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Thread: Modernization Theory is Hokum.

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    Council Member TheCurmudgeon's Avatar
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    This is a short excerpt out of a paper on modernization. What I find interesting is that most of the factors listed at the end of the quote can also be associate with individualistic societies and those associated with "traditional" societies can be associated with collectivist societies.

    Most modernization theorists have opted instead for a second method, choosing to set their definitions within the larger conceptual framework provided by the ‘dichotomous’ approach. Nowhere is the influence of nineteenth century evolutionary theory more evident than here. Through the device of ideal-type contrasts between attributes of tradition and modernity, modernization theorists have done little more than to summarize with the assistance of Parsons’ pattern variables and some ethnographic updating, earlier efforts by men such as Maine, Tönnies, Durkheim, and others in the evolutionary tradition to conceptualize the transformation of societies in terms of a transition between polar types of the status-contract, Gemeinshaft-Gesellschaft variety. Modernization, then, becomes a transition, or rather a series of transitions from primitive, substance economies to technology-intensive, industrialized economies; from [political] subject to participant political cultures; from closed, ascriptive status systems to open, achievement oriented systems; from extended to nuclear kinship units; from religious to secular ideologies; and so on. Thus conceived, modernization is not simply a change, but one which is defined in terms of the goals toward which it is moving.
    Tipps, Dean C. (1973). “Modernization Theory and the Comparative Study of Societies: A Critical Perspective”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 51(2), 199-226 (Citations omitted, emphasis added)
    Last edited by TheCurmudgeon; 08-09-2013 at 01:07 AM.
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    Default Working outline

    My working outline.

    1. introduction/purpose
    2. Modernization Theory and Policy – Why should I care
    a. History
    b. Types
    c. Influence in American Policy
    3. Modernization Theory Failures
    a. Vietnam
    b. Iraq/Afghanistan
    4. Modernization – What is really happening?
    a. Newer theories – value shifts
    b. No magic bullet
    c. A perfect world – assimilation.
    d. Reality – a long, tough road.
    5. What can and can’t be done … or COIN, it’s not just Genocide anymore.
    a. The world since WWII
    b. The Limitations of Force
    c. The Limitations of Assistance
    Would be interested in other historical examples of failures, primarily intereted in post WWII time frame.
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    Default The Dobbins Checklist

    Using Dobbins' multiple monographs as a checklist, I'd pick Haiti as a good example of multiple failures; perhaps also Somalia (although how much "modernization" was actually done there ?). Congo must rank in there somewhere ("Gazing in the Congo" certainly gets enough views here).

    Some Dobbins RAND stuff:

    America's Role in Nation-Building - From Germany to Iraq

    After the War - Nation-Building from FDR to George W. Bush

    The UN's Role in Nation-Building - From the Congo to Iraq

    Europe's Role in Nation-Building - From the Balkans to the Congo

    Building a More Resilient Haitian State

    Regards

    Mike
    Last edited by jmm99; 08-09-2013 at 05:40 PM.

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    Default Nils Gilman

    Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
    My working outline.

    Would be interested in other historical examples of failures, primarily intereted in post WWII time frame.

    Curmudgeon - you might want to look at the work of Nils Gilman, much discussed here and elsewhere:

    Because it provided the dominant framework for "development" of poor, postcolonial countries, modernization theory ranks among the most important constructs of twentieth-century social science. In Mandarins of the Future: Modernization Theory in Cold War America Nils Gilman offers the first intellectual history of a movement that has had far-reaching and often unintended consequences.

    After a survey of the theory's origins and its role in forming America's postwar sense of global mission, Gilman offers a close analysis of the people who did the most to promote it in the United States and the academic institutions they came to dominate. He first explains how Talcott Parsons at Harvard constructed a social theory that challenged the prevailing economics-centered understanding of the modernization process, then describes the work of Edward Shils and Gabriel Almond in helping Parsonsian ideas triumph over other alternative conceptions of the development process, and finally discusses the role of Walt Rostow and his colleagues at M.I.T. in promoting modernization theory during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. By connecting modernization theory to the welfare state liberalism programs of the New Deal order, Gilman not only provides a new intellectual context for America's Third World during the Cold War, but also connects the optimism of the Great Society to the notion that American power and good intentions could stop the postcolonial world from embracing communism.
    http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0801886333


    And the outline provided in this Melton paper here at SWJ:

    http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art...y-with-reality


    Aligning FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency with Reality
    The “U.S. in the Lead” COIN Approach Usually Fails Where Security Force Assistance Could Succeed


    And there are other models discussed here, the SWORD model and I believe jmm99 has attempted to put together an outline of conflict such as the Melton paper.

    I also asked on a SWC thread that I started about the origin of the term "capacity building" and when it started showing up doctrinally.

    It seems that the "system" cannot think outside a few dated models which entail attempts at reengineering societies and this includes the civilian national security apparatus.

    For instance, when did development become the main emphasis of State's diplomacy?
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    Council Member TheCurmudgeon's Avatar
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    Default Many Thanks

    JMM,

    Thanks

    I was just on the Rand site today pulling down stuff.

    I realized that I needed to add another section on what Modernization was not. Modernization is not Nation-Building as defined in Rand's "The Beginner's Guide to Nation-Building” which
    …involves the use of armed forces as part of a broader effort to promote political and economic reforms with the objective of transforming a society from conflict into one at peace with itself and its neighbors.
    That is pretty close, but it is self limiting by only dealing with economic and political reforms. It may be that people assume that those reforms are the triggers to full blown modernization, but I will deal with that elsewhere. Also the intent seems to be stabilization not modernization – you could ensure peace internally and with its neighbors without trying to turn it into a western democracy.

