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 -
The problem with Southern whites wanting to venerate a lie about Robert E. Lee is there are in fact, plenty of Southern white people to be proud of from the time of the Civil War, except of course, most of them didn't fight on the side of the slavers in a war to perpetuate that practice. Which goes against the whole idea that the South isn't allowed to have Southern heroes.
The reality is you can still attempt to defend Robert E. Lee. You just have to defend the actual Robert E. Lee, not the one that existed in the mind of the Dunning School
Now, I know the response to do this is something like, "well, MLK Jr. cheated on his wife" or whatever. But the problem, is most left-leaning people are happy to either say that something like their personal foibles is widely outranked by what they did in their larger life (ie. MLK) or part of their record is a stain that should be criticized (ie. FDR w/ internment), but there's a difference to most people of the worst of left-leaning heroes and the worst y'know, defending slavery.
The reality for neo-Confederates is outside of the whole fighting to defend slavery, most of the Southern leadership during the Civil War that is venerated just didn't...have much to cheer for beyond that. Lee wasn't even a good general.
The statement was "myth", not "lie". Can you specify "a lie about Robert E. Lee" that Southern whites in general want to venerate?
I have been repeatedly told that the history of the Civil War that I grew up on was the "Dunning School", a deceptive attempt to hide the crimes of the South. I've never actually figured out which crimes were hidden from me. I was taught from the start that from the perspective of the South, the Civil War was fought explicitly in defense of Slavery as an institution, but most of the people bringing up the Dunning School claim that denying this was one of the central points of the program. So on the one hand I'm told I've been lied to, and on the other hand the claimed nature of the lie is either unspecified or, in my experience, itself straightforwardly false. I was taught that Robert E Lee was an honorable man who fought ablely for a bad cause, lost, and accepted the verdict of battle with dignity. Which part of that was false?
Which prominent figures on the Union side do you consider worthy of veneration? John Brown? Sherman? Grant? Lincoln? I'm quite fond of all of them, as it happens. Are you?
It's routine for me to encounter left-leaning people who venerate Lenin or Trotsky or some other august personage among the Bolsheviks, or who venerate people generations later who engaged in lawless violence in support of their cause. I encounter more who think these people were just rascally knuckleheads, and have precisely zero knowledge of the horrors they unleashed and championed. I think those people are straightforwardly worse than the modal Robert E Lee admirer, because the people and institutions they venerate were straightforwardly worse than the slaving South. And this, on the understanding that the South richly deserved to have a significant portion of its men ground into worm-food because of the evils they perpetrated. From where I sit, the left doesn't have the slightest claim to moral insight, much less moral superiority. A significant portion of politically-active leftists are isomorphic to actual-literal-and-not-figurative neo-nazis.
My understanding is that his contemporaries disagree with your assessment. Certainly I have never heard of any of the prominent generals fighting against him claiming that he was bad at his job.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link