How do I reconcile the horrible and unforgivable history of my country? The right tells me it really wasn't all that bad, and the left tells me I should continuously feel bad about it. People either say we should do nothing on one extreme or that we should rectify it by giving stuff away.
I don't know how I should ease through this mess or what to do. I'm unsatisfief with everyone's solutions.
Which country? You are not your nationality.
United States
I am not my nationality but much of my character and identity is my American nationality
I used to be gung-ho yeah USA and everything
I liked American history in high school and WWII documentaries and how everything in America is awesome
Yeah there are bad things but I always recognized them with the good things
Now after four years of undergrad I'm a semester into my grad degree in history and talking with all my classmates and the reading my beloved perception of my country is irrevocably tarnished
I don't know how I can love a country that has done so many evils and continues to be so bad at things
I don't like some of the attitudes of my classmates and some academics yes but their points still stand.
Maybe I am just worn down..?
>People either say we should do nothing on one extreme or that we should rectify it by giving stuff away.
we're currently spending trillions on projects of empire, stopping that would hardly be "giving stuff away" you bootlicker
Did you partake in any of it? If not, who cares. Learn from the past mistakes, don't let them drag you down
At least you're not German or Russian
All countries in the world has its dark age. Without war we would not learn about peace. Also its not your fault but by your ancestors. Its stupid to feel guilty when you yourself have done nothing wrong. Its like blaming a german child for gassing jews yet he didnt do it.
What country doesn't have a dark history? It's just the tale of humanity really.
You're going to let some undergrad braimwashing sway your core beliefs? What kind of spineless lily livered yellow bellied thin skinned American are you.
So we did some bad things. Everybody does. The real question is, why have we done so many good things and continue to do good things like promote and protect world peace?
Simple. DO some reading. Be proud of the great things, and learn from the bad things. There is the "right", the "left" and then there is truth.
Buy a confederate flag and root for the CSA instead, my dude.
The flip side is that if you say you're not responsible for any of the bad stuff that happened, your people can't take credit and celebrate all the great stuff their ancestors did, either
>What kind of spineless lily livered yellow bellied thin skinned American are you.
I'm not what you would call a "real man."
I'm kind of pathetic, when I think about it
> The real question is, why have we done so many good things and continue to do good things like promote and protect world peace?
How do we do good stuff? We patrol and bully other nations
It's not genuine concern, is it?
Sure ya can. It's called having your cake and eating it too.
Some of this advice is helpful, but some of this is kind of scary.
This country was founded on blood - we carved a path in blood from one coast to the other. We then turned that bloodlust on our neighbors and then overseas. The bloodlust remains to this day.
It's not that scary man. Slavery really isn't an American problem it is a humanity problem. Every race had slaves of pretty much every race at some point. Every country has a history of bloodshed and misery. Despite that every country has had good people too in every era. And even those good people had bad traits too. It makes sense to celebrate the good parts of history too though. Also don't listen to idiots that act like human beings were all backwards hillbillies until 2008 those are just really stupid twitter people that think that.
>We then turned that bloodlust on our neighbors and then overseas. The bloodlust remains to this day.
America is the most powerful country in human history do you really think any country with that much power is really "good?"
>we should rectify it by giving stuff away
There's a couple of messages in this general view that are often extremely muddled together, quite deliberately by most people on "the right" who want to avoid any kind of reparations, and also some on "the left" who have a genuine contempt for white people. These desperately need to be separated. Firstly there's the totally nonsensical idea that the atrocities committed in history themselves need to be rectified; not only is that impossible, but also nobody alive today bears any responsibility for those acts. The rational idea, however, is that the lingering effects of those atrocities (i.e. inequality of blacks and natives)
are current problems that need to be fixed. And those that currently enormously benefit directly from those past atrocities (i.e. modern Americans) bear some moral responsibility for rectifying those problems, probably proportional to how much they benefit. The details of how that happens I dont have any answer to.
