Russell Blackford wrote:
>
> What worries me, however, is that I've seen on this list an extraordinarily
> high level of impatience with, and lack of imaginative identification with,
> other people's current and historical sufferings. It's higher than I've
> encountered in any other forum. Even posts about the history of American
> slavery are met with quibbles about the number of million people who were
> enslaved, whether some other countries were even worse, whether we can feel
> guilt about things that were done before we were born (forgetting that if we
> feel any vicarious pride in our respective countries and their histories, we
> can certainly have this stained by *shame* at aspects of our their
> histories... I don't know of *any* reputable thinker who seriously says that
> *guilt* is what we should feel), adn so on.
Well, for someone who feels pride at the fact that several hundred
thousand white men willingly gave their lives, and millions more were
disabled for life (and the impact of that upon their families), all to
free a few million blacks, I am insulted at demands for 'reparations'. I
think that it shows very high levels of ingratitude and willfull
ignorance of historical facts.
Why is it, Russell, that one person's outrage at the actions of past
generations is more PC than another person's outrage at the actions of
the current generation?
> I have never claimed that anyone on the list is racist, but there is an
> unusually high level of impatience, lack of imagination (of all things!!),
> lack of empathy with racial issues, for example. Why is this? I can see
> nothing in the extropian principles that underpins it. Indeed, I don't even
> see how it follows from libertarianism.
It follows that you can't hold someone responsible for something they
didn't do. What these reparations lawyers want to do is simply to turn
anglospheric jurisprudence on its ear, to turn the world back into a
feudalistic/tribalistic forum of tit for tat vicious cycles. If
reparations are paid, who is going to administer their disbursement? The
lawyers, who will be pulling a 30% cut of the action.
Emboldened by the tobacco settlements (and enriched as well), there is a
distinct cabal of lawyers who are perpetrating class action lawsuits
using arguments so far outside the accepted standards of tort law in
many areas: against gun manufacturers and for slavery reparations
currently, with future plans to go after the entertainment industry, the
chemical, energy, and lumber industries, as well as against the auto and
software industries, which is the big piece of the pie.
They are perpetrating these suits for one reason only: greed. By
extorting hundreds of billions of dollars from many industries, they
will end up as captains of industry, a new aristocracy, reinstituting
feudalism, and maintaining power by playing the acrimony and hate of one
group against the other, keeping people divided and weak, unarmed and
powerless against tyranny.
> You can have all sorts of abstract
> views about the moral limits on government interference with "rights"
> without having such emotional attitudes to social tragedies such as slavery,
> the destruction of non-European cultures, and the modern aftermath of
> colonialism. If you are a libertarian and are sympathetic to disadvantaged
> black communities (say) you'll simply have to respond with your own
> charitable contributions or voluntary work, for example, rather than
> lobbying for government expenditure.
That's right. Forcing people at gunpoint to do so is simply perpetrating
injustice, nor does it contribute to reconciliation.
>
> The tentative conclusion I coming to is that the problem is the other way
> around: that (economic) libertarianism - which has *some* links with
> extropianism, even if only of an historical nature - is attractive to, among
> others, those who already have the emotional responses I've described.
>
> Perhaps there is a sense in which none of this matters for the cause of
> transhumanism. However, I'd like to think that transhumanism can be linked
> to other values that intellectually engaged and emotionally decent people
> take seriously. I dread to think what impression is being created in the
> minds of any postgraduate students - the public intellectuals of tomorrow -
> who might be poring over the list's archives trying to understand
> transhumanism from a sociological or similar perspective. If they do come to
> a misconception that transhumanism is linked to inhumane attitudes, I'd say
> they'd have some justification for it.
I hope that with the 20/20 hindsight of the past, future students will
see that justice is only real if it applies equally to all, not just to
the flavor of the week, the politically correct victim of the month.
True justice only occurs when only those who are responsible pay for
their actions. Holding individuals liable who never commited any crime,
and even whose ancestors never repressed anybody, is as much a crime
against humanity as oppression that occured hundreds of years ago.
Future students would also understand that in the game of blame for past
crimes, absolutely everyone is the descendant of both victims and
oppressors, that it is unfair to use any expiration date on injustice
but that of the death of the perpetrators, and that continuing to dwell
on past injustice only feeds the flames of acrimony that carry hate on
down through the ages in vicious cycles of violence.
The only real way to achieve a just world is to treat each person,
today, as a fair and equal human being, worthy of trust in the
responsible use of their individual rights if they acknowledge and
accept that responsibility, and innocent of any crimes perpetrated by
the dead voices of the past.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:23 MDT