"Willed" here seems to mean, expressed a preference that folks had not been removed from their home country against their will, shackled to the bottom of a boat, and moved to a foreign country where they and their descendants became the property of other folks.
Yeah, I would prefer that some other version of history have been reality.
Right. You prefer a reality which would exclude your existence.
NoNukes writes:
Your idea that the result would be a bad thing is speculation and no more real than is the dream world described by my expressed preference.
It wouldn't be objectively bad. But you'll find, if you ask around, that everyone else on this board would prefer to exist, a purely subjective but reasonable point of view. If you think you can get a reality in which the transatlantic slave trade didn't happen and NoNukes does exist, you're certainly dreaming.
NoNukes writes:
I don't see the point or relevance to this discussion.
I know you don't.
NoNukes writes:
Are you sure you aren't actually asking me some kind of religious question involving my soul?
I'm sure.
NoNukes writes:
Where might I be if things were different? Well if I changed things, then I would not be here, so I would not be wishing things were different?
In any reality with an alternative history, you just wouldn't be at all.
NoNukes writes:
bluegenes writes:
I'd certainly hope that you modern Carolinians wouldn't even want to fly confederate flags from your state buildings,
Some do and some don't. Next week will be the first anniversary of South Carolina electing to stop flying the confederate flag from the grounds. It was not that long ago that the flag was flying from the dome on the capitol building. North Carolina flies the Confederate National Flag (not the same as the more famous flag) from the the Capitol Building once a year on Confederate Flag Day.
I suspect that your hope is not a match for reality.
That's no surprise. I've been to the lands of King Charles, but it was over 40 years ago. Around that region, we used to play a game during car journeys. One person would bet on Coca Cola signs and the other would bet on Jesus Saves signs, and the winner was the one who'd chosen whichever we counted the most of. It was usually a pretty close run thing. We probably could have played the same game with Confederate and U.S. flags.
But I digress. The flag flying, if you don't like it, is something contemporary that you could work towards changing and the collective you (Carolinians) could change, thus making the history of tomorrow. However, the slave history of the Carolinas is an immutable fact, and no amount of historical statue removal will change that.
I understand the distinction but don't see how it fits into your position.
The only "position" is that it's reasonable to support moving the Louisville monument without also demanding that the Washington Monument be moved.
Right, but I thought the original point was that once one begins removing monuments based upon the reason provided by "the guy in the OP," how is it that that reasoning includes the Louisville monument but not the Washington Memorial? It might be suspected that it's because the South is an easy target while George Washington is not. At least he's not an easy target at the moment, but give it time. You might think you've set your sights on just the Louisville memorial when it's actually both - one's merely "beyond view" at the moment.
An individual tombstone that says, "Here lies George, 1845-1863," doesn't say much about why George died. A collective monument commemorates - or at least connotes - an event. The motivation behind a collective monument is much clearer.
I agree that tombstones don't often say a lot, but you originally said "individual monuments," which often say quite a bit. For an example of an individual monument that says a lot, and since it's been mentioned before, we need only look to the Jefferson Davis Monument (the obelisk). It has a plaque with a long Davis quote that sounds quite noble:
And then there's this Jefferson Davis memorial in Richmond, with two plaques that appear to say quite a bit, though what they say can't quite be made out:
So I still don't understand the distinction you're trying to draw between individual and collective monuments.
Because I am not participating in a generating a list of reasons the South had for enslaving folks, and treating them as sub human? Again, I don't consider that to be a matter of dispute. Several reasons have been given in this thread, and I don't have any problems with any of them.
You're so lost you don't even remember what you're stonewalling about. It has to do with why you think viewing Southerners (or any people) as evil makes any sense or has any value.
If your insults are an attempt to goad me into some different behavior, perhaps another tactic might be employed.
Insults? What insults? To echo Truman, I'm just telling the truth and to you it seems like insults. If having your behavior described feels insulting then maybe you should stop doing it. Obviously you've had lots of practice at deflecting criticism and diverting attention from your arguments, but that doesn't change reality.
How would you know? Concerning the accuracy (not to mention appropriateness) of judgments of evil, you've been running away like a scared rabbit.
Yawn. Again, not probably an effective tactic. Maybe the pointless insults can cease now?
Well, okay, I guess you're just going to keep doing what you're doing, but the fact remains that you're still evading the question.
NoNukes writes:
For *this* discussion? Most certainly it is a key question.
Thank you. Not "the" key question, as you expressed before.
This is your reason for not considering the question, the difference between "a" and "the?" This is your level of debate? This is Clintonesque-level "what the meaning of the word 'is' is."
