For What It's Worth Dept

Retro-Revisionism

I picked a topic so difficult, even a caveman would have a hard time. Involuntary time travel. If we think about different possible outcomes – ‘if this’ and ‘if that’, we also would have to discuss determinism and free will. There was a big debate some three to four centuries ago concerning determinism and free will—Copernicus, Galileo, and others. The Catholic church burned a few people over this one. Yet the question naturally arises out of science, because of the laws of physics: cause and effect. Falling rocks have no choice. Do we? A view of the universe as a big machine lends itself to asking, to what extent are we an extension of this universe – are we just cosmic cogs in a big cosmos.

Did you ever get a case of the what-if’s?

Time for a thought experiment. Pick your right side or your left side. Choose one of those sides and drop a coin. The coin you dropped to the floor is a slave to physical laws as soon as it leaves your hand; it has no choice. But do we? Drop that coin on the side of your choosing. Did you really have a choice? A random number generator won’t work—the coin is now a slave to the ‘laws’ of probability. But if you did choose a side, did you indeed have a choice on which side it fell? Once the coin left your hand, it is now out of your control – the coin traveling to its destination is a property of determinism. But the location is not deterministic. Is it? Yet, once the event has slipped into the past, the aspect of choice disappears, replaced by the law of determinism that put it there.

Now, this all came from watching a show on TV. Any armchair historians out there? As I was TV surfing, I washed up on the shores of C-Span. "Book TV", that is. And I was about to jump off again, when my ear got snagged by a few comments by one of the authors during his stand-up book-introduction. According to program format, an author showcases his book by giving a brief talk about his book, usually followed up with questions from a small audience. I moved on. But I was pulled back and listened a bit more. I don’t remember the author's name or book; I don’t care. It’s the view of this author which seems odd. I may go to the trouble later on. The gist of what he said is a different matter though, for it is shot through and woven with threads of revisionism.

Human nature is slippery – which historical figure said, “We have to change things, so they can stay the same.”?

The author stated, among other things, that a fragmented US (presumably a Northern States and a Confederate States), would have been fine without our Civil War – after all, one of the strengths of this country is our unique form of democracy. I wondered if this guy had ever become acquainted with Western Europe’s ravenous appetite for imperialism. After a little more of the author's various viewpoints on why Abraham Lincoln should have kept us out, I became a little ill about this cockeyed point of view. In effect, the above mentioned author’s view, is that ole Abe may not have been the stand-up guy we thought he was  - maybe ole Abe was wrong to take the country by the hand and wade it into a pool of civil war. We’ll have to get our stove pipes on.  

So, the 16^th president of the United States had the power to withhold the country from civil war and should have done so, after the South seceded. The author gave several explanations for his argument, which centered around an antiwar sentiment. As I’ve already written, we’re pretty much antiwar, aren't we? But we also know what happened: the American Civil War happened.

Going back to our deterministic coin-drop, if there is no choice in our actions, then there is no left or right. Or wrong. Did Lincoln really have a choice? Are we are just blind cogs in the universe of cause and effect? In fact, both we and Lincoln had a choice; we, because we picked up the coin in the first place; Lincoln, because he chose to exercise the “…better angels…” of his nature by doing the right thing. We choose not only to pick up the coin, but spend it. As we choose. So the same with Lincoln. The real question, is why the author second guesses Lincoln. Could it be the usual, boring, hidden agenda? Iraq, perhaps? Trash Lincoln to bash Bush? Maybe? As I wrote in ‘The Iraq Tree’, this Country is simply a child having to take its unpleasant medicine and not liking it. Neither we, nor Abe can say, “The devil made me do it!”.

Of course, that’s the devil of it. If you debate the above, then you have to play devil’s advocate and are bedeviled with your own set of what-if's.

In the speculation-time-machine, a view that Lincoln ‘should not have', is pushing a private agenda—bashing Lincoln by proxy. In a round-about way, trying to drag us through Vietnam all over again. Only this time, backwards. The United States is not perfect. I’m not perfect. Watch any Civil War documentaries on the telly? You’ve undoubtedly noticed that some historians do not have a very flattering view of Lincoln. These would be Black Americans, who correctly observe that Lincoln waffled for a time on the slavery issue. Agreed. Nonetheless, this imperfect man was still miles ahead of most of his contemporaries, considering he was trapped in yesterdays realities.

