Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2026 2:46 am
Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2026 1:59 pm
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2026 5:13 am
Because it diminishes and undermines the abilities, self-confidence, strength and intelligence of the slave-owners. They become dependent, just like any receiver of welfare, on the work of others. The moment they own a slave, they start atrophying and slide towards decadence at best.
Good point.
The case is a little hard to make, though.
For example, apparently one of the reasons black slaves were preferred in the early South of the States was because of their inherited resistance to malaria, which made them better able to survive exposure to swampy farming conditions.
This assumes that those white people have to work in those specific conditions in that industry. That's not the case. They chose a specific way of making money that left them dependent on the suffering death and torture of other people, rather than as creative adults finding way to make money that did not require that. The self-hate and lack of self-confidence in such an assumption is already causing atrophy and again is a form of welfare where you are getting income off the back of others' labor. Again, atrophy and dependence, all the while claiming it is based on superiority when it is based, this specific choice of industry and solution, on inferiority in this resistance to malaria.
Further this is an example of the Fallacy of Single Causation: these slaves were doing all sorts of work that did not require malaria resistance while ALSO working the fields: Household Operations: This included cooking, cleaning, laundry, and tending fires. The "Big House" required constant maintenance. Personal Service: Enslaved people served as valets, lady’s maids, and nurses. They were responsible for the most intimate aspects of the enslavers' lives, including childcare and elder care. Skilled Trades: Many were highly trained artisans, working as blacksmiths, carpenters, bricklayers, coopers (barrel makers), and tailors. These skills were often "hired out" by owners to other businesses for profit.
Infrastructure: They built the South’s roads, bridges, and railroads, and worked as stevedores on docks and deckhands on riverboats.
Urban Labor: In cities like Charleston or New Orleans, enslaved people worked in factories, ironworks, and mills, or served as draymen (delivery drivers) and vendors. And they were on call 24 hours a day for ANYTHING the atrophying owners needed.
So you'd have to convince him that the detriments on his character of sending slaves into the field was worse than getting sick and dying himself.
The validity of an argument is never dependent on how well it convinces people steeping in ideology and tremendous suppressed fear.
And I think you'd find that a hard sell.
Ibid - a metaphorical ibid. And, of course, Christian theology was a very strong core of the abolitionist movement and, yeah, this didn't sway many slave owners, it took an army. That didn't make the Christian arguments invalid. Though this is not on the topic of my post. I could bring in my theism, but I somehow doubt this would have swayed the slave owners and not just because they are dead. Note: see how you framed my argument as if I was trying to convince dead people to change their minds? and implicitly contrasted my argument with religious arguments that were not effective either. I mean, your rhetorical garbage is just piling up. I can hardly keep track of it...the layers, the leaps and confusion.
I recognize the argument, though...where did you get it from?
See if you can find your assumption here, asserted without qualification.
I think I just read a similar bit from somewhere.
And this is the basis of your assumption.
I even remember somebody trying to sell the view that being a slave made one wiser, more perceptive and more in-control than the master...as I recall, because the slave is supposed to understand both the conditions of freedom and of oppression, wereas the master is only supposed to know freedom -- a clever bit of sophistry, to be sure, but not a case that's likely to be believed, I think, and not one that will encourage any of us to seek to become slaves in pursuit of epistemic privilege of that sort.
Wait. You associated your way to an argument I did not make as if it was relevant.
I've been away for a while, but you seem to be playing the same sophomoric games. I leave your fallacies, uncharitable reads, hijacking (oh, let's focus on whether one must believe in ICs version of God to make an argument, and associations to other interlocutors who tolerate this for some reason. On ignore.