| How can you know? Its quite literally impossible, psychologists believe you can hold approximately 8 competing facts in your head at once, and we are mentally scarred with spoilers, every decision is known and has been talked about to death. My great grandfather was 17, had to flee Poland (never to return), fought for a brigade in exile in Scotland against the Nazis. He was also the most racist man I know, prejudiced against people from the next town over in his adoptive home. He eventually forgot his own native language some
time after marrying a woman born in scotland to a predominantly irish migrant family. So, clearly not a nazi, clearly in support of some kind of migration- but his whole thing is that he made painful efforts to be a great guest in his home, but he never put down his prejudicial mindset. How can this be? I don’t really know what thats like, even the simple warmth of being able to Video call my mum at a moments notice gives such a significant respite to the crippling loneliness you experience living in another country, its enough salve to keep you going. I can call anyone on earth, summon practically any facet of known human history in seconds, calculate complex mathematics and I have barely felt hunger, scarcity, famine or displacement in my life. I have his perspective, as barely digestible as it is, and his is one perspective among millions- people who never saw a car until they were already on the other side of a continent- people for whom a job was a lifelong affair, who had tiny close-knit and isolated communities that were forced open by famine or war. Man, I understand the details, but I can’t put myself in his shoes, theres too many variables and too many perspectives. And, even though this man fought Nazi’s and assuredly killed people: he did so not knowing about the atrocities being committed- this fact came out very late into the war by his word. It matters a lot because we can judge easily in hindsight, and because we won. I’m not a nazi, I don’t agree with their philosophy in hindsight, but lets take the Bolsheviks- who slaughtered people too, who’s values I sort of still believe in. Would I have been part of the coup in Russia during that time? Would you? How could you fucking know?!? |
Well, let's just think logically. Do I today have the time, energy and inclination to be a part of a group of radicals plotting a coup? No. If I lived in Russia in the early 1900s would I have had that? No.
Sure, it's possible to say that if "I" lived then I would have had an entirely different childhood, but that's not how hypothetical scenarios work. What would the concept of "I" even mean? Would I have to account for different genes as well? Would I have to account for "me" being an entirely different person? You quickly get into a meaningless philosophical conundrum where nothing means anything and the only thing you can know is "cogito ergo sum" .