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Even Steam Engines are "racist" it seems

Discussion in 'Everything Else Heritage' started by davidarnold, Nov 7, 2021.

  1. Monkey Magic

    Monkey Magic Part of the furniture

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    People have been prosecuted for crimes committed pre-1976 ie before the states signed up to the ICCPR.
     
  2. eldomtom2

    eldomtom2 New Member

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    This is dodging the question. What is the difference? You clearly seem to deem it acceptable to judge the morality of actions two centuries past. Obviously none of us can be judges in the strict sense since everyone involved is long dead.

    Those are not questions that the study hopes to provide answers on. Detectives investigating a crime are not trying to determine the morality of a crime.

    Further, as has been evidenced by the debate on the previous page, these are not moral questions that can be neatly answered. To add to the debate, I would say that anyone who thinks slavery was "obviously wrong" at the time is a fool - morality is not inborn. It is not hard to find writings by early twentieth-century racists who felt that their revulsion at interracial marriage was inborn and not the product of culture that it was.

    I would suggest that you need to brush up on your history if you think the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 had anything to do with "slave traders", at least not in the form you are clearly thinking of.

    Further, I have seen no signs that the project will include people with the view that reinvesting the compensation was morally acceptable, or even consider it as a valid viewpoint.
     
  3. Nomad

    Nomad Well-Known Member

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    Bringing slavery down to a question of 'morality" is an insult to all those who suffered.
     
  4. eldomtom2

    eldomtom2 New Member

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    This is, frankly, an idiotic viewpoint. How can you say slavery is wrong without appealing to broader moral principles?
     
  5. Nomad

    Nomad Well-Known Member

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    I was just replying to your post ! You seem to have completely missed my point and to which you jumped a little too quick ! Furthermore, regarding "appealing to broader moral principles", this is what you stated just above to someone else "You clearly seem to deem it acceptable to judge the morality of actions two centuries past. Obviously none of us can be judges in the strict sense since everyone involved is long dead." and "Detectives investigating a crime are not trying to determine the morality of a crime."....... As i said before, bringing slavery down to a question of morality is an insult to all those who suffered. I think you're out of your depth and i kindly ask you to remain polite, thanks.
     
    Last edited: Dec 26, 2021
  6. 35B

    35B Nat Pres stalwart

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    We now have a concept of universal human rights which provides us with a moral framework against which to assess slavery, and which embeds that in law. That framework is a relatively modern codification of many generations of evolving moral standards; as Intel’s current run in with the Chinese government highlights, universal human rights have yet to become truly universal.

    Applying that perspective to what was done two centuries ago is just obtuse. That moral framework didn’t exist as we now know it, people assessed morality and law on very different bases to today.

    The recent row about the renaming of one of the University of Liverpool’s halls of residence highlights the difficulties. It has seen the renaming of Gladstone Hall, a name considered tainted by his youthful association with slavery, with that of Dorothy Kuya. Having never previously heard of her, I was impressed by the work that she did in her lifetime, but troubled by her lifelong support of a political party (CPGB) which supported a murderous dictatorship long after its evil was apparent.


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  7. eldomtom2

    eldomtom2 New Member

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    What is it then? What separate framework other than morality do we have to judge things like slavery and other atrocities?
     
  8. Monkey Magic

    Monkey Magic Part of the furniture

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    I find the minimisations and magnifications in your argument interesting. It appears you are willing to apply one set of rules to one group and another to another.

    On the one hand you caveat and excuse slavery on the grounds of shifting moral values. (I've yet btw to see evidence to show that i) there were moral arguments and ii) these were held by the majority of people (not just those actors with a vested interest). You minimise Gladstone as 'youthful association' (as if this were some juvenile hi jinxes - 'oh my gosh, Willie got drunk last night and bought himself a plantation in the Windies and a load of slaves'). And yet, on the other hand you condemn Kuya and magnify her membership of a political party which supported the actions of another political party in a different state. (I am awaiting your condemnation of the various members of the BUF who found themselves in prominent political and social positions after WW2). I find it ironic that you apply the argument of 'well it was accepted at the time' to excuse slavery, but you do not apply the 'well it was accepted at the time' for membership of the Communist party (I note no contextualisation of the place of Communism within black liberation, or the role that the party played in facilitating a generation of black thinkers, writers and activists etc - the same contextualisation you are willing to give white slave holders).
     
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  9. 35B

    35B Nat Pres stalwart

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    I don’t condemn Kuya, but do find it deeply depressing that people who oppose naming a building after someone because of his association with an evil support naming it after someone else who supported an evil, even after it had become evidently beyond the pale in 1956. That’s nothing to do with the individuals memorialised, and everything to do with those doing the memorialisation.

    However, if we’re to comment on the individuals, I observed his youthful association because, latterly, I’m unaware of any defence of slavery by him*. That’s as opposed to Kuya’s ongoing support of an evil regime and those who’d replicate it. She did know better, which is why so many left the CPGB after 1956.

