Was slavery always wrong?

There was a time when the whole world, including the slaves, accepted slavery as a part of like. It was a norm, and even though the slaves didn't like it, they didn't really question it either...otherwise you would have have many revolts among larger slave populations.

So was slavery wrong when the whole world accepted it as a norm?
Is condemning slavery in that time only presentism?

All I know is that Kirk Douglas could fight in the arena, fight on the battlefield, dig a ditch, clean a latrine and plow a field without getting dirty.

History is written by the victors. So yes, it was a marvellous time, for slave owners. Slaves never had it so good. I think if I didn't like one part of the norm then I might have trouble accepting it.

Quote:It was a norm, and even though the slaves didn't like it, they didn't really question it either...otherwise you would have have many revolts among larger slave populations.

Doesn't sound like the slaves accepted it to me. Those who didn't revolt were probably too in fear for their lives to even try it.

https://www.history.com/topics/black-his...rebellions

Obviously, on the cusp of the end of slavery wasn't when it was an accepted norm worldwide. Even many founding fathers had qualms about slavery.

Again, slaves certainly wouldn't like being slaves, but there's little indication that they questioned the worldwide norm of slavery.

And the question remains. Was it wrong when it was an accepted practice worldwide? Is that really a hard question to answer?

Quote:Again, slaves certainly wouldn't like being slaves, but there's little indication that they questioned the worldwide norm of slavery.

Slave rebellions have occurred thruout history. That slaves accepted their slavery at any point in history is bullshit. These were people who were captured and chained up and taken back to a foreign country to work their asses off and be abused until they died. That was not acceptable to them ever.

(Oct 22, 2018 12:51 AM)Magical Realist Wrote:

Quote:Again, slaves certainly wouldn't like being slaves, but there's little indication that they questioned the worldwide norm of slavery.

Slave rebellions have occurred thruout history. That slaves accepted their slavery at any point in history is bullshit. These were people who were captured and chained up and taken back to a foreign country to work their asses off and be abused until they died. That was not acceptable to them ever.

What part of "slaves certainly wouldn't like being slaves" don't you understand? O_o
You seem to be missing the point. The same people taken as slaves would have, if the tables were turned, made slaves of their captors. IOW, they didn't have any moral qualms about it, other than being on the receiving end. Or did freed slaves, like in ancient Rome, go around trying to end slavery or free other slaves? Or did freedmen in Rome, who gained rights as citizens, become successful themselves by owning slaves in a slave economy?

Acceptance is measured by willingness to participate in the activity, not whether or not you're a victim of said activity. You accept abortion, high taxes on the rich, etc. because you are willing to perpetrate it (via policy), not simply because you weren't a victim to it. Unless, of course, you're completely immoral and self-centered.

Quote:The same people taken as slaves would have, if the tables were turned, made slaves of their captors

That's also bullshit. Slaves don't aspire to become slaveowners, the very people they hate. They aspire to be free. They are the authorities on why slavery is wrong because they have experienced it firsthand. There is absolutely no acceptance by them of slavery at all, as either inflicted on them or by them. Your disgusting attempt to morally degrade victims of slavery is noted.

It's wrong now and it was wrong then.

I listened to a lecture once by Professor Alec Ryrie. He said that the atrocities are in a sense a distraction from the underlying horror of arbitrary subjection to another human beings will. He said that slavery was one of the biggest crimes in human history, but one good thing has come out of it, which is the world now at least professes to believe that slavery in any form is wrong. That idea would have seemed almost incomprehensible to most of our premodern forbearers. To them slavery was like poverty. An undesirable but inescapable fact of life. Individuals might escape it but to abolish the category completely was inconceivable. While the modern world may have abolished slavery in law, we were far from abolishing it in realty. It is a pervasive fact of human history. Christians are, of course, as deeply implicated in this as anyone.

It makes me wonder about how we’ll be judged in the future.

(Oct 21, 2018 09:25 PM)Syne Wrote: There was a time when the whole world, including the slaves, accepted slavery as a part of like. It was a norm, and even though the slaves didn't like it, they didn't really question it either...otherwise you would have have many revolts among larger slave populations.

So was slavery wrong when the whole world accepted it as a norm?
Is condemning slavery in that time only presentism?

Such would seem to be disapproval by either the imaginary or the not even imagined yet... If future standards were not available during ancient times, or were only available in a prototype / less potent manner that had limited influence on the impetus of older cultural customs and government policies. A bit like retrospectively chastising people in the late 19th-century for not flying around in airplanes when airplanes were still in experimental failure stage. (Replace 19th-century with ancient eras, replace airplanes with a later or modern values, rights, and judgement-making set of concepts.) In our case also, the predictions of speculative fiction might be possibilities which come "true" eventually, but these artistic phantoms have not congealed into facts and realized events yet for potentially condemning us. [*]

From a 1st-person perspective, slavery is presumably "not liked" by most of those in bondage. Whereas a 3rd-person perspective might focus on the well-being of the society as a whole rather than the satisfaction level of specific individuals. A well-rounded scheme would take into account both subjective and public needs (a compromise between the two that at least lifted both sides above the threat of non-trivial personal suffering and state collapse of order and economy).

