Learn Something New Today

Key points from the article: 

Countries need a shared history, based at least partly on myth, in order to function 

The current divide in America is just not sustainable for the country

Conservative myths leave out too many people in its unwillingness to acknowledge the ways America has fallen short of its ideals 

But histories on the left that are centered around the marginalization of specific identity groups will not unite a country 

We need a usable history that can revalidate America's Enlightenment ideals while being conscious of the country's faults 

My thoughts:

I agree about the need for a shared history, and I think that despite America's flaws, the intentions were pure, based on what the Founding Fathers knew in their time

Is a shared usable history even possible in today's age? I think that would take us back to the history books of 20 years ago before half of America got woke. And perhaps that would be the preferred option. It would certainly be the more convenient option for the country as a whole.

On Jane Austen’s letters

Jane asked her sister Cassandra to burn the vast majority of her letters when she died, so that’s what Cassandra did

April Bernard argues that this was a good thing - by the time of her death, Jane must have known she was a success. She was popular among the taste-makers of her day (namely, the aristocracy) and she received some very positive reviews, including one from Sir Walter Scott

Jane must have had some idea that her novels would endure through the ages, and she wanted her novels to stand alone, without the distraction of her private life

Which writers influenced Jane Austen? 

She read and studied and modeled her balanced sentences on the writings of Samuel Johnson.

He was one of the best moralists of the age, and a great wit. Sounds familiar? 

Jane learned everything from Shakespeare. This is not surprising, as many notable literary critics (including Harold Bloom) compare her works to Shakespeare. 

From https://omnia.sas.upenn.edu/story/jane-austens-enduring-popularity:

Esther Perel on bickering

When people fight about the same stuff, they’re not fighting about the towel, or the bathroom, or who’s picking up the kids, or who’s always late.

They’re fighting over three key groups or themes

power and control

closeness and care

respect and recognition

We learn to fight or to ask for what we want or to never ask for what we want but to criticize the other person. Behind every criticism is a wish

Maximizers - they explode

Minimizers - they keep it in and they wait and wait until they explode over about something that has nothing to do with what the thing that they’re annoyed about

The more one person goes up, the more the other person goes numb. The more the other person shuts down, the more the person goes higher and higher. Each person contributes to the extreme person that the other person becomes

Confirmation bias - if i believe that you don’t care, then i scan for it and i disregard evidence that proves the opposite.

Clifford Geertz’s take on nationalism, especially in the newly emerging, post-colonial nation states of the 60s and 70s 

We can understand the problem if we understand that there are two emerging tendencies that are often competing with each other

primordial ties - desire of groups to preserve their cultural identities and to mean something within the body of the new nation

civic - desire to develop complex civic structures based on the model of modern nation states

primordial ties - these ties are exclusive to a particular in-group. no one can come in from outside and become a part of the group

ethnicity - identity through ties of blood - no one else can enter into this identity. but an over-assertion of those ties will be in opposition to the civic drive of the nation

regionalism - strong regional identities can hinder the construction of a larger national identity and the development of a larger civic state

religion - one dominant religion becomes premordial in its ties and tries to impose itself on the new nation, or another religious group wants to assert their identity at the cost of the structure of the larger nation state

language - example: pakistan and bangladesh

to develop a complex civic state, primordial ties will have to open up. people will have to accept being a part of the larger project of the nation