D&D General Demihumans of Color and the Thermian Argument

[Bohandas]

Really not happy to read that degrees of slavery are being measured against each other. The suggestion that this type of slavery is better or worse than that type is deeply unpalatable.

No, I get what they're saying. It's on a completely different level down from what we're thinking, while still being completely terrible. Like going in to the doctor thinking you have liver cancer and the doctor tells you it's only hepatitis, or like the guards drag you out of your cell to the gallows but it turns out it's only a mock execution, there's only a couple inches of slack on the rope and after you've dangled choking for a minute they cut you down.

 

[TheSword]

At no point did I attempt to justify slavery or present any form of slavery as acceptable.

I was only making the point that industrialization made pretty much every aspect of life way worse for every group of people and that life before it was -way- more comfortable and less cruel than most media generally portrays it. Including D&D.

Well. Not -every- group of people. But that's verging on a discussion of class politics.

As far as Child Labor: I agree that -exploiting- child labor is wrong. But to say child labor is categorically wrong means no chores around the house/farm/whatever. As a society we all agree that -some- level of Child Labor is right and good, and it generally revolves around teaching the child personal responsibility for their home and family. Doing dishes, mowing lawns, raking leaves, cleaning their rooms, and the like don't seem like "Real Work" only because those tasks have largely been devalued by unpaid family labor.

But you can hire a Maid and a Gardener to do those tasks and pay through the nose for the same service. Way more than you would ever consider paying your children.

I think you know that child labor isn’t considered to be doing the dishes and mowing the lawn, and never has been. I’m not interested in a quality of life debate that has nothing to do with the topic and can only be argued by your assertion. That’s by the by.

My main point was that it is very distasteful to read a fairly shallow argument saying slavery at X time ‘sucked’ and wasn’t anything like modern concepts of slavery. By citing a few examples at very specific points in time. Saying it was different is one thing, but as far as I’m concerned it was the same in the main way that counts. Attempting to lesson the unpleasentness of it is distasteful. As if atrocities can be arranged by degrees. It’s just bad.

… and totally off topic.

 

[TheSword]

No, I get what they're saying. It's on a completely different level down from what we're thinking, while still being completely terrible. Like going in to the doctor thinking you have liver cancer and the doctor tells you it's only hepatitis, or like the guards drag you out of your cell to the gallows but it turns out it's only a mock execution, there's only a couple inches of slack on the rope and after you've dangled choking for a minute they cut you down.

Well it isn’t like that at all is it. Because Steampunkette was still discussing slavery. Not ‘mock’ slavery. Or ‘benign’ slavery. Because in the context those things don’t exist.

 

[Steampunkette]

I'm sorry that it was distasteful for you to read that slavery has existed in different manners across time with different expectations while still being categorically wrong in what you consider to be a "Shallow" argument. I find it distasteful that you're attempting to rephrase my general condemnation of modern reinterpretation of labor and cruelty in history using period examples across European History as being slavery apologetics. Less Cruel or Labor-Intensive slavery remains slavery, on this we clearly agree. And as previously noted I'm not attempting to justify or present slavery as acceptable.

And it's nice that we agree that society does not consider Children performing unpaid labor in the home as Child Labor, but instead the instilling of personal responsibility, even if the free labor garnered from that child's actions would otherwise cost quite a bit from an employed adult performing the same tasks. Including how that extends, in a farm environment, to feeding animals, mucking pens, grooming animals, and performing entirely separate forms of unpaid labor that an adult would be paid for performing.

It amuses me further that groups like 4H exist that cost money to join in order for the child to perform unpaid farm labor for "Fun" and competition. A situation where you pay money for someone to employ your child with no pay in the performing of agricultural labor... Modern Agricultural Apprenticeship.

Neat!

 

[Hussar]

Well it isn’t like that at all is it. Because Steampunkette was still discussing slavery. Not ‘mock’ slavery. Or ‘benign’ slavery. Because in the context those things don’t exist.

The problem though is, how do you define slavery?

After all, a significant portion of the US economy is propped up through prison labor which, by many definitions, qualifies as slavery. In fact, depending on how you define slavery, there are considerably larger slave populations in the US today than there were in the 19th century.

