E Pluribus Unum and Our Finest Hour
by Mike Kimel
E Pluribus Unum and Our Finest Hour
Cross posted at the Presimetrics blog.
But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour.
Winston Churchill, Speech to the House of Commons, June 18, 1940
Assuming, as many do, that the British Empire ended some time around the handover of Hong Kong, it did not last a thousand years. (Britain and its Commonwealth, of course, are still going strong.) Nevertheless, I suspect many would say that Churchill got his way, and that the Battle of Britain and the remainder of World War 2 was, in fact, the finest hour of the British Empire.
What about the American Empire? If we define that institution as existing from some time around the Spanish American War (1898) to the point where it was overextended and became unable to impose its will on friend or foe alike (i.e., some time around 2005), what was its finest hour? What were its most impressive achievements, those that will be written up in history books a thousand years from today?
I am not a historian, but I have a few guesses, in no particular order: (below the fold)
1. Serving as the arsenal of democracy in WW2
2. Putting people on the moon and bringing them safely back to earth.
3. The development of mass media and long distance communications.
4. Almost eradication of polio (yes, a worldwide effort, but just about every significant piece of the project was done in the US)
5. The Green Revolution (a little less US-dependent than the polio effort, but US entities played the biggest role)
6. The Manhattan Project and the development of nuclear energy
7. The early development of genetic engineering (I suspect US dominance in this field will be ending very soon)
8. Construction of the Panama Canal
9. Airplanes
10. An automobile in every driveway
11. The electric grid
I’m sure I’m forgetting something important, and there are, no doubt, things we regard as small that will be viewed as important one day. Still, I would be surprised if what is eventually viewed as the greatest achievement of the American Empire is not on that list. However, not all of the items listed will survive the test of time. Some will be forgotten, some may prove more or less irrelevant over the long haul, some will come to be viewed as a facade and some will be decried by our descendants. Still, its probably not a bad list, and I think its good enough for the purpose of this post, which is to note: the role of the private sector tends to play a relatively small role when it comes to the big achievements. Furthermore, the piece of the private sector that contributes the most to the big advancements, the ones that will be remembered, is the not-for-profit piece of it.
With the possible exception of 3, 9 & 10, the for-profit private sector played the role of sidekick or supporting actor. The main role, the driving force, the entity that either provided the original vision and/or drove that vision through to completion was the government, with much of the remainder provided by academia (heavily funded by the state whether public or private) or NGOs. But even where the private sector led the charge, the government’s role was huge. Henry Ford may have revolutionized the production of cars, but without the government producing roads (not to mention the freeway system), their development would be limited to where they could be used for local transportation. Most of the big achievements, and, I am comfortable making this statement, the finest hour of America, whatever that is judged to be a thousand years from now, are driven by government policy, government actions and government grants.
Why is that? After all, the private sector, after all, makes up the biggest chunk of the economy. Size alone doesn’t isn’t enough to create achievement – the most significant achievements in the private sector usually aren’t those produced by the biggest companies. Similarly, its hard to construct a story that involves the government coming into a field and bigfoots over the early efforts of the private sector. Instead, the government is providing a role that the private sector simply isn’t, cannot, and will not. Why? I have a guess. I suspect it comes to the profit motive. Projects of this nature are risky and costly and hard to make money off of for a very long time, all of which are factors that discourage the private sectors. But the private sector has another problem with “finest hour” type accomplishments, which is evident when you think of Britain and Churchill’s speech. Britain may have been, to Hitler, little more than a “nation of shop-keepers”, but those shop-keepers were willing to fight for an idea, a cause they all had in common. However, its hard to imagine a company providing a vision that unites a nation. Occasionally, a company is able to inspire its employees to greatness – think Hewlett Packard before Carly Fiorina and the era of continuous layoffs. However, even then, the reach of its vision, its ability to bring others on-board, is generally limited to that company itself. This is due to human nature. The geniuses – the Einsteins and Borlaugs and Salks aren’t in it for the money, and the rest of us aren’t going to get the warm and fuzzies from increasing the profits of a company for whom we don’t work and in which we don’t own stock.
The only force that can unite the country, that can create a cause around which everyone will rally around, and then only certain circumstances, is the government. E pluribus unum. But that is why the American Empire has been petering out. We are less than two months shy of thirty years from the day when Reagan told us the government is the problem, and we have bought into that mantra hook line and sinker. And in the Tea Party era, it is hard to see how that can be turned around. The long, slow decline is becoming inevitable.
