My wife watched the Democratic town hall meeting last night — she’s becoming a fierce Sanders supporter. I mostly ignored it, so I missed this comment by Clinton, on Abraham Lincoln:
You know, he was willing to reconcile and forgive. And I don’t know what our country might have been like had he not been murdered, but I bet that it might have been a little less rancorous, a little more forgiving and tolerant, that might possibly have brought people back together more quickly.
But instead, you know, we had Reconstruction, we had the re-instigation of segregation and Jim Crow. We had people in the South feeling totally discouraged and defiant. So, I really do believe he could have very well put us on a different path.
Ta-Nehisi Coates noticed it, though. And I learned something: this version of American history has a name.
Sometimes going under the handle of “The Dunning School,” and other times going under the “Lost Cause” label, the basic idea is that Reconstruction was a mistake brought about by vengeful Northern radicals.
He goes on to explain what was offensive about Clinton’s casual remark.
Yet until relatively recently, this self-serving version of history was dominant. It is almost certainly the version fed to Hillary Clinton during her school years, and possibly even as a college student. Hillary Clinton is no longer a college student. And the fact that a presidential candidate would imply that Jim Crow and Reconstruction were equal, that the era of lynching and white supremacist violence would have been prevented had that same violence not killed Lincoln, and that the violence was simply the result of rancor, the absence of a forgiving spirit, and an understandably “discouraged” South is chilling.
I have spent the past two years somewhat concerned about the effects of national amnesia, largely because I believe that a problem can not be effectively treated without being effectively diagnosed. I don’t know how you diagnose the problem of racism in America without understanding the actual history. In the Democratic Party, there is, on the one hand, a candidate who seems comfortable doling out the kind of myths that undergirded racist violence. And on the other is a candidate who seems uncomfortable asking whether the history of racist violence, in and of itself, is worthy of confrontation.
That other candidate is Bernie Sanders. I don’t think Coates is thrilled with any of the choices in this next presidential election.
Huh. That’s not at all what I have heard referred to as “Lost Cause” history, which — I thought — was more the claim that the Civil War was justified on the South’s side, but unwinnable by sheer military factors. (Basic citation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cause_of_the_Confederacy .) I seriously doubt Hillary thinks the South was in any way justified in starting the war.
Lincoln’s plan for Reconstruction was certainly gentler than the one that eventually got carried out — Lincoln’s personal racial views are debated, of course, but I can see his plan being less accommodating of the rights of newly freed ex-slaves than Radical Reconstruction, which of course would be a mark against it.
Still, a comparison of the results of the Treaty of Versailles and the Marshall Plan does offer evidence of the utility of victor’s magnanimity, which I suspect would be Hillary’s main point to make in that direction. (If that magnanimity came at the cost of the civil rights of the black population of America, that would be a sound objection, of course.)
Pretty hard to see how to do reconstruction “magnanimously.” The slaveholders had lost their property, and African Americans had the right to vote, which they exercised, thereby electing African Americans to office. That’s what the former slaveholders objected to, and they reversed both developments by mass terrorism, virtually re-enslaving through the sharecropping system, and of course depriving Africans of political and civil rights. What compromises would you propose?
And the fact that a presidential candidate would imply that Jim Crow and Reconstruction were equal’ what is the foul talking about? Where in Clinton’s comment is there anything that could remotely be interpreted as such?
And just what is wrong with expressing the idea that things might (she did not say would) have been different had Lincoln not been assassinated?
Is this just a case of “White folks aren’t allowed an opinion on this subject”, because ….
Sorry, got autocorrect education. Should have read ‘what is the fooltalking about ‘
If I understand correctly (and, I freely admit, Ta-Nehisi Coates is much better informed on American history than I am), Lincoln was more eager to regularize the state governments and return them to representation in the Congress, contingent on their approval of at least the 13th Amendment. (I am unsure of the status of the 14th and 15th at the time of his death.) The Radicals had more stringent requirements. If enfranchisement and representation is the goal, giving a state federal representation sooner would seem to expand the horizons of possible representation.
Much of the benefit of the Marshall Plan over Versailles was the financial investment involved in keeping the defeated enemy from becoming economically depressed, which tends to heighten internal stresses. It is true that I see no direct difference between Lincoln’s and Congressional Reconstruction on this account, but increased investment in the South is a plausible outcome of faster regularization and a more Lincoln-inflected spirit. That said, I am aware that I am in the realm of speculation and have no further facts on which to base any firmer statement on the matter.
Funny, just this weekend, yesterday even, Coates was Bernie Enemy #1 on Twitter for criticizing Sanders on reparations. Amazing how silent the Berniebros are about it today.
Sanders is clearly the only reasonable candidate – and I think your electability objections aren’t valid any more, PZ. I hope you vote for him in your state primary.
I don’t get how Lincoln being around a while longer to be his especially conciliatory or forgiving self (if indeed he was) would’ve had any sort of impact like this. It could just be a lot of noise coming from Clinton’s mouth, without much theorizing or storytelling underlying it, which is merely supposed to sound pleasant to somebody. Who that somebody is, it’s hard to say, but my guess is independent voters and right-wing Democrats.
It does sound like the North didn’t appease the South enough — because (without him or relative to him) the rest of the Northerners were rancorous, unforgiving, intolerant, etc. But it’s awfully confusing… what exactly was the North doing wrong, during or after the war?? Perhaps the nicest thing she could be saying is that they were too radical or too ambitious … but could that even be remotely accurate?
