![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mlknchz"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy."
- Abraham Lincoln
What Lincoln also meant, I think , was that the brutality necessary to uphold slavery brutalized the masters as well as the slaves. The lack of human compassion, the ability to see people as property, the torture, the rapes, and ultimately the murders, all dehumanized the "southern gentleman" (and the others involved in the slave trade) in ways that slavery itself could not do to the slaves. Slaves had no choice; masters freely bought into the system.
- Abraham Lincoln
What Lincoln also meant, I think , was that the brutality necessary to uphold slavery brutalized the masters as well as the slaves. The lack of human compassion, the ability to see people as property, the torture, the rapes, and ultimately the murders, all dehumanized the "southern gentleman" (and the others involved in the slave trade) in ways that slavery itself could not do to the slaves. Slaves had no choice; masters freely bought into the system.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 5/28/10 05:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 5/28/10 05:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 6/1/10 02:13 pm (UTC)Yet, it's interesting to think of that in terms of Social Darwinism. Swim - or sink. Eat, or be eaten. If thou wouldst have peace, prepare for war. Lead, follow or get out of the way.
Brutal? Somebody's going to be, inevitably. The lion lying down with the lamb is a nice picture - but the lamb needs replaced frequently. Which would you rather be?
In short, yes, but they might not have a real problem with it.
Of course, the Peculiar Institution predated Nietzsche and passed away before his heyday - yet S M Stirling's alternate-history “Domination of the Draka” followed this idea. Do unto others lest they do unto you. (Technically Herbert Spencer et cie could have been known to the Confederate States, but it's doubtful that anyone noticed particularly.)
no subject
Date: 6/1/10 03:34 pm (UTC)This post was actually a response to a post wherein someone said that rape was justifiable and "helped men"; I demurred. Brutality brutalizes, it never "helps".
no subject
Date: 6/1/10 03:38 pm (UTC)I'd be interested in hearing the context of that remarkable statement. Catherine MacKinnon - I think it was - went on record as saying that false rape charges could still be “educational” for men. Yah huh.
Here ya go
Date: 6/1/10 06:09 pm (UTC)Quite a tool
BTW, he has HEAVILY edited it since the original posting, wherein he referred to that fellow who killed those women at the fitness club in PA as a "hero and martyr"