    Likewise, it is not Democratization since that only deals with a specific political transition to democracy. Modernization is a complete change in the social structure as noted in one of my earlier posts.

    I will dig though the material and see if I find conflict between the claimed definition and the reality of the operations.
    Last edited by TheCurmudgeon; 08-09-2013 at 06:37 PM.
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    Council Member TheCurmudgeon's Avatar
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    Default In the mail...

    Madhu,

    "Mandarins..." in on its way – gotta love Amazon. I hope to have it today and will delve into it this weekend.

    I will look over Milton’s piece. I have to admit I have not seen it before. I do like the idea of a lighter footprint where possible.

    While my working title was “How to keep Modernization Theory from killing your Soldiers (or Marines, Airmen, and Sailors)” I may actually try to turn it on its head and use it to argue that attempting a limited change to either the economic or political system will not work without a complete realignment of the social structure – therefore limit your effort to what is needed and let the rest take its natural course. This is actually pretty dangerous since only a limited number of transitions have not involved multiple revolts and coups. Perhaps there are ways to limit the damage, but that one is beyond me.

    As for your question, I don't think "development" was ever the true aim of the policy. My guess is that it first came about after WWII in response to communism. Development is code for freemarket capitalism first and democracy second. That was largely how Modernization got its big push in America. Reading the stuff on Modernization's application in the US it is almost as if we invented the idea in the 1950's even though it had been part of sociology in Europe since the mid 1800's.

    Madhu, chech out "Partner Nation Capacity Building: Setting Conditions for Success" for a short history of Capacity Building.
    Last edited by TheCurmudgeon; 08-09-2013 at 07:06 PM.
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    Default Thanks

    Madhu, chech out "Partner Nation Capacity Building: Setting Conditions for Success" for a short history of Capacity Building.
    Thanks, I ran across that resource when I was searching for the modernization, CORDS, FM3-24 Council post I started. My understanding is that a lot of this stuff about capacity building as a sort of core military objective in preventing instability in states is very much tied to the UN definition from the 90's and 90's era peacekeeping. At any rate, something happened in the 90's to make this language more prominent. I think, I'd love to see a proper study. Maybe I'm wrong.

    Another "model" you might be interested in is the following:

    By Gian Gentile
    Best Defense counterininsurgency critic

    In general terms I would deconstruct the manual as it is now and break the singular link that it has with a certain theory of state building (known as population centric COIN). Once broken up I would then rewrite the doctrine from the ground up with three general parts: 1) would be a counterinsurgency approach centered on post-conflict reconstruction; 2) would be a counterinsurgency approach centered around military action to attack insurgent sources of military power (sometimes referred to as counter-terror or CT), but not linked to an endstate of a rebuilt or newly built nation state; 3) would be a counterinsurgency approach -- perhaps call it COIN light -- that would focus largely on Special Forces with some limited conventional army support conducting Foreign Internal Defense (FID).

    The trick with this revised manual would be to present doctrinal alternatives for the U.S. Army when it goes about the countering of insurgencies and conducting stability operations with teeth. The trifecta trick would be to treat these three methods of countering insurgencies as operationally equal; that is to say, we would move away from the dogmatic belief currently held that anytime an insurgency is fought it must be of the population centric (FM 3-24, aka state building) persuasion, and that methods of CT and FID are subsumed within it and hence are seen as "lesser" operations. To reemphasize the key here is operational equality of the respective three.

    Lastly, with regard to part one and the countering of an insurgency through post-conflict reconstruction which would invariably have the quality of state building to it, I would completely demolish the theory of population centric, hearts and minds COIN that FM 3-24 is currently built on, and update that part of the manual with much more current social science theory and better uses of history. Example is the really quite simplistic chart in FM 3-24 that depicts the population of "ANY" insurgency as 10% hardcore insurgents, 10% on the government's side, and the remaining 80% of the population malleable and shapeable and just waiting to have their hearts and minds won over by the counterinsurgent force. That kind of conception of populations in insurgency has not proven itself in history, nor do I think in current practice. After returning from west Baghdad in late 2006 as a Cavalry Squadron commander and witnessing firsthand Iraq's viscous and bloody sectarian civil war, when I first saw that FM 3-24 diagram I said to myself "shoot, only one line in it should be drawn across the middle with Shia on the top and Sunni on the bottom." The point here is to emphasize the limits of winning hearts and minds of a population at the barrel of a gun and to create a better, more sophisticated understanding of populations and societal motivation and actions in insurgencies and civil wars.

    Next step after 3-24 is deconstructed and rewritten would be the much more difficult task of delinking the FM 3-24 style of counterinsurgency as it exists today, with its broader permeating effects not only on the Army, but on the greater defense and policy establishment as well.
    http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts...urgency_manual

    Over the years, I've collected various proposals on how to think about counterinsurgency from a third party expeditionary point of view. Some proposals view appropriate responses in a completely different way and somehow this is missed in the conversation. All of these are proposal about countering an insurgency, it is just looked at from a different lens, one where appropriate responses from the US include less maximalist solutions.

