Judging History (branch off from election thread)

[Sasaki Kojiro]

What would be some examples?

The other stuff we've talked about?

Well...what do you base your moral axioms off of?

What moral axioms?

>:[ Owning slaves is not above average empathy, even if he gave them cold drinks and kept the families together.

Sure it is since the others didn't do that.

You must have missed where I said earlier that I completely reject comparing two different people on a general "overall" basis. If we are to compare two people, compare them only on a specific subject or aspect of their lives. it is silly to try and weigh different vices and make an argument about whether or not Washington is worse for his slave owning than Napoleon for his empire building or Nixon for his anti-gay comments. I don't deal with any of that in first place so it's a non issue for me.

Why on earth not? How do you decide who to vote for or who to have a relationship with? We always deal with people as a whole.You would be schizophrenic in your daily life if you tried to do this.

Listen...you said you were disgusted with Washington. That's an overall judgement. What's your justification for being disgusted overall? And why are you disgusted with his individual choice to keep slaves? What's disgusting about it given the context? Like I said, you are using the superstitious part of your brain. Some people have to wash their hands every time they touch something dirty, you have to be disgusted by someone any time they are tainted by connection to something "immoral".

Well, if the thoughts were truly misogynistic, then there is something to be said about that.

What?

[a completely inoffensive name]

The other stuff we've talked about?

What, the lying example? The one where I said I don't consider lying to be inherently wrong in the first place?

What moral axioms?

What basic premises do you use to create a system of "right" and "wrong" from which you can make judgements on actions? Why is this action by so and so bad or good ultimately comes from our personal moral premises that we hold to be truth. You criticized my use of empathy to construct said truths, that I make my judgements on. I am asking you where yours comes from.

Sure it is since the others didn't do that.

So? You make it seem like anybody who didn't whip their slaves until their backs became giant scars are paragons of humanity.

Why on earth not? How do you decide who to vote for or who to have a relationship with? We always deal with people as a whole.You would be schizophrenic in your daily life if you tried to do this.

But this is different from what I am talking about. I don't compare two people about two different things. I am not going to compare Washington's slave owning with Napoleon's tyrannical domestic policy. When I am deciding between two candidates I am comparing the two on the same things. Foreign policy, domestic policy etc...

There is a difference between picking someone for a specific role/job and making a blanket comparison like "Who was most evilest dictator?!?"

Listen...you said you were disgusted with Washington. That's an overall judgement. What's your justification for being disgusted overall? And why are you disgusted with his individual choice to keep slaves? What's disgusting about it given the context? Like I said, you are using the superstitious part of your brain. Some people have to wash their hands every time they touch something dirty, you have to be disgusted by someone any time they are tainted by connection to something "immoral".

No, I believe I said I was disgusted with him about that specific aspect of his life. I distinctly remember saying my overall impression of him as a man is mediocre to good. I can have an overall judgement of a person, I just don't take that overall judgement and make silly comparisons with it.

How is me saying, "I really don't like that he enslaved people." a superstitious thought? Like what?


I gotta explain what I mean about these overall comparisons better. When you say "their quality as a person, their overall excellence" what do you even mean? What is a quality of a person or overall excellence? It's vague generic notions that are not talking about specific roles or jobs. When you present a question of "Which president exhibited the most overall excellence?" It's absolutely garbage. Because there were presidents good at their job and terrible in their public life and vice versa. You are trying to make comparisons of completely different aspects grouped together which ultimately creates an answer that makes no sense. When you ask the question, "Which presidential candidate will you vote for?" That provides common ground for comparisons because you are talking about a specific job/role. You can say, well I like candidate X because he is stronger in most aspects of what this job entails him to make decisions about than candidate Y. There you can make a solid comparison.