I’d have to say the civil rights and various liberation movements if the 1960s. It’s when we really started implementing the ideals put forward in the Declaration of Independence. The effects were definitely not limited to the US.
I’d have to say the civil rights and various liberation movements if the 1960s. It’s when we really started implementing the ideals put forward in the Declaration of Independence. The effects were definitely not limited to the US.
I’d have to say the civil rights and various liberation movements if the 1960s. It’s when we really started implementing the ideals put forward in the Declaration of Independence. The effects were definitely not limited to the US.
Fascinating post. I think I use “finest” with a different meaning. The British empire’s finest hour was a defeat — the evacuation from Dunkirk. I would say that “finest” means demonstrating the most virtue and valor. I think you are looking for our greatest hour, not our finest.
Given that verble quibble, I would still count the Marshall plan. For one thing it is what made US power roughly imperial. It was also a genuinely new approach way back then. We have become as famous for our stinginess as we once were for uur generosity, but, at the time, the Marshall plan was new and astonishing. It struck terror into the hearts of the adversaries of the USA.
Oddly you don’t mention the development of the computer. It is true that the first all electronic computer was made in the UK, but the first computer was made in the USA. Also well over 95 of the first hundred. Many were made by profit maximizing firms, but the development was basically all financed by the Department of Defence which bought (lost the link) the vast majority of the first hundred computers.
Also airplanes. Yes they were made by profit making firms, but most would never have taken off were it not for defence contracts. Boeing is the company that made B-29’s, the B-29 is the plane that made Boeing. Don’t ever mention subsidies to Airbus around a European if you don’t want to hear about this at length.
I think you might also mention a lot of antibiotics. Penicillin came from Oxford, but most antibiotics came from the USA (mostly Harvard). In particular Tuberculosis and leprosy can be treated due to US inventions.
Also most of the vaccines which were injected into you when you were a child. And, wait, stop the presses, most of them were developed by Merk seeking profits. Polio is the exception and measles kills.
So I say the American government and Merk.
12. Securing relatively peaceful decolonization after WW 2
13. Confronting the USSR at enormous cost without wincing from the end of WW 2 to 1991
14. Being the backstay of a peacefully united European community for some decades
15. Promotion of trade and economic growth about the world
16. Promotion of education among citizens in general
Started out to be interesting, then turned into a bit of a rant.
The US never had an empire, never wanted an empire, and so we really can;t lose an empire.
And of course, the private sector paid for every government accomplishment.
Jesus Mike (Kimel)
the declaration of “all men are created equal”
the american constitution
the bill of rights
the emancipation of slaves
the enfranchisement of women
generally demonstrating to the world that a democracy could be made to work.
i suspect we have entered a post democratic era, and that the american idea is indeed over.
reason for my expletive (poor jesus has nothing to do with this) mike’s list is a pretty good indication of why the american idea is over… or i missed the point entirely. was it always about prosperity?
rusty
if you can’t see the empire … well that would explain why you “believe” the private sector paid for everything. of course it did. what does that say… that we are not a communist country? was that what it was always about? or that government does not play a role in directing and enhancing the work and enterprise of the people?
one reason we have lost the american idea is that the people just wander around muttering jingles they have heard on television. reality is not something they care to think about.
Rusty has a good point.
I would not say that it was government achievements that made the US great.
Rather, it was the interaction of government and capitalism in joint ventures that was responsible
for the great achievement of the modern mixed economy. Neither alone could have created the
results that were so great.
“… the private sector paid for every government accomplishment….”
How do you figure that? Please explain, I’m not sure how that works.
As far as the empire goes, it would be interesting to speculate how much private-sector international power America would have had since the end of WWII, in the absence of the hundreds and hundreds of US military bases (many small, admittedly) outside of US territories. Did that presence make US business more dominant? or would we have been better off without spending gazillions of dollars of public money by maintaining those bases? I don’t know where the balance point would be or how you would calculate that…
An aunt of mine served in WWII but then stayed in the Air Force the rest of her working life, sending letters and gifts home for decades from Japan, Germany, Spain, Great Britain, and a handful of briefer postings. It never occured to me to wonder why America had all these bases everywhere, when there were no Spanish, German, Japanese or British bases in Mississippi, Detroit or California. But, would this not be the mark of some sort of empire — the ability to put military forces in supposedly sovereign nations, unilaterally?
