As I noted before, sometimes the hardest things to explain are the ones that are self-evident to you. So it seems to be with Michael Medved's apologia for slavery. Denis Bider, who usually strikes me as a clear-thinking individual, rose to Medved's defense when I obliquely accused Medved of trying to roll the clock back to 1950. It seemed obvious to me that Medved's position was thinly disguised bigotry of the basest sort, but apparently this is not evident to everyone. So herewith a detailed critique of Medved's piece:
Those who want to discredit the United States and to deny our role as history’s most powerful and pre-eminent force for freedom, goodness and human dignity invariably focus on America’s bloody past as a slave-holding nation.
Note that Medved starts out by tacitly assuming that the only possible motive someone might have for focusing on America's bloody past as a slave-holding nation is that they "want to discredit the United States and to deny our role as history’s most powerful and pre-eminent force for freedom, goodness and human dignity" as if this is the most likely reason for anyone to be paying attention to this little historical incident.
Unfortunately, the current mania for exaggerating America’s culpability for the horrors of slavery bears no more connection to reality than the old, discredited tendency to deny that the U.S. bore any blame at all.
What "mania" and what "exaggerations" exactly? He doesn't cite any examples of who he considers manic, or what he considers current. But the idea of reparations if fairly contemporary, and later context seems to indicate that that's what he's talking about, so we'll go with that as a working assumption.
No, it’s not true that the “peculiar institution” featured kind-hearted, paternalistic masters and happy, dancing field-hands, any more than it’s true that America displayed unparalleled barbarity or enjoyed disproportionate benefit from kidnapping and exploiting innocent Africans.
Ah. So just because America's barbarity was not "unparalleled" or the benefits gained were not "disproportionate" that makes it OK?
SLAVERY WAS AN ANCIENT AND UNIVERSAL INSTITUTION, NOT A DISTINCTIVELY AMERICAN INNOVATION.
Granted, but so what? Since when did "but everyone else was doing it too" become a valid excuse according to conservative morality?
[Lengthy accounting of other slaveholding nations snipped.]
In other words, when taking the prodigious and unspeakably cruel Islamic enslavements into the equation, at least 97% of all African men, women and children who were kidnapped, sold, and taken from their homes, were sent somewhere other than the British colonies of North America. In this context there is no historical basis to claim that the United States bears primary, or even prominent guilt for the depredations of centuries of African slavery.
On this reasoning a murderer should be able to argue: "Hitler, Stalin, etc. have killed countless millions. I only killed one person. Therefore I do not bear primary or even prominent guilt for my actions." How well do you think that would fly in a Texas courtroom?
SLAVERY EXISTED ONLY BRIEFLY, AND IN LIMITED LOCALES, IN THE HISTORY OF THE REPUBLIC – INVOLVING ONLY A TINY PERCENTAGE OF THE ANCESTORS OF TODAY’S AMERICANS.
The same argument applies: "It took only a second for me to pull the trigger, your honor. So I was only a murder for a tiny fraction of my life." To say nothing of the fact that the claim isn't even true:
The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution put a formal end to the institution of slavery 89 years after the birth of the Republic; 142 years have passed since this welcome emancipation.
Why start counting from "the birth of the Republic"? The slaves surely didn't. And to draw the analogy back to to the individual case, this is analogous to a murderer claiming that all the people he killed before he turned 18 ought not to count. Or even to accept Medved's accounting, it's analogous to a serial killer who goes on a 9-year-long murder spree followed by a 14-year retirement and saying that everything is now square.
Moreover, the importation of slaves came to an end in 1808 (as provided by the Constitution), a mere 32 years after independence
Ah, so because at that point we were only enslaving people born here that somehow makes it better? That seems like some might odd balancing of the moral scales to me.
Slavery had been outlawed in most states decades before the Civil War.
That is simply false. There were brief windows during which free states outnumber the slave states, but great pains were taken to try to keep the number of slave and free states the same. The ultimate failure of this effort is one of the things that the civil war was fought over.
Even in the South, more than 80% of the white population never owned slaves.
So because only one in five people decides to murder people that makes it OK to make murder legal?
Given the fact that the majority of today’s non-black Americans descend from immigrants who arrived in this country after the War Between the States, only a tiny percentage of today’s white citizens – perhaps as few as 5% -- bear any authentic sort of generational guilt for the exploitation of slave labor.
Perhaps as few? Is there any basis for this number, or did Medved just pull it out of his ass?
