Statues, Monuments, and When to Take Down or Leave Up Ones Dedicated To Flawed Historical Figures

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Not sure we should celebrate the best of awful shit human beings.......

[Hereward]

6 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Not sure we should celebrate the best of awful shit human beings.......

That seems axiomatic, except perhaps to Trump and Putin supporters (forgive the tautology}, but I'm not sure what, specifically, you're referring to.

[Altherion]

41 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

My admittedly shallow understanding about the history of slaving is that American chattel slavery, where the slave was never able to earn their way out of slave status, and that their children would also become a master's property, is a good deal further than other slaving systems went. The need to permanently oppress a race of people so that they remained in bondage and torture for generation after generation was part of the impetus for the pseudoscience about racial inferiority.

Feel free to correct or inform me. I do not know much about current slavery practices or if chattel slavery was practiced by Africans at the same time as Europeans.

The laws of manumission have varied widely across the many societies where slavery was practiced:

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Laws of manumission varied widely from society to society and within societies across time. They are often viewed as the litmus test of a particular society’s views of the slave, that is, of the capacities the slave was likely to exhibit as a free human being. Many Islamic societies, broadly interpreting the Hebrew prescription, generally prescribed that slave owners had to free their slaves after the passage of a number of years, essentially the length of time they considered it took for an “outsider” to become an “insider.” Most other societies allowed masters to free their slaves whenever they wished, although there were exceptions. Some legal systems prescribed manumission when the slave adopted the religion of his owner. It is hardly surprising that manumission was more frequent in systems of household slavery, for intimate relations between master and slave soon converted the outsider into an insider. With notable exceptions, such as Athens, Rome, Muscovy, and some circum-Caribbean societies, many societies required manumission after three generations.

Birth was occasionally a route to manumission. In thriving slave systems such as those of the New World, in harsh systems such as those among the Northwest Coast Indians and the medieval Germanic peoples, or even in milder systems such as those of the Chinese and the Muscovites, a slave’s offspring simply added to the slave population. But that was not universally the case; African slave societies, such as the Dahomeans of West Africa, the Ashanti of Ghana, or the Azande living between the Congo and the Nile, prescribed that the offspring of slaves should be free, as part of the process of incorporation into a new lineage. Although Islamic law did not require manumission upon birth, the Qurʾān recommended it, and slave owners were often inclined to follow the religious tenet. The Aztecs freed all children born in slavery except the offspring of traitors. In Thailand emancipation was considered a pious act, and at their death many owners freed their slaves.

 

So the US system was not unique (but it was still quite vicious when compared to most historical instances of slavery).

[Rippounet]

23 minutes ago, Khaleesi did nothing wrong said:

That explanation sounds a bit incomplete. Europeans (and most other people around the world) were involved in the slave trade for thousands of years before racism supposedly existed. Why did racism become necessary to justify slavery for 16th century Europeans, but no one else?

I would posit that Europeans were the ones who felt the need to codify racism using scientific and/or religious terms. It's not that they invented it, but they defined the modern version that we are familiar with.

The problem I see is that racism has always been inexctricably linked with structures of power. Racism is a form of othering, and the purpose of othering is to legitimize conflicts or social hierarchies: the people(s) you fight (and kill) or enslave have to be inferior. I'm tempted to say Europeans simply pushed that logic as far as they did because Western Judeo-Christian philosophy places a lot of emphasis on sin and guilt.
But given enough time, racism becomes more than an a posteriori justification, it becomes the source of social hierarchies. Today we all know (here on this forum) that racial stereotypes cause the very inequalities that they purport to explain. Such awareness however is recent - and alas, still hotly debated.

We're a bit off-topic, but all this helps explain why it's so difficult to assess a historical figure's role in the process. Can we blame people from the past for not being able to see all humans as equal? And if we do, where do we draw the line? I proposed earlier a consequentialist approach, but of course that is not satisfactory, because the statues are only symbols. Not just of racism, but also of the structures of power that they live under.
A simpler way to say it is that a dozen people taking down a statue may have a dozen reasons for doing so. At one end of the spectrum, one could even argue that the very existence of statues is problematic, regardless of what they stand for.

[Filippa Eilhart]

4 hours ago, Fury Resurrected said:

Woah I missed this sideline of the discussion. Did @OldGimletEye really just say that not all members of the Nazi army were Nazis???? Fine people on both sides amiright?

maybe you’re not aware of this, but thousands of Poles were forced to join Wehrmacht against their will.

