By now the rollicking storm instigated by perceptions gleaned from an article written by the president of Emory University has hit full stride. James W. Wagner is accused of writing an article for the university's magazine in which he praised the ability and willingness of the signatories to find common ground to agree to the 1787 three-fifths compromise. The three-fifths compromise established that slaves could be counted as three-fifths of a person to determine how much Congressional power Southern states would have.
Naturally, the president's intent was completely missed and detractors, students and other unhappy people attacked him accusing him of racism. Others with cooler heads have criticized him for decisions that the university has made regarding the cutting of budgets for programs that were popular with minority students. This may very well be true, so I won't comment on that. But what I am disappointed at is the lack of a critical view of the president's article itself. Many of the students who are complaining against the president ascribe, unbeknownst to them probably, to Presentism, the theory that holds that only events and entities that occur in the present truly exist. For a very good paper on Presentism, read Ned Markosian's "A Defense of Presentism."
In the mind of many, Dr. Wagner's crime was to mention the three-fifths compromise. Looking at it, I can see what he was trying to say and at the very least he was trying to direct attention to this document and the relevance of the EFFORT to reach a compromise, not THE legality that it promulgated. Anger obfuscates the vision of many, and here we see a good example of that. Perhaps Dr. Wagner could have used a more politically (and some would say, historically) correct example, but would his intent/point been more accurately received? Probably not and this goes again to the point that we are struggling with these days: people make judgements of the past using the standards and mores of today. This leads to misunderstanding, misplaced anger and a dismissal of history itself.
Dr. Wagner has much work to do and it is too bad that his article has generated such a firestorm (I am reading Salman Rushdie's excellent memoir Joseph Anton and his situation, for me, is eerily similar to the text produced by Dr. Wagner, although on a completely different scale with horrendous consequences). I just hope that the pertinent issues are resolved in a timely and safe manner. But more importantly, I wish people would regain the ability to respond, not to react.
Naturally, the president's intent was completely missed and detractors, students and other unhappy people attacked him accusing him of racism. Others with cooler heads have criticized him for decisions that the university has made regarding the cutting of budgets for programs that were popular with minority students. This may very well be true, so I won't comment on that. But what I am disappointed at is the lack of a critical view of the president's article itself. Many of the students who are complaining against the president ascribe, unbeknownst to them probably, to Presentism, the theory that holds that only events and entities that occur in the present truly exist. For a very good paper on Presentism, read Ned Markosian's "A Defense of Presentism."
In the mind of many, Dr. Wagner's crime was to mention the three-fifths compromise. Looking at it, I can see what he was trying to say and at the very least he was trying to direct attention to this document and the relevance of the EFFORT to reach a compromise, not THE legality that it promulgated. Anger obfuscates the vision of many, and here we see a good example of that. Perhaps Dr. Wagner could have used a more politically (and some would say, historically) correct example, but would his intent/point been more accurately received? Probably not and this goes again to the point that we are struggling with these days: people make judgements of the past using the standards and mores of today. This leads to misunderstanding, misplaced anger and a dismissal of history itself.
Dr. Wagner has much work to do and it is too bad that his article has generated such a firestorm (I am reading Salman Rushdie's excellent memoir Joseph Anton and his situation, for me, is eerily similar to the text produced by Dr. Wagner, although on a completely different scale with horrendous consequences). I just hope that the pertinent issues are resolved in a timely and safe manner. But more importantly, I wish people would regain the ability to respond, not to react.
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