Can we connect philosophy with racism?

[coberst]

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 man”.

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.”

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.”

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

[Eudaimonist]

And so coberst's ideological threads have hit a new low...


eudaimonia,

Mark

[premjan]

Philosophy, ideology, culture etc. are all created by people so can certain incorporate their prejudices.

[Cath B]

Philosophy, ideology, culture etc. are all created by people so can certain incorporate their prejudices.

Not sure what you're saying here premjan.

Not sure what coberst is saying either but at least your post is pithy enough for me to see at a glance that I don't understand it!

[premjan]

Was trying to respond to the OP question - can philosophy be connected with racism. The answer is I think yes as philosophy can be created to rationalize anything.

[Jobar]

The great majority of Southerners didn't own slaves. And there were plenty of white tradesmen, laborers, and farmers.

While it might be true that the wealthier members of Southern society looked down on labor, and it's certainly true that slavery was bad for the society as a whole, it's simply untrue that there was no laboring class. The amount of work necessary to run a largely agrarian economy meant that only the wealthiest could avoid physical labor.

[Jobar]

I think it's more interesting to look at the connection of theology, rather than philosophy, with racism and slavery. See for instance this post I made on TR (http://www.talkrational.org/showthread.php?p=189175#post189175) and subsequent discussion.

[DMB]

Another point is that customary thinking is not set in stone. It evolves. In early 19th-century Britain, aristocrats ("gentlemen") were supposed to receive an income from their landholdings and it was a bit disgraceful to be connected with "trade" (i.e. any kind of commerce). So it was largely the middle classes who made money out of the Industrial Revolution.

By the end of the century, many of those in "trade" had made huge fortunes and were enobled as a result. Of course, there was still a snobbery about old money versus new money and established noble titles against new ones, but quite quickly the old aristocrats began intermarrying with the new plutocracy and the distinctions were blurred.

Fast forward to the end of WW2, whwn a more egalitarian society and heavy taxation reduced the wealth of many aristocratic families and made huge squads of servants impossible. Since then you find a movement among the younger members of the aristocracy to seek paid jobs. The "girls in pearls" who used to adorn the first page in Country Life are still there, but more often than not, instead of being told that they are about to be married to Lord X, we now learn that they have just completed a course at a university and have started working at Y. No-one now would sniff at a fortune made in "trade".

[Ray Moscow]

The great majority of Southerners didn't own slaves. And there were plenty of white tradesmen, laborers, and farmers.

While it might be true that the wealthier members of Southern society looked down on labor, and it's certainly true that slavery was bad for the society as a whole, it's simply untrue that there was no laboring class. The amount of work necessary to run a largely agrarian economy meant that only the wealthiest could avoid physical labor.

My family is poor (working class) white trash, all the way back.

I think only about 2% of Southerners ever owned slaves, although there's little doubt that most of the others enabled the system in various ways, especially in their racism. This actually worked against the interest of most white Southerners, as the working-class whites in the North were on average more properous.

[coberst]

Was trying to respond to the OP question - can philosophy be connected with racism. The answer is I think yes as philosophy can be created to rationalize anything.

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.

A population that is unskilled in CT cannot be easily reasoned with and thus the leaders use emotional appeal. Thus the low level of sophistication becomes permanent in a democracy. If the population does not have a level of sophistication to recognize that they are not sufficiently sophisticated then they may not have the ability to become sophisticated. A vicious circle ensues.

Does this not insure the destruction of the human species when its technology reaches a critical level of too much power in the hands of too many fools?

[coberst]

The great majority of Southerners didn't own slaves. And there were plenty of white tradesmen, laborers, and farmers.

While it might be true that the wealthier members of Southern society looked down on labor, and it's certainly true that slavery was bad for the society as a whole, it's simply untrue that there was no laboring class. The amount of work necessary to run a largely agrarian economy meant that only the wealthiest could avoid physical labor.

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.”

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.

[Free in Freeport]

W.J. Cash said it's so, so it must be so. OOOOh!

[Free in Freeport]

The great majority of Southerners didn't own slaves. And there were plenty of white tradesmen, laborers, and farmers.

While it might be true that the wealthier members of Southern society looked down on labor, and it's certainly true that slavery was bad for the society as a whole, it's simply untrue that there was no laboring class. The amount of work necessary to run a largely agrarian economy meant that only the wealthiest could avoid physical labor.

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.”

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.

Learn more about military history. Soldiers in any nation that had strong military power fight valiently because they are programmed to do so.

[DMB]

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...

etc... (with a great deal of repetition from the OP).


Coberst, I am bothered that this looks very much like an attempt to argue from authority, suggesting that you know more than anyone else here. Such an assumption would be unwarranted.

I have been an autodidact for the past 55 years. So what? I see no reason to assume that just because I have read about something that therefore no-one else may know more about it than I do.

I think it would be a fair assumption that most of the members whom you will meet in the Philosophy and Morals forum may be both knowledgeable and critical thinkers.

I know most of the regulars here and over the years have been lucky enough to learn much from them. I think we can all benefit from the discussions and learn form one another's expertise.