THE PLANK JANUARY 20, 2009
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I
was totally fascinated that Obama chose George Washington as the
touchstone American-history figure in his inaugural. This was not
an obvious choice. Lincoln, FDR, or even MLK would have been. But ol'
sterile, ancient, powder-wigged, pink-cheeked George -- who's ever
thought of him past fifth-grade history class, or perhaps fleetingly, when you look at a quarter?
A
conservative friend notes, too, that, in the last half of the last
century or so, George Washington was appropriated by right-wingers as
"their" founder, thereby somewhat diminishing our collective access to
him as an inspirational figure. (A conservative foundation
set itself up at Valley Forge; the Daughters of the American Revolution
have an obsession with him; etc.) Maybe this was a bit of a sly move,
part of Obama's project to reach across party lines. Another
conservative friend (okay, my staunchly Republican mom) told
me after watching Obama's speech that "one of the things that has
always nagged at me about Obama, as a conservative, is, 'Does this man
care about the founding? Does he even think about it?' So I was
astonished to hear it invoked ... the evocation of Washington was
great." And the story Obama told about George worked perfectly in the
moment: Its images of "shores of an icy river" and men huddled against
the bitter cold feathered in with today's weather.
But the most interesting thing about Obama's use
of George Washington in his speech is how differently these two
political figures -- the Washington of history, that is, and the Obama
of the campaign -- are perceived. Obama ran as a transformer, a
"change agent," and liked to drop the phrase "new birth" in reference
to his political project. I got the sense this idea then
galloped away from him, and he became irritated with the ensuing
assumption that a Prez BHO would radically overhaul the country.
But he was always seen, nevertheless, as a politician in the mold of
Reagan or Lincoln (from whom, of course, the idea of a "new birth" for the country originates), and not of Washington, who made himself out as the opposite of transformative.
Washington resisted (if feebly) the early impulse to turn him into a Mosaic figure. His own First Inaugural
begins in a sort of frantic lather of humility: "The magnitude and
difficulty of the trust to which the voice of my
country called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and most
experienced of her citizens a distrustful scrutiny into his
qualifications, could not but overwhelm with despondence one who (inheriting inferior endowments from nature and unpracticed in the duties of civil administration)
ought to be peculiarly conscious of his
own deficiencies ..." It was Washington who established the model of
the president as a humble caretaker of the Republic, not its reshaper. He was widely seen in his day not as the most brilliantly
clever man around, but as the one with the most unquestionable integrity,
the kind of doorman (to use a crude analogy) you can leave your most precious jewelry with when
you go away on vacation.
I
thought Obama ended his speech with Washington today in order to tweak
his image. He's not here to change everything about America, or even
to change everything that his progressive supporters don't like, the end of the
speech said. He's here to safeguard it like the unflappable Washington,
to "carr[y] forth that great gift of freedom and deliver ... it safely
to future generations."
--Eve Fairbanks
34 comments
Maybe it was Barry's way of forgiving George for not mentioning him in his.
From Wikipedia:
"The slave trade continued throughout George Washington’s life. On the death of his father in 1743, the 11-year-old inherited 10 slaves. At the time of his marriage to Martha Custis in 1759, he personally owned at least 36 (and the widow's third of her first husband's estate brought at least 85 "dower slaves" to Mount Vernon). Using his wife's great wealth he bought land, tripling the size of the plantation, and additional slaves to farm it. By 1774 he paid taxes on 135 slaves (this does not include the "dowers"). The last record of a slave purchase by him was in 1772, although he later received some slaves in repayment of debts."
George:
How did Barry manage to elide this?
Oh, and why didn't you mention it?
They do this a lot with Lincoln too. They bring up all the glorious personas, and then expediently leave out all the less burnished ones.
george walton
- iambiguous
January 20, 2009 at 9:02pm
But George, George was one of the few founding fathers to free his slaves--a very radical notion for his time (even if the action was posthumous). I actually thought the shining star today was Feinstein. She is nearing the end of her career, and if she were a bit younger, probably would have been our first female president. Never known as a great speaker, I thought she truly rose to the occasion. I guess expectations are a large part of this game.
- cal80
January 20, 2009 at 10:31pm
He referenced Washington because Washington was pure - he wasn't a Democrat or Republican, he was a partriot. Obama is distancing himself from partisanship by using the pre-partisan president (try saying that three times) as a touchstone.
