The lengths to which some will go to downplay America’s history of racism or other forms of injustice never ceases to amaze.
For instance, consider those who insist that we “shouldn’t judge people from past eras based on today’s moral standards.”
You’ll often hear this said about those who enslaved others, like many of the nation’s Founding Fathers, or those who supported or went along with segregation.
So too, those whose overt sexism and homophobia would have been typical not long ago but would now be viewed more harshly.
According to this reasoning, people should be judged by the standards that were widely accepted during their time rather than with the benefit of moral hindsight.
But this is a monstrous standard that would turn notions of right and wrong into perpetual moving targets.
Accepting such an ethically barren conception of morality would mean that the photo accompanying this essay — from the national lynching memorial in Montgomery, Alabama — should provoke a shrug rather than the revulsion more appropriately called for.
According to [some], people should be judged by the standards of their time rather than with the benefit of moral hindsight. But this is a monstrous standard that would turn notions of right and wrong into perpetual moving targets
After all, during the periods in which the lynching of Black people was common, it was “acceptable” to many.
That’s why participants in this barbarism and the crowds who gathered to watch the spectacle were never prosecuted.
Because it was “OK back then.”
But so what?
If you would minimize the depravity of racist murder simply because it was once common (thus, socially acceptable in certain quarters), you’re no different than the monsters who gathered beneath the swinging bodies and laughed as Black people were tortured, mutilated, and killed.
They were, to a person, awful human beings — all of them. No exceptions.
If those crowds included members of your family, then your family members were awful human beings, whether or not you choose to face that fact.
That’s not a judgment rooted in modern “wokeness.”
It’s one grounded firmly in basic human decency and immutable truth.
. . .
Beyond the hypocrisy and the moral repugnance of the argument, it’s also a stunningly ignorant position unbecoming of someone with even a seventh-grader’s reasoning ability.
The behavior that some now rationalize — based on how “accepted” it was in previous periods — often violated moral standards that existed even then.
Sure, many people violated those moral standards, but that doesn’t change the fact that those standards existed.
For instance, however “accepted” enslavement was for many generations, it violated at least two ancient moral standards enshrined in The Ten Commandments: the admonitions against stealing and killing.
Enslavement involved the theft of bodies and labor power, and it was known that many would die as a result of their captivity before reaching their destinations.
That enslavers rationalized these deaths and the stealing of people and labor — somehow squaring them with the moral standards they claimed to follow on Sundays — doesn’t make their rationalizations valid.
The moral basis for rejecting such treatment of others was always there. They simply chose to ignore it.
It’s not as if the human brain couldn’t conceive of freedom. Most had no problem conceiving of it for themselves.
In the case of enslavers and their enablers, they simply ignored what their Scriptures were telling them or chose to interpret them in ways that made their evil acceptable.
Thomas Jefferson made clear that he knew well the moral standard he and his fellow enslavers were violating when he remarked, writing of slavery:
Jefferson knew, but he did evil anyway. If he judged himself and his nation, then we surely can.
. . .
Second, the behavior in question, which some would now rationalize, was only “acceptable” back then because those in power could make it so.
It wasn’t because there was some universally different morality in existence at that time.
American enslavement was “acceptable” because most whites deemed it such.
Same with segregation.
But these things were never acceptable to their victims.
Likewise, marital rape was “acceptable” until recently in most states. Indeed, it wasn’t even considered rape.
Men could force their wives into sex without concern for being prosecuted.
But is that because of a previously different morality or because men had the power to impose that system?
To ask the question is to answer it.
Women never thought it was OK to be raped. But they didn’t have the power to illegalize the practice.
In other words, husbands who raped their wives were always monsters.
They deserve to be thought of as such, because rape was always wrong.
Whether or not the men in question understood that, the women they violated did.
The capacity for understanding was always there, however much it was smothered under layers of rationalization by evil people intent on doing evil things.
. . .
Third, even in those eras when certain things we now condemn were widely practiced, plenty objected, even among the dominant group.
During the days of enslavement, not only Black people but also white abolitionists saw the system’s iniquity.
During segregation, many whites opposed racial discrimination — not as many as should have, but more than a few, to be sure.
Even among the rationalizing group, some saw the moral truth clearly.
Again, this means anyone could have.
As such, we can and should judge persons in past eras not merely by today’s standards but by the standards that some were willing to follow, even at the time in question.
Shorter version: Most of our forebears sucked even by standards that existed in their own time.
Your ancestors were assholes. Deal with it.
. . .
In fact, to deny this point would require one to take an incredibly irrational position regarding the abolitionist and civil rights movements.
So, for instance, we know that those movements were challenging the social norms of their day — slavery and Jim Crow — to create new standards of greater equality and freedom.
…we can and should judge persons in past eras not merely by today’s standards but by the standards that some were willing to follow, even at the time in question
We also know they were movements involving a minority of the population fighting against more powerful majorities. Thankfully, they won important victories and did force changes in American society.
But if we accept the notion that people “in those days” shouldn’t be judged retroactively by today’s standards, how do we make sense of these movements that were judging them at the time?
Was Dr. King irrational for calling out segregation and racism in 1963 just because “it was accepted” by most white people?
Was Frederick Douglass wrong for doing the same with enslavement?
To the extent no one (other than an overt racist) would say yes to these questions, how can anyone suggest that we today shouldn’t judge enslavers and segregationists?
If it was acceptable and laudable to challenge those behaviors and attitudes at the time, as these brave voices did, why would it be unacceptable now?
It wouldn’t be.
Anyone who suggests otherwise is simply too addled by blind patriotism or devotion to their own shitty families to hold either their nation or ancestors to a consistent ethical standard.
And if you think rehabilitating your country’s reputation or that of your great-grandparents is more important than moral truth, you aren’t someone who can be trusted to make political decisions in the present.
We need to face the facts.
As scholar, activist (and old friend of mine), Lance Hill puts it: America is a crime scene where white people constantly tamper with the evidence.
It’s time to stop and simply go where the evidence leads us.
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This post was previously published on Tim Wise’s blog.
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Photo credit: Shutterstock
Ku Klux Klan initiation at Stone Mountain near Atlanta, Georgia. June 1949.
In a very real sense it is gratuitous to ask if we should judge people from past eras based on today’s moral standards. The real question is: What makes us assume that we can do anything else but apply our own present and relative moral standards? Whether we even want to or not, all we can do is apply our own relative, subjective, and potentially transitory standards from our present to our perception of our past. Inevitably, such an endeavour is going to subject to our own inherent relativity, subjectivity, and fallibility. But we must accept the possibility and the responsibility that our own standards may indeed be relative, subjective, and potentially… Read more »
I had a more comprehensive comment I’ve been trying to offer, but so far to no avail. But in brief, let me just say that I would be quite reticent to endorse anything or anyone who thinks that it’s a good thing (let alone an imperative thing) to decontextualize rather than to contextualize. Context can be damning as well as vindicating. Contextualization is not the same as endorsement or vindication, and I worry about an environment where that fact is forgotten, scorned, mocked, excoriated, or even feared. Contextualization (used with intellectual honesty, integrity and insight) contributes to objectivity and clarity… Read more »
When one talks about a “WOKE AGENDA” well here it is. With this type of logic, the Country of Spain should be forever condemned, as would any country that had a dictator. If you want to move forward with History, then learn from it and do not repeat the sins of the past since there are SO MANY examples, we can find fault with today’s moral reasoning… This article stirs the pot of division, especially when it is stated that if you don’t agree, the sin is on the person who doesn’t share this type of vitriol. Learn from History,… Read more »