I’ve visited Lubbock, Texas, the home of Texas Tech, so this has some resonance.
One is tempted to say we’re doomed.
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You could get on Texan’s cases in general based on both these kids and who Texans vote for, but this is true all over the country. If you ever watch Jeopardy, you will find that questions about celebrities, movies, music, and pop culture are far easier for the supposedly “smart” contestants to answer than questions about history, politics, geography, science or math.
And I loved the part where the one girl was texting while she was supposedly thinking about the question. Multitasking? Mindlessness!
You may be tempted, but I’ll say it—-but when people can answer “Snooky” but don’t know who won the Civil War, we are doomed.
My first question is this. What do they think’s happening in those recent movies: Lincoln, The Gangs of New York, 12 Years a Slave, Glory, etc.? Maybe those movies are too intellectual for them?
As Santayana said, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. Worse, those who are ignorant of the past are easily manipulated by propaganda. In the 2010 election voters who couldn’t name the three branches of Government or what the Speaker of the House actually did, knew all about Nancy Pelosi and her “Libral agenda”. Fox News saw to that.
They didn’t watch them. They went to Transformers III instead.
Who won the Civil War? The proper answer, in Texas, is ‘you mean the War of Northern Aggression?’
Very true (and the correct answer in much of Virginia also), and that’s a big improvement over the “DUH” in this clip.
The followup question is “Why was the war fought?”, and those same Texans will tell you it was over “State’s Rights”
One of the history professors at my college in Virginia used to call it that, too. I refused to take his class despite being a history major because he did. He had an excellent reputation as a teacher, too.
However, since then, I’ve read Morris Berman. He has a lot of cogency on the subject:
http://riversong.wordpress.com/civil-war-the-conquest-of-agrarianism-by-industrialism/
That article has part of it. The more complete version is in the book ‘Why America Failed’. Neither Berman nor I would dream of defending slavery, of course. But the idea that we had two competing worldviews prior to the Civil War, and only one remaining after it, explains a lot about what has happened since then. I’m risking not making sense or being mistaken in intent here without going into a long explanation, but the simpler response is, read Berman.
On the video, I’d like to say I’m surprised, but sadly I’m not. I’m sure a similar pattern would be found at most colleges in the United States. TT people are great people, truly (I know a lot of them), but it’s not an academically elite school here (sorry, TT). Also, surely there’s some filtering going on here for the video edit – just like Jay Leno’s interviews on the street. People are that stupid – the question is what percentage.
My ancestors having come to this country around 1900, and having grown up in a 99% white town in NJ surrounded by “George Washington slept here” stuff, I did not study the Civil War or southern history or slavery in much detail.
Moving to Virginia and being surrounded by battlefields and streets and buildings and schools named “Lee-Jackson-Stonewall-Mosby-Stuart-Beauregard-Longstreet-Ewell-Early-etc.” soon led to visits to many battlefields and much study. My house sits on land that was part of the Manassas (Bull Run) battlefield, and was used at least for campsites, hospitals, and riding and marching back and forth if not battle lines. An old manor house with slave dwellings that was used as a CSA hospital sits 1/4 mile away, and the re-enactors there have a mannequin that pumps blood all over as they saw off it’s leg. Made my stomach flip a bit to see it, and one woman ran outside covering her mouth (my teenage grandsons said “cool” and got closer).
I agree that the war would have been inevitable in the context of “two competing worldviews or civilizations” not being able to coexist in the Union, and that’s what I learned in HS and college and the view I held as an “educated” person—-it wasn’t just about slavery. Once down here and up to my ears in history and dealing with actual racism in the schools and community, I looked deeper, and found that it DID seem to be very much about slavery, at least if you look at the various secession declarations or ordinances. A quick look can be found at this site:
https://aliberalthinker.wordpress.com/2013/02/18/what-was-the-main-reason-for-confederate-secession-in-the-civil-war-again/
A small sampling of what you will find there:
Texas ordinances of secession on February 2nd, 1861:
“Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated States to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquillity and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people… ..She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery–the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits–a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time”
http://www.lsjunction.com/docs/secesson.htm
South Carolina declaration of immediate causes, December 24th, 1860:
“But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution”.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp
Mississippi declaration of immediate causes:
“Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth”.
Berman’s not talking so much about how the Civil War wasn’t about slavery (which would be wrong) as he’s examining another dimension of the war as the final battle between “Hamilton’s America” and “Jefferson’s America”, and after the success of Hamilton’s America, how the United States (and subsequently the world) was affected.
