Endless Stairs
By Becky Brown
We live in the modern age. Modern thinking values the individual and
human rights. We believe that human beings, to use the words of the America's
1776 Declaration of Independence, "are created equal" and have
"certain unalienable Rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of
Happiness."
(You may recall that the original words referred to
"all men," but we aren't going to quibble about that now.)
We view the past through that modern lens forgetting that
before the Enlightenment, the age of Rational Thought and Revolution, Western
people had radically different ways of thinking about society, people and their
relations to each other.
A German allegory of
the medieval feudal order
As Kings inherited a divine right to rule, the rest of
creation was born into a hierarchy, an endless stair of rank---the Great Chain of Being. Nobility lorded
it over the gentry, gentry over the workman, the workman over his wife. Every
creature fit into a social order. Lions headed the animal kingdom; dogs were
higher on the scale than cats; brunettes more attractive than redheads, white
Europeans closer to God than darker peoples. Christian theology made it easy to understand.
"Such duty as the subject owes the prince
Even such a woman oweth to her husband…"
Taming of the Shrew
Laws, custom and religion taught all their place and
trained them to be content with their
fate. Like dogs angling to be top dog and chickens with a pecking order, human
nature seems to cling to hierarchies as we define "us" versus
"them".
Philosophy Run Mad
by Thomas Rowlandson, 1791
The French Revolution destroying the pillars of society
The modern age began a little over 200 years ago when Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine wrote
about the rights of man and Olympe de Gouges and Mary Wollstonecraft expanded
the ideas to the rights of women.
Paine, author of The
Rights of Man, is caricatured here
with his "Leveling Tools" advocating sins including Ingratitude,
Treason and Equality.
Society was not enlightened in concepts of equality overnight---nor
even over the centuries. We need to recall those well-taught concepts of
hierarchy when considering the past. Understanding not only hierarchy but the
sense of acceptance helps explain the disconnect that occurs when we ask our
mothers why they "put up with that," when we read about 19th-century
slaves who never considered running away or a literary hero whose diary is full
of antisemitism.
Endless Stairs was a popular pattern 100 years ago when Hearth and Home magazine gave it that name. Shaded with darks and lights and repeated---it does seem to go on and on.
Endless Stairs
By Dustin Cecil
Endless Stairs was a popular pattern 100 years ago when Hearth and Home magazine gave it that name. Shaded with darks and lights and repeated---it does seem to go on and on.
Cutting an 8"
Finished Block
There is only one piece A (In other words: All shapes are
created equal).
A. Cut 8 rectangles 2-1/2" x 4-1/2" (For 12" Block: 3-1/2" x 6-/12"). Make half light
and half dark; scrappy would be great here. Arrange them as shown.
Endless Stairs
By Becky Brown
A late-19th-century silk quilt in a variation
of Endless Stairs
Endless Stairs
By Georgann Eglinski
See more about the campaign against Tom Paine's radical ideas here:
A cartoon satirizing the British social order in 1837,
the
new Queen Victoria at the top.
