3 ms·
How easily you equalize "get angry" with creating colonies, destroy and rule other countries for hundreds of years. This is exactly an example of "conveniently
by mapcars 7y ago
How easily you equalize "get angry" with creating colonies, destroy and rule other countries for hundreds of years. This is exactly an example of "conveniently forgetting its history and context".
- ramblerman 7y agoa) The west was not unique in this (colonizing, destruction, slavery) b) I'm fine with mentioning this clearly, and putting it into context. But it seems there is a desire to create some kind of original sin and appoint that to all members of the west and it's accomplishments and start every conversation from that context. I don't believe we should merit or de-merit races and cultures today based on their past, but rather look to the future and the new unified cultural world we might create.
- orange8 7y ago> look to the future and the new unified cultural world we might create Fully agree. So, who discovered America?
- bg117 7y agoAccording to books, Columbus discovered America and eventually killed all the Native Americans who were living there for generations and got all the Europeans to come and settle in America
- pesmhey 7y agoIn the West, we’re prone to taking what isn’t ours and acting as if we discovered it, conveniently forgetting its history and context. If there were already people there, wouldn’t that mean that it had already been discovered? Or is your post supposed to be read as satirical? Sry if I’m misunderstanding here.
- bobthepanda 7y agoWhen that context figures a good deal into why a land is poor and its former colonial master is rich, this attitude is mostly patronizing. Particularly when being poor means an unsafe environment, hunger and abject poverty. When the West pays reparations is when we can act as if everyone is on equal footing.
- ramblerman 7y ago> When the West pays reparations is when we can act as if everyone is on equal footing. Except we won't be. Even if the west pays trillions to Africa we won't suddenly be equal economically. So How much? Like do you have a practical implementation or proposal. And who do you give the money to in dictatorships? Or what about colony refugees or descendants who now reside in the west. Should we tax differently based on race to offset the initial sins? How far back do you go? Reparations on a national scale is a completely impractical idea, and will not actually aid the people you imagine. The money would be better spent on integrating the world, creating more trade, and indeed sending a lot of money to the old colonies. Just not under the marker of colonial restitution, which is actually patronizing.
- mapcars 7y agoI'm not trying to blame people who live now or decide how this should be fixed, I'm only pointing that it is much bigger and deeper issue to be described as lightly as in "got angry". I should have worded it better. Also, could you give some examples of colonies which were not related to European countries?
- throw51319 7y agoDude all civilizations have conquered other people and taken their land/resources. That's how they attained being a civilization. Human history was brutal up until and even including now. So we can try to do our best to move past that, you can see what happens when people never move past past wrongs: Israel vs Palestinians. The Mongols were legit from the asian steppes and completely ransacked people over thousands of square miles. The Japanese were mainland asians that almost wiped out the existing Ainu people of the island of Japan. In Africa, the west africans from the denses jungles took over much of the drier land of the south, where the indigeneous bush people lived.