Elvado
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Post by Elvado on Jun 26, 2015 17:07:02 GMT -5
Not to make light of a real debate but isn't the District of Columbia named for a racist imperialist oppressor?
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on Jun 26, 2015 19:38:53 GMT -5
Not to make light of a real debate but isn't the District of Columbia named for a racist imperialist oppressor? Well, yes, and there are certainly some among the DC Statehood movement who would like to ditch "of Columbia" right alongside "District." I would submit, though, that both President Wilson (and Washington, and Jefferson, and many others) were famous and praiseworthy for a wide range of accomplishments that were not directly tied to their views or actions on race, slavery, etc. So, too, was Columbus; there is something to be said for the spirit of exploration and the ways in which it is a constituent part of what it means to be human. These figures must be taken for and understood as the complicated people they were, and we can recognize their accomplishments (I tend to think less of Columbus than of the other three I mentioned) while never forgetting their faults. We're all flawed, so it's a good rule of thumb for everybody. The likes of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Jefferson Davis, Nathan Bedford Forrest, etc. are famous solely due to their leadership of a treasonous armed insurrection against the flawed but elected government of the United States - an insurrection whose primary and overarching purpose was the preservation of the institution of chattel slavery. That... counts for a lot, a lot more than their possessing fine manners when around fellow officers and Southern aristocrats, or their ability to get others to follow them and die for the cause they made their own. Now, I do favor the holistic view, so it's certainly possible to view Lee as something akin to Rommel. He was a great (if overbilled) soldier who was internally conflicted, to some extent willfully ignorant of the morality of his actions, made many of the wrong choices, and late in life became a scalawag who advocated for national reconciliation on terms friendly to the south and the ruling elite of which he was a part - a self-interested stance, perhaps, but certainly better than that of Forrest and his ilk, and the sort of actor that is frequently caught in post-conflict reconciliation today. Long story short: we don't have to engage in presentism to recognize that those on one side of the Civil War were on the side that was deeply wrong, even by the standards of the day (again, Lincoln DID win the 1860 election...), and we had best think long and hard about whether any of their number were so exemplary in other ways as to make up for the inherent wrongness of their cause. The answer will probably remain dynamic throughout the ages, as we're starting to see now with Andy Jackson and his exalted place upon the $20 bill.
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DFW HOYA
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Post by DFW HOYA on Jun 26, 2015 21:46:50 GMT -5
Now, I do favor the holistic view, so it's certainly possible to view Lee as something akin to Rommel. He was a great (if overbilled) soldier who was internally conflicted, to some extent willfully ignorant of the morality of his actions, made many of the wrong choices, and late in life became a scalawag who advocated for national reconciliation on terms friendly to the south and the ruling elite of which he was a part - a self-interested stance, perhaps, but certainly better than that of Forrest and his ilk, and the sort of actor that is frequently caught in post-conflict reconciliation today. Overbilled? He is arguably the greatest U.S. tactician of the 19th century, so much so that he would been the leader of the Union Army had Virginia followed Maryland's vote not to secede. "I look upon secession as anarchy," Lee once said. "If I owned the four millions of slaves in the South I would sacrifice them all to the Union; but how can I draw my sword upon Virginia, my native state?"
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on Jun 26, 2015 21:54:34 GMT -5
Now, I do favor the holistic view, so it's certainly possible to view Lee as something akin to Rommel. He was a great (if overbilled) soldier who was internally conflicted, to some extent willfully ignorant of the morality of his actions, made many of the wrong choices, and late in life became a scalawag who advocated for national reconciliation on terms friendly to the south and the ruling elite of which he was a part - a self-interested stance, perhaps, but certainly better than that of Forrest and his ilk, and the sort of actor that is frequently caught in post-conflict reconciliation today. Overbilled? He is arguably the greatest U.S. tactician of the 19th century, so much so that he would been the leader of the Union Army had Virginia followed Maryland's vote not to secede. "I look upon secession as anarchy," Lee once said. "If I owned the four millions of slaves in the South I would sacrifice them all to the Union; but how can I draw my sword upon Virginia, my native state?" And yet, when push came to shove, Lee ordered his armies to seize free blacks they encountered and send them down south into bondage. His dislike of slavery was, at best, situational. Again, I think a lot of that has to do with willful ignorance - slavery looked a lot different in Arlington than in the cotton fields of the Deep South - but it is worth keeping in mind nonetheless. As for the General's reputation, it was certainly great, and much of it was deservedly so. At the same time, as Clausewitz tells us, war is politics by other means. Lee calculated that a series of rapid offensive strikes on the North would knock them out of the war. He was wrong. He was rolling the ball uphill in a number of ways, and there are plenty of purely tactical and operational evaluations of his leadership that paint a mixed picture (overreliance on certain subordinates? Check. Failure to safeguard communications? Check. Inexact communications in critical moments? Check). But if we're going to celebrate a leader's military acumen, we have to make a full and honest accounting of all the things he got wrong, starting with the Confederacy's plainly untenable system of governance, which they abandoned only when the war was half-lost.
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kchoya
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Post by kchoya on Jun 26, 2015 22:40:01 GMT -5
Overbilled? He is arguably the greatest U.S. tactician of the 19th century, so much so that he would been the leader of the Union Army had Virginia followed Maryland's vote not to secede. "I look upon secession as anarchy," Lee once said. "If I owned the four millions of slaves in the South I would sacrifice them all to the Union; but how can I draw my sword upon Virginia, my native state?" And yet, when push came to shove, Lee ordered his armies to seize free blacks they encountered and send them down south into bondage. His dislike of slavery was, at best, situational. Again, I think a lot of that has to do with willful ignorance - slavery looked a lot different in Arlington than in the cotton fields of the Deep South - but it is worth keeping in mind nonetheless. As for the General's reputation, it was certainly great, and much of it was deservedly so. At the same time, as Clausewitz tells us, war is politics by other means. Lee calculated that a series of rapid offensive strikes on the North would knock them out of the war. He was wrong. He was rolling the ball uphill in a number of ways, and there are plenty of purely tactical and operational evaluations of his leadership that paint a mixed picture (overreliance on certain subordinates? Check. Failure to safeguard communications? Check. Inexact communications in critical moments? Check). But if we're going to celebrate a leader's military acumen, we have to make a full and honest accounting of all the things he got wrong, starting with the Confederacy's plainly untenable system of governance, which they abandoned only when the war was half-lost. So you're saying it's not a simple black and white issue, but something filled with nuance and context and layers?
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on Jun 26, 2015 23:24:34 GMT -5
So you're saying it's not a simple black and white issue, but something filled with nuance and context and layers? Yes. Most of life is like that. On the other hand, when it comes to people we select as our 'national heroes,' it's a bit hard to go with "sure, his sole claim to fame was leading the armies of slavery and treason, but he was full of nuance and context and layers when it came to dealing with white people!" as a line of argument. And I say this as someone who grew up in the Deep South and generally tries to be sympathetic to folks and where they're coming from. Bobby Lee can stand on his own merits; he needs no puffing up or dredging down. He was not a hero - but then, neither are most people, anywhere, ever.
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