Some years ago a radio program dramatized the conversion experience of a young woman who’d become involved with drugs. She begged her family to let her see a psychiatrist. They refused, telling her Jesus was the only answer. Finally, she accepted their solution.
I had two reactions. Since I knew nothing about the woman or her family, it seemed possible she needed to confront them and their religion, and this was the right solution for her. It also struck me she should have had some choice, should have come to that conclusion on her own.
Free will, the idea that human beings are able to act to improve their lives, is the most potent of those associated with the Protestant Reformation, and is not characteristic of every group. Followers of Jacobus Arminius were persecuted by the Calvinists, but sired the Methodists and midwived the Baptists.
Free will today has two definitions. The narrow one was presented to the young drug addict who was told this or damnation. In 1901, William Dean Howells sketched a Ohio family threatened by a wastrel. The Kentons wanted their daughter to terminate the relationship, but refused to coerce her. Instead, they told the girl they would go abroad until she decided what she wanted "of your own free will."
General free will is under attack today by Protestants who embrace the binary Manichean view of the world as good or evil. Conservatives have generalized the fatalism of the drug addict’s parents to our civil life and tell people no human agency can help them - not the government, not the courts, not unions, only the church,
Most of us were raised with an expansive, Howellsian view of what’s possible, and are genuinely surprised when institutions don’t work. I’m sure this is behind much of the anger about hurricane Katrina. We knew the government could respond; it had in the past. It’s willful failure stunned us. We wouldn’t be so obsessed with retaining walls if only it had tried.
Many have drawn the appropriate conclusion, resignation that one more ideal has failed them. Few are still so angry they want to organize. That response has dissipated in the face of political indifference. They have seen so many cases where human energy has been disparaged, they’ve given up.
When people were being attacked by their manager at the last place I worked, no one thought about a union or group response. Only one considered a lawsuit; another thought about reporting incidents to a whistle blower telephone line, but wouldn’t call the ACLU for advice. Most just grumbled, but no one would file a formal
complaint with human resources for fear of reprisals.
Several left it to fate, saying "God will see me through." They were not the people known for attending church, and they would have shrugged off advances made by those who were. Their comments were less a religious response than the fragments of their self-esteem protesting they could survive.
One sees the same range of responses in interviews with automotive workers who’ve been told their plants are closing and their jobs are gone. They don’t consider the government an ally. They learned with Chrysler and the steel industry that Ronald Reagan didn’t consider a strong industrial base part of the national interest.
Chris Brown, a Delphi worker in Coopersville, told David Moberg, "We can’t depend on the unions, the Democrats, the Republicans...We have to get ourselves mobilized."
A Delphi worker in Dayton, Tony Henderson told James Hannan, "I'm mad as hell, but what can
you do?"
But in Flint, Delphi worker Lisa Simpson told Christ Christoff, "If it's going to happen, it's going to happen...You can only live one day at a time; it's in God's hands."
And in Saginaw, a Detroit News photographer found a prayer circle in the parking lot after Delphi announced the plant would close.
Is it free will when politicians and their strategists systematically attack civil institutions in the belief they should not exist? Or, is it exhausted acceptance of the only alternative proclaimed by those in power?
The loss of this piece of the Protestant ethic may be more serious than all the jobs that are lost, because it is the belief humans can act, can persevere that has separated this country from others. Once it’s gone, it no longer can be channeled into secular projects like conservatives’ wars for the greater good of mankind, or, the welfare of families like the Kentons.
Sources:
Christoff, Chris. "As beat-up Flint faces more bad news, Delphi workers are disgusted," Detroit Free Press, 1 April 2006.
Detroit News, The. Photograph, 1 April 2006.
Hannah, James. "Delphi Plants Proposal Upsets Employees," Associated Press, 1 April 2006.
Howells, William Dean. The Kentons, 1901, reprinted by Greenwood Press, 1969, free will discussed on pages 36 and 274.
Moberg, David. "Dueling over Delphi," The Nation, 3 April 2006.
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Religion - Part 2 - Conversion
Conversion theology has its comfortable, upholstered aspect. If one genuinely recognizes the error of one’s past ways, and ceases those activities, then one is absolved from responsibility. Wives and children of drunken or violent men are not as forgiving as Jesus.
In politics, the implications are more pernicious. George Wallace, Billy Graham and Lee Atwater all have voiced regrets about consequences of their past behavior, but their confessions do nothing to undo the evil they abetted.
Atwater was responsible for George Bush’s Willy Horton campaign. As a southerner, he should have known he was appealing to racism and bigotry. He may have recognized his mistake, but racism is still more respectable than it was. If it weren’t, it wouldn’t be so easy to stir hatreds against brown skinned immigrants from México and Central America.
Billy Graham, no doubt, felt he was doing God’s work when he became an unofficial advisor to Richard Nixon. He may later have realized counseling Nixon tarnished his reputation, but he never eschewed the lure of the powerful. His actions may have had no effect on the active involvement of fundamentalist ministers in politics today, for they had the example of Black preachers before them. Still, he gave the changing view of religion and the state legitimacy with common folk it might not have had.
