That i have to disagree with about knowing it was wrong. We can make all sorts of justifications to inflict harm on an outgroup that many people will internalize. Whether or not such justifications are fashionable or legal in society at any given time is the temporal aspect.
Simply not true. And you’re conflating two things. Historiography teaches to not use that to skew objective analysis. Again, ask any anthropologist or classicist.
Yeah, I am not disagreeing with not using those grounds to skew objective analysis. I am saying people are perfectly capable of believing post-facto bullshit to give permission to doing horrible shit.
I didn’t think you were. My point is they can’t lie to themselves. I’m getting out of my lane but physiologically humans are the same.
Gonna agree on that.
And I totally get what you’re saying. The morality was definitely worse and worse things were acceptable.
Whether or not a slaver deserves to have a personal meeting with John Brown is timeless.
Knowing it was wrong vs knowing it causes suffering
Nah, I think they knew it was wrong the way we know genocide and fascism are wrong here- but people are willing to play stupid or rationalize it if it benefits them.
Beliefs can do primarily two things. Create a permission structure for all the horrible shit you want to do or constrain your actions so you comport in accordance with those beliefs.
But the entire time, you know it’s wrong. That’s the basic point here.
No, I fully believe in the ability for a person to twist themselves into knots to believe that an evil is good for "reasons".
I don’t disagree that those people exist, but I’d argue that the few who truly believe that would be statistically insignificant. It would about the same percentage as the flat earthers who actually believe the earth is flat.
So, 100%? Nobody calls themselves a flat earther for teh lulz, those people sincerely think they're getting one over on the scientific community.
They absolutely do. They just want to belong to a club. They know the earth isn’t flat.
Man, you should see some documentaries where the flat earthers do some science and it unequivocally points to a curved earth and see how they react and justify themselves. People will believe some shit to belong in a group.
Maybe, but I think people enjoy doing admittedly evil things. Like Israel mocking starving and dying Palestinians. There's no way they think it's good, they just enjoy it.
I don't like the whole "maybe they had a belief that made it make sense", like ... the belief was they hated doing their own labor and hated Black people
The exploitation of outgroups are politely expressed in the belief of deficiencies of the outgroups that justifies that they are exploited or ,sometimes less politely, the belief in the virtues of the in group to exploit.
This how is how we conceptualize justifications to the innate monkey moral conflict of "be a dick if I can get an advantage" vs "don't be a dick because harmony with the group is beneficial"
Whether or not that belief is that people are better off enslaved or there is an underlying more honest belief that the strong have the inherent right to enslave is unimportant for outcomes and is more of a political issue than moral.
The belief was that it was wrong but they didn't care and who was gonna stop them, essentially. They didn't care about Black people enough to inconvenience themselves even a little. Much like today.