UK Politics: Black Lives Matter Here Too

[The Marquis de Leech]

3 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I have to wonder who thinks removing episodes or Fawlty Towers, Mighty Boosh and League of Gentlemen was a good idea.

One of the more tone-deaf commercial decisions I've seen in a while (seriously. The Mighty Boosh?).

[SeanF]

23 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I have to wonder who thinks removing episodes or Fawlty Towers, Mighty Boosh and League of Gentlemen was a good idea.

 

 

14 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

One of the more tone-deaf commercial decisions I've seen in a while (seriously. The Mighty Boosh?).

There is the Streisand Effect.  Sales of DVD's have soared.  In general, Don't Like, Don't Watch is a sensible rule of thumb.

[SeanF]

2 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

I can't help but wonder if a century hence, social values will have altered such that today's monuments are considered morally reprehensible. Tearing down statues of important arseholes is almost the ultimate expression of Whig History.

(I live in a country where half the country is basically named after British historical people and places. We've got towns named Cromwell, Naseby, Nelson, Palmerston, Picton, Blenheim, Napier, Hastings, Alexandra, and, of course, Wellington. My home city has George, Frederick, Hanover, King Edward, and Prince Albert Streets, and I actually used to work on the intersection of Cumberland and Stuart Streets. If we were starting from scratch, would any of those names be used? No. But we're not starting from scratch, and the History that shapes us all isn't supposed to accord with 2020 values, any more than 2020 abides by 2520 values).    

Perhaps people will be more level-headed, a century from now.

[Heartofice]

26 minutes ago, SeanF said:

 

There is the Streisand Effect.  Sales of DVD's have soared.  In general, Don't Like, Don't Watch is a sensible rule of thumb.

My first reaction was definitely ‘damn I need to rewatch that Papa Lazarou episode!’

[SeanF]

17 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

My first reaction was definitely ‘damn I need to rewatch that Papa Lazarou episode!’

Most of the mockery in the show was directed at small c conservative people, living in a provincial town - who turn out to practise incest, cannibalism, mass murder etc.

[Heartofice]

3 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Most of the mockery in the show was directed at small c conservative people, living in a provincial town - who turn out to practise incest, cannibalism, mass murder etc.

I’d be interested to know what those upset at the character of Papa Lazarou ( if anyone is actually upset) believe the character is supposed to be. 

[SeanF]

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I’d be interested to know what those upset at the character of Papa Lazarou ( if anyone is actually upset) believe the character is supposed to be. 

There's probably quite a bit of cynicism about it.  Pull something in one medium, and sales will soar in another, or when it comes back with a disclaimer.

[Raja]

Jesus that Sun headline is bad.

[BigFatCoward]

Tit for Tat statue damage, can't copy link for some reason but a statue to a black actor in Bristol has been damaged with a  bleach like substance, because of course it has. 

[Raja]

On the back of that article I linked earlier, I'm curious to read about segregation within cities in the UK. Birmingham felt like that to me a little bit ( And Bristol seems to be another one) - I'm sure there's a book about it somewhere.

[BigFatCoward]

Having to protect the cenotaph is pretty shameful.  I assume they are protecting the Mandela statue because of more revenge statue action.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

14 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

The wiring in my brain housing group is starting to smoke. Something does not compute. How does on be a "strong proponent" of moral relativism, but then desperately want Nazi's to be defeated?

I do not want to derail this thread much further, as I assume, other people had enough fun reading that lil' spat match. Anyway, short answer.

At first I wasn't entirely sure where the confusion came from. Moral relativism is not Nihilism. Moral (judgement) is a relative thing and can differ quite a bit between eras and societies. I mean, where would an universal morality or absolute morality come from? God? That fella has been dead for a while now (to invoke a well known philosopher), and his book is not a particularly great guide on moral actions either (at least the original). I mean of course your and my view on slavery differs from that of a plantation owner in the South of the US in the 18th century. If you and I were brought up then and there, we might have taken a more favorable view on that institution. Fortunately we (as a society) have moved on a bit. So we really do not need to celebrate the life of slavers and slave owners by statues, and they really shouldn't have a place in public life. The focus should be more on the life of the victims and the horrors of that institution, and not on the benefactors of slavery.

