repost of SPIELBERGS LINCOLN....RATIONALIZATION

I recently went to the Spielberg movie about the last few days of Lincoln’s life.  It turned out, at least for me, to be a story about one man’s fight to remove the practice of slavery from the relatively new republic of the United States of America. 

In today’s world it’s difficult to know the difference between fact and fiction when watching that type of presentation because of the propagandic state of our society.  We seem to be pummeled by point of view rather than the facts and we tend to react like a herd of mental sponges soaking up whatever is spilled in front of us.  Real or fiction this movie did make my mind whir with a multitude of questions and observations, so many in fact that it is hard to settle down and approach my thoughts with any real sense of order. 

(part one) POLITICAL PASSION

I was struck by the passion that Spielberg’s depiction attached to the congressional members involved in the conflict, and the effort put forward by the Executive as well, and the depth of purpose behind that effort.  The passion depicted was not that of party politics but of morality, a passion of the right thing to do versus a status quo.  In this portrayal I saw distinct differences between imagination of what may have been at that critical juncture and the faux political discourse our government bodies indulge themselves with today.  The struggle to achieve true emancipation has been an ongoing problem in our country.  This enactment shows the torment involved not only during the Civil War itself but that of our President to achieve a purpose worthy of that war.  Politicians in today’s government do not exhibit (as a whole) the resolve of purpose in addressing the needs of our country.  Rather it is the political stage play that will coerce the public into choosing their party over the other in the next election cycle.  Unlike the times in which the Lincoln era politicians seemed to be aided by strong public sentiments forcing them to act, our politicians are acting and reacting to sentiments of our society that are persuaded and provoked.  Their goal seems to be re-election rather than the success of our great nation.

The United States of America, a republic formed under the banner of the Declaration of Independence, had existed in the presence of hypocrisy.  Economics had created the need for rationalizing among the slave owners and in order to fill their needs the slaves needed to be de-humanized.  Support for that rationale is and was impossible to find.  Slavery has been a part of humanity as long as man has been a territorial being, but in most instances the slaves were regarded to be human beings.  Our country has always been filled with beliefs flowing from fear and fiction but in the end our collective conscience brings us to differentiating between right and wrong and a confrontation of fact.  Lincoln was the figure put in place to help power that confrontation.  The struggle of conscience for a society holds a definite similarity with our own individual conflicts of right, wrong, good or bad.  If there is something we want we will rationalize enough good to counteract any wrong involved grabbing our goal.  Conscience will eventually be impacted by our choices and to lose that part of our being, as a person or as a society, is loss humanity cannot survive.  The Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the 13^th Amendment to the Constitution, were not just about right and wrong they were needed for the survival of our conscience, the victory of fact over rationalization.

(Part two) NATIONAL RATIONALIZTION AND PERSUASION

I look at some of the similarities and divergence of our moral pendulum today versus that time (the Lincoln era) in our history.  Perhaps a different conundrum, different rationalization, but still about right and wrong and the rationalizations required to deny the existence of humanity.  That instance would be regarding the fetus as no more than, as one proponent of abortion stated, road kill.  The abortion question allows for rationalizations on a major scale and the enormity of it will certainly cause a fracture of conscience within our society.  Part of our society has decided to enforce and strengthen the argument in favor of all forms of abortion with the rationalization(s) of women’s rights, the dehumanization of the unborn, the inability to afford, and a mother’s health (this is an unending list of why’s). 

The supporters of abortion use those rationalizations as speaking points accusing opponents as being against women in general and specifically against a woman’s right to control and care for her own body.  The two aspects, a woman’s rights and the rights of the unborn, are never really viewed as equal points of morality by those in favor of abortion.  Disregarding the presence of human DNA at conception as the beginning of a human life makes it acceptable to take away the life of the unborn child.  Rationalization and denial of fact makes it easier to hide the conflict of conscience involved in the act of abortion.  Rationalization circumvents logic when one tries to use the argument that women have the right to choose.  The choice is no less than condoning the right to murder any other human being in similar circumstance. 

Logic dictates continuity and the logical argument might go as follows:

 It is illegal to take the life of another human being except in the protection of another life.

A fetus is a human being with all the potential and rights of humanity because of the existence of human DNA.

Therefore it is illegal to take the life of a human fetus excepting in the case of saving the life of another human.

Seems so simple excepting when the insertion of partial truth mixed with rationalization components are put into the mix. 

Human beings are able to think and to act on those thoughts

Fetuses are unable to think  (supposition?)

Therefore fetuses are not human

Therefore it is legal to terminate their existence

We are all too often forced back by arguments filled with innuendo, political correctness and name calling when we should be demanding the argument be conducted with fact and logic.  The removal of these two components allow for propagandizing and fabrications that support the factually unsupportable.  The facts may not be readily available and in the case of deciding at what point in time human life exists that is certainly true.  Belief structure calls the shots in these cases and they are swayable in all directions in favor of what one wants to believe.

 The one similarity that I am able to put together in the depiction of the time of Lincoln and today is that passion is weighted in favor of morality questions and has little to do with the facts.  Morality is something that can be directed in societies through the beliefs put forward through the education of the children.  Conscience can be dampened by indoctrination and propaganda.  To quote, "As a man thinketh, so he is."

To expand the thought, "as men thinketh so goes their society".  It is truly each mans responsibility not to accept the thoughts of others, but to seek truth.