Brainstorming about history, politics, literature, religion, and other topics from a 'gypsy' scholar on a wagon hitched to a star.
The editorial writer Choi Sang-yeon ("Try Roh's way," JoongAang Daily, June 1-2, 2019) attempts to distinguish two Lincolns:
Lincoln was a skilled politician who attained emancipation rather than being a "great liberator."The trouble with this statement is that it does not clearly state any opposition between emancipation and liberation. In fact, they are surely synonyms.
Labels: Slavery
posted by Horace Jeffery Hodges @ 6:39 AM
2 comments
I am a retired professor. I last taught at Ewha Womans University, mostly composition, research writing, and cultural issues, but also the occasional graduate seminar on Gnosticism and Johannine theology and the occasional undergraduate course on European history. My doctorate is in history (U.C. Berkeley), with emphasis on religion and science. My thesis is on John's gospel and Gnosticism. I'm also an award-winning writer, and I recommend my novella, The Bottomless Bottle of Beer, to anyone interested. I'm originally from the Arkansas Ozarks, but my academic career -- funded through doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships (e.g., Fulbright, Naumann, Lady Davis) -- has taken me through Texas, California, Switzerland, Germany, Australia, and Israel and has landed me in Seoul, South Korea. I've also traveled to Mexico, visited much of Europe, including Moscow, and touched down briefly in a few East Asian countries. Hence: "Gypsy Scholar."
2 Comments:
Does Choi Sang-yeon have a distinction in mind that is clearer when expressed in the Korean language?
Possibly, but my wife wasn't sure about that.
I think what Choi probably meant was that Lincoln was not especially interested in freeing the slaves, but in keeping the Union together. Only when Lincoln realized that the Union could not exist half-slave and half-free did he turn against slavery and issue the Emancipation Proclamation. He was never an abolitionist, never a liberator.
At least, I suspect that Choi was thinking about this view of Lincoln. He just didn't express himself well.
Jeffery Hodges
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