Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Lord of the Flies - Review


William Golding's 1954 novel Lord of the Flies is one of the most classic pieces of American literature written during the 20th century. A required reading for most high school students, and chosen by TIME Magazine as one of the 100 best English novels between 1923 and 2005; the book is an important aspect of American and Western society and as such demands a particular investigation. The novel is listed as number 31 in the top 100 Best Novels by the Modern Library, and reached 25 on the recommended reading list. Not a great success at the time of publication, the importance and themes of the novel became more pronounced during the Counter-Culture years of the 1960s. By the 1990s, it was standard reading material chosen by English teachers and professors across the country.
The overall context of the novel is that of a perceived third World War following a minor conflict in Great Britain. The boys trapped on the island are products of circumstances beyond their own choosing: their school transport plane is shot down, either by ground or air fire. The result is the death of their only adults, the pilots, and the emergence of what seems to be a paradise island for the boys. Very quickly, the lack of adults becomes the lack of civil order. Golding's use of the characters throughout the novel is a consistent battle between the subconscious human conceptualizations of civility and savagery. It is Golding's prime question: What is the dominant instinct in humanity; a desire for order or a desire to control and dominate?
Golding's instincts are played out by opposing boys, Jack who represents disorder and a lack of authority, and Ralph who represents the inner drive to hold onto those very things that make us human: love, community, cooperation. The scenario is very similar to end-of-the-world scenarios portrayed by apocalyptic films such as Night of the Living Dead and A Boy and His Dog. In each scenario the situation is the same: characters are forced to inevitably choose between their desires. Upon choosing civility and order, the expression of pride and community support is the main continence of the characters. Upon choosing disorder and anarchy, the characters are dominated and motivated by factors of fear and coercion. In certain respects, Golding makes a correlation to the Cold War; a world divided into separate camps that view each other in a similar light. The Soviet Union believed to be upholding civility and progressive order while Capitalism in the West controlled its people through coercion and manipulation. Likewise the West believed to be upholding civility and order through democracy, while the Communist East controlled its people through fear. The more direct analysis of Golding's characters however are relatable to the subconscious desires that burden all of mankind.
Biological science has shown, with astute accuracy, that the human mind is in the Platonic sense a 'slave to the senses.' We can only see whatever light our eyes will take in, only hear the sound vibrations that can be picked up by our eardrum, and only smell a few hundred chemicals with our olfactory nodes. The full light spectrum, the full sound wave, and every chemical in existence is thus beyond our understanding. We are, by nature, limited to our cognitive experiences with the material world. In this sense, Plato's analysis of our experiences can seem very true: We know only what we experience. How then, does one explain the existence of a violent, anarchistic, and savage side of humanity that seems prevalent not only through Golding's novel but also through history as well? Golding uses the dark, harsh, and scarlet-doused image of the Lord of the Flies, a severed pigs head thrust upon a wooden stake, to emphasize and drive forth the extent to which savagery can affect the human mind. But Golding does not try to suggest that this instinct or drive is created by experience, like Plato would. Rather Golding asserts that these instincts and motivations exist within us all, waiting to be unearthed at the right time.
The theme of civility against savagery thus coincides with the notion of a human's loss of innocence. For Golding, it is innocence that keeps mankind bound together in the same way that eggs bind meat together when cooking. Without the eggs (innocence), the meat becomes easily fragmented, distorted, and is more susceptible to decay. But the one aspect uncontrollable by either the author or the innocence, is how each individual person is posed to deal with it. Golding's exemplification of this is his portrayal of different-aged boys with different backgrounds, thus each coming with their own personal understandings of right and wrong. It is here where Aristotelian philosophy now pokes its head in: We all come together as separate individuals, all each bound by our Platonic sense of existence. Some of the boys, such as Jack, lose their innocence with the immediate loss of an authority (the adults). Others, such as Piggy and Simon, battle with and against their innocence throughout the novel. Ralph maintains his innocence while also maintaining pride in it, thus representing the last element of humanity left in the boys. Finally, the younger boys of the island are presented as too young to fully understand, and thus they benignly follow whoever seems to be in the seat of command.
Ultimately we are presented with the haunting notion asserted by Golding through his character Simon, that goodness and civility can be perceived as impediments to the social disorder of anarchy and savagery. Whereas Jack and Ralph stand at the polarized sides of civility and savagery, Simon exists somewhere on his own plane. Simon embodies an innate, spiritual goodness that is in many ways as primal as Jack's own savagery. Simon upholds civility as a natural part of his existence, while the other boys, who are not innately moral, uphold civility as products of the adult world: their support for morality comes from threat of punishment. Finally, a Marxist analysis begins to look back at us through Golding's words. While Jack and Simon may represent idealistic interpretations of morality, Golding does assert the affect of material conditions on the consciousness of his characters: the boys who are moral do so because of their experiences with the adult world. It is not an inner drive for morality that makes them obey, it is rather the threat of punishment that coerces their actions.
Simon's character is murdered by the savage boys who feel threatened by his upstanding support of morality. More importantly, it is Simon who discovers the truth of the island: There is no Lord of the Flies; it is merely the 'savage' side of consciousness talking to the subconscious. Simon's experience with the severed pig's head forces him to reject the savage attempt to dominate his mind, and reveal this truth to the rest of the boys. The other boys however, led by Jack, had already fully succumbed to their savage instincts and the notion of its fault brings about the insecurity of their social order as a whole. Their only means then, of preserving that reality, of upholding their desires for savagery and brutal survival, is to murder Simon. Simon's death becomes Golding's principle metaphor for the death of natural morality, and the supremacy of savagery over our instincts for civility.
The end of the text is not without its twist of irony however. Throughout the novel, Golding uses the island as a metaphor for a staging area that exists outside the realm of civilization. What if, the book begs to ask, human beings were placed in a situation lacking a central authority? What would guide us? What would bring us together? Golding's answer rests with the idea that survival becomes dictated by our savage side, while cooperation for survival necessitates aspects of civility. At the end of the novel however, and the boys are rescued, that all-too-dominant existence of a social morality breaks down Golding's metaphor. Upon the image of an adult in military uniform, all the boys are immediately reminded of their tragedies and their transgressions. As if within a matter of seconds, the world of civility had been washed over their consciousnesses and their ability to discern right from wrong fell directly into place.
Golding's novel makes a critical attempt to understand the consciousness of mankind through the lens of an idealistic setting. This setting however, cannot ignore its own specific context: it is isolated from civilization. More importantly, the boys' isolation is a product of civilization's ongoing savagery: a war. Civilization itself may be a product of such a development between savagery and morality, but is an idealistic interpretation of the mind an accurate picture of humanity as a whole? While it is undeniable that savagery and morality both exist within each of us, we cannot, in the Platonic sense, express those existences freely without worry of conflict. We are all products of our surroundings, and our understanding of morality is, like most of the boys in the novel, based on experiences with civilization itself...as opposed to any inert instinct for 'good'. Thus, it is not so much important to understand the material existence of an inert 'savagery' or 'morality' within each individual, as much as it is to understand the material existence of an inert savagery or morality within all individuals, as a collective, throughout civilization as a whole.

