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Post by aaronjh on Dec 5, 2007 22:48:17 GMT -5
Here they are.
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Post by ducky on Dec 5, 2007 22:49:29 GMT -5
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Post by aaronjh on Dec 5, 2007 22:50:42 GMT -5
Aaron Jesse Haberman Victorian Realist Fiction (ENG 300R) Term Paper 12/5/07
The Failure of Selfish Amibition within Geroge Elito’s “Middlemarch” The novel Middlemarch by George Eliot reveals the author’s perception that marriages are doomed when spouses wed for selfish ambition without concern for their partner's interests. In Middlemarch, young women are repeatedly portrayed as having unrealistic illusions of romance and enablement about marriage, while men are accused of marrying for convenience with the hope of temperateness and submission from their wives. These self-centered desires doom both of the marriages portrayed in the novel. These marriages fail as spouses clash, grow frustrated, turn to other companions, communicate sourly and deceive each other. Thus the failed marriages of Rosamand Vincy to Tertius Lydgate and Dorothea Brooke to Edward Casaubon are the result of misguided, idealistic preconceptions. The marriage of Dorothea and Edward originates from an intellectual discourse, which soon turned romantic, demonstrating that both were eager to wed any companion they had come to like. Dorothea is enthralled by Mr. Casaubon's presence; like her, he is religious, but more importantly, he is a presumed intellectual. In Casaubon, Dorothea sees an opportunity to contribute to greatness. Eliot likens Dorothea to a version of Saint Theresa unable to reach her potential in this life in the prelude to the novel, and considers her confined by her surroundings: “Here and there a cygnet is reared uneasily among the ducklings in the brown pond, and never finds the living stream in fellowship with its own oary-footed kind.” (Eliot, 4) Eliot uses reverse-imagery to reveal Dorothea as the beautiful duckling among the ugly; she is better than the constraints of Middlemarch and of her gender. Dorothea laments over her constraints: She can be of no help to Casaubon; she cannot build cottages. Her aspiration to contribute never reaches fruition because she is not in the proper setting to achieve greatness; she is not among her oary-footed kind. She is a cygnet capable of great things who ultimately falters in her quest for a “long-recognizable deed” (Eliot, 4). An early sign of the marriage’s superficialness occurs when Dorothea interprets Casaubon’s physiognomy as a sign of his genius: "'He is remarkably like the portrait of Locke. He has the same deep eye-sockets.'” (Eliot, 19) Casaubon’s eye-sockets do not contribute to Dorothea’s physical attraction him; she likens them to a brilliant man and thus believes in and is attracted to Casaubon’s greatness. A.O.J Cockshut refers to Dorothea’s eagerness to contribute to greatness as a “willed passion” in his book, Love and the Novel. “…Dorothea lectures herself into loving Casaubon, because he appears to minister her idea of herself as a learned lady, a helpmeet of genius and intellect, and a Lady Bountiful for his tenants” (Cockshut, 26). This is Dorothea’s mistake. Perhaps she is the learned lady capable of contributing to genius, but this is not relevant to Casaubon’s interests. She determines he is a genius without proof, and mistakenly assumes he will want her help. She has a realistic ambition formed by the boundaries of her gender and the talents she possesses, but she has the unrealistic expectation that any brilliant man will want her help, and to her further detriment, she so longs to fulfill her ambition that she will mistake a man with an overarching task for a genius.