Before the Civil War, an alternative (albeit one built on a monstrous institution) to an industrial, urbanized, and money obsessed culture existed. Afterwards, there was no legitimate alternative, and America became the country it is now (for both good – no slavery – and bad – the rest).
It’s a bit of a stretch to say “an alternative to an industrial, urbanized, and money obsessed culture existed” before the war. The “industrial and urbanized” part is true as far as it goes, although a good part of the reason the north became that way was to supply the needs of the South, and the South financed that development. There never really was a “legitimate” alternative because slavery is unconscionable, and the plantation economy couldn’t exist without it. America was well on the path to “becoming the “bad’ country it is now” long before the Civil War and actually long before the Revolution, when the first “traders” arrived on these shores. Much of what we saw in the antebellum South WAS leading to a “money-obsessed” culture of a sort there as well, in that we had an “aristocracy”, class stratification, and uneven wealth accumulation. A quote:
“The southern economy generated enormous wealth and was critical to the economic growth of the entire United States. Well over half of the richest 1 percent of Americans in 1860 lived in the South. Even more important, southern agriculture helped finance early 19th century American economic growth. Before the Civil War, the South grew 60 percent of the world’s cotton, provided over half of all U.S. export earnings, and furnished 70 percent of the cotton consumed by the British textile industry. Cotton exports paid for a substantial share of the capital and technology that laid the basis for America’s industrial revolution”
It should be noted that the population of the U.S. was ~31 million in 1860—-just under 30% (9 million) lived in the future CSA , and 3.5 million of them were slaves. Quick math says the 5.5 million non-slaves made up ~1/6 of the U.S. population but included over half of the wealthiest 1%. Sounds like some were indeed “money obsessed”.
Things are never as simple as they seem.
“Things are never as simple as they seem.”
I agree. Read Berman. It’s his thoughts I’m massively paraphrasing and providing without context.
PS Which “college in VA” did you attend?
W&M
Thought so. You sound smarter (and more sober) than the typical UVA grad.
My daughter (’90) and her husband (’91) are both W&M graduates. IMO, W&M provides the best education in VA and one that’s better than only a couple of handfuls of other institutions across the country. \
(And I seriously doubt that the dumbest kid you could find at W&M would do anywhere near as badly as these T Tech kids).
Awesome! Thanx for the link.
from link: “Nearly everything in modern American history turns on the Civil War” Tru dat.
U said: “I’d like to say I’m surprised, but sadly I’m not” Really? I was pretty surprised. This is not ancient Greece. It’s a central event in American Life (esp on Veterans Day), it’s Texas, it’s a University. This totally floored me. It’s a little like asking ‘where is your car parked?’ while exiting the Walmart, and getting ‘what is car?’ as response.
http://www.winslowhomer.org/the-veteran-in-a-new-field.jsp
Well, I live here (not in Lubbock, but close). I know what’s like.
It is particularly sad, though, in that of any age group, this one should know it, as they just took American history as a requirement in high school. I can’t explain it well, other than to say off-hand that U.S. education in the past 2-3 decades has become more about test taking than cohesive learning. The kids are cramming for tests and probably forgetting it 3 days later, and there’s no cultural backup in place to reinforce the learning except ‘Jersey Shore’.
That’s a breathtaking Homer image. I haven’t seen it before.
Thanks for linking to my blog site, but the discussion here, even among those who are trying to suggest there were two very different (and possibly legitimate) narratives about the Civil War, suffer under the victor’s logic that slavery was an abominable institution (even though it existed in almost every human culture since earliest recorded history).
And those who use secession statements as “proof” that the Confederacy really WAS about protecting the “peculiar institution” of slavery, ignore that, for Southern planters, defending the institution of slavery was no different from defending property rights.
What is almost entirely overlooked, however, is that the institution of wage slavery, so well developed by that time in the North, has been considered by scholars, editors and labor activists as no better, if not worse, than chattel slavery.
“We have stricken the shackles from 4,000,000 human beings and brought all labourers to a common level, but not so much by the elevation of former slaves as by reducing the whole working population, white and black, to a condition of serfdom. While boasting of our noble deeds, we are careful to conceal the ugly fact that by our iniquitous money system we have manipulated a system of oppression which, though more refined, is no less cruel than the old system of chattel slavery.” – Horace Greeley (1811-1872), editor of the New York Tribune
Holey moley.
