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 manâ€.
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.â€
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.â€
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
Can we connect philosophy with racism?
Can we connect philosophy with racism?
In February I was in Louisiana for Mardi Gras and wanted to see the antebellum mansions so we drove to Natchez and toured 3. On the last one we had a tour guide who was black. She gave the best tour of the 3, very knowledgable, funny and a little strident when speaking of the slaves & their masters. I thought, perhaps this was deservedly so. It was getting near closing time when the tour was over. I asked the guides where the best restaurant in town was and they had a friendly argument about which one was the best. I took a bill for a tip out of my purse and started to hand it to our guide. She shook her head and said, "No, we can't accept tips." I was afraid I'd made a blunder and perhaps I'd insulted her. But then she said, "But if you go to the restaurant I suggested I'll let you buy me a Margarita." We did go to 'her' restaurant and had Margaritas while we watched a pre-Mardi Gras parade and had a lovely conversation. If I ever get back to Natchez (which I intend to do) I will look up Allison.
-
Chockygirl
- Posts: 175
- Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2006 6:15 pm
Can we connect philosophy with racism?
coberst;1202725 wrote: 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 an excellent question and one I haven't really thought about much before.
So,in essence you're suggesting that the mindset of a particular group of people was not only caused by racism,but also by a deeper feeling of superiority?
Keeping that thought in mind,what would have happened in the south if black slaves hadn't been used,would the southern white man have instigated a white slave culture?
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 an excellent question and one I haven't really thought about much before.
So,in essence you're suggesting that the mindset of a particular group of people was not only caused by racism,but also by a deeper feeling of superiority?
Keeping that thought in mind,what would have happened in the south if black slaves hadn't been used,would the southern white man have instigated a white slave culture?
Can we connect philosophy with racism?
Chockygirl;1202802 wrote:
What an excellent question and one I haven't really thought about much before.
So,in essence you're suggesting that the mindset of a particular group of people was not only caused by racism,but also by a deeper feeling of superiority?
Keeping that thought in mind,what would have happened in the south if black slaves hadn't been used,would the southern white man have instigated a white slave culture?
I cannot answer your question based upon any knowledge about the matter but I suspect that the South had no means to capture whites and thus enslave them.
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.â€
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.
What an excellent question and one I haven't really thought about much before.
So,in essence you're suggesting that the mindset of a particular group of people was not only caused by racism,but also by a deeper feeling of superiority?
Keeping that thought in mind,what would have happened in the south if black slaves hadn't been used,would the southern white man have instigated a white slave culture?
I cannot answer your question based upon any knowledge about the matter but I suspect that the South had no means to capture whites and thus enslave them.
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.â€
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.
Can we connect philosophy with racism?
When I was at school I remember reading some scientific journals of the time where doctors and church men reasoned that the african man did not have the same brain capacity as the white man.
They reasoned that he therefore had no way of rising to any fuction much beyond that of a trained monkey and as the church saw it these´heathen people´ had no morals and no understanding of right and wrong.
It was chilling to read how they justified the enslavement of fellow human beings but its more chilling to know there are still those among us who feel the same now.
They reasoned that he therefore had no way of rising to any fuction much beyond that of a trained monkey and as the church saw it these´heathen people´ had no morals and no understanding of right and wrong.
It was chilling to read how they justified the enslavement of fellow human beings but its more chilling to know there are still those among us who feel the same now.
Can we connect philosophy with racism?
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.
Can we connect philosophy with racism?
coberst;1202841 wrote:
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.
This answered questions I had about the "poor whites" It also prompted me to research "indentured servants" (which my ancestors kept, according to copies of legal documents I have, showing the recording of the contract of their indentured servitude.) I found several interesting articles, one of which deals with the Cherokees being driven out of Georgia (which another of my ancestors endured.) I found this definition in Wikipedia to be interesting:
Slavery in the United States
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
. . . . .
