Power Is Spelled G.O.D.

              Year after year on the first day of school, I’ve received a handout explaining the stages of punishment in the classroom. You know what I’m talking about: it starts with a verbal warning and ends with you and your parents in the principal’s office. Teachers like us to know we can’t get away with acting out in their classes. But can you blame them? They can’t let their students walk all over them; they need to keep us in line. This past week in class, we discussed what people in power should do when their power is threatened. To start off, we went through a background reading that describes the representatives from each country that attended the Congress of Vienna. We then looked at a reading that focuses on the problems the Congress of Vienna was trying to solve and chose which solution we thought would be best. We worked in small groups and posted our reasons for choosing our desired solutions on our class padlet. After seeing how we, as a class, would solve the problems, we took notes on how these problems were actually solved. The way my classmates chose to handle the 19^th century loss of power were not the ways those actually present in the 19^th century chose to handle it.

1815: The Holy Alliance
http://www.voltairenet.org/article170096.html

              Napoleon, as you can read about in my past post, defeated most European countries, which meant most European countries belonged to France. Although Napoleon was a great fighter, he was also a ruthless one, which left the people of Europe with enough warfare to last them a life time. How would the Quintuple Alliance (Russia, Austria, Prussia, Britain, and France) prevent future revolutions and violence in Europe? They decided to establish a Holy Alliance. This stated that monarchs had the divine right to rule and that any revolution was treason against God. At this time, people were heavily concerned with their afterlife and the idea of doing something that would wind them up in Hell terrified them.

              In my opinion, this was a brilliant way to stifle rebellions. The leaders needed to force people into compliance without the violence used by Napoleon. By saying it as a sin to rebel, people kept themselves in line. God was most important in society and the representatives at the Congress of Vienna knew that the ever present eye of God would shield them from any outbreaks by the citizens. If there came a time when it was evident that those in power were unfit to rule, then those rulers should sacrifice their power for the good of the country. But, seeing as the Congress of Vienna was mostly successful in what they had set out to do, I don’t think these rulers would have to make any sacrifices like that. 

Who's idea was it to have ideologies anyways?

In high school, the social classes are divided between what's 'cool' and 'not cool'. Politics are known to be divided between democrats and republicans. Things were not always split up in these ways. This past week, my class focused on the major political ideologies of the 19th century and how they influenced social and political action. We were divided into six groups and the three ideologies (liberalism, conservatism and nationalism) were assigned amongst the groups. As it worked out, each ideology would be presented by two different groups. This lead to a "show down" in which we would vote on the group that best presented the each ideology. Three groups, including mine, used an app called chatterpix, which allows you to make a picture talk. One group made a common craft video, one group made a movie in educreations and another group performed a skit. The class then worked together to come up with a definition for each of the ideologies. Once the hard work was done we voted on who's presentation was best. My group, being the winners, got two delectable  Hershey kisses.

Our chatterpix about liberalism

My group was assigned liberalism. We used chatterpix to make a photo of Adam Smith describe what liberalism was in the form of a haiku. If you remember from my past post, Adam Smith created the theory of the Invisible Hand. He wanted everyone to contribute to the economy. By "everyone", I don't mean everyone in society. I mean everyone accepted by society, which is really only the middle class and higher. Our haiku didn't really go into an indepth explanation of liberalism, as it is very hard to give specifics when you're given a limited number of syllables. We gave the main points of liberalism such as the focus on meritocracy and the opposition to traditions. Liberalists promoted constitutional rights as opposed to a monarchy. They tried to end the traditional rights belonging to the aristocracy as well as the church. Taking power away from the church was a big change at this time in history because it had previously had an enormous effect in the everyday life of society.

