Reading Albion's Seed The SSC post is accurate but doesn't do it justice, which is not a shortcoming of SSC Rather every page is just incredible and impossible to sufficiently excerpt I'm on the Puritans now and honestly they seem . . . great With a couple exceptions
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"[The idea of] the depravity of infants . . . led Puritans to conclude that the first and most urgent purpose of child rearing was what they called 'breaking of the will.'" nevermind i now hate the puritans
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"The New England Way was distinguished by its exceptional austerity . . . It claimed to be a religion without ritual, but in fact it replaced one set of rituals with another." Puritanism, the first Brutalist religion and I mean that to denigrate both
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"From the outside, [Puritan churches] made a grim appearance. The walls were rough, unpainted clapboards . . . The interiors were very plain . . . the congregation sat before the pulpit on backless benches." OG Brutalism
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"An important part of every service was a ritual of purification. Members of the Congregation . . . were compelled to rise and 'take shame upon themselves' . . . Occasionally, they were compelled literally to crawl before the congregation." folkways endure
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Magic was verboten but apparently giant creepy anti-Devil apotropaic stone carvings were finepic.twitter.com/188g26CaW4
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Along with its intense religiosity and social control New England was by far the best-educated region which should give you pause if you think schooling is generally likely to result in some kind of liberal free-thinking
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Puritans also established the first US public schools, probably the blackest mark on their record
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"Sexual intercourse was taboo on the Lord's Day. The Puritans believed that children were born on the same day of the week as when they had been conceived. Unlucky infants who entered the world on the Sabbath were sometimes denied baptism."
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"Throughout the Western world in the seventeenth century . . . twice as many conceptions occurred in the peak month of April as in the summer months." Woh (this pattern was absent in New England)
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someone is going to write a book like this about us in 350 years and it is going to be utterly savage
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Got to the bit I was interested in re: treatment of the indigent "Chronic unemployment was a major problem . . . Most towns looked after their own; elderly residents were treated with decency, respect, and compassion." Towns had a dole of bread, butter, and coal. BUT
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"The vagrant poor were treated with great brutality. Pregnant women were expelled so their newborns would not become a charge upon the town. . . . In Essex, some of these vagrants were sent to . . . the dark dungeons of Colchester Castle."
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Note the above is about East Anglia but still gets at my wondering from earlierhttps://twitter.com/eigenrobot/status/1056539690810011648?s=19 …
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New England itself told nobles (politely) to get fucked when they demanded hereditary offices It also barred poor English from entry, BUT "For town poor, [charity] went beyond the minimum. In Salem, one man was [put in stocks] for being uncharitable to a poor man in distress."pic.twitter.com/IspNOzkiaP
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"There were strict rules of deference in this society . . . Travelers as late as the early 19C expressed astonishment at the sight of New England children who turned and bowed at the edge of the highway when their 'betters' rode by." OK see this is how you get Andrew Jackson
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". . . individual order coexisted with an institutional savagery that appeared in the burning of rebellious servants, the maiming of political dissenters, the hanging of Quakers, the execution of witches, and the crushing to death with heavy stones of [Giles Corey]."
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"In Massachusetts towns, most adults were prosecuted at least once for criminal offenses against order--commonly small Sabbath violations, minor cases of disturbing the peace, sexual offenses, idleness, lying, domestic disorder, or drunkenness." fuuuuuuuuuuuuck this place
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"Massachusetts recognized 13 capital crimes in 1648: witchcraft, idolatry, blasphemy, homicide, rape, adultery, bestiality, sodomy, false witness with intent to take life, and a child of 16 or older who was a 'stubborn' or 'rebellious' son, or who 'smote' or 'cursed' a parent."
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Those all got death by hanging. Worse was punishment for the forteenth capital crime, petty treason, the killing of a master by a servant. Two people, both female black slaves natch, were burned at the stake for this.
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"Next to hanging . . . were punishments of maiming--the slitting of nostrils, the amputation of ears, the branding of the face or hands . . . Quaker women were [stripped and carried town to town to be whipped bloody] before the horrified townsmen of Salisbury" rescued them."
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In New England, "'liberty' often described something which belonged not to an individual but to an entire community . . . 'publick liberty' as it was sometimes called was thought to be consistent with close restraints upon individuals."
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"Collective liberty was also expressed in many bizarre obligations . . . Eastham's town meeting ordered that no single man could marry until he had killed six blackbirds or three crows. Every town book contained many such rules."
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"The laws . . . granted some liberties to all men, others to all free men, and a few only to gentlemen . . . 'any man equal to a gentleman' was granted liberty of not to be punished by whipping 'unless his crime be very shameful and his course of life vicious and profligate.'"
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"The founding generation often wrote of 'soul liberty' . . . [what they meant was] freedom for the true faith. . . . this idea of religious liberty consistent with the persecution of [long list of denominations] except those within a very narrow spectrum of Calvinists orthodoxy."
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this concludes my read on the Puritans. what a journey! sorry to end on a B A S I C take but boy just fuck these cops join me next time as I delve into those knockoff Norman bastards, the cavalierspic.twitter.com/lvMXYnp2ev
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and here is the start of my Let's Read Albion's Seed thread on the Cavaliershttps://twitter.com/eigenrobot/status/1058233318158753793?s=19 …
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