Propaganda: Uncle Tom's Cabin

Here in Ontario, Canada, is the historical site of Uncle Tom's cabin.

"Uncle Tom's Cabin" was a best-selling fictional novel in 1852 that is an example of anti-slavery propaganda . Its depiction of the most sadistic aspects of slavery gave a boost to the anti-slavery movement. The slave owners, of course were not going to let this pass unchallenged. A good response to a piece of powerful propaganda, is to issue a rebuttal that is educated and reasonable, so as to highlight the fairly wild imagery of the propaganda itself. Although the this type rebuttal may still be propaganda, it has a more rational tone to give it greater credibility - especially in that it can now call the propaganda exaggerated, while the rebuttal is simply factual and calm.

Here is an example of a rebuttal against "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by John Bartlett. In case you cannot read through the excruciating nineteenth century prose, I can pretty much paraphrase his best argument for you: You can't judge slavery to be bad by the rare cruelty you may find in it, any more than you can judge marriage to be a bad institution because some men are cruel to their wives, (who incidentally also receive no pay).

I'm not sure if Bartlett's pro-slavery argument still needs a beat down, as the debate has been conceded by other side for a long time. But just in case you, as a reader, have suddenly decided "Hey, maybe slavery was OK after all!!!", I will go ahead with the counter-rebuttal.

The argument against slavery was not based entirely on the brutal whippings and mutilation. It was also based on the racism, the rape of women and subsequent offspring being considered slaves by their father, the splitting up of slave families, the hunting down of escaped slaves, the forced transportation of slaves. And perhaps most obvious of all, marriage is overwhelmingly by choice, slavery is overwhelmingly by force. (exceptions occur in both cases of course).

So this rebuttal is weak, and in hindsight we can all see how weak it is without any further argument on my part (I hope). Shockingly enough, though, this type of argument went over quite well in the southern USA in 1852. It just goes to show how people can shut out logic and reason to support their beliefs.

But more than anything, it is interesting to examine a situation where you compare "good" propaganda to an "evil" rational rebuttal, to see what they look like. Examples today would be some of the responses to "inconvenient Truth" by Al Gore, or "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson.