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No, I don't particularly understand why the current Dutch king and queen are being considered responsible for the actions of the Dutch 200 years ago.
"of their genocide"
In what way were they, the current Dutch king and queen, involved? If you have some historical tidbit I'm missing, by all means, inform me of the sins of Willem-Alexander.
Going to a museum to pay one's respects, and accompanied by a representative of the people who suffered so, is a positive step, one that should be at least regarded neutrally, not attacked.
Their inheritance is comprised of stolen riches. Their whole socioeconomic status is a result of the crimes of their ancestors. They didnt commit the crime but they have kept the loot and are still profiting from it.
So, ancestral guilt.
Its not just "ancestral guilt". Like I said : "they have kept the loot and are still profiting from it", And by loot I dont mean only valuable goods but power too. They still benefit from the power imbalance between countries that was created during colonialism. Just look at the world economy and the dynamic between the "economic south" and "economic north"
They are not guilty of colonialism "per se" but they are guilty of perpetuating, and using, the inequality and oppression that colonialism was built on for their own benefit.
So, do you mind telling me whose socioeconomic status isn't a result of the crimes of their ancestors?
Slaves, descendents of slaves, and the poor. You know, most people.
Many descendants of slaves and many poor people benefit from the atrocities of their ancestors, simply to a lesser degree. Short of being part of a completely dispossessed people isolated from broader society, we are all where we are due to the atrocities of our ancestors.
Not even sure about that. Even if you were part of some totally isolated group for tens of thousands of years you might have rape in your ancestry. Inherited guilt doesn't work.
I was born poor but doing pretty well now. So my status started out fine and the moment I started doing well it was solely because of my ancestors? Were my ancestors in the 19th century or so slacking off in the 1990s but got their act together when I graduated college? I am really confused how this process works. How does the spiritual "status" of my ancestors interact with normal matter, why does it seem like sometimes I go to work and do my job is part of why I have money when it is really my ancestors spirits?
Poor people or slaves could have rich ancestors who enslaved others as well though, single lost war in the medieval Africa could meant rich slaver becoming the slave .
Even the descendants of slaves are living in a country slavery helped build.
Right ancestral guilt. Sins of the grandparents visited onto the children. People punished for crimes they didn't commit.
In this case lets talk about African based pirates and other groups enslaving millions of Europeans even before that and after that. Africans were slavers long before Duch arrived and they built riches on selling their own people to white man.
Why are the African people not being blamed for their ancesstral guilt?
We as a species have decided that generational debt and guilt is a good thing. Did your great great grandfather do something bad? This is means you are a bad person and should be punished for it because you benefited. This type of vindictive anti-justice is totally not sapping energy from productive activity and will create a world of cycles of revenge. Embrace it
I caught your /s, but I'm not sure everyone will, fam
Did they renounce the inheritance built on human misery and a pile of 20,000 human hands? Or that parts inherited but the sins aren't?
You keep repeating the severed hands bit but that was Belgium, not NL. Educate yourself before meming online.
As amusing as I'd find the Dutch royal family ceasing to exist over ancestral guilt, as an anti-monarchist, I don't know how many degrees of separation you require before an inheritance is no longer considered blood-soaked. Is it infinite?
Why is it acceptable to you that the wealth is handed down but ludicrous that the blood is handed down with it?
If someone became an overnight billionaire for murdering your children, how many generations of their kids driving around in Bugattis would it take for you to consider that fortune washed of its sins?
Apparently demanding a wealthy person part with wealth is more upsetting to some people than cutting off people's hands to acquire it.
So you argue that it is infinite, then?
If I can still see the wealth than I can still see the blood.
Anyone who looks closely enough can still see the wealth of the atrocities of our ancestors. So is that a yes? Is it infinite?
Don't exactly need a microscope to see the wealth of the royal family and you can dedicate an entire museum to the atrocities they comitted to grow it.
You really want someone to say "infinite" though. Do you have a point riding on it?
That is a neat trick, how do you do that? Is it like Shingami eyes?
Countries are responsible for their actions. That's how that works.
You don't get to rape and murder your way through a continent, continue to benefit from your genocide but escape any responsibility because lol that was the Netherlands but we're the Netherlands, not our problem.
Okay, so far, we're in agreement.
How far back does your conception of collective and ancestral guilt go, here? Genuine question.
Better genuine question: how much in reparations do you think the dutch government is responsible for?
