we just might fear the NRA would gain supporters here.  As I wrote on 17 January, the Obama administration needs a great deal of support and it needs it now.

Jacques Cartier Stamp, 1934 issue

Jacques Cartier Stamp, 1934 issue

Jacques Cartier (31 December 1491 – 1 September 1557) claimed the “country of Canada” for France in 1534.  His three ships were called la Grande Hermine, la Petite Hermine and l’Émérillon.  He captured chief Donnacona’s two sons Domagaya and Taignoagny, but they were returned to their father a year later during Cartier’s second trip in 1535–1536.   Cartier waited too long, so ice prevented him from sailing back to France.  As we will see, Cartier’s men fell ill. Cartier came back to Canada in 1540–1541 in the hope of settling the “Kingdom of the Saguenay.” It was too great a risk, so he went back to France.

One of Jacques Cartier's Three Boats

One of Jacques Cartier’s Three Boats

The Canadian Experience

I do not expect a heated debate.  Unlike the United States, Canada did not have a Wild West.  In Canada, the “security of a free state,” the principle undergirding but now nullifying the Second Amendment, has not demanded that civilians bear arms.  Our November 15, 2012 heroine, Madeleine Jarret de Verchères, lived in a fortress and had guns at her disposal, but that was a long time ago.

Survival …

The following thought may not have reached all if any textbooks, but the truth is that, from the earliest days of New France, Canadians have needed the Amerindians.  Jacques Cartier’s men would not have survived their first winter in Canada (1535-1536).  They were dying of scurvy.  The Amerindians could have let them die, but didn’t.  Instead, they supplied the marrooned French with thuja occidentalis or annedda.  The men survived.  Annedda, contained Vitamin C, the remedy, and could be made using birchbark.

Moreover, to travel westward and collect Canada’s gold: beaver pelt, French settlers, coureurs des bois to begin with, and, later, voyageurs, needed the Algonkian birchbark canoe.  If a canoe was destroyed shooting down potentially deadly rapids, one could be rebuilt without recourse to anything that was not immediately available.  In fact, the canoe used by voyageurs and explorers may well become one of the seven wonders of Canada (CBC.ca).  Amerindians also fed the voyageurs.  They prepared sagamité.

As for élite voyageurs who wintered west, minding the company store, they had signed a three-year contract, at first, with a bourgeois and, later, with either the Hudson’s Bay Company, established in 1670, or the North-West Company, active from 1779 to 1821.  They may have had a wife on the shores of the Saint Lawrence River, to whom they sent money, but the voyageurs needed a spare wife, an Améridienne.  Thus a people was born: the Métis.

Métis Family ca. 1826 (Bata Shoe Museum P80.982)

Métis Family, by Peter Rindisbacher, ca. 1826 (Bata Shoe Museum P80.982) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Peter Rindisbacher (12 April 1806 – 12 August or 13 August 1834; aged 28)

Les Filles du Roy

Jean Talon, Bishop François de Laval and several settlers welcome the King’s Daughters upon their arrival. Painting by Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We know, moreover, that France was somewhat slow in sending women to Canada.  The filles du roy, the King’s Daughters, arrived between 1663 and 1673 and many married men who were members of the Régiment de Carignan-Salières.  These soldiers arrived in the middle of 1665.  They were invited to stay in New France where most became seigneurs.  Among French-speaking Canadians whose ancestors arrived in New France before 1663, many, if not most, have Amerindian ancestry.

The Snowshoe and Canoe Mythified

It follows that Canadians have mythified the beaver, the canoe, the lumberman’s snowshoes and Louis Riel, the Métis “Father of Manitoba,” but a tragic figure in the history of Canada.  Despite an endless border with the United States, for most of Canada’s history, its citizens have not required firearms to ensure their security.  Not only did Canada need its Amerindians, but there was too little room in the beaver-pelt laden canoes to accommodate several rifles.  Moreover, rumor has it that the Mounties arrived before the settlers.  As for settlers, they were directed to specific areas.

Yet Canada has its factious “private force” (Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Part II, xxii), the separatists.  For a few years, during the 1960s, the “private force” had its terrorist wing.  Canadians do not bear arms, but last September 4, someone, not an indépendantiste, did try to shoot Pauline Marois and caused the useless death of Denis Blanchette, the man who tried to prevent an assassination.  He will never come back and Madame Marois now remembers.  But, will she remember long enough not to hold a referendum?

