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 @mloxton @InkySchwartz @cadenza
What were the benefits of slavery? The ones that are *so important* that we tell kids about they need to be outlined in the state mandated curriculum?
Why is it important that young people know that slavery "had benefits?"
Because maybe we want students of history to know more about nuances of the world, beyond the simple, often politicized black and white narratives that are as convenient for politicians as they are misleading?
Maybe it’s so important that in the education system we let students know what actually happened?
What’s so important about that? Well, honestly that seems self-evident to me as a proponent of liberal education.
Yes, let's teach them exactly what happened.
That people were violently abducted from their families and homes, trafficked to foreign lands, sold, and suffered further harms and atrocities including being used as breeding stock, raped, flogged, worked to death, and just killed outright.
Let's specify WHO did this, and to whom
Let's explore the lasting harms to subsequent generations.
Let's explore what current things are also bad
Let's do those
YES, and the curriculum does teach that.
Like, you’re on their side. You’re in agreement with them. They work to teach those horrors.
You are in agreement.
The fuck it does.
The new curriculum emphasizes that nothing in the teachings may make anyone feel bad about themselves.
I put it to you, Mr. Amateur Sophist, that if education doesn't make a person feel equal measures of wonderment and embarrassment, then it isn't doing its job.
If you aren't a bit embarrassed about your previous state of knowledge after a course, then the course failed to achieve its goals.
Why in the world do you want to make people feel bad about themselves? That’s bizarre, sounds flat out sociopathological, that you have a goal of making children feel bad about themselves, or at least, you are disappointed that the state is not making children feel bad about themselves.
I mean wow.
@volkris @mloxton @futurebird @InkySchwartz @cadenza
Why should kids feel bad to learn that their ancestors committed evil? Unless you want them to feel good about repeating it. Why do you want that history sugar-coated? Does it hurt your feels?
Hit dogs holler, volkris, and you are proof.
@volkris @mloxton @futurebird @InkySchwartz @cadenza
Hardly.