John Goodson, my old co-host from the ex.haust podcast, joined me in the first of our series on Leo Marx’s The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America. There are a few audio problems in this episode, for which we apologize. Thankfully, they’re brief.
So great to hear the two of you back in the saddle again. I was so sad when ex.haust ended, it was such a special show and I haven't found anything quite like it to fill the void that it left. Can't wait to hear more of this and I hope you guys do more of these in the future.
the first part of the episode -- with hawthorne and the train that whooshed by -- brought to mind 'cowboy dan' by modest mouse. an american canonical theme if there ever was one
Very interesting discussion there, Barbarians! But I must admit that to me, Italian, hearing you say that Virgil is a central part of your American identity was quite surprising.
A question for you knowledgable people: I recently read Charles Mann’s 1491 and 1493 books, where he describes what the Europeans found when they first got to America. Based on what the picture he portays, it is astonishing to read how Europeans, so accustomed to their own idea of countryside and cultivated landscape, didn’t recognize the indians’ (his words not mine) cultivated landscape and called it wilderness. Could be that by the time Europeans started coming to America in really large numbers, indians were pretty much wiped out and much of the land had actually returned to wilderness but still, America was in no way a pristine natural reserve. Do you think that Marx’s ideas are hard to reconcile with these facts?
1) I think by the time the British subjects arrived in New England population had greatly declined among the indigenous peoples. But then there's this issue: while Europeans were used to the idea of the country side, many tribes were not farmers and had a more nomadic, seasonal relationship to the land. This is quite different from European agriculture and so even if there were ad hoc agricultural practices it would have been difficult for Europeans to distinguish that from wildness. Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz argues in some of her work (this is not an endorsement of her politics).
2) Based on the sources Leo Marx uses and some other Elizabethan sources I've encountered, there's a darker view here, too. Some Europeans seem to have believe that because natives were "primitive" their practices could not be "civilized" by definition. Whatever natives did, to some Europeans, was synonymous with wild nature. In the next chapter, we'll get another, more laudatory look at native life from an early chronicler of Virginia.
3) A few years ago, I read Hampton Sides's biography of Kit Carson, a famous western figure in American history. At one point, Sides describes Union troops (this was during the Civil War) marching into New Mexico. Most of them found it to be an alienating, hideous place. New Mexico is considered one of the most beautiful states in the republic these days. Sides described their response as an "ocular dissonance." Most of these boys were likely from the American Midwest or New England. I wonder if something similar did not happen to Europeans who made landfall in North America.
Actually, all your thoughts kind of remind me of, or rather seem to lead back to the original definition of the word barbarian: everything that’s not Greek (and later, Roman). Looks like the same attitude was there almost 2000 years later
So great to hear the two of you back in the saddle again. I was so sad when ex.haust ended, it was such a special show and I haven't found anything quite like it to fill the void that it left. Can't wait to hear more of this and I hope you guys do more of these in the future.
Thank you! We have one in the chamber for the next chapter already. More to come!
the first part of the episode -- with hawthorne and the train that whooshed by -- brought to mind 'cowboy dan' by modest mouse. an american canonical theme if there ever was one
Very glad to have you two back on the air together 🙏
I really enjoy this format. Glad to listen to you guys talk philosophy again!
Thank you!
Very interesting discussion there, Barbarians! But I must admit that to me, Italian, hearing you say that Virgil is a central part of your American identity was quite surprising.
A question for you knowledgable people: I recently read Charles Mann’s 1491 and 1493 books, where he describes what the Europeans found when they first got to America. Based on what the picture he portays, it is astonishing to read how Europeans, so accustomed to their own idea of countryside and cultivated landscape, didn’t recognize the indians’ (his words not mine) cultivated landscape and called it wilderness. Could be that by the time Europeans started coming to America in really large numbers, indians were pretty much wiped out and much of the land had actually returned to wilderness but still, America was in no way a pristine natural reserve. Do you think that Marx’s ideas are hard to reconcile with these facts?
Great question!
I have several thoughts:
1) I think by the time the British subjects arrived in New England population had greatly declined among the indigenous peoples. But then there's this issue: while Europeans were used to the idea of the country side, many tribes were not farmers and had a more nomadic, seasonal relationship to the land. This is quite different from European agriculture and so even if there were ad hoc agricultural practices it would have been difficult for Europeans to distinguish that from wildness. Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz argues in some of her work (this is not an endorsement of her politics).
2) Based on the sources Leo Marx uses and some other Elizabethan sources I've encountered, there's a darker view here, too. Some Europeans seem to have believe that because natives were "primitive" their practices could not be "civilized" by definition. Whatever natives did, to some Europeans, was synonymous with wild nature. In the next chapter, we'll get another, more laudatory look at native life from an early chronicler of Virginia.
3) A few years ago, I read Hampton Sides's biography of Kit Carson, a famous western figure in American history. At one point, Sides describes Union troops (this was during the Civil War) marching into New Mexico. Most of them found it to be an alienating, hideous place. New Mexico is considered one of the most beautiful states in the republic these days. Sides described their response as an "ocular dissonance." Most of these boys were likely from the American Midwest or New England. I wonder if something similar did not happen to Europeans who made landfall in North America.
Actually, all your thoughts kind of remind me of, or rather seem to lead back to the original definition of the word barbarian: everything that’s not Greek (and later, Roman). Looks like the same attitude was there almost 2000 years later
Perhaps unsurprisingly, both sides saw each other as "barbarians." https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521183448/