PC Gone Too Far

I thought we agreed about this, that slavery was wrong. Or evil, as you prefer. Well, yes, of course. I believe that being wrong or mistaken and being evil are two different things entirely. If the people of the South were wrong that doesn't deny their basic humanity or the sanctity of their human souls. I don't see how that answers the question. Phrased another way, how do you measure your claims of evil against others' claims of evil? How do you even know you're applying equivalent standards of evil? Why should your claims of Southern evil be taken more seriously than Christian claims of abortion evil, or not?--Percy

But breaking the law and committing evil are not the same thing.In my view morality is changing and inconstant. What has been considered moral in the past has become immoral, and vice versa, and it also changes with geography. Which morality of time and place will you apply? Let me guess. The one you currently hold. I think you haven't even defined "evil" yet.--Percy

I'm going to have to guess a bit at your meaning. I think you're saying that you understand that I'm arguing that we should look at history objectively, but that you're making a different argument, that we shouldn't look at slavery objectively but emphatically. If I have that right then I don't see how this could be part of any consistent argument. Slavery is a part of history, and any argument in how it should be examined and studied should be consistent with the way we approach all of history. Okay, got it, slavery is akin to mass murder. Is this is change, or should I add that to "slavery IS genocide", and "genocide" and "cultural genocide" are the same thing? I'm equally disturbed that you're misrepresenting my views. I've said many times that slavery is wrong, and that I don't agree with "evil" as a label because it is moralistic and ill-defined. In response no one's even attempted to define "evil" yet. I guess the ambiguity makes it more useful as a moralistic truncheon.--Percy

You are simply talking around the point. Regardless of how much Lincoln believed in being non-judgmental, his resulting policy produced significant damage because it resulted in not only not holding the South accountable, but also not holding them in check from attempts to enslave the Africans. Only the radical republicans manage to pass legislation to validate that Africans were indeed African Americans. In short, as applied to the South, his refusal to hold the South accountable was a failure as an actual governing policy.Just telling us that Lincoln agreed with you and was sincere is not much of an argument. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

You have not simply mentioned it. You have variously attributed the opinion unqualified to the South or you have qualified the the opinion as being held by most Southerners. If there is no evidence supporting the idea that most Southerners believed that slavery blessed Africans, then you are not justified in making that claim regardless of how economical it is, and particular not of using that claim as a argument as you did here. The truth is that some slavers thought slavery was beneficial, while others didn't give a crap about the misery of Africans as long as they were fit to work. I think we can also make the argument that those folks who believed slavery was beneficial were expressing an irrational sentiment.No, I cannot ask you to list all of the reasons every time (as if you have listed something more comprehensive even once), but I can reasonably insist that you not to make stuff up. And as I've suggested we can reasonably ask if that reason was genuine or a pretext. If we are not using actual facts, we could argue either way. Is that a reasonable way to proceed?Seriously, if I had made an argument based on a statement that the South would not end slavery because they believed that God had placed the negro here on earth as a sub human fit for their exploitation, would you let that slide? Surely that was one opinion. Do I need a poll before making that statement?Even a cursory review of the reasons that are actually listed by historians and, I've listed some of the most commonly cited the ones. would suggest that the one you picked to use is in no way representative of all of the various justifications. In fact what you've picked is the most prominent Southern Lost Cause explanation rather than the using one that is most historically prominent or most frequently mentioned.I'm not sure by what process you come up with "seems to [Percy] the most common". I'll accept that you have made an honest attempt, but it comes across instead as a gross oversimplification. There is no objective support for claiming it to be the most commonly held justification or for attributing that reasoning to most of the South even for more the marginal help it provides to your argument even if we accept the claim. Any fool without a vested interest in slavery's continuing could see that the slaves were not benefiting from slavery.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Episcopal priest Steven Paulikas asks, "How Should We Respond to ‘Evil’?" on the editorial page of today's New York Times. It's largely focused on our responses to 911, Orlando and ISIS and so is orthogonal to discussion here, but it does hover briefly over the question of "What is evil?" when it considers the work of philosopher Paul Ricoeur:

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Ricoeur agrees with many other thinkers that evil is not a thing per se, but rather exists in a sort of black hole of thought, an aporia [link to the definition aporia]. This fact alone complicates arguments for the destruction of evil: how do you obliterate something that has no substance? For Ricoeur, we conceive of evil through the realm of myth, or grand narratives that express common human experience. Myth is not false; rather, it encapsulates truth about subjects like evil that cannot be perceived fully through reason alone.
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Because evil exists beyond the limits of reason, what matters for Ricoeur is not that we identify evil, but that we respond to it appropriately.

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This might explain why no one here is rushing to define evil (unless since my last post), and also why evil can't be part of any objective analysis.The editorial later says that responses to evil "engender what Ricoeur calls wisdom, an unwavering commitment to relieve and prevent suffering. Any violence used in a response to evil would, therefore, be focused on the alleviation of suffering rather than the attempt to stamp out evil where we think we see it." This shifts the focus from vengeance, which risks further evil, to doing positive good.--Percy

One can easily find summaries of Southern defenses of slavery on the web, but here's a fairly concise and informal one from Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson. This paragraph follows one containing Northern critiques of slavery:

