Does the fact that Thomas Jefferson was a slave-owning, white, property owner devalue the fact that he helped lead the American revolution and wrote the Declaration of Independence?
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ANSWERS: 3
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Well, to some degree I think it does. But it's hard to fault Jefferson -- he and everyone around him were captive by the same meme set. It's easy for us to sit here now in the 21st century and look back, and think "well, I would never be a slave owner!". But would we? If we had that same cultural conditioning, might we not behave the same way? That was the norm! It's a bit presumptuous to think we can be sure how we would behave. We think, feel, and act within a structure of interpretation, a conceptual model of reality -- we didn't invent this model, we absorbed it from our culture. It gives us the set of thoughts which seem reasonable. We think it IS reality! Mostly it goes unquestioned. Jefferson was in the same boat, only the model was different. He had enough vision to contribute to a better model, but not enough to see through to the core of the issue in his own life. I hear a lesson for all of us in this, rather than a condemnation of Jefferson: let's not be too sure that we're so morally righteous. Future history may have a different take on the things we think are acceptable.
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I don't think that him being a slave owner devalues his accomplishments. It may lessen our modern opinion of him as a person, but shouldn't have any bearing on the validity of his accomplishments. Does OJ's actions take away from the fact that he was one of the greatest football players in the history of the sport?
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I think he made his dislike of slavery pretty clear and the fact that he had slaves (inherited from his father) had more to do with the fact that he felt they wouldn't be any better off being freed at that time and that he could at least give them a decent living while slavery was still legal and widely practiced. He was against slavery ideologically and looked forward to a time when emancipation could be achieved. But he obviously couldn't do it by himself and we can't hold him at fault for that.
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