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dmp“In the colonies the truth stood naked, but the citizens of the mother country preferred it with clothes on.”- Jean-Paul Sartre
Prologue
When I first became interested in steampunk last year, I posed a question to one of my friends.
Me: “So… I was wondering about steampunk, where does colonialism fit in?”
Friend: “Colonialism? Like in the Colonies?”
Me: “Like being from the colonies.”
Friend: “Oh, you can do that. They’re different types of subgenres in steampunk, and it can take place in America.”
Pause right there. I wasn’t referring to America. Or was I? Yes, my friends and I are from the US and steampunks, and most identify our personas as being from the “Colonies.” Yet their idea of what the Colonies represented in steampunk—aka an alternative America that was still under control of the British Empire during the Victorian Era—and my interpretation of the colonies—aka the actual ones that had existed during the Victorian Era—were vastly different. Which leads to the questions I’d like to explore here. Why is the concept of the United States as a colonized America so appealing to steampunks? Is this notion damaging to steampunks of color (SoCs), whose histories are negatively intertwined with the realities of colonialism? Does the idea of a colonial America promote or denounce the imperialism that existed during the Age of Empire?
Part 1: True colo(u)rs: Re-interpreting the past relationship between England and America
I suggest two interpretations of the concept of a colonized America. One represents an idealized harmony fueled by the American fascination with (or, as some might say, fetishization of) British culture. Here, I refer to this fascination as Anglophilia, which, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary is defined as "a person who greatly admires or favors England and things English." Anglophilia is a term that can apply to any person of any country or background who fits this definition, but for the purposes of this essay I'll only refer to the particular US-based Anglophile perspective, and not to the Anglophile community as a whole.
American anglophila stems from the common ground that both American and British culture share, both linguistically and historically. American interest in British culture has also been long-standing: from admiration of British writers that were considered the masters of Western literature to today's entertainment figures in current pop culture. Examples from the past forty years feature a wide range of British cultural figures that have become American obsessions as well, including the Beatles, James Bond, Dr. Who, Monty Python, Princess Di, and Harry Potter. In addition, Americans envision British culture as being more intelligent, more polite, and more dignified than their own. Plus, those charming accents never hurt.
The steampunk aesthetic movement gave American steampunks another outlet to express their Anglophile tendencies. If American steampunks can’t pretend to be British themselves (though some steampunk personas have no hesitation in doing so), then Americans can at least re-establish that lost-long connection to Mother England by re-creating the former colonial connection. And maybe, by some sort of historical/cultural osmosis, we can regain that Victorian elegance we had begun to lose when we did that silly thing with the tea and the protests and such.
This is the nostalgic interpretation of Steampunk, an interpretation that is further explained in Cory Gross’ essay “Varieties of Steampunk Experience” in Steampunk Magazine, Issue #1: “Nostalgic Steampunk is the idealized Victorian Era, the nineteenth century as it ought to have been. Nostalgic Steampunk revels, much like Victoriana itself, in the elegance and the spectacle of the Empire. It forgets, or chooses not to remember, the dirtiness and the imperialism of this same Empire.” (65) An idealized colonial America fits in with this nostalgic viewpoint: in this world, the causes for American rebellion against the British Empire – among them being the Proclamation of 1763, which limited landowning beyond the Appalachians, the increasing amount of taxation without representation, the rise of John Locke’s ideas of social contract and a republic form of government, the forced housing of British soldiers in people’s homes etc— are all forgotten for the idealized notion of America keeping its British roots. This ideal is a flawed one: besides ignoring the harsh historical realities behind the American rebellion, it also disregards the reality that America never *had* 100% British roots. There were the native populations to consider; New Amsterdam, one of the first major European settlements on the US eastern coast is Dutch; the southern parts of the United States were claimed by Spain and France first.
