Elon Musk says your ancestors weren’t villains, but they may very well have been. That’s just a fact of life. People do bad things, a lot of people do bad things, and history basically sometimes feels like a compendium of bad things.
So your ancestors may very well have been villains. Racism, sexism, rapists, murderers. The US government had numerous wars to destroy the native nations of North America you know. Your ancestors may have profited from the disgusting freeing up of land. Your ancestors could very well have been slave owners. You probably have living relatives who are racist.
So yes, your ancestors and family could have been bad people and from the perspective of society the government happens to be bad too for its role in doing disgusting things. However you look at it there is no way to see that there are no villains in society historically. Whether it’s the government or a past family member there are absolutely villains throughout history. Elon Musk himself is a villain to some people for his role in getting Donald Trump elected to the presidency. People will be reading about Elon Musk in textbooks in the future and will think to themselves “how did they not see he was horrible“.
You however are not personally responsible for the actions of others or previous generation’s actions. You can recognize immorality while not being responsible for it. You absolutely can recognize that the previous government’s and people’s actions are wrong and work to correct any damage that still occurs. You can be better than the past.
And that’s what people don’t understand. People don’t want to believe there are villains among us and they don’t want to believe someone could be disadvantaged by historical incidents because well… that’s ancient history in their minds.
But Elon Musk is once again proving his far right ideology is not really all that connected to reality. Basic fact it malleable in his hands. Just like how Donald Trump can claim he isn’t close to 80 when he is in fact 78 and I’m pretty sure that’s close to 80 years old. It’s just not good.
So to sum up, Elon Musk is wrong, people and the government historically do bad things, you aren’t responsible for your ancestors actions but can still recognize they’re wrong and help correct damage that’s occurring, and you can recognize that as long as MAGA bros and Republicans are in one big circle jerk they are never going to listen to anyone.
1984 was a prophetic work.