© Micheline Walker
January 19, 2013
WordPress
 
Photo credit: Wikipedia
____________________
[i] Pauline Marois defeated Premier Jean Charest of the Parti Libéral (federalist) and François Legault of the Coalition Avenir Quebec CAQ), also an indépendantiste party. 
[ii] Also see Gerald L. Gall, “Meech Lake Accord,” The Canadian Encyclopedia.
 
composer: Erik Satie (17 May 1866 – Paris, 1 July 1925) 
piece: Gnossienne No.1
performer: Lang Lang
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Thomas Hobbes on “Private Force”

15 Tuesday Jan 2013

Posted by in Canada, United States

≈ 13 Comments

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Raphael
Portrait of Bindo Altoviti (detail), by Raphael, ca. 1514
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (6 April or 28 March 1483 – 6 April 1520; aged 37)
Photo credit:  Wikipedia
 

In his Leviathan (1651), Thomas Hobbes (5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679) opposes what we would call private militias.  The families he is speaking of are the Gonzaga family, who ruled Mantua, the Medicis, who ruled Florence, the Sforza family, the rulers of Milan and other rulers.

Niccolò Machiavelli (3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527) knew these factious city-states.  He had worked for the Medicis and witnessed a constant struggle for power, a “war of all against all” (Thomas Hobbes), hence his advice to the prince.  For Machiavelli, “the end justifie[d] the means.”  How could his prince survive other than by being a “fox?”  Machiavelli’s Prince was published in 1532.  (The Prince is a Gutenberg publication.)

Feuds Of Private Families
“In all Common-wealths, if a private man entertain more servants, than the government of his estate, and lawfull employment he has for them requires, it is Faction, and unlawfull. For having the protection of the Common-wealth, he needeth not the defence of private force. And whereas in Nations not throughly civilized, severall numerous Families have lived in continuall hostility, and invaded one another with private force; yet it is evident enough, that they have done unjustly; or else that they had no Common-wealth.” (Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Part II, xxii)

Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes

The Leviathan was published in 1651.  So Hobbes’ foresight amazes me.  His analysis of society, here a divided society, is as insightful and valid today as it was in 1651.  I should think that the common denominator is human nature.  It doesn’t change.

Quebec

The US has militias and Canada has its indépendantistes.  Pierre Elliott Trudeau ended terrorism on the part of séparatistes in October 1970 when, at the request of the alarmed premier of Quebec, Robert Bourassa, and the Mayor of Montreal, Jean Drapeau, he sent in the troops.  There had been deaths throughout the 1960s: bombs placed in mailboxes and during the October Crisis, Pierre Laporte, Quebec’s Minister of Labour, was kidnapped and killed.

However, former Quebec Premier Jean Charest (born John James Charest on June 24, 1958), a member of the federalist Liberal Party, was defeated by Pauline Marois’ Parti Québécois in the Quebec General Election, held on 4 September 2012.  So, there may be yet another referendum: “to separate” or “not to separate.”  I fully understand that we French-speaking Canadians should protect our heritage, but…

Faction

Canada is not about to enter into a Civil War.  The citizens of Quebec would not agree to this kind of disorder, but I no longer live in Hobbes’ “Common-wealth.”  It was bilingual, bicultural, hospitable and, under Pierre Elliott Trudeau leadership, “[t]here [was] no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.”  (Omnibus Bill, 1967).  Quebec is a unilingual province.  Immigrants to Quebec have to learn French, which is not too problematical.  However, the citizens of Quebec must pay taxes to both the Quebec Government and the Federal Government and a Quebecker‘s  health-insurance card does not cover visits to a doctor outside Quebec. Fortunately, it covers hospitalization.  These restrictions would not exist if, in 1982, Quebec had signed the patriated Canadian Constitution.[i]  So, to a certain extent, Quebec is a country within a country.

The Commander-in-Chief

President Obama has been criticized for this and criticized for that, but President Obama is the kind of leader who allows not just the United States but the world to feel safer.  We breathed a huge sigh of relief when he was re-elected to the Presidency of the United States of America.  I’m not saying that he is perfect, no one is.  For instance, I would like him to be quite ruthless with respect to gun ownership and the presence of militias.  In other words, I would like him to use his authority as commander-in-chief of the armed forces to the fullest extent.

Let us hope, with respect to gun-control, that Congress will not be divided, but if it is, President Obama may have to use whatever mechanisms he may use as commander-in-chief to ensure the security of Americans.  Between the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the militias, the United States has armies within armies as well as its official armed forces, the only legitimate army.  A house divided…

Conclusion

Barack Obama was re-elected to the Presidency of the United States, despite near certainty on the part of members of the Republican Party that Mitt Romney would emerge a winner.  However, Americans knew that President Obama was the better candidate.  So I believe that the persons who have re-elected him also know that the better decision is to take the guns away and will support him in his effort to curb and perhaps end the massacres, the staggering number of deaths by gun and the presence of militias, Hobbes’ factious “private force.”