Of course not. My reason for pointing out the difference was made perfectly clear, despite your lampooning of it here.
Well yes, yes it was clear, as my quote (fuller and more honest than what you provided) shows. You said you didn't answer because I called it "the" question instead of "a" question. And then when I called it "a" question just the way you prefer, you still didn't answer the question. What's clear is that you're still just evading and stonewalling.
Where we disagree is in your insistence that your approach is "the" approach. And using "the" here among other things you do and say, conveys exactly that insistence.
Once again, what a surprise, you're once again claiming I said something I never said. It's the old NoNukes standby. Stop contriving excuses and blaming others for your own failures. Answer the question.
Note that I nothing I post here stops you from listing Southern justifications for slavery by quoting any number of sources either of us can locate on the web. Why don't you do that, if you feel like I need to be shown up? Is there some reason why you need me to do that for you?
But that wasn't the question, so why would I do that? If that's what you really want to discuss then it's fine by me, but you haven't introduced that subtopic yet. All you've done is tried to make it seem as if that were my question - it wasn't.
You are right that the study of history does not end with the announcement that slavery was evil, but rightly goes beyond that point. I am simply insisting that it does not go with skipping over the point before continuing.
"Evil" isn't a useful term for historical analysis. Your earlier suggestion that I substitute "morally wrong" wherever you say "evil" doesn't work for too many situations, especially for both slavery and Southerners, as I explained at the time. And it would make no sense for you to insist on your designation of "evil" because its appropriateness is the very thing I've been trying to discuss with you.
Let me help you get started here. Begin your next post with, "I agree that it is *a* key question, not *the* question, but clearly it is one of the important questions, so let me address it now..."
How about if you type your posts, and I type my posts?
How about you answer the question? How does it make any sense or provide any value to view Southerners as evil?
Right. You prefer a reality which would exclude your existence.
I must be worse that suicidal. Is that your point?
In any reality with an alternative history, you just wouldn't be at all.
Of course that's mere speculation as well. If I accomplished changing history by wishing, perhaps I could also manage to also wish my own existence were preserved despite the changes. Again, is this line of argument really crucial to your argument? Are the details of how time travel and alternate universe history helpful in some way to explain why I should not move a statute of Davis into a dusty museum warehouse?
In short, why is my wish/preference necessarily a wish for my own non-existence? Is it because you've added some limits relevant for you to make your point? I don't mind pursuing this line of argument, but I doubt that it will have any particular persuasive power for me. If it helps me to understand your own position, that is valuable. But it does not provide any insight into my own thinking.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Martin Luther King
If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions? Scott Adams
You're so lost you don't even remember what you're stonewalling about. It has to do with why you think viewing Southerners (or any people) as evil makes any sense or has any value.
I understand the point of your argument.
nsults? What insults? To echo Truman, I'm just telling the truth and to you it seems like insults.
Your insults are gratuitous and not necessary. I accept that you consider them to be the truth. I also accept that when folks accuse people of lying, or being stupid, puerile, or racist, they are only being accurate as they see it. I also accept that "telling the truth" as you see it is an exception to the desired goal of addressing the argument rather than the person, so no, I won't be bothering to make a useless complaint if that is your suggestion.
I will suggest that your methods are not going to be productive, and are likely to be counter productive. You of course are free to act as you do and of course these are your fora. I'll assume that it is okay with you if I don't respond to what I perceive as insults.
You said you didn't answer because I called it "the" question instead of "a" question.
Not quite correct. I did not give that as a reason for not answering the question. I used it to describe your attitude during the discussion.
The reason for not engaging in the discussion is that the question does not involve a matter of dispute between us. The question related to Southern rationale for slavery do not add up to a justification for what they did. Both of us are on record as agreeing to that. Further, as best as I can tell we don't disagree on the rationale Southerners gave or would give for instituting slavery, and for the evils they perpetrated on an entire race of folks during the execution of their policy.
But in the end, those reasons/excuses/rationale are not justification. The line of argument you want to pursue is not productive for the reasons I've given. Nonetheless it appears that to me that somehow, that you believe that the ball is in my court to pursue that line of inquiry just because you brought it up. Sorry, but I disagree.
ABE:
How about you answer the question? How does it make any sense or provide any value to view Southerners as evil?
That's a bit of a different question and one I will entertain here.
The Southerners are what they are and if truth is that they embraced evil, that at a minimum, means that it is accurate to call to so judge them. If, in fact, the judgment is accurate, then judging them harshly may assists us in avoiding repeating their decisions and thus the judgment is of some value in that regard.
