PC Gone Too Far

Wrong again.I'm not going to argue with you anymore about what I mean. I think purposeful misinterpretation of what people say followed by distracting the debate into arguments about what they meant may just be your habit, the thing you do, the method by which you ignore arguments actually made.--Percy

Yes, of course, your last sentence precisely sums up what I've been saying about the context of time and place, but only if you define "white supremacist" as a white person who believes blacks inferior to whites, which characterizes much of the nation throughout much of its history, including the North. But white supremacy in the context of the Klan takes on a much different color involving intimidation, violence and even murder. By which degree of white supremacy are you equating them, the generally common one or the Klan's?Yes, Helen Plane, president of the Atlanta chapter, apparently admired the KKK (the first one from the 19th century, not the second one reincarnated at Stone Mountain in 1915). That has to be balanced against the fact that Klan involvement was viewed as a negative both nationally and locally, and that both the UDC and the SMCMA often found it necessary to distance themselves from the Klan. This second version of the Klan didn't even flourish that long, declining precipitously by 1930.But coloring the monument with a Klan tint is still just the fallacy of guilt by association. Someone admired doesn't suddenly become taboo just because someone villainous also admires them.Davis, Lee and Jackson are legitimate war heroes of the South, your eagerness to cast aspersions all around notwithstanding. Your failure to convince me otherwise is not because you haven't used the terms "white supremacists," "segregationists", "racists", "evil", "reprehensible" and "vile" often enough. It's because that's all you have to offer, and because the only points you find worth rebutting are ones you make up yourself.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Typo.

When I said that Davis, Lee and Jackson were war heroes of the South I did not mean "by some portion of Southerners." I meant that they were war heroes of the army of the South, as opposed to the army of the North. Southerners fought just as heroically as Northerners. You keep saying this but never supporting it. Was not his white supremacy typical not only of the South but even of much of the nation? The main difference between Davis and the other two was that Davis served politically rather than militarily (though a military role was his preference) during the Civil War, though we do have memorials to the political leader of the North, even one in Richmond, the South's capitol. Repeating your point again is not rebuttal. This is still the fallacy of guilt by association. Besides, the modern memorial has no connection to the Klan of the 1920's. We've both agreed that a key triggering factor of the modern memorial was racial desegregation.--Percy

Well, that's sure confusing.First, again, repeating your position is not rebuttal.Second, our recent posts have been discussing Davis, Lee and Jackson and the Stone Mountain memorial. You seem to have suddenly shifted your focus back to the memorial that opened this thread, the one on the University of Louisville campus that is scheduled for removal to storage, not a museum, and that was the object of a campaign to remove it because it is "somewhat akin to flying the Confederate flag."There are statues of both Lincoln and Douglas in the Kentucky capitol rotunda, and recently there was an effort to remove Davis's: There's a saying that goes, "History is written by the winners." It's not just about paper. Hopefully the world is gradually becoming more enlightened and increasingly realizes that history written by the losers is important, too. Even the revisionist history that developed out of Southern Lost Cause perspectives deserves preservation, because it is still a record of history, and perhaps even more importantly because it is with us still. The South fought an internal psychological battle in the aftermath of their devastating and never contemplated or envisaged defeat. Reconstruction caused a flood of Carpetbagging politicians, "businessmen", missionaries and what-not to descend upon the South bringing disenfranchisement and poverty. The first Ku Klux Klan was one result of the terms imposed by the North, but not the only one. What happened to the South after the Civil War was a lesson in how not to impose terms upon the defeated. So was what happened to Germany after WWI. These lessons of history were part of what drove the more enlightened approach of the victorious allies post-WWII.--Percy

