Apologies for the lack of posting - the day jobs have been taking up a lot of time of late. This also means there's less conclusions and more questions in this post. Ok, no conclusions...
In the last post I wondered about the change in human emotions indirectly rooted in the development of the rectangular house, and about what (if anything) the history of emotions may be able to explore from early human development.
Some more thoughts on that theme, also stemming from Peter Watson's excellent 'Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud'.
The first city is generally believed to be Eridu in southern Iraq, founded around 5400BCE. It was believed to have had a population of around 27,500-55,000 and was around 41 hectares. It shold be noted that cities did not generally get much bigger for many thousands of years. Rome for example was only twice as large as another Sumerian city, Uruk, five thousand years later. In other words this fundamental change from rural to urban remained fairly static for thousands of years and so many common dynamics of human interaction would remain constant as empires, kingdoms and city states rose and fell.
What happened here? The cities of Sumeria gave us inventions that are amongst the most truly profound of all humanity and are worth considering here for a moment. They gave us writing, the wheel, the first schools, the first clocks, the first libraries and legal codes, the first arch that is so crucial to all architecture and shapes the buildings that shape our lives. The list goes on and is astonishing in its profoundity.
If one considers the thoughts of Prof David Edgerton of Imperial College, London, and his work 'The Shock of the Old: Technology in Global History Since 1900', then one realises the scale of such achievements that are still so crucial to our everyday lives today. (I wrote about this briefly here.)
These are the inventions which not just affect our lives but actually permeate our consciousness.
What has this to do with emotions and their history? Those most eminent emotionologists, Carol and Peter Stearns wrote about the impact of the novel on the emotions of western men and women two hundred and fifty years ago (i wrote about this a wee while ago). What then was the impact of writing itself? We know that mankind was already wrestling with so many emotional dilemmas through its myths and histories, but also through such wonderful insights as the ancient Egyptian text 'The dispute between a man and his soul.'
The impact of writing upon our emotional history has to be staggering, with impacts ranging beyond the effects of the words and idea written to the very mirror of our selves that writing is. Who can doubt the impact of a mirror on our mood when we see ourselves in it, and relate this to our sights of others. So it surely must be with writing. Add to that the technological revolutions spawned by the written word that changed our lives and their emotional impact.
If writing is the most profound of these wondrous inventions on our emotional history, the wheel's impact may seem odd, and yet perhaps deserves a place. A wheel that allows massive material changes from food production to building and warfare (through it's use in the chariot) changed the nature and speed of human life creating a whole different dynamic to our lives, from the range of influences of increased trade and its corollary opening up of ideas to the pressures and liberation and living in greater numbers.
And this last point I think is another crucial one that needs attention. How does living in such numbers and so close together affect our emotional selves? Does every city has common emotional dynamics to contend with? Do they share solutions, or in what ways does our diversity mean myriad solutions to common problems?
As our demographic shifts in the West and we move towards more individualised lives with greater personal space and the world as a whole becomes more urban what, if anything, can those first cities teach us about how we can cope with their concomitant emotional pressures?
Showing posts with label Carol Stearns. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Carol Stearns. Show all posts
Monday, 4 May 2009
Friday, 13 February 2009
The novel is a mirror to my heart.
“Oh wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursel's as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion”
Robert Burns, 'To a Louse'
To you precious few who care to read, and care, i apologise for taking so long to write.
Watching a BBC4 documentary the other day has set me thinking. The piece was called 'How reading made us modern' and laid claim to the idea that the liberalisation of printing through the ending of the Licensing Act in 1695 created the foundation for mass literacy and a mass social transformation both public and private. Within a few years Britain went from having but a handful of books available and only at Royal discretion, to a cacophony of script, from book to journal to journalism and newspaper.
From the literary torrent came a rising tide of literacy and a new form of literature that spoke to a people keen to listen. The novel gained prominence as a style, and helped create a whole new wider group of readers, particularly in women.
Presenter John Mullan noted the link between the novel and the rise of the female 'bluestocking' salon (with examples like Elizabeth Montague), and its role in finding a voice for women - through the empowerment of literacy and the opportunity to meet and discuss the themes contained within the stories.