End of the day: I look at Washington's individual aspects of his life. There are bad (slavery) and good (leadership) aspects of his life. You ask me what my general view of him is, I will say: pretty good. You ask me if I am better than him, I will say: On what specific issue? You ask me if his quality as a person is better than someone elses, I will say: On some specific aspects sure, on others no. I am not going to say Washington >>>>> Other person Because he led this country to independence and was a great man overall in my eyes. Does this make sense?

What?

What? If the criticisms are valid, they are valid. If they are not, ignore the silly "feminist history". If they are trying to declare a philosopher's work as invalid because he was sexist then that is silly provided that his work is not related to notions about social structure.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

What basic premises do you use to create a system of "right" and "wrong" from which you can make judgements on actions? Why is this action by so and so bad or good ultimately comes from our personal moral premises that we hold to be truth. You criticized my use of empathy to construct said truths, that I make my judgements on. I am asking you where yours comes from.

Why would you want a system of right and wrong? Why would you start with something an then construct? It's an inherently bad idea.

But this is different from what I am talking about. I don't compare two people about two different things. I am not going to compare Washington's slave owning with Napoleon's tyrannical domestic policy. When I am deciding between two candidates I am comparing the two on the same things. Foreign policy, domestic policy etc...

There is a difference between picking someone for a specific role/job and making a blanket comparison like "Who was most evilest dictator?!?"


No, I believe I said I was disgusted with him about that specific aspect of his life. I distinctly remember saying my overall impression of him as a man is mediocre to good. I can have an overall judgement of a person, I just don't take that overall judgement and make silly comparisons with it.

How is me saying, "I really don't like that he enslaved people." a superstitious thought? Like what?


I gotta explain what I mean about these overall comparisons better. When you say "their quality as a person, their overall excellence" what do you even mean? What is a quality of a person or overall excellence? It's vague generic notions that are not talking about specific roles or jobs. When you present a question of "Which president exhibited the most overall excellence?" It's absolutely garbage. Because there were presidents good at their job and terrible in their public life and vice versa. You are trying to make comparisons of completely different aspects grouped together which ultimately creates an answer that makes no sense. When you ask the question, "Which presidential candidate will you vote for?" That provides common ground for comparisons because you are talking about a specific job/role. You can say, well I like candidate X because he is stronger in most aspects of what this job entails him to make decisions about than candidate Y. There you can make a solid comparison.

End of the day: I look at Washington's individual aspects of his life. There are bad (slavery) and good (leadership) aspects of his life. You ask me what my general view of him is, I will say: pretty good. You ask me if I am better than him, I will say: On what specific issue? You ask me if his quality as a person is better than someone elses, I will say: On some specific aspects sure, on others no. I am not going to say Washington >>>>> Other person Because he led this country to independence and was a great man overall in my eyes. Does this make sense?

I don't think you can feel disgust about someone in a specific area and not have it color your whole view of them. You would at best dispassionately admit to some merit. If you are critiquing someone on specific issues, that's what should be dispassionate about, while your whole view should have the emotional tint.

Anyway, why are you disgusted with him for owning slaves? That's the second issue. We got off track from our main talk by going into the secondary issue above. I admit I don't find it comprehensible. "People shouldn't own slaves" makes perfect sense, but where does the harsh emotional reaction come from? You said yourself that you have extra disgust for him because of the ideals of the movement he was a part of. So you would say that a different reaction is appropriate based on the context of the time. So I'm not sure we are really arguing about whether we can judge based on context or not so much as you thinking the context of Washington's life is a reason to condemn him.

I can't imagine having waves of disgust for practically every human being that's ever lived.

You ask me if I am better than him, I will say: On what specific issue?

You should say "no".

What? If the criticisms are valid, they are valid. If they are not, ignore the silly "feminist history". If they are trying to declare a philosopher's work as invalid because he was sexist then that is silly provided that his work is not related to notions about social structure.

Don't you think there's something inherently silly in picking out philosophers from 100's of years ago and bothering about whether they were misogynist? A valid criticism in one sense is something that's factually correct, but you still have to justify making it.

