This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Or alternatively everyone in North America might have grown to see the "peculiar institution" as a defining trait that set them off from the Brits and when the British moved to crackdown on slavery in the 1800s the combined North American colonies might have steamrolled them with superior Yankee industry and Southern military leadership, resulting in a hundred more years of chattel slavery across the entire Anglosphere!
I find your hypothetical more reasonable than mine. But something one doesn't understand until one reads letters from the time period is how much Northern will to fight the South was motivated by (checks notes) antipathy towards Europe, not slavery per se. (On average I'd say Northerners didn't like slavery but they didn't like black people either.) The Northerners saw the Southerners as oligarchs after the European feudal model, and that was a large part of what they had a problem with. Splitting the Union was unacceptable to them because it meant that the grand Republican experiment had "failed" (read: made them look bad to the Europeans.) Or at least that's what I recall being struck by when I did some primary source readings. Perhaps my memory and/or coursework was selective.
That's not to say that there weren't a very vocal and dedicated group that saw slavery itself as unacceptable and campaigned specifically to get rid of it, even at the cost of war. But (and this is my point) culture works in funny ways and in an alternative history where the Revolution never happened over self-government+taxes it might have happened later over "self-government+slavery." Never underestimate how crotchety people will get over being told what to do.
Just as a technical note, the South wanted the UK to intervene badly, but I don't think that was their best or only chance of winning, and they actively pursued strategies to unilaterally break the blockade themselves. Ultimately I think they lost because they got bled white, not because they were blockaded. Southern casualties were extraordinarily high as a percentage of the population compared to any other American war, and although they had trouble with heavy industry (you know, cannons) they were able to produce basic necessities like gunpowder to the end. In fact, IIRC, their soldiers were better off for powder than they were for food.
You could be right about the South. My only somewhat informed view is that the Civil War was a war of choice for the South, and not going to war would not have caused them to have to give up slavery. Unless they were crazy (which they might have been) the war only made sense if they thought they could win easily and that needed the UK to not let the North blockade the South.
I agree that it was a war of choice, but I think they had ~somewhat deluded themselves into thinking that Lincoln's election sealed the deal against them. I think this was an exaggeration in the short term, but probably they were correct in the long term: the hostility to slavery was real, even if many people were apathetic about it, and the power of slaveholding states was being curtailed, and geopolitical factors were tilting against the South electorally. Basically, they were inching closer to being permanently locked out of political power as a region, I think.
The South thought they would win because they thought they had superior martial prowess, and because they were fighting a defensive war and believed their situation was analogous to that of the colonies during the American Revolution. They were at least partially correct (they were better at fighting) but the North had more manpower and was able to import vast amounts of additional manpower over the course of the war as well. But they also had convinced themselves, I think, that the struggle was existential. They were willing to fight to preserve their way of life, which I suppose in some ways was easier than changing their way of life, even if the latter was more moral and would have been more beneficial in the long run than losing a war.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link