Are Liberals and Leftists *truly* anti-slavery? Of course not!

*

The fact that slavery was all-but universal until a couple of hundred years ago is used as the standard, off-the-peg, number one knock-down argument to justify that because our ancestors were wrong about slavery, they are probably wrong about everything else; and therefore (so the argument goes) every specific aspect of traditional culture should be challenged, subverted then inverted.

*

This argument - used many thousands of times per hour in the West - assumes that modern, decent Liberals and Leftists are truly anti-slavery; which of course they are not.

*

Liberals and leftists always do say they are anti-slavery, just as they might assert that the moon is made of green cheese (people can say anything they like, cost free - so long as it is socially sanctioned, which naturally this is).

*

But if we assume that the people who actually abolished slavery - the abolitionist movement - are those who were really and truly anti-slavery, then it is clear that there are almost no such people in the world today; at least none with significant power.

*

To be an abolitionist in the old sense is to be anti-slavery full stop.

*

To be an abolitionist was not to be prudential about slavery, not to regard slavery as bad because it led to greater suffering, but to regard slavery as an intrinsic evil.

*

An abolitionist might admit that to be a slave with a good and kind master is a happier state than many others regimes under which humans live - but still insist on the abolition of slavery.

The abolitionists took no account of the cost in lives and treasure (including the lives of slaves) of abolishing slavery.

Even when the abolition of slavery left ex-slaves starving, diseased, degraded, and extremely violent (as in Haiti) this made no difference at all to the imperative that slavery be abolished.

Even though slavery was in fact abolished in many parts of the world only at gunpoint: this was a secondary consideration - for abolitionists slavery must  be abolished: end of story.

*

In sum - an abolitionist would seek-out and and extirpate slavery by whatever means were effective.

This is how slavery actually was abolished. It did not matter where the slavery was - even in deepest Africa, or in the parched deserts of Arabia - slavery was never left alone, slave states were never allowed to opt-out.

For decade after decade, the full force of the British Empire was brought to bear against slavers and they were forced to yield until slavery was abolished everywhere except in some very poor places in the middle of Africa - which held-out through the war torn 20th century until the British Empire collapsed.

*

But slavery came back. Of course. Because slavery is a spontaneous occurrence in all sedentary societies, and if it is not being continually sought-out and extirpated it will be there.

Ignorant folks were surprised to 'discover' long term slavery in the UK in a recent news story - fools! There are at least many hundreds of slaves in the UK- maybe many thousands depending on how slavery is defined, where you draw the line. There must be - what is stopping it?

And if nothing effective is stopping slavery, there will be slavery.

*

Slavery was brought back into into England by multiculturalism, and is protected from awareness by multiculturalism. Indeed multiculturalism has created an environment in which all the enlightenment horrors have returned, have been sealed-off from inspection and made immune to effective action. Multiculturalism created a situation in which it is not merely pointless to detect and discuss such matters - but counter-productive, since the attempt to expose and eliminate slavery creates further legalistic evasions and protections for slavery within the system.

*

Full-blooded abolitionism was in fact an evil, which is why it was universally abandoned. It was an evil because it was single issue politics, fanatical and without prudence.

Abolitionism naturally led to massive suffering, since it was so devoted to its primary imperative that all other problems were accepted and excused.

This was a particular problem since, as we now see, abolition of slavery was unstable - it was not a matter of getting rid of slavery once for all. Slavery keeps coming back, and keeps needing to be suppressed all the time.

Therefore any society - any culture - which is not subject to this suppression will tend to reintroduce de facto slavery (although it may be disguised legalistically).

*

The proper attitude to slavery is prudential, not fanatical - slavery is an undesirable state, and slavery should be suppressed unless to do so makes matters worse, when it should be regulated (i.e. slaves must be treated well, or at least not cruelly and arbitrarily) - but prudence is not what we have now.

The attitude towards slavery we have under triumphant modern Leftism is mere expediency. If Leftist opposition to slavery were prudential then they would argue, explicitly, that slavery was permissible under certain conditions. For example, they would need to argue explicitly that slavery was permissible under multiculturalism, since Leftists are clearly prepared to tolerate slavery in non-Western cultures.

However, the Left do not so argue; instead they pretend to abolitionism: pretend to be always, absolutely and implacably opposed to slavery under all possible circumstances.

*

So, the Left spout pure abolitionist rhetoric 24/7 but (implicitly and dishonestly) recognize that actually to act to detect and extirpate slavery would be to weaken their own legitimacy as based in multiculturalism - so they make sure they do not detect it, if detected do not use coercion, do not publicize examples of slavery, and when there are examples the media very quickly forget it. Down the memory hole with it!

Yet, very obviously, in the modern surveillance society that is the UK, if the authorities wanted to detect and extirpate slavery then the task would be facile - it would take a few weeks merely. That this does not happen shows that the authorities place the abolition of slavery as a low priority, a much lower priority than - for instance - advocating, imposing and sustaining multiculturalism.

*

Think about it: by revealed preferences the Left - while pretending to absolute abolitionism - wants multiculturalism even at the cost of reintroducing slavery to the West.

That is what we are up against.

*

So the triumph of the Left is a peculiar thing indeed.

Abolitionism was the beginning of the modern Left (around the late 18th century), yet it has been tacitly dumped even while the rhetoric around slavery, its usage as a rationalization for subversion of tradition, is more heated than ever.

And nobody notices!

This is because our reality is now the mass media. Never mind what is happening in real life, never mind that (sex) slaves were discovered a few streets away from where I live. So long as slavery has been abolished from the mass media, that is enough, that is the really important thing for Leftism. That way the Left has all the rhetorical benefits of fanatical abolitionism, but none of the destructive implications that effective anti-slavery action would have on the truly sacred imperative of multiculturalism.

Job done...

*