It also made me wonder about the role of the novel in our emotional development.
Peter and Carol Stearns amongst others have already highlighted how angry and unrestrained emotions were in the UK and Britain around this time. They also showed how during the 18th and 19th century these feelings began to become more controlled and 'civilised'.
Of course I couldn't claim the novel was the sole key to this, not least as the Stearns have shown plenty of other factors.
However, as Mullan pointed out the novel told people about themselves by writing about others. It held a mirror up to society and allowed it to see itself as others saw it. And in seeing themselves might not it have given them an empathy previously lacking, bestowed some greater compassion that recognised the impact of those brute emotions and realised the need for more control in various public and private spheres?
If the novel is accepted as transforming our private intellectual life, it cannot fail to have done something similar to our emotional life.
Is the novel still that same transformer, a redeemer to reflect our current iniquities? if the novel withers, or grows stale, what then shall take its place?
Surely not blogs?
To see oursel's as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion”
Robert Burns, 'To a Louse'
To you precious few who care to read, and care, i apologise for taking so long to write.
Watching a BBC4 documentary the other day has set me thinking. The piece was called 'How reading made us modern' and laid claim to the idea that the liberalisation of printing through the ending of the Licensing Act in 1695 created the foundation for mass literacy and a mass social transformation both public and private. Within a few years Britain went from having but a handful of books available and only at Royal discretion, to a cacophony of script, from book to journal to journalism and newspaper.
From the literary torrent came a rising tide of literacy and a new form of literature that spoke to a people keen to listen. The novel gained prominence as a style, and helped create a whole new wider group of readers, particularly in women.
Presenter John Mullan noted the link between the novel and the rise of the female 'bluestocking' salon (with examples like Elizabeth Montague), and its role in finding a voice for women - through the empowerment of literacy and the opportunity to meet and discuss the themes contained within the stories.
It also made me wonder about the role of the novel in our emotional development.
Peter and Carol Stearns amongst others have already highlighted how angry and unrestrained emotions were in the UK and Britain around this time. They also showed how during the 18th and 19th century these feelings began to become more controlled and 'civilised'.
Of course I couldn't claim the novel was the sole key to this, not least as the Stearns have shown plenty of other factors.
However, as Mullan pointed out the novel told people about themselves by writing about others. It held a mirror up to society and allowed it to see itself as others saw it. And in seeing themselves might not it have given them an empathy previously lacking, bestowed some greater compassion that recognised the impact of those brute emotions and realised the need for more control in various public and private spheres?
If the novel is accepted as transforming our private intellectual life, it cannot fail to have done something similar to our emotional life.
Is the novel still that same transformer, a redeemer to reflect our current iniquities? if the novel withers, or grows stale, what then shall take its place?
Surely not blogs?
Monday, 26 January 2009
Expressions of love
You'd think I'd be posting more whilst not working but it's amazing how everything slows down. Anyway...
The mainstream of emotion history suggests that in the pre-industrial period life was much more angry, with less love in everyday relationships, despite some wonderful art describing passion in many different amorous flowers. Rarely though is affection described for one's husband or wife and often violence seemed ubiquitous throughout Western European and American society.
However perhaps there was more love out there in the medieval air than early studies suggest. John Gillis has written eloquently on the subject in an essay entitled from 'Ritual to Romance: Toward an Alternative History of Love'. (from the book 'Emotion: Toward a New Psychohistory', edited by Carol and Peter Stearns).
His point is that love as it's defined now is about love as internal feeling and intimacy, when this is something from the beginnings of the 19th century. Francesca Cancian described it as the 'feminisation' of love, where emotion became to be associated with women in the domestic sphere and men lacked such things in their quest for rationality in the world of work and power.
It is a standard that exists today and is still recognisable though Gillis feels it inappropriate for judging emotions before the 19th Century. He suggests that love had many definitions and forms across cultures, classes and time we find a range of expressions of love that can surprise us.
In a sense it should come as no surprise. Psychologists viewed emotion as a private, internal matter and historians sought out historical examples of expressions of this through diaries and letters and the like. Yet anthropologists have for decades been studying emotion as a social construct designed to deal with the relationship between group and individual behaviour. Whilst both yield insight and have weaknesses, it is only recently that viewing emotion in the latter form has been applied to our own Western History.
