|
Register | Sign In |
|
QuickSearch
Thread ▼ Details |
|
Thread Info
|
|
|
Author | Topic: PC Gone Too Far | |||||||||||||||||||||||
bluegenes Member (Idle past 2477 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
ringo writes: I have already posted references. You can just Google "genocide in Canada' and you'll find that all of our major newspapers are calling our treatment of aboriginal peoples genocide. I'll go with them instead of you. That's because of the perceived intent to destroy them behind certain attacks on the aboriginals. Which examples of chattel slavery do all your newspapers describe as genocide?
ringo writes: bluegenes writes: Do you know of any examples of cultures being actually destroyed by slavery? You're missing the point. I'm not. Your original claim that slavery is similar to genocide because it's similar to death has become a claim that slavery is the same as culturecide (or "cultural genocide") because it invariably kills off cultures. If it doesn't invariably do this , then it can't be the same.
ringo writes: The slaves had their original culture beaten out of them, just like the aboriginal peoples in Canada did. Which slaves? When? How? As I know that you won't be able to support your claim that slavery is "cultural genocide" for all known examples of chattel slavery (it doesn't even have to be cross cultural), I want you to get on to the specific claim that you're going make: that African slavery into the Americas was "cultural genocide". Then we can actually discuss history that might be relevant to the O.P., rather than dealing with absurd statements like "slavery is genocide". So, are you arguing that the motivation of the transatlantic slave traders, like that of some of the attackers of Canadian Aboriginals according to your newspapers, was cultural destruction? If you agree that it wasn't, then that might help you to understand one reason why your newspapers probably don't uniformly regard the traders as committing a "cultural genocide". If you agree, then we can get onto your claim about the slaves having their culture beaten out of them, and discuss America's most influential subculture, which you seem to think died somewhere, sometime.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
Percy Member Posts: 22391 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
NoNukes writes: Just telling us that Lincoln agreed with you and was sincere is not much of an argument. It's not even my argument. As I said, I was startled to learn people didn't think Lincoln believed what he said, but whether he believed it or not, that was not my point. I quoted Lincoln because he said it so well, though I grant it did seem possible that my saying it wasn't being given serious consideration and that it being Lincoln might warrant in people's minds taking a second look, but it didn't, so his clarity of expression will have to suffice. I understand your argument from Message 369 that Lincoln's lenient 1864 reconstruction plan was evidence of political motives and that therefore what he said about human nature was also politically motivated and not what he really believed. That was beside the point, or at least so it seemed to me, and though I didn't agree I felt getting into a discussion with you about whether Lincoln really believed what he said seemed a certain and very distracting rat hole. (If you want to start a Reconstruction thread we could discuss your other point that Lincoln's lenient approach made Reconstruction worse, because we apparently disagree about that, too. (apologies if I misunderstood, in which case, "never mind") ) Clarifying one thing:
Regardless of how much Lincoln believed in being non-judgmental,... I hope people don't think I've taken the position that Lincoln was non-judgmental in any all-encompassing sense. I cited Lincoln on just one area of thought where he was very specific. He believed in not judging people for being a product of their environment, and he believed human nature the same the world over. Punishing people for being human made no sense to him. Nor to me. --Percy
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
Percy Member Posts: 22391 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
NoNukes writes: You have variously attributed the opinion unqualified to the South or you have qualified the the opinion as being held by most Southerners. You have this bad habit of misstating what I say. I never said it was a view held by most Southerners. I never became more specific than saying I felt it was the most common one, and I said that because I thought it was very general and encompassing. That slavery was a blessing to both whites and negroes encompasses most of the reasons on your own list (Message 492), and I add another that is often mentioned at the bottom:
So when you go on to say:
If there is no evidence supporting the idea that most Southerners believed that slavery blessed Africans... I think I probably said something more like that Southerners (not "most" Southerners) believed it a blessing for both master and slave, but in any case, I didn't need evidence because you provided it yourself. Look down your list that I've reproduced above. Though you've stilted them toward the negative, it's a list of positives for either white or negro. You had a couple other reasons that were completely negative, and I agree they must have been true of some Southerners. And some Northerners, too.
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. Except that I'm not making stuff up - I don't have your imagination. Before I knew you'd posted this reply I posted an excerpt from McPherson's book, see Message 532.
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. Except that it is, as I've shown using your own list. I don't get your problem. You say you understand one can't list all the reasons every time it comes up, one has to summarize, you disagree with my summation (in error, in my opinion), but instead of just saying you disagree and giving your own opinion you blow it up into a big thing implying I've committed a host of logical and moral errors.
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. I could say "The sky is blue" and you'd find problems with it.
Any fool without a vested interest in slavery's continuing could see that the slaves were not benefiting from slavery. Ah, well now we get to the root of what your real problem is. This is really all about your belief that the Southerners were doing evil and they knew it. --Percy
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
Percy Member Posts: 22391 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
NoNukes writes: This might explain why no one here is rushing to define evil
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. But how are you going to reconcile your definition of evil with other people's, for example, those who believe abortion is evil, or that homosexuality is evil? If you believe your claims of evil are a justification for action, how do deny others the same privilege? Your rationale has unintended consequences that I'm guessing you don't like.
