Was Lynching Terrorism?

[Pangur Bán]

Hmm, yeah, I don't think 'the North' or its elites ever cared about that. Slave-labour was deviant, the powerful preferred wage labour at this stage; slaveholding undermined labour recruitment and competitive advantages for businesses from non-slave-owning regions, but no-one cared about black people getting equal protection by the law except black people themselves and a few zealous ideologues.

 

[Farm Boy]

That grossly undervalues the price paid in blood and misery by the many in favor of simple blind cynicism of the few.

 

[Pangur Bán]

The ten-year old who polished your laptop, and the 8-year-old who poisoned himself to get parts for it, are they victims of your cynicism, or that of the few?

 

[Farm Boy]

I own no laptops. But that's besides the point, I own plenty of things.

But more on point, yes, the world is a pile of shat. It's always been a pile of shat, it'll always be a pile of shat. Congratulations, you've found a pile of shat. Looked real hard, didn't ya? Every now and then though, people manage to actually get themselves steeled to pay for making the pile not quite so stinky. Within the framework of your example I was taking exception to, this is one of those moments. But by all means, focus on the shat if that's more your thing.

 

[Pangur Bán]

You are posting on some kind of computer, and it doesn't really matter if it's a laptop or an ipad or a desktop.

I was testing your theory about the mechanics of history. You apparently believe that either 1) people die or suffer in a noble cause or 2) because of someone's cynicism. I was just wondering which one you would use to explain the suffering you inflict on the 8 year old collecting parts for your computer.

When you've thought about that you might understand it, and if you do you will understand how the elites of Civil War era were happy to send the little guy to suffering and death.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Hmm, yeah, I don't think 'the North' or its elites ever cared about that. Slave-labour was deviant, the powerful preferred wage labour at this stage; slaveholding undermined labour recruitment and competitive advantages for businesses from non-slave-owning regions, but no-one cared about black people getting equal protection by the law except black people themselves and a few zealous ideologues.

People don't have authentically to care about something for it to operate as an ideology, and be resented and resisted as such.

 

[Farm Boy]

You are posting on some kind of computer, and it doesn't really matter if it's a laptop or an ipad or a desktop.

I'm aware of the point, in fact I stipulated it when I said "that's beside the point." It was an illustrative statement meant to draw attention to the presumptions you've based into my environment and particularly thoughts. Such as:

I was testing your theory about the mechanics of history. You apparently believe that either 1) people die or suffer in a noble cause or 2) because of someone's cynicism. I was just wondering which one you would use to explain the suffering you inflict on the 8 year old collecting parts for your computer.

When you've thought about that you might understand it, and if you do you will understand how the elites of Civil War era were happy to send the little guy to suffering and death.

I reject the "or," both inclusive and exclusive if limited to your 1) and 2). I also reject your argument that "If only Farm Boy would think then he might be smart enough to understand I am right."

 

[Flying Pig]

Pangur, you're in just as good a position to understand why people buy things whose production hurts other people. I presume you don't buy crocodile leather or blood diamonds, though?

 

[Pangur Bán]

@Farm Boy. You're only rejecting it now because I've brought it to your attention and drawn out its absurdity.

You'll deny this of course, So entertain me and lets hear a post facto explanation of your earlier statement that my assertion 'grossly undervalues the price paid in blood and misery by the many in favor of simple blind cynicism of the few'..
'

 

[Pangur Bán]

Pangur, you're in just as good a position to understand why people buy things whose production hurts other people. I presume you don't buy crocodile leather or blood diamonds, though?

Out of my price range!

I do benefit from their trade. I also benefit from being in the upper echelons of an international economic system reliant on practices that inflict hunger, illness, murder, rape, genocide and general misery on a large portion of my fellow man. I am largely unconscious of its wrongs and, as an individual am powerless to do anything much about it. Yet in having this state I am one with the slave owners and other perpetrators of terrible things who lived in the past.

 

[Traitorfish]

When you've thought about that you might understand it, and if you do you will understand how the elites of Civil War era were happy to send the little guy to suffering and death.

I think Farm Boy's point is that the little guy did not march to suffering and death for the sake of the elite's cynicism, because he took his cause- Union, free soil, states' rights, whatever- seriously enough to bet his health and life on it.

It's what I think of as the "Rage Against the Machine problem": it's widely believed that the band Rage Against the Machine made themselves appear foolish by signing with a major label. But perhaps it was the label who should be seen as foolish for agreeing to distribute radical propaganda? We tend to assume the former because the label appear to have achieved their goal, making a bunch of money, while the band did not achieve theirs, radical social change. But that doesn't really tell us which perception is more reasonable, only who won: it's teleological reasoning. We can't actually conclude from the outcome if the first or second summary was correct, or both, or neither.

Unless it can be demonstrated that the causes which the "little guy" fought for were mere ideology, all image and no substance, it seems not only cynical but also simply incorrect to emphasise the motivations of elites so exclusively simply because they got their way and the little guy did not. Whether or not we lend much credence to their motivation of the "little guy", I think we should still be willing to take him seriously.

 

[Pangur Bán]

I guess the question of why northerners fought can be answered in part by looking at the propaganda of the era and looking at percentages of volunteers and so forth. It still wouldn't alter the actual causes of the war. Similarly, sure, many Americans joined the army to liberate Iraq from Saddam's freedom-crushing or stop the Taliban's oppression of women, but that wouldn't change anyone's mind about why these wars were initiated. You might as well explain the wars by saying the 'tanks and planes were angry'.

 

[Traitorfish]

If you think that human beings have the same degree of historical agency as tanks and planes, I guess.

 

[Pangur Bán]

I think those guys do, for all practical purposes.

 

[Flying Pig]

That's lovely to hear, thank you. So what is it that gives you the self-awareness and freedom that we mere machines lack?

 

[Pangur Bán]

Education I guess, I don't know, if you say I have these, I believe you.

Anyway, it's about power. The common man like myself doesn't start wars, his betters start wars and then he internalizes whatever propaganda the betters think will be most plausible to him to gain his active consent. Or he doesn't and he's conscripted. Doesn't matter. That's industrial civilization.

 

[Flying Pig]

You clearly think you're exempt from this logic, since you've clearly not given your active consent to the way it works. Why is that?

 

[Pangur Bán]

We're both subject to this logic. I know the crab-in-a-bucket come back is always very tempting, but what about my previous posts makes my position on this appear ambiguous?

 

[Flying Pig]

'Those people' automatically excludes the speaker, so can be teased out into 'people who are not me have the same degree of agency as tanks and planes, but I don't'. You're talking to one of 'those people', hence my slight indignation.

 

[Pangur Bán]

Well, I was referring to soldiers fighting a war in the middle of the 19th century. Don't want to appear above my station or anything, but I don't think it is too much hubris to distinguish myself from 19th-century soldiers.