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I think people often try to divide the world up into people who deserve to be forgiven things because they're a person, and people who don't deserve to be forgiven things because they aren't. The thing about that, though, is that all people are persons, and so if people deserve forgiveness by nature of their personhood, then all people should be forgiven, no? But that's never the way I see this kind of thing talked about. Instead, there are groups who deserve special forgiveness, and groups who deserve nothing but condemnation.
The thing is, I think there's a lot of contradictions about the ways people talk about the world. Whenever I see the above, I don't think it's an intentional marking of people as unpersons, but it is implicitly so. And I think that's a problem.
Here's how I see the world: people have value because of their sentience, not because of their good behavior, not because they 'deserve' to be forgiven their bad. So there's no level of vile evil a person can commit that makes them an unperson, but also individuals aren't obliged forgive any particular thing, even if the person in question to receive the forgiveness is truly sorry, even if what they did 'wasn't that bad', even if that person makes amends.
At the same time, *society* has an obligation, I feel, to treat all individuals with the maximum of consideration. Society should provide for all individuals that it can, to the greatest extent that is possible. This is an obligation that it is greatly negligent in, and this is why I think it pushes individual forgiveness so hard while at the same time pushing this idea of unpersonhood. Because it is negligent in its responsibilities, but people will feel that someone is obligated to fulfill them, it instead tries to push those responsibilities on resource-strapped individuals, even if those individuals are the primary victims of the people to be taken responsibility for.
And so it says you should forgive--if the wrongdoer is someone useful to society, that is. Otherwise it says, well, they *deserve* to die. They deserve your scorn and hatred. Even if their biggest crime is just being absolutely unfriendly and unlikeable and unuseful, that is worse to society than shooting up a school, than droning a wedding. Also worse to society than either of those things is simply not choosing to forgive those useful people it refuses to support itself, and thus expects you to.
And so we see, even the people that are useful to society are people it would prefer not to have to expend the effort to support. All obligations of this sort are to be placed on individuals, and if this causes those individuals to break down from the strain, so be it. Individuals are disposable, it says. Of course you should care about them (if they're useful), it says, even forgive them if they've done you any wrong, but *society* shouldn't have to do that.
I reject this mode of thinking. Bad enough I have to live in a society that often disregards even its most basic responsibilities to people. I won't accept it trying to place those responsibilities on me with this type of emotional blackmail. I will help those people I can, even if I don't like them, but I will not feel bad that I favor the people I do like over the people I don't. This does not mean I think those people I dislike, or even those people I loathe, deserve to die. They do not, and I will do what I can to get society to fulfill its responsibilities to these individuals. But I cannot do all that society asks of me, and I don't think I should feel any guilt for that. It never should have asked that of me to begin with.
The thing is, I think there's a lot of contradictions about the ways people talk about the world. Whenever I see the above, I don't think it's an intentional marking of people as unpersons, but it is implicitly so. And I think that's a problem.
Here's how I see the world: people have value because of their sentience, not because of their good behavior, not because they 'deserve' to be forgiven their bad. So there's no level of vile evil a person can commit that makes them an unperson, but also individuals aren't obliged forgive any particular thing, even if the person in question to receive the forgiveness is truly sorry, even if what they did 'wasn't that bad', even if that person makes amends.
At the same time, *society* has an obligation, I feel, to treat all individuals with the maximum of consideration. Society should provide for all individuals that it can, to the greatest extent that is possible. This is an obligation that it is greatly negligent in, and this is why I think it pushes individual forgiveness so hard while at the same time pushing this idea of unpersonhood. Because it is negligent in its responsibilities, but people will feel that someone is obligated to fulfill them, it instead tries to push those responsibilities on resource-strapped individuals, even if those individuals are the primary victims of the people to be taken responsibility for.
And so it says you should forgive--if the wrongdoer is someone useful to society, that is. Otherwise it says, well, they *deserve* to die. They deserve your scorn and hatred. Even if their biggest crime is just being absolutely unfriendly and unlikeable and unuseful, that is worse to society than shooting up a school, than droning a wedding. Also worse to society than either of those things is simply not choosing to forgive those useful people it refuses to support itself, and thus expects you to.
And so we see, even the people that are useful to society are people it would prefer not to have to expend the effort to support. All obligations of this sort are to be placed on individuals, and if this causes those individuals to break down from the strain, so be it. Individuals are disposable, it says. Of course you should care about them (if they're useful), it says, even forgive them if they've done you any wrong, but *society* shouldn't have to do that.
I reject this mode of thinking. Bad enough I have to live in a society that often disregards even its most basic responsibilities to people. I won't accept it trying to place those responsibilities on me with this type of emotional blackmail. I will help those people I can, even if I don't like them, but I will not feel bad that I favor the people I do like over the people I don't. This does not mean I think those people I dislike, or even those people I loathe, deserve to die. They do not, and I will do what I can to get society to fulfill its responsibilities to these individuals. But I cannot do all that society asks of me, and I don't think I should feel any guilt for that. It never should have asked that of me to begin with.