I have never said that the conditions weren’t monstrous nor have I denied that horrible things occurred, nor have I denied that they were common.
There were pro Union counties in Mississippi according to Burns Civil War.
You’d think that, but instead, we just get more digging. Some people aren’t happy until they’re all elbows and assholes deep into lunacy. Apparently our resident centrist has more wallowing to do.
Point to one thing I’ve said that’s racist. I’ve not advocated slavery, I have consistently said that slavery was a horrible thing, even at its best. I’ve not even mentioned race.
If you want to talk about ISIS’s slavery of women, I’ll say the same things. If you want to talk about Roman slavery, I’ll say the same things. If you want to talk about life under Pol Pot, I’ll say the same things. All of these are bad situations. I do not advocate or endorse any of these things. But in all cases, condensing everything down to the worst moments of years worth of time, is neglecting a whole lot of time.
Most Islamic terrorists are, 99% of the time, good and decent people. When they do bad things to their women, they do it on the basis of what they’ve been told about their religion and, despite that certainty about what they’re supposed to do, they probably feel bad about it. They probably warn their women in advance and try to convince them against being independent or talking back to them. Some of them probably are just abusive assholes. Most probably aren’t, though. They’re probably decent guys, by the standard of their society. But they do, certainly, do things that we (and I) would heavily disapprove of to their women, regardless.
Life in Soviet Russia sucked. I hate Communism, it has caused untold misery. But for most people living in a Communist country, on any other day if you asked them how their day was, they’d say, “Pretty good.”
I’m not endorsing or white-washing any of these things. I’m pointing out that a black-and-white world view doesn’t match reality. Even when things are really really bad, most of life is still just regular life. Most people take it in stride and, until they’ve had a chance to see something better, they tend not to really realize exactly how bad it was. People in North Korea, who escape, burst into tears when they find out how poorly they’ve been treated through their whole lives, when up to that day, they’d probably thought that that was just the way life is.
And no, I don’t endorse life in North Korea either.
That doesn’t necessarily mean they were abolitionist, just Unionist. Maryland never seceded at all, and they were a slave state.
I know that seems obvious for you, because you’re willing to consider the opinions of white southerners of the time but don’t think the opinions of black southerners matter. When I say I’m looking at 18th century standards, you assume I must have meant 18th century white people standards. That’s most likely because you’ve got some racist bullshit going on in your head, and rather than thinking about it, you focus on how I’m a big ole meanie.
You used those figures to imply that most slaves were not harmed or punished often our possible at all. I merely point out that scars from having your back whipped wouldn’t be included in that 1/3. The trauma of rape wouldn’t be considered an identifying mark.
No one had said that all slaves were flogged every day, whether for major or minor transgressions. But there was always that threat hanging over a slave 's head. There was a pervasive atmosphere of physical amd emotional pain, always a possible threat to the " livestock. "
Was everyone miserable all the time? No, i doubt everyone wept and wailed constantly. If you asked a slave how his or her day was, yes you’d probably hear that it was good sometimes. But “good” is relative. It may mean that they enjoyed that days task, or that they didn’t get raped or beaten, or that the master had praised their work. Maybe it means it didn’t suck as hard as it could have. And it friends in who is asking as well. Do i tell random customer how fucking shitty today was? Our do i just say oh it’s ok or good or some other pat answer?
This is your own creation.
No, its because you were discussing George Washington, who, was white. And the topic was judging him and other slave owners.
And
You are still, 3 or 4 hours later, missing the point:
If the vast majority of Southern Whites in the 1800’s were not abolitionists… what does that say about how we judge them in retrospect? I normally do not engage in or have any patience for moral relativism… but the question still remains.
In ancient Rome there was no such thing as an abolitionist movement. Many people set their slaves free, but, there was no such thing as an abolitionist movement. (A few of the Stoics objected to it but it never became a movement).
So, both cases make me sad, 50 AD in Rome and 1800’s Southern America.