Or maybe it could be construed as a bizarre claim that Southerners loved Lincoln (but not other Republicans) and would’ve actually fixed their own rancorous, unforgiving intolerance, if only he had been there to guide them. Or while they may not fix their own mistakes, at least they would perhaps feel less discouraged and defiant about it, presumably because they’d be presented with little to discourage their previous way of life so there’d be little to defy. The notion that Southerners were merely “discouraged” (but were fighting for something honorable and not fundamentally misguided) is a pretty fantastic one…. I don’t know why any sensible person would believe that.
The trouble for Sanders is convincing enough people to overcome the electability concern, effectively a giant Prisoners’ Dilemma: one can only vote for Sanders if one can rely on enough of one’s neighbours to jump in too. Given the prospect of President Trump or Cruz if he fails on that electability question, it’s a tough bet to take: are enough of your neighbours also optimistically inclined, or does cynicism prevail? For me (with no more skin in the game than any neighbour of the US on the planet), it’s too big a risk. I’d be holding my nose and voting Clinton, and STRONGLY recommending that she take Sanders as VP, and fight to incorporate his ideas. Use this election to soften up the electorate on electing a socialist, not so much for Bernie as for the next populist lefty who comes along.
Two cents Canadian, worth less than the electrons I’m using to offer the comment.
lambert #3
Right there. Framing them as related, equal, similar, negative consequences.
I’m still baffled by this idea that Sanders is “uncomfortable asking whether the history of racist violence, in and of itself, is worthy of confrontation” when he is the one that recruited a Black Lives Matter organiser to his staff.
I now flat-out reject the ‘electability’ argument re: Sanders. In a year where the Republicans were even remotely interested in appearing centrist, Sanders would be a non-contender. But the fact is, by the time they actually clear out Trump and (hopefully) Cruz, we’ll still have Rubio–who is still very far right. Bernie can win (not, “Guaranteed will win”, but “can win”) against almost anyone who seems plausible to make it to the Republican ticket at this point.
lambert: At issue is the idea that without Reconstruction, things would have been better, not merely ‘different’. (No, Hillary doesn’t use the word better, but she does make a lot of predictions of a softer, fluffier Union.) Yes, a different regime might have instituted a gentler re-integration. And it’s perfectly possible that the same forces that drove Jim Crow would’ve used that faster path to push through those abominable laws earlier, and possibly even been able to influence national politics to get them into place. In other words, it could just as easily been worse.
I’m reminded of a short story I read awhile back, that I cannot remember the name of for the life of me. It was in an alt-history anthology. In it, the author posits a U.S. where there is no Civil War, because it gets averted via diplomacy and politics, and secession is avoided. As a number of conservatives like to claim this would have worked, slavery is largely abandoned as an agricultural practice, because of economic realities.
However, this doesn’t make everything sunshine and roses. Instead, the plantation owners just ‘free’ their slaves by kicking them out. This leads to a great deal of anxiety about roving masses of unemployed, uneducated black men. So the states come up with a solution for the problem–a very capitalist solution. First, the law states that you can’t simply ‘free’ a slave–if you let one wander off your plantation, he’s still your property, so you are held accountable for anything he does. Then, a company offers to open up a string of camps where, for a modest fee (shared between the state government and an initial payment by the slave-holder), they will ‘humanely’ house unwanted slaves. Naturally, they’ll keep the men and women separately, so there won’t be a new generation to worry about.
Of course, like all capitalist solutions, the numbers don’t work out quite so well. So you end up with former slaves now being held in longhouses that most closely resemble the original slave ships–maybe not quite so crowded, but no sanitation, lousy food in short rations, and so on. And then, when that even turns out to be more than the states are willing to pay for, well, they come up with another… solution. One accomplished quietly, in the middle of the night, with no official documentation, but which everyone knows about.
And in the story, a woman who is something of a psychic gets a vision of the horrors of the Civil War, the war that was averted–and realizes it would still have been a better way to go.
I don’t think this is even a question of faulty history. I think it’s just lazy, non-historical reasoning along these lines:
P1. Great presidents are willing to reconcile, forgive, and work with the other side.*
P2. Abraham Lincoln was a great president. (Generally taken as a given by everyone other than libertarians.)
C. Therefore, Abraham Lincoln was willing to reconcile, forgive, and work with the other side.
*-This is more or less holy writ among the mainstream media to whom Hilary is trying to appeal. Plus, Hilary needs to be able to say something other than “look, unless something amazing happens in the House elections, there’s going to be 4-8 more years of gridlock between my White House and a Republican House, but that’s still better than having a Republican in the White House, too.”
Five myths about Reconstruction.
The “problem” with Reconstruction was that it was working. African Americans were getting political economic power in the south. Not enough to “take over”, but enough to scare a racist society and bring on a backlash.
A very dubious premise. The number of slaves in the USA rose from around 700,000 in 1790 to around 4,000,000 in 1860 – a key factor being the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793. It was extremely profitable for the owners of large numbers of slaves, and there’s no reason I know of to assume it would have ceased to be so. After all, various forms of slavery and quasi-slavery remain so today.
I wonder if the Reconstruction governments would have received more Federal aid if Johnson had not been President following Lincoln’s assassination.
Holms #11:
Ta-nehisi Coates following up on Sanders, before Clinton’s remarks last night: Bernie Sanders and the Liberal Imagination
@17 Jesus Christ, I’ve always supported the idea of reparations and I do think Sanders’ position is a little cowardly considering everything else he’s fought for, but there’s kind of a wide gap between “doesn’t support reparations” and “supports 200 years of slavery and oppression”. There is a little fucking nuance in there.