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Southerners bristled at these attacks on their social system. At one time a good many of them had shared the conviction that slavery was an evil – albeit a "necessary" one for the time being because of the explosive racial consequences of emancipation. But the sense of evil had faded by 1830 as the growing world demand for cotton fastened the tentacles of a booming plantation economy on the South. Abolitionist attacks on slavery placed southerners on the defensive and goaded into angry counterattacks. By 1840 slavery was no longer a necessary evil; it was "a great moral, social, and political blessing – a blessing to the slave, and a blessing to the master." It had civilized African savages and provided them with cradle-to-grave security that contrasted favorably with the miserable poverty of "free" labor in Britain and the North. By releasing whites from menial tasks it elevated white labor and protected it from degrading competition with free Negroes. Slavery eliminated the specter of class conflict that would eventually destroy free-labor societies, for it "promotes equality among the free by dispensing with grades and castes among them, and thereby preserves republican institutions."²⁰ It also established the foundation for an upper class of gentlemen to cultivate the arts, literature, hospitality, and public service. It created a far superior society to that of the "vulgar, contemptible, counter-jumping" Yankees. Indeed, said Senator Robert M. T. Hunter of Virginia, "there is not a respectable system of civilization known to history whose foundations were not laid in the institution of domestic slavery." "Instead of an evil," said John c. Calhoun in summing up the southern position, slavery was "a positive good...the most safe and stable basis for free institutions in the world."²¹

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²⁰Senator Albert Gallatin Brown of Mississippi quoted in David Donald, Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War (New York, 1960), 348; resolution of a Southern Rights convention in Montgomery, March 1852, quoted in J. Mills Thornton III, Politics and Power in a Slave Society: Alabama, 18--=1860 (Baton Rouge, 1978), 206-7.

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²¹Hunter quoted in Donald, Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War, 349; Calhoun in CG, 25 Cong., 2 Sess., Appendix, 61-62.

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--Percy

I've given my rationale for considering what the South did as evil, namely that what they did inflicted pain and misery on other human beings without any decent justification. I think that serves sufficiently as a definition for my posts. I agree. Now who among us is prescribing violence for evil doers.

So it was the "attacks" by abolitionists that generated this new thinking in 1840 at least, according to this particular author's opinion. That certainly smacks of a response born from need rather than one based in truth.Again, I don't find anything particularly new here. I've mentioned or alluded to reasons similar to those given here in a post or two. Beyond that this author clearly describes an institution adopted and continued despite a recognition that slavery was evil, with prodding from elsewhere, prodding which was legitimate and justified, driving them away from rational thinking.I appreciate the post. Nicely done.Link to another summary of justifications. Some overlap with the ones you listed, with some others. I don't see any thing to emphasize other than confirming that there were many and varied reasons given. Helping Africans was likely not the foremost reason.http://www.allenisd.org/...rn%20Argument%20for%20Slavery.pdfEdited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

NoNukes writes: I don't think Percy said that Lincoln agreed with him. He only allowed as to how Lincoln had said what Percy wanted to say in better words. For example, even Hitler could have used these same words and Percy could still use those particular words here. Percy has been arguing all night long for a different flagpole here.

Okay. I'm at a loss for either the importance of the distinction or exactly why Lincolns words are some non arguable conclusion to our differences.Here are some words from George Washington:

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"The unfortunate condition of the persons whose labour in part I employed, has been the only unavoidable subject of regret. To make the Adults among them as easy & comfortable in their circumstances as their actual state of ignorance and improvidence would admit; and to lay a foundation to prepare the rising generation for a destiny different from that in which they were born, afforded some satisfaction to my mind, and could not I hoped be displeasing to the justice of the Creator."

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And he also said this:

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No man desires more heartily than I do [the end of slavery]. Not only do I pray for it on the score of human dignity, but I can clearly foresee that nothing but the rooting out of slavery can perpetuate the existence of our union.

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The fact is that George Washington owned hundreds of slaves, freeing none of them up before the death of himself and his wife. During his time as president, and while the White House was in Philadelphia, Washington not only kept slaves and periodically sent them home periodically to Virginia lest they become free.Is it reasonable that we might look at both Washington's words as well as his actions when judging his views? Might we also not look at what Lincoln's policy of leniency led to when judging whether his words are words to live by?ABE: Sure. Anyone can spout either a truth or a platitude.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : Fix mismatched quote tags and add a final

continued *facepalm*You are still NOT getting it. oh, jeez.*sigh* - hardwood......

Perhaps not. Can you make your point with different words? You've been a voice of reason here often enough, that I'd like to get your point here.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Forget all the reasons slavery was wrong or, of course, evil.It's all about what family you grew up in. Fortune. Luck of the birth state. Luck of your race - ya been born with white skin, yer better than them - they explain....You grow up in 1830 Alabama as an uneducated poor white: you are likely to believe that your world, as told to you by your mother and father from the cradle, is correct - slavery is the law of your land. You and I BOTH could or would be that way. Or most of us that had any say. Sure the blacks & a few dissenting whites didn't get on the bus - but most of them did. Were they evil?Are we evil for using fossil fuels? Chemicals in our agriculture? Etc.Sure - NOW, we can say that it was wrong.But what about them, stuck back in the history? All Percy is saying is that we have to analyze history through the lens of the time and place of the people that were actually living there at the time.It is no fair to come in now with this New Shit that says you were even evil. That will be after we gather the stories and the facts and the lay of the land in that time & place.

HUCK FINN.I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking--thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in the day and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn't seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I'd see him standing my watch on top of his'n, 'stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the ONLY one he's got now; and then I happened to look around and see that paper.It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:"All right, then, I'll GO to hell"--and tore it up.