Related posts:
Machiavelli & Reynard the Fox (19/10/2011)
Il Cortegiano, or l’honnête homme (3/10/2011)[ii] 
The October Crisis: “Just Watch Me” (29/10/2012)
 
_________________________
[i] See “Patriation of the Constitution,” The Canadian Encyclopedia.
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/patriation-of-constitution
[ii] Baldassare Castiglione  (6 December 1478 – 2 February 1529) wrote The Book of the Courtier (Il Cortegiano), published in 1528.
 
 
composer: Giuseppe Torelli (22 April 1658 – 8 February 1709)
piece: Concerto for 4 Violins in A Minor
performers: Musica Antique Koln
conductor: Reinhard Goebel
 

Machiavelli, by Santi di Tito

Machiavelli, by Santi di Tito

© Micheline Walker
15 January 2013
WordPress 

More on the Second Amendment

12 Saturday Jan 2013

Posted by in Sharing, United States

≈ 5 Comments

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Charles Marion Russell

Breaking Camp, by Charles Marion Russell

Charles Marion Russell  (March 19, 1864 – October 24, 1926)
Frederic Sackrider Remington (October 4, 1861 – December 26, 1909)
(co-featured in the video at the bottom of this post)
Photo credit: Wikipedia
(please click on small images to enlarge them)
 

The Second Amendment flawed, but…

I have reread the Second Amendment, and it seems to me that it lacks coherence.

As drafted by James Madison,  (16 March  1751 – 28 June 1836), the fourth President of the United States (4 March 1809 – 4 March 1817), and passed by Congress (25 September 1789), the second amendment read as follows:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

As ratified (15 December 1791) by Thomas Jefferson (13 April 1743 – 4 July 1826), then Secretary of State, but later the third President of the United States (4 March 1801 – 4 March 1809), it read and still reads:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

The two versions do not differ from one another except for two capital letters: Militia and State, removed by Thomas Jefferson, and the removal of a comma after “arms.” However, both seem flawed.

The Flaw

Here is the problem. The Second Amendment states that “[a] well regulated militia [is] necessary to the security of a free state,” but it fails to state explicitly that such a militia did not exist when settlers started to travel west of the Mississippi. The words “free state,” are followed immediately by the words: “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Allow me to quote the Second Amendment again.

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

In other words, the Second Amendment (see Bill of Rights) does not contain a clause to the effect that there was no “well regulated militia,” in the early years of Western expansion. Without that clause, it would be my opinion that the Second Amendment is not formulated clearly and that it could be misinterpreted.  In fact, 222 years later and with the presence of law-enforcement agencies, it would also be my opinion that the Second Amendment is de facto unenforceable, not to say mostly irrelevant.

Indeed, having said the above, I doubt very much that Thomas Jefferson would have considered settlers “[a] well regulated militia.” I believe therefore that the first part of the sentence, ie. “[a] well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state,” infers that in 1791 there was no “well regulated militia” and that this first part of the sentence was understood as inferring that such a militia did not exist.

In short, the historical context may clarify the Second Amendment but, if read out of context and literally, the amendment may convey the wrong message and may be misinterpreted or used in bad faith and to the detriment of the nation. This has long been the case among members of the National Rifle Association (NRA). I should also note that people tend to read or hear messages according to their expectations, which is an interfering agent labelled noise.

“Communication requires that the communicating parties share an area of communicative commonality.  The communication process is complete once the receiver has understood the message of the sender.”[i]

Buccaroos, by Charles Marion Russell

Buccaroos, by Charles Marion Russell

Attack on a Wagon Train, by Charles Marion Russell

Attack on a Wagon Train, by Charles Marion Russell

 

Hobbes’ “State of Nature”

However, even rephrased, the Second Amendment remains “flawed.”

It could well be that in their attempt to get to the best land first and claim it for themselves, our settlers bearing arms may have been in Thomas Hobbes‘ state of nature. “In that state, each person would have a right, or license, to everything in the world, and therefore, lack of a rule of law.” (Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, I.13 & 14)

One assumes that a “well regulated militia” and a social contract, ie. a rule of law, would precede the arrival of settlers.  If militias are difficult to regulate, imagine scattered armed settlers facing either baffled and indignant Amerindians or settlers competing for a piece of land, a piece of land that had been the Amerindian’s hunting-ground.  Amerindians whose territory was shrinking did massacre settlers. Under such circumstances, and settlers being armed, how could one avoid a “war of all against all” (bellum omnium contra omnes)? 

The real and the Mythical Wild West

Western expansion has often been idealized.

