[Avshalom]

That's the point, GP was wondering why some one would suggest nameing a sewer after Calhoun and found a quote from Calhoun himself (as opposed to some third party that could be accused of drinking haterade) showing him to be a human sewer.

[Amezarak]

I hope that history judges us more kindly than we judge history.

There's no question that today, and for the best part of the past 150 years, we find Calhoun's views absolutely abhorrent and reprehensible. For us, there is no question about it.

Calhoun, and most everyone else in human history, lived in a different time. We now "know" that slavery is inherently wrong, but Calhoun, for example, didn't see it that way. He literally believed he was doing a good thing. We now find that paternalistic, condescending, and abhorrent. Even in his own time, Calhoun's views were becoming outdated.

But there is not, and never has been, an oracle anyone could consult to find the Truth about what is Good and Right. Even seemingly objective religious oracles of the Truth About Morality are subject to interpretation. We all had to muddle our own way through it. Our consciences were all formed by the society we lived in and, no doubt, by our self interest.

I have no doubt that hundreds of years from now, when social norms have evolved in ways we can't imagine, people will find our views abhorrent and reprehensible too. I hope they do not dismiss us human sewers on that basis alone.

At any rate, I think that when you dismiss figures of the past as human sewers, you overlook just how past atrocities happened, which makes it easier for them to happen in the here and now.

[yedava]

All one needed to do was ask the slaves whether they liked being slaves. Looks like some people did listen to the slaves and they found themselves on the right side of history. So you don't need to consult an Oracle. Listening helps.

[jessaustin]

In future people will say, "all one would have needed to do was ask the pigs and chickens whether they like being dinner..."

[Amezarak]

Even today, we don't care that much for people's stated preferences. They only matter if they don't conflict with something we regard as wrong, if the person is capable of informed consent, if it doesn't create excessive positive obligations on other people, et cetera.

But Calhoun would have claimed, as implied in the quote upthread, that slaves were essentially incapable of 'informed consent'; they were like children, slavery was better for them regardless of their stated preferences. Calhoun would have considered that as ridiculous as asking a child whether or not they liked their vegetables. Obviously, given our values today and our knowledge of biology, that's not only wrong in every sense but absurd. But when you grow up in a culture of normalized racial inequality, that's what you get.

Not only that, he would have pointed out that many slaves liked their position in life.

I only wish right and wrong were so simple.

Incidentally, one of the proximate causes of the Civil War, and one of the most persuasive voices for abolition was John Brown, who died a martyr after being hanged for taking up arms to free slaves. It was his dedication to the cause even up to the gallows that convinced many people of its rightness. His speech at his trial should be read by everyone.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/John_Brown%27s_Speech_to_the_...

[hackuser]

> we don't care that much for people's stated preferences

I strongly disagree. The foundation of democracy and liberty is self-determination. Civil rights protect their stated preferences and other limits to the law and government. The philosophical foundation of the U.S. is individual liberty.

Calhoun would make lots of claims; people always have justifications. The people doing evil don't stand up and say so; they give rationalizations to sway the gullible and lull others into confusion or not caring. Hitler, Stalin, Putin, and the rest did the same.

[pasquinelli]

"At any rate, I think that when you dismiss figures of the past as human sewers, you overlook just how past atrocities happened, which makes it easier for them to happen in the here and now."

i disagree. how past atrocities happened is less (probably not at all) from name-calling the victimizers of the past and more from wiffle-waffling intellectual obfuscation of pure self-interest as something more than what it is. what could justify kidnapping people, putting them in mortal danger by shipping them across the ocean against their will, selling them to masters who had liberty to anything they liked with them?

flip it around: there're plenty of horrible things happening right now, and lots of people proffering up weak-ass justifications for them. i have a low opinion of them. why should i have a higher opinion of their counterparts for 150 years ago?

[rodgerd]

> Calhoun, and most everyone else in human history, lived in a different time.

Your attempt to seem wise and clever might come across a bit better if you had even the slightest aquaintence with the topic of history, about which you seem to be almost entirely ignorant. By 1837 slavery had been abolished in the countries the US would consider itself a peer of. Slavery was not some mainstream idea; it had, for decades in the civilised world, been on the run.

Appealing to the notion we are unreasonably judging the slavery advocates of the mid-19th century by their own standards shows either complete ignorance or a frankly creepy desire to propogate their philosophy.

[Amezarak]

Not only was I fully aware of it, but I had just read Emerson's speech on the subject of the end of the British slave trade yesterday.

That is why I was careful to point out that Calhoun's views were already becoming outdated; and at any rate, Calhoun lived in the US, not in, say, England. I'm not arguing that Calhoun was some kind of progressive for his time. I'm sure you don't mean what you seem to be insinuating with your other claim - obviously nobody who isn't mentally ill supports any philosophy of slavery in 2017. That said, I don't think it's 'creepy' to understand how people who did things we regard as abhorrent justified their deeds to themselves and to others.

[RileyKyeden]

> obviously nobody who isn't mentally ill supports any philosophy of slavery in 2017

I look forward to the day when mental illness isn't universally equated with negative things. I try to be forgiving of people who do this, but a lot of them are like people who supported slavery and segregation (mean, hateful, etc).

Mental illnesses are ethically neutral. People with them span the range of human experience.

[hackuser]

That argument suggests there can be no judgment about anyone, and everyone is helpless to judge good from bad. I'm not willing to abandon the idea of good and I hold people responsible, including myself, for their judgment.

Yes, we need to have some mercy too; I certainly make mistakes, but then I am responsible for them.

Calhoun's peers fought a war to end slavery; it wasn't as if he had to imagine quantum physics in the 19th century to figure it out.

[Avshalom]

If people a hundred years after I'm dead think I'm a monster and don't want to name buildings after me...

I'll have been dead for a hundred years; I won't give a fuck.