Living Tradition, Part I

Guess you can tell, I've been pondering a lot about culture lately. What it means to have a Western culture, why it's valuable, if it's worth keeping as a distinct entity. And if we don't, what happens when we lose it.

That's why a couple posts at Tam's place struck a nerve today.

First, the thing about the end goal of humanities instruction basically being to become an instructor oneself. It does sound absurd.. but wait a moment. There's an honest to gosh reason for some of that - two thousand plus years of cultural heritage rests in the minds of the (good) teachers, and that's something that needs to be replaced as each generation passes. Think of it as the secular version of apostolic succession*. Sure you can learn from a book - but without the experience of a lifetime in the field, it's too easy to ignore some critical piece of context that colors the whole conclusion you come to.

(Washington, the Whisky Rebellion, and the Terror came to mind there).

So yes, there's a good reason for the prof to want to hold on to the few truly "love the subject" kids to be profs themselves someday. That's how we keep our heritage alive**.

Heck... our ancestors knew this. They knew if you want to break a rebellious people, you fracture their sense of an independent identity. That I learned from the harp classes - how in 17th century Ireland, Elizabeth I had harps burned and harpers killed, so as to destroy the native oral culture. A hundred-some years later, Scotland's tartans and pipes came under similar laws. Heck, we did it in our Indian schools - take away your enemy's children and raise them yourself in your own culture. A few generations later, ease up on the trappings and color - let them have back their tartan or their language or whatnot, once it becomes an expression not of independence and rebelliousness but regional/cultural pride alone.

It's been done and done and done... because it works.


So back to square one this morning.

What does it mean to have a Western culture? A distinct American culture? Is it being attacked? If so, what would replace it? Is it worth defending? If so - how to do that?

More later. Time to participate in another trapping of modern western culture. Getting out of the house on time time to be at work.





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* Just using it as an example. Apostolic Succession as a doctrine is worthy of a whole diary entry on its own someday. Probably not any time soon though.

** The number of kids pushed towards that tradition, and the composition of the modern canon? That's another subject, and will get its own post soon.

Cousins over the water

So last night Dougie MacLean came to town. Amazing what one man with one guitar (and okay, a harmonica) can do. For something so simple to hold a concert hall enraptured is amazing - all the more considering we're talking about a modern American (or I should say, modern Western) audience deluged daily in a huge volume of information and stimulation. And yet, he managed it handily. He cast a spell indeed - one of family, of community, and fellowship.

I think that's his greatest gift - the ability to convey emotional honesty and depth through song and story. Not simply romantic songs.. come to think of it, I don't think there was a romantic love song all night. Rather, songs of companionship and community - things often ached for in these days of the self-contained house and electronic fellowship.

From the moment he stepped onto the stage, to standing outside in the volcano's ash with his audience to grab a smoke after the show, he was a man at ease with those who came to hear him. A man with a talent for making community wherever he went.

Thank you kindly, good sir.

A word with Yali

I realize my "some cultures are better" bit from earlier might step on some toes, so I'd like to expound on that a bit.

See, recently I was reading a travelogue, where the wandering American had met a starving woman in... East Asia I believe. While there was no conversation to speak of, the incident he recorded reminded me very much of the one Jared Diamond records with Yali at the introduction to his book - basically "why do you guys have so much stuff and we don't?"

Diamond's answer basically boils down to "we got lucky."

That answer feels great. Everybody stays friends. No one gets their feelings hurt. But it doesn't help Yali. Not like a microloan and a western education might.

See, there's some part of me that wants to just hand the man a big ol' pile of books, from Adam Smith to Diderot's Encyclopedia, the Foxfire books - heck, a copy of 1632 or Island in the Sea of Time or suchlike. My culture dreams up "low tech to modern tech" stories for fun.

And that's the difference.

You want material prosperity? You want to know how to give your progeny all the cargo you can dream up? The road map is right there. It might take a couple hundred years, but the "how to" manual is pretty much written.