“It is a tale of conquest, but also one of survival, persistence, and the merging of peoples and cultures that gave birth and continuing life to America.”[ii]

Not quite!  There may not have been a duel once or twice a week, but there was both a real Wild West and a mythical Wild West, a Wild West created by the collective imagination and marketed convincingly by Hollywood. “No other nation,” says David Murdoch, “has taken a time and place from its past and produced a construct of the imagination equal to America’s creation of the West.”[iii]

Author Waddy W. Moore uses court records to show that on the sparsely settled Arkansas frontier lawlessness was common. He distinguished two types of crimes: unprofessional (dueling, crimes of drunkenness, selling whiskey to the Indians, cutting trees on federal land) and professional (horse stealing, highway robbery, counterfeiting).[iv]

Therefore, with respect to Western expansion, it would appear the founding fathers put the cart before the horse. Settlers went westwards before the arrival of a militia, not the other way around. Besides, the Manifest Destiny also militated against the rule of law. Americans were made to believe that they were destined to expand all the way to the Pacific. Yet Waddy W. Moore also writes that “once convicted, punishment was severe.”[v]  So, at some point, earlier than later I should think, the long arm of the law did reach a mostly untamed West. 

Conclusion

Given that Second Amendment lacks clarity, I believe it is flawed. Respect for the founding fathers has led me to state that “[a] well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state,” the opening phrase of the Second Amendment, inferred that there was no “well regulated militia[,]” which may have been the case, but truth be told, the Second Amendment does not indicate that a “well regulated militia” did not exist.

But…

However, although the Second Amendment does not state that there was no well-regulated militia in the territories that were about to be settled, the Second Amendment did not transform settlers into a militia. It goes no further than allowing settlers the right to bear arms to protect themselves. But times have changed. What could protect settlers now endangers the life of innocent little children. So would that the Second Amendment had stated that in the absence and only in the absence of a “well regulated militia[,]” settlers could bear arms!

Yet, as drafted by James Madison and ratified by Thomas Jefferson, the third and fourth Presidents of the United States respectively, central to the Second Amendment is the notion of security: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state.” Such is the spirit and the letter of the Second Amendment.  It may be flawed, but only in part.  When all is said and done, the Second Amendment is about security, every one’s security, but particularly the security of little children whose safety now demands that private citizens not bear arms, which is in keeping with the aforementioned spirit and letter of the Second Amendment.

Consequently, as I noted above, there is measure of bad faith on the part of members of the National Rifle Association. The boys are playing “cowboys and Indians” putting at risk the life of little children and in clear violation of the Second Amendment. Allow me to repeat that although the Second Amendment is flawed, security constitutes its chief component and main concern.

Instead of lobbying Washington, all four and a half million members of the National Rifle Association should visit the bereaved families of Newtown and apologize.  Moreover, instead of putting money in the pockets of politicians, members of the National Rifle Association should compensate the families of Newtown. Some mothers and fathers will not recover sufficiently to earn a living and some may require medical treatment.

_________________________

[i]  Robert V. Hine and John Mack Faragher, The American West: A New Interpretive History (Yale University Press, 2000) p 10.  Quoted in Wikipedia, “The American Frontier.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication
 
[ii] Waddy W. Moore, “Some Aspects of Crime and Punishment on the Arkansas Frontier,” Arkansas Historical Quarterly (1964) 23#1 pp 50-64. Quoted in Wikipedia, “The American Frontier.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Frontier
[iii] David Murdoch, The American West: The Invention of a Myth (2001) page vii. Quoted in Wikipedia, “The American Frontier.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Frontier
[iv] Waddy W. Moore, op. cit.
[v] Ibid.
  
© Micheline Walker
12 January 2013
WordPress
 
— A Desperate Stand, by Charles Marion Russell

A Desperate Stand, by Charles Marion Russell

 
 
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The National Rifle Association: Unrestrained Individualism

29 Saturday Dec 2012

Posted by in United States

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A fictional pistol duel between Eugene Onegin and Vladimir Lensky
A fictional pistol duel between Eugene Onegin and Vladimir Lensky*

*Vladimir Lensky is a fictional character in Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky‘s opera Eugene Onegin.  The story is based on a verse novel by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin.

Photo credit: Wikipedia

—ooo—

They have done it again.  This time it was in Rochester, NY.  Two volunteer firemen were killed and two seriously injured.

I gathered the following information from CBCNews: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/12/24/firefighters-shot-rochester.html (24 December 2012 and 25 December 2012).

The dead are:

  • Lt. Michael Chiapperini, of Webster police and West Webster Fire Department.
  • Tomasz Kaczowka, a volunteer with the fire department.

The injured firefighters in intensive care were named as:

  • Joseph Hofsetter.
  • Theodore Scardino.

As for the shooter, he has been identified as William Spengler.  He had spent seventeen (17) years in prison for manslaughter.  On 18 July 1980, William Spengler beat his grandmother to death with a hammer and was convicted of murder in 1981.  Released in 1998, William Spengler did not have the right to own a firearm, as is the case with all convicted murderers.  However, Mr Spengler had a gun and, after killing and injuring his victims, he committed suicide, as did Mr Lanza.

