Posted on 01/17/2020 7:56:00 AM PST by SeekAndFind
How does this apply to Jean-Jacques Rousseau?
The difference wasn't between "European man" and others but between Christians and non-Christians. European Christians considered lands not under the rule of a Christian ruler to be terra nullius, land belonging to nobody, which could be claimed by the first European explorer to reach it.
Before the Portuguese exploration of Africa or the European colonization of the New World, Europeans had been enslaving white non-Christians. The English word "slave" comes from the ethnic term Slav, because so many Slavs were enslaved in the Middle Ages.
Ironically, present-day Slavs are descended from the ones who did not get enslaved.
The claim is not that slavery itself was profitable or workable over the long haul (I think industrialization and mechanization would have killed slavery in the US in a few more decades without a civil war), but that fortunes made in the slave trade/triangular trade itself, from slave-produced sugar, then from slave-produced cotton during the ante-Bellum period, were critical to the capital accumulation necessary for the Industrial Revolution, in which cotton textiles were a key element. Britain’s global empire and economic domination arose from that base.
Much statistical and historical evidence for this can be brought to bear. My problem with it is that obsession with one factor crowds out proper consideration of others. There is also the problem of why slavery in other contexts produced other results (it stifled technology in Rome; it produced massive amounts of precious metals in the Spanish Empire which became moribund).
J-J lamented Western alienation from Nature, and advocated moving back towards animal existence, which to him involved more emotion, less rationalism.
“When European Man and African Man first encountered each other...”
Does he mean when the Greeks/Romans first encountered the Egyptians? What does he mean by European Man and African Man?
How about a NYT study of slavery in Sudan and Libya?
Slavery in the United States = 1776 - 1865
89 years, not 400 years
The Republican Party was formed in 1854. It came to power in 1860 when it won Congress and the POTUS. Nearly all slaves were emancipated by the Republicans in 1863. All slaves were emancipated by the Republicans in 1865.
3 years of slavery under Republican rule, not 400 years.
Before 1776, it was British slavery.
After 1865 was the Democrat Party treating blacks as a separate society, often denying them basic rights as citizens. A little after 1865, the KKK was formed by Democrats, killing and terrorizing blacks for over a hundred years.
Just call the racist pigs at the NYT Nazis. That will end their slavery narrative real quick. If it goes to the next level, knock those Nazi pigs on their smelly asses. Debate over.
I’d like to know how you got to Rousseau.
This essay is not leftist and was published by a strongly conservative publisher. It contains too many unnecessary literary flourishes, however.
Slaves bought from muslim slave traders.
Who bought the slave. Christians.
My mistake! I lost patience with all the European Man, African Man and Indigenous Man generalizations and assumed this piece was going in a somewhat similar direction to the slimes article it was responding to.
“Primordial cosmogony was always in flux, dependent on the weather, the unruly demons, or the ineffable gods who ruled the cosmos, or the tribal chiefs who had access to them and whose whims and moods determined the moods and nature of the gods themselves.”
The names and titles have changed but other than that it does not sound much different than what we have today... I think that European man is regressing.
Should have said “articles” within the project that the author was responding to.
Understand, I’ve never actually read Rousseau, but his reputation is that of having established the meme of the “noble savage” - and wouldn’t Africa have been a wonderful place to look for savages who think differently than Europeans?That seemed to perhaps relate to this article, and I kind of thought you might take an interest in it. That any comment you might have on it could be of interest.
I’ve only read a little bit of Rousseau(what I saw, I did not like) but those thoughts on “noble savage” are not something I was aware of.
As far as 1619 goes, I think the NY Times jumped the shark. Ever since they published it they have been the recipient of consistent criticism and controversy. I look at 1619 as an opportunity and I know I’m really alone in that.
Elevating some works from the 1800’s would only amplify the problem the Times face, something I am more than happy to do. They need more problems, and their existing problems need to be made bigger. Unfortunately I can’t move any faster than I am, but I am pushing the ball forward on this.
The creation of the audio of the Original Draft of the Declaration was also a part of this effort.
A dedicated team of activist citizen historians could advance on the Times much quicker.
Excellent summation of the history of American slavery. I would also add that the founders outlawed slavery in the northwest territories in 1787. Then created a constitution that allowed states to outlaw slavery. As far as I can tell from my research we were one of the first countries to outlaw slavery in any part of our nation.
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