Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff to blow your mind From Housetopworks dot Com.
Speaker 1: In the morning, the emissary mounted his horse and rode west.
Speaker 1: He left the towers and the markets behind him, trading
Speaker 1: cramped streets and oppressive oculence for the world outside the
Speaker 1: city walls. He passed beneath the gates barbed portcullis, crossed
Speaker 1: the moat, and passed the morning amid the varied towns
Speaker 1: that composed the empire. The people noted the insignias upon
Speaker 1: his coat and knotted as he rode past. Children and
Speaker 1: dogs ran along beside him till he passed beyond their
Speaker 1: meager worlds as well. By afternoon, wide fields of cultivated
Speaker 1: crops opened up around him, stretching to the horizon. Mines
Speaker 1: and logging operations popped the hills by dust. He arrived
Speaker 1: at those ragged flags that marked the Empire's edge, engaged
Speaker 1: out on a darkening world. Law it's an unconquered home.
Speaker 1: To people's alien in language and thought, all manner of
Speaker 1: death and liberation, so you could team and writhed within
Speaker 1: the gloaming. Hey, welcome to stuff to blow your mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick and
Speaker 1: Robert I assumed that that reading was supposed to evoke
Speaker 1: a certain feeling. Now, what was that you were going for?
Speaker 1: I wanted to evoke the feeling of the frontier, of
Speaker 1: traveling from the center of a civilization to the outer
Speaker 1: boundaries of it. Now, specifically, we talked about the literary
Speaker 1: style of J. M. Kutzi, who wrote the book Waiting
Speaker 1: for the Barbarians, which we've both read, right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: one of my favorite books. And uh I was thinking
Speaker 1: about doing a quote from it to kick this off,
Speaker 1: but I thought, well, well, I don't know, just kind
Speaker 1: of cobble something together that that invokes Waiting for the
Speaker 1: Barbarians and serves our purpose directly. So this is like
Speaker 1: synthetic Coatsy by you. Yeah, yeah, and I'm you know,
Speaker 1: and I Coatsy is one of those guys that dig enough.
Speaker 1: There's probably a little bit of synthetic Coatsy and a
Speaker 1: lot of things I write. Uh well, definitely, uh, definitely
Speaker 1: an influential writer. Well, you could do worse than to
Speaker 1: have that. But of course today that means we're going
Speaker 1: to be talking about frontiers, and I guess we should
Speaker 1: just explain why this idea came up. So just recently,
Speaker 1: Robert Christian and I went to the c t E
Speaker 1: two conference in Chicago, and we're talking about the eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety three Chicago World's Fair, the World's Columbian Exposition. And
Speaker 1: one of the topics that I was researching that we
Speaker 1: didn't end up incorporating into our presentation, there was this
Speaker 1: presentation that was delivered in in Chicago in the eighteen nineties,
Speaker 1: usually reported as being delivered during the World's Fair in
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety three by the historian, the American historian Frederick
Speaker 1: Jackson Turner, and it's known as the Frontier Thesis. The
Speaker 1: the essay itself is the significance of the frontier in
Speaker 1: American history. You And that got us thinking about the
Speaker 1: idea of frontiers, what what a frontier means, what it represents, uh,
Speaker 1: what kind of flaws are there in the idea of
Speaker 1: a frontier. And so that's what we wanted to explore uday.
Speaker 1: Eventually we will get to that essay by Turner and
Speaker 1: talk about it's it's meaning, it's influence, and some criticisms
Speaker 1: of it, but we also wanted to explore more generally
Speaker 1: the idea of the frontier, especially also how it fits
Speaker 1: into what's known as world systems theory. Yeah, we wanted
Speaker 1: to go deeper than just sort of the the basic
Speaker 1: idea frontier. I feel like earlier generations you had Western
Speaker 1: movies and Western fiction and that was kind of the
Speaker 1: go to model, and certainly all that stuff still around,
Speaker 1: but I think more and more younger people probably have
Speaker 1: that Game of Thrones vision. Right right, there's the wall,
Speaker 1: that's the frontier on one side, barbarians and white walkers
Speaker 1: on this side. You know, some semblance of order. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think the frontier is often considered well in in
Speaker 1: the in the or metaphorical reading and one very straightforward
Speaker 1: literal reading, you could just say it's the it's the
Speaker 1: agreed upon boundary of a civilization. But in the more
Speaker 1: metaphorical reading you could say, well, it is where the
Speaker 1: idea of civilization ends. It's where the laws cease to apply. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there is there's a quote here that I had to
Speaker 1: pull out from Corman McCarthy's Blood Meridian. He says, here,
Speaker 1: beyond men's judgments, all covenants were brittle, which uh, which
Speaker 1: which is telling? And that's certainly a work of a
Speaker 1: frontier chaos for you. Yeah, and Blood Meridian, I think
Speaker 1: very well captures a lot of the popular idea of
Speaker 1: the frontier. And then it's a place where there are
Speaker 1: few checks on people's will to power and there is
Speaker 1: little in the way of you know, moral civilization. I mean,
Speaker 1: part of part of what you might say there is
Speaker 1: that that's just Corman McCarthy's influence coming through. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a ace of of betrayal, of individualism, of of
Speaker 1: struggle for power, of violence. Uh what else would you say? Well,
Speaker 1: all these things, certainly, but but yeah, I want to
Speaker 1: make sure we're also hitting on the positive aspects, you know,
Speaker 1: the idea of freedom, liberation, you know, just going off
Speaker 1: the grid right, right when everyone probably has at some
Speaker 1: point in their life fantasized about that, right like all
Speaker 1: these modern technologies I need. I'm gonna I'm gonna move
Speaker 1: to a cabin, I'm gonna have physical books, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: read them and listen to vine or something. Right. Uh,
Speaker 1: And that in a sense is is is not that
Speaker 1: different from the frontier notion. But but what's going on
Speaker 1: on Twitter, Like you gotta disconnect from all of that, right,
Speaker 1: that's the you're getting further away from from the the
Speaker 1: the the center of of modern digital digital civilization. Now,
Speaker 1: this is the popular idea of the frontier. The the
Speaker 1: actual fact of the frontier maybe of very different beasts
Speaker 1: than how it's conceived in these both dark and positive
Speaker 1: romantic visions. Yeah, as always you can you can point
Speaker 1: to examples of either, but it's probably gonna more or
Speaker 1: less even out depending on whose side you're on, too,
Speaker 1: because it's the frontier. Is is an idea that of
Speaker 1: course has two sides, and you can be an individual
Speaker 1: that is is born into the civilization side of frontier
Speaker 1: or into the the wild side of frontier, and it's
Speaker 1: going to be a very different experience. We'll get into
Speaker 1: all that as we explain right and now. Of course,
Speaker 1: one of the funny things might be that you could
Speaker 1: have different perspectives on which side of the frontier is which.
Speaker 1: Right now, the person who's living on the side that
Speaker 1: has more technology, more economic power, greater wealth, more population
Speaker 1: density and cities and civic infrastructure, that person probably thinks
Speaker 1: they live on the civilized side and the other side
Speaker 1: is wild. But you could very well turn it the
Speaker 1: other way around and say, you know, here on our side,
Speaker 1: of the frontier. We have simple, well organized communities that
Speaker 1: operating cooperation, and the people on the other side have
Speaker 1: this kind of technological pandemonium. And whatever side you're on,
Speaker 1: you can likely look look across the boundary and say, well,
Speaker 1: those people have totally the wrong religion. I don't know
Speaker 1: what they're thinking. We have the right one. Uh, they
Speaker 1: should be more like us, right, So maybe that frontier
Speaker 1: needs to be pushed forward a little bit. Yeah. Another
Speaker 1: thing worth stressing before we move forward is, of course
Speaker 1: that frontiers of of one sort or another have always existed.
