Semantics? Isn't the importance of history in the details? Details are important people.
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John Kelly
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You can't own slaves and be high character. They are mutually exclusive traits. Talking bout a dude who thought slavery was harder on whites than blacks because slavery was necessary to civilize blacks.
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Ya, he lived a while ago tho. Had you been born then, you wouldn't have held the same sense of morality you do now.
OG question though.
Praising aspects of the Confederacy is dangerous is because it strengthens Confederate pride. The negative aspects of the Confederacy are already comically glossed over in education.
The whole compromise **** is stupid too because there are some things you just shouldn't compromise. They are just trying to get people to agree to some of their dumb **** policy proposals.
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Praising aspects of the Confederacy is dangerous is because it strengthens Confederate pride. The negative aspects of the Confederacy are already comically glossed over in education.
The whole compromise **** is stupid too because there are some things you just shouldn't compromise. They are just trying to get people to agree to some of their dumb **** policy proposals.
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Not sure if serious or trolling. You honestly think that your sense of morality comes from some kind of objective truth that you have come to discover, and not thru socialization into the liberal egalitarianism that is the most common view in the West today?
So there was no one against slavery in the 1800s? Please shut the **** up.
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LogGrad98
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This is actually an interesting philosophical question with no clear answer. If we are going to assign "high character" only to people who hold our own moral code then it gets very dicey. Who has high character than? Only those completely "without sin"? Or does "high character" even exist?
High character within the confines of his culture. As in, his behavior was seen as honorable by most people within that society, whether ally or foe. Just like how Saladin was viewed as an honorable man by both his enemies and his allies.
Your ideology is incidental. It is the product of interaction between your genetic make up and your enculturation. There is no absolute right or wrong. Everything is contextual. I am not advancing an opinion, I am simply stating a fact. There is no genetic difference between you and those who owned slaves. There is only a cultural difference. The hardware is the same. Only the software changed.
You're not special. Sorry.
The Thriller
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Kelly's Claiming that the Civil War was brought on for lack of "compromise" shows supreme ignorance of history.
Just how much "compromise" did we need to give racist southerners who merely wished to continue their exploitation of blacks?
That's not to mention all the other compromises we gave after the Civil War!
- 3/5ths compromise
- Missouri Compromise
- Kansas/Nebraska Act
Just how much "compromise" did we need to give racist southerners who merely wished to continue their exploitation of blacks?
That's not to mention all the other compromises we gave after the Civil War!
♪alt13
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That's true
The south showed an unwillingness to compromise(they probably could have avoided the war and kept slavery in some form for a long damn time) but I doubt Kelly was talking exclusively about the South.
Zombie
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The problem with this view (that we shouldn't apply modern morality to the past) is that it implies only white opinions matter. The millions of blacks living in servitude certainly thought it was an immoral practice and they made up the majority of many southern states.
Also Robert Lee himself tortured slaves, ordering brine poured on their wounds after whipping, and even went so far as to capture free blacks during the war and put them into bondage. In short, he was a vile piece of **** who doesn't deserve to be honored.
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It implies no such thing. Your argument implies that you're somehow of superior moral character because you know better and they didn't. It think it's a nonsensical approach to the argument. Using your standards, the whole idea of honoring past figures loses meaning. By modern standards, 99% percent of the WORLD'S population (conservative figure?) held very racist views. Some major cultures have it deeply institutionalized (India for example). More so, the very same will apply to you in a 100 or 200 years, in a different world with different norms. It is a useless way to look at this.
That said, I'm more or less like you (contemporaries who think alike, gasp!). I don't think we should honor Lee. I want to honor figures that symbolize tolerance and equality and all that jazz. Regardless of how such figures would be viewed if we somehow transported them to the present. It's about who I am and how I'd like the world to be.
Zombie
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I am of a higher moral character because I know better and they didn't. I'm not saying I was born this way, but I don't have any problems saying that.
And I'm not so sure it's such a bad thing to do a little less honoring of past figures and a little more honest appraisal of them.
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“I would tell you that Robert E. Lee was an honorable man,” Kelly said during the interview.
“He was a man that gave up his country to fight for his state, which, 150 years ago, was more important than country,” he added. “It was always loyalty to state first back in those days. Now it’s different today. But the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War. And men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had to make their stand.”
Can you blame a man for being nostalgic?
“He was a man that gave up his country to fight for his state, which, 150 years ago, was more important than country,” he added. “It was always loyalty to state first back in those days. Now it’s different today. But the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War. And men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had to make their stand.”
Can you blame a man for being nostalgic?