Of course, a hundred years of Jim Crow laws, economic oppression and indefensible discrimination followed the theoretical emancipation of the slaves, but those harsh realities raise different issues from those connected to the long-ago history of bondage.
They do? Why? Note that I have elided nothing here. That is Medved's sole mention of Jim Crow in the entire piece. No elaboration on why "those harsh realities raise different issues." It seems to me that those harsh realities raise exactly the same issues: an entire class of people was systematically denied basic human rights and equal treatment under the law. The difference between slavery and Jim Crow is a difference of degree, not of kind.
THOUGH BRUTAL, SLAVERY WASN’T GENOCIDAL: LIVE SLAVES WERE VALUABLE BUT DEAD CAPTIVES BROUGHT NO PROFIT.
So just because it wasn't your intent to kill people that somehow makes it less heinous that they died as a result of your reprehensible actions? How exactly do you square that with the case of Kenneth Foster who narrowly escaped being put to death by the state of Texas not for killing someone but merely for driving someone else after they had killed someone?
[Details of slavery atrocities snipped]
Here, the popular, facile comparisons between slavery and the Holocaust quickly break down: the Nazis occasionally benefited from the slave labor of their victims, but the ultimate purpose of facilities like Auschwitz involved mass death, not profit or productivity. For slave owners and slave dealers in the New World, however, death of your human property cost you money, just as the death of your domestic animals would cause financial damage. And as with their horses and cows, slave owners took pride and care in breeding as many new slaves as possible. Rather than eliminating the slave population, profit-oriented masters wanted to produce as many new, young slaves as they could. This hardly represents a compassionate or decent way to treat your fellow human beings, but it does amount to the very opposite of genocide.
[Emphasis added.]
At this point my ability to remain calm breaks down. Anyone who cannot see the absurdity in this is beyond help. Just because you intended to treat people like animals and end up killing a lot of them only inadvertantly does not mean that your actions were "the very opposite of genocide." Whether or not it was genocide is perhaps debatable. That it was every bit as morally reprehensible and unforgivable as genocide is not.
As David Brion Davis reports, slave holders in North America developed formidable expertise in keeping their “bondsmen” alive and healthy enough to produce abundant offspring. The British colonists took pride in slaves who “developed an almost unique and rapid rate of population growth, freeing the later United States from a need for further African imports.”
Ye gods, can Medved not hear himself? This is what he cites to make the case that "Those who want to discredit the United States and to deny our role as history’s most powerful and pre-eminent force for freedom, goodness and human dignity invariably focus on America’s bloody past as a slave-holding nation"? Medved is essentially, saying, "We didn't intend to kill the slaves, we just intended to breed them like cattle. What you bleeding-hearts getting so worked up about?"
IT’S NOT TRUE THAT THE U.S. BECAME A WEALTHY NATION THROUGH THE ABUSE OF SLAVE LABOR: THE MOST PROSPEROUS STATES IN THE COUNTRY WERE THOSE THAT FIRST FREED THEIR SLAVES.
At the risk of getting tiresome (because I want to be absolutely clear that NONE of Medved's arguments are even remotely valid): because they didn't make money that makes it OK?
[Details of the negative ecnomic consequences of slavery snipped.]
WHILE AMERICA DESERVES NO UNIQUE BLAME FOR THE EXISTENCE OF SLAVERY, THE UNITED STATES MERITS SPECIAL CREDIT FOR ITS RAPID ABOLITION. In the course of scarcely more than a century following the emergence of the American Republic, men of conscience, principle and unflagging energy succeeded in abolishing slavery not just in the New World but in all nations of the West.
The United States was the last Western nation to abolish slavery, and the only one that had to fight a civil war to do it. I predict that if the United States ever switches to the metric system Medved will write an essay about how we deserve special credit for that too.
THERE IS NO REASON TO BELIEVE THAT TODAY’S AFRICAN-AMERICANS WOULD BE BETTER OFF IF THEIR ANCESTORS HAD REMAINED BEHIND IN AFRICA.
It is hard to imagine a more condescending claim. Even if it were true, so what? Isn't it supposed to be a conservative tenet that people should be free to choose their own course in life even if it results in undesirable consequences? If I kidnap a child of poor parents, should it be a defense that I was able to give that child a better life than his parents would have been able to?
The idea of reparations rests on the notion of making up to the descendants of slaves for the incalculable damage done to their family status and welfare by the enslavement of generations of their ancestors. In theory, reparationists want society to repair the wrongs of the past by putting today’s African-Americans into the sort of situation they would have enjoyed if their forebears hadn’t been kidnapped, sold and transported across the ocean. Unfortunately, to bring American blacks in line with their cousins who the slave-traders left behind in Africa would require a drastic reduction in their wealth, living standards, and economic and political opportunities.
