If you Condemn Hitler, then Condemn Washington
Often when discussing historical figures, I hear a defense that never ceases to surprise me: You can't say Person X is bad because Belief A was common at the time - everyone was doing it.
Sigh...Really? Are we going to say that simply because a belief was common at the time, a belief later proved horribly immoral, Person X should not be condemned nor partially vilified? Here's why this reasoning is a very bad idea.
Take George Washington (or most other Founding Fathers): he owned slaves, used slaves, and never made an attempt to abolish or decrease the presence of slavery. Awful guy? I would say so. He was engaging in a practice that most people at the time thought was alright. But, obviously (and somewhat intuitively), we now hold slavery as something atrocious and objectively wrong. Was slavery wrong then or only right now? Both! The slavery they were practicing was wrong, morally. Any slavery we practice today is wrong, morally. So then why do people always want to defend Washington by saying that it was alright in his era, so we can't condemn him?I won't argue this way, but I could remind Washington defenders that he said himself slavery was morally wrong, and so did a host of other contemporaries. But again, I won't argue this way.
And what are we saying when we say Hitler is wrong, anyways? Are we saying that killing innocent people is wrong? Certainly. Most rational people would agree that, under unexceptional circumstances, killing innocent people is wrong - right now, and 2000 years ago. External to the Washington example, I would bet highly that most rational people would also agree that, under unexceptional circumstances, enslaving human beings is wrong - right now, and 2000 years ago. So again, I repeat the refrain: why defend Washington? Or Jefferson? Or any of the celebrities of the revolution?
If you do not condemn Washington, you do not condemn Hitler. That's logic, bitches.
8 erotic poetry prompts:
What George Washington ( and contemporaries) did for this country was nothing short of amazing. You as a philosopher should be able to see the insight and ingenuity they had when they created America. At the time, the changes they made with regard to personal liberties, rights and freedom, was beyond epic.
Was slavery wrong? Well no shit Jeff of course, but what they did right, like create such important documentation such as the Bill of Rights to ensure our freedoms, mind you a document ever so bold at its time, is therefore of no consequence? Of course the right things they did matter. Washington, Jefferson and the others do not compare to Hitler. Hitler destroyed Europe killing millions in his wake. He manipulated an angry and determined Germany to his will.
Give the founding fathers credit for creating something worth working on. It wasn't perfect but they did afford this nation the ability to have the rights to change and do better whereas Hitler used a society, that was not his (an Austrian), to feed his power lust.
I would like to point out that I never once insinuated that everything Washington did was awful or bad; I simply pointed out that his reluctance to do something about slavery (not to mention the release of his own slaves) was an awful thing, and that it has to be considered when describing and idolizing the man.
Also, I never said anything about the other things going on in the late 18th century. I was specifically referring to slavery, and that was it.
Why is it that when someone demonizes one aspect of a person, they are all of a sudden demonizing the whole man and everything he did and accomplished? When did that start?
And finally, the comparison to Hitler was in no way intended to be one for one, in that for every bad thing Hitler did, Washington did one as well. The comparison was used only to show that populations can all believe whatever they want, and so if we use the faulty reasoning I stated at the beginning of the post, we have to start claiming that Hitler killing the Jews has no bearing on how we remember Hitler - because so many people thought he was right, it was a "common" belief at the time.
Again, I'm not sure it was a "common" belief to kill the Jews.
we would of course need to get our definition of common out and compare...
I have to agree with Andrew about "common belief".
But beyond that, I think it is possible to both celebrate the founding fathers for the creation of the nation while simultaneously condemning them for their support of slavery (though some of them argued against it at times and the union would never have formed without allowing it). It is possible to do both.
How can we celebrate Hitler? He bypassed democracy, killed dissenters, committed genocide (not just against the jews, but the gypsies were incredibly hard hit as well), and tried to conquer Europe. Some people like to point out that he brought Germany out of the dire economic times it was suffering from back then. But to bring it out through genocide and war is nothing to celebrate. Oh, and he had one testicle. Fuck that one testicle shit!
Um, I never said to not celebrate the Founding Fathers; where is this all going wrong? Philippi thought i said this as well. But whatever.
And I also never said we should celebrate Hitler. I don't remember reserving a paragraph for that one.
I'm merely trying to point out the failure of your logic. First, you provide for a difference between partially vilified and condemned. The implication is that condemnation is absolute (as opposed to partially vilified which might simply be a "lesser adjudication" which takes into account perhaps other actions of the subject). Your premise is that we must condemn Washington (to adjudicate him as evil) to condemn Hitler. I disagree. The founding fathers supported a morally bankrupt system in slavery. Hitler supported genocide. Both of these actions are terrible in consequence. But the founding fathers were also responsible for creating a republic that guaranteed rights for its citizens, etc. . . The whole of the founding fathers' actions must be taken into account when deciding whether or not to condemn them. I can look at the whole of Hitler's life and come to the conclusion that he should be condemned. I cannot say the same about Washington. I think a distinction has to be made based on others of Washington's actions, as opposed to Hitler.
Thus, it would be acceptable to condemn the action of owning slaves which would seem to fall into the partially vilified sphere rather than the total condemnation sphere. Hitler is universally deserving of condemnation. There need be no "balancing factor". Thus, it is acceptable to condemn Hitler without condemning Washington. This was the distinction that I apparently failed to state correctly when I was speaking earlier.
I don't know why I do this, Ben, but I always see what people are going to point out when I write things...and I never go back and change them before publishing. sigh...I thought about how "condemn" had a more absolute meaning than I intended, for I was really trying to say something about the two actions of slavery and genocide, but of course, I used language that didn't make this distinction very clear. my bad. You're totally right.
Jeffrey, with all your blog posts and responses today, you made me smile.
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