Word: argumentation
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...would be replaced by studies of the ocuvre of Rigoberta Menchu. In residential life, we would have houses devoted to every possible ethnicity and sexual orientation. The dining halls would serve junk food instead of their nominally healthy offerings. (I admit that this last example may actually undermine my argument...
This whiny argument may sound compelling at first, but it makes a major omission. It fails to distinguish between different possible governing frameworks. It runs on the assumption that this University runs along democratic lines...
Supporters of the proposal try to avoid this argument by arguing that the cause of the Confederacy would not be honored by the memorial. Robert Shapiro, the committee head, claimed that the proposed memorial would only honor "individuals as Harvard students." But it is impossible to divorce the Confederate war dead from the context of their struggle...
Another common argument is that Harvard should memorialize Confederate soldiers because a Nazi soldier has been honored in Memorial Church. On the surface, this is the old but surely false "two wrongs make a right" argument. But closer inspection shows that the German whose name appears on the Church wall, Adolf Sannwald, was drafted against his will into the Nazi forces. He was a minister who opposed the Nazis and helped to shelter Jews. He tried to serve as a chaplain but was forced to carry out non-combatant jobs such as janitor and clerk...
That road leads to generational division and intolerance on a never-ending scale. I don't know about you, but as a Virginia-born American veteran whose ancestors defended their families, their land and their states, I personally don't want this argument to go on and on. I don't want my kids to look forever through the murky prism of "one color knows best...