Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
The Soul of Governance: Trump in Context
I joined Ricochet many years ago with the intent to post on a series of my favorite paragraphs/passages from my, unfortunately, delayed thirst for reading. (The site seemed much more intellectually curious back them. Alas, yesterday shows just how untrue that is today. But I digress.) While I did get distracted along the way, here is an opportunity to present another one.
Leading up to the following events, Secretary of War Stanton had leaked information from a secret cabinet meeting to the press to distance himself (and the cabinet) from the mighty General. He also “quoted selectively from Halleck’s letter to him and added some words in Sherman’s orders to his cavalry, leaving the impression that Sherman might have been bribed with Confederate gold to sign an easy peace and let Jefferson Davis escape the country.” (Pages 344-345, emphasis added) Then the review of troops in Washington, DC:
Coming into Lafayette Square, Sherman rode over to the side of the street toward the front of the house that served as the army’s headquarters for the defense of Washington. Secretary of State Seward, who was still recovering from the knife wounds he received during the attempt to assassinate him, had been brought there to watch the parade. Sherman brought his horse to a halt and “took off my hat to Mr. Seward, who sat at an upper window. He recognized the salute and returned it.” Finally, as Sherman came to the presidential pavilion and the other grandstands, with the bands striking up “Marching Through Georgia,” the New York World said, “The acclamation given Sherman was without precedent…The whole assemblage raised and waved and shouted as if he had been the personal friend of each of them…Sherman was the idol of the day.” When he entered the pavilion after dismounting from his horse in the White House grounds, everyone was still on his feet to welcome him. Witnesses would differ on whether Secretary of War Stanton extended his hand to Sherman or simply nodded in greeting but, in a historically memorable instance of one person “cutting dead” another, Sherman walked past Stanton as if he were not there. He shook hands with President Johnson and every other member of the cabinet, Then, to loud applause, he and Grant greeted each other warmly. – Page 389, Grant and Sherman (The Friendship that Won the Civil War) by Charles Bracelen Flood
The layers of symbolism around the salute to Seward. The clear admiration by the masses despite the attempts by insiders to manipulate otherwise through the press. More deliberate symbolism with the President and most of the cabinet. And the victorious generals together. Oh, yes, I cannot not forget the deliberate and very public snubbing of a principal Executive Branch office holder right in front of Stanton’s boss, the President. (In fact, right in front of all of Sherman’s “bosses” too.) And no one says a thing. Simply magnificent.
I cannot help but tie this episode to more modern context through the mindset established by Victor Davis Hanson in The Soul of Battle. In it he presents the concept of an “Army of a Season” and how certain times and events in history may dictate that such an entity emerge from the people and fight back the evils that threaten that people. As for the leaders of such entities (Think: Sherman and Patton):
These marchers of a season must be led by ruthless and gifted men who are often of little use in a peacetime democracy but find their proper authoritarian and aristocratic calling only as absolute rulers of an armed citizenry. Yet much of their bluster and avowals to make the enemy “howl,” to turn the countryside into a “sheep-walk,” to kill the “bastards,” was the necessary veneer to their more subtle strategy of indirect approaches… …a strategy…so misunderstood by fellow commanders and politicians weaned on [more typical] Western tradition…” (Page 11, emphasis added)
I will let you translate terms like “peace time” and the examples of “bluster and avowals” to our more current example on you own. If you are not the type to take the Democrat impeachment narrative as dictated from their script at face value, I think you can handle it.
If you do not see our current situation as the direct descendant of the Tea Party of the Obama Era that was dismissed and met with condescension from our greater Ruling Class…and was organized against by the weaponized forces at the control of the Executive of all the people (A very classy twit, after all.) then you just haven’t been paying attention. Furthermore, if you don’t see Mr. Trump as the leader of that descendant of the Soul of Liberty…a leader the emerged from outside the failing system much as Sherman (and Grant) emerged from the west with new tactics and approaches that were effective in the battle for more liberty when the tired old ways of the Potomac (i.e. McConnell, er, I mean, McClellan) had failed over and over again…then you do not understand the “battle” we are in.
