The continuation of the slavery debate
Nov. 26th, 2005 08:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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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.
"Wait... isn't a failure to properly acknowledge human value the very definition of dehumanization, regardless of whether it was done consciously?"
No, it's not. Acknowledgement of human dignity by a large segment of the population is a prerequisite for taking away that human dignity. Someone has to have something before they can be deprived of it.
Keep in mind that this was not a matter of slaves vs. free, the vast majority of the time. An ancient Athenian landowner who owned forty slaves was a well-respected citizen, while his heiress daughter might as well have been a slave herself for all the good she got out of her freedom. She was not more respected than her slaves; if anything, her life was MORE circumscribed than theirs. Similarly, in many cultures, a slave woman was seen as a legitimate source of free sons by her male owner, but a free woman who let herself be impregnated by a slave lost practically all value to her family and society.
The ancient Hebrews did, in fact, make slaves of each other. They were generally not slaves for life, though, and there were very, very specific rules about their treatment. Read Leviticus and Deuteronomy for more on that.
I'm not talking about a consensus of opinion here. There was no consensus leading up to the Civil War in America. There was, however, an understanding of rights that was beginning to develop into a modern understanding of human rights, and which was debated vociferously throughout the country. Many nations had already abolished slavery - Upper Canada did it in 1809, and the rest of the Canadian colonies did it in 1834, along with Great Britain. This had never happened before. There was no movement anywhere in history to treat people in a way we would describe as "fair", that is, everyone has certain inalienable rights that they are born with. The concept did not exist before the eighteenth century, and its application to all levels of society has only recently become the norm in the West. Unfair treatment - that is, treatment based on societal status, gender, and wealth - was not framed in any thought as being fair or unfair. It was just the way it was, and if individuals railed against it (which they did, certainly, you're right there) they didn't rail against the system so much as against their place in it. If they managed to escape that place, they took their place in the system at a different level of it and made lives for themselves there. Even the concept of changing society through concerted action was a modern idea. Little people had no power to change their government or the way things were done. Only men in the highest social classes had that power in most societies.
The reason I believe this to be an important point to make for a student of history is this. If you claim that all slavery and all slave-owners were by definition evil, what you've done is set up an "us" and "them" situation where "those evil people" did something WE would never do. You've divorced yourself from their moral failings and you've failed to recognize that all humans have the capacity both for great good and for great evil, regardless of the social conditions in which they live. You've set yourself on a moral pedestal, and that's a dangerous place to be. The basic value of modern citizenship is that everyone has a role to play in running our society and in making needed social changes. Recognizing one's own potential involvement in social injustice is a huge part of that. Are we likely to recognize our involvement in the modern elements of economic slavery that go on around us, if we've so completely divorced ourselves from the morality of the past? I don't think we are.
In other words, by claiming all slave-owners were by definition evil, you divorce yourself from the possibility that you could have done the same things in a similar situation, and that you still do, and that there's progress to be made here. Humanity is not perfect. We can't afford to rest on our laurels from a comfortable moral superiority and say that we're better than them. It's hypocritical - at least, it is if you buy cheap costume jewellry made by child labour, or if you don't ensure that your fresh produce is grown on a farm where workers are paid a living wage, or if you shop at Walmart on a regular basis.
I'm a history teacher, an author, and an active citizen in my community. These are important things for me to think about in those contexts. I seek to get inside the collective psyches of the civilizations I study, to know where we've come from, to check direction on where we're going, and to write about all of that in my books. If you wish to look less critically at both modern and ancient values, that is, of course, your choice.
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.
"Wait... isn't a failure to properly acknowledge human value the very definition of dehumanization, regardless of whether it was done consciously?"
No, it's not. Acknowledgement of human dignity by a large segment of the population is a prerequisite for taking away that human dignity. Someone has to have something before they can be deprived of it.
