Periodically, America is confronted with demands that we
atone for the past sins committed by its government or citizens. Reparations are demanded for descendants of
slaves, the children of Japanese Americas interred during World War II or the
heirs of Native Americans driven from their homeland by U.S. soldiers. Only affirmative action for blacks has
actually been implemented – and relatively briefly – as a remedy for America’s
perceived sins. Even the late and highly
esteemed conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote that a nation, the
people, can be collectively guilty, and thus saddled with collective
responsibility for wrongful conduct in their name.
The demands, thus far, for compensation are largely
unmet. That is not because they lack
merit. They don’t. But, apart from the expense, determining who
is entitled to receive what is a legislative nightmare. How far down the hereditary line do we go and
how do we calculate the entitlement of a person whose family tree is
mixed? Some of those on it will not
qualify as descendants of the “favored” class.
But there is a far more important reason to oppose placing
a burden on a nation of people for the sins of their ancestors’ individual
responsibility.
Western liberal classical tradition focus is not only on
the group but on the individual. Both
rights and responsibilities reside there.
Other traditions are different. The Eastern world, as a general concept,
values the group over the individual in many respects. Thus, a person from a social perspective is
not independent. What he does reflects
on the group and all its members. In a simplified sense, members of the group
derive their identity from it. The tribe
is foremost.
In practice, that means that conduct of a member is
attributed to all. Misdeeds, therefore,
can be avenged – and are – by retribution against any member since culpability
is not restricted to the individual wrong-doer. Collective guilt thereby
warrants collective responsibility.
That is not the American way.
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