My apologies to the people here. I’m totally okay if my comments here are deleted. I have read Morris Berman and found this link purely as an unedited part of his excellent commentary, but was unaware of any agenda/thoughts of the blog itself.
Berman, nor I, would agree with equating wage slavery and institutional slavery. Both are bad, but the latter is completely repulsive, and when used against a race of people for centuries is unforgivable.
Perhaps everything you’ve posted here SHOULD be deleted (or, at least, ignored) if you included links, such as to my blog, which you didn’t bother to read. From the vehemence of your reaction, I suspect you didn’t even bother to read Berman either.
In spite of your claim to objectivity in regard to the Civil War, you have clearly swallowed the victor’s mythology whole hog, and engage in the typically self-righteous retroactive imposition of modern sensibilities onto a practice as old as civilization itself.
You don’t know me at all, and you’ve twisted Berman’s writing to fit your own agenda.
I made the mistake of linking to your blog without reading the other parts of it, and I should have been skeptical of someone who would plagiarize an entire section of another writer’s published work, almost certainly without permission.
Property rights?
It is my fault for linking you, though, and take complete blame for it.
jimbills: My “agenda” is no different from Berman’s: to expose the historical lies we are fed and shed light on the full and uncensored truth.
It seems to be YOU who has chosen to distort Berman’s writings (and history) for YOUR agenda.
Since I credited Berman and his book in my article, there is no question of “plagiarism”, but making that claim is yet another indication of your intellectual dishonesty and selective blindness.
That you then claim “property rights” as your rationalization for such a charge, but deny that “property rights” was as much at the core of the South’s claim to protect the institution of slavery as it has been since among the Corporate North, which exploited the 14th Amendment, meant to proffer legal rights and due process to former slaves, to claim constitutional rights for the legal property we call corporations.
“Slavery is the legal fiction that a person is property. Corporate personhood is the legal fiction that property is a person.”
This was at least as much an abomination as chattel slavery ever was, and had done more to undo our Democracy than slavery ever could have.
From another of my blog essays:
Just eight years after the 14th Amendment was ratified, intended to grant due process rights and equal legal protections to former slaves (“all persons born or naturalized in the United States”), the railroad barons tried to claim equal protection “of life, liberty, or property”.
Hugo Black, considered one of the most influential Supreme Court justices in the 20th century, said “Of the cases in this court in which the 14th Amendment was applied during the first 50 years after its adoption, less than one half of one percent invoked it in protection of the Negro race, and more than 50% asked that its benefits be extended to corporations.”
I’m about to say goodnight to Riv, but I want to go back and finish the comments that I began on some of his earliest posts. Got sidetracked by his Gish Gallop of inane cliches. I’m not going to do much beyond list some things—-anyone with a brain will get the point—–evidences of racism (or straw men) are many in these comments by Riv.
“….the victor’s logic that slavery was an abominable institution (even though it existed in almost every human culture since earliest recorded history)”.
“….for Southern planters, defending the institution of slavery was no different from defending property rights”.
“….the institution of wage slavery, so well developed by that time in the North, has been considered by scholars, editors and labor activists as no better, if not worse, than chattel slavery”.
Misused Greeley quote. Greeley was an ardent abolitionist and champion of the working man. This was rhetoric, and only a racist like Riv would misuse it this way
“We have stricken the shackles from 4,000,000 human beings and brought all labourers to a common level, but not so much by the elevation of former slaves as by reducing the whole working population, white and black, to a condition of serfdom. While boasting of our noble deeds, we are careful to conceal the ugly fact that by our iniquitous money system we have manipulated a system of oppression which, though more refined, is no less cruel than the old system of chattel slavery.” – Horace Greeley (1811-1872), editor of the New York Tribune
To jimbills: “In spite of your claim to objectivity in regard to the Civil War, you have clearly swallowed the victor’s mythology whole hog, and engage in the typically self-righteous retroactive imposition of modern sensibilities onto a practice as old as civilization itself”.
To jimbills: “My “agenda” is no different from Berman’s: to expose the historical lies we are fed and shed light on the full and uncensored truth”. (the truth according to Riv, of course)
“….. “property rights” was as much at the core of the South’s claim to protect the institution of slavery as it has been since among the Corporate North, which exploited the 14th Amendment, meant to proffer legal rights and due process to former slaves, to claim constitutional rights for the legal property we call corporations” An unbelievable stretch, tying slavery to Citizen’s United and other very recent SCOTUS decisions.