This is, yet again, just something you made up. Now I know that upon reading this your first impulse will be to go off and scan through the thread for anything in my posts that could somehow by squinting cross-eyed be construed as casting accusations of PC at thread participants, but please just stop now. We don't need any more of you making up what I said or meant. You've done enough. That's not what I said, either. Boy, you just can't help yourself, can you. Apparently when unable to rebut what was actually said, you just make stuff up, just throw out distraction after accusation after insinuation.My actual argument is that Davis, Lee and Jackson were war heroes of the Southern army no less than Lincoln and Grant were war heroes of the Northern army, that both sides fought equally heroically. Of course people of the South (including those responsible for both the original Stone Mountain memorial efforts and the later successful one) considered Davis, Lee and Jackson heroes - they were. It would make no sense to claim that only those on winning sides fight heroically. Oh, bravo. Yes, you have repeated this often, but only to ignore the actual argument that good people can't abandon good opinions just because they're shared by bad people. Arguments along the lines of, "Bad people liked them so they must be bad too," is insufficient and inconclusive. If Davis, Lee and Jackson are not heroes but are bad people undeserving of memorials then the arguments for that view must stand on their own. Certainly they didn't suddenly become bad decades after the war when the KKK of the early 20th century decided to like them. If you think there's something special about Davis as regards this discussion, then sure, go ahead, discuss Davis. But if the South had won then Davis, Lee and Jackson would obviously have been heroes of the new Southern nation. How do you reason that because the South lost that they aren't still heroes of the conquered nation?What I understand so far of what you've said about Davis is that you believe Davis was a worse "white supremacist" than Lee or Jackson, but you can't explain why, and that he committed "despicable acts," but you won't explain what. Not very persuasive. I'm not forgetting that you offered up some facts, such as that Davis owned over 100 slaves, but you ignored my attempts to engage with you about it. If that's the best we can do then that's fine, but we must never forget the importance of remembering history. Moving historical artifacts out of in situ should always be a reluctant alternative. Some of any group are bastards, including the North, it's inevitable. There was nothing special about Southerners in this regard. I can see that your lack of objectivity is determined, persistent and unapologetic. I agree about the false veneer of respectability that the Lost Cause perspective constructed around slavery, but not on any general opinion that contemporary views always trump older ones.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

Glad I finally convinced you.¹--Percy¹How do *you* like it?

Oh, yes. It was right on the mark and seemed to help.I don't know if we're at a breaking point in the discussion or at the end, but a summary seems appropriate. As I put it in the OP, "We can't let PC gone wild cause us to destroy the tangible memories of our nations past." PC should not drive which history we preserve. Any political strategy that works encourages its use, and the more we give in to the politics of being offended the more claims of being offended we'll see. It simply isn't possible to offend no one. It's a nice goal, but not a very realistic one. The only way to avoid offense is to do nothing.Many people disagreed, the central objection I think being that a public has a right to not be offended, especially if its a majority of the public. The most thought provoking objection came from Caffeine about Communist monuments in Eastern Europe, i.e., the monuments of conquerors over the vanquished.Though much of the discussion was about who was worthy of memorializing, it was tangential to the main topic.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

That slavery was wrong was never in dispute, but your response implied I had taken an opposing position. If you were just seeking to note a point of agreement you sure expressed it funny. Ending on a high note would not disguise what went before. If you're done then you're leaving with a lot of unanswered questions, but what has become the greater question for me is why our discussions never end well, despite what I assume are resolves on both sides to make it come out better "this time."--Percy

Your only mention to me of black POWs during the Civil War was in your Message 72 in reference to Nathan B. Forrest (whose name you didn't provide and which I had to look up), not Jefferson Davis. Now that you mention a proclamation I was able to find what you're talking about (Proclamation by the Confederate President). It seems to support two conclusions:

1. In treating black POWs and their white officers as perpetrators of a slave revolt (meaning the death penalty) instead of as combatants Jefferson Davis was guilty of what we would today call war crimes - I don't know the attitude about such things back then.
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2. Such harsh treatment to keep slaves obedient would seem to give the lie to Lost South views of slavery, since if being a slave were such a balm threats of beatings and death wouldn't be necessary, but this again goes back to the times. Beatings and capital punishment were common penalties for more than just disobedient or runaway slaves.

