Beginning around 1830, individuals living in the U. S. A. began developing a sense of slavery as a grave wrong that needed to be rectified and an institution that needed to be abolished. A considerable movement arose led by famous men like William Lloyd Garrison. In this way a movement arose. And, it was a form of activism directed toward the South. For - you see - that is precisely where the slavery was. But what does this entail?
We can see that if we are to proceed in this way in our pursuit of ethical values we are opposed to grave moral wrongs and, simultaneously, always locating those wrongs in somewhere other than ourselves; it is not that it was in the negro race: but in the big bad slavers who are harming them.
Notice that this is a righteous combination. If it is moral outrage you need it is there. Additionally it is combined with a view to somebody else. This is someone both wrong and not of one's own group. And yes, Virginia, to this day, scholars still assume things, but with questionable moral certainty, for they are assuming one side unquestionably right, the other unquestionably wrong. The result is a self-righteous attitude not so different from any other form of bigotry. What happens to this clear demarcation, between right and wrong? It disappears when we realize that the bigotry never left the house at all. Ooooops!!!
Well, the only conclusion possible is that it never existed. The moral certainty, I mean – and blaming the South was above all convenient. One never had to go against anyone in one's own neck of the woods. The slaveholding southerners are the same. They too would pose as morally upright; so did the Southerners in the fifties and sixties: like George Wallace. Everyone did this. These righteous gentlemen – Southerners, this time around – resisted integration. They claimed that these new ideas would destroy the "civilization" and moral values of the West. I do not think I am exaggerating because this is documented in Wm. Manchester's two volume work on the period. It’s good reading.
What the South was doing to the blacks the North then did to the South. Gotchya. But what actual good comes out of this? Is anything really changed? Or does all of this just feed into our own self-righteousness? The root downfall in either of the cases is simple: not understanding others. This is as hard for the Northerners, certainly, as it is for the Southerners. Opposition to slavery was the way we in the
U. S. A. expressed our own ethnic strife. Clever.
Western civilization is an old, established thing. It passes through Greece, Rome, the medieval period and the nation-states period – on to the culture of capitalism and democracy. It changes at its own organic pace. Now we have arrived at what we might call modernity. The term is well-known. But is modernity simply another stage like the others or is there something different?
Monday, February 23, 2009
An Interesting Book From Awhile Ago
I saw an interesting book by Louis Fisher the other day. It was in the book section of a local thrift venue, with books at very low-prices, and also excellently classified, and displayed. It's a Madison thing I guess. Fisher's book is one of the raft of books about "the world" that came out just after WWII. I dont know how many there are really but I think I've seen a few others from that same period: a man looks around himself and sees a world. The man tries to discern just what that world is. The man nows tells everybody about what he's seen ---- tells all the folks back home. It is an opportunity for total creativity.
One can always basically paint one's own picture. Looking at the world the individual can see whatever the individual wants to see. The understanding of the world one will see in books written 175 years ago or older is often something entirely distinct as compared with today's fashion. Is today's view more correct? Well, I really, really doubt it. Even books depicting human society from the 1950's are seeing a different thing compared with what authors today see, and it works in both directions. Whether we fast forward or rewind it is not the same thing. For example, the whole particular take on slaves in a book written 175 years ago would differ compared to the concept of slavery in a book written today. The same would go for the concept of the African-American found in a book written in 1950 as compared with today.
This is not to say that a few books do not transcend. Oh yeah. Sure. Definitely; there are the great books. This is not the norm however; few writers can transcend whichever is the fashionable ideology of the time. I am afraid maybe these are just the books we usually end up reading! The superficial ones!
And I hope you are OK with that. It is similar if you look at the differences in view, between the conservative small town or rural person in our American South or Southwest and the urban, urbane and educated one in a Northern city, one who may be more liberal.
The later may be overeducated ---- but he still winds up buying the stereotype book. He is more engaged, has more sources of information, and yet, he too falls into an all too typical point-of-view. On the other hand our small-town or rural friend is totally off in fantasyland: they simply make stuff up. It is a wonder to observe this. It has its points, too. (I mean good ones.) I did observe it, in several years of moving around the Southwest. I found out that Mexicans are planning an imminent invasion of the United States, for example, they are going to use Arizona to enter, probably. And it is imperative that the white folks man the defense lines. (Not to mention that you guys immediately should elect McCain. If possible!!)
Contrary to what liberals reading this may be snickering and thinking, I gained more rather than less respect for this southwestern world, and for the decency of the persons in it. For: the whole point here is that this is what we do. We make it up. We always do this. It's nothing to be ashamed of, because civilization would not be around were the liberals to take over and stop society from this process of blocking reality and making up their own thing.
Oh, yeah, about the writer Louis Fisher: Interesting book. Pick it up. It'll do you about as much good as the average white man's bird's eye view of the Mid-East.
One can always basically paint one's own picture. Looking at the world the individual can see whatever the individual wants to see. The understanding of the world one will see in books written 175 years ago or older is often something entirely distinct as compared with today's fashion. Is today's view more correct? Well, I really, really doubt it. Even books depicting human society from the 1950's are seeing a different thing compared with what authors today see, and it works in both directions. Whether we fast forward or rewind it is not the same thing. For example, the whole particular take on slaves in a book written 175 years ago would differ compared to the concept of slavery in a book written today. The same would go for the concept of the African-American found in a book written in 1950 as compared with today.