Imagine that I kidnap a child of poor parents, an academic underachiever with no prospects, and hack off all their limbs. Imagine further that they manage to escape, sell their life story to Hollywood, and make more money than they ever would have been able to make had I not kidnapped them. Imagine further that because of my power and influence I am able to escape prosecution for my crime. (I know that kind of thing never happens, but bear with me here.) Suppose that the kid brings a civil suit against me for pain and suffering. Should I be able to use as an argument in my defense that the kid is better off because of what I did to him?
No honest observer can deny or dismiss this nation’s long record of racism and injustice
And yet that is exactly what Medved is doing. Well, if the shoe fits...
If we sought to erase the impact of slavery on specific black families, we would need to obliterate the spectacular economic progress made by those families (and by US citizens in general) over the last 100 years.
That assumes that no Africans would have emigrated to this country if it had not been for slavery, a dubious assumption at best. The rest of this argumnt thus becomes a non-sequitur, and I have elided it.
In short, politically correct assumptions about America’s entanglement with slavery lack any sense of depth, perspective or context.
No, it is Medved's straw-man that lacks any sense of depth, perspective, or context. The not-so-thinly veiled subtext of Medved's position is simply this: everything is fine, except for blacks being a little too uppity, along with the white liberals who support them, a class of people which in the 1950's were referred to as "nigger lovers."
If the shoe fits.
Note that Medved starts out by tacitly assuming that the only possible motive someone might have for focusing on America's bloody past as a slave-holding nation is that they "want to discredit the United States and to deny our role as history’s most powerful and pre-eminent force for freedom, goodness and human dignity" as if this is the most likely reason for anyone to be paying attention to this little historical incident.
ReplyDeleteI agree that this is a fairly pointless, slanted and stupid introduction for Medved to make, but the majority of his article proceeds to merely list facts and put slavery into perspective.
What "mania" and what "exaggerations" exactly? He doesn't cite any examples of who he considers manic, or what he considers current. But the idea of reparations if fairly contemporary, and later context seems to indicate that that's what he's talking about, so we'll go with that as a working assumption.
Granted, the references to "mania" and "exaggerations" are vague and wavy. Medved would have done better if he had stated who it was he was actually arguing with. But the working assumption seems reasonable.
So just because America's barbarity was not "unparalleled" or the benefits gained were not "disproportionate" that makes it OK?
Medved does not say that slavery was OK. He's merely attempting to put it into perspective. This is essentially the same argument as me trying to explain to Americans that, yes, 3,000 people died on 9/11, but compare that to the million people you caused to die in Iraq, and besides, if you worry so much about the 3,000, why don't you think more about the 40,000 innocents that die in car accidents each year in the U.S.?
In both cases someone is making a "perspective" argument, and in both cases the argument is not getting through, usually because the receiving party cares so much about X that they do not want to see it in perspective.
On this reasoning a murderer should be able to argue: "Hitler, Stalin, etc. have killed countless millions. I only killed one person. Therefore I do not bear primary or even prominent guilt for my actions." How well do you think that would fly in a Texas courtroom?
But no one today living enslaved anyone today living!
As far as I know, the concept of children inheriting their parents' debts was phased out of civilized nations a long time ago. Just like slavery.
So because only one in five people decides to murder people that makes it OK to make murder legal?
No, but it further weakens the case that descendants of the four innocent people should pay reparations to descendants of slaves.
The difference between slavery and Jim Crow is a difference of degree, not of kind.
Fair enough.
So just because it wasn't your intent to kill people that somehow makes it less heinous that they died as a result of your reprehensible actions?
Medved is trying to make here a weak argument about how there is a fundamental difference between slavery and genocide, because in slavery the genus is perpetuated, whereas in genocide it is destroyed. He has a case here, but I don't think it makes a difference either way. As you say, the actions themselves are reprehensible regardless.
At the risk of getting tiresome (because I want to be absolutely clear that NONE of Medved's arguments are even remotely valid): because they didn't make money that makes it OK?
No, but I can see how an argument in favor of reparations would be "the United States is rich today because of slave work done by our ancestors, so the United States should pay us back what we are owed", and Medved counters this with "some of our ancestors did grow rich through slave work done by your ancestors, but this did not determine the well-being of the United States today, so nothing is owed to you by the United States". If this is Medved's purpose, it's a reasonable argument.