Further, assuming that the judgment that folks did evil things is correct, then it is also useful to evaluate the mind set of folks who clearly did not judge themselves as evil, because it is a warning about how insidious evil really is. We might well, in this age, do evil without "feeling" it. At a minimum, Southern justification for slavery ought to be a kind of cautionary tale.
Certainly, an official Northern view of of Southerners as evil would have made it difficult to reconcile with their Northern brothers immediately the war. I understand the pragmatism of the era, and the reluctance to do things like try Jefferson Davis for treason, when the US was well justified morally and legally in doing so. But that stuff was 150 years ago. It ought at this point to be allowable to be honest about what happened without having to fear insulting some folks who died a long time ago.
In short, the value would be the same as the value telling the truth ever has. But the exercise of reviewing their rationale is complete, and the results are of no real controversy. Nor is the conclusion that those rationale do not excuse or justify what they did.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Martin Luther King
If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions? Scott Adams
I must be worse that suicidal. Is that your point?
You're genocidal. Fortunately for the rest of us, you cannot change history.
NoNukes writes:
bluegenes writes:
In any reality with an alternative history, you just wouldn't be at all.
Of course that's mere speculation as well.
No it's not. It's a fact that should be obvious to you.
NoNukes writes:
Are the details of how time travel and alternate universe history helpful in some way to explain why I should not move a statute of Davis into a dusty museum warehouse?
If your desire to exchange this reality for another is the motivation for removing statues, then you certainly shouldn't be making decisions on them.
I'll appreciate your attempt at consistency if you want to argue for the removal of such monuments.
Where have I ever advocated for removing any monuments? My argument is that removing monuments is not necessarily "politically correct" and that, on the contrary, preserving monuments can be politically correct.
bluegenes writes:
I think that future generations of Kentuckians having large visible edifices around them that speak of their state's slave history is a very good idea.
But the monument doesn't just "speak of their slave history". It celebrates the guys who were on the wrong side. It's like putting up a monument to the SS on the grounds of Auschwitz. If they want to "speak of their slave history", they should put up a monument to the slaves, not the slavers.
... how is it that that reasoning includes the Louisville monument but not the Washington Memorial?
I have said that I have no objection to moving the Washington Monument. But the difference is that the Washington Monument doesn't automatically connote slavery while the Louisville monument does.
Percy writes:
So I still don't understand the distinction you're trying to draw between individual and collective monuments.
An individual monument doesn't connote slavery while a collective monument does.
You're so lost you don't even remember what you're stonewalling about. It has to do with why you think viewing Southerners (or any people) as evil makes any sense or has any value.
I understand the point of your argument.
No, you don't understand. You really don't. The reason Lincoln's words have survived to this day and will likely survive beyond the end of this republic is because they represent timeless truths. You dismissed them out of hand as mere campaign rhetoric, and once challenged have been avoiding a defense. The people of the antebellum South were just people like us. They did what we would in their situation.
Your insults are gratuitous and not necessary.
They weren't insults, but I do confess frustration and bewilderment that you persist in attributing to me things I haven't said. It's as if the words of my messages flutter off the screen, swirl around in your head, then resettle into new patterns of your own making. Calling this years-long behavior to your attention has been fruitless. You ignore it or deny it or double-down on it or, most recently, call it insults.
I accept that you consider them to be the truth.
The truth of oneself is reflected in other people.
I also accept that when folks accuse people of lying, or being stupid, puerile, or racist, they are only being accurate as they see it.
False accusations while denying false attributions?
The truth is that I never accused you of any of these things. I don't think your constant false attributions are lying and have never said so. I guess a possibility might be that they're more a defense mechanism that kicks in every time you want to be right but can't figure out how, but how could one ever know? Even if not purposeful, it's wrong, it halts discussion while forcing me to restate what I really said, and it's a time waster and rat hole generator.
I also accept that "telling the truth" as you see it is an exception to the desired goal of addressing the argument rather than the person,...
And you *are* very emphatically addressing the person and not the argument every time you accuse someone of saying things they didn't say, which you've done so often in so many threads that I think we should begin referring to it as being "NoNuked." You garb your personal attacks in the language of discussion, and then you compound the offense by blaming the people you've offended for trying to defend themselves. I'm just trying to make you stop, but nothing seems to work. Your implacable mask rejects all feedback.
...so no, I won't be bothering to make a useless complaint if that is your suggestion.