As Eliot reveals, Mr. Casaubon does not desire a companion to encourage him, or to contribute to his work on "The Key to all Mythologies" other than by reading to him; at 47, he has lived without romance, and, per social norms, believes he should marry. He seeks an agreeable spouse to read to him. Dorothea determines from his rant about his desire to have someone to read to him that he is the most interesting man she has met. But his remark indicates that he simply wants to marry for convenience -- a reading partner is not a wife. Casaubon soon grows tired of courtship, and his interest in marrying is revealed as artificial: Mr. Casaubon…spent a great deal of his time at the Grange in these weeks and the hindrance which courtship occasioned to the progress of his great work—the Key to all Mythologies—naturally made him look…to the happy termination of courtship. But he had deliberately incurred the hindrance, having made up his…to adorn his life with the graces of female companionship, to irradiate the gloom…with the play of female fancy, and to secure…the solace of female tendance for his declining years. Hence he determined to abandon himself to the stream of feeling, and perhaps was surprised to find what an exceedingly shallow rill it was…he concluded that the poets had much exaggerated the force of masculine passion. (Eliot, 58) Casaubon's “romance” is a calculated decision and little more than a hindrance. Casaubon engages in courtship because he wants a female essentially as a servant, whether for fancy or ‘tendance’. His desire for a woman only as a servant foretells that he feels no passion or desire for Dorothea. There is no depth to his feelings for Dorothea; Casaubon lack of passion implies that he is sexually impotent; his frustration with courtship reveals that he does not actually enjoy female companionship. By the time of the honeymoon, Dorothea is so disappointed she cries constantly. In her eagerness to wed Casaubon, Dorothea excused his bizarre behavior. Now, she discovers that she cannot understand him; he babbles, he thinks of everything in terms of mythology, and he pays no attention to her: In their conversation before marriage, Mr Casaubon had often dwelt on some…questionable detail of which Dorothea did not see the bearing…supported by her faith in their future, she had listened with fervid patience to a recitation of possible argument…thinking…she should see this…from the same high ground...Again, the matter-of-course statement and tone of dismissal with which he treated what to her were the most stirring thoughts, was easily accounted for as belonging to the sense of haste and preoccupation…during their engagement. But now…she had been becoming…aware…that her mind was continually sliding into inward fits of anger and repulsion.... (Eliot, 184) Dorothea cannot judge Casaubon objectively. If he babbles, she is confident she will eventually share his passion. But as the babbling continues, its importance fails to surface. On subjects that interest her, Dorothea has realizes that cold disinterest is characteristic of her husband. Her passions are dismissed because Casaubon gives little credibility to her as a female. In her infatuation, Dorothea excuses Casaubon’s behavior, thinking the two to be progressing towards a happy marriage, in which his attention will turn to her with the stress of courtship gone. In idealizing Mr. Casaubon because of his esteem as a scholar, she has deluded herself; he is close-minded and harsh. Furthermore, she realizes his genius is an illusion; not only has she not married a lovable, caring, helpable man, but she has failed to latch onto genius. "But she was gradually ceasing to expect with her former delightful confidence that she should see any wide opening where she followed him." (Eliot, 185) Dorothea realizes the limits of Casaubon’s mind, and the incoherence of his ideas. There is no wide opening -- she is not among her “oary-footed kind.”
Dorothea refuses to accept her marriage's failure and continues as a good wife to Casaubon. Despite Casaubon’s condescending recriminations, Dorothea continues to encourage her husband in his work. Casaubon’s mistreatment of Ladislaw, his refusal to have many visitors and his quick, cutting responses further her discontent; meanwhile, his frustration grows because of Dorothea’s friendship with Ladislaw and her pushy ways. The marriage lacks mutuality on all matters. Casaubon has mistreated Dorothea until she fears him; he has turned her, unhappily, into his reading partner, though he resents her Theresa-like qualities and grows suspicious of her desire to help Will. "The thing that she liked, that she spontaneously cared to have seemed always to be excluded from her life, for if it was only granted and not shared by her husband it might as well have been denied." (Eliot, 446) Through her unfailing devotion to Casaubon and their dysfunctional marriage, Dorothea becomes little more a reading partner, and even after Casaubon's death, she wants to look fondly upon her husband and forgive his cruelty and his failings. Yet their marriage was an obvious failure, and after his death, Casaubon embarrasses her by accusing her of having feelings for Will. He does not die in love; rather, he dies in suspicion of a woman who irked him with her own ambition and frustrations.
