Blog 2: Message and Medium

“The Catholic Dilemma,” Chapter 3 of Printing, Propaganda, and Martin Luther, by Mark U. Edwards, Jr. pgs 57-82.

Summary:

This chapter talks about the disadvantages faced by Catholic supporters in responding to Luther and his supporters.  Edwards’s main argument is “both the medium and the message favored the Evangelical position” (57). He discusses how vernacular pamphlets can be bought and accessed (either by reading it or having it read to them) by anyone and encouraged lay involvement.  This was an advantage for Luther, but for his opponents “the Catholic pamphlets did what they argued should not be done” (58), i.e. they granted the public access to debates the Catholic church felt should be privately discussed among the clergy.  Additionally, in order to rebut Luther’s arguments, his opponents had to first restate them.  This meant that by publishing rebuttals they were actually helping spread the Reformist message!  Edwards also discusses how Murner, one of Luther’s greatest opponents, confused some of Luther’s arguments as he restated them.  Whether this was done inadvertently or willfully cannot be determined.  Edwards noted, “Catholic publicists could propagate ideas they deplored in the mistaken belief that that which repelled them would repel others” (73-74).  In the last part of the chapter, we learn that it “was not until the second half of the sixteenth century … that the institutional church began an organized effort to counter Evangelical controversial writing” (78).  Edwards gives several reasons for this lag of several decades:

·         The Church “thought mainly in terms of intervention by authorities,” not printing (78).

·         Catholics “were defending … an existing institution, whose faults and flaws were apparent,” while the Evangelicals were only defending ideals.  “It took some time for the Evangelicals to build their own imperfect institutions and thus become vulnerable to the criticism that reality differed significantly from the ideals they espoused” (79).

·         “Normally one does not even argue with outlaws… Further debate only gave apparent legitimacy to the Evangelical claim that there was something to debate” (79).

·         “Dissonance between the medium—hundreds of easily circulated pamphlets—and the message—common people should not discuss matters of faith since the discussions subverted proper authority—may have inhibited the Catholic response” (80).

·         “The Evangelical message was more easily propagated by the press than the Catholic message.  Evangelical emphasis on the word, and especially the word of Scripture, lent itself to written argument.   Catholicism, in contrast, was more ‘visually’ and ‘ritually’ oriented,” relying on the authority of tradition, which the Evangelicals did not accept (81).

My Opinion:

I chose this selection, because it is a point of view that I never considered before.  Particularly the ideas about how the medium can support or detract from the message are fascinating to me.  I’ve been thinking about other messages and how this idea ties in.  One example is today’s political messages.  Media today is fast, and emphasizes style over substance.  This type of medium lends itself really well to the sound bite and negative ads, but would actually detract from any kind of substantive policy descriptions, making them seem weak and less important, when in fact they are what the public actually needs in order to make informed decisions.  I think that this happened with the Catholic response to the Evangelicals—the medium weakened their arguments.  For them, they just had to concede the point a little as they began publishing.  What can we do in the political arena today?  The politicians’ answer has been to turn more and more to negative campaigning, sound bites, and staged photo opportunities.  Yet the more substantial messages need to be heard—we have a very uninformed public.  It seems that the only choice is to choose a different medium.  The problem is that there is not much of a market for a different medium.  In thinking about this example and reading this chapter, I really started to feel for the Catholic Church—their dilemma was much bigger than they probably realized at the time.  I also got a better understanding of why the Reformation really took off as it did, and how the printing press could have made such a big difference even in a mostly oral society.  The existence and availability of printed material, regardless of the words it contained, was a message all on its own—one that supported the cause of the Reformation.

I’d like to discuss another idea in this chapter that conflicts me a little.  This quote is Edwards summarizing Murner’s opinion: “Commoners could not separate the ‘sound and Christian’ from that which was ‘false and mixed with poison [and] also pungent with acidic comments.’  The ‘pious simple Christian’ did not understand how subtly falsehood is mixed with truth and the devilish angel transforms itself into the angel of light” (62).  I am very conflicted by this, because, honestly, I agree with Murner.  People are very gullible, easily distracted by media hype and misled by unfounded rumor and gossip.  Look at things like the “Y2K” crisis. Companies had to spend a lot of money on advertising that their clients were safe from the Y2K bogeyman because the public got so hyped up about a nonexistent problem.  And don’t get me started on all the crazy gossip about various public figures—and we just eat it all up, and aren’t even fazed when half of it turns out to not be true.  We’re still hungry for more.  In matters of religion, a lot of this happens as well.  There are so many completely different messages out there that a lot of people don’t know what to believe, so they often either believe everything or nothing.  On the other hand, I believe we do have a right to know, to think for ourselves, and to make informed decisions.  And I also believe in freedom of the press and am against government censorship.  I think the only way out of what Murner describes is education.  I think a lot of it needs to happen in the home—parents need to teach their children to sift through the mass of information available to us, and to distinguish truth from lies.  Teaching a healthy skepticism to your children probably seems counterintuitive to most parents because, like the Catholic church in Luther’s time, they don’t want “the way things are” and “because I said so” to be up for debate.  But with children being faced with decisions that can affect the rest of their lives at younger and younger ages, we need them to know how to think critically and sift the sound information from the falsehoods.  I don’t know how feasible that is, but it’s all we’ve got.