Conservatism is the opposite of liberalism. One group used chatterpix to show Edmund Burke describing the main ideas from his book about conservatism. The other group used educreations to show a family enforcing the traditions of the monarchy in the household. Our class defined conservatism as a system of government that wanted to protect the monarchy and keep the old traditions. These traditions include the rights of the aristocracy and monarchy, as well as the role of the church. Conservatives view revolution as troublesome and, for lack of a better word, dumb. Change is not a priority. The last ideology is nationalism. The first group made a chatterpix displaying a group of m&ms arguing over which color m&m is best. The candies eventually unite to defeat a skittle because, despite their differences, they're all chocolate and the skittle is most definitely not. The other group performed a skit which included three students fighting over who was better, only to eventually unite, because of their shared cultural background, to defeat a foreign invader. Nationalism is the belief that people should unite through common traits in order to prevent foreign rulers from taking over. The common traits are usually along the lines of similar cultural practices, religion, languages, beliefs and traditions. These contradicting ideas still play a part in our society today.

Napoleon (Bonaparte) Was Dynamite For France

Military portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Napoleon.

When I was younger I would always mix up Napoleon Dynamite and Napoleon Bonaparte. At the time I had no idea I was comparing a fictional character to a great historical leader. In class we watched a five minute video that gave an overview of Napoleon Bonaparte’s life and accomplishments. Napoleon grew up in France, attending military schools from the age of nine. He worked himself up the ranks of the French military and went on to lead many successful invasions, conquering most of Europe. Napoleon’s ways of leadership were hated as well as praised by the people of France. Nevertheless, Napoleon left his footprint most aspects of our daily lives.

In class, we looked at a list of accomplishments Napoleon worked on during his leadership and decided which parts of his rule effected France and which effected the world. we concluded that Napoleon greatly helped the economy of France. He encouraged new industry, built roads and canals for trading, and established the Bank of France. Napoleon also greatly changed the political and social systems of Europe by establishing a meritocracy, which means people’s chances of success was determined based on their skills, rather than their social class. In an article called “The Lost Voices", a quote from Napoleon and His Marshalls, a book written in 1847 by Joel Tyler Headley, says the meritocracy was a system that is responsible for, “opening the field to talent and genius, however low their birth”.  

The meritocracy was more beneficial for some than for others. The rich, who were previously successful because of their given birth right, were not pleased with the social and political changes. In class, we read reviews from two citizens, Madame de Staël and Marshal Michel Ney, about their feelings toward Napoleon. Madame de Staël, a wealthy woman in France, opposed the changes made during Napoleon's leadership. She says, “He would like to persuade men by force and by cunning, and he considers all else to be stupid and folly.” She thought lowly of him as a ruler because the changes he made during his rule were unbeneficial for her. Marshal Michel Ney, one of Napoleon’s soldiers, greatly admired him. He refers to Napoleon as, “our sovereign” and, “our angst emperor”. Because the changes Napoleon made during his rule were received well among the middle and lower classes, which made up the majority of the population, the people who worked with him, such as the soldiers, benefited from his success. But those who thought lowly of Napoleon, such as Madame de Staël, were no match for his empire, seeing as she was eventually exiled from France for speaking against the powerful ruler. 

Team Marx or Team Smith

Walking into a class and seeing two humongous bags of Hershey’s Kisses always brightens up a morning. In class on Monday, we recreated Charles Marx’s theory of communism with pieces of chocolate. Everyone in the class started with two Hershey’s Kisses, except for the two lucky students who got eight. My classmates were very upset, not at our teacher for the unfair distribution, but rather at the students who got lucky during the distribution, saying things like, “Let’s gang up on Brian”. Poor Brian. We then went around the room playing rock, paper, scissors, shoot; the winners got a piece of the loser’s chocolate. When a student lost all of their candy they had to sit down. Few kids who started with two kisses ended up with any chocolate but those who got eight lasted until the end. Comments were made along the lines of “rich people stink” and “I hate my life”. The teacher then collected all of the candy and redistributed it so everyone got two and only two. When given the option to play rock, paper, scissors again, the class voted against it in fear of losing their chocolate again.