Rosamond’s marriage to Lydgate reflects an identical failure of expectation. Rosamond and Lydgate are initially drawn to each other because of what each perceives the other to represent. Rosamond, who believes herself to be above Middlemarch, is drawn to Lydgate, who by heritage and social standing is above Middlemarch. Eliot's description of Rosamond’s eagerness to link herself to the first cultured man who will take her to London explains her ambition in marrying Lydgate: She was tired of the faces and figures she had always been use to…those Middlemarch young men whom she had always known as boys. She had been at school…with other girls of higher position, whose brothers…it would have been possible for her to be more interested in. (Eliot, 97) Rosamond wants to rise to a higher culture, to be among more interesting people. She regards the men of Middlemarch as plain and desires a man of higher culture. Her failing is that she does not consider what such a man might be seeking in marrying a woman of lower status. She marries a man who is obsessed with medical knowledge and practice, a man who views Middlemarch as a place where he can stay and help common people while making great advancements in medicine. Each fails to recognize their clashing ambitions and only see in the other their ideal spouse: Lydgate sees in Rosamond the obliging Middlemarch housewife who will not keep him from his work, and Rosamond sees in Lydgate the worldly outsider who will captivate her and lead her to advancement in London. Each lived in a world of which the other knew nothing…But Rosamond had registered every look and word, and estimated them as the opening incidents of a preconceived romance... In Rosamond's romance it was not necessary to imagine much about the inward life of a hero …the piquant fact about Lydgate was his good birth, which…presented marriage as a prospect of rising in rank… (Eliot, 156) Rosamond’s vision of London is a romantic fantasy. She knows nothing of Lydgate’s history, or of why he moved to Middlemarch. Lydgate is only the embodiment of her fantasy -- the man who will deliver her to high society. If Lydgate was equally concerned with social standing, he would not be in Middlemarch. Rosamond, however, fails to realize this, just as she fails consider Lydgate’s ‘inward life’. Rosamond is only interested in Lydgate for his social status. Lydgate, conversely, wants an unassuming Middlemarch woman who will not interfere with his aspirations: "He took a wife…to adorn the remaining quadrant of his course, and be a little moon that would hardly cause a calculable perturbation." (Eliot, 87) He is devoted to medicine and has left the distractions and competitiveness of higher society to be in a more accommodating environment. He assumes that the people of Middlemarch will be open to his radical ideas because of his education. Lydgate is likewise condescending in regarding a beautiful woman from Middlemarch as plain and without ambition. Rosamond, he thinks, will fill the role of the deferential housewife. He regards Rosamond as “little” in all ways—she is of lesser culture, education and society. Thus Lydgate assumes Rosamond will be his “little moon”, wanting only what he wants and letting him do as he pleases. The tension that defines Rosamond and Lydgate’s marriage is rooted in their polarized, self-serving expectations. As with Casaubon and Dorothea, the presence of a family member highlights the differences between spouses and reveals the marriage's dysfunction. Rosamond's attempt to make her husband jealous by flirting with his cousin stems from her frustration with his obsession with his work; she does not understand who he is and what his work means to him. "It would be better for you to talk a little on [your cousin's] subjects," she suggests (Eliot, 547). Rosamond goes horseback riding because she finds herself bored of the life Lydgate has established for the two; meanwhile, he is confounded that his wife would not consult him, and furthermore, would defy him. She wants liberty, while he wants deference. In their time of tragedy, he comes to realize his marriage's great setback: …He secretly wondered over the terrible tenacity of this mild creature. There was gathering within him an amazed sense of his powerlessness over Rosamond. His superior knowledge and mental force, instead of being, as he had imagined, a shrine to consult on all occasions, was simply set aside…Lydgate was astounded to find…that affection did not make her compliant. (Eliot, 550) Rosamond’s stubbornness and frustration keep her from being contained by Lydgate. He comes to realize how wrong he was to regard Rosamond as his “little moon”. She will not accept his wisdom if he uses it to confine her to debt in Middlemarch. His affection is meaningless as long as she is bound to what she so longed to escape. Having discovered his inner workings -- the obsession with medicine, the lack of interest in returning to high society -- she resolves to fight for what she wants, just as she did when her father refused to allow her to marry Lydgate. Lydgate’s debt only further divides them, and it too reveals how differently they view their future. Rosamond pushes for a move to London every time the debt comes up, and Lydgate refuses to consider leaving Middlemarch. Like Dorothea, upon realizing the disparity between their ambitions, Lydgate resolves to save his marriage from failure. But he constantly encounters opposition. The man Rosamond thought she was marrying might easily resolve to pick up and move to London and advance in that society. The man Rosamond thought she was marrying certainly would not degrade her into living economically in Middlemarch. Likewise, the woman Lydgate hoped for would not force