Lincoln did what he did because he understood that to go along with tyranny is an expensive dance with the devil. Both then and now. Consider the Nation's claim to personal liberty by the middle of the nineteenth century: at the end of the 1850’s, a breaking point was reached because the 3/5ths clause toppled our credibility; this knocked us into civil war. And that is the philosophical split: I contend that without a ‘civil war correction’, America would not have survived for very long. The author may be repulsed by the colossal death and maiming brought about by (any) civil war; my view is that the  death and maiming was a conversion factor: the darker side of human nature was loosed and allowed to run roughshod for ‘four score and seven years’ – it turned around and bit us.

Hypothetical Lincoln bashing does not work because for all of Lincoln’s flaws, he was in fact the only one with the strength to be our Country’s second founder, and helped to undo the 3/5^hs doctrine. The Party(s) that instituted this has yet to get over this. As far as weaknesses, Lincoln himself was usually the first to admit to them by telling jokes on himself.

The Emancipation Proclamation was a 'tying up loose ends' proclamation. A scheme whereby all of us now have implicit rights because without this document, there exists a giant loophole. Left undone, doubt puts any of us on shaky ground. In theory, without the actual Emancipation document, the inalienable rights of any group can be challenged by any sharp-tongued carnival barker clever enough to work the system.

Without our Civil War, we would be blowing smoke, irrespective of today’s idiot voices screaming “Freedom this!” and “Freedom that!” The time-span in years, in which a national entity or civilization may be allowed to exist, is in direct proportion to ’national credibility’. The qualifier to longevity, is the moral state of national identity.  As a sidebar: our problems abroad are in large measure an imbalance of claims: confusion on weather we are in a Monroe or Truman mode of foreign policy. This is [our] own fault. And Al Qaeda is calling us on it. Our Civil War simply bought us enough time to reach the here and now, by upholding our founder's claims.

Pull out your whatif tool. Every toolbox should have one. Weather this author is jealous of Lincoln, or throwing jibes at some of today’s events makes no difference: his premise is wrong.

Apples and oranges. There is an unknown proportion of freewill to determinism in human affairs. An indefinable amount is involved with spontaneity and instinctual drives. Saying “what-if” is to second-guess both choice and determinism, but you can’t mix the free-will apples and deterministic oranges, especially with different historical periods. Time is an arrow: you can’t equivocate one end with the other just because they’re connected.

On the bogus what-if road, many have committed criminal acts by saying they were driven to it by lack of choice. The garden variety Fuehrer (American, Middle-Eastern, or German—it doesn't matter) declares that something should have happened otherwise: carried to an extreme, it could be something like: the holocaust never happened – this of course; an attempt to pull us right back down holocaust lane. Again.

Quoting from the movie “Cool Hand Luke” – “What we have here – is a failure to conceptualize!” (Did I say that?) Rather, to perceptionalize. (Hey, I just made that up!). You know the rules though: real history based on documents, photos, or other artifacts. Then perception takes over to tell us what it all means. That’s the difficult part. I suppose decent history books tell just the facts, leaving speculation to a minimum. Good historians do not speculate much, because they know that viewing history is difficult enough, the finished product has to be seen through a human lens.

Think of the letter ‘Y’. Any number of them in series. We’ll make up a counter-argument based on this shape: a ‘one-up, two-way split’. At the bottom of the ‘Y’ figure, (the vertical leg), is ‘real’ history: the actual hard evidence: newspapers, written letters, surgeons tools, a musket ball, so on. The two legs coming up from this vertical leg in our stick figure may be seen as two divergent points of view on how to interpret this or that piece of hard-evidence. In this way, the bottom vertical leg of the ‘Y’ may be used as a foundational check point for any number of aspects of the Civil War – newspaper clippings, legal outcomes – whatever. The two arms sticking up from the base of our ‘Y’, may be two slightly different modes on how to interpret this or that aspect of our hard evidence. There can be any number of ‘Y’ figures, and any angle of divergence. The two arms may be related, or opposing viewpoints. An historian can bend the arms into any shape he likes. The angle of the ‘arms’ should be symmetrical. If we say “what-if” to Lincoln’s choice of war, then what about the myriad of events which led up to that ‘Y’ moment, in which Lincoln and his generals stood around the table and made their war plans? 

When the unexpected is dug out of the past, it is illuminated and history has just been added to; our understanding has been made fuller. What hard evidence could turn up to furnish the bottom leg of our ‘Y’, telling us that Lincoln should not have chosen to react to South Carolina’s attack? When coming to a roadblock, conjecture is certainly allowed, but within limits. If claims are made which are contrary to the reality of yesterday and today, it is revisionism: a personal viewpoint pushed forward by twisting evidence. Let’s hop into the time machine.

Suppose I say that one of our ‘Y’ bases, is the proposition that Lincoln lost the second presidential election (let's say, voter mood changed). If we pick two outcomes to this hypothetical, then both theories may be true, or one may be more accurate. We’ll never really know. Thickening up the validity of one side or the other might be pointless – in the end, impossible.  

