PC Gone Too Far

This is not the greatest argument available that slavery is better than death. Neither is pointing out that slaves yearned for an after life during which they would be free, because they would necessarily have to die to reach the afterlife.Perhaps the argument scores some points in distinguishing between slavery and genocide, but perhaps while losing points on another important front. Namely comparing the relative undesirability of the two. We will kill you, versus we will make you long for death...

Cat's Eye says: and even NoNukes, who he quoted, said: THIS IS what Percy has been saying from the get-go. It's all about the analysis, using the scientific methods we can bring to bear where appropriate, using historical preservation where we can.*facepalm*

Percy writes:

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Though slavery figures prominently in the story it is primarily a distraction when divining the fundamental causes of the Civil War.

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(*blink!*)You did not just say that, did you?Once again, I have to repeat to you (Message 53 from "After Palmyra ISIS Targets Monuments on U.S. Soil" not even three months ago):Slavery was *the* issue of the war. Indeed, the Civil War was about a lot of things, but to pretend that slavery and white supremacy were "ancillary" [or to use your words, "a distraction"] shows a profound disconnect from reality.Take a look at the documents created by the Confederacy as to why they were seceding. The primary justifications were slavery and white supremacy.Here's the first two sentences of Georgia's declaration of secession: Mississippi (again, the first two sentences): South Carolina takes its time to get to it, but there it is: Texas doesn't take so long, but it's right there: Virginia puts it in the first sentence: The idea that they were fighting for "state's rights" ignores the immediate question: The "state's right" to do what?Own slaves.And here's Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy, talking about why they are seceding: To pretend that slavery wasn't the primary and central issue of the Civil War is disingenuous at best.

Percy writes:

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Since the question concerns PC, I have to assume that a "substantially large portion of the state" does not mean a majority of the state, because PC has no value in majority situations. PC is used in minority political situations to influence the majority to act in their favor.

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Completely backwards. "PC" is used by the majority to control the minority. It can only survive at the behest of the majority for it is the use of a position that those in the majority find to be "correct" in order to show ones bona fides and maintain your position within the group.That's why the Right is just as PC as the left...just about different things. If you fun afoul of the "correct" political positions, you will be ostracized and abandoned by the group you are trying to align yourself with.That's why it is "politically incorrect" for a conservative to advocate for gun control, abortion rights, gay rights, environmental protections, unionization, etc., etc. Despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of Republicans want universal background checks to buy a gun, for example, they can't actually bring themselves to do it because it would be "politically incorrect" for them to do so. If they were to actually do so, they'd be accused of being "liberal" and to the majority of conservatives, to hold a "liberal" position is "politically incorrect." That's why we see the Tea Party tearing the Republican Party apart: Solidly conservative representatives are being kicked out of office because they aren't "conservative enough."If the politically correct position were a minority position, it wouldn't be able to get any foothold within the group. It is because the political correctness is the majority position that allows it to thrive.

Percy responds to me:

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Only you and NoNukes are claiming Lincoln was wrong in this thread.

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Logical error: Argumentum ad populum.Try again.

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My claim that it's just you and NoNukes is the opposite of an "it's true because that's what most people believe is true" type of argument.

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(*blink!*)You did not just say that, did you? How is, Only you think that, not precisely the definition of argumentum ad populum? After all, what is the point of pointing out the singular nature of the person arguing if not to claim that everybody else disagrees?You’re approaching Faith-level disingenuousness, Percy.

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But you can't just claim an army of agreement (which, by the way, *is* the Argumentum ad populum fallacy), you have to show it.

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What is the comparative group to me and NoNukes? Precisely what is the point of noting that?Oh, that’s right...to argue the popularity of our position. Argumentum ad populum.Try again.

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So either you're supporting your position that Lincoln was wrong, or you didn't realize that's what I was referring to.

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Or, you’re flailing.

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No, this is not "the theist argument about how atheists don't have morality." It's an argument that evil is a subjective and relative concept that is not very useful in historical analysis.

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Someone didn’t read the post. When you cut out the entire analysis for the reason why I said what I said, that’s not surprising. But seeing as how I have to keep repeating myself to you, I’m not surprised. Here’s the part you ignored...you know...the conclusion: Try again, Percy.

