The recent thread on the Hawaii homesteading (link) got me thinking a bit. The subject is a rather broad one, but one worth looking at.
Specifically, what I am wondering is if it is a worthy value to hold that we should accept some responsibility for wrongdoing of the past (and therefore some mandate to correct them) and if so, what is the fair (and legal) way to go about dealing with that?
There is a pretty compelling argument to be made that acts like slavery or colonization or war internments can have negative impacts on a people that can last generations. As a society that supposedly believes in the ideals of a meritocracy, how do we address this issue in a way that is not punishing a new set of individuals that had nothing to do with the initial wrong?
But if it were not for colonization, the world would be very different – and not better, but worse – today. Likewise, the “manifest destiny” movement made the United States into a great nation and set the stage for us to become a world power.
I do not believe that these things require apology or redress. We no longer do them because in this day and age, they are not seen as positives. But I do not agree that they were objectively wrong when they happened, or that they deserve redress.
Bricker, I guess that the issue that I have with that is that there is a pretty clear case to be made that people whose ancestors were the victims of things like colonization, slavery and internment are still feeling the negative effects to this day.
Are we saying that these things were a necessary evil in order to get where we are today and that the folks that are descended from these groups are unfortunate leftovers and that need to accept their assimilation or cultural extinction and that we should get a do-over or some sort of a clean slate? Also, is the case that we are doing nothing similar today, and so these are just regrettable things in the past?
In other words, are you saying that there is no debate here for you because the end justified the means and that we need to just move on?
Genocide, slavery, and ethnic cleansing are wrong.
Colonization is not objectively wrong.
Although – suppose, for the sake of argument, I were to claim that ethnic cleansing is NOT objectively wrong. How would you refute me? Suppose I claim that it’s simply a Darwinian exercise to ensure that the genes of the conquerors, and not the conquered, are the ones that populate the future? What standard do you believe you might offer me that objectively says my tribe shouldn’t kick the shit out of your tribe, kill every last one of you, and salt the earth where your city stood?
OK, I am not even going to get into your second point. It seems to me that if you (generic you, not you you) don’t have the answer to that question you are something alien to me.
I will, however, mention that from everything that I have seen (though there may be some exceptions) genocide, slavery or ethnic cleansing seem to have a pretty strong association with colonization. Enough so that colonization could be seen as the cause of those wrongs
The Egyptians enslaved the Jews. Colombus was insensitive to women’s issues. Charlemagne didn’t act as strongly in favor of same-sex unions as he could have, that’s for sure.
We cannot apply today’s standards to the past in an effort to reverse the clock somehow. Because if you do, there is really no principled way of determining how far back you do it, how attenuated the people being restored can be from the people damaged, and how close a nexus must exist between the people supplying the reparation and the people who effected the harm.
For the vast majority of human history and prehistory, it was acceptable to kick the crap out of your tribe, steal your food, capture your women, and piss on the smoldering wreckage of your huts. I do not believe it’s possible or wise to unwind the clock. I believe it’s wise to say, “We will no longer live that way.”
Redress belongs to a person who was harmed by another – not to the great-grandchildren of the one harmed, any more than I have the right to put a bullet in your head because your grandfather put an axe in my grandfather’s head.
Then if we move forward from that point of view, what responsibilities do we have to look at the things that we are doing today as a global power and anticipate how history will see them? Also, what is the cutoff point for redress?
I can certainly understand that. However, I fail to see where this ends.
After all, my brother and my father are still working in difficult steelworking jobs for less pay than, say, a doctor might get. And all that is directly traceable to the fact that my father’s family moved from Wales to southwestern Pennsylvania in the 1860’s to first mine coal, and then work in steel mills and on the railroads.
This has directly impacted my family’s class status and income, and it can be traced to the cruel treatment meted out to Welsh coal mining families in the nineteenth century.
Does this mean I have some claim against the British government?
I see upon preview that Bricker has made this point more eloquently than me, but I will add this point to the discussion.
I asked Der Trihs that question because I believe that the moral authority that says, “These things are wrong,” comes from a source that he vehemently rejects. So my question to him was, in esssence, “How can you suggest that something is objectively wrong, if you and I do not agree on an authoritive source for marking things as right and wrong?”
They are largely same thing; genocide, slavery, and ethnic cleansing are how colonization is typically accomplished. America of course is the obvious example.
Because you legitimize your own annihilation/enslavement when someone stronger comes along. The objective basis of morality ( as far as one exists ) is that it’s better for the great majority of people. Massacre followed by retaliation followed by devastation is bad for just about everybody. I would also point out that Darwinism is not a justification for anything; Darwinism is an explanation of how things work, not a recommendation.