Blog 1: About Me and Defining Terms

Part I: About Me

My name is Rachel Brown. I am an air force brat, so I'm not really from anywhere other than the United States. I've lived in Utah, New Orleans (that's where I learned to talk, so I used to have a really cute Southern accent, but it's gone now...), Northern California, Maryland, Las Vegas, Central Coast California, Germany, and, last (for now, anyways...), but not least, San Antonio. I am 24 years old (I turn 25 in a few weeks). I am a Statistics major with a second major in Mathematics. I want to go to grad school and study Epidemiology, and work in medical research. I am a very spiritual person, and God, religion, morals, and ethics are really important to me. I am a really empathetic person, so reaching out and doing things for others is really important to me as well. This has led me to serve as a missionary for my church, teach math and ESL, and has fueled my passion to be involved in research that can improve the lives of others. I could not do without God, especially the peace I've found in times of trial. I know that sounds cliché, but it's the most honest answer I can give.

Part II: Defining Terms

My favorite definitions of…

Media: (For the purposes of this class, I am going to interpret this as mass media.) a method of conveyance or expression in order to communicate, intending to reach the mass of the people (combination of several definitions from Merriam-Webster)

Social Changes:   Social process whereby the values, attitudes, or institutions of society, such as education, family, religion, and industry become modified. It includes both the natural process and action programs initiated by members of the community. (Webster’s Online Dictionary)

Propaganda: the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person (Merriam-Webster)

History: a branch of knowledge that records and explains past events (Merriam-Webster)

I think that media and propaganda have a great deal of influence on large-scale history, such as the history of an entire country.  On a personal level, personal relationships are the most influential in one’s history, but when you look at a state or country, one can’t have personal relationships with the entire group, so means of communication become vital for group identity and decision-making, which in turn affects actions and events, which become recorded as history.  Also, since records are so vital to history, at times media is history.  Everything about propaganda is important to history, such as the reasons it becomes necessary, the groups executing it, the ideals behind it (and usually the controversy surrounding those ideals), the propaganda itself, its credibility among the target audience, and their reactions to it.  Each of these aspects both reflect the flow of history and direct it.  With propaganda and other forms of media, the cause/effect relationship with history is confused; sometimes changes in history cause changes in media, and sometimes it is the other way around.

Blog 10: Slavery

Autobiography of Omar Ibn Seid, Slave in North Carolina, 1831:

The introduction labels this excerpt as a description of Omar’s “alleged transformation from a Muslim into a Christian,” and indicates that Omar likely “continued his faith in Islam under a superficial Christian guise.”  I didn’t find explicit evidence of this in this excerpt: he certainly said all the “right things.”  However, there were some hints.  First of all, he refers to his captors, their language, and country as “the Christians” as though to separate himself from being one of them.  Also, I mentioned that Omar said all the “right things.”  In a way, they sound memorized, like he is saying something he thinks he is supposed to say.  However, I feel that this is flimsy evidence, and wouldn’t want to judge someone’s religious beliefs thus.  Omar describes his first master very colorfully, as “a small, weak, and wicked man, … a complete infidel, who had no fear of God at all”, who “did [not] read (the gospel) at all nor pray”, and “a man so depraved and who committed so many crimes.”  On the other hand, Omar praises Jim Owen, saying that he is “a good man, who fears God, and loves to do good.”  Omar is grateful to be clothed, fed, and permitted by Owen to read “the gospel of God, our Lord, and Saviour, and King.”  He claims, “I neither go hungry nor naked, and I have no hard work to do.”  I can’t tell how much of this is what Omar feels he is “supposed” to say, and how much of it is how he really feels.

The Insurrection:

Here Garrison reminds “the South that slaves did not need to be urged to rebel by outsiders; rather the abuses suffered on a daily basis were sufficient.”  He does this by listing, rather poetically, all the incentives that the slaves had to rebel:

“The slaves need no incentives at our hands.  They will find them in their stripes—in their emaciated bodies—in their ceaseless toil—in their ignorant minds—in every field, in every valley, on every hill-top and mountain, wherever you and your fathers have fought for liberty—in your speeches, your conversations, your pamphlets, your newspapers—voices in the air, sounds from across the ocean, invitations to resistance above, below, around them!  What more do they need?  Surrounded by such influences, and smarting under their newly made wounds, is it wonderful that they should rise to contend—as other “heroes” have contended—for their lost rights?” (pg. 322-323)

Garrison is very clever (and very controversial) in referring to the slaves as “heroes”.  Then he compares them to Greeks fighting the Turks, Poles fighting the Russians, and “our fathers” fighting the British.  These comparisons are very evocative, and probably outraged many of his readers.

The American Anti-Slavery Society Declares Its Sentiments:

These are the arguments I found most persuasive: 

• “The sin is as great to enslave an American as an African.”  I guess the African slave trade had ended at this point.  This statement is attacking the process of enslaving African Americans simply because of their color, and points out that there is no difference between enslaving someone in Africa and enslaving someone else in America.  I find this persuasive because Garrison is comparing something that is illegal with something currently legal.

