Louisiana Lawmaker Forced to Clarify There Was No ‘Good’ in Slavery

[pamak]

Well hold on Pamak! Patience! Next Wednesday at Noon is the unveiling . . .

The revealing of trolling ?

 

[Phys251]

Is there a cut-off time? It is not quite 5:30 PM where I am . . .

Why can't you unconditionally condemn slavery? Is there something about nonconsensual bondage that you like? Tell us, Alizia, how much money should the price tag on a human be?

 

[Alizia Tyler]

Why can't you unconditionally condemn slavery?

I am willing to trade condemnations with you. A tit-for-tat sort of thing. You stand for fairness and equity, right?

I don't just give my heartfelt condemnations away for nothing and I don't expect you to, either.

Let's barter!

If you'll unequivocally condemn the Holodomor I will come out against, say, the Armenian genocide. And if you accept my offer before Noon today I will unequivocally and without any qualifications vociferously condemn the Rodney King beating. (I'm throwing that in to *sweeten the deal*.)

Now, if you'll recite the 14 Words -- and here I must ask for an audio version that you post here, and you'll have to communicate real sincerity and this cannot be faked -- I will not only declare but will sing that "Black Lives Matter".

Generous enough? I will go even further as a gesture of Good Faith: If you will admit to all present that there really is such a thing as The Knockout Game, and if you will of your own free will post one of the videos showing Black roving mobs engaging in random 'wilding' violence against white grandmothers . . . I will go so far as to say that I question that the Crusades really had much to do with encouraging or establishing Proper Religion (and, AND, I will provide a less-that 100 word essay defining *proper religion* without the use of 7-Dollar Words or any denomination over, say, $2.00 of that sort that you 'get' without burning or wasting brain-fuel). On top of that, as if it were not enough, I will share with you a poem I wrote about an Antifa protestor where I present them in a sort of noble chiaroscuro . . .

Well? You in?

 

[ashurbanipal]

Sure, I could sense something in what you write.

Then I'm not sure why you'd say I'm so beholden to Aristotelian logic.

In no sense do I make that assertion.

I simply point to the difficulty of assigning an absolute value in the cited case. You do this, and by choice.

If by "choice" you mean that I could, by main force of will, choose to remain ignorant of a manifest truth, then sure. I could choose to be evil like that. However, there is not choice about what moral truth is. The truth is that slavery is morally wrong, and spectacularly so. There is not any difficulty there. If you think otherwise, you'll have to demonstrate as much.

Don't get too fancy. You might be accused of pseudo-intellectualism! I simply point to the difficulty of assigning an absolute value in the cited case.

I say that non-simplicity also intrudes here. But of course my argument is predicated on that view.

There's plenty about slavery that is not simple, I'll grant. But there is nothing complicated about the fact that slavery is morally wrong, and that when such obtains of a complex situation, the moral fact modulates all the other relevant facts.

In your mind, in your conception, within the perceptual choices you make, sure.

No, this is simply not correct. Would you describe it as "good" if someone murdered half your family and took half your family's possessions? I'm guessing not--if you would, then there's something deeply wrong with you. Would you say to someone who had just watched half their family murdered and half their possessions stolen "Oh, that's good!"? Again, I'm guessing not, and if you would, then again, there's something deeply wrong with you. Ergo, such situation is not "good" in any sense. But it is also clearly better than having your entire family killed and all your possessions taken.

Now, it's just a matter of math: If two properties F and G are identical, then any X that Fs is an X that Gs. But here, a situation that Fs (is better than) does not G (is not good), hence the property better than (better by comparison, preferable to, or any other such synonymous phrase) is not identical with the property good.

Your argument was that slavery is better than some other condition, so slavery can be said to be somewhat good. For that argument to work, there would have to be some nomic relationship between "better than" and "good." The above example shows that such relationship does not exist. Your argument rests on a false principle. I'm not merely asserting that such is the case, the example and questions above form an argument to this effect.

 

[Alizia Tyler]

Then I'm not sure why you'd say I'm so beholden to Aristotelian logic.

Because you are engaging in views that are absolutely binary. Either it is/or it is not.

If by "choice" you mean that I could, by main force of will, choose to remain ignorant of a manifest truth, then sure.

You have smuggled in 'manifest truth' because, obviously, your argument hinges on it.

The truth is that slavery is morally wrong

I have not opposed this assertion.

Your argument was that slavery is better than some other condition

Southern slavery, in some senses and taken on the whole, had some *redeeming features* when compared to other manifestations of human bondage.

