[Xmca-l] Re: As of 2020, the American Century is Over

[White, Phillip]

Helena - like you i love memories - and your memory of your day in front of the Haymarket memorial in Chicago was highly evocative.  though i confess to taking the East Indian's comment with a marked grain of salt. the memories that Modi is presently celebrating could be considered by moslems as deeply problematic. after all, not only are memories highly unreliable, but when they're sanctioned by the state, then in my opinion there is even greater reason for a sense of dubiousness regarding what's being memorialised.

here in Colorado, the 1914 Ludlow massacre has a memorial.  it's little visited placed in an obscure place  and now that unions have so little power here in colorado, the deaths can formally recognised, in fact it is thought that for the entire coal strike at the time the union suffered the greatest number of deaths of any union strike in the nation.

in 1925 South High School here in Denver was built, as took as its mascot, Johnny Reb, the school flag was the confederate flag, and the school song was Dixie. and of course, that period of american history saw confederate memorials erected across the nation, in memory of "the lost cause".

Wertsch wrote very movingly about Estonian children attending public school's in Estonia after the invasion and occupation of Estonia by the Russian Soviets, and contrasting the history of Estonia propagated by the Russian-centric curriculum to individual family memories of Estonia in the 1920's and 30's.  one advantage the Estonia students had was to be found in their attics, for example, of pre-Soviet texts, magazines, novels, newspapers, etc., family photo albums, that clearly contradicted the sanctioned state memory.

yet, even so, family memories too are unreliable.  a great example of that is Daniel Mendelsohn's "The Lost".  as a serious academic, Mendelsohn researches his own family history, illuminating thickets of secrets and information obscured by time.

so memories are a start for unearthing what political states have buried.  yes. as the police office said, "I'm just a nobody".  so did Albert Speer.  and ironically, so did Emily Dickinson say the same thing. context is everything.

and i bet that what brought the Chicago Police to the Haymarket memorial wasn't because of what the memorial represented, but rather what the Anarchists represented. although, perhaps there is another history here that the chicago police were remembering.  after the labor demonstration at Haymarket square, and the bombing and the trial, a memorial was erected at the site, and tall pillar with a chicago police officer atop it.  in time it was moved as a traffic hazard to Union Park.  in 1970 that monument was bombed and the police officer toppled.  however, it was replaced with a new monument, again surmounted by a chicago police officer. at present the statue, no longer on a pedestal, stands in front of the chicago police academy.

so, in retrospect, yeah, now i think you're probably right that there was a direct connection to the Haymarket memorial - and again, i think that this is evidence of not just different but competing for dominance particular figured worlds.  so possibly your theory of history could embody figured worlds as well.

phillip





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