My high school mascot was the Battlin' Billies. As in billy goats. I think it was changed from the Hillbillies way back when. But a goat was always the mascot.

(04-17-2014 05:43 PM)georgewebb Wrote:  

(04-17-2014 12:26 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  As I said before, I was not born in the South and am nowhere near an apologist for the Confederacy.

My only point is that Robert E. Lee's name graces a university in this country, and was generally a highly regarded general before and after the Civil War. I don't see the point in painting him (and some other generals of that period) with the same broad brush that would apply to Nathan Bedford Forrest and others.

In general, I see little difference between naming a school after him than in naming one after Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and also Generals Pershing, or Eisenhower.

Well, one difference is that neither Jefferson, Washington, Pershing nor Eisenhower ever waged war against the United States. But I suppose that's a minor point.

While I clearly side with the federal government's interpretation on the right to secede, the point was in question at the time. Lee chose to stay with his neighbors and home state (where his family was from and where all his land was), but was conflicted about the decision. Given his land holdings and family history, and the uncertainty over the right to secede, the decision to side with Virginia on his part can't be judged in the light of 21st century society (technical vs agrarian, one world economy versus slow travel and communication).

In fact, you can question and wonder whether George Washington or Thomas Jefferson would've made the same choice given their circumstances.

After the South seceded, the North marched south to establish / enforce the interpretation that there was no right to secede. In that sense, the CSA viewed the war as a defensive one. While I support the decision to hold the union together, there were people, politicians and media in the north who felt the south should be left alone. As alluded to earlier in this thread, there are people who felt then and now, that Lincoln used powers in excess of those granted by the Constitution; it can be argued that Lee in his viewpoint was not waging war against the U.S., but was attempting to defend his land and the property of his neighbors. It would not be unlike the position Washington and the Revolutionary War generals found themselves in with respect to England in that sense.

Lee was a highly respected general, and leader of men, and was viewed as having exceptional character, on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line. IIRC, he was offered the post as commanding officer in the Union Army prior to hostilities breaking out. His treatment after the war reflected all of this.

The war was fought as a result of the slavery issue, but it was fought over the right to secede. Both questions were settled by the War. And not everyone who chose to side with the South did so easily or out of 'wrong' motivation.

Again, painting everyone who fought for the South with the same broad brush, without looking at the individual circumstances is no better than any other attempt to judge entire groups of people based on a single regional or ethnic trait.

I personally view Lincoln as probably our greatest President. I believe his views on reconciliation with the South were as correct as his dogged insistence on preserving the Union.

(04-17-2014 06:36 PM)Caelligh Wrote:  

(04-17-2014 02:48 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  ...I don't care what the others are arguing about, I am going to continue having fun with this.

Me, too!

Who would ever object to the Fighting Milquetoasts?

That reminds me of one school at which I officiate, whose field is emblazoned with the name 'Fighting Crusaders'. Every time I work there, someone on the crew points out how redundant the nickname is.

(04-17-2014 11:38 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  I personally view Lincoln as probably our greatest President. I believe his views on reconciliation with the South were as correct as his dogged insistence on preserving the Union.

At the risk of anachronism, Lincoln was quite Churchillian in that regard.

"In war: resolution
In defeat: defiance
In victory: magnanimity
In peace: good will"

Both Washington and Jefferson were more rejecting of slavery than Lee, even though Lee recognized the problem of slavery. Washington freed his slaves in his will. Jefferson did not free his slaves so his words were better than actions. Jefferson might have been constrained in freeing his slaves by the constant debt he had.

Lincoln and General Scott wanted Lee to command the Union army. The Union could not find a general close to his ability until they had Meade and Grant. Lee refused and resigned his commission because he did not want to take up arms against his state of Virginia which had just succeeded. Lee did not want the Union to be dissolved but Virginia had succeeded anyway. Lee at the end of the war did the nation a great service by surrendering instead of following the suggestions of others to continue guerrilla warfare against the Union.

I consider Lincoln as our second best President because Washington had set the mold for what the Presidency should be. Washington refused to be a king or dictator and became a President. He had resigned from the army to be a civilian so we did not have a military dictatorship like that of Cromwell or Julius Caesar. That does not detract from Lincoln. I am now listening to Team of Rivals on disc and realize that it is a great teaching tool on leadership.