The United States was the last Western nation to abolish slavery, and the only one that had to fight a civil war to do it.
The United States did not have to fight a civil war to abolish slavery, and in fact it did not fight a civil war to abolish slavery. As far as I'm informed, the southern states wanted to secede because their economies were export-oriented and were disproportionately hurt by the federal government's tariffs. The northern states might have as well let the southern states secede and the world would be nicer today. The civil war conceived the United States with imperialistic tendencies - the very concept of the civil war was to deny your southern brothers their right of self-determination. That is evil.
Slavery was used primarily as an excuse and a rallying cry to motivate the union. As far as I'm informed, it wasn't the substantial reason why civil war occured.
THERE IS NO REASON TO BELIEVE THAT TODAY’S AFRICAN-AMERICANS WOULD BE BETTER OFF IF THEIR ANCESTORS HAD REMAINED BEHIND IN AFRICA.
It is hard to imagine a more condescending claim. Even if it were true, so what?
This is in fact Medved's strongest point from the perspective of blacks requesting reparations! What he argues here is that the black people living today cannot show that their lives are being shortchanged because of their ancestors' slavery. This is a very important argument in the sense that, yes, your ancestors did suffer slavery, but you are better off for it today, so you have no grounds to ask for reparations.
If I kidnap a child of poor parents, should it be a defense that I was able to give that child a better life than his parents would have been able to?
Again, the concept of passing debt from parents onto children has been abolished some time ago. Your example would have been better if your grandgrandparents were the ones that snatched the kid, and you now live with the kid's grandchildren. Why should you be paying the grandchildren if they are experiencing a better life now than they would if their grandparents had not been snatched?
Imagine that I kidnap a child of poor parents, an academic underachiever with no prospects, and hack off all their limbs.
Another poor example ignoring that the concept of passing debt from parents onto children has been (rightly) abolished a long time ago.
The not-so-thinly veiled subtext of Medved's position is simply this: everything is fine, except for blacks being a little too uppity, along with the white liberals who support them,
And with this, I largely agree.
a class of people which in the 1950's were referred to as "nigger lovers."
This, however, is your nasty projection.
Blacks aren't niggers, they are people. It is their right to enjoy equal opportunities and to have full equality in front of the law. But injustices done to their ancestors cannot be remedied: their ancestors are dead, and their descendants who are alive today were not subject to that injustice. So affirmative action is wrong, and asking for reparations is wrong even more. Blacks should enjoy equal opportunities and equality in front of the law, but they have no right to positive discrimination.
If they want positive discrimination, let them found their own country, which they can manage as they please.
But no one today living enslaved anyone today living!
ReplyDeleteBut people today living participated in Jim Crow, and people living today continue to participate in institutionalized discrimination against blacks (e.g. the disparity between the sentencing guidelines for crack and powder cocaine). But it doesn't really matter because your observation, while true, is irrelevant. The crime of slavery was not perpetrated by indivuduals. The people who held slaves were not violating the law and were therefore committing no crime. The crime of slavery was perpetrated by a nation, and the nation which perpetrated it still exists. In the eyes of the law both corporations and nations are "individuals" that can be held liable for their actions. The passage of generations of stockholders or citizens does not wipe the slate clean.
Since most of your other arguments are based on this fallacy there is no point in responding to them. But a few that aren't:
The United States did not have to fight a civil war to abolish slavery, and in fact it did not fight a civil war to abolish slavery.
That the civil war (arguably) was not fought over slavery does not change the fact that slavery almost certainly would not have been abolished when it was but for the war. I do agree that the civil war was a war of aggression and conquest waged by the north against the south, and the ends do not justify the means. But that is irrelevant to the matter at hand.
This, however, is your nasty projection.
No, it isn't. This is really what people of Medved's ilk unabashedly called people of my ilk in the 1950's. The rhetoric has gotten more subtle and refined, with "Those who want to discredit the United States" replacing "nigger lover" but the subtext and intent is no less nasty: to dismiss by choice of label people who hold certain opinions as not worthy of respect merely because they hold those opinions. Medved's phraseology is less jarring to the modern ear, but every bit as despicable.
But people today living participated in Jim Crow,
ReplyDeleteBut people who would have to pay for reparations are those who are nowadays of working age, which means that they were at most in their early twenties when the last of the segregation laws were overturned.
Conversely, segregation laws would have directly affected only black people now older than 48 or so, with most of the people responsible for their suffering now having been retired.
