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Cal Flyn: the terrible truths in my family history
- Spooky23 10y agoFeeling guilt over multigenerational sins is kind of silly. War and conflict is a messy business.
- mwfunk 10y agoExpecting other people to feel guilt over multigenerational sins is possibly silly, but ones' own feelings of guilt are certainly not. It's very human and admirable, even if it's irrational or not constructive or useful. I wouldn't hold it against anyone who didn't feel that guilt, but I wouldn't judge them if they did- I may just respect them all the more. These are the kinds of things that drive people to make the world a better place for everyone.
- dctoedt 10y ago> even if it's irrational or not constructive or useful But it can be both rational and constructive/useful if it reminds us of what we're capable of.
- pessimizer 10y agoAnd what we directly benefit from at the moment.
- mwfunk 10y agoVery true. I was referring to the futility of trying to right past wrongs when said wrongs are essentially unrightable, but if awareness prevents future wrongs, it's straight up pragmatism.
- SolaceQuantum 10y agoThe past feeds the present. It's important to recognize where you come from and how that contextualizes your existence where you are. Is that guilt? I don't know. But trying to avoid it, I think, is blissful ignorance.
- pessimizer 10y agoExterminating a people for their land isn't war, and the blood isn't washed off when the kids get it.
- wpietri 10y agoDefinitely. For whatever we inherit, I think it's important to inherit all of it. To see where we are going, we have to be willing to see where we have been. That isn't to advocate for guilt, which I don't personally feel, so much as responsibility. Whether or not I feel guilty for what my ancestors did, I am certainly responsible using wisely what power I have. And that power definitely depends on their actions. E.g., I'm in tech because my dad was. And he became a programmer because his dad was high up at a company that got an early IBM machine. But at that time and place, those were positions reserved for white men from families who could afford enough education. Past racism and classism definitely benefited me. Do I feel guilt? Not really, because I didn't do that myself. But I do feel an obligation to use my inheritance for more than just my own desires.
- CapitalistCartr 10y agoYour sentence makes no sense. If not war, what then, and why not. And of what metaphoric blood are you talking that decendants inherit? Your metaphor is too incomplete to make sense of.
- pessimizer 10y agoIs armed robbery a fight? If not a fight, what then, and why not? If I murder someone during an armed robbery, is it a reasonable justification to say "things happen in fights"? If I give my children the money that I took from the person that I killed during that armed robbery, and it gives them a comfortable life, and the children of the person that I robbed live in poverty - should my children feel guilty? If they do feel guilty, are they feeling guilty for my sin, or for their own? > And of what metaphoric blood are you talking that decendants inherit? I wasn't using a metaphor. People are filled with blood. It spills where they fall.
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- jdub 10y agoMy position in today's society has been advanced by the crimes of my forefathers. The position in today's society of our indigenous people – those whose lineage survived – has been limited by the crimes of my forefathers. For that I do feel guilt. I'd hope anyone would at least feel empathy. Ultimately it demands redress.
- zxv 10y agoOne should have the right, and responsibility, to define who they are, not their father.
- jdub 10y agoYeah. Reality doesn't really work like that.
- Chris2048 10y agoIt seems we're talking about perception here, so what is the 'reality'?
- pessimizer 10y agoThat you're making up a 'right.'
- Chris2048 10y agoAll rights are manmade though.
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- Chris2048 10y agoAre you talking about North America, and native americans?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- meric 10y ago...Unless the said person's inheritance includes land confiscated from Indigenous Australians...
- jdub 10y agoThis is a part of our history that Australia has never properly accepted or dealt with. It's unfinished business for all of us. (It's almost surprising that The Australian – our only national paper, published by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp Australia – published this. They tend to have good indigenous coverage, but an excerpt of a book on the frontier wars? Wow.)
- PhilWright 10y agoPeople are not guilty of their parents crimes/behaviour. If you meet someone that has a parent that committed a hideous crime then we do not blame the children. This also works the other way, if your parent is national hero that does not reflect on the children either. You should not take the credit for a parents good work. Obviously it can be difficult for immediate children to take such a dispassionate attitude to parents actions but as more generations go by it should become easier.
- mc32 10y agoNot only that, but everyone, bar pacifist peoples who could only survive if isolated, committed atrocities of one kind or another. Some peoples kept better records of their deeds, others not, or things get lost to time. That's not to say one can't acknowledge that bad things happened in one's lineage (history), but to think one's lineage is worse than another is oversimplifying things or a case of selection bias, among other things.
- erikpukinskis 10y ago> everyone, bar pacifist peoples who could only survive if isolated, committed atrocities of one kind or another That doesn't sound right. What makes you say that every family committed atrocities?
- mc32 10y agoIf you go back far enough in history someone somewhere in a person's life will have done something awful. Could have been 100, 200, 1000, 10000 years ago.
- OvidNaso 10y agoBecause we all have a common ancestor that lived not that long ago[0] 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve
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