I love the way we tied the problem of slavery in the
mid-nineteenth century – the abolition of which can seem like an obvious moral
necessity from our modern standpoint – to present day issues such as global
warming. I think it’s helpful (for
understanding Lincoln) to acknowledge the existence of problems that clearly
have obvious and immediate moral imperatives, yet are frustratingly entrenched,
and are seemingly impossible to solve from a practical point of view. In this way, a study of Lincoln becomes
highly relevant to the most pressing issue of our own time. We can see the same types of movements
emerging. There are those in favor of
immediate and drastic change - who are often denounced as radical and
impractical, even though they are undoubtedly right as the severity of the
problem – as well as those that simply deny the existence of a problem
altogether, and a whole assortment of positions in between. I’m not sure Lincoln gives us any clear
insight into the present crisis, but perhaps by understanding the reality of
such overwhelming problems we can better appreciate Lincoln.
It is fascinating to use slavery as a study for how to deal with our current issues. I think, noting that Lincoln was killed before reconstruction really began, you are right that he doesn't give us much incite on the process of making a change work. He freed the slaves, and the rest was left up to those after him. That would be like outlawing cars and suburban/rural living to reduce carbon emissions. Enacting it seems to require impractical means, analogous to the Whig idea of colonization. The most we can take from Lincoln's case is that planning and managing changes on such a large scale is of utmost importance. Additionally, Lincoln may have been at fault for his beliefs about gradually change, but there is wisdom in recognizing that such huge changes can not be successfully executed quickly.
ReplyDeleteIn particular, a gradualist political strategy that aims at incremental progress and then returns for more later is singularly unworkable with climate change, since chemistry and physics don't negotiate. Perhaps this would have been an effective strategy had we begun strongly in the 1970s (Carter began by putting solar panels on the White House, for example, but Ronald Reagan took them down), but now we're just getting started when it may already be too late. For that matter, gradualism turned out not to work on slavery either, and it is a very open question whether it could ever have.
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