Comments on: An Effective Analogy http://cwmemory.com/2006/05/21/an-effective-analogy/ Where History, Heritage, and Education Intersect Sat, 11 Feb 2012 15:29:25 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Hiram Hover http://cwmemory.com/2006/05/21/an-effective-analogy/#comment-4410 Hiram Hover Tue, 23 May 2006 18:51:53 +0000 http://cwmemory.com/2006/05/21/an-effective-analogy/#comment-4410 <p>I'll confess that I'm not that impressed with Blair's hypothetical here, for several reasons. </p> <p>1. The question about homeownership is being asked of kids/young adults, and not of a range of adult men–who are the ones who participated in elections that involved questions of slavery and sectionalism before the Civil War.</p> <p>2. One reason the difference matters is because of the question of future expectations. You're asking this question about homeownership of relatively privileged high school/college kids in a society where homeownership is a normal and expected part of the life path for people like them. Slaveownership was not the normative condition of adult white men in the antebellum South. The kids of slaveowners might have wanted and expected to follow in their parents footsteps. But esp. by the 1850s, rising slave prices made it very hard for those who didn't already own slaves to break into the ranks of slaveowners–even if they wanted to do so. That inability, in turn, could lead to frustration and resentment that might not make a non-slaveowner into an abolitionist, but could easily give him reason to cast a suspicious eye on political ideas and programs designed to defend other men's ownership of slaves. (Here, the question isn't whether non-home owners do or would storm the tax office to protest the deductibility of interest on home mortgages. The better analogy is to ask how they'd respond if homeowners proposed to destroy the federal union after the election of a president who supported the "ultimate extinction" of the home mortgage interest deduction.)</p> <p>3. The homeownership analogy also writes the possibility of moral and political objections out of the picture. The premise is that of course these kids want to become homeowners–there may be financial obstacles to buying a home, or practical reasons it's not advisable (don't buy now because of a housing bubble, or because you might leave the area in a year or two), but there's nothing politically or morally objectionable about homeownership per se–it's hard in modern America even to imagine what those objections might be. But of course, that was hardly the case with slaveownership in antebellum America. I'm not suggesting that most non-slaveowning white Southerners objected on moral or political grounds to slavery, but it seems unwise to start off with a teaching technique that effectively excludes such possibilities from the start.</p> I’ll confess that I’m not that impressed with Blair’s hypothetical here, for several reasons.

1. The question about homeownership is being asked of kids/young adults, and not of a range of adult men–who are the ones who participated in elections that involved questions of slavery and sectionalism before the Civil War.

2. One reason the difference matters is because of the question of future expectations. You’re asking this question about homeownership of relatively privileged high school/college kids in a society where homeownership is a normal and expected part of the life path for people like them. Slaveownership was not the normative condition of adult white men in the antebellum South. The kids of slaveowners might have wanted and expected to follow in their parents footsteps. But esp. by the 1850s, rising slave prices made it very hard for those who didn’t already own slaves to break into the ranks of slaveowners–even if they wanted to do so. That inability, in turn, could lead to frustration and resentment that might not make a non-slaveowner into an abolitionist, but could easily give him reason to cast a suspicious eye on political ideas and programs designed to defend other men’s ownership of slaves. (Here, the question isn’t whether non-home owners do or would storm the tax office to protest the deductibility of interest on home mortgages. The better analogy is to ask how they’d respond if homeowners proposed to destroy the federal union after the election of a president who supported the “ultimate extinction” of the home mortgage interest deduction.)

3. The homeownership analogy also writes the possibility of moral and political objections out of the picture. The premise is that of course these kids want to become homeowners–there may be financial obstacles to buying a home, or practical reasons it’s not advisable (don’t buy now because of a housing bubble, or because you might leave the area in a year or two), but there’s nothing politically or morally objectionable about homeownership per se–it’s hard in modern America even to imagine what those objections might be. But of course, that was hardly the case with slaveownership in antebellum America. I’m not suggesting that most non-slaveowning white Southerners objected on moral or political grounds to slavery, but it seems unwise to start off with a teaching technique that effectively excludes such possibilities from the start.

]]> By: elementaryhistoryteacher http://cwmemory.com/2006/05/21/an-effective-analogy/#comment-4409 elementaryhistoryteacher Tue, 23 May 2006 05:09:10 +0000 http://cwmemory.com/2006/05/21/an-effective-analogy/#comment-4409 <p>This is a fantastic analogy. I've always struggled with the fact that my own dirt poor ancestors fought for the south yet owned no slaves. This analogy puts it into perspective why they would sacrifice so much for a section of society that kept them at bay.</p> This is a fantastic analogy. I’ve always struggled with the fact that my own dirt poor ancestors fought for the south yet owned no slaves. This analogy puts it into perspective why they would sacrifice so much for a section of society that kept them at bay.

]]> By: Lee White http://cwmemory.com/2006/05/21/an-effective-analogy/#comment-4408 Lee White Tue, 23 May 2006 02:02:33 +0000 http://cwmemory.com/2006/05/21/an-effective-analogy/#comment-4408 <p>I like it, in fact Im going to use that one in my World of the Common Soldier talks this summer at Chickamauga. Thanks for posting that one Kevin. </p> I like it, in fact Im going to use that one in my World of the Common Soldier talks this summer at Chickamauga. Thanks for posting that one Kevin.

]]> By: David Woodbury http://cwmemory.com/2006/05/21/an-effective-analogy/#comment-4407 David Woodbury Mon, 22 May 2006 19:41:55 +0000 http://cwmemory.com/2006/05/21/an-effective-analogy/#comment-4407 <p>Kevin,</p> <p>The home ownership analogy sounds like a pretty effective way to bring the point "home" to students. It's also effective to speak of the percentage of slave owners in terms of families, as in, about 25% of Southern families owned slaves. That, more accurately, suggests how pervasive the institution was. Not everyone in the family will be listed as a slaveowner in the census, but the notion of "ownership" went far beyond the head of the household. </p> <p>David</p> Kevin,

The home ownership analogy sounds like a pretty effective way to bring the point “home” to students. It’s also effective to speak of the percentage of slave owners in terms of families, as in, about 25% of Southern families owned slaves. That, more accurately, suggests how pervasive the institution was. Not everyone in the family will be listed as a slaveowner in the census, but the notion of “ownership” went far beyond the head of the household.

David

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