To try to address your main question, theres really no reconciling to be done in my opinion. You bear no personal guilt for crimes not personally committed by you, nor should you take any personal pride in any achievements/good deeds that aren't personally yours.
My post was an extreme simplification of American history. Nowhere in that post did I imply that the actions of the people who guided the country's course were inherently good.
I just meant that America is never going to be "good" it is too big to be good.
I think it's like that with every first world country. They've all got innocent blood on their hands.
I'm not an american, and I believe that America has been a net benefit to Humanity.
>It wasn't all that bad
It was. And worse. There's a tonne of kick less commonly known shit that the US has done.
>I should feel bad
That's retarded. You had nothing to do with any of it. Anyone who says otherwise is a goddamn tool.
>Any country
Fixed it. We're humans user, we do shitty things.
See morality as it was back then, understand, if not entirely condone, and realize, and the end of the day, all nations are ultimately forged by blood. Does the vanity and cruelty of Rome deny the glory and achievements of Rome? Make Rome unworthy of respect and admiration in many, if not perhaps all areas, in spite of its imperfections?
>evil
only pure evil shit you gringos have done was fucking around with the natives, other than that pretty much everything is standart, well maybe cia fucking up small countries but what can you do about it?
T. mexican
I get this feeling. I’m proud to be an American because of what America *can be*, and what we aspire to, not because of what we’ve done or what we sometimes do now.
Don’t let shitty people steal American identity away from people who believe in being better.
What about the brutality in Vietnam?
And the torturing?
And the hypocritical contrast between individual freedom and slavery?
And the massacre of one million communists in Indonesia?
And Latin America?
And Iran?
And the economic imperialist polices of the early 20th century?
My nation had committed innumerable travesties and I don't know how to reconcile this with our supposed American exceptionalism!! D :)
You're exceptional at murder, torture and genocide :D
: (
Why should you concern yourself about crimes you yourself did not commit?
t. Serb who's sick and tired of Muslim Serbs screaming about genocide
Uni in general is very left wing and professors, even those who authored the books some time ago will have no qualms expressing their bias. America is fine, compared to other real imperialistic cultures its good and compared to other countries in general its doing well. You only have your own bad behaviour highlighted rarely the often substantially worse behaviour of other nations
slaughter the kikes user
they're responsible
>Waaah I don’t like Americans because something that happened 250 years ago so I’ll blame the whole entirety of the modern us population for it and think that everyone is still exactly the same as they were 300 years ago Waaaaah
Fuck off cuck
If you just pay me (I'm black af) reparations of a few thousand dollars you will have done your part and no longer have to feel bad.
>I used to be gung-ho yeah USA and everything
There’s your problem. Nationalism is only good in very small doses. Being disappointed in your country or disliking your country’s identity is very okay and normal. In fact, it’s good, because it shows you aren’t a stupid facist or commie who lacks critical thinking.
This poster has a point, though, OP. Most major powers have done terrible things at some point, and continue to on a smaller, more covert basis.
Stop being a cuck and be proud of whatever scars your people inflicted on the world and realize they suffered greatly to put you in the privileged position that you are now, which you wouldn't be if they didn't have to do all the dirty work to put you there. My ancestors owned fucking people how cool is that.
fuck you nigger thats what you cunts said if we voted for obama and all we got was 10x gibmedats
I dont.
You cuck. What people in history haven't committed atrocities? Stop flagellating yourself over something that your ancestors did. Your country was great, now it's a cesspool of libtards. Man up. If you truly believe in an equal world, let everyone prove themselves. Don't give handouts to anyone except the poor. The race card is used by pussies who don't have any talent. Don't blame yourself for what your ancestors did and don't apologise for it
>implying that Russia has any hesitation about nationalism
Your classmates are pinko commies.
The state of nature is chaos, destruction and death. Look at all the countries in the world with horrible dictatorships or where genocides are actively occurring. America isn't perfect by a long shot but the unrelenting and one sided criticism is unwarranted.
