Robert Rosenstein wrote:
>
> If there is no such thing as obligations to past generations, then the
> idea of History is nullified.
Perhaps there are one than one "idea of History". Santayana's
warning that "Those who do not remember the past are
condemned to relive it" is in no way vitiated by giving
up the idea of *blood feud*.
It seems to me that the only ontological status of
"past generations" is their present-day living
*memory* in us ("history", like "the universe, etc. is not
a material (is there a German word: "Stoffish"?) "reality", but
rather an existential modality of human
Being-in-the-world ("Dasein"). Funerals, for instance, clearly
are productions of, by and for the benefit of the survivors,
not the funerees(sp?) -- who either have passed
into another life or "into" no-longer-being-at-all.
An exception I can think of to this is the Roman
Catholic Church's notion of *indulgences*.
In no way am I condoning The Holocaust (or even
my own middle-class Anmerican 1940s-50s social
milieu of origin). But it does not seem to me that
the *children* of Nazis (to pick one example)
should be punished for their parents' crimes, or
that the residents of southern Fairfield County, Connecticut, USA
should be dispossessed because of injustices which
were done by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs
(etc.) to the Pequots.
> If an action such as a genocide has no
> force after a given number of years, then as long as one can get away
> with it for the requisite period, the action has no value except to let
> others know what can be gotten away with. Consequently, except for a
> nuclear winter in which the slate is wiped clean, there is no justice.
This is, in my opinion, *factually* the case, whether we
like it or not. As the old cliche goes: No one will ever
know the identities of the best money counterfeiters
(etc.). Escape from justice by death happens all too
frequently (or, perhaps, not frequently enough -- since
society is saved a lot of expenses when criminals
die as part of their criminal acts, or shortly thereafter).
Nietzsche wrote (and I think he here if not always he has
merit):
That man be delivered from the spirit of revenge is for me
A bridge to the highest hope, and a rainbow after ong storms.
Or, as Jesus said:
Leave the dead to bury the dead. (except in urban settings,
where corpses are a public health problem)
\brad mccormick
--
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
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