Diana9
2nd Lieutenant
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2012
- Location
- Southern California
But I am judgmental, and I'm proud of it. Where we're miscommunicating, I think, is that I agree that slavery should be condemned. Where I disagree is holding people of other eras to a higher standard than we're willing to hold ourselves, and then considering them to be different from us, because most of them fail to meet that standard.
I don't know why you're saying we're holding people of other eras to a "higher" standard than we're willing to hold ourselves. The standard is the same, the challenges of meeting that standard whereby we treat others humanely may vary depending on our circumstances, but the standards haven't changed. "Love your brother as yourself," "Treat others as you would have them treat you," are universal precepts by which we are all challenged to live. Hardly ever easy to do in every circumstance, but that doesn't change the fact that it's the right thing to do. We can learn from the people who fell short of doing the right thing, but only if we recognize that they did in fact fall short.
What would you like us to do? Not acknowledge that there are universal standards that apply to everyone, past, present and future? Or would you like us to believe that the standards are relative to the time and place, that they can change according to our social conditioning? Because if that's what you're saying I see a great danger in that kind of thinking. It allows us to justify our failure to meet those standards just as they did in the past. We can then say "I didn't know it was wrong." Or, "It was wrong then, but it's not wrong now." We've seen this rational about torture. People justifying it, even when the whole world condemns torture, even though the U.S. condemned it when the Japanese did it to our POW's. But now that we got a jolt with 9/11 and feel fearful, we justify it because well, it's all relative, we can change the standards whenever it suits us, even when all the evidence tells us that not only is torture immoral, it also doesn't work.
Uh, no, it's not (in reference to the bolded part). That's the heart of our disagreement, I think. I agree that it's a universal standard, but it is much, much easier for me to come closer to that standard today, than in the antebellum era. Understanding why that is, is crucial to understanding history.
We can count our blessings that it's easier for us, we can be grateful that we can learn from their past mistakes and the sacrifices they made and not make the same mistakes, precisely because it's easier not to make them.