::: readings

Mary Jo Maynes, “Class Cultures and Images of Poper Family Life” in Family Life in the Long Nineteenth Century 1789-1913 (2001), 195-226 (425-441).

Maynes herein lays out an argument that has not yet been fully understood or developed by others. It is that the development of the ideal family int he 19th century and the subsequent rejection of this by the lower class led to more tensions between the middle/upper classes and the lower class over what family life should be like. These tensions were further exaserbated as individauls within the middle class, through religious movements typically, sought to bring reform to those in the lower classes.

Some quotes from the text:

“Establishing a proper family life was an engrossing and contentious enterprise in nineteenth-century Europe.”

“If family life had been a concern of state builders in Europ at least since the Reformation, by 1900 debates avout the family had become exlicitiy and widely politizied.” (195)

“…the construction of a new model of domesticicity and family culture acorss bourgeois Europe beginning in the late eighteenth-century, and demonstrate the connection between that fmaily culture and bourgeois class formation.” (196)

“New fmily ideals were widely diffused in prescriptive literature, idealized visual images, domestic fiction, religious sources, and descriptions of middle and upper-class practices.” (196)

“attemtping to unviersalize their family values or even impose theom on the poor. Throughout the ninteenth century, representations of the contrast between middle class family life and that of the poor had been deployed as evidence for the moral superiority of the propertied and as justification for their intervention into the lives of the poor” (225).

Raffaella Sarti, “Home and Family: Bringing Things Together or Setting Up Home” in Europe at Home (2002), 42-75 (407-423).

Deciding how to organize one’s family, and especially how this would play out as families became more nuclear and the number of possessions grew, is an interesting topic and the one that Sarti decides to explore in this article.

Many factors contribute to the differences between individuals in how this process plays out, among them: class, demographics, socio-economic organization of the area, andd so.

Sarti notes that there were those who could never safe up enough to get married. This brings up some interesting points, highlight both a later age for marriage now that individauls were saving up to get married as well as the growth in those who never got married.

One of the complaints about “privledge” in Europe during this time was that with privledge came obligations to marry others of similar social class. This limiting met with resistence among some young couples but held a substantial amount of social pressure and ultimately would not be overthrown at large.

Sarti also describes the changes in women’s doweries during this time.

Suzanne Desan, “Reconstituting the Social After the Terror” in The Family on Trial in Revolutionary France (2004), 249-282 (355-388).

In the aftermath of the French Revolution there was a lot that was changed back to something more similar to what it had been than what it became. In other words, there was a complete revolution and things changed, and then changed back again. Desan analyses this as it applies families and the changes that had been instituted.

It should be noted that most of the changes brought on by the French Revolution were changes in the laws of the land concerning a given topic, and not as much the underlying facts or pressures.

The laws were then changed back, in many cases, and over time as the underlying pressures changes, so too did the laws again. Most of the laws herein discussed have to deal with inheritance or other more legal aspects of the law as well as divorce (although Desan doesn’t talk about that as much).

One quote from the text:

“The social order is entirely overturned,” commented two voacal opponents of France’s new inheritance laws.”

I’ve included some excerpts below from an interview on same-gender attraction. Below is a link to the full text.

http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/public-issues/same-gender-attraction

PUBLIC AFFAIRS: At the outset, can you explain why this whole issue of homosexuality and same-gender marriage is important to the Church?

ELDER OAKS: This is much bigger than just a question of whether or not society should be more tolerant of the homosexual lifestyle. Over past years we have seen unrelenting pressure from advocates of that lifestyle to accept as normal what is not normal, and to characterize those who disagree as narrow-minded, bigoted and unreasonable. Such advocates are quick to demand freedom of speech and thought for themselves, but equally quick to criticize those with a different view and, if possible, to silence them by applying labels like “homophobic.” In at least one country where homosexual activists have won major concessions, we have even seen a church pastor threatened with prison for preaching from the pulpit that homosexual behavior is sinful. Given these trends, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints must take a stand on doctrine and principle. This is more than a social issue — ultimately it may be a test of our most basic religious freedoms to teach what we know our Father in Heaven wants us to teach.

…

ELDER OAKS: I think it is an accurate statement to say that some people consider feelings of same-gender attraction to be the defining fact of their existence. There are also people who consider the defining fact of their existence that they are from Texas or that they were in the United States Marines. Or they are red-headed, or they are the best basketball player that ever played for such-and-such a high school. People can adopt a characteristic as the defining example of their existence and often those characteristics are physical.

