We have a tendency to judge past societies more harshly than our own. That is partly because we tend to focus on the evils of past societies that many people at the time either weren’t aware of, or didn’t spend much time thinking about.
Most Germans claimed to be unaware of the extent of Nazi war crimes until they were revealed after the war ended. Few Britons were aware of the brutality of the slave trade until Thomas Clarkson’s anti slavery investigations of the 18th century. During the colonial period, most Europeans were unaware of the extent of the abuses inflicted on indigenous people. Few people were aware of the abuses that took place in large scale psychiatric institutions in the 1950s.
Some people argue that our current society will be judged harshly by future generations for the way it treats factory farmed animals - which is something that a lot of people are somewhat aware of but spend little time thinking about.
I suspect that our society, like all past societies, will be judged more harshly than we expect, and that much of what future generations will condemn us for will either be things we are unaware of, or spend little time thinking about. While we shouldn’t ignore the evils of the past, we should do so with humility, because we are probably messing up more than we realize too.
My question is why you care about future generations' judgement more than your own. They have no more standing nor influence over you than you have over the Victorians or Mongols. Importantly, they're FAR FAR wealthier, and can afford to be gentler on those dimensions. I hope. Maybe they don't exist and all we have is now.
In truth, I don't know anyone who's studied history who judges past societies harshly as people. We generally acknowledge the forces and unknowns that were driving the behaviors we don't accept today, but don't think a whole society was evil or morally broken. There are exceptions for egregious cases, but that's usually judgement of an individual or small group, not a large society.
We have a tendency to judge past societies more harshly than our own. That is partly because we tend to focus on the evils of past societies that many people at the time either weren’t aware of, or didn’t spend much time thinking about.
Most Germans claimed to be unaware of the extent of Nazi war crimes until they were revealed after the war ended. Few Britons were aware of the brutality of the slave trade until Thomas Clarkson’s anti slavery investigations of the 18th century. During the colonial period, most Europeans were unaware of the extent of the abuses inflicted on indigenous people. Few people were aware of the abuses that took place in large scale psychiatric institutions in the 1950s.
Some people argue that our current society will be judged harshly by future generations for the way it treats factory farmed animals - which is something that a lot of people are somewhat aware of but spend little time thinking about.
I suspect that our society, like all past societies, will be judged more harshly than we expect, and that much of what future generations will condemn us for will either be things we are unaware of, or spend little time thinking about. While we shouldn’t ignore the evils of the past, we should do so with humility, because we are probably messing up more than we realize too.