But perhaps this vision of America, “England’s darling across the pond” is not the one upheld by American steampunks. This second, more negative interpretation of America’s relationship with England is also evident in steampunk creative culture. Even in our imaginations, the relationship between England and America is not a loving one, but one where the English still have their noses turned up toward their American cousins. In Gail Carriger’s steampunk fantasy Soulless for instance, the American colonies were the rebel children that broke away and became ruled by religious superstition, unlike reasonable, atheist England, and the English protagonist has the lowest opinion towards the clueless and awkward American scientist Mr. MacDougall. Indeed, the crass and forward American is frequently associated with the “Weird West” subgenre of steampunk: the most prominent representative of this steampunk archetype would be Lee Scoresby, the blunt, gunman from Texas, from Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass.
A second way of interpreting a colonial America, then, would be as an opportunity to explore the negatives of Empire by people of a nation who, in today’s modern culture, has become the most powerful in the world. To subvert the idea of today’s American supremacy by returning it to an alternative, chained colonial past would fit into the tenants of steampunk—defined as a subversive genre—perfectly. Michael Chabon’s “The Martian Agent,” featured in the Steampunk anthology edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer might be considered as a story that portrays a de-romanticized colonial America. Another subversive interpretation of colonial America can be found in the credible alternative history and re-drawn geopolitical map represented in Steam Century’s mystery games.
Part 2: Imperial Attitudes and the “Do you have a flag?” quandary
In light of a colonial America, however, I think it is important that we consider Britain’s other colonized nations that existed during this time period, if only to realistically compare how a colonial America might be treated by its mother country. It could be taken for granted by American steampunks that, as colonial citizens of the British Empire, they would have received treatment and respect equal to that of any British citizen. In reality, that would be doubtful. As Edward Said explains in his book Culture and Imperialism, as the conquering nation, England possessed a patriarchal attitude toward its subjected nations throughout history:
We [The British] are dominant because we have the power (industrial, technological, military, moral), and they don’t, because of which they are not dominant; they are inferior, we are superior…and so on and so on. One sees this tautology, holding with a particular tenacity in British views of Ireland and the Irish as early as the sixteenth century; it will operate during the eighteenth century with opinions about white colonialists in Australia and the Americas (Australians remained an inferior race well into the twentieth century); it gradually extends its sway to include practically the whole world beyond the British shores. (106)
Indeed, not only would the inequality of power (and the patronizing attitude) mostly likely be sustained between England and her American colony, but I will also acknowledge that the existence of an American colony can highlight the levels of institutionalized racism that existed during the Age of Empire.
One level is the global geopolitial one. Out of England’s entire history of conquered and controlled territories, the American colonies got off the lightest while under British reign. Compare America’s colonial oppression with that of the Indians under the British Raj or the Australian settlers (and prisoners) versus the aboriginal peoples of Australia. Even nations and political regions who were not conquered outright by the British Empire but affected by its foreign policy of creating spheres of influence—like Central Asia during the Great Game or China’s Opium Wars—suffered lasting detrimental effects that I doubt an American colony would have had.
This international scale also intersects with the second level of racial hierarchy that would exist within the colony itself. The oppression that white American colonialists faced from Britain cannot compare to the hierarchy of power and oppression that existed between the American colonist and the native. Consider, for example, the colonists’ treatment of Native Americans and slaves from Africa and the Caribbean. In fact, any interpretation of a colonialist nation, the colonialist, by definition, is still the conqueror. This observation is cleverly summed up by Eddie Izzard’s famous comedic routine about British imperialism:
“We stole countries with the cunning use of flags!”
Yeah, just sail around the world and stick a flag in.
"I claim India for Britain!"
They go, "You can't claim us, we live here! 500 million of us!"
"Do you have a flag?"
"We don't need a bloody flag! It's our country, you bastards!"
