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“you can't just stop doing a bad thing and pretend it didn't happen. You've got to try to make things right.” For individual humans, that works. Applying that
by chmod600 3y ago
“you can't just stop doing a bad thing and pretend it didn't happen. You've got to try to make things right.”
For individual humans, that works. Applying that opinion to society at large is at the core of the social justice philosophy, but in my opinion is misguided.
When people are focused on the past, they aren’t focused on the future. It becomes a never-ending argument over history, trying to divvy up blame and virtue and money among people who weren’t even present at the time the evilness happened and who themselves have a mixed heritage.
Should students whose parents arrived from China in the 80s be discriminated against so that you can discriminate in favor of someone whose parents arrived from Kenya in the 80s? There are a zillion scenarios like that, and when you add them up they aren’t the edge cases, the complexity is the normal case. America is a place of immigration and mixing.
History is history. A lot of it is bad. You can only fix the future, and a never-ending argument about history isn’t going to do that. We know discrimination based on race is bad. If an individual needs help, help them regardless of race.
- endisneigh 3y agoThe problem with your logic is that if you leave the past the past then there’s effectively no punishment for discrimination in the present. Suppose the war in Ukraine ends today. Time skips forward a year with no change from the present. A committee recommends reparations for the Ukrainians affected. Do you do it or not? I don’t have the answer but leaving the past the past is simply choosing a certain status quo, as is full reparations another status quo.
- chmod600 3y agoThe Ukraine war is not 50 years ago and clearly affects the entire country. If Russia decides to pay reparations that could make sense but it’s a different issue by a long shot. 50 years later after a bunch of people have been born, died, and moved in and out? No way.
- endisneigh 3y agoWhy or why not does the time matter? And what length does or does it not matter? This is not math, no matter the answer it’s clearly opinionated, hence this Supreme Court case.
- chmod600 3y agoIn one year, the people involved are basically the same. In 50 years, a lot of births, deaths, and immigration have changed the population dramatically. There could be a discussion about one year vs ten years or something, I don’t know. But it’s irrelevant to the current topic. Just do what’s right based on individual circumstances. If person A is poor, help them, don’t discriminate against person B. That just feels like a government trying to pass blame for its own failed social policies over the last 50 years.
- endisneigh 3y agoWell clearly you have all the answers lol. Again your logic is faulty. There is no world government compelling action thus by your own logic any government can simply fail to take action until the duration you have mentioned has passed and then they are absolved of responsibility.
- tester756 3y agoJust like in "statute of limitations"?
- endisneigh 3y agoIrrelevant. The question isn’t about legality. It’s morality and one of ethics. Even if it were legal it’s the government itself that would need to be compelled. There’s no higher force. There’s the citizenry which takes us to the current discussion and thread.
- chmod600 3y agoIt’s not about being “absolved”, it’s about literally different sets of people on both sides. If you can find the individuals and draw a straight line, then you have a case. If not, well, not fair, but welcome to reality.
- UncleMeat 3y agoHow convenient that groups can simply run out the clock on this stuff.
- tester756 3y agoThe concept of "statute of limitations" exists.
- UncleMeat 3y agoI'd believe that conservatives were genuine about this argument if they were actively supporting policies that repaired more recent oppression.
- emkemp 3y agoTrue, but in American law at least, some crimes like murder don't have a statute of limitations.
- golemotron 3y agoImplicitly, they do. The murderer dies at some point.
- mensetmanusman 3y agoJustice is often thwarted by death. Welcome to the human condition.
- mistermann 3y agoLet's hope the sins of the fathers are not visited upon the sons!
- chmod600 3y agoYes, people get away, and it’s unfair. Affirmative Action is not a good solution. It may have made sense at one time, but that time is passed and it’s incompatible with our Constitution, so it needs to go. From now on, help individuals who need help and ignore their skin color.
- throwaway6734 3y agoHow much money do you think the Germans and Russians owe the Poles, Belarussians and Ukrainians for WW2?
- pbhjpbhj 3y agoA more interesting question to me is how much people think West African countries owe ancestors of USAmericans who were sold to be transported? Should the bill be bigger or smaller because most (?) didn't survive?
- indymike 3y ago> Suppose the war in Ukraine ends today. Time skips forward a year with no change from the present. A committee recommends reparations for the Ukrainians affected. Do you do it or not? Is it the same if you wait five or six generations instead of a year?
- endisneigh 3y agoWhat do you think?
- indymike 3y agoI asked you.
- chii 3y agoIf the people who perpetuated the wrong are still alive, then reparations are possible. Otherwise, it's not.
- nobody9999 3y ago>When people are focused on the past, they aren’t focused on the future. It becomes a never-ending argument over history, trying to divvy up blame and virtue and money among people who weren’t even present at the time the evilness happened and who themselves have a mixed heritage. As is widely discussed and intuitively obvious, "the past is prologue." What happened in the past is relevant to the present because the past quite literally creates the present. As Eugen Weber[0] put it[1]: ...we are going back to the old country. We're going back to where many of our ancestors came from, to see where their stories came from, and their memories, and their habits and the way they are, which has made us the way we are. This is what history is about. Where we come from, what lies behind the way we live and act and think. How our institutions, our religions, our laws were made. Should we ignore all that came before, knowing that it informs and structures our societies, ideas and proclivities? I say, "no." Because we don't exist in a temporal vacuum (thank you, Second Law of Thermodynamics). Rather, our pasts and the impact of the events of those pasts inform and shape the present. Ignore it at your own peril. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugen_Weber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugen_Weber [1] https://youtu.be/XCyO8meahME?t=410 https://youtu.be/XCyO8meahME?t=410
- chmod600 3y agoThat’s a long-winded way of saying that things have causes. Yes, they do. But the people and laws that caused evilness in the past are largely gone. What we are talking about here are the effects. But the effects are not cleanly separated by skin color, and the burden of addressing them should not be assigned by skin color, either. Affirmative Action is just a bad solution from all angles, created by anthropomorphizing groups of people as though they were individuals.
- nobody9999 3y ago>Affirmative Action is just a bad solution from all angles, created by anthropomorphizing groups of people as though they were individuals. Who said anything about Affirmative Action? You dismissed the importance of history. That's what I objected to. And you just dismissed it again. And you're still wrong.