As for Nazism, even by the moral standards of the 1930s and '40s, with the way more militaristic society that has bread them, one can safely denounce them as immoral. I like to think we reached a consensus on genocide being bad, before the 20th century. That's not to say, if I were born in the 1920s, that I would have surely joined the resistance. If we're honest with ourselves, very few actually did. Anyway, I prefer the way history played out there and being able to live in a free and democratic society as a result of the victories of the Allied Forces.

 

[OldGimletEye]

30 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

I do not want to derail this thread much further, as I assume, other people had enough fun reading that lil' spat match. Anyway, short answer.

1. I don't think its a derail. But, it's a central question with regard to which statues should be removed and which should not be removed. I'll use the US example to clarify more. One of the reason I favor, the removal of all confederate statues and the renaming of US Army bases named after confederate generals is because it had been "discovered" by that time that slavery was a great evil. It's the difference between saying why confederate statues should be removed, but a bust of Trajan, for example, probably shouldn't. It's not the only reason, but I think it's a factor that weighs heavily.
2. I dislike hard core moral relativism because adopting that belief heavily damages the ethical basis for reform or progress.
3. I don't disagree that it would be unrealistic to hold historical personages to our current set of moral values when judging them. If we did, we would have to condemn a whole lot of people, who while not perfect from our current standards, did things that could largely be seen as positive.
 

 

30 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

. I mean, where would an universal morality or absolute morality come from? God?

I think the ancient greeks dispatched this one awhile back.

[SeanF]

39 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Having to protect the cenotaph is pretty shameful.  I assume they are protecting the Mandela statue because of more revenge statue action.

Gandhi too, although I don't know whether that is coming from the far left, offended at Gandhi's "racist" views, or the far right, acting as agents provocateurs.

Gandhi is a perfect example of @old gimlet eye's point.  A man who held some opinions that were daft or repellent, but also a man who was morally good.

[Fragile Bird]

1 hour ago, BigFatCoward said:

Having to protect the cenotaph is pretty shameful.  I assume they are protecting the Mandela statue because of more revenge statue action.

Troops were placed to guard the Lincoln Memorial (graffiti was sprayed on the walls at street level), the hq of the NAACP was vandalized during rioting, lots of other memorials were vandalized as well. I think a fountain by the Vietnam War memorial was vandalized. Who knows who did what. Did black protestors smash the windows at the NAACP because they thought them ineffective or did white racists do it because they are effective? Everything is a target.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

2 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

1. I don't think its a derail. But, it's a central question with regard to which statues should be removed and which should not be removed. I'll use the US example to clarify more. One of the reason I favor, the removal of all confederate statues and the renaming of US Army bases named after confederate generals is because it had been "discovered" by that time that slavery was a great evil. It's the difference between saying why confederate statues should be removed, but a bust of Trajan, for example, probably shouldn't. It's not the only reason, but I think it's a factor that weighs heavily.

We are basically in agreement there. I'd add to that, that the Confederate statues and confederate named military bases also send a very interesting message to the descedants of the people that suffered under the slavers in the south.

2 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

2. I dislike hard core moral relativism because adopting that belief heavily damages the ethical basis for reform or progress.

I suppose so, it's not prescriptive, merely descriptive in that way. However, I'd argue, if you just take that view, it gives you a better understanding, of where we are, and how we got from there to here. Which is usually not a bad thing. And you can still ask, why are those slaver statues still there, and what do they say about us now. I mean the the statues of Colston and Rhodes are just statues of people, who made a shit ton of money from slavery. So why and how those people deserve a commendment of this (or any other) sort is really a question for those defending the statues.

[The Marquis de Leech]

19 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

We are basically in agreement there. I'd add to that, that the Confederate statues and confederate named military bases also send a very interesting message to the descedants of the people that suffered under the slavers in the south.

I suppose so, it's not prescriptive, merely descriptive in that way. However, I'd argue, if you just take that view, it gives you a better understanding, of where we are, and how we got from there to here. Which is usually not a bad thing. And you can still ask, why are those slaver statues still there, and what do they say about us now. I mean the the statues of Colston and Rhodes are just statues of people, who made a shit ton of money from slavery. So why and how those people deserve a commendment of this (or any other) sort is really a question for those defending the statues.