[maarsen]

13 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

I would posit that Europeans were the ones who felt the need to codify racism using scientific and/or religious terms. It's not that they invented it, but they defined the modern version that we are familiar with.

The problem I see is that racism has always been inexctricably linked with structures of power. Racism is a form of othering, and the purpose of othering is to legitimize conflicts or social hierarchies: the people(s) you fight (and kill) or enslave have to be inferior. I'm tempted to say Europeans simply pushed that logic as far as they did because Western Judeo-Christian philosophy places a lot of emphasis on sin and guilt.
But given enough time, racism becomes more than an a posteriori justification, it becomes the source of social hierarchies. Today we all know (here on this forum) that racial stereotypes cause the very inequalities that they purport to explain. Such awareness however is recent - and alas, still hotly debated.

We're a bit off-topic, but all this helps explain why it's so difficult to assess a historical figure's role in the process. Can we blame people from the past for not being able to see all humans as equal? And if we do, where do we draw the line? I proposed earlier a consequentialist approach, but of course that is not satisfactory, because the statues are only symbols. Not just of racism, but also of the structures of power that they live under.
A simpler way to say it is that a dozen people taking down a statue may have a dozen reasons for doing so. At one end of the spectrum, one could even argue that the very existence of statues is problematic, regardless of what they stand for.

Not just Europeans had rules about who could or should be enslaved. If you can find a copy of Gerrit Metzon's book about his time enslaved in Algiers, he was quite descriptive about his ordeal and what he saw. 

For what it is worth, I am descended from his brother, enslaved with him. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

34 minutes ago, Hereward said:

That seems axiomatic, except perhaps to Trump and Putin supporters (forgive the tautology}, but I'm not sure what, specifically, you're referring to.

It's as simple as the point of this thread man,

Do we still celebrate people who did both important and terrible things?

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

28 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

I would posit that Europeans were the ones who felt the need to codify racism using scientific and/or religious terms. It's not that they invented it, but they defined the modern version that we are familiar with.

The problem I see is that racism has always been inexctricably linked with structures of power. Racism is a form of othering, and the purpose of othering is to legitimize conflicts or social hierarchies: the people(s) you fight (and kill) or enslave have to be inferior. I'm tempted to say Europeans simply pushed that logic as far as they did because Western Judeo-Christian philosophy places a lot of emphasis on sin and guilt.
But given enough time, racism becomes more than an a posteriori justification, it becomes the source of social hierarchies. Today we all know (here on this forum) that racial stereotypes cause the very inequalities that they purport to explain. Such awareness however is recent - and alas, still hotly debated.

We're a bit off-topic, but all this helps explain why it's so difficult to assess a historical figure's role in the process. Can we blame people from the past for not being able to see all humans as equal? And if we do, where do we draw the line? I proposed earlier a consequentialist approach, but of course that is not satisfactory, because the statues are only symbols. Not just of racism, but also of the structures of power that they live under.
A simpler way to say it is that a dozen people taking down a statue may have a dozen reasons for doing so. At one end of the spectrum, one could even argue that the very existence of statues is problematic, regardless of what they stand for.

Good post. Thinking about it a bit more, codifying racism using scientific terms would technically not have been possible prior to this. As "science", strictly speaking, only starts emerging in the early modern period. 

That being said, I think a lot of past attitudes come close enough to racism to not be that different for most modern people. I mean, Islamophobia is considered racism by many people today even though it isn't about a race. Why? Because in practice it is argued to have the same results. 

[Zorral]

There is a reason the south called chattel slavery their 'peculiar system.'  It was peculiar to them, unlike all other slavery systems before and elsewhere.  Nowhere in the history of slavery was there the capitalized womb, which was southern slavery and southern slavery alone, because slaves functioned as the money in the south. 

Slaves were not the money in ancient Rome, not in Islamic countries, not in India, not in Africa -- where slavery was very different than in European countries.   It was the Europeans, i.e. the southerners, only, who justified slavery by coding slave with skin color -- and doing it in order to keep slaving.

Debt peonage, as in Rome, making one a slave -- or even selling oneself and family into slavery -- is a very different thing than a system in which a slave is used to pay a debt. Slavery in al-Andulus was not the governing economic, political and legal system that it was in the south.  The south was a slave society, of which there are very very very few in recorded history.

 The only other country - society that even approaches what the south was, and it's still very far from that. The government and imperial households of the old Ottoman empire (following the Byzantines)  were administered by enslaved eunuchs, pretty much from the 15th century. Also sectors of the military.