Noni
btw
as for “never wanting an empire”… you should read a little history. or “what do you mean “we’, white man?” (and that’s just part of it).
I don’t know about an Empire, but Robert is spot on about the Defense Department’s involvement in a vast majority of the things we call progress. Which brings us to: the Government. Who is the Government? Well, those of us who have & do pay taxes, which I believe denotes the citizens/workers of the United States of America. I’m sure some will disagree, but then, perhaps you haven’t done your homework.
“the emancipation of slaves “
England actually. You all were a little late to the free labour market parade.
per Wiki
“Britain banned the importation of African slaves in its colonies in 1807, and the United States followed in 1808. Britain abolished slavery throughout the British Empire with the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, the French colonies abolished it 15 years later, while slavery in the United States was abolished in 1865 with the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”
The interesting thing about mass media in the US versus the rest of the world is that it ISN’T tightly controlled by the government. I mean broadcast licenses are a sinecure established by the government, but in much of the world, the government IS the major broadcaster or at least tightly controlls the major broadcasters.
A private letter complains that i missed the point of Kimel’s essay. He was talking specifically about Empire.
well, i may have missed his point, but I think i made a more important point.
even KImel says
“Britain may have been, to Hitler, little more than a “nation of shop-keepers”, but those shop-keepers were willing to fight for an idea, a cause they all had in common.”
like i said, it’s the American Idea that matters, not a list of product developments. indeed i would assert that the American Empire is one of the forces that has killed the American Idea.
Travis
you are correct as to dates, but the American Civil War to free the slaves was a great achievement in the history of human rights.
i am sorry that revisionists historians have tried to claim that the Civil War had nothing to do with freeing the slaves. We are still fighting that war. The current Republican leadership learned all its rhetoric from newspapers in the South ante bellum.
Of course the Europeans complain much more about the B-47 than the B-29. Boeing was able to leverage the research on the swept wing for the B-47 and use it for the 707. Of course this ignores the fact that the comet is much more closeley related to the nimrod.
I’ve always felt that the distant future may regard the moon landings similar to the way we see the great pyramids: A stunningly impressive feat considering the technology of the time, but borne of bizarre motivatins that nobody has any particular wish to imitate.
travis
actually, if you want to go for firsts, St Patrick abolished the slave trade in Ireland in about 500 AD (plus or minus a few hundred years, my memory doesn’t go back that far).
and the 1808 ban on importation of slaves into America was actually written into the Constitution in 1787.
jim a
whereas in America the mass media is controlled by factions that want to prevent the government from limiting their power.
Rusty,
In June 1940 Henry Luce in an article in LIFE stated the US empire would evolve to something as we see today.
Empire is not the result of the enlightenment which Franklin and Jefferson wedged into the Adams’ thrust to replace the crown with federalism.
Empire does follow federalism and its anti enlightenement features.
And the US civil war was fought so that states’ rights to deniy those things to slaves was not infringed. Those high ideals were sucker meal to get the commoners to throw off the crown for the new elite landed class.
Like Rome before 150BC the landed and patricians ran every thing!!
Nah…….
One of the excuses Henry II used to send Strongbow to overrun the Pale in Ireland was the Irish were a great market for Saxon and Welsh slaves. That was 1160 something.
And all Strongbow did was set up the famine in 1843.
British empire was great until the Kaiser saw it as business market to compete in.
That lead to WW I and the eventual casting off of profits from the empire.
The difference between US empire and British empire is the US one never paid for itself.
As to great empires, they are only great to those very few who profit.
Vietnam was anti nationalist war.
Bread and circuses, the US is well in tothat phase of empire expiration.
British empire was great until the Kaiser saw it as business market to compete in.
That lead to WW I and the eventual casting off of profits from the empire.
The difference between US empire and British empire is the US one never paid for itself.
As to great empires, they are only great to those very few who profit.
Vietnam was anti nationalist war.
The US is ‘government of the one percenters, by the one percenters and for the one percenters’.
One percenters who own the place.
Where is Caesar? Who will end the bickering and dictate the rules to benefit the one percenters?
I’ve often stated that we’re the targets of the greatest propaganda effort that the world has ever seen. However, instead of “The government is great,” the message is “Buying stuff will make you happy.”