Reason vs Self-Interest

This may sound simplistic, but William Spengler killed not only because he had a propensity to violence, if such was the case, but because he had access to a firearm.  As I wrote in my blog, dated 18 December, no one can shoot someone else without a firearm.  Had Mr Spengler not been in possession of a firearm he could not have ambushed firefighters, killed two of them, injured two more and committed suicide.  This must end and it can end.

However, the four million and a half members of the National Rifle Association stand in the way of reason because Washington lets petty self-interest — what else — dictate its policies.  In other words, the government itself — and the government is the people — gives the nation the questionable “right” to bear arms, thereby allowing massacres.

Francisco de Goya, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (El sueño de la razón produce monstruos), c. 1797

Francisco de Goya, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (El sueño de la razón produce monstruos), c. 1797

The “Armed Brigade:” Cowboys and Indians

I believe the logic of members of the NRA is thwarted.  In their opinion, schools should be protected by what I am calling an “armed brigade.”  The remedy the National Rifle Association, the NRA, has proposed would make the situation worse.  In fact, it is not a remedy, but a symptom pointing to a deeply ingrained atavism.  Members of the NRA still live in a by-gone age when settlers in the Wild West were killing their way to the Pacific Ocean, doing so legally.  Imagine what would happen if the school’s “armed brigade” started to shoot at a potential killer.  It could be a shootout in perfect “cowboys and Indians” fashion.

We are not actors and actresses in a movie; this is real life.  In real life, we do our best not to have shootouts.  I have heard grieving or frightened citizens say that they now want a firearm.  I can understand their feelings.  Many rape victims also want a weapon.  Yet letting individuals carry a weapon keeps alive the classic confrontation of Western movies.  Remember the scenes where two men faced each other and the fastest “gun,” shooting from the hip, killed “the bad guy.”  These were duels à l’Américaine, but duels nevertheless, minus a Codex Duello.

Pushkin killed in a duel, dead at 37

When writer Alexander Pushkin (6 June 1799 – 10 February 1837; aged 37) was fatally wounded duelling with Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d’Anthès, duels were illegal in Russia.  Georges d’Anthès was therefore incarcerated in the Peter and Paul Fortress, but he was soon pardoned and returned to France.  The point I want to make is that, in 1837, duels were illegal in Russia.  In fact, they had been illegal in many countries beginning in the 17th century because of the staggering number of victims.  Similarly, if an American citizen now has a firearm and fights against an individual bearing arms, it is also a duel and one person dies, if not both.  There are victims.

Consequently, the bearing arms for self-protection solution and the “armed brigade” solution are both recipes for disaster.  When President Obama addressed the people of Newtown, he stated that during his Presidency, four massacres had occurred, the saddest of which was the Newtown tragedy — children died — and another killing occurred on Christmas Eve.  In these instances, firearms were not used for self-protection.  All were attacks by armed individuals.  I hope Washington will rally behind the President who wishes to put into place bolder gun-control legislation.

Individualism and Collectivism

Putting firearms in the hands of individuals is extremely dangerous.  It is as though a nation let citizens take the law into their own hands.  We cannot take the law into our own hands.  If citizens did take the law into their own hands, it would be a serious breach of the social contract, or a breach of a covenant.  In fact, it would be unbridled individualism and near complete denial of collectivism, i. e. collective rights and duties.

A few weeks ago, I posted a blog on Thomas Hobbes (5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Locke.  It addressed the social contract.  People get together, surrender some “freedom” — such as bearing arms — and live in safety.  This does not preclude the appropriate measure of individualism, but it creates a balance between individualism and collectivism.  In other words, people can still put a little picket fence around their house and lock their doors — I don’t — but the other side of the picket fence is someone else’s property.  Note that in my example, both homeowners, individuals, are respecting a law, a covenant, so that order is maintained.

We have red lights, stop signs, speed limits, construction codes, fire safety codes, etc.  It’s called the rule of law.

—ooo—

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky  (7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893)
Eugene Onegin 
 
The Death of Tecumseh

The Death of Tecumseh

  
© Micheline Walker
19 December 2012
WordPress

A Few Comments on the Newtown Massacre

15 Saturday Dec 2012

Posted by in Art, Sharing

≈ 12 Comments

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Nicolaas Rubens, by Peter Paul Rubens, 1625-26
Nicolaas Rubens, by Peter Paul Rubens, 1625-26

Photo credit:  Peter Paul Rubens 

There was a time in history when parents lost many children.  Well-to-do individuals  often protected themselves by having their children sent to a wet-nurse and having them raised in homes where they were sometimes loved, but often neglected.  Yet, if their child died, these parents nevertheless grieved.

Times have changed.  A child may develop a disease that threatens his or her life, but we now expect our children to survive illnesses and when they leave for school in the morning, we also expect them to return home and tell about the day’s activities.

