Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

Writing as I did yesterday about Hoover dam and the hydraulic theory of history, I came to think also of the American institution of lawns. In other countries, homeowners have plots and they do various things to garden and decorate their plots. But in America, everyone seems agreed on the proper way to decorate your plot: blade after blade of grass regularly mowed to keep all the blades to a uniform height, the congeries of blades as dense as possible to convey a sense of lushness, as much like your neighbor's as possible -- except a darker green -- to lull him with your conformity to type while also driving him mad with envy. Michael Pollan wrote back in 1989 that the standard issue lawn was like the interstate highway system, or fast-food franchises. Together, these innovations make "the suburbs of Cleveland and Tucson, the streets of Eugene and Tampa, look more alike than not." The love of lawns goes back a long time. Gatsby, in Fitzgerald's novel, sends a ...

On a recent visit to Las Vegas I visited Hoover Dam. You can see one of the resulting photos above. I'm told that I over-intellectualize things ,and I sometimes resent that observation. But in this case ... I have to report that I couldn't help but reflect on the theories of Karl Wittfogel when I looked at that sight. Wittfogel, professor of Chinese history at the University of Washington from 1947 to 1966, developed the "hydraulic theory of state formation." This is the view that sovereigns and empires rise and fall based largely on their control of water, especially for flood control in wet regions and irrigation in dry regions. A state that organizes forced labor for these purposes will inevitably be despotic, but since the irrigation/flood-control projects will be so indispensable for the life and livelihood of much of the population it will be able to maintain its despotism over long periods of time. Wittfogel began his academic career as a Marxist, and h...