Speaker 1: So the Wild West was not the first frontier, Uh, no,
Speaker 1: more than like the frontier of the Roman Empire was
Speaker 1: the first frontier. Like it, It's as long as you've
Speaker 1: had civilizations and human communities, you've had these boundary points. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And one of the things to keep in mind is
Speaker 1: that a lot of people think of the frontier and
Speaker 1: they only think of the American frontier. You can barely
Speaker 1: come up with another one. But I'm glad you mentioned
Speaker 1: the Roman frontier was one situation where you had a
Speaker 1: technologically advanced civilization that had an empire, and they had
Speaker 1: the boundaries of the empire, and they were constantly trying
Speaker 1: to push the boundaries and move them around, trying to
Speaker 1: conquer new people's, conquer new lands, bringing more resources. And
Speaker 1: so they very much had a frontier that is in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways analogous to the American Western Frontier.
Speaker 1: They all, but you can also think about the sort
Speaker 1: of more contemporary frontiers to the American Western frontier, like
Speaker 1: you might have seen in Australia or in South Africa
Speaker 1: or in other places that where you had the remnants
Speaker 1: of European imperialism pushing into lands that were already occupied
Speaker 1: by other people. Right. And then of course, nowadays, with
Speaker 1: with travel um such as it is, Uh, a frontier
Speaker 1: is not always going to be as physical space, you know,
Speaker 1: like you to to to disappear into a realm beyond
Speaker 1: the domain of empire. Uh doesn't necessarily mean that you
Speaker 1: just keep traveling west on foot. You can hop on
Speaker 1: a plane and go somewhere else and uh, and that
Speaker 1: factors into into all of this as well. So earlier
Speaker 1: I mentioned that Robert, you wanted to talk about the
Speaker 1: idea of frontiers in light of what's known as world
Speaker 1: systems theory. Yeah, so what's the deal with this? Explain
Speaker 1: this concept to me. Okay, so world systems theory is
Speaker 1: an economically charged, macro sociological attempt to understand the movements
Speaker 1: of history, you know. Okay, so no, biggie, Well no,
Speaker 1: I this is the kind of thing that is always
Speaker 1: very interesting and always bound to be in some sense wrong,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Yeah, critics of this say
Speaker 1: will often say, oh, well, this is too economic or
Speaker 1: it's too reductionists. I mean, anytime you try and create
Speaker 1: a broad theory or model for human behavior, human culture,
Speaker 1: it's not gonna fit perfectly. Right. What I what you
Speaker 1: might call world tote realizing theories. Maybe that's not the
Speaker 1: West best way to put it, the West way to
Speaker 1: put it, but the theories that try to explain how
Speaker 1: everything in some domain of knowledge works. Usually those kind
Speaker 1: of overreach and over generalized, but at the same time
Speaker 1: they can have very interesting insights. So, so, what does
Speaker 1: world systems theories say about explaining movements in world history? Well?
Speaker 1: I turned to some of the writings of De Pao
Speaker 1: University socio anthropologist Thomas city Hall for some additional info.
Speaker 1: Here he has a two thousand and one UH paper
Speaker 1: that came out World Systems Frontiers and ethnogenesis, incorporation, and
Speaker 1: resistance to state expansion. Okay, that's a lot of abstract now,
Speaker 1: all right, well let's boil it all down. So, setting
Speaker 1: aside actual nation states, um world systems theory breaks down
Speaker 1: the world to three basic components. You have the core,
Speaker 1: the periphery, and the semi periphery. So the core is
Speaker 1: the center of production and special is zation and it's
Speaker 1: made up of strong states. Okay, so production and specialization
Speaker 1: means that this is your economic center. This is where
Speaker 1: your your goods and services mainly come from. But it's
Speaker 1: where there's like manufacturing maybe, but also specialization would mean
Speaker 1: it's where people have more specialized job titles. So instead
Speaker 1: of being somebody who operates a homestead and does everything,
Speaker 1: you might be somebody who has a very very specific
Speaker 1: job that you're very good at that can be utilized
Speaker 1: by or can be made use of by this economic
Speaker 1: system to produce more and more goods. Right, and it
Speaker 1: it basically lines up with our our intro fiction and
Speaker 1: about the guy riding out from the center of empire.
Speaker 1: But again this is this is something that that crosses
Speaker 1: h traditional state boundaries. So from this point of view,
Speaker 1: like the core would incorporate various nations. So for instance,
Speaker 1: you look at a world map that's using world systems theory,
Speaker 1: and the US and Canada are going to one and
Speaker 1: they're going to be locked in with other Western nations.
Speaker 1: So it's less observant of things like national boundaries and
Speaker 1: more observant of centers of economic production and trade. Maybe
Speaker 1: they're less hip to the idea of nations and boundaries
Speaker 1: and they're just trying to figure out how the system works.
Speaker 1: So if they're just watching stuff flow around, this might
Speaker 1: be the system they land upon. Right, So that's the core.
Speaker 1: The periphery specializes in raw materials, and this is composed
Speaker 1: of weak states, and the semi periphery is the intermediate area. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you might think of this as the core. The
Speaker 1: group we just talked about sort of exploiting the resources
Speaker 1: of these other of the periphery states, and then the
Speaker 1: semi periphery states are somewhere in between. So Hall and
Speaker 1: others have also added additional rules to this world systems.
Speaker 1: They argued Day back to at least Neolithic times. Core
Speaker 1: periphery structures are a major locust point of social change,
Speaker 1: and all of the systems evolved and have several dynamics
Speaker 1: cycles involved in them. Okay, but if we said that
Speaker 1: this is less observant of national boundaries and is thinking
Speaker 1: more about economics, how do frontiers play into it? All? Right, well,
Speaker 1: this is where frontiers coming to play. So various dynamics
Speaker 1: cycles dictate the expansion and contraction of world systems. According
Speaker 1: to Hall, these systems pulsate. Core states rise and fall,
Speaker 1: and there's a typical process typical but not universal, in
Speaker 1: which a semi peripheral marcher state displaces or conquests after
Speaker 1: a dominant core state. So you've got up and comers. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So we see this cycle over time of like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, here the Dutcher in power, then the British
Speaker 1: or empower, the u s or empower you know, the
Speaker 1: colonial flow of of of wreaths of modern history. And
Speaker 1: I want to quote Hall here. He says thinking of
Speaker 1: a frontier as a membrane is helpful from a global perspective.
Speaker 1: A frontier is relatively narrow and sharp, but from nearby
Speaker 1: it is a broad zone with considerable internal spatial and
Speaker 1: temporal differentiation. It's a permeability varies with the direction of flow.
Speaker 1: And the things moving through it, types of goods, groups,
Speaker 1: and individuals. A frontier is the results of an often long,
Speaker 1: complex and highly political process of negotiation. Okay, I think
Speaker 1: that's a good point to make, because when you think
Speaker 1: of a boundary line, to think of a line, a
Speaker 1: line is something of what infinitely small width, uh, ideally
Speaker 1: and in geometrical terms. But that's not really what a
Speaker 1: frontier is. A frontier is more of a zone. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's an intermediate state between different between different areas where
Speaker 1: different principles apply. And in this zone you have a
Speaker 1: kind of uh. Well, for one thing, he says, it's permeable,
Speaker 1: so things move back and forth between it. But you
Speaker 1: also have a mingling of the application of different principles.
Speaker 1: It might be a place where in some sense the
Speaker 1: wild principles apply and some other sense the civilization principles apply,
Speaker 1: or the principle of different people's might mix. Yeah, and again,
Speaker 1: it's just it's not that Game of Thrones idea of
Speaker 1: the wall and just two distinct things on either side.