(04-17-2014 11:38 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(04-17-2014 05:43 PM)georgewebb Wrote:  

(04-17-2014 12:26 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  As I said before, I was not born in the South and am nowhere near an apologist for the Confederacy.

My only point is that Robert E. Lee's name graces a university in this country, and was generally a highly regarded general before and after the Civil War. I don't see the point in painting him (and some other generals of that period) with the same broad brush that would apply to Nathan Bedford Forrest and others.

In general, I see little difference between naming a school after him than in naming one after Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and also Generals Pershing, or Eisenhower.

Well, one difference is that neither Jefferson, Washington, Pershing nor Eisenhower ever waged war against the United States. But I suppose that's a minor point.

While I clearly side with the federal government's interpretation on the right to secede, the point was in question at the time. Lee chose to stay with his neighbors and home state (where his family was from and where all his land was), but was conflicted about the decision. Given his land holdings and family history, and the uncertainty over the right to secede, the decision to side with Virginia on his part can't be judged in the light of 21st century society (technical vs agrarian, one world economy versus slow travel and communication).

In fact, you can question and wonder whether George Washington or Thomas Jefferson would've made the same choice given their circumstances.

After the South seceded, the North marched south to establish / enforce the interpretation that there was no right to secede. In that sense, the CSA viewed the war as a defensive one. While I support the decision to hold the union together, there were people, politicians and media in the north who felt the south should be left alone. As alluded to earlier in this thread, there are people who felt then and now, that Lincoln used powers in excess of those granted by the Constitution; it can be argued that Lee in his viewpoint was not waging war against the U.S., but was attempting to defend his land and the property of his neighbors. It would not be unlike the position Washington and the Revolutionary War generals found themselves in with respect to England in that sense.

Lee was a highly respected general, and leader of men, and was viewed as having exceptional character, on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line. IIRC, he was offered the post as commanding officer in the Union Army prior to hostilities breaking out. His treatment after the war reflected all of this.

The war was fought as a result of the slavery issue, but it was fought over the right to secede. Both questions were settled by the War. And not everyone who chose to side with the South did so easily or out of 'wrong' motivation.

Again, painting everyone who fought for the South with the same broad brush, without looking at the individual circumstances is no better than any other attempt to judge entire groups of people based on a single regional or ethnic trait.

I personally view Lincoln as probably our greatest President. I believe his views on reconciliation with the South were as correct as his dogged insistence on preserving the Union.

(04-17-2014 06:36 PM)Caelligh Wrote:  

(04-17-2014 02:48 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  ...I don't care what the others are arguing about, I am going to continue having fun with this.

Me, too!

Who would ever object to the Fighting Milquetoasts?

Certainly not the Milquetoasts. But "Fighting"? why not Fighting Pacifists?

I wonder who would win a game between the Milquetoasts and the Yellowbellies. would they ever even get anyone to go onto the field?

(04-18-2014 12:14 AM)georgewebb Wrote:  

(04-17-2014 06:36 PM)Caelligh Wrote:  

(04-17-2014 02:48 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  ...I don't care what the others are arguing about, I am going to continue having fun with this.

Me, too!

Who would ever object to the Fighting Milquetoasts?

That reminds me of one school at which I officiate, whose field is emblazoned with the name 'Fighting Crusaders'. Every time I work there, someone on the crew points out how redundant the nickname is.

"Crusaders" will be a future victim of mascot wussification.

(04-18-2014 12:47 AM)75src Wrote:  Both Washington and Jefferson were more rejecting of slavery than Lee, even though Lee recognized the problem of slavery. Washington freed his slaves in his will. Jefferson did not free his slaves so his words were better than actions. Jefferson might have been constrained in freeing his slaves by the constant debt he had.

Lincoln and General Scott wanted Lee to command the Union army. The Union could not find a general close to his ability until they had Meade and Grant. Lee refused and resigned his commission because he did not want to take up arms against his state of Virginia which had just succeeded. Lee did not want the Union to be dissolved but Virginia had succeeded anyway. Lee at the end of the war did the nation a great service by surrendering instead of following the suggestions of others to continue guerrilla warfare against the Union.