George Wallace is more complicated. He had no inhibitions about using race for political gain in Alabama. It was only after he was shot and saw the people he opposed adopt his rhetoric that he began to address Black crowds, sometimes asking for forgiveness.
His attempts were greeted with skepticism, especially if the press was notified. Rosa Parks was angry when photographers were there after she met with him; reporters were present when he addressed the Dexter Street Baptist Church of Martin Luther King.
At the same time, Dan Carter tells us, Wallace had meetings with other, less famous people in Alabama, with no fanfare. Many felt his contrition was genuine. But some still remembered the viciousness of his attacks on people they knew, and could not forget.
Evangelistic religions conceal a paradox. They must appeal to the unregenerate to succeed. If the worst are to be saved, then the worst must be forgiven. An evangel Christian can not accept the existence of a person who cannot be redeemed. Alas, this means there is no crime which cannot be excused.
When evangelism remains on the frontiers of society, is a buffer between civilization and the barbarians, it is useful to the survival of the commonwealth. When it moves into the center, it brings a debilitating acceptance of lawlessness.
Since most recognize lawlessness is bad, evangels retreat to question the sincerity of repentance on the grounds that if a change can be doubted, then a criminal can be executed. At one time, Methodists expected the saved to go through a period of testing before they were fully accepted into the church.
The problem with a waiting period is that it suggests redemption is conditional. Today, the answer to the dilemma is love the sinner, hate the crime. The individual is separated from his or her actions.
Many reject this logical consequence of salvation as too radical. They know crimes exist with no statute of limitations, that crimes exist with absolute death penalties. They elevate those actions over regret by the criminal. They recognize the state must impose limits on their evangelist impulses.
When evengels are uncomfortable with unconditional acceptance, then converts must continually prove themselves, even if churches have eliminated waiting periods. New believers are encouraged to establish their bonafides by only mixing with the saved, shunning the dammed, avoiding temptation and contamination.
Once one learns to use external evidence of salvation to arbitrate human interaction, it is easy, neigh necessary, to extend that criteria to politics. Some are willing to support Jose Efraín Ríos Montt in Guatemala, simply because he is a convert. Similarly, others still distrust Russia because it once forsook religion, but can’t quite condemn fascists and Nazis who upheld the church, as if quantifying the dead is sufficient to elevate the lesser murderer over the greater in God’s eyes.
Reducing the complexities of religion to simple, verifiable behaviors may be the most pernicious aspect of forgiving the excesses of the convert, for it allows history to be rewritten and judgement suspended.
Sources:
Anonymous. "Billy Graham," Wikipedia on internet, 2006.
Anonymous. "Harvey Leroy ‘Lee’ Atwater," Wikipedia on internet.
Carter, Dan T. Carter. The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, The Origins of the New Conservatism and the Transformation of American Politics, 1995.
In politics, the implications are more pernicious. George Wallace, Billy Graham and Lee Atwater all have voiced regrets about consequences of their past behavior, but their confessions do nothing to undo the evil they abetted.
Atwater was responsible for George Bush’s Willy Horton campaign. As a southerner, he should have known he was appealing to racism and bigotry. He may have recognized his mistake, but racism is still more respectable than it was. If it weren’t, it wouldn’t be so easy to stir hatreds against brown skinned immigrants from México and Central America.
Billy Graham, no doubt, felt he was doing God’s work when he became an unofficial advisor to Richard Nixon. He may later have realized counseling Nixon tarnished his reputation, but he never eschewed the lure of the powerful. His actions may have had no effect on the active involvement of fundamentalist ministers in politics today, for they had the example of Black preachers before them. Still, he gave the changing view of religion and the state legitimacy with common folk it might not have had.
George Wallace is more complicated. He had no inhibitions about using race for political gain in Alabama. It was only after he was shot and saw the people he opposed adopt his rhetoric that he began to address Black crowds, sometimes asking for forgiveness.
His attempts were greeted with skepticism, especially if the press was notified. Rosa Parks was angry when photographers were there after she met with him; reporters were present when he addressed the Dexter Street Baptist Church of Martin Luther King.
At the same time, Dan Carter tells us, Wallace had meetings with other, less famous people in Alabama, with no fanfare. Many felt his contrition was genuine. But some still remembered the viciousness of his attacks on people they knew, and could not forget.
Evangelistic religions conceal a paradox. They must appeal to the unregenerate to succeed. If the worst are to be saved, then the worst must be forgiven. An evangel Christian can not accept the existence of a person who cannot be redeemed. Alas, this means there is no crime which cannot be excused.
When evangelism remains on the frontiers of society, is a buffer between civilization and the barbarians, it is useful to the survival of the commonwealth. When it moves into the center, it brings a debilitating acceptance of lawlessness.
Since most recognize lawlessness is bad, evangels retreat to question the sincerity of repentance on the grounds that if a change can be doubted, then a criminal can be executed. At one time, Methodists expected the saved to go through a period of testing before they were fully accepted into the church.