Nick Gots@ 15. Indeed, sharecropping was a form of quasi-slavery. Black men were also re-enslaved through mass arrests and prison labor. Slavery in one form or another continued in the south, until the mechanization of agriculture, basically. That put agricultural wage earners out of work as well, obviously, but a slave system worked economically in the south just fine until then.
#18 zibble, where are you even getting quote “supports 200 years of slavery and oppression” ? The heck with nuance, that just seems pulled out of thin air.
Re: Coates critique of Sanders
Coates is fundamentally misunderstanding Sanders and his goals.
Coates argument is that since Sanders is a radical liberal politician who is only trying to bring radical liberal positions into the public discourse, ignoring reparations is akin to publicly denouncing the idea.
This first problem is that Sanders is not radical. He uses the word often, but it is said sarcastically as in, “want to hear a radical idea? How about we change things so we don’t have our seniors dying of hunger or cold because they can’t afford food and heating.” Sanders could easily be a Republican in the 50s and 60s, his ideas are that mainstream.
The second problem is that Coates not only doesn’t believe Sanders can win, he believes that Sanders never wanted to win and just wanted to push the Overton window a little left. Both are wrong.
Both Bernie and Jane have said in multiple public interviews what their campaign strategy is: take all the issues that are favored by a large majority of Americans but are not even talked about by the establishment media and politicians, bundle those up into a platform, and bang on it as hard as you can for as long as you can. If you are offering what the people want and no one else is, you can win a democratic vote. And Bernie has always been in it to win it.
If you package poison pills that no one supports into your platform, you are going to lose, as that will be where the focus will be put by your opponents. Reparations has such minimal support amongst the populace that if you try to run on it in a national election you will lose and lose badly.
I dispute that
It only helped to maintain the power of the rich, it if anything increased the differences between the rich and everyone else. It gave the poor white no real power it just put in place or continued the illusions of racism giving them some one lower than they were and was in general anti unions making it difficult for the lower classes the opportunity of recognizing their true plight and the main sources problems maintaining the power imbalance fostered the poor state of education generally. I have to wonder why the industrial development of the south seems to have made such an advance post civil-rights improvements since the 60’s, the sun belt and all.
We forget what MLK had to say about the poverty that was pervasive and only remember his stand against racism.
uncle frogy
@22
You’d probably be interested in the works of William Julius Wilson – he wrote a fair amount about the increasing role of classism over overt racism and the role it plays in the disenfranchisement of the african american community. I don’t really agree with him as a whole, but it is of sociological value.
Reparations are morally bullshit. The moral idea is that because some people were harmed in the past, their far removed descendants somehow deserve recompense from the far removed descendants of the wrong-doers. It’s the same moral bullshit of original sin, particularly the idea that sin is (sometimes?) inherited.
No one is responsible for the harms of 150 years ago because everyone who is responsible is dead. Similarly, no one deserves recompense for being harmed by deeds done 150 years ago, because all such people are dead.
Of course, I’m entirely on board with class-based policies focused on fixing problems in the here and now, because the facts on the ground is that there is a class of society that is marginalized right now. These policies may look very much like reparations, but IMHO it’s important to make the moral distinction.
Some people may say that my position may be entirely semantics, but I think that there’s a very different impact on public discourse and so-called “divisiveness”. We should be helping people who are alive today, focusing on the problems of today. Knowledge of the past can surely be useful in that goal. However, no one is morally responsible for the actions of their ancestors, and no one deserves money because of harm done to their ancestors.
And, see, I’d argue that enacting policies that promote equity among the people that were disadvantaged due to the harm done to their ancestors is a form of reparations.
To Vivec
It shouldn’t matter that they were disadvantaged by the actions of our ancestors as opposed to some other reason. What should matter is that they are disadvantaged, and we should take corrective actions for the betterment of people alive today.
“Reparations”, as a word, means some sort of recompense for harms done, and in this context, it specifically means recompense for harms by actions performed in the long ago past by people who are mostly or entirely dead today, to be rewarded from the descendants of those who did the harm, to the descendants of those who received the harm. I still put it that this is a morally bankrupt idea worthy of nothing but scorn. This is a kind of family debt, or blood debt, passed on from parents to children to their children in perpetuity, and this is a pernicious and evil moral belief that needs to die.
I disagree, but it’s not really a hill I care enough about to die on, so sure.
You’re asking people to be held responsible and to spend their time, money, labor, etc., in order to pay the sins of their parents, grandparents, great grandparents, etc. I find that nauseating. I’m surprised you think that kind of moral reasoning is ok.
EnlightenmentLiberal, you misunderstand, whether wilfully or not.
What you interpret as “You’re asking people to be held responsible and to spend their time, money, labor, etc., in order to pay the sins of their parents, grandparents, great grandparents, etc.” should be more appropriately interpreted as “You’re asking people who yet enjoy the benefit from the sins of their parents, grandparents, great grandparents to be accept the responsibility of providing recompense to those who yet suffer the consequence of those same sins”.
(You find the latter equally nauseating?)
That’s not exactly the myth I grew up with in the South. It wasn’t “vengeful” Yankees, it was greedy Yankees. Northern industrialists and waves of Carpet Baggers (delightfully depicted in Gone With the Wind, of course). Reconstruction, like the whole slavery issue, was just a ploy to put wealthy Northern boots on the poor, poor Southern white men’s necks, and of course, steal the pride of Southern womanhood.
After Lincoln was martyred and turned into a national saint, the attitude toward him in the South softened somewhat so that the myth evolved into: had he lived, he would have treated the South fairer than those who followed him.
