Judging History (branch off from election thread)

[a completely inoffensive name]

You're wrong

Someone owning slaves in modern america would be so many times worse.

Why? Owning slaves is wrong. It does not matter when and where someone enslaved another man. They are committing a human rights violation either way, to say that such violations were not as egregious because "it was cool back then" is just terribly wrong.

Not true.

Elaborate?

Your mistake is viewing this in terms of decisions and excuses. That's a bad way of judging people, the "judeo-christian trap" of moral judgement. Holistic is the only way.

What exactly does "holistic" entail? Because from what I can tell, looking at things holistically means that we must treat blatently bad rationale as valid in our judgement. When you try to incorporate life decisions as "part of a bigger social picture" you begin to validate those bad actions. Somali pirates are not terrible people for hijacking boats and holding people hostage and killing resistors. After all, it is a hard life there and how else can they make a living?

Racist: *quotes statistics about educational achievements of black people*
ACIN: "It's good not to let them slip through the cracks of a well deserved critique, no partial forgiveness!"

????????

Now that is a mischaracterization (is that a word?) of what I am saying. Are you really trying to equate me with pseudo scientific racist arguments?

Societal approval is not really important here...so...

My point was in countering your attempt to apologize for his actions of personal slave owning by saying it was 'societies expectations'.

Washington doesn't deserve any critique for having slaves. That's pure anachronism. Neither does Jefferson--but we can criticize his treatment of them.

Why? Why, why, why? If we recognize slavery is wrong, then what is your rationale for protecting those who made bad decisions in the past? You can call it anachronism but that isn't an argument at all. It's just your opinion on a competing idea.

As the years advance we quickly reach the point where owning slaves is itself a black mark against someone.

Is this bad?

I think anyone who is disgusted with Washington has a lack of awareness of their own limitations with regards to our society.

You make it seem like that we are not physically able to rise above society. Was Washington physically unable to let his slaves go and only when he died could he finally break free of societies chains?
Of course society affects us all. I ill not deny that Sasaki, but to fall back on what society wants as a reason for committing injustice is just silly. Everyone has a choice. Even if the right thing to do (freeing slaves) was social suicide at the time, Washington made the choice to keep owning other people.

I think the only argument here is about your dichotomizing, seeing it as all or nothing.

Nope. I said from my very first reply today that we should call people for what they are, complex. No one is a complete villian (well, a few maybe) and no one is a complete saint. However, disregarding the impact of what individuals did because you are trying to incorporate it into a larger view of social demands at the time is whitewashing history. I can say that I hate Washington for being a complete hypocrite and a disgusting slave owner and that I love him for his discipline while being the first president of the US and that overall I have an average to good view of him. And there is nothing contradictory about that view. I just simply won't lessen the bad and hype the good because they chose to not go against the flow of the times. Hell, Washington rebelled against the British army he served in and was supposed to be completely loyal to, but refusing to rebel against Virginia's slave society? Let's give him a pass for that?

Can I call you ignorant for not understanding some scientific subject that we haven't advanced to yet?

Yes. I am not aware of how to travel faster than light. If there is a way, then it is currently exists just as the ideal gas law has always existed. This is why we should work hard to learn such scientific truths, so that we are no longer ignorant of such things. Same thing with owning slaves. Owning another human being has always been wrong, and simply because everyone in a given group may not have known that at the time, does not mean they are not ignorant of it.

"A critical awareness of the potentialities of man allows us to act in our own time with higher insight and vigor"--Hajo Holborn

Exactly! By realizing that Washington committed human right errors because of the social demands of his time we can further critique ourselves and examine why we don't behave how we should on a day to day basis. From that we can improve ourselves and our society by attempting to rise above it. Washington still remains in the negative for his actions though.

[Lemur]

Owning slaves is wrong.

Gah. At the risk of Epic Thread Derailment ... I kinda disagree. If you read too much history, you'll see that slavery had a very different character in various societies. In Republican Rome, for example, slavery could function as a sort of welfare or unemployment insurance. Can't feed your family? Sell yourself into slavery as a tutor, hang out with some rich dude's kids for a decade or so, expect an early emancipation and a new patron at the end. (Beats starving to death or selling your children off as prostitutes, anyway.)

Which is not to say that I think slavery should be around. It should not. The extermination of slavery is one of the things I point to when cynics assert that nothing ever gets better.

But ... here's how I would formulate it: Slavery was extremely open to abuse. (And the way it worked in the Americas, with a racial basis and no realistic hope of emancipation, was pure evil.) But there were responsible slave owners. To draw on a modern analogy, it's like getting assigned to a job with the same boss and no hope of transfer. If you had a great boss, then it wasn't such a bad gig. If you had a bad boss? Ouch. Just ouch.