Do you propose we deduct a penalty from the pensions of white voters who used to live in southern states, and pay that money back to those blacks, now older than 48, who were affected by segregation?
I say no, because - throughout this time, way before 1965, there were states where segregation laws did not exist. And yet, the black people who suffered segregation did not choose to move there.
As a counterexample, I feel that the nation of Slovenia had been oppressing me when it attempted to confiscate 50% of my income, despite having no moral right to do so. Yet, I was able to find one nation on Earth that would accept me as a citizen without imposing an income tax on my foreign sourced income.
If blacks should be able to get reparations for having had to move to a different state in order to avoid segregation law, then I too should be able to get reparations from Slovenia for having had to move to a different country to escape Slovenian taxation law. That is of course after Slovenia abolishes income taxation, which is inherently criminal and immoral.
See my logic here?
Even if Slovenia, or the United States, or Europe, abolished income taxation tomorrow, and declared it once and for all immoral, intrusive and illegal - like it is - they still would not pay reparations to anyone; neither to the people who were forced to pay excessive income tax, nor to those who had to emigrate to avoid it.
There are some people who argue that such reparations should be paid, because they shouldn't have been forced to leave their birth country because of onerous taxation. I say, coercive systems are inherently bad, but as long as one is able to leave them, it's one's own fault if one continues to participate.
The crime of slavery was perpetrated by a nation, and the nation which perpetrated it still exists.
Now, here you are being a commun-ist, one of the worst kind. You're entertaining a dangerous delusion - one of treating a group, or a system, as sentient beings.
They are not.
It is people who do things, not nations. It is people who suffer, not nations.
Nations are stories. Nations don't experience things. Nations do not make decisions. It is people who make decisions. It is people who experience things. It is people who suffer, or experience joy, from the consequences.
You may not realize it, but you are being fundamentally irrational if you ascribe human characteristics to, and require human responsibility from, a group. You are behaving as though you believe in the existence of a sentient being, which in fact does not exist. It is tantamount to someone who is religious.
Since most of your other arguments are based on this fallacy there is no point in responding to them.
I say, that's brave of you to say! This fallacy indeed. I could say the same, only that I would phrase it as your fallacy.
We seem to be in fundamental disagreement here. Naturally, I think that you're deluded, and I'm right. :) You likely feel the same, which of course is tragic, yet it is understandable, because you are deluded. ;)
The rhetoric has gotten more subtle and refined, with "Those who want to discredit the United States" replacing "nigger lover" but the subtext and intent is no less nasty: to dismiss by choice of label people who hold certain opinions as not worthy of respect merely because they hold those opinions.
I agree that "Those who want to discredit the United States" is pointless, gratuitous, unnecessary. I don't believe that calling people names solves a dispute. Still, even if people stop calling each other names, disagreements continue to exist. Disagreements on mutually important matters breed animosity, because each side feels threatened if the other should prevail. When this is so, calling each other names is obviously stupid because it doesn't help to solve the dispute. But just because people aren't calling each other names, the dispute doesn't become mutually less important, and the sense of threat and hence the animosity do not just go away.
We are faced to live on this world with people with whom we fundamentally disagree. This is going to cause strife however you turn it. Whether people are calling each other names becomes less important realizing that the strife is fundamental, and that mere politeness does not make it go away.
See my logic here?
ReplyDeleteYes. I also see its flaw: no one kidnapped you (or your ancestors) and shipped you to Slovenia in shackles.
It is people who do things, not nations.
So the United States didn't invade Iraq?
You may not realize it, but you are being fundamentally irrational if you ascribe human characteristics to, and require human responsibility from, a group. You are behaving as though you believe in the existence of a sentient being, which in fact does not exist. It is tantamount to someone who is religious.
I am not being irrational, I am admitting a higher-order abstraction, one which is universally accepted but for a lunatic fringe of anarchists.
Ascribing agency to humans is arbitrary too. I could say, "it wasn't me that pulled the trigger, it was my brain. And it wasn't even my whole brain, it was just my left temporal lobe (conspiring with my right index finger). Why punish my whole body for something only part of me is responsible for? And for that matter, the cells that comprised my body at the time the murder took place have largely been replaced by new cells, so even those parts of me that are responsible for the crime pretty much don't exist any more. So why punish the new me?"