    I sometimes think this is missed because of discussion on the myth of the Savior General, it's entwined with that myth and a part of it, yet, separate too. This is why I also get irritated when people don't take time to look at US history in South Asia in the immediate post WWII period. After partition or their respective Independence, as India and Pakistan began building their new nations, we and the UK and UN were very much involved. For some reason we keep forgetting. This forgetting was carried forward into NATO's approach toward nation building in Afghanistan, IMO. That is why I say, "hey, if you are interested in nation building why aren't you interested in this very interesting US history of assistance?"

    Took me a long time to figure that out, though.
    Last edited by Madhu; 08-10-2013 at 06:01 PM. Reason: Added last two paras
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    Council Member TheCurmudgeon's Avatar
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    Default I's surprised

    It was interesting to see that Gentile had anything constructive to say. Almost everything I have seen from his was simply a biased attack on counterinsurgency. It's nice to see a constructive comment.

    You should write something. It seems you have collected a fair amount of material. You should write something. I would read it.

    I think that the American military makes some fundamental errors in trying to define itself and its mission. Most of these are a reflection of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. First, we try to find the biggest threat and prepare for it rather than look to what our political masters are most likely to ask us to do. This leads us to look for near peer competitors even where they really don't exist. Second, we look to history for examples rather than realizing that the world fundamentally changed after the creation of the UN. We don't have the freedom to take certain actions or use certain tactics that were part and parcel of the war prior to that point. Finally, we fail to realize that in many of the far reaches of the world we are the only organization that works. Yeah, democracy is great, but it is not really the best way to conduct operations, or perhaps even run a country.
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    Default None of them are right ...

    By Gian Gentile
    Best Defense counterininsurgency critic

    In general terms I would deconstruct the manual as it is now and break the singular link that it has with a certain theory of state building (known as population centric COIN). Once broken up I would then rewrite the doctrine from the ground up with three general parts: 1) would be a counterinsurgency approach centered on post-conflict reconstruction; 2) would be a counterinsurgency approach centered around military action to attack insurgent sources of military power (sometimes referred to as counter-terror or CT), but not linked to an endstate of a rebuilt or newly built nation state; 3) would be a counterinsurgency approach -- perhaps call it COIN light -- that would focus largely on Special Forces with some limited conventional army support conducting Foreign Internal Defense (FID).
    OK, so I still don't like Gentile. First, number 1 is not COIN. COIN and post-conflict reconstruction are not synonymous. 2. Assumes the insurgency has reached the point of civil war. Afghan insurgency often never gets to this level, although specific operations clearly meet the criteria. Iraq I leave to others to debate. 3. I prefer but... and it is the big but ... none of these attemept to determine why the insurgency is occurring. They are tactical solutions to strategic problems. This puts us right back to where we started. They are no solution at all.
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    Default evolution versus adaptation

    OK, I am back on this project although it has morphed. The following two paragraphs are critical to understanding my arguments so I am looking for input. I am hoping that they can stand alone, but if you need the build up to them it includes a description of human pre-state (pre-civilization) society and how that society changed after humans were able to produce a surplus of food on a regular basis. The ultimate goal is to show that different forms of government are the appropirate adaptations for differing "environmental" conditions.

    It is common to say that society evolved. Tribal societies are seen as “primitive” while “modern” societies are seen as more “advanced”. This is a misnomer. It creates the impression that humans have evolved over the last few thousand years – that the remaining hunter-gatherers and nomads are a lesser form of human being even thought they have passed through the same number of generations as any other group of people on the planet. The truth is that neither society nor the humans who created it have evolved. The humans have adapted to their environment. A resource rich environment allows for a higher population density and provides greater opportunity than a resource scarce environment. The higher population combined with resource availability provides the potential for greater specialization and technological advancement. Technological advances solve the problems of human survival. They meet the needs of the human society. Each of these technological advances creates a new environment for each succeeding generation. Each of these changes results in additional adaptations that are reflected in changes in society. All of these adaptations are intended to help the members of the society meet their needs. The needs of the population do not change, but the ones that are left unfulfilled – the ones that are most important to the population – change with the population density, resource availability, and each technological advance.

    Let me provide an example. Two children are born in the year 1990: one to an Amazonian tribal group and one to an American family in Fairfax, Virginia. The Amazonian child will grow up in an environment where food is not consistent, disease is common, the jungle is full of peril, and it is likely that at least one or more of his siblings will not grow to adulthood. Members of the Amazonian tribal group are deeply dependent on each other and the child grows up with an appreciation of that dependence. The needs this child is most concerned with are basic survival and security needs and his society is designed to fulfill those needs. The American child grows up in a world free from want for what he needs to survive. He will most likely never be concerned with his next meal and never thinks that any of his brothers or sisters will not live to a ripe old age. Most of his concerns revolve around his individual identity. He is not truly dependent on anyone other than his parents and does not grow up reliant on anyone. In his environment, individual autonomy is the need he is most likely to be concerned with and his society is designed to fulfill that need. When seen this way it becomes evident that society has not evolved. It has adapted to fulfill the needs that are most important to its population. It has adapted to maximize its need fulfillment of its population based on the environment the society inherits.
    Last edited by TheCurmudgeon; 09-12-2013 at 06:15 PM.
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    I think the real difference would be a larger pool of identities that someone from a more advanced society could choose from, singular, multiple or combined, whether it's political, social, ethnic, religious or by association, that could be introduced through family, community, education, military service, internet or travel.

    Someone born to an Amazon tribe wouldn't normally have the opportunity to sample that variety, and someone from North Korea would find their choices very carefully curtailed by their government.

