h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So...out of interest...who *is* feeling guilt?

I certainly don't feel qualified to speak on behalf of anyone for whom guilt is an issue.

I also would like to know who´s feeling guilty.

Meanwhile:
Tuc:

<<The fact is that even if I was descended from slave owning tory b*stards that would not be my burden.

I can say the same as Spaniard.

I don´t understand why people have to identify with those folks of the past. Probably a believe in nationalism as some essential features that people inherit.

Picasso is Spanish, much of his culture is Spanish, but he took from the European vanguards when he was in France, he took from African art, he took from the past art… So, I don´t feel special because he and me share that we have been born in the same country, even in the same region.
I´m happy when Nadal wins, not because he´s Spanish, but because of him, but I don´t care about Alonso, I don´t like him, nor his sport.

If there wasn´t that idea of essentialism related to nationalism, may be some wouldn´t feel now guilty. (which is not the case of Hoo, and I still don´t know why this thread)

There are some conservative nationalist folks that find annoying that some historians refuse to falsify history. It´s not guilty is just they are upset. They want a rosy past of civilised British enlightening those wild ones…

Also, there are some, the truly essentialists, that consider that Britannia was destined to rule over those people because of her supremacy, the law of God and the law of the fittest.

It seems to me that those ideas, though anachronic, are still shared with other folks which are taking advantage of the scaffoldings of past times to go on exploiting those weak ones in the neo-colonies of today.

Notice I´ve said folks, not nations. For those folks there are two nations: one of them is a tax haven.

So...I'm not sure I can answer the OP:

>>How long should a nation beat itself up about things it did in its past?

Which nation are we talking about here?

>>
"But if you mean, will white people be subservient to black people, or whatever, then I think that is another strawman"

Take a look at that sentence. It's a wonder to behold. The lack of self-awareness is hilarious.

You are making up an argument that I have not put forward, not even *implied*, and used it to... accuse me of making up a straw man argument.
<< Hoo

No, I'm having to guess what the F you are on about in this thread, because despite me engaging and asking questions, you're not being very forthcoming. Honestly. You started with a vague OP, apparently in reference to debate elsewhere (that I haven't read) and when I ask a number of times for you to get specific you don't. Is it any wonder that I might start guessing?

FWIW, white people's fear of power reversal *is* an issue in the topic we are discussing, irrespective of whether it's an issue for you personally.

I suppose it depends on what one means by guilt. If it's that feeling bad thing when you know you've done something both wrong and not ok, then no I don't feel that. But I do feel a degree of angst, and from that comes a sense of responsibility and need to see justice done.

I find it hard to watch friends, neighbours, people I share my community with, having a hard time simply because my ancestors had bigger guns and less morals.

>>
The fact is that even if I was descended from slave owning tory b*stards that would not be my burden.
<< tucuxii

Thing is, for me it's not about what happened in the past. It's about what is happening now.

Well put, kea. Which is why Hoo's statute of limitations straw man is so much pish.

Can I try another tack?

When I speak to Germans of my age and younger I find that they are fully informed of the horrors of Nazism. What I don't get from them is a feeling of personal - or even national - guilt. Rather, there's a positive determination: 'Never again'.

I think this thread is based on a false premise. Because some recognise that slavery and other forms of colonialism have led to continuing iniquities, it has been assumed that their primary emotion is guilt. It has not been considered that there might be positive reasons for wanting to make the world a better place. An important starting point for that is to recognise where we are and how we got here.

Edward

I think that the German example is very "moot" because as you noted on another thread, many British people who were interested in culture and civilization could not believe that the German people would surrender so much to first Prussianism and then Nazism.

I saw in my recent reading that "Goodbye Mr. Chips" was first performed during the IWW when the whole thing about the German master had real resonance.

Unforunately what happened at the end of the war had a lot to do with the granting of universal manhood suffrage to an electorate that had only been educated to be cannon fodder and factory fodder. Make Germany pay. Revenge etc. Guilt. Blame. These are the cheap and debased currencies of populist politics.

Cass

I believe you may have re-interpreted something I said.

Edward

If that is addressed to me I do not think so.. I just put it in a wider context..

I believe that young Germans can see Nazism as an episode in World History as much as German and in many ways a deliberate and conscious violation of what German culture was like up to about the age of Bismarck..They have got so much other German history before and since.

Cass

Welll...I guess I may once have used the word 'Germany'.

Edward

Actually I think that many people who have grown up in the new world order since 1945 (including Germans) have been encouraged to embrace the American "New Start"/ "put the counter back to zero" philosophy.

"That was then. This is now".

The problem with the "New Start" idea, as we can now see, is that you create " a level playing field" in which the kind of cheap and cheerful new things, novelties, instant and disposable goods that can quickly be made by "New Start" methods, can be made by anybody once they get the Finance and the Equipment..

The result is the present situation in which the "Western consumer" can be persuaded to buy all this "stuff" that has no enduring value, and they will buy it from the places where it can be produced cheapest- in places where people have got not real other option than to make a New Start. Meanwhile the countries with a successful history of manufacture and export have neglected the need to build upon the very best of the past and really show "The Way Ahead"..

Result massive unemployment in countries that did not take a New Start attitude to the standard of living to which they felt entitled. If anything expectations were raised rather than lowered. The New Order offered a "Social Contract".

Snakes and ladders = the game of New Starts.

Cass

Right.