You see how there’s a difference between saying slavery was good and saying that slaves developed skills that could be applied for their personal benefit?
Those are absolutely not the same positions.
@volkris
Um, they are not the same, obviously, but the one logically entails the other.
If you argue that there was a benefit to enslaved people of being enslaved, then you are also committed to saying that slavery is at least in part, good.
My advice to you is not to try arguing the merits of enslavement, especially to a population that includes the descendants of slaves.
Well no. Just because one receives a benefit doesn’t mean it’s overall for the best. There are examples all throughout life where a person benefits from one thing even though it is on the whole for the worse.
It is entirely reasonable to say that slavery is bad even though there were some minor benefits to individuals in the course of that overall terrible institution.
The two statements are not mutually exclusive, and it’s apparently very worthwhile for our education system to point that out, since so many people on here seem to overlook that.
@volkris
Sorry, but you are wrong at several levels.
Viz.
"Just because one receives a benefit doesn’t mean it’s overall for the best."
Nobody said anything about best. The point was that saying that slaves received benefit from enslavement is EXACTLY to say that there is good in slavery.
You cannot say that this one sliver of potential benefit accrued to this one hypothetical individual without normalizing the greater harm they suffered.
/2
@volkris
"It is entirely reasonable to say that slavery is bad even though there were some minor benefits to individuals"
NO
It is absolutely NOT reasonable to say that. You cannot itemize ANY supposed good from a root of evil in any universe of ethics. You cannot absolve Nazi cold-immersion experiments by saying the data was later used to improve maritime safety. You are welcome to USE evil to do good, but you cannot place the benefit on the evil root.
"The two statements are not mutually exclusive, and it’s apparently very worthwhile for our education system to point that out, since so many people on here seem to overlook that"
WTAF?
Are you seriously suggesting we teach kids that slavery was a good thing because we cannot eliminate the hypothetical and arguable possibility that some slave, somewhere, at some time, may have gained in some way?
That is completely bonkers!
I have a different suggestion.
Let's teach kids that some people are foolish and immoral enough to argue that a huge evil is actually good because they can imagine some potential sliver of good that may possibly have accrued to someone who was the victim.
We can explain why this thinking is immoral
Why it is irrational
And why thinking that way is a strong predictor of ending up in jail
Who is arguing that a huge evil is actually good?
@volkris
You are, mate.
You are
Huh. You’ve misunderstood my position, and really if you so misunderstand my position it makes me suspect that you’ve misunderstood so many others’ as well.
@volkris
No, your position is just not quite what you imagine it to be.
You think you are arguing for logical purity, but in fact you are being an apologist for slavery
I makes me wonder what other really bad ideas you have, and it makes me wonder what bad things you may have done.
I think, all in all, that you have amply informed on yourself here