Inter-generational responsibility
"I continue to have great difficulty with the notion of inter-generational responsibility for the good or not so good things that were done by our ancestors."
That was Brendan Nelson on the 7:30 report the other night. Leave aside the fence-sitting "good or not so good".
Why is the concept of inter-generational responsibility difficult to grasp? I don't find it hard.
Thought experiment: A kills B and moves into B's house. Years pass, and A's children now live in B's house while B's children have nowhere to live. Do A's children not have a responsibility to B's children?
That, to within an order of magnitude, is the recent history of Australian settlement. We, the invaders, are the descendants of those who came to the country and profited from the forceful dispossession of indigenous people by the British. Before us, other descendants of theirs removed indigenous children from their families and used them as cheap labour, with traumatic effect on their psychology and their people. So they were also profiting from the misery of others.
In this way, responsibility is transmitted. There's attenuation. There might be mitigating circumstances. But our hands aren't clean.
That was Brendan Nelson on the 7:30 report the other night. Leave aside the fence-sitting "good or not so good".
Why is the concept of inter-generational responsibility difficult to grasp? I don't find it hard.
Thought experiment: A kills B and moves into B's house. Years pass, and A's children now live in B's house while B's children have nowhere to live. Do A's children not have a responsibility to B's children?
That, to within an order of magnitude, is the recent history of Australian settlement. We, the invaders, are the descendants of those who came to the country and profited from the forceful dispossession of indigenous people by the British. Before us, other descendants of theirs removed indigenous children from their families and used them as cheap labour, with traumatic effect on their psychology and their people. So they were also profiting from the misery of others.
In this way, responsibility is transmitted. There's attenuation. There might be mitigating circumstances. But our hands aren't clean.