One of the real horrors of the slavery condition for primitive Africans was to have been ripped so totally out of a cultural matrix in which they could see themselves, and subjected to an entire world with which they had no relationship, no reflection. I can't find the quotes but I think it was Amiri Baraka who mentioned this. According to him, the condition of slavery in African would have been *more tolerable* and even *more natural* because the slave would have remained with her or his social context. Also within a language-structure that was her/his own.

It is possible (though I have not resolved this) that the slavery condition of those African-American slaves was *better* than the slavery condition had they remained slaves in Africa. You may not like it that this was so, and I may not like it either, but Southern slavery was *philosophized* by those who made the apologies and believed in them. And it was carried out within a Christian culture that, in degrees, demanded ethical conduct in the treatment of slaves. So, though there were some, perhaps even many, who violated these rudimentary ethics, there were some who held to them.

There existed a *human element* and a relationship-type between the master and the slave. It did involve respect, concern and even love. These are facts, not projections and not 'apologies'. I mention them to condition your erroneous, absolutist view, a view you insist on. You are involving me in a *game* in which you manage the terms of discourse. I don't assent to your rules because they are too binary, and too 'forced'.

I do recognize though that what I am doing is *problematic* when I should do what the man in the OP did. But I refuse to submit to *intellectual coercion*, you see?

It also does occur to me that the condition of slavery, and the condition of slaves on some plantations, has been as I say *novelized* by modern sensibilities, as for example in the film 12 Years A Slave. The depiction then becomes an article or a sort of monument within the imagination of the public. But to point this out does not, and could not, reduce away or minimize the element of brutality that underpinned slavery. I do not think this could be denied.

What I refuse to do -- with you here, for you here -- is acquiesce to your absolutist and totalized *game*. It is a game played on a forum and with zealots-of-a-sort. This of course is part-and-parcel of larger zealous demands and many different levels of coercion going on today.

My suggestion? Research the Activist Critical Theory I refer to. It creeps in, it asserts itself through 'absolutism' into all domains.

 

[Master Debator]

There existed a *human element* and a relationship-type between the master and the slave. It did involve respect, concern and even love. These are facts, not projections and not 'apologies'.

No those are not facts. Do you know what facts are? Unless you mean slave masters had concern over the worth in their investment, respect for the value of labor that could be stolen from slaves, and loved that all of this was legal. Is that what you meant?

 

[Phys251]

I am willing to trade condemnations with you. A tit-for-tat sort of thing. You stand for fairness and equity, right?

I don't just give my heartfelt condemnations away for nothing and I don't expect you to, either.

Let's barter!

And there it is. The smoking gun proof that you are in the bargaining stage of grieving.

Let us know when you are ready to unconditionally and without whataboutisms condemn the horrible institution of slavery. We'll be waiting.

 

[Alizia Tyler]

No those are not facts. Do you know what facts are? Unless you mean slave masters had concern over the worth in their investment, respect for the value of labor that could be stolen from slaves, and loved that all of this was legal. Is that what you meant?

No, it is absolutely not what I meant.

But this is a near-perfect example of ideological insertion over fact, truth or reality.

In many different instances slaves became member-of-a-sort of the slave holder's family. Because some slave holders conceived of things through Christian lenses, and the lenses offered through Bible stories. These Bible stories offered a sort of prototype of what they imagined it possible, and also *good*, to achieve.

Now Mr Fight the Power is so controlled by his hatred and contempt for the fact that once, Africans were slaves in white households on plantations and that the entire history did in fact take place, and now *sees* the events not through the real lens offered by historical monograph, but the *movie version* which induces and invokes intense emotions of repugnance for specific purposes which are useful, and used, in the present. It cannot be termed a total revisionism, because horrible cruelty existed, but scenes like this have a specific cathartic function for the viewer of today, and strictly within our present:



However, in fact, in many different households there was a form of civility and all those things I mentioned. But here is the thing: that this were true, and if it were true and factual, is irrelevant when it becomes essential to deny any sort of humanity in generally corrupt and ugly social circumstances.

What intrudes here? It is not 'truth'. What intrudes is emotionalized ideology. And that is my point.

 

[Master Debator]

No, it is absolutely not what I meant.

But this is a near-perfect example of ideological insertion over fact, truth or reality.

In many different instances slaves became member-of-a-sort of the slave holder's family. Because some slave holders conceived of things through Christian lenses, and the lenses offered through Bible stories. These Bible stories offered a sort of prototype of what they imagined it possible, and also *good*, to achieve.