My point being, it's a REALLY complicated issue that is far, far beyond the scope of a game to untangle. Good grief, really smart people writing PHD's can't untangle it, nor come to anything approaching consensus. It's pretty unrealistic to expect an RPG to do it.

 

[TheSword]

I'm sorry that it was distasteful for you to read that slavery has existed in different manners across time with different expectations while still being categorically wrong in what you consider to be a "Shallow" argument. I find it distasteful that you're attempting to rephrase my general condemnation of modern reinterpretation of labor and cruelty in history using period examples across European History as being slavery apologetics. Less Cruel or Labor-Intensive slavery remains slavery, on this we clearly agree.

And it's nice that we agree that society does not consider Children performing unpaid labor in the home as Child Labor, but instead the instilling of personal responsibility, even if the free labor garnered from that child's actions would otherwise cost quite a bit from an employed adult performing the same tasks. Including how that extends, in a farm environment, to feeding animals, mucking pens, grooming animals, and performing entirely separate forms of unpaid labor that an adult would be paid for performing.

It amuses me further that groups like 4H exist that cost money to join in order for the child to perform unpaid farm labor for "Fun" and competition. A situation where you pay money for someone to employ your child with no pay in the performing of agricultural labor... Modern Agricultural Apprenticeship.

Neat!

Your claim was that it was less cruel is reductionist, impossible to prove and in poor taste. That is precisely the element I take issue with.

 

[Bohandas]

Well it isn’t like that at all is it. Because Steampunkette was still discussing slavery. Not ‘mock’ slavery. Or ‘benign’ slavery. Because in the context those things don’t exist.

I was talking about what WE were going in assuming, not what they were.

In any case, what about the liver cancer vs hepatitis metaphor?

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Your claim was that it was less cruel is reductionist, impossible to prove and in poor taste. That is precisely the element I take issue with.

IMO, it's pretty clearly a "less cruel version of slavery" where the slaves have the right to walk away from a bad slave-owner than the American equivalent. I'm absolutely not advocating for slavery in any way, but they're slightly different shades of a very, very, very dark gray.

 

[lingual]

It amuses me further that groups like 4H exist that cost money to join in order for the child to perform unpaid farm labor for "Fun" and competition. A situation where you pay money for someone to employ your child with no pay in the performing of agricultural labor... Modern Agricultural Apprenticeship.

My kids did 4H

I don't think those of us living in (I assume), wealthy "Western" nations with public services and social welfare really have the right frame of mind to criticize "child labor" on a family farm. In olden times when there was no public education, I assume that your children were pretty much your apprentices at a young age. If you combine the fact that you could very well be a serf or sharecropper of some sort and that agricultural technology was a lot lower than it is today, then "child labor" could mean the difference between starvation and survival.

Another example (probably more on the extreme end) - my daughter is only 17 but graduated from high school and wasn't doing anything this summer so I helped her get her first job. Not sure if that is what those critiquing you would qualify as "child labor". It's not child abuse in my book. She's actually happy to be getting some spending money and a checking account, etc.

 

[TheSword]

IMO, it's pretty clearly a "less cruel version of slavery" where the slaves have the right to walk away from a bad slave-owner than the American equivalent. I'm absolutely not advocating for slavery in any way, but they're slightly different shades of a very, very, very dark gray.

You’re talking about something that actually happened as if it is theoretical and abstract. The fact that some slaves were able to walk away, firstly is based on Steampunkettes unreferenced examples, secondly we have no idea how widespread those examples were, or to what extent they represented slavery across the Mediterranean. Or if they were a narrow time period or covered several thousand years of ancient history. We also don’t know whether a right in principle is also a right in practice.

At best we are fumbling in the dark. Therefore it’s sensible not to make assumptive statements that slavery in ancient mediterranean states was less cruel because we have a theoretical idea of what one right in one city state was like on one issue in isolation.

[Edit] I’ve just realised that people are thread hopping similar discussions as they get excluded or the threads get closed. I didn’t realize that. So I won’t be responding any more on the subject.