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Originally Posted by FresnoBob
If people insist they have no "pride" in their nation's accomplishments through history, why should they feel any "shame" for the less savory portions of that history either? If one rejects the good, impressive, or just damn amazing things those dead folks scattered in graveyards around the country [or died overseas or were buried at sea], why pretend an intellectual/moral superiority by claiming the bad?
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I've spelt this out about three times, I'm surprised people are having such difficulty with it.
I am NOT suggesting that we should have no pride, only shame. What I'm saying is,
if we are going to take pride in past (or indeed present) achievements, it is only logical to feel shame at misdeeds. Either that, or neither - as Mike and GiggsyPO feel.
Pride and shame, in my moral understanding, are mirror images of each other - more than that, they're reciprocally linked. Pride is meaningless without the possibility of shame. A moral system in which only one is felt doesn't make sense to me.
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What good does "shame" or apologies do for actions done hundreds of years ago? Are we expecting the Turks to apologize for their "illegal" capture of Constantinople in 1453, or the Aztecs to make amends to other natives of central Mexico for brutal conquest, human sacrifice, and cannibalism? If they do, what is accomplished?
Most people are products of their time--and for many leaders throughout history that meant acting under what we, today, consider rather barbaric concepts of race, religion, sex(ism), treatment of captives, and the rights of imperial expansion. How many cultures and nations in the past actually considered themselves inferior and rightfully subjugated by others, rather than naturally superior? The "extention of the blessings" of their beliefs and practices to the lesser nations, or having the "inferior" entities serve their national and imperial aims was often viewed as morally correct then as they are viewed to be evil, pernicious, and wrong today. It is not that many of the actions we view with horror were "proper," but that viewed through the eyes of that contemporary society, these acts were often done with less malice and evil intent than we now ascribe to them.
In the never-ending historical process of evolving social mores and practices, we have a right to say that prior practices are no longer acceptable and learn from the past to prevent such reoccurances, but inter-generational bookkeeping on "national sins" serves no cognizable purpose other than to allow an anacronistic critique of the ancients pass for intellectual debate. There are thoughts and beliefs that were once in vogue that now, thankfully, are no longer considered true or acceptable, but our job is to learn from the past and move on.
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It's well put. So do you think that, likewise, only those successes or glories should be celebrated which would still be considered Good Things if done today? Or does the acid of moral fashion only erode the misdeeds?