As for Sampiro’s claim that a comparison of slavery to the Holocaust is “stupid-ass,” surely you’re aware that these comparisons are not novel to me, nor are they, outside of the peculiar circles you travel in, so roundly dismissed and implicitly threatening?
They’re not ahistorical; on the contrary, your posts, that consistently focus on the poor white slaver and why he couldn’t help but be a slaver, generally passing over the experience of the slave, promote a very specific and pernicious brand of winner’s history. It’s ugly, simplistic stuff.
This is by far your best complaint. I did say this, and I was wrong. It’s even a bit embarassing why I was wrong:
I recently read an article in a locally published magazine that had what I thought was an excerpt from a Tubman speech or interview in which she said this (though she didn’t use the word crazy). The piece is actually from a play, not a biography, called Harriet’s Return by Karen Jones Meadows, a “screenwriter, playwright, actress, producer, educator, intuitive medium” (really, it’s all on her web site). The play was performed at the local Shakespeare Festival which is why the piece was published to begin with, but I should have paid closer attention and I am wrong and for this I sincerely apologize.
That said, I stand by my unprovable belief that she thought Brown was crazy for all the reasons I stated in there. This was not a woman who shied away from dangerous situations obviously- she was the first woman ever to lead U.S. troops into battle for Og’s sake- and yet she and her brothers didn’t meet Brown when he expected them and her “recruiting” in Canada (by a woman who got slaves to risk dogs and death and whippings and punishments of all kinds to run away) couldn’t turn up a single solitary soul to join Brown? Hogwash. She saw him, as Douglass probably saw him and as the Secret Six came to see him, as a loose cannon who, however much they agreed with his views, didn’t have snowball’s chance in hell of succeeding and overrelied on divine providence. (Harriet had made that journey from the Mid-Atlantic to Canada way too many times to expect God to swoop from the clouds and do anything.)
I still think Brown was a terrorist. What I said in the thread was And that I think could well be the answer to the OP if there is one: Brown was neither terrorist nor hero. Poorly written perhaps, better phrased as “That could serve as the answer to the OP”- a compromise we could agree on, because I’d gotten tired of the thread.
But, for the record, I think he was a terrorist and honestly don’t see how there can be any debate on the matter the way terrorist is defined. Now whether one can be a terrorist AND a hero is another debate.
There’s a new slavery thread in GD btw if you want to go call southerners Nazis due to your ancestors having worn a hood again. I’ll race you there.
Really, Sampiro? Because as you surely read, he was talking about things such as how each system treated its victims; whereas they were both engaged in “devaluing of persons gradually or completely,” they had different aims and different conceptions of why their victims were worthless. And of course they engaged in massive, societal evil in different fashions.
The thing is, I’ve never argued otherwise, nor have your arguments with me ever raised this point. Instead, you always contextualize American slavery, spread the blame for it to regions outside the South (which is true of course, but it’s also true that it was called the South’s “peculiar institution” for a reason), bend over backwards to humanize the slavekeepers, and make arguments about how we can’t judge slavers by modern terms. (Curiously, in denying my argument, you never extend these same courtesies to Nazis, even though the Holocaust similarly happened within a historical context, happened outside of Germany, and involved human perpetrators).
No, I’ve never ever compared them in terms of the specifics of the evil. Instead I believe I’ve been very consistent in suggesting that they were equally evil institutions, and that as Germany regards the Holocaust as a loathsome blight on their history that may never be romanticized, so ought the American South regard chattel slavery and the plantation system.
And here is where the quotes from the article come in handy. I trust you’ll understand that capitalization is unnecessary in quotes:
In other words, everything I’ve said is in accordance with this work. Naturally he’s more educated on the issue than I am, and has gone into much greater depth on the moral philosophy with which one may analyze both institutions–but what you think contradicts me absolutely does not.
I have never one time exonerated the South of the blame.
Unapologetically. Making them into cartoon Simon-Legree moustache twirling villains is as nasty and stupid as making all slaves into happy singing darkies who love nothing better than dancing with white children. It’s one of the greatest lessons of all social evils that the people behind were not only humans but rarely evil.
You can, just not accurately.
Fucking bullshit I haven’t. I’ve written many times about the roles of regular Germans in the Holocaust both as victims and victimizers, written reams on Hermann Göring’s complex views in particular (i.e. his Jewish godfather and gay friends and the like), and about the roles played by other nations with regard to the Jewish refugees. The humanization of people who lived through the darkest chapters of history is damned near an obsession to me.
For somebody who claims he’s unable to read my posts you certainly seem to think you’re an authority on them (but then that would seem a habit of yours).
Which is a stupid suggestion.
No argument on it shouldn’t be romanticized, but there’s no comparison between slavery and deliberate genocide. And as another poster in the other thread asked (my paraphrase, not her words), “Why slavery so damned particular?” Jim Crow was in my opinion far crueler in some ways and there’s no shortage of other atrocities from the treatment of Indians to the treatment of workers to- hell, go all the way back to blaming Eve for the fall of humanity.
[quote=LHOD]
And here is where the quotes from the article come in handy. I trust you’ll understand that capitalization is unnecessary in quotes:[/LHOD]
Dude, I color coded an argument for you and you still missed it’s point. And who the hell argued that slavery didn’t dehumanize its victims?
I haven’t read that book but I’ve added it to my cart (on a used sight) so I’ll table discussions until I have.
In any case I’m offering you the last word if you want it. As I mentioned we have been cybershouting at each other for at least 6 years and we’re not going to resolve anything here or in GD.