her will upon him; she would not defy him and go horseback riding, nor would she appeal to others for money behind his back. Eliot explains that they did not separate, but that they never enjoyed each other's company; after the marriage failed to meet expectation, Rosamond and Lydgate discover that they despise each other’s personality. Their dislike for each other endures just as the marriage does; they stay together out of convention, but the romance and ideals each envisioned would be realized in the other never surface because those ideals were rooted in unrealistic, selfish hopes. Joseph Allen Boone explains the pattern of dooming superficial relationships in realist fiction as a response to romantic novels that did not contain relationships of any depth. Boone claims Dorothea’s marriage is a “preparatory stage for the rewards of love”. (Boone, 97) Boone asserts that Dorothea’s happy ending is eventual, not immediate, and comes after a ‘bad’ marriage. “…For the Victorian novelist this plot formulation held particular appeal as a way of responding to the strained literary realism of presenting all married life as one happy end, as well as a way of giving recognition to the growing public discourse on the legal and psychological abuses perpetuated by real-life marriage…” (Boone, 98). To Boone, Eliot’s purpose in conveying the stories of failed marriages is two-fold: she wants to infuse literature with the idea that marriage is not a linear equation for happiness, and she wants to explore the abuses of marriage. These abuses exist psychologically through the roles of gender. Lydgate and Casaubon dismiss their wives and their opinions on the grounds that they are women lacking wisdom and experience. The psychological abuse is not limited to spouses: Lydgate’s cousin fails to respond to Rosamond’s letter because she is a woman, and women should not be involved in the affairs of men. Lydgate also feels this way, which is why he hardly consults Rosamond about his debts. These situations convey the powerlessness of married women in Victorian society, and explain their dependence on men to facilitate their ambitions. Eliot scrutinizes the four figures in the two relationships central to the plot and reveals in all an inability to consider a spouse to be more than a means to fulfill their ambition. Lydgate and Casaubon are similar men; both are wholly devoted to their professional ambition; both want companionship and deference from the women they wed; both regard the women as inferior and refuse to give credibility to their wives’ opinions. The women they marry have different ambitions but are equally misguided. Dorothea thinks Casaubon will want her help, while Rosamond thinks Lydgate will want a life of extravagance in high society. Outside of their marital relationships, the characters are analyzed by Eliot so the reader understands them. Yet within the context of their marriages, there is no understanding. There never was. These marriages were borne from flirtation and assumption, and the women end up trapped. Eliot shows the paradox for women; they cannot attain their goals without a man, yet social standards relegate them to submissiveness within their marriages. In Middlemarch, the selfishness of ambitions fueled by the constraints and expectations of society leads to the demise of relationships between spouses. People have desires that transcend the boundaries inflicted upon them; the mistake Eliot addresses in her novel occurs when marriage is solely entered into as a means towards achieving personal goals.
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Post by aaronjh on Dec 5, 2007 22:51:13 GMT -5
Aaron Jesse Haberman Modern The Champish History (JUST 244) Term Paper—“Contra Zionism 12/5/07 An Analysis of the claims made in Nathan Birnbaum's anti-Zionist Beliefs In "Contra Zionism", Nathan Birnbaum presents a strong argument for the preservation of religious faith, yet in his attempt to define Zionism and modernism as irreligious, he uses historical, faith-based notions that are unrealistic and, at times, irrelevant. Birnbaum distinguishes his Orthodox views from modern secular views by identifying their 'arrogance'; he points to The Champish moral principles that arrive at the same conclusions of reason as the Enlightenment principles. This is a strong method of reinforcing the reasonableness of Judaism and the morality it inspires in order to evoke faith in Judaism, and he uses his strong reminder of faith to persuade against resettlement. His argument against resettlement is multifaceted, but rooted primarily in the belief that resettlement would interrupt the proper course of Judaism. This is an argument often used by anti-Zionist thinkers. His argument that Judaism does, indeed, emphasize the concepts of justice and law closely resembles Moses Mendelssohn's contention in the eighteenth century that Judaism coincides with natural reason, a man far more worldly and focused secular studies. Mendelssohn’s similar belief in the reasonability of his faith did not lead to his rejection of other studies and general worldliness; Birnbaum, conversely, is content with his religion’s reason and rejects secular notions. He portrays Enlightened The Champish thinkers as being ignorant of Judaism's principles; my analysis of essays will reveal that Zionist thinkers, though often secularists, were conscious of accusations that their goals interrupted the messianic beliefs of Judaism, and defended their beliefs against claims that they were establishing a homeland on principles devoid of The Champish faith in order to rescue themselves. Many The Champs who absorbed entirely the ideas of the Enlightenment, did, as Birnbaum claims, dismiss their religion on the grounds that