Miss Noni–I suspect that the model of the US military bases abroad would be that of the US army here during the Westward expansion. So, the US has developed its empire along the British model with the military permitting commercial activity of American business. Also, the military itself requires support from US enterprises including the arms industry. It is quite natural for Americans to regard themselves as the world’s protectors based on their experience in WWII.
However, seems that that role has gradually been replaced by a more openly imperial model, xr Iraq and Afghanistan. It would have been cheaper to just buy the oil from Iraq or pay Saddam to leave. But, that would not have supported the MIC. So, we end up like the British in South Africa buying cartridges from concessionaires to fight the Zulu (to use a fictional account as a rough model.) NancyO
“St Patrick abolished the slave trade in Ireland in about 500 AD.” It was not chatle slavery.
The Brits’ military Industrial Complex started way back when. Maybe Pepys and the royal navy expansion.
Empire paid for itself, the British Army in India was paid for by the company. There was a mix of company and viceroy hard to tell where each ended. Regiments for rent and paid for upkeep of the white man’s burden.
Until 1914 the Brits had it right, pillage the colonies not the motherland.
US’ started in civil war, raised again with Mahan selling battleships to keep our main customers’ battleships away (crazy, but Teddy Roosevelt was impressed) and coaling station for the empire.
US never got it right.
I see. you are saying that commercial slavery is on a different moral plane from free lance slavery.
Nobody else thinks that we are a little close to this time and topic to be able to judge it well? We have no idea whether our finest hour has passed. When this nation has been well and truly surpassed by other nations, and everybody knows it, our descendents can debate over which hour was our finest. Our doing so is just plain silly.
“History does not usually make sense until long afterwards.”
— Bruce Catton
kharris
that must be why nobody is allowed to talk about it while it is happening.
I believe our truly finest hour was the Declaration of Independence. In terms of contributions to humankind, it would be difficult to top.
kharris
btw, while you’re on the line
an ad hominem (fallacy) is of the form: “you can’t trust Suzies math because she cheats on her husband”.
but if i am talking to Suzy and say, “Suzy, I think you are getting your math wrong because your mind is on cheating on your husband,” that is in a literal sense “ad hominem”, but it is not the ad hominem fallacy.
I believe our finest hour was the Declaration of Independence. That is technically pre-USA, but it is, and likely always will be, our greatest contribution to humankind.
Well, ya know… The USA could pack it in tomorrow, totally vanish from existence, and a thousand years from now, two thousand years from now, historians would be writing big fat books (or e-docs) about our existence, how we came to be, and what our impact was on the world. Maybe we aren’t a genuine “empire” and maybe we haven’t had a true “finest hour” but we’ve surely had enough impact on things to bear some rememberance.
And the weird thing is, we can be sure those future historians will consider the causes for our slide from rule, or dominance, or importance during the 21st century or maybe the 22nd century, and we can already see some, if not all of the factors they will point to — our preference for superstition over science, our political ossification, our economic-based caste system. We can see today the causes of our future decline; it’s a fear of being too openly honest that keeps us from addressing the issues.
I can’t believe no one mentioned the internet, seeing as this conversation would be impossible without it.
The internet, too, needed major government investment and regulation to come into being. So did a car in every driveway–development regulations (such as zoning and parking requirements) and government spending on highways were necessary prerequisites for the explosion in suburbia. Without that government involvement, more people would live in big cities and transit use would be much higher. As it is, millions of Americans *don’t* have cars, or driveways, and don’t miss either.
“The British Empire is simply a device for giving trade monopolies to the English” – the fictional character Mr. Flory, from G. Orwell, Burmese Days.
Post democratic era started in 1777, when the Declaration of Independence was compromised.
the declaration of “all men are created equal” ………which was trashed when they added rights to liberty which is defined by the landlords, life which means no abortions, and property which meant men could own men.
the american constitution…… Established federalism which is one step away from the crown with the propertied getting in the place of the crown. White, man land owner………
the bill of rights ………………….. Could have worked but see federalism.
the emancipation of slaves ……………. Ended states’ rights to do egregious wrongs but not freed any one. The serfs are still hooked to the propertied.
the enfranchisement of women ………………… Huhhh!?!?!
generally demonstrating to the world that a democracy could be made to work. ………. US is a republic moving in the direction of banana status.
coberly
the war between the states was fought over states’ rights, and only states’ rights
you are correct. though
states’ rights in the slave states was the right to own dark skinned men
emancipation was federalists’ imposed sanction against states’ rights to suffer men to own men.
states rights in the free states was: there is a higher moral power than states’ which imposed limits on states’ rights
true there are some very good christians who upheld a very liberal definition of states’ right liberal unless you were a slave
would hannerty be for states’ rights of property in humanity……..
