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People 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.

People 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 ago
Not 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 ago
    If 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 ago
    Because 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
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - erikpukinskis 10y ago
      That's a nonsensical argument. My parent comment referred to "peoples" in the plural. Your argument is that there is only one people, which is a contraction. The whole point of the discussion is to compare different peoples.
  - Chris2048 10y ago
    To grow big enough to survive, most civilisations were/are aggressive.
erikpukinskis 10y ago
That actually depends. If you profit from your parents crimes knowingly, then you are an accomplice. If you profit from your parents crimes unknowingly (as young white people have) then it's less clear. The author is in a situation now where she knows she is profiting from her parents crimes by continuing to live her life. Most white people, when faced with that realization, will next try to imagine a way not to profit, and, seeing no easy choices, absolve themselves of responsibility. They say things like "What am I supposed to do, give away my house?" and most people find that idea absurd, so that acts as proof that people are not responsible for blood spilled acquiring the infrastructure they rely on. The notion is, as long those systems are sufficiently difficult to dismantle, they can be used ethically. I am not convinced. The other rationale is that by changing hands, resources become clean. But that doesn't make much sense to me either. We don't generally think that a purchaser of stolen goods is entitled to the goods. Unless it's land, and the original owner was murdered. Somehow that is acceptable, while keeping someone's stolen jewelry is not.
- Chris2048 10y ago
  > The author is in a situation now where she knows she is profiting from her parents crimes by continuing to live her life. The author of this article? Do you mean her G-G-Grandfather? How is she continuing to profit?

mc32 10y ago

Not 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 ago
  If 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 ago
  Because 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
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - erikpukinskis 10y ago
    That's a nonsensical argument. My parent comment referred to "peoples" in the plural. Your argument is that there is only one people, which is a contraction. The whole point of the discussion is to compare different peoples.
- Chris2048 10y ago
  To grow big enough to survive, most civilisations were/are aggressive.

erikpukinskis 10y ago

That actually depends. If you profit from your parents crimes knowingly, then you are an accomplice. If you profit from your parents crimes unknowingly (as young white people have) then it's less clear. The author is in a situation now where she knows she is profiting from her parents crimes by continuing to live her life. Most white people, when faced with that realization, will next try to imagine a way not to profit, and, seeing no easy choices, absolve themselves of responsibility. They say things like "What am I supposed to do, give away my house?" and most people find that idea absurd, so that acts as proof that people are not responsible for blood spilled acquiring the infrastructure they rely on. The notion is, as long those systems are sufficiently difficult to dismantle, they can be used ethically. I am not convinced. The other rationale is that by changing hands, resources become clean. But that doesn't make much sense to me either. We don't generally think that a purchaser of stolen goods is entitled to the goods. Unless it's land, and the original owner was murdered. Somehow that is acceptable, while keeping someone's stolen jewelry is not.

Chris2048 10y ago
> The author is in a situation now where she knows she is profiting from her parents crimes by continuing to live her life. The author of this article? Do you mean her G-G-Grandfather? How is she continuing to profit?