WI Crippler
DP Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 10, 2006
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- Centrist
Tucker, your label says "very liberal", did you notice that? I'm fairly sure it said something else last week.
You're not going to change your gender too are you?:stooges
You're going to have to be more vague than that; there's definitely plenty of events and issues in American history to be positive about, but there are also definitely plenty to be negative about. You're question is way too vague; it's like asking "what's your opinion of history?" It's pretty much unanswerable.
Tucker, your label says "very liberal", did you notice that? I'm fairly sure it said something else last week.
You're not going to change your gender too are you?:stooges
Overall, I'd have to say negative. I'll go into more detail when I have time, I gotta run ATM though.
Did you notice the elephants under my name?:lol:
Last month I was "very conservative" with donkeys. :2razz:
Basically, there are odd little things I do to amuse myself.
Thats why the options are "overall". It does take into account that you are going to have both positive and negative feelings for specific instances. What the question is asking, is when you weigh the positive against the negative, where does your overall opinion stand on the scale.
Actually I think it's been like that for a while. I was surprised to, I thought it use to say moderate or something. Of course you know my position on moderates.Tucker, your label says "very liberal", did you notice that? I'm fairly sure it said something else last week.
You're not going to change your gender too are you?:stooges
Going into more detail now:
I picked "overall negative" based on the way that I weigh the negatives and positives. The biggest negatives in US history outweigh all the positives in my eyes because of their "atrocity" factor. The two biggest, IMO, are the genocide of the native population and slavery.
Slavery was "rectified" in that it was made illegal, but that isn't a positive by my way of viewing things so much as it is a "return to neutral". Nothing can be done to erase the genocide. There were other things that happened in our history as well that I feel overshadow the "good". Japanese internment camps, Jim Crow, the a-bombs, the Tuskeegee incident etc.
The reason why these things overshadow the positives is that our positive history is primarily with ideas specifically in the realms of philosophy, economics, science, politics etc, while our negative things all deal with human beings being murdered, maimed, downtrodden, subjugated, etc.
In my view of the world, these negatives will always surpass those positives because human beings, individuals, matter more to me than concepts or material things.
Now, since the question that was asked refers to opinions about our past, I have to lean towards the side of negative overall because of what was affected by the positives and negatives.
Now, if the question was "How do you feel about the US's over all historical influence in the world: positive or negative" I would say that since concepts, inventions, and such have more overall positive influence globally, that I have a positive view overall of the US's historical influence on the world.
But since it was just "past" in general, I took all factors into account, including my own system of weighing positives and negatives. Obviously actions directly taken against people, be they positive or negative, have the highest weight in my personal views. We've got more negative than positive on that front by a lot. That skews my view towards the negative.
I can't believe this, I actually believe you have a decent point for once.I understand what the question is, which is what my response was directed at. Like I said in my previous post, it's like asking "Overall, what is your opinion of history?" It makes no sense because it's so vague that it's meaningless. Am I supposed to compare the rise of Fascism in Europe and the development of workers' rights in the United States, for example, and say "overall" how it makes me feel? What would even be the point of that?
It seems to me that this thread is either for American patriots or "anti-Americans," both of which suffer from the mistaken conception that America is some kind of monolithic entity to be supported or opposed; in reality, the history of the United States is so complex and so diverse that the question becomes meaningless.
I dislike the mass murdering of Native Americans; I like the civil rights movement. Overall, how should that make me feel?
Moreover, what is the point in passing a post-judgment on history? I understand the idea of studying history to determine how we have got where we are at currently, and also studying it to learn how to act today, but I do not see a point in asking whether a given historical event was "good" or "bad".
This is pretty much the rationale behind my vote.
It seems to me that this thread is either for American patriots or "anti-Americans," both of which suffer from the mistaken conception that America is some kind of monolithic entity to be supported or opposed; in reality, the history of the United States is so complex and so diverse that the question becomes meaningless.
I'm neither an American "patriot" nor "anti-American" but I think I was able to answer it without any real problems.
Its a more specific question than "how do you feel about history" because it is limitted to the US.
I mean, if someone asked "Do you have a positive or negative view of the historical Catholic Church" most people would have a legitimate answer, even though there is a longer frame of reference for discussion there.
The same is true here. It's not difficult to weigh out the positives and the negatives and how you feel about them in order to determine your overall feelings about the US without having to become anti-American or a Super-patriot in the process.
Asking me to compare the immigration of the Pilgrims to the conquest of the Native Americans to the abolishment of slavery to the development of industrial unionism and the development of workers' rights, to the shooting of students at Kent state, to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to Shays Rebellion, etc.. is like asking me to compare apples to oranges, pineapples, bananas, carrots, ad infinitum. It's just not possible.
And I think that people that think they can do that have a very specific education in American history, and a very specific idea of what American history is. I know, for example, that when I was taught about early American history in gradeschool I was simply taught about the military history and the politics of the Revolution. When I was in uni one of my professors asked us to write down 10 people from this era in American history that weren't a political or military leader and I think I came up with 4 or 5. That really opened my eyes and was the start of me pondering what history actually is, and why I was taught specifically what I was taught. Obviously, I went back and read up extensively on this period regarding other aspects of the era, and it gave me a completely different conception of the time.
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