No, that's not my suggestion, and I have no idea why you think I might be making such a suggestion. There's no hidden message here. It's very simple. Stop attributing to me things I didn't say and using it as a means to avoid what I did say.
I will suggest that your methods are not going to be productive, and are likely to be counter productive.
Well, yes, obviously I can see that you're determined that nothing I try bears fruit.
You said you didn't answer because I called it "the" question instead of "a" question.
Not quite correct. I did not give that as a reason for not answering the question. I used it to describe your attitude during the discussion.
Using "the" instead of "a" reveals my "attitude?" Don't be silly. That's the same absurd way that Creationists argue over Genesis, where single words are elevated to maximal significance. Find a real reason.
The reason for not engaging in the discussion is that the question does not involve a matter of dispute between us. The question related to Southern rationale for slavery do not add up to a justification for what they did. Both of us are on record as agreeing to that. Further, as best as I can tell we don't disagree on the rationale Southerners gave or would give for instituting slavery, and for the evils they perpetrated on an entire race of folks during the execution of their policy.
You're wrong about what we agree on, but I'll skip past that and move on to the important point (or is it "an" important point), that the goal of history is not to judge peoples good or evil. Your hang up about good versus evil has you wasting all your time on irrelevant questions. As I noted earlier, it is apparently a common problem when discussing the Civil War.
Your preordained determination to arrive at a conclusion of "evil" drives your logic. It explains why you focus so much effort on grisly characterizations of slavery and not broadly on the historical, cultural and geographical context. For you it's very simple: "They had slaves, they defended slavery, they're evil." It completely ignores the human question: What causes people just like us to feel justified in claiming ownership of another? What explains this? That's the mystery Lincoln was calling to mind.
Not that psychology wasn't interested before, but the mystery of the Reich was a motivator for research into human behavior. Michael Milgram's experiments are legendary, his research summarized in the documentary Obediance available on YouTube, but if you're not familiar with it then here's a short summary:
Subjects followed the instructions of a lab-coated scientist (an authority figure) to administer what they believed were greatly painful electric shocks to someone behind a screen who they believed was just another subject but who was actually an actor. Under the instructions of an authority figure many administered what they believed were potentially lethal shocks.
The study was not about taking random people off the street and determining which of them were evil. It was a study in the behavior of normal, everyday human beings, no different from the Southerners of antebellum America.
Where have I ever advocated for removing any monuments?
I thought you agreed with the guy mentioned in the O.P.
ringo writes:
My argument is that removing monuments is not necessarily "politically correct" and that, on the contrary, preserving monuments can be politically correct.
People can and do give both ideological and non-ideological reasons for removing monuments, and they can and do give both ideological and non-ideological reasons for not doing so. Certainly. But that doesn't seem to be your only point.
In the quotes that follow, you're sounding as though you are giving ideological reasons for removing monuments like the Louisville one.
ringo writes:
But the monument doesn't just "speak of their slave history". It celebrates the guys who were on the wrong side.
Great! I'm not applying ideology to my preservation argument.
ringo writes:
It's like putting up a monument to the SS on the grounds of Auschwitz.
Are you sure the Confederate soldiers weren't actually Orcs?
Even if you can make the case that the confederate soldiers were primarily fighting for an ideology of slavery, slavery and genocide are far from being the same things.
ringo writes:
If they want to "speak of their slave history", they should put up a monument to the slaves, not the slavers.
I'm not suggesting that Americans should put up monuments to slavers now (although they still do). There are monuments to the slaves in growing numbers, and there certainly should be a lot more. Slavery is a very important part of the history that shaped the U.S.
My first reply was growing long, so I'm posting another reply to address the last part of your message.
How about you answer the question? How does it make any sense or provide any value to view Southerners as evil?
That's a bit of a different question...
It wasn't a different question, but neither was it a cut-n-paste. Not a problem, good discussion follows.
The Southerners are what they are and if truth is that they embraced evil, that at a minimum, means that it is accurate to call to so judge them.
The term "evil" is the one at the center of contention. Also, the grammar left me stranded a couple times, but I think I get the gist.
If, in fact, the judgment is accurate, then judging them harshly may assists us in avoiding repeating their decisions and thus the judgment is of some value in that regard.
But that's just saying that judging Southerners evil because they embraced and defended slavery will help us avoid embracing and defending slavery. A more useful and general lesson would be that we should reject things that are evil. But as I've said, I have a problem with the term "evil" because it is subjective.
And it isn't just "evil" that's subjective - so is "wrong" and "morally wrong." These are not timeless concepts. Not so long ago homosexuality was "evil" and "morally wrong" - everyone "knew" this. In many parts of the world they still "know" this.