Before the widespread establishment of chattel slavery, much labor was organized under a system of bonded labor known as indentured servitude. This typically lasted for several years for white and black alike, and it was a means of using labor to pay the costs of transporting people to the colonies.[1] By the 18th century, court rulings established the racial basis of the American incarnation of slavery to apply chiefly to Black Africans and people of African descent, and occasionally to Native Americans. A 1705 Virginia law stated slavery would apply to those peoples from nations that were not Christian.[2] In part because of the success of tobacco as a cash crop in the Southern colonies, its labor-intensive character caused planters to import more slaves for labor by the end of the 17th century than did the northern colonies. The South had a significantly higher number and proportion of slaves in the population.[1] Religious differences contributed to this geographic disparity as well.[citation needed]
From 1654 until 1865, slavery for life was legal within the boundaries of much of the present United States.[3] Most slaves were black and were held by whites, although some Native Americans and free blacks also held slaves; there were a small number of white slaves as well. The majority of slaveholding was in the southern United States where most slaves were engaged in an efficient machine-like gang system of agriculture, with farms of fifteen or more slaves featuring a higher factor of productivity compared to those farms without slaves. According to the 1860 U.S. census, nearly four million slaves were held in a total population of just over 12 million in the 15 states in which slavery was legal.[4] Of all 8,289,782 free persons in the 15 slave states, 393,967 people (4.8%) held slaves, with the average number of slaves held by any single owner being 10.[4][5] The majority of slaves were held by planters, defined by historians as those who held 20 or more slaves.[6] Ninety-five percent of black people lived in the South, comprising one-third of the population there, as opposed to 2% of the population of the North.[7] Despite being an efficient economic system, slavery did not spread northward due to the nature of the soil in the region and the types of crops typically produced there. At the time, principal importers of slaves were sugar and cotton growing regions. Both of these crops were more suitably farmed on plantations and in the soil of the southern regions. Thus, when land more suitable for these crops was discovered towards the west, slavery spread westward and not to the north. The wealth of the United States in the first half of the 19th century was greatly enhanced by the labor of African Americans.[8][9]
Slavery was the major issue of the American Civil War in which the Union emerged victorious, after which the slave-labor system was abolished in the South.[10] This contributed to the decline of the postbellum Southern economy, but it was most affected by the continuing decline in the price of cotton through the end of the century.[11] That made it difficult for the region to recover from the war, as did its comparative lack of infrastructure, which kept products from markets. The South faced significant new competition from foreign cotton producers such as India and Egypt. Northern industry, which had expanded rapidly before and during the war, surged even further ahead of the South's agricultural economy. Industrialists from northeastern states came to dominate many aspects of the nation's life, including social and some aspects of political affairs. The planter class of the South lost power temporarily. The rapid economic development following the Civil War accelerated the development of the modern U.S. industrial economy.
Twelve million Africans were shipped to the Americas from the 16th to the 19th centuries.[12][13] Of these, an estimated 645,000 were brought to what is now the United States. The largest number were shipped to Brazil (see slavery in Brazil).[14] The slave population in the United States had grown to four million by the 1860 Census.[15]
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.
This answered questions I had about the "poor whites" It also prompted me to research "indentured servants" (which my ancestors kept, according to copies of legal documents I have, showing the recording of the contract of their indentured servitude.) I found several interesting articles, one of which deals with the Cherokees being driven out of Georgia (which another of my ancestors endured.) I found this definition in Wikipedia to be interesting:
Slavery in the United States
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
. . . . .