The problem with a waiting period is that it suggests redemption is conditional. Today, the answer to the dilemma is love the sinner, hate the crime. The individual is separated from his or her actions.
Many reject this logical consequence of salvation as too radical. They know crimes exist with no statute of limitations, that crimes exist with absolute death penalties. They elevate those actions over regret by the criminal. They recognize the state must impose limits on their evangelist impulses.
When evengels are uncomfortable with unconditional acceptance, then converts must continually prove themselves, even if churches have eliminated waiting periods. New believers are encouraged to establish their bonafides by only mixing with the saved, shunning the dammed, avoiding temptation and contamination.
Once one learns to use external evidence of salvation to arbitrate human interaction, it is easy, neigh necessary, to extend that criteria to politics. Some are willing to support Jose Efraín Ríos Montt in Guatemala, simply because he is a convert. Similarly, others still distrust Russia because it once forsook religion, but can’t quite condemn fascists and Nazis who upheld the church, as if quantifying the dead is sufficient to elevate the lesser murderer over the greater in God’s eyes.
Reducing the complexities of religion to simple, verifiable behaviors may be the most pernicious aspect of forgiving the excesses of the convert, for it allows history to be rewritten and judgement suspended.
Sources:
Anonymous. "Billy Graham," Wikipedia on internet, 2006.
Anonymous. "Harvey Leroy ‘Lee’ Atwater," Wikipedia on internet.
Carter, Dan T. Carter. The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, The Origins of the New Conservatism and the Transformation of American Politics, 1995.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Religion - Part 1 - Belief
Recently, Freeman Dyson distinguished belief from belief in belief in a review of a book by Daniel Dennett His distinction illuminates how our current religious ferment differs from earlier ones. Unlike previous awakenings, contemporary revivals have no spokesman, no Luther or Calvin or Knox, no Arminius or Wesley. Instead, they seem to be a movement in search of a theology.
People were shocked by change and rebellion in the 1960s when there was a war no one wanted, when civil rights leaders made clear charity was not enough, when children complained they had been raised with ideals that didn’t match reality.
People were shaken, and they responded by asserting the crisis arose from a situation, and thus did not imply they could not have values that endured. Hucksters rushed in with programs, and many chose the one most familiar, the one that abided from their childhoods.
People found a label, said at least I’m still a Christian. Only that was meaningless. It paralleled what happens when someone decides they’re an Indian or a Ukranian, after being assimilated for years. The label is sociologically valid, but it carries no validation, no prescription for action.
Ethnic converts consider learning the language, but that’s usually difficult for adults. Religious students have always learned Aramaic and Greek, and amateur scholars at least know the problems that arise from translation. Others turn to Hebrew; but few still bother with Latin.
Some try food, but discover they like Americanized versions. For an Italian, it’s one thing to experiment with more kinds of pasta, but quite another to open a cookbook and discover recipes for squid and octopus. Methodists advertise seders at Easter.
Then, ethnic seekers dabble with dance and music. Today, worldly theater suppliers offer costumes for liturgical dance derived from Martha Graham.
There’s less interest in reviving the lyre than in adapting modern music, by writing lyrics that make it compatible with a Christian life. Distinctive music no longer matters, since we can’t revive the historic. Southern gospel music that dramatized individual salvation within Protestantism, with four equally strong vocal parts, is disappearing as younger performers seek symbiosis between their religious cohort and their social one.
I remember hearing a young member of a gospel group say, "since I’m a Christian," then I should be doing x. I don’t remember the rest, only that he knew what he was, knew his family tradition, but did not know how to represent it. He was especially open to outside influences because the one thing he was was a performer who needed an audience, and his audience was born again.
At the same time people like the young gospel singer were looking for guidance, others were organizing political groups looking for people to mobilize. A convergence of interests developed when men told new converts, if they were Christians, they should support specific political interests. Instead of theology, they were given a culture war; instead of reformation, a crusade.
Some remembered politics was not part of their traditional Protestant upbringing, with its emphasis on the separation of church and state. But, when they revisited those churches, they didn’t find much assurance, and so they were ready to listen to an alternative.
Others heeded calls to reject religious social action, which often appeared to be political. Dispensationalism argued the social gospel was heresy that distracted individuals from preparing themselves. It then suggested the best protection was a return to the life of early believers in ancient Israel before the time of Christ.
Instead of individuals immersing themselves in the Bible, as earlier Protestants had done, some accepted interpretations from evangelists and turned to history. By coincidence, translations and commentaries on the Dead Sea Scrolls suggested there was much they hadn’t learned, while archeological digs in Israel provided more evidence of the historic life of Jesus.
Ancient Christian religious life was more exciting than anything offered by contemporary churches. And so, these new converts adopted Jewish traditions: not those of the rebbe, but the same kinds of external symbols the new Ukrainian or new Indian finds. The natural tendency to explore language, food and music became ways to return to the primitive church.
