Statues

[Dave2002]

I know what you mean
Sir Jimmy Savile for example ?
raised lots of money for charity

Or do you mean something else ?

Not particularly. I think there are many examples, and the "goodness" or "badness" of the persons, or organisations involved may be quite different. In the Music field some might hold up Wagner as an example, and there are more recent examples amongst performers. Sometimes one might try to weigh one side up against the other, to try to justify one's overall views, and sometimes it's really impossible, and one may have to accept the complete dichotomy between the "good" and "bad" aspects of whatever it is in order to stay sane.

In the case of BAE there might be a possible balancing act. You might not like defence, and the misuse of weapons which the UK sells to other countries (I don't), but on the other hand a significant part of its activity might really be in aiding civil aviation, and also particularly, keeping the defence of the UK operational. I just don't know the balance.

[MrGongGong]

Not particularly. I think there are many examples, and the "goodness" or "badness" of the persons, or organisations involved may be quite different. In the Music field some might hold up Wagner as an example, and there are more recent examples amongst performers. Sometimes one might try to weigh one side up against the other, to try to justify one's overall views, and sometimes it's really impossible, and one may have to accept the complete dichotomy between the "good" and "bad" aspects of whatever it is in order to stay sane.

In the case of BAE there might be a possible balancing act. You might not like defence, and the misuse of weapons which the UK sells to other countries (I don't), but on the other hand a significant part of its activity might really be in aiding civil aviation, and also particularly, keeping the defence of the UK operational. I just don't know the balance.

BINGO

All you needed was Gesualdo for a full house

I think you are clutching at straws chum

[Count Boso]

I think you are clutching at straws chum

Unsupported POV. What did you think of my argument about 'rights and wrongs' in the previous post?

"[The] points of departure from Africa do not necessarily indicate the home regions of African victims, since vast networks of slave routes frequently funneled people to the coast from villages deep in the interior.

As a result, those loaded onto European and American slave ships had already endured a number of passages of prolonged hardship long before their sale on the coast. After initial capture, African slavers might pass them through different African societies, through alien lands and cultures, for weeks, months, or years before confronting the most confusing of sights: European men, the Atlantic Ocean, and the slave ships. Though some were marched just a few miles to the coast, others had been forcibly marched hundreds of miles. It was a journey that took its toll on the African men, women, and children bound together by ropes, chains, or wooden yokes."

http://slaveryandremembrance.org/articles/article/?id=A0003

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/nov/18/africans-apologise-slave-trade

[MrGongGong]

Unsupported POV. What did you think of my argument about 'rights and wrongs' in the previous post?

"[The] points of departure from Africa do not necessarily indicate the home regions of African victims, since vast networks of slave routes frequently funneled people to the coast from villages deep in the interior.

As a result, those loaded onto European and American slave ships had already endured a number of passages of prolonged hardship long before their sale on the coast. After initial capture, African slavers might pass them through different African societies, through alien lands and cultures, for weeks, months, or years before confronting the most confusing of sights: European men, the Atlantic Ocean, and the slave ships. Though some were marched just a few miles to the coast, others had been forcibly marched hundreds of miles. It was a journey that took its toll on the African men, women, and children bound together by ropes, chains, or wooden yokes."

http://slaveryandremembrance.org/articles/article/?id=A0003

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...se-slave-trade

This is well-known history
and a favourite trope of those wishing to make excuses (NOT that i'm suggesting you are doing that)

I don't think getting rid of a statue of someone who made his fortune through exploitation is "scapegoating"
but i'm not keen on statues of people anyway

Some things are "legal" but morally unjustifiable (without invoking Godwin)

[Count Boso]

This is well-known history
and a favourite trope of those wishing to make excuses (NOT that i'm suggesting you are doing that)

I don't think getting rid of a statue of someone who made his fortune through exploitation is "scapegoating"
but i'm not keen on statues of people anyway

Some things are "legal" but morally unjustifiable (without invoking Godwin)

Particularly as I suggested that that was why people weren't bringing up this point. All I am saying is that Colston did good and bad things, and bad things were done by white people and black people.

And as I've said, the irony is that if Colston had done nothing good, he would have had no statue (or other memorials) and his name would not now be known, still less reviled. His philanthropy facilitated his disgrace.

Who judges what is moral and what is immoral? How far is morality absolute, and how far does it alter? Are we the only generation whose morality matters?

And I maintain again, that there is only the loosest of connections between racism as it exists today and the slave trade - not least because black slavers provided the slaves in the first place, and profited from their sale.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

... Nor the burning of Catholics...

I thought it was mostly the other way round.

[Count Boso]

I thought it was mostly the other way round.

Perhaps you're right, Protestants burnt Catholics beheaded, heretics burnt and so on.

[Dave2002]

BINGO

All you needed was Gesualdo for a full house

I think you are clutching at straws chum

Not necessarily,

Some people like things like this:

[Count Boso]

Since this is the Ideas and Theory board: "Slavery in the United States was an example of pernicious black oppression and the racism in the United States today is a modern development of the view of blacks as an inferior subservient class."

But slavery is not a synonym for the slave trade. Re the latest news story about Gladstone, it seems to me that if there is guilt, Gladstone is, by a considerable margin, more guilty than Edward Colston, since he and his family clearly profited greatly from slavery. But when I read this about the renaming of Liverpool University's Gladstone Hall: "Liverpool is "entrenched in the history of Black oppression" with buildings "built with bricks that were bartered for by slaves", I wonder who in this tragic affair is presumed to have done the bartering and who profited.

There are aspects of this debate that remind me of the vandals who daubed 'Paedo' over a doctor's house because they didn't know the difference between paedophile and paediatrician, and I still think history will reinstate Colston as a social reformer and reject the description of 'slave trader'. When issues are seen more cooly.

