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What a loss it would have been had Clemens been killed in his short time in the army. There are few figures more important to American literature than he.
by sizzzzlerz 4y ago
What a loss it would have been had Clemens been killed in his short time in the army. There are few figures more important to American literature than he.
- ec109685 4y agoSimilarly, if his brief association with the Confederacy would have left an indelible mark on his reputation. Past sins become permanent tattoos far too easily these days.
- AniseAbyss 4y agoConsidering that the GOP is rehabilitating the Confederacy these days Twain's ties to the Lost Cause might be the only thing that keeps his writings from being removed from school libraries.
- lockhouse 4y ago> Considering that the GOP is rehabilitating the Confederacy these days What is this in reference to? The GOP emancipated the Democrats slaves.
- ALittleLight 4y agoThank goodness nobody who was yet to make an important contribution died in the civil war. Or any war for that matter.
- bookofjoe 4y agoI didn't realize the subtlety of this comment until I'd thought about it for a while.
- jacquesm 4y agoThink of the loss of those that did die and what their contributions could have been to realize that this may seem clever but actually isn't. If Sam Clemens had died it would have been a loss, pure and simple. That people that die in wars end up not contributing to society may well mean that the next Einstein or Hawking was lost to humanity.
- kaashif 4y agoIsn't that what the comment you're replying to is saying? Maybe they should've been less subtle.
- eyelidlessness 4y agoThey weren’t even that subtle. If anything, the misinterpretations are illuminating about how being removed from realities of war distorts reasoning about it.
- bell-cot 4y agoLife expectancy back then was only about half of what it is today, and war was a relatively minor contributor to that: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1040079/life-expectancy-united-states-all-time/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1040079/life-expectancy-...
- jacquesm 4y agoAt a guess even if war was a minor contributor it probably was a much larger contributor to those that chose to wear the uniform and go into battle.
- DennisP 4y agoFortunately his little band in uniform chose to avoid battle at every opportunity.
- jacquesm 4y agoI doubt he could have known that ahead of time. But given the way things turned out maybe the writing was already on the wall. But still, it could have easily turned out different as it did for 250K+ other confederate soldiers.
- tshaddox 4y agoAlso to those who were not infants.
- graeme 4y agoThe biggest contributor was death in childhood. Twain had made it past that. His conditional life expectancy as an adult was much higher than life expectancy
- bell-cot 4y agoTo some degree, yes. But note that Twain's arguably-adult brother Henry (1838–1858) died in a steam boiler explosion. And his father John (1798-1847) of infectious disease. Then there were the dangers of pregnancy and childbirth, in the era before modern medicine or antibiotics...