Chapter 21: The path to freedom

Please use this thread to discuss Chapter 21: The path to freedom.

Careful Carl, your socialism is showing.

Brilliant chapter this - very brave, I thought, of Sagan to uphold everyone's right to a good education.

Of course I absolutely applaud everything he says.

Unfortunately, now that everyone can read, the millionaires who own the press, make sure that they read what they want them to read. And it is absolutely true that our children need to be taught to think and comprehend rather than just soak up propaganda.

I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the South is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes – a justifier of the most appalling barbarity, a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds, and a dark shelter under which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection. Were I to be again reduced to the chains of slavery, next to that enslavement, I should regard being the slave of a religious master the greatest calamity that could befall me. ...I...hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land.

- Frederick Douglass
p. 365

Although Christianity was one of the forces to end slavery, it was also the "justifier and sanctifier" of that "peculiar institution". Any moral system that can be used to support both sides of such a monstrous practice is a failure.

The British Royal Governor of the Colony of Virginia in 1671 wrote:I thank God there are no free schools nor printing; and I hope we shall not have (them) these (next) hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience, and heresy, and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them and libels against the best government. God keep us from both!
p. 362

Carl Sagan wrote:Frederick Douglass taught that literacy is the path from slavery to freedom. There are many kinds of slavery and many kinds of freedom. But reading is still the path.
p.363

There are folks who still want to dismantle our public school systems. Be very suspicious of their motives and defend public schools and literacy as one would the First Amendment.

Landroid, I was just puzzled for awhile about what you meant because:

The term public school refers to a group of older, more expensive and exclusive fee-paying private independent schools in the United Kingdom, particularly in England, which cater primarily for children aged between 13 and 18.

We call what you in the US call public school, state school. Phew!!

One thing I think we can be fairly sure of is that Christianity didn't produce African slavery in this country. Being used to justify it isn't the same thing. That many of the countries trading in humans were Christian also doesn't show causation of slavery, as slavery had been long enmeshed in world culture.

It does look as though Enlightenment ideals, the inheritance of Jefferson and the other founders who allowed slavery to be embedded into the new nation, weren't up to the task of finally ending slavery. First the Anglican Wilberforce mounted the campaigns in England that brought the slave trade there to an end in 1806. In America, it appears that credit for antislavery also goes largely to evangelical Christians, including Quakers. That's what I get from my shallow knowledge of history. If there is another way of viewing the matter, I'd be glad to consider it.

http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tse ... mabrel.htm

One thing I think we can be fairly sure of is that Christianity didn't produce African slavery in this country. Being used to justify it isn't the same thing. That many of the countries trading in humans were Christian also doesn't show causation of slavery, as slavery had been long enmeshed in world culture.

Absolutely correct.
Slavery permeates history and is broadly spread geographically and culturally.

Researchers estimate is that there are 21-36 million people in slavery today. This means that there are more people in slavery today than at any other time in human history. Slavery has existed for thousands of years, but changes in the world’s economy and societies over the past 50 years have enabled a resurgence of slavery.

Three trends have contributed most to the rise of modern-slavery.


The first, a recent population explosion has tripled the number of people in the world, with most growth taking place in the developing world.
The second, rapid social and economic change, have displaced many to urban centers and their outskirts, where people have no ‘safety net’ and no job security.
The third, government corruption around the world, allows slavery to go unpunished, even though it is illegal everywhere.

In this way millions have become vulnerable to slave holders and human traffickers looking to profit through the theft of people’s lives. This new slavery has two prime characteristics: slaves today are cheap and they are disposable.

So, I wonder, what did William Wilberforce really achieve? Slavery is illegal - but nobody cares.