Can we connect philosophy with racism?

[coberst]

Can we connect philosophy with racism?

 

In Antebellum South 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.

 

What were some of the effects of no free labor in the South? The most important factor I suspect was that the ordinary white man felt any labor was beneath his dignity. This lack of ‘free labor’ led to many of the characteristics of the Southern man and woman that probably is a factor today in the still distinctive character of the Southerner.

 

I think that the wheel might be a useful analogy for understanding the mind of the South. The spokes of the wheel represent the essential components of all societies--economy, law and culture. The hub to which all spokes focus is labor. The Antebellum South revolved around slave labor.

 

Classical Athenians “believed that to render any form of service, especially the physical, to another man in return for money, even if only for a short time, was a form of slavery, and unacceptable to a free man”.

 

Ideology universalizes, absolutises, and reifies (makes an object of) abstract concepts. The ideological group converts its concrete experiences and its abstract concepts into universal standards (a form of philosophy?) for the whole society.

 

A society like our own, in which there exists free labor that “sells” its skills, capacities, and activities to another, must find a means of defining humans in such a way that such individuals can still feel like complete and free individuals even though they sell part of them self to another.

 

How does a society define the human essence in such a way that the individual “sells” only that which is alienable to him or her while maintaining the essence of a free individual?

 

“In order to say that his freedom is not compromised when his abilities, skills, and activities are placed at another man’s disposal, he had to be defined in the barest possible manner.”

 

If a person’s skills, capacities, and activities are alienable to her what is his essence that may be considered to be unalienable? Capitalism, wherein labor is commodified and thus faces this problem, has located the human essence as being the capacity for freedom of choice and will.

 

“The individual was, above all, an agent. As long as he was not physically overpowered, hypnotized, or otherwise deprived of his powers of choice and will, his actions were uniquely his, and therefore his sole responsibility. It did not matter how painful his alternatives were, how much his character had been distorted by his background and upbringing and how much his capacities of choice and will were debilitated by his circumstances.”

 

This description seems much like what we Americans now use to assuage our guilt when consciously considering the death and dismemberment, physical and mental (PTSD), of our soldiers serving, dying, and being fragmented in our war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

Quotes from Marx’s Theory of Ideology by Bhikhu Parekh

[lemit]

Coberst,

 

You should do a simple Google search on "antebellum labor." I didn't spend much time on the results. I wanted to give you a chance at them first.

 

--lemit

[Pyrotex]

Coberst,

can we connect philosophy to the fact that you have gone off your medications again?

[coberst]

The connection between philosophy and racism exists in the discipline called CT (Critical Thinking). Philosophy might appropriately be said to be about radically critical self-consciousness. CT is the art and science of good judgment and can, in my opinion, be considered as 'philosophy lite'. Social theory becomes an ideology when CT is not part of the general attitude of a population.

[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.

[lemit]

Can we connect philosophy with racism?

 

In Antebellum South 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.

 

If I remember right, the Antebellum South had some fairly large textile mills. Was all the labor in those mills slave?

 

Were the slave ships manned by slaves? Were the dockworkers all slaves? Were all of the slave-handlers slaves? It was too large an industry not to have had some labor, either hired or slave.

 

This is a fascinating part of the history of the South I've never heard about. Why has this been kept from us? Has there been a conspiracy to cover up the deplorable working conditions of the white-collar slaves in manufacturing, shipping, and banking who handled all the paperwork necessary for the economy of the South? I for one would love to know their stories.

 

--lemit

[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.

 

What were some of the effects of no free labor in the South? The most important factor I suspect was that the ordinary white man felt any labor was beneath his dignity. This lack of ‘free labor’ led to many of the characteristics of the Southern man and woman that probably is a factor today in the character of the Southerner.

 

I think that the wheel might be a useful analogy for understanding the mind of the South. The spokes of the wheel represent the essential components of all societies--economy, law and culture. The hub to which all spokes focus is slavery. The antebellum South revolved around slavery.

 

This area of the United States developed as any frontier area in the US during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. The climate and the circumstance of the cotton gin invention led to the evolution of a society that never lost its frontier characteristic while becoming an agricultural economy dependent almost totally upon cotton.

 

The economy was cotton and the power controlling the society was the cotton plantation. Early in the nineteenth century South Carolina plantation owners gained complete political control of the entire state and these plantation owners became the core that moved the eleven Southern states to emulate the South Carolina system. By the 1820s the South Carolina plantation politicians determined their goal to be separation from the Union if the Union failed to allow the expansion of slavery into the developing land as the nation moved West and new states began to join the Union.