    I do note the association of Communist parties with black liberation; it’s an association that I find depressing and repulsive in equal measure, given the oppressive nature of communist regimes and the failure of so many liberated states. But I don’t wish to actively commemorate the slavers, so why should I wish to actively commemorate someone who supported oppression her adult life?

    Finally, I’m not aware of BUF members who became prominent politically; I regard the BUF as equally in thrall to one evil as the CPGB was to another.

    * - I stand to correction, but don’t believe him to have supported trade with the Confederacy either.


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  10. Monkey Magic

    Monkey Magic Part of the furniture

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    Have you got evidence of Kuya defending Stalinism post 1956/68? Those are strong accusations you have made against her.

    I find it weird that you condemn the oppressive nature of Communism and condemn people for supporting it, ignoring the oppression that those people have experienced that leads them to decide to support it. It is no different a response than Herzl's Zionism as a response to anti-semitism.

    As for the BUF. It is a classic example of history as forgetting in Britain and the whole narrative that Britain is exceptional and didn't have an influential far right in the interwar period. Pre-war fascism was no barrier to a post-war career.

    For example the Tarka trail is named after a book by Henry Williamson who was a member of the BUF and continued to write after WW2 in support of Nazi Germany. Certainly never recanted. Likewise, the Soil Association has to keep very quiet about some of its founding members activities and attitudes. The NUF likewise, (not sure why but Fascism and Farming seem to go hand in hand). A few buried their past but plenty didn't bother and continued to advocate far right ideas. No one ever suffered from being a fascist in post-war Britain, indeed they were successfully incorporated into the mainstream.
     
    Last edited: Dec 31, 2021
  11. johnofwessex

    johnofwessex Resident of Nat Pres

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    I went to a talk by Bob Flowerdew where he made the point about The Soil Association being founded by a bunch of Nazi Sympathisers

    Jorian Jenks was one example

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorian_Jenks

    But like all these things there is a point where the alternative movement & the far right overlap
     
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  12. eldomtom2

    eldomtom2 New Member

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    It is very convenient that you see support of the Soviet Union as completely acceptable, and further morph 35B's statement that "Kuya did not leave the CPGB after 1956" into "Kuya defended Stalinism post-1968".

    This is as illogical as defending a child abuser because they themselves were abused as a child.
     
  13. D1039

    D1039 Guest

    (Moved from the other similar thread, because it relates to research)

    Quite unconnected with contributing to this thread, I was looking up some local Derbyshire history (a chum lives there). I stumbled across the 'Profile & Legacies Summary' of one Thomas Berry Horsfall. He was a claimant at abolition as a mortgagor and judgement creditor on 170 slaves, and withdrew his claim by consent (presumably the debtor settling the debt?). He in turn had two railway investments, Glasgow Harbour Mineral and London and York.

    https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/946224849/#commercial-summary

    Patrick
     
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  14. Paul Grant

    Paul Grant Well-Known Member

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    Germany has one of the highest percentages of organic eating in the world that stems from that. Don't know how many there know the connection, not that they should change just because of that. Steiner schools got sucked into it all too. Almost all the "new-age" crap eventually leads to some dodgy views. Yoga teachers falling into Anti-Vax nonsense and QAnon or sometimes full out fascism.
     
    Last edited: Jan 1, 2022
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  15. Enterprise

    Enterprise Part of the furniture

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    Only because the terms "alternative movement" and "far right" are ill defined.
     
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  16. 35B

    35B Nat Pres stalwart

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    Indeed. But that doesn’t get around the inconvenient truth that those of the far right, conventionally defined, are also capable of believing in things that are traditionally considered the preserve of the “alternative movement”.

    It’s something that’s becoming evident in the linkages around the anti vaccination movement and the right, and has been evident for a long time if largely ignored - and given the “blood and soil” rhetoric appropriated and used by the Nazis, shouldn’t be a shock to us when the pairing crops up today.

    I love the music of Richard Wagner. Much as I dislike it, it was - and is - beloved of the far right, and carries that association. I can respond in many ways, but I can’t just wish it away.


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  17. johnofwessex

    johnofwessex Resident of Nat Pres

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    Steiner wasnt sucked into it, he is intimatley connected with it.

    I find it ironic that many alternative/right on/woke parents send their children to schools who slavishly follow the teachings of a man with decidedly 'National Socialist' racial views and whose folowers follow his teachings to the letter.
     
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  18. Paul Grant

    Paul Grant Well-Known Member

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    I didn't want to directly implicate him because I couldn't quite remember what the score was. I need to go back on some podcast listening for that.
     
  19. johnofwessex

    johnofwessex Resident of Nat Pres

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  20. D1039

    D1039 Guest

    Should it be of academic interest, the Legacies of British Slavery database from the UCL department of history has a search facility for railway investments from those who (if I've read it right) applied for compensation on emancipation in 1834 or owned plantations from around 1763. It records around 179 individuals and 538 records. Do check the database for methodology if it interests you.
    https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/commercial/

    For my own interest I've tabled the railway companies involved, typos are theirs but any individuals' names left in are my error. I recognise at least one which I suspect now includes a heritage line, but I haven't checked further

    Patrick
     

    Attached Files:

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