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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   32892 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 5, 2024

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Many of the native Americans who died or were displaced as a result of the European conquest had never personally conquered anything, they simply happened to be descended from people who had conquered the land earlier. Should an entire ethnic group be held responsible for the actions of some of its members, many of whom are not even members of the present generation?

Should an entire ethnic group be held responsible for the actions of some of its members, many of whom are not even members of the present generation?

This isn't about "holding responsible". It merely means they* should get no claim on what was never rightfully theirs in the first place.

Aside from, as others have pointed out, this being a response to just the same argument in the other direction.

*"they" meaning "the ethnic group". This is assuming an ethnic group may have land claims, but if not, there naturally isn't a claim either.

I definitely think they shouldn't be. But unfortunately, some people think it is OK to hand down guilt through the generations like you describe, which is why we have the land acknowledgements to begin with.

Should an entire ethnic group be held responsible for the actions of some of its members, many of whom are not even members of the present generation?

I would guess that most people here would say "of course not." Concepts like race guilt and blood guilt are noxious. (I'd actually be interested in hearing from someone who believes in them earnestly).

It's almost always brought up, though, in response to claims that white people bear collective race guilt for their ancestors winning against indigenous people. And that's kind of a pretty weird standard: why should race guilt only start applying once the crimes that impart us with race guilt have stopped?

Honestly, it's sort of dehumanizing to historical Native Americans. It reduces them to little fairy children dancing in the forest, totally innocent of all sin until the evil Whites came and ruined their utopia. They become dumb creatures lacking all agency, only existing to function as symbols in internecine white conflict.

Noted liberal professor proves your point. And then, probably, masturbates

In some ways it's even more complicated than that: I learned relatively recently that the Black Hills famous for the Little Bighorn and Wounded Knee incidents weren't traditionally Lakota land, and had, at the time, been recently taken by the Lakota from the Cheyenne in 1776.

History is full of incidents like this.

People naively assume the Incan and Aztec empires were thousands of years old. In fact, they were both only about 100 years old at the time of the conquistadors.

Innumerable conquests and genocides must have happened in the New World before Columbus showed up. We don't know about them simply because they were never written down.

I see you also listen to The Rest is History! Brilliant podcast.

Before Columbus the Americas had a low disease burden meaning the check on population had to be war and starvation. I'm guessing they fought before they let their kids die of starvation so there was probably constant war over food.

I'd say absolutely not. But you must know that that argument applies to us as decendents of European settlers, too. @shakenvac was bringing up an argument that the amount of time and generations that pass do not matter.

Personally I disagree with the notion of race guilt and I also disagree that stolen land remains stolen no matter how much time passes. I see no morality in judging the innocent descendants of conquerors for what their ancestors did. It's another matter, I suppose, if the descendants revel in the actions of their ancestors and plan to continue acting in a similar fashion themselves. But that does not apply to most modern Europeans.

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