Now Mr Fight the Power is so controlled by his hatred and contempt for the fact that once, Africans were slaves in white households on plantations and that the entire history did in fact take place, and now *sees* the events not through the real lens offered by historical monograph, but the *movie version* which induces and invokes intense emotions of repugnance for specific purposes which are useful, and used, in the present. It cannot be termed a total revisionism, because horrible cruelty existed, but scenes like this have a specific cathartic function for the viewer of today, and strictly within our present:



However, in fact, in many different households there was a form of civility and all those things I mentioned. But here is the thing: that this were true, and if it were true and factual, is irrelevant when it becomes essential to deny any sort of humanity in generally corrupt and ugly social circumstances.

What intrudes here? It is not 'truth'. What intrudes is emotionalized ideology. And that is my point.

No one except the uneducated fall for this Lost Cause revisionism. I don't know what kind of family life you've had but in mine we don't buy and sell family members to exploit their labor.

 

[Tigerace117]

No, it is absolutely not what I meant.

But this is a near-perfect example of ideological insertion over fact, truth or reality.

In many different instances slaves became member-of-a-sort of the slave holder's family. Because some slave holders conceived of things through Christian lenses, and the lenses offered through Bible stories. These Bible stories offered a sort of prototype of what they imagined it possible, and also *good*, to achieve.

Now Mr Fight the Power is so controlled by his hatred and contempt for the fact that once, Africans were slaves in white households on plantations and that the entire history did in fact take place, and now *sees* the events not through the real lens offered by historical monograph, but the *movie version* which induces and invokes intense emotions of repugnance for specific purposes which are useful, and used, in the present. It cannot be termed a total revisionism, because horrible cruelty existed, but scenes like this have a specific cathartic function for the viewer of today, and strictly within our present:



However, in fact, in many different households there was a form of civility and all those things I mentioned. But here is the thing: that this were true, and if it were true and factual, is irrelevant when it becomes essential to deny any sort of humanity in generally corrupt and ugly social circumstances.

What intrudes here? It is not 'truth'. What intrudes is emotionalized ideology. And that is my point.

No.....they really didn’t. Unless, of course, you come from an insanely abusive “family” where one of the members can be beaten, raped, or sold off at the slightest whim.

Christianity didn’t alleviate the brutality of the southern slavers one bit.

 

[Alizia Tyler]

The truer picture is ultimately of much greater service to us:

 

[Tigerace117]

The truer picture is ultimately of much greater service to us:

The “truer picture” is that the slavers horrifically abused vast numbers of people for profit for centuries.

And no amount of Lost Cause fantasies about the slaves actually being happy or treated “as part of the family”—what a joke— can change that.

 

[Alizia Tyler]

The “truer picture” is that the slavers horrifically abused vast numbers of people for profit for centuries.

And no amount of Lost Cause fantasies about the slaves actually being happy or treated “as part of the family”—what a joke— can change that.

Here, a true statement is proffered. But it is only partly true. As Mr Livingston carefully points out slavery was a problem, a moral problem, for all of the united states. The invasion and occupation of the South did not have to do with abolishing slavery and there were other, more real, reasons. The invasion and occupation did not help anyone and indeed -- according to this analysis which is true wherever invasion and occupation occur -- created many different dire circumstances.

Notice that the convenient term 'Lost Cause fantasy' is routinely trotted out. But so are an array of different labels designed to trigger a specific response not so much in those (myself in this case) who have concluded that a truer, opposing narrative is necessary to counter the vast mythologies and self-deceptions of the North (and on this forum, an array of peculiarly motivated zealots), but these sorts of labels really bolster the tendentious historical views of those who are already in *basic agreement*. Because on this forum these zealots operate in a *pack* of those deeply involved in Virtue Signaling.

Lost Cause fantasies about the slaves actually being happy or treated “as part of the family”

It is not a Lost Cause fantasy that in many households the subordinate Black was, literally, treated as a subordinate member of the household, but it is a zealot's imposed fantasy that this was not, at times, the case!

So again the 'projection-tendency' is strongly operative and visible. The zealot is seemingly incapable of revising, at any level, and even in minor detail, the absolutist position she or he has carved out.

And as I say this absolute position 'carved out' is all mixed together with novelized versions of pseudo-history of the sort common in revisionist films today.

Now let me mention *cathartic effect' and refer to the notion of cathartic effect in theatre. We all know that tragedy has a cathartic effect of course. But allow me, dear, dedicated reader, to what I think is a tremendously instructive bit of filmic theatre from an important 'cultural production' (Mississippi Burning):



That's *you* unleashing your righteous indignation on that Souther sh*t-kicker. That's *you* giving him the lecture that he has no choice but to listen to. That's *you* venting your justifiable historical rage against the Southern Nazi (who also beats his wife). You have come forth in our present to rectify history's wrongs, haven't you? And you perform all of this, don't you? in front of the mirror and in these rehearsals day after day, week after week, year after year . . .