These are issues we could have discussed had you mentioned that proclamation, but if you don't to tell me your evidence and rationale I can't guess them and am not supposed to have to. Were this and his proclamation his "despicable acts?" Even if we were talking about Hitler, Mussolini and Pol Pot I couldn't agree with "bastards" as an objective or precise classification, just like "evil." Use of emotionally laden terms indicates a lack of objectivity. Many call the guy who cut them off in traffic a bastard - of what possible use is the term? Cozy? More like extremely well regarded by Hitler for his military skill - "cozy" is not a term I'd use. Rommel was a contradictory figure, his actual feelings vis-a-vis the Nazis and Hitler still argued among historians. Had Germany won his military deeds would have made him a war hero. By what logic could you argue that since Germany lost he was not a war hero? I wasn't giving Davis "cover." I was noting the lack of anything specific from you differentiating him from most other Southerners. Through too much of this thread your approach has been, "If Percy doesn't already know why I feel this way, I'm not telling him." When I said, in effect, "You've provided no evidence," I was not providing cover for Davis - I was telling you you'd given me nothing specific to consider. Probably no one cares about the record but us. Certainly no one's free of error, but there also has to be a determination to avoid error and correct error. On this it doesn't feel like we see things the same way. And it seems very odd for you to decide the discussion has gone as far as it can while on the one hand leaving unaddressed so many questions, and on the other finally providing some missing arguments so often requested.--Percy

It wasn't in a post to me. It was in a post to Bluegenes that didn't even mention Davis's name, just asked the cryptic questions, "How did Washington feel about black POWs taken in war? Did he make any proclamations regarding them?" That's the way you've run through most of this thread, dropping hints of evidence and argument while rarely actually providing them. Yep, that's what it was, a mention. Don't recall it, but if it was just another drive-by mention then it's not worth tracking down. Let's just say that if henceforth we both provide evidence and rationale for our positions without playing coy, and if we refrain from making false characterizations of the other's statements, and if we don't make false accusations, and if we don't confuse this thread with other threads, and if we avoid emotionally laden terms as if they proved anything, then I just have to keep on keeping on while you have a lot of changes to make.--Percy

You were referring cryptically to well documented history. You may as well have been writing clues for a crossword puzzle. Straightforwardly make your point. I'm not here to decode your ciphers while you berate me. This isn't an issue of documentation, not usually, anyway. Everyone here is capable of fact checking, but they have to know what to look up. You think Davis a worse scumbag (to suggest another technical term for you to use) than other Southerners - why? Just describe why. Maybe sometimes that will require a link, excerpt or quote, maybe not, but describe why.In the 1920's there was obviously an exploration of paths toward reconciliation between North and South. The Stone Mountain memorial was one of those paths, albeit a dead end at the time. One doesn't have to research further than the news or an electoral map or explore further south than Richmond to realize that reconciliation is still decidedly incomplete. Lording it over the South that they lost, their cause was unjust, and therefore we get to say who their heroes were is remarkably insensitive, ineffective and counterproductive. Wasn't Reconstruction enough of a punishment?The South embraced slavery not because they were evil but because of economics. Slavery withered away in the North because it wasn't profitable, but the invention of the Cotton gin made slavery in the South not only profitable, but wildly so. Then the banning of the international slave trade forced the South to rely upon itself to provide slaves, turning it into a self-contained bastion of slavery.If the South was remarkably intractable concerning slavery in the years leading up to the Civil War, so was the North in the sense of not perceiving or comprehending the wholesale economic and social devastation that an end to slavery would bring in the South. In expressing little willingness to work with the South toward providing a viable path away from slavery (an institution that many in the South realized would one day, somehow, have to end) while sharing in the economic costs they boxed the South into a corner.--Percy

We should not reason that because the South's cause was unjust that therefore their heroes deserve no memorials, and that because they lost such opinions should have some force. The North was not without fault by boxing the South into a corner. Slavery was wrong, but it was a lynchpin of the Southern economy whose removal would cause its collapse. Some amazing compromises were worked out in the decade or two before the war, but though both sides recognized that the future of slavery depended upon how it was allowed to expand into the territories, neither side addressed the key question of how the South would transition away from a slave economy without severe and widespread social and economic dislocation.It is rare in the history of warfare that the losing country is absorbed into the winning, but such is the case here, and so we have to find ways to live together. We don't want to shy away from the truth, but neither do we want to inflame antagonisms. We don't want to censor one truth in favor of another. No one's prevented from "telling the truth" that they see. Historians (and us, though our opinions don't matter much) can write whatever they like.But reconciliation between North and South is still an ongoing process. Many in the South considered Davis, Lee and Jackson and the Southern armies heroes and still do today, so efforts against their memorials work against reconciliation. We should not lord it over the South because they lost - it's counterproductive. And historical principles urge that we should not update or remove representations of the past to make them better accord with contemporary opinion.--Percy