Ascribing enduring agency to entire human being is a useful abstraction, but it is not the only one that is logicaly possible, and extending the metaphor to groups like corporations and nations has great utility. Whether it is the right thing to do is perhaps arguable, but not on the grounds that it is absurd on its face. (I will also point out that you are prejudiced towards ascribing agency to humans and not other self-organizing groups of entities simply because you happen to be one yourself. If you were a corporation you might feel differently. And if you are tempted to say, "but corporations don't feel anything" I will respond, "How would you know? Have you ever been a corporation?"
So I stand by my contention that your position is baseless and requires no further rebuttal.
BTW, for the record, I do not support reparations, but not for any of the reasons that Medved argues. Damn, another post to write.
Yes. I also see its flaw: no one kidnapped you (or your ancestors) and shipped you to Slovenia in shackles.
ReplyDeleteHow do you know that? Just because my genealogy isn't as easy to track down just on the basis of the color of my skin, doesn't mean that something like this didn't happen to my ancestors.
My standpoint is, it doesn't matter. I was born in Slovenia as a free person, not a slave. I was born into the highest-taxed country on the world. I didn't like that, I chose to emigrate.
Similarly, all blacks currently living were born in the United States as free people, not as slaves. It is way easier to move between the United States than it is to move out of the United States, or out of the EU.
Many of the states did afford to black people the opportunity to get away from segregation, so those who chose to get away from it, could.
It was way easier for them to escape segregation than it is for a citizen of the US or the EU nowadays to escape the income tax indentured servancy.
Yet, no one sees the income tax indetured servancy as a problem. Why?
"It is people who do things, not nations."
So the United States didn't invade Iraq?
Strictly speaking, yes, that's quite correct!
Strictly speaking, there is no well-defined United States, there is no well-defined Iraq. If we wanted to be strict, we would have to say that what's happening there is, some people from this area of this content headed over to that area of that continent and started shooting people and blowing things up. This is fact. All extrapolations from that are subject to interpretation.
In colloquial use we say the US invaded Iraq, and everyone knows what that means because everyone knows the context of the invasion. But in this sense, the phrase serves merely as a reminder of events we all already know took place. How we interpret these events though is subject to each person's individual reasoning.
Now, if you wanted to use the phrase "the US invaded Iraq" as something else other than just a reminder of events we all already know took place - for example, if you wanted to use this phrase to lay responsibility for these events with someone - then you have a considerable problem on your hands, because all of a sudden you have to be a lot more specific about who did what. You cannot just say, for example: "The US invaded Iraq and was responsible for 2 million refugees and a million deaths. Therefore, in the name of justice, one million Americans shall be shot, and 2 million shall be deported to Mexico." This kind of logic doesn't count, because just saying "the US invaded Iraq" doesn't explicitly lay responsibility with anyone. Obviously, for one person, George W. Bush, but who else? The people who voted for him? Including the few who voted for him in 2000 but later disagreed with the Iraq invasion? Or perhaps all Americans in total are culpable? Including those who voted for Al Gore and later Kerry? If guilt is national, are all their children and their pet animals culpable too? Or just the adults with voting rights? Does guilt also lay with people who didn't vote, but could have voted againts Bush? How about people who couldn't vote because they are convicted felons?
Your use of "nation" in the argument before is particularly suspect, because in the case of black people, the blacks now are part of the nation. I might accept that some sort of country-level logic might make sense if we were talking about entities that are logically distinct. For example, if blacks never got citizenship, but instead were all deported back to Africa like some people wanted to do, then we could talk about the blacks versus the American nation as different entities.
But here, the blacks themselves are part of the American nation. Furthermore, they are mixed with the American nation. Few black people in America today is 100% black. That's how the average IQ of African Americans is 85, not 60 or 70 like most places in sub-Saharan Africa!
So suppose now that you have a nominally black person that genetically is 50% white and 50% black; or 25% white and 75% black. How are reparations to be paid in this case? Should the 50% of the person's ancestors be held accountable for harm they did to the other 50% of the person's ancestors?
So maybe a person who is 50-50 wouldn't pay or receive anything, then? Then, should a person who is 25% white and 75% black receive half the amount of reparations as the person who is 100% black? And a person who is 75% white and 25% black should pay half the amount of a person who is 100% white?
How about people who cannot present evidence that their genes are either majority white or majority black? Should they be treated as more white, and thus should pay reparations, or should they be treated as more black, and thus should receive reparations?
Isn't that preposterously racist? Isn't it preposterously pointless, too? What sense does it make for people today to pay each other money on the basis of what my grandgrandgranddad did to your grandgrandgranddad two centuries ago? How does that make any sense? How does it constitute progress?