Do note that the first president to manage Reconstruction, Andrew Johnson, was a Southerner. He did not prosecute the ring leaders of the insurrection. He was not a big supporter of equal rights for former slaves. And, the basis for Jim Crow began during his term.
The Northern myth is that a morally outraged people, angry at the murder of their beloved leader and the horrible cost of the war, pressed for more strident treatment of the Rebels.
Anyway, such are myths. People love to invent origin myths…the Bible is full of them, but you know that…and truth is the first victim of any history. It’s difficult to deduce past reality, even a relatively recent past. I’m not sure how we talk reliably about anything that happened more than a few minutes ago.
I don’t find the concept of real life monetary debts being passed on from father to son morally wrong, so I don’t really see much wrong with reparations.
One big problem with the idea of reparations is that they are paid by governmental taxes. Taxes are paid by the people who came over on a plane last week and are residing here for their employment. Taxes are also paid by the citizen who just passed their citizenship test last month. Taxes are paid by the people whose parents and grandparents moved to this country over the past 150 years. None of those people were involved in American slavery because it was abolished before they lived here. Why should they be paying reparations?
Now, to go along with what EnlightenmentLiberal says, some of those same people that have come to the United States in the past 150 years are just as downtrodden as those whose ancestors were slaves. Also, some who are descended from slaves are quite well off, much better off than most of the people reading this blog. Why should those people whose families have lived here for only 100 years not get help? Why should those who are better off than 60% of the country get further financial help?
I am not against reparations, per se, but it has been so long since the civil war that reparations paid to the descendants of slaves (if they can even be reliably identified, especially the ones who outwardly look Caucasian/white) essentially mean nothing. What does mean something is helping those who are in need now, whatever their heritage. And, yes, helping equalize relations between the races, including those who have only lived in this country for a relatively short time.
I do have a problem with intergenerational debt, but I think that if we did establish a Truth and Reconciliation Committee to look at the legacy and damage of white Supremacy, it would probably focus more on what happened under Jim Crow and in the 20th century rather than slavery (as well as existing issues with racism). There’s precedent for this with Oklahoma’s early 1990s committee on the 1920 Tulsa Riot, which came up with some recommendations for amelioration (some of which were adopted).
Keep in mind that even if you discount the idea of individual intergenerational debt (and I do – I’m not going to demand that the descendants of Robert E. Lee pay back the US government for damage done by their ancestor), it’s a different matter when you consider that the US government has been a continuous entity for that whole period of time in which white supremacy took its toll. I definitely do think that black folks have a right to demand that the US government ameliorate damage done by its previous policies.
@brett 33
I absolutely agree the government needs to ameliorate damage done by previous policies. As you said, it would be more effective to deal with the effects of Jim Crow and Civil Rights abuses than reparations. If the reconstruction had not been derailed by threats, mobs, and lynchings, the USA would have a very different political climate today.
Enlightenment Liberal / methuseus / et. al.: You clearly haven’t read TNC’s essay on reparations, where he points out two main things that you’re absolutely missing:
– Structural racism didn’t end with the Emancipation Proclamation or the Civil Rights Act; look at redlining mortgages right through the present day
– Actually awarding money to people is less important, even meaningless, in comparison to the value of having an honest discussion of the impacts of ongoing structural racism in America.
It’s really one of the better essays I’ve ever read (independent of whether or not I agree with it). Here’s a link: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/
She may have really wanted to get the Lincoln thing out there. There is some evidence that the question was planted.
e.g.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/people-are-losing-their-minds-over-the-planted-questions-theory-at-cnns-town-hall/
Mr. Coates explains it far better than I will, but Reparations are not (only) about slavery. Housing discrimination extended well into living memory — there are probably hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of black people living today that were financially harmed due to housing discrimination like Redlining. That’s just one form of discrimination in living memory. Add to it many other forms that have exist recently (and may still exist) — discrimination in the justice system; discrimination in zoning policies; discrimination in education policies; discrimination in government grants for things like agriculture (assistance for farmers and the like); and many more not in my immediate memory. That’s where we should start — compensate the living people who have been financially harmed by discriminatory policies and practices.
Yes, it’d be a really, really big challenge, but that’s not an excuse. I’ll throw out a first step — look into Redlining in Chicago and St. Louis, and find out how many living people were affected by it (and, potentially, how many people inherited undervalued property from parents that were affected by it).
There are so, so many ways that living black people in America have been financially harmed due to discriminatory (white supremacist) policies and practices, that we could look at before we even started to look at slavery.
Also, in regards to the “debt shouldn’t be passed along the family for generations” deal, one might want to consider the fact that our system certainly seems to have no problem passing the poverty and oppression of the father onto the son. Why shouldn’t we hold the beneficiaries of a system established on the blood and bones of these people’s ancestors partially responsible for the continued existence and abuses of this system?
I find it interesting that people seem to think that those of us who took history in college in the late 60s (when I was there) were taught the Dunning School In the state schools I went to in Ohio, the Dunning School was ridiculed by the professors. They had mostly, even the older ones, been radicalized by the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and early 60s.
I’ve been wondering if the Ivy League schools held on to that theory a lot longer?
To John Morales
I was careful to say that reparations to descendents for wrongs against the ancestors is wrong, but “reparations” for living people can be justified, and I am in favor of many such policies. Vivec and I were clearly discussing the first kind, not the second, which means you are imposing your preferred definitions onto our discussion when we were clearly using different definitions. Please don’t do that.
