][<,
"We say we want a renewal of character in our day but we do not really know
what to ask for. To have a renewal of character is to have a renewal of a
creedal order that constrains, limits, binds, obligates and compels. This
price is too high for us to pay. We want character without conviction; we
want strong morality but without the emotional burden of guilt and shame;
we want virtue but without the particular moral justifications that
invariably offend; we want good without evil; we want moral community
without any limitations to personal freedom. In short, we want what we
cannot possibly have on the terms that we want it."
James Hunter, The Death of Character
El-T
-----Original Message-----
From: The listserv where the buildings do the talking
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Gabriel
Orgrease
Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 2009 7:03 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [BP] Our Incredibly Precious Trades Heritage
deb bledsoe wrote:
> *She talks about Staged Symbolic Communities.*
>
> This one made me laugh. Us folks in the lower echelons of histo-presto
> have always called this "the Disneyland method". Ran into a lot of
> that in NJ. ;)
deb,
Barthel as a sociologist works her way out from the "Disney" aspect of
histo presto. The Staged Symbolic Community, to paraphrase, the
recreated village, the blacksmith shop, the blacksmith who day-to-day
does blacksmithing to an audience of families that come to see the
blacksmithing and to hear the stories, and the baker, the grocer, the
gardener, the weaver... and the narrative is one of people who look like
they are living in harmony at an ideal Utopian time frozen in the past
(better, of a higher moral authority than our own, sanitized, good
smelling), but orchestrated by a small non-profit corporation with
managers with bottom-lines in the background. What the author evokes is
the social politics underlying the preservation of the past. How
Colonial Williamsburg or Greenfield Village came to be and how we 'lower
echelons' think about all that when we dismantle and move an old barn.
Our very best attempts at a desire for 'authentication' of historic
fabric take place within a very bizarre Staged Symbolic Industry.
One of the themes that is slowly evolving least ways w/in PTN, and that
in great measure comes out of the on-the-ground experience at Holy Cross
post-Katrina, is that beyond a romanticism of traditional trades
practices that there was an evident 300 year history of building
technology that survived Katrina, that was derived from the French
colonial experience, and that was lost during 200 years of
industrialization in a 'use and throw away economics' and that there is
something more than a symbolic act when you have someone that actually
knows how to repair a slate roof, or a house trailer, or to repair and
maintain existing wood windows, or to fix the bullet holes in their
stone wall, or to take the existing building and make it more energy
efficient without causing it to rot away faster.
Then, if there is relevance to knowing how to fix old things... a
question as to what to do about all the cultural baggage that is
attached to 'preservation'. To a great extent the discussion leans
toward couching it in terms of 'maintenance of the existing built
environment', and that re-framing regardless of when it was built,
where, or exactly what. Portable fiberglass toilets for starters.
][<en
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