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The point of monuments for either Northern or Southern war dead would be pretty much the same.

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(*blink!*)You did not just say that, did you?

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We all agree that the Confederacy was defending slavery.

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Apparently, we don’t. Did you or did you not write the following in Message 354: A distraction, Percy. That’s what you said. Slavery is a distraction to the historical analysis of the Civil War.

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Deeming the Confederacy evil is not analysis and does not have any historical value.

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Ignoring the evil of the Confederacy is not historical analysis.

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If this is an argument in favor of removing a 120-year old monument, then yes, you're suggesting the destruction of history.

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Why? Why does refusing to glorify evil destruction of history? There’s a whole museum dedicated to the Holocaust up in LA. Is that destruction of history because they don’t find anything noble in it?This isn’t a question of recognizing military strategy in certain battles. This is a question of venerating a cause.What is the point of the monument?

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It isn't the passage of time that allows you to see what they couldn't. Northerners clearly saw it.

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So why can’t you? Why couldn’t Lincoln? Clearly, it is not certain that we would not be like them if we were in their position.

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If you're trying to say that evil *is* is a historical assessment that has value, then you should be able to explain why.

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I have. Repeatedly. You have repeatedly ignored the justifications with your insistence that to deem something evil does not have any historical value.Denying the basic humanity of a person is, in and of itself, evil. The Confederacy existed specifically for that purpose. They said so directly in their statements of secession.

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Right - this is as good an argument as, "They were evil because they were evil.

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Only if you didn’t read the post to which you were responding...which we have already established that you didn’t.

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That's actually the whole point, that you're making value judgments and not being objective.

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Ah, the theist argument about how atheists don't have morality. If there is no "objective" morality, then everything is allowed. And yet, atheists still have morality. The rules of Monopoly are completely subjective. They even change from one game to the next. One of the more common "house rules" is that any money collected from Chance and Community Chest cards as penalties is put under Free Parking. If you land there, you get any money that happens to be there. It's so popular that it's now an "official variant."But make no mistake, the rules are completely arbitrary and enforcement is subjective. And yet, they are still enforced. Break them and you'll incur penalties, perhaps as mild as taking it back to as severe as being kicked out and never invited back to play.Subjectivity is not the problem. And to deny the usefulness of recognizing evil is to do a disservice to history. Evil is more complex than you're comfortable with. History without any concept of how it affects people's lives is a simple recitation of facts.If you think you’ve seen that argument before, that’s because you didn’t pay attention to it the first time. Pay attention, Percy. You’ve even been told the specific part of that argument you need to pay attention to. Don’t cut it out. Don’t pretend it doesn’t exist. Don’t ignore it. It only makes sense in the light of the preliminary stuff. Read the whole post.

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This indicates a misunderstanding of what Lincoln was saying.

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Indeed, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what Lincoln was saying. Before you can advocate it, you have to understand it.I think when you understand what Lincoln was really saying that you’ll understand that he was playing politics.

Percy responds to NoNukes:

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The Civil War was over slavery, but the fundamental causes related to the inability of the North and South to reach agreement about slavery. Why was that? Certainly not because the South was evil. That's a non-answer.

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Except it is. The entire reason why you continue to fail in this misadventure is because of your refusal to accept that as an answer. The answer to all of your questions traces back to evil.

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The real answers go to the heart of human nature.

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And how precisely does the possibility of evil not enter into it? How on earth does one talk about human nature without talking about evil?

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Why was the South so acutely and paranoidally fearful of any interference with their beloved institution? It involved perceived threats to life, livelihood, family and social order.

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Yes. Why? Because it involved recognizing the fundamental humanity of black people. That refusal to do so is evil. The direct statements of the Confederacy directly state that the position of blacks is to be inferior to whites. The entire reason for the Confederacy rested upon this notion and the preservation of slavery. To deny this would mean that blacks were not inferior to whites.

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Why was the North unable to set Southern minds at rest, despite a great desire to do so to preserve the union?

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Because of the evil of slavery and white supremacy and the way in which the South embraced it.

