“You can’t judge the past by the standards of the present! It’s not fair. We’ve advanced so much since then. People back then didn’t know better!”
I see the point. But also — no.
Of course we can judge the past by the standards of the present. That’s how we move forward.
We look back, at history or old movies or whatever — and we say, “Wow. That was messed-up. Let’s not do that again.” We read history about slavery and colonization; we watch old movies depicting queers as pitiful and disgusting; we hear old songs that romanticize sexual assault; we see old cowboy shows where Native Americans are shown as savage enemies. We cringe. We cringe so hard it makes our faces turn inside out.
And we say, “That was some fucked-up garbage.” We learn. We pay attention to patterns. We learn how to see bad patterns, in ourselves and our society. We learn how to prevent, how to interrupt, how to intervene, how to resist.
Judging the past is how we move into the future.
How would I feel if this happened to me? Would I want my writing judged in 200 years, taken apart for the holes in my morality? Hell, yes! Yes, please! From a purely selfish perspective: It would mean my writing had survived, and was still being read and appreciated. If 200 years from now, people see my anti-racism as pretty good for my time, but clueless about some really obvious stuff? If future readers are still getting value from my intersectional humanism and my recipe for tomato sauce, but are sharply critical of my insufficiently hardcore environmentalism? Excellent! It would mean my writing would still be influencing readers and writers, long after my death.
More to the point: I want our morality to keep developing. I don’t think I’ve magically achieved the pinnacle of perfect human ethics. Hell, I sometimes cringe at things I wrote, just ten or twenty years ago. I’m a link in a chain, a voice in a conversation among readers and writers, teachers and students and critics, across centuries and continents. If people in the future are criticizing me as part of that process, it’ll mean that process is continuing. (Also it’ll mean that civilization survived, which would be nice.)
Besides, people in the past often did know better — or could have. When the U.S. was founded, lots of prominent people were strongly against slavery: abolition wasn’t a fringe leftist ideal, it was a central debate. Lots of people protested Birth of a Nation when it was released; same with Gone with the Wind. When we defend People Back Then by saying they didn’t know better, we often overlook how much their fucked-up ideas and actions were criticized at the time they were doing them.
I get that it’s hard when the person being judged is someone who we admire, who shaped our own ethics or aesthetics, who was trying in important ways to be good. But criticizing the morality of people from the past doesn’t mean we entirely reject their contributions. I mean, sometimes it does — we can and should rethink “contributions” like colonialism or missionary work — but it doesn’t always. It means we have some nuance. We temper our admiration. When we hear that our past heroes screwed up, we listen, and don’t immediately do a yell about how unfair it is to criticize them. And we think about whether our admiration is hurting others, or driving them away. We think twice about uncritically putting Thomas Jefferson quotations on our promotional materials*, knowing that a bunch of people will look at them and go, “Thomas Jefferson? Really? You couldn’t find an inspiring quote about liberty from someone who didn’t own human beings as property?”
We get better by looking at ways we’ve done wrong — as individuals, and as a species. And that process happens, at least partly, by looking at the past and yelling at it.
*No, not a random example. Unfortunately.
Excellent comments Greta! I had a thought recently that looks at the same thing from another angle: there’s a lot of history to choose from. What we choose to elevate says a lot about us.
I love reading about statues being torn down and retired either to museums or the bottom of harbors, and replaced by something that says “We Were Wrong. Here are the people of the past we identify with now and want to elevate.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/25/its-every-woman-its-us-rotterdam-falls-for-british-statue-of-ordinary-black-woman
People now who want to hang on to the words of slave-owners etc and make excuses for them…well, I wonder why they have such trouble identifying with the downtrodden of history, or the voices from the past that have suppressed until now? Why does it seem so important to them that the same old voices, voices we now see as oppressive, continue to be elevated?
I hope you’re doing well – I bought your book about death from an atheists point of view and found it very helpful. Thank you!
Couldn’t agree more. Thanks for your clarity
When we reflect on the past, whether through history old movies, or any medium, we often exclaim, “That was deeply troubling; let’s avoid repeating those mistakes.” As we delve into history, we encounter narratives of slavery and colonization, witness old films portraying queer individuals in demeaning ways, hear songs romanticizing sexual assault, and view old Westerns where Native Americans are unjustly depicted as savage adversaries. These encounters evoke such a strong reaction that it feels as though our faces might contort in cringing discomfort.
This is gonna sound weird, but I haven’t looked that the Orbit since the original spinoff from FTB. Both FTB and the Orbit were bright sparks in my front window, showing the path to sense and sensibility that should have been the dominance of rationalism in a new golden age.
But so few seem to be listening any more. so few post comments compared to what both once were.
Did the haters win?
Are we just refusing to admit this?
and what, the fuck, did the haters actually “win” anyway? They made the world a worse place for what? so they could say “I told you I would beat you in the end?”
It’s so sad.
sorry. I just needed to say that. I look at the world and I see democracy collapsing left and right. right wing ideologues and organized crime literally running entire countries. Whatever hope I had that somehow atheism would end up being a way out of this madness is long gone. it all feels hollow now; something we just do for ourselves.
Have we really lost?
Greta
I have Just discovered “99 things” via the Guardian.
Marvelous summary of the secular/atheist/humanist viewpoint.
UK is 70 % nones but still pays for bishops in the legislative process; is riddled with prayers and priests at all levels of government and when considering the monarchy we are still technically a theocracy.
Shocking!
i have 3 feminist daughters , all athieist, so progress is in the right direction.
KRO
Chris
Greta
I have Just discovered “99 things” via the Guardian.
Marvelous summary of the secular/atheist/humanist viewpoint.
UK is 70 % nones but still pays for bishops in the legislative process; is riddled with prayers and priests at all levels of government and when considering the monarchy we are still technically a theocracy.
Shocking!
i have 3 feminist daughters , all athieist, so progress is in the right direction.
KRO
Chris
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