Whew talked about a class with a strained discussion piece. Strained not in it’s relevance, but in its contents related and derived from the Civil War. I thought that overall the discussion of the Civil War was interesting, but it lead to a sort of static to cover the main point of Authoritarianism in information. Now that I’m writing this all down I feel like it actually brings up an excellent point to the problems that come with free information without authority. No one is truly a master of knowledge. Yes, through a collection of primary sources and formative arguments you can present an idea of history, but no one has an absolute vision of every single fact that makes up an event. AKA the Civil War, I can’t fairly say was just start by the factor of a mass group of people standing up for the right of slavery. That’s my opinion, another opinion can easily lean the other way, but I don’t think either one could outright be seen as the truth(and that’s where constructive argumentation comes in). I promise I’m leading up to a point here. Pre-internet, Textbooks, and subsequently any source of info that claims to be an assortment of fact for the past history, all technically used this argumentized style in order to express their version of history. Now often time they’d use a sort of tone that doesn’t lead the reader to question what they’re reading, and I think their natural ignorance in questioning is expected in this day of mass info. People have to be trained to question things, books pre-internet should’ve been questioned about as much as an article that I read today on Facebook. Sources as well, need to be looked at, where are they coming from, when, are they biased, can they truly be trusted, how integral is the argument and logic of said information or article.
My overall point is that everything should be questioned, from sources on the internet, to the books and articles that we find to be authoritative. History without absolute proof is sketchy at best.
Outside of this general discussion I found it very interesting on the questions of War Romanticism. I’d have to say the main causation that leads to a spike in War effort is the sense of homeland. Afterall, the events of Pearl Harbor bolstered the U.S. populace ten-fold. As for the propagandized imagining of African-Americans in the Civil War, I have sparce words. The motives are confusing at best, as both governments themselves seemed rather confused as to what to do in regards to the idea of emancipation and conscription. So I’m not really sure what the story might have been for their involvement in the conflict, especially in the south.
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