I am not being irrational, I am admitting a higher-order abstraction, one which is universally accepted but for a lunatic fringe of anarchists.
You have not thought out the consequences of your argument logically. A higher-order abstraction, yes, but for what purpose? If you're going to use a higher-order abstraction, and if you're going to define logical reasoning on it, then you have to do so in a consistent manner and show that your model of reasoning makes sense.
It might be easy and straightforward to just take our ordinary models of how responsibility etc is attributed to individuals, and attribute that to countries. But this model, and the logical operations defined by it, are not useful when we are dealing with characteristics of countries where they differ substantially from characteristics of humans.
When you are dealing with characteristics that are substantially different then with individual people, you may attempt to use your "higher order abstraction that is universally accepted but for a lunatic fringe of anarchists", and you may attempt to use the very same set of intuitive logical operations that you would normally use for individuals.
But if you do so, you are using an obviously inappropriate model for a situation where it obviously doesn't fit, and it just makes you look inept and... stupid.
Sorry ;)
Ascribing enduring agency to entire human being is a useful abstraction
But even with human beings themselves we still have significant problems with how to treat a person. Not just different cultures, but different states and different judges and different juries differ in how to apply a framework in which to judge a person. Some countries permit personal bankruptcy, letting you become a "new person" with regard to debt. Other countries have no such provisions. Some states in the U.S. protect a bankrupt person's residence from debt collectors, others don't. Some courts try a 16-year old person as a juvenile, some try him as an adult.
We are far from having obtained a consistent logical framework even for judging humans ourselves. Extending our intuitive senses of justice, which really are nothing more than informed prejudice, from individual humans to whole countries - well, that's something that has to be done with a lot of consideration, and certainly a lot more than just your argument "the US is still a nation now, so it's responsible for what it did to slaves". That's a claim I find preposterous, and just me telling you I am experiencing that should be enough for you to know that you're not using a well-defined framework, and that your argument needs to be much better than that.
If you really want to use human-level logic wholesale on the slavery and reparations problem: here is an attempt.
ReplyDeleteSuppose we have a guy named Stan and a guy named Mohasu. Mohasu is poor and the guy named Stan pays him $500 to sell him a kidney. (Africans were sold into slavery by their opponent Africans.) Half of the kidney dies as part of the transplant (losses during transport), but the whole kidney recuperates inside Stan after the transplant operation. However, the foreign kidney has different immunoreceptors (is black), and so is constantly being beaten up by Stan's immune system (racism). Eventually, Stan's immune system accepts the new kidney (a feat not yet achieved by medicine). The kidney, originally Mohasu's, has now become an integral part of Stan. Even though the kidney was originally Mohasu's, and originally contained Mohasu's DNA, after several cell generations the kidney is now comprised entirely of cells that came to life inside Stan, and they've even mixed significantly with Stan's own DNA.
Now, even though the cells in Stan's new kidney are now full fledged members of Stan's body, some of them are creating an uprising and demanding reparations to be paid to them on the basis that many of their ancestor cells died during the transplant operation, and that they suffered as a result of Stan's body's immunosuppressive response.
So, which other cells should pay the reparations, and how much should the reparations be?
This is a ridiculous and bad example, because the relationships here are still significantly different than with blacks and the United States. But I hope this helps you realize how this is more reflective of the actual circumstances than the simplistic model of "a nation having acted", which you were trying to apply.
We humans are commonly trying to use our proverbial hammers, failing to realize that what we are dealing with isn't a nail.
ReplyDelete[Ron] [N]o one kidnapped you (or your ancestors) and shipped you to Slovenia in shackles.
[Denis] How do you know that?
My spies are everywhere.
[Ron] So the United States didn't invade Iraq?
[Denis] Strictly speaking, yes, that's quite correct!
Not necessarily to say that you are wrong, but you do realize that most people on hearing you say this would write you off as a raving loon?
But if you do so, you are using an obviously inappropriate model for a situation where it obviously doesn't fit, and it just makes you look inept and... stupid.
Coming from someone who says that the U.S. didn't invade Iraq that is not quite the stinging indictment that you probably intended it to be.
The agency of nations is an abstraction that has a long and venerable history. It is one of the cornerstones of civilization. The agency of corporations is not quite so old and venerable, but it too has been around for quite a while and is one of the cornerstones of capitalism (which I would think would make you a subscriber). Flawed thought these abstractions may be, they are accepted by the vast majority of people, and trying to change that is one windmall at which even I am not willing to tilt.
