[lit-ideas] Re: media violence
- From: John Wager <johnwager@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 26 May 2004 13:53:27 -0500
Ursula Stange wrote:
>. . . . Whose history is the most 'true'? I've never lived
>in the South, but I suspect that the history of the civil war looks
>different there than it did in Chicago.
>
FINALLY a question I actually know something about! I grew up in north
Florida, graduating from high school in 1964.
I took American history and "Civics" in high school from an excellent
teacher, and I actually remember quite a bit of both. I remember that
there was NO MENTION of "The Civil War" in any of our textbooks whatsoever!
Oh, we did study Grant and Lincoln and Lee and Gettysburg and Atlanta
and reconstruction. But the term "Civil War" NEVER appeared. What DID
appear was the term "The War Between the States." This is still a live
issue in the South, and was partly what the war was fought over: Were
the "United States" individual sovereign states which had voluntarily
associated with each other like the "United Nations" in a way that
retained individual states' sovereignty, or was the "United States" a
single entity with primary sovereignty residing at the Federal level.
Calling the war a "Civil War" implies acceptance of the "Northern" view
of sovereignty: There is ONE entity, the "United States," and parts of
that single entity are at war with other (internal) parts. A "civil"
war. But in Florida in 1964 the people in charge of textbooks thought
that the "Southern" view was still correct: The war was fought between
various sovereign states that had the right to go their own way when the
voluntary association with the "United States" proved harmful.
My point here is that THIS is history, both ways. Students need to know
BOTH viewpoints. History isn't just one "true" picture, it is a mosaic
of clashing colors.
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