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Some of Southern paranoia was driven by events (John Brown the most famous example)

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Which was an act of abolition to end slavery. To allow the end of slavery would require recognition of the humanity of black people. And thus, we're back to discussing evil.

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some by Northern rhetoric (abolitionists the most alarming)

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Again, you're talking evil. They sought to deny the humanity of blacks. Which is evil.

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some by the threat to property (reluctance of the North to return runaway slaves despite Federal laws)

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Which, again, is the promotion of evil. Treating human beings as property is evil.

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some by fear of economic domination of the North (the South produced little manufactured goods, e.g., the vast majority of it's cotton was spun elsewhere)

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Because blacks are property. To treat them as human beings would mean they'd lose their value. We're back to evil.

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and some by the threat of the slaves themselves, which were in some sense a "tiger by the tail" type of problem.

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Because blacks weren't even really human. If slavery were to be considered wrong, then how could anybody deny blacks some sort of restitution for the treatment they received? To accept that would mean that the South had embraced evil.

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Southerners paradoxically believed slavery a blessing for both master and slave while at the same time fearing slave uprisings.

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Yes, because they had embraced the evil of white supremacy.Every single one of your questions traces back to evil, Percy. Your refusal to even consider this demonstrates a severe lack of comprehension of what the Civil War was about, how we got to that point, and why its echoes still haunt us to this day.You want evil to be some bogeyman and just as fictional. Evil is more complicated than that.

Percy responds to NoNukes:

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Rrhain was repeating points already answered

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Incorrect.Instead, you repeated the same refuted argument and thus you got the same refutation. If you don't want to hear the same refutation again, you need to come up with a new argument, Percy.I've been very generous given your repetition. You offered no change in argument, so there was little point in coming up with anything new. That you are unable to actually read the posts to which you are responding and actually examine what is being presented to you does not excuse you in your repetition of refuted claims. We can't make you pay attention, Percy.You then repeat yourself with the same Lincoln quote. But this time, you put two together: And you truly don't see how your second quote proves the point that Lincoln was behaving politically. The surrender of the South was tenuous at best. For crying out loud, Lincoln got shot! He needed some way to help the South accept their loss and he did so by trying to ameliorate their embrace of the evil of slavery...especially since he had his own streak of white supremacy running through him.It can easily be seen that you have not grasped what Lincoln was saying. Merely repeating his words doesn't make your misunderstanding any more correct.Lincoln's words are trivially shown to be wrong. The mere fact that we had a Civil War shows that no, "we" were not like them. "We" were in their situation and "we" found slavery detestable. West Virginia seceded from Virginia because of it.You'll note that I'm repeating myself. That's because you keep refusing to respond to that point. You simply repeat yourself. Thus, you get the same refutation. If you want something new, Percy, you need to come up with a new argument.Repeating Lincoln's words is not a new argument, Percy. It simply redemonstrates your misunderstanding of his words.

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I *have* presented an actual argument. I argued that people are the same everywhere and everywhen, that the people of the South were no different from the people of the North or from us today or from people anytime or anywhere.

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And that argument has been refuted. The very fact that we had a Civil War trivially demonstrates your argument to be incorrect. If the people who were fighting against slavery were the same as the people who were fighting for slavery, why were they fighting at all? You need to come up with something new. If you retreat back to this claim, you're simply going to get the same refutation again.

ringo responds to Percy:

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On the contrary, we don't seem to be learning even those simple lessons.

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No kidding. Some people may be aware of the Australian coming to terms with their treatment of the Aboriginal people. The "Stolen Children" were literally taken from their Aboriginal parents and rehomed to white parents out of some concept that they would be "better off."We had that same thing here in the US. Children of Native Americans were literally stolen. The white government would literally go onto reservations, find children, and forcibly remove them from their homes to be raised by the state and/or adopted by white families. There were entire tribes where there were literally no children.And this was happening up to the 1960s. It's the reason for the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978. And that law was put in jeopardy recently with the Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl case.Radiolab had a recent story on it: Adoptive Couple v. Baby GirlWe are still infected with this idea that there are "lesser" people in the world who deserve to be exploited.

xongsmith writes:

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The other direction is also pertinent. The LGBTQ movement is trying to get today's culture to remove the historical "evilness". So what used to be evil is no longer so.

