PC Gone Too Far

Boy, can your understanding ever go awry. You said, "Percy has admitted that the definition of genocide is controversial." No, he hasn't, not even close.You're misconstruing my correction of your other error. You had claimed there was a consensus in Canada that what happened to your aboriginal people was genocide. It turns out, as I described in Message 525, that it's much more equivocal, that they're debating whether it should be called genocide or cultural genocide or even something else. They *definitely* and in no uncertain terms are *not* debating the meaning of the word "genocide," and I *definitely* have *not* "admitted that the definition of genocide is controversial."You're arguing with the dictionary, Don Quixote.--Percy

I'm not making it up. I originally stated that your tactic of demonization brings more conflict, not less. Your answer so far has been, in effect, "No, it doesn't," which isn't very helpful, so I used the Iraq example to help draw out some detail of your views. Saddam was committing evil in Iraq. Can I assume you were against intervention and against Canada joining the coalition? So how are you to stop him without violence? How would you have stopped Hitler without violence?The problem with, "We have to stop evil, but without violence" has a next step that can best be described as, "Non-violent approaches to evil don't work, I guess we'll have to increase military pressure." The next step after that can best be described as, "Charge!"Anyone against both violence and evil will quickly learn that non-violence is ineffective. But violence is chaotic, often has unintended consequences, and can make things worse, like ISIS. So what to do? Well, if you're going to insist on the term evil, then you're going to have to learn how to get along with evil. What was really meant was that subjective criteria like evil hinder your ability to make sound decisions.But we certainly can't have anything as "universally evil" as slavery going on, can we. You should mount your horse and invade India. I support the preservation of all history everywhere, within constraints. If all the permits have been signed then the building or road goes up and history is destroyed. I frequently see news stories from New York and London of building excavations uncovering important history. Sometimes the history is important enough to stop work for a time, but generally the historians and archeologists have to work quickly before work resumes and history is destroyed.Your question also touches on something Caffeine asked earlier, monuments to despots always hated by the people, so see my Message 148. What on earth are you talking about? I support objectivity, not slavery. I'm arguing that firing up your passions with emotion-laden terms like evil will more often lead you to conflict rather than peace and resolution. There you go with another absurd claim. We'll add it to the list.You good/evil guys sound more and more like the religionists, but instead of "He's a good Christian" and "He's a bad Christian," you have "He's good" and "He's evil."--Percy

If you're going to post words beneath a request for a definition, then you need to in some way make clear you're not answering the question, else reasonable people everywhere will assume you're providing a definition. I don't think so. Where? I can give you the definition that applies best to its use in this discussion straight out the dictionary. As an adjective evil is "morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked". As a noun evil is "the force in nature that governs and gives rise to wickedness and sin" or "the wicked or immoral part of someone or something". As a philosophical concept evil is an aporia. To me it is obviously subjective with no proper role in conclusions derived from objective analysis. Except for the quibble that you can't repeat this since you've never said it before, thanks for finally offering a definition. Does this include only physical harm, or also mental harm. In any case, you seem to understand the broad ambiguities. We all agree slavery is wrong, "morally unsound," as you say, but now you've left out your word "evil", which is the big problem. "Evil" as a classification of people is problematic not just because of the inherent ambiguity but also because of the overtones and connotations of wickedness and villainy, even savagery and depravity. Uh, NoNukes, the context is this discussion. You're trying to convince the other side that Southerners should be stigmatized due to their embracing of slavery, that they're evil and therefore deserving of no commemoration, particularly those who held positions of high responsibility in the Confederacy. Let he who is without evil (whatever that is) have the first monument.I'll answer a few of your other replies here. From your Message 625: In context, Xongsmith is talking about *your* motives and justifications. It is they that have no place in history, i.e., your judgment of Southerners as evil has no place in history. If the North thought Southerners evil then that would of course be included with the rest of the historical analysis. But that *you* think the South evil? Doesn't belong in history.From your Message 626: I've said pretty much the same thing a couple of times. From my Message 573: From my Message 608: More from your Message 626: Yes, pretty much consistent with what I've been saying and what one would expect as a debate of ideas unfolds. I was correcting your implication that I was only aware of changing views and not of changing circumstances. It works against finding common ground when you continually ask whether I think slavery okay, and continually use contemporary judgments of historical practices that I've argued have no place in historical analysis. We all agree slavery is wrong. If you're going to insist on "slavery is evil" then until you can come up with a definition of evil that is consistent with developing historically objective perspectives we're not going to agree. You keep bringing this back to slavery as if it were the main point of contention. It's not. Your position is that Southerners were evil and undeserving of commemoration regarding the Civil War, yet you instead keep defending your position that "slavery is evil," where our only difference is terminological.--Percy

