Thursday, December 10, 2015

The State of the State of Delaware

On the 150th anniversary of the December 6, 1865, ratification of the 13th Amendment—which abolished slavery in the United States—the State of Delaware announced plans to apologize formally for the role it played in the slave trade. There is no word from those Delaware Civil War veterans who were killed in ending slavery. 
What it is about responsibility these politicians seem to be missing?
One is responsible for what he can influence, something over which he has some element of control. But there seems to be a lot of Old Religion going around. Inherited guilt is a leftover from the Old Testament, a notion we, until recently, have been liberated from. Guilt is hard to assign and impossible to inherit.
Guilt is a profound emotion resulting from significant self-assessment and measurement of oneself against some accepted ideal. Guilt is not something to be careless with. And its inappropriate assignation is invariably met with resentment.
And the trivializing of guilt does more than allow for superior criticism, it trivializes responsibility itself. One might wonder if that is not the aim.
 

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