Shame should not be heritable
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/shame-should-not-be-heritable
Lionel Shriver notes:
As Cambridge is not the only academic institution undergoing this handwringing self-examination, maybe it’s worth asking exactly what good the posturing exercise has accomplished. The same number of Africans were sold into forced labour as ever. The same suffering and injustice simply sit there in the past, as irretrievably and immutably as before.
The primary benefit of discovering the university has a smudge in its drawers is that its administrators get to feel better about themselves. That is, they get to feel better about themselves for feeling worse about themselves. But given that their predecessors spent that blood money long ago, we might sensibly question whether reports like this ever make the modern-day staff and faculty genuinely feel bad. I’ve never thought the whole concept of ‘liberal guilt’ quite stands up to scrutiny… But ‘liberal guilt’ is a pleasure – a bundle of self-congratulation, preening sanctimony and moral superiority. ...
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/shame-should-not-be-heritable
Lionel Shriver notes:
As Cambridge is not the only academic institution undergoing this handwringing self-examination, maybe it’s worth asking exactly what good the posturing exercise has accomplished. The same number of Africans were sold into forced labour as ever. The same suffering and injustice simply sit there in the past, as irretrievably and immutably as before.
The primary benefit of discovering the university has a smudge in its drawers is that its administrators get to feel better about themselves. That is, they get to feel better about themselves for feeling worse about themselves. But given that their predecessors spent that blood money long ago, we might sensibly question whether reports like this ever make the modern-day staff and faculty genuinely feel bad. I’ve never thought the whole concept of ‘liberal guilt’ quite stands up to scrutiny… But ‘liberal guilt’ is a pleasure – a bundle of self-congratulation, preening sanctimony and moral superiority. ...
We don’t emphasise this enough lately, but historical shame is not and should not be heritable. It’s hard enough taking responsibility for the lousy things we all do in the here and now without also taking on the sins of total strangers in the unalterable past.