Any of this -- just a wee wee bit -- getting through?

Remember, this is not a *history* it is a cultural production that serves a specific function. The function has to be grasped through *interpretation* (cultural hermeneutics I might say since here I have full access to *high-dollar vocabulary* )

These are culture- and social-engineering tools (if you will) that fashion, and refashion, how we *see* our history.

 

[Tigerace117]

Here, a true statement is proffered. But it is only partly true. As Mr Livingston carefully points out slavery was a problem, a moral problem, for all of the united states. The invasion and occupation of the South did not have to do with abolishing slavery and there were other, more real, reasons. The invasion and occupation did not help anyone and indeed -- according to this analysis which is true wherever invasion and occupation occur -- created many different dire circumstances.

Notice that the convenient term 'Lost Cause fantasy' is routinely trotted out. But so are an array of different labels designed to trigger a specific response not so much in those (myself in this case) who have concluded that a truer, opposing narrative is necessary to counter the vast mythologies and self-deceptions of the North (and on this forum, an array of peculiarly motivated zealots), but these sorts of labels really bolster the tendentious historical views of those who are already in *basic agreement*. Because on this forum these zealots operate in a *pack* of those deeply involved in Virtue Signaling.

It is not a Lost Cause fantasy that in many households the subordinate Black was, literally, treated as a subordinate member of the household, but it is a zealot's imposed fantasy that this was not, at times, the case!

So again the 'projection-tendency' is strongly operative and visible. The zealot is seemingly incapable of revising, at any level, and even in minor detail, the absolutist position she or he has carved out.

And as I say this absolute position 'carved out' is all mixed together with novelized versions of pseudo-history of the sort common in revisionist films today.

Now let me mention *cathartic effect' and refer to the notion of cathartic effect in theatre. We all know that tragedy has a cathartic effect of course. But allow me, dear, dedicated reader, to what I think is a tremendously instructive bit of filmic theatre from an important 'cultural production' (Mississippi Burning):



That's *you* unleashing your righteous indignation on that Souther sh*t-kicker. That's *you* giving him the lecture that he has no choice but to listen to. That's *you* venting your justifiable historical rage against the Southern Nazi (who also beats his wife). You have come forth in our present to rectify history's wrongs, haven't you? And you perform all of this, don't you? in front of the mirror and in these rehearsals day after day, week after week, year after year . . .

Any of this -- just a wee wee bit -- getting through?

Remember, this is not a *history* it is a cultural production that serves a specific function. The function has to be grasped through *interpretation* (cultural hermeneutics I might say since here I have full access to *high-dollar vocabulary* )

These are culture- and social-engineering tools (if you will) that fashion, and refashion, how we *see* our history.

Trying to pretend the Union’s war effort had nothing to do with slavery is foolish at best. As I pointed out earlier, the Confederacy was explicitly fighting to defend slavery from the very beginning; it was the entire reason why they started the war in the first place.

The crushing of the Confederacy certainly did help millions of people, you know, were literally freed from slavery.

Livingston’s garbage—and your own fairy tale claims—are text book Lost Cause bs. You not liking the fact that others have made the same laughable, long debunked claims as you before does not change that fact.

Always funny watching the person who zealously defends literal slavery sobbing about what a victim they think they are

Gee, I don’t know about your family, but in most “subordinate” members are not beaten, raped, or sold for profit.

So once again the Lost Causer, unable to handle the historical reality, resorts to wailing about imaginary “zealotry”.

You are aware Mississippi Burning is based on a real life trio of murders....right?

Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Just because it hurts your feelings to have to face the facts about the South’s long history of viciousness and brutality....that doesn’t excuse your truly incredible ignorance.

Remember, just because you see ending slavery as a “tremendous evil” that doesn’t obligate anyone else to take your garbage seriously.

 

[Alizia Tyler]

You are aware Mississippi Burning is based on a real life trio of murders....right?

Of course. And as I said the movie serves another function. I made efforts to explain that function.

The rest of what you said is your own restatement of what, I can only assume, you sincerely think I have said.

Again, it is *ideological intrusion* that does this.

If you cannot self-examine, fine, but others might be able to.

It is a slow processes though, and often fraught with psychological pain.

 

[Tigerace117]

Of course. And as I said the movie serves another function. I made efforts to explain that function.

The rest of what you said is your own restatement of what, I can only assume, you sincerely think I have said.

Again, it is *ideological intrusion* that does this.

If you cannot self-examine, fine, but others might be able to.