If our 'C-Span' author has an opinion, his ‘upper arm’  says that we would be better off now, without our Civil War. He doesn't come right out and say it. But the implication is unavoidable. It leaves out what I am seeing: we may not have survived as a nation. I say the Civil War bought us time to make it to adulthood. Again, neither his, nor my side can be proven. Take your choice. Wave-particle duality for dummies.  

Our author’s case is difficult on yet another level. He has the cart before the horse. He has super-imposed today’s value systems on yesterday’s figures. This is not allowed. Not allowed because people in past ages were as trapped by their world-view, as we are by ours. In Antebellum America, today’s PC's would be put to chopping wood in a hurry. After being taken to the woodshed. Technology played a part in Lincoln's decisions. Victorian reality controlled everything from mail delivery times, to energy expenditures in massing troops, to producing and controlling the hardness in iron. Decisions were woven into these facts.

The level of technology in any age is not only the driving force, it is the limiting force. The door to our time-machine is now cracked open a bit. In some instances, technology comparisons between the ages might be a good tool. Questions can just as well be superimposed onto another ‘Y’ system as a comparison of limits, from one age to another. We have advantages compared to life in the nineteenth century, but our technology has it’s drawbacks and headaches as well. How far do you think Lincoln's contemporaries would go after watching the latest battlefield carnage on CNN? Can you see the protesters carrying banners—No, no, we won't go!

Hey, I think that short guy in the front forgot to buckle his boot strap...

We lack the technology that some future society may have, when taking a Sunday drive beyond Earth’s gravitational-well. But such a future society, while having a higher technological level than we, will still have its own limits. And headaches. Limits with, because of, and in spite of, technology. Tomorrow's CNN conflicts will be delivered to your grandkids living room in new and improved ways. Same old ratings.

But, yesterdays historical characters had constricting lanes they could travel in, and escaping those boundaries is, (and was) not allowed.

Further, our author’s ‘Y’ is difficult because it states that Lincolns' decision was wrong, implying that Lincoln's character was immoral, or amoral. Yet documentation shows that Lincoln was highly intelligent, yet self-effacing. Able to make decisions with horrific consequences—yet inspired with compassion. Raised in a log cabin, yet having the capacity to become a sitting president. Bespoken of as an apish fool in the newspapers of his day, yet capable of authoring a brilliant Gettysburg Address. It seems a man such as this knew exactly what he was getting his country, and himself into.

There is perspective based on outside realities, then there is introspection, brought to you by ©Campbell Soup, and personal interactions. Lincoln, being a very intelligent man, would surely have known that a failed unity between North and South would  be the end of any United States of America. Had Lincoln opted out of conflict, the finish of his reputation would have been marked down for the ages, in a time when reputation was all-important. Newspaper portrayals of him as a an ape and a court jester, would have continued into the psyche down to the present. Lincoln, the one who opted out of being the unifier and reconciler? No Lincoln Memorial for you, Mr. Pres.

Let’s suppose Lincoln had done things differently, as the above-mentioned author wishes. As I previously tooted (the horn is mounted on the left side of the time-machine), an antebellum status quo would have led to absorption by foreign powers. Our solidification of unity, and the undoing of slavery – all these would be left undone – or shilly-shallied with half-measures. Had the US taken only half of its medicine, then  perhaps “The Great Experiment” would have run into an inevitable roadblock, before final extinction. We could have been an easy mark for the likes of Napoleon III, or any other European power for that matter. How about the case of a civil war breaking out before Lincoln's time – maybe a quicker death. Perhaps we should be content with what Lincoln did. When he did it.

This brings to mind a more grand viewpoint of the United States as a whole: Our existence is owed not only to a handful of unusual men and women, but a handful of just-in-time circumstances. I think this is recognized in such figures  as Washington and Lincoln. I’ll not go into why things happened as they did. When they did. The United States was slapped on the behind, kicking and squalling, when it was. As it was. It won’t be around much longer.

While the TV author thinks that Lincoln was wrong, he seems to fail in his apprehension of things larger than himself.

Perspective is just observation which has been pushed and pulled through our minds, until it gels, to form our self-image. The objective data of the senses manufactured into subjectivity. The objective evidence of past ages can be all too easily be twisted by motives produced by the engine of subjectivity. The trick of course, is to try to match our subjectivity as closely as possible with the real world, yes? Viewed through the window of consciousness. We mold ourselves into our own shapes. Then, as now. 

 The Iraq Tree 

3 Quarks for Muster America

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