"There is not tabula rasa" is a small and peculiar statement toward the end of Frederick Jackson Turner's essay, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History." It is nearly a fragment of a sentence that, if focused on too heavily, can start to seem out of place in the overarching theme of the essay. Here, Turner has written an entire essay detailing the creation of a country and forging of its frontier;"...the familiar phenomenon of the evolution of institutions in a limited area, such as the rise of representative
government; into complex organs; the progress from primitive industrial society, without division of labor, up to manufacturing civilization,"
and yet, after pages and pages, he considers it important to note that there is no fresh start. In which context he means this does not seem immediately obvious. I suspect that there are several different ways to read the idea. Is it that expansionism has spread so far that America herself is no longer "tabula rasa"? Maybe that the discovery of "free land" is, after America, no longer a possibility? Or perhaps in part of what Turner wrote, he is saying that expansionism itself is so reactionary to its "bondage of the past" that it was never an entirely clean slate to begin with.
Whether or not the latter interpretation was actually his intention, it's what really made the essay pop out for me. I began rereading what he wrote with the idea in mind that truly fresh starts in the frontier were a slightly less common experience than I had previously assumed. Shortly after writing about "tabula rasa," Turner goes on to say, "the inherited ways of doing things are also there;" enforcing the idea that, in part, the new beginning is still based on anscestral custom. Turner even appears to suggest that, to a degree, colonists are not creating America, but adapting to it, "The stubborn American environment is there with its imperious summons to accept its conditions." Then what was a clean slate during the time Turner writes about?
From what I understand, the newest, freshest experience of development was the edge of the frontier, however brief. Turner writes, "For a moment, at the frontier, the bonds of custom are broken and unrestraint is triumphant" and fortifies that statement with much of the essay recounting new experiences colonists had during their voyage west; be it with native Indians, dependancy on natural resources or even the spread of religion. All in all, I believe there's a snooty Philosophical debate hidden within here somewhere, arguing whether or not the act of expansionism itself can be "tabula rasa" if pre-determined factors were the motivation for it.
SIDE NOTE: There was another part of the essay that seemed out of place to me, but really characterizes Turner. About halfway through, after he has laid out some base knowledge for the rest of the essay, he writes:
"Having now roughly outlined the various kinds of frontiers, and their modes of advance, chiefly from the point of view of the frontier itself, we may next inquire what were the influences on the East and on the Old World. A rapid enumeration of some of the more noteworthy effects is all that I have time for."
I thought this was almost the most interesting part of the essay. (Sorry, Freddy!) Was it "all [he had] time for" because he didn't want to stagnate the flow of the book as early as Chapter I? Was he trying to squeeze this writing in between lunch breaks?
Any guesses?
Peter,
ReplyDeleteYour week 1 posting drew me in initially for a couple of superficial reasons. First, your “Philosopher Cage Match” title caught my eye. I’m a huge mixed martial arts fan! Secondly, you commented on Turner’s use of the term, “Tabula Rasa”. When I first read it, it sounded like something out of a Dan Brown (Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons etc) novel. However, I remained interested because you seemed a little irritated by the Turner piece, where I in turn, got a little worked up about the Limerick piece. That inevitably, made me read on.
You mention that you became very focused on Turner’s use of the term, “clean slate”. I may be oversimplifying, but think he meant two things. 1) Simply put, the slate is the massive chunk of land we ended up occupying from sea to sea. We didn’t recognize the rights of the Indians occupying large pieces of land. Therefore, a significant part of the slate was ours for the taking. Through negotiation or war, we were able to gain huge pieces of land from governments we did recognize – Spain, Mexico, Quebec. 2) I think by clean, he means that we were free to shape our land and self govern as we saw fit. I almost envision the slate as a football field. We started at one end zone, the Atlantic sea board, and crammed the ball thru any obstacle until we reached the other end zone. In Turner’s piece, you get a sense that Americans, at the time of expansion, developed the feeling that we were an unstoppable force – a feeling that still exists today. When native people or the Mexican government tried to stop us, we did indeed shove the ball down their throats so to speak. What I find as distasteful as anything else thru this, is the idea of Manifest Destiny or Providence. I mean no offense to anyone deeply religious, but the use of “God’s Will” to promote a self serving idea was used long before we colonized and eventually expanded American territory. It occurs on a regular basis today, and will undoubtedly continue to occur in the future.