Society is Like a Spider Web.

Society is like a spider web---many complex and interrelated parts; history is like a spider web---many complex and interrelated parts.  Sociology alone can provide, at best, half of the truth; history alone, at best can only provide half of the truth.  We need more historical sociologists or social historians.  Orlando Patterson of Harvard is a model of an historical sociologist.

From Alan Hubbard, author of Mississippi in Africa:  "myth and reality are blended seamlessly into what passes for fact."

Life is complex and confusing; not as simple, as black and white, as ideologues portray.  The liberal arts should liberate us from half-truths posing as the whole truth.  But what if the liberal arts or, God forbid, theology are themselves riddled with partial truths posing as the whole truth?

Some biblical examples of the complexities of life, of half truths exposed by Jesus.  From Luke 4:18-30:  The Nazareth Jews were both oppressed and oppressors at the same time.  They were economically oppressed by a Jerusalem based religio-politico-economic elite that ran not only the Temple but all of Palestine.  At the same time, the Nazareth Jews were religio-cultural oppressors who treated Gentiles and Samaritans as inferior and even dangerous Others.

From Luke 9:55-59:  Jesus own disciples, James and John, wanted to misuse God's power and authority to destroy an impertinent Samaritan village.  Jesus rebuked James and John.   In Luke 9:1-2, Jesus gave these very same disciples power and authority to heal, to implement the kingdom of God.

Back to Mississippi in Africa.  The key person, Issac Ross, owned many slaves and became rich by growing cotton.  Compared to most white Mississippi slave owners, Issac Ross who died in 1836 was a 'kind' slave owner who never sold any of his slaves, never broke up families, even educated some of them.  Yet there were many mulattos---mixed blood offspring--- so there was either rape or black mistresses.  In the comfort of your own home you might piously proclaim that you would never stoop so low as to become a mistress.  But I dare say that most of you, given the rigors of slavery, would do most anything to escape some of the endless oppression of slavery.

In his will, Issac Ross freed all his slaves and provided monies to go back to Africa should they choose to do so.  But Ross's son contested the will.  It looked like the slaves might lose their promised freedom so out of desperation, out of sense of betrayal, they burned down the plantation house.  In hindsight, Issac Ross should have freed his slaves while he was alive when he still had full control. 

The following are some quotations from Mississippi that illustrate the complexities of life:

"There were legions of wealthy planters in Jefferson County before the Civil War, but what set Ross apart was that he ordained, from his deathbed, the destruction of the very thing that he had spent his life building up---his prosperous, 5,000-acre plantation. . . .  Ross stipulated that . . . Prospect Hill would be sold and the money used to pay the way for his slaves who wanted to emigrate to Liberia, where a colony of freed slaves had been established. . . .
By 1849 approximately 200 of the 225 slaves had been given their freedom and had emigrated to Liberia."

From the lips of a descendant of a slave mulatto:

"It's a funny thing.  I was playing gin rummy with my daughter not long ago and . . . she said, 'Dad, what do you like about yourself?'  I said, 'Well . . .everything!' . . . . There is one thing:  my complexion.'  My wife looked up and said, "What're you talking about?'  I said, "It's always kinda bothered me that sometimes there might be several of us applying for a job, and maybe some of them were more qualified than me, but I got it because I'm lighter skinned.  That's happened a lot in my life. . . .  I feel bad that I was given preference over darker people---even by blacks---because of my complexion."

The complexities and moral confusion of life in society has pushed me, especially in my retirement, to combine history, sociology and Bible to create a theology of society that grapples with the American neglect of ethnocentrism and oppression, of justice and the love of God.  See my blog, "Lowell Noble's Writings" for 400 plus such blogs.