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DecidingInThePresent 5 - 29 Feb 2012 - Main.PatrickOConnor
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| | It is very easy, with the benefit of hindsight, to admire a man like John Brown who was willing to put his life in real danger to free slaves, even when this involved killing slaveholders from time to time. However, I feel like John Brown presents a "simpler" example because as a society we all agree, especially now, that slavery is wrong. The reason I brought up Law and Order (episode name = "Dignity") is because I am unsure about how to apply John Brown's principles in the present - when a moral issue is not as settled as slavery is now. How should we act when we feel, as individuals, that a moral wrong is being perpetrated, but the government and perhaps even the majority of society do not agree with us? How far can, or should, we take our "civil disobedience"?
The internet quickly revealed that the Law and Order episode I mentioned is based on Scott Roeder's murder of Dr. Tiller. Roeder explained his actions at trial as an attempt to save unborn children (my source is Wikipedia, hope that's academic enough). John Brown was driven, at least in part, by his pity of the "poor in bondage that have none to help them" (p. 4 of the interview). Roeder was driven by his belief that unborn children deserved help as well. | | | I agree with Lizzie when it comes to the take-away from yesterday's lecture specifically, and John Brown generally. The question we should be asking in our own lives is whether we would idly sit by and let four million people remain in bondage simply to maintain the status quo (and possibly our pocketbooks). Although I was initially and similarly struck by the difficulty in analogizing Brown's actions to contemporary society in an attempt to justify terrorism, I think that perhaps it's a futile mental exercise - it will always be easier to justify actions with the benefit of a hindsight perspective. But again, "slavery is wrong," and trivializing Brown's actions simply because they aligned with subsequent government approval misses the point. Just as it seems easier to celebrate Brown as a hero today because ultimately those four million slaves were freed, it is too easy to attribute that celebration to our ex post view of history. To do so would be using future uncertainty as a crutch not to act for fear of making the "wrong" choice.
-- AlexandraRex - 29 Feb 2012 | |
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> | Alexandra,
The distinction between the treatment of other humans beings as a means to an end, on one hand, and as valuable ends in and of themselves is relevant to this conversation. It is in some ways analogous Rohan's distinction between "violence as resolution" and "violence for resolution.". According to Brown's accounting of his acts and intentions, he sought to free individuals from the perpetual state of violence that is slavery. Naturally, he understood this objective in the political context we discussed in class. But it was not his inent to somehow precipitate large scale social change. Nor did he understand his violent acts as justice in and of themselves. Roeder, on the other hand, probably conceived of his actions as some combination of revenge and vengeance and galvanization. He was not acting on behalf of the future abortion "victims" of the doctors. |
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