So in my Nazi Germany class this week ,a bizarre conversation got started and I need to vent about it. The discussion was about whether or not a current generation can be held accountable fr the misdeeds of previous generations ago, be it a decade, a century or a millenia. Obviously this was about the Holocaust, but it stepped into Slavery and other such historical sore-spots. We were arguing whether the past gave certain advantages to certain groups (i.e. the victors in any given situation), and whether or not we should feel bad about that in the present day. It is a really interesting idea, and something that has been kind of mulling around in my head. Please let me know waht you think about that idea, or leave any questions for clerifications.
I thought I’d leave you with teh thing that I write in class while this debate swirled around me. I have some really, really smart classmates, and it was neat to hear their different ways that people tackled this problem. Anyway, here is what I wrote in class:
“Are advantages given to us through the upsetting of norms in society because of the dominance of the majority, because of the subjugation of people through the past, a reason for us to feel bad? Are they reasons for us to feel bad about things that our people have done in the past? Absolutely not, I think.
One cannot be held responsible for the crimes, excesses, and or issues of their grandparents. If this were true then farmers everywhere would be held responsible for the pain and suffering of the feudal serfs during the agricultural revolution. If one were to be held against the misdeeds of their forebears then those who live in America would be held continuously to task against the gains made by our country on the backs of the poor and the enslaved from Europe during the 16th century immigration to the Americas.
One has to be cognizant of the fact that there is a big difference between a tacit recognition of a crime, (a public knowledge of a wrong, known trauma to a people) and the need for an apology, or specially reparations, for the actions of our forebears. If a people is required to be continuously inundated with negative opinion and derisive attention regarding things that happened before they were even born, then there is no real way for them to acknowledge the issue, learn form it, and move on to fix what they see as a problem in their collective psyche or history. Continued depression, guilt, or feelings of responsibility over the past would render a people impotent to grow and basically hold the entirety of humanity responsible for the bad things that have happened since the birth of civilization (and possibly before, if one were to take into account inter-tribal atrocities long held in oral and collective memories).
While there is the possibility of apology on a governmental scale (the issue of slavery rings loudest here), I will not be held accountable for something that happened before my ancestors were even in the country. I believe that yes, slavery happened, and it sucks that it happened, a lot, but I feel no need to apologize for it. Likewise I do not believe that the people of Germany should be held responsible for things that happened during WWII. Those few of that generation who are still alive can be made to pay for it, but something tells me that due to the continued attention given to it they do pay, in a multitude of ways. But how can a people grow and get beyond a tumultuous past if they are forced daily to live in it?”
That is what I wrote. I feel that I have to clarify some things about it, but I have to go to a concert so Ill fix it later.