Speaker 1: We see this more and more, I think, uh, with
Speaker 1: contemporary events as powers try to see how a border
Speaker 1: wall between the US and Mexico would work. Realizing well,
Speaker 1: this is not Game of Thrones. The Again, a border
Speaker 1: of frontier is a membrane um and when you try
Speaker 1: and apply just a you know, a wall scenario to it,
Speaker 1: various problems began to emerge. Yeah. Well, I think it
Speaker 1: usually comes from an oversimplified understanding of what that border
Speaker 1: means and the lack of understanding of how important it
Speaker 1: is that that border is not actually a physical barrier,
Speaker 1: because you know, wildlife moves back and forth, People move
Speaker 1: back and forth for totally legitimate reasons. Uh. You know
Speaker 1: that that in physical reality is just a landscape. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: he he talks a little bit about the frontiers in
Speaker 1: US history and defines them as areas with population densities
Speaker 1: less than two persons per square mile. And then he
Speaker 1: also and he's paraphrasing a couple of other writers here,
Speaker 1: but he's also refers to them as quote zones of
Speaker 1: historical interaction where no one has an enduring monopoly on violence.
Speaker 1: So you know, very blood meridian uh esque. Uh. Summation there.
Speaker 1: But also in keeping with what you might say is
Speaker 1: the history of political science, because how do you define
Speaker 1: a government? What is a government? A government is often
Speaker 1: defined as the thing that has a monopoly on the
Speaker 1: legitimate use of violence. For zone, the people who can
Speaker 1: use violence without anybody stopping them in an area that
Speaker 1: that is the governing body the law side. It's you know,
Speaker 1: it's like, hey, well, violence is kind of our thing.
Speaker 1: Violence is at the tail end of any um, any commandment,
Speaker 1: any law, like the laws, is eventually going to be
Speaker 1: enforced with violence, at least it has the potential to
Speaker 1: be if it must be right. But yeah, so here
Speaker 1: at this border zone, you you see two overlapping areas
Speaker 1: where and that doesn't always work so well because if
Speaker 1: two different people are claiming to have a monopoly on violence,
Speaker 1: then neither one actually has a monopoly, right, you have
Speaker 1: a competition of violence or a free market of violence either.
Speaker 1: So he points out that one of the American West
Speaker 1: was an internal and contested frontier. Uh, there are other
Speaker 1: sorts of frontiers as well, neutral frontiers, for example, and
Speaker 1: he brings up Southeast Asia as an example of a
Speaker 1: neutral frontier historically between the major cultures of China and India.
Speaker 1: He says, quote it was both shaped by and shaped
Speaker 1: the patterns of interaction of cores of these erstwhile separate
Speaker 1: world systems. Okay, yeah, And if you think to to
Speaker 1: East Asian cultures and you think of of the influences
Speaker 1: of India and China, um, you know, intermingling. And certainly
Speaker 1: it's it's not even as simple as that, because Buddhism
Speaker 1: emerges from India and it becomes a major component of
Speaker 1: Chinese civilization. But still, in a rough sense, you can
Speaker 1: you can see these these two major cultures coming together
Speaker 1: and as their waters meet, uh, it's kind of like
Speaker 1: a brackish area of salt and fresh and taking on
Speaker 1: all these uh these diverse uh and and fascinating culture. Right.
Speaker 1: But of course the springs up another important aspect of
Speaker 1: frontiers which often might get overlooked, which is the people
Speaker 1: who have less power, who dwell within the frontier zone,
Speaker 1: who often are not treated very well by the idea
Speaker 1: of a frontier overlapping with where they live. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: to to say to say the least, uh yeah. Hall
Speaker 1: points out that at this point in history, most indigenous
Speaker 1: groups have experienced several waves of what he refers to
Speaker 1: as incorporation, uh, incorporation into this this new culture and
Speaker 1: incorporation that's that's sort of like when you fall under
Speaker 1: the shadow of the monopoly of violence right and incorporation
Speaker 1: itself UH can lead to several different possibilities, and they
Speaker 1: range from genocide and cultural side to assimilation transformation into
Speaker 1: a minority group. But at the same time, UH incorporation
Speaker 1: itself is changing, so there are virtually no non state
Speaker 1: societies left to incorporate in the world. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: there are virtually no more frontiers, no new territories, no
Speaker 1: new people, repeated incorporations of deluded human cultural diversity, and
Speaker 1: the very frontiers that are vanishing were long the zones
Speaker 1: of of ethnogenesis, of creativity, of new ideas emerging from
Speaker 1: repeated interactions and often hostile conditions. So I refer to
Speaker 1: this a little bit talking about UH. You know that
Speaker 1: example of East Asian cultures and civilizations. Another great example
Speaker 1: I think is when you look at Caribbean cultures, where
Speaker 1: you see this this hostile coming together of all these
Speaker 1: different elements, you know, colonialism, slavery, the eradication of indigenous people's,
Speaker 1: all of this is horrible, and yet at the same time,
Speaker 1: out of it you do see rich cultures emerge. I mean,
Speaker 1: just just looking at Jamaica alone, you see all of
Speaker 1: these these fantastic ideas and models and art forms, reggae music,
Speaker 1: dub music, Rastafari cuisine, all the all the all the
Speaker 1: all the attributes of any culture, but with each Caribbean
Speaker 1: aisle it takes on a slightly different um, a different form. Now,
Speaker 1: the idea of how frontiers work changing throughout history is
Speaker 1: something I probably, I guess I haven't considered much before,
Speaker 1: but that is really interesting because you can think about
Speaker 1: multiple waves of this. For example, I think about the
Speaker 1: first wave of human colonization of the planet. It's kind
Speaker 1: of mind boggling to think of the fact that there
Speaker 1: were times when humans were colonizing large swaths of land
Speaker 1: that no had no humans in them already. That you
Speaker 1: would arrive at a new place and it would be
Speaker 1: populated by plants and animals, and that was what you
Speaker 1: had to compete with. And so you could think about
Speaker 1: there being a frontier of a kind there where you're
Speaker 1: forging a true frontier into the wilderness. And when people
Speaker 1: talked about the frontier of the American West, a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of the you know, the racist way
Speaker 1: to formulate it would be we're just settling a wild land,
Speaker 1: But in fact, the land was occupied by people, and
Speaker 1: there was yeah, and there was a time when you
Speaker 1: could settle much land that was not occupied by people,
Speaker 1: and so that was a totally different frontier, uh world
Speaker 1: system there where you're you're settling places that have no
Speaker 1: human competition. It's literally primeval. Then you've got this other
Speaker 1: system where where we think about this sort of sort
Speaker 1: of the ideas of colonialism, where you might have a
Speaker 1: society with a strong central government and a lot of
Speaker 1: economic and technological power forging frontiers into lands that are
Speaker 1: are already settled by people but who don't necessarily have
Speaker 1: strong central governments and uh, you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: economic and technological exchange, and and those two phases I
Speaker 1: guess you might be able to say have brought us
Speaker 1: mostly up to modernity. So one wonders if the idea
Speaker 1: of the frontier makes any sense moving forward now that
Speaker 1: we live in a world mostly with nation states that
Speaker 1: have central governments. Well, it's Hall points out, you have, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have fewer and fewer external frontiers. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: certainly you can make the case for the space the
Speaker 1: final frontier, etcetera, which is more like that original primeval
Speaker 1: frontier hopefully, Yeah, or you know, you could also make
Speaker 1: cases for like for the the the exploration and the
Speaker 1: establishment of underwater habitats, etcetera. They're very sci fi answers.
Speaker 1: But he he points out that internal frontiers are now
Speaker 1: more common than external, especially frontiers between zones of the
Speaker 1: world system itself. Um, where it's where the core meets
Speaker 1: the periphery or the semi periphery along For example, the
Speaker 1: US Mexico border is one of the examples he brings
Speaker 1: to mind. So we're constantly getting new divisions in society,
Speaker 1: new frontiers forming more and more every day. UM. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can just look at this this sort of fracturing.