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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
    The American child grows up in a world free from want for what he needs to survive. He will most likely never be concerned with his next meal and never thinks that any of his brothers or sisters will not live to a ripe old age. Most of his concerns revolve around his individual identity. He is not truly dependent on anyone other than his parents and does not grow up reliant on anyone. In his environment, individual autonomy is the need he is most likely to be concerned with and his society is designed to fulfill that need.
    You will need to be strict with how you operationalize ‘individual,’ ‘identity,’ and ‘autonomy.’ One of the frustrations you see voiced time and time again in the documentation left by European colonial administrators amounts to a complaint about how individualistic the natives are. As Father Paul Le Juene said in the 17th century in a rant so insightful and hilarious that I refuse to do it damage by translation:

    Il n’y a rien de si difficile que de régler les peuples de l'Amérique. Tous ces Barbares ont le droict des asnes sauuages: ils naissent, viuent et meurent dans vne liberté sans retenuë; ils ne sçauent que c’est de bride ni de caueçon; c’est vne grande risée parmi eux de dompter ses passions, et vne haute Philosophie d'accorder à ses sens tout ce qu’ils désirent.
    If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed. – Mark Twain (attributed)

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    Default European colonial administrator - non !

    Quebec Seminary administrator - oui !

    The full context (what your omitted fore and aft of your quote) is provided us in the Jesuit Relations, Vol. XII Qubec 1637 (Thwaites trans. Creighton):

    [191] CHAPTER XIII.

    OF THE ORDER OBSERVED IN THE SEMINARY, AND SOME PARTICULARS RELATING TO THE SEMINARISTS.

    HERE is nothing so difficult as to control the tribes of America. All these Barbarians have the law of wild asses,they are born, live, and die in a liberty without restraint; they do not know what is meant by bridle or bit. With them, to conquer one's passions is considered a great joke, while to give free rein to the senses is a lofty Philosophy. The Law of our Lord is far removed from this dissoluteness; it gives us boundaries and prescribes limits, outside of which we cannot step without offending God and reason. Now it is very hard to place this yoke, although it is very mild and easy, upon the necks of people who make a profession of not submitting to anything, either in heaven or upon earth; I say it is very hard, but not impossible. In fact, I am convinced that it is beyond the power and skill of men, but that it is very easy to God. [192] We are astonished to see how wild young men, accustomed to follow their own caprices, place themselves under subjection, with so much meekness, that there seems to be nothing so pliant as a Huron Seminarist.
    In 1637-1638, the primary civil administrators (besides the governor and his limited staff) were Nicolas Marsolet, King's Agent at Tadoussac (DCB bio - English); and Olivier le Tardif, Head Clerk for the Cent-Associes at Quebec (DCB bio - English). Their "trick" in administering the Indians was not to administer them. W.W. Rostow "modernization" - or de Lautey-Galliani "colonialization" - would have been quite foreign to them. And, yes, both Marsolet and le Tardif were among my ancestors.

    A more impartial view of the French civil regime's generally "hands off" policy is found in Desmond H. Brown, "They Do Not Submit Themselves To The Kings Law: Amerindians and Criminal Justice During the French Regime" (Manitoba Law Journal, vol. 28, no. 3; there used to be a free pdf online), which sums up the situation:

    The early progression from participation in the North Atlantic fishery to monopoly in the fur trade and its subsequent rapid and lucrative expansion, caused French dominion in North America to evolve into an empire of trade. But it was an empire that needed few French subjects to function. The bulk of the work was done by the Aboriginal peoples. It was they who gathered the pelts and transported them to the French entrepots, and who also became valued military allies.

    This was fortunate for successive trading companies who founded and administered the first settlements, as well as for later royal governments, because the attention of French monarchs was focused on Europe and the endemic Continental warfare of the time. The French were always thin on the ground. They never had the military muscle to overawe the Amerindians and force them to submit to French sovereignty nor, in particular, to French criminal justice. Nor were they able to convince them to comply with it by argument or example.

    As a result, there was no change in the legal status of Amerindians during the French regime. They continued to be governed by their own law in all intra-tribal offences and, with the rare exceptions that proved the rule, in crimes that involved Amerindians and French subjects, with restitution as the means for settlement.
    The favored method for resolving collisions between French and Indian justice was reparations, particulary after a 1684 case (p.28):

    It is thus evident that accepting or making restitution for offences committed by or against Amerindians in French settlements along the St. Lawrence was becoming customary in the mid-seventeenth century. This practice also came to be followed at French military posts in the pays den haut later in the regime. It became the rule after two Natives, a Chippewa and a Menomimee, were executed at Michilimackinic in 1684 for killing two Frenchmen.

    The incident is analyzed in detail by R. White who follows the lengthy and tortuous negotiations between the French and the tribal councils. He makes clear the failure of the French to comprehend the imperatives of Amerindian justice and the purpose of restitution on the one hand and, on the other, the incredulity of the tribesmen when they were made to understand that French justice demanded a life for a life, even if the accused was an ally in an ongoing war. In short, the affair came close to sundering friendly relations between the French and the Natives of the area, even after the French made liberal restitution to the tribes when the consequences of their action became clear.

