12-23-2020, 08:46 AM
(12-22-2020, 10:34 PM)KevinT Wrote:(12-12-2020, 12:10 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: Individually no one choice is necessarily oppressing people (although some clearly carry more weight than others), but collectively we are.
"Every snowflake in an avalanche pleads not guilty."
- Quote not my own, but don't know whom to credit
I get what the metaphor is trying to say, but the truth is that none of the snowflakes are responsible. They're snowflakes and ultimately follow the laws of gravity like everything else.
Going back to Dan's original point: "I'm not assuming anyone is evil....or at least, I am not suggesting any particular individual is evil. We as a society are perhaps evil, we are all complicit and all guilty in whatever outcomes we have." I completely reject this outlook. Attributing blame to people collectively for society's ill is an entirely pointless endeavor. It's like blaming an avalanche on the snowflakes.
That's not to say that we should accept the status quo any more than we should throw our hands up when there is an unstable snowpack looming over a highway. To stretch the metaphor to the breaking point, it's to say that we can't stop an avalanche by expecting every snowflake to go against its nature and fall up instead of down. In the same way we also can't solve society's ills by expecting those around us to change their nature.