Speaker 1: I don't want to say that in a cataclysmic sense,
Speaker 1: like the fracturing of culture. Basically, as as uh, all
Speaker 1: these divisions in society continue to make themselves known, you
Speaker 1: kind of have individual frontiers that weave themselves throughout that system.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. I guess I hadn't thought of it like that.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we're gonna do a quick break and
Speaker 1: when we come back, we will take a look at
Speaker 1: the frontier thesis. All right, we're back. So if you
Speaker 1: listen to our live episode that was recorded at C
Speaker 1: two e two. Then the you know what we were
Speaker 1: talking about. We were talking about the Columbian Exposition. Um,
Speaker 1: all these wonderful ideas and technologies coming together on a
Speaker 1: tide of cultural change. And as we were putting this together, uh,
Speaker 1: we had some wonderful ideas that didn't make final cut
Speaker 1: because we're very limited for time, really, uh. And one
Speaker 1: of these great ideas was the Frontier thesis. And that's
Speaker 1: the reason that we ended up putting this episode together. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the Frontier Thesis is first articulated in the essay
Speaker 1: or lecture The Significance of the Frontier in American History
Speaker 1: by the American historian Frederick Jackson Turner. Now. Turner was
Speaker 1: born in Wisconsin in eighteen sixty one. He went to
Speaker 1: the University of Wisconsin and then JOHNS. Hopkins, and he
Speaker 1: became a historian. By most accounts, I should note that
Speaker 1: I've seen some discrepancy here. Most accounts say that this
Speaker 1: lecture was first delivered during the World's Fair eighteen ninety
Speaker 1: three in Chicago, uh, to a meeting of fellow historians.
Speaker 1: But I have encountered one source at least claiming it
Speaker 1: was first delivered in eighteen ninety four. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if that's an outlier or it's going on there, but
Speaker 1: I believe the cases this was first delivered during the
Speaker 1: World's Fair and the Frontier thesis as it came to
Speaker 1: be known. We should start by saying is not accepted
Speaker 1: uncritically by the historians of today, that this is not
Speaker 1: gospel truth about how to interpret American history. However, I
Speaker 1: think it is worth a look because of how influential
Speaker 1: it was on American historical thinking, how how it proved
Speaker 1: to be one of the most influential ideas in the
Speaker 1: study of American history, and how it shaped how a
Speaker 1: lot of people thought about the national character of the
Speaker 1: United States up until today. It still is an influential idea,
Speaker 1: even if most historians don't just accept it uncritically and
Speaker 1: say he got everything right. I mean that it's kind
Speaker 1: of like the idea of manifest destiny, right right, Like
Speaker 1: nobody today is arguing to manifest destiny is a legitimate
Speaker 1: reason to do anything. But looking back historically, we can
Speaker 1: we can look at it as a as part of
Speaker 1: the motivation and rationale for for the for the expansion,
Speaker 1: for the Western expansion. Yeah, even if manifest destiny was
Speaker 1: not a correct interpretation of how the world worked. It
Speaker 1: certainly determined how people thought about how the world worked,
Speaker 1: and it's worth understanding just for that. So let's get
Speaker 1: into Turner's thesis, as he explains in this lecture. Now,
Speaker 1: Turner's main idea here is that the character of the
Speaker 1: United States, that American culture, is largely determined by the
Speaker 1: presence of an expanding frontier, and that that is what
Speaker 1: gives us the America we know today, American democracy, American culture,
Speaker 1: what you think of as particular to the American consciousness.
Speaker 1: Now you you go back to colonial times, and one
Speaker 1: of the things you notice, or at least as Turner
Speaker 1: points out, is that the authorities in earlier America always
Speaker 1: always wanted to contain the impulse toward westward expansion. They,
Speaker 1: like the English lord's, feared losing control of the colonies.
Speaker 1: I was talking to my wife Rachel about this, and
Speaker 1: she she gave the metaphor of the parents saying, now
Speaker 1: stay where I can see you, which is pretty much
Speaker 1: right as far as I can tell. That the European
Speaker 1: authorities didn't want the colonies getting out of hand, so
Speaker 1: they wanted to keep them kind of close to where
Speaker 1: their centers of access to the colonies were and an
Speaker 1: explanation of this, Turner has this large quote from Burke
Speaker 1: that is just I just love it, so I want
Speaker 1: to read this quote. Uh, stay with me for a second.
Speaker 1: Here Burke says, quote, if you stopped your grants, and
Speaker 1: he's talking about grants of frontier land, if you stopped
Speaker 1: your grants, what would be the consequence the people would
Speaker 1: occupy without grants. They have already so occupied in many places.
Speaker 1: You cannot station garrisons in every part of these deserts.
Speaker 1: If you drive the people from one place, they will
Speaker 1: carry on their annual tillage and remove with their flocks
Speaker 1: and herds to another. Many of the people in the
Speaker 1: Act settlements are already little attached to particular situations. Already
Speaker 1: they have topped the Appalachian Mountains. From thence they behold
Speaker 1: before them an immense plain, one vast, rich level meadow,
Speaker 1: a square of five hundred miles. Over this they would
Speaker 1: wander without a possibility of restraint. They would change their
Speaker 1: manners with their habits of life, would soon forget a
Speaker 1: government by which they were disowned, would become hordes of
Speaker 1: English tartars and pouring down upon your unfortified frontiers of
Speaker 1: fierce and irresistible cavalry become masters of your governors and
Speaker 1: your counselors, your collectors and comptrollers, and all of the
Speaker 1: slaves that adhered to them. Such would, and in no
Speaker 1: long time must, be the effect of attempting to forbid
Speaker 1: as a crime and to suppress as an evil, the
Speaker 1: command and blessing of Providence increase and multiply. Such would
Speaker 1: be the happy result of an endeavor to keep as
Speaker 1: a layer of wild beasts that earth which God, by
Speaker 1: an express charter has given to the children of men.
Speaker 1: So Burke has a rather convincing literary style. But I think,
Speaker 1: going back to our Game of Thrones analogy, one thing
Speaker 1: I noticed here is what what's he saying exactly in
Speaker 1: Game of Thrones terms, he's saying, be careful if you
Speaker 1: try to tell people not to go north, they're going
Speaker 1: to turn into wild lings. Yeah, he's predicting a wild
Speaker 1: ling invasion of the United States. And of course it's raises,
Speaker 1: you know, questions of how does any how does any
Speaker 1: culture maintain itself? What is the what is the skeletal
Speaker 1: system that's holding it together? Anyway? Yeah? Uh, yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean it is it is definitely a question to
Speaker 1: keep in mind that the future of of America being
Speaker 1: one nation was not set at that time. It was
Speaker 1: not even sure of course that it would achieve independence,
Speaker 1: which I'm sure the English authorities did not want. But yeah,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of ways The European colonization of
Speaker 1: the North American continent could have gone went one way,
Speaker 1: but it could have gone another. And some United States
Speaker 1: leaders in the European tradition, for example, President John Quincy Adams,
Speaker 1: wanted to also keep society pretty close to to the shore.
Speaker 1: He wanted to use the public lands out west as
Speaker 1: a source of renewable wealth and to to use that
Speaker 1: land to enrich and invest in compact settlements in the east.
Speaker 1: So in a sense, he was saying, hey, this is
Speaker 1: the core, that's the periphery and the semi periphery. We're
Speaker 1: not going to turn that into the core too, exactly
Speaker 1: firm and established. The core is on the east, and
Speaker 1: we've got this vast periphery out there, and we want
Speaker 1: to explore exploit its natural resources to invest in the
Speaker 1: core and make make the core very livable and very
Speaker 1: wealthy and very well developed. If we build more house
Speaker 1: in the backyard, where where will we pay play croquet?
Speaker 1: Where we plan are to mat it? Where where will
Speaker 1: our you know, our mining and our other you know,
Speaker 1: ranching resources come from. Now, religious authorities also feared loss
Speaker 1: of influence over the west. Turner makes this point interestingly.
