How Benedict Arnold went from wartime hero to resentful traitor
weeklystandard.com
weeklystandard.com
Refuted in the same article in the next paragraph. Outside of tabloids I don't know that I've read something more intellectually dishonest recently.
The actual heros of the revolution however shitty by modern ethical standards were building their peice of the only hope for a just world we have. Democracy however shitty we still are is a transition like unto agriculture is necessary for our progress as a species.
He betrayed this for status and gold.
There are two sides of this of course his is just disgusting by present and modern standards.
Nothing in the article made any sort of case for a more complicated explanation.
Had his career trajectory continued upward he would merely be a footnote regarding a successful general.
As an American by birth and upbringing, I really wish that these people would travel and realize: 1) every nation has their "unique and special history" 2) every nation uses that mythology to boost national pride 3) this nationalistic "but we are special" tone only functions for a given domestic audience, given that this is its intended target 4) It therefore contributes NOTHING to international relations & dialogue.
Imagine the silly world of 2018 where Belgians would still go on and on about the Belgian revolution vis-a-vis the Dutch. Get over it. It's literally history.
While the "reformist" historians that the author decries may indeed turn things inside out and distort the lense in an effort to expiate our national sins (which really were sins and shouldn't be defended ad nauseaum) the author himself seems to have divorced himself from any concept of academic dispassionate truth-telling and be actively engaged in defending nationalist propaganda to a laughably obvious degree. The author should visit nations where actual dictators former and present have created similar "Gods Children" mythos and realize the banal stupidity of such a position as adults in a world we all share.
God does not prefer any grouping of humans to another, and most definitely does not approve of politics nor nationalism. God told me this just now, so you can rest assured that it's true.
The author and his myopic defenders may accuse me of being a "Left Wing Radical" (tm) to which I may response "indeed" given another context. In this particular context I'm merely 1) right 2) being the voice of reason in the face of emotional rhetoric defending a belief system with the full force of a religion, quite a dangerous belief system, when you consider that.
Please, no operating heavy machinery under the influence of "I am the son of Amon Ra" nonsense...
"but since patriotism doesn’t have the appeal it used to have, Arnold’s treason seems not to matter as much anymore."
Patria, patriotism, authors particular definition of it, true patriot, false patriot, other interpretations, etc.
Wanker.
I wouldn't, I would just politely disagree, though I wouldn't consider myself a myopic defender of the author (I haven't read the book the article references).
Personally, since you mentioned being an American by birth and upbringing, I think you're in a spot where you're far more sensitive to the sins of those you were closest to.
I've been a conservative for most of my life and have found myself feeling betrayed and disgusted by my own party since Trump, and I'm far more attuned to seeing the flaws of the right now, and has me questioning alot of rhetoric hearing and even repeating during my life. But both parties are inhabited by slicksters and con men who angle for power, and instead of focusing on the fact that both parties have problems, I try to just critically examine my own assumptions and try to give the benefit of the doubt to the opposing side. But when I hear BS from either side, I try to call it as it is.
As far as the article, I didn't read it as proselytizing American greatness, but rather a retelling of why the man's name is so indelibly engraved as a euphemism for betrayal in American culture. I don't think it's a radical claim to admit that there have been a couple of generations academics who have been far more focused on the sins of the founding fathers while at the same time completely ignoring the sins of any individuals who may have been part of the disenfranchised or abused groups. That to me is intellectual dishonesty. I think deifying or demonizing the founders is wrong, but the article didn't strike me as trying to do either but rather trying to tell what's actually a pretty interesting story about a complex person, whose story seems to be simplified by one side or the other.
But perhaps I'm naive, that's for you to decide :)
I read it as a rather damming characterization of the revolution and those behind it and participating in it, in both an ideological and logistical sense. It is an article about how someone generally vilified as a great traitor for his greed might have had more complex motivations.
Do you have specific instances in the article you would like to point out to support your point? Since my interpretation of it is at odds with your assesment of it, I'm left wondering if you actually are addressing the article in question, as your first paragraph seems to to indicate, or if you are just using it as a stepping stone to launch into your own diatribe?
