In Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv, I found an interesting passage which echoes some of my own thoughts on our culture.
Excessive fear can transform a person and modify behavior permanently; it can change the very structure of the brain. The same can happen to a whole culture. What will it be like for children to grow up in socially and environmentally controlled environments–condominiums and planned developments and covenant-controlled housing developments surrounded with walls, gates, and surveillance systems, where covenants prevent families from planting gardens? One wonders how the children growing up in this culture of control will define freedom when they are adults.
Property has always been closely tied to liberty in American thought. It is the basis of our founding. Our founders knew that, and John Adams even noted that “[p]roperty must be sacred or liberty cannot exist.” It is why a nation of affluence fought a long and bloody war to defeat “tyranny” that amounted to less than what we willingly submit to today through local neighborhood associations, not to mention the representatives we have elected to rule over us.
In Federalist number 79, Alexander Hamilton writes, “In the general course of human nature, a power over a man’s subsistence amounts to a power over his will.” Yet we submit. We yearn for someone to rule over us.
Perhaps H. L. Mencken describes it best.
The American moron…wants to keep his Ford, even at the cost of losing the Bill of Rights.
I question what the future holds when we are raising our children thus. But I also question how it is we got here. How does a nation characterized by a certain rugged individualism end up with rows of condominiums indistinguishable from one another in neighborhoods which control what you can do on your own property? Somewhere along the line it goes back to education and the way we have been raised.
Mr. Mencken is not my favorite social commentator for obvious reasons, but he was a good satirist. And when you criticize everyone and everything, you are bound to strike a chord with someone eventually:
The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to down dissent and originality. That is the aim in the United States, whatever pretensions of politicians, pedagogues and [sic] other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else. The Goslings, A Study of the American Schools
I may not agree with him on much else, but when I see neighborhoods consisting of rows of identical houses and increasing laws at every level of government, including neighborhood associations it is hard not not see a correlation.
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Enlightening post. I have to tell you, I have always had an innate sense of the creepies when I think of sub-divisions and condos. I would rather have my small Cape Cod on a diverse tree-lined street than 4,000 sqft carbon copy house. Stepford Homes scare me.
These quotes are perfect! Thank you!
They are sort of creepy, aren’t they? And they are not always particularly cheap, either.
When I was in high school, there was a lady who came to our English class twice a month as part of some arts program. She had long hair and wore flowy skirts and played the guitar and taught us folk songs. Most eye rolled when it was arts-in-the-classroom day, but I thought she was wonderful, and the songs she taught us stuck with me. We called her The Ticky-Tacky Lady because of this song:
“Little boxes on the hill side, little boxes made of ticky tacky.
Little boxes, little boxes, little boxes all the same.
There’s a green one and a pink one and a blue one and a yellow
one,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky, and they all look just
the same. “
The whole song is here, along with its history. It’s Dana’s point, in musical form:
http://www.levittowners.com/history/littleboxes.htm
The rest of the Levittown website is interesting as well.
Like John Mellencamp?
“Oh, but ain’t that America, for you and me
Ain’t that America, we’re somethin’ to see, baby
Ain’t that America, the home of the free
Little pink houses for you and me”
Thanks for the memories of English class.
I always wondered about that Mellencamp line, if it was inspired by the Ticky Tacky song.
Very likely. I hadn’t actually heard of the “Ticky Tacky” song before. We have been listening to Australian fold songs a lot recently…I hope I can find as many when we get back to US history. They are an interesting way to learn about what people think of the history they are living in.
And I think it is interesting how capitalism seems to have delivered what socialism promised. Marx said capitalism was necessary for building the infrastructure, then socialism could take over. At least that is Dana’s mini-version of Marxist philosophy. I wonder sometimes how right he was in his predictions as we see signs of exactly that all around us.
But we know it won’t deliver the reorganized society he dreamed of.
We have a lot of those around here due to it being a steel town–there are a lot in the surrounding area because of coal mining. It disturbs me to realize that something that once was a necessity because it came with the job now is a luxury (the new townhouses have the same feel.) If our neighbors had their way our yard would conform to their standards–praise the Lord we don’t live in that type of community and that there is no “housing association” to direct how we keep our yard. Your quotes are right on and are another eyeopener to me–I am so glad we homeschool.
It’s around you and you don’t even realise………
Your description of the cookie cutter neighborhoods reminded me of Ray Bradbury’s book and movie, Fahrenheit 451, not to be confused with the piece of garbage by Michael Moore. The government’s control over nearly everything, all except those who read books, was mind numbing. It was a bleak glimpse at our own future if we continue to permit ourselves to be lazy and hand over everything to property owner associations and government agencies.
