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avramI’ve been thinking about politics.
OK, I’ve been thinking about politics for, um, the past eight years or so, ever since I noticed the extreme right wing was attempting to— well, I can go into that some other time. Today I’ve been taking a longer view, trying to figure out what issues will seem important hundreds or thousands of years from now.
Think the burning issues of our day will still be burning? Think abortion and gun control will still be hot-button issues? Here are a couple of major political issues of the 19th century for comparison:
Slavery: You’ve heard of this one, and you’ve even got an opinion about it: It’s bad, right? If you grabbed a hundred random Americans and asked if any were in favor of slavery, the only raised hands would be from jokers or maybe a crazy person. Didn’t used to be that way, though. If you went back 150 years and grabbed a hundred random people and asked them the same question, you’d get arguments and fights, just like you do now over abortion and gun control. But here we are, seven generations later, and it’s glaringly obvious to all of us that one side was Just Plain Right and the other Just Plain Wrong.
Free Silver: I like this even better as an example. If you asked a hundred random Americans how they felt about bimetallism, I’m sure at least ninety of them would have no idea what you were talking about. But this was a big issue of the late 19th century, especially of the 1896 presidential race. A century later and most people have never even heard of the issue, need several paragraphs of explanation before they can even understand what it was about. (Debt, mostly. Inflation is good for debtors, bad for lenders. There’d been an economic collapse in 1873 that had left a lot of people in debt.)
As far as I can tell from some editorial cartoons of the era (scroll to the bottom of that Vassar page), it was also about antisemitism, at least on the Pro-Silver side.
OK, I’ve been thinking about politics for, um, the past eight years or so, ever since I noticed the extreme right wing was attempting to— well, I can go into that some other time. Today I’ve been taking a longer view, trying to figure out what issues will seem important hundreds or thousands of years from now.
Think the burning issues of our day will still be burning? Think abortion and gun control will still be hot-button issues? Here are a couple of major political issues of the 19th century for comparison:
Slavery: You’ve heard of this one, and you’ve even got an opinion about it: It’s bad, right? If you grabbed a hundred random Americans and asked if any were in favor of slavery, the only raised hands would be from jokers or maybe a crazy person. Didn’t used to be that way, though. If you went back 150 years and grabbed a hundred random people and asked them the same question, you’d get arguments and fights, just like you do now over abortion and gun control. But here we are, seven generations later, and it’s glaringly obvious to all of us that one side was Just Plain Right and the other Just Plain Wrong.
Free Silver: I like this even better as an example. If you asked a hundred random Americans how they felt about bimetallism, I’m sure at least ninety of them would have no idea what you were talking about. But this was a big issue of the late 19th century, especially of the 1896 presidential race. A century later and most people have never even heard of the issue, need several paragraphs of explanation before they can even understand what it was about. (Debt, mostly. Inflation is good for debtors, bad for lenders. There’d been an economic collapse in 1873 that had left a lot of people in debt.)
As far as I can tell from some editorial cartoons of the era (scroll to the bottom of that Vassar page), it was also about antisemitism, at least on the Pro-Silver side.
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(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-29 04:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-29 05:59 am (UTC)Slavery:
First, if you had some kind of way of ensuring that your hypothetical survey group would answer truthfully, I'm pretty sadly sure that you wouldn't get unanimity. Hell, I'm not sure you would get it polling the senate.
Second, while the question of slavery itself is functionally settled, there are a whole host of inseperable issues which burn rather brightly: reparations, of course, but also mandatory prison work gangs, continuing illegal slavery of undocumented immigrants (not low wages -- no wages), and the recent disenfranchisement effor in Kentucky all spring right to mind.
Bimetallism is a little more settled, but goldbugs still flit around, some disturbingly close to the corridors of power. And as for modern progeny, the debt/deficit question is (as Keynes taught) congruent, as is the federal long-term interest rate, and the drive to make other countries float their (government backed) currencies is a kissing cousin, at the furthest.
And as for other bugaboos of that era:
Immigrant hysteria: Check. Mexican instead of Irish, but the same damn thing.
American Imperialism: Check.
Public Education: Check.
In fact, I think that abortion and gun control will live on, either as themselves or as SF versions of themselves (A person's right to control their pseudo-womb, and terminate their genetically-tailored semi-clone if they so choose; gun control, laser gun control, railgun control, antimatter nonproliferation...)
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-29 07:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-29 08:03 am (UTC)The other big debates were over the tariff and "internal improvements," federal spending on roads, canals, etc. Again, the terms of the debate have changed a bit, but the issues are still important.
I think the terms of the debate depend a lot on the scientific consensus of the era. When that consensus changes radically, the debate will radically shift as well. Scientific racism dominated 19th-century discourse, and it helped justify American slavery and (later) the Jim Crow laws. Now that "scientific racism" has been completely discredited, slavery and segregationism have lost their public defenders. On the other hand, protectionism is no more popular among economists than it was in 1860, and the issue is still with us.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-29 08:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-29 10:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-29 10:25 am (UTC)