Every group of people ever have committed atrocities against their fellow man. There is no reason for you yourself to feel guilty about what other's have done. There is no reason for you to believe that your country or your group of people is any worse then any other group. Sure the U.S. has done more evil things to people then the primitive Brazilian rainforest tribes, but if you switched their places in the world then they would be no better.
I'm not saying that violence and evil is acceptable. I'm only saying that the U.S. isn't any more evil then any other group of people. Don't be naive enough to think that if some other country was in charge they would be nicer.
The only thing we can do is to vote for people we think can do the most good for the country and world.
You are a history major and still think like this? Wtf is going on in college. What is it some kind of liberal commie brainwashing program? They tell you everything bad the U.S. ever did and act like everyone else are precious little angels that wouldn't hurt a fly?
Not for nothing mate, but talking to a bunch of undergrad social sciences students with no world experience besides what they've learned in the classroom is fucking stupid. Be aware, but don't fall into the self-flaggelating academic circles that try to push these self-serving agendas onto you.
I too went through the American hate train stage when I was younger. It's a myth. If you take history seriously then the history of the United States is tarnished only by sectionalism prolonging the issue of abolitionism and the cold war bringing the grim reality of conflict to the forefront of the minds of people sheltered from so much horror, inevitably leading to increased centralization of power and the side effects as such.
Slavery in the United States was actually one of the tamest incarnations of slavery in history. Native Americans were not helpless civillians that were gunned doen, they were proud nations of different ethic identities who died as a result of African and European diseases being spread to the Americas. They were warriors, and many of them chose to die as warriors and as part of their culture fostered hatred amongst settlers and other native nations. Eventually, they were killed or driven from their lands. It should tell you just how horrible humanity can be sometimes that these are fairly tame crimes in comparison to the rest of world history. You want to chat about your people committing truly terrible crimes against humanity then let's talk about the Ottoman Empire sometime
This zeitgeist in academia towards xenophilia and post colonialism are just symptoms of consumerism and education standards enforcing a new culture of self hatred amongst westerners. Ironically, it's actually a lack in perspective that informs people of this culture of shame they ought to endure as partisanship increases with the decline in social capital we've experienced since the 90's. People who tell you to be more cultured if you are not permantly ashamed of history are people who need to be more cultured and experienced before they pass judgement on the nature of events they can barely comprehend. People , far too often, project modern sentiments onto history with no further perspective. It's something you grow out of as you become more learned
Not OP, but I'm another collegefag, and you'd be surprised just how crazy some of these professors are. I've had professors spend some days explaining that The West is an illegitimate concept altogether, or devoting a week of classes to talk about GamerGate, or taking class time to explain why race riots are actually class rebellions, or tell a student that they were being racist for using the phrase of speech "so evil that their soul must be just the color black".
There was one moment earlier this semester where a black girl, in class, literally leaned over to her asian friend and joked "well, yeah, that's civilization -- you can't have it with white men", and the professor gave NO reaction.
Well you should be somber about genocide and take it seriously. But you have to understand that it's just part of human history and not unique to you and your people. The Germans genocided the Jews, The jews genocided the moabites and cyrenaicans in ancient times and are kind of genociding the palestinians. now. The turks genocided the armenians. Before that mongols genocided the turks. The English genocided the Native Americans and Irish. The Irish genocided the Picts. The English suffered smaller scale genocide under the Viking and Norman. The Hutu genocided the Tutsi. But both of them are Bantu ethnic groups who once genocided the Khosa. Even in Native American history even though it is only like 100 years long there are tribes that genocide each other.
As far as slavery goes. Yes it's wrong and you should be against it. But you have to remember that until slavery was banned by europeans ALL people had slaves and it is a part of all people's history. Africans had slaves, native americans had slaves, muslims had lots of slaves (and millions of their slaves were white). It's a uniquely human experience but not something you are uniquely responsible for.
As for the kingmaking world police shit America does. That's lame as fuck and it's not in the past you retards do it every day and should cut that shit out and it's going to bite you in the ass in the end.
