Consider these two philosophies often courted by the political left.
Cultural Relativism: There is no universal, unchanging right and wrong. Moral Right and Wrong are determined by the culture. What is considered right in one culture at one particular time may be considered wrong in another culture at another time and visa versa. Both views are equal.
Collective Guilt: If a certain culture or group do something wrong at one place and time, everyone in that group shares in the responsibllity for that action and has an obligation to compensate the wronged, even if they were personally not involved or if it is at a different time than when they lived.
Even the slightest amount of common sense says these philosophies cannot both be valid.
As an example, many say there should be compensation for slavery from whites even though no white person today has ever owned a slave(collective guilt). But if Cultural Relativism is to be argued, slavery was considered ‘right’ in past cultures (white, black, arab, native american indian, biblical etc.) and therefore should not be considered ‘wrong’ in those cultures any more than it is considered ‘right’ to oppose slavery in this culture.
Another example might be, many say homosexuals are owed special consideration in today’s culture in part to make up for the suppression of homosexuality in past cultures. But there again, if cultural relativism is to be considered valid, supression of homosexuality was simply the norm for these past cultures. It is not ‘wrong’ for a past culture to supress homosexuality any more than it is ‘right’ for a modern culture to tolerate homosexuality.
Right or wrong are simply stamps applied by the current culture at the current time. But if this is true, there cannot be collective guilt.
I agree those two are not compatible. I don’t know what you mean by “both views are equal” in the “Cultural Relativism” point, though.
There are very few actual cultural relativists, and most of those are generally nihlistic. I don’t even need to invoke Godwin to show that few lefties think absolutely everything is determined right or wrong according to culture. What they do believe is that when looking at a practice, it is important to look at the surrounding culture. For exampling. veiling women seems abhorant to us. But in the context of, say, political uprisings in Iran, the veil takes on a social and political signifigance that makes the matter more than simple opression.
In fact, I find it is the right that far more often says stuff like “Slaveholders were simply doing what was appropriate for their time”.
Likewise, I think you’ve got “collective guilt” all wrong (but something tells me you don’t really care). The concept behind affirmative action and reparations is not that whites need to be punished for what their ancestors did. It is that because of specific institutionalized practices, there are unfairnesses present today that
wow, I really didn’t finish that post.
There are unfairnesses that persist and affect people today. Likewise, there are agreements that have been broken, and for the sake of harmony those should be acknowledged with at least a token effort.
"Even the slightest amount of common sense says these philosophies cannot both be valid. "
Both these philosophies, IMHO, are equally invalid, but they are compatible:
Cultural Relativism - No one should criticize my freak-o lifestyle because no one has the right to judge the way other people live.
Collective Guilt - Prejudice against my freak-o lifestyle has prevented me from aciving my goals and desires in life. People who have had the good fortune of not being freak-os owe me compensation because they are all benefiting from a corrupt system that ostracizes freak-os.
I don’t know that slavary was ever considered “right” and “good”. If anything, I suspect that morality never really came into question and that it was largely a matter of self interest of wealthy landowners.
I think you can also make them compatible from a sort of might-makes-right, victor’s justice point of view. Somewhat nihilistic, as ** even sven ** pointed out, but at least it’s logically consistent.
“I recognize that some cultures judge slavery to be OK, but my culture judges it to be wrong. My culture believes in intervening to stop slavery in other cultures. My culture believes the best method for eradicating slavery is to hold other cultures collectively responsible for practicing slavery.”
“We can’t tell which culture is right or wrong in any objective sense, or if there’s no universal morality at all. But we have our values, and we’re going to act on them.”
P.S. Does anyone know about the attitudes towards slavery in the Classical GrecoRoman world? The Roman freeman should have been opposed to slavery, if only from economic self-interest, but they seem to have concentrated their attention on land-holding instead, what with the Agrarian laws.