 

There were three basic economic classes—plantation owners, yeomen farmers and poor whites. I do not include slaves as an economic class—they were basically capital (objects) just as horses and oxen are capital. The plantation owners controlled the wealth and power in their particular areas and banded together to control the wealth and political power in a region of state.

 

The yeomen and poor white were primarily subsistence farmers. Some of the yeomen had a few slaves but by and large the vast majority of slaves worked the large plantations. The plantations owned the good land leaving the less desirable land for the yeomen and poor white. Basically population ringed the best lands of the plantation with each succeeding lower rung in the economic ladder existing on less and less productive land.

 

There was somewhat of a heterogeneous mixture of relatives occupying each economic sector. The plantation owner was related by blood to many of the citizens in the area. There was not a great sense of hierarchy in class sensitivities because of the interrelated blood relationships. This fact also made it easier for the plantation owners to exercise their power over the community.

 

All classes recognized the importance of slavery to the whole society. While the yeoman and poor white did not, in most cases, own slaves they were as dependent on slavery as was the owner of slaves. For the yeoman and the poor white their self-esteem depended upon their sense of superiority to the slave. For these reasons the laws and the culture took the same attitude toward the importance of slavery, as did the plantation owners.

[Miranda]

Coberst: I am not understanding what your argument is essentially saying. Can you rephrase your intent a simple paragraph?

[coberst]

Coberst: I am not understanding what your argument is essentially saying. Can you rephrase your intent a simple paragraph?

 

 

 

I almost always choose to write about ideas that I consider to be very important but little known to the ordinary citizen; our schools and colleges generally teach us only those things that are useful for maximizing production and consumption.

 

These ideas that I write about are complex and require a good bit of study to comprehend. A few paragraphs in a forum are insufficient for comprehending such ideas. I write in the hope that some viewers will become curious enough to go to the books to learn more about these ideas. Most ideas are too complex to permit comprehension in a few paragraphs.

 

Capitalism is a system of production and consumption that is dependent upon produced goods that are for exchange with the goal of accumulating profit in that exchange. Before capitalism, modes of production were designed to facilitate consumption directly without exchange.

 

When capitalism first appeared “it required a specific set of social conditions in order to grow and flourish, for example, personal freedom, the formal equality of all men, the alienability of labor and the means of production, the separation of the civil society and the state, a more or less centralized state, a body of clearly defined general rules, and a more or less absolute right to property.”

[Miranda]

I almost always choose to write about ideas that I consider to be very important but little known to the ordinary citizen; our schools and colleges generally teach us only those things that are useful for maximizing production and consumption.

 

These ideas that I write about are complex and require a good bit of study to comprehend. A few paragraphs in a forum are insufficient for comprehending such ideas. I write in the hope that some viewers will become curious enough to go to the books to learn more about these ideas. Most ideas are too complex to permit comprehension in a few paragraphs.

 

Capitalism is a system of production and consumption that is dependent upon produced goods that are for exchange with the goal of accumulating profit in that exchange. Before capitalism, modes of production were designed to facilitate consumption directly without exchange.

 

When capitalism first appeared “it required a specific set of social conditions in order to grow and flourish, for example, personal freedom, the formal equality of all men, the alienability of labor and the means of production, the separation of the civil society and the state, a more or less centralized state, a body of clearly defined general rules, and a more or less absolute right to property.”

What you just did above was 1) gave some rather arrogant excuse for not providing us with a concise argument; 2) for some reason, gave the definition of capitalism; 3) quoted something, as if to support whatever you are claiming. And from your posts, you seem to quote a lot of other people without articulating ideas of your own.

 

You should not assume that all of your fellow forum peers are so poorly intellectually equipped that we cannot possibly understand what you are saying. There are only so many ideas that are that horribly complex, and the things you write about do not fit the 'horribly complex' category; it seems that with a bit of paraphrasing, your points could be made much more clear, which is all I was asking for.

Any decent, educated writer should be able to express their ideas in a concise, organized manner if they are willing to receive any meaningful feedback. You should be able to break down your idea into its essential argument and premises so that the rest of us can adequately respond. If you don't wish to take the time to analyze your thoughts to convey them clearly to the rest of us, then I must conclude that you do not want to be taken seriously.

[lemit]

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]

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