Thursday, October 4, 2018

You Have Passed It Up, But Can You Leave It In The Past

In the collection of poetry Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine, she writes “The world is wrong. You can’t put the past behind you. It’s buried in you; it’s turned your flesh into its own cupboard” (63). I would like to take this idea in two directions.

The first is how the quote is written. I do believe that the world and the past has a great effect on you. If my parents would not have worked hard to provide me with an adequate education and help me do my homework when I was a kid, I would not be where I am today. Not even close.  The same principle applies in reverse, where as if someone was enslaved, their children and their children are all going to have work much harder to get to the same starting point that many people are given for free. 

However, I do strongly believe that one should try not to let the past affect you very much. If someone did something mean to you forgive them; if you did something bad, apologize and forgive yourself. If you did things that you regret; don’t dwell on them, simply do not do them again. In my eyes, its is that simple. And if one takes all of this to heart, I think one would live a better life in general and be more healthy.

This is applicable to the Dr. Ford and Cavanough case, where originally I thought that Cavanough should have just been forgiven, assuming that he went by these standards and felt very very bad and had apologized profusely and changed. In that case, he could have been a much better man and still be a potentially viable republican option as a Supreme Court Justice. However, since he denies it, and if his sexual assault case is proven (I am not going to assume without a definitive answer, even though there is strong evidence against him), then he should not be a justice. He let the past catch up to him, instead of making wrongs right, and going against Rankine's idea that the past is always with you, he decided to deny this horrible act and stick with Rankine.

5 comments:

  1. I agree with your argument on how the past can be put behind us in many minor cases, and how many people should forgive and forget instead of dwelling on the past. Sexual assault is not one of those cases. I believe that if the allegations of sexual assault against Kavanaugh are true, and if he had apologized profusely earlier, then he would not be a better man. There is no apologizing when it comes to sexual assault. The victim never forgets. The victim will never forgive what has happened to them. Rankine speaks on the hardships and racial discrimination that minorities endure every day. I believe that she argues that the past can never be put behind you, as she understands that there is a point where you can no longer forgive, but you must overcome. The Kavanaugh case is an example of how the past always stays with you. If it had not, then Dr. Ford would not have opened these allegations against Kavanaugh over thirty years later.

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  2. I agree with your view on forgiveness, and how it is a very high quality trait to have because of its ability to often resolve tension. However, certain actions are unforgivable, and therefore forgiveness would be unnecessary and honestly wrong. People's actions and decisions can make an impact that stays for the rest of someone else's life. I know there are a lot of people that I've forgiven in my life, but a short few that I can never forgive.

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  3. I completely agree with the first part of your argument however I think that forgiveness cannot be so easily achieved. You say that a person can redeem himself or herself by simply apologizing and not repeating their mistakes and I think that this works for small mistakes but there are things that are unforgivable. Things like sexual assault or malicious murder can never be forgiven. A person can do anything in his power to redeem himself and it may work to a certain extent but I don't think that there is anything they can do to regain their previous moral standing as a human being. Its like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound: it may help a little bit but it will never fix the issue.

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    1. I definitely agree that there are certain errors any individual can make which are so egregious that a simple apology can't come close to resolving the situation, but I do think that we all have the capacity to change and to learn from the mistakes we make. That's not to say everyone should be forgiven of the trespasses immediately, but I do think that people should be encouraged to work to rectify their missteps. If we deem select mistakes to be so horrendous that the perpetrator should have no way of amending the situation, we inhibit our ability to improve ourselves and our surroundings. I think that Capital Punishment is a parallel. We have seen, time and time again, that the death penalty is not an effective deterrent, and that the same crimes keep getting committed. We can still punish those guilty of the worst offenses, but I think that if forgiveness is still a possibility, those who have made mistakes will be more likely to make up for their missteps and improve themselves.

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