Before the Ottomans,  the medieval Mamluks were a slave army. (By the way, the Mamluks were the only ones to defeat and halt the mongolian invasions of the 13th century Muslim kingdoms.)

 

[Ran]

 

Quote

The degree to which American slavery is historically unique is on my mind mostly for the comparison with indentured servitude. A little while ago I saw the proliferation of "Irish were slaves in America too" memes on social media, which of course ignore the fact that those Irish "slaves" were under a much different system from African slaves.

I think the main aspect of American slavery which was unique in history was that it became an entirely domestic system, where the slave population reproduced itself, and that it did this for several generations through deliberate effort. You can find all sorts of documents from American slavers making calculations about the "interest" they earned from a slave thanks merely to the "increase" in the population. 

 

[Hereward]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

It's as simple as the point of this thread man,

Do we still celebrate people who did both important and terrible things?

Well, obviously we do. Whether we should is a different matter. The answer from me being: yes, depending on context, so I'm not sure that takes us any further forward. Do you disagree?

[Zorral]

6 minutes ago, Ran said:

 

I think the main aspect of American slavery which was unique in history was that it became an entirely domestic system, where the slave population reproduced itself, and that it did this for several generations through deliberate effort. You can find all sorts of documents from American slavers making calculations about the "interest" they earned from a slave thanks merely to the "increase" in the population. 

 

Yes.  Our term for that is "the capitalized womb" which I describe above.  This is the slave breeding industry, because each baby born by an enslaved woman, at the moment of birth, increased the owner's wealth by $75, which value continued to increase the older the child became. Also because in the south -- saying it again -- slaves functioned as money. The south had neither gold nor cash.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

22 minutes ago, Hereward said:

Well, obviously we do. Whether we should is a different matter. The answer from me being: yes, depending on context, so I'm not sure that takes us any further forward. Do you disagree?

I think you secretly wished the French had won the Battle of Waterloo. 

But I'm not sure you have the stomach for freedom fries. 

[maarsen]

53 minutes ago, Filippa Eilhart said:

maybe you’re not aware of this, but thousands of Poles were forced to join Wehrmacht against their will.

My friend's Ukrainian father managed to be drafted into both the Soviet army fighting the Germans, and the German army fighting the Soviets. 

[Hereward]

25 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I think you secretly wished the French had won the Battle of Waterloo. 

But I'm not sure you have the stomach for freedom fries. 

This is utterly incomprehensible, I am unsurprised.

[Knight Of Winter]

Oh, racism is probably as old as humanity itself. Even a cursory look at world's history reveals many ideas and behaviors which would now days be classified as firmly racist. Plato considered non-Greek slaves to be literally incapable of thinking, little better than animals. Rome, while not discriminating on skin color, was very into nationalistic pandering - Cicero for example received a lot of mockery for being Italian but not Roman. Early 20th century Japanese had the idea of superiority of their race which called for militarism and expansionism. In medieval Europe, pagans were treated without any mercy sometimes offered to Christians - being forcibly converted or slaughtered en masse. In Old Testament, Israelites considered themselves Lord's chosen people, giving them mandate to treat other nations (i.e. those "not chosen") pretty horribly. Etc.

The point is clear - all through the history people searched for some arbitrary distinction to separate, and elevate themselves from other groups - be it ethnicity, religion, class or something else. Heck, it could even be - and I'm not kidding here - penis size (ancient Greek considered large ones be barbaric and uncultured). Is there any wonder that, at some period of human history - skin color entered the equation? I'm surprised that it didn't happen any sooner, honestly. Perhaps it's because most countries didn't have multiracial society - for that you'd need an empire with large territory and good communication within - and not many fit the bill here.

There was a psychological research which concluded that people usually need some form of justification (to themselves) to justify their bad treatment of others - and the ones that work the best are either implied moral inferiority or physical inferiority (being dirty, unclean, crippled etc.). And implied moral superiority can be "inferred" from almost any arbitrary characteristic - ethnicity, religion, class and yes - race.

I think @Rippounet is right on spot when he says that racism is a form of othering, although I think it has very little to do with power structures. Rather, I believe it stems from basic in-group vs out-group distinction ingrained in human nature - and probably arose way earlier than humans formed first civilizations with first power structures. It's a very much bottom-up process.

____

As to what degree is American slavery different from the rest - only thing that comes to mind is that it was almost exclusively race-based. I can't think of any other civilization which reserved slavery specifically for people of one skin color.

