Saturday, May 13, 2017

It might come back and bite you.

People need to be careful with their victim politics game. It can be turned back on them. If members of a given race, or gender, or any other demographic, can claim grievances as a group they could find grievances can be counter claimed against them.
First look at the problem. Some hard line feminists claim that because women were not allowed to vote in the past, they have to be compensated today. Now my own great grandmother could not vote until she was 36 years old. She was born in England in 1882. Women in England were not enfranchised until 1918. I remember this lady well. She lived until 1966, the year I turned 13, having settled in Australia to be near family. I've personally spoken to someone who recalls when women could not vote. But would that be made right if all her  male descendants were forbidden to vote until they turn 36 years of age? Or would that repeat the wrongdoing? Or do her female descendants have to be given some extra benefit vis-a-vis her male ones? How? And why are we to blame for an injustice we had nothing to do with?
An extreme example of victims politics and claiming the right to get compensated would be that Australian Aboriginals, Native Americans, Maoris and any other first peoples could carry out massacres against white people, to get even for Wounded Knee, Myall Creek in Australia, and other such atrocities. But would that actually set things to right or add further wrongdoing? I know what I think about it. Being a white man does not make me personally responsible for any of the things mentioned above. Being of part German descent does NOT make me responsible for the vile attacks on Jews in Europe during World War 2. Being of part Scottish descent does not make me personally responsible for the slave trade, although Scottish merchant were apparently quite prominent in it. Having some French ancestors does not make me responsible for Alfred Dreyfus' ordeal. I must answer for what I've done, and no -one else has to. And I do not have to answer for what others have done. So the entire insidious moral blackmail industry can take it somewhere else.
And consider, if you trade in identity or victim politics, can anything be laid against you?
Some hardline feminists/female chauvinists claim that because some men commit rape we are all rapists. So if some women kill for money, does that mean all women are to be treated as gold-digging murderers?
This warning applies to all. Point fingers and they can be pointed back. Critisise and you can be critisised in turn. Lay a charge against a category of people and find one can be laid against yours.
The blame game could devour us all.