Slavery had been abolished by Rhodes' time. Not to say he wasn't a racist, imperialist arsehole, but he was actually closer to us in time than he was to Colston.

[OldGimletEye]

1 minute ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

We are basically in agreement there. I'd add to that, that the Confederate statues and confederate named military bases also send a very interesting message to the descedants of the people that suffered under the slavers in the south.

That certainly another factor that needs to be considered, along with I think, the scope and degree of the bad acts. In the case of the confederacy, its an objective fact the Civil War was started to preserve slavery. Its been about 20 years since I've read Battle Cry of Freedom, but McPherson demolished any "lost cause" theory of the Civil War. He shows that not only was the South willing to break from the Union to defend slavery, but often was willing to carry out wars of aggression to expand it. Plus there is what the language used in the secession documents say in states like South Carolina and Mississippi.  There is other historical evidence out there too. The Civil War wasn't just the case of a slave state having a war. The whole war was fought to preserve a slave state. So having bases and statues of Confederate officers sends a very bad message, a shit message actually, that is based in historical reality. And by the time it occurred, the institution of slavery had been under a serious intellectual attack, exposing its very wrong ethical foundation. All those symbols of the confederacy need to go.

9 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

I suppose so, it's not prescriptive, merely descriptive in that way. However, I'd argue, if you just take that view, it gives you a better understanding, of where we are, and how we got from there to here. Which is usually not a bad thing. And you can still ask, why are those slaver statues still there, and what do they say about us now. I mean the the statues of Colston and Rhodes are just statues of people, who made a shit ton of money from slavery. So why and how those people deserve a commendment of this (or any other) sort is really a question for those defending the statues.

I think they should be removed. But if you get into this whole "true for you, but not for me" line of reasoning, you've just undercut your own argument.

I think of it like this: Slavery was always a moral wrong. It didn't suddenly become wrong because humankind suddenly changed its opinion about it. Humans had practiced it for centuries, before finally "discovering" that it was utterly wrong.

People don't come into the world knowing ethical rules. If they did, there would be no need for classes in ethics and most of the world's religions wouldn't have try to teach ethical systems. People have to learn ethical rules from others. Typically they learn them from their societies. But those societies don't always have a perfect understanding of ethics. They have to learn them over time.

[SeanF]

48 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

 

I think they should be removed. But if you get into this whole "true for you, but not for me" line of reasoning, you've just undercut your own argument.

I think of it like this: Slavery was always a moral wrong. It didn't suddenly become wrong because humankind suddenly changed its opinion about it. Humans had practiced it for centuries, before finally "discovering" that it was utterly wrong.

People don't come into the world knowing ethical rules. If they did, there would be no need for classes in ethics and most of the world's religions wouldn't have try to teach ethical systems. People have to learn ethical rules from others. Typically they learn them from their societies. But those societies don't always have a perfect understanding of ethics. They have to learn them over time.

Was someone only or principally a slaver is a big issue, IMHO.

Washington and Jefferson were slave owners, but it would be facile to argue that is all that they were about.  Sir Isaac Newton owned shares in a slave trading company as did Samuel Pepys, but I think it would be very silly to remove memorials to them, as that it is not what they are notable for.  Rhodes was not a slaver, although he was a racist.  Upthread, you mentioned Queen Nzinga, who is a national heroine in Angola, and defended her kingdom successfully against the Portuguese - but also sold African slaves to them.  She is celebrated for fighting against foreign invaders, not for selling slaves. 

As to slavery, I'm quite convinced that there are a lot of people alive and well today who see nothing at all wrong with the institution. 

[OldGimletEye]

9 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Was someone only or principally a slaver is a big issue, IMHO.

I think in assessing these figures, I think you need to start with 1) Why is this person's statue up? And 2)  does history support that reason?

I keep using the Civil War, but I think it's a fertile ground for thinking about these issues. So in that case, the alleged reason for putting up statues of Confederate leaders was because they "were defending the Southern way of life" or something like that. But, any fair and objective reading of the historical record does not support those reasons. So the reasons given don't hold water.