It is a slow processes though, and often fraught with psychological pain.

Are you seriously going to wail over a movie condemning a bunch of domestic terrorists who murdered three college students for daring to help people vote?

Everyone sees your Lost Cause fantasies for what they are.....

Utter garbage.

 

[Alizia Tyler]

Are you seriously going to wail over a movie condemning a bunch of domestic terrorists who murdered three college students for daring to help people vote?

::: sigh :::

 

[Tigerace117]

::: sigh :::

Again....

Are you seriously going to wail over a movie condemning a bunch of domestic terrorists who murdered three college students for daring to help people vote?

 

[ashurbanipal]

Because you are engaging in views that are absolutely binary. Either it is/or it is not.

Do you think there are no claims that are subject to a binary set of truth values? Seems to me (and to anyone I can think of who has studied the issue) that most propositions (especially about the present or past) can have only one of two truth values. The sun either exists, or it does not. It might have been a slightly redder star, of course, or it might have been slightly bigger, slightly hotter, etc.--it'd still exist in those cases. Cold-blooded murder (i.e. murder for no just motive) is morally wrong, or it isn't. Plenty of murders might exist in some gray area between cold-blooded and justly motivated--but that doesn't change the fact that cold-blooded murder is morally wrong.

Slavery is either morally wrong, or it isn't. In this case, it is morally wrong. There's no question about that. Whatever complications exist within the historical situation of slavery are irrelevant to the proposition that slavery is morally wrong.

You have smuggled in 'manifest truth' because, obviously, your argument hinges on it.

I don't think I've "smuggled" anything anywhere. I've been up front from the start that slavery is wrong is a moral truth. It's a truth that is manifest to basically anyone these days. Of course, if that's not correct (i.e. if slavery is not morally wrong), then my argument is unsound. But slavery is morally wrong, so I've got no worries about the soundness of my argument.

I have not opposed this assertion.

Well, I suppose it's at least encouraging that you don't think you have.

Southern slavery, in some senses and taken on the whole, had some *redeeming features* when compared to other manifestations of human bondage.

No! No more than seeing half your family murdered and half your possessions stolen has any redeeming features. By comparison, it is preferable to all your family being murdered and all your possessions taken, but this does absolutely nothing to affect how we evaluate the perpetrators of such crimes in either scenario. Suppose we catch the people who murder half your family and steal half your possessions. Should the judge say "well, ordinarily, I'd sentence you to 100 years in prison with eligibility for parole in 30, but since you only killed half the family and took half the possessions, I'll sentence you to 50 with eligibility for parole in 15"? Obviously not. That would be as downright absurd and monstrous as someone telling you that it's a good thing that half your family had been killed and half your possessions stolen, since it wasn't all your family and all your possessions.

You continue to rely on a relation between such predicates as "better" and "preferable" and "good." Such relation, where it does exist, is merely accidental, and it doesn't exist at all in this case. That some manifestations of slavery were less preferable than slavery as it existed in the American South says literally nothing about how we should evaluate those who enslaved people in the American South.

 

[j brown's body]

Here, a true statement is proffered. But it is only partly true. As Mr Livingston carefully points out slavery was a problem, a moral problem, for all of the united states. The invasion and occupation of the South did not have to do with abolishing slavery and there were other, more real, reasons. The invasion and occupation did not help anyone and indeed -- according to this analysis which is true wherever invasion and occupation occur -- created many different dire circumstances.

Notice that the convenient term 'Lost Cause fantasy' is routinely trotted out. But so are an array of different labels designed to trigger a specific response not so much in those (myself in this case) who have concluded that a truer, opposing narrative is necessary to counter the vast mythologies and self-deceptions of the North (and on this forum, an array of peculiarly motivated zealots), but these sorts of labels really bolster the tendentious historical views of those who are already in *basic agreement*. Because on this forum these zealots operate in a *pack* of those deeply involved in Virtue Signaling.

It is not a Lost Cause fantasy that in many households the subordinate Black was, literally, treated as a subordinate member of the household, but it is a zealot's imposed fantasy that this was not, at times, the case!

So again the 'projection-tendency' is strongly operative and visible. The zealot is seemingly incapable of revising, at any level, and even in minor detail, the absolutist position she or he has carved out.

And as I say this absolute position 'carved out' is all mixed together with novelized versions of pseudo-history of the sort common in revisionist films today.