I consider Lincoln as our second best President because Washington had set the mold for what the Presidency should be. Washington refused to be a king or dictator and became a President. He had resigned from the army to be a civilian so we did not have a military dictatorship like that of Cromwell or Julius Caesar. That does not detract from Lincoln. I am now listening to Team of Rivals on disc and realize that it is a great teaching tool on leadership.

A couple thoughts, in passing--

1. Whether a man is a rebel or a revolutionary is usually determined ex post facto, and dependent on whether he was on the losing or winning side. While I have concerns that the people who named schools after Lee were doing so for their own unsavory political reasons in the 1950s, to put Lee the man in the same boat would be a misunderstanding of the man.

2. To liken Julius Caesar to Cromwell as a "military dictator" without context or nuance would be a fundamental misunderstanding of Caesar's life, the context of the collapsing Roman Republic, and of Caesar's own personal ambitions.

(04-18-2014 12:47 AM)75src Wrote:  ...Washington freed his slaves in his will...

Not to go too far off topic, but that does not mitigate Washington's status as a slaveowner. As I recall, his slaves were to be freed after both he and his wife passed, which suggests to me that he was aware of the evils of slavery but not so sympathetic to the plight of the slave that he would compromise his and his wife's comfort and economic prosperity to see his slaves freed.

(04-18-2014 01:29 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  "Crusaders" will be a future victim of mascot wussification.

It's already happened. In fact St. John's School was originally the Crusaders, but that was seen as unsavory and was changed to the Rebels. I think this was in the 60s. As mentioned above, Rebels was changed to Mavericks some time in the 2000s.

(04-17-2014 09:50 AM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  

(04-17-2014 09:42 AM)texd Wrote:  I'm sorry for the sarcasm, but one simply cannot choose to ignore that the entire purpose in so naming schools was to intimidate the black population and poke a finger in the eye of the Supreme Court's rulings on segregation.

Yea, the Democrats were good at that in the 50's.

One stupid partisan statement deserves another.

Yes. The Democrats were in power in the 1950s. Which proves, what, exactly? That somehow naming schools for Confederate generals just to intimidate African Americans in light of recent civil rights victories is okay and therefore we shouldn't bother to amend past wrongs? Or that you also choose to ignore what became of many of the southern Democrats in power as they chose to leave the party they felt had abandoned them on racial issues?

If you want to get into the partisan aspect of this, I'm happy to. You want to point out that Democrats of the 1950s were the party responsible for institutional racism to try to paint the modern Democratic party as institutionally racist. In doing so, however, you ignore all southern political history from the 1948 Dixiecrat nomination of Thurmond through the Southern strategy of Goldwater and into the final trickle of party switching in the 1970s and '80s.

What does that prove about the modern Republican party? Not much. (Hell, even Strom Thurmond has been dead for over a decade, and people were thinking he must be immortal.) But it also shows that your weak attempts to paint the modern Democratic party with the brush of Southern oppression have zero basis in reality. That kind of simple one liner -- "well the Democrats were the ones who did it" -- may work with ignorant masses who are determined to believe that one party is bad in every possible sense of the word, that they're simultaneously racist and overly willing to play the race card, simultaneously communist and fascist, but don't bring that bs here.

(04-19-2014 01:07 PM)texd Wrote:  That somehow naming schools for Confederate generals just to intimidate African Americans in light of recent civil rights victories . . . . . . .

I won't quibble with the rest of your post, but this statement is a little overly simplistic. No doubt many things were obviously done to intimidate African Americans and those who were working with them on Civil Rights.

I can think of a lot of symbolic meaning in the naming of schools that may have been present in the 1950's or 1960's. People are averse to change and that would be one way to express that. I doubt that everyone involved in naming schools were doing it with the intent to 'intimidate'. Out of protest or defiance of the federal government seems more likely.

I also know that statues were erected and schools, streets and buildings named for civil war veterans long before the civil rights era. This was not an entirely new phenomena. And yes, the population of the South had a lot of admiration for their generals and leaders, some who deserved it, and some who had a darker side to their personality.

I understand where you're coming from, but I think taking a 'good or evil' or 'all or nothing' stand on judging people from any era is no better than prejudging an entire group of people because of their skin color or religion.