I will answer this with* what recently passedNobel prize winner Mr.
Elie Wiesel said once speaking about WWII

quote:

---

Has Germany ever asked us to forgive? Mr. Wiesel asked. To my knowledge, no such plea was ever made. With whom am I to speak about forgiveness, I, who don’t believe in collective guilt? Who am I to believe in collective innocence?

---

So the North was to just continue to practice laissez faire devil may care policy of the the Souths continued practice of slavery to include the desire to allow this practice to spread. In your opinion it is not for the Federal government to step in and put a stop to states practicing and perpetuating slavery. Because it is non of their business. Really?And for the record Slavery was wrong and still is wrong, no 'whether' to it. And if any states wish to practice states rights to re-institute slavery they will have to endure the full force of the Federal government to stop it. Yes States Rights to continue the abject inhuman practice of the human slavery.Edited by 1.61803, : changed what to with

Uh, that's what I'm saying. That's why objectivity is not applicable.

We're coming to that understanding. You can quibble all you want about whether there is a consensus yet or not. I, for one, have not heard anybody arguing against it being genocide even if some of us are still a little reluctant to admit it. So, if it's being debated, there's a controversy. Bing-fucking-go! Dictionaries don't lead; they follow.

Or you need to understand that there are other ways to respond to questions other than by giving you what you want. Your request for a definition when we all agree that slavery is evil seemed, and still seems, pretty pointless to me. But your accusation that I have refused to provide a definition is just wrong. Your attempt to provide a reason why I won't provide a definition when I have already done so is completely bogus. You are mistaken, Percy. I provided a definition in a previous post to which you responded. Here is part of your response to me to the post in which I provided the exact same definition I provided here. From Message 544Your accusation, as well as this line of questioning are off the mark. The rest of your post does not seem to provide anything new. Slavery was evil, but apparently that does not reflect badly on the folks who practiced slavery, at least if I let you tell it. Instead, somehow I am the responsible for the stigma attached to slavery while the folks who actually practiced the institution are blameless.No, Percy, the antebellum South stigmatized itself for all of time by their actions.ABE:I add here that I don't claim that anyone other than the folks who actually were involved in owning, trading, working, punishing, slaves and promulgating and defending slavery or other particular acts falls into the category of not being a worthy of a park statute. Of course such comments would not to extend to all southerners in general. However my comments would explain why I believe statues of folks like Jefferson Davis or Nathan Bedford Forest belong in museum's rather than in places of honor. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Yes. I wouldn't have stopped him. I have said that I would fight to stop slavery. I would also fight to stop other instances of genocide, such as the Holocaust. There are no easy answers for when to fight and when not to.But the point of this thread is not about whether to fight or not; it's about whether to memorialize both sides equally. I've been consistent on that: no memorials to the SS, no memorials to Confederates, no memorials to Saddam, no memorials to serial killers, etc. Your vaunted "objectivity" seems to have missed an important point: The North would have abolished slavery by non-violent means if it could. The South started the violence. Violence to support violence. You support looking at history objectively. That suggests that there are possible circumstances under which slavery would be justifiable.That's like looking objectively at whether or not to feed your children. I think that's preferable to getting out your slide rule to decide whether or not to buy a slave.

Ringo persists with: Not applicable to your own discussion. Which isn't Percy's discussion.For him and me it's the other way: That's why subectivity is not applicable.Good. Now we don't have to talk past each other anymore.

You seem to be claiming that a rapidly expanding population group of slaves [the 19th century African Americans] were the victims of a genocide. Instead of saying that over and over again, try to support it with data from history.I'm well ahead, not catching up. The discussion in Canada about whether or not treatment of the Aboriginals should be described as genocide is based around a discussion of how they were treated and why. It isn't based on anyone claiming that slavery is genocide. If it was, the slave owning Aboriginal cultures would be being accused of genocidal behaviour.Do you think that the Aboriginal slave cultures were guilty of genocide?

