Mal and slavers?
POSTED BY: slayer730
UPDATED: Tuesday, April 27, 2004 05:01
VIEWED: 7999
PAGE 4 of 4
Long day today so I missed out some, but most of the points I was going to make have already been made. So that's a good thing.
As for the cattle and branding thing Forrestwolf, my opinion is that they were the mooing sort of cattle and not human cattle. Don't think Mal would be so blase about it if they were slaves that his momma was selling, plus I doubt you'd need a ranch to raise them. But ya never know.
Mal has some experience with cattle though from what we've seen in Safe. He knows what will spook them, seems like he's seen a stampede or two in his time (and they are NOT fun things to see) and he tells Jayne that they'll follow him without having to smack 'em.
Another thing that struck me is that Joss did a good job in Firefly of not retconning real world history. Inara talks about the Mona Lisa, Kaylee has a Han Solo in carbonite next to her hammock and Simon knows his ancient Egyptian beers which leads me to believe...and this is pure speculation here...That during the Unification War the Independents would have actually embraced US Civil War conventions to a point.
As in not only was he writing about a future analog to the Civil War but that the combatants could have adopted certain aspects of it for their own uses. Take brown coats, good color for combat in trench warfare yeah but most of the Confederate uniforms of the ACW weren't grey they were butternut, butternut is brown. The whole planetary rights vs centralized government thing maps pretty well too and even though we've never seen an Independent flag it wouldn't surprise me if it weren't some variation of the Battle Flag or Stars and Bars just with more stars.
Not much of the naval aspect is shown either but I'd be willing to bet that the Independents had a commerce raider named Alabama and that the first capital ship they slipped from dock was probably named Virginia. Yeah this is bigtime conjecture, but it wouldn't surprise me one little bit.
I guess what I'm saying is the Independents could have honed in on a romantacized notion of the Civil War and used that to help explain their cause to people when they started up the war against the Alliance. It'd give them an identity. Now I'm sure they wouldn't have exactly mapped to the Confederacy, but it would give them a baseline to work from. Just like people who are into Arthurian imagry and suchlike aren't buying into the real middle ages but a romanticized notion of it. Heck in some places in the US today you can see that with the Civil War, or War Between the States, or War of Northern Aggression depending on where ya live and who ya listen to.
Which reminds me of something in Jaynestown, basically Mal says that it isn't the fact of the thing that's important, but that people need something to believe in. The Confederacy as an ideal, not the fact of it, could have been not just a way of Joss to tell the story, but a way for the people in the 26th century to have a rock to cling to when they're about to go up against the Alliance.
Heck, Mal could even be stating that when he says that every person a statue was made of was one sort of sumbitch or another; he could know it was a romantic ideal of a bygone era, but people needed something like that to get up their dander to take on what looked like (and ultimately was) a losing proposition.
Pain is scary...
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Zoid,
You are right about there having been other tensions between North and South, most especially agriculture vs. manufacturing and the tax and trade policies that would flow from that conflict. IMHO, however, slavery, if not the central focus of the retoric for war, was truly central to the growing tension in the country. If slavery had died the rightious death the 1808 importation ban was ment to deal it, then there would not have been a war. It added an element of honor and morality to an economic conflict. (Southerners in the early founding period tended to view slavery as wrong, but, later, they tended to become quite shrill in their defense of the institution, especially as it became more profitable with cotton, and as they got tired of playing Badger to the North's Mal in regard to the morality of slavery.) The economic tension between manufacturing and agrarian interests would have been offset by the settlement of the Midwest, again, IMHO.
Jon
PS
Have I seen you say that you were a PoliSci grad of the Univ. of Houston? Should I say hi to Dr. Lutz for you?
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Gunhand, I think you're probably right - he probably was talking about cattle (yes, he knows a lot about taking care of them, even if he says they're fed milk and all that :).
One more crazy theory - going way out on a limb - what about if he hates slavery because his mother was the slave owner, and Mal was an illegitimate son via a slave? Perhaps the slaves helped raise him (he says he had a big family). I know, this is nutty - next I'll be claiming he's an illegimate child of Thomas Jefferson or something :)
As for the history mix, I agree - Joss has done a great job blending a vast array of different historical references and cultures throughout the show, and it's unlikely to be accurate to say that one side or the other can be directly linked to any side in a historical war.
As for the Independents drawing on Southern sentiment - really interesting idea - but do we ever hear a name of a place that would tie it to the South? I wonder why not? Lot of good Southern names out there to use for planets. There's a lot of references (Londonium, etc.) to real-world names.