So slavery: not inherently evil, but steeply tilted toward misuse and abuse. And it seems like there was a direct correlation between the degree to which law and custom made slavery permanent and the likelihood of systemic abuse. In ancient civilizations where the border between slave and freedman was porous, things were a lot more sane.

Anyway. Forgive me Father, for I have contributed to the derailment of mine own thread.

-edit-

As long as I'm contributing to the delinquency of a thread, might as well relate a story:

When I was maybe twelve or thirteen, I was reading some text or another about Roman slaves. A detail that jumped out at me was how upper-deck galley rowing slaves would segregate from lower-deck rowers, asserting that since they were on the upper benches, they were a better class of human being. (Note that being a galley slave was pretty much a death sentence, and that a lifespan of more than two or three years was rare.)

This informed my view of human nature in a big way.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Gah. At the risk of Epic Thread Derailment ... I kinda disagree. If you read too much history, you'll see that slavery had a very different character in various societies. In Republican Rome, for example, slavery could function as a sort of welfare or unemployment insurance. Can't feed your family? Sell yourself into slavery as a tutor, hang out with some rich dude's kids for a decade or so, expect an early emancipation and a new patron at the end. (Beats starving to death or selling your children off as prostitutes, anyway.)

Which is not to say that I think slavery should be around. It should not. The extermination of slavery is one of the things I point to when cynics assert that nothing ever gets better.

But ... here's how I would formulate it: Slavery was extremely open to abuse. (And the way it worked in the Americas, with a racial basis and no realistic hope of emancipation, was pure evil.) But there were responsible slave owners. To draw on a modern analogy, it's like getting assigned to a job with the same boss and no hope of transfer. If you had a great boss, then it wasn't such a bad gig. If you had a bad boss? Ouch. Just ouch.

So slavery: not inherently evil, but steeply tilted toward misuse and abuse. And it seems that the more a society made slavery permanent the more likely it was to be abused. In ancient civilizations where the border between slave and freedman was porous, things were a lot more sane.

Anyway. Forgive me Father, for I have contributed to the derailment of mine own thread.

You are not talking about slavery though. You are talking about indentured servants. Which involves a contract to be agreed upon by both sides. Big difference, yes?

[Lemur]

You are not talking about slavery though. You are talking about indentured servants. Which involves a contract to be agreed upon by both sides. Big difference, yes?

Oh no, I'm talking about slavery. It was customary to emancipate after a decade or two of good service, but not contracted or bound by law.

(In fact, if you were a Roman who never freed slaves, you were seen as something of a weirdo. Kinda like, say, a guy who collects thousands of coupons and makes a big deal about it. You were seen as unforgivably stingy and cheap. But there was no law that said you were obliged to free anyone, ever. It was more of a social norm.)

[Lemur]

Note that many Antebellum Southerners trotted out the Ancient Romans as an example to justify the unjustifiable, as well as examples of slavery from the Old and New Testament. In my opinion, what made American slavery uniquely evil and wicked was the combination of slavery with theories of racial superiority. (In other words, "I could free Thomas, but he's a subhuman and wouldn't know what to do with freedom, so for his own good I will keep working him until he dies." This was the sort of argument actually put forward at the time.)

So slavery: prone to abuse. Racism: bad. Put them together and you get a phenomenon of mind-boggling evil.

[ICantSpellDawg]

People like to get on their "this is wicked" kicks. People live and people die, we try to do what we think is right which is usually just what everybody around us wants us to do. Sometimes somebody comes along and is really miffed by some perceived inconsistency and convinces other people to be miffed because of their sheer charismatic power. Then, logic is designed around that concept and a new sense of right and wrong is born. A man killing another man is no different from a tiger killing a man or a tree falling on a man. We can do something about it so we probably shouldn't, but I digress. When we are in the ground, I have a feeling if we look back, at whatever we or anyone else has done, if we are capable of doing so, and we will say, "well that was fun, but completely pointless". We are apes, running around, trying to figure out the existence around us as if the existence will alter in any meaningful way if we figure it out.

It's fun to throw yourself into a time period, surrounded by some strongly felt but terribly misguided sense of righteousness, and get all worked up about what they were worked up about. That's one of my favorite parts of history.

Romney 2012 - gotta keep this thread focused.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Oh no, I'm talking about slavery. It was customary to emancipate after a decade or two of good service, but not contracted or bound by law.