Keep in mind that this was not a matter of slaves vs. free, the vast majority of the time. An ancient Athenian landowner who owned forty slaves was a well-respected citizen, while his heiress daughter might as well have been a slave herself for all the good she got out of her freedom. She was not more respected than her slaves; if anything, her life was MORE circumscribed than theirs. Similarly, in many cultures, a slave woman was seen as a legitimate source of free sons by her male owner, but a free woman who let herself be impregnated by a slave lost practically all value to her family and society.
The ancient Hebrews did, in fact, make slaves of each other. They were generally not slaves for life, though, and there were very, very specific rules about their treatment. Read Leviticus and Deuteronomy for more on that.
I'm not talking about a consensus of opinion here. There was no consensus leading up to the Civil War in America. There was, however, an understanding of rights that was beginning to develop into a modern understanding of human rights, and which was debated vociferously throughout the country. Many nations had already abolished slavery - Upper Canada did it in 1809, and the rest of the Canadian colonies did it in 1834, along with Great Britain. This had never happened before. There was no movement anywhere in history to treat people in a way we would describe as "fair", that is, everyone has certain inalienable rights that they are born with. The concept did not exist before the eighteenth century, and its application to all levels of society has only recently become the norm in the West. Unfair treatment - that is, treatment based on societal status, gender, and wealth - was not framed in any thought as being fair or unfair. It was just the way it was, and if individuals railed against it (which they did, certainly, you're right there) they didn't rail against the system so much as against their place in it. If they managed to escape that place, they took their place in the system at a different level of it and made lives for themselves there. Even the concept of changing society through concerted action was a modern idea. Little people had no power to change their government or the way things were done. Only men in the highest social classes had that power in most societies.
The reason I believe this to be an important point to make for a student of history is this. If you claim that all slavery and all slave-owners were by definition evil, what you've done is set up an "us" and "them" situation where "those evil people" did something WE would never do. You've divorced yourself from their moral failings and you've failed to recognize that all humans have the capacity both for great good and for great evil, regardless of the social conditions in which they live. You've set yourself on a moral pedestal, and that's a dangerous place to be. The basic value of modern citizenship is that everyone has a role to play in running our society and in making needed social changes. Recognizing one's own potential involvement in social injustice is a huge part of that. Are we likely to recognize our involvement in the modern elements of economic slavery that go on around us, if we've so completely divorced ourselves from the morality of the past? I don't think we are.
In other words, by claiming all slave-owners were by definition evil, you divorce yourself from the possibility that you could have done the same things in a similar situation, and that you still do, and that there's progress to be made here. Humanity is not perfect. We can't afford to rest on our laurels from a comfortable moral superiority and say that we're better than them. It's hypocritical - at least, it is if you buy cheap costume jewellry made by child labour, or if you don't ensure that your fresh produce is grown on a farm where workers are paid a living wage, or if you shop at Walmart on a regular basis.
I'm a history teacher, an author, and an active citizen in my community. These are important things for me to think about in those contexts. I seek to get inside the collective psyches of the civilizations I study, to know where we've come from, to check direction on where we're going, and to write about all of that in my books. If you wish to look less critically at both modern and ancient values, that is, of course, your choice.
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Re: Part 2
Date: 2005-11-26 07:20 pm (UTC)1) Slavery as an institution is wrong.
2) In a society where it was legal, I do not believe it is fair to portray all slave-owners as inherently evil, especially if the public dialogue for mass emancipation did not exist.
3) Morals change over time. If there is an absolute right, I doubt we've found it yet. To hold societies in the distant past accountable for actions which did not infringe on their morality at the time is, in many ways, an exercise in futility; history simply is, with no judgements necessary. Understanding how they saw things is a valuable exercise, even (perhaps especially) if we disagree with them.
4) It is necessary and right to hold societies accountable for their recent and current actions. This needs to include a public dialogue within these societies, which hopefully will have the effect of bringing their morality in line with our, probably more progressive one; that said, if the people of one particular group do not see themselves as oppressed, and it's not hurting them to remain as they are, why force cultural change on them?
