I’d written previously about Marcel Duchamp’s early work as a founder of the Dada school of modern art, a school that aims to say nothing about anything except about itself. Duchamp hung a urinal as art and called it “fountain.” It was comic, insulting, and engaging — an inspiration for many modern arts to follow , and much bad modern art, too — the collections of string and found objects and paintings of squares or squiggles. But the story of Duchamp is interesting. In 1925, M. Duchamp gave up on art, at least this type of art and became a chess player. As with art, he was very good at it, and became the French chess champion. Now that’s an unexpected turn.
What sort of chess did Marcel Duchamp play? Modern. Very modern. While tradition chess had focussed on the center. He developed at the sides, a strategy that was called an “Indian attack”, named (I assume) after American Indians attacking a stage-coach. Instead of attacking directly, the popular image of an Indian attack is attack from the sides, or behind trees. In chess, it involves typically a “fianchettoed bishop.” Other modern chess players of the time attacked from the side too (Réti, Alekhine) but they generally worked form one side or the other with some central presence. Duchamp worked from both, often with no center.
Position after white’s 13th move
Here is a dramatic example, a position from a game with an American great, GM George Koltanowski. It’s 13 moves in, with Duchamp, is black, generally considered the weaker side. He has fianchettoed both of his bishops, and given up the center to Koltanowski. It’s Duchamp’s turn to move/ He will win in three moves.
Notice that Koltanowsi’s bishops point outward, as a cowboys guns might point, or as from a British fighting square. Meanwhile, Duchamp’s bishops point inward, with his queen -bishop almost directly at the white king. The game proceeded as follows. 13…, Nxd5 14.Nxd7, Nxf4 15.Nxf8, Bd4, 0-1..
The full game, seen here,. It might prove instructive if you want to explore in Duchamp’s footsteps. While I play traditionally, I sometimes fianchetto, and do not find it racist that such side-attacks are called “Indian attacks.” Perhaps that’s because I’m old and used to such things, or because they very often work.
Please Touch. M. Duchamp 1947
Self-portrait, M. Duchamp, 1957 (torn paper on black velvet).
As M. Duchamp’s chess skills waned, he returned to the art world, going in the opposite direction of Dali. Duchamp’s last works are small, and simple. They are still arresting but more dream-like. Dali’s works grew bigger and busier as he got older.
The Boy Scouts of America filed for bankruptcy some months ago, and I’d began this article as a project to discover what went wrong. They have gotten mountains of bad press amidst land sales and lost membership, and there is a class action law suit over sexual abuse. Everything about this suggested that scouting had lost its way, and I thought I explore what. My sense after some searching is that scouting is doing fine, serving its members despite its troubles and growing in part because of them.
Baden-Powell in Africa his Stetson The Boy Scout retained much form Baden-Powell, including the hat.
The basic idea of scouting was to provide an environment where boys would d become men, learning to be prepared, and be helpful, decent, active human beings. Some details have changed, but the goal remains, and I’d say they are reasonably successful. But that’s getting ahead. I’m better off starting my story by describing two army scouts, one British one American, who met fighting the Boer wars in the late 1890s. The American was an Indian-raised cowboy, a US army scout named Fredrick Burnham. He joined the British in South Africa as a scout against the natives and Dutch (The Boers). He was good at it, gaining valuable information, leading raids, and blowing things up. Such activities made him a hero of boys of a previous generation, but leaves current sensitivities a bit on edge.
The other scout was his boss, lieutenant general Robert Baden-Powell, an excellent scout himself, but also and organizer, artist, writer, speaker, and spy. He’d run intelligence in India, and now ran it in Africa, spying on the Boers and leading others like Burnham to do the same. Burnham taught Baden-Powell survival techniques he’d learned from the Indians, including “woodcraft”. Baden-Powell brought organization and a positive, faith-based attitude towards difficult situations; “Be prepared”
Frederick Russell Burnham with his signature Stetson campaign hat. The hat and curchif would become part of the Scout uniform, and the woodcraft methods of tracking and survival would become central to Boy scouting, both in the US and in England.
Baden-Power also wrote a book on military scouting illustrated with his own drawings, it became a hit with young, male readers in turn of the century England. Retiring from the military, Baden-Powell noted the enthusiasm among boys and put together a military-style scout-camp for boys on Brownsea Island, UK. From there, scouting grew: in numbers, in properties, and in scope. Baden-Powell devised the oath: “On my honor, I will do my best; To do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; To help other people at all times; To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.” It was the embodiment of a positive, active, masculine life — but it appealed to women too. A few years later “Girl Guides” were founded in England; Boy Scouts and “Girl Scouts” were founded in the US as independent, parallel organizations. So what went wrong?