As such, Trump has his Stantons. And in some departments, it is Stantons all the way down…extending also to the media and those planted (both actively and as volunteers) in neighborhoods like this to gaslight the narrative and pre-plant the talking points as required. (As I commented yesterday via a quote from Andrew Brietbart: “This is Dadaism. … It doesn’t make sense unless you understand what they’re doing.” NOTE: If you pay attention, you can see what they are doing.)
As part of this Soul of Liberty, it is incumbent on us (i.e. those in neighborhoods like this) to see and spread not only the truth but rationality and intellectually honest/consistent debate. This involves actual thinking and not accepting without proper scrutiny the scripted narrative blared at us through the media and slipped to us in conversation. A few quick examples from yesterday’s local conversations:
1) When the situation exists where an investigation of rampant corruption in a foreign country shares a significant domain with the President’s political rivals, it may not be wise to accept the narrative about “digging up dirt on his political rival” when the very same action would constitute a valid, responsible action as part of his job. Maybe you should ask why there is so much overlap in names associated with that situation and why so many want to distract from that perspective of the story.
2) When terms like “subpoena,” “executive privilege,” and “whistleblower” (the list can go on and on) are thrown around with wild abandon…especially by elected officials and pundits but also by on-line neighbors…don’t automatically assume that they are being used correctly or that they have any significance in the context they are being used. Also note when someone has it explained to them by a smarter neighbor but refuses to acknowledge the education only to return with that same point over and over again.
Finally some advice: Watch out for the nonsense. (P.S. It is all nonsense.)
That is all for now, my morning coffee is wearing off and I need a nap. For most of you, your feedback is very welcome…
Published in General
Well, upon further review, I intended to have a third example in that list at the end:
3) When someone spouts off about a 40 seat loss in off year elections that swings control of the House as an “epic repudiation” of the president, don’t assume they have a clue what they are talking about or that they have done any real, rigorous analysis on the topic. Also, watch for them to continue to reuse that same talking point well after it has been pointed out that the point has no merit.
I am a great fan of Sherman and have shelves in my library of books on him. The dispute with Stanton began with Sherman making an effort, with his old enemy, Joe Johnston, to prevent the bitterness and real risk of guerrilla war by concluding a “soft peace” as Lincoln had told him a week earlier. Johnston wanted Sherman to meet with the VP of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens, who had been a Whig congressman before the war. He would be Governor of Georgia in later years. Sherman tried to follow Lincoln’s direction but he did not know of Lincoln’s assassination at the time.
Stanton was a real radical abolitionist and was devoted to punishment of the Confederates, contrary to Lincoln’s plan. After the assassination by a southern sympathizer, all hell broke loose. Staton accused Sherman of treason in newspapers. The antipathy to Sherman, seen here recently in another commenter, is misplaced. He opposed war in a famous letter to southern friends.
In a 24 Dec 1860 conversation with David Boyd, one of his professors at the Louisiana Seminary [which would later become LSU] regarding South Carolina’s secession, Sherman is reported to have said:
“You, you the people of the South, believe there can be such a thing as peaceable secession. You don’t know what you are doing. I know there can be no such thing. … If you will have it, the North must fight you for its own preservation. ”
https://civilwartalk.com/threads/william-t-sherman-warns-the-south.95202/
He fought the war with no mercy but once the war ended, he believed as Lincoln did that it was time to treat the defeated as fellow citizens once they had sworn allegiance again.
Much of the post war hostility, and possibly the origin of the KKK, is the consequence of Stanton and his desire for vengeance.