“Slavery is the legal fiction that a person is property. Corporate personhood is the legal fiction that property is a person. This was at least as much an abomination as chattel slavery ever was, and had done more to undo our Democracy than slavery ever could have”. Really?
“Of the cases in this court in which the 14th Amendment was applied during the first 50 years after its adoption, less than one half of one percent invoked it in protection of the Negro race, and more than 50% asked that its benefits be extended to corporations.” Yep, a racist country, all right, and Riversong is deluded in his defense of it.
It’s possible to copyright infringe, which I labeled plagiarism, while directly attributing the source:
http://www.cfapubs.org/doi/pdf/10.2469/cfm.v22.n5.15
Another source (rule #2):
http://www.plagiarism.org/plagiarism-101/types-of-plagiarism/
Which is why I asked if you had Berman’s permission.
I had zero agenda here other than attempting to point people to Morris Berman in understanding a deeper level of the Civil War and its aftermath.
I’m dropping the rest of this, and rather hoping it gets deleted.
You have a very clear and obvious agenda now, which is to reach as far as you can to discredit me simply because I stated some historical and moral truths which make you uncomfortable and which expose you as an intellectual fraud.
You discredit yourself by continuing this “debate” you think you’re winning. Your blog was mentioned only because someone thought the Berman piece added something minimally meaningful to what was a small aside in a very inconsequential post on this Climate Change blog. Did you even view the video clip to ascertain the context in which the Civil War was mentioned? You should.
You stated some historical and moral truths which made us uncomfortable and exposed us as intellectual frauds? Lord love a duck, but that is SO over the top I can only say BWA-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha!!. (Do all prophets speak like that?)
That you think this is about “winning” and ego reveals yet more about your “character”.
“BWA-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha!!. ”
Do all kneejerk reactionaries speak like that?
Only the ones in arrested development.
I tried to explain to you that this is an inconsequential discussion on a throwaway topic HERE ON cROCK. I am here only to joust with you and allow you to expose yourself——you DO seem be the one that is concerned with “winning” and ego. If that’s not so, why are you still here? I promise you, the instant you disappear, you will be forgotten by all Crockers, me included.
Do all kneejerk reactionaries speak like that? (CLICHE)
Only the ones in arrested development. (CLICHE)
Yet again, you support the most egregious forms of “property rights”, such as the claim to have sole ownership of words and ideas (a concept that Thomas Jefferson roundly condemned), while completely ignoring the property rights of Southern planters, who fought to protect that right when the Northern corporate property interests were taking over the American government.
For those with less closed minds, see my essay: Ideas are not Property: People Aren’t Property, Property (Corporations) Aren’t People, Spreading Ideas Is Not Theft
http://riversong.wordpress.com/ideas-are-not-property/
Straw man alert!!!!!! Riversong is propping one up!!!
Riversong would conflate “intellectual property rights” with slavery? He sees as much harm in someone pirating a DVD in 2014 as someone owning another human being and all their descendants for…….say 220 years? A slave couple brought to this country in 1640 could have had 500 to 1000 descendants by 1860, if they weren’t worked or beaten to death by their “owners” (and that likely didn’t happen because the “owners” took care of them as well as they did their horses and tools, I’m sure).
Talk about closed minds.
Thanks for alerting us to your straw man argument, as intellectual fallacies and outright intellectual fraudulence is all you seem capable of offering.
Cliche alert!!!! Move on. nothing to see here.
“Move on” you advise, and yet you are so obviously incapable of taking your own advice – yet another example of your utter and abject hypocrisy.
More cliches:
“….you are so obviously incapable of taking your own advice…”
“….yet another example of your utter and abject hypocrisy….”
And the “move on” was a joke, one that Riv is obviously unfamiliar with. Does he have a sense of humor and understand the concept of “joke”? I see no evidence that he does. Too bad.
Imagine the pedagogic quality of the professors, at Lubbock… 😉
Once the kids are in college, they can take whatever they want. I’d guess the ones interviewed avoided college-level history – likely because they didn’t do so well in it in high school.
Apparently it didn’t take much to get into a university in Texas, given that it ranks 50th in the country in education. And the fewest high school graduates per capita.