 

[sologdin]

theodore allen's invention of the white race advances the thesis that 

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Instead of social mobility, European-Americans who did not own bond-laborers were to be asked to be satisfied simply with the presumption of liberty, the birthright of the poorest person in England; and with the right of adult males who owned sufficient property to vote for candidates for office who were almost invariably owners of bond-laborers. The prospects for stability of a system of capitalist agriculture based on lifetime hereditary bond-servitude depended on the ability of the ruling elite to induce the non-“yeoman” European Americans to settle for this counterfeit of social mobility. The solution was to establish a new birthright not only for Anglos but for every Euro-American, the “white” identity that “set them at a distance,” to use Sir Francis’s phrase, from the laboring-class African-Americans, and enlisted them as active, or at least passive, supporters of lifetime bondage of African-Americans.

(IWR vol. 2 at 248). here, 'whiteness' is a system developed to defeat the multiracial class-based result of bacon's rebellion in the 1670s.  this is quite a bit before the US came into existence, and the 'scientific racism' of gobineau in the 1850s. allen is full of great bits:

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Thus was the “white race” invented as the social control formation whose distinguishing characteristic was not the participation of the slaveholding class, nor even of other elements of the propertied classes; that alone would have been merely a form of the “beautiful gradation” of class differentiation prescribed by Edmund Burke. What distinguished this system of social control, what made it “the white race”, was the participation of the laboring classes: non-slaveholders, self-employed smallholders, tenants, and laborers. In time this “white race” social control system begun in Virginia and Maryland would serve as the model of social order to each succeeding plantation region of settlement.

(IWR vo. 2 at 251). or: 

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Morgan, in passages that I have previously cited with approval, declared that the answer to the problem of social control was a series of deliberate measures taken by the ruling class to “separate dangerous free whites from dangerous slave blacks.” But if, as the country moved “Toward the Republic” and after it got there, among “whites” there were “too few free poor to matter,” why did the social order not revert to the normal class differentiation, Burke’s “beautiful gradation” from rich to the less rich and so on through the scale, in which the free Negroes could take their individual places according to their social class? They could be expected, as James Madison said, to function properly in that social station. The “white race,” as a social control formation, would have been a redundancy. Instead, there was a general proscription of the free Negro, laws against emancipation, even by last will and testament, and banishment for those so freed. That, I submit, is unchallengeable evidence of the continued presence of poor whites who had “little but their complexion to console them for being born into a higher caste,” yet served as an indispensable element of the “white race,” the Peculiar Institution.

(IWR vol. 2 at 255).

Quote

Morgan set out to meet the “challenge” of those who, in his opinion, overemphasize slavery and oppression in American history. Yet the effect of Morgan’s “paradox” thesis seems no less an apology for white supremacy than the “natural racism” argument. At the end of it all, he writes, “Racism made it possible for white Virginians to develop a devotion to … equality.… Racism became an essential … ingredient of the republican ideology that enabled Virginians to lead the nation.” Then, as if shying at his own conclusion, Morgan suggests the speculation that perhaps “the vision of a nation of equals [was] flawed at the source by contempt for both the poor and the black.”107 But what flaw? If racism was a flaw, then “the rise of liberty” would have been better off without it – a line of reasoning that negates the paradox. On the other hand, if racism made “the rise of liberty possible,” as the paradox would have it, then racism was not a flaw of American bourgeois democracy, but its very special essence.

(id.).  isenberg's recent white trash is good on these intersectional points in US history, though her argument becomes more of an outline of what the argument should be by the time the narrative gets to the 20th century.  by then perhaps a schematic presentation is probably fine, as she had established the colonial foundations and worked them through reconstruction well.

[Hereward]

4 minutes ago, Knight Of Winter said:

As to what degree is American slavery different from the rest - only thing that comes to mind is that it was almost exclusively race-based. I can't think of any other civilization which reserved slavery specifically for people of one skin color.
 

Well, much as it pains me to defend the US, apart from every western European country from the middle ages.

[Hereward]

Just now, Tywin et al. said:

Pretty rich coming from a proud Tory. 

Doesn't address the incomprehensibility of the post, also inaccurate. Try again.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

7 minutes ago, Hereward said:

Doesn't address the incomprehensibility of the post, also inaccurate. Try again.

Clearly they were jokes that don't perfectly cross cultures.

Also,  you can be a bit of a wooden British stiff, just as I can be an overly loud and and playful U.S. citizen.

But at least I can laugh about it. Why not try for yourself?