Need help forming conscience regarding action towards injustice

[leonie]

My 11 year old son and I are reading a book on the history of the evangelization of the Americas–concerning the Spanish settlement.

emmanuelbooks.com/product_detail.cfm?ID=542

We are learning about some of the problems that reformers have when encountering injustice, esp. injustice that is well established in the economic and social structure.

What is the correct way to approach it–seek gradual reform or does God demand radical action? The two examples that have come up is when the Spanish came upon the Aztec sacrifice of humans. They were horrified and took immediate action that led to the almost total destruction of the capital city. Should they have sought a more gradual and peaceful reform, even though men would have been killed during this time while they sought to persuade the Aztecs?

This former case reminds me of abortion…

The second situation was the enslavement of natives by greedy colonists. De Casas, a priest, demanded an immediate end while another Bishop advocated a more gradual reform since the
“system” and the colonists were unlikely to change quickly. And, indeed, that proved to be the case…De Casa’s efforts were for nought.

This one reminds me of the War Between the States. The Civil was so horrific and bloody, leaving many blacks in worse or as bad straits as before they gained freedom. Would it have been better to reform gradually–or, was it even possible?

And, yet men would have been suffering during the reform period.

I just don’t know…Anyone have some wisdom for me?

 

[Arclight]

My 11 year old son and I are reading a book on the history of the evangelization of the Americas–concerning the Spanish settlement.

emmanuelbooks.com/product_detail.cfm?ID=542

We are learning about some of the problems that reformers have when encountering injustice, esp. injustice that is well established in the economic and social structure.

What is the correct way to approach it–seek gradual reform or does God demand radical action? The two examples that have come up is when the Spanish came upon the Aztec sacrifice of humans. They were horrified and took immediate action that led to the almost total destruction of the capital city. Should they have sought a more gradual and peaceful reform, even though men would have been killed during this time while they sought to persuade the Aztecs?

This former case reminds me of abortion…

This isn’t a good example, the huge disease gradient between the Old and New Worlds more or less ensured that the Aztec civilization (and the entire indigenous population) would collapse in short order, so perhaps God does work in mysterious ways. All it takes is one Spanish smallpox or influenza carrier infecting a “virgin” population that’s never experienced either and the human sacrifices will end in quick time, period. William H. McNeill in Plagues and Peoples discusses this at length.

The second situation was the enslavement of natives by greedy colonists. De Casas, a priest, demanded an immediate end while another Bishop advocated a more gradual reform since the
“system” and the colonists were unlikely to change quickly. And, indeed, that proved to be the case…De Casa’s efforts were for nought.

This one reminds me of the War Between the States. The Civil was so horrific and bloody, leaving many blacks in worse or as bad straits as before they gained freedom. Would it have been better to reform gradually–or, was it even possible?

And, yet men would have been suffering during the reform period.

I just don’t know…Anyone have some wisdom for me?

I see radical change as necessary. I disagree strongly that the War itself put blacks into worse shape than they were antebellum. Slavery in the U.S. was not going to end without the Civil War, which forced a series of small reforms culminating in the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. The military occupation of the defeated Confederacy (Reconstruction) ensured that newly won civil rights were enforced at bayonet point until the last troops were withdrawn as a result of the presidential election compromise in 1876. That was followed by jim crow laws that lasted long into the 20th century. It was those laws that caused another 80 or 90 years of misery for the blacks.

What gave blacks freedom was the political will of the federal government to force the issue. What lost them these rights and reduced many of them to a new kind of slavery was the dissipation of the vision of Lincoln and the radical reconstructionists to political expediency.

 

[Ridgerunner]

This isn’t a good example, the huge disease gradient between the Old and New Worlds more or less ensured that the Aztec civilization (and the entire indigenous population) would collapse in short order, so perhaps God does work in mysterious ways. All it takes is one Spanish smallpox or influenza carrier infecting a “virgin” population that’s never experienced either and the human sacrifices will end in quick time, period. William H. McNeill in Plagues and Peoples discusses this at length.