[Serial_Apologist]

Who judges what is moral and what is immoral? How far is morality absolute, and how far does it alter? Are we the only generation whose morality matters?

Surely partly a matter of degree, I would have thought? Africans facing the greater power of white nations, backed up by guns and bibles? Inevitably all societies since humans settled have had their own ruling classes; it is the "narrative of history" that decides that as human society succeeds human society with the development of ever more sophisticated and productive means for wealth generation, new classes arise, and are collectively organised by said ruling classes to deliver the wherewithals of such wealth while maintaining those with the lion's share in power at the top.

Morality is not only defined as much by what is perceived as possible or practicable, which will change with given improvements in living arising from social advances, but what those "over us" tell us how to behave, see ourselves and others, which can vary according to political advantage.

I would argue the most salient issue today is the continuum of class rule running all the way back to when Britain and other imperialist countries invaded what we now ironically call the developing world and plundered the human and natural resources for their own enrichment.

[Count Boso]

Surely partly a matter of degree, I would have thought? Africans facing the greater power of white nations, backed up by guns and bibles? Inevitably all societies since humans settled have had their own ruling classes; it is the "narrative of history" that decides that as human society succeeds human society with the development of ever more sophisticated and productive means for wealth generation, new classes arise, and are collectively organised by said ruling classes to deliver the wherewithals of such wealth while maintaining those with the lion's share in power at the top.

I think that was partly my argument some way back - that what is needed is an equality where there is no 'ruling class' and that positions of wealth, power, influence and opportunity (which there will always be, I think) are shared and in principle accessible to all. Whether that will solve the problem (to me) of generations judging the past by their own 'moral' standards I do not know. (Incidentally, I gather that guns were one of the items traded by the English to the African slavers. I wonder what they did with them).

"Slaves for Guns

West African rulers were instrumental in the slave trade. They exchanged their prisoners of war (rarely their own people) for firearms manufactured in Birmingham and elsewhere in Britain. With their newly acquired weapons, kings and chiefs were able to expand their territories. The slave trade had a profound effect on the economy and politics of West Africa, leading, in many cases, to an increase in tension and violence."

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/africa_caribbean/africa_trade.htm

[Serial_Apologist]

I think that was partly my argument some way back - that what is needed is an equality where there is no 'ruling class' and that positions of wealth, power, influence and opportunity (which there will always be, I think) are shared and in principle accessible to all. Whether that will solve the problem (to me) of generations judging the past by their own 'moral' standards I do not know. (Incidentally, I gather that guns were one of the items traded by the English to the African slavers. I wonder what they did with them).

Well the very situation we are in is an exemplification of the ways in which moral views change, or can change. Actual material change is another matter - what ruling class has ever willingly given up its position, power and control? I don't think even the Soviet (and associated) bureaucracies willingly did so at the end of the 1980s: for them the choice was decided in the end by force majeure.

"Slaves for Guns

West African rulers were instrumental in the slave trade. They exchanged their prisoners of war (rarely their own people) for firearms manufactured in Birmingham and elsewhere in Britain. With their newly acquired weapons, kings and chiefs were able to expand their territories. The slave trade had a profound effect on the economy and politics of West Africa, leading, in many cases, to an increase in tension and violence."

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/...rica_trade.htm

A case of one militarily stronger ruling class taking over another with the help of inducements.

[Dave2002]

This might be relevant here - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/30/o...ronavirus.html though it is clearly biased towards the US. This would never happen "here" (in the UK!) .....

[Count Boso]

Well the very situation we are in is an exemplification of the ways in which moral views change, or can change. Actual material change is another matter - what ruling class has ever willingly given up its position, power and control? I don't think even the Soviet (and associated) bureaucracies willingly did so at the end of the 1980s: for them the choice was decided in the end by force majeure.

Yes, that's interesting. In one sense one might quote (stretching a point or three) the way the British peacefully transferred power to some of its colonies to grant them independence (though some would say it was out of necessity, a wish to 'disburden' itself).

A case of one militarily stronger ruling class taking over another with the help of inducements

Exactly. The point being made in the context that the slave trade was as much a question of the powerful oppressing the poor as white people oppressing black. Human social patterns replicated, which is depressing.

[Serial_Apologist]

Yes, that's interesting. In one sense one might quote (stretching a point or three) the way the British peacefully transferred power to some of its colonies to grant them independence (though some would say it was out of necessity, a wish to 'disburden' itself).

Yes indeed - obviously leaving aside certain notorious exceptions to the "peacefully": Britain's advantaged position re colonialism, (favourable geography, first in line to "learn the lessons" on how to do it, etc), avoided the calamitousness of other colonists' "mistakes" of doing it by direct rule - Algeria etc. "We will take care of our people; you (Britain) by exercising divide-and-rule on them will defend us against losing our privileged positions".

Exactly. The point being made in the context that the slave trade was as much a question of the powerful oppressing the poor as white people oppressing black. Human social patterns replicated, which is depressing.

But in a way inevitable. Struggles for national self-determination against colonialism were destined to assume different forms from those that had established Europe's nations and the United States, which had been based on a rising bourgeois class with global needs and aspirations. And it is maybe this that has driven their dynamic and shaped the emphasis on race - thereafter preordaining a stress on identity over class on subsequent emancipatory struggles, (women, gays, disabled etc) particularly since the 1960s.

I remember, in an argument with a black friend of mine in the 1980s, asking him (in my patronising way!) what was the point of black people getting into positions of power, in politics, by promotion to boardrooms etc., if this merely meant substituting one set of people in charge of a system predicated on unequal power for another? To which he replied, well , yes, but how otherwise are black people to prove themselves to themselves under existing conditions and know how to organise and run things?