Before the widespread establishment of chattel slavery, much labor was organized under a system of bonded labor known as indentured servitude. This typically lasted for several years for white and black alike, and it was a means of using labor to pay the costs of transporting people to the colonies.[1] By the 18th century, court rulings established the racial basis of the American incarnation of slavery to apply chiefly to Black Africans and people of African descent, and occasionally to Native Americans. A 1705 Virginia law stated slavery would apply to those peoples from nations that were not Christian.[2] In part because of the success of tobacco as a cash crop in the Southern colonies, its labor-intensive character caused planters to import more slaves for labor by the end of the 17th century than did the northern colonies. The South had a significantly higher number and proportion of slaves in the population.[1] Religious differences contributed to this geographic disparity as well.[citation needed]
From 1654 until 1865, slavery for life was legal within the boundaries of much of the present United States.[3] Most slaves were black and were held by whites, although some Native Americans and free blacks also held slaves; there were a small number of white slaves as well. The majority of slaveholding was in the southern United States where most slaves were engaged in an efficient machine-like gang system of agriculture, with farms of fifteen or more slaves featuring a higher factor of productivity compared to those farms without slaves. According to the 1860 U.S. census, nearly four million slaves were held in a total population of just over 12 million in the 15 states in which slavery was legal.[4] Of all 8,289,782 free persons in the 15 slave states, 393,967 people (4.8%) held slaves, with the average number of slaves held by any single owner being 10.[4][5] The majority of slaves were held by planters, defined by historians as those who held 20 or more slaves.[6] Ninety-five percent of black people lived in the South, comprising one-third of the population there, as opposed to 2% of the population of the North.[7] Despite being an efficient economic system, slavery did not spread northward due to the nature of the soil in the region and the types of crops typically produced there. At the time, principal importers of slaves were sugar and cotton growing regions. Both of these crops were more suitably farmed on plantations and in the soil of the southern regions. Thus, when land more suitable for these crops was discovered towards the west, slavery spread westward and not to the north. The wealth of the United States in the first half of the 19th century was greatly enhanced by the labor of African Americans.[8][9]
Slavery was the major issue of the American Civil War in which the Union emerged victorious, after which the slave-labor system was abolished in the South.[10] This contributed to the decline of the postbellum Southern economy, but it was most affected by the continuing decline in the price of cotton through the end of the century.[11] That made it difficult for the region to recover from the war, as did its comparative lack of infrastructure, which kept products from markets. The South faced significant new competition from foreign cotton producers such as India and Egypt. Northern industry, which had expanded rapidly before and during the war, surged even further ahead of the South's agricultural economy. Industrialists from northeastern states came to dominate many aspects of the nation's life, including social and some aspects of political affairs. The planter class of the South lost power temporarily. The rapid economic development following the Civil War accelerated the development of the modern U.S. industrial economy.
Twelve million Africans were shipped to the Americas from the 16th to the 19th centuries.[12][13] Of these, an estimated 645,000 were brought to what is now the United States. The largest number were shipped to Brazil (see slavery in Brazil).[14] The slave population in the United States had grown to four million by the 1860 Census.[15]
Can we connect philosophy with racism?
This from Cherokee Phoenix in an e-mail I received yesterday:
"This week, the Cherokee Heritage Center opens an art exhibit featuring interpretations of syllabary characters using a variety of media. The exhibit, entitled "Generations: Cherokee Language through Art," will be on display until Aug. 16.
The Cherokee Nation is under fire again from U.S. Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.) who is seeking to terminate the tribe until citizenship is restored to descendants of freedmen. This is an important story because Rep. Watson is using her congressional power to threaten the sovereign status of the Cherokee Nation. We encourage our readers to follow our coverage of this controversy.
Thanks for supporting the Cherokee Phoenix weekly and we'll see you next week!"
This from Wikipedia:
In the 21st century, a dispute continues between the Cherokee Nation and descendants of freedmen of Cherokee masters over the rights of the freedmen to membership (or citizenship) in the Cherokee tribe. It is an issue because of the benefits that membership grants. Descendants of freedmen believe that emancipation granted them citizenship, in their instance, citizenship in the Cherokee Nation.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedman"
Video: Cherokee Heritage Center exhibit celebrates Cherokee language
"This week, the Cherokee Heritage Center opens an art exhibit featuring interpretations of syllabary characters using a variety of media. The exhibit, entitled "Generations: Cherokee Language through Art," will be on display until Aug. 16.
The Cherokee Nation is under fire again from U.S. Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.) who is seeking to terminate the tribe until citizenship is restored to descendants of freedmen. This is an important story because Rep. Watson is using her congressional power to threaten the sovereign status of the Cherokee Nation. We encourage our readers to follow our coverage of this controversy.
Thanks for supporting the Cherokee Phoenix weekly and we'll see you next week!"
This from Wikipedia:
In the 21st century, a dispute continues between the Cherokee Nation and descendants of freedmen of Cherokee masters over the rights of the freedmen to membership (or citizenship) in the Cherokee tribe. It is an issue because of the benefits that membership grants. Descendants of freedmen believe that emancipation granted them citizenship, in their instance, citizenship in the Cherokee Nation.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedman"
Video: Cherokee Heritage Center exhibit celebrates Cherokee language