US Politics: Sitting in Judgement

[Kalbear]

17 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Kalbear -- nobody said EVERYBODY knew or cared in the deep past that slavery was wrong, but there were always some, moving to many, to finally most, knowing it was not only wrong, but evil and fostered many other behaviors and choices toxic to everyone.

Literally @Spockydog said everyone knew that slavery was evil. 

[Phylum of Alexandria]

1 minute ago, SeanF said:

Broadening the discussion again, had I turned 20 in Munich or Moscow, in 1933, I could have ended up doing pretty evil things.  Knowing what the Gestapo or NKVD were capable of, I would be taking pains not to offend them.

Even as early as 2003, my brother and I were convinced that our parents and sisters would have been happy, active members of the Nazi party in Hitler's Germany.

As to us? It's harder to say. You'd like to think that you'd be the hero who stands up, but those heroes were killed off. Most well meaning people just quietly did what they were told. It's quite likely that we would have done the same.

The guilt of accepting that truth was apparently what inspired Ingmar Bergman to make the films he did.

[Ormond]

36 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Yes @Ormond -- as I mentioned above -- until essentially the industrial revolution, almost all societies going back as far as one can go, ran on wo/man power, much of it enslaved.  And it was horrific.  I cringe and shake inside all the time when I contemplate man's inhumanity to wo/man.  There are so many reasons I say history is the accounting of the charnel house that is our species' erection.  But even in those societies, as I also mentioned, there were always those who thought this was wrong, even among those who wrote the Old Testament.

 

Where do you think there is a general condemnation of slavery in the Old Testament?

Having just looked up all the OT verses my concordance says have the words slave, slavery, or slaves, I can find a few places where it says Israelites shouldn't own other Israelites as slaves, at least not permanently, but can't find anywhere that says slavery of any human being is wrong,

[SeanF]

17 minutes ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

Even as early as 2003, my brother and I were convinced that our parents and sisters would have been happy, active members of the Nazi party in Hitler's Germany.

As to us? It's harder to say. You'd like to think that you'd be the hero who stands up, but those heroes were killed off. Most well meaning people just quietly did what they were told. It's quite likely that we would have done the same.

The guilt of accepting that truth was apparently what inspired Ingmar Bergman to make the films he did.

I could not imagine myself as Amon Goth.  I could imagine myself as an officer on the Eastern front, commanding the burning of a village and shooting hostages, in retaliation for partisan attacks.

[FalagarV2]

Some of the Stoics were ambivalent to slavery (Epictetus, himself an ex-slave, comes to mind), but I don't know of any ancient writer condemning it - Gregory of Nyssa excepted, and even in his case his argument was not centered on abolition, but focused rather on the bad consequences of owning slaves for one's own spiritual life.

Edited February 9 by FalagarV2

[Phylum of Alexandria]

3 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I could not imagine myself as Amon Goth.  I could imagine myself as an officer on the Eastern front, commanding the burning of a village and shooting hostages, in retaliation for partisan attacks.

Well, heck, I was just imagining myself as Carl Jung, staying silent in my cushy academic position as my Jewish friends and colleagues are quietly sent away. But your scenario is possible too.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

37 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Literally @Spockydog said everyone knew that slavery was evil. 

People to this day think it's okay while never considering it evil. This is what happens when a group is degraded so much so that the group in power views them as cattle. There's various forms of slavery happening right now and I'm pretty sure most of the people doing it to them don't think they're evil, they think their slaves are worthless individuals so it rationalizes what they do to them. 

Edited February 9 by Mr. Chatywin et al.

[Spockydog]

On 2/9/2024 at 7:09 PM, Kalbear said:

Literally @Spockydog said everyone knew that slavery was evil. 

I mean, what I actually said was that slave owners knew it was wrong. But, please, go ahead and twist my words for the sake of your argument.

 

Edited February 11 by Spockydog

[Kalbear]

3 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

I mean, what I actually said was they knew it was wrong. But, please, go ahead and twist my words for the sake of your argument.

