Bloggingheads Community - Whitewashing The Civil War

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Re: Whitewashing The Civil War

The Broncos current winning streak can be easily attributed to natural causes, none of which is Tim Tebow. There's a long thread at LG&M about it. By pretty much every statistic considered meaningful for QB evaluation, Tebow is not playing great right now despite his team winning.

My bigger question is what would have happened if Tebow had Museem Mohamed as one of his receivers? Would he throw to him?

Re: Whitewashing The Civil War

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Originally Posted by stephanie (Post 234427)

Two, perhaps it's presumptuous of me, but I think you are really talking about something else. Not that the CW is taught as an uncomplicated triumph without a tragic element, which is of course not true, but that when discussions about potential wars occur, people quickly start trying to compare the particular conflict to one of the conflicts that are generally accepted by the vast majority of Americans to have been worth it. These are generally encompassed by the Revolution, the CW, and WW2, but the first doesn't generally provide a good comparison, because (a) it's hard to make the British into some "evil" force and (b) (probably more important) it rarely represents a good analogy for something the US wishes to do.

Yes, I believe the "good and just" (or merely "bad, but still justified") wars serve as inspiration, rationale and glorification for current and future wars.

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Where I strongly disagree with you is the idea that this somehow means that the understanding of the CW or WW2 is somehow to blame for the state of mind of those who see Iraq as similar. The problem is that they are bad analogies.

Depends what you mean by "to blame." They ARE bad analogies, but their force of persuasion lies not so much in their reasons as in the pomp, circumstance and vainglory of the wars as taught and as embedded in the culture: the romance, the music, the movies, the machismo, the Betsy Ross loyalty, the Superbowl patriotism, the interminable propaganda about how we are "the greatest nation in the history of the Earth," the fervent devotion to the "troops overseas" and the blessing of war in the pulpits of the heartland every Sunday.

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And this gets to the basic disagreement between you and me and probably you and a number of others on this thread. I agree with you that we are too quick to justify the use of force. I also agree that we should be more concerned with the failure to consider ways in which the necessity (and I think it sometimes is a necessity) of force could have been proactively avoided. But I do not agree that force can never be justified. To me, the bigger problem is the broadening of the justifications, the failure to apply a strict rationale. And thus it makes sense to talk about wars like WW2 and the CW to understand why we see them as justified, to be more concrete about what is being said when we say they were worth it.

Yes, I agree with that, except, of course, I do NOT see the CW or WW2 as justified. I think the arguments raised by books like "Human Smoke" and "A Force More Powerful" and the work of Gene Sharp show how human conflict can be resolved nonviolently, how wars can and should be avoided, and how, even when violence breaks out, it can be mitigated, impeded and ended.

So my approach is paradigmatically different from those who ask, "Is war justified in xyz circumstances?" That question never comes up for me. My paradigm is "Since war can and should always be avoided (like violent crime) and conflicts can always be resolved, what can we do here and now to build and sustain the peace?"

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It merely recognizes that the vast majority of people aren't pacifists.

You don't have to be a pacifist to be a peacemaker. Nonviolent political action is almost always a labor of both pacifists and non-pacifists. (The overthrow of the Soviet Union, for example, was nonviolent, although most of its activists -- like the members of the Polish Union Solidariat -- were not pacifists.

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I do think there's a place in the discussion, an important one, for those who will force the question of whether we are being too complacent in saying the CW was necessary, WW2 was necessary, who will talk about the tragedy of them, the ways in which they theoretically could have been avoided.

Good. That's all I've been asking in this thread. I took a lot of friendly fire for it.

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(There's some good stuff in Faulkner about this, among other sources.)

Yes, brilliant novelists like Faulkner can often challenge and penetrate the conventional wisdom about war in ways that politicians and historians can't.

Re: Whitewashing The Civil War

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Originally Posted by Wonderment (Post 234442)

I took a lot of friendly fire for it.

Not from me. And, I suspect, not because of disagreement on the point you quoted, but mainly due to your manner of your appearance here, the post to which you expressed agreement given the nature of the prior discussion.

I'm not criticizing, to be clear, just pointing out that you seemed to be trying to be provocative in just such a way.

Re: Whitewashing The Civil War

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Originally Posted by Wonderment (Post 234442)

their force of persuasion lies not so much in their reasons as in the pomp, circumstance and vainglory of the wars as taught and as embedded in the culture

And, again, I think there's more complexity, especially regarding the CW, than your statement here admits. I think that's demonstrated by cragger's original comments and by TNC's argument.

But underlying this and your other comments here (like about the supposed encouragement of war from the pulpit which ignores that the opposite is also true -- I can say without hesitation that I have never experienced what you reference, quite the opposite) is a more broad-based disagreement that I don't see a need to go into now.

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Yes, I agree with that, except, of course, I do NOT see the CW or WW2 as justified.

Right, we disagree. Yet I am not a neo con.

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So my approach is paradigmatically different from those who ask, "Is war justified in xyz circumstances?" That question never comes up for me.

I get this. I respect it, also. But I simply don't accept your premises.