(In fact, if you were a Roman who never freed slaves, you were seen as something of a weirdo. Kinda like, say, a guy who collects thousands of coupons and makes a big deal about it. You were seen as unforgivably stingy and cheap. But there was no law that said you were obliged to free anyone, ever. It was more of a social norm.)

No, this is what you said.

Can't feed your family? Sell yourself into slavery as a tutor, hang out with some rich dude's kids for a decade or so, expect an early emancipation and a new patron at the end.

Selling yourself is a willing action to provide labor from your body in some way under some term of agreement by both sides. The contract may be incredibly harsh for one side, but it is nevertheless a contract between both parties who are both agreeing on it. That is not slavery. That is indentured servitude.

If someone comes to you asking to be your escort for 5 years and you agree and hammer out the terms and conditions, is that slavery?

[Lemur]

That is not slavery. That is indentured servitude.

Sorry, that's just factually incorrect. Indentured servitude was a fixed-term system of debt/obligation and labor; selling yourself into slavery (not uncommon in ancient Rome and the Hellenic city-states) was a permanent change in status (in other words, you made yourself another person's property, until either death or emancipation).

The fact that you might sell yourself voluntarily has no bearing on whether or not it was slavery.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Sorry, that's just factually incorrect. Indentured servitude was a fixed-term system of debt/obligation and labor; selling yourself into slavery (not uncommon in ancient Rome and the Hellenic city-states) was a permanent change in status (in other words, you made yourself another person's property, until either death or emancipation).

The fact that you might sell yourself voluntarily has no bearing on whether or not it was slavery.

And what you are describing is indentured servitude. From the wiki links you just posted:
Indentured servitude refers to the historical practice of contracting to work for a fixed period of time, typically three to seven years, in exchange for transportation, food, clothing, lodging and other necessities during the term of indenture.

What you said:
Can't feed your family? Sell yourself into slavery as a tutor, hang out with some rich dude's kids for a decade or so, expect an early emancipation and a new patron at the end.


Slavery is not willing labor, you do not sell yourself into slavery. Someone must force you into slavery. That's how it works. Otherwise all capitalistic labor is a form of slavery (get out of here Commies). In slavery, there is no agreement to work, there is no fixed period of time, there is no choice in the matter to begin with.


EDIT: The very first sentence of the wiki article for slavery you posted:
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work.

The servants may be treated as property under the Roman system, but they were never forced to work to begin with. They willingly accepted the work.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Why? Owning slaves is wrong. It does not matter when and where someone enslaved another man. They are committing a human rights violation either way, to say that such violations were not as egregious because "it was cool back then" is just terribly wrong.

This is a problem with your moral theory. Owning slaves was unethical, nothing changes that. But our judgement of the person who owned slaves must vary considerably.

This argument stems from the inherent faults of systematic "philosophized" morality.

Elaborate?

He was above many of the social standards of his time.

What exactly does "holistic" entail? Because from what I can tell, looking at things holistically means that we must treat blatently bad rationale as valid in our judgement. When you try to incorporate life decisions as "part of a bigger social picture" you begin to validate those bad actions. Somali pirates are not terrible people for hijacking boats and holding people hostage and killing resistors. After all, it is a hard life there and how else can they make a living?

Why aren't they terrible people for doing that?

Now that is a mischaracterization (is that a word?) of what I am saying. Are you really trying to equate me with pseudo scientific racist arguments?

It's the same argument in many ways...

You make it seem like that we are not physically able to rise above society. Was Washington physically unable to let his slaves go and only when he died could he finally break free of societies chains?
Of course society affects us all. I ill not deny that Sasaki, but to fall back on what society wants as a reason for committing injustice is just silly. Everyone has a choice. Even if the right thing to do (freeing slaves) was social suicide at the time, Washington made the choice to keep owning other people.

Yes, but so what? You can't leave out the "so what" part. Why should that make me feel in a negative way towards him?

Nope. I said from my very first reply today that we should call people for what they are, complex. No one is a complete villian (well, a few maybe) and no one is a complete saint. However, disregarding the impact of what individuals did because you are trying to incorporate it into a larger view of social demands at the time is whitewashing history. I can say that I hate Washington for being a complete hypocrite and a disgusting slave owner and that I love him for his discipline while being the first president of the US and that overall I have an average to good view of him. And there is nothing contradictory about that view. I just simply won't lessen the bad and hype the good because they chose to not go against the flow of the times. Hell, Washington rebelled against the British army he served in and was supposed to be completely loyal to, but refusing to rebel against Virginia's slave society? Let's give him a pass for that?

I think we have to skip most of this and go to the moral philosophy part because otherwise we are talking past each other.

