'Ask a Slave' Makes Depressingly Stupid Tourist Questions Hilarious

[Beaudreaux]

oh, man. she is hilarious.

:lol:

Great OP. Thanks. I'm still laughing.

 

[Harshaw]

:lamo

That was awesome, lol! Be sure to watch both of the clips, too! :thumbs:


EDIT: :shock: I just read the rest of the thread. Some of you could suck the fun out of an apple dumpling.

Some of us find fun in a whole variety of things.

 

[Fiddytree]

I choose moral objectivism and reject moral absolutism. I'm not saying that owning slaves was right, it's wrong (objectively), I'm saying that judging someone without context, regarding a common act at their time/place, is not a legitimate argument.

The perspective of African Americans, however, would also be ignored through the lens you applied. Historicism is okay, but that also means taking a closer look at what perspectives may be missing in that approach. We could end up not using historicism with African Americans, of which this highlights.

 

[Fiddytree]

:lamo

That was awesome, lol! Be sure to watch both of the clips, too! :thumbs:


EDIT: :shock: I just read the rest of the thread. Some of you could suck the fun out of an apple dumpling.

Oh, I thought it was funny, but it was also funny because it highlighted some easy common social, historical, and racial misconceptions or tensions. The abolitionist episode was particularly good at highlighting that.

 

[ecofarm]

The perspective of African Americans, however, would also be ignored through the lens you applied. Historicism is okay, but that also means taking a closer look at what perspectives may be missing in that approach. We could end up not using historicism with African Americans, of which this highlights.

I'm using the history of slavery, which occurred everywhere in the world at that time. To act like someone was a bad guy on those grounds alone is to condemn every person of the time and that's stupid.

 

[TiredOfLife]

I'm using the history of slavery, which occurred everywhere in the world at that time. To act like someone was a bad guy on those grounds alone is to condemn every person of the time and that's stupid.

Hardly every person. Many were, or didn't own, slaves.

 

[Fiddytree]

I'm using the history of slavery, which occurred everywhere in the world at that time. To act like someone was a bad guy on those grounds alone is to condemn every person of the time and that's stupid.

The problem here is not merely that slavery was very common in the western world at that time, or that many individuals held certain beliefs that do not jive with us today. The issue I took with this particular implementation of historicism is that it did not apply what we know about how many African Americans at that time (and afterward), free or otherwise, also felt.

 

[ecofarm]

The problem here is not merely that slavery was very common in the western world at that time, or that many individuals held certain beliefs that do not jive with us today. The issue I took with this particular implementation of historicism is that it did not apply what we know about how many African Americans at that time (and afterward), free or otherwise, also felt.

I'm not trying to discount any perspective. I just think that condemning a caveman for clubbing a female and dragging her to his cave is stupid.

 

[Fiddytree]

I'm not trying to discount any perspective. I just think that condemning a caveman for clubbing a female and dragging her to his cave is stupid.

But what if we know for certain that many cavewomen did not appreciate being clubbed and taken into the cave? Surely having an interpreter making that clear is not poor form.

You see, we ought not have it both ways.

Now, on top of that, we make moral judgments all the time with history. We always have and always will. Historians that even proclaimed they were not, often times were.

 

[ecofarm]

But what if we know for certain that many cavewomen did not appreciate being clubbed and taken into the cave? Surely having an interpreter making that clear is not poor form.

You see, we ought not have it both ways.

Now, on top of that, we make moral judgments all the time with history. We always have and always will. Historians that even proclaimed they were not, often times were.

I understand clubbing women is wrong. I'm not debating that. What I'm debating is the judgement of others without a consideration of context.

 

[Fiddytree]

I understand clubbing women is wrong. I'm not debating that. What I'm debating is the judgement of others without a consideration of context.

Yeah, but eco, context also means that from another group's perspective, and it is going to come into conflict with another viewpoint. The way you use context implies truth, but the way you also use it seems to get in the way of allowing African Americans to contribute to that context.

 

[ecofarm]

Yeah, but eco, context also means that from another group's perspective, and it is going to come into conflict with another viewpoint. The way you use context implies truth, but the way you also use it seems to get in the way of allowing African Americans to contribute to that context.

There is no implication of truth. There is no relative morality. There is only considering context before passing judgement on others.

 

[Fiddytree]

There is no implication of truth. There is no relative morality. There is only considering context before passing judgement on others.

The videos certainly did not contradict the idea that slavery wasn't common, but it did highlight how many African Americans thought about the Founding Fathers and their descendants, whether abolitionist or not. Part of that context means allowing the notion that African Americans largely did not wish to settle in Africa (or eventually more specifically, Liberia), that they found slavery abhorrent, that they found many whites who were their allies were still somehow just not getting other portions of their desires or capabilities, and so forth. A Founding Father can be comparably anti-slavery for the time, but to many African Americans at that time, was that necessarily good enough? Were the constant considerations of how to solve "the negro problem" really about how blacks felt?

 

[ecofarm]

The videos

I see the confusion now. Me no clicky.

 

[Fiddytree]

I see the confusion now. Me no clicky.

That's why I addressed what you said. You had a knee-jerk reaction based off of a rather common public application of historicism on the topic of American slavery, and what I said still applies.

 

[ecofarm]

That's why I addressed what you said. You had a knee-jerk reaction, and what I said still applies.