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. I agree. Now who among us is prescribing violence for evil doers. The editorial was about the urge to wipe out evil, but it was in the context of things like the war in Iraq, that's why he says "violence." The general principle is that efforts to wipe out evil can perpetuate and even increase evil. One must instead focus on doing good. Doing good in this case would mean that instead of aligning yourself with efforts against monuments to war dead, send a donation to Brandenburg. --Percy
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 411 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Percy writes:
The situation on slavery was equivocal at one time.
The situation in Canada seems much more equivocal than you characterized.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 411 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Percy writes:
It's hard to understand how you "agree" that slavery is evil when you want to commemorate the people who fought to preserve it.
I thought we agreed about this, that slavery was wrong. Or evil, as you prefer. Percy writes:
Their basic humanity entitles them to individual headstones. It does not validate monuments to their crimes against humanity.
If the people of the South were wrong that doesn't deny their basic humanity or the sanctity of their human souls. Percy writes:
The topic is about moving a monument. I agree with the people who want to move it. Our reasons may not be identical but our goals are similar, to stop commemorating the crime of slavery.
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?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 411 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Percy writes:
Since we are the ones moving monuments in the present, our present notions of morality are the only ones that matter. Otherwise we'd be leaving monuments to Stalin on every street corner because future generations might decide he was a pretty nice guy after all. Which morality of time and place will you apply? And future generations might decide that moving monuments to slavers was evil. You can't just ignore history on the grounds that somebody might eventually change their minds.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 411 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Percy writes:
It is. We judge that Hitler was evil and we don't put up monuments to him. We judge that slavery is evil and we don't put up monuments to it.
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. Percy writes:
You should stop nitpicking and accept the obvious parallel.
Is this is change, or should I add that to "slavery IS genocide", and "genocide" and "cultural genocide" are the same thing? Percy writes:
"Wrong" is dialling a 3 instead of a 5 on your phone. "Wrong" is turning left when you should have turned right. "Wrong" is "Oops, I made a mistake. No harm done." ... no one's even attempted to define "evil" yet. "Evil" is keeping people in chains and whipping them for hundreds of years. There's no "Oops" in evil.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 411 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
bluegenes writes:
There was no intent to kill people, which you insist is essential to genocide. The intent was to replace their "inferior" culture with our "superior" culture. The intent was paternalistic. That's because of the perceived intent to destroy them behind certain attacks on the aboriginals. The intent behind slavery - besides getting cheap labour - was also to "help" the poor dumb Africans run their lives.
bluegenes writes:
Huh? We're talking about a specific example here.
If it doesn't invariably do this , then it can't be the same. bluegenes writes:
The ones we're talking about.
Which slaves? bluegenes writes:
Cultural destruction was secondary to getting cheap labour. It was a means to an end. It was a by-product.
So, are you arguing that the motivation of the transatlantic slave traders, like that of some of the attackers of Canadian Aboriginals according to your newspapers, was cultural destruction?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
xongsmith Member Posts: 2578 From: massachusetts US Joined: Member Rating: 6.8 |
Ringo correctly observes:
"Evil" is keeping people in chains and whipping them for hundreds of years. There's no "Oops" in evil. But the kids growing up in this environment weren't evil themselves, right? Not until they grew up and took positions of power to perpetuate it. I have no argument that the people in power were perpetuating evil. But the majority of the whites were not in power and yet accepted this way of life taught to them by their parents, reinforced by their childhood peers.- xongsmith, 5.7d
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 411 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
xongsmith writes:
The monument in question is to the grownups who did perpetuate it.
But the kids growing up in this environment weren't evil themselves, right? Not until they grew up and took positions of power to perpetuate it.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
bluegenes Member (Idle past 2477 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
ringo writes: bluegenes writes: That's because of the perceived intent to destroy them behind certain attacks on the aboriginals. There was no intent to kill people, which you insist is essential to genocide. The intent was to replace their "inferior" culture with our "superior" culture. The intent was paternalistic. The "cide" bit is about killing, and a concept of culturecide or "cultural genocide" involves intent to "kill" off a culture, whether paternalistic in character or not. The Canadian government currently recognizes five historical genocides. They have yet to include this local suggestion, although there are campaigns to change that. You, presumably, having given up on adding general slavery, would like to add Africa to America slavery to the list.
ringo writes: The intent behind slavery - besides getting cheap labour - was also to "help" the poor dumb Africans run their lives. The intent behind the actual slave trade was purely to make money. The actual traders didn't give a damn about culture.
ringo writes: Huh? We're talking about a specific example here. It would be wise to stop making general statements like "slavery is genocide" then, wouldn't it?