Yet, no one sees the income tax indentured servancy as a problem. Why?
It's not true that no one sees them as a problem. You obviously see them as a problem. The reason there is no outcry about them is that those taxes are imposed by democratically elected governments, so the people subject to those taxes have the power to legally abolish them if they choose. Democracy is far from perfect, but so far no one has come up with a better idea.
Similarly, all blacks currently living were born in the United States as free people
That is far from clear. It is arguable that overt slavery has simply been replaced over the years with ever more subtle forms of slavery. And contemporaries of e.g. Emmett Till are still alive.
So, which other cells should pay the reparations, and how much should the reparations be?
As I said before, I do not support reparations, so this is a straw man.
It saddens me that all the time I spent trying to make things clear for you has gone to waste. Your interpretation of my reply is superficial and completely missed the gist of what I was trying to say.
ReplyDeleteI did not say that the United States did not invade Iraq in the generally accepted sense this phrase is spoken. What I did say is that you can only take this abstraction so far.
What I wanted to convey to you is that ascribing agency to nations is similar to, in mathematics, defining a group by defining an operation on a set. You cannot apply just any operation; and you have to verify that the operation you're imposing satisfies some fundamental axioms, otherwise what you defined is not a mathematical group. It's just a set with an arbitrary operation imposed on it.
Are you with me so far?
The very significant fault in your reasoning is that you are ascribing agency to a nation on itself. Ascribing agency to a nation means drawing parallels between a nation and a person, and performing person-based logic wholesale on the nation.
But the fact that blacks are now a part of the American nation means that such a parallel impossible, because there is no clear parallel with individual relationships to draw.
I tried to draw a parallel by introducig the concept of Stan buying Mohasu's kidney. Your response to this was a summary dismissal of my anecdote being a "straw man", by reason that you are not in favor of reparations.
But I am not arguing with you about the overall issue of reparations. What I am arguing against is your acceptance of "national agency" as a possible argument in favor of reparations. Whether or not you are in favor of reparations overall is beside the point; I am trying to show you that your use of national agency in this case is invalid.
National agency makes sense when there are well defined nations acting through official channels. Even in this case national agency is questionable; it is not clear that we should hold the people of North Korea or Zimbabwe morally accountable for the actions of Kim Yong-Il or Robert Mugabe.
But in the slavery case, using the national agency argument can lead to either of two conclusions: (a) the nation of the United States should pay reparations to the nations in Africa from where the slaves were taken, assuming the original price for slaves can be determined to have been coerced lower; (b) the nation of the United States should pay reparations to itself.
As soon as we start to talk about reparations to individual members of the nation of the United States, we have left the area where "national agency" logic is consistent and valid, and we cannot use this logic any more.
Of course, this doesn't stop politicians and demagogues from doing so. But that doesn't change the fact that such logic is faulty and that arguments based on it crap.
Am I getting through now?
Am I getting through now?
ReplyDeleteYou've been getting through all along. I just think your position is untenable. Note that I didn't say wrong, just untenable. (I think you're (mostly) wrong too, but that's another discussion.) The vast majority of the people in the world believe in national agency, and so to be effective politically you have only two choices: 1) try to change their minds or 2) adopt national agency as a working assumption even if you don't believe it's an appropriate metaphor. Pure pragmatism is enough to make me choose option 2. (It's worth noting that Medved accepts national agency as well.)
As an aside and just in case you're still interested in what I have to say, here's why I think you're wrong: your position seems be that it is essentially a category error to say that a nation has responsibilities towards individuals. On that view any possible moral culpability for slavery ended when the importation of slaves ended in 1808. A person born into slavery in the U.S. before the passage of the 13th amendment had no legitimate grievance against anyone according to you. I reject that conclusion (and hence your premise) because it grates on my moral intution like fingernails on a chalkboard.
I would say that a nation has responsibilities towards individuals to the extent that individuals are wronged by law. I would say, for example, that to the extent that the United States are still discriminating against blacks in law, the nation has a responsibility to fix such discrimination, and the people who were wronged have grounds to ask for reparations given the injustice that was done to them.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do not agree that these people's descendants, a hundred years from now, can claim reparations, to be paid by our descendants not yet born today, on the basis that we wronged their grandgrandparents with racially biased drug laws today.
Any claim to the contrary grates on my moral intuition like fingernails on a chalkboard. People who did nothing wrong - our supposedly innocent descendants in the future - should not be held accountable for wrong done by ourselves. Especially not to completely unrelated people who have experienced none of that wrong.