Speaker 1: He says, the East was, of course the urban center
Speaker 1: of Orthodox preaching for whatever religious sect do you belong to,
Speaker 1: And to separate yourself from the center of Orthodox preaching
Speaker 1: was to open yourself up to spiritual error. So a
Speaker 1: lot of the religious authorities were mighty concerned about people
Speaker 1: going west out of the place where the Orthodox preaching
Speaker 1: would reach them. Who knows what kind of heresies they
Speaker 1: might develop. Indeed, and we we touch on this in
Speaker 1: the c T E two presentation, of course, when we
Speaker 1: talk about the the the Parliament of World Religions and
Speaker 1: the new religious movements, many of which sprang up in
Speaker 1: the United States, uh, and most particularly the Church of
Speaker 1: Latter day Saints, which was very much a a new
Speaker 1: religious movement that was was a frontier religion, Yeah, and
Speaker 1: very fundamentally American, you might say, in its character. Even
Speaker 1: the Missouri Senator Thomas Benton gets quoted by by Turner here,
Speaker 1: And this is funny because Benton was actually well known
Speaker 1: for being pro westward expansion He was a he was
Speaker 1: a pro frontier guy. But even he wrote that along
Speaker 1: the edge of the Rocky Mountains quote, the western limits
Speaker 1: of the Republic should be drawn, and the statue of
Speaker 1: the fabled god Terminus should be raised upon its highest peak,
Speaker 1: never to be thrown down. So this is a westward expansionist,
Speaker 1: but he's saying, no, put the Roman god Terminus on
Speaker 1: the Rocky mountains. Don't let anybody go beyond. Now. Of course,
Speaker 1: Terminus was this Roman god, the god of borders in frontiers,
Speaker 1: who you might have an altar to right at the border,
Speaker 1: saying this is where, yeah, this is where civilization end. Membrand.
Speaker 1: That's great, this is where civilization ends. But it might
Speaker 1: also be where the power and influence of your god's end.
Speaker 1: But according to Turner, the people of this mindset, the
Speaker 1: people who are saying, okay, there should be some limit
Speaker 1: to how far you can go west. We've got to
Speaker 1: draw the line somewhere and keep people to the east.
Speaker 1: These authorities were not able to control people's lust for land.
Speaker 1: People did not necessarily want to live in some compact
Speaker 1: department in Philadelphia with nearby access to well paved roads
Speaker 1: and clean city water pumps that were paid for by
Speaker 1: the Bounty of Western Lands. They wanted land of their own,
Speaker 1: and so in many cases they just claimed it. And
Speaker 1: there were a lot of leaders who were on their side.
Speaker 1: For example, Andrew Jackson, he was a westward expansionist, and
Speaker 1: through this process, Turner says, westward expansion created the idea
Speaker 1: of the frontier. It was this westward moving, continually moving
Speaker 1: boundary line that shaped the development of American culture and
Speaker 1: uniquely guided the progress of American history. Now, what happens
Speaker 1: along the frontier, it's it's you might think about, Okay,
Speaker 1: we think of Oregon Trail, maybe pioneers moving, But how
Speaker 1: do you actually make a living if you're trying to
Speaker 1: settle westward lands away from the cities that you came um.
Speaker 1: The way Turner explains it is he thinks that frontier
Speaker 1: life represents quote a return to primitive conditions where you
Speaker 1: always have to recapitulate the evolution of civilization from primeval society. So,
Speaker 1: because the frontier is always moving, you have to keep
Speaker 1: doing this recapitulation of the evolution of civilization over and
Speaker 1: over a little bit further and further west. So first
Speaker 1: you might have traders and hunters and trappers, and then
Speaker 1: you might have ranchers, and then you might have people
Speaker 1: setting up farmsteads, and then you might have people setting
Speaker 1: up very small basic communities to support the farmsteads, which
Speaker 1: in turn turn into cities. Then there's technological development. Finally
Speaker 1: there's connection via via higher higher tech transportation like railroads
Speaker 1: and steamships and all that. And each time you move west,
Speaker 1: you have to keep doing this over and over again.
Speaker 1: Now you can imagine that if this is in fact
Speaker 1: what happens along a frontier, this would certainly have some
Speaker 1: kind of effect on the culture of the people living there, right, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because you're it's almost like their time traveling, right yea,
Speaker 1: the civilizational time traveling um event every time uh, somebody
Speaker 1: moves out a little further into the frontier. Yeah, It's
Speaker 1: it's almost perfectly what he's imagining. He's like, every time
Speaker 1: you you go another ten miles, you go back in time, however,
Speaker 1: a hundred years or something. Um. And so he says
Speaker 1: that this also means that the cities that rise up
Speaker 1: along the moving American frontier, and eventually there are cities
Speaker 1: are influenced less and less by the culture of Europe
Speaker 1: and more and more by the harsh necessities of surviving
Speaker 1: in the landscape. Now, he says that the frontier tends
Speaker 1: to have a unifying effect on the colonists, because one
Speaker 1: thing you've got is a common hardship. And what they
Speaker 1: thought of they had this perceived threat from the native
Speaker 1: inhabitants of the continent. Uh. Now, of course you might
Speaker 1: say that the real threat was going probably more the
Speaker 1: other direction, but it also kept this spirit of violence.
Speaker 1: Turner says that functioned as an unofficial military training school
Speaker 1: because they were they were constantly expanding into Native American lands,
Speaker 1: and because this lad to violent conflict, it's sort of
Speaker 1: militarized American life. Turner says, it trained people living along
Speaker 1: the frontier for war, even during peacetime, even when there's
Speaker 1: no war going on. You've got this culture that's constantly
Speaker 1: training for violent, armed conflict, and that this informs the
Speaker 1: American culture at large. Yeah. I mean, even to this day,
Speaker 1: the the the icon of the cowboy still carries a
Speaker 1: fair amount of weight, even not just the the literal cowboy,
Speaker 1: of course, not just one who maintains a herd of cattle,
Speaker 1: but like the frontiersman. Uh is still this this this
Speaker 1: very American concept that that resonates in our culture. I mean,
Speaker 1: think about your image of the frontiersman in your mind.
Speaker 1: Whether or not this is correct. I think this is
Speaker 1: probably mostly correct. You picture it. What's he holding? He's
Speaker 1: holding a rifle. Yeah, and he might be if he's
Speaker 1: if he's less of a desert type frontiers and he's
Speaker 1: probably draped in furs as well. Right, they're always armed
Speaker 1: and to some degree or at least Turner's ideas that
Speaker 1: this is correct, that it's a very it's a very
Speaker 1: gun focused, military focused, violence focused society, and that this
Speaker 1: leads to an inherent underlying thread of violence that's woven
Speaker 1: into the American character and still has effects when Turner
Speaker 1: was writing in the eighteen nineties. So that's one effect.
Speaker 1: But he also says, you know, the Frontier created what
Speaker 1: he would call a composite nationality of American people. It
Speaker 1: led less to the European American people being primarily just
Speaker 1: English people, and said that the American character was the
Speaker 1: people along the frontier who were Scott's Irish who were
Speaker 1: Germans who are Pennsylvania Dutch. There were many settlers of
Speaker 1: the colonial frontier who came from other populations of Europeans,
Speaker 1: and it also included these people who he refers to
Speaker 1: as redemption ers, who were freed indentured servants. Now, he
Speaker 1: also says the advance of the frontier decreased the United
Speaker 1: States dependence on England. As settlements retreated further away from
Speaker 1: the coast, it became a lot harder for England to
Speaker 1: trade directly with them, so England had a lot less
Speaker 1: power over them. As we know today, economic relationships do
Speaker 1: equal influence and power. At the same time, he also
Speaker 1: says the frontier encouraged nationalization. Now, I think this is
Speaker 1: going to be an interesting one, especially in light of
Speaker 1: something we get to in a minute, which is his
Speaker 1: ideas about the frontier and individualism. But he says it
Speaker 1: encouraged nationalization because the frontier fraterneries the reason the United
Speaker 1: States is a unified country rather than just a loosely
Speaker 1: associated collection of states. The need to get good to
Speaker 1: the pioneers led to the development of transportation, infrastructure, and
Speaker 1: the expansion of civilization followed the needs of these pioneers
Speaker 1: who were living on the edge, and thus people living
Speaker 1: on the frontier tended to favor these nationalizing policies like
Speaker 1: lots of connection via rail and transportation, but also nationalizing
Speaker 1: policies like tariffs, because that would help bring the factories
Speaker 1: and centers of production to the border instead of allowing
Speaker 1: them to be you know, foreign and importing goods. Turner
Speaker 1: also says that the Frontier mitigated against the sectionalism of
Speaker 1: the Civil War era. Now, if you're talking about influences
Speaker 1: on American culture, what informs what the American character is today,
Speaker 1: A lot of people would probably look to the Civil War, right,
Speaker 1: because we're talking about the schism of of the of
Speaker 1: the nation and then the reunion that followed. Yeah, uh yeah.