As Dyson suggested, people want to believe, and hold to that desire as self-defining. The reasons they don’t take the second step, and actually study the Bible is they’re not sure how to proceed. They’re reviving a tradition they’ve lost, and retain only the most general idea what that tradition meant.
Dispensationalism was introduced into this country between 1862 and 1876 by John Nelson Darby, an Anglican who joined the Plymouth Brethren, a British group with roots in the 1300s and the Brethren of the Common Life in what became the Netherlands. Thomas à Kempis distilled their beliefs in The Imitation of Christ which focused on the life of prayer and humble devotion.
Churches failed their responsibility to train their congregants and clergy in the ways of faith, and abandoned their ties with their founding theologians who could have suggested ways to respond. Spokesmen who exploit the impotence of established churches betray the rededicated by discouraging independent thinking that leads to faith.
The conflict between the will to believe and the vacuousness of proffered theology does not shake the belief in belief. It only makes converts restless consumers who move from one church to another, from one evangelist to another, continually hoping to find something that dignifies their hopes. If a belief is held long enough, becomes central enough to an individuals self-definition, then it can become a true religion, not just its doppelgänger.
Sources:
Freeman Dyson, "Religion from the Outside," The New York Review of Books, 22 June 2006, review of Daniel C. Dennett, Breaking the Spell.
People were shocked by change and rebellion in the 1960s when there was a war no one wanted, when civil rights leaders made clear charity was not enough, when children complained they had been raised with ideals that didn’t match reality.
People were shaken, and they responded by asserting the crisis arose from a situation, and thus did not imply they could not have values that endured. Hucksters rushed in with programs, and many chose the one most familiar, the one that abided from their childhoods.
People found a label, said at least I’m still a Christian. Only that was meaningless. It paralleled what happens when someone decides they’re an Indian or a Ukranian, after being assimilated for years. The label is sociologically valid, but it carries no validation, no prescription for action.
Ethnic converts consider learning the language, but that’s usually difficult for adults. Religious students have always learned Aramaic and Greek, and amateur scholars at least know the problems that arise from translation. Others turn to Hebrew; but few still bother with Latin.
Some try food, but discover they like Americanized versions. For an Italian, it’s one thing to experiment with more kinds of pasta, but quite another to open a cookbook and discover recipes for squid and octopus. Methodists advertise seders at Easter.
Then, ethnic seekers dabble with dance and music. Today, worldly theater suppliers offer costumes for liturgical dance derived from Martha Graham.
There’s less interest in reviving the lyre than in adapting modern music, by writing lyrics that make it compatible with a Christian life. Distinctive music no longer matters, since we can’t revive the historic. Southern gospel music that dramatized individual salvation within Protestantism, with four equally strong vocal parts, is disappearing as younger performers seek symbiosis between their religious cohort and their social one.
I remember hearing a young member of a gospel group say, "since I’m a Christian," then I should be doing x. I don’t remember the rest, only that he knew what he was, knew his family tradition, but did not know how to represent it. He was especially open to outside influences because the one thing he was was a performer who needed an audience, and his audience was born again.
At the same time people like the young gospel singer were looking for guidance, others were organizing political groups looking for people to mobilize. A convergence of interests developed when men told new converts, if they were Christians, they should support specific political interests. Instead of theology, they were given a culture war; instead of reformation, a crusade.
Some remembered politics was not part of their traditional Protestant upbringing, with its emphasis on the separation of church and state. But, when they revisited those churches, they didn’t find much assurance, and so they were ready to listen to an alternative.
Others heeded calls to reject religious social action, which often appeared to be political. Dispensationalism argued the social gospel was heresy that distracted individuals from preparing themselves. It then suggested the best protection was a return to the life of early believers in ancient Israel before the time of Christ.
Instead of individuals immersing themselves in the Bible, as earlier Protestants had done, some accepted interpretations from evangelists and turned to history. By coincidence, translations and commentaries on the Dead Sea Scrolls suggested there was much they hadn’t learned, while archeological digs in Israel provided more evidence of the historic life of Jesus.
Ancient Christian religious life was more exciting than anything offered by contemporary churches. And so, these new converts adopted Jewish traditions: not those of the rebbe, but the same kinds of external symbols the new Ukrainian or new Indian finds. The natural tendency to explore language, food and music became ways to return to the primitive church.
As Dyson suggested, people want to believe, and hold to that desire as self-defining. The reasons they don’t take the second step, and actually study the Bible is they’re not sure how to proceed. They’re reviving a tradition they’ve lost, and retain only the most general idea what that tradition meant.
Dispensationalism was introduced into this country between 1862 and 1876 by John Nelson Darby, an Anglican who joined the Plymouth Brethren, a British group with roots in the 1300s and the Brethren of the Common Life in what became the Netherlands. Thomas à Kempis distilled their beliefs in The Imitation of Christ which focused on the life of prayer and humble devotion.
Churches failed their responsibility to train their congregants and clergy in the ways of faith, and abandoned their ties with their founding theologians who could have suggested ways to respond. Spokesmen who exploit the impotence of established churches betray the rededicated by discouraging independent thinking that leads to faith.