    After this, and surrounded by the Native presence, post commanders who dispensed justice to their fellow subjects were not eager to observe the letter of French law in their dealings with the Natives. As White then goes on to demonstrate, French authority in the area subsequently worked to find some middle ground to settle incidents of this kind. Nevertheless, whatever compromises were negotiated invariably conformed to the Amerindian pattern of conflict resolution: restitution rather than retribution.
    This seems to have usually worked, with the Colonial Troops acting more as policemen (less as soldiers) and where negotiation had to be their strength. From the Michigan Historical Collection (link):

    Letter from Vaudreuil
    (October 12, 1717)
    Vaudreuil, "On the Savages of Detroit" in: Michigan Historical Collections, XXXIII, pp. 590-593.

    pp. 592, 593.

    (page 592) .....

    The trouble which prevented the principal chiefs of the Detroit tribes from coming, to Montreal, was created by an Outaouac of that post and four others from Saguinan. These five men pretended they were going to war against the Flatheads; they proceeded to the river of the Miamis and there slew an Iroquois and his wife, who was a Miami woman, and two children.

    This wrongful attack concerns the Iroquois because the (page 593) man who was killed was of their tribe. It also concerns the Miamis, for the man was married and living with them. This matter must be settled, and the Iroquois and Miamis must be prevented from taking vengeance on the Outavois and the other tribes of Detroit.

    The Sr. de Tonty has already begun, for his part, to take action with the Miamis through the Sr. de Vincennes to dissuade them from their intention of avenging themselves and to remove every pretext for their pursuing this course which would give rise to a war between them and the people at Detroit and Saguinan, which it would be difficult to stop. He has induced the tribes of Detroit to join him in sending to Saguinan to seize these murderers and deliver them up to the Miamis.

    The Outaouacs and Poutouatamis each sent a boat of their men, to which the Sr. de Tonty added a boat of Frenchmen under the command of the Sr. de Bragelongue, a Lieutenant, who brought back the three murderers to Detroit where the Sr. de Tonty had them under guard until he received news from the Miamis, to whom he had taken care, to make known the amends, which it was proposed to make to them.

    He hopes that they will be satisfied with this action and will accept as a complete reparation the presents which the tribes of Detroit, and the French also, are preparing to make them, and that this disturbance may be suppressed by this means. I hope so, too; but I shall not be able to get any news about it until next spring.
    Unfortunately, I was unable to find the rest of the story. If the reparations offer were accepted, the three Indians would have been freed and a blood feud between four Indian groups would have been avoided. Etienne de Bragelongue was later promoted to capitaine and commanded his own company at Fort Chambly (near Montreal), where he was aide-major.

    Adding another arrow favorable to the French civil regime's "hands-off" position: MacLeod, The Exercise of Power by the Amerindians of the Great Lakes during the War of the Austrian Succession, 1744-1748 (1992, 210 pp.).

    Regards

    Mike
    Last edited by jmm99; 09-13-2013 at 12:54 AM.

  14. #54
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    Default Religion and governance in New France

    were of a piece.

    Quote Originally Posted by jmm99 View Post
    We are astonished to see how wild young men, accustomed to follow their own caprices, place themselves under subjection, with so much meekness, that there seems to be nothing so pliant as a Huron Seminarist.
    Struggling to maintain a Jesuit presence amongst the Huron living as permanent guests of the Seneca and with 35 years of hindsight on his side, Father Garneir in his letter in the 56th Relation notes that:

    The spiritual interests of these Missions depend largely on temporal affairs, and above all on the state of men’s minds regarding the peace with the French. The elders of the village of Gandachiorágon had declared to me, in a council called for the purpose, that they wished to adopt the custom of praying to God, and indeed some began to do so; and, although I could not yet see therein any great beginnings of faith, yet their example induced the people to give me a hearing, and procured for me entire freedom in visiting and instructing the sick. But rumors of the approach of a French army soon undid these small beginnings. The people’s minds being ill prepared, the demon used the opportunity to make them speak against the faith and against its preachers. An old man who came some years ago from [Cayuga],—a mischief-maker, but a persuasive speaker, able to do what he will with our [Seneca], and passing among them for a prodigy of wisdom,—is wont to demonstrate to them that the faith makes people die. He cites whole families who embraced it in times past, when the late Father Ménard, Apostolic Missionary, was sojourning at [Cayuga]—families, of whom, he says, not one soul is now left. He adds that the black-gowned men are here only as spies, and convey all information to Onnontio,—that is, to Monsieur the Governor; or that they are sorcerers, who effect by disease what Onnontio cannot accomplish by his arms. I know with certainty that my death has been proposed, on the ground that I am a spy, and more or less a sorcerer; and that our host himself, Onnonkenritaoui, the most influential Chief of this great Nation, has often proposed to his sister to kill me as a sorcerer, when she declared to him her great distrust of me because of her daughter’s frequent fits of sickness. As I do not retire as early as is their wont, and as I spend a considerable part of the evening praying in the Chapel, they are persuaded that I cannot be otherwise engaged during that time than in communing with some evil spirit, and plotting with him the ruin of their family. Thus, humanly speaking, my life depends on that little girl’s health; and I would run great risk of losing it, were she to die. I would also have equal cause for alarm if probable tidings reached us of the march of a French army to this country,—a number of men having assured me in advance that, in that case, they would certainly brain me.
    Last edited by ganulv; 09-13-2013 at 01:13 AM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by ganulv View Post
    You will need to be strict with how you operationalize ‘individual,’ ‘identity,’ and ‘autonomy.’ One of the frustrations you see voiced time and time again in the documentation left by European colonial administrators amounts to a complaint about how individualistic the natives are. As Father Paul Le Juene said in the 17th century in a rant so insightful and hilarious that I refuse to do it damage by translation:
    I will work to clarify that. Autonomy is a specific need, like physiological or security needs. That is clarified elsewhere.