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You don't have to be a pacifist to be a peacemaker.

Of course I agree with this, but it doesn't address the point I was making. If 95% of Americans aren't pacifists and see some wars as justified, that those wars figure into debates within the 95% majority over whether a particular military action is appropriate, that doesn't mean it's the glorification of the conflict we say is justified that is to blame. It's the underlying fact that people believe that war can be justified.

I have a healthy appreciation for the tragedy of various wars, I think it's stupid to have a rah, rah! response to the CW, which has to be seen in a number of ways as a failure, although IMO justified and, in '61, not the fault of the North. (This is one reason why I found TNC's reaction to the "tragedy" take that I would agree is prominent to be so thought-provoking, and I think his POV needs to be heard.) I don't think we see the CW as some great patriotic success to be cheered about, for the most part, although we see it as something that has elements to be proud of, as a struggle that our nation withstood, as a conflict in which a large number of our ancestors fought and died, so on. Yet that I don't have the kind of childish take on the war that you seem to insist is omnipresent (at least, I don't think I do), does not mean that I am not going to see the use of force as sometimes required.

Re: Whitewashing The Civil War

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Originally Posted by stephanie (Post 234445)

If 95% of Americans aren't pacifists and see some wars as justified, that those wars figure into debates within the 95% majority over whether a particular military action is appropriate, that doesn't mean it's the glorification of the conflict we say is justified that is to blame. It's the underlying fact that people believe that war can be justified. .

Because people are primed to believe that war can be justified, they tend to justify war.

But as I said, there's plenty of room in the peace movement for people ("the 99") who believe that war is sometimes (perhaps rarely) justified. Both Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich are examples of peace activists who work (and get elected) within our mainstream parties.

Alright, I think I'm going to have an anaphylactic reaction now...

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Originally Posted by Don Zeko (Post 234397)

He's an NFL quarterback and an outspoken born-again Christian. Many people think his fame and professional success aren't justified by his actual skill at the game. So there are a lot of people that dislike the guy, and a lot of people that like the guy, and a lot of people that dislike the people that dislike the guy, etc. etc. etc.

http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2011...1323723627&s=3

It's a link!

Re: Whitewashing The Civil War

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Originally Posted by uncle ebeneezer (Post 234435)

As a strictly theological matter, I think it's safe to say that Mr. Tebow is not, in fact, Father, Son or Holy Ghost.

And while Evangelicals are apt to look askance at ecumenicism, I think throwing the ball to a Muslim probably does not violate the laws of God or the Church. ;)

Re: Whitewashing The Civil War

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Originally Posted by uncle ebeneezer (Post 234435)

god, that last sentence is a fucking trainwreck. first of all, it's mushin muhammad. secondly, he (muhammad) is a christian. third of all, and probably worst of all, (and I am no tim tebow fan, nor am I a christian) you seem to think tim tebow hates muslims just because he's a serious christian? what the hell?

Re: Whitewashing The Civil War

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Originally Posted by chiwhisoxx (Post 234478)

(Psst... it was a joke!)

Re: Whitewashing The Civil War

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Originally Posted by TwinSwords (Post 234483)

(Psst... it was a joke!)

he jokingly butchered his name and his religion?

Re: Whitewashing The Civil War

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Originally Posted by chiwhisoxx (Post 234488)

he jokingly butchered his name and his religion?

C'mon, you didn't think it was a little funny?

You don't have to spell right to be a comedian. You don't even need to know people's religions!

Besides, I learned from Herman Cain that it's best to double check on those people with funny names!

Re: Whitewashing The Civil War

I did not jokingly butcher his name. I sincerely butchered his name and also his religion because I know very little about him as a player and figured the context of the joke was obvious enough that it could rely only on his last name being Mohammed to make the point.

I would love to see an NFL star player be openly and brazenly honest about being an atheist. Declaring that every victory was enabled by his certainty that God doesn't exist. Maybe wear a big gold "A" around his neck. And do interviews confessing that his bigger goal is to get others to see the truth. I would love to see how the press and society would react to that.

Re: Whitewashing The Civil War

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Originally Posted by uncle ebeneezer (Post 234495)

I think they exist. the fact that not a ton leap to mind immediately proves your point to an extent; they aren't terribly outspoken about it. there was a DE for the eagles during the 90's and early 00's named Hugh Douglas who was a pretty good player, and I'm pretty sure was an open atheist.

Re: Whitewashing The Civil War

I thought it was worth updating this with TNC's latest and interesting post on the topic, which is part of a broader discussion he's having on his blog.

Compensation

It begins (click the link for the rest):

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I think, for starters, it's worth laying out the position on the Civil War, and then breaking it down into parts (economic issues, international comparison, morality, politics etc.) But before I proceed, I want to first thank everyone who contributed to this effort. As I said, it's always frustrating to spend hours on hours debunking, but I think that frustration was ameliorated by the information we were able to gather in one place. I know that the Paul's line on the Civil War is wrong for a few reasons. But I didn't know how many reasons, or the actual color of all of those reasons until yesterday. Whenever you learn a little more, it's a good day.

And so we begin.