This is really apples and oranges here, but I voted for slavery in the New World, because over the centuries that it went on, it probably killed more than the 15 million or so that died in the Holocaust, and because the social effects to the survivors are more pervasive and have been much harder to exorcise from society.
Skald, an argument could be made that it’s worse to kill someone accidentally and just not give a shit than it is to kill someone intentionally. At least the Nazis had an idea that they were doing this to better the world, sick and disgusting as it was. Slaves were beaten and killed and families ripped apart just to make a buck.
ETA: Also, you’re a little inconsistent in your OP: In one case, you specify “American chattel slavery”, and in another you talk about the “Antebellum South.” What are your limits here? Slavery in the U.S.A., that is, 1776 (or 1787?) to 1865? Or within the current borders of the U.S.A. for the extent of European colonization? Or the whole giant system of New World enslavement of Africans (and natives) that dates back to the Spanish colonization of Hispanola?
Wait a minute “6 million dead, in case you didn’t notice.” what about the other six million Soviet POW’s, homosexuals, intellectuals, Jehova Witnesses, Roma, Priests & nuns, and one Mormon?
Anyway, let’s simplify this and play “Death is Not an Option,” but instead of laying next to Phyllis Diller vs Jude Law, you have to wake up as a Black slave or a Jewish sonderkommando.
Having a wallet stolen isn’t comparable to either the Holocaust or slavery, so pick a better example please.
People were in death camps for a relatively short period of time. Of course the conditions were horrible there, as they were death camps. That’s not disputable. But slavery lasted a lifetime. If you lucked out and had a “kind” master and overseer, maybe your life wasn’t so bad. But if you weren’t so lucky, you could very well end living a pretty fuck up life and there was nothing you could do about it. Except, I guess, run away. Good luck with that one, buddy.
Black folks didn’t magically appear in the US either. They were shipped over in boats that were not far off from death camp conditions. Millions died just from that.
So no it’s not screamingly obvious that being a slave was better than being in a death camp.
So why not use the word “wrong”? “Evil” fits better in works of fiction to describe villians dressed in black with fangs coming out of their mouth. And yes, it does have “unnatural badness” connotations. Satan is what causes evil, not humans.
Because the word wrong is terribly inadequate to describe some levels of iniquity. When my oldest niece, at age, oh, 10 or so, asked if she could borrow five dollars fro me to buy a Mother’s Day present for her Mom, and then did not pay it back despite having the opportunity, she was behaving wrongly. But evil is of a grander scale. Rape is evil; murder is evil; enslavement is evil; genocide is evil. And not all those things are equal to the other, as might be inferred from the order I listed them.
It’s downright silly to say that evil should only be used in works of fiction. How are the actual crimes & sins of a Pol Pot, a Stalin, a Hitler or so forth any worse than the fictional deeds of Sauron?
Genocide appears to be instinctive; chimpanzees do it, on a small scale. Target another troop, systematically hunt down and kill all the males, all the young, all the older females; take and rape all the young females. Right out of the Bible. The main human innovations are that sometimes we even kill the young females after raping them, and that we have enough of a moral impulse that we try to forget our victims and their massacre ever existed; historical amnesia is also part of the pattern. When you get right down to it the most unusual part of the Holocaust is that it hasn’t been allowed to be shoved under the rug and forgotten as usually happens.
I guess I’d go with being a black slave. Statistically my odds of survival would probably be higher, and I might be able to increase them by absolute complete and total subservience.
I guess the distinguishing factor is that the Nazis’ ultimate goal was to kill the Jews, whereas the slave owners basically needed their slaves to live.
I don’t think that really answers the question of which was more evil, though. And I think in that consideration you have to weigh the historical consequences as well.
So did the death camps, for most of the people sent to them. And, of course, there was slavery in the concentration camps too.
But anyway, I said that the holocaust is worse than American chattel slavery. American chattel slavery was bad (slavery in other countries in the Americas was even worse). But as bad as slavery was, at least you were alive, and the person who owned you had some, albeit selfishly mercenary, reason to keep you alive. And living is better than dying.
So I guess you could say I don’t agree with New Hampshire’s state motto.
I see no reason to believe that chimpanzees have the concept of culture & group identity that would make the word genocide meaningful in discussing their behavior. Can you provide such? Alternatively, can you provide a coherent argument that the word genocide is meaningful among creatures lacking language skills and the social cohesion that provides?
Also, if I may ask, why must you take a swipe at Christians in every single thread? The Bible remark was utterly gratuitous. There are evil Christians, yes, and evils have been committed in the name of the mythical carpenter from Nazareth, but that makes them pretty much like every single other cohesive group in human history.
I’m not suggesting that slavery as practiced in the U.S. before the Civil War was not a great evil in itself, and a stain on the national character, but the premise of its acceptability was rooted in the notion that African Americans were inferior. As wrong as this was, not to mention repugnant, ethnocentricism was fairly run-of-the-mill the world over. The notion that people of a different race were less worthy of full participation and empowerment in a society was frankly taken for granted. In other words, slavery was a repugnant manifestation of racist views that were held by a great many people. Many of these people might even have believed that they were motivated by kindness, and that slavery was the best social arrangement for all concerned. Many other people, however, were opposed to it, even before the official beginnings of the country, and worked to oppose it.
The racism of the Holocaust, while also rooted in long-held racial prejudices, was different in a key way. The Nazis devised and implemented new restrictions, eventually leading to extermination, on a scale which had never been seen before. The Jews had always been the target of various attacks, restrictions, pogroms, and what have you, but never anything like the “Final Solution”.
The Holocaust was the greater evil by far, because it’s purpose was the extermination of many peoples. BTW it was 11 million dead, not just the 6 million Jews.
I can see me being taken to The Pit post haste, but American chattel slavery was probably inevitable and necessary because it filled a need for labor that the general population could not provide otherwise. The end of slavery sparked the Industrial Revolution, and the economic development of the country.
This is not an absolute, or else no one would commit suicide.
There’s more to living than having a pulse. Stripping someone of all of their humanity and convincing them that they are animal is a lot to do to someone. The enormity of it becomes even more impressive when you multiple this by several generations. So you can’t just look at who lived and who didn’t.
