Re: MSNBC on Lincoln and Darwin

John Harshman <jharshman.diespamdie@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

John Wilkins wrote:
John Harshman <jharshman.diespamdie@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

John Wilkins wrote:
Steven L. <sdlitvin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

raven1 wrote:
On Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:40:14 -0700 (PDT), "Rodjk #613"
<rjkardo@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/143742
A very interesting article, but a bit parochial in its conclusion that
Lincoln was the more significant figure: unsurprisingly, Newsweek
conflates influence on the history of the US with influence on the
world at large.
Lincoln kept the United States from splitting apart into two less
powerful countries. And for the last 100 years, no nation has had a
greater influence on the world than the United States. Thus, Lincoln's
impact on the world was enormous.

Just more indirect.

World history these last 100 years would have gone VERY differently, if
the South had successfully seceded during the Civil War. "Alternate
History" sci-fi writers have had a field day working out possible
consequences of a Southern victory; see, for example, "Bring the
Jubilee" by Ward Moore.

The 20th century was truly an *American* century for the whole world.
Lincoln helped to make that possible.
Come on. Marx was far more significant for the twentieth century than
Darwin and Lincoln combined.
All these questions are silly, because history is much more complex than
we can work out. But that doesn't stop me from playing.

It's a fun game, not unlike Calvinball...

I think John has
made a good case that Marx was not more important. U.S. importance has
outlasted Marx's importance by quite a bit, so far.

You think? People in China, Russia, Nepal, Vietnam, Peru, Angola, and a
slew of other nations might beg to differ.

Surely you don't imagine that Marx has any remaining influence on China.
Russia? What? Dustbin of history, sez I.

You'd be wrong. Marx is still very popular in the Russian Federation.
Maoism is still very popular in the PRC. Both philosophies are
influential in a host of developing and developed nations. The mayor of
Nazareth is a Marxist, I gather.

Part of the problem here is
measuring "importance". Had America not existed, or become some kind of
social democrat state like the rest of the Europeans did eventually,
some other state would have opposed the Marxist states (probably Germany
alone or in conjunction with Britain). But Marx's influence would,
individually, remain way more important than Lincoln's.

Certainly he managed to get more people explicitly acknowledging him as
their guru. But is this how we measure influence? But of course you go
with the philosopher.

No, I am thinking more of his influence via ideas rather than as a
banner. For instance the economic infrastructure idea; alienation; the
notion of a class struggle. All these ideas remain live, even if they
were not necessarily originated by Marx, in virtue of his writings. It's
something of a myth that he became left behind after the fall of Soviet
communism; in fact that may have served to revive him.

Understand that I am not promoting Marx here. Some of his ideas are OK,
most are crap (particularly the historical interpretations). But as I
said recently in a talk, when somone said my points were Marx's (on
religion): just because an idea was Marx's doesn't make it wrong.

Or, if you like political leaders, try
Queen Victoria,
What, you mean her hemophilia gene crucially weakened the Russian
monarchy at a critical point? She was hardly a political leader; Prince
Albert was more of a leader, and he didn't do much.

She didn't as an executive agent, sure, but her role in influencing the
greatest empire of all time was perhaps more significant than anything
Lincoln did. As a result the path of central Asia, Africa, the Pacific,
east Asia and an island off the south coast of Papua New Guinea were
changed immensely. Had she not been monarch (say, that silly Edward VII
had) the effect would not, I am convinced, been nearly as great.

Whatever was her role that caused all this? Silly me, I had thought that
her various governments were responsible. What did she contribute that
was comparatively more than the U.S. flag, a nicely symbolic piece of cloth?

Read up on the Raj sometime, and Vickie's role as empress of India. A
figurehead can still be wildly influential (vide supra, re: Marx)...

Gladstone, Bismarck, Emperor Meiji,
Bismarck, conceivably. You will have to explain what Gladstone and
Meiji did that was so important. The Meiji Restoration was certainly
important, though not as important at the maintenance of the Union. But
it happens without Meiji, as long as there's an emperor willing to go
along.

Meiji was, I understood, a moderniser (unlike prior emperors and
shoguns). As a result Japan was able to industrialise and modernise its
armed forces and thus start the expansionist policies that led to the
Pacific war.