I did not click the video. I am speaking in general. It is stupid to condemn an individual for what was common and accepted behavior during the historical time period. Claiming that a particular caveman was a bad person because he clubbed women is stupid. That's not to say that clubbing women is right, nor that the caveman was not wrong. That's simply to say that without context there is no meaning.

There was no knee-jerk reaction. This is a simple concept.

 

[Fiddytree]

I did not click the video. I am speaking in general. It is stupid to condemn an individual for what was common and accepted behavior during the historical time period. Claiming that a particular caveman was a bad person because he clubbed women is stupid. That's not to say that clubbing women is right, nor that the caveman was not wrong. That's simply to say that without context there is no meaning.

Why did you comment in general, eco? For all you knew the video was someone that was impersonating a slave, giving their perspective, and the takeaway from many folks was that it asks hard questions of the founding generation. That alone sent you in a direction that defended the hegemony of the slave republic, despite you thinking slavery morally reprehensible.

As I said before, you claim that it is stupid to condemn a caveman for clubbing a cavewoman on the head and taking her into the cave because it was perhaps common. However, what didn't seem legitimate to you was that we could criticize the action because of how the other party felt about being clubbed, because now we have additional context. The caveman is not the only one afforded context.

 

[ecofarm]

Why did you comment in general, eco?

Based on the title and text in the OP.

My point has nothing to do with affording a specific perspective. It was a general comment in regard to ****-talking historical people based on judgement without context.

Do you agree that condemning a particular caveman for clubbing a woman, and claiming that he was a bad caveman, is stupid? Then we agree.

 

[Fiddytree]

Based on the title and text in the OP.

My point has nothing to do with affording a specific perspective. It was a general comment in regard to ****-talking historical people based on judgement without context.

Do you agree that condemning a particular caveman for clubbing a woman, and claiming that he was a bad caveman, is stupid? Then we agree.

No, I don't agree. As a historian, I would not hold out the notion that I can't condemn them because it was common, or that I now get to discount those that do because we know many cavewomen thought the experience was undesirable and horrifying.

Again, the caveman is not the only one with historical context and legitimacy.

 

[ecofarm]

No, I don't agree. As a historian, I would not shut out the notion that I can't condemn them because it was common, or that I now get to discount those that do because we know many cavewomen thought the experience was undesirable and horrifying.

Again, the caveman is not the only one with historical context and legitimacy.

We're talking about condemning an individual, not "them". If we condemn a particular individual for the bhavior, and claim they were a bad person, then we condemn every single person who behaved as such in history. That's stupid - there's no point to such contextless absolutism. It's the demonization of an individual based on the time.

 

[Fiddytree]

We're talking about condemning an individual, not "them". If we condemn a particular individual for the bhavior, and claim they were a bad person, then we condemn every single person who behaved as such in history. That's stupid - there's no point to such contextless absolutism. It's the demonization of an individual based on the time.

And if we were to flip that, what you're telling me is that even though the practice of slavery is evil and reprehensible, we ought not condemn the individual for behavior that is evil and reprehensible, because one was the majority and the other was a minority-even though the minority is quite explicit in its opposition. Again, why do we presume that context automatically must mean what was hegemonic and not include that which was in the minority?

 

[ecofarm]

And if we were to flip that, what you're telling me is that even though the practice of slavery is evil and reprehensible, we ought not condemn the individual for behavior that is evil and reprehensible, because one was the majority and the other was a minority.

It has nothing to do with one person being a majority and the other a minority. It has nothing to do with anything except the judgement of one person in historical context.

I has to do with one thing: the necessity to take historical context into consideration before claiming that someone was a bad person.

 

[Fiddytree]

It has nothing to do with one person being a majority and the other a minority.

I has to do with one thing: the necessity to take historical context into consideration before claiming that someone was a bad person.

And would that historical context include taking into enormous consideration that the group being subjugated did not like it?

That is exactly what you were reacting against.

 

[ecofarm]

And would that historical context include taking into enormous consideration that the group being subjugated did not like it?

That's irrelevant. It is accepted that the act was wrong. There is no moral relativism applied.

That is exactly what you were reacting against.

I was not and am not reacting against anything. I'm just saying that we must take historical context before claiming that a particular individual was a bad person. I've tried to explain this many times. My statement has remained the same - no reaction at all. Just me explaining this simple concept - again and again and again.

 

[Fiddytree]

That's irrelevant. It is accepted that the act was wrong. There is no moral relativism applied.

No, eco, it is quite relevant. If the context of the time was that slavery was normalized (if not a sin that ought to go away, but can't quite yet) to the white population, then it is equally true that context also meant that you had thousands and millions of African Americans who detested the institution wholesale and thought that even among their white allies, there were enormous gulfs. You can't just presume that since the former is true, the latter must be ignored, not given equal consideration, or labeled stupid when someone edges in that direction.

I was not and am not reacting against anything. I'm just saying that we must take historical context before claiming that a particular individual was a bad person. I've tried to explain this many times.

Yes, you were. You even said you were going on a rant, and that rant was against those you perceived to have ignored historical context. Yes, eco, this does mean that you get to ask tougher questions about what it means to be a good or a bad person, and whether or not "good slave owner" is a useful or incredibly limited term.