• Biblical references, such as Exodus 21:16 (“And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.”)  Most Americans accepted the Bible as the ultimate authority, and it was already being used to support slavery, so to counter with a commandment against slavery is very persuasive.

• His recognition that the states had the right to legislate on slavery, and that the federal government could only regulate interstate trade of slaves—this is a power not enunciated in the Constitution, and therefore given to the States.  If more people had recognized this, there might not have been a Civil War, because states might not have felt the need to secede.

I don’t know how to evaluate the efforts of the AASS, because one of their principle goals was to avoid “the use of all carnal weapons for deliverance from bondage” (war), and that’s exactly what happened.  So, in that light, their efforts might not have been very effective at all.  Surely they did convince some people, so I won’t say they weren’t important.  But I don’t think things turned out the way they wanted.

Blog 9: Service Learning

1.      I participated in the Cystic Fibrosis Fundraiser and Climb.  My role was to help with the tabling and make the flyers.  I also went to the climb.

2.      Pros: getting to feel like you’re a part of something bigger, thinking about someone else for a change, getting out of the classroom, building “team spirit”, learning more about cooperation, strengthening our planning skills, having fun!

Cons: it did use up some class time we could have spent on something else.

3.      I learned that it’s really important to be clear when explaining an issue.  When we were tabling, some people were really confused when we tried to tell them what we were doing.  How we explained cystic fibrosis often made a difference in how people reacted (i.e. if they gave us money…).  I also learned that bureaucracy is hard to penetrate.  When we tried to get food to sell to earn the money, there were lots of nit-picky things that the different businesses came up with as reasons to tell us no. Sometimes people genuinely wanted to help but couldn’t because of various bureaucratic provisions.  I also learned that even though what we did felt small, it multiplied into something big because of the great advertising and PR for the entire event.  Seeing how difficult earning our money was gave me a greater appreciation for what the organizers of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation do.  I can’t imagine how much work it would be to put on the whole event.

4.      I learned that NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) have very talented people working for them.  They are able to get corporations to sponsor them and donate lots of money by clever advertising and public relations in general.  I also learned that a fair amount of money gets spent on things not directly related to the cause—for example, salaries, and things to make the events flashier like food and t-shirts.  There would be more money for cystic fibrosis research if the companies that donated food and stuff donated money instead.  But I also understand the need for events to be fun and interesting so more people will participate.  I guess what I learned, then, is that you have to spend money to make money.  I also learned the importance of hiring people who know what they are doing.  Professionalism is something that helps the NGOs run smoothly and efficiently.  I never was very sure before if NGOs needed to have professionals on their payroll, but I now believe it to be necessary.  I think that the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation seems to operate pretty well—their events seem to go well anyways, and they provide good information on their website.  I can’t speak for all NGOs; I’m sure some operate better than others.

5.      I doubt there is anyone in the public who would say they don’t care about poverty, hunger, sickness, raising awareness, or fair housing.  But what they are willing to do about it is the big thing.  It’s so easy to get wrapped up in your life and not think about greater social issues.  I think it’s really important for groups like the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and Habitat for Humanity to host events and advertise, because it gets us to stop what we’re doing and think about social problems for a minute.  I felt that the various volunteers we met during the event were pretty generous—they were willing to give of their time to do something really repetitive like handing out name-badges for hours at a time, or get up early on a Saturday to sing, or walk up and down the stairs to find people that needed help.  There were more people involved, generously giving of their time, than I expected.

6.      I learned that when I do little things, it may not feel like much, but it adds to all the other people doing little things to make a big difference.  I realized that even though it often takes a lot of people working together to make something big happen, my efforts are a valuable part of that.  I think that groups have several advantages in projects of this type: more people are exposed to the ideas and issues involved, having people around as you work boosts morale, and you get more accomplished.  The main drawback of working together is that it takes longer to come to a consensus on methods.  Lots of discussion happens, and it takes a while for differing opinions to merge into a workable plan.  The slow start is made up by increased returns and greater motivation, though.

7.       The overall value of a collective volunteer action such as the Cystic Fibrosis Fundraiser and Climb or Habitat for Humanity is high.  Even if we can’t address every issue or affect every person in need, it’s important for us to do what we can, and remember that we make a world of difference to the individuals we do help.  Also, collective volunteer actions help the volunteers as much as those they are trying to serve.  I think engaging in volunteer work makes for better people.

8.      I think that world issues have to be addressed at the local level.  That is where ordinary citizens have the most power to act, so it is where the greatest amount of people can be involved.  Policy-makers certainly have a role, but I think that the average citizen doing average things is where people’s minds and hearts are changed, and that is where real change starts.  All these issues like poverty, hunger, sickness, lack of housing—governments can help, but not without some changes in society at large.  That is where getting involved at the local level—making it personal—makes a difference.  Our attitudes will have to change before governmental programs will be very effective.  We need to help the people around us, get our hands dirty, be our brother’s keeper—all of that.  The local level is where we can form habits of service, and lots of individual habits can change a society.