This dynamic makes me sad for humanity, I’m not saying I praise or admire the Romans or Southerners in any way shape or form.
No, you don’t get to scuttle out of it that way. Your remarks didn’t arise from a general discussion of the practice of slavery through the ages, they were about George Washington’s slave, and whether a children’s book was justified in glossing over the fact that he was owned by another man, and performed all his duties as a chattel. They were about the institution and practice of enslaving Africans in North America in the late 18th century, and you specifically minimised their plight. To recap, that’s the plight of black people owned by white people.
{I’ve gone ahead and bolded your snivelling equivocations, otherwise I’ve been scrupulous with your quotes}
Your words. Their “situation” of black people being kept as beasts of the field by white people was “not necessarily… all that onerous” But then you go further, to claim that they were for the most part content being the property of white people - with, of course, your usual weaselling “probablies”:
So African slaves in America in the late 18th century were content to be owned by white people, thought it not unreasonable, and that when brutally punished, they believed their treatment was justified? You’re a fucking racist.
Ah, but you continue:
So there were those who were justified in their abuse, then, those who abused their slaves for good reason? Were the rapes {which you so delicately term as “{taking} advantage of their position”} justified too? Ah, but there’s that “probably” again: so owning black people as farm animals should “probably” only be abolished if the white owners were excessively or unjustifiably harsh? Not because owning black people is inherently wrong. then? You’re a racist. A lying, weaselling, snivelling, smirking, writhing, equivocating little racist.
True, and based on what I know about humanity, I would accept that the average male slave owner probably had sex (which, because of the position, can effectively be called rape) with at least some of his slaves.
People are generally better at justifying sexual advances on women than they are at justifying sadism.
I write with equivocations because I’ve been writing on the Straight Dope for something like 15 years, and it’s the only way not to have nitpickers jump down your throat for every possible thing you say. Writing anything without an equivocation is basically impossible for me by this point as my brain thinks in equivocations. Feel free to check any other thread or thing I have written and I think that you will find this to be true.
Point being, I just went back and highlighted my equivocations in the previous paragraph.
Most people probably were content, until they had a chance to not be. And most people in North Korea are probably living contented lives too, enjoying their marriage and their children, and the camaraderie of their fellow townsfolk. Again, that statement does not laud North Korea, nor does my previous statement laud slavery. You are reading silly interpretations into what I have written because this is a politicized topic where anything less than a hardcore, “EVIL! ALL EVIL! ALL THE TIME EEEEEVIILLLLL!”, is taken as an endorsement.
I am agreeing that it was evil. All I am adding to the statement that it was evil is, “but the people at the time felt it was justified because of X and the people who were the victims, probably convinced themselves about X too.”
It would only be racist if I thought that it was unique for people of African descent to adapt to their situation. As I have explicitly pointed out, people of all races, in all sorts of bad situations, generally take their place in society to just be “the natural course” and operated within it on that basis. If I was raised as a slave, put into a hovel, threatened with torture if I didn’t work, and taught from a young age that this was all right and dandy and just how the world is meant to be, it’s fairly like that I would grow up thinking thoughts like, “Yup, this is the way life is. And man, I love my wife and kids. Maybe I’ll teach my son how to sing tomorrow.” I wouldn’t go to bed crying every night.
Obviously, there have been revolutions, slave uprisings, worker strikes, etc. through history. But that’s less notable because it demonstrates that people can and do respond to injustice, and more noticeable because it demonstrates how long people will endure poor conditions. North Korea is now into, what, it’s third or fourth generation and I’m not sure that they’ve had any uprisings yet. I know that the people aren’t being treated well. They’re being starved and threatened constantly with beatings, life imprisonment, or being “disappeared”.
But like, the “untouchables” (dalit) of India existed, apparently, since 1500 BC. It wasn’t until the British came along and, themselves not giving a flying toss about one Indian person versus another, started to explain to everyone how horrible this all was. And suddenly, after some 3000+ years, the system fell apart.
