Is it fair to judge events, people, and policies in history by modern moral and ethical standards, or should one strive only to judge them by the standards of the time period they occurred in?
>>876209
It's not fair or unfair
It merely is
Judge all you'd like, they'd judge us the same way. It's what people do.
>>876209
>Is it fair to judge events, people, and policies in history by modern moral and ethical standards, or should one strive only to judge them by the standards of the time period they occurred in?
If you're a historian, such judgements go against disciplinary criteria and will see you rapidly become not a historian.
>>876209
>Is it fair to judge events, people, and policies in history by modern moral and ethical standards
Of course not, how could it possibly be?
>>876220
>If you're a historian, such judgements go against disciplinary criteria and will see you rapidly become not a historian.
You don't have to be a historian to have an opinion on history, though.
>>876221
>Of course not, how could it possibly be?
I guess it can boil down to whether one considers unintentional "evil" for lack of a better word just as heinous as intentional "evil"
I'm in my first year teaching and I often struggle with this in my lectures, but I have to agree with the other anons, you need to leave you're moral judgements at the door when discussing history either in the role as a teacher or among fellow academics.
To more specifically answer your question, I guess it all depends on what constitutes "fair". Obviously I think that Columbus (to use your pic as an example) killing and enslaving natives is immoral, but my judgements don't really matter and I can't let them cloud my view when studying these events.
This anon >>876219 sums it up perfectly in my opinion
>>876223
>I guess it can boil down to whether one considers unintentional "evil" for lack of a better word just as heinous as intentional "evil"
You'd have to be pretty stupid to do that, tho. Unintentional "evil" barely even qualifies AS evil, the intent to do harm is pretty central to most concepts of evil.
>>876233
well that's just, like, your opinion man
in all seriousness i agree but i'm sure those who believed otherwise could make a solid argument in favor of that viewpoint
>>876223
>You don't have to be a historian to have an opinion on history, though.
Yes, everyone has an arsehole and everyone has an opinion. Yours are similarly disinteresting.
It's certainly fair, because we are using moral judgement of their actions as a way to determine whether or not we should follow their example.
It's not as if your judgement of the morality of the past will change what happened. It may, however, change what will happen, if we are able to explain why we believe the actions of people in the past were right or wrong.
>>876209
>should one strive only to judge them by the standards of the time period they occurred in?
This one
>>876248
/pol/ is a bunch of racist misogynist pigs on the wrong side of history, judging by the standards of this time period.
>>876253
/pol/ would be considered heroic by basically every great western civilization until the post-WWII era, they'd find everyone else insane or immoral
>>876209
Yes, if you're looking at the past in order to act in the present.
Yes, if you're looking at pioneers of your belief system.
Yes, if you are judging a society's belief systems as backwards and despotic.
The only time it is no, is if you are judging an individual in a larger society, and asking if what they did was outside of social norms, and if you can blame that individual for being normal. This is basically an exercise in putting yourself in someone else's shoes.
>>876255
>bunch of fat losers with no jobs sitting at home all day shitposting
>not even good shitposting
>>876258
>not even good shitposting
reminds me of a screencap i took a while back of /pol/ """humor"""
polite sage for offtopic
>>876209
I can certainly say that the morally of the past was varied and I can say for a fact many thousands of people were against European colonialism for example and there are quite a few accounts of indigenous resistance.
It's like talking about slavery in the New World "We can't judge it by today's notions of morality" as if those enslaved had no position of their own and as if all peoples were under similar views.
It's silly
>>876297
Or maybe because it's just not funny?
Old /b/ used to be not PC at all, but at least they were somewhat clever about it unlike /pol/ except for a few exceptions
>>876241
>Tell that to a German historian studying on the ~1900 to 1950 era.
Read Chris Browning, mate.
>>876209
I learn from it to satisfy my knowledge, I don't judge history events
>>876209
You should judge individuals in history by the morality of their time in order to best understand why they did what they did. But feel free to judge the morality of the time however you like.
>>876219
>they'd judge us the same way
I believe in social progress. I believe the morality of present is superior to that of the past, and most likely the morality of the future will be superior to the present. The people of the time can judge the past to reaffirm the moral progress humanity has made.
>>876444
So Hitler or Imperialists were morally superior to Jesus?
>>876304
Interesting, thanks.
>>876470
No, but perhaps better than Julius Caesar.
>>876444
>I am a whig
Please fuck off.
>>876479
Doubtful.
Morality is relative: you now consider murder and looting immoral, yet if you were in a determined situation (i.e. war ravaged city) I assure you your morality would change.
There can't a linear progression in morality because there is no quantifiable unity of measure to validate the theory and there are infinite counterexamples.
>>876492
Just because there is no means of quantifying it doesn't mean there can't be progress. A person today has more history to draw from to learn lessons and is generally held to higher standards of morality than people of the past were. Rome was a complete cultural shithole relative to the present. 95% of the population was below the poverty line, slaves were used to work the stolen land of the poor for the wealth of aristocrats, genocide was relatively frequent, racism was the norm to the point of rather allowing Rome burn than give some "barbarians" some land to simply settle to become more Roman, the poor were reviled despite objectively being victims of a corrupt system, and governmental corruption and subterfuge was the norm rather than the exception. That's just what I could list off the top of my head.
The past was morally shit and there are clear reasons for why that would be the case.
>>876297
>Most of /pol/ is employed and still manages to produce the best OC on 4chan
>Implying
Stealing /int/ memes and using them in real arguments is hardly good oc. /pol/ is a creative toilet desu
>>876510
There's obviously progress but it doesn't follow a temporal line as you suggested.
Otherwise the 700 AD peasants living in Italy would have been better off than their 100 AD counterparts but they largely weren't.
Take a big chunk of the Muslim world: in the 1970s they were mostly secular (ex. Algeria, Jordan, Afghanistan) and now?
This without many hypocrisies such as outlawing slavery and fighting racism only to have Chinese workers who work for 1$ a day.
>>876209
I don't think we should bring any judgement to history, be it morality, or political.
Of course, that differs when you connect history to modern events, as it is all connected, but purely for the study of history, leave it out.
Besides, for every time you can bitch that some people were immoral you'll end up finding your own ancestors did the exact same shit.
>>876524
Upward trends don't stop being trends because of relatively brief downticks, nigga.