Now let me mention *cathartic effect' and refer to the notion of cathartic effect in theatre. We all know that tragedy has a cathartic effect of course. But allow me, dear, dedicated reader, to what I think is a tremendously instructive bit of filmic theatre from an important 'cultural production' (Mississippi Burning):



That's *you* unleashing your righteous indignation on that Souther sh*t-kicker. That's *you* giving him the lecture that he has no choice but to listen to. That's *you* venting your justifiable historical rage against the Southern Nazi (who also beats his wife). You have come forth in our present to rectify history's wrongs, haven't you? And you perform all of this, don't you? in front of the mirror and in these rehearsals day after day, week after week, year after year . . .

Any of this -- just a wee wee bit -- getting through?

Remember, this is not a *history* it is a cultural production that serves a specific function. The function has to be grasped through *interpretation* (cultural hermeneutics I might say since here I have full access to *high-dollar vocabulary* )

These are culture- and social-engineering tools (if you will) that fashion, and refashion, how we *see* our history.

 

[ecofarm]

the interesting thing about this is that a state legislator does not know if Louisiana was ever systematically racist. And that he doesn't know, he says, because he isn't a history teacher. Yet, he would pass a bill prohibiting teachers from teaching such a thing.

Good point.

 

[ashurbanipal]

One of the real horrors of the slavery condition for primitive Africans was to have been ripped so totally out of a cultural matrix in which they could see themselves, and subjected to an entire world with which they had no relationship, no reflection. I can't find the quotes but I think it was Amiri Baraka who mentioned this. According to him, the condition of slavery in African would have been *more tolerable* and even *more natural* because the slave would have remained with her or his social context. Also within a language-structure that was her/his own.

It is possible (though I have not resolved this) that the slavery condition of those African-American slaves was *better* than the slavery condition had they remained slaves in Africa. You may not like it that this was so, and I may not like it either, but Southern slavery was *philosophized* by those who made the apologies and believed in them. And it was carried out within a Christian culture that, in degrees, demanded ethical conduct in the treatment of slaves. So, though there were some, perhaps even many, who violated these rudimentary ethics, there were some who held to them.

Another way to say what I've said above is that none of this is relevant to your conclusion that we should give consideration to the perspective of the Southerners. We should not. They enslaved people. Their perspective is of no weight--just as irrelevant as the perspective of the Nazis as to their crimes.

There existed a *human element* and a relationship-type between the master and the slave. It did involve respect, concern and even love. These are facts, not projections and not 'apologies'. I mention them to condition your erroneous, absolutist view, a view you insist on.

Again, not relevant. I don't give a fig if the Nazis thought they were extending mercy to the Jews (as many of them did). More importantly and more directly relevant--I should not give a fig, and no one else should, either. The nature of Nazi crimes against humanity were such that no consideration of their perspective alters in any way how we should evaluate the Nazis.

Similarly, the nature of the crimes of American Southerners against people of African descent were such that no consideration of their perspective alters in any way how we should evaluate those American Southerners. To say otherwise would be to admit, by parity of reasoning, that we should think the Nazis weren't all that bad, since they only killed a fraction of the Jews in the world, only a fraction of the Slavs, homosexuals, Romani, Bolsheviks, Pols, and other targets of the Holocaust. Someone making that claim would rightly be judged a moral monster, because the actual underlying principle is that once a person or group has done something so monstrous, their perspective is irrelevant.

The same principle applies to consideration of the American South.

You are involving me in a *game* in which you manage the terms of discourse. I don't assent to your rules because they are too binary, and too 'forced'.

No, you yourself have involved yourself in that "game" (and in fact, it's provable it's not a game, but that would be a digression). You just don't know it. Study formal logic carefully. You rely on it in your reasoning every day. Its axioms are as certain as those of mathematics.

As for the factual parts of my claims, if you would seriously answer the questions I've asked in my posts, one of two things would happen: if you answer the way I do, then by the aforementioned logic, my conclusions follow. If you do not, then you expose yourself as some kind of monster, and no one should listen to you anyway. There's no middle ground to be claimed.

What I refuse to do -- with you here, for you here -- is acquiesce to your absolutist and totalized *game*.

No, what you refuse to do is recognize that you've already submitted to the rules of the "game" (again--it's not a game, but that's another matter) for the purposes of reaping the benefits of it, but then in the same breath you want to deny the responsibilities inherent therein.

My suggestion? Research the Activist Critical Theory I refer to. It creeps in, it asserts itself through 'absolutism' into all domains.

I'm currently working on a PhD in Theology and Religious Studies in a program known for its emphasis on critical theory. I'm writing my dissertation in that program. Is that enough "study" for you? I also already have a PhD in philosophy (from an analytic program). I spent many years studying human reasoning and how it works. My return suggestion to you is that you study formal logic and understand how it relates to reasoning. You'll come to see that you use it, or attempt to, in every connection you try to make.

