Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill O'Rights
Yes. But dwelling on history teaches us annimosity and contempt.
|
I couldn't agree more. Affording preferential treatment to a particular group (at the expense of another, necessarily) justifies the sentiment that the dominent group "owes" something to the subordinate group. For example, people who favor reparations to be paid to descendents of slaves think that I, as a white person, have a responsibility to counteract the injustices committed by members of my race in past centuries. This kind of thinking leads to racism on both sides, as well as hostility.
__________________
The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
|