[lit-ideas] Songs from the Civil War
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2012 22:39:09 -0400 (EDT)
"Down by the Riverside" has a long history. Ancestral versions were known
in [American] Civil War times. It was sung by slaves in the American South.
The line "I ain't goin' to study war no more" perhaps originated about this
time.
Gonna lay down my burden,
Down by the riverside,
Down by the riverside,
Down by the riverside.
Gonna lay down my burden,
Down by the riverside,
Down by the riverside.
Chorus:
I ain't go study war no more,
study war no more,
ain't go study war no more.
I ain't go study war no more,
study war no more,
ain't go study oh war no more.
Gonna lay down my sword and shield
Down by the riverside...
Chorus
Gonna try on my long white robe
Down by the riverside...
Chorus
Gonna try on my starry crown
Down by the riverside...
Chorus
Gonna put on my golden shoes
Down by the riverside...
Chorus
Gonna talk with the Prince of Peace
Down by the riverside...
Chorus
Gonna shake hands around the world
Down by the riverside...
----
Palma notes that 'flying' is related to 'rolling'.
We are considering Geary's utterance,
"Who gives a flying fuck why the civil war was fought?"
In a message dated 6/8/2012 4:29:44 P.M. UTC-02,
lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
"Geary of course doesn’t really mean “Who gives a flying fuck why the
Civil War was fought?”"
"Having lived most of his life in the South"...
"a battle re-enactment."
"So what does Geary really mean? I invariably guess wrong but perhaps
Speranza can help us out a little more. Speculating about what Geary means is
one of his favorite hobbies."
I think Geary once said that Memphis is not "the South". I'm not familiar
with all the boundaries. There's Dixie, I know of, etc.
I think Geary suggested in the post where he also wrote, "Who gives a
flying fuck why the Civil War was fought?", that there were other issues which
were relevant, so let us analyse his words in context:
In that post, signing, "Super Patriot", Geary wrote:
"I'm not a historian, as you well know."
Note the distinction:
"as you know"
"as you well know".
When is 'well' a nice addition to 'know' and when isn't?
"Know thyself", the oracle at Delphi said. Cfr. "Know thyself WELL". Note
that 'you' in, "as you well know" is interesting. It means, a reader to
THIS. One of Grice's maxims, one of his most otiose, is,
"Do not say what you may perceive your recipient knows already":
"I'm no historian; you knew this well".
-----
So, the gist, in Geary's irony is in the word, 'historian', which is mostly
abused. Geary IS a historian -- and he well knows it.
When I say 'historian' is misused, I mean that what most people think a
historian is, is a PROFESSOR of history, rather.
There are two senses of 'history'. One as in:
The history-1 of the civil war. --- This relates to the FACTS.
Another is:
The history-2 of the civil war. Or, as I prefer, "The Civil War: A
History", by --- A historian.
Here, 'history-2' relates to the NARRATION of the facts.
Note that Geary means, "I'm no historian-2" for anybody is a historian-1.
----
"But I do know that 600,000 men died in the civil war."
------
Note the contrast: what you may well know (that Geary is no professor of
history) and what he, qua historian-1, knows: a figure of 600,000 victims to
the civil war. The emphasis by Geary is on the FACT that 600,000 men died,
NOT that the 'history'-1 was retold as history-2.
Geary continues:
"Of course that's pretty lame compared to how many Vietnamese we killed for
no reason (3 million)"
Here the implicature is that there WAS a reason for the Civil War. And that
that reason (or reason-1) in a way "explains" the figure of 600,000 -- if
it does not JUSTIFY it.
Geary is playing with the idea, and contrasting it, of a JUST war.
He contrasts the Civil War which, for some REASON-1, was fought, and which
gave 600,000 dead men, with the 3,000,000 Vietnamese killed "for no
reason".
----
Geary is being provocative in that he is sure that for some historian-1 or
historian-2 there was a reason-1 or reason-2 why the War in Vietnam was
fought.
---- "Reason" is a pet word for Grice. The 'reason' the bridge collapsed
was that it was made of cellophane (is his example). Reason-1, when applied
to history-1, makes sense. Similarly, a historian -- of history-2 may
ascribe a reason-2 to an event. This is better called a 'rationalization'. The
reason why we won the war, or alternatively lost it, for example.
Note incidentally, the covering metaphor to it all: what is pretty LAME.
That there were 600,000 victims to the Civil War, which was fought for some
reason is PRETTY LAME compared to another 'war' fought for no reason with
more human victims.
Geary continues:
"or how many died in WW2 and WW1."
Ritchie may agree with me here that I prefer to use the expression Great
War for what Geary calls WW1 and similarly, although provocatively, I use
"Phoney" War to mean WW2. I never use WW1 and WW2, because it's historians'-2
jargon, never historians-1' jargon. For surely those who fought in the
Great War never knew there was a second world war coming two decades after it.
Geary then philosophises:
"Humans (males) just seem to have this lust for killing. Look what fun is
going on now in the Middle East. Why do we males love killing so much?
Well why shouldn't we? We're animals, after all. Who gives a flying fuck why
the Civil War was fought?"
In the context of the utterance, the reasoning seems to be:
NOBODY gives a flying fuck why the Civil War was fought. Because MALES like
to kill. And so, given an opportunity to kill, males will engage in it.
How Palma's "rolling" relates is yet another implicature.
The reasoning by Geary is expanded with further premises, and conclusions:
"[The Civil War] was fought and it gave those males at the time a great
outlet for their frustrations."
----- In so expressing, Geary is expanding and providing a reason for the
male desire for violence. It is an outlet for the male frustration (or
something).
He goes on to provide a further meaning to
'Civil War' -- it can have a historically fixed meaning, as when L. Helm
uses.
Geary writes:
"Most whites think we've freed the blacks from slavery."
The use of 'think' by Geary seems to implicate that Geary thinks that that
assumption is _false_. (Cfr. "Most whites KNOW that we've freed the blacks
from slavery"). Cfr. "ALL". "We all KNOW that we've freed the blacks from
history". WHAT IS _entailed_, rather than implicated, by Geary's utterance
is that
HE knows
that
SOME whites DON'T think that "we"'ve freed the blacks from slavery" --
implicated: as a result of the Civil War.
The furthering of the meaning "Civil War" to mean something other than the
historically narrow interpretation is in Geary's final segment in the post:
"And yet most whites don't realize what slaves they are to the super rich.
That's the Civil War I'm looking forward to."
------ As an exercise, confront all uses of 'civil war' from Julius Caesar
onwards, and with uses as per Geary: 'the Civil War I'm looking for'.
And so on.
Cheers,
Speranza
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