By the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the
dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs. How can I describe my
emotions at this catastrophe,
or how delineate the wretch
whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavored to form? His limbs were
in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful!
-- Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries
beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly
whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his
watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same color as the dun white sockets in
which they were set, his shriveled complexion, and straight black lips.
Belief and Action/Nationalism
and Religion
(Nationalism as Religion?
I.
How do you define nation?
(geography, race, language, culture,
belief, citizenship status, economic value, feelings)
To be ...“American”… means__________
…Chinese…
…Mexican…
…Honduran…
…Angolan…
…Indian…
…Nigerian…
…Russian…
BENEDICT
ANDERSON: "Imagined Communities"
Should
you love a country?
In many
places in the 19th century, “subjects” become “citizens.”
II.
SOME EXAMPLES OF THE INTERTWINED NATURE OF
RELIGION AND NATIONALISM
A. J.G.
Herder and Das Volk: (important in 1770s)
“There is only one class in the state, the Volk, (not the rabble), and the king belongs to this class as
well as the peasant."
"Every nation bears in itself the standard of its
perfection, totally independent of all comparison with that of others" for
"do not nationalities differ in everything, in poetry, in appearance, in
tastes, in usages, customs and languages? Must not religion which partakes of
these also differ among the nationalities?"
B. Mexico:
El Grito de Dolores, Sept. 15, 1810
"Know
this, my children, that knowing your patriotism, I have put myself at the head
of a movement begun some hours ago, to wrest away power from the Europeans and
give it to you."
Harvey, Robert. Liberators:
Latin America’s Struggle for Independence Woodstock: The
Overlook Press, 2000.
C. Italy: Joseph
Mazzini and “Young Italy” (YI founded in 1831)
“The mission is the task which
a people must perform to the end that the Divine Idea shall be realized in this
world.” Mazzini
Carbonari…secular religion
Count Camillo Cavour: minister
of Piedmont
Giuseppe Garibaldi
(and
his Franco-Prussian War)
D. Greece
rebels against the Ottomans…1821
Greek
Archbishop Germanos, was “Peace to the Christians! Respect to the Consuls!
Death to the Turks!"
E.
Gran Columbia…Simon Bolivar and Venezuela and
then Ecuador and then Peru and Bolivia
"I
have been chosen by fate to break your chains… Fight and you shall win. For God
grants victory to perseverance."
F.
Young
Ireland: James Stephens and John O'Mahony (1848)
Fenian Nationalism
An Example in Greater Detail:
G. Meiji
Japan
Commodore
Matthew Perry (surprise visit)
Treaty
of Kanagawa, in English
March 31, 1854
Satsuma
Rebellion
Constitution
of 1889
Sino-Japan
War
Battle
of Tsushima (1905)
Meiji period painting of Izanagi
and Izanami creating Japan,
by Kobayashi Eitaku c.1885
The
Charter Oath (of the Meiji Restoration),
1868
By this
oath we set up as our aim the establishment of the national weal on a broad
basis and the framing of a constitution and laws.
1.
Deliberative assemblies shall be widely established and all matters decided by
public discussion.
2. All
classes, high and low, shall unite in vigorously carrying out the administration of affairs of state.
3. The
common people, no less than the civil and military officials, shall each be
allowed to pursue his own calling so that there may be no discontent.
4. Evil
customs of the past shall be broken off and everything based upon the just laws
of Nature.
5.
Knowledge shall be sought throughout the world so as to strengthen the
foundations of imperial rule.
“Japan, shaking off the
lethargy of centuries, has taken her rank among civilized, modern powers.
European nations have seated themselves along the eastern coast of Asia, while
China by her misfortunes has given us an object-lesson in the utter folly of
attempting to exist as a nation at all, if at the same time both rich and
defenseless.” TR 1903
III.
And the point is…
Let’s look again at the
opening text:
By the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the
dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs. How can I describe my
emotions at this catastrophe,
or how delineate the wretch
whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavored to form? His limbs were
in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful!
-- Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries
beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly
whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his
watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same color as the dun white sockets in which
they were set, his shriveled complexion, and straight black lips.
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