6 ms·

This article is conflating slavery with abusive human disempowerment. Some slavery, like what is described in the article, is abusive and harmful. But much of

by zeofig 10y ago

This article is conflating slavery with abusive human disempowerment. Some slavery, like what is described in the article, is abusive and harmful. But much of it is quite beneficial to both parties. My cousin by marriage was a slave for a while; his master paid for his financial certification and gave him a small allowance, but he had to save up sufficient funds before he could buy his way to freedom. A girl I used to date used to be a slave, but she chose to remain with the family who owned her even after she bought her freedom, and remains an integral and happy member of the household. In fact, many successful members of our community, particularly business owners and managers, are slaves or former slaves! Economically, slavery with proper laws and regulations is a way for families and moneyed individuals to improve the quality of their household or business, while giving an otherwise hopeless individual the chance to enter into Roman society. Here at the Tinkerers' Forum we often lament the fact that slave owners don't invest in their slaves, and the main reason for this is that they can't recoup their costs if the slave dies or escapes. In Rome and its provinces there is a lot of slavery and it ranges across the spectrum. Quite a bit of it - particularly in the educated and enlightened centre of the Empire - is not remotely exploitative and is economically beneficial. An informed discussion should acknowledge this.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
My sister chose to enter into this arrangement with crossfit. She could have done something else if she preferred. She made an informed choice that being a crossfit instructor was worthwhile. Your imagined cousin did not have this option. That's the fundamental distinction. However, it is very much worth discussing slavery in the Greek/Roman context - it did differ very much from American slavery. And even American slavery is known to us these days mainly from works of propaganda (e.g. Uncle Tom's Cabin, or modern propaganda like Django Unchained), so our perception of it may not be accurate either.
- kakarot 10y ago
  One group of people forced another group of people to labor for them under threat of physical violence. These people were systematically denied freedoms. Their owners were, naturally, extremely racist. What exactly about Django is meant to be propaganda? How does it misrepresent slavery other than the exaggerated comedic situations? Do you truly believe Quentin Tarantino was attempting to brainwash people about what slavery was like?
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    Django Unchained was meant to make the viewer enjoy violence against certain people. To do this, they needed to make those people as awful and unsympathetic as possible.
    - kakarot 10y ago
      What do you presume Tarantino's motive would be for such a thing?
      - mirimir 10y ago
        He says: > In 2007, Tarantino discussed an idea for a type of Spaghetti Western set in the United States' pre-Civil War Deep South. He called this type of film "a southern", stating that he wanted "to do movies that deal with America's horrible past with slavery and stuff but do them like spaghetti westerns, not like big issue movies. I want to do them like they're genre films, but they deal with everything that America has never dealt with because it's ashamed of it, and other countries don't really deal with because they don't feel they have the right to."[3] Tarantino later explained the genesis of the idea: "I was writing a book about Sergio Corbucci when I came up with a way to tell the story. ... I was writing about how his movies have this evil Wild West, a horrible Wild West. It was surreal, it dealt a lot with fascism. So I'm writing this whole piece on this, and I'm thinking: 'I don't really know if Sergio was thinking [this] while he was doing this. But I know I'm thinking it now. And I can do it!' "[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Django_Unchained https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Django_Unchained
        kakarot 10y ago
        So you're talking about those exaggerated comedic situations, then? The ones that were obviously unrealistic and meant for cinematic purposes? An educated mind does not interpret Django as a trustworthy source for information about slavery in early America and knows it shouldn't be cited in any essay on the subject except to make a comparison to actual events. If people are taking Django into account in their view of American slavery then that is an issue of education and not propaganda on behalf of Tarantino.
Dylan16807 10y ago
Whether he's right or wrong, your analogy is so stretched and ill-fitting as to be useless.

by zeofig 10y ago

yummyfajitas 10y ago

My sister chose to enter into this arrangement with crossfit. She could have done something else if she preferred. She made an informed choice that being a crossfit instructor was worthwhile. Your imagined cousin did not have this option. That's the fundamental distinction. However, it is very much worth discussing slavery in the Greek/Roman context - it did differ very much from American slavery. And even American slavery is known to us these days mainly from works of propaganda (e.g. Uncle Tom's Cabin, or modern propaganda like Django Unchained), so our perception of it may not be accurate either.

kakarot 10y ago
One group of people forced another group of people to labor for them under threat of physical violence. These people were systematically denied freedoms. Their owners were, naturally, extremely racist. What exactly about Django is meant to be propaganda? How does it misrepresent slavery other than the exaggerated comedic situations? Do you truly believe Quentin Tarantino was attempting to brainwash people about what slavery was like?
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  Django Unchained was meant to make the viewer enjoy violence against certain people. To do this, they needed to make those people as awful and unsympathetic as possible.
  - kakarot 10y ago
    What do you presume Tarantino's motive would be for such a thing?
    - mirimir 10y ago
      He says: > In 2007, Tarantino discussed an idea for a type of Spaghetti Western set in the United States' pre-Civil War Deep South. He called this type of film "a southern", stating that he wanted "to do movies that deal with America's horrible past with slavery and stuff but do them like spaghetti westerns, not like big issue movies. I want to do them like they're genre films, but they deal with everything that America has never dealt with because it's ashamed of it, and other countries don't really deal with because they don't feel they have the right to."[3] Tarantino later explained the genesis of the idea: "I was writing a book about Sergio Corbucci when I came up with a way to tell the story. ... I was writing about how his movies have this evil Wild West, a horrible Wild West. It was surreal, it dealt a lot with fascism. So I'm writing this whole piece on this, and I'm thinking: 'I don't really know if Sergio was thinking [this] while he was doing this. But I know I'm thinking it now. And I can do it!' "[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Django_Unchained https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Django_Unchained
      - kakarot 10y ago
        So you're talking about those exaggerated comedic situations, then? The ones that were obviously unrealistic and meant for cinematic purposes? An educated mind does not interpret Django as a trustworthy source for information about slavery in early America and knows it shouldn't be cited in any essay on the subject except to make a comparison to actual events. If people are taking Django into account in their view of American slavery then that is an issue of education and not propaganda on behalf of Tarantino.

Dylan16807 10y ago

Whether he's right or wrong, your analogy is so stretched and ill-fitting as to be useless.