The conflict between the will to believe and the vacuousness of proffered theology does not shake the belief in belief. It only makes converts restless consumers who move from one church to another, from one evangelist to another, continually hoping to find something that dignifies their hopes. If a belief is held long enough, becomes central enough to an individuals self-definition, then it can become a true religion, not just its doppelgänger.
Sources:
Freeman Dyson, "Religion from the Outside," The New York Review of Books, 22 June 2006, review of Daniel C. Dennett, Breaking the Spell.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Design - Part 2 - Logos
We all read about General Motor’s declining market share. I got curious about how statistics that influence Wall Street stock traders translated into the real world. After all, if a large part of the market is rental companies and the well-to-do who trade cars every year, then the market may represent only a fraction of the vehicles on the road.
I started counting the number of cars that passed me in traffic that were made by GM, Ford or Chrysler. What surprised me was not the results, about evenly divided between the Big Three and the others, but the difficulty of determining who made which vehicle.
I confess I’ve never been much interested in what cars look like, and could never play children’s identification games. I could easily be the prototype for those playful stories written about what a Martian or 22nd century archaeologist would think.
Still, when I started to look, I was struck by how true it is that most cars look alike, that many station wagons (SUVs) look alike, that most pickup trucks look alike, even how similar are sports cars. Only VW’s and Jeeps are still recognizable, and only some of those.
I turned to reading the car name or logo, and discovered another problem. Most names on cars assume the watcher already knows who makes what, is an informed consumer. The logos are hard to find, and most are interchangeable. It took several days to determine some weren’t fancy hood latches, and longer to learn which logos and models went with which manufacturers.
Ford’s blue oval is the most recognizable: the colored shape is instantly recognizable and it’s usually placed on the right side by the rear taillight where a driver is most likely to be looking in traffic. Most of the others are chrome designs in hollow circles under the center brake lights. One doesn’t have time in traffic to distinguish internals of common shapes when detail blurs at more than a car length.
Apparently everyone is selling understated elegance. Only older cars and trucks have names that are large enough to read at any safe driving distance. The logos for both Chevrolet and Ford have been shrunk. The one for Oldsmobile has been so modernized, I had to decode it to connect it with its maker.
After a while, I started speculating on how many logos were really the same. If I turned the Oldsmobile rocket slightly, I had an Accura; if I turned it some more I had a Lexus. How does one tell the Oldsmobile logo from the ruptured duck of Lake Central air lines, what would a Rorschach test make of it? This is not the kind of speculation designers should be inviting in traffic.
At the time I was pondering the failure of automotive designers to create unique, identifiable vehicles, GM was selling its mortgage finance division, GMAC. The photographs I saw of the executives showed them wearing identical grey suits and yellow or red ties. Similar photographs of Ford executives announcing plant closings in January of this year, 2006, showed them in similar grey suits, with nondescript ties.
The only difference between the executives: GM grey was more bluish, Ford grey more brown. The GM ties stood out more than the Ford ones, but, by calling attention to themselves, exaggerated the impression they were somehow not right.
The message they delivered, like the logos, was not the one intended. They were supposed to personify power and elegance, a united management team. They didn’t want to show the diversity that appears in work place meetings, where some wear suits, some sport coats. Most wear white shirts, some wear blue. The majority wear ties, some bolos. Jerry York appears in a turtleneck.
Instead, they were like the automobiles and logos they market. They demonstrated they could not show distinguishing individual traits within the range of what was defined as acceptable.
One could go a step farther, and note that the men in the GM photograph had similar builds, similar hairstyles, were of the same general age. At Ford, three of the men on stage had similar characteristics, and were little different than the GM executives. Indeed, there’s nothing that distinguishes Bill Ford from Rick Wagoner to the uninitiated.
Ford had five men on stage, and the other two were physically different. The finance man, Don Leclair, was silver haired and slightly built. Jim Padilla, Ford’s president, was a big man who dwarfed those around him. His bones were big, his shoulders were wide, his skull was large. He’s the only one who came up through the plant floor, and the only one whose body language in a New York Times photograph signaled his disapproval of what he was hearing.
Padilla’s the first to be removed. David Cole tells us, he "helped management reconnect with Ford’s people in the plants and with Ford’s dealers after the chaos of early 2001." Now that the company is closing the plants he salvaged, the company needs someone who will "not get consumed himself in what will be a very difficult process."
Bill Ford is going to use a committee, not someone described as a "fiery" engineer from a Detroit Mexican-Irish family.
Automobiles are about style and performance. Logos and demeanor in public forums distill style into potent symbols. These suggest companies haunted by Henry Ford’s antisemitism and William Durant’s flamboyance, the failure of Edsel and GM models not remembered, companies who’ve spent too many years defining themselves as what they are not.
Now it’s time to define who they are, and they fear strong individuals, who are the only ones who’ve ever made a difference. Instead, they bury themselves in consensus. No doubt public relations advisors submit logos to focus groups to identify anything that might put off some customer. Likewise, experts no doubt suggest how men should dress, based on research like that of James Molloy on how people respond to clothing.