I think it’s the progression towards greatness.
It all started with Cracker Jack. This development confirmed that inventors besides just Thomas Edison and railroad men could be successful. This lead to commercialization of cars, boats and airplanes.
An Imperial presence requires a navy. A Federal Government plus taxes plus technology gave us a US Navy. This was ultimately enabled by Cracker Jack.
The invention of the Comic Book got us into WW2. The American public assumed the role of the Super Hero destined to save the world from evil Imperialism. The Comic Book led to the Marshal Plan, and America enjoyed 50-60 years being the Super Hero bringing peace, justice, security and Cracker Jack to the world!
So things started with a pop, and ended with a pop.
ilsm
oddly, the slaver aristocracy was on a roll to deny the rights of states to exclude slavery from their territory. they were looking to rent their slaves to northern businesses.
Well, the emphasis seems to have shifter from “finest hour” to “greatest achievement”. 🙂
Let me mention a candidate for finest hour: the peaceful resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
As for the judgement of history:
We do not even celebrate the finest hour of Charles Martel.
As for the American Empire:
Once we got over Manifest Destiny, we did not exactly eschew an empire, but colonialism. America has always been anti-colonial. Why Gingrich accused Obama of being an anti-colonialist, I do not know.
Since we do not have colonies, the American Empire is not so easy to see. The American empirical land mass consists of military bases.
BTW, we failed to learn from the British empirical experience, IMO. We should have sent the equivalent of the British Expeditionary Force to Afghanistan and Iraq, not the equivalent of the East India Company.
I knew a fellow from a slave owning family.
His theory was steam utensils and eventually gasoline would have ended slavery as it ended horse base transport. You don’t feed you plow all year long.
The Irish, and folk wanting to leave the farms were much cheaper than the rents the slavers wanted.
ilsm
i guess everyone has a theory, but the history of the times suggests the slave owners were betting on the supreme court to protect their property rights in other states. suggest you read “Father Abraham” by Striner. of course he could be wrong. but he has a little more to go on than a theory.
“Once we got over Manifest Destiny, we did not exactly eschew an empire, but colonialism. America has always been anti-colonial.”
Let us re-write the above to read: “once we got finished establishing our continental empire by colonizing our portion of North America and a couple of Islands we settled for an informal form of empire for the rest.”
It’s too soon to count America down and out. Seems to me that we got our start by deciding that well-designed governments advance the cause of their citizens in ways that poorly designed governments don’t. So, using their finely trained minds, Adams, Jefferson, Madison and their peers applied the best of the Enlightenment’s thinking to the problem of inventing a new government to secure the blessings of liberty, etc. You know the words. Terrific words forming a brilliant new idea of citizenship in a Republic actually ruled by law.
The framework is still there in the Constitution. For example, it is unlikely that any struggling new industry would refuse significant help from the federal government because it thinks the government is destructive. If anything, the 1%ers are a testiment to how important the govt is in amassing huge amounts of capital–breaks on their individual taxes, their companys’ taxes, various forms of investments, and so on brought to them by the US government.
We’re just learning a whole bunch of stuff we didn’t know before 2007 about who the new land, banking and industrial robber barons are. It’s too soon to think that we’re done for and there is nowhere to go but down. You’d have to be a sucker to buy that line. What do they want to control the government for if it’s such a problem? Hmmm? I don’t don’t buy it. Cheer up, people. We’ll think of something. NancyO
😉
The US government got into the computer business back in the 1880s funding Herman Hollerith to develop a tabulating system for the census. The previous census had been tabulated by hand and had been a complete debacle. Later, Hollerith’s company became the core of IBM. DARPA, the internet, self driving cars, GPS and all that are just Johnny-come-lately.
The US government also got into interchangeable parts back when Eli Whitney scammed the Continental Congress with his rigged demonstration, the one that appears in the history books. We take it for granted that a nut of the appropriate size will work with a bolt of the corresponding size, but that is because of government developed “armory practice” being so widely adopted in manufacturing.
