Settler colonialism in action

[Linguoboy]

However, the matter is that much of "anti-Zionism" does manifest itself in opposition to Israel and the Israeli Jews themselves, and furthermore is often extended in a way to Jews in general. This is unacceptable - is an Israeli Jew born today responsible somehow for what happened in 1948 or 1967 (or likewise, for the sake of comparison, is a German born today responsible somehow for the Holocaust, or an American born today responsible somehow for the ethnic cleansing of much of North America by European settlers over a century ago)?

I'ma stop you right here. The idea that the ethnic cleansing of Native North America is a discrete event that is located safely enough in the distant path that no living European-Americans can be held accountable for it is a comforting lie we tell ourselves to absolve ourselves of all responsibility for redressing injustices. Occupation of Native land, denial of tribal sovereignty, dispossession of resources, violent assimilation of Native Americans--all of these are ongoing processes that settler-colonialists like you and me are complicit in. And it's not any different in contemporary Israel. No, an Israeli Jew born in Hebron today isn't personally responsible for the Nakba and all the violence that preceded and followed it. They just benefit from it in terms of legal and societal privilege, access to resources, and so forth.

[Travis B.]

However, the matter is that much of "anti-Zionism" does manifest itself in opposition to Israel and the Israeli Jews themselves, and furthermore is often extended in a way to Jews in general. This is unacceptable - is an Israeli Jew born today responsible somehow for what happened in 1948 or 1967 (or likewise, for the sake of comparison, is a German born today responsible somehow for the Holocaust, or an American born today responsible somehow for the ethnic cleansing of much of North America by European settlers over a century ago)?

I'ma stop you right here. The idea that the ethnic cleansing of Native North America is a discrete event that is located safely enough in the distant path that no living European-Americans can be held accountable for it is a comforting lie we tell ourselves to absolve ourselves of all responsibility for redressing injustices. Occupation of Native land, denial of tribal sovereignty, dispossession of resources, violent assimilation of Native Americans--all of these are ongoing processes that settler-colonialists like you and me are complicit in. And it's not any different in contemporary Israel. No, an Israeli Jew born in Hebron today isn't personally responsible for the Nakba and all the violence that preceded and followed it. They just benefit from it in terms of legal and societal privilege, access to resources, and so forth.

I will give you that there have been injustices against Native Americans since then, as you mention -- but the key thing to me is that guilt or lack thereof is personal, not collective. Just because European-Americans have committed injustices against Native Americans until the present does not mean that all, or for that matter, most European-Americans living today are guilty of them. Just as the Israeli gov't is not synonymous with Jews in general, the American gov't is not synonymous with European-Americans overall. And to me going down the road of applying guilt to entire peoples regardless of the individual responsibility of particular people within them, is a quite dangerous path indeed. (We have seen this with Jews in the past -- and we know what that resulted in -- and we see this with groups ranging from Palestinians to Latines to the Chinese today.)

[Raphael]

I'ma stop you right here. The idea that the ethnic cleansing of Native North America is a discrete event that is located safely enough in the distant path that no living European-Americans can be held accountable for it is a comforting lie we tell ourselves to absolve ourselves of all responsibility for redressing injustices. Occupation of Native land, denial of tribal sovereignty, dispossession of resources, violent assimilation of Native Americans--all of these are ongoing processes that settler-colonialists like you and me are complicit in.

If you yourself, by your own admission, are complicit in all those bad things, and you see that as bad, then why don't you just stop?

Does someone, in your opinion, become a "settler colonialist" as a result of the combination of someone's birthplace and the combination of demographic groups someone was born into?

If so, then how on Earth is a system of moral standards that assigns people moral value or lack thereof based on which demographic groups they were born into in any way morally or ethically defensible?

And, how is your stance different from standard textbook irredentism?

[Travis B.]