>can't have it with white men
>says the black
The ignorance is painful, but willful. You can't teach an old dog new tricks, but you can't teach a dumb dog anything.
The only trick I've found is to fucking ignore it all. We're fucked anyway; even if all idealists band together, we're still up against the sheer profitability of shitty people and we just won't beat that out, not without flammenwerfers and a lot of temporary suspension of our ethics.
>Being racist for saying that black is associated with negativity in western cultures
If that professor said this then they're not worthy of calling themselves an academic. An ideologue is not an academic. To have such a poor understanding of semantics at what's supposed to be higher learning is pathetic
It's a joke that is a play on people saying that you can't have civilization with black people. Get over it desu
You are living in the present. You can't change the past, but you can fight against something like that if you see it start in the present. Move on.
Nah, she's not dumb -- she had some actually interesting points about China's current economic imperialism in Africa, which makes sense since she's half Nigerian. She was also just a generally nice person outside of her politics.
Those who disagree with us are humans as well, man.
The proff who said that was actually one of my better teacher, believe it or not.
What school? I would probably write a formal complaint although im much more combative when it comes to education standards than most. Came from a long line of academics and it legitimately pisses me off seeing education decline around me
Bad idea, considering that the professor who said nothing happens to be my advisor.
Dude just don't pay attention to it and get your diploma. Once you're no longer in such a politically-charged environment I'm sure you'll cool off about it. Don't be stupid and make a scene.
>taking class time to explain why race riots are actually class rebellions, or tell a student that they were being racist for using the phrase of speech "so evil that their soul must be just the color black".
those are objectively true things
>Race riots are class based and actual ethnic differences didn't and don't matter
No
>Black has negative connotations in your culture because of racism
No
This. "Equality" is the world's greatest sham.
What are you studying?
Liberal arts are not legitimate sciences. They're daycares for political activists or people too stupid for STEM. Their "science" is as valid as a news article.
Darkness is 'black'. The absence of light. Light illuminates. Light is good. Dark is bad. Black is bad. These are millennia old symbols that have nothing to do with skin color.
I can't do STEM for other reasons -- I was born with dyscalculia.
At my previous college my concentration was Writing for Games, but now that I've transferred I have to make a specialized major at this new college. It'll probably be something like "studio management" or whatever. Doesn't really matter anyway b/c I just need a BA to keep my parents from crying. Professors have already offered me job connections from the work I've handed in, so if it was up to me I'd be working already.
You don't, because YOU didn't do it. You pave your own path, and the only reasons people still have that same hatred today is because of what happened in the past. According to that idiocracy we would never over come any of our racial issues. I have mostly given up on humanity evolving spiritually enough to realize this. That's why I'm saving enough to move away from civilization for the rest of my life. What a beautiful thing it will be to forget the sound of my own voice.
>How do I reconcile the horrible and unforgivable history of my country?
By asking yourself how exactly you should be held accountable for the actiosn of people who lived generations ago and have nothign to do with you. You are responsible for youself, and your own actions alone.
Further, as you can easily see, that guilt is simply a tool for modern politicians and businessmen to manipulate you.
Theres nothing wrong with being aware of the past, but projecting emotions onto history is a proaganda tool.
My only solace really is that I wasn't the people of the past. I'm who I am, of the present. So uhhh, make the future great, learn from past mistakes, inspirational jazz like that.
I couldn't care less.
t. Russian.
Me neither
Cheers Ivan
t. German
Don't dilute yourself user. You're an asshole, and that's just fine.
At least you're not German or Russian.
t. Polack.
Native American here. I'm alone in this opinion amongst my own, but I'm sick of hearing about all of this hatred towards the whites. You do not deserved to be punished for the sins of your fathers. It probably wasn't even your fathers unless they were the 1% of the population. Did you personally decide to enslave blacks, or were your ancestors one of the many impoverished whites that lived off of nothing because of the inherent monopolization and stagnation of a slave economy? Did you decide to false flag an attack to invade Vietnam in a futile attempt to stop communism, getting millions killed, destroying trust in the government to this very day, and inadvertently giving absolute power to the mainstream media that now trying to take away our 1st amendment? Did you make the choice to invade the middle east causing massive world instability that'll probably lead to the next world war?