Committees may avoid failure, conformity may reassure Wall Street; they don’t guarantee success and they obviously don’t sell cars.
Sources:
Cole, David. Quoted by Tom Walsh, "Ford president Jim Padilla to retire," Detroit Free Press,
6 April 2006.
Ford plant closing photographs, Fabrizio Costantini, The New York Times, 24 January 2006, and The Detroit News, 24 January 2006.
GMAC sale photograph, Rebecca Cook, Reuters, The Detroit News, 3 April 2006.
Molloy, John T. Dress for Success, 1975.
York, Jerry. Photograph, Jeff Kowalski, Bloomberg News, The New York Times, 29 March 2006.
I started counting the number of cars that passed me in traffic that were made by GM, Ford or Chrysler. What surprised me was not the results, about evenly divided between the Big Three and the others, but the difficulty of determining who made which vehicle.
I confess I’ve never been much interested in what cars look like, and could never play children’s identification games. I could easily be the prototype for those playful stories written about what a Martian or 22nd century archaeologist would think.
Still, when I started to look, I was struck by how true it is that most cars look alike, that many station wagons (SUVs) look alike, that most pickup trucks look alike, even how similar are sports cars. Only VW’s and Jeeps are still recognizable, and only some of those.
I turned to reading the car name or logo, and discovered another problem. Most names on cars assume the watcher already knows who makes what, is an informed consumer. The logos are hard to find, and most are interchangeable. It took several days to determine some weren’t fancy hood latches, and longer to learn which logos and models went with which manufacturers.
Ford’s blue oval is the most recognizable: the colored shape is instantly recognizable and it’s usually placed on the right side by the rear taillight where a driver is most likely to be looking in traffic. Most of the others are chrome designs in hollow circles under the center brake lights. One doesn’t have time in traffic to distinguish internals of common shapes when detail blurs at more than a car length.
Apparently everyone is selling understated elegance. Only older cars and trucks have names that are large enough to read at any safe driving distance. The logos for both Chevrolet and Ford have been shrunk. The one for Oldsmobile has been so modernized, I had to decode it to connect it with its maker.
After a while, I started speculating on how many logos were really the same. If I turned the Oldsmobile rocket slightly, I had an Accura; if I turned it some more I had a Lexus. How does one tell the Oldsmobile logo from the ruptured duck of Lake Central air lines, what would a Rorschach test make of it? This is not the kind of speculation designers should be inviting in traffic.
At the time I was pondering the failure of automotive designers to create unique, identifiable vehicles, GM was selling its mortgage finance division, GMAC. The photographs I saw of the executives showed them wearing identical grey suits and yellow or red ties. Similar photographs of Ford executives announcing plant closings in January of this year, 2006, showed them in similar grey suits, with nondescript ties.
The only difference between the executives: GM grey was more bluish, Ford grey more brown. The GM ties stood out more than the Ford ones, but, by calling attention to themselves, exaggerated the impression they were somehow not right.
The message they delivered, like the logos, was not the one intended. They were supposed to personify power and elegance, a united management team. They didn’t want to show the diversity that appears in work place meetings, where some wear suits, some sport coats. Most wear white shirts, some wear blue. The majority wear ties, some bolos. Jerry York appears in a turtleneck.
Instead, they were like the automobiles and logos they market. They demonstrated they could not show distinguishing individual traits within the range of what was defined as acceptable.
One could go a step farther, and note that the men in the GM photograph had similar builds, similar hairstyles, were of the same general age. At Ford, three of the men on stage had similar characteristics, and were little different than the GM executives. Indeed, there’s nothing that distinguishes Bill Ford from Rick Wagoner to the uninitiated.
Ford had five men on stage, and the other two were physically different. The finance man, Don Leclair, was silver haired and slightly built. Jim Padilla, Ford’s president, was a big man who dwarfed those around him. His bones were big, his shoulders were wide, his skull was large. He’s the only one who came up through the plant floor, and the only one whose body language in a New York Times photograph signaled his disapproval of what he was hearing.
Padilla’s the first to be removed. David Cole tells us, he "helped management reconnect with Ford’s people in the plants and with Ford’s dealers after the chaos of early 2001." Now that the company is closing the plants he salvaged, the company needs someone who will "not get consumed himself in what will be a very difficult process."
Bill Ford is going to use a committee, not someone described as a "fiery" engineer from a Detroit Mexican-Irish family.
Automobiles are about style and performance. Logos and demeanor in public forums distill style into potent symbols. These suggest companies haunted by Henry Ford’s antisemitism and William Durant’s flamboyance, the failure of Edsel and GM models not remembered, companies who’ve spent too many years defining themselves as what they are not.
Now it’s time to define who they are, and they fear strong individuals, who are the only ones who’ve ever made a difference. Instead, they bury themselves in consensus. No doubt public relations advisors submit logos to focus groups to identify anything that might put off some customer. Likewise, experts no doubt suggest how men should dress, based on research like that of James Molloy on how people respond to clothing.