    I am sure that, compared to the strict social structure of per-revolutionary France, the Native Americans appeared to be free as birds.
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    Default Matt,

    You can quote 10,000 statements by Jesuits and other religious administrators about Indians - which boiled down to the difficulties in converting them and keeping them on the "right path".

    The French regime's civil administrators in Quebec and the Great Lakes (where civil and military administration were often combined) often disliked the missionaries; and as amply proved, followed a "hands off" policy. That doesn't mean there were no nasty altercations with Indians, the Iroquois being front and foremost until just after 1700. The Fox in the Great Lakes were another avowed French-Canadian enemy. Both were enemies because the French-Canadians formed early alliances with Indian groups that were at war with either the Iroquois or Fox. More than one of my geneological entries has "tue par les Iroquois" for cause of death. Militarily, both sides gave as well as they took.

    The Jesuits tended to catch it from both sides. The French-Canadians knew the Jesuits would do anything for the greater glory of God and obtaining converts; and the Quebec civil and military establishments were far down the Jesuits' list of priorities. Many Indians would have shared to some extent the Iroquois sentiments that you quote:

    He adds that the black-gowned men are here only as spies, and convey all information to Onnontio,—that is, to Monsieur the Governor; or that they are sorcerers, who effect by disease what Onnontio cannot accomplish by his arms. I know with certainty that my death has been proposed, on the ground that I am a spy, and more or less a sorcerer; and that our host himself, Onnonkenritaoui, the most influential Chief of this great Nation, has often proposed to his sister to kill me as a sorcerer, when she declared to him her great distrust of me because of her daughter’s frequent fits of sickness.
    As to Garnier's "rumor of war", a French army advancing, I'm not aware of any French attacks in 1672. An uneasy truce was in effect then. But, I did some research and found this, Temporary Peace (by Francis Jennings):

    ... in 1672 France and England joined in war against the Netherlands. In the same year Canada and New York suppressed the feud between the Mohawks and the Mahicans. When the Mahicans proposed an expedition against the Mohawks, the French rejected it. The Mohawks heard of the proposal and ran to Albany. "We have accepted the peace which has been made by you people," they said. "Speak with the Mahikanders so that they come and do as we do." Albany's magistrates promised to "take care that the peace will remain steadfast" and to "force the Mahikanders to come here," continuing with the promise of explicit sanctions: "if they come to slay one of you, then they will see that they will have to deal with us, and we will revenge it." Peace ensued. It was indeed so reliable a peace that Mohawks could afford to get roaring drunk in Albany and stagger back home along paths formerly overrun by Mahican bushwhackers. On the French side, missionary Father Lamberville thought it was a "baleful peace" that created such opportunities for continued drunkenness, but Governor Frontenac enforced it. Thus the Indian allies of France's colony and England's colony were pacified immediately when the empires leagued.[64]

    The alliance between Stuart and Bourbon was not matched by amity between Stuart and Calvert. Intermittent and desultory war continued between James Stuart's Iroquois and Charles Calvert's Susquehannock's, to the apparent disadvantage of the Iroquois. In 1672 a war party of Senecas and Cayugas was routed by equal numbers of Susquehannock adolescents. In 1673 the Iroquois appealed for help from their new friends in Canada; they "earnestly exhorted" Governor Frontenac to assist them against the Susquehannock's because "it would be a shame for him to allow his children to be crushed, as they saw themselves about to be . . . they not having the means of going to attack [the Susquehannock's] in their fort, which was very strong, nor even of defending themselves if the others came to attack them in their villages." Frontenac put them off without a commitment, and the odds are long that he did not arm them covertly: first, because it was no time for the French to be meddling with Indian conflicts deep within English territory; secondly, because Frontenac's government was suffering from an acute shortage of munitions for its own defense, as he reported to France in November, 1674.[65]

    This is a significant date. According to the usual sort of comment about the Susquehannock's, they are supposed to have been badly beaten by the Iroquois sometime between 1672 and 1675. We have seen what shape the Iroquois were in until 1672. The French records make it clear that the Iroquois could not possibly have launched a successful attack before July, 1673, when they met with Frontenac; and they could not have obtained any considerable supply of arms from the French thereafter through November, 1674. Even if we suspect Frontenac of wanting to arm the Iroquois clandestinely, we must conclude that he could not have done so through the winter of 1674/1675; because of the winter freeze on the St. Lawrence, it was impossible for Frontenac's appeal for an arms shipment from France to be answered before the spring thaw. The importance of all this arises from the fact that the Susquehannock's abandoned their old village and fort on the Susquehanna River in February, 1675, to retire into Maryland.[66] Assuming, only for the sake of argument, that the retirement had been forced by Iroquois pressure the Iroquois would have had to get arms from somewhere besides Canada. Was it Albany, then? There are excellent reasons for rejecting this possibility also, but they must be seen as part of the whole pattern of events at Chesapeake and Delaware bays.[66]

    Notes:

    64 Treaty minutes, Albany, 23 July, 1672, Livingston Indian Records, pp. 35-37; Jean Dc Lamberville, "Relation of 1672-73," Jesuit Relations 57: p. 81.