I still object to your rephrased definition:
Yes. You’re still talking about “sin” and “wrongs” being carried from parent to child. The child is not morally responsible for the actions of the parent, even if they stand to benefit. Talking in these terms is morally reprehensible.
Having said that, I am a radical Marxist. In particular, I believe that property is violence (often a necessary violence aka a least-evil violence), and inheritance in particular is particularly obnoxious. We should be discussing the problems in these terms, and not in terms of inherited debt aka inherited sin. That’s why the term “reparations” is morally bankrupt (in the common interpretation where it applies to inherited sin).
The net effect of policies is probably substantially similar, but the moral reasoning that gets us there is radically different. In particular, my approach is forward looking. It’s aimed to fix problems and make society better. Reparations is backwards looking, aimed at addressing wrongs done by people to people that are probably dead by moving money and property from morally innocent descedent to descedent.
For example, let’s seriously talk about instituting some death taxes, with very progressive rates, nearing 100% for the filthy rich. We could also talk about a guaranteed minimum income policy. We can even entertain additional notions along the lines of affirmative action.
…
To brett
Politely disagreed. I don’t like subscribing personhood to governments and moral responsibility for many of the same reasons that I don’t like subscribing personhood and moral responsibility to corporations.
For example, when a company illegally dumps toxic chemicals in the sewer, I want to change the way that we have the conversation. I want the conversation to be “certain persons dumped toxic chemicals in the sewers, and certain others coerced them, and certain others were otherwise legally complicit”. I also want the responsible persons to be individually charged, rather than extracting money from the corporation.
I think it is wrong-headed to ascribe personhood and moral responsibility to the government in this way, especially in this particular context of ongoing responsibility for years on end. Again, the government is simply the people. If governments inherit debts, that’s still functionally equivalent to people inheriting debts.
Another for example. I am 8% Cherokee or some such. Does that mean that I am owed reparations by the government because of the actions of the government against my ancestors? IMHO, hell no, even though I currently am given such reparations, IIRC in the form of college tuition assistance. At least I would be if I could prove my ancestry, which cannot be done because of the lack of proper documents. Further, I basically never identify as Cherokee, even though I am to some margin, and by asinine rules similar to the One Drop Rule, I would be Cherokee. I identify as white, because I was raised as white, people see me as white, and I have all of the advantages and privileges of being white. Does the mere happenstance of my ancestry mean that I deserve recompense from the government or the descendents of the people who wronged my ancestors (which might be some other of my ancestors)? Again, hell no. I didn’t face those problems because I wasn’t even alive.
I might have inherited some of those problems, but I didn’t. Some other Cherokee did inherit some problems. Those systematic problems are largely caused by our pernicious rules for property inheritance which I would much rather see seriously overhauled and to some extent abolished. They also face certain ongoing discrimination today, and again I would be in favor of awarding recompense for those struggles, and for trying to fix the system. But I think that it is laughable that I – or any other Cherokee – should be awarded money by the government because some of our ancestors died in the 1838 died during the Trail Of Tears (including some of mine that I could name). Where would this foolishness end? Would we start awarding money according to documents we dig up from the ancient Roman Empire? No, it should end by the simple rule that no one is responsible for the actions of their ancestors, any more than they are responsible for the actions of any other person.
…
To Derek Vandivere
True
I never disputed that. I had, and still have, a particular understanding of the word “reparations” where that common usage refers to the proposed public policy of moving money to people who ancestors were wronged, and the source of the money is the general public and/or the people
Concerning the essay. I just read some of it. It’s rather long and boring, considering that I knew many of these injustices already, past and present. I skimmed most of it. As far as I can tell, the author’s central argument for reparations is that by moving money from random persons of a particular race to random persons of second particular race, where the races correspond to particular race injustices of past and present, it will create a national conversation, force the American people to come to grips with their horrible past and present of racial injustice, and hopefully create a better culture moving forward.
What a curious argument.
It’s exactly as you describe it.
I’m tempted to call shenanigans right away, but it’s so weird and out there that I’ve never encountered this particular argument before, and I don’t want to dismiss it without considering it for a while.
My gut reaction is to still not like it. I generally fall on the principled side of things, aka sort of a person where the ends usually do not justify the means (but I usually dislike such a shallow and naive description of the analysis). Here, the argument is that by appealing to the notion of blood debt, aka inherited sin, we’ll make the world into a better place.
Still not liking it.
I notice that this person uses the word “spiritual” frequently in their writing. “Religion poisons everything”. I would hazard a guess that his evil Christian values, particularly original sin and inherited sin, are perverting his otherwise good thinking. I’d rather like to think that we could accomplish the same national conversation by creating the policies that I propose with the justifications that I propose. I think we do not need to appeal to blood debt aka inherited sin in order to have that conversation, to right wrongs that currently exist, to change the culture for the better, and make the world into a better place for everyone.
I probably need to emphasize:
Again, my argument is largely about framing, which amounts to semantics, but often semantics are important.
Many “reparation” policies are justified and good policies that I would wholeheartedly support, but with different moral reasoning.
I subscribe to the moral philosophy of John Stuart Mill, which amounts to loosely: No one should use force to stop informed consenting adults from living their life as they choose, unless they are harming others, and except to the extent that we as a society require that every person due their duty for the common good.
Under that philosophy, we have a serious problem with systematic racism in the country, and I am definitely in favor of moving money and other services from the privileged racial groups to the oppressed racial groups. Same for sex/gender groups, and for any other identifiable systematic class discrimination. Thus, I can be in favor of affirmative action for college admissions, and I can do that without any need to appeal to blood debt bankrupt morality.