It is clear that some of the military aspects of scouting are out of tune with current, non militarism, but that’s not something quite new. Perhaps, I thought, the current problems came because of gender dysphoria – -that active masculinity is somewhat out of fashion, as is the white-supremacy at the heart of the Boer war. Then I thought that, perhaps the problem was when the organization accepted women, and thus it wasn’t for boys, uniquely, or that it had dropped the physical requirements, or the belief in God. What was left. Perhaps the problem was poor financial management, or that sex-laws had become a minefield with #metoo and transgender. These are all problems, but not exactly new, and I no longer see them as problems with Scouts as such.
Boys still want to be active and relevant, and seem to still take to woodcraft even if they realize that woodcraft isn’t likely to be that useful. It is enough that woodcraft is sometimes useful, and that it’s fun and provides a training for other things. Though boy-girl interactions are fraught, I no longer see it as a problem. Scouting provides an avenue to maturity, and If the particulars of maturity have changed, the general attraction has not. That numbers are down is not a problem either. Some religious groups have left, particularly the Mormons, and some scouts have moved on to other activities: soccer, tennis, band, etc. Even with these other avenues, there are still some 4 million Scouts in the US including Scouts BSA and Girl Scouts. After 100 years, that’s not a failing organization.
A lot of the bad press comes, I think, from the fact that things changed fast in the US, far faster than in British version of scouting. In Britain, gay leaders were accepted in the 1980s; the US didn’t accept them till 2015. British scouting accepted girls in the 1970s, the Boy Scouts didn’t admit them till 2018, and didn’t accept transgender members till 2019. It was all so sudden. US scouting changed their name then and dropped the belief in God, also the need for wood lore and swimming. The rapid changes left older leaders dazed, but were probably for the best, and over-due. The law suits and bankruptcy also seems to have caused more trouble to the leaders than for the scouts; scout troops were always fairly autonomous.
As for the military aspect, some of it remains, and I get no sense that it’s resented. it seems to help distinguish the Boy Scouts (Scouting BSA) from the Girl Scouts; Girl Scouts focuses on economics and social activism, while Scouting BSA has been able to use the military preparedness to position itself as the more rugged alternative, and the more masculine, even if it accepts girls.
Some in management would like to go further away from Badden-Powell’s Boer-war outlook, to be more like the Girl Scouts. In Market Week, the Scouts’ director of communications claims to have …”positioned BSA to be the primary internet organization that serves diversity and deprived communities.” That sounds like a me-too to Girl Scouting, and the Girl Scouts have filed suit to prevent it.
In terms of predators and law suits, while one could claim that scouting should have done better, I think the troops themselves did well, though the upper management fell short, and tried to protect their own. Still, it is something of a defense to say you tried your best in an uncertain situation. There are no claims that leaders encouraged pederasts. The only claim is that they did not do enough to prevent them. While not everyone did their best, many did. Pederasts are drawn to kids organizations, and there is always be a tension between inclusiveness and protection. I’m reminded of the Be Prepared song (Tom Lehrer). it seems appropriate to the new scouting.
We’re still in the midst of a frenzy of statue removals, and among the most popular to remove is Columbus. The City of Columbus Ohio just removed theirs, and Detroit soon followed. What Columbus is accused of is colonialism, bringing evil western values and western religion to the peaceful Indians. At least that’s the legend being told these days.
The war god, Huitzilopochti, son of the sun, seated at right, required thousands of human sacrifices to keep the sun from going out. Columbus claims that many Indians preferred Christianity to his worship.
According to Columbus and his followers, the Indians of 1492 included some who were peaceful, and others who were murderous cannibals. According to Columbus, the less-violent of the Indians willingly accepted Christianity, or a sort, considering it better than the human sacrifice they were used to.
Mask for Tezcatlipoca, god of the night and sorcery, secondary son of the sun, brother of Huitzilopochtli.
Columbus described people being roasted and eaten with pineapple. Some of Columbus’s crew who were captured, claim they, were fattened for eating, and that others were eaten. That also is the story of Captain Cook, who appears to have been cooked and eaten in 1791, and of Michael Rockefeller, eaten by cannibals in New Guinea in 1961. Some customs die hard.