Committees may avoid failure, conformity may reassure Wall Street; they don’t guarantee success and they obviously don’t sell cars.
Sources:
Cole, David. Quoted by Tom Walsh, "Ford president Jim Padilla to retire," Detroit Free Press,
6 April 2006.
Ford plant closing photographs, Fabrizio Costantini, The New York Times, 24 January 2006, and The Detroit News, 24 January 2006.
GMAC sale photograph, Rebecca Cook, Reuters, The Detroit News, 3 April 2006.
Molloy, John T. Dress for Success, 1975.
York, Jerry. Photograph, Jeff Kowalski, Bloomberg News, The New York Times, 29 March 2006.
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Immigration - Part 3 - Sociology
Conflict between settled communities and migratory bands is at least as old as agriculture. The two lifestyles coexist when times are good, but when times are bad, simmering conflicts flare. The usual causes are economic crises, like insect plagues or drought. Today we see the effects in Dārfūr.
What I find interesting is not the persistence of conflict, but the durability of social structures of migration in this country. They’ve been documented again and again by sociologists and historians, especially for centers of large scale movement like Boston and New York.
Still, I was surprised to discover them in my midwestern hometown. I have a city directory form 1869, one of those that lists all the heads of households with their addresses and occupations. I entered the 598 names into Excel, made guesses about ethnic origin based on surnames, and sorted them in various ways.
The town directory was about 2% Irish and 3% German a few decades after the mass migrations began with the potato famine and the revolutions of 1848.
My hometown was on the Michigan Central tracks, but the rail yards and shops were concentrated in two cities to the west and one to the east. Besides a small foundry, it had no specialized employment to distinguish it from any other farm market. It had no particular reason to draw immigrant laborers.
Mrs. E. A. Flanigan headed a family living on one of the streets of worker housing that entered the main street through an area of saloons and tobacco shops. Listed with her were two other Flanigan women, Alice and Libby, and a man, Robert. They probably were her children. Michael Flanigan lived in a local hotel.
There was no indication if she was a widow or had been abandoned. She’s the only female household head listed, and it was unusual for the directory to have listed her children. She and the girls were milliners, the resident male was a tinner, and the one in the hotel a shoemaker.
One could speculate on the economic activities of the family. After all, there must have been prostitutes and they lived in the right area. Or, they could be just what they seemed, immigrants struggling to survive doing the tedious, labor-intensive jobs others didn’t want.
Seven women in town were listed as domestics and one as a laundry woman. Two had German surnames, Ann Ballhousen and Caroline Schultz. There were eight other milliners and one woman was a seamstress. 20% to 25% immigrants in these female occupations.
The other Irish household detailed by the city directory was headed by tailor John Lynch. Four other men lived at his address: Patrick Fanning, Daniel Leary, and James Parrish, all laborers, and Patrick Braedon, a tailor. Lynch apparently took in boarders; possibly one was a partner, apprentice or employee.
Their occupations, too, were typical of the drudge work that employed so many men. Most in town were laborers. A few were merchants, including William O’Donoghue, and some were skilled tradesmen, like stone mason Francis Magennis and marble cutter John Kelly.
Edward McNally and Michael O’Donnell were saloon keepers, as were George Schwer, Blanchard Holden and James Wright. Schwer lived near the main crossroads, Wright near the Flanigans, and the others near the railroad.
Bar tenders included August Waldrougel, Henry Foster, Theodore Markle and William Nicolls. They all lived near the main crossroads, two in the hotel there. At that time, most of the people who worked or serviced a hotel had it listed as their address.
German migrants to my hometown at that time tended to come from eastern Pennsylvania and western New Jersey where their ancestors had settled along the Delaware before the revolution. As a result, the group included more farmers and skilled tradesmen, like carpenters. We had only a few yet who were probably direct migrants. They would come in the next decade when the foundry expanded.
It appears that in this farm town on the railroad, just after the civil war, Irish and German in-migrants lived with others, when they could, and had poor, difficult jobs. Ethnic entrepreneurs had appeared to provide the basic necessities of life. In a town with no restaurants, and many men boarding, saloons provided the only warm places laborers could relax and eat.
Within a decade, John Lynch lead the group that organized a Roman Catholic congregation and raised money to buy land for a church. In 1869, there was already a German clergyman, Frederic Wilhelm. Contemporary histories and directories ignored the existence of both, so I don’t know his denomination.
The basic immigrant social structures were there from the start, family and male support groups, provenders of food and pleasures, and churches.
Fifty years later, a foundry recruited colored labor from the Pensacola, Florida area. Almost immediately, a man from South Carolina relocated from a neighboring town to open a pool hall, and, within a few years, men organized Bethel Baptist and AME Zion churches. The one provided male support, the other spiritual succor.
By the time Blacks moved to town, industry had moved west and so had worker housing. When I was in high school in the 1960s, a store in the original colored district advertised Spanish and Mexican foods.