- fougasseu
January 20, 2009 at 10:45pm
No offense to your mom, Eve - mine says much wilder things, trust me - but I'm tired of the "he doesn't talk about (insert historical figure or event here) enough" crowd, from the Peggy Noonan School of Paying Homage to America's Past. While it's not nearly as offensive as some of the other things the Right comes up with, it's part and parcel of the slanderous, erroneous "they don't really love America" meme.
Oh, and conservatives, you can't have Washington. You'll take your Reagan, your Goldwater and your McCarthy and you'll like it.
- WoodyBombay
January 20, 2009 at 10:55pm
Shakespeare writes that "the evil that men do live after them/the good is oft interred with their bones," but at the end of the day, iambiguous, I am going to have to roll with the converse. It's not that I advocate whitewashing the past—I just think it's far more valuable to discuss that which, on reflection, furthers the cause of virtue in the present day. Esp with a case like Washington. Drawing a moral equivalence between the fact of his slave-ownership and the model of leadership he set—as you do—displays an inflexible, useless view of history.
- fdanny
January 20, 2009 at 10:56pm
"Obama is distancing himself from partisanship by using the pre-partisan president (try saying that three times) as a touchstone."
Well, that's an interesting point but I don't think so personally. Though ,incidentally, it reminds me that George Washingtons farewell speech warning of the "forming of factions" aka "partisanship" was ghost written by Alexander Hamilton and in that context was a partisan dig at Jefferson. Not so much different than today.
Anyhow, I've been using the word sermon here, secular sermon or perhaps civics sermon. I think Obama is trying to reassert a sense of civic duty, pride, sense of history, and patriotism back into American life. I think he referenced Washington to drag us back to the beginning and remind us of what sacrifices were made for this and let us know that we are going to have to make some again.
- AhYup
January 20, 2009 at 11:20pm
Actually, Obama was not really talking about Washington, but using GW to quote Thomas Paine from THE AMERICAN CRISIS. Sadly and shamefully, however, Obama did not mention Paine by name. Notably, FDR in his Fireside Chat of Feb 23, 1942, spoke of GW's retreat across NJ to the Delaware...and finished by quoting Paine, citing his name, and saying that Paine spoke for Americans in 1776 and he speaks for us today. So far Obama is no FDR. But just as FDR was pushed to progressive policies, so too might Obama be pushed.
- radical
January 20, 2009 at 11:20pm
Really? *That's* what bothered your mom as a conservative? That Obama might not frequently think about the founding? Not the spending plans or various other liberal ideas? How do you even get an impression that someone does or does not care about the founding (aside from explicitly mentioning it)?
At any rate, I feel like I remember Obama making references to the nation's founding at various other points over the past year (offhand, the Philadelphia race speech comes to mind).
- AlanSP
January 20, 2009 at 11:22pm
hey Eve, can you find out who persuaded Mr. Potter to leave Bedford Falls and sit behind Obama today at the inauguration? It was weird...and no one commented upon it...
- thejauntyboulevardier
January 20, 2009 at 11:32pm
ca180:
But George, George was one of the few founding fathers to free his slaves--a very radical notion for his time (even if the action was posthumous).
George:
That's what the Neo-Platonic folks over in the philosophy venues always tell me: "But, George, that's just the way they thought about it back then!!"
But then I trip them up. You see, Plato was a realist philosophically. That's the opposite of what a realist is politically today. So, I remind them that their "formal logic" encompasses both "pro slavery" and "anti-slavery" points of view. And that's moral relativism!
All I can say is thank god I am deconstructing them out in cyberspace; otherwise I'd have been dead long ago.
And really: How much brain power does it take to connect the brutal enslavement of human beings with moral turpitude?
It's an absolute disgrace. But he was our first president so we have to pretend his slave transactions were sorta almost nearly okay because others did it to.
Try imagining Marty reacting to someone who says, "I think we have to consider that vicious thugs before Adolph Hitler might have committed genocide too. He picked it up from them."
