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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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 Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 8:14 am Post subject: |
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These demands and examples of "ideological history," by radical activists who traveled to Hanoi often for guidance, and their 1969 attempt to take control of the American Historical Association (AHA) to use it for their political ends, in the larger context of the revolution they believed was imminent in the United States, caused irreparable damage and infinite fragmentation in the historical profession and also, in part, in society at large.
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Again, though, how was it possible for the "radical activists" to cause this fragmentation, if the pre-Vietnam consensus was as strong as you say it was? Your argument reminds me of Catholic apologists who claim that Luther singlehanedly shattered the alleged consensus that supposedly existed in pre-Reformation Europe, through his "exaggerated" attacks on the Church, as if everything would have just continued humming along peacefully had he tripped and cracked his skull on the way to Wittenberg Cathederal.
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This is one of the central reasons why we can not agree on issues like Reagan's life and presidency or produce a single explanation for 9/11.
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So, prior to the 1960s, there was a shared consensus on(for example) the American Civil War? That is, if I were to canvas opinion accross the country, I would have heard the same opinions from people in Selma Alabama as I would from people in Brookline Massachusetts?
And doesn't there strike you as being something a little anamolous about a supposed golden age of consensus that lasted(going by your post-WW II time line), only for about twenty out of 190 years of American history? One has to wonder how long that kind of freak occurence could last, student radicals or no student radicals.
So, let me re-phrase my point as follows...
1. Was there an audience for what the "radical activists" were selling in the 1960s? And if so...
2. Where did this audience come from? Why didn't the general public just tell the activists to go screw themselves?
3. And if there was no audience, how were the radical activists able to goin so much influence? |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 10:36 pm Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
| ...how was it possible for the "radical activists" to cause this fragmentation...? |
Do I really have to be "the Catholic apologist" in some faraway analogy? Can't I be something else?
In any case, underwriting the process I describe above was a sea change of global proportions. And, although I am not sure, it seems as though you are arguing against acknowledging the obvious discontinuity between what came before the 1960s and what came after it. Is it your intention to suggest this?
Besides the neverending specialization in philosophy and the sciences (e.g., womens' studies, African-American studies, American Indian studies, gay and lesbian studies, postcolonial studies, and a billion other specialties, each with its own worldview and its own myths and history to back it up) in the post-Vietnam era, I see a lot of people intolerantly and bitterly denouncing each other as "liars" -- which, in any language, I think, is an extremely strong word. And, on top of that, perhaps like you and me here, people are, ultimately, not even discussing the same issue(s) or assuming the same value(s) as they respond to each other.
I have been referring to the American Historical Profession and I have been citing a very specific treatment of the AHA, whose history goes back only to the late-nineteenth century and not "190 years of American history." (But you are right in grasping my implicit assertion that this profession was both a reflector and an influencer of the larger society in which it functioned.)
I will restate my position by citing Novick again, who cites historian Robert Berkhofer on the point I have attempted to make on this thread...
| Peter Novick wrote: |
| The fifties was the era of "no hard feelings" among historians -- the decade of consensus, and "the end of ideology." Hard on its heels came the violent acrimony and polarization of sensibilities in the hyperideological sixties. Polarized consciousness overlapped with, but ultimately gave way to, the confused fragmentation which accompanied the ideological Gotterdammerung of the seventies and eighties, when even the pragmatic, liberal welfare-capitalist ideology of the end-of-ideologists threatened to collapse...On the one hand, those most committed to ideological postures were the most likely to insist on the objectivity of their findings -- that it was they who saw clearly; their antagonists who saw darkly, through ideologically tinted glass. On the other hand, the need to restore comity within a polarized profession could lead to a resigned perspectivalism...Robert Berkhofer saw American historians irreconcilably split into rival camps, "social scientific" and "radical," with "no hope of a congenial fusion." |
| Robert Berkhofer wrote: |
| The logical underpinnings of each paradigm are mutually exclusive in ultimate source of theory, in method and criteria verification, and in moral and political positions. The two histories are not like two ships passing in the night upon the same sea of history; rather, they are like two ships sailing upon two quite different oceans...In consequence, their chances of communicating seem only slightly less remote than their chances of colliding... |
Novick, 467.
Again, this is why a single, unitary, all-encompassing "documentary" treating something like Ronald Reagan's presidency or 9/11 is simply impossible now (just compare on this board, HaterDepot, Milwaukiedave, and BigBird's contributions to the 9/11 anniversary/remembrance) whereas, since you brought the Civil War up, something like Gone with the Wind could capture virtually the entire nation's attention and admiration -- dare I say "sympathy" or "love"? -- only a few decades ago... |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 2:00 am Post subject: |
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In any case, underwriting the process I describe above was a sea change of global proportions. And, although I am not sure, it seems as though you are arguing against acknowledging the obvious discontinuity between what came before the 1960s and what came after it. Is it your intention to suggest this?
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What I am suggesting is that the supposed consensus that existed from the end of World War II to about 1965 was an historical anamoly, not representative of anything else that came before it in American history.