Just the $value of the goods and labour they stole through killing and violence? Extra to account for the wealth that could've been created by everything the dutch stole? Should they have to pay damages for the sheer brutality - the cutting off hands, the concentration camps, etc?
How could I answer that without knowing how far back their guilt is supposed to go?
You answer my question, and I'll have the tools to answer your's.
I'm not the person you're replying to, but maybe as far back as we have receipts?
In this case, there's no mystery about who did what to whom and what they took. The Dutch and English kept very good records. In fact, the whole colonial project was very well accounted for.
Is there any limit to this principle?
Apparently, otherwise we would have begun the work of dismantling Western imperialism.
Do you think there should be a limit?
I personally think we should work to redress the wrongs we can, and in this case, the West could be doing a lot more to fix their crimes and being a lot less uppity about it.
Seemingly controversially, I don't believe in ancestral guilt. As a mixed-race individual, I'm not half-oppressor and half-oppressed. Reparations should be to the extent of bringing others in-line with an equal and whole share of the polity - or the international community, as the case may be.
As such, I would not regard there as being a set number for reparations - however many trillions it takes, it is the responsibility of those who have the necessary resources to assist those who lack the same access to resources. This is not a matter of debts to be 'repaid', it is a matter of recognizing the equal worth and humanity of others, regardless of nation. It is not a matter of guilt when the grandchildren of the grandchildren of the people who did these crimes are, themselves, long dead. These problems arose from division - they must end in unity and brotherhood.
Obviously, there are also more recent crimes to be answered for - these are a debt in a much more real sense, and it necessary for governments to both acknowledge wrongdoing and make compensation to survivors or immediate family under civil law. Though obviously nothing can undo a crime once committed, that is the process that is generally agreed upon.
I don't really know what ancestral guilt is or what it has to do with anything people are asking for. It sounds very... Christian? Not that that's a bad thing, it's just not really the paradigm.
People from former colonies don't necessarily want anyone to feel guilty, they just want to get paid back. Like you've said, everyone who was part of the original colonial thrust has died. Now it's just a matter of paying it back + interest and a fine, and we're on the way to being even Steve.
Sure, there'll be some bad feelings, but that's because the wound is still open.
This is directly contradictory to my reading, I think this is what this whole dialogue hinges on.
My argument is that holding the people of modern countries responsible for the actions of their ancestors, by imposing a debt (and 'interest and a fine'), that is ancestral guilt, and it is a fundamentally absurd concept.
Wait so guilt is only inherited if it is documented well?
I don't think anyone seriously thinks guilt can be inherited... "Ancestral guilt" is a totally stupid concept, and framing colonial reparations that way is arguing in bad faith.
I thought it would be funny to point out we literally have the receipts of colonialism, but that turned out to be arguing with pigeons.
I am glad the nicer version of the argument you have created for yourself matches up with the argument that you wish they had made.
Is that what I'm doing, what Pug is doing or what you are doing? (downvote if it's you so I can know)
Ancestral guilty goes back exactly as far as you can trace your ancestory. Lucky for us, that's literally all royalty is.
So if you don't trace your ancestry at all, you have no guilt? Ignorance is innocence?
I am thinking it is like god. You have to believe in it first in which case evidence doesn't matter.
Every morning they wake up and live a life of luxury, directly benefiting from the atrocities of their ancestors.
An actual positive step would be giving the wealth back. A photo op at a museum before hopping on a plane back to their castle doesn't help anyone.
Man, every day we wake up and live a life of luxury, directly benefiting from the atrocities of our ancestors. The only difference here is the scale of that luxury.
I mean, yeah, and I wouldn't blame the current victims of those atrocities for protesting.
Have you given the wealth back from the atrocities of your ancestors?
I get what you're saying, but you have to understand the difference between a middle-class worker versus a literal king and queen. I'm very aware of the opportunities I've been given thanks to where and when I was born, but in terms of actual transferrable wealth, all I really have to give is a 20 year old Honda.
I agree there's a difference, but my issue is with the principle of it. We are not and should not be responsible for the sins of our ancestors, only ourselves. If there is a sin in royal twats being rich, it is that they are rich while others suffer; not that the person who nutted in their grandmother was rich due to war crimes and genocide.
Fair enough.
By currently enjoying a massive amount of wealth that was extracted from their country and never returned. How is that hard for you to understand?