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Hierarchies have a place in societies built on equality + When a nation apologizes

#1
C C Offline
Hierarchies have a place even in societies built on equality
https://aeon.co/essays/hierarchies-have-...n-equality

EXCERPT: The modern West has placed a high premium on the value of equality. Equal rights are enshrined in law while old hierarchies of nobility and social class have been challenged, if not completely dismantled. Few would doubt that global society is all the better for these changes. But hierarchies have not disappeared. Society is still stratified according to wealth and status in myriad ways.

On the other hand, the idea of a purely egalitarian world in which there are no hierarchies at all would appear to be both unrealistic and unattractive. Nobody, on reflection, would want to eliminate all hierarchies, for we all benefit from the recognition that some people are more qualified than others to perform certain roles in society. We prefer to be treated by senior surgeons not medical students, get financial advice from professionals not interns. Good and permissible hierarchies are everywhere around us.

Yet hierarchy is an unfashionable thing to defend or to praise. British government ministers denounce experts as out of tune with popular feeling; both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders built platforms on attacking Washington elites; economists are blamed for not predicting the 2008 crash; and even the best established practice of medical experts, such as childhood vaccinations, are treated with resistance and disbelief. We live in a time when no distinction is drawn between justified and useful hierarchies on the one hand, and self-interested, exploitative elites on the other.

As a group, we believe that clearer thinking about hierarchy and equality is important in business, politics and public life. We should lift the taboo on discussing what makes for a good hierarchy. To the extent that hierarchies are inevitable, it is important to create good ones and avoid those that are pernicious. It is also important to identify the ways in which useful and good hierarchies support and foster good forms of equality. When we talk about hierarchies here, we mean those distinctions and rankings that bring with them clear power differentials....



A nation apologises for wrongdoing: is that a category mistake?
https://aeon.co/ideas/a-nation-apologise...ry-mistake

EXCERPT: From childhood, we are taught that our actions can cause harm. In our personal lives, we know that the health and integrity of our relationships are fragile. When harm has been done, it is as if the relationship walks with a stone in its shoe, ever stumbling a little. If it is ever to amble along nicely again, the person who committed the wrongful act must face those she hurt, acknowledge her responsibility, and apologise. What about when nations do harm? Can national apologies accomplish anything and, if so, how?

[...] For many critics, this move to transpose models of apology from individuals to collectives represents what philosophers call a category mistake, that is, the attribution of a property to an entity that’s logically incapable of bearing such properties. Nations, after all, are not people. Regret and sorrow imply internality, emotional depth and capacities to feel and reflect that, critics argue, are only mistakenly attributed to nations. In addition, some more politically minded critics object that it is unjust to blame the people who make up the contemporary nation for the wrongdoings of those who made up the nation when the wrongs were committed.

These arguments overlook both the nature of large-scale wrongdoing and the nature of national identity. When societies collude in acts of racist, homophobic or religious violence, there is almost inevitably a social infrastructure of implicit approval enabling the individual perpetrators. The hands of the few might be directly undertaking the wrongful doing, but the wrongful being that permits and authorises their acts infuses the society. Mundane small acts of negligence and convenient vindication create the conditions in which violence against devalued peoples are subtly authorised and become permissible.

As to the objection that we cannot blame the people of today for the crimes of their forebears, such arguments betray a misunderstanding of what it is to belong to a nation or have a national identity. Along with the privileges we inherit by virtue of our national membership inevitably come civic obligations. Claiming national pride yet refusing national shame is not only inconsistent, it’s also unethical....



A national apology has the power to change the future
https://aeon.co/essays/a-national-apolog...the-future

EXCERPT: [...] It turns out that apology at the national level is not so different from the process that individuals go through in apologising for a serious harm. The first step is the recognition that there is something to apologise for, and that it is serious. This recognition – shared, ideally, by the offender and the harmed – informs the making of the apology itself. In its most sincere form, making an apology involves a naming of the offence, a condemnation of previous behaviour, and a request for forgiveness. In The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959), the sociologist Erving Goffman described apology as splitting one’s self into two persons – a former guilty one and new one that condemns the past behaviour. The apologiser becomes a better person. Those receiving the apology are also changed by receiving a sincere gesture of respect. Honour is restored.

A national apology serves the same function as a personal apology, but on a different scale. A national apology asserts changed values, condemns past behaviour, and commits to different, better actions in the future. And it can bring about a reconciliation between those harmed and the nation that caused the harm.

The term ‘national apology’ can be a bit misleading....
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#2
Syne Offline
(Apr 4, 2017 03:04 AM)C C Wrote: A nation apologises for wrongdoing: is that a category mistake?
https://aeon.co/ideas/a-nation-apologise...ry-mistake

As to the objection that we cannot blame the people of today for the crimes of their forebears, such arguments betray a misunderstanding of what it is to belong to a nation or have a national identity. Along with the privileges we inherit by virtue of our national membership inevitably come civic obligations. Claiming national pride yet refusing national shame is not only inconsistent, it’s also unethical....




A national apology has the power to change the future
https://aeon.co/essays/a-national-apolog...the-future

A national apology serves the same function as a personal apology, but on a different scale. A national apology asserts changed values, condemns past behaviour, and commits to different, better actions in the future. And it can bring about a reconciliation between those harmed and the nation that caused the harm.

Bullshit.
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#3
Zinjanthropos Offline
Welcome Animeshp

How do I apologize to the Neanderthals? 

Maybe the Germans should apologize for the 20th century even though they failed to conquer the world. Remember the big hubbub when the Japanese wouldn't apologize to American ex-pow's? It was a different time, attitudes were different plus it's what we do, what all animals do, fight over territory. It's as natural as daylight conquering the night. Takes time to evolve us away from it. Possible I think.
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