    65 Pierre Raffeix, June, 1672, Jesuit Relations 56: pp. 55-57; Frontenac's journal, 17-18 July 1673, N. V. Col. Does. 9: pp. 108, 110-111; Frontenac to Colbert, 14 Nov., 1674, ibid. 9: pp. 116117.

    66 Minutes, 19 Feb., 1675, Md. Arch. (Upper House) 2: pp. 428-429.
    From all that, we can conclude that Garnier was not in the know about the true state of Quebec-Iroquois civil and military relations in 1672.

    Creighton is a good source for the JR in English, The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents 1610 to 1791.

    Regards

    Mike
    Last edited by jmm99; 09-13-2013 at 03:48 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by jmm99 View Post
    Creighton is a good source for the JR in English, The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents 1610 to 1791.
    Yes, I know them well.

    As for Jennings, whose work I also know well and do respect:

    "it would be a shame for him to allow his children to be crushed, as they saw themselves about to be . . . they not having the means of going to attack [the Susquehannock's] in their fort, which was very strong, nor even of defending themselves if the others came to attack them in their villages."
    I have been to the site of said fort—and anyone who has crossed the Susquehanna on the Wrights Ferry Bridge has come practically within sight of it—and it is an imposing location.

    The importance of all this arises from the fact that the Susquehannock's abandoned their old village and fort on the Susquehanna River in February, 1675, to retire into Maryland.
    I have been to their settlement site on the Potomac, too. It’s visible from the front lawn of Mount Vernon, unbeknownst to almost all of the visitors there.

    Assuming, only for the sake of argument, that the retirement had been forced by Iroquois pressure the Iroquois would have had to get arms from somewhere besides Canada. Was it Albany, then? There are excellent reasons for rejecting this possibility also, but they must be seen as part of the whole pattern of events at Chesapeake and Delaware bays.
    Connecticut is another possibility. Regardless, we are able to say with some confidence via the archaeological record that the Iroquois were in possession of firearms aplenty prior to 1674. The data published in The Rochester Museum and Science Center’s Proceedings of the 1984 Trade Gun Conference makes this clear.

    The French regime's civil administrators in Quebec and the Great Lakes (where civil and military administration were often combined) often disliked the missionaries; and as amply proved, followed a "hands off" policy. That doesn't mean there were no nasty altercations with Indians
    Hands off of the missionaries because they needed them; hands off of the Indians because of resource and manpower limitations.

    the Iroquois being front and foremost until just after 1700.
    La Grande Paix was in 1701, to be precise.

    As to Garnier's "rumor of war", a French army advancing, I'm not aware of any French attacks in 1672. An uneasy truce was in effect then. […] From all that, we can conclude that Garnier was not in the know about the true state of Quebec-Iroquois civil and military relations in 1672.
    He certainly knew full well that the de Tracy expedition had burned the Mohawk settlements six years prior, as did his Seneca hosts, and Québec did not mind that the threat hung in the air.

    And it was not as if he or the Iroquois had UAVs feeding them intelligence about troop movements, so I would not say that Garnier lacked knowledge of the French/Iroquois relationship so much as that his letter reflects its fraught and fluid nature. (Frontenac assembled an expedition that would burn the Seneca settlements fifteen years subsequent to Garnier’s letter, a second and particularly devastating expedition against the Mohawk six years after that, and another that destroyed the Onondaga and Oneida settlements three years after that one. That he never mounted one against the Cayuga is a testament to their geographic location as much as anything else.) Rumors on the vast and tense colonial frontier are of a different quality than lunchroom gossip. Greg Dowd has done some excellent work on the topic.
    Last edited by ganulv; 09-13-2013 at 05:25 AM. Reason: typo fix
    If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed. – Mark Twain (attributed)

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    Default "Hands off of the missionaries ...

    because they needed them ..." Well, sort of.

    The Quebec civil and military authorities needed the co-operation of the Church. So, the civil and military not only tolerated the missionaries, but put up with them on expeditions, and with their often counter-productive conversion programs. The 1660-1663 expedition to Lake Superior could have done without the headaches caused by the "late Father Menard, Apostolic Missionary" (cited by Garnier). By then, the power of the Church had increased after Bishop Laval was installed in Quebec (1659).

    Your last two paragraphs are not material to 1672. Six years before 1672 is not 1672; 15 years after 1672 is not 1672. Garnier wrote bad history for 1672, which is the point I made.

    Greg Dowd: I thank him for his services re:

    2001-2006. Tribal history research for the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians and Grand Traverse Bay Ottawa and Chippewa. Completed a four-hundred page report on the importance of an 1836 treaty stipulation in preparation for a federal Indian law case. (October, 2004). Completed 70+ page rebuttals of reports of nations‟ adversaries (January, 2005). Submitted to 21 hours of deposition (April, 2005). U.S. District Judge Richard Enslen signed consent decree favourable to tribes on Nov. 5, 2007, in which the State of Michigan agreed that the tribal treaty rights remain intact.
    Regards

    Mike

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    Sorry for the stray comment, but I remember someone once commenting on another thread about good governance NOT being a reason to go to war - that the efficiency of the government was not a critical factor with the populations satisfaction with the government. Does anyone want to admit to that thought or elaborate on it? I think that idea will be most helpful here.
    "I can change almost anything ... but I can't change human nature."

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    Default Adaptaion

    Another passage - a precursor to the discussion on adaptation versus evolution.

