Quote:
Quote by: Milton Bradley  Some things do not deserve to be debated, like freedom vs. slavery, or truth vs. lies.
I stand be my statement that there is no room for pragmatism when discussing truth, or liberty. |
I thought debating was a good way to discern truth from lies.
I try to keep my 'versus' down to a minimum, since that kind of mentality sets itself up to embrace a lie, illusion, or some other kind of deception.
If you were born into a noble family in Ancient Greece and somehow acquired a compassionate streak, then perhaps you would feel compelled to free your family's slaves upon ascending to the rank of master of the house.
Of course, in doing so, you would immediately economically cripple yourself, probably fall from political prominence as a result, lose your guards from inability to pay, and thereby become (along with your family, and especially your eldest son) a target for families (probably of a less savory sort) who are in ancestral feuds with yours.
Then you can factor in how your slaves, who are likely foreigners and thereby not elligible for citizenship and legal rights, (the general rule among Ancient Greek city-states) will lack the resources and experience to survive out in the world, and will either become criminals as a result (and thereby be in constant threat of capture and execution) or else fall back into poverty and be sold back into slavery to pay off their debts. Their new masters could be less fair than yourself, and probably, since compassion toward the lower classes is a rarity amongst nobles.
Or, on the other hand, you could just feed them well, give them some comforts and entertainments to make up for the hard labor, see to it their children get married, etc. Note that nobles who took care of their slaves in this fashion generally received much affection (and by extension loyalty) in return.
It appears keeping them in slavery is the better choice, since it is what allows for the most prosperity across the board, and freeing them accomplishes nothing most humans would be induced to consider good if they experienced it themselves.
You could attempt to reform the system, although that would be like walking into a fundamentalist church and telling everybody they need to stop being Christian -- what I mean is, the products of such an endeavor would be equable with what you would get for that kind of approach.
What I am trying to say is there is context you are brought into when born in the world (the-world-as-it-presently-is), and while people should always try for social progress, the harsh reality is that you will be constrained by the nature of the context you find yourself in. So, you should, "do what you can with what cards are in the deck," or, "make use of what materials are available."
In contrast to the complexity of this contextualism, your approach probably appears simple, incapable of explaining the nuances and particulars of phenomena like slavery and freedom.