Losing a child is the worst of pain.  I saw my father break down when one of my brothers died.  He was sitting between two of his medical doctor friends who took him to another room.  But as of that moment, he never again allowed himself to love a child.  My sister also lost a child: a five-year old.  The death of her daughter broke not only her heart, but also her fragile health.

Nicolaas Rubens, by Peter Paul Rubens, 1621

Nicolaas Rubens, by Peter Paul Rubens, 1621

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon at the hospital being treated for an infected foot.  So I did not learn about the tragedy until supper time when I turned on the television to watch the news.  I heard myself say: not again!  There are details I do not know, but when I turned off the television, twenty children and seven adults, including Mrs Lanza, were dead.  The last thing I saw were people standing vigil in front of the White House.

I heard President Obama’s speech at least three times, and I believe he set the tone.  He was visibly saddened by the tragedy, saddened to the point of wiping off a few tears.  He is a father and he is also a sensitive and compassionate person.  Flags were at half-mast and Americans were keeping vigil, as was the world.

* * *

For the time being we are grieving, but afterwards, we must protest or call ourselves cowards.  These massacres must end and it is within our power to make changes that would reduce the death toll significantly.  It should, for one thing, be illegal to own and carry firearms.  There are many Republicans in Congress, but whether a member of Congress is a Republican or a Democrat is irrelevant when children die.  Many if not most are parents or grandparents.  They know that what happened to twenty children in Newtown yesterday could happen to their children or grandchildren.  So every one must act and act now.

It seems to me that the oft-amended American Constitution could be revised yet again so that it cannot be used to allow civilians access to firearms.  I am not saying that we can prevent all murders, but I am saying that if people cannot own and carry firearms they cannot shoot innocent children or anyone else.

I do not like pointing a guilty finger, but it would be my opinion that the National Rifle Association was complicit, albeit passively, in yesterday’s tragedy as well as earlier tragedies.  If yesterday’s shooter had not had access to a firearm, the people of Newtown, Connecticut would have been spared the worst imaginable loss, the loss of a child, and their children could have grown into adults and enjoyed life.  That right was taken away from them.

* * *

We have gone back to Thomas Hobbes (5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679), John Locke (29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778), but their ideology is also that of millions of individuals who live in the United States of America and want this madness to end.  Owning and carrying firearms constitutes the “freedom we surrender” to live in safety.  In other words, safety dictates that we not own and carry firearms.      

I feel immense sorrow for the bereaved mothers and fathers of Newtown, but I also feel very angry because ultimately the system failed these families.  Before I close, allow me to praise the courageous teachers and other individuals who put their lives at risk to save little ones.  They acted selflessly and some paid the ultimate price.

Yesterday, children died and they died needlessly.  Take away those horrible guns.

composer: J. S. Bach (31 March 1685 – 28 July 1750)
piece: “Ich ruf zu Dir, Herr,” BWV 639
pianist: Tatiana Petrovna Nikolayeva (4 May 1924 – 22 November 1993)

  
Nicolaas-Rubens-1625-26-large
© Micheline Walker
December 15th, 2012
WordPress
 
 
 

The Noble Savage: Lahontan’s Adario

26 Friday Oct 2012

Posted by in Literature

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Detail from Benjamin West‘s The Death of General Wolfe, 1770 (National Gallery of Canada)

Benjamin West, RA (10 October 1738 – 11 March 1820)

The Noble Savage

The term “noble savage” was first used by John Dryden (9 August 1631 – 1 May 1700) in The Conquest of Granada (1672) a two-part tragedy.  Moreover, playwright Thomas Southerne, the author of Oroonoko (1696), also depicted a noble savage except that his savage, or his man in the state of nature, is an African.  Southerne’s play is based on Aphra Behn’s novel about a dignified African prince enslaved in the British colony of Surinam.

Oroonoko kills Imoinda in a 1776 performance of Thomas Southerne’s Oroonoko.

Adario:  Rameau’s Indes galantes (1735)

You may recall that, in the fourth entrée or act of Jean-Philippe Rameau‘s (25 September 1683, Dijon – 12 September 1764) Les Indes galantes (The Gallant Indies), Zima, the daughter of an Amerindian chief, rejects her Spanish and French suitors to live with an Amerindian, a Huron, named Adario.

Yet, by 1735, Thomas Hobbes (5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679) had written his Leviathan (1651) and, in Chapter XIII, entitled Of the Natural Condition of Mankind Concerning Their Felicity, and Misery, Hobbes had negated the idea that in the state of nature, man was good.  But such was not the opinion of the 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, an English politician and philosopher.  Nor was it altogether John Locke‘s view of man in the state of nature, FRS (29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704).