We have the agency to choose which characteristics will define us; those choices are not thrust upon us.

The ultimate defining fact for all of us is that we are children of Heavenly Parents, born on this earth for a purpose, and born with a divine destiny. Whenever any of those other notions, whatever they may be, gets in the way of that ultimate defining fact, then it is destructive and it leads us down the wrong path.

…

ELDER WICKMAN: [M]arriage is neither a matter of politics, nor is it a matter of social policy. Marriage is defined by the Lord Himself. It’s the one institution that is ceremoniously performed by priesthood authority in the temple [and] transcends this world. It is of such profound importance… such a core doctrine of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, of the very purpose of the creation of this earth. One hardly can get past the first page of Genesis without seeing that very clearly. It is not an institution to be tampered with by mankind, and certainly not to be tampered with by those who are doing so simply for their own purposes. There is no such thing in the Lord’s eyes as something called same-gender marriage. Homosexual behavior is and will always remain before the Lord an abominable sin. Calling it something else by virtue of some political definition does not change that reality.

…

PUBLIC AFFAIRS: If you had to describe this enormously complex question in a couple of basic principles, what would that be?

ELDER OAKS: God loves all of His children. He has provided a plan for His children to enjoy the choicest blessings that He has to offer in eternity. Those choicest blessings are associated with marriage between a man and a woman by appropriate priesthood authority to bring together a family unit for creation and happiness in this life and in the life to come.

We urge persons with same-gender attractions to control those and to refrain from acting upon them, which is a sin, just as we urge persons with heterosexual attractions to refrain from acting upon them until they have the opportunity for a marriage recognized by God as well as by the law of the land. That is the way to happiness and eternal life. God has given us no commandment that He will not give us the strength and power to observe. That is the Plan of Salvation for His children, and it is our duty to proclaim that plan, to teach its truth, and to praise God for the mission of His Son Jesus Christ. It is Christ’s atonement that makes it possible for us to be forgiven of our sins and His resurrection that gives us the assurance of immortality and the life to come. It is that life to come that orients our views in mortality and reinforces our determination to live the laws of God so that we can qualify for His blessings in immortality.

This is a really disturbing portrayal of 20th century war.

Trying to figure out what it going on is something of a puzzle, but it most certainly has depth to it.
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Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith. “Chapter 19: Stand Fast through the Storms of Life.”

How true it is that when life becomes difficult, sometimes approaching a point of being unbearably so, that we can find solace in only one place, in our relationship with God. It is so important, therefore, to develop and deepen that relationship in times of plenty so as to not find, in our moment of need, that we have nothing to draw on and that we have abandoned He who never abandons us, and in whom we can find peace and solace, a balm for the broken in heart and body.

Reading this chapter, I reflected on the experiences of the past few weeks and thought of the ways in which I found myself turning to God in moments of need and how a willingness to carry on, desiring after faith, and even “hoping against hope” as it were, that in those moments I was carried on eagles’ wings. There were, of course, moments where I simply slept, trying to forget everything, but those moments were overcome.

Quotes from the Text:

“Stand fast, ye Saints of God, hold on a little while longer, and the storm of life will be past, and you will be rewarded by that God whose servants you are” (227).

Wilford Woodruff, the fourth President of the Church, said: “the Lord told Joseph that He would prove him, whether he would abide in His covenant or not, even unto death. He did prove him; and although [Joseph] had the whole world to contend agains and the treachery of false friends to withstand, although his whole life was a scent of trouble and anxiety and care, yet in all his afflictions, his imprisonments, the mobbings and ill treatment he pased through, he was ever true to his God” (229).

John Taylor, the third President of the Church, said: “I heard the Prophet Joseph say, in speaking to the Twelve on one occasion: ‘You will have all kinds of trials to pass throgh. And it is quite as necessary for you to be tried as it was for Abraham and other ment of God, and (said he) God will feel after you, and He will take hold of you and wrench your very hearstrings, and if you cannot stand it you will not be fit for an inheritance in the Celestial Kingdom of God.’” (231)

“My only hip and confidence is in that God who gave me being, in whom there is all power, who now is presently before me, and my heart is naked before his eyes continually. He is my comforter, and he forsaketh me not” (231).

“I know in whom I trust; I stand upon the rock; the floods cannot, no, they shall not, overthrow me” (231).

