No...Originally Posted by Rhythm
It's a developmental issue.
Average students in high school are juuuust managing to navigate "nuance."
Many never will. Others are already there. But on average, nuance without life experience & mental readiness is planting corn on concrete.
Every moment of a life is a horrible tragedy, a slapstick comedy, dark nihilism, golden illumination, or nothing at all; depending on how we write the story we tell ourselves.
Probably, just hard for me to understand because it is taught and I did hear it.
While I love to accuse humans of willful blindness, and am inclined to think that a number of people fond of the Lost Cause mythos will never willingly abandon it (holocaust deniers exist, if people really want to believe stupid shit then they will), I also think fixing history courses would help. Memorable nuance from my US history course basically amounted to, "Yes, the South epically fucked up on multiple levels but the Union was not exactly made up of angels." I don't thing that's actually enough to reliably keep a position firm against family members parroting a popular mythos with great vigor. Actually using period writings (it doesn't have to be Cornerstone, I just find that particular example compelling) to demonstrate the ideology of the Confederacy won't kill the Lost Cause inside a generation but I think it'll weaken it.
"It is not simply enough to know the light…a Jedi must feel the tension between the two sides of the Force…in himself and in the universe."
―Thon
"When to the Force you truly give yourself, all you do expresses the truth of who you are,"
Yoda
Yoda told stories, and ate, and cried, and laughed: and the Padawans saw that life itself was a lightsaber in his hands; even in the face of treachery and death and hopes gone cold, he burned like a candle in the darkness. Like a star shining in the black eternity of space.
Yoda: Dark Rendezvous
"But those men who know anything at all about the Light also know that there is a fierceness to its power, like the bare sword of the law, or the white burning of the sun." Suddenly his voice sounded to Will very strong, and very Welsh. "At the very heart, that is. Other things, like humanity, and mercy, and charity, that most good men hold more precious than all else, they do not come first for the Light. Oh, sometimes they are there; often, indeed. But in the very long run the concern of you people is with the absolute good, ahead of all else..."
John Rowlands, The Grey King by Susan Cooper
"You come from the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve", said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth; be content."
Aslan, Prince Caspian by CS Lewis
Mississippi is a current battle ground over the confederate flag, especially since the state flag contains a smaller confederate one. NCAA has announced they will allow absolutely no games in Mississippi until it changes. It doesn't hurt my feelings one bit to have the confederate flag or statues of those statues removed. The ones who are angry of course are white, white and conservative. The confederate flag doesn't bother them. It doesn't make life hard for them so leave it! It's pretty disheartening to see.
The statue I would love to come down is Andrew Jackson's. That man was bad, that's all there is to that. In fact I do believe they were trying to pull that down however the police intervened on that one.
"If you want to know what a man is like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals." -- Sirius Black
"Time is an illusion, lunch time doubly so."-- Ford Prefect
As perspectives of history change, it is natural that our emphasis will change. That includes statues. In time, I think we may find that even once lionized figures like Thomas Jefferson will decline in popularity. However, the drive to remove symbols of the confederacy has far more urgency right now.
That’s partially because there really is only one motive for idolizing the confederacy. As far as complex figures like Thomas Gefferson go- they may have some dark history as well, but you can at least say that there are multiple possible motives for honoring him.
Last edited by Yazichestvo; 27 Jun 2020 at 17:22.
If you want to be thought intelligent, just agree with everyone.
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