When someone like Tom Cotton looks at someone like me, they fail to recognize that they are looking at another human being, and that’s the core of the problem.
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what nuance? Tom Cotton’s argument is just there to fill space. He says he’s against the 1619 project, and wishes to penalize schools that use it, but
necessary:
as the times puts it
"It aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative. "
evil:
this bears repeating.
Here he uses a stock phrase because he doesn’t want to think about it.
Jonathan swift once wrote:
Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it; so that when Men come to be undeceiv’d, it is too late; the Jest is over, and the Tale has had its Effect
When was the 1619 project published? August 2019.
When did Cotton write his bill? 23 July 2020.
You’d think that someone claiming to represent the “Truth” would be well prepared in his arguments; instead all he has to offer is the same old bullshit.
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Right! And as you and I and many people here recognize that as a moral failing on his part, Cotton and his supporters do not see it that way. Which is frightening. Cotton and his ilk firmly believe in the moral rightness of their political views, which are views that are inherently dehumanizing, violent, and have no place in a truly democratic society. But the GOP has been taken over by these people who truly believe they are on the right side of history.
It’s really scary and depressing.
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Best thing I ever heard in a college class discussion:
Sophomore: “If I can play Devil’s Advocate…”
Professor: “You may not.”
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Obligs:
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The only Devil’s Advocate worth playing…
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cough
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It’s satire to point out how awful his argument about slavery is.
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The Spanish and Portuguese colonies had alreay been importing enslaved Africans for over a century, so chattel slavery was already established by custom if not by law. (Somewhere in Liam Hogan’s Twitter feed there are detailed citations showing that enslaved Africans in the English colonies were treated as slaves before laws relating to race and slavery were passed).
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Heinlein’s novella Logic of Empire, perhaps?
Oh, dear $LC_DEITY. So now we’re talking about slavery in the context of Cotton ginning?
Off topic: One thing that triggered Southern resentment was that the South had very few sources of water power. They had to ship the raw bales of cotton elsewhere - up North or to England - to be processed into finished textiles. And as usual, the middleman ate up the profits. Arguably, the cotton gin was partly responsible for bolstering slavery, by keeping King Cotton enthroned. It was the gin that made cotton economically more attractive than wool or linen, because there was very little labor in turning the raw product into fiber that could be spun; the gin did it all. No carding and washing of wool or retting and heckling of flax.
Which shifted the labor onto tending the cotton crop - slavery - and onto spinning and weaving - the exploitation of women. Which in turn, ironically, enabled women to work outside the home and farm, and gave them a new-found political voice. The modern women’s movement was born in places like Seneca Falls and Lowell. And of course, many of these voices were also among the early ones calling for Abolition.
I’m an Ivy League alum (although hardly in that social class!) You don’t get a degree form one of those schools by being stupid. Cotton isn’t stupid. He’s wicked. Stop calling him stupid; it suggests that he doesn’t know any better. He does.
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Right. You often get it by having had the wits to choose the right (wealthy) parents. (I.e., being stupid and having any Ivy degree are NOT mutually exclusive).
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I’ve known very few who were actually stupid. I’ve known a great many who were psychopathic. There’s a difference.
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There are two conflicting etymologies for the phrase. The one I subscribe to is the practice of putting ginger up a horses ass to make them seem more lively for sale and to dupe the public.
If only because it associates Tom Cotton and a horses ass. But - it fits generally.
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There’s a definite split between the dim-witted legacies and the kids of big donors (e.g. Jared Kushner) on the one hand and the genuinely smart and/or talented students (who can come from more modest means and pay tuition and fees – at least at Harvard – on a sliding scale thanks to the huge endowments) on the other. Cotton doesn’t seem to be a legacy or from a wealthy family, so I’m going to assume that he was at least intelligent enough to grind or finagle his way into Harvard.
That’s the most difficult part of an Ivy education: getting in. After that it’s what you make of it. I’ve known people who coasted their way through Harvard and those who took full advantage of the educational resources offered. Cotton graduated within 3 years magna cum laude, which again indicates some degree of intelligence lacking in the Kushner-type alumns.
The quality of the education itself is nothing special compared to any other top-25 name-brand school, Ivy or non-Ivy. The only real added benefit from the top Ivies is the connections you make to the national and global establishment. In terms of advancing career opportunities, the degree and the networking will allow you to meet with wealthy and powerful people who otherwise wouldn’t give you the time of day.
There’s the rub for the Ivies. To try and screen out obvious sociopaths like Cotton would be to remove the only added benefit they have as described above. The global financial and political and cultural elites have a disproportionate number of sociopaths and monsters in their ranks compared to the larger population.
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I’m not calling him stupid; I’m calling him incapable of doing useful work in his profession unless you posit undermining democracy and civil rights his job. Smart doesn’t necessarily mean right. I’ve known many very smart people that make bad decisions because they don’t function effectively in a real world, boots-on-the-ground scenario and are blinded by their biases. These biases are often reinforced by their ‘exalted’ education.
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Yes. I’m aware. We are talking specifically about the ENGLISH colonies here and the US.
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The point is that the English colonies adopted the institution of slavery as it was already being practised in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies. The enslaved Africans who were shipped to Jamestown in 1619 were chattel, not indentured servants, even if the legal framework for slavery did not yet exist in the English colonies. IIRC one of the examples cited by Liam Hogan, from before the 1630s, was of an pregnant woman and her future child being bequeathed as property in a will.
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