I'ma stop you right here. The idea that the ethnic cleansing of Native North America is a discrete event that is located safely enough in the distant path that no living European-Americans can be held accountable for it is a comforting lie we tell ourselves to absolve ourselves of all responsibility for redressing injustices. Occupation of Native land, denial of tribal sovereignty, dispossession of resources, violent assimilation of Native Americans--all of these are ongoing processes that settler-colonialists like you and me are complicit in.

If you yourself, by your own admission, are complicit in all those bad things, and you see that as bad, then why don't you just stop?

Does someone, in your opinion, become a "settler colonialist" as a result of the combination of someone's birthplace and the combination of demographic groups someone was born into?

If so, then how on Earth is a system of moral standards that assigns people moral value or lack thereof based on which demographic groups they were born into in any way morally or ethically defensible?

And, how is your stance different from standard textbook irredentism?

My thought indeed.

[Linguoboy]

If you yourself, by your own admission, are complicit in all those bad things, and you see that as bad, then why don't you just stop?

What kind of adolescent gotcha is this supposed to be exactly? Given that the structure of global capitalism makes essentially everyone who's not living a bare-bones hunter-gatherer existence complicit in its systematic oppressions, this simply isn't a realistic proposition for 99.999% of humanity. But you're not ignorant, you know this already, so I can only assume you're being disingenuous.

I could go into detail about the steps I've been taking to educate myself about the systems of oppression I'm complicit in and begin the work of dismantling them, but I don't feel a need to justify myself to you so the only reason for doing so would be if you were interested in doing the same and looking for some guidance. The tone of your reply makes me think that probably isn't the case and it's off-topic for this thread anyway, but if I've misread you and if that's a discussion you actually want to have we can try again elsewhere. All I'll say here is that, like dismantling any kind of injustice, it begins by listening to what those most negatively affected by it.

Does someone, in your opinion, become a "settler colonialist" as a result of the combination of someone's birthplace and the combination of demographic groups someone was born into?

If you don't know what "settler colonialism" is, then there's no time to learn like the present. In short, my ancestors are not indigenous to the land I currently inhabitant. They were brought here with the express purpose of displacing the indigenous population and extracting the resources to benefit a capitalist elite which owed its position to European imperialism. I was born into a settler-colonialist society and owe my position in it chiefly to my demographic characteristics. None of this should be controversial to anyone who knows anything about USAmerican history.

If so, then how on Earth is a system of moral standards that assigns people moral value or lack thereof based on which demographic groups they were born into in any way morally or ethically defensible?

Who's assigning people "moral value" according to these standards? I'm primarily concerned with who is working to make this a more just and inclusive society and who is more concerned with defending their own privileged position within it. I've had this conversation with Travis enough times to know what he's primarily concerned with. What about you, Raphael? Are you more worried about being made to feel uncomfortable based on certain demographic characteristics than you are about benefitting unfairly from simply possessing those demographic characteristics? If so, then this discussion has probably gone as far as it can for now.

And, how is your stance different from standard textbook irredentism?

Irredentism applies on the level of states, not individuals.

[Linguoboy]

I will give you that there have been injustices against Native Americans since then, as you mention -- but the key thing to me is that guilt or lack thereof is personal, not collective. Just because European-Americans have committed injustices against Native Americans until the present does not mean that all, or for that matter, most European-Americans living today are guilty of them.

You're only responsible for you're choosing to do or not do. Injustices continue to be committed against Native Americans on a daily basis. Are you doing something to combat these injustices or not?[*] The vast majority of European-Americans living today are not, or are doing very little. We benefit too much from the status quo to act otherwise. And one of the ways we excuse our inaction is by pretending that there's nothing we can do--for instance, by asserting that everything happened "over a century ago" and we're simply powerless to change history at this point.

[*] Note that this is a rhetorical question in this context; you don't owe me an accounting. But if you're not asking yourself the question, you probably should be.

[zompist]

If so, then how on Earth is a system of moral standards that assigns people moral value or lack thereof based on which demographic groups they were born into in any way morally or ethically defensible?

