Many commentators and critics of the modern regressive leftist ideology sometimes allude to the custom of judging people, especially historic people (eg. from hundreds of years ago) based on modern moral standards, as if those people were as guilty of those moral atrocities as they would be if they lived today and did those things today. This is often unjustified and unjust because the moral standards were different back in those days.
But what does that mean? It's easy to misunderstand this sentiment.
Does this mean that the dubious moral acts that those people did eg. 200 years ago were not abhorrent simply because people didn't think of it being abhorrent? Is injustice against and oppression of people dependent on what the culture of the era happens to think of it?
No, that's not what the criticism is saying. The criticism is not saying "those acts were ok 200 years ago, even though they are not ok today." What the criticism is saying "we shouldn't be so harsh in judging people 200 years ago for committing those acts because", and this is important, "they didn't know better." In other words, in many cases those people did not act out of malice and corrupt morality. They often acted simply because the thought didn't even occur to them that it's actually wrong and an injustice towards their fellow human beings, and they shouldn't be doing so. Essentially, they were fooled into unjust and inhuman activities because of the prevalent culture an moral notions.
Take slavery, for example. Nowadays we consider the very thought of owning people as property a heinous and abhorrent crime against humanity and human rights. And it indeed is such. However, today, in most countries, we are being constantly being taught this since early childhood and throughout our lives, and slavery has been completely eradicated (at least in the western world), so there's absolutely no excuse, nor even really the means to engage in it. If nowadays somebody were to engage in slavery, he would simply have no excuse of "not knowing it's wrong".
But this was different over 200 years ago. Many people grew up in a world where slavery was considered completely normal, and normal part of life, and that there was not anything special about it. Most of these people never heard any criticism of it, nor any dissent. And most of them were not philosophers and thinkers who pondered about the morality of all this. Most people just lived their lives as best as they could, and never even though that hey, maybe it's not such a morally good thing to have slaves.
Thus it's not necessarily fair to judge those people from the perspective of the modern society. Many of them were not doing it out of greed, malice, or some kind of abhorrent ideology of superiority.
Heck, we today have many practices and ideas that are likely to be considered abhorrent 100-200 years from now. (Especially, I'm sure, many of the social justice ideology ideas will quite certainly be considered abhorrent at some point.) These may be things that you don't even think about, or haven't considered the morality of. It would be unfair for people 200 years from now to judge your morality and your actions based on the moral values of that time.
But what does that mean? It's easy to misunderstand this sentiment.
Does this mean that the dubious moral acts that those people did eg. 200 years ago were not abhorrent simply because people didn't think of it being abhorrent? Is injustice against and oppression of people dependent on what the culture of the era happens to think of it?
No, that's not what the criticism is saying. The criticism is not saying "those acts were ok 200 years ago, even though they are not ok today." What the criticism is saying "we shouldn't be so harsh in judging people 200 years ago for committing those acts because", and this is important, "they didn't know better." In other words, in many cases those people did not act out of malice and corrupt morality. They often acted simply because the thought didn't even occur to them that it's actually wrong and an injustice towards their fellow human beings, and they shouldn't be doing so. Essentially, they were fooled into unjust and inhuman activities because of the prevalent culture an moral notions.
Take slavery, for example. Nowadays we consider the very thought of owning people as property a heinous and abhorrent crime against humanity and human rights. And it indeed is such. However, today, in most countries, we are being constantly being taught this since early childhood and throughout our lives, and slavery has been completely eradicated (at least in the western world), so there's absolutely no excuse, nor even really the means to engage in it. If nowadays somebody were to engage in slavery, he would simply have no excuse of "not knowing it's wrong".
But this was different over 200 years ago. Many people grew up in a world where slavery was considered completely normal, and normal part of life, and that there was not anything special about it. Most of these people never heard any criticism of it, nor any dissent. And most of them were not philosophers and thinkers who pondered about the morality of all this. Most people just lived their lives as best as they could, and never even though that hey, maybe it's not such a morally good thing to have slaves.
Thus it's not necessarily fair to judge those people from the perspective of the modern society. Many of them were not doing it out of greed, malice, or some kind of abhorrent ideology of superiority.
Heck, we today have many practices and ideas that are likely to be considered abhorrent 100-200 years from now. (Especially, I'm sure, many of the social justice ideology ideas will quite certainly be considered abhorrent at some point.) These may be things that you don't even think about, or haven't considered the morality of. It would be unfair for people 200 years from now to judge your morality and your actions based on the moral values of that time.
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