08-31-2007, 02:25 AM
First, a disclaimer: i am absolutely convinced there is nothing intrinsic to poverty that makes the poor virtuous, any more than there is anything intrinsic to wealth that makes the rich evil. "Good" and "bad" are matters of ethical character (as distinct from what conservatives call 'moral' character), which may be influenced--but NOT axiomatically determined--by one's economic class or social status. Rich and poor each had their own 'sinners' (alcoholics, gamblers, crooks, idlers and misanthropes) and 'saints' (philantrophists, altruists and other do-gooders). And the leading thinkers and activists of the age--the generation that staged the Revolution and wrote the Constitution--knew this; a knowledge that seems to have been lost today.
This straw man argument drives me batty.
Once again, the RCC is far to the left of the liberal community, which is a comment on the sad state of the Left.
The poor are more virtuous, according to the people dealing in the realm of virtue. But in political discussions, those defending the working class don't claim that the poor are more virtuous. Who says that personal virtue is the point of politics anyway? Not defenders of the working class that I ever see.
The Abolitionists said that the slave owners were not virtuous, because they perpetuated and benefited from a terrible injustice. What sort of response is to say "I am convinced that their is nothing intrinsic to slavery that makes the slaves virtuous?" In whose mind would abolition be dependent upon whether or not the slaves were virtuous? By what stretch of the imagination does the subject of personal virtue, who has it and who doesn't, make slaveholding not intriniscally evil?
In the mind of a slaveholder, or one who is sympathetic to slavery, that's who.
Apologists for slavery actually did cite the "alcoholics, gamblers, crooks, idlers and misanthropes" among the slaves, and though they admitted the same qualities could be found among the slaveholders, they deemed that it was therefore a wash - "slaves are no better than slaveholders, so why should we change anything?"
"Oh, you annoying delusional Abolitionsists. Could you please stop romanticizing the slaves and holding them up as though they were perfect? Besides which, all of this talk about the slaves is nonsense. None of you are slaves, you are all white and free, and talk like free white people. How can you claim to relate to the slaves?"