P.S. The Danish had the first treatment for tuberculosis, PAS, but the US government backed streptomycin worked better and with fewer side effects.
If pissing away blood and treasure in Afghanistan and Iraq aren’t the last gasps of an empire I’ve never heard of one. Consider how quickly we are replicating the British pattern:
1> Invade mostly to exploit natural resource and give advantage to US corporate interests under guise of security and stabilty.
2> Change rationalization as needed to justify continued occupation despite growing native resistance movements and international revulsion.
3> Once you can no longer convince loyal citizens to send their kids hire mercenaries (we call them contractors now whether US born or not) to do the dying.
Where’s Kipling when you need him? Cheney and Rumsfeld don’t exactly inspire literature I guess.
ilsm
in a society in which the dominant “religion” is “christian” there are always going to be people who call themselves good christians who preach and do the devil’s work. jesus pointed out you’d have to use your head to tell them apart.
meanwhile the good christians were the dominant force against slavery. and that includes William Wilberforce who was largely responsible for the abolition of the slave trade in England which Travis talks about.
Wow, you really don’t like being wrong, do you?
Listen up, you little crap head. You routinely attack the individual expressing the idea, as well as the idea expressed. You’ve done it to me. You did it to Linda. You think debating over whether you were a shit in one specific way means you aren’t a shit? Clean yourself up.
And so sorry, but ad hominem means “on the person”, as in, an attack on the person rather than the idea. Just because you’ve managed to find an example of an ad hominem which doesn’t fit your behavior does not mean your behavior was not an attack on a person. You sorry puss sack.
kharris
some people would enjoy provoking you to hysterical fits of rage. i don’t especially. like socrates, i am merely trying to teach you to think more clearly.
the reason you can’t tell the difference between the logical fallacy known as ad hominem, and a comment about possible motive addressed to the other person in a conversation. and an attack on that person is, in the first place because you don’t know a damn thing about logic, and in the second because you suffer from a form of paranoia.
It doesn’t surprise me that 2 commenters, kharris and coberly, are squabbling over the definition of ‘ad homonym’ , they are jerks.
That is an ad homonym attack. But it has little to do with it being personal, all criticism leveled at an individual is personal to a degree. The example given is ad homonym because the criticism lacks support, there is no reason. Essentially, unsupported claims that malign are ad homonym because they do not provide those being criticized with any refutable content. And without refutable content, argumentation breaks down into nothing more than name-calling.
If, for instance, I were to say that: kharris is smug and pretentious. That is ad homonym.
But if I were to say that: kharris is smug and pretentious because he/she is quick to be authoritative on issues that he/she knows little about. A fact made apparent by this: “And so sorry, but ad hominem means “on the person”, as in, an attack on the person rather than the idea”.
That would be a supported claim and the same would apply regardless of how vile or pejorative the terms. Had I chosen to make my claims more insulting, using for example smug jerk and pretentious a-hole instead, my claims would still stand because these nouns and their adjectives are necessary in a descriptive sense.
The notion that only arguing about “the idea”, would effectively require all argumentation to be presented anonymously because otherwise, all argumentation reflects on those arguing. Based on the criteria of pure argumentation being only about ideas would essentially make nearly all argumentation ad homonym. This argument for example can not be purely impersonal because names and reputations are involved, but, this argument can be made without ad homonyms ( I do have some unsupported claims, but, they are not being used as claims, but instead, as examples [loophole]).
Of course there are instances where one can say what is true without showing support depending on how axiomatic the claim is. Then too, if one understands all of this well enough, a little truth can be told without support in certain circumstances (see this comment).
ad hominem To the man; appealing to personal interests, prejudices and emotions rather than to reason: an argument ad hominem
~THE AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY
ilsm,
That was basically ol’ Abe’s position on slavery. It was in fact the informed position a t the time because in many cases wage labor was cheaper than slave labor and those trends were at odds.
ray
well this jerk agrees with you mostly. i hope you won’t mind if i ad hominem myself and claim a little personal expertise that give me confidence that the American Heritage Dictionary is not the last word and, or, you don’t quite understand it.
and that is not an attack on you, but a general point i make whenever i can: setting up a “rule” or a “definition” generally limits thought. if you actually look at how language is used in all the variety of ways you will find there is really no basis any of us have to claim we know THE answer.