"No flag, no country, you can't have one! That's the rules that I've just made up, and I'm backing it up with this gun.…”
Conclusion: Playing “Capture the Flag”
The idea of a Colonial America can lead to various possibilities in exploring alternative pasts, both utopian and dystopian—or, using the steampunk terms that Gross proposes in his essay, Nostalgic Steampunk and Melancholic Steampunk. To go with the Nostalgic ideal of a colonized America also risks sustaining a romanticized notion of colonialism that ignores the injustices of the past and how the ripple effect of those injustices extends to the present. I propose that Gross’ contrasting definition, Melancolic Steampunk, as the interpretation of steampunk that SoCs should consider:
As Melancholic Steampunk then, we see the very things Nostalgic Steampunk tries so hard to ignore brought out into the glaring sun. We see the corruption, the decadence, the imperialism, the poverty and the intrigue. And we see them not as much as an indictment of the Victorian era but as an indictment of our own, whether directly or by chopping away at our society’s Victorian roots. (65)
As pessimistic as Melancholic Steampunk sounds, it is also a definition of steampunk that gives SoCs the opportunity to confront our histories, since we cannot afford the luxury of nostalgia for the past. As Wendi Muse commented in her Racialicious essay “Nostalgia: a Sport for the Privileged”:
I suppose that is the magic of history. We can imagine it as we wish. We can simply ignore the facts in their entirety and craft an imaginary, historical fantasy world catered to our specific interests, in complete ignorance of the plight of well, just about everyone except for wealthy, white, male, straight, Christian landowners.
But, for now, I’ll stay right here in the present and imagine a better future to come.
As the saying goes, history is written by the victors; in steampunk, history can be re-written by the rebels. Steampunk gives SoCs the ability to imagine a better past: not by ignoring its mistakes or glossing over the stories of the silenced, but by re-envisioning a past, where, finally, our stories are included, our struggles are acknowledged, and the “magic of history” is imagined on our own terms. Already in this essay, I have mentioned a wide range of steampunk creative artists that embrace this philosophy. This interpretation fits in with the gaming vision of Steam Century, the political bent of Steampunk magazine, in addition to the most obvious modern example in the genre—William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, whose dark vision of steampunk in The Difference Engine is widely regarded as one of the genre’s keystones. Melancholic steampunk makes room for a messy, conflicted, complicated colonial America, but one that American SoCs and white steampunks can each recognize as their own.
Some ideas of racial issues that would be fascinating to explore in a colonial, steampunk America: the role of the Chinese in constructing the American railroads; the early emancipation of black slaves in America when Britain abolished slavery in 1833, or even the transformation of the American South using steampunk technology to forgo the need for slavery at all; the relation between the British colonialists and the Native Americans over time.
Thus, even with all of its difficulties and complexities, this colonial America gives both SoCs and white steampunks the voice and the opportunity to engage in creative dialogue with one another. This is our game, our turf, our rules—and there are flags aplenty in the realm of steampunk.
Sources and References:
Carriger, Gail. Soulless. New York: Orbit. 2009.
Chabon, Michael. "The Martian Agent." Steampunk Anthology. Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, eds. San Francisco: Tachyon Publications. 2008.
Gross, Cory. “Varieties of Steampunk Experience.” Steampunk Magazine. Issue 1.
http://www.steampunkmagazine.com/inside/d
HMA Badger. Steam Century.
http://www.hmabadger.com/
Izzard, Eddie. Except from "Dressed to Kill." Cake or Death. Transcript by Mark Zastrow.
http://www.auntiemomo.com/cakeordeath/d2
Muse, Wendi. "Nostalgia: a Sport for the Privileged." Racialicious.
http://www.racialicious.com/2009/06/15/n
Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster Online.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/
Pullman, Philip. The His Dark Materials Trilogy. New York: Random House. 2003.
Said, Edward W. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage. 1994.
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-26 05:45 am (UTC)A lot of American history is British and colonial, even with the Revolution and the Civil War. And I feel that American steampunkers have to really examine this in relation to their interpretation of steampunk. The question is: how are they going to transcend the ramshackles of the British past.
Hehe. Maybe you should post this in steampunkdebate. ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-26 11:26 am (UTC)I wanted to investigate how colonialism isn't strictly a "minority" issue, but is a discussion about relationships between the colonized and the colonizer, and how both those labels can apply to many groups on different levels.