 

Sorry! I'll change my statement to point out that not everyone thought slavery was wrong, and a pretty large amount of people thought slavery was an actually beneficial thing for the slaves. This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone now because people are still saying that now. 

ETA: what you actually said was that every slave owner knew it was wrong, which is even more not true! Of the people who thought it was wrong very few were owners, and most owners absolutely appear to have believed it was correct and even good. 

Edited February 9 by Kalbear

[SeanF]

10 minutes ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

Well, heck, I was just imagining myself as Carl Jung, staying silent in my cushy academic position as my Jewish friends and colleagues are quietly sent away. But your scenario is possible too.

It would be so easy.  I’m a lawyer.  I’d probably graduate in 1935, then do compulsory military service.  Start a legal career, then get called up in 1939/40.  Even if I’m not a Nazi, I’m probably accepting the government’s argument that this a defensive war, and I want Germany to win it (and no doubt, I fully believe that Germany was betrayed in 1918).

As a professional, I get made an officer, and sent East in 1941.  Standing orders are that adult Soviet males are taken hostage, and shot, and villages burned, in the event of partisan attacks.

If I survive the war, I resume my legal career, and die c.1985.  I’m an “ordinary man.”

[Spockydog]

@Kalbear Not sure what your point is, dude.

Edited February 9 by Spockydog

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Spockydog said:

@Kalbear Not sure what your point is, dude.

My point is that you were wrong, that most people at the time didn't think slavery was wrong or a sin or anything bad, that human being are pretty amazingly good at rationalizing shitty behaviors to other humans if it gets them something or if someone tells them its okay, and we probably can't judge humans based on our current moral standing about how good they are if they were acting within the normative values of their time. 

[SeanF]

5 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

My point is that you were wrong, that most people at the time didn't think slavery was wrong or a sin or anything bad, that human being are pretty amazingly good at rationalizing shitty behaviors to other humans if it gets them something or if someone tells them its okay, and we probably can't judge humans based on our current moral standing about how good they are if they were acting within the normative values of their time. 

We have an *extraordinary* capacity to rationalise terrible deeds, as a species.

[Ran]

50 minutes ago, FalagarV2 said:

Some of the Stoics were ambivalent to slavery (Epictetus, himself an ex-slave, comes to mind), but I don't know of any ancient writer condemning it - Gregory of Nyssa excepted, and even in his case his argument was not centered on abolition, but focused rather on the bad consequences of owning slaves for one's own spiritual life.

You're right. Abolitionism is not something really attested to in history until, maybe the Middle Ages, depending on how you see Lous X's outlawing of slavery in France in the early 14th century (a rule that was not applied, later, to colonies of France). Most examples of abolitionism are better dated to the late 18th century and onward. 

This doesn't mean people didn't decry being slaves. But for most of human history, and in most regions of the world, slavery was a very normal and accepted institution that was not broadly questioned in any significant way. Slave revolts were about ending personal slavery, generally, and almost never lead to an end of slavery  as an institution even when successful (e.g. the Mameluke Sultanate). The only exception I know of would be the Haitian Revolution, which joined the general spirit of late 18th/early 19th century abolitionism.

Personally, I don't tend to think that most people in history were actually "shitty people". They lived in the manner that their ancestors lived and in the manner they believed their descendants would live. Many of them lived in manners that, as Hobbes said, were "poor, nasty, brutish, and short", but by their lights they were just living as best they could under the circumstances that they lived under, within the framework of the mores of their time and place, and most people tried to act in ways that strengthened their place in society which generally meant very much not being a "shitty person" by the lights of your peers (who may have some very different opinions from us, today, about what actually constituted "shitty" behavior.)

Edited February 9 by Ran

[Phylum of Alexandria]

12 minutes ago, SeanF said:

We have an *extraordinary* capacity to rationalise terrible deeds, as a species.

There is one passage from the Old Testament that makes me think of exactly this point: Psalm 137.

It was written by people living in exile, captivity, and servitude in Babylon. It was written in memory of the horrors they had witness at the hands of the Babylonian forces. You feel nothing but sorrow and compassion for whoever wrote it.

