Robert Darnton
An Early Information Society
Online Discussion Archive: Topic and Reply 4
Topic: Desacralizing the French Monarchy and White Racism Conf: Discussion of Darnton's Article From: Raymond J. Jirran western-civilization@home.net Date: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 09:13 AM Full Title: Desacralizing the French Monarchy and White Racism by Sacralizing the Nation and the People in Western Civilization To continue the dialogue ... Robert Darnton and David Andress sacralize the people, while Brad Brown desacralizes the monarchy. Their insights have further implications. The stakes for the tent of Western civilization can be expanded to include the excluded, not only in France but also in the United States and elsewhere. Truth in the face of countervailing politics is the road to that inclusion. Discussion such as this is vital for seeking that truth. If Brown is concerned about desacralization of the French monarchy, why not also be concerned about desacralization of white racism? While the American public sphere was plainly racist, it seems reasonable to look for changes in non-public media systems--not only in France but also in French America, Spanish America, and Anglo America. Anglo America seems an appropriate focus for this audience. If French revolutionary media and social institutions caused strong reactions evident in eighteenth-century France, during the nineteenth century in the United States, abolitionist media caused similarly strong, well-known racist reactions. Prescinding from the abolitionists in the media, but following the interests of Brown, if Louis XV led an immoral life, so did white racists. If French scholars have overemphasized popular opposition to the monarchy, similarly U.S. scholars have overemphasized Southern acceptance of white racism. Southern opposition to white racism has been neglected. If French scholars have overemphasized crises for the monarchy to the neglect of popular support, U.S. historians have overemphasized the white racist crises, all the while also neglecting, but this time assuming, popular support for racism. The Underground Railroad would never have worked either in the North or in the South without some popular (neglected) non-racist support. The relevance of Darnton's article to broader historiography may be not only specific, as Brown demonstrates, but also general, as seems to be the case in the United States, as described above. Continuing, Andress makes arguments similar to Brown in that those arguments also have pertinence to U.S. history. Where Brown is concerned with the desacralization of the monarchy, Andress is concerned with the sacralization of the Nation, the people. Paraphrasing Andress pulls out the relevance. If there was "French Revolutionary ambivalence toward the legitimacy of popular comment on public affairs," U.S. revolutionaries had similar ambivalence, seen especially in the reception of Thomas Jefferson's liaison with Sally Hemings. The January 2000 _William and Mary Quarterly_, pp. 121-210, elaborates this contention. The common position of blacks as subjects of racism rendered them "equal participants in a critical discourse" about the reality of racism in the War for Independence. The Civil War reduction of free blacks to the level of the former slaves continues in popular thinking. Too often, even historians forget that at least 10 percent of blacks in both the colonial and the national United States were always free. Once the War for Independence had made the Nation into its sovereign, might we not further suggest that "a critical discourse about a racist Nation became deeply problematic"? One could criticize the public persona of the United States, Uncle Sam, but it was very difficult for U.S. revolutionaries to locate an "outside" from which criticism of the Nation and Congress could be legitimate. This inability to locate an outside in the United States appears similar to the inability to locate an outside in France, in the spirit of Andress. One purpose of AHR articles is insight into other areas of study. Other areas of study also offer potential for understanding AHR articles. In that spirit of dialogue, these thoughts with Brown and Andress continue in gratitude for the opportunity. Raymond J. Jirran Topic: Re: Desacralizing the French Monarchy Conf: Discussion of Darnton's Article From: Robert Darnton darnton@princeton.edu Date: Tuesday, March 28, 2000 02:19 PM Having been somewhat long-winded in my previous replies, I will try to keep this one short. In fact, Raymond Jirran's second letter seems to be aimed more at David Andress and Brad Brown than at me; so perhaps I should leave the replying to them. But I certainly subscribe to a key point that Raymond Jirran makes here--namely, that the public debate about slavery became increasingly problematic after the American Revolution. The same could be said of racism after the Civil War. Robert Darnton Princeton University
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