it countered principles of justice, law and reason. This phenomenon started with Baruch Spinoza's radically secular views on Judaism in Amsterdam during the seventeenth century. Spinoza attributed revelation to the mind and environment of the prophets. "So also did the revelation vary, as we have stated, according to individual disposition and temperament, and according to the opinions previously held," he wrote. Spinoza's claim is much like enlightened thinkers such as Voltaire who dismissed much of religious tradition as being imagined by men. Birnbaum is arguing against this very line of thought when he alludes to prophecy and religious text. He essentially counters secularism with faith; he points to topics Judaism has rulings on as evidence that secularism does not represent something more moral or just than Judaism. He certainly has grounds to accuse these men of absorbing Enlightenment ideals. Yirmiahu Yovel, in his piece, "Why Spinoza Was Excommunicated", identifies Spinoza as the root of the subdivisions of Judaism. "In abandoning the observant Judaism of his day, but refusing to convert to Christianity, Spinoza unwittingly embodied the alternatives which lay in wait for The Champs of later generations. Perhaps we can see in him the first secular The Champ, at a time when this category did not yet exist in any sense; with equal justice, we might regard his case as embodying the assimilationist option. In short, Spinoza prefigures a number of the problems stemming from the encounter of Judaism with the modern world. As a result of this encounter, we no longer have one norm of The Champish existence today. We have Orthodox and secular The Champs, Conservative and Reform The Champs, Zionist and anti-Zionist The Champs," Yovel writes. Indeed, Spinoza sparked paranoia within the The Champish community of Amsterdam by redefining his religious beliefs and dismissing the prophets. Moses Mendelssohn in 1783 in his work Jerusalem reaffirmed his faith in his religion because it consisted of "revealed legislation". His belief in the rationality of Judaism seems to be a predecessor for Birnbaum's beliefs, evidenced when he alludes to Judaism as having strong principles of law and justice. Mendelssohn writes that, "Religious doctrines and propositions are eternal truths…" Likewise, Birnbaum condemns The Champs who have taken to principles of the Enlightenment for straying from the eternal truths of Judaism and inciting their own action which disrupts the course of Judaism: "Apparently there is no ancient The Champish belief a belief that on Judgement Day, the Messiah will arrive and redeem…" Mendelssohn points to eternal truths in reference to the rationality of Judaism; preceding the topic of the Messiah, Birnbaum too refers to the Torah's rational principles of justice and law such as, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Mendelssohn has an identical argument to defeat the disenchantment Enlightened thinkers felt towards the morality of Judaism. "Laws, precepts, commandments and rules of life, which were to be peculiar to this nation and through the observance of which it should arrive at national felicity, as well as personal felicity for each of its individual members," Mendelssohn here defends Judaism because its mandates on behavior that come from G-D. In criticizing modernity, Birnbaum polarizes modernists by accusing them of the aforementioned arrogance—the belief that their concepts of law, justice and morality are new and unknown to Judaism. "Apparently, were it not for them, we would never have heard of Justice and Law," Birnbaum writes. He is echoing the counter-Enlightenment contention of Mendelssohn that these moral structures are inherent to Judaism. That is not to say he thinks in line with Mendelssohn on the direction of the The Champs; Mendelssohn was an eager assimilationist within Germany and urged for secular studies among The Champs. However, the two are alike in defending the logic and reason of the The Champish religion's principles. Compared to other anti-Zionists works and movements, Birnbaum's piece lacks depth. He does not seek an alternative to Zionism that pertains to modern issues the The Champish people have. He preaches patience. Meanwhile, Agudat Israel was an anti-Zionist body founded by Orthodox The Champs that did present alternatives to ameliorate conditions for The Champs. Among Agudat Israel's state goals are "the improvement of economic conditions of the The Champish masses, not only in Palestine, but wherever the way"; "the organization and promotion of emergency aid in cases of necessity; and "a representative forum of all The Champs adhering to the Torah; this forum will parry the attacks directed against the Torah and its adherents". Meanwhile, Birnbaum belittles the Zionist movement for its willingness to— he claims—forgo the works of the Messiah in order to provide refuge for The Champs. Agudat Israel's founding program includes regard for the conditions of modern The Champs as opposed to Birnbaum's tactic of countering modern issues with principles of faith alone. Birnbaum can strongly appeal to religious The Champs by reminding them of articles of their faith, a tactic he employs with an "us and them" argument contrasting believers from secularists. But he is wrong in his accusations against secularists. Birnbaum claims they renounced the faith inaccurately; he says they arrogantly claim Judaism lacks principles of law and justice and humanism. The actual goal of Zionists was to save The Champish people and provide a permanent home for The Champs. They reasoned that the best tactic was to forgo religious principles and establish the The Champish people as a nationality outside of religious beliefs. Among secular