I don't condemn you for holding those views, but I do condemn you for both forcing them into a conversation in a way they don't fit and with such condescension as to be detrimental to useful discussion. To do so implies that the reason for you speaking out was not inform or discuss, but simply to vent ant the expense of others, which is selfish in nature.
Talk about rewriting History! At the time the American Revolution was widely regarded as a sign of progress - remember that no country had achieved freedom from oppressive monarchs in Europe, and the Americas led the way to true democracy. And the Founding Fathers, instead of establishing an aristocracy on their own (which is what most revolutionaries do), created the Constitution and gave power back to communities and states.
Looking at History with the eyes of the modern man is laughable. Progress has to start somewhere.
I think to say there were no benefits to others would be inaccurate, but it would also be completely inaccurate to pretend the good fortune of black peoples, indigenous people, etc were even considered.
Exactly. It _was_ a great movement. It was singular and amazing there were brave people who did incredible things. At the same time: they left a lot of people worse off than they would have been otherwise. Both things are true. It sucks when you want a pure righteous hero to look up to, especially people that ultimately gave us so much. But that's what happened. Nothing honest that we can do looks past that.
First, during the revolution, all slave trade was banned by the new government of the US. And after the war, it became of matter of state jurisdiction: several states went ahead and abolished slavery on their own in less than 10 years following the independence war. Isn't what what you call progress when institutions made it a possibility?
Of course this might seem hypocritical given he indeed did own a substantial number of slaves, but as today the appeal of convenience often outweighs ideology when systems are widespread. For instance Warren Buffet has argued that a larger tax on the ultra-rich would be socially beneficial and I think he certainly does believe that, yet of course he himself does everything he can to minimize his own tax bill in the mean time. On the consumer level, I doubt any of us really support slavery or systems of near slavery yet it rarely stops us from buying Apple products in the near slavery case, or Hershey/Nestle/etc chocolate in the literal slavery case.
On abolition versus the phasing out issue, Jefferson also wrote there. He wanted to phase out slavery and ensure the slaves were skilled, educated, and had sufficient resources to make it on their own. He felt that abruptly abolishing slavery would lead to violence, both from dependent slave owners who would not go peacefully as well as from slaves themselves. He also thought that abrupt abolition would lead to poor outcomes for the slaves as they would set free in a land driven by the merit of the individual with generally minimal to no education, skills, or ability.
To avoid the system you mention where slave owners would simply entrench themselves by 'banning competition', he even proposed the notion of the US government buying slave children for a nominal fee, training them, and then sending them abroad (to Santo Domingo in particular) to make their way as skilled freemen. Essentially, a way to ease the transition from slavery to freedom for slave owners and slaves alike. One must say such a system feels dystopic, yet on the other hand it's interesting to consider whether such an idea would have had a better social outcome in the longrun. The civil war divides of this nation remain to this very day, as does the inequity of the now long distanced descendents of former slaves.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Founding-Fathers-and-Sl...
We have zero tolerance for illegal trafficking or slavery. If we find any evidence of it then we report it to appropriate authorities immediately.
Slavery enables companies such as Nestle to source their resources for costs far below what they would have to pay otherwise. They do so while simultaneously condemning slavery and making some token efforts to combat it. Just enough to keep their carefully crafted public relations positive enough that it doesn't effect their bottom line. Though for what it's worth, I doubt that any of Hershey, Nestle, etc actually 'like' slavery, but they love the profits it enables, and that's undoubtedly been the story throughout much of history.
I started reading this[1] Wikipedia entry. Troubling.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labor_in_cocoa_productio...
Why would US independence, let alone one when numerous founding fathers had written against slavery, be seen as 'regress'? The British Empire would not 'abolish slavery' for 65 years after US independence. The reason I put 'abolish slavery' in quotes is because when the British Empire 'abolished slavery', they specifically excluded various territories, as well as all properties under possession of the East India Company. In other words, it was abolished in regions where it was, more or less, convenient to do so. Had the British Empire retained control of what would become the US, history would certainly have played out quite differently.
All we can hope for is a fair reconstruction when new evidence is discovered, or critical thinking applied where it was previously absent.
Certainly, but the American revolution was just 200 years ago or so, and we have outsiders views like Alexis de Tocqueville who should be regarded as primary source of truth regarding what the Revolution led to, instead of a pullitzer prize professor from 20xx who has never even remotely lived in that period.
