Tbf, I don’t really agree with Geoffrey, but there’s a point to be made about not being able to fully judge “yesterday” by “tomorrow’s” standarts. You can’t really deem something immoral from the time those morals/point of view didn’t really exist yet.
HOWEVER, I don’t think it can be applied to African American slavery of the past centuries though. I’d argue slavers definitely understood what they were doing was wrong, despite the continuous dehumanization they used to make it seem less wrong - that in itself serves to prove the horrendousness of such acts if there needed to be elaborate efforts to normalize it. Also, there was growing opposition and criticism of slavery even back then. Of course you cannot expect a white man in the north to have a 2019 version of social justice embedded in his mindset, but slavery was definitely increasingly understood as horrible. Otherwise nobody would’ve fought it and it would still exist. Actually, modern slavery does exist even today. Would you argue modern slavers cannot be fully judged morally for their views because their surroundings have shaped them to not see this as ethically wrong? This discussion is absolutely more complex, and when talking history, context is always key, but even the context tells you forced abuse and exploitation had already been seen as “wrong” for some time at that point.
I’d say this argument is more applicable when we’re talking slavery a few millenia ago, not the 1800s lol. People back in Ancient Rome certainly couldn’t have really thought abusing your “property” was immoral. A human life as a whole was overall not as valued. So while it’s difficult to stomach, we can’t possibly impose our moral understanding upon people who have been dead for almost 2k years. We’re always progressing forward. So why is Julius Caesar being brought as an example here? You’re using an example of a person from a few thousand years ago from a non existant republic to support your argument that statues of someone like Lee shouldn’t be removed? This is frankly a stupid argument if I may even say so. Caesar isn’t revered solely for committing atrocities in Gaul. It’s pretty reductionist to reduce the Gallic conflict to mere “Caesar went to Gaul, killed and sold people into slavery just cuz” just to help your straw argument hold water. Neither Roman Republic nor the Empire exist anymore, they haven’t existed for basically 1.5k years. No one is using statues, or other historical artifacts of Caesar or anyone else from those times as means to worship them and take inspo from them, unlike, you know, the tiki torch bearing supremacists who’re quaking at the idea of a reminder of someone they “admire” go down because that part of history is hurtful and it helps normalize and encourage those who still hold those views. No one is erasing that part of history. It just doesn’t belong at a public square for everyone to admire.
This shit is pretty clever, I’ll give you that though. But we’re not idiots here and this shit isn’t going to slide just because you are hiding under the pretense of wanting a respectful conversation.
HOWEVER, I don’t think it can be applied to African American slavery of the past centuries though. I’d argue slavers definitely understood what they were doing was wrong, despite the continuous dehumanization they used to make it seem less wrong - that in itself serves to prove the horrendousness of such acts if there needed to be elaborate efforts to normalize it. Also, there was growing opposition and criticism of slavery even back then. Of course you cannot expect a white man in the north to have a 2019 version of social justice embedded in his mindset, but slavery was definitely increasingly understood as horrible. Otherwise nobody would’ve fought it and it would still exist. Actually, modern slavery does exist even today. Would you argue modern slavers cannot be fully judged morally for their views because their surroundings have shaped them to not see this as ethically wrong? This discussion is absolutely more complex, and when talking history, context is always key, but even the context tells you forced abuse and exploitation had already been seen as “wrong” for some time at that point.
I’d say this argument is more applicable when we’re talking slavery a few millenia ago, not the 1800s lol. People back in Ancient Rome certainly couldn’t have really thought abusing your “property” was immoral. A human life as a whole was overall not as valued. So while it’s difficult to stomach, we can’t possibly impose our moral understanding upon people who have been dead for almost 2k years. We’re always progressing forward. So why is Julius Caesar being brought as an example here? You’re using an example of a person from a few thousand years ago from a non existant republic to support your argument that statues of someone like Lee shouldn’t be removed? This is frankly a stupid argument if I may even say so. Caesar isn’t revered solely for committing atrocities in Gaul. It’s pretty reductionist to reduce the Gallic conflict to mere “Caesar went to Gaul, killed and sold people into slavery just cuz” just to help your straw argument hold water. Neither Roman Republic nor the Empire exist anymore, they haven’t existed for basically 1.5k years. No one is using statues, or other historical artifacts of Caesar or anyone else from those times as means to worship them and take inspo from them, unlike, you know, the tiki torch bearing supremacists who’re quaking at the idea of a reminder of someone they “admire” go down because that part of history is hurtful and it helps normalize and encourage those who still hold those views. No one is erasing that part of history. It just doesn’t belong at a public square for everyone to admire.
This shit is pretty clever, I’ll give you that though. But we’re not idiots here and this shit isn’t going to slide just because you are hiding under the pretense of wanting a respectful conversation.