Who's assigning people "moral value" according to these standards? I'm primarily concerned with who is working to make this a more just and inclusive society and who is more concerned with defending their own privileged position within it. I've had this conversation with Travis enough times to know what he's primarily concerned with. What about you, Raphael? Are you more worried about being made to feel uncomfortable based on certain demographic characteristics than you are about benefitting unfairly from simply possessing those demographic characteristics? If so, then this discussion has probably gone as far as it can for now.

You do recall that Raphael is German, right? If my historical atlas is right, the area of Hamburg has been Germanic for 2500 years. I think the shoe is on the other foot here: the US left tends to assume that everywhere is the US and applies its doctrines and solutions everywhere, to the bafflement or annoyance of locals. Germany did have some colonies, of course... for a period of 34 years. "Settler colonialism" is not something that sheds any particular light on German history or politics. And of course Germany has its own sins to answer for, but you have no call to be accusing Raphael of being ignorant of them.

(And relevant to this thread: Germany has solidly supported Israel and cracked down on pro-Palestinian protests. Maybe being super-conscious of its past crimes is no guarantee of pursuing justice for all.)

I like your formulation of "who is working to make this a more just and inclusive society and who is more concerned with defending their own privileged position within it". That's useful, because anyone can work for a more just and inclusive society. It's also what oppressed groups actually say they want. To my knowledge, activists do not want the majority to feel guilty, and even consider that counter-productive. They want actual steps toward equality.

[Raphael]

If so, then how on Earth is a system of moral standards that assigns people moral value or lack thereof based on which demographic groups they were born into in any way morally or ethically defensible?

Who's assigning people "moral value" according to these standards? I'm primarily concerned with who is working to make this a more just and inclusive society and who is more concerned with defending their own privileged position within it. I've had this conversation with Travis enough times to know what he's primarily concerned with. What about you, Raphael? Are you more worried about being made to feel uncomfortable based on certain demographic characteristics than you are about benefitting unfairly from simply possessing those demographic characteristics? If so, then this discussion has probably gone as far as it can for now.

You do recall that Raphael is German, right? If my historical atlas is right, the area of Hamburg has been Germanic for 2500 years. I think the shoe is on the other foot here: the US left tends to assume that everywhere is the US and applies its doctrines and solutions everywhere, to the bafflement or annoyance of locals. Germany did have some colonies, of course... for a period of 34 years. "Settler colonialism" is not something that sheds any particular light on German history or politics.

Thank you, but, to be fair to Linguoboy, he's right that white-skinned Europeans have all kinds of unfair and unjust advantages, both within Europe and in a global context.

My problem here isn't with the idea that I, or a lot of other people, have unfair advantages that we should fight against. My problem is with the idea that the very existence of certain people, or at least their presence in the place where they were born, is in itself an injustice. I don't think anyone commits an injustice by simply existing, or by living in the part of the world where they were born. I don't think anyone would be able to change my mind on that. But that's how a lot of the talk about settler colonialism comes across to me.

If you yourself, by your own admission, are complicit in all those bad things, and you see that as bad, then why don't you just stop?

What kind of adolescent gotcha is this supposed to be exactly? Given that the structure of global capitalism makes essentially everyone who's not living a bare-bones hunter-gatherer existence complicit in its systematic oppressions, this simply isn't a realistic proposition for 99.999% of humanity. But you're not ignorant, you know this already, so I can only assume you're being disingenuous.

I admit that I was playing dumb there. I wanted you to confirm that it is impossible for most people to stop doing the thing for which you criticize them, so that I could, then, make the point that as far as I am concerned, it is fundamentally wrong to condemn or criticize people for doing something if not doing it is simply not an option for them.

Does someone, in your opinion, become a "settler colonialist" as a result of the combination of someone's birthplace and the combination of demographic groups someone was born into?

