Times change - Was it ever right to be a slaveowner?

[Nearly Sane]

Does time mean owning people was OK?


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/king-no-president-owned-human-beings-honored-article-1.2998816

[Bubbles]

Does time mean owning people was OK?


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/king-no-president-owned-human-beings-honored-article-1.2998816

No, but their mindset was different in those days.
Many of the things we think of as right and wrong come from things we learn in society around us.

Once it was common to see Gay people as " wrong"

We look back with the benefit of hindsight.

The people living at that time didn't have that.

Not everyone has an independent moral code, most of it appears to be formed by the society we live in.

If that society suddenly says a group of people are responsible for our lack of wealth/demise it suddenly becomes ok to victimise them. It happens to us too. We call it propaganda. Which is just a form of " moral guidance" and an attempt to move us in a certain direction.

A lot of slave owners in the past, would not have thought about the inhumanity, because society and their lives told them it was ok, just like Nazi Germany thought it was ok to deal with the Jewish problem.

A lot of people don't realise how much the society around them influences their ethical choices, but it does.
Gay people didn't get equality or many rights until societies mindset had altered enough to allow it.

We may in the future be criticised for something we do, we just can't see it yet.

So those people who owned slaves were not really any worse than us, we have the benefit of society telling us it was wrong.

If you want examples, it's like castes in India believing the untouchables are...., well untouchable.

When people have a certain mindset, they don't see the harm that happens to others due to their attitude.

I wish in some ways I was blind to the fact that so much of our morals/ethics are dictated by influences around us, but it's everywhere.

People who behave with inhumanity, because society validates the inhumanity.

Unfortunately religion doesn't seem to change anything.

It's people.

So although I think slavery is always wrong, I recognise the age and attitude in which someone lives influences their actions.

Hitler used propaganda to make it ok to murder people, just like other governments all over the world use it.

It's a scary part of people, that they can be talked out of their humanity and not even be aware of it. Religion doesn't prevent it ( for all its claims of a fixed morality) sometimes it becomes a form of inhumanity in its own right.

Frightening, imo.

So I acknowledge the fact those presidents had slaves, but it was in a large part, the times in which they lived.

[floo]

There was never any excuse for owning slaves and treating them in such a cruel way.

[Sriram]

Cutting up cows, pigs, sheep, chicken and relishing their flesh......will hopefully seem immoral some time in the future.  Then we can say....it was never right in the first place!

[Walter]

Does time mean owning people was OK?


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/king-no-president-owned-human-beings-honored-article-1.2998816

who knows what people did to each other 10,000 years ago ?

forget it and move on .

[Bubbles]

Cutting up cows, pigs, sheep, chicken and relishing their flesh......will hopefully seem immoral some time in the future.  Then we can say....it was never right in the first place!

Yes, you could be right.

But by then societies mindset will have changed to the point that they won't understand why people ate animal flesh in the first place.

They won't look at it with any real understanding of how life is for us, in our societies.

They might even think they are better than "us" because "they" wouldn't make that mistake.

But they are as much a product of their societies as we are.

Their future will judge them, perhaps for eating plants, instead of just fruits.

We are all a product of the society around us, you come from a society that is more accepting of vegetarianism ( I think  )  whereas vegetarians are rarer here ( although the number seems to be growing).

If you could take a person as a baby and plant them in a society that thought you had to sacrifice a child so the sun came up, they would grow up accepting that, initially.
It's the same with slavery, if you were brought up with the attitude that you owned others who were less than you, initially it would just be reality to you.

Everyone likes to think that they would be different and have the same morality/ethics as they have now, but I don't think they would.

I think if Floo, for example, had been raised with slaves serving her and that they were less, it isn't a foregone conclusion that she would have the morality/ethics she holds now.

People who are famous for standing up for human rights, are famous because they are unusual, but even for them society has to be ready to hear the message.

[floo]

We had staff when I was a child but they were treated well. My sisters and I had to be respectful and call them Mr, Mrs or Miss. I am still in touch with one lady, who worked for us, who will be 100  this year.