Too many links so a comment got moderated. There are many links within the one given here:
My ancestors having come to this country around 1900, and having grown up in a 99% white town in NJ surrounded by “George Washington slept here” stuff, I did not study the Civil War or southern history or slavery in much detail.
Moving to Virginia and being surrounded by battlefields and streets and buildings and schools named “Lee-Jackson-Stonewall-Mosby-Stuart-Beauregard-Longstreet-Ewell-Early-etc.” soon led to visits to many battlefields and much study. My house sits on land that was part of the Manassas (Bull Run) battlefield, and was used at least for campsites, hospitals, and riding and marching back and forth if not battle lines. An old manor house with slave dwellings that was used as a CSA hospital sits 1/4 mile away, and the “surgeon” re-enactors there have a mannequin that pumps blood all over as they saw off it’s leg. Made my stomach flip a bit to see it, and one woman ran outside covering her mouth (my teenage grandsons said “cool” and got closer).
I agree that the war would have been inevitable in the context of “two competing worldviews or civilizations” not being able to coexist in the Union, and that’s what I learned in HS and college and the view I held as an “educated” person—-it wasn’t just about slavery. Once down here and up to my ears in history and dealing with actual racism in the schools and community, I looked deeper, and found that it DID seem to be very much about slavery, at least if you look at the various secession declarations or ordinances. A quick look can be found at this site:
https://aliberalthinker.wordpress.com/2013/02/18/what-was-the-main-reason-for-confederate-secession-in-the-civil-war-again/
A small sampling of what you will find there:
Texas ordinances of secession on February 2nd, 1861:
“Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated States to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquillity and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people… ..She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery–the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits–a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time”
South Carolina declaration of immediate causes, December 24th, 1860:
“But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution”.
Mississippi declaration of immediate causes:
“Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth”.
If I were asked who won the Civil War I would answer nobody for The Reformation happened soon after.
But then I have read American history too, American rather than US because the history pre-dates that latter entity.
On the American Civil War I have James M. McPherson ‘Battle Cry of Freedom’ which has many chapters explaining the political trajectory prior to the outbreak. An absorbing read. Also ‘The Penguin History of the United States of America’ by Hugh Brogan and from my interest in maritime history a number of volumes that sail the tricky waters of the War of Independence, and the War of 1812.
Maybe I was different as kid, History and Geography were as fascinating as science topics, like Feynman I liked to try to understand what made the world tick but lacking the intelligence of Feynman.
I am astounded by ignorance shown in street interviews in the UK too.
RE: Riversong and Jimbills
Well lookie here. A racist has just been banned from Crock, and here we have someone apparently stepping up to take his place. Although he is far more subtle than the recently departed one, anyone who is familiar with racism and racists knows the “code” words” and thoughts that reveal the truth. I have taken the time to read Berman (he is an apologist for racism) and spent some time on Riversong’s blog. Very revealing. Everyone should read the “Who am I” there to see how “Robert” feels about himself. He also considers himself a “prophet”, and explains what that means in a “note” (duplicated below in its entirety).
jimbills? No apologies are needed from you and none of your (or my) posts need be deleted because they speak truths that displease the self-anointed “prophet”. I am composing a more detailed response to his comments, and will post that separately. In the meantime, look at “Who I am” and “notes on a prophet” and digest them (if you can do so without an antacid).
“Note:
“There is a generalized misperception in these modern, “post-prophetic” days about what it means to be a prophet. The most common misunderstanding is that it displays some kind of arrogance to label oneself a “prophet”. But nothing could be further from the truth”.
“One does not decide to become a prophet, as one might choose to take on a profession. One is given the role by the Spirit of the Universe, and can choose only to accept it in humility or to reject one’s destiny. The calling often comes in the midst of some sort of Vision Quest, as it did in my case. And to accept the role of seeing and describing what most cannot see, are afraid to confront, and spend their lives in hiding from, is to accept being an outcast. As it has been said, a prophet is never welcome in his own time”.
“But I was also born into a prophetic tradition. My direct lineal ancestor, Yaakov Yitzchak of Lublin (in what is now Poland but was then part of Bohemia), also known as the Choseh (seer or visionary) of Lublin (1745-1815), is considered to be among the greatest of Hebrew prophets, on par with the biblical Isaiah. And I have always accepted my destiny regardless of the personal cost”.
“An essay which expands on my own understanding of the role of prophet in the modern world is Of Prophets and Hope”. (on the blog)
“taken the time to read Berman (he is an apologist for racism)”
I never got that impression, although I will be more thorough in regards to it in the future.