Hobbes and John Locke were political philosophers.  But it would be useful to take into consideration various travel accounts that inspired writers such as John Dryden.  One traveller was the baron de Lahontan[i] who had depicted a noble savage or bon sauvage, a man in the state of nature portrayed not only as good, but as superior to Europeans.

Louis Armand, Baron de Lahontan

Louis Armand, Baron de Lahontan (9 June 1666 – prior to 1716) was a French baron who served in the French military, in New France, from 1683 to 1693, but, as I have noted above, also travelled in the Wisconsin and Minnesota region and the upper Mississippi Valley.  Lahontan deserted and upon his return to Europe, he published three books, the third of which is about Adario.  The titles are:

1. Les Nouveaux Voyages de M. le Baron de Lahontan dans l’Amérique septentrionale (a narrative of the Baron de Lahontan’s new trips to North America)
2. Les Mémoires de l’Amérique septentrionale (history of the territory, the settlers and the Amerindians)
3. Les Dialogues curieux entre l’auteur et un sauvage de bon sens qui a voyagé (The curious dialogues between the author and a sensible savage who has travelled)
 

Lahontan’s three books, published at The Hague in 1703, were bestsellers and they were translated into various languages.  It is therefore entirely possible that by giving the name Adario (The Rat) to the bon sauvage whom Zima chooses as her husband, Jean-Philippe Rameau (25 September 1683, Dijon – 12 September 1764), and his librettist Louis Fuzelier (1672 – 1752) were attesting to the popularity of Lahontan’s three books, the third in particularly.  Naming Zima’s bon sauvage Adario cannot be a mere coincidence, even if there were a number of Hurons named Adario.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

According to Lahontan, there are five areas in which Adario is depicted as morally superior to the French: religion, law, property, medicine and marriage. However, if we look at property, the third area in which Lahontan’s Adario is considered as superior to Europeans, the French in particularly, it is difficult to dismiss the idea that, on the subject of property, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was influenced, first, by Lahontan and, second, by Hobbes.

Adario tells Lahontan that among Amerindians, there is no “le tien et le mien” (yours and mine).  In this respect, there is a significant degree of affinity between Lahontan and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s  Discourse on Inequality (1754).

In the Second Part of the Discourse on Inequality, also known as Second Discourse[ii], Rousseau writes that:

“[t]he first man who, having enclosed off a piece of land, got the idea
of saying ‘This is mine’ and found people simple enough to believe him
was the true founder of civil society.” (Second Part: first line)

And later:

“What crimes, what wars, what murders, what miseries and horrors would someone have spared the human race who, pulling out the stakes or filling in the ditch, had cried out to his fellows, ‘Stop listening to this imposter.  You are lost if you forget that the fruits belong to everyone and the earth belongs to no one.’” (Second Part: second line)

In Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan, the “sovereign” has twelve principal rights, the seventh of which is “to prescribe the rules of civil law and property.”  But, as I noted above, it would be my opinion that, given the popularity of Lahontan’s books, Rousseau’s “This is mine” may have been Adario’s “le tien et le mien” (yours and mine), down to the very wording.  (First Part: two paragraphs after note 15) 

Moreover, it does not appear that “civil society” as first introduced in the Discours on Inequality is the society in which individuals have entered into a social contract (government) and where the rule of law prevails.  In the Discourse on Inequality, Jean-Jacques argued that “moral inequality is endemic to a civil society and relates to, and causes, differences in power and wealth. (Discourse on Inequality, Wikipedia)

Therefore, the “civil society” in which innate human goodness deteriorates when the innately good individual is no longer isolated or “savage,” would be plain society.  Civil society, as it is understood in the Social Contract, is a later development.

And savage man, deprived of every kind of enlightenment, experiences only the passions of the latter sort: his desires do not go beyond his physical needs. (Discourse on Inequality, (First Part).

According to Rousseau, man corrupts man.  Note that Rousseau uses the words “savage man,” hence his being associated with the idea of the “noble savage,” when in fact, Dryden coined the term “noble savage.”[iii]

Rousseau believed in the concept of innate human goodness, a concept he would express at greater length in Émile, ou, De l’éducation, 4 vol. (1762), but reaffirm in his Confessions (written 1765–70) and his Dreams of a Solitary Walker (1776–78).  In Émile, ou, De l’éducation Rousseau writes that:

“Tout est bien sortant des mains de l’Auteur des choses, tout dégénère entre les mains de l’homme.” (Émile, ou, De l’éducation, Livre premier) 
God makes all things good; man meddles with them and they become evil. (Émile, Project Gutenberg, Chapter 1).
 