    Let me start with a generic discussion. All animals evolve to solve the problems of life. They evolve to be able to survive and reproduce. Evolution sets the basic rules for all animals. It sets out whether they breathe in air or in water, what food they eat, what temperatures they can endure, how they interact with each other. On top of these rules are adaptations – specific ways animals find to solve the problems of survival in their specific environment.

    Let us start with an animal that has evolved to be an air breathing, omnivorous, land dweller. It has a set of biological requirements for individual survival like food, water, and a limited tolerance to the elements that requires shelter in certain circumstances. It requires a mate to reproduce. In addition to the mate it has evolved to be a social creature, dependent on other members of the pack for basic survival. It has one additional feature, it has a large brain and has developed the ability to use complex symbols, including symbolic sounds, to represent ideas and transmit information. To use this intelligence the animal has developed a curiosity and a level of independence that it uses to solve problems. So the animal has developed biological requirements, reproductive requirements, pack requirements, and individual curiosity requirement.

    Each of these requirements represents a need that must be fulfilled. These animals are “hardwired” to fulfill these needs. That result of that firmware is that the animals are motivated to satisfy those needs. Survival of the species dictates that these needs have a order of precedence with certain needs being far more important than others. The need to survive biologically is more important the need to reproduce (however, the need for the offspring to survive is more important than the need for individual survival). The need to be part of a pack is important but not as important as the need to reproduce. The need to protect the pack is more important than the need to be curious and pursue activities that satisfy that individual drive. There are a number of unique conditions that alter these generalities. Regardless these generalities allow us to begin to see a motivational pattern. Biological needs are more important than reproductive need; reproductive needs are more important than pack; and the need to be part of a pack is more important than the need to satisfy one’s individual curiosity. The result is a need hierarchy. The hierarchy is similar to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

    By now it should be clear that I am referring to man. Humans evolved over millions of years. Modern man appeared about 100,000 years ago. For all but the last 10,000 years or so man lived in small nomadic groups that would hunt and gather food within a home territory. The hardwired motivational scheme served him well and he used his intelligence to identify and employ better ways to survive. But through most of his time he still lived from hunt to hunt with the threat of death from accident, disease and exposure to the elements, other predators, and starvation ever-present. This was not a problem since the motivational scheme man had evolved with was uniquely suited to this lifestyle. Humans had a motivational scheme that had evolved to meet each one of these problems in an order of importance that ensured the survival of the species.

    Then things changed. Using that big brain he developed a pair of solutions to his food problem. The first was horticulture, which allowed him to grow the food he needed to survive. The second was domesticating animals. With the advent of these two adaptations humans now had more food than they could use. At first this was not a problem because it was simply allowed for larger size packs. But eventually there was more food than could be consumed and surpluses started to develop. At this point man found himself in an “unnatural” condition. He had adapted to his conditions faster than evolution could keep up. He now lived in a world that required him to adapt his entire pack structure to this change in his environment - a change he created by solving his food problem. He created social structures to decide how to deal with the excess food. Who should control this excess of food and how should it be used. Of course this did not occur all at once. It is doubtful that the humans ever noticed the change. They simply came up with solutions to their problems. None-the -less, the humans were now living in conditions that required adaptation away from their evolutionarily dictated motivational scheme. It now allowed them to no longer be primarily concerned with food. Their hardware programing now jumped to the next most important needs, reproduction and security of the pack.

    Fast-forward a few thousand years Greece about 500 BCE. A combination of conditions has created a society capable of meeting most of their biological, reproductive, and pack based survival needs. The land and sea produced more food then they needed. Silver mines yielded wealth that was distributed amongst the citizens. Slaves took care of mining the silver and most of the menial tasks and Athens military might was largely unquestioned leaving her without a realistic enemy. With these lower needs largely satisfied the human population began to concentrate on their individual curiosities. What did they find interesting. Art, theatre, and science became the motivational drives for much of the population. The concentration on satisfying individual motivations found its way into politics. Almost by accident, when a local businessman tried to install a king as the new ruler of the land the population spontaneously revolted. They may not have known what they wanted but they knew a king was not it. The Athenian’s laid siege to the acropolis for three days before the would-be king and his supporters were ousted from the acropolis and banished from Athens. What would result from this spontaneous uprising would be the first well-documented democracy.

    That first democracy was as much the result of hardwired motivations designed to satisfy human needs as was our attempts a few thousand years earlier to ensure the security of the pack. Both were the result of our prior success in satiating the next lower level need. Both represented an adaptation - an attempt to rectify what our evolutionarily programmed drives were telling us we must be concerned with at the moment as compared with those needs we had already satisfied. Reproduction and survival of the pack became the primary concern when we no longer had to be concerned with starvation. Likewise, once the needs of pack survival satisfied then next level need, the need to satiate individual desires, became paramount. The government that resulted from that three-day siege was specifically designed to satisfy those needs. It was true of democracy back then ... and it is true of democracy today. Democracy is not the best form of government ... it is the form designed to allow us the greatest ability to satisfy our individual needs.
    I know this is a little off the mark for a military discussion but I have to set the stage for my theory as to why democracy cannot (and should not) be universally mandated. This is not to say that it is not in our security interests to spread democracy. But it is not as easily achievable as many expect.

    Again, if we in the military do not work to create an understanding of this problem - and the American distinction between the proper role of the military and the proper role of the civilian leadership is not changed - then the only way for us to convince the civilian leadership that attempting to export democracy into society "X" is not feasible is by explaining why.
    Last edited by TheCurmudgeon; 09-21-2013 at 08:46 PM.
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