I've noticed some people mostly from the left who mention that since the Great Wall of China didn't prevent the Mongol invasion, walls don't work, and so we shouldn't build a wall on the southern border. Well, let's look at this claim more carefully. Was the Great Wall of China worth building? It took countless man hours and lives to build, and it eventually failed. So a consensus seems to have emerged, not just among liberals, but among historians and people in general that it wasn't worth building.
I'm saying that this consensus view of the usefulness of the Great Wall of China is basically wrong.
We hear about the Great Wall's failures. But we don't hear about its successes. How many attempted barbarian invasions failed because of the wall's existence? How many would-be invaders simply never attempted to invade because it was there? The question for the Chinese wasn't whether the Great Wall was a perfect solution to the threat of barbarian invasion that would succeed for all eternity. It was whether it was better than doing nothing. And can any reasonable person say it wasn't? Think about the generations of Chinese people who were spared from invasions and raids that would have happened had the wall not been built. "Peace for all time" is better than "peace in our time," but the former is pretty much unattainable, so people generally accept the latter. The fact is, the Great Wall did its job, to make invasions much harder and almost impossible for anyone who wasn't a military genius. Countless Chinese people lived out their lives in peace because it was there.
It's just like the levees that protect New Orleans from flooding. Yeah, it failed to protect the city from Hurricane Katrina. But it worked for every hurricane before it and after it. Should we just tear down the levees and abandon New Orleans to the sea just because there is no perfect solution that will work 100% of the time? Of course not. That's basically equivalent to committing suicide because eventually we'll die. It's irrational and not the basis for a sensible policy.
When liberals say that a wall "won't work," they're basically rejecting a workable solution because it won't be perfect. Well, as they say, the perfect is the enemy of the good. The wall might not be a perfect solution. It might not even be the best one. But it's better than doing nothing.
I'm saying that this consensus view of the usefulness of the Great Wall of China is basically wrong.
We hear about the Great Wall's failures. But we don't hear about its successes. How many attempted barbarian invasions failed because of the wall's existence? How many would-be invaders simply never attempted to invade because it was there? The question for the Chinese wasn't whether the Great Wall was a perfect solution to the threat of barbarian invasion that would succeed for all eternity. It was whether it was better than doing nothing. And can any reasonable person say it wasn't? Think about the generations of Chinese people who were spared from invasions and raids that would have happened had the wall not been built. "Peace for all time" is better than "peace in our time," but the former is pretty much unattainable, so people generally accept the latter. The fact is, the Great Wall did its job, to make invasions much harder and almost impossible for anyone who wasn't a military genius. Countless Chinese people lived out their lives in peace because it was there.
It's just like the levees that protect New Orleans from flooding. Yeah, it failed to protect the city from Hurricane Katrina. But it worked for every hurricane before it and after it. Should we just tear down the levees and abandon New Orleans to the sea just because there is no perfect solution that will work 100% of the time? Of course not. That's basically equivalent to committing suicide because eventually we'll die. It's irrational and not the basis for a sensible policy.
When liberals say that a wall "won't work," they're basically rejecting a workable solution because it won't be perfect. Well, as they say, the perfect is the enemy of the good. The wall might not be a perfect solution. It might not even be the best one. But it's better than doing nothing.
