- Banned
- #1
I don't care much for the title, but, I didn't write the article- I think a better fit would be, "Words Mean Things"- this is a lengthy article that shows the use of words, even the omission of words makes for a different *context* which the so-called educated like to pretend is some sort of esoteric endeavor - of course, that pretense is what gives their life meaning-
Nobody with a sincere interest in finding out what happened in the past is supposed to have to do what I did. We want to believe that arguments mounted by eminent historians will be at least somewhat transparent; that we may have some basis for evaluating the evidence they rely on; that we won’t have to rebuild the case, on our own, from scratch.
But it must have seemed to the young Edmund Morgan that all faith in U.S. commitments to rights and liberty would crumble to dust in the face of the slightest acknowledgment of any mixed motives in the nation’s founding. In 1956, in a very brief and enduringly popular book, The Birth of the Republic 1763–1789, he took on American self-interest directly and placed it in a providential context. Yes, he admits there, self-interest existed at the founding. It’s one of the more thrilling features of the founding, he says, that every time self-interest raised its head, it combined with principle and flowed toward higher aims. That’s the magical American thing, to him. And thanks largely to Morgan, it became the magical American thing to many Americans.
No, I don't expect anyone to read this- it requires effort and time and intellectual honesty which is in short supply amongst Americans- on BOTH sides.
Against the Consensus Approach to History
How not to learn about the American past
Nobody with a sincere interest in finding out what happened in the past is supposed to have to do what I did. We want to believe that arguments mounted by eminent historians will be at least somewhat transparent; that we may have some basis for evaluating the evidence they rely on; that we won’t have to rebuild the case, on our own, from scratch.
But it must have seemed to the young Edmund Morgan that all faith in U.S. commitments to rights and liberty would crumble to dust in the face of the slightest acknowledgment of any mixed motives in the nation’s founding. In 1956, in a very brief and enduringly popular book, The Birth of the Republic 1763–1789, he took on American self-interest directly and placed it in a providential context. Yes, he admits there, self-interest existed at the founding. It’s one of the more thrilling features of the founding, he says, that every time self-interest raised its head, it combined with principle and flowed toward higher aims. That’s the magical American thing, to him. And thanks largely to Morgan, it became the magical American thing to many Americans.
No, I don't expect anyone to read this- it requires effort and time and intellectual honesty which is in short supply amongst Americans- on BOTH sides.
Against the Consensus Approach to History
How not to learn about the American past
