Y'know what I do with free-floating guilt? I laugh at it. I screw up enough things on my own to feel guilty about, without self-importantly taking on all of everybody else's guilt. If you feel really compelled to apologize for something you didn't do, would one of you stand up and apologize to the lady I reamed out in traffic this morning? She was talking on the phone and nearly hit me. I'm cool with what I did, but to your way of thinking she probably only deserved a mild chewing out instead of the F-bomb parade that I rolled out for her, with me as the leading drum major, the guy in the vintage car waving, *and* the University of Wisconsin band. If you see a big pile of stuff in the middle of New York Ave, don't worry about it - it's just all the F-bombs I dropped.
I figure as long as y'all feel guilty about the aborigines and foreign policy and Clemens' drug dealer's sensitive feelings, maybe one of you has some guilt to spare and could do with apologizing on my behalf. Hell, if you feel particularly guilty, maybe one of you could open up a "I'm Sorry for What that Jerk Did to You in Traffic This Morning
Meanwhile, I'll be waiting for that
What am I getting at? Weellll... I think the recent spate of vacuous apologies highlight one of the things that's a major problem the world. We all want to apologize for crap we have nothing to do with ("Sorry that my ancestors were bastards to yours" , but most of us have trouble mumbling "I'm Sorry" to people we actually have wronged in the present, in close proximities to our own apologizing selves.
One the one hand, it seems to me that apologizing for what somebody did to the aborigines a hundred years ago relates to a false sense of pride in your own self-righteousness. Honestly - what can you really say? Do you think it makes their condition better? If somebody apologized to me for what they did to my great grandpa, I'd tell 'em to piss off. It would be meaningless to me, and in a way, sort of insulting - what the hell, if you didn't do the wrong act, you aren't responsible for it. How can you possibly turn back the clock and unring the bell? I saw the Superman movie recently on cable, and even in the movies, trying to change the past looks really hinkey. In real life, it can't be done.
On the other hand, I think that a failure to treat others right, and a failure to apologize to somebody you treated badly comes, I think, from a lack of humility. This resembles public figures who step up, "take total responsibility for what happened," then fail to resign and go away. Well, you aren't really taking responsibility for some massive screwup, if you commit a firing offense then fail to resign. Right? Or am I missing something here? Seems to me there's a lot of that kind of behavior lately. It's a little dishonest at it's core. You screw up, cop to it, apologize, and move on. Somebody else screws up... don't go confessing to it and apologizing. Confessing to sins you didn't commit isn't the hallmark of the saints, people, it's the hallmark of the mentally ill.
And on the gripping hand... I am apologizing for not not posting more this week for all y'all. It's been a rough week at work, to the extent I can't even really put it into words. I like to give you a daily chuckle, and when I don't... I've let the team down a little bit.
So I promise that once my brain stops working as a finely-tuned albeit overworked machine and reverts to the normal, oxygen indebted, jelly-like, liquored-up state, I'll post some amusing bits.
In the meantime, I'll have to amuse you with what my son said when he walked into the man-cave Tuesday while I was spinning out two hours of zone 2.
"Oh no, daddy! There's a big leak on the floor!"
Yeah, there's a lot of that too, lately.
These are all just my thoughts of course... if you're offended, I'm sure there's somebody who would be happy to apologize on my behalf. Either way, I take full responsibility for it.
While you're looking for something to read to compensate for my diminished output, might I suggest Jerry Pournelle's Lucifer's Hammer? It's a good sci-fi alternate history, asking "what would have happened if an asteroid hit the earth in 197_?" If you're more into spacegoing sci-fi, I recommend Niven & Pournelle's Motie series, about the unintended consequences of colonization, and how the colonized can sometimes colonize the colonizers.
12 comments:
As the current head of the organisation (Australia's Federal government) that perpetrated a million horrors on a nation of people ill-prepared to deal with Westminster Government level elitist racism Kevin Rudd has done a great deal to lift the weight of a cesspool of guilt that has been festering for the best part of a century.
Just as you have no personal guilt over the Rodney King incident, I have no personal guilt regarding our stolen generations. I do however have a level of remorse for the actions of some of my fellow European invaders of this land who are too F*&KING spineless to face the consequences of their actions. By offering an apology in that context, I personally feel that it goes some way to showing being white is not necessarily synonymous with being stupid/racist/ignorant/arrogant/etc.