Karl Marx.
http://spartacus-educational.com/TUmarx.htm

Marx's theory of communism starts with capitalism. This includes private ownership of industry and freedom of competition. Marx says capitalism results in unequal economic classes, lower classes struggling and workers revolting. In order to make things more fair, Marx said people would create a government system of socialism. This government system would own industry and hopefully bring economic equality in a classless society. Marx said that people would revolt against divisions between rich and poor and by any means necessary, even violence, the people would create communism. In this system, no government is needed and the goal of a classless society is achieved. This gives the poor an equal chance at success as the rich because everyone starts on a level playing field thanks to the redistribution of goods. Another theory is Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand. Companies will treat their workers better because the employees are also the customers.

Adam Smith.
http://livingeconomiesforum.org/Adam-Smith

Smith said that if government left industry alone, people will buy, sell, and run businesses on their own. Businesses that operate honestly and don’t cheat their customers will succeed and those that do not will fail. This benefits the poor because, eventually, high quality goods will be available at lower prices. Because employees work near the shops they live and shop at the stores closest to them, stores need to pay their workers enough so they can afford their products.

An alternate system would be a compromise between both Marx’s theory and Smith’s theory. These two systems don't include a government. Maybe that's what they're missing. If we could incorporate the level playing field that Marx wanted everyone to start with and smith's idea of a hands off economy, we might get respectable results. The government should have the ability to create and sponsor stores. When unemployment rates are up and poverty seems to have reached a high, the government should open some stores, such as a grocery store or a laundry mat. The government can buy the supplies and sell them at a reasonable price. Plus these government stores can employ citizens without jobs. These stores will function as the goal of the invisible hand: high quality goods at low prices. And once the economy is stable and more stores can match the rates of the government stores, those stores can sell their businesses and the hands off mentality can be resumed. 

Girls Just Want to Have Fun

A mill girl at work. "Song of the Sower"

We’ve been learning about the horrible working conditions in the factories during the Industrial Revolution for a couple weeks now, and it’s clear that the lives the mill girls led were not ones to be envious of. So why were the mills never short of employees? What kept the girls coming to the mills? Jamie told us during our MOSI Google Hangout that before there was the factory system, all cotton was made at home by families. It would be difficult for mills to recruit entire families to work at the factories, so they chose to target one family member specifically. They chose the daughter. Corporations wanted these girls because they displayed all the qualities the factories were looking for. Because of the way the girls were raised, under a very watchful eye, they were likely to be obedient and do the work the factories needed done in the way the factories wanted it to be done. Families were much more willing to let go of their girls rather than their boys because the sons were needed to work on the farms. The mill owners would go to farms and try to convince fathers to let their daughters work at the mills. In the movie Daughters of Free Men, a mill owner was shown painting a wonderful picture of the lovely mills that were very beneficial in the lives of all the girls who worked there. He emphasized that the mills would be like a small family, protecting the girls and making sure they didn’t get into any trouble. The father figure was the corporation, setting rules like a curfew and mandatory attendance at church. The mother figure was the boardinghouse keeper, who would regulate the girls’ behavior outside of mill hours. The girls at the mills always felt safe and happy. Was the mill owner describing the mills truthfully? Nope. Did he end up with enough girls working at his mill? Of course.

Families were willing to send their daughters into dangerous cities alone, not only because the mill owners were so convincing, but for their own reasons as well. With their girls working, there was one less mouth to feed and one less person to look after. Plus the girls would be able to send money home. The girls were eager to work in the mills too. They would get the chance to live an  independent life, which they wouldn’t otherwise be able to do. The girls could earn their own money, buy their own clothes, and live how they wanted to live without worrying about the responsibilities that came with running a household. These corporations changed the girls’ lives for the better in many ways. Girls were provided with an education, a small amount of money to themselves, plenty of food and a place to sleep. They experienced things they would never had gotten the chance to experience on the farm while being kept in good conduct with respectable reputations. Unfortunately, the corporations had their downsides as well. Families were separated, the girls were forced to work in uncomfortable conditions for long hours, received unfair wages, and faced brutal punishment for making mistakes in the factories. Even with the hardships these girls faced, many of them loved the independent lives they leaned to lead. These girls left their mark on the Industrial Revolution and changed the way women and girls live today.