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This is the same attempt to "save face" that didn't work in the Civl War.Hint: Did any of those "historical" people regarding the evil of homosexuality ever bother to ask the gay people what they thought?This was the entire basis for why the APA removed homosexuality as a mental disorder from the DSM: The only people they ever saw who were gay were those who had mental troubles. Thus, they insisted that being gay was a mental disorder. But through the work of psychologists like Evelyn Hooker, it suddenly dawned on the mental health community that maybe, just maybe, they should actually talk to gay people and find out what they thought about being gay rather than telling them.Do you really think that if you asked slaves if they thought they were well-served by slavery they would say yes?But that would require treating slaves as actual human beings with opinions and dignity all their own.We cannot divorce the way in which we dehumanize our fellows from the results of that dehumanization.So yeah, we're all a little bit evil. That doesn't make it OK. That's why we have to work at becoming better, learning from our mistakes, recognizing that we'll fail, and not fight against the need to say, "I'm sorry. I didn't realize. I will try not to do it again." It's why we have so many fake apologies where people lay the blame on the other person for being upset at being mistreated rather than taking responsibility for mistreating their fellows.

caffeine responds to me:

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The reason we have a Second Amendment is because of the threat of slave uprisings.

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This seems, at best, an oversimplification.

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Yes and no. Yes, there were other justifications for the Second Amendment, but one of the big ones has to do with the threat of slave rebellions. One of the primary reasons for a state to have a militia was to ensure slavery was maintained. There's a reason that we have a "3/5ths clause" in the Constitution. The question of slavery goes all the way back to the Declaration of Independence. This idea that "all men are created equal" was truly debated over whether it applied to slaves. After all, how could the white people of the Colonies demand their dignity and freedom from the British Crown if they were not willing to give it to the slaves here in this country?So yeah, the Second Amendment is about a lot of things.And one of the big ones is slavery.

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It seems to me that slavery dominates the American understanding of history too much

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And I say the exact opposite. Slavery's effect on American history isn't understood nearly enough.

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many things are explained as being the result of slavery, while ignoring the fact that the same or similar things happen(ed) in places without the legacy of slavery.

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The fact that one society could justify their desire to have a gun without the threat of slave rebellions does not mean that another society that did have that issue didn't use it to justify their desire to have a gun. Multiple paths can lead to the same conclusion. That doesn't mean that all paths are the same. False premises can lead to a true conclusion. That doesn't mean the argument is correct.In the US, people have been claiming that the Second Amendment refers to an individual right to own a gun. And yet, it has never been interpreted to mean that until now (and the plain text seems clear that it isn't about an individual right.) It lives in a context of a militia. And why was a militia important?Well, there were threats from Great Britain trying to retake the colonies.And slave rebellions.And thus you cannot understand the Second Amendment without also examining slavery.

What is the matter with you? Are you slow or something? What is so hard to understand about, "It makes no sense to judge history on some continuum from good to evil." I explain, you ignore and go right back to your "Slavery is evil therefore the South was evil and if you argue with me I'll accuse you of saying slavery wasn't evil" shtick.It seems that if you can't begin your analysis of the motivations of the North and South with "The South was evil" that you can't begin at all. Your need to color history in moral terms to justify vindictive action against a cherished Southern heritage is driving your judgment and clouding any objectivity you might have.It all comes down to your denial of Lincoln's words: "They are just what we would be under similar circumstances." You just can't admit their truth but instead just keep telling yourself, "Oh, no, not me, I would have been against slavery no matter what." You flatter yourself.The reality is that the deeper one went in the South the more people were proslavery, both the percentages and the strength of feeling. Were you an antebellum native of the deep South then it is very, very likely you would have been proslavery. As is true of all of us. We're all largely products of our environment. Believing slavery wrong is not an inherent quality.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