“And as for the perils which I am called to pass through, they seem but a small thing to me, as the envy and wrath of man have been my common lot all the days of my life; and for what cause it seems mysterious, unless I was ordained from before the foundation of the world for some good end, or bad, as you may choose to call it. Judge ye for yourselves. God knoweth all these things, whether it be good or bad. But nevertheless, deep water is what I am wont to swim in. It all has become a second nature to me; and I feel, like Paul, to glory in tribulation; for to this day has the God of my fathers delivered me out of them all, and will deliver me from henceforth; for behold, and lo, I shall triumph over all my enemies, for the Lord God hath spoken it” [Doctrine and Covenants 127:2] (232).

“About his recovery from an illness in June 1837, the Prophet said: “This is one of the may instances in which I have suddenly been brough from a state of health, to the borders of the grave, and as suddenly restored, for which my heart swells with gratitude to my heavenly Father, and I fell renewedly to dedicate myself and all my powers to His service” (233).

“All difficulties which might and would cross our way must be surmounted. though the sould be tried, the heart faint, and the hands hang down, we must not retrace our steps; there must be decision of character” (234).

Robyn Shifrin. Interview. Conducted 16 October 2008 in Provo, Utah.

Conducting an interview with Robyn Shifrin who moved to Provo, Utah about four months ago and is a practicing Jew was a very positive experience. Talking with her about her experiences here, where she is very much alone, isolated from her family and from a community of fellow beleivers, I learned a lot about what role community plays in supporting one’s religious practicies. She talked about her history, about what life was like growing up in Clevland, going to Hebrew school in the afternoons, holidays and the Sabbath. She also talked about the religious significance of her Bat Mitzvah as a pivitol moment of religious self-realization, followed by a subsequent departure from this during her teenage years and eventual re-awakening in her early 20s. Her vocation (teaching English as a Foreign or Second Language) has taken her all around the world, including Prague in the Czek Republic. She also lived in Israel for some time and would have loved to stay but with escalating conflict her parents told her that she should come home.

Since moving out here, Robyn has learned a lot about Mormons and has found the family of believers here to be very similar to the one she enjoyed in the days of her youth. She commented that, if one has to be completley separated from all others of their religious faith, perhaps it is best to be surrounded by those who are strong adherants to their own (but who do not seek to enforce that sincerity upon others). She has found Provo to be a great place, and sees many parallels between the interactions of Mormon culture and doctrine and the interactions of Jewish culture and doctrine.

Ruth R. Wisse. Jews and Power. Schocken Books (2007).

Wisse, in Jews and Power, gives a brief overview of the history of the Jews, highlighting their relationship with the power structures of the countries in which they have lived since the beginnings of the Diaspora in the 1st Century. Hers is mostly a history of the ways in which Jews maintained their own identity while struggling to perserve themselves without the sustaining and protective influence of a nation-state. She discusses the emergence of Yiddish and the importance of language, including the revival of Hebrew. She also discusses the difficulties of the Arab-Jewish relationship, stating explicitly that: “Common opposition to Usrael remains to the present day the strongest univying political element among Arab and muslim countries that otherwise compete with one another” (138).

The DeLEMAR JENSEN Lecture Series. BYU History Department, 16 October 2008. Theodore K. Rabb. “Why the Study of Diplomatic History is so Interesting.”

Diplomatic History

All of the classic historians studies diplomatic history.

“War is essentailly the persuit of politics by other means.”

Writing of a history narrative is, essentially, a discussion of the causes; and no subject is better attuned to these (i.e. to presenting a narrative and the discussion of cause and effect) than diplomatic history.

War of the Leauge of Cambrai:

1400’s — developmet of the diplomat, such as Macchiaveli and others

1900’s — death of traditional diplomatic responsibilities of the independent diplomat by the introduction of the telephone

Between these periods, however, it is such a strong Engine of Movement

Ambassador’s reports very detailed and regular.

“An ambassador is an honest man sent abroad to life for the good of his country.”

An important moment in International History occurred during the Diplomatic Convention at Westphalia.

Images and their meanings, the study of images in history is one important aspect of diplomatic history seeing how so many symbols and images were created specifically for and commissioned by the states or other political entities.

Similarly, the emerging field of gender studies fits under diplomatic history, especially in view of how women of the past shaped political decisions.

Importance of the world of print, reading, and news … i.e. the need for intelligence

In conclusion: Diplomatic history is a study of how do those in whom public trust is place act and interact with each other.