The Mencken line you included does strike a familiar chord, one that makes the hair on my back stand up.
“The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to down dissent and originality. That is the aim in the United States, whatever pretensions of politicians, pedagogues and [sic] other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else.”
I had to think about this all day before responding as it really hit a chord with me on many levels.
First, I read Louv’s Last Child In The Woods and really enjoyed it. I did not however get the same image as you did from that passage. Rather than seeing gated, cookie cutter housing tracks and condominiums, I saw entire cities that were completely designed; places in which the natural world had been erased and a fabricated one put in its place: shopping malls for people to socialize in and meet at with the play area for kids to play in, postage sized parks with gates or wrought iron fences around the play structures, community pools, etc…the trails were missing, the vacant lots, the parks that were adjacent the open fields, the streams and creeks that provided swimming and fishing holes and trees to climb and build in.
Second, one of the things that I was taught as a child and still discuss as an adult with my own parent is that what makes Americans different than other citizens of the world is not the dirt (or property) that we own, rather it is the priciples that we hold. Thus, an American is an American no matter where he or she is. Other citizens tend to lose their identities when displaced from their land, their dirt. I have always kept that concept close at heart–what makes me and my countrymen unique is the ideals that we hold and are willing to fight for and die for, the principles that we are founded upon.
Third, I also wonder how we got here–rows of look-alike homes, sprawled out communities, etc. But this is were we diverge. I do not see it as the fault of education, although I do see how education played a hand in it. I see it as the hand of industrialization, of business, of advertising–plain and simpe: corporate greed. They sold us all on the idea of more, and more of the same, of having what he has and she has…and schools played right into so as to get the much sought after all mighty dollar: they wanted more too! And thus they sold the idea of needing and wanting more to their parents and students and communities. Their mere structure and size has drained all orginality and creativity and idividuality out of students.
As for comments, I used to feel very much the same way about homeowners associations and such…still do a large extent, but what happens when you work hard to have a nice home (not in a cookie cutter track LOL and not meaning size) and I don’t just mean at the office to bring home a check, but work hard at physically keeping it up and your neighbor basically turns their yard into a junk yard. Sure it is their right. And sure it is my right to move. And yes, both parties have talked…but each live differently. But do you see the sticky situation it all creates? Whose rights trumps whose?
Lastly, I liked Fehrenheit 911–one mans garbage is another’s treasure (pun was not intended LOL just turned out that way)
Anyway, it gave me much to thing of today, Dana…and as usual my thoughts went in many directions…sorry if I got side tracked on your post
Shawna, that is more of Louv’s point. I am not trying to summarize his thoughts here, more just going with something he said that connects with some of my own thoughts.
I understand what you are saying about corporations, but here is my point: no one, not the government, not a corporation, not a housing association can foist something upon us we are not willing to accept.
Housing associations are unique in a way because they allow for people to plan their own communities. And property values are a huge motivator to keep things neat and tidy. But I do think it is indicative of how willing we are to sacrifice certain aspects of our own liberty…we want to maintain property values, so children are no longer allowed to play in the open green spaces in the neighborhood. You cannot plant a garden. You cannot own more than two dogs. You cannot have a car sitting on blocks in your driveway. You cannot have a boat that is higher than your fence. You cannot have an outbuilding with roofing different than your house. You cannot have a tile roof. You cannot plant a garden.
These are choices people freely make, but it seems to me that it does play into a general mindset that allows for greater control. And it is hard for me to look at this as corporate greed when it appears to be what middle to upper class America wants since that is what many of us gravitate toward.
I don’t see the connection with corporate greed. Our corporations are where they are today as a direct result of changing values.
“The turn of many Americans toward socialism was part of a larger transformation going on in American liberalism. According to nineteenth century liberal doctrine, Americans could trust individual liberty and free competition in the market to secure the public good. The corollary to this public faith was that government should remain severely limited and relegated to protecting and extending the market and providing individuals with the resources—usually land and education—necessary for property ownership. But, the advent of industrial capitalism turned the majority of Americans working outside the household into non-propertied wageworkers. At the same time, individually-owned businesses gave way to trusts and large, consolidated business corporations.
Especially after the great merger wave of 1897-1904, the new managers of these corporations began to replace the market’s “invisible hand” with the corporation’s “visible hand.” Corporate bureaucracies regulated their firms’ investment, production, and pricing policies; and the demand for its products and services. Like Pullman, many of these managers targeted the middle class consumers’ taste for luxury and quality and thus pioneered a new consumer culture. Also like Pullman, many implemented corporate welfare programs for their workers to promote loyalty, though few tried to control their workers’ lives to the extent that Pullman had done.” The Pullman Strike
It is the infusion of socialism into our classic liberalism that has brought us the huge corporations of today…the pursuit of an ideal that was not quite realized as it was set out. I remember reading about some excitement in the massive centralization going on in the early 20th century because some noted socialists thought this was what Marx had promised. Businesses would continue to centralize and swallow each other until there was only one major “Company.” Then the state could take it over easily.
