September 28, 2004
Bush Ain't No Cowboy
One of my professors pointed me to this article where she is quoted as saying:
"The idea of the American cowboy is the direct lineal descendant of the chivalric knight," observes Bonnie Wheeler, a medievalist in cowboy country. "The only serious difference is that your status doesn't depend on your social class." Editor of Arthuriana, the journal of Arthurian studies, Wheeler teaches at Southern Methodist University in Dallas."Our president," she says, "is neither a knight nor a cowboy. He doesn't believe in taking care of the little guy, nor does he have the restraint or dignity of the cowboy."
The rather conservative slant of SMU's student body makes this a particularly scandalous thing to say. Even so, it's very true. However, I would also point out that Bush is not cowboy for another reason. He's yet another wealthy Ivy League-educated elitist (although it's questionable how much of that education stuck). His populism and aw shucks manner are mere stances meant to woo the ignorant and gullible.
Obviously this could be said of many politicians and is far from an original point about Bush, but it's often forgotten it seems. Bush ain't no cowboy, never was, and his hat's too big for his head.
For the record, the cowboy is most certainly not the direct descendant of the chivalric knight with the exception of the child-like observation that "they both ride horseys".
The cowboy is an individualist symbol. The chivalric knight is a symbol of community. Cowboys don't worry about the little guy they worry about number one. The cowboy is the direct American inheritor of the sad stoic tradition, c.f. Shane, Unforgiven, the Searchers, the Magnificent Seven, etc.
I think she was talking about the code of ethics they share where there's clearly a continuity there. Given what I know of Dr. Wheeler's erudition, I'd be hesitant to contradict her on this point without a considerable amount of evidence. I know that's a bit of an argument from authority, but I also know that she's an excellent medievalist so I tend to trust her assessment.
Also, it's interesting that you mention "The Maginificent Seven", since that's a remake of Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai". The samurai and the knight occupied nearly identical positions in their cultures. If the cowboy/samurai connection is so easily made, why is the cowboy/knight connection one that you find dubious?
The cowboy is an individualist, but one who will often, under the guise of selfishness, recklessness, or just not giving a damn, seek justice. Most of Clint Eastwood's cowboys find a soft spot in their heart for some little victim or another - even in, yes, Unforgiven.
Of course, all of this complexity is in the post-1970's vision of the cowboy. Before that, depictions were of consistently clean-cut, polite, and chivalric cowboys. Only rustlers drank or went unshaved.
I think you miss the forest for the trees. The clean-cut, perfect cowboy was utterly independent and only chose occassionally as an individual, or a group of seven if you like, to help some widow, orphan, or village. The crucial part of the knight was his allegience to his Lord and to his vassals, and to any and all in the knights care or charge, as well as the Church and all threaten faithful (this once you start taking about the post Urban II era of chivalry). The cowboy works for nobody but himself, obeys no one and is the singular source of his own nobility and justice. He chooses his every action, and the are often reckless as you said.
The Kurosawa reference is helpful in explaining my point. If you recall these samurai had either failed to become a samurai or, as with the majority, become isolated and therefore sad and unused, worthless. Most of them die in their attempt to save the village. These were not really samurai anymore, they were mercenaries put in a position to be loyal to each other or to themselves (as in the case of the most excellent samurai, whose name escapes me). In the Mag 7, the magnificent cowboys are all kinda seedy and find their dignity in caring about someone else. This is not knightly. It may be a very good story about repemdtion or love etc, but it is not knightly. Everyone is far to independent, detatched, isolated, and willful (doing the same things for 7 different reasons: for the girl, for perfection, for the children, for the sake of overcoming cowardice, etc etc.). This is not the knight whose power lied in his clear understanding of who he was in light of whose he was, namely Christ's, Mary's and his lord's good knight.
The Kurosawa reference is helpful in explaining my point. If you recall these samurai had either failed to become a samurai or, as with the majority, become isolated and therefore sad and unused, worthless. Most of them die in their attempt to save the village. These were not really samurai anymore, they were mercenaries put in a position to be loyal to each other or to themselves (as in the case of the most excellent samurai, whose name escapes me).
In feudal Japan, you were either a samurai or you weren't. It was a class just like being a knight, regardless of whether they were isolated or not. The unattached samurai is a regular theme in Japanese film and literature. Even though they may not be an emperor's retainer, they still were samurai in every sense of the word.
Furthermore, I don't see the conflict between service to God and crown and a knight's independence. Tournaments featured one on one affairs. Quests were solitary adventures. Individual knights trained to perfect their own skill for their own fame and honor. Honor, in fact, is one of the key concepts and places where the samurai and knight intersect. Although the military role of both was often to protect the king/emperor, they were nevertheless something akin to independent contractors.
Even beyond that, I don't see a contradiction at all between saying that the knight was part of a hierarchic society and that he is the direct ancestor of the classic cowboy. The sense of honor, duty, pursuit of the good, courage, etc are all the same. Although the cowboy's role in society was considerably more isolated than that of the knight's it does not mean that the ethical code he followed was also changed.
Btw, this is a fascinating turn of the conversation. Not at all what I would have predicted. :)
"they still were samurai in every sense of the word"
Not in these senses were they samurai:
-one who serves a lord
-the dominant warrior of the feudal age--if you notice, the film places rifles in the hands of the brigands, which shows that the samurai are passing away as a class. This is their swan song.
-And, to be technical and refer at the same time to another great movie, they would have been refered to not as samurai, but as Ronin, masterless samurai. Isolated soldiers, like cowboys on the range.
Also, materialist view that knights fought one on one and therefore are no less isolated than cowboys is not credible. They always fought at the behest of a lord, or to champion the lord's lady (resist post-modern ribald chuckling).
The quest stories all bear the same theme throughout literature: the knight is proud if he thinks he can go it alone. he needs his allies, Mary, Christ, Arthur, a nymph, somebody besides himself to get the job done, which winds up teaching him that the real value of the quest was to learn that humility in the first place. Gawain fails his guest but learns humility; Galahad, Perceval, and Launfal all gain the grail quest only to find that it is first and foremost a quest for charity.
Also, aside from this more humble and less stand alone idea of the knight, which stands in direct oposition to the fiction that is the cowboy alone on the range, The Order of the Garter has as its motto "shame on he who thinks evil", or "Honi Soit Qui Mal Pense". This is a level of loving refinement of soul which can only be achieved in community and never in the individualistic wastelands of Western cinema.
In short,
If the cowboy is the knight's descendant, then he is most certainly an errant son.
True, there is a distinction between ronin and samurai, but it's more one of function in society than class. Ronin is a subclass of samurai.
Anyways, despite the differences in function within society, I'm not sure why you think the cowboy isn't a descendent of the knight. Do you see some other, more important differences between their code of ethics? That's the heart of the matter, but you haven't really addressed it.
Mall,
If you are in a hurry, don't post. I can wait for good rejoinders. You obviously did not read what I have said. The code of ethics is completely different. I will not reiterate until you look at it again except to say Yul Brynner did what he did in Mag 7 because he felt like it and finished feeling good about himself. Gawain does what he does because he is willing to die for Arthur as a way of life, not a vacation from the norm. Different.
Perhaps the Cowboy should be more closely associated with the Homeric-Greek hero such as Achilles: the hero who is slowly led to add to his quest for personal honor and nobility the motive of aiding the community by the realization of personal involvement due to infringement upon what he does, in fact, love. Also, Bogart plays such a role ... a role which seems to mold an image of the American way of coming to international involvement.