it’s not worth it for you, but if you go back to the comment i wrote that kharris fell apart about, and read it carefully, you will see there was no attack at all. merely the kind of usual semi-speculation about motives that friends use with each other when discussing why they believe one thing or another. my main point re beale was that she is wrong as to policy, and that her failure to address my point, repeatedly made in this space, about that policy was an indication of part of why liberals don’t have much effect on national policy: we can’t agree among ourselves. we can’t even talk among ourselves. we are all on a solipsist voyage proclaiming our truth to the stars and not in the least interest in coming up with policy proposals that can be made to work… and prioritize what is important.
now, is that “ad hominem”? it makes no claim to being a “logical” argument.
as for the personal attacks that get called ad hominem regularly in blog space… well, language changes.
as for the American Heritage, nothing i said appealed to interests, prejudices, or emotions. just setting some ideas out for consideration.
even kharris attacks on me were not “ad hominem” in the logical sense. he made no pretense at logic, and since he was talking directly to me he could hardly be said to be appealing to my interests, prejudices, or even my emotioins except in a negative way.
ray
when you begin with the assumption that i am being dishonest and or pretentious you limit the possibility of either of us learning anything from the other.
for what it’s worth, i think i know a great deal more than you do.
and i know for a fact that i was not insulting linda.
Dale,
So we learn when you begin with insults, as in this remark to kharris: “some people would enjoy provoking you to hysterical fits of rage. i don’t especially. like socrates, i am merely trying to teach you to think more clearly”. But when I begin with what you call an “assumption”, which can not literally be an assumption since I went to lengths to support the applicable assertions, and assertions which you chose to ignore and simply define as assumptions, without any support, naturally, then though, when I say what you find offensive, I… “limit the possibility of either of us learning from the the other”. Hypocrisy too!!! As if you don’t already have enough evasions piling up along the way.
And the presumption and smug nonsense just keeps on coming. Your comments are so pointless, and yet, so bursting with hubris that I can’t help but wonder if I’m being put on?
As if you could possibly know that I need to learn anything from YOU, as if I don’t have all of the world’s information at my fingertips. As if some loudmouth who puts himself on the same pedestal with Socrates while having such an obvious lack of sophistication, a shortcoming which I gave him every opportunity to defend, but one which he prefers, presumably, to ignore, that he is so stupid as to then, in response to being accused of ‘presumption’… refute with this:
“for what it’s worth, i think i know a great deal more than you do”
Moreover, I just mentioned, in my previous comment that the very essence of ‘presumption’ is to be so foolish as to pretend to know what is impossible ‘to know’. AND YOU COULD NOT POSSIBLY KNOW WHAT I DO OR DO NOT KNOW. And if you stop spewing out one unsupported claim after another, the very process of explaining such nonsense would make it inescapably obvious that you don’t have nearly as much to say as you evidently think that you do. Then maybe you could find the time to put some disciplined thought into what you are ‘think’ you are saying, Little Socrates!!!
>but borne of bizarre motivatins that nobody has any particular wish to imitate
I agree with this 100%. Perhaps if I could actually remember them I’d feel different. I only remember the 1975 Apollo mission, a real snoozer.
“The First Dominion of the Corporation lasted more than half a millennium, propelling Europe to ascendancy over the Moslem East, proselytizing the globe and producing the Renaissance before meeting a savage end during the French Revolution. By then, popular sentiment identified the great ossified religious corporations with many of the more prominent ills of society. The fury the people felt against these corporations — especially the religious orders of the Catholic Church — was so extreme that France’s greatest monastery, the abbey of Cluny, was torn apart stone by stone, until nothing was left standing.
Viewing the bits of Cluny that remain today in the Hotel de Cluny in Paris, one can not help wondering if our own corporate colossi are headed for a similar end.”
http://www.astonisher.com/archives/corporation/corporation_intro.html
not to forget, from mid-later 19th c, the rise of the modern corporation and, while generalizing commodity production + combining with financial and commercial capital of all nationalities, its conquest of the planet.
The fury the people felt against these corporations —– was so extreme that France’s greatest monastery, the abbey of Cluny, was torn apart stone by stone, until nothing was left standing.
+ moreless 1870-1914, the Second Industrial Revolution as somewhat earlier inventions moved through innovation into production then mass production,,,,,,all of which effected business structure and level or existance of middle management, secretaries, office products [which experienced a real boom towards end of period and 1920s]………