I assume you're questioning the first sentence, not the second. Did you see the comments in prior posts on the same issue that lend this context? It's all part of trying to keep in the forefront the question of why did the South have slavery and support it so vehemently. Similar questions can be asked of many things in history. Why did the US drop atomic bombs on Japan? Why did a US army company murder innocent civilians at My Lai? Why did the Nazis try to wipe out the Jews? Why did the German people tolerate the Nazis? Why did the Soviets murder Polish army officers at Katyn? You can even include questions like why the tobacco industry supported tobacco, or why whistleblowers so frequently get screwed.I'm arguing that "They were evil" is not often an answer. It is rarely a case of, "There are evil people in our midst, and when too many evil people happen to in some way come together then evil things happen." The true explanation is usually just this: it's just people being people. People in the South of the 1840's and 1850's found themselves in circumstances that they were born into and that were not of their making, and they dealt with them the way people anywhere and anytime would deal with similar circumstances. Preservation of oneself and family is the top priority, and so on down the hierarchy of needs. The key question involves why people behave in certain ways when faced with certain situations.Regarding my comment about the North's blame for the Civil War, as I said, there were comments in prior posts that lend this context, so for now I'll just pose the rhetorical question, could the North reasonably expect the South to abandon slavery when it would mean economic and social ruin?I think many people answer this question the same way: They should have realized that slavery was wrong, behaved honorably, and got on with the business of abandoning it. But history says people rarely if ever behave in ways that are contrary to their own best interests, so why do we so often go against the lessons of history? The answer is that we don't know or remember history very well, which goes back to my original argument of the importance of preserving history.There was a fascinating editorial about history in the New York Times a few days ago, I wonder if I can dig it out...yes, here it is: No, He’s Not Hitler. And Yet .... He talks about a lot of different ways of viewing history and never mentions Santayana, whose position I've been championing. But for those who reject Santayana there are other views described in the editorial:

quote:

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...history is nothing more than a long, linear series of individual people and events that come and go. It is, as the saying goes, just one damn thing after another.

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This quip is in part a rejection of the idea that history is, or might someday be, a sort of science in which we subsume particular events under general laws. This idea motivated Hegel to conceptualize human history as a law-governed dialectical process of the unfolding of absolute Spirit.
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Even when Marx facetiously riffs on Hegel’s claim that historical facts and personages always appear twice by adding that they do so the first time as tragedy and the second time as farce he is still perpetuating the very serious idea that individual people and happenings in history are instances of something more general.
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With the depressing confirmations of Godwin’s Law that can be found every day in the comments sections of news outlets (surely, this article will be no exception), one often senses that Hitler is not so much a historical figure as a mythological one, that the war of 70-some years ago has already become something like the Trojan War had been for the Homeric bards: a major event in the mythic past that gives structure and sense to our present reality. As in myth, that great event’s personages can appear and reappear not in the exact form they took back then, but as avatars, in new forms, under new names.

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I was going to quote more but I see I've already got a long quote, so I'll stop. I found the editorial fascinating, I recommend it to everyone.So what is history? Is it really just one thing after another, or does it contain lessons? If the latter then the Civil War teaches important lessons, and some of them are about the behavior of average, everyday people.--Percy

Yes to the second, the first doesn't seem possible. One would expect economically unviable approaches to be quickly outcompeted and to disappear on their own.There's a discussion about the economics of American slavery over at Wikipedia. It wanders across a lot of different opinions but could be summarized as discussing two divergent trends driven by slavery, one the expansion of agriculture (particularly cotton), the other the drag on long term economic development caused by the emphasis on agriculture. Did slavery make economic sense? in The Economist also describes somewhat the same views and declares no firm conclusions. The most unusual view held that slavery wasn't intended to be profitable but was just a way for Southerners to flaunt their slaves and plantations. How they did that without profits isn't mentioned.I didn't find anything explaining how an unviable slave economy could long persist.--Percy

I'm already on record here arguing the opposite. Good idea.--Percy