Many abolitionists have complained to me that, as a traveling performer, I have not spoken to my audiences on the issue of slavery. I have received many angry letters attacking me based on assumptions about what my silence means.
Allow me to make my position clear: I oppose the institution of slavery. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, I believe it is a "moral depravity." I feel that way about other things as well.
After the raid on Harper's Ferry, the mood among Southern leaders was an existential panic and unstoppable lust for revenge. It reminded me of the Alamo. There was no reasoning with those leaders, nor could action be taken by congress. It would have required replacing most of congress and overturning decades of bipartisan negotiation and compromises. Even in the best case, it would have taken years.
But even worse, the abolitionist, pro-Negro movement quickly decided that their primary goal was not merely opposition to the reprisals or specifically cruel owners, but opposition to the entire institution of slavery, that is, opposition to the entire way of life of Southern plantation owners. And here they decided to draw the line between decent people and oppressive tyrants, which had the following consequences:
It shrunk the coalition. Most southerners support slavery. Anyone who supports the solution of having slave states and free states supports slavery.
It was politically infeasible. What is the pathway that takes us from the present situation to the abolition of slavery as an institution? I do not see how it could happen without a total collapse of the union. As usual, these Jacobins have championed a doomed cause.
The abolitionists have been distributing hundreds of pamphlets about the horrid conditions of slaves. The main effect of this has been to create a population of people in a constant state of bloodboiling rage with no consequential political outlet.
I fear this may be worse than useless. Yes, there are disingenuous proponents of slavery dismissing and censoring all criticism of slavery on the pretext of "states' rights." But there's also valid fear of historical government overreach and that fear gives power to pro-slavery leaders who say that only they can protect Southern culture.
Does this mean slavery should not be criticized? Absolutely not. But it's something I do not wish to contribute to unless if not outweighed by tangible benefits.
Many abolitionists have been single-mindedly focused on slavery, and the willingness of the Republicans to compromise on the issue, and that focus has had the following effects:
Not a single slave was freed by their efforts. Not one fewer lash was delivered by the owners.
It may have slightly contributed to the election of James Buchanan, ensuring that nothing can be done to stop the expansion of slavery into new states. Buchanan also does not support giving women like me the right to vote. A perfectly enlightened being would feel no bitterness about this, but I do.
None of this is the fault of slaves, of course, who are overwhelmingly the victims here.
But if women like me are ever going to get anywhere in this country, we need a broad movement that stands up for the rights of ALL women, REGARDLESS of their views on slavery.
Liberalism is itself not practical (liberal ideology taken to the rational extreme of practicality and efficiency is just fascism) so the trick is to become selectively aware of the fact your worldview means nothing can ever change when people want to change something you like. I mean, seriously, apply her thought process to any political issue.
Trans rights in 2005? Oh, sorry, it's hopelessly impractical and because most women don't support trans rights we'd just be alienating them; we need to be practical and compromise with the transphobes so we can get things done.
Climate change? Degrowth and net zero is not a practical path, it's simply never gonna happen. Most car owners don't support mass transit so these utopian urbanist ideas are just shrinking the coalition. The left has once again chosen a doomed cause.
Socialism? Worker ownership of the means of production isn't realistic. Most shareholders and landlords just don't support taking their property away. The left needs to let go of these tangential issues that have no future.
I think this is giving entirely too much credit to both liberalism and especially fascism. "Practicality" and "efficiency" both imply goals and evaluations of the worth of resources used to reach those goals. What are the goals? Who is doing the evaluating? These are questions that are, at best, hand-waved, but often entirely ignored.
Given the proper level of technological advancement, central planning is endlessly more practical and efficient than the anarchy of production under liberalism if your goal is broad societal welfare and not going through cyclical crises, and it is something that we should be pursuing.
What I mean is that when capitalists need rapid accumulation of capital and not long term political stability, they opt for fascism. Colonialism and primitive accumulation are the mirrors of fascism, they're the aspect of capitalism that's found on its temporal (as in primitive accumulation as the pre-history of capitalism) and spatial (colonialism, imperialism, patriarchy) boundaries. When capital has a mandate to accumulate the largest amount of surplus value it can possibly get, with either low possibility of labor rising in the opposite direction (or a high risk, which paradoxically pushes capital in the same direction, to salvage what it can and destroy labor as much as possible), it resorts to abandon its human face.
It's comfy in the center. You never have to defend anything, just poke holes in and minimize the arguments of anyone trying to change anything ever.