But.

I'd hand that copy of Wealth of Nations over with a very, very serious warning.

TANSTAAFL doesn't just apply to material goods.
It applies to cultures to.

The price of all that material prosperity is going to be at times mind-numbing, dull repetetive labor. It's going to mean some of your people get a lot, lot richer than others. You'll see wider social stratification - your great-grandchildren may well be taught to view each other with hatred and spite. And yes, your pristine land won't be so pristine. Many folks will feel lost, adrift from both the natural world and their native culture.

That's the price.

The payoff?

Your great-granddaughter not only won't die in childbirth, she'll find the prospect almost unthinkable. Your people will worry not about starving, but about how to lose weight. They'll have easy access not only to basic medicines and technologies, but foods, arts, and music from around the world. And they'll have the pride of having gotten there largely on their own, not from charity or by being a pawn in some global or regional power chessmatch.

Is it worth it?

It seems there are precious few cultures that don't scream yes to that bargain and grab for it with both hands when they get the chance. Mine did.

At least.... we have so far.

Men of the West

Some time ago I was listening to an interview with Victor Davis Hanson. The interviewer mentioned his "Tolkienesque" use of the term "the West." In response to the question, he defines the term not in physical geography but with the geography of the mind - "Certain values reoccurred - Constitutional government, individual freedom, natural phenomena explained by reason rather than superstition, free markets, free speech...." You know, Old Dead White Guy stuff.

He hastens to add it's not been a continuous line of progression of course, and that it certainly spawned some Hitlers and Inquisitions as well. But taken as a whole, the cultural "it" of the West was pretty darned amazing compared to its alternatives.

I nodded at the time, thinking "yeah, sure is cool" - but for the most part stopped there.

I guess it was looking at the recent African history stuff last week (and the events of the world of late of course) that have me more cognizant than ever that those things aren't permanent.

No - more than than that. They can be downright fragile.

I remember reading Jared Dimond's Guns, Germs, and Steel. You've probably read that one - or at least heard of it. Thumbnail summary - our nice comfortable industrialized world full of Nice Things is a result not because of some racial superiority, but rather the random happenstance of having grown up in a geographical Good Neighborhood.

I think it's bunk. Or rather, that race plays the straw man to culture.

Oh, I understand the fear we culturally carry these days of saying "We're better that you," certainly. We're barely three generations away from seeing what was once the shining bohemian capitals of Civilized Europe, the model of Enlightened Civilization, descend into totalitarianism and genocide. A generation later, at least here in the US, we were struggling to make "equal under the law" really mean it - race is still a sore subject. So sore it's hard even for my generation that never saw the struggle to talk about it.

It's no wonder then that our cultural zeigeist has moved this last generation or so towards being as open minded, accepting, and accommodating as possible. Saying "we're better than you" has led to some very painful, very tragic, events in the very RECENT past.

And yet.

Culture matters.

Somehow in that "we're all alike, it doesn't matter" zeitgeist I grew up in, culture and race got conflated somehow.

Race does not matter, obviously. Blood doesn't matter.
Even the deep scars of history can be overcome in time.

But culture - culture does matter. .

Does your culture expect you to show up on time and do your part, rain or shine? Even if the fish are running or the day is pretty? No? Then don't be surprised when the power goes out, because the guys running the power plant didn't show up either.
Does it respect your right to the fruits of your labors, to keep or give away as you see fit? No? Then don't expect other people to put in more than in minimum required to get by. Why should they bother?
Does your legal system allow for limited-term trademarks and patents, or the pooling of risk? No? Then don't expect your culture to exactly overflow with technological innovation or widespread commerce.


All that Old Dead White Guy stuff matters.

Sure, we exist in a living tradition. The culture we inhabit and pass on is not the same one our grandparents had, or their grandparents in turn. Some lessons are learned for a time, some things fade in and out of fashion... and yet, we toss it all to the wind with a "it doesn't matter anymore" to our own peril.