Speaker 1: And so that idea of sectionalism, having people who are
Speaker 1: Northern partisans in the southern part of sens As as
Speaker 1: an important part of their national character and identity, that
Speaker 1: that sectionalism, he says, is actually mitigated by the Frontier.
Speaker 1: The Frontier helped us get over that um and he
Speaker 1: says it's because number one, the Frontier mainly grew from
Speaker 1: the middle region of the country, which was between the
Speaker 1: Puritan New England and the English aristocratic system of the
Speaker 1: Tidewater South, most of the people moving westward were much
Speaker 1: more likely to come from the people in the middle,
Speaker 1: like Pennsylvania, New York. That that middle area there and
Speaker 1: uh so, he says, the frontier mitigated against sectionalism also
Speaker 1: because it created this climate of continuous movement and migration
Speaker 1: and commerce back and forth. And of course the mobility
Speaker 1: of the population is death to localism. I like this point, which,
Speaker 1: if true, I think is also a good argument for
Speaker 1: the beneficial nature of travel. I know that's a common saying, Robert.
Speaker 1: I don't know how much you buy into that, but
Speaker 1: I think people often say that the more you get
Speaker 1: away from wherever you come from, as much as you're able,
Speaker 1: the more broad minded you tend to be, the less
Speaker 1: beholden you are to to your local customs as being
Speaker 1: the true right way. Yeah. I agree when I look
Speaker 1: back in my own life, very early on, my family
Speaker 1: moved to Canada, and we were in Newfoundland, Canada, and
Speaker 1: my my dad was working in this hospital so and
Speaker 1: and so. Not only what were we around, um the
Speaker 1: local news, but we were also around all these different
Speaker 1: international um medical professionals. So there was there was there
Speaker 1: was you know, a Chinese doctor, there was an Indian doctor. There,
Speaker 1: all these additional nationalities crammed into this this small environment.
Speaker 1: So I often look back on that and think, well,
Speaker 1: that that clearly had an impact on me early on,
Speaker 1: and then subsequent travels that I that I got to
Speaker 1: make in life only reinforced that. Robert, I must say,
Speaker 1: if I can pay you a compliment, you you do
Speaker 1: not seem like a person very beholden to localism. No,
Speaker 1: I do well. I do like local produce, don't get
Speaker 1: me wrong. And you know, when you I feel like
Speaker 1: there's kind of the You see this a lot with chefs,
Speaker 1: like famous chefs, they all seem to have a similar trajectory, right,
Speaker 1: They start off being super interested in in other uh
Speaker 1: like nationalities, cuisines, and then they come back around and
Speaker 1: find the beauty of their their own, like local family history.
Speaker 1: I've never thought about that, but you know what, I
Speaker 1: think you're right. That is a very common story. Is
Speaker 1: like the chef tries to get away from where they
Speaker 1: came up. They go to work in the restaurants or
Speaker 1: culinary school somewhere else. They work in other kinds of restaurants,
Speaker 1: different kinds of cuisine, than they grew up with, and
Speaker 1: then they open their own restaurant and it's what they
Speaker 1: grew up with. Yeah, So I find myself engaging in
Speaker 1: some of that too, you know, like I'm fascinated by
Speaker 1: other other cultures and other countries and in other ways
Speaker 1: of life. But then I often will come back around
Speaker 1: and then in a way, you end up using using
Speaker 1: the tools that you developed to understand other people, and
Speaker 1: then you turn them inward and you try and understand
Speaker 1: the you know, the other it is yourself. The other
Speaker 1: that is uh, you know, the place you came from,
Speaker 1: Robert Lamb, the secret hardcore Tennessee. And yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: in a sense, yeah, I I certainly came back around
Speaker 1: and and and did a lot of thinking about what
Speaker 1: it what it means to grow up in Tennessee, what
Speaker 1: it means what it means to be a Tennessee, and well,
Speaker 1: to get back to the idea of sectionalism, one of
Speaker 1: the things that I think is interesting and worth pointing out.
Speaker 1: Of course Turner points it out himself, is that when
Speaker 1: you think about sectionalism being this big influence in American
Speaker 1: culture North versus South, and and the idea of union
Speaker 1: being a frontier idea Abraham Lincoln was a creature of
Speaker 1: the frontier. I mean, you think of Abraham Lincoln, the
Speaker 1: log cabin lawyer. Yeah, that's right, Uh, and so very
Speaker 1: much for Turner. That frontier mentality comes through in Lincoln,
Speaker 1: and Lincoln of course being the great Unionist, the great
Speaker 1: unifier of north and South, who who fought sectionalism more
Speaker 1: than anything else. Maybe now we should take a quick break,
Speaker 1: and when we come back, we'll look at a couple
Speaker 1: of the most important of Turner's ideas on influence of
Speaker 1: the frontier on the American culture. All right, we're back now.
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, Joe. When I but when
Speaker 1: I think of iconic frontiersman, I can't help but look
Speaker 1: back on Tokens, Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit,
Speaker 1: because both of them had a rugged individual frontiersman of
Speaker 1: a sort. Oh, in the Hobbit, there's beyond the character
Speaker 1: that can change into animals, or at least can change
Speaker 1: into a bear, multiple animals, but definitely into a bear.
Speaker 1: And hey, I mean that's a great metaphor for the pioneer.
Speaker 1: The frontier mentality is that you're sort of like part animals,
Speaker 1: scraping along in the wild Yeah, and then we had
Speaker 1: Tom bomba Deal and Lord of the Rings. A man,
Speaker 1: it's so individual and so just kind of so independently,
Speaker 1: uh powerful that they even discussed possibly giving him the
Speaker 1: Ring of Power to hold onto until us decided it
Speaker 1: will he'll probably lose it. Tom Bombadale never made it
Speaker 1: into the movies. Yeah, but I would not be prize
Speaker 1: that Peter Jackson has a trilogy plan just for just
Speaker 1: for the bound Adil stuff. Well, yeah, of course individualism,
Speaker 1: and this is one of the core parts of Turner's thesis.
Speaker 1: He says that the Frontier created a very very strong
Speaker 1: sense of individualism in the American character. Uh, that that
Speaker 1: life is about me. I depend on myself. I might
Speaker 1: only trust myself. And I want to read a long
Speaker 1: quote because I think it's great and it really gets
Speaker 1: to the core of what he's talking about. So this
Speaker 1: is what Turner has to say. As has been indicated,
Speaker 1: the Frontier is productive of individualism. Complex society is precipitated
Speaker 1: by the wilderness into a kind of primitive organization based
Speaker 1: on the family. The tendency is anti social. It produces
Speaker 1: antipathy to control, and particularly to any direct control. The
Speaker 1: tax gatherer is viewed as a representative of oppression. Professor
Speaker 1: osgood and an Enable article has pointed out that the
Speaker 1: frontier condition is prevalent in the colonies, are important factors
Speaker 1: in the explanation of the American Revolution, where individual liberty
Speaker 1: was sometimes confused with absence of all effective government. Like
Speaker 1: that um, the same conditions aid in explaining the difficulty
Speaker 1: of instituting a strong government in the period of the Confederacy.