 

[Alizia Tyler]

that we should give consideration to the perspective of the Southerners. We should not. They enslaved people. Their perspective is of no weight--just as irrelevant as the perspective of the Nazis as to their crimes.

You are free to form what opinion you like, but you are not *free* in the same sense to have it stand as an unquestionable truth.

You don't have to give consideration to anyone, ever. Nor to me. But that does not mean that you should not give consideration. That is, examine what they say or what they said. You might adamantly disagree in some areas but not in all.

Their perspective does indeed have *weight* and you do not have either the power or the right to make the declaration that you want to make! But you certainly believe that you do, and therein is your error. Examine it or not, it is your choice.

You may say that the specific choices of Nazis was morally wrong and questionable. But in order to understand what motivated them, and what the ideas were that propelled them, would take on your part another stance, another frame of mind. The same is true for the fascist movement generally and the ideas that swirled around in the Interwar Period.

And though you would like to be able to apply your 'absolutism' -- an absolute condemnation -- you cannot do it and still have justice and intellectual integrity on your side. But you certainly do not have to believe me!

Your mind is 'caught' in my view in a binary trap. And it is the force of your first principles that does this.

I'm currently working on a PhD in Theology and Religious Studies in a program known for its emphasis on critical theory. I'm writing my dissertation in that program. Is that enough "study" for you? I also already have a PhD in philosophy (from an analytic program). I spent many years studying human reasoning and how it works. My return suggestion to you is that you study formal logic and understand how it relates to reasoning. You'll come to see that you use it, or attempt to, in every connection you try to make.

That sounds quite interesting and I salute you. Please reveal more.

Still, it does not change that you are demonstrating reductionism and too-binary thinking. This is obvious to me, and yet you are blind to it. Or that is the choice you make. I cannot say why you have made these choices.

But if you say it is because "I studied human reasoning and how it works" and that "formal logic" informs my conclusions and opinions, I would only be able to say that -- in my view -- you are on a wrong track which you will eventually have to correct.

No, what you refuse to do is recognize that you've already submitted to the rules of the "game" (again--it's not a game, but that's another matter) for the purposes of reaping the benefits of it, but then in the same breath you want to deny the responsibilities inherent therein.

This is your claim, but it is not so.

I notice how you construct you absolutisms and there is not much advantage in continuing to point it out. You seem to want them and perhaps to need them. I guess you'll have to see where it takes you.

 

[ashurbanipal]

You are free to form what opinion you like, but you are not *free* in the same sense to have it stand as an unquestionable truth.

I don't know that I'm free to form what opinion I like. I think we all have an epistemic duty to form opinions that are true, or are as close to true as we can get.

Anyway, if you mean that we should understand the Nazis, or American Southerners who participated in the slave system, as human beings, sure. I think it is imperative that we do so (with some notable exceptions)--how else can we be on guard against such monstrosities ever arising again? But if you mean we should grant that perhaps their perspective was right, or partially right, about the central moral facts at issue, then no, we should not do that. Go back and answer the questions I've asked you in this thread to see why.

Their perspective does indeed have *weight* and you do not have either the power or the right to make the declaration that you want to make! But you certainly believe that you do, and therein is your error. Examine it or not, it is your choice.

Let's make sure something is clear: by "weight," I mean that we might consider a view to be respectable in a moral sense. For example, imagine a jury deliberating over whether to apply the death penalty in a capital murder case, where they have already convicted the defendant. One juror points to the nature of the crime as a positive reason to apply the death penalty, while another points out that while the evidence was very convincing, a sliver of doubt will always remain, and execution is something that cannot be reversed. Both of those views have moral weight--that is, reasonable people should consider both points carefully before reaching a conclusion. There is some moral truth in each point, and we have to judge as carefully as we can taking both into account.

We do not need to do the same thing for the perspective of those in the American South during the slavery period (save those who fought against it). We need to understand them, sure. But we should avoid thinking they might have been right about anything to do with the moral status of slavery.

You may say that the specific choices of Nazis was morally wrong and questionable. But in order to understand what motivated them, and what the ideas were that propelled them, would take on your part another stance, another frame of mind. The same is true for the fascist movement generally and the ideas that swirled around in the Interwar Period.

And though you would like to be able to apply your 'absolutism' -- an absolute condemnation -- you cannot do it and still have justice and intellectual integrity on your side. But you certainly do not have to believe me!

No, I do not believe you. I've studied the history of Germany during this time somewhat thoroughly, and understand them well enough. I do not have to give weight, in the sense explained above, to their perspective to attain that understanding.