The visible behaviours tell us much about love back then. For example kissing was not so private as it is now, and kissing as an expression of love was apparently more public, and more painful with a likelihood of blood being drawn. These were public marks and intended as such, as declarations of emotion felt. Bodily fluids were also key to this, as the body was not just expressing emotion but was the emotion.
Two examples, both astonishing to the modern heart and mind:
"In Wales, a young man proved his love to a girl by urinating on her dress, a practice known locally as rhythu." (p92)
And even in the 19th Century, courting in the French countryside was a violent affair.
"First they exchange glances, then casual remarks, then heavy witticisms. The young man shoves at the girl, thumps her hard on the back, takes her hand and squeezes it in a bone cracking grip. She responds to this tender gesture by punching him in the back." (p92)
As a physical and not psychic condition, love was treated to the same controls as other physical urges and love magic became immensely popular despite its pagan roots. And the major rituals of love were far more public affairs than they are now. These days we give lovers privacy to nurture private feeling. Then, love through courtship, betrothal and marriage was a far more social experience that the whole community engaged in and this was necessary to establish legitimacy in the absence of written contracts. Indeed the couple themselves were at the centre of a virtual festival of action that centred on them only partly.
Perhaps our assumption that certain things are constant and unchanging is the only constant in a world that has changed so much...
The mainstream of emotion history suggests that in the pre-industrial period life was much more angry, with less love in everyday relationships, despite some wonderful art describing passion in many different amorous flowers. Rarely though is affection described for one's husband or wife and often violence seemed ubiquitous throughout Western European and American society.
However perhaps there was more love out there in the medieval air than early studies suggest. John Gillis has written eloquently on the subject in an essay entitled from 'Ritual to Romance: Toward an Alternative History of Love'. (from the book 'Emotion: Toward a New Psychohistory', edited by Carol and Peter Stearns).
His point is that love as it's defined now is about love as internal feeling and intimacy, when this is something from the beginnings of the 19th century. Francesca Cancian described it as the 'feminisation' of love, where emotion became to be associated with women in the domestic sphere and men lacked such things in their quest for rationality in the world of work and power.
It is a standard that exists today and is still recognisable though Gillis feels it inappropriate for judging emotions before the 19th Century. He suggests that love had many definitions and forms across cultures, classes and time we find a range of expressions of love that can surprise us.
In a sense it should come as no surprise. Psychologists viewed emotion as a private, internal matter and historians sought out historical examples of expressions of this through diaries and letters and the like. Yet anthropologists have for decades been studying emotion as a social construct designed to deal with the relationship between group and individual behaviour. Whilst both yield insight and have weaknesses, it is only recently that viewing emotion in the latter form has been applied to our own Western History.
The visible behaviours tell us much about love back then. For example kissing was not so private as it is now, and kissing as an expression of love was apparently more public, and more painful with a likelihood of blood being drawn. These were public marks and intended as such, as declarations of emotion felt. Bodily fluids were also key to this, as the body was not just expressing emotion but was the emotion.
Two examples, both astonishing to the modern heart and mind:
"In Wales, a young man proved his love to a girl by urinating on her dress, a practice known locally as rhythu." (p92)
And even in the 19th Century, courting in the French countryside was a violent affair.
"First they exchange glances, then casual remarks, then heavy witticisms. The young man shoves at the girl, thumps her hard on the back, takes her hand and squeezes it in a bone cracking grip. She responds to this tender gesture by punching him in the back." (p92)
As a physical and not psychic condition, love was treated to the same controls as other physical urges and love magic became immensely popular despite its pagan roots. And the major rituals of love were far more public affairs than they are now. These days we give lovers privacy to nurture private feeling. Then, love through courtship, betrothal and marriage was a far more social experience that the whole community engaged in and this was necessary to establish legitimacy in the absence of written contracts. Indeed the couple themselves were at the centre of a virtual festival of action that centred on them only partly.
Perhaps our assumption that certain things are constant and unchanging is the only constant in a world that has changed so much...
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