- - - footnote - - -

[*] Obviously setting aside the perspective of any 4-dimensional beings which might deem all the differences across our centuries as co-existing, albeit not interacting across the vast durations separating them.

~

(Oct 22, 2018 02:45 AM)Magical Realist Wrote:

Quote:The same people taken as slaves would have, if the tables were turned, made slaves of their captors

That's also bullshit. Slaves don't aspire to become slaveowners, the very people they hate. They aspire to be free. They are the authorities on why slavery is wrong because they have experienced it firsthand. There is absolutely no acceptance by them of slavery at all, as either inflicted on them or by them. Your disgusting attempt to morally degrade victims of slavery is noted.

John Carruthers Stanly — born a slave in Craven County, N.C., the son of an Igbo mother and her master, John Wright Stanly — became an extraordinarily successful barber and speculator in real estate in New Bern. As Loren Schweninger points out in Black Property Owners in the South, 1790-1915, by the early 1820s, Stanly owned three plantations and 163 slaves, and even hired three white overseers to manage his property!
...
William Ellison's fascinating story is told by Michael Johnson and James L. Roark in their book, Black Masters: A Free Family of Color in the Old South. At his death on the eve of the Civil War, Ellison was wealthier than nine out of 10 white people in South Carolina. He was born in 1790 as a slave on a plantation in the Fairfield District of the state, far up country from Charleston. In 1816, at the age of 26, he bought his own freedom, and soon bought his wife and their child. In 1822, he opened his own cotton gin, and soon became quite wealthy. By his death in 1860, he owned 900 acres of land and 63 slaves. Not one of his slaves was allowed to purchase his or her own freedom.
- https://www.theroot.com/did-black-people...1790895436



Jacob Gasken was born free only because his mother was a free woman. His father was still a slave at the time of his birth. This was rather common at the time, and the mother eventually wanted to buy Jacob’s father so that he would no longer have to work as a slave on a plantation.
...
One day, Jacob’s father scolded him after Jacob had misbehaved (as any good father would do). Jacob, a petulant, entitled boy, became so angry with his father that he sold him to a New Orleans trader and then later bragged to his friends and colleagues about sending his own father to be a slave on a plantation in Louisiana to “learn him some manners.”
...
Nat Butler makes this list for the special type of manipulative cruelty that he showed toward his fellow humans. Butler was one of the worst kinds of slave owners. Not only did he participate in the trade, but he actively tricked slaves into running away so that he could sell them back to their masters.
...
About 28 percent of the free black population in New Orleans at the time owned slaves, with at least six owning 65 or more.
...
Nobody on this list has affected the history of slavery quite as much as Anthony Johnson. He is rumored to have been the first black man to arrive in Virginia as well as the first black indentured servant in America. He was also the first black man to gain his freedom and the first to own land. As a true pioneer of firsts, Johnson couldn’t stop there. Ironically, he became the first black slave owner, and it was his court case that solidified slavery in America.
- http://listverse.com/2017/06/06/top-10-b...aveowners/



There were approximately 319,599 free blacks in the United States in 1830. Approximately 13.7 per cent of the total black population was free. A significant number of these free blacks were the owners of slaves. The census of 1830 lists 3,775 free Negroes who owned a total of 12,760 slaves.
- https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/facts-about-slavery/



In some cases, the freedom of the slave could be complete, and in other cases, the former slave would still have a duty to provide services to his former master. Former slaves who were skilled in some profession were expected to provide their professional services free of charge to their former masters. Former slaves even had the possibility of becoming Roman citizens, and sometimes, they would (ironically) become slave owners.
- https://listverse.com/2016/06/05/10-inte...ient-rome/

You were saying?
Many former slaves did become slave owners, as that's the only way to become wealthy in a slave economy.

So you are obviously viewing history through a lens of presentism and likely only thinking of American slavery...where African, Roman, etc. slavery were often of the same race.

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(Oct 22, 2018 03:07 AM)Secular Sanity Wrote: It's wrong now and it was wrong then.

I listened to a lecture once by Professor Alec Ryrie. He said that the atrocities are in a sense a distraction from the underlying horror of arbitrary subjection to another human beings will. He said that slavery was one of the biggest crimes in human history, but one good thing has come out of it, which is the world now at least professes to believe that slavery in any form is wrong. That idea would have seemed almost incomprehensible to most of our premodern forbearers. To them slavery was like poverty. An undesirable but inescapable fact of life. Individuals might escape it but to abolish the category completely was inconceivable. While the modern world may have abolished slavery in law, we were far from abolishing it in realty. It is a pervasive fact of human history. Christians are, of course, as deeply implicated in this as anyone.

It makes me wonder about how we’ll be judged in the future.

Why was it wrong then, when it was incomprehensibly inescapable?
Is that just judging the past by the standards of the present, or does that imply a universal morality that transcends social/cultural norms?