The Soul of Battle was my first real exposure to Sherman and, I think, it put the man in the perfect context. (I need to follow up with more on him…recommendations?) I followed that up with Grant and Sherman by Flood. That led me into Grant and now I have “shelves” of books on him. I have said it before, but not only is the “history of Grant” important but the “history of the history of Grant” is critical to understanding the ways and motives of our progressive friends.
Thank your this well drafted analysis and thoughtful, pertinent analogy. I’m from the VDHanson school of thought that there are no new stories and our current iteration seems to me to be a reminder of that. It’s a source of a certain amount of sadness, however, to have demonstrated exactly how poorly educated and ignorant the post-Boomer age group (whence Rep. Schiff, Strzok, Page come) is. They really do think they are unique and extra special. The impulse to strive for power at any cost and using any means is hard wired in humanity. We are currently watching the PBS version of Wolf Hall – Cromwell, Woolsey and Norfolk and even Seymour and Boleyn make Pelosi, Schiff et all look like pikers. They really knew how to manipulate and connive and execute a policy of betrayal and retribution. (Maybe that’s not such a bad example: they all show the potential for failure in the case of overreach.) Finally, it’s not for nothing that DKGoodwin called Lincoln’s cabinet a Team of Rivals and characterized Lincoln as a political genius. (Otherwise not a fan of Goodwin, but think this is exactly right.) So I’ll say that your comparison of Trump to Lincoln goes pretty deep I think.
Very true, and very sad, to me. I joined it years ago because it was brimming with intellectual curiosity as well as fine writing.
The fact that its character was intellectual wasn’t a coincidence, of course: Ricochet was created for conservative conversation.
The word “conservative” has several common definitions in use. In this context, it denotes “liberal”, both in the cultural sense–valuing the Good, the True, and the Beautiful–and the ideological–favoring the development of society in the direction of ever greater respect for universal individual human responsibility, freedom, and dignity.
And liberal in both of these two ways implies intellectual curiosity.
Thus, you can’t engage in conservative conversation unless you are (at least) aspiring to be (at least) a part-time, recreational intellectual. Of course, we had true full-time intellectuals as authors.
So Ricochet was created exclusively by the intellectually curious, exclusively for the intellectually curious. It was the modern analogue of a middle-brow 19th century journal, a magazine. One consumed mainly by [possibly just aspiring] part-time, recreational intellectuals who existed in vast numbers in the Anglosphere purely because of the Industrial Revolution.
It occupied a niche that suited me better than, say, the Clarion. It was a bit lower-brow, and I’m a bit lower-brow than the Clarion. I didn’t much study the Classics, for example. I didn’t read much poetry, so I don’t get the classical allusions. I like looking them up, but that requires patience. I’m not always patient enough.
I still love Ricochet, just not as much now. On a sunny day after a dry spell, when the hatefulness is not overflowing the banks of its waste containment ponds and polluting Ricochet, it’s just like the old days.
For the record, and as one who thinks such modified labels are at best just marketing by soulless campaign managers and at worst counterproductive (Compassionate Conservative? WTF?) so I am hesitant to play along (but, golly, all the cool kids are announcing their preferred political labels these days), I shall henceforth be known as a “Liberty First Voter.”* (Use of the term “Republican” is not appropriate since I quit being one of those after the 2014 R Senate run-off in Mississippi (Never Forget Mississippi 2014!) and I am moving away from the term “conservative” since any brain dead Arizona Democrat to the right of AOC now claims some level of conservative-ness.)
* In a pinch I will also allow “Constitution First Citizen” or “Constitutional Republic First American Man.”
His Memoirs, which were controversial at the time since they were the first by a major figure.
Basil Liddle Hart’s biography. He also has a book on “The Indirect Approach” which is, I believe, based on Sherman’s strategy.
https://www.amazon.com/Sherman-Soldier-Realist-American/dp/B07YPLX4L7/
Her “Bully Pulpit” is not bad but the rest is leftist junk.
I spend quite a bit of time at Chicagoboyz. I posted a biography of Coolidge there some years ago. Quite an eclectic site.
