Why Choosing the Supposedly Correct Side Is Difficult, Part 1

A recent book about Puritans, Hot Protestants: A History of Puritanism in England and America by Michael P. Winship brings home the problem of picking the “right side" versus picking the "wrong side.”

It is easy, in retrospect (or if one is a pundit) to pinpoint the "right" or "winning" side (those labels don't necessarily fall into the same category). That is, it is easy after the fact (or for "I've got my streamlined narrative!" advocates) to excise complications, to know exactly what side of the boat everyone is supposed to rush to.

Truth: the world is complicated, 20/20 hindsight can be downright arrogant, and pundits are notoriously untrustworthy.

The Reformation in England is a great example!

The Reformation Begins

England goes Protestant. And Protestants are ecstatic—right up until they go nuts. Presbyterians decide that Queen Elizabeth isn’t going far enough. The Church of England is still riddled with things like surplices and the Book of Common Prayer, which is too close to the dreaded religion of the Antichrist to be acceptable (consider the extreme language).

Queen Elizabeth is unimpressed. No Catholic, she is still more Catholic (like her father, Henry VIII) than Protestant.

Some Presbyterians pull back from their extreme demands. Others start preaching that the Church of England is a corrupt organization that is going to pull England down to hell. Queen Elizabeth is now miffed.

And I gotta say, I probably would have backed the queen—

Except I’m also a pro-democracy American. And one of the Presbyterian arguments was that the queen ruled by the consent of the governed. People loved Protestants, so the queen should love Protestants. The Presbyterians also ran their own meetings in a non-hierarchic fashion, through discussion and debate.

Then the queen rejected their even rather mild reforms—which mild reforms were likely totally justified. But Queen Elizabeth was increasingly irritated—and fearful—of a Puritan conspiracy and slammed the proverbial door in the faces of these early puritans.

John Cotton: A good puritan was supposed to question,

"Am I one of the elect or not?" for that person's entire life.

Like so many pundits and activists, many puritans

became more concerned with deciding if others

were elect or not than focusing on themselves.

At which point, Wingate writes, “It was neither separatists nor anti-puritans who finally pulled the Presbyterian movement down. Presbyterians did that themselves.” With the kind of extremist rage that Causes (with a capital C) seem to evoke, the more extreme Presbyterians wrote abusive and venomous pamphlets that satirized all their enemies—and incidentally, kind of mocked religion too. Now everybody was miffed.

There’s a lot more to the story. The point is, in the middle of all that, what direction would a good, thoughtful, non-CAUSE non-crazy person leap?

See next post: Part 2.

New England History: Legend and Reality

The next section in the A-Z List, the 900s, tackles history. Like the 300s, this section is too big for me to adequately narrow down, so I may come back to it again.

After a very quick perusal through the stacks, I decided to focus on New England history although, technically, the first book refers to events in New Jersey, namely, Washington Crossing the Delaware.

And here is the legend, captured by Emanuel Leutze:

The reality is far more interesting. It is well-captured by The Crossing, starring Jeff Bridges as well as Roger Rees and Sebastian Roche. The movie is based on the book The Crossing by Howard Fast, 973.332 (in my local library), a quick read.

One of my favorite aspects of the movie--and the book--is the timing. The painting looks properly heroic. The truth is that the Marblehead watermen had to load and ferry the soldiers across the river on several trips. It took all night and is one of the most heroically deliberate acts of the American Revolution.

The other 900 book is Salem Possessed, which occasionally shows up in the 300s as well as the 900s. Although the book by Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum is often debated now, it was the first serious work of Salem that didn't fall back on psychology and conspiracy theories to explain what happened.

Boyer and Nissenbaum examine Salem Town and Salem Village as working environments with extensive histories. The accusers and accused become real people with family and business ties, long-running grudges, and strong religious opinions. With their work, Boyer and Nissenbaum updated the myth of "superstitious Puritans with Freudian tendencies" to "very real human beings who now-a-days would sue each other in civil court"--far more comprehensible.