Speaker 1: The frontier individualism has from the beginning promoted democracy, and
Speaker 1: there he's talking about small d democracy, the idea of
Speaker 1: control of the government being delegated to the individual, very
Speaker 1: much away from any kind of aristocratic idea or influence
Speaker 1: in the government. And he also points out that it
Speaker 1: was the western frontier regions of states like New York
Speaker 1: and Virginia that pushed the most for extension of suffrage,
Speaker 1: then led to greater democratic participation in those states early on.
Speaker 1: But there's another side to this. He also says that
Speaker 1: the frontier leads to contempt for education and elites. It
Speaker 1: leads to a kind of anti intellectualism, and in one
Speaker 1: piece of evidence he he gives here he's talking about
Speaker 1: the idea of the frontier politician. And he gives a
Speaker 1: statement from a representative in the Virginia Convention debates of
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty and I got to read this quote. The
Speaker 1: Old Dominion has long been celebrated for producing great orators,
Speaker 1: the ablest metaphysicians in policy, men that can split hairs
Speaker 1: in all abstruse questions of political economy. But a Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: a New York and Ohio, or a Western Virginia statesman,
Speaker 1: though far inferior in logic, metaphysics, and rhetoric to an
Speaker 1: Old Virginia statesman, has this advantage that when he returns home,
Speaker 1: he takes off his coat and takes hold of the plow.
Speaker 1: This gives him bone and muscle, sir, and preserves his
Speaker 1: Republican principles pure and uncontaminated. Yeah. I like this. It
Speaker 1: reminds me, of course, of of of the cowboy again,
Speaker 1: and that the cowboy is just, you know, the polar
Speaker 1: opposite of of everything you would find, say in New
Speaker 1: York City, especially when it comes to the creation of
Speaker 1: a proper salsa. Remember from commercials uh. But there there
Speaker 1: is an anti establishment, anti academic, antium, anti urban uh
Speaker 1: sentiment that is just boiled into the idea. Yeah, very
Speaker 1: very much against elites, very much against the idea of education,
Speaker 1: training and experience. Uh. It's related to this idea outside
Speaker 1: of experience that you get of course on the frontier right,
Speaker 1: against the idea of relevant experience. More to the idea
Speaker 1: that what really makes somebody good at anything is being
Speaker 1: authentic in character. And to be authentic in character you
Speaker 1: need to work with your hands and be and be
Speaker 1: independent and sort of be a self made man. This
Speaker 1: I I can't help but think of the propaganda photos
Speaker 1: in Russia of of Ladimir Putin, Like everyone's seen it,
Speaker 1: riding the horse shirtless, right, so you think he's embodying
Speaker 1: the frontier mentality of the United States. Um, I think
Speaker 1: up front more of a universal frontier quality, Like clearly
Speaker 1: he's the images like that, or say, you know him
Speaker 1: wrestling with a bear, and I bring I bring up
Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin. But you see this in politics all over, right,
Speaker 1: a politician going out and uh, rolling their sleeves on
Speaker 1: the sleeves of getting some photographs. Maybe maybe it's something
Speaker 1: more like building a house. Maybe it's hunting, maybe it's fishing.
Speaker 1: Maybe you know, whatever it is, it's sending that that
Speaker 1: idea that yeah, I I learned with my hands. I'm
Speaker 1: good at route at governing because I got out here
Speaker 1: and I got sweaty, right, I know, I'm sawing some lumber. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is why you should vote for me. Now, this mindset,
Speaker 1: Turner says, has its drawbacks. Turner. Turner is somewhat triumphalist,
Speaker 1: you might say about his idea here. He's somewhat celebrating
Speaker 1: the influence of the frontier, but he also, to his credit,
Speaker 1: does acknowledge some drawbacks, at least as far as he
Speaker 1: sees them. One thing is that he says the individualism
Speaker 1: and the disrespect for government leads to a laxity in government.
Speaker 1: So he says, these people they've got contempt for government.
Speaker 1: But of course they themselves do sometimes become politicians because
Speaker 1: you've got to have representatives from these areas. And when
Speaker 1: they get into government, because they have contempt for government,
Speaker 1: they treat their government offices with contempt and abuse them.
Speaker 1: And he says this has led to corruption and to
Speaker 1: the spoils system, you know, the system of like rewarding
Speaker 1: your friends and contributors and all that with political appointments
Speaker 1: that they might not actually be the best for yes,
Speaker 1: uh so this is and funny enough, this is the
Speaker 1: very spoils system which you might say got President Garfield assassinated. Now,
Speaker 1: when President Garfield was shot, he was shot by an
Speaker 1: unstable man who thought he was owed some kind of
Speaker 1: office in the federal government due to the spoils system,
Speaker 1: and he got this idea in his head and he
Speaker 1: shot President Garfield. Weirdly enough to bring it back to
Speaker 1: the World's Columbian Exposition, the same thing happened in an
Speaker 1: almost identical event to end the Chicago World's Fair, when
Speaker 1: Mayor Carter Harrison of Chicago was assassinated by an unstable
Speaker 1: office seeker who thought that he was owed some kind
Speaker 1: of appointment through the spoil system. Kind of odd coincidence there.
Speaker 1: But also Turner points out that this leads to in
Speaker 1: the Western lands through being uh, the frontier being a
Speaker 1: great source of paper money, agitation and quote wildcat banking.
Speaker 1: Wildcat banking. That's something that we really need a like
Speaker 1: a bobcat or as a sound effect. Every time it
Speaker 1: is it is it is uttered wildcat banking. Now but
Speaker 1: here here it brings us up to the present. Now
Speaker 1: he has combined all these things. He says, it leads to,
Speaker 1: you might a a kind of counterintuitive combination. It leads
Speaker 1: to nationalizing tendencies from a federal government point of view,
Speaker 1: but it also leads to strong individualism, UH contempt for government,
Speaker 1: a a sort of uh contempt for elites and education.
Speaker 1: It leads to a sort of character of violence and militarization,
Speaker 1: a sort of simple, simple, get or done attitude. And
Speaker 1: if this is true, one thing we have to consider
Speaker 1: is that in the eighteen nineties the frontier was officially
Speaker 1: declared gone. The Turner actually starts his essay by saying,
Speaker 1: you know, in the eighteen eighties census, the country still
Speaker 1: did have what might be considered a frontier. But by
Speaker 1: the eighteen nineties census, the the superintendent I believe of
Speaker 1: the census, said, you know what, there is so little
Speaker 1: unsettled land left that it no longer makes any sense
Speaker 1: to designate any section of the United States of frontier.
Speaker 1: So there really isn't a frontier anymore. So to whatever
Speaker 1: extent Turner's thesis is correct, and we can certainly talk
Speaker 1: about some ways in which is probably not correct, But
Speaker 1: to whatever extent it is correct, what happens when the
Speaker 1: frontier is gone it. This reminds me of a quote
Speaker 1: from Kurt Vonnegut in Cat's Cradle. He said, Americans are
Speaker 1: forever searching for love and forms. It never takes in
Speaker 1: places it can never be. It must have something to
Speaker 1: do with the vanished frontier. That's great. Now. I think
Speaker 1: that's invoked with some irony by Vonnegut. I think Vonnegut
Speaker 1: is probably actually referring ironically to this very idea, the
Speaker 1: romanticizing of the frontier and its role in forming the
Speaker 1: American character. And that is something we should definitely acknowledge,
Speaker 1: is that this idea, as influential as it has been
Speaker 1: in American historical thought, there are definitely romantic elements to it,
Speaker 1: and there are there are also some elements that are
Speaker 1: that are not so nice that we should acknowledge now.
Speaker 1: Of course, the theory has had a number of critics
Speaker 1: and supporters over the years, and I think there are
Speaker 1: historical and modern lenses. We can see a few obvious
Speaker 1: flaws in it. One is merely that it was constrained
Speaker 1: by its place and time. Right, He couldn't see into
Speaker 1: the future, He couldn't see how the American character would
Speaker 1: continue to develop over the next century, and a quarter.