And it's true he was more hands-on than any of his successors. But he
was also fronting for a group of industrialists and politicians with the
same views.

No surprise there. Lincoln was fronting for a group of similar people.

Glastone was able to modernise the British armed forces, thus making it
able to expand its influence, and also later on to resist Germany. He
also disengaged from African expansionism, particularly the Mahdi Army
conflict. He also began the institution of regional parliament in the
Reprublic as it is now of Ireland, leading to conditions that made
independence possible.

All very nice, but hardly more than Lincoln did, even if true, which I
would contest.

all of whom had
equal or greater downstream effects than Lincoln, who really affected
rather minimally one country - his influence in race relations didn't
flower until much later, so he's best remembered for keeping the union
together, and I think that would have been achieved even if Lincoln
hadn't been president.
Possibly, since there would have been no secession, at least in 1860, if
he hadn't won the election. (Which is a big effect right there.) But the
south was headed either for secession or for eventual loss of their
"peculiar institution", and they weren't blind. But would federal power
have increased as much or as rapidly without Lincoln?

Hard to say. Given that the popular mood in the north was abolitionist,
which is why Lincoln was elected in the first place, it very probably
would have come up sooner or later.

I'm not sure that's true. The longer we limp along without a
confrontation, the relatively weaker the south gets, and the less
federal power needs to expand to resist secession. And a weaker
president, on the other hand, might have allowed the south to depart
peacefully, as Buchanan was perfectly willing to do. Without Lincoln, is
there even a Republican congress to impeach him?

No idea. It's your piece of history, not mine. But that is, rather, the
point...

Darwin's influence is greater than Lincoln's, but even he won't have his
full effect until ordinary culture assimilates the Darwinian revolution,
and that will take, I think, as long as it took for Copernicus'
revolution, around 200 years or more.
I'm not sure even that is true. Without Darwin, evolutionary biology
starts fairly soon, even if nobody notices Wallace. And evolutionary
biology's major effect on real life would seem to be its stimulus to
molecular biology.

Well there is also the very large impact it has had on non-scientific
thought. Darwin inspired many thinkers, including Peirce, Dewey, James,
Royce, Nietzsche, Whitehead, Freud, Jung, economists of the right,
economists of the left, Boltzmann, and so on. So it's rather
disingenuous to say that he had little effect on real life.

I don't know that any of this has had all that much effect on life.

Typical scientist - deny that non-science has any influence. As usual,
it's false, too...

Moreover, I think that many elements of modern evolutionary biology
would have been much later without Darwin, especially the development of
comparative psychology of emotions and cognition. So Mach, Lorenz,
Piaget, Tinbergen, and so on are all later developments.

We'll never know. Darwin certainly did a lot. But "much later"? He
certainly didn't found ethology. It had been noticed that animals have
behavior quite a bit earlier than that.

Expression of the Emotions is the founding document of ethology. Nobody
else wrote anything remotely as good until the 20thC, and even then
without EotE they would not have done as well.
--
John S. Wilkins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Philosophy
University of Queensland - Blog: scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts
"He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor,
bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious."

.

Relevant Pages

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  • Re: MSNBC on Lincoln and Darwin
    ... conflates influence on the history of the US with influence on the ... Lincoln kept the United States from splitting apart into two less powerful countries. ... And for the last 100 years, no nation has had a greater influence on the world than the United States. ... World history these last 100 years would have gone VERY differently, if the South had successfully seceded during the Civil War. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: MSNBC on Lincoln and Darwin
    ... Lincoln was the more significant figure: ... conflates influence on the history of the US with influence on the ... Darwin and Lincoln combined. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: MSNBC on Lincoln and Darwin
    ... Lincoln was the more significant figure: ... conflates influence on the history of the US with influence on the ... Darwin and Lincoln combined. ... Glastone was able to modernise the British armed forces, ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: MSNBC on Lincoln and Darwin
    ... Lincoln was the more significant figure: ... conflates influence on the history of the US with influence on the ... Darwin and Lincoln combined. ... You will have to explain what Gladstone and Meiji ...
    (talk.origins)