Berman, of course, is anything but that. Clearly dumboldman is even more prone to distorting other people’s ideas than are you.
“Berman, of course, is anything but that”
The prophet has spoken. All hail!
Come on, a W&M graduate should be able to read between the lines of Berman’s piece. My favorite excerpt is this one near the end. After much intellectual tap-dancing, Berman reveals some truth in his attempt at a strong “finishing argument” that evokes the founding principles. He should have quit while he was ahead.
“Yet it has also been argued that the Civil War separated Americans at last from their revolutionary heritage. It was not simply that the effort to coerce the South to remain in the Union was, as Williams argues, a betrayal of the ideal of self-determination, or the right of the people to determine their own form of government. Every argument utilized to support American independence in 1776 could be employed with equal effect in support of the southern cause in 1860–1861. Further, as Dennison insists, the war represented an end to the dream of America as a nation whose institutions rested on consent rather than force”.
Somehow, I have difficulty with Berman so hypocritically talking about “self-determination” and “consent” in the context of justifying the practice of one human being owning another for economic gain and allowing that human NO “self determination” or asking their “consent” to any of the abuses heaped upon them. Berman wants you to believe he is making an intellectual argument, but he is simply a good BS-er and an apologist.
dumboldguy (again, I have to remark at the appropriateness of your chosen handle), what you “read between the lines” is, of course, only what you project from your own tortured mind.
That you deny history to rationalize your own prejudices and ignorance puts you squarely in the middle of the American tradition of head-in-the-sand avoidance of hard truths and inconvenient conclusions.
Cliche alert!!!! (again)
(first an ad hominem—and he’s such a toughie, our Riv, this one shattered me)
“dumboldguy (again, I have to remark at the appropriateness of your chosen handle)” Oooooooh!
On to cliches:
“…only what you project from your own tortured mind”.
“…you deny history to rationalize your own prejudices and ignorance…”
“…puts you squarely in the middle of the American tradition of head-in-the-sand avoidance…”
“….hard truths and inconvenient conclusions…”
What do you call a comment like this that is nothing BUT cliches? Inane?
You have to read the broader context of that passage to understand it, and it’s a razor-thin tightrope he’s walking. He states in the book explicitly that he abhors slavery and that it’s just theoretical to separate the Southern cause from slavery. The broader point is about what came of America from the Civil War and the triumph of the worldview that existed in the North (and less so, although still existent, in the South.)
I’m out on this thread. It’s not worth it.
You’re the one walking a “razor-thin tightrope”, pretending to accept Berman’s historical criticism, while ignoring the necessary conclusions that flow from it.
Really? It is one thing to accept Berman’s historical criticism as an intellectual exercise, it is another thing entirely to accept it it as truth. I reject the so-called “necessary conclusions that flow from it”. (BTW, when did develop this magnificent arrogance you display here? Was it bestowed on you with your “prophecyhood”?)
Clearly, you prefer the “intellectual exercise” called logical fallacy, and reject any authentic historical analysis that contradicts or undermines your extreme bias and wanton ignorance.
Clearly, you didn’t even understand my criticism of Berman and are so wrapped up in yourself that your only arguments are to keep proclaiming the “rightness” of your position and bore us to death with cliches. I’m heading for the door.
You also entirely misunderstand the very simple concept of “arrogance”, which is claiming for one’s own qualities or standing that one does not rightly possess – such as claiming to be “an educated person with a wealth of life experience” when you are so obviously an historical illiterate with a wealth of bias.
Hmmmmm. If the all seeing, all knowing prophet of truth Riv says I am “so obviously an historical illiterate with a wealth of bias”, it must be so. Think I’ll go eat worms.
Riv is the one that entirely misunderstands the very simple concept of “arrogance”, which he says is “claiming for one’s own qualities or standing that one does not rightly possess” – like claiming that one is a “prophet”.
Merriam-Webster defines it better as “an attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or in presumptuous claims or assumptions”. That’s our Riv in a nutshell.
“I’m out on this thread. It’s not worth it”
You are 100% correct, but there’s nothing on TV tonight and I have just finished a book, so I’ll play with Rivvie for a while. He IS getting boring though—-if he doesn’t say something of substance soon, I’ll be out the door behind you.
So dumboldguy (an obviously appropriate pseudonym), like jimbills, prefers comforting myths to the hard and often inconvenient truths about history.