If Niven/Pournelle doesn't ring your bell but you're still trying to find a way to enjoy the future/space/tech genre I'd strongly suggest Peter F Hamilton as the man to read. I've devoured 7 of his books totalling over 9000 pages. I just finished The Dreaming Void and went looking for the next in the trilogy only to discover that my birthday present was the first in a trilogy that was so new book 2 and 3 aren't due out until 2009 and 2011. And yes, in The Dreaming Void there is a Gripping Hand reference although they call it the third hand.
big mike has it kinda. The apology thing has nothing to ddo with apology per se, and maybe should be worded differently, but there's a lot of bad crap that has gone on in the past, and white guys like us have indirectly befitted from it, so an acknowledgment is in order. It is a way of no longer pretending bad shit didn't happen, and that my ancestors (spritual if not actual) didn't gat a leg up because of it.
That said, I do want an apology from every asshole that voted for Bush the second time. We should never let a politician stay in office that tells us we need to be afraid.
Past oppression and crimes didn't happen in a vacuum. Their impacts continue until the underlying problem is addressed. While apologizing may seem like just words, its the first step in recognizing there is still a problem.
http://whiteprivilege.com/definition/
http://www.anarchistblackcross.org/org/wp/peggy.html
Wow, I didn't realize that everything I have in my life has just been handed to me. I guess I can quit paying the 80k in student loans, turn in my military discharge papers (enlisted), give back the scars from working blue collar jobs to pay my way through school, and stop working 60 hour weeks. I don't need to do all that crap - it's all being handed to me, because I'm the Man.
I had no idea. I must admit... it feels pretty good to be The Man. I'd have tried to take advantage of it more had I known sooner that I could have just claimed "privilege" and gotten all that crap just handed to me.
So I guess when you all are working to stick it to the man, I guess you're fighting to stick it to me, 'cuz I'm keepin' you down, huh?
I'm cool with that.
Smash the me, people. Fight the I.
But don't expect me to apologize for it, and from now on, when I show up at races, I expect you to tell me, "you da man! You da man!" Though if you don't like that, I'll settle for "Here comes da patriarchal hegemon!"
C'mon, you're taking a cheap shot. It is easy to dismiss recognition of past wrongs as PC, or use sarcasm. No one suggests that every white guy has it easy, or didn't work for every god damn thing they have in their lives. That said, plenty of white guys do little work in life and get great rewards. I'm sure there are a few lawyers you've seen that are getting by on connections, and little else. NO ONE IS DIMINISHING THE WORK YOU HAVE DONE.
I apologize for winning that race in 1977(my one and only career victory) in which I sat in for 62 miles and swung around 2 falling riders at the line. So guys, I'm sorry. Maybe that's why I never one again. Kharma ran over my dogma several times after that.
Also, to the American Indian tribes, I'm sorry I don't spend any time or money in your casinos, a lame government effort to make up for lost land and pride by giving our senior citizens a new addiction to waste their pentions and social security checks on.
Right, no one is saying that you had life handed to you on a silver platter, but it would be wrong to deny that the fact that your skin color and the ability to pee standing up didn't give you a leg up (pun kind of intended) in life. No one was ever explicit in these decision, but it was no less intentional. Its not a matter of making you feel guilty about it, but the problem(s) won't get solved until folks at least recognize that its there.
NO ONE IS DIMINISHING THE WORK YOU HAVE DONE.
Well, no, actually, that's exactly what the neo marxist/post colonialist critical race & gender theory does.
Cool with me though. It's a free country and if that's how you think, then I'm not in your tribe anyhow.
If they are hiring in Galt's Gulch, can you post it here? 'Cause I'm always looking for a new opportunity.
In Galt's Gulch? Funny. Nobody is more acceptable in polite company, I suppose, than a man who believes in both individual liberty and individual responsibility. Pretty much alienates everybody you can name, that pairing of beliefs.
I can't believe nobody else has offered their sci-fi opinions.
Yeah, well, from the response above, you'd think I'd mentioned Heinlein or something.
I guess Pournelle & Niven are pretty close, when you think about it.
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