You and I are a lot alike. Different in some ways (I'm certainly no Marxist, for example), but I can relate to a lot of what you say here. Atheist? Check. Anti-Trump? Check. Left of center squish? Check.
I will say that I am staunchly anti-"heritage" in the sense you describe here. You say that your responsibility as a descendent of a Founding Father is "debatable". Here's my contribution to the debate - to me it's anathema to the principles of individuality, which are foundational to Western thinking (sadly in decline on the American left). We do not hold people responsible for the sins of their ancestors. That's the stuff of blood feuds and ethnic conflict. As an American, I've seen enough of the deleterious effects of "white guilt" on society. Arguably it served a purpose for a time, but one needn't feel personally responsible for something in order to see that a wrong needs to be righted. And now it has become a toxic element of modern progressivism, suppressing what should be an uncontroversial opposition to a dangerous strain of illiberalism in leftist thinking. And I say this as a Euro-mongrel whose ancestors weren't even here during the time of slavery - so even though I'm white, I could easily justify an exemption from any inherited responsibility. But nobody should have to.
So suffice it to say, I don't think you should feel any responsibility for the sins of my country based on your birth. I think you have a far better justification in taking an active interest in America: you are a citizen of what we loosely call the "free world", and like it or not, America is ... *consults experts* ... yes, it seems we are still, more or less, the leader of the free world. Canada may not be perfect, but in many ways you set a good example for America - and believe me, it does not go unnoticed. So keep doing that, and learn from our mistakes.
Yeah. I struggle with the... *extent* of responsibility in this context. We're a society that believes in inheritance. We believe that a parent's material successes should be passed to their descendants. But we struggle with the inheritance of debts.
I have a fairly comfortable place in our fairly comfortable society. But I didn't personally establish all the systems and institutions and structures that allow that comfort. I have a debt to those who came before me; I owe my position, my very existence, to my forebears.
What form should this debt take? I think there's no easy answer. How much do I owe the people my ancestors displaced and enslaved to establish a life here? Remembrance, at the very least. I'm a reparationist, yet I also reject reparations for the Asian Head Tax my ancestors had to pay to become Canadian (and that last part only included citizenship *within living memory*!). I grasp the inconsistency, but can't help these divergent perspectives.
I owe my language to the repeated conquests of the British Isles by every major European power for almost three millennia. Does that debt get balanced out by the havoc of those conquests? Can you get Shakespeare or Chaucer or Wilde without the slaughters of the Romans, or the Danes, or the Normans, or the Victorians?
This sense of debt, of attachment to the people and events and triumphs and atrocities that came before, that sense is something I can't silence.
I'm not about to burn all my worldly possessions or anything, but I think there is a positive effect from acknowledging our debts to the past. It can make us feel small, but also humble. It can make us feel encumbered, but also enmeshed in and connected to a tapestry of billions of stories from across the globe. It can make me feel responsible for the lives my slaveholding ancestors destroyed, and yet proud of the Civil War they fought to destroy slavery.
Responsibility is complicated. I'm sure I'm getting most of it wrong. But I'm going to keep trying.
You and I are a lot alike. Different in some ways (I'm certainly no Marxist, for example), but I can relate to a lot of what you say here. Atheist? Check. Anti-Trump? Check. Left of center squish? Check.
I will say that I am staunchly anti-"heritage" in the sense you describe here. You say that your responsibility as a descendent of a Founding Father is "debatable". Here's my contribution to the debate - to me it's anathema to the principles of individuality, which are foundational to Western thinking (sadly in decline on the American left). We do not hold people responsible for the sins of their ancestors. That's the stuff of blood feuds and ethnic conflict. As an American, I've seen enough of the deleterious effects of "white guilt" on society. Arguably it served a purpose for a time, but one needn't feel personally responsible for something in order to see that a wrong needs to be righted. And now it has become a toxic element of modern progressivism, suppressing what should be an uncontroversial opposition to a dangerous strain of illiberalism in leftist thinking. And I say this as a Euro-mongrel whose ancestors weren't even here during the time of slavery - so even though I'm white, I could easily justify an exemption from any inherited responsibility. But nobody should have to.
So suffice it to say, I don't think you should feel any responsibility for the sins of my country based on your birth. I think you have a far better justification in taking an active interest in America: you are a citizen of what we loosely call the "free world", and like it or not, America is ... *consults experts* ... yes, it seems we are still, more or less, the leader of the free world. Canada may not be perfect, but in many ways you set a good example for America - and believe me, it does not go unnoticed. So keep doing that, and learn from our mistakes.
Yeah. I struggle with the... *extent* of responsibility in this context. We're a society that believes in inheritance. We believe that a parent's material successes should be passed to their descendants. But we struggle with the inheritance of debts.
I have a fairly comfortable place in our fairly comfortable society. But I didn't personally establish all the systems and institutions and structures that allow that comfort. I have a debt to those who came before me; I owe my position, my very existence, to my forebears.
What form should this debt take? I think there's no easy answer. How much do I owe the people my ancestors displaced and enslaved to establish a life here? Remembrance, at the very least. I'm a reparationist, yet I also reject reparations for the Asian Head Tax my ancestors had to pay to become Canadian (and that last part only included citizenship *within living memory*!). I grasp the inconsistency, but can't help these divergent perspectives.
I owe my language to the repeated conquests of the British Isles by every major European power for almost three millennia. Does that debt get balanced out by the havoc of those conquests? Can you get Shakespeare or Chaucer or Wilde without the slaughters of the Romans, or the Danes, or the Normans, or the Victorians?
This sense of debt, of attachment to the people and events and triumphs and atrocities that came before, that sense is something I can't silence.
I'm not about to burn all my worldly possessions or anything, but I think there is a positive effect from acknowledging our debts to the past. It can make us feel small, but also humble. It can make us feel encumbered, but also enmeshed in and connected to a tapestry of billions of stories from across the globe. It can make me feel responsible for the lives my slaveholding ancestors destroyed, and yet proud of the Civil War they fought to destroy slavery.
Responsibility is complicated. I'm sure I'm getting most of it wrong. But I'm going to keep trying.