Isegoria

Imagine that you had fallen asleep in 2005, Foseti suggests, and stayed asleep until 2150:

Further assume that when you woke up in 2150, everyone loved the Iraq War. Not just Rumsfeld-style liked it, but f—ing loved it. They loved it so much, that if you dared to question the righteousness of liberating the Iraqis from bondage, you’d be considered unfit for civil conversation. Intellectuals in 2150 prove their intellectual-ness by signaling to each other they support the Iraq War more than other people. In other words, by 2150, mainstream opinion on the Iraq War would be such that Donald Rumsfeld in 2005 would — by 2150 standards — be considered only moderately pro-war.

Regardless of what you think about the Iraq War in the present day, you’d have a pretty low opinion of history as practiced in 2150.

That’s how he sees our modern understanding of the American Civil War:

The easiest way to understand how retarded the modern view of the Civil War is, is to read two short speeches by Charles Francis Adams. These are easy because they’re short and well-written and Mr Adams is an impeccable source — he fought for the Union and he is a great historian. The cracks in the official story become clear because Adams position on the war would — by modern standards — make him a rabid defender of the South. Unfortunately, for the modern and official story, he fought for the North.

Adams defends Virginia’s decision to secede. He believes Virginia decided to secede in defense of its understanding of the Constitution (see Moldbug’s analysis of abolitionism above). He also comes to believe that his own understanding of slavery was severely lacking (I still think Genovese’s book, linked above, was the best on this particular issue). I think it would have been virtually impossible to live through reconstruction and not believe that it was a complete tragedy.

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