What's interesting about watching Ken Burns' Civil War documentary is that the issues of the civil war still exist in our society today. What Burns fails to show in his documentary is what the south believed about the civil war. I believe that a a person from the south would say that the civil war was fought over state's rights, and not slavery. Slavery was essential to the southern economy, and the south was trying to protect their economy and their way of life. I'm not saying that slavery was right, because it was and is so incredibly wrong, but at the time of the civil war this was not the prevailing view.

It would have been more thought provoking if Burns had shown what the Union and Confederate's reasons for the civil war, and then tried to reconcile both points of view, or have the scholars who speak in the documentary reconcile the two viewpoints. State's rights is still a hot button issue today, as it was in civil war times. I'm not even sure if the two sides can be reconciled. I think it's like everything else in life, that it's a spooky high wire balancing act, and that there are good reasons for state's rights and government's rights. And depending on the issue, I find myself on either side.

I know it's important to try to simplify issues to understand them, and to say it's black and white, that it's either this or that. But I don't think that's possible. I think it can be this and that. This must be my classic post modern situational ethics coming through.

It's important to me to see both sides of any issue, because I think that's the only way to understand something. I'm not sure that Ken Burns' Civil War documentary does that. His documentary is fantastic. I just think he shrank from confronting the very serious issues of the civil war, issues that still haunt american society today and probably will forever.