If you don't know what "settler colonialism" is, then there's no time to learn like the present. In short, my ancestors are not indigenous to the land I currently inhabitant. They were brought here with the express purpose of displacing the indigenous population and extracting the resources to benefit a capitalist elite which owed its position to European imperialism. I was born into a settler-colonialist society and owe my position in it chiefly to my demographic characteristics. None of this should be controversial to anyone who knows anything about USAmerican history.

In other words, "yes".

Who's assigning people "moral value" according to these standards?

Now, I think, you're playing dumb and being disingenuous. You know very well that calling someone a settler colonialist is a negative moral value judgment.

I'm primarily concerned with who is working to make this a more just and inclusive society and who is more concerned with defending their own privileged position within it.

If that's what you're primarily concerned with, then why do you insist so strongly on declaring large numbers of people to be collectively evil independently of what their own actions are or aren't?

What about you, Raphael? Are you more worried about being made to feel uncomfortable based on certain demographic characteristics than you are about benefitting unfairly from simply possessing those demographic characteristics?

More about the latter, but also about the former. I don't see a contradiction in being against several types of injustice at the same time.

And, how is your stance different from standard textbook irredentism?

Irredentism applies on the level of states, not individuals.

The rhetoric about settler colonialism seems to be more about groups than individuals.

[Travis B.]

If you yourself, by your own admission, are complicit in all those bad things, and you see that as bad, then why don't you just stop?

What kind of adolescent gotcha is this supposed to be exactly? Given that the structure of global capitalism makes essentially everyone who's not living a bare-bones hunter-gatherer existence complicit in its systematic oppressions, this simply isn't a realistic proposition for 99.999% of humanity. But you're not ignorant, you know this already, so I can only assume you're being disingenuous.

The thing is that some distant "complicity" is of little connection to what one can do and what one can not do in practice most of the time. I personally tend to concern myself with personal commission and omission at a more practical, direct level over which people have actual control rather than expecting people to isolate themselves from global capitalism and all, and then calling them "complicit" when this turns out to be entirely unrealistic, just as you say.

I could go into detail about the steps I've been taking to educate myself about the systems of oppression I'm complicit in and begin the work of dismantling them, but I don't feel a need to justify myself to you so the only reason for doing so would be if you were interested in doing the same and looking for some guidance. The tone of your reply makes me think that probably isn't the case and it's off-topic for this thread anyway, but if I've misread you and if that's a discussion you actually want to have we can try again elsewhere. All I'll say here is that, like dismantling any kind of injustice, it begins by listening to what those most negatively affected by it.

How is this not self-flagellation, and implying that others have not engaged in sufficient self-flagellation themselves?

Does someone, in your opinion, become a "settler colonialist" as a result of the combination of someone's birthplace and the combination of demographic groups someone was born into?

If you don't know what "settler colonialism" is, then there's no time to learn like the present. In short, my ancestors are not indigenous to the land I currently inhabitant. They were brought here with the express purpose of displacing the indigenous population and extracting the resources to benefit a capitalist elite which owed its position to European imperialism. I was born into a settler-colonialist society and owe my position in it chiefly to my demographic characteristics. None of this should be controversial to anyone who knows anything about USAmerican history.

The key thing is that one can only be held responsible for what one has done and has not done. You and I are no more responsible for the ethnic cleansing of the Americas as Raphael is responsible for the Holocaust. In our cases, sure, European settlement of the Americas was promoted by capitalists to displace the indigenous population and to extract its resources to benefit said capitalists but we are not our ancestors ─ we did not choose to come to the Americas, we did not choose to have European ancestors, these things are just accidents of our birth. So to imply that we have some kind of guilt simply in having been born as European-Americans is absurd.

If so, then how on Earth is a system of moral standards that assigns people moral value or lack thereof based on which demographic groups they were born into in any way morally or ethically defensible?

