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Author | Topic: PC Gone Too Far | |||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Percy writes:
And how do we do that without deciding whether something (like slavery) is good or bad?
... I think we want to use history to inform our decisions going forward to do the most good for the most people while guided by important underlying principles or imperatives. Percy writes:
And yet you condone memorializing those who fought to preserve slavery on the same level as those who fought to end it.
Slavery does ill to people and can't be condoned. Percy writes:
Evil isn't the only criterion but it has to be one of them.
If evil is to be your criteria for deciding what we do today with monuments, then how are you to deny other people who cite evil for what they want to do?
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Percy writes:
It's a fairly simple and widespread concept: ignorance of the law is no excuse, "I was only following orders," is no excuse. We do hold people responsible for their evil actions.
Does evil entail just doing what is evil, or does it require knowing what is evil and doing it anyway? Percy writes:
I think people who fight for an evil cause should not be memorialized alongside people who fought against it.
You think Southerners evil because of slavery.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Percy writes:
You're claiming that we should look at history objectively. I'm saying that we shouldn't look at slavery objectively; we should look at it empathetically.
ringo writes:
I'm not able to understand how your question fits into the discussion. How do you decide objectively whether to have slavery or not? Percy writes:
It's important to understand that slavery is a very, very bad thing, one of the worst things that can happen to a group of people, tantamount to murdering them en masse. I find it disturbing that you try to ameliorate the evil of slavery.
Why is use of the word "genocide" as a synonym for slavery so important to you?
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 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.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 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?
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 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.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 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.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 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?
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 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.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
bluegenes writes:
The intent doesn't matter. You can wipe out an entire culture accidentally by introducing smallpox, for example. The slaves did try to preserve as much of their culture as possible but they were not free to do so.
The intent behind the actual slave trade was purely to make money. The actual traders didn't give a damn about culture. bluegenes writes:
No more than efforts to kill off the Mafia culture.
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?
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Percy writes:
No we don't. You're trying to minimize the unspeakable evil of slavery by downgrading it to "wrong". To you it's just a little oopsie, like a wrong number. To you its practitioners are heroes worthy of commemoration. We all agree slavery is wrong.... No, we don't agree. We need to call a spade a spade or we're not remembering history.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Percy writes:
No. I would like it to be replaced by a monument to the slaves. That would be remembering history as it was instead of whitewashing it.
If you really believe that the most common thoughts brought to mind by that monument are that slavery and Southerners were evil, and you truly don't want that forgotten, then you really want that monument to be displayed prominently for as long as possible. Percy writes:
And I've said that it's the only way that makes sense, so quit pretending that we agree.
I've said many times that judging historical peoples along some modern scale from evil to good makes no sense. Percy writes:
The facts can be remembered by commemorating the victims instead of the perpetrators. They will be repeated unless we remember which side was "wrong".
...don't you want those facts remembered so that such mistakes aren't repeated? Percy writes:
It's not an individual decision. It's a collective decision by society. Our society has decided to accept abortion and homosexuality and reject slavery. Some future society may decide we were evil and ban abortion and homosexuality and re-introduce slavery. You, of course, would want to decide "objectively" whether or not slavery was a good idea.
How does one demand action based on one's own judgments of evil, say about Southerners, while rejecting others' demands for action based upon their own judgments of evil, say about abortion and homosexuality.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
xongsmith writes:
Commemorated by the monument.
Heroes? Where?Commemoration? Where?
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
xongsmith writes:
Yes.
Your argument seems to be that there is no way the Southern soldiers could have died as honorably as the Northern soldiers - is it? xongsmith writes:
You can't just ignore the cause they were fighting for. What you're trying to do is like putting police officers who die in the line of duty on an equal footing with Bonnie and Clyde.
Weren't the leaders of the North military evil as well? xongsmith writes:
I have already said that more than once.
Would it be any different for you if they put up a plaque on front saying things like "NEVER AGAIN!" and things like "NEVER FORGET THE CRIMES FROM THE CONFEDERATE POWERS THAT SENT THESE MEN TO THEIR DEATHS!".
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
bluegenes writes:
And slavery wasn't regarded as a bad thing - until it was. It always takes a while for some people's empathy to engage.
That's why the enormous amount of Amerindian smallpox deaths aren't regarded as genocide. bluegenes writes:
It isn't a crime to stop a crime.
Would the intentional and forceful behaviour of the Union in killing off the southern slave culture or the Mafia culture constitute an act of "cuturecide" or "cultural genocide" in your view?
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