Similarly, I can be in favor of wealth redistribution programs, and I certainly am in favor of such programs, based on the existence of real harms to real people today, again without the need to appeal to blood debt bankrupt morality.
We should be crisp and clear with our moral reasoning, lest we go down the road of good intentions (which leads to hell).
so, in this horribly flawed (as usual) analogy of yours…
who would be the recipient of reparations of original sin?
yeah… as usual, you haven’t clue what you’re on about.
tell me, fuckwit… do you think Japanese-American internment camp survivors of WWII didn’t deserve reparations because “original sin”?
again, I cannot ever comprehend why anyone, anywhere, takes you seriously. It’s like they simply gloss over the gross mistakes in logic you use, continuously.
Succinctly:
“You owe me because I’m in a shitty situation which is a consequence of the actions of people of your racial group in the past, especially your direct ancestors, but also all white people as a sort of extended family blood debt.”
Bad.
“You owe me because I’m in a oppressed class and you’re in a privileged class, and that’s part of the basic duty that we all have in order to make the world into a better place for everyone.”
Good.
Seriously? I’ve been focusing on inherited debt, and you bring up a crystal clear case of non-inherited debt? What the fuck?
I cannot fathom why people are such shitty readers, and frequently strawman my positions.
uh, fuckwit… there were MANY americans who for decades wanted to deny japanese americans reparations. it did indeed become “an inherited debt” that was owed to the children of those who were interned, and their families. It is EXACTLY the same kind of reparations you are disparaging as “morally bullshit”.
you have ZERO clue what you are talking about. I really love trolling you; simply because you so really really deserve it, and not enough people seem to recognize that fact and tend to tolerate your bullshit.
there’s another concept you so obviously fail to understand.
We went from “[reparations to] Japanese-American internment camp survivors of WWII” to “[reparations to] their children”. Can you please keep your argument straight and stop moving the goalposts? I am not a mind reader. I can only respond to what you actually say, not to what you secretly intended.
again, I notice you failed to answer:
who would be the recipient of reparations of original sin?
that you have spent paragraphs trying to transform reparations into something it is not, namely wealth redistribution, is laughable.
seriously, you have me rolling on the ground with laughter.
moving goalposts. another thing you apparently in your vast ignorance do not understand the meaning of.
no goalposts were moved, only your ignorance of what actually constitutes the meaning of “reparations” is showing.
just to be clear, the reason children were mentioned is because that is where reparations went to… eventually.
but again, your ignorance of how that very example played out is what your problem is. not me moving any perceived goalposts.
here, maybe this will help you:
http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/08/09/210138278/japanese-internment-redress
which means, of course, that the debt was inherited by americans generations after WWII, and paid to generations after WWII.
see, fuckwit? no goalposts moved… just your ignorance showing.
Now you’re just being difficult just to lash out.
Yes, I am in favor of the government paying money to actual survivors of WW2 Japanese internment camps.
Yes, I am in favor of programs like guaranteed minimum income schemes to be paid by very, very hefty death taxes.
Yes, I am in favor of programs like college admission affirmative action as a correction on the ongoing discrimination inherent in society.
No, I am probably against paying money to the children of survivors of WW2 Japanese internment camps on the moral theory that they deserve it because their parents were harmed. The money was owed to the actual survivors, and not to their children, because the survivors are the harmed party, not the children. Put another way, debts should not be inherited, and neither should awards. As a general rule, inheritance of property should be severely curtailed. Inheritance of property is one of the major sources of inequality and ongoing class problems in our society. The solution to the ills caused by property inheritance is not more property inheritance.
you are full of contradictions, bad logic, and are morally reprehensible.
yet you think yourself a good person.
it’s pathetic.
the children were harmed by having their ancestors entire estates taken away from them, as one tiny example of the harm that was caused.
but you can’t see that.
because you literally can’t see past the nose on your own face.
no, I’m really not. I’m deliberately pointing out to you that you ARE a bad person. that you DO have a huge amount of ignorance about nearly everything you end up deciding to postulate on.
that you NEVER in many many years have EVER decided to actually research something before spewing your vastly ignorant opinions about it.
that this indeed alone has irked me about you since your arrival here.
and I’m just as pissed off that so many let you slide on it, that you end up feeling empowered to continue on and on, endlessly repeating the same behavior.
frankly, I think I’m doing you a favor, though you won’t ever get that.
PS: I hope that I’m consistent on this. I would again point out that I am against the idea that I owed money by the government or from anyone else because some of my Cherokee ancestors died on the trail of tears. I can name them, specifically. My grandparents on that side were big on genealogy. Anyone on the Trail Of Tears who is alive (aka no one today) deserves recompense by the government. Their descendants? No.
I ask this question again to you Ichthyic in particular: Where does it end? Are you going to be in favor of reparations based on the results of archeology of the ancient Roman Empire? Are we going to impose penalties on the modern Italian government because of harms of their ancestors? Preemptively: I hope you’re not going to argue that there is a difference because the governments changed. Are you going to start arguing shades of grey, and which government revolutions count as breaking off debts from the past and which are not “good enough” to break off debts from the past? If you’re a scholar of the United States government, you should know that it has not been a single continuous government structure in a real sense, with several very real revolutions in structure over its existence.
No they were not. I am a radical Marxist. I refuse to recognize the so-called right of property inheritance. The parents were harmed because it was their property. For people who did not live on that property and who merely happened to be descendents, they were not harmed, because it was never their property. No one deserves the property of their parents. This kind of aristocratic thinking that the children deserve the estates of the ancestors – that sickens me.