Who's assigning people "moral value" according to these standards? I'm primarily concerned with who is working to make this a more just and inclusive society and who is more concerned with defending their own privileged position within it. I've had this conversation with Travis enough times to know what he's primarily concerned with. What about you, Raphael? Are you more worried about being made to feel uncomfortable based on certain demographic characteristics than you are about benefitting unfairly from simply possessing those demographic characteristics? If so, then this discussion has probably gone as far as it can for now.

It is not about being comfortable or uncomfortable. It is about treating people as individuals who are solely responsible for their own commissions and omissions, rather than treating people as members of groups who are treated as less or more moral, as having guilt assigned to them or are treated as somehow superior, based on things other than their own personal choices. Sure, you may be more privileged than other people ─ but specifically because privileged is something that you are born into also means that it is not something you should be blamed for, or should need to self-flagellate over. The best route is simply to try to live your own life in as just a fashion as possible rather than to focus on how horrible your ancestors may or may not have been, or how you must atone for your privilege as a European-American.

Also, you do realize that this whole scheme of things is easily inverted, and what you support is in many ways just an inversion of how things had always been, right? It just happens that the people on the bottom of the hierarchy have been moved to the top and vice versa. Since this is merely an inversion of the old way of thinking, how is it any more reasonable a way of thinking? How is this any more fair or just? If you move someone from the bottom of the hierarchy to the top, how is their being morally improved by reassigning their position in the hierarchy any more reasonable than how things had been before? A just way of doing things would be to squash the hierarchy flat, so everyone starts out from birth as morally equal, and how they differ morally is solely based on the choices they make as individuals.

[Travis B.]

I will give you that there have been injustices against Native Americans since then, as you mention -- but the key thing to me is that guilt or lack thereof is personal, not collective. Just because European-Americans have committed injustices against Native Americans until the present does not mean that all, or for that matter, most European-Americans living today are guilty of them.

You're only responsible for you're choosing to do or not do. Injustices continue to be committed against Native Americans on a daily basis. Are you doing something to combat these injustices or not?[*] The vast majority of European-Americans living today are not, or are doing very little. We benefit too much from the status quo to act otherwise. And one of the ways we excuse our inaction is by pretending that there's nothing we can do--for instance, by asserting that everything happened "over a century ago" and we're simply powerless to change history at this point.

[*] Note that this is a rhetorical question in this context; you don't owe me an accounting. But if you're not asking yourself the question, you probably should be.

Saying that the vast majority of members of a group are guilty of not preventing X done by some select minority of that group, despite it being not within the power of the vast majority of said individuals to do so, is a dangerous position to hold ─ replace "European-Americans" with some other group, and see what you get.

(Just to get a good picture of what I mean, consider the term "Christ-killer" or how Muslims are frequently seen as would-be terrorists today.)

[bradrn]

I feel like the argument there is: ‘if you’re not actively for us, you’re against us’. It’s an argument I’m sympathetic to, but which ultimately I reject.

[Linguoboy]

Who's assigning people "moral value" according to these standards? I'm primarily concerned with who is working to make this a more just and inclusive society and who is more concerned with defending their own privileged position within it. I've had this conversation with Travis enough times to know what he's primarily concerned with. What about you, Raphael? Are you more worried about being made to feel uncomfortable based on certain demographic characteristics than you are about benefitting unfairly from simply possessing those demographic characteristics? If so, then this discussion has probably gone as far as it can for now.

You do recall that Raphael is German, right? If my historical atlas is right, the area of Hamburg has been Germanic for 2500 years. I think the shoe is on the other foot here: the US left tends to assume that everywhere is the US and applies its doctrines and solutions everywhere, to the bafflement or annoyance of locals. Germany did have some colonies, of course... for a period of 34 years. "Settler colonialism" is not something that sheds any particular light on German history or politics.

Thank you, but, to be fair to Linguoboy, he's right that white-skinned Europeans have all kinds of unfair and unjust advantages, both within Europe and in a global context.