Monday, April 10, 2017

Thoughts on 1939 and the Nazi-Soviet Pact

Below is an excerpt from my dissertation's draft about American Communism's involvement with and reaction to the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939.

I'm genuinely curious as to what contemporary Communists think--knowing that hindsight is 20/20.  Most of the autobiographical and oral history records are very limited in what they express about the event, so I figured I'd post my thoughts after having read all the available material and see if others had comments.

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The following material is copyrighted.
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The gains and progress of American Communism hit a dead halt in September of 1939, when Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin invaded Poland and made it clear to the world the reality of the Nazi-Soviet Pact.  For almost a decade, the CPUSA and American communists abandoned going solo and many liberal organizations held a moderate-to-significant communist presence.[i]  The Nazi-Soviet Pact, also known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, shifted the American communist political movement into a crisis unparalleled throughout the prewar years.  Harvey Klehr noted that, unlike previous shifts seen from 1928-1929 and again from 1934-1935, the communists in 1939 had a lot to lose—secured allies in the Democratic coalition, and popularity among politically-active labor organizations.  After years of denouncing fascism and the rise of Hitler, the communists found themselves reluctantly supporting peace with Nazi Germany.
                In the autobiographical and oral history record, American communists are uniformly reluctant to discuss their involvement in and opinion about the Nazi-Soviet pact, for obvious reasons.  Lumpkin, for example, makes no mention of the pact in her autobiography that covers involvement with American Communism over a period that spans nearly 75 years.  Charney, already frustrated with elements of CPUSA leadership by 1939, described the signing of the pact as “a complete shock.”  Some of the local disctrict members of Harlem, shared Charney’s “hot resentment….toward the wiseacres of the Party leadership.”  Writing thirty years after the event and an ex-CPUSA member, Charney lamented that the emotional “hangover” continued for decades despite the subsequent change of policy in June of 1941.  The Nazi invasion of the socialist motherland reversed the Party line almost overnight, causing cynicism and mistrust within the organizations that shared communist presence.[ii]
                In practice, the CPUSA leadership relied on the Comintern to help rationalize the pact.  In monthsleading up to the pact, Browder and the CPUSA leadership spilled much ink over the topic of Roosevelt’s neutrality.  In May, the Party urged “every mass pressure upon Congress to repeal the Neutrality Act, or fundamentally modify it to penalize the aggressor and aid the victim of aggression.”[iii]  Between September of 1939 and July of 1941, American communists spent most of their time rationalizing the agreement.  Browder addressed a crowd in Chicago to celebrate American Communism’s 20th birthday and read sections of Molotov’s speech to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, trying to emphasize that lower ranking members not “rush to judgement.”  Klehr noted that the Party’s publications subsequently poured out a general explanation for the pact; assuring their members and readers that the Soviet agreement ensured peace in the same manner as appeasement.[iv]  Behind the veil, Party leaders such as Browder, Foster, and Alexander Bittleman debated over how to maintain alliances while supporting the Soviet decision.  Bittleman desired to see an increase in support for Stalin’s decision and emphasize that a Germany-Soviet alliance could result in a war against the capitalist powers of the world.  Foster, reluctant to support a policy that would mean an immediate break with existing Popular Front alliances, wanted to maintain the depiction of an agreement for peace while avoiding denouncement of Western allies.[v]
Charney purported this Party line, albeit reluctantly.  To him and his Harlem Party associates, the pact was a natural response to the failure of Britain and France to extend a defensive alliance to the USSR by 1938.  Mixed along with this however, Charney and his Harlem political associates felt “limp and confused” in the immediate aftermath of the pact, and rushed to justify it via non-Party sources such as Frederick Schuman of Williams College and Ambassador Joseph Davies; both who found ideological explanations for the agreement.[vi]
                By July of 1941, the war for American communists had transformed once again into a “just war” for the purpose of destroying fascism.


