Your society would be doomed to forever look back at historical grievances and never make progress.
As Ibram X. Kendi says: "The only remedy to past
discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination." Under your and his vision, there will never come a day when people aren't discriminated for things they had no control over.
I think it is probably unwise to pre-suppose an extreme here (that society will never "progress").
The default action today is "do nothing and don't acknowledge the problem." Suggesting any action be taken against that status quo does not in any way suggest that it is a permanent inviolable law that society must continuously optimize for nor does it suggest that it can't be done in tandem with other "progress" society may achieve.
> The default action today is "do nothing and don't acknowledge the problem."
Ambivalence is the human default, and logic requires it must be so. The world presently has 10e9 people. Historically, something like 10e12 people have ever existed (I'm estimating). If you were to somehow feel the sum total of human suffering in just one instant, I daresay it would destroy you. We ALL pick and choose what suffering to acknowledge, for the simple reason that to do otherwise is impossible (and deadly if it was possible). Heck, we ignore entire categories of suffering in every discussion, like that caused by disease, heart-break, ostracism, bullying, or old age.
You loudly proclaim your aversion to all human suffering, past and present, and claim to know how to fix it. This is absurd. It is vain virtue signaling. Your position smacks of an ignorant pride, wrapped in a claim of impossible compassion. And this sin of pride extends to your "solutions" - you assert that you can accurately assess the suffering of all humans throughout history and take just action to make it right. That's even more absurd.
We can't address ALL suffering. That doesn't mean that we can't address ANY suffering. It means we must (must!) be highly selective. We must let (almost) everything go. We deal with what's in front of us. We must acknowledge how human life is twisted: Rape and plunder...that yields good kids. Civilizations collapse...to make new for the next one. Rampant exploitation...that yields just and fair societies. Cultural appropriation...that yields great ideas and art. Slavery and dehumanization...that ultimately leaves the descendants in a better position than the descendants of those that weren't taken. It's twisted, messed up, and that's life. (btw the most twisted thing I know of in nature is the life-cycle of this slime-mold/ameoba life cycle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlANF-v9lb0).
Yeah, there are plenty of structures that need to be dismantled in the US. The police are out-of-control and there is no meaningful separation of powers at the local level; the health-care system is plundering us all for profit; wealth inequality continues to get worse; money in politics has ossified our power structures. And yeah, America has a profound and unique history of racist dehumanization rooted in southern slavery that continues to this day and negatively impacts many American black people in profound ways. But the solution to the KKK (the original recipe anti-black version) is not to invent a ~KKK (the crispy anti-white version) and tell whites that if they don't join ~KKK then they are in the KKK. That's just fucked up.
> The world presently has 10e9 people. Historically, something like 10e12 people have ever existed (I'm estimating).
Tangential, and doesn't detract much from your well-defended point, but the percentage of people alive today is probably much higher than your estimate. The population has gone up so fast in recent years that the total number of people who have ever lived is closer to 10x current population than 1000x:
Given a current global population of about 8 billion, the estimated 117 billion total births means that those alive in 2022 represent nearly 7% of the total number of people who have ever lived
Look I'm not exactly engaged enough to dismantle this piece by piece so this will probably be my last comment but:
> Ambivalence is the human default, and logic requires it must be so.
You'd do well to do more than assert it. This is ideology.
> You loudly proclaim your aversion to all human suffering, past and present, and claim to know how to fix it.
I said no such thing, and the remainder of your prior statements are also asserting I made any such claim. Making efforts to fix wrongs is not itself a moral failure, nor is it some kind of foolish pride.
> We can't address ALL suffering. That doesn't mean that we can't address ANY suffering.
What is odd to me is that this is exactly my point. If you somehow think that racism isn't still "in front of us" as you so boldly claim, I encourage you to prove that substantially and convince the people who to this day still feel victimized by it.
> But the solution to the KKK (the original recipe anti-black version) is not to invent a ~KKK (the crispy anti-white version) and tell whites that if they don't join ~KKK then they are in the KKK.
I haven't claimed this at all. For what its worth though — you are in some form invoking the paradox of intolerance here. I'm not sure why you felt the need to write this screed, it is entirely separate from anything I've said and completely off-the-rails.
You may be right - I suppose that apart from my first point about ambivalence being the default, it doesn't necessarily apply to you personally. But it does apply to the general ideology this thread is addressing. I'm sorry if I grouped you in with views that you don't share.
As Ibram X. Kendi says: "The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination." Under your and his vision, there will never come a day when people aren't discriminated for things they had no control over.