[Bubbles]

who knows what people did to each other 10,000 years ago ?

forget it and move on .

The problem is it's not 10,000 years ago, it's now, today!
Slavery still exists, even in the UK.

Not legally, but it's still here.

The thing is seeing it, being aware.

People today find reasons and justifications why other people are worth less than them, it validates their own position in society.

Sexism, racism, class, nationality all ways of splitting people.

For ages society, on one level has accepted, cheap foreign labour picking fruit for wages most wouldn't look at.

What's the difference?

Yes they get paid, a pittance.

But essentially it's considered ok because it's not us, earning the pittance.

a whole load of them drowned a few years back, collecting shell fish and it pricked the national conscience

But how many years had they been put at risk? Before that?

How much of a blind eye do we have, because it suits us?

Those are the sort of things the future generations may well judge us on.

[Bubbles]

We had staff when I was a child but they were treated well. My sisters and I had to be respectful and call them Mr, Mrs or Miss. I am still in touch with one lady, who worked for us, who will be 100  this year.

There were slave owners who would have said the same things.

The only difference is they " bought" their "staff" from someone else upfront.

When we hear about slavery, we normally only hear about the bad owners.

I'm sure there were good owners as well.

The thing is, did you ever question your role, and their role as "staff"

The slaves were seen like their "staff" if they were treated well it acted as a justification, they got " bed and board."

If it's normal to have staff or servants, who are not free, who work for bed and board, who questions the status quo?

Not every slave owner would have been bad, not every slave owner would have questioned the status quo.

They would have said, "we treat our slaves well, they get bed and board"

The ones who stood against it challenged the status Quo.

Few people do that, which is why human rights leaders are famous.

If it was common sense, we wouldn't  need them to address the issues, because there wouldn't be any issues.


It never makes slavery right. However I can see the people in the past are like people now, we don't always challenge the status quo.

[ad_orientem]

Cutting up cows, pigs, sheep, chicken and relishing their flesh......will hopefully seem immoral some time in the future.  Then we can say....it was never right in the first place!

In your dreams!

[floo]

There were slave owners who would have said the same things.

The only difference is they " bought" their "staff" from someone else upfront.

When we hear about slavery, we normally only hear about the bad owners.

I'm sure there were good owners as well.

The thing is, did you ever question your role, and their role as "staff"

The slaves were seen like their "staff" if they were treated well it acted as a justification, they got " bed and board."

If it's normal to have staff or servants, who are not free, who work for bed and board, who questions the status quo?

Not every slave owner would have been bad, not every slave owner would have questioned the status quo.

They would have said, "we treat our slaves well, they get bed and board"

The ones who stood against it challenged the status Quo.

Few people do that, which is why human rights leaders are famous.

If it was common sense, we wouldn't  need them to address the issues, because there wouldn't be any issues.


It never makes slavery right. However I can see the people in the past are like people now, we don't always challenge the status quo.

Glad you can see it because I can't!

[Bubbles]

Read this, it might help.

http://storycartel.com/blog/thing-good-slave-owner/

Plus this

http://slaveryfootprint.org/slavery/website/survey/#where_do_you_live

Most people are blind to the ways "they" support slavery today.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_Footprint

It's much easier to demonise characters in the past that address our own issues.

[Sassy]

Does time mean owning people was OK?


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/king-no-president-owned-human-beings-honored-article-1.2998816

You cannot compare owning a slave with what Hitler did.

It is all about how you treat human beings.

Slaves were not all treated properly but they worked and were fed. Some had good owners some had bad owners
but the same can be said of children and parents.  It all has to to with the person owning the slaves.
In the case of Hitler NO JEW was safe and all treated far worse then slaves.

You might as well compare everything including bad parents, bad animal owners, Paedophiles and all who who harm another in some way.

Slave owners whether presidents or not cannot be compared to being equal to the MONSTER called Adolph Hitler.
There were slaves here and in America but Hitler killed millions of Jews in every country he took the power from.


Tyrants cannot be compared to slave owners. Who knows how many people are alive and well who came down from slaves.
Where is the decendants of the those murdered in the holocaust.