To be really fair to me, Raphael admits below that he knew exactly what I was talking about and was "playing dumb" for rhetorical purposes:

I admit that I was playing dumb there. I wanted you to confirm that it is impossible for most people to stop doing the thing for which you criticize them, so that I could, then, make the point that as far as I am concerned, it is fundamentally wrong to condemn or criticize people for doing something if not doing it is simply not an option for them.

I think you're projecting a demand for ideological purity onto me which isn't actually there. I'm criticising people who are complicit in injustice for not working to remedy that injustice. Discussion of whether they are really "at fault" for this injustice seem like a tactic for excusing their inaction. That's what I was critiquing about Travis' statements (and so far nothing you and he have posted to the thread suggests that my suspicion was misplaced).

Does someone, in your opinion, become a "settler colonialist" as a result of the combination of someone's birthplace and the combination of demographic groups someone was born into?

If you don't know what "settler colonialism" is, then there's no time to learn like the present. In short, my ancestors are not indigenous to the land I currently inhabitant. They were brought here with the express purpose of displacing the indigenous population and extracting the resources to benefit a capitalist elite which owed its position to European imperialism. I was born into a settler-colonialist society and owe my position in it chiefly to my demographic characteristics. None of this should be controversial to anyone who knows anything about USAmerican history.

In other words, "yes".

In my words, no. You become a settler colonialist by your participation in the ongoing settler-colonial project. Due to their demographic characteristics, certain people will never be allowed to become members of the hegemonic group in this project. Indigenous people, for instance, are coerced into complicity with settler colonialism and rewarded for actively supporting it, but they will never been seen as settler colonialists themselves because they are not White.

Who's assigning people "moral value" according to these standards?

Now, I think, you're playing dumb and being disingenuous. You know very well that calling someone a settler colonialist is a negative moral value judgment.

This feels very close to "'karen' is a slur" territory.

I'm primarily concerned with who is working to make this a more just and inclusive society and who is more concerned with defending their own privileged position within it.

If that's what you're primarily concerned with, then why do you insist so strongly on declaring large numbers of people to be collectively evil independently of what their own actions are or aren't?

Again, I never called anyone "evil"; this is entirely your framework and your terminology.

And, how is your stance different from standard textbook irredentism?

Irredentism applies on the level of states, not individuals.

The rhetoric about settler colonialism seems to be more about groups than individuals.

I think one of the main practical differences I see is that irredentism generally calls for ethnic cleansing of some kind (often to reverse supposed previous ethnic cleansing, but not always). No doubt there are people using the term "settler colonialism" who advocate for this. (I've definitely come across it recently in some of the more extremist anti-Israel rhetoric I've seen.) However, the indigenous scholars who I'm most familiar with use an entirely different framework, one based on a long history of accommodating the movement and resettlement of peoples within their territories. The demand is for a radical re-accommodation based on this framework, which requires the dismantling of capitalism and the modern nation-state.

Obviously, such a re-accommodation would result in the resettlement of some people as land ownership as we currently know it is abolished. But the notion some white folks have that indigenous folks want to drive us all into the sea or whatever seems like a version of the classic White Supremacist argument that, given the chance, every oppressed minority would do to us what we've done to them and therefore we're justified in perpetuation the oppression. The end of colonialism means a renegotiation of the relationship between indigenous nations and settlers based on mutual respect and consent, not the substitution of one oppressive system with another.

[Linguoboy]

BTW, the reason I'm revisiting this thread is because yesterday I came across a piece in the Guardian which validated my initial point about the ongoing nature of the settler-colonialist project in North America:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/ ... ns-lawsuit

The unauthorised medical scans in question are alleged to have taken place *in 2017*.

Incidentally, the article mentions a class-action lawsuit to end coerced sterilisation of indigenous women in Canada. Since that article is five years old, I did a search to see what the outcome was and found this:

https://apnews.com/article/canada-indig ... 718202531d

According to this article, the most recent penalty for coerced sterilisation was for a procedure which took place *in 2019*. This is not an "ethnic cleansing" which ended before any of us was born; the genocide of Native Americans is still very much ongoing.

