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The continuation of the slavery debate
Nov. 26th, 2005 08:06 amComment from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
trikotomy (not the same person as the original commenter - or at least, not the same username.) Additional comments welcome, and I've invited trikotomy to continue the debate in my journal if so desired.
Wait... isn't a failure to properly acknowledge human value the very definition of dehumanization, regardless of whether it was done consciously?
"NONE OF THEM DID"
No, most of them didn't, as far as we know. I assure you that in almost no point in the history of a culture has there ever been a complete and total consensus on anything, even if the dissent has not been successfully vocalized and charitably recorded, and the failure of people to bring "serious" efforts to fore is both an arbitrary distinction and insufficient to establish otherwise. I find it highly unlikely that it would never occur to anyone that slavery was humiliating for the slaves unless they were told so. Furthermore, how would such a consensus be relevant? Modern slavers and their supporters must surely have a consensus amongst themselves that what they're doing is fine, or else they wouldn't do it. Why should I despise them while respecting the slavers of the past? If it's because old slavers "couldn't" know any better, then I pity their poor and/or lazy critical thinking skills at best, and if it's because most people now disagree with modern slavers, this sounds like an ad populum fallacy.
"Even the Bible [...] never said slavery was wrong"
Well, there was certainly an understanding that it was wrong when it happened to the Hebrews, if not other people (a double standard the Bible is notorious for which I will not dwell on here). Moses didn't rally for the fair treatment of his people, but for their unconditional freedom. It seems reasonable that slaves typically do not endorse their slavery, and it is convenient that they are left absent from popular accounts on the morality of it.
Now, I'll grant you that the condition of being a slave-owner didn't necessarily make one a seething mass of pure, liquid evil, and that many may have been otherwise decent people who may have had valid ideas, but this fact does not obligate me to appreciate "different lifestyles and viewpoints" in relation to slavery. I shed no tears for stereotypical depictions of evil slave-owners... there are other subjects far more worthy of my sympathy.
( My response )
trikotomy (not the same person as the original commenter - or at least, not the same username.) Additional comments welcome, and I've invited trikotomy to continue the debate in my journal if so desired.Wait... isn't a failure to properly acknowledge human value the very definition of dehumanization, regardless of whether it was done consciously?
"NONE OF THEM DID"
No, most of them didn't, as far as we know. I assure you that in almost no point in the history of a culture has there ever been a complete and total consensus on anything, even if the dissent has not been successfully vocalized and charitably recorded, and the failure of people to bring "serious" efforts to fore is both an arbitrary distinction and insufficient to establish otherwise. I find it highly unlikely that it would never occur to anyone that slavery was humiliating for the slaves unless they were told so. Furthermore, how would such a consensus be relevant? Modern slavers and their supporters must surely have a consensus amongst themselves that what they're doing is fine, or else they wouldn't do it. Why should I despise them while respecting the slavers of the past? If it's because old slavers "couldn't" know any better, then I pity their poor and/or lazy critical thinking skills at best, and if it's because most people now disagree with modern slavers, this sounds like an ad populum fallacy.
"Even the Bible [...] never said slavery was wrong"
Well, there was certainly an understanding that it was wrong when it happened to the Hebrews, if not other people (a double standard the Bible is notorious for which I will not dwell on here). Moses didn't rally for the fair treatment of his people, but for their unconditional freedom. It seems reasonable that slaves typically do not endorse their slavery, and it is convenient that they are left absent from popular accounts on the morality of it.
Now, I'll grant you that the condition of being a slave-owner didn't necessarily make one a seething mass of pure, liquid evil, and that many may have been otherwise decent people who may have had valid ideas, but this fact does not obligate me to appreciate "different lifestyles and viewpoints" in relation to slavery. I shed no tears for stereotypical depictions of evil slave-owners... there are other subjects far more worthy of my sympathy.
( My response )