Further, assuming that the judgment that folks did evil things is correct, then it is also useful to evaluate the mind set of folks who clearly did not judge themselves as evil,...
Even though you used the term "evil," I can see what you're saying and agree. I think that understanding the mind set, not just of individuals but of cultures, is important.
...because it is a warning about how insidious evil really is.
Knowing when someone has embraced evil has as little meaning or significance as knowing when someone has been taken over by the Devil.
We might well, in this age, do evil without "feeling" it. At a minimum, Southern justification for slavery ought to be a kind of cautionary tale.
I assume few do evil while feeling they're doing evil. And for sure Southern attitudes about slavery are a cautionary tale, but it isn't, "I better not embrace slavery." It's questions like, "Is anything objectively right or wrong?" and "How do I know I'm doing right, or if it only feels right because I'm surrounded by people who also think it right?"
Certainly, an official Northern view of of Southerners as evil would have made it difficult to reconcile with their Northern brothers immediately the war. I understand the pragmatism of the era, and the reluctance to do things like try Jefferson Davis for treason, when the US was well justified morally and legally in doing so.
Are you sure that efforts at national reconciliation in the 1920s were driven by pragmatism, and not by an understanding since lost that both sides were helpless actors in a play set in motion before the Constitution was even written?
But that stuff was 150 years ago. It ought at this point to be allowable to be honest about what happened without having to fear insulting some folks who died a long time ago.
Honest, sure, but what about objective? Isn't that important, too?
In short, the value would be the same as the value telling the truth ever has.
Telling the truth about our feelings and giving our best efforts at objective analysis are two different things.
But the exercise of reviewing their rationale is complete, and the results are of no real controversy. Nor is the conclusion that those rationale do not excuse or justify what they did.
While I don't think the interpretation of history is ever complete, I largely agree with the rest. The particulars of the rationalizations of either side are unimportant for this discussion. What's important, for one example, is a better understanding of how pressures of undesired change force rationalization and resistance, not capitulation.
ut that's just saying that judging Southerners evil because they embraced and defended slavery will help us avoid embracing and defending slavery.
Actually that is not a discussion of the rationale for calling them evil at all. I did not give one./ For the purpose of answering the question of what the value of calling folks evil might be, I assumed that they embracing slavery was sufficient.
My complete answer is that they did embrace slavery and that we agree that their rationale is not a justification. That does not mean that the justification is not worth discussing, but it does mean that we won't, in the end, excuse their behavior. On top of that, it seems we agree that the behavior is bad in the extreme. Bad behavior that harms another person without justification is what I consider to be evil. You disagree and i'm okay with that.
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Martin Luther King
If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions? Scott Adams
ut that's just saying that judging Southerners evil because they embraced and defended slavery will help us avoid embracing and defending slavery.
Actually that is not a discussion of the rationale for calling them evil at all. I did not give one./ For the purpose of answering the question of what the value of calling folks evil might be, I assumed that their embracing slavery was sufficient. For you perhaps that is not actually enough.
My complete answer is that they did embrace slavery and that we agree that their rationale is not a justification. That does not mean that the justification is not worth discussing, but it does mean that we won't, in the end, excuse their behavior. On top of that, it seems we agree that the behavior is bad in the extreme. Deliberate bad behavior that harms another person without justification is what I consider to be evil. You disagree and i'm okay with that.
Telling the truth about our feelings and giving our best efforts at objective analysis are two different things.
Sigh.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Martin Luther King
If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions? Scott Adams
No it's not. It's a fact that should be obvious to you
Actually what you describe is science fiction. That ought to be obvious to you. But perhaps your accusation that I am genocidal for wanting to save millions of Jews or to avoid enslaving millions of Africans will be the ultimate slamming and will signal the end of this line of argument.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Martin Luther King
If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions? Scott Adams
Actually what you describe is science fiction. That ought to be obvious to you. But perhaps your accusation that I am genocidal for wanting to save millions of Jews or to avoid enslaving millions of Africans will be the ultimate slamming and will signal the end of this line of argument.
It is not science fiction. It is reasoning from observation. If it hadn't been for British imperialism, English speaking North America wouldn't exist. If it hadn't been for the transatlantic slave trade, the Afro-American diaspora wouldn't exist. We are all products of history.
If you want there to be an alternative reality with a different history in which there was never any slavery anywhere in the world, you are desiring a reality which wouldn't include any of the 7 billion individuals who currently exist.
Whether you realise it or not, you are desiring genocide.
™ Version 4.2