5) Individuals acting within the laws of their own society can usually be forgiven for following laws that don't agree with our morality. For example: the bus driver who called the police to arrest Rosa Parks was doing what he believed to be right, and he was obeying the law. I would not judge him for that action. Instead, I would judge the society that felt those laws were okay. Collective responsibility is more valuable than individual responsibility in such situations. In fact, encouraging individual responsibility in that respect often has the effect of letting the collectively-responsible body off the hook.
Re: Part 2
Date: 2005-11-27 03:53 am (UTC)2) Agreed.
3) I believe morals are understood over time, but there is no point in pressing this issue. I know history cannot be altered, but I believe making judgments of it has a valuable impact on the future. I understand that they view things differently, and perhaps did not have means to view otherwise, but I still do not feel obliged to pardon their actions, and further, I find it as unnecessary to do so as you find judging them. I will attempt to maintain an open mind, but I will not compromise my values in doing so.
4) the people of one particular group do not see themselves as oppressed
A person can be brainwashed into supporting a relationship that abuses them, and though they do not draw a mental connection between this support and their suffering, suffering it is. Now, if slaves are truly satisfied with their circumstance, then far be it for me to try to change them. But I believe you have actually maintained to the contrary. Incidentally, "bringing their morality in line with ours" would seem to suggest that there is an absolute, objective standard of morality.
5) "I was only following orders" is not a valid basis of forgiveness for me. Is obeying law to do harm inherently more respectable than breaking it to do good? I hold both society and individual accountable, and though you may consider one more practical than the other, I do not believe that they must interfere with each other. As for doing what someone believes is right, you will be hard pressed to find a wide number of people guilty of despicable acts who disagreed with themselves while they were doing them, up to and including the most violent offenders.
Re: Part 2
Date: 2005-11-27 01:50 pm (UTC)That's not entirely true. People do things all the time, knowing full well that they are wrong. Usually they will try to justify the action to themselves, but not always. (Remember, I'm a teacher. I've lost count of the number of times in the last week when I've asked a student about such-and-such a thing they did and they said, "I don't know why I did it," and usually "I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have done it.") It is entirely possible to live in an amoral state, where one doesn't think about the rightness or wrongness of one's actions at all. This is to be distinguished from someone who consciously thinks about two alternatives and chooses one because he believes it is the right thing to do. That's the example I was trying to give.
You know, Christians are held up (especially these days) as being very hard-line arbiters of right and wrong, unwilling to recognize extenuating circumstances or places where Biblical morality may no longer apply. And yet, I know very few Christians who would totally negate the possibility for forgiveness of sins based in ignorance of absolute morality as you have done.
I think that's the place where we fundamentally disagree. In my worldview, I don't have to judge history because that's God's job. I don't even have to judge modern people, other than to decide how to act myself and how to teach my students and children to act. Usually, judging them or refusing to forgive/excuse them is counterproductive to teaching them how to act better. "You didn't know, so you're not in trouble this time. However, you know now. Next time, I'll expect you to behave better." This is a standard line in my classroom, and my students respect it and learn from it.
This has been an interesting discussion, but I think we've come to the crux of our differences.
Re: Part 2
Date: 2005-11-29 02:40 am (UTC)"I know very few Christians who would totally negate the possibility for forgiveness of sins based in ignorance of absolute morality as you have done."
It is fortunate that I am not Christian, then, as I would be a poor one. However, I do not negate the possibility of forgiveness, I only hold the forgiveness I personally distribute to my own standard. If you take it as God's place to judge history, I will accept that as your position and dispute it no further, except to suggest that, perhaps, forgiveness is equally an infringement on God's realm.
We have indeed isolated the core of our dispute and, now that we know where we stand, we will hopefully both come away richer in spite of it, or perhaps because of it.
Re: Part 2
Date: 2005-11-29 08:58 pm (UTC)Ultimately, forgiveness will be God's to offer, as is judgement.
Re: Part 2
Date: 2005-11-29 03:31 am (UTC)