Any moral philosophy which focuses on actions and consequences is screwed up. Judeo-christian moral philosophy in particular because of the model of an omniscient god and a dichotomy between sin/not sin. We should discard all of that. It misleads us completely. It elevates as the most admirable people those who are simply incapable of harming anyone, or those who are naive and good natured in a somewhat stupid way, or those driven to self-sacrifice and self-denial.

What we should actually judge people on is their quality as a person, their overall excellence in the things that are important* (includes many "moralistic" virtues btw). People do this selectively with regards to their family and who they are going to marry (actually they do it for everyone in a kind of incoherant, they are just confused about whether it's appropriate). It should be the number one focus. You don't go "lying is wrong" and then just apply that across the board in some robotic way. It's often a difficult social judgement, and we often excuse it entirely or praise it.

In your terms, both you and I are better people than Washington simply because we never owned slaves. That's arrogance to me.


*giving respect for some actions and demanding redemption for others is a different thing entirely, also they are kind of an epistemology thing


edit: I'm formulating this stuff as I go so tell me if it comes out incoherent...

[a completely inoffensive name]

Whooo boy. This looks like this going into deeper philosophy than I am used to. But I will give it a shot anyway.

This is a problem with your moral theory. Owning slaves was unethical, nothing changes that. But our judgement of the person who owned slaves must vary considerably.

Why?

He was above many of the social standards of his time.

So why excuse him for not letting his slaves go earlier in his life? If he was above the social norms, then there really was no compelling reason for him to keep slaves other than being a bad person in that aspect of his life.

Why aren't they terrible people for doing that?

That's my point exactly! The circumstances of their life don't excuse them! I made that statement to highlight the error in trying to incorporate the social constraints of the time in our judgement.

It's the same argument in many ways...

Maybe I am dumb, but I am not seeing it. I will reread everything again though.

Yes, but so what? You can't leave out the "so what" part. Why should that make me feel in a negative way towards him?

You should feel negative towards him because when you talk about judging based on the times people lived in you are implying that the social constraints of the time leave an individual with no real choice and thus that is why we should look more kindly on said individual. But I am saying that everyone always has a choice no matter what, even if society greatly disapproves, there is a real choice. And he made the wrong one.

I think we have to skip most of this and go to the moral philosophy part because otherwise we are talking past each other.

Here is when I stumble and fail miserably with my chemistry major.

Any moral philosophy which focuses on actions and consequences is screwed up. Judeo-christian moral philosophy in particular because of the model of an omniscient god and a dichotomy between sin/not sin. We should discard all of that. It misleads us completely. It elevates as the most admirable people those who are simply incapable of harming anyone, or those who are naive and good natured in a somewhat stupid way, or those driven to self-sacrifice and self-denial.

What we should actually judge people on is their quality as a person, their overall excellence in the things that are important* (includes many "moralistic" virtues btw). People do this selectively with regards to their family and who they are going to marry (actually they do it for everyone in a kind of incoherant, they are just confused about whether it's appropriate). It should be the number one focus. You don't go "lying is wrong" and then just apply that across the board in some robotic way. It's often a difficult social judgement, and we often excuse it entirely or praise it.

But I am not trying to argue this from that strict of a dichotomy. The example I picked (slavery) is merely more black and white than say lying is. I am not arguing from Judeo-Christian moral philosophy, I will let Rhy and PVC do that. I am starting from my own axioms based mainly off of empathy, not God. I would still point to Washington as an admirable person within a certain sphere of subjects. I don't think we should even be thinking of who is most admirable or excellent overall as a person, because such general comparisons are always dumb when the broad strokes don't help anymore (AKA when you are not comparing Stalin to Washington).

I would not go "lying is wrong" because I am not led to the conclusion that lying will always be wrong, I am not Kant (I think he was the one who said lying is always wrong). But I am led to the conclusion that slavery is always wrong. So I am making judgement from that.

In your terms, both you and I are better people than Washington simply because we never owned slaves. That's arrogance to me.

Is it arrogant to say I am a better man than a murderer because I have never killed an innocent man?

What I would say as my complete answer Sasaki, is that when it comes to recognizing and empathizing with other human beings of different skin colors, yes we are definitely better people than Washington. When it comes to leading an army? Or a country? Probably not.

Is that really such a mislead way of thinking?
[/QUOTE]

[ICantSpellDawg]

Slavery, both simple and race-based, was alwasy justifiable, we just use a different measurement standard today, with which slavery is incompatible. People generally seem to prefer this measurement standard at this point in history. We have gradually discovered new ways to rationalize and entrench this standard by connecting it with our own rights. Who is to say what right and wrong regarding ownership of another person will be in 500 years.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

So why excuse him for not letting his slaves go earlier in his life? If he was above the social norms, then there really was no compelling reason for him to keep slaves other than being a bad person in that aspect of his life.

