Steven W. Bender
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479899623
- eISBN:
- 9781479876730
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479899623.001.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Law of Obligations
Mea Culpa challenges its readers. In a different era, might we have been slave owners or proprietors of a racially segregated establishment? It’s easy to judge immorality in the hindsight of history, ...
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Mea Culpa challenges its readers. In a different era, might we have been slave owners or proprietors of a racially segregated establishment? It’s easy to judge immorality in the hindsight of history, but what current practices and policies will later generations regret? Mea Culpa answers this challenge by examining how the United States’ collective shame about its past has shaped the evolution of law and behavior. We regret slavery and racist Jim Crow laws, among other oppressions of the past. We eventually apologize, while ignoring other oppressions, and our legal response to regret often fails to be transformative for the affected groups. Analyzing the United States’ historical response to its own atrocities, Mea Culpa identifies and develops a definitive moral compass that guides us away from the policies and practices that lead to societal regret. More than a historical survey, this volume offers a framework for resolving some of the most contentious social problems of our time, tackling immigration, the death penalty, the war on terror, reproductive rights, welfare, wage inequity, homelessness, mass incarceration, and same-sex marriage. Ultimately, the book argues, it is the dehumanization of human beings that allows for practices to occur that will later be marked as regrettable. And all of us have a stake in standing on the side of history that resists these ongoing dehumanizations.Less
Mea Culpa challenges its readers. In a different era, might we have been slave owners or proprietors of a racially segregated establishment? It’s easy to judge immorality in the hindsight of history, but what current practices and policies will later generations regret? Mea Culpa answers this challenge by examining how the United States’ collective shame about its past has shaped the evolution of law and behavior. We regret slavery and racist Jim Crow laws, among other oppressions of the past. We eventually apologize, while ignoring other oppressions, and our legal response to regret often fails to be transformative for the affected groups. Analyzing the United States’ historical response to its own atrocities, Mea Culpa identifies and develops a definitive moral compass that guides us away from the policies and practices that lead to societal regret. More than a historical survey, this volume offers a framework for resolving some of the most contentious social problems of our time, tackling immigration, the death penalty, the war on terror, reproductive rights, welfare, wage inequity, homelessness, mass incarceration, and same-sex marriage. Ultimately, the book argues, it is the dehumanization of human beings that allows for practices to occur that will later be marked as regrettable. And all of us have a stake in standing on the side of history that resists these ongoing dehumanizations.