[ICantSpellDawg]

"Why shouldn't people own slaves?" is probably the better question. I don't think that people should own slaves, buy why do you all think that? My feelings on the issue come from a modern understanding (not held by pre-modern people), rightly or wrongly, that human beings have the same inherent value as other human beings and slavery holds back individual human potential to advance the human race, which is more valuable to all of us on the whole, than keeping people in bondage in spite of their talents and potential talents. I would also not like to be a slave myself, and somehow feel that if I am opposed to institutions that allow slavery that this will somehow assuage the interest that others might have in enslaving me on an honor basis. Also, God made all of us "equal" in a mysterious way that contradicts my empirical observation of the animal kingdom and some religious texts. I am satisfied to oppose slavery for all of the reasons mentioned here, plus others, plus the fact that I will be criticized and censured by modern society and the new moral majority opinion if I hold the opposite point of view. Pre-modern individuals would have held different understandings of individual value and made "moral" judgements on a completely different scale. For example, parts of the Bible seem to accept the general idea of slavery, humanity has practiced it for years and people don't seem to be equal in any way to one another in ability or value, so why wouldn't they think it might be ok?

We are all just playing with ideas is my point. No reason to get worked up about something, and no reason not to get worked up about something. Society seems to work reasonably well without slavery, so I guess we made the right decision in abolishing it.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Everyone is a victim of the cultural biases of their time.

True.

You (generally speaking, not in reply anyone) can't retro-actively label someone as bad because society's standards have changed.

Why not?

However, it is the duty of an enlightened society to continually seek a more just and fair approach.

How do we do that without judging the past with our inherent biases?

Some day they'll look back on 21st Century America and say a lot of bad things about what's been going on, and you're kidding yourself if you think otherwise.

And this means what? Again, this is the kind of "everyone is biased, nobody is wrong, everything is a just a matter of perspective." sillyness that makes me so afraid of joining Sasaki's side.

[a completely inoffensive name]

All it means is that we should be able to objectively see bad things in the past for what they are (something you certainly have no problem doing) but at the same time not villify historical figures for doing what was considered just fine and dandy. Nobody is saying that, for example, George Washington owned slaves therefore I should be able to own slaves--that would be silly.

I think this is common sense. I too am having trouble understanding your objections.

Maybe I am taking crazy pills but I don't understand your logic whatsoever.

A. We can see plainly what bad things have been done by individuals in the past for what they are.
B. But we must not look down upon them because those were some crazy days back then.
C. But obviously we wouldn't do the same things they did, because we know better.

You go from "judge them" to "but don't actually make a judgement" back to "we can make our own life decisions based off this judgement".

This all seems to me to be revealing a bias among everyone regarding historical figures that they want to like and thus try to wiggle their way out of condemning said person while at the same time trying to appear "objective" and "fair" towards the individuals actions.

Sasaki says it's arrogant to claim you are better than Washington. Why? The man owned slaves. I am arrogant for saying that in regards to the treatment of blacks, ACIN v Washington goes to ACIN? No, what it seems to me is that everyone has their idols and when someone wants to make a fair assessment of them by pointing out, "Well hey, he did some really terrible things that none of us would tolerate today." then we gotta whitewash it with some "historical context".

It all seems disgusting to me. Let the future declare me an evil man for my flaws today. If I did terrible things, then I did terrible things and no amount of "social pressures" or whathaveyou changes that fact.

[spankythehippo]

Maybe I am taking crazy pills but I don't understand your logic whatsoever.

A. We can see plainly what bad things have been done by individuals in the past for what they are.
B. But we must not look down upon them because those were some crazy days back then.
C. But obviously we wouldn't do the same things they did, because we know better.

You go from "judge them" to "but don't actually make a judgement" back to "we can make our own life decisions based off this judgement".

This all seems to me to be revealing a bias among everyone regarding historical figures that they want to like and thus try to wiggle their way out of condemning said person while at the same time trying to appear "objective" and "fair" towards the individuals actions.