If you like contemporary primary sources, there are plenty of letters and diaries documenting how oppressive the revolutionaries were. No surprise that doesn't get covered in American schools, it would get in the way of constructing a national mythology like every newly independent nation wants to do (my own Eastern European country is just as bad).
I also don't quite understand what you mean when you say that the Founding Fathers didn't establish an aristocracy of their own: the first five presidents were involved with writing the Constitution and establishing the Federal government, and the sixth president was one of their sons!
1: https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/05/23/was-the-american-rev...
Of course he also owned slaves along with many other founding fathers, yet institutional ideals and personal action are often detached. For instance Apple products today are produced in factories where workers earn a pittance per day while living in on-site dormitories surrounded by suicide nets. And we can go much more overt as many chocolate treats are produced as a direct product of slave labor which is still rife in West Africa - companies like Hershey and Nestle being some of the biggest sponsors there. And then there's your seafood, or catfood and other seafood derivatives.
Okay all that aside, another big point is that the United States' original view was one of an extremely minimal federal government. States would essentially be similar to nations in terms of sovereignty, but united under a single flag for collective defense and other necessities. Slavery remained a major issue throughout the founding of the country. The Republican party was actually founded in large part as the anti-slavery party. Founded in 1854, the party's first president would be elected in 1860 - Abraham Lincoln.
Imagine Musk, and SpaceX, succeeds in their mission to colonize Mars. And Mars ends up electing its own representatives. Who do you think they might pick to the highest role available? That a people are highly reverent of the people that lead them towards progress has nothing to do with aristocracy.
[1] - https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Founding-Fathers-and-Sl...
Yeah, there's a word for that: hypocrisy.
For some, living any part of the system is hypocrisy or cognitive dissonance. For others, it's trying their best to live towards their ideals while also understanding that progress is a constant journey. And for some, it's a mix of both.
Being human and flawed isn't unique to any one person or group. It's the default, and I tend to think that those who throw hypocrisy towards others should eliminate it from their lives first. I have yet to meet a single person who has done that, and even the extreme ascetics or saints engage in some form or other. Armchair quarterbacking someone else's hypocrisy a few centuries after the fact seems even harder to pull off without at least some level of humility towards our own institutional blindness.
If we're all guilty of hypocrisy in some form or another, and we all struggle with it, and the person your describing is dead and can do nothing to change that fact, what is actually the point?
I mean, there are times hypocrisy is overt and blatant, and times when it's subtle and we don't see it in ourselves. In those times, I think it should be called out on, and even historically, it can be useful to make the distinction between outright deceit and phoniness to cognitive dissonance to just being unaware.
With Thomas Jefferson, or most people from the past, I can't know which part of the spectrum of hypocrisy they fell on.
I think it's fair for you to be honest and point it out, but it's so often used as a pejorative statement without any nuance into the relative ways in which we could easily be talking about ourselves.
But again, I don't say any of this to try to defend or deny the sins of those in the past, those should be discussed frankly and out in the open.
It’s bizzare to me that the author would attribute the woeful ignorance of Benedict Arnold to our achieving some sort of enlightenment about the “dark and sordid” truth of the revolution. I’m actually somewhat gobsmacked at the ignorance and lack of perspective demonstrated... we’re talking about breaking away from the British Empire, who spent the next hundred years or more oppressing millions in India, China, Africa and Ireland.
If this is a demonstration of the rigor of Ivy League academia, that’s the real story here.
And America has oppressed millions of _its own people_ for ~200 years. I don’t see what your point is.
Good grief, why are we even having such a conversation?
"but your genocide was worse than our genocide"
Learn to separate rhetorical devices, propaganda for the working classes via the free public education system, and actual historical facts and context.
Let's just say that altruism and moral purity haven't been high on the political values pile anywhere that power relations are exercised. A little less "my precious" will help in a dispassionate and accurate analysis.
Not totally true [1].
To see something that most would agree as progress, you’d have to consider a much larger time period, over a much wider demographic than the founding fathers managed to consider.
Possibly the most neckbeard thing you can write. Race and gender matter. To ignore that is to say that they don't. But, this article is celebrating a white man ignoring both those things?