Surpassing, however, jimbill’s unfounded accusation of “plagiarism”, this dumboldguy, in order to rationalize his own willful ignorance, calls me out as a “racist” merely for shedding light on a truth he does not want to face.
That I’ve spent much of my sixty-plus years as a non-violent activist for peace and social justice (including racial justice), is irrelevant to a kneejerk reactionary.
I’m looking forward to your next rant, as it will undoubtedly reveal far more about your character than about any truths I have to share.
Thank you for revealing so much of YOUR “character”, Riversong. (And the quotation marks are intentional).
I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that a self-ordained “prophet” comes here and starts making pronouncements about “people preferring comforting myths to hard and inconvenient truths”.
(OUR “myths”, HIS “truths”, of course—-LOL) I guess that self-determination that he thinks the slave-owners deserved does not extend to those on this blog who may disagree with him. His way or the highway, and he is such a creative and misguided name-caller, too—-he is the first to ever call me a “knee-jerk reactionary”. But then he just got here and doesn’t know us.
FYI, I have created a character that I refer to often on Crock. The “self deluded rooster strutting around the barnyard crowing about his imagined superiority”. The more you comment, the more you fit that persona, and the “truths you have to share” are a display of the “willful ignorance” you accuse me of.
You may not be a racist in the crudest sense, but your over-intellectualizing about the “legitimacy” of slavery certainly makes you look like one.
Too bad I don’t have a blog where I can satisfy my narcissism like Riversong does. I’ll just say I’ve spent much of my 74+ years as an “activist” too, including time as a Marine (violently for peace, of course). Regarding racial justice, I’m sorry to say that I wasn’t able to sit back and simply run my mouth like River—-I did have to get a bit “violent” more than once—physically separating fighting groups of whites and blacks, stepping in front of a policeman to keep him from clubbing a black student, things like that.
Your intellectual dishonesty continues to shine through your self-congratulatory hypocrisy.
You claim to have read (and even quoted verbatim) my explanation that no one is “self-ordained” as a prophetic voice – as it is a burden that we are asked to bear in the face of hateful ignorance such as yours – and yet you spout one straw man after another in place of honest and rational argument.
Never have I “legitimized” slavery, but you “read between the lines” when you cannot tolerate the truth that is being shared.
Nor do I own any truths, but am merely the carrier of that which is self-evident to anyone who is not willfully blinded by bias, prejudice, ignorance and comforting little myths.
That you pretend to be an “activist” when you were nothing more than a willful killing machine, tells us all that we need to know about your “character”.
Slow down, Riv. I haven’t answered all your other comments and you keep throwing more horsepucky against the wall (it’s not sticking). And I wish you’d be more creative with your ad hominems. Do you know how many times someone has said “Your intellectual dishonesty continues to shine through your self-congratulatory hypocrisy” on a blog? So many that it’s now a cliche (like you).
Please explain WHO asked you to bear the burden of being a prophetic voice? Were you under the influence of any mid-altering substances when you got the message? By what authority are you the “carrier” of any sort of truth or wisdom? I really would like to understand. I’ve never met a prophet before.
As an educated person with a wealth of life experience, I DO “read between the lines” and make my analysis based on what I see. The problem here is that YOU insist that YOU are sharing truth with us and that we MUST accept it.
I see that my mention of being a Marine set you off (just as I intended). The USMC owned my body for 6 years back before Viet Nam, but I never went to war or killed anyone (although I would have—-that’s the deal most Americans of my generation made with our country—-have you ever served?—-were you perhaps a CO and served in a non-combat role?)
Yes, your calling me “nothing more than a willful killing machine” gives us yet another clue about YOUR “character”. Want to double down?
“Double down”????????????????
Violence and wanton irrationality are the only arrows in your little quiver.
Not only would I never even suggest that you “MUST accept” the self-evident truths of which I am the messenger, but I would never expect someone as willfully ignorant and hateful as you to be capable of perceiving, let alone acknowledging, such truths – particularly the truths about yourself that you have made so evident.
Yep, Riv doubled down on a bad bet and lost some more credibility with even more cliches:
“….wanton irrationality….”
“….the only arrows in your little quiver”
“….someone as willfully ignorant and hateful…”
“….to be capable of perceiving, let alone acknowledging, such truths…” “….particularly the truths about yourself that you have made so evident”
Booooooring and inane. I’m about to abandon you, Riv. Up your game or I’m gone.
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