The natives of Mexico of the time are known to have practiced slavery and human sacrifice, killing thousands of young men and women each year to a wide variety of gods. For Huitzilopochtli, the war-god, son of the sun, Mexican priests cut out the still -beating hearts of adult male slaves, and ate them. This was done to prevent the sun from going out. On flat rocks they same Mexican Indians sacrificed to his brother, Tezcatlipoca, the god of the night and of sorcery. Though Texcatlipoca was slightly less powerful, he was more personally useful. The sacrifice to Tezcatlipoca is reminiscent of the attempted sacrifice of John Smith of the Virginia colony. According to testimony, in 1607, Smith was captured while hunting, kept in captivity for a few days, and was going to be sacrificed on a flat rock until saved by Pocahontas, the chief’s daughter. Later Pocahontas converted to Christianity, travelled to England, and was presented to King James I.
Pocahontas, renamed Rebecca, in 1616.
Related to the story of John Smith of the Virginia colony, is the landing of John Smith of the Massachussetts colony. The reason they settled on that spot in Plymouth bay, was that, when they landed there in 1620, the land was already cleared, but empty. Apparently, there had been a farming Indian tribe who had cleared the land, but had been recently killed off or enslaved by the local Iroquois. The Iroquois practiced slavery against their fellow Indians well before the arrival of the first African slaves in 1619. According to Frederic Douglas in 1870, the Indians treated their slaves better than the white settlers did, but he was writing 150 years later. The peaceful Indian, Squanto who helped the Massachusetts colony had been captured and brought to England in 1609 and brought back to the Americas by the John Smith of the Virginia colony. Squanto lived as a free man among the pilgrims. Squanto helped negotiate a peace treaty for the colony with the Wampanoags against the Narragansett. This treaty was settled at the first Thanksgiving, and lasted for the life of the Wampanoags Chief.
Returning to the Gods of the Mexicans, Tlaloc, the rain god, was responsible for fertility and agriculture. He required the sacrifice of children. There was also a corn god, Centeotl, I think Steven King has a story about his worship, it involved a corn sacrifice, plus spilling your own blood and killing a young woman and using her skin as a mask. There was also the feathered serpent god, Quetzalcoatl, god of love, knowledge, and intoxicating drink. She required the sacrifice of a mix of men, women, and children, plus ingestion of intoxicating substances. Columbus claimed that many Indians willingly changed religion to Christianity and away from the worship of these deities, a claim that modern liberals find ludicrous, but that I find believable. I think modern liberals imagine themselves as the priests of these religions, or perhaps nobles, but they do not see it, as I do, from the perspective of the unwilling sacrifices.
The folks behind the removal of Columbus statues and behind defunding the police would like to use the money for education about the noble pre-Columbian peoples. They would like to focus on the pyramids and on the large, flat sacrificial stones, without spending too much time on what the pyramids and stones were used for.
Chief Tammany signed a peace treaty with William Pitt in 1683. His grandson converted to Moravian (Protestant?) Christianity. He is considered a model of good will and good government.
The fate of the Indians varied. Some converted to Christianity, some did not. Some tribes integrated well into the new society, many did not. Among the most famous who converted and integrated well, we find Chief Tammany of the Turtle clan of the Delaware Indians. He signed a peace treaty with William Penn, 1683, and his tribe seems to have lived in peace with the settlers for 70 years at least and married into the most prominent families of the area. The Turkey of the same tribe did not fare so well, They sided with the French and warred against the English settlers, and suffered with the French defeat. Western involvement was not always good or fair to the Indians, but that is not inherently Columbus’s fault. Columbus did a service, I think, opening up the new world, and providing an alternative religion to natives who were rescued from human sacrifice. I believe western civilization is a boon to the world by the very balance of order and freedom that some find troubling. The Jewish Bible is strongly against tightly ordered religions with human sacrifice. Christianity is a big improvement, IMHO.
The why of history is always more speculative than the what. Yet, to write about only the what, is to do only half of the job, if that. The what is largely interchangeable: the names of kings and generals, the dates and locals of battles and treaties. It’s the why that adds interest, and provides whatever lessons one can take forward. With this as background, I’d like to speculate on the cause of: the destruction of the American Indian, and the end of the golden age of Spain. For both and some others, I suggest an unusual villain, peace: too much peace. It’s a speculative why, but bear with me.
