Afterward- Scraping By

Afterward- Scraping By

During this week’s discussing of Scraping By, we focused on Professor Rockman’s definitions of class and capitalism and their implications on his analysis of lower class life in Baltimore during the Early Republic. As Professor Rockman explained, his study was based on a “stripped-down” construction of class, which he defined as a set of power relations within capitalism. He drew parallels with other categories of social difference based in power relations, such as gender, defined as power relations within patriarchy, and racism, defined as power relations within white supremacy. This characterization presents a challenge to conventional notions of class, which are centered on class-consciousness and identity. These dominant models posit class as the defining factor of material realities and lived experiences, leading to debates between scholars in various fields regarding the relative oppression of historical subjects. Prevailing definitions of class also produce questions about why proletarian communities throughout time and space did or did not develop class-consciousness, and why they were or were not moved to resistance.

As Rockman argued, and many of us agreed, a “stripped-down” definition of class frees historians and their readers from these futile debates. The construction of class that Rockman employs in this book assumes that capitalism creates a division between those who sell their labor and those who buy it, and that the prosperity of the latter is contingent on the oppression of the former. By virtue of their position in the political economy, those who sell their labor form a socioeconomic class and share similar lived experiences. To say that class shapes these experiences is not to negate the effects of other aspects of identity, such as race, gender, sexuality, and ability, nor is it to preference class over other categories of difference. By constructing class as an operative, but not totalizing, force, Rockman and other historians are attempting to push past the struggles of identity politics in order to explore material reality of historical subjects in classed societies. In his book, Rockman acknowledged the ways in which gender, race, and legal status created different limitations and opportunities for different people, but focused on the similar strategies that people of the same class developed in order to survive.

In addition to advancing our understanding of class in relation to other categories of difference, this definition of class moves us away from debates about consciousness and resistance. This model challenges the dominant, teleological understanding of class, in which the natural end of classed society should be working class consciousness of capitalist power relations and resistance to these structures. It shifts our attention from questions about how and why people mobilize around a shared class identity, and towards questions about their material reality within class structures. For this reason, Rockman’s book focuses on how people lived rather than how they saw themselves. At the same time, Rockman recognizes that class-consciousness was obscured by race, gender, and legal status, and that perceived differences prevent people of the same class from recognizing their commonalities. In class, he interrogated the Marxist notions of “false consciousness” projected onto workers by employees, and acknowledged the role of workers in producing these divisions. (Compensating for their class position with “wages of whiteness,” masculinity, etc.)

Despite the fact that considerable attention was given to this subject during our discussion, I am still confused about a few things. Firstly, Rockman’s paradigm reconstructs “class” to mirror definitions of other categories of difference, and insists that all aspects of identity are intersecting rather than in competition with one another. At the same time, in foregrounding other differences with similarities based in class, and acknowledging the role of various forms of social difference in preventing the formation of class consciousness, it seems that this model is still saying that class is different from all the rest. What I am still struggling with is how to qualify this difference, and how the distinct qualities of class affect our understanding of other aspects of identity. Secondly, while I do not believe it is the role of the historian to prescribe solutions to historical problems, I am not sure what to do with these new tools for analysis. This book made me question how I think about class, and pushed my understanding beyond identity and resistance. At the same time, while I think that defining class in terms of consciousness is limiting, I also think it is important to draw upon the experiences and struggles of historical subjects to desconstruct power relations in the present. I disagree with Mike’s argument that this definition of class is merely descriptive and not causal or analytic- this model clearly identifies capitalism as the cause of class formation, and analyzes how people live within class structures (without claiming class as the single or central factor). However, it seems that by ignoring how people understand themselves, we lose our ability to understand what drives people to resist. We risk forfeiting answers to important, albeit limiting, questions about how people come to see themselves as part of an oppressed class and take action. (And in doing so, we lose our ability to use this information to resist against contemporary power structures, which of course are based in the past.) How then, do we balance a history based in material reality with questions of subjectivity and consciousness?

Framing Essay- March 30th

Susan Beaty
Framing Essay- 3/29/09

This weeks readings featured an essay on agency in historical analysis by Walter Johnson and three pieces that focused on different aspects of the class formation in the Early Republic. While I feel that it is worth discussing the points raised by each of these essays separately, there are a few central themes that I would like to suggest for this week’s seminar.