The identity of the immigrants changed in a hundred years, but the structures, physical and social, that served them remained constant. They don’t appear to be unique to specific ethnic groups, but appear as consequences of migration into urban areas. Their durability, no doubt, stabilizes the lives of the dislocated.
If immigrants today are trying to reestablish their families, stay with their churches, patronize ethnic restaurants and groceries, then they are not dangerous to the well being of the commonwealth. Even those who frequent local bars and clubs are less likely to be problems than those who’ve been in the country for decades. Groups trying to establish social structures are not the ones who ignore and destroy them
What I find interesting is not the persistence of conflict, but the durability of social structures of migration in this country. They’ve been documented again and again by sociologists and historians, especially for centers of large scale movement like Boston and New York.
Still, I was surprised to discover them in my midwestern hometown. I have a city directory form 1869, one of those that lists all the heads of households with their addresses and occupations. I entered the 598 names into Excel, made guesses about ethnic origin based on surnames, and sorted them in various ways.
The town directory was about 2% Irish and 3% German a few decades after the mass migrations began with the potato famine and the revolutions of 1848.
My hometown was on the Michigan Central tracks, but the rail yards and shops were concentrated in two cities to the west and one to the east. Besides a small foundry, it had no specialized employment to distinguish it from any other farm market. It had no particular reason to draw immigrant laborers.
Mrs. E. A. Flanigan headed a family living on one of the streets of worker housing that entered the main street through an area of saloons and tobacco shops. Listed with her were two other Flanigan women, Alice and Libby, and a man, Robert. They probably were her children. Michael Flanigan lived in a local hotel.
There was no indication if she was a widow or had been abandoned. She’s the only female household head listed, and it was unusual for the directory to have listed her children. She and the girls were milliners, the resident male was a tinner, and the one in the hotel a shoemaker.
One could speculate on the economic activities of the family. After all, there must have been prostitutes and they lived in the right area. Or, they could be just what they seemed, immigrants struggling to survive doing the tedious, labor-intensive jobs others didn’t want.
Seven women in town were listed as domestics and one as a laundry woman. Two had German surnames, Ann Ballhousen and Caroline Schultz. There were eight other milliners and one woman was a seamstress. 20% to 25% immigrants in these female occupations.
The other Irish household detailed by the city directory was headed by tailor John Lynch. Four other men lived at his address: Patrick Fanning, Daniel Leary, and James Parrish, all laborers, and Patrick Braedon, a tailor. Lynch apparently took in boarders; possibly one was a partner, apprentice or employee.
Their occupations, too, were typical of the drudge work that employed so many men. Most in town were laborers. A few were merchants, including William O’Donoghue, and some were skilled tradesmen, like stone mason Francis Magennis and marble cutter John Kelly.
Edward McNally and Michael O’Donnell were saloon keepers, as were George Schwer, Blanchard Holden and James Wright. Schwer lived near the main crossroads, Wright near the Flanigans, and the others near the railroad.
Bar tenders included August Waldrougel, Henry Foster, Theodore Markle and William Nicolls. They all lived near the main crossroads, two in the hotel there. At that time, most of the people who worked or serviced a hotel had it listed as their address.
German migrants to my hometown at that time tended to come from eastern Pennsylvania and western New Jersey where their ancestors had settled along the Delaware before the revolution. As a result, the group included more farmers and skilled tradesmen, like carpenters. We had only a few yet who were probably direct migrants. They would come in the next decade when the foundry expanded.
It appears that in this farm town on the railroad, just after the civil war, Irish and German in-migrants lived with others, when they could, and had poor, difficult jobs. Ethnic entrepreneurs had appeared to provide the basic necessities of life. In a town with no restaurants, and many men boarding, saloons provided the only warm places laborers could relax and eat.
Within a decade, John Lynch lead the group that organized a Roman Catholic congregation and raised money to buy land for a church. In 1869, there was already a German clergyman, Frederic Wilhelm. Contemporary histories and directories ignored the existence of both, so I don’t know his denomination.
The basic immigrant social structures were there from the start, family and male support groups, provenders of food and pleasures, and churches.
Fifty years later, a foundry recruited colored labor from the Pensacola, Florida area. Almost immediately, a man from South Carolina relocated from a neighboring town to open a pool hall, and, within a few years, men organized Bethel Baptist and AME Zion churches. The one provided male support, the other spiritual succor.
By the time Blacks moved to town, industry had moved west and so had worker housing. When I was in high school in the 1960s, a store in the original colored district advertised Spanish and Mexican foods.
The identity of the immigrants changed in a hundred years, but the structures, physical and social, that served them remained constant. They don’t appear to be unique to specific ethnic groups, but appear as consequences of migration into urban areas. Their durability, no doubt, stabilizes the lives of the dislocated.
If immigrants today are trying to reestablish their families, stay with their churches, patronize ethnic restaurants and groceries, then they are not dangerous to the well being of the commonwealth. Even those who frequent local bars and clubs are less likely to be problems than those who’ve been in the country for decades. Groups trying to establish social structures are not the ones who ignore and destroy them
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