I don't believe in moral absolutes myself; but there are some things are so viscerally obscene they just belt you in the stomach over and over again. For me, human slavery and genocide are two of them.
george walton
- iambiguous
January 21, 2009 at 12:36am
fougasseu said:
He referenced Washington because Washington was pure - he wasn't a Democrat or Republican, he was a partriot. Obama is distancing himself from partisanship by using the pre-partisan president (try saying that three times) as a touchstone.
george:
Oh, one of those "pure" politicians who happened to own slaves? Was Hitler a "pure" politician who happened to commit genocide?
gw
- iambiguous
January 21, 2009 at 12:41am
fdanny:
Shakespeare writes that "the evil that men do live after them/the good is oft interred with their bones," but at the end of the day, iambiguous, I am going to have to roll with the converse. I just think it's far more valuable to discuss that which, on reflection, furthers the cause of virtue in the present day. Esp with a case like Washington.
george:
I am an atheist. Once I am gone evil goes to the grave with me.
For, say, eternity?
Theists, on the other hand, believe the evil men do will be judged by God. They use this to comfort themselves in two ways. First, God is there to facilitate their sojourn through the "afterlife". Providing, of course, they are not themselves "evil". Although where you cross the line is often profondly different for all the thousands of conflicting denominations that have been out over the centuries.
And then, for theists, God is there so they have someone to confirm that all the folks who did evil to them down here were properly punished.
I think you forget the part in human history where folks start out talking about virtue, and then, when they can't seem to agree to disagree, they end up killing each other instead. Especially when the virtuous ones have access to all the gold and all the power.
You say, "Drawing a moral equivalence between the fact of his slave-ownership and the model of leadership he set—as you do—displays an inflexible, useless view of history."
George:
Again, try imagining Marty being told that about Hitler. You may think it's a differnce in kind, but others [like me], will see it only as a difference in degree.
And that's when the seed that is cynicism begins to sprout. And I am nothing if not a cynic with respect to my own species.
george walton
- iambiguous
January 21, 2009 at 1:19am
radical:
Actually, Obama was not really talking about Washington, but using GW to quote Thomas Paine from THE AMERICAN CRISIS. Sadly and shamefully, however, Obama did not mention Paine by name.
George:
Actually, here is why it was shameful for Barry to channel Tom Paine through George Washington.
Paine on slavery from, "African Slavery in America":
"That some desperate wretches should be willing to steal and enslave men by violence and murder for gain, is rather lamentable than strange. But that many civilized, nay, Christianized people should approve, and be concerned in the savage practice, is surprising; and still persist, though it has been so often proved contrary to the light of nature, to every principle of Justice and Humanity, and even good policy, by a succession of eminent men, and several late publications.
"Our Traders in MEN (an unnatural commodity!) must know the wickedness of the SLAVE-TRADE, if they attend to reasoning, or the dictates of their own hearts: and such as shun and stiffle all these, wilfully sacrifice Conscience, and the character of integrity to that golden idol.
"The Managers the Trade themselves, and others testify, that many of these African nations inhabit fertile countries, are industrious farmers, enjoy plenty, and lived quietly, averse to war, before the Europeans debauched them with liquors, and bribing them against one another; and that these inoffensive people are brought into slavery, by stealing them, tempting Kings to sell subjects, which they can have no right to do, and hiring one tribe to war against another, in order to catch prisoners. By such wicked and inhuman ways the English are said to enslave towards one hundred thousand yearly; of which thirty thousand are supposed to die by barbarous treatment in the first year; besides all that are slain in the unnatural ways excited to take them. So much innocent blood have the managers and supporters of this inhuman trade to answer for to the common Lord of all!"
George:
Barry is often praised because he refers back to the Founding Fathers. He is said to be quite knowledgable about the birth of our nation. So, he must be familiar with Paine. Yet in his inaugural speech Washington is [if you'll pardon the pun] whtiewashed and Paine all but effaced from the narrative altogether. This is just one more example of Barry's perfidious trek to the top.
Can he redeem himself, however? Starting, say, today?
george walton
- iambiguous
January 21, 2009 at 1:42am
Interesting question whether changing moral/ethical beliefs over years/decades/centuries constitutes moral relativism. Begs the question whether moral relativism itself is bad - there's no consensus on that point. But if it's bad, there must be a core of absolute moral rules. What are they? What the strongest or the most sanctimonious say they are?
Then there's the implication that anyone who commits certain types of wrongs is therefore incapable of any degree of virtue. If I'm overextrapolating the Washington was evil theme, then some of those who do wrong may also do right. Or is good vs evil an accounting exercise?
