This is Dan's full statement. Since everyone here is criticizing him, let's at least examine his full statement:
DCP wrote:Now, I pass this anecdote along very warily, knowing that I'm in a very precarious position (although, despite the fact that I'm white, none of my ancestors were ever slaveholders) to say anything that seems in any way positive or exculpatory about slavery. I don't deny for a moment that the enforced servitude of blacks in the United States was a horrific injustice even at its best, an inexcusable offense against God, humanity, and the fundamental principles of the American founding. Those who advocated it and advanced it will have to account for their actions at Judgment Day, if, indeed, they haven't already done so.
But I do believe that good can, and often does, come out of evil. Indeed, I think that this is one of the beauties of the atonement of Christ, that, even out of horror and failure and sin, good can still be extracted if we will repent from and move beyond the bad. Not necessarily the good that would have come without the evil, but, still, some good nonetheless.
The economist Thomas Sowell is said to have made a point similar to that of Will Schryver's Mr. Franklin: On a national radio talk show, a caller accused him of denying that slavery had had any real impact on American blacks. "Oh, I don't deny that at all," Professor Sowell responded. "If it weren't for slavery, you and I would likely be living in some Third World African hell hole."
Does this excuse slave ship captains or slave traders? Not even slightly. It does mean, though, that good can be manufactured from evil, that bad intentions can sometimes inadvertently lead to positive results. That, in other words, there is still hope, even amidst pain and evil.
This is the true alchemy, turning lead into gold.
(bold emphasis mine)
My understanding of what Dan is trying to say here, is that even though the slavery incident was horrific and evil, some positive results did manage to come from it. He is not justifying slavery, or those who participated in forcing black people into slavery in any way.
I think that many of the posters in this thread are reading things into Dan's article that are simply not there.
Sophocles wrote:If Peterson's true intent was to drive home this point, why not use the injustices committed against his own ancestors as an example? Surely something good came of Missouri Executive Order 44 or the Haun's Mill massacre. Can't he see that he's much better situated to make his point from that angle?
I'm guessing that wouldn't serve his actual purpose, which I can only imagine has something to do with reimagining the LDS church's racist past.
I wonder if he would see any problem with using the Holocaust to make the same point?
I don't see him using the example to reimagine the LDS Church's standing on this at all. He flatly stated that holding people as slaves was evil. I think it would naturally follow that ill treatment of ANY people, slaves, in particular, would also be considered evil. Dan's point was more about how descendents of those from Africa who were taken as slaves have ended up having the opportunity to be prosperous. As far as why he didn't use the other examples, I don't know that the other examples you named would make his point quite as clearly as the one he gave.
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