The third 900 book is Sarah Vowell's Wordy Shipmates, referring to Puritans from the Mayflower specifically and the Massachusetts Bay Colony generally. I don't necessarily agree with Sarah Vowell's politics, but I love her dry tone (for those not in the know, she is the voice of Violet on The Incredibles) as well as her willingness to see multiple sides of any story. Her own family history is complexly American; consequently, she doesn't pit one group against the other. She wants to understand all her ancestors. I find this so refreshing--and insightful--I happily recommend any of her books:

More on Edith Thompson: Alma Rattenbury

An interesting contrast to Edith Thompson is Francis Rattenbury's wife, Alma. Her overwrought 18-year-old lover, Stoner, hit Mr. Rattenbury over the head with a mallet out of jealousy. 

The household had an unconventional arrangement--Mr. Rattenbury was more or less aware that his wife had a lover or at least a kind of cicisbeo.

Alma was over 15 years Stoner's senior (32 years younger than her husband) and prone to melodrama. As the affair wore on, and Stoner proved to be more peevish and demanding than swooning and understanding, she tried to break up with him. She took him back because she believed his (false) story that he was on drugs,  and she wanted to cure him. It is entirely likely that she knew Stoner was full of it. But, eh, it was exciting.

The entire household was rather like the sitcom Soap come to real life--an endless parade of arguments and sensation that the people involved rather took for granted.

The difference to Edith Thompson is that Alma Rattenbury took full responsibility for Stoner's behavior. She knew exactly why he'd done what he did, the petulant brat that he was. She knew that although she had never promised Stoner anything, her waffling and spoiling had created a monster of jealousy and entitlement. She wasn't executed (and shouldn't have been). Yet she sadly killed herself within days of her acquittal.

It's odd to think of criminals in history getting

older but Stoner was released from prison

in 1942 to fight in the war. He died in 2000.

Laura Thompson naturally blames the mean, mean court for Rattenbury's suicide as well as the public's social outrage at Stoner's supposed youthful innocence. However, it is obvious from the police reports and court transcripts that right off the bat, Mrs. Rattenbury was a suicide risk. She didn't see the murder coming. The moment it did, she felt awful and faced quite honestly her part in things.

Unlike Edith Thompson, Mrs. Rattenbury likely would have listened to outside intervention, someone saying, "Oh, my gosh, dump that boy already. What are you doing?!" Social pressure in Mrs. Rattenbury's case may have done her a great deal of good.

I think Edith Thompson would have gone out and found herself another Bywaters.

The Problem with Theory: Laura Thompson and Edith Thompson

I enjoyed Laura Thompson's biography of Agatha Christie. And I enjoy true crime analysis. So I decided to give her The Tale of Two Murders about Edith Thompson a try.

Edith Thompson supposedly incited her lover, Frederick Bywaters to kill Edith's husband, Percy. Think To Die For, only the incitement is the unwitting letters of a self-dramatizing, imaginative egotist rather than the more concrete and deliberate manipulations of a cold-blooded killer.

Laura Thompson's perspective is that Edith Thompson was hung due to hysteria and prejudice. She is correct. There was no evidence-based reason to hang Edith Thompson. Bywaters stated quite emphatically that the letters had not motivated him. He never really believed in them anyway (Bywaters appears to have been remarkably insightful regarding the nature of his lover).

Freddy, Edith, and Percy

Laura Thompson approaches the murder and its background through the lens of an overarching theory, namely that class and gender assumptions mingled to create a failure of imagination and understanding by the public, the jury, the judge, and the British legal system. Again, she isn't wrong. By the time of the Rattenbury case approximately 12 years later, public opinion acknowledged that Edith Thompson's hanging had been a mistake. It was the result of mass condemnation rather than legal consideration. 

The problem with A Tale of Two Murders is not the main argument. Rather, the book illustrates what occurs when theory overrides sense. At one point, Thompson (the author) relates the reaction of Edith's sister, Avis, to hearing her sister's letters. In particular, Thompson references a letter where Edith invented a dramatic quarrel between family members (over Bywaters) that never occurred.

The sister's reaction several decades later: "I just couldn't believe that my sister...could have lent her name to anything like this. I--disbelieved her writing the letters...It was her writing! I saw them. That was the only thing that convinced me. Because I said--she never wrote those letters. I said so...I couldn't lift my head up. I couldn't believe it. It knocked me back to such an extent."