The agivens aren't so agiven.

I think that's why I'm starting to look at my own cultural roots again in a new light. There's a lot more to the inquiry, and some of its worth going into more later. But for now...

wow. Those Old Dead White Guys... they did pretty darn good on the balance.

Pride of the Vanquished.

As Miss D gets to know her South African friend, bits of the history of that wounded land occasionally wash up in conversation here in Alaska. Most recently, she was showing me this incredible song that's apparently caused quite the stir over yonder -



I confess, I love it. Catchy chorus aside, I can't help but see a little of the ragamuffin Confederates in my own history in those Boer faces. Watching a little of the controversy surrounding it, it's easy to empathize all the more.

It's very much the same story as in the mountain South where I grew up - express pride in your ancestors trying to keep a vastly larger, more technologically advanced power out of your homeland .. and get called a racist for it. The volume of their dispute seems much the louder though - and no wonder, as the wounds are still much more fresh*.

But pride in one's homeland, and the failed fight for independence, remains here to.

It's actually rather ironic, the profusion of Confederate battle flags (and the occasional CSA national flag for those making the same point with a bit more subtlety) - you'd never guess my little corner of Appalachia was heavily pro-Union back in the Late Unpleasantness. If not to the point of "seceding from the secessionists" like West Virginia did, at least enough to make life ... interesting ... for those who remained, surrounded on all sides by Confederate States. These days, well... even in those once pro-Federal mountains, you'll often meet folks who give a wink, saying "you don't call the game at halftime, darlin'."

Some of that's regional pride, some (growing) political anger at Washington's increasing heavy-handedness over the decades, and some just plain Appalachian cantankerousness. Regardless though, it's there. It's not the Antebellum neo-feudalist Tara-like Confederacy that's so romanticized either - it's the ragged, starving mountain boys trying to live up to their own ancestors at King's Mountain that gets eyes misty where I grew up.

Or as the exchange between pickets my father once quoted to me -

"Why you fighting this here war, Johnny Reb?"
"'Cause y'all are down here, Billy Yank!"

Regionalism. Localism. Individualism.
Pride in the accomplishments - and sacrifices - of your forebears.

And so - that's why I can't help but feel a little kinship for those ragged Boers, and their descendants trying to hold on to some little part of their own cultural heritage as a people. They aren't perfect, and Lord knows their hands aren't clean. Same goes for my ancestors.

Same goes for me.

But nonetheless, I'll keep looking on that Confederate heritage with fondness.

I can appreciate the position of those descended from slaves, though I don't share it. I've my own share of ancestors ill-used under the Union Jack, and more than a few who met their end on the other side of the Stars and Stripes**. Heck, you'll find more of my Appalachian kin on the receiving end of the chain than the reverse, I do suspect.

And yet, I still find the UK flag charming, the US flag heart-breakingly inspiring. It's been a long and tearful road from there to here, full of human tragedies and achingly bad decisions. But by and large, this nation has done more to make life good for people everywhere than any other in recorded history.

And similarly, for all the troubles and original sins - I'll always have a love for the CSA banner and those ragged boys who clustered around it. Not for some planter down in the tidewater, but for home and independence.

These scribbles are long enough without rambling through Devoltion and Federalism and all that. And so for now, I'll just go settle in amongst my tartan and Appalachian quilts, wish you the best of happiness with your kente cloth or your silks or your feathers and smoked braintan, or whatever says "my people" to you.

The Good Lord surely did paint us in a delightfully rich palette.









* Despite the caricature, there's not much racism these days at all - away from the cities that is. But the whole "growing up in the South a generation after the Civil Rights era" story is more than worthy of some reflection on its own, another time.

** As I've said before, President Jackson's name is still all but spat on my mom's side of the family, a hundred and fify years after the Trail of Tears. But you want to see some folks respect the US flag and US Servicemen, you go to a pow-wow. Yowsers.

Gathering of the tribes.

