General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Hint: Saying you’re “not racist” all too frequently means you ARE a racist. [View all]Igel
(35,531 posts)Only the guilty need to defend themselves. If you're not racist, it's evident and you'd never be accused. First, we require samo-kritika--self-criticism, a confession of wrong-doing and public self-humiliation. It had to meet certain requirements to be acceptable, even as those requirements changed. Of course, samo-kritika with minor punishment as the terms of official forgiveness was fine for the early CPSU. Later it was a requirement to avoid extreme sanction, forgiveness wasn't on the table. (And yet later, it was a requirement to just protect your family and friends from guilt by association, your fate was known to be decided as soon as you were accused.)
This was, of course, deemed "justice." Sometimes the accusations were fake, incomplete, self-serving in a narrow or broader way (class hatred and sometimes ethnic hatred were rampant, but accusations were part of the power-structure). But this was "justice," under some useful definition at the moment.
Simply put, we have the accusation that suits us from an approved source. We have the denial from the pre-judged. What more evidence do we need? Punish him and anybody that doesn't treat him like a leper.
Well, evidence, in the first place. But the same effect works with evidence: if it's from an approved source and meets our needs, then it's assumed to be true, accurate, complete, and completely damning. We're in a hurry, damn it, and justice delayed by even 5 minutes is justice long denied.
But justice rushed is also justice buried. Given the accusation and alleged evidence, a reasoned examination of it is needed instead of a knee-jerk reaction. This person does something wrong, and it's a societal and cultural problem, he can't be held responsible--and perhaps the evidence is taken out of context, is flawed, etc., etc., we must feel empathy. And as a last resort in sufficiently rarefied strata we point to judgment across group-boundaries. We demand that cultural traits among American sub-groups be taken into account when evaluating some groups--there's a huge sociological and educational literature on the topic. But when we evaluate evidence, it's an individual pathology that must be treated like ebola. When we evaluate evidence across those same boundaries ... wait, such boundaries don't exist.
I'll save the M-word for later. It's early in the day and my inner curmudgeon may demand dinner, or even supper. Some days I hold not just my species or genus in contempt, but my whole damned order for the traits we share. This is turning out to be one of those days.