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| since you brought the Civil War up, something like Gone with the Wind could capture virtually the entire nation's attention and admiration -- dare I say "sympathy" or "love"? -- only a few decades ago... |
Well, now you're extending the period of consensus back by about a few decades, because GWTW was pre-WWII, if I'm not mistaken. Be that as it may, are you saying that in the 1930s, everyone, black, white, Democrat, Republican, Northerners, Southerners, etc, agreed with Margaret Mitchell's sympathetic portrayal of southern slave-holders, and her view of Reconstruction as a grave injustice foisted upon a gallant culture? Or, to narrow the focus to your preferred terrain: did all academic historians accept this view?
And also:
It's easy for the victor to be magnanimous. Suppose GWTW had portrayed the North as heroic, while portraying the Southerners as rapacious cut-throats. Do you think this would have gone over all that well in the South, where there would still have been people alive who could remember defeat in war and military occupation?
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| Again, this is why a single, unitary, all-encompassing "documentary" treating something like Ronald Reagan's presidency or 9/11 is simply impossible now |
In case you've forgotten, Walter Mondale, at the height of Reagan's popularity, still managed to get 40% of the vote in the 1984 Presidential election. So why should there be anything sinister about the fact that people still can't agree on Reagan's legacy? Most of the people who voted against him are probably still alive. In fact, haven't I seen you yourself trashing old RR on this very forum? Maybe you're part of the alleged problem yourself, Goph. 
And when was there ever a consensus about American presidents? Have you ever read H.L. Mencken's tirades against Woodrow Wilson? Mencken was a bit of a gadfly, but his stuff was still enormously popular in the 1920s. So obviously even in those days, there was a market for trashing supposedly revered American presidents.
Gotta go to class. Maybe I'll write more later. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 3:12 am Post subject: |
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Oh yeah, one more thing...
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| since you brought the Civil War up, something like Gone with the Wind could capture virtually the entire nation's attention and admiration -- dare I say "sympathy" or "love"? -- only a few decades ago... |
If, as you suggest, there was all this love for the Confederacy in the 1930s, doesn't that suggest that the "consensus" you praise so highly was a little warped? Or at least was seriously minimizing the implication of historical events? Teenaged boys were slaughtered in the trenches to prevent the Confederacy from surviving, and yet less than eighty years later, with Union widows and orphans still among the living, you've got all America weeping in admiration at the supposed romance of said Confederacy. It would be like Americans in 70 years celebrating Al Qaeda as a glorious, lost cause. |
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Njord
Joined: 12 Jan 2006
Location: South Korea
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 4:15 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| It is all perspectival now. The best we can hope for is to exchange views in a civilized manner. |
If only we could do that... One side calls the other treasonous, traitorous, latte-drinking, chardonay-sipping elitists. They respond by calling their opponents treasonous crooks and liars. The Vice President says "F___ You" to a Senator on the floor of the Senate. Decorated combat veterans are attacked for being against the troops. The President and Vice-President insinuate that their opponents are anti-American. Their opponents respond in kind.
As Stephen Colbert said,
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| Truthiness is tearing apart our country, and I don't mean the argument over who came up with the word. I don't know whether it's a new thing, but it's certainly a current thing, in that it doesn't seem to matter what facts are. It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that's not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It's certainty. People love the president because he's certain of his choices as a leader, even if the facts that back him up don't seem to exist. It's the fact that he's certain that is very appealing to a certain section of the country. I really feel a dichotomy in the American populace. What is important? What you want to be true, or what is true? |
When everyone has their own facts, it is really impossible to "exchange views." The media has mostly given up the effort of sorting out the facts. It is now a forum for shouting matches for the most part.
Koreans have the advantage of having a fairly strong concensus on what it means to be Korean. We used to have this in the US as well. Today we have two or more ideas.
1) The United States is a Christian country founded by Christians. We have generously allowed others to come here but they should follow our rules and quickly integrate. We want a strong leader who defends American (Christian) values and morals. He should do everything necessary to protect us from the terrorists. He should be guided by strong faith and convictions. Our most dangerous enemy is the liberals (aided by activist judges) who want to destroy the American family and take away our values.
2) The United States is a pluralistic society founded by a diverse group of Deists and others. We are an immigrant nation and this makes us strong and independent. We want an honest government that works in the interests of all Americans. Our government should take sensible measures to protect us from all threats. We should follow reason and be willing to compromise as part of the democratic process. Our most dangerous enemy is the people who try to errode our democratic freedoms and destroy civil discourse. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 12:40 pm Post subject: |
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[quote="freethought"]The piece of fiction that will air on ABC is exactly that, and can/will likely be subject to legal action, I should think.
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| But with regards to the idea that Clinton and the democrats are somehow to blame, that's nonsense. The Clinton administration was highly focussed on bin Laden especially from about 1997 on. The Bush admin completely ignored the man from the moment they took office. |
Just so so.