[Travis B.]

BTW, the reason I'm revisiting this thread is because yesterday I came across a piece in the Guardian which validated my initial point about the ongoing nature of the settler-colonialist project in North America:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/ ... ns-lawsuit

The unauthorised medical scans in question are alleged to have taken place *in 2017*.

Incidentally, the article mentions a class-action lawsuit to end coerced sterilisation of indigenous women in Canada. Since that article is five years old, I did a search to see what the outcome was and found this:

https://apnews.com/article/canada-indig ... 718202531d

According to this article, the most recent penalty for coerced sterilisation was for a procedure which took place *in 2019*. This is not an "ethnic cleansing" which ended before any of us was born; the genocide of Native Americans is still very much ongoing.

This issue here is not whether injustices are still occurring to Native Americans/First Nations, because they still are, even if the scale of them has diminished to some degree or another compared to in the past. The issue here is broadly painting European-Americans and European-Canadians born in the Americas as "settler-colonialists" and thus somehow responsible for these travesties simply for being people of European descent born in the Americas, despite having no connection to them from a personal perspective in the vast majority of cases.

Anyways, the logic of this makes no sense when you turn it around and replace "European-Americans" or "European-Canadians" with some other group. If all European-Americans and European-Canadians are "settler-colonialists", you can say that all Jews are Zionists or all Muslims are terrorists. I am sure you would disagree with those, right? So how is the former any more valid?

[Raphael]

Travis, I think we've all made our respective points here.

[Torco]

late to this, I know, but I just wanna say: what Linguo is here saying is not that complex, it's just hard to swallow. Like the arguments for veganism we feel it's too onerous, too demanding, and thus we want to reject it, but it doesn't mean he's *wrong*: if you're runing a race, and other runners are shot down by faraway snipers because their shirt number is odd (let's assume there's some weird cult that wants all winners to be even numbered shirts, because god loves divisibility or something, metaphor for supremacy here), and then you win... that makes the win, at the very least, different in quality. I know that we all want to buy the notion of individual responsibility and individual merit and meritocracy and only what I knowingly and willingly do is my responsibility blabla but the reality is, not to sound like a meme, we live in a society: just what you're wearing is the result of a bunch of people doing a bunch of work and a buch of systems of motivation, punishment, distribution, indoctrination and whatever, let alone the rest of it: the race's winner (the analogue for the settler, in this case) is not the shooter, but the fact that his racemates were shot so he could win does change the ethical reality he finds himself in: for example, if he celebrates the triumph this is a less deserved celebration than if he had won fair and square, and if he goes "see? us evens are just better" then he's complicit with the snipers. and there's some degree of onus on him as the newly crowned champion to, say, encourage races to be ran in closed stadiums instead of in the open or something like that. maybe advocate for running races in flak vests, I don't know. the thought experiment gets silly, but the gist of it is, I think, not wrong.

[bradrn]

(Hmm, when did this thread get moved?)

the race's winner (the analogue for the settler, in this case) is not the shooter, but the fact that his racemates were shot so he could win does change the ethical reality he finds himself in: for example, if he celebrates the triumph this is a less deserved celebration than if he had won fair and square, and if he goes "see? us evens are just better" then he's complicit with the snipers. and there's some degree of onus on him as the newly crowned champion to, say, encourage races to be ran in closed stadiums instead of in the open or something like that. maybe advocate for running races in flak vests, I don't know. the thought experiment gets silly, but the gist of it is, I think, not wrong.

This is all fair enough and the applicability to our own world is obvious.