Roosevelt’s trust busting limited that, but other controls that the state has put on business has ensured that it is the model that the United States will continue to follow, if within the bounds set by law. After all, it takes too much capital and too much risk to enter into the market. Corporate regulation is not the enemy of large businesses…the heavier the market is regulated, the more difficult it is for anyone else to move in, ensuring their edge.
Isn’t socialism the natural outgrowth and corollary to industrialization? Our manner of work is somewhere near the core of our lives; if we work in a hive, that will naturally extend to living in a hive, playing in a hive, being educated in a hive, living in and getting our living from a hive.
I’m just theorizing here, but socialism as an ideology arose at the time of the industrial revolution because it is the logical (inevitable?) product of an industrialized lifestyle. The old way of life didn’t work anymore in an industrialized world — we were left with a Dickensesque nightmare. Socialism seemed the logical answer to society’s problems — apply the collective efficiency of the factory to the rest of life.
I’m struck with the difference between say, Almanzo Wilder’s father’s ideas (circa 1850) that “only the farmer is truly free” because he owned property and provided for his own needs from the land, and, say, Maria Montessori’s 1907 address at the opening of her second Children’s House, just half a century or so later, in which she says, “We all know the advantages which have accrued to us through the socialization of our environment…this improvement upon the general welfare of people has had a leveling effect upon society.”
Rebecca, I think that is very much the way Marx saw things. Industrialization would lead to socialism. The progressive movement was certainly born out of it. And the efficiency of the factory changed the face of education…even the architecture of the time reveals a strong connection.
Society changed very rapidly and we were presented with a number of problems that we had not yet seen. And I have always thought that if I lived at the time of the Industrial Revolution, when humans were being treated like cogs in the machine, I might have become a socialist as well.
But like many things, a lot corrected itself in time. And while we may still speak of “human capital,” at least that human capital is something that businesses desire to protect and is no longer viewed in the same light.
Well I have to confess, I haven’t read Marx — I only read the textbook chapter, and I find politics/political theory about as interesting as you find romantic literature! Or, I guess it interests me insofar as it relates to sociology/anthropology, human behavior. But, once in awhile I stumble upon a friend (like you) with a passion for and understanding of it (or some other subject I find either dull or hopelessly complex) who is able to clue me in enough to actually think intelligently about it.
As the line goes, “witches can be right”, and Marx was probably right in his observations of the processes of socio-economic development, although not correct in his conclusions.
I disagree that “human capital” has finally become something businesses desire to protect…look at La Oroya, in Peru, where an American company has so polluted the environment that all the children in the area have lead poisoning. I think the monster has merely changed its face…or maybe just its rhetoric.
I think greed is a constant and there is always someone who will use unethical practices to make a profit. That isn’t purely the realm of American corporations…I’ve run into it more with neighbors and “friends” than I have in the companies I have worked for.
I knew a woman in Germany who had to leave her homeland in Northern Columbia when the Panama Canal was being returned to Panama. Suddenly, there was commercial value in the area, and a number of companies wanted land, many of them American. Certain people under contract went out to secure rights, but not everyone was willing to sell. Those who didn’t were murdered, and my Columbian friend fled for her life.
It is those kinds of things which keep me from becoming overly libertarian. Some checks are necessary. Too much, however, and you have the situation you have in Central and South America (and China, etc.) where you can do just about anything for the right price.
I love the Ticky Tacky song, it always plays in my head when we driv through the cookie cutter neighborhoods.
I too went back in thought to “English class” - and Fahrenheit 451. It’s something that has stuck with me all my life - the importance of reading books. And I spend my life trying to impart it into my children. And telling things like, there may come the day when we have to hide Bibles and books in the walls and bury them. In other countries it is so. Hm, maybe we need to read this book with the kiddos.
I think as the wikki article describes the society in the book, it is so parallel to ours. “Individuals are anti-social and hedonistic.” And I love Bradbury’s own clarification “that the novel is not about censorship; he states that Fahrenheit 451 is a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature, which ultimately leads to ignorance of total facts.”
I also grew up singing “Ticky Tacky”. Though we lived in more rural areas, every time we’d come into O through the ‘berbs, I’d be reminded of it again. My sis had one of those houses and I never wanted one. I still hate them.