This is not to say that a few books do not transcend. Oh yeah. Sure. Definitely; there are the great books. This is not the norm however; few writers can transcend whichever is the fashionable ideology of the time. I am afraid maybe these are just the books we usually end up reading! The superficial ones!
And I hope you are OK with that. It is similar if you look at the differences in view, between the conservative small town or rural person in our American South or Southwest and the urban, urbane and educated one in a Northern city, one who may be more liberal.
The later may be overeducated ---- but he still winds up buying the stereotype book. He is more engaged, has more sources of information, and yet, he too falls into an all too typical point-of-view. On the other hand our small-town or rural friend is totally off in fantasyland: they simply make stuff up. It is a wonder to observe this. It has its points, too. (I mean good ones.) I did observe it, in several years of moving around the Southwest. I found out that Mexicans are planning an imminent invasion of the United States, for example, they are going to use Arizona to enter, probably. And it is imperative that the white folks man the defense lines. (Not to mention that you guys immediately should elect McCain. If possible!!)
Contrary to what liberals reading this may be snickering and thinking, I gained more rather than less respect for this southwestern world, and for the decency of the persons in it. For: the whole point here is that this is what we do. We make it up. We always do this. It's nothing to be ashamed of, because civilization would not be around were the liberals to take over and stop society from this process of blocking reality and making up their own thing.
Oh, yeah, about the writer Louis Fisher: Interesting book. Pick it up. It'll do you about as much good as the average white man's bird's eye view of the Mid-East.
Monday, February 2, 2009
The invasion of I. must, due to the way it was conceived and executed, be understood by us as a totally foolish act. We must begin to question the kinds of persons we have had in power. Bush and Rumsfeld are two names to mention here.
We must ask ourselves whether Americans are really such intelligent people at all.
We need to instigate a project to arrive at clear thinking again, because we seem to have lost it.
Obama talks about freedom or the great qualities of the United States of America or whatever but I think he is missing the underlying malaise that is going on right here all around us. What I've got to say is that every day we get more and more distant from one another; it gets harder to talk to one's neighbors. The little bit of social intercourse the emerging market economy gave us for the last one or two hundred years is wearing thin, wearing out. We are herded more and more, like silent, driven animals, into our places. If on the other hand you like the niche you ended up in, then good for you but a society needs interaction and by the time you wake up and feel the loss it will be too late.
No revolution: it will stay the same as it ever was. It may get worse. But if it gets worse it will collapse altogether. So, I say, we cannot let it just get worse. The processes in place are so heavy, so massive -- and yet we do not even understand either how to change things or even what the things we have in the society today are in the first place.
US/America: born of refugees who escaped suffering and conflict in Europe, they were all thrown together here, and created a friendly, neighborly society.
But now the violence of Europe that the Americans escaped has been reproduced here, so the escape was only temporary.
How 'bout these miracles of the free market? Yeah; How 'bout it? How about the material the ideologically star-struck conservatives talk about? There is none; no competition. There is no one entering any markets -- OK, on the lowest level, like a taco stand in Mexico.
But we are talking about the movers and the shakers and it is a big players enacting sham competition. If a CEO loses in that game he gets replaced and gets a check for millions. This has happened many times, I believe. That isn't competition. It is humorous, but it isn't competition. He isn't risking anything. He is playing a game. Every five years the phenomenon called competition will drop in quality by another degree. And anyways no one wants to compete -- or even interact with -- the disgusting phonies who manage/own the capitalist world nowadays. Just jump into the tank with those barracudas, would jya? You will like it. Competition.
If you are a genuine, honest person that's great. But how much influence will you have in society. If you do not even talk to your neighbors...In this American vacuum?
We must ask ourselves whether Americans are really such intelligent people at all.
We need to instigate a project to arrive at clear thinking again, because we seem to have lost it.
Obama talks about freedom or the great qualities of the United States of America or whatever but I think he is missing the underlying malaise that is going on right here all around us. What I've got to say is that every day we get more and more distant from one another; it gets harder to talk to one's neighbors. The little bit of social intercourse the emerging market economy gave us for the last one or two hundred years is wearing thin, wearing out. We are herded more and more, like silent, driven animals, into our places. If on the other hand you like the niche you ended up in, then good for you but a society needs interaction and by the time you wake up and feel the loss it will be too late.
No revolution: it will stay the same as it ever was. It may get worse. But if it gets worse it will collapse altogether. So, I say, we cannot let it just get worse. The processes in place are so heavy, so massive -- and yet we do not even understand either how to change things or even what the things we have in the society today are in the first place.
US/America: born of refugees who escaped suffering and conflict in Europe, they were all thrown together here, and created a friendly, neighborly society.
But now the violence of Europe that the Americans escaped has been reproduced here, so the escape was only temporary.
How 'bout these miracles of the free market? Yeah; How 'bout it? How about the material the ideologically star-struck conservatives talk about? There is none; no competition. There is no one entering any markets -- OK, on the lowest level, like a taco stand in Mexico.
But we are talking about the movers and the shakers and it is a big players enacting sham competition. If a CEO loses in that game he gets replaced and gets a check for millions. This has happened many times, I believe. That isn't competition. It is humorous, but it isn't competition. He isn't risking anything. He is playing a game. Every five years the phenomenon called competition will drop in quality by another degree. And anyways no one wants to compete -- or even interact with -- the disgusting phonies who manage/own the capitalist world nowadays. Just jump into the tank with those barracudas, would jya? You will like it. Competition.
If you are a genuine, honest person that's great. But how much influence will you have in society. If you do not even talk to your neighbors...In this American vacuum?
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