From: nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: liberty
Date: 23 Jul 92 14:51:50 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA


  After reading my last post about mob psychology I thought 
  I'd add some more food for thought:

  I'm currently reading an EXCELLENT book, called _Tombee_
  (author is Rosengarten, but the book is at home so I can't cite
  ISBN number and other particulars)  

  _Tombee_ is a detailed historical study of the life and times
  of a plantation owner on St Helen Island, South Carolina just
  prior to the Civil War.   This owner kept a detailed daily
  journal, and using that as a foundation, and doing extensive
  historical analysis from other data about the surrounding
  community the author and his research assistants (he's a history
  professor there) have managed to construct one of the most
  intricate, detailed, and fascinating studies of the daily life,
  experiences, and feelings of a person from a different historical
  time that I have ever read.   
    

  Now here's the germaine part to our discussion:   One thing which
  the journal and the author makes very clear is that government 
  in South Carolina in the 1840's and 1850's was virtually nonexistant --
  it was nearly invisible and played little significant role in the
  daily or business life of this planter, -- a couple of court cases 
  involving debts and inherited property were about it.

  And yet it is also very clear that liberty was not in great
  abundance there.   I'm not just referring to the obvious insti-
  tution of slavery.  But rather, this planter's life was constrained
  on all sides by a huge host of other social forces, pressures and
  institutions.  Often these were in the form of informal "associations"
  that the planters formed to advance their business interests, protect
  themselves from competition, improve their agriculture, maintain
  their social position relative to poor whites, or control the
  slaves.  Acting somewhat in the way Japanese keiretsu do, these
  associations could place informal or practical limits on what
  a planter could grow or expect to sell.  Membership in these also
  placed huge demands on a planter's time, money, and property.
  (example: he was expected to periodically put on a dinner for 
  the Agricultural Society.  He really couldn't afford the sumptious
  feast expected, and so he and his family often went hungry for
  weeks before or after one of these feasts, or he went into debt.
  Yet to NOT do this would threaten his position in the Society). 
  Status and membership in these organizations was necessary to anyone
  who hoped to be a successful plantation owner.

  Other constraints involved family, which played a much bigger 
  role in people's lives than today.  Various family obligations
  could cost all kinds of time, money, property, etc.  And then
  there were constraints of custom and tradition -- there were
  *expectations* and *social obligations* that you were required
  to observe and honor concerning just about every aspect of your
  life in order to be a member of the community.  And remember
  that "community" performed many of the same functions in historical
  times that government does today  -- avoiding it was practically 
  impossible.    As constraining as these forces were for the men,
  tradition and custom killed many of the women -- typically in
  childbirth as planters' wives would often turn out 10, 12, 14
  or more children.   The men at least had lives outside the
  planatation, the women were expected mainly to bear and care
  for children.

  Before we talk about "freedom" and "liberty", we should carefully
  ask ourselves what we MEAN by those words.  Is freedom just the 
  absence of formal laws?  

  I strongly recommend _Tombee_, not just for the political observations,
  above, which I think were not intended by the author anyway, but
  because of the way it brings history to life, or should I say life
  to history?



---peter

  
  
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc