On Fri, 19 Jan 2007 09:40:31 -0500, Sunshine49 wrote
> In a relationship, a person who has
> been wronged needs that sense of acknowledgment and validation of
> the wrongs done to them, even if it is decades later. It's stupid
> for an abuser to say oh, I knocked your teeth out 30 years ago,
> it's over and done, why don't you just get over it?
The difference in your analogy is that the abuser is still present. It's a
lot different if the person actually responsible for an injustice is present
vice a mere descendant who had no control or involvement in the original
offense.
> How would you feel if it was your
> great- great grandfather's brothers, two little boys aged 8 and 11,
> who were sold away from a farm in Amelia County? Ask yourselves how
> your gr-gr-gr- grandmother must have felt, to have her children
> torn away from her, probably never to be seen again? I think you'd
> be pretty resentful.
You may be resentful, but the descendants are not culpable for the original
offense. So they should apologize for something they did not do on the
pretense it is to make someone else feel good? That makes no sense.
The purpose of an apology/confession is to seek forgiveness. You truly cannot
apologize on behalf of someone else if the original perpetrator does not seek
forgiveness. It's meaningless and all show.
A person can be bitter or resentful about injustices done to their ancestry
all they want, but it gets them nowhere. It hasn't really served the people
in Northern Ireland very well, has it?
To judge the actions of the past according to our present-day morals and
beliefs is called presentism. Presentism is not an objective lens through
which to view and analyze history.
For example: it amazes me when some people try to denigrate the efforts of
our Founding Fathers by dismssing them as "rich, slave-owning, white men."
I would be curious to know how many cultures in the 18th century (numbering
in at least the thousands) did not practice some sort of involuntary
servitude. I believe you would be hard pressed to find any.
We can be passionate about studying history, but we should not be passionate
in our analysis of it.
Best Regards,
Tom Apple
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