And then you get to the final lines:

"Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction,

Happy is the one who repays you

According to what you have done to us

Happy is the one who seizes your infants

And dashes them upon the rocks."

It's the song of ice and fire, essentially. Completely relatable rage at injustice, leading inexorably to horrific, cruel revenge.

And that's without industry and bureaucracy making other people's horror abstract and easy to ignore.

 

[SeanF]

9 minutes ago, Ran said:

You're right. Abolitionism is not something really attested to in history until, maybe the Middle Ages, depending on how you see Lous X's outlawing of slavery in France in the early 14th century (a rule that was not applied, later, to colonies of France). Most examples of abolitionism are better dated to the late 18th century and onward. 

This doesn't mean people didn't decry being slaves. But for most of human history, and in most regions of the world, slavery was a very normal and accepted institution that was not broadly questioned in any significant way. Slave revolts were about ending personal slavery, generally, and almost never lead to an end of slavery  as an institution even when successful (e.g. the Mameluke Sultanate). The only exception I know of would be the Haitian Revolution, which joined the general spirit of late 18th/early 19th century abolitionism.

Personally, I don't tend to think that most people in history were actually "shitty people". They lived in the manner that their ancestors lived and in the manner they believed their descendants would live. Many of them lived in manners that, as Hobbes said, were "poor, nasty, brutish, and short", but by their lights they were just living as best they could under the circumstances that they lived under, within the framework of the mores of their time and place, and most people tried to act in ways that strengthened their place in society.

The closest I can think to abolitionism, in the ancient world, is Epamimnondas, freeing the Messenian helots.  Even then, the indignation is about keeping helladikoi as slaves, rather than naturally servile peoples.

Historians will always debate if Spartacus sought freedom for all, or not.  But that does alter that his cause was just.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

29 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

@Kalbear Not sure what your point is, dude.

Since this is the US politics thread and we've been without a Civil War debate for a bit, I'd like to recommend an excellent book for you to check out: The Field of Blood. It breaks down how Northern and Southern members of Congress grew increasingly hostile and often violent in the 1830's, 40's and 50's which sadly feels familiar today. It also does a good job examining how little the Southerners cared about their slaves, how they thought it was actually a virtue to own them and how they liked to bring them to the Capitol when it wasn't allowed to taunt the Northerners. It's a very well written though depressing history book. 

[ljkeane]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

My point is that you were wrong, that most people at the time didn't think slavery was wrong or a sin or anything bad, that human being are pretty amazingly good at rationalizing shitty behaviors to other humans if it gets them something or if someone tells them its okay

Was it most people? Maybe or maybe not but there were certainly widespread abolitionist movements by the time the United States existed and courts in the UK had already ruled that owning slaves had never been permitted under English law in England. So any US Presidents who owned slaves had certainly been exposed to the argument that owning people was in fact not ok. Are people good at justifying to themselves doing shitty things they want to do? Of course but I'd feel pretty comfortable calling anyone justifying owning slaves to themselves a shitty person.

[SeanF]

2 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

Was it most people? Maybe or maybe not but there were certainly widespread abolitionist movements by the time the United States existed and courts in the UK had already ruled that owning slaves had never been permitted under English law in England. So any US Presidents who owned slaves had certainly been exposed to the argument that owning people was in fact not ok. Are people good at justifying to themselves doing shitty things they want to do? Of course but I'd feel pretty comfortable calling anyone justifying owning slaves to themselves a shitty person.

The Mansfield judgement ruled that slavery was unlawful in the UK, but that was really trite law.  Abolitionist sentiment did not really take off in the UK till the 1780’s.

[Zorral]

In Private Remarks to Arab Americans, Biden Aide Expresses Regrets on Gaza
In a closed-door meeting, the aide offered some of the administration’s clearest notes of contrition for its response to the Gaza war, a sign of rising Democratic pressure on President Biden.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/09/us/politics/biden-aide-israel-regret.html