I see radical change as necessary. I disagree strongly that the War itself put blacks into worse shape than they were antebellum. Slavery in the U.S. was not going to end without the Civil War, which forced a series of small reforms culminating in the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. The military occupation of the defeated Confederacy (Reconstruction) ensured that newly won civil rights were enforced at bayonet point until the last troops were withdrawn as a result of the presidential election compromise in 1876. That was followed by jim crow laws that lasted long into the 20th century. It was those laws that caused another 80 or 90 years of misery for the blacks.

What gave blacks freedom was the political will of the federal government to force the issue. What lost them these rights and reduced many of them to a new kind of slavery was the dissipation of the vision of Lincoln and the radical reconstructionists to political expediency.

I agree with your statement about disease. Sooner or later, decimation of the Amerinds by Eurasian microbial disease was inevitable. Due to immunity differences, the reverse was not true except possibly (and arguably) in the case of syphilis, as the relative Amerind immunity superiority seems to have been toward parasites, whereas that of Europeans, Asians and Africans was toward viruses and bacteria. All it would have taken was one sick European, Asian or African coming to the Americas for any reason or by accident, (or perhaps a round trip by Indians the other way) and the result would have been the same. I will try to find that book you recommend, by the way.

I have long thought slavery would have probably ended sometime toward the end of the 19th century anyway, as British mills found a substitute for American short staple cotton. The value of cotton spiraled down and really never did recover its former value relative to other things. Boll weevil infestations also became a huge problem later on. There were, indeed, rice and tobacco plantations, but the big use of slaves was for upland cotton. Slavery was not particularly useful in the absence of large monocultures, and was not all that widely in use in the more northerly slaves states, in which mixed, small-scale agriculture was the rule, for a number of reasons.

Slaves were very expensive relative to most of the products slave labor could generate. Whether it’s true or not, it is at least believed that, on the whole, immigrants were cheaper for most tasks. You didn’t have to buy an Irishman or an Italian. He just appeared and asked for work in exchange for bare subsistence. One could speculate that possibly slavery would have become gradually useless and simply been abandoned.

 

[Arclight]

…

I have long thought slavery would have probably ended sometime toward the end of the 19th century anyway, as British mills found a substitute for American short staple cotton. The value of cotton spiraled down and really never did recover its former value relative to other things. Boll weevil infestations also became a huge problem later on. There were, indeed, rice and tobacco plantations, but the big use of slaves was for upland cotton. Slavery was not particularly useful in the absence of large monocultures, and was not all that widely in use in the more northerly slaves states, in which mixed, small-scale agriculture was the rule, for a number of reasons.

Slaves were very expensive relative to most of the products slave labor could generate. Whether it’s true or not, it is at least believed that, on the whole, immigrants were cheaper for most tasks. You didn’t have to buy an Irishman or an Italian. He just appeared and asked for work in exchange for bare subsistence. One could speculate that possibly slavery would have become gradually useless and simply been abandoned.

This is a complex issue. Slavery might have died out before the Civil War but for the invention of the cotton gin, which resulted in a massive increase in cotton production and new markets in Europe. But you’re right, at some point in the 19th century, slavery would have become economically unfeasible.

But the real problem is what happens after slavery ends for economic reasons. The economic end of slavery doesn’t guarantee political equality by any means. And that is the real difference between immigrant Irish and Italian and East Europeans and blacks. Nativist discrimination against blacks in the South was magnitudes worse than discrimination against white immigrants, who at least could vote and after a generation or two were integrating into American public life. The South needed the shock of wartime defeat and military occupation and laws imposed by the federal government.

I think that a sharecropper economy dominated by Jim Crow laws would have developed if slavery simply ended because it wasn’t economically viable, an exact parallel to actual history when radical reconstructionism ended before the reforms could be made permanent.

The example of South Africa might be worth a visit for the OP’s question. The end of apartheid in South Africa was negotiated, which sounds good. But the government and dominant social powers were forced to the bargaining table because of demands for radical reform backed by out of control violence.

I just have my doubts that major reforms can come peacefully.

 

[leonie]

I just have my doubts that major reforms can come peacefully.

How do you think this applies with the fight to end abortion, then?

 

[Arclight]

How do you think this applies with the fight to end abortion, then?

I don’t think the abortion issue will have a favorable resolution.

for most of the population, its not important enough.