Nice use of Hitler. In USENET newsgroups that's taken as an indicator of the vacuousness of the arguments of the individual who first mentions him. See Godwin's Law.
- hrlngrv
January 21, 2009 at 2:17am
George, I have a couple of issues with your thesis. First, while Wiki often serves as a useful reference point, it is not actually an authoritative reference and I find this to be most telling in the article you reference which appears to include several facts unsupported by the evidence, nor even cited from another source. Second, I find your response to cal80 less than sufficient in that you have failed to actually address the fact that Washington did indeed emancipate his slaves. Finally, your refusal to acknowledge the full list of factuals when lamenting the "whitewash" of brief recapitulation bears no small witness to a bias, which you both acknowledge as being present and ignore as irrelevant to your hypothesis when in fact is probably the one single coherent factor.
- GSpinks
January 21, 2009 at 3:35am
Well look at it this way. The referencing of Washington wasn't as bad as Apollo Creed's entrance in his first fight with Rocky Balboa
- lesserliz
January 21, 2009 at 8:24am
I, for one, am glad to see him distancing himself from the incessant Lincoln comparisons. Except that they both come from Illinois (so did Grant) what makes him like Lincoln?
More to the point, I, as an American, hope the hell we don't as a nation have to go through the kind of hell it would take to make him a Lincoln. Nor would we want Obama to share Lincoln's own fate.
He ought to be grateful if he turns out to be an Eisenhower. A low-key and wise leader, who without grandstanding maneuvered us through a very dangerous era during which we enjoyed unprecedented prosperity and did not become involved in any war.
If there is any other presidential precedent that is even vaguely apt, it's FDR sorta. Big economic difficulties to deal with. So let Obama deal.
FDR did a good job with the Depression psychologically and in terms of morale. It is not clear he did such a great job from a technical economic standpoint. We didn't really escape the Depression until after we started preparing to enter WW2 before Pearl Harbor.
Meanwhile, I hope we can win the underground world war against Global Jihad. But, I'm hardly wishing for anything like WW2 again.
Obama's supporters could do well to drop all the analogs to our greatest presidents, who had to weather crisies through which millions suffered terribly. Just let the man do a good, competent job.
- ChanRobt
January 21, 2009 at 8:49am
fougasseu:
I think you've hit the nail on the head. Washington is the only non-partisan president we've ever had. even poor John Adams (God rest his soul) got into it with Jefferson, despite his best intentions. Obama was elected largely to move us into a position where we can all work together: Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Rum Runners, Men in the Moon, etc... At least that's why I voted for him. And I'm glad to see that he chose Washington to reference because I'm already tired of hearing about Lincoln, FDR and MLK.
- poortomsacold
January 21, 2009 at 8:58am
The two founding fathers of the Democratic Party, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, were slave owners. Visit Monticello or the Hermitage and consider who built them.
FDR lived from a fortune earned in part from selling opium.
Lincoln made his money as the equivalent of today's K Street lobbyists.
Obama doesn't let those things get in his way in evaluating his predecessors -- or other current politicians. That's part of his political genius. In many ways, he is cold blooded.
What Washington represented in his day, and has represented over the years, is not a defense of slavery (which was part of the life of the day and acknowledged as legitimate in the Constiution) but rather a person who put nation and the incipient notions of liberty over personal comfort -- he didn't need to be at Valley Forge or risk hanging as a rebel, he was a volunteer, serving for many years. And all of the founders -- Adams, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, even Franklin -- considered him their personal superior.
To refer to Washington is to refer to who we are, at our origins, good and bad.
- PeteBeck
January 21, 2009 at 9:06am
George:
No one here is saying that George Washington was perfect. But when evaluating his life, we should look not just at his ownership of slaves, but also the fact that he offered freedom to slaves who fought with the Continental Army, freed his own slaves, and shepherded into existence the most liberal government so far seen in the new world.
You accuse others of remembering only the good and ignoring the bad. I don't think they are, but you are doing the opposite; remembering only the bad and ignoring the good.
- ryanburke
January 21, 2009 at 9:12am
George subscribes to the one-drop rule. One evil deed and all other possibly salutary deeds are washed away in the tide of a constructed history that allows the present to only speak of the truly pure-as-the-driven-snow individuals. Of course, that textbook is rather short. I think only Galahad resides there. (Although he is a tireless bore, so perhaps not.) Maybe Jesus, but as he was one of those 'religious' people who inspired great acts of barbarity he is out too.