I should note that I stand in good company, including Thomas Jefferson, Karl Marx, Adam Smith, and many others.
Example reading:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/lexington/2010/10/estate_tax_and_founding_fathers
Quoting Adam Smith:
good job on using another logical fallacy: the slippery slope argument.
in fact, it ends where one would logically expect: when there are no claimants for reparations with any investigable claims.
hence, your ludicrous example of the roman empire
again, you might try vetting your analogies before you actually use them.
goddamn, but you ARE a fuckwit, and continue to prove it, repeatedly.
I pity you, and can only hope that more people will slap you into realizing that you so rarely have any clue what you are talking about. it’s willful ignorance on proud display, and so grating in someone of otherwise obvious intelligence.
yes, they were, you utter utter fuckwit.
even RONALD FUCKING REAGAN agreed they were.
I disagree, you aristocratic capitalist pig.
you can’t even use insults appropriately.
..you also misuse the quote from Adam Smith. It does not at all mean what you seem to think it means.
I swear, I think you should sue whatever undergrad institution you attended. they did poorly with you.
I feel I should offer this clarification, because it seems you’re not actually reading what I’m writing:
We are all harmed by the current aristocratic concentration of wealth from laws that allow such massive property inheritance.
If a child was living on an estate, whose legal title was to a parent, the child was still harmed, because the child was prevented from enjoying that property.
For a child who was born after the end of the internment camps, they never personally enjoyed that property. They are harmed only to the extent that we do not properly provide for all members of society, just like any other poor child. That their parents happened to be rich, and now they are not, and to assert that this child is objectively harmed more than a child born to parents that were always poor – that is ridiculously wrong-headed, and if that is your position, I feel quite entitled to call you an aristocratic capitalistic pig. Both children have equal rights to living a materially wealthy life, independent of the wealth of their parents.
If the descendants of the people who were harmed do not deserve redress, why do the descendants of the people who benefitted get to continue benefitting?
perhaps you should try living in a pure Marxist utopia then?
I know there are a few left, though the waiting lists to get in are long.
but, you know why those tiny communities work and have persisted for so long?
because everyone agrees to a specific set of rules that makes it such that nobody is left out.
the world the rest of us live in has only reparations to fix damage done.
those kids futures were fucking ruined, because their parents lost everything they had.
that you are unwilling to see this, makes you willfully ignorant. It makes you exactly the kind of willful ignorant that worked so hard in the 80s to have affirmative action programs rescinded.
you gall me with your ignorance.
positively fucking gall me.
Orly? This should be good. What do you think it means? More generally, was Adam Smith in favor of death taxes, neutral, or against? Are you going to quibble over land vs other property, because I’m pretty sure Adam Smith’s own words will not support inheritance taxes only on land and not on other property.
They don’t deserve to, and I’m all for fixing that. That’s why I’m in favor of returning to stupidly large death taxes / estate taxes, like what we used to have in this country, and preferrably even heavier death taxes in some cases, plus something like a guaranteed minimum income scheme. Plus other schemes to combat and offset ongoing discrimination.
why bother? you wouldn’t listen even if I told you exactly how you misused it, because your entire argument is based on sheer ignorance anyway.
you are an utter, utter waste of time.
I sincerely hope you are not married.
Jolly good plan.
What do we do in the meantime?
How convenient.
No, it seems to be based on a fundamental moral disagreement concerning property rights and esp inheritance rights.
I hope you’re not accusing me of ignorance because I have my beliefs based on my purported misunderstanding of Adam Smith. I would hold this position even if Adam Smith disagreed with me, which means that my position cannot be based on ignorance of this kind.
You might be arguing that my policies would have unintended outcomes, which might qualify as “ignorance”. I don’t think this is your argument.
Likely, you could be arguing that my proposed tax plans, which used to exist in this country for a long, long time, are unworkable, and you’re calling me a naive dreamer. Maybe that counts as “ignorance”. In which case, I’ll gladly put on that label and wear it. I would thank you for calling me a dreamer, for fighting to make the world into a better, even if my task is a politically difficult one. Also, Overton Window.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
entire books have been written to prove this wholly ignorant statement wrong, but I’ll give you the PBS digest version, in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, you will attempt to fucking enlighten yourself, just this one time.
http://www.pbs.org/childofcamp/history/health.html
what was done to these families carried on for generations afterwards.
just as what was done to African Americans before the civil rights acts were passed carried on for generations afterwards, and still does to this day.
you CANNOT be ignorant of history when deciding where equal opportunity lies.
well, you can…. but then I call you a fuckwit…
things you very clearly actually do not understand.
you are like a person who read Ayn Rand and thinks they know all about venture capitalism.
you know that thing about strawmanning that you mentioned earlier?
yeah, now there’s a good example of it.
you really should not even be here. you are too stupid for words.
You seem to be insinuating that my plan is politically impossible, and that we need to focus on another plan that is politically feasible, such as couching the policies in the language of reparations.
First, I would remind you that in the recent past, we established a government health care program, that, while not perfect, shows that some policies like mine can be done.
Further, I would probably continue to argue in the way that I am, because Overtone Window. Someone has to argue for the ideal and point out the moral shortcomings of plans that have severe moral shortcomings.
Sorry, I’m just that kind of principled kind that often feels that using evil means to accomplish good ends will very often backfire and eventually produce more net evil than good in the end, and blood money schemes like inheritable reparations are one such evil IMO.
no, he’s simply taking the piss.