Between Christian charity and Enlightenment era humanism, I think that maintaining the underlying “reasoning” of American slavery couldn’t last up to scrutiny. There’s just no good argument for class-based societies or for treating humans as property. The entire North was talking about it as a negative thing, and I’m sure that talk traveled. And I suspect that the economic incentive spurred many slave owners to be far more cruel than anyone would view as fair. It was probably often, clearly counterproductive. And people can tell the difference between considered and frantic/arbitrary cruelty.
And particularly once the slaves were freed and had a chance to sample what life was like outside of slavery, I’m sure that their view of how everything had been turned several shades darker. And, again, if I had been born into slavery and later found out what life was like as not-a-slave, I’d expect my view of that situation would turn to horror.
My argument is based on the idea that humans are humans. They act like humans, for human reasons. If you had white people captured and taken to Africa to be slaves, I would expect the same results as we saw in the US, and if you took Chinese people and had them enslaved by Brazilians, I’d expect the same results as well. So far as I am aware, there is no meaningful difference between any race (and that the word “race” itself is a meaningless term) and I believe that there is no meaningful difference between any race. And so my argument is based on human behavior.
If someone describes something to me that sounds inhuman, like that a random assortment of people were ritualistically sadistic towards another group of people, I’m suspicious. Certainly, humans can and do treat each other poorly. But even where there are caste divisions and views of “inhumanity”, it’s still always the case that the people with the power behave in a way that makes sense. They don’t arbitrarily commit acts of cruelty. (Some do, of course, but not most.) If I know that a Japanese samurai beheaded a peasant, I think that’s awful for him to have done, but I also believe that he probably did it because the peasant did something that, by the standards of that place and time, was considered a beheadable offense. That doesn’t make the samurai’s action a “good” thing. But it tells us more about the age and place that we’re talking about than decrying samurai as “EVIL! ALL EVIL! ALL THE TIME EVIL AND NEVER DOES NO GOOD!”
Not by our nor my standards.
Not by our nor my standards.
No, slavery is a horrible institution that has no reasonable moral justification, and one could only wish that it had never happened.
Owning anyone is inherently wrong. Class hierarchies are wrong. Inequality of women was wrong.
Again, you’re ignoring everything I’ve actually written and replaced it with some fanciful creation, because I decided to point out that the Hollywood view of slavery is glossing over a lot of tedium and normal life, because it’s too much of a hassle to argue the nuances of the real horror of slavery.
That would require giving a damn about race. As said, I base everything I have written on the human condition. I’d write the exact same thing about almost anyone in any large-scale bad situation. Most people are good, honest, kind, hardworking, and adapt to their situation. This is to a fault. If it weren’t the case, maybe we would have had less inequality in the history of our species.
No, they fucking well don’t. Getting to rape women with impunity is a selling point and recruiting tool for Daesh. You try to sugar-coat the absolute horror of what goes on for women (and 1-9 yo girls and boys) in their territory, just as much as you try to sugar-coat the truth of Southern slavery.
You make our regular Mammy-raised, slavery-wasn’t-all-bad Southern apologists look like John fucking Brown. What a piece of fucking scum you are.
Ah, yes. You don’t see race. There’s only the “human race”. Tell me more.
An egalitarian after our own hearts!
Lolwut? So if people weren’t so good and honest and whatever else, then there would be less inequality? Am I reading your bullshit right? If only I could hop back in time and tell my ancestors to be assholes to their owners, maybe my family could be bathing in some of that white privilege I hear is wonderful.
I apologize if I’m getting the wrong idea here. My ancestors weren’t allowed to read, so, you know…all those generations of inequality despite our hardwork and goodliness might be catching up to me.
Sage Rat’s argument, if one were to dignify his nonsense with that term, is based entirely upon his uneducated imagination. To the extent that he offers any evidence at all, he is unable to interpret it, either intellectually or emotionally, because of that utterly impoverished imagination.