I don't expect anyone to empathize with virulent racists or lynch mobs. I can't. But I grew up in the 1960's and 1970's and met with and worked with people older than I (we moved to South Louisiana when I was 7). The majority of people were decent people. But I've grown to understand that each culture and generation grows up under different circumstances. The next door neighbor you like and laugh with today, would likely be quite different if he grew up in Nazi Germany in the 20's and 30's, or Selma, Alabama in the 1950's. He may not have been a Nazi or a KKK member, but he would have grown up to survive in a culture where those people existed.

At any rate, I generally do not read anything about Robert E. Lee or discussed anything about Lee with anyone, where the focus was on slavery or his views on African-Americans. That's not true of every Southern leader or general. The South had their war heroes, just as we have them today. Granted our media saturation and our tendency to tear down as well as build people up don't allow for us to create visions of Teddy Roosevelt leading the Rough Riders any more (and warfare has changed), but they existed for Washington, Lafayette and guys like Lee and Grant.

(04-19-2014 02:57 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  I can think of a lot of symbolic meaning in the naming of schools that may have been present in the 1950's or 1960's. People are averse to change and that would be one way to express that. I doubt that everyone involved in naming schools were doing it with the intent to 'intimidate'. Out of protest or defiance of the federal government seems more likely.

Another motivation which I clearly recognized.

But you're right, intimidate may not have been the best choice of words; oppress is more accurate. But maintaining the oppression that was status quo was not exactly a better motivation.

(04-19-2014 05:09 PM)texd Wrote:  

(04-19-2014 02:57 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  I can think of a lot of symbolic meaning in the naming of schools that may have been present in the 1950's or 1960's. People are averse to change and that would be one way to express that. I doubt that everyone involved in naming schools were doing it with the intent to 'intimidate'. Out of protest or defiance of the federal government seems more likely.

Another motivation which I clearly recognized.

But you're right, intimidate may not have been the best choice of words; oppress is more accurate. But maintaining the oppression that was status quo was not exactly a better motivation.

I also think that only a small percentage of the South was violently opposed to Civil Rights. I believe that a much larger portion was uncomfortable with all the change that they could see was inevitable. Change brings uncertainty, and people are uncomfortable with that. Accommodating change takes time. The greater the change and the more people involved the longer the transition.

The change was morally necessary, and on the whole life is much better now than it has ever been. But change doesn't benefit everyone equally, even when it is morally required, and it doesn't come without costs, individually and societally, even when it is morally required.

Change causes stress. I was in a marriage class where they ranked stress inducing events in a person's life. They virtually all involved change and the stress was in proportion to the degree of change. The more events/changes (points added per type of event) that occurred in your life within a given period of time, the almost exponential increase in your odds of undergoing a serious health event or dying. One reason why spouses sometimes die soon after the first spouse passes away.

Not equating societal changes with intense personal events, but just pointing out that there is a stress dynamic involved in societal changes as well. And that human nature is to resist change, even when necessary and good.

I remember Birmingham and Little Rock from the 10 o'clock news, not from history books. I think Rick is right.

(04-19-2014 05:53 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(04-19-2014 05:09 PM)texd Wrote:  

(04-19-2014 02:57 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  I can think of a lot of symbolic meaning in the naming of schools that may have been present in the 1950's or 1960's. People are averse to change and that would be one way to express that. I doubt that everyone involved in naming schools were doing it with the intent to 'intimidate'. Out of protest or defiance of the federal government seems more likely.

Another motivation which I clearly recognized.

But you're right, intimidate may not have been the best choice of words; oppress is more accurate. But maintaining the oppression that was status quo was not exactly a better motivation.

I also think that only a small percentage of the South was violently opposed to Civil Rights. I believe that a much larger portion was uncomfortable with all the change that they could see was inevitable. Change brings uncertainty, and people are uncomfortable with that. Accommodating change takes time. The greater the change and the more people involved the longer the transition.

The change was morally necessary, and on the whole life is much better now than it has ever been. But change doesn't benefit everyone equally, even when it is morally required, and it doesn't come without costs, individually and societally, even when it is morally required.

Change causes stress. I was in a marriage class where they ranked stress inducing events in a person's life. They virtually all involved change and the stress was in proportion to the degree of change. The more events/changes (points added per type of event) that occurred in your life within a given period of time, the almost exponential increase in your odds of undergoing a serious health event or dying. One reason why spouses sometimes die soon after the first spouse passes away.

