I get a shiver up my spine whenever moral relativism is introduced into an argument. If you will hold that line, then you must thereby avoid assertions like "we know that it's wrong." Words like we, know, and wrong, cause real problems in that paradigm. "We" is not inclusive. "Know" points towards certainty, relativism is at war with it. "Wrong" is judgmental.
Johnson approached Roxborough and told him he could make a champion out of Louis ,but ,that Blackburn would have to go ,Roxy told him to take a walk. Johnson was on Louis''s case from that moment on.
red cobra, there is now a double standard in boxing and society, that is tearing us apart.There is as much or more "racism", on the part of the "opressed' of yesterday,as their of the one time "opressors" of the past. All of us had a tribal unity, that favored members of our group, over outsiders, but never abused the people not in our circle. But I venture today,because of social evolution, thankfully most people have seen the light, and all of us are more tolerant and accepting of people of all races and religious backgrounds...Dempsey as a young man came from a HARD background and enviroment we can hardly imagine. He evolved as he grew older, and should not be the subject of, "was he a racist", any more than an Ali, Holmes,and a Bernard Hopkins,who said vile things in todays "enlightened times". Talk about his ability, fine, but let Dempsey who can no longer defend himself,and his living relatives, live out their lives...:good
i agree with the posts that say it doesn't really matter. i mean, he drew the colour line, can't argue with that. was he racist? who knows. but in the end he's one of the best heavyweights of all time, he brought boxing to a completely different level in terms of money and popularity and was obviously important enough for us to talk about 80 years later. best to remember the good instead of focusing on a possible personality flaw
Its funny, if back then was so racist. How the **** did any black guy, win a decision against a white man...? Where their many black fighters that where robbed..??
Oh my. I brought this up after I had heard it from multiple sources and was torn apart on these forums for dozens of pages. I see everyone's more enlightened and kneejerk defensive now though, lucky me.
So,I call you a ********** ,or whatever, you refute it,I say prove it? Is that how it works? I read a Ring article that details Dempsey's so called slacking trial ,it also covered references to his ex wife Maxine Cates and the allegations she made against him,which she withdrew. Dempsey was absolved of all charges and innuendos. But you carry on, say what you want about him ,he is dead now and can hardly sue you,neither can he defend himself. I have no interest in engaging further with you on the subject. There will allways be people willing to slander ,and libel others on hearsay,and when challenged say," I heard it some where." Rehashing such ****, speaks more about those saying it than about the man whose reputation they are traducing.
I have not seen any evidence so far to suggest Dempsey was a racist . He didnt face the best black fighters .Care to call Sugar Ray Robinson,Joe Louis or Jack Johnson on the fact they didn't face the best black fighters.Race or colour the isuue there then? Professional fighters fight for money.It is a business.Always has been always will be.Not always fair.Not always politically correct and prone to corruption .That is why those fights didn't happen Some racist comments in more recent times from the likes of Ali,Hopkins,Minter etc Not sure why Dempsey gets singled out in this way?
It´s not moral relativism. It´s looking at history and different cultures and seeing that morals changed throughout history and are different in different culture. Yes, there are some basic ethics that are roughly the same in every culture and during every time. Those basic ethics are the foundation of a working social group. We need them or we wouldn´t be able to form social groups and that´s one of the things that make us primates and humans. One of those basic ethical rules is "murder is wrong". But even here the degree is different. The definition what murder actually is is different. The Azteks killed thousands of people for their gods. None of them thought this was wrong, there were victims who did it by their own free will. For thwm this was something holy. The old Israelites thought that killing other Israelites was wrong but killing members of other nations and tribes not. Today, in some Muslimic countries it´s right to kill a women who had sex with someone else than her man. In the GDR you would get killed if you wanted to go from East to West Germany and it wasn´t murder. In all those described examples, murder was still wrong. It was a basic rule of their society. Like in any human society. Those you can say are absolute and universal. But most of morals don´t belong here. For example only 200-300 years back a woman was expected to go into a marriage as a virgin. This is still true in many 3rd world countries today. Personally, I don´t know any women around my age which is still a virgin, married or not. Nobody´s got, and rightly so, a problem with that. The morals changed here. For the Romans sex was the most normal thing in the world, going into a marriage as a virgin would seen as crazy by them. This changed later, due to some purist christian philosophers, and changed back again later on. It´s not absolute but relative on the grande scale. At the same time it is absolute though. For the Roman´s it was absolute that it´s crazy to go into a marriage a virgin, for the people 200-300 years ago it´s absolute that not going into a marriage a virgin is crazy, and it still is for some cultures, while for us it´s absolute that not going into a marriage as a virgin is normal. There are three truths here: 1. The absolute and universal basic ethics that allow us to live together in social groups and define us as primates and humans. 2. The relative morals that are different in different times and different cultures. 3. The absolute morals at a certain point in time in a certain culture. Is this moral relativism? Really?