Ohh, I see where we disagree now. See below.

That's my point exactly! The circumstances of their life don't excuse them! I made that statement to highlight the error in trying to incorporate the social constraints of the time in our judgement.

Circumstances don't excuse everything, that doesn't mean they can't excuse some things (if we must talk in terms of excuses).

Maybe I am dumb, but I am not seeing it. I will reread everything again though.

Nah, forget about it, I don't even remember.

But I am not trying to argue this from that strict of a dichotomy. The example I picked (slavery) is merely more black and white than say lying is. I am not arguing from Judeo-Christian moral philosophy, I will let Rhy and PVC do that. I am starting from my own axioms based mainly off of empathy, not God. I would still point to Washington as an admirable person within a certain sphere of subjects. I don't think we should even be thinking of who is most admirable or excellent overall as a person, because such general comparisons are always dumb when the broad strokes don't help anymore (AKA when you are not comparing Stalin to Washington).

Why empathy? That's where I think you're wrong. I think you'll find that emphasizing compassion and empathy goes straight back to religious roots. Most atheists talk about morals in a way that makes much more sense for religious people, shows how much of a ripple effect there is...

Is it arrogant to say I am a better man than a murderer because I have never killed an innocent man?

What I would say as my complete answer Sasaki, is that when it comes to recognizing and empathizing with other human beings of different skin colors, yes we are definitely better people than Washington. When it comes to leading an army? Or a country? Probably not.

Is that really such a mislead way of thinking?

The question is, why on earth would having tons of empathy (as opposed to above average empathy) for black people be mentioned in the same paragraph with founding and leading a country in the way that Washington did? He was an amateur soldier made supreme commander and didn't lose...he could possibly have taken an autocratic attitude but carefully limited himself. Compare him to Napoleon. If hypothetically Napoleon had ended slavery (ignore that he actually re-instated it...) would you put him over Washington, or even near Washington? Also it's quite possible that if he had freed his slaves early he would never have done the things he did. Same for Nixon and his anti-gay comments--they are only worth mentioning if in your mind they work as a kind of "trump card" where even a 2 beats out a king. I think there's a particular mental process for that kind of judgment, linked to our mental process regarding "clean/unclean". One drop of something nasty is enough to get you to wash your hands, one drop of something seen as a "moral taint" is enough to stain the entire person. But really that borders on superstition.

By the way, what do you think of "feminist history" where they go back and make a big fuss about various philosophers and their misogynist views?

[Lemur]

The very first sentence of the wiki article for slavery you posted:
[B]Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work.

Two thoughts:

1. Wikipedia is concise and useful, but not definitive. I linked to it not to prove a point but to provide background.
2. If "forced to work" is a necessary condition for slavery, how do we classify documented cases of harem slaves who were never used by their owners? By your definition, they were not slaves, because they never did their work. By my definition they are (correctly) classified as slaves; by yours they are not.

Nah, I think my definition is both shorter and more accurate: slavery is becoming someone else's property. Period. Work (willing or otherwise), how you arrived in the condition, all of that was irrelevant to your ultimate status. Slave was slave, free was free.

-edit-

This debate has my inner history nerd all hot and bothered. Time to read about the three Servile Wars again, or maybe dust off my Sallust.

I think you'll find that emphasizing compassion and empathy goes straight back to religious roots.

That makes no sense on any level. We are social creatures; groups that cooperate are more likely to prosper than groups that do not. So just from a utilitarian point of view, it's easy to see that empathy is a necessary trait for us. (There's a reason that we find sociopaths, who can feel no empathy, creepy and fascinating.)

I value religion, but to say that an emphasis on compassion and empathy must lead back to religion is unsupportable.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

That makes no sense on any level. We are social creatures; groups that cooperate are more likely to prosper than groups that do not. So just from a utilitarian point of view, it's easy to see that empathy is a necessary trait for us. (There's a reason that we find sociopaths, who can feel no empathy, creepy and fascinating.)

I value religion, but to say that an emphasis on compassion and empathy must lead back to religion is unsupportable.

Yes, groups that bond together. Universal compassion as a central virtue is much more a feature of certain religions. Having slaves as you mentioned has a very long history and is perfectly natural evolutionarily.

The fact that empathy is a necessary trait and so basic is why it's not always emphasized or made out as the most important...