Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I'm still waiting for you to answer my Albanian quiz, the point of which is that the intellectual exercise you propose is futile.
Klein is more charitable than me. He thinks that Murray's work, if it is going to be discussed, should be put in context (not "censored"). But one has to say that with Murray because it's clear after many decades that he is going to continue to pump noxious ideas into the discussion.
Your project is different. Apart from being utterly nonsensical, no one is doing it. (Once again, please post a good example if you know of one.) That being the case, my question is: why? If it could be done, why would you do it? Would the world be a better place if you could do a lot of research and work and conclude scientifically that Albanian Romany were 87% responsible for what Germany Nazis did to them?
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I would say that if the "plight" of the Romany person is his having been killed, he bears zero responsibility. The Nazis killed him, and they own that 100%.
If his "plight" is defined as disadvantages he suffered prior to his murder, we don't have enough facts.
A better hypothetical would reverse the facts and use controls. Let's say he and his brother are kidnapped by Nazis. They survive the ordeal and go back to their home village. One brother decides to go into carpentry. The other goes into fishing. Carpentry has huge upside, as people have to rebuild. It's so in demand that purchasers of such services forget the local bigotries (they're happy to have anyone do the work). Fishing, OTOH, is a glutted industry. The carpenter tells his brother to stop fishing and join his growing contracting business, but the fisherman, being proud, keeps fishing. The carpenter lives out his retirement in comfort. The fisherman survives retirement near poverty.
To what extent are Nazis responsible for where these men are at the ends of their lives versus each man's personal choices? I don't know. It's tricky.
But what I do know is that to assert the person is not at all responsible for his circumstance because of oppression, one has to make exactly such a measurement. (One has to prove there are no other causes which may be placed under "personal responsibility.") This assessment involves exactly the same nebulous analysis you have said is impossible. If it's impossible to analyze comparative responsibility, it's logically impossible to reach a finding there's no personal responsibility.
This is where I agree with Klein a bit. Asking how much comparative responsibility an oppressed individual bears invites excuses not to redress the oppression. But where the Left raises the argument that a person from a group oppressed cannot bear any responsibility going forward, which it does (and even moderate people here have done so, excepting you), the comparative responsibility argument becomes necessary. Otherwise, something that is logically provable as false is allowed to stand without question. That's obviously not acceptable, except under a "positive ends justify the means" reasoning. I'm never comfortable with that sort of reasoning, on any subject. And I don't think anyone else should be.
ETA: Once more, I include the caveat that discussion of this using "groups" is, I believe, invalid. People must be taken one on one because, yes, we are ultimately atomized. I may never raise the argument that my behavior can be credited to or blamed upon my European heritage. I cannot state that a personal decision I have made is consistent with my similarly socio-economically situated neighbors. I cannot state it's the kind of thing a man, or a Christian (lapsed), does. Ultimately, I own the decisions my limited free will allows me to make.
