I just watched David Goldfield present a lecture on his book America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation
. He makes the point that a better path could (and should) have been found for the South and the North. It is a point that I have also made in a recent posting. It is tempting to attribute the Civil War to intellectual failings, that of both the South and the North to foresee the horrors of the war and its negative consequences (in spite of the fact that some did recognize the danger), that of both sides to recognize better paths for both the nation as a whole and for their portion of the nation, and that of failure to find a way to negotiate to the best of those paths.
I have argued that people think not with a perfect logic machine but with brains that have evolved to deal with problems other than those faced by modern statesmen, brains which are affected by emotions and by a host of unrecognized external influences. It is tempting to attribute the Civil War to intellectual failings rooted in the irrationality of the human thinking process.
I have also argued that it is a mistake to use the metaphor of the individual thinker to analyze decisions made through political processes by many people working within political institutions. Government decisions are made by fallible people working in institutions that have evolved under historical processes under the pressures created by public opinion molded by media, religion (as Goldfield emphasizes) and culture. Thus it is tempting to attribute the Civil War to intellectual failings rooted in the irrationality of the political decision making process or in the cultural forces that influence political decision making.
Someone suggested that the root causes of the Civil War were to be found in the universal wave function and the initial conditions of the universe. Perhaps that is right!
On the one hand, it may be fruitless to seek the "true causes" of the Civil War. On the other hand, that kind of thinking may help us in the future to find the path to better solutions to future problems that have their root in today's problems and conditions. It may even be fun.
. He makes the point that a better path could (and should) have been found for the South and the North. It is a point that I have also made in a recent posting. It is tempting to attribute the Civil War to intellectual failings, that of both the South and the North to foresee the horrors of the war and its negative consequences (in spite of the fact that some did recognize the danger), that of both sides to recognize better paths for both the nation as a whole and for their portion of the nation, and that of failure to find a way to negotiate to the best of those paths.I have argued that people think not with a perfect logic machine but with brains that have evolved to deal with problems other than those faced by modern statesmen, brains which are affected by emotions and by a host of unrecognized external influences. It is tempting to attribute the Civil War to intellectual failings rooted in the irrationality of the human thinking process.
I have also argued that it is a mistake to use the metaphor of the individual thinker to analyze decisions made through political processes by many people working within political institutions. Government decisions are made by fallible people working in institutions that have evolved under historical processes under the pressures created by public opinion molded by media, religion (as Goldfield emphasizes) and culture. Thus it is tempting to attribute the Civil War to intellectual failings rooted in the irrationality of the political decision making process or in the cultural forces that influence political decision making.
Someone suggested that the root causes of the Civil War were to be found in the universal wave function and the initial conditions of the universe. Perhaps that is right!
On the one hand, it may be fruitless to seek the "true causes" of the Civil War. On the other hand, that kind of thinking may help us in the future to find the path to better solutions to future problems that have their root in today's problems and conditions. It may even be fun.
1 comment:
Incidentally, Goldfield points out the little known fact that the Republican platform in 1860, on which Lincoln was elected, was built on two positions: the prohibition of slavery in the territories and anti-Catholicism.
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