Speaker 1: But another, of course, is that this is very much
Speaker 1: a view of the development of the American character as
Speaker 1: it would be expressed by men of European heritage. Basically,
Speaker 1: so women, African Americans, Native Americans, and other groups don't
Speaker 1: seem to play a big role in Turner's view of
Speaker 1: the American character, of what that character is and how
Speaker 1: it's shaped. Yeah, I mean you mentioned earlier the role
Speaker 1: of various immigrant groups in pushing the frontier, and certainly
Speaker 1: um African African Americans as as slaves, and then later
Speaker 1: as as freedman played a huge role. Chinese immigrants played
Speaker 1: a huge role in the expansion of the railroad that
Speaker 1: pushed the frontier total and and and helped you know,
Speaker 1: eradicate it and bring in been bringing the two sides
Speaker 1: of the country together. Um. But these these are players
Speaker 1: that are not going to be a core to the
Speaker 1: argument here in the court of the thesis, right, and
Speaker 1: that and it doesn't in fact mean that he's necessarily
Speaker 1: wrong when he's talking about the sort of the culture
Speaker 1: of the of the white male elite as it ruled
Speaker 1: the country for a long time, But it does mean
Speaker 1: that it's probably not giving you a full picture of
Speaker 1: the people living in the United States of America, what
Speaker 1: their character is, and how it came to be that way. Um.
Speaker 1: Another point that we should just stress again, though I
Speaker 1: think we made this point earlier, but it's just worth reminding.
Speaker 1: He's constantly talking in the essay about the idea of
Speaker 1: free land, that there's free land as you're moving west. Um.
Speaker 1: So it's worth remembering that the land being settled by
Speaker 1: US pioneers on the frontier was not in fact simply
Speaker 1: free land. In most cases, it was already settled or
Speaker 1: occupied by various groups of indigenous peoples, or if people
Speaker 1: weren't living on it, they were at least depending on
Speaker 1: it for resources in some way. Now, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: there could still be ways in which Turner's thesis does
Speaker 1: have some truth to it, even uh, even with these
Speaker 1: very big shortcomings. For example, it could be that the
Speaker 1: traits Turner describes do in fact end up manifesting themselves
Speaker 1: to some degree in Americans of all kinds, men and women,
Speaker 1: people of all different kinds of racial and ethnic heritage.
Speaker 1: And it's not hard to see how this could happen.
Speaker 1: How there there could be certain cultural elements that would
Speaker 1: be diffused throughout the culture. If frontier attitudes can make
Speaker 1: it from the West back to the East, they can
Speaker 1: probably also make it between groups within society. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that that holds true. Now, another thing we can
Speaker 1: look at is that he's he's saying that this is
Speaker 1: the most important defining thing in the character of the
Speaker 1: American consciousness, what it's, what makes American democracy what it is.
Speaker 1: Lots of historians could pick different things to fill that role. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, just trying to reduce everything to one explaining
Speaker 1: event is probably going to be highly flawed in itself.
Speaker 1: You know, what about mass immigration. If if you were
Speaker 1: to ask me what defines American character more than anything,
Speaker 1: I'd probably think of I'd probably think of slavery in
Speaker 1: the Civil War. I'd think about the particular nature of
Speaker 1: the U. S. Constitution. I would think about immigration, mass
Speaker 1: immigration throughout the nation's history. But the frontier might also
Speaker 1: be an important thing to list there. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: mean you even look to things like the national park
Speaker 1: system as kind of a continuation of a of a
Speaker 1: a frontier element. So it's like, clearly the national parks
Speaker 1: are not frontiers. You can't go in there and settle
Speaker 1: parts of national parks, or at least you can't yet,
Speaker 1: but but still they stand. There is as as examples
Speaker 1: of of of the wild that are open to everyone
Speaker 1: to visit and take part in and uh and and
Speaker 1: in some way that kind of scratches the itch of
Speaker 1: the frontier spirit, the idea that well, I on some
Speaker 1: level we all think that we could drop everything, go
Speaker 1: off the grid and move off into the country, often
Speaker 1: to those some imagine frontier and we we probably maybe
Speaker 1: we can to some degree, but we can certainly go
Speaker 1: to a national park or state park and uh and
Speaker 1: spend the weekend camping. Yeah. At the risk of being cheesy,
Speaker 1: I would say one of the greatest things you can
Speaker 1: do if you want to invest in travel within the
Speaker 1: United States is, of course travel to our great cities,
Speaker 1: but also travel to our national parks. Uh. And don't
Speaker 1: just don't just go to Yosemite. Look up the other
Speaker 1: ones there. There are probably some nearer to you that
Speaker 1: are truly amazing national treasures. I hope I'm not cheesing
Speaker 1: you out here, but no, no, no, I agree. There's
Speaker 1: some wonderful national parks out there, and there's some wonderful
Speaker 1: state parks. But I guess here we get to the
Speaker 1: final question, Robert, I wonder what you think. Do you
Speaker 1: think there's anything to what Turners saying. Do you think
Speaker 1: that the frontier is this really important influence on what
Speaker 1: makes the United States what it is on our national character,
Speaker 1: or or do you think Turner was wrong? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think there's something to it. But I also wonder, like
Speaker 1: how much of that is frontiersm how much of that
Speaker 1: is just the the immigrant spirit, the idea that whatever
Speaker 1: I was somewhere else, whatever the limitations on who I
Speaker 1: could be, but whatever those limitations were, I can come here,
Speaker 1: and I can I can redefine who I am, and
Speaker 1: I can I can earn myself a better place. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: I wonder, when I've been thinking about it, if the
Speaker 1: frontier thesis is not necessarily a good explanation of the
Speaker 1: American character as a whole, but it is a very
Speaker 1: good explanation of certain strains of thinking and subcultures within
Speaker 1: the American culture. Yeah, yeah, I would agree with that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of comes back to like we've said
Speaker 1: with this and like we said with the world systems theory,
Speaker 1: is that any time you try and come up with
Speaker 1: a definite answer and a definite model for the movements
Speaker 1: of history. Even if it's just US history, you're going
Speaker 1: to run into some problems. But broadly speaking or or
Speaker 1: strategically employed, it does it does seem to have some
Speaker 1: truth in it. Yeah. What do you think about the
Speaker 1: idea of new frontiers after the physical land frontier went away? Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's certainly a strong argument to me made for for
Speaker 1: the digital frontier, for in the same way that we're
Speaker 1: talking about, like find scratching the itch of frontiersm in
Speaker 1: national parks. I think at least for a while, you
Speaker 1: could do that with the digital realm. And I guess
Speaker 1: you still scientific advancements that is often cited as a
Speaker 1: as a new frontier. You like, you're forging new ground.
Speaker 1: And the benefit of the scientific advancement as a frontier
Speaker 1: is you don't have to literally displace real people right right,
Speaker 1: And and I think science fiction plays into that area
Speaker 1: as well, like imaginary frontiers. Yeah, it's kind of the
Speaker 1: imaginary frontier fed by the scientific frontier. Of course, space
Speaker 1: is another one people often talk about, the final frontier.
Speaker 1: One might say that's true until we discover interdimensional travel. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and certainly when a sign its fiction tries to imagine, uh,
Speaker 1: interplanetary frontiers. We we draw back on our experience with
Speaker 1: often the American frontier. And so if it's certainly if
Speaker 1: it's an American science fiction author. Yeah, if you look
Speaker 1: at a lot of that mid century science fiction, a
Speaker 1: lot of times the starship Captain is very colonial or
Speaker 1: is a cowboy. Yeah, that's true. Kirk was kind of
Speaker 1: a cowboy, wouldn't it kinda? Yeah? All right, Robert, you
Speaker 1: got anything else? Let's see, we mentioned Kirk, we mentioned
Speaker 1: Tom Bomba dell. Uh So, I think we're good. Okay,
Speaker 1: I think we fully explained it. All right, So hey,
Speaker 1: if you missed that C two e two episode, go
Speaker 1: back and listen to it because it ties indirectly with
Speaker 1: a lot of with the spirit of what we're talking
Speaker 1: about here. And hey, in the meantime, head on over
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