Symbolic Conflict and the Civil War: Struggles of Collective Meaning

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    This week our group made the tough decision to essentially restart our presentation. Re-examining our topic and the constructive criticism we received, we decided to significantly narrow our scope from US involvement in international conflict to a specific focus on the Civil War. The feedback given before break drew our attention to the lacking ‘American politics’ focus from such an international frame. The introduction of the personal files influenced this shift as well, and we concluded that a narrower scope focusing on the Civil War would allow us to incorporate greater detail on American politics and Kenyon involvement, as well as information on the significant people involved such as Rutherford B Hayes and Edwin Stanton.

    Class discussions this week centered around Hajar Yazdiha’s The Struggle for the People’s King, where we examined ideas of contorting memory to align with contemporary themes. Her example of the opposing gay rights and family values movements demonstrated how both used the collective memory of Martin Luther King Jr’s legacy to affirm their movement’s values and motives. By demonstrating each individual movements’ use of elements of memory, Yazdiha underscores how perceptions of the past can be strategically realigned to influence their legacy in a way most favorable to present issues. 

    As a pivotal marker of contested political ideas, the Civil War serves to represent two opposing sides in American Politics. Contestations over how the war is to be preserved and remembered are backed by separate interpretations of the war’s legacy. Modern political groups argue over the interpretation of Confederate figures and their merit of commemoration, similar to how the gay rights movement used the symbol of King’s christianity to argue his support of equal rights while the family values movement used his christianity to promote the idea of his opposition to homosexuality. To supporters, monuments and dedications represent honoring Confederate heritage, whereas to opposers these sites invalidate the discrimination and systemic injustice faced by black Americans. Both King’s christianity and the Confederate figures serve as powerful symbols to which these groups attach their arguments. The symbolic figures are configured to align with the motives of the respective groups, and serve to simultaneously demonstrate conflicting political values. Efforts to establish a singular perception are efforts to determine collective memory under the influence of political motives. 


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