The Pope's speech to the German Parliament

[fpb]

http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/the_listening_heart
As ever, the man is worth listening to. But the responses in the comments thread just show how bloody useless it is to deliver intellectually distinguished and morally valuable speeches in a world where most people know no history but are stuffed full of out-of-context factoids and believe themselves entitled to judge.

Comments

Re: One

[ihuitl.livejournal.com]

So Christianity ended slavery after 1000 years...except when it didn't...and serfdom was hardly a great leap forward for human rights, even if it was relatively better than slavery: you still had an unequal rendering of basic rights in society. I also find the notion that the Pope granted some leeway to be inexcusable for something supposedly as basic as the right to be free of bondage.

I can't speak to India, not being as familiar with its history, although the Islamic Mughals were responsible for much of its mainstreaming. Likewise in China, slavery came in and out of favor, often under the auspices of the authoritarian philosophy of Legalism (which opposed Confucianism and Mohism; in fact Confucian tales abound of scholars trying to convince cruel kings to be benevolent), and even then it was mainly a punishment for criminals or war captives. Slavery was limited in east, however: for example, Yu Hyongwon was a Confucian scholar who argued for abolition, as did Mohism in China and later the Emperor Wang Mang. Buddhism specifically prohibited engaging in any slave trade.

Re: One

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Try not to equivocate. Christianity abolished slavery among Christians, because all Christians, including the slaves, had rights which the Church recognized and which neither nobles nor kings could deny, since their very same rights also depended on Church recognition. In theory, non-Christians could be enslaved. In practice, as soon as a large body of slaves began to build up - in the New World - its presence proved troublesome, and ultimately intolerable, for the very same reason: slaves became Christians, and Christian public opinion - Catholic first, Protestant much later - started asking "is he not a man and a brother?" It was the primacy of the Christian doctrine of the equality of all believers that killed slavery again and again.

Buddhism prohibited engaging in any slave trade. Prohibited who? And some intellectuals in China did not much like it. With what result? The war between the states wasn't fought in China.

Re: One

[ihuitl.livejournal.com]

Buddhists believed that no one should engage in the slave trade - their proscriptions were, and are universal. They also rejected the Indian caste system. Slavery came and went out of favor throughout China's long history, depending on the rulers involved.

That abolition during the middle ages extended only to non-Christians upon their conversion is better than nothing, and better than previous conditions, but is clearly not the same as later conceptions of rights, that exist for people regardless of their religious belief. Same for serfdom which was not abolished fully until the 19th century in some places, mainly due to economic and population pressures.