Not equating societal changes with intense personal events, but just pointing out that there is a stress dynamic involved in societal changes as well. And that human nature is to resist change, even when necessary and good.

But what does this mean to you? That we should accept the actions of those opposed to Civil Rights as "not really as bad as many think they were"?

Fine, but were they right or good? Worthy of our continued acceptance?

I have no problem labeling judging people by today's standards. Saying that Jefferson and Washington, as slaveowners, were perpetrators of evil. Similarly, I have no problem labeling as bad people, and wanting to correct the actions of those who tacitly supported the oppression of blacks because "change made them uncomfortable".

Assuming our country continues on its path of evolving and improving morality, I have a feeling that there will be some commonplace, bourgeouis attitudes of ours that will get the same treatment in the future. Is it our current acceptance of sweatshop goods because they're so damn cheap and make our lives so easy? Profligate energy consumption? Something else, that I'm completely blind to?

Who knows. But because I'm an optimist, I hope that our society's moral standards have improved 50 years from now that we can clearly see folly in our current ways. And act then to correct what we're doing now.

(04-19-2014 11:12 PM)JOwl Wrote:  

(04-19-2014 05:53 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(04-19-2014 05:09 PM)texd Wrote:  

(04-19-2014 02:57 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  I can think of a lot of symbolic meaning in the naming of schools that may have been present in the 1950's or 1960's. People are averse to change and that would be one way to express that. I doubt that everyone involved in naming schools were doing it with the intent to 'intimidate'. Out of protest or defiance of the federal government seems more likely.

Another motivation which I clearly recognized.

But you're right, intimidate may not have been the best choice of words; oppress is more accurate. But maintaining the oppression that was status quo was not exactly a better motivation.

I also think that only a small percentage of the South was violently opposed to Civil Rights. I believe that a much larger portion was uncomfortable with all the change that they could see was inevitable. Change brings uncertainty, and people are uncomfortable with that. Accommodating change takes time. The greater the change and the more people involved the longer the transition.

The change was morally necessary, and on the whole life is much better now than it has ever been. But change doesn't benefit everyone equally, even when it is morally required, and it doesn't come without costs, individually and societally, even when it is morally required.

Change causes stress. I was in a marriage class where they ranked stress inducing events in a person's life. They virtually all involved change and the stress was in proportion to the degree of change. The more events/changes (points added per type of event) that occurred in your life within a given period of time, the almost exponential increase in your odds of undergoing a serious health event or dying. One reason why spouses sometimes die soon after the first spouse passes away.

Not equating societal changes with intense personal events, but just pointing out that there is a stress dynamic involved in societal changes as well. And that human nature is to resist change, even when necessary and good.

But what does this mean to you? That we should accept the actions of those opposed to Civil Rights as "not really as bad as many think they were"?

Fine, but were they right or good? Worthy of our continued acceptance?

I have no problem labeling judging people by today's standards. Saying that Jefferson and Washington, as slaveowners, were perpetrators of evil. Similarly, I have no problem labeling as bad people, and wanting to correct the actions of those who tacitly supported the oppression of blacks because "change made them uncomfortable".

Assuming our country continues on its path of evolving and improving morality, I have a feeling that there will be some commonplace, bourgeouis attitudes of ours that will get the same treatment in the future. Is it our current acceptance of sweatshop goods because they're so damn cheap and make our lives so easy? Profligate energy consumption? Something else, that I'm completely blind to?

Who knows. But because I'm an optimist, I hope that our society's moral standards have improved 50 years from now that we can clearly see folly in our current ways. And act then to correct what we're doing now.

No one is asking anyone for continued acceptance of a wrong condition that existed in the past. My point is to not judge, carte blanche, everyone who didn't live up to our current level of thinking, particularly when we today can't recreate or live in the conditions that existed back then, economically, culturally or technologically . . . . and can't go back in time to give them the conditions in which they might think or react more in line with how we believe they should have.

(On a side note, in judging how different eras view different things. I can't imagine our society today accepting the massive loss of life that it took to keep the Union intact and deal with the issue of slavery to begin with. We are too comfortable and our life expectancy has increased too much. John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry was the 1860's equivalent of us funding the Contras or the Afghan rebels against the Russians, albeit it wasn't government sanctioned. But it was a way to get others to take the risks that we don't deem acceptable.)