There are further chapters to the history of the noble savage which can be presented in a later blog.  But, before pausing, I will mention a book quoted by the author of Wikipedia’s entry of the Discourse on Inequality.  The book is entitled The bully culture: enlightenment, romanticism, and the transcendental pretense, 1750-1850 and it was published in 1992 by Robert Solomon.  The 1992 edition seems a second edition.  The following is a quotation from Solomon’s book (pp.59-61):  “The two fundamental principles of Rousseau’s natural man are his natural, non-destructive love of self (amour de soi-même), and pity/compassion for the suffering of others (‘another principle which has escaped Hobbes’).”

_________________________

[i] Louis-Armand de Lom d’Arce de Lahontan, Baron de Lahontan (9 June 1666 – prior to 1716), known as Lahontan or le baron de Lahontan published his three books at The Hague in 1703.

[ii] The first Discourse, entited the Discourse on the Arts and Sciences was written in 1750 in response to an add that appeared in a 1749 issue of the Mercure de France, a newspaper.  It was a prize competition sponsored by the Academy of Dijon and the subject to be discussed was the following question: “Has the restoration of the sciences and the arts contributed to refining moral character?”  Rousseau won first prize in the competition.

[iii] “The Noble Savage,” The Encyclopædia Britannica, accessed on October 25, 2012 http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/416988/noble-savage

© Micheline Walker
26 October 2012
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G. Tartini: Concerto for violin, strings & b.c. in G major (D 76) / L’Arte dell’Arco
 
 
 
RELATED ARTICLES:
The Sociat Contract: Hobbes, Locked and Rousseau
Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Les Indes galantes

On the Second Debate & the News, 21 October 2012

21 Sunday Oct 2012

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Le Moulin (The Mill), by Claude Lorrain

 Claude Lorrain (c. 1600 – 23 November 1682)
 

Quarrels and War

“So the nature of war, consisteth not in actuall fighting; but in the  known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary.” (The Leviathan, Chapter XIII)

Hobbes identified “three principall causes of quarrell.  First, competition; Secondly, Diffidence; Thirdly, Glory. The first maketh man invade for gain; the second, for Safety; and the third, for Reputation. The first use Violence, to make themselves Masters of other mens persons, wives, children, and cattell; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other signe of undervalue, either direct in their Persons, or by reflexion in their Kindred, their Friends, their Nation, their Profession, or their Name.”

What we heard and saw in this week debate, held on 16 October 2012, is one man, President Obama, defending himself against false accusations and false accusations may eventually lead a man to say:  “You’re lying.”  The debate turned into a quarrel and President Obama defended himself, for his own safety.  Human beings are born equipped with an instinct for self-preservation.  John Locke opposed inneism, but to my knowledge, he did not negate the innateness of man’s instinct for self-preservation.  It is the instinct that motivates individuals to protect themselves and, at times, to enter into a Social Contract to ensure their safety.

In Chapter XIV of the Leviathan, Hobbes writes that “no man can transferre, or lay down his Right to save himselfe from Death, Wounds, and Imprisonment.”

In the case of the October 16th debate, no one had to fear death and imprisonment, but wounds were being inflicted.  Mr Romney indulged in machiavelianism: the end justifies the means.  I therefore believe that the winner in the October 16th, 2012 debate is President Obama.  Defending oneself seems legitimate.

The Near and Middle East

Moreover, if war is a constant feature in human behaviour, the US and the world may be at risk again (please see the New York Times, 20 October 2012, for an analysis),  “Mr. Romney has repeatedly criticized the president as showing weakness on Iran and failing to stand firmly with Israel against the Iranian nuclear threat.”

Mr Romney should know better.  It isn’t in the best interest of the United States to wage war in the Near and Middle East.  Citizens of the Near and Middle East loathe the United States.  I would rephrase the above quotation.  It would read: “The world must stand firmly in opposing nuclear threat.”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President, is no choirboy.  If the US takes sides, it may provoke him into greater adversity.

Besides, we all know that Mr Romney is seeking the Presidency of the United States in order to spare the rich their fair share of taxes, which is the freedom we surrender, the social contract, in order to live safely.

The NEWS

English
The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/world/iran-said-ready-to-talk-to-us-about-nuclear-program.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/
The Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
The Globe and Mail: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
The Montreal Gazette: http://www.montrealgazette.com/index.html
The National Post: http://www.nationalpost.com/index.html
Le Monde diplomatique: http://mondediplo.com/EN
 
CBC News: http://www.cbc.ca/news/
CTV News: http://www.ctvnews.ca/
 
French
Le Monde: http://www.lemonde.fr/
Le Monde diplomatique: http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/
Le Devoir: http://www.ledevoir.com/
La Presse: http://www.lapresse.ca/
 
German
Die Welt: http://www.welt.de/
 
Micheline Walker©
October 21st, 2012
WordPress
 
composer:  Arcangelo Corelli (17 February 1653 – 8 January 1713)
piece: Follia
performers: Hespèrion XXI & Jordi Savall