If the "*" was to indicate a footnote, there was no footnote. When applied to the South Mr. Wiesel seems to agree with my position, no collective guilt. No collective innocence, either. I haven't the time to summarize the politics leading up to the Civil War, but realize that the South was part of the federal government, too, with votes in Congress. Secession had been threatened many times, but it happened when it did because the South felt a tipping point had been passed and that their waning political power at the federal level would not any longer be able to hold off the powers of abolition. Well, thank goodness for that. Here we were all worried that slavery was going to make a US comeback. This is by now a familiar approach in this thread, that the other side in this discussion has taken their position because they just don't understand how horrible slavery is.Our position is based upon an understanding that moral and emotional solutions cause much harm, or to translate this into the other side's preferred terminology, evil.--Percy

Like this excellent example of stonewalling? Except that we don't "all agree that slavery is evil." Evil is a subjective term with different meanings according to person and context. Your own attempt at a definition admitted to the broad ambiguities. I was speaking of your failure to provide a definition up to that point. In a subsequent paragraph you attempted a definition, your first. As I said, it admitted to the broad ambiguities. Here it is again from your Message 624: Yes, you might well "question harm and justification." Has no evil been committed against a slave who was never harmed without sufficient justification? Mustn't there be some more fundamental principle for why slavery is wrong?And no, these are not "settled issues in the minds of everyone here, including you." I believe slavery wrong based upon a moral principle, that one human being shouldn't own another. Harming other human beings is wrong independent of slavery and is another moral principle. It isn't an accusation, but anyway, to the contrary, they're central to the problem with your approach. If in your eyes evil is sufficient justification for action, how can you deny anyone's call to action based upon what they think evil? You cannot continue using a term you won't define (the one you provided is sorely inadequate). Let me try to define it for you: At least it's consistent, concrete and general enough to actually discuss. Yeah, right, we blame you for making slavery seem bad. Recently your writing seems more for effect than to support your position. Yes, judge.--Percy

Yes, you're right, there are no easy answers about when to fight, but the point I was leading to is that fighting is not often a good answer. History tells us that war often lacks objective support, rarely achieves desired outcomes, and has many unintended consequences, not to mention the expected consequences of death and destruction. To the extent that evil implies an imperative to rectify it can only increase conflict, and we already have enough of that. Actually, preserving history is the point of this thread. The memorial in question is a record of Southern feeling about the Civil War 120 years ago. NoNukes might describe it as an expression of Lost Cause sentiments. I understand we would disagree about a proposal to erect a memorial to Southern war dead today, but that's not at issue here. The key question is whether bygone passions or detachment should prevail in deciding the future of a very old monument. Yes, most certainly the North would have wished to abolish slavery peaceably, but the South wanted peace, too. The South expressed strong wishes that she be left alone in pursuing her own course as an independent nation. She attempted to negotiate payment for federal properties (like Fort Sumter) but was rebuffed. Regardless who fired first (while Fort Sumter marked the beginning of the Civil War, federal troops fired on Baltimore secessionists before Lincoln's inauguration and a couple months before Fort Sumter), given the North's position that secession was illegal and that the South must be made to conform with the constitution, conflict was inevitable. I don't myself see how objectivity might change conclusions that slavery is wrong on moral grounds, but I'm open to discussing any ideas you might have. Objectivity and morality are not opposites, and they are not mutually exclusive.About your specific scenario, is it morally wrong to buy slaves if the intent is to free them? This was a topic of active debate among abolitionists. Some argued it was wrong because it put a value on human life. Others argued more pragmatically that the ends justified these particular means. And of course some, like John Brown, argued that the ends justified any means.--Percy

Neither you nor Percy has explained how objectivity is applicable. How do you objectively evaluate slavery? How do you objectively decide whether or not to exterminate the Jews? How can you eliminate empathy from those discussions?

It isn't a discussion of whether it "should" be described as genocide. The fact is that it has been described as genocide. We don't have people vociferously denying that it was genocide. We're mostly past denial. Quite possibly they were. What does that have to do with anything? Does that justify us committing genocide?