Stop running from your histories, white man. These things keep happening because you let hysterics and criminals run the show, not because you're inherently evil because of your race. And even if you are, so what? Make the choice to be a good person and exemplify good American values.
If it bothers you so much, then learn more about our past mistakes and why they happened. You'll come to find many of these atrocities ultimately were caused by people and values who were as unamerican as you can get.
Im from no country I salute to no flag I don’t care where someone is from as long as no one mess with me I’m fine.im independent
Based InjunBro.
Is this thread for real?
You're only responsible for your own personal actions, ignore anyone trying to push guilt on you.
Usually its a tactic to get something from you
My family had thousands of slaves in Africa and I don't care.
by looking at history of every other country and even current conflicts. we aren't the first ones to do this stuff, nor were we the worst offenders.
raped you, raped your women, raped your land.
be happy we didn't know how to rape your culture.
You realize the shit in Vietnam was on both sides. After John McCain came back after years of torture be couldn't raise his arms up. In the 80's alot of veterans went to Vietnam to help rebuild. I even heard of veteran groups from America and Vietnam commies hanging out and putting the past behind them. And many of the things we did to the vietnamese they also did to them selves. It doesn't justify it but that's war, a war no one in America wanted. Fuck the French for dragging us in
What about the peace corps? What about the trillions we give away to developing countries?
>Vietnam
Ends justify the means. Also, Vietnam wasn't the US going in there immediately ready to kill everyone, it was the US going in there, them trying to kill all of the invaders using extreme and awful means, and then the US responding in turn.
>Torturing
Ends justify the means. Yes, torturing is bad, but it leads to terrorists not killing innocent civilians.
>Slavery
Ended 158 years ago. You have nothing to do with it. The US didn't invent it and they were very quick to stop the slave trade (Within first 30 years of creation) and later slavery (Within first 120 years of creation).
>Massacre of one million Communists in Indonesia
How many times do I have to say this? Ends justify the means. It stopped a Communist takeover, which would have led to many millions dying. Not to mention, that was Indonesia, not the US.
>Latin America
Give me a specific incident. All I can say here is that, while many might have died, it was all in the name of stopping even more from dying.
>Iran
There are more lies spread about Iran than I can even begin to cover.
1. Mossadegh was, in fact, a dictator. He gave himself dictatorial powers in a vote where he supposedly got over 90% of the vote.
2. Mossadegh was a friend of the Soviets. Giving more oil to the Soviets was a bad idea and would have led to them taking over even more territory.
3. The US didn't overthrow Mossadegh. That's a lie made up by Kermit Roosevelt for bragging rights. All declassified info basically says the US had very little to do with it.
>Economic imperialist policies
Could you give me an example. All I'll say otherwise is that was good because it allowed trade to help the nations affected.
>How to reconcile with American exceptionalism
American exceptionalism is not the idea that America has always been great, but that it is exceptionally great now, dumbass.
as others have said , you never took part in slave auctions or wounded knee or segregation did you? , maybe you'r ancestors did but you , yourself never did . don't feel bad about that stuff , aspire to be better lifes too short , its not you'r country's fault , humanity in general is pretty fucked
You're a better American than any of the establishment in D.C.
>Fuck the French for dragging us in
I agree with almost everything you said except this. The government at the time had an over the top anticommunist mandate and got involved in proxy wars with the Russians and Chinese because of it. Same deal with the Korean War.
Personally I think Mexican history is worse. But when people say your history is bad, they are most likely referring to slavery. Any other history is normal for anyone.
Ironically, it's because you have no mode of comparison.
You think the way Americans treated African slaves was bad? Look at what the Arabs did to theirs. We blew ourselves apart to end the institution. Compare our occupation of Japan to Belgium and their occupation of the Congo.