Your link
http://www.pbs.org/childofcamp/history/health.html
talks about the health problems of actual internees, and I have been quite clear that I favor reparations for actual internees, and that I am against awarding reparations to the living non-internee descendants of dead actual internees.
This is simply another misunderstanding of my clearly stated position, a strawman, whether willful or accidental, or a failure to appreciate what your source actually says.
no, you fucking idiot. it’s YOU, not realizing what the implications of that are for a family long term.
goddamn, but you are a recalcitrant fuckwit.
I hate people like you with a burning passion.
I should be more like Chigau; just taking the piss. But YOU exemplify exactly the kind of ignorant, piss poor reasoning that lead to the repeal of affirmative action programs all over the US in the 80s, and in the guise of Scalia of SCOTUS, who thinks there really is an equal playing field out there.
gross, unrepentant, DANGEROUS, ignorance of the kind that should not go unchallenged.
yes, that’s you. dangerously ignorant and stupid.
now I’m done, until the next inevitable time I see you spout yet more bullshit, and feel obliged to hit you over the head with a brick.
Rather odd, because my reasoning leads me to be strongly in favor of such programs.
EnlightenmentLiberal:
(You intended to mean descendants, not descendents)
It was not a rephrase, I was informing you of the contrast between what was expressed and how you perceived it. You’re the equine who would not hydrate.
(Interpretation, not definition)
what’s sad is that you obviously believe this.
Moral of this story is I now find that I dislike – and vehemently disagree with – radical marxists about as much as I dislike and disagree with libertarians. I’m glad to have learned something of value from this, at least.
I see people today who are alive today, who were disadvantaged in their youth, and who continue to be disadvantaged. Of course we as a society should try to fix the underlying issue that led to it, and we should also try to counterbalance that disadvantage in order to create a fairer and better world. I don’t have to appeal to blood debt and inherited rewards aka blood rewards in order to recognize these obvious realities and the moral responsibility we all have to try to make it better.
no worries, EL is about as much of a Marxist as he is a scientist.
meaning, he only plays one in the comments.
you wanna see real Marxists at play?
check these guys out:
https://www.rt.com/usa/us-american-communist-community/
one of the oldest extant communist communities in the world, right there in the USofA
Ichthyic
Are you confusing Marx with communism and Engels now? Nice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism
“Marxism” as a term generally refers to a certain family of analyses of economics, specifically capitalism. Marxism is distinct from socialism and communism in that socialism and communism are each but one of many purported solutions to the problems raised by Marxism.
Like Marx, I believe that capitalism, industrialization, the specialization of labor, etc., provides massive benefits to material wealth for the society. Like Marx, I believe that some of the current systems in current capitalism are unfair and exploitative. Unlike some of Marx, and definitely a lot of Engels, I am not a communist. I favor other solutions to the problems raised by the Marxist critique, such as again severe inheritance taxation, strong progressive income taxation and strong progressive property taxation, public works including schools, health care, a guaranteed minimum income if practical and workable, and more.
Ichthyic, could you please try to be less ignorant? Your equivocation between Marxism and modern communist collectivist communes is laughable.
EnlightenmentLiberal, you’re funny (if unintentinally) in your claim that others equivocate about Marxism.
Not very long ago, you claimed to be “a radical Marxist”, and now you claim “Unlike some of Marx, and definitely a lot of Engels, I am not a communist.”
(Care to tell me more about how you favor other solutions to the problems raised by the Marxist critique whilst still being a radical Marxist)
and your knowledge of marxism is laughable, if you think they aren’t applying it in that community.
you utter, UTTER, fuckwit.
seriously, again I say you are like someone who read Ayn Rand, and now considers themselves an expert on venture capitalism.
your protestations are what’s laughable.
you know nothing, John Snow.
you are an elementary school educated buffoon, pretending to knowledge.
you fail as a human being.
Okay, upon rereading this discussion, I’m down with EL on everything but this semantic quibble and the belief on the immorality of inter-generational debt, so consider my previous post withdrawn. I think, aside from that, we have largely the same politics.
Nope.
I’m asking what we do for the people in need while we’re making that playing field level.
To chigau
You’re strawmanning me. Don’t trust Ichthyic’s seeming willful misunderstanding of my position. I never embraced the libertarian position: “We should make an equal playing field (ignoring systematic racism), and no more”. Several times, I even embraced a clearly different position. Examples:
…
To John Morales and Ichthyic
As the person who identifies as the Marxist, I get to define what it means, not you. Just like as an atheist, the atheist gets to define what the label means, not the theist who wants to define “atheist” to mean “someone who believes that god does not exist”. And the common consensus of people in western academia who use the label “Marxist” is that the word describes a particular kind of critique and analysis, and the concept of the word is very distinct from the concept of the word “communism”.
Thanks for telling me what my views should be, and generally speaking thanks for telling all Marxists what a good Marxist should be, when you’re not actually a Marxist yourself, and when your opinions about Marxists disagree with the consensus of people who identify as Marxist. ~sarcasm~
EnlightenmentLiberal:
Nor Marx, apparently. Fine, you’re a Marxist who thinks Marx was wrong — a proper Marxist.
(Quite like Christians in regard to Christ, actually)
@89
“Marxists who think Marx was wrong” is absolutely a thing, jsyk. There’s a concept called the Epistemological Break (put forth by Althusser, who was very much a Marxist) that divides Marx’s works into his younger and older works based on some changes in belief he had through out his career. Plenty of Marxists, for example, think that he was really correct in his basic ideas but either overreached or didn’t go far enough.