[i] Klehr, The Heyday of American Communism, 386.
[ii] Charney, A Long Journey, 123–27.
[iii] The Daily Worker, May 12, 1939; Klehr, The Heyday of American Communism, 391.
[iv] Klehr, The Heyday of American Communism, 388.
[v] Ibid., 392.
[vi] Charney, A Long Journey, 124–25.

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Radical Voices



Radical Voices: American Communism in U.S. History


                Recently I had the opportunity to involve a week-long discussion of American Communist history in an undergraduate course on U.S. History since World War II.  Noticing a trend among younger students to see more visual components of history and to connect more directly with relatable agents of history, I took the time to bring in oral histories and personal autobiographies to cover the Communist experience from 1945-1957.  Since this era was rampant with anticommunist trials and conspiracy theories, it was a good stepping stone into the emerging Civil Rights movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s.  By utilizing first hand experiences and autobiographical testimonies, students connected with the more personal level of U.S. communism and ultimately saw the more humanist element of their activism.
                I began collecting oral histories of existing CPUSA members in July of 2011.  It was a project that was important to me after I realized the substantial lack of autobiographical sources involved in existing historiography.  Additionally, recent publications by International Publishers included autobiographies from some of the Party’s oldest members such as Beatrice Lumpkin.  Since then, these oral histories have become a cornerstone of my research, as they are reflected against the works and testimonies of Party leaders and the first generation of American Communist scholars.  When I was given the opportunity to teach U.S. History since 1945, I found the golden opportunity to test the sources’ use in the classroom.
                I began by having students read important conclusions about communism made by the U.S. state department as well as cultural icons such as Pablo Picasso.  Picasso’s testimony was especially helpful at demonstrating a break between the perception of communism as a monolithic threat and it as an ideology for change.  Subsequently, I had students read about and examine photographs of the major Smith Act trials that occurred from 1949-1957 in addition to examining the case of the Rosenberg’s.  Finally, I had the students examine the oral history of Michele Artt, daughter of two CPUSA leaders indicted in the Michigan Six trial of 1952.  The results were pretty interesting.
                Students were asked to use a course blog to report their feelings and responses to the readings, testimonies, and trial results.  Nearly every student responded saying that examining the trials and narratives gave them a “new understanding” of American Communism.  Most had seen communism as a foreign ideology and a political antagonist.  After reading Artt’s oral history, most expressed a new understanding as an American implementation of a ideology for social change.  In other words, they saw communism in the United States as uniquely American, and equated the suppression of communists with a trampling of basic American values.
                I think this experience demonstrates a tremendous potential for utilizing oral histories and autobiographies of American Communists in the classroom.  For one, it helps decentralize the discussion about communism away from Russia and China, and more into the strict realm of political opinion.  Discussing the lower ranking members, as well, helps remove the perception of conspiracy with regard to the movement’s leadership.  Overall it was a pretty enlightening experience and I think that there is definitely room in American history courses to expand on social movements for change and include American Communism into that lot.