You're working hard at misunderstanding something very simple, which happens a lot in this thread. I don't myself see the value of rebutting opinions not expressed. Let me reposition your "in other words" to the North and you tell me how much sense it makes: Does that sound like history to you?It makes no sense to impose moral judgments of good and evil on history. Everybody in this thread believes slavery is wrong and that we shouldn't enslave other people. The attempts by some to characterize others as defending slavery are shameful. But some of you prefer the more subjective and emotional term "evil" which you then use as justification to render judgment over those who cherish their heritage. You hold them complicit if they don't agree that their ancestors and their way of life were evil. Though they probably agree that slavery was wrong and that their ancestors were wrong to keep slaves, I doubt that's good enough for you. You won't stop until they agree it was all "evil" and that any references to it are also "evil".People's sense of good and evil, of right and wrong, are influenced by daily experience, starting at birth and continuing all the way through childhood into adulthood. Those growing up and living in a place reflect the opinions and attitudes native to that place. That's what happens to people everywhere, throughout all times and places of history.--Percy

Ah, murder, good example! We all know murder, the taking of human life, is wrong, yet we condone the taking of human life under some circumstances and refuse to call it murder. Capital punishment is one example, war is another. In many armies throughout history even murdering one's own was condoned, such as summary execution for cowardice. Self defense is another example of the accepted taking of a human life.So murder is wrong, except when it's not, the general point being that there are no absolutes out there. That slavery is wrong is not an absolute, simply because there are none. If the goal is objectivity (clearly not the goal for some here) then one must abandon subjective moral judgments like "good" and "evil". I understand the appeal, but they make no more sense as part of the critical analysis of history as would other qualities. It wouldn't make any sense to explain a war with claims of "They were slothful" or the "They were prideful" (to draw upon a couple of the seven deadly sins), why should it make any sense to claim "They were evil"?What we can say with absolute confidence is that the South was people like people anywhere, and we can try to understand how people would behave when faced with their circumstances. Those are slogans. Their true point is that liberty and freedom require struggle and sacrifice, sometimes the ultimate sacrifice. They don't imply anything like, "Oh, no, I've become enslaved, may as well die."As a side note, I live in New Hampshire where "Live free or die" is the state slogan. It isn't taken literally and is often mocked.--Percy

I was just reciting some facts from history. It wasn't a "justification" and it certainly wasn't "morally bankrupt". You've gone off on a rant about a passage that any Civil War historian would agree with. Are you agreeing with my statement that the value of slave children would increase as they approached maturity? Or are you saying something else?Let me explain again in more detail. Ringo was leveling the wrong criticism at the South when he said, "Having your child SOLD, with no chance of ever seeing it again, was fairly common practice." It was *not* a common practice. Selling young slave children wasn't profitable, they'd require care, working plantations wouldn't have much use for them, they'd be worth much more when older, and so selling young slave children probably didn't happen much.The more common and more accurate criticism of the North was the breaking up of slave families. This wouldn't have been in the form of selling off five and ten year olds, but in the form of selling the husband, or selling the mother and placing the children with a relative or simply another slave woman, or selling the children as they matured and became valuable, or selling the parts of extended families and separating adult sisters, brothers, cousins, etc. You're becoming Talmudic in your analysis of my words again, and highly emotional in your discussion. Objective discussion of slavery seems impossible for you, apparently because a moral context is necessary to your position. Well, if that's true then you have something actually worth writing about. Let's see what you have to say.After examining it, much of what you say is true but doesn't at all contradict anything I said. For the most part you're just providing other information.As for the main topic, you're using "Don't you understand how evil slavery is" as a proxy for why "evil" has any value as a critical historical assessment. Yes, we all understand and agree about slavery, but at heart your argument is that the "evil" of slavery justifies denigration and diminishment of those who fought for what was, in their mind, a social order, a livelihood, a culture, a way of life.I have to emphasize the "in their mind" portion of the above argument, because this is something you repeatedly fail to see. Your judgment is that slavery was evil, Southerners knew it was evil, they did it anyway, and therefore they and their descendants deserve what they get.But Southerners did not think slavery evil. They thought it a blessing to both white man and negro. And almost everyone both North and South believed the white man superior to the negro.--Percy

Gosh, I wish I'd said these things as well as this: I would like to respond to your request for feedback: It does sometimes seem like you're judging people. I can't point to any recent examples because we haven't been in discussion together anytime recently, but for example I do recall times that you seemed to be judging some people as not real Christians.--Percy