I like Klavan’s “Friends of the Founding” label.
I missed the latest kerfuffles. I try not to engage with people impenetrable to reason, although I sometimes get sucked in. But, really, life’s too short for such concentrated nonsense.
Me too, but it’ll never be like the time before The Schism. This place used to be lively with ideas.
The site is still lively with ideas. I don’t see a difference. Some people were terminally pissed off that writers on the site were too pro-Trump, and some quit because it was too anti-Trump. So? That’s what happens when we fight things out on the internet.
There was a wonderful, forgotten conservative play called “Stonewall Jackson’s House” (1997) by Jonathan Reynolds that had a couple of great lines putting down the conformity of academia.
“We can’t use you any more.”
“But I thought you said you wanted controversy?”
“We wanted the kind of controversy that everyone agreed with”.
I’d hate to see Ricochet use that as its guide.
For the record, intellectuals, even merely aspiring, part-time, recreational intellectuals, only use language to truthfully communicate ideas. We use class nouns to only to refer to real or imaginary classes of classes or instances. We never use them for marketing. We always use them productively, our product being the communication of an idea to another person.
You are confusing conservative conversation with what has partially replaced it. It’s opposite.
Would that were true. (Do I detect
elmsarcasm?)Definitions matter, so let’s agree that an intellectual is one whose vocation is work that is purely, or at least predominantly, of the mind. That definition fits all common usages, I think.
Definitions should also account for common distinctions: while a master’s candidate in English Literature is broadly held to be an intellectual, Richard Feynman and Stephen Hawking are in general not. That’s because their work, although each a stunning achievement of the intellect, was based in observable physical reality. Their work was of the Universe, not merely of the mind.
So an intellectual is not held to any standard of proof, at least none that Feynman or Hawking would recognize. Human beings being what they are, most intellectuals fail to resist the lure – they lie. Intellectual (big “I”) work can only be transmitted by persuasion, never by proof.
Now, my personal definition of lying is to address another’s mind directly without reference to, or deliberately obscuring, physical consensual shared reality. So I say all intellectuals are liars, and most of them lie deliberately.
Here’s an example: Unlike 99% of Ricochet, I’m pro same sex marriage. But the other side is right when they are repelled by condemnation of (their) opinions that in the current joke phrase, everyone held until, oh, fifteen minutes ago. Yes, I think you should change your mind; no, I’m not surprised you haven’t.
I’m repelled by self-appointed conservative police who condemn as traitors and stooges people who hold the same opinions they had most of their lives, and the same opinions that nearly everyone in the conservative movement went along with until, oh, fifteen minutes ago. Yeah, Jonah Goldberg and Reason Magazine have stuck to their guns and refused to go along with Trump’s changes. On a lot of these (endless warfare, suspicion of trade deals that make American manufacturing an endangered species, all the illegal immigration the GOP’s big boys in agriculture want), I agree with Trump. But I’m not surprised that Goldberg didn’t cave in and give up the Old Time Religion of capitalism, and I’m not disappointed in him for that, much less blame it on cocktail parties, social pressure, and the usual yada-yada that is supposed to explain how come they haven’t changed.
philo,
You know I just love Uncle Billy,
How much they wanted him to run. He had enough of war and enough of the political swamp. He was happy with Grant as President. Such a good man. Such a good man.
Regards,
Jim
I also came across this one while skimming through my books this morning…while passing through Richmond on is way North for the review referenced above:
[emphasis added]
Just imagine such a message today. (For those not familiar, Halleck was the President’s Chief of Staff.)
Sherman was often accused of Southern leaning because of family ties and his friendships from his time in Louisiana. The notion that he was soft on the Confederacy would have come as a surprise to those living in Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, and South Carolina at the time.
