A villain is not necessarily a person or an institution. I was referring to people viewing certain social and cultural norms as “villains”, without any serious study into what long term effects the abolition of these norms would cause, or how an alternative norm they would propose instead of the old would fare in the long term.
I’m not claiming that a traditional norm is good solely because it’s traditional, I’m open to new ideas. However, I believe that in case of a conflict between an old and a new norm, the burden of proof lies on the new norm, especially if the old norm was keeping society functional for many generations, and the new wasn’t seen in effect in real life for long enough.
When a rigorous double-blind medical treatment study is made, sometimes it is canceled before the results are complete because the obvious result is unjust suffering. This is an application of trying to cause the least harm justified by the need for the knowledge.
That seems like it might be a reason for resistance to a slow approach in some cases.
This was “in my opinion” an element central to the political divisions that led to the civil war in the US.
There were alternatives other than “abolition of slavery with no restitution” under discussion, but there was no successful compromise.
An irreduceable plurality of the southern political class considered the loss of the economic and political power they had to be unjust suffering.
A majority of the Christian middle class in the north considered leaving another generation of chattel slaves to be bred and kept to be unjust suffering.
Between those two more extreme groups, the people interested in finding an organized peaceful compromise to replace the “evil” with “lesser evil” were defeated. To be fair, this was a failure that came after many compromise measures were tried, such as making it illegal to import slaves, but ok to breed them, and such as making it illegal to own slaves in some states, but making it also illegal to aid someone else’s slave in their escape.
The facts seem to indicate to me that there were influential groups for whom “further study” was not considered to be a sincere request, but only a tactic to get what their opposition wanted.
The northern pro-abolition extremists felt like the south only would recommend further study in order to keep what they had as long as possible.
The southern pro-slavery extremists felt like the north would only recommend further study in order to create another stick to beat them with in the political arena.
There was some evidence supporting these feelings on both sides.
So in summary, I think the civil war was a less effective way to solve the evil of chattel slavery, because the people of the US were unable to work together to build a lasting “then what” plan. This seems like it supports Zubon’s premise pretty well
A villain is not necessarily a person or an institution. I was referring to people viewing certain social and cultural norms as “villains”, without any serious study into what long term effects the abolition of these norms would cause, or how an alternative norm they would propose instead of the old would fare in the long term.
I’m not claiming that a traditional norm is good solely because it’s traditional, I’m open to new ideas. However, I believe that in case of a conflict between an old and a new norm, the burden of proof lies on the new norm, especially if the old norm was keeping society functional for many generations, and the new wasn’t seen in effect in real life for long enough.
When a rigorous double-blind medical treatment study is made, sometimes it is canceled before the results are complete because the obvious result is unjust suffering. This is an application of trying to cause the least harm justified by the need for the knowledge.
That seems like it might be a reason for resistance to a slow approach in some cases.
This was “in my opinion” an element central to the political divisions that led to the civil war in the US.
There were alternatives other than “abolition of slavery with no restitution” under discussion, but there was no successful compromise.
An irreduceable plurality of the southern political class considered the loss of the economic and political power they had to be unjust suffering.
A majority of the Christian middle class in the north considered leaving another generation of chattel slaves to be bred and kept to be unjust suffering.
Between those two more extreme groups, the people interested in finding an organized peaceful compromise to replace the “evil” with “lesser evil” were defeated. To be fair, this was a failure that came after many compromise measures were tried, such as making it illegal to import slaves, but ok to breed them, and such as making it illegal to own slaves in some states, but making it also illegal to aid someone else’s slave in their escape.
The facts seem to indicate to me that there were influential groups for whom “further study” was not considered to be a sincere request, but only a tactic to get what their opposition wanted.
The northern pro-abolition extremists felt like the south only would recommend further study in order to keep what they had as long as possible.
The southern pro-slavery extremists felt like the north would only recommend further study in order to create another stick to beat them with in the political arena.
There was some evidence supporting these feelings on both sides.
So in summary, I think the civil war was a less effective way to solve the evil of chattel slavery, because the people of the US were unable to work together to build a lasting “then what” plan. This seems like it supports Zubon’s premise pretty well