"Final Solution vs Slavery?" Topic

Which one do you think was worse and why?

Slavery was not about killing people. The final solution was.
Easy decision.

At least the slave can hope to one day be free.
not so much the other option.

Seriously?

If you could come to a determination which was worse, what would that even mean?

This conversation can't go wrong in any way…

Is this from your "Christmas dinner conversation starters" jar?

I have just two words. Potato Famine.

Is this our Christmas movie? I'll make the popcorn.

This topic is wose than Hitler! Humbug!

As a lawyer, I have to point out that you have failed to defined your terms precisely. While most people are assuming that by slavery you are referring to the enslavement of Black people in the old South, there are actually many types of slavery throughout history.

For example, in the Roman Empire, there was a vast difference between being a galley slave or a slave condemned to work in the mines versus a house slave who might have been highly educated and served as a tutor to his master's children.

There was also indentured servitude in Colonial America, which was a form of slavery, albeit one with a limited duration (usually 7 years).

I could give other examples but you get the idea.

What does this mean? Nothing really. I just wanted to point out the fallacy of making assumptions.

Merry Christmas to all.

Watched "Schindler's List" the other day. It got me to pondering…

Slavery was not about killing people. The final solution was.
Easy decision.

Well, I guess the "other" Holocaust-slavery lasted about 350 years-displacing and killing off millions of African slaves on the way to captivity, torture, rape, and abuse at the hands of the slavers, jailers, ship captains, slave owners in plantations.

Compare that to the suffering, death, savagery, and humiliation endured by European Jewry during the Holocaust-although horrific, short-lived compared to slavery. Hmmm…

Tough one here… What do you think?

As a lawyer, I have to point out that you have failed to defined your terms precisely. While most people are assuming that by slavery you are referring to the enslavement of Black people in the old South, there are actually many types of slavery throughout history.

Exactly!

Whoever finds this thread offensive please bypass it.

You are entitled to forget humanity's cruelty for one day a year. I choose not to forget and plan what I can do to lessen it. I think Christmas is even more reason to keep humanity's propensity for cruelty at the forefront of my mind.

You want to keep humanity's propensity for cruelty at the forefront of your mind? All you need to do is turn on the news.

It is not that I find it offensive. It is that I find it pointless. It's like discussing if it's worst a lung cancer or a pancreatic cancer.

It is not that I find it offensive. It is that I find it pointless. It's like discussing if it's worst a lung cancer or a pancreatic cancer.

Good point!

I have seen some of the more horrible things that humans can do to each other, and am likely not to ever not see them in my memory ever again. No decision or even a choice to ignore such things. From that perspective, I tend to agree with basileus66 that the idea of ordinality for things on that end of the scale lacks meaning.

Dynaman,

Two words:

Eh? What?

While most people are assuming that by slavery you are referring to the enslavement of Black people in the old South, there are actually many types of slavery throughout history.

Actually, if you want to be accurate, there were many types of slavery throughout the old South as well, both over time and at any given point in time.

link

Why is it that whenever slavery is mentioned it always harks back to the "whiteman" enslaving the "Blackman"?!?!

Whites brought black slaves from other blacks that captured them from their tribes to sell to the white man.

How about modern day slavery, in the UK, USA and other so called democratic western countries?!

What about slavery in the Arab world that started earlier and went into the 20th century

Well, according to the News yesterday, slavery continues to this day in ISIL controlled areas. Not to mention various parts of the world were it seems to linger on and on.

I don't know how you can quantify evil.

A troll by any other name….

We like to believe that slavery was always considered an aberration, the hallmark of evil, corrupt and decadent, so-called "civilized" empires, preying upon innocent, freedom-loving neighbours.

But we forget that just about everybody throughout history would take "others" by force and use them as slaves to some degree or another. From Native Americans (from the North West Pacific to Central and Southern America, to the brisk internal trade in slaves inside Africa.

Celts, Germans, Iberians, Greeks, an all the other peoples enslaved by the Romans had long established slavery practices long before the Romans were players.

The guy you took as a slave would do exactly the same thing to you if things were reversed.

And then there is the economic factor of slavery. Kirk "Spartacus" Douglas can philosophize about a world free of slavery outside the Roman World all he wants, it's a 20th century fairy tale idea, even if he had the power to impose a ban on slavery upon the rest of the world, it would have serious economic, judicial and social consequences, disrupting the very basis of manual labour.

Slavery may have caused misery and suffering to millions, but for a large chunk of history it was a fact of life, right up to today. Indeed if you look at worldwide exploitation there are probably many more exploited "slaves" today than there were during the Roman Empire or the Pre-Civil War Slave Trade combined.

Patrick R, Well said.

Bear in mind, in every age there have been voices who decried slavery. They may have been few, they may have been ignored, but there has always been men and women who knew truth.

Slavery gets done, and freedom is a hell of a motivator…With slavery there is life (maybe not the best) and hope of freedom….

Problem is that both are historically incomparable between themselves and related to other monstruous events in human history. Slavery was (and is) a form of economic and sometimes sexual explotation of the people hold in bondage. The Final Solution was a program of mass murder of a whole population based on vague theories of racial superiority, fear and hate. There was nothing rational in the Final Solution, not even within the twisted parameters of the Nazi State itself. But in the end both events meant the destruction of millions of lifes, and for their victims the motivations of their torturers were irrelevant. They only could felt the pain, the loss, the families torn apart. We can look at both from a detached perch; we can rationalisate them, even try our hands to an explanation that, regretfully, sounds too much as a justification. We lose sight of the victims.

Imagine for a moment that some evil spirit makes you an offer: be a slave in a Roman silver mine in Iberia or a Jew in 1942 Belarus. Or you can chose a quick death. What would you chose?

"Whites brought black slaves from other blacks that captured them from their tribes to sell to the white man."

Oh, well then that makes it okay then!

Sheesh.

Head or gut?

Sign me onto Winston Smith's side.

I feel that a distinction must be drawn between slavery in ancient societies where might made right and slavery in societies post-liberal ideals, individual rights and so forth.

Hence why the colonial powers and the americans get more blame for it than those who went before them: They knew better because they had already formulated ideals of governance that mandated individual freedom.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident" and all that.