So today was a little gathering of the various Celtic groups in town. There's a few times a year the Irish folks and Scots folks and the history guild and such all come together - this day of classes was one of them. Everything from "how to draw Celtic knotwork" to "singing lessons from the performer we brought up" to "how to beat people over the head with a longsword" - just all kinds of fun things.

A couple classes I wanted conflicted, but I ended up in "Origins of the Celts" history class, a theory/accompaniment harp class, and a touch of Irish fiddle.

That origins class was fascinating - the instructor mentioned that our particular branch of the family tree tends to equate "Celt" with just the British Isles part of our own comparatively recent past, ignoring our more distant cousins all over the Continent. More to the point, she was saying the bulk of Celtic scholarship was not even in English at all, but French and German. A fair amount of time was spent on linguistic history as well - very cool.

The music classes both turned out to be rather sparsely attended - frustrating for the teachers I'm sure, but it made for excellent instruction. The best part though was meeting new friends in the harp class. Turns out there's an ensemble in town I got invited to. To really do the repertoire I'll have to get levers put on my little Stoney End I imagine, but it sounds like an incredibly valuable experience.

And new friends, to! Fun!

Now that's some doggies..

Ladies and gentleman, I give you the Alaskan equivalent to the tailgate party - the Iditarod restart, up Willow way. The fancy city run was the day before, this is when they really take off into the wilds.



It is basically just like a tailgate party, except it's out plum in the middle of a frozen lake. It's just a touch below freezing, and everyone's all nice and polite to each other - some nice folks were even giving away cocoa. Kids and kids at heart are zooming around the lake on snow machines. There were some gorgeous native-crafted coats and such on display amongst the folks there, and enough fur in evidence to give your average PETA member a heart attack.

And the athletes? They were barking up a cacophony you could hear clear across the ice, just itching for their turn to go.

I remember once upon a time when I was little and heard about people using dogs to pull sleds, I thought it sounded mean. Let me tell you... hunh-unh. These dogs are born to pull. Imagine the most enthusiastic pup tugging away at the end of the leash you ever did meet, just eager to tug you on out to the next block down. Now imagine him and a dozen or so of his buddies, all kinds of excited to go tearing off over the countryside. These critters were having the time of their lives.

And the puppies were sooooooo cute.

Family Reunion, Pt II

Finally finished Senator Webb's book Born Fighting. The style and spirit of the work carries all the way through - it is Appalachian in spirit straight to the bone.

The biggest thing I took away from it though wasn't about our little branch of the American family tree at all, but rather the origins of some of the squabbles and spats our country has had over the years. The oddest thing about this was that I remembered being taught it, but had never really grasped the significance of it -

Who did the settling where.

Specifically, think about the early colonies. In the northeast you get the high-minded (and sometimes dictatorial) religious puritans. They came in no small part to create a Utopia of sorts, a true kingdom of God. Along the southern coasts you get the descendants of royal land-grant wannabe nobility. And shoved out back of beyond as a barrier between the proper landholders and the Indians, you get the quarrelsome descendants of borderland Scots, already long used to being the folks shoved out onto the pointy end of royal disputes.

Tell me that doesn't sound eerily familiar, once you start thinking of all that was yet to come. Scores of "they can make people... better" schemes would pour out of Yankee country over the centuries - from the good of Abolition to the woefully short-sighted Prohibition or Eugenics movements. And war for independence from the crown or no, the plantations of the south (or later, the company towns) - do come to look distressingly like the manors of old feudal Europe. And back of the hills? Well... they didn't call it the "Volunteer State" for nothing.

I remember once my brother showing me with delight his fancy new Kimber.. it was to the best of my knowledge his first major purchase, far outstripping his car and anything else he materially owned at the time both in monetary worth and sentiment. Only on later reflection do I see how closely his actions mirrored those of our own ancestors - the same forefathers that were so poor they'd carve lead out of a tree to remelt would soon be passing up locally made squirrel rifles for what in the economy of the poor mountain south must have been horrifically expensive Winchesters. Like his frontier forefathers, his material priorities - and desires - were clear. Before anything else, he armed himself. He's an Appalachian.