But, on the other hand, I there’s a certain degree of equivocation between two different viewpoints:

1. ‘We should be aware of our privileged position and the advantages we gain from it, and we should advocate for those less privileged whenever we have the chance’ (what you say)
2. ‘We are all actively complicit in every unfair action which has ever given us privilege, and should therefore feel personally guilty for every success we have unless we spend our every waking moment tearing down the structures of oppression’

Lest you think I’m exaggerating with that second one, here’s Linguoboy:

Given that the structure of global capitalism makes essentially everyone who's not living a bare-bones hunter-gatherer existence complicit in its systematic oppressions […]

I'm criticising people who are complicit in injustice for not working to remedy that injustice. Discussion of whether they are really "at fault" for this injustice seem like a tactic for excusing their inaction.

In your analogy, this is like blaming the racer for the actions of the shooter. And sure, if they coordinated the act beforehand, then he certainly deserves all the blame he can get. But if he went into the race trying to compete fairly, and had nothing to do personally with the shooting… then I don’t see how that makes any sense.

[Torco]

Yeah, that's why I added the " if he goes 'see? us evens are just better' " bit. in no scenario did the runner pull the trigger, but premeditated, fully informed cooperation is not the only type of complicity. Like, being aware of privilege and advocating for the runners who got shot... say, to get healthcare, is all well and good, but I think the thing is, if all races had these snipers, Albert, who runs under number 10, was like "I acknolwedge my privilege and will start a charity fund for the fast and effective treatment of gunshot wounds in sporting events... but running indoors is just against the spirit of the sport, it shouldn't be considered", well... yeah, I should think that Albert is in some way complicit with the sniper cult, no? maybe he doesn't go to the meetings or carries a sniper rifle, but still.

What i'm trying to illustrate here is that 1 is not enough. 2 goes too far, lets try for some middle? like

3. when we benefit from something unjust, we can either take a position against it, see if we can't help that unjust thing stop, or we can passively let us benefit us. if we choose the latter, that is, to some degree, bad.

of course this doesn't have to mean your entire accomplishments are without merit, and it doesn't have to come with paralyzing guilt over all of those starving somalis that could be eating your soup. you don't have a duty to walk to the next town cause the train bill could pay for six malaria nets... but it does have to mean that you have a duty to, say, reject that lucrative sponsorship for running shoes that goes "evens: we just win it", even if you trained very hard to run that race. hell, even if you would have won without the snipers, I should think.

[bradrn]

What i'm trying to illustrate here is that 1 is not enough. 2 goes too far, lets try for some middle? like

3. when we benefit from something unjust, we can either take a position against it, see if we can't help that unjust thing stop, or we can passively let us benefit us. if we choose the latter, that is, to some degree, bad.

of course this doesn't have to mean your entire accomplishments are without merit, and it doesn't have to come with paralyzing guilt over all of those starving somalis that could be eating your soup. you don't have a duty to walk to the next town cause the train bill could pay for six malaria nets... but it does have to mean that you have a duty to, say, reject that lucrative sponsorship for running shoes that goes "evens: we just win it", even if you trained very hard to run that race. hell, even if you would have won without the snipers, I should think.

What you say here makes more sense to me. I feel this is the kind of nuance which so easily gets lost in these kinds of discussions: even if everyone is complicit to some extent, the degree of complicity varies with the individual and their actions. Saying ‘everyone is guilty’ without qualification is as unhelpful as saying ‘privilege doesn’t exist’.

But at the same time… what does it mean to ‘choose to passively let our privilege benefit us’? To suggest a concrete example: as an Australian, I live on land which was dispossessed from the indigenous people who lived here. At the same time, I am extremely limited in what I can do about that fact. I have any way to revive their culture; nor can I reincarnate the people who were (presumably) brutally massacred. The most I’ve been able to do recently is vote ‘yes’ in the recent referendum, and convince my family to do the same.

Similar arguments apply to white privilege, or middle-class privilege, or so on. One can recognise their presence, while at the same time having basically no way to not benefit from them, and very limited options for what one can do to combat them. People resent being made to feel guilty for factors which are so completely out of their control (or which appear that way), and I think that’s understandable.

[vlad]

Racists like Linguoboy should not be tolerated.