True. When you get right down to it, if punishing us for our ancestors misdeeds is a good idea, we might as well just nuke the whole planet to slag. As far as I can tell, the majoirty of people in the past were amoral or outright evil.
The same responsibility I have for looking at my J-6 against a dealer Q and deciding to hit… that is, playing the cards I’m dealt as best I can with the limited knowledge I have. We cannot possibly anticipate what future generations may do, what advances they may reach. It may be that aborting babies is seen in the future as something unspeakably evil, and they may wonder at our backward ways that we considered it. Some disaster may befall the planet and leave us so starved for fertile women that the idea of terminating any pregnancy seems criminal. Or it may be that future generations control pregnancy so easily that the very idea of an unwanted one seems so alien and preposterous they can’t even consider the idea.
We can only act now as seems right, moral, and proper to us now.
It doesn’t matter if I believe in God, as I don’t consider decrees from on high a valid source of morality anyway. Real or not, I don’t consider him a legitimate authority.
Except that they knew better even then, or should have. They went to quite a bit of effort to “prove” the inferiority of those they oppressed and killed, and often violated their own alleged morality ( like slavers who believed in the Golden Rule ). People knowingly do wrong now; they did then as well. They were less advanced than us; they were not children and lunatics. Right and wrong were not alien concepts; they simply chose to do wrong, because they could get away with it.
Let me ask the question a different way: I think that we all agree that genocide is a bad idea, and that we are not happy that we did it in the first place. The case is also true that (using the examples of Native Americans or the Native Hawaiians) at this moment in history at least the remains of some of those cultures are still around and, conceivably, could be salvaged.
Leaving aside the issue of culpability of current society for the crimes of the past, are we saying that there is no value in attempting to preserve the remains of these cultures because we (personally) had nothing to do with their decimation and therefore have no responsibility to do anything about it?
Not at all. We should do it, whether or not we are morally to blame. It’s the right thing to do. I just don’t believe I should be punished for something my ancestors did.
Prove it. You can just stick to the American colonization since that will make things easier. How would the world be worse if the American settlers had treated the natives as equals and participated in treaty making fairly and leased their land legally (legal based on laws we have now) and treated the natives morally (i.e. not killing or sterilizing them)? I think everything would be a good sight better than it is now, myself, for them AND us.
Your ancestors (and mine, and those of most white/Asian/Hispanic people) came here voluntarily. They signed up for whatever shit hand they were dealt. The natives and slaves had no say about how they were treated. They couldn’t say “well, we made a bad decision, have to live with it now.” It’s a different situation.
I think there is a tension between the idea of preserving cultures and the idea of progress.
No one seems to be arguing for the preservation of the ancient Celtic culture. Few would say we need to preserve the culture that gave us Ghengis Khan’s rampages. And even the American culture of the fifties is not seen as a target to keep.
Cultures die out, are absorbed, or change on their own. That’s the way of the world. While I think cultures should be documented, I don’t believe that the mere uniqueness of a culture means we should preserve it.
How were the aborginal Hawaiians on women’s rights? Did they accept gay couples? If we preserve their culture, shall we preserve ALL of it? Or just the parts that we like? Who decides? You? Me?
I think, first of all, that it is a measure of how far we have come that we are discussing this. I don’t think much care was given at the time to preserving the culture of the Sumerians or the Hittites, for instance.
Secondly, oppression isn’t necessarily the enemy of cultural vitality - in fact, oftentimes culture can flourish under external stresses. Jewish culture, in its many forms, is quite vital. Hawaiian culture is not only thriving but is morphing into a polyglot culture influenced by other cultures from around the Pacific Rim.
Italian culture spread around the world in large part because a shitty Italian economy sent Italian immigrants to a great many places.
A vital culture can survive nearly anything. A weak one will fall apart no matter how much people try to prop it up.
The natives were hunter-gatherers. They needed vast expanses of land to preserve their way of life. Keeping them in place would have met this country never developed into an industrial giant. Which means we never could have entered World War I as decisively as we did.
So, no, I believe forcing our culture onto this land was preferable, in the long run.
It is different. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t hard in its own way.
Say migrant farm workers out in California run into some trouble with low pay and bad working conditions. You do realize they wouldn’t be there but for the fact that things are worse in Mexico, right?
And what would be your answer to them? “Oh, they came here voluntarily. They signed up for whatever shit hand they were dealt.”