And I think I will post this to steampunk debate. It's nice to see that it's become active again after that little lull there. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-26 02:42 pm (UTC)Relationships between the colonized and the colonizer are very complex - and indeed, applicable to many groups on different levels. *nods* So far we have been looking at colonialism = minority issue... but I think colonialism affects more levels.
Mmm. Rambling a little... *lol*
(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-26 05:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-26 09:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-26 06:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-26 07:34 pm (UTC)As for the terms "Nostalgic" and "Melancholic"-- those were the terms Cory Gross had used in his essay on "Varieties of Steampunk," which were terms that he was using in his analysis of steampunk as a form of kitsch as explained by writer Celeste Olalquiaga. Gross' original article is a fascinating read, and I highly encourage that you download the first issue of Steampunk magazine to see it in full.
But I do agree that "Melancholic" is depressing term to explain the form of steampunk that acknowledges historical realities and the fair extrapolation from that. I was thinking of what other, less dark word can be used that acknowledges both the historical and the fantastic aspects of steampunk. Fantastic-historical, maybe? ^-~
(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-27 05:21 am (UTC)I don't think that "melancholic" is necessarily an inaccurate term, and it hearkens to a point that I was on the cusp of making at the end of my essay, "Varieties of Steampunk Experience". That point being that I'm not confident that Melancholic Steampunk, true genuine Steampunk, actually CAN be enjoyed. In the sense of a Gibsonian, Sterlingian dystopian vision, it isn't MEANT to be. It's MEANT to shock, appall, horrify and make you glad to live in the 20th century.
Sci-Fi critic John Clute aplauded Gibson and Sterling for making the 19th century worse in their book than it was in fact. He also observed in his review of Tim Power's "Anubis Gates" that most Steampunk authors have a hard time living up to who he considers the founder of the genre, Charles Dickens. They inevitably want to dull the edges of Industrial London, to treat it nostalgically as a sparkling parade of oddities in the wonderfully rotten core of the world's nexus. Like Edmund Burke's sublime, real Melancholic Steampunk can't be embraced... if one wishes to gaze upon it at any length, they must distance themselves from it and engage in the process of waxing nostalgic.
That's exactly where Steampunk culture is right now. While Steampunk Magazine presented my essay as part of their manifesto of being in-the-street political Punks - hard-edged Melancholic Steampunks - they're ultimately just nostalgic about leftists and anarchists. In fact, I'd argue that they're falling into exactly the trap that all Bohemmian movements do: members of the most enfranchised classes idealize the legitimately class oppressed and essentially reduce them to an alternative aesthetic.
Truly Melancholic Steampunk would not simply take the one side of the dialectic. It would shatter the dialectic with a solid wallop of reality. It wouldn't just take the side of the Suffragettes: it would point out that they also believed in eugenics and prohibition as ways of socially engineering improvement. It wouldn't just take the side of the Bolsheviks: it would point out that, in the final tally, Communism was more deadly for the 20th century than Naziism. It wouldn't necessarily side with the colonized, or the colonizer. It probably wouldn't take a side at all and prefer instead to demonstrate the brutality of both.
Basically, one does not become a "true" Steampunk in the melancholic sense by playing an Air Pirate rather than a Red Coat. A true work of Steampunk in its proper, Dickensian sense would say that to be either involved being a rapist and a murderer. Anything less is nostalgia, and if you really wanted to carry the messages of proper Steampunk through, you'd put away the brassy bits and go volunteer your time fixing things at the local homeless shelter.
But there are shades... While I presented melancholia and nostalgia as a dialectic myself, they really are more on a spectrum. Like the era itself, it can be complex with plenty of room to explore.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-27 06:07 pm (UTC)In fact, I'd argue that they're falling into exactly the trap that all Bohemmian movements do: members of the most enfranchised classes idealize the legitimately class oppressed and essentially reduce them to an alternative aesthetic.