Sasaki says it's arrogant to claim you are better than Washington. Why? The man owned slaves. I am arrogant for saying that in regards to the treatment of blacks, ACIN v Washington goes to ACIN? No, what it seems to me is that everyone has their idols and when someone wants to make a fair assessment of them by pointing out, "Well hey, he did some really terrible things that none of us would tolerate today." then we gotta whitewash it with some "historical context".

It all seems disgusting to me. Let the future declare me an evil man for my flaws today. If I did terrible things, then I did terrible things and no amount of "social pressures" or whathaveyou changes that fact.

Owning slaves "back in the day" was not something that was out of social norms. To think back now on such events would make the majority of the people feel ashamed. Assessing the achievements of a historical figure in the modern world is biased. People tend to patronise people on the basis of opinions purported in this age.

"Hitler hated fox hunting, so fox hunting is okay!"

That is what, sadly, many people think. They seem to be swayed by certain trivia about an individual. Hitler is different in this case. Genghis Khan slaughtered millions, and yet is kind of idolised. Just for being able to perform such a feat at the time.

So let's compare the facts people say about both these men.

Hitler: Killed lots of guys. He's a "bad guy".
Genghis Khan: Killed lots of guys. Now, that's kinda "cool".

Now for some trivia that people use in defence of the antagonised villian.

Hitler: Was a vegetarian (which is false to an extent, but this is still considered trivia to some). "See? Even Hitler had a sensitive side."
Genghis Khan: Was a love-machine (well, this isn't really in defence of being antagonised, but it's the first thing I remembered).

And yet, both men are known for their part in exterminating milions. I think that bears more weight than the "bias among everyone regarding historical figures that they want to like and thus try to wiggle their way out of condemning said person while at the same time trying to appear "objective" and "fair" towards the individuals actions." But what you said is true. It's just that those types of bias are pathetic excuses for justifying their actions.

In the case of Washington, the fact he had slaves is purely superficial. What good he did is what he should be remembered for, unless his crimes cannot atone for his positive behaviour. But there is no harm in knowing the bad sides of people, is there?

[rvg]

Sasaki says it's arrogant to claim you are better than Washington. Why? The man owned slaves. I am arrogant for saying that in regards to the treatment of blacks, ACIN v Washington goes to ACIN?

Because both you and Washington have acted within the societal norms. Back then it was normal to be a slaveowner, now it's not. By not being a slaveowner today you're not breaking any new ground, you're not going the extra mile for anyone, you're just acting within the norms of the society. And getting into a bout of self-righteousness vs George Washington does not make you a better man.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Why would you want a system of right and wrong? Why would you start with something an then construct? It's an inherently bad idea.

If you cannot ascribe to a system of right and wrong, good and bad, ACIN can't debate with you and you cannot make judgements about his posts. In particular, if ACIN says he is "better" than Washington you can't dissagree with him because you lack a criteria of comparison.

I.e., you cannot say whether ACIN or Washinton have done more "good" or "bad" things because you have no "good" or "bad" to measure them by...

...and thus ACIN wins by default.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

If you cannot ascribe to a system of right and wrong, good and bad, ACIN can't debate with you and you cannot make judgements about his posts. In particular, if ACIN says he is "better" than Washington you can't dissagree with him because you lack a criteria of comparison.

I.e., you cannot say whether ACIN or Washinton have done more "good" or "bad" things because you have no "good" or "bad" to measure them by...

...and thus ACIN wins by default.

Why needs a system in order to make judgements? Do you have a system for telling whether a book or a piece of music is any good? Can you tell?

And more to the point, why act like "right" and "wrong" are some special end stage of judgement? All they are is a clumsy generalization. Do you have a system for deciding whether someone is callous, vacuous, nice, hateful, creepy, etc? We understand those things perfectly well. Attempts to awkwardly squash them into one category or another should be avoided.