As Stephen suggests in his framing essay, it might be useful to examine these readings through the lens of Johnson’s conclusions on agency. In this article, Johnson challenges the practice of “giving agency” to oppressed historical subjects, namely slaves, and calls for a new framework for historical analysis. He argues that there is a tendency in New Social History to conflate “humanity, agency, and resistance” by defining slaves as liberal historical subjects with free will, “discovering” the enslaved subject’s struggle to assert their own humanity, and equating acts of humanity with resistance to a system predicated on dehumanization. Johnson explains that this narrative produces narrow definitions of historical subjects and resistance that must be reconsidered; he insists that acts of humanity do not always amount to resistance, and that there are forms of resistance in between and beyond narrow conceptions of “everyday” and “revolutionary” action. Johnson’s central conclusion is that while “giving agency” was once a radical, politicized act of solidarity, it is now an obligatory and self-serving practice. Through, “some knowing laughter and a few ironic asides about the moral idiocy and contradictory philosophy of slaveholders,” historians align themselves with the historical “other,” in order to, “…make ourselves feel better and more righteous rather than to make the world better or more righteous” (121). Johnson says that we must move away from “rhetorical and performative gestures,” which have, “very few costs and, for white scholars are least, more than a few benefits,” (120) and begin to formulate new frameworks for addressing present oppressions based in the past.

While I agree that Johnson provides an incredibly useful critique of current historiographical practices, I find it difficult to imagine the kind of historical writing that Johnson is calling for. For example, in this weeks’ readings, Osborn, Bushman, and Sellers (via Gienapp) examine the hegemonic power of the middling and upper classes in the 19th century through their discussions of medical discourses on alcoholism, the cultural mechanisms of gentility, and the expansion of capitalism in the antebellum U.S. Each author makes the same safe criticisms of the discriminatory (classist, racist, sexist) ideologies of the dominant groups that Johnson alludes to in his piece at no personal risk. Osborn shows us how the medical establishment upheld class norms through differentiated diagnoses of alcohol abuse, thus creating, “… a distinction between the hopeless depravity of impoverished drunkards and the troubling failure of middle class inebriates.” Bushman discusses the ways in which the middle and upper classes justified the creation of a U.S. aristocracy by constructing a mythical egalitarian gentility that attempted to reconcile genteel culture with republicanism, capitalism, and traditional middle class values. Sellers paints Jacksonian America as a time of class conflict between an oppressive capitalist class and a oppressed, pre-capitalist lower class, wherein the former forced an economic shift towards free market capitalism on the former. He demonizes the business classes that used the legal and political systems to shape U.S. capitalism, and, “attributes no redeeming qualities to middle-class Americans” that valued social mobility. Thus, each of these authors acknowledges the collective, historical “agency” of the ruling classes and in doing so and condemns their use of hegemonic power. What do we make of this? In what ways do each of these authors align themselves with historically disadvantaged groups, and how does the agency of lower class subjects inform their arguments? Are these authors making the same “rhetorical gestures” that Johnson discussed in his essay, or are their criticisms of oppressive groups constructive? Are all of these arguments safe and depoliticized or are these authors taking risk or being innovative in their conclusions? What would Johnson have to say about these three narratives, and how might he change them to be more productive?

Another discussion topic that I would like to explore is the conflict between elitism and egalitarianism during this period. Both Osborn and Bushman explore the need for the middle and upper classes to reconcile their choices, lifestyle, and at times their very existence, with the revolutionary myths of republicanism and equality. In Osborn’s essay he discusses how the advent of alcohol abuse in the 1810s forced Philadelphia’s medical establishment to explain alcoholism in terms of contemporary social and economic structures. Doctors asserted that there was a difference between the “intemperance” of the poor, based in their moral degradation and inferiority, and the medical disorders of the middle and upper classes that could be diagnosed and treated. By creating two, classed versions of alcohol abuse the medical complex accounted for poverty and economic failure while reinforced the power of the middle and upper classes, thus perpetuating the myth of equal opportunity. Similarly, in Bushman’s discussion of gentility in the 19th century, he explains how the emerging aristocracy struggled to reconcile an imported, European genteel culture with U.S. values. He argues that the expression of gentility was a means of creating class authority and asserting class identity and difference, and that the U.S. elite turned to emulation of European gentility because it was the only tool they had at their disposal. This created problems, as gentility stood at odds with radical republicanism and middle class values of industry and hard work, but the aristocracy solved this by constructing a myth of accessible gentility. As Bushman points out, gentility was originally a cultural revolution in that it made it possible to purchase power rather than just inherit it. The elite classes of the early republic built on this narrative and insisted on an accessible, democratic gentility, welcoming everyone into society, “but only on elite terms.” By examining the case of the black elite, who “bought into the culture of refinement” but were ultimately excluded from the refined gentry, Bushman proves that the aim of the elite was, “to separate themselves from the lower classes, not to assimilate them.” (439) Thus, both authors show how the ruling classes struggled to explain the hypocrisy inherent to the American social order. What other examples of this have we seen this semester? Drawing on Morgan and Bouton, what are the historical roots of this contradiction? Where can we see the legacy of this hypocrisy in contemporary U.S. culture?