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| But we've mentioned Reagan so far in this thread, and that is where a lot of the blame lies. Not with the man, because in my opinion the guy had little actual control of his own administration, and that's why the admin at large is responsible. You remove Afghanistan from the AlQaeda equation and you don't have much of an organization. The US policy in the 80s was to back the most radical extremist in Afghanistan, and this support continued well after the Soviets had announced a pull-out. Had they decided not to go for the out and out humiliation of the Soviets to send Reagan off with a bang, then the country may have been far more stable, and the initial stirrings that gave rise to the Taliban would never have occurred. The people of Afghanistan would have been better off, for certain, and odds are that few of us would have heard of Alqaeda. |
nope the US cut of most support to Afghanistan fighters before the Sovet Union left. |
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Rteacher
Joined: 23 May 2005
Location: Western MA, USA
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| Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 4:59 am Post subject: |
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I can also shed some darkness (and bird feathers...) on the 60s...
I think Viet Nam, drugs, CIA, paranoia, suspiciously bad drugs, communist infiltrators, anarchists, Artaud, Brecht, guerilla theatre, Hayakawa/Chomski, Weathermen, SDS, Ramparts, Black Panthers, underground papers, Timothy Leary, Marshall McLuhan, rockin-roll revolutionaries , media hype, Woodstock, corporate co-opting of hippie culture, "Chicago 7", David Dellinger, Country Joe, Youth International Party (Yippies/Zippies, Abbe Hoffman, Jerry Rubin ...) Daniel Berrigan, Hells Angels, KKK, Altamonte, Maxwell Taylor and Norman Mailer all had something to do with it.
The (1966) Time Magazine article "Is God Dead?" probably marked a turning point in the American Dream...
(Oh, BTW, the philosophy of the 60s-inaugurated "Hare Krishna" movement in America offers probably the best hope for eventually saving this polluted world by uniting western technical advancement with eastern wisdom as envisioned by historians Arnold Toynbee and A.L. Basham...)
Here's an interesting article on "guerilla theater" written in 1965:
http://www.diggers.org/guerrilla_theatre_1965.htm |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 7:51 am Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
| ...the "consensus" you praise so highly... |
How did you conclude that if I say "X smashed Y," that it necessarily follows that I am not just praising, but "praising so highly," Y?
In any case, you seem to believe that I hold myself above all of this, which I never have.
This leads me to suspect that either you are traducing my views (unfortuately, and apparently for the first time here), or we truly are not even on the same sea and are just not communicating on the same issues at all...
All of this notwithstanding, I stand by my position that much has changed since the 1960s, the radical left was very much a part of this (for the most part destructive) change, and this newfound, unabashed particularist-centeret, advocacy-scholarship and -journalism is one of the most important reasons explaining why a film like Gone With the Wind would earn a huge amount of money from enthusiastic moviegoers and win multiple Academy awards while a film like Missing would only provoke multiple bitter law-suits and related cross-complaints among filmmakers, historians, and former policymakers, each angrily alleging the other was "lying."
And, of course, there are the new controversies over the television film (or is it a miniseries) this thread references that treats 9/11 -- something which Americans cannot even agree on with respect to the basic outlines of what happened and why... |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 8:32 am Post subject: |
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a film like Gone With the Wind would earn a huge amount of money from enthusiastic moviegoers and win multiple Academy awards while a film like Missing would only provoke multiple bitter law-suits and related cross-complaints among filmmakers, historians, and former policymakers, each angrily alleging the other was "lying."
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Gopher:
Aren't you overlooking one pretty major difference between GWTW and Missing? By the time GWTW was made, Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Thaddeus Stevens, and pretty much all the architects of the Civil War and Reconstruction were long dead. So specific living individuals were not around to make waves about how their actions were portrayed in the film.
Whereas, on the other hand, Missing was made in 1982, when Nixon, Kissinger, Pinochet, many members of Allende's faction, etc were all still alive, and commanding their respective legions of partisans in the press and intelligentsia. So, of course, people are going to make waves if they think that they or their heroes are being portrayed in a negative light.
In order for your comparison to be exact, GWTW would have to have been produced in 1874, during the Grant presidency. Do you think that, at that time, all America, North and South, would have swooned over a loving homage to the Confederacy? |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 7:46 pm Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
| In order for your comparison to be exact... |
Nothing can be exactly right. Certainly, my comparison is not exactly right. But I am satisfied that I have sufficiently articulated my views on this. Whatever it was, exactly, that came before, the post-1960s political environment is less conducive to civil debate and discourse, and is more overtly hostile to opposing points of view than, roughly, any earlier period. The far left and its extremism (shrill, exagerrated allegations and the branding of people who disagree "racists," "fascists," "liars," "apologists," etc., among other of its tactics) played its part in setting things up this way.
I think there is little else I can accomplish on this. I am sure you will continue to disagree because it is not a matter of specific examples but politics (and ideology) that separates us here.
Needless to say, I (safely, as this is not rocket science) predict that we will not see any film treating Chile, Reagan's presidency, or 9/11 (or later, W. Bush's presidency or Iraq) anytime soon that partisans of whatever persuasion will be able to agree on... |
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