The Enduring Legacy of the South's Civil War Victory nytimes.com
On a vaguely related racial front, there was this article on Sunday. I ought to post this on that other thread, where I actually found common ground from an unlikely source on this topic, but nevermind. The guys can keep that one. People are forever whining about "the liberal media", but I don't know how any conceivable press bias could compare with the long-running falsification of American history in the name of- what? Southern sensitivities? Bletch.
In this era of relativism, an interest in the debates over slavery and America's most destructive war can reflect a discontent with the present, on the part of both blacks and whites, and a longing for an era when moral issues seemed clear cut. Like World War II, the Civil War was deemed a "good war," when people fought for what they believed in. While the slavery era may serve as a screen on which current conflicts are acted out, the nation is now freeing itself from the old Confederate-dominated paradigm, and can finally see the period from 1790 to 1865 as a deeply stained but defining era in the history of this strange nation.
I guess it's nice that, 135 years after the end of the Civil War, people are starting to be a little honest about what actually happened then. I doubt that people are ever going to be particularly honest about it in certain circles, though. |
