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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   779 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 24, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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So, what are you reading?

I'm still on Sayers' Whose Body? Also reading Abelson's The Seven Liberal Arts after rereading Sayers' essay The Lost Tools of Learning.

Battle Cry of Freedom, McPherson.

Haven’t decided whether it has school textbook energy or if I just associate the antebellum material with high school. Setting that confusion aside, I found the beginning extremely compelling. It opens with sheet music: one tune, two sets of lyrics. Eloquent.

There are parts I want to write up for the Motte and parts I want to quote directly. Mostly about the absurd growth of mid-1800s America and how it mapped to the economic and social movements we learned about in school. Consider the Great Awakening. The standard AP explanation is “well, excess land is a pretty good situation for splinter religious groups.” This is underselling it. A glut of natural resources corresponds to a shortage of skilled labor. That suppresses the anti-capitalist sentiments which wrack Europe around this time, and it takes the pressure off social strife, so there’s less unrest and less resistance to industrialization. Moving along that curve pushes the modal worker out of the home and into the factory, or in the case of women, into education. So the next generation is both richer and better educated, creating a much more literate, socially conscious class which is still aligned with the industrialization project rather than conservative. Each surplus reinforces the others.

And none of this is touching on the Peculiar Institution! That’s like half of the opening chapter.

I have a lot more to say about this, but I’m going to hold off until I’ve read some more.

I remember reading it years ago, and found it excellent. Should probably re-read it, and one or two of his other books.

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