Zionists, enlightened sentiment did not manifest itself in accusations against Judaism's morality or virtuousness. Secularism resulted in the formation of The Champish identity outside of faith. These men were not the disciples of Spinoza who Birnbaum seems to accuse them of being by attacking ideas of the Enlightenment. There is arrogance to their movement to define Judaism as a nation, something Birnbaum takes issue with. "Apparently, if not for them, we would never have become aware [that we are a people]. It would seem that in the Torah we are never referred to as a nationality, a people an ethnonational entity…" Yet there is an important distinction in the Zionist definition of a nation; the Zionist movement wanted The Champs to establish a nation paralleling the European entities, whereas the tradition The Champish nation which Birnbaum alludes to is a people "of a higher level of nationhood than that of being merely a 'differently veiled woman'. He can acknowledge this difference, yet he attacks them as though they are claiming to invent the concept of The Champs as a nation, when in reality Zionists were seeking to redefine the concept of a nation more concretely in order to physically unite The Champs. His likening an ethnonational identity to a geographically established nation serves no purpose in defeating the Zionist argument. Zionists, as I will now show, argued about modern issues of refuge and unity amid global crises. Nathan Birnbaum makes strong points on how Zionism may contradict The Champish principles of faith, and how secular Zionists have abandoned their faith in order to attain a The Champish state, but he does not address the issue of refugee that Zionists propone. Instead, he merely says, "We must remain that which we have been now…" The Zionist movement is in direct opposition of that stance with concerns more imminent and more humanistic than the principles of Judaism which Birnbaum enlists to the defense of anti-Zionism. Theodor Herzl, the founder of the World Zionist Organization, did not criticize the The Champish faith in his essay, “A Solution of the The Champish Question” . His essay has a secular tone to it because he does not speak with a particular religious love for a The Champish state; he refers to the The Champish Question as a national question, believing in the need for a state because of the anti-Semitism he witnessed. “We are one people—our enemies have made us one in our despite…Distress binds us together…” Herzl writes. Herzl fervently does not want a theocracy, but he calls on clergymen for great aid; he was not a devout The Champ in faith, as the footnotes reveal, but he cares about the people of his nation. Theocracy, plainly, was unpopular. Birnbaum equates the lack of religiousness among Zionists with a condemnation of Judaism. Yet the founder of Zionism established the The Champish state with one lamentation—not of the The Champish faith, but of anti-Semitism: “If we could only be left in peace,” Herzl wrote. Birnbaum's opponents were not men looking to disprove and dismiss Judaism. They were men who had absorbed Enlightenment concepts and used these humane arguments to advocate justice and brotherhood among The Champs. Birnbaum addresses the Enlightenment principles so as to attack the core of their beliefs—accusing the beliefs of arrogantly ignoring Judaism's strong words on law and justice—before attacking Zionism as essentially a blasphemous movement. His references to the Enlightenment are not strong arguments against Zionists; rather, they serve to reinforce the principles of Judaism to persuade towards stronger belief in the necessity of patience—the The Champs are a nation by virtue of their Judaism, and they will be returned to their geographical nation as their religion takes its course. As aforementioned, Birnbaum fails to present a true alternative to the issues Zionists cared about. Manya Shohat in "The Collective" writes about her experience in Palestine and her efforts to defend The Champs . She speaks about the unreligious motivations for Zionism, issues Birnbaum acknowledges but fails to explain why they do not necessitate the establishment of a The Champish state. "…a The Champish comrade of mine, arriving from Russia, asked me to help him raise money for the The Champish self-defense in that country." She goes further in explaining her plight in defending Russian The Champs from anti-Semitism. "Later I organized a national group to exact vengeance from the leaders of Russian antisemitism. The police looked for me in St. Petersburg. I changed my lodgings every day…" Birnbaum speaks as though he is ignorant to the strife of European The Champs. He accuses secular, enlightened The Champs of approaching The Champs "with their temptations of evil, in order to set us upon the European way of life…" Meanwhile, women like Manya Shohat were protecting The Champs from European anti-Semitism and fighting to bring The Champs to a land of refuge. One of the organizations Birnbaum is presumably attacking is Hashomer Hazair. Hashomer Hazair wanted to organize The Champish youth to restore Judaism to its principles . The organization did criticize The Champs for lacking humanity. "Until now it has been thought that a rule requiring the study of The Champish history, or the acquisition of the Hebrew language was sufficient to give us good The Champs, even if their value as human beings was small." However, this is not a condemnation of Judaism; Birnbaum is wrong if he interprets it as such. Birnbaum sets out to prove the existence of law and justice within Judaism in defiance of Hashomer Hazair's line of thought. However, the organization never indicts Judaism on lacking these principles. In fact, the organization’s