Ha! Ha! proclaims Laura Thompson. Evidence of class pressure!

That was the reaction of her class, sad and humbled and ashamed, hopelessly in thrall to the opinions of other people whom one cannot escape. (70)

In fact, Sayers' The Documents in

the Case does a fantastic job capturing

the irresponsible cluelessness of an 

Edith Thompson.

At which point, I could no longer take The Tale of Two Murders seriously.

Yes, class played a part in the whole matter. But I'm not a fan of reducing people's statements to knee-jerk class reactions. I think it is small-minded and patronizing, the opposite of insightful.

I take Avis seriously. Every time I read her words, what strikes me is the sheer devastation of her reaction: "I--disbelieved her writing the letters...It knocked me back..."

Edith Thompson was not writing her letters filled with fake  quarrels and poisoning for anyone but Bywaters. Unlike Dorothy Sayers--who objectively turned her personal, private scandal into a book (Strong Poison)--Edith Thompson was not writing for posterity, as Laura Thompson rightly argues. Edith was barely writing for Bywaters. She was writing entirely for herself, sending off her letters (emails) into a void. Nearly eighty years later, she'd have started a Facebook account. Or tweeted. Or something.

That doesn't make the shock of what she wrote any less real and painful to a family member. Edith didn't invent entirely new stories to gratify herself. She used the people around her--a real lover, real parents, real husband, real sister--as fodder to feed her needs. She put words into Avis's mouth. She made her own sister a player in Edith's personal, private, dramatic theater.

There is a slipperiness here, a lack of basic honesty that would confuse any relation. The bright, flirtatious, fun-loving sister becomes a cipher, a person without definite edges. Do I even know her?

Consider family members who bring accusations of abuse that all other family members deny. Consider Yul Brynner whose outrageous deceits about his past went unprotested in the Hollywood of his day yet created for his son a sense of unreality. Who exactly was my dad? Consider Mary McCarthy relating quite matter-of-factly in Memories of a Catholic Childhood the failure of several siblings to remember events that took place years earlier even though they were all present at the time. McCarthy reflects on the problem of memory, why agreement would matter--or not.

Edith Thompson's "creativity" didn't evoke pleasure. It evoked confusion, even atavistic distaste. This type of reaction is basic, human, real. Avis's reaction is heartfelt, comprehensible. "I--disbelieved her writing the letters."

Yet Laura Thompson missed it.

Perhaps she would argue (as so many people in my student college courses did) that oh, sure, yes, the human element is important but it's the social-political reality that makes the difference.

I contend that it is the other way around. I think people reacted to Edith Thompson as a self-indulgent egotistical liar at an utterly base, human level, then went looking for social and political excuses to condemn her. Condemning people based on dislike is hardly legal--or ethical. But a failure to acknowledge how and why Edith Thompson's behavior and letters disturbed her family and others at a human level doesn't help. And a failure to hold her to some (any) account (Didn't she care at all what Bywaters might believe?) doesn't help women at all. We're responsible human beings, not mere class/gendered products to be patronized or defended. 

Maybe Laura Thompson gets there eventually, but it's a long book to not get there quicker.

Won't You Be My Neighbor? Review

I grew up in a house ostensibly without a television set.

This did not prevent me from knowing a great deal about television and television shows. I am as familiar with Brady Bunch episodes as anyone from my age group. At friends' and relatives' houses, I sat through a fair number of Happy Day episodes and a truly stunning number of Knight Rider episodes (which I have absolutely no desire to do now).

I saw episodes of Sesame Street and Electric Company. And Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.

What I remember about Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood is that part of it bored me. I think, oddly enough, that it was the make-believe part; when the trolley left the house, I lost interest. However, that could be me as an adult mis-remembering my youth. It could have been the other way around. (I didn't like Punch & Judy shows when I was a kid, but that was probably the violence, not the puppets.)

In any case, I never watched the show all the way through.  So when I watched the documentary, I had no investment in what it told me about Mr. Rogers.

I came away from the documentary with two definite opinions:

(1) Anyone who makes it in show business is  ambitious. What amazed me about Rogers was how hard the guy worked AND how clearly he believed in his mission. He was legitimately nice, legitimately kind-hearted, legitimately relatively easy to work with. He was also legitimately motivated and determined.