I have never one time made them into cartoon villains. You are confusing me with Der Trihs. I profoundly disagree with the idea that the people behind social evils are not themselves evil, however; this is a philosophical disagreement, not an historical disagreement, and is based on my very strong emphasis of responsibility in moral situations. (For comparison, I believe soldiers in an unjust war have a moral obligation to refuse orders, even at risk to their own lives).
Depends on your purpose. If the purpose of the conversation is along the lines of “let’s not be condemned to repeat it,” of course you can. If the purpose is to get into the mind of the historical figure, then you cannot. My purpose tends heavily toward the former.
Et tu, Sampiro? Lemme try this color-coding thing of yours:
The qualifier is there for a reason. The point is that when I say they’re equally evil, you perpetually come back and suggest that I’m wrong because of all these reasons slavers were human. I repeatedly point out that of course they’re human; of course they are; I just think humans are capable of great evil.
But the thing is, when I make that comparison, you could have come in response to it and said, “Of course they’re not equal. Nazis were operating in such-and-such historical context, and it’s ridiculous to call it Germany’s shame, and the Nazis should not be portrayed as such villains.” (FTR, I’ve often portrayed Nazis as moustache-twirling villains, because they’re just so damned good at that role in games). Although only you know your heart, I suspect the reason you play up the differences between the two by emphasizing the humanity of slavers is because you’re too close to Southern history. Pointing out such factors is irrelevant in a refutation of my comparison of the evil of the two systems. But you do point it out in regards to slavers, and in my memory, you’ve never objected to such a comparison by contextualizing Nazi Germany’s evils.
No it’s not. As I pointed out, it’s the thesis of that book, and it’s far from an unusual idea.
Of course there are other atrocities. I am in no way suggesting that we take the Holocaust off of some sort of Grand Prize: Atrocity pedestal and make it share the honor with chattel slavery. If someone argued that, in terms of the scale of the evil, the Soviet famines were Russia’s Holocaust, I could certainly see the argument for that.
Of course there is a comparison. If all this time you thought I was complaining about the gas showers of Selma, there’s no wonder you were irritated at my argument. But that was never my point: my interest in history, again, is primarily how it can guide moral and social behavior, and as such I believe that the South should regard chattel slavery and the plantation system with a kind of appalled horror and shame similar to that with which Germany regards the Holocaust.
Dude, you were a total douchebag in that post, and I’m still not convinced I missed its point–but maybe I did, due to the, y’know, sheer douchebaggery of it. If you’d like to dedouchify it and post it again in civil terms, I’ll consider it more carefully, but pardon me if when someone’s acting like a douchebag, I don’t give their argument utmost consideration. If I made a mistake, it was in dignifying it with a response.
As for who argued that slavery didn’t dehumanize its victims, that appears to me to be implicit in the argument that there’s no comparison between them. It’s not like you’re saying, “Okay, both systems involved transportation, but there’s no comparison between them.” The dehumanization of their victims on a massive and thorough scale were central to the evils of both systems, and if we’re comparing the evils of both systems, that’s a central factor to the comparison.
Fine if you want to give me the last word. You’re actually acting in a more-or-less civil manner now, which I appreciate, and I’m happy to continue the discussion if you’ll continue in such a vein.
In fact, I found one of Sampiro’s grocery lists, and it was clever, entertaining and educational.
I invite successful authors over to gaze at the door to our fridge, where it’s been enshrined for months now.
Seriously, Sampiro has given us so much entertainment over the years, I wish we could give him a TeflonGet-Out-Of-Pit-FreeCard.
Meh. He’s certainly been entertaining before. But he was a douchebag to me. So I vented. I’m done with it if he can pull himself the rest of the way back to civil.
“Mission accomplished.” If all he wanted was to vent, he’d have done it on his blog, or maybe in a minirants thread (I think we have about five now). But instead, he made a whole new thread for it in the Pit. That means not “I want to vent” but “this person is stupid, come laugh at them with me.”
To be fair, he said it was acceptable for GD; he didn’t say he appreciated it or was going to read it.
No, he wasn’t. “You’re a fucking retard who should never reproduce.” *That’s *being a douchebag to you. But patiently correcting your misinterpretation of something he wrote by breaking it down using colors? That’s clever and only mildly snarky, with 100% of the snark deserved, and all of it in a style not only acceptable but celebrated in this community.
That’s fine and dandy that you cannot imagine that I’m telling the truth about my reasons for this, and also that you don’t agree with my assessment of Sampiro’s post.
Thing is, I think you’ve got your douchebagometer miscalibrated, and I think I know why: although I’m not terribly familiar with you, my vague recollection, and certainly my understanding of your behavior in this thread, makes me think you’re kind of a douche* yourself. Am I right? I thought you were one of those folks who kind of revels in your own douchebaggery, always going around looking for fights to jeer on or something.
Anyway, I think your own douchitude is making it difficult for you to see that someone might have a non-doucherrific reason to start a thread like this one, or to see what I’m getting out of it. Lemme know if you want some help with that.
I know I’m using this term a lot in this thread. It came up on my word-of-the-day calendar.
I take pride in not censoring myself in the Pit, which leads some people to think I’m a douche. Which is why I’m eminently fucking qualified to tell you that Sampiro’s post, which you linked in your OP, was not *remotely *douchey. If you think it was, I’m going to have to ask you to take that douche and use it to wash the sand out of your delicate little vagina.
See? Now *that’s *being a douche. Do you comprehend the difference now? Or do I need to break out the crayons?
The thing is, I don’t think anyone else censors themselves in the pit either. It’s just that, when you don’t censor yourself, you prove to be a douche.
And funny how snark is celebrated except when it’s used against you.
Since when? The only time I’ve ever called anybody out is when **Una **made a series of creepy personal attacks against me in ATfuckingMB, having stalked me there from the Pit.