Lincoln was a better politician than Trump and operated in a vastly more vicious and difficult environment: Succession, a world-class collection of egos in his own cabinet, wide disagreement about the future of the nation. The daily reality of being trashed on Twitter the NYT and MSNBC and having to deal with the petty amoral stylings of Pelosi and Schumer pales in comparison.
I think Sherman does not get enough credit for his role in solidifying Lincoln’s reelection in 1864 with his bold attack on Atlanta (and a big shoutout to George Thomas for keeping the western Confederate army at bay while Sherman did so.). Lincoln carried New York by less than one percentage point and Pennsylvania by one-and-half. If the peacenik McClellan had won, God knows what would have happened to the country.
Yes. To make it clear to the reader what idea we are referring to, if we use a word with more than one definition in common use, we need to supply the definition that we are using.
For example, I made it clear that my definition, for the purpose of this discussion, of “intellectual” does not refer to a vocation: it doesn’t imply that being an intellectual is the work of the person, only his activity:
You replied:
I think you meant, lets’ disagree. Let’s replace the definition I gave with yours.
I agree, let’s do that.
Now I must withdraw my argument, because it no longer conveys the idea I was trying to convey.
The definition I offer (a worker of the mind without objective constraint) doesn’t have to be limited to a person’s primary vocation. One may be a part time or recreational intellectual. But I can’t agree that intellectuals are particularly partial to truth, but rather the opposite:
People who aren’tWork that isn’t regularly checked by objective reality tends to drift away from it.For those even remotely interested, I now look back and see I did a poor job of expanding on the “Army of a Season” concept. While I touched on the styles and characteristics of the leaders, I should specify that these are composed of democratic soldiers and these “armies of liberation” did “not start the wars or wish it to begin” and their purpose was “to save not take lives, to free not enslave, and to liberate not annex ground.” And when the job is done they dissolve/recede very quickly back into the citizenry and their leaders do not use this success to strive for greater power. This is a natural characteristic of the greater American Spirit, and as usual, VDH puts it well:
Thus, the Tea Party of 2009-2011. Largely leaderless but very successful in eliminating the immediate threat (total progressive control of DC). Unfortunately, the custodians of that victory were at best spineless and worthless…and at worst just a slightly different shade of that same anti-liberty beltway creature the Tea Party opposed. So it re-emerged as quickly as it had disappeared and chose a leader for their Army of a Season.
Seasons only last so long. Interesting the forces inside this perimeter that oppose that righteous spirit. Wonder what Sherman (or Grant) would have done with them?
For those who did not take the bait in my opening paragraph, here are a few of the passages I have highlighted along the way:
And for those really curious, there is a bonus passage on Grant and the Army of the Potomac buried in the comments of the first one listed above…the punchline of which is rather apropos of our current leader: His actions are “a tonic like no other.”
Halleck was also a back stabber masquerading as Sherman’s friend. Sherman did not discover how Halleck had used him until years later. Halleck was a McClellan type, all plans and theory.
Bad plans and bad theory.
If they’d had a good theory then they would have been successful.
McClellan’s theory was analogous to the theory of the political/economic establishment, that since long-term economic growth results from more saving and investment, it follows that at every point in time, more saving and investment is better.
All else equal, more drilling right now, rather than more attacking right now, means better fighting when the fighting starts. But all else is never equal in war, nor in an economy.
At some point, you’ve got to stop making food, or exporting goods that you made, and sit down and eat, or you will starve, albeit with a high level of accounting net worth. At some point, you have to stop training and fight. That point comes when there is a comparative advantage. If you are already better than the enemy at fighting, and getting even better, but the enemy is getting better faster, you are better off not getting any better, and just fighting now.
That’s real good theory. It always works better.
Choice is ultimately about messy, disruptive progress and growth versus carefully controlled predictable planned shortages.
I think that’s pretty profound!
Accidents happen.
Keep the miracles coming.
Liddell Hart’s book on Sherman, written in the 1920s, is the best. He called him the first “modern” general for his use of maneuver and the telegraph and railroads.