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I don't know whether Inara supporting unification meant that she supported the Alliance as well but I couldn't see her supporting the alliance if they obviously supported slavery.
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LeMat:
Looking forward to your weekend? I've got 6:45AM openers at the tower both days, so mine's shot; but that's what they pay me the 'big bucks' for (zoid says without laughing aloud).
As I said in the original post, for the vast majority of Southerners -- who were not wealthy plantation owners, just plain working stiffs and small farmers -- the fight was necessary because a Northern-dominated Congress was passing tariff laws that unjustly favored the Northern states. The little guy could really care less if slavery was abolished because he didn't own any, thought slavery was wrong, and/or couldn't afford a slave in any account.
As I also pointed out at least three times, Lincoln -- as the leader of his Republican party -- was dead-set on freeing the slaves, and had the backing of his party (again, the ones who dominated Congress and could pass any law they wanted, regardless the objections of the Democrats of the South). But they hadn't made that move before the start of the War.
So why did all those Southern boys and men, most of whom didn't have any first-hand dealings with slavery go to war? Because they didn't like the rich manufacturers of the North passing laws that basically devalued their crops, while jacking up the prices of manufactured exchange goods. Southerners not only considered that practice unfair, they considered it unconstitutional. Under States' Rights policy, an individual state could rule a federal law unconstitutional -- or more correctly, beyond the powers that the Constitution provided the legislative branch -- and repeal it as it applied to that state. This was a Jeffersonian ideal.
As I stated in that post, the powers that be in the South -- the minority wealthy, slave-holding plantation owners -- knew that the next thing coming down the pike was abolition of slavery. Without a viable States' Rights policy, Northern interests were going to bankrupt them. A good analogy exists between that stance and Big Oil today. If the US moves away from petroleum to a cheap and universal energy source like hydrogen fuel cells, they will have a hard time holding onto their wealth. Wealthy people didn't get wealthy by suffering their wealth to drain away without a fight. Then as now, it wasn't just the principals involved in losing money either, it was their investors as well...
So a fight was inevitable, then and now. But for the common man -- then, as now -- the fight was about justice and their right to live free from tyranny. Slavery wasn't that big an issue to them, just as I couldn't give a rat's patoot whether Big Oil goes the way of the dinosaur; but I do want to live free from the tyranny of terror. That's worth fighting and dying for.
I did attend the U of H (Eat 'em up, Eat 'em up, Rah, Rah, Rah!) from '76 through '78, but did not graduate. I pursued a promising, though ultimately unfruitful, musical career instead. (Youth is wasted on the young) Y'all stay in school, and like Chris Walken said, "Study your math, kids! It's the key to the universe!"
Respectfully,
zoid
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"River and me was best friends, back then. I named my first-born daughter after her. 'Course, you can't swing a dead cat 'round here on I-Day without hittin' a River..."
- Kaywinnit Tam, wife and mother of 6, A Child Shall Lead Them: A History of the Second War of Independence Wilkins, Richard
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Ok, I read through this thread, and I have a pragmatic question for one and all:
Why does there have to be any deeper reason why Mal hates slavery? Look at it this way --I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume that no-one here fought in the Civil War, but is anyone here forslavery, or okay with the concept of it? I don't think it has much to do with the fact that Mal is a freedom-loving guy in the "won't be held down by the man" sense; I think it has more to do with the fact that he's a moral man, and slavery is morally reprehensible. Yes, that is a sociologically instilled view and it hasn't always been the view, but that doesn't mean it was ever right. I think it would be much, much odder to find out that one of the crew had no strong feelings about slavery, because they're all fairly moral people--with the possible exception of Jayne. 
Actually it would be interesting to find out if the Tams owned any slaves, now that I think about it.
I don't think the question should be "Why does Mal hate slavery?" so much as it should be "Why wouldn't he?" or "What has happened, on a galatic level, that has made slavery acceptable?"
Quote:
Originally posted by Hell's Kitten:
What about the 20 "immigrant workers" Mal hand delivered for the Alliance in the "Dead or Alive" script? Not saying that it means anything, but I thought I'd point it out just to see what comes of it.
Well, like it or not, immigrant workers are doing that work of their own free will. They've chosen to do that for their own motivations -- they can't find work at home, they want to live somewhere else for whatever reason and immigrant work is the only thing they're currently qualified for,stuff like that. That sounds terribly cold, I know it; but there is a moral difference between transporting people who are going to literally be purchased, and transporting people who were forced, for economic reasons, to leave their homes and take seriously crappy jobs.
