&gt; your insistence on dis-acknowledging our cultural past as a source of the obligation seems odd.<p>Well, look at it this way. If someone had killed my father, I wouldn&#x27;t be satisfied with them saying &quot;here, I&#x27;ll pay for your college education and we&#x27;ll call it even&quot;; I&#x27;d want them in the electric chair. Similarly, a focus on alleged crimes of past cultures leads inevitably to angry demands for retribution for said crimes, followed by a lot of people replying -- with absolute justification! -- that they weren&#x27;t responsible for these past crimes, or maybe the other guys were just as bad. Next thing you know everyone&#x27;s screaming at each other and the formerly universal values have been turned into a political football. If you&#x27;ve got a concept that should be apolitical and universal, the last thing you want to do is prominently attach it to one side of a bitter cultural war.