Lets start with the American Indian. In the mid 1700s, Indians controlled the majority of the continent. They had an advanced society of six main nations, held together by mutual treaty. The Indians had few guns, but were not less intelligent than the Japanese or Chinese, suggesting that they could have learned to make them if they desired (or realized they needed to desire). The Japanese did so in short order. Indians addressed the Continental assemblies, and though they were not integrated, quite, they were not segregated either. But this first period of co-existence ended, as best i can tell, in the years of and following the French and Indian war. In the war, some Indians supported the French and some the British, and each side looked after their Indians. After peace was established, however, English leaders like Lord Jeffery Amherst set up to wipe out the Indians of both sides, “this execrable race,” with blankets infected with smallpox, and good old-fashioned cruelty. His activities are memorialized, on the cafeteria china used at Amherst Colleges till the 1960s.
Cup from the cafeteria of Amherst College, used till the 1960s, shows Lord Jeffery Amherst pursuing a band of Indians. Purple and white are the Amherst colors.
My thought of why he did it, and why he succeeded, is that the Indians had outlived their usefulness. The ones on the French side had been enemies, and might be again. The ones on his, English side were annoying and might turn in the next conflict. Besides, Lord Jeffery and his ilk had idle military power. Removing the Indians was something they could do. The army at peace could otherwise get destructive, or turn on him (I’m speculating here on motives).
This pattern appeared again in the Revolutionary war and in the War of 1812. During each war, Indians were befriended by both sides, and recruited. Indians fought important battles in each war, now mostly forgotten; the defense of Canada was largely by Indians. After each war, these Indians were largely betrayed. In the War of 1812, the Shawnee, Potawatomi, Ojibwa, and Creek mostly sided with the British, led by the fierce Shawnee general, Tecumseh. The Muscogee, Creek, Seminole, Choctaw, Cherokee, and Chickasaw, mostly sided with the US. Iroquois fought on both sides. In the years following the wars, these and these were sent west of the Mississippi. Those who had been allies with the US were paid for their land, those that sided with the British were not. A good price, but it was a forced sale none-the-less. I will speculate that they were exiled because they retained a government structure independent of the US, making them a threat. Also (I speculate) the military, Generals Harrison, Jackson, etc., had nothing better to do with an army that might have mutinied otherwise. By 1846, there was no serious future for the American Indian east of the Mississippi, and besides, there was an external enemy to fight — The Mexicans. My speculation: the Indians were destroyed by “the era of good feelings” that follows war.
In the case of Spain, I note that the Inquisition and Jewish expulsion followed suddenly after 300 years of science, art, literature, and coöperation. I also note that the Alhambra decrees (March 1492) followed almost immediately after the defeat the last major Moslem-held citadel, Granada in December, 1491, and the peace treaty of Granada (January 2, 1492). The Alhambra decrees of March 31, 1492 mandated that all Jews must convert or leave Spain, and gave free-reign to the Inquisition to punish heresy. At the time, the financier of the Spanish crown was a Jew, Don Isaac Abarbanel. And some years earlier another Jew, Shmuel HaNagged hand been vizier (2nd) to the king. My theory of the cause for the sudden switch is that it was not a sudden surge in religion, as some have suggested, but rather that the king and queen no longer needed an army or Jewish or Moslem allies, but they still had an army that might turn against them if not otherwise occupied.
In the interwar, peace years, Stalin removed 3 of the 5 top generals, 13 of 15 below them; 8 of 9 admirals, 50 of 57 army corps commanders, 154 out of 186 division commanders, 16 of 16 army commissars, and 25 of 28 army corps commissars. Peace is hell.
I’m reminded that peace is the background to intrigue in at least six of Shakespeare’s historical plays: Macbeth, Hamlet, Richard III, Lear, Julius Caesar, and Othello. Richard III explains his behavior as follows (Act I, Scene 1): “Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, have no delight to pass away the time, unless to spy my shadow in the sun and descant on mine own deformity.”
A few other examples: After WWI, most of Europe removed their bearded aristocracy, and Stalin used the peacetime to remove much of the communist leadership including many of his generals and former friends – this was especially so after signing a peace treaty with Germany. And, in the US after WWII, we entered a period of communist witch hunts — a mini Inquisition directed at the writers and artists who provided Allied propaganda during the war. Even a general good, like peace can leave casualties.
Robert Buxbaum, July 7, 2017. I like to speculate on the why of history, and like to imagine my speculations are partially true, at least.
Washington Redskins lost protection of their logo and indian symbol. Symbol of race or racism?
In law, one generally strives for uniformity, as in Leviticus 24:22: “You shall have one manner of law; the same for the home-born as for the stranger,” but there are problems with putting this into effect when dealing with racism. The law seems to allow each individual group to denigrate itself with words that outsiders are not permitted. This is seen regularly in rap songs but also in advertising.