I kinda like what someone said about Mal thinking Inara was enslaving herself by being a Companion, but that, I think, is just his perception. From things Inara and Nandi have both said, the Companion's Guild seems to be set up to avoid that very thing -- a Companion chooses her own clients, so-and-so is Guild Law, etc. But if Nandi is any indication, a Companion can leave the Guild anytime she wants to -- it's not illegal for them to leave or anything like that. Now if a Companion gets used to the money and can't bear to leave because she's gotten used to a certain standard of living, that's her own personal choice. If she's unhappy, she can leave; if she doesn't leave, that's her own fault.
I think Mal considers the profession too obviously dependent on other people, which is funny, since his profession -- thieving or transporting -- is just as dependent on others.
I was going to write a whole thing about Mal's issue with Companions, but I think I'm going to just start a new thread, because I can go on about it for quite some time. So come on over there, if ya wanna.
"We're just happy to be doin' good works."
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The morality of slavery isn't something I really want to go into, of course anyone that is for it in the western world in the early 21st century is...well nuts. But at various times and places in history it wasn't considered to be morally wrong. Mapping our morality into the past (or the future) doesn't really do much except say something about our morals, in a relativistic sense our morality now may be seen as 'puritanical' or 'hedonistic' depending on whatever history hasn't happened yet. If we were tugged into the 25th century (ain't gonna happen unless you're Buck Rogers) we'd probably be spending a hell of a lot of effort debunking their theories on what our morality is/was.
That aside, the feeling I get from watching the show is that slavery is morally ambiguous in the 'verse. Persepohone may not be a Core world but it's hardly the frontier and slavery is treated as an everyday fact of life by the aristocracy. The slaver at the beginning of Shindig said the slaves were bound for a terraforming effort, that means either big government or big corporations, neither of which would be all that good at an underground, illegal slave trade, if it was done it'd be known about, which makes me think that it's legal in the Alliance.
Which swings all the way back to my initial hypothesis that the Independants were politically against it, although Mal seems to be of the 'true believer' ilk in regards to abolition, not just to the extent it being just a factional ideal, he believes that slavery is wrong in his heart.
So I agree with you to a point and disagree with you to a point. I see Mal as a very moral person even though he tries to be this cold and cool criminal mastermind sort, but to the people in the 'verse he'd be considered moral by some, being blind to the socio-economical benefits of slavery by others, and downright dangerous to yet others.
Pain is scary...
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Quote:
Originally posted by Annigerria:
Now, that's interesting. I took that scene as Badger passing that woman for work in the red-light district... will have to go back and watch it again. (Oh, twist my arm)
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Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving and revolving at 900 miles an hour... The Galaxy Song, Meaning of Life, Monty Python
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This thread touches on a real life issue that
I'm very interested in.
First of all, in the credits for Serenity, that
girl is refered to as Slave one. Also, one of the
most common forms of slavery practised today is
slave prostitution, so that girl could very well
be a slave who was assigned to a redlight
district.
Slavery today in the U.S. is the third largest
money maker for organized crime behind drugs and
guns. In europe, interpol estimates that the
international traffick in women and children
accounts for apprx. 19 billion euros a year. so,
assuming that there's been no major change in
human nature in the next 500 years, and given the
fact that the crew of Serenity make their living
on the fringes of the economy, they would run
into slavery quite frequently.
Its also interesting that the first time Mal
sees River naked in that box, he assumes that she
is a slave who's been sold to a border world
baron in a deal brokered by Simon.
We know that Mal's convictions about personal
freedom were/are strong enough for him to continue
fighting against long odds. From this, we can draw
some conclusions:
1.Indentured servitude is legal in the Alliance,
although its popularity would vary from planet to
planet.
2.If indentured servitude is legal, then slavery
is common since one tends to blur into the other.
(check out the history of the song THE YELLOW
ROSE OF TEXAS)
I don't believe that Mal's on a crusade against
slavery per se, but, because it is a constant
background phenom, would see it as another example
of Alliance oppression to be resisted.
If you are interested in the topic of modern
day slavery, I'd urge you to check out the web
site iabolish.com
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If history is remarkably clear on one point,
it's that people don't learn from history.
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Zoid,
I am about to repeat most of what you and I have already said, but with a slightly different emphasis.
Most of the folks in the South were not slaveholders, and the North was forcing economic policies that hurt the agricultural South. All I am saying is that slavery was an additional problem that the nation faced. In the early 1790's, many people, including slaveholders, looked at slavery as an evil stain on society, but that was ok because slavery looked to be on the way out. It had ever deceasing economic viability and so many felt that it was not an issue that had to be dealt with right away. It was a problem that would take care of itself. They were wrong.