I can't agree with you more about this statement, especially how it applies to the growing consumer aspect of steampunk fashion. Isn't it telling how steampunk fashion focuses so much on making items look worn and old while also charging ridiculous prices to look that way? Another incarnation of the $300 ripped jeans, come to think about it...
Anything less is nostalgia, and if you really wanted to carry the messages of proper Steampunk through, you'd put away the brassy bits and go volunteer your time fixing things at the local homeless shelter.
But there are shades... While I presented melancholia and nostalgia as a dialectic myself, they really are more on a spectrum. Like the era itself, it can be complex with plenty of room to explore.
Combining social justice with steampunk is an avenue that I'm exploring further myself. How to do so is something that I think all politically-inclined steampunks are still trying to figure out.
Cory Once More
Date: 2009-06-28 12:45 am (UTC)(Which recalls a brilliant and short analysis from a commentor on Metafilter: "Steampunk is neither steam nor punk. It's about using old ideas and old technologies to do things that are either banal, unhelpful, inefficient, or all-of-the-above.")
For me, keeping in mind that I don't identify as a Steampunk, I don't feel a pressing need to try and make "Scientific Romanticism" a lifestyle (which, according to James B. Twitchell in "Branded Nation" is just the coherent narrative formed out of your brand choices). If it does elevate to anything more than liking Victorian-Edwardian fiction and aesthetics, it would be something closer to a worldview. It gives me a perspective with informs other, parallel activities, such as joining environmental and heritage preservation advocacy groups.
But back in the day, we had a comparable row in Gothic culture. The conclusion was that it was okay to like things that weren't "Gothic" without needing to try and pretend like they are Goth. Considering how easily subculture can become a crutch or a gimmick compensating for a self-perceived lack of personality, accomplishment and charisma, that might be an important observation for Steampunk. Labels are useful for description, but when one feels a need to conform to a label, it becomes pathological.
(here via steampunkdebate)
Date: 2009-06-26 09:08 pm (UTC)Re: (here via steampunkdebate)
Date: 2009-06-26 09:23 pm (UTC)And you're also welcome to follow this journal--that's what it's here for. ^-^
(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-27 01:51 am (UTC)Thank you for a very interesting piece here! You raise some provocative entry points for consideration. I say "entry points" because it got my own mind churning over the non-dialectic nature of colonialism, with my own country as an example.
When discussing the "what if" of the United States as a British colony, I can't help but want to hold up my hand as a Canadian and say "uh, we are here you know." There are trends in the Canadian experience that would be worth exploring.
For instance, in raising the Royal Proclamation it is worth mentioning that one of its intents was to prohibit the rampant colonization of Native American lands without legal "due process" (as defined by the British, of course). The rejection of what amounted to any kind of principle of moderation concerning Native peoples shaped the manifest destiny of the American Republic AS colonizer (it's not diminished by wearing cowboy hats rather than pith helmets) as well as how the Dominion of Canada dealt with First Nations peoples.
Your second point about the equality of the colonies is also well raised. Another facet of the Canadian experience is that, while colonizers (if *relatively* less monsterous than the United States) we were also the imperial hinterland. In fact, Canada was caught between two empires, England and America. It found itself in that position again during the Cold War, literally... Russia would have had to invade the USA through the north. Canada developed a sense of itself as a middle power, a negotator coming out from the hinterland.
Which also leads to our unlikely multiculturalism. As a colonizer, Canada still retains a strong sense of "Britishness" in its culture, politics (which is British Parliamentary Democracy with the Queen as Head of State as represented by the Governor General), even its architecture (Railway Gothic). But as a colony it drew widescale immigration so that it has received a reputation as a welcoming, tolerant, multicultural society, however deserved that may or may not be.
