Abraham Lincoln was a great leader who did a lot for equality! or Was/Did he? Are you making some unseen assumptions based on the small part of the story you know?
This is a discussion about conflation, politics, and assumptions..
Conflation & Politics
Conflation is when different things/ideas are fused together. In the discussion of Approximate Thinking, conflation is a symptom of confusion and incomplete knowledge, where assumptions bridge gaps between different concepts.
Conflation – also – is at the heart of politics.
Think about it: How will you get 1 million people to agree on a detailed agenda?? on 5 different issues? 10?
Say something that everyone can interpret in an acceptable way. Find the Lowest Common Denominator.
Mixing up different objectives and slogans can be used to (artificially) unite big groups of people.
“Someone is an angel… and an angel is good.”
We like to simplify. We like to believe that this guy (or that) is good… like us… our friend. From there, we can make all sorts of (wishful thinking) assumptions about them.
The story of Abraham Lincoln & Racial #Equality is a good case here.
Conflation: Lincoln, Slavery, Equality
So this is the catch: did you assume that because Lincoln is known as the US president who ended slavery that he was a champion of equality?
Slavery & Equality were (incorrectly) conflated!
Lincoln is known as a hero and liberator, but ending slavery and equality are two very different things. One has specific political and economic goals within the American civil war (Lincoln was on the side of the North, and the Southerners who were more dependent on Agriculture were the ones who had more slaves), the other is tricky…
Check out these quotes from an early speech by Lincoln
Lincoln Quotes on Equality
” I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, .. “
” I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people;… “
” there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality … “
” I have never seen, to my knowledge, a man, woman, or child who was in favor of producing a perfect equality, social and political, between negroes and white men. “
Untangling Concepts: De- Conflation
Ending slavery wasn’t done as a step towards equality (most probably so).
Lincoln – in fact – was probably strongly opposed to ‘equality’.. In his defense, this wouldn’t have been strange in his time. However, we assume the inverse because of a positive mental image about the person. The ‘halo effect’ then leads to ‘assuming’ positive traits and associations.
Our ‘approximate thinking’ works as follows:
- Lincoln ended slavery
- Lincoln is a good person who worked for human rights
- Lincoln worked for equality
The last step in the above is the approximation. Some might call it a logical fallacy, but it is actually necessary for political campaigns.
References
“Stamped from the beginning” is an informing and interesting Netflix film on the issue of slavery : https://imdb.com/title/tt13871094/ (recommended!)
This article is the source for the quotes: Abraham Lincoln Never Believed in Racial Equality
More
In “Fuzzy on the Dark Side” I explore approximate thinking and its reasons. The inherent complexity and uncertainty of the world, in addition to our cognitive make up, make conflation one of most potent (and often reused) tools in politics (this is one of the many dimensions of Approximate Thinking effects).