This man who wrote the article needs to stop trying to make things equal to the extermination of a race and religion of people to someone having their freedom removed and caused to serve.

Both situations were wrong but one was about extermination or slavery.

[Nearly Sane]

I find the idea that it is ok to own someone as long as you don't mistreat them in other ways  just bizarre.

[Sassy]

I find the idea that it is ok to own someone as long as you don't mistreat them in other ways  just bizarre.

Whilst I find that not having lived through either we cannot compare now and then.

[Nearly Sane]

Whilst I find that not having lived through either we cannot compare now and then.

So you believe we shouldn't think that burning witches was wrong? After all, not as if they knew any better?

[Anchorman]

It can be argued - and has been argued - that the slave trade was not only sickeningly cruel, wasteful in the loss of tens of thousands of lives on the 'blackbirders', but responsible for the extinction of cf civilisations which had existed in Africa for millenia, and the creation of sub cultures in the US which caused civil unrest, death and misery for generations after the emancipation of slaves - civil unrest which continues. So, yes, slavery was every bit as evil in its own way as the extermination of slavs, disabled people, JWs, political dissidents, Christians as well as Jews in the Nazi obscenity.

[Nearly Sane]

Indeed, Anchorman and all those 'good' slaveowners who merely owned human beings and didn't beat any to death would have been knowledgeable of the  if others who were seen withing their rights to beat their slaves and were complicit in the horror visited on them.

[Anchorman]

Yes. There's a great article here http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.586381 which Sass might like - from an American Jewish publication. If it doesn't make one stop and think, then there's a problem somewhere.

[Robbie]

That is one powerful article Anchorman.

What Nearlysane said I agree with. However I do understand where Rose is coming from when she says that people in future generations might look back on us with horror at some of the things we countenanced.

Slavery is alive and well today all over the world despite being outlawed.

[Nearly Sane]

That is one powerful article Anchorman.

What Nearlysane said I agree with. However I do understand where Rose is coming from when she says that people in future generations might look back on us with horror at some of the things we countenanced.

Slavery is alive and well today all over the world despite being outlawed.

it is indeed but the effort to outlaw means it isn't countenanced. Will we be looked on in the sane way, well maybe if we haven't managed to destroy the our species and who knows what else. But that's essentially a tu quoque fallacy.

[Robbie]

Spot on the fact that slavery is illegal means it isn't right even though it still happens. That counts fora helluva lot.
Society is fairer now in our part of the world & becoming more so. there will be stuff for which we'll be criticised, like you said our abuse of the planet may be one.

When I look at the past as you do with horror, those I admire were the reformers & people who ran underground networks. I'd like to think id've been on the side of the 'angels' had I lived then but can only imagine.

[Walter]

it is indeed but the effort to outlaw means it isn't countenanced. Will we be looked on in the sane way, well maybe if we haven't managed to destroy the our species and who knows what else. But that's essentially a tu quoque fallacy.

NS

I've noticed you're quite partial to one or tu quoque's recently. Is it something new you're exploring?

[Sassy]

So you believe we shouldn't think that burning witches was wrong? After all, not as if they knew any better?

We know allowing people to be made homeless and live on the streets is wrong. Have you or anyone here done anything about it?
The witches once burned their own children as sacrifices in their pagan rituals do you not think what goes around comes around.

If you believe Christianity and the devil are made up then ultimately the only people responsible for 'wrongs' are human beings.
In which case as 'free will' exists no one forces mankind to do these things,. then it still remains human beings fault.

Whatever you do or see being done which is wrong. LOOK at who and what causes the wrong to be done.

Who got in those boats and went to foreign lands and decided to bring those men and women back as slaves?

Who burned the witches? They did not do it to themselves?  Why become witches?  That is right not everyone burned was a witch just accused. Why did the colour of the skin become a right to make those human beings slaves?

You can make all the cheap shots you care to make but ultimately all  you need is human beings to do evil.

[floo]

The last witches in my island home were apparently burnt in one of the fields, which belonged to our property.