There is nothing inherently good about the pigmentation of your skin, the gender you were born with, or other things that were completely in the control of your mother and father, and not you.
Character is what gives a person or a people real value. You are in control of that.
I believe somebody said something in the past about being judged by their character.
Except that what you call "character" is a set of traits that are not randomly and arbitrarily distributed amongst all living people, like the "stats" of a virtual protagonist in an RPG, but in fact follow predictable and evolutionarily stable patterns of distribution.
ReplyDeleteYou add nothing to the discussion by voicing platitudes such as "Judge men by the content of their character, not the color of their skin."
The crux of the issue, conveniently ignored by the voicers of such feel-good bromides, is that men of certain skin colors and ethnic backgrounds are *predisposed* to possessing certain character traits.
One could just as easily say, "Judge every individual communist on the merits of his character, not on the defects of his ideology."
If you followed suit, you'd be conveniently ignoring that, from a capitalist's perspective, the very fact that someone holds communist views is *prima facie* evidence of poor character on their part.
When forming opinions and judgments about ethnic groups (or any identifiable groups, for that matter), there is a gray area which can allow for individual variation and exceptions-to-the-rule, but the same principles still apply.
Allerious: *cough* Bullshit.
ReplyDeleteIt's not the cards you're dealt, it's how you play the hand.
One could just as easily say, "Judge every individual communist on the merits of his character, not on the defects of his ideology."
Judge the character of the communist by his actions. Judge the ideology by the ideology. A man is not his ideas; he *chooses* them, and is responsible for how far he travels down that road -- but the road is not the driver.
the very fact that someone holds communist views is *prima facie* evidence of poor character on their part.
Evidence. Not proof. It can be contradicted by other evidence, and often is. Two people can have X beliefs, and be completely different in character -- because the ideology is not a big deal for one of them, but infuses nearly every aspect of the other person's life. Christians are the most common example; Christians can be abhorrently evil, or some of the most respectable people you know. The credit for that goes to the person. since they are the ones who decide how far down the road they travel.
there is a gray area which can allow for individual variation and exceptions-to-the-rule, but the same principles still apply.
The "principle that applies" is that every individual is the author of -- and bears the moral responsibity for -- his own character. The dice are not loaded; there are no innate "tendencies", there is only the default that occurs when one lets go of the figurative steering wheel; a default which one is *always* capable of overriding.
Human nature is genetically determined. Character is not. Don't be conflating or blurring the two.