Only one-third of slaves bore visible scars, he claims as evidence of the scarcity of violence against slaves. Say this were the case, which it clearly is not, since it leaves out scarred backs and brutalized women. One-third of slaves had visible scars! Is this not a very significant number of people? Say that one-third of the residents of your town or city bore visible scars, scars attesting to brutal punishment. Wouldn’t this suggest that something absolutely vile was going on? But no, says Sage Rat. Clearly the two-thirds of slaves without visible scars thought their brethren deserved their punishments. Being good and obedient slaves, they themselves lived without fear of punishment. Similarly, in Argentina during the Dirty War, most Argentines were quite happy, knowing that only 30,000 of their compatriots had been disappeared, tortured, and killed. They, being good Argentines, had no fear of a similar fate. Chileans were even cozier under Pinochet, since only 3,000 or so of their neighbors and family members had been disappeared. Really, what is 3000 in a population of millions? Pinochet’s regime was clearly all but benign.
What Sage Rat has to say is atrocious. It does, however, provide an excellent example of the kind of malignant anti-intellectualism we see far too much of these days.
Sage Rat, I’m willing to take you at your word that race isn’t an element of this. But I still find your argument problematic. Let me see if I have this correct: you seem to be saying that all people everywhere, whatever their circumstances, are basically happy and content most of the time. That people can get used to and come to accept anything, however brutal, as normal, and find a way to be happy within it.
This is really problematic. You don’t seem to have any evidence for this, except your general sense of “how people work”. But your experience with how people work is limited to one far end of the bell curve–the tiniest little sliver of the most comfortable, most prosperous, least onerous and least painful time and place in human history. You can’t use your observations of the time and place you are in now to extrapolate how “people” are, or were. It’s a terribly skewed sample.
The reason this is so offensive is that you are shrugging off the pain and suffering of billions (everyone everywhere that was horribly oppressed) by saying “since they were used to it, it wasn’t bad for them”. You are dismissing real pain and suffering and saying it didn’t count because you are sure, based on your own experience with human nature, that they managed just fine. At the very most, your own experience could let you hope that many people were relatively content. Even that, I think, is hopelessly rose-tinted, because we have lots of on-going first person accounts (diaries, journals) of people who felt every day a burden in all sorts of oppressive societies. In reality, the past is gone. We can’t know. It’s presumptious to think we can.
And there are disturbing implications to what you say. If people always regress to a mean of “pretty good day”, the implication is that letting people know they are suffering is creating it, because after they get all liberated and shit, they will know they hurt, and even after it’s all resolved, their great grand children will, at best, regress to that same mean.
Your argument is complete bullshit, justified by nothing but your ridiculous feelings. Read slave narratives: how many, relatively speaking, were mostly content with their enslavement? If you don’t that nearly none of them were (as is the case), then it would be entirely unreasonable to believe that most slaves were anything close to content with their enslavement.
You’ve conveniently skipped so many arguments and criticisms that I can only assume you have no interest in actually learning, and are only interested in preserving your ludicrous views.
The bolded part should read “if you find that nearly none of them were (as is the case)…”
What a fucking prevaricating arsehole.
Adding to my previous post, I think your assumption that rape was very common but sadistic violence very rare is exactly the sort of modern extrapolation that isn’t justified. I think there’s a lot of evidence that in modern Western society the sadistic impulse is radically repressed relative to most times and places–look at the persistent popularity of public executions, gladiator matches, bear baiting, cock fights, etc., etc. Openly enjoying other people’s pain was much more acceptable in many times and places. On the other hand, we expect much less sexual restraint. We can’t even imagine that people really strove to live lives where they didn’t masturbate, or where monastic vows were pretty common.
People are not all the same everywhere. The culture you are raised in fundamentally shapes who you are, including things like how much you enjoy hurting others.
And, even more horrifically, it suggests that slaves were content “to a fault,” and therefore bear some responsibility for the injustice.