I think the South in the 1950's and 1960's was populated by a limited few who were violent racists, another group who were culturally predisposed toward racism, but not 'violent', another group who may not have been anti-Civil Rights, but who had lived with, grown up those in the first two groups and because they were comfortable with their world and the world around them moved slowly toward addressing issues that they were not forced to live with on a daily basis. I think there was a scale, and numerous people fell along all points of the scale. If the sum of those groups wasn't changing over time, we wouldn't be living in the world we're living in now.

Further, there have always been people from the South (Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter as examples at different levels) who have understood, and acted upon relationships that they had with, minority groups.

It may just be me, but I think in general that labeling a majority of people 'bad' or 'evil' is not the most effective way to effect change. I never interpreted Dr. King's methods as requiring that approach, and ultimately that was the approach that won out.

I believe that the race relations have been, post-1960's, and ultimately will be, more successful in the South for a variety of reasons.

I think that change initially took more time in the South, but I also believe that people in Chicago, New York, Boston and other areas had significant racial issues of their own.

Managing change is never an easy proposition. There is no utopia waiting around the corner (economically, environmentally or otherwise). The technology we enjoy, the medical advancements we have made, the comfort we live in (even middle class comforts) all have come at a cost. The population of the U.S. consumes resources at a rate that would require 8 planets to sustain, by some estimates. That is compensated by the fact that a significant percentage of the world's population consumes at a rate that requires much less than 1 Earth to sustain. You may be right about future, smug generations judging our environmental record - - - but the alternative would be to live in a society now that we wouldn't recognize. The change required to move us to even to a number like 2 or 3 on that scale would require such drastic changes that it would impact everyone up and down the line. Frankly, I think it would require a totalitarian state to make immediate changes drastic enough to reduce the consumption to levels the point that those on the extreme side of the environmental side of things would deem acceptable or sustainable.

You may feel that would be a good thing (reducing consumption to 25% of where we are now, not a totalitarian state), and it might. But the changes would or will create incredible stress in our society. The more stress it causes, the longer it will take to effect the change. That's just human nature. Looking for solutions that don't totally change the way our society functions is going to take time.

It also doesn't help when it's perceived that those championing change are less likely to bear the brunt of, or deal with the consequences of, the changes.

(04-20-2014 01:22 AM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(04-19-2014 11:12 PM)JOwl Wrote:  

(04-19-2014 05:53 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(04-19-2014 05:09 PM)texd Wrote:  

(04-19-2014 02:57 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  I can think of a lot of symbolic meaning in the naming of schools that may have been present in the 1950's or 1960's. People are averse to change and that would be one way to express that. I doubt that everyone involved in naming schools were doing it with the intent to 'intimidate'. Out of protest or defiance of the federal government seems more likely.

Another motivation which I clearly recognized.

But you're right, intimidate may not have been the best choice of words; oppress is more accurate. But maintaining the oppression that was status quo was not exactly a better motivation.

I also think that only a small percentage of the South was violently opposed to Civil Rights. I believe that a much larger portion was uncomfortable with all the change that they could see was inevitable. Change brings uncertainty, and people are uncomfortable with that. Accommodating change takes time. The greater the change and the more people involved the longer the transition.

The change was morally necessary, and on the whole life is much better now than it has ever been. But change doesn't benefit everyone equally, even when it is morally required, and it doesn't come without costs, individually and societally, even when it is morally required.

Change causes stress. I was in a marriage class where they ranked stress inducing events in a person's life. They virtually all involved change and the stress was in proportion to the degree of change. The more events/changes (points added per type of event) that occurred in your life within a given period of time, the almost exponential increase in your odds of undergoing a serious health event or dying. One reason why spouses sometimes die soon after the first spouse passes away.

Not equating societal changes with intense personal events, but just pointing out that there is a stress dynamic involved in societal changes as well. And that human nature is to resist change, even when necessary and good.

But what does this mean to you? That we should accept the actions of those opposed to Civil Rights as "not really as bad as many think they were"?

Fine, but were they right or good? Worthy of our continued acceptance?

I have no problem labeling judging people by today's standards. Saying that Jefferson and Washington, as slaveowners, were perpetrators of evil. Similarly, I have no problem labeling as bad people, and wanting to correct the actions of those who tacitly supported the oppression of blacks because "change made them uncomfortable".