Screw it, no one gets in. We have no time for those simul iustus et peccator types. Oops, sorry, can't really make references to Luther because his horrendous, late-in-life vile statements about Jews (even though he said very constructive things early in his life, oh never mind, he is out).
- kgrant1054
January 21, 2009 at 9:35am
This is easy, "In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river.". Who was there and what did he do? Well, it was Washington and he did more than rely upon "hope and virtue". He acted.
The Winter of '76-'77 wasn't a time for intellectuals (and Paine handled the PR). No, it was Washington stuck on the wrong side of the Delaware where no declaration or ideal would mean much if he didn't have a plan to take out the enemy and execute it.
Critics forget governing is more than X's & O's. Obama didn't arrive at this point because of good ideas and inspiration alone. He entrusted his army with $'s, e-mail lists and all the data they wanted and they did not fail him. How many times at each ball did he ram home the point that "This is the just the beginning"?
Time and again, Washington proved he was a man of action before he was a President. Barack laid down the gauntlet with his closing and Washington was the best example of someone who prevailed because "there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.".
- michael
January 21, 2009 at 10:31am
iambinguous said: I don't believe in moral absolutes myself; but there are some things are so viscerally obscene they just belt you in the stomach over and over again. For me, human slavery and genocide are two of them.
That would be interesting and relevant, if it weren't facile, tiresome and irrelevant. Because, you see, neither the ancients nor our slaveholding, genocidal Founders shared your revulsion to either slavery or genocide, and managed--as people inevitably do--to reconcile these activities with their own prevailing social-moral framework. In other words, GW didn't give a rat's ass what you would think some 230 y after his death, any more than the God of Israel cared about our 20th century moral outrage when he commanded Saul to eradicate his neighbors to the last man, woman and child.
You say you don't believe in moral absolutes, and then you make a gastronomical argument that two activities are absolutely immoral. And, um...we're supposed to take you seriously?
- sullydog
January 21, 2009 at 10:55am
I hope this sparks some renewed interest in Washington among liberals. Washington really was a great man and one of the best Americans we've ever had, warts and all. (Yes, he owned slaves, but he admitted the evil of the institution as few of his peers did, including Jefferson, who was a far greater hypocrite, and Washington took concrete steps to better the treatment of his slaves, to reduce his need for slave labor, to free his slaves in time, and to provide for their welfare upon their liberty. The next neighborhood over from mine was settled by some of Washington's freed slaves on land granted to them from Washington's estate, and it's still the home of a couple of thriving black churches. Too little, perhaps, but far more than most of Washington's peers.)
Washington was a shockingly radical man in many ways, and often seems conservative today only because so much of his radicalism has become long-established precedent. Washington the farmer was one of the leading intellectual and scientific lights of his age, something few today recognize, experimenting with new crops and transforming his land from slave-requiring, debt-drowning cash-crop plantations ubiquitous in the South until the Civil War into something very close to modern Amish farms, with food crops for local markets that did not require slave labor to achieve profitability. He was a technical revolutionary as a military leader, and the political values of a man who engaged in treason against his king to establish a republic larger than any in history governed (at first, and under his leadership) by a strong legislature representing a larger population and a broader geographic expanse than even most radical liberals of the time thought possible, can hardly be called "conservative." Washington's religious pluralism would be considered far-left liberal even today.
Washington was a gracious, generous host, a diligent public servant, and a liberal through-and-through. About time liberals returned to the pre-1960s understanding that Washington is not just the father of our nation, but also the father of the liberal movement in American history, at least as much if not more than his peers in the founding generation.
- rhubarbs
January 21, 2009 at 11:29am
Rhubarbs: Perfect. Thanks.
- fougasseu
January 21, 2009 at 12:14pm
This NY Daily News columnists makes a great, great point. Obama isn't Washington or FDR or Lincoln or Garfield, he's Babe Ruth.
www.nydailynews.com/.../2009-01-19_heres_to_inaugurating_a_new_season_of_ho.html
- WoodyBombay
January 21, 2009 at 12:19pm
What Chan said. Anybody who, at the invocation of Abraham Lincoln in a speech, tunes out and looks at her program to see what's next on the Telly, please raise your hand.