ringo writes: bluegenes writes: So, are you arguing that the motivation of the transatlantic slave traders, like that of some of the attackers of Canadian Aboriginals according to your newspapers, was cultural destruction? Cultural destruction was secondary to getting cheap labour. It was a means to an end. It was a by-product. The action of transporting large numbers of Africans to the Americas resulted in considerable cultural change as a by-product. It would have had a considerable effect on the areas of Africa from which the slaves were drawn, and it also resulted in the evolution of Afro-European cultures amongst the descendants of those transported which had a very significant influence on the cultures developing in the Americas. But the traders had no interest in things like transferring African culture to America. The very interesting cultural effects that the process had were inadvertent. Incidentally, would the intentional and forceful behaviour of the Union in killing off the southern slave culture constitute an act of "cuturecide" or "cultural genocide" in your view? Edited by bluegenes, : missing word
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
NoNukes Inactive Member |
Forget all the reasons slavery was wrong or, of course, evil. You grow up in 1830 Alabama as an uneducated poor white: you are likely to believe that your world, Apparently I do get it. I just don't find the argument compelling. The problem is that even according to what Percy posted in 1830, folks accepted that slavery was evil and excused it anyway. Yes it is likely (although not completely mandatory) that someone in that society would embrace the same practices. But that simply means that someone created a society that perpetuates whatever we are calling this because we are forgetting to use the term evil. Percy argues that folks after 1830 began understanding slavery as beneficial to slaves. Really? After 400 years of practicing slavery despite the evil, attacks on the institution finally made them realize that it was actually beneficial? Does that make any sense? Or was the new understanding merely attempts to rationalize behavior and to answer the charges leveled against the institution.
Sure the blacks & a few dissenting whites didn't get on the bus - but most of them did. Were they evil? Yeah, I think so. I don't think the fact that I disagree means I missed the point. 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
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
NoNukes Inactive Member |
But how are you going to reconcile your definition of evil with other people's, for example, those who believe abortion is evil Am I required to do reconcile my definition with that of other people? What if I believe that some people have idiotic, hateful, or just incorrect definitions? Would that be something with which you disagree? I imagine there are some folks who consider illegal immigration and interracial dating to be evil. I think those immigrant hating/racial purity insisting folks are wrong. I don't see any problem reconciling the definition in some cases even if I disagree with the conclusion other folks reach. if you believe that a fetus is a human being and you don't find a woman's control over her own body to be a significant justification, then you are going to find that abortion is evil. I don't believe that a fetus is a human being at certain stages of development or that an abortion to protect the mothers life at even later stages is without adequate justification, and I strongly value the right for all humans to bodily integrity. So my disagreement with anti-abortion folks is over the facts and not due to my definition. On the other hand, there is no rationale I can come up with to apply to homosexuality in a similar way. Homosexuality then is not evil, and I am feel no responsibility to either defend the definitions that others apply or to accept that their definitions are valid. I am responsible for the viability of my own definition. Some folks define evil based on what their religious text says when read in the most literal way possible. But some of those same folks also believe that the earth is a few thousand years old. If you want to put the argument on my home turf, and allow me to use my definition, then perhaps you can tell me how my application is inconsistent as applied to slavery, abortion, and homosexuality. Or alternatively you can tell me how slavery hurts no one or is adequately justified. Or you can tell me what is incorrect or impractical about my own definition. Beyond that, I don't claim that my definition is complete and there may be some evils that I don't include. Maybe blowing up Stone Mountain because it is blocking your view of the sun is evil. Not sure that act is easily fit into my definition.
The editorial was about the urge to wipe out evil, but it was in the context of things like the war in Iraq, that's why he says "violence." The general principle is that efforts to wipe out evil can perpetuate and even increase evil. One must instead focus on doing good. Okay. Sounds good to me.
Doing good in this case would mean that instead of aligning yourself with efforts against monuments to war dead, send a donation to Brandenburg. I have no problem with the editorial. I have a problem with your expansion of the editorial to things that are not readily analogous to "violence". In the case of the statue in question, a minority of folks are directly involved to the point of expressing an opinion about the statue remaining on campus or not remaining on campus. It is likely that most of the rest of the world does not care one way or the other. Somebody will get their way and somebody else won't. Not sure why either answer is more likely to perpetuate evil than the other. Edited by NoNukes, : address last comment. 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
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
Percy Member Posts: 22391 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
NoNukes writes: 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. Northern attacks and Southern responses were both based upon the truth as they saw it. Your position is absurd and unsound. Just look around at this thread and at every thread in this forum. Everybody can't be right. At least some people must be wrong. Do you really believe they know they're wrong and are just inventing reasons?
Again, I don't find anything particularly new here. Nothing new? Really? After accusing me of making up my characterization of Southern views of slavery? That's rich.
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. Cotton created new realities. Both the North and South changed their rationales in the face of the burgeoning Southern slave-based economy. While the South's view changed from necessary evil to undisguised blessing, the North's evolved from necessary evil to unnecessary evil. Slavery was less efficient than free labor and "undermined the dignity of manual work by associating it with servility and thereby degraded white labor." Slavery "mired all southerners except the slaveowning gentry in poverty and repressed the development of a diversified economy." (quotes from Battle Cry of Freedeom). Times had changed. The new Northern critiques motivated new Southern responses.
Helping Africans was likely not the foremost reason. Again, not what I said. What I actually said was more general and encompassing, that the South believed slavery a boon to both white and negro. As I said earlier, that encompasses most of the reasons. --Percy Edited by Percy, : Grammar.
|
|
|
Do Nothing Button
Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved
Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024