Assuming our country continues on its path of evolving and improving morality, I have a feeling that there will be some commonplace, bourgeouis attitudes of ours that will get the same treatment in the future. Is it our current acceptance of sweatshop goods because they're so damn cheap and make our lives so easy? Profligate energy consumption? Something else, that I'm completely blind to?

Who knows. But because I'm an optimist, I hope that our society's moral standards have improved 50 years from now that we can clearly see folly in our current ways. And act then to correct what we're doing now.

No one is asking anyone for continued acceptance of a wrong condition that existed in the past. My point is to not judge, carte blanche, everyone who didn't live up to our current level of thinking, particularly when we today can't recreate or live in the conditions that existed back then, economically, culturally or technologically . . . . and can't go back in time to give them the conditions in which they might think or react more in line with how we believe they should have.

(On a side note, in judging how different eras view different things. I can't imagine our society today accepting the massive loss of life that it took to keep the Union intact and deal with the issue of slavery to begin with. We are too comfortable and our life expectancy has increased too much. John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry was the 1860's equivalent of us funding the Contras or the Afghan rebels against the Russians, albeit it wasn't government sanctioned. But it was a way to get others to take the risks that we don't deem acceptable.)

I think the South in the 1950's and 1960's was populated by a limited few who were violent racists, another group who were culturally predisposed toward racism, but not 'violent', another group who may not have been anti-Civil Rights, but who had lived with, grown up those in the first two groups and because they were comfortable with their world and the world around them moved slowly toward addressing issues that they were not forced to live with on a daily basis. I think there was a scale, and numerous people fell along all points of the scale. If the sum of those groups wasn't changing over time, we wouldn't be living in the world we're living in now.

Further, there have always been people from the South (Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter as examples at different levels) who have understood, and acted upon relationships that they had with, minority groups.

It may just be me, but I think in general that labeling a majority of people 'bad' or 'evil' is not the most effective way to effect change. I never interpreted Dr. King's methods as requiring that approach, and ultimately that was the approach that won out.

I believe that the race relations have been, post-1960's, and ultimately will be, more successful in the South for a variety of reasons.

I think that change initially took more time in the South, but I also believe that people in Chicago, New York, Boston and other areas had significant racial issues of their own.

Managing change is never an easy proposition. There is no utopia waiting around the corner (economically, environmentally or otherwise). The technology we enjoy, the medical advancements we have made, the comfort we live in (even middle class comforts) all have come at a cost. The population of the U.S. consumes resources at a rate that would require 8 planets to sustain, by some estimates. That is compensated by the fact that a significant percentage of the world's population consumes at a rate that requires much less than 1 Earth to sustain. You may be right about future, smug generations judging our environmental record - - - but the alternative would be to live in a society now that we wouldn't recognize. The change required to move us to even to a number like 2 or 3 on that scale would require such drastic changes that it would impact everyone up and down the line. Frankly, I think it would require a totalitarian state to make immediate changes drastic enough to reduce the consumption to levels the point that those on the extreme side of the environmental side of things would deem acceptable or sustainable.

You may feel that would be a good thing (reducing consumption to 25% of where we are now, not a totalitarian state), and it might. But the changes would or will create incredible stress in our society. The more stress it causes, the longer it will take to effect the change. That's just human nature. Looking for solutions that don't totally change the way our society functions is going to take time.

It also doesn't help when it's perceived that those championing change are less likely to bear the brunt of, or deal with the consequences of, the changes.

So given all that, you (and presumably Jimmy Carter and Lyndon Johnson) are all/were in support naming schools after Confederates as a form of protest by the local powers over being forced to accept black children being educated with white children?

(04-18-2014 11:02 AM)Barrett Wrote:  

(04-18-2014 01:29 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  "Crusaders" will be a future victim of mascot wussification.

It's already happened. In fact St. John's School was originally the Crusaders, but that was seen as unsavory and was changed to the Rebels. I think this was in the 60s. As mentioned above, Rebels was changed to Mavericks some time in the 2000s.

Furman University is the Paladins. Some wags have suggested they should be the Furman University Christian Knights instead. But that is not a political correctness issue.

FWIW, Houston Lee opened in 1962 (LBJ was VP), Midland Lee in 1981.