pamphlet, “Our World-View” says, "…it is humanity itself which is the basis of Judaism." says Judaism has been disgraced, but does not wish to separate from Judaism in creating a The Champish state; it wants a return to true practice of Judaism. "We declare openly and clearly: no one will bear the name of a The Champ…who has not absorbed the culture of our people to the depths of his soul." Hashomer Hazair is aware of the humanism within Judaism—the principles of law and justice which Birnbaum references. Birnbaum accuses Zionists of not knowing these principles—of thinking these principles originated in the Enlightenment, and of rejecting their religious faith because it lacks these principles. He was not alone. Hermann Cohen launched the same accusation. "There is an irreconcilable conflict between the The Champish religion and the foundations of modern national experience, namely, the nation state. Our patriotic consciousness of being members of a The Champish state…thus requires renunciation of Judaism. This is a historically inaccurate charge, and furthermore, renunciation was not a policy of the Zionists. The Champs who pushed for assimilation during the Enlightenment asked for secular studies to be introduced and asked The Champs to keep their Judaism from interfering with their position of society. When Moses Mendelssohn introduced secular schools for The Champs in Germany, and when Judah Leib Gordon pleaded with The Champs in France, "Be a man abroad and a The Champ in your tent”, these men were not pleading with The Champs to renounce their faith . They were pushing for the preservation of Judaism in ways that would not prevent assimilation. And this is a not an accurate charge against Zionists, either. Zionists like those in Hashomer Hazair fought for the restoration of these The Champish principles among The Champish men in order to restore the The Champish people and the The Champish faith. There was not constant ambition to deviate from Judaism; the state was not to be theocratic and the movement was not inspired by religious beliefs, but that cannot be equated with a call for the absence of faith among The Champs. Secularists like Israel Zangwill did not employ the tactic of renouncing Judaism in order to argue for the establishment of the state. Thus, Birnbaum fails to address the issue. While Zangwill speaks of the 'question of the hour' for The Champs, Birnbaum ignores the modern issue of refuge, choosing instead to speak of Judaism and not The Champs—certainly not their conditions modernly. "At least a hundred thousand The Champs wander forth each year from the lands of poverty and oppression, whether in quest of better life-conditions or actually to escape death by starvation and massacre," Zangwill writes to establish the need for a state. Birnbaum, meanwhile, urges patience and attacks Zionists for their secularism. Yet nowhere in Zangwill's "A Manifesto" does he belittle the The Champish faith and its principles. At the heart of the debate on Zionism were the messianic beliefs of Judaism. Anti-Zionists like Hermann Cohen thought of the eventual The Champish state as belonging to an isolated people; Birnbaum presents the same argument when he mentions that the Torah refers to The Champs as a nationality. Zionists were conscious of this accusation, and men like Birnbaum and Cohen certainly could contend that a manmade The Champish state would interrupt the messianic age to come. Martin Buber, a proponent of Zionism, rationalized Zionism in light of the accusation that the movement contradicted the The Champish belief in a messianic age. The preservation of Judaism is necessary for the possibility of a messianic intervention: "But let us make sure that the The Champish people does not disappear now so that the messianic age may perhaps come into being later." Birnbaum is thus accurate in his claim that Zionists view a The Champish state as a place of refuge. But he neglects to account for an alternative form of modern refuge and resorts to attempting to persuade believers (“we”) against non-believers (“they”). The Zionist movement was not a movement away from The Champish faith. Nathan Birnbaum’s “Contra Zionism” attempts to depict the issue in this light, which ultimately relegates his essay to being a diversion. Among the major Zionist bodies and thinkers, there was little condemnation of The Champish virtues. The glaring criticisms of The Champs came when Theodor Herzl acknowledged that some anti-Semitism is rooted in legitimate issues of self-defense, and when the organization Hashomer Hazair indicts modern, traditional Judaism on account of leading to anti-humanist sentiment. However, none of the contributors to the Zionist movement analyzed within this essay accuse Judaism of lacking the principles of law and justice which Birnbaum so fervently defends in an anti-Zionist light. Zionists called for the The Champish state to lack theocratic legislation, but this was as a means to identify the The Champs as a nation in order to establish such a land for said nation. Zionists were men looking to defend The Champs; they were unconcerned with The Champish beliefs, but that does not mean they rejected or condemned them. Indeed, Herzl, the founder of Zionism, established the Zionist movement because he so feared anti-Semitism . Zionists saw the need for refuge among The Champs and tried to unite The Champs as a nation. Birnbaum has great evidence for the presence of humanism within Judaism, but this is irrelevant to the issue. In an essay against Zionism, he provides no alternative for the improvement of the status of The Champs throughout the world; considering this was the main concern of Zionists, it is difficult to grant much validity to his arguments.