We're merely exploitative in a world of unmitigated barbarism.
>Girl demonizes an entire race of people.
>No she's smart and nice
Would anyone say the same about a kkk member?
While you are correct on that, the French wholeheartedly didnt care what happened as long as they kept their colonies. The then president De Gaul IIRC basically said france would go to the "Soviet sphere of influence" if France lost her colonies. Ho chi min was pretty nationalistic and petition America for help before the war.
Being white and on top rules. NEXT QUESTION
Dont commit the ought-is fallacy in your own mind.
Its all propaganda. The US is the most valueable thing on the planet which is why everyone is out to tear it down. Can you think of anything more important to the fate of the world than the US?
USA fuck yea. Everyone gets a different start in life, suck it the fuck up. You can always find someone who had a shittier life than you can imagine but made it big in the US. Fuck commies. Buy a gun. If you dont like it, its a free country gtfo go Europe if it's so culturaully enlightened.
>America bad
>Africa good
Stop being so brainwashed.. every culture/society is inferior to white's and asian's
>those that currently enormously benefit directly from those past atrocities (i.e. modern Americans) bear some moral responsibility for rectifying those problems
No, we don't.
Not even this. The people that push this shit wont implement their morality on their own by donating time or money. No. They worship the government and believe it is the governments job to dictate what is moral.
This shit is only pushed by state worshipping lefties who thin Karl Marx is anything but a fat lazy slob.
>>How do I reconcile the horrible and unforgivable history of my country?
First reply is frequently the best: You are not your nationality.
>>I am not my nationality but much of my character and identity is my American nationality (...)
You are not your nationality.
>>I don't know how I can love a country that has done so many evils and continues to be so bad at things (...)
You are not your nationality.
>>Now after four years of undergrad I'm a semester into my grad degree in history and talking with all my classmates and the reading my beloved perception of my country is irrevocably tarnished (...)
You are not your nationality.
>>I don't like some of the attitudes of my classmates and some academics yes but their points still stand.
>>Maybe I am just worn down..?
Maybe you are trying to identify as your country, but you are not your country.
America fucked the natives, and then it fucked the Mexicans, and then it fucked Central and South America, and then it fucked parts of Asia and certainly to this day still fucks the middle east - and of course it fucks its own citizens.
>The right tells me it really wasn't all that bad
The right either denies it or outright celebrates it. Helipcopter Rides are a cool meme on Jow Forums about how a US-backed dictator of Chile would execute citizens and dump them in the ocean because they were a bit leftist.
That said, don't worry about it either way. Politics are for people with no sense of identity.
Have you seen asain culture?
Yeah its not perfect but still has some of the best cities and economies in the world.
Considering that you weren't present in the past and had no say on what was done, you are legally allowed to dick/cunt punch someone who says otherwise.
>The right either denies it or outright celebrates it.
Why shouldn't it? Conquest was the way of the day. They just conquered the best.
>by most people on "the right" who want to avoid any kind of reparations
What the fuck entitles you to any kind of reparations?
>What is it some kind of liberal commie brainwashing program
You didn't know?
There are much worse countries than the United States. Be happy that your country is rich, free and somewhat democratic.
Alright your government does some shitty things but name one country in history which hasn't suffered from the same problem at one point or another.
Take into account these two phrases and find your own balance from them:
>1) What happened is in the past and nothing will ever change that
>2) Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it
Some countries are worse than others, some are better than others, and none of them are ever perfect. I'm not going to get into politics for obvious reasons but remember that although the USA has done a fair share of really shady shit it has also done a lot of good as well. Look at both sides of the coin and find a compromise you're happy with.
Stop identifying with your nationality and skin color if you don't want to pay for your And don't play the "B-b-but" game when people talk about the terrible things America/ white America has done. It's not enough to not be stuck in the past if you don't have a plan for the future. Instead of harping on identities that were invented by others, make and shape your own and convince others to do the same.