Roughly a year ago, the US Patent office revoked the copyright protection for the Washington Redskin logo and for the team name causing large financial loss to the Redskins organization. The patent office cited this symbol as the most racist-offensive in sports. I suspect this is bad law, in part because it appears non-uniform, and in part because I’m fairly sure it isn’t the most racist-offensive name or symbol. To pick to punish this team seems (to me) an arbitrary, capricious use of power. I’ll assume there are some who are bothered by the name Redskin, but suspect there are others who take pride in the name and symbol. The image is of a strong, healthy individual, as befits a sports team. If some are offended, is his (or her) opinion enough to deprive the team of its merchandise copyright, and to deprive those who approve?
More racist, in my opinion, is the fighting Irishman of Notre Dame. He looks thick-headed, unfit, and not particularly bright: more like a Leprechaun than a human being. As for offensive, he seems to fit a racial stereotype that Irishmen get drunk and get into fights. Yet the US Patent office protects him for the organization, but not the Washington Redskin. Doesn’t the 14th amendment guarantee “equal protection of the laws;” why does Notre Dame get unequal protection?
Notre Dame’s Fighting Irishman is still a protected symbol. Is he a less-offensive, racist stereotype?
Perhaps what protects the Notre Dame Irishman is that he’s a white man, and we worry more about insulting brown people than white ones. But this too seems unequal: a sort of reverse discrimination. And I’m not sure the protection of the 14th was meant to extend to feelings this way. In either case, I note there are many other indian-named sports teams, e.g. the Indians, Braves, and Chiefs, and some of their mascots seem worse: the Cleveland Indians’ mascot, “Chief Wahoo,” for example.
Chief Wahoo, Still protected symbol of the Cleveland Indians –looks more racist than the Redskin to me.
And then there’s the problem of figuring out how racist is too racist. I’m told that Canadians find the words Indian and Eskimo offensive, and have banned these words in all official forms. I imagine some Americans find them racist too, but we have not. To me it seems that an insult-based law must include a clear standard of how insulting the racist comment has to be. If there is no standard, there should be no law. In the US, there is a hockey team called the Escanaba (Michigan) Eskimos; their name is protected. There is also an ice-cream sandwich called Eskimo Pie — with an Eskimo on the label. Are these protected because there are relatively fewer Eskimos or because eskimos are assumed to be less-easily insulted? All this seems like an arbitrary distinction, and thus a violation of the “equal protection” clause.
And is no weight given if some people take pride in the symbol: should their pride be allowed balance the offense taken by others? Yankee, originally an insulting term for a colonial New Englander became a sign of pride in the American Revolution. Similarly, Knickerbocker was once an insulting term for a Dutch New Yorker; I don’t think there are many Dutch who are still insulted, but if a few are, can we allow the non-insulted to balance them. Then there’s “The Canucks”, an offensive term for Canadian, and the Boston Celtic, a stereotypical Irishman, but also a mark of pride of how far the Irish have come in Boston society. Tar-heel and Hoosiers are regional terms for white trash, but now accepted. There must be some standard of insult here, but I see none.
The Frito Bandito, ambassador of Frito Lays corn chips; still protected, but looks racist to me.
Somehow, things seem to get more acceptable, not less if the racial slur is over the top. This is the case, I guess with the Frito Bandito — as insulting a Mexican as I can imagine, actually worse than Chief Wahoo. I’d think that the law should not allow for an arbitrary distinction like this. What sort of normal person objects to the handsome Redskin Indian, but not to Wahoo or the Bandito? And where does Uncle Ben fit in? The symbol of uncle Ben’s rice appears to me as a handsome, older black man dressed as a high-end waiter. This seems respectable, but I can imagine someone seeing an “uncle tom,” or being insulted that a black man is a waiter. Is this enough offense to upend the company? Upending a company over that would seem to offend all other waiters: is their job so disgusting that no black man can ever be depicted doing it? I’m not a lawyer or a preacher, but it seems to me that promoting the higher levels of respect and civil society is the job of preachers not of the law. I imagine it’s the job of the law to protect contracts, life, and property. As such the law should be clear, uniform and simple. I can imagine the law removing a symbol to prevent a riot, or to maintain intellectual property rights (e.g. keeping the Atlanta Brave from looking too much like the Cleveland Indian). But I’d think to give people wide berth to choose their brand expression. Still, what do I know?