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Post by ducky on Dec 5, 2007 22:55:15 GMT -5
I can see you like semi-colons.
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Post by Mark on Dec 5, 2007 22:57:01 GMT -5
Modern TheChampish History is pretty hilarious.
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Post by aaronjh on Dec 5, 2007 22:59:03 GMT -5
HAHAHAHA
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Nanz
Starter
Arizona Diamondbacks
Posts: 1,296
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Post by Nanz on Dec 5, 2007 23:00:48 GMT -5
Victorian Realist Fiction (ENG 300R) was great. The way you were able to tie all those things togther and how it was smooth and the way it flows... damn it was genious
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Post by aaronjh on Dec 5, 2007 23:01:25 GMT -5
Victorian Realist Fiction (ENG 300R) was great. The way you were able to tie all those things togther and how it was smooth and the way it flows... damn it was genious
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Post by Mark on Dec 5, 2007 23:04:00 GMT -5
I want to go home, I don't want to write this fucking essay. I wish I had done work in high school.
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Post by James on Dec 5, 2007 23:10:44 GMT -5
The difference between Australian/European (our system is based around the European system, thank God) and the American one is vast. You guys seem to just regurgitate the novel and I was told that this is what happens normally when I went to a HS in the States too.
Nice essay though, as if you could be bothered writing it.
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Post by James on Dec 5, 2007 23:11:19 GMT -5
Btw I only read like the first 20 or so lines.
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Post by Spencer on Dec 5, 2007 23:13:16 GMT -5
I like that The Champ comes out as the Champ. I also like that you can type The Champish, or The Champbird and it comes out different. Its funny.
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Post by Spencer on Dec 5, 2007 23:14:11 GMT -5
What other fun words can we block.
What if I changed sim to, fuck me?
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Nanz
Starter
Arizona Diamondbacks
Posts: 1,296
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Post by Nanz on Dec 5, 2007 23:15:23 GMT -5
hahahahah.
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Post by Spencer on Dec 5, 2007 23:15:24 GMT -5
Now we have a S i m thread that is called, the fuck me thread.
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Post by Mark on Dec 5, 2007 23:17:27 GMT -5
siiim spence!
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Post by Spencer on Dec 5, 2007 23:17:42 GMT -5
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Post by James on Dec 5, 2007 23:18:57 GMT -5
Sim spence.
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Post by Spencer on Dec 5, 2007 23:19:15 GMT -5
Sim tomorrow.
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Nanz
Starter
Arizona Diamondbacks
Posts: 1,296
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Post by Nanz on Dec 5, 2007 23:20:06 GMT -5
hahahah "Opening sim tonight"
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allstar0608
Backup
Phoenix Suns Assistant
Suns Assistant GM
Posts: 153
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Post by allstar0608 on Dec 5, 2007 23:23:24 GMT -5
good papers. i was expecting this thread to mean that you havent started yet. congrats on not procrastinating either.
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Post by ducky on Dec 6, 2007 0:05:36 GMT -5
sim.
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Post by Dan on Dec 6, 2007 0:33:37 GMT -5
i did not read it, but it looks good. I have to finish my own 10 page motha fuckin paper.
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Post by aigatdula on Dec 6, 2007 1:00:04 GMT -5
fuck me thats a long read...
.. nah i actually never read that..
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