Long post short, I would be interested in hearing your own thoughts on that dynamic of the colonial hinterland, whether or not through the continued existance of a British North America. How might you see that influencing what seems on the surface to be a rather dialectic approach to the subject?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-27 02:41 pm (UTC)I had no idea you lived in Canada, Cory, you AND Steampunk Scholar Mark Perschon. There must be something in Canadian water. <3
Cory Again
Date: 2009-06-27 03:53 pm (UTC)The issue of the colonizer's holidays is well-noted, especially in light of the past flak over Shelia Copps' calendar. When the Heritage dept. decided to publish a calendar, they omitted all non-state holidays under the guise of "multiculturalism". Now it seems to me that multiculturalism should be a celebration of every culture, not ignoring them all in favour of the approved government culture. In that sense, the Mulifaith Calendar is a much better effort.
There are a number of interesting "what-ifs" that could be asked. What would happen to Canada had the United States not become a country? Would it have developed as strong an urge to solidfy into a single country? Or what if Canada didn't settle for its losses? What if we weren't as generous after 1812? Didn't carry the 49th parallel through the Rockies or did buy Alaska?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-27 05:26 pm (UTC)The Canadian experience is interesting to explore, especially since in a steampunk alternative history of a British colonized North America, Canada's history may serve an an interesting parallel to how the whole North American British colony might have evolved.
Admittedly, I'm not too familiar with Canadian history, except for some learning about New France and a field trip to Quebec during grade school. But in terms of Canada being the "British hinterland," it would be interesting to consider in what capacity Canada's remote status served as a "safe haven" for persecuted minorities.
Beside the treatment of Canada's native peoples, another train of thought that came to me was this: when slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire, what would the black experience be like? I imagined that, the overall effect would have parallels to the Reconstruction Period that occurred after the American Civil War, in which blacks had been granted more freedoms legally, but still faced prejudice according to their slave past. In that aspect, would the Canadian hinterland serve as another frontier for newly-freed slaves as a chance to escape the prevalent discrimination further south? Or would they only face a new sort of discrimination there?
I've been look to see what Early Black Canadian History would be like, which would be an interesting jumping point to talk about the role of Black Canadians in a the British hinterland.
And of course other history resources I dug up that could be useful to this discussion:
Black History Canada 1800-1900
Diversity and First Nation Issues in Canada By John Roberts, Shahe S. Kazarian, Darion Boyington [Except from Google Books]
the Black Experience in Canada: a Virtual Exhibit at Ryerson University
The Black Canadian Experience in Ontario 1834-1914
The varieties of black experience: by the 1850s, blacks were a more rooted, permanent, and diverse part of the Canadian population than the fugitive slave narratives might suggest
And a couple from about general immigration history of Canada. Steampunk Canada being considered the British hinterland also brings parallels to the American frontier and the Wild West. These resources address both past and present Canadian immigration history, and can be used to explore the issues and challenges that Canada has gone through with being perceived as an "immigrant safe haven" and the realities immigrants have faced in the north.
A Webography: The History of Racism in Canada
Report on Systemic Racism and Discrimination In Canadian Refugee and Immigration Policies by the Canadian Council for Refugees
Guess Who
Date: 2009-06-28 12:59 am (UTC)The country still does have much to answer for. While the government's treatment of the First Nations was *relatively* better than the USA, it was still objectively bad. The roads through our National Parks were built by Ukrainian "enemy aliens" during WWI. There's the internment of Japanese-Canadians during WWII and the Chinese head tax. In researching my church's history, the local paper from 1925 spoke approvingly of them and how, as Scandanavians, they had "no foreign ideals to perpetuate".
Despite it all, Canada has a reputation as a veritable multicultural haven in contrast to both the USA and Europe. We even sport the highest per capita immigration in the world. I find that sort of interesting and, along with the Commonwealth, potentially enlightening so far as questions of Anglo-colonial trajectories.
By the way, thanks for reminding me of one of my favorite figures from Western Canadian history: John Ware. He was an escaped slave from the Southern US who made his way to Canada and became one of the best horsemen on the prairies. He was also known to refer to himself jokingly as a "smoked Irishman".
(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-27 02:23 am (UTC)But I like this conversation, and I like that more people seem to think it one worth having, regardless of the possible arshing of anyone's squee.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-27 03:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-27 11:56 pm (UTC)