Food for Thought

So, on my walk that I mentioned in the last post, I've been listening to a series of history lectures from the Spring 2006 semester at Berkeley on American history post-Civil War. (Do we have to establish my dorkdom yet again? Yes, apparently we do.) I started listening to the first one this morning, and the professor was discussing the end of slavery and the defeat of the Confederacy at the hands of those slaves, to some degree.

I thought back to a conversation I was having with Bruce last night over dinner. Bruce's parents graciously sat with Caetlin (who was down for the night) and we went out for pizza by ourselves, and somehow we began discussing the dropping of the nuclear bombs on Japan and the effects that they and World War II in general had on Japanese society. As most of the readers know, Bruce took an Asian Studies degree in college and spent 5 years living in Japan before law school, so he's way better informed on this than I am. He made a comment that the Japanese nation was absolutely broken by its defeat in World War II. Imagine- your entire national frame of reference is built on things like your racial superiority (I know Japanese isn't a race, but that's the concept- it went beyond a feeling of simple national supremacy. Deep down, even still, the Japanese people are convinced they are different because they are Japanese), your martial history of invincibility, your emperor being a god sent from heaven to lead your people in battle. All of that, gone within a few years. And they were defeated so thoroughly that that national spirit was crushed.

It allowed the Japanese people to remake themselves into a more capitalistic and less warlike society, very much the Japan we know now. I'm not arguing that this is good or bad, mind you; this is not that debate. But it is foolish not to acknowledge that it IS. Anyway, I commented that, living in a nation founded upon ephemeral ideas, I can't imagine any outside force crushing my national identity like that. I would imagine that for me to feel like the principles on which this country was founded- life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, government for, of and by the people, etc.- were a lie and a sham, something would have to happen from within the country. Maybe the voting into law of a true police state, or something like that. My point was that it would likely be much more difficult for the American spirit, the American national identity, such as it is, to be extinguished like that, and most likely that extinguishment would come from within.

(Stay with me, I'm getting there.)

So, I was thinking of this conversation when I was listening to this lecture, and it seems to me that the Confederacy had its spirit broken in the manner of the Japanese. It was defeated so thoroughly, and the principles of slave owning upon which it was founded were wiped out so completely, that it lost its coherence as a nation. Obviously, individuals continued to believe, which was true, I'm sure, in post-war Japan. But as a confederacy, as a coherent nation, it was broken. Now, you can argue that the Confederacy was founded on principles of state sovereignty, and I am sure that the higher minded thinkers really believed that. But slaveowning was the underpinning of that need for state sovereignty. Also, the defeat was military and economic, as it is in all wars, not just idealistic. The South ran out of food, and materiel, and people. So did Japan. But I'm talking about surrender, not just of the will to fight, but of the very ideals that motivated one to fight in the first place.

Let me say again, since I'm not sure I'm being that coherent (it is early, after all), that many, many people in the south still held those ideals for a long time after the war. But they no longer motivated people to band together and attempt to found a nation. The basis for the Confederacy's identity was gone as a uniting theme.

Does this happen for all unsuccessful revolutions? Would the ideas on which the United States was founded have simply disappeared if the American rebels had lost to England? Would they have just blown away, kept alive by groups here and there who would talk about the things that had motivated them to fight that, in the end, had had so little power? I like to think that the ideals I named above- freedom, democracy, etc.- would have been strong enough to prevail, even if the first go-round had been lost. But who can say?

Anyway, that was what I was thinking about on my walk this morning. Forgive me if it is poorly conceived or unpersuasive, but it does feel nice not to have it rattling around in my head anymore!