Can we connect philosophy with racism?

[lemit]

Originally Posted by coberst

lemit

Antebellum South is the period before the Civil War, which ended in 1865. The period of the textile mills appears much later than that.

I have been a self-actualizing self-learner for more than 25 years. It began to develop into a hobby in 1980 while reading a book on the Vietnam Civil War when I decided that to understand this civil war in Vietnam I must understand our own Civil War in the United States.

I have since that time read many books about this important part of our history. The most enlightening book that best answered my questions was the book “The Mind of the South” by W.J. Cash. Cash says-- “With an intense individualism, which the frontier atmosphere put into the man of the South also comes violence and an idealistic, hedonistic romanticism. This romanticism is also fueled by the South conflict with the Yankee. Violence manifests itself in mob action, such as lynching, and private dealings.”

One question that developed early in my reading was why the ordinary white citizen of the South was such a good soldier, superior to the Union soldier. Why did the ordinary southern man fight so valiantly to preserve slavery when he was not a slaveholder himself? This valiant southerner fought with very little comfort and support from the Confederacy because the Confederacy was a financially poor institution. The rebel soldier often did not even have shoes. The rebel soldier often had to find food on his own. Very little in the form of supplies were provided to the rebel army.

I have over the years discovered answers to my questions. One particular aspect of this situation, which I had not considered, was how the fact of slave labor in a culture affects the culture totally. In the South there was no free labor. Slaves did virtually all labor. The effect of this reality determined to a great extent the nature of the society.

The white man would not work for anyone because he considered laboring for hire made him no better than the black slave and his superiority to the black man was essential to his self-esteem. There was no labor class in the antebellum south. The slaves did the labor but the slave was a capital investment just like a horse or oxen. Here was a total society without a laboring class.

Could I posit an answer to your question that I got from Ken Burns' PBS series on the Civil War and which shows that Occam's Razor works in the social sciences (probably more reliably than in the physical sciences)? The simple answer is that the Southern soldier fought because the Northern army had invaded the South. He was defending his home and his traditions. The Northern soldier fought defending against potential invasion with some altruism thrown in. The most violent battles were along the border and when the South invaded the North (in Maryland and Pennsylvania).

There are also more complex reasons people were willing to go to war that we cowards can't understand. Two of my great-great-grandfathers were wounded at Shiloh and one at Franklin because they were citizens, they strongly opposed slavery, and they believed in their responsibility to better the condition of all humanity. They put their lives on the line for their country and for the rights of people they had never met and would never meet. They had no economic stake. They were subsistence truck farmers who did what they thought was right regardless of the consequences.

About those textile mills, if you are suggesting that blacks supplanted whites in the labor force, you must first have a labor force to be supplanted. The phenomenon you are describing took place in those Antebellum textile mills, but with a different result. There were constant labor disputes because the white laborers in those nonexistent textile mills were angry at having been displaced by black slaves. Are you suggesting that those are the people who fought to defend a system that was screwing them? That's an interesting twist on labor history.

I am pleased to see that you are self-taught. So am I. So are most of the people who post here. We often learn what we learn because we have to make a living and because we listen to our elders. But we have to test our knowledge and keep on learning. I have learned a lot in researching your theory. The main thing I've learned is that your theory is bunk. I can see why you refuse to boil it down.

In my real life I have worked many years to preserve leftist and labor history. That's all I'm trying to do here. Please, Coberst, study the history before you theorize about it.

--lemit

p.s. I should add that my ancestor at Franklin was nursed back to health by a recently freed black family, so I guess he got some return on his investment.

[lemit]

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

Racism was originally defined as favoring one's own race over other races. Later we changed the definition to mean dumping on another race. One can still be a racist without dumping on other races, as long as they put their race first.

What both have in common is the individual is defined by their race. Without that race connection, they lack an identity of their own. With race identity, one can gain partial credit for anything anyone in the race has done. If I identified with the orange race, and they were to the first to develop cotton candy, I sort of get partial credit, since my race wrapper has cotton candy written on it. If I take off the wrapper, it is only me and I lose credit for cotton candy. If someone throws mud onto my wrapper and I need this cloak for identity, they are throwing mud on me-cloak.

Some liberal policy is racist since it is based on the wrapper and not the individual under the wrapper. If the green race did something to the purple race, the purple race wrapper is all you need to collect compensation, even if it did not happen to the person under the wrapper. It just has to be on your cloak. The green wrapper is all that is required to give compensation, even if you had nothing to do with it, as the individual who exists under the social wrapper. Being forced by law to wear the cloak, perpetuates racism since individual cause and effect is lost in favor of the wrapper.

I prefer be treated as an individual, without any magic race cloak, even if it could make me more awesome. I did not do any of the special or bad things members of my race did through history, nor do I deserve credit for something I didn't do. If I do stupid things that is all me and should not be put on another person's cloak.

I had somehow overlooked this interesting post before now.

Okay, class, who can find the flaw in logic in the above paragraphs?

That's right! It claims that although the green race as a whole did some kind of damage to the purple race as a whole, reparations can't be paid to the purple race as a whole because they are now individuals. We change the rules pretty much in the middle of the game so that we have levelled the playing field but the green team gets to keep all the points it got on the tilted field.

Assume you are green. I know it's not easy. You personally may not have done anything to the purple race, let alone to a purple individual. So why should you owe anybody anything? You keep your nose clean, you don't disrespect anybody. You send your kids to a good college and lead a quietly comfortable middle class life.

Now assume you are purple. You may not have been hurt individually by anything any green individual person did, maybe. But what if your grandfather or grandmother wasn't able to go to a good college, get a good job, and make a little bit of money. And don't say that didn't happen. Now, because your grandfather or grandmother didn't have the same advantages a green person's grandfather or grandmother had, you can't afford a good college for you children. For some reason, although you keep your nose clean and don't disrespect anybody, you still have a steep road ahead of you to ever achieve a middle class life.

You, HydrogenBond, are part of an advantaged group. If you weren't, you would see that what you say is laughable. Try to think how it would feel to be part of a disadvantaged group. Try to think. Get that wrapper off your eyes.

Discrimination is passed on until it is stopped. You don't stop a freight train by letting it coast.

--lemit