Not listening? Shall I repeat?
- tomeg
January 21, 2009 at 12:34pm
tomeg, I understand what you're saying, and there are plenty of people the reference to whom makes my eyes glaze, but Lincoln will never be one of them. (Though I share Chan's readiness to hear the last about Lincoln from Obama.) In fact, the invocation of Lincoln makes me put the remote down and pay my fullest attention. This is true also for any invocations of Washington, Whitman, the Free Soil Party, and Mike Schmidt -- or would be, if anyone ever referred to Mike Schmidt in a political speech.
- rhubarbs
January 21, 2009 at 4:08pm
It was EXPENSIVE to free a slave. So as not to let the slave become a burden on the community one had to provide him with resources sufficient for his needs, When Washington freed his slaves his family went from very wealthy to no more than middle class. Admittedly, this is easier to do when you have no children and are dead, but he did beggar his household.
- AlanK
January 21, 2009 at 4:15pm
GSpinks said:
George, I have a couple of issues with your thesis. First, while Wiki often serves as a useful reference point, it is not actually an authoritative reference and I find this to be most telling in the article you reference which appears to include several facts unsupported by the evidence, nor even cited from another source. Second, I find your response to cal80 less than sufficient in that you have failed to actually address the fact that Washington did indeed emancipate his slaves. Finally, your refusal to acknowledge the full list of factuals when lamenting the "whitewash" of brief recapitulation bears no small witness to a bias, which you both acknowledge as being present and ignore as irrelevant to your hypothesis when in fact is probably the one single coherent factor.
george:
It's possible of course the Wiki site information is not up at the level of, say, David McCullough. But when I use it to check subjects I have an interest in, most of what I read is reasonably accurate.
And I believe cal80 [or another] noted the slaves were freed "posthumously"
My point comes down to this: Washington and Paine were contemporaries.
So it is not like George didn't have access to minds like Tom's.
All of the rationalizations I read in here about Washington don't seem to acknowledge the implications of this.
Instead, they smack of, "he is our first president, so we revere him flaws and all."
Sorry, regarding things like human slavery and genocide....and those who participated or profited in them....I have only contempt. Such views cannot be washed away...not by words, not by time.
If, on the other hand, minds like Paine were not around back then, then, sure, I could understand why someone might be brought up to believe things I find unconscionable.
But they were and Washington ignored them through much of his life.
george walton
- iambiguous
January 21, 2009 at 9:36pm
kgrant1054 said:
George subscribes to the one-drop rule. One evil deed and all other possibly salutary deeds are washed away in the tide of a constructed history that allows the present to only speak of the truly pure-as-the-driven-snow individuals. Of course, that textbook is rather short. I think only Galahad resides there. (Although he is a tireless bore, so perhaps not.) Maybe Jesus, but as he was one of those 'religious' people who inspired great acts of barbarity he is out too.
Screw it, no one gets in. We have no time for those simul iustus et peccator types. Oops, sorry, can't really make references to Luther because his horrendous, late-in-life vile statements about Jews (even though he said very constructive things early in his life, oh never mind, he is out).
george:
So, would you apply the one-drop rule to Adolph? He made the trains run on time, yanked Germany out of the chaotic decrepitude and economic free fall it was spiraling down in between the two world wars. And on the side he committed mass murder against the Jews, the gypsies, gays, the weak of mind and body.
And don't forget, this discussion first revolved around Barry channeling Paine through Washington. My point then was that Obama, being well-versed in American history certainly was aware of the conflicts between Washington and Paine.
But [gasp!] he chose, yet again, the path of least resistance.
george walton
- iambiguous
January 21, 2009 at 9:46pm
sully:
....you see, neither the ancients nor our slaveholding, genocidal Founders shared your revulsion to either slavery or genocide, and managed--as people inevitably do--to reconcile these activities with their own prevailing social-moral framework. In other words, GW didn't give a rat's ass what you would think some 230 y after his death, any more than the God of Israel cared about our 20th century moral outrage when he commanded Saul to eradicate his neighbors to the last man, woman and child.
You say you don't believe in moral absolutes, and then you make a gastronomical argument that two activities are absolutely immoral. And, um...we're supposed to take you seriously?
george:
If this isn't the same old tired excuse used to rationalize the same old tired historical monsters, it is certainly close enough.
Gee, but everybody did it!!
