Extreme like Thomas Jefferson or like Robert Carter III?
Since people describe me as “extreme” so often, I experiment with how to respond since I don’t use the measure they do. They compare me with people around them—that is, with culture. I consider how my behavior affects others. I don’t want to hurt innocent people.
My book treats the relationship between our culture and slavery, with the main difference that the cruelty of today’s culture is much greater than slavery in the US. As one measure of many, the peer-reviewed journal The Lancet reports nine million people dying per year from polluted air. That number is about the total number of slaves in the US total, over centuries.
Thomas Jefferson spoke of freedom, equality, and liberty, but owned slaves. He didn’t free them. In his time and place, owning slaves was normal. Freeing them was unusual.
George Washington fought for freedom, equality, and liberty, but owned slaves. He didn’t free them while alive but freed them in his will. He was slightly less normal than Jefferson.
Benjamin Franklin owned slaves, but freed them while alive. He also worked on anti-slavery. He was out of the mainstream.
Robert Carter III is less known today, but he was a landowner in Virginia who knew Jefferson and Washington. He freed his 500 slaves, the most of any American. To free slaves was illegal when he first committed to freeing his.
Robert Carter III was extreme in his time for freeing his slaves.
If I am extreme today, I am extreme in the way Robert Carter III was. If you pollute and deplete an average amount today, you are normal like Thomas Jefferson was. He could say what he did didn’t matter and other equivalents of all the other nonsense rationalizations we spout today, but we look back with clarity, not comparing him to his peers but thinking of the people whose freedom, equality, and liberty he took from them.
Wouldn’t you prefer to be extreme in the amount you hurt innocent people for your comfort and convenience?
How many people do you accept causing to suffer for your comfort and convenience for you not to be too extreme? Isn’t zero the right number?
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