Your mind is 'caught' in my view in a binary trap. And it is the force of your first principles that does this.

Have you ever studied formal logic?

Still, it does not change that you are demonstrating reductionism and too-binary thinking. This is obvious to me, and yet you are blind to it. Or that is the choice you make. I cannot say why you have made these choices.

But if you say it is because "I studied human reasoning and how it works" and that "formal logic" informs my conclusions and opinions, I would only be able to say that -- in my view -- you are on a wrong track which you will eventually have to correct.

I'm not sure what you think I'm "reducing" here--nothing I've said invokes any kind of reduction relation. Nor am I blind to my own intellectual habits--quite the contrary, I built them from the ground up intentionally. Furthermore, for you to be in a position to make the claims you make here, you would need to have studied formal logic to the point that you are at least familiar with its foundations. Had you done so, you'd realize that every point you've tried to make depends on the reasoning that formal logic models, for all intents and purposes inherent to this thread, perfectly. Whatever else you are doing when you try to convince me of anything, you are using, or attempting to use, the reasoning that logic perfectly describes.

Again, you'd know that if you'd really studied the subject, and that's what I mean when I say you're already in the game (though I don't like that word for it--Wittgenstein, for all his insight, has been proven wrong on that point).

 

[ashurbanipal]

No, it is absolutely not what I meant.

But this is a near-perfect example of ideological insertion over fact, truth or reality.

In many different instances slaves became member-of-a-sort of the slave holder's family. Because some slave holders conceived of things through Christian lenses, and the lenses offered through Bible stories. These Bible stories offered a sort of prototype of what they imagined it possible, and also *good*, to achieve.

Now Mr Fight the Power is so controlled by his hatred and contempt for the fact that once, Africans were slaves in white households on plantations and that the entire history did in fact take place, and now *sees* the events not through the real lens offered by historical monograph, but the *movie version* which induces and invokes intense emotions of repugnance for specific purposes which are useful, and used, in the present. It cannot be termed a total revisionism, because horrible cruelty existed, but scenes like this have a specific cathartic function for the viewer of today, and strictly within our present:



However, in fact, in many different households there was a form of civility and all those things I mentioned. But here is the thing: that this were true, and if it were true and factual, is irrelevant when it becomes essential to deny any sort of humanity in generally corrupt and ugly social circumstances.

What intrudes here? It is not 'truth'. What intrudes is emotionalized ideology. And that is my point.

Here, for example, you're relying on logic. It's not good (in the sense of "skillful") logic. But it's clear how your conclusions are supposed to follow from your premises (although, in fact, they don't)--you want to convince the reader of this post of the truth of certain claims, and you're making an argument (or rather, a few arguments) in favor of those claims. What is supposed to connect the conclusions to the premises is the force of reason that logic describes. You have to rely upon that force, because it's the only force to exist that has any power of real persuasion. But when it comes to holding yourself accountable--that is, when it comes to facing all of the consequences of all the propositions you submit as true, you want to weasel out of most of them by (at least in conversation with me), denying "binary thinking" or whatever you want to call it, while still maintaining the benefits of using exactly that thinking. But of course, if you deny logic, then no one could have any reason to believe anything you've tried to convince us is true.

For example, you want us to believe that "What intrudes (presumably, in the movie scene plus the general reaction it invokes in contemporary American viewers) is emotionalized ideology." But why should we believe it? Well, you've got some premises:

1. In many different instances slaves became member-of-a-sort of the slave holder's family. Because some slave holders conceived of things through Christian lenses, and the lenses offered through Bible stories. These Bible stories offered a sort of prototype of what they imagined it possible, and also *good*, to achieve.

2. However, in fact, in many different households there was a form of civility and all those things I mentioned.

3. Mr Fight the Power is so controlled by his hatred and contempt for the fact that once, Africans were slaves in white households on plantations and that the entire history did in fact take place, and now *sees* the events not through the real lens offered by historical monograph, but the *movie version* which induces and invokes intense emotions of repugnance for specific purposes which are useful, and used, in the present.

OK...why is someone who acknowledges the truth of 1-3 supposed to believe your conclusion (i.e.: "What intrudes is emotionalized ideology.")? I suspect you probably cannot give a detailed answer to that question...and indeed, probably don't really even know what such an answer would look like. But I also suspect you think that someone who acknowledges the truth of 1-3 ought to agree with your conclusion (it'd be pretty hard to figure out why you're even making these posts otherwise). That is, your conclusion is supposed to flow from 1-3.

Well, guess what? You're using logic. Not well, mind you--the conclusion does not follow from those premises--but still, it's clear how it's supposed to work.