No, not everybody did it at all. Some did it. Some did not. Washington was not removed from the arguments of the day. He had access to the arguments of men like Paine. He ignored them for most of his life.
As for moral absolutes...sans God? They cannot be demonstrated or proven to exist. Instead, as an existentialist, a humanist, my moral compass revolves around arguments that have been broached, discussed, debated and then acted upon based on hundreds of years in which men and women struggled to legislate and then to execute prescriptive and proscriptive human behavior. Beyond that no one can go. So, of course, the lines I draw in the sand will not be drawn by others. It is only a matter then of trying to change minds.
Instead, Washington enslaved them, just as Hitler would come to exterminate them.
george walton
- iambiguous
January 21, 2009 at 10:02pm
Hitler suborned the constitution of the Weimar Republic, created a one-party state, started a war to conquer the West, began a policy of genocide against targeted groups across occupied Europe, and was crushed by the most powerful alliance seen in modern history. His models were the most extreme versions of the Prussian military tradition and the brutal centralized authority of the Soviet communists.
Washington challenged the authority of the British crown, an imperial power, worked to create a new constitutional order in the American colonies that emphasized the need for a democratic system of counterbalanced powers, and won a fragile victory that took a generation at least to secure. The founders' rhetoric was drawn from the Enlightenment but their notions of rights from the implicit arrangements in the English system that they believed George III had breached.
For Hitler, genocide was a part and parcel of the Nazi bid for world power. He wanted power in order to enact it.
For Washington, Jefferson, and other founders, slavery was a problem that they knew would come to haunt the republican project, as the claim to equality would crunch up against the South's economic and social hierarchy.
They were, from the modern perspective, indeed racists, or at least racial supremacists, but the crucial difference is that racial supremacy was not the heart and soul of the Revolution.
Hitler's model did not survive the destruction he brought on his country, and his experiment died after 12 years of violence and terror.
Washington's model survived a civil war that not only ended slavery but did so in spite of the cost of 630,000 soldiers and probably as many civilians, attracted millions of voluntary immigrants to its shores, and is going strong 230 plus years later.
If one wanted, one might interpret the Confederacy as a Nazi-type political entity in some ways, but that was defeated after four years. By Washington's model, essentially.
Washington's model led to Barack Obama taking the oath of office yesterday. Washington's office.
- ironyroad
January 21, 2009 at 10:57pm
The anachronistic application of modern mores and attitudes to societies of other eras are ridiculous and puerile. Yes, Washington, Jefferons and all the Southern founders owned slaves, or at least were part of an establishment in which slavery was accepted.
They were also born into a society and an economy that depended on slavery for its existence. They, also, for the most part felt uneasiness about slavery and were not at all unmindful of its problematic ambiguity in a nations whose proclaimed ideal was liberty. But, it was simply neither practical nor possible nor possibly even humane to instantly end slavery at that juncture.
For that matter, Lincoln, while abhorring slavery and seeking to prevent its spread and likely hoping for it eventual abolition, likely did not see blacks as actually being is peers and equal. But, he certainly did recognize their humanity.
Perfectly moral men of other eras, such as great thinkers, leaders, and philosophers of ancient Rome were did not find slavery unnatural or abhorrent. And their slaves were usually of the same race and even of a civilization, like Greece, that the Romans themselves often acknowledged as culturally superior to their own. To them, slavery wasn't about race, it was about winning civilizations and losing ones. Lose the war, become a slave. That was just the damn deal.
We are all creatures of the era we live in. It is quite possible that in another age, our practice of, say mass abortion, will be seen as a heinous practice. And some of our most respected politicians, thinkers, and cultural icons will be seen as savages for having accepted it, let alone advocated or defended the practice.
If you think that such a hypothetical prediction is bizarre and almost entirely unthinkable, then you are demonstrating your own era biases and your own entrapment in the thinking of our particular time.
Humanity is continually changing and evolving in its beliefs and attitudes and moral certainties. We like to think always for the better. But, in many respects we are moral, intellectual, and cultural inferiors to our 18th Century ancestors. And inferior in many respects to our forbears of earlier eras.
We are in many, many respects technologically advanced but at the same time frighteningly barbaric. I shudder to think what will be made of our movies, music, and television. Should any of it survive.
- ChanRobt
January 22, 2009 at 3:06am