RPTM Podcast Episode Twenty Eight: Missouri Compromise, Monroe Doctrine, and the Tomato

Pseudohistory lacks PLAUSIBLE MECHANISM: No way to explain it based on existing knowledge. 

"Plausible" means that things could have happened that way. It means that a given theory does not involve unlikely events and does not reverse normal development expectations. A pinecone grows into a pine tree and not a pterodactyl—an insight into how things work in the real world. Plausibility needs a denial of unbelievable actions and extreme but appropriate coincidences. It expects that results will follow causes and that complex developments will arise from more straightforward stages. It puts the cart before the chariot. It looks for pines growing from pinecones. It frowns on theorizing social mechanisms that are not otherwise shown in that society. It discourages the assumption that people in remote ages will behave with generosity and harmony. No other age provides an example.

Plausibility does not accept a divinely ordered history. It distinguishes that a belief in magic is a fact about some people in history. Still, it does not itself believe in magic. With due allowance for cultural distinction, it does not expect that people in one time or place will act out of fundamentally different motives than people at other times and places. Physics expects the order of nature to be uniform throughout nature. History has a roughly analogous expectation about individuals and societies. 

Historians should not use the standard of plausibility to authenticate narrow-mindedness. The American experience is probably very uncommon in world history. Both now and in the past, many people and societies have different backgrounds and operate on different social assumptions. All opinions need to be heard from, but historians should take the fake views in the context of the other ideas. Sometimes a corrupted view is more suitable to a particular situation. The historian should be alert, at all levels, for the proper clarification. 

HIGHLIGHTS

• In February 1820, Illinois Senator Jesse Thomas suggested a proposal that would eventually be called the Missouri Compromise: Maine would enter as a free state, Missouri would come in with slaves, but no slavery would be permitted in other states developed out of the Louisiana Purchase north of Missouri's southern boundary.
• To prove that a tomato is not poisonous, Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson ate one in public in Salem, New Jersey.
• In 1821, the College of Pharmacy and Science–now known as the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia–opened its doors. The new institute reflected the growing sophistication of Philadelphia's medical college professors, who had warned of the "ignorance of Apothecaries unqualified for the exercise of their profession." 
• On December 2, 1823, in a speech before Congress, James Monroe announces the Monroe Doctrine, stating the policy that European intervention anyplace in the Americas is opposed and that he would establish American neutrality in future European wars. By the early 1820s, many Latin American countries had won their independence from Spain or Portugal. 
• A Massachusetts court outlaws the novel Fanny Hill by John Cleland and convicts publisher Peter Holmes for printing a "lewd and obscene" novel. This was the first obscenity case in U.S. history. 
• John Neal opened Maine's first gymnasium in 1827, making him the first American to establish a public gym in the US. 
• Noah Webster Jr. has become synonymous with "dictionary" in the United States, especially the modern Merriam-Webster dictionary published in 1828 as An American Dictionary of the English Language.​

 CHAPTERS
0:37 Intro
2:53 Missouri Compromise
11:19 The Tomato
13:05 College of Pharmacy
16:11 Monroe Doctrine
22:06 Fannie Hill
25:03 John Neal and the Gymnasium
32:38 Noah Webster Jr.
38:02  Outro

​RESOURCES
Understanding History- Plausibility
Missouri Compromise
Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson risked his life to help tomatoes under trial
Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science Historical Marker
Troy Female Seminary
Monroe Doctrine
Fanny Hill
John Neal (writer)
Noah Webster
The History of Webster's Dictionary