The slaveholding class was making money hand over fist off of their slaves during the first half of the 19th century, and starting around 1800 the view of most Southerns--especially of the upper and upper midling sort--started to change. Many became much more avidly proslavery, and the issue begain to be associated with sectional patriotism. Keep in mind that the Antebellum South was a hierarchical society in which many took their cues from the "better sort." This would be especially true among those who were high enough up in the system to vote--which still entailed a property requirement in most of the South. So the people who made political decisions supported slavery. They supported it so much so that they were unwilling to work with people that they viewed as against them, and they became increasingly clannish about their support of their homeland against the perceived encroachments of the rest of the country. The rest of the population tended to support them. And when the Yankees started coming, gorramit all to hell if they were just going to sit around and take it. So ordinary farm boys who could not even vote were willing to fight and die for the rights of their country (read state) even when they had no real political rights. They were fighting in the name of sectional patriotism that had been fostered by a slavholding elite. The election of Lincoln, who was going to try to stop the spread of slavery, was really just the last straw.
I guess I am trying to argue that slavery poisoned the well between the North and the South. Without slavery, the issue of western settlement would not have become the political bomb it was. (The slave holding states needed to have half the states to be able to block anti-slave legislation in the Senate; incidentally, this goes back to Calhoun's idea of concurrent majorities that you seemed to be talking about.) Without the issue of slavery, the south could have joined with the western states in the Senate as they came into being to counteract the North/Northeast's power in the House.
Jon
(edited for spelling)
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Thanks for the insights, LeMat. I have this predilection for not seeing things, necessarily, the way they are written in history books. We all know that the rich and powerful make the pretty speeches and sign the orders that make up history's twists and turns. The 95% who are not in that class just do the dying.
Yet, I don't see the common man as just a mindless lot of sheep. Some may be mindlessly doing what they're told, some may be hopelessly addicted to patriotism; but I think it's just maybe possible that a large majority of the rank and file 'commoners' can see things more simply and more clearly than than they are generally given credit for.
I was lucky to have a rich heritage of men answering freedom's call on both sides of my family tree. Most were enlisted men, but a few were officers. They all agreed on one thing: it doesn't matter a tinker's damn what the politicians have got to say, or who's playing the fife and waving the flag. What matters is that our country, our families and our fellows deserve defending.
If that sounds a little 'patriotic', consider my youngest uncle Pat's story, as a parallel to a small farmer fighting for the South. My uncle was a promising schoolboy athlete from smalltown Texas in the mid-60's. By that time, everyone knew that the Viet Nam 'Conflict' was a turd in the punchbowl: unwinnable, unethical and a meat-grinder to boot. Did my uncle march in protest? Run off to Canada? Apply for an exemption to play college ball? Nope. Even though he disagreed with the decisions of our government (read 'rich folk') that got us into and kept us in that war, he set his jaw and joined the SEALs. Why? Patriotic zeal? No; he served because Americans were fighting there, dying there. He wasn't about to let our team down by turning 'yellowbelly', however others might rationalize refusing to answer that call. We pray our government and the powers it answers to are righteous; but we don't let our countrymen fight and die alone, for the freedoms we share.
Joss has said that Firefly isn't about the people who made history, it's about the people history walked on. Think of Zoe's comment in the cut-scenes when she says, "We're not in there", as Simon reads his history of Serenity. When you read your histories, travel back in time in your mind; put yourself 'in the shoes' of a man of your socioeconomic stratum. That man is as smart as you, as well-informed as he could be, and as conscientious. Is that man -- are all his fellows -- nothing more than a pawn in Power's game? Or does he act according to what he thinks is right?
I give him credit for doing what's right by his God, his family and his country. Regardless that history may be set in motion by money and power, the common man still does the fighting and dying. I think he does it for a reason, a good reason, and that he does it with his eyes open. Governments and ethical fashions change: one crook or philanderer more or less over the course of history. What does the common man care? All he knows is that he's sticking together with other Americans, and keeping the hope of America alive. The guys at the top may run this country, but they don't own it's heart (not while I and others like me live).
Other than that minor quibble (which is really more about how History is portrayed from a top-down perspective rather than bottom-up, which is how the vast majority of lives experience the world), I thought your observations were cogent and illuminative. And when I say 'rich folk', I'm not talking about the guy making $200K per year; I'm talking about people so rich they can wipe their butts with a President's salary and light their Cuban cigars with a Congressman... Not a Congressman's salary, a Congressman.
Respectfully,
zoid
P.S.
One of the other threads asked why anyone would fight for the Alliance. If I've accomplished what I set out to do here, I think I've addressed that question, too.
_________________________________________________
(Of River) "Little Sis? I could
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