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--- bederman_manliness_civilization [2026/03/09 21:45] – [Chapter 2: "The White Man's Civilization on Trial": Ida B. Wells, Representations of Lynching, and Northern Middle-Class Manhood] nkotkov
+++ bederman_manliness_civilization [2026/03/11 05:10] (current) – [Chapter 3: "Teaching Our Sons to Do What We Have Been Teaching the Savages to Avoid": G. Stanley Hall, Racial Recapitulation, and the Neurasthenic Paradox] hcovin
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 Discussing the civil activity of Ida B. Wells, G. Bederman frames her trip to Britain in 1893 and 1894 as an attempt to acquire substantial media coverage of lynching in the United States through its exposure in Britain. In particular, Wells acutely understood the intricacies of the civilization discourse in America, which led her to argue that lynching revealed barbarism in the United States. This claim alone was not sufficient to generate meaningful discussion in the United States, but the possibility of being viewed as “uncivilized” by Britain ultimately sparked a series of debates and discussions regarding lynching in the United States. - Nikolai Kotkov
+The creation of the control of sexual desire aiding in the ideals of masculinity was almost a strictly white American belief, and allowed for Northern white men to see themselves as superior in different ways to both African American men and Southern white men. The usage of lynching in the south as a punishment for their belief that all African American men were desiring sexual relations with white women and the "sexual fantasies" surrounding the myth of black rapists. Having these beliefs around lynching and the overtly sexual nature of African American men made the notion of civility as a major part of white American men's masculinity. (Sage Milton)
 ===== Chapter 3: "Teaching Our Sons to Do What We Have Been Teaching the Savages to Avoid": G. Stanley Hall, Racial Recapitulation, and the Neurasthenic Paradox =====
+According to G. Bederman, one of the major intellectual preoccupations of the psychologist and pedagogue G. Stanley Hall was the attempt to solve the neurasthenic paradox. From the perspective of American Victorian society, neurasthenia resulted from the overuse of the limited amount of nerve force spent on developing the intelligence necessary to meet the expectations and standards of civilization. The core of the paradox lay in the assumption that only white manhood could create civilization, but this form of civilization inevitably deprived white men of their nerve force. The psychologist Hall developed the recapitulation theory to find a possible solution to this paradox. In his view, white men could avoid nerve drainage by accumulating significant reserves through exposure to “savage” behavior during childhood. Hall argued that children were able to relive the “savage state” of their ancestors as a result of the developmental and gradual nature of the human evolutionary process. - Nikolai Kotkov
+After giving up on the making of a 'super-man' Hall shifted his focus to adolescent races that he believed would eventually become the perfect human. It is also interesting to see the the way that Hall was reinforcing a new view of masculinity that was not about self restrain and instead was focused on passion and aggression. (Hannah)
 ===== Chapter 4: "Not to Sex-But to Race!" Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Civilized Anglo-Saxon Womanhood, and the Return of the Primitive Rapist =====