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Comment by Ididntdothis | Hacker News Reader

Jefferson’s and Washington’s psychology was certainly very interesting as far as their attitudes towards freedom and slavery went. I wonder how they justified to themselves having slaves while talking about freedom and liberty.

But we do the same today. A lot of us have pretty unsustainable lifestyles as far as the environment goes but we make ourselves feel good (or even superior to others) by adding a little bit of organic food and organic clothing. The hypocrisy gets even more exaggerated when stars promote climate change awareness while flying private jets all over the world and living in 20000 square foot houses.

The interesting thing is that a lot of famous hypocrites still do good. Maybe not with their own lifestyle but by other people being motivated to do better

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> I wonder how they justified to themselves having slaves while talking about freedom and liberty.

Isn't it pretty clear and straight-forward? It was based on the beliefs (regardless of the degree to which you might think from your perspective that those beliefs accurately represent reality or not) that many people held back then that there are significant racial differences between slaves and people, and the same rules do not apply to white ones as to black ones because they are not the same species, they do not have the same brains/possibilities/rights/etc. Just like they did not grant any freedom to animals or trees.

However much one might disagree with the basic premise of the racist argument, it does not make it a hypocricy freedom-wise. If someone was holding these racist beliefs in this past USA (and many of them did) - they could very well believe in freedom of all people, and at the same time not consider the slaves "people" based on their racist beliefs that there are actual important and significat differences between those races.

Just because someone treats someone else badly doesn't automatically make it a hypocricy, the world is just more complicated than that and there are plenty of examples of violence or exploitation being based on well established logical thought systems or even ethical (from the point of view of the exploiter) beliefs. And this is important because if you want to make a change in a society, you might benefit from understanding how that society actually thinks and what ideology is behind it. Just calling it a hypocricy is not good enough.

Sorry, from whatever I have read so far they knew exactly what they were doing and knew slavery was a terrible thing.

That explanation would be more credible if Jefferson did not impregnate one of his slaves.

Hypocrisy of deed is not covered up by some fig leaf of convenient belief systems.

Wikipedia says he fathered 6 children with her. Do you honestly believe that he thought dark complexion was some seriously different subhuman race?

Do you think horses don’t know that donkeys aren’t horses? And yet they can and do create mules. I imagine that’s how Jefferson felt; after all, there is a derogatory term for mixed race people that begins with “mule”.

We see exactly this kind of thing today. Think about certain political statements to the effect that "immigrants are horrible people and we should keep them out. if we had more immigration it would be horrible". <today they mean it's bad, not in the past>. "But when my forefathers came here, it was different, we were good people <white you mean?>, our forefathers did all this great stuff. immigrants today are not like that". So it's clear this willful lying to yourself is still going on.

Comparing slavery to any critique of immigration (often about illegal immigration!, not any immigration) is surely a stretch. I am sure there is some non-zero number of individuals who think about some races like slaves still, but it is nowhere near the public mainstream.

I have come to the sad conclusion that overestimating the amount of racism is the safest course of thought. It's my obviously anecdotal experience, but I'm continually amazed how many of the people I come in contact with hold racist views.

> there are significant racial differences between slaves and people, and the same rules do not apply to white ones as to black ones because they are not the same species, they do not have the same brains/possibilities/rights/etc. Just like they did not grant any freedom to animals or trees.

Personally, I find it hard to believe that Southern whites, who lived in such close proximity to their slaves, actually believed this. It sounds like convenient bullshit that you would try to tell yourself in order to justify what you are doing. You see these people everyday, you speak to them, you own generations of them, and they raise generations of your own children in your house (mammies). Of course you would see enough to know that they are the same species and every bit as human as you are.

Which is why slavery was abolished in the end. But it doesn't happen in a day.

Probably in much the same way people today cry out about freedom of speech in china, while labeling restrictions on speech at home as acceptable (or not even restrictions at all!)

At the end of the day all of these high minded ideals are just excuses to justify ones own actions and world views.

Corporations deciding not to carry your message to a large audience and the government sending you to a political gulag do not seem comparable.

That seeming difference in methodologies of disenfranchisement is where empires are made and broken

Do I have a right to go on CNN primetime and rant?

Does CNN have a right to choose who can use their broadcast platform?

Is freedom of association allowed?

You’ve transformed my comment into your favorite straw man.

CNN will not invite you to rant unless you serve a demographic purpose for reaching its audience.

If you associate with the wrong political groups you will be spied on, and your organization will be disrupted intentionally by informants. Yes, in America.

So, as long as you are within the bounds of what the conversation is defined to be you enjoy freedoms, but then what has freedom become if so?

When I said that these distinctions are the determining factors of empires I am saying that these systems function quite similarly, but the distinctions in how they justify themselves are the breathing room where they are successful or fail to convince the population to go along.

Which restrictions do you mean? There are very few instances of speech regulated by the government. Mostly threats and incitement of violence.

>Jefferson’s and Washington’s psychology was certainly very interesting as far as their attitudes towards freedom and slavery went. I wonder how they justified to themselves having slaves while talking about freedom and liberty.

The history of liberalism, from J.S. Mill to Jefferson is fraught with hypocrisies and inconsistencies like this[0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism:_A_Counter-History

The closest contemporary example is probably Aung San Suu Kyi. Deserving nobel peace prize winner and also literally defending genocide.

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