Anyone who goes into show business has to be ambitious, motivated, and determined--and they have to sustain it. Which is why I ultimately chose English rather than Drama when I got my B.A.

(2) The documentary is a study in contrasts. What separates a honest, loving parody (Eddie Murphy's spoof, no matter how caustic) from a cruel, demeaning one? What separates a fair critique (Is so much self-esteem good for kids?) from an angry diatribe ("evil Mr. Rogers")? What separates true kindness from supposed political or religious righteousness?

The documentary doesn't tell us what to think. It simply presents the man and his work over time. However, it does not give space to detractors. In some ways, it resembles Fog of War. The main focus--in this case, Mr. Rogers--is showcased without irrelevant tangents into other people's approval or disapproval.

He is what he is. What are you going to do about it?

A-Z List, Part 4

Actually, it would be more accurate to call this the 000-999 List.

Yup, it's time for non-fiction, and I'm using the Dewey Decimal System!

I'm passably familiar with the Library of Congress System. By the time I left college (both times) I could more or less find the sections for topics like "Religion" and "Science." Unfortunately, at this point, I only remember that "P" is "Humanities."

But the Dewey Decimal System and I are old pals. I will be reviewing a book from each set of 100. (See list above).

For 000-099, I chose Abominable Science by Daniel Loxton and Donald Prothero (001.944). The book refutes the existence of famous cryptids, such as Big Foot and Loch Ness, while also explaining how myths about these creatures came to be. Loxton and Prothero write separate chapters (Loxton covers Bigfoot and Loch Ness, for example, while Prothero tackles Yeti and the Congo Dinosaur).

The book is quite readable, Loxton's portions slightly more than Prothero's, and beautifully illustrated.

The theme: It isn't science if you can't test it.

Show me a million so-called samples of Bigfoot's fur (which inevitably turn out to be bear or human). If I have nothing to compare it against, so what?

Wishing doesn't make something so. And the human capacity to wish is tremendous.

Loxton, who writes with a sweet-natured glint in the eye, is more tolerant of the desire to find big monsters (despite the fact that a real pleiosaurus like Nessie would have long ago eaten up all the loch's food sources). As a lover of cryptids in childhood, he understands the fascination with the unknown--after all, in the late nineteenth century, Great White Sharks were considered something of a myth! Sometimes, the capacity to wish reveals astonishing truths and inventions.

In comparison, Prothero gets downright testy about the insistence on the existence of certain cryptids. It is possible that he uses a tetchy tone as a deliberate contrast to Loxton's friendlier one. But the difference in tone may also be innate. In the last chapter, the two authors present their differing opinions regarding the pursuit of cryptids, Loxton maintaining that it is harmless and can lead to an interest in the natural world; Prothero arguing that it is harmful to real science.

I mostly agree with Loxton, but I must admit that when I recently saw a non-fiction children's book in the library that presented Bigfoot as a given, I was appalled at the publisher.

Oh, well, part of a free society is learning to distinguish good information from bad.

The most consistent facts that emerge from the creation of these myths is that humans love to hoax! (which is why science requires testing). Any hint of any big thing lurking in the shadows appears to bring out the junior high boy in a truly astonishing number of people (who sometimes recant, then change their minds when they start earning bucks).

As Loxton writes, "There seems little need to conjure a central conspiracy when good humor, expectation, and simple human error could so easily provide ample fuel to spark a monster myth" (141).

(Through there is a very funny Dharma & Greg episode where Greg tries to convince the alien conspiracy theorists that they have been taken in by a conspiracy to defraud them of money. They shake their heads at the poor, deluded fool.)

Ultimately, although I highly recommend the book, I doubt it is read by many "true" believers (excluding the ones who like to hunt for one tiny mistake in a text, then say, "See! I knew they were wrong!").

However, also ultimately, Loxton and Prothero are right: if it can't be tested and it relies on the argument "Everyone else is lying!" then it's a hobby, not a scientific discovery.

* * *
Loxton, Daniel and Donald R. Prothero. Abominable Science! Origins of the Yeti, Nessie, and Other Famous Cryptids. Columbia: 2013.