The folklore I grew up with - a hodgepodge host of beliefs existing right alongside the (at times dogmatically strict) flavors of Christianity, sometimes in the same household. Some of is recognizably Gaelic, some Cherokee, some God only knows. But whatever else there is, there's a primitive, almost animist streak that runs clear through to the modern day. Scratch many a Baptist down South, I swear you'll find more pagan blood than you could guess.

And the music - oh Lord, the music. Hear an Irish tune played beside its Old Time descendant - intricacies of melody may have eroded over time as they passed from ear to ear amongst the hollows, but the soul-stirring spirit is more alive than ever. Heather Alexander doesn't stretch the truth much with her quip "celtic music and country-western, it's the same darn music, it's just a different whiskey, alright?"

Senator Webb, for all I may disagree with him on one bit of policy or another already feels like extended family. Because he is.

And so thinking on the past and what it means to part of this lineage, I can't help but think about the future.

I can so easily picture some strangely familiar looking young man, some far-distant branch of our little piece of humanity, tapping his foot to an eerily familiar tune while reassembling whatever passes for a fighting rifle in that day and age. He'll be hiding his nervousness, laughing with his friends and muttering imprecations at those nosy, intrusive, overly controlling idgits back Earth way. He'll get introspective for a moment, they'll sneak a sip of some distilled something if it's at hand, and he'll stare on out through a viewport, even farther into stars as yet out of his reach, and wonder in his turn what his descendants - out there - will be thinking one day. One day after he buys their freedom, to.

He'll set that impromptu tumbler down, look around him, and take comfort and pride at what his ancestors did - be it Londonderry or King's Mountain, the Alamo,Shiloh - VietNam, Iraq, or some field as yet still sadly waiting to be soaked red. He'll take comfort in his ancestors - us - and our examples good and bad, whisper a prayer for his children and posterity... then he'll snap that rifle closed, stick a thoroughly non-approved blade of some kind or another in his belt, and go kick some tuckuss.

Because that's who my people are.

To some degree or another, we'll always be the only half-tamed, half-feral tribe that never bent a knee to Rome, to London, to Washington, to Brussels, or anyone else.


Rah Bah Bah, yo.
And yes sir Mr. Bethancourt. Yes we will.

Spirit in the wood.

It's funny how instrumentalists can sound so uniquely themselves despite the constancy of a shared instrument - other instrumental students I'm sure can relate to that quizzical feeling that comes with passing your instrument to a teacher, or passing one back and forth between friends. All of a sudden, something that feels as intimately a part of you as your own voice sounds foreign. No matter how beautifully played, it's a weird feeling - it's almost like having another person use your own hands to paint a picture. "I didn't know it could sound like that.."

So anyhow, while puttering about the house with the laptop on "shuffle" I heard a fiddle play through a jumpy happy little piece in the background I didn't recognize - one piece of many on a compilation of artists I bought or was gifted years ago.

"Weird.." thought I - that sounds exactly like Natalie MacMaster... but she's not a vocalist, far as I know...

A little websearching later (whatever did we do before??) - and it turns out it was her indeed, playing with Cookie Rankin. And so ladies and gentlemen... your Gaelic earworm for the day -



Awesome piece... but goodness does it remind me I have some practicing to do.
As a side note to dear Mykl, since he's asked once already - once I have a good hour memorized and polished in my head, I'll head down to one of the local studios and see if I can pull out a few decent enough pieces to be worth posting here. Don't expect anything near Ms. Natalie's work, but as much as I talk about it, a little aural "proof of life" is in order I reckon. Besides, it'll make Mom happy. :)

To indulge my pagan roots, expect a few finished pieces to start trickling out around savain. As good a time for sharing a "harvest" as any, yes?